of Justice and Love amongst men and by Consequence of the Religion preached and established by Christ. These matters of fact are self-evidences and clearly shew that our Grievous Oppressions by our King are the effects of the united Councils of the Popish Interest whereof the French King is the Chief That the Conspiracy against true Religion and Liberties that now appears in England Comprizes all the Protestant Princes and States in Europe England is only first attacked as the principal Fortress of the Protestant Profession if the three Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland can be reduced into the pattern of the French King in Government and Religion and the strength of them be united against any single Protestant State or Prince they shall think fit to assault if they can by Artifices keep the rest divided which will not be hard for them for there is little hope of any long defence of such a State. The French King seems not unwilling to have it known that the Popish design is General against all Profession of the Protestant Religion tho especially against England he hath allowed the Bishop of Cosnaes speech to him at Versailes in 1685. to be published who was authorized to be the Mouth of the Clergy of that Kingdom he magnifies the King for suppressing the Protestants of his own Kingdom and asks what they may not yet expect England saith he is just offering to your Majesty one of the most glorious occasions that you can desire the King of England by the need which he will have of succour and of the support of your Arms to maintain him in the Catholick Faith will make you quickly find occasion to give a protection wholly of your self We know very well before the French Clergy declared it by that Bishop that the same head that contrived the pervertion of destruction of so many millions of the Protestants in that Kingdom designed the ruin of the English Religion and Liberty but it surprised us to see that speech published by the French Kings Authority and that our King should suffer the Translation of it to pass freely in England and thorow the World. We thought it beneath the Majesty of a King of England to be content that his subjects should be told that he was to come under the protection of a King of France over whose Kings and Kingdom his Ancestors had so often triumphed but it seems nothing is to be esteemed inglorious that may serve the General Popish design of Extirpating the Protestant Profession We need not put your Hss in mind that the same speech acknowledges that the Popish Councils and Conspiracy against England intend the like ruin to the Religion and Freedom of the United Provinces that Bishop tells the King that he hath undertook the Conquest of new Countries there to re-establish the Prelacy the Religious worship and the Altars that Holland and Germany have been the Theater of his Victories only that Christ might triumph there that is that the Papists might trample upon the Protestants and their Religion and this he speaks as he says in the very Spirit of the Church and signifies their hopes of succâ—ss against the poor Protestants to be unbounded saying what may we not yet Expect We must freely Confess we were too slow to believe this desperate Popish Plot against the whole Protestant Profession and in our particular Case we have been deluded with our Kings promises to protect and maintain our Religion our Laws and Government until we see them all undermined and the train laid to blow them up by a packed Convention of men preingaged perverted or corrupted to serve the Kings will and designs that shall assume the name of Parliament we were not utterly insensible of the danger of our Liberty in our Religion and our Government from the time his now Majesty declared his late Majesty to have been a Papist but who saw that by their secret Conjoyned Councils they had not been able to prevent the making some Laws to secure the Protestants by Excluding Papists from our Parliaments and all Offices and Imployments and we hoped that our Kings life would not be sufficient to overturn by degrees as they had begun to proceed the Excellent foundations of our Civil Government nor to Extinguish the clear light of the truths of Christ Professed in our Religion and we were assured that your Hss minds were clearly inlightened in the Doctrines of the Protestant Religion and adorned and accomplished with all Christian and Royal Vertues fit to possess the highest throne Thereupon we incouraged each other to suffer with patience his Majesties attempts against our Laws and Liberties presuming that your Hss would ere long be our joyful deliverers to the Everlasting Confusion of the Popish designs against our Government and Religion and to the Vindication of the Innocency of the Protestant Martyrs in all the Kingdoms of Europe But as your Hss were the greatest objects of our earthly hopes so the thoughts of her Royal Highnesses succession to the Crown in Conjunction with your Highnesses Virtues and Military prowess and magnaninity were matters of the greatest horror and dread to all the Popish Councils of Europe They have therefore applied themselves to various consultations sometimes it hath been proposed by his Majesty's Power with a Parliament by the deluding Names of Liberty of Conscience and a Magna Charta therein to Fetter Your Highness in Your accession to the Crown with such Conditions as were obtained in Parliament in the cases of Queen Mary and Elizabeth which they hoped to strengthen by his Majesty's putting the Papists into possession of all the strength and Authority of the Kingdom united with all the power of the French King that your quiet Admission to the Throne might not be possible unless you should submit unto and depend upon the Papists and the Conditions that they should impose But they found it of greater difficulty than they at first imagined to get a Parliament that would joyn with his Majesty in such a project against your Highnesses Therefore some of the more cautious Papists of considerable fortunes stumbled at the absolute force of a mercenary Army and the French Power to put a force upon the Heiress of the Crown they propounded that his Majesty should rather try the force of his Paternal Power with her Royal Highness and use all the arguments of interest to induce her either to change her sentiments in her Religion or at least to moderate her thoughts concerning them and incline her to concur in their full Liberty If such Endeavors should be hopeless that then Your Highnesses should be at least prevailed with to declare your Consents to his Majesties Declaration for Liberty of Conscience and your concurrence in his desires to a Parliament for the repeal of all the Penal Laws in matters Ecclesiastical and the Test It was presumed That Your Highnesses might have been perswaded that the Laws suspended and dispensed with by his Majesty were only
Licensed and Entred According to Act of Parliament AN ACCOUNT OF THE REASONS OF THE Nobility and Gentry's Invitation Of His HIGHNESS the PRINCE of ORANGE INTO ENGLAND Being a MEMORIAL from the English Protestants Concerning their GRIEVANCES With a Large Account of the Birth of the Prince of WALES Presented to their HIGHNESSES The PRINCE and PRINCESS of ORANGE LONDON Printed for Nathanael Ranew and Jonathan Robinson in St. Paul's Church-yard 1688. A MEMORIAL FROM THE ENGLISH PROTESTANTS FOR THEIR HIGHNESSES THE PRINCE AND PRINCESS OF ORANGE IT cannot be unknown to Your Highness that the Protestants of England that are Faithful to the Principles and Doctrines of their Religion and to the just Established legal Government are in divers kinds most intollerably vexed and oppressed by the Popish Contrivances and Practices covered with the pretences and name of Authority That Illegal things are daily imposed upon them in their several Stations and Places which they are convinc'd in their Consciences can never be justified unto God or the Kingdom and yet they are pressed upon them without regard to their Consciences by loss of their Offices and Imployments and many other threatned Effects of the Kings displeasure That many of their legal Liberties Benefits and Means of subsistence in their Churches and Colledges are taken from them by meer Will and Pleasure and Processes and Prosecution by arbitrary Commissioners are threatned and begun against great numbers of them without their guilt of the least Offence or Transgression against any of the Laws of this Realm That they are debarred and spoyled of the due free Election of their Magistrates and Officers in their Cities and Towns and pretended Officers and Magistrates are imposed upon them and turned out and put in at the Kings absolute Will as they are found ready to comply with and serve the Popish Design either ignorantly or corruptly That several of the Bodies Politick of their Cities and Towns are declared to be dissolved at the Kings Pleasure to terrify and subjugate the minds of all the rest and the Citizens and Burgesses are thereby Disfranchised and Divested of all their good Customs Freedoms and Priviledges if they cannot in Conscience comply with Illegal Commands and will not treacherously surrender their legal Rights and Priviledges unto the Kings Will. That the legal securities provided by the Kings and Kingdom in Parliament against the dangers of their Religion and Liberties are by the Kings absolute Command thrown aside and made useless by pretence of his Power to dispence with those penal Laws notwithstanding the Subjects Right in them for the protection and safety of their Religion Liberties and Lives whereby the very Foundation of all the Subjects Rights and Properties is undermined and shaken and a New Claim is set up and maintained that the Subjects have no Right Property or security against the Will and Pleasure of their Kings That by colour of such a dâ—spensing Power the trust of the Kingdoms Defence and Safety by military Powers is put into such hands as are made incapable of them by many express Laws of the Kings and Kingdoms in Parliament which justly give the Protestants sad apprehensions of imminent dangers seeing themselves put into the Power of those that publickly profess to be in Union and Communion with the Church of Rome that openly declare themselves to be the mortal Enemies to all Protestants and that they are bound upon peril of their Salvation to seek their Destruction if they shall continue constant to the Protestant Profession That contrary to the express Laws of the Realm lately declared in Parliament an Army of Papists and Mercenaries is maintained and dispersed through the Kingdom in full Peace to the great disquiet and terror of the Pretestants and they are in divers ways constrained to receive these Soldiers into their Houses to sojourne there against their Wills whereby they are deprived of their Peace and Security in their Families and of their Converse with their Neighbours and Friends and of the advantages they might make in their ways of living That the King hath barred and forbidden the execution of the Ancient Laws of the Realm against divers sorts of Treasons and other most hainous Crimes and all the Statutes now known to have been made from age to age for 500 Years past in relation to the Popes and Romish Priests Powers and Practises are suspended tho' the Experience of the Papists in all those Ages shewed those Powers and Practices to be so mischievous and dangerous that they often complained in Parliament they feared the Destruction of the Kingdom by them His Majesty also so Controuls the Courts of Law in the Course wherein Justice ought to be administred that the Judges tho' they have highly served the Popish Designs are turned out of their Places Honours and Pensions if they dare but suffer the Laws justly to acquit those whom the King would have condemned as appears