â—rthurum Haeredem â—am legiâ—imum si â—ine haerede moreretur Paris in vit R. this Princes Care he took in appointing his Nephew Arthur to Succeed him tho he had a Brother of his own to whom he had shown a liberal largess of his Love when he began to Reign in bestowing on him no less than half a dozen Earldoms a good part of his Kingdom Certainly this Earl John was nearer to him in Blood and Affection and then what cou'd move him to this Testamentary Disposition but the more nearness of the other to the Kingdom and the Crown But in spight of all Adoption and Right JOHN as great an Usurper as any laid hold of the Scepter and held it too only as some of our Tenures in Law by primer occupancy he had his Brothers Army in the field and that was then enough to have made a King of a Cromwel an Hewson a Brewer or a Cobler Vid. Dan. p. 108. Baker Stow say Arthur actually did homage to France as King of England powerful Arms that silence any Law But still the Nobility were for maintaining the Right of Succession in Arthur and as they call'd it the usual Custom of Inheritance most of his Provinces in France stood firm to him and so did the King of it and had Fortune favor'd him upon whom for the most part it frowns the Justest pretender he had not been made a Prisoner to his Uncle to whom he was a King and been murder'd by him after the Siege of Mirabel But the Barons rebellious Insurrection soon aveng'd the Barbarous Butchery and but bloody consequences here too attended the Debar'd Right He is forsaken of all his People and the French Kings Son a perfect Forreigner invited in for a King and his end at the last as unnatural as the death he gave to his Nephew And here upon the Coronation of this intruding King John the factious Historian rehearses the Clause of Hubert the Bishop of Canterbury's Speech that declar'd the right to the Crown to consist only in the Election of the People but disingenuously omits the very reason of the self same Prelate who when he was pincht with the Interrogatory why he would preach up such pernicious Principles own'd it more a Design of Policy than the Sense of his Soul But to give him a perfect Vid. Paris Edit Lon. vita John Rowland for his Oliver he will find in the Life of Richard the Second a better Bishop making of a more Divine Speech and asserting the Right of Succession more strenuously than ever this designing Metropolitan was able to confute But that worthy Prelates Doctrine did no way countenance our Authors seditious Observations and so directly different from his Huberts Vid. Baker Trussel vita Rich. II. Bishop Carlisle's Speech Harangue that he might well pass it by without reading and which must certainly have baffl'd him into Blushes to have read Henry the Third a Prince too young to know his Right much less to be able himself to take Possession of it was presently upon his Fathers Death Crown'd King Certainly upon the Consideration of his Hereditary Right or the Testamentary Donation of his Father whom Paris says he appointed M. Paris vit Joha ad finem primogenitum suum regni constituens Haeredem his Heir as his First-born made the Kingdom swear Fidelity to him sent his Mandatory Letter under the Authority of his Great-Seal to the Sheriff's of the Counties to the Keepers of his Castles that they shou'd all be intent upon the Business and upon his death they show'd themselves as ready to perform it and what can the most factious Regnumque Angliae illi jurare fecit Literas cum sigillo suo munitas advice-comites castellanos direxit ut singuli essent intendentes idem M. P. princip vit Hen. 3. sic Defuncto Johanne convenerunt ut Henricum exaltarent Pen make more of this than an Acknowledgment of Hereditary Right especially when the same Author in the beginning of the young Kings Reign says they only came together to Exalt him to the Throne of his Father and not one word of their Suffrages or Election therefore what could not be proved from matter of Fact must be suggested with an Innuendo and because the good Earl Marshal in a perswasive Speech exhorted them to adhere to their lawful Sovereign it imply'd the Consent of the People requir'd if such an Assent shall make the Kingdom Elective 't will be hard to proveany Hereditary for all people that do not actually Rebel and Oppose must in that sense be said to Consent and Elect and when ever our Kings are Crown'd 't is so far with the Consent of the people that they do not interrupt the Coronation But can he prove in any of his pretended Elections much less here that ever in England they balloted for the Crown or drew Lots for the Kingdom that they had ever any certain