enlarged his Rvenue above what any of his Predecessors had enjoyed gave him vaster Sums of Money in twenty years than had been bestowed upon all the Kings since William the first should he after all this deliver them up to be ruin'd by his Brother It cannot be said that he had therein more regard unto the Government than to the Person seeing it is evident the Bill of Exclusion had no ways prejudiced the legal Monarchy which his Majesty doth now enioy with all the Rights and Powers which his wise and brave Ancestors did ever claim because many Acts of the like nature have passed heretofore upon less necessary occasions The preservation of every Government depends upon an exact adherence unto its Principles and the essential Principle of the English Monarchy being that well proportioned distribution of Powers whereby the Law doth at once provide for the greatness of the King and the safety of the People the Government can subsist no longer than whilst the Monarch enjoying the Power which the Law doth give him is enabled to perform the part it allows unto him and the People are duly protected in their Rights and Liberties For this reason our Ancestors have been always more careful to preserve the Government inviolable than to favour any personal Pretences and have therein conformed themselves to the practice of all other Nations whose examples deserve to be followed Nay we know of none so slavishly addicted unto any Person or Family as for any reason whatsoever to admit of a Prince who openly professed a Religion contrary to that which was established amongst them It were easie to alledge multitude of Examples of those who have rejected Princes for reasons of far less weight than difference in Religion as Robert of Normandy Charles of Lorrain Alphonso a Desperadado of Spain but those of a latter date against whom there was no other exception than for their Religion suteth better with our occasion Among whom it is needless to name Henry of Bourbon who though accomplished in all the vertues required in a Prince was by the general Assembly of the Estate at Blois declared uncapable of Succession to the Crown of France for being a Protestant And notwithstanding his Valour Industry Reputation and Power increased by gaining four great Battels yet he could never be admitted King till he had renounced the Religion that was his obstacle And Sigismund Son of John of Sweden King of that Country by Inheritance and of Poland by Election was deprived of his Hereditary Crown and his Children disinherited only for being a Papist and acting conformably to the Principles of that Religion though in all other respects he deserved to be a King and was most acceptable unto the Nation But if ever this Maxim deserved to be considered surely it was in the case of the Duke of York The violence of his natural temper is sufficiently known His vehemency in exalting the Prerogative in his Brothers time beyond its due bounds and the Principles of his Religion which carry him to all imaginable excesses of cruelty have convinced all mankind that he must be excluded or the Name of King being left unto him the power put into the hands of another The Parliament therefore considering this and observing the Precedents of former Ages did wisely chuse rather to exclude him than to leave him the Name and place the Power in a Regent For they could not but look upon it as Folly to expect that one of his temper bred up in such Principles in Politicks as made him in love with Arbitrary Power and bigotted in that Religion which always propagates it self by Blood would patiently bear these shackles which would be very disgustful unto a Prince of the most meek disposition And would he not thereby have been provok'd to the utmost Fury and Revenge against those who â—id them upon him This would certainly have bred a Contest and these limitations of Power proposed to keep up the Government must unavoidably have destroyed it or the Nation which necessity would have forced into a War in its own natural defence must have perished either by it or with it The Success of such Controversies are in the hand of God but they are undertaken upon too unequal terms when the People by Victory can gain no more than what without hazard may be done by Law and would be ruin'd if it should fall out otherwise The Duke with Papists might then make such a Peace as the Romans are said to have made once in our desolated Country by the slaughter of all the Inhabitants able to make War ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant This is the happy state they present unto us who condemn the Parliament for bringing in a Bill of Exclusion This is the way to have such a Peace as the Spaniards for the propagation of the Gospel made in the West-Indies at the instigation of the Jesuits who govern'd their Councils And seeing they have the Duke no less under their power and directions we may easily believe they would put him upon the same Methods But as it is not to be imagined that any Nation that hath vertue courage and strength equal unto the English will so tamely expect their ruine so the passing a Bill to exclude him may avoid but cannot as the Declaration phraseth it establish a War. But if there must be a War let it be under the Authority of Law let it be against a banished excluded Pretender There is no fear of the consequence of such a War No true Englishman can join with him or countenance his Usurpation after this Act and for his Popish and foreign Adherents they will neither be more provok'd nor more powerful by the passing of it Nor will his Exclusion make it at all necessary to maintain a standing Force for preserving the Government and the Peace of the Kingdom The whole People will be an Army for that purpose and every Heart and Hand will be prepared to maintain that so necessary so much desired Law A Law for which three Parliaments have been so earnest with his Majesty not only in pursuance of their own Judgments but by the direction of those that sent them It was the universal opinion of the Papists that Mary Queen of Scots was excluded only by an Act of Parliament and yet we see Queen Elizabeth reigned gloriously and peaceably forty years without any standing force But our Ministers do but dissemble with us when they pretend to be so much afraid of a standing Army We know how eagerly they have desired and how often they attempted to establish one We have seen two Armies raised with no other design as has been since undeniably proved and one of those they were so loth to part with that more than one Act of Parliament was necessary to get it disbanded And since that they have increased the Guards to such a degree that they are become a formidable standing Force A thing so odious to