amongst divers other Instances by his late displacing Judge Holloway and Judge Powell upon the legal acquittal of the seven Bishops We need not shew to your Highness more particular Instances of our Oppression since 't is notorious that there is a publick attempt authorized by the King to subvert the very Foundation of the whole Civil legal Government of the Kingdom that is the Peoples free Election in the Customary Established Course by Counties Cities and Boroughs of their Deputies to Act and Consent for them in Parliament unto all Laws to be made and repealed The truly Noble Monarchy was founded on equal Freedom and the Civil Government of England was always of right truly free because no Laws or Authorities ever bound the Persons and Properties of the Kingdom save only those wherein the Kings and all the Subjects freely agreed every Subjects free consent being deemed by our Laws to be given personally as by his Deputies to the Enacting and Repealing of every Law. Therefore the Statutes of old in affirmance of the common Custom of England declared that Elections should be free from all interruptions and interpositions by the King or the Pope and the Kings have bound themselves by the Statutes no way to disturb any Electors in making their free Elections No Commands Promises or Threats no Prayers nor Solicitations ought to be made unto the Electors by the King or Pope or any others the Peoples Deputies say the Laws are to be chosen Freely and Indifferently without pre-ingagement of the Electors or fear of displeasing the King and without promises of Favour or Rewards to them They are to be indifferent at the Time and Place of Election and in such manner to proceed notwithstanding any Request or Command to the contrary otherwise the Elections are void and null But we are not able to number the various kinds of Attempts and Practises to overturn this Foundation of our Government There have been infinite Endeavours and Artifices openly used to destroy
to prevent the Fraud and Danger of Holy Pretences for such Unrighteous Attempts against our natural and civil Properties Our Penal Laws are to punish Offences against the Civil Government and Humane Society and tho they be about matters Ecclesiastical the Subjects of England cannot pretend to be exempted from them because of their Consciences any otherwise than they may wickedly claim to be free from the Penal Laws against Felonies and Murders if they shall plead that they Robbed or Killed according to theâ—r Consciences His Majesties avowed Intent and Endeavours are to free the Emissaries of Romes Priests and Papists from the punishments and dangers of those our Penal Laws against such manifest Attempts upon the Freedom Rights and Properties of the Realm that His new Erected Popish Colledges His Convents of Monks His Four Provincial Bishops and His numerous Priests may be authorized by Him without force of Laws to maintain the Church of Romes Canons to be of greater Authority than the Laws of the Realm to Declare all the Power of Magistracy in Protestants Hands to be Unlawful and all Rights and Titles to their Estates forfeited to the Papists by their being Protestants to own and justifie Dispensations from Rome with their Obedience to all such Laws of the Realm as the Pope and His Priests dislike and professedly to hold Communion with the Church of Rome the French King and all Foreign Papists that declare themselves Mortal Enemies to the Religion and Power of the Protestants to contrive with them the Suppression or Extirpation of them out of the Realm This work his Majesty hath so far begun that he hath suspended and stopped the Execution of the Penal Laws against all the High Crimes some whereof the ancient Papists of this Kingdom made Capital and he declares all such Protestants as will not help to finish it not to be qualify'd as Christians or Englishmen for any Imployment in the Kingdom and therefore least of all to be Members of Parliament Hereby his Majesty attempts to Confine the Electors in their Choice to so small a party that he allows them not the choice of one of forty whom our Laws make capable of being Elected for Parliament the Number is so small professed Papists excepted out of which his will is to have Members of Parliament chosen that our Laws will judge it no choice if he can impose his will upon the Kingdom as he hath declared it Hereby your Highnesses may be satisfied that our case is deplorable it seems not sufficient for our Popish Enemies to seek the abolition of all our ancient Penal Laws that are not agreeable to those new invented Doctrines and pernicious Practises of the present Church of Rome which the Penal Statutes shew to have been abhorred by our ancient English Papists but their design is to destroy the Constitution and form of the free Government of the Kingdom from whence arose all those Penal Laws against their Churches proud Domination and their Usurpation of the Rights of the Crown and the whole Realm They know by our Histories and Records that the free Parliament always made the Complaints from age to age against their pernicious claims of power over our Kings our Laws our Courts of Judicature and their Judgments and against their Exactions Impositions Frauds and Delusions of the People with their Superstitious folly whereby they gained a third of the revenues of England and drew so much Money to Rome that they impoverished and almost ruined the Kingdom They are sensible that they have been able to inslave to the Pope and Priests several of the greatest English Kings that they could prevail with the King for Licenses and Pardons to them to transgress the Laws that the Parliament made to preserve the Subjects Rights and properties and that the Parliament only caused new Laws to be made for declaring such Licenses Dispensations and Pardons of the Kings void and null They know that they have perswaded several of the Kings that the Pope could absolve their Conscience from all obligation by the Laws and from Agreements Promises and Oaths to their Kingdom to maintain their great Charters and all their Laws and Liberties and that they prevailed upon one of them to resign the Kingdom intirely to the Pope and to hold it of him by rent and they understand that the People in free Parliament only made and declared all such Dispensations and resignations void and nul and justly required those Kings to renew their Oaths to the Kingdom to preserve their Liberties and scorned with indignation the Popes demands of his pretended rent for the Kingdom declaring that their Kings had no such Patrimonial right in the Kingdom to subject it to any powers on Earth They cannot hope that a freely chosen Representative of this Kingdom can suffer such a delusion to be put upon them to be perswaded that due Christian Liberty of Conscience requires them either to allow the forreign Romish Laws or Canons to contest for power and place with the Laws of England or to suffer any of the Subjects of England openly to profess themselves their Persons Marriages or Estates to be subject to any Foreigners Jurisdiction and to depend of their Authority Offices and Sanctions and the exercise of them for their Eternal Salvation which is in truth to renounce their subjection to England or to own and avow to have the nearest Union and Communion with Foreigners that openly profess themselves Mortal Enemies to more then a hundred to one of the whole Realm and to be bound in Conscience to seek their suppression or destruction They cannot think that a free English Parliament should not always know that no Doctrines of Jesus Christ ever destroyed or changed the Natural and Civil right of any person or Nation or allowed that any part of the People of a free Country should correspond with or depend upon the declared Enemy of the far greatest part of it they have therefore resolved to over-turn the very foundation of our Civil Government the Peoples free choice of their Deputies for Parliament that there may never be a free Parliament more in the Kingdom which is a Plot much worse than their Gunpowder Treason It seems they think it safest to keep a shadow of Elections for their intended Convention by forming Bodies Politick of Cities and Towns to name or return whom the King pleases and by the specious name of Liberty of Conscience with promises of Favour and threats of Displeasure to deceive or affright the other Electors to accept of those for their Deputies that the King shall offer but if this attempt upon the Prime Fundamental of our whole Civil Government shall be suffered the King may hereafter with as much Justice Law and Reason call whom he pleaseth from any parts of the Kingdom to Consult with and in the Name and under Pretence of their Advise change our Laws and Customs impose Taxes and Alter at his pleasure the
their hearts against you the effects whereof you have suffered ever since The world hath also seen the Effects of the French Kings prosecution of the same design to take away the support of the Protestant Interest by his Pensions to the Chief Men of the Kingdom of Sweden and to such as he could prevail with in the Court of Brandenburgh and all other Princes-Courts that adhere to the Protestant interest Yet the Chief of his Expence was upon our late King and his Ministers and Counsellors who concurred in all the secret Practises and Contrivances to weaken the Power of the Protestants and to suffer the Greatness Glory and Terror of the French King to be advanced but he durst never openly and avowedly join with him in the great Work against the Protestant Religion for fear of his Protestant Subjects he having deluded them with so many solemn Protestations of his Faithfulness to their Religion and their Liberty The French King found by experience that the Parliaments had prevailed with our King to break all the measures that they had taken together for the destruction of the United Provinces by obliging him to a Seperate Peace with them which had forced him to let fall his then spreading Plumes and in crafty ways to seek and sollicit a Truce and therefore he durst not during our King's life put in Execution his great Work that he declares had been so long in his heart that by Torments Murders and all sort of barbarous Cruelties to suppress the Professors and Profession of the Reformed Religion and intirely to race and expunge the Memory of it as his Edicts and his Practices now declare to be his intentions That French King durst not throw off his disguise and shew himself to be like a ravening Wolf to his Protestant Subjects until our now King had publickly espoused the Popish Design which he had together with him long prosecuted in the dark and until he had begun to invade the Protestant Liberties and Securities his putting the Military Powers in Popish hands and to demand the Parliaments Consent to a Law which they refused to authorize him to make his Papists the Guardians of the Protestants Religion and Lives The French King then knew that the People of England were in no capacity to interpose in behalf of his Protestant Subjects however he should destroy them and as his Edict says being by the Truce without fear of disturbance he intirely applied himself to the great Design he sent his Dragoons to destroy the Poor Protestants Goods and to torment their Bodies with more cruelty and inhumanity than was ever practised since the Creation he resolved for his glory as his Clergy told him to shew himself the first and most illustrious of the Churches Children and the Extirpator of the Protestant Heresy which they told him was a more solid and immortal title then he acquired by all his Tryumphs He then presented that work of Extirpation as Saul did to strange Countries breathing out threatnings and slaughter he sent to the Duke of Savoy and as that Court complains perswaded and frighted that