Lawyer Outlaw'd Or a BRIEF ANSWER To Mr. HUNTS Defence of the CHARTER With some Useful REMARKS ON THE Commons Proceedings IN THE LAST PARLIAMENT At WESTMINSTER In a Letter to a Friend Printed by N. T. for the Author MDCLXXXIII SIR YOur importunities have at last prevail'd and since abler Pens have hitherto declin'd to espouse the quarrel I will for once force my own inclination to silence and reservedness and briefly give you my thoughts on that unlucky Pamphlet call'd A Defence of the Charter and Municipal Rights of London The Author I find is a Gentleman of the long Robe a person so well known of late for his unweary'd diligence and extraordinary faculty in scribling that I need not give you any other Character of him but that some three years ago he writ a Book in vindication of the Bishops Right of Judicature in Parliament and for this piece of service expected no less than to be made Lord-Chief-Baron of the Exchequer in Ireland But missing of that Preferment he grows peevish and angry with the Court and Clergy and to be even with both and perhaps to appease his angry Brethren of the Separation for his former Mercenary undertaking he adds a Baboons Tail to his Picture a Postscript to his Book the most virulent and malicious that has yet escap'd the hands of Justice Ever since he has continu'd firm to the Cause laid aside his useless Law and zealously imploy'd his better Talent against the Church and State in favour of the Faction and this about the Charter is the last effort of that wise Head-piece which he has stuff'd with such a miscellany of wild Paradoxes interwoven with some impertinent Truths that 't is far more difficult to digest them into method than to answer and confute them First to lay a solid foundation for his great design he tells us That Monarchs as well as Republicks have often erected Municipal Cities and by their Charters bestow'd upon them several Franchises and Priviledges as to choose their own Magistrates and governby their own Laws while subservient to the publick Laws of the Sovereign Authority pag. 1. This is certainly very true but how far it makes for the Charter of London against the Quo Warranto is a Mystery not to be comprehended by every vulgar capacity for 't is no less plain in History that not only Tyrants and Vsurpers as he mentions but just and lawful Sovereigns have divers times suppress'd such Municipal Cities for good and necessary causes as for being disloyal to their Prince or factious and seditious against the Government and then the main Question will be How far the City of London has of late been guilty of such Crimes as by Law deserve the like Punishment This in short is the plain state of the Question for 't is most unreasonable to think that any King or Republick ever gave their Municipal Cities any such Liberties or Immunities as were not forfeitable upon their abusing the Power they receiv'd when otherwise neither Prince nor People cou'd be secure from the insolence of such uncontroulable Citizens without a standing Army to keep them in awe But our Gentleman it seems is unwilling to touch upon this critical point of speculation and as the Defence of the Charter is the least part of his Pamphlet so now he runs quite from the purpose to tell the King like a dutiful Subject He may if He please take His Quietus-est and let His people govern themselves For it is impossible saith he that mankind should miscarry in their own hands pag. 2. Now since they have often miscarry'd in the hands of Princes is it not more expedient for the publick good if this Maxim will hold that the Prince shou'd mind his own private business and not trouble himself with the Government which the People can do better without Him This is Mr. Hunt's new Model of Government who out of pure love and kindness to the Monarchy chalks out a ready way for his Sovereign to ease Himself of all the thorns and prickles of His Crown and become a glorious King like His Father And therefore seems very angry that the Court i. e. the King should be troubl'd with the Power of appointing Officers in any City or Corporation in the Kingdom tho' it be found of absolute necessity for the keeping His Crown upon His Head and protecting His best Subjects from a Band of Associators and Ignoramus-Juries Oh! But by this new form of Corporations it will be in the power of a Popish Successor to put the Government of all Corporated Towns in England into the hands of Papists p 5. And without it I say it will be no less in the power of the Faction to put the same Government into the hands of Fanaticks What a Bugbear is this Popish Successor whose very Name turns the brains of a Whig into a Magnifying-glass that will transform Ants into Gyants and Mole-hills into Mountains We have as good Laws as the