engage Protestants that are all equally concerned to preserve themselves from Popish Oppression into mutual Quarrellings that so by these some Advantages might be given to them to bring about their Designs and that both in the Election of the Members of Parliament and afterwards in the Parliament it self For they see well that if all Protestants could enter into a mutual good understanding one with another and concur together in the preserving of their Religion it would not be possible for them to compass their wicked Ends. They have also required all Persons in the several Counties of England that either were in any Employment or were in any considerable Esteem to declare before-hand that they would concur in the Repeal of the Test and Penal Laws and that they would give their Voices in the Elections to Parliament only for such as would concur in it Such as would not thus preingage themselves were turned out of all Employments And others who entred into those Engagements were put in their places many of them being Papists And contrary to the Charters and Privileges of those Burroughs that have a Right to send Burgesses to Parliament they have ordered such Regulations to be made as they thought fit and necessary for assuring themselves of all the Members that are to be chosen by those Corporations and by this means they hope to avoid that Punishment which they have deserved though it is apparent that all Acts made by Popish Magistrates are null and void of themselves So that no Parliament can be Lawful for which the Elections and Returns are made by Popish Sheriffs and Mayors of Towns and therefore as long as the Authority and Magistracy is in such hands it is not possible to have any Lawful Parliament And though according to the Constitution of the English Government and Immemorial Custom all Elections of Parliament-men ought to be made with an entire Liberty without any sort of Force or the requiring the Electors to chuse such Persons as shall be named to them and the Persons thus freely Elected ought to give their Opinions freely upon all Matters that are brought before them having the good of the Nation ever before their Eyes and following in all things the dictates of their Conscience yet now the People of England cannot expect a Remedy from a Free Parliament legally Called and Chosen But they may perhaps see one Called in which all Elections will be carried by Fraud or Force and which will be composed of such Persons of whom those Evil Counsellors hold themselves well assured in which all things will be carried on according to their Direction and Interest without any regard to the Good or Happiness of the Nation Which may appear evidently from this that the same Persons tried the Members of the last Parliament to gain them to Consent to the Repeal of the Test and Penal Laws and procured that Parliament to be dissolved when they found that they could not neither by Promises nor Threatnings prevail with the Members to comply with their wicked Designs 19. But to Crown all there are great and violent Presumptions inducing us to believe that those Evils Counsellors in order to the carrying on of their ill Designs and to the gaining to themselves the more time for the effecting of them for the encouraging of their Complices and for the discouraging of all good Subjects have published That the Queen hath brought forth a Son though there have appeared both during the Queen's pretended bigness and in the manner in which the Birth was managed so many just and visible grounds of Suspicion that not only we our selves but all the good Subjects of those Kingdoms do vehemently suspect that the pretended Prince of Wales was not born by the Queen And it is notoriously known to all the World that many both doubted of the Queen's Bigness and of the Birth of the Child and yet there was not any one thing done to satisfie them or to put an end to their Doubts 20. And since our Dearest and most Entirely Beloved Consort the Princess and likewise We Our Selves have so great an Interest in this Matter and such a Right as all the World knows to the Succession to the Crown Since also the English did in the Year 1672 when the States General of the Vnited Provinces were invaded in a most unjust War use their utmost Endeavours to put an end to that War and that in opposition to those who were then in the Government and by their so doing they run the hazard of losing both the Favour of the Court and their Employments And since the English Nation has ever restified a most particular Affection and Esteem both to our Dearest Consort the Princess and to Our Selves We cannot excuse our selves from espousing their Interests in a Matter of such high Consequence and from Contributing all that lies in us for the Maintaining both of the Protestant Religion and of the Laws and Liberties of those Kingdoms and for the securing to them the continual enjoyment of all their just Rights To the doing of which We are most earnestly solicited by a great many Lords both Spiritual and Temporal and by many Gentlemen and other Subjects of all Ranks 21. THEREFORE it is that We have thought fit to go over to England and to carry over with us a Force sufficient by the Blessing of God to defend us from the Violence of those Evil Counsellors AND WE being desirous that our Intentions in this may be rightly understood have for this end prepared this Declaration in which as we have hitherto given a True Account of the Reasons inducing us to it So we now think fit to DECLARE That this our Expedition is intended for no other Design but to have a Free and Lawful Parliament assembled as soon as is possible and that in order to this all the late Charters by which the Elections of Burgesses are limited contrary to the ancient Custom shall be considered as null and of no force And likewise all Magistrates who have been unjustly turned out shall forthwith resume their former Employments as well as all the Burroughs of England shall return again to their Ancient Prescriptions and Charters And more particularly that the Ancient Charter of the Great and Famous City of London shall again be in force And that the Writs for the Members of Parliament shall be addressed to the proper Officers according to Law and Custom That also none be suffered to choose or to be chosen Members of Parliament but such as are qualified by Law And that the Members of Parliament being thus lawfully Chosen they shall meet and sit in full Freedom That so the Two Houses may concur in the preparing of such Laws as they upon full and free Debate shall judge necessary and convenient both for the confirming and executing the Law concerning the Test and such other Laws as are necessary for the Security and Maintenance of the Protestant Religion as likewise for making
