A TORY Plot OR THE DISCOVERY OF A DESIGN Carried on by our late ADDRESSERS AND ABHORRERS To Alter the Constitution of the Government And to Betray the PROTESTANT RELIGION By Philanax Misopappas LONDON Printed for N. L. to be sold by Richard Janeway 1682. TO THE READER I Am so heartily desirous of an Vnion amongst all that go under the Name of Protestants against the Common Enemy the Papists that I would never have singled out any of them under so black a Character as the Title gives them if their designs had not been so palpable and to unite with them were not to endeavour to alter the Constitution of the Government and to give the Protestant Religion its fatal blow I am far from laying this charge upon all the subscribers of our late Addresses for as there are many of them such as no good subject would refuse to subscribe if he did not think them needless so I have that charity for many that were induced to subscribe even the most obnoxious that they did it rather in complacence to the importunity of the Promoters than to serve any bad design But I cannot so acquit the Contrivers of them as none that loves the English Laws and Liberties and the Protestant Religion will I believe think there is any reason I should when he has read the following Animadversions Whether the Presenters were chosen out of the chief of these or whether they were but made use of like the Cat 's foot that the odium and it may be punishment might one day rest upon them I cannot tell But if one may make an estimate of the Promoters in general by some of those that presented them Esq Duppa will tell you they did not very well deserve that countenance and honour that was given them for their labour For it was somewhat pleasant to observe our young Knights ranked in the Gazette Nov. 10. last with Run-away servants and stray'd Horses for not paying their Fees and threatned that course would speedily be taken for recovery thereof according to His Majestie 's late Order and Directions thereupon As to the Discourse it self I must beg the Reader 's patience while he peruses the former part of it if he think I am too long in coming to the business for it was necessary first to take a view of the just and orderly proceedings of the late Parliaments if one would expose the designs of our Addressers that have loaded them with so many Calumnies It is an undoubted priviledge of Parliament that none should be question'd out of it for any thing spoken or transacted in it And yet at how many Barrs have the whole House of Commons been of late arraigned and condemned Common humanity teaches to speak well of the dead though faulty but to revile ones own flesh and bloud when gone though truly Loyal and faithful is intolerable barbarity But when his Majesty shall say to these dry bones Live and they shall stand upon their feet they will be the fittest to declare their resentment of such prophane trampling upon their Ashes ERRATA Pag. 10. l. 15. r. Addressers p. 16. l. 21. r. unreasonable p. 23. l. 13. dele by THat there has been a design carried on for many years of extirpating the miscalled pestilent heresie of Protestantism and re-establishing the Roman Catholick Religion in these Kingdoms none after so evident and repeated proofs of it can have the impudence to deny and least of all should we expect it of them who have pretended that deference to the publick judgment or Conscience as they term it of the Nation that they have delivered it as their opinion that every private one ought to conform to it For if the unanimous resolution of three or four Parliaments and the sundry intimations and acknowledgments of several Proclamations are not in their opinion a sufficient declaration of the common or publick judgment nor that a competent ground to settle their belief upon I know not what can be suppos'd to be For though perhaps when they talk of a publick Conscience they mean none but the Kings yet if ever the King be infallible I would the readiliest expect him to be so when he has the concurrent advice and consent of the whole Nation And I think it most reasonable to assert That there is infinitely greater cause and security for conforming our belief to the opinion of the King Lords and Commons in a matter of fact examined with the greatest care and scrutiny than that our practice should exactly square to their Laws be the matter of them never so controvertible which yet these Gentlemen will affirm they ought to do Supposing then that the aforesaid Resolves and Proclamations were not made nor issued without th maturest deliberation and fullest assurance of the truth of those Testimonies and Evidence that occasion'd them it cannot be reputed too great credulity to believe that Popery was to be introduc'd by those means and methods that the discoverers of the Plot attested Those are so well known that I shall not need to enter upon particulars As to Scotland and Ireland in which the design was laid as well as in England affairs have been so managed that it is still as to us kept in a