hated Parliaments for your Father of ever-notorious Memory hated them and therefore tried Conclusions with Parliaments for 12 Years together 'T is true he did call that blessed Parliament in 1640 that would have redressed England's Grievances had they not been prevented by the factious Spirits of some whose Zeal was not according to Knowledg Dr. Gauden tells you that your Father call'd that Parliament in Novemb. 3. 1640. Not more by the Advice of others or by the Necessity of his own Affairs than by his own Choice and Inclination I could expect no better from a Baal's Priest than to begin with a Lie For what Man that lived in that Time knew not how the Case stood with Charles the First And besides if I had not Access to a King yet I could discover his Inclinations either by those that were about him and in favour with him or by the Currant of his Actions all which I say testified to the World your Father's strange aversness to a Parliament Those that were near him and most in favour with him were Courtiers and Rascally Prelats Vermin whose chief study was to find out how he stood inclined and to imitate him exactly and that which was his Will was their Doctrine concerning Parliaments and so it was with you But that I may proceed in some Method I shall shew 1. That Parliaments are the Right of the People 2. That they are an essential Part of the Government 3. That you hated them tho such and by consequence was an Enemy to the Government of England 1. That Parliaments are the Right of the People of England which they may claim in order to have their Grievances redressed the common Safety of the Nation provided for and their Religion Laws and Liberties secured For call to mind with delight if you can the wonderful Discovery and undeniable Confirmation of the Popish Plot which designed so much Ruin and Mischief to these Nations in all things both Civil and Sacred and the unanimous Sense and Censure of so many Parliaments upon it together with some Acts of Publick Justice upon many of the Traitors The Nation was not without hopes that since that cursed Design of introducing Popery and Slavery and the Murder of your Brother was discovered for the space of 30 Months at least some effectual Remedies should have been applied to prevent the Attempts of your Cut-throat Party upon us the better to secure the Religion and Government of the Nation and the Person of the King But by sad Experience we found that notwithstanding the vigorous endeavours of three Parliaments â—o provide proper and wholsome Laws to answer both Ends by your influencing a pack of Villains you and your Party were so prevalent as to stifle in the Birth those Righteous Endeavours of our Parliaments by many surprizing Prorogations and Dissolutions whereby the Fears and Dangers of the People daily encreased and the Spirits of you and your Party heightned to renew and multiply fresh Plots against the Religion Laws and Liberties of the Realm I will lay down some known Maxims that relate to a King and Parliament of England 1. You know the Kings of England can do nothing as Kings but what of Right they ought to do 2. The King can neither do wrong nor die 3. The King's Prerogative and the Subjects Liberty are determined by Law 4. The King has no Power but what the Law gives him and is called King from ruling well Rex à benè Regendo viz. according to Law and is only a King whilst he rules well but a Tyrant when he oppresses 5. That the Kings of England never appear more in their Glory and Majestick Sovereignty than in Parliaments 6. That the Prerogative of the Crown can do no wrong nor can it be a Warrant for so doing Now Sir having laid down some Truths relating to the Kings of England give me leave to lay before you some that relate to the Parliament 1. Then I say that the Parliament of England constitutes and gives a Being to the Government of England 2. A Parliament of England is to the Government what the Soul is to the Body which is only able to apprehend and understand the Symptoms of all Diseases threatning the Body Politick 3. A Parliament is the Bulwark of our Liberty the Boundary which keeps the People of England from the Inundation of Tyrannical Power and Government 4. Parliaments do make new and abrogate old Laws reform Grievances settle the Succession grant Subsidies and in a word may be called the Great Physician of the Kingdom From all which it appears if Parliaments are necessary in our Constitution that they must have their Times of Session and Continuation to provide Laws essentially needful for the being and well-being of the People and for redressing all Publick Grievances arising either for want of Laws or of undue execution of those in being or otherwise And sutable hereunto are those Provisions made by the Wisdom of our Forefathers as recorded by them both in the Common and Statute Law 1. Sir you was an excellent Man at the Common Law and so were your Gang at St. Germains and tho they have little occasion for it there yet I may refresh their Memories for having had so much leasure to study the Excellency of the French Religion and Government our Common Law may be forgotten by them Nay Rhyming Jack Carryl himself since the loss of his Estate may have resolved to forget the Law since he will not have so much occasion for it as he might have had if he had chosen Sussex instead of St. Germains and so may be at a loss to inform you I therefore give you a touch or so not that I pretend to cure the King 's Evil of the Common Law what it saith concerning Parliaments I pray Sir remember what old Coke saith one of your Grand-father's Judges who was a famous Lawyer and persecuted by him for you know what but never had the Courage to run away he tells us in one of his Law Books which your old Friend Jenner swears he never understood That the Common Law is founded in the immutable Law and Light of Nature agreeable to the Law of God requiring Order Government Subjection and Protection containing certain antient Vsages warranted by the Holy Scriptures and because given to all is therefore called Common Sir if you will send for your old Drudg Frank Withens I dare aver he cannot give you a better for his Life But you will say What is this to Parliaments Well Sir since this may pass the Understanding of your Dispensing Rogues I will tell you what he saith in his 9th Book in the Preface they are his own Words in the Book called the Mirror of Justice in which appears the whole Frame of the Antient Common Laws of this Realm from the Time of K. Arthur An. 516 till near the Conquest which treats also of the Officers as well as the Diversity and Distinction of the Courts of
therefore in Parliament Notwithstanding these Votes you had a Rogue that rose from a Kitchin-boy to possess as some say 14000 l. per annum of which he wronged the Nation having had the Opportunity to cheat three Governments and suck their Blood to whom the City of London ows much of her Misery he I say furnished your Brother with Money in contempt of these Votes but he has wiped his Mouth and hugs himself as if not one of the greatest Villains that ever England bore I leave him he was a Friend of yours and you have reason to remember him I remember the Votes very well and certainly they were justifiable to the whole Kingdom for consider a little did you take the Revenue to be disposed of at your Brother's pleasure Was it for his private use or the publick Good Sir the Revenue the Parliament had fixed was a publick not a private one your Brother was trusted with the disposing of part only and that not without the Advice of some of his great Ministers of State as a Secretary of State and the Lord Privy Seal for smaller Sums and for all great Paiments the Lord Chancellor Lord Keeper or Commissioners of the Great Seal were to have been added the other part of the Revenue was assigned to other Uses the Customs to the maintenance of the Navy The Maintenance of the Household the Tables at Court and Wages of the King's Servants were in our former Kings Reigns so established by Parliament that the Cofferer had his Money paid him out of the Exchequer under great Penalties to be inflicted for the neglect thereof and the House of Lords judged it a great part of their immediate Care It maintained the Dignity and Honour of the Government and contributed much to Love and good Understanding between the King and People no Countrey Farmer had Business at Court but he found those who bad him welcome and so had all Degrees therefore the King's Servants had justly the same Return wherever they came the outward Rooms of the House did not smell of Match nor was the Language of the Court Who goes there there used to be the Smell of better Hospitality this was plain even in your Father's time Besides Sir 't is well known that by the evil Counsel and Course your Brother and you took you made the Bankers of London and elsewhere become the very Bane of the Nation not only to the Gentleman and Farmer but I doubt to the Merchant too they raised and kept up the Interest of Money they drained the Country and bought Warrants so that your Brother paid 25 per Cent. for all his Expences You know the Revenue was in many of its Branches appropriated and provision made that they should not be alienated and if rascally Fellows that had decoyed into their Custody the ready Monies of Merchants Gentlemen and others did by the Strength of their Cash anticipate the Revenues of the Government who could have provided for the Nation Could any but a Parliament do it Now Sir it plainly follows that if your Brother had found out another way to supply his Wants than by Parliament the great hinge on which the Government turn'd was