AN ESSAY TOWARDS ATTAINING A TRUE IDEA OF THE CHARACTER AND REIGN OF KING CHARLES THE FIRST, AND THE CAUSES OF THE CIVIL WAR: EXTRACTED FROM AND Delivered IN THE VERY WORDS [THE THIRD EDITION PRINTED 1811.] PREFACE. THERE is no part of the English History, proba bly, which hath been so greatly misrepresented, or which is generally at present so little understood, as the reign of the unhappy prince of which the following papers treat. I shall not here inquire into the cause of this ignorance, nor observe the hurtful effect it has had upon society: how much it hath been abused to corrupt the principles of the people; to inflame and pervert their passions, and to perpetuate animosities which every good Briton wishes to see eternally extinguished and forgot. Nor shall I make any apology for publishing this collection, though it may seem in some places to bear hard upon a royal character to which much incensé has been offered up. Whatever sacredness there may may be in such exalted characters, the truth of history is more sacred: a reverence for this only, hath produced the following Essay; which is undertaken with a sincere desire of informing my fellow subjects as to the transactions of a reign which hath generally, not in private only, but in the most public and sacred places, been represented to the people in extremely fallacious colours. Too great complaisance to the errors of the past age, may be cruelty to the present; one principal use of history is to point out the misconducts and follies of former times, to serve as warnings and instructions to those who come after. It was a saying worthy that glory of the Stuart family, and indeed of the British nation, Queen Mary II. When reflections were made in her presence upon the sharpness of some historians, who had left heavy imputations upon the memory of some princes, her majesty replied " If those princes were truly such as the his |