and Son of Impiety and Injustice Edmund the Great Earl of Kent with some other persons began to Conspire against them Which Q. Isabel who deserves the name of Jesabel perceiving privately encouraged the Keepers of her Husband to murder him but his Son coming to Maturity of Understanding avenged his blood on Mortimer his Mother's Minion and his Accomplices whom the Lords of Parliament with his assent adjudged and condemned to be executed as Traitors for murdering the King after he was deposed The Queen her self also had like to have been questioned and in the Roll 4 Edw. III. which gives an account of this matter he is stiled by all the Lords and the young King himself their King and Leige Lord. And in the 21 R. II. N. 64 65. the Revocation of the Act for the two Spencers Restitution in the Parliament of 1 Edward III. was repealed because made at such a time by King Edw. III. as his Father being very King was Living and Imprisoned These two Acts of Parliament Doctor do not at all agree with your Reasonings for the Providential King but they agree most exactly with the Reasonings of Some Men which you say contradicts the general sense of Mankind For as Mr. Pryn well observes they shew that Edw. II. was King de jure or King in the Eye of the Law as much after his Deposition as before it and by consequence that his Deposition by the Estates who had no Authority to Depose him was a void Act and if he was very King when he was in Prison and his Regnant Son's King and Leige Lord at the time of his murder as the aforesaid Acts declare him then Doctor I fear it will follow that a pure Providential K. in Possession is no King at all 11. But from this Usurpation let us pass to that of Henry IV. who was set up by Providence and the Estates of the Realm who took upon them to depose Richard II. and place Henry in his Throne But Henry being conscious to himself that he wanted Legal Right though he had all the Right that Providence could give him yet not daring to trust to such an airy Tite nor his false pretences of being the right Heir caused Richard to be murdered but between his Deposition and Murder Thomas Merks Bishop of Carlisle a Brave and Godly Prelate preferring his Duty before his Safety took the courage to make a Speech in Parliament against the Validity of Richard's Deposition and the Justice of Henry's Election and if you please Doctor to read this Speech as it is at large in our Historians you will find in spight of all your prejudice that he was a very Wise and Considering Man and entirely of these Mens Opinion and produced those Reasons for it which you say Contradict the general sense of Mankind in all Revolutions The first part of his Speech is to prove that a King may not be deposed by his Subjects for any imputation of negligence and Tyranny and to make this out clearly he brings an ugly Arbitrary distinction betwixt Kings in a Popular or Consular State which really have not Regal Rights but are subject to a Superior Power and Kings in whom the Sovereign Majesty is as it formerly was in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea c. and now is in the Kingdoms of England Spain France and Scotland c. in which the Sovereignty or Supream Authority is in the King After this distinction which Some among us now use he asserts that in such Kingdoms where the Sovereignty is by Law in the King although the Prince for his Vices be unprofitable to his Subjects yea hurtfull yea intollerable yet they cannot lawfully harm his Person or hazard his Power by Judgment or by Force because neither one nor all the Magistrates have any Authority over him from whom all Authority is deriv'd and whose only presence doth silence and suspend all inferior Jurisdictions and Power and as for force saith he what Subject can attempt assist or counsel or conceal Violence against his Prince and not incurr the high and heinous Crime of Treason Then he proceeds to prove this as you do in your Case of Non-resistance from Examples of Saul and Ahab in the Old Testament and many Texts of Scripture Then he proceeds to answer the great Objection thus Doth the King enjoyn Actions contrary to the Law of God We must neither wholly Obey nor violently Resist but with a constant courage submit our selves to all manner of Punishment and shew our subjection by enduring and not performing Oh how shall the World be pestered with Tyrants if Subjects may Rebel upon every pretence of Tyranny How many good Princes may be suppressed by those by whom they ought to be supported If they Levy a Subsidy or other Taxation it shall be claimed Oppression if they put any to Death for Traiterous attempts against their Persons it shall be exclaimed Cruelty if they do any thing against the lust and liking of the People it shall be proclaimed Tyranny Having shew'd as his words are that King Richard was deposed without Authority Then he proceeds to shew that Henry had no Title First Not as Heir to Richard which he pretended for then he ought to stay till King