of Justice and Love amongst men and by Consequence of the Religion preached and established by Christ. These matters of fact are self-evidences and clearly shew that our Grievous Oppressions by our King are the effects of the united Councils of the Popish Interest whereof the French King is the Chief That the Conspiracy against true Religion and Liberties that now appears in England Comprizes all the Protestant Princes and States in Europe England is only first attacked as the principal Fortress of the Protestant Profession if the three Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland can be reduced into the pattern of the French King in Government and Religion and the strength of them be united against any single Protestant State or Prince they shall think fit to assault if they can by Artifices keep the rest divided which will not be hard for them for there is little hope of any long defence of such a State. The French King seems not unwilling to have it known that the Popish design is General against all Profession of the Protestant Religion tho especially against England he hath allowed the Bishop of Cosnaes speech to him at Versailes in 1685. to be published who was authorized to be the Mouth of the Clergy of that Kingdom he magnifies the King for suppressing the Protestants of his own Kingdom and asks what they may not yet expect England saith he is just offering to your Majesty one of the most glorious occasions that you can desire the King of England by the need which he will have of succour and of the support of your Arms to maintain him in the Catholick Faith will make you quickly find occasion to give a protection wholly of your self We know very well before the French Clergy declared it by that Bishop that the same head that contrived the pervertion of destruction of so many millions of the Protestants in that Kingdom designed the ruin of the English Religion and Liberty but it surprised us to see that speech published by the French Kings Authority and that our King should suffer the Translation of it to pass freely in England and thorow the World. We thought it beneath the Majesty of a King of England to be content that his subjects should be told that he was to come under the protection of a King of France over whose Kings and Kingdom his Ancestors had so often triumphed but it seems nothing is to be esteemed inglorious that may serve the General Popish design of Extirpating the Protestant Profession We need not put your Hss in mind that the same speech acknowledges that the Popish Councils and Conspiracy against England intend the like ruin to the Religion and Freedom of the United Provinces that Bishop tells the King that he hath undertook the Conquest of new Countries there to re-establish the Prelacy the Religious worship and the Altars that Holland and Germany have been the Theater of his Victories only that Christ might triumph there that is that the Papists might trample upon the Protestants and their Religion and this he speaks as he says in the very Spirit of the Church and signifies their hopes of succâ—ss against the poor Protestants to be unbounded saying what may we not yet Expect We must freely Confess we were too slow to believe this desperate Popish Plot against the whole Protestant Profession and in our particular Case we have been deluded with our Kings promises to protect and maintain our Religion our Laws and Government until we see them all undermined and the train laid to blow them up by a packed Convention of men preingaged perverted or corrupted to serve the Kings will and designs that shall assume the name of Parliament we were not utterly insensible of the danger of our Liberty in our Religion and our Government from the time his now Majesty declared his late Majesty to have been a Papist but who saw that by their secret Conjoyned Councils they had not been able to prevent the making some Laws to secure the Protestants by Excluding Papists from our Parliaments and all Offices and Imployments and we hoped that our Kings life would not be sufficient to overturn by degrees as they had begun to proceed the Excellent foundations of our Civil Government nor to Extinguish the clear light of the truths of Christ Professed in our Religion and we were assured that your Hss minds were clearly inlightened in the Doctrines of the Protestant Religion and adorned and accomplished with all Christian and Royal Vertues fit to possess the highest throne Thereupon we incouraged each other to suffer with patience his Majesties attempts against our Laws and Liberties presuming that your Hss would ere long be our joyful deliverers to the Everlasting Confusion of the Popish designs against our Government and Religion and to the Vindication of the Innocency of the Protestant Martyrs in all the Kingdoms of Europe But as your Hss were the greatest objects of our earthly hopes so the thoughts of her Royal Highnesses succession to the Crown in Conjunction with your Highnesses Virtues and Military prowess and magnaninity were matters of the greatest horror and dread to all the Popish Councils of Europe They have therefore applied themselves to various consultations sometimes it hath been proposed by his Majesty's Power with a Parliament by the deluding Names of Liberty of Conscience and a Magna Charta therein to Fetter Your Highness in Your accession to the Crown with such Conditions as were obtained in Parliament in the cases of Queen