known Irish Papist appear'd by the Informations given in the House to be made use of by some very great Persons to set up a counterfeit Protestant Conspiracy and thereby not only to drown the noise of the Popish Plot but to take off the Heads of the most eminent of those who still refused to bow their Knees to Baal There had been divers such honest Contrivances before which had unluckily fail'd but the principal Contrivers avoided the Discovery as the others did the Punishment in what manner and by what helps the whole Nation is now pretty sensible Being warned by this experience they grew more Cautious than ever and therefore that the Treason which they were to set on Foot might look as unlike a Popish design as was possible they fram'd a Libel full of the most bitter Invictives against Popery and the Duke of York It carried as much seeming zeal for the Protestant Religion as Coleman's Declaration and as much care and concern for our Laws as the Penners of this Declaration would seem to have But it was also filled with the most subtil Insinuations and the sharpest Expressions against His Majesty that could be invented and with direct and passionate Incitements to Rebellion This Paper was to be conveyed by unknown Messengers to their hands who were to be betray'd and then they were to be seized upon and those Libels found about tham were to be a Confirmation of the Truth of a Rebellion which they had provided Witnesses to Swear was designed by the Protestants and had before prepared Men to believe by private Whispers And the credit of this Plot should no doubt have been soon confirmed by speedy Justice done upon the pretended Criminals But as well laid as this Contrivance seem to be yet it spoke it self to be of a Popish Extraction 'T is a policy the Jesuits have often used to divert a storm which was falling upon themselves Accordingly heretofore they had prepared both Papers and Witnesses to have made the Puritans guilty of the Gunpowder Treason had it succeeded as they hoped for The hainous Nature of the Crime and the greatness of the Persons supposed to be concern'd deserved an extraordinary Examination with a Jury who were only to enquire whether Fitz-Harris was guilty of framing that Libel he could never make and the Commons believed none but the Parliament was big enough to go through with They took notice that the Zeal and Courage of inferior Courts was abated and that the Judges at the Tryal of Wakeman and Gascoign however it came to pass behaved themselves very unlike the same Men they were when others of the Plotters had been Tryed They had not forgot another Plot of this Nature discovered by Dangerfield which tho plainly proved to the Council yet was quite stifled by the great Diligence of the Kings Bench which rendred him as an incompetent Witness Nor did they only fear the perversion of Justice but the Misapplication of Mercy too For they had seen that the Mouths of Gadbury and others as soon as they began to confess were suddenly stopt by a gracious Pardon And they were more Jealous than ordinary in this case because when Fitz-Harris was inclined to Repentance and had begun a Confession to the surprize of the whole Kingdom without any visible cause he was taken out of the lawful Custody of the Sheriffs and shut up a close Prisoner in the Tower. The Commons therefore had no other way to be secure that the Prosecution should be effectual the Judgment indifferent and the Criminal out of all hopes of a Pardon unless by an ingenuous Confession he could engage both Houses in a powerful Mediation to His Majesty in his behalf but by impeaching of him They were sure no Pardon could stop their Suit tho the King might release his own Prosecution by his Pardon Hitherto the Proceedings of the Commons in this Business could not be liable to Exception for that they might lawfully Impeach any Commoner before the Lords was yet never doubted The Lords themselves had agreed that point when the day before they had sent down the Plea of Sir William Scroggs to an Impeachment of Treason then depending before them And they are men of strange confidence who at this time of day take upon them to deny a Jurisdiction of the Lords which hath been practised in all times without controul and such a fundamental of the Government that there could be no security without it Were it otherwise it would be in the power of the King by making Commoners Ministers of State to subvert the Government by their Contrivances when he pleased Their Greatness would keep them out of the reach of ordinary Courts of Justice and their Treasons might not perhaps be within the Statutes but such as fall under the cognizance of no other Court than the Parliament and if the People might not of Right demand Justice there they might without fear of punishment act the most destructive Villanies against the Kingdom As a Remedy against this Evil the Mirrour of justice tell us that Parliaments were ordained to hear and determine all Complaints of wrongful Acts done by the King Queen or their Children and such others against whom common Right cannot be had elsewhere Which as to the King is no otherwise to be understood than that it he err by Illegal Personal Commands or Orders he is to be admonished by Parliament and addressed unto for Remedy but all others being but Subjects are to be punished by Parliaments according to the Laws of Parliaments If the ends were well considered for which Parliaments were ordained as they are declared in the Statute Item for maintenance of the said Articles and Statutes viz. Magna Charta c. a Parliament shall be holden every year by them as well as by the foregoing ancient Authority none could be deceived by the Parliament Rol. of 4 Ed. 3. where it is mentioned as accorded between the King and his Grands that is his Lords that Judgment of Death given by the Peers against Sir Simon de Beresford Matrever and others upon the Murther of King Ed. 2. and his Uncle should not be drawn into Example whereby the Peers might be charged to judge others than their Peers contrary to the Law of the Land if such a Case should happen For whereas from this Record some would perswade us that the Lords are discharged from judging Commoners and that our ancient Government is alter'd in this Case by that Record which they say is act of Parliament The stile and form of it is so different from that which is used in Acts of Parliament that many are inclined to believe it to be no other thing than an agreement between the King and the Lords But to remove all future scruples in the Case let it be admitted to be an Act of Parliament and if there be nothing accorded in it to acquit the Lords from trying Commoners Impeached before them by the Commons in
Parliament then we hope that shame will stop their mouths who have made such a noise against the Commons with this Record First It is evident from the Roll it self with other Records that the Lords did judg those Commoners contrary to the Law of the Land that is at the instance of the King and the Prosecution of their Enemies without the due course of the Law or calling them to make their Defence and for ought appears without legal Testimony Secondly It is evident that they were driven upon this illegal Proceeding by the Power and Authority of the King and some Prosecutors who earnestly pressed the Lords thereunto upon pretence of speedily avenging the Blood of the former King and his Uncle So that the Judgment was given at the Kings Suit in a way not warranted by the Law and Custom of Parliament or any other Law of the Kingdom Surely when the Lords blood was suffered to cool they had reason to desire something might be left upon Record to preserve them for the future from being put upon such shameful Work tho such a case as the Murder of a King should again happen as it seems they did not fear to be pressed in any other so to violate the Laws But Thirdly There is not a word in the Record that imports a restriction of that lawful