England's PRESENT DISTRACTIONS.  
Paralleled with those of Spain, and other foreign Countries, With some other modest Conjectures, at the Causes of the said Distempers, and their likeliest Cure.  
Written by a loyal Subject to His majesty, and a true Servant of the Parliament, in vindication of that Aspersion cast upon them, for declining His majesty's royal Prerogative, or seeking to confine it to limits.  
Tempora mutantur, & nos mutamur in illis.  
By H. G. B. L. C.  
London, Printed for Francis Wright. 1642.   


DOCTRINA PARIT virtutem.   
England's PRESENT DISTRACTIONS.  
DIstractions when national, are diffusive, nothing escapes their violence, like Samson's Foxes, they carry fire about them, and consume all before them: And for the most part they fall like hailstones, one no sooner drops, but a whole storm do follow. These late years have been pregnant with distempers. Germany leading this dance of death, being the greatest of the European Provinces, France, the fairest of them, and Spain, the powerfullest, have since, as it were, celeri pede, followed their leaders steps. And now & hinc illae lachrymae. England the little Eye of nature, the darling and delight of Europe, has thrust itself into the same bloody Matachin: wherein (as you shall observe) especially in those of Spain, embroiled with the civil differences of Catalonia and Portugal; they keep one figure with ours in England, and its rebellious Province Ireland, being true parallels, that run even still through several ways: It shall be needless to relate the circumstances of the Catalonian revolt from the Spanish government; it having been, (as Ireland to England) an Appendix for some hundred of years to that large book of Arragon: the world knows it is revolted, and that is sufficient for our purpose: Not two twin Cherries carry more resemblance, than the horrid faces of the present rebellions in these two subordinate Provinces. Catalonia for many years past, being under the Government of Don John de Muscu●ena, the Catalonian Prefe●t there, under went with pavement shoulders, unheard of insolences▪ (Custom in suffering as it doth in sinning, taking away the sense of their sufferings: the austere condition of the man at which they durst not repine, making them like good dull Mules, ma●ch silently without braying under their burdens: the state of Ireland just under the late Lord lieutenant Thomas Earl of Strafford a man of as much severity in his Vice royship there: his government (I would be loath to brand his memory with a false imputation, because he fell under the Axe of Justice) almost devolving to tyranny. And if tha● Maxim in Philosophy hold true, that Causae judicantur ab effect●bus & é contra. Certainly we may well affirm, both the Catalonian and Irish defections derivative from the oppressive injustice of their too tyrannous governors. Catalonia immediately upon the revocation of Muscurena, bleeding with the wounds of his former cruelties; which yet for the present, if they were closed up had left large scars upon their bodies, resolves to provide for their future safeties, or sell them at a dear rate, to open a conspicuous ruin, break forth into an acknowledged and maintained rebellion. So did Ireland on the Earl of Strafford, though perhaps the levity and malice of that Nation, only sought by the specious presence of his tyranny to palliate their wicked intentions, which had destined them for this fatal and impious purpose, long before Straffords arrival thither: but that rebellion were not considerable to us, as Catalonia's is to the Spaniard, nor could the Irish (though their quarrel for their Religion makes them resolutely desperate, being assured by those that guide their souls, their mutinously superstitious Priests, that they achieve the glorious condition of Martyrs and Confessors in their death and sufferings, resist the English powers, if England were once blessed with an unity between its King and people, the distractions there being so well known to the world, that in our very enemies (if we had any such besides ourselves, they would have invited pity: England that thus many years hath stood the envy of all it's neighbours: like a fruitful Olive teeming with blessings of a constant and continued peace, while they teemed with fire, famine, and a thousand inexplicable ruins, having now two armies of its own sons, violating with their hostile steps their mother's pleasant and plenteous bosom; their active spirits, like millstones wanting other matter to employ their Motion upon, being ready to set fire upon themselves. And yet few distinctly know the reason of these so sudden and Hydra●-headed confusions. In Spain, tyranny in the King at least in his