Mary and Elizabeth which they hoped to strengthen by his Majesty's putting the Papists into possession of all the strength and Authority of the Kingdom united with all the power of the French King that your quiet Admission to the Throne might not be possible unless you should submit unto and depend upon the Papists and the Conditions that they should impose But they found it of greater difficulty than they at first imagined to get a Parliament that would joyn with his Majesty in such a project against your Highnesses Therefore some of the more cautious Papists of considerable fortunes stumbled at the absolute force of a mercenary Army and the French Power to put a force upon the Heiress of the Crown they propounded that his Majesty should rather try the force of his Paternal Power with her Royal Highness and use all the arguments of interest to induce her either to change her sentiments in her Religion or at least to moderate her thoughts concerning them and incline her to concur in their full Liberty If such Endeavors should be hopeless that then Your Highnesses should be at least prevailed with to declare your Consents to his Majesties Declaration for Liberty of Conscience and your concurrence in his desires to a Parliament for the repeal of all the Penal Laws in matters Ecclesiastical and the Test It was presumed That Your Highnesses might have been perswaded that the Laws suspended and dispensed with by his Majesty were only
two or three Laws against the Protestant Dissenters holding their Conventicles and some Laws made since the Reformation only to Compel Papists by great penalties to come to Church and to keep their Priests out of the Kingdom and it was hoped that Your Highnesses Compassion to all Christians and a tenderness of the Liberty of Consciences would have moved you without further Examination to have complied with his Majesties Request It was believed Your Highnesses would never have inquired after the Penal Laws in Matters Ecclesiastical made by the Ancient Papists many hundred years since against the horrid Invasions by the Romish Church on the Rights of the Crown and the Realm whereby they had impoverished inslaved and almost ruined the Kingdom nor that your Highnesses would have understood that the King hath opened a return to all those wicked practices of that Popish Church and that the repeal of those Laws would settle them It was supposed that Your Highnesses had not known that the Penal Laws in matters Ecclesiastical contain most of the clearest authoritative Declarations that are extant in any Records of the rights of the English Crown of the Form and Constitution of our Government and of the Rights and Liberties of the Subject the Church of Rome's claims Usurpation and intolerable abuses and oppressions having put a necessity upon the Kings and Parliaments to make those Declarations of Law that are now antient Evidences of the Inheritances of the Kings and People of inestimable value It was imagined That Your Highnesses would not have discerned the consequences of a General repeal of the Penal Laws in matters Ecclesiastical that enacting only his Majesties Declaration as he propounds there would be the most absolute and compleat Establishment of Popery that the Romish Church can wish All the Canons or Laws of the Church of Rome shall then have greater legal force in England than they have had in five hundred years past and all her Authorities and Jurisdictions over our Persons and Estates will be in the same manner legal by ancient usage and approved by Parliament as ever they were heretofore in England part of Magna Charta it self will be repealed that makes it Penal to such as the Priest shall delude to give their Lands to Religious Houses There was such a Confidence of deceiving your Highnesses and obtaining your Consent to the repeal of the Penal Laws that the Priests spread a rumor that you had agreed and that his Majesty understood you well therein a false Jesuit had the impudence to whisper it as a secret that their general design could not miscarry seeing they were secretly assured that the Prince of Orange would Concur in it when it was seasonable to declare himself We were certain of the falsness of those rumors some of us knowing of applications that were contrived by his Majesties order to your Highness in that matter and we were much surprised when a friend of ours at Whitehall told one of us about the end of August last that the rumors of Your Highnesses concurring with his Majesty were suddenly hushed and that he heard a whisper that it was said with much anger that Your Highnesses were obstinate in your Errors and thought to make your selves popular with the Church of England and he would trouble himself no more with you but you should repent it Some few of us who had often Conferences concluded that the King had changed his measures but could not imagin what was designed to offer to a Parliament in lieu of a Protestant Successors consent to oblige them to repeal the Penal Laws desired by his Majesty It was not long before we heard it muttered that the Queen was with Child and then the Papists began to Triumph and the Priests gave out boldly that it would set aside her Royal Highnesses right to the Succession tho it were a Daughter and ignorantly and impudently Affirmed that if the Queen had a Daughter Born after the King came to the Crown it ought to Succeed before a Daughter Born when he was but a Duke But