1811.) 
his crown and jewels in the Low Coun- 
tries, which, with the revenues of the 
crown, was soon consumed by the prodi- 
gality of the court; and being resolved 
for an arbitrary government, he consults 
anew ministry, sir James Lay, newly- 
made earl of Marlborough, Weston, lord 
treasurer, and Cottington (all new men of 
very small beginnings), fit persons to be 
employed in his arbitrary designs, which 
was, to raise money without the consent 
of parliament. The farmers of the cus- 
toms he compels to answer his demands ; 
the city of Salisbury is pressed with a 
loan of 1000I. the city of Bristol with 
80001. which, by some aldermen of the 
city was denied, for which they were 
laid by the heels until the king had the 
money. Several of St. Clement’s Danes, 
the Savoy, the Duchy, and other parts 
within the Liberty of Westminster, for 
refusing to subscribe the loan, were im- 
pressed to serve in the king’s ships; 
many of great rank were committed to 
prison, and the meaner sort were enlisted 
for soldiers, Sir. P. Hayman, for re- 
fusing the loan, was sent into the king’s 
service ; yet all this served not to defray 
his court expences, and therefore another 
parliament was thought fit to be sum- 
moned in the year 1626, which was no 
sooner done, but the house of commons 
charge the duke of Buckingham with the 
death of king James, his father; but the 
king, as it is thought, being too sensible 
of that matter, to make all sure, sends to 
prison sir Dudley Diggs, and sir John 
Elliott, the chief managers thereof, 
when proofs and examinations were all 
ready, and then in a great rage dissolves 
the parliament, saying with a stern com- 
portment, as he was disrobing himself, 
* that-it should be the last time that ever 
he would put them on.” See the natu- 
ral obstinacy of this most unhappy prince, 
who, in despight of the justice of *the 
arliament, would not suffer so much as 
his own father’s death to be called to an 
account; yet did the Lord, in his own 
time, bring to judgment that crying sin 
of blood; for that justice that the king 
denied, God sent by the hand of John 
Felton, who stabbed this duke at Ports- 
mouth with a ten-penny knife, that he 
instantly gave up the ghost with these 
words, ‘Gods wounds! I am slain,’ 
* And so absolute was this prince, that 
he published a prociamation prohibiting 
the people, so much as lo talk of another 
parliament, the which was punctually ob- 
served for ten years together ; insomuch, 
that all wise men then conjectured, that 
a) wey 
Scarce Tracts, &e. 
47 
the liberties of the kingdom were buried 
together with the interment of all pars 
laments; in which time the king raises 
money without the leave of his subjects, 
and against the known laws of the king- 
dom, with that rigous, as if an act bad 
passed for the same purpose; the mers 
chants were oppressed, and great impo» 
sitions were laid upon thread ; vast sums 
of money were raised upon the law of 
knighthood, with projects of all kinds, 
many ridiculous, many scandalous, and 
all very grievous: and yet such was lis 
indigency, that he borrowed of all the 
principal gentlemen wherever he came, 
But, though be borrowed, yet he paid it 
not again. Delinquents were protected 
and encouraged; and, though Dr, Man- 
waring’s books were suppressed by pros 
clamation, and himself disabled by res 
sistance, yet was he pardoned and pre 
ferred to a good living. Archbishop Abs 
bot was sequestered from his office, for 
refusing to silence Dr. Sibthorp’s ser= 
mon, and his soldiers committed great 
outrages, without redress. 
And now was the state of the Protes« 
tant religion reduced to the worst’ step 
of the conformity ef Rome; tor masses 
and mass priests were not only permitted 
in the face of the-court, but throughout 
the kingdom; not only in a tacit cons 
nivance, but in an open way of tolera- 
tion. It was also this picus and blessed 
martyr, that published a deciaration for 
prophaning the Lord’s Day, by spoils and 
pastimes. You may then judye what a 
Protestant be was, not only by this, but 
his cabiriet letters at Naseby ; his hearti- 
ness to the Protestants of Rochel, and 
that massacre in Ireland, in the year 
1640, in which two hundred thousand 
souls were cut off: why should he be s6 
pitiful and solicitous to have those Irish 
rebels spared, if he were not conscious 
that no man was more guilty than hime 
self. 
The king having thus far waded in 
the depth of his arbitrary strains, squeeze 
ing his subjects as long as there was any 
thing to come, is at length, by his own 
extremity, and the importunities of the 
people, prevailed upon, after ten or twelve 
years, to call another parliament; and 
this his last parliament was summone 
from York, November 3, 1640 and sat 
down at Westminster; but the king, per- 
> §, pers 
ceiving them to fly high at his chief mi- 
nisters and work*masters of his former 
arbitrary projects, for high misdemea- 
nours, (to cross the parliament) defends 
and protects them, and withal takes an 
’ occasion 