lost therefore what ground you and your Party had to make this a Pretence to put off those Parliaments especially the last Westminster-Parliament I cannot tell and how you could make them Criminals for these two Votes I leave to the Judgment even of your ragged Ministry at St. Germains 4ly A 4th Pretence you had for dissolving the Parliaments aforesaid was a Vote concerning Protestant Dissenters That the Prosecution of Protestant Dissenters upon the Penal Laws is at this time grievous to the Subject a weakning the Protestant Interest an Incouragement to Popery and dangerous to the Peace of the Kingdom This was the Vote of the Commons in the last Westminster-Parliament Truly Sir they could not but pass the Vote as their Opinion since they judged themselves invited to it by your Brother himself who had often wished whilst his Band of Pensioners sat that he might be able to exercise a Power of Dispensation in reference to Protestants who thro' the tenderness of a misguided Conscience did not conform to the Ceremonies Discipline and Government of the Church and promised he would make it his special Care to incline the Wisdom of the Parliament to concur with him in making an Act to that purpose But Sir I know your Party usually said that these Inclinations of the King lasted no longer than he had a Prospect of giving the Papists an equal Benefit of Toleration also I doubt it was too true and that they had that honourable Notion of the King from your sweet self but whether true or no I will not insist here but shall only mind you that your Brother after he parted with you did on the 6th of March in his Speech to the first Westminster-Parliament after the disbanding your small Officers express his Zeal not only for the Protestant Religion in general but for a Union amongst all sorts of Protestants and did he not command the then Tool of a Chancellor at the very same time to tell them that it was necessary to distinguish between Protestant and other Recusants between them that would destroy the whole Flock and those that wander from it I am much dispos'd to believe and that on good ground that your Brother was not sincere in the thing yet whatever his Heart was in the Case the following Parliament might justly incourage that Vote from the aforesaid Declarations You and your wicked Party especially your Church-Bums did attacque that last Westminster-Parliament as if that Vote relating to Protestant Dissenters was to shew that the Commons had in themselves a Power of suspending the Penal Laws established by the three States of the Realm who yet said it was a Power not to be allow'd in the King and caused to be cancelled all that he had done in relation to the ease of Dissenters from the Church of England and if the King had not Power to suspend the execution of the Penal Laws then had not they To this I answer 1. A few Years before that Parliament sat your wicked Ministers did remember that the whole Nation was justly alarm'd upon the King's assuming to himself by their Advice an arbitrary Power of suspending the Penal Laws upon this they thought it very popular to charge the House of Commons with an Usurpation on that Attempt Now Sir if they did by a Vote declare the Inconvenience of prosecuting Protestant Dissenters at that time or at any time hereafter I cannot see where the Crime was or of what Usurpation they stood guilty since they made the Vote for the very same Reason which your Brother had for expressing himself as he did in his foresaid Speech supposing his Heart had kept pace with his Tongue they had with great Trouble of Soul perceived that the Design of the Popish Party was not against any one Sort
Nell Waal or Barillon could have for their Lives Notwithstanding all this you may remember how it inveighed against the King with all the bitterness imaginable and incited all Men to rebel against him in order to destroy his Person and yours This Paper as villanous as it was against the King was by him Portsmouth and her Bawd Nell and Barillon ordered to be conveyed into the Pockets and Lodgings of several Noblemen Gentlemen and others that when they were seized and this found upon them they should be charged with Treason and Rebellion and the finding of this upon them should be a Proof of the same The Tool that was to carry on this Roguery was Fitz-Harris who was to be one of the Witnesses to swear this Conspiracy designed by the Protestants and your Conspirators had prepared the Business to be laid in Oxford-shire Buckingham-shire and Bark-shire that this Villany might not miscarry but be believed by the Juries that should be pack'd in those Counties in order to a speedy Justice upon the pretended Criminals But Sir as well laid as this Design was it proved to be a Brat of Popish Extraction and the Midwives were that Whore Portsmouth and trusty Nell her Bawd with whom you would have engaged in Person had not the Catholick Cause called for your Presence in Scotland but I suppose let who will believe it that you know nothing of the Business I shall prove you in it in its proper place Well then the nature of the Crime and the King your Brother Barillon and the two Strumpets aforenam'd being engaged in this piece of Villany and several great Persons being to be destroyed surely deserved an Inquiry which an Oxford-Jury neither could or would ever make for they it may be in the Multitude of their Mercies would have dealt with other Protestants as they did by poor Colledge whom they basely murdered to please your Brother and you That House of Commons as if endowed with a Prophetick Spirit unanimously agreed that none but the Parliament was capable of looking into the bottom of this Affair both in its Original and Tendency and the more zealous they were for that the more they saw the Zeal of the Judges and the inferiour Courts in Westminster-Hall abated in relation to the Popish Plot and its Discovery but heightned for you and your Party against the Protestants and that those Blood-hounds thirsted after their Blood that asserted the Laws and Liberties of England Truly to speak the best I can of those Judges they were much changed for the worse as appeared in the Trials of Wakeman Gascoyne and others that were in the Popish Conspiracy and in good truth Sir the Oxford House of Commons were the more jealous and could you blame them for when this Fitz-Harris was sensible of his Crime or at least of his Danger and had begun to tell Tales he was removed out of the Legal Custody of the Sheriffs and illegally committed close Prisoner to the Tower to the great astonishment of all sober Men. That Parliament therefore had no other way to have the Prosecution effectual and the Judgment according to the Laws of the Land and that Fitz-Harris should not lie under any hopes but by impeaching him for they well knew that no Pardon could stop their Sail tho it might the King's Now Sir consider how this Pretence of yours could justify the Dissolution of that Parliament 9thly The last Pretence I shall mention which you had for dissolving the three last Parliaments was their bringing in a Bill to exclude you and to render you incapable of inheriting the Imperial Crown of this Realm This was the best Pretence you and your Party could make for doing so wicked a thing so pernicious to the Peace of the Kingdom but if I destroy this Goliah I trust you will quit it and let it take its fate with the others There were many of your Party that used several Arguments against that Bill which I shall take notice of 1. The Conspirators did impudently assert that the Bill of Exclusion was unlawful and therefore in it self null and void especially since the King had declared against it Some of them were pretended Protestants and had been for some time educated in the University under a Parcel of High-church-Loggerheads they even they were tainted with this Notion that was fit for none but such as believed Transubstantiation Now Sir if it were against Law it must be against a written or an unwritten Law if it were against a written Law your Party should have named it which when they had done they should have named that Parliament that ever was bound up by any written Law if we take them in their Legislative Capacity as we must do in this Case and to declare that a Parliament is bound up by written Laws in their Legislative Capacity is both destructive and absurd 1. It was destructive the Parliament being the fundamental Court and Law of the Kingdom and ordained to make Laws and see them executed or to supply their Deficiency according to the present Exigency for Preservation of the Peace and Safety of the People which is universally in them but not so in particular Laws and Statutes which cannot provide against future Exigencies as the Law of Parliaments doth and therefore were not Limits to those Parliaments and it would have been farther destructive by depriving those Parliaments of half their Power at once whenever they should be circumscribed by written Laws in their Legislative Capacity which is a peculiar Property belonging only to inferiour Courts of Law and Justice but not to the Parliament of England which is the Supream Court but must have ceased to be so and have divested it self of that inherent and uncircumscribed Power which the Safety of the People comprehends and requires 2. It was absurd in the Conspirators to urge that the Bill of Exclusion was against Law and therefore null and void of it self for the Legislative Power of Parliament is to give Laws to England and not to receive any saving from the Nature and End of their own Constitution which as they give Parliaments a Being so the Parliaments make Laws for Preservation of themselves and the whole Kingdom they represent As for your unwritten Law it is to me like your unwritten Verities in the Church of Rome and the paltry Ceremonies of a Church that cannot be proved lawful either from the Command of Christ or the Practice of his Apostles if therefore by unwritten Law you mean Custom of Inheritance that 's against your Party by the Practices that have been both at home and abroad or if you mean the Equity of the thing then the Parliament in their Legislative Capacity were Judges of that or if you mean Prudence the Parliament being the Wisdom of the Nation are certainly Judges of that also From all which it undoubtedly follows that the Proposal of a Bill to exclude you from inheriting the Crown of this Realm was in it self