none but the Papists gave any Credit to the reports that she was with Child and the Fable of the Dutchess of Modena's request in Heaven or Purgatory and the Lady of Loretto's helping her to Conceive a Son for the sake of a fine present made all but the Papists believe it a meer invention of the Priests whatever should insue The story of it shewed it to be of the lineage of the Popish Legends and was a matter of laughter and derision amongst the People and a subject for Poets lampoons which were so common that they were in Whitehall it self and no doubt they came to the knowledg of his Majesty and most of his Court. The more serious Protestants presently apprehended that a supposititious Son was designed to abate Your Highnesses growing Reputation and Power all the Protestants of Europe then justly looking upon her Royal Highness as Heiress apparent to the English Crown and Your Highnesses in all respects to be the fittest head for the Protestant Interest against the General Popish Design They knew this device to be necessary for supporting the Glory and Terror of the French King against the greatning reputation of Your Highnesses by the Expectancy of the English Crown 't is known that he dreads Your Highnesses Vindication and recovery of your own rights from his manifest violence and rapine and your Patronage of the Protestant Interest in all Europe against his Arbitrary and Bloody Designs He knows that if her Royal Highness succeeds to the Crown of England he will be quickly incapable of prosecuting his cruel Intentions against the Protestants of other Countries and it may be scarce capable of supporting his grandure and triumph over his miserable Subjects The very Expectation for 8 or 9 Months that the Queen might bring sorth a Son was greatly for the Popish advantage if the trick should have failed in the Issue by any unlucky accident it made a stand for a time of the Protestants of all Countries in the great Expectations from Your Highnesses it raised Triumphant hopes in all Popish Countries it strengthened the English Papists hands and hearts to prosecute their design Vigorously it incouraged Corrupt and Time-serving Protestants in Profession to fall in with their Party and prevailed with many weak Dissenters to make them believe a Succession of Popish Princes and that their Liberty of Conscience is only to be expected from them and that therefore they ought to serve in their imployments When we saw the Incredulity and Mockery of the multitude at the story of the Queens great Belly and the sad apprehensions of the more Considerate that for the politick support of the Popish design a Counterfeit Son of the King's might be imposed on the Kingdom we resolved to observe and keep memorials of the rise progress and issue of the whole matter as far as we could get intelligence We presently perceived that the Popish Priests were the prime
reporters and most Confident Asserters of the undoubted truth of the matter and they boldly took upon them to presage that the Queen was with Child of a Boy that was to finish the settlement of their Church in England as Certainly as if they had seen the Foetus perfectly formed in her Womb or rather as if they had been privy to the Plot of a Supposititious Boy and had their Cue in the Management of it Their manner of talk and boasting increased the general suspition we knew that sort of Priests maintained the vilest wickednesses to be lawful for their Church's service and that they have been notorious for impostures and Forgeries of all sorts they once Forged an Eternal Gospel as they called it to support the Orders of the Mendicant Fryers and if we may believe some of themselves they have a Father Titler in some rich Convents to forge titles to any mans land adjoying to theirs when the Convents have a mind to them those Priests contrived Queen Marys great belly for a counterfeit Heir to the Crown to have Carried on their Catholick cause and as great publick Triumph and solemn Prayers for her Belly were made at Rome and in all Popish Countries as have been made in our Queens Case but their design was unluckily crossed when her Deliverance was Expected and their Joys and Prayers vanished in smoak Some of those Priests were the Agents for the Bloody and unnatural Usurpation of our King Richard the third A Priest Preached at Paul's Cross to make the People believe that King Edward 4. his elder Brother whose Sons King Richard had Murthered was a Bastard not the lawful Son of Rich. D. of York and that Richard was the true Legitimate Son and had been a long time wronged of the Crown belonging to him It was a Priest's invention and management to set up Lambert Symnel a Bakers Son against King H. 7. Counterfeiting him to be Earl of Warwick and laying claim to the Crown and was Proclaimed King in Ireland and marched into England with a good Army to maintain his Pretence and by the like advice Perkin Warbeck another Counterfeit was set up against the same H. 7. by Margaret Dutchess of Burgundy to be Richard the younger Son of Ed. 4. and made such a considerable party in Ireland and was so received and assisted in Scotland that he bid fair for the Crown and we could not forget what a cheating trick the Jesuits invented and practised of later years about procuring an Heir to a Crown that is become their chief support in Europe The Remembrance of these and many other wicked frauds of the Romish Priests of the like import to change the