in your Kingdoms as here in the Roman Empire But now we refer it even to your Majesty to judg what condition we can be in to afford you any Assistance we being not only Engaged in a War with the Turks but finding our selves at the same time unjustly and barbarously Attacked by the French contrary to and against the Faith of Treaties they then reckoning themselves secure of England And this ought not to be concealed that the greatest Injuries which have been done to our Religion have flowed from no other than the French themselves who not only esteem it lawful for them to make perfidious Leagues with the sworn Enemies of the Holy Cross tending to the destruction both of us and of the whole Christian World in order to the checking our Endeavours which were undertaken for the glory of God and to stop those Successes which it hath pleased Almighty God to give us hitherto but further have heaped one Treuchery upon another even within the Empire it self The Cities of the Empire which were Surrendred upon Articles signed by the Dauphin himself have been exhausted by excessive Impositions and after their being exhausted have been Plundred and after Plundring have been Burned and Razed The Palaces of Princes which in all times and even in the most destructive Wars have been preserved are now burnt down to the ground The Churches are Robbed and such as submitted themselves to them are in a most Barbarous manner carried away as Slaves In short It is become a Diversion to them to commit all manner of Insolences and Cruelties in many places but chiefly in Catholick Countries exceeding the Cruelties of the Turks themselves which having imposed an absolute necessity upon us to secure our selves and the holy Roman Empire by the best means we can think on and that no less against them than against the Turks we promise our selves from your Justice ready assent to this That it ought not to be imputed to us if we endeavour to procure by a just War that security to our selves which we could not hitherto obtain by so many Treaties and that in order to the obtaining thereof we take measures for our mutual Defence of Preservation with all those who are equally concerned in the same Design with us It remains that we beg of God that he would Direct all things to his glory and that he would grant your Majesty true and solid Comforts under this your great Calamity we embrace you with tender Affections of a Brother At Vienna the 9th of April 1689. The Declaration of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons Assembled at Westminster concerning the Misgovernment of King James and filling up the Throne Presented to King William and Queen Mary by the right Honourable the Marquess of Hallifax Speaker to the House of Lords With His Majesties most gracious Answer thereunto WHereas the late King James the Second by the Assistance of divers Evil Counsellors Judges and Ministers Imploy'd by Him did endeavour to Subvert and Extirpate the Protestant Religion and the Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom By Assuming and Exercising a Power of Dispensing with and Suspending of Laws and the Execution of Laws without consent of Parliament By Committing and Prosecuting divers Worthy Prelates for humbly Petitioning to be Excused from concurring to the said assumed Power By 〈◊〉 and causing to be executed a Commission under the great Seal for erecting a Court called The Court of Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes By Levying Mony for and to the Use of the Crown by pretence of Prerogative for other time and in other manner than the same was granted by Parliament By raising and keeping a standing Army within this Kingdom in the time of Peace whithout consent of Parliament and Quartering Soldiers contrary to Law By causing several good Subjects being Protestants to be Disarmed at the same time when Papists were both Armed and Imployed contrary to Law By violating the Freedom of Election of Members to serve in Parliament By Prosecutions in the Court of King's-Bench for Matters and Causes cognizable only in Parliament and by divers other Arbitrary and Illegal Courses And whereas of late Years Partial Corrupt and Unqualified Persons have been returned and served on Juries in Tryals and particularly divers Jurors in Tryals for High-Treason which were not Free-holders And Excessive Bail hath been required of Persons committed in Criminal Cases to elude the Benefit of the Laws made for the Liberty of the Subjects And Excessive Fines have been Imposed And Illegal and Cruel Punishments inflicted And several Grants and Promises made of Fines and Forfeitures before any Convictions or Judgment against the Persons upon whom the same were to be Levied All which are utterly and directly contrary to the known Laws and Statutes and Freedom of this Realm And whereas the said late K. James the Second having abdicated the Government and the Throne being thereby vacant His Highness the Prince of Orange whom it hath pleased Almighty God to make the glorious Instrument of Delivering this Kingdom from Popery and Arbitrary Power did by the Advice of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and divers principal Persons of the Commons cause Letters to be written to the Lords Spiritual and Temporal being Protestants and other Letters to the several Counties Cities Universities Burroughs and Cinque-Ports for the Chusing of such Persons to represent them as were of Right to be sent to Parliament to Meet and Sit at Westminster upon the 22d Day of January in this Year 1688 in order to such an Establishment as that their Religion Laws and Liberties might not again be in danger of being Subverted Upon which Letters Elections having been accordingly made And thereupon the said Lord's Spiritual and Temporal and Commons pursuant to their respective Letters and Elections being now Assembled in a Full and Free Representative of this Nation taking into their most serious Consideration the best Means for attaining the Ends aforesaid do in the first place as their Ancestors in like Case have usually done for the Vindicating and Asserting their Ancient Rights and Liberties Declare That the pretended Power of Suspending of Laws or the Execution of Laws by Regal Authority without Consent of Parliament is Illegal That the pretended Power of Dispensing with Laws or the Execution of Laws by Regal Authority as it hath been assumed and exercised of late is Illegal That the Commission for erecting the late Court of Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes and all other Commissions and Courts of the like Nature are Illegal and Pernicious That levying of Mony for or to the Use of the Crown by pretence of Prerogative without grant of Parliament for longer time or in other manner than the same is or shall be granted is Illegal That it is the Right of the Subjects to Petition the King and all Commitments and Prosecutions for such Petitioning are Illegal That the Raising or Keeping a standing Army within the Kingdom in time of Peace unless it be with
of the Peace and Vnity of this Realm 3. And that such Person or Persons so to be Named Assigned Authorised and Appointed by Your Highness Your Heirs or Successors after the said Letters Patents to him or them made and delivered as is aforesaid shall have full Power and Authority by Vertue of this Act and of the said Letters Patents under Your Highness Your Heirs and Successors to exercise use and execute all the premisses according to the Tenor and Effect of the said Letters Patents any matter or cause to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding So that I take it that all manner of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction was in the Crown by the Common Law of England and declared to be so by the said Act of 1 Eliz. 1. and by that Act a Power given to the Crown to assign Commissioners to exercise this Jurisdiction which was accordingly done by Queen Elizabeth and a High Commission Court was by her erected which sate and held Plea of all Causes Spiritual and Ecclesiastical during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth King James the First and King Charles the First till the 17th Year of his Reign Which leads me to consider the Statute of 17 Car. 1. ca. 11. which Act recites the Title of 1 Eliz. ca. 1. and Sect. 18. of the same Act and recites further Section 2. That whereas by colour of some Words in the aforesaid Branch of the said Act whereby Commissioners are authorised to execute their Commission according to the Tenor and Effect of the Kings Letters Patents and by Letters Patents grounded thereupon the said Commissioners have to the great and insufferable Wrong and Oppression of the Kings Subjects used to Fine and Imprison them and to exercise other Authority not belonging to Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction restored by that Act and divers other great Mischiefs and Inconveniences have also ensued to the Kings Subjects by occasion of the said Branch and Commissions issued thereupon and the Executions thereof Therefore for the repressing and preventing of the aforesaid Abuses Mischiefs and Inconveniences in time to come by Sect. 3. the said Clause in the said Act 1 Eliz. 1. is Repealed with a Non obstante to the said Act in these Words Be it Enacted by the Kings most excellent Majesty and the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament Assembled and by the Authority of the same That the aforesaid Branch Clause Article or Sentence contained in the said Act and every Word Matter and thing contained in that Branch Clause Article or Sentence shall from henceforth be Repealed Annulled Revoked Annihilated and utterly made Void for ever any thing in the said Act to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding And in Sect. 5. of the same Act it is Enacted That from and after the first of August in the said Act mentioned all such Commissions shall be void in these Words And be it further Enacted That from and after the said first Day of August no new Court shall be erected ordained or appointed within this Realm of England or Dominion of Wales which shall or may have the like Power Jurisdiction or Authority as the said High Commission Court now hath or pretendeth to have but that all and every such Letters Patents Commissions and Grants made or to be made by his Majesty his Heirs and Successors and all Powers and Authorities granted or pretended or mentioned to be granted thereby And all Acts Sentences and Decrees to be made by virtue or Colour thereof shall be utterly void and of none effect By which Act then the Power of Exercising Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction by Commissioners under the Broad-Seal is so taken away that it provides no such Power shall ever for the future be Delegated by the Crown to any Person or Persons whatsoever Let us then in the last place consider Whether the Act of 13 Car. 2. ca. 12 hath restored this Power or not And for this I take it that it is not restored by the said Act or any Clause in it and to make this evident I shall first set down the whole Act and then consider it in the several Branches of it that relate to this Matter The Act is Entituled An Act for Explanation of a Clause contained in an Act of Parliament made in the 17th Year of the Late King Charles Entituled An Act for Repeal of a Branch of Statute in Primo Elizabethae câ—ncerning Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical The Act it self runs thus Whereas in an Act of Parliament made in the Seventeenth Year of the Late King Charles Intituled An Act for Repeal of a Branch of a Stature primo Elizabethae concerning Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical It is amongst other things Enacted that no Arch-bishop Bisâ—â—p or Vicar-General nor any Chancellor nor Commissary of any Arch-Bishop Bishop or Vicar-General nor any Ordinary whatsoever nor any other Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Judge Officer or Minister of Justice nor any other Person or Persons whatsoever exercising Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Power Authority or Jurisdiction by any Grant Lisence or Commission of the Kings Majesty His Heirs or Successors or by any Power or Authority derived from the King his Heirs or Successors or otherwise shall from and after the First Day of August which then should be in the Year of our Lord God 1641. Award Impose or Inflict any Pain Penalty Fine Amercement Imprisonment or other Corporal Punishment upon any of the Kings Subjects for any Contempt Misdemeanor Crime Offence Matter or Thing whatsoever belonging to Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Cognizance or Jurisdiction 2. Whereupon some Doubt hath been made that all ordinary Power of Coertion and proceeding in Causes Ecclesiastital were taken away whereby the ordinary Course of Justice in Causes Ecclesiastical hath been obstructed 3. Be it therefore Declared and Enacted by the Kings most Excellent Majesty by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament Assembled and by the Authority thereof That neither the said Act nor any thing therein contained doth or shall take away any ordinary Power or Authority from any of the said Arch-Bishops Bishops or any other Person or Persons named as aforesaid but that they and every of them exercising Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction may proceed determine Sentence execute and exercise all manner of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and all Censures and Coertions appertaining and belonging to the same before any making of the Act before recited in all Causes and Matters belonging to Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction according to the Kings Majesties Ecclesiastical Laws used and practised in this Realm in as ample Manner and Form as they did and might lawfully have done before making of the said Act. Sect. 2. And be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That the afore recited Act of Decimo Septimo Car. and all the Matters and Clauses therein contained excepting what concerns the High Commission Court or the new Erection of some such like Court by Commission shall be and is thereby repealed to dlintents and purposes whatsoever
Yet perceiving betwixt Discerning and Doubting that all I assayed of this kind was to no purpose after having deplored the bitterness of an imaginary Loss I groped on more and more in the dark until I chanced to come to an Alcone where feeling with my hands I took fast hold upon the Alcone and grasped the Pillar of a Bed which had I not light upon I must have fallen the second time For thrusting hard against one of the Posts the Counter-stroak of the Wood threw me all along into the middle of a Couch where I remained stretched forth like a Coarse without any motion in the same posture of a precipitate Swoon And then it was that the Vapours of my Body which were disturbed by the first Mistake confusedly did stir through all the parts in the agitated fluctuancy of a Storm though by degrees growing to be undeceived Sleep which appeaseth all the Mutinies in humane Creatures did naturally and more agreeably seise upon my Faculties and compose the Tempest with perfect tranquility of Mind and animal Operations as if I had never been so discomposed 'T is impossible to tell you how long I continued in the State of this Interregnum betwixt Life and Death nor what Care the Company took to learn what was become of me but in vain blaming me for having left them or rather the War begun using all sorts of means to find where I was and bring me back to the Combate I shall only tell you by the way that about Sun-set a great Noise was raised by two of the servants of the House who entred suddenly into the Chamber where I lay which assured me as I awakened that I was yet living and the blazing of the Wax-tapers which they set upon the Tables and Cup-boards made me extremely joyful at the Restauration of my sight which in my Opinion till then was absolutely gone from me But then a third Apprehension seised on my Powers first to be catch in such a Posture and exposed to the innocent jests which might be made by the Guests on the subject of my strange Disorder and precipated Flight from them But as I sought my Eyes once more to steal away out of this Society for all Night and not be seen by any Body another noise obliged me to keep close where I was upon the Bed and draw the Curtains home not to be discovered I was not long in this Concealment when I saw come into the same Place three Persons whose Deserts in this Relation must be better known than their Names and the Importance of their Interest in the State by what I am going now to say of those particulars because I am strictly obliged not to reveal them These strangers the Master of the House did very civilly introduce into the Chamber who without many Complements sate down on the seats which were prepared for them near the Table My Sleep had digested those Fumes and dissipated all the Clouds of my Understanding therefore judging that the cause that assembled such great Personages together there in this secret Entertainment could not be but of the highest importance both the Curiosity and the Shame of having them witnesses to my Disorder obliged me to keep firm to my Post within the cover of the â—ed and to lend an attentive ear to all their Discourse For the Master of the house began the Overture of the Conference in the Terms following In that part which we do hold of the Government of the State it is not enough that a sincere Amity doth link us in one band of Interest and Esteem particularly to each other if we be not also united in the same Judgment as to all which concerns the Publick Good In our former Conferences we used to take just Measures how to rectifie things within the Realm but now it rests with us to agree upon some Maxims which are to be maintained in regard of Foreign Matters to the end that in these Rencounters wherein we are to give Counsel we may act in all things with a perfect Concert which no doubt will give a great weight to the Resolutions which shall be formed thereupon and the present Case since never have any Counsellours treated of nicer Points nor more serious ones than those which are to be debated among us to day The fire is already kindled in our Neighbourhood the Monarchy of Spain is just upon the brink of falling to the ground if it be not succoured and France in a conditition to avow the vast Design which that Crown hath long meditated as well against the Peace of Europe as the Commerce of our Navigations if a powerful Fence be not quickly made to keep the French within their Bounds Wherefore all the rest of the Forces of Europe stand at gaze expecting the Result of what England doth determine herein considering us the Counter-ballance which time out of mind hath held the Scales even betwixt those two great Monarchies for the Safety of all the rest They wait but our giving of the Sign to joyn with us in the common Defence and the better share of them seek it from England and the others have their Eyes open towards our Conduct to take their measures also by no other model but what we shall trace out unto them There is no need of a Providence extraordinary enlightned to judge which is our true Interest in this Conjuncture but the present State of our Affairs doth not leave us the same Facilities to follow it in which we do abound as to the Knowledge thereof Mean while the Mischief presses forwards and doth not afford Place nor Time sufficient to expect a Benefit of other Vicissitudes which run sufficiently against us nor to regulate our Resolutions by those Events which take too impetuous a part in the Cause on that side which we ought most to fear Therefore it is more than season to form our Fundamental Maxim on which all our Conduct is to move in this present Conjuncture and at this very instant decide whether we will chuse to be simple Spectators or take some part to act in this Tragedy since the Resolution which we shall fix thereupon will be the Center from whence we must draw all our Lines afterwards Which is the proper Point that we are to discourse of now among our selves here before we do give our Opinions on the whole matter to the Publick and in which particular I desire the rather to be enlightned by your wise Reasonings by how much the more I am assured That the sole good of the State is the only Rule and Object of all your Counsels As soon as ever he had uttered these words one of the Three after casting down of his Eyes and pondering what he was to say to the rest with having thought before he advised began his Discourse thus If late Experience had not taught us enough to our cost that it is much easier to begin a War than successfully to get out of it when
