The Fatal Blow: OR, The most Impious and Treasonable Fact of HAMMOND, In offering force unto, and hurting His SACRED MAJESTY: Discussed, and REPARATION pressed, by a sudden Dissolution of the Tyrannical Power of this present PARLIAMENT, A Summary of whose wicked Practices tending to the subversion of MONARCHY and Murder of His MAJESTY, and the Enslaving of this Nation is premised.  
There-establishing of RELIGION, and re-enthroning of His MAJESTY by Force and Arms is propounded and justified.  
Dedicated and directed to the People of ENGLAND.  
Now know I, that the Lord saveth his Anointed; he will hear him from his holy Heaven, with the saving strength of his right hand.  Psal. 20.6. 
For the King trusteth in the Lord, and through the mercy of the most High he shall not miscarry.  
Thine hand shall find out all thine Enemies; thy right hand shall find out those that hate thee.  Psal. 21.7, 8. 
LONDON printed, Anno Domini 1648.   

Good People of England,  
CAn you be so dull complexioned, that you cannot in seven years learn (and what hath been so often whipped into you) one Lesson, This Parliament will have no King? will you be baited into a slavery, and held fast by the gills, by the old juggling, and deluding persuasions, of Religion, Liberty, and Property? Shall the infusions of these Givens any longer continue you transformed from Men into Beasts, to lie down like Asses under your Burdens, and to conceit that a slavish rest is good? Can these Sorcerers make you any longer believe, that they are the great Power of God, when they are the manifest, and skilled operators unto the Devil? Surely the Toleration of all Religions and Heresies, the keeping of an Army (modelled unto their own purposes) still on foot, the Circumvention of your Liberties, the visible and cunning Invasion of your Properties, their whole Process with His Majesty, and all the present practices in order unto the Subversion of Monarthy in this Kingdom, and setting up for themselves, cannot but state it for a most unquestionable and measured Truth with you, O people of England, that this present Parliament will have no King, but reign, and rule themselves, how and as they list; and this will be beyond dispute, if you suddenly survey their whole Conduit of this Design: By their disposing the three Kingdoms unto an Aptitude to receive their Impressions, and the universal Taint of Rebellion, by their practices with the Scots (an Irritable people) whom by their mere Encouragements, they draw into a Posture of Hostility against His Majesty, through their suggestions that He would introduce Popery, and an Arbitrary, and Tyrannical form of Government over His People; By their corruption of discontented, poor, yet powerful, and Leading Persons of Scotland to improve their Design, By their Treachery unto and desection of His Majesty and His Army, raised (and able) to suppress that Sedition, upon Terms of greatest Disadvatnage unto His Majesty, and of highest Dishonour unto this Nation; By Necessitating His Majesty to call a Parliament (as the only remedy for the present Distempers) the Members whereof were for the prevailing part, an industriously packed Crew of Dis-affected Persons unto His Majesty, unto the Government established, and who did only drive at their own Ends; By their violent Ejection of Persons well-affected unto the King and Kingdom, out of both Houses, and all places of Trust and Importance; By their sending abroad their own evil Ministering-spirits, and hired Emissaries, those Sampsons' Foxes tied together by the tails, and firebrands betwixt them, their factious, illiterate, prostitute, and phanatique Clergy, to set the standing-Corne of the people into the fire of Rebellion; By their publishing, and countenancing Scandalous and Seditious Pamphlets, and Petitions against His Majesty's Royal Person and Government: By their enforcing the Irish into Rebellion (who made modest and humble Addresses unto them for Liberty of Conscience, and the Protection of the received Law● of that Kingdom) through their Menaces, that that Kingdom should be no longer 〈◊〉 Nursery of Popery, and of sending thither an Army of ten thousand Scots, to be maintained by the 9d. a Sunday to be levied upon Recusants; lest that Kingdom remaining entire, might come into His Majesty's Rescue, when these Men intended to perfect their purpose of Vn-throning Him: By their levying Men and vast sums of Money, under pretence of suppressing that Rebellion, but employing them against His Majesty only; for this purpose also, By their making desperate, and exasperating the Irish, both by the selling and reselling of their Lands, (and much more than is in that Island) and taking from them all hope of Pardon, and denying unto them Quarter. By their sending unto that service (almost) only such Commanders and men, as were of His Majesty's Army in the North, doubting of their affections here, and then abandoning them unto all want and misery there. This Parliament (besides that they occasioned the Rebellion, and the first Effusion