Successions of Crowns to serve their Church and seeing them so busie and industrious to prepossess the Peoples minds with an opinion that the Queen had a great belly and that it was a Son when it was impossible in Nature to be known if she had been then really pregnant these things we say put together confirmed our suspitions that they acted a part as they were influenced and that a Counterfeit Son might be resolved on to be set up for Prince of Wales as common same confidently reported The Collections and Observations we have since made of the things that occurred during the Queens supposed pregnancy and about her pretended Delivery of this Son have made the truth of the matter so plain in our apprehensions that now we no more suspect but conclude and believe this pretended Prince of Wales to be a meer Counterfeit and we hold it our Duty to Your Highnesses to our Country and to the whole Protestant Interest this Child being set up against all these to set before you all the Memorials we have taken in the whole matter several of us at least having been very near the Court during the whole Transaction We crave leave to put Your Highnesses in mind that before we can convincingly set forth the special and particular Facts and Circumstances that we have remarked in this matter 't is necessary that we first remember and evince the truth of some general Conclusions about the Proofs and Evidences whereby a true Judgment ought to be made of this supposed Prince and if your Highnesses shall be clearly satisfied in the truth of those Conclusions whereof we cannot doubt you may be fully convinced by them alone without further hesitation or Inquiry that this supposed Prince of Wales cannot be justly judged by any kind of Rules of Justice or Law whatsoever to be in truth born of the Queen The first certain Conclusion to be remembred is this That by the Universal Rules of Justice and Equity any Child of our Queens that was expected or hoped to be the Heir of the Crown of three Kingdoms and to postpone or set aside an undoubted Heiress apparent and also the right Expectance of a warlike Prince and divers Princesses of the Blood we say such a Child ought to have been attested to be born of the Body of the Queen of the personal certain knowledg of proper Witnesses suitable to the case and concern in so great a number and of such unspotted fame undoubted Authority and perfect indifferency that the Proofs of its Birth could never have been reasonably drawn into doubt or question either in England or any other Christian Kingdoms or States A Son of the Queens Body had naturally and really made an entry in the moment of his Birth upon the apparent right of her Royal Highness She had thereby rightfully ceased to be Heiress apparent to the Crown and no Rules of natural Civil Justice nor the Law of any Civil Government will allow or suffer entries to be made and persons to be outed of the Rights they apparently had in Judgment of Law without sufficient proof either of right Paramount to the others or a determination of those former Rights apparent Our English Laws and special Statutes for that purpose abhor any Entry upon the apparent legal Right of another either of the Will of the King or of any Subject the Admission of such a Practice is absolutely destructive of Property and all Civil Justice and Government it dissolves the whole Civil Government and turns all into the confused course of natural Right wheresoever a Civil Government and Property is established on Entry of Will upon the Legally apparent Right of others without sufficient Manifestation of their own greater or better Rights is directly contrary to Gods Eternal Law and that of all Righteousness amongst men Upon these certain infallible Foundations we build our Conclusion That this supposed Prince of Wales Born of the Body of the Queen ought by the Laws of England the Fundamental Rules of all Civil Justice and Government and by the unalterable Laws of God to be manifestly proved by them that pretend it beyond all possible Contradiction in such manner as is described and specified in the preceding Conclusion and such proofs ought to have been publickly divulged and made
Excluded she brought forth a Prince that was afterwards chosen Emperor Frederic the 2 d. If it were needful we could shew Your Highness that the Honour and Security of our Royal Family of England with the peace and safety of the Kingdom were intended in the Constitution of our Legal Monarchy in such manner that the Kings should not have Power at their will to Change the Succession or by any means prevent the Descent of the Crown to the next in Blood. But if the Kingdom should believe his Majesties Affirmation of this supposed Princes Birth without proof thereof according to the Laws and Customs of England the next Succession were really and actually thereby put out of the Legal Course and referred to the will of the King which is in effect to make the Crown Patrimonial whereas by the Laws and Customs of England the Right to the Crown descends to the next of Blood and the Successor is most properly to be stiled the Heir of the Kingdoms by force of the Kingdoms Laws and cannot be defeated of the Succession by any Act of the Predecessor if therefore the King should gain so vast a power by imposing on the People to believe his Attestation of this supposed Princes Birth 't is manifest that natural Justice as well as the Law of England makes it of no