the Politician and for the Injury he did all along to the Right-Blood Providence seemed to bring upon his head his own and sent that sort of an Usurper too to the Grave with the fate of Tyrants not with a common dry Death but in his own Gore and he that had held the Scepter but with a pretended Right by this disastrous Death gave an opportnnity to a perfect Intruder that had none at all Henry the first who being in new Forrest when his Brother was killed did not stay long to consider the disaster or to get the Carcass Coacht home instead of Carted but rides to Winchester seizes the Treasure and that soon helpt him to put on the Crown The Purple Robes soon followed those Golden Regalia and the Power absolutely Usurpt will irresistibly force a Coronation Florence of Worst but tho Crown'd as he was a good Author say who liv'd and wrote then as great men then sent for Robert promised him his Right and as resolutely stood by him too and well they might when he had been debarred his Birth-right once before and besides the Right of Blood had refused his Assignation his early Pension and had compounded for his own Kingdom which he had so much Title to without the Composition But Mat. Paris tells us in the first Lines of this Kings Life that the Nobility Magnates Angliae ignorabant quid actum esset de Roberto duce Normannorum An. 1100. were utterly Ignorant what was become of this Robert Duke of Normandy but that when he sent privately to them in England Letters alledging his being first Born and that for that very Reason he declared the Right of the Kingdom belong'd to him assoon as they heard those Allegations of his unanswerable Right promised him their best advice and to lend him their Assistance which they did too and Robert came over forc't his Brother to a Composition for 3000 Marks yearly and at least made the Vsurper but a Tributary King and all the Argument out of this Reign that our Elector here fetches for his making Ibid. p. 46. Fidele Consilium pariter Auxilium promiserunt our English Monarch a King of Poland is this Usurpers courting the great Council to confirm it to his Son but so would a Cromwell the Parliament for the Succession of his Son Richard and sure such Creatures have need to anticipate all sorts of security for their Sons Succession that have gotten all their Right by Anticipation of anothers or absolute wrong but the parallel holds still between that antient Usurper and the more Modern I mentioned they both felt their Consciences prickt in their unjust obtaining of a Mat. Paris 1106. sentiens Conscientiam Cauteriatam Judicium Dei formidare c. Kingdom they both feared the Judgments of the Almighty both as unhappy in their designed Heirs one born to be Drowned the other to be a Fool and as their Fame stunk above Ground so did both their Bodies before they went under and Paris tells us the first committed Murder after he was Dead and poysoned his Doctor before they could get him down into the Dust tho he smartly observes this was the last Ultimus fuit ex illis quos Rex Henricus occidit An. 1136. among the many this good King Henry had destroyed The last remark I shall make on this Mans Reign is but what this malicious Historian has made very Remarkable and that is from an Author that he cites for saying that this Robert had discovered too much of the Cruelty of Disposition of his averseness to the English Nation and his proneness to revenge and this Character must be most Emphatically markt out that they might not miss of his meaning another Duke a Prince to whose Valour and Conduct the Wretch ows his Freedom from a Forreign Yoke and the Nation her safety and security and so far does his malice transport the Sot that he falsifies for it the very Latin he translates Perversus contrarius et Innaturalis He makes cruelty of Disposition and for Proneness to Vid. H. de Knyght C. 8. 2374. revenge not one Syllable in the whole Citation and then besides the words of the Author he cites are the same verbatim which this Henry the first used against his Brother when he makes a Speech to his Nobles to make him odious from whom this Author I believe borrowed it and 't is as meer revgene Vid Paris 1107. ful malice to the Duke of York as that against Robert the Duke It is here evident that this Gentlemans Principles and Perswasions are clearly Democratical and writ with a perfect design to please the People as plain as if the rabble beast the Monster Mobile were seen fawning 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 Pag. 4. 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 Stow says he was repulsed by them of Dover shut out by them of Canterbury and unjustly took upon him the Crown of England 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 Malembs Baker 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 Mat. Paris in ultionem Imperatricis cui idem Rex Fidelitatem juraverat An. 1138. those avengers is as horribly describ'd in Mat. Paris But agen I cannot see why he was
