during his confinement there sent a Lady I could name on a message to two reverend Prelates of our Church together with an Emrauld Ring from his Finger as a Testimony of the Truth of her Commission to this effect That his Majesty being sensible of the sad condition the Church of England as well as he himself was in and that there was no way so likely for him to get out of it as by granting his Subjects and particularly the Church of England such securities for the enjoyment of their just Rights and Liberties as they could in reason demand therefore he wholly left it to the discretion of those Bishops to make to the Peers and Bishops that were then to meet suddenly whatever proposals they should think reasonable on his behalf for the satisfaction of the Church and safety of the Nation and that he would be ready to grant and ratifie them whensoever he should be required F. This is indeed more than ever I heard before and can scarce believe but did the Lady go and deliver her message And pray what answer did those Bishop give to this fair proposal M. Yes the Lady did deliver her message and these Bishops answer'd both to the same effect that they had a real duty and affection for his Majesty and a great desire to serve him but that considering the great Power of the Prince of Orange and his present aversion to any agreement with his Majesty they very much feared that the Peers would not venture to give the Prince any such advice or to interpose with him on his Majesties behalf which in my opinion was very meanly and cowardly done of them who considering their duty to him as King and also those particular obligations they owed him as their Benefactor and who had been the greatest means of their being raised to those dignities in his Brothers Reign now I desire to know if this message had received its intended effect what greater demonstration his Majesty could have given to satisfie the World that he really intended to set all things right again had he been permitted to do it F. I will not farther question the Truth of this Relation though perhaps I might have sufficient reason for it since you say you had it from a person of good credit and who was privy to this transaction nor yet will I be so inquisitive as to know the names either of the Bishops or of the Lady since you make it a secret but yet notwithstanding I do still very much question whether the King did ever really design to do what he then offer'd and did not intend to put a sham upon their Lordships to serve his present occasion and to see if he could divide the Bishops and Peers of the Church of England from the Prince of Oranges Interest and so by making them offer such Proposals as the Prince should not think fit to agree to might make them declare against his proceedings which would have created great divisions and heart-burnings between those of the high Church of England party and the Prince and thereby have involved us again in fresh disturbances of which no doubt the King and the Popish Faction were like to receive the greatest advantage for you know the old saying divide impera But to let you see that I do not speak without just grounds for my opinion let us examine every circumstance of this matter first if the King had meant really is it likely that he would have trusted a business of that high moment to a Woman When he had then the Lords of Alesbury and Arron besides other Protestant Gentlemen then waiting on him and they were much fitter to be trusted than this Lady let her be whom she will Or can any one believe if the King had meant really that he would not have sent his Proposals in Writing since he very well knew from the Princes Declaration as well as the Bishops Petition and Addresses to him what the whole Nation and the Church of England in particular required at his hands But that he must send a loose and uncertain Message which it was in his power to disown whenever he pleased by saying the foolish Woman mistook his meaning and she also might be so much his Creature as to take the fault wholly upon her self whenever it should serve the Kings turn so to do and therefore I think it was very wisely and honestly done of those reverend Prelets to refuse medling in such a ticklish affair since it is plain by his not making any such proposals to the Prince of Orange himself or the Lords about him that he was not to be made privy to it but rather it should be carried on whether he would or no and without giving him any satisfaction in his particular concern as to the Prince of Wales and lastly I desire you farther to consider whether the King might not hereafter when ever he had power have made void whatever agreements or concessions he should have then granted either to the Church of England or to the Nation by pleading afterwards that they were obtained by decrees whilst he was not sui juris but under the Power of the Prince of Orange I have but one thing more to add which I before omitted which is to make some reply to what you said concerning the mischief that the Mob has done upon Houses Forests and Praks since his Majesty's first departure and therefore granting the matter of Fact that much mischief and spoil has been committed yet I deny that it is more than has been done by the most Arbitrary Kings since the Conquest to this day as you are pleased to affirm for I believe you forget the Thirty Parish Churches and Towns which our Historian tell us your William the Conquerour and his Son Ruâ—us destroyed when they inlarged new Forrests and therein acted contrary to their Oaths like true despotick Tyrants you likewise forget the miserable spoil and waste which King Iohn and Henry the III. made upon the Houses Castles and Estates of the Barons and Gentry of England who opposed them in their unjust and illegal violations of Magna Charta besides other Tyrannical actions of the same kind committed by King Edward and Richard the II. too long here to relate but if these mischiefs were done you speak of who have we to thank for it but the King who stealing away on the sudden without leaving any orders for the Government of the Kingdom all persons in Commission either Civil or Military doubted whether their Commissions were noâ— at an end by the Kings deserting the Government as he did besides you very well know that the Common People were so enraged against the Popish Faction for so many insolent actions they had committed in King Iames's Reign and so many apparent breaches and contempts of all the Laws made against them that you cannot wonder if when they were rid of the fear of the Irish and of King Iames's Army they kept
of Succession yet even that will not hold in respect of the present settlement thereof by the Convention upon the Prince and Princess of Orange for their two Lives since you cannot but know that no Parliament yet was ever so presumptuous as to take upon them to settle or limit the Succession of the Crown without the consent of the King or Queen then in being Whereas the present Settlement was first made by the Convention upon the making of the Prince and Princess King and Queen tho' I grant it was afterwards confirmed by another pretended Act whereby all Princes that are or shall be Roman Catholicks when the Crown shall descend unto them are debarred from their right of Succession This though I grant to be made after the Prince and Princess of Orange took upon them the Title of King and Queen yet since that Statute was not made in a Parliament call'd by the King's Writs but in a Convention who owe their Meeting wholly to the Prince of Orange's Letters it is not only void in respect of the subject matter but also in the manner of making it and therefore I cannot believe that the Throne was ever vacant And I have as little reason to be satisfied that the Prince and Princess could be lawfully placed therein or that all Roman Catholick Princes can ever be barred from their right of Succession when ever it may fall to them F. If this be all you have farther to object I think I can easily answer it for in the first place I have already told you that the Convention did not take upon them to create or make any new form of Succession to the Crown but only to declare that the Prince and Princess of Orange are Rightful and Lawful King and Queen of England for upon supposition of King Iames's Abdication of the Crown and that the Prince of Wales cannot be taken for the lawful Son of the King 'till he can be brought over and that his Legitimacy be duly proved it must 'till then certainly be their right and no others and as for King William's holding the Crown during his own Life I have already told you it was not done without the tacit consent of the Princess of Denmark her self though I doubt not but it may also very well be justified upon those suppositions of the forfeiture of the Crown by King Iames and the Conquest the Prince of Orange made over him which are sufficient in themselves to barr any legal claim of those that either are or may pretend to be right Heirs But as for the other part of your Objection whereby you would prove that Popish Princes cannot be excluded from the Succession because the Act was made not in a Parliament but a Convention this wholly proceeds from your want of Consideration that at the first institution of the Government and long after whilst the Kingdom continued Elective there was no difference between a Great Council or Convention and a Parliament for pray call to mind the four first Great Councils after your Conquest reckoning that for one wherein King William I. was Elected or declared King whether it was possible for those Councils to be summon'd in the Kings Name before any body had taken upon themselves the Title of King the like I may say in the case of King Iohn and Henry the III d and that this continued after the Succession was setled in the next Heir by Blood appears by that Great Council that was summon'd after the death of Henry the Third which Recognized or Ordain'd his Son Prince Edward to be his Successor So likewise the Parliament that deposed King Edward the Second sate both before and after his deposition and resignation and elected his Son Edward the Third to be King and appointed his Reign to begin from the time of their Election and not of his Fathers resignation of the Crown so also upon the deposition of King Richard the Second the same Parliament that deposed him placed Henry the Fourth in the Throne and though the Writs of Summons were in the name of King Richard and they were never re-summon'd or new Elected in the Reign of Henry the Fourth yet did they still continue to sit and made divers new Acts and repealed several old ones all which hold good to this day And that the Parliament are the only proper Judges of the right of Succession even without the King you your self must grant or else how could they declare in the Thirty Ninth of Henry the VI th that the claim which Richard Duke of York made to the Crown could no way be defeated and certainly if that unfortunate Prince King Henry the Sixth had had sufficient Power or Interest in that Parliament they might and would have adjudged the Duke of York's Claim to have been groundless and contrary to Law and then I believe it would scarce have ever been heard of again But to make it out beyond exception that a Convention may become a Lawful Parliament though never call'd by the King's Writs when the King's Authority and Presence come once to be added to and joined with it appears by the first Parliament of King Charles the Second which though Summon'd in the Name of the Keepers of the Liberties of England yet nevertheless continued to Sit and make several Acts which hold good to this day and I doubt not but they might have made the like limitations of the Crown in respect of Roman-Catholick Princes as the Convention have now done and that it would have held good at this day since it is so much for the security of our Religion Liberties and Properties that it should be so since we have found by a dear bought experience in the Reigns of the four last Kings of the Scotch Line that still as they began to favour the Popish Religion and Interest in this Kingdom so did the Protestant and true English Interest in respect of our Religion Liberties and Properties still decline 'till at last they were like to be totally ruin'd and extirpated for that restless and dangerous Faction very well know that there is no means possible for them to re-establish their Superstition among us by due and legal Methods but only by introducing Arbitrary Power taking away Parliaments or else making them wholly to depend upon the King's Will as we see was labour'd and almost effected in the Reigns of the two last Kings and therefore I cannot but believe that the present Parliament has not only acted wisely but also legally to enact that for the future no Prince who is actually a Roman Catholick shall succeed to the Crown though he be next heir by blood M. I must still tell you I am as little satisfied with your suppositions of the forfeiture of the Crown by King Iames and the Conquest to the Prince of Orange as I am with your instances out of History concerning the power of the Great Councils meeting and chusing a King by their own inherent
Cowardice of his Souldiers F. Methinks Sir there is no such great cause of wonder much less of concern in all this For who can much admire that a Prince should be thus used who had not only provok'd a Powerful Enemy to invade him from Abroad but by industriously labouring to introduce Popery and Arbitrary Government at Home had lost the Hearts of almost all except his Popish Subjects insomuch that many of his own Souldiers were so terrified with the Thoughts of being discarded like the Protestant Army in Ireland to make room for Irish and French Papists that they had very little Courage to Fight when they saw Casheering was the best Reward they could expect if they proved Victorious And who can much pity a Prince who would rather loose the Affections of his People than displease a few Priests and Jesuites So that if he suffers he may thank himself it not being Religion but Superstition which brought this Misfortune upon him Since the King having got a Prince of Wales and as it is highly suspected joined himself in a strict League with France for the Extirpation of Hereticks it laid an absolute necessity upon the Prince of Orange to come over that by the Assistance of the States of Holland he might not only relieve us but vindicate his own and her Royal Highness his Princessâ—s Right to the Succession and secure his Countrey from a dangerous and powerful invasion which it was threatned with both by Sea and Land whenever the Kings of France and England should be at leisure to joyn their Forces to make War upon them which you know all Europe hath expected for above these two Years last past M. These things were somewhat if they could be proved but indeed to deal freely with you I look upon this League and the Story of the Suppositious Birth of the Prince of Wales as meer Calumnies cast out of Wicked and Crafty Men to render the King more odious to his People F. Nay Sir you don't hear me positively affirm either the one or the other since I grant they are not yet made out but whatsoever will consider all the Circumstances of the Birth of this Child cannot but be strongly inclined to believe it an Imposture notwithstanding all the Depositions that are taken to the contrary And as for the French League you may be sure if there be any such thing it is kept very private and yet I must tell you there are very high and violent Presumptions to believe it true or else why should the King of France in a late Memorial to the Pope complain that his Holiness by Opposing his Interest in Europe had hindered him in those great Designs he had for the Extirpation of Heresie by which he must surely intend England or Holland Protestantism being sufficiently expelled out of his own Countrey already And he could not do it in either of the other without the Consent and Assistance of his Brother the King of England Or to what purpose should the King of England joyn with France to ruin Holland and his own Son in Law into the Bargain but to make a War meerly for Religion since neither the Dutch nor the Prince their Stadt-holder gave him till now any just Provocation M. Well however these are but bare suspitions and presumptions at most and not proofs and therefore in a doubtful matter as this is if we ought to judge favourably of the Actions of others much more of Princes whose Councils and Actions tho' private yet are still exposed to the Censure and Calumnies of their Enemies and therefore I hope you will not blame me if I freely confess that I am deeply concerned to see an innocent and Misled King forced to seek his Bread in a Forreign Land and the more since many of the Nobility Gentry and Common People have contributed so much to it by taking up Arms against him and that so great a part of his own Army and Officers should contrary to their Allegiance and Trust reposed in them run over to the Enemy Nay that some of our Bishops and Clergy-men should contrary to the so often acknowledged Doctrines of Passiveâ— Obedience and Non-Resistance not only Countenance but be likewise active in such desperate undertakings and this in-direct opposition to the known Laws of God and this Kingdom which must needs make our Church a Scorn to our Enemies the Papists and a Shame and Reproach to all Protestant Churches abroad and render the people of England odious to all the Crowned Heads in Europe F. Well Sir I see you are very warm and I hope more than the cause deserves You may Judge as favourably of the King's Proceedings and as hardly of the Actions of the Nobility Gentry Clergy and People in this matter as you please But yet I think I can make it as clear as the Day that they have done nothing by joining in Arms with he Prince of Orange but what is justifiable by the Principles of Self preservation the Fundamental Constitutions of the Government and a just Zoal for their Religion and Civil Liberties as they stand secured by our Laws unless you would give the King a Power of making up Papists and Slaves whenever he pleased But as for your Doctrine of an Absolute Obedience without Reserve and the Divine Right of Monarchy and Succession you need not be much concerned whether the Papists laugh at you or no since there are very few of them if any who are such Fools themselves as to believe such futilous Opinions But indeed they have more reason to laugh at you whilst you maintain than when you quit them since as they have only rendered you a fit Object of their Scorn so they would have made you but a more casâ—â— Sacrifice to their Malice For what can Thieves desire more than that those they design to Rob should think it unlawful to resist them And what could the Papists have wisht for more than that our Hands being fotterred by this Doctrine of an indefinite Passive-Obedience our Lives Religion and Liberties should lye at their Mercy Which how long we should have enjoyed whenever they thought themselves â—â—rong enough to take them away the late cruel Persecutions and Extirpations of the Protestants in France Savey Hungary and other places have proved but too fatal Examples and therefore no wonder let your high-flown Church-men write or preach what they please if the Body of the Nobility Gentry and People of England could never be perswaded to swallow Doctrines so fatal to their Religion and destructive to their Civil Rights and Liberties both as Mon and Christians And as for the Antiquity of these Doctrines I think they are so far from being the Antient Tenets of the Church of England that they are neither to be found in its Chatechism Thirty Nine Articles or Book of Homilies taken in their true Sense and Meaning thô indeed there is something that may tend that way in some of the late Church-Canons about
little value for those things which are the foundations of our happiness as to desire they should be Sacrificed to an Arbitrary Power nor on the other side have I so great a value for them as to endeavour their preservation by Rebellion and deposing the King which since I look upon as altogether unlawful we are then to follow the Apostles Rule and not do Evil that Good may come of it but as for what I have urged in excuse of the Conquerors Perjury and breach of Laws I confess I have said more than the matter will well bear but I hope you will excuse it since I confess the argument is none of mine but the Doctors from whom I borrowed it and I did not consider the bad consequences of it yet this much I must still freely affirm that neither King William the Conqueror nor his present Majesty who is his heir by an Hereditary Right of Succession either could then or can now at this day be lawfully resisted much less can be deposed or can forfeit their Royal Dignity for any Male administration or Tyranny whatsoever F. Pray give me your reason for that since I think you may be very well satisfied that this Kings Title by Conquest from King William his Ancestors can signifie nothing tho' I should grant the utmost you can demand and therefore tho' I am as much against Rebellion and Deposing of Princes as you can be and doing of evil that good may come of it yet the question remains still to be decided between us whether that resistance I maintain be Rebellion or not and whether it be Treason to deny obedience to a Prince who hath done his utmost to lose the very name of King by not observing those conditions on the performance of which he can only keep his Royal Dignity now since I think I have fully proved the two Points I undertook viz. both that of the Kings forfeiting the Crown in the cases I have put as also that of the matter of Fact whereby you would maintain that the King has an indeseasable Right to the Crown of this Realm â—as an Absolute Monarch by the Conquest now since you decline arguing this Point any farther because you find it is not to be maintained pray let me know what other reasons you have why you cannot come over to my opinion M. Though I am not yet satisfied but that a great deal more may be farther urged by those who are better versed in this controversie to prove that his Majesty hath an unforfeitable Right to our Allegiance by the Conquest of King William and his Predecessors yet I shall not now insist any longer upon that Title which tho' our Kings have by so many gracious condescentions to the People of this Nation seemed to wave yet have they never renounced it as I know of but since his Majesty was setled in the Throne as an Absolute and Lawful King without any Competitor by a long series of aâ— Hereditary Succession of above six hundred years standing and confirmed by the Oaths of Allegiance of the People of this Nation both to him and his Ancestors he is not only our King by the Laws of Man but God also to whom and not to the People he owes his Crown and can therefore neither forfeit it nor be accountable to them for it and when you can prove the contrary you may then convince me to be of your opinion F. We have already partly argued this Point at our third and fourth discourses concerning the lawfulness of resistance but since perhaps you may have still somewhat farther to urge upon so important a question I desire to hear the utmost you can say to prove that Kings owe their Crowns to none but God and therefore ought never to be resisted neither can forfeit their Crown upon any pretence whatsoever and therefore pray appoint me some other time when I may wait on you again and fully discuss this Point since it is now very late M. I am sorry I cannot appoint you any certain time for since I see so great a confusion reigns every where and that there is like to be no Term and consequently no business for men of my Profession I am resolved to retire for two or three months into the Country till I see things a little better setled than they are at present and I heartily wish that the Convention which I hear is like to meet in some time may endeavour the Peace and Settlement of the Nation by sending for the King and the Prince of Wales out of France since I do not desire any more Conquests nor the Government of a Foreign Prince as long as we have a lawful King of our own who will govern us again if he might but as soon as I return to Town you shall be sure to know it In the mean time I am your Servant F. I am yours and wish you a good Journey FINIS Bibliotheca Politica OR A DISCOURSE By WAY of DIALOGUE On these following Questions I. In what Sense all Civil Power is derived from God and in what Sense may be also from the People II. Whether His Present Majesty King William when Prince of Orange had a Just Cause of War against King Iames the II. III. Whether the Proceedings of His Present Majesty before he was King as also of the late Convention in respect of the said King Iames is justifiable by the Law of Nations and the Constitution of our Government Collected out of the Best Authors as well Antient as Modern Dialogue the Eleventh LONDON Printed for R. Baldwin in Warwick-Lane near the Oxford-Arms where also may be had the First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth Seventh Eighth Ninth and Tenth Dialogues 1694. Authors made use of in this Dialogue and how denoted in the Margin The History of the Desertion H. D. The Desertion discussed D. D. Some Observations upon the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of the Kings of England O. E. I. A Discourse of the Illegality of the Late Ecclesiastical Commission I. E. C. ADVERTISEMENT ON tke first Day of the next Term will be published the Twelfth and Last Dialogue and also a large Index to the whole Work THE PREFACE TO THE READER BEing almost arrived at the end of my intended design I thought fit to let you know that I hoped to have made this the last Discourse that I should have troubled the World with upon these Subjects but when I came to reduce my Notes into form I found that these few sheets would not contain all that could well be said on either side upon the foregoing questions and therefore am forced to refer what remains to be said concerning the Vacancy of the Throne and Their Present Majesties Title thereunto till the next Dialogue which I intend shall be the last And which I should not have drawn to that length had it not been for the benefit of those Gentlemen and others who have not Time or Money to buy or peruse the vast