number of Electors as in Germany or carried it by Majority of suffrages as in Poland ' tho I believe some of them would make no more of his Majesty than a Bourrough Representative or a County Knight and Scarce allow him the Freedom of a Pole But with what face can he urge it Stow says only he was Crown'd by Common consent p. 175. here when the whole drift of Pembrokes Oration was only to satisfy them the Succession belong'd to the Son and that the French Usurper Lewis would be the ruin of the Realm which Speech was so effectual too that several of the Principal of the Barons notwithstanding that open hatred to his Father in spight of Obligation of an Oath to Lewis they still thought their Loyalty and Allegiance more obliging and revolt from the French-man till all at last deserted of all he abjures his claim and the Kingdom together After he had been first routed by Land at Lincoln by Pembroke the Protector and his fresh supplys at Sea near Dover by Hubert the Governour And the bold Speech of that stout Vid Matt. Paris who told him that if his Master was dead he had left Sons and Daughters alive Souldiers to this powerful Prince when he demanded Dover on the Death of King John was a better Evidence what sense the people had of a Lawful Succession than he from the Marshals can evince that he succeeded by Election and against the Laws of Descent and all that he can pertinently draw from the Protectors Oration is that an Infant King did not speak for himself But if ought be a blot in his Succession 't is what this praejudiced Historian I am sure does not care to Hit and that is the weakness of his Fathers Title that forc't him to strenghten his Sons with a Donation And Elenor the Sister of his Cousen Arthur who had a Stronger right did not dye in five and twenty years after he Paris 1241. In clausurâ Diuturna Carceris sub arcta Custodiae
the Design of the most barbarous Butchery of the best of Kings our late Sovereign Charles the Second with the Assassination of his Royal Brother our present Sovereign For this they had engag'd in the Consults Men of all sorts of Conditions Lords Knights Gentlemen Lawyers Malsters Oylmen Clergy and Lay the first Contrivance was for Assassinating the Royal Brothers as they past by the Rye the House of one Rumbald coming from New-Market but Heaven turn'd a Judgment even into an act of Mercy for their Deliverance and the Fire hapning there made them prevent the Rebels in their return Then the Play-House was propos'd to be the Shambles for this Butchery and several other places but the Conspirators disagreeing in their Approbation hinder'd its execution so soon upon the Discovery of one Keeling an Accomplice touch'd with remorse or apprehension of danger All the Conspirators fly from whom Shaftsbury that Arch-Rebel was before Vid. Lord Russel's Tryal Sidneys c. fled some were afterward found out came in for Evidence upon which several were afterward Convicted and Executed At the Tryal of my Lord Russel the very Morning he was Arraigned the Earl of Essex Committed for the same Conspiracy whether out of sense of Ingratitude to his Royal Sovereign by whom he had been preferr'd to the highest station of a Subject even that of being his Vice-Roy or whether out of fear of his fate and fearful of an Ax dispatcht himself with a Razor For Defaming of the Government the next Plot is to make this a Murther of State and one Braddon out of Seditious industry deals with one Edwards a School-Boy to Testify he saw a Hand throw a Razor out of the Window with this matter well manag'd King and Council Sir Henry Capel and then the whole Kingdom must be canvast for and he having an Indefatigable Desire to fasten a Scandal on the Government as well as an Impudence not to be baffl'd or defeated to solicite the business farther one gets Speke a known Favourer of any thing that is Factious a warm spark that would be soon hot in any such pursuit to lend him a Letter of Recommendation to a Country Knight but with both their bold fronts they could put no such bad face upon the business for it was Discover'd to be the basest Design the most malicious Miscreants could undertake and they both Try'd upon an Feb. 7 1683. Information of High Misdemenor and Subornation that is the Pimps to Perjury for which one was Fin'd one thousand pounds and the other two To second this Unsuccesful Plot about Christmas last they disperse the Decemb. 