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the design himself; his malice to his brother, the next heir, though at war with him, came not up to that length, as to cheat him of the throne. And, though Lewis the Thirteenth had been capable of so great a weakness, or rather madness, his brother Monsieur was too much concerned, to let the queen impose upon him one to exclude him from the crown. During the queen's bigness, Monsieur had his constant spies about her, to watch her motions, and to tell him every thing that past. Upon the news of the queen's being in labour, Monsieur was not out of the way, but hastens away to her bed-chamber; and his sedulity and watchfulness was scarce allow. able in modesty; the least circumstance, about the mother and child, did not escape his prying curiosity, and the field of nature itself was laid open to his view; such is the misfortune of princesses, when bearing children, in prejudice of other men's rights. Monsieur, retiring himself to his chamber, in a melancholy mood, as he had good reason, was asked of, by Espernon, what he had seen; Alas! says he, I am sure I saw it come out, but, who the devil put it in, I know not.'

And

Queen Mary of Modena took a shorter cut, and a more modest method of lying-in. She would neither allow the princesses concerned, to search into her bigness, nor permit any, in their name, to be present at her labour. The poor princess of Denmark was hurried away to the bath, upon the pretence of her health; and the queen dowager was not brought in, till the game was over. who can blame a modest Italian, to be more reserved in the secrets of nature, than a blunt Spaniard? How happy was it for the first, that, instead of two princesses at a distance, she did not meet with a blustering Duke of Orleans, to peep more narrowly into the scheme of her contrivances, and render her and her plot ridicu lous?

But, to return to the happy birth of our Lewis le Grand, it seems all the endeavours of Cardinal Richelieu, to provide an heir for France, were unsuccessful. Whether his brain, and his other parts, were not of a piece, or his pressing cares of state, joined to some natural impediment, were the cause of it, I cannot tell; but it was reserved for a person of a meaner condition, though of a more robust constitution, to effectuate what this consummate churchman had attempted in vain. Monsieur le Grand, a gentleman of a comely person, and sprightly spirit, and a courtly genius, was looked upon as the fittest person to make up the defects of an im, potent king, and a wearied favourite cardinal. This carpet-knight was admitted into the embraces of the queen, and, by her teeming belly, she found, within a few months, that she had hit upon a fit stallion to propagate the royal family of France.

It is generally thought, this gentleman was not so much the queen's own choice, as that of Richelieu; and that this refined minister persuaded the queen to entertain Monsieur le Grand for her gallant, out of a mere principle of state, as being more likely to make the queen a mother, than he himself was. And this is the rather believed, that it is generally known, that, immediately after

the queen was found to be with child, Monsieur le Grand was dismissed the court, upon the honourable pretence of being made Lieutenant-criminal of Provence, the wily cardinal fearing his intimacy with the queen might prejudice him in her favour; and, indeed, after this job was done, the cardinal had no more use for him, as the sequel made it too evident,

Pliny tell us a story of the wolf, That he never sees his sire, because, says he, he is murdered by the rest of the wolves, out of envy, that he was preferred by the she-wolf before them. The same fate had the father of this rapacious creature, Lewis the fourteenth ; for, being noosed into the conspiracy of Monsieur de Monmorency, he was beheaded at Tholouse, by the Cardinal's express command; who was unwilling the queen should have an abler gallant, than himself, for the future.

I cannot but regret the fate of this poor gentleman, in being first brought to the bed of a queen, and thereafter in having his head chopped off, merely that he might not tell tales, or give any jealousy to his rival, in the queen's favour: yet I judge him happy in this, that he did not live to see the monster he had begotten.

There happened a memorable passage at his death, which was this. Being all along, after his condemnation, laid asleep with an assurance of a pardon, even upon the scaffold, to the end he might not discover any of his criminal secrecies with the queen; at last, being desired to lay down his head, for the blow, he came to understand, too late, that he was cheated out of his life; and just when he was beginning to express himself in these words: O! la vanite d'estre aime d'une feme cruele, &c.' 'O! the vanity of being loved by a woman cruel, and devoted to the villainous councils of a church-man.' Here the fatal axe did put an end to the sentence, and to his life together.

