could be a greater Desertion than this for the sake of a Wife and a Son to leave three Kingdoms at six and sevens He speaks of securing himself as well as he can but mentions nothing of Danger only leaves it to the Lord Feversham and others to presume the Causes of his Fears But certainly the apprehension of Danger can never excuse a Sovereign Magistrate from the Desertion of his Dominions at the same time striving and strugling under the Pangs of the Dissolution of Government If such a Desertion of his Territories in that forlorn and languishing Condition to accompany the Tribulations of a Wife and a Son be not a perfect Abdication of his Territories the Words relinquish desert forgo abandon abdicate have lost their Signification Thus Lysimachus in Plutarch de sera vindicta Dei after he had surrendered his Person and Dominions to the Getae for a Draught of Drink in the extremity of a parching Thirst when he had quench'd his Thirst cryed out O pravum Hominem that for so small a Pleasure have lost so great a Kingdom He would be thought very unfit to be the Master of a Ship that should throw himself into the Sea when his Vessel and Cargoe were almost ready to perish And I will appeal to the Lord of Wemm himself whether if he were to try an Abdicating Prince upon this Point with the same Huffing and Domineering as he did Inferiour Offenders he would take it for a good Justification to say I had thought or I apprehended my Person to be in Danger Rather it becomes a Prince at such a time to exert his Courage and contemn his own when the publick Security lies at Stake especially when the Remedy propounded was so easy as the Convoking of a Free Parliament But to withdraw at such a perillous Conjuncture from the Application of his desir'd nay almost implor'd Assistance What can the Discusser think of himself to deny so plain an Abdication And this I take to be the Opinion of the late King's Abdication intimated by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal assembled at Guild-Hall Decemb. 1688. where they are pleased to say That they did reasonably hope that the King having sent forth his Proclamation and Writs for a free Parliament they might have rested secure as doubtless the King might also have done in that Meeting But his Majesty having withdrawn himself c. they did therefore unanimously resolve to apply themselves to his Highness the Prince of Orange c. That is to say The King having withdrawn himself from the Cure of the Grand Distempers of the Nation and consequently Abdicated the Government they resolv'd to apply themselves to a more Skilful at least a more Willing Physician Which had the Discusser more considerately discuss'd when he wrote his Discussion would have sav'd him a great deal of trouble and expence Thus much for the Reasons which the Discusser brings to prove that the King before his withdrawing had sufficient Grounds to make him apprehensive of Danger and that therefore it cannot be call'd an Abdication That which follows being altogether grounded upon certain Statutes and Laws of the Land to the knowledg of which the Discusser seems to be a great Pretender is answer'd in a Word That they who pronounc'd the Throne Vacant understood the Latitude of their Power and the Intent and Limits of the Laws and Statutes of this Realm to that Degree that if nothing else the Consideration of that might have deterr'd the Discusser from the Presumption of appearing so vainly and scandalously in the World. Nor would I be thought so impertinent to transgress the Bounds of my own Understanding as he has done For indeed to tell ye the Truth if the Discusser should come to a Trial at Westminster-Hall I am afraid the Lawyers will certainly inform him that he has very much either mistaken or misquoted his Authors FINIS SATISFACTION tendred to all that pretend Conscience for Non-submission to our present Governours and refusing of the New Oaths of FEALTY and ALLEGIANCE In a LETTER to a FRIEND By R. B. late Rector of St. Michael Querne London And now Rector of Icklingham All-Saints Suffolk SIR I Cannot but admire at the Stiffness not to say Obstinacy of some in not complying with the present Government considering the late danger of Popery and that an Arbitrary Power was exercised amongst us by our late Rulers in asserting their Dispensing Power by the Mercenary Judges declared to be Law. You may remember in our late Conference upon this Subject you pleaded in Defence of your selves and others the Obligation you lay under to the Oath of Allegiance with your Subscription to the Doctrine of the Church of England contained in the 37 th Article and the First Canon of the Church but if it appear that all this is rather grounded upon Mistake than any solid Reality I will not question your ready Submission Oaths I confess are very strong Ties upon Men of Conscience and they are to be tenderly dealt with until that Prejudice be removed give me leave therefore with Sobriety and Meekness to enquire Whether that Oath be still in Force with the Obligation to it if not that Plea must vanish and disappear And here first let me remind you of the occasion of imposing the Oath of Allegiance it was injoyn'd to distinguish betwixt Church and Court Loyal and Disloyal Papists upon that honid Gunpowder-Treason which hath left a Stain of Villany and Cruelty upon that Religion never to be wiped off Read over the Anatomy of that