The Fatall Blow: OR, The most Impious and Treasonable Fact of HAMMOND, In offering force unto, and hurting His SACRED MAIESTIE: Discussed, and REPARATION pressed, by a suddain Disso­lution of the Tyrannicall Power of this present PARLIAMENT, A Summary of whose wicked Practices tending to the sub­version of MONARCHIE and Murder of His MAIESTIE, and the Enslaving of this Nation is premised.

There-establishing of RELIGION, and re-enthroning of His MAIESTIE by Force and Armes is propounded and justified.

Dedicated and directed to the People of ENGLAND.

Now know I, that the Lord saveth his Annointed; he will hear him from his holy Heaven, with the saving strength of his right hand.

Psal. 20.6.

For the King trusteth in the Lord, and through the mercy of the most High he shall not miscarry.

Thine hand shall finde out all thine Enemies; thy right hand shall finde out those that hate thee.

Psal. 21.7, 8.

LONDON printed, Anno Domini 1648.

Good People of England,

CAn you be so dull complexioned, that you cannot in seven yeares learne (and what hath been so often whipt into you) one Lesson, This Parliament will have no King? will you be baited into a slavery, and held fast by the gills, by the old jugling, and deluding perswasions, of Religion, Liberty, and Property? Shall the infusions of these Givens any longer continue you transformed from Men into Beasts, to lye down like Asses under your Burthens, and to conceit that a slavish rest is good? Can these Sorcerers make you any longer beleeve, that they are the great Power of God, when they are the manifest, and skild operators unto the Devill? Surely the Tolleration of all Religions and Heresies, the keeping of an Army (modeld unto their own purposes) still on foote, the Circumvention of your Liberties, the visible and cunning Invasion of your Properties, their whole Processe with His Majesty, and all the present practises in order unto the Subversion of Monarthy in this Kingdome, and setting up for themselves, cannot but state it for a most unquestionable and measured Truth with you, O people of England, that this present Parliament will have no King, but reign, and rule themselves, how and as they list; and this will be beyond dispute, if you suddain­ly survay their whole Conduit of this Designe: By their disposing the three Kingdoms unto an Aptitude to receive their Impressions, and the universall Taint of Rebellion, by their pra­ctises with the Scots (an Irritable people) whom by their meer Encouragements, they draw into a Posture of Hostility against His Majesty, through their suggestions that He would introduce Popery, and an Arbitrary, and Tyrannicall forme of Government o­ver His People; By their corruption of discontented, poore, yet powerful, and Leading Per­sons of Scotland to improve their Designe, By their Treachery unto and desection of His Majesty and His Army, raised (and able) to suppresse that Sedition, upon Tearmes of greatest Disadvatnage unto His Majesty, and of highest Dishonour unto this Nation; By Necessitating His Majesty to call a Parliament (as the only remedy for the present Di­stempers) the Members whereof were for the prevailing part, an industriously packt Crue of Dis-affected Persons unto His Majesty, unto the Government established, and who did only drive at their own Ends; By their violent Ejection of Persons well-affected un­to the King and Kingdome, out of both Houses, and all places of Trust and Importance; By their sending abroad their owne evill Ministring-spirits, and hired Emissaries, those Sampsons Foxes tyed together by the tayles, and fire-brands betwixt them, their facti­ous, illiterate, prostitute, and phanatique Clergy, to set the standing-Corne of the peo­ple into the fire of Rebellion; By their publishing, and countenancing Scandalous and Seditious Pamphlets, and Petitions against His Majestyes Royall Person and Govern­ment: By their enforcing the Irish into Rebellion (who made modest and humble Ad­dresses [Page 2]unto them for Liberty of Conscience, and the Protection of the received Law [...] of that Kingdome) through their Menaces, that that Kingdome should be no longer [...] Nursery of Popery, and of sending thither an Army of ten thousand Scots, to be maintai­ned by the 9d. a Sunday to be levyed upon Recusants; least that Kingdome remaining intire, might come into His Majesties Rescue, when these Men intended to perfect their purpose of Vn-throning Him: By their levying Men and vast summes of Money, under pretence of suppressing that Rebellion, but employing them against His Majesty only; for this purpose also, By their making desperate, and exasperating the Irish, both by the selling and re-selling of their Lands, (and much more than is in that Island) and ta­king from them all hope of Pardon, and denying unto them Quarter. By their sending unto that service (almost) onely such Commanders and men, as were of His Majesties Army in the North, doubting of their affections here, and then abandoning them unto all want and misery there. This Parliament (besides that they occasioned the Rebellion, and the first Effusion of blood in Ireland) having spilt more English blood by the wilfull neglect of them there, than the Irish did by their swords: By their defrauding the poore Protestants of Ireland of the Benevolence of the Dutch, and converting it unto their own uses: By their breaking the late Peace in Ireland concluded by His Majesties Auhority, through their trans-actions with the Spanish Ambassador, who dealt so effectually with the Popes Nuncio, and Owen Roe ô Neale (both Factors for Spayne) that they not only hindred that Peace, but in order unto this Parliamentary Design, seized upon the best strengths of the English in Counaught, and almost all the English Holds and Quarters in Lemster: By their sithence in-effective prosecution of the War there, and so only as to engage and entertaine both Parties there, as that they might only not be able to looks upon themselves here, through which many thousands