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A47998 A letter from a gentleman in the city to one in the country concerning the bill for disabling the Duke of York to inherit the imperial crown of this realm Gentleman in the city. 1680 (1680) Wing L1390; ESTC R14744 12,544 26

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more safely and better than if they should continue separated and alone Nor did ever any condescend on this or that mode and form of Government but with a prospect and upon a supposal that the Priviledges Rights and Liberties of Men should be preserved unto them And therefore as all Government is founded in Trust and setled in such a person or limitted to such a Family for the safety and advantage of the people as well as of the Ruler so there can be supposed no primitive Agreements in reference to such and such links of Succession where the ruine of the people is unavoidable without a break in the Chain If an Ideot may be justly put by from Succeeding in the Royal line because he is uncapable of understanding the interest of his people or protecting them in their Rights much more may one who hath designed and resolved to destroy them and overthrow every thing for which Kingship was both erected and submitted unto be debarred all Plea and Title to inherit For to what purpose serve Laws betwixt King and People but to instruct us not only concerning the Fealty and Obedience which we are to pay to our Prince but what we may claim and expect from him that is to be advanced to that Grandure and Dignity Yea were there any Laws for the Establishment of a Mortal Enemy over us on this alone supposal that he were of next affinity to the foregoing and lawful Prince such Laws were revocable and ought to be repealed as inconsistent with the safety and happiness of Subjects For though our Ancestors might restrain and limit us in the usage of those things which we derive from them yet they could not restrain and limit us in such things which we have a right unto by the Law of Nature That is and blessed be God they never attempted it they could not deprive us of nor abdicate from us a right to protect and defend our selves from our declared Adversary So that if the people of England be but acknowledged to have a right to preserve their Lives maintain their Proprieties or secure their Religion it is lawful for them to disable the Duke of York to Inherit the Imperial Crown of this Realm as having already not only rendred himself unsafe to the Nation in all these but Proclamed by his Actions that he is an open Enemy to every one of them Sect. 10. Tenthly It is remarkable that there was never a conveyance of the Crown of England to any person but upon the tacite concurrance and with the virtual or implicite consent of the people And indeed though a people may be made Slaves without their Consent yet it is impossible that they should be free Subjects but with it And therefore anciently before any King of England was actually Crowned the people being first acquainted with the day appointed for that Solemnity were three several times publickly ask'd whether they would have such a person to Rule over them And till the consent of the people was thus obtained and declared they who held in Fee of the King together with the Nobility were not obliged neither were they called to do Homage to him And though these kind of Tenures be since abolished by Act of Parliament yet it plainly shews that heretofore the Nation had a great interest in recognizing the Right of their King Now the people of England are no where so Universally present as when Represented in Parliament by those whom they have chosen and delegated to act in their Places and Names as well as for their interests And therefore what is the Language of the House of Commons 1s the unanimous Voice of all the People of England Yea were the several Individuals of the Nation to be demanded their Opinion they would harmoniously resound the Vote of that House namely that they will not have James Duke of York to Reign over them Sect. 11. Eleventhly The Parliament of England have from time to time so disposed of the Crown of this R●alm as both to settle and limite the Succession in referrence to the English Throne It was a Parliament that Deposed Richard the 2d and chose Henry the 4th to Reign in his stead It was a Parliament which limitted the Crown to Henry the 6th only for his Life with an exclusion of his Posterity from all Title to it and setled the Succession upon Richard Duke of York And it is observable that they who afterwards took part with the said Henry the 6th and fought by his Authority as well as under his Banner at the Battel of Wakefield where Richard Duke of York was killed were in the 1st of Edward the 4th attainted of Treason because they fought against and slew a person who was by Act of Parliament declared Heir after Henry to the Crown It was a Parliament who chose and advanced Richard the 3d though Edward the 4th had not only left behind him a Brothers Son whose Title was Prior to Richards but two Sons of his own It was the Parliament that entailed the Crown in Henry the 4ths time and setled the Inheritance of the Realms of England and France c. Upon his Sons by Name and upon all of them successively in case He or They upon whom the settlement was first made should die without Heirs Yea our Parliaments during the Reign of Henry the 8th made a threesold Settlement and Entail of the Crown and that with such various Limitations and Provisions as they thought the interest of the Kingdom conducted them unto These three Entails were made and enacted the 25th of Henry the 8th the 28th of Henry the 8th and the 35th of Henry the 8th But to omit more Instances it was the Parliament that having by Statute Recognised Queen Elizabeths Title to the Crown in the first Year of her Reign afterwards Entailed it upon her and the Heirs of her Body in case she should come to have any in the 13 of her Raign Now it is very remarkable that in diverse of these Entailes and Settlements our Parliaments proceeded without any regard to Legitimacy their sole will and pleasure under the Influence which the interest of the Kingdom had upon them being both the best motive into which we can resolve diverse of those Settlements and the only Standard according to which we must account for the Limitations contained in some of those Entails And can we be so silly as to believe that the most Magnanimous and Victorious Princes that ever Reigned over this Nation would have suffered Parliaments to interpose about the Succession and meddle in the disposal of it if it had not appertained unto them by the constitution of the Kingdom and the ancient Usages thereof Surely bequeathment of the Inheritance of the Crown by the Regnant Prince would have better become the Prerogative of our Kings if they had not believed that it belonged to the Parliament in conjunction and Cooperation with their Kings to dispose and to settle that matter Sect.