Oath made by K. James the First in his Book of the Defence of it And what is there in it that can stick upon any Protestant except that Clause of denying all Foreign Jurisdiction Prince or Potentate And this you seem'd to hint at when you said the Prince of Orange was a Foreign Prince Will you be pleased in answer to this to fix your Thoughts upon that of the great Apostle St. Paul he is excepted that put all things under him So here without Question the King may divest himself of all Authority and Power and when this is done the Obligation ceaseth as if he were really Dead The Preface to the New Oath is not an authoritative Abdication but rather a Declaration of Matter of Fact that the late King James hath abdicated So that in fine the main of the Controversy lies here Whether the late King did abdicate For if he did without all Question the Obligation of all Oaths taken unto him is ceased In confirmation of the Affirmative I shall endeavour to make it clear that any King may And secondly That the late King did abdicate That Kings may denude themselves of their Princely Power and Sovereignty appears from what was done by Charles the Fifth Emperor of Germany and King of Spain at the same time who did abdicate both and his Subjects took new Oaths of Fealty to other Princes Some of those Times might question his Courage but none did
Contract between Princes and People grounded upon the Foundations of all Original Government I say 't is that Adhering to Evil Counsel which deposes a Prince by degrading him from a Lawful King to an Unlawful Tyrant and renders him Liable to the Animadversion of the Law and the impeachments of the oppress'd and injur'd People To assert otherwise were to deprive all National Law and Religion of their self Defence which is against all the Law and Religion in the World. I am apt to believe that Christ himself had no very good Opinion of the lawfulness of Herod's Regality when he sent him that Message Go tell that Fox Herod Which I look upon as a Deposal and Degrading of that Arbitrary Prince by the Founder of our Religion in his own Breast and Judgment though he forbore the Execution of his Celestial Power And therefore it is not the Error of Religion but the Fault of those that do not well distinguish that Religion suffers in her Doctrines For only he who governs according to Law is a King he that endeavours to subvert the Law is none Nor is every rambling and precipitate Brain to be Judg of this neither but the Solid Law and fundamental Constitutions of the Realm So that the Country Gentleman was mistaken in his Thoughts both of our Laws and our Religion However the pretended Scrupulous Country Gentleman desires the Discusser to expound the State-Riddle of the Vacancy and to give him the Ground of the late extraordinary Revolution To which the Discusser gives no direct answer at present but desires his Friend to take notice That the Gentlemen of the Convention who declar'd a Vacancy in the Government lay'd the main Stress of their opinion upon the King's withdrawing himself For that since the Story of the French League and the Business of the Prince of Wales were pass'd over in silence most Men believed that the pretended Breach of that which they called the Original Contract was no more then a popular Flourish All which is such an imperfect peice of Incoherence that none but a madman would have thrust in by Head and Shoulders as the Discusser has done For how can it be inferr'd that the Breach of the Original Contract should be a Popular Flourish because the Clandestin League and the False Birth are hitherto pass'd over in silence As for the surreptitious Birth one would think it was sufficiently dilated upon in the Declaration of the Lords and why it is not farther brought upon the Stage there may be several Reasons given and among the rest because it may be thought that the Imposture will vanish of it self and so there will be no need of casting an Eternal Blot upon the memory of them that contriv'd and own'd it Then for the Clandestin League it Suffices that there is apparent Proof of it in Bank. But to call the Breach of the Original Contract pretended and a Popular Flourish is a yerk of Malitious Reflection which only serves to expose the Discusser to Publick censure For as there is nothing more certain then that there is an Original Contract between the King and People of England the Breach of which has cost the Effusion of so much Blood so is it as certain that that Original Contract was never so infallibly broken then it was of late Which as it is allow'd by all the Laws of God and Man to be a sufficient ground to seek a Remedy so was nothing more vigorously urg'd by the Convention Which might have convinc'd the Discusser that they did not pretend it for a popular Flourish But now lest the Country Gentleman should be shogg'd by seeing the Votes of so considerable a Meeting debated by a private Hand the Discusser reminds him That a Parliament and a Convention are two different Things The latter for want of the King's Writs and Concurrence having no share in the Legislative Power But the Discusser forgets that it was only a Convention of Lords that sent to Richard the Second to meet them at Westminster which the King at first promis'd to do but upon altering his Mind sent him another peremptory Message that if he would not come according to his Promise they would chuse another