made Lieutenant of the Realm and Protector of it during Richard his Minority certainly had his Competition come in Question they would have been but dangerous Trusts and against the Laws of all Nations and our own for the Civil takes sufficient Care for the removing of all suspected Tutors and our Common ordained upon the Lord 's loosing his ward for disparagement that the wardship of the Heir should never go to the nearest of kin but to the next to whom the Inheritance cannot descend Daniel says King Edward purposely to prevent the disorder and mischiefs that attend the disordering Succession setled the same in Parliament on Richard lest John of Lancaster should supplant him as Earl John had done his Nephew Arthur and this disingenuous Creature perverts the fear of Supplantation into a dispute of the Succession and Stow tells us of nothing but his being made Prince of Wales on his Brothers Death But this Uncle proved a better Keeper of the King in his Protectorate than this John or Richard the Third had but the Poor Princes Subjects kept their Faith too and not given 〈◊〉 perjured Author another Instance for the renouncing his Allegiance and a second president for the deposing of his King And here since this Historian has already cited two or three Popish Archbishops for the Countenancing of his Puritanism and the Doctrine of Bellarmin for the Counterpart of Buchanan conspiring in a perfect Harmony for the Deposition of their Kings and their Murder I 'le tell him of another Canterbury too that blew the Trumpet to the dethroning of the next King and the sacrificing of his Sovereign upon that Altar of his Lips For the first thing that the first Usurper attempted that aspiring Prince when he landed was the causing of Arundel then the Metropolitan to preach down King Richard the Prelate had ready a Bull procured from Rome promising Remission of Sins to all those that should aid the said Henry and after their death to be placed in Paradice which preaching as our Author says moved many to cleave to the Duke but this Popish Puritan knows our Bishops and Divines since the Reformation have taught him better Doctrine and he licks up the very Poyson of his deadly Foes only to spit the venom in the Face of the Government But with what face can he tell us of a Parliament here drawing up a Form of Resignation which was just as much a Parliament as their late Major part of Members that were to be obey'd in their Association An Invader Usurper and a banisht Subject takes upon him in the name of his Sovereing to Summon it and so did our late Rebels fight and fire at his Majesty but still with his own good Leave and Authority this Convok't that Parliament as Cromwel secluded his with an Army at his heels only those had secured their King in the Tower these in the Isle of Wight and shall these their Journals of Rebellion make up a Book of Presidents Is such a fellow fit to breath under a mild Government that calls for Blood where there is so much Mercy that Recommends to your reading an Impeachment of his King and refers you to the Charge and Articles that were drawn up for his Deposition as a worthy Subject and well deserving to be read Why did he not tells us too as well deserving to be imitated Jan. 20 48. The Sollicitor Cook presented the Charge against CHARLES STEWART Engrost ordered that it be returned to him to be exhibited Preposterous Lump of Law and Logick revers'd that prints himself the Contradiction to common Equity and Reason can such a Body Politick justly convene it self only to Rebel against its head and to take away that Breath from whence it needs must have its being and can those Laws be made to conspire his Death from whom themselves acknowledge they receive their Life But as to the matter of Fact it self you shall see what Sence some of the Times had of it The King of France was so sensible of this Injurious Proceeding that it ran him into a fit of Frenzy Richard being related to him by the Marriage of his Daughter he acquaints his Lords with his Resolution of Revenge and they shew'd themselves as ready to take it too but were prevented here in England by their taking away his Life which made them desist not able to serve him after his Death This is but an Evidence how the Villany was resented abroad and you may find they were as much upbraided with it at home and that to their very face when a Parliament was sitting and their Usurper on the Throne by the Loyal Prelate of Carlisle whose Memory may it live as long as Loyalty can flourish or our Annals last so solid and 〈◊〉 were the Suggestions so significant the Sense of this pious Soul that it silenc'd all the Senate that was sitting and nothing but the prospect of some private or publick Favor and Preferment hindred their Conviction their King was cool enough in prosecuting of his bold Truths being scarce warm in his own Government yet at last upon Debate and Consultation they confin'd the bold Bishop for a while for the Liberty that he took and could only condemn his bold Indiscretion for shewing them so much the badness of their Cause Hollinshed tells us this poor Prince was most unthankfully us'd of his Subjects In no Kings days were the Commons in greater Wealth or the Nobility more cherisht how near some of our pamper'd Jesuruns that are satten'd to rebel confirm the danger of too much Luxury and ease the present fears from their experienced Attempts can best attest But the fatality that befel that unhappy Prince affords us the best politicks for the prevention of the like Fate And now for his Henry the Fourth he is forc't to 〈◊〉 for his depending on the Parliaments choice when in that was his least Relyance for as little as he makes of his claim from Henry the Third it is apparent from some Rolls of Parliament that he challenged the Realm upon that account and the Lords were interrogated what they thought of that claim upon which without delay they consented he should Reign and as another Evidence of his Right to Rule shewed them the Seal of King Richard as a Signification of his Will that he should fucceed him but that which for ought I see he lay his greatest weight upon was but what all Usurpers must most relie on the Sword and he himself assures them just after the Sermon was ended at the time they consented to be his Subjects that he would take no advantage against any Man's Estate as coming in by Conquest and Conquest is one of the first claims he puts in at his Coronation and as Haward relates it in his Life not the least mention of his being elected is there mingled with his Claim But neither did the success of a prosperous Wickedness
