CHARLES II.

43

establishment: That the controversy betweenthe late king and his parliament was of themost delicate nature; and men of the greatestprobity had been divided in their choice of theparty which they thould embrace: That theparliament , being rendered indissoluble butby its own consent, was become a kind ofco-ordinate power with the king; and as thecafe was thus entirely new and unknown tothe constitution , it ought not to be triedrigidly by the letter of the ancient laws : Thatfor his part , all the violences, which had beenput upon the parliament, and upon the personof the sovereign , he had ever condemned ; norhad he once appeared in the house for some timebefore and alter the execution of the king: 1 hat,finding the whole government thrown intodisorder, he was still resolved, in every revolu-tion, to adhere to the commons, the root, thefoundation of all lawful authority : That inprosecution of this principle, he had chearfullyundergone all the violence of Cromwel’s tyranny;and would now, with equal alacrity, exposehimself to the rigors of perverted law and justice:That though it was in his power, on the king’srestoration to have escaped from his enemies ,he was determined , in imitation of the mostillustrious names of antiquity to perish in defenceof liberty, and to give testimony with his bloodfor that honorable cause , in which he had beeninlisted: And, that, besides the ties, by whichGod and nature had bound him to his nativecountry , he was voluntarily engaged by the most

HAT

LXIII.

i6sia.