relating to the Commons respect either the King or the Lords or the rest of the Subjects which are not Members of their House or the Members of their own House Our Enquiry is only in this point concerning those that relate to those Subjects that are not Members of either House whether they may be imprisoned by Vote of the Commons for matters that have no relation to Priviledge of Parliament In the latter end of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth it was a question whether the Commons could imprison those that were not Members of their own House for matters that had a certain and apparent relation to the known Priviledges of Parliament as for Arresting them or their Servants in time of Parliament which hath been since gained and is no longer Contested by any body but is a strong Argument that they had not then that power the Author claims and for which he brings the Precedents which are indeed of a later date except one and that was in the Minority of Edward the Sixth Anciently if any man were impeached in Parliament there was a Writ directed to the Sheriff to summon him to appear and Answer as my Lord Coke acquaints us and sets down the form of the Writ and upon the return of this Writ the Attachment it is likely went out of the House of Lords but of this Power of the Commons that great man speaks not one word which is a good Argument they had it not and indeed the latter instances are all after his time It is not consonant to reason that any Subject of England should be imprisoned upon a bare suggestion without the Oath of the Accuser Now the Commons have no power to give an Oath in this case and therefore it seems reasonable that they should not imprison any man who is not a Member of their House much less whomsoever they please The House of Commons is not a Court of Judicature except in matters of Priviledge and Elections but all persons accused in Parliament must be tried by the Lords therefore it is contrary to the Law of England that any man should be imprisoned by the Commons who * as the Grand Jury of the Nation are his Accusers It is said that a man taken into Custody by Order of the Commons is taken in Execution but it is contrary to the eternal Laws of Nature and all Nations that a man should be taken in Execution before he have made his Defence and a legal Sentence be passed upon him by Legal Process and proof It is destructive of the Liberty of the Subject that any man should be so taken by them into Custody because he is without all remedy and if the thing happen to prove iujurious and oppressive as it did in the Case of John Wilson and Roger Beckwith Esquires two Torkshire Justices of the Peace who were notoriously injured by it For these reasons which I submit to wiser men than my self I am humbly of opinion that no man ought to be taken into Custody by the Order or Vote of the Commons that is not a Member of their House except it be for matters relating to the Priviledges of Parliament and that such Priviledges as are commonly known for if they may call what they please a Priviledge of a Parliament it will in the Event be the same thing as an unlimited power As to all his Instances they do not deserve any consideration except the first and that no man as he relates it can tell by whom the Commitment was made without the Record which I cannot come at and the latter were the Acts of Popular Parliaments which laid the foundations of our late troubles by such proceedings My Author in the next place comes to justifie the Votes against the Ministers and lays down this as his foundation The Commons in Parliament have used two ways of delivering their Country from pernicious and powerful Favourites The one is in a Parliamentary Course of Justice by impeaching them which is used when they judge it needful to make them publick examples by Capital or other high punishments for the terror of others The other is by immediate Address to the King to remove them as unfaithful or unprofitable Servants Their Lives their Liberties or Estates are never endangered but when they are proceeded against in the former of these ways Then legal evidence of their guilt is necessary then there must be a proper time allowed for their defence In the other way the Parliament act as the Kings great Council and when either House observes that affairs are ill administred that the Advice of Parliaments is rejected or slighted the Course of Justice perverted our Councils betrayed Grievances multiplied and the Government weakly and disorderly managed of all which our Laws have made it impossible for the King to be guilty they necessarily must and always have charged those who had the Administration of affairs and the Kings Ears as the Authors of these mischiefs and have from time to time applied themselves to him by Addresses for their removal from his presence and Councils So here are all the Ministers of State that are or ever shall be exposed to the mercy of the House of Commons if proof can be brought against them then have at all Life Liberty and Estate must go for it but if none can be had then it is but voting them Enemies to the King and Kingdom and Addressing to have them removed from his Majesties Presence and Councils for ever and the work is done without allowing the liberty to answer for themselves And the reason that he gives for it is a pleasant one because the King cannot be guilty therefore they must But may not a House of Commons be mistaken and punish a man for what he never did may not one man give the Advice and another suffer for it at this rate of proceedings But this is an old Custom What then it is an unjust one There may be many things plain and evident beyond the testimony of any Witness which yet can never be proved in a legal way This is true but I hope he will not infer from hence that any man shall be punished for those things without testimony I always thought all these cases were reserved to the Tribunal of God Almighty And I believe this Gentleman would be loth to be tried by his own rule The Parliament may be busied in such great Affairs as will not suffer them to parsue every Offender through a long process Then they may let him alone or leave him to the Common Law but to condemn him unheard for want of leisure is such a piece of justice as no man would be willing to submit to in his own Case There may be many reasons why a man should be turned out of Service which perhaps would not extend to subject him to punishment That there may be reasons why a man should be turned out of Service