they receive this Report against the Right Reverend Bishops the Design in which they are said to Embarque being founded on that very Principle in pursuance of which the Head of Charles the Blessed Martyr was brought to the Block and Embarque they cannot but by joyning with a Foreign Army the chief part of which is made up of those who though they would willingly enough ensnare our Bishops cannot be reasonably supposed to be true in the Promises they make about supporting their Hierarchical Grandeur the utmost they must expect in the long-run can be no more than a turning their Lands into Money that to the end their dependance on the Government may be the more effectually secured instead of their present Lands Leases c. they may have an Yearly Salary answerable to their worth and desert which as 't will be uncertain so it cannot be hopâ—d that its utmost height shall arise to the State and Degree of a Baron for Baronies go with their Lands By this you may see how unlikely any sort of English-men should by this Invasion gain any thing but Misery TO this was subjoyned a short Discourse stiled Animad-versions upon the Declaration of his Highness the Prince of Orange Which is about twelve Pages in Quarto supposed to be written by Steward but then attributed to Castlemain but whoever was the Author of it it is a spruce piece of Sophistry and he was a Person who well knew what could be said for a bad Case and where it was not possible to make any defence and there would insensibly glide by as if he had not minded the difficulty Page 21 he has this Expression Put it to the Nation and all the Nation must declare that every Man enjoys his Conscience his Liberty and his Property even to the envy of their less happy Neighbors and that there has been no proceeding against a single Man but for his single misdemeanor and this is not Arbitrary but Legal Power And then to asperse his Majesty with overturning all Laws under the Name of Evil Counsellors Why Sir let his Counsellors be never so bad they are worse whose Service his Highness has used in Pâ—uning his Declaration By this Sample the Reader may judge of that whole Paper First He useth the utmost assurance to out-face the World as to the Matter of Fact. Secondly Pretends Redress Thirdly Promiseth a Parliament when it may be denied or over-awed Fourthly Makes all the Prince's Assisters Traytors and Perjur'd And Lastly Because the King was not accountable to his own Subjects concludes that neither was he so to the Prince though a Sovereign Prince So he was to be revered like a God and No-body not a Neighbour-interested Prince was to presume to say to him What doest thou To that height of stupidity was their Flattery then arrived but soon after it expired This is the best Abstract I can give of that Defence which is too long to be intirely inserted in this Work though it were to be wished a larger might in due time be published with all the material Papers at large This Paper was afterwards Answered but things then had so rapid a motion that the Reply coming too late was scarce read or regarded The Prince being then invited to London by the Peers by the Guild-Hall Declaration Though there was not all that Men had fondly expected in this Declaration yet here was enough to satisfie any rational Man that the Expelling this Prince and his Army before our Religion Liberties Properties and Government were effectually setled in Parliament and those who had so outragiously attempted the ruine of them were call'd to an Account would certainly end in the ruine of them and was a kind of cutting up our Laws and Religion with our Swords This and nothing else was the cause that where-ever the Prince's Declaration was read it conquered all that saw or heard it and it was to no purpose to excite Men to fight against their own Interest and to destroy what was more dear to them than their Lives At the same time an Extract of the States General their Resolution Thursday the Twenty eighth of October 1688. was also Printed privately in London wherein among other Reasons why they had intrusted the Prince of Orange with this Fleet and Army is this which follows THE King of France hath upon several occasions shewed himself dissatisfied with this State which gave cause to sear and apprehend that in case the King of Great Britain should happen to compass within his Kingdom and obtain an Absolute Power over his People that then both Kings out of Interest of State and Hatred and Zeal against the Protestant Religion would endeavour to bring this State to Confusion and if possible quite to subject it At the same time was Printed also this Letter of the Prince of Orange to the Officers of the Army Gentlemen and Friends WE have given you so full and so true an Account of our Intentions in this Expedition in our Declaration that as we can add nothing to it so we are sure you can desire nothing more of us We are come to preserve your Religion and to restore and establish your Liberties and Properties and therefore we cannot suffer our selves to doubt but that all true Englishmen will come and concur with us in our desire to secure these Nations from POPERY and SLAVERY You must all plainly see that you are only made use of as Instruments to enslave the Nation and ruine the Protestant Religion and when that is done you may judge what ye your selves ought to expect both from the Cashiering all the Protestant and English Officers and Soldiers in Ireland and by the Irish Soldiers being brought over to be put in your Places and of which you have seen so fresh an Instance that we need not put you in mind of it You know how many of your Fellow-Officers have been used for their standing firm to the Protestant Religion and to the Laws of England and you cannot slatter your selves so far as to expect to be better used if those who have broke their Word so often should by your means be brought out of those streights to which they are at present reduced We hope likewise that ye will not suffer your selves to be abused by a false Notion of Honour but that you will in the first place consider what you owe to Almighty God and your Religion to your Country to your Selves and to your Posterity which you as Men of Honour ought to prefer to all private Considerations and Ingagements whatsoever We do therefore expect that you will consider the Honour that is now set before you of being the Instruments of serving your Country and securing your Religion and we shall ever remember the Service you shall do us upon this occasion and will promise you That we shall place such particular Marks of our Favour on every one of you as your Behaviour at this time shall deserve of us and the
