speaking out of the Mouths of Phanatical Protestants or the last Speeches of John Kid and John King c. pag. 11. The matter of fact being thus stated the Reader need not wonder they were severely treated when they suffered the pains of Treason and Rebellion but besides those they had committed a vast number of Massacres and Assassinations before they murthered the Primate and this aggravated their sufferings Now all the cunning of this Declaration lies in this that they tell us what they suffered and perhaps truly but not a tittle of the case Which is just as if all the Rogues in the Nation should joyn and pen a complaint ennumerating how many of them since his Majesties Return have been Hanged Quartered Whipped Branded Transported Pillored Imprisoned which never meant any hurt to his Majesty or the Government but only to get a Living the best and easiest way they could Now to one that is as little vers'd in our ways of Punishment as we are in the Scotch it would seem a rueful Story whilest an English man would smile as knowing why they suffered all these hardships I need not apply it but shall add this they have deserved ten times more then they have felt as being the bloudiest Cut-throats in the world So that in Scotland no man dare to offend them openly for fear of assassination but such as either must by the necessity of their places or else have good means of defending their Lives against them Next I observe this Declaration is nothing but a large flourish upon the Speech and drawn just at that loose general rate which that is calling those Taxes and Punishments Arbitrary which they acknowledg were according to several Acts of Parliament and then pretending the persons that do constitute their Parliaments or States are overawed But then I must commend their ingenuity in this that they do not with the Commons of England lay the blame of all this upon the Duke of Lauderdale or their Ministers but upon the total change of their Government and State both Sacred and Civil and upon the Parliament of Scotland and the King whom they supplicate with menaces to restore him into the same State he found them in without which they were sensible the removing of the Duke of Lauderdale or any other of the great Ministers of State would signify nothing as to their Designs which was as they plainly tell us to set up the Presbyterian Doctrine and Church Government to serve the King in nothing else any further then he would serve them in that And lastly to obtain a free and unlimited Parliament and Assembly that is such as it might not be in his Majesties power to dissolve or frustrate by prorogation till they had extirpated Popery and Prelacy both together which was freely and roundly to tell us what they would have without canting and amusing us with general terms and hints but then I must not deny they had swords by their sides to justify these demands which our Gentlemen want and I wish ever may do but yet the Reader may observe that Speech that was so hugged in England and the Scotch Declaration meant the same thing though in different terms Observe also that they call the Presbyterian Doctrine and Government the Religion established though they own it to be taken away by a rescissory Act of Parliament for they believe all those Acts that have or shall be made against it are Null and Void and the former Acts are still in force though repealed which is an odd sort of Establishment consisting in the fancy of the people that own it and not in Law or Nature They lay the stress of their Justification upon necessity and yet own the greatest part of it to arise from hence that they must be deprived of the Gospel preached by the faithful Ministers and be made Slaves if they did not rebel Now as to their civil interest they would be in the same State with their Country men who are so far from rebelling that they have several times chastised them for it with a very little assistance from England And as to their Preachments I wonder in what part of the Gospel they learned to defend Christs Religion by rebellion but we must know this is pure Scotch Calvinistical Jesuitical Doctrine begun by the Devil and his Vicar the Pope not many hundred years ago and for which Bellarmine acknowledges there is neither Precept nor Example in the Bible nor in all Church History till near a thousand years after our Saviour's time and he gives this reason why the Gospel taught patience and submission because the contrary would have ruined Christianity then when but a few professed it but tells us St. Paul would have taught otherwise if he had lived in our days I shall not dispute how the Cardinal or the Scotch Gentlemen who talk at the same rate came to know this but I say it is equally destructive of any other Doctrine a man hath no mind to practise as of this of submission to Princes and suffering patiently for the truth without resistance As suppose I have a mind to revenge and they tell me of the Doctrine of meekness and forgiving injuries and Enemies if I reply this Doctrine was adopted to the Infant state of Christianity when Professors were few and exposed to persecution and could have got nothing by revenging their quarrels but ruine but the state of things is otherwise now and I may revenge my self with security both as to my self and as to my Religion and from thence infer that that Doctrine is ceased and I am at liberty to do in that particular as I see cause and that St. Paul would have taught so if he had lived in these times I say if I should argue thus upon their principles it could never be answered and a man might say as much for any other Gospel precept he had no mind to obey But to return The Covenanters in their first Declaration date the rise of all their troubles from the year 1648 and that is true and worth a Note You must know Charles the first had given them by the pacification all that they asked and the long Rebel Parliament had sent them home loaden with thanks Money and the spoils of England before our wars began * A View of the late Troubles cap. 18. but things going ill on the Parliament side after the King had routed Waller in the West and almost totally subdued the North by the valour of the E. of Newcastle the Parliament having no other way to turn them were forced to call in the Scots once more with Money and Promises yea and Oaths too to settle the Presbyterian Church Government here in England These two things prevailing upon them in they came and that ruined the King and his Party who at last surrendring himself to the Scots they dutifully sold him to the Parliament for 300000 lb. as all the World knows but the Chapmen fell out and
Wherefore we your Majesties Loyal Subjects could not but be sensibly affected with trouble to find such a Person notwithstanding the repeated Addresses of the last Parliament continued in your Counsels at this time when the affaires of your Kingdom require none to be put into such imployments but such as are men of known abilities Interest and esteem in the Nation without all suspition of either mistaking or betraying the true interest of the Kingdom and consequently of advising your Majesty ill We do therefore most humbly beseech your most sacred Majesty for the taking away the great Jealousies Dissatisfactions and Fears amongst your good Subjects that your Majesty will gratiously be pleased to remove the Duke of Lauderdale from your Majesties Counsels in your Majesties Kingdoms of England and Scotland and from all offices imployments and places of trust and from your Majesties Presence for ever This Address they presented to his Majesty the day following to which his Majesty replyed he would consider of it and return an Answer But in the mean time it was doubtless sent after the Speech into Scotland where it found all things rather necessitated to a Rebellion than disposed the Murther of so illustrious a Person as the Primate of that Kingdom and one of his Majesties Privy Counsel there was a Villany not to be smothered And the Proclamation published the day after the fact for the discovery and apprehending of the Assassines representing the Act as it deserved with great detestation had further allarm'd the whole Party who had as they thought no other way to escape the deserved revenge but by justifying the Murther with a Rebellion And finding by this Address that the House of Commons in England were in this critical moment pressing upon their dreadful Enemy the Duke of Lauderdale they took it for granted God had espoused their cause and if they could make a head in Scotland they should be seconded out of England hoping perhaps to be as well rewarded for this as they were for beginning the former Rebellion and so being pushed forward by their destiny and desperation on they went On Tuesday the 27th of May 1679 The Parliament was prorogued and the Thursday following which was the 29th of the same month the Scotch Covenanters who knew nothing of it began their Rebellion at Ragland in Scotland to which place about fourscore men well mounted and armed came and proclaimed the Covenant and burnt several Acts of Parliament and affixed this following Declaration on the Market Cross As the Lord had been pleased still to keep and preserve his Interest in the Land by the Testimony of some faithful Witnesses from the beginning so in our days some have not been wanting who through the greatest of Hazards had added their Testimonies to these who have gone before them by suffering death Banishment Torturings Finings Forfeitures imprisonments c. Flowing from cruel and perfidious Adversaries to the Church and Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Land Therefore we owning the Interest of Christ according to the word of the Lord and the National and Solemn League and Covenant desire to add our Testamony to the Testimonies of the Worthies that has gone before though unworthy yet hoping as true Members of the Church of Christ in Scotland and that against all things that has been done prejudicial to his interest from the beginning of the work of Reformation in Scotland especially from the year 1648 to the year 1660 against these following Acts. 1. The Act of Supremacy 2. The Declaration whereby the Covenants are condemned 3. The Act for Eversion of the established Government of the Church and for establishing Prelacy and for the Outing of Christs Ministers who could not conform thereto by an Act Rescissory of all Acts of Parliament and Assemblies for the Establishment of the Covernment of the Church of Scotland according to the Word 4. As likewise the Act of Council at Glasgow putting that Act recissory in execution where at one time were violently cast out above three hundred Ministers without any Legal procedures 5. As likewise the Act appointing a Holy Anniversary Day to be kept upon the 29th of May for giving thanks for the upsetting of an usurping Power destroying the Interest of the Church in the Land which is to set up the Creature to be worshipped in the room of our Great Redeemer and to consent to the assuming of the power that is proper to the Lord alone for the appointing Ordinances in his Church as particularly the Government thereof and the keeping of Holy-days and all other sinful and unlawful Acts Emitted and Executed by them And for Confirmation of this our Testimony we do hereby this day being the 29th day of May 1679 Publickly burn them at the Cross of Ragland most Justly as they perfidiously and Blasphemously had burnt our Holy Covenants through several Cities of the Covenanted Kingdoms We judge none will take exception at our not subscribing this our Testimony being so solemnly gone about for we are ready always to do it if judged necessary with all the faithful suffering Brethren in the Land They intended to have affixed this Declaration at Glasgow too but were prevented by the Kings Forces there On the Sunday following they Rendevoused upon London Hill being then 14 or 1500 men well armed and in good order the foot commanded by one Weir and the Horse by Robert Hamilton one Patron Balfour and Hackston these two last being of the number of them that murthered the Arch-bishop and consequently most concerned to carry the Rebellion as far as they could being thus disposed and Ordered one Captain Graham of Claver House marched against them with a troop of Horse and a Company of Dragoons upon whose approach the Rebels sent out two Parties to Skirmish with him which he beat into their main body and then they advanced with their whole force upon him So that after a considerable slaughter of them and the loss of his Cornet two Brigadiers and about eight Horse and twenty Dragoons his own horse being killed under him and he mounting another being so much over-powered in number he made his retreat towards Glasgow being in his way forced to fight his way through the Townsmen of Streuin who were got together to oppose it leaving ten or twelve of them dead upon the place On Munday the Second day of June the Rebells in the morning attacked the City of Glasgow at two several times but all the Streets were so well Barracadoed by the Lord Ross and the Souldiers there put into so good a posture that they were beat off with considerable loss besides many Prisoners that were taken and thereupon the Horse and Dragoons in the Town sallied out and pursued them upon their drawing off In the Interim the Council of Scotland having first given an account of this Rebellion to his Majesty published a Proclamation for the suppression of it and that failing Levied what forces they could to oppose them
