T H E p R E F A c E· T 0 THE Third Volume of the 0 c T A v o Edition. 0 period of civil hijl:ory has Ulzdergone a more critical ex~ amination than the la/l fiven years of king CHARLES I. which was aflene of.Jitch cotif"!fion and inconf!flent manage– ment between the king and parliament, that 'tis very dif– ficult to difcover the motives of action on either .fide; the king fiems to have been diretled by ficret jprings from the queen, and her council of papijls, who were fir advancing the prero– gative above the laws, and vijling his majejl,v with fuch an abfolute flv_e– reignty, as might rival his brother of France, and enable him to iftablijh the roman catholic religion in England, or flme how or other blend it with the protejtant. 'This gaw rifi io the unparalelled Jeverities if the fiar-chamber and high commifilon, which, qftcr twelve )'ears triumph o– ver the laws and liberties of the jitbjetl, brougbt on a fierce and bloody ~var, and alter tbe lqfs of above a hundred thouji:md lives, ended in the fa-. crijice of the ki11g himfelf, and the fitbvojion if the whole co11jtitution. Though all men had a veneration fir the perfon if the king, bis M r– N ISTERs had rendered themfilves jujtly obnoxious, not only by Jetting up a new form of government at home, but by extending their jur!fditlion to a neighbouring kingdom, under the government of diftintl laws, and en– dined to a form if church di(cipiine very different from the engli!h : 'This raifid fuch a florm in the North, as diftrejjed his majifty's adminiftraA z tion;
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