Proceedings of our old Rebellious Barons in England And the later Rebellion of the late Leaguers in France and the clear conformity of the Proposals of our Parliament and the polticks of this Plato to both I 'll place them in their turn as they succeeded in their time and let them that would prescribe to Treason be proud of the Precedency For the First the Barons being greedy of Rule the Commons of Liberty as a learned Author and * Antiquary le ts us know some of the popular Lords began with the plausible pretext of the Peoples Liberty when to suppress these Troubles and supply the Kings Extremities a Parliament is call'd but such an one as prov'd much to the liking of the Lords and as little meant to relieve their King much less to redress the People The Clamor was of Encroachment upon their Liberty To silence that the Charter is several times confirmed But they finding what a power the Kings Necessities put in their Hands were resolved to supply him with so little that it might well keep their King from being Great they force him to the very sale of his Lands and Jewels for Bread and to turn out of his Palace because not able to sustain himself in it they seised upon Dover his Castle and the Kingdoms Key which was Treason for that account to deliver to a Foreigner and than a Fortiori for a Subject to take made Head against their Soveraign called in French to subdue him Which when they had done in which Actions none more Zealous than the Loyal Londoners for his Destruction what was the Event Why our Historians tell us and what are still the unfortunate Effects of a prosperous Rebellion Murder and Sacrilege and Sword And the Victorious Barons Lorded it like so many Tyrants too till Providence in a more signal Victory restored their Lawful King and the Subject's Liberty As the Baron's Wars began in King John's Time but broke out in a more perfect Rebellion in his Son Henry's so were the seeds of this Civil Dissention sown in the Reign of Charles the Ninth and were fully ripened in the Reign of his Son and that a 3d. Henry too The Nobles here were disgusted and soon made the Commons so too A Parliament there too was thought to remedy those Discontents and that as our Henry's encreas'd the Distemper they told the French too of their Taxes and Impositions and accus'd their King of Misgovernment for imposing them as our Lords combin'd so these Leagued for the redressing of Grievances and were first Aggressors in seising Verdun and Tull two Towns in France as those did Dover and Hull in England their Henry was forc'd to flie from Paris his Principal City His Metropolitan also of Sedition and that by Tumult too And what did it terminate in but in the Murder of their King too The calling in of the Spaniard that was like to inslave the People to a Foreign Yoke and at last weary of the Usurpt Dominion of the Duke of Mayne that had imposed on them a Council of State too the Tyrannous Assembly conven'd by Conspiraors was confusedly Dissolv'd in as much Distraction and Disorder And the recovered Nation return'd to their Lawful Lord. And did not our own late lamentable Distraction Commence in the Reign of King James and put all in Combustion in Charles the First did not they first practise upon his Necessities to which themselves had reduced him and then remonstrated against such Acts as were the very effect of his Necessity encumber'd with a War or rather betrayed into a breach they would not suffer the Father to make Peace and then denyed the Son the supplies of War A Parliament is summoned too here and that serves him just as the two preceding Ones did their Soveraign with Remonstrances of Oppressions For this the petition of Right was granted them as Gracious an Act as that of the great Charter but nothing could serve unless like that too 't was sealed in Blood and for that they began by Degrees to be so Tumultuous till this Prince was forc'd to fly his Capital City and that also as in the others prov'd the Head to the Rebellion that succeeded upon their Petition the War was first began And Hotham sent to surprize Hull as in the two former were Verdun and Dover and now was all in Arms and Blood which ended at last too in that of their King The Scots called in here as in the former the French and Spaniard the People enslaved by those that set up for their Protectors The Council of State set up here as well as in France and the ruin'd Realms never at rest till they had returned to that Soveraignty from which they revolted It is sad even to see the least thing now that looks like a prelude to such a sort of Tragedy The clamors of Sedition still the same Parliaments that are Assembled to redress them Remonstrating against Grievances they never yet felt Subjects Associating against their Prince for his Preservation the draught the Scheam and abstract of the Baron's Combination The French League the Scotch Covenant so far from an Abhorrence of either as to pitch upon a Compound of all three Designs discovered and detected for the seising of strong Holds the Tower instead of an Hull and the Scot invited once more to pass the Tweed for a better booty The Treason of such Practices is never the less because the Providence was so great as to prevent its Execution Had that not interposed the Parallel Lines I am sure would have led us on further but all their draught beyond it must have been Blood A Comparison between the Demands of our English Barons and the Desires of the French Leaguers from whence they have copyed as Counterparts The Propositions of our Parliament and the Proposals of Plato English Barons French Leaguers 1. That the King hath wronged the publick State by taking into his private 1. That the Disposals of Places of Office and Trust in the Kingdom Election the Justice Chancellor and Treasurer and require that they be chosen by the common Council of the Realm Parl. Tent. 22. H. 3. be in the Leaguers vid. Henry the 3d. of France's Answer to their Manifesto who told them 't was against the Prerogative of all his Predecessors 2. That it be ordained that 24 of the most grave and discreet Peers be chosen by the Parliament as Conservators of the Kingdom Baker pag. 8. Ann. D. 1238. Regn. H. 3.22 2. That the number of their Kings Council should be limited to 24. D'avila pag. 341. our Propositions were not to exceed 25. or under 15. 3. That those Conservators be sworn of his Majesties Council and all Strangers removed from it 3. The City of Paris set up a Council of 16. of themselves 〈◊〉 their Kings was to admit Persons whom they should chuse 4. That two Justices of the Kings-Bench two Barons of
