England by Inheritance And their mutual Rancors and Displeasures with the grand Contests of them and their Parties to procure the Statutes of Articuli super Chartas de Tallagio non Concedendo were not healed without the Aids and Subsidies of his People The mis-government and mis-leading of King Edward the Second by his several Favorites Peirce Gaveston and the Spencers did not hinder him from the Supplies of his People King Edward the Third after a fifteenth of the Temporalty a twentieth part of the Goods of the Cities and Burroughs and a tenth of the Clergy granted unto him by Parliament in the Eighth year of his Reign having consumed much Treasure in his Wars made for the Kingdom of France which he claimed as his Inheritance wherein the English Nation more than for the Grandeur and Honour of their Prince were not much concerned but were jealous until an Act or Declaration of the King in Parliament was procured to the contrary that the Conquest of France might have caused England to have been afterwards dependant upon that greater Crown and Kingdom was notwithstanding the seizure and taking into his hands the Goods and Estates of three Orders of Monks viz. The Lombards Cluniacks and Cistertians and all the Treasure committed to the Custody of the Churches through England for the Holy War forced to revoke divers Assignations made for Payment of Moneys though he had received Three Millions of Crowns of Gold for the Ransom of John King of France whom his Son the Black Prince had taken Prisoner and was not put to lose any of his Honour Friends Estate or Interest for want of the necessary Assistance of his Subjects who for the maintenance of those and other his Wars were howsoever well content to give him half of the Laieties Wool and a whole of the Clergies and at another time the ninth Sheaf the ninth Fleece and ninth Lamb for two years and after many other Taxes and Aids granted in several Parliaments of his Reign and a Commission sent into every Shire to enquire of the value of every man's Estate The Treasure of the Nation being much exhausted found the People so willing to undergo that and other Burdens which those successful Wars had brought upon them as the Ladies and Gentlewomen did willingly Sacrifice their Jewels to the Payment of his Souldiers That Unfortunate Prince Richard the Second his Grandchild tossed and perplexed with the Greatness Ambition and Factions of his Uncles and the subtil underminings of John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster the most powerful of them fatally continued and pursued by Henry of Bullingbrook his Son Duke of Hereford was not in all those his Distresses so unhappy but that although the Commons in Parliament had by their Petitions unto him complained That for want of good Redress about his Person and in his Houshold and Courts the Commons were daily pilled and nothing defended against the Enemy and that it would shortly undo him and the whole Estate yet they were so mindful of their Soveraign and themselves as they not only afforded him very great Aids and Assistances but in the Fourteenth year of his Reign the Lords and Commons in Parliament did Pray That The Prerogative of the King and his Crown might be kept and all things done or attempted to the contrary might be redressed and that he might be as free as any of his Royal Progenitors were And in the Fifteenth year of his Reign did in Parliament require him That He would as largely enjoy his Prerogative as any of his Progenitors notwithstanding any Statute and namely the Statute of Gloucester in the time of King Edward the Third the which Statute they utterly repealed out of their tender affection to the King King Henry the Fourth Fifth and Sixth although well understood to have been Kings de facto not de jure for so not seldom have been the Pleadings at the Law of their Acts of Parliament and although the later of those Kings being Crowned King of France in his Infancy and in Possession of that Kingdom was by his Meek and Pious rather than Prudent Government a great part of the Cause of the Bloody Contests betwixt the Two Houses of York and Lancaster which ruined very many of the Nobility and Gentry by taking their several Parties and were by their Discords the loss of all the Kingdom of France but Calice And that Richard Duke of York had in Parliament so claimed and wrestled for the Crown as he was declared Protector of the Kingdom of England enjoyed notwithstanding the care and good will of their Subjects upon all occasions either at home or abroad in times of Peace or War by their Contributions of Subsidies King Edward the Fourth in the brunt and hottest of the long continued bloody Contentions of the two great Houses and Families of York and Lancaster after nine Battels won by himself attested by his Surcoat of Arms which he wore therein hung up as a Trophy in the Cathedral Church of St. George at Windsor and his many struglings with King Henry the Sixth and his Party in losing and gaining the Crown again War with France and compelling the crafty Lewis the 