or Wants The fault says the Declaration was in them The King was willing to have done any thing which would have consisted with the very being of the Government He passed every Bill that was tendred connived so long at the proceedings of the last Parliament of Westminster that many men wondred and some that were neither Papists nor Malefactors murmured And a grave man told the very Parliament that he suspected they were permitted to sit there rather to destroy themselves than to save their Country And now after all this is his Majesty to bear the blame that no provision was made by their Advice suitable to our wants and dangers Well but the People to whom my Gentleman is appealing they will never undestand nor consider these things nor any thing else and therefore my Gentleman did wisely to make them the Judges but for the honesty of it or the truth of any of this I have nothing to say Nor can we hope the Court will ever love any Parliament better than the first of those four wherein they had so dearly purchased such a number of fast friends men who having first sold themselves would not stick to sell any thing after And we may well suspect they mean very ill at Court when their designs shockt such a Parliament The business of the Pensioners hath been considered elsewhere and need not here be repeated Now to me one of these things must be false viz. that there was such a number of men who had so sold themselves Or that the Court are such men as you Sir say they are If these men had sold themselves why did they not go on with the bargain If the Court had such an interest in them and such designs upon them and us why did it part with them Especially when the Ministers knew they lost thereby a constant Revenue of extraordinary Supplies as you say they did and I may say they have had little enough since Oh the Reason was they began in good earnest to examine what was done and what was doing And therefore they were pack'd away Well the matter was not great they were a company of Pensioners men that had sold themselves and would not stick to sell any thing after And Sir if it were so the Nation has no reason to complain of the Court for that and I hope I too shall be excused if I have dropt a few less respective words of the three Parliaments that have since followed for they are not better nor more sacred than this of which many of the Lord Chancellors have given high Encomiums my Lord of Shaftsbury not excepted Now let my Reader reflect on all this seriously and tell me if any person even Fitz-Harris himself could possibly write any thing worse than this and which tended more to heighten the resentments of the Nation and put the People into disorder and confusion The most direct and passionate incitements to rebellion he used are not more likely to stir them than our Authors warm and earnest applications on the behalf of these Ambitious men as I perceive the Declaration rightly stiles them for none but such would ever desire to see their Country imbroyled and to that end appeal to the People And supposing the People to be well disposed that way it would be no wonder that the Ministers dare not suffer a Parliament now to sit till the People are in a better temper to chuse one but then Sir this is owing to such men as you and such Books as yours and you must answer for it But we have gained at least this one point by the Declaration that it is own'd to us That Parliaments are the best Methods for healding the distempers of the Kingdom and the only means to preserve the Monarchy in Credit both at home and abroad Own'd by these very men who have so maliciously rendered many former Parliaments ineffectual and by this Declaration have done their utmost to make those which are to come as fruitless and thereby have confessed that they have no concern for healing the distempers of the Kingdom and preserving the credit of the Monarchy which is in effect to acknowledge themselves to be what the Commons called them Enemies to the King and Kingdom Just before Sir you had been proving them designing to lay all use of Parliaments aside and now you bring them in owning what will certainly ruine that design not long before that you had been convicting them of a design of making the Monarchy Arbitrary and absolute and now they are unconcerned for the very Credit of the Monarchy Are you in your right Wits Do you think thus to prove them Enemies to the King and Kingdom Why must those Parliaments that are to come be as fruitless as those that are past The Ministers may be changed or the People may change or the very Parliament men may change and time may be Gods grace have strange effects And in the mean time his Majesty is not in 〈…〉 wants of a Parliament but he 〈…〉 than a bad one a Rending instead of a Healing Parliament And in the interim his Majesties good Subjects can rely as socurely upon his Royal Declaration that he intends not to lay aside the use of Parliaments as if there were one now actually sitting at Westminister However we rejoyce that his Majesty seems resolved to have frequent Parliaments and hope he will be just to himself and us by continuing constant to this Resolution Yet we cannot but doubt in some degree when we remember the Speech made January 26. 