upon this KEEPER of their LIBERTIES and you saw the Sycophant spitting in its mouth his Papers are the very Picture of this piece and the Representation of Rebellion with a Pen. The next that Mounts the Throne is STEPHEN and the little Right tho some Relation he had to the Crown to be sure won't be past by when this Author for the sake of his sinking Cause has caught at every Plank to hold up her Head in that desperate Condition and where he could not meet the least solid substantial Argument graspt at every empty Shadow And truly here he tells us that STEPHEN acknowledg'd his Election in the very Words of a Charter from the People and so would any man that had no better Title and tho I shall condemn his Usurpation can allow of his Politicks in letting them know how much he was beholden to them and yet that People were strong enough to pull off his Crown too which his own hands rather had put on for as Bradshaw told the King The People of England had constituted them a Court when that unanswerable Martyr observed not half their Consents did concur or were askt so also in this Case many of the Nobility most of the Commonalty lookt upon it as a manifest Usurpation and those whose Concurrence he had were but an handful of his Friends and at his Coronation had but three Bishops few of the Nobility and not one Abbot and also as Historians observe those very perjur'd Prelates and Lords came many of them to an ill-end or else to worse Calamities before their life was ended And the revengeful Cruelties of the Scot lookt somewhat like a Judgment for their Perjury when they spar'd neither the Gray-Hair for whom Reverence might plead nor the Tender-Infant for whom its Innocence but Butchered the one in their Beds the other on their Mothers Breasts the Barbarity of those avengers is as horribly describ'd in Mat. Paris But agen I cannot see why he was not as much an Invader as his Grandfather the Conqueror only that came from Normandy this out of Boleign that was forct to fight first with Harold an hardy Foe this his Invasion facilitated by the Weakness of a Woman but as weak as she was He knew her Title to be strong and as strong as this Author would have him with the People yet he found himself too weak only with the pretence of his Election to defend his Vsurpation found an Army of Flemmings would give him a better Title to the Crown than all this Power of Parliament to the Peopledom and that a good Garrison would hold out longer in his defence than our Authors House of Commons and in truth his being so good a Souldier would not suffer him to be long a precarious King an hundred thousand Pound of the good old Kings Treasure did him more good than all their suffrages it brought Men and Arms out of Britany and Flanders and built so many Castles for those sort of Monarch-makers till the whole Kingdom seemed all over but one CITADEL and all its Government but an entire Garrison Yet as secure as he thought himself both in Subjects and his Strength the prevalency of Right and Justice soon encompast him with as many Dangers His Nobility begin to be incensed against him and that out of a sence of his having injured an Heir The provok't Empress Lands with a strong party and her presence soon proclaimed the Justice of her Cause and made that Oath they had swallowed for her without any Operation or Effect to work now as strongly a pitcht Battle and a fierce one too is fought his Souldiers forsook him at last as well as his People and he forc't to sight so desperately for a cause that was ever as desperate till himself is taken a Prisoner by her from whom he took the Crown and tho she brought a War for her Right was received peaceably entered Her Capital City in Triumph and by her Loyal Londoners welcom'd with Acclamation and Joy And pray what was the Consequence now of this debarred Right but what always attends it BLOOD the Scots had with a Savage sort of a Revenge shed some for her before she spilt a great deal before she came to this and before the ground which had drunk so much Gore could be said to be dry at Winohester 't is moistened with a fresh supply and that too with a War of Women MATIL'D the Queen invades Maud the Empress the worst cause as it is wont prevails best and here the Right Heir is again driven from the enjoyment of her Right by that which commonly does it the SWORD and then at last after all the various events of WAR which whatever the Fortune be must still end in the loss of Lives that Just Astrea which then too seemed to have left the Earth and upon it nothing but wrong look't down from Heaven this fierce King in fuller Assembly than in what he was chose acknowledges that Hereditary Right against which he had fought and Henry in the Right of his Mother Maud to be the Lawful Successor And one would think now this succeeding Monarch's Right should have been allowed Hereditary beyond dispute beyond Contradiction when so much Blood had been spilt in the Defence of it when acknowledged so by this Popular Advocates own People and before them owned too by him that had interrupted the Succession and excluded the Right and Lawful Heir But what cannot Malice suggest or Faction invent till this transport against Government this rage of Rebellion suspends the calm Operations of the Soul and the dictates of common Sense till it hurry these blind Pretenders to verity into the greatest falsehoods transports them into perfect Lyes and Absurdities and to labour even against the Contradictions of Truth and Reason Here he still impudently tells us against plain matter of Fact the Confessions of his own Creatures the People and the Acknowledgment of his own Favourite the Vsurper That in all these Transactions there was no Consideration of any Right but what universal consent conferr'd And his Exception to our Henry the Second's Right must also now result from his Mother Mawds Title before I am glad we can get him to tolerate any such thing as Title at all but I would ask this Gentleman if he has any thing to dispose of whether he might not cedere de bonis as the Civilians in another Case Phrase it only for the letting his Successor and Heir Inherit it or whether upon such a Cession or making it over his Son should not succeed into this Patrimony till he had knockt his bountiful Father in the head or he was pleased to step aside into the next World to let his Successor have more Room in this I fancy he would be glad such a Resignation might pass without an Attournment of his LIFE too Maud the Empress was sufficiently pleased only with the Succession of her Son and
