〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 OR THE PICTURE OF THE Late King James Further drawn to the LIFE In which is made manifest by several ARTICLES That the whole Course of his Life hath been a continued Conspiracy against the Protestant Religion Laws and Liberties of the Three Kingdoms In a Letter to Himself PART The Third By TITVS OATES D. D. LONDON Printed by J. D. to be sold by Richard Baldwin near the Oxford-Arms Inn in Warwick-Lane M. DC XCVII TO His most Excellent Majesty WILLIAM III. By the Grace of God And the Choice of the Good People of England Of Great-Britain France and Ireland Rightful and Lawful KING Defender of the Faith and the Restorer of our LAWS and LIBERTIES As well as the Victorious PROTECTOR of Oppressed Europe TITVS OATES D. D. His Faithful Dutiful and Loyal Subject and Servant most humbly dedicates this ensuing MEMORIAL The Contents of this Third Part. INtroduction on K. James's being deserted by the Pope the Scotish Bishops Pag. 1. c. Article XXII He 's charged with Misapplication of the Taxes c. in his Brother's Time 5. XXIII With suspending the Laws against Priests and Jesuits 9. XXIV With the Loss of the Dominion of the Seas 11. XXV With refusing the Test against Popery 13. XXVI With marrying the Daughter of Modena 14. XXVII With making a French General over the English Army 19. XXVIII With oppressing the Kingdom of Scotland with the several Means he made use of 20. XXIX With attempting to break the Vse of Parliaments which is branch'd out into many Divisions and Subdivisions 30. Conclusion giving some Account of King James's Friends here in England c. 94. ERRATA Pag. 1. and some following Pages for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pag. 30. l. antepenuâ—t for with r. without 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Or The Third Part of the Picture of the Late King JAMES SIR I Cannot but acquaint you that many of your Friends here in England are much concern'd that the Whore of Rome that is Mystical Babylon laboured no more to support you when you usurped the Imperial Crown of this Realm and that when God gave the Nation Grace to drive you and your Italian Triggrimate and Welch Cub from amongst us he did not move both Heaven and Earth to restore you again And that since you have fought many a bloody Battel for the Honour of the English Nation you would not venture one more as an additional One to save the Crown on your Head Truly Sir Rome's Prelat did not deal well by you nor you by your self You may remember it appeared to your Red-Letter Friends as if the Grandeur of the Popish Religion and Superstition had been your Gracious Aim and Design and that not without Reason for in a most decent manner you lost the Crown and the little Gentleman his Dominion Nay they hold up their Hands lift up their Eyes and curse that old Coxcomb Innocent XI as the worst and basest of Men that betrayed the Interest of the Church in not doing his Duty to which he was obliged viz. in seconding such a Glorious Design and Undertaking But this thing he never did nor do I believe any of his Successors ever will for in my Conscience I believe they have too much Sense to attempt the Support of a falling House notwithstanding the Conduct and Courage they may pretend to in Cases that are of that Weight and Difficulty It 's true Odescalchi pretended he was to act but 't was according to his own Reason not according to your Sense which if he had followed he might have abdicated Rome the very Day you were driven out of England Therefore what a Varlet you had to do withal judg you Truly he saw that you were losing and that you did in time in a comfortable way quit the Kingdom of England and therefore ought to have sacrificed even the Papacy on your behalf But he was so far from that piece of Heroick Justice that I am perswaded the old Priest would scarce have sacrificed a Sop in his Dripping-Pan to your Service Well then what 's next Since the Church left you I pray what hath the French Monarch done for you I must confess he hath done more for you than the Church did for she left you betimes but he allows you a good Pension and hath not as yet taken it away he does not give and take away Pensions at pleasure and say he hath no Money no it is below him But what is the Reason he doth not come over with you and fix your sweet Bum in the Royal Chair and return as you said he would to France again without putting us to the Charge of a Jack of small Beer for his Pains Or since both the Pope and French King have not done their Duties what 's the Reason that you being a Man of Courage ask Tom Jenner else that has fought so many bloody Battels for the Honour to the English Nation and on behalf of the Crown tho Old Hodg and a Conclave of Inferiour Clergy-men consulted all the History of your Life but could not find one Word of it except that which sav'd them from the Gallows did not fight one single Battel to keep the Crown upon your Head You might have done it and your Clothes have sat never the worse upon your Back Well you had the Courage to run and needs must when the Devil drives and so there is the End of an old Song I have thought upon your Case with as much deliberation as ever the Cathedral Logger-head of a Priest did of getting a Bishoprick by threatning us with disputed Titles and an endless War and yet could never make any thing you ever said or did to be of a Piece Therefore I shall ask you a few Questions and hope you will give me the Satisfaction that one Gentleman ought to give another I do not mean thereby to challenge you for I am no Swords-man I assure you and I think you never took any great delight in one unless it was to hang by your Side As for your Enemies I think you scarce ever fought with any unless it were at the Old-Baily Kings-Bench Court or Western-Circuit where the Odds were ten thousand to one on your Side therefore I mean by Satisfaction a plain honest Answer to the following Questions 1. I remember the villanous Bishops of Scotland took it as a great Affront that our Parliament in England could not reconcile the Security of the Protestant Religion with the admitting of you to be King Now these Bishops poor Rogues had clear another Notion of the Business and thought it might be done with as much ease as for an English Man to catch the Itch in a Scotish Laird's House and therefore went roundly to work and procured your Brother to call a Parliament and constitute you High-Commissioner which was no sooner said but done and your Succession settled and truly you appeared very formidable in that
