such Perverters making it a Parliamentary choice But if any thing could be condemned Stow says the King expresly caused him to be Crowned by the Bishop of York without mentioning any other p. 132. And Baker says the same p. 55. in this unhappy Solicitation for his Sons security to succeed 't was only in making him a King before he came to be a Successor by defrauding himself upon a sollicitous distrust of part of that Divine Right when he was by God entrusted with the whole and making his Son to Anticipate that by his forwardness for which he should have waited the Almighty's leisure The Nature of Monarchy being inconsistent with a Duum-Virate units may be as well divided And the very Etymon of the Word contends for the sole Soveraignty it expresses And the very sad effects of this contradictory Nec Regna socium ferre possunt nectedae sciunt Coronation were the best Evidence of its inconsistency and verifies the Latin Aphorism of the Tragedian that the Crown cannot admit of a shareer or competitor no more than the Bed the making himself but half King was like to have lost him the whole Kingdom Incongruum Regem quem-libet esse Dominationem debitam in Regno non habere Mat. pvit H. 2. and almost made him none at all they soon animated the young Monarch against his Old Father and let him know that 't was absurd for any one to be called a King and to have nothing of Government that is essential to it in the Kingdom Daniel calls it the making the Common-wealth a Monster with two Heads and what then must it be with many but withal tells us 't was only the effect of jealousie that this King feared from his Mothers Example and that some of his false Subjects might also break all Oaths of Fealty to his Son as well as this perjur'd Author has that of his Allegiance to his Sovereign and I believe this alone made this King so carefully Praecipitous as to prevent the Expiration of his Reign with an Anticipation of the Grave and a Resignation of his Rule with a POLITICAL DEATH for this Crown'd Son was soon by LEWIS of France embolden'd to that insolency from having the half that in plain Terms he demanded the whole and what the too bountiful Father had no Reason to grant by fair means the ungrateful Son resolves to obtain by foul sides with the King of France and many of the divided Kingdom with Him and are all in Arms ready for Ruin and Destruction neither did they lie down their Swords till it ended as all Alterations in a Monarchy in BLOOD and the Coparcenary King shortly after his Life but a little before reconciled to his too provident Father I am sure this shows even the Participation of the Royal Power dangerous tho by those that had Right to Succession and if such an Alteration in the Government can prove so fatal much more then an altering the Succession it self and if a Crown can't like a common Conveyance with safety be made over in trust I dare say 't will be less secure to cut off entail The next Reign that we have Reason to reply upon is that of Richard the First and with that his irrational Inferences have dealt as unreasonably for he there by his own Confession has no other Authority for his Election as his own words R. de Daeto he quotes tho it should be de Diceto who oficiated at his Coronation Haereditario jure promovendus are his words before have it but the words of his Historian and yet this very Historian whom he there most impudently traduces and abuses acknowledges his Hereditary Right to the Crown by which he was to be promoted before ever he tells you of the solemn Election of the People which beyond contradiction confirms what the Worthy Dr. B. has as significantly suggested that the common acceptation of Election amongst ancient Authors imply'd nothing less than what our factious insinuators apply it to and that they meant nothing else but Confirmation or Acknowledgment for first would such a Learned Authority as he cites only labour under a learned Contradiction and tell you such an one was promoted for his Hereditary Right and then in the very subsequent words declare it was by solemn Election Certainly such Immortal Authors could never wage with Sense and Reason a Mortal War and he himself is so favourable to their pious Memory as to omit all the seeming Contradiction because not reconcileable to his prejudic'd Interpretation and when Historians tell you of any thing of Election which he would have popular be sure he omits what ever they say of Hereditary Succession before so has he done here so in most of the Citations elsewhere And next also he tells us that his Father had gotten the Succession confirm'd to him in his Life Of which many of our modern Historians are totally silent and afterwards that he was again Elected by the People of which in his sense none truly speak nether is it reconcileable how they shou'd twice solemnly choose him for their King when even in Poland it self once will serve but besides before his Solemn Coronation or as he wou'd have it his popular Election immediately after his Fathers Funeral without doubt upon the consideration Watson and Clarks Case 1 Jacobi of his Hereditary Right he exercised as he might well do and as has been since resolv'd any King of ours may an absolute Power of a King before this Vid. Daniel exigit castella Thesauros patrissuiquos habebat Solemn Ceremony of Coronation for presently he seizes upon his Fathers Treasure in France Imprisons Fetters Manacles the late Kings Treasurer to extort the uttermost penny I think Says Paris and has not one word of his Election but only Coronation such a severe sort of absoluteness as they wou'd not now allow our Crowned King He is there girt by the Arch-Bishop with a Sword takes fealty both of Clergy and Lay makes a Truce with the King of France and all this before ever he came into England to be Crown'd or Elected And shou'd we yield to this perverse Imposture the signification of his word for which he has so long labour'd yet all this while we find his very People more willing to Elect him that had an Hereditary Right than a spurious Invader that had none at at all and did actually Confirm him in his Succession unless the more powerful Usurper terrifi'd them from their Loyal Intentions and truly the mistaken Gentleman might have as well prov'd that he was the third time Elected too when after his Imprisonment that he suffer'd from Henry the Sixth the German Emperor after he came home and had held a Parliament at Nottingham he was again recognis'd for their King and Crown'd at Winchester But what can be better Evidence of the precedency that was allow'd to the nearest of blood in a Lineal Descent then Constituit