Jurisdiction which our Constitution placeth in the Lords to try Commoners when their Cases should come before them lawfully at the Suit of the Commons by Impeachment There is no mark of an Intention to change any part of the Ancient Government but to provide against the Violation of it and that the Law might stand as before notwithstanding the unlawful Judgment they had lately given So that the question is still the same Whether by the Law of the Land that is the Law and Custom of Parliament or any other Law the Lords ought to try Commoners Impeached by the Commons in Parliament as if that Record had never been And we cannot think that any man of Sence will from that Record make an argument in this point since it could be no better than to infer that because the Lords are no more to be pressed by the King or at his Suit to give Judgment against Commoners contrary to the Law of the Land when they are not Impeached in Parliament therefore they must give no Judgment against them at the Suit of the Commons in Parliament when they are by them Impeached according to the Laws and Customs of Parliament But if such as delight in these Cavils had searched into all the Records relating unto that of the 4 Ed. 3. they might have found in the 19th of the same King a Writ issued out to suspend the Execution of the Judgment against Matrevers because it had been illegally passed And the chief reason therein given is that he had not been Impeached and suffered to make his Defence But it was never suggested nor imagined that the Lords that judged him had no Jurisdiction over him because he was a Commoner or ought not to have exercised it if he had been Impeached nor was it pretended that by Magna Charta he ought to have been tried only by his Peers the Laws of the Land therein mentioned and the Laws and Customs of Parliaments being better known and more reverenced in these days than to give way to such a mistake They might also have found by another Record of the 26th of the same King that by undoubted Act of Parliament Matrevers was pardon'd and the Judgment is therein agreed by the Lords and Commons to have been illegal and unjustly passed by the violent Prosecution of his Enemies but it is not alledged that it was coram non judice as if the Lords might not have judged him if the proceedings before them had been legal But as the sense and proceedings of all Parliaments have ever been best known by their practice the Objectors might have found by all the Records since the 4 Ed. 3. that Commoners as well as Lords might be and have been Impeached before Lords and judged by them to Capital or other Punishments as appears undeniably to every man that hath read our Histories or Records And verily the concurrent sense and practice of Parliaments for so many Ages will be admitted to be a better interpretation of their own Acts than the sense that these men have lately put upon them to increase our Disorders But to silence the most malicious in this point let the famous Act of the 25 of Ed. 3. be considered which hath ever since limited all inferior Courts in their Jurisdiction unto the Trial of such Treasons only as are therein particularly specified and reserved all other Treasons to the Trial and Judgment of Parliament So that if any such be committed by Commoners they must be so Tried or not at all And if the last should be allowed it will follow that the same fact which in a Peer is Treason and punishable with Death in a Commoner is no Crime and subject to no punishment Nor doth Magna Charta confine all Trials to common Juries for it ordains that they should be tried by the Judgment of Peers or by the Law of the Land. And will any man say the Law of Parliament is not the Law of the Land Nor are these words in Magna Charta superfluous or insignificant for then there would be no Trial before the Constable or Marshal where there is no Jury at all there could be no Trial of a Peer of the Realm upon an Appeal of Murther who according to the Law ought in such cases to be try'd by a common Jury and not by his Peers And since the Records of Parliaments are full of Impeachment of Commons and no instance can be given of the rejection of any such Impeachment it is the Commons who have reason to cite Magna Charta upon this occasion which provides expresly against the denial of Justice And indeed it looks like a denial of Justice when a Court that hath undoubted cognizance of a Cause regularly brought before them shall refuse to hear it but most especially when as in this case the Prosecutors could not be so in any other Court so as a final stop was put to their Suit though the Lords could not judicially know whether any body else would prosecute elsewhere This Proceeding of the Lords looks the more odly because they rejected the Cause before they knew as Judges what it was and referred it to the ordinary course of Law without staying to hear whether it were a matter whereof an inferior Court could take cognizance There are Treasons which can only be adjudged in Parliament and if we may collect the sense of the House of Commons from their Debates they thought there was a mixture of those kind of Treasons in Fitz-Harris's Case And therefore there was little reason for that severe suggestion that the Impeachment was only designed to delay a Trial since a
to say that the use of Parliaments is already laid aside For tho His Majesty has owned in so many of His Speeches and Declarations the great danger of the Kingdom and the necessity of the Aid and Counsel of Parliaments he hath nevertheless been prevailed upon to Dissolve four in the space of 26 Months without making provision by their advice suitable to our dangers or wants Nor can we hope the Court will ever love any Parliament better than the first of those four wherein they had so dearly purchased such a number of fast Friends Men who having first sold themselves would not stick to fell any thing after And we may well suspect they mean very ill at Court when their designs shock't such a Parliament For that very Favourite Parliament no sooner began in good earnest to examine what had been done and what was doing but they were sent away in haste and in a fright though the Ministers know they lost thereby a constant Revenue of extraordinary Supplies And are the Ministers at present more innocent than at that time The same interest hath the ascendant at Court still and they have heightned the Resentments of the Nation by repeated affronts and can we believe them that they dare suffer a Parliament now to Sit But we have gain'd at least this one Point by the Declaration that it is own'd to us that Parliaments are the best Method for healing the distempers of the Kingdom and the only means to preserve the Monarchy in credit both at home and abroad Own'd by these very men who have so maliciously rendred many former Parliaments ineffectual and by this Declaration have done their utmost to make those which are to come as fruitless and thereby have confessed that they have no concern for healing the distempers of the Kingdom and preserving the credit of the Monarchy which is in effect to acknowledge themselves to be what the Commons called â—hem Enemies to the King and Kingdom Nothing can be more true than that the Kingdom can never recover its strength and reputation abroad or its ancient Peace and Settlement at home His Majesty