should contend for the disordering the Succession of the Crown who still labour for the Lineal Discent of their own Common Inheritance and I will appeal to the breast of the most violent contender for this Power whether an Act made for the disabling one of their own Sons or design'd Successors would not by themselves be look't on as unjust if not utterly defeasible and then 't is sure prodigiously strange where so many Learned Heads tell us of a sort of entail from a power Divine where the common Custom of the Kingdom has been a constant course of Lineal Discent unless as has been shown a perfect Rebellion interven'd And where themselves acknowledg this sort of Succession has been sometimes by Statute entail'd yet still they should think that but Justice to their Kings Successor which they would resent as an Injury to their own But they may vouch for it the common sort of Recoveries from a right Heir with a too Cunning sort of vouching and perhaps too much practis'd but I am sure it no way agrees with the Laws of Forraign Nations and has been a little condemn'd by some learned Heads in our own and some that have brought it into dispute seem to have rais'd a Devil not so soon to be put down in their Dialogues Vid. Dr and Student p. 49 to 58. but however this Objection is nothing analagous nothing of a Parallel Case for here is a Complication of both Parties Concern'd and concluded upon by both their Consents and where shall we find the perfect Proprietor of Crowns and Scepters and when God has told us to that by him they Reign that bear them and they 'l hardly vouch the Almighty for a piece of Injustice But allowing it for once a meer Human Constitution and in their bandied Authority of Saint Peter an Ordinance of Man and the Kings Consent with his Parliaments to determine the Point yet still the great disparity would call for a little longer consideration than a Common Recovery and not presently to cut off the right of an Heir to three Kingdoms only because commonly done at Westminster of one to so many Cottages and besides when that has been practis'd so long and born the test of Time and this their attempt would have been the first President And at last what has silenc'd their Advocates for ever the non-concurrence of the King and his Lords whose consent was by themselves suppos'd to be necessary because requir'd and will like those recognitions of some of our former Parliaments for an Hereditary Succession perpetuate that right in spight of the Laws of others that were made for altering it and should the Commons ever get such a Bill to pass 't is enough to say 't was once rejected by the Peers unless they can prove that the Question was put again Whether the lower House should take advice of the Lords in the Legislative power and that 't was Resolved that the House of 6. Feb. 48. carried in the Neg. p. 15. voices Peers was useless dangerous and ought to be abolish't and Order'd that an Act be brought in for that purpose Queen Mary succeeds her Brother In the very first of her Reign there was an Act made declaring her Succession and Inheritance to be by right of Blood Edward with all the Right of Blood with all the Law of God and Man too on her side for whatever the Parliament pretended they could never Illegitimise that which was begotten in Matrimony celebrated according to the Laws of the Church and the Realm for whatsoever defect there was found subsequent to the Consummation of the Marriage in common reason and equity ought not to have extended to the making that Issue spurious which had all the requisites to the making it truly Legitimate tho perhaps the subsequent discoveries might be sufficient to cause a Divorce and in the too Common Case of Adultery 't would be severe far from Equity to make Bastards of all that were born before the Conviction of the Fact but it may be reply'd to this That these were such Impediments as related to the Contract ab Jnitio and where that 's Invalid there the Children begotten after can't be suppos'd Lawful Heirs when the Contract it self is against Law but tho still I shall look upon that as a rigorous resolution when I think Innocents and Infants ought to be more favour'd especially when there is a Maxim in the Law even in the like Cases that the fact Quod fieri non debet factum valet may be valid tho the doing of it can't be justifi'd and besides there being a Rule that obtains amongst Civilians That Leg. qui in provincia Sect. divs H. de Rit Nup. 1. 4. Marriage contracted without any preconceiv'd Impediment tho it after come to be dissolv'd as unlawful yet Children begotten in such a state are reputed truly Legitimate and tho Appeals to Rome were then Punishable with a Premunire yet the Civil Law then obtain'd much more than it does now that Stat. being very young as well as the Reformation and by the Laws of the Church long before it they were such Latitudinarians in this point that the subsequent Marriage would Legitimate those that were born before the Contract but that I confess was rejected here in 20 Harry the 3d's time 20. H. 3d. because contrary to the common Laws of the Realm which the Parliament resolutely declar'd they would not change But what ever power they had of Nullifying this and making Mary spurious 't is certain another and latter Act 35. H. 8. made her as much Legitimate by making her Hereditary insomuch that what ever Edward her Brother was prevail'd upon a young Prince and a dying one whose forward Understanding might be well disorder'd with an approaching Death and an untimely end and which might be easily prevail'd upon in such Circumstances by the Cruel sollicitations of the designing Northumberland Stow. 609. Vid. Bishop of Hereford's last year of E. 6. whose Son had but just Married Suffolk's Daughter the designed Queen yet even then Cranmer the truly Loyal Bishop and as true a Protestant of which his adbering to the right of the Crown was the best testimony tho now 't is made but a preposterous Emphatical expression of that Religion to invade it that worthy Prelate tho he suffer'd in the Succeeding flames of a real Persecution when demanded by these State Projectors his sense of the setting up of this Testamentary Queen declar'd it was no way agreeable to Equity to disinherit the two Sisters and that the Succession could not be Lawfully alter'd upon any pretence tho Religion then too was the very thing pretended the Bishop of Hereford that was as good a Protestant observes upon the Suffolk men siding with Queen Mary tho they knew she was for setting up of Popery says that our English are in their respects to their Prince so Loyally Constant that no regard no pretext of
History the best account of that King and he tells us he had no less then three Titles to the Crown whatever that Italian States-man Commines could conceive to the contrary first his Title in right of the Lady Elizabeth whom he was resolv'd to marry secondly that of the Line of Lancasters long disputed both by Plea and Arms thirdly the Conquest by his own But the Learned Historian observes the first was look't on the fairest and Yorks line been always lik't as the best Plea in the Crowns descent and for Confirmation of it the Learned Lord tells us that this Henry knew the Title of Lancaster Condemn'd by Act of Parliament Bacon Hist H. 7. p. 3. Ibid. page 12. and prejudic'd in the Common opinion of the Realm and that the root of all the Mischiefs that befel him was the discountenancing of the house of York whom the General body of the Kingdom still affected and whatever stress and reliance this Prince might place in the PARLIAMENT's power this able states-man observes there is still a great deal of difference 'twixt a King that holds by civil Act of State and him that holds Originally by the Law of NATVRE and DISCENT of BLOOD so that we have here a Person vers'd in our own Laws an excellent and allowed Scholar by the whole World and not only Lauds and Bishops as our bigotted Author would have it allowing a Divine right by the Laws of Nature and who I am sure was so good a Naturalist as best understood her Laws and that Natural discent by blood to be much more preferable than any other Human title given by such Inferiour powers of a Parliament whom the most zealou's adorerssure won't acknowledg more Omnipotent then the God of Nature himself I shall observe another Historical Instance that a true lineal discent was then taken for the best title and even in those times had the greatest Influence which was the Lord Stanley's Case who tho the very Person that plac'd the Crown on this Princes head yet suffer'd the loss of Vid Bacon Hist his own only for saying somewhat that savoured of his kindness to the Succession and that if he was sure the Children of Edward were alive he would not â—ear Arms against them so mightily did the sense of the right blood prevail with him that he sacrified all his own for it and rather than recant what he so well resolv'd seem'd no way sollicitous for his Life But that which this Historian might have observ'd too in this Reign as a discouragement to the designs of some of their