A design of making the

England, under this affront, he possessed the king with such a hatred of that court, that the queen was ill used on her coming over, and all her servants were sent back. He told him also, that the protestants were so ill used, and so strong, that if he would protect them, they would involve that kingdom in new wars; which he represented as so glorious a beginning of his reign, that the king, without weighing the consequence of it, sent one to treat with the duke of Rohan about it. Great assistance was promised by sea: so a war was resolved on, in which the share that our court had is well enough known. But the infamous part was, that Richlieu got the king of France to make his queen write an obliging letter to the duke of Buckingham, assuring him that, if he would let Rochelle fall without assisting it, he should have leave to come over, and should settle the whole matter of the religion according to their edicts. This was a strange proceeding: but cardinal Richlieu could turn that weak king as he pleased. Upon this the duke made that shameful campaign of the isle of Rhe. But finding next winter that he was not to be suffered to go over into France, and that he was abused into a false hope, he resolved to have followed that matter with more vigour, when he was stabbed by Felton.

There is another story told of the king's conduct Spanish Ne- during the peaceable part of his reign, which I had therlands a from Halewyn of Dort, who was one of the judges

common

wealth.

in the court of Holland, and was the wisest and greatest man I knew among them. He told me he had it from his father, who, being then the chief man of Dort, was of the states, and had the secret communicated to him. When Isabella Clara Eugenia grew

old, and began to decline, a great many of her council, apprehending what miseries they would fall under when they should be again in the hands of the Spaniards, formed a design of making themselves a free commonwealth, that in imitation of the union among the cantons of Switzerland, that were of both religions, there should be a perpetual confederacy between them and the states of the seven provinces. This they communicated to Henry Frederick prince of Orange, and to some of the states, who approved of it, but thought it necessary to engage the king of England in it. The prince of Orange told the English ambassador, that there was a matter of great consequence that was fit to be laid before the king; but it was of such a nature, and such persons were concerned in it, that it could not 49 be communicated, unless the king would be pleased to promise absolute secrecy for the present. This the king did and then the prince of Orange sent him the whole scheme. The secret was ill kept: either the king trusted it to some who discovered it, or the paper was stolen from him; for it was sent over to the court of Bruxells: one of the ministry lost his head for it: and some took the alarm so quickly, that they got to Holland out of danger. After this the prince of Orange had no commerce with our court, and often lamented that so great a design was so unhappily lost. He had as ill an opinion of the king's conduct of the war; for when the queen came over, and brought some of the generals with her, the prince said, after he had talked with them, (as the late king told me,) he did not wonder to see the affairs of England decline as they did, since he had talked with the king's generals.

The ill effects of violent counsels.

He

I will not enter farther into the military part: for I remember an advice of Marshal Schomberg's, never to meddle in the relation of military matters'. said, some affected to relate those affairs in all the terms of war, in which they committed great errors, that exposed them to the scorn of all commanders, who must despise relations that pretend to an exactness, when there were blunders in every part of them.

In the king's death the ill effect of extreme violent counsels discovered itself. Ireton hoped that by this all men concerned in it would become irreconcileable to monarchy, and would act as desperate men, and destroy all that might revenge that blood. But this had a very different effect. Something of the same nature had happened in lower instances before but they were not the wiser for it. The earl of Strafford's death made all his former errors be forgot it raised his character, and cast a lasting odium on that way of proceeding; whereas he had sunk in his credit by any censure lower than death, and had been little pitied, if not thought justly punished. The like effect followed upon Archbishop Laud's death. He was a learned, a sincere, and zealous man, regular in his own life, and humble [but very rough and ungracious] in his private deportment; but was a hot, indiscreet man, eagerly pursuing some matters that were either very inconsiderable or mischievous; such as setting the communion table by the east walls of churches, bowing to it, and calling it the altar; the suppressing the Walloons' privileges, the breaking of lectures, the encouraging of sports on the Lord's day, with some t Very foolish advice, for soldiers cannot write. S.

other things that were of no value: and yet all the zeal and heat of that time was laid out on these. His severity in the star-chamber and in the high 50 commission court, but above all his violent and indeed inexcusable injustice in the prosecution of Bishop Williams, were such visible blemishes, that nothing but the putting him to death in so unjust a manner could have raised his character; which indeed it did to a degree of setting him up as a pattern, and the establishing all his notions as standards, by which judgments are to be made of men, whether they are true to the church or not. His diary, though it was a base thing to publish it, represents him as an abject fawner on the duke of Buckingham, and as a superstitious regarder of dreams his defence of himself, writ with so much care when he was in the Tower, is a very mean performance. He intended in that to make an appeal to the world. In most particulars he excuses himself by this, that he was but one of many, who either in council, star-chamber, or high commission, voted. illegal things. Now though this was true, yet a chief minister, and one in high favour, determines the rest so much, that they are generally little better than machines acted by him. On other occasions he says, the thing was proved but by one witness. Now, how strong soever this defence may be in law, it is of no force in an appeal to the world; for if a thing is true, it is no matter how full or how defective the proof is. The thing that gave me the strongest prejudice against him in that book is, that after he had seen the ill effects of his violent counsels ", and had been so long shut up, and so long at All this is full of malice and ill judgment. S.

The account of

σιλική.

leisure to reflect on what had passed in the hurry of passion in the exaltation of his prosperity, he does not, in any one part of that great work, acknowledge his own errors, nor mix in it any wise or pious reflections on the ill usage he met with, or the unhappy steps he had made: so that while his enemies did really magnify him by their inhuman prosecution, his friends Heylin and Wharton have as much lessened him, the one by writing his life, and the other by publishing his vindication of himself.

But the recoiling of cruel counsels on the authors Eix Ba- of them never appeared more eminently than in the death of king Charles the first, whose serious and christian deportment in it made all his former errors be entirely forgot, and raised a compassionate regard to him, that drew a lasting hatred on the actors, and was the true occasion of the great turn of the nation in the year 1660. This was much heightened by the publishing of his book called Εἰκὼν Βασιλική, which was universally believed to be his own and that coming out soon after his death had the greatest run in many impressions that any book has had in our age. There was in it a noble51 ness and justness of thought, with a greatness of style, that made it to be looked on as the best writ book in the English language: and the piety of the prayers made all people cry out against the murder of a prince, who thought so seriously of all his affairs in his secret meditations before God. I was bred up with a high veneration of this book: and I remember that, when I heard how some denied it to be his, I asked the earl of Lothian about it, who both

* I think it a poor treatise, and that the king did not write it. S.