wit of man can devise to secure us from the encroachments of Popery and to disable Papists from bearing any Office Civil or Military either in or out of Corporations and yet this Popish Successor who possibly may never succeed this great Goliah can break through all those Laws and will certainly do it to curry favour with a handful of Papists and make himself a Slave to the Pope This is not all For this mode saith he of incorporating Cities and Towns doth ipso facto change the Government for that One of the Three States an essential part of the Government which is made up of the Representatives of the People and ought to be chosen by the People will by this means have five sixth parts of such Representatives upon the matter of the Courts nomination and not of the Peoples choice and at the next turn we shall have a Parliament of Papists and Red-coats pag. 6. O profound Politician has not our Government been Regal and Monarchical from the beginning how then can the House of Commons in comparison but a late Institution necessary not for the Being but for the Well-being of the Monarchy be an Essential part of it Or how can any Rulâ—r be term'd a Monarch that has 500 Demagogues Joynt-Governours with Him These and such other Republican Maxims have been in a great measure the main foundation of all the miseries and confusions we suffer'd under the late Tyranny of the Rump-Parliament and after our sad experience of those Tragical times surely we have reason to think that none but such as wou'd bring us back to the same calamities and sing the second part to the same Tune would now endeavour to assert or maintain them yet they are so very familiar to our Irish Chief-Baron that there is hardly a page in most of his Pamphlets but has a strong tincture of them In his great and weighty Considerations considered he says The Parliament derive Their Authority from the same Original the King derives His The
and accorded for the good governance of the Commons that no man be put to answer without Presentment before Justices or matter of Record or by due Process and Writ Original according to the Old Law of the Land and if any thing be done to the contrary it shall be void in Law and holden for error What are we the better I say to have these and several other Statutes to the same purpose if they are not of force to secure us on all sides from the slavish yoke of Arbitrary Power If a breach be once made in these great Bulwarks of our Liberties and that even by those Sentinels appointed to guard us from all Illegal Incroachments where is our Security What will it avail the flock that they are safe from Wolves if they are in danger to be devour'd by the very Dogs that shou'd defend them Or to what purpose shou'd people struggle to avoid Scylla if at the same time they suffer themselves to be swallow'd up in Charybdis 'T is an old saying Infeliciter aegrotat cui plus mali venit a medico â—uam a morbo and we have found this too true by a dear-bought experience God preserve us from receiving any further confirmations of it from those State-Empyricks that labour to make us exchange the reality for the name and the substance for the shadow or Liberty 'T is plain by the foregoing Statutes that no man ought to be taken or Imprison'd without being brought to Answer by due course of Law and that none can be brought thus to answer without Presenâ—ment before Justices or matter of Record or by due Process and Writ Original according to the old Law of the Land What pretence then have the House of Commons who can bring none to Answer in this manner to any right or legal power to take or Imprison any Criminal whatsoever 'T is true the Common and generally all men in Authority are inclin'd to enlarge their own Jurisdiction and stretch it as far as possible but sure a bare Vote of that House in favour of themselves or a late practice never heard of in former Ages shall not be of force enough in any Court of Justice to elude the solemn Acts of King and Parliament Besides these Statutes too plain to admit of any comment even by the Common Law of this Realm no Subject can Imprison another but our Ancient Courts of Record and such as have the Kings express Commission for so doing I say Courts of Record because as appears by divers adjudg'd Cases in our Law Reports no other Court can Fine or Imprison the Subject Courts saith Coke which are not of Record cannot impose a Fine or commit any to Prison lib. 8. f. 38. And again Nulla Curia quae Recordum non habet potest imponere finem neque aliquem mandare carceri quia ista tantummodo spectant ad Curias de Recordo Now our best Lawyers will tell us that the House of Commons is no Court of Record nay properly speaking is no Court at all 1. Because there is no Court but what is establish d