Factious Design with which they were charged by the said Letter This being through the Influence of the Lord Hatton refused by the Privy Council they dispatched a Gentleman to the Duke of Lauderdale with Letters and Instructions full of Respect and Submission to his Grace The Gentleman at his first arrival found Duke Lauderdale very kind and was made believe he should be quickly dispatched with Answers according to his Desire but some Delays having fallen in the Duke of Lauderdale fell likewise upon thoughts of getting Money from the Town upon this occasion and therefore pretending still more and more kindness to the said Gentleman he did first by some Insinuations let fall to him his expectation and at last flatly asked him if he had not brought a heavy Purse with him which when he understood he was not to expect he changed his Method and grew harsher and having detained him Five or Six Weeks he the said Duke entered into Consultation with his old Friend Sir Andrew Ramsey how to order the Affair By his Advice he did write a Letter and sent Proposals to the said Town That they should give Bond and Security That the Townsmen should live regularly as to all matters Ecclesiastical in the largest extent as the same is determined by the late Acts of Parliament and to keep the Town free of all sorts of Tumults either of Man or Woman Judging that this was impossible for them to perform and unfavourable to attempt and that therefore it would oblige them to make offers of Money This Letter was all the Gentleman could obtain and having gone back to Scotland and delivered it to the Magistrates they were so far from being carried in the Design that they were glad of that opportunity to witness their Zeal to serve Your Majesty for they did very heartily comply with what was proposed concerning the Bonds and Securities demanded and immediately urged that Your Majesties Ofcers and Lawyers would cause draw such Bonds and Securities as was fit for the purpose offering good Security for great summs of Money for the performance But this not being the thing truly intended their ready Compliance with it set them yet farther off from their desired Settlement and served for no other intent than to cause the Lord Hatton to double his diligence to find out new means to mollest them to which end it was alledged by him that they had of old forfeited their Priviledges and Liberties by some great Misdemeanour and that therefore they had not right to chuse their own Magistrates for which he would needs have their Records searched and accordingly they themselves with their Books and Records were in a most unusual manner brought often before him and his Friends though they had not Authority for it to the great Disturbance and Annoyance of the Citizens by being abundantly jealous of their Liberties were with no small care kept within the due Bounds of Moderation by the Loyalty and Vigilancy of their Magistrates They the said Magistrates finding how they were used at home by the Lord Hatton did again apply themselves to the Duke of Lauderdale both by private Letters to the Duke of Lauderdale and his Dutchess from some of the most eminent of them full of Assurances of particular Respect to their Graces and by a publick Letter to him from the whole Town-Council offering Bond and Security to him in the terms proposed by his fore-mentioned Letter But this could not prevail it being objected to them from some frivolous things the Lord Hatton had scraped together out of their old Records that they had lost their Liberties and that the right of chusing their Magistrates did no more belong to them Then did they produce their Charters and did convincingly clear all Mistakes and evidently make appear that the right of chusing their own Magistrates did remain to them undoubtedly and intirely All these things being cleared and open they expected to be restored to the free exercise of their Election in their accustomed manner They were still kept off with Delayes until the Lord Hatton in pursuance of his Design fell a practising with some few of themselves who did undertake with his assistance to get such Elected as were fit for his ends whereupon he writes to his Brother the Duke of Lauderdale to move Your Majesty for a Letter and accordingly the Letter was procured from Your Majesty upon the Seventh of August 75 wherein Your Majesty after reciting Your former Orders in that Affair did declare that You were well informed of their Obedience to Your Commands and of their dutiful Carriage in Your Concerns and therefore ordained them the next day after the Receipt of the Letter to convene their whole Council after their accustomed manner and out of the Lists already made to Elect the Lord Provost Bailies and other Officers According to which Letter they did the next day proceed to their Elections but instead of those whom the Lord Hatton expected they would have chosen they did Elect some men of good Fortunes and Integrity not at all fit for his purpose these who had ingaged to him not being men of that esteem or influence as to be able to carry his Design as they had undertaken The new Magistrates and Council did immediately after their Election acquaint Your Majesty with their Procedure and gave Your Majesty great Acknowledgments and Assurances of their care of the Peace of the Town and of Your Majesty's Service in all Matters both Ecclesiastical and Civil The said Lord Hatton being exceedingly inraged at this Act of theirs did by Advice of Sir George Mackynge now Your Majesties Advocate send a Letter to the Duke of Lauderdale to which he procured Your Majesties Hand upon the 25th of the same month of August by which Your Majesty ordered Your Privy Council to intimate to the Magistrates and Town-Council that it was Your Royal Pleasure that there should be turned out of the Town-Council and declared incapable of any Publique Trust in the said Town Twelve of the most eminent of the same Men with whom your Majesty had exprest your self so well pleased and whose Actings your Majesty had approved by your Letter of the Seventh of the said Month. This was accordingly executed by the Privy-Council without ever so much as calling before them the said Persons though great Crimes were laid to their Charge as being Factious Persons and mis-representing your Majesty's Proceedings without mentioning any particular Fact of theirs which could import any such Crime And though they be threatned by the said Letter to be pursued for these great Crimes and that your Majesty's Advocate is commanded in the same to insist against them yet could they never obtain from your Majesty's Privy-Council that they should be tryed for these things though by a Petition signed by the whole Twelve they did represent the great Prejudice they sustained both in their Reputation and Trade by being kept under such Threatnings and therefore did humbly offer themselves to
Is he a wise man who if his house be falling by reason of too much weight upon the roof will lay more upon it rather than propt it up and take off some of the weight So they who take the Church to consist of Ceremonies must pardon me that I am not of their opinion since the word of God warrants no such thing and my reason tells me that they are too much interested in the cause to be fit judges for with them he is accounted a good Son of the Church who keeps a great stir about Ceremonies though he live never so ill a life and perhaps is drunk when he performs his Devotion but if a man seem to be indifferent as to Ceremonies and make them no more than indeed they be yet in Practice Conforms more than he that makes a great noise about them though he live never so godly a life and as near as he can to the rule of God's word yet he is a Fanatick and an enemy to the Church but God Almighty tells us he will have mercy and not Sacrifice Gentlemen They who accuse me for an enemy to the King and Church have left you out of the story but I hope I shall not forget you but remember on whose errand I am sent and as I have hitherto stuck to your interest I hope nothing will draw me aside from it and if I know my own heart I am perswaded that neither rewards threats hopes nor fears will prevail upon me I desire nothing but to promote God's glory and the interest of the King and people and if it shall please God to let me see the Protestant Religion and Government established I shall think I have lived long enough and I shall be willing at that instant to resign my breath Gentlemen I thought good to say this to you and I thank you for your patience and hope I shall so behave my self in your Service that I shall make it appear I am sensible of the honour you have done me I humbly thank you all An Account of the Proceedings at the Sessions for the City of Westminster against Thomas Whitfield Scrivener John Smallbones Woodmonger and William Laud Painter for Tearing a Petition prepared to be presented to the King's Majesty for the Sitting of the Parliament With an Account of the said Petition presented on the 13th instant and His Majesty's Gracious Answer IT being the undoubted Right of the Subjects of England Vide the Resolutions of the Law Cook Jurisdict of Courts 79. Hobart 220. Vel. Magna Chart. Exl. Spencer 51. Vide the Proclamations of K. Charles I. and warranted by the Law of the Land and the general Practice of all former Times in an humble manner to apply themselves to His Majesty in the Absence of Parliaments by Petition for the Redress of their Grievances and for the obtaining such things as they apprehend necessary or beneficial to the safety and well being of the Nation And it being their Duty to which they are bound by the expres words of the Oath of Allegiance * I do Swear from my Heart That I will hear Faith and true Allegiance to His Majesty His Heirs and Successors and Him and Them will Defend to the uttermost of my power against all Conspiracies and Attempts whatsoever which shall be made against His or Their Persons Their Crown and Dignity And will do my best endeavour to disclose and make known unto His Majesty His Heirs and Successors all Treasons and Trayterous Conspiracies which I shall know or hear of to be against him or any of them to represent to Him any danger which they apprehend Threatning His Royal Person or His Government divers Persons in and about the City of Westminster considering the too apparent and unspeakable Danger His Majesty and His Kingdoms are in from the Hellish Plots and Villainous Conspiracies of the Bloody Papists and their Adherents and conceiving no sufficient or at least so fit Remedy could be provided against it but by the Parliament by whom alone several Persons accused of these accursed Designs can be brought to Tryal did prepare and sign a Petition humbly representing to His Majesty the imminent danger His Royal Person the Protestant Religion and the Government of this Nation were in from that most damnable and hellish Popish Plot branched forth into several the most Horrid Villainies For which several of the principal Conspirators stand impeached by Parliament and thereby humbly praying that the Parliament might Sit upon the 26th of January to try the Offenders and to Redress the important Crievances no otherways to be redressed of which Thomas Whitfield John Smallbenes and William Laud Inhabitants in Westminster taking notice upon the 20th day of December last they sent to Mr. William Horsley who had signed and promoted the Petition and in whose custody it was to bring or send it to them for that they desired to sign it And thereupon Mr. Horsley attended them and producing the Petition in which many Persons had joyned he delivered it at their request to be by them read and signed but Mr. Whitfield immediately tore it in pieces and threw it towards the Fire and Smallbones catching it up said That he would not take 10 s. for the Names and then they declared that they sent for it for that very purpose and owned themselves all concerned in the design Upon Mr. Horsley's complaint hereof to a Justice of the Peace a Warrant was granted against them and they being taken thereupon after examination of the matter were bound to appear and answer it at the next quarter Sessions of the Peace for the City of Westminster and upon Friday the 9th of January instant the Sessions being holden and there being present several Justices of the Peace that are eminent Lawyers the matter was brought before them and the Grand Jury Indicted the said Whitfield Smallbones and Laud as followeth viz. The City Borough and Town of Westminster in the County of Middlesex THe Jurors for our Soveraign Lord the King upon their Oath do present that whereas the Subjects and Liege People of the Kings and Queens of this Realm of England by the Laws and Customs of the Realm have used and been accustomed to represent their Publick Grievances by Petition or by any other submissive way And that the 20th day of December in the one and Thirtieth Year of the Reign of our Soveraign Lord Charles the Second by the Grace of God of England Scotland France and Ireland King Defender of the Faith c. at the Parish of St. Martin's in the Fields within the Liberty of the Dean and Chapter of the Collegiate Church of St. Peter of the City Borough and Town of Westminster in the County of Middlesex a Petition written in paper was prepared and Subscribed with the hands of divers the said King's Subjects and Liege People to the Jury unknown and to our said Soveraign Lord King Charles the Second Directed and to our said Soveraign Lord
another making a Speech that no Man understood a third all the time of the reading repeating Lord have mercy upon me miserable sinner Nay even an Advocate after being debarred a few days because albeit no Clerk yet he would not take it without the benefit of his Clergy viz. the Councils Explanation was yet thereafter admitted without the Warrant of the Councils Act but all this in the Case of so many other was right and good Further the Council expresly declare the Earl to be Guilty before he had ever said one word in his own defence Thereafter some of them become his Assizers and others of them witness against him and after all they do of new concern themselves by a Second Letter to His Majesty wherein they assert That after full debate and clear probation he was found guilty of Treason c. to have a sentence past against him and that of so high a nature and so dreadful a consequence as suffers no person to be unconcerned far less their Lordships his Judges who upon grounds equally just and which is more already predetermined by themselves may soon meet with the same measure not only as Concealers of Treason but upon the least pretended disobedience or non-compliance with any Act of Parliament and after all must infallably render an account to God Almighty He bids them therefore lay their hands to their bearts and whatever they shall judge he is assured that God knows and he hopes all unblassed men in the World will or may know he is neither guilty of Treason nor any of the Crimes libelled He says he is glad how many out-do him in asserting the true Protestant Religion and their Loyalty to His Majesty only he hadds If he could justify himself to God as he can to His Majesty he is sure he might account himself the happiest man alive But yet seeing he hath a better hope in the mercy of God through Jesus Christ he thereupon rests whether he finds Justice here on Earth or not He says he will add nothing to move them either to tenderness or pity he knows that not to be the place and pretends to neither from them He pleads his Innocence and craves Justice leaving it to their Lordships to consider not so much his particular Case as what a Preparative it may be made and what may be its Consequences And if all he hath said do neither convince nor persuade them to alter their judgment yet he desires them to consider whether the Case do not at least deserve to be more fully represented and left to His Majecty's wisdom and justice seeing that if once the matter pass upon record for Treason it is undoubted that hundreds of the best and who think themselves most innocent may by the same methods fall under the like Condemnation whenever the King's Advocate shall be thereto prompted And thus you have a part of what the Earl intended to have said before pronouncing Sentence if he had not made his Escape before the day Yet some things I perceive by his Notes are still in his own breast as only proper to be said to His Majesty I find several Quotations out of the Advocate 's printed Books that it seems he was to make some use of but seeing it would have been too great an interruption to have applied them to the places designed I have subjoined them together leaving them to the Advocate 's own and all mens consideration It was by some remarked That when the Lords of Justitiary after the ending of the first days debate resolved that same night to give judgment upon it they sent for the Lord Nairn one of their number an old and infirm man who being also a Lord of the Session is so decayed through age that he hath not for a considerable time been allowed to take his turn in the Outer-house as they call it where they judge lesser Causes alone But notwithstanding both his age and infirmity and that he was gone to bed he was raised and brought to the Court to consider a Debate a great deal whereof he had not heard in full Court and withal as is informed while the Clerk was reading some of it fell of new asleep It was also remarked that the Lords of Justitiary being in all five viz. the Lord Nairn above-mentioned with the Lords Collintoun Newtoun Hirkhouse and Forret the Libel was found relevant only by the odds of three to two viz. the Lord Nairn aforesaid the Lord Newtoun since made President of the Session and the Lord Forret both well enough known against the Lord Collintoun a very ingenious Gentleman and a true old Cavalier and the Lord Hirkhouse a learned and upright Judge As for the Lord Justice General who was also present and presided his vote according to the constitution of the Court was not asked But to return to my Narrative the Earl as I have already told you did not think fit for reasons that you shall hear to stay till His Majesty's return came to the Council's last Letter but taking his opportunity made his escape out of the Castle of Edinburgh upon Tuesday the Twentieth of December about eight at night and in a day or two after came His Majesty's Answer here subjoined The King's Answer to the Council's Letter December 18. 