A Short and True RELATION OF INTRIGUES TRANSACTED Both at Home and Abroad To Restore the Late King JAMES Virgil. AEneid lib. 6. Facilis descensus Averni sed revocare gradum hic labor hoc opus est London Printed in the Year 1694. A short and true Relation of Intrigues transacted at Home and Abroad to restore the late King James WE may see by the overturn of the late King the Instability of Human Greatness and that Soveraignty is like the Globe of the Earth full of Windings and Turnings having its Ebbs and Flows like the Ocean which never rests and which shews Government to be a slippery Path for if the Prince chance to catch a Fall though such a Mishap may not prove Mortal yet it so disables him ever after that he cannot recover himself Which at this time seems verified in the Fall of the late King who now finds himself mistaken in his Measures which renders all his Endeavours frivolous and turns to no other Account but to frustrate his Expectations and to remove his Hopes from ever ascending the English Throne again The Nobles and Commons in Parliament assembled after the late King's Coronation demonstrated their Fidelity to him by their unexpected Attainder of the late Duke of Monmouth who but a little before was the Peoples Darling and yet notwithstanding was sacrificed for the preservation of the late King an Instance of so much Integrity at that Juncture of Time when the late King dreaded nothing more than the Landing of the Duke of Monmouth that if the late King had but esteemed the Affection of the People pursuant to the Experience he had then of their Loyalty and retained the same and contained himself within the Rules of Moderation in point of good Government and not openly exceeded the Limits of the Law and strove to content the People which is the End of all good Government a Duty incumbent upon Kings and Princes to do he might have Ruled and Reigned to this Day and all the Days of his natural Life with as much Honour Grandeur and Satisfaction as any Prince that ever reigned in England The late King had more Experience in Government than any Prince that came before him He had seen the Tragical Fate of his Father's Death the Turnings and Windings in his late Brother's Reign wherein he himself had an ample Share every way and was fifty two years a Subject before he came to be King So that it might be expected from a Prince of his Knowledg and Years to rule well and to fulfil that Saying of Maecenas to Augustus Nemo bene Imperat nisi qui ante paruerit Imperio Whereas had the late King but kept the Reins of his Government equal in his Hand so as to be able to have made a Judgment when to drive fast or slow and between both had kept a middling Pace and by an impartial distribution of Justice pleased the lower Orb and trusted not too far to corrupted Ministers and Judges who are the Plagues of all Governments according to Cicero Acceptatio munerum est praevaricatio Justitiae Veritatis he had been now instead of a Deposed Prince in a Foreign Land happy at Home But now he can tell that a People can do better without a King than a King without a People and as nothing would have pleased his Ambition but to trample upon the Liberties and Privileges of his Subjects so the Subjects thought themselves obliged to let him know that the Affection of the People is the surest Foundation of Government by their declaring their aversion to the late King and seating the present King and Queen upon the Throne The late King thought to imitate Henry the 8th the contrary way but came short of his Undertaking and losing the Love of his People lost himself and three Kingdoms Henry the 8th fought the Pope at his own Weapons pick'd his Locks with his own Keys lock'd in the Supremacy and shut out the Pope And for his Seconds had the two great Convocations of Roman Catholick Divines then residing in both the Universities of Oxford and Cambridg together with all the Monastical and Collegiat Theologues throughout the whole Kingdom which bespeaks the English Roman Catholicks both at Rome and all Abroad very scandalous having no Reputation nor Esteem any where out of England but hated mortally The late King to oblige the Pope and out of his fervent Zeal to Religion likewise went about to alter the Case and to remove the Aspersion wherewith all the English Roman Catholicks are branded and fix it upon English Protestants when he with a Protestant Army attempted to establish Popery against Law in a Protestant Kingdom and to extirpate the Protestant Religion An Undertaking too dangerous as it fell out to be attempted and no wonder it should when a Prince against all the Rules of Religious Policy and contrary to good Conduct in point of good Government without any more necessity to compel him than his Ambition and Zeal to take such Measures as would not only incense the People against him and inflame three Kingdoms but also entail an Intestine War upon the Kingdom For St. Augustin a great Doctor in the Church as well as in the Politicks says Remota justitia quid sunt Regna sed magna Latrocinia the removing of Religion and Justice le ts in an Inundation of Sorrow Calamity and Distress to the overthrow of all good Law and moral Honesty which the late King now sees when instead of being attended by his Nobles Ministers and his Judges and seated at Home upon the Throne he himself with the help of his more than corrupted Council brought all upon himself and is necessitated to be maintained at the Expence of another Prince which shews the Uncertainty as well as the Infelicity of humane Greatness to see a Prince that might have been happy but would not and now instead of Ruling and Commanding his late great Officers is again glad to receive and listen to the meanest of his late Subjects A Prince that would not hear the Counsel of the Wise but embraced the Advice of Fools is accordingly accommodated who expected by his Exile when he left his People to return Triumphantly an absolute Monarch as he thought but so far from it at this time that that Prince from whom he expected Succour has enough to do to defend himself being surrounded by many Enemies which leaves the late King no hopes of Supply there having to that purpose received the King of France's Answer but in February last which crown'd all the late King's Misfortunes with additional Sorrow as presently will appear The late King hath no other Remedy left him as the Case stands now Abroad but to court his late injured People to bring him back again which is not so easily to be comprehended That Prince must be reduced to great Hardships that first receives a broken Head and petitions him that gave it for a Plaister it looks as if no