1684. most Divilish and Malitious Libel that Falshood and Folly could Invent leave it at the doors of the Loyalists and its Design the same with those Suborners to fasten a Murder upon the late King our present one and some Ministers of State with such silly Insinuations as of themselves do defend them from that Villany they would affix first from their being then walking in the Tower and can the most Factious Fool Imagine Can but bare Humane Sense be so silly as to think the Contrivers of such a suppos'd Barbarity would be present at its Execution and look upon it as the likeliest way to keep it private was to appear in it publickly Preposterous Sots Do not contradict the best Evidence that of Common sense tho' you would the Coroners Another is from the Discovery of one Haly that was found Murther'd to be the Warder in whose House the late Lord of Essex lay upon which the Libeller in a long tedious impertinent Discourse Insinuates the probability of that Fellow 's being dispatch'd for fear of telling Tales but how does Heaven infatuate those Fools that it would destroy The falsify'd per-perjur'd Wretch is forc'd to beg the World Pardon in his own Postscript and to tell us the truth in spight of his design to lye that this Unfortunate Fellow that was found Dead was none of this Warder that he meant and that only the similitude of the Name made the mistake then from the disagreeableness of Bomeny's Testimony with the other Informant because not verbatim he says the same therefore they must be both false Seditious Sot Why so senseless too Will not Common reason for that very thing confirm them both to be the more truth for when there is a Conspiracy to make Affidavit of a lye there they can soon confer and commonly do too agree in words as well as substance and sense might well suggest they had learn'd their Lessons pretty perfect upon such a verbal Agreement But this Masterpiece of most Malicious Plot was with more sublimated Malice contracted into a Compendium only that it might be propagated the sooner spread the farther when in short of which Condensed or Abstracted Treason the Spirit and Essence of Sedition one Danvers was Discovered to be the Author a Villain whom the Devil in Design could not render more vile an Anabaptist for Profession an Officer of Olivers for Rebellion and now a Fugitive for fear of Apprehension for whom a Warrant was issued out Posted publisht in the Gazette and an Hundred pounds proffer'd for any to take him As these late Plots and Conspiracies were contriving all along in England so did the Scots carry on the same Treason Argyle an Hereditary Rebel that seem'd to have his Soul and Treason from Extraduce being attainted by the Law of their Land for a Factious Explanation of the Test and tho' Justly Sentenc'd to Suffer yet the Government that had given him his Estate had no design upon his Life makes his Escape out of Prison in which in effect he enjoy'd his Liberty before gets over into Holland confers with our English Fugitives then sends Letters from thence to the Scots to incite them to Rebel some of which were Intercepted upon Major Holms and known to be his own Hand Spence and Castares his own Emissaries Confessing the Correspondence they had with their Rebel Friends in England and the Cochrans Melvil Baily are found to have been here in England and Agitating the Conspiracy for which upon full Evidence the said Robert Baily was * Decemb. 24 1684. Vid. Discoveries in Scotland Printed by his late Majesties Command as also the Account come out in this King's Reign by Order of the late Printed by Authority Convicted had his Arms Expung'd himself Hang'd and his Body Quarterd But notwithstanding all this Evidence as clear as the Sun and all their deeds of Hellish darkness brought into as much light as the Lamp of Heaven it self affords Their infatuated Fools were still so much blinded and besotted as to represent it all for a Plot of the State only for involving some of them in a Conspiracy and the King must be presum'd to design upon himself only to trepan them into Treasonable Designs For this several Letters are dispers'd into the Country some of which being Intercepted were found to be one Sir Samuel Bernadiston's a