popular Patriots then afoot when he pen'd this his presumptuous piece was the ill success that two several impostures met with in their pretensions to a Crown to which they were not born no great Inducement certainly for any one to be persuaded to personate the Royal Heir to set up for a Lambert or a Perkin only for their misfortune and fate Lastly I shall conclude my remarks upon this Kings Reign with an Animadversion upon a Paragraph or two that conclude his piece very pertinent to this place since it relates to the times of which we treat and that is the resolution of the Judges upon the Case of this their King that the Descent of the Crown purged all his defects and attainder This their opinion he refutes Brief Hist p. 17. as Frivolous Extrajudicial and here Impertinent but I hope to show this Point a most material one the Resolution to be a good Judgment and their reply much to the present purpose First sure it was a matter and that of a high Nature to know how he was qualify'd to sit in the House that was to preside in it as the head And tho he might in some sense be said to have won the Crown with Arms yet he knew it would wear much Better sit much Easier if setled and establish't according to Law and tho a Conquerer that has the Sword in his hand can soon capacitate himself to sway the Scepter yet he 'l soon find the most regular Proceedings tend most to the Establishment of his Reign this made Henry the Seventh who had a Triple Plea for the Crown and that one by discent from the Lancasters consult his Oracles of the Law how far an Attainder past in the Reign of the Yorks would still taint his Blood and make it less Inheritable Secondly their Resolution that all preceding defects were purg'd in the discent was a Judgment both equitable and reasonable for 't was sure but equal that an Heir to whom an Inheritance and that of a Crown was allowed to discend should be qualify'd to take too for if he was a King no Bill of Attainder could touch him that was past too when he was none And if he was no King Vid Dyer H. 7. f. 59. The King is the head of the Parliament Lords and Commons but Members So no more Parliament without a King than a body without a head It is no Stat. if a King assent not to it 12. H. 7. 20. all the concurrence of the Lords and Commons cou'd never have made him an Act for his being so there being no Royal Authority to pass it into Law and nothing by the very constitution of our Government can be made a Law without so that such a resolution certainly was highly reasonable and unavoidable that that should purge its own defects which no power had perfection anough to purge wou'd he have a King pass an Act with his two Houses for the reversal of his own Attainder or the two Houses reverse the Attainder of their King If the first the allowing him to pass such an Act supersedes the end for which it should be past and makes him de Facto capable whom they would capacitate if he allows the Latter then he must an Interregnum too extinguish that Monarchy for a while of which the very Maxim says the Monarch can't dye and place that Supream power in the People which all our Fundamental Laws have put in the King Thirdly this Resolution is very pertinent to the present purpose to which 't is commonly now apply'd and that is the Bill of Exclusion But his passion and prejudice would not permit him to Examin the little difference there is between them For certainly that ability that can discharge any attainder is as efficacious for the voiding and nulling any Bill that shall hinder the descent for a Bill of Exclusion would have been but a Bill or an Act of the House for disabling the next Heir And an Attainder can do the same and is as much the Houses Act and to distinguish that in an Exclusion the Discent it self is prevented by a Law makes just no difference for whoever is Attainted has his Discent prevented by a Law too and that antecedently also before the Descent can come to purge him so that they only differ in this formal sort of Insignificancy In an Exclusion the Discents prevention would be
King by this Clause is obliged to pass all Bills that shall be brought why truly then he Swears with an implicite Faith to Repeal all the Laws if the People please for the bare possibility in such a sort of Argumentation may be supposed and we as well imagine for my Lord Coke tells us we have had ‖ Vid. 3. Inst his Parliamentum insanum Mad Parliaments such a Senate may prefer Bills for the Repealing all the Old Laws as well as for the passing any single New and I am sure 't is no more than what has actually been done in * Car. 1. An. Parl. 41. one since that Learned Lawyer lived even to the Subversion of ‖ Vid. their 19. propositions all the Statutes of the Land so that this positive Oath in their sense may Labour under an implicite contradiction for while he swears in the latter Clause to confirm all the Bills they shall bring It may be extended to cancel all Custom and Common-Law he is in the former sworn to defend Mr. Hunt's General Desire of the People may be for the Repealing the 35th of Edward as well as that of Elizabeth and leave no Law in the Land to punish Treason as well as Recusants only that they may commit it with impunity for one of those Bills has †Regn. Car. 1. Car. 2. twice been brought into the House and both may be to save their Bacon And should the King with their Elegerit be obliged especially so mild an one with an anticipated Mercy to Pardon Villains for the cutting of his Throat and leave no Law to punish perhaps a Rumbold or the Russians at the Rye certainly were his Right not in the least Divine this would contradict all Sense and Reason Suppose Richard the Second took this Oath as well as the rest of his Successors since and afterwards the general desire of his Parliament we all know was that he would depose himself Senseless Sots was that King sworn too even in his Coronation to confirm his own Deposition In short must not this senseless Suggestion put upon the Royal Authority the greatest absurdity against all Sense and Reason must it not make him swear to confirm those Laws that have not so much as BEING and that before he knows whether they will be good or bad Is it not Resolved and that upon Record in the King's Exchequer where the Words run with some Signification That the King keep the Laws and Customes which the Lords and Commons HAVE chosen c But grant them their own Sense that is Silliness That Oath these Malignants of our Monarchy object was made first for an * 1. H. 4. absolute Usurper that came to the Crown by the Suffrages of such a Seditious Senate not much Inferior in Villainy to the late long Parliament that labored so much in this business of the Legislative or rather less Villains only in deposing a King whom the latter Murdered and why a Lawful King should be bound by that Oath did the Laws oblige him to take it which was first offered to an Vsurper I cannot apprehend That aspiring Prince swore too in his Coronation that he held his Crown by the Sole Consent of the People shall our present Soveraign do the same whom the * 1. Jacob. Statutes acknowledge to hold from none but God But do not in that very Oath the Words they so much labor in confute them also in my poor Reason beyond reply is not Leges the Word Laws expresly used that it is Laws that the King swears to Confirm Corroborate Maintain and Protect And were the Commons ever allowed or presumed without a Rebellion to Elect LAWS There is not the least of a Bill mentioned in that Oath and sure they 'll offer to elect no more and in Gods Name let them chuse to send up as many of those as they please And sure then these Leges here must relate to those that are really so and have had the Royal Sanction already so that they must be reduced to this Dilemna If they 'll apply their Vulgus elegerit to the Lower House 't is certain they can make no Laws if to that of the Lords 't is as certain they can't be called Vulgus Lastly Laborious Drudges of Sedition let but these Laws ye long to subvert while you 'd seem to defend decide betwixt you and your King Is it not established by * 2. H. 5. 1. Jacob. 1. 1. Car. 1. c. 7. Statute it self that the King hath absolute power to Dissent to any Bill though agreed upon by both Houses But yet in spight of all this Reason and Law they tell us that the King cannot deny to pass any Bills for the publick good and which perhaps never can a good King for his Refusal of his Royal Sanction determines their Goodness and they cease to be necessary when the King thinks there is no need of them for if upon this their presumptive Goodness and the Prince as it is his undoubted Prerogative to do denying his Assent the People should presume they could with their Legislative because their King is refractory as they would call it pass some Bills into Law from their Assurance of their being good that power wou'd enable them to make bad ones too and allow their two Houses to Judge when to make but one Law they are as good Judges to make one thousand or as many as they please and no end of such a distracted Usurpation and that we saw when they began with that Ordinance for the Militia which was the first thing they presumed to make Law from their Kings as their Seditious absurd Phraseology would word it Refractory refusing i. e. that courageously maintaining his just Right when they had thus once broke the Damm no wonder if the deluge of an absolute Rebellion overwhelmed for upon the same ground the Lords might have Excluded both King and Commons for not concurring with them in what Bills and Acts they thought good and the Commons as * Vid. Hist Independeny pag. 115. 