hated Parliaments for your Father of ever-notorious Memory hated them and therefore tried Conclusions with Parliaments for 12 Years together 'T is true he did call that blessed Parliament in 1640 that would have redressed England's Grievances had they not been prevented by the factious Spirits of some whose Zeal was not according to Knowledg Dr. Gauden tells you that your Father call'd that Parliament in Novemb. 3. 1640. Not more by the Advice of others or by the Necessity of his own Affairs than by his own Choice and Inclination I could expect no better from a Baal's Priest than to begin with a Lie For what Man that lived in that Time knew not how the Case stood with Charles the First And besides if I had not Access to a King yet I could discover his Inclinations either by those that were about him and in favour with him or by the Currant of his Actions all which I say testified to the World your Father's strange aversness to a Parliament Those that were near him and most in favour with him were Courtiers and Rascally Prelats Vermin whose chief study was to find out how he stood inclined and to imitate him exactly and that which was his Will was their Doctrine concerning Parliaments and so it was with you But that I may proceed in some Method I shall shew 1. That Parliaments are the Right of the People 2. That they are an essential Part of the Government 3. That you hated them tho such and by consequence was an Enemy to the Government of England 1. That Parliaments are the Right of the People of England which they may claim in order to have their Grievances redressed the common Safety of the Nation provided for and their Religion Laws and Liberties secured For call to mind with delight if you can the wonderful Discovery and undeniable Confirmation of the Popish Plot which designed so much Ruin and Mischief to these Nations in all things both Civil and Sacred and the unanimous Sense and Censure of so many Parliaments upon it together with some Acts of Publick Justice upon many of the Traitors The Nation was not without hopes that since that cursed Design of introducing Popery and Slavery and the Murder of your Brother was discovered for the space of 30 Months at least some effectual Remedies should have been applied to prevent the Attempts of your Cut-throat Party upon us the better to secure the Religion and Government of the Nation and the Person of the King But by sad Experience we found that notwithstanding the vigorous endeavours of three Parliaments â—o provide proper and wholsome Laws to answer both Ends by your influencing a pack of Villains you and your Party were so prevalent as to stifle in the Birth those Righteous Endeavours of our Parliaments by many surprizing Prorogations and Dissolutions whereby the Fears and Dangers of the People daily encreased and the Spirits of you and your Party heightned to renew and multiply fresh Plots against the Religion Laws and Liberties of the Realm I will lay down some known Maxims that relate to a King and Parliament of England 1. You know the Kings of England can do nothing as Kings but what of Right they ought to do 2. The King can neither do wrong nor die 3. The King's Prerogative and the Subjects Liberty are determined by Law 4. The King has no Power but what the Law gives him and is called King from ruling well Rex à benè Regendo viz. according to Law and is only a King whilst he rules well but a Tyrant when he oppresses 5. That the Kings of England never appear more in their Glory and Majestick Sovereignty than in Parliaments 6. That the Prerogative of the Crown can do no wrong nor can it be a Warrant for so doing Now Sir having laid down some Truths relating to the Kings of England give me leave to lay before you some that relate to the Parliament 1. Then I say that the Parliament of England constitutes and gives a Being to the Government of England 2. A Parliament of England is to the Government what the Soul is to the Body which is only able to apprehend and understand the Symptoms of all Diseases threatning the Body Politick 3. A Parliament is the Bulwark of our Liberty the Boundary which keeps the People of England from the Inundation of Tyrannical Power and Government 4. Parliaments do make new and abrogate old Laws reform Grievances settle the Succession grant Subsidies and in a word may be called the Great Physician of the Kingdom From all which it appears if Parliaments are necessary in our Constitution that they must have their Times of Session and Continuation to provide Laws essentially needful for the being and well-being of the People and for redressing all Publick Grievances arising either for want of Laws or of undue execution of those in being or otherwise And sutable hereunto are those Provisions made by the Wisdom of our Forefathers as recorded by them both in the Common and Statute Law 1. Sir you was an excellent Man at the Common Law and so were your Gang at St. Germains and tho they have little occasion for it there yet I may refresh their Memories for having had so much leasure to study the Excellency of the French Religion and Government our Common Law may be forgotten by them Nay Rhyming Jack Carryl himself since the loss of his Estate may have resolved to forget the Law since he will not have so much occasion for it as he might have had if he had chosen Sussex instead of St. Germains and so may be at a loss to inform you I therefore give you a touch or so not that I pretend to cure the King 's Evil of the Common Law what it saith concerning Parliaments I pray Sir remember what old Coke saith one of your Grand-father's Judges who was a famous Lawyer and persecuted by him for you know what but never had the Courage to run away he tells us in one of his Law Books which your old Friend Jenner swears he never understood That the Common Law is founded in the immutable Law and Light of Nature agreeable to the Law of God requiring Order Government Subjection and Protection containing certain antient Vsages warranted by the Holy Scriptures and because given to all is therefore called Common Sir if you will send for your old Drudg Frank Withens I dare aver he cannot give you a better for his Life But you will say What is this to Parliaments Well Sir since this may pass the Understanding of your Dispensing Rogues I will tell you what he saith in his 9th Book in the Preface they are his own Words in the Book called the Mirror of Justice in which appears the whole Frame of the Antient Common Laws of this Realm from the Time of K. Arthur An. 516 till near the Conquest which treats also of the Officers as well as the Diversity and Distinction of the Courts of
a Debt for their Rogueries the Gallows groans for their perverting of Justice and Judgment Where are your murdering Judges of the West Some of them yet live They might without the Consent of a pair of Spectacles have seen and might without fear have told you they could not chuse but see what was contained in this Preamble now recited Were the Rogues ignorant Then why did not your Pemberton your Scroggs your Levins your Charlton and the rest of that Crew instruct your Brother and you what was contained and pointed at in this Preamble But alas they did not they were able enough but they had rascally durante bene placito Commissions that indisposed them to be plain and honest in that Affair they were more afraid of losing their Places than of being damn'd for not doing their Duties But since they had not the Honour Honesty and Conscience of upright Judges give me leave to be plain with you Therefore Sir observe 1. The intolerable Grievance and Burden occasioned by the illegal Incroachments of the See of Rome to which Yoke you and your Villains endeavour'd to reduce and subjugate these Kingdoms You fired our City and murdered our Friends you promoted Men of Villanous Principles and worse Morals to the Judgment-Seat and made them Vassals to your Will and Pleasure who if they complied not were reproachfully dismissed their Imployments and ruined if possible Nay if any of them attempted but to prosecute Popery alas they were not for your Turn for your Design was by them to revive that intolerable Grievance by incouraging the illegal Incroachments of the See of Rome 2. Observe the many Complaints the People had made who in those dark Times under Popery groan'd under such Burdens What Burdens I pray you under the Incroachments of the See of Rome Why truly in disposing of Benefices Ay it is a good Observation for the Pope would present none but such as should advance his usurped Power and Interest and if the People were so bold as to complain of these things were they not a parcel of Rebels and Traitors for their pains No they complain'd without being called or treated as such What Remedy had they A Parliament Now Sir had not we as much need of an Act of Provisors against you for in your Brother's Time how many of your Rogues were presented to the best Livings in the Realm at your Procurement and how many Villains were made Bishops by the Whores Cleveland and Portsmouth and the Pimps and Bawds at Court Did not we stand in need of Statutes of Provisors Name me one Man of these that were not to advance the Power and Interest of France and to wink at the Progress and Growth of Popery Had we not reason to complain Yes To whom to the King No he was engaged for Popery and the French Interest and Arbitrary Power as well as your self His Metropolitan Whores were Papists to please him or he one to please them Therefore to what purpose was it We had none to complain to but a Parliament and how you used them we have not forgot and how our Application to them was not only useless but dangerous is not unknown In a word Sir the Condition of the Complainants in the Time of Edw. III tho they lived in the dark Times of Popery were in a far better Condition than we were in your Brother's Reign for notwithstanding the Religion of Edw. III his Interest was his Peoples and therefore held frequent Parliaments to whom they might complain and from whom they might find Redress without being judged Traitors and Rebels to the Government 3. Observe the Endeavours used in vain by former Parliaments to redress the same and to bring their Laws in being to have their Force and Effect You know that when the Kings of England were wicked then to gain the Point they used to fly to Rome for Countenance and advance that usurped Power to the Prejudice of the People So it was with your Brother and you when you had a Design in hand to enslave the Nation then you set up the Power and Interest of France and none were to be preferred in our good Church but Villains that were case-hardned enough to join with your Brother and you in ravishing the Peoples Rights and Franchises Had we good Laws in being against Popery They were suspended Had we any good Laws against the growing Greatness of France Yes we got one poor Act of Parliament against France and that was eluded Nay now I think on 't we got an Act to enter into an actual War against France with which your Party did impudently beg Money from France We got a poor sorry Act for the Liberty of the Subject called the Habeas Corpus Act this was by you and your Villains evaded so that we were under a necessity of Complaining Those in the Time of Edw. III had redress we had none till we drove you and the French Interest and Popery out of the Kingdom 4. Observe the Acknowledgment of the King and Parliament that the Obligation to this Duty was upon the King who you know is entrusted by the Law to preserve the Peace and Liberties of the Realm and to rectify all Miscarriages in the Government Which is apparent 1. From the Right of the Crown obliging him to pass good Laws 2. There were good Laws committed to his Trust in full Force which he was to execute 3. There is the King's Oath to pass new Laws for the Peoples Safeguard which they should tender to him as well as to execute old Laws already made 4. From the Sense of the People exprest in their Complaints And 5. From the Mischief and Damage that would otherwise ensue and therefore it is said that by the Desire and Accord of his People he past this famous Law the Preamble of which I have recited to you in part 4. There is another Statute worthy of your Consideration and pretty much to the same purpose you will find it in the 2d of Rich. II. in N o 28. Also the Commons of England in Parliament desire that forasmuch as Petitions and Bills presented in Parliament by divers of the Commons could not heretofore have their respective Answers that therefore both their Petitions and Bills in this present Parliament as also all others which shall be presented in any future Parliament may have a Good and Gracious Answer and Remedy ordained thereupon before the departing of every Parliament and to this purpose a due Statute be ensealed or enacted at this present Parliament to be and remain in Force for all Times to come To which the King replied thus The King is pleased that all such Petitions delivered in Parliament of Things or Matters which cannot otherwise be determined a good and reasonable Answer shall be made and given before the departure of the Parliament This King you know left not a very good Name behind being drawn away from loving his People just as you and your Brother were
