the Customs Priviledges Charters and Governments of all the Cities and Boroughs by whom Four parts in Five of the Members of the Commons in Parliament are to be chosen by the Custom of England and to bring all these Bodies Politick and all their Magistrates and Officers to be dependant on the Kings Will and to be obliged as His Creatures not the Cities and Towns Trustees to serve his Popish and Arbitrary Designs or to be turned out of their Places at His Pleasure and such as are either Papists or more Ignorant and Corrupt put into their Places 'T is known to all that for this purpose to destroy our Government under colour of Law there have been causless Writs of Quo warranto's brought by the King against most of the Cities and Boroughs of the Kingdom those were seconded by Instruments appointed to terrifie the Magistrates of the Cities and Towns with the Kings severe Displeasure if they dared to insist upon their legal Right and contest with the King at Law to fright them with the intolerable charge that their legal Defence would cost them more than they could bear and boldly affirming that they could not hope to maintain their Customs Priviledges and Charters against the King since he was resolved to have them at His Command then they tempted them with Promises of new Charters if they would comply and surrender their Old Liberties into the Kings Hands and pretended that the Names of all that refused it must be returned to the Kings Attorney General 'T is no less known that Judges were prepared to damn the Pleas of all such Cities and Towns as would stand upon their Right and Plead to the Quo warranto's as the Magistrates of London resolved to do their Common-Council refusing to surrender their Liberties notwithstanding all Commands Terrors and Intreaties that were used to them they knew it was not in their Power to betray their City nor in the Kings Power to receive unto himself those Customs Powers and Priviledges which the Great Charter and the Common Law had given them But such Judges as would not judge that Ancient Body Politick that had holden their Customs above 1000 Years to be dissolved were turned out and all the Freedoms and Privileges due to the Citizens and their Heirs and to the City and their Successors were declared by the Judges to be Forfeited His now Majesties Instruments thereby preparing His Way under the shadow of the late King to destroy the Government of all other Cities and Towns by frightning them into surrenders or making a President for Judgment against them and it hath taken such Effect that the Tenure of almost all those Bodies Politick is illegally changed and the Cities and Towns brought to such a forlorn Estate that they have no Magistrates or Officers but at the Kings Will and during His Pleasure As there is an actual subversion of the Freedom of the Government of the Cities and Towns the Tenure of their Magistrates and their free Customs being utterly destroyed and those that now Exercise the Magistracies therein being incapable to chuse freely and indifferently and to return legally Members for Parliament so there are continual attempts upon the personal Freedom and Indifferency of all the Electors for Parliament throughout the Kingdom His Majesty has personally sollicited and attached so many of them by His smiles and frowns in secret to accept of such for their Deputies in Parliament as will comply with His Designs that His Closeting Electors is become a By-word amongst the People He has made them consent to be barr'd of their Freedom in Electing for Parliament and in Voting therein if they be chosen to be a Test of their Fitness to hold their Offices and Imployments of Profit and Trust and to have place in the Magistracy The Three Questions to that purpose are known to all which His Majesties Ministers required to be answered by the Justices of the Peace and all other Officers The Lord Lieutenants of all the Counties by the Kings special Command have Summoned the chief Officers and Gentlemen in His Majesties Name to flatter or terrifie them out of the use of their Freedom in Electing for Parliament and Marks of the Kings Displeasure have been put upon those that resolved to keep their Freedom and indifferency to Elect worthy and fit Deputies according to their Judgments and Consciences An unheard-of-sort of Commissioners as to their Qualities and Instructions are lately sent from His Majesty throughout England to Delude or Affright the Electors into a Choice of such Members for a Convention to be called a Parliament as will engage to serve His Designs of abolishing all those Ancient Laws and Tests that are the only Humane Securities of the free Profession of our Religion and the clearest Authoritative Declarations of the Rights of the Crown and the Liberties of the People There need not be plainer Proofs that the Ax is lay'd to the Root of our Civil Government as the most certain way to introduce the Laws and Religion of Rome Yet to convince the whole World in this matter His Majesty has published a Second Declaration wherein He has positively declared His Mind that none ought to be imployed under Him in the Kingdom who will not contribute to these His Designs and choose such Members of Parliament as may do their part to finish what He has begun He has pronounced all that shall refuse it to be neither Good Christians nor Lovers of their Countries Wealth and Power and He Declares that He has begun His intended form of Government sutable to those Principles having turned out by His Absolute Will many Civil and Military Officers throughout the Kingdom in pursuance of this great Work. This puts it out of dispute that His Majesty thinks He ought not to suffer any Free Election for Parliament whilst there are such numbers of Faithful Protestants to Contest for the Elections who cannot in Conscience contribute to the Work He has begun That is upon pretence of Liberty of Conscience to allow His Majesty to surrender unto the Pope the Rights and Freedom of the Crown and the Kingdom or to acknowledge that the People of England ought by the Laws of GOD and CHRIST to be subjected to the Church of Rome's Laws and Jurisdictions in their Persons and great part of their Estates That the Pope and His Priests and Canonists should judge them by their Canons in the lawfulness of their Marriages and Contracts and legitimate or bastard their Heirs as they please that the disposal of their Goods and Chattels by their Last Wills their Debts about Tythes and their Good Names and Bodies on pretence of penances should be in their Power and Will. This is the Work begun by His Majesty which Dishonours and Debases the English Imperial Crown and subverts the Native Freedom and the Civil Properties and Interests of English Men. Those are the proper Matters and Occasions of most of our Penal Laws in matters Ecclesiastical
to persons disabled to bear them by positive and direct Acts of Parliament made for that very purpose and declared to be for the peoples security nevertheless the King hath put most of the Offices of the Kingdom in the hands of those that are so disabled It s as certain it never was in the power of our Kings to dispossess at their Wills any of the subjects of those interests and profits which they had for their lives nor to Commission any to judge his Subjects finally in matters criminal or civil by their discretion without any regard to the Laws Customs and priviledges of the Realm These and many other powers 〈…〉 ight name to your Hss are not the actings of and English legal Monarch but an a 〈…〉 Persons the Liberties and Interests of the Subjects as if he alone had at least the Property paramount in all â—â—â—ir persons and their Interests which in all civil Governments belongs only to the Lawful Legislators and as if the people of England wâ—â—â— Tenant of his meer will to what they have and had no right nor Interest in their Laws Customs or Franchises nor 〈◊〉 Justice to demand the benefit of them Nothing can compleat his Majestys renuntiation of the Trusts and Obligation of the English Regal Office save only that he assume as he now doth actually to take from the Citys and Boroughs intirely all their Customs and Priviledges and free Election of their Magistrates confirmed to them expressely by the great Charter and many other Laws and that he deprive all the rest of the people of their Liberty to chuse such persons as they please according to the Statutes to Consent for them to the Laws that shall bind them their Estates and Lives as he hath declared he will and intends and is every day doing and then the antient rightful and Free English Government will be manifestly and intirely dissolved and Englishmen shall have no Legal right to their Estates their Wives and Children or their Lives There will be then no legal English Monarchy in England trusted by the Laws with high Royal Prerogatives for the joynt safety and benefit of the King and the subjects acknowledging themselves to be bound by an Oath to maintain the Customs Laws and Franchises of the Realm and to take continual care for the Execution of the Laws impartially for that purpose every man shall then have equal and eternal right to every hing as this King will and his Popish forces shall dispose of it and so long only as he shall please to continue in the