1681. C. R. MOST dearly c. having this day received your Letter of the 14th instant giving an account that our Advocate having been ordered by you to insist in that Process raised at our instance against the Earl of Argyle he was after full debate and clear probation found guilty of Treason and Leasing-making betwixt us our Parliament and our People and the reproaching our Laws and Acts of Parliament We have now thought fit notwithstanding of what was ordered by us in our Letter to you of the 15th of November last hereby to authorize you to grant a Warrand to our Justice General and the remanent Judges of our Justice Court for proceeding to pronounce a Sentence upon the Verdict of the Jury against the said Earl nevertheless it is our express pleasure and we do hereby require you to take care that all execution of the Sentence be stopped until we shall think fit to declare our further pleasure in this Affair For doing whereof c. Which Answer being read in Council on the Thursday and the Court of Justiciary according to its last Adjournment as shall be told you being to meet upon the Friday after a little hesitation in Council whether the Court of Justiciary could proceed to the Sentence of Forfaulture against the Earl he being absent it was resolved in the affirmative And what were the grounds urged either of hesitation or resolution I cannot precisely say there being nothing on record that I can learn But that you may have a full and satisfying account I shall briefly tell you what was ordinarily discoursed a part whereof I also find in a Petition given in by the Countess of Argyle to the Lords
alledged irrelevancy thereof That in time coming all Criminal Libels shall contain that the persons complained on are Art and Part of the Crimes Libelled which shall be relevant to accuse them thereof swa that no exception or objection take away that part of the Libel in time coming He says That he finds no Act of Parliament more unreasonable for the Statutory part of that Act committing the Tryal of Art and Part to Assizers seems most unjust Seeing in committing the greatest questions of the Law to the most ignorant of the Subjects it puts a sharp Sword into the hands of blind men And the reason of this Act specified in the Narrative is likewise most inept and no ways illative c. What Reproaches What Blasphemies The Earl said not one word against any Act of Parliament But on the contrary That he was confident the Parliament intended no contradiction and that he was willing to take the Test in the Parliaments sense But here the Advocate both says and Prints it That an Act of Parliament is most unreasonable and most unjust and it's reason most inept and that it puts a sharp Sword in the hands of blind men Whereof the smallest branch is infinitely more reproachful than all can be strained out of the Earl's words But Sir Speculation is but Speculation and if the Advocate when his day comes be as able to purge himself of Practical Depravations as I am inclined to excuse all his Visionary Lapses notwithstanding of the famous Title Quod quisque juris in alterum statuorit ut ipse eodem jure utatur he shall never be the worse of my censure Murther will out Or the King's Letter justifying the Marquess of Antrim and declaring That what he did in the Irish Rebellion was by Direction from his Royal Father and Mother and for the service of the Crown Ireland Aug. 22. 1663. Ever honoured Sir LAST Thursday we came to Trial with my Lord Marquess of Antrim but according to my Fears which you always surmised to be in vain he was by the King 's Extraordinary and Peremptory Letter of Favour restored to his Estate as an Innocent Papist We proved Eight Qualifications in the Act of Settlement against him the least of which made him uncapable of being restored as Innocent We proved 1. That he was to have a hand in surprizing the Castle of Dublin in the Year 1641. 2. That he was of the Rebels Party before the 15th of September 1643. which we made appear by his hourly and frequent intercourse with Renny O Moore and many others being himself the most notorious of the said Rebels 3. That he entered into the Roman-Catholick Confederacy before the Peace in 1643. 4. That he constantly adhered to the Nuncio's Party in opposition to his Majesty's Authority 5. That he sate from time to time in the Supream Council of Kilkenny 6. That he signed that execrable Oath of Association 7. That he was Commissionated and acted as Lieutenant-General from the said Assembly at Kilkenny 8. That he declared by several Letters of his own penning himself in Conjunction with Owen Ro Oneale and a constant Opposer to the several Peaces made by the Lord Lieutenant with the Irish We were seven hours by the Clock in proving our Evidence against him but at last the King's Letter being opened and read in Court Rainsford one of the Commissioners said to us That the King's Letter on his behalf was Evidence without Exception and thereupon declared him to be an Innocent Papist This Cause Sir hath tho many Reflections hath passed upon the Commissioners before more startled the Judgments of all men than all the Tryals since the beginning of their sitting and it is very strange and wonderful to all of the Long Robe that the King should give such a Letter having divested himself of that Authority and reposed the Trust in the Commissioners for that purpose And likewise it is admired that the Commissioners having taken solemn Oaths To execute nothing but according to and in pursuance of the Act of Settlement should barely upon his Majesty's Letter declare the Marquess Innocent To be short There never was so great a Rebel that had so much favour from so good a King And it is very evident to me though young and scarce yet brought upon the stage that the consequence of these things will be very bad and if God of his extraordinary mercy do not prevent it War and if possible greater Judgments cannot be far from us where Vice is Patroniz'd and Antrim a Rebel upon Record and so lately and clearly proved one should have no other colour for his Actions but the King 's own Letter which takes all Imputations from Antrim and lays them totally upon his own Father Sir I shall by the next if possible send you over one of our Briefs against my Lord by some Friend It 's too large for a Pacquet it being no less in bulk than a Book of Martyrs I have no more at present but refer you to the King's Letter hereto annexed CHARES R. RIght Trusty and well-beloved Cousins and Counsellors c. We greet you well How far we have been from interposing on the behalf of any of our Irish Subjects who by their miscarriages in the late Rebellion in that Kingdom of Ireland had made themselves unworthy of Our Grace and Protection is notorious to all men and We were so jealous in that particular that shortly after Our return into this Our Kingdom when the Marquess of Antrim came hither to present his duty to Us upon the Information We received from those Persons who then attended Us by a Deputation from Our Kingdom of Ireland or from those who at that time owned our Authority there that the Marquess of Antrim had so misbehaved himself towards Us and Our late Royal Father of blessed memory that he was in no degree worthy of the least Countenance from Us and that they had manifest and unquestionable Evidence of such his guilt Whereupon We refused to admit the said Marquess so much as into Our Presence but on the contrary committed him Prisoner to our Tower of London where after he had continued several Months under a strict restraint upon the continual Information of the said Persons We sent him into Ireland without interposing the least on his behalf but left him to undergo such a Tryal and Punishment as by the Justice of that Our Kingdom should be found due to his Crime expecting still that some heinous Matter would be objected and proved against him to make him uncapable and to deprive him of that Favour and Protection from Us which we knew his former Actions and Services had merited After many months attendance there and We presume after such Examinations as were requisite he was at last dismissed without any Censure and without any transmission of Charge against him to Us and with a License to transport himself into this Kingdom We concluded that it was then time to give him
People in divers Parliaments holden heretofore Willing to ordain Remedy for the great Damages and Mischiefs which have happened and dayly do happen by the said Cause c. By the assent of all the great Men and Commonalty of his said Realm hath Ordained and Established c. In which preamble of the Statute we may observe 1. The intollerable grievance and burden which was occasion'd by the illegal Incroachments of the See of Rome 2. The many Complaints the People had made who in those dark times under Popery were sensible of groaning under those Burdens 3. The Endeavours used in vain by former Parliaments to Redress the same and to bring their Laws in being to have their Force and Effect 4. The acknowledgment of the King and Parliament that the Obligation hereto was upon the King 1. From the Right of the Crown which obliged every King to pass good Laws 2. The Statute in force 3. The King's Oath to keep the Old and pass New Laws for his Peoples safeguard which they should tender to him 4. From the sence of the People expressed in their Complaints and 5. From the Mischief and Damage which would otherwise ensue And therefore by the desire and accord of his People He passes this famous Law The Preamble whereof is here recited Another Statute to the same purpose you find 2 R. 2. No. 28. Also the Commons in Parliament pray That forasmuch as Petitions and Bills presented in Parliament by divers of the Commons could not heretofore have their Respective Answers That therefore both their Petitions and Bills in this present Parliament as also others which shall be presented in any future Parliament may have a good and gracious Answer and Remedy ordained thereupon before the departing of every Parliament And that to this purpose a due Statute be ensealed or Enacted at this present Parliament to be and remain in Force for all times to come To which the King replied The King's Answer THE King is pleased that all such Petitions deliver'd in Parliament of things or matters which cannot otherwise be determined A Good and Reasonable Answer shall be made and given before the departure of Parliament In which excellent Law we may observe 1. A Complaint of former remisness their Bills having aforetime been pass'd by their Grievances Unredressed by unseasonably Dissolving of Parliaments before their Laws could pass 2. That a Law might pass in that very Parliament to rectifie that Abuse for the future And 3. That it should not pass for a temporary Law but for perpetuity being of such absolute Necessity that before the Parliaments be dismissed Bills of common Right might pass And the King agreed hereto Suitable hereto we have my Lord Chief Justice Coke that great Oracle of the Law in his Instit 4. B. p. 11. asserting Petitions being truly preferr'd though very many have been Answered by the Law and Custom of Parliament before the end of Parliament This appears saith he by the Ancient Treatise De Modo tenendi Parliamentum in these Words faithfully Translated The Parliament ought not to be ended while any Petition dependeth undiscussed or at the least to which a determinate Answer is not made Rot. Par. 17. E. 3. No. 60. 25 E. 3. No. 60. 50 E. 3. No. 212. 2 R. 2.134 2 R. 2. No. 38. 1 H. 4.132 2 H. 4325.113 And that one of the principal ends of calling Parliaments is for redressing of Grievances that daily happen 36 E. 3. c. 10. 18 E. 3. c. 14. 50 E. 3. No. 17. Lyons Case Rot. Par. 1 H. 5. No. 17. 13 H. 4. No. 9. And that as concerning the departing of Parliaments It ought to be in such a manner faith Modus Tenendi viz. To be demanded yea and publiekly Proclaimed in the Parliament and within the Palace of the Parliament whether there be any that hath delivered a Petition to the Parliament and hath not received Answer thereto if there be none such it is to be supposed that every one is Satisfied or else Answered unto at the least so far forth as by the Law be may be And which custom was observed in after Ages as you have heard before Concerning the Antiquity and Authority of this Ancient Treatise called Modus tenendi Parliamentum saith my Lord Coke whereof we make often use in our Institutes Certain it is that this Modus was Rehearsed and Declared before the Conqueror at the time of his Conquest and by him approved for England and accordingly he according to Modus held a Parliament for England as appears 21 E. 3. so 60. Whereby you clearly perceive that these wholsome Laws are not only in full agreement with the Common Law and declarative thereof but in full accord with the Oath and Office of the Prince who has that great trust by the Law lodged with him for the good and benefit not hurt and mischief of the People viz. First These Laws are very suitable to the Duty and Office of a Ruler and the end for which he was instituted by God himself who commands him to do Judgment and Justice to all especially to the Oppressed and not to deny them any request for their relief protection or welfare 2 Sam. 22.3 1 Chron. 13.1 to 5.2 Chron. 9.8.19.5 c Est 1.13 Our Law-Books enjoyning the same as Bracton Lib. 1. c. 2. Lib. 3. c. 9. fol. 107 c. Fortiscue ch 9. fo 15. c. 7. fol 5.11 Coke 7. Book Reports Calvin's Case f. 11. Secondly They are also in full Harmony with the King's Coronation Oath solemnly made to all his Subjects viz. To grant fulfill and defend all rightful Laws which the Commons of the Realm shall choose and to strengthen and maintain them after his Power Thirdly These Laws are also in full agreement and oneness with Magna Charta it self that Ancient Fundamental Law which hath been Confirmed by at least Forty Parliaments viz. We shall deny We shall defer to no Man Justice and Right much less to the whole Parliament and Kingdom in denying or deferring to pass such necessary Bills which the Peoples needs call for Object But to all this which hath been said it may be objected That several of our Princes have otherwise practised by Dissolving or as laterly used by Prorogucing Parliaments at their pleasures before Grievances were Redressed and Publick Bills of Common Safety Passed and that as a Privilege belonging to the Royal Prerogative Answ To which it is Answered That granting they have so done First It is most manifest that deth not therefore create a right to them so to do according to that known Maxim a facto ad jus non valet Consequentia especially when such Actions are against so many express and positive Laws such Principles of Common Right and Justice and so many particular Tyes and Obligations upon themsâ—â—es to the contrary Secondly But if it had been so yet neither can Prerogative be pleaded to justify such Practices because the King has no Prerogative but what the Law gives