Prerogatives to the King yet it allows none by which to hurt or prejudice any Therefore with the Learned in the Law I will assert That whatever Power or Prerogative your Brother had ought to have been used according to the true Intent of the Government that is to preserve the People and their Interest and not to hinder a Parliament in reforming Grievances and providing for the future Execution of the Laws and whenever he applied his Prerogative to frustrate these Ends by the Advice of you or any wicked Person it was a Violation of Right and the Breach of his Coronation Oath since he stood oblig'd to Pass or Confirm those Laws his People should chuse in the Time of his Reign 6. Your Brother and you had little or no regard to the Laws All the Cry of your Villains was Prerogative and nothing was indured that was according to Law Therefore Sir I will give you a Proof by Dr. Gauden's leave from the Words of your own Father who when in Prison began to recollect himseâ—f a little and gave your Brother this Advice when he should come to the Crown That Prerogative is best shewed and exercised in remitting rather than exacting the Rigour of the Laws there being nothing worse than Legal Tyranny nor would he have him entertain any Aversion or Dislike of Parliaments which in their Right Constitution with Freedom and Honour will never injure or diminish his Greatness but will rather be as interchangings of Love Loyalty and Confidence between a Prince and his People Surely Sir if the Reports and Opinions of the best Lawyers could not yet the Counsel of his Father the King or his Father in God might have wrought upon him and you But the Truth is in the Time of Richard II there were some Flaterers and Traitors that presumed in defiance of their Countries Rights to assert such a boundless Prerogative in the Kings of England as Chief Justice Tresillian and others advising him that he might dissolve Parliaments at Pleasure and that no Member should be called to Parliament nor any Act past in either House without his Approbation in the first place and that whoever did advise otherwise were Traitors But this Advice was no less fatal to himself than pernicious to his Prince To which let me add a Saying of your Grandfather in his Speech to his Parliament in 1609 in which he gives them Assurance That he never meant to govern by any other Law than the Law of the Land And tho it be disputed among them as if he intended to alter the Law and govern by the absolute Power of a King yet to put them out of doubt he tells them that all Kings who are not Tyrants or Perjured will bind themselves within the Limits of their Laws and they that perswade the contrary are Vipers and Pests both against them and the Commonwealth Thus Sir I have plainly proved that Parliaments are the Right of the People of England and that no King without the Breach of his Coronation-Oath can govern without them I come now to shew II. That they are the Essential Part of the Government Truly Sir I have had occasion to prove that as a necessary Consequence of the foresaid Right but something may be offered to prove this Point which will aggravate your Crime and the Villany of your Party in attempting to render this Essential Part of the Government useless Therefore Sir when you are at leisure consider with your self the Constitution of the Government which your Brother did wound and you attempted utterly to destroy but therein lost your self and this Government which would have been worth your keeping Take a View therefore of the Constitution of the English Government where the King is the Head from whom the Government it self receiveth its Life as he from the Law receiveth his Power He has the Care of the whole and it is his Interest to seek its Welfare The Strength of the Nation is his Strength and the Riches of the Nation his Riches The Glory and Honour of the Nation is his Glory and Honour So on the contrary when the Nation is weak he is weak if it be impoverished he is impoverished if it lose itss Honour and Glory he loses his likewise But lest Passion Mistakes Flatteries or the ill Designs of some about him should make him forsake his Zeal and follow a destructive imaginary Interest there is an Estate of Hereditary Nobility who are by Birthright the Kingdom 's Counsellors whose main Interest and Concern it is to keep the Ballance of the Government steady that the Favourites and great Officers exceed not their Bounds and oppress the People that Justice be duly administred and that all Parts of the Government be preserved intire yet even these may grow insolent a Disease to which great Men are liable or may by Offices Hopes of Preferment or other Accidents become as to the Majority of them rather the obsequious Flatterers of the Court than true Supporters of the Publick and English Interest Therefore the Excellency of our Government affords us another Estate of Men which are the Representatives of the Freeholders Cities Boroughs and Corporations of England who by the old Law were to be chosen yearly if not oftner whereby they perfectly gave the Sense of those that chose them and did the same as if the Electors were present coming so newly from them and so quickly returning to give account of their Fidelity under the Penalty of Shame and no further Trust Therefore Sir consider 1. If the Constitution of the House of Commons had been destroyed 't would have been impossible the Sense of the Nation and their Complaints and the Grievances of the People should have beer represented To what Estate of Men must we have had Recourse Must it have been to the Nobility It may be they might not have understood our Grievances being in a Sphere above the Rank of Common People And the House of Commons being the Constitution how could Money be raised to support the Government without them unless by a total Subversion of the whole Frame of our Constitution for by the Law the sole Power of giving Money remains in the House of Commons none being concerned in that but the Commons of England 2. Those that would overthrow the Constitution of the House of Commons will not stick to subvert that of the House of Lords who are so essential a Part of the Government that to part with them was to part with the second State which is the Wisdom and Counsel of the Nation to which their Birth Education and constant Imployment in every Parliament being the same fits and prepares them I have read of a House of Commons in the 2d Parliament of Mary I. that was brib'd to consent to the receiving and owning of the Pope's Power but I never yet heard of a House of Lords that were so bribed and the House of Lords in 1649 being voted useless the Commons run into so many
been privy to it yet the Jesuits well knew it was impossible for you that was converted to that degree of Zeal for the Romish Religion and French Interest to have given ground in that Affair Now Sir I hope your Villains here will be fully satisfied that it was possible for the Popish Party to carry on such a Design as this in opposition to a Parliament which is a great Proof of your Aversness to Parliaments But to come close to the Point That your Nature and Temper in relation to your Politicks demonstrated your Aversness to English Parliaments the Jesuits you know were very industrious with you for the Promotion of their Religion which you consented to and what did you in order to this Did you not lay some Foundations for Popery in order to its being established Were there not Judges Justices of the Peace Sheriffs and other Judiciary Officers of your procuring in order to deprave the Law of the Nation and defile the Throne of Justice I pray how did the villanous Judges use even the Protestant Laws to open the first Gate to Slavery and our Laws being in their Hands did they not use them as barbarously as they could to the Discouragement of Vertue and promoting Vice Did not your Brother's Ministers of State betray our Liberties What Remedy had the People If a Session of Parliament was near you so hated them upon this very Principle of Arbitrary Power that either the Session was put off for a longer time or else it was to be so short that Grievances could not be redressed and when you got a Period put to a Session your wicked Judges were to play their Parts with the Laws whilst your Ministers were ravishing all our Liberties from us and as for Religion you had a Set of Apostolical Caterpillars who were to manage that for your Service and Interest These Measures of yours taken from your Popish Crew had rendred you so out of love to an English Parliamentary Government that you were at one time looked upon by Parliament the greatest Grievance of the Nation the universal Object of their Hate and Fear and the Subject of their Clamours and Curses At whose door did all the Discontents and Murmurs lie but at yours Were not the Murmurs so violent against you that they became a great part of the Complaints of good Men to Heaven in their own and their Country's Behalf Nay Murmurs were so bold that your Brother was attackt with them for did they not look upon you as Jupiter's Stork amongst the Frogs Notwithstanding all your former Glories and Conquests your whole Stock of Fame was lost and buried in your Apostacy from the Protestant Religion How all this and an innate Love to your Country and its Government could stand together I leave to wiser Men to judg We saw you design'd to make us submit to an Arbitrary Power Our Magna Charta was to have been destroyed by you and your Cut-throats our Religion and Liberties to have been abolished Popery and a Despotick Power set up the Lords and Commons extirpated and all to have devolved into you when they had given the fatal Blow that you might have set up Idols and Molten Calves and we have bowed down to them Now Sir consider who the Man was that took such Measures and laid such Designs and if it were possible for him to love an English Protestant Parliament I 'll be his Slave To conclude this Head Did you not by these Politicks of yours fet the whole Kingdom in a Flame and then please your self with it When you burnt our City you and your Party sung Te Deum for Joy whilst others were astonished at the dismal Sight Did not your unbounded Thirst for innocent Blood make the Kingdom of England a Slaughter-house And might you have had your Will you would have made Smithfield your Original Shambles It is well known Sir how you loved humane Sacrifices and what Measures you took from France and Rome to propagate your Cause is not yet forgotten nor I hope never will 3. Let us consider your Nature and Temper as to your Morals from which we will demonstrate your Disaffection and Aversion to Parliaments What Morality could we expect from you that was and still is a Papist and a bigotted one too And being so all your Morals are but Slaves to your Zeal Nay had you been Master of all the Cardinal Vertues there 's not one but must have been used to destroy our Religion Laws and Liberties Your Fortitude and Courage if ever you had any made you the more daring to push on Rome's Religion and the French Interest and to withstand the Opposition you met withal in Parliament Your Justice you made use of to restore the Power and Authority of the Bishop of Rome believing him to be Christ's lawful Vicar and Peter's true Successor and the said Office including the Ecclesiastical Supremacy you declared it your Duty to give the Pope the same Right over the Consciences of the People of England as you had to succeed your Brother tho through his Blood Let us consider Sir your Temperance which for once I will suppose you to be Master of too not for the publick Good but only to testify that you could conceal your Passions which were great enough to do publick Mischief for you had always a most firm Resolution to ruin these Kingdoms As for your Constancy it was no more than fixed Obstinacy But it may be your Party may say you were never heard to rage or scarce seen to frown how true that may be I cannot tell for I never was your Pimp or Admirer and therefore cannot pretend to that Familiarity with you that some may Yet what was your Temperance and Constancy but fit Pillars to support your damnable Designs against the Religion and Government of these three Kingdoms But Sir if we should again take a view of your admirable Temperance in its larger Signification that is a Denial of worldly Desires it was still worse and worse for when you voluntarily took up your Cross and quitted your great Employments under your Brother you left the Management of those Offices to Villains of a deeper dye than the rest of Mankind who still carried on your Design to destroy us you only quitted the toil of the Power and left it to your subordinate Villains In the last place we will comply with your Admirers and Flatterers and own you had Prudence if you had it was the worse for us because that and that alone could be your Trump-Gard the only leading Vertue that managed your Conduct in all your Hellish Plots and Designs with that Care and Art that you made a fair Progress in effecting the Business of Rome as to Religion and of the French King as to Arbitrary Power to enslave and pox us both in Religion and Liberty To give you your due you ripened that mighty Work you and Coleman had upon your Hands to a mighty Perfection
