Descent Some of them laughed and told me that I gaped for a new Jerusalem to drop from Heaven wherein there would be nothing but Righteousness and that the Government should be administred by none but Men of Vertue and known Fidelity to their Country They have upbraided me with what I said that God had sent us a Prince that would deny his People nothing but pressed and conjured them to provide most effectual Ways and Means for securing their Religion Laws and Liberties Yeom Sir I suppose the Gentlemen that talk to you in this manner have a Mind to disgrace the honest Principles that led the People justly to reject King James and make you believe that they were cozened in thinking that the Security of Religion Laws and Liberties or the Reformation of the Government were ever intended in the Revolution They would have you believe that there was nothing but Ambition and Avarice in the bottom of the Design and that whatever was pretended the Crown and its Powers were the only things in the Eyes of King William and his Followers They would perswade you and the People to think that our Religion and Liberties might be secured by a Treaty for bringing back King James and that an End may be put to the War thereby and the People acquitted from the heavy Taxes and Burdens they now lie under They would impose upon you to believe if possible that he who so basely cast the People of England at the Feet of the Pope by an English Ambassador and ran the utmost Hazards to subvert the Protestant Religion establish'd should desire to secure our Religion without pretending to be converted and be fit to be trusted to defend our Faith and that he who is known to the whole World to have occasioned so vast an Effusion of Christian Blood to enslave us to his Arbitrary Power and make himself our absolute Master should be fit to receive Royal Powers and Authorities for the Defence of the English Laws and Liberties Kt. Neighbour you are in the right but this sort of Gentlemen dare not upon these Occasions argue plainly for King James and I hope that neither the Parliament nor the Country are in much Danger by them But there are another sort of Men who enjoy the Powers and the Profits of the late Revolution and highly pretend to maintain it that upon the Occasion of this Bill do so pervert the Meaning and Construction of our Laws and assert such dangerous Notions as really tend to introduce Arbitrary Power and Slavery if they do not unhappily throw the People upon King James These Men make a specious Shew of their Love to the Advancement of the Honour and Greatness of the Crown as if they were their Majesties principal Friends though in truth they are daily undermining their Majesties Legal Title to the Crown by the pernicious Notions of the late Reigns which are contrary to the Fundamental Maxims of our Government They commend and applaud the King's Refusal of the late Bill and some of them have been so bold as to say whether in love to K. William or K. James I will not determine that what the King did therein was the chief thing that he hath done like a King He hath shewed say they that the Being and Sitting of Parliaments are only Acts of Grace from the Crown that the People have no other but a precarious Right to them to have them only at such Times in such Manner and for so long as the Crown pleases These Gentlemen pretend to great Moderation and privately whisper to such as they hope to lead that the Principles of our Government were too strictly and severely laid down in the late Revolution They say that the original Contract between the King and the People should not have been set forth as an equal Contract on equal Terms whereby the Kings were as strictly bound on their Part as the People on theirs as if each Party had no Right to claim a share in the Legislative Power in Parliament or any other Administration of the Sovereign Authority save only by Force of the Contract No doubt say they his Majesty is now advised that the Original of the Legislative and Executive Sovereign Power ought to be wrapp'd in Clouds and not exposed to vulgar Eves 'T is an Indecency to have it commonly said of so Great and almost Divine Persons as Kings that they receive all that Majesty and Glory only from their People It 's below say they the high Regal Office to have it said by all the People that their Majesties must within appointed times call the Parliaments and let them redress the Peoples Grievances as the Laws direct They praise the Wisdom of his Majesty's Counsels to refuse the Bill and to avoid any further Obligations to the People than were upon his Predecessors 'T is fit the Kingdom should as much depend upon his Grace and Clemency for their Parliaments as upon any others that have sat in the Throne and if he had condescended to this Bill the Insolence of the People in their Demands of their Liberties might have been insupportable Yeom Sir you have taken infinite Pains to instruct me yet I was such a Blockhead that 'till this last Discourse of yours I did not apprehend why the King refused the Bill it was hard for me to believe that