have perished: In the entrance unto their Designe here, By bloodily tearing from the Kings sides, His most faithfull, and consult Counsellors and Servants, and either illegally taking away their lives, or con­straining them unto flight: By their taking away first the Votes of, then the Bishops themselves, and by silencing and imprisoning the Orthodox Clergy, who might con­scionably informe the people of their Duties, and of the Necessity of Christian Obedience unto the Supream Magistrate His Majesty: By extorting from His Majesty Acts prejudi­ciall unto His Crown and Dignity, and such only as might serve to advance their own Ends; (that for continuation of this present Parliament being forced to save the Queens life.) By their Abbetting men of most impudent Ambition, and Avarice, those Members (not to be named without an Atonement first made, trained up in, and furnished with all Anti-monarchicall and dishonest Principalls) and that against the very face of the King: By their stirring up of Tumults, Insurrections, and Mutinyes, of the abused people and multitude, against His Majesty and His most Loyall Subjects, thereby forcing Him, and them to leave London. By their Necessitating of His Maiesty (divested and made naked of all Habiliments and Military Preparations) unto a War; By their prosecu­tion of that War, with so much subtilty and cruelty: By their Ordnances to raise Mony and Men against His Maiesty, upon pretence to redeeme Him out of the hands of His evill Councell: By the Preaching of their Sycophant Clergy unto the people, largely [Page 3]to contribute to this Worke, (who as Aaron did the Israelites) to bring forth their Calf, the Idoll at Westminster, made the people naked unto their shame, and cheated them of their Plate, and the Woemen even of their Iewels and Rings: By their planting an unlimi­ted and Arbitrary power in themselves: By their subversion of the Fundamentall Laws of the Kingdom, and establishing the boundlesse Dictates of their own Ordnances: By their endeavours to dispirit and enslave the people of this Kingdom, by the over-awing power of an Army, heavy Impositions, and Free-Quarter, to enure them unto Bondage: By their Propositions in all Treaties, of matters unfit for Subiects to demand, and un­safe for a Prince to grant: By their Banishment, or Impoverishment of all that adhe­red unto His Maiesty: By their enriching themselves with the whole Wealth and Spoils of the Kingdome: By their exportation of great and incredible summes of Money out of this Kingdome, and storing it up in those Seminaries of Schisme, in New England, the Islands, and the Low-Countryes: By their drawing together of the ignorant, uncon­scionable, and their waged Clergy under the reputation of a National Synod (with exclu­sion of the Orthodox) to forge forth such a Body of Doctrinalls and Discipline, as might best be shaped to uphold their Anti-monarchicall Principles and Practises. By their Poysoning the Fountains of Knowledge, the two Vniversities, with the Satanical Infusions of their Hereticall Doctors: By their conferring Preferments, and all places of Profit and Trust upon their own Creatures onely: By their translating all Trade and Traffique unto their own Partakers: By their most subtile and perjurous gayning His Majesty out of the hands of the Scots, upon all assurances of Freedome, Safety, and Ho­nour: By their sithence severall Confinements, and Imprisonments of Him, as to breed a Contempt of Him in His People, so unparaleld occasions of discontent, and the sad ef­fects of that in Himselfe, and to compell Him unto such Conditions, as might make Him to pull the Crown from off His head, with his owne hands, and to set it upon theirs: By hireing his trusted Servants, under pretence of Safety to decoy Him into a place of strongest, and strictest durance, and greatest mis-usage: By their glorying with the people in their late Addresses unto His Majesty in the Isle of Wight; And offering such Acts there as Subjects yet never tendred unto a King, or was possible for His Ma­jesty to grant: By their adding unto the weight of all their Crueltyes against Him, for His denyall of Subscription, and Royall Assent unto the Acts presented; in the re­moveall of all His Servants, and Closet-Imprisonment: By their making an Ordnance, that no further Addresses shall be made unto His Majesty, and that they will take a further course to establish the Kingdome without Him. i. e. To settle the Kingdome upon them­selves, unto which they make way: By their most false and forced Accusations of His Majesty; both to disaffect His owne people at home, and to fore-stall their ayd, and to breed Contempt, and Neglect of Him abroad, publishing in all Languages of Europe, scandalous and base Vntruths of His Majesty, to prevent forraigne Succours: Represen­ting His Sacred Majesty unto the Protestants, a Papist, unto the Papists a Tyrant, and unto both a man of no Faith and unfit for Government: whereas nothing hath so much contributed unto the present Power of this Parliament, as the Contrivances of the most rigid of Papists, the Spaniard, or so much hindred His Maiesty of due Succours: Yea, [Page 4]this their Designe is further manifested, by their suffering the decay of his Majesties Houses, by their sale of his Lands, Houshold-stuffe, and of the very Coates of his [...] by their mean and inferiour nurture of his Children here, (for Prince Charles is a [...] away,) put into such hands as have neither the principles of Honour, honesty, or Li [...] Education in them, to embase the Spirits, to dwarfe the growing Endowment of these Royal Branches, and to dispose and fit them to parity and the constitution of Leveller: by their denial to his Majesty an opportunity (so frequently importuned by Him) to dear Himselfe of those odious Crimes they charge Him withall; as though they feared He Would leave the Load of all the late Mischiefes at their own Door, or rather that they intended to condemne Him (though uncondemned) unheard.