the People is very evident Therefore Sir abruptly to dissolve Parliaments when nothing but the Legislative and united Wisdom of the Kingdom could relieve the Protestant Party from their just Fears or secure their Religion from its certain Dangers is very inconsistent with the great Trust reposed in your Brother and seems to express but little of that Love and Tenderness which the People of England might justly have expected from him 5. Would not the Constitution of Parliament as by the Laws and Customs of England established have been equally imperfect and destructive of it self had it been left to the Arbitrary Will of a wicked King whether he would summons a Parliament or had it been put into his Power to dismiss them at his pleasure or at the Pleasure of two rascally French Whores or a little scoundrel French Ambassador And therefore was not your Brother's dissolving the Parliaments at Westminster and Oxford by your procurement a most unreasonable thing 6. Was not the Kingdom so alarm'd at the Wickedness of your Brother in dissolving those Parliaments that Men began to be exceedingly concerned not knowing where it would end insomuch that your Brother was necessitated in a sneaking Declaration to let the Nation see he was conscious to himself that his Dissolution of those Parliaments stood in need of an Apology so that it was but at the best an Appeal from his Parliament to the People of England And if your Brother and you could not justify your Usage of these Parliaments because so destructive to the Liberty of the Subject what assurance did your two French Whores Portsmouth and Mazarine and Barillon give you and the rest of your Party that your Brother's Declaration shewing Reasons for such a Violation to our English Government would make the Nation in love with such Treatments of their Representatives For Sir could you think in your Conscience that the People of England did not see themselves hereby exposed to the restless Malice of their Enemies and resented it highly since they could not but be sensible of the languishing Condition of the three Kingdoms and that nothing but a Parliament could cure the Distempers with which we were infected by you and your Party both as to Religion and Morals And had they not with great Charge and Difficulty chosen three Parliaments on whom they placed their Hopes And those being suddenly dissolved could they believe your Brother or you designed any thing less than a total Subversion of the Government Come Sir sit down put on your Irish considering Cap and judg why since Ned Coleman's Protestant Declaration was so unhappily published before its time the Nation should not be as much alarmed at Barillon's Declaration in April 1681 as they were at Coleman's in 1678. And could you and your Irish Teagues imagine that one French Declaration should so soon succeed another nay could you without being confounded see your Servant Coleman's Original fairly drawn by the Advice of the French King's Confessor to bring in Popery and Slavery so much outdone by Barillon's Copy since you judged it could never be outdone by any Man whatever And since the former exposed you and your Brother as the worst of Men how could you expect the latter should not have the same effect upon the English Nation and put them into such a Ferment as to deal by you and your Party just as we did in 1688 7. Did not your Brother April 20. 1679 not only in Council but Parliament declare how sensible he was of the ill Posture of his Affairs and the great Jealousies and Dissatisfaction of his good Subjects whereby the Crown and Government was become too weak to preserve it self which proceeded from his use of a single Ministry and of private Advices and therefore professed his Resolution to lay them wholly aside for the future and to be advised by those able and worthy Persons whom he had chosen for his Council in all his weighty and important Affairs Now Sir consider was it not most unreasonable in you and your French Vermine to put the King upon such a manifest Violation of his Royal Word and Promise to the Nation But to put the Matter out of dispute Did not your Brother on that Choice of his Council tell the Parliament of his Resolution of meeting his People often in Parliament And who was it that changed his mind and made him alter those Gracious Purposes but you and your wicked Party Would you make us believe that your Brother could so soon forget his Promises or that upon the meeting of these Parliaments there were no weighty Matters to be debated 8. Did not you and your Party in prevailing with the King shew the World that your Cunning kept not pace with your Malice since by this wicked usage of our Representatives in those Parliaments you and your Cutthroats made your selves known tho you had secretly and cautiously given that wicked Advice to your Brother only to be protected from the publick Justice of the Nation But in time you discovered your selves and told your own Names when Case-hardned enough to pull off the Mask and let us see what you would be at But what Offence did you take at those Parliaments Surely it was because the repeated Treasons and traiterous Designs of you and your Conspirators rendred you obnoxious to them And did you not put the King upon dissolving those Parliaments thinking thereby not to have been judged the Authors of that villanous Counsel Alas good Sir you have so exposed your self in that Matter that you left your self and Party not only without Justification but without all pretence hereafter but thanks be to God I lived to see the Justice of the Nation take place upon you and some of your Party There are some yet lurking and basking themselves in good Imployments but I hope our King will rid himself of the Vermine in time I am confident Sir you may reflect upon these Considerations and pronounce your self guilty of this unreasonable Usage of three as great Parliaments as ever England saw Now how can we conclude otherwise than that you then was and still continue an Enemy to Parliaments Fifthly The ill Consequences attending the Dissolution of those three Parliaments are worthy your Consideration and that I may be brief herein take notice 1. What Divisions you and your Party caused amongst the People of England thereby you made such Breaches in Families that I fear are not made up to this day unless Death hath reconciled them this you did by the Advice of your Priests Jesuits and Popish Council at St. James's and the wicked Ministry at White-hall who rather than the People should not be divided took their several Copies by your Original and came in a most comfortable manner to your Assistance hoping to make the People rebel These Differences you nourished with all the Industry imaginable to the great Hazard of the whole Kingdom But Sir this was to betray us into the Hands of our
therefore in Parliament Notwithstanding these Votes you had a Rogue that rose from a Kitchin-boy to possess as some say 14000 l. per annum of which he wronged the Nation having had the Opportunity to cheat three Governments and suck their Blood to whom the City of London ows much of her Misery he I say furnished your Brother with Money in contempt of these Votes but he has wiped his Mouth and hugs himself as if not one of the greatest Villains that ever England bore I leave him he was a Friend of yours and you have reason to remember him I remember the Votes very well and certainly they were justifiable to the whole Kingdom for consider a little did you take the Revenue to be disposed of at your Brother's pleasure Was it for his private use or the publick Good Sir the Revenue the Parliament had fixed was a publick not a private one your Brother was trusted with the disposing of part only and that not without the Advice of some of his great Ministers of State as a Secretary of State and the Lord Privy Seal for smaller Sums and for all great Paiments the Lord Chancellor Lord Keeper or Commissioners of the Great Seal were to have been added the other part of the Revenue was assigned to other Uses the Customs to the maintenance of the Navy The Maintenance of the Household the Tables at Court and Wages of the King's Servants were in our former Kings Reigns so established by Parliament that the Cofferer had his Money paid him out of the Exchequer under great Penalties to be inflicted for the neglect thereof and the House of Lords judged it a great part of their immediate Care It maintained the Dignity and Honour of the Government and contributed much to Love and good Understanding between the King and People no Countrey Farmer had Business at Court but he found those who bad him welcome and so had all Degrees therefore the King's Servants had justly the same Return wherever they came the outward Rooms of the House did not smell of Match nor was the Language of the Court Who goes there there used to be the Smell of better Hospitality this was plain even in your Father's time Besides Sir 't is well known that by the evil Counsel and Course your Brother and you took you made the Bankers of London and elsewhere become the very Bane of the Nation not only to the Gentleman and Farmer but I doubt to the Merchant too they raised and kept up the Interest of Money they drained the Country and bought Warrants so that your Brother paid 25 per Cent. for all his Expences You know the Revenue was in many of its Branches appropriated and provision made that they should not be alienated and if rascally Fellows that had decoyed into their Custody the ready Monies of Merchants Gentlemen and others did by the Strength of their Cash anticipate the Revenues of the Government who could have provided for the Nation Could any but a Parliament do it Now Sir it plainly follows that if your Brother had found out another way to supply his Wants than by Parliament the great hinge on which the Government turn'd was lost therefore what ground you and your Party had to make this a Pretence to put off those Parliaments especially the last Westminster-Parliament I cannot tell and how you could make them Criminals for these two Votes I leave to the Judgment even of your ragged Ministry at St. Germains 4ly A 4th Pretence you had for dissolving the Parliaments aforesaid was a Vote concerning Protestant Dissenters That the Prosecution of Protestant Dissenters upon the Penal Laws is at this time grievous to the Subject a weakning the Protestant Interest an Incouragement to Popery and dangerous to the Peace of the Kingdom This was the Vote of the Commons in the last Westminster-Parliament Truly Sir they could not but pass the Vote as their Opinion since they judged themselves invited to it by your Brother himself who had often wished whilst his Band of Pensioners sat that he might be able to exercise a Power of Dispensation in reference to Protestants who thro' the tenderness of a misguided Conscience did not conform to the Ceremonies Discipline and Government of the Church and promised he would make it his special Care to incline the Wisdom of the Parliament to concur with him in making an Act to that purpose But Sir I know your Party usually said that these Inclinations of the King lasted no longer than he had a Prospect of giving the Papists an equal Benefit of Toleration also I doubt it was too true and that they had that honourable Notion of the King from your sweet self but whether true or no I will not insist here but shall only mind you that your Brother after he parted with you did on the 6th of March in his Speech to the first Westminster-Parliament after the disbanding your small Officers express his Zeal not only for the Protestant Religion in general but for a Union amongst all sorts of Protestants and did he not command the then Tool of a Chancellor at the very same time to tell them that it was necessary to distinguish between Protestant and other Recusants between them that would destroy the whole Flock and those that wander from it I am much dispos'd to believe and that on good ground that your Brother was not sincere in the thing yet whatever his Heart was in the Case the following Parliament might justly incourage that Vote from the aforesaid Declarations You and your wicked Party especially your Church-Bums did attacque that last Westminster-Parliament as if that Vote relating to Protestant Dissenters was to shew that the Commons had in themselves a Power of suspending the Penal Laws established by the three States of the Realm who yet said it was a Power not to be allow'd in the King and caused to be cancelled all that he had done in relation to the ease of Dissenters from the Church of England and if the King had not Power to suspend the execution of the Penal Laws then had not they To this I answer 1. A few Years before that Parliament sat your wicked Ministers did remember that the whole Nation was justly alarm'd upon the King's assuming to himself by their Advice an arbitrary Power of suspending the Penal Laws upon this they thought it very popular to charge the House of Commons with an Usurpation on that Attempt Now Sir if they did by a Vote declare the Inconvenience of prosecuting Protestant Dissenters at that time or at any time hereafter I cannot see where the Crime was or of what Usurpation they stood guilty since they made the Vote for the very same Reason which your Brother had for expressing himself as he did in his foresaid Speech supposing his Heart had kept pace with his Tongue they had with great Trouble of Soul perceived that the Design of the Popish Party was not against any one Sort
9. Your Pensioners finding there was no War made against France in pursuance of the said Act and that the Army was a great Grievance to the Nation gave six hundred and odd thousand Pounds to disband them yet with that Money you rather augmented your Forces and kept up your Army to the great hazard of the Peace of the Kingdom Nay Sir in a word to order the Money in a Bill so as to prevent its being embezeled was argument enough to make it miscarry for you chose rather to go without it than it should be appropriated to any particular use 10. The Pensioner Parliament having been your Drudges for eighteen Years and beginning to have their Eyes a little too much opened it was high time to part with them therefore having granted the aforesaid Sum of 600 and odd thousand Pounds to disband the Army and the additional Duty upon Wines for three Years and being that Sessions disposed to give no more Money your Brother having sworn on the 29th of December laying his Sacred Hands upon Portsmouths bare B for the greater solemnity of the Business that he would dissolve the Parliament came to the House on Monday the 30th of December 1678 and prorogued them to the 4th of February but on the 25th of January that Parliament was by Proclamation dissolved and the same Day Writs issued out for the Meeting of a new one at Westminster the 6th of March following which was just forty Days between the Test and Return This Parliament being sat down and finding the Army was a great Grievance to the Nation and like to be of fatal Consequence if maintained passed a Bill for the raising one hundred and ninety odd thousand Pounds to disband it and tho this was but a new Parliament yet they understood your Brother's old Practices and yours too of putting the Monies to uses never intended by Parliament and therefore resolved never to trust you any more in the Matter of Money for as this was the least Tax so it was the last that ever your Brother saw from any Parliament in his Reign 11. Another demonstration of the Point in hand was the immense Sums Chiffinch and the Privy Purse issued out for those Uses the Parliament never intended who design'd the Money they had so freely given to defray the publick Charge of the Nation but since Chiffinch had the disposal of so much why did not the Parliament give that Rascally Pimp and the Whore his who was Whore and Papist enough as well as a Dutchess to serve you Sir a swinging Sum for their extraordinary Occasions for they were both Labourers in this Vineyard And truly the work of the Night lying upon their Hands somewhat too hard they took in a Rogue that was a Fellow-labourer with them till the Death of Charles II. And who had the gracious Opportunity of robbing his Closet we