however the Roman Catholicks from this time forward were studiously avoided no man fearing any trouble from any body else as in truth I never heard of any man that was prosecuted on this account The 28th of October the Earl of Sunderland was removed from the Office of Principal Secretary of State and the Lord Viscount Preston put in his room This Change pleased all men but it came too late As the Cause of the Dismission of the Earl of Sunderland was then wholly unknown so it gave occasion to the reviving a Report that had been spread not long before upon the Imprisonment of Sir Bevil Skelton the English Ambassador in France that there had lately been a League concluded between the King of England and France for the Extirpation of the Protestant Religion here and the establishing Popery and Arbitrary Government to which end the French King was as was said to send a considerable Army and great Sums of Money into England and as it was before pretended that Skelton being a Protestant had discovered this Transaction to the Prince of Orange So it was now said Sunderland had lost the Original League out of his Scritore and that it was carried over to the Prince of Orange who would produce it to the Parliament of England But since that the Earl of Sunderland has published a Letter wherein he has given a larger Account of the true Cause of his being laid aside than is any where else to be met with and therefore I think it reasonable to add it here The Earl of Sunderland 's Letter to a Friend in London published March 23d 1689. TO comply with what you desire I will explain some things which we talked of before I left England I have been in a Station of a great noise without Power or Advantage whilst I was in it and to my Ruin now I am out of it I know I cannot justifie my self by saying though it is true that I thought to have prevented much Mischief for when I found that I could not I ought to have quitted the Service neither is it an Excuse that I have got none of those things which usually engage men in publick Affairs My Quality is the same it ever was and my Estate much worse even ruin'd tho' I was born to a very considerable one which I am ashamed to have spoiled tho' not so much as if I had encreased it by indirect means But to go on to what you expect The pretence to a Dispensing Power being not only the first thing which was much disliked since the death of the late King but the foundation of all the rest I ought to begin with that which I had so little to do with that I never heard it spoken of till the time of Monmouth's Rebellion that the King told some of the Council of which I was one that he was resolved to give Employments to Roman Catholicks it being fit that all persons should serve who could be useful and on whom he might depend I think every body advised him against it but with little effect as was soon seen That Party was so well pleased with that the King had done that they perswaded him to mention it in his Speech at the next meeting of the Parliament which he did after many Debates whether it was proper or not in all which I opposed it as is known to very considerable Persons some of which were of another opinion for I thought it would engage the King too far and it did give such offence to the Parliament that it was thought necessary to prorogue it after which the King fell immediately to the supporting the Dispensing Power the most Chimerical thing that was ever thought of and must be so till the Government here is as absolute as in Turkey all Power being included in that one This is the sense I ever had of it and when I heard Lawers defend it I never changed my Opinion or Language however it went on most of the Judges being for it and was the chief business of the State till it was looked on as setled Then the Ecclesiastical Court was set up in which there being so many considerable men of several kinds I could have but a small part and that after Lawyers had told the King it was legal and nothing like the High Commission Court I can most truly say and it is well known that for a good while I defended Magdalen Colledge purely by care and industry and have hundreds of times begg'd of the King never to grant Mandates or to change any thing in the regular course of Ecclesiastical Affairs which he often thought reasonable and then by perpetual Importunities was prevailed upon against his ownsense which was the very case of Magdalen Colledge as of some others These things which I endeavoured though without Success drew upon me the Anger and Ill-will of many about the King. The next thing to be try'd was to take off the Penal Laws and the Tests so many having promised their concurrence towards it that his Majesty thought it feasible but he soon found it was not to be done by that Parliament which made all the Catholicks desire it might be dissolv'd which I was so much against that they complained of me to the King as a man who ruined all his Designs by opposing the only thing could carry them on Liberty of Conscience being the Foundation on which he was to build That it was first offered at by the Lord Clifford who by it had done the work even in the late King's time if it had not been for his weakness and the weakness of his Ministers Yet I hindred the Dissolution several Weeks by telling the King that the Parliament in Being would do every thing he could desire but the taking off the Penal Laws and the Tests or the allowing his Dispensing Power and that any other Parliament tho' such a one could be had as was proposed would probably never repeal those Laws and if they did they would certainly never do any thing for the support of the Government whatever exigency it might be in At that time the King of Spain was sick upon which I said often to the King that if he should die it would be impossible for his Majesty to preserve the peace of Christendom that a War must be expected and such a one as would chiefly concern England and that if the present Parliament continued he might be sure of all the help and service he could wish but in case he dissolv'd it he must give over all thoughts of fereign Affairs for no other would ever assist him but on such terms as would ruine the Monarchy so that from abroad or at home he would be destroy'd if the Parliament were broken and any accident should happen of which there were many to make the aid of his People necessary to him This and much more I said to him several times privately and in the hearing of others But being over-power'd
to them and they again returned the Complement in such Rhetorical Addresses that it was verily thought the Church of England Party would very easily have been given up for a Sacrifice to the kind sincere well-meaning Catholicks But our Dissenters were not so easily wheedled into a forgetfulness of what they had so lately suffered and altho' they gave the Fathers many good words and fair Promises yet when they had opportunity they gave such bold hints of their Resolution to defeat the Expectations of these Gentlemen that I protest I wondred at nothing more than to see them so sar infatuated as to believe they should ever reap any Advantage from our Non-cons They were however ingaged and therefore they must go on be the Event what it would and finding it would be a work of time and that it was not possible James II. should live to see it effected and that after his death the Succession of the then Princess of Orange would put an end to all this Babel of Confusion they had with so much Labour and Hazard erected They resolved in the next place to take care for a Catholick Successor to finish this great Work. And in truth it was a Project worthy of such bold Undertakers if they could have as easily deluded the English Nation as they frequently do those who have a mighty fondness for Miracles and had rather be deceived than find out the Legerdemains of the Priesthood But then this was so highly improbable that I wonder they ever entred into it and that none of the Fathers have yet told us that we ought not to think it possible for them to be such Fools as to attempt to impose in a matter of that Consequence upon so learned so curious so distrustful and fierce a Nation as this of England is I assure them this Argument would have more force than all the Depositions they have printed in that case and engage many to espouse their Quarrel out of pure Piquantry How far they might yet have gone and what would in the end have been the consequence of this formal Plot upon our Lives Liberties and Religion is known to none but God They looked upon the Protestant or British Interest in Ireland as wholly at their Mercy Scotland was in such a condition that nothing could be begun there which would not termiin the ruin of the Undertakers And England was so divided in Interest and Religion that they expected a considerable Body of the Protestants would lend them their assistance to ruine the rest and therefore call'd them their Scaffolds France the most Potent of our Neighbours was apparently engag'd in the same Design Denmark and Sweden engaged against each other in the Quarrel of the Duke of Holstein The Protestant Princes in Germany were either awed by the French or divided between the Northern Crowns Spain was weak and unable to defend it self and too Catholick at last to espouse heartily the Interests of a Protestant Nation against a Roman Catholick Prince so that they had nothing to fear but the States of Holland and the Prince of Orange And they looked upon the States as a knot of Merchants more intent upon their Trade than concern'd for the Fate of England and yet if they should attempt any thing England and France by Sea and Land would easily reduce them into the same state they were in in the year 1672. Now supposing the French King who is so zealous a Roman Catholick had not so vigorously and as far as I can see so impolitickly carried on the Controversie with the Pope about the Franchises of his Ambassador at Rome and that he had had the patience to suffer the Emperor to recover what his Ancestors had lost to the Turks and left the Controversies between the Elector Palatine who is a Roman Catholick and the Dutchess of Orleans to the determination of the Pope what had France lost in all this And who then could have made one step to the Recovery of England I know very well it is said the Emperor would certainly begin a War with France so soon as ever he had ended this with the Turks to his mind And in truth he had just reason so to do But it is more probable he would have spent first some years in fortifying peopling and setling his new Conquests to secure himself on that side against his most formidable Neighbour rather than that he would presently transfer his Arms and victorious Armies from the East to the West and pass so suddenly from one long and ruinous War to another of no less hazard and expence And yet if he had done so the Princes of the Empire would never so heartily and generally have joyned with him against France if he had been the Aggressor how just soever his cause had been as it might easily have been foreseen they would when they were first attack'd and as it were forced to flie to the Emperor for his Protection So that it was apparently the Interest of France to have sate still and to have taken the first opportunity had offered it self to have enslaved the first of his Neighbours that had call'd him to their assistance and our English Jesuits did not doubt but that he would In the Interim it was well for England that the French King acted as he did for to him in a great measure our Delivery is owing tho' he never intended it his Breach with the Pope and the Empire having not only given the Dutch a pretence to arm by Sea and Land and so blinded the Eyes of our English Court that they never saw nor would believe themselves concern'd in it till it was too late to help it But it also united not only all the Protestant but all the Catholick Princes too except France in the Project of delivering us for their own security that we might be in a condition to unite with them again for the preservation of Europe from following the triumphant Chariot of France in Chains His late Majesty seems to have been the only Prince in Christendom who made it his great and almost only design to advance the Interests of the Church of Rome without and against his own temporal Interest The rest of the Princes and their Council look in the first place to their own Concerns at home and abroad and make the Affairs of Religion subservient to their other Designs The Pope is not so fond of his old Mumpsimus or of the Decrees of the Council of Trent it self as to suffer France to conquer Italy Spain or Germany no nor England nor Holland neither how much soever it might seem to facilitate their Reduction to the See of Rome because he knows very well the first Prince that shall make himself the Universal Monarch of Europe or gain such a power over the rest as is not to be disputed or opposed will certainly put an end to the Soveraignty Wealth Grandeur and Independency of the Court of Rome and the Pope will
being now Assembled in a full and Free Representative of this Nation taking into their most serious consideration the best means for attaining the Ends aforesaid do in the first place as their Ancestors in like case have usually done for the vindicating and asserting their Ancient Rights and Liberties declare That the pretended power of suspending of Laws or the Execution of Laws by Regal Authority without consent of Parliament is illegal That the pretended power of Dispensing with Laws or the Execution of Laws by Regal Authority as it hath been assumed and exercised of late is illegal That the Commission for erecting the late Court of Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes and all other Commissions and Courts of the like nature are illegal and pernicious That Levying of Money to or for the use of the Crown by pretence of Prerogative without Grant of Parliament for longer time or in other manner than the same is or shall be Granted is illegal That it is the Right of the Subjects to Petition the King and all Commitments and Prosecutions for such Petitioning are illegal That the raising or keeping a standing Army within the Kingdom in time of Peace unless it be by consent of Parliament is against Law. That the Subjects being Protestants may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their condition and as allowed by Law. That the Election of Members of Parliament ought to be Free. That the freedom of Speech and Debates or Proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any Court or Place out of Parliament That Excessive Bail ought not to be required nor Excessive Fines imposed nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted That Jurors ought to be duly Impannel'd and return'd and Jurors which pass upon men in Trials for High Treason ought to be Freeholders That all Grants and Promises of Fines and Forfeitures of particular persons before Conviction are illegal and void And that for Redress of all Grievances and for the amending strengthing and preserving of the Laws Parliaments ought to be held frequently And they do claim demand and insist upon all and singular the Premises as their undoubted Rights and Liberties and that no Declarations Judgments Doings or Proceedings to the prejudice of the people in any of the said Premises ought in any wise to be drawn hereafter into consequence or example To which demand of their Rights they are particularly encouraged by the Declaration of his Highness the Prince of Orange as being the only means for obtaining a full redress and remedy therein Having therefore an intire confidence that his said Highness the Prince of Orange will perfect the Deliverance so far advanced by him and will still preserve them from the violation of their Rights which they have here asserted and from all other attempts upon their Religion Rights and Liberties The said Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons assembled at Westminster do resolve That William and Mary Prince and Princess of Orange be and be declared King and Queen of England France and Ireland and the Dominions thereunto belonging to hold the Crown and Royal Dignity of the said Kingdoms and Dominions to them the said Prince and Princess during their Lives and the Life of the Survivor of them and that the sole and full exercise of the Regal power be only in and executed by the said Prince of Orange in the Names of the said Prince and Princess during their joynt Lives and after their Deceases the said Crown and Royal Dignity of the said Kingdoms and Dominions to be to the Heirs of the Body of the said Princess and for default of such Issue to the Princess Anne of Denmark and the Heirs of her Body and for default of such Issue to the Heirs of the Body of the said Prince of Orange And the said Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons do pray the said Prince and Princess of Orange to accept the same accordingly And that the Oaths hereafter mentioned be taken by all persons of whom the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy might be required by Law instead of them and that the said Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy be abrogated I A. B. Do sincerely Promise and Swear That I will be Faithful and bear true Allegiance to Their Majesties King WILLIAM and Queen MARY So help me God. I A. B. Do Swear That I do from my heart Abhor Detest and Abjure as Impious and Heretical this Damnable Doctrine and Position That Princes Excommunicated or Deprived by the Pope or any Authority of the See of Rome may be Deposed or Murthered by their Subjects or any other whatsoever And I do Delare that no Forreign Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority Preheminece or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm So help me God. Jo. Brown Clericus Parliamentorum The same day this Delaration bears Date Her Royal Highness the Princess of Orange arrived in the River of Thames in the Afternoon and was received with all the Hearty Demonstrations and Expressions of Joy by the City that are usual on such Occasions The 13th of February The Lords and Commons Ordered the following Proclamation to be published and made WHereas It hath pleased Allmighty God in his Great Mercy to this Kingdom to Vouchsafe us a Miraculous Deliverance from Popery and Arbitrary Power and that our Preservation is Due next under GOD to the Resolution and Conduct of His Highness the Prince of ORANGE whom GOD hath Chosen to be the Glorious Instrument of such an Inestimable Happiness to us and our Posterity And being Highly Sensible and Fully Perswaded of the Great and Eminent Vertues of Her Highness the Princess of ORANGE whose Zeal for the Protestant Religion will no doubt bring a Blessing along with Her upon this Nation And Whereas the Lords and Commons now Assembled at Westminster have made a Declaration and Presented the same to the said Prince and Princess of ORANGE and therein Desired Them to Accept the Crown who have Accepted the same accordingly We therefore the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons together with the Lord Mayor and Citizens of London and others of the Commons of this Realm do with full Consent Publish and Proclaim according to the said Declaration WILLIAM and MARY Prince and Princess of ORANGE to be KING and QUEEN of England France and Ireland with all the Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging Who are Accordingly so to be Owned Deemed and Taken by All the People of the aforesaid Realms and Dominions who are from henceforward bound to acknowledg and pay unto them All Faith and True Allegiance Beseeching GOD by whom Kings Reign to Bless King WILLIAM and Queen MARY with Long and Happy Years to Riegn over us GOD Save King WILLIAM and Queen MARY John Brown Clericus Parliamentorum The 15th of February The Lords and Commons Ordered That His Majesties most Gracious Answer this day be added to the Engrossed Declaration in Parchment to be
