AN INQUISITION AFTER BLOOD.  
To the PARLIAMENT in statu quo nunc, AND To the ARMY Regnant; Or any other whether royalist, Presbyterian, Independent or Leveller, whom it may concern.  

Blood is a crying sin, but that of Kings  
Cries loudest for revenge, and ruin brings.   
Printed in the year, 1649.   

AN INQUISITION AFTER BLOOD.  
THE scope of this short discourse is to make some researches after Truth, and to rectify the world accordingly in point of opinion, specially touching the first Author and Aggressor of the late ugly war in England, which brought with it such an inundation of blood, and so let in so huge a torrent of mischiefs to rush upon us. There be many, and they not only Presbyterians and Independents, but Cavaliers also, who think that the King had taken the guilt of all this blood upon himself, in regard of that Concession he passed in the preamble of the late Treaty at the Isle of Wight; The aim of this Paper is to clear that point, but in so temperate a way, that I hope 'twill give no cause of exception, much less of offence to any: the blood that's sought after here, shall not be mingled with Gaul, much less with any venom at all.  
We know there is no Principle either in Divinity, Law, or philosophy, but may be wrested to a wrong sense; there is no truth so demonstrative and clear, but may be subject to cavillations; no Tenet so plain, but perverse inferences may be drawn out of it; such a fate befell that preambular Concession His Majesty passed at the Transactions of the late Treaty, in that he acknowledged therein that the two Houses of Parliament were necessitated to undertake a war in their own just and lawful defence, &c. and that therefore all Oaths, Declarations, or other public Instruments against the Houses of Parliament, or any for adhering to them, &c. be declared null, suppressed, and forbidden.  
'Tis true, His Majesty passed this grant, but with this weighty consideration, as it had reference to two ends.  
First, to smoothen and facilitate things thereby to ope a passage, and pave the way to a happy peace, which this poor island did so thirst after, having been so long glutted with civil blood.  
Secondly, that it might conduce to the further security, and the indemnifying of the two Houses of parliament, with all their instruments, assistants, and adherents, and so rid them of all jealousies, and fear (of future dangers) which still lodged within them. Now touching the expressions and words of this Grant, they were not his own, nor did he give order for the dictating or penning thereof; the King was not the Author of them, but an Assenter only unto them: nor was He or his Party accused, or as much as mentioned in any of them, to draw the least guilt upon themselves. Besides, He passed them as he doth all laws and Acts of parliament, which in case of absence another may do for him in his politic capacity, therefore they cannot prejudice his person any way. I am loath to say that he condescended to this Grant, — Cùm strict a novacula supra, When the razor was as it were at his throat, when there was an Army of about thirty thousand effect if Horse and Foot that were in motion against him, when his Person had continued under a black long lingering restraint, and dangerous menacing Petitions and Papers daily obtruded against him. Moreover, His Majesty passed this Concession with these two provisos and reservations,  
First, that it should be of no virtue or validity at all, till the whole Treaty were entirely consummated.  
Secondly, that he might when he pleased enlarge and clear the truth with the reservedness of his meaning herein, by public Declaration: Now the Treaty being confusedly huddled up, without discussing, or as much as receiving any Proposition from himself as was capitulated, (and reciprocal Proposals are of the essence of all Treaties) it could neither bind him, or turn any way to his disadvantage: therefore under favour, there was too much hast used by the parliament, to draw that hipothetick or provisional Concession to the form of an Act so suddenly after in the very heat of the Treaty, without His majesty's knowledge, or the least intimation of his pleasure.  
Add hereunto, that this Grant was but a mere preambular Proposition, 'twas not of the essence of the Treaty itself: And as the Philosophers and schoolmen tell us, there is no valid proof can be drawn out of Proemes, Introductions or Corallaries in any science, but out of the positive assertions and body of the Text, which is only argument-proof; so in the Constitutions and laws of England, as also in all accusations and charges, forerunning prefaces and preambles (which commonly weak causes want most) are not pleadable: and though they use to be first in place, like gentlemen-Ushers, yet are they last in dignity, as also in framing, nor had they ever the force of laws, but may be termed their attendants to make way for them.  
Besides, there's not a syllable in this preface which repeals or connives at any former Law of the Land, therefore those laws that so strictly inhibit English Subjects to raise arms against their liege Lord the King, and those laws è contrario, which exempt from all dangers, penalties or molestation any Subject that adheres to the person of the King in any cause or quarrel whatsoever, are still in force.  