cannot tell but old Chiffinch if alive could and Sir if you will have it examined who robb'd yours I believe a little Matter might find you out the Man I have seen the Rogue go to Chappel-Prayers now Mass is out of Fashion as devoutly as any Pimp or Bawd about Whitehall ever did in yours or your Brother's Time But Sir you may see the just Judgment of Almighty God upon you for as you joined with your Brother and a parcel of thorow-pac'd Rogues to embezle the Nation 's Money to support a Crew of Pimps Bawds Whores and Traitors Cutthroats and Murderers so your grand Pimp and his villanous Deputy embezled 〈◊〉 your Brother and you intrusted him or them with to other Uses and Purposes than ever you intended for how Chiffinch could acquire such an Estate honestly since his way of living was so profuse I cannot tell unless by these Courses and whether that little scabby Rascal could attain to the Estate he has without fingering some of your Jewels when you did us the Honour to leave us I pray Sir let us join together to examine if we carry our Cause it may for ought I know be a Travelling Penny in your Pocket when you leave St. Germaini Article XXIII YOUR Brother and you joined together to have all the Laws made against the Popish Priests and Jesuits suspended Truly Sir there need not many Arguments to satisfy the Nation of the Truth of this Charge For 1. What Numbers came into the Realm notwithstanding the many severe Laws made against them in the Times of Queen Elizabeth and James I. and that not secretly but barefacedly owning themselves to be such 2. How many taken up by your Brother's Warrant in Rose-Alley in Holborn and other Places were discharged contrary to all Law and the common Practice thereof 3. How many were protected by the Queen Dowager and entertained as if they were in her Service which she could not have done had not you and your Brother withheld the Laws from being executed against them 4. Those that did not know your Brother's and your Religion apprehending some of these Priests were well chid by you and several of them that owed Money you set their Creditors upon to their utter Ruin 5. If the Justices in the Countrey did according to their Oaths and Duty attempt the putting the Laws in Execution that were made to prevent England being overstock'd with that sort of Vermine were they not turned out with this Brand of being disturbers of the Peace of the Government Witness Mr. Arnold Mr. Scudamore cum multis aljis 6. If any of your Brother's Whores Pimps or Bawds or yours were pleased to turn Papist to oblige you and continue in your Favour had not they leave to keep a stiff-rump'd Priest or so to help them in their great Affairs of procuring a Catholick By-Whore or Whores with whom through Confession they were acquainted And Sir did they not pimp at a more reasonable Rate than Chiffinch or his Deputy did in order to promote the Catholick Cause 7. Did you not support and maintain a great number of them to the Tune of eighteen Pence a Day at St. James's for the Service of your Italian Comrade at the Expence of the Publick for secret Service And what secret Service they did Mrs. Junipor can tell I suppose as well if not better than your sweet self and these being well paid was it not your Care to have them Men of good Parts tho of little or no Learning 8. Did not your Brother and you and your Council put a Test upon these Priests that they should be true to yours and the French King's Interest and not refuse any Service in order thereunto that lay in their Power 9. Were not these Priests your Spies and Trapans about the Kingdom to draw Men into Plots and Conspiracies And did they not do your Business in those Cases with that Dexterity that you gained your point of murdering several Persons and rendering the poor Dissenters obnoxious to your Pensioner Parliament in order to get severe Laws made against them whilst your villanous
to you for a moderate Sum of Money a Million or two would by the French King's Assistance have been a competent Stock to open Shop withal that our Laws Liberties and Religion too should have perished at one stroke such was your Rage against us at that Day Your Bullies about the Town had the aid of your Purse to swagger against the Parliament and to admire the French King and tell us how happy we were by being imbarked in the French Interest thrô this Match and why should a damn'd Parliament be suffered to sit till it was consummated beyond the Power of their interposing in it And the King was not to be trusted in this Affair if a Parliament were to sit for he would be wheedled by the House of Commons upon the account of Money to break off this hopeful Match yea and with the King of France too but keep him without a Parliament and he would do any thing to please the French King or your self Now Sir from all this we may conclude how foolish and malicious your Crew did shew themselves in the Prorogation of the Parliament that the King might not be engaged by them to break off that Match to the projudice of the Popish Religion or the French Interest 2. This was not the only Reason for you had another before you viz. The consideration that the Bill for ease of Protestant Dissenters whereby a major part of them should have Liberty of Conscience and be capable of Church-preferment had passed the Commons and was sent up to the Lords in March 1672 3 where it then remained and would not long stick as you and your Party feared before it would obtain the Royal Assent which if once effected you foresaw the uniting the Protestant Interest would tend greatly to the suppression of Popery and consequently no hopes of that Religion 's being replanted here but if you could any how prevent the passing that Bill you doubted not for all the Parliament could do to be safe amongst so many Dissenters and drive on your Designs underhand for the destruction of all Protestants From hence Sir let me observe 1. That this was a time when you and your Party were not for Liberty of Conscience because the uniting of Protestants by Liberty would be very fatal to you and therefore you got the Parliament prorogued that this Blessing might not fall upon you and your Friends But how comes it to pass that you gave God thanks that it was always your Judgment that all Men ought to have the Liberty of their Consciences in Matters of Religion and Worship Were not you a most notorious Hypocrite to say so 2. You must needs be engaged in a most Hellish Design against the Protestant Religion and your Party be resolved to proceed-no farther in any other Work but that must be destroyed or else what needed so much Care for proroguing the Parliament that the Bill for Liberty of Conscience then in the House of Lords might of course come to nothing By which Prorogation you so offended the Parliament that you lost at least the Gift of a Million of Money 3. It argued you certainly very full of Revenge that because your Brother was forced to break his Declaration for Liberty of Conscience you would procure the Prorogation of a Parliament to break the Bill for it tho it was more legal and commendable in the Parliament notwithstanding the Loggerheaded Reasons given against it in 1664 in a Session of the same Parliament for by it we saw plainly that an Arbitrary Declaration for Liberty of Conscience was the Sense of your Soul but a legal Liberty of Conscience you hated from the bottom of your Heart and would rather incur the Displeasure of a Parliament than they should have the doing of that which they would not suffer your Brother your Self and wicked Party to do in a most illegal manner without the Authority of Parliament 4. I perceive at that time it was the Sense of the Lords as well as of the Commons that such a Bill was necessary to secure the Protestant Religion and therefore it would have passed that House and the King have given his Royal Assent to it if there had been but a Million or 1200000 Pounds in the Case Therefore that they might be better informed concerning the Conveniency of your Italian Match and the Inconveniency of that Bill for Liberty of Conscience you obtained a Prorogation tho your Brother good Man lost a swinging Tax by the Bargain 5. That you gained your Point in reference to Liberty of Conscience for Time you know is often Life to a Cause And as the Protestant Interest run high in the Session of Parliament in 1672 3 and this Act came from the Commons to the Lords in favour of them who had passed it but for want of Time and another Bill passed against Popery by which Clifford fell and you and your Party put out of Humour so that Clifford's Fall might be gentle an end was put to that Session the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience was broke or cancell'd and in revenge you put a stop to the passing the Bill that would have established Liberty of Conscience by a Law by breaking up the Parliament from Octob. 20. to 27. and then to Jan. 7. following In this Recess you not only compleated the Italian Design but so ordered the Matter that when the Parliament met in January all Favour to Dissenters was killed as dead as a Door-nail and not one word of reviving the Bill for Liberty of Conscience was heard of but on the contrary our Prickear'd Priests were instructed to preach this to be as true as the Gospel that now there was no more Danger from the Papists but that the Phanaticks were the only dangerous Enemy and you and the Devil's Brokers had found out a Scots Lord and 2 Men who then made a mighty Figure at Court that were impudent and desperate enough to put the King's Affairs on so narrow and weak a Bottom Nay Old Lawderdale rather than fail becomes a Patron of the Church and who but he with his Guts was cried up by our Parasitical Pulpit-hunters Nay I will say this for Clifford that tho Villain enough yet his Principles were very generous in comparison of your new Set of Juglers whose Business it was to ruin those this Year they had supported but the last nay give them their due they would never forgive a Man that had been but once in the Right Those Sir were your trusty Cards and they agreed with our Spiritual Guides and Roger their Master not only in Principles but Passion too therefore you presently joined with them in directing the Judges to put the Laws in Execution against Dissenters which was done as you required 6. Our Holy Church-men as their Zeal was much increased by your Influence to suppress the Dissenters so their Zeal against Popery was to all Intents and Purposes extinguish'd as if you and your Italian Mistress had
basely debar his Countrey-men from speaking with the King otherwise than he pleased for fear they might tell Tales of his exorbitant Power by which he disobliged them in the highest and by reason of his being mostly here at Court the Scots Noblemen and Gentlemen were subjugated to a base and vile dependance upon his Creatures and Favourites nay often-times upon his Servants with whom it 's well known they transacted for obtaining and dispatching Gifts and Sign-manuals and that it was by the said Lauderdale's Servants that Protections to Debtors were so villanously obtained Give me leave Sir to put you in mind how hurtful he was to the Nation as High Commissioner of that Kingdom in order to which we may note that the Office of High Commissioner is altogether extraordinary and for a particular Occasion viz. The holding of a Parliament in the King's Absence therefore scarce known in Scotland till James I. came to the Crown and when the Session of Parliament was upon its determination that Office also determined with it Now when you had made Middleton so great he brought in that Innovation of adjourning Parliaments for a long time that he might tamper with them to betray the Religion Laws and Liberties of the People whereby he most illegally continued his Commission in the Interval of Parliament so that he might fit and prepare that poor People for Destruction Truly he had gone a pretty way in it and that he might finish his Work and serve your Purposes upon that Kingdom he did as I said lengthen the Adjournment of that Parliament for about two Years or so a thing never before known in Scotland for which Sir your old Bandog Lauderdale accused him as a Criminal to the King and you with the reproachful Title of a Subverter of the Government But however the Matter was hush'd up for Middleton having done your Business so well there in time he was rewarded with the Government of Tangier But when Lauderdale got into the same Station he far outwent Middleton in continuing his Commission for he spun it out for four Years and a half for which there was no manner of Necessity if you consider but the State of Affairs then in that Kingdom Nay it was so far from being necessary that it was a notorious Grievance for by it he not only hindred the Proceedings of the Parliament but endeavoured to frustrate all its Meetings which as it was a known Violation of the Antient Constitution of that Government so the unnecessary Continuance and Arbitrary long Adjourments of the Parliament contributed exceedingly to the increase of the Peoples Burdens and Distresses Truly Sir it is plain that the villanous Deportment of that Lauderdale was such in the Trust your Brother and you reposed in him which in time appear'd to be his best Security And why so The Reason Sir is plain for what he had proudly plotted and contrived through his matchless Ambition being conscious to himself that he might be reckoned withal for his devilish Proceedings in that Station he was under some necessity of maintaining by his Power in a most tenacious way that he might perfect the Ruin of that People making good the old Proverb Over Shoes over Boots it would be all one at the Gallows at last So that the Relief of that poor and abandon'd People from the Disorders which you and your wicked Party had made in that Kingdom by those two Men remained only with Almighty God there being no Hopes from your Brother Therefore Sir after the Adjournment of a Parliament which was held if I am not misinformed in 1674. and adjourned in December that Year Duke Hamilton the Earl of Tweddale and some Gentlemen being sensible of the notorious Villanies of old Lauderdale and to prevent his Lies from taking place with the King repair to the Court in