11 th the King thereof to demand a Peace and consent to pay him 75000 Crowns towards his War Expences and a Tribute of 50000 Crowns yearly during the life of King Edward notwithstanding that he had in the second year of his Reign sate in a Michaelmas Term three days together in his Court of Kings Bench and gathered great Sums of Money of the People of England by his Privy Seal towards his Wars with the Scots and in the Seventh year of his Reign resumed by Act of Parliament all the Grants which he had made since he took Possession of the Realm raised great Sums of Money by Benevolences and Penal Laws had in the Eighth year of his Reign granted him by Act of Parliament two fifteens and a Demy and in the Thirteenth year of his Reign a Subsidy towards his Wars with France when the Actions Courage and Wisdom of Parliaments were so incertain as there was in the space of half a year one Parliament Proclaiming King Edward an Usurper and King Henry a Lawful King and another Proclaiming King Edward a Lawful King and King Henry an Usurper King Henry the Seventh although that he sometimes declared That he held the Crown as won in Battel by Conquest of King Richard the Third and at other times by his better Title from the House of York and his Marriage with the Lady Elizabeth the Daughter of King Edward the Fourth and avaritiously took all the ways possible for the enriching of his Treasury had divers great Aids and Subsidies granted unto him by Parliament King Henry the Eighth notwithstanding that he had after many great Subsidies and Aids both as to the Money and manner of Collecting it granted unto him his Heirs and Successors by several Parliaments and the first Fruits and Tenths of
League with the French may as little Prejudice us and our Laws and Liberties as it did those of the Dutch when they were in the strictest Alliance or Confederacy with them For no man can be so transported out of himself as to believe that a Neighborhood or a League for Civil and other Respects can work any Prejudice to the Religion Laws and Liberties of the Subjects of either Prince or State not granted away or Contracted for by such Leagues when every days Experience declares the contrary for otherwise the Poles whose King is Elective and their Laws so very much obliging him as he cannot alter the Freedom and Constitutions of the Peoples Liberties would be in danger of the Mahometan Extravagancies of Power to be brought in upon them when their Kings have made any Leagues with the Turks or Grand Seignior and the Sweedish Nation in fear of their Elective King 's introducing the vast and unruly Power of the Muscovite whose Subjects being under a mighty awe Ignorance and enforced Obedience have no more to answer when any State-Affairs are enquired of them than that God and the Great Duke do only know it Insomuch as the Provocation of the Dutch being so great and the Vindication of the Honour of the King Trade of the Nation Safety of the People and Soveraignty of the Sea so necessary as a War with them could not be avoided There was no other either visible or possible means to manage it with Prudence or Success than by the making of the League with France who had pretences of his own to joyn with ours In regard that Land-Armies and Forces were not able alone to bring them to good Terms without the assistance and aid of a great and mighty Navy at Sea which might be able to overcome and beat them in that which was their greatest Strength without which it would have been impossible for the English or French joyntly or seperately ever to have forced them to reason The King of Spain who would heretofore have been glad of such a Part'ner as the English to help to subdue those his formerly truly accompted Rebels of the United Provinces who by the help of the English and French had in a War of almost Sixty years together done him so very much wrong and many Mischiefs was then become so jealous of the growing greatness of France as he found it to be his Interest to assist those that had so greatly damnified him and were no other than his Hogen Mogen Rebels The Swede and Danes greatly concerned in their Trade and the Profit and Gain which they daily received by them in the Baltick Sea would not joyn in any War against them and if they would have been willing were at too great a distance and the forcing of passage would have been as difficult and dangerous as it would have been Chargeable and the like might have been said of the Elector of Brandenburgh who was in League Amity and Interest with them and the most part of the other German Princes being of small Power far off and inconsiderable who might not make War with any Members of the Empire as the Dutch being part of the lower Circle of Burgundy were without the Approbation of the Emperor and their Diets and the Charge and little Success of hiring the Bishop of Munster to raise Forces whereby to make a Diversion and Incumbrance upon them in our former Wars with them had taught us what little good and at how great an Expence that design effected And it is well known