Officers, caused the Catalonian revolt; the same with hope of liberty that of Portugal: here none can accuse the King of that blemish (I would we could as easily acquit His Cabinet councillors, nor yet condemn the people, that they have fall'n, or do yet defect their obedience: and yet (so paradoxical is this difference,) all is distraction, the King bent against His people, and they as natural justice gives them privilege, resolute to defend themselves, not against the King, he offers them no violence: but to preserve their lives, laws, and liberties, from the rapine of His evil Ministers, who ofttimes render the rule of good and gracious Kings odious to their subjects, And if we may believe that great Legislator, that second Numa of the Romans Cicere, that these aught to be accounted good men; qui consulta patrum qui leges & reipublicae instituta servant. Sure ours here are no ill Patriots of their country, my logic knowing no such nicety of distinction betwixt servare and preservare, but that they may be by as direct a title admitted to march under the ensigns of goodness, who strive to preserve the laws and Constitution of the commonwealth, as they who only keep them. And now without offence, if we may positively set down, or at leastwise probably conjecture at the causes of these so lamented distractions, we shall find ours here, and those of Spain, if not uno & eodem, yet valde simili fonte manare, to wit, the unlimited and infinitely ambitious power of the Clergy. The Spanish Nobility and most of the ancient Gentry (though nationally and naturally that people is most superstitiously affected to their Clergy, than we ever were to ours) repining and disdaining to see these men, who but yesterday were their menial servants, to morrow, being by their help andsuffrage, advanced to that supreme ecclesiastical dignity; Demean themselves as their equals if not superiors; nay, sitting as it were, to use our course old English proverb, even cheek by jowl with Majesty, and swaying if not a wing that. Most of the King of Spain's Cabinet Counsellors, bating his favourite Olivares, the Constable and Adelantado of Castille, who enjoy that honour by the privilege of their offices, being churchmen, the Kings and those noblemens' ghostly Fathers. And undoubtedly where they have so great a tye over men's minds, as the knowledge of their consciences, they must needs have a superintendent power over their actions, which are but the children of men's propensions; so that those insolences of Mascarena, circumstantly are derivatived from the Spanish Clergy, they being, if not by their consent and directions committed, yet by their patronage and conivence. And is not this comparatively our condition, while the Clergy were revera, not nomine, only the Ministers of the Almighty, when they were boni pastores oves solum tondentes non deglubientes, what an excellent harmony was heard through this kingdom, joy and gladness being only in dwellings? but when the mitre grew in competition with the crown here, when the proud and insolently presumptuous Prelates began to rank themselves with the chief Nobility, contemn the Gentry, and tyrannize over the communality, introducing strange and impertinent, nay, superstitious Cannons & Ceremonies of our ancient faith, backed too by authority of such or the secular Magistracy, as durst not, or at least would not contradict their proceedings, than the wisest of this Nation jam proximus ardens, Vtalegon: their neighbour's houses being on fire, began to look to the safety of their own dwellings, endeavouring to repress that torrent which else threatened the whole island with a deluge. And certainly that wise and sacred Senate, the Illustrious high Court of Parliament seek not to diminish the King's royal Prerogative, descendent to him as his crown is from his Ancestors, by seeking to regulate the power of the Clergy, by extirpation of Bishops, though it is their constant tenant where the Church is reduced to an Anarchy, there is likewise the temporal power altered. But I durst not dispute it with any of them, that not neither is Episcopacy so correlative, or consubsistent with majesty, that one cannot stand without the other, nor that the Parliament ever intended to confine the royal prerogative to limits, but secure the right & prosperity of the subject from being swallowed up in that extensive power of royalty▪ which being contiguated, if not one continuum, with the subject's safety, ought not to be employed to his ruin. To prevent a danger, certainly is the greatest point of wisdom, and though none will imagine, our good and gracious King ever meant to put any power against his people in practice, and in his own Princely intention, yet