The Royal Standard OF King Charles the II. Drawn by the so much celebrated Pen of the Countesse of Bregy in France.
IN this Picture of the valiant CHARLES, you shall at once behold (together with all the accomplishments of a Worthy King, and a most deserving Gentleman) the representation of the greatest events that fortune can produce; since that a Throne established by a long succession of Ancestors, and by a Government as just as gentle, hath been overthrown before our eyes without any other cause to this great mutation, then the inconstancy of all humain things; which is such, that ordinarily a new evil is still prefer'd before a wonted [Page 2] good; although by the experience of all preceding Ages, the people might have learnt that they can hope neither for repose not happiness, but under the Dominion of their lawful Prince.
He whose Image I now am graving is of so high bloud, that by right of succession it renders him Master of three Kingdoms, of which one alone is capable to make a great KING; and the Possession of the three hath made so powerful Princes, that usually they looked upon their neighbours onely to make alliances with them, and not to seek support from them. The riches of their Countrey, the security and happinesse they enjoy, leaving them nothing they desire, and little to fear.
CHARLES was born in the midst of all this glory, and was a long time amorously beheld as the hope of all his people, but a Constellation as powerful as cruel, having rais'd a storm in the midst of all his calm, did so confound the order of things, that their eyes being no longer able to suffer the brightness of the Sun; we saw on a sudden a King without Subjects, and at last, (alas) Subjects without a King. Let us there constrain our memory, and not suffer it to represent unto us what it was that rendred CHARLES so early a Successor to three great Kingdoms, but rather let us divert our thoughts by discoursing of the merit that makes him worthy to Possesse them.
And beginning with his Person, I must tell you it is like his vertues, Great and Royal: and that there is found in his looks something so illustrious and so awful, that without knowing who He is, it procures Him from all that see him the respect of a King. His goodly Stature, his long black curled hair, his manly and becoming motions, his Martial countenance, illustrated with those equally charming and Commanding eyes, accompanied with such a graceful Majesty as shines upon his brow, tender him the man in the World of the best Mind, without being at all beholding to beauty for any of his advantages; and truly after having seen him, it is no more to be counted as a thing desirable, since that without it, it is possible to be so amiable and so accomplisht as is this Prince.
Whose mind is Wise, Judicious and capable of al thats great and good; whose humour is gentle, civil and gallant; insomuch, that some can boast to have often had a share in His disquiets. For His heart it is as Royal as His birth, which renders Him Liberal, Valiant, and so truly Generous, that I know not whether I ought more to admire His Justice, Gratitude and Munificence towards His suffering friends, or His Kingly Clemency, Confidence and Bounty towards His reconciled Enemies.
The frequent exposal of His life to the dangers He hath past, do sufficiently convince that he loves it lesse then glory, and hath hitherto imployed it only to render Himself now worthy to Compel fortune to restore unto Him His Kingdoms, of which she had for so many years usurped the Revenge with so much shame unto her self, and so much Calamity to the people, that found themselves subject to all the Changes of her Caprices.
Who all this time had been only constant in suffering, nothing to fall out favourable for CHARLES, whilst He seems to have been unfortunate to no other end, but that He might become more Worthy to Command; since that turning His exile to His advantage, he hath learnt out of the different politicks of his allies all that might one day conduce to make Him obeyed through esteem, and serv'd through love and inclination. How successefully he hath labour'd to enrich Himself with all the qualities that ought to accompany a Great Prince, is evident by the Zeal is now seen in his Subjects to return to His obedience, who if he were not their King by Birth he should be by Election.
Heaven would not suffer that second Causes should have any share in this Prodigious revolution, to the end that CHARLES might know it was only the hand of God that Crown'd Him; since He hath made him. Conquer without Arms, and in an instant given him the hearts of all his Subjects, making him find one so faithfull amongst them as that illustrious Person, who hath redeem'd the honour of his Nation, and made himself an example to the world, that behold him for ever Crown'd by the hands of glory, in a manner more rate and more worthy of envy then are the Diadems of Kings; for having carryed unto His, the auguste Present of three Crownes and Scepters that heaven-sends back unto Him; which will finde in CHARLES an arme so Worthy [Page 4] to bear that glorious weight, that henceforth the Principall imployments of renown shall be to travell through all the Empires of the Earth, and inform them of the glorious Reign of CHARLES, and the great felicity of his people: Proclaiming to all the Universe, that never Throne was more Worthily fill'd then that in which CHARLES the second is seated, and whereof His generous and invincible Brothers are become the Defenders.
