IT hath alwaies been the observed practise of wicked Men, (as skil­full Physitians guild over their most bitter Pills, and deliver their unpleasantest Potions in a delightfull Cup) to lay a faire outside, upon their foulest actions, and make a plausible entrance into their most execrable designes; writing the sense of their black resolutions in golden Characters, wrapping their most nefarious Plots in mantles of Innocency; and traducing others, transferre their own guile, to make it become their guiltinesse: whilst good men knowing innocence, to have so faire a face, that she needs no painting; and a good Cause, when plainly told, to be sufficiently pleaded; in confidence of their owne integrity and honesty, commit their Cause (in a plaine dresse, without any other ornament than truth) to the view of the world; presuming their Resolutions to be grounded on so good reason, that they cannot want the equity of a candid and charitable construction; which, their malitious Adversaries with cunning sophistry endeavour to asperse by wounding their reputations with scandalous slanders, and charging their honours with hainous accusations; casting false fires before the eyes of the Vulgar, benighted with ignorance, de­praving the sences with unjust suspitions of antient and approved Go­vernment, and charme them to a chearfull imbracing of their garish novelties: whereby at length themselves become Lords of their Per­sons and judgements, and enslave both to the pleasures of their ty­rannicall wills, making themselves perfect Observers of the first part of that good advise, Be wise as Serpents, and leaving the innocency of Doves to the onely practise and portion of their injured Adversaries.

Such was the condition of His late sacred Majesty of ever blessed memory, who in the beginning of these unhappy differences, being sufficiently satisfied of the candour of His owne heart, and justice of His Cause, freely Declared His resolutions for the satisfaction of all His People; neglecting nothing that might beget and preserve a good under­standing between Him and His Subjects; in giving many Princely testi­monies of His grace and favour, in passing severall Acts, to the abridging of His Royall Prerogative for the inlargement of their Liberties: Not­withstanding which, these bloody Catalines, His Enemies, as if they had put on a resolution not to be satisfied with any thing but His Majesties destruction; did by secret and subtile practises, bespatter His Majesties reputation, possessing the People with feigned Feares and Jealousies, whispering to their abused senses, strange imaginations, that His Ma­jesty did exdeavour to alter the Religion established, and introduce Popery; to subvert the fundamentall Lawes of the Land, and to alienate the Peoples Liberties into the French bondage; whereby their Estates should become liable to His Will and pleasure: by which, they begot a mis-understan­ding between the KING and His People; which having fully effected, for the further advancing of their owne ambitious ends, they plunged the People into a most barbarous and bloody Rebellion against the KING'S Sacred Person, His Crowne and Dignities, and for the better colour of their mischievous intentions, they make a shew of Reformation, and under pretence to abolish Superstition, they have banished all de­cency out of the Church; using the reverence of Religion, as a mantle to cover their impiety, blasphemy, Treason, Sacriledge and Rebellion, and that they might shew themselves Graduates in Machiavel's Poli­tiques, and with better skill delude His Majesties wel-meaning Sub­jects, besides their Oath of Allegiance, Protestation, and severall De­clarations, they cause a Solemne League and Covenant to be generally taken within their Quarters, whereby with hands lifted up to the most high God, they bind themselves to maintaine the true Protestant Religion, to preserve His Majesties Royall Person, Queen, and Posterity, in the ful­nesse of their glory and splendor, with the continuance of His Majesties just and Royall Prerogatives, that they would alwaies maintaine the Privi­ledges of Parliament, and the Liberty of the Subject; by which faire and specious pretences they won the People, (who usually fathom the mysteries of State by their owne shallow capacities) to a ready com­pliance with them; who thought neither Life nor Estate too precious to be hazarded in their service: by whose assistance, having got the grand Treasury of the Kingdome into their custody, wanting neither [Page 3]Men nor Money, they prosecute their Designe with all rage and vio­lence, to the plunder and ruine of all that did oppose them, not spa­ring the lives of any who seemed to stand as screens between them and their purposes: but at length, having subdued the Loyall Party, and got His Majesties Royall Person into their possession, after a long and tedious Imprisonment, wherein all the common comforts of this life were withheld from Him, (save the peace of a good Conscience, which they could not sequester:) In the time of a Treaty, the Faith of the Kingdome being passed for His security, when He had granted the perfection of their desires, and given them all possible satisfaction, when the hopes of peace, and the generall conceipt of His Majesties safe returne had swolne the Peoples hearts to an hyperbole of happi­nesse, even then to shew, that nothing would satisfie them but Blood and Dominion, they abruptly breake off the Treaty, and by Force of Armes, hurry Him from one Prison to another, till at length they bring Him before the Judgement Seat, where having loaden Him with scorne and contempt, and upbraided with the infamous brands of Tyrant, Traytor, and Murderer; they dismissed Him with the Sentence of Death: And that they might justifie the Gun-powder-Traytors, who having some tincture of Grace, contrived their Treason to be secretly acted in a Cellar, as blushing, that the light should be a witnesse of their prodigious deeds: These, as an addition of His sorrow, in a triumphant manner, with Drums beating, and Colours flying, on the 30. Jan. 1649. (a black & dismall day!) they bring his sacred Majesty to the Scaffold, where without respect of Place or Person, either of the Repres [...]ntor, or Represented, at mid day, in the face of the Sun, & generall view of His People, they execute their grim, and bloody Sentence by the common Executioner, who to the terrour of the Beholders, with his Instrument of death, seperated His Royall Head from His Body; whom malice it selfe could not justly staine with any notorious personall fault, being a King of high & antient descent, full of all Imperiall virtues, Religion, Justice, clemency, patience, learning, wisdome, memory, affability, mag­nanimity, and all other high and glorious endowments that are requi­site for the perfect accomplishment of an absolute KING. And al­beit, that Princes hold their Crownes immediately of, and from God, by right of lawfull Succession and Inheritance, inherent by Royall Blood; yet by force of Armes they keep His present Majesty from His undoubted Right, and absolve the People from their due Allegi­ance and fealty to their lawfull Soveraigne, Declaring, and solemnly proclaiming throughout the Kingdome, That they will absolutely abolish [Page 4]Monarchy, and perpetuate the Government to themselves and their poste­rity in a confused Anarchy.