Secondly This Expedient was not absolutely Necessary for the Administration of Justice might have proceeded Regularly without any such Deputation by Virtue of those Commissions which the Popish Judges and Justices of the Peace had already from the King. This I shall prove § 22. 1. From a parallel Instance King Charles the I. took a Journy into Scotland in 41. during the Session of Parliament at Westminster where though he appointed Five Lords to sign Bills in his Name The Continuation of Bak. Chron. yet the Judges and Justices Acted by vertue of their former Commissions without any new Authority from any Representatives of His Majesty Now Scotland is as much a distinct Kingdom from England as France and France as much His Majesties Dominions as Scotland And therefore if Commissions will hold in the King's Absence in one Place why not in the other § 23. Secondly The present Judges met in January last at Westminster to dispatch some Business in order to keep the Term but were forbidden to proceed by the Prince of Orange's Secretary So that it is plain it was the Opinion of these Reverend Judges that their Commissions from His Majesty were still in Force But in the next place § 24. If His Majesty had deputed any Persons to Represent him in Parliament this Method would have been attended with new and insuperable Difficulties For § 25. 1. If they had been Limited they would not have given Satisfaction For it being impossible to foresee the Business and Votes of a Parliament at a distance If they had been restrained to certain Points in all probability they would have wanted Power to have passed all the Bills and and so their Deputation would not have Answered the Desire of the Houses and the greatest part of their Grievances might have been counted unredressed If it 's said that the Parliament might have requested an Enlargement of their Commission from His Majesty To this I Answer That the Convention may send to His Majesty for an Expedient now if they please And I hope they will for I hear his Majesty has been so gracious as to send to them But 2. If these Commissioners were unlimited it would be in their Power to do a great many things prejudicial to the Crown In such a Case they might alter the Monarchy into a Commonwealth or Sign the Deposing of his Majesty if such Bills should happen to be offered And though there may be many Persons of Honour and Conscience enough to lodge such a Trust with Yet in regard his Majesty has been lately mistaken in some of whose Fidelity he had so great and Assurance he has small encouragement to be over confideing for the Future Indeed no Wise Prince will Trust so vast a Concern as a Kingdom with the Honesty of another especially when many of his Subjects are disaffected and in a Ferment So that nothing can be more unreasonable than to expect such Plenipotentiary and Absolute Commissioners § 26. 3. I shall prove in the last place That we have no Grounds either from the Laws of the Realm or from those of Nature to pronounce the Throne void upon such a Retreat of a Prince as we have before us 1. To begin with the Laws of the Realm which are either Acts of Parliament or those we call Common Laws Now there is no Statute so much as pretended to support this Deserting Doctrine and if there was it 's certain no such can be produced Indeed a Prince must be very weary of Governing and void of the common Inclinations of Mankind who would sign a Bill of this Nature and give his Subjects such a dangerous Advantage against himself and his Posterity Neither has this Opinion any better Countenance from Common Law For Common Law is nothing but Antient Usage and Immemorial Custom Now Custom supposes Precedents and Parallel Cases But it 's granted of all Hands That the Crown of England was never judged to be Demifed by the withdrawing of the Prince before now And therefore it follows by undeniable Consequence that this Opinion can have no Foundation in the Common Law because there is not so much as one Ruled Case to prove it by Nay our Laws are not only silent in the maintenance of this Paradox but against it as I shall make good by Two Precedents § 27. 1. From the Case of Edward the IV. who having not sufficient Force to Encounter the Earl of Warick who had raised an Army for King Henry was obliged to fly the Kingdom but that he deputed any Persons to Represent him our Histories don't give us the least Intimation Neither was it Objected at his return that he had Abdicated the Government by omitting to Constitute a Regent Neither is it material to Object that all Disputes of this Nature were over-ruled by his Victorous Army For if it had been the known Law of this Realm that a Prince had ipso facto forfeited his Crown by going beyond Sea without leaving a Deputation though his Departure should happen to be Involuntary If this I say had been the Law of the Kingdom it would not only have been a great advantage to Henry the VI. and made the Nation ring of it of which there is altum Silentium but we may be well assured King Edward would not have conferr'd Honour worn the Crown and taken the State and Authority of the King upon him till he had been Re-Established by Parliaments But that he did Exercise all Acts of Soveraignty before the calling of a Parliament appears from Daniel Stow and Baker And when the Parliament was Convened those who had taken up Arms against him were found Guilty of Treason and his Adherents were restored to Blood and Estate Daniel But there was no Confirmation or Resisting or his Title which is a Demonstration there was no need of it and that this Abdicating Doctrine was perfectly unknown to that Age. § 28. 2. To come nearer our own Times what Seals or Commissioners did Charles the II. leave behind him after Worcester Fight And yet I beleive no Mortal ever urged this as an Argument against his Restauration If it be Answered that there was much more danger in this case than in that before us To this I reply that if we Examine the matter more narrowly we shall find the disparity very inconsiderable For was there not a numerous Army of Foreigners and Subjects in the Field against his present Majesty at his retiring What Power or Authority or so much as Liberty was there left him And I am afraid that at that time he had fewer Friends to stand by him than his Brother after that unfortunate Battle in 51. § 29. And since this pretended Dereliction has no manner of Protection from the Constitution it has no other refuge but the Laws of Nature to fly to but a very little Storming will serve to drive it from this last Retrenchment § 30. For the Law of Nature is nothing but the Reason of the
Grievances which the Majority of the three Estates should have judged necessary to be redress'd would have signified as little so that whatever the difficulties or distrusts of the King were at that time he saw he must yield the point after he had strugled as long as was possible and now when he had now passed his Word it was too late to revoke it and therefore there was that necessity added to the other of holding one Now Sr. if we had yielded this point there had been an End of the English Liberties for ever If he had yielded it what inconvenience could have followed which did not certainly attend his Desertion of us but if he had stayed he might in all probability have saved his main Stake and have regained the Affections of his people again and so have ended his Days in Honour and Peace in his own Palace and amongst his good Subjects At least there was so great a probability of all this that no man but he would have taken the other way Nor he neither if he had suffered this Question to have been debated in his Privy Council and had heard what all sides could have said for it Sect. 21. He tells us this expedient the appointing of a representative was not absolutely necessary for the Administration of Justice might have proceeded regularly without any such Deputation by virtue of those Commissions which the Judges and Justices of the Peace had already from the King. So that here was no need of Seals or Commissioners tho the Nation was imbroiled to that heigth that no body durst have undertaken this dangerous Charge as he tells us the Section before and the King was gone Thus men loose themselves when they meddle with what they do not understand The Tumults which arose that very day in London and spread themselves with the news of the Kings withdrawing all over the Nation do sufficiently confute this airy Notion And at this time both the Judges and Justices of the Peace were at almost as Low an Ebb of Authority and Credit with the People as their Master by reason of the many unqualified men which had been imployed and the things they had done contrary to Law he could not but know how the late Lord Chancellor Sir Roger Lestrange and many others were treated by the People and yet he tells us the Administration of Justice might have proceeded regularly yes we might have lived without any King Magistrates or Execution of Justice at all if all men would have been quiet and minded their own business Section 22 We have a whimsey of a Journey of Charles the first into Scotland and that five Lords were appointed by him to sign bills in his Name but the Judges and Justices acted by virtue of their former Commissions without any new Authority from these Representatives of his Majesty Now to what end is all this why to prove that Commissions will hold tho the King is absent Who ever doubted this for without this had been allowed he could have had no representative But I thought he would have given us an instance of a King that had Stole out of his Kingdom and had left no body to have supplied his place which Charles I. did and yet after he was gone no body knew whether to return no body knew when his people had been Governed by his Judges and Justices of the Peace and then this should have been an Example for England Henry the 3d. of France was first King of Poland and hearing of his brothers Death stole away without Leaving any Deputy But then the Kingdom of Poland call'd a Dyet and Judged it an Abdication and proceeded to the Election of a New King as if he had been Dead The Instances of this nature must be very rare but who ever heard of a Prince that withdrew himself from his people or was forced away and yet no body was put in his place Certainly James the 2d foresaw what would follow and in some sort consented to it rather than to the setting of a Parliament § 26. He undertakes to prove in the last place that we have no Grounds either from the Laws of the Realm or from those of Nature to pronounce the Throne void upon such a retreat of a Prince as we have before us This is bold and very peremptory considering there had then a Vote passed for it in the Lower house of the Convention And that this Gentleman is a Clergy-man and knows very little of the Laws of England There is said he no Statute so much as pretended to support this Deserting Doctrine he might have better called it this right of providing for our selves when we had no body to take care off us There is no Statute to enable us to meet and chose a new King if the whole Royal Line should happen to be extinct yet this may very probably happen at one time or another What shall we therefore continue in a State of Anarchy for ever Neither has it any foundation in common Law For common Law is nothing but Ancient usage and Immemorial Custom Now Custom Supposeth Precedents and Parallel Cases But it is granted on all hands that the Crown of England was never judged to be demised by the withdrawing of the Prince before Such a withdrawing as this I believe never happened in England before nor ever will again and it is Stupendioutly wonderful that it happened now There was nothing asked of the King but what he ought to have granted freely viz the calling of a Free and Lawful Parliament which he said he was resolved to have had tho the Prince had not entered England and so soon as he was retired he would hold such a Parliament then he came further and promised to hold a Parliament the 15th of January and sent thee Noble-men to the Prince to adjust the Preliminaries who had as good an Answer as they could expect but before it was possible the late King should know what it would be whilest all men rested secure under the Expectation of that meeting The King for Reasons wholly unknown to us burns the Writs sends away the Seals withdraws himself and disbands his Army Now if he can find a case Parallel to this in the History of the whole world Erit mihi Magnus Apollo Nay saith he our Laws are not only silent in the maintenance of this Paradox but against it as I shall make good by two Instances The first of these is that of Edward the Fourth who was forced to fly without leaving any representative yet returned and regained the Crown King Edward was surprized under pretence of a Treaty and sent Prisoner to Warwick Castle and made his escape out of Custody after this Henry the Sixth was again Crowned and Edward the Fourth declared a Traytor in Parliament and an Usurper of the Crown and all his Estate confiscated and the like Judgment passed against all his Adherents and all the Statutes made by him were revoked
become as subject to him notwithstanding his Infallibility as the Mufty is to the Grand Signior who never makes any Scruple to depose or bow-string the Infallible Gentleman whenever he crosseth his Designs and to set up another in his stead whose Infallibility will be more complaisant The Emperor of Germany is as religious and as zealous a Prince for the Roman Catholick Religion as ever sprung out of that Family But he has no mind after all to lose his Life his Empire and his Liberty he had rather there should be some Hereticks in Germany than to suffer the French King to send his Apostolick Dragoons to convert them and drive him into Exile The King of Spain values the poor dispeopl'd share he has yet left him in Europe too well to put it into the Hands of the French in order to the reducing the Northern Hereticks to the See of Rome No wonder then that these Princes should all unite with his now Majesty of England against a Prince of their own Religion when they saw he had embraced a design which would certainly end in his and all their Ruins and which would raise France to such an height of Power as could never be retrieved This was very near the state of Affairs at home and abroad when Monsieur the Comte d' Avaux the French King's Ambassador at the Hague the 9th of September last published this Memorial which first opened the Eyes of our small States-men here in England My Lords THe sincere desire the King my Master has to maintain the Tranquility of Europe will not suffer his Majesty to see the great Preparations for War both by Sea and Land made by your Lordships without taking the measures that Prudence the continual Companion of all his Actions inspires him with to prevent the Mischiefs these War-like Preparations will certainly draw after them And altho' the King perswaded of the Wisdom of your Councils would not imagine that a Free state should so easily resolve to take up Arms and to kindle a War which in the present Juncture cannot but be fatal to all Christendom Nevertheless his Majesty cannot believe your Lordships would engage your selves in so great Expences both at home and abroad to entertain in pay so many Foreign Troops to put to Sea so numerous a Fleet so late in the year and to prepare so great Magazines if you had not a design form'd answerble to the greatness of these Preparations All these Circumstances and many others that I may not here produce perswade the King my Master with reason that this Arming threatens England Wherefore his Majesty hath commanded me to declare to you on his part That the Bands of Friendship and Alliance between him and the King of Great Britain will oblige him not only to assist him but also to look on the first act of Hostility that shall be committed by your Troops or your Fleet against his Majesty of Great Britain as a manifest Rupture of the Peace and a Breach with his Crown I leave to your Lordships Prudence to reflect on the Consequences that such Enterprises may have his Majesty not having ordered me to make you this Declaration on his Part without his sincere Intention to prevent as I have already had the Honour to tell you all that may trouble the Peace of Europe Given at the Hague the 9th of September 1688. month September In England all things were then in the utmost degree of Disorder and Security the Army committing the utmost degree of Insolence in all places where they were quartered and the People making frequent and loud Complaints Whereupon his late Majesty issued out again an old Order which had been frequently and to no good purpose published before commanding that no Souldier should be lodged in any private House without the free and voluntary Consent of the Owner and that all Houses should be deem'd private Houses except Victualling-Houses and Houses of publick Entertainment or such as have License to sell Wine or any other Liquor c. Under this pretence they brought in all Bakers Cooks c. This Order bears date the 2d of September at Windsor Tho' the English Army were become thus intolerable to the Nation and there was so great a Storm gathering in Holland yet so stupid were our Drivers that nothing would serve our then Masters but the filling the Army with Irish men who were likely to be more disorderly and more hated to that end Major Slingsby Lieutenant Governour of Portsmouth under his Grace the Duke of Berwick had ordered the Regiment there quartered to take in about thirty Irish Gentlemen which was opposed by John Beaumont Lieutenant Coll. Thomas Pastor Simon Parke Thomas Orme William Cook and John Port Officers and Commanders in that Regiment which they had rais'd at their own Costs and Charges during the Monmouth Invasion The first of these made this Speech by their appointment and in all their names to the Duke of Berwick Sir I am desired by these Gentlemen with whose Sense I concur to inform your Grace that we do not think it consistent with our Honours to have Foreigners imposed upon us without being complain'd of that our Companies were weak or Orders to recruit them not doubting but if such Orders had been given us We that first in very ill times raised them Hundreds could easily now have made them according to the Kings Complement We humbly Petition we may have leave to fill up our Companies with such men of our Nation we may judge most suitable for the Kings Service and to support our Honours or that we may be permitted with all imaganable Duty and Respect to lay down our Commissions The Account of this Opposition being forthwith sent to Windsor where the Court then was the Rage and Fury against these rebellious heretical Officers was unspeakable and in truth nothing could be more contrary to their Designs which was by degrees to fill up the English Army with Irish and Roman Catholicks because they found it was not possible to do it at once as they had done in Ireland And now nothing would serve them but the hanging the six honest Gentlmen by Martial Law and accordingly a Party of Horse were ordered to go down to Portsmouth to bring them up in custody and a Court Martial was ordered to proceed against them and if the Memorial of the French Ambassador had not â—ome in that very Morning to shew them their danger â—n all probability they had been so treated but upon this the â—0th of September they were only casheer'd after they had on the Road been treated with great Severity and Indignity However this was one of those things which contributed very much to what followed The 20th of September the King being then returned with the Court to Whitehall published this Declaration HAving already signified Our pleasure to call a Parliament to meet at Our City of Westminster in November next and Writs of Summon being issued accordingly lest