the Design of the most barbarous Butchery of the best of Kings our late Sovereign Charles the Second with the Assassination of his Royal Brother our present Sovereign For this they had engag'd in the Consults Men of all sorts of Conditions Lords Knights Gentlemen Lawyers Malsters Oylmen Clergy and Lay the first Contrivance was for Assassinating the Royal Brothers as they past by the Rye the House of one Rumbald coming from New-Market but Heaven turn'd a Judgment even into an act of Mercy for their Deliverance and the Fire hapning there made them prevent the Rebels in their return Then the Play-House was propos'd to be the Shambles for this Butchery and several other places but the Conspirators disagreeing in their Approbation hinder'd its execution so soon upon the Discovery of one Keeling an Accomplice touch'd with remorse or apprehension of danger All the Conspirators fly from whom Shaftsbury that Arch-Rebel was before Vid. Lord Russel's Tryal Sidneys c. fled some were afterward found out came in for Evidence upon which several were afterward Convicted and Executed At the Tryal of my Lord Russel the very Morning he was Arraigned the Earl of Essex Committed for the same Conspiracy whether out of sense of Ingratitude to his Royal Sovereign by whom he had been preferr'd to the highest station of a Subject even that of being his Vice-Roy or whether out of fear of his fate and fearful of an Ax dispatcht himself with a Razor For Defaming of the Government the next Plot is to make this a Murther of State and one Braddon out of Seditious industry deals with one Edwards a School-Boy to Testify he saw a Hand throw a Razor out of the Window with this matter well manag'd King and Council Sir Henry Capel and then the whole Kingdom must be canvast for and he having an Indefatigable Desire to fasten a Scandal on the Government as well as an Impudence not to be baffl'd or defeated to solicite the business farther one gets Speke a known Favourer of any thing that is Factious a warm spark that would be soon hot in any such pursuit to lend him a Letter of Recommendation to a Country Knight but with both their bold fronts they could put no such bad face upon the business for it was Discover'd to be the basest Design the most malicious Miscreants could undertake and they both Try'd upon an Feb. 7 1683. Information of High Misdemenor and Subornation that is the Pimps to Perjury for which one was Fin'd one thousand pounds and the other two To second this Unsuccesful Plot about Christmas last they disperse the Decemb. 1684. most Divilish and Malitious Libel that Falshood and Folly could Invent leave it at the doors of the Loyalists and its Design the same with those Suborners to fasten a Murder upon the late King our present one and some Ministers of State with such silly Insinuations as of themselves do defend them from that Villany they would affix first from their being then walking in the Tower and can the most Factious Fool Imagine Can but bare Humane Sense be so silly as to think the Contrivers of such a suppos'd Barbarity would be present at its Execution and look upon it as the likeliest way to keep it private was to appear in it publickly Preposterous Sots Do not contradict the best Evidence that of Common sense tho' you would the Coroners Another is from the Discovery of one Haly that was found Murther'd to be the Warder in whose House the late Lord of Essex lay upon which the Libeller in a long tedious impertinent Discourse Insinuates the probability of that Fellow 's being dispatch'd for fear of telling Tales but how does Heaven infatuate those Fools that it would destroy The falsify'd per-perjur'd Wretch is forc'd to beg the World Pardon in his own Postscript and to tell us the truth in spight of his design to lye that this Unfortunate Fellow that was found Dead was none of this Warder that he meant and that only the similitude of the Name made the mistake then from the disagreeableness of Bomeny's Testimony with the other Informant because not verbatim he says the same therefore they must be both false Seditious Sot Why so senseless too Will not Common reason for that very thing confirm them both to be the more truth for when there is a Conspiracy to make