same mind with the same force 'T is with bleeding hearts that in this manifest extream oppression and danger we beg your Highnesses aid to defend the rights of the Crown and the Realm There can be no question of your Hss right to defend the same the Legal Monarchy and Government by our antient Customs Laws and Franchises to save the antient Penal Laws against the Popes Vsurpations and the latter Laws for the Reformation of our Religion from Popery and to preserve the special Customs and Priviledges of the Cities and Boroughs as well as the General Customs of the Kingdom which our Customs and Laws only have vested in your Hss the next right Expectant of the English Crown and if no Prince shall be born Rege etiam renitente tho the King shall do all that 's possible for him to hinder you If you suffer them to be destroyed or to be disused and deemed to be of no force but as the King shall please by his Judges and Courts and by all that he shall possess of the Power of the Kingdom Your Highnesses claym and rights as Expectant of the Crown is in like manner destroyed and set aside and the whole arbitrary Magistracy serving his Will and all his Popish forces Foraigners and Natives will be ingaged in Interest and misguided Conscience to oppose your Highnesses claim by the Laws and Customs of England there will be indeed in the State to which the King hath brought the Kingdom no legal Magistrates nor Government in being and use unto which her Royal Highness can immediately succeed according to the Customs and Laws of England the Kingdom must be a confused Multitude and the strongest may subdue the rest to their Will. As your Highnesses have a right to save the Government by reason of your great Interest in it so all the People have an unquestionable right to seek your Highnesses Aid therein and 't is one of the principal Duties of the Christian Religion and will be one of the best outward Expressions of their Love to God and Jesus Christ to assist your Highness in all your righteous ways defending their Just Civil Government being instituted by God for preserving Justice among humane Societies The People that love their Neighbours and Countries as Christian Religion commands ought not carelesly nor irreligiously to suffer their Civil Government their Laws and all their Rights and Interest that their Country hold by them for themselves and Posterities to be destroyed by any Man's Will Superstition or Ambition He that was at first a Legal Supream Magistrate and ought to have been obeyed if he would have so continued tho he had done many Injustices to particular Persons he may cast off the Quality and Use of the Power of a Legal Supream Magistrate and use and exercise Power destructive to all the Legal Trusts and Office and then he devests himself of that Office and Trust of a lawful Magistracy unto which the Laws of God and the Kingdom require Obedience The ancient Kings of England acknowledged the Peoples Right to save their Free Government if any of the Kings themselves would have dishonorably parted with the Rights of the Crown and the Realm We mentioned the Letter of H. I. to the Pope and that great Prince Ed. I. on the like occasion of Power claymed by the Pope not only writ to the Pope to the same Effect as H. I. did but by his consent Letters were written to Pope Boniface by the Lords and Commons in Parliament wherein they told the Pope that they were bound by Oath to the Observation and Defence of their Liberty Customs and ancient Laws and would maintain them with all their Power and Force and that they neither did nor ever would could or ought to suffer the King tho he would to do or any ways attempt what the Pope desired contrary to their Customs since it would be to the Destruction of the Rights of the Crown of England and the Kingly Dignity and the Subversion of the Statutes of the Kingdom and Prejudice of their antient Liberties Customs and Laws Since then your Hss have an undoubted right to interpose between the King and us in your own and the Kingdoms behalf to save our ancient legal Government and in special our Laws for the Reformation of our Christian Religion we humbly offer that besides the former Demands about the supposed Prince your Hss will please to
Excluded she brought forth a Prince that was afterwards chosen Emperor Frederic the 2 d. If it were needful we could shew Your Highness that the Honour and Security of our Royal Family of England with the peace and safety of the Kingdom were intended in the Constitution of our Legal Monarchy in such manner that the Kings should not have Power at their will to Change the Succession or by any means prevent the Descent of the Crown to the next in Blood. But if the Kingdom should believe his Majesties Affirmation of this supposed Princes Birth without proof thereof according to the Laws and Customs of England the next Succession were really and actually thereby put out of the Legal Course and referred to the will of the King which is in effect to make the Crown Patrimonial whereas by the Laws and Customs of England the Right to the Crown descends to the next of Blood and the Successor is most properly to be stiled the Heir of the Kingdoms by force of the Kingdoms Laws and cannot be defeated of the Succession by any Act of the Predecessor if therefore the King should gain so vast a power by imposing on the People to believe his Attestation of this supposed Princes Birth 't is manifest that natural Justice as well as the Law of England makes it of no force or effect to the prejudice of her Royal Highness in her Esteem of being the Heiress apparent to the Crown We believe the Jesuits and other maintainers of this supposed Prince will claim as is their common practice against these our Laws whose force detects and defeats their Impostures they will pretend that 't is unreasonable to expect a Testimony of his Birth from such Witnesses and in such manner as are herein described exclusive of all Roman Catholicks but the reason and wisdom of these Laws are irresistible and its a great Circumstance shewing their guilt that they are displeased with the Laws that prevent Falsehood and Impostures and require proofs of Facts as clear as the Sun. The just and innocent are never offended at any Law that provide for Truth and Righteousness they cannot but be conscious to themselves that it was more easie to have provided such Witnesses as our Laws requires of a Princes Birth then to have had such as they provided that would Counterfeit to be Spectators and be content as 't is now said they were to see nothing of the Fact of which they were to be published to the Kingdom to have been the knowing Eye Witnesses 'T is notorious that the presence of ten of the Protestant Nobility of either Sex and other persons of Eminent Quality might have been as easily procured as one of the Catholicks if it had been intended to deal justly and fairly with the Kingdom and they know that the Protestants throwout Europe not the Papists wanted and desired satisfaction about the Queens great Belly and her delivery the suspitions of a Counterfeit Prince were strong amongst them and decryed by all the Papists they knew the Friends and those of Consanguinity with her Royal Hss were as ready to attend if they had been called as any Catholick whatsoever and they were not ignorant that Custom Law and Natural Justice required that Convenient notice should have been given to her Royal Highness above all others of the Expected time of the Queens Delivery that such Noble Matrons as she had thought Necessary might have been sent to have Continually attended near her Majesty and to have been impartial Witnesses of the Birth beyond Exception they understood the custom of calling Embassadors to be present at the Queen Delivery and that a Common fame of a designed Imposture was spread in forraign Protestant Countries and that there were Envoys and Publick Ministers from some of them Especially that the Dutch had an Embassador there and Expected to have been called they know that those Provisions for legal unquestionable proof of the Birth that was pretended have been no hindrance of the presence or assistance of as many Papists of each Sex as Her Majesty had desired and she might have as intirely depended upon their only help if it had been her pleasure as if those lawful Witnesses had not been present The Popish Councils delude his Majesty if they perswade him that any pleas of Inadvertency Neglect or Ignorance can satisfy the Kingdom instead of the proofs in the Case that the Custom and Laws of England require 't is a Rule of our Law that none shall make advantage of their own lachez that is their Failers or neglects of what they ought to have done less evidence is never to be accepted in our course of Judicature because the Party concerned was negligent in seeking it or ignorant when he might have known his duty We presume Your Highness in reading this may be satisfyed in the Truth of our first Preliminary Conclusion which is necessary to be always remembred in order to a just Judgment to be made of this supposed Prince of Wales and of the things proper to be done by Your Highness by reason or occasion of his pretences we doubt not Your Highness will clearly perceive what you may in justice demand of his Majesty in the Case preserving