pardonable faults of this unhappy Prince tho our Law say A King can have none much less be punisht for it when he can do no wrong The greatest that Daniel condemns was his mighty favouring of his Minions Gaveston and Spencer's in Opposition to his Barons and must it be criminal to a King to have a Friend But however in his History calls it the first Example of a deposed Prince no less dishonourable to the State than to him 〈◊〉 calls the Bishop of Hereford that then was busied in the Resignation but a Mischievous Embassador and pray what was the Fate of those that were the first Leaders of the Rebellion and the most mutinous The mighty Duke of Lancaster was by his own Peers condemned to be Hang'd and Quartered and was only Beheaded and several Barons besides and afterward Mortimer the Queens own Minion and Favourite was impeached in Parliament of Edward the Third for making Dissention between the late King and Queen for murdering of his Sovereign and accordingly was drawn Hanged and Quartered for it with several of his Adherents But as Unanimous and as Clamorous as they seemed for his Deposition the greatest Contenders for it as some of our Historians affirm lamented it with regret when it was done and Stow tells us that when the Queen understood her Son was Elected she seemed to be full of sorrow as it were almost out of her Wits and the Son lamented too and swore that against his Fathers Will he would never take the Crown And after all what succeeded this most unjust Deprivation and Imprisonment of a King but what still is its immediate subsequent the Barbarous Murder this was verified in the following fate of King Richard this was the unfortunate Consequence of our late confined Martyr Mattrevers Iron soon followed the firsts Imprisonment in Corse and Berkley Gastle Exton`s Poll-ax as quickly dispatcht the Second at Pomsret and the Block at White-Hall too soon attended the Confinements of the last Martyr in Carisbrook and Holmby confirming even with his last breath and verifying in his latest Blood this too fatal Aphorism that a Death soon follows the Deprivation of a King and that there is in his own words but a little distance between the Prisons and the Graves of Princes And now the next that enters this Theater Royal is Edward the Third a Son too forward to accept of a Crown before 't was his due But notwithstanding this Rebellious Instance he hath given not so formally chosen as to make the Kingdom Elective for their very chusing of his Son and that the Eldest insinuates that in spight of their obstinate dissobedience their resolute Rebellion they were still toucht with a sense of right and priviledge of Primogeniture and the small remainders of Majesty the bare Right they had left him awd them so far as to think it necessary to palliate their too open villanies with the formality of a Resignation neither would the Son accept it neither was he proclaimed or Crown'd till his 〈◊〉 had resigned and let the bold audacious force they used for it lie at their Door that vindicate it his resigning entitled his Son and he had a sort of Right in Civil Law besides Hereditary pro derelicto Here 't is pretty remarkable the fine sort of Observation he makes on the Bishop of Canterbury's Text vox Populi that it was the voice of the Almighty too and impiously upbraids the sacred Dust of their own Martyred Lawd for placing a Divine Right in Kings when some of his Predecessors had so well lodged it in the People but did not the Impudence of his Brow almost exceed the villany of his Heart his Conscience as hard as his Fore-Head or both he could never thus inhumanely reflect on him whom they butchered too as barbarously and that with such a Reflection that flies in his own Face when the very Opposers of this pious Praelates Opinion verifyed afterwards his Prophetick fear and by the placing this Divine Right in the People sent assoon his sacred Majesty to follow the Praelate But can ever Wretches show more industrious Malice towards the Government when they shall close with the Doctrines of their worst of Enemies and which they would be thought so damnably to detest to do it an Injury cite you the Authority of the most Zealous Catholicks when it will make against the Monarchy yet baffle and burlesque the very Bible when it makes for it the malitious Miscreant knows the Clergy then were all bound by their Oaths besides their Opinions to be the Bigots of Rome He knows the Popes supremacy then would not admit of the Kings He knows the pleasing of the People was then the best Expedient for the promoting the Pope that from them came all the Penny 's that paid them for their Pater-nosters and that this beast of Babylon against which our Zealots pretend too as much Brutal rage then only trampled upon the Necks of Kings not only had Her stirrops held by them but rid upon the very backs of Princes and that only because the poor People were so Priest-ridden would he have had that Popish Prelate preach to them the Kings Supremacy told them he was not to be toucht because jure divino when themselves make it the Doctrin of their Church to dethrone them certainly such Sycophà nts dissemble when they cry up the Reformation that rely so much upon the Religion of those times before they were Reform'd The Bishop as he thinks having now pretty well asserted the Peoples supremacy by making them Divine he brings in as prettily Polidore Virgil proving them to be all Princes so that we have now but one Subject left and that 's the King but by his leave the Governments bark must be wrackt in a Rebellion and a storm before they can come to Reign like so many Trincaloes in the Tempest The Gentleman sure read Shakespear instead of Virgil and thinks our Isle enchanted too but to be serious in matters of Blood and Right and that when both Royal could any Person of sober sense be so simply sollicitous as from an Author forreign unknowing our Constitutions calling some of our Subjects Principes to suggest their Supremacy their Superiority we know as well as he what he means by it or what he must mean that they were some of the chief of the Realm and will that make them Rulers too the Latin Idiom sometimes applies the word Princeps to subordinate supremacy as well as to those that are sole Supream But even the Authority that he cites for this silly Suggestion and others P. Virgil himself is sufficiently secluded from being Authentick by Sir Henry Savill The next Factious Insinuation that follows is that John De Gaunt this Edward the Thirds fourth Son but the Eldest surviving disputed the Succession But this as a Learned and Loyal Author observes so far from Truth that he was at the latter end of his Fathers Life
would not be compleat and perfect from which I shall infer upon the First here was an Act past upon the King 's declaring he would give his consent had there been nothing else but his bare Assent required that declaring that he would might have been taken for granted and his not opposing it afterward sufficient not to have rendered it all null and void and the great Imprimaturs the other two Houses had given it with their Legislative have might in some Sense made it somewhat Obligatory But here 't is absolutely declared void as wanting the very Sanction that makes it a Law or any thing besides waste Paper Mr. Hunt tells us we would not say an House of Commons can make a Prince of Wales because the Prince of Wales was once confirmed by an House of Commons And I 'll tell Mr. Hunt just such another Tale The King cannot make his Coin without Metal and Allay but does therefore the Metal and Allay make the Kings Coin 't is his Royal Stamp 't is his own Impression that makes the Money Currant as well as the Laws From that of King James we may justly conclude That if here as they say there were nothing required but barely the Kings consent to the making it Law that might well in such an extraordinary Case as this be thought unnecessary to be demanded since the King that came so far for asserting his Right could not but in Reason be supposed very willingly to consent to any Recognition of it But they knew it might be an Acknowledgement of his Subjects without his Assent But never an Act of Parliament without such a Soveraign Sanction In short 't is the Privilege of all our three States Lords Spiritual Temporal and Commons 't is their Birth-right and that of every Subject to have a