plied, was, it feems, one of the chief reafons that drew on their undertaking. And long it was before that affurance failed them; until the bishops and popifh lords, who while they fat and voted, ftill oppofed the fending aid to Ireland, were expelled the houfe.

Seeing then the main incitement and authority for this rebellion must be needs derived from England, it will be next inquired, who was the prime author. The king here denounces a malediction temporal and eternal, not fimply to the author, but to the "malicious author" of this bloodshed: and by that limitation may exempt, not himfelf only, but perhaps the Irith rebels themselves, who never will confels to God or man that any blood was fhed by them malicioufly; but either in the catholic caufe, or common liberty, or fome other fpecious plea, which the confcience from grounds both good and evil ufually fuggefts to itfelf: thereby thinking to elude the direct force of that imputation, which lies upon them.

Yet he acknowledges," it fell out as a moft unhappy advantage of fome men's malice against him:" but indeed of moft men's juft fufpicion, by finding in it no fuch wide departure or difagreement from the fcope of his former counfels and proceedings. And that he himfelf was the author of that rebellion, he denies both here and eliewhere, with many imprecations, but no folid evidence: What on the other fide againft his denial hath been affirmed in three kingdoms, being here briefly fet in view, the reader may fo judge as he finds caufe.

This is moft certain, that the king was ever friendly to the Irish papifts, and in his third year, againft the plain advice of parliament, like a kind of pope, fold them many indulgences for money; and upon all occafions advancing the popifh party, and negotiating underhand by priefts, who were made his agents, engaged the Irish papifts in a war against the Scots proteftants. To that end he furnished them, and had them trained in arms, and kept them up, either openly or underhand, the only army in his three kingdoms, till the very burft of that rebellion. The fummer before that difinal October, a committee of most active papifts, all fince in the head of that rebellion, were in great favour at Whitehall; and

admitted

admitted to many private confultations with the king and queen. And to make it evident that no mean matters were the fubject of thofe conferences, at their requeft he gave away his peculiar right to more than five Irith counties, for the payment of an inconfiderable rent. They departed not home till within two months before the rebellion; and were either from the firft breaking out, or foon after, found to be the chief rebels themfelves. But what should move the king besides his own inclination to popery, and the prevalence of his queen over him, to hold fuch frequent and clofe meetings with a committee of Irifh papifts in his own houfe, while the parliament of England fat unadvifed with, is declared by a Scots author, and of itself is clear enough. The parliament at the beginning of that fummer, having put Strafford to death, imprisoned others his chief favourites, and driven the reft to fly; the king, who had in vain tempted both the Scots and the English army to come up against the parliament and city, finding no compliance anfwerable to his hope from the proteftant armies, betakes himself last to the Irifh; who had in readiness an army of eight thousand papifts, which he had refufed fo often to difband, and a committee here of the fame religion. With them, who thought the time now come, (which to bring about they had been many years before not wishing only, but with much industry complotting, to do fome eminent fervice for the church of Rome and their own perfidious natures, against a puritan parliament and the hated English their mafters) he agrees and concludes, that fo foon as both armies in England were difbanded, the Irifh fhould appear in arms, mafter all the proteftants, and help the king againft his parliament. And we need not doubt, that thofe five counties were given to the Irish for other reafon than the four northern counties had been a little before offered to the Scots. The king, in Auguft, takes a journey into Scotland; and overtaking the Scots army then on their way home, attempts the fecond time to pervert them, but without fuccefs. No fooner come into Scotland, but he lays a plot, fo faith the Scots author, to remove out of the way fuch of the nobility there as were moft likely to withstand,

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withstand, or not to further his defigns. This being difcovered, he fends from his fide one Dillon, a papist lord, foon after a chief rebel, with letters into Ireland; and dispatches a commiffion under the great feal of Scotland, at that time in his own cuftody, commanding that they fhould forthwith, as had been formerly agreed, cause all the Irish to rife in arms. Who no fooner had received fuch command, but obeyed, and began in maflacre; for they knew no other way to make fure the proteftants, which was commanded them exprefsly; and the way, it feems, left to their difcretion. He who hath a mind to read the commiffion itfelf, and found reafon added why it was not likely to be forged, befides the atteftation of fo many Irish themfelves, may have recourfe to a book, entitled, "The Mystery of Iniquity." Befides what the parliament itself in the declaration of "no more addrefles" hath affirmed, that they have one copy of that commiffion in their own hands, attefted by the oaths of fome that were eye-witneffes, and had feen it under the feal others of the principal rebels have confeffed, that this commiffion was the fummer before promised at London to the Irith commiffioners; to whom the king then difcovered in plain words his great defire to be revenged on the parliament of England.