was done accordingly the Conspiracy of the Witness was soon afterward detected his Innocency declar'd and the poor Gentleman for want of a due process at Law plainly Murder'd and all the Conviction I wish to such unjust reproachers of the Constitution of any of our Courts of Judicature that they may never have the benefit of those Laws they Condemn and only have the Fate to Fall by that Justice of the Republick they so much extol The Villains that sign'd the Warrant for our late Kings Execution did not more Sacrifice his Person than this Impious Wretch has Murder'd him again in Effigie with a redoubl'd Cruelty to blast that unblemishable reputation which if Dearer than Life must be the greater Treason He tells us the Parliament never made War upon him because by Law says the Sycophant He can do no wrong but this shall not be allow'd for a Maxim with such Malecontents when it makes for the Monarch But what if a Parliament of Rebels put out in their Declaration that He has wrong'd the Law and vote that he Levies War to destroy the Fundamental Liberty of the People to set up Arbitrary Government send down a Traytor to keep him out of his own Garrisons when their Guards could not secure his Life from the rage of the London Rable instigated too by that Villanous Assembly that made his Repairing to Hull for the Preservation of himself an Insurrection of their King for the Destruction of the People And can such a senseless piece of Sedition imagin that undistinguishing Bullet they brought into the Field could be commanded to take off none but Evil Councellors and Seducers or that ARMS which soon silence all LAWS especially when lifted against their Soveraign would favourable consider his Right and a Maxim of our own that he could do no wrong He tells us the King was displeas'd for parting with his Power to dissolve Parliaments and took unheard of ways to demand Members with Arms Most Inhumane Wretch even to the Pious Memory of so good a Prince to give him the Lye in his Grave does not himself tell us as if his Prophetick Soul had foreseen the suggestion of such a Rebel in his making it his deepest plaint The Injury of all Injuries is that some will Falsely divulge that I repining at the Establishment of the Parliament endeavour'd by force and open Hostility to undo what by Royal assent I had done While at the same time the Contradictory Wretches would asperse him for a resolv'd and a wilful occasioner of his ruin but for the demand of the Members so far from Irregularity That this Malicious Accuser is a double Traytor to his Memory by being an Abetter of those that were truly so and representing it False the King was advis'd in Scotland of those Conspirators having Invited that Nation to come into ours Arm'd And shall not bringing in a Foreign Power an Actual Levying War be allow'd Treason He had his Witnesses ready for the proving every Article his Attorny had drawn up all their Impeachments and could not their King have the benefit of those Laws he gives Life too Could not their King Impeach a Commoner when they themselves can any Lord. He order'd Him to inform the House of Peers with the Matter of the Charge and a Serjeant at Arms to accuse them to the Commons did they or could they call this an unheard of way or Irrogular Proceeding and will the protection of their House extend to an Inditement for High-Treason as well as an Execution upon Debt certainly this President won't be found among all the Miscellanies of Parliament tho that Industrious Author might have cited too his Majestys Murder out of their Journal But let them blush at their late Arbitrary Proceedings against their Fellow Subjects and Remember what they deny'd their King Here was an obstruction of Justice that was already a Rebellion against the Executive Power of the Law such an one as only their next Ordinance for seizing the Militia could make it more so the Serjeant that was sent to Arrest their Persons is countermanded and if again attempted 't is Order'd and Resolved they 'll stand upon their Desence and make Resistance how should the Mildest Father of the most Merciful Son Mollifie so many Tygers Tugging for the Praerogative with the pretence of Privileges Why he tells us himself went attended with some Gentlemen his followers much short of his Ordinary Guard to desire he might proceed against Traytors only in a free and Legal Tryal that he had furnisht himself with proof and wanted nothing for that Evidence which he could have produced But what I am sure they were resolv'd to deny their Soveraign even what they made the Rabble clamor for against himself JUSTICE the Chronicle tells us none of his Followers mov'd farther than the Stairs but only he himself with the Palsgrave enter'd the House demanded whom before he had Accus'd and the Villains themselves so Conscious of his Equitable demand and their own Guilt that they fear'd their very delivery from their Friends and that Death I doubt they had so justly deserv'd the Criminals were fled he renews his Charge and so satisfy'd returns but so were not those whom nothing could Content at last but his Life they load it with all the Obloquies and Exasperations imaginable such Protectors of Liberties could only think Treason against him worthier of Protection then their injur'd King an Execution of Law is Voted a Breach of Priviledge the demanding the Benefit of it by him that gives it it's being they made MURDER the City Guards are set up in several places the Train-Bands are Commanded down to Westminster a greater Army sure then only the Kings Retinue to protect Impeacht Traytors and with the late Hosanna's of our Old-Baily they lead in Triumph that Primitive Council of Six accus'd for High-Treason and what Security had this present King that the like Cabal should not have been as well Secur'd from his Justice had they been but detected in some of their late Sessions they were all Members too the Difference between our King and Commons in as high a ferment the Charge that then was given to the Lords the Articles that were offer'd to the Commons appear upon Record but the Counterpart of this Kings Declaration only there they had not come so far as to contrive his Murder their Accusation was for aspersing of his Majesties Government and altering the affections of his People Countenancing Tumults against him inviting a Foreign Nation the Scots as too this Actually did and Conspiring to Levy War as these did to Raise an Insurrection And might not any Jealous Soul fear such Parliaments that protected such Traytors and might not such Traytors been again protected by such Parliaments when the City too was their own again the Guards set the Watches plac'd the Streets Chain'd and that when they could accuse no King for Breach of Priviledge or Coming to their House with