Richard was dead but then if K. Richard was dead it was well known there were Descendents from Lionel Duke of Clarence whose Offspring had been declared in the High Court of Parliament next Successor to the Crown in case K. Richard should die without Issue Secondly Not by Conquest because a Subject can have no right of Conquest against a Sovereign where the War is Rebellion and the Victory High Treason Nor thirdly by K. Richard's Resignation because he made it in Prison where it was exacted of him by force and therefore it had no force or validity to bind him Nor last of all by Election for saith he we have no Custom that the People at pleasure should Elect their King but they are always bound unto him who by Right of Blood is Rightfull Successor much less can they make good or confirm that Title which is before Usurped by violence Then he saith that the deposing of Edw. II. which the Barons produced for an Example to depose Richard was no more to be urged than the Poisoning of K. John or the Murdering any other lawful Prince and that we must live according to Laws and not according to Example and that the Kingdom however then was not taken from the lawfull Successor Then after saying many other things he concludes thus I have declared my mind concerning this Question in more words than your Wisdom yet fewer than the weight of the Cause requires and boldly conclude that we have neither Power nor Policy either to depose King Richard or to Elect Duke Henry into his Place and that K. Richard still remaineth our Sovereign Prince and that it is not lawfull for us to give Judgment upon him and that the Duke whom you call King
hath more offended against the King and the Realm than the King hath done against him or us Thus Sir spoke that Heroick Prelate in the Court of Parliament and his practice was answerable to what he spoke For he chose not the safer but the juster side as all good Men ought to do He knew while he spoke that Bonds and Persecutions would attend him nevertheless he spoke freely and after speaking was committed to Prison and after that was crushed with many other brave Men by the Usurper against whom they rose up Afterwards about the sixth year of his Reign Rich. Scroop A. B. of York with the L. Maubray Marshal of England H. Piercy E. of Northumberland L. Bardolf and * As I suppose the Earls of Salisbury Huntington Glocester the Lords Clarenden Roper with divers other Knights and Esquires and after that the Lord Thomas Piercy Earl of Worcester and Lord Henry Piercy Son and Heir to the Earl of Northumberland many others published an Excommunication and †In the first Volume of Fox's Acts and Monuments in the Reign of H. IV. Remonstrance consisting of several Articles against Henry which they fixed upon the doors of Churches and Monasteries to be read of all It begins thus IN THE NAME OF GOD Amen Before the Lord Jesus Christ Judge of the quick and the dead We not long since became bound by Oath upon the Sacred Evangelical Book unto our Sovereign Lord Richard late King of England that we as long as we lived should bear true Allegiance and Fidelity towards him and his Heirs succeeding him in the Kingdom by just Title Right and Line according to the Statutes and custom of this Realm have here taken unto us certain Articles subscribed in form following to be proponed heard and tried before the just Judge Christ Jesus and the whole World but if which God forbid by Force Fear or Violence of wicked Persons we shall be cast in Prison or by violent death be prevented so as in this World we shall not be able to prove the said Articles as we wish then we do appeal to the High Coelestial Judge that he may judge and discern the same in the day of his Supream Judgment First We depose say and except and intend to prove against Lord Henry Darby commonly called King of England himself pretending the same but without all Right and Title thereunto and against his Adherents Fautors Complices that they have ever been are and will be Traitors Invaders and destroyers of God's Church and of our Sovereign Lord Richard late King of England his Heirs his Kingdom and Commonwealth as shall hereafter manifestly appear In the second Article they declare him forsworn perjured and excommunicate for that he conspired against his Sovereign Lord King Richard In the fourth they recite by what wrong illegal and false means he exalted himself into the Throne of the Kingdom and then describing the miserable State of the Nation which followed after his Usurpation they again pronounce him Perjured and Excommunicate In the fifth Article they set forth in what a barbarous and inhumane manner Henry and his Accomplices imprisoned and murdered K. Richard and then cry out Wherefore O England arise stand up and avenge the Cause the Death and Injury of thy King and Prince if thou do not take this for certain that the Righteous God will destroy thee by strange Invasions and Forreign Power and avenge himself on thee for this so horrible an Act. In