And He has streyn'd the Point already and remov'd it to the Successor and his Adherents From the Expectant to the Occupant from the Duke to the King and so premeditates and Encourages a Rebellion in the very Body of his Proposition For His Majesty that now is must be Dead before the Libellers Device against the Successour can take Effect and King and Successour in This Case are all one Now upon This Principle there needs no more than to say that any King is a Papist to Depose him Nay admitting This Power to be in the People Acts of Parliament are but Matter of Course and they may do the thing even as well without giving any Reason for 't Upon the Ground of their Vnaccountable Prerogative It would be known too what his meaning is by the Parliament he speaks of that is Openly to oppose the Successour It cannot be understood of King Lords and Commons for the King is the Party Opposed and Excluded And then I would as willingly learn what kind of Opposition it is that he intends It must be an Opposition either of Force and Violence or an Opposition in the way of Argument Counsels and Debate It cannot be the Latter sure for what could be more ridiculous then to expect that a Prince should pass a Bill for the Deposal of Himself And if it be the Other we are e'en Half-Seas-Over already into a New Rebellion There is not such a Monster in Nature as a Headless Parliament We have had the Experience of it and without Rubbing the Old Sore or Reciting the Calamities it brought upon This Nation I shall only say This I cannot bethink my self of any sort of Oppression either in Religion Property or Freedom or of any One Crying sin in that Impious and Seditious Interval that scap'd us I could add several other Instances of the same Complexion with those above Recited which I shall forbear partly out of Respect and in part to keep my self within Compass For I must not Quit This Subject without giving further Evidence of a Confederacy against the King and Government like those that Rob the House under colour of Helping to Quench the Fire and in the very Instant of Pretending to save the Kingdom they are laying their Heads together how to Destroy it Witness the most Audacious Libel perhaps that ever flew in the Face of any Government It bears the Title of A Political Catechism concerning the Power and Privileges of Parliament taken as pretended out of His Majesties Nineteen Propositions of June 2. 1642. with a Construction and Application much at the rate of the Devils Gloss upon the Text to our Saviour upon the Pinacle of the Temple The Compiler of This Libel makes His Majesties Answer to be Effectually an Admittance of the Right and Reason of the Propositions and the Publisher of it recommends the Doctrine of 1642. to the Practice of 1679. We 'l take a short View First of the Quality of the Propositions Secondly of the Kings Sense upon them And after That of our Catechists New model of Government The main Scope of the Propositions is This. All Privy-Councellors and Ministers of State to be discharg'd and their places Supply'd by direction and Approbation of Both Houses And all to be Vnder such an Oath as They shall agree upon The Great Affairs of the Nation to be Transacted in Parliament and no Publick Act of the Kings to be Valid unless Subscribed by the Major part of the Councel Chosen ut supra The Number of the Councel to be Limited and all Vacancies fill'd by direction of Parliament All the Great Officers and Iudges to be so Chosen The Militia acknowledg'd to be in the Two Houses and They likewise to have the Approbation of the Tutors and Governors of the Kings Children and of Those that Attend them All Forts and Castles to be put into the hands of Persons approv'd of by the Two Houses The Kings Guards and Military Forces to be Discharg'd thô the Rebellion was Now begun No Peers Created in time to come to Sit and Vote in Parliament without the Consent of Both Houses c. There will need no Other Descant upon These Propositions being so Gross in themselves but only the Citing of some Passages out of His late Majesties Answer in Reflection upon them These Demands says the Late King are of That Nature that to Grant them were in Effect at Once to Depose both Our self and Our Posterity These things being past we may be waited upon bare-headed We may have Our hand kist the Stile of Majesty Continu'd to Vs and the Kings Authority declared by Both Houses of Parliament may be still the Stile of your Commands We may have Swords and Maces carry'd before Vs and please Our self with the sight of a Crown and Scepter And yet even these Twigs would not Long flourish when the Stock upon which they grew are Dead But as to True and Real Power We should remain but the Outside but the Picture but the Sign of a King c. And Again Thô we shall always weigh the Advices both of Our Great and Privy-Councel with the Proportionable Consideration due to them yet we shall also look upon their Advices as Advices not as Commands or Impositions Vpon Them as Our Counsellors not as Our Tutors and Guardians and upon Our Self as their King not as their Pupil or Ward Pag. 318. And Further Pag. 320. We call God to Witness that as for Our Subjects sake these Rights are vested in Vs So for Their sakes as