for Instances of his guilt If then all his private Papers and Notes to help his Memory in his Plea and Defence shall be taken from him by the Gaoler or the Court and given to his Prosecutors And all Advice and Assistance from Councils or Friends and his nearest Relations shall be denied him and none suffered by word or writing to inform him of the indifferency or honesty or the partiality or malice of the Pannels returned whom the Law allows him to challenge or refuse either peremptorily or for good Reasons offered should he be thus deprived of all the good provisions of the Law for his safety To what Frauds Perjuries and Subornations is not he and every man Exposed who may be accused What Deceits may there not be put upon Juries and what Probability is there of finding Security in Innocence What an admirable Execution would this be of their Commission To make diligent Inquisition after all manner of Falshoods Deceipts Wrongs and Frauds and thereupon to do Justice according to Law When at the same Time if so Managed a Method would be introduced of ruining and destroying any Man in the form of Justice Such practices would be the highest dishonour to the King imaginable whose name is used and so far Misrepresent the Kingly Office as to make that appear to have been Erected to vex and destroy the People which was intended and ordained to help and preserve them The Law so far abhors such proceedings that it intends that every Man should be strictly bound to be exactly just in their several Imployments relating to the Execution of Justice The Serjeant of the King's Council Sir George Jefferys among the rest who prosecute in the King's name and are consulted in the forming Bills of Indictment and advise about the Witnesses and their Testimonies against the Accused These if they would remember it when they are made Serjeants take an Oath Cokes 2d Institutes Pag. 214. as well and truly to serve the People whereof the party accused is one as the King himself and to minister the King's matters duely and truly after the course of the Law to their Cunning Not to use their Cunning and Craft to hide the Truth and destroy the accused if they can They are also obliged by the Statute of Westm 1. Cap. 29. To put no manner of Deceit or Collusion upon the King's Court nor secretly to consent to any such Tricks as may abuse or beguile the Court or the party be it in Causes Civil or Criminal And it is ordained that if any of them be convicted of such practices he shall be imprisoned for a year and never be heard to plead again in any Court and if the Mischievous consequence of their Treacheries be great they are Subject to further and greater punishments Our Antient Law Book called the Miror of Justice Cap. 2. Sect. 4. says That every Serjeant Pleader is chargeable by his Oath not to maintain or defend any Wrong or Falshood to his Knowledge but shall leave his Client when he shall perceive the wrong intended by him Also that he shall not move or proffer any false Testimony nor consent to any Lyes Deceits or Corruptions whatsoever in his pleadings As a further Security unto the People against all Attempts upon their Laws Exemplary Justice hath been done in several Ages upon such Judges and Justiciaries as through Corruption Submission unto unjust Commands or any other Sinister consideration have dared to swerve from them The punishments of these wicked Men remain upon Record as Monuments of their Infamy to be a Terror unto all that shall succeed them In the Reign of the Saxons the most notable Example was given by King Alfred who caus'd above forty Judges to be hanged in a Short Space for several wrongs done to the People as is related in the Mirror of Justice Some of them suffered for imposing on Juries and forcing them to give Verdicts according to their will And one as it seems had taken the Confidence to examine a Jury that he might find which of them would Submit to his Will and setting aside him who would not condemned a Man upon the Verdict of Eleven Since the Coming of the Normans our Parliaments have not been less severe against such Judges as have suffered the course of Justice to be perverted or the Rights and Liberties of the People to be invaded In the time of Edward the 1st Anno 1289. The Parliament finding That all the Judges except Two had swerv'd from their duty condemned them to several punishments according unto their Crimes Ex Chron. Anno 10. Ed. 1. ad finem As Banishment Perpetual Imprisonment or the loss of all their Estates c. Their Particular Offences are specified in a Speech made by the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury in Parliament They had broken Magna Charta Incited the King against his People Violated the Laws under pretence of expounding them and impudently presumed to prefer their own Councils to the King before the Advices of Parliament as appears by the speech c. Hereunto annext The like was done in Ed. the 2d Time when Hugh De Spencer was charged for having prevailed with the King to break his Oath to the People in doing Things against the Law by his own Authority In Edward the 3d. Time Judge Thorpe was hang'd for having in the like manner brought the King to break his Oath Dan. History p. 260 261. And the happy Reign of that great King affords many Instances of the like nature amongst which the punishment of Sir Henry Green and Sir William Skipwith deserve to be observed and put into an Equal Rank with those of his brave and victorious Grand-father In Richard the Second's Time Eleven of the Judges See all the English Histories of Walsingham Fabian Speed c. in the 11 and 12 years of Richard II. forgetting the dreadful Punishments of their Predecessors subscrib'd malicious Indictments against Law and gave false Interpretations of our Ancient Laws to the King thereby to bring many of his most Eminent and worthiest Subjects to suffer as Traytors at his Will Subjected the Authority and very Being of Parliaments to his absolute pleasure And made him believe that all the Laws lay in his own breast Hereupon sentence of death passed upon them and tho upon their repentance and confessing they had been swayed by fear and threatnings from the King Two only were Executed all the others were for ever banished as unworthy to enjoy the benefit of that Law which they had so perfidiously and basely betrayed It were an Endless work to recite all the Examples of this kind that are found in our Histories and Records but that of Empson and Dudley must not be omitted They had craftily contriv'd to abolish Grand Juries and to draw the Lives and Estates of the People into question without Indictments by them and by surprise and other wicked practices they gained an Act of Parliament for their countenance Hereupon
but it may move them there is no security that innocent Persons may not be brought every day into danger and trouble By this means certain mischiefs will be done whilst it is by their own confession uncertain whether they are any ways deserved by such as suffer them to the utter overthrow of all Justice If the word Probable be taken in a common rather than a nice Logical sense it signifies no more than likely or rather likely than unlikely When a matter is found to be so the Wager is not even there is odds upon one side and this may be a very good ground for betting in a Tennis Court or at a Horse-race but he that would make the Administration of Justice to depend upon such Points seems to put a very small value upon the fortunes liberties and reputations of men and to forget that those who sit in Courts of Justice have no other business there than to preserve them This continues in force though in a Diologue between a Barrister and a Grand Jury Man published under the Title of the Grand Jury Man's Oath and Office it be said p. 8. and 9. That their work is no more than to present Offences fit for a Tryal and for that Reason give in only a Verisimilar or probable Charge and others have affirmed that a far less Evidence will warrant a Grand Juries Indictment than a Petit Juries Verdict For nothing can be more opposite to the justice of our Laws than such Opinions All Laws in doubtful Cases direct a suspension of Judgment or a sentence in favour of the Accused person But if this were hearkened unto Grand Juries should upon their Oaths affirm they judge him Criminal when the Evidence is upon such uncertain grounds that they cannot but doubt whether he is so or not It cannot be hereupon said that no Evidence is so clear and full but it may be false and give the Jury occasion of doubts so as all Criminals must escape if no Indictment ought to be found unless the proofs are absolutely certain for it is confess'd that such Cases are not capable of an infallible Mathematical demonstration but a Jury that Examines all the Witnesses that are likely to give any light concerning the business in question and all Circumstances relating to the fact before them with the Lives and Credit of those tha◠testify i◠and of the Person accused may and do often find that which in their Consciences doth fully perswade them that the accused Person is guilty This is as much as the Law or their Oath doth require and such as find Bills after having made such a Scrutiny are blameless before God and Man if through the fragility inseparable from humane nature they should be led into Error For they 〈◊〉 not swear that the Bill is true but that they in their Consciences believe that it is so and if they write Ignoramus upon the Bill it is not thereby declared to be false nor the P rson accused acquitted but the matter is suspended until it can be more clearly proved as in doubtful Cases it always ought to be Our Ancestors took great Care that suspicious and probable Causes should not bring any Man's Life and Estate into danger For that reason it was ordain'd by the Stat 37 Ed 3. Cap 18. That such as made suggestions to the King should find surety to pursue and incur the same pain that the other should have had if he were attainted in case their suggestion be not found evil and that then process of the Law should be made against the Accused This manner of Proceeding hath its root on eternal and universal Reason The Law given by God unto his People Deut. 19. allotted the same Punishment unto a false witness as a person convicted The best disciplined Nations of the world learnt this from the Hebrews and made it their Rule in the administration of Justice The Grecians generally observed it and the Romans according to their Lex Talionis did not only punish death with death but the intention of committing Murther by false Accusations with the same severity as if it had been effected by any other means This Law was inviolably observed as long as any thing of regularity or equity remained amongst them and when through the wickedness of some of the Emperours or their favourites it came to be overthrown all Justice perished with it A Crew of false Informers brake out to the destruction of the best men and never ceas'd until they had ruined all the most eminent and antient Families Circumvented the Persons that by their Reputation Wealth Birth or Virtue deserved to be distinguished from the common sort of People and brought desolation upon that victorious City Tacitus complains of this Tac. Ann. 3. as the cause of all the mischiefs suffered in his Time and Country By their means the most Savage Cruelties were committed under the name of Law which thereby became a greater Plague than formerly Crimes had been No remedy could be found when those Delatores whom he calls genus hominum Publico exitio repertum Tac. Ann. 4. poenis quidem nunquam satis coercitum were invited by impunity or reward and the Miserable People groaned under this calamity until those instruments of iniquity were by better Princes put to the most cruel tho well deserved deaths The like hath been seen in many places and the domestick quiet which is now enjoyed in the Principal parts of Europe proceeds chiefly from this that every man knows the same Punishment is appointed for a false Accusation and proved Crime It is hardly seven years since Monsieur Courboyer a man of quality in Brittany suborned two of the King of France his Guards to swear Treasonable Designs against La Motte a Norman Gentleman the matter being brought to Monsieur Colbert he caus'd the Accused Person and the Witnesses to be secured until the fraud was discovered by one of them whereupon he was pardoned La Motte released Courboyer beheaded and the other false Witness hanged by the Sentence of the Parliament of Paris Though this Law seems to be grounded upon such foundation as forbids us to question the equity of it our Ancestors for Reasons best known unto themselves thought fit to moderate its Severity by the Statute of 38 Ed. 3. Cap. 9. yet then it was enacted and the Law continues in force unto this day That whosoever made complaints to the King and could not prove them against the Defendant by the process of Law limited in former Statures which is first by a Grand Jury he should be imprisoned until he had made gree to the Party of his damages and of the slander he suffered by such occasion and after shall make fine and ransom to the King which is for the common damage that the King and his People suffer by such a false accusation and defamation of any Subject And in the 42 Ed. 3. Cap. 3. To eschew the Mischiefs and damage done by
Time Place or Person could be found in it as hath ever been done by those who endeavour'd to raise Insurrections all was supplied by Innuendo's Whatsoever is said of the Expulsion of Tarquin the Insurrection against Nero the Slaughter of Caligula or Domitian The Translation of the Crown of France from Merovius his Race unto Pepin and from his Descendants unto Hugh Capet and the like applied by Innuendo unto the King They have not considered that if such Acts of State be not good there is not a King in the World that has any Title to the Crown he bears nor can have any unless he could deduce his Pedigree from the Eldest Son of Noah and shew that the Succession had still continued in the Eldest of the Eldest Line and been so deduced to him Every one may see what advantage this would be to all the Kings of the World and whether that failing it were not better for them to acknowledg they had received their Crowns by the Consent of Willing Nations or to have no better Title unto them than Usurpation and Violence which by the same ways may be taken from them But I was long since told that I must Die or the Plot must Die Lest the means of destroying the best Protestants in England should fail the Bench must be filled with such as had been Blemishes to the Bar. None but such as these would have Advised with the King's Council of the means of bringing a Man to Death Suffered a Jury to be packed by the King's Sollicitors and the Under-Sheriff Admit of Jury-men who are not Freeholders Receive such Evidence as is above-mentioned Refuse a Copy of an Indictment or to Suffer the Statute of 46 Ed. 3. to be read that doth expresly Enact it should in no Case be denied unto any Man upon any occasion whatsoever over rule the most important Points of Law without hearing And whereas the Stat. 25. Ed. 3. upon which they said I should be Tried doth Reserve unto the Parliament all Constructions to be made in Points of Treason They could assume unto themselves not only a Power to make Constructions but such Constructions as neither agree with Law Reason or Common Sense By these means I am brought to this place The Lord forgive these Practices and avert the Evils that threaten the Nation from them The Lord sanctify these my Sufferings unto me and tho' I fall as a Sacrifice unto Idols suffer not Idolatry to be Established in this Land Bless thy People and save them Defend thy own Cause and defend those that defend it Stir up such as are Faint Direct those that are willing confirm those that Waver Give Wisdom and Integrity unto all Order all things so as may most redound unto thine own Glory Grant that I may Die glorifying thee for all thy Mercies and that at the last thou hast permitted me to be Singled out as a Witness of thy Truth and even by the Confession of my Opposers for that OLD CAVSE in which I was from my Youth engaged and for which thou hast Often and Wonderfully declared thy Self CHAP. I. Of MAGISTRACY I. RELATION is nothing else but that State of Mutual Respect and Reference which one Thing or Person has to another II. Such are the Relations of Father and Son Husband and Wife Master and Servant Magistrate and Subject III. The Relations of a Father Husband and Master are really distinct and different that is one of them is not the other For he may be any one of these who is none of the rest IV. This distinction proceeds from the different Reasons upon which these Relations are Founded V. The Reason or Foundation from whence arises the Relation of a Father is from having Begotten his Son who may as properly call every Old Man he meets his Father as any other Person whatsoever excepting him only who Begat him VI. The Relation of an Husband and Wife is founded in Wedlock whereby they mutually consent to become one Flesh VII The Relation of a Master is founded in that Right and Title which he has to the Possession or Service of his Slave or Servant VIII In these Relations the Name of Father Husband and Master imply Soveraignty and Superiority which varies notwithstanding and is more or less Absolute according to the Foundation of these several Relations IX The Superiority of a Father is founded in that Power Priority and Dignity of Nature which a Cause hath over its Effect X. The distance is not so great in Wedlock but the Superiorty of the Husband over the Wife is like that of the Right hand over the left in the same Body XI The Superiority of a Master is an absolute Dominion over his Slave a Limited and Conditionate Command over his Servant XII The Titles of Pater Patriae and Sponsus Regni Father of the Country and Husband of the Realm are Metaphors and improper Speeches For no Prince ever Begat a whole Country of Subjects nor can a Kingdom more properly be said to be Married than the City of Venice is to the Adriatique Gulph XIII And to shew further that Magistracy is not Paternal Authority nor Monarchy founded in Fatherhood it is undeniably plain that a Son may be the Natural Soveraign Lord of his own Father as Henry the second had been of Jeffery Plantagenet if he had been an Englishman which they say Henry the Seventh did not love to think of when his Sons grew up to Years And this Case alone is an Eternal Confutation of the Patriarchate XIV Neither is Magistracy a Martial Power for the Husband may be the Obedient Subject of his own Wife as Philip was of Queen Mary XV. Nor is it that Dominion which a Master has over his Slave for then a Prince might Lawfully Sell all his Subjects like so many head of Cattle and make Money of his whole stock whenever he pleases as a Patron of Algiers does XVI Neither is the Relation of Prince and Subject the same with that of a Master and hired Servant for he does not hire them but as St. Paul saith They pay him Tribute in consideration of his continual Attendance and Imployment for the Publick Good XVII That publick Office and Imployment is the Foundation of the Relation of King and Subject as many other Relations are likewise Founded upon other Functions and Administrations such as Guardian and Ward c. XVIII The Office of a King is set down at large in the XVII Chap. of the Laws of King Edward the Confessor to which the succeeding Kings have been sworn at their Coronation And it is affirmed in the Preambles of the Statutes of (a) Prout Regalis Officii exposcit utilitas Marlbridge and of the Statute of Quowarranto made at (b) ficome le profit de Office Demaunde The Kingly or Regal Office of this Realm jo Mar. Sess 3. Cap. 1. Gloucester That the Calling of Parliaments to make Laws for the better Estate of the Realm and the more full