nevertheless a most pious sense of a fillial Duty We may more remember Your Highness that as the case now appears no acknowledgment of that pretended Prince can justly be required of Your Highness by his Majesty It s contrary to Justice and our Laws that her Royal Highness should depart from her place and claim of Heiress apparent to the Crown and resign it to a Child who is not yet lawfully witnessed to have been born of the Queen VVe therefore put your Highness in remembrance of a second Conclusion fit to be premised in this Case as an absolute certainty to be insisted on that is That neither the Laws of England nor any natural or Civil Justice do require of your Highness any kind of Testimonies or proofs that the pretences of this supposed Prince of Wales are false and feigned or that he was not born of the Queen Whosoever claims to be the natural and legitimate Son of any Family it s wholly and solely incumbent on him to prove it by the Laws and Customs of all Civil Governments and by the manifest Light of Nature those two Rules of the Civil Law are adopted by all Countries into their courses of Judicature Qualem quis se facit pro fundamento intentionis suae talem se debet probare and Filius qui petit haereditatem tanquam filius debet probare filiationem if Sonship or other quality or relation be the ground of a demand that Foundation must be always proved by the demandant if he that pretends to be Heir by his Birth to any inheritance fails of such sufficient Witnesses as the respective Laws of Countries require to prove his proximity of Blood there needs no Testimony on the part of those that deny his Linal Descent
The Course of the Law of England is known to most Englishman in the Tryal of all claims by Birth the claimant is always put to prove all that he sets forth of his Descent in his Declaration and the least defect of proof is fatal to his process if the Defendant perceives the piantiff to want sufficient legal Testimony of his Descent and Birth he never troubles the Court with proofs on his behalf 't is enough for him that denies the Descent pretended to shew the insufficiency of the Witnesses and their Testimony produced to prove it Your Highness is not obliged either by our Laws or Natural Justice to have VVitnesses to prove the pretended Prince of VVales to be an Impocture Her Royal Highness having been the legal acknowledged Heiress apparent of the Crown Unless such Lawful Witnesses that he was born of the Queen were known and published as did satisfie the Kingdom neither your Highness nor any Princes or States may in Justice acknowledg his pretences her Royal Highness ought to remain in the esteem of the Kingdom and of all Princes ann States as the Heiress apparent of the Crown at least until a Prince shall be legally known and declared and 't is a manifest wrong to your Highness to the Kingdom and to all the Protestants Interest to suffer this supposed Prince silently and submissively without publick Complaint of the wrong to assume the Name of Prince and Heir apparent to the Crown When the Popish League endeavoured to set aside the claim of your Highness's Ancestor Henry 4. to the Crown of France and proclaimed the Cardinal of Bulloign to be King he sent Agents to the Pope though he was then a Protestant and to all the Princes and States of Christendom to manifest himself to be the right lawful Heir of that Crown and the Venetian State to his vast advantage contested it with the Popes Nuncio that they ought so to acknowledg him because it appeared that he was the right Heir His Right indeed was to be King in possession but there is the like reason and justice to support her Royal Highness Title to the Crown in reversion since another is set up and declared throughout the World to be the right Heir of it immediately after his now Majesty 'T is undoubtedly just and reasonable for her to demand and expect that the pretenders Birth so much and so justly suspected should be made manifest to the Kingdom by Witnesses without exception according to the Law and Custom of England and to natural Equity It may be of dangerous consequence to suffer a false Opinion of him in the Kingdom and the world to gain strength by time and neglect yet neither Law nor Equity puts any burden of proof in the Case upon your Highness 't is only incumbent upon your Highness to declare the wrong to your selves and the Kingdom by the pretended Prince and to take care that no illegal imperfect or fallacious Testimony in the Case be invented or obtruded upon your selves and the Kingdom to support his pretences her Royal Highness claim and right to be the next in reversion after his now Majesty in the legal descent of the Crown ought to stand unshaken and unquestionable in the Judgment of our Law and the Kingdom notwithstanding any thing to the contrary that hath been hitherto lawfully published or declared We cannot doubt but 't is here made manifest that your Highness publick refusal to acknowledg this pretended Prince of Wales may be built upon such sure Foundations of Law and Justice as can never be overturned we would not therefore trouble your Highness with all the Circumstances of the Case which we have remarked in our Observations that make it to us not only improbable but incredible that he was born of the Queen Since 't is not possible for us to send Witnesses personally to prove to your Highness every circumstance that we have noted and 't is not just that Your Highness should take them up upon unknown Authority since we cannot in prudence subscribe our Names to this Memorial nor so much as the Names of our Witnesses to the Facts since the Proof of the Circumstances can never be a Foundation of positive unquestionable certainty but can only serve to make the Falsehood and Jesuitical contrivance in this imposture more infamous and odious since 't is undoubtedly Your Highness Interest never to depart from the manifest Principle of Law and Justice which put it wholly and entirely upon the Maintainers of the supposed Prince to prove him to be such as they pretend with the highest human certainty that can be acquired by Witnesses and to the Kingdoms full Satisfaction And since 't is notoriously know that above all others of the Roman Church the Jesuits which in this matter will most earnestly contend against Your Highness have the greatest effronted Confidence to deny and forswear Matters of Fact however certainly proved and known and they would be glad to have any thing offered in this Case that might give them room or a possibility for dispute and seeming doubtfulness of Fact that they might obscure the Truth and deceive some of the People with their Equivocal Affirmation and impertinent Cavils at Your Highness Witnesses or their Testimonies and their bold Asseverations of Falsehoods Upon all these Considerations we shall restrain from the relation of many very pregnant Circumstances that we had collected which if they were taken jointly in their natural Order and due Connexion would by their united force strongly induce impartial Judges to conclude that the Queen could not be the Mother of the supposed Prince We could give very great circumstantial assurances to Your Highness that there never was or appeared to be any reasonable natural grounds for a belief that her Majesty had Conceived a Child She never had the first most natural known and common sign of Conception her menses profluvium or Terms continued their usual uncertain Course as formerly during the whole time of her pretended great helly She did not conceal that it was with her after that manner of Women in her journey to Bath nor that they continued some days after the King left her there and all the industry used afterward to hide them in their Seasons proved in-effectual because those things come to the knowledge of more then were made privy to the whole Imposture designed Her Majesty having not that natural Sign of her Termes stopping whereby Women usually conclude themselves to have conceived from whence she could make a reckoning it seems by the Kings Speech in Council that their Majestys had both thought fit to publish her Conception to have been at the time of the Present made to the Lady's Image at Loretta upon the Kings return to the Queen at Bath It was then too soon for them to be provided of a supposititus Child and so might name any time they pleased of her Conception and then seek for a Child that might agree with it and it
