Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A47810
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The case put, concerning the succession of His Royal Highness the Duke of York
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L'Estrange, Roger, Sir, 1616-1704.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing L1206; ESTC R39022
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25,486
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41
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And He has streyn'd the Point already and remov'd it to the Successor and his Adherents From the Expectant to the Occupant from the Duke to the King and so premeditates and Encourages a Rebellion in the very Body of his Proposition For His Majesty that now is must be Dead before the Libellers Device against the Successour can take Effect and King and Successour in This Case are all one Now upon This Principle there needs no more than to say that any King is a Papist to Depose him Nay admitting This Power to be in the People Acts of Parliament are but Matter of Course and they may do the thing even as well without giving any Reason for 't Upon the Ground of their Vnaccountable Prerogative It would be known too what his meaning is by the Parliament he speaks of that is Openly to oppose the Successour It cannot be understood of King Lords and Commons for the King is the Party Opposed and Excluded And then I would as willingly learn what kind of Opposition it is that he intends It must be an Opposition either of Force and Violence or an Opposition in the way of Argument Counsels and Debate It cannot be the Latter sure for what could be more ridiculous then to expect that a Prince should pass a Bill for the Deposal of Himself And if it be the Other we are e'en Half-Seas-Over already into a New Rebellion There is not such a Monster in Nature as a Headless Parliament We have had the Experience of it and without Rubbing the Old Sore or Reciting the Calamities it brought upon This Nation I shall only say This I cannot bethink my self of any sort of Oppression either in Religion Property or Freedom or of any One Crying sin in that Impious and Seditious Interval that scap'd us I could add several other Instances of the same Complexion with those above Recited which I shall forbear partly out of Respect and in part to keep my self within Compass For I must not Quit This Subject without giving further Evidence of a Confederacy against the King and Government like those that Rob the House under colour of Helping to Quench the Fire and in the very Instant of Pretending to save the Kingdom they are laying their Heads together how to Destroy it Witness the most Audacious Libel perhaps that ever flew in the Face of any Government It bears the Title of A Political Catechism concerning the Power and Privileges of Parliament taken as pretended out of His Majesties Nineteen Propositions of June 2. 1642. with a Construction and Application much at the rate of the Devils Gloss upon the Text to our Saviour upon the Pinacle of the Temple The Compiler of This Libel makes His Majesties Answer to be Effectually an Admittance of the Right and Reason of the Propositions and the Publisher of it recommends the Doctrine of 1642. to the Practice of 1679. We 'l take a short View First of the Quality of the Propositions Secondly of the Kings Sense upon them And after That of our Catechists New model of Government The main Scope of the Propositions is This. All Privy-Councellors and Ministers of State to be discharg'd and their places Supply'd by direction and Approbation of Both Houses And all to be Vnder such an Oath as They shall agree upon The Great Affairs of the Nation to be Transacted in Parliament and no Publick Act of the Kings to be Valid unless Subscribed by the Major part of the Councel Chosen ut supra The Number of the Councel to be Limited and all Vacancies fill'd by direction of Parliament All the Great Officers and Iudges to be so Chosen The Militia acknowledg'd to be in the Two Houses and They likewise to have the Approbation of the Tutors and Governors of the Kings Children and of Those that Attend them All Forts and Castles to be put into the hands of Persons approv'd of by the Two Houses The Kings Guards and Military Forces to be Discharg'd thô the Rebellion was Now begun No Peers Created in time to come to Sit and Vote in Parliament without the Consent of Both Houses c. There will need no Other Descant upon These Propositions being so Gross in themselves but only the Citing of some Passages out of His late Majesties Answer in Reflection upon them These Demands says the Late King are of That Nature that to Grant them were in Effect at Once to Depose both Our self and Our Posterity These things being past we may be waited upon bare-headed We may have Our hand kist the Stile of Majesty Continu'd to Vs and the Kings Authority declared by Both Houses of Parliament may be still the Stile of your Commands We may have Swords and Maces carry'd before Vs and please Our self with the sight of a Crown and Scepter And yet even these Twigs would not Long flourish when the Stock upon which they grew are Dead But as to True and Real Power We should remain but the Outside but the Picture but the Sign of a King c. And Again Thô we shall always weigh the Advices both of Our Great and Privy-Councel with the Proportionable Consideration due to them yet we shall also look upon their Advices as Advices not as Commands or Impositions Vpon Them as Our Counsellors not as Our Tutors and Guardians and upon Our Self as their King not as their Pupil or Ward Pag. 318. And Further Pag. 320. We call God to Witness that as for Our Subjects sake these Rights are vested in Vs So for Their sakes as well as for Our Own we are resolved not to quit them nor to subvert thô in a Parliamentary way the Antient Equal Happy Well-poised and never enough Commended Constitution of This Kingdom Nor to make Our self of a King of England a Duke of Venice and This of a Kingdom a Republick Moreover Pag. 322. The Common people when they find that all was done By them but not For them will at last grow weary of Journey-work and set up for themselves call Parity and Independence Liberty devouring the Estate which had devoured the Rest Destroy all Rights and Proprieties all Distinctions of Families and Merit And by This means the splendid and Excellently-distinguish'd Form of Government end in a Dark Equal Chaos of Confusion and the Long Line of Our many Noble Ancestors in a Jack Cade or a Wat Tiler After the Mockery of the Abovemention'd Propositions and the Kings Just and Prophetical Judgment made upon them we shall only Add that the Ruin of the Late King was as Certainly the Intent of Those Vndutiful Demands as it was the Effect of them in the Execution of the Powers claim'd Thereby and we may as reasonably conclude that the same Pretensions now over again are publish'd with the same Ends and that the Sufferance of This Licence will Naturally run into the same Consequences For the whole work of moving a Rebellion is but First to possess the people
