point were willing to have done, when firft after the war begun, they petitioned him at Colebrook to vouchfafe a treaty, is not unknown. For after he had taken God to witnefs of his continual readiness to treat, or to offer treaties to the avoiding of bloodshed, had named Windfor the place of treaty, and paffed his royal word not to advance further, till commiffioners by fuch a time were fpeeded towards him; taking the advantage of a thick mift, which fell that evening, weather that foon invited him to a defign no lefs treacherous and obfcure; he follows at the heels of thofe meffengers of peace with a train of covert war; and with a bloody furprise falls on our fecure forces, which lay quartering at Brentford in the thoughts and expectation of a treaty. And although in them who make a trade of war, and against a natural enemy, fuch an onfet might in the rigour of martial law have been excufed, while arms were not yet by agreement fufpended; yet by a king, who feemed.fo heartily to accept of treating with his fubjects, and profeffes here, "he never wanted either defire or difpofition to it, profeffes to have greater confidence in his reafon than in his fword, and as a chriftian to feek peace and enfue it,” fuch bloody and deceitful advantages would have been forborne one day at least, if not much longer; in whom there had not been a thirft rather than a deteftation of civil war and blood, and a defire to fubdue rather than to treat.

In the midst of a fecond treaty not long after, fought by the parliament, and after much ado obtained with him at Oxford, what fubtle and unpeaceable defigns he then had in chace, his own letters difcovered: What attempts of treacherous hoftility fuccefsful and unfuccessful he made against Bristol, Scarborough, and other places, the proceedings of that treaty will foon put us in mind: and how he was fo far from granting more of reafon after fo much of blood, that he denied then to grant, what before he had offered; making no other use of treaties pretending peace, than to gain advantages that might enable him to continue war: What marvel then

* The fecond edition has military.

if "he thought it no diminution of himfelf," as oft as he faw his time, "to be importunate for treaties," when he fought them only as by the upfhot appeared, "to get opportunities?" And once to a moft cruel purpose, if we remember May 1643. And that meffenger of peace from Oxford, whofe fecret meffage and commiffion, had it been effected, would have drowned the innocence of our treating, in the blood of a defigned maffacre. Nay, when treaties from the parliament fought out him, no less than seven times, (oft enough to teftify the willingnefs of their obedience, and too oft for the majefty of a parliament to court their fubjection) he, in the confidence of his own ftrength, or of our divifions, returned us nothing back but denials, or delays, to their most neceffary demands; and being at loweft, kept up ftill and fuftained his almoft famifhed hopes with the hourly expectation of railing up himfelf the higher, by the greater heap which he fat promifing himself of our fudden ruin through diffenfion.

But he infers, as if the parliament would have compelled him to part with fomething of "his honour as a king." What honour could he have, or call his, joined not only with the offence or difturbance, but with the bondage and deftruction of three nations? whereof, though he be carelefs and improvident, yet the parliament, by our laws and freedom, ought to judge, and ufe prevention; our laws elfe were but cobweb laws. And what were all his moft rightful honours, but the people's gift and the inveftment of that luftre, majefty, and honour, which for the public good, and no otherwife, redounds from a whole nation into one perfon? So far is any honour from being his to a common mischief and calamity. Yet ftill he talks on equal terms with the grand reprefentative of that people, for whose fake he was a king; as if the general welfare and his fubfervient rights were of equal moment or confideration. His aim indeed hath ever been to magnify and exalt his borrowed rights and prerogatives above the parliament and kingdom, of whom he holds them. But when a king fets himself to bandy against the highest court and refidence of all his regal power, he then, in the fingle VOL. III.

E

perfon

perfon of a man, fights against his own majefty and king thip, and then, indeed fets the firft hand to his own depofing.