who being a free People hated such a standing Force Now why your dissembling Rascals should use this as an Argument I am yet to learn And as for that Objection that it would have destroyed the Monarchy by a Law and taken all sort of Power from the King and made him less than a Duke of Venice this was as false as could be for as I have said before so I must again that it is evident beyond Contradiction that the Bill of Exclusion could not prejudice the legal Monarchy which your Brother did enjoy with all the Rights and Powers that his Ancestors ever claim'd because many Acts of like nature have passed not only in England but in your quondam antient Kingdom of Scotland without danger of diversting the Monarchs of their legal Power The Preservation of a Government consists in and depends upon an exact Adherence to its Principles on which it was founded and the essential Principle of the English Monarchy being that well-proportioned Distribution of Powers whereby the Law at once provides for the Greatness of the Sovereign and the Safety of the People for this Reason our Ancestors have been more careful to preserve inviolable the Government than to favour any personal Pretences And in your Case we followed the Examples of other Nations I meet with none in Story so slavishly addicted to any Person or Family as to admit of a Prince who openly professed a Religion contrary to that established amongst them it would be easy to produce a Multitude of Examples of those who have rejected Princes for Reasons of far less Weight than the Difference of Religion and this without endangering the Monarch's Power or the Subject's Right therefore your Party talked like Fools when they said the Bill of Exclusion would have divested the King of his Power nothing could have made a King of England so much look like a Duke of Venice as one of the lowsy Expedients your Party proposed to the Houses of Parliament 7. Another Argument against the Bill of Exclusion was That it would have led the Parliament to attempt other great and considerable Changes and thereby endangered the whole Government and the Peace of the Nation Now what your Villains would have had the Nation to understand by this Change is worthy of Consideration Therefore first if by a Change they meant a Change of the Constitution of the Government let me tell you that Hell could never have forged a more villanous Lie than those wicked Wretches did that they might in conjunction with you instil such Thoughts into the Mind of the King as might effectually alienate his Soul from the Use of Parliaments It is evident even to these Hell-born Wretches that there was no Vote or Proposition in either of those Parliaments that could give any Ground for such a malicious Reflection and therefore in this Matter we that were Lookers-on might reasonably charge your Brother and you and your whole Party with a malicious Design against all Parliaments in thus arraigning the whole Body of the Nation upon those ill grounded and malicious Suggestions I am sure this did not become the Grandeur and Justice of Princes nor was agreeable to the Measures of Prudence and Wisdom by which you should have governed yourselves And now Sir I will give the true Reason why you thus delighted in these Men viz. your hating Parliaments being afraid they should have called you and them to account for your high Crimes and Misdemeanours by this Means together with the Inclinations of your dear Brother you so swayed him that you could never want Grounds to dissolve not only three such Parliaments but threescore if there had been Occasion In the second Place Sir If you and your Admirers had understood by attempting great and important Changes that the Parliament would have besought the King that you might no longer have the Government in your Hands that your villanous Conspirators should no longer preside in his Councils nor possess all the great Offices of Trust in the Kingdom that our Ports Garisons and Fleet should no longer be governed by those that were at your Devotion that Marks of Favour and Characters of Honour should no more be placed upon such as the Wisdom of the Nation had adjudged Favourers of Popery or Pensioners to the French King these I confess were great and important Changes such as became English Protestants to believe were designed by those Parliaments and would have been by any other Parliament your Brother should have called in his time and such as the People of England would have prayed for and left the Success to Almighty God who governs the Hearts of Kings and Princes Truly without these Changes the Bill of Exclusion would have signified little it might have provoked but not disabled your wicked Party Nay the Money the Nation must have paid for it would have been used to hasten your Return upon us 8. Another Argument used against the Bill of Exclusion was your great Grace and Favour for your Countrey and the Excellency of your Temper and Vertue Surely Sir if you had heard these Men magnify you for your excellent personal Qualifications you would have spit in their Faces and told them they lied for the Violence of your natural Temper was sufficiently known and your Vehemency in exalting the Prerogative in your Brother's Reign beyond its due Bounds and the Principles of your cursed Religion which carried you to all imaginable Excesses of Cruelty convinced all Mankind that there was a Necessity of excluding you rather than to leave you the Name and place the Power in a Protector for in good truth they must have looked upon it as the greatest Folly to have made such a Change in the Government which would have been a Means to destroy and not preserve the Government Sir they saw your Temper that you who was bred up in such Principles of Politicks as made you in love with Arbitrary Power and bigotted to that Religion which always propagates it self by Blood could never bear with such Shackles as would even disgust a Prince of the meekest Disposition this was your Temper and how it is amended since you placed your self at St. Germains I suppose your Followers can tell better than I. But what Regard and Favour you have born to this Nation was well seen from your first Return to England in 1660 to your leaving it in 1688. You engaged it in two wicked Wars with the Dutch and a third with France I would not have your Cattel low too much of your Grace and Favour but truly if you had any for this Nation you was pleased to conceal it except in two things in which you did England the most signal Service that ever Man did the one was destroying your Brother and the other your running away and if you will keep on the other Side of the small River that parts France from us we will forgive you all the Faults of your Life But notwithstanding all the Noise
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 OR THE PICTURE OF THE Late King James Further drawn to the LIFE In which is made manifest by several ARTICLES That the whole Course of his Life hath been a continued Conspiracy against the Protestant Religion Laws and Liberties of the Three Kingdoms In a Letter to Himself PART The Third By TITVS OATES D. D. LONDON Printed by J. D. to be sold by Richard Baldwin near the Oxford-Arms Inn in Warwick-Lane M. DC XCVII TO His most Excellent Majesty WILLIAM III. By the Grace of God And the Choice of the Good People of England Of Great-Britain France and Ireland Rightful and Lawful KING Defender of the Faith and the Restorer of our LAWS and LIBERTIES As well as the Victorious PROTECTOR of Oppressed Europe TITVS OATES D. D. His Faithful Dutiful and Loyal Subject and Servant most humbly dedicates this ensuing MEMORIAL The Contents of this Third Part. INtroduction on K. James's being deserted by the Pope the Scotish Bishops Pag. 1. c. Article XXII He 's charged with Misapplication of the Taxes c. in his Brother's Time 5. XXIII With suspending the Laws against Priests and Jesuits 9. XXIV With the Loss of the Dominion of the Seas 11. XXV With refusing the Test against Popery 13. XXVI With marrying the Daughter of Modena 14. XXVII With making a French General over the English Army 19. XXVIII With oppressing the Kingdom of Scotland with the several Means he made use of 20. XXIX With attempting to break the Vse of Parliaments which is branch'd out into many Divisions and Subdivisions 30. Conclusion giving some Account of King James's Friends here in England c. 94. ERRATA Pag. 1. and some following Pages for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pag. 30. l. antepenuâ—t for with r. without 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Or The Third Part of the Picture of the Late King JAMES SIR I Cannot but acquaint you that many of your Friends here in England are much concern'd that the Whore of Rome that is Mystical Babylon laboured no more to support you when you usurped the Imperial Crown of this Realm and that when God gave the Nation Grace to drive