become as subject to him notwithstanding his Infallibility as the Mufty is to the Grand Signior who never makes any Scruple to depose or bow-string the Infallible Gentleman whenever he crosseth his Designs and to set up another in his stead whose Infallibility will be more complaisant The Emperor of Germany is as religious and as zealous a Prince for the Roman Catholick Religion as ever sprung out of that Family But he has no mind after all to lose his Life his Empire and his Liberty he had rather there should be some Hereticks in Germany than to suffer the French King to send his Apostolick Dragoons to convert them and drive him into Exile The King of Spain values the poor dispeopl'd share he has yet left him in Europe too well to put it into the Hands of the French in order to the reducing the Northern Hereticks to the See of Rome No wonder then that these Princes should all unite with his now Majesty of England against a Prince of their own Religion when they saw he had embraced a design which would certainly end in his and all their Ruins and which would raise France to such an height of Power as could never be retrieved This was very near the state of Affairs at home and abroad when Monsieur the Comte d' Avaux the French King's Ambassador at the Hague the 9th of September last published this Memorial which first opened the Eyes of our small States-men here in England My Lords THe sincere desire the King my Master has to maintain the Tranquility of Europe will not suffer his Majesty to see the great Preparations for War both by Sea and Land made by your Lordships without taking the measures that Prudence the continual Companion of all his Actions inspires him with to prevent the Mischiefs these War-like Preparations will certainly draw after them And altho' the King perswaded of the Wisdom of your Councils would not imagine that a Free state should so easily resolve to take up Arms and to kindle a War which in the present Juncture cannot but be fatal to all Christendom Nevertheless his Majesty cannot believe your Lordships would engage your selves in so great Expences both at home and abroad to entertain in pay so many Foreign Troops to put to Sea so numerous a Fleet so late in the year and to prepare so great Magazines if you had not a design form'd answerble to the greatness of these Preparations All these Circumstances and many others that I may not here produce perswade the King my Master with reason that this Arming threatens England Wherefore his Majesty hath commanded me to declare to you on his part That the Bands of Friendship and Alliance between him and the King of Great Britain will oblige him not only to assist him but also to look on the first act of Hostility that shall be committed by your Troops or your Fleet against his Majesty of Great Britain as a manifest Rupture of the Peace and a Breach with his Crown I leave to your Lordships Prudence to reflect on the Consequences that such Enterprises may have his Majesty not having ordered me to make you this Declaration on his Part without his sincere Intention to prevent as I have already had the Honour to tell you all that may trouble the Peace of Europe Given at the Hague the 9th of September 1688. month September In England all things were then in the utmost degree of Disorder and Security the Army committing the utmost degree of Insolence in all places where they were quartered and the People making frequent and loud Complaints Whereupon his late Majesty issued out again an old Order which had been frequently and to no good purpose published before commanding that no Souldier should be lodged in any private House without the free and voluntary Consent of the Owner and that all Houses should be deem'd private Houses except Victualling-Houses and Houses of publick Entertainment or such as have License to sell Wine or any other Liquor c. Under this pretence they brought in all Bakers Cooks c. This Order bears date the 2d of September at Windsor Tho' the English Army were become thus intolerable to the Nation and there was so great a Storm gathering in Holland yet so stupid were our Drivers that nothing would serve our then Masters but the filling the Army with Irish men who were likely to be more disorderly and more hated to that end Major Slingsby Lieutenant Governour of Portsmouth under his Grace the Duke of Berwick had ordered the Regiment there quartered to take in about thirty Irish Gentlemen which was opposed by John Beaumont Lieutenant Coll. Thomas Pastor Simon Parke Thomas Orme William Cook and John Port Officers and Commanders in that Regiment which they had rais'd at their own Costs and Charges during the Monmouth Invasion The first of these made this Speech by their appointment and in all their names to the Duke of Berwick Sir I am desired by these Gentlemen with whose Sense I concur to inform your Grace that we do not think it consistent with our Honours to have Foreigners imposed upon us without being complain'd of that our Companies were weak or Orders to recruit them not doubting but if such Orders had been given us We that first in very ill times raised them Hundreds could easily now have made them according to the Kings Complement We humbly Petition we may have leave to fill up our Companies with such men of our Nation we may judge most suitable for the Kings Service and to support our Honours or that we may be permitted with all imaganable Duty and Respect to lay down our Commissions The Account of this Opposition being forthwith sent to Windsor where the Court then was the Rage and Fury against these rebellious heretical Officers was unspeakable and in truth nothing could be more contrary to their Designs which was by degrees to fill up the English Army with Irish and Roman Catholicks because they found it was not possible