can never be relieved from his fears and his domestick wants nor secure from the Affronts which he daily suffers from abroad till he resolves not only to call Parliaments but to Hearken to them when they are called For without that it is not a Declaration it is not repeated promises nay it is not the frequent calling of Parliaments which will convince the world that the use of them is not intended to be laid aside However we rejoyce that his Majesty seems resolved to have frequent Parliaments and hope he will be just to Himself and us by continuing constant to this Resolution Yet we cannot but doubt in some degree when we remember the Speech made 26 Jan. 1679. to both Houses wherein he told them that he was Unalterably of an Opinion that long intervals of Parliaments were absolutely necessary for composing and quieting the minds of the People Therefore which ought we rather to believe the Speech or the Declaration or which is likely to last longest a Resolution or an unalterable opinion is a matter too Nice for any but Court-Criticks to Decide The effectual performance of the last part of the promise will give us assurance of the first When we see the real fruits of these utmost endeavours to extirpate Popery out of Parliament when we see the D. of York no longer first Minister or rather protector of these Kingdoms and his Creatures no longer to have the whole direction of Affairs when we see that Love to our Religion and Laws is no longer a crime at Court no longer a certain forerunner of being Disgrac'd and Remov'd from all Offices and Employments in their Power when the word Loyal which is faithful to the Law shall be restored to its old meaning and no longer signifie one who is for subverting the Laws When we see the Commissions fill'd with hearty Protestants and the Laws executed in good earnest against the Papists the Discoverers of the Plot countenanc'd or at least heard and suffered to give their Evidence the Courts of Justice steady and not Avowing a Jurisdiction one day which they disown the next no more Grand Juries discharg'd lest they should hear Witnesses nor Witnesses hurried away lest they should inform Grand Juries when we see no more Instruments from Court labouring to raise Jealousies of Protestants at home and some regard had to Protestants abroad when we observe somewhat else to be meant by Governing according to Law than barely to put in Execution against Dissenters the Laws made against Papists then we shall promise our selves not only frequent Parliaments but all the blessed effects of pursuing Parliamentary Councels the Extripation of Popery the Redress of Grievances the flourishing of Lawâ— and the perfect Restoring the Monarchy to the Credit which it ought to have but which the Authors of the Declaration confess it wants both at Home and Abroad There needs no time to open the Eyes of His Majesties good Subjects and their Hearts are ready prepared to meet him in Parliament in order to perfect all the good Settlement and Peace wanting in Church and State. But whilst there are so many little Emissaries imployed to sow and encrease Divisions in the Nation as if the Ministers had a mind to make His Majesty the Head of a Faction and joyn himself to one Party in the Kingdom who has a just right of Governing all which Thuanus lib. 28. says was the notorious folly and occasioned the Destruction of his great Grand Mother Mary Queen of Scots whilst we see the same Differences promoted industriously by the Court which gave the rise and progress to the late troubles and which were once thought fit to be buried in an Act of Oblivion Whilst we see the Popish Interest so plainly Countenanced which was then done with Caution when every pretence of Prerogative is strained to the utmost Height when Parliaments are used with contempt and indignity and their judicature and all their highest Priviledges brought in question in Inferior Courts we have but too good cause to believe that tho every Loyal and Good Man does yet the Ministers and Favourites do but little consider the Rise and Progress of the late Troubles and have little desire or care to preserve their Country from a Relapse And who as they never yet shewed regard to Religion Liberty or Property so they would be little concern'd to see the Monarchy shaken off if they might escape the Vengeance of publick Justice due to them for so long a Course of pernicious Counsels and for Crowning all the rest of their faults by thus Reflecting upon that High Court before which we do not doubt but we shall see them one day brought to Judgment Thus have we with an English plainness expressed our thoughts of the late Parliaments and their Proceedings as well as of the Court in Relation to them and hope this Freedom will offend no man. The Ministers who may be concern'd through their appealing unto the People cannot in Justice deny unto any one of them the Liberty of weighing the Reasons which they thought fit to publish in Vindication of their Actions But if it should prove otherwise and these few Sheets be thought as weak and full of Errors as those we endeavour to confute or be held injurious unto them we desire only to know in what we transgress and that the Press may be open for our Justification Let the People to whom the Appeal is made judg then between them and us and let Reason and the Law be the Rules according unto which the Controversy may be decided But if by denying this they shall like Beasts recur to force they will thereby acknowledg that they want the Arms which belong to rational Creatures Whereas if the Liberty of Answering be left us we will give up the Cause and confess that both Reason and Law are wanting unto us if we do not in our Reply satisfy all reasonable and impartial men that nothing is said by us but what is just and necessary to preserve the Interests of the King and his People Nor can there be any thing more to the Honour of His Majesty than to give the Nations round about us to understand that the King of England doth neither Reign over a Base Servile People who hearing themselves Arraign'd and Condemned dare not speak in their own Defence and Vindication nor over so silly foolish and weak a People as that ill designed and worse supported Paper might occasion the World to think but that there are some Persons in his Dominions not only of true English Courage but of greater intellectuals as well as better Morals than the Advisers unto and Penners of the Declaration have manifested themselves to be FINIS 4 Edw. 3. c. 14.36 Ed. 3. c. 10. See the Parliament Roll 2 Ric. 2. num 28. See the Antiq. modo tenend Parliament * See the Declaration prepared by Coleman by the Advice of the French King's Confessor for dissolving the Parliament to prepare for Popery Speech 21. Octob. 1680. Speech 30. Apr. 1679. Speech 26. Dec. 1662. Speech 6. March 1679. Lord Chancellor's Speech 23 May 1678. Address presented 21 Dec. 1680. Address presented 29 Nov. 1680. Rot. Parl. 5 H. 4. Nu. 6. Traitte des droits de la Reine On t cette bien beuâ—euse impuissance de ne pouvoir rieâ— faire contre les Loys de leur Pais Postelius de Rebus Turcicis 1 R. 3. cap. 2. 12 Car. 2. c. 4.4 confirm'd 31 Car. c. 7. 12 Car. 2. c. 23 an 33 14 Car. c. 10. Tacit. Cap. 1. Sect. 2. pag. 9. 36 Ed. 3.10 Rot. Parl. 4 Ed. 3. Nu 6. Rot. Parl. 19 Ed. 3. M. 18. Rot. Parl. 26 Ed. 3. M. 25. Co. 2. Inst. 29.
