pair of spectacles 
By a Member of the House of Commons.  
Printed in the Year 1648.   

A Pair of Crystal SPECTACKLES.  
IN the first place I will begin with our Brethren of Scotland Commissioners, what rare contradictions and practices they held forth in their papers, sometimes the King must not come to London, or be admitted to a personal Treaty, until he hath given security and satisfaction for all the Innocent blood he hath shed, etc. And then again, he must come without either, and sometimes Propositions and no personal Treaty, and at other times a personal Treaty and no Propositions, which are impositions, sometimes the King must take the Covenant, other-while if he come not to the length of our desire in so doing, we must be content; and sometimes they tell the King upon his refusing the Propositions, both kingdoms will be constrained, for mutual defence and safety, to agree to settle Religion and Peace without him; and then upon the turn of the tide, they tell us we must wait until God change his heart, and for the safety of the Kingdom the Army must be disbanded, the King invested in the Militia, or it in him; and when our Commissioners in Scotland tell them Barwick and Carlisle are taken, and demand reparations against those Malignants and Incendiaries they protected; they Answer, that when they know the parties names that have taken them, and the certainty those Garrisons be taken, than they will give the Parliament an answer; And were not they and their faction with the King, and all the Malignants and Papists, the first contrivers and abettors of this last personal Treaty; the King and his party being wholly conquered, and having no hopes but this left, which the Parliament, in the heat of all their War, with the advice of the Kingdom of Scotland, would never admit of: For had not the Lord Goring told you in his former intercepted Letters, that if the King could but cudgel the Parliament into a Treaty, the King had brought his designs to perfection; and reported of the King himself, that he should say, than it should not be in the power of men nor Devils, in hindering him from bringing all his Designs to his own hearts desire: Have you forgot how the last invitation of the Scots into England, and the Rebellions of Wales, Kent, and Essex, etc. and by whom countenanced? and in this last Treaty, with what a slight hand were Delinquents beaten, the first and last war, in this Treaty hath been passed over, and many seemed to be satisfied with the Kings Answer, though he will neither part from Episcopacy nor their Lands, nor with Delinquents, which by Covenant, Promise, and public Faith, we cannot comply with the King therein: And have you forgotten the King's unparalell uxoriousness and affections to the Queen? For doth he not tell you under his own hand, in his Letters taken at Nazeby, That he will be ever constant to the Rules and Grounds in the Little paper the Queen left with him? and That he would not desert the Bishops, and Papists, the Queen and his best friends: And hath he not endeavoured to bring in Irish and French Forces, etc. and promiseth to suspend all Laws against all Papists, both in England and Ireland? And have you forgotten the Queen's Letter, wherein she adviseth him in the first place to disband this perpetual Parliament, and then she saith, All the rest will easily follow. And be Judge yourselves, if all the Papists in all the 3 Kingdoms do not oppose this Parliament, and their friends that are most active, and were not Parliaments ever called by the King, Factious, etc. because they always stood in his way against the bringing in of Popery and tyranny. And hath he not endeavoured with the Bishops, and by juggling designs, by degrees to cheat us of our Religion, and to settle popery and Tyranny? And hath he not endeavoured to stir up factions and differences between the honest party in England & Scotland; that he might take advantage by such Division? And hath not he often broken his promise and protestations in many particulars which might be named? And did he not openly declare in Parliament, that he owes an account of his actions to none but to God alone, and that the Houses of Parliament, joint, or separate, have no power to make or declare a Law without him? And have you forgot what hath been reported about King Jamses death, and Marquis Hambleton? and what cutting and slitting of noses have been before this present Parliament; and Loans, Shipmoney, Star-Chamber, Council Table, High Commission Court, & Court of Wards, Monopolies; Knighthood, enlarging of Forests enclosing of Commons, and engrossing of Gun powder, Judges turned out of their places for doing their duties, and many hundred of other particulars might be here named; And were not the people forbidden so much as to speak of a Parliam. and when a Parliament was enforced to be called in May 1640. was it not dissolved after 14 days, because they would not engage against the Kingdom, in a War against the Scots? And is his Design in bringing up the Northern Armies forgotten? And his large offers to the Scots Army to be brought up to London to awe the Parliament, and his sending over the Jewels of the Crown, to be pawned by the Queen for Powder & Ammunition to fight for the Protestant Religion, and his sending for Papists horses, for to seat Protestant Riders upon, and then give his Commission to thousands of Papists to fight for him, contrary to his many promises and protestations. And did not Henderson that godly and learned Divine tell him, he had made 1500 Widows in one morning in Scotland, and do you not think there was a design by the King and his party to alter the Militia of London, whose faithfulness to the Parl. and City have been tried to the uttermost, in a fiery furnace of six years' Wars; And have you forgot the King's secret compliance with Secretary Windebank, in favouring of papists & priests, &c, whom the Scots call the Pope's Vicar. And is the Pope's Nuncio residing here, and his private transactions forgotten? And the Cardinal's cap sent to England, and the King's Agents at Rome, & his Letter to the Pope, & many other secret practices in this kind▪ to have brought in popery and Tyranny? And have you forgot the Duke of Buckingham the King's favourite, how well he managed the Militia of this Kingdom, & of the loss of Rochel in France, by the Kings lending his ships to the French K. & the Isle of Ree, & Cales Voyage, & the Grounds and reasons of the Quarrel? And have you forgot that ancient & true saying, That ancient Monarchy, is ancient Tyranny? And stick close to those in the Parl. & Army, which stand most against the King's prerogative, otherwise you will never get any to serve you, except such persons as Henry Jermin, and Jack Craffes, it is your disposition always to be murmuring at your present condition.  