those whose Right it is to chuse Members of Parliament should be under any Prejudices and Mistakes thro' the Artifices of disaffected Persons We think fit to declare That it is Our Royal Purpose to endeavour a legal Establishment of an Universal Liberty of Conscience for all Our Subjects it is also our Resolution inviolably to preserve the Church of England by such a Confirmation of the several Acts of Uniformity that they shall never be altered by any other ways than by repealing the several Clauses which inflict Penalties upon Persons not promoted or to be promoted to any Ecclesiastical Benefices or Promotions within the meaning of the said Acts for using and exercising their Religion contrary to the Tenor and Purport of the said Acts of Uniformity And for the further securing not only the Church of England but the Protestant Religion in general We are willing the Roman Catholicks shall remain incapable to be Members of the House of Commons whereby those Fears and Apprehensions will be removed which many persons have had That the Legislative Authority would be engrossed by them and turn'd against Protestants We do likewise assure all our loving Subjects that We shall be ready to do every thing else for their safety and advantage that becomes a King who will always take care of his People and if they desire the happiness of their Country We exhort them to lay by all Animosities and dispose themselves to think of such Persons to represent them in Parliament whose Abilities and Temper render them fit for so great and good a Work. And for the preventing any Disorders Irregularities or undue Proceedings whatsoever that may happen either before or at the time of Election of Members for the insuing Parliament We do hereby strictly require and command all Mayors Sheriffs Bailiffs and other Officers whatsoever to whom the execution of any Writ Summons Warrant or Precept for or concerning the choice of Members for the ensuing Parliament shall belong That they cause such Writ Summons Warrant or Precept to be duly published and executed according to the Tenor thereof And the Members that shall be chosen to be fairly return'd according to the Merits of the Choice The Nation was by this time become so distrustful of all the Proceedings of the Court that this Declaration was thought absolutely necessary to assure them a Parliament should be holden and yet after all it was little believed The Preparations in Holland had made it necessary to wheedle the Church of England-men and therefore they were told only the Penalties of the Acts of Uniformity should be repeal'd that an Universal Liberty of Conscience might be established And the Roman Catholicks not being likely to be chosen for Members of the lower House in this Parliament they were contented to continue uncapable of being chosen in there intimating they intended however to sit in the House of Lords The 26th of September there was an Order made to authorize and empower the Lords Lieutenants many of which were Roman Catholicks or unqualified persons of the several Counties to grant Deputations to such Gentlemen as had been lately removed from being Deputy-Lieutenants and his Majesty also gave directions to the Right Honourable the Lord Chancellor of England to put into the Commission of the Peace such Gentlemen as had been lately laid aside and shall be recommended by the said Lords-Lieutenants In the Interim certain Intelligence being brought that the Preparations in Holland were designed against England The 24th of September were summoned the Bishop of London Winchester Ely Chichester Rochester and Bristol and the Archbishop of Canterbury and the 28th of Septemb. they appeared at Whitehall and there waited accordingly that day upon the King in a Body Winchester Ely Chichester Rochester Bath and Wells and Peterborough but London and Bristol came not then to Town and the Archbishop was sick and came alone the next day There passed nothing then but general Expressions of his Favour and Promises of Duty on the Bishops part Whereupon they all desired the Archbishop to beg a second-Admission which was appointed on Tuesday the 2d of October but was put off till the next day The 28th of September his Majesty put out this following Declaration WE have received undoubted Advice That a great and sudden invasion from Holland with an armed Force of Foreigners and Strangers will speedily be made in an hostile manner upon this Our Kingdom and altho' some false Pretences relating to Liberty Property and Religion contrived or worded with Art and Subtilty may be given out as shall be thought useful upon such an Attempt it is manifest however considering the great Preparations that are making that no less matter by this Invasion is propos'd than an absolute Conquest of these Our Kingdoms and the utter subduing and subjecting Us and all Our People to a foreign Power which is promoted as We understand altho' it may seem almost incredible by some of Our Subjects being persons of wicked and restless Spirits implacable Malice and desperate Designs who having no sense of former intestine Distractions the Memory and Misery whereof should endear and put a value upon that Peace and Happiness which hath long been enjoyed nor being moved by Our reiterated Acts of Grace and Mercy wherein we have studied and delighted to abound towards all Our Subjects and even towards those who were once avowed and open Enemies and who do again endeavour to imbroil this Kingdom in Blood and Ruine to gratifie their own Ambition and Malice proposing to themselves a Prey and Booty in such a publick Confusion We cannot omit to make it known that altho' We had notice some time since that a foreign force was preparing against Us yet We have always declined any foreign Succours but rather have chosen next under God to rely upon the true and ancient Courage Faith and Allegiance of our own People with whom we have often ventur'd Our life for the honour of this Nation and in whose defence against all Enemies We are firmly resolved to live and die And therefore We solemnly conjure Our Subjects to lay aside all manner of Animosities Jealousies and Prejudices and heartily and chearfully to unite together in the defence of Us and their native Country which thing alone will under God defeat and frustrate the principal Hope and Design of Our Enemies who expect to find Our People divided and by publishing perhaps some plausible Reasons of their coming hither as the specious tho' false pretences of maintaining the Protestant Religion or asserting the Liberties and Properties of Our People do hope thereby to conquer this great and renowned Kingdom But albeit the design hath been carried on with all imaginable Secresie and Endeavour to surprize and deceive Us We have not been wanting on our part to make such Provisions as did become Us and by Gods Blessing We make no doubt of being found in so good a Posture that Our Enemies may have cause to repent such their
the Parliament was broke the Closetting went on and a new one was to be chosen who was to get by closetting I need not say but it was certainly not I nor any of my Friends many of them suffered who I would fain have saved and yet I must confess with grief that when the King was resolv'd and there was no remedy I did not quit as I ought to have done but served on in order to the calling another Parliament In the midst of all the preparations for it and whilst the Corporations were regulating the King thought sit to order his Declarations to be read in all Churches of which I most solemnly protest I never heard one word till the King directed it in Council that drew on the Petition of my Lord the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other Lords the Bishops and their Prosecution which I was so openly against that by arguing continually to shew the Injustice and the Imprudence of it I brought the Fury of the Roman Catholicks upon me to such a degree and so unanimously that I was just sinking and I wish I had then sunk but whatever I did foolishly to preserve my self I continued still to be the Object of their hatred and I resolv'd to serve the publick as well as I could which I am sure most of the considerable Protestants then at Court can testifie and so can one very eminent man of the Country whom I would have perswaded to come into business which he might have done to have helped me to resist the violence of those in power but he despaired of being able to do any good and therefore would not engage Sometime after came the first News of the Prince's designs which were not then look'd on as they have proved no body foreseeing the Miracles he has done by his wonderful Prudence Conduct and Courage for the greatest thing which has been undertaken these thousand years or perhaps ever could not be effected without Vertues hardly to be imagined till seen nearer hand Upon the first thought of his coming I laid hold of the opportunity to press the King to do several things which I would have had done sooner the chief of which were to restore Magdalen Colledge and all other Ecclesiastical Preferments which had been diverted from what they were intended for to take off my Lord Bishop of London's Suspension to put the Counties into the same hands they were in some time before to annual the Ecclesiastical Court and to restore entirely all the Corporations of England These things weredone effectually by the help of some about the King and it was then thought I had destroyed my self by enraging again the whole Roman Catholick Party to such a height as had not been seen they dispersed Libels of me every day told the King that I betrayed him that I ruined him by perswading him to make such shameful Condescentions but most of all by hindring the securing the chief of the disaffected Nobility and Gentry which was proposed as a certain way to break all the Prince's Measures and by advising his Majesty to call a Free-Parliament and to depend upon that rather than upon foreign Assistance It is true I did give him those Counsels which were called weak to the last moment he suffered me in his Service then I was accused of holding Correspondence with the Prince and it was every where said amongst them That no better could be expected from a man so related as I was to the Bedford and Leicester Families and so allied to Duke Hamilton and the Marquiss of Halifax After this Accusations of High Treason were brought against me which with some other reasons relating to affairs abroad drew the Kings displeasure upon me so as to turn me out of all without any consideration and yet I thought I escaped well expecting nothing less than the loss of my head as my Lord Middleton can tell and I believe none about the Court thought otherwise nor had it been otherwise if my Disgrace had been deferred a day longer all things being prepared for it I was put out the 27th of October the Roman Catholicks having been two Months working the King up to it without intermission besides the several Attacks they had made upon the before and the unusual assistance they obtained to do what they thought so necessary for the carrying on their Affairs of which they never had greater hope than at chat time As may be remembred by any who were then at London But you desired I would say something to you of Ireland which I will do in very few words but exactly true My Lord Tyroonnell has been so absolute there that I never had the credit to make an Ensign or keep one in nor to preserve some of my Friende 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was much concerned from the lust Oppression and 〈◊〉 tho' I endeavoured it to the utmost or my power but yet with care and diligence being upon the place and he absent I diverted the calling a Parliament there which was designed to alter the Acts of Settlement Chief Justice Nugent and Baron Rice were sent over with a draught of an Act for that purpose furnished with all the pressing Arguments could be thought on to perswade the King and I was offered forty thousand pounds for my Concurrence which I told to the King and shewed him at the same time the Injustice of what was proposed to him and the prejudice it would be to that Country with so good success that he resolved not to think of it that year and perhaps never This I was helped in by some Friends particularly any Lord Godolphin who knows it to be true and so do the Judges before named and several others I cannot omit saying something of France there having been so much talk of a League between the two Kings I do protest I never knew of any and if there were such a thing it was carried on by other sort of men last Summer Indeed French Ships were offered to join with our Fleet and they were refused since the noise of the Prince's design more Ships were offered and it was agreed how they should be commanded if ever desired I opposed to death the accepting of them as well as any assistance of men and can say most truly that I was the principal means of hindring both by the help of some Lords with whom I consulted every day and they with me to prevent what we thought would be of great prejudice if not ruinous to the Nation If the Report is true of Men Ships and Money intended lately for England out of France it was agreed upon since I was out of business or without my knowledge if it had been otherwise I believe no body drinks my Disgrace would have hapned My greatest Misfortune has been to be thought the Promoter of those things I opposed and detested whilst some I could name have been the Inventors and Contrivers of what they have had the Art to lay upon
they have not consulted him they ought to satisfie the King how they can warrant a Cessation of Arms on the Prince's side or how they can hinder him from advancing further to awe Debates in the Houses or what assurance they can give that he will acquiesce in the free Decision of the matters proposed or that he will peaceably depart out of the Land when things are setled and will not pretend a stay here till the vast Sums be paid him that he hath expended on this occasion or lastly will not find new occasions of questioning the security of Performance of any Agreement to be made If they have consulted the Prince they ought to shew his Commission authorizing them to make Proposal or shew the Heads of those Grievances he demands to be redressed for some they urge in their Petition there are which distract the People but I suppose they are more careful of their Heads than to own any such correspondence If these Noble Persons would have effectually saved Effusion of Blood they would rather have used all their Interest to have kept the Prince of Orange in his Country tho' with his Army and Fleet in readiness and have obtained his sending his demands and have waited like dutiful Subjects till the King had convened his Parliament and have tried how Gracious the King would have been in redressing Grievances and securing Religion and Property and after the King's refusal there might have been some colour for his Invasion but none upon any pretence whatsoever to have invited him to it Fifthly Those who will not openly and with a bare face justifie the Prince of Orange's Pretensions cannot think it consistent with the Honour of the King to stoop so low as to summon a Parliament at the direction of an Invader who can never be conceived to desire it with that eagerness if he did not judge it very much conduceable to his Interest for which very reason the King ought to be jealous of such Councils And I humbly conceive those Peers have not sufficiently considered how prejudicial this sort of Address may be to the King's Affairs and how much it will conduce to the further alienating of the Affections of the Subjects from the King when they shall hear of his denial to comply at present with this Expedient and never hear the reasons thereof since they have not divulged his Majesties Gracious Answer together with their Petition and I am sure at this time the putting the King upon such a Dilemma is the greatest dis-service can be done him and very little inferior to joining with his Enemies I might add many more Arguments to prove that the King cannot in Honour yield to this Advice without quitting that undeniable Prerogative the Laws give him of making War or concluding peace if those matters should be submitted to the Arbitriment of the two Houses or owning that the Allegiance of his Subjects did not bind them to assist him in the defence of his Crown and Dominions without the Votes of a Parliament But I shall conclude with some few Considerations I humbly offer to those Right Reverend and Noble Lords and all those who are of the same Judgment with them to reflect upon First then I desire them to consider whether it will not be more glorious and agreeable to the Principles of our Religion effectually to assist our undoubted lawful Soveraign than to suffer him to be dethroned solely because he is a Roman Catholick since the Papists themselves tho' they never take the Oath of Allegiance or Supremacy yet do and ever have declared that if any Roman Catholick Prince yea the Pope himself in person should invade any King of England tho' a Protestant yet that they are bound to defend such a King against them as much as if they were Turks Secondly Whether since the true and original Cause of this Invasion and consequently of all the Blood-shed these Lords so earnestly desire to prevent hath not been the denying to concur with the King in establishing of Liberty of Conscience even with such security to the Protestant Religion and Church of England as could be desired and whether in all human probability that would not be more conduceable to establish the publick Tranquility of the Kingdom and its increase in Wealth and People and consequently the most efficacious means to reduce the Dutch to be just and tractable Allies and Neighbours rather than any thing can be effected by this Invasion or the truckling to such avowed Enemies to our Country our Religion and our King. Thirdly Whether the King 's entire Trust in the Fidelity of his own Subjects for his defence and not admitting of foreign Aids that were unsought for proffered do not oblige all that have any sense of Gratitude or Duty to aid him to the very utmost against such Foreigners as so unnaturally and so unjustly invade him and when it hath pleased God to give success to the King 's just Arms we are not to doubt but the King according to his solemn promise in his late Royal Declaration will speedily call a Parliament and in it redress all such Grievances as his people can justly complain of with a full and ample security to the Church of England and all his Protestant Subjects which it will much more be our Interest to have in a truly harmonious and Free-parliamentary way at that time established than at this present in a tumultuary and precipitate haste so patched up as will not be durable and the more earnestly we desire to see this good work to be set upon the more haste the Nobility and Gentry should make to expel those who hindred the Convention of that Parliament which was much more likely to have setled matters to the content of the King and his People than this Invasion can ever hope to effect The Prince of Orange's Declaration could be no longer suppress'd and therefore it was suffered about this time to be printed with a short Preface and some modest Remarks as the Author pretends on it In 4to The Prince of Orange's Declaration shewing the Reasons why he invades England with a short Preface and some modest Remarks on it THERE having been various Discourses about the Reasonableness and Justice of the Dutch Invasion the Prince's great Love and special Care of the Protestant Religion and English Protestants set forth in the most charming manner and the Desperateness of the Protestant State and Condition painted in the blackest and most frightful Colours Our Natural Liege Lord notwithstanding his Unparallel'd Grace to all represented as designing the greatest Cruelty against his own Subjects strange Stories of ill things whispered and nothing less than a Secret League between His Majesty of Great Britain and the French King to extirpate all Protestants entred into These Reports are with so much Art and Cunning spread as to startle the most considering Protestants of all Perswasions whence nothing could be more eagerly desired than a sight of