late King And that in December last an Express arrived from England at St. Germains which gave the satisfactory account of the Peoples return to their former Allegiance to King James how true or false it was that Court was so elevated with Joy that nothing was talked off but an immediate Return for England all there striving who should be foremost upon the Expedition others to make some considerable Figure came away as they say to have some Men in readiness against the Landing here in England Frequent fresh News came from England confirming the same and every half-starved poor Man about Court used his Interest to have some considerable Imployment and he that could not be in a valuable Station thought himself as good as lost by which we may judg how the Jacobites here in England would be look'd on But it 's thought the late King would continue his Favour to them by leaving them always reserved to drink his Health an Imployment most sutable to their Principles for certainly they that live in so merry a Mode in his Absence cannot but do extraordinary well when he returns that is to say if their Money holds out otherwise they may become Williamites About this time France was as full of the Expectation of a General Peace to be concluded all abroad as other Places were full of the Rumour thereof and to stay for the Ratification was alledged to be the only stop that prolonged the late King 's coming away having all things at Home and Abroad ready doubting not in the least but all things would have answered Expectation But all the Preparations returned to nothing and the great Joy of a sudden to Sorrow insomuch that all the Tidings at Home and Abroad met together in the Dissolution of the Hopes of a second Restoration The late King having about the fourth Day of February last New Stile acquainted the French King with the frequent good Tidings from his late Subjects who now were returned to their Allegiance and all free to hazard their Lives and Fortunes for his Return which he said were all true according to his Intelligence and that he was most certain and sure that none would oppose him in England the French King told him that he was glad to hear it and wished it might prove so but seem'd to give little Credit to it The late King pressed hard to have some Succours to come for England the beginning of last March but still the French King doubted the Reality of the English to him alledging thus as King James repeated the same after his return from Versailles to St. Germains First says the French King as you have experience to know your Subjects so I know them by their Character and do believe them to be a People of no Faith no Honour and no Honesty whom no Promise can oblige nor Oath can bind And as for their Clergy I look upon them much worse than the Commonalty having not only by Teaching and Preaching taught the People to forswear themselves but shewed ill Examples in themselves by doing the same they have sworn Allegiance to you and since accepted of the Prince of Orange for their King and swear Allegiance to him how this Swearing to both can be reconciled I cannot understand But let them swear what they will I should not believe them nor put any more value upon their Oath than they do themselves which is nothing at all Neither do I understand how you can be assured of them that have no other Assurance to give you of their future Fidelity but their Oaths which are worth as much now as when they broke with your Majesty last it is out of my reach to put any Trust in such People neither would I have you confide in them for I doubt much their Integrity and if they are weary of the War at a Distance what will they not be when it 's with them at Home that will be your time to hear them and not before The late King still urged to come for England Whereupon the French King told him seeing he had that Confidence in his Subjects that if they did but demonstrate their Fidelity by some Action as the seizing of any Citadel Town or Fore of any good Consequence and put such in his Hands as might be for the Safety of his Ships and secure the landing of an Army that after that was effectually done he would give him Succours but before he did not think it safe to venture considering how his own Affairs stood at Home and Abroad The late King pressed no further upon him but returned to St. Germains where he told all the Particulars which put that Court into such a Fit of Grief and Sorrow that they were all like so many People going to die In five days after all the decayed Gentlemen about Court were ordered some Advance-Money upon their Pensions and commanded Homeward to make the best of their Way and Conditions who are now upon the Road for Flanders others coming for England and the rest begging all along being in a most deplorable Condition The English Protestants about that Court do wish themselves at Home again for there they are respected as Strangers but hated as Protestants and looked upon as Spies from England so are some Roman Catholicks too who thereupon both Clergy and Laity were forbid the Court. The Protestants are hated likewise by the People there who have the same Notion of Religion if not with more Zeal as the People here The Protestants are under the Calumnies of the late King's Declaration and the Articles both against Roman Catholicks and Dissenters and the English Protestants about Court on that account are loathed and hated by the People there who are full of it For English Protestants to go for France to propagate their Religion where a Native Protestant cannot live is but like the Quakers