HAVING, with very much regret, taken into our High and Imperiall Consideration, the sad and desperate Condi­tion, into which the State of Christendome is at present almost inevitably plunged, as well by the Divisions of Prin­ces, as by sub-Divisions and secret Discontents, which begin to breake forth between them and their Subjects; The Rebellion of England, as an universall Contagion being become epidemicall, hath poysoned and infected most parts of Christendom: And likewise that that common Sower of all infand wickednesse, most falsly called the Parliament of England, with whom no Law of God nor Man, Nature nor Nation escapeth breaking, doe at this present imploy their Agents, the Bustua­ries of humane States, in all Kingdomes and Territories of Europe; whose restlesse industry is to crack the bonds of Allegiance and fealty betweene Subjects and their Soveraignes, by perswading the common People (whose eares are ever greedie of novelties) of the Tirannie of Monarchy, and insinuating delusive fancies of Liberty and Freedome, by which policy that spurious generation (more degenerated then ever Nebuchadonoser was, not Men into Beasts, but very Devills incarnate) hope to overwhelme the whole World with an inundation of Blood and Confusion, to bury Monarchy in a common grave of confused Anarchy, and establish their aepicene Government in a more fixed orb of certaine security: For prevention whereof, Wee have thought good to propound such meanes as Wee judge convenient for the conservation of a generall Peace in all Christian Kingdomes, and reducing that Re­bellious Nation to that due obedience and fealty, which by undoubted Right and divine Ordination, they owe to their Soveraigne.

And now Wee know not whether it will more become Us to De­claime or Declare; so monstrous is the nature of the Crime that gives [Page 2] present imployment to Our Royall Penne, that Our just indignation hath put Us upon a straine, more bitter then is suitable with the common Majesty of Our Imperiall Stile. For whereas, about eight yeares since, some certaine Lords and Commons that were assembled by Royall edict in the Parliament of England, pretending (and as they then alledged upon very good grounds) divers feares and jealousies upon their Kings departure from that his great Councell; and refusing to hearken to their wholsome advice, while hee lent an indulgent eare to the Malignant Councells of divers desperate Delinquents, whom his Majesty pro­tected from the hand of Justice, to the apparent hazard of the establish­ed Religion, the absolute overthrow of the ancient and fundamentall Lawes of the Land; the irrecoverable breach of the priviledge of Par­liament, and the finall ruine of all his good Subjects: For the defence and preservation whereof, and for no other ends, as they then most falsly asserted, they were necessitated to take up Armes to defend them­selves from the fury of that mighty Host, which his Majesty had raised for the accomplishment of those (as they scandalously termed them) his destructive Designes; and they solemnly protested that they inten­ded nothing prejudiciall to his Majesty or his Royall Issue, or the abate­ment of any of his just Prerogatives: But in testimony of their Loy­alty and tender affection to him and his Issue, they published many faire and glorious Declarations, which they confirmed by divers Oaths, Covenants and Sacraments, that they did no wayes intend in the least to eclipse the splendor of his Majesties Government, but were faithfully resolved to make him the most great and glorious Prince in Christen­dome; by which faire and plausible delusions they drew from the cre­dulous People vast and infinite summes of Money; begat a good un­derstanding in the opinion of Forraigne Princes, and insinuated too farre into the charity of Our sacred judgement: Thus by faire and spe­cious pretences they deluded the whole World, while, by policie and treachery more then valour, they had subdued the Royall Army, over­come the whole Kingdome, and gotten the possession of his Majesties Person; whom, instead of making a glorious King, they reduced to the condition of a miserable captive, hurrying him about from one pri­son to another, not vouchsafing to hearken to any conditions of Peace, but such as neither suited with the modesty of Subjects to ask, nor the Majesty of a King to grant: And although the effects of Rebellion accompanied with prosperity will prove strange and wonderfull, even in the sense of common apprehensions; yet beyond the imagination [Page 3] of man or expectation of Devills, that the soules of mortall men instru­cted in the principles of Christianity should proceede to such a grada­tion of wickednesse as those most deperditely wicked miscreants have lately done, who have found out a new method of Treason, so miracu­lously proditorious, that the whole counsell of Devills could give them no direction in, nor the Records of Hell afford a pattern; For, even in the time of a Treaty, when they had plighted their faith and the whole Kingdomes for his security; after hee had enlarged his Royall benig­nity to such an extent of gracious Concessions as the modesty of for­mer Rebells did never presume to crave, nor themselves could in reason expect; For, hee had not only admitted them to a copartnership, but for a certaine time surrendred his whole Rule and Royall Autho­rity into their power; yet those sanguinolent Caitiffes whose Lupine-fu­ry could bee satisfied with nothing but their Soveraignes blood, ravish'd his sacred Person from his Court by an unruly crue of their armed Ja­nizaries, the off-fall and surfeit of that distempered Kingdome, in which riotous croud they brought him to a Barre in an unknowne Court which themselves had erected, where themselves, his Vassalls, became his Judges, who loading him sufficiently with scorne and contempt, with faces worse then Luciferian, dismissed him with a gastly Sentence, which was executed not in a corner, but in the light of the Sunne, that all the World might take notice of it: For, on a Scaffold which, in aggravation of his sorrow they had caused to bee erected at the entrance into his Royall Court, at their command by the common Executioner that head was struck off, which the absolute Monarch of Heaven and Earth had crowned with a diadem of Imperiall Majesty; an act of that horri­ble and prodigious nature, that it' cannot bee effigiated and shap'd forth to any patterne, it being a prodition of such vast dimensions, monstrous latitude and prodigious nature, that it wants an apt name; for never any Legist either ancient or modern that ever made or writ of any Lawes hath left any name to posterity which might bee adaequate sufficient to expresse it.