there is so great a Party as now I suspect that prosecute the same Designs that were in the late Reigns to enslave us I thought that such as enjoyed great Preferments Honours and Profits by K. William's Election into the Throne would never have thought to revive the former Designs of enslaving us by setting up Pretences of a Power in English Kings above Parliaments by Divine Right antecedent to the Contract between King and People Though I am convinced there are some Men who have so far lost all Sense of Honour and Conscience that they may be still engaged in the former pernicious enslaving Designs yet before this your Discourse I did not think that any number of Englishmen were so corrupted or infatuated as to think that our whole Constitution our Government by Laws and all our Estates Liberties and Lives are holden by the mere Grace and Favour of our Kings I must confess you have mentioned several of those Gentlemens seeming Reasons against passing the Bill that are spun too sine for our Country Heads We should have thought that nothing of our Rights could have been too plainly set down when we were to declare as was done in the Revolution what are and have been the Rights of us and our Ancestors reserved in the very Constitution from all Ages But I perceive that what cannot be denied to be the Peoples legal Rights about Parliaments is desired by that sort of Men to be concealed They would not have a new Law pass about holding Parliaments lest this King should have more Obligations upon him to hold Parliaments than some of his Predecessors The true meaning whereof
An ENQUIRY or a Discourse between a Yeoman of Kent and a Knight of a Shire upon the Prorogation of the Parliament to the second of May 1693. Yeoman SIR your humble Servant I am happy to meet you at this Friend's House where I did not expect you Pray Sir is the News true that the King hath prorogued the Parliament to day Knight 'T is very true we are prorogued to the second of May next Yeom Were all your Bills passed that were agreed on by both Houses Kt. I wish I could tell you they were Yeom I hope Sir the King hath not refused any Publick Bills Kt. Which are those you call Publick Yeom Truly Sir those two wherein the Country reckoned themselves most concern'd are That for securing the Foundations of the Civil Government by such a constant Succession of new chosen Parliaments that their Deputies by their long continuance in that Trust may not be in danger to be corrupted by Offices or private Interests and That for preserving our Property in our Lands and Mines against the Pretences of a Royal Prerogative to take away our Mines and Oar tho wt have spent most of our Estates to discover the Mines in our Lands Kt. I am sorry to tell you that those are the two only Bills to which his Majesty would not assent Yeom Are those Bills then to be utterly lost after that both Houses have spent so much Time and Care to compose them May they not be offered to the King again as soon as the Parliament meets Kt. You seem not to know the Force of a Prorogation of Parliament which as our Lawyers have of late resolved makes void all Bills of that Session not enacted and all other Matters depending as if they had never been These are no more to be accounted Bills of Parliament but if any thing contained in either of them be desired to be hereafter enacted it must begin anew as if it had never been before either House of Parliament Yeom Sir if all the Care and Pains of our Deputies in Parliament may be thus neglected or blown away with one Breath what Hopes have we then from the Consultations of Parliament of the promised and long-expected Settlement of Liberty and Property Kt. I know no Remedy until the King shall please to cause a new Session of Parliament Yeom And is such a Session to be absolutely at the King's Will whether it shall be six Months hence or a Year or seven Years Kt. You know it was so designed and in part practised in the late Reigns and the Judges then were so corrupted that they declared notwithstanding the Laws for Annual Parliaments Vid. The minutes of the Judges Opinions in the King's-Bench upon the Arguments about bailing the Earl of Danby out of the Tower That the holding of Parliaments depended entirely upon the King's Pleasure But 't is most manifest besides the positive Laws for Yearly Parliaments that †Inter Laeges Edgari cap. 5. by the ancient Constitution of our Government they did meet of course at least twice every Year Afterwards in the Reigns of the Saxon Kings it was made a perpetual Law that a Parliament should be holden every Year once at London and the same Law was incorporated into the Laws of Edward the Confessor and from thence all the successive Kings of England to this day have been sworn to the Observance of it I must confess to you nothing prevailed with me more to concur with our King in his Pretentions to restore our Parliaments and the Laws to their due Authority than my own Knowledg that the late Civil Wars in this Kingdom and the Subversion of our Religion Laws and Liberties were principally occasioned by the Powers