quantity of Pamphlets that have been written upon these Subjects as also that such as have perused them may find together in this and the following Discourse all that hath been urged on the one side or other upon these important Subjects And since the great number of Treatises of this kind have rather served to confound than instruct ordinary Readers I resolved to make use of the words of very few of them only to take the chiefest and strongest Arguments on either side and fairly to represent them at once to the Readers View who I hope hath the discretion to judge which are best since I declare I write for no Party but purely for Truth and therefore I have now and shall still endeavour to avoid all Personal Reflections in this as well as the ensuing Dialogue not only on Their Present Majesties but also on King James since I remember he was a Crowned Head and is still the Father of our Illustrious Queen let his failings have been what they will But I hope the Reader will not be scandalized if I have so far followed the opinions of the ablest Divines as well as Lawyers of this and other Nations in making one of the Parties in this Dialogue assert the consent of the People us the only just and natural means of conferring a just right to Civil Power since the learned Mr. Hooker in his first book of Ecclesiastical Policy lays it down as a Principle that in every Politick Societyâ—â—â—t is impossible that any should have compleat lawful Powâ—â— buâ—â—y the consent of men or the immediate appointment of God and Chancellor Fortescue in his Discourse de Laudibus Legum Angliae 12 and 13. Chapters supposes all Kingly â—ower as well what is Absolute as that which is Politick or limited by Laws to have proceeded at first from the Peoples consent not that the Power it self is otherwise than from God only he has made use of the People as an Instrument whereby to convey it and I hope none of those who are still for King James's Interest will be offended at this Doctrine since those that have writ with the greatest Iudgment for his absolute indefeasible Title to the Crown have placed it in his Legal Right to it by the Laws of the Land which all must own could not have been made without the Peoples Consent I have but one thing more to desire of you which is your Patience and Attention if some of the Speeches in this Dialogue are longer than ordinary since they are upon subjects that would not well bear interruption and to tell you farther the Press staying for the Sheets I had not time to make them shorter THE Eleventh Dialogue BETWEEN Mr. MEANWELL a Civilian AND Mr. FREEMAN a Gentleman F. DEar Sir you are welcome to Town you have been absent a long time and indeed I wonder how you could stay away so long when such greaâ— things as the King to have Abdicated and placing his Son and Daughter in the Throne have been transacted M. I thank you kindly Sir but yet I must tell you that I have been so little satisfied with what your Convention has done in these matters that the very hearing of it hath been a great affliction to me and it would have certainly been a much greater had I been upon the place and seen such horrid things as the Deposition of a King the disinheriting of his right Heir and the setting up the Prince and Princess of Orange who certainly could have no right to the Crown as long 〈◊〉 the King lives nor yet after his death as long as the Prince of Wales is in being F. I confess these are very high Charges if they would hold but if you please to consider the Hypothesis I proposed at our last Meeting That the King had by breach of the Original Contract made between his Ancestors and Predecessors and the People of this Nation to observe the Fundamental Laws and Constitutions of the Kingdom forfeited his Right to the Crown All that hath been done in this great Affair I suppose may be very well maintain'd and justified from the necessity of the thing and of maintaining the Fundamental Constitution of the Government and therefore pray give me leave to put you in mind how far I have proceeded in the pâ—ooâ— of this Assertion First I have made out that the King of this Realâ— is not the sole Supreme Power thereof neither ever was so from the very Institution of Kingly Government in this Island Secondly I have also prov'd that the King not having the sole Power must hold that share thereof which he enjoys upon this imply'd or tacit condition that if he usurp what do's not belong to him and the People do assert their Right by opposing his Unjust Violence and Usurpations and that he still obstinately persists in this Violation he certainly thereby loses and forfeits not only that part of the Power which he so unjustly usurped but also his own too and for this I gave you the Authority of the Learned Grotius at our last Meeting Thirdly I have also answered your main Argument of King William the Conquerors obtaining by the Sword and Conquest of King Harold an Absolute Right and uncondition'd Power foâ— himself and his Successorâ— descended from him over the People of this Kingdom for I think I have sufficiently made out that King William had no other Right to the Crown of England than by the Testament of King Edward the Confessor and the Eâ—ection and Recognition of the People and this I have prov'd from the unexceptionable Authorities of the best Historians of that Time so that if he afterwards acted otherwise and contrary to his Coronation Oath it was not as a Lawful King but as a Tyrant and an Usurper on the Rights and Liberties of the People and could not by his own Unjust Act acquire any Lawful Power so to Govern this Kingdom and therefore whatever Title King William or his Successors can pretend to it must be by vertue of the Election of the first King of the Saxon Line from whom all the Kings of England since Henry Y. are descended and consequently aâ—e oblig'd to hold the Crown under the same Conditions on which it was first conferr'd And tho' I grant that ever since the Reign of Edward I. the Crown has been no longer claim'd by Election but by Succession of him that really was or else was presum'd to be the Right Heir yet this different way of acâ—uiring the Crown do's not at all alter the condition or manner of holding it sâ—â—e ouâ— Kings have always after that time as before been tyed to the same or rather â—â—â—cter Terâ—â— in their Coronation Oaths to observe and keep the Laws and Customs of this Realm and also that the Power of the Great Council of the Kingdom or Parliament making Laws raising Taxes and redressing of Grievances arising 〈◊〉 the Unjust Exercise and Illegal Encroachments of the Kings Prerogative hath been exerted
same right by which they took upon them to make this Declaration by the same right not only every Curate of a Parish but also every Layman in England was free to Judge of the Kings breach of this Law and consequently of denying obedience thereunto which disobedience if it once prove general will quickly make the Kings personal commands wholly insignificant So that it seems it is not the Peopleâ— Judging of the Illegality of the Kingâ— Actions and Commands which is the thing you 〈◊〉 fault with since when these Bishops acted thus all the high men of the Church of England praised it to the Skie So that it seems it is now the bare Censuring and Disobedience that makes it a crime but it is the iâ—sisting such Violent and Illegal orders and commands and at last Declaring that Power void and forfeited by which they were made That sticks in your stomach which is as much as to say that this Judging and Disobedience in its self is no Crime but the pushing it home and doing it in such a way as that it may be mended for the future though this is never lawful to be done but when things come to that extremity that all milder remedies are become ineffectual But to answer your Objections a little more closely the consequences of my Opinion are not so dangerous as you suppose them if you will please to consider what I have already laid down at our last Meeting As first That this Resistance is never to be made but when this violent breach of the Laws becomes evident and undeniable not to the Rabble alone but to the whole Nation that is all sorts and degrees or men and as long as there is any question about it I acknowledge it is by no means to be used And lastly As to declare the Regal Power forfeited this likewise is never to be done but when the King becomes so obstinately resolved to pursue those evil and illegal coâ—â—es as that he is utterly irreclaimable and refuses all propositions and terms of amending or redressing them And as to what you say that the King is hereby depriv'd of all means of justifying himself or vindicating his Actions that is not so since if a War be once begun he may do this either by Declaration or Treaties as King Charles the First did in his War with the Parliament by which means he gain'd a great many both of the Nobility Gentry and Commonalty to his Party who were before absolutely set against him But if you will needs have a Parliament to Judge and examine the reality of this forfeiture I so far joyn with you that though every private man may first judge thereof yet is it not become absolute and an Act of the whole People till the Estates of the Kingdom have by some solemn Vote or Declaration made it so M. Well I see you do all you can to make the best of a bad Cause but though I think nothing of what you have said can give Subjectâ— any right to resist much less to cast off all Allegiance to their Natural Prince yet I shall not now dispute this point any longer with you but will proceed to the merits of the Cause and shall lâ—â— you see that even upon your own principles the King has not been dealt 〈◊〉 in all this whole transaction either like an Ally by the States General of the United Provinces or like a near Relation or a Son in-law by the Prince of Orange or like a King by his own Subjects To begin with the Estates in the first place it is apparent that they have acted treacherously with the King and contrary to the last Treaty of Peace and Alliance in furnishing the Prince 〈…〉 their Captain General and 〈◊〉 holder both with Ships Men and Money and make this late Expedition against England without so much as ever declaring the cause of their Quarrel or demanding any satisfaction if any occasion of difference had been given But the Prince of Orange his dealing with the King his Father-in law has been much less justifiable for in the first place he is not only guilty of the same fault with his Masters the Dutch in beginning a War without ever declaring the causes of it or demanding any satisfaction or â—eparation if he had been injur'd till it was too late to go back and that his Fleet was ready and the Army shipt for the Expedition but which was more unkind from a Nephew and a Son-in-law who had reason to expect all the satisfaction which a King an Uncle and a Father-in-law could give though indeed to speak the truth the whole War was in my Opinion altogether unjust on the Pâ—â—nces side since his chief pretences were to redress Grievances and to re-establish the Bishops and Church of England with the Colledges in their just Rights and also restore the whole Nation to the just Execution of the Laws by a Free Parliament and Priviledges Now I desire to know what the Prince of Orange had to do either as a Neighbour or a Son-in-law to concern himself with the Mis-government of the Affairs of England much less to countenance and take the part of those many Male contents and Traitours who have ever since the Duke of Manmouth's Rebellion gone over into Holland So that upon the whole matter I can find but one thing which he had so much as a pretence of making War about if it had been real viz. the pretended suppoâ—â—â—tioâ—s Birth of the Prince of Wales and yet even for this he ought not to have made War till such time as all reasonable satisfaction in this matter had been demanded and denied him and that the next Parliament which the King had before declared should meet in November last had been either hindered from medling in it or that they had faâ—â—'d to make a due enquiry into it But if we look home F. Pray Sir before you come to consider what has been done here give me leave to iustifie the late proceedings of the States General and the Prince of Orange in this matter First as to the Estates it is a very great mistake for you affirm that they made this War upon the King in their own names or furnish'd the Prince of Orange with Ships or Men as their Sâ—adt-holder or General but only as a free Independent Prince whom they looked upon to have a good Cause of making War against the King of England as one they had great cause to believe was so far engag'd in the France interesâ— as instead of standing 〈◊〉 in this War with the Empire which they every day expected when he would joyn with France and declare War against them as they had reason to â—ear by several angry Memorials which the French King's Eâ—voy in Holland had not long before given them so that indeed it was but according to the Rules of Self-preservation to begin first especially when it might be done without their appearing in it at allâ— but granting
this War had been made in their own names it had been but a just Return for what had been done to them before by the Late King who made actual War upon them without ever giving them the least notice or demanding satisfaction for any wrongs or damages receiv'd and this was the more justifiable because his present Majesty when Duke of York was looked upon to have a very great hand in those Councils which begun that unhappy War in which he himself serv'd as Admiral But as to the Prince of Orange there is much more to be said in his justification for in the first place tho' in some respects he was a Subject by living under and enjoying divers Lands and Territories and Commands within the Dominions of the United Provinces yet as he is Prince of Orange he is a free independent Prince and as such has a right of making War and Peace and if so all that is to be further enquired into is whether the Prince had any just cause of making War upon the King or â—ot therefore to answer your first Objection against the Prince's making War upon an Uncle and a Father-in-law without first demanding satisfaction and then denouncing War if he could not obtain it I confess this were a good Objection if you could once prove to me that the Prince could have been sure to have had granted him whatever he could in reason demand both in respect of the Church of England the security of the Protestant Religion the Rights and Liberties of the Subjects of England and his own particular concerns in respect of the Prince of Wales but whoever will impartially consider the Terms that the Prince and King were upon just before his coming over will find that he was not obliged to give the King notice of his intentions by first demanding satisfaction and then denouncing War if it had been denyed since the King might then have joyned his own with the French Fleet and sent for French Forces into England and then all that the Prince could have done in behalf of himself and the Nation had been altogether in vain And then though I grant that such satisfaction ought to be demanded in most cases yet will it not hold in this where if the Prince had sooner discovered his designs the King might have easily prevented them And how near this was to have been put in Execution may appear by this That Succours were actually offered by the French King and if they were refused by ours it was partly because it was too late for the French Fleet to be then put out and partly out of a Politick consideration that besides the losing of the Hearts of his English Subjects it might give the French such a footing here that they would not be easily gotten out again But indeed it seems as if the old formal way of making War was quite out of fashion since Charles the Second made War against the Dutch and the King of France so lately against Spain the Elector Palatine and the Emperor without any Observation of those formalities But if we consider the Grounds and Causes of this War as they are set forth in the Princes late Declaration they may be reduced to these three Heads First The Restoration of the Church of England with the Bishops and Colledges to their just Priviledges Secondly The securing of the Rights and Liberties of the Subject from the Dispensing Power and those other Incroachments that had been made upon them by the partial Judgments of Popish Ignorant or Corrupt Judges And Lastly The Enquiry into the Birth of the Prince of Wales In all which the Prince was so reasonable as to refer the decision of these differences to the Judgment of a Free Parliament Now as for the first of these That the Prince as a Neighbour and of the same Religion with us might justly secure the interest of the Protestant Religion here and also redeem the Clergy from the persecution they lay under is very evident Since it has always been held lawful for Princes to take the part and espouse the interest of those of the same Religion with themselves though Subjects to another Prince Thus Eusibius makes it a good cause of War by the Emperor Constantine against Licinius because he persecuted the Christians living under his Dominions So likewise of later Ages Queen Elizabeth assisted the Dutch Protestants of the united Provinces and those of France against the Persecutions and Oppressions they suffered from their own Princes As to the French Protestants King Charles the I. sent a Fleet and an Army to their Assistance in 1627. But as to the next Head the Oppressions we lay under in respect of our Civil Liberties the Prince had as great or rather greater right to vindicate these than the former For Bodin and Barclay though they suppose it unlawful for Subjects to take up Arms against their Prince though never so highly Opprest yet they count it not only lawful but Generous and Heroick for a Neighbouring Prince to rescue injur'd and opprest Subjects from the Tyranny of their Kings So that if the King had by his Dispensing Power his Levying of Taxes without Law and taking away the freedom of Elections for Parliament men almost totally dissolved the Government and brought it to the condition of an absolute Monarchy it was high time for the Prince to put a stop to those Encroachments both in respect of his own particular interest and also of the States whose General and Stadâ—holder he is Of the former since if this Kingdom should once become of the Popish Religion by the means of a standing Army and those other methods that have been taken to make it so granting the Prince of Wales to be truly born of the Queen yet should he happen to die the Popish faction here in England would in all likelihood debar the Prince and Princess of Orange from their lawful Succession to the Crown or at least would never admit them but upon conditions of establishing of Popery and Arbitrary Government in England the former of which is as contrary to their consciences as the latter is to their principles and inclinations So on the other side if the Prince of Wales be not the Queens true Son he had certainly a much greater interest as the presumptive Heir of the Crown to demand satisfaction in that great point which so nearly concerned their right of Succession For then certainly they might justly demand satisfaction especially when they desired no more but to have this business left to the inspection of the Estates of the Kingdom as the only proper Judges of the same For as to the Privy Council who by the Kings command though without any president had taken upon them to hear and determine this matter their Highnesses certainly had no reason to be satisfied with it since besides the incompetency of the Judges the King himself appeared too partial and interested in the affair for them to set down by
But it is very strange to me that none of them deposed any thing concerning their seeing any Milk come from Her Majesties Breasts after she was Delivered And perhaps there was good reason for it for I have had it from good hands that she had none afterwards whatever she had before the reason of which deserves to be enquired into since it is very rare But as for the Mid-Wife her deposition is equivocal That she took a Child from the Body of the Queen She is also a Papist and consequently a suspected witness in this cause Whereas all this might have been prevented had the Queen were she really with Child been perswaded to be Delivered not within the Bed but upon a Pallate where all the persons whose business and concern it was to be present might have seen the Child actually born nor needed there to have any men been by though I have heard that the late Queen of France was Delivered of the present King the Dake of Orleans not being only present in the Room but an Eye-witness of the Birth And so sure if somewhat of this nature had been done it might have saved a great deal of dispute and bloodshed which has already or may hereafter happen about it And therefore I do not at all wonder that the Prince of Orange should not take this partial Evidence that has been given for sufficient satisfaction so that whether this Birth of the Queens was real or not I shall not now farther dispute It is sufficient that if His Highness and His Princess had just and reasonable suspitions of an Imposture whilst they remain under them they had also a just cause of procuring a Free Parliament to examine this great affair and also to obtain it by force since it was to be got no other way M. I need not further dispute this business of the Prince of Wales with you since I durst appeal to your own Conscience whether you are not satisfied notwithstanding these supposed indiscretions in the management of the Queens Delivery that he is really Son to the Queen and I think it would puzzle you or I to prove the Legitimacy of our own Children by better evidence than this has been and I think all those of your party may very well despair of producing any thing against it since the Prince of Orange himself has thought it best to let it alone as knowing very well there was nothing material could be brought in evidence against him But I shall defer speaking further to this Head till I come to consider of the Conventions setling the Crown upon the Prince and Princess of Orange But before I come to this I have many things further to observe upon the Princes harsh and unjust proceedings with his Majesty and refusing all terms of Accommodation with him upon his last return to London In the first place therefore I must appeal to your self whether It were done like a Nephew and a Son-in-Law after the King was voluntarily returned to White Hall at the perswasion of those Lords who went down to attend him at Feversham when he had had scarce time to rest him after his journey and the many hardships he had indured since his being seized in that Port and when he had but newly sent my Lord Feversham with a kind Message and Complement to the Prince inviting him to St. Iames's together with some overtures of Reconciliation as I am informed the Prince should make no better a return to all this kindness than to clap up the Messenger contrary to the Law of Nations as his Majesty observes in his Late Paper I now mentioned And should without any notice given to the King of it order his men to march and displacing his Majesties Guards to seize upon all the Posts about White-Hall whereby his Majesties Person became wholly in his Power And not content with this he likewise dispatcht three Lords whose names I need not mention to carry the King a very Rude and Undutiful Message desiring him no less than to depart the next Morning from his Pallace to a private House in the Countrey altogether unfit for the reception of his Majesty and those Guards and attendance that were necessary for his security Nor would these Lords stay till the Morning but disturbing his rest delivered their Message at Twelve a Clock at Night nor did they give him any longer time than till the next Morning to prepare himself to be gone and then the King was carried away to Rochester under the conduct not of his own but of the Princes Dutch Guards in whose custody his Majesty continued for those few days he thought fit to stay there till his departure from thence in order to his passage into France by which means the Prince hath render'd the breach irreconcileable between his Majesty and himself for whereas if he had come to St. Iames's in pursuance of the Kings Invitation and had renewed the Treaty which was unhappily broke off by the Kings first going away there might have been in great probability a happy and lasting reconciliation made between them upon such terms as might have been a sufficient security for the Church of England as also for the Rights and Liberties of the Subject which you so earnestly contend for whereas by the Conventions declaring the Throne vacant and placing the Prince and Princess of Orange therein they have entail'd a lasting War not only upon us but our Posterity as long as his Majesty lives and the Prince of Wales and his Issue if he live to have any are in Being F. I confess you have made a very Tragical relation of this affair and any one that did not understand the grounds of it would believe that King Iames being quietly setled in his Throne and the Prince of Orange refusing all terms of reconciliation had seiz'd upon his Pallace and carried him away Captive into a Prison whereas indeed there was nothing transacted in all this affair which may not be justified by the strictest Rules of Honour and the Law of Nations for the doing of which it is necessary to look back and consider the state of affairs immediately after the Kings leaving Salisbury and coming to White-hall where one of the first things he did after he was arrived was to issue out a Proclamation for the calling a new Parliament which was so received with great satisfaction by the whole Nation and immediately upon this the King sent the Lords Hallifax Nottingham and Godolphin to treat with his Highness upon those Proposals of Peace which he then sent by them and to which the Prince return'd his answer the heads of which are very reasonable without demanding any other security for himself and his Army than the putting of the Tower and Forts about London into the Custody of that City now pray observe the issue of all those fair hopes before ever the terms propos'd by the Prince could be brought to Town the King following the ill advice of the
still here for the King did not leave Rochester until the 23d in the morning so it is plain it was not their design to own or take notice of him any more as King and that which makes it more remarkable is that several of the Bishops viz. the Arch-Bishop of York together with the Bishop of St. Asaph and others joyned with the rest of the Peers in these Addresses which was a plain sign they all looked upon the Kings Power to be now at an end But as for the Acclamations of the people or any great joy the City expressed upon the Kings return to Town I doubt you have had a false account of that matter for I cannot hear that any of the Citizens went out to meet him or set any Lights in their Windows though he came into London after it was dark or that any of the better sort bid him God Speed I grant indeed there was a great many of what you call the Mob but more Boys than Men who followed his Coach making Huzza's whilst the rest of the people silently looked on M. I cannot deny but you may have given a true account of these matters since you may have observ'd them better than I yet as you your self have Related them sure the King had sufficient cause to Consult his own Safety and make his escape as soon as he could for what could he expect when once the Prince had secured his Person under a Guard and had refused to Treat with him as King and that also the Peers and divers of the Bishops had made an Association to stand by the Prince of Orange and had made a fresh Address to him without taking the least notice of him as if there had been no such thing as a King in being I say what could his Majesty now expect but either a more close Confinement or else being taken off privately by poyson or some other ways since he could not be forgetful of the King his Fathers saying that there is no great distance between the Prisons and the Graves of Princes or admit he had lived till this Convention Saâ—e what could he have expected more than the retaining the bare Title of King whilst the Prince of Orange or some others appointed by Him had wholly managed the Government at their pleasure or else they might according to your Doctrine have either declared the Crown forfeited or else that he had Abdicated it by his going away or who can tell but they might have again renewed the Villany of 48. and have made him undergone the same Fate with his Father F. I grant you have urged the utmost that can be to justifie the Kings second Departure and as I would not deny but that he was the best Judge of his own Danger so were the Prince Peers and Common together with the City the best and only Judges we could then have of the true means of our settlement and safety since after so many breaches that the King had made upon his first Declaration and Coronation Oath as also his going from his late Promise of calling a Free Parliament I cannot see what farther security he could have given us that he would not repeat the same things over again or admit the Prince had suffered him to continue at White-hall and to call a third Parliament what assurance could he have given that in the end of another forty days we should not have the same trick play'd us and then in March or April have been left in the same state of Confusion we were in in December to the certain ruine of these three Kingdoms and Holland into the bargain And then by that time the French King might have got ready an Army and a Fleet and under a pretence of redeeming his Majesty from the constraint he lay under and of restoring him to the free exercise of his Regal Power have Invaded this Kingdom and I suppose you cannot deny but the King would then have sound Papists and High Tories enough to have joined with him in this pious design for certainly the scruples of the high Church-men would have been the same they are now the obligations of the Oath of Allegiance the same and the supposed Sin of deposing a Lawful K. the same though he had utterly refused to give the Prince and Nation any satisfaction so that then if we had been forced to take Arms and to declare he had forfeited his Right to the Crown all these things would have given as great or rather greater scandal than for the Nation to take him at his first offer and since he had thus rashly deserted the Throne by a needless departure to resolve he should Ascend it no more But suppose what might also as well have happened that the Prince and his Party had been killed or expelled the Kingdom by the King do you think he would have granted us then what he would not grant us now Would he not think you have disbanded his Protestant Army and have kept only Irish Scotch and French Forces in pay and have every day encreased them What respect can we hope he would ever after this have shewn to our Laws Religion or Liberties when he had now no longer any thing to fear The memory of what happened after the Duke of Monmouth's defeat though effected only by those of the Church of England will certainly never be forgotten by others whatever you Bigots of Loyalty may pretend or say So that for my part I stand amazed to see you and so many others scruple the submitting to the present King for if ever man had a just cause of War he had and that creates a right to the thing gained by it the King by withdrawing and disbanding his Army yielded him the Throne and is he had without any more Ceremony ascended it he had done no more than several Princes formerly have done on the like occasions for the Prince was no longer then bound to consider him as one that was but as one that had been King of England yet in that capacity he treated him with great respect and civility how much soever the King complained of it who did not enough consider what he had done to draw upon himself that usage but as for your insinuation that if he had stayed he might have run the same fate with his Father I think it is fuller of Passion than Truth for besides that the Lords and Commons would never had the Impudence to have committed such a Villany and the Prince himself as a Nephew and a Son-in-Law would never have suffered it M. Well God only knows the event of things and we ought to judge charitably and still to hope that if the King might have been restored upon terms that he would have been the better for his Affliction and have amended all those errours he committed since he had seen that neither the Nation nor yet his Neighbours the Dutch would permit him to make himself an Absolute