Burgesses elected by themselves but this can't be gathered from Eadmerus the much better Authority who in the Titles and the Stile of near Nine or Ten Councils of his time not so much as mentions them King Stephen what he wanted and was forc't to spare in Taxations which were not then granted by the suffrages of the Common People tho they commonly bear the greatest burden of it tho he did not according to the Power he was then invested with raise great Sums upon his Subjects and the greatest Reason because he could not the Continual Wars having impoverisht them as well as their Prince and it has the proverbial Authority of necessitated Truth That even where it is not to be got the King himself must foregoe his Right yet this mighty Monarch's power was such that Confiscations supplyed what he could not Tax and as our Historian tells us upon light Suggestions not so much as just Suspicions he would seize upon their Goods and as I remember the Bishop of Salisbury's Case in his time confirms But tho the Menace of the threatning King the Text be turned now into the clear Reverse and our Kings Loyns no heavier then the very Finger of some of his Predecessors still we can find those that can preach him down for a Rehoboam or some Son of Nebat that makes Israel to Sin Henry the Second resum'd by his own Act all the Crown Lands that had been sold or given from it by his 〈◊〉 and this without being questioned for it much less deposed or murdered whereas when our Charles the First attempted only to resume the Lands of Religious Houses that by special act of the Parliament in Scotland had been settled on the Crown but by Usurpation were shared among the Lords when 't was only to prevent their Scandalous defrauding of the poor Priest and the very box of the poor to keep them from an 〈◊〉 and even a cruel Lording it over the poor Peasant in a miserable Vassallage beyond that of our antiquated Villains and when he endeavoured all this only by the very Law of all the Land by an Act of Renovation Legal Process and a Commission for the just surrendring Superiorities and Tyths so unjustly detain'd from the Crown but our modern Occupants of the Kirks Revenue had far less Reverence for the State chose much rather to Rebel against their Prince for being as they would Phrase it Arbitrary than part with the least power over their poor Peasants which themselves exercised even with Tyranny This was the very beginning of the first Tumults in that Factious Kingdom and 't is too much to tell you in what they ended Richard the First had a trick I am sure would not be born with now he pretends very cunningly to have lost his Signet and puts out a Proclamation that whoever would enjoy what he had under the former must come and have it confirmed by the new and so furnisht himself with a fine fund he could fairly sell and pawn his Lands for the Jerusalem Journey and as fouly upon his return resume them without pay And all this the good peaceable Subject could then brook without breaking into Rebellion and a bloody War and as they had just then none of their Great Charter that made afterward their Kings the less so neither had they such Rebellious Barons that could not be contented even with being too Great as they were then far from having granted so gracious a Petition as that of Right so neither you see so ready to Rebel and that only because they could not put upon their Prince the deepest Indignities the greatest wrong And these warrantable proceedings of our Princes whose power in all probability was unconfin'd before the Subjects Charter of Priviledges was confirm'd must needs be boundless when there were yet no Laws to Limit them yet these two Presidents were as impertinently applyed by the Common Hackney Goose quils whose Pens were put upon by the Parliament to scribble Panegyricks upon a Common-wealth to prove all our Kings a Catalogue of Tyrants tho the Presidents they brought from those times were clear Nonsense in the Application and no News to tell us or reproach to them that those Princes were Arbitrary when they had yet given no grants to restrain their Will Here I hope is sufficient Testimony and that too much to Demonstrate that our Kings of old by long Prescription were so far from being guided and governed by a Parliament as our Factious Innovator would have them now that in truth they never had any such Constitution and the People then insisted so little on their own Priviledges that they could not tell what they were and the Princes Prerogative so great that even their property could hardly be called their own But these being but Presidents before their Charters were granted or the Commons came in play tho these preceding Kings might deviate from the common Custom of the Realm in many that some may call irregular Administrations yet the Customs of the Kingdom relating to the Royal Government in all those Reigns were never questioned much less altered they never told their Kinge then as this piece of Sedition does now that their Nobles were to manage their Affairs of State as well as he would have even a Council of Commons We come to consider now whether from the granting them Charters which was done in the next Reign that of King John when the long tugged for Liberties were first allowed or from the Constitution of admitting the Commons to consult which by the greatest Advocates can't be made out handsomely before this Kings time or his Son and Successors who might well be necessitated to Consult the meaner sorts when all the great were in Arms and wisely flatter their Commons into peace when the Lords had rebelled in an open War tho' still good Authorities will not allow them to be called in either of their Reigns not so much as to be mentioned in any of their Councils and that even to the 18 of Edward the First wee 'll see I say now whether from these as they count them the most happy times That blessed Epoche wherein their Kings were first confined down to those which Posterity will blush at the Period of Villany when this Proposition was among the rest proposed whither ever the Parliament pretended unless when they actually rebelled as they did here to manage their King and his Affairs of State The greatest Lawyer and the most Equitable one that lived in this Henry the Thirds time tells us the King has a power and Jurisdiction over all that are in his Kingdom that all are under him that he has not an Equal in the Realm and sure the Project of putting the Parliament upon choosing of his Council for the managing of his Affairs or assuming themselves to manage it certainly would make the Subject have some power over him make him more then Equal or
