THE GLORY OF THIS KINGDOM: OR A DISCOURSE BY WAY OF CONFERENCE AND ARGUMENTS, OF THE HAPPINESS AND SUCCESS OF FORMER PARLIAMENTS.  
WITH SOME OBSERVATIONS UPON THE PROCEED OF THIS PRESENT PARLIAMENT.  
LONDON, Printed for R. R. 1643.   

THE GLORY OF THIS KINGDOM.  
SIR  
I Have according to my small ability, and the the shortness of time fulfilled your command, in sending to y●u this brief and plain discourse, concerning the ancient opinions and esteem of English Parliaments, for that was all that you desired; without any reflection upon the proceed of this present Parliament: accept it only as a plain piece of common ta●ke which I would have delivered, had I been present with you; such discourses had no need of Rhetoric.  
The Constitution of our English Monarchy, is by wise men esteemed one of the best in Europe, as well for the strength and honour of the Prince, as the security and freedom of the People; and the Basis on which both are sounded, is the conveniency of that Council the high Court of Parliament.  
Without which, neither can the Prince enjoy that Honour and Felicity, which Philip de Commines, a foreigner so much admires where he de ivers what advantages the Kings of England have by that representative body of their People; by whose assistance in any action they can neither want means, or lose reputation, nor on the other side, can the People have any possibility of pleading their own Rights and Liberties; For in the interim between Parliaments, the People are too scattered and confused a Body to appear it vindication of their proper Interests; and by too long absence of such assemb ies they would lose all, for (as junius observes) Populus authoritatem suam tante non utendo amittit, sic plerumque accidit ut quod omnes curare tenentur, curet nemo quod omnibus Comissam est, nemo sibi commendatum putet.  
The People sensibly lose their power for want of useing it, for so it happens, that what all should look after no man does, what is Committed to all, no man thinks his own change.  
And in that interim it happens, those Optimates Regni (as he speaks) who under the Prince are entrusted with Government, meaneing Counselors, judges, and other great Magistrates, either through fear, flattery or private Corruption, do after betray the People's Rights to the Prince.  
The state of government standing thus. If distempered times Continnue, as they do, (as our Chronicles have showed some) whereby dissension between King and People, & the Kingdom's ruin is endangered, it doth not prove that the English government is not the best, as that the best Government may be abused for in every Monarchy how limited soever, the Pr●nce his person is invested with s●e much Majesty, that it would seem a mockery in State, if there were not considerab e power entrusted into his hands, yea somuch as that if he be bad or weak he may not endanger the Ruin of the Kingdom, so necessa y is it for all Humane Ordinances how wise soever, to leave somewhat to chance, and to have always need of Recourse to God for his assisting and curing providence.  
And though the Kingdom of England by virtue of the Government thereof, willbe as hardly brought into confusion as any Europe, yet there is no warrant against the Probability of it, for it was ever heretofore seen that our Parliaments were rather strength and advantage to an Honourable and a wise Prince, than a remedy against a bad or weak one, or if we change the expression they were rather an excellent diet to preserve a good Reign in strength, than Physic to Cure a bad one, and therefore have been as much Loved by sound healthy Princes, as loathed by them that were out of temper, the latter having thought them depression of their dignity, as the former have esteemed them an advantage to their strength so that in such times only the true convenience of that great Council have been perceived by England, and admired by Foreign Authors, in other times it was that those witty complaints have been in fashion, as Sir Robert Cotton speaks of a bad time, that Princes in Parliaments are less than they should be, and Subjects greater but on the contrary that they have been an advantage to Kings, the constant Seires of our History will show.  
1 First by those great Achievements which they have enabled our wise Kings to make, who were most constant in calling them and consenting to them.  
2 Secondly noe one Prince was ever yet happy without the use of them.  
It may therefore seem A parrodox, that any Prince should disafect that which is so High an advantage to him, and a great wonder that some Kings of England not vicious in their dispositions, nor very shallow in their understandings, have so much kicked against Parliaments, and that such have been before, we show what reasons may be of it: see the chartecters of some Princes, whose success and fortunes are known to all that read the Histories, as they are delivered by Pollidor Virgil who in his sixteenth Book speaks thus of Henry the Third, fuit ingenio, mitti, animo magis nobili quam magno cultor religionis adversus inopes liberalis; he was of a Gentle Nature, a mind rather Noble then great.  
In his 18. Book, thus of Edward the Second, fuit illi, natura bona in g●nium, mitte quem primo juuneeli, errore actum in leviora vitia incidentem tandem in graviora malorum consuitudives et consilia traxerunt, non decreant illi animi vires si repudiatis malis sua soribus illas juste exercuisset.  
He was of a good nature and mild disposition, who first by the errors and rashness of Youth fading into small faults, was afterwards drawn into greater by the society and counsels of wicked men; there was not wanting in him strength of mind, if (avoiding evil council) he could have made a just use of it.  
And in his 20th Book, thus of Richard the Second, fuit in illo spirritus non villis quem consociorum improbitas et ins●sitas extinxit He was of a spirit not ●ow nor base, but such as was quite destroyed by the wickedness and folly of unhapy consociates.  
A reason of this accident may be, that their souls thought not visions have not been so large, nor their affections so public, as their great calling hath required; but being to much mancipaid to private fancies and unhapy Favourites: and long flattered in those affections, under the specious name of firmness and friendship (not being told of that the adequate object of a Prince, his love should be to the whole Peo le. And that they who receive public honour should return as public love and care, they have too much neglected the Kingdom, and grow at last afraid to look their faces in so true a glass as a Parliament; And flying the remedy increase the disease, till it come to that unhapy height, that rather than acknowledge any unjust action, they strive for an unjust power to give it countenance; and so by a long consequence become hardly reconcilable to a Parliamentary way.  
Such Princes (though it may seem strange) have been a greater affliction to this Kingdom.  
1. They have not been so conscious to themselves of great crimes, and therefore not so apt to be sensible of what they have been accidentally made to do against their People by evil Counsel, whose poison, themselves did not perfectly understand: And therefore they are more prone to suspect the People as unkind to them, than themselves as faulty, and so the more hardly drawn to prevent their Actions, or meet heartily with a Parliament as from the People, who Naturally look with honour upon the Prince, and when they find none or few personal vices in him (nor considering that the true virtue of Princes have a larger eutent than those of private men) will more hardly be brought to think (though themselves feel and suffer for it) that he is faulty therefore some times (which would hardly be believed if experience had not showed it the People (have been so rash as that to maintain for the King an unjust prerogative, which themselves understand not they have to their ruin and the Kings too (as it hath after proved,) deserted that great Counsel whom themselves have chosen, and by whom they could be preserved in their just Rights, until to late for the King's happiness, and therefore they have seen and Repent their great folly.  
Such a desertion was so sadly seen at the end of that Parliament of Edward the 2. where the two Spencers were banished and the Tragical effects that followed, when the King found so great a party both of Clergy and Laiety, as enabled him to call home again his banished favourits, and proved fatal to so many Parliamentary Lords, as the like execution of Nobility had never before been seen in England, over whose graves the People wept when it was too late, and proceed, ●urther in their revenge, than became the duty and Allegiance of Subjects.  
FINIS.