upon their Liberty of Proposing and Debating Laws by his telling them before-hand what things they should meddle with and what things no reason they could offer should persuade him to consent unto In that very Parliament I have mentioned Mr. Peter Wentworth and Sir Henry Bromley delivered a Petition unto the Lord Keeper therein desiring the Lords of the Vpper House to be suppliants with them of the Lower House unto her Majesty for entailing the Succession to the Crown whereof a Bill was already drawn Her Majesty was highly displeased therewith after she knew it as a matter contrary to her former streight Commandment and charged the Council to call the Parties before them Sir Thomas Henage presently sent for them and after speech with them commanded them to forbear coming to the Parliament and not to go out from their Lodgings The next day being Sunday Mr. Peter Wentworth was sent prisoner to the Tower Sir Henry Bromley one Mr. Richard Stephens and Mr. Welch the other Knight for Worcestershire were sent to the Fleet. And Sir Walter Rauleigh tells us Wentworth died in the Tower tho this Motion was but supposed dangerous to the Queens Estate Yet here was no express Command against it but only a general Command which I have recited neither doth it appear that any disherison of any right Heir to the Crown was intended And in this very Parliament one Mr. Morris Attourney of the Court of Wards bringing in a Bill against the abuses of the Bishops as he pretended in Lawless Inquisitions injurious Subscriptions and binding Absolution he was the next day sent for to Court and committed unto Sir John Fortescues Keeping And upon both these the Queen sent this Message to the House by their Speaker It is in me and my power to call Parliaments and it is in my power to end and determine the same it is in my power to Assent or Dissent to any thing done in Parliament The Calling of this Parliament was only that the Majesty of God might be more religiously served and those that neglected this Service might be compelled by some sharper means to a more due Obedience and a more true service of God than there hath been hitherto used And further that the safety of her Majesties Person and of this Realm might be by all means provided for against our great Enemies the Pope and the King of Spain Her Majesties most excellent pleasure being then delivered unto us by the Lord Keeper it was not meant we should meddle with Matters of State or in Causes Ecclesiastical for so her Majesty termed them she wondered that any would be of so high Commandment to attempt I use her own words a thing contrary to that which she had so expresly forbidden wherefore with this she was highly displeased And in all her Reign after durst no man attempt to meddle with either of these things Now I have taken the pains to transcribe all this out of the transactions of her Reign rather than of any other because she was never accused of affecting Arbitrary Government or Popery but was beloved of all her Subjects whilst she lived and her Memory is and ever will be had in honour by all English men and she ought to be a pattern for all her Successors And now let us hear our modest Vindicator But every man must be moved to hear it charged upon them as an unpardonable disobedience that they did not obsequiously sub mit to that irregular command of not touching on the business of the Succession Shall two or three unknown Minions take upon them like the Lords of the Articles of Scotland to prescribe unto an English Parliament what things they shall treat of Do they intend to have Parliaments inter instrumenta servitutis as the Romans had Kings in our Country This would quickly be if what was then attempted had succeeded and should be so pursued hereafter that Parliaments should be directed what they are to meddle with and threatned if they do any other thing For the loss of Liberty of freedom of Debate in Parliament will soon and certainly be followed by a general loss of Liberty This is the right temper and Spirit of a good Common-wealth man thus did your Fathers talk in the days of his Majesties Father till Priviledge of Parliament had eat up all the Prerogatives of the Crown and the Liberties of the Subjects and delivered us over to slavery poverty and confusion so that the Tyrannical Arbitrary bloudy Government of Oliver Cromwel was thought a blessing to the Nation in comparison of these Parliamentary Instruments of slavery and their Legions which I hope this Generation will so well remember as never to set it up or suffer it to be set up more in my days My Author having told us in the next place That the King ought to divest himself of all private inclinations and force his own affections to yield unto the Publick Concernments and therefore his Parliaments ought to inform him impartially of that which tends to the good of those they represent without regard of personal passions and might worthily be blamed if they did not believe that he would forgo them all for the safety of his People Concludes That therefore if in it self it was lawful to propose a Bill for Excluding the Duke of York from the Crown the doing it after such an unwarrantable signification of his pleasure would not make it otherwise To which I reply that Parliaments as Subjects are more bound to comply with the natural and reasonable Affections and Passions of their Princes than Princes are in the same Circumstances with those of their Subjects And that in this case his Majesties own Personal safety and interest was wrapt up in that of his Brother for if he might be Excluded another might be Deposed on the same pretence as Coleman said truly enough And tho it should be granted that Parliaments ought to inform Princes yet it is certain they ought not to force them they had informed the King in the two former Parliaments what they thought of this Affair and his Majesty had rejected their Advice and in the beginning of this Parliament at Oxford had told them That what he had formerly and so often declared touching the Succession he could not depart from And after all this for them to enter again upon it in the very first place looked like an intended force And then tho the thing were lawful in it self it may be thought unreasonable thus to pursue it and Queen Elizabeth would have made them have felt the Effects of her resentment for presuming to be of so high Commandment if she had been in his Majesties place In the next place we are told his Majesties unusual stiffness upon this occasion begins to be suspected not to proceed from fondness to his Brother much less from any thoughts of danger to the English Monarchy by such a Law but from the influence of some few
in love with the Book of Common-Prayer as you can wish and have prejudice enough to those who do not love it who I hope in time will be better informed and change their minds and you may be confident I do as much desire to see a Uniformity settled as any amongst you I pray trust me in that Affair I promise you to hasten the dispatch of it with all convenient speed you may relie upon me in it I have transmitted the Book of Common-Prayer with those Alterations and Additions which have been presented to me by the House of Convocation to the House of Peers with my Approbation that the Act of Uniformity may relate to it so that I presume it will shortly be dispatched there And when all is done we can the well setling that Affair will require great Prudence and discretion and the Absence of all Passion and Precipitation The Act of Uniformity being setled and passed his Majesty did not give over all his thoughts for the Dissenters but in the year 1662. was again labouring to revive his Declaration from Breda for Liberty of Conscience which the House of Commons opposed and drew up their reasons against it in the form of an Address wherein they particularly answer the pretences from the Declaration from Breda Which tho the whole Address is in the third part of the Address to the Freemen and Freeholders of the Nation I will here transcribe because this Book may possibly fall into some hands which have not that We have considered the nature of your Majesties Declaration from Breda and are humbly of opinion that your Majesty ought not to be pressed with it any further BECAUSE it is not a Promise in it self but only a Gracious Declaration of your Majesties Intentions to do what in you lay and what a Parliament should advise your Majesty to do And no such advise was ever given or thought fit to be offered nor could it be otherwise understood because there were Laws of Uniformity then in being which could not be dispensed with but by Act of Parliament They who do pretend a right to that supposed Promise put their Right into the hands of their Representatives whom they chose to serve in this Parliament for them who have passed and your Majesty consented to the Act of Uniformity if any shall presume to say that a right to the benefit of this Declaration doth still remain after this Act passed it tends to dissolve the very bonds of Government and to suppose a disability in your Majesty and your two Houses of Parliament to make a Law contrary to any part of your Majesties Declaration though both Houses should advise your Majesty to it Yet still his Majesty was so tender of these men that the tenth of February 1667. the Commons addressed to the King for a Proclamation to enforce obedience to the Laws in force concerning Religion and Church Government as it is now established according to the Act of Uniformity And the fourth of March following the House taking into consideration the Information of the Insolent carriages and abuses committed by persons in several places in disturbing of Ministers in their Churches and holding Meetings of their own contrary to the Laws of this Realm Addressed again for a Proclamation against Conventicles and that there may be care taken for the preservation of the Peace of the Kingdom against unlawful Assemblies of