cannot possibly better represent this than in the Words of Camden The State of England was most miserable at that time as being involved in a War with Scotland on the one side and France on the other oppressed with the Debts which Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth had Contracted the Exchequer was Exhausted Calis and the County of Oyen and in them a great Magazine were lost to the dishonour of the English Name and the People were divided in their Opinions concerning Religion The Queen had no Potent Friends nor was fortified with the * Cognatione Alliance or Kindred of any Foreign Princes The Trade of England must of necessity be very small when the Nation was thus Near ruine But when the Queen had once setled the business of Religion and afterwards had taken care to preserve it from Foreign Violence by Repairing her Navy Royal so that it was far Superiour to any other which gave her Reputation at home and Fame abroad and also from the Attempts of the Papists and Dissenters by severe Laws constantly put in Execution and had thereby Won the Affections of her People and stilled their Fears They being secur'd thus at home began to search all the corners of the World for Trade and sent forth their Fleets to the East and West Indies to Muscovy by the Bay of St. Nicholas by them Discover'd and Green-Land and indeed whether not whence they returned with Honour and Wealth and made her and themselves Happy One thing that gave a great Advantage to the Trade and consequently to the Wealth of England in her time was the Devastations which the severity of the Duke de Alva and the Wars of Flanders thereby occasion'd caused in those Countries by which means we gained some Addition to our People the knowledge of some Manufactures which we had not before and also a vast stock of Mony and Treasure which altogether had like to have totally ruin'd the Spanish Netherlands but however this concurring with the rest helped to advance England to that height of Wealth and Reputation in the World that it was in her days the Bulwark of Christendom and without any considerable forrein Assistance humbled and brought down the House of Austria which then aimed at an Universal Monarchy But then it cannot be denyed that together with these Low Countrymen Factions and Common-Weath Principles entred England And although the severity of that Queen and the great Affection and Veneration the People had for her added to her Constancy whose Motto was Semper eadem Always the same kept them both under so as they were never able to give her any considerable disturbance yet they grew and encreased and in the Reign of her Successor tugged stoutly in the House of Commons for the Victory with the Court Party as they then stiled all that stood to the Crown and kept King James at Bay and destitute of those Supplies that were necessary to preserve the Grandeur of the Crown and the Reputation of England and forced him to spend Seven Years of his Reign without calling any Parliaments and the last he called which was in his One and Twentieth Year involved him in War And the next basely Betray'd his Son who succeeded presently after to the Necessity of clapping up a Dishonourable Peace for want of Means to carry on a War When King James came to the Crown the Dissenters of England expected a mighty advantage by it because Scotland had been always Presbyterian from whence he came during his time and they hoped his Education might have strongly influenced him to favour them above the Religion Established and upon this intuition Jan. 14. 1603. they procured the Conference at Hampton Court but alass they had so basely and Traiterously used him in Scotland and he was a Prince of that great Learning and Prudence that when they desired a kind of Presbyterie to be Setled here He replyed If you aim at a Scotch Presbyterie Full. C.H. L. 10. p. 18. it agreeth with Monarchy as God and the Devil then Jack and Tom and Will and Dick shall meet and Censure me and my Council Therefore I reiterate my former Speech Le Roy S' avisera the King will be advised stay I pray for one Seven Years before you demand it and then if you find me grow pursie and fat I may perchance hearken unto you for that Government will keep me in breath and give me work enough And in the next Paragraph he tells them That he had learned by the Example of his Mother and their dealings with him in his Minority this Maxime NO BISHOP NO KING So they totally failed of their expected advantage and were kept under though with a gentle hand in all his time But when his Son Succeeded and in his Parliaments found how strong these Factions were who had in a great measure prevailed upon the Free-men and Free-holders of the Nation to send up thither great Numbers of good Common wealth men as they then stiled them that is Factious Ambitious Disloyal Persons that hated the Religion and Monarchy by Law Established and when he saw these made it their business to encrease the necessities of the Crown and then denyed just and necessary supplies but upon such terms as would have ruined him and when he also perceived that one great design of theirs was to render him and his Government odious by clamoring eternally against his Conduct and Ministers of State He then saw there was an absolute necessity of a more effectual and vigorous Execution of the Laws against them Hereupon these godly men grew impatient Roger Cokes Englands improvement part 3. p. 13. and one part of them in the years 1636 37 and 38 fled over into Holland and planted themselves at Leyden Alkmare and other places where they instructed the Dutch in our Woollen Manufactures of Norfolk and Suffolk and I have heard saith my Author who is a credible person Sir Charles Harbord a person of great Wisdom and Insight in Forreign as well as the Interest of this Nation say That if all the Bishopricks of England were sold and given to the Nation it would not near compensate the loss the Nation sustained thereby And page 32 of the same discourse he informs us That in the time of our late Wars the Dutch by the means of these Manufactures got from the English the East-land Trade the Company of which heretofore was above all others the most flourishing and by Queen Elizabeth King James and King Charles the First was termed the Royal Company for it supplied Muscovy Sweden Denmark Poland and Lifeland with our Woollen Manufactures and made very advantagious Returns by Treasure especially Hungaria Duckets and the Commodities of those Countries into England This Trade till King Charles his Reign the English solely injoyed About the beginning of King Charles his Reign the Dutch began to be Interlopers rather than Traders with the English in it but in the time of the Wars by
in the interim who had with much impatience expected this day of Deliverance from this terrible Parliament and had sought the Dissolution of it so many Years by all those Arts I have described in the former Part now began to lift up their heads expecting to have another tugg for the Day and having before wrought upon the meanest but most Numerous part of the Free-men and Free-holders and the weakest of the Gentry by jading their Ears with tedious canting Discourses against Humane Institutions Persecuting Gods People and Arbritrary Government and now of late with Tragical Representations of the Popish Plot Massacres Popery and Superstition flew from their sullen retirements and Riding Night and Day about the Villages and trudging about the Corporations incited those they found willing and perswaded intreated and sometimes hired those they found less disposed to joyn with them and by the choice of a sober Protestant Parliament as they pretended to deliver the Nation from Popery and Arbitrary Government which were good Words but had a Knavish signification in their Sense and if any Man smelt ir out and told them truly they were neither for Popery nor Arbitrary Government nor yet for Puritanism and a Common-wealth they ran him down with noise or traduced him behind his back to their Neighbours as a Papist in Masquerade and a Man of Arbitrary Principles But if a Man had but chanced to drop a Word by way of questioning the Truth of one Tittle the many Informers had given out concerning the Plot or these Zealots had raised by way of Consequence presently they flew in his face and villified him as a defamer of the Kings Evidence a concealer of the Plot and could hardly forbear saying He was a Party to it and one of the Conspirators in it As if we had not only been bound to submit our Faith and Reason as intirely to Mr. Oats's Relation in every Punctilio as to the Evangelists upon which he Swore it but also to what Inferences a Faction should draw from it From hence they proceeded to insinuate into the Populace That those Loyal Gentlemen who had been Members of the late long Loyal Parliament who were then call'd the Court Party had joyn'd with the Court to hinder the Discovery of the Plot and promote the Designes of the Papists upon us And although there was not one syllable of Truth in this yet they asserted it with that confidence and added so many protestations often interrupting their opposites with such questions as these What you are for Popery you are willing to have all your Throats Cut and the like that they perswaded too great a Number to joyn with them in the Exclusion of those Gentlemen In the next place fearing the greatest hindrance from the conformable Clergy and the Bishops they represented them amongst their Confidents as nothing better than the Papists and amongst the rest as Men that had a mighty kindness for Popery in their hearts where these prying people spied it though they durst not discover it for the present and with great Assurance said that they would certainly all turn Papists if the Plot went on though Mr. Oates had assured them their Places were disposed of to others before hand and they must expect nothing but beggery assassination and Ruine But yet the people who never consider any thing believe them in this too In the next place they were to deal with the Gentry and Magistrates and here the task was harder for these were never to be wrought over generally to them but amongst them some were their friends of old others had come half way over to gain the Reputation of Moderate Men others had been disgusted by the Government and some few had Relations amongst the Dissenters or Children and Brothers Apprentices Journey-men and Factors to them and these Interests prevail'd upon to joyn with them the rest they blasted what they could by the same Arts they did the Clergy averring they were Papists or favourers of Papists and Popery especially if they had any relations of that Religion or had shewed the least kindness to their Popish Neighbours in the first Discovery of the Plot or had had any acquaintance with them before the Plot. And having by all these multiply'd Slanders got over a very considerable part of the meaner people and yet fearing the party might be too weak they made fraudulent Conveyances for Twenty four hours of their Freehold-Lands and Tenements to their Neighbours by this means creating Twenty Mushrom Voters sometimes out of Forty pounds a year and some that were less scrupulous took the Gifts by word of Mouth without Livery or Seizin Lease or Release and some gave Twelve pence in part of payment for those Lands and Tenements they never meant nor were ever able to Purchase further and so became qualified to give their Votes as they thought and others gave their Children that were Infants part of their Estates with them and brought them along for company and in the interim the Wealthy sort of Men hired Horses or gave Mony to the more Needy to give their Votes for the precious Men that were to keep out Popery The Conventicle Teachers rallied up their Flocks all but the Aprons and they were unwillingly enough left at home The old Committee Men Sequestrators Army Officers and Soldiers of the last Rebellion who had kept holes ever since His Majesties Return for Grief Confusion and Fear now all took the Field again to Vote too and with these joyned all those unwilling Conformists whether Clergy or Layety who have complyed with the Religion Established with purpose to ruine it as soon as it is possible and in the interim great gain is godliness with them and does any man believe all these Forces were thus Mustered up for the Service of His Majesty the Safety of the Monarchy and the preservation of the Religion and Government Establish'd The persons they recommended to the people to be chosen again were first all those Gentlemen who calling themselves the Country Party in the former Parliament had appeared most Zealously against the Queen his Royal Highness and the Ministers of State to these they added as many as they could of the Reliques of the old Rebellion or their Children and made up the Number out of the moderate and discontented Gentlemen Burgesses and Trades-men taking in here and there an honest Gentleman in hopes to win him to their side by this kindness and sometimes this pittiful Project took For my part Act. 22. I think nothing could more confirm the Testimony of Mr. Oats who informs us That the Catholick Religion was to be brought in the same way that they had used for the Destruction of the Father of the King and as that could not be effected till much Blood was spilt on BOTH SIDES so this must be effected by effusion of Blood Pag. 64. and this he Expounds was to be done by weakning and dividing the Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland
Address should be made to his Majesty by such Members of their House as were of his Majesties Privy Counsel to desire his Majesty to Command the Lord Chancellor to put him out of the Commission of the Peace Because it seems his Imprisonment was not punishment enough for so great an offence as this Exact Coll. of the most considerable debates c. p. 337. And the Writing several other books to revive the memory of 1641. as one of the Members expressed it in the following Parliament when it seems they meant to have another fling at him for though his Majesty can pardon and forgive there are that cannot But I believe they have got no great matter by this Nor was the Doctor turn'd out of the Commission for all their Address his Majesty knowing this would not suit his Interest On Saturday the Lords sent down a Bill entituled May 3. An Act for freeing the City of London and parts adjacent from Popish Inhabitants and providing against other dangers which may arise from Papists And in the Afternoon May 5. an Account that the Earl of Danby would insist upon his Pardon and that he desired his Council might be heard to the Validity of it On Monday His Majesty sent this message to the Commons by the Lord Russell His Majesty hath commanded me to let the House know that his Majesty is willing to comply with the request made to him by the House concerning Pickering and that the Law shall pass upon him accordingly and as to the Condemned Priests the House of Peers have sent for them in order as his Majesty conceives to some Examinations and further to acquaint you that he repeateth his instances to you to think of putting the Fleet in such a posture as may quiet mens fears and at least secure us from any sudden attempt which his Majesty doubts not but you will do And though the streights and difficulties he lyeth under are very great he doth not intend during this Sessions to press for any other Supply being willing rather to suffer the Burdens that are upon him some time longer than to interrupt you whilst you are imployed about the discovery of the Plot the Tryal of the Lords and the Bill for securing our Religion The same day the Commons went up to the Bar of the Lords house to demand Judgment against the Earl of Danby upon the Illegality of his pardon May the 6. On Tuesday John Wilson and Roger Bockwith Esquires two Justices of the Peace of the County of York were sent for in Custody for saying that this Parliament was no Parliament and they would justify it Of which more hereafter May 22. A Message was sent to the Lords by the Commons that the House was ready to make good the Impeachments against the five Popish Lords in the Tower and the Committee of Secrecy belonging to the Commons was appointed to manage the evidence against them at their Tryals Wednesday The 7. of May the Lords sent down a Message that they had appointed Saturday to hear the Earl of Danby's Plea for the Validity of his Pardon that they had Addressed to the King for the naming a Lord High Steward at his Tryal and that of the Popish Lords which was appointed by their Lordships to be that day seven-night On Thursday The 8. of May. the Commons agreed