in Prison and the first Act this King did after his Restoration was to call a Parliament which revoked all the former Statutes and Declarations of the 39 th of Henry the 6 th and 1 st of Edward the 4 th and then entail'd the Crown anew upon the issue of King Henry the remainder to the Duke of Clarence who then took part with King Henry against his own Brother 'T is true indeed that King Edward the 4 th returning again not long after into England and regaining the Crown from King Henry the 6 th the said King was not only murther'd together with his Son Prince Henry but in the next Parliament was also attainted of Treason with all others of his Party and yet lot let you see that this very Act is now null and void against King Henry the 6 th and his Son Prince Edward see an Act of Parliament of the first of Henry the 7 th not Printed which because it is not commonly known I will read it almost verbatim The King our Sovereign remembring how against all rightwiseness honour nature and duty an inordinate seditious and slaunderous Act was made against the most famous Prince of blessed memory King Henry the sixth his Uncle at the Parliament holden at Westminstey the fourth day of November the first year of the Reign of Edward the 4 th Late King of England whereby his said Uncle contrary to the due Allegiance and all due order was attainted of High Treason wherefore our same Sovereign Lord by the Advice and Assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in this present Parliament assembled and by Authorities of the same ordaineth enacteth and establisheth that the same Act and all Acts of Attainder Forfailure or Disablement made or had in the said Parliament or else in any other Parliament of the said Late King Edward against the said most blessed Prince King Henry or against the right famous Princess Margaret Late Queen of England his Wife or the right Victorious Prince Edward Late Prince of Wales Son of the same blessed Prince K. Henry and Margaret c. are void annulled and repealed and of no force nor effect so that by vertue of this Act the Title of the House of Lancaster was again declared to be good But to conclude I cannot but take notice of one mistake you have fallen into by saying that all proceedings against King Richard the 2 d. are repeal'd by that Parliament of the first of Edward the 4 th which is not so for though I grant that the dealings of Henry Earl of Darby as he is there call'd in imprisoning the said King and Usurping the Royal Power is there expresly condemned and his Murthering of him said to be against Gods Law and his own Oath of Allegiance as certainly it was yet the Deposition of the said King Richard by Parliament is no ways repeal'd by this Act for then all the Records thereof would have been quite Cancell'd and taken off the Rolls whereas they still remain to be seen at this day and you see by this Act I now recited That the attainder of King Henry the 6 th is declar'd contrary to due Allegiance and all due order and all forfeitures and disablements of the said King and Prince are quite annull'd and made void M. I must confess you have so stagger'd me with this Act that I know not what to say to it but that it was made in the first Parliament of King Henry the 7 th and before he had married the Princess Elizabeth and consequently had no good Title to the Crown himself therefore till then I look upon him as an Usurper but I shall now proceed to shâ—w you that that very King nay even Richard the 3 d. himself chiefly relied not upon any Parliamentary Election but upon their own pretended Titles of being right Heirs by Blood for after the death of Edward the 4 th his Son Edward the 5 th was proclaim'd King and might have quietly enjoy'd it if his ambitious Uncle Richard Duke of Gloucester had not plotted to defeat him of it and knowing very well that he had no way to bring it about but by inciting a corrupt party of the Bishops and Lords together with the Lord Mayor of London and some of his Party in the City to set forth by way of Petition to the Duke then Protector of the King and Realm That all the Children of K. Edward the 4 th were Bastards supposing that King to have been Contracted with a certain Woman called Eleanor Boteler before he Married Queen Elizabeth moreover that the Blood of his Elder Brother George Duke of Clarence deceased was attainted so that none of the Lineal Blood of Richard Duke of York could be found uncorrupted but in himself and there was at the conclusion of that Roll an Address to him from the Lords and Commons of the Kingdom that he would take the Government upon himself this fine artifice assisted on one side with his feigned excuses which induced the less thinking sort of People to believe he desir'd not the Royalty and prompted on the other side with the fear of his power procured his accession to the Throne so that at last he and his Wife Anne were solemnly Crowned King and Queen at Westminster and by these steps did that inhumane Prince who had no Title to the Crown either by descent or by merit ascend the English Throne see you that not by Election but by pretence of blood and by bastardising and attainting his Nephews he set himself up for the only true Heir of the Crown and therefore in the Parliament he call'd immediately after his Coronation when they had declar'd almost the very same things as were before in the said Petition they proceed further To declare that the Right Title and Estate which King Richard the III d had to and in the Crown and Royal Dignity of the Realm of England with all things thereunto within the said Realm and without it annexed and appertaining was just and lawfull as grounded upon the Laws of God and Nature and also upon the antient Laws and laudable Customs of this said Realm as also taken and reputed by all such Persons as were learned in the above-said Laws and Customs and proceeds farther thus therefore at the request and by the assent of the three Estates of this Realm that is to say the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons of this Land Assembled in this present Parliament and by the Authority of the same it is pronounced decreed and declared that our said Soveraign Lord the King was and is the very undoubted King of this Realm of England with all things thereunto belonging within the said Realm and without it united annexed and appertaining as well by right of Consanguinity and Inheritance as by lawfull Election Consecration and Coronation So that you see tho' they put in his Election as also his Coronation as means of obtaining the
but I can shew you not only the unreasonableness but also the unpracticableness of this supposition First its unreasonableness since you are very much mistaken to alledge that the whole Nation by that Act of recognition to King Iames obliged themselves and their Posterities to him and his right Heirs 'T is true they there tell him That they made that Recognition as the first fruits of their Loyalty and Faith to him and his Royal Progeny and Posterity for ever and also when they have acknowledged him to be justly and lawfully next and sole Heir of the Blood Royal of this Realm and that they thereunto submit and oblige themselves their Heirs and Posterities for ever c. there is no more meant or expressed in all this than that the whole Nation did by their Representatives in Parliament oblige themselves and their Children to King Iames and his Posterity for ever and I think that this part of the Recognition is sufficiently perform'd by placing two of his Great Grand-children in the Throne for as to the words rightful or lawful Heirs they are not to be found in all this Statute But as for your Notion of a Regency it is plain it could have signified nothing either for our present security or future settlement not to the former since this Regent be he whom he would must have Governed in the Right of some body or other since I never read of a Regency in England during a Vacancy of the Throne therfore I will at present admit that the Vote for King Iames's Abdication had never been made only that the Prince of Orange had been declar'd Regent of the Kingdom till such time as King Iames would have given the Nation sufficient satisfaction of his reforming all past miscarriages and that his future Government should be according to Law Now I would very fain know how it can be justified according to your Notion of the King 's absolute irresistible power to place a Regent over the Kingdom to Govern in his stead whether he will or not when it is certain he is neither a Minor an Ideot nor a Lunatick so that then he must have return'd again to the Government whenever he had pleas'd or else the Convention must have been Judges whether the security or satisfaction he offered was sufficiently satisfactory or not for if he himself was to be sole Judge in this case I suppose you will grant this Regency would quickly have been at an end but on the other â—ide if this Right of Judging had been left in the Convention whether the King's proposals were satisfactory or not they might also have voted them not to be so and till this was done they might very well have justified there keeping him out of the Kingdom by force now how that could have consisted with your doctrine of the Kings Irresistible Power I desire you would satisfie me if you can so that by this Regency the King must either have been deprived of his whole Power or he must not if the former that would have been as good as Deposing him from being King and had left him no more than the bare Title and whether this had not been a great deal worse as more Hypocritical than the Conventions declaring him to have Abdicated the Government I leave it to any indifferent person to Judge But if you will suppose that this Regent must have Govern'd in the name of your Prince of Wales as being declared King that would have been to have granted his Title to be good without hearing of it and had been indeed to have given up the main point in dispute M. I see you would fain find out any shifts for this pretended Vacancy and placing those in the Throne to whom it doth not belong yet though I grant that the word Right Heirs are not expresly recited in this Act of Recognition to King Iames I. yet for all that it is implyed for the Oath of Allegiance is Enacted by I. Eliz. to be taken to the Queen her Heirs and lawful Successors and by the Oath of Supremacy Enacted in the IVth of King Iames we are likewise obliged to swear that we will bear true Allegiance to his Majesty his Heirs and Successors now who these Heirs are this very Act of Recognition doth sufficiently declare viz. The next Heir by Descent of Blood for as King Iames is hereby acknowledged to be Heir by Inherent Birth-right so when they oblige themselves and their Posterity's to King Iames and his Progeny it is to be understood by parity of reason that they oblige themselves and the Nation for all future Generations to Him and his Issue in that sense as that their Allegiance should be only due to him or her who should be Lawful Heir to their Father Brother or Uncle according to those rules of Succession that had been commonly received for above four hundred years last past that is to say the Eldest Son Brother or Daughter being still to be prefer'd before the Younger and Sons before Daughters and the same rule must also hold for their descendents since upon this ground it was that the Title of the House of York was prefer'd by Parliament before that of Lancaster and the Title of the King of Scots who was descended from the Eldest Sister before that of the House of Suffolk who came from the Younger and this being never alter'd by any subsequent Statute or if it had I think it would not have been good the Convention ought either to have declar'd the Prince of Wales King immediately or at least to have continued the Throne Vacant let the difficulties or inconveniences that you suppose might have followed to be never so great and therefore it was their duty to have fought out King Iames and the Prince where-ever they had been and to have desired him to have sent over the Prince together with the Witnesses that went away with him and till this had been absolutely refus'd or else that upon a fair hearing this Prince had been proved an Impostor I say till one of these had been done the Throne ought still to have continued Vacant if it were so at all nor till this had been clear'd could they have justified the placing any body else upon the Throne though never so nearly related to the King whom I will suppose for discourse sake to have really Abdicated the Kingdom F. I will not deny that the legal and common course of Succession ought to be inviolately observed according to the Rules you have now laid down when ever it may consist with the publick good and safety of the Kingdom and yet for all that I cannot believe that the King himself much less any other that only pretends as next Heir to him can have such an absolute Right to the Kingdom as that no considerations whatsoever can make them lose or forfeit their Right thereunto therefore I look upon the Government of a Kingdom not to be like that interest which a private
Man hath in an Estate which is his Right let him be what he will or let him mannage it how he will Whereas in the Right to a Kingdom I take it to be a true Maxim That the Representatives of a Nation as the Convention was ought to have more regard to the happiness and safety of the whole People or Common-wealth than to the Dignity or Authority of any particular Person whosoever or howsoever nearly related to the Crown when it is evident that the advancement of such a Person to the Throne will prove destructive to our Religion Civil Liberties and Properties Now give me leave to apply what I have said to the Point now in question Let us therefore at the present suppose that your Prince of Wales is true and lawful Son to King Iames and Queen Mary and let me also farther suppose that in his late passage over Sea he was taken by the Pyrates of Argiers or Tunis and by them been carried to one of those places and been bred up in the Mahometan Religion and after he had been Circumcised and fully grounded in that abominable Superstition the Grand Seignior together with the Kings of Argier and Tunis should send this Nation word that if they would not admit him quietly for their King and allow him all those Priests he should bring with him a free exercise of their Religion in England they would then make War upon this Nation with all the Forces they could raise I ask you what we ought to do in this case whether we should receive him for our King or keep him out M. I must confess it is a nice Question and since it is a thing that never did yet nor I hope will ever come to pass I think I may freely Answer you That supposing this Prince could be proved to be the very same who was carried away so many years ago we ought notwithstanding his false Belief to receive him especially if he would solemnly Swear only to worship God in private after his own way and that he would Swear not to violate our Religion or invade our Liberties and Properties and this being done I think we ought then to admit him for our lawful Sovereign since as you your self have already acknowledged at our third Meeting the Supreme Powers are not to be resisted because they are of a different Religion from that of the People or Nation they Govern F. Very well But let me tell you In this you are much more kind to Mahometan and Heretical Princes than the Church of Rome who have decreed That no Prince ought to be received as right Heir to a Crown who is a Pagan Turk or Heretick and upon this ground it was that the States of France during the time of the League by the Pope's Decree refus'd to own Henry King of Navarre for their Sovereign and also that the Papists of the Nuntio Party in Ireland during the late Rebellion refused to own the late Duke of Ormond for Lord Lieutenant of that Kingdom because the King was a Protestant But pray answer me a Question or two further Suppose this Prince refus'd to promise these or such things or else if he did promise and Swear them pray tell me how could we be assured that according to the Principles of that Religion he had been bred under and those Arbitrary Notions he had learned concerning the Absolute Power of Kings in Barbary and which he would believe due to himself as being as Absolute a Monarch as any of them I say how such a Prince ever could be trusted Since if he had the whole Power of the Militia in his hands he might bring in what number of Turkish or Moorish Guards he should think fit who might easily set up that Religion and Government too in this Nation since according to your Principles of Passive Obedience and Non-resistance no Man ought to lift up so much as a Finger against him though he went about to make us all Turks and Slaves M. Well supposing all this as long as it is his Right he ought to have it let the consequence be what it will F. You have said enough I desire no more but I hope every true Protestant and English man will be of another mind if ever such a case should happen but indeed it appears very strange to me that a natural Disability such as Ideocy or Lunacy should be esteem'd sufficient in all Kingdoms to debarr the next Heir from the Government and yet that a Moral or a Religious Disability should not have the same effect and though I grant that a King ought not to be Rebelled against or resisted meerly because he is of a different Religion from that of his Subjects for I was never for resisting King Iames meerly upon that score yet it is another thing when a Prince is not actually possessed of the Throne but is to be admitted to it upon such Conditions as may appear safe for the Religion and Civil constitution of a Kingdom In this case if a Prince be certainly infected with such pernicious Principles either in relation to Religion or Civil Government it is much otherwise as for Example That no Faith is to be kept with Hereticks That his own Religion is to be propagated by Arms Blood or Persecution That no Government can be safe for the Prince or in which he can appear Great or Glorious but as an absolute Monarch let such a Prince be either a Christian or a Mahometan I think it would be a certain ruine to a Kingdom to be obliged to receive such a Prince when they were morally sure that he would not only subvert their Religion but destroy the very professors of it and not only those but alter the Civil constitution too by turning it from a limited Kingdom into an absolute despotick Tyranny To conclude I shall only desire you to consider into what a Country your Prince of Wales is carry'd and what Instructors he is like to have and what Principles he will receive from them and then pray tell me if he continues there till he is a Man what difference there will be between this young Prince bred up in such a Religion and such Principles and the same if he had been carried away by Pyrates to Argier as I at first suppos'd M. This is a very invidious Comparison for though I do not approve of the Roman-Catholick Religion yet sure there is a great deal of difference between that which professes all the Articles of our Creed and in which we of our Church own Salvation may be obtained and the Mahometan Superstition which denies that fundamental Article of our Creed viz. That Jesus Christ is the Son of God and as for Civil or Political Principles I hope the King his Father will take care to have him instructed by some of those English Noblemen or Gentlemen who are now with him in the Customs and Constitutions of the English Government and wherein it differs from the French
the Prince of Wales to have been either dead or justly laid aside now make it out to me how you can justifie the placing the Prince and Princess of Orange in the Throne when the Crown is really her right after the Prince of Wales and not her Husbands as also the putting the Government solely into his hands since this can no ways agree with the Act of Recognition to King Iames the First which you your self cannot deny but ought to be observed when it may be done without any apparent hazard or prejudice to the Protestant Religion and the Constitution of our Government which I think might have been as well if not better secured by letting it have gone in the right Line that by placing the Crown upon the Head of a Prince who though it is true is of the Blood-Royal by his Mother yet being a Foreigner is a meer Stranger to our Government and Laws and has been bred up in Calvinistical Principles and upon that score is not like to have any good intentions towards the Government and Ceremonies of the Church of England as appears by his late agreeing to abolish Episcopacy in Scotland upon his accepting that Crown from the Presbyterian Convention F. If these be all the objections you have to make against placing King William and Queen Mary in the Throne I hope they will not be of any great moment to your self or any other considerate man for if that upon the Abdication of King Iames and the impossibity of determining your Prince of Wales's Title if it be one a Regency was impracticable and unsafe for the Nation at this conjuncture of time when we want a King to hold a Parliament as well to raise Money to defend us against the Power of France as also to make new Laws for the ease and reformation of the Kingdom all which a Regents acting without Royal Authority could never do by the constitution of this Kingdom so that if there was now a necessity of placing some body in the Throne for the Common Good and Safety of the whole Common-Wealth I think you your self cannot but acknowledge that the Princess of Orange had an Hereditary right to the Crown and if her Highness had the Prince her Husband also ought to Govern the Kingdom in her Right during her life and those who deny King Henry the VIIth to be Lawful King before his Marriage with the Princess Elizabeth will yet grant he was so in her Right after his Marriage and this has not been only the Custom in England but also in other Kingdoms of Europe as I can give you several Instances For upon this ground it was that Ferdinand King of Arragon by Marrying with Isabella Queen of Castile Governed that Kingdom during his Life so also Anthony Duke of Bourbon marrying with Iane Queen of Navarre did in her Right administer the Government of that part of it which was left unconquer'd by the Spaniards and here at home Philip Prince of Spain by his Marriage with Queen Mary had certainly in her Right Govern'd this Kingdom and had enjoyed something more than the bare Title of King had he not by the Articles of Marriage confirm'd by Act of Parliament been expresly debar'd from it M. Admit all this to be true yet this was only the enjoyment of a bare Matrimonial Crown and held no longer than during the Lives or Marriage with those Queens you mention But pray tell me how can the Convention according to the antient constitution of this Kingdom justifie the settlement of the Crown not only on King William during the Queens Life But for his own Life also to the prejudice not only of his own Issue if ever he have any by the Princess but also of the Princess of Denmark and her Heirs F. I doubt not but to shew you that this may be easily justified by the constitution of the Kingdom and former Precedents of what hath been done in the like cases First as to the Constitution I have already proved that upon the deposition of a King which is all one with a Forfeiture of the Crown the Great Council or Parliament hath taken upon them to Elect or Admit either the next Heir by Blood or some Prince tho' more remote of the Royal Family to the Crown thus King Henry the IVth upon the Deposition or Resignation of King Richard the Ild. was placed in the Throne by the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury after the two Houses had Voted and consented he should Reign over them though I grant that by right of Blood Edmund Earl of March ought to have succeeded to it but he being then a Child was passed by unmention'd Duke Henry being then powerful and having deliver'd the Kingdom from the Tyranny and Evil Government of Richard the â—Id I shall pass by Richard the IIId because I own his Government to have begun by Unsurpation and to have been established by the Murther of his Nephews But as for Henry the VIIth I have already shew'd you that the Parliament before his Marriage with the Princess Elizabeth setled the Crown upon him and the Heirs of his Body by vertue of which he held it all his Reign whereas there is no such thing done in the present case of King William since he hath only the Crown setled upon him during his own Life with the remainder after his decease without Issue by the Queen to her and not his Right Heirs and as for such Children as he may have by her it is agreeable to reason that he should hold the Crown by that which we call the Courtesie of England during his Life and not from a King to become a Subject to his own Children in case he should desire to live here after her Majesties decease which I hope God will prevent M. I confess you have drest up a pretty plausible Title for King William but yet all that you have said amounts to no more than this that because other Kings have been Usurpers he may be so too for as to all the instances you have brought they have been only from depositions or manifest usurpations both which our Laws have condemned as absolutely unlawful as I have shew'd you hath been declar'd by two Acts of Parliament against the Title of Henry the IVth and his Descendents but since you will not insist upon the right of Richard the IIId I pass to that Act of Henry the VIIth which as I told you before so I must repeat it again that it was done upon his supposed Right by Blood as Heir to the House of Lancaster and upon that pretence he claimed the Crown as his Right in his Speech to the first Parliament he called besides the Princess Elizabeth the Queen de Iure made no claim to the Crown and so did tacitly resign it which seemed to make him de Iure as well as de Facto King and if it were done otherwise I look upon that whole Act as void in it self because made by him