â—rthurum Haeredem â—am legiâ—imum si â—ine haerede moreretur Paris in vit R. this Princes Care he took in appointing his Nephew Arthur to Succeed him tho he had a Brother of his own to whom he had shown a liberal largess of his Love when he began to Reign in bestowing on him no less than half a dozen Earldoms a good part of his Kingdom Certainly this Earl John was nearer to him in Blood and Affection and then what cou'd move him to this Testamentary Disposition but the more nearness of the other to the Kingdom and the Crown But in spight of all Adoption and Right JOHN as great an Usurper as any laid hold of the Scepter and held it too only as some of our Tenures in Law by primer occupancy he had his Brothers Army in the field and that was then enough to have made a King of a Cromwel an Hewson a Brewer or a Cobler Vid. Dan. p. 108. Baker Stow say Arthur actually did homage to France as King of England powerful Arms that silence any Law But still the Nobility were for maintaining the Right of Succession in Arthur and as they call'd it the usual Custom of Inheritance most of his Provinces in France stood firm to him and so did the King of it and had Fortune favor'd him upon whom for the most part it frowns the Justest pretender he had not been made a Prisoner to his Uncle to whom he was a King and been murder'd by him after the Siege of Mirabel But the Barons rebellious Insurrection soon aveng'd the Barbarous Butchery and but bloody consequences here too attended the Debar'd Right He is forsaken of all his People and the French Kings Son a perfect Forreigner invited in for a King and his end at the last as unnatural as the death he gave to his Nephew And here upon the Coronation of this intruding King John the factious Historian rehearses the Clause of Hubert the Bishop of Canterbury's Speech that declar'd the right to the Crown to consist only in the Election of the People but disingenuously omits the very reason of the self same Prelate who when he was pincht with the Interrogatory why he would preach up such pernicious Principles own'd it more a Design of Policy than the Sense of his Soul But to give him a perfect Vid. Paris Edit Lon. vita John Rowland for his Oliver he will find in the Life of Richard the Second a better Bishop making of a more Divine Speech and asserting the Right of Succession more strenuously than ever this designing Metropolitan was able to confute But that worthy Prelates Doctrine did no way countenance our Authors seditious Observations and so directly different from his Huberts Vid. Baker Trussel vita Rich. II. Bishop Carlisle's Speech Harangue that he might well pass it by without reading and which must certainly have baffl'd him into Blushes to have read Henry the Third a Prince too young to know his Right much less to be able himself to take Possession of it was presently upon his Fathers Death Crown'd King Certainly upon the Consideration of his Hereditary Right or the Testamentary Donation of his Father whom Paris says he appointed M. Paris vit Joha ad finem primogenitum suum regni constituens Haeredem his Heir as his First-born made the Kingdom swear Fidelity to him sent his Mandatory Letter under the Authority of his Great-Seal to the Sheriff's of the Counties to the Keepers of his Castles that they shou'd all be intent upon the Business and upon his death they show'd themselves as ready to perform it and what can the most factious Regnumque Angliae illi jurare fecit Literas cum sigillo suo munitas advice-comites castellanos direxit ut singuli essent intendentes idem M. P. princip vit Hen. 3. sic Defuncto Johanne convenerunt ut Henricum exaltarent Pen make more of this than an Acknowledgment of Hereditary Right especially when the same Author in the beginning of the young Kings Reign says they only came together to Exalt him to the Throne of his Father and not one word of their Suffrages or Election therefore what could not be proved from matter of Fact must be suggested with an Innuendo and because the good Earl Marshal in a perswasive Speech exhorted them to adhere to their lawful Sovereign it imply'd the Consent of the People requir'd if such an Assent shall make the Kingdom Elective 't will be hard to proveany Hereditary for all people that do not actually Rebel and Oppose must in that sense be said to Consent and Elect and when ever our Kings are Crown'd 't is so far with the Consent of the people that they do not interrupt the Coronation But can he prove in any of his pretended Elections much less here that ever in England they balloted for the Crown or drew Lots for the Kingdom that they had ever any certain number of Electors as in Germany or carried it by Majority of suffrages as in Poland ' tho I believe some of them would make no more of his Majesty than a Bourrough Representative or a County Knight and Scarce allow him the Freedom of a Pole But with what face can he urge it Stow says only he was Crown'd by Common consent p. 175. here when the whole drift of Pembrokes Oration was only to satisfy them the Succession belong'd to the Son and that the French Usurper Lewis would be the ruin of the Realm which Speech was so effectual too that several of the Principal of the Barons notwithstanding that open hatred to his Father in spight of Obligation of an Oath to Lewis they still thought their Loyalty and Allegiance more obliging and revolt from the French-man till all at last deserted of all he abjures his claim and the Kingdom together After he had been first routed by Land at Lincoln by Pembroke the Protector and his fresh supplys at Sea near Dover by Hubert the Governour And the bold Speech of that stout Vid Matt. Paris who told him that if his Master was dead he had left Sons and Daughters alive Souldiers to this powerful Prince when he demanded Dover on the Death of King John was a better Evidence what sense the people had of a Lawful Succession than he from the Marshals can evince that he succeeded by Election and against the Laws of Descent and all that he can pertinently draw from the Protectors Oration is that an Infant King did not speak for himself But if ought be a blot in his Succession 't is what this praejudiced Historian I am sure does not care to Hit and that is the weakness of his Fathers Title that forc't him to strenghten his Sons with a Donation And Elenor the Sister of his Cousen Arthur who had a Stronger right did not dye in five and twenty years after he Paris 1241. In clausurâ Diuturna Carceris sub arcta Custodiae