an Address to his Majesty against John Duke of Lauderdale upon general pretences of fears and jealousies desiring he might be removed from his Majesties Counsels in England and Scotland putting his Majesty in mind of the Address of the last Parliament to that purpose and resolved they would attend his Majesty in a body The Commons desired a Conference with the Lords to state before hand the manner of proceedings in the Tryal of the Earl of Danby and of the five Popish Lords and took exceptions to their motion for a Lord High Steward On Friday his Majesty sent for the Commons and passed the Bill for Disbanding the Army and such other Bills as were ready which was wisely done for by this surprize other debates were prevented which might have prov'd of dangerous consequence After this they appointed a Committee to inspect the Journalls and search Presidents touching the carrying up of Bills and what previous intimation ought to be given to them of his Majesties intention to pass Bills and from and by whom such notice hath usually been given and whether the House may debate after the message delivered by the Black Rod for attendance of the House upon his Majesty It would have been very unhappy if by reason of these Debates the Forces then on foot should have continued undisbanded By all which as much as is possible to conjecture it would have been very unhappy if by reason of these Debates the Forces then on foot should have continued undisbanded to the great damage of the King and Kingdom notwithstanding the common clamour against them if his Majesty had not thus prevented it The same day the Commons passed this Vote that no Commoner whatsoever should presume to maintain the Validity of the pardon pleaded by the E. of Danby without the leave of their house first had and that the persons so doing should be accounted betrayers of the Liberties of the Commons of England and Ordered this Vote to be posted up at Westminster-hall Gate Serjeants-Innes and Innes of Court His Lordships Friends called this a depriving him of all counsel to defend himself but what was appointed by his Enemies and Accusers in a matter of Law insisting upon the Rules of proceedings in all other Courts and the ordinary methods of Common and Natural equity and right it seeming hard to ruine a man if not some diffidence of the case to deny him those Priviledges the meanest and worst of Rogues have which is to choose such Councel as the Court before whom they are to be tryed will allow the Kings Councel excepted And when the humour was stirr'd they voted that the Answer delivered by the Lords that day at the Last Conference about the manner of trying the Peers whereby their Lordships had not consented to a Committee of the Houses because they did not think it Conformable to the Rules and Orders of their Court of which they said they had reason to be tender in matters relating to their Judicature tended to the Interruption of the good correspondency between the two Houses May 10. The first thing the Commons did on Saturday morning was the Reading of an Address to the King for the raising of the Militia of London Westminster the Tower Hamlets and Counties of Middlesex and Surrey for the security of his Majesties Person at the Tryal of the Popish Lords by reason of the Great Resort of the Jesuits Popish Priests and other Popish Recusants at that time in contempt of his Majesties Laws and Royal Proclamation to which they desired the Concurrence of the Lords to which they unanimously agreed The E. of
judgment as well as others and if I be adjudged an enemy of the Commons of England for my pains I cannot help it only I have not medled with the Validity of the pardon in all this nor I think never will and so I have not offended against that Vote The Conclusion I shall draw from hence is that the Lords had reason to put the Tryal of the five Popish Lords first and that the Commons necessitated them so to do by that Extraordinary Vote by starting a new Controversy about the Jurisdiction of the Bishops in all Capital causes and by refusing them liberty to do as they always had done before that is to withdraw upon Leave with the usual protestations entered all which things were not presently to be given up nor could suddenly be determined The rest of that day was spent in two Conferences the one concerning the Habeas Corpus Act and the other about the Tryals in which the Long reasons I mentioned were delivered On Tuesday the 27th of May The Habeas Corpus Bill was agreed at a Conference betwixt the two Houses Then a Message was sent by the Lords to the Commons to acquaint them that his Majesty was coming in his Robes who accordingly sent for the Commons and having passed 1. An Act for the reingrossing the Records of Fines burnt or lost in the late Fire in the Temple 2. An Act for the better securing of the Liberty of the Subject and for preventing imprisonment beyond Seas Which is that I call the Habeas Corpus Act for shortness Which were all that had been got ready for his Royal assent in this Session of Parliament His Majesty made a short Speech to this effect My Lords and Gentlemen I Was in good hopes that this Session would have produced great good to the Kingdom and that you would have gone on unanimously for the good thereof but to my great grief I see that there are such differences between the two Houses that I am afraid very ill effects will come of them I know but one way of Remedy for the present assuring you that in the mean time I shall shew my sincerity with the same Zeal I met you here and therefore my Lord Chancellor I command you to do as I have Ordered you Who immediately Prorogued both Houses to the 14th day of August following The news of this Prorogation of the Parliament was no sooner spread about the Nation but the cry was taken up by the zealous Impostors that it was done of purpose to hinder the Tryal of the Popish Lords for as for the E. of D. the People were generally unconcern'd what came of him And dreadful Stories were told in Coffee-houses Ale-houses Taverns and Meeting houses of the danger of Popery and what great favourers they had at Court not sparing his Majesty But this was not all the Act for Regulating Printing expiring with this Session of which no care was taken notwithstanding his Majesty recommended it so seriously to the Parliament by the Lord Chancellour at the opening of it The Nation became presently so pestred with a swarm of Lying Seditious treasonable and scandalous Pamphlets Papers and Pictures that a man would have thought Hell had been broken loose His Majesty the Church the Government were represented every day by them in the most odious manner that spite falsehood and malice could invent to beget a disaffection in the people to the Government and to involve us in another Rebellion And if any man presumed to Defend them he was presently a Papist in Masquerade a Tory or Tantivy man and very often threatned with the Parliament All which was done without doubt out of as pure kindness to his Majesty and to beget honour to the Government and tended as apparently to the Interest and Safety of the Protestant Religion as the Jews Crys of Crucify him Crucify him did to the delivery of our Saviour out of the hands of Pilate There was an Accident that began in this Session of Parliament and received its occasional being from some Distemper'd Spirits In March 1679 there was a Speech said to be made in the House of Lords by a certain * This Speech is Printed in a Pamphlet called An impartial account of divers remarkable Proceedings in the last Session of Parliament London 1679. folio Earl and by the Diffenters and Commonwealth Party spread about the three Kingdoms with a mighty Zeal which in Scotland was followed with the usual effects of such like Speeches and in regard that it may administer much consolation to that Party to read it over again that were so well pleased with it before I will reprint it here word for word My Lords You are appointing of the State of England to be taken up in a Committee of the whole House some day next week I do not know how well what I have to say may be received for I never study either to make my Court well or to be popular I always speak what I am commanded by the Dictates of the Spirit within me There are some Considerations that concern England so neerly that without them you will come far short of safety and quiet at home We have a little Sister and she hath no Breasts what shall we do for our Sister in the day when she shall be spoken for If she be a wall we will build on her a palace of silver if she be a door we will enclose her with boards of Cedar We have several Little Sisters without Breasts the French Protestant Churches the two Kingdoms of Ireland and Scotland the Foreign Protestants are a Wall the only Wall and defence to England upon it you may build Palaces of Silver Glorious Palaces The protection of the Protestants abroad is the greatest power and security the Crown of England can attain to and which can only help us to give check to the growing greatness of France Scotland and Ireland are two doors either to let in good or mischief upon us they are much weakened by the Artifice of our cunning Enemies and we ought to Inclose them with Boards of Cedar Popery and Slavery like two Sisters go hand in hand sometimes one goes first sometimes the other in at doors but the other is always following close at hand In England Popery was to have brought in Slavery in Scotland Slavery went before and Popery was to follow I do not think your Lordships or the Parliament have Jurisdiction there it is an Ancient Kingdom they have an Illustrious Nobility a Gallant Gentry a Learned Clergy and an understanding worthy People but yet we cannot think of England as we ought without reflecting on the condition they are in They are under the same Prince and the influence of the same Favourites and Councils when they are hardly dealt with can we that are the Richer expect better usage for 't is certain that in all Absolute Governments the poorest Countries are always most favourably dealt with When the Ancient Nobility
and Gentry there cannot enjoy their Royalties their Shreivaldoms and their Stewardaries which they and their Ancestors have possessed for several Hundreds of years but that now they are enjoyned by the Lords of the Council to make deputations of their Authorities to such as are their known Enemies Can we expect to enjoy our Magna Charta long under the same Persons and Administration of affairs If the Council Table there can imprison any Noble-man or Gentleman for several years without bringing him to Tryal or giving the least reason for what they do can we expect the same men will preserve the Liberty of the Subject here I will acknowledge I am not well vers'd in the particular Laws of Scotland but this I do know that all the Northern Countreys have by their Laws an undoubted and inviolable Right to their Liberties and Properties yet Scotland hath outdone all the Eastern and Southern Countreys in having their Lives Liberties and Estates subjected to the Arbitrary will and pleasure of them that Govern They have lately plundered and harassed the Richest and Wealthiest Countries of that Kingdom and brought down the Barbarous Highlanders to devour them and all this without a most colourable pretence to do it Nor can there be found a reason of State for what they have done but that those wicked Ministers designed to procure a Rebellion at any rate which as they managed was only prevented by the miraculous hand of God or otherwise all the Papists in England would have been armed and the fairest opportunity given in the just time for the execution of that wicked and bloody design the Papists had and it is not possible for any man that duly considers it to think other but that those Ministers that acted that were as guilty of the Plot as any of the Lords that are in question for it My Lords I am forced to speak this the plainer because till the pressure be fully and clearly taken off from Scotland 't is not possible for me or any thinking man to believe that good is meant us here We must still be upon our guard apprehending that the Principle is not changed at Court and that these men that are still in place and Authority have that influence upon the Mind of our excellent Prince that he is not nor cannot be that to us that his own Nature and Goodness would incline him to I know your Lordships can order nothing in this but there are those that hear me can put a perfect cure to it until that be done the Scotch Weed is like Death in the Pot. Mers in Olla But there is something too now I consider that most immediately concerns us their Act of Twenty two Thousand men to be ready to invade us upon all occasions This I hear that the Lords of the Council there have treated as they do all other Laws and expounded it into a Standing Army of six thousand men I am sure we have reason and right to beseech the King that that Act may be better considered in the next Parliament there I shall say no more for Scotland at this time I am afraid your Lordships will think I have said too much having no concern there But if a French Noble-man should come to dwell in my House and Family I should think it concerned me to ask what he did in France for if he were there a Felon a Rogue a Plunderer I should desire him to live else-where and I hope your Lordships will do the same thing for the Nation if you find the same cause My Lords give me leave to speak two or three words concerning our other Sister Ireland thither I hear is sent Douglas's Regiment to secure us against the French Besides I am credibly informed that the Papists have their Arms restored and the Protestants are not many of them yet recovered from being the suspected Party the Sea-Towns as well as the Inland are full of Papists that Kingdom cannot long continue in the English hands if some better care be not taken of it This is in your power and there is nothing there but is under your Laws therefore I beg that this Kingdom at least may be taken in consideration together with the State of England for I am sure there can be no safety here if these doors be not shut up and made sure Whether any such Harangue was made in that August assembly or not I cannot say but I am sure that all the Seditious and Treasonable Pamphlets that have been since Printed are but flourishes upon this Text and an extract of those that went before them the very model of the last Rebellion and probably the design of an other But England and Ireland are not as yet ripe for so generous an undertaking But to shew you how matters past in Scotland I will Transcribe the very words of my Author and leave the credit of them with him By the very next post after this Speech was said to have been spoken The Spirit of Popery speaking in the Phanatical Protestants pag. 73. London 1680. fol. Forty written Coppies of it were sent from London to Edenbrough and the Fanaticks grew so insolent and so daring upon it that several Loyal Gentlemen wrote up accounts to what height of Insolences this Speech had blown up the Enemies of the Church and the Monarchy and that they had just reasons to fear that very dangerous attempts if not a down-right Rebellion would speedily ensue thereupon but those reports found not too much credit at London where the world was made to believe by men whose interest it was that they should not be credited that they were but the inventions of the Duke of Lauderdale for whose advantage in that conjucture it was that they should be believed My Author goes on that he is confident such is his charity he that made it The Effects would not have done so had he known the true State of Scotland which few English men do or foreseen the evil effects which it immediately had in encouraging the Covenanteers to Assassinate Massacre and Rebel For now they begin to look and speak big in Edenbrough and many of them were heard and seen upon the Crown of the Causway who had sneeked about in darkness before And as for the disaffected parts of the Country they now display'd the Banners of Jesus Christ as they Blasphemously call'd their colours at their Conventicles every where and their Preachers now told them that the time of their deliverance and of Gods taking Vengeance upon his Enemies was now at hand only they must repent and be strong and of a great courage and fight the Battles of the Lord. They also threatned in all places such as they thought were seriously active against them talking of great Changes and Revolutions in England and in Publick Places dropt Lists of the Names of those men whom they had a mind should fall by Heroical Hands And in the first place naming Dr. Sharp the Archbishop of
