A Check to Brittanicus

A Checke to Brittannicus, for his palpable Flattery, and prevarication in justifying condemned NATH. FIENNES.

W EE are informed that Brittannicus during his last weeks silence, hath been visiting Nath: Fiennes late Governor of Bristol since his condemnation, at the Lord Cottingtons Country House; who now not daring to show his head in London for fear of losing it, and despairing of his own credit, after so many false Relations wherewith he hath deluded the world; instead of giving in an Account of his Receits at Bristol, and craving pardon of the Parliament and Kingdom in a penitent Recantation, and acknowledgement of his former grand disservices to the State, hath bribed Brittannicus, to trumpet forth his unknown eminent deserts, and public virtues to the people; to acquit him from the least imputation of Treachery or Cowardize, in his ignoble surrender of the famous strong City and Castle of Bristol, in less then three days Seige, to the Enemy, upon very dishonorable conditions, without the least necessity, (there being not one Out-Fort taken, nor one shot made against the City or Castle walls) upon the entry only of 150. Enemies within the line, who might have been easily cut off; notwithstanding his many promises, to dispute every inch of ground, to hold out the City, and the Castle to the utmost, and when he could no longer keep it, then to lay his bones therein. For which most unsouldierly & unworthy action, (carrying Cowardize and Treachery in its very Front, were there no other evidences, as there were store produced at the hearing;) he had this ensuing Judgment pronounced against him, by that very Council of War to which himself appealed from the Parliament, after nine days full defense, and seven days deliberation; which will sufficiently proclaim his guilt, and justify his Judges.

Yet Brittannicus (the professed Advocate of this Champion) to the unsufferable slander of his Excellency and that honorable Council (which shown him more Favor, then ever any Malefactor of that nature received, though he hath most ungratefully requited them, in appealing from their sentence, and raising many ignominious reports against their justice) hath now proclaimed it in print (I know not upon what occasion, it being no ways pertinent to his weekly Intelligence;) That neither the Sentence of death, nor his Pardon do in the least impeach him, either of Treachery or Cowardize; and thereupon stiles his pretended Pardon, (of which the Parliament which must grant it, is wholly ignorant) a noble Act of his Excellencies Justice. (Oh strange Iusticiary! whose very Treason, ex condigno, demerits Pardon,) not of his indulgent mercy. Pitty is it, but that he should receive Justice in the highest degree, who esteems his undemerited free Pardon a mere act of Right, not Favor. Were not Nath: Fiennes now grown past grace, as well as shame, (as his strange prevarications, and underhand proceedings in this business apparently discover,) he durst not presume so impudently to justify this his dishonorable action in print, even after judgment passed against him, in such a braving manner, as makes some of his best friends conjecture, he hath already lost the best part of his head (his brains ) since his Judgment; and must even in point of justice lose the residue of it, unless he will so far under-value not only his well-deserving Prosecutors, and the Council of War, whom he causelessly asperseth, but even the High Court of Parliament, and his Excellency, as frantickly to opine, they will all now voluntarily hazard their own Honors, Justice, and the whole Kingdoms safety, (inconsistent with his over-daring practices) to keep his unworthy head upon his shoulders, and uphold his sunk Reputation, to do the Republic more ill offices.

Mercy it self will not, cannot save an impenitent, obdurate, capital Delinquent, who will neither confess, nor recant his offenses, but still justify them to the world in despite of Justice.