great measure secret But as to England a Nation always jealous of their Rights and Liberties it was despaired that she would ever be wheedled to put on the Roman yoke and therefore there was no hopes of bringi g that about but by force And now there wanted a plausible pretence to get up an Army We were secure and quiet at home and therefore no occasion for any standing Army to quell Insurrections which was the occasion of getting one a foot in our neighbour Nation We were at Amity with all Christendom therefore no reason to stand upon our guard or arm for our defence But the genius of the English being most adverse to the French the making a show of a War with them was hoped would be least opposed or suspected And though a great many of the more sagacious could hardly believe that we sincerely intend ed to force the French to end that War that we had encourag'd them to begin and enabled them with Men Horses and Ammunition in abundance to prosecute yet so apprehensive were the greater number of the danger of the growing greatness of that Monarch and so willing to believe what they so earnestly desir'd that not only was the King Impos'd upon by those that were about him but the Parliament thereupon assembled induc'd to comply with the design Accordingly an Army of thirty thousand men or upwards is appointed to be raised and a proportionable Tax Leavied for their Pay But still as the Forces encreased the more eager were our Plenipotentiaries at Niâ—eguen for making up a Peace Which at last was got patch'd up with so little advantage to the Confederates whose quarrel we made a shew to espouse that they have lost more by the Peace than
it is obvious to say that it is a Solecism and Non-sense to affirm that any one is a man's Heir or Successor while himself lives for the Successor only commences such at his Predecessor's death And therefore he that intentionally swears Allegeance to the former in the life-time of the latter is in plain terms a Traytor For the plain intent and meaning of the Oath is no more than this That seeing in Monarchies that are hereditary there is no Interregnum but upon the death of the present Soveraign his Successor is immediately invested in his power it is prudently provided by this Oath that the Subjects Allegeance shall not be suspended till the new Soveraign's Coronation that thereby the mutual stipulation might be renewed but as the Heir 's entring upon the Gevernment does imply that he accepts it upon the same conditions as his Predecessor held it so does this Oath as effectually bind the Subject before the Coronation as after And hereby are very great hazards and inconveniences prevented for Multa cadunt inter calicem supremaque labra and the Coronation being usually perform'd with great pomp and ceremony many accidents may happen before all things can be prepared for the Solemnity that may require the utmost service of the people and therefore 't is requisite they should in the mean time be under his command But now all the question is Whether such a particular man has so unalterable a right to be such a ones Heir that no Crime can forfeit that right no Power annul it What the Crime in our present case is we should better have known if the hasty dissolution of so many Parliaments and a Noli prosequi had not hindred But that we may resolve this Query let us make a Fiction of Case Suppose the present King and his Ancestors for several Generations sincere and hearty professors of the Protestant Religion swearing at their Coronation that they will defend and protect it as the most considerable branch of the Law of the Land And suppose him that expects to be Heir perverted from this to the Popish Religion notwithstanding the examples of his Ancestors and the Commands of his Martyr'd Father to the contrary Suppose his principal Servant and greatest Confident braging of the apparent likelihood of rooting out this pestilent Northern Heresie and of the zeal of his Master in the Cause declaring that his Master's and a Neighbouring Monarch's Interest the most dangerous enemy to his Country are inseparable Suppose this Confident also actually engag'd in contriving the Murther of the present Monarch to hasten his Master's coming to the Crown Supposing all this we can hardly imagine a Crime to be blacker or a person more obnoxious to a suspicion of designing the subversion of the establisht Religion and in it of the Government if ever he should be seated in the Throne So that if any Crimes can be a sufficient cause of Exclusion or if any person can be put by his pretensions to the Crown these are the Crimes and this is the person that demerit it And now let us consider whether a Parliament have not a power to inflict such a punishment on such offences It is from the Laws enacted by Parliament that such a Fact has such a punishment awarded to it That Felonies are punished with Death as well as Murder though it be otherwise in many Countries and also by the Divine Law That Words without any other Overt Act are as Treasonable