hath more offended against the King and the Realm than the King hath done against him or us Thus Sir spoke that Heroick Prelate in the Court of Parliament and his practice was answerable to what he spoke For he chose not the safer but the juster side as all good Men ought to do He knew while he spoke that Bonds and Persecutions would attend him nevertheless he spoke freely and after speaking was committed to Prison and after that was crushed with many other brave Men by the Usurper against whom they rose up Afterwards about the sixth year of his Reign Rich. Scroop A. B. of York with the L. Maubray Marshal of England H. Piercy E. of Northumberland L. Bardolf and * As I suppose the Earls of Salisbury Huntington Glocester the Lords Clarenden Roper with divers other Knights and Esquires and after that the Lord Thomas Piercy Earl of Worcester and Lord Henry Piercy Son and Heir to the Earl of Northumberland many others published an Excommunication and †In the first Volume of Fox's Acts and Monuments in the Reign of H. IV. Remonstrance consisting of several Articles against Henry which they fixed upon the doors of Churches and Monasteries to be read of all It begins thus IN THE NAME OF GOD Amen Before the Lord Jesus Christ Judge of the quick and the dead We not long since became bound by Oath upon the Sacred Evangelical Book unto our Sovereign Lord Richard late King of England that we as long as we lived should bear true Allegiance and Fidelity towards him and his Heirs succeeding him in the Kingdom by just Title Right and Line according to the Statutes and custom of this Realm have here taken unto us certain Articles subscribed in form following to be proponed heard and tried before the just Judge Christ Jesus and the whole World but if which God forbid by Force Fear or Violence of wicked Persons we shall be cast in Prison or by violent death be prevented so as in this World we shall not be able to prove the said Articles as we wish then we do appeal to the High Coelestial Judge that he may judge and discern the same in the day of his Supream Judgment First We depose say and except and intend to prove against Lord Henry Darby commonly called King of England himself pretending the same but without all Right and Title thereunto and against his Adherents Fautors Complices that they have ever been are and will be Traitors Invaders and destroyers of God's Church and of our Sovereign Lord Richard late King of England his Heirs his Kingdom and Commonwealth as shall hereafter manifestly appear In the second Article they declare him forsworn perjured and excommunicate for that he conspired against his Sovereign Lord King Richard In the fourth they recite by what wrong illegal and false means he exalted himself into the Throne of the Kingdom and then describing the miserable State of the Nation which followed after his Usurpation they again pronounce him Perjured and Excommunicate In the fifth Article they set forth in what a barbarous and inhumane manner Henry and his Accomplices imprisoned and murdered K. Richard and then cry out Wherefore O England arise stand up and avenge the Cause the Death and Injury of thy King and Prince if thou do not take this for certain that the Righteous God will destroy thee by strange Invasions and Forreign Power and avenge himself on thee for this so horrible an Act. In the seventh they depose against him for putting to death not only Lords Spiritual and other Religious Men but also divers of the Lords Temporal there Named for which they pronounce him Excommunicate In the ninth they say and depose that the Realm of England never flourished nor prospered after he Tyrannically took upon him the Government of it And in the last they depose and protest for themselves and K. Richard and his Heirs the Clergy Commonwealth of the whole Realm that they intended neither in Word nor Deed to offend any State of Men in the Realm but to prevent the approaching Destruction of it and beseeching all Men to favour them and their Designs whereof the first was to exalt to the Kingdom the true and lawfull Heir and him to Crown in Kingly Throne with the Diadem of England Upon publishing these Articles much people resorted to the Archbishop but he being circumvented by the Earl of Westmoreland who pretended to join with him dismissed his Forces at his persuasion upon which he was immediately made Prisoner and beheaded at York with the Earl Marshal and divers York shire Gentlemen and Citizens of York who had joined with him The Earl of Northumberland and Lord Bardolph escaped and held out two years longer before they were crushed by the Usurper but at last they were both slain Fighting in the Field against him You see Doctor in this Remonstrance how the Archbishop and Lords that joined with him contrary to the general sense of Mankind unking'd this Providential King for want of a Legal Title and Remonstrated against him as a Perjured Traytor and Vsurper and when he lay upon his Death-bed