you and your Italian Triggrimate and Welch Cub from amongst us he did not move both Heaven and Earth to restore you again And that since you have fought many a bloody Battel for the Honour of the English Nation you would not venture one more as an additional One to save the Crown on your Head Truly Sir Rome's Prelat did not deal well by you nor you by your self You may remember it appeared to your Red-Letter Friends as if the Grandeur of the Popish Religion and Superstition had been your Gracious Aim and Design and that not without Reason for in a most decent manner you lost the Crown and the little Gentleman his Dominion Nay they hold up their Hands lift up their Eyes and curse that old Coxcomb Innocent XI as the worst and basest of Men that betrayed the Interest of the Church in not doing his Duty to which he was obliged viz. in seconding such a Glorious Design and Undertaking But this thing he never did nor do I believe any of his Successors ever will for in my Conscience I believe they have too much Sense to attempt the Support of a falling House notwithstanding the Conduct and Courage they may pretend to in Cases that are of that Weight and Difficulty It 's true Odescalchi pretended he was to act but 't was according to his own Reason not according to your Sense which if he had followed he might have abdicated Rome the very Day you were driven out of England Therefore what a Varlet you had to do withal judg you Truly he saw that you were losing and that you did in time in a comfortable way quit the Kingdom of England and therefore ought to have sacrificed even the Papacy on your behalf But he was so far from that piece of Heroick Justice that I am perswaded the old Priest would scarce have sacrificed a Sop in his Dripping-Pan to your Service Well then what 's next Since the Church left you I pray what hath the French Monarch done for you I must confess he hath done more for you than the Church did for she left you betimes but he allows you a good Pension and hath not as yet taken it away he does not give and take away Pensions at pleasure and say he hath no Money no it is below him But what is the Reason he doth not come over with you and fix your sweet Bum in the Royal Chair and return as you said he would to France again without putting us to the Charge of a Jack of small Beer for his Pains Or since both the Pope and French King have not done their Duties what 's the Reason that you being a Man of Courage ask Tom Jenner else that has fought so many bloody Battels for the Honour to the English Nation and on behalf of the Crown tho Old Hodg and a Conclave of Inferiour Clergy-men consulted all the History of your Life but could not find one Word of it except that which sav'd them from the Gallows did not fight one single Battel to keep the Crown upon your Head You might have done it and your Clothes have sat never the worse upon your Back Well you had the Courage to run and needs must when the Devil drives and so there is the End of an old Song I have thought upon your Case with as much deliberation as ever the Cathedral Logger-head of a Priest did of getting a Bishoprick by threatning us with disputed Titles and an endless War and yet could never make any thing you ever said or did to be of a Piece Therefore I shall ask you a few Questions and hope you will give me the Satisfaction that one Gentleman ought to give another I do not mean thereby to challenge you for I am no Swords-man I assure you and I think you never took any great delight in one unless it was to hang by your Side As for your Enemies I think you scarce ever fought with any unless it were at the Old-Baily Kings-Bench Court or Western-Circuit where the Odds were ten thousand to one on your Side therefore I mean by Satisfaction a plain honest Answer to the following Questions 1. I remember the villanous Bishops of Scotland took it as a great Affront that our Parliament in England could not reconcile the Security of the Protestant Religion with the admitting of you to be King Now these Bishops poor Rogues had clear another Notion of the Business and thought it might be done with as much ease as for an English Man to catch the Itch in a Scotish Laird's House and therefore went roundly to work and procured your Brother to call a Parliament and constitute you High-Commissioner which was no sooner said but done and your Succession settled and truly you appeared very formidable in that
basely debar his Countrey-men from speaking with the King otherwise than he pleased for fear they might tell Tales of his exorbitant Power by which he disobliged them in the highest and by reason of his being mostly here at Court the Scots Noblemen and Gentlemen were subjugated to a base and vile dependance upon his Creatures and Favourites nay often-times upon his Servants with whom it 's well known they transacted for obtaining and dispatching Gifts and Sign-manuals and that it was by the said Lauderdale's Servants that Protections to Debtors were so villanously obtained Give me leave Sir to put you in mind how hurtful he was to the Nation as High Commissioner of that Kingdom in order to which we may note that the Office of High Commissioner is altogether extraordinary and for a particular Occasion viz. The holding of a Parliament in the King's Absence therefore scarce known in Scotland till James I. came to the Crown and when the Session of Parliament was upon its determination that Office also determined with it Now when you had made Middleton so great he brought in that Innovation of adjourning Parliaments for a long time that he might tamper with them to betray the Religion Laws and Liberties of the People whereby he most illegally continued his Commission in the Interval of Parliament so that he might fit and prepare that poor People for Destruction Truly he had gone a pretty way in it and that he might finish his Work and serve your Purposes upon that Kingdom he did as I said lengthen the Adjournment of that Parliament for about two Years or so a thing never before known in Scotland for which Sir your old Bandog Lauderdale accused him as a Criminal to the King and you with the reproachful Title of a Subverter of the Government But however the Matter was hush'd up for Middleton having done your Business so well there in time he was rewarded with the Government of Tangier But when Lauderdale got into the same Station he far outwent Middleton in continuing his Commission for he spun it out for four Years and a half for which there was no manner of Necessity if you consider but the State of Affairs then in that Kingdom Nay it was so far from being necessary that it was a notorious Grievance for by it he not only hindred the Proceedings of the Parliament but endeavoured to frustrate all its Meetings which as it was a known Violation of the Antient Constitution of that Government so the unnecessary Continuance and Arbitrary long Adjourments of the Parliament contributed exceedingly to the increase of the Peoples Burdens and Distresses Truly Sir it is plain that the villanous Deportment of that Lauderdale was such in the Trust your Brother and you reposed in him which in time appear'd to be his best Security And why so The Reason Sir is plain for what he had proudly plotted and contrived through his matchless Ambition being conscious to himself that he might be reckoned withal for his devilish Proceedings in that Station he was under some necessity of maintaining by his Power in a most tenacious way that he might perfect the Ruin of that People making good the old Proverb Over Shoes over Boots it would be all one at the Gallows at last So that the Relief of that poor and abandon'd People from the Disorders which you and your wicked Party had made in that Kingdom by those two Men remained only with Almighty God there being no Hopes from your Brother Therefore Sir after the Adjournment of a Parliament which was held if I am not misinformed in 1674. and adjourned in December that Year Duke Hamilton the Earl of Tweddale and some Gentlemen being sensible of the notorious Villanies of old Lauderdale and to prevent his Lies from taking place with the King repair to the Court in England with the Approbation of those to whom they communicated their Intentions being confident they should be delivered from the Oppressions occasioned by Middleton and Lauderdale and hoping the King would receive their faithful Representation of the Affairs of that Nation both as to Religion and Government But Lauderdale who was an Enemy of all Righteousness and Truth omitted no Obstruction he could lay in the way For 1. by a Proclamation he procured that no Scots-man should go out of the Kingdom without Licence from the Council that so the King might not have the Truth of Affairs laid before him whereby to see the State and Condition that poor People were in in order to give them some Legal Redress Again 2. it is well known he imployed a pitiful Rascal at Berwick as a Spy to intercept all free Correspondence who being impowred by him did seize and search Sir William Carnegie a Member of Parliament and detain'd him a Lord of his Name you well remember in his Passage thrô that Town to London 3. Lauderdale having by means of this Rogue got some Packets intercepted he like a base Villain transmitted them to our Court not considering the Violation done to the common Intercourse and good Understanding of the two Nations nor regarding that Tenderness which honest Men have for the Honour of their Country and obtained of the King for this Fellow for such Rogueries instead of a Pillory or Gallows the Reward of 50 l. Sterling to be paid out of the Exchequer in Scotland to the great Satisfaction