Affidavit of a lye there they can soon confer and commonly do too agree in words as well as substance and sense might well suggest they had learn'd their Lessons pretty perfect upon such a verbal Agreement But this Masterpiece of most Malicious Plot was with more sublimated Malice contracted into a Compendium only that it might be propagated the sooner spread the farther when in short of which Condensed or Abstracted Treason the Spirit and Essence of Sedition one Danvers was Discovered to be the Author a Villain whom the Devil in Design could not render more vile an Anabaptist for Profession an Officer of Olivers for Rebellion and now a Fugitive for fear of Apprehension for whom a Warrant was issued out Posted publisht in the Gazette and an Hundred pounds proffer'd for any to take him As these late Plots and Conspiracies were contriving all along in England so did the Scots carry on the same Treason Argyle an Hereditary Rebel that seem'd to have his Soul and Treason from Extraduce being attainted by the Law of their Land for a Factious Explanation of the Test and tho' Justly Sentenc'd to Suffer yet the Government that had given him his Estate had no design upon his Life makes his Escape out of Prison in which in effect he enjoy'd his Liberty before gets over into Holland confers with our English Fugitives then sends Letters from thence to the Scots to incite them to Rebel some of which were Intercepted upon Major Holms and known to be his own Hand Spence and Castares his own Emissaries Confessing the Correspondence they had with their Rebel Friends in England and the Cochrans Melvil Baily are found to have been here in England and Agitating the Conspiracy for which upon full Evidence the said Robert Baily was * Decemb. 24 1684. Vid. Discoveries in Scotland Printed by his late Majesties Command as also the Account come out in this King's Reign by Order of the late Printed by Authority Convicted had his Arms Expung'd himself Hang'd and his Body Quarterd But notwithstanding all this Evidence as clear as the Sun and all their deeds of Hellish darkness brought into as much light as the Lamp of Heaven it self affords Their infatuated Fools were still so much blinded and besotted as to represent it all for a Plot of the State only for involving some of them in a Conspiracy and the King must be presum'd to design upon himself only to trepan them into Treasonable Designs For this several Letters are dispers'd into the Country some of which being Intercepted were found to be one Sir Samuel Bernadiston's a
Confessor Edmunds Son only being past by because his very being was unknown and so they can only be blamed for not seeking for the right Heir among the supposed Dead Yet when this Edward had found him out he designed both him Vid. Baker Vid. Stow says they did him wrong and always it occasion'd civil War and his Son Atheling for successive Monarchs whose very name imported Hereditary and next of kin as much as our Prince of Wales while the second Harold but usurpt upon him against the sense of the Clergy who even then lookt upon it as a Violation of the Right of the Heir and also of their Holy Rites and tho Harald suggested that Edward had appointed him to be Crown'd Historians say that it was only to make him during the Minority of this Edgar a Regent and not an absolute King and Mat. Paris speaking of Edgar Atheling in the very first Leafe of his History in these very words says that to him belonged the Right to the Kingdom of England and if Birth could then give a Right I don't see how then or now any Power can defraud a Prince justly of his Birth-right And now we 'l begin our Remarks on the Norman Line upon which the very first words of Baker are these There were six Dukes of Normandy in France in a direct Line succeeding from Father to Son and yet this Inquisitive Monarch-maker lays his mighty stress his weighty Consideration on the single Suggestion of Duke William's being a reputative Bastard be it so have we not here the Majority of six to one that succeeded Lineally Legitimately and is not these then like all the rest of their Objections against the Government rather industrious Cavil then real Argument or allowing it still is it not most impertinently applyed to his present purpose to tell us that William the Conqueror was himself Illegitimate and yet succeeded his Father in the Dutchy of Normandy And therefore must we have another Natural and Illegitimate Duke to wear the Crown of England or was the Suggestion only made because they had such a Duke in Readiness that had already run the Popular Gantlet of Ambition and been