The annals of King James and King Charles the First ... containing a faithful history and impartial account of the great affairs of state, and transactions of parliaments in England from the tenth of King James MDCXII to the eighteenth of King Charles MDCXLII : wherein several material passages relating to the late civil wars (omitted in former histories) are made known.

To which my Lord Chief Baron Answered;

It is very true; It was Referred from hence to the Exchequer-Chamber, to receive the Ad∣vice of all the Judges of the Land; VVe do not take them to assist only by way of Advice; but for a Judicial Direction. For admitting we four were of one Opinion, and the rest of the Judges of another (though the Cause properly depend in this Court) yet we must apply our selves to their Resolution, and our four voyces are involved in theirs; and therefore according∣ly secundum Legem, &c. Oneretur Johannes Hampden.

Concerning the Original of the Scotch Com∣motions, which began the 23 of July, 1637. and continued encreasing by fits, as the Archbishop of Canterbury hath observed; and that they held cor∣respondents with the Presbyterians here in England, no wise man can ever doubt of; especially, when he considers the Answer of one of the Com∣mons in Parliament in the year 1640. who open∣ly said, There were no such fears from the Scots (who were then in the Bishoprick of Durham, rea∣dy to enter the County of York) as from Arbitra∣ry Government, &c. at home; I say, about the Ori∣ginal of these troubles, take what follows, being the Observations of a Person then conversant in the Court, and very knowing of those times.

King James had a design not once, but alwaies after his coming into England, to Reform the deformity of the Kirk of Scotland into as decent a Discipline as in the Church of England, which re∣ceived opposition and intermissions, till the year 1616. when at Aberdine, their general Assembly of Clergy made an Act, Authorizing some of their Bishops to compile a form of Liturgy or Book of Common-Prayer; First, for the King to approve, which was so considerately there re∣vised and returned, for that Kingdom to practise; which same Service-Book was now sent for by the King, and committed to some Bishops here of their own to review; and finding the difference not much from the English, he gave command in Scotland, to be read twice a day in the King's Chapel at Holy-rood House at Edenburgh; that Communion should be administred in that form, and taking it on their knees once a Month, the Bishop to wear his Rocket, the Minister his Sur∣plice, and so to enure the People by President of his own Chapel there first; and afterward in all parts for the Publick, the Scotish Bishops liked it reasonably well for the matter, but the manner of imposing it from hence upon them, was con∣ceived somewhat too much dependance of theirs on our English Church, and therefore excepting against the Psalms, Epistles, and Gospels, and other Sentences of Scriptures in the English Book, be∣ing of a different Translation from that of King James, they desired a Liturgy of their own, and to alter the English answerable to that, and so pe∣culiar to the Church of Scotland, which indeed was more liker that of King Edward the Sixth, which the Papists better approved, and so was the rather permitted by the King, as to win them better to our Church; and so had it been accu∣stomed to the Scottish several Churches for some years, without any great regret, and now parti∣cularly Proclaimed to be used in all Churches, and to begin at Easter-Sunday, which was respited to Sunday the three and twentieth of July, being then to be countenanced at Edenburgh by the Lords of Session then sitting, as it had been before com∣mended in publick Sermons to the People by di∣vers Ministers; by Rollock the Covenanter after∣wards, and others of the same; and accordingly in St. Giles's Church, the chief of Edenburgh, the Dean in presence of the Council, Bishops, Lords, and Magistrates, beginning to Read, the women first and meaner men, began the Mutiny, Clap∣ping their hands, and Cursing with their Tongues, raising such a Hubbub that none could be heard but themselves; the Bishop designed for the Ser∣mon, stept into the Pulpit, to interpose in this their madness, and minding them of their irre∣verence and horrible prophanation of the Sacred place, which incensed them into fury, flinging what came to band, Stones, Seats, Stools, and Cudgels, almost to his murder; then the Arch∣bishop of St. Andrews, Lord Chancellor, and others, offering to a peace, were no better han∣dled until the Provost, Bailiffs, and Civil Magi∣strates, were forced to shut the Multitude out of the Church: and so the Service-Book was read throughout, though with the rage of the People, hollowing, knocking, and battering of the Win∣dows without, with Staves and Stones; and watching for the Preacher the Bishop, he was in∣compassed with the Commonalty of the baser sort, and hardly escaped their intent to smother him to death. And so in sundry other Churches in the City, with the like clamour and disorder: Which moved the Council further to Assemble at the Chancellors, and there to command the Lord Re∣vall, and Officers, to order the People into a more quiet behaviour, for the afternoon, which was done with some moderation in the Churches; but af∣ter Sermon endangering the Earl of Roxborough, Lord Privy-Seal, to be the first Martyr St. Stephen&pucn;; for but having the Bishop of Edenburgh put in the Coach with him; and in outward shew, the Ma∣gistrates dissembled their resentment of those dis∣orders, and pronounced an Order of the Council amongst themselves, to advise upon an obligato∣ry Act of Security to the Ministers persons that did, or hereafter should undertake to read the Book, and maintenance also for them; and af∣terwards (in shew) some of the most unruly were slightly punished, as being therefore encou∣raged to do so again; for which at first, had they been Hanged, the Example might have discou∣rag'd all others from falling into the like folly; the King then having force enough at Sea to have blocked up their Haven, he might soon have brought the Edenburghers to obedience, and after them the whole Nation; but by his suffering of them then, and of such like following after, he was come to that misery (as one saies well) Cum vel excedenda sit natura vel imminuenda dignitas, ei∣ther to out-go his own nature, or fore-goe his own Authority, and the Scots were so well assured of the King's lenity, as that with a couple of Letters from them to the Archbishop of Can∣terbury to palliate the practice, and to promise their pains to the compleat effecting of his Maje∣sties desire in the Service-Book, and so signed by all the Bailiffs, these proved afterwards the on∣ly Actors in the like Mutiny; the Stage indeed be∣came afterwards better hanged, and the Schemes better set out their intended Tragedy with a speci∣ous title of Piety and Religion.