he himself also began to be of their Opinion contrary to the general sense of Mankind when his guilty Conscience forced him to tell his Son That he had no good Title to the Crown but he not inferior to his Father in Ambition snatched it from his Pillow and plainly told him That as he had got it by the Sword so by the Sword he would keep it And in truth Doctor your Title by Providence against Law is Sword Title and your Providential Kings Sword-Kings for in all Kingdoms the Sword is King where their lawfull Prince is not the Sword or Supream Force Rules all and that Supream Crushing Force which by God's permission gets and keeps possession makes your Providential Kings 12. I have hitherto shewed you what Opinion many Wise and Considering Men had of Henry IV. and his Reign for want of Legal Right and Title And I now proceed to shew the sense that a whole Parliament had of him and of his Son and Grand-Son's Succession the latter sitting in the Throne This appears from Roll. Parl. 39 Henry VI. as it is in Cotton's Abridgement or rather from the Record at large as it is to be seen as it was lately printed in an Answer by a skillful and faithful hand to The unreasonableness of the new Separation upon account of the Oaths This Roll gives an account how Richard Duke of York Father of Edward IV. brought to the Parliament Chamber in writing not a Petition but a Claim to the Crown of which Henry had been long fully and quietly possessed and his Title which was only Succession by Birth-right being fully made appear it was the Opinion of all the Lords that it could not be defeated That single Title by Proximity of Blood was thought sufficient to supersede all the patch'd Titles of Henry and all that could be said in
and Son of Impiety and Injustice Edmund the Great Earl of Kent with some other persons began to Conspire against them Which Q. Isabel who deserves the name of Jesabel perceiving privately encouraged the Keepers of her Husband to murder him but his Son coming to Maturity of Understanding avenged his blood on Mortimer his Mother's Minion and his Accomplices whom the Lords of Parliament with his assent adjudged and condemned to be executed as Traitors for murdering the King after he was deposed The Queen her self also had like to have been questioned and in the Roll 4 Edw. III. which gives an account of this matter he is stiled by all the Lords and the young King himself their King and Leige Lord. And in the 21 R. II. N. 64 65. the Revocation of the Act for the two Spencers Restitution in the Parliament of 1 Edward III. was repealed because made at such a time by King Edw. III. as his Father being very King was Living and Imprisoned These two Acts of Parliament Doctor do not at all agree with your Reasonings for the Providential King but they agree most exactly with the Reasonings of Some Men which you say contradicts the general sense of Mankind For as Mr. Pryn well observes they shew that Edw. II. was King de jure or King in the Eye of the Law as much after his Deposition as before it and by consequence that his Deposition by the Estates who had no Authority to Depose him was a void Act and if he was very King when he was in Prison and his Regnant Son's King and Leige Lord at the time of his murder as the aforesaid Acts declare him then Doctor I fear it will follow that a pure Providential K. in Possession is no King at all 11. But from this Usurpation let us pass to that of Henry IV. who was set up by Providence and the Estates of the Realm who took upon them to depose Richard II. and place Henry in his Throne But Henry being conscious to himself that he wanted Legal Right though he had all the Right that Providence could give him yet not daring to trust to such an airy Tite nor his false pretences of being the right Heir caused Richard to be murdered but between his Deposition and Murder Thomas Merks Bishop of Carlisle a Brave and Godly Prelate preferring his Duty before his Safety took the courage to make a Speech in Parliament against the Validity of Richard's Deposition and the Justice of Henry's Election and if you please Doctor to read this Speech as it is at large in our Historians you will find in spight of all your prejudice that he was a very Wise and Considering Man and entirely of these Mens Opinion and produced those Reasons for it which you say Contradict the general sense of Mankind in all Revolutions The first part of his Speech is to prove that a King may not be deposed by his Subjects for any imputation of negligence and Tyranny and to make this out clearly he brings an ugly Arbitrary distinction betwixt Kings in a Popular or Consular State which really have not Regal Rights but are subject to a Superior Power and Kings in whom the Sovereign Majesty is as it formerly was in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea c. and now is in the Kingdoms of England Spain France and Scotland c. in which the Sovereignty or Supream Authority is in the King After