to do it at once as they had done in Ireland And now nothing would serve them but the hanging the six honest Gentlmen by Martial Law and accordingly a Party of Horse were ordered to go down to Portsmouth to bring them up in custody and a Court Martial was ordered to proceed against them and if the Memorial of the French Ambassador had not â—ome in that very Morning to shew them their danger â—n all probability they had been so treated but upon this the â—0th of September they were only casheer'd after they had on the Road been treated with great Severity and Indignity However this was one of those things which contributed very much to what followed The 20th of September the King being then returned with the Court to Whitehall published this Declaration HAving already signified Our pleasure to call a Parliament to meet at Our City of Westminster in November next and Writs of Summon being issued accordingly lest
however the Roman Catholicks from this time forward were studiously avoided no man fearing any trouble from any body else as in truth I never heard of any man that was prosecuted on this account The 28th of October the Earl of Sunderland was removed from the Office of Principal Secretary of State and the Lord Viscount Preston put in his room This Change pleased all men but it came too late As the Cause of the Dismission of the Earl of Sunderland was then wholly unknown so it gave occasion to the reviving a Report that had been spread not long before upon the Imprisonment of Sir Bevil Skelton the English Ambassador in France that there had lately been a League concluded between the King of England and France for the Extirpation of the Protestant Religion here and the establishing Popery and Arbitrary Government to which end the French King was as was said to send a considerable Army and great Sums of Money into England and as it was before pretended that Skelton being a Protestant had discovered this Transaction to the Prince of Orange So it was now said Sunderland had lost the Original League out of his Scritore and that it was carried over to the Prince of Orange who would produce it to the Parliament of England But since that the Earl of Sunderland has published a Letter wherein he has given a larger Account of the true Cause of his being laid aside than is any where else to be met with and therefore I think it reasonable to add it here The Earl of Sunderland 's Letter to a Friend in London published March 23d 1689. TO comply with what you desire I will explain some things which we talked of before I left England I have been in a Station of a great noise without Power or Advantage whilst I was in it and to my Ruin now I am out of it I know I cannot justifie my self by saying though it is true that I thought to have prevented much Mischief for when I found that I could not I ought to have quitted the Service neither is it an Excuse that I have got none of those things which usually engage men in publick Affairs My Quality is the same it ever was and my Estate much worse even ruin'd tho' I was born to a very considerable one which I am ashamed to have spoiled tho' not so much as if I had encreased it by indirect means But to go on to what you expect The pretence to a Dispensing Power being not only the first thing which was much disliked since the death of the late King but the foundation of all the rest I ought to begin with that which I had so little to do with that I never heard it spoken of till the time of Monmouth's Rebellion that the King told some of the Council of which I was one that he was resolved to give Employments to Roman Catholicks it being fit that all persons should serve who could be useful and on whom he might depend I think every body advised him against it but with little effect as was soon seen That Party was so well pleased with that the King had done that they perswaded him to mention it in his Speech at the next meeting of the Parliament which he did after many Debates whether it was proper or not in all which I opposed it as is known to very considerable Persons some of which were of another opinion for I thought it would engage the King too far and it did give such offence to the Parliament that it was thought necessary to prorogue it after which the King fell immediately to the supporting the Dispensing Power the most Chimerical thing that was ever thought of and must be so till the Government here is as absolute as in Turkey all Power being included in that one This is the sense I ever had of it and when I heard Lawers defend it I never changed my Opinion or Language however it went on most of the Judges being for it and was the chief business of the State till it was looked on as setled Then the Ecclesiastical Court was set up in which there being so many considerable men of several kinds I could have but a small part and that after Lawyers had told the King it was legal and nothing like the High Commission Court I can most truly say and it is well known that for a good while I defended Magdalen Colledge purely by care and industry and have hundreds of times begg'd of the King never to grant Mandates or to change any thing in the regular course of Ecclesiastical Affairs which he often thought reasonable and then by perpetual Importunities was prevailed upon against his ownsense which was the very case of Magdalen Colledge as of some others These things which I endeavoured though without Success drew upon me the Anger and Ill-will of many about the King. The next thing to be try'd was to take off the Penal Laws and the Tests so many having promised their concurrence towards it that his Majesty thought it feasible but he soon found it was not to be done by that Parliament which made all the Catholicks desire it might be dissolv'd which I was so much against that they complained