of the King your Self and wicked Party 4. By the same Means and in the same Place he endeavoured to affront Duke Hamilton and his Company in their Passage by questioning their Retinue and refusing them a Night's lodging which was not known to the Governour of that Town he being absent But at the return of these Noble Persons both Governour and People of the Place testified their Respects to them 5. This Lauderdale incensed the King and you against a Gentleman Duke Hamilton sent before him as one that had been a Sequestrator in the Time of Oliver sometime Lord-Protector of these three Nations and a Person disaffected to the Government But notwithstanding all these Obstacles and many other Discouragements the same Persons arrived at Court and did with all Submission and Sincerity and in all Faithfulness and Truth acquit themselves giving a full Account of the State of Affairs both as to the King 's and Countrey 's Interest What was the Event of all this Truly they were dismissed with fair Words and had positive Promises that the Parliament in Scotland should meet and sit an the Day appointed that Grievances should be redressed and that the Commission Lauderdale held as Commissioner should be revoked Upon which they hasten home the Duke with extraordinary Difficulty both in respect of the rigour of the Season and his weakness of Body that they might attend the Parliament in their respective Places on the 3d of March to which Time the Parliament was adjourned which was the very next Day after their arrival But Sir instead of a Session so much expected by the
had got such a Trick in your Brother's Time to put off Parliaments that I doubt if we should try you once more and take in those durante bene placito Rogues you would never leave it off First you got one Session put off and a truly loyal Band of Pensioners dissolved then three Parliaments dissolved one upon the neck of another as you and Nell Waal pleased Now our Forefathers and our Antient Kings of England to prevent Arbitrary Power and such intolerable Mischiefs as these did heartily agree to have a Proclamation made in Westminster-Hall before the End of every Session not to dissolve the Parliament to get a Sum of French Money but to tell the People that all who had any Matter to present to the Parliament should bring it before such a Day for otherwise the Parliament should determine This was done in the Reigns of Hen. 4. Hen. 5. Hen. 6. So that you may see and so might that Villain Jefferies that the People were not to be eluded or disappointed by surprising Prorogations and Dissolutions to frustrate the great Ends of Parliament But Sir suppose all your Brother's Crew of Judges and Ministers of State nay I would allow him half a dozen Priests and Dr. Finch the Warden of All-Souls into the Bargain who is an excellent Preacher and Pimp to the Whore of Babylon and Arbitrary Power nay I will allow you to have the French Parliament held at New-Market in 1677 and suppose they should have roared with open Mouth and said there was no Record nor Statute upon Record extant concerning the sitting of Parliaments to redress Grievances What then And suppose Finch the last 29th of May had told such a Story as this in his loggerheaded Sermon where he applauded the eminent shining Vertues of Charles II above those of his Royal Father and yours his Chastity Integrity Peaceableness and the like and provided all he had said were true that Charles was a Man of those Vertues and that there were neither Common nor Statute Laws extant for the sitting of Parliaments yet by Warden Finch's leave it is more certain that Parliaments are to sit and redress Grievances by the Fundamental Laws of the Government than that his Father presented the Grand Seignior with a Pendulum Clock so small that the Grand Seignior hung it at his Ear as the Ladies here used to hang their Pendants at theirs It may be Sir you will ask what Reason I could have to believe the sitting of Parliaments for redress of Grievances was our Right by the Fundamental Law of England I tell you Sir why because the Government must be lame without it and a Prince and his villanous Ministers might have done what they pleased and their Wills might have been their Laws Your Brother and you bid fair for such a Government had your Friend Coleman's Advice been taken and had K. Charles signed his Declaration for dissolving the Parliament Coleman had not Jenner's Courage of running away and so the Declaration was not signed but to your great Comfort he was graciously left to dance a Christmass Gambrel at Tyburn for his great pains in the mighty Work your Brother your Self and he had upon your Hands Therefore my good Friend it was provided for in the very Essence and Constitution of the Government it self this we may if Frank Withens and the rest of your Crew will give leave call Common Law tho Jefferies once was pleased to call it a Common Where This notwithstanding the filthy Expression of that impudent Villain that had neither Law Manners nor Honesty but the Impudence of ten carted Whores is of as much Value if not more as any Statute and of which all our good Acts of Parliament and Magna Charta it self are but declaratory So that tho your Brother or any King else had been intrusted with the formal Part of summoning and pronouncing the Dissolution of Parliaments which is done by Writ yet the Laws that oblige the King as well as the People have determined when and how it is to be done This is enough to shew you that your Brother as King shared in the Sovereignty that was in the Parliament and that it was cut out to him by Law and not left at his Disposal I must therefore tell you that Thomas and Francis and the rest of the Bloodhounds and murdering Dispensing Judges were much out in point of Law when they told your Brother that Parliaments both as to Calling and Dissolving were at his Will and Pleasure 3. There is another Statute viz. 25 Edw. III. cap. 23. that was Law in your Brother's Reign which the Judges if they had been acquainted with the Law who truly except a few that had but little Honesty and were generally Strangers to the Law must have told him and you too did oblige him and you to suffer the Meeting and Sitting of Parliaments Therefore I make use of that Statute to prove that the Meeting and Sitting of Parliaments is the Fundamental Right and Privilege of the People of England This Statute Sir was called the Statute of Provisors and was made to prevent and cut off the Incroachments of the Bishops of Rome whose Usurpations in disposing of Benefices had occasioned intolerable Grievances In the Preamble of which Statute it is expressed as follows Whereupon the Commons have prayed our said Sovereign Lord the King That since the Right of the Crown of England and the Law of the Realm is such that upon the Mischiefs and Damage which happen to this Realm he ought and is bounden of the Accord of his said People in his Parliament thereof to make Remedy and Law in avoiding the Mischiefs and Damage which thereof cometh that it may please him thereupon to provide Remedy Our Sovereign Lord the King seeing the Mischiefs and Damage before-named and having regard to the said Statute made in the Time of his said Grandfather and to the Causes contained in the same which Statute holdeth always its Force and was never defeated or annulled in any Point and by so much is bound by his Oath to do the same to be kept as the Law of this Realm tho that by sufferance and negligence it hath since been attempted to the contrary and also having regard to the grievous Complaints made to him by his People in divers Parliaments holden heretofore willing to ordain Remedy for the great Damages and Mischiefs which have hapned and daily do happen by the said Cause c. by the Assent of the Great Men and Commonalty of his said Realm hath ordained and established Come Sir what say you to all this Where is your Holloway your Withens and your Walcots And where is Tom Jenner with his Sorrow in one Hand and his Grief in the other an ignorant Rascal like the rest of his Brethren Where is your Herbert your Heath and your Milton Some of them are gone to their Places but they lived long enough to enslave the People and those that yet live owe
