Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/129

ii s. vm. AUG. 16, 1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

123 printers may serve as an example. Of Brewster, Dover, and Brooks he asserts ('Life of Milton,' vi. 479):—

"It was pleaded for them and by them that the books, or, at least, the first of them (the 'Speeches and Prayers'), had been in print long, and had been as openly sold in shops as any diurnal, and that they had only gone on supplying current demand. As such books were now to be put down if possible, the sentence was," &c. (Italics mine.)

The printers' defence was that what they had done was "in the way of trade," and without malice. This and nothing else. No one pleaded for them. It is quite untrue to say that the books were "openly sold," either in the shops or anywhere else. Only Brewster asserted that they were "as common in the streets as a diurnall." Diurnals were not usually sold in shops. The sentence I have italicized is meant to convey the inference that there had been an unrestricted public sale of the books up to the time of the trial, that is, for three years, and that, therefore, the Government of Charles II. saw no offence in a book which not only aimed at the King's life, but also justified the murder of his father, Charles I., in the following words (I quote one of the letters fathered upon Cooke at p. 41):—

"I cannot confesse any guilt; it is such a cause that the Martyrs would gladly come again from Heaven to suffer for, if they might, though too many object against me. 1 Pet. 4, 15. 'Let none of you suffer as a murtherer.' I look upon it as the most noble and high act of justice that our story can parallel. And so far as I had a hand in it, never any one action in all my life comes to my mind with less regret or trouble of conscience then that does."

And yet Cooke, who at the commencement of his career was an embezzler and fugitive from justice (see Mercurius Elencticus for 6-13 Feb., 1648/9; press-mark E. 542, 13.), died penitent, according to all witnesses. The preface to the 'Speeches and Prayers' made a slip in writing of "extracts" of letters. All the fraudulent letters are set out in full, and the one I have just cited is a bulky pamphlet in itself, 12 pages in length.

That, on the contrary, the first edition of the 'Speeches and Prayers' was suppressed with a rigour that explains the fraudulent titles 'Rebels no Saints,' &c., and 'A Compleat Collection,' &c., given to the remaining English editions, 'Mirabilis Annus' itself witnesses on its seventy-second page in the following tale:—

"By a letter from an unquestionable hand in Yarmouth, bearing date 'January 28, 1600' [i.e., 1661], we are assured that the Clerk of the Peace for the County of Norfolk did most maliciously prosecute one Captain Salter for giving a book (which contained a narrative of the several executions of those ten men who suffered in October last) to a gentleman."

The tale goes on to add that the cleric then went into his study to write a letter on the subject, urging also severity against conventicles, and

"before he could come out of his study to send away the letter he fell down dead and never came to life again"!

As regards the other printer, John Twyn, concerned in the plot for the general insurrection (fixed for 12 Oct., 1663), for which he was printing a book advocating the extirpation of the royal family, Masson's remarks are at once placed out of court by quoting the sheet of the book still in existence at the Record Office ('S.P. Dom-Car. II.' vol. 88, No. 76):—

"God hath not forbid us to cast off the yoke of this present tyrant; He hath sent no Jeremiah to command us to serve him, neither hath God threatened England to destroy it by sword, famine and pestilence if it will not be subject to him and his son and his son's son; and, therefore we owe him no such service

"Suppose God had sent a prophet to tell us that for 70 years or a hundred or more we must serve this King and his son and his son's son (which God hath not done) doth it allow therefore that we must stand still and let him spoil our goods, beggar our children, murder us one after another as fast as he does and glut himself with innocent blood in a tine of peace. Servants do not owe such obedience to their masters as to stand still and suffer him to murder their fellow servants, yea, they are bound to rescue them from him if they can. And though Israel were servants to Nebuchadnezzar because of their sins, yet they were not bound to submit to him in their own destruction, much less then are we to this tyrant; we are none of his servants, but he oursThis man had his authority from the people of England (or else he hath none) and is sworn to protect us, and yet doth most cruelly oppress us. And yet if we were his servants we ought not to suffer him to murder us or our fellow servants if we could prevent it If a king have shed innocent blood the Law of God requires the people to put him to death (Gen. 9, 4; Numb. 35, 31). And to execute the Law upon a Malefactor is so far from rendering evil for evil that it is more acceptable to God than sacrifice Must we stand still while he murders us or our friends? Or must we suffer murders to go unpunished? This vengeance is the same that is called executing of judgment, and the Lord doth command the saints to take a two-edged sword in their hands to execute the judgments written in His Word upon wicked kings The judgments of God must be executed, and peace must give way to righteousness. And may I not say, What peace with such a bloody generation who have murdered so many hundred righteous persons for assembling themselves to pray and