of me to the King as a man who ruined all his Designs by opposing the only thing could carry them on Liberty of Conscience being the Foundation on which he was to build That it was first offered at by the Lord Clifford who by it had done the work even in the late King's time if it had not been for his weakness and the weakness of his Ministers Yet I hindred the Dissolution several Weeks by telling the King that the Parliament in Being would do every thing he could desire but the taking off the Penal Laws and the Tests or the allowing his Dispensing Power and that any other Parliament tho' such a one could be had as was proposed would probably never repeal those Laws and if they did they would certainly never do any thing for the support of the Government whatever exigency it might be in At that time the King of Spain was sick upon which I said often to the King that if he should die it would be impossible for his Majesty to preserve the peace of Christendom that a War must be expected and such a one as would chiefly concern England and that if the present Parliament continued he might be sure of all the help and service he could wish but in case he dissolv'd it he must give over all thoughts of fereign Affairs for no other would ever assist him but on such terms as would ruine the Monarchy so that from abroad or at home he would be destroy'd if the Parliament were broken and any accident should happen of which there were many to make the aid of his People necessary to him This and much more I said to him several times privately and in the hearing of others But being over-power'd
to them and they again returned the Complement in such Rhetorical Addresses that it was verily thought the Church of England Party would very easily have been given up for a Sacrifice to the kind sincere well-meaning Catholicks But our Dissenters were not so easily wheedled into a forgetfulness of what they had so lately suffered and altho' they gave the Fathers many good words and fair Promises yet when they had opportunity they gave such bold hints of their Resolution to defeat the Expectations of these Gentlemen that I protest I wondred at nothing more than to see them so sar infatuated as to believe they should ever reap any Advantage from our Non-cons They were however ingaged and therefore they must go on be the Event what it would and finding it would be a work of time and that it was not possible James II. should live to see it effected and that after his death the Succession of the then Princess of Orange would put an end to all this Babel of Confusion they had with so much Labour and Hazard erected They resolved in the next place to take care for a Catholick Successor to finish this great Work. And in truth it was a Project worthy of such bold Undertakers if they could have as easily deluded the English Nation as they frequently do those who have a mighty fondness for Miracles and had rather be deceived than find out the Legerdemains of the Priesthood But then this was so highly improbable that I wonder they ever entred into it and that none of the Fathers have yet told us that we ought not to think it possible for them to be such Fools as to attempt to impose in a matter of that Consequence upon so learned so curious so distrustful and fierce a Nation as this of England is I assure them this Argument would have more force than all the Depositions they have printed in that case and engage many to espouse their Quarrel out of pure Piquantry How far they might yet have gone and what would in the end have been the consequence of this formal Plot upon our Lives Liberties and Religion is known to none but God They looked upon the Protestant or British Interest in Ireland as wholly at their Mercy Scotland was in such a condition that nothing could be begun there which would not termiin the ruin of the Undertakers And England was so divided in Interest and Religion that they expected a considerable Body of the Protestants would lend them their assistance to ruine the rest and therefore call'd them their Scaffolds France the most Potent of our Neighbours was apparently engag'd in the same Design Denmark and Sweden engaged against each other in the Quarrel of the Duke of Holstein The Protestant Princes in Germany were either awed by the French or divided between the Northern Crowns Spain was weak and unable to defend it self and too Catholick at last to espouse heartily the Interests of a Protestant Nation against a Roman Catholick Prince so that they had nothing to fear but the States of Holland and the Prince of Orange And they looked upon the States as a knot of Merchants more intent upon their Trade than concern'd for the Fate of England and yet if they should attempt any thing England and France by Sea and Land would easily reduce them into the same state they were in in the year 1672. Now supposing the French King who is so zealous a Roman Catholick had not so vigorously and as far as I can see so impolitickly carried on the Controversie with the Pope about the Franchises of his Ambassador at Rome and that he had had the patience to suffer the Emperor to recover what his Ancestors had lost to the Turks and left the Controversies between the Elector Palatine who is a Roman Catholick and the Dutchess of Orleans to the determination of the Pope what had France lost in all this And who then could have made one step to the Recovery of England I know very well it is said the Emperor would certainly begin a War with France so soon as ever he had ended this with the Turks to his mind And in truth he had just reason so to do But it is more probable he would have spent first some years in fortifying peopling and setling his new Conquests to secure himself on that side against his most formidable Neighbour rather than that he would