usurped in several late Reigns to refuse the calling of successive Parliaments and to continue the same Parliament for many Years to form them into a Compliance with their Designs of Despotick Power When I read the solemn and repeated Assurances his Majesty gave us That his Design in coming into England was to remove from the Administration of the Government those evil Ministers that had promoted the Murders and Treasons committed in attempting to set up an Arbitrary Power over the People and their Parliaments And also heard him desire the Parliament to make such an effectual Provision for their Fundamental Laws and Liberties that they might never hereafter be in danger to be again invaded I thought the Ancient Legal Course of annually chosen Parliaments would have been immediately restored and the strongest Fence made for that Constitution that the Wisdom of the Kingdom could have invented but I must tell you to my Sorrow that we are left as much to the King's Will for a Session of Parliament as evil Ministers in the late Reigns design'd we should be Yeom If this be our case it is no wonder that Mens Minds are so unquiet we are in daily imminent hazard of Confusion whilst the Government remains wholly unsettled in its Fundamentals It seems to be apparent that after the Expence of twenty Millions besides the vast Effusion of Blood we are no more secured against the Slavery we fear'd by subverting our Constitution than we were before the Convention of the People for a Settlement when King James had just abdicated the Kingdom Kt. You take it rightly If no Bill should pass to secure the certain Legal Succession of Parliaments and we should connive at the Usurpations made by the late Kings therein and seemingly approve the Turkish Doctrine of the then Judges That the holding and continuance of Parliaments depended absolutely upon the Wills of our Kings then the Supream Power vested by the Constitution in Parliaments to maintain the Laws and Statutes and preserve Justice and good Government must be acknowledged not to be the Kingdom 's Right but to arise from the Gracious Will and Pleasure of their Kings and the People must not dare to claim Liberty and Property as their due If this Point of our Constitution should remain thus unsettled and an ill King succeed his present Majesty then the free Counsels of the whole Kingdom for its Defence and Welfare appointed by our Laws to be in Parliament may by the pretence of his Prerogative be utterly rejected and despised and his Flatterers and Designers to make him absolute Master of our Laws Liberties and Lives may be exempted by him from the danger of Punishment certain Justice being to be done upon such Offenders only upon the Peoples Complaints and Impeachment of them in Parliament If the due Succession of Parliaments be not established so as the Kings cannot by any Artifices avoid their meeting an ill King may in effect authorize whom he pleases to subvert and destroy our Religion Laws and Liberties by renewing Pardons of all such Crimes as often as they can commit them I am sorry to say it but our present case is such that all the Security we have for our Religion our Laws our Liberties our Lives depends
Ways to make the Constitution of Parliaments useless and the Crown wholly independent upon the People in Parliaments for Supplies and Aids Such were the Inventions of Loan-Money Privy-Seal-Money Knightcod-Money Coat and Conduct-Money Arbitrary Fines without Juries for Encroachments upon the King 's Wastes Ship-Money Billet-Money oppressing Monopolies and illegal Patents upon Trades almost without number Such also was the Commission passed the Great Seal to impose by pretence of Royal Authority an Excise tho the Illegality and Oppression of it were so manifest that a sufficient number of Persons could not be suddenly found to put it in Execution All Projects were imbraced that had but an appearance of supplying the Crown that they might avoid the necessary Settlement of successive Parliaments The last most dangerous and desperate of their Designs of that kind was upon some pretence from Ireland or Scotland to get an Army and settle Martial Law that might raise such Money as a Council should think fit and make Proclamations and Orders of State to be as binding to the Subject as Acts of Parliament Yet even that was imbraced as appears by the Journals of the Commons in Parliament Monsieur Burlemach there openly confessing that he had received thirty thousand Pounds which was sent over Seas to hire German Horse to be the Foundation of the Standing Army here I could tell you Neighbour that during all these Transactions which lasted divers Years their Counsels and Endeavours were to divert the King from admitting the Legal Course of Parliaments The Petitions and Cries of the Subjects to restore them could not be heard and Agreements were made between the King and several Persons of greatest Abilities and Influence in order to the arriving at absolute Power that there should there should be no more Parliaments during his Life Nevertheless about the Year 1639. the King's