The judgement of the Law in all Nations affirmes it Treason, not to bee expiated save by death, but to imagine or contr [...]ve the death of a King, though a Usurper or Tyrant; but this viperous brood whose breath is slaughter and destruction, have not only imagined or con­trived, but really acted the Murther of a lawfull King as unpattern'd in his vertues, as themselves are in their vices, whose universall endow­ments of grace and nature, as well as his deputation, justly rendred him [Page 4] a terrestriall deity; for, hee was the perfect Modell of all contracted vertues, the blessing of his age, the pleasure of mankind, the exaltation of nature, the Diamond in the Ring of the Monarchs of the Earth, the Miracle of the Christian, and the mark and scope of the heathen World; wherefore to have assassinated him by the hand of a Raviliack, had beene a supergra [...]uate sinne; but to execute him publiquely, as a common Malefactor, was the marrow and spirits of the mistery of Iniquity, so exorbitant, outragious and portentuous a Treason, that the prodigies of lost humanity could not have acted it worse; the blackest that ever the Sunne looked upon, the most cursed and infamous that ever was ac­compted in any Kalender of time; for, in so many thousand yeares, from the fall of the Reprobate Angells, it never came into the head of any Devill, to suggest, to the heart of any man, before this time, so ne­farious, patricidous, and flegitonticall a wickednesse as this was.

And having sent the father into the other World, through a Red-Sea of his owne precious blood, that they might manifest themselves to bee the very off-spring of the Devill, the falsest Sinons and Impostors that ever studied or put in practise the Art of delusion, with whom no bond of Alliance, Allegiance, Oath, or Sacrament can stand firme, if they list to dissolve it: They have proscribed his eldest sonne, their present So­veraigne, with the Duke his brother, and by a pretended Law, which to that purpose they have enacted, have made him, or any of the Roy­all Family, for ever uncapable of exercising the Kingly Government in any of those Kingdomes; And by the same Act, have made it abso­lutely Lawfull, with an assurance of a reward, for any one that shall Murther the yong King, and the Duke his brother, as Traytors, Spies, and Enemies to that Common-Wealth; And having swallowed a plen­tifull hope of an eternall fruition of their usurped Dominion, they have broken the Diadem of State, seized upon the Regalia to their owne benefit, put to sale the ornament and furniture of the Royall Houshold, devided the Crown Revenues among themselves and their adherents, overthrown the fundamentall Government of those Kingdomes, from a well-composed Monarchy, to a confused-Anarchy; and reduced the Subjects thereof from a glorious condition of perfect freedome, to a farre worse then Aegyptiacall bondage: Nor will the free possession of one Kingdome satiate their ambitious appetites; but that they may stretch forth their Tyrannie into Forraigne parts, they have landed an Host of ravenous Wolves, or rather incarnate Devills, in Ireland, who have out-gone the most barbarous Heathens, in bloody Massacres, not [Page 5] sparing whole Citties and Townes; but, without respect of Age or Sex, wheresoever they come, give free scope to the mercilesse fury of their uncurbed Swords; Nor are those a Abaddons and Apollions, these destroyers of nature and mankind, sensible of so small a tincture of grace as to blush at, or palliate their unprecedented outrages; but with the faces of Sodom and Gomorah, do publish and patronage their unmatchable Villanies, and seek to perswade the whole World of the Justice and Lega­llity of their unparralelled, regicide, and heterogeneous Government.

