of the chancel of every such church, chapel, or other such place of publick prayer: And that all rails whatsoever, which have been erected near to, before, or about any altar, or communion-table, in any of the said churches or chapels, or other such place of publick prayer as aforesaid, shall, before the said day, be likewise taken away; and the chancel-ground of every such church or chapel, or other place of publick prayer, which hath been, within twenty years last past, raised for any altar or communion-table to stand upon, shall, before the said day, be laid down and levelled, as the same was before the said twenty years last past: And that all tapers, candlesticks, and basons shall, before the said day, be removed and taken away from the communion-table, in every such church, chapel, or other place of publick prayer; and neither the same nor any such like shall be used about the same, at any time after the said day: And that all crucifixes, crosses, and all images and pictures of any one or more persons of the trinity, or of the virgin Mary, and all other images and pictures of saints, or superstitious inscriptions in or upon all and every the said churches or chapels, or other places of publick prayer; church-yards, or other places to any the said churches and chapels, or other place of publick prayer belonging, or in any other open place, shall, before the said first day of November, be taken away and defaced, and none of the like hereafter permitted in any such church, or chapel, or other places, as aforesaid. And be it further ordained, That all and every such removal of the said altars, tables of stone, communion-tables, tapers, candlesticks and basons, crucifixes and crosses, images and pictures, as aforesaid, taking away of the said rails, and levelling of the said grounds shall be done and performed; and the walls, windows, grounds, and other places, which shall be broken, impaired, or altered by any the means aforesaid, shall be made up and repaired in good and sufficient manner, in all and every of the said parish-churches or chapels, or usual places of publick prayer belonging to any parish, by the church-warden or church-wardens of every such parish, for the time being, respectively; and, in any cathedral or collegiate church or chapel, by the dean or sub-dean, or other chief officer of every such church or chapel, for the time being; and, in the universities, by the several heads and governors of every college or hall respectively; and, in the several inns of court, by the benchers and readers of every of the same respectively, at the cost and charges of all and every such person or persons, body politick or corporate, or parishioners of every parish respectively, to whom the charge of the repair of any such church, chapel, chancel, or place of publick prayer, or other part of such church or chapel, or place of publick prayer, doth or shall belong. And, in case default be made in any of the premisses, by any of the person or persons thereunto appointed by this ordinance, from and after the said first day of November, which shall be in the year of our Lord God 1643, that then every such person or persons, so making default, shall for every such neglect or default, by the space of twenty days, forfeit and lose forty shillings, to the use of the poor of the said parish, wherein such default shall be made: Or, if it be out of any parish, then to the use of the poor of such parish, whose church is or shall be nearest to the church, or chapel, or other place of publick prayer, where such default shall be made. And, if default shall be made after the first day of December, which shall be in the said year 1643, than any one justice of the peace of the county, city, or town, where such default shall be made, upon information thereof to him to be given, shall cause or procure the premisses to be performed, according to the tenour of this ordinance, at the cost and charges of such person or persons, bodies politick or corporate, or inhabitants in every parish, who are appointed by this ordinance to bear the same. Provided that this ordinance, or any thing therein contained, shall not extend to any image, picture, or coat of arnis in glass, stone, or otherwise, in any church, chapel, church-yard, or place of publick prayer, as aforesaid, set up or graven only for a monument of any king, prince, or nobleman, or other dead person, which hath not been commonly reputed or taken for a saint; but that all such images, pictures, and coats of arms may stand and continue in like manner and form, as if this ordinance had never been made. JOH. BROWN, Cler. Parliamentorum. ENGLAND'S TEARS, For the present wars, which, for the nature of the quarrel, the quality of strength, the diversity of battles, skirmishes, encounters, and sieges, happened in so short a compass of time, cannot be paralleled by any precedent age. Hei mihi, quàm miserè rugit Leo, Lilia languent, Printed at London, according to order, by Richard Heron, 1644. Quarto, containing twenty-two pages. To my Imperial