1679. to both Houses wherein he told them that he was unalterably of an Opinion that long intervals of Parliaments were absolutely necessary for composing and quieting the minds of the People Therefore which we ought rather to believe the Speech or the Declaration or which is likely to last longest a Resolution or an unalterable Opinion is a matter too nice for any but Court Criticks to decide The effectual performance of the last part of the promise will give us assurance of the first When or where this Speech was spoken by his Majesty I cannot devise for at the time assigned there could be none The first short Parliament was Prorogued May 27. 1679. And the second met not till October 21. 1680. and was Prorogued the tenth of January following I have read over all his Majesties Speeches too about that time and I find not one tittle in them to this purpose But if there ever were any such Speech spoken for I will not be positive there was not it is fairly reconcileable with the very words of the Declaration for the Statute made in his Majesties Reign calls Triennial Parliaments A frequent calling assembling and holding of Parliaments which yet is a very long Interval in comparison of the time his Majesty hath hitherto interposed betwixt the Dissolving or Proroguing of one Parliament and the sitting of another so that the matter was
of the Muse he was in thus he proceeds It is not to be denied but that our Kings have in a great measure been intrusted with the power of Calling and Declaring the Dissolutions of Parliaments Have they so Whose Trustees are they When did they first obtain this favour I protest now I was so dull as to think that this right of Calling and Dissolving Parliaments was a Natural Right inherent in the Crown and as old as the British Monarchy and that at the granting of the great Charter and at all other times before or since when the Kings of England granted any new Priviledges to their Subjects they still reserved to the Crown the power of calling Parliaments when and where they pleased and to continue them as long as they thought fit and then to Dissolve or Prorogue them Well but if I was therein mistaken yet he allows our Kings a great measure of that trust and who claims the Remainder of it Not the Petitioners I hope No the Privy Council he tells us are to be advised with Now that is matter of Expedience only not of Right for whatever His Majesty can lawfully do with doubtless he may as lawfully though not in all cases and circumstances so prudently do without the Advice of his Privy-Council who never claimed that I have heard of any co-ordinate right of managing affairs with our Kings and matter of Advice in its own nature supposes a liberty in the Person to whom 't is given either to adhere to or to reject it Well but whoever has the rest of that Trust care hath been anciently taken both for the Holding of Parliaments Annually and that they should not be Prorogued or Dissolved till all the Petitions and Bills before them were Answered and Redressed And for this my Author quotes two Acts of Parliament which because they are short I will insert here The first is this Item it is accorded that a Parliament shall be holden every year once and more often if need be Here is every word in that Statute The second follows Item for maintenance of the said Articles and Statutes and redress of divers mischiefs and grievances which daily happen a Parliament shall be holden every year as another time was ordained by a Statute which is the very same that I have recited before The Record which he 〈◊〉 I can say nothing to So I agree with him that there are two Statutes provided for the holding of Parliaments Annually and more often if need be of which the Kings of England have ever since thought themselves the Judges But where are the Statutes to be found that these Parliaments should not be prorogued nor dissolved till ALL the Petitions and Bills before them were answered and redressed Here is not one tittle of this in either of these he quotes yet that is the main thing in controversie and which only needed proving But he goes on The Constitution had been equally imperfect and destructive of it self had it been left to the choice of the Prince whether he would ever Summon a Parliament or put into his power to dismiss them Arbitrarily at his pleasure Then sure it had been worth the while to have proved for what time they were to sit as well as how often And if this can be made out that it is an Arbitrary that is in the sense he would be understood in an Illegal Act for the King to prorogue or dissolve a Parliament till all the Petitions and Bills be answered and redressed then will it be possible for a Parliament to perpetuate it self for ever by an endless succession of Petitions and Bills mixed with other great affairs which as it is contrary to the practice of all our Kings since these Statutes so if it were true the Menarchy wuld not then be what it now is but be much nearer a Commonwealth So that be the Consequence what it will this learned Gentleman must yield that it is at the choice of our Princes to summon Parliaments when they think it needful and to dismiss them when they please As for the word Arbitrarily which he here useth it is needless and was suggested to him by his Spleen and and not by his Reason That Parliaments should thus meet Annually and thus sit till all the Petitions and Bills before them are answered and redressed is secured to us by the same sacred tye by which the King at his Coronation does oblige himself