PROCTOR GENERAL

It is not unknown to you my very good Lords the Judges, and indeed to all the world, for I will make short work, since your honourable ears need not to be enlarged, I speak by a figure with prolix enumeration how infinitely the King hath favoured this ill favoured Traitor; and yet I may worthily too insist and prove that no grace hath been so large and voluminous, as this, that he hath appointed such up right Judges at this time, and the chief of this Triumviry, our Chancellor by name Poyet, which deriveth from the Greek his Etymology from Poyeni, which is to make, to create, to invent matter that was never extant in nature, from whence also is the name and dignity of Poeta, which I will not insist upon, in this place, although I am confident his Lordship wants no faculty in making of Verses: but what addition I say is it to the honour of this Delinquent, that he hath such a Judge, a man so learned, so full of equity, so noble, so notable in the progress of his life, so innocent, in the manage of his office so incorrupt; in the passages of State so wise, in affection to his country so religious, in all his services to the King so fortunate, and exploring, as envy it self cannot accuse, or malice vitiate, whom all lips will open to commend, but those of Philip; and in their hearts will erect Altars, and Statues, Columns, and Obelishes, Pillars and Pyramids, to the perpetuity of his name and memory. What shall I say but conclude for his so great and sacred sir vice, both to our King and Kingdom, and for their everla sting benefit, there may everlastingly be left here one of his loins, one of his loins ever remain I say, and stay upon this Bench, to be the example of all Justice, even while the North and South Star shall continue. Thus with your Lordship's pardon, I proceed; and the first thing I shall glance at, will be worth your Lordship's reflection, his ingratitude, and to whom? to no less person than a King, and to what King, his own, and our general So veraigne Proh deum atque hominum fidem; a King, and such a King, the health, life, and soul of us all, whose very mention draws this S lt water from my eyes; for he indeed is our eye, who wakes and watches for us when we sleep, and who will not sleep for him, I mean not sleep, which the Philosophers call, a natural c ssation of the common and consequently of all the exterior senses, caused first and immediately by a detention of spirits, which can have no communication, since the way is obstructed, by which the ̄ see spirits should commearce, by vapours ascending from the stomach to the head, by which evaporation the roots of the nerves are filled, through which the annual spirits, to be poured into the dwellings of the external senses; but sleep I take ̄ for death, which all know to be Ʋ ltima linea, who will not sleep eternally for such a King as we enjoy? If there before in general as he is King of us all, all sharing and divi ding the benefits of this our Sovereign: none should be so in grateful as once to murm re against him, what shall be said of the ingratitude more monstrous in this Chabot, for our Francis hath loved, not in general in the crowd with other Subject's, but particularly this Ph l p advanced him to the supreme dig nitie of a Statsman, lodged him in his very heart, yet Monstrum horrendum; even to this Francis hath Philip been ingrateful. Brutus the loved son hath stabbed Caesar with a Bodkin: O what bruit may be compared to him? and in what parti culars may this crime be exemplified; he hath, as we say, chopped Logic with the King, nay to the very teeth of his Sovereign advance his own Gnat-like merits, and justified with Luciferous pride, that his services have deserved more than all the bounty of our Munificent King hath paid him. Nay he hath gone further, and most traitaerously hath commitred outrage and impiety to the Kings own hand, and royal character, which presented to him in a bill from the whole counsel, he most violently did tear in pieces, and will do the very body and person of your King, if our Justice make no timely prevention, and strike out the Serpentine teeth of that high and more than ho rible monster. In the next place I will relate to your honours his most cruel exactions upon the subject, the old vauntcouriers of rebellions. In the year 15. 6. and 37. This oppressor, and this extortioner, under pretext of his endue taxation, being And mirall impossibilities ed upon certain Fishermen, (observe I beseech you the circumstance of their persons, Fishermen) who poor Johns were embarked upon the cost of Normandy, and fishing there for Herrings (which some S y is the king of Fish) he imposed I say twenty souse, and upon every boat six livers, o intolerable exaction! enough not only to alienate the hearts of these miserable people from their King, which Ipso facto is high treason, but and occasion of a greater inconveni ence, for want of endue provision of fish among the Subject's, for by this might ensue a necessity of mortal sins, by breaking the religious fast upon Vigils, Embers, and other days command dead by sacred authority, beside the miserable rut that would follow, and perhaps contagion, when feasting and flesh should be licenced for every carnal appetite.