Secondly This Expedient was not absolutely Necessary for the Administration of Justice might have proceeded Regularly without any such Deputation by Virtue of those Commissions which the Popish Judges and Justices of the Peace had already from the King. This I shall prove § 22. 1. From a parallel Instance King Charles the I. took a Journy into Scotland in 41. during the Session of Parliament at Westminster where though he appointed Five Lords to sign Bills in his Name The Continuation of Bak. Chron. yet the Judges and Justices Acted by vertue of their former Commissions without any new Authority from any Representatives of His Majesty Now Scotland is as much a distinct Kingdom from England as France and France as much His Majesties Dominions as Scotland And therefore if Commissions will hold in the King's Absence in one Place why not in the other § 23. Secondly The present Judges met in January last at Westminster to dispatch some Business in order to keep the Term but were forbidden to proceed by the Prince of Orange's Secretary So that it is plain it was the Opinion of these Reverend Judges that their Commissions from His Majesty were still in Force But in the next place § 24. If His Majesty had deputed any Persons to Represent him in Parliament this Method would have been attended with new and insuperable Difficulties For § 25. 1. If they had been Limited they would not have given Satisfaction For it being impossible to foresee the Business and Votes of a Parliament at a distance If they had been restrained to certain Points in all probability they would have wanted Power to have passed all the Bills and and so their Deputation would not have Answered the Desire of the Houses and the greatest part of their Grievances might have been counted unredressed If it 's said that the Parliament might have requested an Enlargement of their Commission from His Majesty To this I Answer That the Convention may send to His Majesty for an Expedient now if they please And I hope they will for I hear his Majesty has been so gracious as to send to them But 2. If these Commissioners were unlimited it would be in their Power to do a great many things prejudicial to the Crown In such a Case they might alter the Monarchy into a Commonwealth or Sign the Deposing of his Majesty if such Bills should happen to be offered And though there may be many Persons of Honour and Conscience enough to lodge such a Trust with Yet in regard his Majesty has been lately mistaken in some of whose Fidelity he had so great and Assurance he has small encouragement to be over confideing for the Future Indeed no Wise Prince will Trust so vast a Concern as a Kingdom with the Honesty of another especially when many of his Subjects are disaffected and in a Ferment So that nothing can be more unreasonable than to expect such Plenipotentiary and Absolute Commissioners § 26. 3. I shall prove in the last place That we have no Grounds either from the Laws of the Realm or from those of Nature to pronounce the Throne void upon such a Retreat of a Prince as we have before us 1. To begin with the Laws of the Realm which are either Acts of Parliament or those we call Common Laws Now there is no Statute so much as pretended to support this Deserting Doctrine and if there was it 's certain no such can be produced Indeed a Prince must be very weary of Governing and void of the common Inclinations of Mankind who would sign a Bill of this Nature and give his Subjects such a dangerous Advantage against himself and his Posterity Neither has this Opinion any better Countenance from Common Law For Common Law is nothing but Antient Usage and Immemorial Custom Now Custom supposes Precedents and Parallel Cases But it 's granted of all Hands That the Crown of England was never judged to be Demifed by the withdrawing of the Prince before now And therefore it follows by undeniable Consequence that this Opinion can have no Foundation in the Common Law because there is not so much as one Ruled Case to prove it by Nay our Laws are not only silent in the maintenance of this Paradox but against it as I shall make good by Two Precedents § 27. 1. From the Case of Edward the IV. who having not sufficient Force to Encounter the Earl of Warick who had raised an Army for King Henry was obliged to fly the Kingdom but that he deputed any Persons to Represent him our Histories don't give us the least Intimation Neither was it Objected at his return that he had Abdicated the Government by omitting to Constitute a Regent Neither is it material to Object that all Disputes of this Nature were over-ruled by his Victorous Army For if it had been the known Law of this Realm that a Prince had ipso facto forfeited his Crown by going beyond Sea without leaving a Deputation though his Departure should happen to be Involuntary If this I say had been the Law of the Kingdom it would not only have been a great advantage to Henry the VI. and made the Nation ring of it of which there is altum Silentium but we may be well assured King Edward would not have conferr'd Honour worn the Crown and taken the State and Authority of the King upon him till he had been Re-Established by Parliaments But that he did Exercise all Acts of Soveraignty before the calling of a Parliament appears from Daniel Stow and Baker And when the Parliament was Convened those who had taken up Arms against him were found Guilty of Treason and his Adherents were restored to Blood and Estate Daniel But there was no Confirmation or Resisting or his Title which is a Demonstration there was no need of it and that this Abdicating Doctrine was perfectly unknown to that Age. § 28. 2. To come nearer our own Times what Seals or Commissioners did Charles the II. leave behind him after Worcester Fight And yet I beleive no Mortal ever urged this as an Argument against his Restauration If it be Answered that there was much more danger in this case than in that before us To this I reply that if we Examine the matter more narrowly we shall find the disparity very inconsiderable For was there not a numerous Army of Foreigners and Subjects in the Field against his present Majesty at his retiring What Power or Authority or so much as Liberty was there left him And I am afraid that at that time he had fewer Friends to stand by him than his Brother after that unfortunate Battle in 51. § 29. And since this pretended Dereliction has no manner of Protection from the Constitution it has no other refuge but the Laws of Nature to fly to but a very little Storming will serve to drive it from this last Retrenchment § 30. For the Law of Nature is nothing but the Reason of the
