have miscarried in government did busy themselves very much in matters of God, touching the consciences of other men, whereof they had nothing to do; but, in the mean time, neglected the witness of God in their own particulars, and so were mindless and careless of their duties, as civil magistrates, professing themselves wise, and exalting themselves into the temple of God, wherein they had not to do, save in their own particulars. They became fools even in the management of their civil affairs, and so laid a sandy foundation, and, like foolish builders, continued building their own, till such time as their building did fall, and great was the fall thereof. And all this did proceed from the hireling ministry, which hath in all ages brought forth the same fruits, being still fawning upon, and tampering with the great men of the earth, and kings and councils, and parliaments, and all men in authority, to establish religion, and to settle their maintenance; and then, as the prophet saith of them, He that will not put into their 6 mouths, they presently make war against him'; and this hath been the state and condition of this nation and others.

And therefore, O king and council, be wise, and learn by other men's harms (who not contenting themselves in their places, to do the work set them about, but leaving their own work undone, did intermeddle and busy themselves about God's work, and the consciences of men, of which Christ alone is Lord; and for this hath the Lord dashed them to pieces, one after another, since thy father's days; first the parliament, then protector, so called, and protector again; then the parliament, then army and Committee of Safety, so called, then parliament again; against all which the Lord hath appeared in much severity, and hath removed all out of his way, and hath brought thee and thy party into their place and authority, to try you. Take heed, I say, therefore, O king and council, of running against this rock, for, if you do, you will assuredly be dashed to pieces, as they already are; for false worship and false ministers must down, and all that take part with them, and, till that time, there will never be peace on earth; for it is the false ministry, that divides the people, and causes them to run into factions and divisions, and that sets people at variance one with another.

The false ministry, O king, that is the evil tree which brings forth bad fruit; and, indeed, they can do no otherwise, for they are not of God, but of the evil one. It is clearly so, O king; for the tree was to be known by his fruit, and he is now grown so big, and his fruit so numerous, that one may run and read of what sort the tree is; and they, that see it not to be the evil tree, are very near the pit of everlasting destruction.

Thou wast a child, O king, in thy father's days, and knewest not to what perfection this evil tree was then grown; but withdraw thyself a little into thy private chamber, and there inquire of the ancient of days, and ask counsel at the oracle of God, the light in thine own conscience, and therewith compare the doctrine of Christ, who is the word of God, and is very near thee, even

in thy heart, and in thy mouth, and thou wilt then see, hear, and understand what Christ and his apostles say, and the prophets before them, concerning the false prophets and the false ministers.

KING CHARLES THE FIRST, AND OF OLIVER CROMWELL:

In which it appears, how Oliver's friends contrived to secure his Body from future disgrace, and to expose the Corpse of King Charles to be substituted in the punishment and ignominy designed for the Usurper's Body. MS.

Amongst other Papers, the following MS. was carefully preserved by my Lord Oxford. It contains an Extract from the Journal of the House of Commons; which honourable House, resolving to disgrace the name of the late Usurper Oliver Cromwell, as far as lay in their power, ordered his Body to be taken up, and to be first hanged on the gallows at Tyburn, and then to be burnt.

This Order was pursued by the Serjeant of that honourable House so far, as to find a Coffin with Oliver's name, and usurped Titles, at the east-end of the middle isle of Henry the Seventh's Chapel, in Westminster-Abbey.

This, with an account where the said Inscription is, or was, within a few years ago, to be seen, is written in a very fair hand.

Then, in two different hands, there follows the most remarkable account of a Counter-Interment of the Arch-Traytor, as well as the reason and contrivance to secure his Body from that expected ignominy, and to continue the revenge of King Charles's enemies, even to the disgrace of substituting the Body of the beheaded King, in the punishment intended by a justly enraged People, upon the dead Body of the Usurper.

SOON

OON after the restoration, the then serjeant of the house of commons was ordered, by the house, to go with his officers to St. Peter's, Westminster, and demand the body of Oliver Cromwell, buried there, to be taken up, in order to be disposed in the manner the house should adjudge fitting.