by the Kings Patent by Act of Parliament or by the Common-Law i.e. the constant immemorial custom of former Ages Plowdens Comment fol. 319. and Coke 1 Instit. f. 260. But the House of Commons cannot pretend to have any Patent or Act of Parliament to be a Court and yet the Common-Law makes nothing for their purpose For they were never own'd as such nor ever had as much as a Journal-Book much less Records till Ed. 6's time And moreover it was never heard before Sir Edward Cokes fancy there were two distinct Courts in the same Parliament since therefore the House of Lords is undoubtedly the Supream Court of all England they are properly the High Court of Parliament and consequently the House of Commons is no Court in Law Secondly There is no Court without a power of Tryal but the House of Commons have no power to try any Crime or Offence for they cannot nor ever pretended to examine upon Oath And therefore since there can be no legal tryal without Witnesses nor are Witnesses of any force in Law unless examin'd upon Oath the House of Commons not claiming the power to administer Oaths cannot bring any matter to a Tryal and consequently can be no Court. I must confess Sir Edward Coke who in his latter days thinking himself disoblig'd was no friend to the Monarchy and therefore took a great deal of pains to extol the Power of the Commons in opposition to the Kings Prerogative and the Jurisdiction of the Lords is or at least pretends to be of another opinion In the 4th part of his Institutes he tells us That the House of Commons is to many purposes a distinct Court p 28. which he very Learnedly proves by this rare Demonstration That upon signification of the Kings pleasure to the Speaker they do and may Prorogue or Adjourn themselves and are not Prorogu'd or Adjourned by the House of Lords ib. Whereas to say nothing of Commissioners for examining Witnesses or regulating any publick business of Arbitrators Referees and the like every Committee of Lords and Commons tho never so few in number must upon this account be a distinct Court because they may thus Adjourn and Prorogue themselves without their respective Houses But he goes on and to prove the House of Commons is not only a Court but a Court of Judicature and Record he says p. 23. That the Clerks Book of the House of Commons is a Record and so declared by Act of Parliament 6 H. 8. c. 16. Whereas that House as I have already hinted had no such Book as a Journal much less any Authentick Record before the first year of Edward the sixth all their material Proceedings till then being drawn in Minutes by a Clerk appointed to attend them for that purpose and by him entr'd of Record in the House of Lords And therefore the words of the Statute are That the Speakers License for Members going into the Country be entred of Record in the Book of the Clerk of the Parliament appointed for the Commons House Which undoubtedly must be meant not of the Commons tho order'd now and then to wait upon them but of the Lords Clerk who alone is stil'd Clerk of the Parliament I omit that altho the Act had expresly call'd the Commons Book a Record yet this cou'd no more make it so than the words of the Common-Law Recordari facias loquelam in Curia Comitatus vel Baronis tui Recordum illud habere coram Justiciariâ—s nostris c. us'd in the Writt for removing a Plaint out of the Court-Baron or County-Court to the Common-Pleas can prove the County-Court and Court-Baron to be Courts of Record which yet Coke himself denyes in several places of his Institutes See 1 Inst. f. 117. and 260. and Rolls in his Abridg. f. 527. This is not all the Lords and Commons must be made all Fellows
against any of their Pretensions yet I must say the power they claim now-a-days to punish all sorts of misdemeanors and what they please to term a breach of Priviledge is not to be endur'd by any free-born Subject For besides that 't is needless because such offences may and by Law ought to be try'd in the ordinary Courts of Justice 't is very dangerous to the Publick least the Grand Inquest of the Nation appointed to represent the Peoples Grievances and pray redress shou'd upon this account be diverted from pursuing those weighty affairs by every sawcy Footman belonging to the meanest Burgess in their House I confess it were somewhat tolerable in the Commons to imprison and punish their own Members for words by them spoken or misdemeanors committed in the House 1. Because by 4 H. 8. c. 8. they are not punishable elsewhere for any rashness in Parliament that does not amount to Treason Felony or breach of the Peace which the Commons neither can nor I hope will as in Forty-One endeavour to protect 2ly Because 't is suppos'd the Members upon their entring into that Assembly unanimously agreed the lesser