England with the Approbation of those to whom they communicated their Intentions being confident they should be delivered from the Oppressions occasioned by Middleton and Lauderdale and hoping the King would receive their faithful Representation of the Affairs of that Nation both as to Religion and Government But Lauderdale who was an Enemy of all Righteousness and Truth omitted no Obstruction he could lay in the way For 1. by a Proclamation he procured that no Scots-man should go out of the Kingdom without Licence from the Council that so the King might not have the Truth of Affairs laid before him whereby to see the State and Condition that poor People were in in order to give them some Legal Redress Again 2. it is well known he imployed a pitiful Rascal at Berwick as a Spy to intercept all free Correspondence who being impowred by him did seize and search Sir William Carnegie a Member of Parliament and detain'd him a Lord of his Name you well remember in his Passage thrô that Town to London 3. Lauderdale having by means of this Rogue got some Packets intercepted he like a base Villain transmitted them to our Court not considering the Violation done to the common Intercourse and good Understanding of the two Nations nor regarding that Tenderness which honest Men have for the Honour of their Country and obtained of the King for this Fellow for such Rogueries instead of a Pillory or Gallows the Reward of 50 l. Sterling to be paid out of the Exchequer in Scotland to the great Satisfaction of the King your Self and wicked Party 4. By the same Means and in the same Place he endeavoured to affront Duke Hamilton and his Company in their Passage by questioning their Retinue and refusing them a Night's lodging which was not known to the Governour of that Town he being absent But at the return of these Noble Persons both Governour and People of the Place testified their Respects to them 5. This Lauderdale incensed the King and you against a Gentleman Duke Hamilton sent before him as one that had been a Sequestrator in the Time of Oliver sometime Lord-Protector of these three Nations and a Person disaffected to the Government But notwithstanding all these Obstacles and many other Discouragements the same Persons arrived at Court and did with all Submission and Sincerity and in all Faithfulness and Truth acquit themselves giving a full Account of the State of Affairs both as to the King 's and Countrey 's Interest What was the Event of all this Truly they were dismissed with fair Words and had positive Promises that the Parliament in Scotland should meet and sit an the Day appointed that Grievances should be redressed and that the Commission Lauderdale held as Commissioner should be revoked Upon which they hasten home the Duke with extraordinary Difficulty both in respect of the rigour of the Season and his weakness of Body that they might attend the Parliament in their respective Places on the 3d of March to which Time the Parliament was adjourned which was the very next Day after their arrival But Sir instead of a Session so much expected by the
had got such a Trick in your Brother's Time to put off Parliaments that I doubt if we should try you once more and take in those durante bene placito Rogues you would never leave it off First you got one Session put off and a truly loyal Band of Pensioners dissolved then three Parliaments dissolved one upon the neck of another as you and Nell Waal pleased Now our Forefathers and our Antient Kings of England to prevent Arbitrary Power and such intolerable Mischiefs as these did heartily agree to have a Proclamation made in Westminster-Hall before the End of every Session not to dissolve the Parliament to get a Sum of French Money but to tell the People that all who had any Matter to present to the Parliament should bring it before such a Day for otherwise the Parliament should determine This was done in the Reigns of Hen. 4. Hen. 5. Hen. 6. So that you may see and so might that Villain Jefferies that the People were not to be eluded or disappointed by surprising Prorogations and Dissolutions to frustrate the great Ends of Parliament But Sir suppose all your Brother's Crew of Judges and Ministers of State nay I would allow him half a dozen Priests and Dr. Finch the Warden of All-Souls into the Bargain who is an excellent Preacher and Pimp to the Whore of Babylon and Arbitrary Power nay I will allow you to have the French Parliament held at New-Market in 1677 and suppose they should have roared with open Mouth and said there was no Record nor Statute upon Record extant concerning the sitting of Parliaments to redress Grievances What then And suppose Finch the last 29th of May had told such a Story as this in his loggerheaded Sermon where he applauded the eminent shining Vertues of Charles II above those of his Royal Father and yours his Chastity Integrity Peaceableness and the like and provided all he had said were true that Charles was a Man of those Vertues and that there were neither Common nor Statute Laws extant for the sitting of Parliaments yet by Warden Finch's leave it is more certain that Parliaments are to sit and redress Grievances by the Fundamental Laws of the Government than that his Father presented the Grand Seignior with a Pendulum Clock so small that the Grand Seignior hung it at his Ear as the Ladies here used to hang their Pendants at theirs It may be Sir you will ask what Reason I could have to believe the sitting of Parliaments for redress of Grievances was our Right by the Fundamental Law of England I tell you Sir why because the Government must be lame without it and a Prince and his villanous Ministers might have done what they pleased and their Wills might have been their Laws Your Brother and you bid fair for such a Government had your Friend Coleman's Advice been taken and had K. Charles signed his Declaration for dissolving the Parliament Coleman had not Jenner's Courage of running away and so the Declaration was not signed but to your great Comfort he was graciously left to dance a Christmass Gambrel at Tyburn for his great pains in the mighty Work your Brother your Self and he had upon your Hands Therefore my good Friend it was provided for in the very Essence and Constitution of the Government it self this we may if Frank Withens and the rest of your Crew will give leave call Common Law tho Jefferies once was pleased to call it a Common Where This notwithstanding the filthy Expression of that impudent Villain that had neither Law Manners nor Honesty but the Impudence of ten carted Whores is of as much Value if not more as any Statute and of which all our good Acts of Parliament and Magna Charta it self are but declaratory So that tho your Brother or any King else had been intrusted with the formal Part of summoning and pronouncing the Dissolution of Parliaments which is done by Writ yet the Laws that oblige the King as well as the People have determined when and how it is to be done This is enough to shew you that your Brother as King shared in the Sovereignty that was in the Parliament and that it was cut out to him by Law and not left at his Disposal I must therefore tell you that Thomas and Francis and the rest of the Bloodhounds and murdering Dispensing Judges were much out in point of Law when they told your Brother that Parliaments both as to Calling and Dissolving were at his Will and Pleasure 3. There is another Statute viz. 25 Edw. III. cap. 23. that was Law in your Brother's Reign which the Judges if they had been acquainted with the Law who truly except a few that had but little Honesty and were generally Strangers to the Law must have told him and you too did oblige him and you to suffer the Meeting and Sitting of Parliaments Therefore I make use of that Statute to prove that the Meeting and Sitting of Parliaments is the Fundamental Right and Privilege of the People of England This Statute Sir was called the Statute of Provisors and was made to prevent and cut off the Incroachments of the Bishops of Rome whose Usurpations in disposing of Benefices had occasioned intolerable Grievances In the Preamble of which Statute it is expressed as follows Whereupon the Commons have prayed our said Sovereign Lord the King That since the Right of the Crown of England and the Law of the Realm is such that upon the Mischiefs and Damage which happen to this Realm he ought and is bounden of the Accord of his said People in his Parliament thereof to make Remedy and Law in avoiding the Mischiefs and Damage which thereof cometh that it may please him thereupon to provide Remedy Our Sovereign Lord the King seeing the Mischiefs and Damage before-named and having regard to the said Statute made in the Time of his said Grandfather and to the Causes contained in the same which Statute holdeth always its Force and was never defeated or annulled in any Point and by so much is bound by his Oath to do the same to be kept as the Law of this Realm tho that by sufferance and negligence it hath since been attempted to the contrary and also having regard to the grievous Complaints made to him by his People in divers Parliaments holden heretofore willing to ordain Remedy for the great Damages and Mischiefs which have hapned and daily do happen by the said Cause c. by the Assent of the Great Men and Commonalty of his said Realm hath ordained and established Come Sir what say you to all this Where is your Holloway your Withens and your Walcots And where is Tom Jenner with his Sorrow in one Hand and his Grief in the other an ignorant Rascal like the rest of his Brethren Where is your Herbert your Heath and your Milton Some of them are gone to their Places but they lived long enough to enslave the People and those that yet live owe
their Pleasures before Grievances were redressed and publick Bills of Common-Safety passed because to dissolve and prorogue at Pleasure is a Privilege which belongs to the Crown Answ This word Prorogue is but a new-fangled Business a thing brought up in latter Days but as for dissolving Parliaments at Pleasure that has been the Practice of our former wicked Kings by the Advice of their Roguish Ministers and Judges who laid aside all Law Honour Honesty and Conscience to prostitute themselves to the abominable Lust of a filthy Prince who designed nothing less than the Ruin of the Kingdom What your Father did I will not here concern my self but what your Brother did by your Procurement is my Province at this Time Your Brother when he held his French Parliament at New-Market in 1677 where most of the Rogues and Whores of the Court were present and your gracious Self waiting on him did much aggrandize himself by that Glorious Assembly Upon April 16. the Parliament at Westminster was adjourned till May 21. following Immediately upon the Recess the Duke of Crequi aâ—d that modest sober chaste Man of God the A. Bp of Rheims and Monsâ—eur Barillon and a Train of 3 or 400 Persons of all Qualities appear'd there so that the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of France with so many of their Commons made it look like an old-fashioned French Parliament And the Parliament at Westminster had been adjourned for their better Reception But what Address they made to the King or what Acts passed at that Noble Parliament I cannot tell they having not been yet published But I suppose they were these that follow 1. An Act for continuing his Majesty's Subjects in the Service of France 2. An Act for enabling the Dutchess of Cleveland to use the Arch-Bishop of Paris for her Father-Confessor c. 3. An Act to discharge her Grace from farther Attendance upon the King 4. An Act to constitute the French Gentlewoman to be Whore in her room and a Spy for the French King 5. An Act to enable Nell Waal to be Woman and Bawd in ordinary to the said French Gentlewoman and his Sacred Majesty 6. An Act to supply the Extraordinary Occasions of that Whore Portsmouth and her Woman Nell Waal 7. An Act to enable the Dutchess of Portsmouth in order to her Health to possess and enjoy a certain Apartment in a House-Royal called the Lock situate at the end of Kent-street and Nell to have the Reversion after her decease in case of Necessity 8. An Act for the further Supply of French-Money in order to enslave the Kingdom of 3000000 Livres per Annum 9. An Act for enabling James Duke of York to go on with his Conspirators in the Conspiracy against the Laws Liberties and Religion of the People of England and to demand the French King's Purse Credit and Interest for his Help and Assistance 10. An Act to invest Edward Coleman with the Sum of 20000 l. and a good Pension from the French King for his great Services done and to be done for the Catholick Religion and French Interest 11. An Act of Abolition of all Claims and Demands from the Subjects of France on Account of all Prizes made of the English at Sea since the Year 1674 till that Day and for the future 12. Act to supply the extraordinary Needs of the Pensioners at Westminster 13. An Act to continue the Sham-Alliance with the States-General of the Vnited-Provinces There were I suppose several Private Bills in favour of the Pimps Bawds and Whores that were not sworn in Ordinary but passed the Royal Assent as I may suppose because at that time all things between England and France moved with that punctual Regularity that it was like the Harmony of the Spheres so consonant with themselves tho I could not hear the Musick I pray Sir let us know in your next Declaration what other Secret Bills were passed in that August Assembly wherein the Affairs of Peace and War were transacted with the greatest Confidence and when good Boys they had done their Master's Business with your Brother's Aid and Help they were adjourned from New-Market to London where they dissolâ—ed themselves without your Brother's Prerogative to make way for the Westminster Parliament and so rubb'd off with all Demonstration of mutual Affection and Friendship Alas Sir these were Matters of that Import that they required all imaginable Expedition and Secresy and it would have been the highest Presumption for the poor Pensioners in the Westminster Parliament to have intermedled with them Alas if they had been admitted to end the Work it might have ended in their own Dissolution in order