People you and this wicked Wretch procured of your Brother another Adjournment tho the Memberâ— waited four Months and were all got together in hopes the King's Word would have been kept and so the Parliament was put off till October the 14th following Upon this I pray remember the Carriages of this notorious State-Villain by which you might see the Nature of the Beast that you your self at last hated 1st Call to mind that to please you and your Villanous Party he did in the most insolent manner undervalue Parliaments which he discovered by that rascally Expression to the King against the Earl of Middleton lessening what he had done as if he had not been serviceable enough to Baal Sir if you had sent down a Dog with your Commission about his Neck to your Scots Parliament he would have done all the Earl of Middleton had done who one would have thought had been Villain enough for doing what he did in the Innovations he brought into Scotland both in Church and State But it seems Sir you found Lauderdale to be a Rogue of a deeper Die and therefore Middleton was laid aside and Covenant-Lauderdale made use of to carry on Designs more wicked than ever Middleton was acquainted withal 2ly Call to mind how he treated some of the Scots Members of Parliament with most unsufferable Insolence for truly had he done as much by me I should upon Consideration of his other Vertues have done his Country and my own that Service that two Parliaments by the Means of your Power could not do But Sir to return to our Scots Parliament-men he sent one to Prison whose Name was Mr. William Moor because he desired after the Order of the English Parliament their Acts might be at least thrice read before they were voted or somewhat to that purpose and using the word We for I said Lauderdale to him What are there any more in your Arse Which base speaking provoked most of the Members as very indecent and unmannerly and not to be used to Gentlemen I will say that for the Earl of Middleton that he understood how to use a Gentleman tho bad enough but this Rascal when in Power understood no body 3ly I suppose Sir you have not forgot his-slighting Duke Hamilton in the most contemptible manner and most of the Antient Nobility of the greatest Interest and Value in that Kingdom whom he did not so much as allow to be named among the Commissioners chosen for the Treaty of Union betwixt the two Kingdoms tho many were named that ought not to have been unless in a dead Warrant which was his desert for many a fair Year and you your self thought so at last 4ly After your Brother and you had made him thus great you may remember how inconstant this Villain was to those with whom he professed the greatest Friendship for in the time of his Greatness he acted according to his Humour and Advantage not according to the Measures and Rules an honest Man should use in Conversation with Mankind witness his dealing with the late Duke of Ormond Earl of Shaftsbury Earl of Rothes Tweddale Sir Robert Murray and others whom as it served his Turn he carest with all open Flattery or rejected when you had given him direction to slight and contemn them 5ly To serve the wicked Designs of you and your Conspirators you may remember how he neglected the Interest of his Country and gratified a parcel or beggarly Rascals that depended on him for Bread by procuring them Gifts upon the Forfeitures of the Penal Statutes then in Force As to Sir John Moncreif a Gift of the Fines upon those who were convicted for Nonconformity in the Shires of Fife and Perth and to one Scot of Ardress and Major Bothwick a Gift upon the Maltmen and Brewers and to the said Bothwick another vexatious Gift commonly called of Peck and Bole. These were known Rogues and Spies for him and were great Persecutors of the People of God in those Parts and to one Carmichel he gave large Sums to accuse Sir Patrick Hume falsly since a Peer of that Kingdom this Carmichel since that died of a languishing Disease in the Kings-Bench Prison where he confessed to me upon his Death-bed his many Villanies against the People of God in that Kingdom 6ly Give me leave to put you in mind of his horrid Prophaneness witness his Compliment to that First-born of all Villany and Falsness the Arch-Bishop of St. Andrews that was executed for his many Villanies by a number of injured Men that could not have Justice done otherwise to whom Lauderdale was pleased to say Come in my Lord sit down here at my right Hand and I will make all your Enemies your Footstool This was so prophane that those who heard the Villain utter these words trembled and were so filled with Horror that one of them was sick almost to death Nay Sir you your self was pleased to say that Lauderdale had an odd way of prophaning the Scriptures which was not to be endured by a chaste Ear. 7ly You have heard his rascally insipid and malicious way of jesâ—ing at and against his old Practices and Acquaintance when the Villain was a Professor of Religion One Day at his Table he said He could pray and cant as well as any Nonconformist in the Christian World and to entertain his Company in contempt of the Most High he began a Complaint to God and in derision would confess his Covenant-breaking and other Sins at which