the Nation from his Oppression though the Prince was pleas'd to accept it upon those terms expressed in the late Declaration of the Convention and upon his free promise to preserve preserve our Religion Laws and Liberties which he has since also confirm'd by his Coronation Oath But as to what you say that the Prince made the Kings Army desert him and wrought the People into hatred of his Person by lying Stories and mean Arts is altogether untrue since I know of no Reports he made of the King or his Government but what are in his first Declaration and that is certainly true in every part of it and as has been justified by the express Declaration of the Convention in every particular except that concerning the Prince of Wales which I confess is left still undecided because as I have already proved it is impossible to give any certain judgement in it unless the Witnesses as well as the Infant himself could be brought over hither nor doth the Prince in his said Declaration say any more concerning that business than that there are violent suspicions that the pretended Prince of Wales was not Born of the Queen but for the report of the Secret League with France for the extirpation of the Protestant Religion as there is no such thing in his Highnesses Declaration so the spreading of it cannot be laid to his charge since he never gave it out as I know of yet there are certainly great presumptions and too much cause of suspicion that it may be so as I proved at our last Meeting But though you will not allow the Prince the Title of our Deliverer yet I am sure the greatest part both of the Clergy and Laity of the Church of England were once of Opinion that King Iames's violations both upon our Religion and Laws were so great that nothing could preserve the Kingdom from a total Subversion in its Establisht Religion and Civil Constitution but his Highnesses coming over and most of the Bishops were of that Opinion who now the Government is setled refused to take the Oath of Allegiance to their present Majesties But to answer what you say that the manner of Henry the IV ths and Henry the VII ths coming to the Crown doth not at all agree with this Case of King William because they claimed by right of blood which you say King William cannot do that is not so in respect of the Queen who has certainly a right to succeed her Father by right of blood in case the Prince off Wales be not the true Son of the Queen and untill he can be proved so we must at present look upon him as if he were not so at all so that the Convention hath done no more in setling the Crown upon the King during his Life than what the Great Council of the Kingdom have frequently done before upon other vacancies of the Throne as I have proved from the Examples of William Rufus and Henry the First King Stephen King Iohn and Henry the Third And it is very hard to suppose the whole Nation to have been guilty of Perjury and Treason upâ—n their Swearing to and Fighting for those Princes after they were so Solemnlâ— Elected Crowned and Invested with the Royal Power But as for Edward III. his first and best Title was from the election of the Great Council of the Kingdom who I doubt not but if they had found him unworthy of the Royal Dignity by reason of folly or madness or Tyrannical Principles would have set him aside and have made his youngâ—â— Brother King a Protector to govern in the King's Name with Royal Power having never been known in England till the Reign of Henry the VI th but as for Henry the IV th notwithstanding his claim by right of Blood I have already proved that the Paâ—liament by their placing him in the Throne did not at all allow it nor is any such Right recited in the Act of the 7 th of Henry the IV th which by the Crown is entail'd upon that King and his four successive Sons And though it is true Henry the Seventh also claim'd the Crown by right of Inheritance in his Speech in Parliament yet they were so far from allowing it that they do not so much as mention it in that Act of Setlement which as I have recited they made of it upon that and the Heirs of his Body And therefore I think I may still maintain that the Convention hath done nothing in the present Setlement of the Crown but what hath been formerly done upon every vacancy of the Throne either by deposition or resignation of the King or Abdication or Forfeiture of the Crown as in the case of King Iames in which the Convention have done no more than exercised that Power which has always been suppos'd to reside in the great Council of the Kingdom of setling the Crown upon such a Prince of the Blood-Royal as they shall think best to deserve it Thus much I have said to preserve the Antient Right of the Great Council of the Nation But to put all this out of dispute I have been credibly inform'd that the Princess of Denmark her self did by some of her Servants in both Houses as well of the Lords as Commons declare upon a great Debate that arose about securing her Highnesses Right to the Crown immediately after her Sister the Queen that her Highness had desired them to assure the Convention that she was willing to acquiesce in whatever they should determine concerning the Succession of the Crown since it might tend to the present setlement and safety of the Nation which I think is a better Cession of her Right to his present Majesty than any you can prove that the Empress Mawd made to her Son Henry the Second or than the Countess of Richmond ever made to her Son Henry the Seventh M. You have often talked of this forfeiture and extravagant Power of your Convention by whom you suppose they are not obliged to place the Crown upon the head of the next Heir by Blood which I shall prove to be a vain Notion for if there be an absolute forfeiture of the Crown the Government would have been absolutely Dissolved for since there is no Legal Government without a King if the Throne were really vacant and that the People might place whom they pleas'd in it yet the Convention can have no Power to do it as their Representatives since upon your suppos'd dissolution of the Original Contract between the King and the People there was an end of all Conventions and Parliaments too And therefore if a King could have been chosen at all it ought to have been by the Votes of the whole body of the Clergy Nobility and Commons in their own single Persons and not by any Council or Convention to represent them since the Laws for restraining the Election of Parliament-men only to Freeholders are upon this suppos'd Dissolution of the Government altogether void and
why you cannot take this new Oath of Allegiance since you have the Judgment and Declaration of the Convention which is the Representative of the whole Nation to justifie you in so doing M. I must tell you once again that I think Allegiance is not only due to the King by the Law of the Land but also by the Laws of God and Nature and consequently cannot be dissolved by any subsequent Judgment of a Convention who are and always ought to be Subjects to him and his Right Heirs as long as they are in Being and therefore I should not allow the Prince and Princess of Orange for such were the King now actually dead nay if King Iames himself had stayed in England and had been so over awed by fear or overcome by persuasions as to have declar'd in Parliament that the Prince of Wales was not his true and lawful Son born of the Queen and had thereupon setled the Crown upon the Princess of Orange as his Heir Apparent I could never have thought my self oblig'd to swear Allegiance to her or to own her for my lawful Sovereign as long as the Prince of Wales or the Heirs of his Body are in Being since I am very well satisfied and that by unexceptionable proofs that he is really the Son of the King and Queen for I think I have sufficiently made out by several Declarations of Parliament that the Hereditary Right of the Crown can never be defeated nor alter'd by any Statute whatsoever but according to the Act of Recognition of King Iames the first 's Title which I have already urged the Crown ought to descend to the next Heir by Blood according to the rules of Descent I have now laid down F. I cannot but admire your obstinacy in this matter which proceeds from your old errour of believing that there is a Natural or Divine Right of Succession to Crowns different or abstracted from the Civil and Political Laws and Constitutions of particular Kingdoms which I think I have already confuted by shewing you that there was no such thing in Nature as a Patriarchal Right in Adam or Noah or their Heirs nor yet to any other King as their Assigns or Representatives and therefore though I grant that Allegiance to every lawful King is due by the Laws of God and Nature yet who that King is or who is to be his lawful Successor in limited or mixt Monarchies as ours is can only be determined by the Assembly of Estates of the whole Nation for notwithstanding all you have said there is a very great difference between the Legal Rights of Princes and the natural Rights of Fathers and Husbands which yet may cease and be dissolved in some cases as I have already sufficiently proved for I think it is evident that not only a Legal Title and Legal Authority may be parted from each other but that Legal Titles and Legal Authority may be rightfully separated from the persons to whom they were once due which natural Rights can never be A King may cease to be a King though a Father can never cease to be a Father for Laws have not the same force and power that nature has Now all men confess this separation may be made by a voluntary resignation as also by Conquest in a just War both which will divest such a Prince of all Right and Authority to Govern and if it may be done by either of these ways his Right and Authority is not inseparable from his Person since then there is no natural inherent property in Lands or Kingdoms but what proceeds from the particular Laws of each Kingdom or Common-Wealth therefore who ever the Supream Power appointed by the Constitution of such Kingdoms shall Judge or Determine to have a true and legal Right to the same are to be own'd and esteemed as the true legal owners and possessors thereof by all the Subjects so that if a King can part with his Kingship it is possible he may lose it too since there are more ways than one of parting with that which may be parted with If then a voluntary Resignation of a Crown or Conquest in a just War can give another Prince a just Title to it I cannot see why a â—acit Abdication or Forfeiture of a Crown upon a limited Kings total breach of the Fundamental Laws and Constitution of the Kingdom should not as much discharge all the Subjects of their Allegiance to him and also give the great Council as the Representative of the Nation a like Right of Ordaining a Successor upon such a Vacancy of the Throne and who being once placed therein all the people of the Nation ought to pay the same Allegiance to him as they did to his Predecessors But as for the latter part of your supposition that the right Heirs of the Crown by blood must always necessarily succeed to it that is likewise sounded upon two very false principles first that a lineal hereditary succession to the Crown is established by the Fundamental Laws and Customs of the Kingdom Secondly That the Succession to it cannot be limited by the Parliament or Great Council of the Nation the former of which suppositions I have confuted at our last meetting and as for the other you cannot deny but the Crown has been frequently setled and limited by Act of Parliament contrary to the common rules of Succession as hath been sufficiently proved by the Statute above mentioned of Henry the VII th as also by those several Acts concerning the Succession in Henry the VIII ths time and so it continues at this day by the Statute of the 13 th of Queen Elizabeth whereby it is declared Treason during the Queens Life for any person to affirm that the Queen and Parliament had not power to make Laws to limit and bind the descent and inheritance of the Crown or that this Act was not of sufficient force to bind limit and govern all Persons their Rights and Titles that in any way claim any Interest or possibility in or to the Crown of England in Possession Remainder Succession Inheritance or otherwise howsoever and every Person so holding or affirming after the decease of the Queen shall forfeit all his Goods and Chattels So that I can see no just reason you can have to refuse Swearing Allegiance to Their present Majesties and Their Successors according to the limitation in the said Act. M. Well I see it is in vain to argue these Points any longer with you since it would only force me to repeat the same things over again which will neither edifie you nor my self only give me leave to tell you this much that the last part of your Argument which is the only thing that is new in all your Discourse is founded upon a very wrong ground for though I should grant as I do not since this Act you last mentioned is expired that the Crown may be limited or intail'd by Act of Parliament contrary to the due Rules
Authority since besides that it was done by Usurpation in those rough and unsetled times yet I believe if the antient Writs of Summons were now in being you would find that they were called by those Usurpers though not by the Title of Kings but I defie you to show me since the Reign of Edward the First any Parliament ever call'd without the King's Writs of Summons and though upon the deposition of Edward and Richard the Second the Parliaments you mention might continue to sit and transact publick business yet was it during a plain Usurpation upon those Princes whom you your self must grant to have been unlawfully deposed and therefore we find upon the Parliament Roll of the 21 st of Richard the Second that an Act of the first of Edward the Third confirming the Judgment given upon the two Spencers was not only repeal'd in Parliament but declared to be unlawful because Edward the Second was living and true King being imprison'd by his Subjects at the time of that very Parliament of 1 Edward III. But as for your last instance of a Conventions declaring it self a Parliament in the Reign of King Charles the Second there is a great deal of difference between them and the present Convention since they did not take upon them to declare or make a King as this Convention has done but only to recognize him to be their Lawful Sovereign which as I have already told you being that which was their duty to do they might very well justifie though they were not Summon'd by the King's Writs but however all their Acts were looked upon as made without legal Authority and therefore were confirmed in the first legal Parliament of King Charles's Reign But as for the Authority of the Statute of the 13 th of Eliz. whereby you would prove that the Parliament has at this day power to alter or limit the Succession of the Crown besides that such an Act being against the fundamental rules of Succession was void in it self yet if you please to look upon the Act in Rastal's Statutes you will there find it was only made to serve a present turn and to keep the Queen of Scots and her Party from enterprizing any thing against Queen Elizabeth and therefore it is there only declar'd to be Treason during the Queens life for any Persons to maintain that the Queen could not riot with the Authority of the Parliament limit the Succession of the Crown and as for the last Clause that makes it forfeiture of Goods and Chattels to maintain the contrary after her decease this was made to strengthen and confirm the former part of the Statute which was a provision and security against such pretences and Practices as had been lately made against her by the Papists on the behalf of the Queen of Scots Title and this Clause could not take effect after her death but was added to preserve Queen Elizabeth's Memory from being defamed after her decease or being slanderously charged with the heinous Crime of Usurping the Crown which must have been the inevitable consequence of affirming that she and her Parliament could not limit the Succession For to confess the truth I think Queen Elizabeths best Title was by Act of Parliament since her Legitimacy might be justly question'd by reason that her Mothers Marriage was declar'd unlawful by the 28 th of Henry the VIII th and she was as good as declar'd illegitimate by her Father in that very Act that setled the Crown upon her but that this Statute of the 13 th of Queen Elizabeth is now looked upon as expired appears in Palton's and all other late Collections of the Statutes since her time wherein the Title of the Statute is barely mention'd with EXP. immediately following it to shew it is looked upon as expired So that you are mistaken to affirm that the Convention has done nothing in the late limitation of the Crown but what may be justified from that Statute therefore if it be not Law at this day I think they had no Authority to alter the Succession of the Crown from the right Line let them be of what Religion they would F. I see you do all you can to evade the force of my Authorities from History and direct matter of Fact and therefore as to what you say that those were rough and unsetled and therefore no Precedents to be drawn from thence this is to beg the Question for what could be the Law concerning the Succession of the Crown for the first hundred and fifty years after the Conquest but the constant usage of the Great Council of the Nation as low as the Reign of Henry the Third and it is a bold assertion to accuse the whole Nation of Perjury and Rebellion against their Lawful Kings during all those Successions I have now instanced in nor have you any thing to say against those Parliaments that met in the 1 st of King Edward III. and Charles the II. but that their Meeting was Lawful because it was only to recognize those Kings and not to make them which is indeed to beg the Question since you cannot deny but those Parliaments are held for good notwithstanding they were not call'd by the King's Writs But as for making a King the present Parliament have not taken upon them to do it since they do not in the Act for the Succession Elect King William and Queen Mary to be our Lawful King and Queen but only declare or recognize them to be so upon supposition that the Prince of Wales is either an Impostor or else his Legitimacy impossible to be tried and determined by them Nor are your Objections material against the Authority of those Acts of Parliament which were made in the 1 st of King Henry the IV th and Charles the II d. which were never Summon'd by those Kings Writs For as to the first of those Instances most of those Acts of Henry the IV th stand good at this day without ever being confirm'd by any subsequent Parliaments And tho' I grant that the publick Acts made in the first Year of King Charles the II d. were confirm'd in the next Parliament of that King yet this does not prove that they would have been void without it since divers private Acts passed in that Parliament which were never confirm'd in any other and yet are held for good As particularly an Act of that Parliament for making the Church of St. Paul's Covent-Garden Parochial And this Act though never confirm'd was yet adjudged to be in force by the Lord Chief Justice Hales and the rest of the Justices of the Court of King's Bench in a Case concerning Rate Tythes between the Minister and some of the Parishioners of the said Parish Nor is what you have now said to prove the Statute of the 13 th of Queen Elizabeth whereby the Crown is declared capable of being limitted by Act of Parliament to be now expired since it is plain by the purport of the
or for the time being may not be legally defended in the Throne for as for that part of the Oath which was taken to King Iames himself it can hold no longer than whilst he continued King If therefore the Estates of the Kingdom have adjudged him to have forfeited or abdicated the Crown the whole Nation ought to take this as to have been legally done since it was done by the judgment of the highest Authority in the Nation when King Iames had deserted the Throne the like I may also say for the other part of the Oath of Allegiance whereby we are obliged to his Heirs and Lawful Successors for since there has been a dispute concerning the succession of the Crown between the Princess of Orange and your Prince of Wales if the Convention who are the sole proper Judges in this Case have thought fit for the reasons I have already given you at our last Meeting to declare King William and Queen Mary the lawful King and Queen of England all the Nation ought to accept them for such since it was done by the highest Authority at that time extant in the Nation and the only proper Judges of that right and if disputes about legal rights of which certainly that of succeeding to the Crown is of the highest importance ought to be decided by Law and not by the Sword which is not the decision of civil Authority but of force the sentence of competent Judges must end the dispute and if the Estates of the Realm be not the proper and legal Judges of such Disputes that concern the right to the Crown there can be none and if they be Subjects must acquiesce in their Judgments or it is all one as if there had been none for if Men may pretend Conscience and adhere to their own private Opinions as sole Judges the dispute must end in blows which is contrary to the reason and nature of humane Societies which were instituted to prevent Civil Wars and to end all Controversies by a legal Judgment without the Sword And to let you see farther that as to the Allegiance of the Subjects it is all one in respect of us who are Subjects whether the Convention have judged right or wrong in this case Let us suppose a Person who has only a pretence but no true right to an Estate should commence a Suit of Law for it and at last obtaine a Verdict of the Jury and also a Judgment of the Court of Kings-Bench for his Title can any Man deny but that the Sheriff is by vertue of this Verdict and Judgment oblig'd to put this Abator into possession of this Estate notwithstanding he may know of his own knowledge that the person who has obtain'd this Judgment has no true right to the Estate or will any Lawyer doubt whether all the Tenants of the Mannour are not oblig'd to swear homage and fealty to this suppos'd Lord if they are required by him so to do Now though the true Heir or owner has the legal right to the Estate yet by the supream Law of all Societies which refers the decision of all personal rights to a legal Authothority he who by a legal judgment is possessed of it has the legal right in the Estate against all other claims and legal Authority must desend him in it and all who will submit to Laws and Legal Authority must acquiesce in it And thus it must be with respect to the Rights of Princes as well as of Subjects the right to the Crown has been often disputed as we all know and to say that when such disputes happen there is no Authority in the Nation to decide them is to say that Princes have no rights to their Crowns by the Laws of that Nation for there can be no Civil Rights of which there neither are nor can be any Civil Judges for no man no not a Prince can be judge in his own Cause and if Princes have no legal rights they can lose no legal rights when they lose their Crowns and I doubt their natural rights swill affect the Consciences of very few Subjects Therefore every independent Civil Society which is not wholly governed by the Sword must from the nature of such Societies and the reason of their institution have authority within it self to decide all Controversies which may arise about the rights of every member of that Society and to preserve it self from falling into a state of War which is a dissolution of all Civil Government and if there ought to be such an Authority in every Civilized Nation when this Supream Authority has given sentence in such Disputes this must also determine all the Subjects and ought likewise to have the same effect upon the contending Princes themselves and no right or pretence of right ought to affect the Conscience after such a final Judgment unless Civil Rights can oblige Subjects to dissolve Civil Governments and to dispute Civil Rights not by the Law but by the Sword which is to overthrow all Civil Rights and put an end to the Authority of Laws I hope this may serve to shew you how much you are mistaken to suppose that there can be no King in an hereditary Monarchy but the next lineal Heir and tho' I grant no Allegiance can be due or ought to be paid to him who is no King yet will it not follow that none can be due to any Prince if he be not the next heir for that no obedience can be due to him who is no King I readily grant but yet he may be a legal King in this Kingdom who is not the next Heir by blood as almost half of the Kings of England since the Conquest were not and yet have been always own'd and obey'd as legal Kings M. I confess what you say would go a great way to satisfie me could you prove that there was no difference between the succession to Crowns and private inheritances where I grant that the judgement of the Supream Court of the Nation is to determine not only the possession but the right too in respect of the person who loses his Estate by an unjust verdict or illegal judgment whereas it is otherwise in the Title of Crowns to which Princes have a right as well by the Laws of God and Nature as also by the receiv'd setled Laws and Customs of the Kingdom concerning the Succession by descent which is call'd in the 13th of Queen Elizabeth in the Statute we have so much debated at our last Meeting the Common Laws of this Realm and it is there declared that it ought to direct the right of the Crown of England and it is there made Treason during the Queens life to affirm the contrary and this course of lineal Succession at Common Law was also declar'd by solemn judgment in Parliament in the case I have so often urg'd of the Duke of York's Title to the Crown against Henry the VIth that it could no way be defeated by
an Act of Parliament which is made indefinitely without fixing it to any time or person the words in the Act are the King for the time being which must certainly extend to any other King as well as Henry the VIIth for I suppose that an Act of Parliament and a Deed agreed in this that an unnecessary Clause can by no means render the whole void But as for what you say in relation to this Acts being a security for the Title of the Queen and her Children whom you suppose to be the right Heirs of the Crown this rather serves to strengthen the Act than otherwise for if this King had a good Title in her right then it may be also very well suppos'd that she gave her assent to this Act in the person of her Husband and that not for the benefit but to the prejudice of her own Issue since if after her death which happen'd some years before his her Son Henry Prince of Wales had set up his present Title to the Crown in the right of his Mother and so would have dethron'd his Father as an Usurper I suppose no reasonable Man will deny but that this Act would have indemnified all those who had taken up Arms in defence of King Henry the VIIth against his Son though in your sence King de jure and if it would justifie the Subjects then I cannot see why it may not do the same thing now in their swearing Allegiance nay fighting for the King in possession against him whom we will for the present suppose to be King de jure M. Well however I think I can prove that this Act was no more than temporary from the judgement of the Judges in the Case of Iohn Duke of Northumberland who when he was Tryed for Treason for leading an Army against Queen Mary to settle the Lady Iane Gray in the Throne desired to be informed by the Judges whether a man acting by the Authority of the Great Seal and the Order of the Privy Council or Princes Council as Stow and Heylin word it could become thereby guilty of Treason to which all the Judges answer'd that the Great Seal of one that was not lawful Queen could give no Authority or Indemnity to those that acted by such a Warrant upon which the Duke submitted though without question he did not want Lawyers to inforce his Plea with this Statute likewise if his cause would have born it from whence I infer against Sir Edward Coke that Treason lies against a King de jure tho' out of possession for it 's plain by all our Historians that Queen Mary was so far from being possessed of the Crown when the Duke of Northumberland acted against her that the Lady Iane was not only Proclaimed Queen in London and most of all the Cities and Great Towns in England but the Tower of London with all the Forts and Naval Forces were under her Command and she had also Allegiance sworn to her by the Privy-Council and by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen and she had also the Seals in her power by which all Patents and Commissions were granted and issued in her Name and if all this be not sufficient to constitute her Queen de facto according to this Statute of Henry the VIIth I know not what was F. Yet I can tell you what was yet wanting which because she had not she was certainly neither Queen de jure nor de facto and that was a solemn Coronation and Recognition of her Right by Parliament which legal investiture since she never had she was not the Queen for the time being and consequently not intended within this Statute of the 11th of Henry the VIIth for though it is true she was appointed Successour of the Crown-by the Letters Patents of King Edward the VIth yet since she could not claim by right of blood there being so many before her all the Kingdom looked upon it as an Usurpation and an artifice of the Duke of Northumberland whose Son she had Married to get the Government of the Kingdom into his sole power so that it was no wonder if the greater part of the People were so averse to her Title and that those of the Nobility who took her part so quickly revolted from her when once the fear they were in of the Duke of Northumberland's power was removed for had this Bequest of the Crown to the Lady Iane held good this Kingdom instead of being Hereditary would have become wholly Testamentary and disposable by the last Will or Letters Patents of the King or Queen for the time being without the consent of the Great Council of the Nation which is contrary not only to the then receiv'd Laws of Succession but also to the antient constitution of the Kingdom as well before as after the Conquest But notwithstanding all this I doubt not but that if the Lady Iane had so far prevail'd against Queen Mary as to have been able to call a Parliament and to have had her Title own'd and recogniz'd therein as it was in the Case of Richard the Third and Henry the Seventh but that she would have been true and lawful Queen according to the intent of the Statute we are now discoursing of and then the Duke of Northumberland must likewise if he had fair play have been indemnified for taking up Arms in her defence against Queen Mary since Queen Iane would have been then within the letter of this Statute as much as King Henry the Seventh himself M. You must pardon me if I cannot be of your opinion in this matter since if the bare Coronation and recognition by Parliament could confer a legal right to the Crown upon one who had no hereditary right to it before the consequence of it would be that the Crown would be so far from being Elective as you suppose it to have antiently been that it would be in the power of every bold Usurper or Rebell who had but the confidence to call himself King to gain a legal Title to be so according to your Principles and then if Oliver Cromwell could have found a Party strong enough in the Army to have declar'd him King and had call'd a Parliament in his own name who had recogniz'd him for their Lawful Sovereign he would then have had as much right to our Allegiance as King Charles the IId which certainly was not only contrary to the settlement of the Crown upon Henry the VIIth and the Heirs of his body but also to that solemn recognition of King Iames the Firsts Title as lineally descended as right Heir to the said King Henry which I insisted on at our last Meeting And therefore if you will have my sence of this Act it is either expir'd for the reasons I have already given or else was void ab initio since it is not only contrary to the setled course of Succession of the Crown according to the Laws of lineal descent for divers hundred years last past but