number shou'd always submit to the greater and the major Vote be observ'd as the Act and Sense of the whole House if therefore by consent and original compact every single Member submits himself to the rest he cannot complain tho' otherwise they had no authority if they imprison him for his misdemeanors because scienti volenti non fit injuria provided always they exceed not the common Rules of Justice nor the bounds of our establish'd Laws for then no private Act can bind a Subject tho' made with his own free consent as appears by Clark's Case against the Mayor and Burgesses of St. Albans Coke lib. 5. p. 64. I cannot therefore but think the power assum'd of late years by the House of Commons over their fellow-Members to expel them the House when and for what they please without any legal Tryal which the Lords never practic'd against any of their Peers is in it self most unreasonable and of very dangerous consequence as Mr. Prynne tho' otherwise a great Champion for the Priviledges of Parliament proves at large in divers of his Treatises The practice saith he of sequestring and expelling Commons by their fellow-Commons only is a late dangerous unparliamentary Usurpation unknown to our Ancestors destructive to the Priviledges and Freedom of Parliaments and injurious to those Counties Cities and Boroughs whose Trustees are secluded the House of Commons being no Court of Justice to give either Oath or final Sentence and having no more authority to dismember their fellow-Members than any Judges Justices of the Peace or Committees have to Dis-judge Dis-justice or Dis-committee their fellow Judges Justices or Committee-men being all of equal Authority and made Members only by the King 's Writ and the Peoples Election not by the Houses or other Members Votes who yet now presume both to make and unmake seclude and recal expel and restore their fellow-Members at their pleasure contrary to the practice and resolution of former Ages to patch up a Factious Conventicle instead of an English Parliament In his legal Vindication of the Liberties of England p. 10. But whatever Power the Commons can pretend to have over their own Members to say they can lawfully punish others tho for a breach of Priviledge much less for any other Crime seems to me a very groundless Assertion not warrantable by the Ancient Law and Custom of Parliament but rather contrary to the Fundamental Constitutions of our Government First because 't is impossible to make out from whom this Power is deriv'd From the King The Factious will not own it and none can prove it For they have neither Patent nor Statute to shew for 't nor yet any Legal Prescription which is a constant immemorial Custom such as the Lords have in point of Judicature to warrant it the Ancientest President they can alledge being that of 4 Ed. 6. or the Case of Ferrers referr'd to them by the Lords in the 34 H. 8 about sevenscore years ago Do they deriâ—e it then from the People from the Freeholders and Freemen their Electors These have no such Power of themselves they can Imprison none without His Majesties Commission and what they have not sure they cannot give Nemo dat quod non habet As for the Power given by the Electors to their chosen Members who are order'd by the Writ of Summons to have from the persons they represent Plenam sufficientem potestatem 't is no Judicial Power nor Political Jurisdiction which the People have not and consequently cannot give but only a Power of consenting as well for their Principals as for themselves to the Kings Laws and Ordinances And certainly if the King be the Suprem and the only Suprem Governour of this Realm as we affirm in the Oath of Supremacy and if all Authority and Jurisdiction Spiritual and Temporal be derived and deducted from the Kings Majesty as 't is expresly declarâ—d 1 Ed. 6. c. 2. § 3. Or as Old Bracton saith Ea quae sunt Jurisdictionis pacis ad nullum pertinent nisi ad regiam dignitatem lib. 3. c. 24. Unless the Commons can make out they have their Power from the King they can have no manner of Jurisdiction and by consequence cannot lawfully Punish or Imprison any Criminal if not perchance their own Members in the Cases aforesaid Besides in the first Parliament of Queen Mary 't is declar'd That the most Ancient Statutes of this Kingdom do give assign and appoint the correction and punishment of all Offenders against the Regality and Dignity of the Crown and the Laws of this Realm unto the King 1 Mar. Sess. 3. c. What then are the breakers of the Commons Priviledges are they Offenders against the Dignity of the Crown or the Laws of the Realm If so they ought according to this Act to be punish'd by the King if not they are not punishable at all for to trouble any that does not offend against the Crown or the Law of