What doth the Total of all these Severals reckoned and summoned up amount unto, but that they intend an Assassination, and privately in plain English to murder his Ma­jesty, to devest his Royal Posterity of all Regality, to usurpe the Imperial Crown of England, and to divide it amongst themselves; to attain the more easily to which, they now offer to the Scots (not to interrupt them here;) what ere in Ireland is in the Parliament po­wer: and to give you further testimony unto this Truth, because they cannot trust any ingenuous men, of the Gentry, and whose present Estate might interesse their Endea­vours in the Good of the Kingdom, they have placed the whole and sole command of the Army, and all Places of Importance in men of as low, base, and desperate For­tunes, as they are of contemptible Education, and such whose Merits giving unto them no Rise or advantage of Advancement, can promise that unto themselves [onely] (be­ing for the greater part broken Tradesmen) in the continuance of the usurped Power of this present Parliament, which they are engaged to support; and into one of these Con­fiding Mens hands, have they contrived His Sacred Majesty, into Goaler Hammonds; who (notwithstanding his most solemne Protestations unto his Majesty to treat Him well) promiseth this Parliament, that He will obey all their Commands, although never so contrary to his sence and honour; id est, his former Engagements to his Majesty; so ab­solute is he their Creature. And to shew us how true he is unto this last Engagement, in his Majesties late Resistance of him in the Search of some Papers, He hath most impi­ously and traiterously wounded his Sacred Majesty. The whole Earth will be amazed at this Fact: the Christian World will tremble, and be highly offended at this greatest Propha­nation of God in his Image: the Eares of posterity will glow to reade, God himselfe thus blasphemed and hurt in his immediate Delegate, Gods Vicar, Gods Annointed, our Soveraigne Lord King CHARLES. It was questionlesse the Glory of Martyrdome these Men meant, when they promised to make His Majesty a glorious Prince, for he hath been already A most worthy Confessour, the late condition of his Life being but a lingring Death: and indeed, what Kings of England have been imprisoned, whose Lives also have not been taken away? This passage no doubt is the Prologue unto the Tragedy they intend to Act, the horrid Murther of our Soveraigne: if the People disgust not this Fact of Hammonds, they promise unto themselves impunity in their bloudy intend­ments against the Kings Life. This is the blessed Reformation of Westminster, the Di­vine Religion derived thence. See what an harmony it hath with the Word of God: [Page 5] Touch not mine [...]ed, Psal. 105.15. (saith the Spirit of God.) Who can stretch forth his hand against the Lords [...]ed and be guiltlesse? 1 Sam. 26.9. saith David. Th [...] is no rising up against a King, Prov. 31. saith Solomon. Here are Gods Letters Patents for the Kings Inviolability. But alas, an Ordinance of this Parliament can nullifie these, and warrant Hammonds violence unto his Majesty. King Saul was a bloudy Tyrant, dis-obedient unto Gods own Voyce, possessed with the Devil, an Idolater, and consult­ed with Witches, he did most maliciously persecute Davids Life, who had Gods Grane in Reversion of the Kingdom; yet he could not entertain the thought of this Impiety in himselfe, nor receive the violent Impressions thereof from others, when King Saul was in his power, he sayes, God forbid that he should lift up his hand against Gods Anointed; 1 Sam. 24.6. Yea more, His heart smote him when he cut off the skirt of Sauls garment, onely to testifie his Integrity unto his Prince. The young Amalekite but for hastening Sauls Death, (who had already received his Deaths wound) although rescued from the Enemy, and presented David with the Crown and Regal Ornaments, was by David sentenced to die, for not fearing to touch Gods Anointed, 2 Sam. 1.10. & 14. And shall these Men escape punishment who persecute a most pious Prince, whose whole carriage unbespeaks all the malicious suggestions of men wickedly busie to undermine the pub­lique peace, and meets with all the needlesse Iealousies of peevish people. How hath he in order unto peace condiscended to put down the High-Commission and Star-Chamber Courts, the envied secular power of Bishops, willingly consigned his Forts, Ma­gazines, and Navy into the Dispose of the Parliament; and notwithstanding the abuse of all these against His Royal Person and Crown; yet how hath He sought peace, and pursued it, by the Gracious Offer of An Act of Indemnity; the Payment of the Army; by regard unto tender Consciences, and the satisfaction of all Interests. All these things loudly proclame his integrity and great love unto his people, and his royal cle [...]ncy unto all, so grosly abused by the Avarice and Hypocrisie of these desperate Practicioners upon the Body politique, whose Deeds sufficiently convey this Truth unto us, That this Parliament will have no King; and to that end, it is more than a probable coniecture, that they will murther the King.