Prince into a most Unchristian and Bloody Decree to compel the most antient Protestants in the Valleys of Piedmont to turn Papists forthwith and they being faithful to their Religion that Edict was persued by the help of â—is Dragoons and the harmless Protestants tormented and murdered more cruelly than the worst of Vermine or Serpents until they were utterly destroy'd and their Country given to the Papists That Court of Savoy seems still Ashamed of that horrid wickedness and says for their Excuse That the French King declared he would root out those Protestants by his own force and possess the Country if the Duke would not have assisted therein The suppression of the Protestants of England hath been always esteemed the principal part of the Popish design to Extirpate the Protestant Religion and therefore all the Romish Councils Policies and Industries their Conspiracies Poysoning and Massacres have been long imployed about it and have perfectly gained our now King to serve their design they have united him with the French King that their Conjoyned Councils Treasures and Strength may finish their work of bringing England to the Obedience of their Church It s many ways Evident that both the Kings are under the like conduct and our King proceeds in the same methods against us wherein the French King hath been successful to destroy the Protestants of his Kingdom His first attempt is to subvert our Civil Government and Laws and the Freedom and being of our Parliaments just as the French King first invaded the Supreme Legal Authority of France which was vested in the Assembly of Estates from whom alone he now derives his Crown Our King in imitation of his Brother of France strives to bring all the Offices and Magistracy of the Kingdom that were legally of the Peoples choice to be solely and immediately depending on his Absolute Will for their being whether they arise by our Common Law or be instituted by Statutes or Charters He endeavours by various Artifices to bring the disposal of all the Properties and Estates of the People and their Lives and Liberties to be at his meer will by a perversion of the instituted course of our Juries and by Judges and a Chancellor fit for that purpose and every moment dependant on his Will he seeks to make his Proclamations and Declarations to have as much Power over our Laws as the French Kings Edicts And after his Example he establisheth a mercenary Army to master and subdue the People to his Will. If he can prevail in these things to overturn the Civil Government then the Liberty of the Protestant Profession and of Conscience in all Forms however seemingly setled by him will be precarious and he may as easily destroy it as the French King hath abolished the irrevocable Edicts Treaties or Laws of his Kingdom Confirmed by his Oath which were as good security to those Protestants as any Magna Charta that our King can make for us or any Act of a Convention with the name of a Parliament which is possible for him to hold in the State unto which he hath reduced the Kingdom Our King hath the same French Copy by which he writ assuring the Protestants of Grace and Clemency giving them Promises of Equal Liberty of Conscience with his Papists in preferring unto Offices and Imployments those whom he resolves to suppress and ruin preventing the Execution of Laws and in allowing Liberty of Conscience in some notions and the outward forms of worship in the Christian Religion provided always that they have no regard or Conscience for the substance of Christs Religion in Justice and righteousness nor stumble at complying with him or assisting him in the highest Crimes against Jesus Christ by invading the Rights and Liberty of the Kingdom and assuming a forcible Domination to oppress whom he please which is a subversion of the very foundation
Excluded she brought forth a Prince that was afterwards chosen Emperor Frederic the 2 d. If it were needful we could shew Your Highness that the Honour and Security of our Royal Family of England with the peace and safety of the Kingdom were intended in the Constitution of our Legal Monarchy in such manner that the Kings should not have Power at their will to Change the Succession or by any means prevent the Descent of the Crown to the next in Blood. But if the Kingdom should believe his Majesties Affirmation of this supposed Princes Birth without proof thereof according to the Laws and Customs of England the next Succession were really and actually thereby put out of the Legal Course and referred to the will of the King which is in effect to make the Crown Patrimonial whereas by the Laws and Customs of England the Right to the Crown descends to the next of Blood and the Successor is most properly to be stiled the Heir of the Kingdoms by force of the Kingdoms Laws and cannot be defeated of the Succession by any Act of the Predecessor if therefore the King should gain so vast a power by imposing on the People to believe his Attestation of this supposed Princes Birth 't is manifest that natural Justice as well as the Law of England makes it of no force or effect to the prejudice of her Royal Highness in her Esteem of being the Heiress apparent to the Crown We believe the Jesuits and other maintainers of this supposed Prince will claim as is their common practice against these our Laws whose force detects and defeats their Impostures they will pretend that 't is unreasonable to expect a Testimony of his Birth from such Witnesses and in such manner as are herein described exclusive of all Roman Catholicks but the reason and wisdom of these Laws are irresistible and its a great Circumstance shewing their guilt that they are displeased with the Laws that prevent Falsehood and Impostures and require proofs of Facts as clear as the Sun. The just and innocent are never offended at any Law that provide for Truth and Righteousness they cannot but be conscious to themselves that it was more easie to have provided such Witnesses as our Laws requires of a Princes Birth then to have had such as they provided that would Counterfeit to be Spectators and be content as 't is now said they were to see nothing of the Fact of which they were to be published to the Kingdom to have been the knowing Eye Witnesses 'T is notorious that the presence of ten of the Protestant Nobility of either Sex and other persons of Eminent Quality might have been as easily procured as one of the Catholicks if it had been intended to deal justly and fairly with the Kingdom and they know that the Protestants throwout Europe not the Papists wanted and desired satisfaction about the Queens great Belly and her delivery the suspitions of a Counterfeit Prince were strong amongst them and decryed by all the Papists they knew the Friends and those of Consanguinity with her Royal Hss were as ready to attend if they had been called as any Catholick whatsoever and they were not ignorant that Custom Law and Natural Justice required that Convenient notice should have been given to her Royal Highness above all others of the Expected time of the Queens Delivery that such Noble Matrons as she had thought Necessary might have been sent to have Continually attended near her Majesty and to have been impartial Witnesses of the Birth beyond Exception they understood the custom of calling Embassadors to be present at the Queen Delivery and that a Common fame of a designed Imposture was spread in forraign Protestant Countries and that there were Envoys and Publick Ministers from some of them Especially that the Dutch had an Embassador there and Expected to have been called they know that those Provisions for legal unquestionable proof of the Birth that was pretended have been no hindrance of the presence or assistance of as many Papists of each Sex as Her Majesty had desired and she might have as intirely depended upon their only help if it had been her pleasure as if those lawful Witnesses had not been present The Popish Councils delude his Majesty if they perswade him that any pleas of Inadvertency Neglect or Ignorance can satisfy the Kingdom instead of the proofs in the Case that the Custom and Laws of England require 't is a Rule of our Law that none shall make advantage of their own lachez that is their Failers or neglects of what they ought to have done less evidence is never to be accepted in our course of Judicature because the Party concerned was negligent in seeking it or ignorant when he might have known his duty We presume Your Highness in reading this may be satisfyed in the Truth of our first Preliminary Conclusion which is necessary to be always remembred in order to a just Judgment to be made of this supposed Prince of Wales and of the things proper to be done by Your Highness by reason or occasion of his pretences we doubt not Your Highness will clearly perceive what you may in justice demand of his Majesty in the Case preserving nevertheless a most pious sense of a fillial Duty We may more remember Your Highness that as the case now appears no acknowledgment of that pretended Prince can justly be required of Your Highness by his Majesty It s contrary to Justice and our Laws that her Royal Highness should depart from her place and claim of Heiress apparent to the Crown and resign it to a Child who is not yet lawfully witnessed to have been born of the Queen VVe therefore put your Highness in remembrance of a second Conclusion fit to be premised in this Case as an absolute certainty to be insisted on that is That neither the Laws of England nor any natural or Civil Justice do require of your Highness any kind of Testimonies or proofs that the pretences of this supposed Prince of Wales are false and feigned or that he was not born of the Queen Whosoever claims to be the natural and legitimate Son of any Family it s wholly and solely incumbent on him to prove it by the Laws and Customs of all Civil Governments and by the manifest Light of Nature those two Rules of the Civil Law are adopted by all Countries into their courses of Judicature Qualem quis se facit pro fundamento intentionis suae talem se debet probare and Filius qui petit haereditatem tanquam filius debet probare filiationem if Sonship or other quality or relation be the ground of a demand that Foundation must be always proved by the demandant if he that pretends to be Heir by his Birth to any inheritance fails of such sufficient Witnesses as the respective Laws of Countries require to prove his proximity of Blood there needs no Testimony on the part of those that deny his Linal Descent