this distinction which Some among us now use he asserts that in such Kingdoms where the Sovereignty is by Law in the King although the Prince for his Vices be unprofitable to his Subjects yea hurtfull yea intollerable yet they cannot lawfully harm his Person or hazard his Power by Judgment or by Force because neither one nor all the Magistrates have any Authority over him from whom all Authority is deriv'd and whose only presence doth silence and suspend all inferior Jurisdictions and Power and as for force saith he what Subject can attempt assist or counsel or conceal Violence against his Prince and not incurr the high and heinous Crime of Treason Then he proceeds to prove this as you do in your Case of Non-resistance from Examples of Saul and Ahab in the Old Testament and many Texts of Scripture Then he proceeds to answer the great Objection thus Doth the King enjoyn Actions contrary to the Law of God We must neither wholly Obey nor violently Resist but with a constant courage submit our selves to all manner of Punishment and shew our subjection by enduring and not performing Oh how shall the World be pestered with Tyrants if Subjects may Rebel upon every pretence of Tyranny How many good Princes may be suppressed by those by whom they ought to be supported If they Levy a Subsidy or other Taxation it shall be claimed Oppression if they put any to Death for Traiterous attempts against their Persons it shall be exclaimed Cruelty if they do any thing against the lust and liking of the People it shall be proclaimed Tyranny Having shew'd as his words are that King Richard was deposed without Authority Then he proceeds to shew that Henry had no Title First Not as Heir to Richard which he pretended for then he ought to stay till King Richard was dead but then if K. Richard was dead it was well known there were Descendents from Lionel Duke of Clarence whose Offspring had been declared in the High Court of Parliament next Successor to the Crown in case K. Richard should die without Issue Secondly Not by Conquest because a Subject can have no right of Conquest against a Sovereign where the War is Rebellion and the Victory High Treason Nor thirdly by K. Richard's Resignation because he made it in Prison where it was exacted of him by force and therefore it had no force or validity to bind him Nor last of all by Election for saith he we have no Custom that the People at pleasure should Elect their King but they are always bound unto him who by Right of Blood is Rightfull Successor much less can they make good or confirm that Title which is before Usurped by violence Then he saith that the deposing of Edw. II. which the Barons produced for an Example to depose Richard was no more to be urged than the Poisoning of K. John or the Murdering any other lawful Prince and that we must live according to Laws and not according to Example and that the Kingdom however then was not taken from the lawfull Successor Then after saying many other things he concludes thus I have declared my mind concerning this Question in more words than your Wisdom yet fewer than the weight of the Cause requires and boldly conclude that we have neither Power nor Policy either to depose King Richard or to Elect Duke Henry into his Place and that K. Richard still remaineth our Sovereign Prince and that it is not lawfull for us to give Judgment upon him and that the Duke whom you call King
the Proconsular Asia both in Books and Coins The Community of Asia coined a fine new Medal to the memory of Germanicus and Drusus which on the Reverse within a Lawrel Crown hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and they also coined Medals in memory of a Temple which they consecrated to Rome and Augustus with COM on one side of the Temple and ASIAE on the other but I never read of any thing done by the Community of Europe and would be glad to be informed what the Nature and Constitution of it is where it holds its Dyets when it chuses the Europarcha and in what place its Members or their Deputies meet But it may be Doctor by the Liberties of Europe you mean those of the Confederate Part of Europe and if you do then excepting our own Countrey I pray tell me where the People live better or enjoy greater Liberties than they do in France In France truly the common People go in wooden Shoes and in most of the foreign Confederate Countries they have the Liberty to go barefoot in France they have whole Canvass or other mean Cloathing and in many of the Confederate Countries they are half naked and if indeed King Lewis were such an Oppressour of Liberties then the Common People and Burghors and Clergy of the Spanish Netherlands would not so favour him and desire to come under his Government as we are informed they do The Spanish Clergy underhand commend him to their People and the Clergy and learned men of his own Kingdom admire him and this shews at least that he is good to the Clergy and maintains their Privileges and Revenues