Then was the steel of the hangman blunted with mangling the ears of harmless men.Then our very minds were fettered, and the iron entered into our souls.Then we were compelled to hide our hatred, our sorrow, and our scorn, to laugh with hidden faces at the mummery of Laud, to curse under our breath the tyranny of Wentworth.Of old time it was well and nobly said, by one of our kings, that an Englishman ought to be as free as his thoughts.
Our prince reversed the maxim; he strove to make our thoughts as much slaves as ourselves.To sneer at a Romish pageant, to miscall a lord's crest, were crimes for which there was no mercy.
These were all the fruits which we gathered from those excellent laws of the former Parliament, from these solemn promises of the king.Were we to be deceived again? Were we again to give subsidies, and receive nothing but promises? Were we again to make wholesome statutes, and then leave them to be broken daily and hourly, until the oppressor should have squandered another supply, and should be ready for another perjury? You ask what they could desire which he had not already granted.Let me ask of you another question.What pledge could he give which he had not already violated? From the first year of his reign, whenever he had need of the purses of his Commons to support the revels of Buckingham or the processions of Laud, he had assured them that, as he was a gentleman and a king, he would sacredly preserve their rights.He had pawned those solemn pledges, and pawned them again and again; but when had he redeemed them? 'Upon my faith,'--'Upon my sacred word,'--'Upon the honour of a prince,'--came so easily from his lips, and dwelt so short a time on his mind that they were as little to be trusted as the 'By the hilts'
of an Alsatian dicer.
"Therefore it is that I praise this Parliament for what else Imight have condemned.If what he had granted had been granted graciously and readily, if what he had before promised had been faithfully observed, they could not be defended.It was because he had never yielded the worst abuse without a long struggle, and seldom without a large bribe; it was because he had no sooner disentangled himself from his troubles than he forgot his promises; and, more like a villainous huckster than a great king, kept both the prerogative and the large price which had been paid to him to forego it; it was because of these things that it was necessary and just to bind with forcible restraints one who could be bound neither by law nor honour.Nay, even while he was making those very concessions of which you speak, he betrayed his deadly hatred against the people and their friends.Not only did he, contrary to all that ever was deemed lawful in England, order that members of the Commons House of Parliament should be impeached of high treason at the bar of the Lords; thereby violating both the trial by jury and the privileges of the House;but, not content with breaking the law by his ministers, he went himself armed to assail it.In the birth-place and sanctuary of freedom, in the House itself; nay in the very chair of the speaker, placed for the protection of free speech and privilege, he sat, rolling his eyes round the benches, searching for those whose blood he desired, and singling out his opposers to the slaughter.This most foul outrage fails.Then again for the old arts.Then come gracious messages.Then come courteous speeches.Then is again mortgaged his often forfeited honour.
He will never again violate the laws.He will respect their rights as if they were his own.He pledges the dignity of his crown; that crown which had been committed to him for the weal of his people, and which he never named, but that he might the more easily delude and oppress them.
"The power of the sword, I grant you, was not one to be permanently possessed by Parliament.Neither did that Parliament demand it as a permanent possession.They asked it only for temporary security.Nor can I see on what conditions they could safely make peace with that false and wicked king, save such as would deprive him of all power to injure.
"For civil war, that it is an evil I dispute not.But that it is the greatest of evils, that I stoutly deny.It doth indeed appear to the misjudging to be a worse calamity than bad government, because its miseries are collected together within a short space and time, and may easily at one view be taken in and perceived.But the misfortunes of nations ruled by tyrants, being distributed over many centuries and many places, as they are of greater weight and number, so are they of less display.
When the Devil of tyranny hath gone into the body politic he departs not but with struggles, and foaming, and great convulsions.Shall he, therefore, vex it for ever, lest, in going out, he for a moment tear and rend it? Truly this argument touching the evils of war would better become my friend Elwood, or some other of the people called Quakers, than a courtier and a cavalier.It applies no more to this war than to all others, as well foreign as domestic, and, in this war, no more to the Houses than to the king; nay, not so much, since he by a little sincerity and moderation might have rendered that needless which their duty to God and man then enforced them to do.""Pardon me, Mr Milton," said Mr Cowley; "I grieve to hear you speak thus of that good king.Most unhappy indeed he was, in that he reigned at a time when the spirit of the then living generation was for freedom, and the precedents of former ages for prerogative.His case was like to that of Christopher Columbus, when he sailed forth on an unknown ocean, and found that the compass, whereby he shaped his course, had shifted from the north pole whereto before it had constantly pointed.So it was with Charles.His compass varied; and therefore he could not tack aright.If he had been an absolute king he would doubtless, like Titus Vespasian, have been called the delight of the human race.