how vainly he presumes upon his parts and Invention that he is a double Plagiary not only borrow'd this pernicious project against the present Privy Council from these proposals of our Seditious Senate in England but his very Quarantia of Venice was set up long before he could for an Author by those Zealots that were so resolutely resolv'd to Rebel in Scotland and he shall see those Daemagogues too those Devils of Sedition look't upon it even then as a praeparatory project and the best Expedient for their Invading of the Kingdom and the Crown Their Edenburgh their Metroprolis as well as ours here was then the Seat of Sedition Anno 1638. so truly great that it's Faction and Villany was Commensurate even with it's very Walls And those too when Casually fallen were not suffer'd to be built as if they would have let the World known by praediction their Ominous Treason was to extend further 't was here that the Sycophants at the same time they pretended so much for their Kings preservation that they protested against the pious Prince's Proclamation only for the dispersing of that dangerous Rabble that seem'd to denounce with an Omen what too fatally follow'd his Death and Destruction his Majesties sincerity to them and their Religion was repeated in it often with assurances but what was as Sincerely promis'd from a King by these Monsters of the People was as Rebelliously Ridicul'd with scorn and derision and that the Government might be satisfy'd with a sure report of their Sedition they made those Heralds that Vid. Sir Will. Dugdale's short view 45. p. 48 49 50. proclaim'd their Princes pleasure to witness how much it displeas'd his Rebel Subjects and in defiance to their very Faces read their own Protestation Big thus with Rebellion and Labouring with their teeming Treason at last they are fairly deliver'd of the same Rebel Brat this Republican would adop't for his own a QVARANTIA they Covenant and agree and 't was time to Vnite for a Justification of those Villanies which nought but a Combination could defend for erecting four principal Tables and 't was time too to set up their own Councils when they had so Seditiously resisted their Kings To pursue the Contempt of this Proclamation which by his Majesties Council and Command was publish't for a further Violation of the Regal Authority they set up this truly Popular the first of their four Councels to consist of their Nobility the second of the Gentry the third of their Burgesses and the fourth of their Ministry and the Decrees of these their principal and general Tables as they call'd them as if as Universally to be receiv'd as Moses his Two of Stone what they did and was approv'd of by the Baker 406. General one the Choice Flow'r of all the Four was to be forc't as the Peoples Law but far I am sure from the Fundamental one of the Land from this their Rebellious assuming of the Soveraignty in their pretended Councils as they call'd them too but in truth a Convention of Conspirators proceeded presently the Renewing of their Negative Confession their Band their Covenant impos'd on all sorts of People with artifice force and Blood it self And can a Test now establish't by Authority and Law be look't upon an Imposition even by those that impos'd Oaths Vnlawful and Rebel'd against both it being by them expressly declar'd in two several Acts that all Leagues of Subjects amongst 10. Jac. 6. Act 12. Parl. 9. Regn. Mariae Act 75. themselves without their Princes Privity to be Sedition and their Authors and Abetters to be punish't as movers of such And what did this Venetian Government terminate in in Scotland but a plain Confederacy to confound all and tho the Civil and Courteous contriver of our Ruin and Subversion minces the matter with making his Majesty to Exercise his four Magnalia with the consent of these four Councils 't would puzzle his Politicks to tell me the distinction between them and those principal Tables of the Scot what should confine them from Confederating against their King instead of Consulting for him Plato p. 240. what would signifie his Majesties having a president among those of his own placeing when every one of them would be their own Masters and out of his power to displace what should hinder those from protesting with their old Rebellious Assembly in Scotland against all their Kings desires intentions and Inclinations for the publick good while they presume their own Maxims the wisest and their measures the best and to tell us that these are to give Account and to be answerable to such a Parliament who chuses them is to say a Sidney is the best Judge of the Misdemeanor of a Nevil most qualifi'd to answer his Quaere whether this project be not a better Expedient than the Justitia of Arrogan or the Spartan Ephori or to Plato 242. tell us one that has suffer'd for Treason to a Monarchy is the fittest to Try him that would betray it to a Common-wealth The second Proposition in the Parallel is that Affairs of State be managed by the Parliament or by such Councils as they shall appoint The true Spirit the Life the Soul of Sedition that informes and animates the whole Body of the Faction speakes here the Dictates of this Daemon this Devil of a Republick that has possest the Nation for this five years