many of his Companions left him tho perhaps otherwise lewd enough for fear the House should fall upon them and they perish with him for his abominable Wickedness You may remember how he used his old Acquaintance that kept their Integrity in Religion how he insulted over them when they appeared before him in Council by a reproachful remembrance of former Practices in religious Duties so that some of 'em have used the old Proverb concerning him No Turk like to a Renegado This Sir was a fit Tool for you to use for introducing your base Designs of Slavery into that Kingdom in order to establish Popery Alas Middleton was but an Ass to this Fellow for he had some Grains of a Gentleman but this Villain was the Compound of all Unrighteousness and an Enemy of God and Mankind This was the Man you advanced by Middleton and by him and your sweet self Scotland was bravely bridled and sadled to your Heart 's content Thus I conclude the first step you took to the Ruin of that Antient and your Father 's native Kingdom Concerning these two Men it may be said that Middleton served Baal a little but Lauderdale served him much 2. A second Step you took to ruin that Kingdom and your Brother's Government was the filling the Courts of Judicature there especially their Session which is the Supream Court of Justice with ignorant and insufficient Men. This Sir was the Method you pursued not only in England but in Ireland and therefore
Prerogatives to the King yet it allows none by which to hurt or prejudice any Therefore with the Learned in the Law I will assert That whatever Power or Prerogative your Brother had ought to have been used according to the true Intent of the Government that is to preserve the People and their Interest and not to hinder a Parliament in reforming Grievances and providing for the future Execution of the Laws and whenever he applied his Prerogative to frustrate these Ends by the Advice of you or any wicked Person it was a Violation of Right and the Breach of his Coronation Oath since he stood oblig'd to Pass or Confirm those Laws his People should chuse in the Time of his Reign 6. Your Brother and you had little or no regard to the Laws All the Cry of your Villains was Prerogative and nothing was indured that was according to Law Therefore Sir I will give you a Proof by Dr. Gauden's leave from the Words of your own Father who when in Prison began to recollect himseâ—f a little and gave your Brother this Advice when he should come to the Crown That Prerogative is best shewed and exercised in remitting rather than exacting the Rigour of the Laws there being nothing worse than Legal Tyranny nor would he have him entertain any Aversion or Dislike of Parliaments which in their Right Constitution with Freedom and Honour will never injure or diminish his Greatness but will rather be as interchangings of Love Loyalty and Confidence between a Prince and his People Surely Sir if the Reports and Opinions of the best Lawyers could not yet the Counsel of his Father the King or his Father in God might have wrought upon him and you But the Truth is in the Time of Richard II there were some Flaterers and Traitors that presumed in defiance of their Countries Rights to assert such a boundless Prerogative in the Kings of England as Chief Justice Tresillian and others advising him that he might dissolve Parliaments at Pleasure and that no Member should be called to Parliament nor any Act past in either House without his Approbation in the first place and that whoever did advise otherwise were Traitors But this Advice was no less fatal to himself than pernicious to his Prince To which let me add a Saying of your Grandfather in his Speech to his Parliament in 1609 in which he gives them Assurance That he never meant to govern by any other Law than the Law of the Land And tho it be disputed among them as if he intended to alter the Law and govern by the absolute Power of a King yet to put them out of doubt he tells them that all Kings who are not Tyrants or Perjured will bind themselves within the Limits of their Laws and they that perswade the contrary are Vipers and Pests both against them and the Commonwealth Thus Sir I have plainly proved that Parliaments are the Right of the People of England and that no King without the Breach of his Coronation-Oath can govern without them I come now to shew II. That they are the Essential Part of the Government Truly Sir I have had occasion to prove that as a necessary Consequence of the foresaid Right but something may be offered to prove this Point which will aggravate your Crime and the Villany of your Party in attempting to render this Essential Part of the Government useless Therefore Sir when you are at leisure consider with your self the Constitution of the Government which your Brother did wound and you attempted utterly to destroy but therein lost your self and this Government which would have been worth your keeping Take a View therefore of the Constitution of the English Government where the King is the Head from whom the Government it self receiveth its Life as he from the Law receiveth his Power He has the Care of the whole and it is his Interest to seek its Welfare The Strength of the Nation is his Strength and the Riches of the Nation his Riches The Glory and Honour of the Nation is his Glory and Honour So on the contrary when the Nation is weak he is weak if it be impoverished he is impoverished if it lose itss Honour and Glory he loses his likewise But lest Passion Mistakes Flatteries or the ill Designs of some about him should make him forsake his Zeal and follow a destructive imaginary Interest there is an Estate of Hereditary Nobility who are by Birthright the Kingdom 's Counsellors whose main Interest and Concern it is to keep the Ballance of the Government steady that the Favourites and great Officers exceed not their Bounds and oppress the People that