after the Fifth Century the Doctrine of one Individual Essence was received If you will be farther informed concerning this Father Petau will satisfie you as to the first Period before the Council of Nice and the leared Dr. Cudworth as to the second In all which particulars it appears how variable a thing Tradition is And upon the whole matter the examining Tradition thus is still a searching among Books and here is no living Judge XII If then the Authority that must decide Controversies lies in the Body of the Pastors scattered over the World which is the last retrenchment here as many and as great Scruples will arise as we found in any of the former Heads Two difficulties appear at first view the one is How can we be assured that the present Pastors of the Church are derived in a just Succession from the Apostles there are no Registers extant that prove this So that we have nothing for it but some Histories that are so carelesly writ that we find many mistakes in them in other Matters and they are so different in the very first links of that Chain that immediately succeeded the Apostles that the utmost can be made of this is that here is an Historical Relation somewhat doubtful but here is nothing to found our Faith on so that if a Succession from the Apostles times is necessary to the Constitution of that Church to which we must submit our selves we know not where to find it besides that the Doctrine of the necessity of the Intention of the Minister to the Validity of a Sacrament throws us into inextricable difficulties I know they generally say that by the Intention they do not mean the inward Acts of the Minister of the Sacrament but only that it must appear by his outward deportment that he is in earnest going about a Sacrament and not doing a thing in jest and this appeared so reasonable to me that I was sorry to find our Divines urge it too much till turning over the Rubricks that are at the beginning of the Missal I found upon the head of the Intention of the Minister that if a Priest has a number of Hosties before him to be consecrated and intends to Consecrate them all except one in that case that Vagrant Exception falls upon them all it not being affixed to any one and it is defined that he Consecrates none at all Here it is plain that the secret Acts of a Priest can defeat the Sacrament so this overthrows all certainty concerning a Succession But besides all this we are sure that the Greek Churches have a much more uncontested Succession than the Latines So that a Succession cannot direct us And if it is necessary to seek out the Doctrines that are universally received this is not possible for a private man to know So that in ignorant Countries where there is little Study the people have no other certainty concerning their Religion but what they take from their Curate and Confessor since they cannot examine what is generally received So that it must be confessed that all the Arguments that are brought for the necessity of a constant infallible Judge turn against all those of the Church of Rome that do not acknowledge the Infallibility of the Pope for if he is not infallible they have no other Judge that can pretend to it It were also easie to shew that some Doctrines have been as Universally received in some Ages as they have been rejected in others which shews that the Doctrine of the present Church is not always a sure measure For five Ages together the Doctrine of the Pope's Power to depose Heretical Princes was received without the least Opposition and this cannot be doubted by any that knows what has been the State of the Church since the end of the Eleventh Century and yet I believe few Princes would allow this notwithstanding all the concurring Authority of so many Ages to fortisie it I could carry this into a great many other Instances but I single out this because it is a point in which Princes are naturally extream sensible Upon the whole matter it can never enter into my mind that God who has made Man a Creature that naturally enquires and reasons and that feels as sensible a pleasure when he can give himself a good account of his Actions as one that sees does perceive in comparison to a blind man that is led about and that this God that has also made Religion on design to perfect this Humane Nature and to raise it to the utmost height to which it can arrive has contrived it to be dark and to be so much beyond the penetration of our Faculties that we cannot find out his mind in those things that are necessary for our Salvation and that the Scriptures that were writ by plain men in a very familiar Stile and addrest without any Discrimination to the Vulgar should become such an unintelligible Book in these Ages that we must have an infallible Judge to expound it and when I see not only Popes but even some Bodies that pass for General Councils have so expounded many passages of it and have wrested them so visibly that none of the Modern Writers of that Church pretend to excuse it I say I must freely own to you that when I find that I need a Commentary on dark passages these will be the last persons to whom I will address my self for it Thus you see how fully I have opened my mind to you in this matter I have gone over a great deal of ground in as few words as is possible because hints I know are enough for you I thank God these Considerations do fully satisfie me and I will be infinitely joyed if they have the same effect on you I am yours THis Letter came to London with the return of the first Post after his late Majesties Papers were sent into the Country some that saw it liked it well and wished to have it publick and the rather because the Writer did not so entirely confine himself to the Reasons that were in those Papers but took the whole Controversie to task in a little compass and yet with a great variety of Reflections And this way of examining the whole matter without following those Papers word for word or the finding more fault than the common concern of this Cause required seemed more agreeing to the respect that is due to the Dead and more particularly to the Memory of so great a Prince but other considerations made it not so easie nor so adviseable to procure a License for the Printing this Letter it has been kept in private hands till now those who have boasted much of the Shortness of the late King's Papers and of the length of the Answers that have been made to them will not find so great a disproportion between them and this Answer to them A Brief Account of particulars occurring at the happy Death of our late Soveraign Lord King Charles
pinches he is really concerned that Ireland is not altogether an independent Kingdom and in the Hands of its own Natives he longs till the Day when the English Yoak of Boudage shall be thrown off Of this he gives us broad Hints when he tells us That England is the only Nation in the World that impedes their Trade That a Man of English Interest will never Club with them as he phrases it or project any thing which may tend to their Advantage that will be the least Bar or Prejudice to the Trade of England Now why a Man of English Interest unless he will allow none of that Nation to be an able and just Minister to his Prince should be partial to ruine one Kingdom to avoid the least Inconveniency of the other contrary to the positive Commands of his King I cannot imagine For since it is the Governour 's Duty to Rule by Law and such Orders as he shall receive from His Majesty I know no Grounds for our Authors Arraigning the whole English Nation in saying That no one Man among them of what Perswasion soever will be true either to the Laws or his Majesty's positive Orders which shall seem repugnant to the smallest Conveniencies of England This is a glory reserved only as it seems for his Hero my Lord Tyrconnel The Imbargo upon the West India Trade and the Prohibition of Irish Cattel are the two Instances given It were to be wished indeed for the Good of that Kingdom that both were taken off and I question not but to see a Day wherein it shall seem proper to the King and an English Parliament to Repeal those Laws a Day wherein they will consider us as their own Flesh and Blood a Colony of their Kindred and Relations and take care of our Advantages with as little Grudging and Repining I am sure they have the same and no stronger Reason as Cornwal does at Yorkshire There are Instances in sevral Islands in the East-Indies as far distant as Ireland is from England that make up but one Kingdom and govern'd by the same Laws but the Wisdom of England will not judge it time fitting to do this till we of Ireland be one Mans Children either in Reality or Affection we wish the latter and have made many Steps and Advances towards it if the Natives will not meet us half way we cannot help it let the Event lie at their own Doors But after all I see not how those Instances have any manner of relation to the English Chief Governors in Ireland they were neither the Causes Contrivers nor Promoters of those Acts. The King and an English Parliament did it without consulting them if they had 't is forty to one my Lord of Ormond and the Council whose Stake is so great in Ireland would have hindred it as much as possible Our Author's Argument proves indeed That 't is detrimental to Ireland to be a subordinate Kingdom to England and 't is plain 't is that he drives at let him disguise it as much as he will but the conclusion he would prove cannot at all be deduced from it Shortly I expect he will speak plainer and in down right Terms propose That the two Kingdoms may be governed by different Kings Matters seem to grow ripe for such a dilloyal Proposition If these Acts and not the Subjection to an English King were the Grievances they would be so to the British there as well as to the Natives but though we wish them Repealed we do not repine in the mean time if the British who are the most considerable Trading part of that Nation and consequently feel the ill Effects of those Acts more sensibly can be contented why the Natives should not acquiesce in it unless it be for the forementioned Reasons I cannot see Our Author allows that there are different ways of obeying the King 't is a Point gained for us and proves there may be such a Partiality exercised in executing his Majesties Commands as may destroy the very Intent of them and yet taking the Matter strictly the King is obeyed but a good Minister will consider his Masters Intentions and not make use of a Word that may have a double Sence to the Ruine of a Kingdom nor of a Latitude of Power wherewith he is intrusted to the Destruction of the most considerable Party in it Far be it from us to think it was his Majesties Intentions to depopulate a flourishing Country to undo Multitudes of laborious thriving Families in it to diminish and destroy his own Revenue to put the Sword into Mad-mens Hands who are sworn Enemies to the British No! His Majesty who is willing that Liberty of Trade as well as Conscience should equally flourish in all parts of his Dominions that recommends himself to his Subjects by his Impartiality in distributing Offices of Trust and from that Practice raises his greatest Argument to move his People to Repeal the Penal Laws never intended that some general Commands of his should be perverted to the Destruction of that People his Intention is to protect His Majesty Great as he is cannot have two Consciences one calculated for the Latitude of England another for Ireland We ought therefore to conclude in respect to the King that his Commands have been ill understood and worse executed and this may be done as our Author confesses and the King undoubtedly obeyed but such an Obedience is no better than a Sacrifice of the best Subjects the King has in this Kingdom Our Author has given very good Reasons why the Natives may be well content with their present Governor but I cannot forbear laughing at those he has found out to satisfie the poor British with My Lord Tyrconnel's most Excellent Charitable English Lady His high sounding Name TALBOT in great Letters a Name that no less frightens the Poor English in Ireland then it once did the French a Name which because he is in possession of I will not dispute his Title to but I have been credibly informed that he has no relation to that most Noble Family of Shrewsbury though my Lord Tyrconnel presumes to bear the same Coat of Arms a Name in short which I hope in time Vox praetereae nihil A Second Reason is drawn from his Education We have heard and it has never yet been contradicted that my Lord Tyrconnel from his Youth upwards has constantly born Arms against the Brittish If our Author will assure us of the contrary I am apt to believe â—i Excellency will give him no thanks who lays the foundation of his Merit upon the Basis of his constant adherence to the Iâ—ish Party What use of Consolation can be drawn from this head by the Brittish is beyond my skill to conâ—preâ—â—nd A third Reason is drawn from his Stake in England the Author would do well to shew us in what Country this lies that we may know where to find Reprisals hereafter for since he offers this for our Security 't is fit
bear the Character which is vulgarly ascribed to him and if the greatest indication of the wisdom and integrity of Princes be the prudence and sincerity of their Ministers but that we may thence come under a necessity of entertaining meaner thoughts than we otherwise would both of the Moral and Intellectual Capacity of him to whom this Gentleman is indebred both for his Titles and the Function he is exalted unto Whereas on the other hand besides many signal Evidences which have filled all Europe with admiration of the admirable Wisdom inflexible Integrity eminent Vertues Religious tho' calm and discreet Zeal and steddy and impartial Justice of his Highness the Prince of Orange our Ideas of him as a person under whose Government Conduct and Shadow all good men may promise themselves happiness are not a little heightned by the consideration of the excellent Qualities of Monsieur Fagel whose advancement as Pensionary of Holland to the first Ministry in that State is owing to the Princes Grace and Recommendation Which Eminent Trust as he hath all along discharged with Honour to his Highness Reputation to himself and to the Satisfaction of those who are interested in the Affairs of that Republick so by nothing hath he more merited an universal esteem and praise from all Protestants and acquitted himself more worthily towards God and their Serene Highnesses than by that Letter wherein he was honoured to declare their thoughts and in which he hath with so much wisdom moderation and convincing light expressed both their Highnesses Sentiments and his own as well concerning the English Laws the Papists may and the Dissenters ought to be favoured with the Repeal of as concerning those which no wise Non-conformist desires to have rescinded and which to humour the Papists with the Abrogation of were no less than to expose the Nation to ruine and to lay the Reformed Religion open to be totally subverted Now this Excellent Letter and which hath produced all the good Effects that honest men long'd for but knew not before how to compass our Anonymous Answerer is pleased with an Indignation and angry Resentment and in hopes to exasperate his Majesty of Great Britain against their Serene Highnesses to stile a kind of Manifest in reference to most important Affairs which even Mr. Stewart who in obedience to the injunctions of his Soveraign had with so much importunity sollicited their Highnesses Opinion about the Repeal of the Penal and Test Laws he says could not have expected And of whom to testifie his exact and intimate knowledge and to recompence him for the unfortunate service he had been employed in and to encourage his readiness to future drudgery he is pleased by a creation of his own as being the Substitute of the Fountain of Honour to confer the Title of Dr. upon But certainly had this Anonymous Writer the sense and prudence of an ordinary man he would not under the present conjuncture of Affairs talk of Manifests nor put people in mind of them at a season when most persons of all ranks and qualities are so much disgusted and when they at Whitehall are so lavish in their provocations towards some who if they were not strangely fortified against all tincture of Resentment are known to be capable of doing them irreparable prejudice and who by such a Manifest as there is cause enough to emit might not only disturb their proceedings but with the greatest facility blow up at once both all their hopes and projections I would fain know of this modest and discreet Gentleman whether if their Highnesses had ordered a Letter to be written declarative of their Opinion for the Abrogation of the Tests by what name he would have judged it worthy to be called and whether if he had bestowed upon it the Title of a Manifest he would have thereby intended to fasten upon it an imputation of presumption and reproach All good men have reason mightily to bewail their Highnesses condition seeing according to this rate of proceeding towards them it is in the power of the Papal Ecclesiasticks in England when they please to prevail upon the King to reduce them to the uneasie circumstances either of offending against their Consciences or of displeasing him For there is no more requisite towards the bringing them into this unhappy Dilemma but that Father Peters or any other of the Tribe who have an Ascendency over his Majesty do persuade him to desire their Highnesses Thoughts in reference to such particulars wherein it is neither consistent with their Religious Principles nor agreeable with their Honour to comply with his Majesties Judgment and Inclinations For if in prudence they decline the returning of an Answer they are sure not only to be censured as guilty of neglect incivility and rudeness but they do thereby administer an advantage to their Enemies of diffusing reports to their prejudice thro' the Nation as if they approved all those Court-methods which for no other reason save upon the meer motives of respect and wisdom they avoided openly to disallow And if on the other hand they suffer themselves to be overcome by importunities and thereupon give an Answer agreeable to the Dictates of their own minds but which is found to interfere with the prepossessions wherewith his Majesty is imbued then their Lot is to have it called by the unkind and ignominious Title of a Manifest One would think that Letter ought to have been mentioned by a softer name if we do but consider its being written not only with the utmost modesty that becomes the Relation Their Highnesses stand in to the King and which is any ways agreeable to their own quality but that it is enforced with all the Reasons that may serve to demonstrate that their Opinion is the result of conviction and judgment and not the effect of humour nor a sentiment they are meerly determined unto by their interest But we see no Term is too hard to be bestowed upon a Paper that hath so much prejudiced the Priests in their designs and laid so great an obstruction in the way of those methods which they had proposed to themselves for the robbing England of the Protestant Religion And whereas our Author tells us that tho' Mr. Stewart did not account himself obliged to answer Monsieur Fagel's Letter yet one who extreamly esteems and honoureth Mr. Stewart thinks the Publick too much concerned not to have the weakness of the reasonings in it detected and to have it made appear that the inferences deduced from them are no ways convincing I can easily believe that Mr. Stewart did not judge himself obliged to answer the Pensionary's Letter and all men do account it a piece of wisdom in him to forbear endeavouring it For tho' he be much better qualified for such an undertaking than our Author yet he could not but be sensible that it was not to be attempted with any hope of success And if our Author had been endow'd with any measure of discretion he would