King and then proceeding farther according to that Power they had expell'd against the King's Will several of his chiefest Favourites from the Court constrain'd others to put in Sureties to appear at the next Parliament and caus'd several others to be arrested and committed to several Prisons If a Convention could do this where the King was present what signifi'd the Writs and Concurrence of an absent Prince Nor did they contend for Legislative Power but only met in a kind of embodied Dictatorship to take care of the present Necessity of Affairs But this says the Discusser was not justifiable for that the Nenessity which they pretended was either of their own making or of their own submitting to which is the same Thing But this is all Nonsence For if the Necessity was of their own making then were the Lords and Commons the Authors of all the Miscarriages which they laid to the late King's Charge If of their own submitting to then would they never have call'd out for succour and crav'd Relief from their Oppressions No They were those crying Grievances sum'd up in the Declaration of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons assembl'd at Westmister presented to their Present Majesties upon the Twelfth of February Last which when the late King could not justify them by force of Arms but fled for it not being able to answer his endeavours to subvert and Extirpate the Protestant Religion and the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom put them to that necessity of assembling after an Unusual Manner to provide for the Common Safety How ever the Discusser will have it a Necessity of their own creating tho never so false For says he if the King had either not bin driven out of his Dominions or invited back upon honourable Terms they needed not have had recourse to such unusual singular Methods of proceeding And thus the Discusser rambles out of one Untruth into another For he fled from offer'd Treaty forsook the defence of his own Forces and left them to be disbanded in Arrears and without Payment slipt from his own Council by Night after he had appointed to meet them in Consultation the next Morning Nor could he justly suspect that any Violence would have been offer'd to Him in particular being so well assur'd as he could not choose but be of the Generous Inclination and profound Respect which the Prince had to his Person But if the Guilt of peculiar Miscarriages hasten'd his Departure or oversway'd him toleave the Heâ—m of Rule without any Form or Face of Goverment That could ne're be call'd an Expulsion out of his Dominions And therefore when a certain Gentleman waiting on him at Feversham besought him to return to London he gave the Person this Reply That he was an honest
Gentleman but knew not what he knew And when he had once abandon'd the Kingdom all forlorn without either Head or Conduct without Council or any Countenance of Authority then according to the Judgment of the Common-wealth of Venice in reference to the Succession of Henry the 4 th it belong'd to the Nobility and chief Persons of the Land as they are the chief Defence of the Royal Authority to take care of the Publick Safety whether by usual or unusual Methods of proceeding it matters not and they have both the Authority of Law and Necessity to justify their Proceedings As for his being invited back upon Honourable Terms 't is well known how he return'd back and went through the City on the Sunday Night attended by his own Guards and lodg'd in White-Hall and this most certainly in order to an Accommodation Only because the Prince was coming to Town he was sent to and for the avoiding any Disturbance that might be prejudicial to his Person was humbly desir'd to retire to Ham-House with Liberty to make choice of what Persons he thought fit to attend him Which he promised to do but recollecting himself and desiring to know whether he might not return back to Rochester word was sent him the next Morning that he might do as he pleas'd All this while here was no Constraint put upon him so that he could not be said to be driven out of his Dominions but that it was his own Choice to forsake it Notwithstanding all this The Discusser will undertake to prove That the King before his withdrawing had sufficient Grounds to make him apprehensive of Danger and therefore it could not be call'd an Abdication But through the whole Pursuit of his Argument the Discusser most wretchedly mistakes the Point quite mistaking the Effects for the Causes For says he Had not the King great Reason to retire to secure his Person and his Honour when he had met with so many unfortunate Disappointments with so many surprising and unparallel'd Accidents When part of the Army was revolted and the Remainder too apparently unserviceable When the People had such fatal and unremoveable Prejudices against his Service When there were such terrible Disorders in the Kingdom and all Places were either flaming or ready to take Fire What should a Prince do when he had scarce any thing left him to lose but himself but consult his Safety and give way to the irresistable Evil These are very great Disappointments and evil Accidents indeed to befal a Prince But the Discusser forgets to tell ye That the Prince brought all these Inconveniencies upon himself The Discusser tells ye that part of the Army revolted but he omits to tell ye that it was out of a Generous Principle