Justice be duly administred and that all Parts of the Government be preserved intire yet even these may grow insolent a Disease to which great Men are liable or may by Offices Hopes of Preferment or other Accidents become as to the Majority of them rather the obsequious Flatterers of the Court than true Supporters of the Publick and English Interest Therefore the Excellency of our Government affords us another Estate of Men which are the Representatives of the Freeholders Cities Boroughs and Corporations of England who by the old Law were to be chosen yearly if not oftner whereby they perfectly gave the Sense of those that chose them and did the same as if the Electors were present coming so newly from them and so quickly returning to give account of their Fidelity under the Penalty of Shame and no further Trust Therefore Sir consider 1. If the Constitution of the House of Commons had been destroyed 't would have been impossible the Sense of the Nation and their Complaints and the Grievances of the People should have beer represented To what Estate of Men must we have had Recourse Must it have been to the Nobility It may be they might not have understood our Grievances being in a Sphere above the Rank of Common People And the House of Commons being the Constitution how could Money be raised to support the Government without them unless by a total Subversion of the whole Frame of our Constitution for by the Law the sole Power of giving Money remains in the House of Commons none being concerned in that but the Commons of England 2. Those that would overthrow the Constitution of the House of Commons will not stick to subvert that of the House of Lords who are so essential a Part of the Government that to part with them was to part with the second State which is the Wisdom and Counsel of the Nation to which their Birth Education and constant Imployment in every Parliament being the same fits and prepares them I have read of a House of Commons in the 2d Parliament of Mary I. that was brib'd to consent to the receiving and owning of the Pope's Power but I never yet heard of a House of Lords that were so bribed and the House of Lords in 1649 being voted useless the Commons run into so many
happy in his People and both secured by frequent Parliaments which therefore could never endanger your Brother's Crown Mistake not your self nor think that we could be cheated with that Nonsense for nothing could endanger his Crown but your advancing the Religion of Rome and the Arbitrary Power of France in England It was these things endanger'd your Brother's Government nothing else could but good Gentleman he was engaged with you in these things beyond recovery to the ruin of himself and the endangering of all our Laws and Liberties The Devil's Brokers did not join with you in dissolving the Long Parliament but cried out if that Parliament was dissolved the Church would fall but Sir I will say that for you you had as little regard for the Church as you could considering how the Rogues had espoused your Quarrel and thought that Passive-Obedience Nonresistance and the Divine Right of Succession would have been admirable Orvâ—etans against the Plague of Rebellion But why must this Church fall with the Pensioners Alas alas the poor distressed Church and the poor distressed Band of Pensioners For the latter they were a Parcel of matchless Villains and she Whore enough not to be in the Nation 's Interest but dissolved they were and what escaped the Jail were secured by the Friars those who had stood by the Interest of their Country were sent again and such a Set of Gentlemen as no King would have sent home in so ignominious a manner but your Brother at your procurement and being sent home you and your Party made it your Business to expose them 1. You had them exposed on your Stages in your rascally Play-houses by a Parcel of mercenary Rogues and Whores who you and your villanous Party set up to debauch the Nation and to ridicule the essential Parts of the Government as if the Votes and Debates of that August Assembly were to be ridiculed by such Vermine who were Tools you made use of in some part to do your Drudgery But stay it is not fit the Whores that are Stage-players should be reflected on left there should be a more severe Act made for cutting of Noses for a Parliament-Man you know had his Nose cut for speaking against that sort of Vermine but I will not be afraid to mention their contemptuous reproaching of Parliaments 2. You had Monsieur Barillon who managed the Intrigue of charging the principal leading Members of both Houses of those three Parliaments with being in a Conspiracy against your Brother and your self and this he and your Jesuits Priests and other Vermine contrived by Subornation and Perjury a Proceeding not unusual to some Persons and Courts all the Mischiefs Poisonings and Villanies in all the European Courts were owing chiefly to his and his Master 's most Christian Politicks he was used as a main Agent fit to expose three as great Parliaments as England ever knew to all the Courts of Christendom as a Confederacy of Men in a Plot to destroy the King and your self and as Enemies to Monarchy And what was this but to render Parliaments odious to all the Princes of Europe 3. Notwithstanding those three Parliaments had nothing before them but to secure the Government against the Depredations that Popery and Arbitrary Power would have made upon it and notwithstanding their great Duty to the King yet what a scandalous Declaration was emitted wherein the said Parliaments were most villanously treated as if they had aimed at nothing but the change of the Government This Declaration may be supposed to be drawn by that Villain the French Ambassador in his own Mother-Tongue because tho it was turned into English yet the French way of wording it shews there was a French Counsellor in the case which could be none but