that an Army for the intended Recovery of the Palatinate was in the 21 th year of the Reign of King James by an able and select Council of War and the Approbation of the Parliament then thought not to be sufficient with the Aid of the Dutch in their Provisions and passage under the Number of 25000 Foot and 5000 Horse and the Charge of 30000 l. to furnish them with Necessaries And when afterwards Count Mansfeild a second Hannibal and one of the greatest Captains of his time in Christendom had with 12000 Foot and 200 Horse Levied here and encouraged by K. James and the Parliament some promised Aids from France and some other States and Princes undertook to regain that wasted Countrey of the Palatinate Ship'd his Men and was at Sea with them the King of France's denying their Landing at Calice and promised Passage and the Province or States of Zealand when he attempted to Land his Men upon their Coasts making a like refusal the Pestilence and Flux whilst they were at Sea penn'd up and almost stifled in the Ships killed two parts in three of them and the remaining third part mouldring away that Action and all the Design hopes charges and Endeavours of it miscarried and came to nothing And certainly the English War with the Dutch Petitioned for by the Parliament put and carried on with so much reason of State and by so many very Important Necessities might Claim to be as well allowed to be without any detriment to the Interest of the Protestant Religion as other Wars betwixt Protestants heretofore have been upon Civil Accompts and Controversies The Dutch upon a pretence of their better defending themselves against any Attempts or Increase of Power of the Spaniard their then Enemy did take and keep Wesell and some Towns in the Dutchies of Cleve and Juliers and other Frontier Towns belonging to the Elector of Brandenburgh a Protestant Prince the Justice whereof hath not yet been understood by the Learned in Politicks and Affairs of State were not Incumbred with any Accusation of weakening the Protestant Religion and it must needs remain a Problem never to be determined but put upon the File of Eternity what can be the Reason that Oliver Cromwell and his Party of Regicide Rebels about the year 1654. upon far less Provocations should so chearfully be aided and assisted in his Maritine Wars with the Hollanders until he beat them into a Peace and acknowledgment of the English Soveraignty over the Brittish Seas enforced upon them the Act of Navigation That no Commodities Transported into England from thence or of the growth of those Countries or any other Neighbour Countries should be brought by them but in English Bottoms and made them stink in the Nostrils of all Nations and to be guilty of a most horrid Ingratitude in the renouncing the Prince of Orange and his Illustrious Family and taking from them those Offices and Places which they and their Ancestors had in their Defence so dearly purchased and yet his Cromwellian Power was not at all accused for hurting the Protestant Religion or how our Wars with the Dutch in the years 1664. and 1665. upon far less Provocation should be Petitioned for by our Merchants and both Houses of Parliament and willingly contributed unto and not at all believed to be against the Protestant Religion and why the War now made upon greater Affronts and Injuries should be an undermining of
gave them a Caution for the future to believe that whatsoever is subject to a publick Exposition cannot be good And the Parliaments in her long and glorious Reign were so unwilling to give any disturbance to her Great and Renowned Actions for the defence and good of her Self and her People and all the Protestant Concernments in Christendom As in the First year of her Reign a Parliament granted her Two shillings eight pence in the Pound of Goods and Four shillings of Lands to be paid in several Payments In her Sixth year one Subsidy was granted by the Clergy and another by the Laiety together with two Fifteenths and Tenths in the Thirteenth year of her Reign towards the Charges of Suppressing the Northern Rebellion a Subsidy of Six shillings in the pound by the Clergy and by the Temporalty two Fifteens and a Subsidy of Two shillings and eight pence in the Pound in her Six and twentieth year had granted her by the Clergy two whole Subsidies and by the Laiety three besides Six Fifteenths and Tenths with a Proviso that that great Contribution should not be drawn into Example in her Fortieth year had granted by the Clergy three entire Subsidies and as many by the Laiety with Six Fifteens and Tenths and in the 42 th year of her Reign to furnish Money for the Irish Wars had Commissions granted to confirm the Crown Lands of Ireland to the Possessors o◠defective Titles And all little enough when in the same year Sir Walter Raleigh a Member of the House of Commons declared unto them That the Moneys lent unto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet unpaid her Jewels and much of her Lands sold and she had spared Money out of her own Purse and her Apparel for her