Father to a Child to do a Service to their Church which is by their Doctrine so meritorious Your Highnesses will the better consider all these Circumstances mentioned if you will please to call to mind the Occasion and Time when this Design was first resolved on to set up a Prince to bar her R. H's of the immediate Succession to the Crown Be pleased to remember that 't is before observed that the going to the Bath and the visit to St. Winifreds Well and the Present made to the Lady were preparations for a Report of the Queen's being with Child and were all concluded upon about the end of August and beginning of September 1687 and then was your Highnesses compliance with the Popish Design despaired of The abstract of Mr. Steward's Letters to Mijn Heer Fagel which we just now find printed confirms all our Memorials in that Matter He was Pardoned and chosen by the King to have perswaded your Highnesses to a consent that the Penal Laws and Test should be repeal'd which had been a full establishment of Popery in his two first Letters of July he seeks to perswade your Hss that the King was resolved to preserve and observe the true right of Succession to the Crown and was very desirous of your Hss consent and concurrence in his Design and troubled to find them so averse from it in his next Letters of the same July he pressed that your Highnesses should have been disposed to hearken to a well-chosen Informer to be sent by his Majesty to perswade your concurrence with him and he presseth extreamly for a hasty Answer the new Councils for setting up a Supposititious Prince seem then to have been begun That Letter seems to threaten what we now see if your Highnesses refused he doubled his assurance to him that was to sollicit your Highnesses that if you were obstinate as they call it it will be fatal to the Dissenters and he feared productive of Ills yet unheard of And his Letter of August 5. seems to give your Highneesss your last time to chuse the Settlement of Popery or to resolve to be true to the Protestant Religion He says if your Highness did what was 〈…〉 he best Service to the Protestants the highest Obligation on his Majesty and the gre 〈…〉 of your own Interest that you could think on but if not then all is contrary There can be no other meaning in saying if your Highnesses refused all is contrary save only this that the Protestants should then have no Mercy from the Papists His Majesty would be so offended that he would become your Highnesses Enemy and it would be the loss of your Highnesses greatest Interest that you can think on which certainly could be no other than the just Expectancy of the three Kingdoms As these Letters threaten that the King would destroy your Highnesses greatest Interest if you refused so the attempt of it soon after appeared It 's now known that in September and October the Resolutions were taken to publish that the Queen was with Child but before it was publickly declared that is October 8. Mr. Steward says he would use no more Arguments to your Highnesses but he then laments your Highnesses loss of the time of compliance Alas said he that Providence should not be understood Then in Novemb. he speaks more plainly notwithstanding your Hss moderation towards the Papists and their Liberty was shewn by Mijn Heer Fagel's Letter he says that all hope of your Hss concurrence in the King's Design was quite given over and Men were become as cold in it here as your Hss were positive there And upon his new Conference with the King he not only shews the King's dislike of that Letter but says expresly That your Hss Answer was too long delay'd and that the King was quite over that matter There can be no other reasonable construction of this than that the King had then resolved of another way to prosecute the Popish Design and time hath now shewn and proved to the World that the way resolved on was to set up this Supposititious Prince for a Popish Successor These Letters by the help of time shew the Design when it was in Embrio and help to make a Judgment upon all the other Circumstances that we have mentioned and no doubt if an Evidence made up of all the Circumstances we have mentioned in their order and connexion were given to any impartial Judges it would be judged as strong a presumptive Evidence as ever was given and in the proceedings of our Laws against Criminals Judgment hath passed against the Lives of many upon far less Evidence this being as full as the nature of the thing can possibly suffer in your Hss and the Kingdom 's Case But notwithstanding this sort of Circumstantial Evidence be sufficiently forcible and convincing to disinterested Persons to prove this supposed Prince to be an Impostor and it may be more Circumstances of the same nature are known to your Highness yet we most humbly pray your Highness to wave insisting upon any of them as entirely as if you could neither prove nor knew more about this pretended Prince than common Fame hath proclaimed without contradiction It no ways belongs to your Highnesses nor to the Kingdom to prove the Falshood of his Pretences or any Circumstance about his Birth and it would be very prejudicial for your Highnesses to take upon you the burden of producing Witnesses and Proofs and admitting your Highnesses Adversaries to dispute their force and sufficiency when it belongs to them wholly and only to bring forth such lawful Witnesses in due numbers as may satisfy your Highnesses and the Kingdom of the Truth of their Pretences and 't is an infinite wrong to your Highnesses and the Kingdom that they have not done it long since if there had been a true Prince born of the Queen Since 't is the Kingdoms great concern as well as your Highnesses we are the bolder to propose that the Method of Defence against the publick Injury be made according to the known Laws and Customs of England that is That an open free demand be made in the name of her R. Hss as Heiress apparent of the Crown and in behalf of all the People of the Realm that there be forthwith declared and published to the Kingdom a sufficient Number for this Case of lawful Witnesses of either Sex such as the Laws of England and Natural Justice require in the Case who do testify that according to the usual practice of their respective Sexes at the Birth of Princes Heirs to Crowns they were Eye-Witnesses that the Child now called the Prince of Wales was naturally born of the Queen's Body 'T is but just regular and modest for your Hss to make that Demand and your insisting upon it to be done immediately without the least delay is no more than the Right of your Hss and the Kingdom as must be confessed by all that either know the Rules of natural Justice
or the Laws of England Our Laws require and demand an entry to be made upon all Intruders into the Rights or Inheritances of another there ought to be legal Interruptions made of all wrongful Possessions however obtained A long permission of an illegitimate Child to pass for a legitimate Heir is of dangerous consequence to the true Heir of an Inheritance 't is a known Rule both in our English Laws and the Civil Laws Tacens longo tempore praesumitur consentire he that remains long without answering any thing to an Intruders claim seems to allow it We crave pardon that we must freely tell your Hss that it hath been our astonishment that your Hss have been so long silent and have deferred to make your just demand and that you have so long suffered her R. Hss Chaplains to pray publickly for this supposed Prince of Wales Your Hss Heart cannot desire the God of Truth and Righteousness to prosper such an Invasion of your own and the Kingdoms Rights nor to bless the Impostor as such being set up tho an Innocent Child to be a Tool in the hands of others to destroy the Protestant Profession your Hss claims to the greatest Inheritance and the best Civil Government known in the World. We believe your Hss to be true Christians that tremble in the Worship and Prayers before the Eternal Majesty and therefore hope such a shew of owning him will not be longer suffered to be acted before the great God that searcheth all the hearts of Princes and Subjects If your Hss shall first make this 〈…〉 and Satisfaction therein be not given by the maintainers of the supposed Prince 〈…〉 al Justice and our Laws dictate that your Hss demand a retraction by the 〈…〉 all Christian Kingdoms and States of the false News they have published of the Birth of a Prince of Wales and their Vindication of her R. Hss Right apparent to the next Succession of the Crown When a wrongful Claimer to be Heir of any Inheritance cannot prove his true Descent the Court wherein he sues his Claim not only rejects and damns his false Pretences but openly declares the Counterfeit Tricks or Forgeries that they observe to have been attempted to support the false Claim and our Laws enable the Heir that hath been disturbed to demand by his Action against the false Pretender Satisfaction for the Scandal of his lawful Title and our Laws further require his prosecution for Justice against all the known Confederates in that intended Wrong and Fraud for their several Crimes therein committed We are sensible that most Catholic Princes have a prejudice to us in the Rights we claim as English Protestants not knowing our Laws and Liberties and we have therefore proposed these two Demands to be first in order made by your Hss in the behalf of her R. Hss and the Kingdom that we might convince them that we have Reason and Justice according to their own Laws and Rules of Right to seek your Hss Protection against the King's Practices as they yet appear in forcing us to stoop to a Counterfeit Prince and to change the Succession of the Crown and the whole Government your Hss having therein a joint Concern with us and our Laws and Nature it self call upon you to defend your own and the Kingdom 's Right to preserve the Succession of the Crown as it is by the Laws established which the King had no pretence of Power to Change. But we must also humbly fly to your Hss to protect us against the horrible destruction made by the King of all our Laws for the Reformation of our Christian Religion and our Security