he who was the chief Counsellor your Brother and you used in the management of your Conspiracy yet it is but the Copy of your Grandfather's and Father's way of Proceeding which your Brother and you thought fit to use to asperse Parliaments you were all Friends alike to that Constitution of the English Government 4. It is very remarkable that your villanous Judges were instructed in their Circuits to spit their Venom against the Proceedings of the said Parliaments and in their respective Stations they were to let their Grand Juries know what reason the King had to dissolve them and how they recommended the King's most Gracious Declaration to their Consideration and what Converts they made I was never curious to inquire for I could not suppose but the Country knew the Men and their Character and under what necessity they lay to be Villains from the tenour of their illegal Commissions and that they must prostitute themselves to the Will of the Court or be dismissed from their Imployments but they chose rather to be Scandals to the Bench than to appear as so many Reproaches to their Professions at the Bar. Upon all which Considerations I cannot believe they ever made any farther Profelytes against the English Parliaments than a paltry Sheriff of a County or a villanous Grand Jury pack'd on purpose to draw up an Address of Thanks for the Court 's attempting to ruin the Government as established by Law 5. Since Sir the City of London could not be debauched but the eminent Merchants and Traders in it stood firm to their Laws and Liberties and to the Government of England by Parliaments so that you could not influence the Masters you took an unheard-of Course to debauch the Servants and Apprentices in their Morals and procured a Day of Feasting for them whâ—re they were incouraged to huzza it away against Parliaments and to reproach the Senators as a Herd of Men set upon the Destruction of the Government both in Church and State but it pleased God to open the Eyes of several of those young Gentlemen to see that this Feasting and Rioting was carried on by ill Men and that the dissolving of Parliaments was only to screen some publick Offenders from Justice and by degrees quitting themselves of that scandalous Congress in a year or two their Feasting fell to the ground 6. You imployed old Hodg your Buffoon in ordinary to write against the Proceedings of those Parliaments the Rogue by his Lies Equivocations and Prevarications did much Mischief having called in a parcel of little Priests who engaged themselves to rail at Parliaments and admire the Loyalty of old Hodg their Guide whose Observators were the Subjects of their Discourses every Lord's day nay they would scarce look upon a Sacramental Discourse the first Sunday in the Month to be well dish'd up unless some of Roger's Frippery was mingled with it so that the old Villain was not unsuccessful in his traiterous Papers which he published several times a week till God in his Mercy opened the Eyes of some of our Passive-Obedience-Puppies and let them see the Villain was aiming at Popery and destroying the Church of England notwithstanding his specious Pretences to defend it 7. You
basely debar his Countrey-men from speaking with the King otherwise than he pleased for fear they might tell Tales of his exorbitant Power by which he disobliged them in the highest and by reason of his being mostly here at Court the Scots Noblemen and Gentlemen were subjugated to a base and vile dependance upon his Creatures and Favourites nay often-times upon his Servants with whom it 's well known they transacted for obtaining and dispatching Gifts and Sign-manuals and that it was by the said Lauderdale's Servants that Protections to Debtors were so villanously obtained Give me leave Sir to put you in mind how hurtful he was to the Nation as High Commissioner of that Kingdom in order to which we may note that the Office of High Commissioner is altogether extraordinary and for a particular Occasion viz. The holding of a Parliament in the King's Absence therefore scarce known in Scotland till James I. came to the Crown and when the Session of Parliament was upon its determination that Office also determined with it Now when you had made Middleton so great he brought in that Innovation of adjourning Parliaments for a long time that he might tamper with them to betray the Religion Laws and Liberties of the People whereby he most illegally continued his Commission in the Interval of Parliament so that he might fit and prepare that poor People for Destruction Truly he had gone a pretty way in it and that he might finish his Work and serve your Purposes upon that Kingdom he did as I said lengthen the Adjournment of that Parliament for about two Years or so a thing never before known in Scotland for which Sir your old Bandog Lauderdale accused him as a Criminal to the King and you with the reproachful Title of a Subverter of the Government But however the Matter was hush'd up for Middleton having done your Business so well there in time he was rewarded with the Government of Tangier But when Lauderdale got into the same Station he far outwent Middleton in continuing his Commission for he spun it out for four Years and a half for which there was no manner of Necessity if you consider but the State of Affairs then in that Kingdom Nay it was so far from being necessary that it was a notorious Grievance for by it he not only hindred the Proceedings of the Parliament but endeavoured to frustrate all its Meetings which as it was a known Violation of the Antient Constitution of that Government so the unnecessary Continuance and Arbitrary long Adjourments of the Parliament contributed exceedingly to the increase of the Peoples Burdens and Distresses Truly Sir it is plain that the villanous Deportment of that Lauderdale was such in the Trust your Brother and you reposed in him which in time