Crown of France as ever they have been in former Times if ever our Kings should go about to revive their ancient pretentions to France or Normandy or make War upon some other Quarrel and thefore I think it will be more far the Interest of France to leave us our Laws Liberties and Priviledges as we now enjoy them nay to make an express Capitulation for them and when he has done to foment those Jealousies and Disputes that are still like to arise between the King and Us about them thereby to hinder us from joining against him then by rendring the King Absolute to take them quite away and put the sole power of the Purse as well as of the Sword wholly into his Hands To Conclude you do also very much misrepresent the matter in supposing that though the King cannot now be restor'd without falling into a new Civil War yet that does it not therefore follow that such a War is not to be desir'd for the Publick Good of the Nation since we shall thereby not only restore the Crown to its right Owner and the Succession of it to the lawfull Heir but also shall restore Episcopacy in Scotland and prevent the Church of England from falling into a dangerous Schism by depriving the Arch Bishop of Canterbury and as many other of the Bishops who are so Honest as not to take the new Oath for standing out against it by the Temporal Power of a pretended Parliament without the Judgment of a Lawfull Convocation who are the only proper and legal Judges You likewise as much mistake in supposing that this War can no ways be finisht but by so great a Concussion as shall so much weaken the Kingdom as to render it expos'd to the Invasionâ— of Foreign Enemies in which you may be very much deceived for who can tell but the hearts of this Nation may come to be so inclin'd to receive their lawful King and his right Heir and may be so weary of the present Usurpation as upon his first appearance in England with an Army sufficient to defend those who shall come into him so many of his Subjects will take this advantage as will be more than enough to restore him with as little Blood-shed as when he was driven out and then I think no indifferent Man but will acknowledge that such a War would prove for the best since it will not only setle the Government upon in ancient Foundation of a lineal Succession but will also extinguish those fatal causes of War not only from among our selves but also from Foreign Princes as long as the King and the Prince of Wales and his lawful Heirs shall continue in being which I hope will be much longer then those upon whom your Convention has setled the Crown either in Present or Reversion F. I doubt not but to show you that all you have now said is either built upon false Principles or else deduced by very uncertain Consequences for in the first place though you doubt my Principle that the People of this Nation are not bound to restore King Iames to the Throne if it cannot be done without the evident Destruction both of our Religion and Civil Liberties which certainly is true granting it to be never so much our duty to restore him when with safety we may for if the obligation of all Moral Duties whatsoever is only to be judged of according as they more or less conduce to the Happiness or Destruction of the common good of Mankind whereof this particular Nation makes a part it will necessarily follow that this Duty of restoring King Iames is not to be practised if it cannot be brought about without the Destruction of our Religion and Civil Liberties since it is only for the maintenance of those that even Kings themselves were first ordain'd in this Nation and it is evident that this Kingdom may be sufficiently Happy and subsist in the State it is now in though neither King Iames nor your Prince of Wales be ever restor'd to Reign over us So that then all the Difficulty that remains is That since his Restoration being not otherwise to be brought about without the assistance of great numbers of French or Irish Forces whether it be not only so small a hazard as you make it but twenty to one that his coming in upon these Terms will produce those dreadfull Effects which I say will certainly happen from it and though I grant that future things especially in the Revolutions of Government are not capable of Demonstration as Mathematical Propositions yet if all the circumstances of Time and the Temper and Disposition of the King himself and those who are to join with Him in bringing Him in again be considered it shall appear that Morally speaking nothing less then the evident Destruction of our Religion and Civil Liberties will follow I think I may still positively affirm that we are not oblig'd to restore Him till this Temper of Mind be alter'd and that he can be restor'd without these Fatal Consequences I now mention and if these cautions are not observ'd I deny that God hath any way promis'd to protect either our Religion or Civil Liberties or that he is bound to provide us a way to escape as you suppose if to perform this suppos'd Duty of Allegience thus unseasonably we slight the onely means God has ordained for our Preservation But as for the patience under those Sufferings that may then happen that is a very sorry reason to embrace them since God may give us that Grace if he pleases as the only Comfort we can have left us when by our own Folly and mistaken Notions of Duty we have brought all those Evils upon our selves I shall therefore now proceed to show you that these Evils I speak of must necessarily happen to us in Case King Iames be restor'd by the French or Irish Papists In the first place therefore it is very falsly suppos'd that this Alteration can be brought about without an entire Subduing or Conquest not only of their present Majesty's but the whole Nation is apparent since none but the Papists and some few of the Clergy Nobility and Gentry desire his Restoration and who if they were put altogether will not I believe amount to the hundredth Man who would be either willing or capable to come in to his Assistance with Men or Money and therefore it is a vain Supposition to believe as you do that this new Revolution can be brought about without any more Dificulty or Blood-shed then the last as long as the present King and Queen continue to Govern us according to the Declaration they subscrib'd upon their acceptance of the Crown and the Coronation Oath they have since taken which I hope they will always do since nothing but following King Iames's Example as well as to Religion as Civil Liberties can ever make this Nation willing to receive Him or your Prince of Wales with so little difficulty as you are
and sober Morals and of a quiet different Interest to those imploy'd in the two last Reigns and therefore I am so far from taking away the present Oath of Allegiance that I rather wish that there were a new one more strict and full then the present ordain'd to be taken by all those who shall take Offices and Employments of Trust or Profit whereby they should not only declare their present Majesties to be true and lawfull King and Queen of this Realm but also that they will defend them against all their Enemies King Iames himself not excepted M. I confess I cannot expect so great a Tenderness from this Government which has been introduced by so much Artifice that they should absolutely take away all Oaths of Allegiance whatsoever since I doubt not but it will assume to it self all those advantages which any former usurped Power could pretend to yet this much I must needs tell you as a Friend the depriving those Bishops and Dignified Clergymen who shall refuse this new Oath will be highly ungrateful since many of them have been as violent opposers of Popery and Arbitrary Government as any Men in England as appears by their late Petition to the King if therefore the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and those other Bishops I know to be so averse to this Oath should be deprived upon the refusal of it since it will be done uncanonically by the Temporal Power of an Act of this Convention without the Sentence of the two Houses of Convocation I doubt that it will be thought by many to be a sufficient Cause of departing from the present Church Communion and of seting up distinct Congregations by those who will be deprived and turned out of their Livings for refusing this Oath and what the consequence of that may prove God knows But whereas you think this present new Oath not full enough and therefore wish there were another made declaring the present King and Queen to be lawfully and rightfully so c. since this would amount to as good as an Oath of Abjuration of King Iames and his Title I doubt it were better let alone for I do not think the present Government will get any thing by it since the intent of the Oath you propose can only serve either to gain the present Government more new Friends or else to fix the old ones faster to it or else to discover secret Enemies now if I can prove it will not serve for any of these three ends I suppose you will grant that it were better to let it alone now that it will be so far from gaining it more Friends that it will rather serve to drive away a great many from it is apparent since many men are now in Offices and Imployments who think they may lawfully take this new Oath of Allegiance as long as the present King and Queen are not therein declared to be lawfully and rightfully so and I believe may serve them faithfully enough in their several stations who if they should come to be put to it to declare and swear that they were rightful and lawful King and Queen would rather lose their places than take it neither will it fix those that are for this Government faster to it since those that are zealous for it will be so whether they took any Oath or not and I have already proved that by the word Allegiance in this Oath it is implied that the present King and Queen are to be defended as lawfully so by the Swearer to it which is the main reason that I and those of my Opinion can by no means think it lawful to take it Nor lastly will it discover any secret Enemies to your Government since those who being rightly instructed in the true sence of this Oath and what is thereby required shall notwithstanding take it against their Conscience will I doubt take any Oath whatever the Convention shall think fit to impose since nothing but the fear of losing their present Imployments or else the desire of getting new ones could have made them take the Oath as it is since to my knowledge it hath been taken by many now in Places much against their own judgement and I doubt the conviction of their Consciences too I speak this only in relation to some of loose Principles but as to my self and many more of my Acquaintance who refuse this Oath we should be so far from taking any Place of Trust under this Government that we should not do it tho' no Oath were at all required of us since I think it not only wicked and dishonourable for any honest man to serve a Party only to watch an opportunity to betray it but I also believe my self obliged by my former Oaths as well as the duty of a natural Allegiance which I owe the King and his right Heirs not to serve those whom we look upon as Usurpers of their just Rights But if you would also have this new Oath to be an absolute abjuration of the King and his Title it will not only be unjust but impossible since who can tell but either by the help of a foreign Force or the general consent of the Nation tired out by a long expensive War either his Majesty or the Prince of Wales may be again placed upon the Throne and then sure whenever they shall call a Parliament to recognize their Title they will be even according to your own hypothesis more lawful and rightful Kings than King William and Queen Mary since they will not be only Kings de facto but de jure too and therefore I believe it was out of this Consideration that in all those long and various Contests which so often happen'd between Competitors for the Crown they never presumed to proposed to the Parliament the passing any Act to impose an Oath to abjure the Title or Person of the Rival Prince Thus in all the long Wars between King Stephen and Maud the Empress as also between the two Houses of York and Lancaster each of whom as they prevail'd in their turns were very well contented to make the Subjects take the ordinary Oath of Fidelity to themselves without abjuring each others Title and even in the later times of the Rump Parliament when the most violent and hot-headed Commonwealths-Men would have imposed an Oath of Abjuration of Charles Stuart and all his Family as they then termed his late Majesty the most Wise and Moderate Men among them such as Lenthal their Speaker and others stifly oppos'd it saying it would be a fighting against Providence to take an Oath never to own his Majesty for their King if once he should come in again without their assistance and I think there is as much if not more reason now against such an Oath of Abjuration as ever there was then F. I cannot deny but you have spoken like an honest Man in absolutely refusing to act under this Government though without an Oath unless you could be satisfied of
the lawfulness of the Powers to whom it is taken And I must acknowledge that you therein act with much more Sincerity and Honour then divers of your Party who tho they have been and are of your Opinion as to the Justice of King Iames's Title yet think they may take this Oath well enough in that looser and more qualified Sence you grant they put upon it and therefore to answer in the first place what you have said against the imposing any more explicite or stricter Oath of Allegiance then what is already appointed though I think I can very well answer all the Arguments you have now brought against it Yet to let you see I am a fair Adversary I will shew you how far I agree with you and wherein I must differ from you In the first place therefore let me tell you That you very much mistake me if you believe that by this new Oath I propose I'do design an express Abjuration of King Iames or the Prince of Wales in Case that King should ever happen to recover the Throne and call a Parliament who shall again Recognize him for lawful King and the Prince for the Right and Undoubted Heir of the Crown I am too sensible of the frequent Alterations that have happened in this Nation even to desire or propose any such thing since a Man may as well abjure the having a Feavour or the Small Pox. Change of Government and consequently our submission to it when ever it happens being no more in our power to prevent then the having those Diseases all therefore that I intend by a stricter and more explicate Oath of Allegiance is only for Men who shall undertake any imployments of Trust and Consequence either Spiritual Civil or Military in the Common-wealth since I grant the Oath as it is now worded may be sufficient for all ordinary Subjects from whom a passive Submission and true Obedience is a sufficient performance of their Duty but as for all others that either now have or expect to enjoy Places of Trust I could wish a stricter Oath asserting their present Majesties to be lawful and rightful King and Queen of this Kingdom and that the Taker will defend them in the present Possession of it to the utmost of their Power against all Persons whatsoever King Iames and the Prince of Wales not excepted and this I must think necessary not only from that Low and qualified Sence of this Oath which I gave at the beginning of this Nights Conversation and in which Sence you cannot deny but that many if not the greater part of those who still hold such imployments have lately taken it and as long as they do so how they can ever think themselves obliged to defend their Majesties against King Iames nay or any French or Popish Forces that shall act by his Commission I cannot understand for since they now look upon the present King and Queen to have no other right to the Crown than what their bare Power and present Possession of it gives them no wonder if such Men take the first opportunity to Revolt and joyn with King Iames as soon as ever he Lands with an Army or appears upon our Coasts with any Fleet formidable enough to oppose ours and must also if they are true to their Principles in the mean time do all they can to protect and indemnifie those who being of tender Consciences cannot stretch it as far as themselves and who under-hand do Act as far as they dare for King Iames's Interest and though it is true you have very solidly proved not only as a Civilian but like a Lawyer that the word Allegiance inserted in this Oath does of its own Nature imply not only that the King or Queen to whom it is taken ought to be rightly and lawfully so but that more than a bare Neutrality viz. a reall and vigorous defence of them and their right against all their Enemies is required and implyed by it and that is one great Reason why you say you cannot take it Now though I confess the Reason you have given are very weighty and convincing yet since the words are in themselves too general and doubtfull for every Person that takes or holds such Offices or Imployments of Trust to understand it in that Sence I could be glad there were another more plain and explicite Oath to be administred to those who expect to keep or hold such Imployments Since the present Government cannot well be safe without it as long as such Persons are imployed who can take the Oath with a Mental Reservation of serving King Iames as soon they safely may by vertue of that former Oath of Allegiance they have taken to him This being the Case I shall now answer all the Objections you have brought against it which indeed are rather framed to keep those Men in places that they may serve your designs when ever they are able than to do any service to tender Consciences First then I think I may maintain that such an Oath will notwithstanding what you have now said have contrary effects than what you are pleased to allow for in the first place it will gain the present Government more new Friends amongst these Neuters who steer their Allegiance to it only from its present Settlement and the hopes of its Continuance when they find that none can be imployed in places of publick Trust who will not take an Oath to acknowledge their present Majesties to be Lawfull and Rightfull King and Queen and who will also Swear to Defend their just Right which will for the most part put Placeâ— of Trust into their Hands who will think themselves oblig'd faithfully to perform what they have Sworn Secondly it will also fix the old Friends of this Government faster to it when they see none but themselves or those who will really come into the Government upon their Principles admitted to such Places of profit and trust and whoever will take this Oath are to be presumed to take it willingly and wittingly and understanding what they do since the words will be of themselves so plain and evident that they will admit none of those loose and doubtfull Sences in which so many have taken the present Oath of Allegiance but your main Objection against this is that a new Oath will not discover secret Enemies to the Government because that most of the same Persons that have taken the former Oath will take any other that can be requir'd of them which I suppose is not so since you your self do grant that such an Oath would be a snare to a great many who if it were not for that would serve this Government faithfully enough that is to say as long as there is no necessity of shewing their Good-will to King Iames or have no opportunity given of returning to their former Allegiance to him with safety to themselves and you your self cannot deny but according to their Principles they must needs perform it when
Foundation of all other and I have ever thought God's Love and Kindness to Mankind did never appear in any thing more except in Man's Redemption than in Creating only one Man and out of him only one Woman So that Adam was a kind of a Father to his Wife That Marital as well as all other Power might be founded in Paternal Iurisdiction That all Princes might look upon the meanest of their Subjects as their Children And all Subjects upon their Prince as their Common Father And upon each other as the Children of one Man that Mankind might not only be United in one common Nature but also be of one Blood of one Family and be habituated to the best of Governments from the very Infancy of the World Were this well considered as there could be no Tyrants so neither would there be any Traitors and Rebels But both Prince and People would strive to outdo each other in the offices of Love and Duty And now do you or any Man living read Sir R. F's Patriarcha or other works and see if either he or I have ascribed one Dram of Power to Princes which will not Naturally Spring from this Supream-Paternal Power So that upon the whole I think reason it self would conclude that this way of Solving the first Rise of Government is true and that it is the Duty of all who by the Blessing of God are under Paternal Monarchies to be very thankful for the favour and to do the utmost that in them lies to preserve and transmit that best form of Government to their Children after them And surely there is no Nation under Heaven hath more reason for this than the English who are under a Paternal Monarchy which has taken the best care that can be to secure them not only from oppression and wrong but from the very fear of it F. Since you lay the chief stress of your assertion upon the Original of most of the Kingdoms and Monarchies now in the World and of our own in particular I think I may safely joyn issue with you on both points and in the first place affirm that an unjust Conquest gives the Conquerour no right to the Subjects Obedience much less over their Lives or Estates and if our Norman William and his Successours had no more right to the Crown of England than meer conquest I doubt whether they might have been driven out after the same manner they came in But I believe you will find upon second thoughts that Unjust Conquests and Usurpations of Crowns be no firm Titles for Princes to relye on lest the Old English Proverb be turned upon you viz. That which is Sauce for a Goose is Sauce for a Gander but I Shall defer this discourse concerning Titles by Conquest and in particular that of our Kings to this Kingdom to some other time when I doubt not but to shew that it is not only false in matter of fact but also that it will not prove that for which it is brought And therefore what you say in your conclusion in exaltation of God's Love and Kindness to Mankind in Creating one Man and out of him only one Woman that Adam might be a kind of Father to his Wife is a very pretty and indeed singular Notion and you would do very well to move the Convocation next time it sits that this explanation may be added to the fifth Commandment that Women may be taught in the Catechism that Obedience to Husbands is due by the Precept of Honour thy Father and thy Mother And therefore I need give no other Answer to all the rest you have said however Specious the Hypothesis may seem as you have drest it up for Princes and People yet till you have proved that all Paternal Power is Monarchical and that all Monarchical Power is derived from Fatherhood it signifies nothing Nor can these Piae Fraudes do any more good in Politicks than Religion For as Superstition can never serve to advance the True Worship of God but by creating false Notions of the Divine Nature in Meâ—s Minds which doth not render it as it ought to be the Object of their Love and Reverence but Servile Fear So I suppose this asserting of such an unlimited Despotical Power in all Monarchs and such an entire Subjection as Sir R. F. and you your self exact from Subjects can produce nothing but a flavish Dread without that esteem and affection for their Prince's Person and Government which is so necessary for the quiet of Princes and which they may always have whilst they think themselves obliged in Conscience and Honour to protect their Lives and Fortunes from Slavery and Oppression according to the just and known Laws of the Kingdom and not to dispense with them in great and Essential Points without the Consent of those who have a hand in the making of them And all false Notions of this Supreme Power as derived from I know not what Fatherly but indeed Despotick Power are so far from settling in Peoples Minds a sober and rational Obedience to Government that they rather make them desperate and careless who is their Master since let what Change will come they can expect no better than to be Slaves Nor are Subjects put in a better condition by this Doctrine of Absolute Non Resistance since all Princes are not of so generous a Nature as not to Tyrannize and Insult the more over those whom they suppose will not or else dare not resist them and therefore I cannot see how such a submission can soften the hearts of the most Cruel Princes in the World as you suppose much less how Resistance in some cases can inrage the mildest Princes to their Peoples Ruine since all Resistance of such mild and merciful Princes I grant to be utterly unlawful nor do I hold Resistance ever to be practised but where the People are already ruined in their Liberties and Fortunes or are just at the brink of it and have no other means left but that to avoid it To conclude I so far agree with you that I think it is the Duty of all that are born under a Kingly Government Limited by Laws to be very thankful to God for the Favour and to do the utmost that in them lies to preserve and transmit this best Form of Government to their Children after them without maintaining such unintelligible Fictions as a Paternal Monarchy derived from Adam or Noah And tho' I own that some of our former Kings have taken the best care they could to secure this Nation from Popery and Arbitrary Power yet whether the Method of our three last Kings have been the readiest way to secure us from the fears of it I leave it to your own Conscience if you are a Protestant to judge But since you defie me to shew you out of Sir R. F's Patriarcha that he hath ascribed one Dram of Power to Princes which doth not naturally arise from a Supreme Paternal Power and that this is
I. it signified onely the Body of the lesser Tenants in Capite till after the 18 th of that King F. I am sorry to see Prepossession and Prejudice has so much overrun you as to hinder you from closing with the Truth for pray tell me if this Author could in the 49 th of Henry the 3 d when the Commons were summoned without dispute comprehend all the Estates of that Parliament under the General Words of Proâ—eres and Magnates and the Knights of Shires are understood by the same Word in the next Passage cited out of the same Author why might not other Writers do so too in other Parliaments as for your next Exception it is a very small Cavil for it appears that this Summons of the Citizens and Burgesses at the Translation of King Edwards Relicks was to a Parliament by the Words that follow Nobiles ut assolent Parliamentationis genere de Regis Regni negotiis pertractare and why these Citizens and Burgesses should not be as well Elected by their respective Cities and Burroughs this Year as well as the last as it appears they were by the Writ to the Cinque Ports which the Dr. and Mr. Pryn has given us I desire you would give me any satisfactory Argument to the contrary As for you Objection against the Words Communitas Regni being to be understood for the Body of the Commons in 54 th Henry 3 d it is altogether as unreasonable since this is to make the Constituent parts of the Parliament alter not onely when Writers shift their Phrases but when they do not and that without any other Reason but because the Writs of Summons and Parliament Rolls of those times are all perisht and to deny the Commons were there onely for that Reason is altogether as unjust as for any Court of Justice to turn a man out of the actual and long Possession of an Estate meerly because his Writings and Evidences by the carelessness or roguery of his Servants have happen'd a great many of them to be lost or burnt But fully to convince you if possible that Dr. Bradyes Opinion of the Commons not being again summoned from the 49 th of Henry the 3 d till the 18 th of Edward the first is a meer Fancy of his own and contrary to the express Authorities both of Historians and Records And to come to plainer proofs pray in the first place take notice that it appears by a Writ of the 11 th of King Edward the I. to the Archbishop of Canterbury acquainting him with the Rebellion of Lewellyn Prince of Wales that he had de Consilio Praelatorum Procerum Magnatum Regni nec non totius Communitatis ejusdem resolved God willing to put an end to this Welch Rebellion so that this war seems to have been resolved upon at the Parliament held the Year before and now mentioned in this Record a War which that Valiant and Fortunate Prince effectually concluded by the total subduing of Wales and killing of Lewellyn whose Head was cut off and sent to London the particulars of which War Knighton as well as other Historians relate at large and also that presently after David the Brother of this Lewellyn the cause of all these Mischiefs was as this Author shews us in Magno Parliamento at Shrewsbury Condemned and afterwards hang'd drawn and quarter'd Walsingham is more short in the Relation of this Parliament onely says that in the 11 th of Edward the I. Habitum est Parliamentum at Shrewsbury in which this David was Condemned and Executed as before But Thomas Wikes who lived at this very time in his Chronicle but now cited will better instruct us than either Walsingham or Knighton and his account of this Parliament is as follows Anno 1282. Circa festum sti Michaelis Rex convocari fecit apud Salopesberiam Majores Regni sui Sapientiores tam de Civibus quam de Magnatibus fecit illuc addaci David qui apud Rothelan fuerat captivatus ut super exigentiam Delicti ' sui corpore subiret Iudicium c. and then relates at large the manner of his Execution from which Passage we may observe that this Author makes it plain who were the Communitas Regni mentioned in the Record of the 11 th of this King and who constituted this great Parliament at Shrewsbury viz. Majores Magnates Regni which last as I have now often proved takes in the Knights of Shires and the wisest of the Citizens M. But yet this Author says no more but that the Majores Regni sapientiores tam de Civibus quam de Magnatibus were called to this Parliament wherein Lewellyn was condemned Now it doth not appear that these Ciâ—es were Elected or that there were any Burgesses chosen for the Burroughs or that there were any Knights chosen by the Counties there were indeed Magnates called to this Parliament but they might be all Tenants in Capite F. Well then since you will not be satisfied without direct and evident proof such as neither your self nor Dr. B. will I hope deny pray take this which Mr. Petyt has not long since communicated to me and which he has lately discovered in Rotulo Walliae in a bye Roll not taken notice of by any Body as I know of before it is a formal Writ of 11 th Edward I. for summoning the Temporal Lords to be with that King at a Collequy or Parliament opud Salop in Crastino Sti. Michaelis and there is in the same Roll a second Writ directed to several Cities and Burroughs for Electing two Citizens and two Burgesses to this Parliament with a void space to insert more Names And also a third Writ is there directed to the Sheriff of every County in England to cause to be chosen two Knights pro Communitate ejusdem Commitatus And lastly there is a 4 th Writ directed to the Justices and others of the Kings Learned Council With the same Preambles to each of them all being commanded to appear at the same time and place now what can Dr. Brady say to this that he who was so long Keeper of these Records and sure ought to have perused them as he did many others of the same Reign yet has either willfully or carelesly passed by this so memorable a Record And so I hope this will convince you for the future of the danger of being over positive in an Opinion because it could not presently be confuted and let you see that it is not at all improbable but that the like Writs of Summons would appear as well before the 49 th of Henry the 3 d as in the rest of the Years of his own and his Sons Reign had not those Records been lost and destroy'd which considered we have Reason to thank God for those that the Iniquity of the times have yet leâ—t us M. I must confess you have told me more than ever I yet thought could be