and render the Speakers liable to the same death and like forfeit of Estate as actual Assassinating the King would do The Parliament can make saying that which in the nature of the thing is not impossible to be true to be Treason The King alone to those offences that by the Law deserve death can appoint banishment or perpetual imprisonment c. if they respect himself only but if the people be interested then can He with the two Houses inflict what punishment they please They can Attaint any man or take off the Attainder as they see good They can legitimate a Bastard or illegitimate one that is born in lawful Wedlock Of both we have Instances in Q. Mary and Q. Elizabeth for both of them in 28 H. 8. were declared illegitimate whereas one of them must needs be legitimate and in 35 H. 8. they were both of them rendred inheritable to the Crown which must needs be as much as legitimate though one of them must necessarily be illegitimate the latter being born while the former's Mother was living For if according to the determination of the Universities domestick and foreign the Brother by the Law of God might not Marry the Relict of his Brother then King Henry's Marriage with Queen Mary's Mother that had been his elder Brother Prince Arthur's Wife was unlawful and consequently null in it self ab initio before the declaration of it in Parliament in Ann. 24. of his Reign or if it was not unlawful nor null then must his Marriage with Queen Elizabeths Mother be certainly unlawful and consequently Queen Elizabeth illegitimate They can Divorce a man from his Wife for other causes than Adultery so that the Parties shall be at liberty to Marry others Non obstante our Saviour's declaration as to the Jewish Oeconomy yea they can and have granted such a power to Doctors Commons that Impotency in the Man shall be a sufficient cause for divorce or a nullity as we had an Instance about four years ago in one Rowley and Mrs Pitman his wife And by the way if impotency be a sufficient cause for dissolving the sacred tye of Marriage because the main end of Marriage the propagating mankind is thereby frustrated it may be equally reasonable to debar such an one the Espousal of the Government as 't is notorious before hand is perverted to an utter incapacity of answering the ends of it And on the other side the Parliament can grant a divorce if the Woman be incapable of generation and so was Henry the eighth in the 32 year of his Reign divorced from his Queen the Lady Anne of Cleve who survived to the fourth year of Queen Mary but the King married again within little more than a month after this divorce But to proceed The two Houses can give away the whole Kingdom to the King so as to make him sole possessor of all and He and they can dispose of or alienate the Crown-lands or any branch of the King's Revenue as they please They can banish any man and make him in worse condition than an Alien and on the other hand can naturalize any Foreigner In a word they have an unbounded absolute dominion over the Lives Liberties and Estates of any subject in the Kingdom and such is every one but the King himself We have had Instances of Queens being beheaded in relation to which we shall not need to inquire whether they were really guilty of the Crimes laid to their charge 't is sufficient to observe that
and reasonably politick and if applied to the case in hand nothing more expedient For when matters are come to this pass that either a Nation in general must be deprived of all that is dear to them their Religion their Liberties and it may be their Lives or that one man that will be the Author of all this mischief must be put out of a capacity to effect it though by excluding him from a Right which otherwise he were intitled to it needs not much deliberation what course to take seeing I have already proved that to resolve upon this latter is not contrary to Law is most consonant to Equity and above all the most expedient Which last consideration I shall pursue no further being so excellently done already in The Character of a Popish Successor Having thus vindicated the passing of the Bill of Exclusion I have in doing so detected the designs and interests those have espoused that have on this account calumniated these Honourable and Loyal Senators with endeavours to subvert the Government establisht with Republican designs with the Nick-name of Presbyterians and all that 's odious His Majesty indeed has the natural affection towards a Brother his incomparable lenity of disposition and his consciousness of having deserved so infinitely of those that seek his ruine that he cannot easily believe there can be so monstrous ingratitude in nature I say he has all these to Apologize for his not giving countenance to the Bill and to keep Him in the good opinion of his Loyal Subjects But for others that have none of these colour'd Glasses to look through they may indeed affirm as they do that white is black but they lie against the truth and their own eyes and prove nothing with all