—I could urge ma nigh more particulars of his dangerous insatiate and boundless Avarice, but the improvement of his estate in so few years, from a private Gentleman's fortune, to a great Dukes reve news, might save our sovereign therein and Orator to en force and prove faulty even to gyantisme against heaven. To the foul outrages so violent, let us add his Come missions granted out of his own presumed authority, his Majesty neither infround or respected his disloyalties, infide lities, contempts, oppressions, extortions, with innumerable abuses, offences, and forfeits, both to his Majesties most royal person, crown, and dignity, yet notwithstanding all these injustices, this unmatchable, u just delinquent affects to be thought inculpable, and incomparable just; but alas my most learned Lord, none knows better than your selves, how easy the sincerity of Justice is pretended, how hard it is to be per formed, and how common it is for him that hath least colour of title to it, to be thought the very substance and soul of it, he that was never true scholar in the least degree, longs as a woman with child to be great with scholar she that was ne for with child longs Omnibus viis modis to be God with child, and will wear a cushion to seem with child, and he that was never just, will fly in the Kings face to be counted just, though for all he be nothing, but just, a Traitor. And how this great and mighty fortune hath exalted him to pride is apparent, not only in his b aves and bearings to the King, the fountain of all this increase, but in his con tempt and scorn of the subject, his vast expenses in buil dings, his private bounties, above royal to soldiers and scholars, that he may be the General and Patron, and prote ctor of arms and arts; the number of domestic attendants, and army of Grasshoppers and gay Butterflies able to devour the Spring; his glorious wardrobes, his stable of horses that are pricked with provender, and will enforce us to weed up our Vineyards to sow Oats for supply of their provision, his caroches shining with gold, and more bright than the chariot of the Sun, wearing out the pavements; nay, he is of late so transcendently proud, that men must be his Mules, and carry him up and down as it were in a Procession for men to gaze at him till their chines cracks with the weight of his insup portable pride, and who knows but this may prove a fashion? But who groans for this? the subject, who murmur, and are ready to begin a rebellion, but the tumultuous sailors, and water-rats, who tun up and down the city, Like and over bearing tempest, cursing the Admiral, who in duty ought to undo himself for the general satisfaction of his countrymen. My most gracious Sovereign. It was my allegiance sir, I did enforce, But by directions of your Chancellor, It was my office to advance your cause Gainst all the world, which when I leave to execute, Flay me, and turn me out a most raw Advocate. He has and ill look with him. And I Will play my law prize, never fear it sir. He shall be guilty of what you please, I am studied In him sir, I will squeeze his villain es, And urge his acts so whom into his bowels, The force of it shall make him hang himself, And save the Laws a labour. I am ready for your Lordship's: It hath been said, and will be said again, and may truly be justified, Omniam ex lite fieri. It was the position of Philosophers, and now proved by a more Phylosophycall sect, the Lawyers, that Omniam ex lite fiant, we are all made by Law, made I say, and worthily if we be just, if we be un just, marred, though in marring some, there is necessity of making others, for if one shall by the Law, ten to one but another is exalted by the execution of the Law, since the corruption of one must conclude the genera cion of another, though not always in the same profession; the corruption of and Apothecary, may be the generation of a Doctor of Physic; the corruption of a Citizen may beget a Courtier, & a Courtier may very well beget and Alderman, the corruption of and Alderman may be the generation of a Con try Justice, whose corrupt ignorance easily may beget a tumult, a tumult may beget a Captain, and the corruption of a Cap taine may beget a Gentleman-usher, and a Gentleman-usher may beget a Lord, whose wit may beget a Poet, and a Poet may get a thousand pound a year, but nothing without cor ruption. Your Lordship does very seasonably premonish, and I shall not need to leave my subject corruption, while I dis course of him, who is the very fen and stigian abyss of it, five thousand and odd hundred foul and impious corrupti ons, for I will be brief; have been found by several exami nations, and by oaths proved against this odious and polluted Chancellor, a man of so tainted, and contagious a life, that it is a miracle any man enjoyeth his nostrils, that hath lived with in the sent of his offices; he was born with teeth in his head, by and