sooth'd into the Prospect of a Scepter with the false Tongues of Flatterers and Sycophants or else was the Nomination of the Normans to supersede the Fundamental Laws of our Nation And our England a Dependent a Tributary to that Crown before the Conquest these Paradoxes must be reconciled by Miracle before such a ridiculous Instance can pass for Reason or Common Sense or vindicate the false suggester from Folly and Impertinence But even here too his very Assertion fails him and this Pretender to Truth both abuses his Reader with false Application and telling a Lye For this Duke William tho' a Bastard Born was not illegitimated so as to be barred the Crown and incapacitated for Inheritance for it appears as Baker says by many Examples that Bastardy was then no Bar to Succession and by the Canon and the Law of the Church that then obtain'd the Children born before Wedlock were de facto truly legitimated if he afterward espoused his Concubine and this his Factious Assistant Hunt himself allows when the Vid. Postscript p. 53. 55. Wretch endeavoured to Bastardize the Progenitors of his Sovereign and this many Writers say was the very Case of our Duke William whose Father took his Mother Arlotte to Wife afterward The Donation to William Rufus was again clearly Testimentary which might be allowed sure to a Conqueror whose will only gave what his Sword had gotten but however as I observed above in the Westminster and Malembsbury Stow. p. 124. Legatory Disposition of Canutus the Dane where he gave his conquered Kingdom to his Youngest and Norway his Paternal Right to Swayn his Eldest to whom 't was most due so here this Third Conqueror Daniel says he obtained it according to his Fathers will pag. 44. of Old Britain observ'd the same sort of Bequest and left Normandy his Fathers Inheritance and his own to Robert to whom it appertain'd in Reason and Right both these Instances no small Demonstration shewing how the Precedency of Blood even in those days obtained and with those too whom our Factious Innovator would have not to value it for their giving to any Son besides their Eldest what was theirs by Arms is no more than what we our selves do now by Laws and tho the Fewds now obtain and Entailments yet still what 's our own by purchase is unconfined and not ty'd to descend by Primogeniture but at an arbitrary Disposition of the Lord and Purchaser and which is commonly disposed of too by the Father to some of the Younger Sons and a Conqueror that purchases all by Blood and Wounds must needs be allowed as much Liberty as the Miser that obtains it by his Wealth or a Land Pedler that buyes his purchase for a Penny But tho this might be a warrantable Donation yet you may observe as if the donor had not been in it altogether Just so it never at all prospered with the Donee the very Gift it self like Pandora's Box was most fatal to those that received it a Vice like Virtue is oft a Punishment to it self as that other a reward the not suffering the Crown to descend by entail entailed what was worse a War and both Brothers assault the Testamentary Usurper at once as looking upon it notwithstanding the specious pretext of a Will but a plain wrong and where this prejudiced Historian makes this Rufus to rely on the consent of the Nobles for the Confirmation of his Fathers Will 't is evident he only called them together that by Largesses and Corruptions fair Words and Promises he might win them from assisting his Brother Robert whose Right he feared notwithstanding the advantage he had by his Fathers Will might make the Game that he had to play more than even or give Robert the better by their deserting this Rufus And that notwithstanding all his Artifices they did and Odo Bishop of Bayeux leads the dance and notwithstanding says Paris that he was their Mat. Paris An. 1088. last Edition London crown'd King their sworn King and they must be perjur'd for it they raised a War against their King William and set up Robert the First-Born for their King all declaring the Right belonged to him and this the Opinion of several of the Nobility Lords Spiritual and Temporal Persons alway I fancy qualified to recognise a Right if Religious or Lay-Judges could decide it and so well assured were they of the goodness of the Cause that they Veruntamen postea Nobiles fere omnes c. conspired for it rebelled and were banisht for it success not always attending a good Title no more than it can Justify a bad And at the last the most unfortunate end of this Testamentary Prince may serve somewhat at least to discourage the Religious from invading of a Right tho it may not