And now I cannot but declare, that from my soule I doe abhorre, and utterly detest, that execrable and prodigious murder which was executed upon the Person of my late dread Soveraigne; which was a Treason of that horror, and monstrous nature, (as was excellently ex­pressed by a learned Lawyer in case of the Gun-powder Treason) that before now, the tongue of Man never delivered, the ear of Man never heard, the heart of Man never conceited, nor the malice of hellish or earthly Devil ever practised: For, if it be abominable to murder the least, if to touch Gods Anointed be to oppose themselves against God, if by blood to subvert Princes, States, & Kingdoms be hateful to God and Man, as all true Christians must acknowledg; then how much more than monstrous must all Men judge the horror of this Treason, to murder and subvert such a KING; to race out such a Progeny, to overthrow such a Go­vernment, so compleat and absolute, that God approves, the world admires, all true English hearts honour and reverence, and onely the Pope and his Adherents, themselves and their Abettors envie and maligne.

Nor can I leave hear, having to doe with offences so exorbitant and transcendent, and aggregated of so many bloody and fearfull crimes, as they cannot be aggravated by any inference, argument, or circum­stance whatsoever, being of the first impression, and therfore without any Name, which might be adaequate sufficient to expresse it, given by any Legist, that ever made, or writ of any Lawes: For, the highest Trea­son, that all they could imagine, they called it onely, Crimen laesae Ma­jestatis, the violating of the Majesty of the Prince: but this Treason doth want an apt name, as tending not onely to the hurt, but to the death of the KING, and not to the death of the KING onely, but of His whole Kingdomes, that is, to the destruction and dissolution of the whole frame and fabrick of the antient, famous, and ever-flourishing Monarchy; even the deletion of our whole Name and Nation.