to let his Judges sit to distribute Justice every Term and to preserve inviclably all other Rights and Liberties of his Subjects I thought the Law had been altered a little in the first particular by a Statute made in the Seventeenth year of his now Majesties Reign Cap. 1. the words of which are as followeth And because by the Ancient Laws and Statutes of this Realm made in the Reign of King Edward the Third Parliaments are to be held very often Your Majesties humble and loyal Subjects the Lords Spititual and Temporal and the Commons in this present Parliament assembled most humbly do beseech your most Excellent Majesty c. that hereafter the sitting and holding of Parliaments shall not be intermitted or discontinued above three years at most but that within three years from and after the Determination of this present Parliament and so from time to time within three years after the determination of any other Parliament or Parliaments or if there be occasion more or oftener your Majesty your Heirs and Successors do issue out your Writs for calling assembling and holding of another Parliament to the end there may be a frequent calling assembling and holding of Parliaments once in three years at least So that surely his Majesty may without breach of his Coronation Oath delay the calling of a Parliament three years if there be no occasion for one sooner of which he is the Judge Therefore as he goes on abruptly to dissolve Parliaments at such a time when nothing but the Legislative Power and the Vnited Wisdom of the Kingdom could relieve us from our just fears or secure us from our certain dangers is very unsuitable to the great Trust reposed in the Prince and seems to express but little of that affection which we will always hope his Majesty bears towards his People and the Protestant Religion That there was then too much need of the Legislative Power and the Wisdom of the Nation united in Parliament is not to be denied and that his Majesty was very sensible of it appears by his calling three Parliaments in twenty six Months as my Author computes it page 46. and we shall have occasion hereafter to enquire by whose fault it came to pass that they were all so abruptly dissolved and that will lead us to a probable conjecture why none hath been since called notwithstanding his Majesties Affection to his People and the Protestant Religion is such that we have great reason to bless God for it and to
sending away his Royal Highness the Duke of York to discern whether Protestant Religion and the peace of the Kingdom be as truly aimed at by others as they are really intended by me c. By which it appears the Union his Majesty here meant was not that Union that was afterwards set on foot in Parliament and I cannot but suspect these words were misrecited of purpose And did not he comand my Lord Chancellour to tell them That it was necessary to distinguish between Popish and other Recusants between them that would destroy the whole flock and them that only wander from it These words are indeed in the Lord Chancellors Speech but with this Preface Neither is there nor hath been these fifteen hundred years a purer Church than ours so 't is for the sake of this poor Church alone that the State hath been so much disturbed It is her Truth and Peace her Decency and Order which they the Plotters and Papists labour to undermine and pursue with so restless a malice and since they do so it will be necessary for us to distinguish between Popish and other Recusants between them that would destroy the whole Flock and them that only wander from it So that whatever distinction his Majesty intended to allow between the Popish and Protestant Recusants it must be such as was consistent with the Truth Peace Decency and Order of the Religion by Law established which I suspect the Project of Union set on foot was not much less the Vote of the tenth of January for the suspending the execution of all Penal Laws made against them as a weakening of the Protestant Interest an encouragement to Popery and dangerous to the Peace of the Kingdom These things considered we should not think the Parliament went too far but rather that they did not follow his Majesties Zeal with an equal pace At this rate of concluding a man may draw any Conclusion from any premises if he hath a mind to it His Majesty would joyn with them in any course that might tend to the security of the Protestant Religion for the future so as the same extend not to the diminution of his own Prerogative nor to alter the descent of the Crown in the right Line nor to defeat the Succession Therefore when they brought in a Bill to disinherit his Majesties Brother against his expresly declared resolution they did not go too far but rather they did not follow his Majesties Zeal with an equal pace When his Majesty thought it necessary to distinguish betwixt Popish Recusants and Protestant Dissenters that is to favour the latter more than the former they were for taking away all those Laws at once that have distinguished betwixt the Dissenters and the Religion established and giving up this Pure Church into the hands of her bitter Enemies that had but just before bid fair for her ruine as if the only care had been that the Papists might not have had the honour of destroying her and yet we are not to believe they went too far in this neither The truth is if we observe the daily provocations of the Popish Faction whose rage and insolence were only increased by the discovery of the Plot so that they seemed to defie Parliaments as well as inferiour Courts of Justice under the Protection of the Duke their Publickly Avowed Head who still carried on their designs by new and more detestable methods than ever and were continually busie by Perjuries and Subornations