of blood in Ireland) having spilt more English blood by the wilful neglect of them there, than the Irish did by their swords: By their defrauding the poor Protestants of Ireland of the Benevolence of the Dutch, and converting it unto their own uses: By their breaking the late Peace in Ireland concluded by His Majesty's Auhority, through their transactions with the Spanish Ambassador, who dealt so effectually with the Pope's Nuncio, and Owen Roe o Neale (both Factors for Spain) that they not only hindered that Peace, but in order unto this Parliamentary Design, seized upon the best strengths of the English in Counaught, and almost all the English Holds and Quarters in Lemster: By their sithences in-effective prosecution of the War there, and so only as to engage and entertain both Parties there, as that they might only not be able to looks upon themselves here, through which many thousands have perished: In the entrance unto their Design here, By bloodily tearing from the King's sides, His most faithful, and consult Counsellors and Servants, and either illegally taking away their lives, or constraining them unto flight: By their taking away first the Votes of, than the Bishops themselves, and by silencing and imprisoning the Orthodox Clergy, who might conscionably inform the people of their Duties, and of the Necessity of Christian Obedience unto the Supreme Magistrate His Majesty: By extorting from His Majesty Acts prejudicial unto His Crown and Dignity, and such only as might serve to advance their own Ends; (that for continuation of this present Parliament being forced to save the Queen's life.) By their Abetting men of most impudent Ambition, and Avarice, those Members (not to be named without an Atonement first made, trained up in, and furnished with all anti-monarchical and dishonest Principals) and that against the very face of the King: By their stirring up of Tumults, Insurrections, and Mutinies, of the abused people and multitude, against His Majesty and His most Loyal Subjects, thereby forcing Him, and them to leave London. By their Necessitating of His Majesty (divested and made naked of all Habiliments and Military Preparations) unto a War; By their prosecution of that War, with so much subtlety and cruelty: By their Ordnances to raise Money and Men against His Majesty, upon pretence to redeem Him out of the hands of His evil Council: By the Preaching of their Sycophant Clergy unto the people, largely to contribute to this Work, (who as Aaron did the Israelites) to bring forth their Calf, the Idol at Westminster, made the people naked unto their shame, and cheated them of their Plate, and the Women even of their jewels and Rings: By their planting an unlimited and Arbitrary power in themselves: By their subversion of the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom, and establishing the boundless Dictates of their own Ordnances: By their endeavours to dispirit and enslave the people of this Kingdom, by the over-awing power of an Army, heavy Impositions, and Freequarter, to enure them unto Bondage: By their Propositions in all Treaties, of matters unfit for Subjects to demand, and unsafe for a Prince to grant: By their Banishment, or Impoverishment of all that adhered unto His Majesty: By their enriching themselves with the whole Wealth and Spoils of the Kingdom: By their exportation of great and incredible sums of Money out of this Kingdom, and storing it up in those Seminaries of Schism, in New England, the Islands, and the Low-Countryes: By their drawing together of the ignorant, unconscionable, and their waged Clergy under the reputation of a National Synod (with exclusion of the Orthodox) to forge forth such a Body of doctrinals and Discipline, as might best be shaped to uphold their anti-monarchical Principles and Practices. By their Poisoning the Fountains of Knowledge, the two Universities, with the Satanical Infusions of their Heretical Doctors: By their conferring Preferments, and all places of Profit and Trust upon their own Creatures only: By their translating all Trade and Traffic unto their own Partakers: By their most subtle and perjurous gaining His Majesty out of the hands of the Scots, upon all assurances of Freedom, Safety, and Honour: By their sithences several Confinements, and Imprisonments of Him, as to breed a Contempt of Him in His People, so unparaleld occasions of discontent, and the sad effects of that in Himself, and to compel Him unto such Conditions, as might make Him to pull the Crown from off His head, with his own hands, and to set it upon theirs: By hireing his trusted Servants, under pretence of Safety to decoy Him into a place of strongest, and strictest durance, and greatest mis-usage: By their glorying with the people in their late Addresses unto His Majesty in the Isle of Wight; And offering such Acts there as Subjects yet never tendered unto a King, or was possible for His Majesty to grant: By their adding unto the weight of all their Crueltyes against Him, for His denial of Subscription, and