presently transfer his Arms and victorious Armies from the East to the West and pass so suddenly from one long and ruinous War to another of no less hazard and expence And yet if he had done so the Princes of the Empire would never so heartily and generally have joyned with him against France if he had been the Aggressor how just soever his cause had been as it might easily have been foreseen they would when they were first attack'd and as it were forced to flie to the Emperor for his Protection So that it was apparently the Interest of France to have sate still and to have taken the first opportunity had offered it self to have enslaved the first of his Neighbours that had call'd him to their assistance and our English Jesuits did not doubt but that he would In the Interim it was well for England that the French King acted as he did for to him in a great measure our Delivery is owing tho' he never intended it his Breach with the Pope and the Empire having not only given the Dutch a pretence to arm by Sea and Land and so blinded the Eyes of our English Court that they never saw nor would believe themselves concern'd in it till it was too late to help it But it also united not only all the Protestant but all the Catholick Princes too except France in the Project of delivering us for their own security that we might be in a condition to unite with them again for the preservation of Europe from following the triumphant Chariot of France in Chains His late Majesty seems to have been the only Prince in Christendom who made it his great and almost only design to advance the Interests of the Church of Rome without and against his own temporal Interest The rest of the Princes and their Council look in the first place to their own Concerns at home and abroad and make the Affairs of Religion subservient to their other Designs The Pope is not so fond of his old Mumpsimus or of the Decrees of the Council of Trent it self as to suffer France to conquer Italy Spain or Germany no nor England nor Holland neither how much soever it might seem to facilitate their Reduction to the See of Rome because he knows very well the first Prince that shall make himself the Universal Monarch of Europe or gain such a power over the rest as is not to be disputed or opposed will certainly put an end to the Soveraignty Wealth Grandeur and Independency of the Court of Rome and the Pope will
such Laws as may establish a good agreement between the Church of England and all Protestant Dissenters as also for the covering and securing of all such who will live peaceably under the Government as becomes good Subjects from all Persecution upon the account of their Religion even Papists themselves not excepted and for the doing of all other things which the Two Houses of Parliament shall find necessary for the Peace Honour and Safety of the Nation so that there may be no more danger of the Nations falling at any time hereafter under Arbitrary Government To this Parliament we will also refer the Enquiry into the Birth of the pretended Prince of Wales and of all things relating to it and to the Right of Succession 22. And We for our part will concur in every thing that may procure the Peace and Happiness of the Nation which a Free and Lawful Parliament shall determin Since we have nothing before our Eyes in this our Undertaking but the Preservation of the Protestant Religion the Covering of all Men from Persecution for their Consciences and the securing to the whole Nation the free enjoyment of all their Laws Rights and Liberties under a Just and Legal Government 23. This is the Design that we have proposed to our selves in appearing upon this occasion in Arms In the Conduct of which We will keep the Forces under our Command under all the strictness of Martial Discipline and take a special care that the People of the Countries through which we must march shall not suffer by their means and as soon as the state of the Nation will admit of it We promise that we will send back all those Foreign Forces that we have brought along with us 24. We do therefore hope that all People will judge rightly of us and approve of these our Proceedings But we chiefly rely on the Blessing of God for the Success of this our Undertaking in which we place our whole and only Confidence 25. We do in the last place invite and require all Persons whatsoever all the Peers of the Realm both Spiritual and Temporal all Lords Lieutenants Deputy Lieutenants and all Gentlemen Citizens and other Commons of all ranks to come and assist us in order to the Executing of this our Design against all such as shall endeavour to Oppose us that so we may prevent all those Miseries which must needs follow upon the Nations being kept under Arbitrary Government and Slavery And that all the Violences and Disorders which have overturned the whole Constitution of the English Government may be fully redressed in a FREE AND LEGAL PARLIAMENT 26. And we do likewise resolve that as soon as the Nations are brought to a state of Quiet We will take care that a Parliament shall be called in Scotland for the restoring the Ancient Constitution of that Kingdom and for bringing the Matters of Religion to such a Settlement that the People may live easie and happy and for putting an end to all the injust Violences that have been in a course of so many years committed there 27. We will also study to bring the Kingdom of Ireland to such a state that the Settlement there may be religiously observed and that the Protestant and British Interest there may be secured And we will endeavour by all possible means to procure such an Establishment in all the Three Kingdoms that they may all live in a happy Union and Correspondence together and that the Protestant Religion and the Peace Honour and Happiness of those Nations may be