to charge the best and most considerable Protestants in the Kingdom with Treasons as black as those of which themselves were guilty If we observe what vile Arts were used to hinder the further discovery what liberty was given to reproach the Discoverers what means used to destroy or corrupt them how the very Criminals were incouraged and allowed to be good Witnesses against their Accusers We should easily excuse an English Parliament thus beset if they had been carried to some little Excesses not justifiable by the Laws of Parliament or unbecoming the wisdom and gravity of an English Senate Now other men may possibly be of another mind and think that if the state of things had been but half so deplorable as they are here described the least Excess had been then inexcusable for there is never more need of gravity than in great and eminent dangers but what I shall say will it is like not be much regarded hear then what the Chancellour of England said The Considerations which are now to be laid before you are as Vrgent and as Weighty as were ever yet offered to any Parliament or indeed ever can be so great and so surprizing have been our Dangers at home so formidable are the appearances of danger from abroad that the most Vnited Counsels the most Sedate and the calmest Temper together with the most dutiful and zealous affections that a Parliament can shew are all become absolutely and indispensably necessary for our preservation So that little excesses are great crimes when men are beset with dangers tho they may be excused in times of Peace and Security if I rightly understand this wise and honourable person But if we come to search into the particulars here enumerated there may possibly arise better Arguments to excuse their Excesses The Popish Faction about that time having tried all other ways to clear themselves of the Plot without any good success fell at last upon another Project which was to start a New Plot. They knew there were in London some Clubbs and Coffee-house-Sets of Presbyterians Old Army Officers discontented Gentlemen and Republicans which had close Cabals and private Meetings and that the Court had a jealous eye upon them as indeed there was good cause for it and out of these materials they thought they might easily raise the structure of a Presbyterian Plot against the State but all the chief men of the Popish Faction being fled imprisoned or executed this grand Design fell into the hands of people of no great either parts or reputation to carry on so difficult an Undertaking and it was not likely neither to be easily believed if it had no other Witnesses but Papists to attest it And it was not possible for them to bring over any other of any reputation in the low estate their affairs then were so that the Contrivance miscarried and only tended to make the Papists more hated than they were before and this is called the Meal-Tub Plot which I should rather have ascribed to the rage and desperation of the Papists than to their Insolence which was then very well abated by the Execution of Coleman Staley the Murtherers of Sir Edmundbury Godfry and the Jesuits which had reduced them to too low a condition to defie the meanest Courts of Justice in the Nation and put them upon those mean and base thoughts of Perjuries and Subornations to avoid that ruine which they saw ready to overwhelm and destroy them But that which
ill men upon his Royal mind c. Now let all the World judge betwixt the King and this Party they grant the King has been heretofore compliant enough to their desires and then in the rudest Language that spight and scorn could dictate conclude against sense and reason that it was not fondness to his Brother nor kindness to the Monarchy but the ill influence of a few men that had thus disposed him A likely thing that he which could give up a Brother and be so unconcerned for his Crown should be so stupid rather than stiff as to venture all for a few ill men Creatures to the Duke and Pensioners to France wicked Wretches who have infected him with the fatal Notion that the Interests of his People are not only distinct but opposite to his No words I can write are sharp enough to reprove this Miscreant that thus rails against his and my Sovereign the Lords Anointed and therefore to God Almighty I leave it He tells us in the next place his Majesty doth not seem to doubt of his Power in Conjunction with his Parliament to Exclude his Brother He very well knows this Power hath been often Exerted in the time of his Predecessors Yes doubtless his Majesty hath read the English Story and observed at the same time that more Princes have been deposed by Pretended power of Parliament than Excluded and he very well knows that if he shall yield that an Argument drawn from Example is valid he will then stand upon slippery ground He also knows that the right Heir was never put by but a good plenty of Miseries Wars and Calamities followed upon it and he is able to foresee that if the same should happen again the French King may easily possess himself of these miserable Kingdoms and therefore it is fairly probable love to his People as well as his Brother hath kept him from consenting The reasons he saith that his Majesty hath aliedged are because it concerned him so near in Honour Justice and Conscience not to do it And are not these three powerful Arguments But my Author can ridicule them and turn them all against the King It is not saith he honourable for a Prince to be true and faithful to his Word and Oath To keep and maintain the Religion and Laws Established Yes who doth question it but all this and all that he hath said besides may be done without Excluding his Brother who would have just as much right supposing the King dies without lawful Issue to the Reversion