"religion, but for a wife. The Infanta of Spain herself defired him to vifit the Nunne of Care "ton, hoping that the faid Nunne, who was fo ❝ much cried up for miracles, might have wrought one upon him; but he at least failed her: nor "was his Highness so weak a subject to work "upon, according to his late Majesty's (James the Firft) fpeech to Drs. Mawe and Wren, "when they came to kiss hands before they went "to Spaine to attend the Prince their master. "He wished them to have a care of Bucking"ham: As touching his fonne Charles, he ap"prehended no feare at all of him; for he knew "him to be fo well grounded a Proteftant, that "nothing could change his religion." "This King's reign," adds Howell," was "paralleled to that of Queen Elizabeth (who was "the greatest minion of a people that ever was); "but one will find, that fhe ftretched preroga"tive much further. In her time (as I have read in the Latin Legend of her life) fome had "their hands cut off for only writing against her "matching with the Duke of Anjou*; others "were hanged at Tyburn for traducing her "Government. She pardoned thrice as many "Roman Priests as the King did; fhe paffed divers monopolies; fhe kept an Agent at * See p. 200 of this Volume. "Rome; "Rome; fhe fent her Serjeant at Arms to pluck "out a Member then fitting, in the House of "Commons by the ears, and clapped him in "prifon; fhe called them faucy fellows to med"dle with her prerogative, or with the govern"ment of her houfhold; fhe managed all foreign affairs, fpecially the wars with Ireland, by her Privy Council; yet there was no murmuring "in her reign; and the reason I conceive to be, "that neither Scot or Puritan had any stroke in "England."-Howell's Italian Profpective. Howell concludes one of the many Pamphlets that he wrote in the reign of Charles the First thus: "I will conclude this point with an ob"fervation of the most monftrous number of "witches that have fwarmed fince the wars "against the King, more (I dare fay) than have "been in this Ifland fince the Devil tempted Eve; "for in two counties only, viz. Suffolk and Essex, "there have been upwards of three hundred arraigned, and eighteen executed, as I have it "from the Clerks of the Peace of the two "counties. What a barbarous, devilish office one had, under colour of exoneration, to tor"ment poor filly women with watchings, pinch❝ings, and other artifices, to find them for "witches while others (called fpirits) by a new "invention of villainy, were connived at, for feizing "feizing upon young children, and hurrying "them on ship-board, where, having their heads "fhaven, they were fo transformed that their parents could not know them, and fo were "carried over for new fchifmatical plantations "to New England, and other feminaries of "rebellion. My Lord," fays Howell, (this Treatife is addreffed to Philip Earl of Pembroke,) "there is no villainy that can enter into the "imagination of man hath been left here un"committed; no crime, from the highest trea"fon to the meaneft trefpaffe, but thefe Re❝formers are guilty of!" Howell, in his Dialogue intitled "Patricus "&Peregrinus," thus defcribes fome of the preludes that ushered in the Civil Wars between Charles and his Parliament: "It is," fays he, "a long time that both Judges, Bishops, and Privy Councillors have "been muttered at, whereof the first should be "the oracles of the law, the other of the Gof"pel, and the laft of State Affairs. It was "common for every ignorant Client to arraign "his Judge, for every puny Curate to cenfure "his Bishop, for every fhallow-brained home"bred fellow to defcant upon the results of the "Council-Table: and this spirit of contradic ❝tion “tion and of contumacy has been a long time fermenting in the minds of the people." "I have heard," fays Dr. Waller in his Funeral Sermon on the Death of the Countess of Warwick," that it was the obfervation of that great Antiquary Charles the First, that the "three ancienteft families of Europe for Nobility "are in England the Veres Earls of Oxford, the Fitzgeralds in Ireland Earls of Kildare, " and the Montmorencies in France." Charles used to say of himself, that he knew fo much of arts and manufactures in general, that he believed he could get his living by any of them, except weaving in tapestry. This unfortunate Monarch most probably met with his very fevere fate in confequence of his duplicity. Cromwell declared that he could not truft him. His fate is a striking instance of the truth of the maxim of Menander, thus tranflated by Grotius: In re omni conducibile eft quovis tempore At every time, and upon all occafions, "Tis right to fpeak the truth. And this I vouch In every various ftate of human life The greatest part of our fecurity. Of Of the letter which is faid to have been the cause of the death of Charles, the Author of the "Richardfoniana" has preferved the following very curious account: "Lord Bolingbroke told us* (June 12, 1742) "that Lord Oxford had often told him that " he had feen, and had in his hands, an original "letter that King Charles the First wrote to the 66 Queen, in answer to one of her's that had "been intercepted, and then forwarded to him; "wherein fhe reproached him for having made "thofe villains too great conceffions (viz. that "Cromwell fhould be Lord Lieutenant of Ire"land for life without account; that that king"dom should be in the hands of the party, with "an army there kept which fhould know no "head but the Lieutenant; that Cromwell "fhould have a garter, &c.). That in this letter "of the King's it was faid, that she should leave "him to manage, who was better informed of "all circumstances than fhe could be; but fhe might be entirely eafy as to whatever concef"fions he should make them, for that he should "know in due time how to deal with the rogues, "who instead of a filken garter fhould be fitted "with a hempen cord. So the letter ended: "which answer, as they waited for, fo they in * "Mr. Pope, Lord Marchmont, and myself.” |