the Land is very Illegal and Arbitrary and a high breach of the Liberty of the Subject Secondly because the Law has expresly provided where and how breaches of Priviledge ought to be punish'd and gives the House of Commons no power to take any cognizance of them for by several Statutes it appears that if a Parliament-man or his Menial-servant be Assaulted Beaten or Wounded in Parliament-time Proclamation shall be made where the deed is done that the Offendor shall render himself to the Kings-Bench within half a year after there to be tryed and if the Offendor will not appear he shall be Attainted of the Deed and pay to the Party griev'd his double Damages to be tax'd by the discretion of the Judges of the said Bench for the time being or by Inquest if need be and also make Fine and Ransom at the Kings will Moreover it is
look'd upon by our Laws as persons of no less Integrity than Honour in the distribution of Justice and besides are assisted by all the Judges of England by the 12 Masters of Chancery by the Kings Learned Council and by His Attorney and Solicitor General in consideration whereof the same Laws have repos'd that extraordinary trust in this August Assembly that to them alone it belongs to redress delays and reform the erroneous Judgments of other Courts of Justice and give a final decision to all manner of Appeals Now by the Laws of other Nations as well as ours 't is the nature of Superior Courts that they may determine matters tryable by an Inferior and therefore it must be allow'd that tho the House of Commons cannot because no Court of Judicature yet the House of Lords the dernier resort of all Suits and Actions may if they please punish the Invaders of their Priviledges notwithstanding that the Law directs them to be try'd in Inferiour Courts Having thus sufficiently demonstrated that the House of Commons have neither Common nor Statute-Law nor yet any legal Precedents to warrant their Fining or Imprisoning the meanest of their Fellow-subjects 't is high time I think tho a great deal more might be said on this subject very useful to be known to give you a brief account of other Particulars and examine whether the Remedies propos'd in Parliament by our late Mountebanks of State be not equally dangerous if not really worse than our Disease But to expose the designs of some ill men there and the unwarrantable Votes and Resolves they got pass'd in the Lower House is a task no less tedious than difficult for me to undertake I will therefore tell you in short that notwithstanding all the noise and clamour they made about the Protestant Religion and the Liberty of the Subject the Nation had too much reason to believe they minded more their own ends than the common good of the People The Kings best Subjects who having so many years experience of His Majesties most happy Government declar'd themselves satisfi'd with His prudent management of Affairs and in Obedience to His Royal Proclamation express'd their aversion to all Tumultuous Petitions were no more run down on the one side than the Factious Fanaticks even such as signaliz'd themselves in the late Rebellion were countenanc'd and favour'd on the other insomuch that many were of opinion people had no surer way to ingratiate themselves with some of the Leading Memberr than openly to asperse the Government and reflect upon the King and His Ministers as Favorers of Popery and Designers of Arbitrary Power 'T is almost incredible what pains they took to get the Notorious Anabaptist Ben. Harris discharg'd out of Prison for no other reason that I find but because a Dissenter who with a great deal of favour was condemn'd only to the Pillory instead of Tyburn for publishing that Treasonable Pamphlet The Appeal Neither is this all the main Bulwark of our Church must be broke down the Penal Laws against the Non-conformists Repeal'd to let in a Deluge of Sectaries the scandal of the Reformation who have nothing of Christianity but the Name to Profane the Temple of God And because this Project luckily miscarry'd their Friends in the House endeavour'd to leave them a new kind of Dispensation and the very last day of their sitting that with their dying breath they might testify to the World their great zeal for the Dissenters in general of what sect or perswasion soever to the admiration of most men they pass'd the following Vote Resolved That it is the Opinion of this House that the Prosecution of Protestant Dissenters upon the Penal Laws is at this time grievous to the Subject a weakening of the Protestant Interest an encouragement to Popery and dangerous to the Peace of the Kingdom I need not comment upon this unwarrantable Resolve by which our worthy Patriots even without the King and House of Lords once more were pleas'd to assume to