17. March 48. Scob. Coll. pâ—g 7 8. indeed they did both King and Lords for being obstinate to such BILLS as themselves had offered But yet notwithstanding the Kings Refractoriness as our Republican Phrases it is now trumpt up again for the warranting the Peoples assuming as they would have it a sort of necessitated Power and that of calling themselves to Parliament for this the * Postscr page 8. Lawyer in his Postscript Labors with his Innuendo's For this ‖ Plat. page 109. Plato tells us the Barons did well to put on their Armour that it is an Omission that ruins the very Foundations of Government and Hunt will not have them so much as discontinued for it renders such Conventions illusory Seditious Sycophants Your selves know this power of their Discontinuance and Dissolution is the best security the Crown has for its support Was it not miserably rent and torn from the Head
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
Nation it self shewed afterward against that Apostolical Order he told the People plainly they must Murder all the Bishops And in his canting Phraseology * Vid. Leighton's Sions Plea Printed 1636. Smite them under the fifth Rib. 'T is true the Government of Church and State stood yet so strong upon its Basis tho shaken with an undermining Plot that it dared to punish such an Execrable Villain with the Pillory and sentenced he was in the Star-Chamber to be stigmatised cropt and slit and tho the Parliament had not openly declared themselves against this good Government of the Church yet they had shown such Symptoms of their Disaffection to it that this Impudent Libeller could presume to make them his Patrons and present them with his Plea And I ha'n't found in all their Journal any Order for so much as the censuring him for such a piece of Presumption To exclude the Bishops from Voting in their Assembly the Confederates of Scotland drew up a Libel against them one in the Literal Sense full of Scandal and Reproaches But the denying them there their Rights in Parliament was soon seconded with the Robbing them of all too they had in the Church whom they had excluded they soon Excommunicated and then abolisht utterly the sacred Order so did also within two years after the good Parliament of England begin with the Prelacy too Pennington with his packt Petition of Prentices presented to them their Abhorrence of that Hierarchy the cunning and counterfeit Commons that House of Hypocrisie seemed a little dissatisfyed with an Alteration of the Church Government it self that is they did not care to pluck it up presently Root and Branch but fell upon another Argument somewhat more plausible tho to the Zealots less pleasing but what in truth was but Introductory to the same thing they more deliberately designed that they might proceed somewhat like Senators soberly to Sedition and that was about the Synod and Convocation Canons and Constitutions Ecclesiastical which they soon resolved to be against the Fundamental Laws of the Land But these Lay-Members were only mighty loth the Clergy should here have their Representatives as well as the Laick they must otherwise have seen that such a Resolution would upbraid them to their Faces with a Lye for this their Court of Convocation was as much founded upon Law and more too perhaps than even that of the Commons themselves who with their inconsistent Votes with Contradiction it self condemned it Exclude the Clergy and the very Foundations of your House must fall Did not former times allow you Representatives that every one might have an Hand in the Composition of that which he had an Obligation to obey Banish the Bishops your Assembly and tell me by what Proxies the Church shall be represented and what shall tye her to the Observation of those Laws to whose Constitution she gives no consent For a Thousand Years before they had a being there were such * Beda tells us Augustine the Monk called one of the Britain Bishops An. Dom. 686. King Ina's a Convocation of Cletgy An. Dom. 727. of the Saxons Synods Assembled never called but by the King 's Writ and they have no other Authority for their own Sitting and might as well have Voted that their own Assembly as indeed it was afterward was ‖ The very Words of their Vote against the Cannons Vid. Journal against the Fundamental Laws of the Realm Prerogative of the King Property of the Subject Right of Parliament and did tend to Faction and Sedition And tho those Canons and Constitutions were streightned and limited in Henry the †Register F. N. B. 4. Inst p. 322. c. 71. Eight's Time and it was provided that none for the future that had not the Royal Assent should be put in Execution yet such Reverence and Respect had the Parliament of those Times which I think was made up of a better sort of Reformers than what past their suffrages for the setting aside this Synod that not withstanding that Limitation they put in an express Proviso * Vid. 25. H. 8. for their Antiquity See Bracton l. 3. f. 123. Hol 303. 6 H. 3. Rot. p. 18. Ed. 3. that such Canons as were made before that Act so long as they did not contradict Law should be still in force after and this was at a time too when they were so far from being the Bigots of Rome that they were reforming from Her and acknowledged their Kings Supremacy even in ‖ 26 H. 8. c. 8. several of those Convocations tho whatever Religion they were of Common Reason cannot make it a Crime the countenancing of the Churches Right but these Violators of her Priviledges soon discovered their Design upon her Patrimony too for in the same Session and that soon after they that thus set aside the Churches Synod sent up an Impeachment of Treason against its Metropolitan and that by the Hands of a mighty famous Member whom his Majesty could have made appear and within a year after did demand as a greater Criminal too one who if I mistake not liv'd so long and so lately to prosecute the Bishops once more in their †His Discourse of Peerage London 1679. which Hunt himself could oppose Peerage as well as Persons But having gone so far what they had scribbl'd down before with their Libels they soon damn'd with a Vote And in the same Year past that Bill that their Spiritual Lordships should have no suffrages in the Senate of Lords And when they were come to this once to deprive them of their prescrib'd Privileges and their Legal Rights to send twelve of them to the Tower only because they would not tamely forego the very Church's Birth-right but entered a * they sent Glyn upon the resentment the Lords had taken against it too to accuse them of no less than High-treason for which they were committed for four months Vid. Bak p. 515. An. 1641. Protestation only against the betraying of their Trust you might think their Order it self tho never so Primitive never so much Apostolical was not like to be long liv'd for in the very next Year tho it was the good Kings giving one when Star-Chamber was abolisht the High-Commission put down Ship-Money relinquisht with six or seven several Acts besides for disclaiming Priviledges still his Seditious Subjects 1642. According ly done in the next year Ordinance 12 of June Vid. Scob. Col. p. 42. had so little Sense of his Goodness that even in that very season of Grace a †Bill was brought in for Abolishing this sacred Order Root and Branch 't is true 't was then husht up in the House the provident Patriots understood how to time it better they had not yet come to covenanting and concluded with the Kirk but as soon as they had framed their Holy League ‖ Mildmay's Oath taken 15. of June 43. Scob. Col. page 42. in Imitation of the Scots solemn one which they
