Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
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A38384
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Englands concern in the case of His R.H.
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1680
(1680)
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Wing E2953; ESTC R4819
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21,170
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27
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we seriously did consider the mighty Advantages of an Hereditary Monarchy beyond an Elective we should find it reasonable that though the Laws had not yet the King should endeavour to make ours such much less ought he to alter that most happy Constitution by excluding his Brother For let Men say what they please the same Power that can put by One may All and so change the Best of Government for the Worst or None at all Besides His Majesty cannot but find it his own Interest to stick to the D. when he reflects that there is in all things especially in State-Affairs a Balance necessary by an equal Libration to keep things in a right Order and prevent Confusion and Ruine Where Men are there will be Ambition this creates Parties and Factions these must be kept divided and asunder by their Jars and Disagreement and by so poising them that the less like the smaller Fry of Fishes be not swallowed by the greater the safety of the Prince and State is preserv'd If the Prince be once prevail'd upon to joyn with the One to the suppression of the Other he has resigned his Power and exposed himself to the Mercy of the Conqueror This he likewise does if he gives way to several little Factions to embody into one of greater strength than the rest though assisted with that of his own Particular For here we must suppose three strong Parties one of the Prince and two of the People To keep this Balance in the best posture and to secure the Peace of the Commonwealth by the Kings reigning void of Fear or Jealousie on the score of Factions or his Successor 't is necessary in politie to find or make the next Heir the Object of the Peoples hatred and keep the Factions from combining because however they may chance to be weary of the King either through the inconstancy of their Humours studious of Change and Variety though for the worse or through the ill Conduct of Ministers or the Misfortunes of Publick Affairs when they find a Person whom they hate like to succeed they will be for continuance of the old or else being jealous of one another will not attempt his removal This then being so great an advantage prudent Kings cannot be supposed to neglect it by suffering the immediate Heir to be run down and thereby giving way to the People to dethrone the present Possessor and set up the next in course after To this Wisdom in Henry the Third gain'd by his own and Fathers Misfortunes we owe our present Constitution of Parliament This King perceiving the Lords Power in whom with himself the Supreme Legislative Right then consisted grown formidable the Commons being their Livery-men and Dependents erected these into a Lower House to counterpoise the weight of the other that he joyning with either as Occasion of State required might balance the other and so keep things in an equal and steddy Libration And if his Successors had been as sollicitous to maintain as he was to institute this good Order and Politie the Eternity of this Commonwealth would not at this day have been a Question And as this was our Home-Interest and that of holding the Scales even between France and Spain our Foreign so it plainly appears that not to exclude the Duke is not onely his Majesties particular Interest but also that of the Three Kingdoms Not to insist that the Parliament is not compleatly the Peoples Representative but granting it is they cannot be supposed to enjoy a greater Power than those they represent who because such are the greater and therefore must be concluded explicitly or implicitly to limit the Commissions of these their Trustees and that Consinement Reason will tell us must be within the Bounds of our ancient Rights and Privileges consequently these are not to be invaded without the consent of every individual Person or at least of the major part truly poll'd and computed The present Electors not making a sixth part of the Nation cannot in reason bind the rest contrary to their Interest much less can the Majority of those chosen by them oblige the others to conform to whatever they enact when they find the Statutes more prejudicial than advantageous the End of Government being the Good of the Community i. e. of the major part not of any artificial or fictitious Majority of a Quorum as in the House of Commons of 512 to reckon 40 the greater Number Now if such an Act should be obtain'd the Consequence if the D. survive the King whose Life God long continue must needs be War and Misery Folly and Repentance Our Histories are full of Tragical Events upon such Occasions One of them wrought so great a Depopulation that in sixty miles riding between York and Durham for nine years together there was neither Ground tilled nor House left standing Harold justling young Edgar Atheling out of the Throne produced a Civil War and the Norman Conquest I wish excluding the D. may not enslave us to the French Dominion which may be of greater evil than the cutting of as many of our own Peoples Throats as died in the Yorkist and Lancastrian Quarrel upwards of 200000 of the Commons besides several Kings and Princes and Nobles without number The Duke cannot be supposed to want Sticklers both at home and from abroad few will believe the Act lawful in its own nature nor the King's Consent free or themselves not bound by Oath to his Assistance Scotland and Ireland will rejoyce at another Civil War in England in hopes to free themselves from the Inconveniences of being Provinces Those who have least to lose are the usual Gainers by Rebellion There are sown between these Nations Seeds of Discontent and there will not be wanting those who will improve them I have heard from knowing Persons there are no less than Fifty thousand Irish Soldiers now living that have been trained up in the French and other Forreign Service and I believe there cannot be fewer of the Scottish People These all with many of our own Countreymen will quickly credit the Lawyers that tell us No Act no Crime no Attainder of Treason can bar the next of Blood from being King in the instant of time his Predccessor does not so much die as transmit his Life his Breath or his Soul by a State-Metempsychosis into the Nostrils the Body of his Successor Edward the Fourth Henry the Seventh Queen Mary Queen Elizabeth and King James enjoy'd the Crown though all excluded by Acts of Parliament if they ought to have the name that were the Effects of Force Strong hand and an usurping Tyrannick Power These Statutes were by all Judges of England accounted void in themselves and therefore never had the honour of Repeals nor were they brought into Plea by Sir Walter Rawleigh one of the greatest Wits of that Age though he urged a very trivial one The King 's not being Crown'd a Ceremony of Pomp and State not of Use or Necessity as