THE Design of Enslaving ENGLAND DISCOVERED Licensed and Entred according to Order THE Design of Enslaving ENGLAND DISCOVERED In the Incroachments upon the Powers and Privileges of Parliament by K. Charles II. BEING A New corrected Impression of that Excellent Piece INTITULED A Just and Modest VINDICATION of the PROCEEDINGS OF THE Two Last Parliaments OF King CHARLES the Second LONDON Printed for Richard Baldwin near the Black Bull in the Old-Baily MDCLXXXIX A Just and Modest Vindication of the Proceedings of the two last PARLIAMENTS of K. CHARLES the Second THE Amazement which seiz'd every good Man upon the unlook'd-for Dissolution of two Parliaments within three Months was not greater than at the sight of a Declaration pretending to justify and give Reasons for such extraordinary Proceedings It is not to be denied but that our Kings have in a great measure been intrusted by the Kingdom with the appointment of the Times of Parliaments Sitting and declaring their Dissolutions But lest through defect of Age Experience or Understanding they should at any time forget or mistake our Constitution or by Passion private Interest or the Influence of ill Counsellors be so far misled as not to Assemble Parliaments when the Publick Affairs require it or to declare them Dissolved before the Ends of their Meeting were accomplished The Wisdom of our Ancestors has provided by divers Statutes both for the holding Parliaments annually and oftner if need be and that they should not be Prorogued or Dissolved till all the Petitions and Bills before them were answered and redressed The Constitution had been equally imperfect and destructive of it self had it been left to the Will and Choice of the Prince whether he would ever summon a Parliament or put into his Power to dismiss them Arbitrarily at his pleasure That Parliaments should be called and sit according to the Laws is secured to us by the same Sacred Tie by which the King at his Coronation obliges himself to let his Judges sit to distribute Justice every Term and to preserve inviolably all other Rights and Liberties of his Subjects Therefore abruptly to Dissolve Parliaments at such a Time when nothing but the Legislative Power and the united Wisdom of the Kingdom could relieve us from our Just Fears or secure us from our certain Dangers is very unsuitable to the great Trust reposed in the Prince and seems to express but little of tha tffection which we will always hope his Majesty bears towards his People and the Protestant Religion But 't is not only of the Disolution it self that we complain the manner of doing it is unwarranted by the Precedents of former Times and full of dangerous Consequents We are taught by the Writ of Summons that Parliaments are never called without the Advice of the Council and the Usage of all Ages has been never to send them away without the same Advice To forsake this safe Method is to expose the King personally to the Reflections and Censures of the whole Nation for so ungrateful an Action Our Laws have taken care to make the King always dear to his People and to preserve his Person Sacred in their Esteem by wisely preventing him from appearing as Author of any thing which may be unacceptable to them 'T is therefore that he doth not Execute any considerable Act of Regal Power till it be first debated and resolved in Council because then 't is the Counsellors must answer for the Advice they give and are punishable for such Orders as are Irregular and Illegal Nor can his Ministers justify any unlawful Action under the colour of the King's Commands since all his Commands that are contrary to Law are void which is the true Reason of that well-known Maxim That the King can do no Wrong A Maxim just in it self and alike safe for the Prince and for the Subject there being nothing more absurd than that a Favourite should excuse his enormous Actings by a pretended Command which we may reasonably suppose he first procured to be laid upon himself But we know not whom to charge with Advising this last Dissolution It was a Work of Darkness and if we are not misinform'd the Privy Council was as much surpriz'd at it as the Nation Nor will a future Parliament be able to charge any Body as the Author or Adviser of the late printed Paper which bears the Title of His Majesty's Declaration though every good Subject ought to be careful how he calls it so For his Majesty never speaks to his People as a King but either personally in his Parliament or at other times under his Seal for which the Chancellor or other Officers are responsible if what passes them be not warranted by Law. Nor can the Direction of the Privy Council enforce any thing upon the People unless that Royal and Legal Stamp gives it an Authority But this Declaration comes abroad without any such Sanction and there is no other Ground to ascribe it to his Majesty than the uncertain Credit of the Printer whom we will easily suspect of an Imposture rather than think the King would deviate from the approved course of his Illustrious Ancestors to pursue a New and Unsuccesful Method The first Declaration of this sort which I ever met with being that which was published in the Year 1628 which was so far from answering the Ends of its coming out that it filled the whole Kingdom with Jealousies and was one of the first sad Causes of the ensuing unhappy War. The Truth is Declarations to justify what Princes do must always be either needless or ineffectual Their Actions ought to be such as may recommend themselves to the World and carry their own Evidence along with them of their usefulness to the Publick and then no Arts to justify them will be necessary When a Prince descends so low as to give his Subjects Reasons for what he has done he not only makes them Judges whether there be any weight in those Reasons but by so unusual a submission gives cause to suspect that he is conscious to himself that his Actions want an Apology And if they are indeed unjustifiable if they are opposite to the Inclinations and apparently destructive of the Interest of his Subjects it will be very difficult for the most Eloquent or Insinuating Declaration to make them in love with such things And therefore they did certainly undertake no easy Task in pretending to perswade Men who see themselves exposed to the restless Malice of their Enemies who observe the languishing Condition of the Nation and that nothing but a Parliament can provide Remedies for the great Evils which they Feel and Fear that two several Parliaments upon whom they had placed all their hopes were so suddenly broken out of kindness to them or with any regared to their Advantage It was generally believed that this Age would not have seen another Declaration since Coleman's was so unluckily published before its time Not only because thereby the World was