Furthermore, this introductory Concession of the Kings, wherein he is contented to declare, That the two Houses were necessitated to take arms for their defence, may be said to have relation to the necessity, à parte pòst, not à parte antè: self-defence is the universal Law of Nature, and it extends to all other creatures, as well as the rational: As the sluent Roman Orator in that sentence of his, which is accounted among the critics the excellentest that ever dropped from him; Est enim haec non scripta, sed nata Lex, quam non didicimus, accepimus, legimus, verùm ex natura ipsa arripuimus, hausimus, expressimus, ad quam non docti, sed facti, non instituti, sed imbuti sumus, ut si vita nostra in &c. For this (meaning self-defence) is not a written, but a Law born with us; A Law which we have not learned, received or read, but that which we have sucked, drawn forth, and wrung out of Nature herself; A Law to which we are not taught, but made unto, wherewith we are not instructed, but endued withal, that if our lives be in jeopardy, &c. we may repel force by force. Therefore when the House of Parliament had drawn upon them a necessity of self-defence (and I could have wished it had been against any other but their own sovereign Prince) his Majesty was contented to acknowledge that necessity. As for example: A man of war meets with a merchant man at Sea, he makes towards him, and assaults him; The merchant man having a good stout vessel under him, and resolute generous Seamen, bears up against him, gives him a whole broad side, and shoots him twixt wind and water; so there happens a furious fight betwixt them, which being ended, the merchant cannot deny but that the man of war, though the first Assailant, was necessitated to fight, and that justly in his own defence, which necessity he drew upon himself, and so was excusable, à posteriori, not à priori; As the Civilians speak of a clandestine marriage, Fieri non debuit, sed factum valet; It ought not to have been, but being done 'tis valid: whereunto relates another saying, Multa sunt quae non nisi peracta approbantur. There are many things which are not allowable till they are passed.  
The Kings of France have had sundry civil wars, many bloody encounters and clashes with their Subjects, specially the last King Lewis the thirteenth, which turned all at last to his advantage; among other Treaties upon that of Loudu●, he was by force of Article to publish an Edict, Dons lequel le Roy approuvoit tout le passé comme ayant esté fait pour son service, &c. Whrein the King approved of all that was passed, as done for his service, &c. and these concessions and extenuations are usual at the close of most civil wars; but there was never any further advantage made of them, then to make the adverse party more capable of grace and pardon, to enable them to bear up against the brunt of laws, and secure them more firmly from all afterclaps; They were passed in order to an Act of Abolition, to a general pardon, and consequently to a reestablishment of Peace; now, Peace and war (we know) are like water and Ice, they engender one another: But I do not remember to have read either in the French story, or any other, that such royal Concessions at the period of any intestine war were ever wrung so hard, as to draw any inference from them, to cast thereby the guilt of blood or indeed the least stain of dishonour upon the King; For royal Indulgences and grants of this nature are like nurse's breasts, if you press them gently there will milk come forth, if you wring them too hard you will draw forth blood in lieu of milk: And I have observed, that upon the conclusion of such Treaties in France, both parties would hug and mutually embrace one another in a gallant way of national humanity; all rancour, all plunderings, sequestration, and imprisonment, would cease, nor would any be prosecuted, much less made away afterwards in cold blood.  
Touching the Comencer of this monstrous war of ours, the world knows too well, that the first man of blood was Blewcap, who showed Subjects the way, how to present their King with Petitions upon the pikes point, and what visible judgements have fallen upon him since by such confusions of discord and pestilence at home, and irreparable dishonour abroad, let the world judge. The Irish took his rise from him: and whereas it hath been often suggested, that his Majesty had foreknowledge thereof, among a world of convincing arguments which may clear him in this particular, the Lord Maguair upon the ladder, and another upon the Scaffold, when they were ready to breathe their last, and to appear before the tribunal of heaven, did absolutely acquit him, and that spontaneously of their own accord, being unsought unto, but only out of a love to truth, and the discharge of a good conscience: But touching those c●uentous Irish wars, in regard there was nothing whereof more advantage was made against His late Majesty, to embitter and poison the hearts of his Subjects against him then that Rebellion, I will take leave to wind up the main causes of them upon a small bottom.  
1. They who kept intelligence and complied with the Scot, in his first and second insurrection.  
2. They who dismissed the first Irish Commissioners (who came of purpose to attend our parliament with some grievances) with such a short unpolitic harsh answer.  
3. They who took off Straffords head, (which had it stood on, that Rebellion had never been) and afterwards retarded the dispatch of the Earl of Leicester from going over to be lord-lieutenant.  