for that being Protestants they would not embrue their Hands in the Blood of their Fellow Protestants and Countreymen nor be Instruments to enslave the Nation He tells ye of terrible Disorders in the Kingdom but does not tell ye it was time for the People to be in Disorder when they saw such Incroachments upon their Ancient Franchises such Inundations of Popery flowing in upon their Consciences and such a rapid Violence of French Thraldom tumbling in upon their Necks He complains that all Places were either flaming or ready to take Fire but forgets to tell you who were the Incendiaries These therefore with several others of the same Nature being the true Causes that drew the foresaid Inconveniencies upon the King it follows that tho the Secondary Constraint of his withdrawing might be occasion'd by the Effects yet the Primary Cause of his withdrawing proceeded from the First Causes which produced the Effects Consequently such a Retiring was voluntary and not forc'd because he may be justly said to fly from something of dreaded Punishment rather then pursuing Danger from which he was always at a distance far enough off but dubious what would become of him as to the Former The Discusser makes many other grievous Complaints to justify the King's First withdrawing for hitherto he is altogether upon that but when he comes to sum up all In short says he when the Forts and Revenue were thus disposed of when the Papists were to be disbanded and the Protestants not to be trusted when the Nation was under such general and violent Dissatisfactions when the King in case of a Rupture had nothing upon the matter but his single Person to oppose against the Princes Arms and those of his Subjects when his Mortal Enemies were to sit Judges of his Crown and Dignity if no father when Affairs were in this tempestuous Condition to say that a Free and Indifferent Parliament might be chosen with the Relation to the King 's Right as well as the People's and that the King had no just visible Cause to apprehend himself in Danger is to out-face the Sun and trample upon the Understandings and almost upon the Senses of the whole Nation As for the Fortified Towns it was but Reason that his then Highness the Prince of Orange who came over to rescue the Nation from Arbitrary Violence and Oppression should demand them to be put into his Power well Knowing them to be then in the Hands of Irish Papists and Cut-Throats of whom the People stood in Perpetual Fear and who were rather a Consternation then Security to the Kingdom And the same reason holds in Relation to the Revenue For all the World knows what Vast Sums had been Squander'd away by the late King when Duke to keep off the sitting of Parliaments and to buy off the Members when they Sate and when that Money was spent so much to the Detriment of the Realm what Sollicitations were made to the French King for more to carry on the Popish Cause and Interest It was as well known how the Revenue had of late Years been Embezl'd to keep up a standing Army of Irish Ragamuffins as if England were now in its Turn to have been conquer'd by Ireland as formerly Ireland had been conquer'd by England From which fears when his present Majesty had delivered the Nation it was but reason that his Army should be pay'd out of the Publick Stock for their happy Toyl and labour For the Publick Revenue of all Kingdoms and States was ever Originally intended for the Preservation and not the Destruction of the People Upon the Disbanding of the Papists the Discusser makes a special Observation That no Test-Acts nor any Others could barr the King from Listing them as Common Souldiers This perhaps may be true that is to say that a Protestant Prince may list Papists and a Popish Prince Protestants to follow him in a lawful War. But when a Popish Prince in a Protestant Nation had made his chiefest Levies of Popish Common Souldiers to over-aw his Protestant Subjects and put his sole Confidence in them for his known and open Designs and manifest Endeavors to introduce Popery into a Protestant Kingdom contrary to the Law 't was time then to think of
Dictatorship out of a Vain-glorious Opinion of Felicity that attended him and to shew that he had such an awe over the Romans that tho he were a Private Person no body durst call him to an Account for the Cruelties he had committed History tells us that Dioclesian abdicated the Empire for madness that he could not have his Will of the Christians How does the Discusser know but that King James abdicated the Government because he could not have his Will of the Protestants Charles the V th abdicated the Empire because he found his wonted Good Fortune had left him Bernard Rasfield Bishop of Munster finding himself between two Grindstones the Persecution of the German Priests for going about to deprive them of their Concubines and the Pope's Excommunication if he did it not abdicated his Principality and Bishoprick that he might be at quiet Lastly to shew that Abdication does not always imply Consent Brutus compell'd Tarquinius Collatinus to abdicate the Consulship only because his Praenomen was invisum Civitati And then as for what the Discusser adds out of Grotius That a Neglect or Omission in the Administration of Government is by no means to be interpreted a Renunciation of it there 's no Body censures the late King for any Omission or want of Diligence in the Administration of