He could wish that there never had been any page 98. the Christian Religion would have done much better without He presumes much it seems upon his own Divinity but if that be no founder then his Politicks either of them is enough to send him to the Devil and on he goes in a tedious railing against the Frauds and Rogueries of our Church when 't was Romish all impertinently apply'd to the present that is now so much reform'd But would not the most refractory He call's ours a mungrel Church from it's Innovation he means of Ceremonies Jew take this Snarling Cur for a Mungrel Christian that libels that only Church that maintains the Gospel in it's greatest purity and as a wise Prince well observ'd the most reform'd in the whole Christian World And 't is no wonder now that such irreligious Impostors who have so little veneration for the Church should broach such pernicious Doctrines against our State to which after so long and preliminary Impertinence that half the piece is made a Preface the Courteous Traveller is at last arriv'd And first he begins with their old Factious assertion that the Soveraign power of England is in King Lords and Commons making his Majesty but one of their three States we all know when this pernicious principle was first set a foot what it terminated in BLOOD and that in the Destruction of the best of Governments with the best of Kings we quickly saw when once they had made their Prince Co-ordinate they soon set up their own Supremacy and then assoon made him none at all Did this prophetick Daemon foresee from his Astrological Judgments that his House of Commons were drawing another Scheam of Rebellion and that they had prepar'd a draught of a second Covenant not only for making our King Co-ordinate but Leveling the Monarchy with the Ground yet 't was convincing enough to me before that the broaching of the very same principles did as really design the same subversion of the State this Plot might as well have been seen in 80. when this Author and as great Incendiaries appear'd in publick and so popular and well might a late House of Commons animadvert on our Judges for suppressing such Seditious Libels which were so Zealously kind and impudently bold as to set up their Supremacy it had been ingratitude not to stand by those Villains that for their sakes had forfeited their Necks This very same Principle of the Subjects Soveraignty was Printed and publish't in 43. preparatory for the Covenant which the Commons had then call'd for out of Scotland and up rises this Ghost again in 81. as if even then it had heard for Spirits are very Intelligent of an Association talk't off in Parliament but I 'll tell him in short why the Soveraign Power of England is not in King Lords and Commons because King Lords and Commons are not all Soveraigns may not our Monarchy be call'd Mixt in Opposition to its being Absolute and Tyrannical without making it a meer Hotch-potch that if our King will have any thing of his right of a Soveraign power he must put it in Medley with that of his Subject as our Sisters are oblig'd in Co-parcenary But tho he take his Treasonable Maxim for Reason and Truth without shewing the least Law or Reason I shall shew him from all of them that it is both Irrational Illegal and a Lye First 'T is against Reason to Imagin there can be three such Powers Co-ordinate to make up one Soveraignty and that our King can at the same time pass for a Monarch for Soveraignty is inseparable from a King and that 's the Reason without doubt we promiscuously call him our King or Soveraign The King calls them Adjourns Dissolves them at his pleasure and this long Practices prov'd from the Chronicles of our Land and its Fundamental Law Speed 645. 4. Inst 27. 2. and if our Lords and Commons will assume it they may ee'n take the Crown too we saw how the participation of a Soveraign power tho it was but in a shadow and that by him that had a better pretence for the Soveraignty then all the Common Subjects can have by being the Crowns Heir was like to have unhinged the very Monarchy it self in the Reign of Henry the Second and rais'd such Commotions in the State till it was almost overturn'd And I am sure we have found and felt that this Co-ordinacy of their three States terminated at last like the participation of that Co-parcenary Prince into an insolent demanding of the whole and what they had made but half the Kings they soon made all the People's until the Government was quite run of the hooks and the Nation engaged in an unhappy War and a down-right Rebellion Does not the very Etymon of Monarchy it self express the sole Soveraignty of that Government they would make so preposterously Mixt and even Archon alone which was the next Titular Appellation the Loyal Athenians gave to the Son and Successor of their Matchless Codrus only because they thought Medon that no Succeeding Prince could deserve the Title of Tyrannus which they made to terminate with him only because they presum'd his goodness surpast imitation Tyrant then was not apply'd as some of our Inveterate Traytors have Sidney whose very Motto Manus haec inimica Tyrannis done it since in it's Corrupted sense tho to the most merciful King for a Tarquin or Caligula yet even this word Archon without addition of Sole that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that has since succeeded to make it Monarch was then an Absolute Government of one amongst the Athenians and continued so in the same Family for a long Season till at last by popular encroachments it was made Annual and this Contender for this Co-ordinate power of the People has expos'd his Damnable designs so plainly to his Disputants that his own Conscience and Soul up-brai'd him for the Villany and makes his Venetian interrupt him for making an English Monarch but a Duke of Venice tho the Doctor the Pontaeus of the Page 114. people that sucks up all the Poyson of Rebellion like that of Toads only for the Tryal of his Skill and then thinks to cheat the Devil with an Antidote He politickly opines however that he has made him too Absolute if ever there were a medley of more Malitious Villains met to Libel a Government I 'll forfeit my Page 105. Neck too it as well as they Heaven and Hell must be reconcil'd which without a Recantation will be so for their Confusion before these their Contradictory defamations can be made consistent But in this the Politick Rebels agree to secure an Odium upon our Monarchy in both extreams and making the most opposite Objections serve for one and the same purpose it 's absoluteness and Tyranny must make it all Bug-bear formidable frightful at the same time that their holding the Reins shall render it all Hobby-Horse Ridiculous and Contemptible