4. Lastly, they who hindered part of that disbanded Army of 8000. men raised there by the Earl of Strafford, which His Majesty, in regard they were soldiers of fortune, and loose cashiered men, to prevent the mischiefs that might befall that kingdom by their insolences, had promised the two Spanish Ambassadors, the Marquesses of Velada and Malvezzi, then resident in this Court: which soldiers rise up first of any, and put fire to the tumult to find something to do.  
They, I say, who did all this, may be justly said to have been the true causes of that horrid Insurrection in Ireland; and consequently 'tis easy to judge upon the account of whose souls must be laid the blood of those hundred and odd thousand poor Christians who perished in that war: and had it been possible to have brought o'er their bodies unputrified to England, and to have cast them at the lower House door, and in the presence of some Members, which are now either secluded, or gone to give account in another world, I believe their noses would have gushed out with blood for discovery of the true murderers.  
Touching this last firebrand of war, which was thrown into England, who they were that kindled it first, the consciences of those indifferent & unblassed men are fittest to be judges, who have been curious to observe with impartial eyes, the carriage of things from the beginning.  
I confess 'twas a fatal infortunate thing, that the King should put such a distance twixt his Person and his Parliament, but a more fatal and barbarous thing it was, that he should be driven away from it, that there should be a desperate design to surprise his Person, that Ven with his Myrmidons, and Bourges with his Bandogs, (for so they called the riffraff of the City they brought along with them) should rabble him away, with above four parts in five of the Lords, and near upon two parts in three of the Commons: Yet 'tis fit it should be remembered, what reiterated Messages his Majesty sent from time to time afterward, that he was always ready to return, provided there might be a course taken to secure his Person, with those Peers & others who were rioted away from the Houses; 'tis fit it should be remembered, that there was not the least motion of war at all, till Hotham kept his Majesty out of his own Town Kingston upon Hul, where being attended by a few of his menial Servants, he came only to visit her, which act of Hotham's by shutting the gates against him was voted warrantable by the House of Commons, and it may be called the first thunderbolt of war: 'Tis fit it should be remembered, that a while after there was a complete Army of 10000 effect if Horse and Foot enrolled in and about London to fetch him to his Parliament by force, and remove ill Counsellors from about him, (long before he put up his royal Standard) and the general named to live and die with them: and very observable it is, how that general's Father was executed for a traitor, for but attempting such a thing upon Queen Elizabeth, I mean to remove ill Counsellors from about her by force. 'Tis also to be observed, that the same Army which was raised to bring him to his Parliament, was continued to a clean contrary end two years afterwards to keep him from his parliament. 'Tis fit it should be remembered, who interdicted Trade first, and brought in foreigners to help them, and whose Commissions of war were near upon two months' date before the Kings. 'Tis fit it should be remembered how his Majesty in all his Declarations and public Instruments made always deep Protestations, that 'twas not against his Parliament he raised arms, but against some seditious Members, against whom he had only desired the common benefit of the Law, but could not obtain it. 'Tis fit to remember, that after any good successes or advantage of his, he still Courted both parliament and City to an Accommodation; how upon the Treaty at Uxbridge, with much importunity for the general advantage and comfort of his people and to prepare matters more fitly for a peace, he desired there might be freedom of trade from Town to Town, and a Cessation of all Acts of Hostility for the time, that the inflammation being allayed, the wound might be cured the sooner: all which was denied him. 'Tis fit to remember how a Noble Lord at that time told the parliaments Commissioners in his majesty's Name, at the most unhappy rupture of the said Treaty, that when he was at the highest he would be ready to treat with them, and fight with them when he was at the lowest: 'Tis fit the pres●●● Army should remember how often both in their Propos●●●, and public Declarations they have informed the world, and deeply protested that their principal aim was to restore his majesty to honour, freedom and safety, whereunto they were formerly bound, both by their own Protestation and Covenant, that the two Commanders in chief pawned unto him their souls thereupon. Let them remember, that since he was first snatched away to their custody, he never displeased them in the least particular, but in all his Overtures for Peace, and all his Propositions he had regard still that the Army should be satisfied: let it be remembered, that to settle a blessed Peace to preserve his Subjects from rapine and ruin, and to give contentment to his parliament, he did in effect freely part with his Sword, sceptre, and Crown, and every thing that was personal to him: Let it be remembered with what an admired temper, with what prudence and constancy with what moderation and mansuetude he comported himself since his deep afflictions, insomuch that those Commissioners and others who resorted unto him, and had had their hearts so averse unto him before, returned his Converts, crying him up to be one of the sanctifiedst persons upon earth: and will not the blood of such a Prince cry aloud for vengeance?  