Concurrence in the making all Laws and why should I be thought to Love my Native Right less than Mr. Hunt yet still this Peoples concurrence need not to be Co-ordinate with their Kings or their Kings but a bare Concurrence with the People 'T is a Solecism to sober Sence to say Subjects can be Co-ordinate with him to whom they are Subjected and as absurd when they would salve it with saying As such a Senate they are not Subordinate when even for that their politick Existence they depend upon the breath of their Soveraign 'T is Remarkable to see and observe how Providence has defeated not only all their Attempts upon the Government but even their most Malicious Suggestions What pains did he take to turn over his Annals of Scotland and pick perhaps out of his Hector Boethius an Author that lived at his University when he writ far from the place where the Records were kept as a Learned and Ingenuous Author of that Nation observes which were the only things that could inform an Historian well in the Descent of the Crown or from the prejudic'd Writings of Buchanan whom none but one so partial as himself such an Enemy to our own Government as that was to the Scots would have consulted in any thing that related to the Crown and that only to make his Soveraign descended from a Bastard He might from that Author have told us too The Scotish Kings have all their Power from the People and therefore the People's above the King that the Multitude have the same power over Kings that they have over the Multitude who can depose him and if he won't submit to their Charge they can raise War against him or any private Person kill him But how has Time and Truth convinced the World that his Assertion is plain lye and I am sure without it his Inferrence had been false the King 's Learn'd Advocate there has shewn from Records That Robert the First King of the Stewarts there was married to this Elizabeth Mure that she was his first Wife that from a copy of an Act of Parliament held at Scoon the Succession was recognised to the Sons he had in his first Marriage which were the same Hunt has made first Spurious and then would not allow them Legitimized by the second Marriage because the first intervened contrary to the Canon of the Church that then obtained and the Opinion of all Civilians at present and as he might have found it in the very Codes of Justinian With what Face can he now behold his own Impostures or turn over a Leaf of his Seditious falshood without trembling The most adequate punishment I believe would be to confine him to read his own Works Blushes and Shame If he be not proof against both must torment him more in the review than he rack'd his tortured thought in the Penning it the sham of the Black-Box may as well be credited by the next Age as this has done that of the Black-Plaister when such Hunts shall Write their History of King Charles his Court after the same rate that Welden has that of King James when they shall not 〈◊〉 contend at the same time to make Bastards of those that are Legitimate but Legitimate those that are truly Bastards and the one all against Record Charter Statutes Ancient the other against the many Modern and Express Declarations of their present King This piece of this Seditious and Discontented Lawyer these now unquestionable Falshoods will be rever'd by the next age as a Revelation if not sufficiently exploded in this and I know that Welden is hugg'd at present by the Faction as an Oracle of Truth only for giving of his God the Lye and reputed as an Author sacred only for Libelling of his Soveraign that was truly so and representing that Providence as a Plague to his Royal Progeny that has signaliz'd it self in nothing more than in Miracles for its Preservation Most of the rest of his sublimated Sedition is spent in exposing the Divine Right of Kings the Right of their Succession and in truth of the Bible and its Author the Almighty he begins to confute St. Paul with that bandied Argumentation out of St. Peter that Kings are the Ordinance of Man and with that very Text on the Front does that Devilish piece de jure Magistratuum in one of its Editions begin So Mr. Hunt enters upon the Stage of his Argumentation with a perverted Text as well as one a reputed Papist that was supposed to be set a Work by the Pope for raising a Rebellion against our most Protestant Queen Elizabeth of whom I have two or three Editions by me such Encouragement does Treason and Sedition still meet with amongst our Puritans and the Popish part of the World for Re-impression and Improvement and from this damnable Libel upon Christi anity it self and the Badge of its Profession the Gospel a piece so lewdly Seditious that both the Catholicks and Phanaticks that hugg its Doctrine yet had not the Confidence to entitle them selves to the work from this and Brutus his vindicioe has Mr. Hunt and his Apostate absolutely borrowed
and a Case upon our late Elections much 〈◊〉 and to say as some 〈◊〉 That such a Prescription cannot be forfeited proceeds from a confounding of the word in this Case with that Prescription by which some of them have a Title to their Estate for their Common Objection about this their Elective power is That the King may as well deprive them of their Birth-right when this their Birth right might commence by an Original Right but the Power of this Electing must Necessarily and Originally first come from the Crown But yet they know too that this their very Birth-right is in many Cases forfeitable by their own Act to the Crown and for their Burgage it self should we abstract from that Elective power that attends it nothing else but an 〈◊〉 tenure of their very King And if in the Saxons time as the popular advocates would persuade us the Commons were call'd to sit in Parliament 't is certain they could not come as Burgesses too for all that Borhoe in their Toungue signified if we can believe my Lord Coke and from which the word Burgh was since deriv'd its signification was only this Those ten Companies or Families that were one anothers pledge and so should they prove it to us as clear as the Sun as well as they have left it much in the 〈◊〉 still those their Commons could never be of those that had any Right to come but only such as the Grace of the King should call and even in Edward the first 's time those very Barons some say that were only most wise were summon'd by the King and their Sons if they were not thought so prudent as their Fathers were not call'd to Parliament after their Fathers death Therefore since Prescription since Parliament it self depended all heretofore upon the pleasure of the Prince I cannot see how the Subject shall ever be able to make it his Original Right and tho some are so bold as to say such a prescription cannot be forfeited or resign'd by the Subject resum'd or restor'd to the Crown for they must maintain those propositions or else they have no reason for their Murmering since there has been none alter'd or destroy'd but what has been by Inquiry of the Kings Quo Warranto or their own Act of Resignation yet sure if the Common Law did not favour the King in this Case Common Equity would since those Priveleges were but the very Grant of his own Ancestors But if we must consider nothing but Mr. Sidney's Original Power and Right and all that lodg'd in his good People of England it may be their Birth-right too to Rebel they may and must Murder their Monarch and that by their own Maxims when they think him not fit to Govern or Live I have heard