the Prince of Orange 's Declaration For the Expectations of most Men are That some extraordinary Secrets some hidden Works of Darkness should be reveal'd and brought to light as generally those who yet never saw the Prince's Declaration do still believe But there not being one word of any such Treaty we cannot see why it is that the Prince comes over and if others impartially peruse the Declaration we doubt not but 't will convince them that they give no Reason powerful enough to justifie so Bloody an Enterprise as this in the issue must needs be We will therefore give you a true Copy of the Prince's Declaration word for word as it runs in the West The Declaration of his Highness WILLIAM HENRY by the Grace of God PRINCE of ORANGE c. of the Reasons inducing him to appear in Arms in the Kingdom of England for preserving of the Protestant Religion and for restoring the Laws and Liberties of England Scotland and Ireland 1. IT is both certain and evident to all men that the publick Peace and Happiness of any State or Kingdom cannot be preserved where the Laws Liberties and Customs established by the lawful Authority in it are openly transgressed and annulled More especially where the Alteration of Religion is endeavoured and that a Religion which is contrary to Law is endeavoured to be introduced Upon which those who are most immediately concerned in it are indispensably bound to endeavour to preserve and maintain the established Laws Liberties and Customs and above all the Religion and Worship of God that is established among them and to take such an effectual care that the Inhabitants of the said State or Kingdom may neither be deprived of their Religion nor of their Civil Rights Which is so much the more necessary because the Greatness and Security both of Kings Royal Families and of all such as are in Authority as well as the Happiness of their Subjects and People depend in a most especial manner upon the exact observation and maintenance of these their Laws Liberties and Customs 2. Upon these grounds it is that we cannot any longer forbear to declare that to our great Regret we see that those Councellors who have now the chief Credit with the King have overturned the Religion Laws and Liberties of those Realms and subjected them in all things relating to their Consciences Liberties and Properties to Arbitrary Government and that not only by secret and indirect ways but in an open and undisguised manner 3. Those evil Councellors for the advancing and colouring this with some plausible Pretexts did invent and set on foot the Kings Dispensing Power by Virtue of which they pretend that according to Law he can suspend and dispence with the Execution of the Laws that have been enacted by the Authority of the King and Parliament for the security and happiness of the Subject and so have rendred those Laws of no effect tho' there is nothing more certain than that as no Laws can be made but by the joint concurrence of King and Parliament so likewise Laws so enacted which secure the publick Peace and safety of the Nation and the Lives and Liberties of every Subject in it cannot be repealed or suspended but by the same Authority 4. For tho the King may pardon the Punishment that a Transgressor has incurred and to which he is condemned as in the Cases of Treason or Felony yet it cannot be with any colour of Reason inferred from thence that the King can entirely suspend the Execution of those Laws relating to Treason or Felony unless it is pretended that he is clothed with a Despotick and Arbitrary Power and that the Lives Liberties Honours and Estates of the Subjects depend wholly on his good Will and Pleasure and are entirely subject to him which must infallibly follow on the King 's having a Power to suspend the Execution of the Laws and to dispense with them 5. Those Evil Counsellors in order to the giving some Credit to this strange and execrable Maxim have so conducted the Matter that they have obtained a Sentence from the Judges declaring that this Dispensing Power is a Right belonging to the Crown as if it were in the power of the Twelve Judges to offer up the Laws Rights and Liberties of the whole Nation to the King to be disposed of by him Arbitrarily and at his Pleasure and expresly contrary to Laws enacted for the Security of the Subjects In order to the obtaining this Judgment those Evil Counsellors did before hand examine secretly the Opinion of the Judges and procured such of them as could not in Conscience concur in so pernicious a Sentence to be turned out and others to be substituted in their rooms till by the Changes which were made in the Courts of Judicature they at last obtained that Judgment And they have raised some to those Trusts who make open Profession of the Popish Religion tho those are by Law rendred incapable of all such Employments 6. It is also manifest and notorious That as his Majesty was upon his coming to the Crown received and acknowledged by all the Subjects of England Scotland and Ireland as their King without the least Opposition tho he made then open Profession of the Popish Religion so he did then promise and solemnly swear at his Coronation That he would maintain his Subjects in the free Enjoyment of their Laws and Liberties and in particular that he would maintain the Church of England as it was established by Law It is likewise certain that there have been at divers and sundry times several Laws enacted for the Preservation of those Rights and Liberties and of the Protestant Religion and among other Securities it has been enacted That all Persons whatsoever that are advanced to any Ecclesiastical Dignity or to bear Office in either University as likewise all other that should be put in any Imployment Civil or Military should declare that they were not Papists but were of the Protestant Religion and that by their taking of the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and the Test yet these Evil Councellors have in effect annulled and abolished all those Laws both with relation to Ecclesiastical and Civil Employments 7. In order to Ecclesiastical Dignities and Offices they have not only without any colour of Law but against most express Laws to the contrary set up a Commission of a certain number of Persons to whom they have committed the Cognisance and Direction of all Ecclesiastical matters in the which Commission there has been and still is one of his Majesties Ministers of State who makes now publick profession of the Popish Religion and who at the time of his first professing it declared that for a great while before he had believed that to be the only true Religion By all this the deplorable State to which the Protestant Religion is reduced is apparent since the Affairs of the Church of England are now put into the hands of persons who have accepted
of a Commission that is manifestly illegal and who have executed it contrary to all Law and that now one of their chief Members has abjured the Protestant Religion and declared himself a Papist by which he is become uncapable of holding any publick Imployment The said Commissioners have hitherto given such proof of their Submission to the Directions given them that there is no reason to doubt but they will still continue to promote all such designs as will be most agreeable to them And those Evil Counsellors take care to raise none to any Ecclesiastical Dignities but persons that have no Zeal for the Protestant Religion and that now hide their unconcernedness for it under the specious pretence of Moderation The said Commissioners have suspended the Bishop of London only because he refused to obey an Order that was sent him to suspend a worthy Divine without so much as citing him before him to make his own Defence or observing the common forms of Process They have turned out a President chosen by the Fellows of Magdalene Colledge and afterwards all the Fellows of that Colledge without so much as citing them before any Court that could take legal Cognisance of that Affair or obtaining any Sentence against them by a competent Judge And the only reason that was given for turning them out was their refusing to chuse for their President a person that was recommended to them by the Instigation of those Evil Councellors tho' the Right of a Free-Election belonged undoubtedly to them But they were turned out of their Free-holds contrary to Law and to that express Provision in the Magna Charta That no man shall lose Life or Goods but by the Law of the Land. And now these Evil Councellors have put the said Colledge wholly into the hands of Papists tho' as is abovesaid they are incapable of all such Employments both by the Law of the Land and the Statutes of the Colledge These Commissioners have also cited before them all the Chancellors and Archdeacons of England requiring them to certifie to them the Names of all such Clergy-men as have read the King's Declaration for Liberty of Conscience and of such as have not read it without considering that the reading of it was not enjoined the Clergy by the Bishops who are their Ordinaries The Illegality and Incompetency of the said Court of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners was so notoriously known and it did so evidently appear that it tended to the Subversion of the Protestant Religion that the Most Reverend Father in God William Archbishop of Canterbury Primate and Metropolitan of all England seeing that it was raised for no other end but to oppress such persons as were of eminent Virtue Learning and Piety refused to sit or to concur in it 8. And tho' there are many express Laws against all Churches or Chappels for the exercise of the Popish Religion and also against all Monasteries and Convents and more particulary against the Order of the Jefuits yet those Evil Counsellors have procured orders for the building of several Churches and Chappels for the exercise of that Religion They have also procured divers Monasteries to be erected and in contempt of the Law they have not only set up several Colledges of Jesuits in divers places for the corrupting of the Youth but have raised up one of the Order to be a Privy Counsellor and a Minister of State. By all which they do evidently shew that they are restrained by no rules of Law whatsoever but that they have subjected the Honours and Estates of the Subjects and the establish'd Religion to a Despotick Power and to Arbitrary Government In all which they are served and seconded by those Ecclesiastical Commissioners 9. They have also followed the same Methods with relation to Civil affairs for they have procured orders to examine all Lords Lieutenants Deputy-Lieutenants Sheriffs Justices of Peace and all others that were in any publick Imployment if they would concur with the King in the repeal of the Test and Penal Laws and all such whose Consciences did not suffer them to comply with their designs were turned out and others were put in their places who they believed would be more compliant to them in their designs of defeating the Intent and Execution of those Laws which had been made with so much care and caution for the security of the Protestant Religion And in many of these places they have put professed Papists tho' the Law has disabled them and warranted the Subjects not to have any regard to their Orders 10. They have also invaded the Priviledges and seized on the Charters of most of those Towns that have a right to be represented by their Burgesses in Parliament and have procured Surrenders to be made of them by which the Magistrates in them have delivered up all their Rights and Priviledges to be disposed of at the pleasure of those Evil Councellors who have thereupon placed new Magistrates in those Towns such as they can most entirely confide in and in many of them they have put Popish Magistrates notwithstanding the Incapacities under which the Law has put them 11. And whereas no Nation whatsoever can subsist without the administration of good and impartial Justice upon which mens Lives Liberties Honours and Estates do depend those Evil Councellors have subjected these to an Arbitrary and Despotick Power In the most important Affairs they have studied to discover before-hand the Opinions of the Judges and have turned out such as they found would not conform themselves to their intentions and have put others in their places of whom they were more assured without having any regard to their Abilities And they have not stuck to raise even professed Papists to the Courts of Judicature notwithstanding their Incapacity by Law and that no regard is due to any Sentences flowing from them They have carried this so far as to deprive such Judges who in the common administration of Justice shewed that they were governed by their Consciences and not by the Directions which the others gave them By which it is apparent that they design to render themselves the absolute Masters of the Lives Honours and Estates of the Subjects of what rank or dignity soever they may be and that without having any regard either to the Equity of the Cause or to the Consciences of the Judges whom they will have to submit in all things to their own Will and Pleasure hoping by such ways to intimidate those who are yet in Employment as also such others as they shall think fit to put in the rooms of those whom they have turned out and to make them see what they must look for if they should at any time act in the least contrary to their good liking and that no failings of that kind are pardoned in any Persons whatsoever A great deal of Blood has been shed in many places of the Kingdom by Judges governed by those Evil Counsellors against all the Rules and Forms of
such Laws as may establish a good agreement between the Church of England and all Protestant Dissenters as also for the covering and securing of all such who will live peaceably under the Government as becomes good Subjects from all Persecution upon the account of their Religion even Papists themselves not excepted and for the doing of all other things which the Two Houses of Parliament shall find necessary for the Peace Honour and Safety of the Nation so that there may be no more danger of the Nations falling at any time hereafter under Arbitrary Government To this Parliament we will also refer the Enquiry into the Birth of the pretended Prince of Wales and of all things relating to it and to the Right of Succession 22. And We for our part will concur in every thing that may procure the Peace and Happiness of the Nation which a Free and Lawful Parliament shall determin Since we have nothing before our Eyes in this our Undertaking but the Preservation of the Protestant Religion the Covering of all Men from Persecution for their Consciences and the securing to the whole Nation the free enjoyment of all their Laws Rights and Liberties under a Just and Legal Government 23. This is the Design that we have proposed to our selves in appearing upon this occasion in Arms In the Conduct of which We will keep the Forces under our Command under all the strictness of Martial Discipline and take a special care that the People of the Countries through which we must march shall not suffer by their means and as soon as the state of the Nation will admit of it We promise that we will send back all those Foreign Forces that we have brought along with us 24. We do therefore hope that all People will judge rightly of us and approve of these our Proceedings But we chiefly rely on the Blessing of God for the Success of this our Undertaking in which we place our whole and only Confidence 25. We do in the last place invite and require all Persons whatsoever all the Peers of the Realm both Spiritual and Temporal all Lords Lieutenants Deputy Lieutenants and all Gentlemen Citizens and other Commons of all ranks to come and assist us in order to the Executing of this our Design against all such as shall endeavour to Oppose us that so we may prevent all those Miseries which must needs follow upon the Nations being kept under Arbitrary Government and Slavery And that all the Violences and Disorders which have overturned the whole Constitution of the English Government may be fully redressed in a FREE AND LEGAL PARLIAMENT 26. And we do likewise resolve that as soon as the Nations are brought to a state of Quiet We will take care that a Parliament shall be called in Scotland for the restoring the Ancient Constitution of that Kingdom and for bringing the Matters of Religion to such a Settlement that the People may live easie and happy and for putting an end to all the injust Violences that have been in a course of so many years committed there 27. We will also study to bring the Kingdom of Ireland to such a state that the Settlement there may be religiously observed and that the Protestant and British Interest there may be secured And we will endeavour by all possible means to procure such an Establishment in all the Three Kingdoms that they may all live in a happy Union and Correspondence together and that the Protestant Religion and the Peace Honour and Happiness of those Nations may be established upon lasting Foundations Given under our Hand and Seal at our Court in the Hague the Tenth Day of October in the Year of our Lord 1688. WILLIAM HENRY PRINCE OF ORANGE By his Highness's special Command C. HUY GENS THus you have an exact and full Account of the Prince of Orange 's Declaration And can you find one word of a Treaty with France to extirpate all Protestants Or can you imagine that if they had the least Reason for such a Talk they who aggravate every little thing would let this Declaration pass without the least mentioning of what is so momentous and important And is there any thing more than a violent Presumption suggested about the Prince of Wales And is the very Noise of such a Presumption reason enough to justifie a real War As for tâ—e other things urg'd are they not redressable by a Parliament and so far as it 's possible without one already Redressed 'T is a Parliament then that is the main thing to be insisted on which though Chosen as the last was would be too see le an Argument to clear the present Invasion from the charge of being Injust and Vnrighteous The Great Men of this Kingdom ever thought a Parliament Irregularly Chosen more eligible than either a War or a rash Enquiry into the manner of the Choice Did Queen Elizabeth 's Parliament admit of a Words being spoken to bring Queen Mary 's Parliament into doubt Did they not look on it as most dangerous to do so And although by the Triennial Bill the long Parliament in the late King's Reign was actually Dissolved Nine Months before it thought on the Repeal thereof yet even after 't was destroyed by it the Dissolved Parliament sate and repealed the Dissolving Bill and made the Conventicle-Act the Test-Laws repealed the Writ De Haeretico Comburendo and pass'd the Habeas Corpus Bill into a Law. But was the Assembly that acted thus Irregularly ever call'd to an Account for it or any of their Laws declared Void and Null Or was it ever esteemed a Good Reason for a War And yet this is much more than hath been ever done by His Present Majesty Besides 't was the late King that took away the Charters and those who were entring on violent Courses for their Restauration were proclaimed Traytâ—rs and several executed for it while all the Pulpits throughout England sounded of the Horridness Blackness Vileness Devilishness of that Conspiracy And is what was Black and Horrid then become Noble Great Generous and Glorious now Thus much was also a part of the late Duke of Monmouth 's Declaration and yet as Parliament chosen by the Garbled Corporations proclaim'd him a raytor and Attainted him But doth the Blood of Monmouth as well as of the fore-mentioned Conspirators and of all those in the West lye on the Judges Juries Nobility and other Gentry of the Church of England that had a hand in condemning such as by violent Methods would have restor'd the Charters If these things could not vindicate the Presbyterian Plotters in the late King's Reign or Monmouth 's Rebellion it cannot excuse the present Vndertaking for this doth infinitely exceed those and the Civil War too for neither of them brought in a Foreign Power upon us as now is done But it must be observed that how great soever our Grievances have been yet now all that Relief that can reasonably de desired