force or effect to the prejudice of her Royal Highness in her Esteem of being the Heiress apparent to the Crown We believe the Jesuits and other maintainers of this supposed Prince will claim as is their common practice against these our Laws whose force detects and defeats their Impostures they will pretend that 't is unreasonable to expect a Testimony of his Birth from such Witnesses and in such manner as are herein described exclusive of all Roman Catholicks but the reason and wisdom of these Laws are irresistible and its a great Circumstance shewing their guilt that they are displeased with the Laws that prevent Falsehood and Impostures and require proofs of Facts as clear as the Sun. The just and innocent are never offended at any Law that provide for Truth and Righteousness they cannot but be conscious to themselves that it was more easie to have provided such Witnesses as our Laws requires of a Princes Birth then to have had such as they provided that would Counterfeit to be Spectators and be content as 't is now said they were to see nothing of the Fact of which they were to be published to the Kingdom to have been the knowing Eye Witnesses 'T is notorious that the presence of ten of the Protestant Nobility of either Sex and other persons of Eminent Quality might have been as easily procured as one of the Catholicks if it had been intended to deal justly and fairly with the Kingdom and they know that the Protestants throwout Europe not the Papists wanted and desired satisfaction about the Queens great Belly and her delivery the suspitions of a Counterfeit Prince were strong amongst them and decryed by all the Papists they knew the Friends and those of Consanguinity with her Royal Hss were as ready to attend if they had been called as any Catholick whatsoever and they were not ignorant that Custom Law and Natural Justice required that Convenient notice should have been given to her Royal Highness above all others of the Expected time of the Queens Delivery that such Noble Matrons as she had thought Necessary might have been sent to have Continually attended near her Majesty and to have been impartial Witnesses of the Birth beyond Exception they understood the custom of calling Embassadors to be present at the Queen Delivery and that a Common fame of a designed Imposture was spread in forraign Protestant Countries and that there were Envoys and Publick Ministers from some of them Especially that the Dutch had an Embassador there and Expected to have been called they know that those Provisions for legal unquestionable proof of the Birth that was pretended have been no hindrance of the presence or assistance of as many Papists of each Sex as Her Majesty had desired and she might have as intirely depended upon their only help if it had been her pleasure as if those lawful Witnesses had not been present The Popish Councils delude his Majesty if they perswade him that any pleas of Inadvertency Neglect or Ignorance can satisfy the Kingdom instead of the proofs in the Case that the Custom and Laws of England require 't is a Rule of our Law that none shall make advantage of their own lachez that is their Failers or neglects of what they ought to have done less evidence is never to be accepted in our course of Judicature because the Party concerned was negligent in seeking it or ignorant when he might have known his duty We presume Your Highness in reading this may be satisfyed in the Truth of our first Preliminary Conclusion which is necessary to be always remembred in order to a just Judgment to be made of this supposed Prince of Wales and of the things proper to be done by Your Highness by reason or occasion of his pretences we doubt not Your Highness will clearly perceive what you may in justice demand of his Majesty in the Case preserving nevertheless a most pious sense of a fillial Duty We may more remember Your Highness that as the case now appears no acknowledgment of that pretended Prince can justly be required of Your Highness by his Majesty It s contrary to Justice and our Laws that her Royal Highness should depart from her place and claim of Heiress apparent to the Crown and resign it to a Child who is not yet lawfully witnessed to have been born of the Queen VVe therefore put your Highness in remembrance of a second Conclusion fit to be premised in this Case as an absolute certainty to be insisted on that is That neither the Laws of England nor any natural or Civil Justice do require of your Highness any kind of Testimonies or proofs that the pretences of this supposed Prince of Wales are false and feigned or that he was not born of the Queen Whosoever claims to be the natural and legitimate Son of any Family it s wholly and solely incumbent on him to prove it by the Laws and Customs of all Civil Governments and by the manifest Light of Nature those two Rules of the Civil Law are adopted by all Countries into their courses of Judicature Qualem quis se facit pro fundamento intentionis suae talem se debet probare and Filius qui petit haereditatem tanquam filius debet probare filiationem if Sonship or other quality or relation be the ground of a demand that Foundation must be always proved by the demandant if he that pretends to be Heir by his Birth to any inheritance fails of such sufficient Witnesses as the respective Laws of Countries require to prove his proximity of Blood there needs no Testimony on the part of those that deny his Linal Descent