is a solecism in Sense to imagin that Plebeians can concur in conferring that on others which themselves have not the least Tincture of A Title of Honor Or that any thing besides somewhat that is Soveraign can really communicate it to a Subject And we have seen when it was Usurpt what a sort of singular good Lordships and precious Peers were put upon us The Thebans would not so much as admit a Merchant into their Government till they deserted their calling for ten Years while the meanest Mechanicks were made Members of our House and a Tinker of the Army's just taken from his Tool The Bishop of Ely was accused only in Richard the First 's Time for putting in pitiful Officers into publick places of Trust and 't is but a little since a Parliament intrusted our Lives and Fortunes in the vilest Hands And lastly this very Libel Lashes one of our * Rich. 2d Plat. pag. 116. Kings for the preferring Worthless Persons and makes it even a forfeiture of the power of the Sword at the same time that he contends for the People in this point who were never yet known to prefer any other An Italian State as Tumultuous as our own took upon them once to create a new Nobility but assoon as the popular Faction or if you please the Convention of the People had set themselves for the Preservation of their Liberties to make Lords why truly the Election was like to be of such senseless Scoundrels you may suppose a Barksted or an Hewson some mender of Shooes or a maker of Bodkins But so sensible were those Seditious Souls that they were like to set up their Servants that they wisely resolved to retain their old Masters And I think were not some of us so wicked we should all be so wise too since we saw our own distracted Nation was never at rest Till our Rulers were restored to us as at the FIRST and our Councellors as at the BEGINNING And last of all only let me take the Liberty in this last and dismal scene of Sedition to represent but a bloody prospect of that Harmonious concurrence there is between all sorts of Rebellious Principles tho projected by Persons of different Persuasions Persons that differ in Manners and Customes of their Countries Rebels remote from one another in Time Rebels as remotely allyed in the Lands wherein they live As if the Sea it self could not separate such Seditious Subjects In their Principles and Practices that had defiled their Land with such a mutual Conspiration in the Murdering of their Soveraigns and let in an Inundation of Blood upon the Subjects and this Bloody Correspondency between the practice of primitive Rebels as well as modern between the Proceedings of Foreign Rebellions as well as our Domestick must result from the Reasons any sort of Subjects have to resist their Soveraign which we shall see were at all times with all sorts still the same that is just none at all and that appears in that People of such several sorts were all forc'd to pitch upon the same Pretences for the Justifying their Treasons And to make use of the same Cavil and Calumny against their Princes when they saw they could never ground any real Accusation And lastly to promote the same Projects and Propositions almost in a Literal Transcript for the levelling the raising the Foundations of their several Monarchies and making themselves the Masters of the Crown or rather this Seditious Harmony of all Rebels proceeds from their having ever been animated and instructed by the self same Agent of Hell the primitive Prince of Faction the Devil and this parity of pernicious Principles Practices and Propositions will appear in the perfect parallel that there is between the 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 Barons Cotton's view of Henry 3d. 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 * M. Paris pag. 807. 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 Londers 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 †Baker p. 86. 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 Leaguers 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 * See their History written in Italian by D'avila in Lat. by Thuanus in French by D' Aubigni in English a Translation by Mr. Drydâ—â— 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
time of the Priesthood too with which they then alone made the Monarchy mixt and of this even * Justin l. 16. 36. Justin can tell us in one of his Books And for making their Monarchy more Divine did Romulus and Numa the Founder of their Religion as well as of Rome Officiate in it sometimes too So much did the Fathers of old prefer Monarchy to a Popular Government that Sir Walter Rawleigh Praestat regem Tyrannum habere quam nullum p. 182. tells us of the saying of St. Chrysostom that recommended even a Tyrant before no King at all and that is seconded with a Sentence of Tacitus who tells us If the Prince be never so Tacit. Lib. 1. Praestat sub malo principe esse quam nullo wicked yet still better than none And for that of a Commonwealth it was as bravely said by Agesilaus to a Citizen of Sparta discoursing about Government That such a one as a common Cobler would disdain in his House and Family was very unfit to Govern a Kingdom In short all the Presidents that Mr. Sidney has given us of the Romans driving out their Tarquins of the French rejecting the Race of Pharamond of the Revolt of the Low-Countries from Spain of the Scots killing James the Third and Deposing Queen Mary are all absolute Rebellions were ever Recorded so in History and will be