against the open professed and mortal Enemies of our Liberties therein the King having declared to the World that those Laws shall never hereafter be put in Execution and to make our Case therein desperate hath caused his Judges to justify him in what he hath done We must also pray your Hss help against his Invasion of all our Civil Rights and Fundamental Liberties and his utter subversion of the Free Government of England by its ancient Customs and Laws We cannot doubt but your Hss will be convinced by this Memorial that we have not complained of our Oppressions until they are become intolerable nor sought any Relief save from God alone until your Highnesses justly expected inheritance and the very being of our Civil Government are in the most extream danger of utter ruine We are and have been truly Loyal to the King and never refused obedience to any of his legal Commands or any whatsoever that could consist with all our other Duties to God and our fellow Subjects We have been content to suffer personal wrongs and manifest Injustice and considered the Corruption of Men that abuses and particular wrongs will happen in all Governments and ought patiently to be born whilst the Fundamentals of Civil Government and Justice are sacredly preserved Our Christian Charity taught us that 't is better that a few suffer wrongs than to hazard for their just Relief more effusion of Blood or other Mischiefs than can be recompensed by their obtaining Right We know the Jesuites crafts might have clouded the Justice that might have been demanded in particular Cases and we have therefore staid until the Justice of what we pray is become demonstrable unto all that are not corruptly and wilfully blind or led blindfold by the Jesuites or Romish Priests We are sensible that the King hath used the Name of the Royal Authority and Prerogative in all the lawless powers that he hath exercised and we durst not pray your Hss aid against his doings if there could be reasonably any doubt or question whether the things he hath done and daily doth might be authorized by the Royal Powers and high Prerogatives which belong to the Kings of England 'T is most unquestionable that the Noble English Monarchy and Government had a legal Foundation and was and is established upon Customs Franchises and Laws peculiar to the English Nation It was always free and independent upon all the Powers and Potentates on Earth the Kings and the People are and of right were always free and absolute to bind themselves by their own Laws made by their joynt consent and not otherwise they could never be bound by any others than themselves save only by the Laws of the most high God. A King of England ceaseth to act by the English Kingly Authority or as a King of England if he yield up himself or his Subjects to be bound or subjected to any other Laws Canons or Jurisdictions than such as are made or freely received by the mutual agreement of the King and the representative Body of the Realm in Parliament 'T is declared in the St. 16 R. 2.5 that the Crown of England had been so free at all times that it hath been in Subjection to no Realm and that the same ought not in any thing touching the Regality to be submitted to the Bishop of Rome
nor the Laws and Statutes of the Realm to be by him frustrated or defeated at his Will to the perpetual destruction of the Kings Soveraignty Crown and Regality and of all the Realm The Commons then prayed the King and him required by way of Justice to examine all the States of the Realm how they would stand to defend the Rights of the Crown and the Realm against the Pope and it was thereupon ordained that all that should pursue or bring any Bulls or Instruments from Rome against the Kings Regality or his Realm should be put out of the Kings Protection and incur a Premunire which as the Law then was made it lawful for any man to kill them Likewise the Stat. of 24 H. 8.12 and 25 H. 8.21 say that the Realm hath been and is free from Subjection to Mans Laws but only to such as have been devised and made within the same for its own welfare or of their free Liberty received by their consent to them The King and Parliament neer four hundred years since were so resolute to defend the Rights and Freedoms of the Crown and the Realm against the Imp 〈…〉 Jurisdictions and Powers which he attempted to exercise that notwith 〈…〉 they by the Stat. of 18 Ed. 3. St. 1. Rot. Parliament num 38. declared th 〈…〉 Enemy to the King and the Realm and so he stands now declared and to the â—â—â—e purpose is the Roll Parliament 17 Ed. 3. num 59. Tho these Statâ—â—â—s are not printed their force is the same to make them to fall into the Condition of Enemies to the Kingdâ—â— â—â—â—at correspond with him or his Nuntio It never was in the Power of any King of England to yield up or submit the Rights of the Crown and the Realm and its Laws Powers or Jurisdictions of any sort against the Will of the Realm in Parliament so it was confessed 500 years since K. H. 6. in his Letters to Pope Paschal Notum habeat sanctitas vestra quod me vivente auxiliante Deo dignitates usus regni nostri Angliae non imminuentur si ego quod absit in tanta me dejectione ponerem Magnates mei totus Angliae populus nullo modo pateretur Be it known said he to your Holiness that whilst I live by Gods assistance the Authorities and Vsages of the Kingdom of England shall never be diminished but if I would so debase my self which God forbid my Nobles and the whole People of England would by no means suffer it King John indeed unworthily surrendered the Crown and Regalities to Pope Innocent the 3d and his Successors and the Priests falsely put into that Charter that it was by the consent of his Council of Barons he submitted to hold the Kingdom of the Pope and that by yearly rent again but when Pope Gregory the tenth in the third of Ed. 1. sent for that pretended Rent that Noble Prince justly answered that he was bound by his Oath in his Coronation to preserve the rights of the Kingdom untouched and that he could do nothing that concerned the Crown without the advice of the People in Parliament which are there called Proceres In the 40 of Edward the Third the Pope demanded the same Rents and the King proposed it in Parliament but they declared that neither King John nor any other King had any power to put himself or the Realm and People into subjection to the Pope without their consent in Parliament and that if it were done by King John it was done contrary to his Oath in his Coronation and if the Pope attempted any thing thereupon against the King or his Subjects they would resist him to their utmost power The same King Edward the third had only negligently suffered the Popes power to be too much used in the Kingdom contrary to the Statute of Carlile 35 Ed. 1. as appears by the Parliament Roll 17. Ed. 3. num 59. and the Commons in Parliament complained that the Treasure of the Realm was transported to Rome and the Secrets of the Realm discovered by the Foreign Priests sent hither and they required of the King some Mercy for that they neither could nor would any longer bear those strong Oppressions or else that he would help them to expel out of this Realm the Popes Power by Force and thereupon were enacted against many of the Popes Powers in this Realm those severe Penal Laws of 25 Ed. 3.27 Ed. 3.1.38 Ed. 3. Stat. 2. ch 1. all which our King hath now declared shall never hereafter be put in Execution That Victorious Prince Edw. 3. tho a Papist yet pretended to no Regal Prerogative of suspending the Laws made by the Kings and Parliaments against the Pope he confesseth in that Statute of 35 Edw. 1. against the Pope's Power that it held its Force being not annulled by Parliament and therefore he was bound by his Oath to see the same kept as a Law of the Realm tho by Sufferance and Negligence it had been attempted to the Contrary If the Effects of the Romish Jurisdictions in the Realm were looked upon as they are related in that 38 Edw. 3.1 It would be manifest that the King that would put the Kingdom into such a state lays aside thereby his Kingly Office and Dignity whilst he pursues these Intentions that Statute saith that by the Powers exercised by the Pope and Court of Rome and the Dependants thereof the good ancient Laws Customs and Franchises of the Realm were greatly impeached blemished and confounded the Crown abated the Treasure and Riches of the Realm carried away the Inhabitants and Subjects of the Realm impoverished and troubled and the great Men and Commons in Bodies and Goods damnified surely there can be no doubt whether the King hath any Royal Prerogative to enable him either to stop the Execution of these Penal Laws that prevent the Kingdom from falling back into such a forlorn Estate or to attempt by pretence of Liberty of Conscience for the Romish Priests and Emissaries and their Practices to enable them to work all the mischief they can against those that would save the Kingdom from such Miseries Your Highnesses may be absolutely certain that the King acts not by vertue of the English Regal Office or Prerogatives in his authorizing Treasons to be daily committed against the Realm By the Statute of 13 Eliz. 2. they that give or receive any Absolution or Reconciliation to Rome by the Popes Authority or any of his Priests which the King licenseth and authorizeth to be done continually those are declared high Traytors to the King and the Realm and no doubt Treasons declared by a Statute against the Realm are common Nusances of the highest Nature and Mischief 't is the trust of the Regal Office to prevent and punish them and 't is directly Contrary to the Kingly Office to assume Power to authorize or license such Crimes 'T is unquestionable that no King of England ever had power to grant Offices