and that Doctour I tell you is maintaining our Religion in their Style as well as ours You blame him also for destroying and extirpating his Protestant Subjects but would you blame him if he did it because they had a design to destroy and extirpate him You formerly said in one of your Sermons that If the Consciences of Subjects will serve them to rebell for Religion Reflexions on the Discovery of the late Plot p. 15. it seems a very hard Case if the Conscience of the Prince must not allow him to hang them for their Rebellion And so Sir if the Consciences of Subjects will serve them to extirpate their King it is very hard if he comes to the knowledge of it that he may not be beforehand with them and extirpate them The French King is no stranger to the Civil Wars of France he knew what Principles and Persons had been the cause of most of them and as sensible as he is of his own Greatness yet he knew he was not a Match to Confederate Enemies without and Rebels within at the same time Wherefore he thought it for the safety of his Crown and Kingdoms to send the Trumpeters of Rebellion betimes out of his Kingdom who since have sollicited all the Princes of Europe against him and plainly shewn that if they did not know what Spirit they were of he did I must here beg pardon O ye humble and holy Souls of Ramus Charpenter Moulin Amyrault and Bouchart You indeed were not fighting Evangelists but there were few such as you in times past and fewer of late among the French Protestants who would prefer the Cross before the Sword The Attempt and Actions of some of them this Summer have justified their King and discovered the Secret of his Severity against them as Monsieur Louvois did some time since to an English Lord to whom he appointed a time on purpose to discourse on that Subject and then assured him that his Master had discovered a dangerous Correspondence betwixt his Protestant Subjects and the Dutch and that to prevent the ill Consequences of it had once clapt up a hasty Peace with them and found he could not be safe in the next War whenever that should happen unless he first subdued them The Conversation we have had with them doth confirm this Opinion of their King they are generally known to be for the cursed Doctrine of Resistence and for my part I never heard but of * The Author of a Book entituled Traite du Pourvoir absolu des Princes Soveraines c. one of them that was against it The rest openly avow it as Jurieux in Holland and Allix now Canon of Salisbury who although he had begg'd leave of King James to dedicate a †The Title of the Book is Reflexious sur les Cinque Livres de Moyse It was printed at London 1687 But the Dedication of it bears date Dec. 12. 1636. In that he declares that the Favours which his Majesty had done to thâ—se of their Nation who sought for Repose under the shadow of his Scepter were so great and the Manner in which his Majesty had signalized his Compassion towards them had had such Effect on the Spirits of his Subjects that all the World ought to abhor them if they had not a lively sense of his Benefits and did not endeavour to signalizâ— an Eternal Gratitude to him Then he proceeds to make a solemn Protestation in his own name and the name of his suffering Countreymen of a profound Submission to his Majesty's Commands and an inviolable fidelity to his Service acknowledging that he was the greatest Instrument that God had chosen to protect and comfort 〈◊〉 in their Miseries and that it was to God that they applied themselves in â—tiâ—ual Obligations of most ardent Vows for his Prosperity And in the Conclusion begs leave that his Maiesty would accept the weak Efforts of his Zeal and permit him to style himself his Majesty's most humble and most obtaine Subiect and Servant P. Allix But forgetting all this when the Bishops were in the Tower he said to one of his Acquaintance What do the Temporal Lords mean Why do they not fly to 〈◊〉 Book to him in token of his Gratitude and the Gratitude of his Countreymen for the Protection and the Kindness they had received from him yet upon the Revolution he did all he could to suppress the Dedication in which he had set forth his Majesty's Praises and railed against him in his distress with all the Rage that a Tongue could do that was set on fire of Hell That King was not ignorant of their Spirit no more than their own for when the Bishops interceded with his Majesty for a Brief in their Behalf My Lords said he Perhaps if you know these Men as well as I you would not ask this of me but you shall see I am a Christian and that I can doe good to them that hate me These Men I know are mine Enemies but nevertheless I will not onely grant them a Brief that my People may relieve them but I will also relieve them my self And as he foretold it came to pass for they listed in great numbers against him and help'd to drive him out of his Kingdom of Ireland although Doctour he had your Title of Providence to it and was recognized by the