An Elegie and Epitaph on that Glorious Saint and Blessed Martyr, King Charles I (1661)

AN ELEGIE AND EPITAPH On that glorious saint, and blessed martyr, King Charles I.

The best of kings since Christ, but murther’d by the worst of men since the Creation.

Written a day or two after his Martyrdom, and occasioned by an Arbitrary and Tyrannous Procla- mation that made it Treason for any man to speak or write against the barbarous Murther.

Now publish’d to shew the world the unparallel’d Patience and Piety of the dead Murther’d King; and the matchlesse impudence and impiety of his past and present living murtherers.

For the suspition of which, and many other things, the Author lay almost two years in the Gate-house, defy- ing all the insolent and illegal Usurpation, and power at Westminster and White-Hall.

Saying alwayes then, and ever since, and ever will, God bless King Charles the Second.

London, Printed for J. Williams at the Crown in St. Paul’s Church-yard. 1661.

An Elegie on that glorious Saint, and blessed Martyr, King Charles the First, the best of Kings since Christ, but murther’d by the worst of men since the Creation.

Not speak! not write! I’le sooner pray to Hell, Preach against Heaven; and the Almighty tell, That Cromwel, Ireton, Peters, those damn’d three He-Furies: Earth’s inhumane Trinitie, Hell’s Cerberus shall be my Saviour, set My faith on this new Triple Mahomet: Change Greek and Hebrew for th’ Arabick work; And from a Christian Cavalier, turn Turk.

Not speak! not write! Comets shall sooner be Took to stop bloody-fluxt impietie: And a full draught from Hell of liquid heat, A cooling julip to the flaming meat.

Not speak! not write! the many headed Snake, Hydra, as many Christian Kings shall make: And all the Christian Monarchs make at best (Single or joyn’d) a many-headed Beast.

Can any pen or tongue be dumb, when guilt Cries out so loud, such innocent blood is spilt? No, it were silent blasphemy, and nigh To a conceal’d Christian Apostacy; And we might justly fear against us all The fatal hand-writing upon the Wall.

Not speak! nor write! hell’s lower house as soon May vote salvation to us, and the boon Be sign’d above, and I as eas’ly fear, Destruction, as a Proclamation here.

Hence halters to those hell-hounds that proclaim Bad, good; truth, treason, in the Devil’s name; Shall Bradshaw, Steel, and Cook, controul and rant, Like Minos, Aeacus, and Rhadamant? Shall a whole Legion of packt fiends contrive To murther God-like Charles, and I connive? No, Were I dumb like Atys, (Cresus son) I must cry out, when such a deed is done: And speak, and write in strains as big, and high (If possible) as all their villany: Out-voice the Thunder when ‘tis lowdly sent The wicked for a fright and punishment: Silence hell’s howles, and (faithlesse) search to find Murtherers there of such a bloudy kind.

Catiline, Sylla, Marius, those old three; Three Children in the fiery furnace be, Compar’d to these: the Roman Senat’s hate To Cesar, but an honorable fate. Ravilliac’s hand imbrewd in milk, the ill By Faux intended a meer pecca-dill. The age and acts of that mad Parliament, Henry the third’s; a holy time of Lent, And pious works the Divell himself may passe For a past, present, and a future Asse.

Wise Solomon was out, if he did summ Prophetically up what was to come, In his old saw; for I dare boldly say, There’s something new under the Sun to day: And the more new, because it did not soon Fright to a mid-night darknes, mid-day noon: Threaten the World with Doomsday, and each globe, Hang round for it with a sad fun’rall robe: But caus’d Heavens searcher pry with brighter light, As having never seen so black a sight.

A sight, at which all ages past, to come, Out of Religion, must for shame be dumb: Only this present, bold, Atheistick, tell, What makes one ignorant, one Infidell: Yet they who dare but speak it now, may fear Convulsions, we contusions but to hear.