they have not consulted him they ought to satisfie the King how they can warrant a Cessation of Arms on the Prince's side or how they can hinder him from advancing further to awe Debates in the Houses or what assurance they can give that he will acquiesce in the free Decision of the matters proposed or that he will peaceably depart out of the Land when things are setled and will not pretend a stay here till the vast Sums be paid him that he hath expended on this occasion or lastly will not find new occasions of questioning the security of Performance of any Agreement to be made If they have consulted the Prince they ought to shew his Commission authorizing them to make Proposal or shew the Heads of those Grievances he demands to be redressed for some they urge in their Petition there are which distract the People but I suppose they are more careful of their Heads than to own any such correspondence If these Noble Persons would have effectually saved Effusion of Blood they would rather have used all their Interest to have kept the Prince of Orange in his Country tho' with his Army and Fleet in readiness and have obtained his sending his demands and have waited like dutiful Subjects till the King had convened his Parliament and have tried how Gracious the King would have been in redressing Grievances and securing Religion and Property and after the King's refusal there might have been some colour for his Invasion but none upon any pretence whatsoever to have invited him to it Fifthly Those who will not openly and with a bare face justifie the Prince of Orange's Pretensions cannot think it consistent with the Honour of the King to stoop so low as to summon a Parliament at the direction of an Invader who can never be conceived to desire it with that eagerness if he did not judge it very much conduceable to his Interest for which very reason the King ought to be jealous of such Councils And I humbly conceive those Peers have not sufficiently considered how prejudicial this sort of Address may be to the King's Affairs and how much it will conduce to the further alienating of the Affections of the Subjects from the King when they shall hear of his denial to comply at present with this Expedient and never hear the reasons thereof since they have not divulged his Majesties Gracious Answer together with their Petition and I am sure at this time the putting the King upon such a Dilemma is the greatest dis-service can be done him and very little inferior to joining with his Enemies I might add many more Arguments to prove that the King cannot in Honour yield to this Advice without quitting that undeniable Prerogative the Laws give him of making War or concluding peace if those matters should be submitted to the Arbitriment of the two Houses or owning that the Allegiance of his Subjects did not bind them to assist him in the defence of his Crown and Dominions without the Votes of a Parliament But I shall conclude with some few Considerations I humbly offer to those Right Reverend and Noble Lords and all those who are of the same Judgment with them to reflect upon First then I desire them to consider whether it will not be more glorious and agreeable to the Principles of our Religion effectually to assist our undoubted lawful Soveraign than to suffer him to be dethroned solely because he is a Roman Catholick since the Papists themselves tho' they never take the Oath of Allegiance or Supremacy yet do and ever have declared that if any Roman Catholick Prince yea the Pope himself in person should invade any King of England tho' a Protestant yet that they are bound to defend such a King against them as much as if they were Turks Secondly Whether since the true and original Cause of this Invasion and consequently of all the Blood-shed these Lords so earnestly desire to prevent hath not been the denying to concur with the King in establishing of Liberty of Conscience even with such security to the Protestant Religion and Church of England as could be desired and whether in all human probability that would not be more conduceable to establish the publick Tranquility of the Kingdom and its increase in Wealth and People and consequently the most efficacious means to reduce the Dutch to be just and tractable Allies and Neighbours rather than any thing can be effected by this Invasion or the truckling to such avowed Enemies to our Country our Religion and our King. Thirdly Whether the King 's entire Trust in the Fidelity of his own Subjects for his defence and not admitting of foreign Aids that were unsought for proffered do not oblige all that have any sense of Gratitude or Duty to aid him to the very utmost against such Foreigners as so unnaturally and so unjustly invade him and when it hath pleased God to give success to the King 's just Arms we are not to doubt but the King according to his solemn promise in his late Royal Declaration will speedily call a Parliament and in it redress all such Grievances as his people can justly complain of with a full and ample security to the Church of England and all his Protestant Subjects which it will much more be our Interest to have in a truly harmonious and Free-parliamentary way at that time established than at this present in a tumultuary and precipitate haste so patched up as will not be durable and the more earnestly we desire to see this good work to be set upon the more haste the Nobility and Gentry should make to expel those who hindred the Convention of that Parliament which was much more likely to have setled matters to the content of the King and his People than this Invasion can ever hope to effect The Prince of Orange's Declaration could be no longer suppress'd and therefore it was suffered about this time to be printed with a short Preface and some modest Remarks as the Author pretends on it In 4to The Prince of Orange's Declaration shewing the Reasons why he invades England with a short Preface and some modest Remarks on it THERE having been various Discourses about the Reasonableness and Justice of the Dutch Invasion the Prince's great Love and special Care of the Protestant Religion and English Protestants set forth in the most charming manner and the Desperateness of the Protestant State and Condition painted in the blackest and most frightful Colours Our Natural Liege Lord notwithstanding his Unparallel'd Grace to all represented as designing the greatest Cruelty against his own Subjects strange Stories of ill things whispered and nothing less than a Secret League between His Majesty of Great Britain and the French King to extirpate all Protestants entred into These Reports are with so much Art and Cunning spread as to startle the most considering Protestants of all Perswasions whence nothing could be more eagerly desired than a sight of
