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 vengeance serve the turn, the cutting off one head in a Family is not enough to expiate the affront done to the head of the Common-weal. The eldest Son must be involved in the punishment, as he was infected with the sin of the Father, against the Father of his Country: Root and branch God cuts off in one day.
These Observations are obvious to every fancie: God knows, I was so far from rejoycing in the _Hothams_ ruine, (though it were such as was able to give the greatest thirst for revenge a full draught, being executed by them who first employed him against Me) that I so far pitied him, as I thought he at first acted more against the light of his Conscience, then I hope many other men do in the same Cause.