Let it be remembered, that though there be some Precedents of deposing Kings in this kingdom, and elsewhere, when there was a competition for the right Title to the Crown by some other of the blood royal, yet 'tis a thing not only unsampled, but unheard of in any age, that a King of England whose Title was without the least scruple, should be summoned and arraigned, tried, condemned, and executed in his own Kingdom, by his own Subjects, and by the name of their own King, to whom they had sworn allegiance.  
The meanest Barister that hath but tasted the Laws of the Land can tell you, that it is an unquestionable fundamental maxim, The King can do no wrong, because he acts by the mediation of his Agents and Ministers, he hears with other men's ears, he sees with other men's eyes, he consults with other men's brains, he executes with other men's hands, and judges with other men's consciences; therefore his Officers Counsellors or favourites are punishable, not 〈◊〉 and I know not one yet whom he hath spared, but sacrificed to Justice. The Crown of England is of so coruscant and pure a mettle, that it cannot receive the least taint or blemish; and if there were any before in the person of the Prince, it takes them all away and makes him to be Rectus in C●r●a. This as in many others may be exemplified in Henry the Seventh, and the late Queen Elizabeth: when the first came to the Crown 'twas mentioned in parliament, that the attainder might be taken off him, under which he lay all the time he lived an Exile in France; it was then by the whole House of parliament resolved upon the question, that it was unnecessary, because the Crown purged all. So likewise when Queen Elizabeth was brought as it were from the Scaffold to the Throne; though she was under a former attainder, yet 'twas thought superflous to take it off, for the Crown was lieth away all spots, and darteth such a brightness, such resplendent beams of Majesty, that quite dispel all former clouds: so that put case King James died a violent death, and his Son had been accessary to it (which is as base a lie as ever the devil belched out) yet his access to the Crown had purged all. This business about the plaster which was applied to King James, was sifted & winnowed as narrowly as possibly a thing could be in former parliaments, yet when it was exhibited as an Article against the Duke of Buckingham, 'twas termed but a presumption or misdemenour of a high nature: And 'tis strange that these new accusers should make that a parricide in the King, which was found but a presumption in the Duke, who in case it had been so, must needs have been the chiefest Accessary.  
And as the ancient Crown and royal Diadem of England is made of such pure allay, and cast in so dainty a mould, that it can receive no taint, or contract the least speck of enormity and foulness in itself, so it doth endow the person of the Prince that wears it with such high Prerogatives, that it exempts him from all sorts of public blemishes, from all Attainders, Empeachments, Summons, Arraignments and trials; nor is there or ever was any Law or Precedent in this Land, to lay any Crime or capital charge against him, though touching civil matters, touching property of meum and tuum, he may be impleaded by the meanest vassal that hath sworn fealty to him; as the Subjects of France, and Spain may against their Kings, though never so absolute Monarchs.  
In the Constitutions of England, there are two incontroulable maxims, whereof the meanest mootman that hath but saluted Littleton cannot be ignorant: the first is, Rex in suis Dominiis neque habet Parem, nec Superiorem. The King in his own Dominions hath neither Peer, or Superior. The other is Satis habet Rex ad poenam quod Deum expectet ultorem: 'tis punishment enough for a King that God will take revenge of him. Therefore if it be the fundamental Constitution of the Land, that all just trials must be by Peers, and the Law proclaims the King to have none in his own Dominions, I leave the world to judge, what capacity or power those men had to arraign the late King, to be in effect his Accusers and Judges; and that an exorbitant unsampled tribunal should be erected, with power and purpose to condemn all that came before it, to clear none, and that sentence of death should pass without conviction or Law upon Him that was the head and protector of all the laws. Lastly, that they who by their own confession represent but the Common people, should assume power to cut off Him who immediately represented God, 
— Cui dabit partes scelus expiandi  
Jupiter?—  Well, we have seen such portentous things, that former Ages never beheld, nor will future Ages ever be witness of the like: Nay, posterity, after a Century or two will hold what is now really acted to be but Romances: And now with thoughts full of consternation and horror; with a heartful of amazement and trembling for the flagrant and crying sins of this forlorn Nation, which hath drawn such an endless war, and an unheard of slavery upon itself, I will conclude with this short prayer, which carrieth with it as much of universal charity, as of particular: God amend all, and me first.  
FINIS.