Peoples sake And yet when in the Eighth year of her Reign the Parliament had offered unto her four Subsidies upon Condition that she would declare her Successor she magnanimously refused it and remitted the fourth Subsidy saying It was all one whether the Money was in her own or in her Subjects Coffers Our King James being born and bred in the Kingdom of Scotland where their Laws are mingled with some Neighbour English Customs drawn out of our Glanvil brought thither by their King James the First who lived some time here in England and afterwards so much Compounded and over-born by the Civil Law brought out of France long after by King James the Fifth which with some part of their Common Law makes them to be so overmuch Civil and Canon and a Miscellany of them as they are very much different from ours had so great an affection to the Civil Laws and those of his own Countrey before he had understood the Excellency of ours that shortly after his coming to the Crown of England he earnestly recommended to the Parliament of England not only an Union of both the Kingdoms and the Subjects thereof but of their Laws also And so much savoured the Civil Laws as he complained in a Speech to the Parliament of the Contempt of them allowed or was much taken with the Comedy of Ignoramus and Dulman which was purposely framed to expose the Professors of our Common Laws to a Derision of the People and render them guilty of an Ignorance of good Letters and Learning which all of them witness our great Selden and some other of his Coaevals could not justly be charged with and suffered it to be Acted before him at Cambridge with great Applause and to be afterwards Printed and Published without any murmur or jealousie of the English Nation that he endeavoured to introduce an Arbitrary Power who manifested no unwillingness to give him Subsidies and Aids in Foreign as well as Domestick Affairs when he had occasion to require them All which the Cares and doings of our Ancestors for the Publick and Common good joined with their Duty and Allegiance to their Soveraign Kings and Princes may afford us convincing Reasons and Arguments out of concluding Premisses that the Weal and Woe of Kings and their People are like those of Hippocrates's Twins partaking each with other and that the Fear of God Honour of the King Self-Preservation and Oaths and Duty of Allegiance will be more than enough to enjoyn every good Christian and Subject where the welfare of the King and Publick are concerned to be as willing to help the King as he would himself And it cannot be deemed to be either unadvisedly or ill done by our English Fore-fathers or Predecessors in the House of Commons in Parliament in the Seventh year of the Reign of King Richard the Second when being required of the King to give their Advice concerning a Peace to be made with the King of France And the Chancellor then said That the King of himself could well do it yet for good will he would not without their Knowledge or Consent And it could not be Concluded without a Personal Interview of the King of France which for his Honour required great Charges whereof he Charged them of their Allegiance to consult and give him Answer unto which they answering That it becomed not them to Intermeddle their Council therein And therefore referred the whole Order thereof unto the King and his Council And being urged again to answer whether they desired Peace or War for one of them they must choose They answered Peace But when they understood that the King of France desired that the King should hold Guyen of him by Homage and Service they knew not what to say only they hoped that the King meant not to hold of the French Calice and other Territories gotten of them by the Sword whereunto when the King replied That otherwise Peace could not be granted and therefore willed them to Choose They in the end rather desired Peace But Peace not ensuing or being to be had and the King by his Chancellor the next year after in Parliament informing them how that the King was Invironed with the French Spanish Flemmings and the Scots who were Confederate and had made great Preparations to destroy him and his People which was like to ensue unless some means were used to resist it That the King Intended to hazard his own Person to whatsoever Peril which might justly encourage all Estates willingly to offer themselves and what they had to such defence And declared unto them the falshood and treachery of the French in their Treaty of Peace at Calice when they finding the English inclined to it had departed from their Offers The Lords and Commons when they found the Honour of the King and Safety of the Nation so deeply Ingaged granted unto the King two Fifteenths Conditionally that a Moiety of the Fifteenth granted in the last Parliament be part of it and so as if the King go not in Person or that Peace be made the last Fifteenth might Cease Can the sullen rude and ungodly Dutch the most of whose Religion is Trade and all that can be gained by it to maintain their Incroachments