themselves a Power of suspending and consequently of making Acts of Parliament The encouragement this gave to the Republicans to pursue their wicked Designs against the Crown and the Church like to have prov'd fatal to both is enough to convince the World they cou'd hardly do the Nation a greater mischief and that their confining several Gentlemen tho contrary to Law and Reason was not near so dangerous to the Government as their breaking down the Rails of the Church to let a swarm of Sectaries creep in at the Windows It was observ'd with some admiration how during this Session of Parliament there was not one Fanatick Imprison'd nor so much as question'd by the Commons for any Crime or Insolence whatsoever very few Papists molested but the true Sons of the Church of England daily Prosecuted in vast numbers to their great loss and vexation tho it prov'd at last the eternal shame and confusion of the Authors I cou'd not but smile to see the perplexity they were in when one of the Judges to his never-dying fame for giving the first Precedent of that kind made application to the House of Commons about the Execution of his Trust and desir'd their Opinion whether he shou'd do Justice to one of their Prisoners by granting the Writ of Habeas Corpus to Mr. Sheridan then in the Custody of Serjeant Topham Three several days the Case was stifly debated in the House the Act read twice or thrice over and yet no resolution taken The Warrant of Committment which order'd the Gentleman to be confin'd without any Cause shown During the Will and Pleasure of the House of Commons was look'd upon so Illegal and Arbitrary a Procedure even by several Members of the House that Serjeant M. till he heard it was already made publick wou'd have them immediately recal the Old and grant a New Warrant more conformable to Law Besides the words of the Statute were so full as admitted of no Comment and so plain for the Liberty of the Subject as made it undenyable that Prisoners unless for Treason or Felony were still Bailable by what Person or Persons soever Committed not excepting the King and Council much less the House of Commons who had no Legal Power to Commit any Criminal But still the point was very nice and the Leading Members no less uncertain what resolution to take for if they openly declar'd against the Habeas Corpus the Nation wou'd be much alarm'd and suspect these Gentleman instead of securing intended to invade the Subjects Liberty but if they allow'd the Writ the delicious power of Imprisoning such as they had a picque to was utterly lost and all persons referr'd to the ordinary Courts of Justice or upon their failure to the House of Lords the suprem Tribunal of England At last Sir William Jones like an Imperious Dictator starts up to decide the matter and having made a bawling Harangue concerning the Power of the House and their Intention of not
binding themselves by that Act which yet must bind the King tho it might as well be alleadg'd He did not intend it he boldly concludes with threatning and daring the Judges to do their duty Precibusque minas regaliter addit The same reasons says he which may be given for discharging such as are not Committed for breach of Priviledge if it be grounded on the Act for the Habeas Corpus will hold as strong for discharging of Persons Committed for breach of Priviledge and so consequently deprive this House of all its Power and Dignity and make it insignificant This is so plain and obvious that all the Judges ought to know it and I think it below you to make any Resolve therein but rather leave the Judges to do otherwise at their Peril and let the Debate fall without any question See the Debates of the House pag. 217. Was not this a rare Assertor of our Liberties who instead of allowing us the benefit of the Laws wou'd have us all made Beasts of burden to maintain the Grandeur of some Arbitrary Demagogues in the House of Commons and be content to turn Gally-Slaves rather than their Power shou'd become useless or insignificant But I find this daring Speech did not frighten all the Judges for Baron Weston to his immortal Renown had still the courage to grant the Habeas Corpus and rather expose himself to the malice of the Faction than deny or delay Justice contrary to his Oath Our Religion and Liberty being thus secur'd have we not reason to be fond of these worthy Patriots who tugg'd so hard against Popery the better to bring in Presbytery and to make sure that the Prince shou'd not use Arbitrary Power took all possible care to keep it in their own possession It was the Kings Prerogative in the days of yore to have the Power of making War and Peace and declaring who shou'd be counted Friends and who reputed Enemies to the Kingdom But now the Tribunes of the People are