Woodstock | Page 4

A sad
sentence for a loyal party, to a lawful King. But Heaven is always just;
the party is repriv'd, and do acknowledge the hand of God in it, as is
rightly apply'd, and as justly sensible of their deliverance in that the
foundation which the councillor saith was already so well laid, is now
turned up, and what he calls day-dreams are come to passe. That old
line which (as with him) there seemed, aliquid divini, to the contrary is
now restored. And that rock which, as he saith, the prelates and all their
adherents, nay, and their master and supporter, too, with all his
posterity, have split themselves upon, is nowhere to be heard. And that
posterity are safely arrived in their ports, and masters of that mighty
navy, their enemies so much encreased to keep them out with. The
eldest sits upon the throne, his place by birthright and descent,
"Pacatumque regit Patriis virtutibus orbem;"
upon which throne long may he sit, and reign in peace. That by his just
government, the enemies of ours, the true Protestant Church, of that
glorious martyr, our late sovereign, and of his royal posterity, may be
either absolutely converted, or utterly confounded.
If any shall now ask thee why this narrative was not sooner published,
as neerer to the times wherein the things were acted, he hath the reason
for it in the former lines; which will the more clearly appear unto his
apprehension, if he shall perpend how much cruelty is requisite to the
maintenance of rebellion; and how great care is necessary in the
supporters, to obviate and divert the smallest things that tend to the
unblinding of the people; so that it needs will follow, that they must
have accounted this amongst the great obstructions to their sales of his
majestie's lands, the devil not joining with them in the security; and

greater to the pulling down the royal pallaces, when their chapmen
should conceit the devil would haunt them in their houses, for building
with so ill got materials; as no doubt but that he hath, so numerous and
confident are the relations made of the same, though scarce any so
totally remarkeable as this, (if it be not that others have been more
concealed,) in regard of the strange circumstances as long continuances,
but especially the number of persons together, to whom all things were
so visibly both seen and done, so that surely it exceeds any other; for
the devils thus manifesting themselves, it appears evidently that there
are such things as devils, to persecute the wicked in this world as in the
next.
Now, if to these were added the diverse reall phantasms seen at
Whitehall in Cromwell's times, which caused him to keep such mighty
guards in and about his bedchamber, and yet so oft to change his
lodgings; if those things done at St. James', where the devil so joal'd the
centinels against the sides of the queen's chappell doors, that some of
them fell sick upon it; and others, not, taking warning by it, kild one
outright, whom they buried in the place; and all other such dreadful
things, those that inhabited the royal houses have been affrighted with.
And if to these were likewise added, a relation of all those regicides
and their abettors the devil hath entered into, as he did the Gadarenes'
swine, with so many more of them who hath fallen mad, and dyed in
hideous forms of such distractions, that which hath been of this within
these 12 last years in England, (should all of this nature, our chronicles
do tell, with all the superstitious monks have writ, be put together,)
would make the greater volume, and of more strange occurrents.
And now as to the penman of this narrative, know that he was a divine,
and at the time of those things acted, which are here related, the
minister and schoolmaster of Woodstock; a person learned and discreet,
not byassed with factious humours, his name Widows, who each day
put in writing what he heard from their mouthes, (and such things as
they told to have befallen them the night before,) therein keeping to
their own words; and, never thinking that what he had writ should
happen to be made publick, gave it no better dress to set it forth. And

because to do it now shall not be construed to change the story, the
reader hath it here accordingly exposed.
The 16th day of October, in the year of our Lord 1649, the
Commissioners for surveying and valuing his majestie's mannor-house,
parks, woods, deer, demesnes, and all things thereunto belonging, by
name Captain Crook, Captain Hart, Captain Cockaine, Captain
Carelesse, and Captain Roe, their messenger, with Mr. Browne, their
secretary, and two or three servants,