his Mind as Affairs he was after his Happy Restauration unavoidably enforced to pay many great Sums of Money owing by him in Foreign Parts and the time of his Troubles Great Arrears owing by Oliver Cromwel to the Seamen and Land Forces to calm and pacifie them Lost great Sums of Money in the Assessing and Collecting of the Subsidies Poll Money and Assessements Hath been at great Charges in procuring his Plundered and lost Houshold-stuff Hangings Plates and Pictures and the Redemption of the Crown Jewels a great part of which were by his Royal Father in his Wars and Calamities Pawned at Amsterdam Granted Eight thousand pounds per Annum of the Crown Revenue to George Duke of Albemarle and the Heirs males of his Body who was so happily instrumental in his Restauration Four thousand pounds per Annum upon the like accompt to the Earl of Sandwich in Fee or Fee-tail Sixty thousand pounds given to the distressed Cavalier Party that sought for him and his Royal Father besides other great Gifts and Pensions to not a few of his Subjects either necessitated by Suffering for him and his Royal Father or craving what they could of him or to sweeten allure and keep in quiet the Schismatical Rebellious and contrary Parties Expended much Money in Repairing his if not almost ruined yet much deformed and defaced Houses and Palaces replenishing of his Parks Stores and Magazines Building of his House at Greenwich with an Expence of House-keeping and bounty more than ordinary at his Return and coming into England with the Charge of Diet for the Dukes of York and Gloucester and the Princess of Orange and their Families more than formerly chargeable by reason of the want of his Purveyance In the Payment of 200000 l. to the old Farmers of the Customs Charged upon Ireland more than that Kingdoms yearly Revenue and their Parliamentary Aids given by them amounted unto The Abatement of some of his Customs to advance the Fishing Trade Of his Chimney or Hearth-Money in London and some of the Suburbs thereof for Seven years in Relief of those that Suffered by the Burning of London made and ordained several helpful Acts of Parliament for the Rebuilding of it Gave great Sums of Money out of his Customs towards the Relief of the Captives at Algier Was at great Charges in keeping and fortifying of Dunkirk until the quitting thereof And of the Garrison and making the Mole at Tangier and some of his Customs assigned to defray the Charges of repairing the Peer or Port of Dover Adventures in the Guiny and Royal Company Two hundred and Twenty thousand pounds per Annum necessary yearly Charges for the maintenance of his Life-Guards Foot and Horse besides many other great Charges in the Raising and Disbanding of Forces to defend himself and the Kingdom against Intestine Plots Seditions and a threatning Invasion from abroad Of Building of many great Ships and Frigots and making of Forts in England Ireland and Scotland In Magazines Stores and Provision for Shipping Ammunition Ordnance Gunpowder c. Of procuring the Bishop of Munster to make a diversive War upon the Dutch Charges and Expences of the former Dutch War and his Navy of an Hundred great Ships and Men of War in several years and Summers every single Ship in its Victualling Pay and Ammunition being as Chargeable as two Regiments of Foot in an Army well Victualled and Paid Payment of an unreasonable and racking Interest to borrow and procure Money and relieve his not easily to be satisfied necessitous and weather-beaten Court and Servants Charges in the Collecting the Chimney Money and the Losses and Defalcations in the Excise-Revenue in the late great Plague and Dismal Fire at London and Defalcations to the Farmers of the Customs for their Losses by the want of Trade in the time of the Dutch War An Allowance or Imposition upon every Chaldron of Coals for a certain number of years towards the Rebuilding of St. Paul's Cathedral and 39 other Churches in London Two years Revenue of divers Rents of Houses near London allowed to the Queen Mothers Servants after her Death all the Delinquents Estates who were greatly Instrumental in the Murder of his Royal Father given to the Duke of York for his Support together with the Profits of the Admiralty Wine-Licences and a great part of the yearly benefit by the Post-Office With many other necessary Regal Expences And being since His most Happy Restauration to himself but most of all to his oppressed Subjects who were thereby delivered out of a like to be perpetual Bondage and Vassalage of their own framing from which otherwise they could never have redeemed themselves and being kind and gracious to as many as he could of his Suffering Party and willing to perswade those that had been altogether instrumental and causers of his own and his Loyal Subjects Miseries to follow their Example gave their never to be satisfied Rapines and godless greediness too many of the Imployments Places Farms and Offices under him can notwithstanding with Samuel justly say whose Ox or whose Ass have I unjustly taken away whom have I defrauded or whom have I