being Rational debase his very Nature so much as to call it Justice Would they ascribe an Omnipotency to this their power of Parliaments beyond that of the Almighty and blasphemously allow to this their Created God what the Schools would not the Divinity it self to reconcile Contradiction but still these Statute Mongers that can make any Miscellanies of Parliament for their turn this they will defend to be Legal only because it was past into a Law Let it be so but still there must be much difference between this their Legality which now in their Sense can be nothing but the power of making Laws and common Justice which must be the Reason for which they are made and what is contrary to that and all Reason by the Laws of God and all Nations must be null and void otherways the most Barbarous Immoralities that an Heathen would blush at by such an indefinite Legislative would be truly Legal only because they are past into a Law Murder it self made Statutable as soon as ever those that have the power have Sign'd it for an Act. These Suggestions of Consequences are far from being extravagant because at present the Principles that lead to them are what but very lately have been Printed and Publish'd and the very Practices themselves not long since put in Execution This * Postscr p. 55. Author I am handling has made his Legislative not to be confin'd and that Plato we have pretty well examined allows his People can pass any thing for the good of the Common-wealth and then it may Polygamy too because it was practis'd in his Republick and is now tolerated amongst the Turks and what some Waggs tell us an indiscreet Member was once moving for here But that we can have hard measure for our Lives upon the pretence of a Parliamentary Power the Case of Strafford will attest and that with the pretext of a Parliament a Monarch may be murder'd The Martyrdome of our King these are too terrible Testimonies that our Legislative has been strein'd to make the greatest Injury Law and ‖ By Parl. 12. Car. 2d C. 12. That Session declar'd Traiterous Treason it self the Statute of the Land for they past an Act for the Tryal of their Soveraign and then declar'd it Legal because it was past Their God Almighty of the Law †Cook 4. Inst C. 1. p. 36 huic nec metas rerum nec tempora pono Cook himself whose Words with them is all Gospel too tho' he in his Pedantick Phraseology puts no period to this Power of Parliament yet in the very * Pag. 36. next Page condemns the self same sort of Proceeding and that was in the Case that hard Fate too of another Earl as Innocent perhaps also and as unfortunate ‖ Earl of Essex 35. H. 8. Cromwell was attainted in Henry the Eighth's time much after the same manner my Lord Strafford was in Charles the First but only if so great Injustice can be extenuated the latter was more Inhumane For tho' the First was Sentenc'd and suffer'd by Parliament without being admitted to Answer A Proceeding against our * Magna Charta C. 29. 5 Edw. 3. C. 9. 28 Edw. 3. C. 5. own Laws those of all ‖ The Manner of the Romans was to see Accusers Face to Face and Answer if you believe the Bible Acts 25. v. 16. Matt. Paris vita Reg. Johan 275. incivile videtur contra Canones in absentem ferre Sententiam Nations and of †Deuteronomy Chap. xix Verse iv The Almighty provides for the Prisoner's Defence Heaven it self against all that was Humane or Divine yet Wentworth's Measure was more hard whom they made to suffer with an Attainder after he had argued for his Life confounded his Accusers and convicted some of his own * My Lord Digby with several others Judges The same sort of Severity Sir John Mortimer met with from this Parliamentary Power upon whom they past a Judgment without so much as permitting him to be arraigned but these Barbarities of Mr. Vid. Rot. Parl. 2d H. 6. num 18. Hunt's unlimited Legislative were condemn'd even by this their learn'd Lawyer tho' he would not did not or dared not question their Authority yet damned them in his own Words * But of these says he Auferat Oblivio si potest si non ut câ—nque silentium tegat 4 Inst p. 37. Postscript p. 74. if it were possible to dark Oblivion if not to be buried in Silence but this more Dogmatical Judge with his Postscript has rather Encouraged such Injustice and Severity and represented to his Parliament a power they have of Proceeding more unwarrantably when he tells them tho the Succession of our Crown be Hereditary they can alter the whole Line and Monarchy it self by their unlimited power of their Legislative Authority But I shall also shew him that his Legislative power as it cannot justly extend to such great and impious Extravagancies yet but what we see it has been actually stretch'd to so neither can it to some other things that are less so In King Edward the Third's Time there were several Acts past that took away the power of Pardons from the Prince yet all these made void by the Common ‖ Stanford 2. 101. Law because against the Prerogative of their King And it was resolved by the Judges in King James †2. Jacob. Term. Hill Cook Lib. 7. his Reign that Himself could not grant away the power of Dispensation with the Forfeitures upon the Penal Laws because annext to his Royal Person and the Right of his Soveraignty And if what is only Derogatory from the Crown 's Right and King's Prerogative shall be actually voided by the Common Law as we see it did to the nulling three several Statutes I cannot see how this Bill of Exclusion had it past into an Act would not have been as much null and void unless it can be proved that our Hereditary Descent of the Crown is not so much the King's Prerogative that wears it as the Pardoning of a Felon or the remitting a Fine And that I believe will be difficult to be cleared by those that have spent so much Pains and Paper for its Justification and our Author himself so much Labors for so that even the Common Law it self will anticipate the Work of the Statute and perhaps his Highness need not have stayed till that of Henry the ‖ 1. Henry the Seventh Fol. 4. Que Le Roy est Person dis charge D'ascun Attainder quil prist sur luy le Reign estre Roy. Seventh had taken away his Exclusion as well as Attainder and purged away all his Defects and framed in capacities by his coming to the Crown I have but two Cases more with which I 'll conclude Mr. Hunts great point of Legislative In †5. Ed. 3. Edward the Third's Time an Act was purposely declared void that was past and the King had
against some Persons of that Perswasion that he acted as if he would have executed their very Religion * Vid. Burnet's Abr. hanging up some Carthusians even in their Habits and immured nine Monks in their own Monastery where they dyed This was it that so settled what they call Superstitious Worship that it survived the short liv'd Reign of the pious Edward and in Spight of all his providential care for it's exterpation run only like the Guaronne that Miracle of a River in one of their Climates of Popery if their Histories of their Country be not Legends too only through a little Province in silent darkness underground but rose again and that with greater rage in the next Region This good Kings Laws about Religion would never have been so soon repealed the Commons House never have been so forward as the * Barnet's Abridgm Cl 3. 229. Divine Doctor whom themselves have thankt for it does make them for the sending up a Bill for the punishing all such as would not return to the Sacraments after the old Service Had the Six Articles been but past by instead of being past into an Act they would have had no such Service to return to they would have been Strangers to Rome and it's Religion and tho they were repealed in Edward the Sixth's time his Fathers ratifying them made them take such root that his short Reign could never Eradicate that left so many Catholicks in the Kingdom that Commendone the Popes Legate might well come over to reconcile her Highness's Crown to his Holyness's See And here had not the Queen if such a thing could have been expected from a Sister of that Church so Zealous done much better had she refused the Bills of both Houses brought her for introducing the Pope's power and Supremacy your selves Seditious Souls reproach this Royal Assent with Reflections so scurrilous upon her Memory that the worst of Monarchs could never Merit and then only give but Loyal Ones leave to think that your Excluding Bill tho never so much the General Desires might have been as much cursed by posterity when it had entailed upon it Misery and Blood the common Consequences of a debar'd Right To come now after this Ecclesiastical point of the Church to that Civil one of the State that other thing this Lawyer Labors for the Descent of the Crown Shall the Peoples general Desires in this too terminate the Will of the Prince why then that Monster of Mankind as well as Monarchs did mighty well too to pass that Murdering * 1 Rich. 3. Bill presented by both Houses of Parliament to make good his own Title to the Crown by the Butchering of those Babes in the Tower for no less could be expected when it was once taken up by the Tyrant than their Destruction for the Maintaining it so that this Peoples Desires dispatch'd them in the Senate before ever they were strangled by Tyrril in the Tower Had it not been a much greater Honor to the Prince to have refused such a Barbarous Bill than turned Usurper and a Butcher for it's acceptance Had it not left a less Blot in our English Chronicle as well as upon the Nation less Blood ‖ 28. H. c. 7. Rast 4. Did not both Houses exhibite a Bill even for the making Elizabeth the best of their Queens a Bastard And does Mr. Hunt say this desire of the People too did mighty well to prevail as it always ought upon the King Did not that Royal Assent so blacken his Person and brought the Nations repute so low that the very Protestant Princes left him out of their League whom they had designed for its Head and look'd upon our England as a lump of Inconsistancy whom such Vnanimous Leaguers could not Trust