ENGLANDS CONCERN IN THE CASE OF His R. H. LONDON Printed for H. R. in the Year 1680. ENGLANDS CONCERN IN THE Case of His R. H. HAving seen and read all the Pamphlets for and against the Power of Parliaments in the Right of Succession I cannot but conclude both Sides mistaken in the Main and to have wilfully or ignorantly past-over or wrong stated the Chief part of the Question which was not what the Parliament meaning King Lords and Commons could do by vertue of their Might or Power but What in Justice or Prudence they ought to do in the Case of His R. H In the first Notion no man in his wits can dispute that the stronger joyning against the weaker have not power to do what they please But this being a Right of Nature to which both Parties are equally entituled and both upon entring into Society have renounced or changed for an Artificial Right or Power that of the Magistrate or Community cannot fall within the limits of the Question because it can never be made use of without running into a State of War putting an end to all Society and with Ismael having ones hand against every man and every mans hand against him And therefore in the second Notion this Controversie is to be taken viz. What in Justice by the Laws in being or since the Instance is extraordinary What in Prudence in Reason the Parliament may do For this being the Supreme Judicature must not want a sufficient Authority in any Case that can possibly happen We must then inquire Whether some Actions of the D. have been obnoxious and censurable and if found so What is their proper or condign Punishment In order to which 't is to be premised That nothing in its own nature is or can be Penal or censurable in foro humano but a Transgression of some positive Institution of the Common-wealth or a Deviation from the Dictates of Right Reason Now the Crime objected but never yet proved nor consessed is the D's going over from the Protestant to the Romish Church This is the Trojan Horse that ruines our City for in its Belly is hid a mysterious Consequence viz. That his doing so gave encouragement and was the occasion of the late discovered Popish Plot. The first part of this Accusation is a breach of the Laws of England the latter of those of Reason and all Nations and therefore punishable after the most severe manner But before Sentence or Execution 't is to be observ'd That not onely our own but the Laws of all Countries require not onely the Criminal's Conviction but that his Sufferings be commensurate to his Offence This last must be known by the stated Measures the Rules of the Society and Country the former is built upon the same Foundation and necessarily supposes a Legal Process and sufficient Evidence Both are wanting in this of the D. he having never been summoned to appear nor Witness produc'd to prove him guilty For who can say he has chang'd his Religion or that if he be now a Papist he has not been so ever since he came to the use of Reason since he was forced to fly to avoid the Effects of the late Rebellion If that be so who are most in the fault those who occasioned this Evil or he that suffered himself before his years enabled him to understand better and to chuse to be persuaded that was not the truest Religion that authoriz'd such Impieties as Christianity forbids If this be his Case he is not liable to the Pains of Treason pronounced against the Perverters and Perverted to the Romish Communion But to wave Disputes allowing it were otherwise yet the Statute of General Pardon enacted in the year 1673 has so acquitted him from all guilt that on this Foot he now stands rectus in curia innocent before any Earthly Tribunal But as to the Consequence That his being reconciled to Rome has given occasion and Encouragement to the Plot I can onely say That he cannot in reason be blam'd on that account if it be not proved he intended and designed that horrid Contrivance 'T is the End and Intention that justifies or condemns any Action and neither Father nor Mother are to be censured that a Monster happens to be the Issue of a Marriage-bed This being accidental for so it must be granted till the contrary be made out can no more be imputed to his R. H. without madness or folly than it can to God without Blasphemy or Irreligion That by his making Man he is the Authour and Cause of Sin and all the Evils under Heaven I am unwilling to mention what I have seen in Print to wit That the D. of York's being a Papist has given birth and life to the Plor because this is so inartificial and illogical an Inference or Conclusion that I am persuaded the Authours will be ashamed of the Ignorance or Malice it betrays An Assertion that has neither Sence nor Wit nor more force than the Old Wives Story The Cat wash'd her Face a Sunday therefore it rain'd a Munday or any other such impertinent or senseless Saying Indeed if this could be made appear I think it a Crime of so foul a nature that nothing less than Death not Disinherison could satisfie the Justice of the Nation But from this the D. is acquitted by Mr. Oates and Mr. Bedloe even in his last words clears him from having any knowledge of the Design against the King's Life in which and in the bringing in Religion by the Sword of which his R. H. is not accused the Treason or Conspiracy doth consist And being freed by these two by whom else has he been accused By Mr. Dangerfield As to this tell me what you think when you reflect that he gave in his Depositions to the late Lord Mayor and to the King and Council the first and seventh of November 1679. and upon Oath declared so often he had nothing of further Discovery or Additions What credit will you then give his late new Accusation before the House of Commons of the D. Lord Privy-Seal Earl of Peterborough and Lady Powis Whatever the Infamy of his Person and the former Actions of his Life would signifie this alone in my opinion would invalidate his Testimony in all matters with Men of Honour or of Conscience So that upon the whole matter from what does hitherto appear the printed Narratives and Letters to and from Popes and Cardinals c. I am not afraid to avow That excluding the D. his Right of Succession is contrary to the Laws of God and of this Kingdom expressed in Magna Charta and agreeable to those that give every man his due Liberty of Person and Descent of Inheritance and all the Advantages of Birthright Blessings every Freeman has in common with the Prince and if the greater be thus outed how shall the less be secured and to the Rules of Reason which forbid the doing any Action that in its consequence will