oppressed Which if Right be done unto him should not be gainsaid by his borrowing of the Banker's Money when they had sent it into his Exchequer at an high and unreasonable Interest and making use of it to furnish out his Navy in or against the approaching Spring when the Ingrateful Dutch having heaped their Abuses and Injuries upon him and the Nation were as Confident as the Philistins were in the Case of the Children of Israel when there was not a Spear or Sword in Israel That he could have no means or Money by the frowardness and discords of some Opiniatrées and State-Reformers to furnish out his Fleet to prevent their designs of persisting in their disgracing and domineering over him the Trade of the Nation abroad and affronting and mastering of him at home And in the doing thereof he was Necessitate Necessitatum driven by an unavoidable and extreme Necessity more than that which perswaded David to take the Shew bread from off the Altar to preserve the Publick in himself and himself in the Publick from a fatal and otherwise utter ruine and loss of the Soveraignty of our Brittish Seas and the Guard and Benefits thereof justly Claimed and Vindicated by his Royal Progenitors and Predecessors and at no time before in so much danger of loosing For his after-Actions and Cares of Repayment may Evidence that he intended neither any wrong or Injustice to the Bankers or the Owners of it in that he not only made a Provision to pay them the Interest until he could be able to pay them the Principal but did all he could if his daily and publick Occasions had not prevented him to pay the Principal which he long ere this had accomplished had not the War by the Haughtiness Malice and Insolence of the Dutch often and very much decryed by the Sweeds and other
Nations who were the Mediators for Peace at Cologne emboldened by our home Divisions and want of Supplies lengthened it self beyond all Expectation And hath notwithstanding in the Interim by his Protections Royal and many other Cares taken done as much as he could to keep the Bankers from Arrests Imprisonments and other Ruines impendant often happening and falling upon Men indebted Although if Reports and the Laments of some that were concerned be not much mistaken a great part of that Money was belonging to many of his own Servants who by his Bounty and Places of Profit under him had easily gained it and many of those who so heavily complained of that detention of their Moneys had for their own advantages intrusted it to the Bankers who by an Imaginary Credit far exceeding their own Estates furnishing one man with another man's Money and paying out that which was but the same day or a little before come in had inticed a great part of the Money of the Nation into their hands And some if not many of the Owners did well enough understand that they did not only furnish them and their Credits upon all Emergent occasions of Profit or Accommodation by that kind of alluring much of the Money of the Nation into their Custody but his Majesty also at an high and intollerable Usury which if a strict enquiry were made by His Majesty or Order of Parliament of the particular Owners of the Money brought into the Exchequer by the Bankers and from thence borrowed and made use of by his Majesty upon his Publick and most urgent Affairs would plainly appear And it will be as manifest that he afterwards gave no respite to his Royal Cares and Intentions of Repaying it with the Legal or as much Interest as the Bankers were to pay for it And finding that the Fee Farm Rents amounting unto Seventy thousand pounds per annum sold at Sixteen years Purchase which nothing but a grand Necessity could enforce him to Alien for that many of them being the Tenths were by two several Acts of Parliament annexed to the Imperial Crown of England for the maintenance thereof and were as so many Ties and Obligations which made the Owners of these Lands to be dependant upon the Crown would not reach to a Satisfaction of his other Debts and Expences which having been longer due were more importunate than those of the Bankers did lately in a Speech to the Lords and Commons in Parliament make it his earnest Request that they would take the Necessity and speedy Payment of the Bankers into their Considerations And when nothing of help could be obtain'd for that purpose did by his Letters Patents under his great Seal with great difficulty and hardship order a part of his burdened Revenue to be assigned for the due and orderly payment of the Interest until the Principal Moneys should be justly satisfied and paid So as his doings therein or making use of that Money if impartially and judiciously weighed in the Ballance of Truth and Judgment is not to be called a seizure or forcible taking of the Bankers Money or to be ranked either as to the necessity or the thing it self or the number of the persons concerned with what King Edward the First a Wise and Prudent Prince did do when he in the 22 year of his Reign seized into his hands upon occasion of supplying the Publick Necessities