a Debt for their Rogueries the Gallows groans for their perverting of Justice and Judgment Where are your murdering Judges of the West Some of them yet live They might without the Consent of a pair of Spectacles have seen and might without fear have told you they could not chuse but see what was contained in this Preamble now recited Were the Rogues ignorant Then why did not your Pemberton your Scroggs your Levins your Charlton and the rest of that Crew instruct your Brother and you what was contained and pointed at in this Preamble But alas they did not they were able enough but they had rascally durante bene placito Commissions that indisposed them to be plain and honest in that Affair they were more afraid of losing their Places than of being damn'd for not doing their Duties But since they had not the Honour Honesty and Conscience of upright Judges give me leave to be plain with you Therefore Sir observe 1. The intolerable Grievance and Burden occasioned by the illegal Incroachments of the See of Rome to which Yoke you and your Villains endeavour'd to reduce and subjugate these Kingdoms You fired our City and murdered our Friends you promoted Men of Villanous Principles and worse Morals to the Judgment-Seat and made them Vassals to your Will and Pleasure who if they complied not were reproachfully dismissed their Imployments and ruined if possible Nay if any of them attempted but to prosecute Popery alas they were not for your Turn for your Design was by them to revive that intolerable Grievance by incouraging the illegal Incroachments of the See of Rome 2. Observe the many Complaints the People had made who in those dark Times under Popery groan'd under such Burdens What Burdens I pray you under the Incroachments of the See of Rome Why truly in disposing of Benefices Ay it is a good Observation for the Pope would present none but such as should advance his usurped Power and Interest and if the People were so bold as to complain of these things were they not a parcel of Rebels and Traitors for their pains No they complain'd without being called or treated as such What Remedy had they A Parliament Now Sir had not we as much need of an Act of Provisors against you for in your Brother's Time how many of your Rogues were presented to the best Livings in the Realm at your Procurement and how many Villains were made Bishops by the Whores Cleveland and Portsmouth and the Pimps and Bawds at Court Did not we stand in need of Statutes of Provisors Name me one Man of these that were not to advance the Power and Interest of France and to wink at the Progress and Growth of Popery Had we not reason to complain Yes To whom to the King No he was engaged for Popery and the French Interest and Arbitrary Power as well as your self His Metropolitan Whores were Papists to please him or he one to please them Therefore to what purpose was it We had none to complain to but a Parliament and how you used them we have not forgot and how our Application to them was not only useless but dangerous is not unknown In a word Sir the Condition of the Complainants in the Time of Edw. III tho they lived in the dark Times of Popery were in a far better Condition than we were in your Brother's Reign for notwithstanding the Religion of Edw. III his Interest was his Peoples and therefore held frequent Parliaments to whom they might complain and from whom they might find Redress without being judged Traitors and Rebels to the Government 3. Observe the Endeavours used in vain by former Parliaments to redress the same and to bring their Laws in being to have their Force and Effect You know that when the Kings of England were wicked then to gain the Point they used to fly to Rome for Countenance and advance that usurped Power to the Prejudice of the People So it was with your Brother and you when you had a Design in hand to enslave the Nation then you set up the Power and Interest of France and none were to be preferred in our good Church but Villains that were case-hardned enough to join with your Brother and you in ravishing the Peoples Rights and Franchises Had we good Laws in being against Popery They were suspended Had we any good Laws against the growing Greatness of France Yes we got one poor Act of Parliament against France and that was eluded Nay now I think on 't we got an Act to enter into an actual War against France with which your Party did impudently beg Money from France We got a poor sorry Act for the Liberty of the Subject called the Habeas Corpus Act this was by you and your Villains evaded so that we were under a necessity of Complaining Those in the Time of Edw. III had redress we had none till we drove you and the French Interest and Popery out of the Kingdom 4. Observe the Acknowledgment of the King and Parliament that the Obligation to this Duty was upon the King who you know is entrusted by the Law to preserve the Peace and Liberties of the Realm and to rectify all Miscarriages in the Government Which is apparent 1. From the Right of the Crown obliging him to pass good Laws 2. There were good Laws committed to his Trust in full Force which he was to execute 3. There is the King's Oath to pass new Laws for the Peoples Safeguard which they should tender to him as well as to execute old Laws already made 4. From the Sense of the People exprest in their Complaints And 5. From the Mischief and Damage that would otherwise ensue and therefore it is said that by the Desire and Accord of his People he past this famous Law the Preamble of which I have recited to you in part 4. There is another Statute worthy of your Consideration and pretty much to the same purpose you will find it in the 2d of Rich. II. in N o 28. Also the Commons of England in Parliament desire that forasmuch as Petitions and Bills presented in Parliament by divers of the Commons could not heretofore have their respective Answers that therefore both their Petitions and Bills in this present Parliament as also all others which shall be presented in any future Parliament may have a Good and Gracious Answer and Remedy ordained thereupon before the departing of every Parliament and to this purpose a due Statute be ensealed or enacted at this present Parliament to be and remain in Force for all Times to come To which the King replied thus The King is pleased that all such Petitions delivered in Parliament of Things or Matters which cannot otherwise be determined a good and reasonable Answer shall be made and given before the departure of the Parliament This King you know left not a very good Name behind being drawn away from loving his People just as you and your Brother were
their Pleasures before Grievances were redressed and publick Bills of Common-Safety passed because to dissolve and prorogue at Pleasure is a Privilege which belongs to the Crown Answ This word Prorogue is but a new-fangled Business a thing brought up in latter Days but as for dissolving Parliaments at Pleasure that has been the Practice of our former wicked Kings by the Advice of their Roguish Ministers and Judges who laid aside all Law Honour Honesty and Conscience to prostitute themselves to the abominable Lust of a filthy Prince who designed nothing less than the Ruin of the Kingdom What your Father did I will not here concern my self but what your Brother did by your Procurement is my Province at this Time Your Brother when he held his French Parliament at New-Market in 1677 where most of the Rogues and Whores of the Court were present and your gracious Self waiting on him did much aggrandize himself by that Glorious Assembly Upon April 16. the Parliament at Westminster was adjourned till May 21. following Immediately upon the Recess the Duke of Crequi aâ—d that modest sober chaste Man of God the A. Bp of Rheims and Monsâ—eur Barillon and a Train of 3 or 400 Persons of all Qualities appear'd there so that the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of France with so many of their Commons made it look like an old-fashioned French Parliament And the Parliament at Westminster had been adjourned for their better Reception But what Address they made to the King or what Acts passed at that Noble Parliament I cannot tell they having not been yet published But I suppose they were these that follow 1. An Act for continuing his Majesty's Subjects in the Service of France 2. An Act for enabling the Dutchess of Cleveland to use the Arch-Bishop of Paris for her Father-Confessor c. 3. An Act to discharge her Grace from farther Attendance upon the King 4. An Act to constitute the French Gentlewoman to be Whore in her room and a Spy for the French King 5. An Act to enable Nell Waal to be Woman and Bawd in ordinary to the said French Gentlewoman and his Sacred Majesty 6. An Act to supply the Extraordinary Occasions of that Whore Portsmouth and her Woman Nell Waal 7. An Act to enable the Dutchess of Portsmouth in order to her Health to possess and enjoy a certain Apartment in a House-Royal called the Lock situate at the end of Kent-street and Nell to have the Reversion after her decease in case of Necessity 8. An Act for the further Supply of French-Money in order to enslave the Kingdom of 3000000 Livres per Annum 9. An Act for enabling James Duke of York to go on with his Conspirators in the Conspiracy against the Laws Liberties and Religion of the People of England and to demand the French King's Purse Credit and Interest for his Help and Assistance 10. An Act to invest Edward Coleman with the Sum of 20000 l. and a good Pension from the French King for his great Services done and to be done for the Catholick Religion and French Interest 11. An Act of Abolition of all Claims and Demands from the Subjects of France on Account of all Prizes made of the English at Sea since the Year 1674 till that Day and for the future 12. Act to supply the extraordinary Needs of the Pensioners at Westminster 13. An Act to continue the Sham-Alliance with the States-General of the Vnited-Provinces There were I suppose several Private Bills in favour of the Pimps Bawds and Whores that were not sworn in Ordinary but passed the Royal Assent as I may suppose because at that time all things between England and France moved with that punctual Regularity that it was like the Harmony of the Spheres so consonant with themselves tho I could not hear the Musick I pray Sir let us know in your next Declaration what other Secret Bills were passed in that August Assembly wherein the Affairs of Peace and War were transacted with the greatest Confidence and when good Boys they had done their Master's Business with your Brother's Aid and Help they were adjourned from New-Market to London where they dissolâ—ed themselves without your Brother's Prerogative to make way for the Westminster Parliament and so rubb'd off with all Demonstration of mutual Affection and Friendship Alas Sir these were Matters of that Import that they required all imaginable Expedition and Secresy and it would have been the highest Presumption for the poor Pensioners in the Westminster Parliament to have intermedled with them Alas if they had been admitted to end the