against the Tyranny of the Duke D'Alva in the beginning of the Belgick Wars and it was soon after seconded by the revolt of divers other Cities and Towns in those Provinces till the Spaniards were quite driven out M. I do not deny but you speak more moderately on this Subject than most of your opinion who think every private man has a right to take up Arms and raise a Rebellion whenever he judges his Person or Estate is invaded or injured by the Government And indeed this remedy of Resistance seems at first sight prety tolerable if it were not that we very well knew that this many-headed Beast the Multitude is very apt to be deluded by the cunning Speeches and sly Insinuations of factious and ambitious Men whose Interest it will always be to fish in troubled Waters and raise Disturbances to make themselves the Heads of a Party Thus in the Year 42. what Lies and Stories were there raised to incense the People against that good King to make them take up Arms against him as an Invader of their Liberties and one that was about to make War upon them And who that is not over-partial to his own Opinions does not see that the Nation has been blown up into a flame by the lying Reports of a French League and a Supposiâ—irious Prince of Wales neither of which I durst pawn my life have the least tittle of truth in them so that this Doctrine can scarce fail almost every time it is put in practice to bring all Government to Anarchy and Confusion F. I have already in part answered this Objection at our Third Meeting but since you will urge it over again I shall in the first place admit the Matter of Fact to be as you say that the People may by some turbulent Demogogues be sometimes so far incensed as to take up Arms when there is no just Occasion but let me tell you I doubt that neither of the Instances you have given will make good your Assertion for in the first place as to King Charles the First it is said by all Writers on the Parliaments side that the King by leaving his Parliament and going to York and there taking a Guard when no Enemy was near and when the Parliament had as yet raised no Forces at all as also by his going to Hull to remove the Magazine of Arms that lay there in order to put them into the hands of an Army to make War upon the Parliament who then demanded the Settlement of the Militia to be in Commissioners of their Nomination that he thereby broke his Coronation Oath whereby he was Sworn to Govern according to Law and not by force But as for what you say as to the present juncture of Affairs I never can desire a more plain proof of the Peoples necessity of â—aking up defensive Arms since admitting that neither of the Reports concerning the French League and the false Birth of this supposed Prince be true yet I think the Nation has had sufficient Provocations to rise as one man and joyn with the Prince of Orange for the obtaining of a free Parliament to set all things right which the King 's violent illegal Administration has so much discomposed But admitting the utmost you can suppose that sometimes the people may Judge amiss as well as the King and through that mis-information may take up Arms against their Prince when there is no real Occasion shall this abuse of a right be a sufficient cause against there ever exercising of it at all I am sure this is no good Argument against the natural Right of Self defence between private persons in the state of Nature that some men do often abuse it nor can I see how upon these Grounds even Soveraign Princes may be allowed to make so much as Defensive Wars as I said but now since they may pretend that themselves are wronged and invaded or at least are like to be so when no such thing was really done or intended and so by their mis-judgment or false pretences many millions of Lives may be lost What then must no Princes ever make War at all till all the World be satisfied of the Justice of their Quarrel If so I doubt the last War of King Charles the Second made against the Dutch and this late War the King of France has now made upon the Empire should never have been by your Principles so much as begun much less carried on with so great an Effusion of Blood and the Destruction of so many Cities and Towns and whether this as well as Tyranny at home is not more often put in practice by Princes than any Resistance this Nation or all the Subjects of the World have made against such Tyranny and Arbitrary Power I leave it to your self or any indifferent Person to judge M. I doubt not but I may very well join issue with you upon this point for I think that upon those very conditions and grounds you have now laid down the Clergymen Lords Gentlemen and Commons of this Kingdom who have either come over with the Prince of Orange or have taken up Arms in defence of his Late Declaration cannot justifie themselves by any of the Instances you have given for joyning themselves with him in Arms for tho' I grant His Majesty by hearkning too much to Popish Counselâ— may have done many things which in strictness of Law cannot be justified yet since they do not strike at that which you call the fundamental constitution of the Government and has been also done without any force on the People of this Nation but hath been either transacted by Judgment of Law or the colour of it at least viz. by the opinion of all or the Major part of Judges all the Parties above mention'd ought according to your own Principles to have waited for the meeting of the next Parliament to whose determination they ought by the Law of the Land to have referred all such grievances and violations of Laws which they had to complain of and if then the King had refused to have remedied them they might have had some colour I do not say right for taking up Arms and doing what they have done whereas I cannot see how you can even upon your Principles defend the late risers from wilful Rebellion against the King And for proof of this I need go no farther than the Prince of Oranges Late Declaration which being drawn by the best advice of the Male-contents then in Holland would not fall to mention all the violations of Law which they thought his Majesties Government had been guilty of ever since his coming to the Crown and therefore not to insist upon the want of right which I conceive the Prince had to concern himself with the affairs of another Kingdom which he had no right to I shall however mention every Article in which his Highness conceives the Religion Laws and civil Liberties of this Nation to be endangered In the first
to hinder Free Elections and due returns of Parliament Men by making either Popish or Fanatical Sheriffs and putting Mayors and other Officers of the like Principles into most of the Cities and Corporate Towns in England nor can I tell but that force would also have been used if they found they could not have compassed their designs without it in those places where Souldiers were Quarter'd since I am credibly inform'd that at the late intended Elections of Burgesses for Northampton and Brackly the Officers and Souldiers Quarter'd at those places declar'd that none of the Towns-men should be admitted to give Voices at the Election unless they would promise to Vote for those that the Court would set up and the like instances I beleive I might give you of other places had I time to enquire into it and as for the house of Peers pray consider how many of the Bishops and temporal Lords the King might have gain'd either by threats or fair promises to the Kings party or at least prevail'd upon to stand Neuters and not to oppose his designs and if these had fail'd it had been but calling up some Popish or high Tory or Fanatick Gentlemen to the House of Lords and to have sate their as Barons Peers pro tempore till this Jobb was done and I doubt not but there would have been enough found out of each sort for that purpose and that I do not speak without Book I have had it from persons of very good Intelligence that such a design was lately on foot and the Court party thought they had very good Authority for it since Mr. Pryn and Sr. Will. Dâ—dgdale pretended to show us several examples of this Kind as low as the Reign of King Henry the 4th and a great part of the design of your Dr. Bs. late Books seem to have been only to prove that the King might not only have Summon'd to Parliament what of the Commmons he pleased but what Lords too and have omitted the rest as I have already shown you at our two last meetings and sure if the King had such a prerogative two or three hundred years ago these Gentlemen would not have deny'd his Present Majesty the like Power Since they have in all their Writings and addresses declar'd him as absolute as any of his Predecessours But to make an end as for what you say of the Kings Redressing the Grievances of the Nation before the Prince of Orange came it is very true he did by the advice of some of the Bishops endeavour to put things into the same state they were in at his first coming to the Crown but I very much mistrust the sincerity of his Majesties intentions since it is plain he never offer'd to do it till the Prince of Orange was â—ust upon coming and that his Declaration had been spread about the Kingdom and then he did it so unwillingly that when the news came of part of the Princes Fleets being Shipwrack'd and that his design was quite put off the Bishop of Winchester who was then but newly gone down to restore the President and Fellows of Magdalen Colledge was immediately call'd back under pretence of being present as the Examination of the Birth of the Prince of Wales and did not return again to finish that business till such time as fresh News came that the Prince was certainly come notwithstanding his late disaster And which is also more remarkable His Majesty in none of His Declarations ever disowned his Dispensing Power or so much as put out Father Peters from the Council or Disbanded one Popish Officer or Souldier out of his Army which is another great Argument of the Sincerity of his intentions So that I think this was sufficient to convince any reasonable Man that there was no other means left us but Resistance and that by Force and a hearty Joyning with the Prince of Orange at his Landing Since this resistance was not made either in Opposition to the King or the Laws but for defence of both against a Standing Army kept up contrary to Law and headed by Officers the greatest part of which by not taking the Sacrament and Test according to the Act made for that purpose had render'd themselves wholy uncapable of holding those Commissions and consequently whilst in Arms were to be look'd upon as common Enemies to the Nation But as for his Majesties Gracious and mercifull disposition as I shall not make it my business personally to Reflect upon him so I must needs tell you the Execution of Mr. Cornish Mrs. Lisle Mrs. Gaunt for Treasons falsly alledg'd or else for such as Women could scarce be capable of knowing to be so were no great Evidences of such highly Merciful Inclinations M. I confess you have taken a great deal of pains not only to set forth the Late Miscarriages of the Government but also to prove that the Army which the King raised upon the Duke of Monmouth's Rebellion and which he hath since kept up to prevent either fresh Rebellions at home or Invasions from abroad has been meerly maintain'd to support all these Late breaches upon our Laws and Civil Liberties which you say were made upon them now this is very uncharitably done for as His Majesty was Forc'd to raise that Army at first because the Late Rebellion in the West was too powerfull to be quell'd by the ordinary Train'd Bands of the Kingdom whom he had too much reason to suspect by the running over of several of them to the Rebels not to be so Loyal as they ought to have been and if His Majesty had not had a small body of an Army on Foot the last Summer before the Prince of Orange came over he must upon his Landing have Yielded to his terms had they been never so unreasonable and though I will not defend the Listing of Popish or Irish Souldiers or the Granting Commissions to Popish Commanders yet it is very hard to prove this to be a making War upon the Nation unless you can suppose there may be War made without Fighting and as for those Violations of the Laws which you suppose were made only upon the presumption of this standing Army this is likewise very hard to affirm since how can you tell that the Judges and Ministers would not have given the same Opinions and advices concerning the Dispensing Power Chimney Money the Ecclesiastical Commission had there been no Army at all rais'd since they might for ought I know have presum'd that the People of this Nation had been sufficiently convinc'd of the truth of the Doctrines of Passive Obedience and Non-resistance as not to have needed a Standing Army to back what he had already done tho' contrary to Law but as for the latter part of your Dicourses say the People ought to have waited till the King had call'd a Parliament and then if they had betray'd their trust and given up our Religion and Liberties as you suppose they would have done it had been
their Judgments And as for what you say that the Prince ought first to have tryed whether the King and Parliament would give him that satisfaction he demanded This was very dangerous for him to hazard for supppose the King would never have permitted this affair to have been impartially inquired into by them or that the Parliament had been as it was very likely to be packt and made up of Papists Fanaticks and Time-servers who either would not or else durst not have examined this matter as they ought His Highness had been then to play an after-game the next year and what might have happened in the mean time God knows And therefore he had all the reason in the World whilst the French Kings Arms were imployed in Germany to demand satisfaction with the Sword in his hand This is what I have to say in justification of His Highnesses Arms which if they are just on his side I think I can as easily prove what has been done for his Assistance by the Nobility Gentry and Commons of this Nation to have been so too M. I shall not any longer dispute whether the Dutch and the Prince of Orange may not make some fair pretences for what they have done since making War for security by way of Prevention is no new thing in the World though I confess what you say in respect of the Prince of Wales had been a sufficient cause of War had there been any true grounds for that suspition but since there was no just cause given why his Highness should suspect his Birth not to be Genuine and that even in the present Convention it self there could be no proof made to the contrary I think it is now evident that it was a wicked and unjust Calumny upon his Majesty and the Queen since he himself in the last Paper he left behind him at his going away Appeals to all that know him nay even to the Prince of Orange himself that in their Consciences neither he nor they can believe him in the least capable of so unnatural a Villany nor of so little common Sence to be impos'd on in a thing of such a nature as that But as for those noble Men and Gentlemen who have declar'd for the Prince of Orange since his expedition I think that they are no way to be justified since granting them to have been satisfied that the Princes demands were lawful and reasonable yet sure they ought not to have taken up Arms on behalf of a Forreign Prince against their Natural Sovereign but if in their Consciences they had believed his quarrel to have been just the utmost they could have done had been to have stood Neuters without concerning themselves either with the one or the other party and then if the Prince had gain'd his point either by Arms or Treaty they might have enjoy'd the good effects of it without breaking in upon the Church of Englands Principles of Passive Obedience and Non-resistance and so many Acts of Parliament made but as for those Officers and Souldiers who so basely and perfidiously Deserted the King at Salisbury and ran over to the Princes Army with their Commissions in their pockets they cannot possibly be justified either by the Law of the Land or that of Nations since certainly they acted contrary to both F. Before I speak any thing concerning the business of the Prince of Wales give me leave to say something in Justification of those Noblemen and Gentlemen you so highly accuse and though we Discoursed something of this matter at our last meeting yet since you have again renewed the charge against them I cannot but again vindicate them in what they have done in the first place pray call to mind that it has sufficiently appear'd by the small Forces his Highness brought over with him that he never intended to Conquer this Kingdom or impose any thing upon it contrary to the known Laws and Customs thereof and therefore as appears by his Declaration his chief hopes of Success against so Numerous an Army made up of the flower of three Nations depended on that assurance he had of some Considerable Assistance from the Nobility and Gentry of Eng. and perhaps from some of the Officers of the Kings own Army and that this was lawful in both of them I thus prove you may remember I made out at our last meeting but one that when the Nation lay under any great intollerable Oppression by reason of the violation of their Just Rights and Liberties the Clergy Nobility and Gentry thereof did always look upon it as their Right and Duty to vindicate the same by a vigorous Resistance when no gentler means could suffice Secondly I have proved that it neither was nor could be the intent of those Oaths and Declarations made in the two first Parliamenâ—s of King Charles the Second to deliver up their Lives Liberties and Estates wholly to the Kings Mercy let him use them as he pleased and if they did not it must necessarily follow that upon the Kings Violation of their Religion Liberties and Properties they had still a Right left them to defend themselves from such Oppression and Tyranny Lastly I have also proved as the Convention also lately declared that the King by his exercising his Dispensing Power by Committing and Prosecuting the Six Bishops by setting up an Ecclesiastical Commission contrary to Law by Levying Mony by his Prerogative without or contrary to express Acts of Parliament and by Raising and keeping up a standing Army in time of Peace Commanded by Officers who had never taken the Test appointed by the Statutes for that purpose and consisting of so many Popish Souldiers who having never taken the Oathâ— of Supremacy and Allegiance were altogether uncapable of serving in his Majesties Army and by doing divers other things contrary to the known Laws Statutes and Freedom of this Realm too long now to particularize had broken the Fundamental Constitution of the Kingdom This being the Case I desire to know of you how it was possible for the Nation to have a firm and setled Redress of these Grievances without a Free Parliament Or how it was possible to obtain this Parliament the late taking away of Charters and Regulation of Corporations considered unless those Obstacles had been first removed And how could they be removed without some force proportionable to what the King had raised to hinder it I cannot tell And therefore it is a very vain Project of yours to suppose that those Noblemen and Gentlemen should have stood Neuters and not have declar'd themselves some way or other in this quarrel which is all one as to say they ought to sit still and see a Generous Prince ruin'd who had come in for their Redemption and to have then expected a remedy for all these illegal Violations and Oppressions when the King had kill'd or destroy'd the Prince of Orange and his Army or that the King would then have yielded to all the same Conditions that
the Prince had demanded This would have been not to have been parralel'd any where but in a Romance But as for those Officers and Souldiers who you say Deserted the King and went over to the Prince from Salisbury though I grant they make a great noise yet were they not a Thousand Men Soldiers Officers and all as I am Credibly inform'd which was but a small number in comparison with the Kings whole Army and yet these may very well be defended upon the same principles with the former for if the Violations of our Liberties were so great and dangerous as I have now set forth those Gentlemen were certainly oblig'd to prefer the common Good and Preservation of their Religion and Liberties before any private interests or Obligations whatsoever though it were to the King himself therefore it was more his than their fault if they Diserted him and as for their going away whilst they were his Souldiers and with their Commissions in their pockets I suppose you cannot expect that the King should have ever given them leave to have quitted his Service or have accepted of their Commissions if they would have surrender'd them unless at the same time he had clapt them up in prison for offering of it and if then they were perswaded that it was theiâ— Duty so to do it is but a Punctilio of Honour whether they went away with their Commissions in their pockets or had left them behind them since their going off was a Surrender of their Commissions and a sufficient Declaration â—â—at they could not with a safe Conscience serve the King any longer in this quarrel and you see that the going off of these few had such a fatal effect that it cast such a panick Terrour upon the King and the whole Popish Faction about him as to make him run away to London without striking a stroke But that the Prince of D. with the Dukes of Grafton and Ormond Lord Churchill were convinced of the danger this Kingdom was in both in respect of their Religion and Liberties appears by their leaving the King and going over to the Prince where they could never expect to be put into higher places of Honour or Trust than what they enjoyed already under the King and therefore that expression of the Lord Churchill's in his Letter to the King is very remarkable That he could no longer joyn with self-interested men who had framed designs against His Majesties true Interest and the Protestant Religion to give a pretence to Conquest to bring them to Effect And one would be very much inclin'd to believe so considering the great number of Irish Papists which have been brought over and listed here though with the turning out and disbanding of a great many English Officers and Souldiers out of several Companies But to come to the business of the Prince of Wales which you say was a meer calumny and an unjust suspition on the Princess side though I will not affirm any thing positively in so nice a matter since the Convention has not thought fit to meddle with it I shall only say this much that if there have been any jealousies and suspitions raised about it the King may thank those of his own Religion who were intrusted with the management of the Queens Lying-Inn For in the first place it looked very suspicious to us Protestants who do not put much faith in the Miracles of the Romish Church that immediately after the presenting of the Golden Angel to the Lady of Loretto and the Kings Pilgrimage to St. Winifreds Well the Queen after several years intermission should again be with Child and when she was so should have two different Reckonings Which though it may be forgiven Young Women of their first Children yet those who have born so many Children as Her Majesty are commonly more experienced in these matters M. What is all this to the purpose Was it not proved by many credible Witnesses and those of the Protestant Religion before the Privy-Council that they were not only present in the Room when the Queen was Delivered but that they had seen Milk upon Her Linnen before Her Delivery and that they had also felt Her Belly immediately before it and found that Her Majesty was Big with Child and ready to be Delivered And the Midwife Swears that she actually Delivered Her So that since every person is to be presum'd to be the true Son of those Parents that own him for theirs So nothing but a direct proof to the contray and that by undenyable Evividence ought to make any Man believe otherwise much more in the concern of the Heir apparent to the Crown and therefore I know not what you would have to been done which has not been observed in this nice matter F. And Sir let me tell you because it was so nice a matter and concerned no less than the Succession of Three Kingdoms therefore the whole Nation as well as the Prince and Princess of Orange were to be fully satisfied of the reality of the Princes Birth since they were all suffiâ—iently sensible that there wanted nothing but a Male Heir to entail Popery on us and our Posterity And therefore there ought to have been present such Persons as had no dependance upon the Court and who ought to have been deligated by the Prince and Princess of Orange since the Princess of Denmark could not be there in Person but instead of this the only two Ladies who as I am informed were trusted by the Princess to be present at the Queens Labour were never sent for till she was brought to Bed and the Child Drest And as for the rest of the Witnesses they were either Lords or other Persons who only Swear they stood in the Room at a distance and heard the Queen cry out and immmediately after the Child cry sometime before they saw it And as for the Ladies the greatest part of them Swore no further than the Lords So that notwithstanding all that they have Sworn in this matter there might have been a trick put upon them and they never the wiser Since you may Read in Siderfin's Reports of a Woman who pretended to have been delivered of a Child by a Mid-wife within the Bed and yet many years after this was proved to be a suposititious Birth by the Deposition of the Mid-wife and the poor Woman who was the real Mother of the Child and others that had been of the Conspiracy And what has been done once may be done again 'T is true the King himself with one or two Ladies Deposed something further as to Milk and the feeling of the Child immediately before the Birth but his Majesty if it be an Imposture is too deeply concerned in it to be admitted as a competent Witness And as for the rest of the Ladies they are likewise being as the Queens Servants and having an immediate dependance upon her to be excepted against and under too much awe to speak the whole Truth