willing to ease him of that trouble and take upon themselves by the following Vote to declare some of His Majesties best Subjects and most Faithful Friends Enemies to the King and Kingdom Resolved That all persons who advis'd His Majesty in His last Message to this House to insist upon an Opinion against the Bill for excluding the Duke of York have given pernicious Councel to His Majesty and are promoters of Popery and Enemies to the King and Kingdom And this extravagant Vote they are pleas'd particularly to apply to four Noble Peers of the Realm exposing them to the Rable without the least colour of proof for Promoters of Popery and Enemies to their Soveraign for no other reason but because they were truly Loyal and free from the contagious leaven of the Faction What a happiness it is to live within the Walls of the House of Commons where the Knave becomes Honest and the Fool a Politician where People are sure never to be in the wrong but always impeccable and may freely rail and reflect upon their Betters which without doors wou'd cost them very dear Yet I cannot but wonder why these Noblemen unless they as well as many others took that Character for a mark of Honour from the givers have taken no course at least with the Printer and Bookseller if not with the then Speaker for ordering such Scandalous Votes to be publish'd contrary to express Acts of Parliament For if the Kings immediate Command cannot be allow'd as a good excuse in Law for any Illegal Act so that altho the Prince be unaccountable yet the Minister is to suffer for his Obedience sure a Vote of the House of Commons shall not be thought of force at least out of Parliament-time to Protect any Offender from Justice because whatever Title the Members within the sacred Walls of the House may claim in some Cases to impunity their Officers and Servants who execute their Illegal Commands abroad cannot in the least pretend to have any But how shou'd these Noblemen be enemies to the King and Kingdom for their advising His Majesty against the Bill of Exclusion when the whole House of Peers few discontented Lords Dissenting who by their Lives and Conversation never shew'd themselves the truest Protestants nor the best Subjects openly declar'd against it and upon the first reading threw it out of doors is a Mystery not easily to be understood His Majesty in His Message to the Commons declar'd He was confirm'd in His Opinion against that Bill by the Judgment of the House of Lords who rejected it why then are four Lords singl'd out and not the whole House declar'd Promoters of Popery and Enemies to the King and Kingdom The reason some will guess that the Leading Members saw matters were not yet ripe to shew themselves bare-fac'd or discover the bottom of their Designs and once more to Vote the House of Lords dangerous and useless and therefore to be laid aside But why the Opposers of the Bill of Exclusion enemies to the King and Kingdom When 't is made plain even to Demonstration in several Treatises publish'd these four years past about the Succession that the Promoters of that Bill tho some perhaps meant otherwise were in fact Enemies to the Monarchy and no Friends to the King nor to the True Protestant Religion 'T is strange that such as loudly exclaim against Popery shou'd have the face at the same time to practice the worst of Popish or rather Jesuitical Principles and endeavour to force their Soveraign to disinherit His only Brother upon a bare suspicion of his being of another Religion which Henry the 3. of France being tender of the Monarchy and of the Hereditary Right of Succession was so far from offering to the King of Navarre tho a known Protestant and but a remote Kinsman that he cou'd never be perswaded to give the Royal Assent to the Bill which the powerful influence of the Factious Duke of Guise got pass'd by the three Estates for his Exclusion Oh! but say they Popery and Slavery will break in upon us if the Duke succeeds And I am sure Anarchy and Presbytery and an Intestine Civil War will undoubtedly follow if he be excluded the King expos'd to danger and the Kingdom to ruine How fatal it prov'd to Henry 6. that he suffer'd the good Duke of Gloucester to be made away by his Prosecutors which made way for his own Deposition and consequently for his untimely end Historians do abundantly testify and Baker tells us how the great Duke of Somerset then Protector by Sacrificing his Brother the Lord Admiral to the malice of his Enemies in hopes to stop their mouths by yielding to their demands clear'd the way for himself to the Scaffold A Warrant saith this Historian was sent under the hand of his Brother the Protector to cut off his Head wherein as afterwards it prov'd he did as much as if he had laid his own Head upon the Block For