Royal Assent unto the Acts presented; in the removeall of all His Servants, and Closet-Imprisonment: By their making an Ordnance, that no further Addresses shall be made unto His Majesty, and that they will take a further course to establish the Kingdom without Him. i. e. To settle the Kingdom upon themselves, unto which they make way: By their most false and forced Accusations of His Majesty; both to disaffect His own people at home, and to forestall their aid, and to breed Contempt, and Neglect of Him abroad, publishing in all Languages of Europe, scandalous and base Untruths of His Majesty, to prevent foreign Succours: Representing His Sacred Majesty unto the Protestants, a Papist, unto the Papists a Tyrant, and unto both a man of no Faith and unfit for Government: whereas nothing hath so much contributed unto the present Power of this Parliament, as the Contrivances of the most rigid of Papists, the Spaniard, or so much hindered His Majesty of due Succours: Yea, this their Design is further manifested, by their suffering the decay of his Majesty's Houses, by their sale of his Lands, Householdstuff, and of the very Coats of his 〈◊〉 by their mean and inferior nurture of his Children here, (for Prince Charles is a 〈◊〉 away,) put into such hands as have neither the principles of Honour, honesty, or Li●●●●● Education in them, to embase the Spirits, to dwarf the growing Endowment of these Royal Branches, and to dispose and fit them to parity and the constitution of Leveller: by their denial to his Majesty an opportunity (so frequently importuned by Him) to dear Himself of those odious Crimes they charge Him withal; as though they feared He Would leave the Load of all the late Mischiefs at their own Door, or rather that they intended to condemn Him (though uncondemned) unheard.  
What doth the Total of all these Severals reckoned and summoned up amount unto, but that they intent an Assassination, and privately in plain English to murder his Majesty, to divest his Royal Posterity of all Regality, to usurp the Imperial Crown of England, and to divide it amongst themselves; to attain the more easily to which, they now offer to the Scots (not to interrupt them here;) what ere in Ireland is in the Parliament power: and to give you further testimony unto this Truth, because they cannot trust any ingenuous men, of the Gentry, and whose present Estate might interest their Endeavours in the Good of the Kingdom, they have placed the whole and sole command of the Army, and all Places of Importance in men of as low, base, and desperate Fortunes, as they are of contemptible Education, and such whose Merits giving unto them no Rise or advantage of Advancement, can promise that unto themselves [only] (being for the greater part broken Tradesmen) in the continuance of the usurped Power of this present Parliament, which they are engaged to support; and into one of these Confiding men's hands, have they contrived His Sacred Majesty, into Goaler Hammonds; who (notwithstanding his most solemn Protestations unto his Majesty to treat Him well) promiseth this Parliament, that He will obey all their Commands, although never so contrary to his sense and honour; id est, his former Engagements to his Majesty; so absolute is he their Creature. And to show us how true he is unto this last Engagement, in his Majesty's late Resistance of him in the Search of some Papers, He hath most impiously and traitorously wounded his Sacred Majesty. The whole Earth will be amazed at this Fact: the Christian World will tremble, and be highly offended at this greatest Profanation of God in his Image: the Ears of posterity will glow to read, God himself thus blasphemed and hurt in his immediate Delegate, God's Vicar, God's Anointed, our Sovereign Lord King CHARLES. It was questionless the Glory of Martyrdom these Men meant, when they promised to make His Majesty a glorious Prince, for he hath been already A most worthy Confessor, the late condition of his Life being but a lingering Death: and indeed, what Kings of England have been imprisoned, whose Lives also have not been taken away? This passage no doubt is the Prologue unto the Tragedy they intent to Act, the horrid Murder of our Sovereign: if the People disgust not this Fact of Hammonds, they promise unto themselves impunity in their bloody intendments against the King's Life. This is the blessed Reformation of Westminster, the Divine Religion derived thence. See what an harmony it hath with the Word of God: Touch not mine … ed, Psal. 105.15. (saith the Spirit of God.) Who can stretch forth his hand against the Lords … ed and be guiltless? 