a generous Prince a Nephew and a Son-in-law and one who was bound in Conscience and Honour to consult the lasting Peace and Happiness of the Nation more than his own private interest or the ambition of wearing a Crown F. You have made the utmost defence that I suppose can be brought for the King 's first going away yet if it be better consider'd I doubt it will not serve the turn I see you are forc'd to lay the whole fault of the Kings departure in the midst of the Treaty with the Prince and his refusing to call a Parliament according to his own Promise and Proclamation upon his want of security for himself the Queen and Prince if he had stay'd by reason of the want of fidelity in his Army the general prejudice of the Nation against him and the great firmness and resolution there was in the Princes Army to adhere to him Now I shall shew you that every one of these were but pretences and that the real cause of his departure was because he fear'd to leave the inquiry into the Birth of the Prince of Wales and the free examination and redress of our grievances and those violations he had committed upon the fundamental constitution of the Government to the impartial judgment of a free Parliament For in the first place as to want of fidelity in his Army that can be no just excuse for his deserting and disbanding them as he did without any pay since he himself in his said Letter to the Earl of Feversham expresly owns that there were a great many brave men both Officers and Souldiers among them and therefore if he was satisfied of this he ought to have first sent for all his Officers both Collonels and Captains and have examin'd them how far they would stand by him in the Defence of his Person and Cause against the Prince of Orange and he might have also order'd those Officers to have examin'd every Regiment Troop and Company in his whole Army how far they would engage in his defence and if he had proceeded thus at Salisbury before he fled away in that confusion to London I have been credibly inform'd by divers Officers of that Army that the King might have found above Twenty Thousand men that would have stood by him to the last man in his Quarrel against the Prince and therefore I impute his going away as he did from Salisbury to some strange pannick fear that God had cast upon him and all the Popish Faction about him since he has been known not to want sufficient courage upon other occasions but though he had omitted it there yet he certainly ought to have tryed this last experiment after he came to London rather than have quitted the Kingdom so dishonourably as he then did and thereby giving the P. of Orange's Friends an opportunity of seizing or getting delivered into their power all the Garisons and strong places in England besides Portsmouth in those three or four days time that he was not heard of besides great part of the Army that was not disbanded had in that time gone in to the Prince in hopes of their pay and future preferment now that the King might with safety have resided with his Army somewhere about London he himself grants in his Proposals to the Prince to this effect That in the mean time till all matters were adjusted concerning the freedom of Elections and a security of their sitting the respective Armies may be retained within such Limits and at such distance from London as may prevent all apprehensions that the Parliament may be in any kind disturbed which Proposals being made not long after the Kings arrival at London we may reasonably suppose that he was then well enough satisfied with the fidelity of the greatest part at least of his own Army to him and if he were not he might have been better satisfied if he pleased but as for the next difficulty the Nations being poisoned and prepossessed against him admit it were so as long as he had a sufficient Army about him as I suppose he might have had he need not have feared any thing the People could do but indeed this was a needless fear for before the Parliament could sit it was not the Peoples Interest to hinder it or to fall upon the King or his Army when matters were in a fair way of accommodation so after the Parliament sate there would have been less cause of fear since the reverence of that Court would have kept them in awe but as to the firmness and resolution of the Princes Army the fear of that was also as needless as long as the Kings Army continued as firm to him and if the Princes Army had been the first Agressors I doubt not but the People would have taken part with the King against them but after all it was certainly and you must grant it so much more safe and honourable for the King to have treated with the Prince and held a Parliament with an Army about him than to have yielded the same things as you suppose him willing to have done after his return to Town when his Army was disbanded and London had received the Prince and had joined with him and when almost all the strong places of England were in the Princes power so that upon the whole matter it evidently appears that the King chose to trust his own Person together with that of the Queen and Prince to a Foreign Monarch rather than he would relye upon the justice or fidelity of his own Nation You say in the next place that nothing the King has done in all these exorbitances he committed that can in any wise amount to a Forfeiture or Abdication of the Government not to the former because the King redress'd all our Grievances before he went away 't is true I grant he redressed some of them by putting divers things in the same State they were before yet for all this the greatest still remained unredressed viz. the Raising of Mony contrary to Law and the Dispensing Power both which as I have already shewed you at our last meeting he never Disclaimed neither took any sufficient course by Calling a Parliament to prevent its being exercised for the future besides his going away without giving the Prince and Nation any further Satisfaction about the Birth of the Prince of Wales all which not being done I must still affirm that this wrought a forfeiture of the Crown or an Abdication of it at least by his refusal to Hold and Govern it according to the Fundamental Laws thereof for he that destroys the Law or Conditions by which he holds an Estate does Tacitly Renounce his Title to it As I shewed you in the Case of Tenant for Life altering in Fee So that this being considered as also that the City of London and the whole Nation had Surrendred themselves to the Prince of Orange and that even the Arch-Bishops of Canterbury and York
as a wilful Forfeiture or Abdication of the Government and it is from this first going away that I suppose that the Convention dates his Abdication since though it is true after his return to London he took upon him to make an Order in Council to stop the further pulling down and plundering Popish Chappels and Papists Houses yet was it sign'd by very few of the Council and almost only by those who had been in some Office or Place of Trust so that though he was then own'd by them yet since that Order did only serve to shew his Zeal for the Popish Party and was never obey'd or taken notice of by those to whom it was directed and that neither the Prince nor the City of London owned him afterwards since it had already delivered it self up to the Prince and had as well as the Peers invited him to repair to that City I cannot see that so slight an act as this Order of Council should be counted a return to or a re-establishment in the Throne since the King had not only lost the Crown by his wilful departure without calling a Parliament or giving the P. any satisfaction in the great business of the pretended Prince of Wales or the Nation by repairing up those desperate breaches he had made upon our Fundamental Laws but had also lost his Title to the Crown by being Conquer'd by the Prince in open War as I shall prove more at large another time so that if you please better to consider this Vote of the Convention you will find that these words had Abdicated the Government do not only refer to the last clause of his having withdrawn himself out of the Kingdom but to everyone of the foregoing Clauses viz. His having endeavour'd to subvert the Constitution of this Kingdom his breaking the Original Contract and his having violated the Fundamental Laws so that it is plain their notion of Abdication was not fixt only in the Kings Desertion or bare withdrawing himself out of the Kingdom but from his renouncing the Legal Title by which he held the Crown and setting himself up as a Despotick Soveraign and ruling by a mercenary Army and therefore all that you have said about the Kings quitting the Government with a design to return to it again as soon as with safety he might is altogether vain for as he went away because he would not Govern any longer as a King by Law so hath he yet given us no satisfaction that he would not return again to Govern otherwise or rather worse than he did before had he an opportunity so to do that is as the Letter I cited but now phrases iâ— to return and have his ends of us so that this being indeed the case I think I can very well justifie the last clause in this Vote that the Throne was thereby vacant M. Sir you have spoke a considerable time and I doubt more than I can distinctly remember to answer as I should therefore before you proceed to this last Clause of the Vacancy of the Throne the dispute about which I foresee may hold longer than upon any of the former pray give me leave to reply to what you have already said in Justification of all the other parts of this Vote in the first place I will not deny but that if the King had once got the power of making what Mayors Aldermen and other Officers in Corporations at his pleasure it would have gone a great way towards the making the Majority of the Parliament-men nay I likewise grant that by his dispensing Power he might have made what Papists or other person he pleased Sheriffs in any County who would have made such return of Knights of Shires as he should have thought fit yet I suppose this would not have been to the subversion of the Constitution of the Kingdom which I think I have proved to consist originally in the K. alone before any great Councils or Parliaments were instituted And as for those violations of the Fundamental Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom the Declaration instances in I think several of them may very well be justified by antient Presidents and ad judged cases in Law and therefore were so far from being violations that they are no more than the Kings exercising of his due Prerogative and though at our ninth meeting I had not time so well to consider these matters as also because I was not then prepared to defend the Kings Proceedings I shall therefore make bold to examine the most considerable of those Articles which the Late Declaration supposes did so highly tend to subvert the Protestant Religion and the Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom I shall begin with the first viz. His assuming and exercising a power of Dispensing with and Suspending of Laws and the Execution of Laws without consent of Parliament which Power let me tell you by the way was not asserted to Dispence with all Laws or Statutes whatsoever but only such as the Subject has no particular cause of action in and where the damage that may arise by it doth not concerns the publick safety of which the K. is sole Judge and not any particular mans interest I suppose you cannot but have read that learned and short account of the Authorities in Law upon which Judgment was given in Sir Edw. Hales his Case written by Sir Edward Herbert Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in vindication of himself wherein I think he proves beyond any possibility of a just answer that the dispensation granted to Sir Edward Hales to receive a commission and act as a Collonel of Foot was good notwithstanding his not having received the Sacrament and taken the Oaths and Test appointed by the Act of the Statute of the 25 of Charles II. where he first proves from my L. Cock's Authority that it belongs to the Kings Prerogative to Dispence with all Positive or Penal Laws the penalty thereof is only popular and given to the King and to shew you that my Lord Cook who was never counted any great friend to the Kings Prerogative was not single in this opinion he gives you also the authority of the year Book of Henry the VII where it was own'd by all the Judges That the King can Dispence with all things which are only Mala Prohibita and not Mala â—n se though expresly forbid by Act of Parliament for though says the Year Book before the Statute Coining of Money was Lawful but now it is not so yet the King can Dispence with it so that say I if he can dispence with that which is now made Treason by EÃ the III. he may certainly dispence with all other Penal Statutes of a less nature But because I grant there is some difference between Common Penal Laws which barely prohibit the doing of some things under a penalty and this Act in which there is also an express Clause of Non-obstante that all Licences or Dispensations contrary to this
those Affairs But not to be partial to one Opinion I have faithfully recited all those Authorities and Arguments made use of by the Author of the Treatise Intituled The Hereditary Succession discuss'd as also by the Learned Dr. Brady in his exact History of the Succession of the Crown wherein those Authors endeavour to prove that the Crown of England is and hath always been Hereditary from the very beginning of our Monarchy notwithstanding the many and various Breaches that have been made upon it which Authorities and Arguments whether they prove the Matter in debate I shall leave to your better Iudgment but hope those Gentlemen will not take it ill if I cannot let all they write pass for clear Demonstration and therefore have taken upon me to cite all those Arguments and Authorities that either have been or as far as I know of may be made use of by those of the contrary Opinion in the performance of which if I have not dealt candidly with both Parties in fairly representing the utmost that they had to say I shall be obliged if any Friend to Truth will shew me my failings But tho it is true I have not gone higher in this History than the coming in of K. William I. yet I hope I may be excused looking farther back for these Reasons First because an Examination of the Succession before that time would not only be tedious by swelling this Discourse to an unreasonable Bulk but would also be superfluous since the Gentleman whom I suppose Freeman here Argues against makes K. William I. to have been an absolute Conqueror and to have altered all the former Laws in the Saxon Times and if so sure then those concerning the Succession of the Crown And I desire them to shew me any Reason if he and his Descendants held the Kingdom as Absolute Monarchs by Conquest why they might not bequeath or make it over as is justifiable in Patrimonial Kingdoms to which of their Sons Kindred or Relations they should think fit and if so what will then become of this Fundamental Right of a Lineal Hereditary Succession And besides all this it is needless upon another Account since I have already proved in the Tenth Dialogue from no less Authority than K. Alfred's Will that before the Conquest the Crown was partly Testamentary and partly Elective sometimes wholly Elective as in K. Edward the Confessor and whoever doubts of this I shall only desire them to read impartially Dr. Brady's above-mentioned History of the Succession and then I shall leave it to them to consider whether he does not grant in effect what he takes upon him to Confute viz. That there was no Lineal Descent of the Crown known or setled in those Times but what was Alterable by the Testament of those Kings But since the rest of this Discourse besides the enquiry into bare Matter of Fact is chiefly the applying those Precedents I have here made use of to the Case of their present Majesties I hope neither they nor any that wish well to their Government will resent it if I have not gone in the common Road of former Writers in supposing the Titular Prince of Wales to be an Impostor without any other proof than those bare Suspitions that have been publish'd in the Printed Pamphlets yet since however they may incline a Man to doubt they cannot make a Child Illegitimate whom his Father and Mother have hitherto bred up and owned for theirs and therefore I have rather chosen to suppose him at present to be the Lawful Son of King James and Queen Mary and yet that what the late Convention have done in passing him by without taking any notice of his Title was all that they could or were obliged to do his present Circumstances considered But if it be here made out that King William and Queen Mary are Lawful and Rightful King and Queen of this Realm no Man can doubt whether Allegiance may be sworn too them or not and perhaps there was no need of writing any thing farther yet since I find a great many of the Clergy as well as Laity of this Nation could not go higher than their swearing Allegiance to them as King and Queen de facto and that even this has been violently opposed by the sâ—iff Asserters of K. James's Right I have thought fit to add in the next Discourse which I promise shall be the last on this Subject all that hath been said Pro and 〈◊〉 upon that Question and to make it of the same Bulk with the rest I have for the satisfaction of those of the Church of England as well as Royal Interest endeavour'd to shew the great difference between this late Revolution and that fatal Civil War that ended with the Deposition and Murder of King Charles the First These two Questions together with an Index to all the Dialogues being dispatch'd as I hope they will be shortly shall be the last I shall trouble the World with upon these Subjects since I know nothing more that can be well added to what I shall there set down THE Twelfth Dialogue BETWEEN Mr. MEANWELL a Civilian AND Mr. FREEMAN a Gentleman M. I Am glad Sir you are come for I was wishing for you pray sit down and let us begin where we left off you may remember you promised me when we last parted that the next time I saw you you would make out to me from undeniable proofs and precedents from our Antient Histories and Laws that the present Convention had done nothing in Voting the Throne vacant and then placing the Prince and Princess of Orange therein but what may be justified by the Fundamental Laws and Constitutions of the Kingdom for I must still believe till I am better instructed that there can be no Inter Regnum in England but that it hath been from the first Institution of the Government an Hereditary Monarchy where the next Heir by Right of Blood unless in some manifest Usurpations has always succeeded to the last Predecessor as also our best Lawyers with one consent maintain in their Books of Reports and the Learned Finch in his description of the Common Law lays it down as an undoubted Maxim That the King never dies and therefore it seems altogether new and unheard of before for the Convention thus to declare the Throne vacant for admitting that King Iames had never so justly Forfeited or Abdicated the Kingdom term it which you please yet certainly there could be no Vacancy of the Throne since the next Heir by Blood ought immediately to have been declared King or Queen and so placed therein whereas we heard in the Countrey that there was almost ten days time before the Lords and Commons could agree whether the Crown should be declar'd vacant or not and when it was so declar'd it took up almost a weeks time more before they could agree who should be placed therein whereas it was a difficulty only of their own making for sure the Prince of
Wales though it is true he is carried out of England ought to have been immediately declar'd King as was done in the Case of Edward the 3 d. who was so declar'd upon the Deposition or Resignation of King Edward the 2 d. F. Though I grant ever since the Crown has been claim'd by Descent the Law has gone as you have cited it and that Finches Law lays it down for a Maxim I shall not deny but that from the beginning or original of Kingly Government whether we look before or after you Conquest it will appear that the Throne was often vacant till such time as the Common Council of the Kingdom had agreed who should fill it and to shew you I do not speak without good Authority pray tell me if this Maxim had then obtain'd why after the Death of William the First his Eldest Son Robert Duke of Normandy did not immediately take upon him the Title of King of England or at least had done it after the Death of William Rufus who you know was placed on the Throne â—not by Right of Inheritance but by his Fathers Testament confirm'd and approv'd of according to the Antient English-Saxon Custom of Succession by the common Consent of the great Council of the whole Kingdom and yet notwithstanding after the Death of this William Henry his younger Brother succeeded him by the free Election and Consent of the same Common Council and yet that Duke Robert should never in all his Life-time take upon him the Title of King Pray tell me likewise if this Maxim had been then known why Maud the Empress immediately upon the Death of her Father King Henry the First did not take nor yet her Husband the Duke of Anjou in her Right the Title of King and Queen of England though she had had Homage paid her and Fealty sworn to her in the Life-time of her Father as the immediate Successor to the Crown and yet notwithstanding the utmost Title she could assume was that of Domina Anglorum Lady or Mistress not Queen of the English whilst Stephen who had no other Title but the Election of the great Council of the Nation held both the Crown and Title of King as long as he lived As also why Arthur Duke of Britain who according to the now received Rules of Succession was the next Heir to the Crown upon the Death of King Richard the First never took upon him the Title of King unless it were that he very well knew that his Uncle King Iohn had been placed in the Throne by the Common Consent and Election of the great Council of the Kingdom So likewise after the Death of King Iohn why Henry his Son was not immediately proclaim'd King till such time as the great Council of the Clergy Nobility and People had met and agreed to send back Prince Lewis whom they had chosen for their King though not being Crowned he never took upon himself that Title and so chose Henry the Third then an Infant for their King Lastly Why all these Princes viz. Henry the Second Richard the First and Henry the Third who according to your notions were undoubted Heirs of the Crown never took upon them the Title of Kings of England nor are so stiled by any of our Historians till after their Elections and Coronations if it had not been then received for Law that it was the Election of the People and Coronation subsequent thereunto that made them Kings and till this was performed though they might look upon themselves as never so lawful Successors the Throne was notwithstanding esteem'd in Law vacant Therefore as for your Iâ—stance of King Edward the Third 's immediately succeeding upon the Resignation of his Father if you please better to consider of it that makes against you for it is plain from Th. Walsingham and H. de Knyghton that Prince Edward succeeded not to the Crown by Succession but the Election of the great Council or Parliament the words are express Huic Electioni universus Populus consensit and this was also owned by Edward the Second himself who when the Commissioners of all the Estates of Parliament came in all their Names to renounce their Homage to him yet in the midst of all his sorrow he gave them thanks quod Filium suum Edwardum post se Regnaturum eligissent which plainly shews that the Parliament had then such a Notion of a Forfeiture proceeding from his Deposition for violating the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom that the Eldest Son and Successor could pretend no other Right to it even in the Judgment of the late King himself but what proceeded from their Election M. I cannot deny but what you have now urged from matter of fact may appear very plausible to your self and those of your Notions yet if it be looked closer into I doubt not but the known Laws then receiv'd and the Notions the people had then of a Lineal Succession by Right Inheriâ—ance will prove directly contrary to the matter of fact For you know very well à facto ad Ius non valte consequentia but that all the Princes you mention'd except the three last were really Usurpers and not Lawful Kings I shall let you see by evident Authorities from the Historians of those Times For in the first place though I grant William Rufus succeeded to the Crown by his Fathers last Will which was certainly unlawful as being contrary to the receiv'd Laws of Succession in Normandy as well as England yet was it not by Election of the people as you suppose but by the kindness of Arch-Bishop Lanfranc his God-father and the favour of the greater part of the Norman Barons who came over with his Father as well as out of hatred to Duke Robert his Elder Brother that he was thus made King so that William Rufus claimed as a Testamentary Heir and by reason of that Claim was advanced to the Throne by the Assistance of Lanfranc's and the Bishop's Faction who then swayed the people but yet never owned any Election from them so that if you rightly consider this Story you cannot call it an Election but a Designation or Nomination by his Father William the Conqueror and consented to by the major part of the Bishops and Lords of the Kingdom but not by their Election or Decree as a Common Council as you suppose But that for all this Duke Robert his Brother being assisted by Odo Bishop of Bayenx and Earl of Kent his Uncle as also divers other Norman Lords who being satisfied of his Right raised a War in England against William and great mischief was done on both sides till at last a Peace was made between them upon these conditions among others as Matthew Westminster relates it that because of the manifest Right Duke Robert had to the Crown he should have a Yearly Pension of three thousand Marks out of the Revenue of England and he of the two Brothers that surviv'd the other if he died
the power of the two Houses of Parliament I am very well satisfied that such a Declaration must be void in it self since I have sufficiently proved that there was no such Law of Succession ever setled by any general Custom or Common Law since it hath been near as often broken as observed and as for any positive or Statute-Law enacting any hereditary right of Succession you do not so much as pretend to show it so that I think I have sufficiently proved the three Propositions I laid down viz. That ever since the time of Edward the First though the Crown has been claim'd by right of blood yet has it not been very often enjoy'd by Princes who had no just pretence to that Title Secondly that the two Houses of Parliament have often notwithstanding that claim placed or at least fixed the Crown upon the heads of those Princes who they very well knew could have no hereditary right to it Thirdly That such Princes have been always taken for lawful Kings all their Laws standing good at this day without any Confirmation by their Successours M. I did not think that you who were so great an admirer of the two Houses of Parliament should now be so much against their power in joyning with the King to declare what the true right of Succession to the Crown is and hath ever been from time beyond memory But I see Acts or Declarations of Parliament signifie nothing with you if they are against your Hypothesis or else you would never go about thus to expose those Acts of Parliament of King Edward the IVth and King Iames the Ist. Whereby they are declared both by the Law of God and Man undoubted Heirs of the Crown And the last Act I cited viz. That of King Iames the Ist. doth sufficiently confute your Notion of a Vacancy of the Throne Where it is expresly declared That immediately upon the decease of Queen Elizabeth the Crown of England with all the Dominions belonging to the same did by Inherent Birth-right and Lawful and Undoubted Succession descend and come to his Majesty King Iames. So that if there then were no Vacancy of the Throne I cannot see how there could be any such thing now the next Heir to the Crown be He who they will being certainly not so far removed from King Iames the Ist. as himself was from King Henry the VIIth under whom he claimed F. I must still confess my self to have a great veneration for the solemn Declarations of King and Parliament made by any Statute yet not so as to Idolize them or to look upon all their Declarations as infallible I grant indeed that whosoever is by them Declared and Recognized for King or Queen of England is to be acknowledged and obeyed as such by all the Subjects of this Kingdom without farther questioning his Title But if not content with this they will also take upon them to declare that such Kings or Queens have an undoubted Hereditary Right by the Laws of God and Nature When I plainly find from the Holy Scriptures as well as the History of matter of Fact and the knowledge of our Laws that they have no other Tiâ—le than what the Laws of the Land have conferred upon them and therefore you your self cannot deny but that it was gross flattery in the two Houses of Parliament to declare that Richard the IIId for-example had a true and undoubted Right to the Crown by the Laws of God and Nature and also by the Laws and Customs of this Realm when you know he was a notorious Usurper upon the Rights of his Brother King Edward's Children now how can I be assur'd that the like Declaration made to Kâ—ng Iames the I. was not lâ—kewise a piece of Courtship of the Representative of the Kingdom to this King then newly setled in his Throne since we find the People of this Nation when they are in a kind fit never think they can say or do too much for their Princes and therefore I must freely tell you that it is not the bare Declaration of a Parliament that this or that has been always the Law or Custom of this Realm when we can find from History that it has never been so held for above four hundred years at least and therefore not beyond the memory of Man as you suppose since that must be before the Reign of Richard the First as I have already proved to you at our Eighth Meeting But to answer your Objection against the vacancy of the Throne I do freely grant that aâ— often â—s the Crown descends by lineal Succession there can be no vacancy of the Throne as it did in the Case of King Iames the First yet doth it not therefore follow that there can never be any such Vacancy in any Case whatsoever since certainly it may so happen that all the Heirs Male of the Blood-Royal may fail as it happen'd in the Case of Scotland when Iohn Balioll and Robert Bruce contended for the Crown which not being to be decided by the Estates of the Kingdom they were forced to referr it to our King Edward the First and as also happen'd in France when Philip of Valois and our Edward the III d both claim'd the Crown which was decided by a great Assembly of the Estates of France in the favour of the former who claim'd as Heir of the Male Line against King Edward who was descended by a Woman and if King Iames's Abdication or Forfeiture call it which you will is good pray give me a sufficient Reason why the Convention of the Estates of England should not have as much Authority as those of France or Scotland this being as much or more a limited Kingdom thau either of the other ever were M. I do not deny that but pray shew me any sufficient Reason why the Convention should now Vote a Vacancy of the Throne since there was certainly an Heir Apparent not long since in England and I hope is now safe in France who ought to fill it or at least there should have been some sufficient cause alledged against him to prove that he was not true Son either of the King or Queen and till this was done they could not with any Right or good Conscience place any other Relation of his in the Throne since every Person ought to be esteem'd the Son of that Father and Mother that publickly own him for such for it is a Maxim in our as well as your Law Filiatio non potest probari F. How this could be performed without first declaring the Throne vacant I cannot apprehend for you your self must grant that there have been great doubts and suspitions of the Realty of this Prince of Wales and therefore that being one great reason of the Prince of Orange's coming over The truth of this Child whether he was really born of the of the body of the Q. is first to be examin'd and determin'd before he can be declar'd K. of England in the