that the King cannot supply his most pressing Necessities either by Loans or by the Benevolence of his Subjects which by the express words of the Statute are damned and annulled for ever But the House of Commons were so cautious of giving any just occasion of Cavil that they restrain'd their Votes much more than they needed to have done For they extended them only to three Branches of the Revenue all which were by several Acts of Parliament given to his present Majesty And surely every one will agree that when the King receives a Gift from his People he takes it under such Conditions and ought to imploy it in such a manner and for such purposes as they direct We must therefore consult the several Acts by which those Branches were setled if we would judge rightly whether the Commons had not particular Reasons for what they did The Statute 12 Car. 2. c. 4. says That the Commons reposing Trust in his Majesty for guarding the Seas against all Persons intending the Disturbance of Trade and the invading of the Realm to that intent do give him the Tonnage and Poundage c. This is as direct an Appropriation as Words can make and therefore as it is manifest wrong to the Subject to divert any part of this Branch to other uses so for the King to anticipate it is plainly to disable himself to perform the Trust reposed in Him. And the late long Parliament thought this matter so clear that about two years before their Dissolution they passed a Vote with Relation to the Customs in almost the same Words The Parliament which gave the Excise were so far from thinking that the King had power to charge or dispose of it as his own that by a special Clause in the Act whereby they give it they were careful to impower him to dispose of it or any part of it by way of Farm and to Enact that such Contracts shall be effectual in Law so as they be not for a longer time than three years The Act whereby the Hearth-money was given declares that it was done to the end that the publick Revenue might be proportioned to the publick Charge and 't is impossible that should ever be whilst it is liable to be pre-ingaged and anticipated And the Parliament were so careful to preserve this Tax always clear and uncharg'd that they made it penal for any one so much as to accept of any Pension or Grant for years or any other Estate or any Summ of Money out of the Revenue arising by vertue of that Act from the King his Heirs or Successors Surely if the Penners of this Declaration had not been altogether ignorant of our own Laws and of the Policy of all other Countries and Ages they would never have printed those Votes in hopes thereby to have exposed the Commons to the World. They would not have had the face to say that thereby the King was exposed to Danger deprived of a possibility of supporting the Government and reduc'd to a more helpless Condition than the meanest of His Subjects This we are sure of that the inviolable observing of these Statutes will be so far from reducing His Majesty to a more helpless Condition than the meanest of his Subjects that it will still leave him in a better condition than the richest and greatest of his Ancestors none of which were ever Masters of such a Revenue The H. of Commons are in the next place accused of a very high Crime the assuming to themselves a power of suspending Acts of Parliament because they declared that it was their opinion That the Prosecution of Protestant Dissenters upon the Penal Laws is at this time grievous to the Subject a weakning of the Protestant Interest an Incouragement to Popery and dangerous to the Peace of the Kingdom The Ministers remembred that not many years ago the whole Nation was justly alarm'd upon the assuming an Arbitrary Power of suspending Penal Laws and therefore they thought it would be very popular to accuse the Commons of such an attempt But how they could possible misinterpret a Vote at that rate how they could say the Commons pretended to a Power of repealing Laws when they only declare their Opinion of the inconveniency of them will never be understood till the Authors of this are pleased to shew their Causes and Reasons for it in a second Declaration Every impartial man will own that the Commons had reason for this Opinion of theirs They had with great anxiety observed that the present design of the Papists was not against any one sort of Protestants but universal and for extirpating the Reform'd Religion They saw what advantages these Enemies made of our Divisions and how cunningly they diverted us from prosecuting them by fomenting our jealousies of one another They saw the strength and nearness of the King of France and judged of his Inclinations by his usage of his own Protestant Subjects They consider'd the number and the bloody Principles of the Irish and what Conspiracies were form'd there and even ripe for Execution and that Scotland was already delivered into the hands of a Prince the known head of the Papists in these Kingdoms and the occasion of all their Plots and Insolencies as more than one Parliament had declared They could not but take notice into what hands the most considerable Trusts both Civil and Military were put and that notwithstanding all Addresses and all Proclamations for a strict Execution of the Penal Laws against Papists yet their Faction so far prevailed that they were eluded and only the dissenting Protestants smarted under the edge of them In the midst of such Circumstances was there not cause to think an Union of all Protestants necessary and could they have any just ground to believe that the Dissenters whilst they lay under the Pressures of severe Laws should with such Alacrity and Courage as was requisite undertake the defence of a Country where they were so ill treated A long and sad Experience had shew'd how vain the Endeavours of former Parliaments had been to force us to be all of one Opinion and therefore the House of Commons resolv'd to take a sure way to make us of one Affection They knew that some busie men would be striking whilst there were Weapons at hand and therefore to make us live at peace they meant to take away all occasions of provoking or being provoked In order to a general Repeal of these Laws they first came to a Vote declaring the necessity of it to which there was not one Negative in the House A Vote of this nature does for the most part precede the bringing in of a Bill for the Repeal of any General Law. And it had been a great presumption in a particular Member to have asked leave to have brought in a Bill for repealing so many Laws together till the House had first declar'd that in their opinion they were grievous and inconvenient No English man
