could bring him to, and would not be baffled with the pretence of a coronation-oath, after that epifcopacy had for many years been fettled there. Which conceffion of his to them, and not to us, he feeks here to put off with evafions that are ridiculous. And to omit no fhifts, he alleges that the prefbyterian manners gave him no encouragement to like their modes of government. If that were fo, yet certainly thofe men are in moft likelihood nearer to amendment, who feek a ftricter church-difcipline than that of epifcopacy, under which the most of them learned their manners. If eftimation were to be made of God's law by their manners, who, leaving Egypt, received it in the wilderness, it could reap from fuch an inference as this nothing but rejection and difefteem.

For the prayer wherewith he clofes, it had been good fome fafe liturgy, which he fo commends, had rather been in his way; it would perhaps in fome measure have performed the end for which they fay liturgy was first invented; and have hindered him both here, and at other times, from turning his notorious errours into his prayers.

XVIII. Upon the Uxbridge Treaty, &c.

"IF the way of treaties be looked upon" in general, as retiring" from beftial force to human reafon, his first aphorifm here is in part deceived. For men may treat like beasts as well as fight. fight. If fome fighting were not manlike, then either fortitude were no virtue, or no fortitude in fighting: And as politicians ofttimes through dilatory purposes and emulations handle the matter, there hath been no where found more beftiality than in treating; which hath no more commendations in it, than from fighting to come to undermining, from violence to craft; and when they can no longer do as lions, to do as foxes.

The fincereft end of treating after war once proclaimed is, either to part with more, or to demand lefs, than was at firft fought for, rather than to hazard more lives, or worse mischiefs. What the parliament in that

point were willing to have done, when firft after the war begun, they petitioned him at Colebrook to vouchfafe a treaty, is not unknown. For after he had taken God to witnels of his continual readincfs to treat, or to offer treaties to the avoiding of bloodshed, had named Windfor the place of treaty, and passed his royal word not to advance further, till commiffioners by fuch a time were speeded towards him; taking the advantage of a thick mift, which fell that evening, weather that foon invited him to a defign no lefs treacherous and obfcure; he follows at the heels of thofe meffengers of peace with a train of covert war; and with a bloody furprife falls on our fecure forces, which lay quartering at Brentford in the thoughts and expectation of a treaty. And althoughi in them who make a trade of war, and against a natural enemy, fuch an onfet might in the rigour of martial law have been excufed, while arms were not yet by agreement fufpended; yet by a king, who feemed fo heartily to accept of treating with his fubjects, and profeffes here, "he never wanted either defire or difpofition to it, profeffes to have greater confidence in his reafon than in his fword, and as a chriftian to feek peace and ensue it,” fuch bloody and deceitful advantages would have been forborne one day at least, if not much longer; in whom there had not been a thirst rather than a deteftation of civil war and blood, and a defire to fubdue rather than to treat.

*

In the midst of a fecond treaty not long after, fought by the parliament, and after much ado obtained with him at Oxford, what fubtle and unpeaceable designs he then had in chace, his own letters difcovered: What attempts of treacherous hoftility fuccefsful and unsuccessful he made against Briftol, Scarborough, and other places, the proceedings of that treaty will foon put us in mind: and how he was fo far from granting more of reafon after fo much of blood, that he denied then to grant, what before he had offered; making no other ute of treaties pretending peace, than to gain advantages that might enable him to continue war: What marvel then

* The fecond edition has military.

if "he thought it no diminution of himfelf," as oft as he faw his time, "to be importunate for treaties," when he fought them only as by the upfhot appeared, "to get opportunities?" And once to a moft cruel purpofe, if we remember May 1643. And that meffenger of peace from Oxford, whofe fecret meffage and commission, had it been effected, would have drowned the innocence of our treating, in the blood of a defigned. maffacre. Nay, when treaties from the parliament fought out him, no lefs than seven times, (oft enough to teftify the willingnefs of their obedience, and too oft for the majefty of a parliament to court their subjection) he, in the confidence of his own ftrength, or of our divifions, returned us nothing back but denials, or delays, to their most neceffary demands; and being at loweft, kept up ftill and fuftained his almoft familhed hopes with the hourly expectation of raising up himself the higher, by the greater heap which he fat promifing himself of our fudden ruin through diffenfion.