his Government for he was too diligent indeed and that Diligence was the main Grievance which disgusted the People his Diligence to extirpate the Protestant Religion his Diligence to subvert the Laws and Liberties of the Ringdom and his Diligence to introduce Popery And this Diligence 't is to be fear'd was one of the main Causes of his Abdication Had he omitted more he would have had less reason to have abdicated And therefore it is a Vanity to infer that there can be no Pretence for an Abdication because the Word as he says always that is very rarely or never supposes the Consent of him that quits For that it is not in the Nature of Man to abdicate Empires Kingdoms Wealth and Honours but there must be some compulsive Reason within that moves them to it When Princes find the Times and Constitutions of the Kingdom will not bear their Government when Emperors grow stiff and stark with Age and begin to feel the Lashes of ill-Fortune when Ambitious Aspirers perceive they must take other Measures to compass their Designs then they swallow a self-denying Ordinance and think it convenient to retire from the Cares of the World or out of Harms way The Discusser says We have but two Instances with us which look like an Abdication since the Conquest which are in the Reigns of Edward II. and Richard II. both which were unjustly depos'd by their Subjects 'T is true they were so far from looking like Abdications that they were no Abdications at all For both those Princes being under a strict Confinement it was impossible for them to abdicate unless they could have made their Escapes Therefore they were forc'd Resignations and consequently formal Deposals Nor had the Queen or Henry of Lancaster any cause to declare the Throne Vacant as having already taken care to fill it themselves And whether those Princes would have resign'd or no it would have signified little to them that were by Claim in Possession But the Discusser has overslipp'd one Instance of a Perfect Abdication since the Conquest which the King would have certainly felt to his Cost had not the Pope and the Poictovins been his true Friends and the Case was much the same as at this Time. For the Lords and Barons of the Realm in the Reign of King John having often desired the King to restore them their Ancient Rights and Liberties and finding nothing but Delusions resolve no longer to be abus'd but betake themselves to Arms. The King then lying at Windsor and perceiving himself too weak for the Lords thought it no good way to proceed by Force but rather by Fraud and therefore sends to the Lords that if they would come to Windsor he would grant their Demands Thither the Lords repairing tho in a Military Manner for they durst not trust the King's Word he saluted them all kindly and promis'd to give them Satisfaction in all they demanded And to that Purpose in a Meadow between Stains and Windsor call'd Running-Mead he freely consented to confirm their former Charters and was content that some Grave Personages should be made choice of to see it confirm'd But the next Day when it was to be done he withdraws himself privately to South-Hampton and thence to the Isle of Wight Where it was concluded that he should send to the Pope acquaint him with the Mutiny of his Lords and require his Holinesses help In the mean time the King lay sculking up and down for three Months together in Corners that no Body knew where to find him or which was worse as some write roving and practising Pyracy upon the Neighbouring Seas Whether the Lords and Barons did in Words declare this to be a Vacancy of the Throne is not material to enquire Perhaps they were not so curious in those Days But what they did in Deeds amounted to the same as if they had done it in Words For perceiving themselves thus eluded they swore upon the Holy Altar to be reveng'd And what Revenge that was likely to have been is easy to conjecture by their swearing Allegiance afterwards to Lewis the French King's Son and bearing Fealty to him till the Death of the King. Whence it may be inferr'd That if a Prince in Hostility with his Subjects deserts his Kingdom upon any Account They who are next to the Government are not to hesitate as King John's Barons did in expectation of the King's Return but immediately to take care of the Common Safety lest they should bring the same Ruin upon the Kingdom as those Barons did by their Delay Lastly If the Discusser will not be convinc'd by what has hitherto been said Let him examine the King 's own words and try whether he can pick out any better Construction out of them then that which I shall make Says the late King in his Letter to the Earl of Feversham Things being come to that Extremity that I have been forc'd to send away the Queen and my Son the Prince of Wales that they might not fall into my Enemies hands I am oblig'd to do the same thing and to endeavour to secure my self the best I can c. Expressions of a disponding Mind and only full of Grief for the Disappointment of the Popish Career The King was afraid of the Queen and his Son the Prince of Wales as he calls him and therefore deeming it convenient to send Them out of the way believes himself oblig'd to follow them 'T is true there might be some Reason perhaps for him to send Them away but none to send away himself not being under the same Circumstances For let it be Paternal or Conjugal Affection or both together What