The Earl of PEMBROKE'S SPEECH TO NOL-CROMWELL, Lord Deputy of IRELAND. With his Royal Entertainment of him at his Manor of Ramsbury in Wiltshire, on his Journey to Ireland; On Thursday, July 12. 1649. Taken Verbatim by Michael Oldisworth, and by him Recommended to one of his Lordship's Tenants, to see it carefully Printed and Published. July 30th NOD-NOL, Printed by the Printer of the House of Lords, 1649. The Earl of PEMBROKE'S SPEECH TO NOL-CROMWELL, Lord Deputy of IRELAND. My Lord, Damn, I may say King well enough; for be-God I know no man fit to be King than yourself: Hath not your Honour Conquered all that the Kings in England have Conquered for many Generations? My Chaplain read me a Chapter, and said, That all Generations should call her blessed: but Sink me, I am sure all the Generations in England are damned if they call not your Honour blessed; and I am bound to bless you too for coming hither; and you have done a blessed work too, in removing that Tyrant King, that man of Sin; and you are a going on with another blessed work, and that is Reducing of Ireland; your Honour hath happily subdued the Levellers; strengthened and enriched your friends, and impoverished your Enemies; you have taken away the House of Lords; Dam, I never affected the Lords House, nor God's House neither; and for the Lords Prayer, I have done what I can to abolish it: because I would not have the people so much as put in mind of Lords; Sink me, if I know any more Lords than my Lord Fairfax and your Self; and if the people will say the Lords Prayer, then let them pray for your Lordships, as it becomes good Christians: the Land is yours, you have won it by the Sword; and then, you are not only Lords but Landlords, and all the people in England your Tenants, and aught to pray for you, and pay you Rend too; Damn, I am your Tenant, and though I am old and cannot fight for you, yet I am not so old, but I can pay you Rent: 'Tis true I am a member of Parliament; and so (as yet) free from Taxes; yet I were an ill member if I would not force my Tenants to pay you Rent; Dam, I had forgot myself, for they be your Tenants, and pay you as much, or more Rent, than they do me. 'Zbloud, would they had more heavier Taxes on them for me, because they grumble: I am informed by my man Michael, that they curse the Parliament; which I hold to be Treason, if not high treason; for, if to say, our Government is tyrannical, be high treason; Cursing must needs be high treason; nay blasphemy too: and if your Lordship shall give me power but to Hang and Draw▪ Refuse me if a Traitor shall live; Damn, the Rogues won't stick to say, That we are Traitors ourselves, although we are the Keepers of their Liberties; and if we keep their Liberties, we ought to keep their Money too, their Law and Religion, nay, their very Wives. if▪ it please us: and if we suffer some to be killed to preserve the rest, be God, I think 'tis State policy: if we spend three parts of their means, to preserve the fourth; I see no reason but the fourth should be at our disposing; so long as we are the Keepers; My Lord, I will speak unto you in a Parable, I am (I thank your Honours) made chief Keeper of C●●ringdon Park, that was the late Kings; there have I Herds of Deer; My Lord, are not these Herds of Deer at my disposing? If I kill one heard, that the rest may have the more pasture, who ought to contradict it? and if I, or my Keeper make their Skins pay for Paling or Fencing in my Park; Dam, 'tis the part of a good Keeper, and such good Keepers I hope are the Parliament, and every Member thereof; and if they be good Keepers, will they not keep their own? and if they can keep their own, nature teaches, that they may as well keep others: I keep a Pack of Dogs, and Dam, I think they have as deep mouths as any; but imagine another has a Dog, has a deeper mouth than my whole kennel; ought I not (if my Neighbour or Tenant deny me this Dog) to force him from him, to make complete my Cry? My Lord, You have so much Money and Men to go to Ireland; it may be a Million, and about ten thousand men; if you want a Million more, and twenty thousand men more, to make the Irish Cry; Damn, if they will not raise the Men, and find the Money, they may be made Cry themselves: you may, and aught to take it where you can find it; Necessity must not observe a Law in these days; My Lord, if you are necessitated, you may command me to fight as old as I am; Damn, I were a Rogue if I should deny ye; yet I think I hate fight myself as much as any man in England; yet though I hate it in myself, my Lord I would not have you think that I hate it in your Honour; no, my Lord, I hope I have more wit than so; I honour Valour in whomsoever I find it: Had not your Honour's V●lour been tried▪ at Marston-Moor, we had been all Mired and Moored too before this time; or had you not Routed the Scots, we had not scaped so Scot▪ free as we do, nor enjoyed the good things of the Land: Dam, 'tis an unthankful Land, and a blind Land, for they understand not, they see not the blessings that you have won them; but I hope there is no Member of Parliament but understands, and is sensible enough of them: Damn, I am sensible, and if your Honour loves Hunting, you shall be sensible that in my old days I deserve a Park as well as the City of London; I love a Cry of Dogs better than a pair of Organs: Mistress May loves them too, and I love her as well: Sir, I am a Member for Bark-shire, and then (if I should not love barking and bawling too, I should n●t love my Country) my Lord, when old Dog's bark, they give Counsel; but if they by't, they by't sor●; Dam, we must bark and by't too, and all little enough; for aught I can understand; we must learn to hunt men, as well as we do Hares, or Foxes either. My Lord, You are now a going a hunting of Rebels into Ireland; and therefore I have said the more concerning hunting; I wish you good