nor the Laws and Statutes of the Realm to be by him frustrated or defeated at his Will to the perpetual destruction of the Kings Soveraignty Crown and Regality and of all the Realm The Commons then prayed the King and him required by way of Justice to examine all the States of the Realm how they would stand to defend the Rights of the Crown and the Realm against the Pope and it was thereupon ordained that all that should pursue or bring any Bulls or Instruments from Rome against the Kings Regality or his Realm should be put out of the Kings Protection and incur a Premunire which as the Law then was made it lawful for any man to kill them Likewise the Stat. of 24 H. 8.12 and 25 H. 8.21 say that the Realm hath been and is free from Subjection to Mans Laws but only to such as have been devised and made within the same for its own welfare or of their free Liberty received by their consent to them The King and Parliament neer four hundred years since were so resolute to defend the Rights and Freedoms of the Crown and the Realm against the Imp 〈…〉 Jurisdictions and Powers which he attempted to exercise that notwith 〈…〉 they by the Stat. of 18 Ed. 3. St. 1. Rot. Parliament num 38. declared th 〈…〉 Enemy to the King and the Realm and so he stands now declared and to the â—â—â—e purpose is the Roll Parliament 17 Ed. 3. num 59. Tho these Statâ—â—â—s are not printed their force is the same to make them to fall into the Condition of Enemies to the Kingdâ—â— â—â—â—at correspond with him or his Nuntio It never was in the Power of any King of England to yield up or submit the Rights of the Crown and the Realm and its Laws Powers or Jurisdictions of any sort against the Will of the Realm in Parliament so it was confessed 500 years since K. H. 6. in his Letters to Pope Paschal Notum habeat sanctitas vestra quod me vivente auxiliante Deo dignitates usus regni nostri Angliae non imminuentur si ego quod absit in tanta me dejectione ponerem Magnates mei totus Angliae populus nullo modo pateretur Be it known said he to your Holiness that whilst I live by Gods assistance the Authorities and Vsages of the Kingdom of England shall never be diminished but if I would so debase my self which God forbid my Nobles and the whole People of England would by no means suffer it King John indeed unworthily surrendered the Crown and Regalities to Pope Innocent the 3d and his Successors and the Priests falsely put into that Charter that it was by the consent of his Council of Barons he submitted to hold the Kingdom of the Pope and that by yearly rent again but when Pope Gregory the tenth in the third of Ed. 1. sent for that pretended Rent that Noble Prince justly answered that he was bound by his Oath in his Coronation to preserve the rights of the Kingdom untouched and that he could do nothing that concerned the Crown without the advice of the People in Parliament which are there called Proceres In the 40 of Edward the Third the Pope demanded the same Rents and the King proposed it in Parliament but they declared that neither King John nor any other King had any power to put himself or the Realm and People into subjection to the Pope without their consent in Parliament and that if it were done by King John it was done contrary to his Oath in his Coronation and if the Pope attempted any thing thereupon against the King or his Subjects they would resist him to their utmost power The same King Edward the third had only negligently suffered the Popes power to be too much used in the Kingdom contrary to the Statute of Carlile 35 Ed. 1. as appears by the Parliament Roll 17. Ed. 3. num 59. and the Commons in Parliament complained that the Treasure of the Realm was transported to Rome and the Secrets of the Realm discovered by the Foreign Priests sent hither and they required of the King some Mercy for that they neither could nor would any longer bear those strong Oppressions or else that he would help them to expel out of this Realm the Popes Power by Force and thereupon were enacted against many of the Popes Powers in this Realm those severe Penal Laws of 25 Ed. 3.27 Ed. 3.1.38 Ed. 3. Stat. 2. ch 1. all which our King hath now declared shall never hereafter be put in Execution That Victorious Prince Edw. 3. tho a Papist yet pretended to no Regal Prerogative of suspending the Laws made by the Kings and Parliaments against the Pope he confesseth in that Statute of 35 Edw. 1. against the Pope's Power that it held its Force being not annulled by Parliament and therefore he was bound by his Oath to see the same kept as a Law of the Realm tho by Sufferance and Negligence it had been attempted to the Contrary If the Effects of the Romish Jurisdictions in the Realm were looked upon as they are related in that 38 Edw. 3.1 It would be manifest that the King that would put the Kingdom into such a state lays aside thereby his Kingly Office and Dignity whilst he pursues these Intentions that Statute saith that by the Powers exercised by the Pope and Court of Rome and the Dependants thereof the good ancient Laws Customs and Franchises of the Realm were greatly impeached blemished and confounded the Crown abated the Treasure and Riches of the Realm carried away the Inhabitants and Subjects of the Realm impoverished and troubled and the great Men and Commons in Bodies and Goods damnified surely there can be no doubt whether the King hath any Royal Prerogative to enable him either to stop the Execution of these Penal Laws that prevent the Kingdom from falling back into such a forlorn Estate or to attempt by pretence of Liberty of Conscience for the Romish Priests and Emissaries and their Practices to enable them to work all the mischief they can against those that would save the Kingdom from such Miseries Your Highnesses may be absolutely certain that the King acts not by vertue of the English Regal Office or Prerogatives in his authorizing Treasons to be daily committed against the Realm By the Statute of 13 Eliz. 2. they that give or receive any Absolution or Reconciliation to Rome by the Popes Authority or any of his Priests which the King licenseth and authorizeth to be done continually those are declared high Traytors to the King and the Realm and no doubt Treasons declared by a Statute against the Realm are common Nusances of the highest Nature and Mischief 't is the trust of the Regal Office to prevent and punish them and 't is directly Contrary to the Kingly Office to assume Power to authorize or license such Crimes 'T is unquestionable that no King of England ever had power to grant Offices
to persons disabled to bear them by positive and direct Acts of Parliament made for that very purpose and declared to be for the peoples security nevertheless the King hath put most of the Offices of the Kingdom in the hands of those that are so disabled It s as certain it never was in the power of our Kings to dispossess at their Wills any of the subjects of those interests and profits which they had for their lives nor to Commission any to judge his Subjects finally in matters criminal or civil by their discretion without any regard to the Laws Customs and priviledges of the Realm These and many other powers 〈…〉 ight name to your Hss are not the actings of and English legal Monarch but an a 〈…〉 Persons the Liberties and Interests of the Subjects as if he alone had at least the Property paramount in all â—â—â—ir persons and their Interests which in all civil Governments belongs only to the Lawful Legislators and as if the people of England wâ—â—â— Tenant of his meer will to what they have and had no right nor Interest in their Laws Customs or Franchises nor 〈◊〉 Justice to demand the benefit of them Nothing can compleat his Majestys renuntiation of the Trusts and Obligation of the English Regal Office save only that he assume as he now doth actually to take from the Citys and Boroughs intirely all their Customs and Priviledges and free Election of their Magistrates confirmed to them expressely by the great Charter and many other Laws and that he deprive all the rest of the people of their Liberty to chuse such persons as they please according to the Statutes to Consent for them to the Laws that shall bind them their Estates and Lives as he hath declared he will and intends and is every day doing and then the antient rightful and Free English Government will be manifestly and intirely dissolved and Englishmen shall have no Legal right to their Estates their Wives and Children or their Lives There will be then no legal English Monarchy in England trusted by the Laws with high Royal Prerogatives for the joynt safety and benefit of the King and the subjects acknowledging themselves to be bound by an Oath to maintain the Customs Laws and Franchises of the Realm and to take continual care for the Execution of the Laws impartially for that purpose every man shall then have equal and eternal right to every hing as this King will and his Popish forces shall dispose of it and so long only as he shall please to continue in the same mind with the same force 'T is with bleeding hearts that in this manifest extream oppression and danger we beg your Highnesses aid to defend the rights of the Crown and the Realm There can be no question of your Hss right to defend the same the Legal Monarchy and Government by our antient Customs Laws and Franchises to save the antient Penal Laws against the Popes Vsurpations and the latter Laws for the Reformation of our Religion from Popery and to preserve the special Customs and Priviledges of the Cities and Boroughs as well as the General Customs of the Kingdom which our Customs and Laws only have vested in your Hss the next right Expectant of the English Crown and if no Prince shall be born Rege etiam renitente tho the King shall do all that 's possible for him to hinder you If you suffer them to be destroyed or to be disused and deemed to be of no force but as the King shall please by his Judges and Courts and by all that he shall possess of the Power of the Kingdom Your Highnesses claym and rights as Expectant of the Crown is in like manner destroyed and set aside and the whole arbitrary Magistracy serving his Will and all his Popish forces Foraigners and Natives will be ingaged in Interest and misguided Conscience to oppose your Highnesses claim by the Laws and Customs of England there will be indeed in the State to which the King hath brought the Kingdom no legal Magistrates nor Government in being and use unto which her Royal Highness can immediately succeed according to the Customs and Laws of England the Kingdom must be a confused Multitude and the strongest may subdue the rest to their Will. As your Highnesses have a right to save the Government by reason of your great Interest in it so all the People have an unquestionable right to seek your Highnesses Aid therein and 't is one of the principal Duties of the Christian Religion and will be one of the best outward Expressions of their Love to God and Jesus Christ to assist your Highness in all your righteous ways defending their Just Civil Government being instituted by God for preserving Justice among humane Societies The People that love their Neighbours and Countries as Christian Religion commands ought not carelesly nor irreligiously to suffer their Civil Government their Laws and all their Rights and Interest that their Country hold by them for themselves and Posterities to be destroyed by any Man's Will Superstition or Ambition He that was at first a Legal Supream Magistrate and ought to have been obeyed if he would have so continued tho he had done many Injustices to particular Persons he may cast off the Quality and Use of the Power of a Legal Supream Magistrate and use and exercise Power destructive to all the Legal Trusts and Office and then he devests himself of that Office and Trust of a lawful Magistracy unto which the Laws of God and the Kingdom require Obedience The ancient Kings of England acknowledged the Peoples Right to save their Free Government if any of the Kings themselves would have dishonorably parted with the Rights of the Crown and the Realm We mentioned the Letter of H. I. to the Pope and that great Prince Ed. I. on the like occasion of Power claymed by the Pope not only writ to the Pope to the same Effect as H. I. did but by his consent Letters were written to Pope Boniface by the Lords and Commons in Parliament wherein they told the Pope that they were bound by Oath to the Observation and Defence of their Liberty Customs and ancient Laws and would maintain them with all their Power and Force and that they neither did nor ever would could or ought to suffer the King tho he would to do or any ways attempt what the Pope desired contrary to their Customs since it would be to the Destruction of the Rights of the Crown of England and the Kingly Dignity and the Subversion of the Statutes of the Kingdom and Prejudice of their antient Liberties Customs and Laws Since then your Hss have an undoubted right to interpose between the King and us in your own and the Kingdoms behalf to save our ancient legal Government and in special our Laws for the Reformation of our Christian Religion we humbly offer that besides the former Demands about the supposed Prince your Hss will please to