And was it not in his Reign That a Zealous * This was the Opinion of Sir Thomas Moor too and the Brief History might have cited this too as he does another Opinion of this prevaricating Papist for his purpose Papist said It was the Parliaments Power to make a King or deprive him a fortiori then a Popish Principle to destroy or exclude his Successor But as bold as this Gentleman thinks himself when he dares to say Never any †Vid. Brief History p. 18. Burnets Abrig p. 313. King denyed to pass those Bills which the People pitcht upon to present 'T is none of his own Politick asseveration tho it be but a piece of Sedition It is no more than what a Seditious Senate ‖ Page 50. Vid. Declaration of Lords and Commons about the Kings Coronation Oath Parl. 41. told their King long agon A Senate that sate brooding on the pure Elements of Treason and of which Pryn himself was a principal Member A Senate that sowed so much Sedition in one age that all the Succeeding will hardly eradicate A Senate that sate drawing out the Scheams and Platforms of a Common-wealth A Senate that assumed to themselves indeed the Legislative the Nomothetical Disposition of the Law but they proved such a Confounded sort of Architects in the State that they drew a perfect plan a confus'd Ichonography for Rebels to build upon their Babel Those told us in plain Terms what * Hunt and Pryn. these more cautious Coxcombs insinuate with a silly Circumlocution That the King is bound by His Coronation Oath to grant them all those Bills their Parliament shall prefer And that they gather from their contradictory conclusion that bandy'd Banter they have Box'd about in both Reigns for almost these two Ages the ‖ Concedas justas legis esse tenendas c. Quas Vulgus elegerit Rot. Parl. H. 4. VVLGVS ELEGERIT I am sorry to find these Seditious Souls not only to want Sense but Grammar Lilly would have told them more of the Law and his Constrctuion and Concord made a better Resolution than their Coke upon the Case But as the People when they have got the Power will soon decide on their side the Supremacy so these Times did here assoon turn the Tenses and transfer the past Laws into the Future and 't is no wonder that those that did the Statutes of their Prince could dare to break the Head of a Priscian Is not the perfect Tense much more agreeable to Sense and Reason here than the Future The question is Whether it shall be meant of those Laws the People shall Chuse or have Chosen I won't object here Our Kings being absolute and compleat Monarchs without so much as taking such an Oath without so much as being * Coke 7. 106. 11. Calvin 's Case Watson Clarks 1. Jac. Coâ—e 7. fol. 30. Crowned which is the Time it is to be taken tho of that the Law has in several Cases satisfied the most Seditious and so resolved their silly Suggestion The resolution I shall give is the Strength of Reason and that must at least be as Strong as the Law Let it be but once allow'd That their
wealthy Citizen whose Estate with a great deal of Money and as little Wit serv'd only to make him more wickedly and less wisely Seditious for nothing but the pride of a Purse or the not valuing of a Fine could have made a Man guilty of so much Folly at a Season when they were in an hot pursuit of an Hellish Conspiracy and the Blood Vid. His Tryal for High Misdemeanor at Guild-Hall London Feb. 14. 1683 4. of those that had suffer'd for it hardly cold For he lets them know that the Protestant Plot is confounded quite lost that the Evidence of it the Lord Howard was to be sent to the Tower and that all the Prisoners that lay there for the same were discharged that Sidney that Suffer'd for it was Pardon'd that Braddon that was Fin'd for it was no farther Prosecuted all rank Lyes as well as lewdly Seditious And though his kind Council was pleas'd to mitigate the Information as if the Malice was not so apparent that will not mince the matter for tho' the circumstances and the plain matter of Fact make it the most malitious piece of Faction Imaginable yet moreover the very mass of his Blood was tainted with as much malice and his very Relations actual Rebels and in Arms against their Sovereign our Sir Thomas Bernadiston being a Colonel of a Foot Regiment of Rebels at the Siege of Colchester which I can make appear from an old Map of the Siege where he may see his Father or his Brother Firing upon his Majesties Subjects But these Factious Papers being prov'd upon him from his own Hand and the Testimony of his Servant that Superscrib'd them they found him Guilty without going from the Bar for which in the King's Bench he was April 14 1684. afterward Fin'd Ten thousand Pounds to the King bound to be of the Good Behaviour during Life and to be Committed till 't was paid But after all as if they did endeavour to silence their own Advocates in their Defence and that Impudence it self might not endeavour to smother their secret Conspiracies they break out into that open Rebellion for which they had Conspired and Invade the Kingdom as if they design'd only to prove the Plot For in April 1685. Argyle lands with Men and Amunition brought from Holland in one of the South-West Isles of Scotland call'd Yyle or Ila and their seizes all the Arms Horses Men and other Necessaries to make up an Army some of his Heretors come in for Assistance with some few of his Dependants and Relations of which of the most note were his Sons and one Achinbreck of which Name there is a Castle or Town near those Isles For a Month or two they kept Sailing about Boot Cantire and the rest of the Islands there abouts sometime landing then setting out again But about the nineteenth of June the Lord Dunbarton having notice that the Rebels had past the River Levin above Dumbarton Town and taking their way towards Sterling overtook them in the Parish of Killerne but being late in the Evening did not Attack them but by the Morning the Rebels were march'd off toward the River Clyde which on the seventeenth they past but pursu'd by the King's Forces and Cochran carrying them by mistake into a Bogg they soon disorder'd and dispers'd The late Argyle was set upon in his flight towards the Clyde by two of Greynock's Servants receiving a Wound on his Head dismounted his Horse and ran into the Water where a Countryman fell'd him so the Soldiers carried him to their Commander from thence to Glascow and then to Edenburgh Among these Rebels were several of the blackest Conspirators of England that were fled for the same Rumbold himself the Malster at the Rye by whose House his late Majesty was to be Murder'd as also one Captain Ayloff mention'd in the King's Declaration were both there taken Rumbold fought desperately and Ayloff so despair'd that he ript up his Belly Rumbold was afterward Arraigned for Invading the Kingdom with the rest of the Rebels had Sentence as in Cases of High-Treason and was accordingly a Jun. 29. Hang'd and Quarter'd and the next day the late Lord Argyle their Arch-Traytor b Jun. 30. Beheaded And now that their Plot might be prov'd as plain in England too About the beginning of June Monmouth landed at Lime in Dorsetshire of which he possest himself having with him three Ships brought into Town about two hundred Men some of the Seditious Souls and as silly of the Country ran in to his Assistance upon falling of the Tide as 't is thought they made an Excursion upon the Sands to the Town of Bridport which they enter'd by the Back-side and surprised in it Mr. Wadham Strangways one Mr. Coker and Mr. Harvey Officers for the King the two former they kill'd wounded the latter seiz'd some Horses and went back to their Quarters at Lime where while they lay there a Party of the King 's met some of the Rebels had a Ran-counter kill'd about twenty three and made the rest retire From thence they march'd toward Taunton seizing all the Horses they could meet with no Gentleman of Note came in to their Assistance But yet by their bare coming to that Rebellious place the Rebels were become mighty numerous some few of the Militia-Men were said to have deserted and run into the Rebels but those very inconsiderable for their number as soon as the Rebels were arriv'd to some considerable body their Leader the late Duke was pleas'd to be Proclaim'd and to set up for a mock King sending a Letter in a Stile of Majesty to the D. of Albemarle About the Twentieth of June Captain Trevanion Commander of some of his Majesties Ships found a Dogger and a Pink of the Rebel's Ships lying at the Cob of Lime some Barrels of Powder Back Breast and Head-Pieces for several Men in the Town which were all secured and his Grace the Duke of Albemarle sent into it three Companies The Rebels rambl'd about Glassenbury in Somerset and some part of Wiltshire Plundering and taking all the Horse they could and gleaning up as many Foot And both these Invanders to publish themselves Rebels in Print as well as Arms put out their Declarations of their King 's being an Vsurper and a Tyrant that had Succeeded to the Crown by all the Laws of God as well as Man One William Disney Esq was taken with his Wench in his Bed and Monmouth's Declarations Printing in his House Try'd for the Treason in Southwark upon full Evidence found Guilty Sentenc'd and accordingly * June 29. 1685. Executed And the †June 25. 1685. Parliament it self by special Act Attaint James Scot for a Rebel and a Traitor set five Thousand Pounds upon his Head which was published in the King's Proclamation afterward paid to those that took him The Rebels for some time continued forraging and rambling about the Western Counties Wilts and Somerset At Philips Norton a