as his Majesty hath to the present Possession And can his Majesty wrong him of that Right without a blemish to his Honour Justice and Conscience Who will ever after dare to relie upon his Majesty if they once see him desert his own Brother But that which follows is amazing All Obligations of Honour Justice and Conscience are comprehended in a grateful return of such benefits as have been received can his Majesty believe that he doth duly repay unto his Protestant Subjects the kindness they shewed him when they recalled him from a miserable helpless Banishment and with so much dutiful affection placed him in the Throne enlarged his Revenue above what any of his Predecessors had enjoyed and gave him vaster Sums of Money in twenty years than had been bestowed upon all the Kings since William the First Should he after all this deliver them up to be ruined by his Brother It should have been Should he after all this deliver them up to be ruined by the Dissenter and the Faction that Murthered his Father drew up an Oath of Abjuration of the whole Family of the Stuarts hanged plundered murthered sequestred and destroyed so many of his Loyal Nobility Gentry and Clergy Sir I am not so ill bred as to Catechise my Sovereign but I thing I may without offence ask the Whigs a few small questions Have you the impudence after all the Villanies you have done to Usurp the Loyalty that you never were guilty of Was it not enough to banish your Sovereign and keep him twelve years in that miserable helpless condition but you must reproach him too with it Did he not pardon you when you had sormited your Lives and all you had to his Justice by all the Laws of God and man Must he once more put himself into your power that he may try whether you will use him as you did his Father Have you not repined at his Restitution endeavoured to Banish him the second time by all the Arts imaginable Have you not murmur'd at all that has been given him Slandered that Parliament that gave it whilst it fate and since it was dissolved laboured to represent it to the Nation as the worst Parliament that ever sate Have not you Sir called them Danby's Pensioners Mercenary Pensioners c. And can you shew any vast or indeed competent Sums of Money given to the King since you know when And after all this have you the insolence to call your selves Protestants or own your selves Subjects And expect the King should in pure gratitude for what you never did lay all at your feet again As for those Protestant Subjects who besides all that you have falsely ascribed to your selves fought for him and his Father they do not fear his Majesties Brother would ruine them if he could and therefore have by thousands thanked his Majesty for his care in preserving the Succession in its due and legal course of descent In the next Paragraph my Author is very Politick and tells us Our Ancestors have been always more careful to preserve the Government inviolable than to favour any personal pretences and have therein conformed themselves to the practice of all other Nations whose examples deseve to be followed That is they have been more careful to preserve the Mornarchy it self and the Liberties of the Subject than the due and legal Descent in the Succession This is certainly true And they have paid well for neglecting the other as is apparent to any body that has read the History of England I will instance only in the Wars betwixt the Houses of Lancaster and York Richard II. being deposed and murthered Henry IV. who had no Title but was a brave Prince was set up But mark the Consequence before this Quarrel could be ended in B sworth Field there perished 80998 Private Souldiers two Kings one Prince ten Dukes two Marquesses twenty one Earls twenty seven Lords two Vicounts once Lord Prior one Judge one hundred thirty nine Knights four hundred forty one Esquires and my Author knows not how many Gentlemen in twelve Battels The total saith my Author of all the persons that have been slain is 85628. Christians and most of them of this Nation Is it fit to run the Risque of suffering all this over again As to his Examples of Princes that have been Excluded upon the account of Religion or for other smaller matters they prove nothing but that ill
voted against the Bill should no longer preside in His Councils no longer possess all the great Trusts and Offices in the Kingdom 3. That our Ports our Garrisons and our Fleets should be no longer governed by such as are at his devotion 4. That Characters of Honour and Favour should be no longer placed on men that the Wisdom of the Nation the House of Commons without the Lords for they have it seems lately got a Patent to Monopolize all the Wisdom of the Nation hath judged to be favourers of Popery or Pensioners of France These are great and important Changes but such as it becomes Englishmen to believe were designed by that Parliament and such as will be designed and prest by every Parliament and such as the People will ever pray may find success with the King without these Changes and the Association forgotten by my Author the Bill of Exclusion would only provoke not disarm our Enemies Nay the very money which we must have paid for it would have been made use of to secure and hasten the Duke's return upon us Now this was all perhaps was meant by that passage in the Declaration and the Consequences of these things are such that no beseeching will ever obtain them till his Majesty is weary of all he hath and therefore it well becomes all English men that do not design another Rebellion for time to come to design and pray and our Parliaments to press for some other things that may be fitter for them to ask and his Majesty to grant I conclude with the Wisemans Advice My Son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change