reporters and most Confident Asserters of the undoubted truth of the matter and they boldly took upon them to presage that the Queen was with Child of a Boy that was to finish the settlement of their Church in England as Certainly as if they had seen the Foetus perfectly formed in her Womb or rather as if they had been privy to the Plot of a Supposititious Boy and had their Cue in the Management of it Their manner of talk and boasting increased the general suspition we knew that sort of Priests maintained the vilest wickednesses to be lawful for their Church's service and that they have been notorious for impostures and Forgeries of all sorts they once Forged an Eternal Gospel as they called it to support the Orders of the Mendicant Fryers and if we may believe some of themselves they have a Father Titler in some rich Convents to forge titles to any mans land adjoying to theirs when the Convents have a mind to them those Priests contrived Queen Marys great belly for a counterfeit Heir to the Crown to have Carried on their Catholick cause and as great publick Triumph and solemn Prayers for her Belly were made at Rome and in all Popish Countries as have been made in our Queens Case but their design was unluckily crossed when her Deliverance was Expected and their Joys and Prayers vanished in smoak Some of those Priests were the Agents for the Bloody and unnatural Usurpation of our King Richard the third A Priest Preached at Paul's Cross to make the People believe that King Edward 4. his elder Brother whose Sons King Richard had Murthered was a Bastard not the lawful Son of Rich. D. of York and that Richard was the true Legitimate Son and had been a long time wronged of the Crown belonging to him It was a Priest's invention and management to set up Lambert Symnel a Bakers Son against King H. 7. Counterfeiting him to be Earl of Warwick and laying claim to the Crown and was Proclaimed King in Ireland and marched into England with a good Army to maintain his Pretence and by the like advice Perkin Warbeck another Counterfeit was set up against the same H. 7. by Margaret Dutchess of Burgundy to be Richard the younger Son of Ed. 4. and made such a considerable party in Ireland and was so received and assisted in Scotland that he bid fair for the Crown and we could not forget what a cheating trick the Jesuits invented and practised of later years about procuring an Heir to a Crown that is become their chief support in Europe The Remembrance of these and many other wicked frauds of the Romish Priests of the like import to change the Successions of Crowns to serve their Church and seeing them so busie and industrious to prepossess the Peoples minds with an opinion that the Queen had a great belly and that it was a Son when it was impossible in Nature to be known if she had been then really pregnant these things we say put together confirmed our suspitions that they acted a part as they were influenced and that a Counterfeit Son might be resolved on to be set up for Prince of Wales as common same confidently reported The Collections and Observations we have since made of the things that occurred during the Queens supposed pregnancy and about her pretended Delivery of this Son have made the truth of the matter so plain in our apprehensions that now we no more suspect but conclude and believe this pretended Prince of Wales to be a meer Counterfeit and we hold it our Duty to Your Highnesses to our Country and to the whole Protestant Interest this Child being set up against all these to set before you all the Memorials we have taken in the whole matter several of us at least having been very near the Court during the whole Transaction We crave leave to put Your Highnesses in mind that before we can convincingly set forth the special and particular Facts and Circumstances that we have remarked in this matter 't is necessary that we first remember and evince the truth of some general Conclusions about the Proofs and Evidences whereby a true Judgment ought to be made of this supposed Prince and if your Highnesses shall be clearly satisfied in the truth of those Conclusions whereof we cannot doubt you may be fully convinced by them alone without further hesitation or Inquiry that this supposed Prince of Wales cannot be justly judged by any kind of Rules of Justice or Law whatsoever to be in truth born of the Queen The first certain Conclusion to be remembred is this That by the Universal Rules of Justice and Equity any Child of our Queens that was expected or hoped to be the Heir of the Crown of three Kingdoms and to postpone or set aside an undoubted Heiress apparent and also the right Expectance of a warlike Prince and divers Princesses of the Blood we say such a Child ought to have been attested to be born of the Body of the Queen of the personal certain knowledg of proper Witnesses suitable to the case and concern in so great a number and of such unspotted fame undoubted Authority and perfect indifferency that the Proofs of its Birth could never have been reasonably drawn into doubt or question either in England or any other Christian Kingdoms or States A Son of the Queens Body had naturally and really made an entry in the moment of his Birth upon the apparent right of her Royal Highness She had thereby rightfully ceased to be Heiress apparent to the Crown and no Rules of natural Civil Justice nor the Law of any Civil Government will allow or suffer entries to be made and persons to be outed of the Rights they apparently had in Judgment of Law without sufficient proof either of right Paramount to the others or a determination of those former Rights apparent Our English Laws and special Statutes for that purpose abhor any Entry upon the apparent legal Right of another either of the Will of the King or of any Subject the Admission of such a Practice is absolutely destructive of Property and all Civil Justice and Government it dissolves the whole Civil Government and turns all into the confused course of natural Right wheresoever a Civil Government and Property is established on Entry of Will upon the Legally apparent Right of others without sufficient Manifestation of their own greater or better Rights is directly contrary to Gods Eternal Law and that of all Righteousness amongst men Upon these certain infallible Foundations we build our Conclusion That this supposed Prince of Wales Born of the Body of the Queen ought by the Laws of England the Fundamental Rules of all Civil Justice and Government and by the unalterable Laws of God to be manifestly proved by them that pretend it beyond all possible Contradiction in such manner as is described and specified in the preceding Conclusion and such proofs ought to have been publickly divulged and made
known to England and the World before his Patrons ought to have entred in his name upon her Royal Highnesses Right in the Judgment of our Laws to be stiled and reputed the Heiress apparent to the Crown of England and to assume to him that Honour and Glory which her Highness justly had in England and all the Kingdoms and States of Europe to be apparently the next Successor to the Crown of England Questionless all the Civilized Kingdoms in the World that are Hereditary have pursued these principles of Justice and Reason in their common Custom to have their Princes born in the presence of the Princes of the Blood the chiefest Men of Religion and the greatest Nobles and Officers in the highest Trusts for the Kingdom and the Ambassadors and Ministers of foreign Kingdoms and States That the Heirs o those great Inheritances might be so known and manifest that it might not be possible for any Controversies to arise about their Births and their being the Lineal Heirs of the Respective Kingdoms Whensoever Rights of any kind are obtained meerly by virtue of Birth those that claim them are bound to prove by Witnesses suitable to the Respective Circumstances of every Case the reality of their pretended Birth at their Peril of being justly excluded from the Rights they demand yet Justice does not always require the like Witnesses and clearness of Testimony about the Birth of all common Persons the Circumstances of their cases being so different that Witnesses of such qualities and in such a number as may be sufficient proof for the birth of one Heir may justly be judged insufficient for the birth of another But the Birth of the pretended Prince of Wales was attended with such Circumstances that Justice required that his Birth of the Queen should have been testified by a plenty of such Witnesses as their proof might have amounted to the highest degree of Certainty that is possible to be built upon humane Testimony doubtless the Circumstances of his pretended Birth were very extraordinary It was generally reputed and believed that the Queen's sicknesses and infirmities had disabled her to bring forth a living Child The famous Physician Dr. Willis shewed that opinion to his Brethren of one of her Children when her Majesty was much stronger saying there were mala stamina vitae and the popular opinion therein was confirmed by several years experience It was notorious that two hundred to one throughout the Kingdom did not believe the report that her Majesty was with Child notwithstanding all that was said of it by the King and the Queen and the Prayers injoyned thereupon That her Majestys pregnancy was as little believed in foreign Protestant Countries as in England and Pamphlets were published in several Countries as well as in England that declared the Report of the Queens being with Child to be nothing more than an Artifice of the Jesuits by those hopes of a Popish Successor to the Crown to encourage their Catholicks in their Designs and to gain Proselytes It was publickly known that there was a jealousie in the greatest part of the Kingdom that the Popish Councils had designed to impose upon them a counterfeit Prince of Wales There were also Circumstances about the Birth of this supposed Prince of another sort and no less important It was the general opinion that the Security or Danger of the Profession of the Protestant Religion not only in England but in all the Kingdoms and States of Europe would be the certain consequence of her Majesties bearing or not bearing a Prince of Wales The Birth of such a Prince was to be a great diminution of many Princes and Princesses in their Expectancy and Right to the Succession to the three Crowns and threatned England with the Danger and Misery of falling under an Infant Prince in name and in truth under the Domination of Rome All these special Circumstances attending the birth of this supposed Prince of Wales being of such nature import and number as the like never met together before in the Expectations of the birth of any Prince in the world In this Case Natural Justice common to all Nations and the practical reason of the special Customary Law of England in the proof of Matters of fact we say both universal Justice and the Peculiar Law of England required indispensibly that there should have been such proper proof that this supposed Prince was born of the Queen as was answerable unto all the special Circumstances in the case such proof as had comprehended the objections that might arise from every of them as fully as was possible in the nature of the things that the testimony of his birth might have been sufficient to have satisfied the most jealous and distrustful about it in our own and foreign Countreys and to have removed all the prejudices against it that were known to have been spread far and near by Common fame It was absolutely necessary in Justice Law and Prudence to have had such proof of his birth as our precedent conclusion hath asserted that is That there had been Testimony of it of personal