but God and that he had God alone for his Avenger and it seems somewhat Improbable a person of his Loyalty and Judgment should not only detract from the Supremacy of his Soveraign which he seems so much to maintain but also in direct opposition to what himself had asserted and besides were they the sense as well as the words of that Author they are only true as I have before shown when they are taken collectively in a complicated Sentence and so seems a sort of Sophistry which the Logical heads call a fallacy in Composition But yet from that does Mr. S. conclude That the power is Originally in the People and so by Consequence in the Parliament only as they are their Representatives For my part I cannot Imagine this Gentleman's large Treatise to be any thing else but a Voluminous Collection of all the Rebellious Arguments that were publisht in our late War for as in this little fiftieth part of it as he professes it to be there is not one new Notion but what is to a Syllable the same with the Papers of Pryn and the Merc. Politicus out of the Author of the Treatise of Monarchy has he made a shift to borrow or else by chance very harmoniously to agree 〈◊〉 the pernicious Position That our Monarchy is not only Limited and Mixt for that wont content them alone but that this Limitation has oblig'd the Soveraign to be Subject to the Judgment and Determination of Parliament for says that more Antient Antimonarchist this Limitation being from some body else and the power confer'd by the publick Society in the Original Constitution of the Government and then he bethinks himself that Kings too may Limit themselves afterward by their own Grants and Concessions which he is pleased to call a Secondary Original Constitution i. e. if my little Sense will let me Comprehend the saying of a Politician that has none at all somewhat like a Figure in Speech the Country-man calls his Bull us'd when the Speaker can't express himself Intelligibly A Secondary Original sounds not much unlike the Nonsense of an Original Copy or a second first yet from this senseless Sophistry it must be concluded that the Soveraign being limited by this Original Constitution or as they call it After Condiscent and Secondary Original what then therefore every Mans Conscience must acquit or Condemn the Acts of his Governour and every man has a Power of Judging the Illegal deeds of his Monarch And so Mr. S. in almost the same Language As a man he is Subject to the People that made him a King That he receiv'd the Crown upon condition and That performance is to be exacted and the Parliament Judges of the Particular Cases arising thereupon I cannot but observe to this Gentleman upon this who was always such a great admirer of the Romans Common-wealth what I hinted before was the Sense of the very Romans when according to their own Notion of Original Monarchy the People of that Common-wealth first conferr'd their Power of Government upon a single Soveraign why their very Laws tell us That notwithstanding those Contracts and Limitations of which there were very likely some exprest even in that their very Celebrated and Glorious Law that first made that Government Imperial yet when once it 〈◊〉 so Conferr'd by that very Act all Magistracy i.e. all power of Judging that the Subject had before was past over too And were our own Monarch by the Compact and condiscent of his first Ancestors such a precarious Prince as they would make him have not our own Statutes I have cited long since resolv'd his Crown to be Independant and himself accountable to none but God And then abstracting from that Advantage we have of the Resolution of the Law Reason it self against which our Republicans rebell too that also will refute the absurdity of such a Position For first where for God's sake would they fix this their preposterous power of Judicial Process if in some single Persons then the Concession of their own renowned Aphorism will fly in their Face for that allows the Soveraign to be much superior to any Selected number of his Subjects and they won't be such Senseless Sots sure as to say That those whom themselves acknowledge to be altogether inferior should be invested with that Judicial Power which is the highest token and 〈◊〉 of Supremacy if they 'll place it as Mr. Sidney forsooth does in the Original power of the People delegated unto Parliament then should that be granted them when ever this Parliament is dissolv'd if their King be never so great a Delinquent for I think they may assoon make their King so as they did foolishly those that followed him in the late Wars when the word implies a Deserting and the Law only calls them so that adhere to the King's Enemies then I say if their Soveraign be never so much a Criminal to the State upon such a Dissolution they devest themselves by their own Maxims of this power of Judicature and so put it in the power of the Monarch or the Prince at any time to blast all his Judges in a moment and dissipate them all with the Breath of his Mouth and therefore Mr. Sidney was so wittily Seditious as to foresee such a Consequence and for that Reason very resolutely does deny what some of our more moderate Republicans will allow That the King has a power of Assembling and Dissolving a Parliament But this piece of pernicious Paradox a Position so false that some of them themselves are asham'd to own has been already refuted and prov'd from the very Laws of the Land to be an absolute Lye but our Author having plac'd himself and his People above the Law tho it was his hard fate to fall under it and made the Subject Superior to those Sanctions to which themselves acknowledge none to be so but the Soveraign from whom they proceed all the Satisfaction such a Person can receive from the Statutes must be from something of Reason that is the result of them and 't is such an one as relates to their own Positions For they say therefore the Soveraign is obliged to submit to the Laws of the Land because he accepted the Crown upon such an Obligation and shall it not Seditious Souls be as good a Conclusion To say the People have passed away the power of Assembling themselves when they have passed their own Act for being by their King Assembled Then in the next place if this Original power of this People be delegated to this Parliament it would have been much to the purpose for some of them to have shown us from whence this People had this Original Power Certainly if any it must be deriv'd from God Nature or somewhat that 's Soveraign But for the Almighty In all the sacred Texts there 's not a syllable of such a Legacy left them but abundance of the bequest of it
