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you had persuaded us, that whatever is applicable to a father, is so to a king. Alas! there is a great difference betwixt them. fathers begot us. Our king made not us, but we him. Nature has given fathers to us all, but we ourselves appointed our own king. So that the people is not for the king, but the king for them. "We bear with a father, though he be harsh

But we do not If a father mur

and why should

and severe ;" and so we do with a king. bear with a father, if he be a tyrant. der his son, he himself must die for it; not a king be subject to the same law, which certainly is a most just one? Especially considering that a father cannot by any possibility divest himself of that relation, but a king easily may make himself neither king nor father of his people. If this action of ours be considered according to its quality, as you call it, I, who am both an Englishman born, and was an eye-witness of the transactions of these times, tell you, who are both a foreigner and an utter stranger to our affairs; that we have put to death neither a good, nor a just, nor a merciful, nor a devout, nor a godly, nor a peaceable king, as you style him; but an enemy, that has been so to us almost ten years to an end; nor one that was a father, but a destroyer of his country. You confess, that such things have been practised; for yourself have not the impudence to deny it: but not by protestants upon a protestant king. As if he deserved the name of a protestant, that, in a letter to the pope, could give him the title of most holy father; that was always more favourable to the papists than to those of his own pro fession. And being such, he is not the first of his own family, that has been put to death by protestants. Was not his grandmother deposed and banished, and at last beheaded by protestants? And were not her own coun

trymen, that were protestants too, well enough pleased with it? Nay, if I should say they were parties to it, I should not lie. But there being so few protestant kings, it is no great wonder, if it never happened that one of them has been put to death. But that it is lawful to depose a tyrant, and to punish him according to his deserts; nay, that this is the opinion of very eminent divines, and of such as have been most instrumental in the late reformation, do you deny it if you dare. You confess, that many kings have come to an unnatural death some by the sword, some poisoned, some strangled, and some in a dungeon; but for a king to be arraigned in a court of judicature, to be put to plead for 'his life, to have sentence of death pronounced against him, and that sentence executed; this you think a more lamentable instance than all the rest, and make it a prodigious piece of impiety. Tell me, thou superlative fool, whether it be not more just, more agreeable to the rules of humanity, and the laws of all human societies, to bring a criminal, be his offence what it will, before a court of justice, to give him leave to speak for himself; and, if the law condemn him, then to put him to death as he has deserved, so as he may have time to repent or to recollect himself; than presently, as soon as ever he is taken, to butcher him without more ado? Do you think there is a malefactor in the world, that if he might have his choice, would not chuse to be thus dealt withal? And if this sort of proceeding against a private person be accounted the fairer of the two, why should it not be counted so against a prince? Nay, why should we not think, that himself liked it better? You would have had him killed privately, and none to have seen it, either that future ages might have lost the advantage of so good an example; or that they that did this glorious ac

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tion, might seem to have avoided the light, and to have acted contrary to law and justice. You aggravate the matter by telling us, that it was not done in an uproar, or brought about by any faction amongst great men, or in the heat of a rebellion, either of the people, or the soldiers that there was no hatred, no fear, no ambition, no blind precipitate rashness in the case; but that it was long consulted on, and done with deliberation. You did well in leaving off being an *Advocate, and turn grammarian, who from the accidents and circumstances of a thing, which in themselves considered sway neither one way nor other, argue in dispraise of it, before you have proved the thing itself to be either good or bad. See how open you lie if the action you are discoursing of be commendable and praiseworthy, they that did it deserve the greater honour, in that they were prepossessed with no passions, but did what they did for virtue's sake. If there were great difficulty in the enterprise, they did well in not going about it rashly, but upon advice and consideration. Though for my own part, when 1 call to mind with how unexpected an importunity and fervency of mind, and with how unanimous a consent, the whole army, and a great part of the people from almost every county in the kingdom, cried out with one voice for justice against the king, as being the sole author of all their calamities: I cannot but think, that these things were brought about by a divine impulse. Whatever the matter was, whether we consider the magistrates, or the body of the people, no men ever undertook with more courage, and which our adversaries themselves confess, in a more sedate temper of mind, so brave an action, an action that might have become

* Salmasius was once an advocate, that is, a counsellor at law.

those famous heroes, of whom we read in former ages; an action, by which they ennobled not only laws, and their execution, which seem for the future equally restored to high and low against one another; but even justice, and to have rendered it, after so signal a judgment, more illustrious and greater than in its own self. We are now come to an end of the 3d page of the first book, and have not the bare narrative he promised us yet. He complains that our principles are, that a king, whose government is burdensome and odious, may lawfully be deposed: and" by this doctrine," says he," if they had had a king a thousand times better than they had, they would not have spared his life." Observe the man's subtle way of arguing. For I would willingly be informed what consequence there is in this, unless he allows, that a king's government may be burdensome and odious, who is a thousand times better than our king was. So that now he has brought things to this pass, to make the king that he defends, a thousand times worse than some whose government notwithstanding is burdensome and odious, that is, it may be, the most monstrous tyrant that ever reigned. I wish ye joy, O ye kings, of so able a defender! Now the narrative begins. "They put him to several sorts of torments." Give an instance.

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They removed him from prison to prison;" and so they might lawfully do; for having been a tyrant, he became an open enemy, and was taken in war. "Often changing his keepers." Lest they themselves should change. "Sometimes they gave him hopes of liberty; nay, and sometimes even of restoring him to his crown, upon articles of agreement." It seems then the taking away his life was not done upon so much premeditation, as he talked of before; and that we did not lay hold on all opportunities and means, that offered themselves, to

renounce our king. Those things that in the beginning of the war we demanded of him, when he had almost brought us under, which things if they were denied us, we could enjoy no liberty, nor live in any safety; those very things we petitioned him for when he was our prisoner, in a humble, submissive way, not once, nor twice, but thrice, and oftener, and were as often denied. When we had now lost all hopes of the king's complying with us, then was that noble order of parliament made, that from that time forward, there should no articles be sent to the king; so that we left off applying ourselves to him, not from the time that he began to be a tyrant, but from the time that we found him incurable. But afterward some parliament-men set upon a new project, and meeting with a convenient opportunity to put it in practice, pass a vote to send further proposals once more to the king. Whose wickedness and folly nearest resembles that of the Roman senate, who, contrary to the opinion of M. Tullius, and all honest men, voted to send ambassadors to M. Antony; and the event had been the same, but that it pleased God Almighty in his providence, to order it otherwise, and to assert our liberty, though he suffered them to be enslaved for though the king did not agree to any thing, that might conduce to a firm peace, and settlement of things, more than he had before, they go and vote themselves satisfied. Then the sounder part of the house finding themselves and the commonwealth betrayed, implore the aid of that valiant and always faithful army to the commonwealth. Upon which occasion I can observe only this, which yet I am loth to utter to wit, that our soldiers understood themselves better than our senators, and that they saved the commonwealth by their arms, when the other by their votes had almost ruined it. Then he relates a

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