well as for Our Own we are resolved not to quit them nor to subvert thô in a Parliamentary way the Antient Equal Happy Well-poised and never enough Commended Constitution of This Kingdom Nor to make Our self of a King of England a Duke of Venice and This of a Kingdom a Republick Moreover Pag. 322. The Common people when they find that all was done By them but not For them will at last grow weary of Journey-work and set up for themselves call Parity and Independence Liberty devouring the Estate which had devoured the Rest Destroy all Rights and Proprieties all Distinctions of Families and Merit And by This means the splendid and Excellently-distinguish'd Form of Government end in a Dark Equal Chaos of Confusion and the Long Line of Our many Noble Ancestors in a Jack Cade or a Wat Tiler After the Mockery of the Abovemention'd Propositions and the Kings Just and Prophetical Judgment made upon them we shall only Add that the Ruin of the Late King was as Certainly the Intent of Those Vndutiful Demands as it was the Effect of them in the Execution of the Powers claim'd Thereby and we may as reasonably conclude that the same Pretensions now over again are publish'd with the same Ends and that the Sufferance of This Licence will Naturally run into the same Consequences For the whole work of moving a Rebellion is but First to possess the people
The Case Put Concerning the SUCCESSION OF HIS Royal Highness THE DUKE of YORK LONDON Printed by M. Clark for Henry Brome at the Gun in St. Pauls Church-Yard 1679. The Case Put Concerning the SUCCESSION OF HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS The DUKE of YORK THE Case of His Royal Highnesses Succession in regard of the present circumstances of Plots and Popery has been of late sufficiently agitated Pro and Con while the Advocates of Both sides pretend equally to support themselves upon Arguments drawn from Nature Scripture Law History Custom and Political Expedience Et Pila minantia Pilis Now as it is utterly impossible for a Contradiction to be Both ways in the Right so the Difficulty will not be much less for a Common man in a Proposition of this Nicety to distinguish betwixt the Truth and the Paradox and to determine upon which side the Reason lies Or what if the Contendents themselves should yet in some degree have left the very Pinch of the Point betwixt them For it is not the bare Citing of a piece of Scripture or a Record that does the business but the fair Expounding and Applying of it with a due Regard to the Context of Times Persons Interests Occasions and other Circumstances There is a great difference betwixt the Counsels of Factious Times and of Peaceable of Vsurpers and of Lawful Princes the Concessions of Kings in a Moral State of Liberty and of Kings under a kind of Duresse We should in fine distinguish betwixt the Sacred and Inviolable Resolutions that are founded upon Equity and the Common Good and those Temporary shifts which are only Invented to serve a present Turn of State Was there ever any Sedition that did not recommend and support it self upon some pretext of Law and President Was there ever any Heresie or Schism that did not advance it self under the Countenance of some Text And yet Heaven forbid that we should think ever the worse either of the word of God or of the Law of the Land for being made use of as a Cloak to so much wickedness He that has a mind to destroy the Discipline the Order or the very Doctrine of the Church of England shall Quote ye twenty Texts for 't and as many Presidents if there shall be occasion for Diverting or Cutting off the Succession nay for Deposing the King Himself and Changing the very Form of the Government This is no more then what has been actually done in the Memory of Man 'T is a hard matter to imagine a New Case So that let the Instance be what it will it is but looking back into Former Ages to match it where you shall be sure to find Choice of Presidents ready made to your hand like Cloaths in a wholesale Shop of all Sizes and Colours Wherefore we should have a care methinks of dealing in perverted Texts and Presidents The Devil himself fishes with these Baits and as some body says the Rabble swallow them whole without either examining or dreaming of the Danger till they feel the Hook in their Guts Or if I may change my Metaphor the Common people are caught just as we catch Larks 'T is but setting up a fiue Thing for a Wonderment they all flock to 't as far as they can see it and never leave Flickering about it till the Fowler has them in the Net A Pomp of words and Colours to the Multitude is but the Casting of the Sun in their Eyes from a Looking-Glass the more they look at it the less able are they to discern what the matter is and the great mischief is this they never take themselves to be so Clear-sighted as in those cases wherein they are Stark-blind They are akin to what d' ye call him 's Monsters their Eyes are in their Breasts and their Brains in their Bellies And therefore whoever would make an Interest with the Vulgar applies himself not to their Vnderstandings but to their Passions and Appetites He comes with Absolons Exclamation in his mouth Oh! that I were made a Iudg in the Land which seldom fails of being the