Having received the honour of your Majesty’s commands to translate
the “History of the League,” I have applied myself, with my utmost
diligence, to obey them: First, by a thorough understanding of my author,
in which I was assisted by my former knowledge of the French history
in general, and, in particular, of those very transactions which he
has so faithfully and judiciously related; then by giving his thoughts
the same beauty in our language which they had in the original, and,
which I most of all endeavoured, the same force and perspicuity: both
of which, I hope, I have performed with some exactness, and without any
considerable mistake. But of this your Majesty is the truest judge, who
are so great a master of the original; and who, having read this piece
when it was first published, can easily find out my failings, but, to
my comfort, can more easily forgive them. I confess, I could never have
laid hold on that virtue of your royal clemency at a more unseasonable
time; when your enemies have so far abused it, that pardons are grown
dangerous to your safety, and consequently to the welfare of your loyal
subjects. But frequent forgiveness is their encouragement; they have
the sanctuary in their eye before they attempt the crime; and take all
measures of security, either not to need a pardon, if they strike the
blow, or to have it granted, if they fail. Upon the whole matter, your
Majesty is not upon equal terms with them; you are still forgiving, and
they still designing against your sacred life; your principle is mercy,
theirs inveterate malice; when one only wards, and the other strikes, the
prospect is sad on the defensive side. Hercules, as the poets tell us,
had no advantage on Antæus, by his often throwing him on the ground; for
he laid him only in his mother’s lap, which, in effect, was but doubling
his strength to renew the combat. These sons of earth are never to be
trusted in their mother-element; they must be hoisted into the air, and
strangled.[12] If the experiment of clemency were new; if it had not
been often tried without effect, or rather with effects quite contrary
to the intentions of your goodness, your loyal subjects are generous
enough to pity their countrymen, though offenders: but when that pity
has been always found to draw into example of greater mischiefs; when
they continually behold both your Majesty and themselves exposed to
dangers; the church, the government, the succession, still threatened;
ingratitude, so far from being converted by gentle means, that it is
turned at last into the nature of the damned, desirous of revenge, and
hardened in impenitence,—it is time, at length, for self-preservation
to cry out for justice, and to lay by mildness, when it ceases to be a
virtue. Almighty God has hitherto miraculously preserved you; but who
knows how long the miracle will continue? His ordinary operations are by
second causes; and then reason will conclude, that to be preserved, we
ought to use the lawful means of preservation. If, on the other side,
it be thus argued, that, of many attempts, one may possibly take place,
if preventing justice be not employed against offenders; what remains,
but that we implore the divine assistance to avert that judgment; which
is no more than to desire of God to work another and another, and,
in conclusion, a whole series of miracles. This, Sir, is the general
voice of all true Englishmen; I might call it the loyal address of
three nations infinitely solicitous of your safety, which includes
their own prosperity. It is, indeed, an high presumption for a man so
inconsiderable as I am to present it; but zeal and dutiful affection, in
an affair of this importance, will make every good subject a counsellor.
It is, in my opinion, the test of loyalty; and, to be either a friend
or foe to the government needs no other distinction, than to declare
at this time either for remissness or justice. I said at this time,
because I look not on the storm as overblown. It is still a gusty kind
of weather: there is a kind of sickness in the air; it seems, indeed, to
be cleared up for some few hours; but the wind still blowing from the
same corner, and when new matter is gathered into a body, it will not
fail to bring it round, and pour upon us a second tempest. I shall be
glad to be found a false prophet; but he was certainly inspired, who,
when he saw a little cloud arising from the sea, and that no bigger
than a hand, gave immediate notice to the king, that he might mount the
chariot, before he was overtaken by the storm.[13] If so much care was
taken of an idolatrous king, an usurper, a persecutor, and a tyrant,
how much more vigilant ought we to be in the concernments of a lawful
prince, a father of his country, and a defender of the faith, who stands
exposed by his too much mercy to the unwearied and endless conspiracies
of parricides? He was a better prince than the former whom I mentioned
out of the sacred history, and the allusion comes yet more close, who
stopped his hand after the third arrow: Three victories were indeed
obtained; but the effect of often shooting had been the total destruction
of his enemies.[14] To come yet nearer: Henry the Fourth, your royal
grandfather,[15] whose victories, and the subversion of the League, are
the main argument of this history, was a prince most clement in his
nature: he forgave his rebels, and received them all into mercy, and some
of them into favour, but it was not till he had fully vanquished them:
they were sensible of their impiety; they submitted, and his clemency was
not extorted from him; it was his free gift, and it was seasonably given.