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This end had Monsieur le Grand, father of our august monarch: and it is but just, his son should bear the name of le Grand, not as an epithet, but as the sirname of his father, le Grand, by way of epithet, being never his due. And thus was Cardinal Richelieu revenged upon him, for being a fitter and abler gallant to the queen, than himself, tho' at first he was not only the privado, but the first encourager of their amours.

When I am on this subject, I cannot but mention a droll sort of letter, written about that time by Monsieur to the Duke of Lorrain, his brother-in-law, from Brussels, which was afterwards found among the Duke of Lorrain's papers, taken at St. Michael, which was to this purpose: Your highness accuses me unjustly, for not obtaining from Monsieur le Grand, when he was with me, a decla. ration of his privacies with the queen; which you say, would have C mightily furthered my affairs: but, Sir, though Monsieur le Grand, at some certain times, out of a transport of fury against the queen, for her unkindness, as he termed it, would confess to me the whole secrets past betwixt the queen and him; yet the very next ( moment, he would pass from all he had said, and affirm, that what he spoke formerly was but in jest. One night, when we were 6 speaking of retiring from court, I brought him to promise, that

he should wait on me the next morning, to give an ample declara. ❝tion of what I sought of him; but he changed his mind that very night, and told me the next day, that he would do it some other time, when our affairs were better ripened. Being astonished at this sudden change, I found by inquiry, that the cardinal had sent for him that very night, and that he was in his privy-chamber above an hour together; and what past betwixt them two, I can. "not divine, but by the event. Notwithstanding of all this,' concludes Monsieur's letter, I cannot think but this unfortunate has left some such declaration in the hands of some of his friends, which if it could be fallen upon, would mightily conduce to the good of our affairs, &c.

In this letter, we see Monsieur asserts plainly, that Monsieur le Grand confessed to him his privacies with the queen, and had promised in his angry fits, to declare them under his hand; though I must say, it was not generous on his part, let the queen's ingratitude to him be what it will; and it is more than probable, that the taking vent of this affair hastened his ruin. It seems Madamoiselle, who is yet alive, daughter to Monsieur, was persuaded of the truth of this intrigue; and that her father had told her, how little right Lewis XIV. had to the crown; since a great many years after, at the barricado of Paris, this princess went in person to the Bastile, and with her own hand, fired the first gun, against the king's forces, with this expression, I know of no right he has here.'

If likeness be a sign of a near relation, never were there two faces liker to one another, than these of our invincible monarch, and Monsieur le Grand. And I must acknowledge the wisdom of the queen, in causing Monsieur le Visme, her painter, to call in all the pictures of Monsieur le Grand, that he could possibly get into his hands, when she found her son betrayed his true father by his physiognomy for those, who have seen both the originals, will say, there was need of all this caution.

Thus the Cardinal Richelieu had the honour of being a gallant to a queen, and, upon trial of his own want of a prolifick quality, had the goodness to provide another better qualified than himself. Not, withstanding of this obligation the nation has to him, I cannot forgive his insolence in ordering these words to be engraven in capital letters, upon the pedestal of Lewis XIII's statue, in the palace royal, Cardinalis Richlieus coadjutor suus in omnibus suis negotiis:' 6 The Cardinal Richelieu, his helper in all his affairs :' as if it had not been enough to have cuckolded his master, without erecting him a statue, merely to tell the world that he did so.

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As similitude in faces is often a sign of a relation in blood, so the likeness of condition is as often an incentive to love, and the motive to friendship. Let no-body therefore blame Lewis the Great, for patronising the little Prince of Wales; it is but reasonable the great bastard should protect the little one, and endeavour to set upon the English throne just such a creature as is already upon the French one.