and absolutely certain knowledg Women to have testified their Personal sight and perception of that very individual Child coming naturally out of the Queens womb and men to have witnessed their immediate free and full sight and inspection of that very Child by the womens assistance in his pure natural nakedness with all the known marks and tokens of his being just separated from the womb and from those other things that are natural to the birth of a Child the effects of such separation being there visible and impossible to be hidden such Testimony is always provided for in the birth of every Prince of the blood in France tho never so remote from the Crown That the witnesses of those matters had been fit and proper witnesses suitable to the greatness of the Persons and things that might be in question and to the vast Extensive Consequence that may ensue thereupon Nature or the first light from God Created in the minds of mankind dictated the equity of those Roman imperial Laws that appointed those which asserted filiation or marriage to prove them by fit or proper and most unquestionable witnesses most of the Writers about those Laws serve themselves therein of these Words severally which we will for shortness put together Matrimonium filiationem qui asserunt debent probare per testes idoneos omni Exceptione majores they that alledg a marriage or a Child being by virtue whereof they claim ought to prove it by witnesses that are above or beyond all possible Exception in this case there ought to have been such fit witnesses that nothing could have been objected against them in any respect either by Englishmen or Foreigners That the witnesses that Law and Prudence required of both sexes had been fit and proper in respect of their years or age that the women had been Matrons whose gravity and sobriety were fit
London and he is by the ancient Laws and Statutes of this Realm declared the Publick or Common Enemy of the Kingdom near two hundred years before Henry the Eighth T is manifest that the English Papists are declared Enemies to Her Royal Highnesses Right in this Case between her and the pretended Prince of Wales and therefore by the Laws of England they cannot be Witnesses of the Fact in question neither ought their Testimonies therein to be offered to the Kingdom to Delude the People The Civil Law so fully concurs with our Common Law in rejecting Enemies to be Witnesses in the cause of their Enemy that it denies to give credit to what they may testifie in the cause of their Enemy with their dying Breath after they have received the Eucharist that is the General Conclusion of the Doctors of that Civil Law Inimicus etiamsi in articulo mortis constitutus accepisset Eucharistiam repellitur a testimonio causae sui inimici We mention this chiefly to shew that 't is not only by our English Laws that our Papists are rejected from being Witnesses of the Birth of this pretended Prince against Her Royal Highness but by the ancient approved Rules of the Civil Law which they generally acknowledg and by the Judgment of their own Doctors Herein are only set forth to Your Highnesses the Laws of England that you may justly insist upon as your Right to prevent the Church of Rome's Conspiracies against you we reflect not on the credit or truth of any Roman Catholick Lords or others in giving their Testimonies in Matters of private Interests wherein the cause of their Church is not in question and the Laws of their Church bind them not to either party but since they are bound in this case to be Enemies to Her Royal Highness our Law will not allow them to be believed to her prejudice and they must openly renounce that common Honesty to which they pretend if they offer themselves to the Kingdom to be competent Witnesses against Her in behalf of this pretended Prince when they are conscious to themselves that not only our Laws but Natural Justice and Equity abhors such a practice We must say with all due reverence and most humble submission that Our Laws will not allow that the Declaration or Testimony of His Majesty or the Queen should be accepted and believed in this case as lawful proof that this pretended Prince was born of the Queen 't is sufficient for us that our Laws will not suffer our Kings to descend into the Place of Witnesses they will not admit them to testifie their own knowledg of the Facts in any case whatsoever Criminal or Civil but there is abundant reason also from Natural Equity and Civil Justice that the Kingdom should not receive and rely upon the King's Affirmation about the Birth of this supposed Prince their Majesties have publickly Espoused his Cause for their own in all respects and none on Earth Kings or Subjects may justly expect or be suffered to supply the Place of Witnesses in their own case since Civil Government is established if they might lawfully be their own proof for their cause they might as justly be Judges of their own proofs which in Consequence would turn up the Foundations of Civil Government one of its chiefest original intentions being to introduce a course of Justice that none might be their own Judges We would not speak thus plainly if it were justly avoidable we cast no Scandal hereby upon His Majesty nor any way come near the crime of detraction we barely relate the Law of England in this case of His Majesties Affirmation of the Birth of this pretended Prince that it hath not the force of legal proof or of the Testimony of one Legal Witness and His Majesty is obliged in Justice and Honour by his Office and Oath not to impose upon his Subjects to believe and rely upon his Affirmation or Word in this case nor on the Queen's that 's necessarily included in his he cannot desire the People diffusively to change their ancient customs and Laws to substitute their King's Words or Assertions in the room of sworn Legal Witnesses to prove the Matters of the Highest moment about the Government If the Kingdom should allow the Affirmation of their Kings to be sufficient to make a Lawful Prince of Wales without such Witnesses of his Birth as our Law requires they should consent to Change the ancient Constitution of the English Monarchy and so destroy the established Legal Security of their Freedom and Estates The Laws of England in this case are not dissonant from the Laws of other Kingdoms and the most absolute Empires the Civil Law now received in most Christian Kingdoms that was so adapted to absolute Government that it was one of its principles That Principis verbum pro lege habendum est the word of the Prince was to be taken for a Law we say that Law never ascribed absolute credit to the Prince's Affirmations of Matters of Fact wherein the Subjects Rights were concerned it passeth for a Rule of that Law in such cases Princeps indistincte non creditur the Emperour is not to be believed intirely without limitations and restrictions in his affirming Matters of Fact relating to his Subjects Legal Interest and Securities The Learned Doctors in that Law determine that the Emperor's Affirmation that a Subject hath committed Treason or Rebellion against him ought nor to be believed or taken for a proof they say expresly Regi fides non adhibetur si attestatur talem fuisse proditorem likewise if he pretends and declares a cause why he deprives any Subject or Feudatory of his Interest he is not to be believed there must be proof and the parties intended to be prejudiced must be cited and heard in their defence They generally resolve that when a King asserts or attests any thing to the prejudice of another he is not to be therein believed especially when his Affirmation is for his own advantage and to the Subjects damage or inconvenience These are their words Quando ex assertione Principis ipse Principaliter sentiret commodum subditi incommodum tum ipsi Principi non creditur The Emperor Henry the 6. of Germany had a due sense of the Justice and Reason of the Law herein about the year 1200. he did not Expect that the People should believe the Affirmations of himself and his Empress Constantia about the Birth of a Prince when there was a rumor and suspition that Constantia was past her age of Child-bearing and feigned a Great Belly he gave the People plentiful proof by Witnesses more than Reason required he prepared a most publick Place wherein she remained expecting her time of Delivery Ventre Custodito with publick Watchers or Keepers that no Supposititious Child might possibly be Conveyed to her and there in the sight of the People of the City and all the Matrons that would and could possibly approach her none being
The Course of the Law of England is known to most Englishman in the Tryal of all claims by Birth the claimant is always put to prove all that he sets forth of his Descent in his Declaration and the least defect of proof is fatal to his process if the Defendant perceives the piantiff to want sufficient legal Testimony of his Descent and Birth he never troubles the Court with proofs on his behalf 't is enough for him that denies the Descent pretended to shew the insufficiency of the Witnesses and their Testimony produced to prove it Your Highness is not obliged either by our Laws or Natural Justice to have VVitnesses to prove the pretended Prince of VVales to be an Impocture Her Royal Highness having been the legal acknowledged Heiress apparent of the Crown Unless such Lawful Witnesses that he was born of the Queen were known and published as did satisfie the Kingdom neither your Highness nor any Princes or States may in Justice acknowledg his pretences her Royal Highness ought to remain in the esteem of the Kingdom and of all Princes ann States as the Heiress apparent of the Crown at least until a Prince shall be legally known and declared and 't is a manifest wrong to your Highness to the Kingdom and to all the Protestants Interest to suffer this supposed Prince silently and submissively without publick Complaint of the wrong to assume the Name of Prince and Heir apparent to the Crown When the Popish League endeavoured to set aside the claim of your Highness's Ancestor Henry 4. to the Crown of France and proclaimed the Cardinal of Bulloign to be King he sent Agents to the Pope though he was then a Protestant and to all the Princes and States of Christendom to manifest himself to be the right lawful Heir of that Crown and the Venetian State to his vast advantage contested it with the Popes Nuncio that they ought so to acknowledg him because it appeared that he was the right Heir His Right indeed was to be King in possession but there is the like reason and justice to support her Royal Highness Title to the Crown in reversion since another is set up and declared throughout the World to be the right Heir of it immediately after his now Majesty 'T is undoubtedly just and reasonable for her to demand and expect that the pretenders Birth so much and so justly suspected should be made manifest to the Kingdom by Witnesses without exception according to the Law and Custom of England and to natural Equity It may be of dangerous consequence to suffer a false Opinion of him in the Kingdom and the world to gain strength by time and neglect yet neither Law nor Equity puts any burden of proof in the Case upon your Highness 't is only incumbent upon your Highness to declare the wrong to your selves and the Kingdom by the pretended Prince and to take care that no illegal imperfect or fallacious Testimony in the Case be invented or obtruded upon your selves and the Kingdom to support his pretences her Royal Highness claim and right to be the next in reversion after his now Majesty in the legal descent of the Crown ought to stand unshaken and unquestionable in the Judgment of our Law and the Kingdom notwithstanding any thing to the contrary that hath been hitherto lawfully published or declared We cannot doubt but 't is here made manifest