that went to Rome to reconcile the Pope to be a Quaker they are equally looked upon though not equally treated the Quakers were looked upon in Rome to be mad Men and were sent to Bedlam but our English Protestants are yet at Liberty and in more danger of the Bastile than of Bedlam being of late upon their Good-behaviour but still much suspected The late King did all along rely upon the Pope's Interest to mediate a Peace Abroad and addressed a great many other Princes to the same purpose hoping that a Peace Abroad would be a means to bring him to his late Home The Pope did use his Interest that way and so did the Princes of Italy but it was to no Effect for no Body seem'd willing but the French King to accept of the Peace which in him was but to wheedle some of the Confederate Princes to listen to his Proposals and accept of his Conditions to divide and break the Allies and that so by taking off some and dispersing their Forces he may with the more Facility crush the rest and break all at last But the
Confederates who are sensible of his Designs will accept of no Conditions from him of his own Proposals but intend to bring him to their Conditions they all foresee that he intends to become Emperor of the West which he cannot attain to but in consequence must extirpate the House of Austria in whose Preservation all the Princes think themselves obliged to keep up the War rather than voluntarily suffer themselves to be brought under a Yoke of Tyranny and Usurpation The Emperor is well satisfied that the War made by the Grand Seignior against the Empire was promoted by the French King and since furthered by him which consideration requires the Emperor to decline all his Proposals until the French King first allays that War raised by himself upon the Emperor As for the King of Spain the French King is a Plague to him by ravaging of his Territories seizing his Towns and Forts without any pretence of Justice and compelling his Subjects to swear Allegiance to him by the Law of Conquest which by Divine Law is no Lawful Right but a Homicide and open Robbery for Mankind was free in the beginning but since by the Power of Usurpation subjected under a Yoke which lost the World forty times over more Lives to continue and maintain Man's Ambition over Man than are left living in the World therefore as God's Laws are against destroying and killing of Men certainly that Power which cannot govern nor live but upon the destruction of God's Creation cannot be called Just nor Lawful Jure Divino but an absolute Tyranny though some of our Divines will say that a Conquest is a Lawful Title so it is by the Law of the Sword but against the Law of Natural Right Some perhaps may take occasion to question by what Law did King William and Queen Mary ascend this Throne A Question as soon answered By a better Title than ever Alexander the Great or Julius Cesar had to any Part of their several Conquests K. William and Queen Mary had the Choice and Affection of the People which is the best Foundation and surest Title that ever Prince had to build upon and without which no Prince can be safe on the Throne But that Prince that has it and knows how to keep it and retains it may reign and rule in defiance of all Foreign Enemies if it does not happen to him to have a corrupted Council which is the overthrow of any State Kingdom or Empire We need not go Abroad for Precedents having some of the Council at Home in being that brought us almost to Destruction and are as likely to do it once again as ever they did before if God prevents not It is true enough that where a Prince has not an Army to rule absolutely no King of England can hurt the Privileges of the Subjects if his Ministers and Judges be but faithful to the Prince and People in discharge of their Trust according to Law but otherwise all goes to wrack We exclaim against the late King 's Evil Counsellors and who can say that there was one good amongst them It is commonly said that they that have betray'd the Secrets of one King against the Oaths commonly taken have since betrayed another Or how can this King and Queen believe themselves happy in the Counsel of those whom they themselves know to have been false to the late King Or is it to be thought the Kingdom is asleep when a Clamour is raised against the late King 's Evil Counsellors when at the same time the major Part of them are still in our Councils and Places of Trust which denotes a long Snake in the Grass But I shall do by them as God Almighty did leave them and return to conclude my Discourse only adding that the Court of St. Germains dreads nothing more than such an Alteration of the Lieutenancy and Justices of Peace over all England as it has pleased their Majesties of late to cause in London The Resolution of the Confederates against the Peace has altered the Measures of France abolished the Thoughts of a Restauration and has put a Period to all the Designs of an Invasion from France hither It is of all hands in France believed that thrô the Distraction amongst the Clergy and Gentry about the Taxes the scarcity of Money among the Commonalty with the want of Provision and the excessive Expences of the War to maintain so many Armies the Glory of that Crown without a Peace cannot hold much longer the declination of the Wealth of France having reduced all People to a very low Ebb. And if the late King and the French King did hold a Resolution to land an Army in this Kingdom this Island is so naturally strongly situated that they would find it a difficult Matter to land an Army here having the Elements to fight with and the Sea to conquer before they can touch the Shore and perhaps the Attempt whenever tried may prove as fatal to France as the overthrow of the Spanish Armado was to Spain Which makes me think of Hegesippus who personated King Agrippa in his Discourse to Claudius of the Danger and Difficulty of invading Great Britain which Discourse ended as Florus said of the Ligurians and as I may say and conclude Major labor est invenire quam vincere Mr. Waller 'T is not so hard for greedy Foes to spoil Another Nation as to touch our Soil FINIS