rode back to Magus where they first assaulted the Coach and one of them by Name John Balfour of Kinlock as he passed by that Town was heard to say very audibly and distinctly That now Judas was killed A Proclamation being published in his Majesties Name for the discovery of these abominable execrable Murtherers and search made among the Tenants and Heritors of the Shire of Fife and the Inhabitants of Magus being examined upon oath it was made apparent that the bloody Assassins and many others who were strongly presumed to have been Abetters and Contrivers of the Murther were notorious Fanaticks Frequenters of Field-Conventicles and Followers of Mr. Welsh and other Traiterous intercommuned and Rebellious Preachers Nine of the Actors in this Tragedy were discovered by their Names and Sirnames which are as followeth John Balfour of Kinlock David Hackston of Rathilettet George Balfour in Gilston James Russel in Kings-Kettle Robert Dingwall a Farmers Son in Caddam Andrew Guillan Weaver in Balmerinoch Alexander Hinderson and Andrew Hinderson Sons to John Hinderson in Killbrachmont George Fleming Son to George Fleming in Balbuthy The rebellion interrupting the course of Justice against these miscreants for some time the 20th day of September 1679 there was another Proclamation published for the apprehending those Nine and all others that were in the Rebellion and were Heritors or Ministers But by this time the Murtherers and Rebels had fled the Kingdom notwithstanding all imaginable care and diligence to prevent their escape and whilst the Covenanting Army lay at Glascow one of the Balfours as a very credible Gentleman who was then the Town told me saith my Author openly boasted of the Murther as a glorious fact and said holding up his Arm This hand helped to kill the Fox And five of the Accomplices Complotters and Abetters of the Murther chose to dye and be hung up in Chains upon the place rather then confess the sinfulness of the action by acknowledging it was a Murther or a Sin The Fanatical Party foretold it in several places and the Morning before it was committed one of the Assassins like a Jesuit Consecrated to an Heroical Act after a solemn Sacrilegious form held up his hand and swore that That hand should kill the Arch-Prelate upon which the Holy Sister his Hostess kissed him And it is notoriously known in Scotland that he who commanded the foot for Mr. Welsh upon Reupar Law that famous Field Conventicle owned that their Friends thanked God for the Archbishops death which neither they nor their abetters in either Kingdom will call Murther when they have occasion to Speak thereof My Author goes further and shews how the Predecessors of these Godly Cut-throats Norman Lesly John Lesley Peter Carmichael and James Meluil Assassinated Cardinal Beton Archbishop of St. Andrews in his Castle there in cold blood gravely and with the preface of an harangue which Knox commends calling the Principal Murtherer a Meek man of God an odd kind of Presbyterian meekness which our Saviour doth not commend From thence he descends and shew their Principles both Anicent and Modern upon which they build these bloody practises He tells as Goodman Knox's Companion in his Discourse of Tyranny and Popery pag. 30. hath these words All men are bound to see the Laws of God kept and to suppress and resist Idolatry by force Nor is it sufficient for Subjects not to obey the wicked Commands of Princes but they must resist them and deliver the Children of God out of the hands of their Enemies as we would deliver a Sheep that is indanger to be devoured by a Wolf And if the Magistrates refuse to put Mass-mongers and False Preachers now all Bishops and Church-ministers in their esteem are such to death the people in seeing it performed shew that zeal of God which was commended in Phineas Hence all Kirk Writers since his Majesties Return such as Napthali Jus populi The Apologetical Narration The Poor mans Cup The History of the Indulgence as he tells us call the Bishops Apostates Perjured Prelates a perjured Fraternity Traitors to Christ Enemies to his people Idolaters Backsliders All which is meant of forsaking the Covenant and Presbyterian Government and is the very Language they murthered the Archbishop with which shews they were not Jesuits but arrant Presbyterians that did the Wicked fact and my said Author quotes this Passage from Jus Populi pag. 415. The fact of Phineas was a Laudable Act of justice and a precedent for Judges and Magistrates in all times coming and that by his Example any Member of the Council for Phineas rose from among the Congregation might lawfully rise up and execute judgment on this wicked Wretch the Archbishop and his cursed Fraternity who have brought by their Apostacy and defection from the Covenant and cause of God the wrath of God upon the Land For the rest I shall refer my Reader to that ingenious Author from whom I had not Transcribed all this but to prompt others to read him and to Supply that Defect to them who cannot get that Book The news of this Execrable and Barbarous Murther was soon diffused all over England and it may be all the rest of Christendom and entertained by all People who were not poisoned with this Presbyterian Leven with horror and deterstation The rest began to qualify and allay it with ill Characters of the poor man or to divert it from the right Agents by laying it one while upon the Jesuits and another while upon the Tenants of the Archbishop But they foresaw these things would not do their business and therefore their friends in London did what they could to instigate an Address against the Duke of Lauderdale which was the man they most hated and feared of all the world and who if he were not removed would certainly prosecute and revenge this Murther now so it fell out that though not upon their sollicitation there was an Address Voted the 6th of May which pass'd the Eighth The Address which I think fit to be inserted here was as followeth We your Majesties most Loyal and Dutiful Subjects the Commons in this present Parliament assembled finding your Majesties Kingdoms involved in eminent Dangers and great difficulties by the evil designs and pernicious Counsels of some who have been and are in high places of trust and Authority about your Royal Person who contrary to the duty of their places by their Arbitrary and Destructive Counsels tending to the subversions of the Rights Liberties and Properties of your Subjects and the alteration of the Protestant Religion establisht have endeavoured to alienate the Hearts of your Loyal Subjects from your Majesty and your Government Amongst whom we have just reason to accuse John Duke of Lauderdale for a chief Promoter of such Counsels and more particularly for contriving and endeavouring to raise jealousies and misunderstandings between your Majesties Kingdoms of England and Scotland whereby Hostilities might have ensued and may arise between both Nations if not prevented
by which means they were kept together not daring to part to plunder and their Number was also kept from increasing as otherwise it might have done But yet the Council knowing the Rebels could not continue long together would not fight them till his Majesty should send them orders so to do and a general His Majesty and the Council here resolved to send down his Grace the Duke of Monmouth who had given good proof of his Courage in Flanders and elsewhere who undertaking the enterprise against the Rebels went post into Scotland for that purpose The Rebels in the interim having possest themselves of Glasgow grew insolent at first and published a Proclamation in these terms WE the Officers of the Covenanted Army do require and command you the Inhabitants of the Burgh of Glasgow to furnish us with Twenty four Carts and sixty Baggage Horses for removing our Provision from this Place to our Camp whereever we shall set down the same and to abide with us for that end during our pleasure under the pain of being reputed our Enemies and proceeded against accordingly And another thus WE the Officers of the Covenanted Army do require and command the Magistrates of Glasgow to Extend and Banish forth thereof all Archbishops Bishops and Curates their Wives Bairns and Servants and all other families and persons concern'd in the Kings Army within eight and forty houres after the Publishing hereof under the Highest pains You have seen before what bad Subjects they were and these two will show what insolent Masters they proved but their Dominion was not long That which first amated them was the news of the Prorogation of the Parliament in England upon which they chiefly depended and in all probability had never risen but that they were forced into a belief that they were sure on that side not that I think the Parliament would have been any way serviceable to them but they were made to believe so in Scotland where any thing that looked that way was magnified above its real bigness But that being gone and the rest of Scotland continuing quiet or Arming against them and their friends in Edenborough being kept from joyning with them they began to suspect the worst and so fell a little from their first fury and published this second Declaration for their Vindication AS it is not unknown to a great part of the World how happy the Church of Scotland was whilst they enjoyed the Ordinances of Jesus Christ in purity and power of which we have been deplorably deprived by the establishment of Prelalacy So it is Evident not only to impartial persons but to professed Enemies with what unparallel'd patience and constancy the People of God have endured all the Cruelty Injustice and Oppression that the Will and Malice of Prelates and Malignants could invent and exercise And being most unwilling to Act any thing which might import opposition to Lawful Authority or engage the Kingdom in a War although we have all along been groaning under the overturning the work of Reformation Corruptions of Doctrine Slighting of Worship Despising of Ordinances the changing the Antient Church Discipline and Government Thrusting out so many of our faithful Ministers from their Charges Confining streightly Imprisoning exiling yea and putting to death many of them and intruding upon their Flocks a company of insufficient and scandalous persons and Fining Confining Imprisoning Torturing Tormenting Scourging and Stigmatizing poor people Plundring their Goods Quartering upon them rude Souldiers Selling their persons to forreign Plantations * * Horning is Out Lawing There is nothing like intercommuning with us for if any man hold any correspondency with the offender he is to be adjudged a Rebel of the same guiltiness all which severities they themselves first set up and practised against others The Burthen of Issachar Printed 1646. pag. 41 42. Horning and Intercommuning many of both whereby great Numbers in every Corner of the Land were forced to leave their Dwellings Wives Children and Relations and made to wander as Pilgrims still in hazard of their Lives none daring to reset harbour or supply though starving or so much as to speak to them even upon death bed without making themselves obnoxious to the same punishments and these things Acted under coulour of Law in effect tending to banish not only all sense of Religion but also to extinguish Natural affection even amongst persons of the nearest Relations and likewise groaning under the intollerable Yoak of Oppression in our Civil Interests our Bodies Liberties and Estates So that all manner of outrages have been most arbitrarily exercised upon us through a tract of several years past particularly in the year 1678 by sending among us an Armed Host of Barbarous Savages contrary to all Laws and Humanity and by laying on us several Impositions and Taxes as formerly So of late by a meeting of Prelimited and Over-awed Members in the Convention of Estates in July 1678 for keeping up of an Armed Force intrusted as to a great part of it into the hands of avowed Papists or favourers of them by whom sundry Invasions have been made upon us and most exorbitant abuses and incredible Insolencies committed against us and we being continually sought after while meeting in Houses for divine Worship Ministers and People frequently apprehended and most rigorously used and so being necessitated to attend the Lords Ordinances in Fields in the most desart places and there also often hunted out and assaulted to the effusion of our bloud and killing of some whereby we were inevitably constrained either to defend our selves by Arms at these meetings or to be altogether deprived of the Gospel preached by faithful Ministers and made absolute Slaves At one of which Meetings upon the first of June instant Captain Graham of Claver House being Warranted by a late Proclamation to kill whomever he found in Arms at Field Conventicles making resistance did furiously assault the people assembled and further to provoke did cruelly bind like Beasts a Minister with some others whom he had that very same Morning found in Houses and several being kill'd on both sides they knowing certainly that by Law they behoved if apprehended to die they did stand to their own defence and continue together and there after many of our Friends and Country-men being under the same oppression expecting the same measure did freely offer their assistance We therefore thus inevitably and of absolute Necessity forced to take this last Remedy the Magistrates having shut the Door by a Law against application that what ever our Grievances be either in things Civil or Sacred we have not the Priviledge of a Supplicant do judg our selves bound to declare That these with many other Horrid Grievances in Church and State which we purpose to Manifest hereafter are the true Causes of this our lawful and innocent self-defence And we do most solemnly in the presence of Almighty God the Searcher of all hearts declare That the true reasons of our continuing
