XX. Upon the Reformation of the Times.

THIS chapter cannot punctually be answered without more repetitions than now can be excusable: which perhaps have already been more humoured than was needful. As it presents us with nothing new, so with his exceptions against reformation pitifully old, and tattered with continual using; not only in his book, but in the words and writings of every papist and popish king. On the scene he thrusts out first an antimasque of bugbears, novelty, and perturbation; that the ill looks and noise of those two may as long as possible drive off all endeavours of a reformation. Thus sought pope Adrian, by representing the like vain terrors, to divert and dissipate the zeal of those reforming princes of the age before in Germany. And if we credit Latimer's sermons, our papists here in England pleaded the same dangers and inconveniences against that which was reformed by Edward the Sixth. Whereas if those fears had been available, Christianity itself had never been received. Which Christ foretold us would not be admitted, without the censure of novelty, and many great commotions. These therefore are not to deter us.

He grants reformation to be "a good work," and confesses "what the indulgence of times and corruption of manners might have depraved." So did the forementioned pope, and our grandsire papists in this realm. Yet all of them agree in one song with this here, that "they are sorry to see so little regard had to laws established, and the religion settled."

"Popular compliance, dissolution of all order and government in the church, schisms, opinions, undecencies, confusions, sacrilegious invasions, contempt of the clergy and their liturgy, diminution of princes;" all these complaints are to be read in the messages and speeches almost of every legate from the pope to those states and cities which began reformation. From whence he either learned the same pretences, or had them naturally in him from the same spirit. Neither was there ever so sincere a reformation that hath escaped these clamours.

He offered a "synod or convocation rightly chosen." So offered all those popish kings heretofore; a course the most unsatisfactory, as matters have been long carried, and found by experience in the church liable to the greatest fraud and packing; no solution, or redress of evil, but an increase rather; detested therefore by Nazianzen, and some other of the fathers. And let it be produced, what good hath been done by synods from the first times of reformation.

Not to justify what enormities the vulgar may commit in the rudeness of their zeal, we need but only instance how he bemoans "the pulling down of crosses" and other superstitious monuments, as the effect "of a popular and deceitful reformation." How little this savours of a protestant, is too easily perceived.

What he charges in defect of "piety, charity, and morality," hath been also charged by papists upon the best reformed churches; not as if they the accusers were not tenfold more to be accused, but out of their malignity to all endeavour of amendment; as we know who accused to God the sincerity of Job; an accusation of all others the most easy, when as there lives not any mortal man so excellent, who in these things is not always deficient. But the infirmities of the best men, and the scandals of mixed hypocrites in all times of reforming, whose bold intrusion covets to be ever seen in things most sacred, as they are most specious, can lay no just blemish upon the integrity of others, much less upon the purpose of refor

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XXL Upon ha en uker and cruise

The King's letters taken at the battle of Naseby, being of greatest in pomance to set Le people see what fault there was in s promises and wenn protesations, were transcared to pule wiew is special order of Le parliament Ther casernered his groc afermo parists and Fish reves, the strict intelligere be the permitious and dis Lonourable peace be made with them, bot solacred, but rather solarving, which by a.. invocations that were hoy, be han in pure. They revealed his endeavours to bring in foreign forces, Irish, French, Dutch, Lorrainers, and our old invaders the Danes upon us, besides his subtleties and mysterious arts in treating; to sum up all, they showed him governed by a woman. All which, though suspected vehemently before, and from good grounds believed, yet by him and his adherents peremptorily denied, were by the opening of that cabinet visible to all men under his own hand.