Wants of Money being extreamly pressing they resolved to make use of a Parliament for Supply but without a Thought of doing the Kingdom Right in restoring the due Succession of Parliaments and the Exercise of their Legal Authorities and therefore as sooon as they were met they procured the King to demand of them their giving up their Legal Fundamental Privilege of considering in the first Place and redressing the Peoples Grievances and the King so positively insisted in denying them their Right and Privilege therein that within twenty days they were dissolved contrary to the known Intentions and Ends of our Constitution The Failure of the Peoples Expectation at that time and the long Interruption of the legal course of Parliaments raised great Discontents and loud and general Cries of the People for Parliaments the Consequences whereof were such as I dread and abhor to remember yet it was universally agreed That the want of the Legal Course of successive Parliaments and the Designs of interrupting and preventing their meeting and sitting were the great occasions of all the Confusion Blood and Mischief that afterwards happened And no doubt but the Parliament then took the only wise and necessary course to prevent all the impending Mischiefs and Dangers both to the King and People when they laboured with the help of the best Lawyers of England to declare and secure the Observance of the antient Laws for annual successive Parliaments and to provide for their certain meeting and holding them notwithstanding all possible Designs and Contrivances against them Which was done to the great Satisfaction of the People by that notable Act of the 16th of Char. I. Yeom Sir let me be so bold as to ask you whether that Act for ascertaining Parliaments did not occasion or some way promote the Tumults and Wars that ensued Kt. You may easily be satisfied from what was written in those times of the Falshood of such Suggestions and that the King Lords and Commons passed that Act with great Unanimity and that King often glory'd in having passed that Act for the Security of his People but I believe you confound the Act for Triennial Parliaments with another Act for making the Parliament then in being in a manner perpetual for they were not to be dissolved or prorogued but by their own Consent declar'd by Act of Parliament That Act did in truth derogate from the King's Prerogative in dissolving Parliaments and whatsoever Mischiefs might or did thereupon ensue ought to be imputed to the Alteration made thereby of our Constitution or Monarchy not to the just and strict Observance of our Laws and Statutes for which the Act for Triennial Parliaments made Provision Yeom Sir I know there is a common Mistake about those Acts of Parliament and that occasion is taken by some from the Confusions in Government that soon after happened to impose upon the People false Notions about the Authority of Parliaments and to frighten them from demanding and insisting upon their constant successive Elections as the Laws appoint 'T is notorious that those who design Arbitrary Power are always busy in such Matters and in unworthy Reflections upon Parliaments But pray Sir let us pass by that dark time of the Civil War and see what the same sort of Men have done about Parliaments after the Return of K. Charles II. Kt. They pursued the same Designs of subverting our Constitution as to Parliaments but took Measures quite different from those before used to effect it They remembred the ill Success of all Projects and Monopolies and Pretences of Prerogative to supply the Government with Money They had found and felt by Experience that a free Parliament could not be awed and that the People in the Intervals of Parliament would not be forced to pay Taxes that were not legally imposed upon them yet there was an absolute necessity for the Crown to be supplied with Aids from the People without which it could not subsist great part of the Crown-Lands being wasted and squandered awny in the two preceding Reigns 'T was therefore resolved to attempt that by Fraud which they could not compass by Force and in order thereunto they took the Advantage of the present Temper of the People which carried them without considering what the Consequences might be to every thing that was agreeable to the Court They recommended such to be chosen Members of the House of Commons whose Fortunes had been most impaired in the late Wars and whose Dependance upon the Court might incline them to a Compliance with whatever should be demanded of them and these good-natur'd Loyal Gentlemen repealed the Act of the 16th of K. Charles I. for Triennial Parliaments whilst a few worthy Patriots laboured in vain to defend it 'T is true they pretended in the Act by which this Statute was repealed to ascertain the frequent holding of Parliaments yet it left the King at liberty to continue the same Parliament as long as he pleased and that King did accordingly continue that same Parliament near eighteen Years which time they could not be said truly to represent the People of England many of those who