The King never Dies they made themselves all Dictators more Immortal They were summon'd in November and by the time that they had sate to May they had made of a Mighty Monarch a meer precarious Prince And in August following supposing he had sufficiently oblig'd the most Seditious Subjects which I think he might Imagine when he had made himself no King he sets out for Scotland to satisfie them as much there while the Senate of Sedition that he left to sit behind him resolv'd it self into a sort of Committee of Conspiracy and that of almost the whole House made a Cabal among themselves to to cast off the Monarchy which the Knaves foresaw could not be done but by the Sword and therefore cunningly agreed to second one another for the putting the Kingdom into a posture of Defence against those dangers abroad which they themseves should think fit to feign and fancy at home To carry on their Plot against the Bishops they put in all probability that lewd Leighton upon writing of his Plea which was Bring out those Enemies and slay them before him to smite those Hazaels under the fifth Rib For which in the Starchamber he was Fin'd and Imprison'd but for his Sufferings and the Dedication of his Book to the Commons they Vote him Ten thousand pound Upon the Kings return from his Northern Expedition which was to procure Peace only with a shew of War they having had a competent time for Combination and Plot were arriv'd to that exalted Impudence that notwithstanding he was received with Acclamations from all the common People of the Kingdom the People whom they were bound to represent the welcome from his Parliament was to present him with Remonstrances and Petitions which against his very express order they Printed and Publisht of such sort of Grievances that sufficiently declared they were griev'd at nothing more than his being their King They put upon his Account the thirty thousand pounds they had pay'd the Scots for Invading England that is they gave them the Moneys for Fighting of their King and then would have had the King paid his own Subjects for having against him so bravely Fought They should for once too have made him responsible and his Majesty their Debtor for the two hundred thousand pounds they paid the same Fellows at Newark to be gone whom with their thirty thousand pounds they had invited in before They should have made the King pay for his own purchase and answerable for the Price the Parliament had set upon his Head This seem'd such an unconscionable fort of Impudence that their hearts must needs have been Brass and seer'd as well as their Foreheads in offering it An Impudence that none but such an Assembly were capable of Impudence the Diana of these Beasts of Ephesus the Goddess of all such designing Democraticks that to be somewhat in the true sense of the Satyrist must defie a Dungeon These their Petitions they seconded with Tumult and Insurection sent the Justices of Peace to the Tower only for endeavouring to suppress these Forerunners of a Civil War when they had taken the Liberty to Impeach some of the King 's best Subjects for Traytors yet deny'd their Soveraign to demand their Members that had committed High Treason About the twenty eighth of January 1641 they humbly desire the Soveraignty and their Petition that BEGUN Most Gracious Soveraign ENDED only in this Make us your Lords for they 1st demand the Tower of London 2ly All other Forts 3ly The Militia and they should have put in the Crown too The stupid Sots had not the sense to consider or else the resolv'd blindness that they would not see that those that have the power of the Army must be no longer Subjects but the Supream power The King you may be sure was not very willing to make himself none and might well deny the deposing of himself tho' he after consented even to this for a time but what he would not grant with an Act they seiz'd with an Ordinance and though they took the Militia which was none of theirs by Force and Arms yet Voted against their King's Commission of Array that was settled upon him by Law they force him to fly to the Field and then Vote it a Deserting the Parliament they necessitate him to set up his Standard at Nottingham and then call it a Levying War they Impeach nine Lords for following their King and yet had so much nonsense as to call them Delinquents which the Law says none are but what adhere to his Enemies they send out their General fight their King and after various events of War force him to fly to the perjur'd Scot to whom they had paid an hundred thousand pounds to come in and were glad to give two to get out and for that they got the King into the bargain An Act of the Scot that was compounded of all the sublimated Vices that the Register of Sins or Catalogue of Villanies can afford feigned Religion forc'd Hypocrisie Falshood Folly Covetousness Cowardize Perjury and Treason for upon his refusal to Sign their Proposals they tell him the defence of his Person in the Covenant must be understood only as it relates to the safety of the Kingdom and upon the English profering them the Moneys they wou'd prettily perswade him that the promise their Army made him for his preservation could not be kept because the Souldiers and the Army were different things and the Army might promise what the Souldiers might refuse and were unwilling to perform But this purchase of their double Perjury was punisht with as much perfidiousness their Army got into their hands for nothing the poor Prince the Parliament thought they paid for too dear And as that Seditious Senate sought their Soveraign in the Name of King and Parliament so now the Souldiers of Fairsax set themselves to fight the Senate for the sake forsooth of the Parliament and Army Good God! Just Heavens that could visit such Vipers such Villains in the same villany they committed and make such Seditious Hypocrites suffer by as much Treason and Hypocrisie Their Agitators menace the King with Death and Deposition they make him their Prisoner move in the House their non-addresses make it Treason to confer with their King set up an Ordinance for his Tryal and there Sentence that against which Treason could only be committed as a Traytor to the State And here then With what face can the Faction justify such a Barbarous Rebellion or accuse their King for the beginning of the War Yet such a sort of Seditious Democraticks does our Land afford Sidney says Such a general revolt of the Subjects can not be call'd a Rebellion And Plato Our Parliament never did as they pretended make War upon the King Till such persuasions are rooted up out of their Rebellious hearts as well as they are in them no Prince under the Heavens can protect himself from such resolute Rebels as will