Prologue to some approching Tragedy But let me try now if I can find my way back again There is an Assertion laid down That all the Human Acts and Powers in the world cannot hinder the Descent of the Crown upon the Next Heir of the Bloud This Position the Assertor undertakes to make Good by Scripture Law History and Reason And his Opponents on the other side undertake upon the very same Authorities to Overthrow it and I find a very Extraordinary Pen engag'd in the Controversie We shall enquire first How this Question came at this time to be set a Foot and then into the Quality of the Question it self There was a Bill brought into the House of Commons in May last which was Twice read for disabling His Royal Highness to Inherit this Imperial Crown because of his Departure from Vs to the Romish Communion The matter going no further and That Parliament being soon after Dissolv'd there came forth in Print a Pretended Copy of that Bill which was publish'd by a Person if a mans Affections may be judg'd by his Practices that has as little kindness for His Majesty as for his Royal Brother and not one jot more for the Church of England then for That of Rome Of both which Aversions there are Instances more then enow Beside that in the very same Pamphlet he carries an Inference from the Case of Foreclosing the Duke to the same Right of Removing the King himself in case of disability as he says to do the Kingdom any Good So that instead of pursuing the seeming ends of the said Bill that is to say the Preservation of His Majesty and the Protestant Religion by This Act of Exclusion he very fairly and for brevity sake Sweeps all together By the Character of the First Publisher we may Imagine the Intent of That Publication And it is further to be noted that the Anti-Ducal Party were the Aggressors and it would have lookt like a yielding of the Cause to have let the Subject fall without a Reply So that the Blame if any shall arise from this Matter must be laid at his door that mov'd the Question which Question is briefly This. Whether the Parliament of England may by the Laws of England Exclude the next Heir of the Bloud from Succession to the Crown Some are of opinion for it others against it But the Legality or Illegality of such an Act is a Point that I am not willing to meddle with either one way or other For whether the thing may Lawfully be done or not there may be Danger yet and Inconvenience in the putting of the Question So that in the Order of Reasoning it should be first agreed that this is a fit Question to be put before we joyn Issue upon the Merits of the Main Cause For my own part I think it had
of State In the First Case of the Four the Learned in the Law may be Consulted but in the Other Three the King himself is the only Competent Iudg. What if we should for Quiet-sake now let the First point pass for Granted and suppose his Majesty convinc'd of the Legality of the Act There is yet a Brother a Prince and a Friend in the Case A Person that has as frankly ventur'd his Bloud for his King and his Country as the meanest Subject in His Majesties Dominions And there may be certain Stimulations of Honour as well as Impulses of Natural Affection Let but any Generous Subject make it his Own Case and ask his Own heart what he himself would do under these Circumstances And who knows further but a Scruple of Conscience may fall in too with this Tenderness of Nature upon the thought of depriving a Legal Heir by so extraordinary a way of his Vndoubted Birth-Right If This should be the Rub there 's no getting Over it Or if the way were Clear thus far yet if His Majesty should see any thing in the Tendency of the Proposition either Inconsistent with the Dignity of His Office or with the Peace and Security of His Government and People such Reason of State would undoubtedly put a Stop to any such Bill How far These Reasons or any of them may prevail toward the Preventing or Obstructing of This Project we shall not presume to enquire But as to the Manner of Promoting it on the Other side the Quality the Force and the Consequences of their Arguments there are many things to be noted in them that seem worthy of Consideration It is a strange thing in the Menage of This Cause where the Honour and Safety of the King appears to be the Main Point in Question First that men should be so Quick-sighted as to see things in their Consequences So Remote and yet at the same time So Blind as not to discern the Affronts and Indignities that are dayly offer'd to His Majesties Authority nearer hand and the hazzards that more directly strike at His Sacred Person My Charity persuades me that if some of them had taken notice of the dangerous Practices hereby intended their Loyalty would have render'd them as Zealous and Officious the Other way For if a Prince be destroy'd 't is the same Case to every good Subject whether it be done by a Phanatick or a Iesuite And then the Honour they have for the King in His Family as well as in Himself would have Interpos'd in the Vindication of our Sovereigns Brother from the Malice and Contempt that has been past by Several Pamphleteers upon the very Person of his Royal Highness 'T is like they would have had the Prudence too not to have markt out unto