laboured to prevent an Vsurpation and provided for the right Heir who succeeded in his paternal Inheritance before arrived even to the Romans civil age of Puberty 14. And the malicious Perverter might as well say as great a stress as you 'll find afterwards he truly does upon Richard the thirds Butchery and Usurpation the breaking of the Laws of God and Man for a Crown All the difference is Here were only two Nephews for a while debarred there Butchered and shall such bloody Miscreants pass upon the World for credible Authors who for robbing of a Divine-right can cite you Murder and for the breaking of our Humane Laws the blackest Crime in the Declogue And since this Antimonarchical Zealot has shown himself thus elaborately studious to rake every musty Record of those Reigns for a Rebellious remark give me leave only from the same times to make this last and Loyal Observation where Providence seemed to shew it self remarkably concerned for its crowned Head and that in the subsequent Judgment upon the Proto-Martyrdom of the Saxon Edward as well as what we suffered since for our Martyr'd Charles tho there 't was only for anticipating a right by blood but ours a bloody Usurpation of those that had no right at all Ethelred's passage to his Reign was but before his time and the Almighty's yet the Government suffered for it as many Pangs till it quite miscarried within fifty years the new Monarchy fell quite asunder rent and torn by two several Conquests He himself meets with the Defection of all his Nobility forc't to raise his Danegelt and his Subjects into Rebellion by it prepared his Navies only to be shattered with a tempest or consumed with Fire both Elements and Heaven it self seemed to conspire But because he came to the Kingdom by ill means arose Civil Wars p. 86. to make him Miserable Famine and Mortality were the dismal attendants of his Wars the Depredations of Invaders would not allow peace the Reign that begun in a Murder ended in a Massacre The incensed Danes soon invade him the perjured Edric falsely forsakes him he languishes a long time as well he might under Guilt and Misfortune and to put the only period to his days Miseries and Kingdom together Vid. Daniel p. 13. Dies You see how little success this Author met with among the Saxons Sovereigns for altering Succession how much of Imposture his Reader may there meet with in him and you shall as soon see he deals as disingeniously with the Danes And here thorough his double diligence this Parliament Historiographer has not omitted an Argument for his purpose much of the same strength as those that he has used viz. That Knute was no kin to Edmund or Ethelred And the Dane no way related to the Line of the Saxon that is the poor conquered England was not Cosin German to Denmark the Conqueror and yet the Title of the latter was preferred and their King acknowledged ours I can't conceive what necessity of Relation an Invader needs to the poor Prince he Invades and whether that be not a pretty sort of an Argument for altering Succession to say the Kingdom was Conquered Swayn had before cut out a fine Title for his Son with the Sword The North West and some of the South part of England had submitted frightned with his revengeful Cruelties which their own had provoked Canute himself after his Fathers Death lands as soon at Sandwich with a Navy of two hundred gave our English a great overthrow possest himself of what Swayn had before harassed the West and because the Nobility favoured only whom they feared and set him up in Competition for the Crown whom they could not keep down from being a Competitor ergo therefore the Succession must not run in the right Line and why because here it did not if more absur'd Inferences can be drawn from matter of Fact or greater Solecisms from Historical Observation I 'le forfeit all the little Right I have to Reason and with an Implicit Faith believe the Legend for a Bible and his History for the Revelations But yet this Prince though by Conquest and Composition he got half the Kingdom and upon Edmunds Death the whole foresaw what Power the pleas of Right and Succession might have for animating an Interest in the defence of the poor injured Heirs and therefore took all the ways to ingratiate himself with his wavering People his young and unexperienced Subjects and all manner of means for preventing the Lawful Heirs for attempting for their Right sticking at neither Murder Malice and Treachery and in order to the first he made a shew of governing with more Justice then he conquered and took mildness for the best means of his Establishment and to let the Nation know he designed only to subdue them sends away his Mercenaries ships away his Navy and for a popular Specimen of an Heroick Kindness to the memory of the Saxons he succeeded as a Satisfaction to their injured Dust prefers Edricks perjured Head to the highest place on the City Gate and with that Expedient reconciled himself at once to his own promise deserved Justice and the Peoples favour and yet for securing himself from any danger from the Lawful Heirs so politickly Cruel that all the Royal Blood felt of his Injustice sent the two Sons of his late Co-partner in the Kingdom to be murdered abroad and got his Brother to be butchered at home such an experienced truth is it that Powers usurpt Successions altered like the blackest Villanies can only be Justifyed and defended by committing more At his Death 't is true he disposed of his Crowns by Testamentary Bequest and well he might when there was so little known for Kingdoms of Feudatory Law and private Estates then far from being entailed yet in that very Legacy you can observe what Power the Consideration had with him of Right and Blood for he leaves his own Paternal Dominions Norway to his Eldest son Swayn and to his Youngest Hardicanute his conquered England considering his Mothers Blood which was Emma Wife to the late King Ethelred might as indeed it did give him some precedency to his middle Brother Harold the one having somewhat of Saxon in him the other all Dane especially if he was as some say Illegitimate tho' Baker calls him an Elder Brother by a former Wife so that upon the whole the Contest that rose about the Succession was but whether he had Right and when at last Harald was preferred 't was upon the Resolution of his being Legitimate so that here his own Inference contradicts the end for which 't was brought and instead of altering the discent shows they industriously contended to keep it in the right Channel and allowing they were mistaken in their Opinions of his Birth the Lords to make amends for their error streight on his Death fetch home Hardicanute who dying without Issue the Right of Blood prevailed again and the Saxon entred in Edward the
Confessor Edmunds Son only being past by because his very being was unknown and so they can only be blamed for not seeking for the right Heir among the supposed Dead Yet when this Edward had found him out he designed both him Vid. Baker Vid. Stow says they did him wrong and always it occasion'd civil War and his Son Atheling for successive Monarchs whose very name imported Hereditary and next of kin as much as our Prince of Wales while the second Harold but usurpt upon him against the sense of the Clergy who even then lookt upon it as a Violation of the Right of the Heir and also of their Holy Rites and tho Harald suggested that Edward had appointed him to be Crown'd Historians say that it was only to make him during the Minority of this Edgar a Regent and not an absolute King and Mat. Paris speaking of Edgar Atheling in the very first Leafe of his History in these very words says that to him belonged the Right to the Kingdom of England and if Birth could then give a Right I don't see how then or now any Power can defraud a Prince justly of his Birth-right And now we 'l begin our Remarks on the Norman Line upon which the very first words of Baker are these There were six Dukes of Normandy in France in a direct Line succeeding from Father to Son and yet this Inquisitive Monarch-maker lays his mighty stress his weighty Consideration on the single Suggestion of Duke William's being a reputative Bastard be it so have we not here the Majority of six to one that succeeded Lineally Legitimately and is not these then like all the rest of their Objections against the Government rather industrious Cavil then real Argument or allowing it still is it not most impertinently applyed to his present purpose to tell us that William the Conqueror was himself Illegitimate and yet succeeded his Father in the Dutchy of Normandy And therefore must we have another Natural and Illegitimate Duke to wear the Crown of England or was the Suggestion only made because they had such a Duke in Readiness that had already run the Popular Gantlet of Ambition and been sooth'd into the Prospect of a Scepter with the false Tongues of Flatterers and Sycophants or else was the Nomination of the Normans to supersede the Fundamental Laws of our Nation And our England a Dependent a Tributary to that Crown before the Conquest these Paradoxes must be reconciled by Miracle before such a ridiculous Instance can pass for Reason or Common Sense or vindicate the false suggester from Folly and Impertinence But even here too his very Assertion fails him and this Pretender to Truth both abuses his Reader with false Application and telling a Lye For this Duke William tho' a Bastard Born was not illegitimated so as to be barred the Crown and incapacitated for Inheritance for it appears as Baker says by many Examples that Bastardy was then no Bar to Succession and by the Canon and the Law of the Church that then obtain'd the Children born before Wedlock were de facto truly legitimated if he afterward espoused his Concubine and this his Factious Assistant Hunt himself allows when the Vid. Postscript p. 53. 