Condemned for such by all Ages He should have mention'd for once too the murder of our Martyr'd Sovereign for to be sure he had the same sense of that upon which he was to have sate But if any thing can recommend their Commonwealth it must be only this That it cannot be so soon dispatch'd it being a Monster with many Heads to which Nero's Wish would not be so cruel That it had but one neck to be cut off at a blow The clamour this Republican made against Monarchs in general was whatever he suggests appli'd to our own in particular when he tells in the very same Page of the Page 23. Power of the People of England and though he exclaims and all others do against this Arbitrary Power of Kings 't is certain themselves would make the People as Arbitrary The Question is not whether there shall be an Arbitrary Power but the Dispute is who shall have it there never was nor ever can be a People govern'd without a Power of making Laws and that Power so long as consonant to reason must be Arbitrary for to make Laws by Laws is Nonsense These Republicans by confession would fix it in many and the Multitude in Aristocracy 't is fix'd in a few and therefore in a Monarchy must be setl'd in ONE CHAP. VI. Remarks upon their Plots and Conspiracies AND now that they may not think I have foully Libell'd them in a Misrepresentation of the dangerous Principles of their Republicans I 'll be so fair as to prove upon them too the natural product of their own Notions and that is the Plots of the same Villains assoon as they have been pleas'd to set up for Rebels And these will appear from Chronicle and History the Records of Time and the best Tryers of Truth these will not be falsified with Reflection but be founded upon matter of Fact And of these this will fall in our way as the first About the Year 1559 there was promoted in France a Plot and Conspiracy against their King and that founded upon the same pretext so many of ours have been of late in England that is Religion but truly fomented by what has been always the spring the very fountain of Blood and Rebellion discontent and disgust toward the Government For upon the death of Henry the Second and the Succession of Francis his eldest Son to the Throne the Princes of the House of Bourbon thinking themselves neglected and despised thrust out of Office and Employment at Court and finding the Family of the Guises still prefer'd whom they always as mortally hated resolved to revenge themselves upon the Crown that is to turn Rebels Of these Vendosme and Conde were the principal Engagers and drew in the two Castillions the * Gasper de Collign Mr. D' Andelot Admiral and his Brother who for the removal of the Duke De Montmorency their relation from that Court to which he had prefer'd them were as full also of resentment against the Crown as those that came to engage them with an invitation to invade it and after all their several seditious Assemblies after all the many Meetings they had made after all the Treasonable Consultations they had held no design was look'd upon by them more likely to prove effectual than the making themselves Head of the Hugenots And so hot were they upon this Project the pursuit of another kind of Holy War that among our modern Crusadoes has been nothing else but a Religious Rebellion that notwithstanding the coldness of the King of Navarr they drew in most of the Protesting part of France to be truly Rebels for the sake of their Seducers while they made them believe they had only engag'd themselves to fight for the Religion of those they had so wickedly seduc'd And so conducing then were the principles of a Republick to a Rebellious Plot that one †Alias Godfry de la Bar. Renaudie that was forc'd to turn Renegado to his Country for Misdemeanors committed in it and fled to Geneva as a Sanctuary for Sedition after he had lurk'd there like a concealed Criminal abroad upon his Return sets up for an open Rebellion at Home after he had layn so long in the lake the sink of Democracy you may be sure was well instructed how to resist a Monarch He soon blows the coals that could easily keep up the Blood of the warm Princes that was already set so well a boyling Him they pitch upon as the fittest tool to work out their design and in my conscience coming from that Common-wealth the Statsemen judged not amiss when they took him for an able Artist With his help and their own it went so far that Moneys Men and Amunition was provided and a Petition drawn for a Toleration of Religion though indeed but a Treacherous veil to cover their Intended Treason which was to seize upon the Young King upon his denyal of what they knew he would not grant surprize the Queen that still opposed them and put the Guises to the Sword whom she favoured But the Court being advised of the Conspiracy had retired to the Castle of Amboise and so far did they prosecute their Plot that their Petitioners were admitted into it though their Arm'd Accomplices that were without were compelled to fight for their Lives which Renaudie with the rest of the Ring-leaders of them lost and the Rabble to save theirs was forc'd to fly * To renew another about the end of this unhappy War were publisht those Treasonable Tracts De jure Magist Brutus his Vindiciae With another as pernicious a piece
jure must be Kings they know the first of James declares his Royal Office an Heritage Inherent in the very Blood of him 1. Jacob. and also that all our Books of Law besides the Fundamental Constitution of the Land do make the Regal Power Hereditary and not Elective and such an Elected Usurpers Laws can no further oblige the Subjects of England then they they 'l submit no more then the Czars of Muscovy a pecuniary mulct must be but a bare oppression and a Capital Punishment MURDER But Will. Prynn I Pryn's That the Parliament and Kingdom are the Sovereign power a piece Printed by Order of the house of Commons Confess in another of his Treatises that he Printed will have all such Acts made by Consent of Vsurping Kings bind the right Heirs of the Crown that Reign by a just Title That all such Acts oblige them is utterly false for one of them is commonly for their Exclusion but that some are admitted to bind is as really True but that is rather upon a Political account of their being serviceable to the Publick and the Country's Good And is it not now