1 Sam. 26.9. saith David. Th●●● is no rising up against a King, Prov. 31. saith Solomon. Here are Gods Letters Patents for the King's Inviolability. But alas, an Ordinance of this Parliament can nullify these, and warrant Hammonds violence unto his Majesty. King Saul was a bloody Tyrant, dis-obedient unto Gods own Voice, possessed with the Devil, an Idolater, and consulted with Witches, he did most maliciously persecute David's Life, who had God's Grain in Reversion of the Kingdom; yet he could not entertain the thought of this Impiety in himself, nor receive the violent Impressions thereof from others, when King Saul was in his power, he says, God forbidden that he should lift up his hand against Gods Anointed; 1 Sam. 24.6. Yea more, His heart smote him when he cut off the skirt of saul's garment, only to testify his Integrity unto his Prince. The young Amalekite but for hastening saul's Death, (who had already received his Death's wound) although rescued from the Enemy, and presented David with the Crown and Regal Ornaments, was by David sentenced to die, for not fearing to touch Gods Anointed, 2 Sam. 1.10. & 14. And shall these Men escape punishment who persecute a most pious Prince, whose whole carriage unbespeaks all the malicious suggestions of men wickedly busy to undermine the public peace, and meets with all the needless jealousies of peevish people. How hath he in order unto peace condescended to put down the High-Commission and Star-Chamber Courts, the envied secular power of Bishops, willingly consigned his Forts, Magazines, and Navy into the Dispose of the Parliament; and notwithstanding the abuse of all these against His Royal Person and Crown; yet how hath He sought peace, and pursued it, by the Gracious Offer of An Act of Indemnity; the Payment of the Army; by regard unto tender Consciences, and the satisfaction of all Interests. All these things loudly proclaim his integrity and great love unto his people, and his royal cle●●ncy unto all, so grossly abused by the Avarice and Hypocrisy of these desperate Practitioners upon the Body politic, whose Deeds sufficiently convey this Truth unto us, That this Parliament will have no King; and to that end, it is more than a probable conjecture, that they will murder the King.  
Let us no longer lie in that Lethargy the wicked practices this Parliament hath cast us into, but redeem his Majesty out of Captivity and the jaws of Death, and vigorously, and effectually endeavour the re-establishment of our first Reformation in God's Church, and of his Majesty in his Throne. Not to hinder a sin when it is in our power, implies an approbation thereof, and makes the Gild equal in the Permitters with the Actors of it: if we suffer these (as Pilate did the Jews) to crucify Christ, God's Anointed, the whole Ocean cannot wash off the guilt of it from us, But his Blood will (also) be upon us and our children. Let us then quit ourselves like men, and reinforce our first Reformation and his Majesty's Rights; Sacred Truths, for which we should be valiant; God having given a Banner unto all them that fear him, because of his Truth, let us all draw up together under this Banner, to be set up for Truth, for God and King CHARLES; for our Religion and King, If we ought to lay down our lives for the Brethren, 1 john 3.16. How much more now, when our eldest Brothers Life, our King's Life worth ten thousand of our lives, and of many thousand others our suffering Brethren nay, the life of 〈◊〉 Religion and Liberty lies at stake: let us avoid no danger or hazard to preserve the liure 〈◊〉 these; let neither Scots nor Irish, or Foreigners, prevent us of the glory of this Christian and pious Enterprise, and our bounden duty, but let us all rise as one man, from Dan to Be●rsheba, and join our power to remove the Chair of violence, and Counsel of the Vngo●lly 〈◊〉 Westminster; let these Impostors, and Deceivers of the People (who can plead no privilege they have so highly abused all) be brought to condign punishment, And as they have done let it be done unto them, let their Reward return upon their own heads. Obad. ●●. To which purpose, let us in the Name of God Arm and join with those who will declare for the Re-establishment of Religion, and his Majesty: which course as it dischargeth but our Duties unto God and our Prince, so it will avoid the effusion of Christian Blood, save a vast expense of Treasure, prevent the Devastation of our Country, continue our present, and beget a future plenty, reinstate the Kingdom in her former happiness, vindicate us in our long sufferings, and render us honoured to the present Age, and glorious unto posterity: let these our common and great interests, (sufficient Motives to engage the most fearful spirits in the greatest Dangers) animate us unto this great and good Worke. King David's prayer for his own safety, and his Enemy's confusion shall supply the Conclusion.  
Let not them O Lord say in their hearts, Ah, so would we have it: let them not say, We have swallowed him (the King) up. Psal. 35, 25, 26, 27.  
Let them be ashamed, and brought to confusion together that rejoice at his hurt, let them be clothed with shame and dishonour that magnify themselves against Him.  
Let them shout for joy and be glad that favour his righteous Cause; yea, let them say continually, Let the Lord be magnified, which hath pleasure in the prosperity of his Servant [King CHARLES] And let all good People of England say, Amen.   
FINIS.