Whereupon the said serjeant went, and, in the middle isle of Henry the Seventh's chapel, at the east end, upon taking up the pavement, in a vault, was found his corpse; in the inside of whose coffin, and upon the breast of the corpse, was laid a copper-plate, finely gilt, inclosed in a thin case of lead, on the one side whereof, were engraved the arms of England, impaled with the arms of Oliver; and, on the reverse, the following legenda, viz.

Oliverius Protector Reipublicæ Angliæ, Scotia, & Hiberniæ, Natus 25. April. 1599, Inauguratus 16.° Dec.ris 1653, Mortuus 3.tio Sept.ris, Anno 1658, Hic situs est.

The said serjeant, believing the plate to be gold, took it pretendedly, as his fee; and Mr. Gifford, of Colchester, who mar

ried the serjeant's daughter, has now the plate, which, his fatherin-law told him, he came by, in the manner above related.

A counter-interment of the aforesaid arch-traytor, as averred, and ready to be deposed (if occasion required) by Mr.

Barkstead, who daily frequents Richard's Coffee-House, within Temple-Bar, being son to Barkstead, the regicide, that was executed as such, soon after the restoration, the son being, at the time of the said arch-traytor's death, about the age of fif teen years.

THAT the said regicide Barkstead, being lieutenant of the Tower of London, and a great confident of the usurper, did, among other such confidents, in the time of the usurper's sickness, desire to know where he would be buried: To which he answered, where he had obtained the greatest victory and glory, and as nigh the spot as could be guessed, where the heat of the action was, viz. in the field at Naseby, co. Northampton; which accordingly was thus performed: At midnight (soon after his death) being first embalmed, and wrapped in a leaden coffin, he was, in a hearse, conveyed to the said field, the said Mr. Barkstead, by order of his father, attending close to the hearse; and, being come to the field, there found, about the midst of it, a grave, dug about nine feet deep, with the green sod carefully laid on one side, and the mould on the other; in which, the coffin being soon put, the grave was instantly filled up, and the green sod laid exactly flat upon it, care being taken, that the surplus mould was clean taken away.

Soon after, like care was taken, that the said field was intirely ploughed up, and sown three or four years successively with wheat.

"Several other material circumstances, relating to the said interment, the said Mr. Barkstead relates (too long to be here inserted) and, particularly, after the restoration, his conference with the late (witty) Duke of Buckingham, &c.

Talking over this account of Barkstead's, with the Reverend Mr. Sm, of Q- whose father had long resided in Florence, as a merchant, and afterwards as minister from king Charles the Second, and had been well acquainted with the fugitives after the restoration; he assured me, he had often heard the said account by other hands: Those miscreants always boasting, that they had wrecked their revenge against the father, as far as human foresight could carry it, by beheading him, whilst living, and making his best friends the executors of the utmost ignominies upon him, when dead. Asking him the particular meaning of the last sentence, he said, that Oliver, and his friends, apprehending the restoration of the Stuart family; and that all imaginable disgrace, on that turn, would be put upon his body, as well as memory; he contrived his own burial, as averred by Barkstead, having all the theatrical honours of a pompous funeral paid to an empty coffin, into which, afterwards, was removed the corpse of the martyra