who had lived and died a cordial and zealous Protestant and whosoever had muttered any thing to the contrary would have been branded for a Villain and an execrable person But with what a scent and odor must it recommend his Memory to them to consider his having not onely lived and died in the Communion of the Church of Rome in contradiction to all his publick Speeches solemn Declarations and highest Asseverations to his People in Parliament but his participating from time to time of the Sacrament as Administred in the Church of England while in the interim he had Abjured our Religion stood reconciled to the Church of Rome and had obliged himself by most sacred Vows and was endeavouring by all the Frauds and Arts imaginable to subvert the established Doctrin and Worship and set up Heresy and Idolatry in their room And it must needs give them an abhorrent Idea and Character of Popery and a loathsom representation of those trusted with the Conduct and Guidance of the Consciences of Men in the Roman Communion that they should not onely dispense with and indulge such Crimes and Villanies but proclaim them Sanctified and Meritorious from the end which they are calculated for and levelled at And for his dear Brother and renowned Successor who possessed the Throne after him I suppose his most partial Admirers who took him for a Prince not onely merciful in his Temper and imbued with all gracious Inclinations to our Laws and the Rights of the Subject but for one Orthodox in his Religion and who would prove a zealous Defender of the Doctrine Worship and Discipline of the Church established by Law are before this time both undeceived and filled with Resentments for his having abused their Credulity deceived their Expectations and reproached all their Gloryings and Boastings of him For as it would have been the greatest Affront they could have put upon the King to question his being of the Roman Communion or to detract from his Zeal for the introduction of Popery notwithstanding his own antecedent Protestations as well as the many Statutes in force for the preservation of the Reformed Religion so I must take the liberty to tell them that his Apostacy is not of so late Date as the World is made commonly to believe For though it was many Years concealed and the contrary pretended and dissembled yet it is most certain that he Abjured the Protestant Religion soon after the Exilement of the Royal Family and was reconciled to the Romish Church at St. Germains in France Nor were several of the then suffering Bishops and Clergy ignorant of this though they had neither the Integrity nor Courage to give the Nation and Church warning of it And within these five Years there was in the custody of a very worthy and honest Gentleman a Letter written to the late Bishop of D. by a Doctor of Divinity then attending upon the Royal Brothers wherein the Apostacy of the then Duke of York to the See of Rome is particularly related and an Account given how much the Dutchess of Tremoville though without being her self observed had heard the Queen Mother glorying of it bewailed it as a dishonour unto the Royal Family and as that which might prove of pernicious consequence to the Protestant Interest But though the old Queen privately rejoyced and triumphed in it yet she knew too well what disadvantage it might be both to her Son and to the Papal Cause in Great Brittain to have it at that Season communicated and divulged Thereupon it remained a Secret for many Years and by virtue of a Dispensation he sometimes joined in all Ordinances with those of the Protestant Communion But for all the Art Hypocrisy and Sacrilege by which it was endeavoured to be concealed it might have been easily discerned as manifesting it self in the whole Course of his Actions And at last his own Zeal the Importunity of the Priests and the Cunning of the late King prevailing over Reasons of State he withdrew from all Acts of Fellowship with the Church of England But neither that nor his refusing the Test enjoyned by Law for distinguishing Papists from Protestants though thereupon he was forced both to resign his Office of Lord High Admiral c. nor his declining the Oath which the Laws of Scotland for the securing a Protestant Governour enjoyn to be taken by the High Commissioner nor yet so many Parliaments having endeavoured to get him Excluded from Succession to the Crown upon the account of having revolted to the See of Rome and thereby become dangerous to the Established Religion could make impression upon a wilfully deluded and obstinate sort of Protestants but in defiance of all means of Conviction they would perswade themselves that he was still a Zealot for our Religion and a grand Patriot of the Church of England Nor could any thing undeceive them till upon his Brother's Death he had openly declared himself a Roman Catholick and afterwards in the fumes and raptures of his Victory over the late Duke of Monmouth had discovered and proclaimed his Intentions of overthrowing both our Religion and Laws Yea so closely had some sealed up their Eyes against all beams of Light and hardned themselves against all Evidences from Reason and Fact that had it pleased the Almighty God to have prospered the Duke of Monmouth's Arms in the Summer 85. the present King would have gone off the Stage with the Reputation among them of a Prince tender of the Laws of the Kingdom and who notwithstanding his own being a Papist would have preserved the Reformed Religion and have maintained the Church of England in all her Grandure and Rights And though his whole Life had been but one continued Conspiracy against our Civil Liberties and Priviledges he had left the Throne with the Character and under the Esteem of a Gentleman that in the whole course of his Government would have regulated himself by the Rules of the Constitution and the Statutes of the Realm Now among all the Methods fallen upon by the Royal Brothers for the undermining and subverting our Religion and Laws there is none that they have pursued with more Ardor and wherein they have been more successful to the compassing of their Designs than in their dividing Protestants and alienating their Affections and embittering their Minds from and against one another And had not this lain under their prospect and the means of effecting it appeared easie they might have been Papists themselves while in the mean time they had been dispensed with to protest and swear their being of the Reformed Religion and they might have envied our Liberties and bewailed their Restriction from Arbitrary and Despotical Power but they never durst have entertained a Thought of subverting the Established Religion or of altering the Civil Government nor would they ever have had the boldness to have attempted the introducing and erecting Popery and Tyranny in their room And whosoever should have put them upon reducing the Nation
given to his Declaration and to what he hath since the Emission of it repeated both in his Speech to Mr. Penn and in his Letter to Mr. Alsop And to omit many other Instances of his kindness and Benignity to the Fanaticks whom he now so much hugs and caresseth it may not be amiss to remember them and all other Protestants of that barbarous and illegal Commission issued forth by the Council of Scotland while he as the late King 's High Commissioner had the Management of the Affairs of that Kingdom by which every Military Officer that had command over twelve Men was impower'd to impannel Juries Try Condemn and cause to be put to Death not only those who should be found to disclaim the King's Authority but such as should refuse to acknowledge the King 's new modelled Supremacy over that Church in the pursuance and Execution of which Commission some were Shot to Death others were Hang'd or Drowned and this not only during the Continuance of the Reign of his late Majesty but for above a Year and a half after the present King came to the Crown But what need is there of insisting upon such little Particulars wherein he was at all times ready to express his Malice to Protestants seeing we have not only Dr. Oates's Testimony and that of divers others but most Authentick Proofs from Mr. Coleman's Letters of his having been in a Conspiracy several Years for the Subversion of our Religion upon the meritorious and sanctified Motive of extirpating the Northern Heresie Of which beside all the Evidence that four Successive Parliaments arrived at I know several who since the Duke of York ascended the Throne have had it confirmed unto them by divers Foreign Papists that were less reserved or more ingenuous than many of that Communion use to be To question the Existence of that Plot and his present Majesties having been Accessary unto and in the Head of it argues a strange Effrontery and Impudence through casting an Aspersion of Weakness Folly and Injustice not only upon those Three Parliaments that seem'd to have retained some Zeal for English Liberties but by fastening the same Imputations upon the Long Parliament which had shewed it self at all times more Obsequious to the Will of the Court than was either for their own Honor or the Safety and Interest of the Kingdom and who had expressed a Veneration for the Royal Family that approached too much upon a degree of Idolatry Whosoever considers that Train of Counsels wherein the King was many Years engaged and whereof we felt the woful Effects in the Burning of London the frequent Prorogation and Dissolution of Parliaments the widening and exasperating Differences among Protestants the stirring up and provoking Civil Magistrates and Ecclesiastical Courts to persecute Dissenters and the maintaining Correspondencies with the Pope and Catholick Princes abroad to the dishonor of the Nation and danger of our Laws and Religion cannot avoid being apprehensive what we are now to look for at his Hands nor can be escape thinking that he esteems his Advancement to the Crown both a Reward from Heaven for what he hath done and plotted against these three Kingdoms and an Opportunity and Advantage administred to him for the Perfecting and Accomplishment of all those Designs with which he hath been so long Bigg and in Travel for the Destruction of our Religion the Subversion of our Laws and the Re-establishment of Popery in these Dominions The Conduct and Guidance under which His Majesty hath put himself and the fiery Temper of that Order to whose Government he hath resigned his Conscience may greatly add to our Fears and give us all the Jealousie and Dread that we are capable of being impressed with in reference to Matters to come that there is nothing which can be Fatal to our Religion or Persons that we may not expect the being called to conflict with and suffer For tho most of the Popish Ecclesiasticks especially the Regulars bear an inveterate Malice to Protestants and hold themselves under indispensible Obligations of eradicating whatsoever their Church stiles Heresie and have accordingly been always forward to stir up and provoke Rulers to the use and Application of Force for the Destruction of Protestants as a Company of perverse and obstinate Hereticks adjudged and condemned to the Stake and Gibbet by the infallible Chair yet of all Men in the Communion of the Romish Church and of their Religious Orders the Jesuits are they who do most hate us and whose Counsels have been most Sanguinary and always tending to influence those Monarchs whose Consciences they have had the guiding and conducting of to the utmost Cruelties and Barbarities towards us What our Brethren have had measured out to them in France through Father de la Chaise's Influence upon that King and through the bewitching Power and Domination he hath over him in the quality of his Confessor and as having the Direction of his Conscience may very well alarm and inform us what we ought to expect from His Majesty of Great Britain who hath surrendered his Conscience to the Guidance of Father Peters a Person of the same Order and of the like mischievous and bloody Disposition that the former is 'T is well observed by the Author of the Reasons against Repealing the Acts of Parliament concerning the Test that Cardinal Howard's being of such a meek and gentle Temper that is able to withstand the Malignity of his Religion and to preserve him from concurring in those mischievous Counsels which his Purple might seem to oblige him unto is the reason of his being shut out from Acquaintance with and Interest in the English Affairs transacted at Rome and that whatsoever his Majesty hath to do in that Court is managed by his Ambassador under the sole Direction of the Jesuits So that it is not without cause that the Jesuit of Liege in his intercepted and lately printed Letter tells a Brother of the Order what a wonderful Veneration the King hath for the Society and with what profound Submission he receives those Reverend Fathers and hearkens to whatsoever they represent Nor is His Majesty's being under the Influence of the Jesuits through having one of them for his Confessor and several of them for his Chief Counsellors and principal Confidents the only thing in this Matter that awakens our Fear in what we are to expect from his armed Power excited and stir'd up by that fiery Tribe but there is another Ground why we ought more especially to dread him and that is his being entred and enrolled into the Order and become a Member of the Society whereby he is brought into a greater Subjection and Dependence upon them and stands bound by Ties and Engagements of being obedient to the Commands of the General of the Jesuits and that not only in Spirituals but in whatsoever they shall pretend to be subservient to the Exaltation of the Church and for upholding the Glory of the Tripple Crown This
were represented by some of the Dissenters not only as favorers of Popery but as endeavouring to hale it in upon us by all the methods and ways that lay within their circle and yet now the whole defence of the Reformed Religion must be entirely devolved into their hands and when all the sluces are pulled up that had been made to hinder Popery from overflowing the Nation they must be left alone to stem the Inundation and prevent the Deluge They among the Fanaticks that boasted to be the most avowed and irreconcileable Enemies of the Church of Rome are not only become altogether silent when they see the Kingdom pester'd with a swarm of busie and seducing Emissaries but are both turned Advocates for that Arbitrary Paper whereby we are surrendred as a Prey unto them and do make it their business to detract from the reputation and discourage the Labours of the National Ministers who with a zeal becoming their Office and a Learning which deserves to be admired have set themselves in opposition to that croaking fry and have done enough by their excellent and unimitable Writings to save People from being deluded or perverted if either unanswerable confutations of Popery or demonstrative defences of the Articles and Doctrines of the Reformed Religion can have any efficacy upon the minds of Men. Among other fulsom Flatteries adorning a Speech made to his Majesty by an Addressing Dissenter I find this hypocritical and shameful Adulation namely that if there sholud remain any seeds of Disloyalty in any of his Subjects the transcendent goodness exerted in his Declaration would mortifie and kill them To which he might have added with more truth that the same transcendent goodness had almost destroyed all the seeds of their honesty and mortified their care and concernment for the Interest of Jesus Christ and for the Reformed Religion Their old strain of zealous Preaching against the Idolatry of Rome and concerning the coming out of Babylon my People are grown out of fashion with them in England and are only reserved and laid by to recommend them to the kindness and acceptation of Foreign Protestants when their occasions and conveniencies draw them over to Amsterdam Whoever comes into their Assemblies would think for any thing that he there hears delivered from their Pulpits that She which was the Whore of Babylon a few years ago were now become a Chast Spouse and that what were heretofore the damnable Doctrines of Popery were of late turned Innocent and Harmless Opinions The King's Declaration would seem to have brought some of them to a melius inquirendum and as they are already arrived to believe a Roman Catholick the best King that they may in a little time come to esteem Papists for the best Christians The keeping back nothing that is profitable to save such as hear them and the declaring the whole Counsel of God that are the terms upon which they received their Commission from Jesus Christ and wherein they have Paul's practice and example for a pattern would seem to be things under the Power of the Royal Prerogative and that the King may supercede them by the same Authority by which he dispenses with the Penal Statutes Which as it is very agreeable unto and imported in his Majesty's Claim of being obeyed without reserve so the owning this Absolute power with that annex of challenged obedience does acquit them from all obligations to the Laws of Christ when they are found to interfer with what is required by the King But whether God's Power or the King 's be superior and which of the two can cassate the others Laws and whose wrath is most terrible the Judgment day will be able and sure to instruct them if all means in this World prove insufficient for it The Addressers know upon what conditions they hold their Liberty and they have not only observed how several of the National Clergy have been treated for preaching against Popery but they have heard how divers of the Reformed Ministers in France before the general Suppression were dealt with for speaking against their Monarch's Religion and therefore they must be pardoned if they carry so as not to provoke his Majesty tho in the mean time through their Silence they both betray the Cause of their Lord and Master and are unfaithful to the Souls of those of whom they have taken upon them the Spiritual guidance As for the Papers themselves that are stiled by the name of Addresses I shall not meddle with them being as to the greatest part of them fitter to be exposed and ridicul'd either for their dullness and pedantry or for the Adulation and Sycophancy with which they are fulsomly stuft than to deserve any serious consideration or to merit Reflections that may prove instrumentive to Mankind Only as that Address wherein his Majesty is thanked for his restoring God to his Empire over Conscience deserveth a rebuke for its Blasphemy so that other which commends him for promising to force the Parliament to ratifie his Declaration tho by the way all he says is that he does not doubt of their concurrence which yet his ill success upon the Closetting of so many Members and his since Dissolving that Parliament shews that there was some cause for the doubting of it I say that other Address merits a severe Censure for its insolency against the legislative Authority And the Authors of it ought to be punished for their crime committed against the Liberty and Freedom of the two Houses and for encouraging the King to invade and subvert their most essential and fundamental Privileges and without which they can neither be a Council Judicature nor Lawgivers After all I hope the Nation will be so ingenuous as not to impute the miscarriages of some of the Nonconformists to the whole Party much less to ascribe them to the Principles of Dissenters For as the points wherein they differ from the Church of England are purely of another nature and which have no relation to Politicks so the influence that they are adapted to have upon men as members of Civil Societies is to make them in a special manner regardful of the Rights and Franchises of the Community But if some neither understand the tendency of their own Principles nor are true and faithful unto them these things are the personal faults of those men and are to be attributed to their ignorance or to their dishonesty nor are their Carriages to be counted the effects of their religious Tenets much less are others of the Party to be involved under the reproach and guilt of their imprudent and ill conduct Which there is the more cause to acknowledge because tho the Church of England has all the reason of the world to decline Addressing in that all her legal Foundation as well as Security is shaken by the Declaration yet there are some of her Dignitaries and Clergy as well as divers of the Members of her Communion who upon motives of Ambition Covetousness