55. Wretch endeavoured to Bastardize the Progenitors of his Sovereign and this many Writers say was the very Case of our Duke William whose Father took his Mother Arlotte to Wife afterward The Donation to William Rufus was again clearly Testimentary which might be allowed sure to a Conqueror whose will only gave what his Sword had gotten but however as I observed above in the Westminster and Malembsbury Stow. p. 124. Legatory Disposition of Canutus the Dane where he gave his conquered Kingdom to his Youngest and Norway his Paternal Right to Swayn his Eldest to whom 't was most due so here this Third Conqueror Daniel says he obtained it according to his Fathers will pag. 44. of Old Britain observ'd the same sort of Bequest and left Normandy his Fathers Inheritance and his own to Robert to whom it appertain'd in Reason and Right both these Instances no small Demonstration shewing how the Precedency of Blood even in those days obtained and with those too whom our Factious Innovator would have not to value it for their giving to any Son besides their Eldest what was theirs by Arms is no more than what we our selves do now by Laws and tho the Fewds now obtain and Entailments yet still what 's our own by purchase is unconfined and not ty'd to descend by Primogeniture but at an arbitrary Disposition of the Lord and Purchaser and which is commonly disposed of too by the Father to some of the Younger Sons and a Conqueror that purchases all by Blood and Wounds must needs be allowed as much Liberty as the Miser that obtains it by his Wealth or a Land Pedler that buyes his purchase for a Penny But tho this might be a warrantable Donation yet you may observe as if the donor had not been in it altogether Just so it never at all prospered with the Donee the very Gift it self like Pandora's Box was most fatal to those that received it a Vice like Virtue is oft a Punishment to it self as that other a reward the not suffering the Crown to descend by entail entailed what was worse a War and both Brothers assault the Testamentary Usurper at once as looking upon it notwithstanding the specious pretext of a Will but a plain wrong and where this prejudiced Historian makes this Rufus to rely on the consent of the Nobles for the Confirmation of his Fathers Will 't is evident he only called them together that by Largesses and Corruptions fair Words and Promises he might win them from assisting his Brother Robert whose Right he feared notwithstanding the advantage he had by his Fathers Will might make the Game that he had to play more than even or give Robert the better by their deserting this Rufus And that notwithstanding all his Artifices they did and Odo Bishop of Bayeux leads the dance and notwithstanding says Paris that he was their Mat. Paris An. 1088. last Edition London crown'd King their sworn King and they must be perjur'd for it they raised a War against their King William and set up Robert the First-Born for their King all declaring the Right belonged to him and this the Opinion of several of the Nobility Lords Spiritual and Temporal Persons alway I fancy qualified to recognise a Right if Religious or Lay-Judges could decide it and so well assured were they of the goodness of the Cause that they Veruntamen postea Nobiles fere omnes c. conspired for it rebelled and were banisht for it success not always attending a good Title no more than it can Justify a bad And at the last the most unfortunate end of this Testamentary Prince may serve somewhat at least to discourage the Religious from invading of a Right tho it may not
Third's was no sooner several times confirmed in one year but in the next presently they fell upon his Justiciary Hugo de Burg and he must be removed Vid. Stow page 183. or they threaten to do it with the Sword Then the poor Prince complies and sends him to the Tower Next the Bishop of Winchester is as great a grievance as the Chief Justice was before for bringing in the Pictavians and unless all those are put from him they tell him plainly they 'll depose him from his Kingdom and create a new The Bishop is sent away and those Pictavians expelled but still were there more grievances and assoon as one was removed be sure another would be found out and the true perfect Occasion of those Intestine Broils was rather the Concession of King Henry in his Youth they having been used with so much Complyance in his Minority that being emboldened afterward with Age he grew too much a Soveraign to be overaw'd or overreach't by his Subjects and they having been accustom'd not to be oppos'd in their encroachments on the Crown which they had been long Habituated to he being Crown'd an Infant and they having the fresh Precedent before them with what arrogance they us'd his Father John upon any the least denyal betook themselves to the Sword for this you 'l find if Occurrences of those Times be but Impartially examin'd and for his Second Instance of our late Kings time his abominable Falsehood so far from Truth that not only Narrative and Record but the very Memory of man can give him the Lye did he not grant them these very Villains insolent demand Parliaments at last without Intermission was there not a Triennial one first Insolently demanded and as Graciously consented to was not that as ungratefully thought insufficient and nothing could satisfy till unhappily settl'd during the pleasure of the two Houses an Act of Concession which the poor Unfortunate Prince could himself call as indeed it was unparallel'd by any of his Predecessors nothing but their Ingratitude 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 could equal so much goodness and only for bettering of theirs the Wretches resolv'd his own affairs should be the worse what punishment would the Law have found for such Monsters of Ingratitude that punisht once all Common Offenders in it with Death were not his Gracious Answers at last to the Propositions so full of Concession that some of the Cannibals that thirsted for his Blood could Vote it a Ground for the House to proceed upon for Peace Lastly had he Vid. Jout 5. Decemb. 1648. not granted to his Inveterate Foes whose Necks were forfeited to the Gibbet the Heads of some of his best Friends till he had none left to dispose of but his own and that at the last must be brought to the Block And can such an impudent Daemon the very spawn of the Father of Lyes thus confidently now declare that obstinacy Denyal in the late King was his Ruin but his misery and misfortune has unhappily left tho for us happy could a Nation be said so under such a loss such Politicks written in his Blood that all those of such Rebels and Republicans can never undermine In the next place the State Empirick comes upon the Stage and that only to vilify our Court of Chancery which with all Persons that can but distinguish Equity from the Rigour of the Law must be had in Estimation the greatest Objection his utmost Malice can asperse it with is only That it may be Corrupted and so may the best of things whose Corruption is the worst There may be Roguery in Clerks he thinks in entering Rules and so their may be Plat. pag. 130. more Dangerous Knaves among Doctors that can prescribe a dose of Sublimate for Mercurius dulcis and such Which has been done too as one of thir own Authors tells us Bartholin in 's Centurie Hist Chancery the Grand Court of Equity Conscience moderating the common Law Vid. Crompton Jurisdiction a Villany in his Art is sure more fatal then the worst that can occur in their faculty that at the worst can but bereave you and that long first of your Estate This Ruffian in a Moment robs you of your Life and I should chuse to live a little in the World tho a Beggar than be sent out like a Rat. The Ridiculousness of his Objections can't be answer'd but with such Merry ones as I make But to let