I tremble when Gods vengeance shall begin, What shoals of souls must expiate this sin? The British name and Nation must not die Alone, but all the Princes far and nigh, That suffer’d it: King Charles his bloody head, The hairy Comet that portends them dead. France, Spain, Pole, Denmark, all ye royal Clowns, Self-Traytors, Sons of Coridons, not Crowns, Look to it well, destruction’s at your door; This bloody Star was never seen before.

The World must be beheaded, common Fate Headsman to introduce a common State: And (Nero-like) all Monarchs here below, By the base people suffer at one blow.

And may it come to passe, and worse, may earth And Heaven mix strongly in a monstrous birth Of strange unheard confusion: the fixt stars Dropt to the centre, set the Poles at jars. The Signes Coelestial trace the Earth, the Seas Turn Skies, and Angels mans Antipodes.

Since Charles is gone; that modern Princely frame Of Ancient Virtue, and what e’re bears name Of pious, peaceable, religious, wise, Just, learned, patient’s taken from our eyes: Heaven’s Darling dead; alive earth’s chief delight, To man let nothing seem in either right: Only his spirit, (which now can purely see) Behold in order all things as they be: More bright by his eclipse, and set, adorn’d With a Coelestial Crown, for one was thorn’d.

Now th’ art a great and glorious King indeed, Above the Pater-noster or the Creed Of thy packt perjur’d Parliament, who swore, And jugled in themselves; thee out of door.

Here is no need a Parliament to call; No uproars, tumults about this Whitehall: The common-people, (Saints and Angels here) Cry not for justice, but are void of fear, And jealousies; no Bomkins pens are pointed With sharp petitions against God’s Annointed. Here are no Members five, that plot, and plea Against the known Laws, nor will ever be; No City-guard, for subtile, guilty fear, The Cittizens are wise, and honest here. Here’s no Rebellion under a pretence Of evill Council, and a just defence: No Presbyters, or Independents be, To preach it up, heres onely Hierarchy, And Monarchy, where God, as King controuls, And Christ as the Arch-Bishop of the souls.

Here is no driving hence, or forced flight, No battell at Edge-hill, or Naseby fight: No running to the Scots, and then be sold By his false, covetous Natives, back for gold To the bloud-thirsty English: an old crew Of Christian Savages, beyond the new Heathenish Americans, and deeper dy’d In royal goar than all the world beside: Only the Scot excepted, to whose shame King-killer is a convertible name; False, stubborn, form, and matter: Judas can Say, he was not so much Christ’s Countryman; Nor bound to such obedience by the tie Of subject, or the Law of Soveraignty: Besides that Christ could not so well be stil’d, The Father of his Country, he his child: Nay, boldly more in his defence he got Not the tyth-penny of the greedy Scot. But Judas there is out, and adds a lye Unto his avarice, and treachery; For he was onely one, and in earth’s round There could not be another Judas found? To join and share the sum with him; but here Did twenty thousand Judasses appear, At once to sell and share their Master: he Out-strips them yet in his last obsequie, And hangs himself for sorrow; these are bent To hang themselves before they will repent; Such is their bloudy hardness, cursed Cain Stand still, and let these Vagabonds obtain Thy stragling punishment, ‘tis theirs the rather, Being lesse to kill a Brother than a Father.

Here is no Holmby to restrain, or fright Thy power, or peace; no Sea-bound Isle of Wight To limit thee, no Carisbrook, no Hurst, No Whaley, Hammond, Ewer, and which is worst; No high, forg’d Court of falshood, that dares try, Affront, adjudge their Soveraign Lord to dye: Against all honour, wisdom, law, or right, The Magna Charta of the meanest wight: Unheard, or unaccus’d by any tongue, But what from their own setting malice sprung: And after all these deeds of darknesse done, To execute him in the open Sun: An action without boldnesse I may dare Place next the Jews, to Christ; though not compare, And yet the Jews were better in one thing, These call’d Charles Tyrant; and they Christ a King. And I may say, his suffering set aside, None e’re less King-like, or more Christ-like died.