with greater Phrensy then e're he did before the Restoration when by the very Finger of God he was first cast out and would now return too with more worse than himself only because he finds it swept and garnisht For I desie the most diligent Perusers of the most pernicious Libels that were Printed in 1642. the most Pestilent time when Treason was Epidemick and spread as the Plague it self more than once did and that in their Mighty Babylon their Metropolis too I challenge even those to shew me so much Penn'd even then to persuade the setting up a Republick as has so lately been Published in this very piece His Majesty upon the presenting these Vid. Kings Answer to the 19. propositions their Proposals I have parralleld told them they designed him for a Duke of Venice and that they only dared to do when they had bid him defyance to his Face and made him fly for refuge to his Friends when they had a fund for Rebellion in the City A General and an Army in the Field but here we have a single Republican declaring expressly for the good Government of the Venetian Arraigning of our Monarchy condemning of our Courts reforming of our Councils only to set up their Republick for the framing their Decemviral the constituting their Quarantia the making every Member of Parliament but a Noble Man of Venice Rex est principium caput Finis Parl. Vid. Modus tenend Parl. 4. Inst fol. 3. and his Mighty Prince that presides in it by Law as a Principal Head but
at most but gently touch'd on The very Suggestion flies in their Faces and upbraids the Faction with the same proceeâ—ings against one another for this famous Political Mercurial Scribler lets us understand that a Merc. Politicus Num. 59. July 24. 1651. The Presbyterians pretended Principle of Conscience is no competent Plea in his behalf for then this Plea and Pretence might serve to Justifie the late Tyrant and all his Cavalry it might Justifie Ravillac for Murthering Henry the Fourth Faux Catesby and the rest for the Powder-Plot not a Pritst or Jesuite but hath the same Pretension nor shall there be any Traytors in all Ages hereafter Away with this Clergy Pretence not to be named once among Christians but exploded as the very Pest of Civil Society And I pray mark only the Godly Preacher to the Parliament a Sermon Preach'd to the Parliament November 5. 1651. I have desir'd in my Prayers to GOD for the opening of Mens Eyes to see that the same Spirit of CONSCIENCE which lay in the polluted Bed of PAPACY meets them in the prophaned Bed of PRESBYTERY that The highest Godlinesses and the highest Wickednesses are those that are most Spiritual that The Fornications and Sorceries of this Whore are then greatest when most Mysterious that She is able to bewitch those that have attained to a great degree of Spirituality To this purpose I have represented the same Spirit which dwells in PAPACY when it enters into the purer Forms of PRESBYTERY as fuller of Mystery so fuller of Despight and Danger so far the good Man for Conscience Plea And now if you please to tell you their sense of the TRIMMER and MODERATE Men of their Times a Merc. Politicus Num. 63. August 21. 1651. No sort of Men can be more dangerous than those Phlegmatick Souls of the MODERATE MIDDLE Temper who whilst they pretend to be of a Party are not able to concoct those reasons of State that are absolutely necessary for its Preservation Men of this Humour may do well in a Civil War where the differing Interest may be reduc'd to agree in one third but when they are statâ—d in as vast a contrariety as God and Belial Light and Darkness Liberty and Slavery then those Men are like Sand without Lime neither good in the Foundation nor sit for the building of a Republick such Interests are best preserv'd when like Mathematical Points in the Extremity of Latitude they are placed at the remotest distance admitting no intermedial mixture of Affections with any things Persons or Pretences that may have but the least Collateral Relation to the opposite Party And then for their MERCY to the Dissenters of those Times and the matter of VNION b Merc. Politiâ—us Num 59. But perhaps the sparing of the Traytor may he a means to reconcile those of his own Opinion and bring them to an UNION with the Common-wealth Why Let them in the first place take shame to themselves by an Acknowledgment of their Offences Let their Repentance be as loudly and openly profes'd in the Pulpit as their former Follies and then afterwards 't is possible there may be an UNION but an UNION carried on upon any other terms speaks only some Clerical Design under a specious outside And a Case's Sermon before