(which, by Lord Clarendon's own account, had never truly, or certainly, been interred; and, after the restoration, when most diligently sought after, by the Earls of Southampton and Lindsey, at the command of king Charles the Second, in order to a solemn removal, could no where, in the church where he was said to have been buried, be found) that, if any sentence should be pronounced, as upon his body, it might effectually fall upon that of the king. That, on that order of the commons, in king Charles the Second's time, the tomb was broken down, and the body taken out of a coffin so inscribed, as mentioned in the serjeant's report, was from thence conveyed to Tyburn, and, to the utmost joy and triumph of that crew of miscreants, hung publickly on the gal. lows, amidst an infinite crowd of spectators, almost infected with the noisomeness of the stench. The secret being only amongst that abandoned few, there was no doubt in the rest of the people, but the bodies, so exposed, were the bodies they were said to be; had not some, whose curiosity had brought them nearer to the tree, observed, with horror, the remains of a countenance they little had expected there; and that, on tying the cord, there was a strong seam about the neck, by which the head had been, as was supposed, immediately after the decollation, fastened again to the body. This being whispered about, and the numbers that came to the dismal sight hourly increasing, notice was immediately given of the suspicion to the attending officer, who dispatched a messenger to court, to acquaint them with the rumour, and the ill consequences the spreading or examining into it further, might have. On which the bodies were immediately ordered down, to be buried again, to prevent any infection. Certain is it, they were not burnt, as in prudence, for that pretended reason, might have been expected; as well as in justice, to have shewn the utmost detestation for their crimes, and the most lasting mark of infamy they could inflict upon them. This was the account he gave. What truth there is in it, is not so certain. Many circumstances make the surmise not altogether improbable: As all those enthusiasts, to the last moment of their lives, ever gloried in the truth of it.

THE HISTORY OF THE LIFE AND DEATH OF
OLIVER CROMWELL,

THE LATE USURPER, AND PRETENDED PROTECTOR OF ENGLAND, &c. Truly collected and published, for a Warning to all Tyrants and Usurpers. By J. H. Gent.

London: Printed for F. Coles, at the Lamb in the Old-Bailey, 1663.

CHAP. I.

Shewing the Birth and Parentage, and Place of Nativity of the said Oliver Cromwell.

THE unparalleled actions of this man have made people more curious, than otherwise they would be, to know his rise and birth, which otherwise might better, to the advantage of his me◄

mory, have been yet obscured and concealed; for it will neither add praise nor commendation, either to his country or relations; both which have publickly protested their shame and their abhorrence of him. So that, without prejudice to his family, who have cleared themselves of any participation of his facts, and did, and do, detest both him and them: You may understand, he was the son of Henry Cromwell, alias Williams, the younger son of Sir Henry Cromwell, of Hinchingbrook, in the county of Huntingdon, Knight, who so magnificently treated king James in that place, at his coming into England; who so loyally and affectionately loved king Charles the Martyr; and, who, lastly, so hated and abominated this Oliver, his nephew, god-son, and namesake.

He was born at Huntingdon, in the year 1599, where his father, being a cadet, or younger brother, as we have said, having no large estate, had intermarried with a brewer's widow, by whom he had some addition of fortune, and from her sprung that story of Oliver's being a brewer in Huntingdon. He was, from his infancy, a lusty, active child, and of a sturdy rough temper; which, to remedy, in his young years, his father prudently took this

course:

CHAP. II.

How Oliver was educated and brought up in the University of Cambridge, and afterwards in Lincoln's-Inn, in the

Study of the Law.

ABOUT the age, therefore, of thirteen or fourteen years, his father sent him to the University of Cambridge, to have him tempered and managed, by the severe tuition and discipline of the University; but his tutor quickly perceived the boisterous and untractable spirit of his pupil, who was more for action than speculation, and loved cudgels, foot-ball-playing, or any game and exercise, better than his book; so that there was no hopes of making him a scholar, or a learned man; and much ado there was to keep him so in compass, that he became not an open and publick dishonour to his friends; (here he was made an actor in the play of the five Senses, where he ominously stumbled at a Crown, which he had also dreamed he should once wear) whereupon he was presently removed, his tutor weary, and afraid of disgrace by him, to Lincoln's Inn, where he might with less imputation and observance, if his bent were so given, roister it out, and yet, without much trouble, attain some knowledge in the laws, to qualify him for a country gentleman, and that little competency his father could leave him. But no such rudiments would sink into him; he was for rougher arguments and pleas, club-law; and, indeed, what occasion had he to know and be versed in the law, whose designs, and wicked practices afterwards, were directly opposite to all laws, both divine and human? So that he continued not long there, but was called home, his father dying soon after, and leaving him to his swing.