The parliament therefore, to clear themselves of aspersing him without cause, and that the people might no longer be abused and cajoled, as they call it, by falsities and court impudence, in matters of so high concernment; to let them know on what terms their duty stood, and the kingdom's peace, conceived it most expedient and necessary, that those letters should be made public. This, the king affirms, was by them done without "honour and civility;" words, which if they contain not in them, as in the language of a courtier most commonly they do not, more of substance and reality, than compliment, ceremony, court-fawning, and dissembling, enter not I suppose further than the ear into any wise man's consideration. Matters were not then between the parliament, and a king their enemy, in that state of trifling, as to observe those superficial vanities. But if honour and civility mean, as they did of old, discretion, honesty, prudence, and plain truth, it will be then maintained against any sect of those Cabalists, that the parliament, in doing what they did with those letters, could suffer in their honour and civility no diminution. The reasons are already heard.

And that it is with none more familiar than with kings, to transgress the bounds of all honour and civility, there should not want examples good store, if brevity would permit: in point of letters, this one shall suffice.

The duchess of Burgundy, and heir of duke Charles, had promised to her subjects, that she intended no otherwise to govern, than by advice of the three estates; but to Lewis the French king had written letters, that she had resolved to commit wholly the managing of her affairs to four persons, whom she named. The three estates, not doubting the sincerity of her princely word, send ambassadors to Lewis, who then besieged Arras belonging to the duke of Burgundy. The king, taking hold of this occasion to set them at division among themselves, questioned their credence : which when they offered to produce with their instructions, he not only shows them the private letter of their duchess, but gives it them to carry home, wherewith to affront her; which they did, she denying it stoutly; till they, spreading it before her face in a full assembly, convicted her of an open lie. Which, although Comines the historian much blames, as a deed too harsh and dishonourable in them who were subjects, and not at war with their princess, yet to his master Lewis, who first divulged those letters, to the open shaming of that young governess, he imputes no incivility or dishonour at all, although betraying a certain confidence reposed by that letter in his royal secrecy.

With much more reason then may letters not intercepted only, but won in battle from an enemy, be made public to the best advantages of them that win them, to the discovery of such important truth or falsehood. Was it not more dishonourable in himself to feign suspicions and jealousies, which we first found among those letters, touching the chastity of his mother, thereby to gain assistance from the king of Denmark, as in vindication of his sister? The damsel of Burgundy at sight of her own letter was soon blank, and more ingenuous than to stand outfacing; but this man, whom nothing will convince, thinks by talking world without end, to make good his integrity and fair dealing, contradicted by his own hand and seal. They who can pick nothing out of them but phrases shall be counted bees: they that discern further both there and here, that constancy to his wife is set in place before laws and religion, are in his naturalities no better than spiders.

He would work the people to a persuasion, that "if he be miserable, they cannot be happy." What should hinder them? Were they all born twins of Hippocrates with him and his fortune, one birth, one burial? It were a nation miserable indeed, not worth the name of a nation, but a race of idiots, whose happiness and welfare depended upon one man. The happiness of a nation consists in true religion, piety, justice, prudence, temperance, fortitude, and the contempt of avarice and ambition. They in whomsoever these virtues dwell eminently, need not kings to make them happy, but are the architects of their own happiness; and whether to themselves or others are not less than kings. But in him which of these virtues were to be found, that might extend to the making happy, or the well-governing of so much as his own household, which was the most licentious and ill-governed in the whole land?

But the opening of his letters was designed by the parliament "to make all reconciliation desperate." Are the lives of so many good and faithful men, that died for the freedom of their country, to be so slighted as to be forgotten in a stupid reconcilement without justice done them? What he fears not by war and slaughter, should we fear to make desperate by opening his letters? Which fact he would parallel with Cham's revealing of his father's nakedness: when he at that time could be no way esteemed the Father of his Country, but the destroyer; nor had he ever before merited that former title.

"He thanks God he cannot only bear this with patience, but with charity forgive the doers." Is not this mere mockery, to thank God for what he can do, but will not? For is it patience to impute barbarism and inhumanity to the opening of an enemy's letter, or is it charity to clothe them with curses in his prayer, whom he hath forgiven in his discourse? In which prayer, to show how readily he can return good for evil to the parliament, and that if they take away his coat he can let them have his cloak also; for the dismantling of his letters he wishes "they may be covered with the cloak of confusion." Which I suppose they do resign with much willingness, both livery, badge, and cognizance, to them who chose rather to be the slaves and vassals of his will, than to stand against him, as men by nature free; born and created with a better title to their freedom, than any king hath to his

crown.