the Court-Martial London 1644. Case Discoursing about MERCY to those that had Fought for their King whom he makes all Unpardonable Murtherers nay tho' they had not kill'd a Man for says he Though God forgive Sin against himself yet he commands his Deputies not to pardon Trespass against the Publick State as in the case of Murther for even PREPAR'D and PROJECTED Murther God makes uncapable of Civil Mercy for here the Delinquent has kill'd as much as in his power to kill it was his purpose he hath killed though the Patient be not kill'd and the Design and Intention should Hang him God deliver us from the Mercy of such Casuists the Government and Rule of such unreasonable Men that whilst they exclaim against Idols commit Sacriledg while they condemn others for want of Moderation in their Censures and Animadversions Satyrize and Libel even one another most Immoderately These are the hardships in which they think they are most griev'd and yet those the very points in which they have shewn themselves the most rigorous and opprest better Subjects than themselves with a greater grievance This is my sense of their Writings and for the opinion of others about my own and as little solicitous I am satisfy'd of my own Integrity and wish I could be as well assur'd of theirs the Defending of the Right of the Crown I am sure was †Statuimus quod omnes homines Reg ni nostri sint Fratres conjurati ad Monarchiam nostram pro viribus suis defendendam Lex Guiliel Conq. Lamb. 59. p. 171. Law of old and now no more new thing than to what I am * Vid. Oath of Allegiance Sworn and their laborious Drudgery to detract from the Prerogative is perhaps but a Learned Expedient for being more Elaborately PERJUR'D As I ever Lov'd that Royal Line which I always look'd upon to be unalterable and which none now but Rebels or Repablicans will endeavour to Interrupt so I shall ever as much Revere this NAME and FAMILY of STEWART in which the truly Lineal Descent of our Crown was as intirely united and preserv'd a Name that will be Sacred to Posterity and which I wish might be perpetuated for ever to it too until it leave us in England as long a Series of Successors as those that are to be number'd in the Catalogue of Scotland and 't is with regret if we are restrain'd to reckon of it but two Royal Pairs of JAMES and CHARLES A Name that none but a Monster of Mankind would have made a Merc. Politicus Number 62 79. odious and accurs'd which maugre their own Rebellions has made our Islands Blest And lastly a Name which even Rebels might Revere for so long and lasting a Succession in Scotland and lament that in both Kingdoms now there is but one left And for that Impostor which some poor Souls as silly as seditious would feign have put upon us and set up Consider but the sad success two such Presidents and just as pretty Projects met with in the Reign of Henry the Seventh Consider how unsuccesful this present Attempt prov'd which terminated in the ruin of all its Undertakers Consider but the Folly as well as the Wickedness of such an undertaking which could it have met with success must have been but by the Blood of the present Age and an entailment of it to Posterity too dear a purchase only to make us the Scorn and Derision of the Word Traytors to our King and Rebels to our God What I 've done has been in satisfaction to my self without design of Applause my Duty to my Sovereign without insisting on desert my Resentment against Rebels without fearing of their force for then I desire to fall when so good a Government cannot stand my Misfortune from them would have been the best of Fate and my very Foes the most Friendly and Obliging I have scarce Breath'd under a Vsurpt Government yet and should hardly have been brought to begin now to be subject to an Vsurpation If in these Essays I have done the least Service to my Sovereign Lord or his Liege Subjects I shall look upon it as having answer'd the Ends of my little Studies both towards God as well as Man for there is seldom a good Subject that makes a bad Christian and I have always observ'd the greatest Atheists among the Rebellious If whatever sincerity I pretend they 'll upbraid me still for that itch of Writing I 'll as sincerely protest to them they have cur'd me of the scab and thank them too for being my Physicians without a Fee They themselves have superseded all future Animadversions of my Pen by being able to make no farther progress in their VILLANY I truly profess never more to refute their bad PRINCIPLES till they can find out worse and as heartily promise never again to be their Plague till they can Invent a more Hellish PLOT FINIS