an unaccountable boldness that the very same Cases of Usurpers upon the Crown that this Indefatigable piece of Faction publish't against the Father they fought and Murder'd should be retrieved against the Son whom the kind Heavens ev'n by Miracle so lately restor'd But at last allowing those palpable falsehoods they so much Labour for falsehoods so gross that they can be felt to be matter of Fact contradict the true sense of all Chronicle with a Seditious Supposition to be secur'd of Truth give all the Laws of the Land the Lye raze Rolls and Records the better to rise a Rebellion and grant the Kings of England have been all Elected all almost from that Union of the Heptarchy in the Saxon to that of our three Kingdoms in the Scot and sure no Soul living can conclude with them in afairer Concession than in granting the very Postulate they require yet since they then in the End of K. James tho but so lately had settled the Succession and made it Hereditary can with men of Common sense the Presidents of its having been formerly Elective prevail for an utter Subversion of such a Settlement Popery was once in England by Law Establish't and must it therefore again be Establish't by Law Certainly all succeeding Reformation must null and abolish that from which they Reform and a Repealing Act will hardly be made Declaratory of the very Statute it Repeals if these be but their best Arguments the same you see will reason us back into the very Religion of Rome we have seen several Rebellions and some even of late to have lain the Land in Blood and can such sad Sufferance be made to Prescribe for our Misery warrant some such as Bloody to succeed but since all this suppos'd suggestion must vanish like to soft Air since the Succession has been settled for so many several ages to rake every musty Record only for a sad Review of some Time of Confusion is certainly but an Impious Industry to Confound the work of the very God of Order We may as well be discontented at the Frame of his World he so well digested and plead for Prescription the Primitive Chaos CHAP. II. Remarks upon Plato Redivivus THE best Animadversion that I can make on his whole first days Discourse is that it wants none that it's Impertinence has superseded reproof and the fulsome flattering Dialogue as unsit for a serious Answer as a Farce for a Refutation out of a Sermon The great acquaintance these pretending Platonicks would be thought to have with that Sect of Philosophers did not oblige them to be so morosely reserv'd as to know none other and they may remember an Ephesian Sophy I believe as Learned too in his Politicks that was never so much tickl'd as when he saw the dull Animal mumbling of the cross-grain'd unpalatable Thistle the disputing against the Laws of the Land and the Light of Reason they 'l find as uneasie as absurd and the latter as Impious and Profane and which deserves to be assimulated to a more serious sort of Obstinacy that of so many Sauls kicking against the Pricks but the Pleasant and Ridiculous Disputants put in for another pretty Quality of that insensible Brute the length of their sordid and stupid Flattery outdoes their Original Beast and the sad Sophister would force one Smile more to see three of the same sort of Creatures for a whole day clawing one another Certainly whatever they fancy the Dialogues of Plato whatever the Favourers of his Principles can suggest surely they were never fill'd with such Fustian But that good old Philosopher did as plainly cloath his Disputes as well as himself in an honest homely Drugget of Athens Tho I confess they tell us of his rich Bed and his affectation of State which a Soul so sublime could not but Contemn while these Sectaries are such refin'd Academicks so much polish't with Travel and the breeding of the Times That all the Fops of France the Dons of Spain his Adulano of Italy seem melted down into one Mass of Impertinence they can't pass by the thin Apartments of a Page without a Congee Bon-Grace and a formal Salutation upon one anothers Excellencies the Doctor claws the Patient with his Lenitives Frications Emollients of Praise and Adulation and the Patient who in the literal sence must be said to suffer with such a Doctor if not in Body Natural I am sure in the Politick as in Cordial Affection and Common Civility he is obliged returns him the reputation of his Book De Corde for the tickling the very Auricula's of his Heart for Praise must certainly be Pleasant for an Aesculapius that sets up for a Matchiavel confutes Solomon and the Bible as he says for saying the Heart is unsearchable tho but Vid. Argument to the Book an Ordinary Divine without the Criticks Tremellius or a Munster would say that in the Text there is nothing meant but the mind But Cor hominis must not be Inscrutabile now only because the Doctor has handl'd its fibres and thus this Triumvirate of Fulsomness and Faction treat one another with their Fustian and Foppery through the whole piece I seldom care to lard our English with the least scrap of Latin but because 't is the property of such pedantick Scriblers who still most affect what is most ridiculous Foppery and Folly I 'll only give them an Argument out of the Mathematicks fora Demonstration of their agreeable Faction and Foolishness and for his Cor hominis as it relates to this Doctors Pharmacentria let him take one of Euclid's Postulates that has a greater reference to their mighty Three In English thus and if they will have Lattin Quae conveniunt uno Tertio conveniunt inter sâ— 'tis in the Margin Those that agree in one Third must needs agree among themselves The Venetian