Papists and Nonconformists which was promised the next day The third of November 1669. the House of Commons gave his Majesty thanks for issuing a Proclamation for putting the Laws in execution against Nonconformists and for suppressing Conventicles with the humble desire of this House for his Majesties continuance of the same care for suppressing of the same for the future The Eighth of March 1669. the House having received information of a dangerous and unlawful Conventicle lately met in the West of this Kingdom and of Treasonable words there spoken and that his Majesty had upon information given order for the Prosecution of the Offenders The House returned him their Thanks and desired that his Majesty would be pleased to consider the danger of Conventicles in and near London and Westminster from the nature of those further off and to give order for the speedy suppressing of them and that his Majesty would give order to put the Laws against Popish Recusants in execution Yet after all this the Fifteenth of March 1671-2 his Majesty published a Declaration for Liberty of Conscience by the Advice of his Privy Council which he was hardly persuaded to depart from by the Commons in Feb. 1672. The mischiefs of which Toleration or Indulgence have been so great to his Majesty in particular and the whole Nation in general that no man can well express them And now who can enough admire the Insolence of this discontented Gentleman who dare say as he doth That if the same diligence the same earnest solicitations had been made use of in that affair which have since been exercised directly contrary to the design of it there is no doubt but every part of it would have had the desired success and all his Majesties Subjects would have enjoyed the fruits of it and have now been extolling a Prince so careful to keep sacred his Promises to his People I say on the contrary could his Majesty have been prevailed on by the unanswerable reasons of that most Excellent and most Loyal House of Commons to have enforced the execution of the Laws against Dissenters he had never seen his Affairs reduced to that ill condition they were not long since in And tho I question not but by Gods blessing his Majesty will in a short time resettle things yet I will hope for time to come it shall be a Maxim in England That the Strength of the Dissenters is the Weakness of the Throne As for our Authors jeering reflection on his Majesties other Declaration of April 20. 1679. concerning the Privy Council and some persons then taken into it his Majesty hath had but too much reason not to stick to the same when he see there were some men whom nothing could oblige to be faithful to him but if his Majesty hath not advised with them he hath with some others at least as wise and much honester than some of those who were laid aside so that that Declaration hath been effectually made good to the Nation And therefore we have no reason to question his Majesties Candor in this As for the Declaration read in our Churches the other day there needs no other Argument to make us doubt of the reality of the Promises which it makes than to consider how partially and with how little sincerity the things which it pretends to relate are therein represented it begins with telling us in his Majesties Name That it was with exceeding great trouble that he was brought to dissolve the two last Parliaments without more benefit to the People by the calling
Successor which Blessing his Majesty seems resolved to bequeath to his People one would have thought he might have complied with the Parliament in that Proposal It is very probable his Majesty would have complied with them in that particular tho it is past a perhaps the Fanaticks had not nor ever will as long as they continue such deserve that favour at his hands But modest Sir how doth it appear that his Majesty is resolved to bequeath his People the Blessing of a Popish Successor Hath he promised the Duke to die before him Hath his Majesty obliged him to continue a Papist if he be one in spight of his Interest to the contrary Is this your Justice Is this your Modesty But the Ministers thought they had not sufficiently triumphed over the Parliament by getting the Bill rejected unless it were done in such a manner as that the precedent might be more pernicious to Posterity by introducing a new Negative in the making of Laws than the losing the Bill how useful soever could be to the present Age. That this Bill was not tendered to his Majesty for his Assent appears by three Votes of the Commons at Oxford The House then according to their order the day before took into consideration the matter relating to the Bill which passed both Houses in tbe last Parliament entituled An Act for the repeal of a Statute made in the 35 year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth but was not tendered to his Majesty for his Royal Assent Resolved that a Message be sent to the Lords desiring a Conference with their Lordships in matters relating to the constitution of Parliaments in passing Bills Ordered that a Committee be appointed to consider of and prepare the subject matter to be offered at the said Conference Thus far that Parliament went in order to the discovery of the cause of the not tendering that Bill and I have heard the Lords also were upon an inquiry what was become of it but the dissolution preventing them I never heard that there was any discovery made then or since of the person or persons that took it away Now where my Author had his intelligence that the Ministers took it away to introduce a new Negative in the making of Laws I shall not inquire This we may affirm That if the success of this Parliament did not answer expectation whoever was guilty of it the House of Commons did not fail in doing their part Never did men husband their time to more advantage They opened the Eyes of the Nation they shewed them their danger with a freedom becoming English men It was a Caution given by Queen Elizabeth in the end of a Parliament held in the 35th year of her Reign That she would not have the People feared with reports of great dangers but rather encouraged witb boldness against the Enemies of the State And what the effect of our new Politicks was once before we will remember They Asserted tbe Peoples right of Petitioning Yes that they did too very effectually Tho there was an Act of Parliament then in force with this Preface Whereas it hath been found by sad experience that tumultuous and other disorderly soliciting and procuring of Hands by private persons to Petitions Complaints Remonstrances and Declarations and other Addresses to the King or both or either houses of Parliament for alteration of Matters Established by Law redress of pretended Grievances in Church or State OR OTHER PUBLICK CONCERNMENTS have been made use of to serve the Ends of factious and seditious persons gotten into power to the violation of the Publick Peace and have been great means of the late unhappy Wars Confusions and Calamities of this Nation c. They Proceeded vigorously against the Conspirators discovered and heartily endeavoured to take away the very Root of the Conspiracy They had before them as many great and useful Bills as had been seen in any Parliament and it is not to be laid at their doors that they proved abortive This Age will never fail to give them their grateful Acknowledgments And Posterity will remember that House of Commons with honour Jamque opus exegit quod nec Jovis ira nec ignes Nec poterit ferrum nec edax abolere vetusas Nomenque erit indelebile vestrum And now the work is ended which Jove's rage Nor fire nor Sword shall rase nor eating Age And their immortal name shall never die We come now to the particular enumeration of those gracious things which were said to the Parliament at Westminster His Majesty ask'd of them the supporting the Alliances he had made for the preservation of the General Peace in Christendom It is to be wished his Majesty had added to his gracious asking of Money a gracious Communication of those Alliances that such blind obedience had not been exacted from them as to contribute to the support of they knew not what themselves nor before they had considered whether those Alliances which were made were truly designed for that End which was Pretended very dutifully said or any way likely to prove effectual to it since no precedent can be shewn that ever a Parliament not even the late Long Parliament tho filled with Danby his Pensioners did give money for maintaining any Leagues till they were first made acquainted with the particulars of them That Leagues have been communicated to Parliaments heretofore is not to be disputed but that they were ever tendered before they were asked for is not so plain Nor doth it appear this was denied And as to his Parenthesis I desire only that it may be observed for my excuse in case I happen to speak any thing not respective enough of the renowned Parliament at Westminster But besides this this Parliament had reason to consider well of the general Peace it self and the influence it might have and had upon our Affairs before they came to any resolution or so much as a debate about preserving it since so wise a Minister as my Lord Chancellor blessed be God we have one wise Minister they have all along hitherto in general terms been treated at such a rare as if none of them had had either Wit or Honesty had so lately told us that it was fitter for meditation than discourse He informed us in the same Speech that the Peace then was but the effect of Despair in the Confederates and we have since learnt by whose means they were reduced to that Despair and what price was demanded of the French King for so great a Service It is an old Maxim That men should neither deliberate nor debate about those things that are not in their power Now whatever this General Peace was and whatever the effects of it might be the right of Peace and War was in the King and the Commons could not alter one tittle of it And a small degree of experience in the World will tell any man that England was not then in a condition