it often said that the Members in Parliament represent the people and for that Reason are call'd their Representatives but if this Original Power which is delegated to them upon such a Representation must Subject their Soveraign as Mr. S. will have it to these his Judges of the particular Cases arising upon such a Subjection then they must e'en represent their King too and every Session of Parliament that he Summons is but an unhappy Solemnity whom himself Assemblies for his own deposition if such positions should obtain 't is those that indeed would make the Monarch fearful of Parliaments and not those idle Suggestions of Mr. Hunt that the Weekly Pamphlets were endeavouring to make him forego them and it was this very opinion that promoted the last War which he would not have so much as mention'd Lastly if this Original Power of the People be delegated to their Representatives this People that did so Communicate it can at their pleasure recall it and exercise it themselves for that is essential to the Nature of a Communicated Power for upon supposition of the peoples having such a Power it would be of the same Nature that their Kings is for Power of Supremacy wherever it be lodg'd is still the same and you see that the Power which the King has is often Commission'd to the Judges in his several Courts of Justice and yet I cannot see how his Majesty by Virtue of such a Commissionating of his Servants does Exclude himself from the Administration of those Laws that he has only allow'd others to Administer or from a recalling of that power to himself which he has only delegated to another for 't is a certain Maxim in reason that whatsoever Supream does empower others with his Authority does still retain more than he does impart tho I know 't is a Resolution in our Law Books that if any one would render himself to the Judgment of the King it would be ofnone effect because say they all his power Judicial is Committed to others and yet even they themselves will allow in many Cases their lies an Appeal to the King But what ever was the Sense of my Lord 〈◊〉 in this point who has none of the fewest Faults and failings tho his Voluminous Tracts are the greatest ease and Ornament of the Law his resolution here is not so agreeable to Common Equity and Reason therefore I say in reason it must follow That Mr. Sid. people having but delegated their Power to the Parliament still retain a power of concurring with preventing or revoking of that power they have given but in charge to their Representatives and if so then they can call them to an Account for the ill exercise of that power they have intrusted them with set up some High Court of Justice again for upon this very principle the last was erected not only for the Tryal of their King but for hanging up every Representative that has abus'd them as they are always ready to think in the exercise of that Original power with which he was by his Electors intrusted these sad Consequences which necessarily flow from this lewd Maxim would make their house of Commons very thin and they would find but few Candidates so ready to spend their Fortunes in Borough Beer only for the Representing of those that might hang them when they came home upon the least misrepresentation of their proceedings and these sad suggestions of the sorrowful Case of such precarious representatives are 〈◊〉 Consequences from the very 〈◊〉 of our Republican even in those very Arguments that he uses for the subjection of his King for if his King 〈◊〉 man must be Subject to the Judgment 〈◊〉 his People that make him a King 〈◊〉 he cannot be so Impudently 〈◊〉 but he must allow his Members of Parliament that are much more made by them by Continual Election and 〈◊〉 very breath of their Mouth 〈◊〉 be as 〈◊〉 accountable to their Makers for if 〈◊〉 should recur in this Case as he has 〈◊〉 other refuge to the Peoples having excluded themselves from this 〈◊〉 Power once in themselves by conferring it on their Representatives 〈◊〉 farewel to the very Foundation
they would not so much as suffer the secluded to sit among them now neither till the good General came and settl'd them himself and now tho' all the Villains were in again that had begun the War unless such as dy'd in the Rebellion tho' they saw all the sad effects and confusions they had brought upon the Kingdom yet so far were the Rebels from remorse that they justify by Vote the War with his Majesty and past two more out of a perfect Plot and Design to keep the Royalist from being returned in the Parliament that was to ensue their Dissolution but Dissolv'd they were and that in effect by the good General and their Plotting Votes against the Royalist and the Restauration prov'd as illusory and vain Thus the Principles and Positions of these discontented Democraticks and implacable Republicans made them still uneasie under those very Establishments they set up confounded them so that they did not know how to please themselves but still kept Plotting one anothers Ruin and Destruction The King was by miracle restored whom Heavens by its repeated Providence had preserv'd and one would have thought such a signal signification of the concern God himself had for so good a Government should have made even the Devil himself despair to undermine it when founded even by a divine fate and to destroy the Monarchy look'd like a Design to circumvent the Almighty But no sooner was our Sovereign Seated in his Throne but they Plot again to pull him out And the first was that of Venner and his Fift-Monarchy Men their Leader a silly Cooper that had liv'd sometime in New-England but come home set up a Conventicle in Coleman street and made their consult of Conspiracy in the very place they came to pay their Devotions endeavouring to reconcile as near as they could their very Religion to be Rebellion On Sunday the sixth of January the day before they design'd their excursion as if the Sabbath were to sanctifie Sacriledge and atone for Blood they linger'd it out a little too late in their Assembly so that their Landlord a little Jealous listning at the door perceives through the chink that this Godly Convention were doing the very work of the Devil and instead of their Sighs Groans and Tears and such harmless spiritual warfare their Sword of the spirit was turn'd all into steel and all Arming themselves with Back Breast and Head-piece of which he gives notice to some Officers but they in a little while after issuing out march through several parts of the City kill'd some of the Watch repell'd a Party of the Train-bands and so march't through Aldersgate to a place nere the City call'd Cane Wood. But on the Wednesday morning after they return to renew their Rebellious design they divided themselves into Parties and about Leaden-Hall fought it out obstinately and too stoutly with the Trainbands But some of the Guards Commanded then by the Duke of York and now our present Sovereign whom Heaven protect to defeat all Rebellions with the General and his more disciplin'd Soldiers soon made them give ground and retreat and at last run away in as much confusion Colonel Corbet routs another Party of them about Wood-street and such inveterate Villains had the Preaching these Principles render'd them that when they were broken and dispers'd they would refuse Quarter sixteen or seventeen being taken were at the Old 〈◊〉 Try'd Convicted Sentenc'd five or six Pardon'd andthe rest Executed In December was detected another Plot and Conspiracy carrying on One William Hill