Independency prevailing at the same time in England on it went with the same force and ruined the poor Kirk of Scotland and made this Covenanting Nation the veriest Slaves in the world and ever since Presbytery there as well as in England have been in a feeble state and they were opprest in their civil Interests Liberties and Freedoms and made such Slaves by a standing Army of English and two Forts which his Majesty hath since demolished that a Scot in those days durst not have walked as I have been told with a Cudgel in his hand and Parliament general Assembly or any other Convention they were never to have more nor any other Address but what they got by most humble Supplication only they had no Bishops so that if his Majesty should restore all things as he found them when God brought him home to his Crown and Kingdoms the Scots would have no reason to thank him for the favour But in the interim I wonder they can reflect thus upon the time when their calamities began which was the very year they sold his Majesties Father into the hands of his Enemies who basely murthered him and not be confounded with horror and shame at the Villany they then did nor yet reflect upon the Justice of God which hath pursued them ever since through all the changes that have happened and having first made their dear Covenanting Brethren of England to begin the Chastisement of them hath gone on from time to time to baffle all their attempts to recover their Lost Estate and they have reason to believe he will do so till the opinions and persons of that schismatical Confederacy be rooted out of the World And here let our English Dissenters too be pleased to remember they have done worse then the Scots for they murthered that Prince which the Scots only sold and by how much they have smarted less then the Scots so much the more is behind and the Justice of God will not be restrained by the Act of Indemnity but he will certainly recompense them according to their deserts with so much the greater severity because they have abused the Lenity of his Anointed and his long-sufferance I shall add but one word more and then see the Catastrophe of these Rebells and that is an humble Request to the Loyal Scots that they would not take this amiss for I heartily applaud their fidelity to his Majesty and acknowledge they deserve to partake of his Royal bounty and Princely favour equally with the English and I wish them all that prosperity and happiness they can desire for they are no otherwise concerned in the Covenanters then the Church of England men are in the evil Actions of the English Dissenters The 20th of June the Duke of Monmouth who went Post into Scotland for that Service went to the Army which the Council of Scotland had prepared for him which lay then at a place called Blackburn where he viewed and muster'd all the Forces and put all things in a readiness to encamp the next day he marched with his Army to Moorhead and the day following to Bothwell bridge Where the Enemy lay about eight Miles distant from his second Camp The place where they then were was called Hamilton Park and was well chosen if it had or could have been well defended for there was no passage to it but over Bothwell bridge which they had well lined with Musqueteers and Barricadoed with Stones Cart Wheels and the like The Dukes Army marched in great silence and Order and had been upon the Rebels before they had taken the Allarm but that their foremost Guards discovered them by the light of their Matches And so they put themselves into a posture of Defence The Duke found the Rebels in two Bodies half a Mile one from the other the foremost Party which was the weakest in Number lay near the Bridge the other near their Camp as high as the liitle Park where they stood in their Orders and Ranks Major Oglethorp posted himself upon the first approach near the Bridge with the Dragoons and the rest of the Dukes Army drew up upon a Hill fronting Hamilton Park about a mile from the Bridge the River being between the two Armies As soon as the Duke came to Major Oglethrop's Post there came out to him from the Rebels one David Haine and another of their Preachers who presented to his Grace the Declaration I have recited Printed and a Petition signed by Robert Hamilton their General in the name of the Covenanted Army then in Arms in which they prayed that the Terms of their Declaration might be made good and that a safe Conduct might be granted to some of their Number to address themselves to his Grace in this Matter To which the Duke replyed that he would not treat with them upon their Declaration the terms of which were contrary to the Fundamental Laws of the Land and such as he would not nor could grant as indeed they were too high to have been offered after a Victory much more in the first approaches of a General with a better though smaller Army then theirs But then he told them that if they would lay down their Armes he would receive them into the Kings mercy And with this Answer the two Preachers went back desiring some time to consider which the Duke granted them About half an hour after the Rebels sent a Paper by a Drummer representing that they were informed that his Grace came from England with terms to be offered to them and they desired to know what he had to propose that they might advise whether the Terms were such as they could accept of Whether this were so or no it was very imprudent in them to send this Message before they had excused themselves in relation his first demands and besides this was a mighty slight to the General to demand an account of his private Instructions by a Drummer with a Paper when as it had been fitter to have sent two or three of the best Gentlemen in their Army to have asked this favour with all the Courtship imaginable though their Forces had been much stronger then they were For this indeed was it that made them thus insolent their Preachers had doubtless informed them that the Dukes Army was less then theirs as it is said it was And hence they concluded very ignorantly they might ask what they pleased and have it The Duke was not idle all this while but had ordered his Cannon to be brought down from the Body of the Army and Planted near the Bridge and with them he had Drawn down some part of his Horse and Foot whilst they were treating and took no notice of what he did or at least did not oppose it so they were every moment in a worse condition and he was in a worse condition and he in a better So that being netled with this contempt of theirs he sent away their Drummer with this answer that since they
the Letters Papers and Evidences which have been delivered to the Privy Council relating to the said Plot. This Afternoon they Waited upon his Majesty with their Address for the Preservation of his Person and Government c. On Munday the First day of November Mr. Secretary Jenkins told the House the Papers they had Addressed for had been sent to the Committee of the House of Lords for Examination of the Plot the 24th of October The Bill for wearing of Woollen was also read and committed Then the Speaker Reported the King's Answer to their Address for Preservation of his Majesties Person and the Protestant Religion which was as followeth I Thank you very heartily for your Zeal for the Protestant Religion and I assure you there shall be nothing wanting on my part at Home or Abroad to preserve it Sir Francis Winnington Chairman of the Committee for Inspecting the Journals of the Two last Parliaments concerning the Proceedings relating to the Popish Plot reported a general abstract of the same which was Ordered to be perfected and that they should inspect those of the House of Lords for the same time Then one Hardwich a Linnen-Draper being accused of some Misdemeanors against one Seignior Francisco a Witness in the Popish Plot was Ordered to be sent for in Custody of the Serjeant Attending their House to answer the same This was to punish a man before they knew whether he were guilty or no upon a bare Suggestion On Tuesday the 2 d. of November A Bill for prohibiting the Importation of Irish Cattel was read and committed And then one Harnage was ordered to be brought to the Bar for abusing Francisco Ferria And then they Voted an Address to his Majesty for a pardon for Dangerfield and that he would take him and Mr. Dugdale Mr. Prance and this Seignior F. Ferria into his Royal Care and Protection But these were small matters to what follow Resolved Nemine Contradicente That the Duke of York's being a Papist and the Hopes of his coming such to the Crown hath given the greatest Countenance and Encouragement to the present Designs and Conspiracies against the King and Protestant Religion Resolved That in defence of the King's Person and Government and of the Protestant Religion this House doth declare That they will stand by his Majesty with their Lives and Fortunes and that if his Majesty shall come by any violent death which God forbid they will Revenge it to the Vttermost upon the Papists who ever did it Resolved That a Bill be brought in to disable the Duke of York to Inherit the Imperial Crown of this Realm On Tuesday the 3 d. day of November the Lords sent down an Act they had passed for the better Regulating the Trials of the Peers of England to which they desired the Concurrence of the Commons and it was read the same day and committed Mr. Harnage being then brought to the Bar was continued in Custody of the Serjeant during the Pleasure of the House Not one tittle being inserted concerning the Nature of his Misdemeanor The Committee for Examination of the Journals were also appointed to inspect the Impeachments against the Lords in the Tower and the proceedings thereupon And they were also to prepare Evidence against the said Lords And in the mean time they Voted Resolved Nemine Contradicente That a Bill be brought in for the better Vniting of all his Majesties Protestant Subjects This was now a New Name for a Toleration as I will make it appear Ordered That Sir Tho. Whitegrave and Mr. Birch of Stafford Apothecary and Lieutenant Ellis be sent for in Custody of the Serjeant to answer to the Charge given against them by Mr. Dugdale Ordered That Herbert Herring be sent for in Custody c. for a Notorious Breach of Priviledge by him committed against Mr. Colt a Member of their House No account how or when being given But Jeremiah Bubb was onely Summoned to appear at the Bar to answer for a Breach of Priviledge committed against Mr. Colt The Bill for Prohibiting the Importation of Irish Cattel was read the second time and committed And Leave was given to bring in a Bill for the Exportation of Leather On Thursday the 4th of November the said Bill was read the first time and Ordered a second reading And then Mr. Secretary Jenkins Reported his Majesty's Answer concerning the Informers against the Popish Plot which was That Care had and should be taken of them Ordered That a Committee be appointed to inspect the Act intituled Trade Encouraged made in the 15th Year of his Majesties Reign and to bring in a Bill for prohibiting of Scotch Cattel at certain Seasons And then after some Debates and Votes concerning Elections of which I shall take no Notice The Bill for disabling the D. of York to Inherit was read the first time and committed Ordered That a Committee be appointed to Inspect the Laws that are in being touching the Maintenance of the Poor and to bring in a Bill or Bills for Regulating and preventing the encrease of the Poor in this Kingdom On Saturday the 6th of November it was Ordered That a Committee be appointed to Inspect the Law concerning the Anniversary Reading of the Narrative of the Gunpowder-Plot in Churches on every Fifth day of November and to Report the same to the House Resolved N. C. That it is the Opinion of this House That the Acts of Parliament made in the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James against Popish Recusants Ought not to be Extended against Protestant Dissenters It would have been well if we had been told why they ought not to be Extended to all that break them one as well as another And then how it should be possible to distinguish these two Sorts of offenders one from the other the offence being Exactly the same tho the cause be a little different And then thirdly if a Bill had been brought in for that purpose for the Votes of the House of Commons are no binding Expositions of Law nor I hope never will be Lastly this Vote was needless if the Bill of Vnion went on and to no purpose if it did not as I suppose they understand Now. Ordered That a Committee be appointed to prepare and bring in a Bill for Repeal of all or any part of the Act of Parliament made in the 35th Year of the Reign of Queen Eliz. Cap. 1. Printed in the Statute Book of Pulton This was a severe Act against the Dissenters and they were Now to be Countenanced and Encouraged to the utmost for what end and purpose is not difficult to be guessed by their Insolence against the King and Government A Bill for Exportation of Cloth and other Woollen Manufactures into Turkey was read the first time and committed The Bill to disable the Duke of York was read the Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House with a Resolution declared that it should Extend to the Person of the Duke of