"The treaty at Uxbridge," he faith, gave the faireft hopes of a happy compofure;" faireft indeed, if his instructions to bribe our commiffioners with the promise of fecurity, rewards, and places, were fair: what other hopes it gave, no man can tell. There being but three main heads whercon to be treated; Ireland, epifcopacy, and the militia; the firft was anticipated and forestalled by a peace at any rate to be haftened with the Irish rebels, ere the treaty could begin, that he might pretend his word and honour paffed againft "the fpecious and popular arguments" (he calls them no better) which the parliament would urge upon him for the continuance of that juft war. Epifcopacy he bids the queen be confident he will never quit: which informs us by what patronage it ftood: and the fword he refolves to clutch as faft, as if God with his own hand had put it into his. This was the "moderation which he brought;" this was "as far as reafon, honour, confcience," and the queen, who was his regent in all these, "would give him leave. Lafily, "for compofure," inftead of happy, how miferable it was more likely to have been, wife men could then judge; when the English, during treaty, were called rebels; the Irifh, good and catholic fubjects; and the parliament beforehand, though for fashion's fake called a parliament, yet by a jefuitical fleight not acknowledged, though called fo; but privately in the council books enrolled no parliament: that if accommodation had fucceeded, upon what terms foever, fuch a devilish. fraud was prepared, that the king in his own efteem had been abfolved from all performance, as having treated with rebels and no parliament; and they, on the other fide, inftead of an expected happiness, had been brought under the hatchet.. Then no doubt "war had ended," that maffacre and tyranny might begin. Thefe jealousies, however raifed, let all men fee whether they be diminifhed or allayed, by the letters of his own cabinet opened. And yet the breach of this treaty is laid all upon the parliament and their commiflioners, with odious

5

names

names of "pertinacy, hatred of peace, faction, and covetoufnefs," nay, his own brat "fuperftition" is laid to their charge; notwithstanding his here profeffed refolution to continue both the order, maintenance, and authority, of prelates, as a truth of God.

And who "were moft to blame in the unfuccessfulness of that treaty," his appeal is to God's decifion; believing to be very excufable at that tribunal. But if ever man gloried in an unflexible ftiffnets, he came not behind any; and that grand maxim, always to put fomething into his treaties, which might give colour to refuse all that was in other things granted, and to make them fignify nothing, was his own principal maxim and particular inftructions to his commiffioners. Yet all, by his own verdict, muft be conftrued reafon in the king, and depraved temper in the parliament.

That the "highest tide of fuccefs," with thefe principles and defigns," fet him not above a treaty," no great wonder. And yet if that be spoken to his praise, the parliament therein furpaffed him; who, when he was their vanquished and their captive, his forces utterly broken and difbanded, yet offered him three feveral times no worfe proposals or demands, than when he ftood fair to be their conqueror. But that imprudent furmise that his lowest ebb could not fet him "below a fight," was a prefumption that ruined him.

He prefaged the future "unfuccefsfulness of treaties, by the unwillingnefs of fome men to treat ;" and could not fee what was prefent, that their unwillingness had good caufe to proceed from the continual experience of his own obftinacy and breach of word.

His prayer therefore of forgivenefs to the guilty of "that treaty's breaking," he had good reafon to say heartily over, as including no man in that guilt fooner than himself.

As for that proteftation following in his prayer, prayer, "how oft have I entreated for peace, but when I fpeak thereof they make them ready to war;" unless he thought himfelf ftill in that perfidious mift between Colebrook and Hounflow, and thought that mift could hide him from the eye of Heaven as well as of man, after fuch a bloody recompenfe

E 2

recompenfe given to our firft offers of peace, how could this in the fight of Heaven without horrours of confcience be uttered?

XIX. Upon the various events of the War.

IT is no new or unwonted thing, for bad men to claim as much part in God as his beft fervants; to ufurp and imitate their words, and appropriate to themselves thofe properties, which belong only to the good and righteous. This not only in Scripture is familiarly to be found, but here alfo in this chapter of Apocrypha. He tells us much, why "it pleafed God" to fend him victory or lofs (although what in fo doing was the intent of God, he might be much mistaken as to his own particular) but we are yet to learn what real good ufe he made thereof in his practice.

Thofe numbers, which he grew to "from finall beginnings," were not fuch as out of love came to protect him, for none approved his actions as a king, except courtiers and prelates, but were fuch as fled to be protected by him from the fear of that reformation which the pravity of their lives would not bear. Such a snowball he might eafily gather by rolling through thofe cold and dark provinces of ignorance and lewdness, where on a fudden he became fo numerous. He imputes that to God's "protection," which, to them who perfift in a bad caufe, is either his long-fuffering or his hardening; and that to wholesome "chaftifement," which were the gradual beginnings of a fevere punishment. For if neither God nor nature put civil power in the hands of any whomfoever, but to a lawful end, and commands our obedience to the authority of law only, not to the tyrannical force of any perfon; and if the laws of our land have placed the fword in no man's fingle hand, fo much as to unfheath against a foreign enemy, much lefs upon the native people; but have placed it in that elective body of the parliament, to whom the making, repealing, judging, and interpreting of law itself was alfo committed, as was fitteft, fo long as we intended to be a free nation,

and