for we assure our selves that no rational and unbyassed Person will judge it Rebellion to defend our Laws and Religion which all our Princes have sworn at their Coronations Which Oath how well it hath been observed of late we desire a Free Parliament may have the Consideration of We own it Rebellion to resist a King that governs by Law but he was always accounted a Tyrant that made his Will his Law and to resist such an one we justly esteem no Rebellion but a necessary Defence And in this Consideration we doubt not of all Honest Mens Assistance and humbly hope for and implore the great Gods Protection that turneth the Hearts of People as pleaseth him best it having been observed That People can never be of one Mind without his Inspiration which hath in all Ages confirmed that Observation Vox Populi est Vox Dei The present restoring of Charters and reversing the oppressing and unjust Judgment given on Magdalen Colledg Fellows is plain are but to still the People like Plums to Children by deceiving them for a while but if they shall by this Stratagem be fooled till this present Storm that threatens the Papists be past as soon as they shall be resetled the former Oppression will be put on with greater vigour But we hope in vain is the Net spread in the sight of the Birds For 1. the Papists old Rule is That Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks as they term Protestants tho the Popish Religion is the greatest Heresie And 2. Queen Mary's so ill observing her Promises to the Suffolk-men that help'd her to the Throne And above all 3. the Popes dispensing with the breach of Oaths Treaties or Promises at his pleasure when it makes for the service of Holy Church as they term it These we say are such convincing Reasons to hinder us from giving Credit to the aforesaid Mock-Shews of Redress that we think our selves bound in Conscience to rest on no Security that shall not be approved by a Freely Elected Parliament to whom under God we refer our Cause His Grace the Duke of Norfolk 's Speech to the Mayor of Norwich on the First of December in the Market-place of Norwich Mr. Mayor NOT doubting but you and the rest of your Body as well as the whole City and Country may be Alarmed by the great Concourse of Gentry with the numerous Appearance of their Friends and Servants as well as of your own Militia here this Morning I have thought this the most proper place as being the most publick one to give you an Account of our Intentions Out of the deep sense we had that in the present unhappy Juncture of Affairs nothing we could think of was possible to secure the Laws Liberties and Protestant Religion but a Free Parliament WE ARE HERE MET TO DECLARE That we will do our utmost to defend the same by declaring for such a Free Parliament And since His Majesty hath been pleased by the News we hear this day to order Writs for a Parliament to sit the Fifteenth of January next I can only add in the name of my Self and all these Gentlemen and others here met That we will ever be ready to support and defend the Laws Liberties and Protestant Religion And so GOD SAVE THE KING To this the Mayor Aldermen and the rest of the Corporation and a numerous Assembly did concur with his Grace and the rest of the Gentry His Grace at his lighting from his Horse perceiving great numbers of Common People gathering together called them to him and told them He desired they would not take any occasion to commit any Disorder or Outrage but go quietly to their Homes and acquainted them that the King had ordered a Free Parliament to be called The Speech of the Prince of Orange to some Principal Gentlemen of Somersetshire and Dorsetshire on their coming to joyn his Highness at Exeter the 15th of Nov. 1688. THO we know not all your Persons yet we have a Catalogue of your Names and remember the Character of your Worth and Interest in your Country You see we are come according to your Invitation and our Promise Our Duty to God obliges us to protect the Protestant Religion and our Love to Mankind your Liberties and Properties We expected you that dwelt so near the place of our Landing would have joyn'd us sooner not that it is now too late nor that we want your Military Assistance so much as your Countenance and Presence to justifie our declar'd Pretensions rather than accomplish our good and gracious Designs Tho we have brought both a good Fleet and a good Army to render these Kingdoms happy by rescuing all Protestants from Popery Slavery and Arbitrary Power by restoring them to their Rights and Properties established by Law and by promoting of Peace and Trade which is the Soul of Government and the very Life-Blood of a Nation yet we rely more on the goodness of God and the Justice of our Cause than on any Humane Force and Power whatever Yet since God is pleased we shall make use of Human Means and not expect Miracles for our Preservation and Happiness let us not neglect making use of this gracious Opportunity but with Prudence and Courage put in Execution our so honourable Purposes Therefore Gentlemen Friends and Fellow-Protestants we bid you and all your Followers most heartily Welcom to our Court and Camp Let the whole World now judg if our Pretensions are not Just Generous Sincere and above Price since we might have even a Bridge of Gold to return back But it is our Principle and Resolution rather to die in a good Cause than live in a bad One well knowing that Vertue and True Honour is its own Reward and the Happiness of Mankind Our Great and Only Design The true Copy of a Paper delivered by the Lord Devonshire to the Mayor of Darby where he quarter'd the one and twentieth of November 1688. WE the Nobility and Gentry of the Northern parts of England being deeply sensible of the Calamities that threaten these Kingdoms do think it our Duty as Christians and good Subjects to endeavour what in us lies the Healing of our present Distractions and preventing greater And as with grief we apprehend the said Consequences that may arise from the Landing of an Army in this Kingdom from Foreign parts So we cannot but deplore the Occasion given for it by so many Invasions made of late Years on our Religion and Laws And whereas we cannot think of any other Expedient to compose our Differences and prevent Effusion of Blood than that which procured a Settlement in these Kingdoms after the late Civil Wars the Meeting and Sitting of a Parliament freely and duly Chosen we think our selves obliged as far as in us lies to promote it And the rather because the Prince of Orange as appears by his Declaration is willing to submit his own Pretensions and all other Matters to their Determination We heartily Wish and
time acquaint his Highness with what we have further done at that Meeting Dated at Guild-hall the 11th of December 1688. A Paper delivered to his Highness the Prince of Orange by the Commissioners sent by his Majesty to treat with him And his Highness's Answer WHereas on the 8th of December 1688. at Hungerford a Paper signed by the Marquess of Hallifax the Earl of Nottingham and the Lord Godolphin Commissioners sent unto us from His Majesty was delivered to Us in these Word following viz. Sir THE King commanded us to acquaint You That he observeth all the Differences and Causes of Complaint alledged by Your Highness seem to be referred to a Free Parliament His Majesty as He hath already declared was resolved before this to call one but thought that in the present State of Affairs it was advisable to defer it till things were more compos'd Yet seeing that His People still continue to desire it He hath put forth His Proclamation in order to it and hath issued forth His Writs for the calling of it And to prevent any Cause of Interruption in it He will consent to every thing that can be reasonably required for the Security of all those that shall come to it His Majesty hath therefore sent Us to attend Your Highness for the adjusting of all Matters that shall be agreed to be necessary to the Freedom of Elections and the Security of Sitting and is ready immediately to enter into a Treaty in Order to it His Majesty proposeth that in the mean time the respective Armies may be restrained within such Limits and at such a Distance from London as may prevent the Apprehensions that the Parliament may in any kind be disturbed being desirous that the Meeting of it may be no longer delay'd than it must be by the usual and necessary Forms Hungerford Dec. 8. 88. Signed Hallifax Nottingham Godolphin We with the Advice of the Lords and Gentlemen assembled with Vs have in Answer to the same made these following Proposals I. THAT all Papists and such Persons as are not qualified by Law be Disarmed Disbanded and Removed from all Employments Civil and Military II. That all Proclamations which Reflect upon Us or any that have come to Us or declared for Us be recalled and that if any Persons for having so assisted have been committed that they be forthwith set at Liberty III. That for the Security and Safety of the City of London the Custody and Government of the Tower be immediately put into the Hands of the said City IV. That if His Majesty shall think fit to be at London during the Sitting of the Parliament that We may be there also with equal Number of our Guards Or if his Majesty shall please to be in any place from London at what-ever distance he thinks fit that We may be at a place of the same distance And that the respective Armies do remove from London Thirty Miles and that no more Foreign Forces be brought into the Kingdom V. That for the Security of the City of London and their Trade Tilbury Fort be put into the Hands of the said City VI. That to prevent the Landing of French or other Foreign Troops Portsmouth may be put into such Hands as by Your Majesty and Us shall be agreed upon VII That some sufficient part of the Publick Revenue be Assigned Us for the Maintaining of our Forces until the Meeting of a Free Parliament Given at Littlecott the Ninth of December 1688. W. H. Prince of Orange The Speech of the Recorder of Bristol to his Highness the Prince of Orange Monday January the 7th 1688. The Mayor Recorder Aldermen and Commons of the Principal Citizens of the City of Bristol waited upon the Prince of Orange being introduced by his Grace the Duke of Ormond their High-Steward and the Earl of Shrewsbury Where the Recorder spake to this Effect May it please your Highness THE Restitution of our Religion Laws and Liberties and the Freeing us from that Thraldom which hath rendred us for many Years useless and at last dangerous to the Common Interest of the Protestant World by your Highness's singular Wisdom Courage and Conduct are not only a Stupendious Evidence of the Divine Favour and Providence for our Preservation but will be and ought to be an Everlasting Monument of your Highness's Magnanimity and other the Heroick Vertues which Adorn your great Soul by whom such a Revolution is wrought in this Nation as is become the Joy and Comfort of the Present and will be the Wonder of all Succeeding Ages In the Contrivance and Preparation of which great Work your Highness like the Heavens did shed your propitious Influences upon us whilst we slept and had scarce any prospect from whence we might expect our Redemption But as since your happy Arrival in England we did among the first Associate our selves to assist and promote your Highness's most glorious Design with our Lives and Fortunes so we now think our selves bound in the highest Obligation of Gratitude most humbly to present to your Highness our humble and hearty Thanks for this our Deliverance from Popery and Arbitrary Power and likewise for declaring your gracious Intentions That by the Advice of the Estates of this Kingdom you will rectifie the late Disorders in the Government both Ecclesiastical and Civil according to the known Laws The due and inviolable Observation of which will in our poor Opinion be the only proper Means to render the Soveraign Secure and both Soveraign and Subject happy To which his Highness returned a most Gracious Answer By the Commissioners of Lieutenancy for the said City Guild-hall London December the 11th 1688. Ordered THat Sir Robert Clayton Kt. Sir William Russel Kt. Sir Basil Firebrass Kt. and Charles Duncomb Esq be a Committee from the said Lieutenancy to Attend his Royal Highness the Prince of Orange and present to his Highness the Address agreed by the Lieutenancy for that purpose And that they begin their Journey to Morrow Morning By the Commissioners Command Geo. Evans Cl. Lieu. London To His Highness the Prince of Orange The Humble Address of the Lieutenancy of the City of London May it please Your Highness WE can never sufficiently express the deep Sense we have conceived and shall ever retain in our Hearts That Your Highness has exposed Your Person to so many Dangers both by Sea and Land for the Preservation of the Protestant Religion and the Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom without which unparallel'd Undertaking we must probably have suffered all the Miseries that Popery and Slavery could have brought upon us We have been greatly concerned that before this time we have not had any seasonable Opportunity to give Your Highness and the World a real Testimony that it has been our firm Resolution to venture all that is Dear to Us to attain those glorious Ends which Your Highness has proposed for restoring and settling these Distracted Nations We therefore now unanimously present to Your Highness