Work it might have ended in their own Dissolution in order to a couragious running away You say by way of Objection Your Partisans made that which your Brother and other Kings did by their Prerogative Royal dissolve Parliaments before Grievances were redressed and necessary Bills past because things did not move with that punctual Regularity between your Brother and them that was between him and the French King I pray what was the Reason Had they not had Gratuities at the Charge of the Nation Or had the Dutchess of Portsmouth jilted them out of the French King's Blessing which the Duke of Crequi and the Arch-Bishop of Rheims brought them of 200000 Lewis d' Ores Who can tell what to say to these things It is no wonder then that Crew of Voters were grown resty and did not move regularly Well what then the Parliament must not sit till some State-Clockmaker had mended their Motions and made them go true the House then had some good Bills over which they roared only and then were sent Home by a blast of Prerogative-Breath Had your Brother any other Prerogative but what the Law gave him and what he was invested with at his Coronation If he had let us know it but for once I will grant he prorogued and dissolved Parliaments at his Pleasure to serve you and your Cut-throat Crew It doth not therefore follow that he had a Right so to do according to a Maxim I learned almost 30 Years since A facto ad jus non valet consequentia especially when such Prorogations and Dissolutions are against so many express and positive Laws such Principles of Common Right and Justice and so many particular Ties and Obligations to the contrary Your Brother might by the Advice of wicked Statesmen and villanous Judges pretend to a Prerogative the Law had given him of which nothing ever was known unless revealed by some French Maxims learned abroad in his Travels Yet such a Prerogative could not justify such Practices for if he had been invested with such Prerogatives by the Law yet the Law could give none to destroy it self and those it protects But Old Hodg and his Inferior Clergy may interpose and say Had not King Charles his Prerogative founded upon Law Who questions Sir but the Kings of England had their Prerogatives Yet observe what Old Bracton saith Pag. 487. That tho the Common Law allows many
Prerogatives to the King yet it allows none by which to hurt or prejudice any Therefore with the Learned in the Law I will assert That whatever Power or Prerogative your Brother had ought to have been used according to the true Intent of the Government that is to preserve the People and their Interest and not to hinder a Parliament in reforming Grievances and providing for the future Execution of the Laws and whenever he applied his Prerogative to frustrate these Ends by the Advice of you or any wicked Person it was a Violation of Right and the Breach of his Coronation Oath since he stood oblig'd to Pass or Confirm those Laws his People should chuse in the Time of his Reign 6. Your Brother and you had little or no regard to the Laws All the Cry of your Villains was Prerogative and nothing was indured that was according to Law Therefore Sir I will give you a Proof by Dr. Gauden's leave from the Words of your own Father who when in Prison began to recollect himseâ—f a little and gave your Brother this Advice when he should come to the Crown That Prerogative is best shewed and exercised in remitting rather than exacting the Rigour of the Laws there being nothing worse than Legal Tyranny nor would he have him entertain any Aversion or Dislike of Parliaments which in their Right Constitution with Freedom and Honour will never injure or diminish his Greatness but will rather be as interchangings of Love Loyalty and Confidence between a Prince and his People Surely Sir if the Reports and Opinions of the best Lawyers could not yet the Counsel of his Father the King or his Father in God might have wrought upon him and you But the Truth is in the Time of Richard II there were some Flaterers and Traitors that presumed in defiance of their Countries Rights to assert such a boundless Prerogative in the Kings of England as Chief Justice Tresillian and others advising him that he might dissolve Parliaments at Pleasure and that no Member should be called to Parliament nor any Act past in either House without his Approbation in the first place and that whoever did advise otherwise were Traitors But this Advice was no less fatal to himself than pernicious to his Prince To which let me add a Saying of your Grandfather in his Speech to his Parliament in 1609 in which he gives them Assurance That he never meant to govern by any other Law than the Law of the Land And tho it be disputed among them as if he intended to alter the Law and govern by the absolute Power of a King yet to put them out of doubt he tells them that all Kings who are not Tyrants or Perjured will bind themselves within the Limits of their Laws and they that perswade the contrary are Vipers and Pests both against them and the Commonwealth Thus Sir I have plainly proved that Parliaments are the Right of the People of England and that no King without the Breach of his Coronation-Oath can govern without them I come now to shew II. That they are the Essential Part of the Government Truly Sir I have had occasion to prove that as a necessary Consequence of the foresaid Right but something may be offered to prove this Point which will aggravate your Crime and the Villany of your Party in attempting to render this Essential Part of the Government useless Therefore Sir when you are at leisure consider with your self the Constitution of the Government which your Brother did wound and you attempted utterly to destroy but therein lost your self and this Government which would have been worth your keeping Take a View therefore of the Constitution of the English Government where the King is the Head from whom the Government it self receiveth its Life as he from the Law receiveth his Power He has the Care of the whole and it is his Interest to seek its Welfare The Strength of the Nation is his Strength and the Riches of the Nation his Riches The Glory and Honour of the Nation is his Glory and Honour So on the contrary when the Nation is weak he is weak if it be impoverished he is impoverished if it lose itss Honour and Glory he loses his likewise But lest Passion Mistakes Flatteries or the ill Designs of some about him should make him forsake his Zeal and follow a destructive imaginary Interest there is an Estate of Hereditary Nobility who are by Birthright the Kingdom 's Counsellors whose main Interest and Concern it is to keep the Ballance of the Government steady that the Favourites and great Officers exceed not their Bounds and oppress the People that Justice be duly administred and that all Parts of the Government be preserved intire yet even these may grow insolent a Disease to which great Men are liable or may by Offices Hopes of Preferment or other Accidents become as to the Majority of them rather the obsequious Flatterers of the Court than true Supporters of the Publick and English Interest Therefore the Excellency of our Government affords us another Estate of Men which are the Representatives of the Freeholders Cities Boroughs and Corporations of England who by the old Law were to be chosen yearly if not oftner whereby they perfectly gave the Sense of those that chose them and did the same as if the Electors were present coming so newly from them and so quickly returning to give account of their Fidelity under the Penalty of Shame and no further Trust Therefore Sir consider 1. If the Constitution of the House of Commons had been destroyed 't would have been impossible the Sense of the Nation and their Complaints and the Grievances of the People should have beer represented To what Estate of Men must we have had Recourse Must it have been to the Nobility It may be they might not have understood our Grievances being in a Sphere above the Rank of Common People And the House of Commons being the Constitution how could Money be raised to support the Government without them unless by a total Subversion of the whole Frame of our Constitution for by the Law the sole Power of giving Money remains in the House of Commons none being concerned in that but the Commons of England 2. Those that would overthrow the Constitution of the House of Commons will not stick to subvert that of the House of Lords who are so essential a Part of the Government that to part with them was to part with the second State which is the Wisdom and Counsel of the Nation to which their Birth Education and constant Imployment in every Parliament being the same fits and prepares them I have read of a House of Commons in the 2d Parliament of Mary I. that was brib'd to consent to the receiving and owning of the Pope's Power but I never yet heard of a House of Lords that were so bribed and the House of Lords in 1649 being voted useless the Commons run into so many