the Laws and to their Country And whereas we are certainly informed that great numbers of Armed Papists have of late resorted to London and Westminster and Parts adjacent where they remain as we have reason to suspect not so much for their own Security as out of a wicked and barbarous Design to make some desperate Attempts upon the said Cities and the Inhabitants by Fire or a sudden Massacre or both or else to be the more ready to joyn themselves to a Body of French Troops designed if it be possible to land in England procured of the French King by the Interest and Power of the Jesuits in pursuance of the Engagements which at the Instigation of that pestilent Society his Most Christian Majesty with one of his Neighbouring Princes of the same Communion has entred into for the utter Extirpation of the Protestant Religion out of Europe Though we hope we have taken such effectual care to prevent the one and secure the other that by God's assistance we cannot doubt but we shall defeat all their wicked Enterprises and Designs We cannot however forbear out of our great and tender concern we have to preserve the People of England and particularly those great and populous Cities from the cruel Rage and bloody Revenge of the Papists to require and expect from all the Lord-Lieutenants and Justices of the Peace Lord Mayors Mayors Sheriffs and other Magistrates and Officers Civil and Military of all Counties Cities and Towns of England especially of the County of Middlesex and Cities of London and Westminster and Parts adjacent that they do immediately disarm and secure as by Law they may and ought within their respective Counties Cities and Jurisdictions all Papists whatsoever as Persons at all times but now especially most dangerous to the Peace and Safety of the Government that so not only all power of doing Mischief may be taken from them but that the Laws which are the greatest and best Security may resume their force and be strictly executed And we do hereby likewise declare That we will protect and defend all those who shall not be afraid to to do their Duty in Obedience to these Laws And that for those Magistrates and others of what condition soever they be who shall refuse to assist Us and in Obedience to the Laws to execute vigorously what we have required of them and suffer themselves at this juncture to be cajolled or terrified out of their Duty we will esteem them the most Criminal and Infamous of all Men Betrayers of their Religion the Laws and their Native Country and shall not fail to treat them accordingly resolving to expect and require at their hands the Life of every single Protestant that shall perish and every House that shall be burnt and destroyed by Treachery and Cowardize Given under our Hand and Seal at our Head Quarters at Sherburn Castle the Twenty eight of November 1688. WILLIAM HENRY PRINCE OF ORANGE By his Highness's special Command C. HUYGENS. This was the boldest Attempt that ever was made by a private Person for it is certain the Prince knew nothing of this Declaration and disowned it so soon as he heard of it but yet it was printed in London and a quantity of them were sent in a Penny-Post Letter to the Lord Mayor of London who forthwith carried them to the King to Whitehall and it is thought this sham Paper contributed very much to the fixing and hastning his Resolution of leaving the Nation however there was no enquiry made after the Author or Printer of it that I could take notice of On Sunday the Ninth of December it is said Count Dada the Pope's Nuncio and many others departed from Whitehall and the next Morning about three or four of the Clock the Queen the Child and as was said Father Peters crossed the Water to Lambeth in three Coaches each of six Horses and with a strong Guard went to Greenwich and so to Gravesend where they imbarked on a Yatch for France And it is supposed she carried the Great Seal of England with her it having never appeared after this Before this the Marquiss of Hallifax the Earl of Nottingham and the Lord Godolphin had been sent by the King and Council to treat with the Prince of Orange and to adjust the Preliminaries in order to the holding of a Parliament who the Eighth of December sent these Proposals to him SIR THe King commanded us to acquaint you That he observeth all the differences and causes of Complaint alledged by your Highness seem to be referred to a Free Parliament His Majesty as he hath already declared was resolved before this to call one but thought that in the present state of Affairs it was advisable to defer it till things were more composed yet seeing that his People still continue to desire it he hath put forth his Proclamation in order to it and hath issued forth his Writs for the Calling of it And to prevent any cause of Interruption in it he will consent to every thing that can be reasonably required for the Security of all those that come to it His Majesty hath therefore sent us to attend your Highness for the adjusting of all Matters that shall be agreed to be necessary to the Freedom of Elections and the Security of Sitting and is ready to enter immediately into a Treaty in order to it His Majesty proposeth that in the mean time the respective Armies may be retained within such Limits and at such distance from London as may prevent the Apprehensions that the Parliament may be in any kind disturbed being desirous that the Meeting may be no longer delay'd than it must be by the usual and necessary Forms Hungerford the 8th of December 1688. Hallifax Nottingham Godolphin To this his Royal Highness the Prince of Orange return'd this Answer WE with the Advice of the Lords and Gentlemen assembled with Us have in Answer made these following Proposals I. That all Papists and such Persons as are not qualified by Law be Disarmed Disbanded and removed from all Employments Civil and Military II. That all Proclamations that reflect upon Us or at any time have come to Us or declared for Us be recalled and that if any Persons for having assisted Us have been Committed that they be forthwith set at Liberty III. That for the Security and Safety of the City of London the Custody and Government of the Tower be immediately put into the Hands of the said City IV. That if His Majesty should think fit to be in London during the Sitting of the Parliament that We may be there also with an equal number of our Guards and if his Majesty shall be pleased to be in any place from London whatever distance he thinks fit that We may be the same distance and that the respective Armies be from London forty Miles and that no further Forces be brought into the Kingdom V. And that for the Security of the City of London and their Trade
Tilbury Fort be put into the Hands of the City VI. That a sufficient part of the Publick Revenue be assigned us for the Support and Maintenance of our Troops until the Sitting of a Free Parliament VII That to prevent the landing of the French or other Foreign Troops Portsmouth may be put into such Hands as by His Majesty and Us shall be agreed on Tilbury-Fort was then Garison'd by the Irish and there were a great many of them and other Papists in Portsmouth This Answer was sent to His Majesty on Monday the Tenth of December by an Express yet he resolved to leave the Town and ordered all those Writs for the Sitting of the Parliament that were not sent out to be burnt and a Caveat to be entred against the making use of those that were sent down And at the same time he sent Order to the Earl of Feversham to Disband the Army and Dismiss the Soldiers The Letter to the Earl of Feversham was in this Form. THings being come to that Extremity that I have been forced to send away the Queen and my Son the Prince of Wales that they might not fall into the Enemies Hands which they must have done if they had stay'd I am obliged to do the same thing in hopes it will please God out of his infinite Mercy to this unhappy Nation to touch their Hearts again with true Loyalty and Honour If I could have rely'd on all my Troops I might not have been put to the Extremity I now am in and would at least have had one blow for it But though I know there are many and brave Men among you both Officers and Soldiers yet you know that both you and several of the General Officers and Soldiers and Men of the Army told me It was no ways advisable for me to venture my self at their Head or to think to fight the Prince of Orange with them And now there remains only for me to thank you and all those both Officers and Soldiers who have stuck to me and been truly Loyal I hope you will still retain the same Fidelity to me and though I do not expect you should expose your selves by resisting a Foreign Army and a Poyson'd Nation yet I hope your former Principles are so inrooted in you that you will keep your selves free from Associations and such pernicious things Time presseth so that I can add no more Jamex Rex The Earl of Feversham presently after the receit of this Letter Disbanded Four thousand Men which was all the Army he had then with him and under his Command after which he sent this Letter to the Prince of Orange SIR HAving received this Morning a Letter from His Majesty with the unfortunate News of his Resolution to go out of England I thought my self obliged being at the Head of his Army and having received his Orders to make no Opposition against any body to let your Highness know it with the Advice of the Officers here so soon as was possible to hinder the effusion of Blood. I have ordered already to that purpose all the Troops that are under my Command which shall be the last Order they shall receive from Feversham This was to all intents and purposes a clear and full Abdication or Desertion of the Army and put them under an inevitable necessity of submitting to the Prince of Orange they having no body to Lead or Head them against him And it is not conceivable how they could keep themselves from entring into an Association or Oath of Allegiance to the Prince now he was gone without exposing themselves by resisting a Foreign Army and a Poyson'd Nation For neither could the Nation long continue without a Prince nor would any Person that succeeded in that Capacity have ever suffered them to live within his Government without giving him Security by Oath for their Submission and Loyalty to him So that the whole design of this Letter seems to be the Sowing a Division in the Nation that at the same time he left us we might not unite or settle our selves under the other but by our Principles be divided that so he might the more easily reduce us again into the State we were in when the Prince first designed his Expedition against England This being done about Three of the Clock in the morning December the 11th the King went down the River in a small Boat towards Gravesend The principal Officers of the Army about the Town thereupon met about Ten of the Clock at Whitehall and sent an Express to the Prince of Orange to acquaint him with the Departure of the King and to assure him that they would assist the Lord Mayor to keep the City quiet till his Highness came and made the Souldiery to enter into his Service Much about the same time the Lords Spiritual and Temporal about the Town came to Guildhall and sending for the Lord Mayor and Aldermen made the following Declaration The Declaration of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in and about the Cities of London and Westminster Assembled at Guild-Hall the 11th of December 1688. WE doubt not but the World believes that in this great and dangerous Conjuncture we are heartily and zealously concerned for the Protestant Religion the Laws of the Land and the Liberties and Properties of the Subject And we did reasonably hope that the King having issued out his Proclamation and Writs for a Free Parliament we might have rested secure under the expectation of that Meeting But His Majesty having withdrawn himself and as we apprehend in order to his departure out of this Kingdom by the pernicious Counsels of Persons ill affected to our Nation and Religion we cannot without being wanting to our Duty be silent under those Calamities wherein the Popish Counsels which so long prevailed have miserably involved these Realms We do therefore unanimously resolve to apply out selves to his Highness the Prince of Orange who with so great Kindness to these Kingdoms so vast Expence and so much Hazard hath undertaken by endeavouring to procure a Free Parliament to rescue us with as little effusion of Christian Blood as possible from the imminent Dangers of Popery and Slavery And we do hereby declare That we will with our utmost Endeavours assist his Highness in the obtaining such a Parliament with all speed wherein our Laws our Liberties and Properties may be secured the Church of England in particular with a due Liberty to Protestant Dissenters and in general the Protestant Religion and Interest over the whole World may be supported and encouraged to the Glory of GOD the Happiness of the Established Government in these Kingdoms and the Advantage of all Princes and States in Christendom that may be herein concerned In the mean time we will endeavour to preserve as much as in us lies the Peace and Security of these great and populous Cities of London and Westminster and the parts adjacent by taking care to disarm all Papists and secure all Jesuits and
some that wished well to the King said he was cunningly invited back to Whitehall with a design to ruine him the more effectually and without any pity from his Protestant Subjects The Peers at Windsor did not think it reasonable hearing this that the Prince of Orange should accept the King's Invitation and venture his Person in the same place for this they had another good reason the Duke of Grafton marching through the Strand on the Fourteenth day at the Head of a Foot Regiment of Guards to take the Fort of Tilbury out of the hands of the Irish by the Order of the Council an Irish Trooper came riding up to him and being beaten off by the Soldiers drew a Pistol against him for which he was shot dead upon the place And it was not improbable there were more of the same temper Hereupon the Peers at Windsor resolved to send the Prince's Guards to take Possession of the Posts about Whitehall to prevent all possibility of a Disturbance from Guards belonging to two several Masters which besides other ill Consequences might have perhaps involved the King 's own Person in the danger that might have arisen from any Dispute These Guards got not to London before Ten at Night being commanded by Count Solmes and the Guards then on Duty not being willing to dislodge it was Twelve at Night before the Lords could deliver the Paper they had brought from Windsor of which they first sent this Account to Secretary Middleton My Lord THere is a Message to be delivered to His Majesty from the Prince which is of so great Importance that we who are charged with it desire we may be immediately admitted and therefore desire to know where we may find your Lordship that you may introduce My Lord Your Lordship 's most Humble Servants Hallifax Shrewsbury Delamere He accordingly presently introduced them the King being by that time in Bed. Where they made an Apology for coming at so unseasonable a time and delivering him the Paper the King read it and said he would comply with it Upon which the Lords humbly desired he would remove so early as to be at Ham by Noon to prevent meeting the Prince in his way to London where he was to come the same day His Majesty readily agreed to this too and asked whether he might not appoint what Servants should attend him to which the Lords replied That it was left to him to give order in that as he pleased and so took their leave of him When they were gone as far as the Privy-Chamber the King sent for them again and told them He had forgot to acquaint them with his Resolutions before the Message came To send my Lord Godolphin next Morning to the Prince to propose his going back to Rochester he finding by the Message Monsieur Zulestein was charged with the Prince had no mind he should be at London and therefore he now desired he might rather return to Rochester than go to any other place The Lords replied That they would immediately send an Account to the Prince of what His Majesty desired and they did not doubt of such an Answer as would be to his Satisfaction Accordingly they sent to him who was then at Sion and before Eight next Morning there came a Letter from Monsieur Benting by the Prince's Order agreeing to the King's Proposal of going to Rochester whereupon he went the Guards being made ready and Boats prepared that Night to Gravesend in his own Barge attended by the Earl of Arran and some few others The same day Dec. the 18th about Three in the Afternoon his Highness the Prince of Orange came to St. James's attended by Monsieur Schomberg and a great number of the Nobility and Gentry and was entertain'd with a Joy and Concourse of the People which appeared free and unconstrained and all the Bells in the City were rung and Bon-fires in every Street The King continued at Rochester till the 23. of December and then about one or two in the morning privately withdrew himself taking only with him Mr. Ra. Sheldon and Mr. Delabady he went towards Dover and embarqued in a Vessel laid ready for his Transportation for France The Queen who went hence the 10th arrived the 11th at Calais and was in great pain not knowing what had happened in England for the King whom she expected every tide The King before he withdrew this second time wrote and left behind him this following Letter which was afterwards printed by his Order in London His Majesty's Reasons for withdrawing Himself from Rochester Writ with his own Hand and ordered by him to be Published THE World cannot wonder at my withdrawing my self now this second time I might have expected somewhat better usage after what I writ to the Prince of Orange by my Lord Feversham and the Instructions I gave him but instead of an Answer such as I might have hoped for what was I to expect after the usage I received by the making the said Earl a Prisoner against the Practice and Law of Nations the sending his own Guards at Eleven at Night to take Possession of the Posts at Whitehall without advertising me in the least manner of it the sending to me at One of the Clock at midnight when I was in Bed a kind of Order by three Lords to be gone out of my Palace before Twelve that same morning After all this How could I hope to be safe so long as I was in the power of one who had not only done this to me and invaded my Kingdoms without any just occasion given him for it but that did by his first Declaration lay the greatest Aspersion on me that malice could invent in that clause of it which concerns my Son I appeal to all that know me nay even to himself that in their Consciences neither he nor they can believe me in the least capable of so unnatural a Villany nor of so little common Sence to be imposed on in a thing of such nature as that What had I then to expect from one who by all Arts hath taken such pains to make me appear as Black as Well to my own people as well as to all the World besides What effect that hath had at home all Mankind hath seen by so general a defection in my Army as well as in the Nation amongst all sorts of people I was born free and desire to continue so and tho I have ventured my Life very frankly on several occasions for the Good and Honour of my Country and am as free to do it again and which I hope I shall yet do as old as I am to Redeem it from the Slavery it is like to fall under yet I think it not convenient to expose my self to be secured as not to be at Liberty to effect it and for that Reason to withdraw but so as to be within Call whensoever the Nation 's Eyes shall be opened so as to see how they have been imposed upon