Now whereas it is the Office of Princes to execute Justice and Judge­ment, and to punish Vice and subdue Rebellion; Wee have thought it our Duty both to God and Man, to vindicate the cause of the late Mur­thered King of Great Brittaine, and restore his exiled son to the possessi­on of his Thrones, in Triumph and Majesty: And for as much as all Christian Princes are equally concerned in this Cause with Us; Wee have thought good to invite them to a generall Diet; Which wee desire may bee convoked at Antwerp in the Dukedome of Brabant; where, upon the tenth of Aprill, in the yeare of Grace 1650. Plenepotentiaries may meet from all Emperours, Kings, and Princes that professe Chri­stianity; where a generall and holy League being coucluded, and all ancient and private Quarrells lay'd aside, Wee may all agree to fight under one Banner; that there a set Modell may bee concluded on and drawn up, wherein every Prince shall beare a proportionable share, in raysing and maintaining a great numerous Army, in which the whole Forces of Christendom shall bee united in prosecution of this second holy Warre, wherewith wee will Invade that Kingdome both by Sea and Land; faithfully resolving never to desert this just and honoura­ble Ingagement, till (by the blessing of God) Wee have subdued that People to the obedience of their Soveraigne, and restored that injured King to the quiet possession of his undoubted Rights: And for as much as the inexorable malice of those unmatchable Rebells, extends to the generall Ruine of Father, Sonne, and whole Famelie; so the extent of our Justice shall range to the utter extirpation and irradication of them, their wives, children and allies; and an absolute deletion of their names and memories: But if Chronicles shall entail any of their prodigious Acts to ensuing Ages, their dreadfull destruction shall bee therewith Recorded; that Posterity may bee as well afrighted and amazed at the punishment, as progression of their Rebellion: And for the better en­couragement of this honourable enterprize, being the common Cause of abused Soveraignty; Wee are pleased of our owne Royall benignity, [Page 6] besides our proportionable contribution to the generall charge, to raise and maintaine ten thousand well experienced Souldiers, both Horse and Foote, and furnish them with a Train of Artillery, and all necessary habiliments of Warre, out of our proper Treasury.

And for as much as examples are the most compendious teachers, and perfect illustrations; Wee have thought it convenient to signify to the World, how farre Wee have expanded Our just indignation against that Rebellious People: For, by Our speciall Decree, which Wee have caused to bee Proclaimed throughout all Our Dominions; Wee have commanded all Englishmen by a certain day to depart our Empires, not­withstanding all former grants, licenses and Acts of naturalization; and after that day Wee have forbid all Trade and Commerce with that Na­tion, prohibiting any one of that Nation, upon any occasion, how ur­gent soever, upon paine of High-Treason, to remaine in any part of Our Empire or other Dominions: And if any shall presume, after that aforesaid day notwithstanding this Our Decree, to stay in any part of Our Dominions, that they bee forthwith executed as Spies and Tray­tors: Provided alwaies, that the Penalty of this Decree extend not to any who either are, or hereafter shall bee imployed in any of our Ter­ritories from the King of Great Brittaine: And Wee desire that all Kings and Princes of Christendom would herein follow Our Royall example; That as those unmatchable Rebells have out-gone all other Nations in their sinne; so they may in their sufferings in becoming an off-scouring and abhomination to mankind. And Wee doe solemnly protest Our selfe to bee an eternall friend to the King of Great Brittain and his friends; and an irreconciliable foe to his enemies.

Given at Our Court, at Mosco, the 20. of September 1649.