It is just with our great bastard, as with the fox in the fable, whe

had the misfortune to lose his tail; he would needs persuade his neighbours to cut off theirs, that thereby he might hide his own infirmity. It is certain Lewis the Fourteenth would be content that all the scepters of Christendom were only swayed by bastards, that his own spuriousness might be the less taken notice of. And if it be true, that some lawyers affirm of the old law of Normandy, that by it bastards did exclude the lawfully begotten; no body has reason to exclaim against Lewis le Grand's succession to the crownof France, since he is a Norman by birth, as born at St. Germain en Lye, the hithermost town of that province.

Methinks I hear the little Prince of Wales, or rather his true parents, exclaiming against me heavily, for calling him so often a bastard, and thus pleading against the injustice of my pen: What devil must inspire a man to call one a bastard, that is really begotten in lawful wedlock; and though he had the good fortune to be 'brought into Queen Mary's bed, by a skilful midwife, to be there 'owned for her own son, yet all this makes him not a bastard: and pray who would have refused to lend their son to the heir of three ? I confess there is reason in all this; and I am very inclinable to excuse both the little impostor and his parents, since few would have refused such an offer; and I oblige myself, that if ever I happen to be in England, when the gentleman comes to be king, I shall beg his pardon for giving him a name he deserves not.

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KILLING NO MURDER;

BRIEFLY DISCOURSED IN THREE QUESTIONS.

BY WILLIAM ALLEN.

And all the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was quiet, after that they had slain Athaliah with the sword. 2 Chron. xxiii. 21.

Now after the time that Amaziah did turn away from following the Lord, they made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish; but they sent to Lachish after him, and slew him there. 2 Chron. xxv. 27.

Reprinted in the year 1689. Quarto, containing thirty pages.

To his Highness Oliver Cromwell.

May it please your Highness,

How I have spent some hours of the leisure, your highness hath

been pleased to give me, this following paper will give your highness an account; how you will please to interpret it, I cannot tell; but I can, with confidence, say, my intention in it, is to procure your

highness that justice no body yet does you, and to let the people see, the longer they defer it, the greater injury they do both themselves and you. To your highness justly belong the honours of dying for the people, and it cannot chuse but be an unspeakable consolation to you, in the last moments of your life, to consider, with how much benefit to the world you are like to leave it. It is then only, my lord, the titles you now usurp, will be truly yours; you will then be, indeed, the deliverer of your country, and free it from a bondage, little inferior to that from which Moses delivered his. You will then be that true reformer, which you would now be thought; religion shall then be restored, liberty asserted, and parliaments have those privileges they have fought for. We shall then hope, that other laws will have place, besides those of the sword, and that justice shall be otherwise defined, than the will and pleasure of the strongest; and we shall then hope, men will keep oaths again, and not have the necessity of being false and perfidious, to preserve themselves, and be like their rulers. All this we hope from your highness's happy expiration, who are the true father of your country; for, while you live, we can call nothing ours, and it is from your death that we hope for our inheritances. Let this consideration arm and fortify your highness's mind against the fears of death, and the terrors of your evil conscience, that the good you will do, by your death, will somewhat balance the evils of your life. And if, in the black cata. logue of high malefactors, few can be found that have lived more to the affliction and disturbance of mankind, than your highness hath done; yet your greatest enemies will not deny, but there are likewise as few that have expired more to the universal benefit of mankind, than your highness is like to do. To hasten this great good is the chief end of my writing this paper; and, if it have the effects I hope it will, your highness will quickly be out of the reach of men's malice, and your enemies will only be able to wound you in your memory, which strokes you will not feel. That your highness may be speedily in this security, is the universal wish of your grateful country; this is the desire and prayer of the good and of the bad, and, it may be, is the only thing wherein all sects and factions do agree in their devotions, and is our only common prayer. But, amongst all that put in their requests and supplications, for your highness's speedy deliverance from all earthly troubles, none is more assiduous, nor more fervent, than he, that, with the rest of the nation, hath the honour to be, may it please your highness, Your Highness's present slave and vassal,

W. A..

To all those Officers and Soldiers of the Army, that remember their Engagements, and dare be honest.

Í HEARTILY wish, for England's sake, that your number may be far greater, than I fear it is; and that his highness's frequent purgations may have left any amongst you, that, by these characters, are concerned in this dedication. That I, and all men, have reason

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