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xxxvii; and accordingly in another place, "Their fruits shall be extirpated from the earth, and their seed from the sons of men.' I have been admonished by very woeful experience of the truth of this prophet's saying. So, to wit, it hath pleased the Almighty to laugh at the counsels of men. And this reason the same prophet superaddeth, For they contrived counsels which they could not make good,' Psal. xxix. For there is no counsel which will stand against God,' Prov. xxi.---As too late, and to my cost, I have found true. Wouldest thou yet be more confirmed of these sad verities? Unto King Edward, when I died, my son, I left twelve tutors,all reputed Catholicks, and, abstracting from the supremacy only, which I desired he should keep in his hands, commanded he should be otherways bred up a Catholick. All heresies, this only excepted, by my will, I wholly excluded and abolished. But, as violating the wills of my ancestors, and subverting what they built and consecrated, so many temples and monuments of religion, I deserved not that my own should he observed; amongst the rest, the Duke of Somerset was one, uncle to Edward the Sixth by the mother, whom, at my death, I did, as guardian, prefer to him. He infected, and my son by him, with heresy, brought in that, which most I hated, of the sacrament, which Queen Elisabeth, after both, confirmed. A monument I appointed for my ashes much more sumptuous than ever any of my ancestors, and yet hitherto I have failed of the same; though, alone of all the Kings of Great Britain, three children have, in order, succeeded me; nor need I fear, now those are dead, to be forgotten, who, for my wickedness, shall eternally be remembered. I am the mark of all men's hate of all conditions. To the Catholicks, by good reason, odious, cutting England from the communion of their church; abominated no less worthily by the religious, as whose families I have destroyed and sold their goods. Equally execrable to the church and laity; as first raising over the whole body of the Catholicks that persecution, which, to this hour, afflicted them; the hereticks, even to death, detested me, still pursuing them with fire and sword. Luther called me a stall-fed ox, and very often a most inhuman tyrant; Calvin drew out the sword of his pen against my title of the head of the church, which, so monster like, to myself I had arrogated; and marked me out by the dint of his writings, as one destitute of both fear and shame, in relation to both God and man. All the literate will perpetually hate my memory, that I should root out, and totally destroy, so many monuments of antiquity and learning, such as scarcely in the world are to be paralleled. To conclude, whilst I lived, the most did hate me, every one feared me, and scarce any one loved me. In my latter days, by the furies of my conscience agitated, like to Orestes, I would fain have incorporated with the ehurch all those kingdoms which I had torn from its obedience, and, in whatsoever I was able, I endeavoured a reparation of those wrongs I had done my wife. This at last, in some sort, I provided for, giving caution by my last will and testament, that, if Edward my son should die issueless, my daughter Mary, whom I had before disinherited, born of Catharine, should suceed me in these kingdoms. Oh! how often have I talked with my familiars about this first, to wit, of bowing to his holiness, and being received again intohis grace and favour? But, having

formerly cozened divers by those arts, none would trust me, as being by all suspected, whom they eluded, as though seeking to intrap them. Thus abandoned and forsaken by every body, I departed out of the communion of the church, these last words before my death ingeminating, All is marred, all is marred, monks, monks, friars, friars. My burial was just like that of Ahab, in the ruins of a religious house; for, when my body was conveyed hitner, even a dunghill through over-eating and oppletion, the lead, in which it was wrapped, unhappily unsoldering, as it was set down within the ruins of this house, where, while a plumber, in all haste to help, ran this way and that way for materials, his dog licked up my blood most greedily. A revenge for that of priests and religious which I shed, Oh God! how just and deserved a one? Dost thou not see, Charles, how, in my person thus suffering, God hath warned thee that I departed not unpunished?

Car. These are things very grievous indeed, and which deserve to be well pondered to all eternity.

Hen. But, though these things may seem to mortals very grievous, yet, in comparison of what I suffer in hell, they are mere trifles, and not worthy to be commemorated. For, besides what I have merited by my own, whatsoever I have sinned against another, what innovations I have forced upon religion, superadd unto the increase of my torments; inasmuch as,by my usurping the supremacy,I opened a gap to all the mischiefs of heresies. Wherefore as, superadditionally, I am here tormented by the arrival of any new come ghosts, so is it just, since the afflicted comfort the afflicted, that those very same should have a share in my punishments, who have maintained and kept on foot my errors, as thou hast done; who, though the scourge of heaven's just ire, hath these ten years through three kingdoms closely followed thee, and that too chiefly, for thy hatred to religion, yet hast thou breathed with thy last breath a disobedience to the authority of the see of Rome, thy bishop so of London persuading thee; nay, moreover, not the primacy only which I left thee, but new errors, introduced by Queen Elisabeth and thy father, didst thou strive to uphold, of Prince Edward I here wittingly am silent; and if other things be true which I have heard, thou stampest thy coin also with the inscription of protestancy.

