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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A25435 Angliæ decus & tutamen, or, The glory and safety of this nation under our present King and Queen plainly demonstrating, that it is not only the duty, but the interest of all Jacobites and disaffected persons to act for, and submit to, this government. 1691 (1691) Wing A3181; ESTC R9554 40,230 66

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well informed of the Affair for requiring that the business should be examined in Parliament He does not at all affirm that the Prince of Wales was supposititious he only demands an assurance of his Birth There is nothing more just and natural At that time his Majesty had not as yet seen the depositions which James II. caused to be taken thereupon but if he had seen them they were not capable of affording him any assurance for first there were none almost found amongst the Witnesses but such as were suspected Persons Officers Pensioners and the Kings Domestic Servants Secondly all that the Queen Dowager the most part of the Lords and Ladies said may be true and yet the Child that was Born not be Born of the Queen for the Assistants who are at the Beds Feet and in a Corner of the Chamber know not what is laid in the Bed nor whence it came which is taken out of it In the last place the depositions that were taken in the Kings presence are for that very reason altogether invalid and insufficient This is a ground good enough for what the Prince says in his Declaration which is the most plain and the most modest imaginable That there are great Presumptions that oblige us to believe that these Evil Counsellors for promoting their own pernicious designs and for gaining of time to execute them spread a report that the Queen was delivered of a Son that during this pretended bigness of the Queen as well as in the circumstance of the Birth and the methods that were used for the management of it there appeared so many just and visible suspitions that the pretended Prince of Wales was not brought into the World by the Queen There could no less be said upon so important a subject King James ought to justify himself from this in the face of the World are not Princes to take care of their Reputation Is it not this that secures them How could King James think to be free from being insulted over by a Nation which looked upon him as a Master of Intrigue and Audacity and as an unnatural Father and Prince And there is no Prince in the World against whom we can more reasonably conceive this suspition he who runs a risque of losing three Crowns and at last did really lose them for his Religion does in effect shew that he had it and that he was not like his Predecessor who had none but likewise the same thing gives us to understand that he could venture all other things for the sake of his Religion for Men of the World who dare run a risque of losing their Crowns to compass their ends may very well venture their Reputation the Blood of their Subjects and all things else to satisfy their own humour Indeed the rest of his Conduct made it appear that he was capable of sacrificing all even to his conscience for the sake of his Religion His Majesties moderation having sufficiently appeared in his Conduct in the forementioned Passages there follows some instances of His Majesties Justice in his late expedition who as has been said Acted first as the Presumptive Heir of the Crown at least under the Title of his Royal Consort and that in this quality he justly provi●ed for the security of the Kingdom which was to descend to him one day He hindered the subversion of the Laws and Religion and justly though it had been in opposition to his own Father if James II. had been such I have proved that a Son and Heir of a Kingdom is obliged by his own interest by that of the People and by what he owes to God to oppose a Father who brings the Realm to imminent ruin and reduces the Religion to a State of Desolation Secondly his present Majesty did bear the Character of an Enemy not to King James not to the Nation but to the Tools his Father-in-Law made use of for the overthrow of Religion and the Laws He passed not into the Kingdom forcibly as the General of the Dutch Army He entered in his own Name to Declare War against the Enemies of the Kingdom and of the Protestant Religion who had raised an Army for the subversion of the Laws and of the Church Thus by the Laws of a just War if ever there was one such he could summon his Enemies to lay down their Arms to yield themselves for avoiding the Effusion of Blood he could demand assistance and Military Aid from all those who loved their Liberty and Religion When a King is become the Enemy of the State of the Laws and of God there is nothing then owing to him and James II. was such a one We come to another thing viz. That which King William III. did at his first Arrival in England His design being lawful and just viz. for setting up a Standard for Liberty and Declaring War against the Enemies of Religion and of the Laws he was obliged to do whatever tended to that end It was no Usurpation of the Royal Authority It is a circumstance the nature of which does depend on the ground on which the Expedition was founded and therefore upon the plainest reason we may see who is in the right and who is in the wrong in this matter As to the Refusal of the Mayor and the Clergy of Exeter to execute the Prince's Orders for acknowledging him and opening their Churches this is of no advantage to the contrary Party nor does contribute any wise either to the Honour or Disgrace of the Magistrates and Clergy of that City but this reflects on James II. for that Reservedness was an effect of the dreadful consternation that they were in and which was occasioned by the Calamities that King James had brought upon that and other Countries in the West after the Duke of Monmouth's defeat The Trees and the Ways were as yet generally covered with the dead Bodies of those poor Creatures who were made Sacrifices to the most cruel Rage that ever was exercised It was judged sufficient that the Magistrates and the Canons of Exeter were held under that Fear for so soon as they saw themselves secure by the Arrival of the Princes Forces they expressed their joy by such transcendent marks that evidenced the transport they were in yet they did not cease too pray to God for King James till the Convention gave order concerning it The Prince of Orange did not Act as a King at his first Arrival We have not heard that he seized any part of the Royal Revenue and it is not but that he had just cause enough so to do For those who managed the King and tyranized over the Kingdom did convert the same to pernicious Uses for the oppression of Liberty and Religion he might very well without Injustice take it out of their hands There follows now a Narrative of what the Lords Hallifax Nottingham and Godolphin said to the Prince in Pursuance of the Commission that they had from James II. and of the