one of the Accomplices or a pretender to be so discovers it A Plot they had of confounding the Rogues as they call'd it at Whitehall imparted to him by one Baker one of Oliver's Yeomen of the Guard upon presumption that he would side with them who brings him acquainted with the rest of the Conspirators their Design was with four or sive hundred Men to surprize the Castle of Windsor Riggs one of the Conspirators told him of the Arms lodg'd in Crutchet Friers that five hundred had been dispers'd that they design'd a desperate assault on Whitehall to deliver them from the Tyranny of that Outlandish Dog for so they call'd the King That 〈◊〉 was to be their General that all other Officers were agreed on that the Tower was to be betrayed to them Letters dispersed to amuse the People with a Massacre from the Papists one of which on the Tryal of the Conspirators was produced in the Court they told him they determin'd to rid themselves of King Queen Dukes Bishops all should go one way as they call'd it and the Insurrection was to be on the Lord Mayor's Night Upon this Discovery one Tongue and five more were Arraigned of which one Phillips and Hind confest the Fact on their knees at the Bar were pardoned the other four Convicted Condemned and Executed In March 1663. a Plot was Discovered in the North of England the principal Contrivers of it being imparted to the King were secured from proceeding further And in 1666. when the King returned from Windsor to Oxford the Pestilence being abated tho' the Plague product of their Pestilential principles remained as raging Another Conspiracy of discontented Officers is detected for Conspiring the Death of the King Plotting the surprisal of the Tower Firing the City They had two Councils sitting one in London to issue out all Orders upon the place and another in Holland that assisted them with Instructions the third of September was sworn to be the day of Design for which eight several Persons were Sentenc'd and suffer'd Death In the same Year the Rebellion broke out in Scotland at Pentland Hills where the Covenanters fought the King's Forces and were defeated In 1675. the late Lord Shaftsbury a Person eminent even in the late Combustions and the Civil War a person that was but just before preferr'd by his Prince notwithstanding the many Services he did to the Rebels and an actual being in Arms for the Parliament But he thinking himself too little obliged by the Crown that had never deserv'd the least obligation Plots for the Dissolution of that Parliament that as it had settl'd so preserv'd the very frame of the Government from being dissolv'd and because he could not compass it from the King contrives that it should pass currant that it was Dissolv'd of course because Prorogu'd for fifteen Monhs contrary to the Acts of King Ed. the Third that required one to assemble once at least in twelve The Duke of Bucks is made to move it in the House seconded by Shaftsbury Salesbury and Wharton and for that all four sent to the Tower but however had dispers'd the Design so far that the Stalls were all cover'd with Papers and Pamphlets to prove them Dissolv'd which had it been then effected had only reduc'd us to those Confusions that the unhappy Dissolution in four years after did unfortunately bring about In March 1679. the same Incendiary the
as also the more forward we go in discovering the New But tho from the Roman Invasion he leaps presently into the Saxon Heptarchy yet we may read too there were many petty Kings that they suffered here after their Conquest it being the Roman Pride of having Kings their Subjects and why those might not still retain an Hereditary Succession I cannot understand especially since Dr. Heylin reckons up 16 Kings that succeeded after the Roman Forces had left them naked as indeed they were without a Metaphor to the incursion of the Pict the first five or six of them lineally succeeding one another from Father to Son and the rest not known to have succeeded so only because there 's nothing left us of them but their Names After the consolidating of that Heptarchy into a single Monarchy the learned Man whom I before have cited has shown this disingenuous Author unfortunately to have stumbled in the very Threshold and proved by Authentick Citation that his elected Egbert was the next of kin to the Royal Stock that all the following Succession of the Saxon and Danish Monarchs ran in the blood or was disposed of by the Will and Testament of the deceased Prince The renowned City of London as he calls her is obliged to him for his Civilities and I shall thank him too for his Complement in letting her know that her Approbation had heretofore no small Influence on the Succession And for the securing the Crown on the right head 't is recorded to their Glory and may that glorious act of their Ancestors be still perpetuated in our lasting Annuals and imitated too by the Posterity of her present Inhabitants who then adhered to King Edmond their Lineal and Lawful Prince and that because they knew he was so A Prince Worthy of a better time and who had he found more faithful and but better Subjects might have been in Condition to have made it so His Citizens then clave to him when his very Clergy 〈◊〉 him but their Religion in those days was too little to expect their Loyalty much whereas ours now as the best Argument of their being truly Religious still show themselves as eminently Loyal The Citizens then for I shall insist upon it for their Encouragement now would not concur with Canute's Election by the Priests and Nobility And why because a perfect Exclusion of the right Heir and the next Lawful Son and Successor to their late King And the Fiction that the Factious Author tells us of a Child chosen in the Womb proves but the Story the Fable of a Monk for which he might as well have cited their Legends M Westminster Paris nor any other Authentick Historians ancient enough so much as mention it and our modern Baker says expresly upon 〈◊〉 Death his third Son Edmund call'd Iron-Side but the Eldest living at his Fathers Death succeeded and was Crowned at Kingston upon Thames That a great part of the Nobility favoured the Dane because they feared him but the Londoners stood firm to Edmund and 〈◊〉 the Authors of his Election and upon his very using of the word here I can't but observe what the worthy Dr. has sufficiently proved too how common among Historians that word Election is used only for a Confirmation or acknowledgment of the Right and how against Reason he still misapplies it to Choice why did he not undertake to prove from Baker too that this Prince was elected by the Londoners only because he says they were the cause of his Election which perhaps he would have done but that he found he must have made that Author contradict himself as I believe he has done the rest who tells us just before he was Crown'd at Kingston as the eldest living at his Fathers Death And the Interest of that Metropolis for the right Line was such and so considerable together with that Princes own Courage and Conduct that he remained Conqueror in three several Battels and had been so in the fourth too the last I believe the Dane would have dared to offer had not that false Edric the Traytor to his Father acted o're the same Treason to the Son and revolted in the fight when the Forces of the Foe where on the point of flying The taking but half his Kingdom at that Duel and Accommodation in the Isle of Alney was more 〈◊〉 than fortunate when still his trusty