Let us no longer lie in that Lethargy the wicked practises this Parliament hath cast us into, but redeem his Maiesty out of Captivity and the Iawes of Death, and vigo­rously, and effectually endeavour the re-establishment of our first Reformation in Gods Church, and of his Maiesty in his Throne. Not to hinder a sin when it is in our power, implies an approbation thereof, and makes the Guilt equal in the Permitters with the Actors of it: if we suffer these (as Pilate did the Jewes) to crucifie Christ, Gods Anointed, the whole Ocean cannot wash off the guilt of it from us, But his Bloud will (also) be up­on us and our children. Let us then quit our selves like men, and re-inforce our first Re­formation and his Majesties Rights; Sacred Truths, for which we should be valiant; God ha­ving given a Banner unto all them that fear him, because of his Truth, let us all draw up together under this Banner, to be set up for Truth, for God and King CHARLES; for our Religion and King, If we ought to lay down our lives for the Brethren, 1 Iohn 3.16. How much more now, when our eldest Brothers Life, our Kings Life worth ten thou­sand [Page 6]of our lives, and of many thousand others our suffering Brethren nay, the life of [...] Religion and Liberty lies at stake: let us avoid no danger or hazard to preserve the liv [...] [...] these; let neither Scots nor Irish, or Forraigners, prevent us of the glory of this Christian and pious Enterprise, and our bounden duty, but let us all rise as one man, from Dan to Be [...]r­sheba, and joyn our power to remove the Chair of violence, and Counsel of the Ʋngo [...]lly [...] Westminster; let these Impostours, and Deceivers of the People (who can plead no privi­ledge they have so highly abused all) be brought to condigne punishment, And as they have done let it be done unto them, let their Reward returne upon their own heads. Obad. [...]. To which purpose, let us in the Name of God Arme and Ioyne with those who will de­clare for the Re-establishment of Religion, and his Maiesty: which course as it dis­chargeth but our Duties unto God and our Prince, so it will avoid the effusion of Christian Bloud, save a vast expence of Treasure, prevent the Devastation of our Coun­trey, continue our present, and beget a future plenty, re-instate the Kingdom in her former happinesse, vindicate us in our long sufferings, and render us honoured to the present Age, and glorious unto posterity: let these our common and great interests, (suffi­cient Motives to engage the most fearfull spirits in the greatest Dangers) animate us un­to this great and good Worke. King Davids prayer for his own safety, and his Enemies confusion shall supply the Conclusion.

Let not them O Lord say in their hearts, Ah, so would we have it: let them not say, We have swallowed him (the King) up. Psal. 35, 25, 26, 27.

Let them be ashamed, and brought to confusion together that rejoyce at his hurt, let them be cloathed with shame and dishonour that magnifie themselves against Him.

Let them shout for joy and be glad that favour his righteous Cause; yea, let them say con­tinually, Let the Lord be magnified, which hath pleasure in the prosperity of his Servant [King CHARLES] And let all good People of England say, Amen.

FINIS.

This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Text Creation Partnership. Searching, reading, printing, or downloading EEBO-TCP texts is reserved for the authorized users of these project partner institutions. Permission must be granted for subsequent distribution, in print or electronically, of this EEBO-TCP Phase II text, in whole or in part.