established upon lasting Foundations Given under our Hand and Seal at our Court in the Hague the Tenth Day of October in the Year of our Lord 1688. WILLIAM HENRY PRINCE OF ORANGE By his Highness's special Command C. HUY GENS THus you have an exact and full Account of the Prince of Orange 's Declaration And can you find one word of a Treaty with France to extirpate all Protestants Or can you imagine that if they had the least Reason for such a Talk they who aggravate every little thing would let this Declaration pass without the least mentioning of what is so momentous and important And is there any thing more than a violent Presumption suggested about the Prince of Wales And is the very Noise of such a Presumption reason enough to justifie a real War As for tâ—e other things urg'd are they not redressable by a Parliament and so far as it 's possible without one already Redressed 'T is a Parliament then that is the main thing to be insisted on which though Chosen as the last was would be too see le an Argument to clear the present Invasion from the charge of being Injust and Vnrighteous The Great Men of this Kingdom ever thought a Parliament Irregularly Chosen more eligible than either a War or a rash Enquiry into the manner of the Choice Did Queen Elizabeth 's Parliament admit of a Words being spoken to bring Queen Mary 's Parliament into doubt Did they not look on it as most dangerous to do so And although by the Triennial Bill the long Parliament in the late King's Reign was actually Dissolved Nine Months before it thought on the Repeal thereof yet even after 't was destroyed by it the Dissolved Parliament sate and repealed the Dissolving Bill and made the Conventicle-Act the Test-Laws repealed the Writ De Haeretico Comburendo and pass'd the Habeas Corpus Bill into a Law. But was the Assembly that acted thus Irregularly ever call'd to an Account for it or any of their Laws declared Void and Null Or was it ever esteemed a Good Reason for a War And yet this is much more than hath been ever done by His Present Majesty Besides 't was the late King that took away the Charters and those who were entring on violent Courses for their Restauration were proclaimed Traytâ—rs and several executed for it while all the Pulpits throughout England sounded of the Horridness Blackness Vileness Devilishness of that Conspiracy And is what was Black and Horrid then become Noble Great Generous and Glorious now Thus much was also a part of the late Duke of Monmouth 's Declaration and yet as Parliament chosen by the Garbled Corporations proclaim'd him a raytor and Attainted him But doth the Blood of Monmouth as well as of the fore-mentioned Conspirators and of all those in the West lye on the Judges Juries Nobility and other Gentry of the Church of England that had a hand in condemning such as by violent Methods would have restor'd the Charters If these things could not vindicate the Presbyterian Plotters in the late King's Reign or Monmouth 's Rebellion it cannot excuse the present Vndertaking for this doth infinitely exceed those and the Civil War too for neither of them brought in a Foreign Power upon us as now is done But it must be observed that how great soever our Grievances have been yet now all that Relief that can reasonably de desired
the Laws and to their Country And whereas we are certainly informed that great numbers of Armed Papists have of late resorted to London and Westminster and Parts adjacent where they remain as we have reason to suspect not so much for their own Security as out of a wicked and barbarous Design to make some desperate Attempts upon the said Cities and the Inhabitants by Fire or a sudden Massacre or both or else to be the more ready to joyn themselves to a Body of French Troops designed if it be possible to land in England procured of the French King by the Interest and Power of the Jesuits in pursuance of the Engagements which at the Instigation of that pestilent Society his Most Christian Majesty with one of his Neighbouring Princes of the same Communion has entred into for the utter Extirpation of the Protestant Religion out of Europe Though we hope we have taken such effectual care to prevent the one and secure the other that by God's assistance we cannot doubt but we shall defeat all their wicked Enterprises and Designs We cannot however forbear out of our great and tender concern we have to preserve the People of England and particularly those great and populous Cities from the cruel Rage and bloody Revenge of the Papists to require and expect from all the Lord-Lieutenants and Justices of the Peace Lord Mayors Mayors Sheriffs and other Magistrates and Officers Civil and Military of all Counties Cities and Towns of England especially of the County of Middlesex and Cities of London and Westminster and Parts adjacent that they do immediately disarm and secure as by Law they may and ought within their respective Counties Cities and Jurisdictions all Papists whatsoever as Persons at all times but now especially most dangerous to the Peace and Safety of the Government that so not only all power of doing Mischief may be taken from them but that the Laws which are the greatest and best Security may resume their force and be strictly executed And we do hereby likewise declare That we will protect and defend all those who shall not be afraid to to do their Duty in Obedience to these Laws And that for those Magistrates and others of what condition soever they be who shall refuse to assist Us and in Obedience to the Laws to execute vigorously what we have required of them and suffer themselves at this juncture to be cajolled or terrified out of their Duty we will esteem them the most Criminal and Infamous of all Men Betrayers of their Religion the Laws and their Native Country and shall not fail to treat