Car. Oh heavens! that that fatal protestancy had never been hatched, at least not to come unto my ears. It began, about thy time, in Germany, when the followers of Luther were called protestants, whence it afterwards passed into England. And as Queen Elisabeth, oh Henry! and my father, were the first of all those who went before them who protested thy religion in these kingdoms, whereupon hath come this name of protestant: So, soon after, rose the puritan faction, or the Calvinist, who impugned both the other,and our ritual,or book of common prayer, set in force with the thirty-nine articles. Which, subverting all episcopal jurisdiction, doth yet glory in being called protestant. Afterwards springs a sect of independants, which protest against the three that went before; these are divided into hundreds of other tatterdimallion and new broached opinions, which yet all will needs be termed protestants; and perhaps as many more there will yet rise, from out the hydra of this unhappy reformation, which will always be impugning one the other,

Heaven grant, that, with the milk of my mother, I had also sucked in the religion of my ancestors; for my grandmother not only died a Catholick, but shed her blood in the defence of that religion, But, as others may condignly have been punished, for introducing or promoting of errors; for vexing with much cruelty the Catholicks, and usurping or maintaining this supremacy; I certainly never innovated religion, of all others have been mildest unto Catholicks, nay, even next of all acceded to their tenets. In fine, I have exercised this supremacy with a moderation surpassing all the rest, and (by reason I did not judge it fitting or becoming any layman's undertaking) the whole charge thereof, at least the greater part, I recommended to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Hen. But hast thou not observed, that, of the whole English episcopacy, only Canterbury in these troubles lost his head; (both documents of the highest instruction!) Thou for Kings, and that patriarch for prelates; who, if their heads they would have stand upon their shoulders, must not make themselves heads of the church, by hereafter prejudicing the Roman jurisdiction. But what availed it thee to have approximated unto popery, unless thoroughly thou hadst embraced that faith? For it sufficeth not to stand in the porch, unless thou enter into the bosom of the church. Moreover, many, in these gulfs below the earth, are much more grievously tormented and vexed, because they knew, but have not exercised the truth. That, in some things, King Agrippa was a Christian, was not sufficient to work his salvation. No, for that thoroughly he was not converted by Paul, he now burns with me in eternal flames. Did I not myself sometimes profess that faith in all partieulars, only abstracting from the pope's supremacy? But, sinning in that one sole defection, I ani guilty of all other abominations. But he that spared not Paul's incredulity (doing things of which he then was ignorant) will not spare this most execrated head of mine, who have wittingly, nay, and willingly,perished. But, how frivolous is that which thou pretendest to extenuate the malice of thy crime, when thou sayest, thou didst not exercise the supremacy, only left it unto Canterbury to do it; as though, indeed, thou hadst not exercised that charge whereunto thou hast deputed another? Nay, more, I hold that Strafford lost his head (so provided by the eternal justice) for that also he then carried thine, as being thy vicar, in the church of Ireland.

Car. As I have not wholly been exempt from all faults, so having proceeded much more moderately in the supremacy, and promoted more the peace of the church, than all these others, who have passed before me, I would fain know why I am the most of all punished?

Hen. Thou hast not observed, it seems, that jealous God, who punisheth in the child the father's faultiness, how he scourgeth the impieties of the wicked, to the third and also fourth generation, lest, if only he should scourge us in ourselves, we might think that any enormous impiety would be easily and more suddenly expiated; nor defers he to punish (till so long after, that his memory who sinneth should die, but lest it should be forgotten that he was punished for sinning. Thou art the third now, from the cradle of schism, who hath reigned King, in which generation thou sufferest. For