the Prince of Orange 's Declaration For the Expectations of most Men are That some extraordinary Secrets some hidden Works of Darkness should be reveal'd and brought to light as generally those who yet never saw the Prince's Declaration do still believe But there not being one word of any such Treaty we cannot see why it is that the Prince comes over and if others impartially peruse the Declaration we doubt not but 't will convince them that they give no Reason powerful enough to justifie so Bloody an Enterprise as this in the issue must needs be We will therefore give you a true Copy of the Prince's Declaration word for word as it runs in the West The Declaration of his Highness WILLIAM HENRY by the Grace of God PRINCE of ORANGE c. of the Reasons inducing him to appear in Arms in the Kingdom of England for preserving of the Protestant Religion and for restoring the Laws and Liberties of England Scotland and Ireland 1. IT is both certain and evident to all men that the publick Peace and Happiness of any State or Kingdom cannot be preserved where the Laws Liberties and Customs established by the lawful Authority in it are openly transgressed and annulled More especially where the Alteration of Religion is endeavoured and that a Religion which is contrary to Law is endeavoured to be introduced Upon which those who are most immediately concerned in it are indispensably bound to endeavour to preserve and maintain the established Laws Liberties and Customs and above all the Religion and Worship of God that is established among them and to take such an effectual care that the Inhabitants of the said State or Kingdom may neither be deprived of their Religion nor of their Civil Rights Which is so much the more necessary because the Greatness and Security both of Kings Royal Families and of all such as are in Authority as well as the Happiness of their Subjects and People depend in a most especial manner upon the exact observation and maintenance of these their Laws Liberties and Customs 2. Upon these grounds it is that we cannot any longer forbear to declare that to our great Regret we see that those Councellors who have now the chief Credit with the King have overturned the Religion Laws and Liberties of those Realms and subjected them in all things relating to their Consciences Liberties and Properties to Arbitrary Government and that not only by secret and indirect ways but in an open and undisguised manner 3. Those evil Councellors for the advancing and colouring this with some plausible Pretexts did invent and set on foot the Kings Dispensing Power by Virtue of which they pretend that according to Law he can suspend and dispence with the Execution of the Laws that have been enacted by the Authority of the King and Parliament for the security and happiness of the Subject and so have rendred those Laws of no effect tho' there is nothing more certain than that as no Laws can be made but by the joint concurrence of King and Parliament so likewise Laws so enacted which secure the publick Peace and safety of the Nation and the Lives and Liberties of every Subject in it cannot be repealed or suspended but by the same Authority 4. For tho the King may pardon the Punishment that a Transgressor has incurred and to which he is condemned as in the Cases of Treason or Felony yet it cannot be with any colour of Reason inferred from thence that the King can entirely suspend the Execution of those Laws relating to Treason or Felony unless it is pretended that he is clothed with a Despotick and Arbitrary Power and that the Lives Liberties Honours and Estates of the Subjects depend wholly on his good Will and Pleasure and are entirely subject to him which must infallibly follow on the King 's having a Power to suspend the Execution of the Laws and to dispense with them 5. Those Evil Counsellors in order to the giving some Credit to this strange and execrable Maxim have so conducted the Matter that they have obtained a Sentence from the Judges declaring that this Dispensing Power is a Right belonging to the Crown as if it were in the power of the Twelve Judges to offer up the Laws Rights and Liberties of the whole Nation to the King to be disposed of by him Arbitrarily and at his Pleasure and expresly contrary to Laws enacted for the Security of the Subjects In order to the obtaining this Judgment those Evil Counsellors did before hand examine secretly the Opinion of the Judges and procured such of them as could not in Conscience concur in so pernicious a Sentence to be turned out and others to be substituted in their rooms till by the Changes which were made in the Courts of Judicature they at last obtained that Judgment And they have raised some to those Trusts who make open Profession of the Popish Religion tho those are by Law rendred incapable of all such Employments 6. It is also manifest and notorious That as his Majesty was upon his coming to the Crown received and acknowledged by all the Subjects of England Scotland and Ireland as their King without the least Opposition tho he made then open Profession of the Popish Religion so he did then promise and solemnly swear at his Coronation That he would maintain his Subjects in the free Enjoyment of their Laws and Liberties and in particular that he would maintain the Church of England as it was established by Law It is likewise certain that there have been at divers and sundry times several Laws enacted for the Preservation of those Rights and Liberties and of the Protestant Religion and among other Securities it has been enacted That all Persons whatsoever that are advanced to any Ecclesiastical Dignity or to bear Office in either University as likewise all other that should be put in any Imployment Civil or Military should declare that they were not Papists but were of the Protestant Religion and that by their taking of the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and the Test yet these Evil Councellors have in effect annulled and abolished all those Laws both with relation to Ecclesiastical and Civil Employments 7. In order to Ecclesiastical Dignities and Offices they have not only without any colour of Law but against most express Laws to the contrary set up a Commission of a certain number of Persons to whom they have committed the Cognisance and Direction of all Ecclesiastical matters in the which Commission there has been and still is one of his Majesties Ministers of State who makes now publick profession of the Popish Religion and who at the time of his first professing it declared that for a great while before he had believed that to be the only true Religion By all this the deplorable State to which the Protestant Religion is reduced is apparent since the Affairs of the Church of England are now put into the hands of persons who have accepted
