good, that they might demonstrate perforce unto the King the miserable estate of the commonwealth? The sum of their request was, that the three estates might meet; and, when they did meet, there were chosen twelve out of every state by the parliament, so that there were thirtysix chosen in all to reform the grievances of that kingdom; and the King promised his faith, that he would ratify whatsoever those thirtysix should present to him; but Lewis the Eleventh broke his faith, which was the cause of the war that continued thirteen years afterwards; and so the perjury of the King, with his own infamy, and the destruction of the people, was expiated. The historians, that this history are gathered out of, are Philip de Com. Lib. cap. ii. N. Gillius, Lib, fol. 152. Guagninus in vita ejusdem Ludov. Monstrolettus Oliverius Lamarcius Belga. Hist. cap. 35. I must tell you, this King was neither weak in body or mind, for he was about forty, and, for his natural parts, surpassed all the Kings of France. To make the controversy more plain, There was a difference between this Lewis and Charles his brother, in 1468, upon which the parliament did decree the King should give some Duchy which did not belong to the crown; besides, they did decree that the King should pay him yearly, out of his own treasure, a great sum of money." Britan. Amor commemorat. Lib.iv. fol. 200. Gasco de Beirna, in 1275, was besieged by Edward King of England; Gasco appeals to the parliament, and Edward would not detract it, but did commit it to his officers, lest he should, if he had detracted it, make the French King, to whom he had lately dome homage for some land he held there, a party against him; but that which makes this case most perspicuous, is that of Edward the Third, and Philip of France, in 1328: The contention arising betwixt them two for the kingdom of France, they both of them submitted to the censure of the parliament of that kingdom; the parliament judged the kingdom to Philip, neither did King Edward detract that judgment, he paying of him homage for Aquitain a few years after. Thomas Walsingham. In this all the French historians agree as well as England. Polydor. Virgil. Lib. xix. Thomas Walsingham sub Edwardo tertio.

But, of all the institutions of countries, there is none so memorable as that of the Spaniards, who, when they create Kings in the council of Arragon, and that it may be the better remembered, they present a man upon whom they place this inscription, Jus Arragonicum, whom they do publickly decree to be greater and more powerful than the King; when that is done, they speak to their King, being created upon certain laws and conditions, in these words, which we will produce, because they will shew a notable and singular stoutness of that nation, in curbing their Kings, Nos que valemos tanto come vos y podemos mas que vos elegimos Rei, con est as y estas conditiones, intra vos y nos un que mandamas que vos; 'We that are as great as you are, and are of more power than you, have chosen you our King, upon these and these conditions, betwixt you and us, there is one that is of more power than you. The examples are infinite that the French have made of their Kings, and their Kings children, so that I will instance no more than I have done; for these testimonies are the more to be noted and observed, because they do clearly demonstrate, that the chief right and arbitrement hath

been of the people, not only of chusing Kings, but also of refusing, and repulsing the sons of their dead King, and chusing others in their

rooms.

The lawyers now expecting the day, there starts up one, and puts into the court a Quare impedit: for which his reason was, that, though these things have been done thus and thus, yet the fact doth not prove the consequence, that they ought to be done. The lawyer presently replied, that this caveat of his might not be approved of, being most ridiculous; which conceives, that a whole kingdom should not judge better of that which they have made so often trial of, than this man or that man. If the reason of many might be brought into question by this or that man's opinion, I would put this question to any man to prove by reason, being no more indemonstrable than the other question, that man is reasonable: If he would give me an answer, I think that he could have no other proof that this is, or that is to be reason, than the general consent and approvement of this and that society: But, since the beginning of the world, there hath nothing been so absurd, but it hath found one patron. I do wonder what government the objector would have in the world, if most voices might not prevail. Doth not the divine think his controversy the strongest, when he hath most fathers with him; or the civil lawyer when he pleads, doth not he carry it when he quotes the most authors? All that can be said by them, is, the King will not admit of it for reason; and perhaps they will say, the kingdom is a party as well as the King, and therefore a by-stander may see more: If a bystander may see more, I will bring him in, and he shall be no other than a King (mistake me not, I mean a King of reason) it is Aristotle, who was greatest with the greatest monarch, The King must neither kill nor banish, no not for a time, nor in any one part must he domineer. [For it is not fit the part should be above the whole.] Neither hath wise Aristotle, who dipped his pen in reason, left the King without a commanding strength over his disobedient subjects, nor the kingdom unfortified from incroaching Kings; he writes thus: There remains one question concerning his strength, whether a King ought to have any, whereby he may compel his disobedient subjects to him, ruling according to the law, or after what manner he shall execute his office, altho' he be a just prince, and doth not prefer his will above the law, yet it is necessary that he have power whereby he may protect the laws; it is quickly resolved of, and not difficult to determine what power such a King should have; his power ought to be more than any one private man's, or more, yet less than the kingdom's. So that, if Aristotle speak truth, upon whom all human knowledge is built on, no man can deny this conclusion, That the King out of his courts hath a superior, which is the law, the King in the court: So that I wonder more and more, than any man can maintain there can be long any government so long as this tenet is maintained, that a King is not answerable for his misgovernment, and that we must wait God's justice and providence; and we must, in the mean time, stand like the man in Æsop, who, when his cart stuck fast in the dirt, did nothing but pray to Jupiter, that he would pull his cart out of the dirt for him: But he had answer made, Jupiter would not help him, unless he would help himself; and,