For repairing and restoring the honour whereof, for bringing these high and capitall Delinquents to due and impartiall justice, for the restoring the true Protestant Religion to its antient splendour, the e­stablishing His Majesties Thrones in power and peace; for the main­tenance of the antient Priviledges of Parliament, the Law of the Land, and Liberty of the People, and (I take God to witnesse) for no other end, by vertue of His Majesties Commission I have taken up Armes, and doe solemnly protest in the presence of Almighty God, that I will [Page 5]never lay them downe, while God shall enable me to hold them up; till I have fully finished my intended worke, and reduced all in rebellion to His Majesties obedience.

Nor shall any prosperous successe in my Adversaries, or adverse, in my selfe, discourage me, in prosecution of my resolved enterprise; not being any thing amated at my late unhappy fortune before Dub­lin; (where I was betrayed by my new modelled Souldiers; which Defeat, was not yet so great as my Enemies pretend, nor their losse so small, as themselves would perswade) but shall speedily returne to that Siege, from whence I resolve not to depart, till it shall please God to deliver that City up into my hands; not doubting but by Gods as­sistance in a small time, to turne their triumphant Festivall of Thanks­giving, into a day of Humiliation.

And for as much as mercy, is the surest foundation whereon a King can establish his Throne, I declare, that I shall alwaies become an impor­tunate Intercessour, to His Majesty, to receive all such to mercy, as shall humbly submit themselves, and acknowledge their offences, and that all con­venient Liberty may be granted to the ease of Tender Consciences; and that all such may be received to pardon, who have been deluded, and drawne away by the subtile insinuations of the crafty Adversary, and have been only Spectators or Abettors of that horrible Murder; and that indempnity may be granted to all save those that have been principall and grand Actors in that monstrous and prodigious Treason, who can expect no pardon.

And whereas by credible information I am given to understand, that OLIVER CROMWELL, with a numerous Army, lies now at Milford, intending to make a speedy entrance into this King­dome, to joyne with those, now in rebellion against His Majesty; to the dissipation of this Army under my command, and promotion of the Rebels interest here: Wherefore I declare, that I am so farre from being any whit daunted at the noise of their numbers, that my encourage­ment is swolne to a full measure, not onely with the sense of my ability to encounter them; but my assured confidence, that (by Gods assistance) we shall utterly destroy them and their rebellious Host.

And I doe further declare, that I am fully resolved, and doe hereby command all Officers and Commanders, both in Field and Garrison, not to capitulate with any of them, upon any termes save in the language of the Sword: but upon all occasions to fight it out, to the last Man. Nor doe I make any doubt, but that I shall be able to give a speedy accompt of this City & Kingdom, which I hope shortly to reduce to His Majesties obedience: And I am confident, that the God in whō we trust, will be the [Page 6]Tower of our defence, and as we owne his Cause, so he will owne us for his owne; and as from nothing he gave us a beginning, and from a small beginning, hath made us a powerfull Army, and given almost all the strong Garrisons in the Kingdome into our possession, causing our Enemies to become our Friends, so he will now deliver up these our proud and implacable enemies into our hands, making them and the world to know, that he is our God, and we his People. And now with this comfort I shall conclude, that maugre the malice, power, and fury of those insolent Regicides our Enemies, this present designe, in which I am ingaged, shall altogether tend to the glory of God, the honour of our Religion, the Safety of his most Excellent Majesty, and the Royall Family, the security of His Kingdomes, the extirpation of Errours, and suppression of Rebellion; and I doubt not but my pro­gresse herein shall be continually attended with the blessing of God, and the prayers of the Church.

From our Rendezvous neer Dublin, August the 11^th. 1649.