though my two daughters, first Mary, then Elisabeth, have successively inherited the crown, yet those two, with their brother King Edward, who who was my son, make up but one generation; if you number therefore either the Kings or generations ;--Edward me, James him, and thou James, have successively and in order followed. Nor hath it happened, but by the hand of God, that the heavenly vengeance should have fallen upon thy head, the most innocent and moderate of all the rest, to shew that not so much thy private sins have been chastised by his rod of justice, as the hereditary evils of thy office, with what impieties still attend thy titles,---as it is said,-- The fathers have eaten sowre grapes, and the teeth of their children have been set on edge,' Ezek. xviii. Which take not as though children intirely innocent should be overwhelmed by their fathers faultiness; for the soul that sins itself shall die; but that such who are less faulty, nay, even innocent, as it were, in comparison of their fathers' crimes, do yet suffer often something of their merit. For, if that punishment had happened in the time of any wicked and luxurious prince, I should not have sought for its infliction any where else, than from the crimes of such a trussed-up potentate. But that my subjects, who stile themselves protestants, should, by taking off thy head, thus punish thee whom thy very enemies cannot asperse with any crime, came not indeed by any other way to pass, but through that capital transgression of our pride, in presuming to be heads of the church: and, as I was the last of my name both King and also head of the church, so thou, oh! too unfortunate Charles, art the first of thy name that ever reigned, and the last that shall be head of the church.

Car. I feel indeed the judgments of God to have fallen very heavily upon me, for, as out of one false principle in faith many absurdities arise of opinions, so out of one unhappy apostasy from the church, many others have followed after at the heels, which the newer and more recent that they are, the more dangerous, and more to be took heed of. Thou begannest, others increased that sacrilege, which when, afterwards, some had fully perfected, I at last bore the heft of all. Thou, tearing from the Roman obedience thy people and bishops of England, wouldest be accounted, aye, and wert, independent; and the head of the reformed church? Now a sect of independants hath broke out, God revenging so the sin of thy sacrilege, who, regarding neither King nor bishops, first took off my spiritual head, then my own cut and severed from my shoulders; one Cromwell in thy time then lived (of thy cabinet and most secret counsels) who persuaded thee, a King, to spoil the church; now another of that name, and not unlike him, forced the people to destroy their King. Oh how just are the judgments of God and his ways inscrutable! For, if not sooner in ourselves, in our posterities, shall we at last be punished, in that very kind in the which we have offended. Oh God, that, whilst I lived in this world, I had seriously pondered these things, at the least (when so much leisure sometimes served me) in the time of my most tedious imprisonment! Happy man, had I paused upon the series of God's judgments, from above so threatening me, in the amaritude and bitterness of my soul: I had leisure, indeed, to dally with my pen, and write a book of other things, a whole one, as my armies how they came to be destroyed, of the miseries and distresses of my life, and

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the insolencies those especially of the soldiers, but never once called to mind those very things which I should most of all have printed on my thoughts. Oh Juxonius (so I called the bishop of London) or else Laud my faithful counseller and friend, why have neither of you admonished me of these things, either by letters, or friends that did commune with me? For, being three years a prisoner before my death, I had time enough to think of all these things. But they had eyes, and they could not see.' Oh, how blind were all these that saw me! and well may what follows be applied to us:

'At length we Phrygians (but too late) grew wise.'

Hen. This also I would have men duly ponder, how the parliament, the very name whereof is so idolised, especially by the fascinated English, is devolved now into a lower house, both the bishops and the lords ejected, in whose votes was once the total authority, the House of Commons being not any thing regarded. A just punishment indeed for their flattering me into a presumption of being head of the church, who themselves are now all trodden under foot (sometimes sitting as the heads of parliament) and this by that third order, without order, unto which they are so shamefully subjected. For England, as now plainly it appeareth,from a paradise is translated into a hell,in which no order but perpetual horror inhabiteth, where a man strong in arms keeps our court, and holds peaceably his usurped possessions.' This third order being grown to that height, that kingly government which had its period in thy fate, unless by miracle, can never hold up its head.

6

Hence learn, O ye Kings, to be wise, and take instructions, you that judge the earth.'

The soldiers, then at hand, of Cromwell, understanding this hard fate of monarchy, which should hardly ever rise from out of its ruins, took good heart, and, with great noise and laughter, ran in crouds from out the church of Windsor, each one glad that he had lent a hand, by cutting off this head of the church, to the execution of the heavenly justice. But not knowing or less, happily, ruminating, that the father, oftentimes, burns the rod with which he doth chastise his child.

In malevolos hujus narratiunculæ obtrectatores.

ZOILE, ne laceres morsu mea scripta canino,
Neve meris dicis omnia suta dolis:
Extimus historiæ cortex, volo, fictus habetor;
Vera sed huic intùs ligna subisse scies.
Istaque corporeis licèt auribus invia nostris,
Mentis at internis sensibus hausta putes.
Eia, age, mendacem me, carptor inepte, poetam
Occine: narranti res dabit ipsa fidem.

Zoilus, desist (with currish teeth) to tear,
This work of mine, nor it as (merely) jear,

R. P.

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