after he had put to his helping hand, then he had his prayer granted. Nor must we think so of providence, that we must think ourselves nothing. Plotonus in Theod. de Providentia Dei, fol. 98. O that men would seriously consider, that a more pernicious tenet to the Kings themselves cannot be hatched, for the subjects will continually be suspicious of their princes, and so will never love them truly, so long as Kings nourish their basilisks. Arist. Rhet. Lib. vii. For what more hopes can we have of Kings than of popes, unless God would by his extraordinary means enlighten them? We have read into what exorbitances popes, (tho' grave and learned men, have run unto, by reason they bolstered up themselves by this tenet, of being answerable to none but God, till at last they were reduced to censure by the council of Basil, All that can be pretended in reason, why we should not resist evil princes, is, because that civil wars will follow, and so there will be greater bloodshed: I answer, we do usually remember evils better than benefits, for the one is written in marble, the other in sand. It happens so sometimes; but sure I am, that, after their removals, the next three or four successors will be more cautelous, and so will their friends be that shall take their parts. Caligula and Nero died without revenge, and in good time, or else, I think, they would not have left a senator. Observe but the princes that succeeded Nero, until you come to Domitian, and you shall find the Romans were not weary of them, and likewise after Domitian again. But here my pen shall stop, and we will leave the lawyer in good hopes, to get the cause against the tyrant, for, if the council will not judge, yet the tyrant will judge himself; for, when he judged by the law, he is judged by his own word; for, by his word and will, it was made when he was King; but, if this will not serve, his law books the lawyer will burn, and he will never study more, unless in the court. Tyrannicarum Crudelitatum Exempla. Astulphus in Offeina. Hist. Lib. iii. cap. 6.

THE

CHARACTER OF AN OXFORD INCENDIARY.

Printed for Robert White, in 1643. Quarto, containing eight pages.

A

N Oxford incendiary is a court salamander, whose proper element is fire: An Englishman, yet lives by antiperistasis to his native climate, and turns our northern temperate into the torrid zone. All antient philosophers are by him confuted, having made one region more of fire than they dreamed of; nor is it any wonder, seeing he creates new prodigies every day,

I suppose him lineally descended from St. George's fiery dragon; and, if you please to inquire of Doctor Heylin, he may chance to make good the heraldry. But, whosoever was the sire, mother he hath none that I can hear of; nor do I believe that nature, our common mother, will own the monster. For his name, you may, if you please, make bold with Ovid, and call him Phacton, for he rules the chariot of the sun, and, having gotten the reins in his own hand, hurries all into combustion; yet the desperate wretch cares not, so he may work a metamorphosis upon the nation, or mingle his own with the kingdom's

ashes.

His birth-place I take to be Mount Etna; there Empedocles acted the man-midwife, and delivered him out at the tonnels. If the pope want a leiger for purgatory, none can fit him better; he being of a constitution and religion suitable to the service.

But his employment must be altogether at home, else the deluded fraternity will grow chill in their designs here; and to them there's no sport without a fire drake, or an Ignis Fatuus.

To be a little more plain; an Oxford incendiary is the excrement of ill-governed monarchy; the vast volume of treason wrapped up in an epitome; one that feeds the vulture prerogative with the carcase of the commonwealth, that it may disgorge into his own coffers; and makes a mule, to say no worse of Majesty, to carry him through all his own private designs against the publick.