And a further Confirmation of the irregularity and Seditious practices, whereby the Scots were then carried in that their Rebellion (for so it was, neither better nor worse) and for the satisfaction of all his true-hearted and loyal Subjects, his Ma∣jesty did cause an unquestionable Narrative to be made thereof by way of Historical deduction, wherein the true passages of all that business were set down, that the World might see (as his Ma∣jesty saith) under one view and aspect his graci∣ous and clement comportment towards them, and the depraved and froward deportment of those Scots to his Majesty their Liege ••••d and Sove∣raign, these Three Points were ••••••ced beyond contradiction.

First, That the first contrivers, and since pur∣suers of their late wicked Covenant, or pretend∣ed holy League (a name which all good men did abhor in them of France) though following the

pattern of all other Seditions, they did and do pretend Religion, yet nothing was or is less in∣tended by them, but that they having received from Us full satisfaction to all their desires, ex∣pressed in any of their Petitions, Remonstrances, or Declarations, yet their persisting in their Tu∣multuous and Rebellious courses, doth demon∣strate to the World their weariness of being go∣verned by Us and Our Laws, by our Councel and other Officers put in Authority by and under Us, and an itching humour of having that Our King∣dom governed by a Table of their own devising, consisting of Persons of their own chusing: A Plot of which they are very fond, being an Abor∣tionof their own brain, but which indeed is such a monstrous birth, as the like hath not yet been born or bred in any Kingdom Jewish, Christian, or Pagan.

Secondly, That our promises expressed in Our several Proclamations and Declarations to Our People, were not (as the wicked contrivers of that Covenant have ever gone about to make Our Subjects believe) only verbal, but sincere and real, and such as We do profess to the whole World in the word of a just and true Prince, We do resolve to make good to all Our Subjects of that our Kingdom: As holding it beneath the greatness and goodness of a just King, that the unjust actions of his Subjects should occasion in their Soveraign the least suspicion of breach of pro∣mises made by him to them, especially when the performance of them shall conduce to the settling of Religion and Peace.