Chamber, the City of London. Renowned City, IF any showers of adversity fall on me, some of the drops thereof must needs dash on thy streets. It is not a shower, but a furious storm, that pours upon me now, accompanied with thunder, and unusual fulgurations. The fatal cloud, wherein this storm lay long ingendering, though, when it began to condense first, it appeared but as big as a hand, yet by degrees it hath spread to such a vast expansion, that it hath diffused itself through all my regions, and obscured that fair face of heaven, which was used to shine upon me; if it last long, it is impossible but we both should perish. Peace may, but war must destroy. I see poverty posting a-pace, and ready to knock at thy gates; that gastly harbinger of death, the pestilence, appears already within and without thy walls; and methinks I spy meagrefaced famine afar off, making towards thee; nor can all thy elaborate circumvallations, and trenches, or any art of enginery, keep him out of thy line of communication, if this hold. Therefore, my dear daughter, think, oh think upon some timely prevention, it is the counsel, and request of Thy most afflicted mother, "ENGLAND. OH H that my head did flow with waters! Oh that my eyes were limbecks, through which might distil drops and essences of blood! Oh that I could melt away, and dissolve into tears, more brackish than those seas that surround me! Oh that I could weep myself blind, to prevent the seeing of those mountains of mischiefs, that are like to fall down upon me! Oh that I could rend the rocks that gird me about, and with my ejaculations tear and dissipate those black dismal clouds, which hang over me! Oh that I could cleave the air with my cries, that they might find passage up to heaven, and fetch down the moon, that watry planet, to weep and wail with me, or make old Saturn descend from his sphere, to partake with me in my melancholy, and bring along with him the mournful Pleiades, to make a full concert, and sing Lachrymæ with me, for that woeful taking, that desperate case, that most deplorable condition, I have plunged myself into unawares, by this unnatural self-destroying war, by this intricate odd kind of enigmatical war, wherein both parties are so intangled, like a skein of ravelled silk, that they know not how to unwind and untwist themselves, but by violent and destructive ways, by tearing my intrails, by exhausting my vital spirits, by breaking my very heart-strings to cure the malady! Oh I am deadly sick, and as that famous Chancellor of France spoke of the civil wars of his country, that France was sick of an unknown discase; so, if Hippocrates himself were living, he could not be able to tell the true symptoms of mine, though he felt my pulse, and made inspection into my water, never so exactly; only in the general, he may discover a strange kind of infection, that hath seized upon the affections of my people; but for the disease itself, it will gravel him to judge of it; nor can there be any prediction made of it, it is so sharp, which made some tell me, that I cannot grow better, but by growing yet worse: That there is no way to stanch this flux of blood, but by opening some of the master veins; that it is not enough for me to have drunk so deep of this cup of affliction, but I must swallow up the dregs also! Oh, passenger, stop thy pace, and if there be any sparkles of human compassion glowing in thy bosom, stay a while, and hear my plaints, and I know they will not only strike a resentment, but a horror into thee; for they are of such a nature, that they are able to penetrate à breast of brass, to mollify a heart hooped with adamant, to wring tears out of a statue of marble. I that have been always accounted the Queen of Isles, the Darling of Nature, and Neptune's Minion; I that have been stiled by the character of the first Daughter of the Church,' that have converted eight several nations; I that made the morning beams of Christianity shine upon Scotland, upon Ireland, and a good part of France; I that did irradiate Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, with the light thereof; I that brought the Saxons, with other Germans, high and low, from paganism, to the knowledge of the gospel; I that had the first Christian King that ever was (Lucius) and the first reformed King, Henry the Eighth, to reign over me; I out of whose bowels sprung the first Christian Emperor that ever was, Constantine; I that had five several kings, viz. John King of France, David King of Scotland, Peter King of Bohemia, and two Irish Kings, my captives, in less than one year; I under whose banner that great Emperor Maxamilian took it an honour to serve in person, and receive pay from me, and quarter his arms with mine; I that had the lion rampant of Scotland lately added to fill up my escutcheon, and had reduced Ireland, after so many intermissive wars, to such a perfect pass of obedience; I that, to the wonderment and envy of all the world, preserved my dominions free, when all my neighbour countries were a fire; I