their confident clamour but that they are well pleas'd at the King's danger and triumph in the hopes of a Successor for their turn This will be more plain by and by when I come to examine the Addresses which will also give us occasion to observe the perverse construction they give of the Act for repealing 35 Eliz. This Parliament indeed deserves the heaviest censure for striking down so strong a pillar of the Cause as the Lord Stafford when one and thirty Lords had set to their shoulders to support it Losers may have leave to speak and we 'll hear what they can say when we have taken a turn to Oxford This Session continued almost three months and brought forth but three living Acts a fourth was still-born and never saw the light After a prorogation for a few dayes this Parliament was dissolved and another called to assemble at Oxford that seeing Pisgah had proved so unfortunate it might be tryed whether Peor would be more favourable It was fit the people should be minded of his Majesties Prerogative and whatever private reasons the King might have for it the subject had a satisfactory reason when they understood their Sovereign would have it so Some insinuated to his Majesty that it was ominous but He was not so superstitious as to apprehend any danger in going thither tho' perhaps too apprehensive of it since his return back There was a great concourse of people many going thither in complement to their Members many meerly out of curiosity being invited with the Novelty and some perhaps over sagacious to defend the Assembly if they should be assaulted by the Papists The House of Commons declared to all the world as the Speaker exprest it in his Speech at his presentment to the King that they were not given to change which was true as he meant it seeing he had been Speaker too in the last Parliament but was also prophetical for they still pursued the same means for preservation of the Protestant Religion and the King's person The Bill of Exclusion that past the House the last Parliament is still esteemed the only thing that can do it Sir L. J. condemns it of injustice irreligion perjury which I think I have sufficiently vindicated it from but it was observed he had no body to second him his objections were such down-right Cant. Others of the Duke's friends finding the House absolutely of opinion that it was lawful endeavour to stave it off by offering an Expedient that might as well answer the ends of that Bill and not be subject to such incoveniencies And that was That the Duke should have the title of King but the Regency or administration of the Kingly power should be in the next Heir A pretty wheedle as if by granting the Name to the immediate Successor and thereby declaring that the right was in him would not give him a fairer pretence and opportunity of usurping the Power likewise than if he were excluded the title as well as administration Besides this Expedient is founded on this bottom it must suppose him to be either an intolerable knave or a perfect fool a desperate Villain or a Madman His greatest enemies would acquit him of the latter imputation and his friends from the former so that the Person and the Power would soon be piec'd together Sir F. W. said that seeing an Act of Parliament against common sence is void and that it were a contradiction and non-sense to make a man King and not to suffer him to exercise Kingly power if such an Act should pass it would signifie nothing unless it were to shew that the House of Commons were out-witted It was clearly carried therefore that it was safer nay that it was absolutely necessary that the old Bill of Exclusion should be insisted on But there was another business in this Parliament that made as great a controversie and which occasioned the speedy dissolution of it Edw. Fitz-Harris had hired Mr. Everard to draw up a treasonable libel in the name of the Nonconformists giving him instructions for it which was to be printed and sent about by the Penny-post to the Protesting Lords and the Leading men of the House of Commons c. who were to be taken up assoon as they had it upon hopes that upon search it might be found about them This sham-plot being discovered to authority Fitz-Harris was seis'd on and committed to Newgate where inclining to confess the bottom of the design he was transmitted to the Tower Sir R. C. and Sir G. T. give information of his confession that he had made to them to the House Whereupon the House Resolve That the same Edw. Fitz-Harris be impeached of High Treason in the name of all the Commons of England and that Mr. Secretary Jenkins do go up and Impeach him at the Barr of the Lords House But the Lords refused to proceed upon this Impeachment and directed that he should be proceeded against at the Common Law This the Commons Resolve to be a denial of Justice a violation of the Constitution of Parliaments an obstruction to the further discovery of the Plot and of great danger to his Majesties person and the Protestant Religion And indeed not to mention that the