to a couragious running away You say by way of Objection Your Partisans made that which your Brother and other Kings did by their Prerogative Royal dissolve Parliaments before Grievances were redressed and necessary Bills past because things did not move with that punctual Regularity between your Brother and them that was between him and the French King I pray what was the Reason Had they not had Gratuities at the Charge of the Nation Or had the Dutchess of Portsmouth jilted them out of the French King's Blessing which the Duke of Crequi and the Arch-Bishop of Rheims brought them of 200000 Lewis d' Ores Who can tell what to say to these things It is no wonder then that Crew of Voters were grown resty and did not move regularly Well what then the Parliament must not sit till some State-Clockmaker had mended their Motions and made them go true the House then had some good Bills over which they roared only and then were sent Home by a blast of Prerogative-Breath Had your Brother any other Prerogative but what the Law gave him and what he was invested with at his Coronation If he had let us know it but for once I will grant he prorogued and dissolved Parliaments at his Pleasure to serve you and your Cut-throat Crew It doth not therefore follow that he had a Right so to do according to a Maxim I learned almost 30 Years since A facto ad jus non valet consequentia especially when such Prorogations and Dissolutions are against so many express and positive Laws such Principles of Common Right and Justice and so many particular Ties and Obligations to the contrary Your Brother might by the Advice of wicked Statesmen and villanous Judges pretend to a Prerogative the Law had given him of which nothing ever was known unless revealed by some French Maxims learned abroad in his Travels Yet such a Prerogative could not justify such Practices for if he had been invested with such Prerogatives by the Law yet the Law could give none to destroy it self and those it protects But Old Hodg and his Inferior Clergy may interpose and say Had not King Charles his Prerogative founded upon Law Who questions Sir but the Kings of England had their Prerogatives Yet observe what Old Bracton saith Pag. 487. That tho the Common Law allows many
joined to that of the French King Shew me such a Parliament and I will then say I can shew you one that you would have a good Opinion of and since you could retain no good Opinion of your Band of Pensioners you can certainly have none of those that are for preserving the English Protestant Interest So that I think I have sufficiently shewed your Inclinations and by them your Enmity to Parliaments Secondly I now come to shew what those Parliaments were to which you were so averse and which you procured to be dissolved whereby your hatred to Parliaments and that way of Government did appear Were they Men of Common-wealth-Principles or did they aim at the Promotion of their own Ambition and Greatness did you or your Rogues know of such Persons why then did you not discover them The Nation would have charged the Account to themselves and have made your Party some recompence for so signal a Piece of Service to the Publick Nay if your Crew had brought these People to light and let the Parliament sat to have tossed them in a Blanket they would have found a little severer quarter than the Mayor of Scarborough did from one of your Apostles whom you sent to plant a Colony of Red-coat-Christians in that Place But Sir in plain English your Common-wealth-Christians we found were a number of Men that were in a most zealous manner devoted to the publick Good and common Service of their Country who believed Kings were instituted for the Good of their People and Government ordained for the sake of the Governed and therefore complained or were grieved when it was used to contrary ends Every wife and honest Man would then and still be proud to be of that Rank and Number And if Common-wealth signifies Common Good in which sense it has been taken in all Ages by most good Authors as Bodin speaking of the Government of France calls it a Common-wealth as do our own Authors the Mirrour of Justice Bracton Fleta Fortescue c. in former times as well as those of later Years particularly Sir Thomas Smith in the time of Q. Elizabeth and not only several Statutes use the word Common-wealth but K. James your Grandfather in his first Speech to an English Parliament own'd himself the Servant of the Common-wealth and K. Charles I. your dearest Father of famous Memory both before and in the time of the War never exprest himself otherwise to be fond then of such Common-wealth Principles becomes every good English Man and the whole Kingdom were glad to find they had sent such Men to Parliament But Sir your Villains used to call those Parliaments which you procured to be dissolv'd Persons conspiring to set up a Democratical Power in opposition to Monarchy that would overthrow the Government both in Church and State tho it was that which you and your Rogues designed in that villanous Alliance you made with France to destroy the King and the Protestant Religion The Nation saw it was not those they had sent up to Parliament but you that had a Design to overthrow the Government for you were so fond of your beloved Arbitrary Power and therefore resolved to subvert our legal Monarchy instituted for the Benefit of the Common-wealth by destroying the Honour and Reputation of our English Parliaments I pray Sir call to mind the Band of Pensioners you had in that Parliament which your Brother kept so long yet you could not bear with their Proceedings against your Party when your Designs were laid open before them and so plainly proved that they could not withhold Justice from being executed upon several of your Case-hardned Traitors When they were dissolved it is manifest that three greater Parliaments were never known in England since the time of William I than what succeeded them viz. those two that met at Westminster and that at Oxford they were I dare say the Flower of the whole Kingdom and might with all Justice be termed the Wisdom of the Nation their Debates and Votes which were printed and published shewed them to be Gentlemen of very great Ability and Integrity those that sent them knew them to be Persons of great Estates not beggarly Rascals such as were in your Pensionary Parliament that had betrayed us to you and your Party in a great measure these did not please you because they would not perpetrate so great a Piece of Villany how then could those please you that met together afterwards and approv'd themselves Well-wishers to the Protestant Religion and duly consider'd the State of the Nation and the many Dangers to which it was exposed by you and your Villains Therefore Sir if any one can inform me how all this doth not prove you an Enemy to the Constitution of Parliaments let him come forth and he shall be heard or let us know what sort of Men you are inclined to for I believe if you could obtain 513 Papists that were not of the French Interest to establish Popery separate from Arbitrary Power even such could not please you but would soon be exposed as others have been and if you should have met with 513 Men that could have complied with you in both you must have met with such as would have destroyed their own Constitution and put a Period to all Parliaments Now if any of your Party can say this would be a Demonstration of your Affection to Parliaments and proveâ—t Erit mihi magnus Apollo Thirdly Remember what Arts and Methods you and your Party used to expose the three last Parliaments your Brother held in 1679 1680 1681. It is worth your considering that when you had a great desire to have the long Parliament dissolved some objected that if that was dissolved the Crown was in danger because a new one was to be called But those that made the Objection did not consider a new one must be chosen which if they did yet they did not consider what the Men were that would in all probability be chosen and those new Parliaments if they might have been suffered to redress Grievances would have stuck at nothing to have rendred themselves acceptable both to Prince and People for it was first the best way your Brother took to become acquainted with the Nation to dissolve that Parliament that had so long continued Secondly the King might if he would have let his Parliaments sat obtained a great Sum of Money for Payment of his Debts nay they would have given it him as a Pledg of Endearment between him and the People they resolved to give freely and hoped he would receive as graciously in truth Sir they would have been generous even to your self for they would have excluded you from being King that you might enjoy the greater Security of your Person and Estate as a Subject which if you would have believed you had not at this day been rattling your Beads at St. Germains the People would have been free under their King as the King would have been
happy in his People and both secured by frequent Parliaments which therefore could never endanger your Brother's Crown Mistake not your self nor think that we could be cheated with that Nonsense for nothing could endanger his Crown but your advancing the Religion of Rome and the Arbitrary Power of France in England It was these things endanger'd your Brother's Government nothing else could but good Gentleman he was engaged with you in these things beyond recovery to the ruin of himself and the endangering of all our Laws and Liberties The Devil's Brokers did not join with you in dissolving the Long Parliament but cried out if that Parliament was dissolved the Church would fall but Sir I will say that for you you had as little regard for the Church as you could considering how the Rogues had espoused your Quarrel and thought that Passive-Obedience Nonresistance and the Divine Right of Succession would have been admirable Orvâ—etans against the Plague of Rebellion But why must this Church fall with the Pensioners Alas alas the poor distressed Church and the poor distressed Band of Pensioners For the latter they were a Parcel of matchless Villains and she Whore enough not to be in the Nation 's Interest but dissolved they were and what escaped the Jail were secured by the Friars those who had stood by the Interest of their Country were sent again and such a Set of Gentlemen as no King would have sent home in so ignominious a manner but your Brother at your procurement and being sent home you and your Party made it your Business to expose them 1. You had them exposed on your Stages in your rascally Play-houses by a Parcel of mercenary Rogues and Whores who you and your villanous Party set up to debauch the Nation and to ridicule the essential Parts of the Government as if the Votes and Debates of that August Assembly were to be ridiculed by such Vermine who were Tools you made use of in some part to do your Drudgery But stay it is not fit the Whores that are Stage-players should be reflected on left there should be a more severe Act made for cutting of Noses for a Parliament-Man you know had his Nose cut for speaking against that sort of Vermine but I will not be afraid to mention their contemptuous reproaching of Parliaments 2. You had Monsieur Barillon who managed the Intrigue of charging the principal leading Members of both Houses of those three Parliaments with being in a Conspiracy against your Brother and your self and this he and your Jesuits Priests and other Vermine contrived by Subornation and Perjury a Proceeding not unusual to some Persons and Courts all the Mischiefs Poisonings and Villanies in all the European Courts were owing chiefly to his and his Master 's most Christian Politicks he was used as a main Agent fit to expose three as great Parliaments as England ever knew to all the Courts of Christendom as a Confederacy of Men in a Plot to destroy the King and your self and as Enemies to Monarchy And what was this but to render Parliaments odious to all the Princes of Europe 3. Notwithstanding those three Parliaments had nothing before them but to secure the Government against the Depredations that Popery and Arbitrary Power would have made upon it and notwithstanding their great Duty to the King yet what a scandalous Declaration was emitted wherein the said Parliaments were most villanously treated as if they had aimed at nothing but the change of the Government This Declaration may be supposed to be drawn by that Villain the French Ambassador in his own Mother-Tongue because tho it was turned into English yet the French way of wording it shews there was a French Counsellor in the case which could be none but he who was the chief Counsellor your Brother and you used in the management of your Conspiracy yet it is but the Copy of your Grandfather's and Father's way of Proceeding which your Brother and you thought fit to use to asperse Parliaments you were all Friends alike to that Constitution of the English Government 4. It is very remarkable that your villanous Judges were instructed in their Circuits to spit their Venom against the Proceedings of the said Parliaments and in their respective Stations they were to let their Grand Juries know what reason the King had to dissolve them and how they recommended the King's most Gracious Declaration to their Consideration and what Converts they made I was never curious to inquire for I could not suppose but the Country knew the Men and their Character and under what necessity they lay to be Villains from the tenour of their illegal Commissions and that they must prostitute themselves to the Will of the Court or be dismissed from their Imployments but they chose rather to be Scandals to the Bench than to appear as so many Reproaches to their Professions at the Bar. Upon all which Considerations I cannot believe they ever made any farther Profelytes against the English Parliaments than a paltry Sheriff of a County or a villanous Grand Jury pack'd on purpose to draw up an Address of Thanks for the Court 's attempting to ruin the Government as established by Law 5. Since Sir the City of London could not be debauched but the eminent Merchants and Traders in it stood firm to their Laws and Liberties and to the Government of England by Parliaments so that you could not influence the Masters you took an unheard-of Course to debauch the Servants and Apprentices in their Morals and procured a Day of Feasting for them whâ—re they were incouraged to huzza it away against Parliaments and to reproach the Senators as a Herd of Men set upon the Destruction of the Government both in Church and State but it pleased God to open the Eyes of several of those young Gentlemen to see that this Feasting and Rioting was carried on by ill Men and that the dissolving of Parliaments was only to screen some publick Offenders from Justice and by degrees quitting themselves of that scandalous Congress in a year or two their Feasting fell to the ground 6. You imployed old Hodg your Buffoon in ordinary to write against the Proceedings of those Parliaments the Rogue by his Lies Equivocations and Prevarications did much Mischief having called in a parcel of little Priests who engaged themselves to rail at Parliaments and admire the Loyalty of old Hodg their Guide whose Observators were the Subjects of their Discourses every Lord's day nay they would scarce look upon a Sacramental Discourse the first Sunday in the Month to be well dish'd up unless some of Roger's Frippery was mingled with it so that the old Villain was not unsuccessful in his traiterous Papers which he published several times a week till God in his Mercy opened the Eyes of some of our Passive-Obedience-Puppies and let them see the Villain was aiming at Popery and destroying the Church of England notwithstanding his specious Pretences to defend it 7. You