the seventh they depose against him for putting to death not only Lords Spiritual and other Religious Men but also divers of the Lords Temporal there Named for which they pronounce him Excommunicate In the ninth they say and depose that the Realm of England never flourished nor prospered after he Tyrannically took upon him the Government of it And in the last they depose and protest for themselves and K. Richard and his Heirs the Clergy Commonwealth of the whole Realm that they intended neither in Word nor Deed to offend any State of Men in the Realm but to prevent the approaching Destruction of it and beseeching all Men to favour them and their Designs whereof the first was to exalt to the Kingdom the true and lawfull Heir and him to Crown in Kingly Throne with the Diadem of England Upon publishing these Articles much people resorted to the Archbishop but he being circumvented by the Earl of Westmoreland who pretended to join with him dismissed his Forces at his persuasion upon which he was immediately made Prisoner and beheaded at York with the Earl Marshal and divers York shire Gentlemen and Citizens of York who had joined with him The Earl of Northumberland and Lord Bardolph escaped and held out two years longer before they were crushed by the Usurper but at last they were both slain Fighting in the Field against him You see Doctor in this Remonstrance how the Archbishop and Lords that joined with him contrary to the general sense of Mankind unking'd this Providential King for want of a Legal Title and Remonstrated against him as a Perjured Traytor and Vsurper and when he lay upon his Death-bed he himself also began to be of their Opinion contrary to the general sense of Mankind when his guilty Conscience forced him to tell his Son That he had no good Title to the Crown but he not inferior to his Father in Ambition snatched it from his Pillow and plainly told him That as he had got it by the Sword so by the Sword he would keep it And in truth Doctor your Title by Providence against Law is Sword Title and your Providential Kings Sword-Kings for in all Kingdoms the Sword is King where their lawfull Prince is not the Sword or Supream Force Rules all and that Supream Crushing Force which by God's permission gets and keeps possession makes your Providential Kings 12. I have hitherto shewed you what Opinion many Wise and Considering Men had of Henry IV. and his Reign for want of Legal Right and Title And I now proceed to shew the sense that a whole Parliament had of him and of his Son and Grand-Son's Succession the latter sitting in the Throne This appears from Roll. Parl. 39 Henry VI. as it is in Cotton's Abridgement or rather from the Record at large as it is to be seen as it was lately printed in an Answer by a skillful and faithful hand to The unreasonableness of the new Separation upon account of the Oaths This Roll gives an account how Richard Duke of York Father of Edward IV. brought to the Parliament Chamber in writing not a Petition but a Claim to the Crown of which Henry had been long fully and quietly possessed and his Title which was only Succession by Birth-right being fully made appear it was the Opinion of all the Lords that it could not be defeated That single Title by Proximity of Blood was thought sufficient to supersede all the patch'd Titles of Henry and all that could be said in
favour of him from the Oath of Allegiance which the People had made to him from divers Acts of Parliament whose Authority was laid against his Title from the Entail of the Crown made by the Parliament upon his Father and his Heir and lastly from his Grandfather's Claim to the Crown as right Inheretor from Henry III. which Richard proved to be false And here Doctor I cannot but observe unto you that among all the Pleas which Henry and his Counsellors made use of to defeat Richard's Title they never thought of your Divine Title from Providence being so infatuated as not to attend to the General Sense of Mankind Wherefore Doctor either your Principles of Government are not the general Sense of Mankind or this Providential King with his Privy-Council and Great Council in Parliament were all bewitch'd that they could not think of them to stop the Duke of York's Mouth He advised with the greatest Divines and with the greatest Men both among the Common and Civil Lawyers and yet not one of them suggested the Title of Providence or full Providential Possession but had they hit upon it and urged it Richard would have answered them as he did to their Plea taken from their Oaths viz. that God's Commandments which prefer Right and Truth and Justice and not the Events of Providence are the Rule for them to walk by and that all Acts of the Estates against Law Truth and Justice are void and of no effect The same is as true of all Possession against Law Truth and Justice let it come by never such amazing Providences and therefore Doctor either your Notion of Providential Right is not agreeable to the general sense of Mankind or