them accordingly resolving to expect and require at their hands the Life of every single Protestant that shall perish and every House that shall be burnt and destroyed by Treachery and Cowardize Given under our Hand and Seal at our Head Quarters at Sherburn Castle the Twenty eight of November 1688. WILLIAM HENRY PRINCE OF ORANGE By his Highness's special Command C. HUYGENS. This was the boldest Attempt that ever was made by a private Person for it is certain the Prince knew nothing of this Declaration and disowned it so soon as he heard of it but yet it was printed in London and a quantity of them were sent in a Penny-Post Letter to the Lord Mayor of London who forthwith carried them to the King to Whitehall and it is thought this sham Paper contributed very much to the fixing and hastning his Resolution of leaving the Nation however there was no enquiry made after the Author or Printer of it that I could take notice of On Sunday the Ninth of December it is said Count Dada the Pope's Nuncio and many others departed from Whitehall and the next Morning about three or four of the Clock the Queen the Child and as was said Father Peters crossed the Water to Lambeth in three Coaches each of six Horses and with a strong Guard went to Greenwich and so to Gravesend where they imbarked on a Yatch for France And it is supposed she carried the Great Seal of England with her it having never appeared after this Before this the Marquiss of Hallifax the Earl of Nottingham and the Lord Godolphin had been sent by the King and Council to treat with the Prince of Orange and to adjust the Preliminaries in order to the holding of a Parliament who the Eighth of December sent these Proposals to him SIR THe King commanded us to acquaint you That he observeth all the differences and causes of Complaint alledged by your Highness seem to be referred to a Free Parliament His Majesty as he hath already declared was resolved before this to call one but thought that in the present state of Affairs it was advisable to defer it till things were more composed yet seeing that his People still continue to desire it he hath put forth his Proclamation in order to it and hath issued forth his Writs for the Calling of it And to prevent any cause of Interruption in it he will consent to every thing that can be reasonably required for the Security of all those that come to it His Majesty hath therefore sent us to attend your Highness for the adjusting of all Matters that shall be agreed to be necessary to the Freedom of Elections and the Security of Sitting and is ready to enter immediately into a Treaty in order to it His Majesty proposeth that in the mean time the respective Armies may be retained within such Limits and at such distance from London as may prevent the Apprehensions that the Parliament may be in any kind disturbed being desirous that the Meeting may be no longer delay'd than it must be by the usual and necessary Forms Hungerford the 8th of December 1688. Hallifax Nottingham Godolphin To this his Royal Highness the Prince of Orange return'd this Answer WE with the Advice of the Lords and Gentlemen assembled with Us have in Answer made these following Proposals I. That all Papists and such Persons as are not qualified by Law be Disarmed Disbanded and removed from all Employments Civil and Military II. That all Proclamations that reflect upon Us or at any time have come to Us or declared for Us be recalled and that if any Persons for having assisted Us have been Committed that they be forthwith set at Liberty III. That for the Security and Safety of the City of London the Custody and Government of the Tower be immediately put into the Hands of the said City IV. That if His Majesty should think fit to be in London during the Sitting of the Parliament that We may be there also with an equal number of our Guards and if his Majesty shall be pleased to be in any place from London whatever distance he thinks fit that We may be the same distance and that the respective Armies be from London forty Miles and that no further Forces be brought into the Kingdom V. And that for the Security of the City of London and their Trade
some that wished well to the King said he was cunningly invited back to Whitehall with a design to ruine him the more effectually and without any pity from his Protestant Subjects The Peers at Windsor did not think it reasonable hearing this that the Prince of Orange should accept the King's Invitation and venture his Person in the same place for this they had another good reason the Duke of Grafton marching through the Strand on the Fourteenth day at the Head of a Foot Regiment of Guards to take the Fort of Tilbury out of the hands of the Irish by the Order of the Council an Irish Trooper came riding up to him and being beaten off by the Soldiers drew a Pistol against him for which he was shot dead upon the place And it was not improbable there were more of the same temper Hereupon the Peers at Windsor resolved to send the Prince's Guards to take Possession of the Posts about Whitehall to prevent all possibility of a Disturbance from Guards belonging to two several Masters which besides other ill Consequences might have perhaps involved the King 's own Person in the danger that might have arisen from any Dispute These Guards got not to London before Ten at Night being commanded by Count Solmes and the Guards then on Duty not being willing to dislodge it was Twelve at Night before the Lords could deliver the Paper they had brought from Windsor of which they first sent this Account to Secretary Middleton My Lord THere is a Message to be delivered to His Majesty from the Prince which is of so great Importance that we who are charged with it desire we may be immediately admitted and therefore desire to know where we may find your