demand and insist immovably That the antient free Government of England by its 〈…〉 and Law â—nly made or approved in Parliament be immediately restore 〈…〉 all th 〈…〉 at is that the Rights of the Crown and Freedom of the Realm be forth 〈…〉 Submissions publickly made to the Pope by the King that now is to the Disho 〈…〉 English Crown and Realm and from all the Claims made by the Romish Church â—â— any Powers and Jurisdictions whatsoever over the Christians o 〈…〉 England â—â—â—t all the Laws now in force against the Admission of the Canons and Jurisdiction of Rome contrary to our Customs and Laws and against the maintainers of them be forthwith declared to be put in due Execution and all Suspensions of them or Dispensations with them without the Authority of Parliament be declared null and void That the Ancient Customs Liberties and Priviledges of the City of London and the whole form and course of its Government be forthwith restored the Customs thereof being part of the Common Law of England and its Liberties being established by the great Charter and many Acts of Parliament that the Customs Free Election of their Magistrates and all the Priviledges of all the Cities and Boroughs of England confirmed by the great Charter and other Laws be duely restored That Legal Officers both Civil and Military be settled in all the Places of Magistracy and all the Commands throughout the Kingdom That all Commissions whatsoever be forthwith revoked and declared null and void whereby are granted any Powers of Discretion over the Persons or Interest of the Subject contrary to the Laws and Customs of England especially the Commission for Ecclesiastical Affairs with its monstrous non obstante to all our Laws That the Freedom of Elections which is the Foundation of the Government be duely vindicated and all the most unworthy Preingagements revoked and renounced to elect and vote as the King would have them That the Kingdom may be restored as soon as possible to a Capacity of holding a Legal Parliament in such Form and Manner as the Laws require by whose help the Civil Government may be reestablished and force and arbitrary Powers therein utterly abolished We crave your Highnesses Pardon that we further humbly offer to your Hignesses that time and accident always made Changes in the Usefulness of Laws and that it hath so happened in our Penal Laws made for Uniformity in the Profession of Faith and in the outward Worship of God four of our succeeding Parliaments perceived the abuse of these Laws and the Mischief thereby to conscientious Christians and declared their Intention of relieving them if the King would have permitted them and they endeavoured to stop the Execution of them and desired a Settlement of Liberty of Conscience as is due to Christians In these Regards and the Subversion of the whole Government since made Necessity and Charity may have the force of Laws to inforce the stay of the Execution of some of those Laws for Conformity until those Matters may be settled in Parliament We therefore humbly pray your Highness to procure as a case of Necessity that none be disturbed until a Legal Parliament shall have resolved the case for the Profession of their Faith in Matters meerly supernatural or the outward Expression of their Worship so as both terminate only in God and neither wrong nor hurt any Man on Earth in Body Goods and good Name but their own Souls only if they be mistaken therein We now most humbly submit our selves and all herein contained to your Highnesses Wisdom Candor and Charity 〈◊〉 shall pray the just and great God to fill your noble Souls with perfect Love and Wisdom and all the most resplendent Vertues that are fit to shine in the highest Thrones and Power that ever the Sun beheld Sr The Character we have had of your Worth makes us confident of your Faithfulness to deliver the inclosed forthwith to his Highness the Prince of Orange or in his Absence to her Royal Hss the Princess we could not trust it by the Post and therefore have sent it by an Express which may perhaps make it longer in coming the Messengers only Order is to deliver it to one of your Servants and we confide in your Integrity and remain To Monsieur M 〈…〉 at the Hague SIR Your most humble Servants whom you may hereafter know (*) The Instances hereof are too many to be recited but some thereof are these viz. 1. Most of the Protestants are pressed to declare for a Repeal of all the Laws made for the Reformation of our Religion and its settlement 2. All the Subjects are forced to submit to Serve and Obey those that are no lawful Judges Sheriffs Justices of the Peace Mayors Lords Lieutenants and other Commanders and all are Threatned Vexed and Prosecuted as the Lord Lovelace now is that dare but say that such have no lawful Authority 3. All the Subjects are commanded to suffer all the Actions and Offences of their Lives and the secrets of their Hearts to be searched into and their chief Interests and many of their Free-holds to be judged by the discretion of a few of the Kings Creatures called his Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Affairs whose Commission is to proceed without and against the Rules of our Laws with a non obstante to all other Laws and every Man is required to assist their Arbitrary Powers on peril of their Censures which extend to imprisonment for Life 4. All our Ministers are required under grievous menaced Penalties to be the Kings Cryers to Proclaim in the Churches the Kings Power to suspend at once the force and use of all our Penal Laws made in 400 Years past to secure the Rights of the Crown the freedoms and properties of the Realm and the profession of the Protestant Religion 5. All the Protestants are forced by fear of the Kings Wrath to suffer the Rights of the Crown and the freedom of the Realm against Foreign Powers and Laws to be publickly denied and the force of Foreign Laws over them to be maintained they are injoined by the King to neglect their sworn duties to God to the Crown and Kingdom of prosecuting at Law those Treasons which they know and see to be daily committed for which no excuse can be made by pretence of Liberty of Conscienâ—e in Christs Religion 6. The Constables and other Officers throughout the Realm are forced to quarter Irish and Scots and oâ—her mercenary Souldiers in their Neighbours Houses against their Wills in contempt of the Ancient Laws and the express Words of the late Statutes 7. All the Gentlemen and Free-holders are pressed to renounce their native and legal freedom in their choice of Members for Parliament 8. The Freemen of the Cities and Towns are urged to yield up to the Kings Will the Tenure of their Magistracies and all their free Customs and Priviledges 9. All the People are forced by fear of Punishments to suffer a Child to be
Licensed and Entred According to Act of Parliament AN ACCOUNT OF THE REASONS OF THE Nobility and Gentry's Invitation Of His HIGHNESS the PRINCE of ORANGE INTO ENGLAND Being a MEMORIAL from the English Protestants Concerning their GRIEVANCES With a Large Account of the Birth of the Prince of WALES Presented to their HIGHNESSES The PRINCE and PRINCESS of ORANGE LONDON Printed for Nathanael Ranew and Jonathan Robinson in St. Paul's Church-yard 1688. A MEMORIAL FROM THE ENGLISH PROTESTANTS FOR THEIR HIGHNESSES THE PRINCE AND PRINCESS OF ORANGE IT cannot be unknown to Your Highness that the Protestants of England that are Faithful to the Principles and Doctrines of their Religion and to the just Established legal Government are in divers kinds most intollerably vexed and oppressed by the Popish Contrivances and Practices covered with the pretences and name of Authority That Illegal things are daily imposed upon them in their several Stations and Places which they are convinc'd in their Consciences can never be justified unto God or the Kingdom and yet they are pressed upon them without regard to their Consciences by loss of their Offices and Imployments and many other threatned Effects of the Kings displeasure That many of their legal Liberties Benefits and Means of subsistence in their Churches and Colledges are taken from them by meer Will and Pleasure and Processes and Prosecution by arbitrary Commissioners are threatned and begun against great numbers of them without their guilt of the least Offence or Transgression against any of the Laws of this Realm That they are debarred and spoyled of the due free Election of their Magistrates and Officers in their Cities and Towns and pretended Officers and Magistrates are imposed upon them and turned out and put in at the Kings absolute Will as they are found ready to comply with and serve the Popish Design either ignorantly or corruptly That several of the Bodies Politick of their Cities and Towns are declared to be dissolved at the Kings Pleasure to terrify