Thirdly▪ That these men who give themselves out to be the only Reformers of Religion, have taken such a course to undermine and blow up the Religion Reformed, by the scandal of Rebellion and Disobedience, which, so far as in them lieth, they have gone about to cast upon it, that if the Conclave of Rome, the several Colledges or Con∣gregations perpetually sitting at Rome for con∣triving and effecting the means of reducing to the Roman obedience all those Kingdoms and Pro∣vinces which have justly departed from them, nay, and if with both these, all the Jesuites and others, the most especially combined and sworn Enemies to Our Profession, were all assembled in one place, and had all their wits and devices concentrated in∣to one conclusion and resolution; they could hard∣ly have fallen upon such a way, as these pretended Reformers have fallen upon, for turning all men out of the paths of the Reformed Religion, or have settled upon such courses, which can be∣speak no other event, but the undoubted over∣throw of it, at least in that Kingdom, unless God himself from Heaven (which we hope) shall have all their Cobweb contextures in derision: For by their particular proceedings, truly set down in this Our Narration, it will plainly appear, that their Maxims are the same with the Jesuites, their Preachers Sermons have been delivered in the ve∣ry phrase and stile of Be••anus, Scipplus, and Eu∣daemon Johannes, their poor Arguments, which they have delivered in their Seditious Pamphlets, Printed or Written, are taken almost verbatim out of Bellarmine and Suarez, as appeareth to Us by Our Roya••••••ther his Monitory Preface to all Christian K••••gs and Princes, and his Apology for the Oath of Allegiance, and in the Books writ by others in defence of them both; in all which these Arguments are fully answered: And that the means which they have used to induce a credit of their conclusions with their Proselytes, are purely and meerly Jesuitical Fables, false Reports, false Prophesies, pretended Inspirations and Divinati∣ons of the weaker Sex; as if now Herod and Pilate were once again reconciled for the ruin of Christ, and his true Religion and Worship.

Which particulars (saith his Majesty) if any unprejudiced Reader, either of his own Subjects, or Forreigner do grant, it will most necessarily fol∣low,

First, That these proceedings of some of Our Subjects (whom, though they would be account∣ed the purest Protestants, yet by their wicked Pro∣testations, you will find to be the most froward and perverse Protesters that ever did contest with their Soveraign and his Laws) may not induce an undeserved scandal upon that Religion which We profess: For since their conclusions are quite contrary to the Confessions of the several Reform∣ed Churches, in their particular Articles both of the Church and of the Civil Magistrate, as ap∣peareth by the Helvetian, French, Belgick, Polonian, Argentine, Palatine, Genevian, Our English and Irish; nay, and their own Scottish positive Confes∣sion, Printed amongst the Acts of Parliament of that Our Kingdom; and besides, the Augustane and all other particular Protestant Confessions of the Lutherans: And all the weapons wherewith they now fight against these Protestant conclusions, are stollen or borrowed, not only out of the Roman (for many of the Romanists sight with Us against them) but out of the most rigid Jesuites Magazins, why should they not in this Quarrel be accounted not as our Friends, but as Our Foes; not Prote∣stants, but the most rigid of Papists, Jesuites? And so being without in this point, not bring any scan∣dal upon Us who are within; especially consider∣ing that though these men have gone about to wound the Reformed Religion through Our sides, and by opposing Us whom God hath honoured with this special favour (for no less We accompt it) of being the chief Prince whom he hath made choice of for the Protector and Defender of it: Though, We say, these men have done what they can to weaken this Our Religion, by striking at the Authority of the principal prop and stay of it upon earth under God; yet We, by the grace of God, are fully resolved to wipe away that aspersi∣on, and remove that scandal from Our Profession and Religion, by Our Constant not only adherence to it, but maintenance and defence of it, with the uttermost of that power which God hath put in Our hands, notwithstanding all those scandals which these men by their wicked practices and worse positions have laid upon it.

Secondly, We hope that all men will do Us so much right, as to believe, that whatsoever course We shall hereafter take for the Asserting of the Reformed Religion, and repressing the insolencies of such of Our Subjects as do oppose it and Us in the just and undoubted right of Our Regality, while they pretend Religion, shall not be thought to be by way of a War, but by way of a Prince, the Father of his Country, his chastising his unruly Children, which is never in anger, but in love, and for their good. And if by their stubbornness they shall force Us to a severity unpleasing to Us, and unwelcom to them, We call Him by whom We Raign to witness, and heaven and earth and all the World to record, that they with their own hands do unsheath Our just sword, which We cannot but use as the Minister of God, unless We will betray that trust which the King of Kings hath reposed in Us for the maintenance of Religion and Justice amongst all His people whom He hath committed to Our Charge: And if God will have it so, that

for their resisting Him and Us, His Anointed ser∣vant and their Soveraign, He will have some of their bad blood shed, We shall ever make account that that blood is let out of Our own veins; nor shall We draw any drop of it in any other case, than a faithful Physician will and must do for the preservation of the whole body.