But he infers, as if the parliament would have compelled him to part with fomething of "his honour as a king." What honour could he have, or call his, joined not only with the offence or disturbance, but with the bondage and deftruction of three nations? whereof, though he be carelefs and improvident, yet the parliament, by our laws and freedom, ought to judge, and ufe prevention; our laws. elfe were but cobweb laws. And what were all his moft rightful honours, but the people's gift and the investment of that luftre, majefty, and honour, which for the public good, and no otherwife, redounds from a whole nation into one perfon? So far is any honour from being his to a common mischief and calamity. Yet ftill he talks on equal terms with the grand reprefentative of that people, for whofe fake he was a king; as if the general welfare and his fubfervient rights were of equal moment or confideration. His aim indeed hath ever been to magnify and exalt his borrowed rights and prerogatives above the parliament and kingdom, of whom he holds them. But when a king fets himself to bandy against the highest court and refidence of all his regal power, he then, in the fingle VOL. III.

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perfon of a man, fights against his own majefty and kingthip, and then indeed fets the firft hand to his own depofing.

"The treaty at Uxbridge," he faith, gave the faireft hopes of a happy compofure;" faireft indeed, if his inftructions to bribe our commiffioners with the promise of fecurity, rewards, and places, were fair: what other hopes it gave, no man can tell. There being but three main heads whereon to be treated; Ireland, epifcopacy, and the militia; the first was anticipated and forestalled by a peace at any rate to be haftened with the Irish rebels, ere the treaty could begin, that he might pretend his word and honour paffed againft "the fpecious and popular arguments" (he calls them no better) which the parliament would urge upon him for the continuance of that juft war. Epifcopacy he bids the queen be confident he will never quit: which informs us by what patronage it ftood: and the fword he refolves to clutch as faft, as if God with his own hand had put it into his. This was the "moderation which he brought;" this was "as far as reafon, honour, confcience," and the queen, who was his regent in all these, "would give him leave." Laftly, "for compofure," inftead of happy, how miferable it was more likely to have been, wife men could then judge; when the English, during treaty, were called rebels; the Irish, good and catholic fubjects; and the parliament beforehand, though for fafhion's fake called a parliament, yet by a jefuitical fleight not acknowledged, though called fo; but privately in the council books enrolled no parliament: that if accommodation had fucceeded, upon what terms foever, fuch a devilish fraud was prepared, that the king in his own efteem had been abfolved from all performance, as having treated with rebels and no parliament; and they, on the other fide, inftead of an expected happinefs, had been brought under the hatchet. Then no doubt "war had ended," that mafiacre and tyranny might begin. Thefe jealouties, however raifed, let all men fee whether they be diminished or allayed, by the letters of his own cabinet opened. And yet the breach of this treaty is laid all upon the parliament and their commiffioners, with odious

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names of "pertinacy, hatred of peace, faction, and covetoufnefs," nay, his own brat "fuperftition" is laid to their charge; notwithstanding his here profeffed refolution to continue both the order, maintenance, and authority, of prelates, as a truth of God.

And who were moft to blame in the unfuccessfulness of that treaty," his appeal is to God's decifion; believing to be very excufable at that tribunal. But if ever man gloried in an unflexible stiffness, he came not behind any; and that grand maxim, always to put fomething into his treaties, which might give colour to refufe all that was in other things granted, and to make them fignify nothing, was his own principal maxim and particular inftructions to his commiffioners. Yet all, by his own verdict, muft be conftrued reafon in the king, and depraved temper in the parliament.

That the "highest tide of fuccefs," with thefe principles and defigns," fet him not above a treaty," no great wonder. And yet if that be spoken to his praife, the parliament therein furpaffed him; who, when he was their vanquished and their captive, his forces utterly broken and disbanded, yet offered him three feveral times no worfe propofals or demands, than when he ftood fair, to be their conqueror. But that imprudent furmife that his lowest ebb could not fet him " below a fight," was a prefumption that ruined him.

He prefaged the future "unfuccefsfulness of treaties, by the unwillingness of fome men to treat ;" and could not fee what was present, that their unwillingness had good caufe to proceed from the continual experience of his own obftinacy and breach of word.

His prayer therefore of forgiveness to the guilty of "that treaty's breaking," he had good reafon to fay heartily over, as including no man in that guilt fooner

than himself.

As for that proteftation following in his prayer, "how oft have I entreated for peace, but when I fpeak thereof they make them ready to war;" unless he thought himself still in that perfidious mift between Colebrook and Hounslow, and thought that mift could hide him from eye of Heaven as well as of man, after fuch a bloody recompenfe

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