XXII. Upon his going to the Scots.

THE king's coming in, whether to the Scots or English, deserved no thanks: for necessity was his counsellor; and that he hated them both alike, his expressions everywhere manifest. Some say his purpose was to have come to London, till hearing how strictly it was proclaimed, that no man should conceal him, he diverted his course. But that had been a frivolous excuse: and besides, he himself rehearsing the consultations had, before he took his journey, shows us clearly that he was determined to adventure "upon their loyalty who first began his troubles." And that the Scots had notice of it before, hath been long since brought to light. What prudence there could be in it, no man can imagine; malice there might be, by raising new jealousies to divide friends. For besides his diffidence of the English, it was no small dishonour that he put upon them, when rather than yield himself to the parliament of England, he yielded to a hireling army of Scots in England, paid for their service here, not in Sotch coin, but in English silver; nay, who from the first beginning of these troubles, what with brotherly assistance, and what with monthly pay have defended their own liberty and consciences at our charge. However, it was a hazardous and rash journey taken, "to resolve riddles in men's loyalty," who had more reason to mistrust the riddle of such a disguised yielding; and to put himself in their hands whose loyalty was a riddle to him, was not the course to be resolved of it, but to tempt it. What providence denied to force, he thought it might grant to fraud, which he styles Prudence; but Providence was not cozened with disguises, neither outward nor inward.

To have known "his greatest danger in his supposed safety, and his greatest safety, in his supposed danger," was to him a fatal riddle never yet resolved; wherein rather to have employed his main skill, had been much more to his preservation.

Had he "known when the game was lost," it might have saved much contest; but the way to give over fairly, was not to slip out of open war into a new disguise. He lays down his arms, but not his wiles; nor all his arms; for in obstinacy he comes no less armed than ever cap à pé. And what were they but wiles, continually to move for treaties, and yet to persist the same man, and to fortify his mind before-hand, still purposing to grant no more than what seemed good to that violent and lawless triumvirate within him, under the falsified names of his reason, honour, and conscience, the old circulating dance of his shifts and evasions?

The words of a king, as they are full of power, in the authority and strength of law, so like Samson, without the strength of that Nazarite's lock, they have no more power in them than the words of another man.

He adores reason as Domitian did Minerva, and calls her the "Divinest power," thereby to intimate as if at reasoning, as at his own weapon, no man were so able as himself. Might we be so happy as to know where these monuments of his reason may be seen; for in his actions and his writing they appear as thinly as could be expected from the meanest parts, bred up in the midst of so many ways extraordinary to know something. He who reads his talk, would think he had left Oxford not without mature deliberation: yet his prayer confesses, that "he knew not what to do." Thus is verified that Psalm; "he poureth contempt upon princes, and causeth them to wander in the wilderness where there is no way." Psal. cvii.

XXIII. Upon the Scots delivering the king to the English.

THAT the Scots in England should "sell their king," as he himself here affirms, and for a "price so much above that," which the covetousness of Judas was contented with to sell our Saviour, is so foul an infamy and dishonour cast upon them, as befits none to vindicate but themselves. And it were but friendly counsel to wish them beware the son, who comes among them with a firm belief, that they sold his father. The rest of this chapter he sacrifices to the echo of his conscience, out-babbling creeds and aves: glorying in his resolute obstinacy, and as it were triumphing how "evident it is now, not that evil counsellors," but he himself, hath been the author of all our troubles. Herein only we shall disagree to the world's end, while he, who sought so manifestly to have annihilated all our laws and liberties, hath the confidence to persuade us, that he hath fought and suffered all this while in their defence.