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OF

THOMAS BURTON, ESQ.

MEMBER IN THE PARLIAMEN S

OF

OLIVER AND RICHARD CROMWELL,

FROM 1656 TO 1659:

NOW FIRST PUBLISHED

FROM THE

ORIGINAL AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION,

CONTAINING AN

ACCOUNT OF THE PARLIAMENT OF 1654;

FROM THE JOURNAL OF

GUIBON GODDARD, ESQ. M. P.

ALSO NOW FIRST PRINTED.

EDITED AND ILLUSTRATED

WITH NOTES HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL

BY JOHN TOWILL RUTT.

IN FOUR VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

HENRY COLBURN, NEW BURLINGTON-STREET.

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PREFACE.

THE period of English history, from the opening of the Long Parliament to the Restoration, has been justly regarded as the most eventful and interesting which had occurred during the century. It was distinguished by the patriotic deeds of men, whom knowledge, energy, and discretion, had eminently qualified to dispute the claims of the crown, to an unlimited and irresponsible authority. Such had been, too long, the extravagant pretensions of that royal race, which an absurd notion of hereditary right, the intrigues of Elizabeth's courtiers, in her declining years, and the Queen's dying donation,† (as if aggrandizing the son, to atone for the

See vol. iv. p. 135, note; "Memoirs of Robert Cary, Earl of Monmouth," (1759,) p. 187, note.

+ This donation was, however, very equivocal. Robert Cary, Elizabeth's cousin, thus describes a scene, which he appears to have witnessed a few hours before the Queen's death:

"On Wednesday, the 23rd of March, (1603,) she grew speechless. That afternoone, by signes, she called for her Councill, and by putting her hand to her head, when the King of Scottes was named to succeed her, they all knew hee was the man she desired should reigne after her.” Ibid. p. 176.

The Earl of Corke, who edited these Memoirs, adds, "It still remains

mother's blood,) had entailed on the acquiescing people of England.

That people were too little prepared to entertain the comprehensive views of their more enlightened advocates, to profit by their wisdom or to estimate their deserts. Yet they bore right onward. Neither dismayed by adverse fortune, nor deluded into security by success, they had at length disarmed the despotism of the Crown, and practically applied the maxim, to which a Prince endued with the spirit of a Trajan,* would have listened without emotion, that "kings may be cashiered for misconduct."

a doubt, whether the Queen intended it for a sign or not. The Lords present pretended to think it one." See, also, the Preface, pp. xi. xii.

Thus a powerful people were regarded as a royal possession, to be made over, like quadrupeds, by a form of testament, not even nuncupatory, and insufficient to have conveyed a single acre.

According to Bishop Burnet, the famous words of Trajan, when he "delivered the sword to the governors of the provinces, as the emblem of their authority, Pro me: si merear, in me: for me; but, if I deserve it, against me, were put on King James the First's coin, in Scotland, during his minority. When he afterwards changed his motto, the coin was not called in, but continued current till the Union." See "the Bishop of Salisbury's Speech in the House of Lords, on the first article of the Impeachment of Dr. Sacheverell," (1710,) p. 4.

This motto was, probably, recommended by Buchanan. It is quite in the spirit with which he presented to his royal pupil, the dialogue De Jure Regni apud Scotos. See the Dedication, ad fin.

Father Orleans is ludicrously indignant at "la patience" of James, (then only eleven years of age, and still under the rod of the preceptor,) in suffering "l'insolence de Buchanan, qui osa luy dedier un livre, où cet auteur soûmet les rois au jugement de leurs sujets." Yet had James imbibed the political wisdom, as well as the learning of his preceptor, he had been spared the contempt of posterity, and his son, blessed with such a father's counsel, and more powerful example, might have escaped the stroke of the executioner. The learned Jesuit calls

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