Lordship that you may introduce My Lord Your Lordship 's most Humble Servants Hallifax Shrewsbury Delamere He accordingly presently introduced them the King being by that time in Bed. Where they made an Apology for coming at so unseasonable a time and delivering him the Paper the King read it and said he would comply with it Upon which the Lords humbly desired he would remove so early as to be at Ham by Noon to prevent meeting the Prince in his way to London where he was to come the same day His Majesty readily agreed to this too and asked whether he might not appoint what Servants should attend him to which the Lords replied That it was left to him to give order in that as he pleased and so took their leave of him When they were gone as far as the Privy-Chamber the King sent for them again and told them He had forgot to acquaint them with his Resolutions before the Message came To send my Lord Godolphin next Morning to the Prince to propose his going back to Rochester he finding by the Message Monsieur Zulestein was charged with the Prince had no mind he should be at London and therefore he now desired he might rather return to Rochester than go to any other place The Lords replied That they would immediately send an Account to the Prince of what His Majesty desired and they did not doubt of such an Answer as would be to his Satisfaction Accordingly they sent to him who was then at Sion and before Eight next Morning there came a Letter from Monsieur Benting by the Prince's Order agreeing to the King's Proposal of going to Rochester whereupon he went the Guards being made ready and Boats prepared that Night to Gravesend in his own Barge attended by the Earl of Arran and some few others The same day Dec. the 18th about Three in the Afternoon his Highness the Prince of Orange came to St. James's attended by Monsieur Schomberg and a great number of the Nobility and Gentry and was entertain'd with a Joy and Concourse of the People which appeared free and unconstrained and all the Bells in the City were rung and Bon-fires in every Street The King continued at Rochester till the 23. of December and then about one or two in the morning privately withdrew himself taking only with him Mr. Ra. Sheldon and Mr. Delabady he went towards Dover and embarqued in a Vessel laid ready for his Transportation for France The Queen who went hence the 10th arrived the 11th at Calais and was in great pain not knowing what had happened in England for the King whom she expected every tide The King before he withdrew this second time wrote and left behind him this following Letter which was afterwards printed by his Order in London His Majesty's Reasons for withdrawing Himself from Rochester Writ with his own Hand and ordered by him to be Published THE World cannot wonder at my withdrawing my self now this second time I might have expected somewhat better usage after what I writ to the Prince of Orange by my Lord Feversham and the Instructions I gave him but instead of an Answer such as I might have hoped for what was I to expect after the usage I received by the making the said Earl a Prisoner against the Practice and Law of Nations the sending his own Guards at Eleven at Night to take Possession of the Posts at Whitehall without advertising me in the least manner of it the sending to me at One of the Clock at midnight when I was in Bed a kind of Order by three Lords to be gone out of my Palace before Twelve that same morning After all this How could I hope to be safe so long as I was in the power of one who had not only done this to me and invaded my Kingdoms without any just occasion given him for it but that did by his first Declaration lay the greatest Aspersion on me that malice could invent in that clause of it which concerns my Son I appeal to all that know me nay even to himself that in their Consciences neither he nor they can believe me in the least capable of so unnatural a Villany nor of so little common Sence to be imposed on in a thing of such nature as that What had I then to expect from one who by all Arts hath taken such pains to make me appear as Black as Well to my own people as well as to all the World besides What effect that hath had at home all Mankind hath seen by so general a defection in my Army as well as in the Nation amongst all sorts of people I was born free and desire to continue so and tho I have ventured my Life very frankly on several occasions for the Good and Honour of my Country and am as free to do it again and which I hope I shall yet do as old as I am to Redeem it from the Slavery it is like to fall under yet I think it not convenient to expose my self to be secured as not to be at Liberty to effect it and for that Reason to withdraw but so as to be within Call whensoever the Nation 's Eyes shall be opened so as to see how they have been imposed upon
enroll'd in Parliament and Chancery which is as followeth My Lords and Gentlemen THis is certainly the Greatest Proof of the Trust you have in us that can be given which is the thing that maketh us value it the more and we thankfully accept what you have offered And as I had no other intention in my coming hither than to Preserve Your Religion Laws and Liberties So you may be sure that I shall endeavour to Support them and shall be willing to concur in any thing that shall be for the Good of the Kingdom and to do all that is in my Power to Advance the Wellfare and Glory of the Nation Thus ended that Stupendious Revolution in England which we have so lately seen to the great Joy of the Generality of the Protestants of Europe and of many of the Catholick Princes and States who were at last convinced that the attempting to force England to return under the Obedience of the See of Rome in the present conjuncture of Affairs would certainly end in the ruine