all the Wools in the Kingdom as the Merchants were lading them in the Ports giving them Security for Payment at his own Rates and a long day and a short price and transported them to his own best and readiest Sale and at another time upon a like necessity seized all the Pope's Moneys which had been Collected for him by the Clergy of England amounting to very great Sums of Money towards the Wars of the Holy Land gave Protections to those that had the Custody of it and retain'd and made use of it for his then pressing Publick Affairs two years and more notwithstanding that the Pope had in the mean time sent unto him then hugely formidable threatning Bulls and Letters for it Or the like done by King Edward the Third in the 12 th year of his Reign with all the Tynne or with what King Henry the 6 th did by way of Purveyance of great Store of Grain and Corn and transporting it into Gascony where it was very dear or by Queen Elizabeth of a great deal of Beer Transported and sold to her use beyond the Seas and by defraying a great part of the Charges of her Wars in Ireland with Moneys Coined of Tynne with a promise to make a Satisfaction for it with Moneys made of Silver which was justly performed by her and King James her Learned Successor Concerning all which matters fears and jealousies I can be confident your Sentiments and mine will so little disagree as your Judgment of the Ages past and observations of the rise and progress of our late Troubles and Miseries which brought the greatest Shame and Scandal to the Protestant Religion profest in England and Scotland that ever it had or could have laid upon it and cast an unhappy Reflection upon those that were in the parts beyond the Seas will not refuse me your Company in the Opinion of a Truth so experimented that the fruit of all those Artifices rather than any just cause of any such fears or apprehensions have yielded no better Effects than the Ruine and Confusion of the former Glory and Honour of our Nation by setting up a Rebellious part of the People the Offspring as to some of their Levelling Principles of Wat Tiler and Jack Cade to undo and Rule over the better sort of the People and the Poor to Plunder and rob the Rich. And that therefore they which have been the cause of so many Mischiefs and Evils which their and our Seri Nepotes will have reason enough bitterly to bewail and without God's great Mercy will scarcely live to see eradicated ought better to consult their Conscience the Precepts and Examples of Wisdom Salus Populi Interest of the Kingdom and Honour of the King and Nation and abandoning their former Follies and false Lights which led them and their partakers into so great Sins and made them to be the Causes of so many National Miseries not run themselves and others into the fear of one or two incertain Evils but an Hundred which will be most certain and can never be recalled And I cannot but assure my self that you will be ready to conclude with me that there is no Rational or just Cause of Fear that we can have by any Infection contracted from the now Laws and manner of Government of France under His most Christian Majesty For until their Civil and Intestine Wars and Ill Usage of Charles the Fifth and Charles the Seventh their Kings in their greatest Distresses that Nation had Liberties more than at present they have or are likely to enjoy And that our
have a mind to Imitate such a self-ruining madness the dire Events and many heavy and remediless Calamities which fell upon the over-sparing and cautious Constantinopolitans who denying their Emperor a necessary and fitting Aid to defend them as well as himself made the Turks Master of all Greece so renowned heretofore for Learning and that City and the Riches of it a twentieth or a very small part whereof might have disappointed all the Tyranny Bondage and Slavery which they have ever since been under and are according to Humane Judgement like to continue to the end of the World in no better a Condition And now that Hannibal is ad Portas Dangers on all sides encompassing and crowding in upon us we should neither forsake our selves and good old England which will surely be worth the saving nor so much mistake that which was ever accompted to be Reason Wisdom and Forecast as to undervalue the prospect and the cares of Prevention laugh at them as Pedantick Fopperies or the dotage of a Decrepit World and like Jonas displeasing his God fall asleep in the midst of a Tempest But rather make hast to return to our selves and set before us the Wisdom and Examples of our Ancestors and Predecessors who in the care of themselves and of the Private and Publick not separate but joyned together as well as of their Kings and Soveraigns would not be deterred by any Statemisfortunes or Irregularities or tempted by their Jealousies or Fears to suffer themselves as the Members and smaller parts of the Body to languish and be destroyed by neglecting the Head and the Security and Safety thereof or by not paying their Duty and Reverence to their Kings hate and ruine themselves which