else Henry and his whole Council were out of their Wits and common Senses not to perceive it but in truth Doctor it became the general Sense of Mankind only since the Victory of the Boyn made it become yours From this Judgment of the Parliament 39 Hen. VI. I send you to the Judgment of another 1 Edward IV. which after reciting the Lineal Title of Edward Son of Richard Duke of York from Lionel Duke of Clarence and declaring how Henry Darby did rear War against Richard II. contrary to his Faith and Allegiance 2dly That he took upon him Usurpously the Crown and Name of King King Richard being in Prison and living 3dly That against God's Law Man's Legiance and Oath of Fidelity and in a most unnatural Tyranny he put him to Death They then declare That Edward rightfully amoved Henry VI. from his Occupation Intrusion and Vsurpation of the Realm and that he and no other ought to be their Lord and Sovereign by God's Law Man's Law and the Law of Nature and that Henry Darby called K. Hen. IV. his Son called K. Hen. V. and his Son called K. Henry VI. had against all Law Conscience and Custom of the Realm usurped the Crown and exercised the Government by unrighteous Intrusion and Vsurpation and if they did so then they had no Providential Divine Right I must also observe unto you that it was in this King's Reign that the distinction between the K. de facto to signifie the Usurper and the K. de jure to signifie the true legal K. was first used in Parliament and I appeal to your own Conscience if it be not yet feared whether that be an Arbitrary distinction and to be * XXIX p. 17 20. rejected as having no solid Foundation in Reason and Nature I will maintain that it hath as much Foundation in Reason and Nature as that famous distinction in the Civil Law betwixt Malae fidei and Bonae fidei Possessor But if your Reasons about Providential Right be true then this distinction also must be Arbitrary as to Possession of Kingdoms because no Man in full Possession can be Malae fidei Possessor of a Crown To these Authorities let me add those of the generality of the Nobility Gentry and Clergy of the late Usurpations They used the same distinction of Powers which you call Arbitrary the same reasoning which you call uncertain and were of the same Opinion which you say contradicts the general Sense of Mankind Dr. Sanderson whose Authority will be venerable and much greater than yours * Praelect V. is for that unchangeable Allegiance to the Legal K. out of Possession which you most prophanely call Stupid and Slavish Allegiance and in his Censure of Ashcham as one of your learned Answerers hath observed charges your Opinion with the these immoral Consequences 1. That it evidently tends to the taking away of all Christian Fortitude and Suffering 2. To the encouraging of daring and ambitious Spirits to attempt continual Innovations with this confidence that if they can possess themselves of the Supream-Power they ought to be submitted to 3. To the obstructing unto the Oppressed Party all possible means without a Miracle of recovering his just Right of which he shall have been illegally and unjustly dispossessed And lastly to the bringing in of Atheism and the contempt of God and Religion The Bishop of St. Asaph was very sensible of this last Consequence since he took the Oath for he told the A. B. with great Gravity and Seriousness That he could not but admire the Providence of God that so many took the Oath and some among whom saith he there are great and considerable Men have refused to take it for we saith he to my Lord who have taken the Oath have preserved our Religion from Popery and you who stand out preserve it from Atheism and if they do Doctor as you also once thought then their Opinion cannot contradict the general Sense that Mankind have of Right and Wrong I am sure the old Caviliers had the very same Sense that these Men to their sorrow have now for they both called Charles II. King and thought him to be so tho' he was out of Possession and out of the Land too Nay they took Commissions from him as King of England and sought for him as their King and not to make him so as you Sophistically speak in your * p. 27. first Letter concerning the French Invasion Nay the Convention that call'd him home call'd him in as King not to make him so and dated their first Session in the Twelfth year of his Reign which according to your Principles and Reasonings was but the First Mr. Pryn was one of the Members of it and his Sense and Opinion was point blank against yours as you may find at large in his * p. 463. to 498. Plea for the Lords and his Concordia Discors and I cite him because it was his studied Opinion and the Practice of his latter years was according to it as appears also from a Paragraph or two in his Preface to Cotton's Abridgment which I here declare I produce against no Person nor no Authority but yours That all Parliaments and Ambitious Self-seekers in them who under pretence of a Publick Reformation Liberty the Peoples