his beloved Low-Countries laboring under a Magistracy that Lords it with as much Power as that from which they were delivered For this his Original Power of the People must be as much delegated to those that govern there as well as it is inherent in any sole Soveraign that is the Governor neither are any besides the best of their Burghers admitted to Administration so that even that State that comes nearest to a Common-wealth is at last but a sort of Aristocracy which their Harrington condems Ocâ—anâ— for worse than Monarchy it self And I believe their Commons find the Impositions of their Burgo-Masters as great and as grievous as ever were the Gabels of Spain So from what has been premis'd this must be concluded that since we see they can't punish or Judge even their own Representatives only their Suffragans in an house of Commons when they have delegated to them their Original power which for once we 'l suppose them able to delegate much less shall they their Soveraign tho they did as they will have it confer upon him the power that he has for the Members of the lower House represent only the Commons of the Kingdom whereas the Soveraign is in some Sense the whole Kingdoms Representative Since we have seen this Original Power of the People wheresoever it has been delegated to have created nothing but Usurpation and wrong where can this Power be better plac'd but in the King that can alone pretend to a Right and tho we are so unhappy as to have presidents wherein they can prove to us that their Representatives were once call'd to an Account by the People that sent them that is so far from proving that they have a natural or Original right so to do that it shows the danger of such a position that they may do it and that when in the late Rebellion they presum'd upon this their Right in Equity they made it appear to be nothing else but the power of the Sword for in respect of a Right they are really so far from being able to censure their Representatives whom they send that themselves are punishable for medling in those Parliamentary concerns with which they have enâ—rusted others What force this has in the Case of their Commons holds a Fortiori in that of their King In the last place give me leave to close this their Rebellious Argument of their Monarch being accountable to the Majesty of the people with some few more Reasons against this Damnable Doctrine that has within the Memory of man desolated and destroy'd three Kingdoms A Doctrine that confounded us in the last confus'd us in this and will be Condemn'd by all Ages A Doctrine that places the Divine right in the People and then indeed such an one as Mr. Hunt makes it Impious Sacrilegious * H. posts p. 68. Treasonable Destructive of Peace Pregnant with Wars and what absolutely produc'd the Civil one of England and Sacrific'd its Soveraign Head to the Fury of an ‖ Sidney's Tryal p. 24. Headless Multitude This Principle is the very Basis upon which all their Babel of Confusion of a Common-wealth of Anarchy is all Built and Establisht And I shall never look upon it as loss to have Labour'd in it so long if we can at last but undermine its very Foundation And that is laid even by the Libel of Mr. Sid. upon the Contract and Condition upon which they 'll suppose he receiv'd the Crown which he must be made to renounce if he does not Perform when Accepted And in answer to this we 'll suppose for once what the most Seditious Souls themselves can suggest and that this part of the Rebellious position abounds both with Sense Truth and Reason that our Kings have but a Conditional bargain of it which indeed would be but a bad one too and such I dare Swear as the Greatness of our present Soveraigns Soul would hardly submit to and if we 'll but believe his own word as firm as fate that never fail'd his Friends and surely will not then be first violated for a debasing of himself and a gratifying of his Foes that has told us or decreed that he will not suffer his Government and his Crown to be His Majesties Speech 22. May 85. p. 5. Precarious And I am apt to think that the that stemn'd the Tide the fierce influx of Blood and Rebellion as well as without a Metaphor withstood the noise of many Waters and baffl'd the Billows of â—he main will hardly when Seated at â—ast in a Peaceful Throne be regardless of it's ‖ Ibid p. 4. Right and Prerogative which even his meritorious sufferings have deserv'd should we bate his Virtue and Birth were not in the Ballance And 't is much unlikely that he that kept his Grandeur when a Duke of York should dwindle into that of Venice and thâ—â— too when a King of Great Britain ' Tâ—â— their Doeg I confess that accepts upoâ— Condition 't is their Duke with whoâ— they do Contract our Crown as I havâ— shown has been resolv'd an Imperial one from the Letter of its own Laws anâ— the very Statutes of the Land Theiâ— from the very Constitution it self Subject to the Senate Ours from its Foundation RESOLV'D not to be Precarious as well as now too from the Resolâ—tion of its Prince But in answer to this position of ouâ— Republicans I shall depone this as â— principle that notwithstanding such â— Contract upon Conferring the Supremacy the same cannot be Dissolv'd eveâ— by the Consent of all those that Constituted it I wont repeat to them thâ— Reason I have already urg'd from the * Rex Legia Royal Law of the Romans which one of their very Republicans says was noâ—-without ‖ Certis tamen Limitibus nec sine Exceptione probata jure Magist Quest 6. Condition or Limitation which if so then we see that both Augâ—â—tus for whose Establishment in the fiâ—â— true Imperial Throne of their Rebellioâ— Rome that very Law was first founded as also the Emperor Vespasian for whom it was again Confirm'd both these from all the Famous Historians of their Times unless we 'll believe them like the late Writers of the new Rome to be all Legends too both appear'd absolute in their power unlimited in their Jurisdiction notwithstanding those Conditions they will have Exprest in that Law neither did the People pretend to their deposition upon their Non performance Julius himself that was not absolutely prefer'd to be the Royal Emperor for he liv'd before that Law was made yet was allowed such a perpetual Dictatorship as may be well resolv'd into what our Republicans reproach with their present Soveraign an Arbitrary Power And he too whom the Miscreant we before mention'd says was ‖ Jure Occisus qd nimis Multas dignitates cumulasset ibid. p. 38. justly Murdered and why only because he dignify'd himself too much as if it were a Crime for a King to be