could not hurt the Church of England therefore the Dissenters were to be caressed and cherished that they in a small time might be in a capacity to do it And now if these were not good reasons for the Vote let any impartial man that is any but a Church of England man judge In the midst of such Circumstances was there not cause to think an Union of all Protestants necessary and could they have any just grounds to believe that the Dissenters whilst they lay under the pressures of severe Laws should with such Alacrity and Courage as was requisite undertake the defence of a Country where they were so ill treated Whether this question relates to the French King and the Papists or the Duke and the Civil and Military Officers may be a question and therefore it must be so answered As to the first there was all the reason in the world that they should joyn heartily with the Government against the Papists and French for they could not hope to mend their condition by falling into their hands who they knew would treat them with other manner of severities than those they met with from the Laws if they did not know this any of the French Protestants that fled over 〈◊〉 England might have informed them sufficiently Nâ—w of evils the least is to be chosen and tho their conâ—â—tion had not been equal to their desires yet it had been a madness to have made it worse by delivering up themselves and their Country into the hands of the French and Papists But if it relates to the Duke and the Civil and Military Officers then I hope he will excuse me if I do not think it fit to have another Union of Protestants of that sort again A long and sad Experience had shewed how vain the endeavours of former Parliaments had been to force us to be all of one Opinion and therefore the House of Commons resolved to take a sure way to make us all of one Affection This was the very reason of the Declaration of Liberty of Conscience But how unlike that course was to prevail the Nation had sufficient experience in a few years And Sir I can assure you it is above the power of a House of Commons to unite those men in Affection who differ not only in Opinion but Practice too in matters of Religion For these reasons my Author saith this Vote was made in order to a repeal of them by a Bill to be brought in and presently he grows Pettish and tells us None but a Frenchman could have the confidence to declaim against a proceeding so regular and Parliamentary as this Your humble Servant Sir I pray be a little pacified you may possibly be mistaken as well as another man but would I believe take it a little unkindly to be called Monsieur presently They very first Vote they made that day was this Resolved That whosoever advised his Majesty to Prorogue this Parliament to any other purpose than in order to the passing of a Bill for the Exclusion of James Duke of York is a betrayer of the King the Protestant Religion and of the Kingdom of England a promoter of the French interest and a Pensioner to France So they knew they were to be Prorogued that very day and as the Story goes made more than ordinary haste to pass these Votes Now it was impossible that a Bill should be brought in much less passed in that Session which was to end before night and therefore this was not nor could not be the cause of that Vote and all your little Queries founded upon this supposition are silly and impertinent There was not the least direction or signification to the judges which might give any occasion for the reflection which follows in the Declaration The due and impartial execution of the Laws is the unquestionable duty of the Judges and we hope they will always remember that duty so well as not to necessitate a House of Commons to do theirs by calling them to account for making private instructions the Rule of their judgments and acting as men who have more regard to their Places than their Oaths So the Dissenters may see they are mistaken when they think the Judges or Justices may forbear executing the Laws against them upon the score of this Vote But tho the Judges are sworn to execute all Laws yet there is no obligation upon any man to inform against another No Sir Is not every Grand-Jury man every Constable and Churchwarden sworn to Present the breakers of our Laws as well as the Judges are to punish them And as for the next Conundrams of yours the comparing a parcel of Laws made within twenty years to those Antiquated ones about Caps and Bows and Arrows and killing of Lambs and Calves and your business of Empson and Dudley they are such stuff as a man of half your understanding would have been ashamed to have mensioned in a good cause In the next place my Author acquaints us what are the causes usually of disusing Laws alterations of the Circumstances whereupon a Law was made or if it be against the genious of a People or have effects contrary to the intents of the Maker none of which can be said in this case Nor is that true which follows that the quiet safety or trade of our Nation hath been promoted by the not executing of these Laws as any man may know that can remember but ten years backward And therefore notwithstanding the Vote of the Commons the Judges may act wisely and honestly if they should encourage Informers or quicken Juries by strict and severe Charges For the due and impartial execution of the Laws is the unquestionable duty of the Judges according to my Author and therefore I will hope they shall not be accounted Knaves or Fools for doing their unquestionable duty But then my Author hath another quarrel with the Ministers and that was for numbring this Vote amongst the causes of the Dissolution of that Parliament when the Black Rod was at the door of the House to require them to attend his Majesty at the very time when it was made Well suppose we should grant that this was not one of those Votes that occasioned the Prerogation it not being then made when that was resolved on yet it might occasion their Dissolution which hapned some time after And was not this an excellent time to make Votes for the bringing in of Bills for the Repeal of Laws when the Black Rod was at the door to call the House to a Prorogation After a little anger against the Ministers for arraigning one of the Three Estates in the face of the World for usurping power over the Laws imprisoning their fellow Subjects Arbitrarily exposing the Kingdom to the greatest dangers and indeavouring to deprive the King of all possibility of supporting the Government the man hath forgot how often he hath arraigned the Long Loyal Parliament for a
Reasons of a King to have the less weight because he graciously offers them to the Judgment of his People Sure I am sometimes God Almighty is pleased to do it who only hath a right to command our absolute submission upon the account of his infinite both Wisdom and Soveraignty So that to suspect the want of of an Apology on no other grounds than a mans willingness to satisfie the World of the justice of a mans Cause and the reasonableness of his Actions is a perverseness to which common Knaves do seldom arrive the Heroes of Villany do not often rise to that pitch of Brutality without the help of Malmsbury Philosophy And I am persuaded that our Author would have spared this Cavil against his Majesties Declaration if he had before-hand considered that in natural consequence he charges not only the King but also the Three Estates with so many deliberate Acts of folly and injustice as there are Acts of Parliament containing the reasons of Enacting so or so If a Princes Actions are indeed unjustifiable if they are opposite to the Inclinations and apparently destructive of the Interests of his Subjects it will be very difficult for the most eloquent or insinuating Declaration to make them in love with such things And if they be none of all these if a Crafty man may but comment upon them and by Ifs and An ds insinuate into the heads of the Common People that he takes them for such it is possible all the Eloquence in the World may not be powerful enough to bring them into their right wits again but yet this may fail too sometimes And therefore they did certainly undertake no easie task in pretending to persuade men who see themselves exposed to the restless malice of their Enemies who observe the languishing condition of the Nation and that nothing but a Parliament can provide remedies for the great Evils which they feel and fear that two several Parliaments upon whom they had placed all their hopes were so suddenly broken out of kindness to them or with any regard to their advantage No I suppose no body was so silly as to undertake such an impossible task but there was another sort of men who had looked better into things and care was to be taken of them to confirm them and a third sort that were not yet well resolved what to think of things and they were to be directed and assisted and it was not impossible the Declaration might have a good effect upon them as indeed it had as for those that had placed all their hopes upon the two last Parliaments and were pleased with all they did there was neither hopes nor design of working that Miracle upon them but they were to be left to time to be cured And in the interim I would advise them to study Colemans Declaration of which my Author saith fine things which I care not to transcribe But should this Declaration be suffered to go abroad any longer under the Royal Name yet it will never be thought to have proceeded from his Majesties Inclination or Judgment but to be gained from him by the Artifices of the same ill men who not being content to have prevailed with him to dissolve two Paliaments only to protect them from Publick Justice do now hope to excuse themselves from being thought the Authors of that Counsel by making him openly to avow it But they have