affidavit of his Midwife, to note his devouring, and hath one toe on his left foot crooked, and in the form of and Eagles talon, to foretell his rapacity: What shall I say? branded, marked, and designed in his birth for shame and oblo quie, which appears further by a mole under his right ear, with only three Witches hairs int, strange and ominous pre dictions of nature. Your Lordship hath most aptly interposed, and with a word I shall easily satisfy all your judgements; He was then a Judge, and in Cathedram, in which he could not err; it may be your Lordship's cases, out of the chair and seat of Justice, he hath his frailties, is loos'ed and exposed to the conditions of other humane nature's; so every Judge, your Lordship's are not ignorant hath a kind of privilege while he is in his state, office and being, and although he may quoad see, internally and privately be guilty of bribery of Justice, yet quoad nos, and in public he is and upright and innocent Judge, we are to take no notice, nay, we deserved to suffer, if we should detect or stain him; for in that we disparage the Office, which is the Kings, and may be our own, but once removed from his place by just dishonour of the King, he is no more a Judge but a common person, whom the law takes hold on, and we are then to forget what he hath been, and without partiality to strip and lay him open to the world, a counterfeit and cor rupt Judge, as for example, he may and ought to flourish in his greatness, and break any men neck, with as much faci litie as a jest, but the case being altered, and he down, eve ry subject shall be herd, a Wolf may be appareled in a Lamb skin; and if every man should be afraid to speak truth, nay and more than truth, if the good of the subject which are cli ents sometime require it, there would be no remove of Offi cers, if no remove no motions if no motion in Court no heat, and by consequence but cold Terms; take away this moving, this removing of Judges, the Law may bury it self in Buck ram, and the kingdom suffer for want of a endue execution; and now I hope your Lordship's are satisfied. I shall obey your Lordship—So v st so infi nite hath been the impudence of this Chancellor not only towards the subject, but even the sacred person of the King, that I tremble as with a Palsy to remember it. This man, or rather this monster, having power and commission trusted for the examination of the Lord Admiral, a man perfect in all ho nou_r_ and justice; indeed the very ornament and second flower of France, for the Flower de lis, is sacred and above all flowers, and indeed the best flower in our garden. Having used all ways to circumvent his innocence by suborning and promising rewards to his betrayers, by compelling others by the cruelty of tortures, as namely Mounsieur Allegre a most ho nest and faithful servant to his Lord, tearing and extending his sinews upon the acke to force a confession to his purpose, and finding nothing prevail upon the invincible virtue of the Admiral. Yet most maliciously proceeded to arraign him; to be short against all colour of Justice condemned him of high treasons; o think what the life of man is, that can never be recompensed; but the life of a just man, a man that is the vi gour and glory of our life and nation to be torn to death, and sacrificed beyond the malice of common persecution. What Tiger of Hercanian breed could have been so cruel? but this is not all? he was not guilty only of murder, guilty I may say In foro continued ̄ sctieniae, though our good Admiral was miraculously preserved, but unto this he added a most prodigious & fearful rape, a rape even upon Justice it self, the very soul of our state, for the rest of the Judges upon the Bench, venerable images of Austria, he most tyrannously compelled to set their hands to his most unjust sentence; did ever story remember the Like outr ge and injustice; what forfeit, what penalty can be enough to satisfy this transcendent offence? and yet my good Lords, this is but venial to the sacrilege which now follows, and by him committed, not content with this sentence, not satisfied with horrid violence upon the sacred Tribunal, but he pro ceedes and blasphemes the very name and honour of the King himself, observe that, making him the author and impulsive cause of all these rapines, justifying that he moved only by his special command to the death, nay the murder of his most faithful subject, translating all his own black and damnable gilded upon the Kings heirs, a traitor to his Country, first, he conspires the death of one whom the King loves, and whom e very subject ought to honour, and then makes it no conscience to proclaim it the Kings act, & by consequ nce declares him a murderer of his own, and of his best Subject's. How? Did your Lordship's note his request to you, he would direct your sentence to punish him with confining him to live in the country, Like the Mouse in the Fable, that having offended to deserve death, begged he might be banished into a Parmisan. I hope your Lordship's will be more just to the nature of his offences.