So old Parr now was almost an old man,
Near sixty, e're the register began.
I've writ as much as reason can require,
How times did pass, how's leases did expire;
And gentlemen o' th' county did relate

T' our gracious king, by their certificate,

His age, and how time with grey hairs hath crown'd him;
And so I leave him older than I found him.

A POSTSCRIPT.

THE changes of manners, the variations of customs, the mutability of times, the shiftings of fashions, the alterations of religions, the diversities of sects, and the intermixture of accidents, which have happened since the birth of this old Thomas Parr, in this kingdom, although all of them are not to be held worthy of mentioning, yet many of them are worthy to be had in memory:

In the sixth year of his age, and in the second year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, one Lambert Simnell, the son of a baker, claimed the crown, and was crowned King of Ireland, and proclaimed King of England, in the city of Dublin: This paltry fellow did put the King to much cost and trouble; for he landed with an army at Fawdrey in Lancashire, and, at a place called Stoke, the King met him, and, after a sharp and short battle, overcame and took him, and, pardoning him his life, gave him a turn-broachers place in the kitchen, and afterwards made him one of his falconers, anno 1487.

In the tenth year of his age, and the Eighth of Henry the Seventh, another youngster claimed the Crown, whose name was Perkin Warbeck, as some write, a tinker's son of Tournay; some say his father was a Jew; notwithstanding, he likewise put the King to much charge and trouble, for he was assisted with soldiers from Scotland and France; besides many joined with him in England, till at the last the King took him, and, on his true confession, pardoned him; he, falling again to his old practice,, was executed at Tyburn, 1499.

The same year also, a shoemaker's son, dwelling in Bishopsgatestreet, likewise claimed the crown, under the name of Edward, Earl of Warwick, the son of George, Duke of Clarence,, brother to King Edward the Fourth; but this young shoemaker ended his claim in a halter at Saint Thomas a Waterings; which was a warning for him, not to surpass Ne Sutor ultra Crepidam.

Another counterfeit, the son of a miller, claimed the crown, in the second year of Queen Mary's reign, saying that he was King Edward the Sixth; but, the tenth of May, 1552, those royal opinions were whipped out of him for a while, till he fell to his old claim again, and purchased a hanging the thirteenth of March following, So much for impostures and counterfeits.

For religion, he hath known the time of divers sects and changes, as the Romish catholick religion from his birth, till the twenty-fourth year of King Henry the Eighth, the time of fifty years: And then, the twenty-sixth of his reign, the King's understanding being illuminated from above, he cast the Pope's authority out of this Kingdom, 1534, and restored the ancient and primitive religion, which continued under the title of Protestants, till the end of his son King Edward the Sixth's reign, which was near about twenty years; then was a bloody alteration, or return to papistry, for more than five years, all the reign of Queen Mary; since whose death, the protestant religion again was happily restored, continued, and maintained by the defenders of the true, ancient, catholick, and apostolick faith, these sixtysix years and more, under the blessed governments of Queen Elisabeth, King James, and King Charles. All which time, Thomas Parr hath not been troubled in mind for either the building or throwing down of abbies, and religious houses; nor did he ever murmur at the manner of prayers, let them be Latin or English. He held it safest to be of the religion of the King or Queen that were in being: for he knew that he came raw into the world, and accounted it no point of wisdom to be broiled out of it: His name was never questioned for affirming or denying the King's supremacy: He hath known the time when men were so mad as to kneel down and pray before a block, a stock, a stone, a picture, or a relick of a he or a she saint departed; and he lived in a time when mad men would not bow their knee at the name of Jesus; that are more afraid to see a white surplice, than to wear a white sheet; that despise the cross, in any thing but money; that hold Latin to be the language of the beast, and hate it deadly, because the Pope speaks it; that would patch up a religion with untempered mortar, out of their own brains, not grounded upon the true corner-stone; who are furnished with a lazy idle faith; that hold good works a main point of popery; that hold their religion truest, because it is contrary to all order and discipline, both of church and commonwealth: These are sprung up since old Tom Parr was born.

But he hath outlived many sectarics and hereticks; For, in the thirty-second year of the reign of King Henry the Eighth, 1540, the third of May, three anabaptists were burnt in the high-way, between Southwark and Newington. In the fourth year of King Edward the Sixth, one George of Paris, a Dutchman, was burnt in Smithfield, for being an Arian heretick, 1551; 1583, one John Lewis denied the godhead of Christ, and was burnt at Norwich, in the twenty-sixth year of Elisabeth. Not long before that, there was one Joan Butcher, alias, Joan of Kent, burnt for the like.

In the third year of Queen Elisabeth's reign, one William Geffrey affirmed one lohn Moore to be Christ; but they were both whipped out of that presumptuous opinion, 1561.

In the seventeenth of Queen Elisabeth, the sect of the family of love began, 1575, but it took no deep root.

In the twenty-first of Queen Elisabeth, one Matthew Hamont was burned at Norwich for denying Christ to be our Saviour,

In the thirty-third of Queen Elisabeth, one William Hacket was hanged for professing himself to be Christ, 1591.

In the ninth year of King James, the eleventh of April, 1611, one Edward Wightman was burned a Litchfield for Arianism.

So much have I written concerning, sects and heresies, which have been in this kingdom in his time; now I treat of some other passages.

He had outlived six great plagues. He was born long before we had much use of printing: For it was brought into this kingdom, 1472, and it was long after before it was in use.

He was above eighty years old before any guns were made in England, 1535.