the Rabble all the Dissenters to this Bill as Conspiraters and the Betrayors of their Country till they should have seen the Result of this next Parliament for fear they should find Kings Lords and Commons under That Character This is not Reasoning of the Case but downright Setting the Dogs at a man There is no doubt in the world but many an Honest man and a welwisher to his Prince and Country stands well enough Affected to this Bill as many did in 1641. to the Pretensions then a Foot But when they found that Other people made Ill Use of Their Good meaning and improv'd the Countenance of Reforming the Government to a Violent Dissolution of it How many thousand Instances might a body produce of an unprofitable and late Repentance among those Credulous and well-minded Gentlemen And it is to be consider'd also that Their Mistakes contributed no less to the Ruin of the Church and State then the Malice of the most potent Conspirators Nay More perhaps for the Error of an Honest man misleads other Honest men by Example and gives a kind of Authority to the wickedness Now thô this Parallel does not run upon all four yet the Cases jump exactly in This the same Anti-Monarchical Principles which were the Ground-work of That Sedition are now set a foot again in Concurrence with the present Proposition and supported also by some of the Active Promoters of it So that let the Design be never so Innocent or Lawful in it self if it be yet made use of to Introduce the Old Disloyal and Republican Leaven it is much the Case as if a man should set Fire to his House for fear of Thieves Now whether the Liberties of the Press be so great so foul and so dangerous or not as I have represented them it shall be seen in a few words and left to the Reader to judg of the Intention of such desperate Positions and what may be the Event of such Bold Beginnings if not seasonably Prevented Upon the Publication of these Papers I should be glad to find some of the Fierce Sticklers for the Kings safety by the Exclusion of the Duke as Nimble on the Other side for the Honour and Safety of His Majesty in Punishing the Authors and Promoters of these Libels There are some Irreverences toward the person of His Royal Highness which are not with Decency to be recited and which for Other Reasons I am willing to pass over contenting my self only with the modestest of a great many in the Author of the Plea to the Dukes Answers Consider his Humours says he So Fierce Revengeful and Resolute But I 'le say no more who knows not how Improper it is to make a Woolf a Shepherd Nay he goes further yet If the Duke be a Papist as none deny him Now he 's an Heretick as To or From Vs And what shall we do Not do by the Papists as They would by Vs But what 's That He tells us Three or four lines before That it is a Maxim among Papists not only that the Pope may at his Pleasure Depose Kings and dispose of Crowns but further That the People may ever chuse a King when he should else be an Heretick So that after the Popes Example of Deposing Protestant Kings We may Depose Popish This is a Nail Home driven and yet for fear it should not hold he has be bestow'd a Rivet upon it I hope he will allow a Popish King to be an Ill one and for That he tells ye that when Kings themselves be Ill ones God not only approves of their Removal but even Himself does it Which is a most Emphatical way of Expounding his Meaning For not only ILL DUKES but KINGS I perceive THEMSELVES are as well to be remov'd if they be ILL ones There 's Another Libel that takes the very same Byass too he begins with the Duke and Ends with the King Laying it down for a Maxim that the King May be remov'd for Inhability to Govern And then for an Vse of Application he gives us the Late Instance of Portugal for a President Nay I have not found any man yet so Cautious upon This Subject but he has
let fall somthing Tantamount And in truth the Question does Naturally lean That way Some tell us that the People are the Source of Government and that the Last Resort in All Cases of Principal Import must be to Them Whereas First there was a Providential Power before any Subject Actually in Being for That Power to exercise it self Upon Secondly there is nothing more Common then for a People to convey away what Right they have beyond a Power of Revocation And if a man desires to see the Covenants the Answer is that the Conditions are either Exprest or Imply'd Which word IMPLY'D serves to all Turns and Purposes Imaginable By a Power IMPLY'd a Protestant as well as a Popish Successour may be Disinherited A King in Possession Deposed whether Good or Bad. For who can set forth the Terms and Condition of an Unknown and an Unbounded Power A Government we are told cannot be suppos'd Destitute of a Power to preserve it self in Cases of Manifest and Publick Dangers If we enquire where That Power of preserving the Government is plac'd the Reply is This That Governours are set up for the Good of the People and when They fail of doing their Duty the People may provide for themselves That is to say the People by their Representatives in Parliament But what if That Representative should prove False too The King was not pleas'd with the Parliament of 1641. nor the People with the