York Onely and that Committee was appointed on the next Munday Morning at Ten of the Clock And accordingly it was that day Debated and some Clauses added to it On Tuesday the Ninth of November his Majesty sent the Commons another Message by Mr. Secretary Jenkins which was as followeth CHARLES R. HIS Majesty desires this House as well for the Satisfaction of his People as of Himself to Expedite such Matters as are depending before them relating to Popery and the Plot and would have them rest assured That all Remedies they can tender to his Majesty conducing to those Ends shall be very acceptable to him Provided they be such as may Consist with preserving the Succession of the Crown in its Due and Legal Course of Descent On Wednesday the 10th of November A Bill for Regulating the Elections of Members to Serve in Parliament for the House of Commons was read the first time and ordered to be read the second time And the same day the Bill for prohibiting the Importation of Irish Cattel was read the third time and passed and sent up to the Lords Now let the Reader observe there was not one Publick Bill passed through the House of Commons in all this time but this and yet no Bill was more opposed than this but here the priyate Concerns of the North and West Country Gentlemen were Engaged and therefore they carried it on Might and Main against all opposition but as for any Bills against Popery they took no care or thought for that against the Duke of York may perhaps be made to appear to be of another Nature then was pretended and rather against any thing then Popery The same day the Lords sent down to the Commons a Bill which they had passed for Freeing the City of London and his Majesty's Court and the Parts adjacent from Popish Inhabitants and providing against other Dangers which may arise from Papists To which they desired their Concurrence Note That this Bill had been sent down from the Lords before and the Commons had lost the opportunity of passing it as you will see they will in this Session also tho there were Tragical representations made of the Danger the City and Nation were in from the Vast Numbers of them which were Seated in and about the City of London The truth is it was not convenient to loose any thing that might serve to fright the People and much better to have Papists in London for that purpose than to have them sent elsewhere and loose the means of Fermenting the Rabble But if men were not as willing to be or at least seem to be cheated as others are to delude them they would soon perceive whose interest it is to keep them in Fears and Jealousies and after discharge their Bug-bears or turn their rage another way The same day they Voted an Address to his Majesty in answer to his last Message And that they would proceed in the prosecution of the Lords in the Tower beginning with William Viscount Stafford On Thursday the 11th of November 1680. A Bill to prevent the offences of Bribery and Debauchery in Elections of Members to Serve in the Commons House of Parliament was Read the first time and ordered to be read again the Monday following with the Bill for Regulating Elections of Members to Serve in the said House formerly mentioned This day the Bill against the Duke of York was read the third time and passed The Title whereof was resolved to be An Act for Securing of the Protestant Religion by Disabling James Duke of York to Inherit the Imperial Crown of England and Ireland and the Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging And it was ordered that the Lord Russel should carry it up to the Lords for their Concurrence The Bill sent down by the Lords for Freeing the City of London from Popish Recusants was read the first time on Friday 12. Nov. and Ordered a second reading in a full House This day the Commons sent a Message to the Lords to Acquaint them with their Intentions to begin with the Viscount Stafford and to desire them to appoint a Convenient time for the Tryal and that the Lords in the Tower might be Confined and kept from holding Correspondence with one another as persons impeached and committed for High Treason by Law ought to be The Lords answered As to the latter part of this Message They had taken Care already in it and as to the former They appointed Tuesday the Thirtieth day of the same Moneth And they further resolved to Address to his Majesty for a Sum of Money for defraying the Charges of Summoning of Witnesses and other Expences Incident to the Prosecution and Tryals of the Lords in the Tower and appointed Mr. Charles Clare to Receive and Expend the same for which purpose his Majesty gave Order that 100 l. should be Issued out of the Exchequer On Saturday the 13th of November Sir Robert Yeomans being upon his own Petition called to the Bar he Acknowledged his offence and was ordered to receive the Censure of the House upon his Knees to which he submitted and was discharged paying his Fees The Lords returned the Bill against Importing of Irish Cattel agreed to Commons the same day The City of London having Petitioned the House against Sir George Jeffereys their Recorder and it being referred to a Committee they passed this Vote Resolved That this Committee is of Opinion That by the Evidence given to this Committee it does appear that Sir George Jeffereys Recorder of the City of London by traducing and obstructing Petitioning for the Sitting of This Parliament hath betrayed the Rights of the Subject To which the House agreed and Ordered That an Humble Address be made to his Majesty to remove him out of all Publick Offices and appointed a Committee to draw up the same As if it had been likely his Majesty would have so far complyed with them as to have punished the Recorder for obeying his Laws and Proclamation against a Tumultuous and Seditious Sort of men But however his Majesty might Act they had another aim in this for they Voted That the Members of their House that Served for the City of London should communicate this Vote and Resolution of their House to the Court of Aldermen for the City of London This was a sure way to bespeak a Party in the City to Joyn with the House against the Abhorrers They further Ordered That this Committee should enquire into all such persons as have been Advising or Promoting of the late Proclamation stiled A Proclamation against Tumultuous Petitioning Thus having passed thus far without any check from any person they thought they might proceed as far further as they pleased And it is very probable that they were spurred on to this by their Friends and Enemies the one designing to make them Terrible and the other being willing to make them Hated However I am sure they they became more hated than feared by this and
many other such proceedings As the Parliament that is the Commons Courted the City so the City was as kind to them and Calling a Common Councel Voted an Address to his Majesty to declare their Loyalty and to Petition him that the Parliament might Sit until Protestantisme was Secured I believe they might mean innocently tho I am well Secured that this would have perpetuated them to the End of the World if some amongst them might have been Judges of the time when this great work was perfected But this did not Edify with his Majesty who penetrated to the bottom of these little Projects and was not over-pleased with this Correspondency betwixt this and the Commons remembring what ill effects this Conjunction had in the Reign of his Father So he Advised the Common-Councel to meddle with those things that lay before them and assuring them That he would Labour to maintain the Protestant Religion as it was Established by Law which was more than they desired he dismissed them On Munday the 15th day of November A Bill against the Importation of Cattel from Scotland was Read the first time and Ordered a Second Reading the Saturday following at Ten of the Clock This day was delivered the following Message to the Commons CHARLES R. HIS Majesty did in his Speech at the Opening of this Session of Parliament desire your Advice and Assistance in relation to Tangier the Condition and Importance of the Place obliges his Majesty to put this House in mind again That He relies upon them for the Support of it without which it cannot be much longer preserved His Majesty doth therefore Earnestly Recommend Tangier again to the due and speedy Consideration and Care of this House A Debate thereupon arising in the House they Voted That they would proceed in the Consideration of this Message the next Wednesday Morning at Ten of the Clock A Bill sent down from the Lords Intituled An Act for the better Regulating the Tryals of the Peers of England was Read the Second time and Committed upon the Debate of the House This day the Bill for Disabling the Duke of York was Read the first time in the House of Peers and the question being put Whether it should be read again the House divided Noes 63. Yeas 30. So it was Thrown out the Bishops all appearing against the Bill Except three for which some of the Commons Reflected upon them with great Liberty as if no body could be for the Duke but he must be for Popery The House of Commons taking notice of this were so discomposed that they Adjourned themselves on Tuesday Morning and did nothing that day And the day following meeting in a very bad and discontented humour and taking into Consideration the Message about Tangier They Resolved upon an Address to his Majesty upon the Debate of the House Humbly representing to him the dangerous State and Condition of the Kingdom And then it appearing that George Earl of Hallifax had been very Active in the House of Lords against the Bill for Dis-inheriting the Duke they Resolved also upon another Address to his Majesty to remove the Earl from his Majesties Presence and Councils for Ever And this was all they did the Second day after The House being in a perfect Fret and the Country-Party Heating themselves by their Speeches to that height they were scarce able to Consider what was fit to be said or asked And now that the Peers of England have passed their Judgment concerning this Bill I will add some short Reflections upon the Bill which I shall shall submit to my Reader as it is fit I should First Then I do acknowledg it is a great affliction to any Protestant Country to fall into the Hands of a Popish Prince and worse for England then for most other because of the great and implacable Malice the Jesuits and the whole Church of Rome have ever born to the Religion Established amongst us which is more easily defended against them then any other Reformed Church as being founded upon greater Antiquity and more conformable to the Primitive Church of the Three or Four first Centuries then either the Church of Rome or any of the Reformed Churches in these Western Parts of the World and therefore they of the Church of Rome Have left no stone unturned to Subvert her imploying all their own Wit and Power against her ever since the Reign of Queen Elizabeth began and sticking neither at Perjury Treason Murther nor any other Villany that they thought might conduce to that End and when God had by his Gracious Providence defeated all these their Damnable Projects They Transformed themselves into the shapes of our own Protestant Dissenters and so promoted a Rebellion which ended in the seeming Ruine of this Religion and Government to their mighty Content and Satisfaction but tho his Majesty at his Return re-settled this Church yet they did not give over but by a Toleration by spreading Pamphlets written in the Stile of the Dissenters and so very acceptable to them by discouraging all that opposed our Intestine Divisions and a multitude of such other frauds they have in Twenty Years time so shaken her foundations again that his Majesty can hardly now preserve and uphold her against the Popish Party on the one hand and the Dissenters on the other So that if this poor persecuted Church should fall into the hands of a Prince of their Communion She is to Expect whatever the most Enraged Malice armed with his Authority can inflict upon her and She hath all the reason in the world to expect the Dissenters will joyn with them to afflict and ruine her Not out of any Kindness to Popery but out of an implacable hatred they two have Conceived against her So that I must and will Conclude the Church of England hath the greatest reason in the world to dread that day that shall put her into such hands But yet still with this limitation notwithstanding that by Avoiding one Mischief she should not plunge her Self into a greater that is by flying a Persecution from men to fall into a Rebellion against her God and Saviour by whose Providence Kings and Princes of what Religion soever they be rule and by whom they have in all Ages been so Ordered Disposed and Governed as He in his Divine and Holy Wisdom Saw most Expedient for the Prosperity or Chastisement of his Church to the greater encrease of her Glory and Happiness in the world to come Two things I will lay down as Undoubted Rules or Maximes 1. That the Kingdom of England is an Hereditary Kingdom or Monarchy which for many Ages hath gone to the Next Heirs be they Males or Females of the Blood Royal without any Election or Consent of the People otherwise then by acknowledging their Lawful Right derived from God by their Blood to them The Second is That this Hereditary Monarchy was set up at first and hath been since upheld and maintained by the Providence of
God From which two I will infer this Conclusion That who ever shall attempt to alter this Right of Succession without a manifest revelation which is not now to be expected is a Notorious Usurper upon the Right of the Person who is to Succeed be the pretence for it what it will and a Rebel against that Providence which gave him that Right Nor will all the Antient Rebellions Usurpations and Disorders which have hapned in this Kingdom Justify them that shall begin them again Now if it should please God so to order it that the Duke should at his Majesties Death be the Next Heir to his Crown I cannot see how any humane Power shall prevent his Succession to it but by encroaching upon his Right and by rebelling against the Divine Providence that gave it to him So that be the Inconveniences that shall follow upon such a Succession what they will or can be we must submit to them upon pain of Rebellion against both God and his Anointed our Lawful Prince And then let any man be judge whether it is better to fall into the Hands of a Popish Prince or into the Hands of an Angry God who is a Consuming fire and who is not bound by any Act of Parliament from afflicting a Sinful and Rebellious People So tho the Church of England hath all the reason in the world to dread such a Prince yet she will have greater reason to dread a Rebellion against him because it runs her upon the Divine Vengeance and is directly contrary to her Principles and the Practise of the Apostles and Primitive Church and is plain down-right Popery So that I conclude Neither She nor any of her Children will be guilty of it come what will come But this is not all we are already Sworn to Bear Faith and true Allegiance to the Kings Highness The Oath of Supremacy His Heirs and Lawful Successors and that to our power we shall assist and defend all Jurisdiction Priviledges Pre-Eminences and Authorities granted or belonging to the Kings Highness his Heirs and Lawful Successors or United and Annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm of which that of an hereditary Succession is one of the principal and we are Sworn not onely to his Majesty whom God Long Continue but also to his Lawful Successors with which Oath none but they that have that Right can dispence for this being a promissory Oath made to them as well as him when their Rights shall fall his Majesty cannot remit their Right nor any of them anothers but they have Every of them in their respective degrees and orders an indispensable Right confirmed to them by this Oath Nor would they cease to be Lawful Successors in the Sence of this Oath tho a Law were made to prevent bar or cut off their Succession because all that is meant by the word Lawful in this place is to be understood by the common Rules of Succession Settled by the Common Law of England viz. the Eldest Son or Daughter before a Younger of the same Sex c. Now if his Majesty cannot do it much less can the Lords or Commons do it because they are all within the obligation of this Oath and it is unreasonable that men should dispence with their own promissory