room of his supposed Father whom we will also suppose Civilly though not Naturally dead and till this be done unless you would have had him been declar'd King without ever examining the truth of the matter the Throne must have continued vacant till it could be decided whether he or his half Sister the Princess of Orange were to fill it and if so whilst the Convention remain'd in this suspence they could do no other than Vote the Throne vacant till they were sufficiently satisfied who had the best Right to it But to answer your argument that unless something could have been presently alledg'd against this Infant to have proved him not to have been born of the Body of the Queen he ought to have been declar'd King the Maxime you mention may be well allow'd in the case of Common Inheritances but not in that of Crowns for in those we have read that Common and violent presumptions have been looked upon as sufficient proofs to set aside a suppos'd Heir of the Crown as for example something above two hundred years since Henry King of Castile call'd the Impotent because he was not able to get his Queen or any other Woman with Child did out of hatred to his Sister Isabella permit a favorite of his to lye with his Queen and get her with Child she was brought to Bed of a Daughter but the Estates of the Kingdom would by no means admit her for Legitimate because the Queen had before declar'd her Husband to be Impotent and therefore they did not only protest against her Legitimacy in the Kings life time in an Assembly of the Estates but also as soon as he died they set this pretended Princess quite aside and declared the Sister of the Late King Queen of Castile who was Married to Ferdinand King of Arragon Now tho' I will not say that either the suspitions or proofs against the present Prince of Wales are as pregnant as those against that Princess yet certainly they were sufficient to debat him from being placed in the Throne till such time as it shall be made apparent that he is really Son to the Queen M. If the Convention had gone this way to work I grant there might have been some colour for what they have done but then they ought before they had placed any body else in the Throne to have first examin'd the Truth of the Queens being with Child and her being truly deliver'd of this Prince before ever they had declar'd the Prince and Princess of Orange King and Queen and till this had been done certainly the Throne should have still continued Vacant therefore I doubt your Convention have made more haste than good speed in this matter which certainly requir'd much more deliberation F. Come I will for once admit that they ought in the first place to have examin'd your Princes Title but this is still to be understood as far as it was possible for them to do it as it ought now pray tell me how this could be done when the Infant was not only carried away into a Foreign Kingdom but also the Midwife the Nurse and several other of the Queens near Servants and Attendants went away along with him who if they had been here to have been cross examin'd might have declar'd the Imposture if it be one M. But pray Sir are there not Protestant Ladies enough left behind who have already Depos'd before the Council as appears by their Depositions published by the Kings express command and enrolled in Chancery in perpituam Rei memoriam not only that her Majesty was with Child but that also she was really deliver'd of this Prince so that the Prince of Orange and the Convention ought to have in the first place summon'd those Witnesses you mention to be now in France to have appear'd before them and if they had not come then to have proceeded as the matter had required F. You must then grant that the Protestant Witnesses alone who are now in England were not sufficient for if they should have Depos'd that this Child had been an Impostor I suppose you would not have rested satisfied that they had spoke nothing but the Truth since the Witnesses now in France who best know the matter of Fact might have sworn the contrary but as for sending any Summons for them into France it was altogether in vain and also that which the Convention were not at all oblig'd to do it was in vain because neither King Iames nor his Q. did ever own the Power of the Convention to hear or determine this affair and therefore would not have let the Witnesses come over for after the Throne was declar'd Vacant the King must by sending those Witnesses have racitly own'd the Authority of the Convention in declaring himself to have Abdicated the Throne as also that they might place his Son therein so that any such Summons would certainly have been only rejected with scorn and we should gain nothing but the loss of so much time and hindred our present settlement and defence a whole Summer Nor was the Convention oblig'd to do it since the Parliament it self is not bound to take cognizance of any person or thing that is not within the Kingdom of England or the Territories belonging to it and therefore it was not their business to enquire without it had been brought before them what was become of this Infant whether he was legitimate or not or whether he was alive or else had been cast away at Sea or taken by Pyrates any of which might very well have been and therefore indeed this business could never have been decided unless the Infant himself were actually present and sufficient proof made not only that this was the same Child that was born of the Queen but which was also carried away into France all which could never have been examin'd as it ought without the Child 's personal presence here which I suppose you will grant that King Iames and his Queen would never admit of as things now stand therefore since a thorough examination into this business was impossible to have been perform'd The Convention have done no more than what can be justified in first declaring the Throne Vacant and then who should fill it M. Well but admit the case were so as you have put it the Kingdom ought however to have remain'd without a King till the succession had been duly setled since according to the act of recognition to King Iames I. The Nation did not only oblige themselves but their Posterity that is we that are now alive to that King and his Right Heirs and therefore till this Princes Right had been determined either the Convention should have Govern'd or else they ought to have made the Prince of Orange only Governour or Regent of the Kingdom and not to have placed him and his Princess in the Throne till the young Prince had died or else had been proved to be an Impostor F. I doubt not
if you say such a way of Election is now impossible I shall do so too but however it plainly shews the absurdity of supposing a King could ever now be fairly Elected were all the Blood-Royal totally extinct As for what you say concerning that Cession which the Princess of Denmark made of her Right to the Crown I never heard any thing of it before but admit it were so this could only serve in relation to her self and she could not give up the Right of her Brother the Prince of Wales no nor that of her own Children if God shall give her any F. This Objection concerning the total Dissolution of the Government proceeds from a wanâ— of your consideration of what the antient Government of England was not only before but a good while after your pretended Conquest which was not a setled Hereditary Monarchy but a Testamentary or Elective Kingdom where the Kings being often recommended by the Testament of the precedent King were chosen out of the Royal Family though not according to the Ruler of Succession now in use and therefore in all such Governments it is very well known that there was at the first institution of Kingly Government among them a great Council or Assembly of Estates of the whole Kingdom appointed who upon the death of the last King and vacancy of the Throne were still to meet of course to appoint a Successor which was commonly one of the Sons of the last King or at least some other Prince of the Royal Blood Thus it was till of late years in Denmark and Sweâ—den and so it was antiently in France during the Succession of the first Race as also in Spain during the Government of the Vandals and so it likewise was in England during the whole Succession of our English Saxon Kings and so I have also proved it continued till Edward the First And though since his time that the Crown hath been claim'd by right of Inheritance yet in all times precedent it is apparent that the great Council of the Kingdom upon the deaâ—h of every King Assembled by their own inherent Authority to consider whom they should place in the Throne which they then looked upon as vacant And therefore though I grant in the case of Edward the First the Parliament did not only ordain him Successor to his Father but also recogniz'd his â—ight by Blood yet for all this they still remain'd their anâ—ient Power of meeting without Summons from the King he being in the Holy Land and they not knowing whether he was alive or dead so that it is a false assertion to affirm that there can be no Government without a King since in all those vacancies of the Throne it is plain the Government devolved of course upon the geat Council of the Nation And though it is true there can be now no Parliament without a King according to the present notion and acceptation of that Term yet before that word was ever in use which is no older than about the middle of the Reign of Henry the Third it is plain that our great Councils often met by their own inherent Authority without any King and preserved the Peâ—ce of the Kingdom till a new King was either chosen or declared And though 't is true the Crown hath been long enjoy'd by those who have claim'd by Inheritance yet there is no reason for all that if the like cases should fall out as have done in former times why the Government should devolve to the mix'd Multitude now any more than it did then since it may be as well suppos'd that the same tacit Contract still continues of maintaining the Original constitution of great Councils which I have proved to be as Antient as Kingly Government it self And though perhaps the Form of chusing or sending thâ—se Representatives of the Nation may have been alter'd in divers particulars by for â—er Laws or received Customs yet this is nothing to the purpose as long as the thing it self remains the same in Substance as it was before for it can never be thought to have been the intent of the People who Established this form of Government that upon the extinction of the Royal Family the Government should be so quite dissolved as that it should be left to the confused Multitude to chuse what form of Government they should think fit Therefore to conclude I wish you would be perswaded to own this Government as it is now Established and to take 〈◊〉 Oath of Allegiance which is enjoyn'd by the Declaration of the Convention who are the only proper and legal Judges we can now have of conferring the Rights of those to whom our Allegiance is due And if in case a Dispute about the right Heir of the Crown the People of this Nation were not all bound to the decision of this Assembly we must necessarily fall together by the ears and fight it out as they do in the East-Indies where upon the death or deposition of a King he has still the Right who can Conquer his Competitors in Battel M. Well I wish there were not something very like it practised here of late for I think you will grant that if the Prince of Orange's Party had not prevail'd over the King 's the Convention would never have placed the Crown upon his head But I must beg your pardon if I cannot agree to your Proposals of taking the New Oath of Allegiance to King William and Queen Mary since I have already taken the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance to King Iames and I do not believe that any Power on earth can disengage me from that Oath as long as he and his Son the Prince of Wales are alive For as to your Doctrine of Abdication or Forfeiture they are too hard for my Reason to understand or for my Conscience to comply with and therefore it is all one to me whom your Convention places on the Throne since I am very well satisfied that none but the King can have a Right to it F. I wish I could see some better reasons for this opinion of yours than those you have already given for if you could convince that me the Nation hath done any thing in this Revolution which cannot well be justified by the Antient Customs and Constitution of the Kingdom I should come over to your opinion But if King Iames has truly Abdicated or Forfeited the Crown as I hope I have sufficiently made out and that your suppos'd Prince of Wales either is not really or else cannot now be proved to be the true Son of the Queen by reason of those Obstacles and Impediments I have shewn you I cannot see any thing to the contrary why you should not be wholly free and discharged from your former Oath of Allegiance to King Iames so that King William and Queen Mary being now placed on the Throne your Allegiance to King Iames and the suppos'd Prince of Wales is lawfully determined pray tell me therefore
from the constant practice of those times that the King de facto was always own'd as Lawful Sovereign and had Allegiance still paid him by all the People of this Kingdom except those who being the heads of one or the other Party were either attainted or else forced to â—lye the Kingdom But as for all others though different and contrary Oaths of Allegiance were impos'd upon the People sometimes by the one and sometimes by the other of those Kings according as they got possession of the Throne yet I can no where find that ever any body suffer'd for barely swearing Allegiance to the King then in Being for it was always taken for Law that Allegiance was due to the King de facto since ordinary Subjects are not suppos'd to understand the legal right or justice of the Kings Title M. I must still say that there was some colour for the Peoples thus acting as you say they did during the contest for the Crown between the two Families of Yorke and Lancaster when I grant it was somewhat a difficult matter to judge which of the two had the best right to the Crown by reason that the House of Lancaster had held it for three descents as also from the speciousness of their Title since it was founded upon a pretended claim by right of blood upon supposing that Edmund Sirnamed Cronch-back who was one of the Ancestors of this House of Lancaster was the Eldest Son to Henry the Third which had it been true would have given Henry the Fourth a good right to the Crown not only against Richard the Second but his own Grandfather Edward the Third likewise had he been then alive and this descent falling out long before the memory of any man then living who could confute the falsity of this pretended Pedigree The People of England might very well be excus'd for owning an Usurper and paying Allegiance to him since they did not know but his claim might have been right especially since it was approv'd of in full Parliament without any contradiction as I have already shewn you at our last Meeting But what is all this to the matter now in debate between us when the Lineal Succession of the Crown has been so often declared to be the only means of acquiring a just Title to it and every one knows very well who was own'd for lawful King of England within these three Months and also who was pray'd for in all our Churches as his Son and Heir apparent and therefore I must still tell you that your parallel between those Kings de facto of the House of Lancaster and those Princes whom the Convention have now voted to fill the Throne does not at all agree since every Subject of this Kingdom who has but sence enough to go to Market can very well tell if they will deal sincerely to whom their Allegiance is due F. As to what you have now said it is no more than a repetition of what you have already urged to evade the force of these clear Authorities but indeed it was all one when a Prince had been once recognized for Lawful King by Act of Parliament whether the People knew his Title not to be good by right of blood or not And this I have plainly proved to you from the instance of Richard the Third who though both his Elder Brothers Children were then alive and the Eldest of them had been Proclaim'd King and also own'd for such by himself and whose Title he had also sworn to maintain in his Brother King Edwards life time as appears by the Clause Roll of the 11th of Edward the Fourth yet when he had once depos'd him and had call'd a Parliament which recognized his Title his Acts and Judicial Proceedings stand good at this day and though he himself was attained and declar'd a Tyrant and an Usurper yet all the Subjects who acted under his Authority and had taken an Oath of Allegiance to him never needed an Act of Indemnity for so doing whereas those that came over with Henry the VIIth were sain to have an Act of Pardon past to Indemnifie them for fighting against Richard the Third as I have now show'd you And though this Parliament of the first of Henry the Seventh agreed to repeal divers Acts which the King found fault with yet as for all other Statutes made in the Reign of King Richard the Third which have not been since repealed they are still in force without any confirmation likewise when Henry the Seventh had prevail'd over Richard the Third and that he was slain in the Field though all the Nation very well knew that Henry the Seventh could not be Heir of the House of Lancaster because his Mother was then alive and had never formally given up her right if she had any as certainly she could have none as being descended from Iohn Earl of Somerset who was base Son to Iohn of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster by Catherine Swinford whilst his Wife was alive and though I grant after his Marriage with the said Catherine the Children born of that Bed were made legitimate by Act of Parliament in the 20th of Richard the Second yet that legitimation only respects such private Priviledges and Inheritances which they might enjoy or succeed to as Subjects and not in respect of the Crown the Succession of which they were expresly declared uncapable of by that very Act of Legitimation still to be seen upon the Parliament Roll. But for all this when Henry the Seventh had called a Parliament and was therein recogniz'd for their Lawful Sovereign and that the Crown was setled by Statute on the King and Heirs of his Body without any mention of the Princess Elizabeth who ought to have been Queen by right of blood yet none of the Subjects of this Kingdom as I can find ever scrupled to swear Allegiance to him before ever he married that Princess though they as well knew that he could have no right by blood as you can suppose that the People at this day can know whether King Iames has abdicated or forfeited the Crown or not or whether your Prince of Wales be his true and lawful Son for since they are both nice and difficult Points and having been determined by the Convention the Supream Judges in this Case in favour of their present Majesties and that they also recognized their Title after they became a Parliament I can see no manner of reason why all the Subjects of this Kingdom may not as well justifie their taking this new Oath of Allegiance to them notwithstanding their former Oath of Allegiance to King Iames and his Right Heirs as well as the People of England could justifie their taking an Oath of Allegiance to Henry the Seventh notwithstanding their former Oath to Edward the Fourth and his Right Heirs before ever Henry the Seventh had Married the Princess Elizabeth the Heiress of the Crown especially since this Act of the 11th of Henry the
as we read Chancellor Fortescue did Prince Henry Son to Henry the VIth and I hope he will come over again to practise them in his own Country before he comes to be infected with the Arbitrary Principles of the French Government but as for those of not keeping Faith with Hereticks and a propagating his Religion by Persecution I doubt not but the King his Father will take care not to commit his Education to any of those who are infected with such Principles and I am the more inclin'd to believe it because it is very well known that his Majesty's tenderness and moderation in matters of Religion and not persecuting any body for the belief or bare profession of it as it was the greatest cause of his late Declaration of Indulgence so it was the main original of all his late Misfortunes nor can I see any reason why a King by being a Roman Catholick must necessarily be a Tyrant and a Persecutor since you cannot deny but that we have had many good and just Kings of that Religion and it is from those Princes that professed it that we derive our Magna Charta and most of the priviledges we now enjoy F. Though I would not be thought to affirm that the Romish Religion is every way worse than the Mahometan yet this much I may safely affirm that there is no Doctrine in all that Superstition so absurd and contrary to Sence and Reason as that of Transubstantiation held by the Church of Rome in which the far greatest part are certainly Idolators which can never be objectâ—d against the Turks and therefore though I will not deny but that a Man may be saved in the Communion of the Romish Church yet it is not for being a Papist but only as far as he practises Christ's Precepts and trusts in his Merits that he can ever obtain that favour from God But as for those evil Principles both in Religion and Civil Government which you cannot deny but are now commonly believed and practiced in France and which you hope King Iames will take care that the Prince his Son shall be bred to avoid I wish it may prove as you say but if you will consider the Men that are like to be his Tutors and Instructors in matters of Religion viz. his Fathers and Mothers Confessors the Jesuits and for Civil Government those Popish Lords and Gentlemen of notorious Arbitrary Principles and Practises who are gone over to King Iames you will have small reason to believe that there is ever a Fortescus now to be found among the English-men in France or who is likely to instill into him those true English Principles you mention And though I do not affirm that every Popish Prince must needs be a Persecutor yet since that wholly depends upon those Priests that have the management of their Consciences shew me a Prince in Europe who has a Jesuit for his Confessor and tell me if he hath not deserved that Character But though I am so much of your Opinion that King Iames ownes the greatest part of his Misfortunes to his Declaration for Liberty of Conscience yet was it not so much to the thing it self as to his Arbitrary manner of doing it by assuming a Dispensing Power contrary to Law and you may be very well assured by the little opposition which the late Acts met with for taking off the Penalties against Conventicles and not coming to Church in respect of all Dissenters except the Papists that King Iames might have as easily obtain'd a like Act to pass in respect of those also as to the free profession of their Religion and having Mass in their Houses which is more than the Papists will allow the Protestants in any Country in Europe And therefore I must beg your pardon if I still find great reason to doubt whether K. Iames his tenderness towards those that differ'd from him in matters of Religion and the Indulgence he gave them were purely out of consideration of tender Consciences and not rather thereby to destroy the Church of England Established by Law since the Dispute began between King Iames and his Parliament was not about Liberty of Conscience but those Offices and Commands which the King was resolved to bestow upon the Papists whether the Parliament would or not And certainly there is a great deal of difference between a Liberty for a Man to enjoy the free profession of his own Religion and the power and benefit of having all the chief Imployments of Honour and Profit in the Common-wealth But that the Indulgence of Popish Princes towards those that dissent from them in matters of Religion may not always proceed from pure Tenderness and Compassion appears from a Manuscript Treatise of F. Parsons that great Jesuit in Queen Elizabeth's time which I have been told was found in King Iames's Closet after his departure This if you can see it will shew you that the subtil Jesuite doth there direct his Popish Successor in order to the more quiet introducing the Romish-Catholick Religion to grant a general Toleration of all Religions out of a like design Thus did Iulian the Apostare long ago tolerate all the Sects and Heresies in the Christian Religion because he thereby hoped utterly to confound and destroy it But as to what you alledge concerning Magna Charta's being granted by Popish Princes and that there has been many good Kings of that persuasion As I will not deny either the one or the other so I desire you to remember with what struglling and great difficulties this Charter was at first obtain'd and afterwards preserved though it was no more than a Declaration of most of those Antient Rights and Liberties which the Nation had always enjoy'd And you may also remember that they were Popish Princes who more than once obtain'd the Pope's Dispensation to be discharged from those solemn Oaths they had taken to observe those Charters and though there hath been divers good Princes before the Reformation yet even the very best of them made the severest Laws against Protestants and were the most cruel in their Persecutions witness King Henry the IVth Henry the Vth and Queen Mary And indeed it is dangerous to rely upon the Faith of a Prince who looks upon it as a piece of Merit to destroy all Religions but his own and when he finds it cannot be done by Law will not stick to use any Arbitrary means to bring it about To conclude pray consider whether the strict observing or violation of Magna Charta and his Coronation Oath hath been the cause of King Iames's Abdication Pardon this long Discourse which your Vindication of the Opinion and Practises of Popish Princes hath drawn from me M. Pray Sir let us quit these invidious Subjects which can do no good since Princes must be own'd and submitted to let their Principles and Practice be never so Tyrannical and let us return again to the matter in hand I will therefore at present suppose