by the Specious Pretences of Religion and Property I hope it will please GOD to touch their Hearts out of His Infinite Mercy and to make them sensible of the ill condition they are in and bring them to such a Temper that a Legal Parliament may be call'd and that amongst other things which may be necessary to be done they will agree to Liberty of Conscience for all Protestant Dissenters and that those of my own Perswasion may be so far considered and have such a share of it as they may live peaceably and quietly as English men and Christians ought to do and not to be obliged to Transplant themselves which would be very grievous especially to such as love their Country And I appeal to all men who are considering men and have had experience whether any thing can make this Nation so great and flourishing as Liberty of Conscience Some of our Neighbours dread it I could add much more to confirm what I have said but now is not the proper time Rochester Decemb. the 22. 1688. Having now attained that period of time I designed what followed being the Methods of Redressing the Disorders we fell into by the Desertion and the resettling the Government again I must desire my Reader to make a Stand with me and to consider what it was could possibly work upon the Apprehensions of this Prince to perswade him at first to entertain the Thoughts of leaving his People and withdrawing into a Foreign Country When the Prince's Expedition was first certainly made known to him he was resolved to have had a Parliament upon a Belief that he should have been intirely Master of the Lower House by reason of the Regulations and other means then lately used but yet it is probable he would have examined them man by man before they should have met But when all this was out of doors and the Charters restored he dreaded nothing more than a Parliament and the rather because the Prince had in his Declaration insisted That all the Violences and Disorders which have overturned the whole constitution of the English Government may be fully redressed in a Free and Legal Parliament This contained under it these things which he would certainly have perished rather than to have submitted to them by concurring with a Parliament 1. The first thing is The Examination of the Birth of the Prince of Wales as he is call'd the but Questioning of which was a Stab at the Heart of this Prince as appears by his last Letter And the Reflections on the Bishop's Petition mention that as a thing not fit to be referr'd then to a Parliament I will not blame them for this considering the proof they were able to make of it II. The next thing was that Justice would certainly have been demanded against all the Instruments of our former Calamities whom he had pardoned and was in Honour bound to protect at least not to punish those whom he had hired or perswaded or perhaps forced almost to become Criminals III. The third was the consenting to the intire Ruine of the Means or Hopes of ever settling Popery in England and to the hanging some and attainting others of the Priests and Jesuits for doing their kind and what their Rules Oaths and Vows oblige them to IV. He foresaw such a Parliament would not only for ever damn the Ecclesiastical Court and Dispensing Power but would in all probability retrench much of his Revenue and more of his Legal and Ancient Prerogatives especially after the Prince had got all the Forts into his Hands and reduced the English Army to nothing And this alone was a thing he would hardly have consented to though nothing else had been asked V. The Prince he foresaw would have insisted on the having some Forts in his hands and the Parliament for their own security and for the fixing a Faith which had not been over nice would have joined with him So said he if I stay I shall be a Nominal rather than a real King of England and only serve as an Instrument to ruine my Religion my Friends the Monarchy and the Child and after all do and hear what is worse to me than a Thousand Deaths At first he alledged That the Disorders the Preparations to repel the Invasion caused would not suffer a Parliament to meet Secondly After the Prince was landed that all the Countries he had under him would not be free Thirdly That all that had joyned with him ought not to sit but when he saw the whole Army and Nation the Roman Catholicks excepted of the same mind mere force drove him to consent to Call a Parliament and when he had again considered the Consequences of it he at last resolved to throw up the Crown all at once rather than to submit to all these Hardships He seems to have had at the same time a fluttering hope that 1. We would never be able long to agree after he had made it impossible for us to have a Legal Parliament by burning the Writs 2. That the Church of England Principles would when the fear and disorder was over form for him a potent Army in the Nation And 3. That the French King would lend him potent Forces and good store of Money and if he recovered the Throne by force he should be freed of all these Miseries and have what he only wanted before a Popish Army to insure the Slavery of England for ever Now I would desire those Protestants who pretend now too late to be so zealous for him to consider whether what I have said would not have been expected from him by them for their Security and what they would have done had he called a Parliament and refused them all these things and have insisted That they should have taken his Word as to the Birth of the Prince of Wales have suffered him to have been educated in France and have suffered the Army the Prerogative the Ministers and the Revenues to have continued entirely as they were upon a Promise He would have used them better for the future If they say No They would have had the best Security that Law or Reason could have required Then all the hard things I have mentioned must have been granted them and I much question whether he would how return to the Throne on those terms If they say we ought however to have treated with him ' have offered him terms I say it would have come to a separate Treaty and the Church the Liberties of the Nation and the Government would have been ruined that way and when all had been done no Bond that he could have broken would have held him longer than the Necessity had continued The only Advantage we could pretend to have by the coming over of the Prince of Orange with an Army was to force the King to what he would never have yielded without that Force Now when he had accordingly passed his Word to the Nation in the Proclamation of the Thirtieth
of November That there should be a Free Parliament and to the Prince of Orange in his Message by the three Lords That he would consent to every thing that could reasonably be required for the Security of those that come to it and yet without any Provocation would burn the Writs and resolve to withdraw his Person before these Lords could possibly return him any Answer for he promised the Queen to follow her who went away the day before him I say this breach of his Word so solemnly made and given both to the Nation and the Prince shew that he was not Master of himself but turned about by others whither they pleased Now suppose the Prince had suffered him to continue at Whitehall and to call a Third Parliament what assurance could he have given that in the end of another forty days we should not have the same trick play'd us and then in March or April have been left in the same state of Confusion we were in in December to the certain ruine of these three Kingdoms and Holland into the bargain And when all had been done the Scruples would have been the same they are now the Obligations of the Oath of Allegiance the same and the sin of Deposing a Lawful Prince who resolved to do the Nation no Right would have been much greater and more scandalous than barely to take him at his Word and since he had left the Throne empty when he needed not to resolve he should ascend it no more Lastly Suppose the Prince had been Expelled by the King Would the King have then granted us what he would not grant us now Would he not have Disbanded his Protestant Army and have kept the Irish Forces in Pay and have every day encreased them What Respect would he ever after this have shewn to the English Laws Religion or Liberties when he had had no longer any thing to fear The memory of what happened after the Monmouth defeat though effected only by Church of England Men will certainly never be forgotten by others whatever these Bigots of Loyalty may pretend or say That Expression of the Lord Churchill's in his Letter That he could no longer joyn with Self-interested Men who had framed Designs against His Majesty's true Interest and the Protestant Religion to give a pretence by Conquest to bring them to effect ought to be seriously considered by all the Protestants of the Nation This one Argument prevailed upon him when he ran the hazard of his Life Reputation and Fortunes and now they are all on the other side I should consider very seriously if I were one of them what Answer I could make to this turned into a Question in the Day of Death and Judgment before ever I should act the direct contrary to what he has done For my part I am amazed to see Men scruple the submitting to the present King for if ever Man had a just cause of War he had and that creates a Right to the thing gained by it the King by withdrawing and disbanding his-Army yielded him the Throne and if he had without any more Ceremony ascended it he had done no more than all other Princes do on the like occasions and when the King after this was taken and brought back by force he was no longer then bound to consider him as one that was but as one that had been King of England and in that capacity he treated him with great Respect and Civility how much soever the King complained of it who did not enough consider what he had done to draw upon himself that usage But when all is said that can be said there may possibly be some Men to whom may be applied the Saying of Job Thou lovest thine enemies and hatest thy friends for thou hast declared this day that thou regardest neither princes nor servants for this day I perceive that if Absolons had lived and all we had died this day then it had pleased thee well Had the Protestant Religion the English Liberties the Nobility and Gentry of this Nation been all made an Holocaust to their Reputations and Humours their Scruples and School-niceties and the Prince of Orange perished or returned Ruin'd or Inglorious into Holland we should then have had the Honour of cutting up our Religion our Laws and our Civil Rights with our own Swords and we should have been the only Church under Heaven that had refused a Deliverance and Religiously and Loyally had Destroyed it self In truth the Men that would have purchased Popery and Slavery so dear ought to have enjoyed both to the End of the World. PART the SECOND A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE METHODS Used for the RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF OUR GOVERNMENT WITH REFLECTIONS ON A Pamphlet stiled The Dissertion Discussed In a Letter to a Country Gentleman THE Prince of Orange being thus received in London the 18th of December The Common Council of that City the same day assembled and passed an Order that all the Aldermen and their several Deputies and two Common Council men for each Ward should wait upon and congratulate his Highness the Prince of Orange upon his Happy Arrival to the City at such time and place as His Highness should appoint and that the two Sheriffs and Mr. Common Serjeant should wait upon the Prnice to know his Pleasure when they should attend him which was done the day after his Entry at St. James's who appointed them the next day The Committee of the Common Council came accordingly the 20th of December and Sir George Treby their Recorder made him this Speech in their Names May it please your Highness THe Lord Mayor being disabled by Sickness your Highness is attended by the Aldermen and Commons of the Capital City of this Kingdom Deputed to Congratulate Your Highness upon this Great and Glorious Occasion In which Labouring for Words we cannot but come short in Expression Reviewing our late Danger we remember our Church and State overrun by Popery and Arbitrary Power and brought to the point of Destruction by the Conduct of Men that were our true Invaders that brake the Sacred Fences of our Laws and which was worst the very Constitution of our Legislature So that there was no Remedy left but the Last The only Person under Heaven that could apply this Remedy was Your Highness You are of a Nation whose Alliance in all times has been agreeable and prosperous to us You are of a Family most Illustrious Benefactors to Mankind to have the Title of a Soveraign Prince Stadt-holder and to have worn the Imperial Crown are amongst their lesser Dignities They have long enjoyed a Dignity singular and transcendent viz. To be the Champions of Almighty God sent forth in several Ages to vindicate his Cause against the greatest Oppressions To this Divine Commission our Nobles our Gentry and among them our brave English Soldiers rendred themselves and their Arms upon Your Appearing GREAT SIR WHen we look back to the last Month and contemplate the Swiftness and
enroll'd in Parliament and Chancery which is as followeth My Lords and Gentlemen THis is certainly the Greatest Proof of the Trust you have in us that can be given which is the thing that maketh us value it the more and we thankfully accept what you have offered And as I had no other intention in my coming hither than to Preserve Your Religion Laws and Liberties So you may be sure that I shall endeavour to Support them and shall be willing to concur in any thing that shall be for the Good of the Kingdom and to do all that is in my Power to Advance the Wellfare and Glory of the Nation Thus ended that Stupendious Revolution in England which we have so lately seen to the great Joy of the Generality of the Protestants of Europe and of many of the Catholick Princes and States who were at last convinced that the attempting to force England to return under the Obedience of the See of Rome in the present conjuncture of Affairs would certainly end in the ruine of this potent Kingdom and whilest it was doing the present French King would possess himself of the remainder of the Spanish Netherlands and the Palatinate and perhaps of the Electorates of Cologne Ments and Triers a great part of which he hath actually seized whilest the Prince of Orange was thus Gloriously asserting the English Liberty The true reasons of the Swiftness of this Change may easily be assigned by shewing the temper and designs of James the II. The Temper of William the III. our Present Soveraign and The Nature of the English Nation and of the times all concurring with Wonderful Harmony to produce this wonderful effect For had James the II. undertook any thing but the subjecting England to Popery and the Exercise of an Arbitrary Power to that end his vast Revenue and personal Valour and the Reputation he had gained at home and abroad by the defeat of the Monmouth Invasion would have gone near to have effected it and after all this if he had in the beginning of October frankly granted all the Ten Proposals made by the Bishops and suffered a Parliament to have met and given up a confiderable number of his Ministers to Justice and suffered the pretended Prince of Wales his Birth to be freely debated and determin'd in Parliament It would in all probability have prevented or defeated the then intended Invasion But whilest he thought to save the Pretended Succession the Dispensing and Suspending power and the Ecclesiastical Commission to carry on his former design with when he had baffl'd the Prince of Orange the Nation saw through the project and he lost all Had a Prince of less secrecy prudence courage and interest than the Prince of Orange undertaken this business it might probably have miscarried but as his cause was better so his reputation conduct and patience infinitely exceeded theirs he would not stir till he saw the French Forces set down before Philipsbourg and then he was sure France and Germany were irrevocably ingaged in a War and consequently he should have no other opposition than what the Irish and English Roman Catholicks could make against him For no English Protestant would fight his Country into Vassalage and Slavery to Popish Priests and Italian Women when a Parliament sooner or later must at last have determin'd all the things in Controversie except we resolved once for all to give up our Religion Laws Liberties and Estates to the will of our King and submit for ever to a French Government A Nation of less sense than the English might have been imposed upon of less bravery and valour might have been frighted of a more servile temper might have neglected its Liberties till it had been too late to have ever recovered them again But none but a parcel of Jesuits bred in a Cloister and unacquainted with our temper as well as Constitution would ever have hoped to have carried two such things as Popery and Arbitrary power both at once upon so jealous a Nation as the English is which hates them above any other people in the World. The cruel slaughter they had made of the poor wretches they took after the defeat at Bridgwater ought to have made them for ever despair of gaining any credit with the Dissenters who rarely forgive but never forget any ill treatment Yet these little Politico's had so little sense as to build all their hopes on the Gratitude and Insensibility of these men as if they should for Liberty of Conscience arbitrarily and illegally granted and consequently revocable at the will of the Granter have sold themselves to everlasting slavery They were equally mistaken in their carriage towards the Church of England party for when some of them had pursued both Clergy and Laity with the utmost obloquy hatred oppression and contempt to the very moment they found the Dutch storm would fall upon them Then all at once they passed to the other extream the Bishops are presently sent for the Government intirely to be put into their hands and all places Presses and Papers fill'd with the Encomiums of the Church of England's Loyalty and Fidelity who but three days before were Male-contents if not Rebels and Traytors for opposing the Kings Dispensing power and the Ecclesiastical Commission And which was the height of folly the same Pen which had been hired to defame and blacken the Church of England the Author of the Publick Occurrences truly stated was ordered to magnifie its Loyalty By which they gained nothing but the intire and absolute disobliging the whole Protestant party in the Nation so that for the future no body would serve or trust them To compleat their folly and madness they perswaded the King to throw up the Government and retire into France pretending we would never be able to agree amongst our selves but would in a short time be forced to recal him and yield to all those things we had so violently opposed or if not he might yet at least force us to submit by the succours he might gain in France without ever considering how possible it was we might agree and how difficult it would be to force us by a French Army which was equally contrary to the Interest of England and all Europe besides and to all intents and purposes destructive of the Interest of that Prince they pretended thus to exalt and re-establish Had France been now in Peace there might yet have been some colour for this but when all Europe was under a necessity to unite against him for its own preservation then to perswade the King of Great Britain to desert his Throne and fly thither for succour upon hopes of recovering his Kingdoms again by the assistance of the French the mortal and hereditary enemies of the English this was so silly a project that there seems to have been something of a Divine Infatuation in it However certainly no rational man will think that all the Princes of Europe would sit still and