Especially to such important changes We are now come to the consideration of that only fault which was peculiar to the Parliament at Oxford and that was their behaviour in relation to the business of Fitz-Harris the Declaration says He was impeached of High Treason by the Commons and they had cause to think his Treasons to be of such an extraordinary nature that they well deserved an examination in Parliament We shall by and by come to examine the reasons that made them think so and in the interim it is worth the while to recite the very words of the Declaration which are these The business of Fitz-Harris who was impeached by the House of Commons of High Treason and by the House of Lords referred to the ordinary course of Law was on the sudden carried on to that extremity by the Votes which the Commons passed on March 26. last that there was no possibility left of a Reconciliation The Votes are these Rosolved That it is the undoubted Right of the Commons in Parliament assembled to impeach before the Lords in Parliament any Peer or Commoner for Treason or any other Crime or Misdemeanor And that the refusal to proceed in Parliament upon such impeachment is a denial of Justice and a Violation of the Constitutions of Parliaments Resolved That in the case of Edward Fitz-Harris who by the Commons hath been impeached of High Treason before the Lords with a Declaration that in convenient time they would bring up the Articles against him for the Lords to Resolve that the said Fitz-Harris should be proceeded with according to the course of Common Law and not by way of impeachment at this time is a denial of Justice and a violation of the Constitutions of Parliaments and an Obstruction to the further discovery of the Popish Plot and of great danger to his Majesties Person and the Protestant Religion Resolved That for any inferiour Court to proceed against Edward Fitz-Harris or any other person lying under an impeachment in Parliament for the same Crimes he or they stand impeached is a high breach of the Priviledge of Parliament And now let us follow my Authors account of Fitz-Harris his business who he says truly was a known Irish Papist and it appeared by the Informations given in the House he was made use of by some very great persons to set up a Counterfeit Protestant Conspiracy and thereby not only to drown the noise of the Popish Plot but to take off the Heads of the most eminent of those who refused to bow their knees to Baal c. That this might look as unlike a Popish Design and be the better received by the people as was possible they framed a libel full of the most bitter invectives against Popery and the Duke of York it carried as much seeming zeal for the Protestant Religion as Colemans Declaration and as much care and concern for our Laws as the penners of this Declaration would seem to have But it was also filled with the most subtile insinuations and the sharpest expressions against his Majesty that could be invented and with direct and passionate incitements to Rebellion This Paper as it appears by the account of it which was given at Fitz-Harris his Trial was penn'd in the stile and just like the Libels the sober Protestants daily Print and perhaps not much unlike our modest Vindicator in the main but had some things in it which they whisper for the present because it is dangerous Printing of them And some other things plainly spoken which the other Party have a way to insinuate craftily so that it may be understood and yet not hazard their sweet lives This saith my Author was to be conveyed by unknown Messengers Oates says by the Penny Post to their hands who were to be betrayed and then they were to be seized upon and those Libels sound about them were to be a Confirmation of the truth of a Rebellion which they had provided Witnesses to swear was designed by the Protestants and had before prepared men to believe by Private Whispers And the credit of this Plot should no doubt have been soon confirmed by speedy Justice done upon the pretended Criminals And now it is time to give a little better account of this Libel than perhaps the Author has given it was penned by one Mr. Everard by the direction of Fitz-Harris he fearing he might be shamm'd and that it was designed so called in one Mr. Smith and Sir William Waller into the business that so he might clear himself of it and trappan Fitz-Harris These two Gentlemen heard Fitz-Harris dictate the heads of it to Everard and one of them heard him approve of it when it was delivered to him Mr. Everard was promised his reward for all this by the French Embassadour as Sir William Waller swears in the Trial he heard Fitz-Harris say and upon Sir William Wallers giving the King an account of it Fitz-Harris was taken with the Libel about him Being taken and committed to Newgate he was examined the tenth day of March by Sir Robert Clayton and Sir George Treby There he speaks not one word of the Author of the Libel But being thus imprisoned he found there was no way to save his life but to curry favour with those