After the rebellion broke out, which in words only he detefted, but underhand favoured and promoted by all the offices of friendship, correfpondence, and what poffible aid he could afford them, the particulars whereof are too many to be inferted here; I fuppofe no understanding man could longer doubt who was "author or inftigator" of that rebellion. If there be who yet doubt, I refer them efpecially to that declaration of July 1643, with that of "no addreffes" 1647, and another full volume of examinations to be fet out fpeedily concerning this matter. Against all which teftimonies, likelihoods, evidences, and apparent actions of his own, being fo abundant, his bare denial, though with imprecation, can no way countervail; and leaft of all in his own

cause.

As for the commiffion granted them, he thinks to evade that by retorting, that "fome in England fight

againft

66

against him, and yet pretend his authority." But, though a parliament by the known laws may affirm juftly to have the king's authority, infeparable from that court, though divided from his perfon, it is not credible that the Irish rebels, who fo much tendered his perfon above his authority, and were by him fo well received at Oxford, would be fo far from all humanity, as to flander him with a particular commiffion, figned and fent them by his own hand.

And of his good affection to the rebels this chapter itself is not without witnefs. He holds them lefs in fault than the Scots, as from whom they might allege to have fetched "their imitation;" making no difference between men that rofe neceffarily to defend themfelves, which no proteftant doctrine ever difallowed, against them who threatened war, and thofe who began a voluntary and caufelefs rebellion, with the maffacre of fo many thoufands, who never meant them harm.

He falls next to flashes, and a multitude of words, in all which is contained no more than what might be the plea of any guiltieft offender: He was not the author, because "he hath the greatest fhare of loss and dishonour by what is committed." Who is there that offends God, or his neighbour, on whom the greatest share of lofs and dishonour lights not in the end? But in the act of doing evil, men ufe not to confider the event of thefe evil doings; or if they do, have then no power to curb the fway of their own wickednefs: fo that the greateft fhare of lofs and difhonour to happen upon themselves, is no argument that they were not guilty. This other is as weak, that "a King's intereft, above that of any other man, lies chiefly in the common welfare of his fubjects;" therefore no king will do aught againft the common welfare. For by this evafion any tyrant might as well purge himself from the guilt of raifing troubles or commotions among the people, because undoubtedly his chief intereft lies in their fitting ftill.

I faid but now, that even this chapter, if nothing elfe, might fuffice to difcover his good affection to the rebels, which in this that follows too notoriously ap

pears; imputing this infurrection to "the prepofterous rigour, and unreafonable feverity, the covetous zeal and uncharitable fury, of fome men," (these "fome men," by his continual paraphrafe, are meant the parliament;) and, laftly, "to the fear of utter extirpation." If the whole Irifhry of rebels had feed fome advocate to speak partially and fophiftically in their defence, he could have hardly dazzled better; yet nevertheless would have proved himself no other than a plaufible deceiver. And, perhaps (nay more than perhaps, for it is affirmed and extant under good evidence, that) thofe feigned terrours and jealoufies were either by the king himfelf, or the popifh priests which were fent by him, put into the head of that inquifitive people, on fet purpofe to engage them. For who had power" to opprefs" them, or to relieve them being oppreffed, but the king, or his immediate deputy? This rather fhould have made them rife against the king, than against the parliament. Who threatened or ever thought of their extirpation, till they themselves had begun it to the English? As for " pre"pofterous rigour, covetous zeal, and uncharitable fury," they had more reafon to fufpect thofe evils first from his own commands, whom they faw ufing daily no greater argument to prove the truth of his religion than by enduring no other but his own Prelatical; and, to force it upon others, made epifcopal, ceremonial, and common-prayer book wars. But the papifts understood him better than by the outfide; and knew that those wars were their wars. Although if the commonwealth fhould be afraid to fupprefs open idolatry, left the papifts thereupon should grow defperate, this were to let them. grow and become our perfecutors, while we neglected what we might have done evangelically to be their reformers or to do as his father James did, who inftead. of taking heart and putting confidence in God by fuch a deliverance as from the powder-plot, though it went not off, yet with the mere conceit of it, as fome obferve, was hit into fuch a hectic trembling between proteftant and papift all his life after, that he never durit The fecond edition has fhivering. C

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