some other Country § 7. And since his Majesty had sufficient reasons to withdraw these can be no pretence for an Abdication For we are to observe that to Abdicate an Office always supposes the Consent of him who Quits it That this is the signification of the Word Abdico appears from Tully Salust and Livie to which I shall only add the Learned Grotius De Jure Belli c. Libr. 1. Cap. 4. Sect. 9. Where he makes Abdicating the Government and plainly Giving it up to be Terms of the same importance § 8. And to prevent unreasonable Cavils he adds that a Neglect or Omission in the Administration of Government is by no means to be Interpretated a Renunciation of it We have but two Instances with us which looks like an Abdication since the Conquest which are in the Reign of Edward II. and Richard II. both which were unjustly Deposed by their Subjects However they did not renounce their Allegiance and declare the Throne void till they had a formal Resignation under the Hands of both those unfortunate Princes And hence it appears how unlucky our Enquirer is at citing the Laws For pag. 12. He tells us That since these Two Princes have been judged in Parliament for their Male Administration and since these Judgments have never been vacated by any subsequent Parliaments these Proceedings are part of our Law. From hence I observe § 9. 1. That our Author contradicts himself For here he owns that Male Administration is sufficient to warrant Deposition and Resistance But in his Enquiry into the Measures of Submission c. For both these Papers are generally supposed to come from the same Hand Pag. 5. Par. 14. He is much kinder to the Crown for there he asserts That it is not Lawful to resist the King upon any pretence of Ill Administration and that nothing less than subverting the Fundamentals of Government will justifie an Opposition Now I am much mistaken if Deposing of Kings is not Resisting them with a Witness But besides his self Contradiction the case is not to his purpose For § 10. 1. These Parliaments were called in Tumultuous times when the Subjects were so hardy as to put their Kings under Confinement Now if it is against the Constitution of Parliaments to Menace the Two Houses out of their Liberty of Voting freely then certainly Kings ought not to be overawed by Armies and Prisons These Parliaments therefore are very improper to make Precedents of § 11. 2. Those Princes were wrought upon so far as to resign their Crowns which each of them did though unwillingly Let this Enquirer produce such a Resignation from His Majesty and he says something § 12. 3. He is much mistaken in saying these Judgments as he calls them have not been vacated by subsequent Praliaments For all those subsequent Parliaments which declare it Unlawful to take up Arms against the King do by necessary implication condemn these Deposing Precedents for it 's impossible for Subjects to Depose their Princes without Resisting them § 13. 2. By Act of Parliament the First of Edw. 4. yet remaining at large upon the Parliament Rolls and for the greater part recited verbatim in the Pleadings in Baggett's Case in the Year Books Trin. Term. 9. Edw. 4. The Title of Edw. 4. by Descent and Inheritance and is set forth very particularly And that upon the Decease of Rich. 2. the Crown by Law Custom and Conscience Descended and Belonged to Edmund Earl of March under whom King Edw. 4. claimed § 14. It is likewise further declared That Hen. 4. against Law Conscience and Custom of the Realm of England Usurped upon the Crown and Lordship thereof and Hen. 5. and Hen. 6. occupied the said Realm by Unrighteous Intrusion and Vsurpation and no otherwise § 15. And in 39. Hen. 6. Rot. Parl. when Richard Plantagenet Duke of York laid claim to the Crown as belonging to him by right of Succession it was § 16. 1. Objected in behalf of Hen. 6. that Hen. 4. took the Crown upon him as next Heir in Blood to Hen. 3. not as Conqueror § 17. To this it was Answered That the pretence of Right as next Heir to Hen. 3. was false and only made use of as a Cloak to shadow the violent Usurpations of Hen. 4. § 18. 2. It was Objected against the Duke of York That the Crown was by Act of Parliament Entailed upon Hen. 4. and the Heirs of his Body from whom King Hen. 6. did Lineally Descend The which Act say they as it is in the Record is of Authority to defeat any manner of Title To which the Duke of York replied That if Hen. 4. might have obtained and enjoyed the Crowns of England and France by Title of Inheritance Descent or Succession he neither needed nor would have desired or made them to be granted to him in such wise as they be by the said Act the which takes no Place nor is of any Force or Effect against him that is right Inheritor of the said Crowns as it accordeth with Gods Laws and all Natural Laws Which Claim and Answer of the Duke of York is expressly acknowledged and recognized by this Parliament to be Cotton's Abridgment Fol. 665 666. § 19. From these Recognitions it plainly follows 1. That the Succession cannot be interrupted by an Act of Parliament especially when the Royal Assent is given by a King De Facto and not De Jure 2. The Act 9. of Edw. 4. by declaring the Crown to Descend upon Edmund Earl of March by the Decease of Rich. 2. does evidently imply that the said Richard was rightful King during his Life and consequently that his Deposition was Null and Unlawful If it 's demanded Why his Majesty did not leave Seals and Commissioners to supply his Absence This Question brings me to the Second Point viz. to shew That the leaving sufficient Representatives was impracticable at this Juncture For 1. When the Nation was so much embroiled and the King's Interest reduced to such an unfortunate Ebb It would have been very difficult if not impossible to have found Persons who would have undertaken such a dangerous Charge That Man must have had a Resolution of an extraordinary Size who would venture upon Representing a Prince who had been so much disrepected in his own Person whose Authority had been set aside and his Ambassador clapt up at Windsor when he carried not only an inoffensive but an obliging Letter But granting such a Representation had been ingaged in the Commissions must either have extended to the Calling of Parliaments or not if not they would neither have been Satisfactory nor absolutely necessary Not Satisfactory For the want of a Parliament was that which was accounted the great Grievance of the Nation as appears from the Prince of Orange's Declaration Where he says expresly That his Expedition is intended for no other Design but to have a Free and Lawful Parliament assembled as soon as is possible Declar. P. 12. § 21.
Thing Now impartial Reason has always a regard to the Circumstances of Action and makes Allowances for Surprise for Straitness of Time for Resentment upon extraordinary provocation and never takes advantage of an Omission which may be fairly Interpreted from any or all of these Causes I mention this not that the present Case needs any such Allowance but to shew that the Law of Nature would admit it if Occasion required 'T is true written Laws either through the ambiguity of the Words or the defectiveness of the Sense are often abused by ill Men and wrested contrary to the Design of the Legislators But the Law of Nature is not tyed up to the Alphabet nor bound to determine by the Imperfections of former Ages Therefore this Principle will give the Enquirer no just Advantages against his Majesty for Equity has no Quirk in it nor ever lies at Catch Reason is always Just and Generous it never makes Misfortune an Accusation nor judges in favour of Violence Indeed what can be more Unrighteous though the Case was private and inferior than that any one should Suffer for being Injured and be barred his Right for the Faults of others If a Man should forfeit his House to those who set it on Fire only because he quitted it without giving some formal Directions to the Servants and be obliged to lose his Estate for endeavouring to preserve his Life I believe it would be thought an incomprehensible sort of Justice If to proceed in this manner be not to establish Wickedness by a Law I have done If Princes may be thus roughly treated their Birth is a Misfortune to them and we may say they are Crown'd rather for Sacrifice than Empire At this rate the People must e'en Govern themselves for the Throne will be a Place of too much Danger to sit on any longer We have an Excellent Church and we do well to take due Care to continue its Establishment but to dispossess our Prince upon this Score has as little Divinity as Law in it To endeavour to preserve our Religion by such Methods will make it more Fatal to us in the event than Atheism it self 'T is a mistake to think the World was made for none but Protestants and if Dominion was founded in Grace I am afraid our share would not be great in the Division § 31. If it is Objected That his Majesty 's not sending to his People upon his Removal is an Argument that he intended to govern them no longer To this I Answer 1. That I am pretty well assured That no Man who makes this Objection believes the truth of it and therefore I might safely leave it to his own Conscience to confute him Secondly His Majesty was scarcely Landed in France before the Administration was conferred upon the Prince of Orange which Action might very well discourage his Majesty from sending any Messages so soon as he intended But since it 's known his Majesty has sent Letters if not to the Privy Council as some affirm yet to the Convention § 33. Thirdly Those who were the Occasion of his Majesty's Departure should one would think have waited on him and invited him back For without Question the injuring Person ought to make the first step towards an Accommodation especially when Wrong is done to his own Prince Now whether his Majesty has been well used in this Revolution or not I leave the World to judge now but God will do it afterwards Thus SIR I have ventured to give you my Thoughts upon this Subject and am Affectionately Yours AN Answer to the Desertion Discuss'd HAving thus as truly and as shortly as I can from the Papers I have Collected stated the matter of Fact without which it is impossible to pass any judgment upon the merits of the case I come now in the next place to consider the small Piece which has necessitated me to take all this pains The Author of it is my acquaintance and a person for whom I have a great esteem both on the account of his Profession and of his personal worth learning and sobriety so that I cannot believe he had any ill design either in the writing or publishing of it his zeal for the Church of England's Loyalty and the difficulty and unusualness of the present case having been the occasions if not the causes of his mistake and therefore I will endeavour to shew him and the world his error with as much candor and sweetness as he himself can wish because I have the same design for the main that he had viz. the Honour of the Church of England and the safety of Government and especially our Monarchy It begins thus Sir I don't wonder to find a Person of your sense and integrity so much surprized at the report of the Thrones being declared vacant by the Lower House of the Convention for how say you can the Seat of the Government be empty whilest the King who all grant had an unquestionable Title is still living and his absence forced and involuntary I thought our Laws as well as our Religion had been against the Deposing Doctrine therefore I desire you would expound this State Riddle to me and give me the Grounds of this late extraordinary Revolution Sect. 1. In Answer to which he tells his Country Gentleman That the Gentlemen of the Lower House of Convention lay the main stress of their opinion upon his Majesties withdrawing himself c. Now that the King was de facto gone is not to be disputed but the Question is Whether his absence was truly forced and involuntary or no and by whom he was forced Our Author is for the affirmative and afterwards proposeth his Reasons which I shall examine And this Question being well stated the business of the Deposing Doctrine will appear nothing to the purpose Now before our Author could regularly enter upon this Question he ought first to have considered what the causes of this force was and what had been done by the King on his part and then have come to the other Whether the absenting himself was a fault or a misfortune So that to begin at the right end of the Question we must enquire what were the causes of this Revolution who were the Parties concern'd how things were managed on both sides and then come in the last place to the Question he begins with Now Sir are the Prince of Orange's Declaration and the Bishops Ten Proposals as to the things complained of true or false Are they justifiable or not by the Laws of England For if the King had done nothing which he could not fairly justifie his Title was unquestionable and therefore he ought not to have been disturbed either by his own Subjects or his Neighbours during his life But then Sir I think he had no right to govern us as he did and he had as little reason to expect whatever we did that his Neighbours would sit still and suffer him to do what he pleased to them and
us to the Ruin of Europe The King of England saith the Prince of Orange in his Declaration have given the greatest credit to those Counsellors who have overturned the Religion Laws and Liberties of his Realms And subjected them in all things relating to their Consciences Liherties and Properties to Arbitrary Government and that not only by secret and indirect ways but in open and undisguised manner §. 2 Pag. 10. § 17. he informs us That both he and his dearest and most entirely beloved Consort the Princess have endeavoured to signifie in terms full of respect to the King the just and deep regret which all these proceedings have given us c. But those evil Counsellors have put such ill Constructions on these our good intentions that they have endeavoured to alienate the King more and more from us as if we had designed to disturb the peace and happiness of the Kingdom Sect. 19. To crown all there are great and violent presumptions inducing us to believe that these evil Counsellors in order to the carrying on their ill designs and to the gaining to themselves the more time for the effecting of them for the encouraging of their Complices and for the discouraging of all good Subjects they have published that the Queen have brought forth a Son tho there have appeared both during the Queens pretended bigness and in the manner in which the Birth was managed so many just and visible Grounds of suspicion that not only we our selves but all the good Subjects of those Kingdoms do vehemently suspect that the Pretended Prince of Wales was not born by the Queen And it is notoriously known to all the world that many both doubted of the Queens bigness and of the Birth of the Child and yet there was not any one thing done to satisfie them or to put an end to their Doubts Things being in this state He resolved to go over to England Sect. 21. and to carry with him sufficient force to defend him from the violence of those evil Counsellors and then he declares that this Expedition was intended for no other design but to have a free and lawful Parliament assembled as soon as is possible Sect. 25. To the end that all the violences and disorders which have overturned the whole Constitution of the English Government may be fully redressed in a Free and Legal Parliament to which he would also refer the Enquiry into the Birth of the Pretended Prince of Wales and all things relating to it and to the Right of Succession Now if all this is true which no English man can deny then had the Prince of Orange the justest cause that ever man had to do what he did and the King of England was bound in justice to have Summoned a Parliament and to have referr'd the things in question to them there being no other competent Judg on Earth of the things in dispute but if he would not suffer a Parliament to meet then the Sword must determine the Question between them for they were both Soveraign Princes and had no Superior over them to decide it The King accordingly referr'd it to the Sword for he refused to the last to suffer a Parliament to meet till the Invasion was over and the Prince had no reason to take his word for it The Protestants of England had no reason to fight against this Prince who came to right their Cause and offered to refer all to a Parliament of English Nobility and Gentry and the Papists alone were not able to resist the Prince's Army especially after many of the King's Army were gone over to the Prince so that the King was at last forced to call a Parliament in the manner I have set forth and he promised both the Nation and the Prince the Parliament should meet and act freely but before this was possible to be brought about without any cause given or alledged he disbanded his Army sent away the Queen the Child and the Seals and then followed them himself leaving the Nation in Anarchy and confusion Now I will refer this to the World whether this absence was not voluntary unforced and criminal after he had thus passed his word For supposing he had stayed on the Princes terms and the Parliament had met no Act could have passed without his own consent and if any thing had been required that had not been just and legal if then he had withdrawn his case would have been more justifiable and perhaps he should have found enough to have defended it and so needed not to have withdrawn The Story of the French League and the Prince of Wales are not passed so over tho they are postponed but we may hear more of them in due time tho when all is done there will be no reason to expect that all the Prate of this populous Town should be proved to be true it will be sufficient if his now Majesty justifie his own Publick Declarations which I believe no man doubts but he can and has done the Three Estates having in their Declaration subscribed to the truth of all the main parts of his The King being thus gone some way or other must be taken to bring us again to a settlement and that of a Convention of the Three Estates was taken as least liable to Exception and Mistake but then he tells us Sect. 2. That the Necessity alledged for their justification is either of their own making or of their own submitting to which is the same thing and therefore ought not to be pleaded in justification of their Proceedings Now this is not True The King would never have left his people if he had not first lost their hearts by the things charged upon his Counsellors nor then neither if he had not first resolved never to do them right against those Counsellors because he had reason to believe this would have satisfied them so that his late Majesty was not driven out of his Dominions by his Enemies as he stiled them but by his pretended Friends who put him upon doing ill things and then would not suffer him to Redress them Well but If he had been invited back upon Honourable Terms they needed not have had recourse to these singular Methods Why how does he know that The King had Honourable Terms offered him before he went and they would not stop him from going and if they had sent more Honourable Terms after him who can tell whether he would have accepted or have stood to them He had passed his Word before that a Parliament should meet yet he Burnt the Writs and withdrew Well but however our Author is resolved the late Kings withdrawing himself is no resigning of his Crown or discharging of his Subjects of their Allegiance In order to which he undertakes to shew that his late Majesty before his withdrawing had sufficient Grounds to make him apprehensive of danger and therefore it cannot be call'd an Abdication 2. That the leaving any representative behind him