Edward and by them lay a necessity upon him to make all their latter Act an entire Impertinence For if by those Laws he be obliged to Call a Parliament at least every Year What signifies the latter that allows him three Years for their Calling And if he has three years for their Calling where can lye the necessity for his Calling them in one for a Subsequent Stat. that gives such a larger extent of Time tho it do not actually repeal those Preceding that allow less yet it must at least render them Illusory and Vain And to tell us that the latter is but declaratory of the former Act when it contradicts the very Letter of that Law is as absurd as maintaining an Affirmative may be confirmed with an absolute Negative By all the Rules of Reason I have met with yet and Logick is allowed sure to hold good even in Law unless the Legislators set up for Brutes and Irrationals A Proposition of a larger extent must include that of a less which if it does is in this Case Exclusive For should this Authority suppose to bring the Argument home to their Doors and then they can't say it is far fetcht of the House of Commons command me to dance Attendance at their Bar de Die in Diem for abhorring or so and then with a subsequent Order only demand it every third For my part I cannot apprehend the Obligation there lyes upon me for the performing both but that the former stands still a Cypher in their Journal and by the latter is suspended I could assoon resolve in the Crazyness of the Natural Body when 't is batter'd with an Ague that a Quotidian and a Tertian can at the same time assault it together But Mr. Hunt's Illustrations lying in another Science Number and the Mathematicks he may demonstrate this too with his Vnite and Triad and tell us One and Two make Three But to be serious and that in a matter that so much concerns the Soveraign tho there be no better way of baffling Buffoons and Arguments of Fools must be answered but with Folly tho some may think there may be somewhat of sound Reason in such pleasant Similes for Sense and Nonsense are become Terms now but merely Relative and every Author an Ass or an Animal of Reason as his Reader stands affected we being become parties in that too as well as in Principles if we would truly know the Sense of a Law it must be collected from an Historical Account of that time wherein it was enacted and I think my Lord Cook tell 's us as much too And then turn but to the story of the Times and see there the Reasons of such Provisions and when those fail then must sure the force of such Proviso's too for certainly the fourth of this Edward was made more for this King's Satisfaction than the desires of the People and that from the sequel you 'll see they were not then clamoring for frequency of Parliaments when they were to pay for it too and have their Treasure exhausted with their Blood in frequent Wars He had drawn the Scots upon his back who in the War like their Old Parents the Picts were always ready to invade us at home when ever we attempted any thing abroad He had before him France in the Front to whom he was ready to give Battle And he perhaps presuming his Subjects might be loth to be convened for subsidies so often as such Exigencies must require might prudently get them to oblige him for such an Annual Convention which they must the better bear with when the result of their own Act and none of the stretch of his Prerogative 'T is true the 36. of his Reign is more expressive of the Reasons for which they should be called i.e. for the redressing of Mischiefs and Grievances but 't is evident that piece of popularity was more for the tickling their Hearts and then they might be soon brought to turn out their Purses and those he wanted then too tho in peace having begun to beautifie and enlarge his Castle of Windsor his best Delight as well as the place of his Birth And his soothed Subjects seconded it with such singular kindness that about that time such a three years subsidy was granted as they resolved should be no president for the time to come and these Suggestions I submit to the light of any others Reason for the Politicks of that Old State can't be expected to be clear in History since even in Matters of Fact in many things 't is dark And such sort of Suggestions seem to sound and salve the Case much better than that forced Solution upon the very Letter of the Law their if need be or if there be Occasion For I am satisfied the Design of those Statutes was to determine their King tho I doubt of their Force and that those Conditional Expressions must be Relative to their Antecedent Words more or oftner and so must be meant only of their being called inclusively more frequently within the Term. To leave now this learned Lunatick this distemper'd Body of Law and consider him under another Denomination that of a Divine and zealously discussing with a Rage unbecoming the calmness he professes as well as the Character of such a Profession the Damnable Doctrine as he would plainly prove it of the King 's Divine Right for he makes it the most Mischievous Opinion the most Schismatical the Destroyer of every Man 's Right the Betrayer of the Government Monstrous Extravagant Papal Opinion Treacherous Impious Sacrilegious Destructive of Peace Pregnant with Wars produced our own Civil one and what is worse Plague and Famine and a Crucifying of Christ afresh A Black charge indeed for a poor Criminal that at first sight seems so Innocent He should have made it a Trojan Horse too for once for he has made the Belly of it big enough to hold an Army of Men or a Legion of Devils If this be the Judges manner of Trying his King 's Right he would have made a worse Chief Justice for deciding the Subjects I have heard of some such Sycophants that have prov'd Wolves in Sheeps cloathing but here the Cautionary Text is turned insideout too and somewhat of the Lamb drest all in the grisly Garment of the Wolf And 't is like they had their Dogs ready to worry it too before they would discover the cheat I am sure if they won't allow this Doctrine to be Religious 't is so far from being Romish that those raging Zealots are at present in a Conspiracy with the rankest Papist for the extirpation of that opinion as well as the Church and that is pretty well prov'd from their unanimous pens in the beginning of this piece and sure they must think those Bigots are as much concerned for the Popes Supremacy as Mr. Hunt for the Peoples for His Holiness has the help of Saint Peter to prove his Divine Right from his