Oathes to others for this would destroy all Faith and Confidence amongst men and pull up the very Roots of all Society and Government Nor can any man imagine that this Oath was made in favour of a Protestant Successor only H. 8. being a Popish Prince in whose time it was Settled at first And the same in effect is Sworn by the Oath of Allegiance with this binding Clause I do believe and in my Conscience am resolved that neither the Pope nor any other Person whatsoever hath power to absolve me of this Oath or any part thereof which I Acknowledge by good and full Authority to be lawfully Ministred unto me And by this Oath we are also bound to bear Faith and true Allegiance not onely to his Majesty but to his Heirs and Successors and Him and Them to Defend to the Utmost of our power c. Which is to be understood according to their several and respective Rights and at such times as they shall grow and accrew to them and every of them And altho this Oath was Introduced by a Protestant Prince yet is not made to him as a Protestant but as Lawful and Rightful King of this Realm and who ever is So hath and must have Right to impose it upon us be his Religion what it will So that besides the former Sin of Rebellion against the Providence of God Here is an Apparent and Unavoidable Perjury in this Case to Aggravate the other And surely no good Religious man will run upon these two Hideous Sins deliberately to avoid any temporal affliction whatsoever So that were the Case just such as it is represented by the Author of the Character of a Popish Successor It would not Justify the Excluding of such a Successor as he hath described by Force and Arms against his Right and our Oathes to the Contrary tho we were never so certain to Succeed in the Attempt But then that wicked man has most falsly represented things to us and So as it is impossible they should ever prove in the Event if we do not give occasion for it by an improsperous Rebellion nay I believe I may say if we should First it is agreed by All the World That there are Ten Protestants for one Papist thro all the Dominions of England So that if such a Successor should attempt to Extirpate them the bare refusing to aid or assist him in such an enterprize would render it impossible Secondly All our Laws are in favour of that Religion that is Established which could never be Repealed but in Parliament and it is morally impossible to have a Parliament the major part of which will not be Protestants who will never Consent to ruine themselves Thirdly The Revenue of such a Prince will not bear the Charge of so great an Army as will be necessary to reduce the People to a Religion so generally detested and hated as this is In answer to this there is Two things pretended First That he may have Foraign Ayds And Secondly That he will have means to deter or allure many from the Protestant Religion to his own As to Foraign assistances no Prince will dare to admit so many as shall totally over-power his own People because then they will be able to ruine him as the Saxons did the Brittains and he may be sure they will do it So that this is a ridiculous Supposition in a Prince of our own Nation that hath No other Dominions but these As to any Number of People that he may be able to bring over to his Religion they will be very inconsiderable in proportion to those that will never be brought over tho we suppose the Number greater then it is like to be
is founded are weak and unconcluding and that no Malice could have Contrived a more effectual way to hasten those Calamities upon us it pretends to prevent and to ascertain what is full as likely never to happen without it So I conclude the Lords did well and wisely in rejecting the Bill and the Bishops in joyning with them so to do And now I will proceed with the rest of the Votes having made this short Digression to Express my thoughts on this great affair which I submit to the Judgment of wiser men and shall willingly retract or amend any thing if I have erred for I seek nothing by all this but the Peace and Prosperity of my Country There being little done of importance on Thursday the 18th day of November the next day the Commons fell upon the business of the Abhorrers of the Petitions and began with the Grand-Juries for the Counties of Somerset and Devon which had both detested and abhorred the said Tumultuous Petition So they Ordered That Sir Giles Philips and William Coleman being the Fore-men of the said Grand-Juries should be sent for in Custody of the Serjeant at Arms attending their House to answer at the Bar of their House for Breach of Priviledge by them committed against their House Before in Sir George Jeffereys Case it was for betraying the Rights of the Subject and Now 't is become a Priviledge of Parliament for the People to Petition by Hundreds and Thousands for the Sitting of a Parliament At this rate of Proceeding there will be Priviledges of Parliament enough at last At the same time they ordered Captain William Castle and Mr. John Hutchinson and Mr. Henry Walrond the two last being of the said Grand-Juries to be Sent for in Custody too So this was a pretty handsom begining But the next day they found that Mr. William Stawell was Fore-man for the Grand-Jury for Devon and not Mr. Coleman so they ordered his Name to be put out of the Warrant and Mr. Stawell's to be put in This shews with what heat and haste they managed this affair But why should the Fore-men of the Grand-Juries be sent for rather than all or any of the rest the Foreman having no more Authority than the Last man nor being any way inabled by his place to Help or Hinder any thing but being Concluded by the Major part be his own Opinion what it will but they could not tell who promoted this affair and therefore Right or Wrong Singled them out to be made Examples not thinking it convenient to send for the whole Number who yet were punished in these and not only they that suffered but every Gentleman in the Nation suffer'd in them their Liberties being at the Mercy of every Corporation who when they please may send Taylors Grocers c. to enjoy these exorbitant priviledges and Send for the best Knights and Gentlemen in England for not having payd respects great enough to them The Bill of Importation of Cattel from Scotland was read the second time and Committed Then they proceeded in the business of the Abhorrers and Voted That one Thomas Herbert Esq should be sent for in Custody for prosecuting John Arnold Esq at the Council Table for promoting the said Petition and procuring Subscriptions To him they added Sir Thomas Holt Serjeant at Law and Mr. Thomas Staples as Betrayers of the Liberties of the Subject The same day one Eld was discharged out of Custody who had been taken for not Making a good Search for Arms at the Lord Aston's House at Taxall in Staffordshire Notice being taken that he was a Sober Protestant what that means I must leave to my Reader for I never heard that any sort of Protestants made Drunkenness or Debauchery or any other sort of Insobriety a part of Protestantisme and I should have liked it better if it had been a Confiding Man and an Enemy to the Popish Faction It were worth the while to enquire how he stood affected to the Puritan Faction On Munday the 22 of November Two Bills for Regulating Elections were read the second time and Committed to a Committee to unite or divide them as they should see cause The day following Sir Thomas Holt petitioning the House was called in and Censured upon his Knees and Discharged The same day a further Address was Voted to Petition his Majesty to remit a Fine of 500 l. that had been set upon Mr. Benjamin Harris for Printing Seditious Libels Such men were not to be discouraged in an Age when so few were to be found who would undertake that dangerous Imployment for the good of the Nation The same day a Bill was brought in for Repeal of an ACT made in the 35 of Eliz. Cap. 1. Against Seditious and Disloyal Sectaries and Conventicles this Bill passed both Houses but was taken away before it was Signed by the King So that Statute Escaped then to the terror of those Protestants There having been a design to Indict the Duke of York for a Popish Recusant in Trinity Term this Year and the same being prevented by the Court of Kings-Benches discharging the Grand-Jury before they had found the same the House made this Vote That the discharging of a Grand-Jury by any Judge before the end of the Term Assizes or Sessions whilest Matters are under their Consideration and Not presented is Arbitrary Illegal and Destructive to publick Justice a manifest Violation of his Oath what Oath and is a Means to Subvert the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom Resolved That a Committee be appointed to Examine the Proceedings of the Judges in Westminster-Hall c. On Wednesday November 24. After Orders for the sending for George Bell an Attorney at Law Arthur Yeomans William Jordan John Laws and Henry Aulnett for Breach of Priviledge of Parliament without assigning wherein Order was given to bring in a Bill 1. To Supply the Laws against Bankrupey 2. And another to take away the Court held before the Lord President and Council in the Marches of Wales Then the Bill for Repeal of the 35 Eliz Cap. 1. was read the Second time and Ordered to be ingrossed Ordered That an humble Address be made to his Majesty from this House by such Members thereof as are of His Majesties Most Honourable Privy Council to desire his Majesty to give Orders That all Protestant Dissenters who are prosecuted upon any Penal Laws made against Popish Recusants in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth and King James may be Admitted to a Composition in the Exchequer without paying any Fees Which was granted by his Majesty Ordered That Leave be given to bring in a Bill declaring that those Laws shall not be Extended to P. Dissenters and that it be referred to the Committee appointed to bring in the Bill for the better Vniting of his Majesties Protestant Subjects The Attorney-General being ordered formerly to attend and This day Called in and Examined touching the Manner of Issuing forth of the P. stiled A Proclamation against Tumultuous
for Repeal of the Laws de Scandalis Magnatum It was Ordered That a Committee should be appointed immediately to withdraw and prepare such a Clause Which was done and passed the same day If the Peers had passed this Clause they had reduced themselves into the Condition of the Gentry and Commoners and a man might have called the greatest Lord in England Knave more Safely perhaps than his Taylor but if they did not then that Excellent Bill was to be lost to which they had tacked this Clause which was quite of another Nature And it ought to be Considered also That the Lords were Soon Voted down by the Commons once before when by Separating themselves from the Crown they had lost their Support and they may be sure the same thing will follow again when ever the Commons shall prevail so far upon them as to bring the Peerage into as Low a Condition as the Gentry their Priviledges being to speak the truth too little already to support and maintain their Dignity and Honour but of this I need say no more The Bill for Uniting his Majesties Protestant Subjects to the Church of England was read the first time and ordered to be read again the Munday following after Ten of the Clock in a full House Another Bill for Exempting his Majesties Protestant Subjects dissenting from the Church of England from the penalties of the Laws against Popish Recusants was read the first time and ordered to be read at the same time with the former again Friday Decemb. 17th Captain Castle petitioning to be discharged was Censured on his Knees at the Bar of the House and dismissed paying his Fees A Petition of one Richard Haines desiring Leave that a Bill should be brought in for restraining Vngrants and promoting the Woollen Manufactures was read and committed to a Committee to prepare the said Bill Leave also was given to bring in a Bill for the more easy Collecting of the Hearth-Money The Additional ACT for Burying in Woollen was read and passed and sent up by Sir George Downing to the Lords for their Concurrence A Bill for Continuance of two Acts The one Entituled An Act for preventing the planting of Tobacco in England and Regulating the Plantation Trade The Other An Act for Exporting Beer Ale and Mum was read a second time and committed Then the House agreed the Articles of Impeachment against Edward Seymour Esq a Member of their House and Ordered him to be taken into Custody of the Serjeant till he should give Sufficient Security to their House to answer the said Impeachment and the Serjeant at Arms was Ordered to take the said Security The Bill for restraining Papists from coming or residing within the Cities of London or Westminster c. was read the second time and committed Then the House resolved into a Committee of the whole House and passed these three Resolves 1. That a Bill be brought in for the more effectual Securing of the Meeting and Sitting of Frequent Parliaments as one means to prevent Arbitrary Power 2. That a Bill be brought in that the Judges hereafter to be made and Appointed may hold their Places and Salaries quam diu se bene gesserint and also to prevent the Arbitrary Proceedings of the Judges 3. That a Bill be brought in against Illegal Exaction of Money upon the People and to make it High Treason And a Committee was appointed to bring in a Bill or Bills pursuant to the said Resolves It may appear from hence great care was taken to put the Monarchy out of a possibility of Arbitrary Power but what then is it impossible that there should be any Such Thing as Arbitrary power Exercised by any but a Monarch Is not a Common-Wealth or a House of Commons as capable of Arbitrary power as a King Were the Proceedings of the Long Rebel-Parliament Arbitrary or No Were not Some of the Actions of this very House of Commons Arbitrary I dare Say those that suffered by them thought them so and the rest will be of the same mind if ever it comes to be their Turns to be so treated which they are not sure but at one time or other may happen At least I am sure the pulling down the Monarchy did Once before bring in Arbitrary power with a Vengeance and those that had clamoured against it as they do now when there was no cause for it durst not mutter a Sillable when there was and if they did really believe there were any danger of it Now we should hear much less than we do of it On Saturday the 18th of December The Bill for taking away the Court holden before the President and Council in the Marches of Wales was read the third time and passed and sent up to the Lords The rest of this day was spent in returning an Answer to his Majesties Speech On Munday following a Bill to prohibit the Importation of Foreign Guns was read the first time and Ordered a second reading And Mr. Aulnutt and Mr. Herbert were Ordered to be discharged being first Censured on their Knees and paying their Fees And that Sir John Lloyd Mayor and William Jackson and William Clutterbuck late Sheriffs of Bristol be sent for into Custody On Tuesday the 21 of December The Bill for Vniting his Majesties Protestant Subjects to the Church of England was read the second time and committed upon the Debate of the House And it was Ordered That Leave be given to bring in a Bill or Bills for Inspecting and Correcting Pluralities and Non-Residences relating to Ecclesiastical Benefices The same day they delivered their Answer to his Majesties late Speech on Wednesday the 15th of December which I will here insert according to my promise My Lords and Gentlemen AT the Opening of this Parliament I did acquaint you with the Alliances I had made with Spain and Holland as the best Measures that could be taken for the Safety of England and the Repose of Christendom But I told you withall That if Our Friendship became Unsafe to trust to it would not be wondred at if Our Neighbours should begin to take new Resolutions and perhaps such as might be fatal to Us. I must tell you That Our Allies cannot but see how little hath been done since this Meeting to Encourage their Dependance upon Us and I find by them That Unless We can be So United at home as to make Our Alliance valuable to them it will not be possible to Hinder them from Seeking some other Refuge and making Such New Friendships as will not be Consistent with Our Safety Consider that a Neglect of this Opportunity is Never to be repaired I did likewise lay the Matter plainly before You touching the Estate and Condition of Tangier I must Now tell you again That if that Place be thought worth the Keeping you must take such Consideration of it that it may be speedily Supply'd it being impossible for Me to Preserve it at an Expence so far above My Power I did