in all their Discontents and Murmurings against their Kings and Government the Anxieties or Commotions of their Minds and Passions or the Dispairs which had sometimes seized upon them they did so much seek to avoid as they did not refuse them Aids in all their Wars and Troubles Domestick and Foreign King Henry the Second who after a very great and general Act of resumption of the Aliened Crown Revenue some whereof had been granted by himself had discontented many of his great Nobility when all his Sons had Rebelled Warred and taken Arms against him wanted not a supply by Escuage from his Subjects of England to reduce them to Obedience and make his Wars in France King Richard the First being unfortunately in his Return Incognito from his warlike and glorious Expedition to Jerusalem made Prisoner by an unworthy Surprize of the Duke of Austria and the German Emperor enforced as some of our Historians have reported for his Deliverance to invest the former of them with the Superiority of his Kingdom of England by the delivering of his Hat unto him which the Emperor in the presence of divers of the Nobility of Germany and England returned unto him to hold the Kingdom of him by the Annual Tribute of Fifty thousand pound Sterling and his Brother John Usurping the Crown in his absence and Plotting with the Emperor and the King of France his mortal Enemy to continue him a Prisoner during his Life both Laiety and Clergy notwithstanding that he had by the perswasion of the Clergy more than of the Laiety been ingaged in that very Expensive War did so strain themselves to redeem the Person of their King the Kingdom and People at that time being secure enough from Foreign Invasions as they raised and paid One hundred and fifty thousand Marks in pure Silver of Cologn weight then a very great Sum of Money by Twenty Shillings imposed upon every Knights Fee the fourth part of the Revenue of the Laiety and the like of the Clergy a tenth of their Goods all or most the Chalices and Treasure of the Church being then also not a little sold to make up the Sum So as William Petit or Newbrigensis who wrote his Book in that time saith Ferè exmunita pecuniis Anglia videretur England seemed to be almost emptied of all her Money and the like courses were held for raising that then great Sum of Money in all his Dominions beyond the Seas King John likewise having resum'd much of his Crown-Lands Murdered as was suspected his Nephew Arthur the right Heir to the Crown and thereby forfeited the Dutchy of Normandy to the King of France of whom he held it and in those many Troubles and Distresses which were cast upon him by his unruly Baronage constrained to acknowledge to hold his Kingdoms of England and Dominion of Ireland of the Pope and his Successors in Fee-Farm under the yearly Rent of One thousand Marks per Annum Charged his Earls and Barons with the Losses which he had sustained in France Fined and made them pay a seventh part of all their Goods had Two marks and a half granted unto him by the Parliament out of every Knight's Feé and within a year after a thirteenth part of all the Moveables and other Goods as well of the Clergy as of the Laiety King Henry the Third his Son resum'd all the Lands alien'd from the Crown had so great Troubles entail'd upon him by the Contests of his boisterous Baronage with his Father as Lewis the French King's Son was called in by some of them received their Homage and had London and a great part of the Kingdom delivered up and put into his Possession but upon better Consideration was afterwards sent home again by those that Invited him and the Barons of England having so little accorded with their Native King as several Battels were fought betwixt them in one of which the King himself was taken Prisoner and in another released by the Valour of the Prince his Son the managers of that Rebellion Slain and their multitude of Partizans reduced to Obedience being a great part of the Kingdom by their Compounding with his Commissioners at Kenelworth to give him Seven years Purchase of the yearly value of their Lands which amounted to a very great Sum of Money for a Pardon for their Offences and a Redemption of their Estates the Subjects and People of this Nation did howsoever in order to their own Preservation besides the fifteenth part of all their Goods for his Grants of Magna Charta and Charta Forestae not deny him their Aids of Scutage Fifteenths and Tenths there being scarce a year wherein there was not a Parliament and seldom any Parliament without a Tax King Edward the First notwithstanding his Writs of Quo Warranto brought against all the Nobility Great Men Gentry and others of England Cities and Burroughs Claiming Liberties and Priviledges wherein he did put them strictly to prove them either by Grant or Prescription seized and confiscated the Estates of the Earls of Gloucester Hereford and Norfolk Men of great Might and Power for their refusing to go and serve him in his Wars beyond the Seas the Earl of Hereford being Constable and the Earl of Norfolk Earl Marshal of