Maximes of bold and disloyall undertakers:
That bad actions must always be seconded with worse, and rather not
begun, then not carried on; for they think the retreat more dangerous
then the assault, and hate repentance more then perseverance in a
fault.

This gave me to see clearly thorow all the pious disguises, and soft
palliations of some men; whose words were sometime smoother then oil,
but now I saw they would prove very swords.

Against which I having (as yet) no defence, but that of a good
Conscience, thought it My best policie (with patience) to bear what
I could not remedie: And in this (I thank God) I had the better of
_Hotham_, that no disdain, or emotion of passion transported Me, by
the indignitie of his carriage, to do or say any thing unbeseeming
My self, or unsuitable to that temper, which, in greatest injuries,
I think, best becomes a Christian, as coming nearest to the great
example of Christ.

And indeed, I desire alwaies more to remember I am a Christian, then
a King; for what the Majesty of one might justly abhor, the Charity
of the other is willing to bear; what the height of a King tempteth to
revenge, the humilitie of a Christian teacheth to forgive, keeping in
compass all those impotent passions, whose excess injures a man more
then his greatest enemies can; for these give their malice a full
impression on our souls, which otherwise cannot reach very far, nor do
us much hurt.

I cannot but observe how God not long after so pleaded and avenged my
cause, in the eye of the world, that the most wilfully blind cannot
avoid the displeasure to see it, and with some remorse and fears to
own it as a notable stroke, and prediction of divine vengeance.

First, Sir _John Hotham_ unreproched, unthreatned, uncursed by
any language or secret imprecation of mine, onely blasted with the
conscience of his own wickednesse, and falling from one inconstancy
to another, not long after paies his own and his eldest Sons heads,
as forfeiture of their disloyalty, to those men, from whom surely he
might have expected an other reward, then thus to divide their heads
from their bodies, whose hearts with them were divided from their
KING.

Nor is it strange that they who employed them at first in so high a
service, and so successfull to them, should not finde mercy enough to
forgive Him, who had so much premerited of them: For, Apostacy unto
Loyalty some men account the most unpardonable sin.

Nor did a solitary v