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"broke out afterwards into fuch fearful tempefts " of blood."

"His Majefty, then Prince of Wales, being "arrived in Spain," adds Howell, "the igno"rant country people cried out, The Prince of "Wales is come hither to make himself a "Christian. The Pope indeed wrote to the In

quifitor-General of Spain, to offer to use all "the industry they could to reduce him to the "Roman religion; and one of the Count Duke "Olivarez's first compliments to him was, that "he doubted not but his Highness came thither "to change his religion; whereunto he made a "short answer, that he came not thither for reli

gion, but for a wife. The Infanta of Spain " herself defired him to vifit the Nunne of Car"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 Highnefs fo weak a fubject to work upon, according to his late Majefty's (James

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"the Firft) fpeech to Drs. Mawe and Wren, "when they came to kifs hands before they went "to Spaine to attend the Prince their mafter. "He wished them to have a care of Bucking"ham: As touching his fonne Charles, he appre"hended 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 the 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

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matching with the Duke of Anjou; others "were hanged at Tyburn for traducing her Go"vernment. She pardoned thrice as many Roman "Priefts as the King did; fhe paffed divers mono

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polies; fhe kept an Agent at 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 meddle with her prero

gative, or with the government of her houfhold; "the 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 nor Puritan "had any ftroke 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 moft monftrous number of "witches that have fwarmed fince the wars against

See p. 192 of this volume.

"the

"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 Effex, "there have been upwards of three hundred

arraigned, and eighteen executed, as I have it " from the Clerks of the Peace of the two coun"ties. What a barbarous, devilish office one had, " under colour of exoneration, to torment poor filly women with watchings, pinchings, and "other artifices, to find them for witches: while "others (called fpirits) by a new invention of

"

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villainy, were connived at, for feizing upon

young children, and hurrying them on ship"board, where, having their heads fhaven, they "were so 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 "uncommitted; no crime, from the highest "treason to the meaneft trefpaffe, but these Re"formers are guilty of!"

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Howell, in his Dialogue intitled "Patricus & Peregrinus," thus defcribes fome of the preludes that ushered in the Civil Wars between Charles and his Parliament:

"

FIRST

"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 Gospel, " 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 "descant upon the refults of the Council-Table: " and this fpirit of contradiction and of con"tumacy 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 observation 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."

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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 ftriking inftance of the

truth

truth of the maxim of Menander, thus tranflated by Grotius:

In re omni conducibile eft quovis tempore
Verum proloquier. Idque in vitâ fpondeo
Securitatis effe partem maximam.

At every time, and upon all occafions,

'Tis right to speak the truth. And this I vouch
In every various flate of human life

The greatest part of our fecurity.

Of the letter which is faid to have been the cause of the death of Charles, the Author of the "Richardsoniana" 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 "Queen, in answer to one of her's that had "been intercepted, and then forwarded to him; "wherein the reproached him for having made "those 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

Mr. Pope, Lord Marchmont, and myself."

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