appear'd to be his best Security And why so The Reason Sir is plain for what he had proudly plotted and contrived through his matchless Ambition being conscious to himself that he might be reckoned withal for his devilish Proceedings in that Station he was under some necessity of maintaining by his Power in a most tenacious way that he might perfect the Ruin of that People making good the old Proverb Over Shoes over Boots it would be all one at the Gallows at last So that the Relief of that poor and abandon'd People from the Disorders which you and your wicked Party had made in that Kingdom by those two Men remained only with Almighty God there being no Hopes from your Brother Therefore Sir after the Adjournment of a Parliament which was held if I am not misinformed in 1674. and adjourned in December that Year Duke Hamilton the Earl of Tweddale and some Gentlemen being sensible of the notorious Villanies of old Lauderdale and to prevent his Lies from taking place with the King repair to the Court in England with the Approbation of those to whom they communicated their Intentions being confident they should be delivered from the Oppressions occasioned by Middleton and Lauderdale and hoping the King would receive their faithful Representation of the Affairs of that Nation both as to Religion and Government But Lauderdale who was an Enemy of all Righteousness and Truth omitted no Obstruction he could lay in the way For 1. by a Proclamation he procured that no Scots-man should go out of the Kingdom without Licence from the Council that so the King might not have the Truth of Affairs laid before him whereby to see the State and Condition that poor People were in in order to give them some Legal Redress Again 2. it is well known he imployed a pitiful Rascal at Berwick as a Spy to intercept all free Correspondence who being impowred by him did seize and search Sir William Carnegie a Member of Parliament and detain'd him a Lord of his Name you well remember in his Passage thrô that Town to London 3. Lauderdale having by means of this Rogue got some Packets intercepted he like a base Villain transmitted them to our Court not considering the Violation done to the common Intercourse and good Understanding of the two Nations nor regarding that Tenderness which honest Men have for the Honour of their Country and obtained of the King for this Fellow for such Rogueries instead of a Pillory or Gallows the Reward of 50 l. Sterling to be paid out of the Exchequer in Scotland to the great Satisfaction of the King your Self and wicked Party 4. By the same Means and in the same Place he endeavoured to affront Duke Hamilton and his Company in their Passage by questioning their Retinue and refusing them a Night's lodging which was not known to the Governour of that Town he being absent But at the return of these Noble Persons both Governour and People of the Place testified their Respects to them 5. This Lauderdale incensed the King and you against a Gentleman Duke Hamilton sent before him as one that had been a Sequestrator in the Time of Oliver sometime Lord-Protector of these three Nations and a Person disaffected to the Government But notwithstanding all these Obstacles and many other Discouragements the same Persons arrived at Court and did with all Submission and Sincerity and in all Faithfulness and Truth acquit themselves giving a full Account of the State of Affairs both as to the King 's and Countrey 's Interest What was the Event of all this Truly they were dismissed with fair Words and had positive Promises that the Parliament in Scotland should meet and sit an the Day appointed that Grievances should be redressed and that the Commission Lauderdale held as Commissioner should be revoked Upon which they hasten home the Duke with extraordinary Difficulty both in respect of the rigour of the Season and his weakness of Body that they might attend the Parliament in their respective Places on the 3d of March to which Time the Parliament was adjourned which was the very next Day after their arrival But Sir instead of a Session so much expected by the
Popish Adversaries which they could not do but by inflaming the Differences between the Conforming and Non-conforming Protestants that we might not unite our Forces against the Common Enemy 2. You and your Party by this means weakened the Protestant Interest There can be nothing more plain than this for upon the Dissolution of the Oxford Parliament Swarms of Priests and Popish Conspirators returned home and fell to work to pervert the People to the Obedience and Communion of the See of Rome What Pensions then you got for some and Imployments for others and with what care you maintain'd their Interest and defended their Cause and Quarrel against those that pursued them for their many Treasons against the Government we all saw to our great Sorrow And what help was there since you and your Party had so much countenance from your Brother who was ingaged with you in the whole Popish Conspiracy saving that of his own Life 3. You procured a severe Persecution against Protestant Dissenters which you nor none of your rascally Crew durst do during the Session of Parliament but immediately upon their Dissolution you fell upon them either because they had occasioned the sending of good Men to Parliament or because they were zealous Assertors of the Protestant Religion against Popery and of our English Liberties against Slavery these were indeed high Crimes for which you and your Villains made them smart to the ruine of several thousand Families and had you continued somewhat longer in that glorious Adventure you might have made poor England a howling Wilderness tho when your Brother and you came home you found it a Land flowing with Milk and Honey Nay you had rather all should have run into Confusion than the Dissenters should not be ruined because they could not comply with a few