of this potent Kingdom and whilest it was doing the present French King would possess himself of the remainder of the Spanish Netherlands and the Palatinate and perhaps of the Electorates of Cologne Ments and Triers a great part of which he hath actually seized whilest the Prince of Orange was thus Gloriously asserting the English Liberty The true reasons of the Swiftness of this Change may easily be assigned by shewing the temper and designs of James the II. The Temper of William the III. our Present Soveraign and The Nature of the English Nation and of the times all concurring with Wonderful Harmony to produce this wonderful effect For had James the II. undertook any thing but the subjecting England to Popery and the Exercise of an Arbitrary Power to that end his vast Revenue and personal Valour and the Reputation he had gained at home and abroad by the defeat of the Monmouth Invasion would have gone near to have effected it and after all this if he had in the beginning of October frankly granted all the Ten Proposals made by the Bishops and suffered a Parliament to have met and given up a confiderable number of his Ministers to Justice and suffered the pretended Prince of Wales his Birth to be freely debated and determin'd in Parliament It would in all probability have prevented or defeated the then intended Invasion But whilest he thought to save the Pretended Succession the Dispensing and Suspending power and the Ecclesiastical Commission to carry on his former design with when he had baffl'd the Prince of Orange the Nation saw through the project and he lost all Had a Prince of less secrecy prudence courage and interest than the Prince of Orange undertaken this business it might probably have miscarried but as his cause was better so his reputation conduct and patience infinitely exceeded theirs he would not stir till he saw the French Forces set down before Philipsbourg and then he was sure France and Germany were irrevocably ingaged in a War and consequently he should have no other opposition than what the Irish and English Roman Catholicks could make against him For no English Protestant would fight his Country into Vassalage and Slavery to Popish Priests and Italian Women when a Parliament sooner or later must at last have determin'd all the things in Controversie except we resolved once for all to give up our Religion Laws Liberties and Estates to the will of our King and submit for ever to a French Government A Nation of less sense than the English might have been imposed upon of less bravery and valour might have been frighted of a more servile temper might have neglected its Liberties till it had been too late to have ever recovered them again But none but a parcel of Jesuits bred in a Cloister and unacquainted with our temper as well as Constitution would ever have hoped to have carried two such things as Popery and Arbitrary power both at once upon so jealous a Nation as the English is which hates them above any other people in the World. The cruel slaughter they had made of the poor wretches they took after the defeat at Bridgwater ought to have made them for ever despair of gaining any credit with the Dissenters who rarely forgive but never forget any ill treatment Yet these little Politico's had so little sense as to build all their hopes on the Gratitude and Insensibility of these men as if they should for Liberty of Conscience arbitrarily and illegally granted and consequently revocable at the will of the Granter have sold themselves to everlasting slavery They were equally mistaken in their carriage towards the Church of England party for when some of them had pursued both Clergy and Laity with the utmost obloquy hatred oppression and contempt to the very moment they found the Dutch storm would fall upon them Then all at once they passed to the other extream the Bishops are presently sent for the Government intirely to be put into their hands and all places Presses and Papers fill'd with the Encomiums of the Church of England's Loyalty and Fidelity who but three days before were Male-contents if not Rebels and Traytors for opposing the Kings Dispensing power and the Ecclesiastical Commission And which was the height of folly the same Pen which had been hired to defame and blacken the Church of England the Author of the Publick Occurrences truly stated was ordered to magnifie its Loyalty By which they gained nothing but the intire and absolute disobliging the whole Protestant party in the Nation so that for the future no body would serve or trust them To compleat their folly and madness they perswaded the King to throw up the Government and retire into France pretending we would never be able to agree amongst our selves but would in a short time be forced to recal him and yield to all those things we had so violently opposed or if not he might yet at least force us to submit by the succours he might gain in France without ever considering how possible it was we might agree and how difficult it would be to force us by a French Army which was equally contrary to the Interest of England and all Europe besides and to all intents and purposes destructive of the Interest of that Prince they pretended thus to exalt and re-establish Had France been now in Peace there might yet have been some colour for this but when all Europe was under a necessity to unite against him for its own preservation then to perswade the King of Great Britain to desert his Throne and fly thither for succour upon hopes of recovering his Kingdoms again by the assistance of the French the mortal and hereditary enemies of the English this was so silly a project that there seems to have been something of a Divine Infatuation in it However certainly no rational man will think that all the Princes of Europe would sit still and