our just and due Acknowledgments for the happy Relief You have brought to us and that we may not be wanting in this present Conjuncture we have put our selves into such a Posture that by the Blessing of God we may be capable to prevent all ill Designs and to preserve this City in Peace and Safety till your Highness's Happy Arrival We therefore humbly desire that your Highness will please to repair to this City with what convenient speed you can for the perfecting the great Work which Your Highness has so happily begun to the general Joy and Satisfaction of us all December the 17th 1688. THE said Committee this day made Report to the Lieutenancy that they had presented the said Address to the Prince of Orange and that His Highness received them very kindly December the 17th 1688. By the Lieutenancy Ordered That the said Order and Address be forwith Printed Geo. Evans To his Highness the Prince of Orange The Humble Address of the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Commons of the City of London in Common Council assembled May it please Your Highness WE taking into Consideration your Highness's fervent Zeal for the Protestant Religion manifested to the World in your many and hazardous Enterprizes which it hath pleased Almighty God to bless You with miraculous Success We render our deepest Thanks to the Divine Majesty for the same And beg leave to present our most humble Thanks to your Highness particularly for your appearing in Arms in this Kingdom to carry on and perfect your glorious Design to rescue England Scotland and Ireland from Slavery and Popery and in a Free Parliament to establish the Religion the Laws and the Liberties of these Kingdoms upon a sure and lasting Foundation We have hitherto look'd for some Remedy for these Oppressions and Imminent Dangers We together with our Protestant Fellow-Subjects laboured under from His Majesty's Concessions and Concurrences with Your Highness's Just and Pious purposes expressed in Your gracious Declaration But herein finding Our Selves finally disappointed by his Majesty's withdrawing Himself We presume to make Your Highness Our Refuge And do in the Name of this Capital CITY implore Your Highness's Protection and most humbly beseech Your Highness to vouchsafe to repair to this CITY where Your Highness will be received with Universal Joy and Satisfaction The Speech of Sir George Treby Kt. Recorder of the Honourable City of London to his Highness the Prince of Orange Dec. 20. 1688. May it please your Highness THE Lord Mayor being disabled by Sickness your Highness is attended by the Aldermen and Commons of the Capital City of this Kingdom deputed to Congratulate your Highness upon this great and glorious Occasion In which labouring for Words we cannot but come short in Expression Reviewing our late Danger we remember our Church and State over-run by Popery and Arbitrary Power and brought to the Point of Destruction by the Conduct of Men that were our true Invaders that brake the Sacred Fences of our Laws and which was worst the very Constitution of our Legislature So that there was no Remedy left but the Last The only Person under Heaven that could apply this Remedy was Your Highness You are of a Nation whose Alliances in all Times has been agreeable and prosperous to us You are of a Family most Illustrious Benefactors to Mankind To have the Title of Soveraign Prince Stadtholder and to have worn the Imperial Crown are among their lesser Dignities They have long enjoyed a Dignity singular and transcendent viz. To be Champions of Almighty God sent forth in several Ages to vindicate his Cause against the greatest Oppressions To this Divine Commission our Nobles our Gentry and among them our brave English Soldiers rendred themselves and their Arms upon your appearing GREAT SIR When we look back to the last Month and contemplate the Swiftness and Fulness of our present Deliverance astonish'd we think it miraculous Your Highness led by the Hand of Heaven and called by the Voice of the People has preserved our dearest Interests The Protestant Religion which is Primitive Christianity restor'd Our Laws which are our ancient Title to our Lives Liberties and Estates and without which this World were a Wilderness But what Retribution can We make to your Highness Our Thoughts are full-charged with Gratitude Your Highness has a lasting Monument in the Hearts in the Prayers in the Praises of all good Men among us And late Posterity will celebrate your ever-glorious Name till Time shall be no more Chapman Mayor Cur ' special ' tent ' die Jovis xx die Decemb ' 1688. Annoque RR. Jacobi Secundi Angl ' c. quarto THIS Court doth desire Mr. Recorder to print his Speech this day made to the Prince of Orange at the time of this Court 's attending his Highness with the Deputies of the several Wards and other Members of the Common Council Wagstaffe His Highness the Prince of Orange's Speech to the Scots Lords and Gentlemen With their Advice and his Highness's Answer With a true Account of what past at their Meeting in the Council-Chamber at Whitehall January 7th 168â— His Highness the Prince of Orange having caused Advertise such of the Scots Lords and Gentlemen as were in Town met them in a Room at St. James's upon Monday the Seventh of January at Three of the Clock in the Afternoon and had this Speech to them My Lords and Gentlemen THE only Reason that induced me to undergo so great an Vndertaking was That I saw the Laws and Liberties of these Kingdoms overturned and the Protestant Religion in Imminent Danger And seeing you are here so many Noblemen and Gentlemen I have called you together that I may have your Advice what is to be done for Securing the Protestant Religion and Restoring your Laws and Liberties according to my Declaration As soon as his Highness had retired the Lords and Gentlemen went to the Council-Chamber at Whitehall and having chosen the Duke of Hamilton their President they fell a consulting what Advice was fit to be given to his Highness in this Conjuncture And after some hours Reasoning they agreed upon the Materials of it and appointed the Clerks with such as were to assist them to draw up in Writing what the Meeting thought expedient to advise his Highness and to bring it in to the Meeting the next in the Afternoon Tuesday the Eighth Instant the Writing was presented in the Meeting And some time being spent in Reasoning about the fittest way of Coveening a General Meeting of the Estates of Scotland At last the Meeting came to agree in their Opinion and appointed the Advice to be writ clean over according to the Amendments But as they were about to part for that Dyet the Earl of Arran proposed to them as his Lordship's Advice that they should move the Prince of Orange to desire the King to return and call a Free Parliament which would be the best way to secure the Protestant Religion and Property and to
Regnis atque populi innumerabiles in Guerrâ illâ mortem mortis periculum sustinuerunt bona quoque catalla inaestimabilia thesauros innumerabiles pro sustentatione hujus guerrae Communes Regni hujus indefesse effuderunt Et quod graviùs dolendum est jam in diebus vestris tanta onera iis imposita pro guerris vestris sustinendis supportaverunt quod ad tantam pauperiem incredibilem deducti sunt quod nec reditus suos pro suis tenementis solvere possunt nec Regi subvenire nec vitae necessaria sibi ipsis ministrare depauperatur Regia potestas Dominorum Regni magnatum infelicitas adducitur atque totius populi debilitas Nam Rex depauperari nequit qui divitem habet populum nec dives esse potest qui pauperes habet communes Et mala haec omnia redundant non solum Regi sed omnibus singulis Dominis Proceribus Regni unicuique in suo gradu Et haec omnia eveniunt per iniquos ministros Regis qui malè gubernaverunt Regem Regnum usque in praesens Et nisi manus citiùs apponamus adjutrices remedii fulcimentum adhibeamus Regnum Angliae dolorosè attenuabitur tempore quo minus opinamur Sed unum aliud de nuncio nostro superest nobis ex parte populi vestri vobis intimare Habent enim EX ANTIQUO STATUTO de facto non longe retroactis temporibus experienter quod dolendum est habito si Rex EX MALIGNO CONSILIO QUOCUNQUE vel INEPTA CONTUMACIA aut CONTEMPTU seu PROTERVA VOLUNTATE SINGULARI aut QUOVIS MODO IRREGULARI se alienaverit à populo suo nec voluerit per jura Regni Statuta ac laudabiles Ordinationes cum salubri consilio Dominorum Procerum Regni gubernari regulari sed capitose in suis insanis consiliis propriam voluntatem suam singularem proterve exercere extunc licitum est iis cum communi assensu consensu Populi Regni ipsum REGEM DE REGALI SOLIO ABROGARE propinquiorem aliquem de stirpe Regiâ loco ejus in Regni solio sublimare H. Knighton Collect. 2681. Wherefore taking wholsome Advice they sent by common Assent of the whole Parliament the Lord Thomas de Woodstock Duke of Glocester and Thomas de Arundell Bishop of Ely to the King to Eltham to salute him on behalf of the Lords and Commons of his Parliament who express'd their Desires to the King to this effect Sir The Lords and all the Commons of your Parliament have themselves commended to your most excellent Majesty desiring the Success of your invincible Honour against the Power of your Enemies and a most firm Bond of Peace and Love in your Heart towards your Subjects for your good God-wards and the good of your Soul and to the unspeakable Comfort of all your People whom you govern On whose behalf we intimate these things to you That it appears to us by an antient Statute and by laudable and approved Vsage which cannot be deny'd that our King can call together the Peers of the Realm and the Commons once a year to his Parliament as to the supream Court of the whole Kingdom in which all Right and Justice ought to shine forth without any doubt or stain as the Sun at Noon-day where Poor and Rich may find an infallible Refuge to enjoy the Refreshments of Tranquillity and Peace and for repelling of Injuries where also Errors in Government are to be reformed and the State and Government of King and Kingdom treated upon by sage Advice and the destroying and repelling of both intestine and foreign Enemies to the King and Kingdom with most Convenience and Honour may be debated upon and provided for as also in what manner the Charges incumbent upon the King and Kingdom may be born with most ease to the Commonalty They conceive likewise that since they bear the incumbent Charges it concerns them to inspect how and by whom their Goods and Chattels are expended They say also that it appears to them by an antient Statute that if the King absent himself from his Parliament voluntarily not by reason of Sickness or for any other necessary cause but through an inordinate Will shall wantonly absent himself by the space of forty days as not regarding the Vexation of his People and their great Expences it shall then be lawful to all and singular of them to return to their own Homes without the King's leave And you have now been longer absent and have refused to come to them for what cause they know not Then said the King I now plainly see that my People and the Commons design to oppose me with Force and are about to make an Insurrection against me And if I be so infested I think the best course I can take will be to _____ my Cousin the King of France and ask his Advice and pray in aid of him against those that way-lay me and rather to submit my self to him than be foil'd by my own Subjects To which they reply'd That Counsel is not for your good but will inevitably tend to your ruin for the King of France is your capital Enemy and the greatest Adversary that your Kingdom has and if he should set his foot within your Kingdom he would rather endeavour to prey upon you and invade your Realm and to depose you from your Royal Dignity than afford you any Assistance if which God forbid you should stand in need of his help Call to mind therefore how your Grand-father King Edward III and your Father Prince Edward for him fought indefatigably in Sweat and Sorrow all their days and went through innumerable Hardships of Cold and Heat to acquire the Kingdom of France which by hereditary Right appertain'd to Them and does now to You by Succession after them Remember likewise how innumerable Lords and Commons of both Realms and Kings and Gentlemen of other Kingdoms and People innumerable perished or hazarded perishing in that War and that the Commons of this Realm pour'd out Goods of inestimable value and innumerable Sums of Money for the carrying on of that same War and which is more to be lamented they have now in your days undergone such heavy Taxes towards the maintaining of your Wars that they are reduced to such incredible Poverty that they cannot so much as pay their Rents for their Farms nor aid the King nor afford themselves Necessaries and the King himself is impoverish'd and the Lords become uneasy and all the People faint for a King cannot become poor that has a rich People nor can he be rich whose People are poor And all these Mischiefs redound not to the King only but also to all and singular the Peers of the Realm in proportion And all these Mischiefs happen by means of the King 's Evil Ministers who have hitherto misgovern'd both the King and Kingdom and if some course be not taken the Kingdom of England will
be miserably diminish'd sooner than we are aware But there remains yet another part of our Message which we have to impart to you on the behalf of your People They find in an antient Statute and it has been done in fact not long ago That if the King through any Evil Counsel or foolish Contumacy or out of Scorn or some singular petulant Will of his own or by any other irregular Means shall alienate himself from his People and shall refuse to be govern'd and guided by the Laws of the Realm and the Statutes and laudable Ordinances thereof together with the wholsom Advice of the Lords and great Men of his Realm but persisting head-strong in his own hare-brain'd Counsels shall petulantly prosecute his own singular humour That then it shall be lawful for them with the common assent and consent of the People of the Realm to depose that same King from his Regal Throne and to set up some other of the Royal Blood in his room H. Knight Coll. 2681. No Man can imagine that the Lords and Commons in Parliament would have sent the King such a Message and have quoted to him an old Statute for deposing Kings that would not govern according to Law if the People of England had then apprehended that an Obedience without reserve was due to the King or if there had not been such a Statute in being And though the Record of that Excellent Law be lost as the Records of almost all our Antient Laws are yet is the Testimony of so credible an Historian who lived when these things were transacted sufficient to inform us that such a Law was then known and in being and consequently that the Terms of English Allegiance according to the Constitution of our Government are different from what some Modern Authors would persuade us they are This Difference betwixt the said King and his Parliament ended amicably betwixt them in the punishment of many Evil Counsellors by whom the King had been influenced to commit many Irregularities in Government But the Discontents of the People grew higher by his After-management of Affairs and ended in the Deposition of that King and setting up of another who was not the next Heir in Lineal Succession The Articles against King Richard the Second may be read at large in H. Knighton Collect. 2746 2747 c. and are yet extant upon Record An Abridgment of them is in Cotton's Records pag. 386 387 388. out of whom I observe these few there being in all Thirty three The First was His wasting and bestowing the Lands of the Crown upon unworthy Persons and overcharging the Commons with Exactions And that whereas certain Lords Spiritual and Temporal were assign'd in Parliament to intend the Government of the Kingdom the King by a Conventicle of his own Accomplices endeavoured to impeach them of High-Treason Another was For that the King by undue means procured divers Justices to speak against the Law to the destruction of the Duke of Glocester and the Earls of Arundel and Warwick at Shrewsbury Another For that the King against his own Promise and Pardon at a solemn Procession apprehended the Duke of Glocester and sent him to Calice there to be choaked and murthered beheading the Earl of Arundel and banishing the Earl of Warwick and the Lord Cobham Another For that the King's Retinue and a Rout gathered by him out of Cheshire committed divers Murders Rapes and other Felonies and refused to pay for their Victuals Another For that the Crown of England being freed from the Pope and all other Foreign Power the King notwithstanding procured the Pope's Excommunication on such as should break the Ordinances of the last Parliament in derogation of the Crown Statutes and Laws of the Realm Another That he made Men Sheriffs who were not named to him by the Great Officers the Justices and others of his Council and who were unfit contrary to the Laws of the Realm and in manifest breach of his Oath Another For that he did not repay to his Subjects the Debts that he had borrowed of them Another For that the King refused to execute the Laws saying That the Laws were in his Mouth and Breast and that himself alone could make and alter the Laws Another For causing Sheriffs to continue in Office above a Year contrary to the tenor of a Statute-Law thereby incurring notorious Perjury Another For that the said King procured Knights of the Shires to be returned to serve his own Will Another For that many Justices for their good Counsel given to the King were with evil Countenance and Threats rewarded Another For that the King passing into Ireland had carried with him without the Consent of the Estates of the Realm the Treasure Reliques and other Jewels of the Realm which were used safely to be kept in the King 's own Coffers from all hazard And for that the said King cancelled and razed sundry Records Another For that the said King appear'd by his Letters to the Pope to Foreign Princes and to his Subjects so variable so dissembling and so unfaithful and inconstant that no Man could trust him that knew him insomuch that he was a Scandal both to himself and the Kingdom Another That the King would commonly say amongst the Nobles that all Subjects Lives Lands and Goods were in his hands without any forfeiture which is altogether contrary to the Laws and Vsages of the Realm Another For that he suffered his Subjects to be condemned by Martial-Law contrary to his Oath and the Laws of the Realm Another For that whereas the Subjects of England are sufficiently bound to the King by their Allegiance yet the said King compell'd them to take new Oaths These Articles with some others not altogether of so general a concern being considered and the King himself confessing his Defects the same seemed sufficient to the whole Estates for the King's Deposition and he was depos'd accordingly The Substance and Drift of all is That our Kings were antiently liable to and might lawfully be deposed for Oppression and Tyranny for Insufficiency to govern c. in and by the great Council of the Nation without any breach of the old Oath of Fealty because to say nothing of the nature of our Constitution express and positive Laws warranted such Proceedings And therefore the Frame of our Government being the same still and the Terms of our Allegiance being the same now that they were then without any new Obligations superinduced by the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy a King of England may legally at this day for sufficient cause be deposed by the Lords and Commons assembled in a Great Council of the Kingdom without any breach of the present Oaths of Supremacy or Allegiance Quod erat demonstrandum MANTISSA WHen Stephen was King of England whom the People had chosen rather than submit to Mawd tho the Great Men of the Realm had sworn Fealty to her in her Father's life-time Henry Duke of Anjou Son of the said Mawd afterwards King Henry the Second invaded the Kingdom An. Dom. 1153 which was towards the latter-end of King Stephen's Reign and Theobald Archbishop of Canterbury endeavoured to mediate a Peace betwixt them speaking frequently with the King in private and sending many Messages to the Duke and Henry Bishop of Winchester took pains likewise to make them Friends Factum est autem ut mense Novembris in fine mensis EX PRAECEPTO REGIS ET DUCIS Collect. pag. 1374 1375. convenirent apud Wintoniam Praesules Principes Regni ut ipsi jam initae paci praeberent assensum unanimiter juramenti Sacramento confirmarent i.e. It came to pass that in the Month of November towards the latter end of the Month at the summons of the King and of the Duke the Prelats and Great Men of the Kingdom were assembled at Winchester that they also might assent to the Peace that was concluded and unanimously swear to observe it In that Parliament the Duke was declared King Stephen's adopted Son and Heir of the Kingdom and the King to retain the Government during his Life I observe only upon this Authority That there being a Controversy betwixt the King and the Duke which could no otherwise be determined and settled but in a Parliament the Summons of this Parliament were issued in the Names of both Parties concerned Quisquis habet aures ad audiendum audiat FINIS