could be so ignorant of our Laws none but a French-man could have confidence to declaim against a proceeding so regular and Parliamentary as this Where was the disregard to the Laws Established for the Commons to attempt the abrogating of a Law that is grievous to the Subject and dangerous to the Peace of the Kingdom Is it a suspending Acts of Parliament if they declare a Law to be grievous and dangerous in their Opinion before they set about the Repeal of it And is there any ground to doubt but that a Bill would have pass'd that House pursuant to this Vote had it not been prevented by a Dissolution Nor was there the least direction or signification to the Judges which might give any occasion for the Reflection which follows in the Declaration The due and impartial Execution of the Laws is the unquestionable Duty of the Judges and we hope they will always remember that duty so well as not to necessitate a H. of Commons to do theirs by calling them to account for making private Instructions the Rule of their Judgments and acting as men who have more regard to their Places than their Oaths 'T is too well known who it is that sollicites and manages in favour of Judges when a H. of Commons does demand Justice against them for breaking their Oaths And therefore the Publishers of this Declaration had said something well if when they tell us the Judges ought not to break their Oaths in Reverence to the Votes of either H. they had been pleased to add not in respect of any Command from the K. or Favorites Then we should have no more Letters from Secretaries of State to Judges sitting upon the Bench. Then we should have no more Proclamations like that of the 14th Oct. 1662. forbidding the Execution of the Laws concerning High-ways Nor that of the 10th of May 1672. dispensing with divers Clauses in the Acts of Parliament for increase of Shipping Nor any more Declarations like that of the 15. of March 1672. suspending the Penal Laws in matters Ecclesiastical But the Judges are sworn to execute all Laws yet there is no obligation upon any man to inform against another And therefore though the Ministers prevented the Repeal of those Laws 't is to be hop'd that this Vote will restrain every Englishman from prosecuting Protestants when so wise and great a body have declared the pernicious effects of such a Prosecution 'T is most true that in England no Law is abrogated by desuetude but it is no less true that there are many Laws still unrepeal'd which are never Executed nor can be without publick detriment The Judges know of many such dormant Laws and yet they do not quicken the People to put them in Execution nor think themselves Guilty of Perjury that they do not such are the Laws for wearing Caps for keeping Lent those concerning Bowes and Arrows about killing Calves and Lambs and many others And those who vex men by Information on such antiquated Laws have been ever lookt upon as Infamous and Disturbers of the publick quiet Hence it is that there are no Names remembred with greater detestation than those of Empson and Dudley the whole Kingdom abhorr'd them as Monsters in the time of H. VII and they were punish'd as Traitors in the Reign of his Son. The alteration of the circumstances whereupon a Law was made or if it be against the genius of the People or have effects contrary to the intent of the Makers will soon cause any Law to be disused and after a little disuse the reviving of it will be thought Oppression Especially if experience has shewn that by the non-execution the quiet the safety and Trade of the Nation have been promoted of all which the Commons who are sent from every part of the Kingdom are able to make the clearest Judgment Therefore after they have declared their Opinions of the Inconvenience of reviving the Execution of these Laws which have lain asleep for divers years tho' the Judges must proceed if any forward Informers should give them the trouble yet they would not act wisely or honestly if they should Encourage Informers or quicken Juries by strict and severe charges Especially if it be considered that the Lords also were preparing Bills in favor of Dissenters and that the King has wish'd often it was in his power to ease them So that tho' there be no Act of Repeal formerly passed we have the consent and desire of all who have any share in making Acts. But let this Vote have what consequence it will yet sure the Ministers had forgot that the Black Rod was at the door of the House to require them to attend His Majesty at the very time when it was made otherwise they would not have numbred it amongst the causes which occasioned the King to part with that Parliament And those that knew His Majesty was putting on his Robes before that Vote passed might imagine a Dissolution thus foreseen might occasion it but cannot be brought to believe that the Vote which was not in being could occasion the Dissolution These are the proceedings which the Ministers judg unwarrantable in the Parliament at Westminster and for which they prevailed with His Majesty to part with it But since it is evident upon Examination that the principles of our Constitution the method of Parliaments and the precedents of every Age were their Guide and Warrant in all those things surely the K. must needs be alike offended with the Men about him for perswading him to Dissolve that Parliament without any cause and for setting forth in his Name a Declaration of such pretended cause as every man almost sees through and contrived only to cover those Reasons which they durst not own But with what face can they object to the House of Commons their strange Illegal Votes declaring divers Eminent Persons to be Enemies to the King and Kingdom when at the same time they arrogate to themselves an unheard of Authority to Arraign one of the three Estates in the face of the World for usurping power over the Laws Imprisoning their fellow Subjects Arbitrarily exposing the Kingdom to the greatest dangers and endeavouring to deprive the King of all possibility of supporting the Government and all this without any order or process of Law without hearing of their defence and as much without any reason as Precedent We have had Ministers heretofore so bold yet ever with ill success as to accuse a pretended Factious party in the House but never did any go so high as openly to Represent the whole H. of Commons as a Faction much less to cause them to be denounced in all the Churches of the Kingdom that so the People might look upon it as a kind of Excommunication But if they erred in the things they judged rightly in the choice of the Persons who were to publish it Blind Obedience was requisite where such unjustifiable things were imposed and that could be no where so