Late Long Parliament what 's to be done Next but only to go together by the Ears about it and when they have their Bellies full only Shuffle the Cards and deal again From these dark Reserves of Government the point Rises by Degrees into Cases of Instance and Illustration As in the Case of Lunacy or Vnfitness to Govern of if a Prince be really bent to Alienate his Kingdom In These Cases it is taken up for granted that the people may Depose and Substitute Another Sovereign But who shall judg now when such a Case arrives If the People they judg for Themselves and only take the Government out of Other hands to put it into their Own what if they should say that This is the Case where it is not Or that it is not where it is If the King do but keep a Guard to preserve His Person from an Assassin or make a Foreign Alliance upon the Common Terms of Priviledg that all other Crowned Heads proceed upon he lies at the Mercy of the People if they shall think fit to Interpret This to be a Design upon an Arbitrary Power or the Alienation of His Dominions and that he is consequently Deposable It carries a very Ill face with it that the Two Cases of Disinheriting the Duke and Deposing the King should be so Unluckily Coupled that you shall very rarely find the One without the Other And little more then This Difference betwixt them that the One IS to be done Forthwith and the Other MAY be done when the people please at Leisure If ever this Question should come to be taken up again I do verily believe that the House of Commons will not thank the Refiners upon the Former Bill for charging the Proposition with so many Suspicious Aggravations as for ought any body knows may endanger the whole Bus'ness For These Venerable Patriots did only out of an Excess of Zeal Intend the Exclusion of the Duke without Clogging the Bill with any subsequent Incumbrances upon the Crown There are some Qualifications I know that look as if they would be thought to stick to the single Matter of the Bill and distinguish betwixt an Heir Presumptive and Apparent a King in Posse and in Esse and fortifie themselves with Authorities to warrant the Proceeding The Duke is a Subject they say and not properly an Heir of the Crown but only in Possibility so to be The Unwary Reader will Imagine now that the Duke being a SUBJECT may be put By but that if the KING were of the Romish Communion they could not meddle with Him And yet according to the Propositions above-mentioned His Majesties Case would be found no better than His Brothers And not only so neither but the very saying that he is so in Construction makes him so even thô he should give up His Life as His Father did for the Reformed Profession It is not to say that This is either Impossible or Vnlikely For First the Thing has been done already That is to say This Popular Power has been already laid down as a Fundamental Right in the People Secondly That pretended Power has been exerted in a Formal Charge of Popish and Tyrannical Designs upon a Prince the most Innocent peradventure in those Two Particulars that ever Liv'd And Thirdly A sentence of Death past and Executed upon That Innocent Person in the Name and by the Assumed Authorities of the Commons of England So that This Imagination is not a Chimaera but a True and Tragical History of a Prince murther'd even in Our days upon This Foundation And then for the Probability of the same Thing over again now in Agitation we have the Writings of the very Persons Concern'd in Evidence against them For notwithstanding their Formalizing upon the Lawfulness of the Thing in regard That his Royal Highness is but a Subject they are Now come up roundly to the Point of Opposing and Rejecting him even supposing that he were their Sovereign and without the Ceremony of an Act of Parliament in the Case The House of Commons passed a Vote upon May 11. last past that if His Majesty should come by any Violent Death which God forbid they would Revenge it to the Vtmost on the Papists Which Vote they Explain'd in their Address of the 14 by saying that they would be ready to Revenge upon the Papists any Violence offer'd by THEM to His Sacred Majesty By THEM t is said because it might be Understood Otherwise that an Anabaptist might Commit the Crime and a Papist suffer for 't This Vote and Address are Printed Both together in the same Pamphlet and with a most Dangerous prospect upon His Majesties Person if Malice on either hand should take place For the Edge of the Reasoning is turned against it self while the One Faction is Provoked and the Other Encouraged to the most Execrable Villanies Imaginable The Libel Here Reflected upon is called Englands Safety and said in the Title Page to be Published for Information of all True Protestants that they may not be affraid nor ashamed openly in Parliament to Act and oppose any Popish Successour and his Adherents from Inheriting the Crown of England in Case His Majesties Life which God forbid be taken from him This Preface was worded by somebody that knew well enough what he said and without Dispute intended to be as good as his word We shall not need to look any further for his Meaning than to Grammar and Common Construction The Question was put in Case of the Presumptive Heir