sport, that you may catch your Game, I mean the Game-Royal; a good hound upon the Chase will not leave the hot scent to follow a Rascal Deer; My Lord, you have been well fleshed; pursue the ROYAL-GAME, the rest, any Cur will pull down. My Lord, I am an Old man, and can ill ride a Horse; Damn, I had rather ride an Ass that will not throw me; then ride a Horse to lay me in the Dirt: If I were a horseman, and as young as ever I was, it should not be Ireland, nor Scotland neither, that should keep me back; Refuse-me if I was ever backward for the good of the State; I was, I confess, Lord Chamberlain to the late King; I swore Allegiance to Him and His Heirs; Sink-me, I have been too much addicted to Swearing, but what of that? if I forswear again what I have sworn, I am the more ; an Oath is binding but for the time, and you know there is a time for all this; a time to break Oaths, as well as keep them, if the State requires it: We must be Obedient; Obedience is better than Sacrifice, and if I be not as Obedient as another, than I am a Rebel, and a Traitor, and deserve as much to suffer as the late King, the Lord Capel, or any else. My Lord, You are welcome, and all these Gentlumen as welcome as yourself; you have honoured me in giving me a usiite, and I hope I shall be able to visit the House of Commons before Michaelmas; where I make no doubt, but I shall give consent to the making such Laws as shall make this Nation glorious; for if we do not afflict them; then they cannot be glorious; 'tis afflictions must wean them from the World; and if they be weaned from the World, than they may the better seek after heaven, where is all real Glory; thus we made the late King a glorious King; Dam, I think he had the better of it, if he had a Crown of Glory for his Earthly Crown; though we have his Lands and Goods to boot; we cannot live always to enjoy them; 'tis true we have the profit of them for a time; but what can we profit by them in the end, when we come to render an account? We are but the People's Stewards as well as He; and as we are Stewards, we are to be entrusted with their Goods and Lives; and if we make not use of them as we should, pray who can call us to an account here? I know there is no Earthly pow●r above us; but Confound-me, I am half of the judgement that there is a Heavenly power above us, and that is our King, our Prince, that aught to Rule us, and his Rule is in this World, and the Air: mistake me not my Lord, I do not mean the Prince of the Air that rules in the Children of disobedience, that the wicked Cavaliers serve▪ I mean the Spirit; we are led by the Spirit, have our rules from the Spirit (and not from Scriptures, that's Superstition) and dare not but do what the Spirit moves us too; and if we do amiss, it is the Spirit that works it in us, and not we; and if the Spirit bid me kill my King, must I not do it? Dam if it were my Father or my Mother, or my dull Wise either, I should spare them no more than the fire did my house, when it burned it to the ground. My Lord, I perceive a Spirit that now hath a working in Nature, which Spirit doth personate me, and hath made many Speeches in my Name, which I utterly Renounce; Nay my Lord, your Honours are not free from this vile Calumnious Spirit, even under your very Noses; My Lord, I have been jeered into sickness, and had died if I had not been jeered out of it again; they brought me so near my Grave, that they made my Will; and I think I had died▪ but that I was loath the wicked should have their Will of me: Damn, I hope to live yet to make my Will myself, and in it remember your Honour; if your Honour will do me the favour, as to send to the Parliament, to tell them what they put forth in my Name; 'Zbloud, I had better have no name, than no fame; and judgeme, I have as little as can be among the Common sort. My Lord, I beseech▪ you let this Spirit be conjured down, or else we must down ourselves, and if any thing other then good should happen to us by reason of the ungodly abroad, I fear a great many at home will take their parts; it is good to prevent in time, my Lord, to quench the flame before it get too high, or else it may happen to burn our fingers. My Lord, I hear Ormond is 30000 strong, besides what Inchiquin, Ards, and Monro is; besides your old Enemies are come to assist them, at Kildare, Eyron, Dives, Langdale, Ashton, Hopton, and the Devil and all: And if they get Ireland my Lord, we may ere long hang up our pipes, and ourselves too; My Lord; the way I would wish you, is to treat with the Earl of Derby, about the rendering the Isle of Man; you'll get a Crown too boot; if we must have a King, (as the people will never be quiet else) as good you as another; Damn, we must have a King; for so many men, so many minds; Lilburn will have one thing, another party another, a third another, and then we fall together by the ears; then comes the Prince and parts us; What will become of us then? No my Lord, win a Crown and wear it; 'tis but taking down the Excize, or making at the beginning of your reign some seeming▪ good Law, as Richard the 3d did, and that will win the people's affections to you. My Lord, I am an ill Orator, and something given to swearing, which I hope will not be much distasteful unto you, considering I am an old man; and Damn, old men are subject to old infirmities; if your Honour lives, you will be old yourself as I am; 'Swounds, I wish you long life; and could with a good Conscience say, Vive le Roy; a Pox Confound-me if I could not; 'zblood, I am something short wound since my sickness; but Damn, Ram, Sink-me, if I mean not what I say; and so for this time I make an end; desiring your Honour to sit, and taste of that Welcome your Humble Subject and Servant can make you. Your Honour's humble Servant, PHILIP, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery. Vera Copia. Ramsbury, July 12. 1649. FINIS.