of November That there should be a Free Parliament and to the Prince of Orange in his Message by the three Lords That he would consent to every thing that could reasonably be required for the Security of those that come to it and yet without any Provocation would burn the Writs and resolve to withdraw his Person before these Lords could possibly return him any Answer for he promised the Queen to follow her who went away the day before him I say this breach of his Word so solemnly made and given both to the Nation and the Prince shew that he was not Master of himself but turned about by others whither they pleased Now suppose the Prince had suffered him to continue at Whitehall 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 when all had been done the Scruples would have been the same they are now the Obligations of the Oath of Allegiance the same and the sin of Deposing a Lawful Prince who resolved to do the Nation no Right would have been much greater and more scandalous than barely to take him at his Word and since he had left the Throne empty when he needed not to resolve he should ascend it no more Lastly Suppose the Prince had been Expelled by the King Would the King have then granted us what he would not grant us now Would he not have Disbanded his Protestant Army and have kept the Irish Forces in Pay and have every day encreased them What Respect would he ever after this have shewn to the English Laws Religion or Liberties when he had had no longer any thing to fear The memory of what happened after the Monmouth defeat though effected only by Church of England Men will certainly never be forgotten by others whatever these Bigots of Loyalty may pretend or say That Expression of the Lord Churchill's in his Letter That he could no longer joyn with Self-interested Men who had framed Designs against His Majesty's true Interest and the Protestant Religion to give a pretence by Conquest to bring them to effect ought to be seriously considered by all the Protestants of the Nation This one Argument prevailed upon him when he ran the hazard of his Life Reputation and Fortunes and now they are all on the other side I should consider very seriously if I were one of them what Answer I could make to this turned into a Question in the Day of Death and Judgment before ever I should act the direct contrary to what he has done For my part I am amazed to see Men 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 if he had without any more Ceremony ascended it he had done no more than all other Princes do on the like occasions and when the King after this was taken and brought back by force he was no longer then bound to consider him as one that was but as one that had been King of England and 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 when all is said that can be said there may possibly be some Men to whom may be applied the Saying of Job Thou lovest thine enemies and hatest thy friends for thou hast declared this day that thou regardest neither princes nor servants for this day I perceive that if Absolons had lived and all we had died this day then it had pleased thee well Had the Protestant Religion the English Liberties the Nobility and Gentry of this Nation been all made an Holocaust to their Reputations and Humours their Scruples and School-niceties and the Prince of Orange perished or returned Ruin'd or Inglorious into Holland we should then have had the Honour of cutting up our Religion our Laws and our Civil Rights with our own Swords and we should have been the only Church under Heaven that had refused a Deliverance and Religiously and Loyally had Destroyed it self In truth the Men that would have purchased Popery and Slavery so dear ought to have enjoyed both to the End of the World. PART the SECOND A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE METHODS Used for the RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF OUR GOVERNMENT WITH REFLECTIONS ON A Pamphlet stiled The Dissertion Discussed In a Letter to a Country Gentleman THE Prince of Orange being thus received in London the 18th of December The Common Council of that City the same day assembled and passed an Order that all the Aldermen and their several Deputies and two Common Council men for each Ward should wait upon and congratulate his Highness the Prince of Orange upon his Happy Arrival to the City at such time and place as His Highness should appoint and that the two Sheriffs and Mr. Common Serjeant should wait upon the Prnice to know his Pleasure when they should attend him which was done the day after his Entry at St. James's who appointed them the next day The Committee of the Common Council came accordingly the 20th of December and Sir George Treby their Recorder made him this Speech in their Names May it please your Highness THe Lord Mayor being disabled by Sickness your Highness is attended by the Aldermen and Commons of the Capital City of this Kingdom Deputed to Congratulate Your Highness upon this Great and Glorious Occasion In which Labouring for Words we cannot but come short in Expression Reviewing our late Danger we remember our Church and State overrun by Popery and Arbitrary Power and brought to the point of Destruction by the Conduct of Men that were our true Invaders that brake the Sacred Fences of our Laws and which was worst the very Constitution of our Legislature So that there was no Remedy left but the Last The only Person under Heaven that could apply this Remedy was Your Highness You are of a Nation whose Alliance in all times has been agreeable and prosperous to us You are of a Family most Illustrious Benefactors to Mankind to have the Title of a Soveraign Prince Stadt-holder and to have worn the Imperial Crown are amongst their lesser Dignities They have long enjoyed a Dignity singular and transcendent viz. To be the Champions of Almighty God sent forth in several Ages to vindicate his Cause against the greatest Oppressions To this Divine Commission our Nobles our Gentry and among them our brave English Soldiers rendred themselves and their Arms upon Your Appearing GREAT SIR WHen we look back to the last Month and contemplate the Swiftness and