of the violation of all Faith are as numerous as the Persons who have been admitted to Sovereignty upon such Stipulations Every own knoweth that it was the Emperor's Transgressing against the promises which he had made to the Bohemian's concerning the liberty of their Religion which occasioned that long bloody and fatal War And as thereby all Europe came less or more to be concerned and entangled So by the ill conduct of some and Treachery of others the Protestant Religion after the shedding of an Ocean of Blood is at last extirpated that Kingdom Yea the present differences in Hungary between the Emperour and that People are wholly to be resolved into a departure from the Promises which Ferdinando made to them for their preservation in the enjoyment of their Religion when in Anno 1618. he was chosen to be their King And notwithstanding the Hungarians have been at all times ready to submit to his Imperial Majesty providing their Religion and Legal Rights might according to the first Contracts and Stipulations be secured unto them yet in the midst of all his necessities he hath chosen rather to venture the ruine both of the Empire and his own Hereditary Countries by the French than fulfil the Promise of his Ancestors or comply with so just Requests Which plainly shews us that it must be a strange implacableness which Papists bear to our Religion that neither regard to Covenants nor interest of State can induce them to moderation towards such as profess and maintain it But what need we to consult Forreign Examples seeing our own Queen Mary affords us a remarkable instance as to breach of Faith in this matter Who as she was the only Papist who hath weilded the English Scepter since the Reformation so she hath left us abundant warning how we admit others of that Impression and Stamp to ascend the Throne be their Promises before hand what they will For neither the finding the Protestant Religion legally established nor the having pledged her own Faith for the Preservation of it according to the Establishment were of any significancy to keep out Popery or to secure Protestants from Fire and Faggot when once she was possessed of the Crown Sect 4. And therefore fourthly Some Neighbouring Nations Professing the Protestant Religion having found that by submitting to suffer a Papist to Reign over them they had betrayed themselves to lose all that was dear unto them took not only care to relieve themselves from the Violence and Treacherous Attempts of their Regnant Papish King but made Provision to debar all of Roman Principles from being capable for the future of pretending to the Throne The case in brief stood thus Sigismond the Sweed who had been before chosen King of Poland was as next Heir to the Deceased King of Sweedland admitted to the Throne of that Kingdom but upon previous conditions that he should not infringe their Liberty as to Religion nor introduce Popery which they had Banished out of their Dominion Now this Prince having contrary to all Stipulations endeavoured both to overthrow their Religion and to break in upon their Civil Rights The Sweeds like a generous People that would expose themselves to all hazards rather than give up their legal Rights and Sacrifice their Consciences to the Will and Lust of their Prince commenced a War against him under the Conduct of his Uncle Charles whom they chose to be their Protector In which War being at last Conquerours they not only Deposed him but made a Law that no Papist should at any time after be trusted with the Scepter And how conduceable that Law hath been to their Preservation all the World hath observed upon Queen Christina's resigning the Kingdom having entertained a purpose of Renouncing her Religion For as she knew that she could not declare her self a Papist and at the same time remain their Queen so they had too sadly experienced what it was to have Popery and Soveraignty meet in one Person to suffer her to continue their Soveraign if she once abjured their Religion Now I would gladly be informed why the Parliament of England may not as well exclude a Papist from all capacity of mounting the Throne to destroy this Nation and the Resormed Religion here as the States and People of Sweedland have done there Surely it is much better to be instructed by the Prudence of others after the foretast of manifold mischiefs which they had undergone than when we have made our selves through folly and Credulity Subjects and Examples of misery to think to provide for our own safety and Interest and these of our Posterity by the hopes of an aftergaim Sect. 5. Fifthly supposing it were possible at an other juncture to preserve our Religion under a Popi●h Prince and that therefore it were not altogether unreasonable to admit one yet at this Season when the whole Papal Party in Europe have Conspired to extirpate Protestancy in all the Schem's and Branches of it it were no less than madness to think we could secure our Religion were the Soveraign Authority over these Nations once lodged in a Papal hand He must be very ignorant in the present State of things who doth not know that there is a Design laid and carried on for the enslaving all Europe again to the Tripple Crown And he must be also a very great stranger in the Affair's of the World that doth not understand how far this Projection hath already succeeded and that there is very little wanting to the full accomplishing of it I am sure separate but once England from a hearty espousal of the Protestant Interest and it must necessarily sink and without a Miracle be supplanted in all other places And as we cannot imagine that should we have a Popish Prince in England he would prevent the ruine of a Religion elsewhere which himself hath renounced so we can as little think that he would support a Religion at home that is both opposite to his own and which had lost it's footing every where else So that as matters stand we should by admitting a Popish Prince to Succeed his Majesty not only lose the Protestant Religion from our selves and our posterity but through abandoning of that profession abroad we should be a means of making all the World Vassals again to the Romish Yoke And hence it is that the Eyes and Hopes of all protestants are upon the present parliament and from the Councels of this great Assembly they are ready to date their Happiness or Misery How much they judge their whole interest and concernments to be wrapt up in our Consultations and Resolves is evident from this that since the meeting of this Assembly they have in several Protestant Countries and Provinces abroad observed Selemn days of Fasting and Prayer to beg a blessing from the Lord upon it and that there may be a happy correspondence between the King and his Parliament Sect. 6. Sixthly should it be allowed as a thing at least credible that there