Chap. II. The H I S TOR Y of the.PvRITAfvs. sog not an entire doélrinal papifi ; Sir Ralph Winwood in his memoirs fays, KfngJames I. that as long ago as the year 1596. he lent Mr. Ogilby a Scots baron to. r624 Spain, to affure his Catholick majefly he was ready to turn papift, and to State 'rah, propofe, an alliance with that kingand the pope againft the queen ofEng- Vol 1. p. r. land ; but for reafons of fiate the affair was hufhed. Rapin fays he was neither a found proteftant, nor a goodcatholick, but had formed a plan of uniting both churches, which muff effellually have ruined the proteftant intereft, for which indeed he never expreffed any real concern. I am ra- ther of opinion that all his religion was his boafted KING - CRAFT. He was certainly the meaìteft prince that ever fat upon the Britifh throne : England never funk in its reputation, nor was fo much expofed to the fcorn and ridicule of its neighbours, as in his reign. How willing his majefly was to unite with the papifls the foregoing hiflory has difcovered ; and yet in the prefence of many lords and in a very remarkable manner, he made a folemn proteflation, That he wouldfpend the lall drop ofblood in his body be- fore he would do it ; andprayed, that before any of his iyue *aidmaintain any other religion than his own [the proteftant] that Godwould take them out of the world. How far this imprecation took place on himfelf or any ofhis pofterity, I leavewith Mr. archdeaconEachard, to the determination of an omnifcient Being. CHAP. III. From the death of king JAMES I. to the diíolution of the thirdparliament of king CHARLES I. in theyear 1628. B EFORE we enter upon this reign, it will be proper to take a fhort Charaler of viewof the court, and of the molt aEtive minifiers under the king K.9ar esÏ. for the firft fifteen years. King CHARLES I. came to the crown at the age of twenty-five years, being born at Dunferling in Scotland, in the year 1600. and baptifed by a prefbyterian minifter of that country. In his youth, he was of a weakly conflitution, and ftammering fpeech his legs were fomewhat crooked, and he was fufpeéted (fays Mr. Eachard) to be of a pervetfe na- ture. When his father [King James] came to tjae EnglJhcrown, he took him from his Scots4utors, and placed him under thofe who gave him an' early averfion to that Kirk, into which he had been baptized, and to .thofe doctrines of chrifiianity, which they held in the greateft veneration. As the court of king James leaned towards popery and arbitrary power, fo did" the prince, efpecially after his journey into Spain ; where he imbibed not VoL. I. T t t only
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