of the Inhabitants of Covent-Garden to Murther the City of London News from France Italy Spain Denmark of Armies ready to come for England And again Pag. 536. they cause Discourses to be Published and Infusions to be made of Incredible Dangers to the City and Kingdom by that our coming to the House in the case of the five Members An Alarum was given to the City in the Dead time of the Night that we were coming with Horse and Foot thither and thereupon the whole City put in Arms And howsoever the Envy seem'd to be cast upon the Designs of the Papists mention was only made of Actions of our own Upon a fair understanding of the whole this supposition of his is no more then the Counterpart of the old Story And the Declamatory dangers that he foresees in Vision were outdone by those sensible Cruelties and Oppressions that this poor Kingdom suffered in very deed And now to bear him Company in his Phansy we shall give you a Truth for his Imagination First Imagine the whole Nation in a Flame and brought to the Extremities of Fire and Sword by the Malice of the same Faction that embroyl'd us before and at the same Instant Phansy whole Droues of Coblers Draymen Ostlers Quartering upon your Wives and Daughters till ye want bread to put in your Childrens Mouths which was the very Case your Apprentices discharg'd of their Indentures by Ordinances your Houses Rifled your Accompt-Books Examin'd Servants corrupted to betray their Masters your Persons sent on Ship-board transported or thrown into nasty Dungeons or in mercy perhaps your Throats cut by the Name of Popish Dogs and Cavaliers And all this only for refusing to Renounce God and your Soveraign Then represent to your selves the Thimble-maker once again Lieutenant of the Tower your Citizens clap up orders for the Demolishing of your Gates and Chains and nothing less than Military Execution threatned ye unless you will Redeem your selves with 100000 l. a Mouth Contribution toward the perpetuating of your Slavery Then cast your Eye toward Cheapside Corn-hill Charing-Cross Pallace-yard Tower-hill nay White-hall it self and there Imagine your Father your Brother your Citizens the Nobility Gentry nay the King himself and his best Friends and Ministers under the hand of the Common Executioner Appealing to God for whose Cause they dy'd Which was a frequent spectacle when the King reign'd no longer among you Phansie again that you behold those Beautiful Churches erected for the true Worship of God abused and turned into Stables and the Pulpits into Iugling Boxes to Hocus your Wives and your Daughters out of their Bodkins and Thimbles and there to hear nothing but Heresie and Sedition to the Dishonour of Christ and Scandal of Religion Phansie the Ministers of Gods Holy Word cast out of their Livings by Hundreds and with their Wives and Children expos'd to the wide World to beg their Bread Your Women running with their Hair about their Ears One half to the Works like Pioneers the other dancing attendance at some Merciless Committee to put in Bayl for a Malignant Child or Husband men cover'd with Blood lost Limbs and mangled Bodies with Horrors of Conscience over and above If it be true that these and forty times more Cruelties were committed And that the People were frighted into these Precipices only by shadows If it be true again that those Glorious Pretenders when they had the King and his Papists as they call'd his most Orthodox Friends under foot that these People I say never lookt further after Religion but fell presently to the sharing of the Church and Crown Revenues among themselves It will concern every sober man to look well about him and to make use of his Reason as well as of his Faith for these Fore-boders seldom Croak but before a Storm This Subject has carry'd me too far already but I shall be shorter in what follows After his affected Image of the Tyranny and Desolation that is breaking in upon us he does as good as nothing without working up the Peoples Horror and Astonishment upon those apprehensions into a Direct Rage and Desperation And this he endeavours to bring about by undertaking so positively for his Majesties Murther as if he himself were of the Conspiracy Very Peremptorily Issuing out his Orders to the City to be ready with their Arms at an hours warning The first Hour says he wherein ye hear of the Kings untimely End let no other Noise be heard among you but that of ARM ARM to revenge your Soveraigns Death both upon his Murtherers and their whole Party For that there 's no such thing as an English Papist who is not in the Plot at least in his good wishes Let not fear of losing Part by your Action make you lose the whole by your Patience Pag. 4. And then Pag. 25. he points them out the very General to lead them a respect which neither the City nor the Illustrious Person himself will thank him for upon so disorderly an occasion Enforcing his Proposition with this Inducement That he who hath the worst Title ever makes the best King Which is no Complement at all to his Majesty himself for an Usurper it seems would be better for His turn So that without any If 's or And 's the thing is given for Granted and upon this Instigation the least Rumour in the World that way puts the people upon a General Massacre as the bare Report lately of the French appearing before the Isle of Purbeck had like to have done in several places And then to the same Purpose Pag. 23. They will vigorously and speedily attempt the Kings Ruine unless he suddenly prevent it by adhering to his Parliament and ruining Them First Whether this be the way to Expose the Life of his most Sacred Majesty or to Preserve it let the World judg And of the Irreverence of handling so tender a Point at this Course rate Nay he does not only pronounce upon the Thoughts and Purposes of Men but upon the most secret appointment of God himself When God designs the Destruction of a King or People says he Pag. 11. he makes them deaf to all Discoveries This Observation of his I 'm affraid is more to the purpose then he was aware of For there are Discoveries of several sorts that are Evident Enough and yet not much taken notice of To say nothing of the Censures he passes upon the Kings Actions and Publick Resolutions of State Only I wonder who made this Man a Judg in Israel He quarrels his Majesty Pag. 3. For Prorogations and Dissolutions of Parliaments And Pag. 4. upon another Point Pag. 23. He Pre-judges the Parliament as if they would give his Majesty no Supplies unless he takes off the Heads of the Popish Faction exclude the Successlon and consent to such Laws as must of necessity ruin them In his 6 th Page he shews himself so good an English-man that he Professes he would rather be under a French