fit That all Officers and Souldiers be Lodged by the Direction and Appointment of the Magistrates Justices of the Peace or Constables of the place where such Forces shall come and not otherwise And we do hereby strictly forbid all Officers and Souldiers upon any pretence whatsoever to take up any Quarters for themselves or others without such Direction or Appointment upon pain of being Casheired or suffering such other punishment as the offence shall deserve The Prince found the Treasury very empty of Money the Cash in it being said to be but 40000 l. Whereupon he desired the City of London to advance a Sum for His present Occasions and the 10th of January they agreed to lend 100000 l. but it being raised by Subscriptions it amounted to above 150000 l. The 16th of January the Prince put out a Declaration to assure the Mariners and Seamen of their Pay and suppress the false reports had been spread to the contrary by the Discontented Party The Elections of the Members for the Convention in the mean time went on with the greatest Liberty that could possibly be conceived every man giving his Vote for whom he pleased without the least Solicitation from the Prince or any of his there had been Writs before this twice for a Parliament in a few Months and almost every place had before this fixed their Members so that the difference was not great between the Men that were and those that would have been chosen if the King had suffered the first or second Parliament he called to have met and this gives the truest Idea that can be desired of the temper of the Nation and what would have been the event if either of those Parliaments had sate The two Houses met the 22d of January and the Upper House there being no Lord Chancellor chose the Marquess of Hallifax for their Speaker and the Commons chose Henry Powle Esq after which a Letter was read in both Houses from His Highness the Prince of Orange on the Occasion of their Meeting which was as followeth My Lords I Have endeavoured to the utmost of my power to perform what was desired from me in order to the publick peace and safety and I do not know that any thing hath been omitted which might tend to the preservation of them since the Administration of Affairs was put into my hands It now lieth upon you to lay the foundations of a firm security for your Religion your Laws and your Liberties I do not doubt but that by such a full and free Representative of the Nation as is now met the Ends of my Declaration will be attained And since it hath pleased God hitherto to bless my good intentions with so great success I trust in him that he will compleat his own work by sending a spirit of Peace and Union to influence your Counsels that no interruption may be given to an happy and lasting Settlement The dangerous condition of the Protestants in Ireland requiring a large and speedy succour and the present state of things abroad oblige me to tell you that next to the danger of Unseasonable Divisions amongst our selves nothing can be so fatal as too great delay in your Consultations The States by whom I have been enabled to rescue this Nation may suddenly feel the ill effects of it both by being too long deprived of the service of their Troops which are now here and of your early assistance against a powerful enemy who hath declared a War against them And as England is by Treaty already engaged to help them upon such Exigencies so I am confident that their chearful concurrence to preserve this Kingdom with so much hazard to themselves will meet with all the Returns of Friendship and assistance which may be expected from you as Protestants and Englishmen whenever their condition shall require it Given at St. James's the 22d day of January 1688. To the Lords Spiritual and Temporal Assembled at Westminster Will. H. P. d' Orange The first thing the Houses took care of was by mutual consent to draw up and present the following Address The Address of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons Assembled at Westminster in this present Convention to his Highness the Prince of Orange Die Martis 22º Januarii 1688. WE the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons assembled at Westminster being highly sensible of the Great Deliverance of this Kingdom from Popery and Arbitrary Power and that our Preservation is next under God owing to your Highness do return our most humble thanks and acknowledgments to your Highness as the Glorious Instrument of so great a Blessing We do further acknowledg the great care your Highness has been pleased to take in the Administration of the Publick Affairs of the Kingdom to this time and we do most humbly desire your Highness that you will take upon you the Administration of Publick Affairs both Civil and Military and the Disposal of the Publick Revenue for the Preservation of our Religion Rights Laws Liberties and Properties and of the Peace of the Nation And that your Highness will take into your particular care the present state of Ireland and endeavour by the most speedy and effectual means to prevent the Dangers threatning that Kingdom All which we make our Request to your Highness to undertake and exercise till further Application shall be made by us which shall be expedited with all convenient speed and we shall also use our utmost endeavours to give dispatch to the matters recommended to as by your Highness's Letter To this Address thus presented by both Houses at St. James's the Prince of Orange made this Reply the same day My Lords and Gentlemen I Am glad that what I have done hath pleased you And since you desire me to continue the Administration of Affairs I am willing to accept it I must recommend to you the consideration of Affairs abroad which maketh it fit for you to expedite your business not only for making a Settlement at home upon a good foundation but for the safety of all Europe The Houses also ordered that Thursday the 21th of January Instant be appointed for a day of Publick Thanksgiving to Almighty God in the Cities of London and Westminster and ten miles distance for having made his Highness the Prince of Orange the Glorious Instrument of the Great Deliverance of this Kingdom from Popery and Arbitrary Power and that Thursday the 14th of February next be appointed for a Publick Thanksgiving throughout the whole Kingdom for the same The 23d of January the Lords passed this Order Ordered by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal Assembled at Westminster That no Papist or Reputed Papist do presume to come into the Lobby Painted Chamber Court of Requests or Westminster-Hall during the sitting of this Convention And it is further Ordered That this Order be Printed and Published and set upon the Doors of the said Rooms The 28th of January the Commons passed this Vote Resolved That King James the