that your Highness publick refusal to acknowledg this pretended Prince of Wales may be built upon such sure Foundations of Law and Justice as can never be overturned we would not therefore trouble your Highness with all the Circumstances of the Case which we have remarked in our Observations that make it to us not only improbable but incredible that he was born of the Queen Since 't is not possible for us to send Witnesses personally to prove to your Highness every circumstance that we have noted and 't is not just that Your Highness should take them up upon unknown Authority since we cannot in prudence subscribe our Names to this Memorial nor so much as the Names of our Witnesses to the Facts since the Proof of the Circumstances can never be a Foundation of positive unquestionable certainty but can only serve to make the Falsehood and Jesuitical contrivance in this imposture more infamous and odious since 't is undoubtedly Your Highness Interest never to depart from the manifest Principle of Law and Justice which put it wholly and entirely upon the Maintainers of the supposed Prince to prove him to be such as they pretend with the highest human certainty that can be acquired by Witnesses and to the Kingdoms full Satisfaction And since 't is notoriously know that above all others of the Roman Church the Jesuits which in this matter will most earnestly contend against Your Highness have the greatest effronted Confidence to deny and forswear Matters of Fact however certainly proved and known and they would be glad to have any thing offered in this Case that might give them room or a possibility for dispute and seeming doubtfulness of Fact that they might obscure the Truth and deceive some of the People with their Equivocal Affirmation and impertinent Cavils at Your Highness Witnesses or their Testimonies and their bold Asseverations of Falsehoods Upon all these Considerations we shall restrain from the relation of many very pregnant Circumstances that we had collected which if they were taken jointly in their natural Order and due Connexion would by their united force strongly induce impartial Judges to conclude that the Queen could not be the Mother of the supposed Prince We could give very great circumstantial assurances to Your Highness that there never was or appeared to be any reasonable natural grounds for a belief that her Majesty had Conceived a Child She never had the first most natural known and common sign of Conception her menses profluvium or Terms continued their usual uncertain Course as formerly during the whole time of her pretended great helly She did not conceal that it was with her after that manner of Women in her journey to Bath nor that they continued some days after the King left her there and all the industry used afterward to hide them in their Seasons proved in-effectual because those things come to the knowledge of more then were made privy to the whole Imposture designed Her Majesty having not that natural Sign of her Termes stopping whereby Women usually conclude themselves to have conceived from whence she could make a reckoning it seems by the Kings Speech in Council that their Majestys had both thought fit to publish her Conception to have been at the time of the Present made to the Lady's Image at Loretta upon the Kings return to the Queen at Bath It was then too soon for them to be provided of a supposititus Child and so might name any time they pleased of her Conception and then seek for a Child that might agree with it and it
in the Womb until its full growth and appointed time there were no Signs of Her Majesties known Weakness in bearing such Pangs in her State of Body debilitated with long lingring Infirmities there were no Signs of a violent Eruption of an untimely Birth from the Womb of eight Months and four days as Her Majesty then reported it to have been All that was to be feigned was suddenly dispatched and the Midwife delivered something close covered to Mrs. Labady which could be nothing but the Child they had put in and went with is together through the privy Door in the Rail of the Bed into the next Room in so great haste that it was not considered how plainly it might discover that it was a meer feigned counterfeit Travel of the Queens if the Midwife durst quit her attending and assisting Her Majesty in those moments when there was the greatest Necessity of her Skill and Assistance in her Office and the most extream danger of her Majesties Life by any neglect of her if she had really brought forth any Child as they were obliged to pretend Instead of fair open freedom in shewing that the Queen was really delivered of a Prince which our Customs and Laws and natural Equity required that all those works of Nature might have been seen and testified by noble Matrons their pretended Birth of a Prince and all that they did about it was done in the dark with the Curtains close drawn round about the Bed and under the Coverings of it and none of either Sex permitted to see any thing done about Her Majesty or her supposed Child save only the Confederates no others of those in the Bed-Chamber that drew as near as they might were suffered to see what was taken out of the Bed being something wholly covered and immediately carried away by the private Door All hearkned after the common and most constant natural Sign of the Birth of a living Child that is its crying but we are fully assured from divers Lords of the Council and others that were in the Bed-Chamber that the crying of a Child was heard by none there when the pretence was that a Child was born tho' the Midwife would not at first say it was a Prince We have related to Your Highnesses no Circumstances but such as are notoriously known or could be judicially proved before any impartial Court of Judicature and therefore we will not offer to Your Hss those Conjectures tho we have them from good hands of what was acted about the pretended Prince in the Room from whence he was brought and to which he was carried before the Lords of the Council or any others were told that there was a Prince born but we have it of certainty from those that were present that during the whole 〈…〉 Travel of the Queens and a considerable time after it his Majesty kept those Lords of the Cou 〈…〉 far from the feet of her Majesties Bed that were close shut up and they neither saw nor heard any thing about the Birth of the supposed Prince whereof they can be lawful Witnesses to the Kingdom yet the Actors of this whole Imposture had the Confidence to publish forthwith to the Kingdom by Authority that those Lords and many Ladies of Quality were present at the Queen's Delivery of a Prince equivocating therein like the Jesuits and falsely insinuating to the People that those Lords and many Matrons of the Nobility had been such ocular Witnesses as our Laws require of the Queens being delivered of a Prince whereas in truth all that were not of the Confederacy waited to no more purpose than if they had been ten Miles off her Bed-Chamber After long waiting His Majesty left them and retired into the inner Room where was Mrs. Labady and the Confidents with the supposed Prince and it was soon after said to the Lords that a Prince being born there was no more need of them whereupon several of them went away and whatsoever was done in shewing a Child to those that staid was not worthy of our Inquiry since it could be of no use to Your Highnesses or the Kingdom Yet we carefully observed and inquired after the Queens supposed Deliverance of a Prince whether there were any natural demonstrable signs in her Majesty that she had newly born a Child that had broke its way by Violence into the World before Natures time as she then affirmed Some of us know well the usual and necessary Consequences of such force upon Nature in Women of such tenderness and weakness as her Majesty we expected to have heard of her great Weakness and danger of her Life by a Feaver that commonly attends such untimely Births we inquired after the danger of her Majesties Breasts by the usual redundancy of Milk because one had reported so long before that she had plenty of it in her Breasts we imployed proper Persons to ask what Woman had the Honour to draw her Breasts or whether any applications were made to her Breasts to repel or dry the Milk and also to ask after the good progress of her Majesty in the natural Cleansings that follow Child-bearing and of her strength in bearing these unavoidable Consequences whereby all Women of her Majesties Tenderness and Weakness are greatly debilitated but we could never learn by our most diligent inquiry that there was any appearance of these natural Effects of Child-bearing tho a good Doctors skill might have easily feigned all those to the delusion of all about her Majesties Court. We have now given Your Highness an abstract of many of the Circumstances which we had collected in this Affair and must freely affirm that we cannot observe from the beginning to the end of it one footstep of sincere plainness all that hath been done therein from the Queens pretended Conception to her supposed Delivery of a Prince hath shewed desires and intentions to hide the truth of those natural things which they were obliged by the Laws of England by natural Justice and by their own Honour and Interest to have made demonstrable or proveable by sufficient Witnesses to all the Kingdom if there had been truth in their pretences There hath been such a total neglect slighting and disregard of all the necessary Rules of Law and Justice about needful Witnesses of the Birth of a Prince and Heir to the Crown when they knew that most of the Kingdom suspected their setting up a Counterfeit that it looks like a contempt of Your Highnesses and the whole Kingdom as if no Satisfaction were due to her R. Highness in her admission of an Heir to the Crown before her nor to the Kingdom in their acknowledgment of a Prince to be the next Successor to the Crown The most modest Judgment we can make of it is to think that a blind Zeal always nourish'd by the Romish Church to settle a Popish Successor hath made them break through all the Rules of Righteousness and stifle and extinguish all the natural Affections of a