An Appendix to the Standard-Royall.
Having made a serious review of the precedent Rural lines of this most worthy Countess, the Illustrious Ornament of the Court of France, give me leave, in the next place, to make a discovery of the obsequious wayes, of some of the grand impostors, and most Prodigious Oppressors that ever any age of the world produced; who made Reformation their pretence, to gratifie their own Avarice, introduced themselves, and involved the people into a far more then Babylonish Tyranny, imposing upon the Church and State, beyond all impudence or example. And if we look upon a party of the Scottish Nation, what there sordid actions produced, by deceiving their Brethren, selling their King, betraying his Son, and by all their perfidie; but a slavery more then Egyptian, and an infamy as unparalled, as their treason and ingratitude.
Look nerer home on those whom they had ingaged amongst us here, and tell me if there be a Person of them left, that can shew me his prize, unlesse it be that of his Sacriledg, which he, or his Nephews must certainly vomite up again: What is become of this ignorant and furious zeal, this pretence of an universall perfection in the Religious and the Secular, after all that blood and Treasure, Rapine and Injustice, which has been exhausted, and perpetuated by these sons of Thunder? Where is the King, whom they swear to make so glorious, but meant it in his Martyrdome? Where is the Classis, and the Assembly, the Lay-elder; all that geare of Scotish discipline, and the fine new Trinkets of Reformation? Were not all these raken out of their hand, while now they were in the height of their pride and triumph? And their [Page 5] dull Generall made to serve the execution of their Sovereign, and then to be turnd of himself as a property no more of use to their designes? Their riches, and their strength in which they trusted, and the Parliament which they even idoliz'd, in sum, the prey they had contended for at the expence of so much sin and damnation, seiz'd upon by those very instruments, which they had raised to serve their insatiable avarice, and prodigious disloyalty. For so it pleased God to chastise their implacable persecution of an excellent Prince, with a slavery under such a Tyrant, as not being contented to butcher even some upon the Scaffold, sold divers of them for slaves, and others he exild into cruel banishment, without pretence of Law, or the least commiseration; that those who before had no mercy on others, might find none themselves; till upon some hope of their Repentance, and future moderation, it pleased God to put his hook into the nostrils of that proud Leviathan, and send him to his place, after he had thus mortified the fury of the Presbyterians. For unlesse God himself should utter his voice from Heaven, yea, and that a mighty voyce, can there any thing in the world be more evident, then his indignation at those wretches and bare fact Impostors, who, one after another, usurped upon us, taking them off at the very point of aspiring, and praecipitating the glory and ambition of these men, before those that were, but now, their adoarers, and that had prostituted their consciences to serve their lusts? To call him the Moses, the Man of God, the Joshua, the Saviour of Israel; and after all this, to treat the Thing his son with addresses no lesse then blasphemous, whose Father (as themselves confess to be the most infamous Hypocrite and prossegate Atheist of all the Usurpers that ever any age produced) had made them his Vassalls, and would have intaild them so to his posterity for ever?
But behold the scean is again changed, not by the Royall party, the Common Enemy, or a forreign power; but by the despicable Rumpe of a Parliament, which that Mountebank had formerly serv'd himself of, and had rais'd him to that pitch, and investiture: But see withall, how soon these triflers and puppets of policy are blown away, with all their pack of modells and childish Chimaeras.
For the rest, I despise to blot paper with a recitall of those wretched Intirludes, Farces and Fantasms, which appear'd in the severall intervalls; because they were nothing but the effects of an extream gyddiness, and unparellel'd levity. Yet these were those various despensations and providences in their journey to that holy land of purchases and profits, to which they have from time to time appeald for the justification of their proceedings, whilst they were, indeed, no other then the manifest Judgments of God upon their rebellion and their ambition: I say nothing of their hypocriticall fasts, and pretended numiliations, previous to the succeeding plots, and suppositions Revelations, that the godly might fall into the hands of your Captains, because they were bugbears, and became ridiculous even to the common people.