discovered themselves to the Kingdom and have told their Names when they number amongst the great Crimes of the House of Commons their having declared divers Eminent Persons to be Ememies to the King and Kingdom So his Majesties Inclination and Judgment being kindly absolved from the guilt of this Declaration of purpose to abate the Esteem it ought to have And seeing it is not possible to keep it within doors and that some may think the worse of it because there was a sham Declaration found among Colemans Papers as you know there was a sham Plot in the Meal-Tub and yet there may be others that are real The next Inquiry or rather Hue and Cry is after the Authors and those he thinks he hath found by the passage he cites out of the Declaration those Eminent Persons or some of them must needs out of Revenge and Fear be the Authors of this Pestilent Declaration His Reason is this None could be offended at the Proceedings of the Parliaments but they who were obnoxious none could be concerned to vindicate the Dissolution but they who advised it But is my Author sure of that that never a man in the Nation was offended at their proceedings but such as were obnoxious to them I am of another mind and so is all the world now Is it impossible for any man to be concerned to vindicate the Actions of a Prince but they that advise him What pitiful Sophistry this is But were no men obnoxious to the proceedings of these Parliaments but these eminent men May not it be some of those Subjects who were by Arbitrary Orders taken into Custody for matters that had no relation to Priviledges of Parliament They are mentioned before the Eminent Persons tho of a Meaner degree If I be not mistaken some Members too were very disgracefully Expelled the House Might not some of them have a hand in it We are assured a little lower that the Writer was of another Nation from this Gallicism It was a matter extremely sensible to us So that this Gentleman is suspitious it is but a Translation of a French Copy and the rather because Monsieur Barillon the French Embassadour read it to a Gentleman three days before it was communicated to the Privy Council if his intelligence did not deceive him So here is fair Scope left to find or suspect at least other Authors besides the Eminent Persons other Advisers besides those that were obnoxious For I suppose Monsieur Barillon doth not fear a House of Commons And as for this and other Gallicisms that may occur they are not to be wondred at in an Age that generally understands the French Tongue in a Court where almost all the Great men speak it in a Prince who hath lived in France and is descended of a French Mother And the wonder is not so prodigious neither that the French Embassadour should get a transcript of a Paper intended to be published to the whole Nation two or three days before it was read in Council These things make a great noise to ignorant people whilst I am persuaded this Gentleman smiled to think how finely he was deluding them But be these things as they will the Eminent Persons must expect to answer it And our Author thinks they cannot blame him or his Party for hoping one day to see justice done upon such Counsellours And that the Commons had reason for their Vote when they declared those Eminent Persons who manage things at this rate Enemies to the King and Kingdom and Promoters
they were never able to effect themselves the Dissenters did for them for from the moment the Popish Plot was discovered they entered into a project to make use of it another way against the King and Court on one hand and against the Church and the Loyal Gentry on the other In order to this they had these close Cabals and private Meetings I last mentioned where they invented and spread abroad a thousand idle Stories to fright the Common People out of their little Wits and also raised Money which they liberally bestowed amongst the Informers to render them more obsequious to them so that in a short time Informing became a very thriving trade if it would have held and this great familiarity betwixt the discoverers of the Plot and the Whigs was the best colour afterwards for the Meal-Tub Presbyterian Plot. By this means the People were easily deluded into a conceit that these Gentlemen who took such care of the Discoverers and their Party who were always haranguing against Popery were the only Protestants in the Nation that could save them out of the hands of the Papists And on the other side the Court and all the Loyal Gentry and Clergy became suspected of want of zeal against Popery and this was heightned by the Discoverers themselves who were for the most part men of no very great or good qualities and were so puffed up by the flatteries and Liberalities of the Whigs and their own high conceits of the Service they had done the Nation that they thought no recompence no respect which was bestowed upon them was great enough and so became insolent both in their carriage and discourses by which means they became less respected rhan before till at last they were forced to give themselves up intrirely to the Whigs This had two very different effects upon several sorts of men some believed that there was no Popish Plot after they saw the Dissenters reap all the advantage by it And others thought that all but the Dissenters were more or less concerned in the guilt of it as well as the Papists or at least were favourers of the Papists and Popery Things being in this state especially after the dissolution of the Long Loyal Parliament the Discoverers lost much of their reputation but that ever any vile Arts were used to hinder any further discovery of the Plot by any but the Papists or that liberty was given to reproach or any means used to corrupt or destroy them that were the Witnesses except it were by Papists doth not appear and in all those cases all the care in the world was taken of the Witnesses too by the King and his Council And as to that which my Author mentions in the last place How the very Criminals were incouraged and allowed to be good Witnesses against their Accusers I cannot imagine what he means by it or when or where it should be done tho I have read over all the Printed Trials and therefore it is enough to deny this and put him upon the proof of it But how did all these things tend to the advantage of the Popish Plotters in the end First As the Zeal of these people fired the Rabble so it put the Long Loyal Parliament too into so great a fret that it proved mortal and then going downward it put the Country into such disorder that tho his Majesty hath given us the opportunities of chusing three Parliaments one after another we have not been able to send up one that has not fallen into those little Excesses which have occasioned their dissolution before they had done us any considerable good And at length his Majesty is forced for some time to keep us without one to try if Fasting will bring us into our senses again and in the mean time the noise of the Popish Plot is drowned by new and more surprizing attempts of the Whigs and that Popish Party which whilst it had none but real Papists in its List was the abomination of all Protestants now the Whigs have joyned all the Church of England men to them by their lies and slanders even that very Popish Party begin to be better thought of for their sakes who are falsly joyned with them and by these and many other ways the prosecution of the Popish Plot any further is thought by most men impossible Whereas had not the Dissenters been thus serviceable to them there is reason to believe they would have suffered much more than they have done and there would have been much sharper Laws made against them than they need fear now If all this be considered it will easily appear it was not the Protection of the Duke whom this Gentleman can never prove the Publickly avowed Head of the Papists but the over-doing of the business that hath delivered the Popish Faction out of that fear and danger which the discovery of the Plot had cast them into We must own saith my Author that his Majesty has opened all his Parliaments at Westminster with very Gracious Expressions nor have we wanted that Evidence of his readiness to satisfie the desires of his Subjects but that sort of Evidence will soon lose its force if it be never followed by Actions correspondent by which only the World can judge of the sincerity of Expressions or Intentions Had the two short Parliaments at Westminster been the only Parliaments his Majesty had ever called since his return there might have been some colour for this undutiful reflection but all the World knows there were two there before them and that his Majesty complied with them in almost all they asked in a regular way and when at any time he was necessitated to deny them any request he gave them such reason for it as they seemed to be well pleased with his denial It will appear to any man that his Majesty hath passed more Acts in twenty years than any one of his Ancestors have done in twice the time that he hath abated more of his just and real Prerogative than any Prince we ever yet had could be brought to part with The Court of Wards and the Right of Purveyance were great advantages to the Crown and as troublesom to the Subjects till his Majesty generously gave them up and these two Prerogatives were never Contested and I might instance in some other if I did not think it sit to be as short as I can In almost twenty years that the Long Loyal Parliament sate I never heard of above one Bill that had passed both Houses which was denied his Royal Assent and that was The Bill for preserving the peace of the Kingdom by raising the Militia and continuing them in duty for two and forty days which Bill was refused November 30. 1678. and then also his Majesty gave this reason for it That he did not refuse to pass it for the dislike of the matter but the manner because it put the Militia for so many days out of his power and if it