and subjugate the minds of all the rest and the Citizens and Burgesses are thereby Disfranchised and Divested of all their good Customs Freedoms and Priviledges if they cannot in Conscience comply with Illegal Commands and will not treacherously surrender their legal Rights and Priviledges unto the Kings Will. That the legal securities provided by the Kings and Kingdom in Parliament against the dangers of their Religion and Liberties are by the Kings absolute Command thrown aside and made useless by pretence of his Power to dispence with those penal Laws notwithstanding the Subjects Right in them for the protection and safety of their Religion Liberties and Lives whereby the very Foundation of all the Subjects Rights and Properties is undermined and shaken and a New Claim is set up and maintained that the Subjects have no Right Property or security against the Will and Pleasure of their Kings That by colour of such a dâ—spensing Power the trust of the Kingdoms Defence and Safety by military Powers is put into such hands as are made incapable of them by many express Laws of the Kings and Kingdoms in Parliament which justly give the Protestants sad apprehensions of imminent dangers seeing themselves put into the Power of those that publickly profess to be in Union and Communion with the Church of Rome that openly declare themselves to be the mortal Enemies to all Protestants and that they are bound upon peril of their Salvation to seek their Destruction if they shall continue constant to the Protestant Profession That contrary to the express Laws of the Realm lately declared in Parliament an Army of Papists and Mercenaries is maintained and dispersed through the Kingdom in full Peace to the great disquiet and terror of the Pretestants and they are in divers ways constrained to receive these Soldiers into their Houses to sojourne there against their Wills whereby they are deprived of their Peace and Security in their Families and of their Converse with their Neighbours and Friends and of the advantages they might make in their ways of living That the King hath barred and forbidden the execution of the Ancient Laws of the Realm against divers sorts of Treasons and other most hainous Crimes and all the Statutes now known to have been made from age to age for 500 Years past in relation to the Popes and Romish Priests Powers and Practises are suspended tho' the Experience of the Papists in all those Ages shewed those Powers and Practices to be so mischievous and dangerous that they often complained in Parliament they feared the Destruction of the Kingdom by them His Majesty also so Controuls the Courts of Law in the Course wherein Justice ought to be administred that the Judges tho' they have highly served the Popish Designs are turned out of their Places Honours and Pensions if they dare but suffer the Laws justly to acquit those whom the King would have condemned as appears amongst divers other Instances by his late displacing Judge Holloway and Judge Powell upon the legal acquittal of the seven Bishops We need not shew to your Highness more particular Instances of our Oppression since 't is notorious that there is a publick attempt authorized by the King to subvert the very Foundation of the whole Civil legal Government of the Kingdom that is the Peoples free Election in the Customary Established Course by Counties Cities and Boroughs of their Deputies to Act and Consent for them in Parliament unto all Laws to be made and repealed The truly Noble Monarchy was founded on equal Freedom and the Civil Government of England was always of right truly free because no Laws or Authorities ever bound the Persons and Properties of the Kingdom save only those wherein the Kings and all the Subjects freely agreed every Subjects free consent being deemed by our Laws to be given personally as by his Deputies to the Enacting and Repealing of every Law. Therefore the Statutes of old in affirmance of the common Custom of England declared that Elections should be free from all interruptions and interpositions by the King or the Pope and the Kings have bound themselves by the Statutes no way to disturb any Electors in making their free Elections No Commands Promises or Threats no Prayers nor Solicitations ought to be made unto the Electors by the King or Pope or any others the Peoples Deputies say the Laws are to be chosen Freely and Indifferently without pre-ingagement of the Electors or fear of displeasing the King and without promises of Favour or Rewards to them They are to be indifferent at the Time and Place of Election and in such manner to proceed notwithstanding any Request or Command to the contrary otherwise the Elections are void and null But we are not able to number the various kinds of Attempts and Practises to overturn this Foundation of our Government There have been infinite Endeavours and Artifices openly used to destroy
to prevent the Fraud and Danger of Holy Pretences for such Unrighteous Attempts against our natural and civil Properties Our Penal Laws are to punish Offences against the Civil Government and Humane Society and tho they be about matters Ecclesiastical the Subjects of England cannot pretend to be exempted from them because of their Consciences any otherwise than they may wickedly claim to be free from the Penal Laws against Felonies and Murders if they shall plead that they Robbed or Killed according to theâ—r Consciences His Majesties avowed Intent and Endeavours are to free the Emissaries of Romes Priests and Papists from the punishments and dangers of those our Penal Laws against such manifest Attempts upon the Freedom Rights and Properties of the Realm that His new Erected Popish Colledges His Convents of Monks His Four Provincial Bishops and His numerous Priests may be authorized by Him without force of Laws to maintain the Church of Romes Canons to be of greater Authority than the Laws of the Realm to Declare all the Power of Magistracy in Protestants Hands to be Unlawful and all Rights and Titles to their Estates forfeited to the Papists by their being Protestants to own and justifie Dispensations from Rome with their Obedience to all such Laws of the Realm as the Pope and His Priests dislike and professedly to hold Communion with the Church of Rome the French King and all Foreign Papists that declare themselves Mortal Enemies to the Religion and Power of the Protestants to contrive with them the Suppression or Extirpation of them out of the Realm This work his Majesty hath so far begun that he hath suspended and stopped the Execution of the Penal Laws against all the High Crimes some whereof the ancient Papists of this Kingdom made Capital and he declares all such Protestants as will not help to finish it not to be qualify'd as Christians or Englishmen for any Imployment in the Kingdom and therefore least of all to be Members of Parliament Hereby his Majesty attempts to Confine the Electors in their Choice to so small a party that he allows them not the choice of one of forty whom our Laws make capable of being Elected for Parliament the Number is so small professed Papists excepted out of which his will is to have Members of Parliament chosen that our Laws will judge it no choice if he can impose his will upon the Kingdom as he hath declared it Hereby your Highnesses may be satisfied that our case is deplorable it seems not sufficient for our Popish Enemies to seek the abolition of all our ancient Penal Laws that are not agreeable to those new invented Doctrines and pernicious Practises of the present Church of Rome which the Penal Statutes shew to have been abhorred by our ancient English Papists but their design is to destroy the Constitution and form of the free Government of the Kingdom from whence arose all those Penal Laws against their Churches proud Domination and their Usurpation of the Rights of the Crown and the whole Realm They know by our Histories and Records that the free Parliament always made the Complaints from age to age against their pernicious claims of power over our Kings our Laws our Courts of Judicature and their Judgments and against their Exactions Impositions Frauds and Delusions of the People with their Superstitious folly whereby they gained a third of the revenues of England and drew so much Money to Rome that they impoverished and almost ruined the Kingdom They are sensible that they have been able to inslave to the Pope and Priests several of the greatest English Kings that they could prevail with the King for Licenses and Pardons to them to transgress the Laws that the Parliament made to preserve the Subjects Rights and properties and that the Parliament only caused new Laws to be made for declaring such Licenses Dispensations and Pardons of the Kings void and null They know that they have perswaded several of the Kings that the Pope could absolve their Conscience from all obligation by the Laws and from Agreements Promises and Oaths to their Kingdom to maintain their great Charters and all their Laws and Liberties and that they prevailed upon one of them to resign the Kingdom intirely to the Pope and to hold it of him by rent and they understand that the People in free Parliament only made and declared all such Dispensations and resignations void and nul and justly required those Kings