Yet, notwithstanding his proper sphere is the court, there he shines a bright constellation of royal favour, though the whole kingdom beside take him for a prodigious comet, and behold him with the same countenance as they did that in the year 1618. Nor is it without reason, when the meanest prognosticator cries, that he portends the ruin of some great princes. Upon his influence depends the almanack of treason, exactly calculated for the several meridians of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland; for from thence you may judge of all eclipses between King and parliament, or tell what weather will be in Great Britain the whole year following.

Thus Jupiter and Mars, meeting in conjunction at York, with a direful aspect threatened misery to the nation; though it produced no effect, till an interposition of malignants at Shrewsbury, and an oblique course of Venus from Holland, bade us expect a deluge of blood.

Indeed it may serve for Great Britain and Ireland, with very little (or no) difference; for the tragedy and actors are the same, only the scenes are several, the better to dress out the plot, and make it seem more intricate: Thus the rare Irish commission was begotten of English parents, when the Earl of Antrim was made a godfather to the design; though Ormond had rather forfeit his honour and conscience, than say they were English hands which cut the protestants throats with an Irish knife.

But this is not all, the train of gunpowder reaches to Scotland; and there they light matches to blow up the fidelity of that nation: Which not taking effect upon the heads, then squib-cracks are tied to the very breech of Thule, to set fire on the highland wilderness; for in such

barren places is their harvest: Rare vipers! who thrive best out of the sun-shine, in the dark caves of barbarism and ignorance.

But stand off, or provide an antidote: The most prodigious serpent comes crawling this way; some monstrous African or American, for sure it is not of the British brood; yet every cavalier carries it in his bosom, like a tame snake: It is the commission of array, a very flying dragon hatched in a conventicle of spit-fires; an illegitimate by-blow to supplant the militia. It was spawned at Whitehall; there the cockbrained crew ingendered with their master's female understanding: At York it became an egg, O that it had then been crushed! But afterwards, scarce pen-feathered, it ventured a flight toward Hull; yet fell short, and was sore bruised. Notwithstanding this, it crept to Nottingham; and there, in hope of recovery, voided a standard with a declaration or two, evident symptoms of a bloody flux at hand.

But the leeches, not able to draw blood there, betook themselves westward toward Wales; and then fell to sucking at the nether postern of the kingdom: It was time then to cast the water of the state, and purge out the excrements of the body politick.,

1

Now the game begins; room for the Roman actors: Here the bishops rack themselves in a pulpit, vomiting up daggers, like Hocus, to amaze the people; doctrine cannon-proof, and let the devil make If the pope be application, so he can convert all to his Majesty's use. commander in chief, it is but reason they should be major-generals; and for inferior officers, deans and arch-deacons the only colonels; prebends lieutenant-colonels; big-bellied parsons majors; vicars captains; curates ensigns: And for the rest, they cannot be wanting, when there are whole swarms of the same breed of caterpillars in both universities.

These are spaniels to the incendiary in hope of preferment: He leads them in couples, breeds them to fetch and carry after his own humour, and to be at the word of command: But the sport is, to see a dog handle a drum-stick; yet these docile creatures will do it, and beat up their drums in all churches and chapels, to alarm the people against reformation and the parliament. This black brigade are of the same lineage with the incendiary, he hugs them as his white boy: And to say the truth, there is not a hair's difference between them; the chief of the prelatical clergy being the principal, if not the only fire-men: And therefore it cannot be amiss to present them in the first rank of tragedians, seeing our scene is the precious university of Oxford.

As the prologue before the play, enter Canterbury, the pope's pigmy-champion, the meritorious traitor, the catholick demi-culvering, the Reverend Granado; who lived to set all on fire, yet escaped the martyrdom of hanging to be quenched upon a scaffold; whereas the other kind of death had been more suitable to his life, having always been a pendant in the ear of Majesty. This is he that took water lately at the tower, being bound for the Red Sca; but that, for his presumption in comparing himself with Christ and his apostles, and threatening Charon with the star-chamber, he over-turned the ferry-boat, and let him drop into purgatory: Thus it is to quarrel with a waterman, A broom, a broom; sweep the stage: Here comes religion in slip

VOL. V.

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