had been but for half an hour he would not have consented to it because of the ill consequences it might have hereafter the Militia being wholly in the Crown c. Now I believe it would be difficult for my Author to make and prove the like instance in any of our former Princes And in the first of the short Westminster Parliaments his Majesty passed the Act for the better securing of the Liberty of the Subject and for preventing imprisonment beyond Seas to which an honourable Person adds The Act against quartering of Souldiers upon the Subject and saith his Majesty might have had many Millions for these Acts if he had insisted on a bargain or known how to distinguish between his own private Interest and that of the Subject or the truckling way of Bartering when the good of his People was concerned And in the last short-lived Westminster Parliament his Majesty passed the Act against Importation of Irish Cattel for no other visible cause but because both Houses had passed it tho it tended to the Diminution of his Revenue And now let us see how gratefully our Author treats him for all these Royal and Prince-like Favours Therefore the Favorites did little consult his Majesties Honour when they bring him in solemnly declaring to his Subjects that his intentions were as far as would have consisted with the very Being of the Government to have complied with any thing that could have been proposed to him to accomplish those Ends he had mentioned which were the satisfying the desires of his Subjects and securing them against all their just fears when they are not able to produce an instance wherein they suffered him to comply in any one thing Whatever the House of Commons Addressed for was certainly denied tho it was only for that reason and there was no surer way of Intituling ones self to the favour of the Court than to receive a Censure from the representative body of the People As to the Addresses made by the House of Commons alone they were many of them such as his Majesty could not comply with without great mischief to himself or them that had exprest the greatest Zeal for his Service and when for that case only they seemed to be persecuted it would have been very impolitick in his Majesty tho he had been his own man and not under the dominion of the Favorites as it seems he was to have yielded to the Commons against them But cannot the Favorites instance wherein they suffered his Majesty to comply in any one thing with the House of Commons Did not his Majesty at their single request Pardon a great many Informers against the Plotters Did he not pardon B. Harris too his 500 l. Fine and Imprisonment which he had incurred by Printing disloyal and seditious Pamphlets Did not his Majesty upon their Address discharge all the Protestant Dissenters who were then under prosecution upon several Penal Statutes without paying Fees as far as it could be done according to Law and promise also to recommend them to the Judges There might many other instances be given of moneys issued out of persons taken care for and the like upon the single request of the Commons so that I cannot but wonder where my Authors modesty was when he pressed the Favorites to give one instance of his Majesties compliance with the House of Commons But his Majesty and the Court were kind to all that received any Censure from the representative body of the People They might thank themselves for that who bestowed their Censures so freely on men that had deserved very well of his Majesty and the Government and yet I believe there may be some instances given of men whom they Censured or imprisoned that have not been mightily advanced since by the Court but let us examine those few particular Examples my Author hath marked out Let it for the present be admitted saith my Author that some of the things desired by that Parliament were exorbitant and because we will put the objection as strong as is possible inconsistent with the very being of the Government yet at least some of their Petitions were more reasonable Doubtless there was some such which therefore were freely granted by his Majesty as I have proved The Government might have subsisted though the Gentlemen put out of the Commission of the Peace for their zealous acting against the Papists had been restored And so might the Protestant Religion by Law established be preserved without the assistance of these zealous Gentlemen and therefore his Majesty was not to be instructed by these Representatives whom he should imploy as Justices of the Peace especially after they had discovered so much kindness for the Dissenters who have something an odd Notion of Papists and Popery Nor would a final Dissolution of all things have ensued tho Sir George Jefferies had been removed out of all Publick Offices or my Lord Hallifax himself from his Majesties Presence and Councils The first of these Sir George Jefferies was then Recorder of London and was prosecuted by a part of the City for that he by traducing and obstructing Petitioning for the sitting of that Parliament had betrayed the Rights of the Subject Now that Gentleman opposed them as many others did in obedience to his Majesties Proclamation and the Laws of the Land and it was a little unreasonable that his Majesty should joyn with the Commons to ruine him though it could be made out that his Majesties Proclamation was illegal and that there were a mistake also in the point of Law My Lord Hallifax was prosecuted only for opposing the Bill for disinheriting the Duke of York in the House of Lords and no fault whatsoever laid to his charge Now he being a Member of that House it had been very unreasonable for his Majesty to have punished him for using his own just and legal freedom in a case especially wherein his Majesty had declared his own resolution so very often before Now Sir tho these two Persons are not essentially necessary to the preservation of the Government yet it is absolutely so that his Majesty do not give up those that have faithfully and legally served him in their proper Stations either to please the People or their Representatives without a legal trial and a just defence We may all remember what the Consequences of his Majesties Fathers giving up the Earl of Strafford in the beginning of the late troubles were and I hope I shall never live to see that sort of compliance reacted again Had the Statute of 35. Eliz. which had justly slept for Eighty years and of late unreasonably revived been repealed surely the Government might still have been safe And though the Fanaticks perhaps had not deserved so well as that in favour to them his Majesty should have passed that Bill yet since the Repeal might hereafter be of great use to those of the Church of England in case of a Popish
not neglect to give it its due Consideration as appears by their Addresses of November 29. and Decemb. 21. 1680. and they told him no better could be expected of a Town for the most part under Popish Governours and always filled with a Popish Garrison Now this Gentleman might have done the World a Kindness to have told us how the Popery of the Governours or Garrison contributed any thing to the present Exigencies of that place into which it fell not by any neglect or Treachery but by a Siege laid about it by a potent Army of Moors They promised to assist him in defence of it as soon as ever they could be reasonably secured that any Supply which they gave for that purpose should not be used to augment the strength of our Popish Adversaries and to encrease our dangers at home All the rest is of the same kind with this But Sir can you tell what was meant by a reasonable security Or wherein the state of England would have been mended if Tangier had been lost Or can you give us any reason why this Parliament seemed resolved to run the Risque of losing this Town when the former Parliament had Voted so stoutly for the Annexing it to the Crown I might perhaps go near to answer all these questions from the exact Collection of Debates which are Printed but the safer and shorter way is to refer my Reader to them for his satisfaction My Author owns that his Majesty offered to concur in any Remedies that could be proposed for the security of the Protestant Religion but saith he he was pleased to go no further how could he for those Remedies the Commons offered were rejected and those which they were preparing were prevented by a dissolution What was rejected is well enough understood viz. the Bill of Exclusion and if the Association was what was preparing it is not great wonder it should be prevented by a Dissolution But for this we must be contented to remain in ignorance His Majesty had complained of Addresses in the name of Remonstrances rather than Answers Now here my Author cannot guess what the Ministers would have the word Remonstrance sigâ—ifie but he takes it to be a modest expressing the reasons of their resolution Now if this be the meaning of the Word we must own his Majesty hath in this particular charged the Commons wrongfully for there was seldom too much modesty joyned with their Reasons but they rather to us poor Country Folk seemed to have altogether lost that respect that was due to the Crown as any body else would think that should compare their Addresses with those made in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth particularly that made to thank her for taking away a part only of the Monopolies that oppressed them in the 44. year of her Reign when the Speaker and the whole House of Commons sate a good while on their knees to her but our Gentlemen treated our King at quite another rate and not much unlike those who remonstrated to his Majesties Father till they at last fairly brought him to the Block My Author considers in the next place that part of the Declaration which concerns the Arbitrary Orders for taking persons into custody for matters that had no relation to Priviledges of Parliament c. If saith he they the Ministers intended by these general