61. Pag. 11. Colemans long Letter A seasonable Address to the Parliament pag. 6 7. Pag. 12. Pag. 12. Verbae strictius quam fere proprietas sumenda erunt si id necessarium erit ad vitandam iniquitatem vel Absurdltatem atsi non talis est necessitas sed manifesta aequitas vel utilitas in restrictione subsistendum erit intra arctissimos terminos proprietatus nisi Circumstantia aliud suadeant Grot. de jure Belli Pacis lib. 2. cap. 16. sect 12. Pag. 13. Pag. 13. Seasonable Address p 3. Pag. 13. Pag. 13. April 7 and 9. 1678. Pag. 14. Pag. 14. Hist Col. of the four last Parliaments of Q Eliz. Pag. 15. Proceedings of the four last Parliaments of Q. Eliz. p. 254. Anno Regni 44. It seems probable to me that this question was then first resolved by the Arguments brought for it which use not to be in plain cases and one Member opposed it and another said many were sent for but none appeared none were punished Cokes Instit part 4. of the proceedings in Parliament against absents p. 38. * Owned by this Author p. 39. Cokes Instit part 4. p. 24. Debates of the House of Commons pag. 217. A Commitment of this House is always in nature of a Judgment and the Party not Bailable Address to the Freemen c. Part. 2. p 38. 4 Edw. 6. 18 Jac. 20 Jac. 3 Car. Pag. 16. Pag. 17. Ibid. Pag. 17. Ibid. Proceedings of the four last Parl. p. 47. Pag. 17. In hoc Parliamento concessa suit Regi taxa insolita incolis tricabilis valde gravis Wals nec servarentur ejus Evidentiae in Thesauria Regia Ibid. Polid. Virgil. Sunorum crebris conjurationibus vexatus Jan. 7. 1680. Pag. 18. Pag. 19. There were two Votes of the same nature passed in 1626 concerning Tonnage and Poundage Nalsons Preface to his Collections pag. 60. Pag. 19. Pag. 19. Pag. 20. ☞ ☜ ☜ Pag. 20. Cokes Instit part 2. p. 44. ☞ ☜ ☜ 27 â— 8. 31 â— â— c. 13. 32. H. 8. c. 14. 27 H. 8. c 24. Pag. 20. Ibid. Pag. 21. Pag. 21. Ibid. Pag. 22. Pag. 22. Pag. 22. Pag. 22. Pag. 22. Pag. 22. Pag. 22. Pag. 23. Pag. 23. Pag. 23. Pag. 23. * Suppose that the Church of England were disarmed of all those Laws by which she is guarded and would not this turn a National Church into nothing else but a Tolerated Sect or Party Would it not take away all appearance of Establishment from it Lord Chancellors Speech April 13. 75. Would this Unite us in one Affection Pag. 24. Pag. 24. Ibid. Pag. 25. Pag. 25. Pag. 11 20. Pag. 26. The gracious Speech there made and the gracious Declaration that followed are so much of a piece that we may justly conclude the same persons to have been the Authors of both Pag. 27. of this Book Pag. 27. Pag. 6. Pag. 27. Proceedings of the four last Parl. Pag. 32. Viide p. 178. ☜ Pag. 27. Feb. 24. 1592. 35 Eliz. Prerogative of Parliaments Pag. 56. Feb. 28. 1592. And accordingly in this Session of Parliament was the sharp Statute made against the Dissenters which was designed to have been repealed when the Bill of Repeal was lost in the House of Lords Pag. 27. Pag. 28. Pag. 28. Ibid. Pag. 28. Pag. 29. The Lord Chancellor told the Parliament May 1â— 1662. that they had well provided for the Crown by the Bill of the Milâ—â—â—â— and the Act for the Additional Revenue to their high Commendationâ— How â—â—owaâ—d and indisposed soever many are at present who 〈◊〉 such obstructions laid in their way to Mutiny and Sedition use all the Artifiâ—e they can to persuade the people that yoâ— have not been soiretou enough for their Liberty nor 〈◊〉 enough for their proâ—â—â— and 〈◊〉 labour to 〈◊〉 their reverence towards you which sure was 〈◊〉 more due to any Parliament Pag. 30. The continuation of the History of England by John Trussel Pag. 31. Pag. 31. Address of Decemb. 21. 1680. Pag. 32. Pag. 33. Pag. 34. In plain English there must be a Change we must neither have Popish Wife nor Popish Favourite nor Popish Mistris nor Popish Counsellor at Court nor any new Convert We want a Government and a Prince that we may trust c. A Speech of a Noble Peer of the Realm Pag. 35. Pag. 35. Oatos tells us these were the Protesting Lords and the Leading men in the House of Commons Trial pag. 28. Trial pag. 21. Pag. 35. Pag. 24. Feb. 27. Said Colledge If you do not joyn with Fitz-Harris and charge the King home you are the basest fellow in the world c. Colledge Trial. pag. 30. Pag. 36. Pag. 36. Ibid. Pag. 36 37 38 39. Pag. 40. Pag. 41. * 〈…〉 the Third 's time they put down the Purveyor of the Meat for the maintenance 〈…〉 House as if the King had been a Bankrupt and gave order that without ready Money he shâ—â—â— not take up a Chicken Prerogative of Parliaments p. 15. Pag. 41. Trial p 54. Pag. 41. Pag. 42. Ibid. Pag. 42. Pag. 43. Ibid. Ibid. Pag. 44. There hath not been a Week since Venners rising in which there have not been Combinations and Conspiracies formed against his Majesties Person and against the Peace of the Kingdom c. Lord Chancellors Speech May 8. 1661. Pag. 6. Pag. 44. Tacitus in the end of the Reign of Augustus saith Senes plerique inter Bella Civium nati quotusquisque reliquâ—s qui Rempub. vidisset igitur versus Civitatis status nihil usquam prisâ—i integri moris Omnis exuta aequalitate jussa Principis aspectare H. lib. 1. In which passage Monarchy is opposed to the ancient Liberty or Commonwealth Pag. 45. See the Preface to the first part of the Addreâ—s to the Freemen c. Pag. 19. Pag. 22. Pag. 45. Pag. 46. Declaration Debates p. 19 1. Pag. 46. Address to the Freemen p 39. part 2. * Speech to the Parliament Feb. 5. 1672. Pag. 35. Pag 6. Ibid. Pag. 47. 17 Car. 2. C. 1. Pag. 5. Pag. 43 44 Pag. 47. Ibid. Colledges Trial p. 18. 25. Pag. 48. Pag. 48. Ibid. Redde Reverentiam Praelato Obedientiam quarum altera Cordis altera Corporis est Nec enim sufficit exterius obtemperare majoribus nostris nisi ex intimo Cordis Affectu sublimiter sentiamus de tis S. Bernard Serm. 3. de Advent This internal reverence due to the Sacred Majesty of our Kings above all other Superiours whatsoever is that which we express by the word Loyalty Conclusion Religion Loyalty Laws The Republicans are eveâ—y day calling in the Aid of the Law that they may overthrow the Law which they know to be their irreconcilable enemy Lord Chancellors Speech May 19. 1662. Monarchy Popery Oaths Clergy Conversation Ministers C'est à un Prine à regler leâ— Courtisans dautant qu'on lâ—â— impute tous leurs disorders qu' on presume quand â—ls en 〈◊〉 que c'est luy mesme qui les commet garcâ— qu'il est oblige dâ— les empescher Judges and Magistrates Gentry Liberty and Property Books Fears and Jealousies Plot. Priviledge