Father to a Child to do a Service to their Church which is by their Doctrine so meritorious Your Highnesses will the better consider all these Circumstances mentioned if you will please to call to mind the Occasion and Time when this Design was first resolved on to set up a Prince to bar her R. H's of the immediate Succession to the Crown Be pleased to remember that 't is before observed that the going to the Bath and the visit to St. Winifreds Well and the Present made to the Lady were preparations for a Report of the Queen's being with Child and were all concluded upon about the end of August and beginning of September 1687 and then was your Highnesses compliance with the Popish Design despaired of The abstract of Mr. Steward's Letters to Mijn Heer Fagel which we just now find printed confirms all our Memorials in that Matter He was Pardoned and chosen by the King to have perswaded your Highnesses to a consent that the Penal Laws and Test should be repeal'd which had been a full establishment of Popery in his two first Letters of July he seeks to perswade your Hss that the King was resolved to preserve and observe the true right of Succession to the Crown and was very desirous of your Hss consent and concurrence in his Design and troubled to find them so averse from it in his next Letters of the same July he pressed that your Highnesses should have been disposed to hearken to a well-chosen Informer to be sent by his Majesty to perswade your concurrence with him and he presseth extreamly for a hasty Answer the new Councils for setting up a Supposititious Prince seem then to have been begun That Letter seems to threaten what we now see if your Highnesses refused he doubled his assurance to him that was to sollicit your Highnesses that if you were obstinate as they call it it will be fatal to the Dissenters and he feared productive of Ills yet unheard of And his Letter of August 5. seems to give your Highneesss your last time to chuse the Settlement of Popery or to resolve to be true to the Protestant Religion He says if your Highness did what was 〈…〉 he best Service to the Protestants the highest Obligation on his Majesty and the gre 〈…〉 of your own Interest that you could think on but if not then all is contrary There can be no other meaning in saying if your Highnesses refused all is contrary save only this that the Protestants should then have no Mercy from the Papists His Majesty would be so offended that he would become your Highnesses Enemy and it would be the loss of your Highnesses greatest Interest that you can think on which certainly could be no other than the just Expectancy of the three Kingdoms As these Letters threaten that the King would destroy your Highnesses greatest Interest if you refused so the attempt of it soon after appeared It 's now known that in September and October the Resolutions were taken to publish that the Queen was with Child but before it was publickly declared that is October 8. Mr. Steward says he would use no more Arguments to your Highnesses but he then laments your Highnesses loss of the time of compliance Alas said he that Providence should not be understood Then in Novemb. he speaks more plainly notwithstanding your Hss moderation towards the Papists and their Liberty was shewn by Mijn Heer Fagel's Letter he says that all hope of your Hss concurrence in the King's Design was quite given over and Men were become as cold in it here as your Hss were positive there And upon his new Conference with the King he not only shews the King's dislike of that Letter but says expresly That your Hss Answer was too long delay'd and that the King was quite over that matter There can be no other reasonable construction of this than that the King had then resolved of another way to prosecute the Popish Design and time hath now shewn and proved to the World that the way resolved on was to set up this Supposititious Prince for a Popish Successor These Letters by the help of time shew the Design when it was in Embrio and help to make a Judgment upon all the other Circumstances that we have mentioned and no doubt if an Evidence made up of all the Circumstances we have mentioned in their order and connexion were given to any impartial Judges it would be judged as strong a presumptive Evidence as ever was given and in the proceedings of our Laws against Criminals Judgment hath passed against the Lives of many upon far less Evidence this being as full as the nature of the thing can possibly suffer in your Hss and the Kingdom 's Case But notwithstanding this sort of Circumstantial Evidence be sufficiently forcible and convincing to disinterested Persons to prove this supposed Prince to be an Impostor and it may be more Circumstances of the same nature are known to your Highness yet we most humbly pray your Highness to wave insisting upon any of them as entirely as if you could neither prove nor knew more about this pretended Prince than common Fame hath proclaimed without contradiction It no ways belongs to your Highnesses nor to the Kingdom to prove the Falshood of his Pretences or any Circumstance about his Birth and it would be very prejudicial for your Highnesses to take upon you the burden of producing Witnesses and Proofs and admitting your Highnesses Adversaries to dispute their force and sufficiency when it belongs to them wholly and only to bring forth such lawful Witnesses in due numbers as may satisfy your Highnesses and the Kingdom of the Truth of their Pretences and 't is an infinite wrong to your Highnesses and the Kingdom that they have not done it long since if there had been a true Prince born of the Queen Since 't is the Kingdoms great concern as well as your Highnesses we are the bolder to propose that the Method of Defence against the publick Injury be made according to the known Laws and Customs of England that is That an open free demand be made in the name of her R. Hss as Heiress apparent of the Crown and in behalf of all the People of the Realm that there be forthwith declared and published to the Kingdom a sufficient Number for this Case of lawful Witnesses of either Sex such as the Laws of England and Natural Justice require in the Case who do testify that according to the usual practice of their respective Sexes at the Birth of Princes Heirs to Crowns they were Eye-Witnesses that the Child now called the Prince of Wales was naturally born of the Queen's Body 'T is but just regular and modest for your Hss to make that Demand and your insisting upon it to be done immediately without the least delay is no more than the Right of your Hss and the Kingdom as must be confessed by all that either know the Rules of natural Justice
demand and insist immovably That the antient free Government of England by its 〈…〉 and Law â—nly made or approved in Parliament be immediately restore 〈…〉 all th 〈…〉 at is that the Rights of the Crown and Freedom of the Realm be forth 〈…〉 Submissions publickly made to the Pope by the King that now is to the Disho 〈…〉 English Crown and Realm and from all the Claims made by the Romish Church â—â— any Powers and Jurisdictions whatsoever over the Christians o 〈…〉 England â—â—â—t all the Laws now in force against the Admission of the Canons and Jurisdiction of Rome contrary to our Customs and Laws and against the maintainers of them be forthwith declared to be put in due Execution and all Suspensions of them or Dispensations with them without the Authority of Parliament be declared null and void That the Ancient Customs Liberties and Priviledges of the City of London and the whole form and course of its Government be forthwith restored the Customs thereof being part of the Common Law of England and its Liberties being established by the great Charter and many Acts of Parliament that the Customs Free Election of their Magistrates and all the Priviledges of all the Cities and Boroughs of England confirmed by the great Charter and other Laws be duely restored That Legal Officers both Civil and Military be settled in all the Places of Magistracy and all the Commands throughout the Kingdom That all Commissions whatsoever be forthwith revoked and declared null and void whereby are granted any Powers of Discretion over the Persons or Interest of the Subject contrary to the Laws and Customs of England especially the Commission for Ecclesiastical Affairs with its monstrous non obstante to all our Laws That the Freedom of Elections which is the Foundation of the Government be duely vindicated and all the most unworthy Preingagements revoked and renounced to elect and vote as the King would have them That the Kingdom may be restored as soon as possible to a Capacity of holding a Legal Parliament in such Form and Manner as the Laws require by whose help the Civil Government may be reestablished and force and arbitrary Powers therein utterly abolished We crave your Highnesses Pardon that we further humbly offer to your Hignesses that time and accident always made Changes in the Usefulness of Laws and that it hath so happened in our Penal Laws made for Uniformity in the Profession of Faith and in the outward Worship of God four of our succeeding Parliaments perceived the abuse of these Laws and the Mischief thereby to conscientious Christians and declared their Intention of relieving them if the King would have permitted them and they endeavoured to stop the Execution of them and desired a Settlement of Liberty of Conscience as is due to Christians In these Regards and the Subversion of the whole Government since made Necessity and Charity may have the force of Laws to inforce the stay of the Execution of some of those Laws for Conformity until those Matters may be settled in Parliament We therefore humbly pray your Highness to procure as a case of Necessity that none be disturbed until a Legal Parliament shall have resolved the case for the Profession of their Faith in Matters meerly supernatural or the outward Expression of their Worship so as both terminate only in God and neither wrong nor hurt any Man on Earth in Body Goods and good Name but their own Souls only if they be mistaken therein We now most humbly submit our selves and all herein contained to your Highnesses Wisdom Candor and Charity 〈◊〉 shall pray the just and great God to fill your noble Souls with perfect Love and Wisdom and all the most resplendent Vertues that are fit to shine in the highest Thrones and Power that ever the Sun beheld Sr The Character we have had of your Worth makes us confident of your Faithfulness to deliver the inclosed forthwith to his Highness the Prince of Orange or in his Absence to her Royal Hss the Princess we could not trust it by the Post and therefore have sent it by an Express which may perhaps make it longer in coming the Messengers only Order is to deliver it to one of your Servants and we confide in your Integrity and remain To Monsieur M 〈…〉 at the Hague SIR Your most humble Servants whom you may hereafter know (*) The Instances hereof are too many to be recited but some thereof are these viz. 1. Most of the Protestants are pressed to declare for a Repeal of all the Laws made for the Reformation of our Religion and its settlement 2. All the Subjects are forced to submit to Serve and Obey those that are no lawful Judges Sheriffs Justices of the Peace Mayors Lords Lieutenants and other Commanders and all are Threatned Vexed and Prosecuted as the Lord Lovelace now is that dare but say that such have no lawful Authority 3. All the Subjects are commanded to suffer all the Actions and Offences of their Lives and the secrets of their Hearts to be searched into and their chief Interests and many of their Free-holds to be judged by the discretion of a few of the Kings Creatures called his Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Affairs whose Commission is to proceed without and against the Rules of our Laws with a non obstante to all other Laws and every Man is required to assist their Arbitrary Powers on peril of their Censures which extend to imprisonment for Life 4. All our Ministers are required under grievous menaced Penalties to be the Kings Cryers to Proclaim in the Churches the Kings Power to suspend at once the force and use of all our Penal Laws made in 400 Years past to secure the Rights of the Crown the freedoms and properties of the Realm and the profession of the Protestant Religion 5. All the Protestants are forced by fear of the Kings Wrath to suffer the Rights of the Crown and the freedom of the Realm against Foreign Powers and Laws to be publickly denied and the force of Foreign Laws over them to be maintained they are injoined by the King to neglect their sworn duties to God to the Crown and Kingdom of prosecuting at Law those Treasons which they know and see to be daily committed for which no excuse can be made by pretence of Liberty of Conscienâ—e in Christs Religion 6. The Constables and other Officers throughout the Realm are forced to quarter Irish and Scots and oâ—her mercenary Souldiers in their Neighbours Houses against their Wills in contempt of the Ancient Laws and the express Words of the late Statutes 7. All the Gentlemen and Free-holders are pressed to renounce their native and legal freedom in their choice of Members for Parliament 8. The Freemen of the Cities and Towns are urged to yield up to the Kings Will the Tenure of their Magistracies and all their free Customs and Priviledges 9. All the People are forced by fear of Punishments to suffer a Child to be