words to reflect on the Orders made to take those degenerate Wretches into Custody who published under their hands Abhorrences of Parliaments and of those who in humble and lawful manner petitioned for their sitting in a time of such extreme necessity Surely they are not in good earnest they cannot believe themselves when they say that these matters have no relation to Priviledges of Parliament if the Priviledge of Parliament be concerned when an injury is done to any particular Member how much more when men strike at Parliaments themselves and endeavour to wound the Constitution But Sir I hope it is no breach of Priviledge of Parliament now to beg a small favour at your Worships hands and that is to produce but one instance of one single man that ever published an Abhorrence of Parliaments in general or of that Parliament in particular before it sate It seems mighty probable to me that these Wretches were a part of them and the rather because my Author is fain to misrepresent the whole matter of Fact to make it seem just Now Sir all the question was whether the manner of Petitioning then taken up by the Rabble was lawful or humble You say it was both but Sir your Sentence is neither Concluding nor yet infallible and therefore we appeal from it to the next Loyal Parliament which we hope some at least of those Degenerate Wretches may live to see and in the mean time there will ever be some ready to abhor a Petition signed by 60000 Shop-Keepers Apprentices c. humbly pretending to instruct the King and Council in spight of a Proclamation to the contrary when its fit a Parliament should sit which some are such fools as to imagine may be done again without abhorring Parliaments and consequently without breach of Priviledge of Parliament And because this was all that was done then to the best of our remembrance and as it is conceived may be made appear by those very abhorrences still extant therefore it is humbly conceived the Imprisonments thereupon were Arbitrary and illegal As to those two Persons my Author names of them that were taken into Custody by Order of Parliament Sheridon and Thompson I will raise no Contest with him because their case will depend upon the general determination The King's Declaration lays down this as a Rule that for the House of Commons to take into Custody any Subject for matters that have no relation to priviledges of Parliament is Arbitrary i. e. Illegal This the Author quarrels at and by a very few Precedents endeavours to prove That the House of Commons may order men to be taken into Custody for matters not relating to priviledge These two are directly contrary each to other and I only desire the liberty to enquire which of these seem likeliest to be in the right The Priviledges of the House of Commons are indeed our own and they enjoy and ought to use them as our Trustees and for our good and therefore it is folly in us to lessen them when they are such as are necessary and it is a great injury in them to extend them beyond what they anciently were to the damage of the Crown or of the Liberties of the Subjects or on the other hand to abuse those they really have and ought to enjoy to our damage or to the Detriment of the Kings Prerogative which is as necessary for our preservation as the Priviledges of Parliament themselves are The Priviledges of Parliament are many and relate either to the whole Body the Three Estates taken Collectively or to the Lords or to the Commons Those
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
is undeniable but then those reasons ought to be alledged and proved for the turning a man out of Service is certainly in many cases a great punishment tho not equal to hanging The People themselves are highly concerned in the great Ministers of State who are Servants to the Kingdom as well as to the King and the Commons whose business it is to present all Grievances as they are most likely to observe soonest the folly and treachery of those publick Servants the greatest of all Grievances so this representation ought to have no little weight with the Prince Here is the true reason as long as the Ministers look upon themselves as the Kings Servants they will adhere to the Crown but if they be taught once that they are Servants to the People too then because it is difficult to serve two Masters they will be more distracted and act more timorously especially if according to the modern distinction the Country-Party get the Ascendent of the Court-Party in a Parliament Queen Elizabeth told the Commons by the Lord Keeper that she misliked that such irreverence towards Privy-Counsellors who were not to be accounted as Common Knights and Burgesses of the House that are Counsellors but during the Parliament whereas the other are standing Counsellors and for their Wisdom and great Service are called to the Council of State They were not then thought to be such publick Servants as might be treated at any rate sent to the Tower or to carry up a Bill to the Lords against which they had given their Vote as if it were to triumph over them But Henry IV. a wise and a brave Prince in the Fifth year of his Reign turned out four of his Servants only because the Commons desired they might be removed But then this Prince had no Title and therefore was not in a capacity to dispute any thing with them and in this very Parliament too they gave him so extraordinary a Tax and so troublesom to the Subject that they would not suffer any Record of it to be left in the Treasury and he was obliged to grant them this extraordinary favour in recompence of it He had but newly in Battel conquered one Rebellion wherein Mortimers Title was at the bottom and was ingaged then in a War with France And he had reason to fear a general Defection of the Nation King Richard being reported to be alive And he was then in great want of Money so that for such a Prince so beset to grant any thing was far from a wonder but ought no more to be drawn into Example than that Tax they then gave him and least of all now when things are in a very different posture But then all these Ministers are censured for doing that which was approved by two of the three Estates The Resolve was this That all persons who advised his Majesty in his last Message to this House to insist upon an opinion against the Bill for Excluding the Duke of York have given pernicious Counsel to his Majesty and are promoters of Popery and Enemies to the King and Kingdom Now this Bill was before this thrown out by the House of Lords and therefore there was no reason to Vote the Ministers Enemies to the King and Kingdom for doing that which was approved by two of the three Estates in Parliament But they ought not to have appealed to the People against their own Representatives Why not The unfortunate Reigns of Henry III. Edward II. Richard II. and Henry VI. ought to serve as Land-marks to warn succeeding Kings from preserring secret Councils to the wisdom of their Parliaments And so ought the Example of his Majesties Father to warn both his Majesty and the whole Nation how they suffer the Ministers of State to be trodden under foot by Factious men and the Prerogatives of the Crown to be swallowed up by pretended Priviledges of Parliament for all these things have once already made way for the Ruine of the Monarchy as that did for the enslaving of the People The next thing my Author falls upon is the business of the Revenue but here I cannot imagine what he would have he makes a long Harangue against Alienation of the Revenues of the Crown and about the reasonableness of Resumptions of those that had been alienated And tells us No Country did ever believe the Prince how absolute soever in other things had power to sell or give away the Revenue of the Kingdom and leave his Successor a Beggar That the haughty French Monarch as much power as he pretends to is not ashamed to own that he wanted power to make such Alienations and that Kings had that happy inability that they could do nothing contrary to the Laws of their Country This and much more my Author hath upon this occasion learnedly but very impertinently written about these two Votes believing his Reader could not distinguish betwixt an Alienation and an Anticipation But the best way to have this clearly understood is to insert the Votes of the Commons which are as followeth Resolved That whosoever shall hereafter lend or cause to be lent by way of Advance any money upon the Branches of the Kings Revenue arising by Customs Excise or Hearth-money shall be adjudged to hinder the sitting of Parliaments and shall be responsible for the same in Parliament Resolved That whosoever shall accept or buy any Tally of Anticipation upon any part of the Kings Revenue or whoseever shall pay such Tally hereafter to be struck shall be adjudged to hinder the sitting of Parliaments and shall be responsible therefore in Parliament Now what Advancing money upon the Revenues and accepting Tallys of Anticipation have to do with Alienation of it I cannot devise For certainly it is one thing to advance a Fine and take a Farm so much the cheaper for three four or seven years and another thing to purchase the same to a man and his Heirs for ever And it is one thing to receive an Order to take such a Sum of Money of the Tenant out of the next half years Rent and a quite other thing to purchase the Feesimple of an Estate which is an Alienation The Revenues of the Crown of England are in their own nature appropriated to Publick Service and therefore cannot without injustice be diverted or Anticipated May not an Anticipation be as well imployed upon the Publick Service as a growing Revenue when it is become due Does Anticipation signifie mispending or diverting from a Publick to a private use Is it impossible the Publick should at any time need a greater Sum of money than the Revenue will afford and may not a Prince in such a case Anticipate and afterward get it up again by his good Husbandry No for Either the Publick Revenue is sufficient to answer the necessary occasions of the Government and then there is no colour for Anticipations or else by some extraordinary Accident the King