I wish the case were here the same: I confess it was not much unlike it
at your Majesty’s happy restoration; yet so much of the parallel was then
wanting, that the amnesty you gave produced not all the desired effects.
For our sects are of a more obstinate nature than were those leaguing
Catholics, who were always for a king, and, yet more, the major part of
them would have him of the royal stem; but our associators and sectaries
are men of commonwealth principles; and though their first stroke was
only aimed at the immediate succession, it was most manifest that it
would not there have ended, for at the same time they were hewing at
your royal prerogatives. So that the next successor, if there had been
any, must have been a precarious prince, and depended on them for the
necessaries of life. But of these and more outrageous proceedings, your
Majesty has already shewn yourself justly sensible in your declaration,
after the dissolution of the last Parliament, which put an end to the
arbitrary encroachments of a popular faction. Since which time it has
pleased Almighty God so to prosper your affairs, that, without searching
into the secrets of Divine Providence, it is evident your magnanimity and
resolution, next under Him, have been the immediate cause of your safety
and our present happiness. By weathering of which storm, may I presume to
say it without flattery, you have performed a greater and more glorious
work than all the conquests of your neighbours. For it is not difficult
for a great monarchy, well united, and making use of advantages, to
extend its limits; but to be pressed with wants, surrounded with dangers,
your authority undermined in popular assemblies, your sacred life
attempted by a conspiracy, your royal brother forced from your arms;
in one word, to govern a kingdom, which was either possessed or turned
into a bedlam, and yet in the midst of ruin to stand firm, undaunted,
and resolved, and at last to break through all these difficulties and
dispel them,—this is indeed an action which is worthy the grandson of
Henry the Great. During all this violence of your enemies, your Majesty
has contended with your natural clemency to make some examples of your
justice; and they themselves will acknowledge, that you have not urged
the law against them, but have been pressed and constrained by it to
inflict punishments in your own defence, and in the mean time to watch
every opportunity of shewing mercy, when there was the least probability
of repentance: so that they, who have suffered, may be truly said to have
forced the sword of justice out of your hand, and to have done execution
on themselves. But by how much the more you have been willing to spare
them, by so much has their impudence increased; and if by this mildness
they recover from the great frost, which has almost blasted them to
the roots, if these venomous plants shoot out again, it will be a sad
comfort to say they have been ungrateful, when it is evident to mankind
that ingratitude is their nature. That sort of pity which is proper for
them, and may be of use to their conversion, is to make them sensible of
their errors; and this your Majesty, out of your fatherly indulgence,
amongst other experiments which you have made, is pleased to allow them
in this book, which you have commanded to be translated for the public
benefit; that at least all such as are not wilfully blind may view in
it, as in a glass, their own deformities: for never was there a plainer
parallel than of the troubles of France and of Great Britain; of their
leagues, covenants, associations, and ours; of their Calvinists and our
Presbyterians: they are all of the same family; and Titian’s famous
table of the Altar-piece, with the pictures of Venetian senators from
great-grandfather to great-grandson, shews not more the resemblance of
a race than this: for as there, so here, the features are alike in all;
there is nothing but the age that makes the difference; otherwise the old
man of an hundred, and the babe in swaddling clouts, that is to say, 1584
and 1684, have but a century and a sea betwixt them, to be the same. But
I have presumed too much upon your Majesty’s time already, and this is
not the place to shew that resemblance, which is but too manifest in the
whole history. It is enough to say, your Majesty has allowed our rebels
a greater favour than the law; you have given them the benefit of their
clergy: if they can but read, and will be honest enough to apply it,
they may be saved. God Almighty give an answerable success to this your
royal act of grace; may they all repent, and be united as the body to
their head! May that treasury of mercy which is within your royal breast
have leave to be poured forth upon them, when they put themselves in a
condition of receiving it! and, in the mean time, permit me to implore
it humbly for myself, and let my presumption in this bold address be
forgiven to the zeal which I have to your service and to the public good.
To conclude: may you never have a worse meaning offender at your feet,
than him, who, besides his duty and his natural inclinations, has all
manner of obligations to be perpetually,