that did so wonderfully flourish and improve in commerce, domestick and foreign, by land and sea; Í that did so abound with bullion, with buildings, with all sort of bravery that heart could wish; in sum, I that did live in that heighth of happiness, in that affluence of all earthly felicity, that some thought I had yet remaining some ingots of that gold, whereof the first age was made. Behold, I am now become the object of pity to some, of scorn to others, of laughter to all people; my children abroad are driven to disavow me, for fear of being jeered; they dare not own me for their mother, neither upon the Rialto of Venice, the Berle of Augsburgh, the new Bridge of Paris, the Cambios of Spain, or upon the Quays of Holland, for fear of being baffled. Methinks I see my next neighbour, France (through whose bowels my gray-goose wing flew so often) making mouths at me, and saying, That whereas she was wont to be the chief theatre, where Fortune used to play her pranks, she hath now removed her stage hither; she laughs at me, that I should let the common people, and now lately the females, to know their strength so much. 1 Methinks I see the Spaniard standing at a gaze, and crossing himself to see me so foolish as to execute the designs of my enemies upon myself. The Italian admires to see a people argue themselves thus into arms, and to be so active in their own ruin. The German drinks carouses, that he hath now a co-partner in his miseries. The Swede rejoices, in a manner, to see me bring in a foreign nation to be my champion. The Netherlander strikes his hand upon his breast, and protests, that he wisheth me as well, as once the Duke of Burgundy did France, when he swore, He loved France so well, that, for one King, he wished she had twenty. Methinks I see the Turk nodding with his turban, and telling me, that I should thank heaven for that distance which is betwixt us, else he would swallow me up all at one morsel: Only the Hollander, my bosom friend, seems to resent my hard condition; yet he thinks it no ill-favoured sight to see his shops and lombards every-where full of my plundered goods, to find my trade cast into his hands, and that he can undersell me in my own native commodities; to see my gold brought over in such heaps, by those that fly from me with all they have for their security; in fine, methinks I hear my neighbours about me bargaining very hotly for my skin, while, like an unruly horse, I run headlong to dash out my own brains. O cursed jealousy, the source of all my sorrows, the ground of all my inexpressible miseries! Is it not enough for thee to creep in betwixt the husband and the wife, betwixt the lemon and his mate, betwixt parents and children, betwixt kindred and friends? Hast thou not scope enough to sway in private families, in staple societies and corporations, in commoncouncils, but thou must get in betwixt King and parliament, betwixt the head and the members, betwixt the members amongst themselves? But thou must divide prince and people, sovereign and subject. Avant, avant, thou hollow-eyed, snake-haired monster; hence away into the abyss below, into the bottomless gulf, thy proper mansion; sit there in the chair, and preside over the councils of hell, amongst the cacodamons, and never ascend again to turn my high law-making court into a council of war, to turn my cordials into corrosives, and throw so many scruples into that sovereign physick, which was used to cure me of all distempers. But when I well consider the constitution of this elementary world, when I find man to be part of it, when I think on those light and changeable ingredients that go to his composition, I conclude, that men will be men while there is a world; and, as long as the moon hath an influxive power to make impressions upon their humours, they will be ever greedy and covetous of novelties and mutation: The common people will be still common people, they will some time or other shew what they are, and vent their instable passions. And when I consider further the distractions, the tossings, the turmoilings, and tumblings of other regions round about me, as well as mine own; I conclude also, that kingdoms, and states, and cities, and all bodies politick, are subject to convulsions, to calentures, and consumptions, as well as the frail bodies of men, and must have an evacuation for their corrupt humours, they must be phlebotomised; I have often felt this kind of phlebotomy; I have had also shrewd purges and pills given me, which did not only work upon my superfluous humours, but wasted sometimes my very vital spirits; yet I had electuaries and cordials given me afterwards, insomuch that this present tragedy is but vetus fabula, novi histriones; it is but an old play represented by new actors, I have often had the like. Therefore let no man wonder at these traverses and humour of change in me. I remember there was as much wondering at the demolishing of my six-hundred and odd monasteries, munneries, and abbies, for being held to be hives of drones, as there is |