Did ever Parliament take more pains, & ventured their lives and estates for you then this Par. hath done, against all unlimited and Prerogative power, claimed by the King or Clergy over them? And were not honest and active men, ever in former time called Puritans, if they had but public spirits, to stand for the liberty of the Subject? and then Round heads, and of late Independents, whatsoever their opinions be, because our enemies call them so, and by this cunning and subtle pretence, divers of your well-affected Citizens have been aiding and assisting to them in their Counsels and actions, endeavouring to destroy and disgrace those that have been the most eminent instruments under God to save us, and this City and Kingdom from Ruin and destruction: And this in plain English is the great offence that hath so much lost them in your good opinion and affection; And can any reasonable man think Antichrist lives only at Rome, & that we have scared him out of Engl. by hanging up half a score for the Powder-plot. But upon further search he was found going to Church with the King, where I saw him as busy as he could be bowing to the Altar, and reading in the Common Prayer book, and singing the Litany, and about a great deal more of such stuff, and for fear he should not be near enough, he crept into the King's bed, and now because the old name of Papist, Malignant and Cavaliers are grown so odious to the People, therefore this cunning high Priest of theirs teacheth them to call themselves Presbyterians, for he saith with so doing, and with some other tricks he hath, they shall gain a considerable party both of the City and Clergy, and also make a division in the House of Commons, and consequently in the Kingdom, until they have gotten the King into their power, and a considerable Army of French, and their Catholic Brethren of Ireland about them, and then he will put the Scots in mind they were the beginners of their troubles; and tell them that it is no deceit to deceive the deceiver, and they will then also, as they say, put London in mind of their former zeal to the Parliament; and let them know their good King hath always called them a rebellious City, and hath given them the City for their Arrears: And have you forgotten the bloody massacre in France, were none killed there think you but Independents, and what kind of Presbyterian government think you, you shall have settled by Langdale and the Northern Cavaliers, for they are turned Covenanters and have taken the Covenant, and the Irish Rebels and Papists must be assisting to them in this great work; and is it not now come to pass as it was in the Bishop's time before this Parliament, that all those that were very active Common wealth's men, and stood most for the Liberty of the Subjects, were they not called Puritans, than Roundheads, and of late Independents and Sectaries, etc. so that if our common Enemies of our peace have but as much wit as to call you Independents &c. according to these practices it is policy enough to destroy you all. And concerning Ireland it is clear by many several passages & by the examination of Mac cart, & Macquire, etc. that the pretence of men for the King of Spain's service, a year or two before the Rebellion in Ireland was, but a colour to keep some in Arms for a foundation of that Rebellion: And have you forgotten the first clause in the Oath enjoined by the supreme Catholic council at Kilkenny in Ireland, to owe Faith and Allegiance to King Charles, and by all means to maintain his Royal Prerogative against the Puritans in the Parliament of England, and that they call themselves the Kings and Queen's Army, and that they did nothing but by the King's command, etc. And the Parliament could not so much as obtain a Proclamation against them for divers months, though the King was daily pressed thereunto, and when the King had yielded that some might be printed, there must be but forty printed, and the King under his own hand, commanded that none of them must be published without further direction; and did he not in one of his Letters taken at Nazeby command the Earl of Ormond to give particular thanks to Muskerry and Plunket the two Archrebels in Ireland, and have you forgotten how the Earl of Leyster was delayed, and of the Kings refusing to give the Lord Brook and Wharton Commission when large Provisions were made for their journey into Ireland's; And had not divers of the Irish rebels private Passes from the King to pass from hence into Ireland for the Heading of the Rebels there, when all the Ports were shut by the King and Parliaments command, and when they wanted Command●rs at the beginning of their Rebellion; and have you forgotten the Irish General Oneales' letter to Monro the Scots General there, desiring him that those that could show the best Commission from the King might yield to each other; and my L. Digbies letter, the King's Secretary, taken when the L. Taffes Army in Ireland was beaten, in which he writes to him to be careful in engaging; for the King's designs and welfare did much depend upon his Army? And have you forgotten the many thousands of innocent souls that were barbarously murdered by the Rebels when the Irish Rebellion first broke out; with their barbarous cruelty to Cattles, etc. and all things that looked like English, and digging their bones out of their graves; and also the often and secret and private meetings every day at Whitehall, for 3. months together, with the Roman Catholic Commissioners, and soon after their return into Ireland the Rebellion broke out. And because many have forgotten the Commission, which though formerly hath been printed, and affirmed upon Oath to be the true copy, the I rish say they have under black and white from his Majesty for what they have done and do, I will conclude with the last Branch verbatim of this Commission, as it is printed in the Book called the Mystery of Iniquity.  
You are to use all politic ways and means possible to possess yourselves for Our use and safety of all the Forts and Castles, and places of strength and defence within the said Kingdom, except the places, persons and estates, of Our loyal and loving Subjects the Scots, and also to arrest, and seize the goods, estates, and persons of all the English Protestants within the said Kingdom to our use: And in your care and speedy performance of this our will and pleasure, we shall perceive your wont duty and allegiance unto us, which we shall accept, and reward in due time: Witness ourselves at Edinburgh, the first of October in the seventeenth year of our Reign.  
And now Reader judge, if it stands with divine Providence, after so much blood and misery, to have a bare, and a base covenanting breaking Accommodation and Peace ●●●h this man.  
FINIS.