certainly it was an honourable and conscionable justice in the Parliament, being entrusted as Feoffees with the kingdom's safety, to seek to provide for futurity, lest some such King there might be hereafter, that might invert the Charter of his Royalty sealed to him by the people's obedient suffrage upon the people themselves. And yet this hath separated the King from his people, and given birth to these unhappy distractions: In Spain, especially in Catalonia, where the King now is, he seeks to reduce them to his obedience, by affording them his presence. All we sue for here, is His majesty's royal presence, which would suddenly give a sure and happy period to these distempers. If His highness desserting those few Incendiaries, who by their malignant counsels, and affections have instigated and fomented these dissensions would vouchsafe to comply with the universal Body of His kingdom, contracted in this present Parliament. And certainly in this Climetricall year of the world, when it labours with the Empidemical contagious sickness of combustions, we alone are bound to thank heaven that our disease here is not so violent, but it may be cured by time and good council. Nothing but blood, being able to extinguish the burning rays of those flaming combustions, that like prodigious Meteors predominant in other Nations. Catalonia nor Portugal, being never to be reduced to the Spanish obedience, but by extirpation of all those Families and their adherents, who were the prime Botefeus in the revolt of those Provinces. And certainly if the Spaniard do go out victorious, no misery will equal that of those vanquished wretches, upon whom and their unbappy posterity will be afflicted cruelty without pity, by the insolent and implacable Victors: Tyrants shed blood for pleasure, Kings for necessity: In what a happy condition than is England, even in its misfortune, being compared with other Nations. Spain being oppressed, both with French, French, Dutch and Turkish, foreign enemies, and embroylded with domestic troubles, France is neither free from civil dissensions, nor safe from the Spanish invasions, which both out of Biskay and Handers, and Artoys infest it with frequent inroads: Germany has so long been the Theatre of war and bloodshed, that it has almost worn out the race of the old Swedish actors; yet their still spring up new ones, as if that Country were destined only for fertility of miseries; we only, as we are in situation, Et penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos, so we are in condition; being safe from foreign enemies we have ourselves unmade our own safeties like Cadmus earthborn brothers, striving to boast in one another's destructions.  
Populumque potentem.  
In sua victrici conversum viscera dextra:  
Such is the uncertainty of all human and worldly happiness, which resembles aptly a fair hopeful plant, set with much care by the industrious owner: to day it buds, within a few weeks' blossoms, dressing as it were▪ its bushy beauties at the sunbeams, when suddenly comes an unexpected April frost, and nips at the root, and then it withers; that fair and hopeful foundation of peace and happins, and for us by our ancestors, being now ready by our own hands to be sacrificed as a victima tyrannidis, yet is not our case altogether so desperate as our neighbours; good council having power to rectify and reconcile our differences, force only theirs.  
And 'tis to be hoped, at lest 'tis all good men's wishes, that a speedy reconcilement may proceed betwixt his Majesty and Parliament, that the rumor of their war, may like thunder, though loud, having cleared our English air of its pestilential vapours like it be sudden, its noise once past, the memory of it forgotten, that this land flowing with milk and honey, may not be converted into a wilderness, nor sit desolate like widow, who so lately appeared a Queen among the nations, the very Empress of the Islands rich in her inhabitants and merchandise, that so tears may be wiped away from all men's eyes, and that we may see peace again in this our Israel, that the example of unity amomg▪ us may set a happy period to the dissension of our neighbours when they shall behold our destructions which begun last end first; that our common mother, Europe, that sometime Empress of the world▪ now groaning under the burden of her sons mutual arms, may resume her ancient glories by the expulsion of that common enemy to human nature the Turk, that so true Religion may extend its branches like a fruitful vine through the face of the earth, and we sit happy under the shadow of it, which heaven in its mercy send sp●edily to come to pass, that all the ends of the world may praise the Lord▪   
FINIS.