to be unalterable and which none now but Rebels or Republicans will endeavour to Interrupt so I shall ever as much Revere this NAME and FAMILY of STEWART in which the truly Lineal Descent of our Crown was as intirely united and preserv'd A Name that will be Sacred to Posterity as well for the short Succession it is too sadly like to leave us in England as well as the long Series of Successors that are to be number'd in the Catalogue of the Scots and 't is with regret that we are like to reckon of it but two Royal Pairs of JAMES and CHARLES A Name that none but a Monster of Mankind would have made odious and accurs'd which maugre their own Rebellions has made our Islands Blest And lastly a Name which even Rebels might Revere for so long and lasting a Succession in Scotland and that in both Kingdoms now there is but one left And for that Impostor which some poor Souls as silly as seditious would feign have put upon us and set up Consider but the sad success two such Presidents and just as pretty Projects met with in the Reign of Henry the Seventh Consider how unsuccesful this present Attempt prov'd which terminated in the ruin of all its Undertakers Consider but the Folly as well as the Wickedness of such an undertaking which could it have met with success must have been but by the Blood of the present Age and an entailment of it to Posterity too dear a purchase only to make us the Scorn and Derision of the Word Traytors to our King and Rebels to our God What I 've done has been in satisfaction to my self without design of Applause my Duty to my Sovereign without insisting on desert my Resentment against Rebels without fearing of their force for then I desire to fall when so good a Government cannot stand my Misfortune from them would have been the best of Fate and my very Foes the most Friendly and Obliging I have scarce Breath'd under a Vsurpt Government yet and should hardly have been brought to begin now to be subject to an Vsurpation If in these Essays I have done the least Service to my Sovereign Lord or his Liege Subjects I shall look upon it as having answer'd the Ends of my little Studies both towards God as well as Man for there is seldom a good Subject that makes a bad Christian and I have always observ'd the greatest Atheists among the Rebellious If whatever sincerity I pretend they 'll upbraid me still for that itch of Writing I 'll as sincerely protest to them they have cur'd me of the scab and thank them too for being my Physicians without a Fee They themselves have superseded all future Animadversions of my Pen by being able to make no farther progress in their VILLANY I truly profess never more to refute their bad PRINCIPLES till they can find out worse and as heartily promise never again to be their Plague till they can Invent a more Hellish PLOT FINIS Vid. Hunts Postscript Vid. Mischief of Imposition Vid. Proceedings at the Old-Bayly Vid. Postscript to the History of the Association Vid. Settles Recantation Postscript Vid. Proceedings at the Old-Bayly p. 14 15. 4 Vid. vernon in the Life of Dr. Heylin beyond Hypocrates Vid. also History of English and Scotch Presbytery by a French Divine Alciatus a forreign Civilian too write against the Deposition of Edward the 2d and Richard the 2d Vid. Tryal Regicid p. 30. The Worthy Dr. Bradys And the Learned Author of the Great Point of Succession Strabo Tacitus Caes. Com. So also Caesar Bell. Gall. Lib. 6. How in his Historical reface to Stow's Annals contends mightily for such a story citing all our antient Authors for its Authority and Cambden amongst the Modern Vid. Heylin's Geograph Britain Vid. Daniel Stow mentions not one word of this Athelstan's Illegitimacy and his own Author whom he cites for the falsehood relates it but as a Fable by which Daniel too was deceived Even in the Heptarchy it self if you consult How you 'll find the next of Blood still succeeded Parsons Inglefield Allen. Vid. The great point of 〈◊〉 and Dr. B. cites the same out of Sim. Dunielm and 〈◊〉 Flor 〈◊〉 Westm. Houden 〈◊〉 and Stow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was 〈◊〉 on But as a 〈◊〉 But because he came to the Kingdom by ill means arose 〈◊〉 Wars p. 86. Vid. 〈◊〉 p. 〈◊〉 Vid. Baker Vid. Stow says they did him wrong and always it occasion'd civil War Vid. Postscript p. 53. 55. Westminster and Malembsbury Stow. p. 124. Daniel says he obtained it according to his Fathers will pag. 44. Mat. Paris An. 1088. last Edition London Veruntamen postea Nobiles fere omnes c. Florence of Worst Magnates Angliae ignorabant quid actum esset de Roberto duce Normannorum An. 1100. Ibid. p. 46. Fidele Consilium pariter Auxilium promiserunt Mat. Paris 1106. sentiens Conscientiam Cauteriatam Judicium Dei formidare c. Ultimus fuit ex illis quos Rex Henricus occidit An. 1136. Vid H. de Knyght C 8. 2374. Vid Paris 1107. Pag. 4. Stow says he was repulsed by them of Dover shut out by them of Canterbury and unjustly took upon him the Crown of England Malembs Baker Mat. Paris in ultionem Imperatricis cui idem Rex Fidelitatem juraverat An. 1138. Exarserat namque rabies tanta contra eum ut pene ab omnibus quateretur ibid. Paris Mat. Paris Justitia de Caelo prospiciente Henrici jus Haereditarium recognovit Paris his own Words 1153. Vid. 〈◊〉 p. 48. Stow p. 146 Ad Mandatum Regis Patre jubente Paris 1170. Stow says the King expreslycaused him to be Crowned by the Bishop of York without mentioning any other p. 132. And Baker says the same p. 55. Nec Regna socium ferre possunt nec tedae sciunt Incongruum Regem quemlibet esse Dominationem 〈◊〉 in Regno non habere Mat. pvit H. 2. R. de Daeto he quotes tho it should be de Diceto who oficiated at his Coronation Haereditario jure promovendus are his words 〈◊〉 fore Watson and Clarks Casse 1 Jacobi Vid. Daniel exigit castella Thesauros patrissuiquos habebat Says Paris and has not one word of his Election but only Coronation Constituit Arthurum Haeredem suam legitimum si sine haerede moreretur Paris in vit R. Vid. Dan. p. 108. Baker Stow say Arthur actually did homage to France as King of England Vid. Paris Edit 〈◊〉 vita John Vid. Baker Trussel vita Rich. II. Bishop Carlisle's Speech M. Paris vit Joha ad finem primogenitum suum regni constituens 〈◊〉 Regnumque Angliae illi jurare fecit Literas cum sigillo suo munitas ad vice-comites castellanos direxit ut smguli essent intendentes idem M. P. princip vit Men. 3. 〈◊〉 Defuncto Johanne convenerunt ut Henricum exaltarent Stow says only he was 〈◊〉 by Common consent p. 175. Vid Matt. Paris who-told