Citizens would have fought for the whole and spent their last blood for the right Line they had first espoused the parting with some of his right was quickly succeeded with the losing of all and his Life to the Bargain and England might well be too weak for its self when 't was made half Denmark so dangerous is it to Princes to forgo the least of their right which only introduces the loss of a greater share or to part with a piece of Prerogative for the patching up some popular divisions whose twisted Interest like Cords that are a twining if it catch but the Skirts of the Purple will soon wind away the whole robe the Observation is here verified upon our old Records and been newly transcribed in Blood in our latter days and the Son of our Royal Martyr treads the best Politicks for the Prevention in that unfortunate Testimony of his Father and if Soveraignty be somewhat that is Divine a Subjects robbing of the Crown must be next to that of a Church and a sin that savours as much of sacriledg But to let you know in short the design of this Historian's Complement upon which we have dwelt too long the pretty Parenthesis was applyed to another purpose 't was publisht at a time when the City was Influencing an House of Commons that were for altering Succession and they as great an Influence with the City At a Banquet of Politicks after their Parliament Feast and His time to let them know the Approbation of that renowned City had then no little Influence on the Succession And besides in the very same Page he had prepared for them the pretty President of the Saxons preferring a brave and deserving Bastard before a cruel and Legitimate Prince He means that Athelstan whom he resolves rather erroniously to suppose Illegitimate than Ingeniously to allow him as he truly was the Lawful Heir But Baker and others tell us the Truth tho' he will not and say this Athelstan was the Eldest and no way spurious But the telling of the Truth would have prevented this malicious Authors Factious insinuation of the D. Temper which to make the more remarkable he must mark out in Emphatical Italicks only to save the crying Monmouth and York But the Card is turned there now and the Loyal Heart Trump instead of his Clubs and to be hoped they 'l make good the best part of the Observation which he never designed they should stand and fall with their Loyal Progenitors in the defence of the right Line and the Royal Blood In short upon the whole united and
believe the Legend for a Bible and his History for the Revelations But yet this Prince though by Conquest and Composition he got half the Kingdom and upon Edmunds Death the whole foresaw what Power the pleas of Right and Succession might have for animating an Interest in the defence of the poor injured Heirs and therefore took all the ways to ingratiate himself with his wavering People his young and unexperienced Subjects and all manner of means for preventing the Lawful Heirs for attempting for their Right sticking at neither Murder Malice and Treachery and in order to the first he made a shew of governing with more Justice then he conquered and took mildness for the best means of his Establishment and to let the Nation know he designed only to subdue them sends away his Mercenaries ships away his Navy and for a popular Specimen of an Heroick Kindness to the memory of the Saxons he succeeded as a Satisfaction to their injured Dust prefers Edricks perjured Head to the highest place on the City Gate and with that Expedient reconciled himself at once to his own promise deserved Justice and the Peoples favour and yet for securing himself from any danger from the Lawsul Heirs so politickly Cruel that all the Royal Blood felt of his Injustice sent the two Sons of his late Co-partner in the Kingdom to be murdered abroad and got his Brother to be butchered at home such an experienced truth is it that Powers usurpt Successions altered like the blackest Villanies can only be Justifyed and defended by committing more At his Death 't is true he disposed of his Crowns by Testamentary Bequest and well he might when there was so little known for Kingdoms of Feudatory Law and private Estates then far from being entailed yet in that very Legacy you can observe what Power the Consideration had with him of Right and Blood for he leaves his own Paternal Dominions Norway to his Eldest son Swayn and to his Youngest Hardicanute his conquered England considering his Mothers Blood which was Emma Wife to the late King Ethelred might as indeed it did give him some precedency to his middle Brother Harold the one having somewhat of Saxon in him the other all Dane especially if he was as some say Illegitimate tho' Baker calls him an Elder Brother by a former Wife so that upon the whole the Contest that rose about the Succession was but whether he had Right and when at last Harald was preferred 't was upon the Resolution of his being Legitimate so that here his own Inference contradicts the end for which 't was brought and instead of altering the discent shows they industriously contended to keep it in the right Channel and allowing they were mistaken in their Opinions of his Birth the Lords to make amends for their error streight on his Death fetch home Hardicanute who dying without Issue the Right of Blood prevailed again and the Saxon entred in Edward the Confessor Edmunds Son only being past by because his very being was unknown and so they can only be blamed for not seeking for the right Heir among the supposed Dead Yet when this Edward had found him out he designed both him and his Son Atheling for successive Monarchs whose very name imported Hereditary and next of kin as much as our Prince of Wales while the second Harold but usurpt upon him against the sense of the Clergy who even then lookt upon it as a Violation of the Right of the Heir and also of their Holy Rites and tho Harald suggested that Edward had appointed him to be Crown'd Historians say that it was only to make him during the Minority of this Edgar a Regent and not an absolute King and Mat. Paris speaking of Edgar Atheling in the very first Leafe of his History in these very words says that to him belonged the Right to the Kingdom of England and if Birth could then give a Right I don't see how then or now any Power can defraud a Prince justly of his Birth-right And now we 'l begin our Remarks on the Norman Line upon which the very first words of Baker are these There were six Dukes of Normandy in France in a direct Line succeeding from Father to Son and yet this Inquisitive Monarch-maker lays his mighty stress his weighty Consideration on the single Suggestion of Duke William's being a reputative Bastard be it so have we not here the Majority of six to one that succeeded 〈◊〉 Legitimately and is not these then like all the rest of their Objections against the Government rather industrious Cavil then real Argument or allowing it still is it not most impertinently applyed to his present purpose to tell us that William the Conqueror was himself Illegitimate and yet succeeded his Father in the Dutchy of Normandy And therefore must we have another Natural and Illegitimate Duke to wear the Crown of England or was the Suggestion only made because they had such a Duke in Readiness that had already run the Popular Gantlet of Ambition and been sooth'd into the Prospect of a Scepter with the false Tongues of Flatterers and Sycophants or else was the Nomination of the Normans to supersede the Fundamental Laws of our Nation