But Brittannicus, out of his foolish pity, pleads thus for him. That it is pity we should bury the eminent deserts, and public virtues of that Gentleman, (in surrendering Bristol to the loss of the West, the hazard of the Kingdom, and seeking to f • meant, if not raise differences between his Excellency, and Sir William Waller, on whom he would translate this damage) in the Sepulcher of an unfortunate action: I am sorry to see his Advocate, put to so poor a shift, as thus to transform him into a Roman Catholic, and make him plead Eminent Merits, yet undiscerned; and public virtues (not hitherto visible,) to save h • s Head-pe • ce: Its ill pleading Justification by such works, as have already condemned their Author, in a Court of Justice. His ensuing shift is yet more miserable; That we should put a difference in Offences, and sooner pity then prosecute the failings of the best, and not make our sufferings the only Argument of his. For is it not a far grander and more capital crime actually to surrender such a place as Bristol to the Enemy, without necessity, to the Kingdoms incomparable prejudice, then only to practice its surrender without success, before it was either fortified or stored? with what justice then can Fiennes (not yet proved the best who put Col: Essex from the government of that place, upon a groundless pretence he would not keep it, & actually executed Yeomans & Butcher only for plotting Bristols surrender before it was fortified, or ammunitioned, though their project proved successeles) expect a Pardon, when as himself actually surrendered it, withal the Arms, Ammunition, Magazines, Cannons, Colors in it, before any extremity enforced him, or the Enemy had so much as battered the City or Castle walls? If they by his own sentence (though penitent) endured the halter, I am certain he still stouting it, much more deserves the Axe: And for the latter part of his Apology it is so irrational, that every man who hath but common sense or honesty will conclude; that he who hath caused many thousand Innocents, & the whole Kingdom to suffer in the loss of such a place of consequence as Bristol, deserves not to go Scot-free, but to suffer more then the Governor of Beeston Castle, and others put to death for losing places of less importance.

If he conceit, the Noblenes of his blood may apologize for his impunity; though he hath forfeited it in this ignoble action: all understanding men will conclude, that as it aggravates his guilt, and heightens his offense; so it pleads most effectually for his execution: since an exemplary President of justice upon an eminent offender of Noble extraction, will strike more terror into, and do more good upon other Governors, then twenty Laws, or a thousand executions of inferior persons, for sleighter offenses; And seeing he hath given the Parliament and Kingdom incomparably the most fatal blow, and the enemy the richest booty they ever yet received, in the loss of Bristol; there is little reason or justice, that he should escape after such a public trial, and judgment of his own seeking; the best service he can now do for the Common wealth, being this▪ to become a spectacle and Monument of public Justice to Posterity in a military way, as Strafford was in a Politick. We read in Meteranus, Grimston, Thuanus, and other Historians a memorable history of justice in this kind upon a young Nobleman of as good or better descent then himself, Van Hemert a Dutchman, who was condemned and lost his head with two of his Captains in the year 1587. by the Earl of Leicester and Queen Elizabeth's direction, notwithstanding the Nobility and greatness of his family, the powerful mediation of his friends, and the confession of his Errors, with promise to expiate it by serving the Queen by Land or Sea at his own charges, only for surrendering the Town of Grave, (of far less consequence and strength then Bristol ) to the potent enemy, after full 3. months (not 3. days) siege, and that upon honorable terms punctually observed, (the soldiers marching out with their arms and baggage, and the Citizens with their goods) and that when the walls of it with many batteries of the Canon were levelled to the ground, and the town threatened with a present general assault, which made most of the Soldiers and Inhabitants to importune him upon their knees with tears, to parly with the Enemy, and to yield the Town upon good conditions. This sentence and execution was thought over-severe by some, but the Earl of Leicester, and the wisest men deemed it necessary to reform the ancient neglects of military discipline then much decayed; and to preserve other Forts from over-sudden surrenders before utmost extremity: and the wisest Statesmen, soldiers have affirmed, that the loss of this great man's head was more advantageous to the States in regard of the President, then the saving of his, or a thousand men's lives of his rank, in such a case could be. The story needs no application: he who will not adventure his life, to defend his charge, and a place of such importance as Bristol for the Kingdoms safety, and keeping out of the Irish Rebels, now actually possessed of it, deserves at least to lose his head for such a Cowardize, and cannot do the Kingdom greater service, nor Justice more Right, then to suffer for it, and become a President for the benefit of Posterity, especially when he grows so obstinately perverse as neither to acknowledge nor lament his Error.