parcel of Mercenary Pensioners he in the next place falls foul upon the Clergy for publishing this Declaration like an Excommunication in all Churches But if they the Ministers erred in the things they judged rightly in the choice of the persons who were to publish it Blind Obedience was requisite where such unjustifiable things were imposed and that could be no where so intire as amongst those Clergy-men whose preferment depended upon it Yes without doubt ten thousand Clergy-men did expect to be preferred presently for this piece of blind Obedience Yet he is at it again in the next page a Set of Presbyterian Clergy would not have been so tame Well but this would not have done tho If the Paper which was to be read in the Desk had not been so suitable to the Doctrine which some of them had often declared in the Pulpit Then it did not go against their Consciences It did not become them to inquire whether they had sufficient Authority for what they did since the Printer calls it the Kings Declaration No Where or of whom should they have enquired And it being Printed by the Kings Printer with his Majesties Royal Arms before it and sent them by their Ordinaries the Bishops they had no reason to question whether it were the Kings or no. And there was as little reason that they should concern themselves Whether they might not one day be called to an account for publishing it They had reason to trust that his Majesty who commanded them to do it would protect them in their blind Obedience And as for his Law-Quirks whether what his Majesty singly Ordered when he sate in Council and came forth without the Stamp of the Great Seal gave them a sufficient warrant to read in publickly These things never entered into their heads Well but Sir tho those same Clergy-men driven on by Ambition might act in this without fear or shame and think as little of a Parliament as the Court Favourites who took care to dissolve that at Oxford before they durst tell us the faults of that at Westminister Tho it might be so as you say yet the Shoal of Addressors that came in to thank his Majesty for that Declaration they had more light and Sir if you be resolved to call all these Ministers all these Clergy-men all these Addressors to an account in the next Parliament pray for cold weather and long days and another Parliament that may sit for ever if it please or you may happen to want time to go through with so pious and good a work But Sir tho the Ministers durst not discover the faults of the Westminster Parliament till they had taken care to dissolve that Oxford his Majesty in his Speech there did Which he began thus The unwarrantable proceedings of the last House of Commons were the occasion of my parting with the last Parliament For I who will never use Arbitrary Government my self am resolved not to suffer it in others I am unwilling to mention particulars because I am desirous to forget faults c. So that you may see if you please that the Oxford Parliament was told in general the faults of that which preceded in order to their avoiding them if they could have made that good use of his Majesties Advice which will render them the less excusable to all the world So now we come to that Parliament at Oxford which saith the Declaration was assembled as soon as that was dissolved and saith my Author might have added Dissolved as soon as Assembled the Ministers having imployed the People forty days in chusing Knights and Burgesses to be sent home in Right with a Declaration after them as if they had been called together only to be affronted As to the People if their Knights and Burgesses came back sooner than they expected they had reason to thank themselves who had twice before sent up the same men and as you observed before the people do not change suddenly so neither doth the Court but doth as certainly send back a Parliament that will not be governed as the People send them And the People were overjoyed too to see them again for when they went out they had told them they never expected to come back again So that so speedy and safe a return was as welcome to them that sent them as could be imagined As for the Knights and Burgesses themselves they had fair warning given them by his Majesty before-hand and if they would affront either Him or the Upper House they did it at their apperil and it was well they scaped so well as to be sent home with a Declaration after them My Author acknowledgeth that his Majesty failed not to give good Advice unto them who were called together to Advise him And so many I might say all our former Princes have done before his Majesty and commanded them too not to meddle with such and such things yea and punished private Members sometimes for doing otherwise The Lord Keeper in the 35 year of Queen Elizabeths Reign spoke thus to the Commons It is her Majesties pleasure the time be not spent in devising and enacting new Laws the number of which are so great already that it rather burtheneth than easeth the Subject c. And whereas heretofore it hath been used that many have delighted themselves in long Orations full of Verbosity and vain Ostentations more than in speaking things of substance the time that is precious would not be thus spent And in the same Parliament the Lord Keeper upon the usual demands by the New Speaker said thus To your three demands the Queen answereth Liberty of Speech is granted you c. but you must know what priviledge you have not to speak every one what he listeth or what cometh in his brain to utter but your priviledge is to say Yea or No. Wherefore Mr. Speaker her Majesties pleasure is that if you perceive any Idle Heads which will not stick to hazard their own Estates which will meddle with Reforming of the Church and transforming of the Commonwealth and do exhibit any Bills to that purpose that you receive them not until they be viewed and considered of by those whom it is fitter should consider of such things and can better judge of them To your persons all priviledge is granted with this Caveat that under colour of this Priviledge no mans ill doings or not performing of Duties be covered and protected The last free Access is also granted to her Majesties Person so that it be upon urgent and weighty causes and at times convenient and when her Majesty may be at leisure from other important causes of the Realm Now let what his Majesty said at Oxford be compared with this and let any man tell me whether the Parliament deserved any commendation from my Author for their having so much respect to the King as not particularly to complain of the great invasion that was made
things have been done but ought they therefore to be reacted As for his railing Accusations brought against his Royal Highness they deserve so much the less consideration because he treats the King at that abominable rate he doth of whose Clemency Justice and Compassion all Europe are Witnesses Having concluded there must be a War he saith Let it be under the Authority of Law let it be against a Banished Excluded Pretender There is no fear of the Consequence of such a War No true Englishman can joyn with him or countenance his Vsurpation after this Act and for his Popish and Forein Adherents they will neither be more provoked nor more powerful by the passing of it This man all along supposeth that neither the Duke nor the King have any natural Hereditary Right to the Crown but talketh as if it were meerly at the pleasure of the People and their Representatives to make what man they please King of England supposing that a Son of an Emperour of Germany or of a King of Poland were passed by or Excluded and should enter a War for the gaining of that Crown to which for want of an Election he had never any legal right he might be stiled a Pretender or an Usurper but in an Hereditary Kingdom it can never be so if according to the before cited opinion of K. James no Act of Parliament can extinguish the Dukes Right which God and Nature hath given him in case the King should die before his Royal Highness without lawful Issue tho it may prevent his obtaining it So that he can never be an Usurper or Pretender till the Monarchy of England is declared to be Elective And this may be thought to be one reason why his Majesty should never yield the point And as for my Authors confidence in the success of such a War it speaks nothing but his earnest desire of one rather than not to have his Will and I hope the Nation will have no occasion to prove him a false Prophet Nor will his Exclusion make it at all necessary to maintain a standing Force for preserving the Government and the peace of the Kingdom The whole People will be an Army for that purpose and every heart and hand will be prepared to maintain that so necessary so much desired Law If all this were true there would be no need of an Army indeed but then there would also be as little need of an Association too for I never heard of a Prince that was able to compel three whole Nations to submit to him against all their Wills and without Forein Aids But Sir the House of Commons thought the latter necessary or else they would never have desired that his Majesty would be likewise Graciously pleased to Assent to an Act whereby his Majesties Protestant Subjects may be enabled to Associate themselves for the defence of his Majesties Person the Protestant Religion and the security of your Kingdoms This was thought as necessary as the Bill of Exclusion and what kind of Association some men intended is well enough understood now by the whole Nation As to his Recrimination upon the Ministers for the two Armies and the Guards let him set his heart at rest for the World is very well satisfied the one were never intended to be kept up and it is hoped the other the Guards will be ever formidable to such