And our England a Dependent a Tributary to that Crown before the Conquest these Paradoxes must be reconciled by Miracle before such a ridiculous Instance can pass for Reason or Common Sense or vindicate the false suggester from Folly and Impertinence But even here too his very Assertion fails him and this Pretender to Truth both abuses his Reader with false Application and telling a Lye For this Duke William tho' a Bastard Born was not illegitimated so as to be barred the Crown and incapacitated for Inheritance for it appears as Baker says by many Examples that Bastardy was then no Bar to Succession and by the Canon and the Law of the Church that then obtain'd the Children born before Wedlock were de facto truly legitimated if he afterward espoused his Concubine and this his Factious Assistant Hunt himself allows when the Wretch endeavoured to Bastardize the Progenitors of his Sovereign and this many Writers say was the very Case of our Duke William whose Father took his Mother Arlotte to Wife afterward The Donation to William Rufus was again clearly Testimentary which might be allowed sure to a Conqueror whose will only gave what his Sword had gotten but however as I observed above in the Legatory Disposition of Canutus the Dane where he gave his conquered Kingdom to his Youngest and Norway his Paternal Right to Swayn his Eldest to whom 't was most due so here this Third Conqueror of Old Britain observ'd the same sort of Bequest and left Normandy his Fathers Inheritance and his own to Robert to whom it appertain'd in Reason and Right both these Instances no small Demonstration shewing how the Precedency of Blood even in those days obtained and with those too whom our Factious Innovator would
such States-men whose Politicks are best understood from the Measures they take and who seem many times Fools in the dark till they disclose themselves to be the greatest Villains When I saw him settled for Excluding the Crown 's Heir we soon saw the meaning of Presumptive which before seem'd in so great a Man a little nonsense But I can tell them of one-sense more it might have had That is the Duke was but his Presumptive Heir because he presumed he should Destroy him Some men of the Law would laugh at such Sophisters of the Faction And truly they even at themselves should they maintain the Youngest Son in Burrough English was no Heir Apparent who can be dispossest by latter Birth as well as a Brother or Collateral but it was the want of his Lordships Law that made him abound with so much Sophistry and so little Sense For my Lord Coke lets us know that a Collateral Heir is as much an Apparent one as the Eldest Son but only this says he is not within the Statute Tho as great a Judge and as good was not so Dogmatical in this point who as he had Reason so he left room too for doubt tho the Quaere in his first Edition has been very industriously omitted in the second I have been the longer upon this to let the Divine see that he may be much out in his Law and that tho he would have Excluded the late Collateral Heir from his Oath of Allegiance his preservation might have been brought in within the Statute of Treason and the Doctor if he pleas'd might be Hanged for him as well as Perjur'd 'T is pretty pleasant to me to Observe how men of these sort of principlescan prevaricate for the Promoting of their own Cause and the Divinest of them all run to the Devil with a Lye in their Mouth at the same time they in their Conscience believe the contrary to be true No Soul Living but will believe this Libeller when so near Ally'd to the Gentleman of the Law we so lately left would entertain assoon the Damnable Doctrin of a Muggletonian as dispense with the belief of a Divine Right since his Associate in their Hotch-potch of Scrible Hunt has rendered it altogether as Devilish yet what that Lawyer won't allow this Body of Divinity is forced at last to prove viz. That even the Roman Emperors Reigned with a Right Divine and that all their Empire was Hereditary and this he is seriously bound to maintain too as the only Basis and foundation for his Rebellious Book so that these prevaricating Jugglers with a turn of an hand can make the two several Extreams serve for the same purpose when it will make for their Cause they shall make those Crowns Hereditary whom all Authors and all the World acknowledge Elective let it but cross the Interest of the Faction the same pens shall prove you a most Elective Monarchy from one absolutely Hereditary The Roman Empire was certainly from Caesar their first to this Julian himself and even the very last of their Emperors uncertain in it's Succession sometimes a Right Heir would interpose or an adopted one but still either set up by the Souldiers or depended upon their permission And how it could otherwise well be no man can well imagin when their standing Armies were continually in the Field and a new Monarch commonly created with a Shout and Salutation of a Legion so uncertain was their Succession that they seldom had so much as Certainty for their Lives Look upon the List which I have leisurably examined and you 'll find from Caesar that was stab'd in the Senate to their Apostate Julian whom they would have a Christian assassinate in Persia I am sure half if not more were Murdered or destroy'd by some prevalent Faction or a mutinous Army and most of the Purples they wore were dy'd in their own Blood Julian's Caesars are just as well apply'd here to the Succession of our Prince of Wales as the Postscript has the Confirmation of the Prince of Wales to prove the Legislative of the House of Commons On the other side our own Monarchy for fifteen hundred years Hereditary and that to be proved from all Chronicle and History have the same sort of Pens and whom this Author vindicates too with his own endeavoured to make merely Elective I can't resolve this Spirit of Contradiction into any thing less than an absolute Conspiracy among themselves for the Vindicating rather Pagans and Infidels the Government of Rome or Constantinople before the Constitution of our Church or the Establisht Monarchy Upon the Publishing this pernicious piece and its falling into my hands I remember tho not much read in the History of the Church or the works of a Socrates or a Sozomen that I had casually lighted in one of them heretofore upon the passage of Jovian's this Apostat's immediate Successor being saluted Emperor where the pious Prince told them he would never Reign over Pagans upon which they Reply'd they were all Christians and as such had submitted and not opposed the Government of a Julian because their Lawful Emperor a President so directly contradictory to those he brings that it was a sufficient Prepossession to me against the profest Sincerity of the piece Paganism is as much obliged to this Apostate Church-man as the Christian Religion has receiv'd from him the greatest disservice he represents to us in several places his Pagan Emperor even with the Meekness of a Moses and with such a command of Spirit and Temperament of mind as if he would have him rather Worshipt as a Saint than Curst for a Persecutor he makes him to take Reviling patiently as if he 'd let us know he also could imitatehis Christ who reviled not again with such mollifying expressions in several places to the very reproaches of the meanest as if he would recommend the admiring of him for an Hero which makes me remember his dying Words I met with once in Ammianus Marcellinus so full of Magnanimity and all the highest Expressions of a Moral Vertue that of an Expiring Pagan he seem'd to me the most like a dying Christian But on the other side those Pious Souls those Glorious Martyrs fam'd for their Primitive Meekness and Moderation that in the midst of Tortures have accounted it worthy to suffer for the sake of their Saviour blest their Persecutors in Groans in imperfect sounds and unarticulated accents of Agony and Anguish that tir'd the Invention of their Tormentors as well as baffl'd their Tortures and with exalted Affection of Spirit Triumph'd in the midst of Flames These has he 〈◊〉 represented for the most Malicious Seditious and Rebellious Brood of Christians that ever breath'd under any Government altogether Pagan What good the Protestant Religion can receive from such a Representation of the Primitive Christians must be in pleading prescription to a warrantable Rebellion and what Obligation Christianity it self has