him know I can defend the Constitution of the Court in Good Earnest so far is it from Obstructing his right by the Common-Law as he Ignorantly Objects that it 's a Rule Commonly never to relieve him here when he can have his Remedy there but always in Justice and Equity renders him that right which the Rigour of the rest many times forecludes him off where the Common can't Compel a man to an agreement this will enforce it Recoveries of Legacies Performance of Wills otherwise Irrevocable and not to be Compel'd shall be obtain'd here It enforces the Husband to give the Wife Alimony and perhaps the Doctor dislikes it for that and certainly this must be a greater Solaecism For more of this Courts power practise see Totthl Cariâ—s Reports than he can suggest in contradiction to the Court that a Court of meer Equity to moderate the Rigour of the Common Law should Injure their Petition of Right or Invade the Liberty of Magna Charta But that which is more Ridiculous The Chancellor hath two Powers one absolute the other ordinary by the first he is not â—y'd as inferior Judges or limited to the Letter of the Law Vid. Stâ—â—for Praerog Cap. 20. fol. 65. and False is his Foolish fear of Injustice from such a single Judge sitting in the Judicatory and his Impudent assertion that never any Country in the World had such away of Judging For the first should we not consider the prudence and Integrity of that Honourable Person that presides in it at present whose Equitable determinations were sufficient to supersede and silence such a silly suggestion it is morally impossible there to meet with Injustice where nothing is decreed but upon a Fair and Full Examination of Witnesses and the Judges hearing what can be alleaged by Counsel on both sides All the Panick fear that Alarms him is that the Prince for such is the Malice of a Republican that nothing can be thought Wicked enough for a King may put in a Person that may Act against Right and Reason carried away by Passion and Prejudice and at best but a Tool for the State If the possibility of such vain suggestions shall prevail for an Extirpation of an Officer of Justice Co-aeval if Polidore Virg. makes the Chancellor only Coaeual with the Conqueror but mistakes in that too as well as others Mr. Dugdale shews us they were long before in 's Orig. And so my Lord Coke also in his 4 Iust not before the Conquest and still Recorded
for his just Administration I will allow what can't well be granted this Emperick to pass for a Politician and the same Monumental Folly will serve for as Ridiculous Objections against all other Courts of Judicature where the King has the power of placeing in it whom he pleases and they all Subject to the Passions and Infirmity that any single person and in their Breast too lying all the Decisions of any Controverted Law But that such a single Judge sitting in Judicature such a Tribunal is scarce in any Country of the World is most absolutely FALSE the Civil the Law of Nations and that of almost all the Civiliz'd part of the World has no other Method in deciding Civil causes Their Libels are but Bills of Plaint as in this the Subpaena requires the Defendant's appearance at a certain day in Court by them a Day in Court is assign'd him to Answer their Replications Exceptions here are Answer and Demurrer They pronounce Contumax and Ex-communicate Here goes out Attachment and Commission of Rebellion through the whole process the same Practise observ'd the same Rules as in all Forreign Courts of Civil Judicature where the Decretum finale or Sententia Definitiva is in the sole Breast of a single Person as our Common Decres in Chancery But what is the Law of all Nations Certain it is that both British and Saxon Kings had their Courts of Chancery Coke 4. Inst C. 8. Vid Mirror C. 1. §. 3. Glanvill lâ—b 12. C. 1. Fleta Lâ—b 2. C. 12. will be soon Rebelliously Condemn'd by those that can't bear with our own and are so truly Licentious that they would live without any But for that Justice of the Venetians which he extols so much in opposition to our own his Republican Soul would be loth to venture there it 's Human Body notwithstanding it's Equal Distributive Justice which he would make Arithmetical too by makeing it so exactly proportionable to the Crime should he be found there as great a Criminal against that State as his Publisht Treasons have here render'd him to our own he would hardly come to know his Fault there till he came to feel the punishment and would find a Banditi with them to make the best Executioner 't is there Sedition and the Defamation of the Government is punisht assoon as Information is receiv'd and that with nothing less than Death and commonly drowning no Tryal per Testes and Examinants but Ferry'd away in one of their Gondola's which must prove your Infernal Boat too and the first sight of your Sin is with that of a Confessor and a Hangman and these sure must be most Malicious Inveterate Villains that can commend such Judicatures that are rather shambles for Butchery and Murder before those of their own Nation where a Penny property can't be taken away without a Tryal per pares and the Law much less their Life But if our Republican when he commends so much the Justice of that State means only what is distributed in their Decemviral Council which is the Supream let him for a Confirmation of his Error and Folly Consult only the Case of Antonio Foscarini one of their Vid. Reliq Wotton p. 307. own Senate whom upon the bare Testimony of too profligate Ruffians that he held correspondence with the Spanish Embassador which with any forreign one for a Senator is their Death by the Law without any Collateral or Circumstantial Proof without seeing his Accusers was seiz'd muffl'd up clapt in a dark Dungeon and in a few days sentenc'd to be strangl'd and which was done accordingly the Conspiracy of the Witness was soon afterward detected his Innocency declar'd and the poor Gentleman for want of a due process at Law plainly Murder'd and all the Conviction I wish to such unjust reproachers of the Constitution of any of our Courts of Judicature that they may never have the benefit of those Laws they Condemn and only have the Fate to Fall by that Justice of the Republick they so much extol The Villains that sign'd the Warrant for our late Kings Execution did not more Sacrifice his Person than this Impious Wretch has Murder'd him again in Effigie with a redoubl'd Cruelty to blast that unblemishable reputation which if Dearer than Life must be the greater Treason He tells us the Parliament Pages 167 168 169 c. Vid. Journal never made War upon him because by Law says the Sycophant He can do no wrong but this shall not be allow'd for a Maxim with such Malecontents when it makes for the Monarch But what if a Parliament of Rebels put out in their Declaration that He has wrong'd the Law and vote that he Levies War to destroy the Fundamental Liberty of the People to set up Arbitrary Government send down a Traytor to keep him out of his own Garrisons when their Guards could not secure his Life from the rage of the London Rable instigated too by that Villanous Assembly that made his Repairing to Hull for the Preservation of himself an Insurrection of their King for the Destruction of the People And can such a senseless piece of Sedition imagin that undistinguishing Bullet they brought into the Field could be commanded to take off none but Evil Councellors and Seducers or that ARMS which soon silence all LAWS especially when lifted against their Soveraign would favourable consider his Right and a Maxim of our own that he could do no wrong He tells us the King was displeas'd for parting with his Power to dissolve Parliaments and took unheard of ways to demand Members with Arms Most Inhumane Wretch even to the Pious Memory of so good a Prince to give him the Lye in his Grave does not himself tell us as if his Prophetick Soul had foreseen the suggestion of such a Rebel in his making it his deepest plaint The Injury of all Injuries is that some will Falsely divulge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that I repining at the Establishment of the Parliament endeavour'd by force and open Hostility to undo what by Royal assent I had done While at the same time the Contradictory Wretches would asperse him for a resolv'd and a wilful occasioner of his ruin but for the demand of the Members so far from Irregularity That this Malicious Accuser is a double Traytor to his Memory by being an Abetter of those that were truly so and representing it False the King was advis'd in Scotland of those Conspirators having Invited that Nation to come into ours Arm'd And shall not bringing in a Foreign Power an Actual Levying War be allow'd Treason He had his Witnesses ready for the proving every Article his Attorny had drawn up all their Impeachments and could not their King have the benefit of those Laws he gives Life too Could not their King Impeach a Commoner when they themselves can any Lord. He order'd Him to inform the House of Peers with the Matter of the Charge and a Serjeant at Arms to accuse them