Gentlemen as my Author who in kindness to the Queen of Scots Title and the Bill of Exclusion is like a good Protestant contented to insinuate that Queen Elizabeth was a Bastard though born in Matrimony For so she must be if what the Papists say of her having no other Right but only that of an Act of Parliament by which Mary Queen of Scots was Excluded be true In the next Paragraph my Author endeavours to face his Majesty down That nothing was intended by those other ways which were darkly and dubiously intimated in his Majesties Speech unto the Parliament at Oxford and repeated in the Declaration and he saith that his Majesty in his wisdom could not but know that they signified nothing Now this is a strange way of proceeding with Princes and would anger a private man The Regency signified nothing the distinction betwixt the Kings Personal and Politick Capacity was unfeasible the Pope might absolve him from all Oaths as he did King John and Henry III. and it would be more fatal to us when Religion is concerned which was not then in question His Confessor would excite him against us and he who has made use of all the Power he has been intrusted with hitherto for our destruction witness his Naval Wars against the Dutch would certainly Elude all Methods but the Bill of Exclusion and if it were otherwise there was no hopes of having any fruit of any Expedient without a War and to be obliged to swear Allegiance to a Popish Prince to own his Title to acknowledge him supreme Head of the Church and Defender of the Faith seems says my Author a strange way of entitling our selves to fight with him It doth so and therefore all those that are resolved on a War will I suppose never do it But are all these Titles annexed to the Crown as Protestant or as imperial and subject to none but God Did they belong to Henry VIII or did they not And supposing no Expedient should be used would not the Number Constancy and Resolution of the English Nation and Protestants in it preserve the Religion in one Prince's Reign tho of a different Religion without a War The Expedient propounded by his Majesty that if means could be found That in case of a Popish Successâ—r the Administration of the Government might remain in Protestant hands whether it be feasible or no shews an inclination in his Majesty to submit to any thing but what will ruine both him and his Brother as the Bill of Exclusion backed with such an Association as was lately found certainly will In short this Case is beset with so many and great difficulties that it baffles all humane wit and understanding to provide such an Expedient for it as may be secure and satisfie and therefore when all is done that can be done it must be left to God Almighty who only can and will determine it Having denied the charge in the Declaration That there was reason to believe that the Parliament would have passed further to attempt some other great and important changes even at present and according to his wont schooled the King and told the Ministers That they hate Parliaments because their Crimes are such that they have reason to fear them He relents a little and tells us if they the Ministers by that expression meant That the Parliament would have besought the King that the Duke might no longer have the Government in his hands This is a little hard to be understood the Duke not being then in England 2. That his Dependants those that had
eminent men that had never bowed the knee to Baal So that Story was set up which he was not able to prove one Syllable of at his Trial but however it was easily enough believed by them who love to make the King and Court as odious as they can as well as the Papists My Author goes on The heinous nature of the Crime and the greatness of the Persons supposed to be concerned deserved an extraordinary Examination which a Jury who were only to enquire whether Fitz-Harris was guilty of framing that Libel could never make and the Commons believed none but the Parliament was big enough to go through with it The Trial of this Person being extant I must for brevity refer my Reader to it and I see not how it had been possible for the Parliament to have sifted that business of Fitz-Harris his being put upon this by the Court to ruine the eminent men more narrowly than it was at the Trial and there was not one syllable proved by any of the Witnesses he produced which were many and persons of great worth only Mr. Oates said he heard Everard say some such thing which Everard again denied upon his Oath And Sir William Waller owned he had heard the King was discontented at his troubling him with this business but Sir William Waller Mr. Smith and Mr. Everard proved it positively upon him that he had ordered the drawing of that Libel had approved of it when it was drawn and amended some words in it with his own hands And now after all this to lay the Crime upon the Court upon the suggestion of the Malefactor was such a piece of Justice as never was attempted Nor did they the Commons only fear the perversion of Justice but the misapplication of Mercy too c. because when Fitz-Harris was inclined to Repentance and had begun a Confession to the surprize of the whole Nation without any visible cause he was taken out of the lawful custody of the Sheriffs and shut up a close prisoner in the Tower That he had not only begun but gone through with a Confession appears by a Printed Narrative taken by two which I think were both of the House of Commons one I am sure was And when notwithstanding this some eminent men began to tamper with him to turn all this upon the Court then and not before was he taken out of the custody of the Sheriffs and put into the Tower that they might not make an ill use of him to the Damage of the King and the Government The Commons had therefore no other way to be secure that the prosecution should be effectual the Judgment indifferent and the Criminal out of all hopes of Pardon unless by an ingenuous Confession be could engage both Houses in a powerful mediation to his Majesty in his behalf But by impeaching him they were sure no pardon could stop their suit tho the King might release his own Prosecution by his Pardon What need there was here of any further or more ingenuous Confession that he should make than what he had made I cannot imagine but we may guess it was meant that if Fitz-Harris should lay the blame of this Libel on the Court and say it was designed to Trappan the eminent men then they would try to get him pardoned but if he did not do this then he should have been hanged without mercy Well But what if the King would not have consented to the Pardon which was to have been purchased with his dishonour Then the Commons would not have proceeded with their impeachment and the Consequence would have been if the Lords had not rejected the Impeachment that then no inferiour Court could have tried him and so he should never have been tried So that it is plain that if the Lords had not rejected this Impeachment it would as the King saith in the Declaration have been made use of to delay a Trial that We had directed against a profess'd Papist charged with Treasons against Vs of an extraordinary nature And certainly the House of Peers did themselves Right in refusing to give countenance to such a proceeding Part of the 36 and all the 37 38 39 Pages are spent by my Author to prove that a Commoner may be tried by the Peers in Parliament upon an Impeachment of the Commons in which matter I will have no Controversie with him because he may be in the right for ought I know And I have as little to say to him whether such Commoners as are tried there ought to have any Juries or whether the Lords rejecting the Impeachment was or only looked like a denial of Justice For it is plain that as good justice might be had and in this case was had in the Kings Bench as could have been had before the Lords and if Fitz-Harris had been acquitted there then the Commons might afterwards have impeached him of any branch of Treason that was not or could not have been tried in the Kings Bench so that the pretence he makes that part of his Treasons were thought such as could only be adjudged in Parliament is impertinent for the remainder were apparently such as he ought to be hanged for in an inferiour Court and he could suffer but once and the taking notice of the rest would have been impertinent I think I may modestly say this that the impeachment of Commoners before the Lords is so extraordinary a way that it would be used as little as is possible but these Gentlemen were for nothing else and Thompson Sheridon Verdon and the Lord knows how many more were to have been thus proceeded against tho they were not persons of such extraordinary degree or quality but they might full as well have been tried in any other Court and the Consequence of this would have been that neither the Lords nor Commons would have had any leisure for any thing else but this Might it not be well retorted by the People that it had been long a matter extremely sensible to them that so many Prorogations so many Dissolutions so many other Arts had been used to delay the Trials which his Majesty had often desired and the Parliament prepared for against the five professed Popish Lords charged with Treasons of an extraordinary nature The King might if he had pleased have charged this upon the Commons too that notwithstanding the long time they had been imprisoned yet the Commons would not go on with their Trials that they might legally and regularly be discharged The Impeachment of the Earl of Danby before they had tried these five Lords occasioned the dissolution of the Long Loyal Parliament A Controversie betwixt the Lords and the Commons about the Trial of the said Earl of Danby broke the next Parliament Then comes the second short Westminster Parliament and having tried only one of them the Earl of Stafford when all the World were in expectation they would have gone on and have tried the other