Ceremonies for which your Party had no other Authority than a few Acts of Parliaments 4. You advanced Arbitrary Proceedings in Westminster-Hall where you had a Set of rognish Judges exactly of a size for that turn who had as much Impudence for the Court as they had had Dread of being called to Account in Parliament for all their Villanies And tho it was a standing Constitution that if any Man stood impeached by the Commons of England before the Lords in Parliament no inferiour Court could take Cognizance of that Cause or try him for that Treason in Westminster-Hall for which he stood impeached in Parliament which upon the Dissolution of the Oxford-Parliament was Fitz-Harris his Case yet for all this you found out your Pemberton your Jones and your Raymond that had Impudence enough to try the said Fitz-Harris and condemn him for alas good Men they were not to lose their Places for every small Peccadillo if it were to serve the Government especially to do a Job for you and your Crew 5. Upon the Dissolution of the 3 last Parliaments to alienate the King from his People you and your Party did industriously revive the Memory of the late unhappy Civil War between your Father and the Parliament which was your Brother's Interest as well as the Nation 's to have buried in oblivion the mentioning that unhappy War serv'd only to put us in mind of the sudden Dissolution of 3 Parliaments and the 12 years want of one and what the Villains had done in your Father's Reign and the better to colour your procuring the Dissolution of those three Parliaments you had your Parties abroad to asperse and brand the Members as being of the same Complexion with those that met Nov. 3. 1640 but none of your Cut-throats did ever mention the bloody Massacre in 1641 because begun and carried on by your Father's Command and for his Service But Sir let me tell you that none lived more peaceably under your Brother's Government than they who were engaged in that War on the Parliament's side therefore I cannot tell by what prudent Topick you went when you discourag'd those Men in their obedient living by such villanous Reflections and upbraided them with what the Law had pardoned and they had expiated by their Loyalty since supposing they had been Criminals which yet I think they were not But this is plain beyond all dispute that the Parliament that restored your Brother to his Throne and you to be a constant Plague to this Nation made an Act of Indemnity wherein many things were enacted which they judged necessary for the Settlement of the Nation they prohibited under a Penalty one Man's reproaching another with being concerned in that War for the space of three years after the Date of the said Act sure then they never intended Men should afterwards take the liberty to upbraid one another with it 6. Another ill Consequence of dissolving those three Parliaments was that by this means you made a way to succeed your Brother in the Government If those Parliaments had sat and their Counsels not been defeated by their unexpected Dissolutions you must have been disabled from ever inheriting the Imperial Crown of these Realms and it was plain those Whores and other Traitors that procured the Dissolution of those Parliaments aim'd at your coming to the Throne But Sir I think your Party should have shown so much Ingenuity and Candour as to have owned that all the People of England particularly those that were for your Exclusion were as zealous for Monarchy even in the Royal Line as any of your clamorous Bullies durst for their Ears be I am sure nothing so much endanger'd the legal Monarchy of England as your coming to the Crown which the Wisdom of the Nation foresaw and therefore that it might be preserved resolved to pass you by and let it descend to another Heir Nay Sir if you had continued James Duke of York I am sure you might have lived with more Honour and Comfort than you can propose by putting your Feet under the French King's Table but God having ordained you to be a Plague to us for our Sins I think you let us see what you aimed at in your four Years Tyranny There are some blind Puppies whose Eyes are not yet opened I could wish you had their Company at St. Germains being confident you would soon lick them open 7. Another Consequence of the Dissolution of those three Parliaments was the possessing the King of a Design carried on by the dissenting Party for his Destruction and to introduce a Democratical Power which they called a Common-wealth nay that you might hasten the Dissolution of the Oxford-Parliament you made use of this Lie for an Argument which your Brother was willing to believe that he might have some Pretence for quitting that way of Government There were two sorts of Persons charged 1. The Parliaments themselves 2. Those who stedfastly asserted the Power and Privileges of Parliaments the Protestant Religion and Liberties of the People in opposition to Popery and Slavery 1. These Parliaments were charged with a Design against his Majesty's Person and Government Now Sir let us