The vintners sold no other sacks, muscadels, malmsies, bastards, Alicants, nor any other wines but white and claret, till the thirty-third year of King Henry the Eighth, 1543, and then was old Parr sixty years of age: All those sweet wines were sold till that time at the apothecaries for no other use, but for medicines.

There was no starch used in England, till a Flanders woman, one Mistress Dinghen Vanden Plasse, brought in the use of starch, 1564: And then was this man near eighty years old.

There were no bands wore till King Henry the Eighth's time; for he was the first king that ever wore a band in England, 1513.

Women's masks, busks, muffs, fans, perriwigs, and bodkins were invented by Italian courtezans, and transported through France into England, in the ninth of Queen Elisabeth.

Tobacco was first brought into England by Sir John Hawkins, 1565, but it was first brought into use by Sir Walter Rawleigh many years after.

He was eighty-one years old before there was any coach in England: For the first, that ever was seen here, was brought out of the Netherlands, by one William Boonen, a Dutchman, who gave a coach to Queen Elisabeth, for she had been seven years a Queen before she had any coach; since when, they have increased, with a mischief, and ruined all the best house-keeping, to the undoing of the watermen, by the multitudes of hackney or hired coaches: But they never swarmed so thick to pester the streets, as they do now, till the year 1605, and then was the gunpowder treason hatched, and at that time did the coaches breed and multiply.

He hath out lived the fashion, at least forty times over and over. He hath known many changes of scarcity, or dearth, and plenty: But I will speak only of the plenty.

In the year 1499, the fifteenth of Henry the Seventh, wheat was sold for 4s. the quarter, or 6d. the bushel, and bay salt at 4d. and wine at 40 shillings the ton, which is about three farthings the quart.

In the first of Queen Mary, beer was sold for sixpence the barrel, the cask and all, and three great loaves for one penny.

In the year 1557, the fifth of Queen Mary, the penny wheaten loaf was, in weight, fifty six ounces, and in many places people would change a bushel of corn for a pound of candles.

So much shall suffice for the declaring of some changes and alterations that have happened in his time.

Now, for a memorial of his name, I will give a little touch. I will not search for the antiquity of the name of Parr, but I find it to be an honourable name in the twelfth year of King Edward the fourth; the King sent Sir William Parr, Knight, to seize upon the archbishop of York's goods, at a place called the Moor in Hartfordshire, 1472: This Sir William Parr was knight of the right honourable order of the garter. In the twenty-second of Edward the Fourth, the same Sir William Parr went with an army towards Scotland, with Richard Duke of Gloucester.

In the year 1543, the thirty fifth year of King Henry the Eighth, July 22, the King was married to Lady Catharine Parr; and, the 24th of December following, the Queen's brother, William Lord Parr, was created Earl of Essex, and Sir William Parr, their uncle, was made Lord Parr of Horton, and chamberlain to the Queen; and the first of King Edward the Sixth, William Parr, Earl of Essex, was created Marquis of Northamption; and in the fourth year of King Edward's reign, 1550, the said marquis was made lord great chamberlain of England, and on the last of April, 1552, he, amongst other lords, mustered one-hundred brave well appointed horsemen of his own charge before King Edward, in the park at Greenwich, his cognisance or crest being the Maidenhead; in the first of Queen Mary, he took part with the lady Jane against the Queen, for which he was taken and committed to the Tower, July 26, and, contrary to expectation, released again shortly after, March 24.

Also, the first Queen Elisabeth, William Parr, Marquis of Northampton, sat, in Westminster Hall, lord high steward, upon a tryal of William Lord Wentworth, who came off most honourably acquitted, April 22,

After the death of King Henry the Eighth, Queen Catharine Parr was married to Sir Thomas Seymor, Lord high admiral, and she died, the second of September, 1548.

And thus I lay down the pen, leaving it to whomsoever can, or will, make more of this old man, than I have done.

A BRIEF RELATION

OF

CERTAIN SPECIAL AND MOST MATERIAL PASSAGES

AND

SPEECHES IN THE STAR-CHAMBER;

Occasioned and delivered, June the fourteenth, 1637, at the censure of those three worthy Gentlemen,

DR. BASTWICKE, MR. BURTON, AND MR. PRYNNE,

As it hath been truly and faithfully gathered from their own mouths, by one present at the said censure.

Printed in the Year 1638. Quarto, containing twenty-eight Pages. See number fifty-two in the catalogue.

BE

ETWEEN eight and nine o'clock in the morning, the fourteenth of June, the lords being set in their places in the said court of Starchamber, and casting their eyes upon the prisoners, then at the bar, Sir John Finch, chief justice of the Common Pleas, began to speak after this manner.

I had thought Mr. Prynne had had no ears, but methinks he hath ears, which caused many of the lords to take the stricter view of him; and, for their better satisfaction, the usher of the court was commanded to turn up his hair, and shew his ears; upon the sight whereof the lords were displeased they had been formerly no more cut off, and cast out some disgraceful words of him.

To which Mr. Prynne replied, My Lords, there is never a one of your honours, but would be sorry to have your ears as mine are.

The Lord Keeper replied again, In good faith he is somewhat saucy. I hope, said Mr. Prynne, your honours will not be offended, I pray God give you ears to hear.

The business of the day, said the Lord Keeper, is to proceed on the prisoners at the bar.

Mr. Prynne then humbily desired the court to give him leave to make a motion or two; which being granted, he moves,

First, That their honours would be pleased to accept of a cross bill against the prelates, signed with their own hands, being that which stands with the justice of the court, which he humbly craved, and so tendered it.