Popish Adversaries which they could not do but by inflaming the Differences between the Conforming and Non-conforming Protestants that we might not unite our Forces against the Common Enemy 2. You and your Party by this means weakened the Protestant Interest There can be nothing more plain than this for upon the Dissolution of the Oxford Parliament Swarms of Priests and Popish Conspirators returned home and fell to work to pervert the People to the Obedience and Communion of the See of Rome What Pensions then you got for some and Imployments for others and with what care you maintain'd their Interest and defended their Cause and Quarrel against those that pursued them for their many Treasons against the Government we all saw to our great Sorrow And what help was there since you and your Party had so much countenance from your Brother who was ingaged with you in the whole Popish Conspiracy saving that of his own Life 3. You procured a severe Persecution against Protestant Dissenters which you nor none of your rascally Crew durst do during the Session of Parliament but immediately upon their Dissolution you fell upon them either because they had occasioned the sending of good Men to Parliament or because they were zealous Assertors of the Protestant Religion against Popery and of our English Liberties against Slavery these were indeed high Crimes for which you and your Villains made them smart to the ruine of several thousand Families and had you continued somewhat longer in that glorious Adventure you might have made poor England a howling Wilderness tho when your Brother and you came home you found it a Land flowing with Milk and Honey Nay you had rather all should have run into Confusion than the Dissenters should not be ruined because they could not comply with a few Ceremonies for which your Party had no other Authority than a few Acts of Parliaments 4. You advanced Arbitrary Proceedings in Westminster-Hall where you had a Set of rognish Judges exactly of a size for that turn who had as much Impudence for the Court as they had had Dread of being called to Account in Parliament for all their Villanies And tho it was a standing Constitution that if any Man stood impeached by the Commons of England before the Lords in Parliament no inferiour Court could take Cognizance of that Cause or try him for that Treason in Westminster-Hall for which he stood impeached in Parliament which upon the Dissolution of the Oxford-Parliament was Fitz-Harris his Case yet for all this you found out your Pemberton your Jones and your Raymond that had Impudence enough to try the said Fitz-Harris and condemn him for alas good Men they were not to lose their Places for every small Peccadillo if it were to serve the Government especially to do a Job for you and your Crew 5. Upon the Dissolution of the 3 last Parliaments to alienate the King from his People you and your Party did industriously revive the Memory of the late unhappy Civil War between your Father and the Parliament which was your Brother's Interest as well as the Nation 's to have buried in oblivion the mentioning that unhappy War serv'd only to put us in mind of the sudden Dissolution of 3 Parliaments and the 12 years want of one and what the Villains had done in your Father's Reign and the better to colour your procuring the Dissolution of those three Parliaments you had your Parties abroad to asperse and brand the Members as being of the same Complexion with those that met Nov. 3. 1640 but none of your Cut-throats did ever mention the bloody Massacre in 1641 because begun and carried on by your Father's Command and for his Service But Sir let me tell you that none lived more peaceably under your Brother's Government than they who were engaged in that War on the Parliament's side therefore I cannot tell by what prudent Topick you went when you discourag'd those Men in their obedient living by such villanous Reflections and upbraided them with what the Law had pardoned and they had expiated by their Loyalty since supposing they had been Criminals which yet I think they were not But this is plain beyond all dispute that the Parliament that restored your Brother to his Throne and you to be a constant Plague to this Nation made an Act of Indemnity wherein many things were enacted which they judged necessary for the Settlement of the Nation they prohibited under a Penalty one Man's reproaching another with being concerned in that War for the space of three years after the Date of the said Act sure then they never intended Men should afterwards take the liberty to upbraid one another with it 6. Another ill Consequence of dissolving those three Parliaments was that by this means you made a way to succeed your Brother in the Government If those Parliaments had sat and their Counsels not been defeated by their unexpected Dissolutions you must have been disabled from ever inheriting the Imperial Crown of these Realms and it was plain those Whores and other Traitors that procured the Dissolution of those Parliaments aim'd at your coming to the Throne But Sir I think your Party should have shown so much Ingenuity and Candour as to have owned that all the People of England particularly those that were for your Exclusion were as zealous for Monarchy even in the Royal Line as any of your clamorous Bullies durst for their Ears be I am sure nothing so much endanger'd the legal Monarchy of England as your coming to the Crown which the Wisdom of the Nation foresaw and therefore that it might be preserved resolved to pass you by and let it descend to another Heir Nay Sir if you had continued James Duke of York I am sure you might have lived with more Honour and Comfort than you can propose by putting your Feet under the French King's Table but God having ordained you to be a Plague to us for our Sins I think you let us see what you aimed at in your four Years Tyranny There are some blind Puppies whose Eyes are not yet opened I could wish you had their Company at St. Germains being confident you would soon lick them open 7. Another Consequence of the Dissolution of those three Parliaments was the possessing the King of a Design carried on by the dissenting Party for his Destruction and to introduce a Democratical Power which they called a Common-wealth nay that you might hasten the Dissolution of the Oxford-Parliament you made use of this Lie for an Argument which your Brother was willing to believe that he might have some Pretence for quitting that way of Government There were two sorts of Persons charged 1. The Parliaments themselves 2. Those who stedfastly asserted the Power and Privileges of Parliaments the Protestant Religion and Liberties of the People in opposition to Popery and Slavery 1. These Parliaments were charged with a Design against his Majesty's Person and Government Now Sir let us
themselves that they had erred with their Fathers the Power of that House concerning taking Men into Custody had not then nor to this Day has received an exact Adjustment and therefore wants not Precedents of the like Nature and if they were Arbitrary Orders they were such as had been executed by Parliaments many a fair Year before your Sires of the antient Kingdom of Scotland were born and since Orders of the same nature had been made by Parliaments in the times of our antient Kings these Orders might have been passed by and not branded with the reproachful Name of being Arbitrary 2. Tho we have supposed that the Commons might issue out those Orders yet they took none into Custody by such Orders but what might well be supposed guilty of Breaches of Privilege in the highest Degree the Truth is when Parliaments met annually or at least frequently we find few or no Complaints but when they were not frequent but there were long Intervals of Parliament the Consequence of which was long sitting which began within these two hundred Years there were some Complaints of the Breaches of Privilege as in the time of Hen. 8. the 4th of Edw. 6. and in the time of Q. Eliz. when the Justice of the Commons hath been applauded by our former Kings for asserting their Privileges and not stigmatized for exerting an Arbitrary Power 'T is true the most notorious thing that could be fixed upon that House was the Fees extorted by the Serjeant of the House who tho he attends the House of Commons yet he ought to have considered that he was the King's Officer and by Law no Officer of the King 's shall take any Fee or Reward for doing his Office but what he receives from the King upon Penalty of returning double to the Plaintiff and being further punished at the Will of the King but of this you and your Party took no notice because the then Serjeant was a Creature of your own tho I think he smarted for it and your Brother laughed at his Calamity in the Case of an Under-Sheriff of Norfolk Therefore I say that to assert that their Orders that were made for the taking Men into Custody were for Matters that had no relation to Privileges of Parliament was an impudent Lie for there were a Number of Men who to distinguish themselves from the rest of their Countrey had basely given their Hands for Abhorrences of Parliaments and of those who most humbly petitioned for their sitting in a time of such extream Necessity their Names I will give that you may put a Mark of Favour upon those of them that are alive whenever they shall have occasion to meet you at St. Germains You may remember that House did fall upon such as had countenanced the Popish Plot and were Abhorrers of petitioning for the sitting of Parliaments and voted that it was and ever had been the undoubted Right of the Subjects to petition the King for the Calling and Sitting of Parliaments and Redress of Grievances and that to traduce such Petitioning as a Violation of Duty and to represent it to his Majesty as tumultuous and seditious is to betray the Liberty of the Subject and contributes to the subverting the antient and legal Constitution of this Kingdom and introducing Arbitrary Power The first that fell under these Votes was Withens that was knighted for his Abhorring and after made a Judg he was expelled the House and voted a Betrayer of the undoubted Rights of the Subjects of England and received his Sentence at the Bar of the House he is yet alive I suppose he and his Brother Jenner may set up at St. Germains for Expounders of our Law in good time The next was Sir George Jefferies then Recorder of London against whom they voted an Address to the King to remove him out of all publick Offices and that the Members which served for the City should communicate the Vote to the Court of Aldermen There were several others that upon the same Account were taken into Custody as Sir Giles Phillips Mr. Coleman Capt. William Castle Mr. John Hutchinson Mr. Henry Walrond Mr. William Stawel Mr. Thomas Herbert Mr. Sheridon and Parson Thompson of Bristol And because Sir Francis North the Chief Justice of the Common-pleas advised and assisted in drawing up a Proclamation against petitioning for the sitting of the Parliament the Commons voted it a sufficient Ground to proceed against him for high Crimes and Misdemeanours the like Vote passed against Sir Thomas Jones one of the Judges of the King's Bench and upon Sir Richard Weston one of the Barons of the Exchequer but they went higher with Scroggs for they impeached him of High Treason for discharging the Grand Jury of Middlesex before they had finished their Presentments and for the Order made in the King's-Bench against Care 's Pacquet of Advice from Rome That it should be no more printed or published by any Person Well Sir what say you now to these Vermine Those now alive are still the same Rogues and your very humble Servants and Admirers and I could wish you had them with you at St. Germains being pretty Company and worthy of your Favour indeed to give them their Due they have been pretty false in their Oaths to King William whom some of your Party stile Prince of Orange These were the Men that House of Commons did censure I pray Sir on with your Spectacles and see whether the Crimes they were guilty of had no Relation to Privileges of Parliaments surely your Friends when they charged the House of Commons with this Crime were not in good earnest if they were they shall have a Rowland for their Oliver I 'll be in good earnest too and let them know that if the Privileges of Parliament be concerned when an Injury is done to a particular Member how much more when they strike at Parliaments themselves and endeavour to wound the very Constitution Nay in the Case of Sheridon who afterwards troubled the Nation with a Litter of scandalous Pamphlets upon that Account 't is plain that his Commitment was only in order to examine him about the Popish Plot and his Endeavours to stifle it Do not you know that Sheridon Say you never did yet let me tell you it was you instructed him how he should behave himself to the House whose Behaviour indeed was with as much Contempt and Insolency as if you or your Father had been demanding some of the Members and therefore they had reason surely to commit him Thompson you know him too very well he was zealous in divers Breaches of Privilege to serve you and the Popish Party witness his Usage of poor Bedlow and the rest of the Discoverers of the Popish Plot yet his Commitment was only in order to an Impeachment and as soon as they had gone through with his Examination he was set at Liberty giving Security to answer the Impeachment they had voted against him But 3. What if the Matters