To see a Monarch of three Kingdoms stand At his own Gate, and in his chiefest land: Mounted in spite upon a common throne Of shame, and treason, by himself alone: Forsaken of his Nobles, Subjects, all, But Rebells, by whose power he is to fall A Martyr for Religion; and to die Redeemer of the peoples libertie From popular inslavement, his bare head bow’d to the Heads-mans hand to strike him dead. Yet all this while neither in word, or deed, Oppose the traitrous axe, but mildly bleed, Instructing first with a Majestick grace, His gracelesse guard that gaz’d him in the face, Undutifully cover’d, praying too, And pard’ning those, that God can hardly do; His absent, present murtherers, who boast A sin next that against the Holy Ghost: Malitious ‘gainst the light of truth, who can Believe it? and all this as meerly man. The earth that at Christs passion shook before, Stood now stone-still, as being amaz’d the more. The graves that open’d at that horrid sight, Were husht at this, as in a greater fright. The veyl rent then, with us was long before, Temple, Priests, Tables, all in peices tore. Hell that but howl’d, now wept, and laught, the devil Came sad, and glad at once, to see this evil, And good together mixt; whereby his Crown Was so at once exalted, and cast down. Each circumstance and accident to paint, Would make a Saint an Atheist, Atheist Saint: And I to draw this white and black beside, Must have an Angel’s wing, a Divel’s hide.

And therefore being set (bright Charles) and we Left here, not thine, but our own Elegie; Dark, clowded Cavaliers, who hourly look To find our names writ in thy sanguine book: By thy example let us learn to dye, (As formerly to live) in piety, Practise thy gifts, that we as well may be The subjects of thy graces; as of thee: Mild, merciful in death, and Martyrs fall All we for thee; as thou hast done for all: That Charles, and Cavalier, within this Land, For Saint, and Martyr, may hereafter stand.

And may thy Son, the glory of his Age, And hopeful stop, and scourge of Rebels rage: King Charles the second, first to all beside, But thee, whom English Jews have crucified: Great in good subjects and a vertuous name, Be only Charles the lesse in martyr’d fame.

An Epitaph

On that unparallel’d Prince King CHARLS the First, the Sacred and Royal, Church and State-Martyr of England; to his own glory, and the eternal shame of his three Kingdoms, and all Christian Princes beside, patiently yet publickly beheaded at his chief Court-gate, White-Hall January the 30. 1648.

Stand off Rebellion, let no traitrous eye Presume to glance on Martyr’d Majesty. Duty, and love approach: yet draw not neer, Without a drooping heart, a dropping tear: No Age did ever any place intrust With such sad, sacred, royall, dangerous dust: So threatning, and portentous, it may make The present tremble, future Ages quake.

Here sever’d lies, joind Britain’s Charles the First, Best King since Christ, but butcher’d by the worst Of men since the Creation: a packt crew Of Devils, that make the crucifying Jew A Circumcising Angell, and advance Known malice above bloody ignorance:

Such feinds ‘twere sin in Christians to be wav’d, To think they were created, can be sav’d: Whose Sun-burnt actions, and black midnight works, White hells, Saint Atheists, deifie the Turks: Not God’s sent executioners, and rod, But executioners themselves of God, As high as they could reach; for here lies dead God, in his earthly Image murthered.

A looking glasse, for Christian Kings to see Their downfall in beheaded Monarchy; And Christianity in it’s full raie Of Majesty, benighted at noon-day: As if the great and good of all the world, In Charles his sett were to a Chaos hurld.

But God, to vindicate the clowded flame Of his slain Second, hath so starr’d his name; Black Treason needs this blazing truth must tell Had he till Dooms-day stood, h’ad sooner fell.

FINIS. Project Canterbury