Monarchy mixt and of this even Justin can tell us in one of his Books And for making their Monarchy more Divine did Romulus and Numa the Founder of their Religion as well as of Rome Officiate in it sometimes too So much did the Fathers of old prefer Monarchy to a Popular Government that Sir Walter Rawleigh tells us of the saying of St. Chrysostom that recommended even a Tyrant before no King at all and that is 〈◊〉 with a Sentence of Tacitus who tells us If the Prince be never so wicked yet still better than none And for that of a Commonwealth it was as bravely said by Agesilaus to a Citizen of Sparta discoursing about Government That such a one as a common Cobler would disdain in his House and Family was very unfit to Govern a Kingdom In short all the Presidents that Mr. Sidney has given us of the Romans driving out their Tarquins of the French rejecting the Race of Pharamond of the Revolt of the Low-Countries from Spain of the Scots killing James the Third and Deposing Queen Mary are all absolute Rebellions were ever Recorded so in History and will be Condemned for such by all Ages He should have mention'd for once too the murder of our Martyr'd Sovereign for to be sure he had the same sense of that upon which he was to have sate But if any thing can recommend their Commonwealth it must be only this That it cannot be so soon dispatch'd it being a Monster with many Heads to which Nero's Wish would not be so cruel That it had but one neck to be cut off at a blow The clamour this Republican made against Monarchs in general was whatever he suggests appli'd to our own in particular when he tells in the very same Page of the Power of the People of England and though he exclaims and all others do against this Arbitrary Power of Kings 't is certain themselves would make the People as Arbitrary The Question is not whether there shall be an Arbitrary Power but the Dispute is who shall have it there never was nor ever can be a People govern'd without a Power of making Laws and that Power so long as consonant to reason must be Arbitrary for to make Laws by Laws is Nonsense These Republicans by confession would fix it in many and the Multitude in Aristocracy 't is fix'd in a few and therefore in a Monarchy must be setl'd in ONE CHAP. VI. Remarks upon their Plots and Conspiracies AND now that they may not think I have foully Libell'd them in a Mis-representation of the dangerous Principles of their Republicans I 'll be so fair as to prove upon them too the natural product of their own Notions and that is the Plots of the same Villains assoon as they have been pleas'd to set up for Rebels And these will appear from Chronicle and History the Records of Time and the best Tryers of Truth these will not be falsified with Reflection but be founded upon matter of Fact And of these this will fall in our way as the first About the Year 1559 there was promoted in France a Plot and Conspiracy against their King and that founded upon the same pretext so many of ours have been of late in England that is Religion but truly fomented by what has been always the spring the very fountain of Blood and Rebellion discontent and disgust toward the Government For upon the death of Henry the Second and the Succession of Francis his eldest Son to the Throne the Princes of the House of Bourbon thinking themselves neglected and despised thrust out of Office and Employment at Court and finding the Family of the Guises still prefer'd whom they always as mortally hated resolved to revenge themselves upon the Crown that is to turn Rebels Of these Vendosme and Conde were the principal Engagers and drew in the two Castillions the Admiral and his Brother who for the removal of the Duke De Montmorency their relation from that Court to which he had prefer'd them were as full also of resentment against the Crown as those that came to engage them with an invitation to invade it and after all their several seditious Assemblies after all the many Meetings they had made after all the Treasonable Consultations they had held no design was look'd upon by them more likely to prove effectual than the making themselves Head of the Hugenots And so hot were they upon this Project the pursuit of another kind of Holy War that among our modern Crusadoes has been nothing else but a Religious Rebellion that notwithstanding the coldness of the King of Navarr they drew in most of the Protesting part of France to be truly Rebels for the sake of their Seducers while they made them believe they had only engag'd themselves to fight for the Religion of those they had so wickedly seduc'd And so conducing then were the principles of a Republick to a Rebellions Plot that one 〈◊〉 that was forc'd to turn Renegado to his Country for Misdemeanors committed in it and fled to Geneva as a Sanctuary for Sedition after he had lurk'd there like a concealed Criminal abroad upon his Return sets up for an open Rebellion at Home after he had layn so long in the lake the sink of Democracy you may be sure was well instructed how to resist a Monarch He soon blows the coals that could easily keep up the Blood of the warm Princes that was already set so well a boyling Him they pitch upon as the fittest tool to work out their design and in my conscience coming from that Common-wealth the Statsemen judged not amiss when they took him for an able Artist With his help and their own it went so far that Moneys Men and Amunition was provided and a Petition drawn for a Toleration of Religion though indeed but a Treacherous vell to cover their Intended Treason which was to seize upon the Young King upon his denyal of what they knew he would not grant surprize the Queen that still opposed them and put the Guises to the Sword whom she favoured But the Court being advised of the Conspiracy had retired to the Castle of Amboise and so far did they prosecute their Plot that their Petitioners were admitted into it though their Arm'd Accomplices that were without were compelled to fight for their Lives which Renaudie with the rest of the Ring-leaders of them lost and the Rabble to save theirs was forc'd to fly This was the praeliminary Plot and an unhappy prelude to a long and bloody Civil War fomented first by the fury of a Faction that set up for Rebels only because not favoured as they thought sufficiently by the Court and then seconded even to an Assaulting of the Crown in the Siege of Paris and almost the Subversion of the Monarchy as some Learned Historians surmise from the secret Emissaries of the Republick of Geneva I need not touch on the particulars in which the