Nell Waal or Barillon could have for their Lives Notwithstanding all this you may remember how it inveighed against the King with all the bitterness imaginable and incited all Men to rebel against him in order to destroy his Person and yours This Paper as villanous as it was against the King was by him Portsmouth and her Bawd Nell and Barillon ordered to be conveyed into the Pockets and Lodgings of several Noblemen Gentlemen and others that when they were seized and this found upon them they should be charged with Treason and Rebellion and the finding of this upon them should be a Proof of the same The Tool that was to carry on this Roguery was Fitz-Harris who was to be one of the Witnesses to swear this Conspiracy designed by the Protestants and your Conspirators had prepared the Business to be laid in Oxford-shire Buckingham-shire and Bark-shire that this Villany might not miscarry but be believed by the Juries that should be pack'd in those Counties in order to a speedy Justice upon the pretended Criminals But Sir as well laid as this Design was it proved to be a Brat of Popish Extraction and the Midwives were that Whore Portsmouth and trusty Nell her Bawd with whom you would have engaged in Person had not the Catholick Cause called for your Presence in Scotland but I suppose let who will believe it that you know nothing of the Business I shall prove you in it in its proper place Well then the nature of the Crime and the King your Brother Barillon and the two Strumpets aforenam'd being engaged in this piece of Villany and several great Persons being to be destroyed surely deserved an Inquiry which an Oxford-Jury neither could or would ever make for they it may be in the Multitude of their Mercies would have dealt with other Protestants as they did by poor Colledge whom they basely murdered to please your Brother and you That House of Commons as if endowed with a Prophetick Spirit unanimously agreed that none but the Parliament was capable of looking into the bottom of this Affair both in its Original and Tendency and the more zealous they were for that the more they saw the Zeal of the Judges and the inferiour Courts in Westminster-Hall abated in relation to the Popish Plot and its Discovery but heightned for you and your Party against the Protestants and that those Blood-hounds thirsted after their Blood that asserted the Laws and Liberties of England Truly to speak the best I can of those Judges they were much changed for the worse as appeared in the Trials of Wakeman Gascoyne and others that were in the Popish Conspiracy and in good truth Sir the Oxford House of Commons were the more jealous and could you blame them for when this Fitz-Harris was sensible of his Crime or at least of his Danger and had begun to tell Tales he was removed out of the Legal Custody of the Sheriffs and illegally committed close Prisoner to the Tower to the great astonishment of all sober Men. That Parliament therefore had no other way to have the Prosecution effectual and the Judgment according to the Laws of the Land and that Fitz-Harris should not lie under any hopes but by impeaching him for they well knew that no Pardon could stop their Sail tho it might the King's Now Sir consider how this Pretence of yours could justify the Dissolution of that Parliament 9thly The last Pretence I shall mention which you had for dissolving the three last Parliaments was their bringing in a Bill to exclude you and to render you incapable of inheriting the Imperial Crown of this Realm This was the best Pretence you and your Party could make for doing so wicked a thing so pernicious to the Peace of the Kingdom but if I destroy this Goliah I trust you will quit it and let it take its fate with the others There were many of your Party that used several Arguments against that Bill which I shall take notice of 1. The Conspirators did impudently assert that the Bill of Exclusion was unlawful and therefore in it self null and void especially since the King had declared against it Some of them were pretended Protestants and had been for some time educated in the University under a Parcel of High-church-Loggerheads they even they were tainted with this Notion that was fit for none but such as believed Transubstantiation Now Sir if it were against Law it must be against a written or an unwritten Law if it were against a written Law your Party should have named it which when they had done they should have named that Parliament that ever was bound up by any written Law if we take them in their Legislative Capacity as we must do in this Case and to declare that a Parliament is bound up by written Laws in their Legislative Capacity is both destructive and absurd 1. It was destructive the Parliament being the fundamental Court and Law of the Kingdom and ordained to make Laws and see them executed or to supply their Deficiency according to the present Exigency for Preservation of the Peace and Safety of the People which is universally in them but not so in particular Laws and Statutes which cannot provide against future Exigencies as the Law of Parliaments doth and therefore were not Limits to those Parliaments and it would have been farther destructive by depriving those Parliaments of half their Power at once whenever they should be circumscribed by written Laws in their Legislative Capacity which is a peculiar Property belonging only to inferiour Courts of Law and Justice but not to the Parliament of England which is the Supream Court but must have ceased to be so and have divested it self of that inherent and uncircumscribed Power which the Safety of the People comprehends and requires 2. It was absurd in the Conspirators to urge that the Bill of Exclusion was against Law and therefore null and void of it self for the Legislative Power of Parliament is to give Laws to England and not to receive any saving from the Nature and End of their own Constitution which as they give Parliaments a Being so the Parliaments make Laws for Preservation of themselves and the whole Kingdom they represent As for your unwritten Law it is to me like your unwritten Verities in the Church of Rome and the paltry Ceremonies of a Church that cannot be proved lawful either from the Command of Christ or the Practice of his Apostles if therefore by unwritten Law you mean Custom of Inheritance that 's against your Party by the Practices that have been both at home and abroad or if you mean the Equity of the thing then the Parliament in their Legislative Capacity were Judges of that or if you mean Prudence the Parliament being the Wisdom of the Nation are certainly Judges of that also From all which it undoubtedly follows that the Proposal of a Bill to exclude you from inheriting the Crown of this Realm was in it self