to renew their Oaths to the Kingdom to preserve their Liberties and scorned with indignation the Popes demands of his pretended rent for the Kingdom declaring that their Kings had no such Patrimonial right in the Kingdom to subject it to any powers on Earth They cannot hope that a freely chosen Representative of this Kingdom can suffer such a delusion to be put upon them to be perswaded that due Christian Liberty of Conscience requires them either to allow the forreign Romish Laws or Canons to contest for power and place with the Laws of England or to suffer any of the Subjects of England openly to profess themselves their Persons Marriages or Estates to be subject to any Foreigners Jurisdiction and to depend of their Authority Offices and Sanctions and the exercise of them for their Eternal Salvation which is in truth to renounce their subjection to England or to own and avow to have the nearest Union and Communion with Foreigners that openly profess themselves Mortal Enemies to more then a hundred to one of the whole Realm and to be bound in Conscience to seek their suppression or destruction They cannot think that a free English Parliament should not always know that no Doctrines of Jesus Christ ever destroyed or changed the Natural and Civil right of any person or Nation or allowed that any part of the People of a free Country should correspond with or depend upon the declared Enemy of the far greatest part of it they have therefore resolved to over-turn the very foundation of our Civil Government the Peoples free choice of their Deputies for Parliament that there may never be a free Parliament more in the Kingdom which is a Plot much worse than their Gunpowder Treason It seems they think it safest to keep a shadow of Elections for their intended Convention by forming Bodies Politick of Cities and Towns to name or return whom the King pleases and by the specious name of Liberty of Conscience with promises of Favour and threats of Displeasure to deceive or affright the other Electors to accept of those for their Deputies that the King shall offer but if this attempt upon the Prime Fundamental of our whole Civil Government shall be suffered the King may hereafter with as much Justice Law and Reason call whom he pleaseth from any parts of the Kingdom to Consult with and in the Name and under Pretence of their Advise change our Laws and Customs impose Taxes and Alter at his pleasure the
two or three Laws against the Protestant Dissenters holding their Conventicles and some Laws made since the Reformation only to Compel Papists by great penalties to come to Church and to keep their Priests out of the Kingdom and it was hoped that Your Highnesses Compassion to all Christians and a tenderness of the Liberty of Consciences would have moved you without further Examination to have complied with his Majesties Request It was believed Your Highnesses would never have inquired after the Penal Laws in Matters Ecclesiastical made by the Ancient Papists many hundred years since against the horrid Invasions by the Romish Church on the Rights of the Crown and the Realm whereby they had impoverished inslaved and almost ruined the Kingdom nor that your Highnesses would have understood that the King hath opened a return to all those wicked practices of that Popish Church and that the repeal of those Laws would settle them It was supposed that Your Highnesses had not known that the Penal Laws in matters Ecclesiastical contain most of the clearest authoritative Declarations that are extant in any Records of the rights of the English Crown of the Form and Constitution of our Government and of the Rights and Liberties of the Subject the Church of Rome's claims Usurpation and intolerable abuses and oppressions having put a necessity upon the Kings and Parliaments to make those Declarations of Law that are now antient Evidences of the Inheritances of the Kings and People of inestimable value It was imagined That Your Highnesses would not have discerned the consequences of a General repeal of the Penal Laws in matters Ecclesiastical that enacting only his Majesties Declaration as he propounds there would be the most absolute and compleat Establishment of Popery that the Romish Church can wish All the Canons or Laws of the Church of Rome shall then have greater legal force in England than they have had in five hundred years past and all her Authorities and Jurisdictions over our Persons and Estates will be in the same manner legal by ancient usage and approved by Parliament as ever they were heretofore in England part of Magna Charta it self will be repealed that makes it Penal to such as the Priest shall delude to give their Lands to Religious Houses There was such a Confidence of deceiving your Highnesses and obtaining your Consent to the repeal of the Penal Laws that the Priests spread a rumor that you had agreed and that his Majesty understood you well therein a false Jesuit had the impudence to whisper it as a secret that their general design could not miscarry seeing they were secretly assured that the Prince of Orange would Concur in it when it was seasonable to declare himself We were certain of the falsness of those rumors some of us knowing of applications that were contrived by his Majesties order to your Highness in that matter and we were much surprised when a friend of ours at Whitehall told one of us about the end of August last that the rumors of Your Highnesses concurring with his Majesty were suddenly hushed and that he heard a whisper that it was said with much anger that Your Highnesses were obstinate in your Errors and thought to make your selves popular with the Church of England and he would trouble himself no more with you but you should repent it Some few of us who had often Conferences concluded that the King had changed his measures but could not imagin what was designed to offer to a Parliament in lieu of a Protestant Successors consent to oblige them to repeal the Penal Laws desired by his Majesty It was not long before we heard it muttered that the Queen was with Child and then the Papists began to Triumph and the Priests gave out boldly that it would set aside her Royal Highnesses right to the Succession tho it were a Daughter and ignorantly and impudently Affirmed that if the Queen had a Daughter Born after the King came to the Crown it ought to Succeed before a Daughter Born when he was but a Duke But none but the Papists gave any Credit to the reports that she was with Child and the Fable of the Dutchess of Modena's request in Heaven or Purgatory and the Lady of Loretto's helping her to Conceive a Son for the sake of a fine present made all but the Papists believe it a meer invention of the Priests whatever should insue The story of it shewed it to be of the lineage of the Popish Legends and was a matter of laughter and derision amongst the People and a subject for Poets lampoons which were so common that they were in Whitehall it self and no doubt they came to the knowledg of his Majesty and most of his Court. The more serious Protestants presently apprehended that a supposititious Son was designed to abate Your Highnesses growing Reputation and Power all the Protestants of Europe then justly looking upon her Royal Highness as Heiress apparent to the English Crown and Your Highnesses in all respects to be the fittest head for the Protestant Interest against the General Popish Design They knew this device to be necessary for supporting the Glory and Terror of the French King against the greatning reputation of Your Highnesses by the Expectancy of the English Crown 't is known that he dreads Your Highnesses Vindication and recovery of your own rights from his manifest violence and rapine and your Patronage of the Protestant Interest in all Europe against his Arbitrary and Bloody Designs He knows that if her Royal Highness succeeds to the Crown of England he will be quickly incapable of prosecuting his cruel Intentions against the Protestants of other Countries and it may be scarce capable of supporting his grandure and triumph over his miserable Subjects The very Expectation for 8 or 9 Months that the Queen might bring sorth a Son was greatly for the Popish advantage if the trick should have failed in the Issue by any unlucky accident it made a stand for a time of the Protestants of all Countries in the great Expectations from Your Highnesses it raised Triumphant hopes in all Popish Countries it strengthened the English Papists hands and hearts to prosecute their design Vigorously it incouraged Corrupt and Time-serving Protestants in Profession to fall in with their Party and prevailed with many weak Dissenters to make them believe a Succession of Popish Princes and that their Liberty of Conscience is only to be expected from them and that therefore they ought to serve in their imployments When we saw the Incredulity and Mockery of the multitude at the story of the Queens great Belly and the sad apprehensions of the more Considerate that for the politick support of the Popish design a Counterfeit Son of the King's might be imposed on the Kingdom we resolved to observe and keep memorials of the rise progress and issue of the whole matter as far as we could get intelligence We presently perceived that the Popish Priests were the prime