a free People that the raising of one single Regiment in Spain within these six years under colour of being a Guard for the King's Person so inflam'd the Nation that a Rebellion had ensued if they had not been disbanded speedily The Nobility and Gentry of that Kingdom looking upon themselves as their Kings natural Guard scorned that so honourable a Name should be given to Mercenaries But as His Majesty was perswaded to resolve against the expedient proposed to secure our Peace by excluding the Duke so it is evident that nothing was intended by those other ways which were darkly and dubiously intimated in His Majesties Speech unto the Parliament at Oxford and repeated in the Declaration and His Majesty in his Wisdom could not but know that they signified nothing And those who spake more plainly in proposing a Regency as an Expedient did in publick and private declare they believed the Duke would not consent unto it nor unto any unusual restriction of the Royal Power So that they could have no other design therein than a plausible pretence to delude the Parliament and People Some such consideration induced them to revive the distinction between the King 's personal and politick capacity by separating the power from the person which we have reason to believe they esteemed unseasable However it is more than probable that the Jesuites Casuists and Popish Lawyers would reject it as well as any thing else that might preserve us from falling under his power And the Pope who could absolve King John Henry the third and others from the Oaths they had taken to preserve the Rights and Liberties of their Subjects might with the same facility dissolve any that the Duke would take And as our Histories testifie what bloody Wars were thereby brought upon the Nation we have reason to believe that if the like should again happen it would be more fatal unto us when Religion is concerned which was not then in question Would not his Confessor soon convince him that all Laws made in favour of Heresie are void And would he not be liable to the heaviest Curses if be suffered his Power to be used against his Religion The little regard be hath to Laws whilst a Subject is enough to instruct us what respect he would bear to them if he should be King. Shall we therefore suffer the Royal Dignity to descend on him who hath made use of all the Power he has been entrusted with hitherto for our destruction And who shall execute this great Trust The next Heir may be an Infant or one willing to surrender it into hands But should it be otherwise yet still there is no hope of having any fruit of this Expedient without a War and to be obliged to swear Allegiance to a Popish Prince to own his Title to acknowledge him Supreme Head of the Church and Defender of the Faith seems a very strange way of entitling our selves to fight against him The two Reasons which the Declaration pretends to give against the Exclusion are certainly of more force against the Expedient A standing Force would have been absolutely necessary to have plac'd and kept the Administration in Protestant hands and the Monarchy it self had been destroy'd by a Law which was to have taken all sorts of Power from the King and made him not so much as a Duke of Venice How absurdly and incoherently do these men discourse Sometimes the Government is so Divine a thing that no human Law can lessen or take away his Right who only pretends in Succession and is at present but a Subject But at other times they tell us of Acts of Parliament to banish him out of his own Dominions to deprive him of all Power of his whole Kingship after he shall be in possession of the Throne The cheat of this Expedient appear'd so gross in the House of Commons that one of the Dukes professed Vassals who had a little more Honour than the rest was asham'd of it and openly renounced the Project which they had been forming so long and thought they had so artificially disguised But though it was so well exposed in the House yet the Ministers thought the men without doors might be still deceived and therefore they do not blush to value themselves again upon it in their Declaration As for the Insinuation which follows That there was reason to believe that the Parliament would have passed further to attempt other great and important Changes at present If it be meant any Change of the Constitution of the Government 't is a malicious suggestion of those men who are ever instilling into His Majesty's mind ill thoughts of his Parliament since no Vote nor Proposition in either House could give any ground for such suspicion and therefore in this matter the people may justly accuse the Court who so often cry out against them for it of being moved by causeless Fears and Jealousies And for His Majesty to be perswaded to arraign the whole Body of his People upon the ill-grounded surmises or malicious and false suggestions of evil and corrupt men about him doth neither well become the Justice of a Prince nor is agreeable to the measures of Wisdom which be should Govern Himself as well as Rule his People by And if an attendance to the slandrous Accusations of persons who hate Parliaments because their Crimes are such that they have reason to fear them govern and sway his Royal Mind there can never want grounds for the Dissolution of any Parliaments But if they mean by attempting great and important Changes that they would have besought his Majesty that the Duke might no longer have the Government in his hands that his Dependents should no longer preside in his Councils no longer possess all the great Trusts and Offices in the Kingdom that our Ports out Garrisons and our Fleets should be no longer governed by such as are at his Devotion that Characters of Honour and Favour should be no longer plac'd on men that the Wisdom of the Nation hath judged to be Favourers of Popery or Pensioriers of Erance These were indeed great and important Changes but such as it becomes English men to believe were designed by that Parliament such as will be designed and prest for by every Parliament and such as the people will ever pray may at last find success with the King. Without these Charges the Bill of Exclusion would only provoke not disarm our Enemies nay the very Money which we must have paid for it would have been made use of to secure and hasten the Dukes return upon us We are now come to the Consideration of that only fault which was peculiar to the Parliament at Oxford and that was their behaviour in Relation to the business of Fitz-Harris The Declaration says he was impeached of High-Treason by the Commons and they had cause to think his Treasons to be of such an extraordinary Nature that they well deserved an Examination in Parliament For Fitz-Harris a