was impracticable at this juncture But there are two other things which he has not mentioned the first of which is who gave the occasion of these Dangers which he apprehended and the Second whether he had no other way to avoid those Dangers but by withdrawing Now it is plain that the ill courses taken under his Government had brought upon him those Dangers and that if he would have suffered a Parliament to meet he needed not to have withdrawn and consequently his going away rather than submitting the things in dispute to a Parliament was a voluntary Abdication Sect. 4. Our Author has a scruple whether the Kings going away signifies any thing to Scotland and Ireland now all this is no better than banter for when he left England he left them too tho' the one was for sometime and the other still is under the Regular Administration of the Lord Lieutenant as he tells us but those that have since come from thence assure us there is nothing Regular in his Administration but the British Protestants are treated as Enemies by this Minister of his so that Ireland being an Appendage of England and thus treating our Brethren ought by us to be taken for a Rebel and an Enemy let the pretence be what it will Their Loyalty to the Late King not excusing but Aggravating their Injuries to his Country men who have done nothing to deserve this usage but it is to be hoped will find hands enough to revenge it in due time Our Author in the 5 Sect. is to prove the late King had sufficient Grounds c. omitting his Rhetorick Had not his Majesty faith he great Reason to Retire to secure his Person and Honour at his first withdrawing from Whitchal When he had met with so many unfortunate disappointments with so many surprizing and unparallell'd Accidents c. I say no he ought to have considered what was the Cause of all these Misfortunes and to have applied himself with so much the more Industry to the quieting of his people which the sitting of the Parliament would in all probability have effected But what could he promise himself by withdrawing but the bare saving of his Life and Liberty with the loss of his Crown now his Life and Liberty were in no Danger as is plain for after he was brought back a Prisoner and suffered to go away again without any hinderance There are many indiscreet things said in this Paragraph which I could easily expose but I would not make this Answer too long nor exasperate any body against the Author and therefore I will pass them over To be obliged saith he to Pay a Foreign Army which came over to enable his Subjects to drive him out of his Dominions Looked as if there was a design to reduce him as low in his Honour as in his Fortune The Prince saith in his Declaration Sect. 21. That he intended nothing but to have a Free and Lawful Parliament Assembled as soon as was possible And this might have been done without driving the King out of his Kingdom and it is very difficult to imagine how he could at first propose more to himself nor would it have been any diminution of the Kings Honour to have paid the Dutch Army a few Weeks or Months till things could have been setled When the Forts and Revenues were thus disposed off when the Papists were to be disbanded And the Protestants could not be trusted when the Nation was under such violent and general dissatisfactions when the King in case of a Rupture which was not unlikely had nothing but his single Person to oppose against the Princes Arms and those of his own Subjects Well what then Why it was time to be gone No Sir it was time to be better Advised than he had been by those that had brought him into this deplorable State. It was time to despair of ever being able to Set up Popery and an Arbitrary Power in England to have reflected on the breach of his former Promises and Oaths which had so Exasperated his Subjects against him but by other measures might very easily have been again appeased and deserved after all rather to be trusted than those Popish Souldiers he was so fond of to his Ruine because he had formerly had sufficient Experience of their Loyalty till he had made it impossible for them to serve him without destroying their Religion and their Civil Liberties When his Mortal Enemies and those who were under the highest forfeitures to his Majesty were to sit Judges of his Crown and Dignity if no further c. The Power of an heated Imagination Why after all these were the three Estates of England whom he thus blackens or a part of them or rather the Church of England Nobility and Gentry the same men that were chosen and for the most part must be chosen again if we were to choose to morrow as to the Lower House and as to the Upper the Bishops and the Peers always are and must the be same Nor were they to sit Judges of his Crown and Dignity for they must have Sworn Allegiance to him again at their meeting much less of his Life or Liberty but only of his former Actions his Ministers and of the Birth of the pretended Prince of Wales And he had Reason to have expected great Candor from them having had so great Experience of them before When a Gentleman of the Church of England could thus harangue it against his own Party and Interest we need not wonder if that Unfortunate Prince found some Jesuits about him who would perswade him rather to abandon his Crown Kingdom and People then the Glorious design of forcing England once more to submit to the yoke of Rome Section 6. Our Author is at a loss to find the Reason why his coming from Feversham to Whitehal is not allowed to be a return to his people now if he please to look into the former History he will find it was not voluntary but forced tho he was not then known and in all probability the fear continued upon him when the force was removed for then he saw he could not go away without the Prince's leave and that was the true reason of his inviting the Prince to London when he could not keep him out if he would Pray what had the King done to incur a Forfeiture by his first retirement had he quitted the Realm Yes he had and the Government too and necessitated his own Menial Servants to submit to the Prince by the Famous Address made at Guild-hall the 11th of December So that the Prince was now actually invested with the Government the whole Nation having submitted to him and it was at his choice whether he would treat him as a King now nor had he any great reason to do so considering how lately he had broke his word to him and the Nation His return after some assurance of Fair Treatment is a plain Discovery of the Motives of his withdrawing
After this Edward the Fourth returned into England and pretending to lay aside all Claim to the Crown and only to seek the recovery of his Lands which belonged to him as Duke of York which he confirmed to the men of York by his Oath being thus received in the North he won over his Brother Clarence and hasted to London and there he took poor King Henry his Prisoner again and in a Battel slew the Earl of Warwick who came to rescue King Henry and in another Battel defeated Margaret the Wife of Henry the Sixth took and in cold blood murdered Prince Edward the Eldest Son of Henry the Sixth and not long after Henry the Sixth himself Now what saith our Letter-man to all this If it had been a known Law of England that a Prince had Ipso facto forfeited his Crown by going beyond Sea without leaving a Deputation tho his departure should happen to be involuntary it would have been a great Advantage to Henry the Sixth Yes doubtless his departure did facilitate the Recrowning of Henry the Sixth for he was not so well beloved as Edward the Fourth was and it is apparent the Nation swore Allegiance to Henry the Sixth de novo for that very cause for no body then questioned but that Edward's was the better Title and the Crown was Entailed to Henry and his Heirs Male and for want of such Issue to George Duke of Clarence and his Heirs and when Edward the Fourth after this came up to London every body forsook Henry the Sixth and he was retaken and imprisoned without any resistance Now after two Victories what wonder was it if Edward the Fourth exercised all Acts of Soveraignty and Tyranny too before the calling of a Parliament and in it restored all his own party and attainted King Henry's He might as well have proved it lawful to stab and murder Kings and Princes and to swear and forswear from the same story His next Instance is the flight of Charles the second from Worcester fight which was nothing to the purpose neither for that Prince had done nothing to forfeit his right and was ready to have done any thing to assure his subjects of theirs But James the Second had as is confessed on all hands violated the rights of his Subjects above any Prince that ever swayed this Scepter and would rather throw up the Government than suffer a Parliament to meet to redress their Grievances and this was the only reason why he as our Author saith Had fewer friends to stand by him than his Brother had after the unfortunate Battel of Worcester in 1651. The true Fountain of the Law that is to Determin this difficult and rare Case is our Fundamental Constitution and the General Laws and Practise of other Nations in the like or simular Instances And as there is an Analogy of Faith in Theology so there is an Analogy here too for those who are sufficiently Qualified to judge by but then they must be no young smatterers in Law History or State Politicks Nor was this Question determin'd by such but by the whole three Estates upon Reasons altogether unknown perhaps to this Gentleman but which may be sufficient to satisfie all the Princes in Christendom when they shall be laid before them In the mean time the Judgment of the States is conclusive to us and tho' we know not all the Reasons they might have yet we now know enough to acquiess and be satisfied But then this has been so very well laid down and pursued by the Author of the Case of Allegiance in our present Circumstances considered in a Letter from a Minister in the City to a Minister in the Country that I will rather refer my Reader to that Book than transcribe it to no purpose In the 29. Sect. He tells us the last refuge of the Case of Dereliction are the Laws of Nature but a very little storming will serve to drive it from this last Retrenchment Bold and like an Hero considering whom he engageth with For saith he the Law of Nature is nothing but the reason of the thing very true Now Impartial reason has always a regard to the circumstances of Action and makes allowances for Surprize for streightness of time for resentment upon Extraordinary Provocation and never takes Advantage of an Omission which may be fairly Interpreted from any or all of these causes Now tho he saith the present case needs not any such allowances Yet I will be so fair as to give all these Advantages and put it upon this fair Issue 1. Was not the whole English constitution acknowledged by the Late King to be so much in his favour That he said in his First Speech to the Council I have been reported a Man for Arbitrary power but that is not the first Story that has been made of me And I shall make it my endevour to preserve this Government both in Church and State as it is now by Law Established I know the Principles of the Church of England are for Monarchy and the Members of it have shewed themselves good and Loyal Subjects Therefore I shall always take care to defend and Support it I know too that the Laws of England are Sufficient to make the King as Great a Monarch as I can wish and as I shall never Depart from the Just rights and prerogatives of the Crown So I shall never invade any Mans Property Yet after all this Look upon nine of the ten Proposals made by the the Bishops Look upon the Prince of Orange's Declaration Look upon the Declaration made by the Lords and Commons the 12th of February last past and you will soon be satisfied in how many instances he had violated the Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom and Sought the Ruine and utter Subversion of this Loyal Monarchical Church of England This conduct Lasted to the very moment they knew the Dutch preparations were made against him After this what could be done or said that was omitted to obtain a Redress in Parliament Was there any other way to Secure us than that of a Parliament Was this granted before it became Impossible to hinder it And when all mens Eyes were upon this did he not then Deliberately resolve to defeat our Expectations and to withdraw and leave us in a State of Anarchy and Confusion Here was no Surprize streightness of time no just resentment except he were angry that we could not contribute to our own Ruin and enslaving that we would not cut up our Laws Liberties and Religion with our Swords and Sacrifice our Deliverers to our Oppressors Nor were these violations only personal Injuries but they extended to the whole Church and Kingdom and to the whole Constitution and every branch of it nor were they such as would have ended with his Late Majesties life but were to have been intailed upon us and our posterity for ever for the Queen might have brought forth every year at that rate the Pretended Prince of Wales
his birth is proved We have saith he an excellent Church and we do well to take due care to continue its Establishment but to dispossess our Prince upon this score has as little Divinity as Law in it I may answer this in the words of the Apostle But if the unbelieving depart let him depart A Brother or a Sister is not under bondage in such a case but God hath called us to Peace 1. Cor. 7. 15. We did not dispossess our Prince but he deserted us because we would not give up the Legal Establishment of our Church and our Civil Liberties to boot To endeavour to Preserve our Religion by such methods will make it more fatal to us in the Event than Atheism it self That is it were better to renounce the whole Apostles Creed and every article of it than to endeavour to preserve our Religion by a defection from a Persecuting Prince In truth this is Loyalty with a Vengeance 'T is a mistake to think the World was made for none but Protestants and if Dominion was founded in Grace I am afraid our share would not be great in the Division As to the first of these it is a silly insinuation and concludes nothing For tho it be true the world was not made for any one fort of men yet I may assert that part of it which is fallen to my Lot against the Invasion of the Jesuits and Roman Catholicks who pretend that the whole world ought to be Subject to the Vicar of Jesus Christ St. Peter's Successor and upon that Score will suffer no body to Live in Peace by them who will not be Subject to that old Gentleman and his Emissaries And if Dominion were founded in grace we of the Protestant Religion should be able to maintain our possession of what we have against any Religion that should pretend to out us if we were to be tried by any other Christian Judge but the Infallible Gentleman at Rome When I first read these two passages I concluded the piece was written by a R. C. but some of our own Brethren can sometimes speak as ill things of us as the worst of our Enemies so violent are the transports of a Friend when throughly insensed If it be objected that his Majesty not sending to his People upon his removal is an Argument that he intended to Govern them no Longer First He Answers that the objecter doth not believe it In truth if any body did ever think or say that he was weary of Reigning or quitted England with a design to trouble himself no more about it he must be very Ignorant of the temper of the Late King and of the managment of affairs in the Last Scene of his Government We were not so happy he was resolved to be our Master when he was most resolutely bent not to do us that Justice which we had so much right to his going to France Added to that Expression in his Letter from Rochester Tho I have ventured my Life very frankly on several occasions for the Good and Honour of my Country and am as free to do it again and which I hope I shall yet do as old as I am to redeem it from the Slavery it is like to fall under Yet I think it not Convenient to Expose my self to be secured as not to be at Liberty to effect it and for that reason do withdraw my self These shew clearly he went away with a resolution to return and make a conquest of us and then we may conjecture at what rate we shall be redeemed from Slavery Secondly That his Majesty was scarcely Landed in France before the Administration was Conferred upon the Prince of Orange which Action might very well discourage his Majesty from sending any message so scon as he intended But since it is Known his Majesty has sent Letters to If not to the Privy Council as some affirm yet to the Convention There was in truth a Letter to the Privy Council Two to the Convention of England which I am informed were sealed up in Covers and never opened but there has since been a pretended copy of it printed and spread about the Town and another Letter has since that been sent to the Convention of Scotland and they all of them as far as is Known confirm his resolution of attacking England Thirdly They that were the occasion of his Majesties Departure should one would think have waited upon him and invited him back For without question the injuring person ought to make the first step towards an Accommodation Especially when wrong is done to a Prince Now whether his Majesty has been well used in this Revolution or not I leave to the World to Judge now but God will do it afterwards This Conclusion will serve me and him differently And therefore I shall add no more but this The Author of this Letter wrote it in an heat before things were well understood or at all Determin'd and therefore deserves much Compassion much that I have said in Answer to it was not known to him and I am perswaded he himself will now see and acknowledge too the weakness of many things which he then Advanced In short I design nothing by this Answer but the Service of their Majesties the Peace of England And the Preservation of our Religion our Laws and Ancient Government And could these have been preserved any otherways the Memory of his Late Majesty should have been still sacred to me notwithstanding his Mis-Government Whilest this Piece was preparing to the Press there was an Answer to his Paper printed in two sheets in Quarto wherein the Author has taken notice of some passages in this Letter which I thought fit to omit as not being of any moment as to the main question depending and therefore if the reader is not satisfied without so minute an Answer he may have recourse to that Paper FINIS N. S. October 30. 1688. ☞ ☜ The Bishop of Bath Wells * Dutch Design Anatomized p. 29. The Bishops Proposals are the contrivance of the King's Enemies framed of purpose to amuse the people as if till they be granted we are not safe ☞ ☜ ☜ ☞ ☞ N. S. Second Letter pag. 49. ☜ * The Means here hinted at was a Treaty with the Prince and the Nobility and Gentry who had Declared for him * They did so whilst the danger hung over our heads tho' now nothing less dreadful * This Modesty of the Expression is a Justification of the Sincerity and Civility of the Declarer †Nothing but a Free Parliament could re-establish our shattered Privileges and Liberties and therefore it was so stiffly denied ¶ True the Charters were taken away to secure the Succession and Monarchy then but now to ruine the English Liberty and Protestant Religion * Their Loyalty or rather Credulity had been too notoriously abus'd to be now again imposed on by this Argument So it fell on the Offerer and raised a just Indigration instead of Submission to a second Cheat. The Redresses granted had no certainty because the Dispersing Power was still defended the Bishop of London's Sentence remitted but not declared Illegal the Charters were restored but still subject to new Warranto's And as for the promised Parliament thoÌ„ it was after granted yet so dreadful it was that the abandoning the Throne was more eligible than the sight of that Assembly So all this Cant produced no good effect on the exasperated Minds of Mâ—n How the Bishops were uâ—ed on thâ—s score is set down in ' its proper place * These Gentlemen who now pretend to such extraordinary Loyalty should do well to consider this ☜ †It is said Prince George came back with the King to Andover and went away with the Duke of Ormond on Sunday night the 25th of Nov. from that place ☜ ☜ ☞ The Conclusion Declaration at Guild-Hall * The Administration of Affairs was in truth conferred on the 〈◊〉 Prince of Orange the very day the King left London by the Declaration made at Guild hal And all that followed till the 12th of February was but a confirming that first Act by after Acts.