for himself I know not for the Parliament never brought him to an hearing But upon inquiry I find notwithstanding all this Clamour the Man hath a great and good Report for his Piety Learning and Prudence but his Zeal for the Religion Established drew this Storm upon him from the Exasperated Dissenters who never stick thus to blast the Fame of Good Men when it serves their ill designs But to return from this Digression The Bill for Exempting his Majesties Protestant Subjects dissenting from the Church of England from the Penalties of Certain Laws was read a second time and Committed upon a Debate of the House to the Committee to whom the Bill for Vniting of his Majesties Protestant Subjects was Committed upon a Debate of the House Then the Bill for Banishing the Papists out of the King's Dominions was read a second time and committed upon the Debate of the House Then the House adjourned till Thursday the 30th of December That day the House met and Ordered That the Committee appointed to prepare Evidence against the 4. Popish Lords in the Tower should look into the Evidence and Report their Opinions to the House in Order to the further Directions and Proceedings of the House against them Resolved That the several Writings Papers and Proceedings relating to such Members of the late Long Parliament as received Allowances out of the Moneys appointed for Secret Services be produced to this House Resolved N. C. That no Member of this House shall accept of any Office or Place of Profit from the Crown without Leave of the House or any Promise of any such Office or Place of Profit during such time as he shall continue a Member of the House and that the offenders herein shall be Expelled It seems they had discovered that some of their Zealous men were Selling themselves to the Court-Party for Preferment and prepared this Vote to keep the Party together Friday the 31th of December The Bill for prohibiting the importation of Forein Guns was read the second time and rejected Leave was also given to bring in a Bill for Regulating the abuses in making Casks Barrels and other Vessels And A Committee appointed to peruse the Laws relating to Weights and Measures and to report their Opinions in the same and to bring in a Bill or Bills for the better Regulating and Ascertaining the same Ordered also That Leave be given to bring in a Bill for a General Naturalization of Alien-Protestants and allowing them liberty to Exercise their Trades in all Corporations A Bill for Relief of the Subjects against Arbitrary Fines was read a second time and committed Then the House Adjourned till Munday the 3d. of January Which day An Act for limiting the times of Importation of Cattel from Scotland being read the third time passed and was sent up to the Lords Then A Bill for Repealing an Act made in the 13th Year of his Now Majesties Reign intituled An ACT for the Well-Governing and Regulating of Corporations was read the first time and Ordered to be read again A Bill for the better discovery of Settlements to Superstitious Vses was read the first time and Ordered a second reading the Friday following at Ten of the Clock in a full House The same day the Lords sent down a Bill to the Commons Intituled An Act for distinguishing Protestant Dissenters from Popish Recusants To which they desired the Concurrence of the House The Lords sent down another Message to put the Commons in mind of the Bill for the Better regulating of the Tryals of the Peers of England And Another Message to acquaint them That their Lordships had received a Petition from Mr. Seymour for a speedy Tryal Upon which the Commons read his Answer to their Impeachment which had lyen by them some time and ordered a Committee to prepare Evidence against him and Manage it at his Tryal On Tuesday the 4th of January His Majesty sent the Commons another Message which is as followeth CHARLES R. HIS Majesty received the Address of this House with all the disposition they could wish to comply with their reasonable desires but upon perusing it he is Sorry to See their Thoughts so wholly fixed upon the Bill of Exclusion as to determine that all other Remedies for the Suppressing of Popery will be ineffectual His Majesty is Confirmed in his Opinion against that Bill by the Judgment of the House of Lords who rejected it He therefore thinks there remains Nothing more for him to say in answer to the Address of this House but to recommend to them the Consideration of all other Means for the Preservation of the Protestant Religion in which they have no reason to doubt of his Concurrence when ever they shall be presented to him in a Parliamentary way and that they would Consider the present State of the Kingdom as well as the Condition of Christendom in Such a Manner as may inable him to Preserve Tangier and Secure his Alliances abroad and the Peace and Settlement at home This Message being read in the House they Resolved to take into Consideration the Friday following in a full House The same day the Lords sent down a Vote which they made that day Die Martis 4 January 1680. Resolved by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled That they do declare that they are fully Satisfied that there now is and for divers years last past there hath been a Horrid and Treasonable Plot and Conspiracy contrived and carried on by those of the Popish Religion in Ireland for Massacring the English and Subverting the Protestant Religion and the ancient Established Government of that Kingdom To which their Lordships desired the Concurrence of the Commons On Wednesday the 5th of January Richard Thompson was Ordered upon his Petition to give sufficient Security for his forth-coming to the Serjeant at Arms attending that House to Answer to the Impeachment against him and so was discharged of his Imprisonment I can see No reason why he should be prosecuted by an Impeachment in Parliament It being beneath the Dignity of the Houses to Concern themselves with such a man as Mr. Thompson must needs be who might much better have been proceeded against in the Spiritual or Civil Courts if the Accusations were all True but that his Blaspheming Calvin and the Loyal Presbyterian Protestants would have signified Nothing there as I believe they would not before the Lords if he had been Tryed Formerly the Commons impeached none but such as were too great to be prosecuted any where else and that but rarely and upon great Necessity This made them Venerable and Dreadful but this Course for Small or No faults to impeach and imprison great Numbers of Mean People which they followed in this Session tended to Nothing but the Wasting their time and Hindering greater Affairs to the damage of the King and Kingdome The same day the Commons agreed an Impeachment against Sir William Scroggs Knight Chief Justice of the Court of Kings-Bench
St. Andrews and Primate of Scotland whom they meekly stiled That perjured Apostate Prelate Sharp Threatning to handle him and the rest severely Having spent a few Weeks in these godly Exhortations animating each other to this good work and being thereunto further encouraged by the Brethren in London the third of May following they began the work with the murther of the said Archbishop and I will inform you of the manner of that Butchery in the words of the same Author The Archbishop had been attending his Majesties Service in the Privy Council at Edenbrough from thence he went over into Fife in the after-noon on the Second of May 1679. That night he lodged at Captain Seaton's House in a Village called Kennoway which is in the Mid-way betwixt Bruntisland and St. Andrews About Midnight as the People of the Town report two men well mounted and armed came thither to enquire if the Arch-bishop of St. Andrews was Lodged at Captain Seaton's and as soon as they were informed that he was they presently rode out of the Town again The next morning being the Third of May several Parties of Horse-men were seen to traverse the Road betwixt Kennoway and St. Andrews who doubtless were the Assassins who watched for an opportunity to effect the Murther which they had long designed But the Lord Primate who was a man of great Natural courage and whom so many deliverances for almost Twenty years from the hands of those bloody Zealots had now brought to an entire confidence in God's Protection took Coach about Nine of the Clock without any presage or apprehension of danger He had none but his Eldest Daughter to ride with him in the Coach and only three Servants on Horse-back to attend him one of whom he had sent before he was assaulted to pay his respects to a Person of Honour by whose house he passed on his Road. He advanced on his journey in great security till he came to a little Country Village called Magus two miles distant from St. Andrews betwixt Eleven and Twelve a Clock in the Forenoon There he first perceived himself to be pursued by Eleven or Twelve men barefaced well mounted with Pistols cocked in their hands and drawn Swords hanging in Strings from their Armes as soon as he spied them he bid his Coachman drive as fast as his Horses could gallop but alas too late for the Assassin furiously pursued him and in their pursute shot at him several times in his Coach running as fast as six good Horses could draw it The Coachman who discovered the Villains before his Lord and had thereupon begged leave of him but was not permitted to gallop away had certainly outdriven them if one Balfour of Kinlock mounted on a very fleet bay horse had not overtaken them who not daring to attack the Coachman because his Whip did fright his Sprightly horse therefore rod up to the Postilion whom he wounded with his Sword in the face shot one of the foremost Horses and hamstringed the other and so stopped the Coach By that time this was done the rest of the Murtherers came up and one of them fired a Pistol or Blunderbuss so near his Breast that his Daughter rubbed off the burning which stuck to his Gown Then they called him by the Name of Dog Villain Apostate Persecuter of the Godly Betrayer of Jesus Christ and his Church and bid him come out of his Coach to receive what he deserved for his wickedness against the Kirk of Scotland Upon this his Daughter got out of the Coach and fell on her knees begging her Father's Life but they regarded neither her Prayers nor Tears but threw her down several times upon the ground trampled upon her and wounded her which her tender hearted Father seeing after much reproachful Language and many Threatnings came meekly out of the Coach and with calmness said unto them Gentlemen I know not that I have ever injured any of you or if I did I am ready to make you reparation and therefore I beseech you to spare my life and I promise I will never pursue you for this violence and I pray you consider before you bring the guilt of Innocent blood upon your selves The reverence of his Presence and his undaunted Courage in addressing himself so resolutely and gravely unto them surprised them and made them stand a little while as it were unresolved what to do and one of them relenting Cried to the rest Spare these Grey Hairs but their cruel Zeal overcoming their Natural Pity and Justice paused not long before they replyed He must die He must die And then again calling him Traiterous Villain Judas betrayer of the Interest of Christ Enemy to God and his People said unto him Thou shalt now receive the reward of thy Apostacy and enmity to the People of God Then seeing them determined to take away his Life he begged a little while to pray telling them he would pray for them but they scornfully told him That they cared not for his Prayers being sure that God would not hear so base a Dog as he was Then looking stedfastly upon one of the Assassins whom he seemed to know he kneeled down before him and said unto him Sir you are a Gentleman and I must beg my last favour from you that since you are resolved that I must dye you would have pity upon my poor child here and spare her life and for this Sir give me your hand and thereupon stretching his hand towards the cruel man he had for a return a very great blow with a Shable which almost quite cut off his Hand and the Villain redoubling his Stroak gave him another violent Wound upon the left Eye which cut him two Inches above it and one below this Stroak knocked him down but getting up upon his Knees again he said Gentlemen it is now enough you have done your work and holding up his Hands as well as he could to Heaven he fervently cryed out Lord Jesus have mercy on my Soul and receive my Spirit While he was in this Posture of Devotion they wounded him in his Hands which he held up to Heaven and in other parts of his Body till in a kind of composure he laid down his Head upon his Arm saying God forgive you and I forgive you all These were the last words which he uttered like an excellent Christian after which they gave him no less then sixteen Wounds on his Head some of them as they were going away thought they heard him groan which made them go back and to make sure work stir about his Brains in the Scull with the points of their Swords His Head seemed to be all one Wound and pieces of his shattered Scull and Brains were some days after found on the Ground that Unhallowed Golgotha where he was slain Having finished their long desired Murther they made his Servants Solemnly swear not to discover them and then bad them in derision take up their Priest and having said so