to seize the King at Halyrood-House but unsuccessful forc'd to fly and returning better assisted the second time effected what only he design'd at first But the King escaping to Sterling Bothwell is pronounced a Rebel by the States but yet is so well be friended by these Disturbers of all Kingly Government that they gave him the very Moneys they had collected for their beloved Brethren in the Republick of Geneva by which with other Assistances they enabled him to fight his King in the Field Then is that succeeded with a second of the Gowry's the Son of him that rebell'd before where they contriv'd to get the King to dine in their House at Perth seduc'd him up into some higher Chamber and there left him to the mercy of an Executioner from which his Cry and the timely Assistance of his Servants only rescued Him These were the Confusions Distractions and even Subversions of some States that were occasion'd by the restlesness of Implacable Republicans Emissaries of Geneva throughout France Flanders Scotland and Germany You shall see now in the next place what disturbances they have created us here in our own Isle what Plots and Conspiracies their Principles have promoted in England as if in that expostulatory †Que regio in terris c. Virg. Aeneid Verse of Virgil there was no Region upon Earth but what must be fill'd with their diffusive and elaborate Sedition Queen Elizabeth was no sooner setl'd in her Throne but they as seditiously endeavour'd to subvert it They libell'd her Person set their Zealots tumultuously to meet in the Night invading Churches defacing Monuments and so full at last of the Rebellious Insolencies of that Italian Republick to which they commonly repair'd to receive Instruction that her Majesty thought fit to hang up Hacket with a half dozen more of them as dangerous Subjects to her Sovereign Crown and Dignity †In a Speech to her Parliament dissolv'd An. 1585 and of her Reign 27 She declared them dangerous to Kingly Rule vid. Holingshed Stow. When King James who succeeded her came to our Crown did these Malecontents that had molested him so much in Scotland disturb his Government here too as much Melvil that Northern Incendiary was as busie with his Accomplices here too to set Fire to Church and State and for that purpose publish'd several Libels against both for which being then at London he was sent to the Tower And so far had those darling Daemagogues insinuated themselves that the Hydra of a Popular Faction began to shew its fearful Faces in the very first Parliament of his Reign though * 1 Jacob. 1. in that they had so fully formerly recogniz'd his Right For in some of those several Sessions of which that consisted one of the Seditious Senators had the Confidence to affirm in the open Assembly †Fowlis Hist pag. 65. That the giving the King Moneys might empower him to the cutting the Members Throats an Insolency that some of our Modern Mutineers upon the same Occasions have * Vid. Printed Votes H. Com. That the giving the King Money c. as seditiously express'd King James Dissolv'd that Parliament call'd another and that as Refractory as the former which instead of answering the Kings Request draw up their own in a Remonstrance †Vid. even Rushworth Coll. p. 40. c. 16. E. second it with a Protestation for Priviledges representation of Religion and Popery intermedling with his Match of Spain and several Affairs of State so that he was forc'd to dissolve that Politick Body too and soon after suffer'd a Dissolution of his own Natural one dying under the Infirmities of Old Age and leaving behind him an old Monarchy rather weakned with Innovations of Republicans with the worst of Legacies to his Son and Successor A discontented People an Empty Purse with a Costly War into which he was not so much engag'd as betray'd And now we are arriv'd to what all the Stirs and Tumults of our Seditious Souls our discontented Daemocraticks in the Reign of King James did aim at and design the Destruction of the Monarchy which they could not accomplish till this of King Charles in that they never left till they laid such a Plot that at last laid all the Land in Blood and made an whole Kingdom an Akeldama For that they first quarrell'd at the Formality of his Coronation because in the Sacred Part of it the Prayer for giving him Peter 's Key was first added This some silly Sots suggested to savour of Popery tho' it struck purposely at the very Popes Supremacy it self For that they begun to Tax their King for taking his Tonnage without an Act and yet refus'd to pass one that he might take it by Law unless he would accept of it in Derogation of his Royal Prerogative for Years or precariously during the Pleasure of the Two Houses when most of his Ancestors enjoy'd it for life Turner and Coke led up the dance to Sedition and reflect upon their King in their Speeches The Commons command his Secretary Office and Signet to be searcht and might as well have rifled his Cabinets too They clamour against his favouring of Seminary Priests tho' he had sent home the very Domesticks of the Queen and that even to a disgust to France and a rupture with that Crown They upbraid him for dissolving Parliaments tho' grown so insolent as to keep out the Black-Rod when he came to call them to be Dissolv'd tho' their King notwithstanding the provocations assembled another assoon and that tho' he had the fresh President of the then King of France That had laid aside his for a less presumption Thus they call'd all his Miseries and Misfortunes Misgovernments and Faults when themselves had made him both faulty and unfortunate They accuse him for favouring the Irish Rebellion tho' the first disorders in Dublin were by his diligence so vigorously supprest their Goods confiscated their Lands seiz'd their Persons imprisoned and such severities shew'd them by his Commissioners there that two Priests hang'd themselves to prevent what they call'd a Persecution The Scot Mutinies upon the King 's restoring the Lands to the Church of which but in the minority of his Father it had been robb'd assail the Ministers in the Church in the very administration of the Sacrament because according to the Service-Book Protest against their King's Proclamations set up their four Tables at Edenburgh that is their own Councils in opposition to their King 's Hamilton had promised them as Commissioner to convene an Assembly they come and call a Parliament by themselves which tho' dissolv'd they protest shall sit still then desperate in a Sedition break out into open War Invite Commanders from abroad seize Castles at home agree to Articles of Pacification and then break all with as much Perjury Lowden their Commissioner sent to propose Peace At the same time treats with the French Ambassadour for War bring their Army into