upon which the House of Commons did commit Men were not relating to the Privilege of Parliament and had been without Precedent yet you and your Crew carrying on a Design to root out the Protestant Religion in which you had engaged your Brother which was a Plot without Precedent why might not the House of Commons proceed against the Abettors of it without Precedent Other Parliaments before you were born had made Precedents for particular Offenders and why might not that Parliament without asking your Leave If it be in the Power of one Parliament to make Precedents why not in another I am sure there was as much Occasion for new Precedents in that House of Commons as ever in any Your mealy-mouth'd Cattel used to wipe their Mouths and say they were as great Lovers of Parliaments as any Men but thought it strange that the Commons should be so zealous against Arbitrary Power in the King and take such a Latitude to themselves These Hogs-heads have their Buts a Parcel of Coxcombs that would not consider under what Circumstances the then House of Commons lay there was a Plot laid before them for the bringing in of Popery and Arbitrary Power and to kill the King and that it was a Plot and a villanous one none yet could with any Sense or Reason deny but such Rogues as were either in it or Well-wishers to it When the Commons came to consider of this devilish Conspiracy they found Criminals that had been by a side-Wind Abettors of it and others that had been Sinners above the common rate therefore they were forced to take a Latitude in their Dealings with them that the Nation might not be undone by them and where there were Criminals of this Standard certainly a House of Commons if they could not find Precedents how to manage such unruly Monsters might make some in order to tame them Sir I could give Instances of such Precedents made by former Parliaments and if that House of Commons made new Precedents they did but follow the Steps of their Predecessors who made Precedents as the Necessity of Affairs required and if the House of Commons had not taken such Courses they had betrayed their Trust if by those Precedents whether new or old they had not asserted the Rights of those that sent them thither Now what becomes of this your Pretence of illegal and arbitrary Orders in Matters not relating to Privileges of Parliament for which you procured their Dissolution 6ly A sixth Pretence for dissolving that Parliament was for their Addresses to the King which I am sure were with all the Duty and Humility that could be nevertheless to allenate the King from them you and your Party called them Remonstrances rather than dutiful Answers to those Messages sent them by the King Surely Sir it was a strange Age in which that Parliament sat and they could not but judg themselves under very unhappy Circumstances when notwithstanding their extreme Caution and Prudence yet all was under an ill Construction at Court Now if the Commons had returned Answers to his Majesty's Messages without shewing on what Grounds they proceeded they had been and that justly too accused as Men proceeding peremptorily and without Reason but when they expressed with all becoming Modesty the Reasons of their Resolutions they were accused of Remonstrating But what if we should give your Ministers at St. James's and your Brother 's at White-Hall this Word and so I will for once if those of them that are alive will but tell me what they understoood by that Word and with what Crime they would charge that House of Commons for my part I am at a Loss in the Point perhaps Portsmouth and Barillon that understood French might have given you the Meaning of the Word Remonstrance and it may be told you there was some pernicious thing in it as the Carnegey or some Pox like it and therefore it might prejudice your Brother as it had done you you know when take it so and much good may it do you but if by Remonstrance you mean a declaring the Causes and Reasons of what they were doing where was the Fault that was so unworthily imputed to them since it was a way they learned from your own Brother in his Messages to his former Parliaments This is another Pretence much of the same Value with the rest and so let them go together 7ly A seventh Pretence you had for dissolving that Parliament was the falling foul upon several of your Friends and giving them their due Character the Ministers at White-Hall would never forgive the last Westminster Parliament for the Vote passed upon some Men then much in fashion at yours and your Brother's Courts which gall'd you to the Heart and Soul truly I would not have you think this a Character the House of Commons only had fixt upon them no every honest Man had done it long before the whole Current of their Lives Practices and Counsels being a full Proof of that Charge Therefore why did your Paltroons call these Votes illegal Was it illegal for that Parliament to impeach Persons that were Enemies to the King and Kingdom or to determine by a Vote who were wicked Counsellours and did deserve to be impeached so to find out the Sense of the House But since you are my old Friend my never-failing Friend and upon that Consideration I have an old Kindness for you and your Party I will with you suppose the Votes that passed against those Beasts of Prey were not in order to an Impeachment yet still there was nothing of Illegality in them nor nothing extraordinary for the Commons in Parliament have always had two Ways of delivering the Countrey from such Vermine either to bring them to a publick Trial that they may have publick Justice done upon them or give the Rogues an ill Name in an Address to the King that the Court and Council may not be plagued with such Rubbish and hereby the Countrey will know them again and treat them accordingly You were very tender of the Lives and Liberties of these Favourites and so was your Brother but I conceive their Lives and Liberties were never in danger till they had forfeited them and the Forfeiture could not appear till they had received a fair Trial Now Sir it 's plain they durst not stand one unless it were a Trial of Skill whether the Parliament should sit and see Justice done or be dissolved and the Nation undone this was the Trial they were in danger of and no other for that was concluded on by the King and Barillon in the Lodgings at the lower end of the matted Gallery But suppose their Lives and Liberties had been in danger by an Impeachment there was just Cause for the Parliament's proceeding that way with those Traitors and if they had been but endowed with Courage to have stood Trial there would have been legal Evidence to have proved the Matter of Fact upon them that they were Enemies to the
who being a free People hated such a standing Force Now why your dissembling Rascals should use this as an Argument I am yet to learn And as for that Objection that it would have destroyed the Monarchy by a Law and taken all sort of Power from the King and made him less than a Duke of Venice this was as false as could be for as I have said before so I must again that it is evident beyond Contradiction that the Bill of Exclusion could not prejudice the legal Monarchy which your Brother did enjoy with all the Rights and Powers that his Ancestors ever claim'd because many Acts of like nature have passed not only in England but in your quondam antient Kingdom of Scotland without danger of diversting the Monarchs of their legal Power The Preservation of a Government consists in and depends upon an exact Adherence to its Principles on which it was founded and the essential Principle of the English Monarchy being that well-proportioned Distribution of Powers whereby the Law at once provides for the Greatness of the Sovereign and the Safety of the People for this Reason our Ancestors have been more careful to preserve inviolable the Government than to favour any personal Pretences And in your Case we followed the Examples of other Nations I meet with none in Story so slavishly addicted to any Person or Family as to admit of a Prince who openly professed a Religion contrary to that established amongst them it would be easy to produce a Multitude of Examples of those who have rejected Princes for Reasons of far less Weight than the Difference of Religion and this without endangering the Monarch's Power or the Subject's Right therefore your Party talked like Fools when they said the Bill of Exclusion would have divested the King of his Power nothing could have made a King of England so much look like a Duke of Venice as one of the lowsy Expedients your Party proposed to the Houses of Parliament 7. Another Argument against the Bill of Exclusion was That it would have led the Parliament to attempt other great and considerable Changes and thereby endangered the whole Government and the Peace of the Nation Now what your Villains would have had the Nation to understand by this Change is worthy of Consideration Therefore first if by a Change they meant a Change of the Constitution of the Government let me tell you that Hell could never have forged a more villanous Lie than those wicked Wretches did that they might in conjunction with you instil such Thoughts into the Mind of the King as might effectually alienate his Soul from the Use of Parliaments It is evident even to these Hell-born Wretches that there was no Vote or Proposition in either of those Parliaments that could give any Ground for such a malicious Reflection and therefore in this Matter we that were Lookers-on might reasonably charge your Brother and you and your whole Party with a malicious Design against all Parliaments in thus arraigning the whole Body of the Nation upon those ill grounded and malicious Suggestions I am sure this did not become the Grandeur and Justice of Princes nor was agreeable to the Measures of Prudence and Wisdom by which you should have governed yourselves And now Sir I will give the true Reason why you thus delighted in these Men viz. your hating Parliaments being afraid they should have called you and them to account for your high Crimes and Misdemeanours by this Means together with the Inclinations of your dear Brother you so swayed him that you could never want Grounds to dissolve not only three such Parliaments but threescore if there had been Occasion In the second Place Sir If you and your Admirers had understood by attempting great and important Changes that the Parliament would have besought the King that you might no longer have the Government in your Hands that your villanous Conspirators should no longer preside in his Councils nor possess all the great Offices of Trust in the Kingdom that our Ports Garisons and Fleet should no longer be governed by those that were at your Devotion that Marks of Favour and Characters of Honour should no more be placed upon such as the Wisdom of the Nation had adjudged Favourers of Popery or Pensioners to the French King these I confess were great and important Changes such as became English Protestants to believe were designed by those Parliaments and would have been by any other Parliament your Brother should have called in his time and such as the People of England would have prayed for and left the Success to Almighty God who governs the Hearts of Kings and Princes Truly without these Changes the Bill of Exclusion would have signified little it might have provoked but not disabled your wicked Party Nay the Money the Nation must have paid for it would have been used to hasten your Return upon us 8. Another Argument used against the Bill of Exclusion was your great Grace and Favour for your Countrey and the Excellency of your Temper and Vertue Surely Sir if you had heard these Men magnify you for your excellent personal Qualifications you would have spit in their Faces and told them they lied for the Violence of your natural Temper was sufficiently known and your Vehemency in exalting the Prerogative in your Brother's Reign beyond its due Bounds and the Principles of your cursed Religion which carried you to all imaginable Excesses of Cruelty convinced all Mankind that there was a Necessity of excluding you rather than to leave you the Name and place the Power in a Protector for in good truth they must have looked upon it as the greatest Folly to have made such a Change in the Government which would have been a Means to destroy and not preserve the Government Sir they saw your Temper that you who was bred up in such Principles of Politicks as made you in love with Arbitrary Power and bigotted to that Religion which always propagates it self by Blood could never bear with such Shackles as would even disgust a Prince of the meekest Disposition this was your Temper and how it is amended since you placed your self at St. Germains I suppose your Followers can tell better than I. But what Regard and Favour you have born to this Nation was well seen from your first Return to England in 1660 to your leaving it in 1688. You engaged it in two wicked Wars with the Dutch and a third with France I would not have your Cattel low too much of your Grace and Favour but truly if you had any for this Nation you was pleased to conceal it except in two things in which you did England the most signal Service that ever Man did the one was destroying your Brother and the other your running away and if you will keep on the other Side of the small River that parts France from us we will forgive you all the Faults of your Life But notwithstanding all the Noise