enroll'd in Parliament and Chancery which is as followeth My Lords and Gentlemen THis is certainly the Greatest Proof of the Trust you have in us that can be given which is the thing that maketh us value it the more and we thankfully accept what you have offered And as I had no other intention in my coming hither than to Preserve Your Religion Laws and Liberties So you may be sure that I shall endeavour to Support them and shall be willing to concur in any thing that shall be for the Good of the Kingdom and to do all that is in my Power to Advance the Wellfare and Glory of the Nation Thus ended that Stupendious Revolution in England which we have so lately seen to the great Joy of the Generality of the Protestants of Europe and of many of the Catholick Princes and States who were at last convinced that the attempting to force England to return under the Obedience of the See of Rome in the present conjuncture of Affairs would certainly end in the ruine of this potent Kingdom and whilest it was doing the present French King would possess himself of the remainder of the Spanish Netherlands and the Palatinate and perhaps of the Electorates of Cologne Ments and Triers a great part of which he hath actually seized whilest the Prince of Orange was thus Gloriously asserting the English Liberty The true reasons of the Swiftness of this Change may easily be assigned by shewing the temper and designs of James the II. The Temper of William the III. our Present Soveraign and The Nature of the English Nation and of the times all concurring with Wonderful Harmony to produce this wonderful effect For had James the II. undertook any thing but the subjecting England to Popery and the Exercise of an Arbitrary Power to that end his vast Revenue and personal Valour and the Reputation he had gained at home and abroad by the defeat of the Monmouth Invasion would have gone near to have effected it and after all this if he had in the beginning of October frankly granted all the Ten Proposals made by the Bishops and suffered a Parliament to have met and given up a confiderable number of his Ministers to Justice and suffered the pretended Prince of Wales his Birth to be freely debated and determin'd in Parliament It would in all probability have prevented or defeated the then intended Invasion But whilest he thought to save the Pretended Succession the Dispensing and Suspending power and the Ecclesiastical Commission to carry on his former design with when he had baffl'd the Prince of Orange the Nation saw through the project and he lost all Had a Prince of less secrecy prudence courage and interest than the Prince of Orange undertaken this business it might probably have miscarried but as his cause was better so his reputation conduct and patience infinitely exceeded theirs he would not stir till he saw the French Forces set down before Philipsbourg and then he was sure France and Germany were irrevocably ingaged in a War and consequently he should have no other opposition than what the Irish and English Roman Catholicks could make against him For no English Protestant would fight his Country into Vassalage and Slavery to Popish Priests and Italian Women when a Parliament sooner or later must at last have determin'd all the things in Controversie except we resolved once for all to give up our Religion Laws Liberties and Estates to the will of our King and submit for ever to a French Government A Nation of less sense than the English might have been imposed upon of less bravery and valour might have been frighted of a more servile temper might have neglected its Liberties till it had been too late to have ever recovered them again But none but a parcel of Jesuits bred in a Cloister and unacquainted with our temper as well as Constitution would ever have hoped to have carried two such things as Popery and Arbitrary power both at once upon so jealous a Nation as the English is which hates them above any other people in the World. The cruel slaughter they had made of the poor wretches they took after the defeat at Bridgwater ought to have made them for ever despair of gaining any credit with the Dissenters who rarely forgive but never forget any ill treatment Yet these little Politico's had so little sense as to build all their hopes on the Gratitude and Insensibility of these men as if they should for Liberty of Conscience arbitrarily and illegally granted and consequently revocable at the will of the Granter have sold themselves to everlasting slavery They were equally mistaken in their carriage towards the Church of England party for when some of them had pursued both Clergy and Laity with the utmost obloquy hatred oppression and contempt to the very moment they found the Dutch storm would fall upon them Then all at once they passed to the other extream the Bishops are presently sent for the Government intirely to be put into their hands and all places Presses and Papers fill'd with the Encomiums of the Church of England's Loyalty and Fidelity who but three days before were Male-contents if not Rebels and Traytors for opposing the Kings Dispensing power and the Ecclesiastical Commission And which was the height of folly the same Pen which had been hired to defame and blacken the Church of England the Author of the Publick Occurrences truly stated was ordered to magnifie its Loyalty By which they gained nothing but the intire and absolute disobliging the whole Protestant party in the Nation so that for the future no body would serve or trust them To compleat their folly and madness they perswaded the King to throw up the Government and retire into France pretending we would never be able to agree amongst our selves but would in a short time be forced to recal him and yield to all those things we had so violently opposed or if not he might yet at least force us to submit by the succours he might gain in France without ever considering how possible it was we might agree and how difficult it would be to force us by a French Army which was equally contrary to the Interest of England and all Europe besides and to all intents and purposes destructive of the Interest of that Prince they pretended thus to exalt and re-establish Had France been now in Peace there might yet have been some colour for this but when all Europe was under a necessity to unite against him for its own preservation then to perswade the King of Great Britain to desert his Throne and fly thither for succour upon hopes of recovering his Kingdoms again by the assistance of the French the mortal and hereditary enemies of the English this was so silly a project that there seems to have been something of a Divine Infatuation in it However certainly no rational man will think that all the Princes of Europe would sit still and