Factions that put General Cromwell to the Necessity of taking upon him the Government of the Nation by a single Person by the Name and Title of Lord Protector Those who would destroy the Constitution of the House of Lords do endeavour the Destruction of the Ballance of the English Government 3. Consider the King gives Life and Vigour to all the Proceedings in Parliament the Wills and Desires of the People tho approved by the Lords and Commons in Parliament without the King signify nothing unless he bids them be an Act they are abortive Therefore he that shall attempt the Subversion of any of the other two Estates is no more a King but a Tyrant and useless to God and Man You see that your Father undid himself to all Intents and Purposes by following such Measures as subverted his own Government and so have you and if you will not believe it you may ask the French King and he will soon satisfy you of the Matter But from hence Sir you may see that you cannot destroy any one Estate in this Government but the whole is subverted and therefore I may lay down this Proposition that Parliaments are the Essential Part of the Government In a word then to conclude this Head let me ask you or any of your Plotters these two Questions 1. If this be so that by so great Authority viz. so many Statutes then and now in Force the Fundamentals of the Common Law the Essentials of the Government it self Magna Charta your Brother's Coronation-Oath and so many Laws of God and Man the Parliament ought to meet and sit to redress Grievances provide for Common Safety especially in times of Common Danger and that this was so in a most eminent manner none can doubt that did believe the King so many Parliaments the Cloud of Witnesses the publick Judicatures their own Sense and Experience of the manifold Mischiefs acted and the apparent Ruin and Confusion that threatned the Nation by the restless Attempts of you and your bloody Party Then Sir I ask you Whether after the People of England had the Point of the Dagger thus set to their Breasts and the Knife at their Throats Cities and Habitations fired Invasions and Insurrections threatned to destroy the King and Government your villanous Popish Party did not design to destroy the only Remedy hoped for under God to give us Relief that is our Parliaments who with so much Cost and Pains were elected sent up and intrusted for our Help and to turn them off without answering the Ends for which chosen by those frequent Prorogations and Dissolutions Consider Sir the Point in hand Were not the People of England justified in their important Cries humble Petitions to the King your Brother fervent Addresses to their Members and earnest Claims for this their Birthright pleaded with all the Modesty imaginable which the Laws of the Kingdom consonant to the Laws of God and Nature had given them How impudent then were your Abhorrers of such Petitions and Claims What can Withens who was expelled the House for the same say for himself What can the Rascal plead in behalf of himself and a rascally Crew that joined with him in signing an Address of Abhorrence and that Villain Jefferies who did that in London which Wythens had done in Westminster Which brings me to a second Question 2. If it be fo that by so great Authority Parliaments ought to meet and sit to redress Grievances c. what shall we say to those who advised your Brother to this high Violation of their Countries Rights to the infringing so many just Laws and to the exposing the Publick to those desperate Hazards even almost a total Ruine which was done with all the Impudence and Barefacedness imaginable the Advisers not having the least Remorse upon them If K. Alfred as Andrew Horne in his Mirror of Justice tells us hanged Darling Segnor Cadwine Cole and forty Judges more for judging contrary to Law and yet all those faise Judgments were but in particular and private Cases what Death did those deserve who offer'd Violence to the Law it self and all the sacred Rights of their Country If the Lord Chief Justice Thorpe iâ— Edward Ill 's time for receiving the Bribery of 100 l. was adjudged to be hanged as having made the King break his Oath to the People how much more guilty were they that made your Brother break his Coronation-Oath and perswaded him to act against all Laws for holding of Parliaments and passiâ—g 〈◊〉 therein which â—e was so solemnly sworn to do And if the Lord Chief Justice Tresillian was drawn hang'd and quartered for advising the King to act contrary to some Statutes only what did those deserve that advised your Brother to act not only against some but all the antient Laws and Statutes of the Realm Moreover Sir I would say this further to you if you will have a little Patience If Blake the King's Counsel only for assisting in the Matter and drawing up Indictments by the King's Command against Law tho it's like he might plead the King's Order and Command for so doing was drawn hang'd and quartered what was due to them that assisted your Brother in the total Destruction of all the Laws of the Kingdom and as much as in them lay their King and Country too And if Vske the Under-Sheriff whose Office it is to execute the Laws for but endeavouring to aid Tresillian Blake and their Accomplices against some of the Laws was also with five more drawn hang'd and quarter'd what Punishment did they deserve that not only aided your Brother but endeavour'd to subvert all the Laws of the Kingdom And if Empson and Dudley in the time of Henry VIII tho of the King 's Privy Council were hanged for procuring and executing an Act of Parliament contrary to the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom and to the great Vexation of the People when yet they had an Act of Parliament on their Side what ought to have been done to those who had no such Act to shelter themselves and who not only acted contrary to but to the Destruction of the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom I can expect Sir no Answer from you but this The Men that did these things should surely have died if they had been discovered they should have perished without Mercy Is it so then I come to the last Particular to be debated and that is III. You are the Man and your Party was the Party that did endeavour to break the Use of Parliaments by inveighing against that way of Government In a word therefore I shall descend unto Particulars and shew you 1st That your Inclinations were not for Parliaments or that Way of Governing 2ly What those Parliaments were that you and your Party procured to be dissolved 3ly What Arts and Methods you used to expose the three last Parliaments your Brother held in 1679 1680 and 1681. 4ly Your Unreasonableness in so doing 5ly The ill Consequences
Inclination you had for any Parliament for certain you nor your rascally Party could never expect to see a Parliament more ready to assist you in all your wicked Designs 3. Your Inclination to Parliaments was seen by the Notions and Practices of your Party in relation to Parliaments especially from those of them that knew you best Were not Coleman Beddingfield Whitebread Strange Nevil and several other Villains of your Privy Council at St. James's and did not these study to find out your Inclinations and to imitate you exactly And how these and the rest of your villanous Crew stood affected to Parliaments in general is not yet forgotten by some that knew them Was it not their common discourse that they hoped there would be no more need of Parliaments did not your Popish Priests and Jesuits go from Coffee-house to Coffee-house and ridicule Parliaments Alas Sir this was but the Copy which your Villains took from your own Words who sometimes when they wanted a Supply for their extraordinary Occasions would be seemingly content that a Parliament should meet and sit to raise such a Supply but never to redress Grievances nay some of them have said that a King's Proclamation ought to be sufficient to raise Money and that it would never be well with us till the whole Government was reduced to the Model of that of France 4. Your Inclinations to a Parliament were seen in your daily Breaches upon the Laws and Customs of the Kingdom You knew the Parliament had made an Act of Uniformity and several Laws against Dissenters in 1663 and several Laws were made against Papists in former Kings Reigns yet to oblige the Popish Party you broke in upon all these Laws at once and procured your Brother in the said Year to put forth an Indulgence for tender Consciences not for the Encouragement of Protestant Dissenters but the Increase and Growth of Popery And as a necessary thing to usher in your second wicked War against the Dutch you put your Brother upon issuing forth another Declaration of Indulgence in 1671. Many other Instances I could give of this Matter but this shall suffice Now how this could consist with an innate Love to English Parliaments I must leave to better Judgments 5. Your Inclinations to Parliaments were seen in your Unwillingness to let that Parliament meet and sit in which you had so great a Band of Pensioners To my certain Knowledg Messenger after Messenger has been sent to France with begging Letters to get Money from the French King to put off the Sitting of the Parliament Give your Brother his due he never cared for their Sitting unless it was to get a Supply that he might exercise his Talent you know where without Molestation which he could not well do at a Session of Parliament Sir when the Parliament was by Prorogation to have met in Feb. 1672 3 O what Interest was used to put it off till October following and it had been done if your Party had brought in a Million as they promised but bringing in but 356000 l. there was no help but a Parliament must meet who I think made up the Defect in the Supply you expected from the Popish Party You know the Parliament was put off from Octob. 1670 till Feb. 1672 3. by which long Interval you had a competent Scope for the mighty Work you had upon your Hands that you and the rest of the Architects of our Ruine might be so long free from their odious and busy Inspection till it were finished A drinking Companion of your Brother's telling you that the Session of Parliament drew near and asking you what you thought of the Humour the Parliament-men would be in at next Session you answered you trusted there might be no Occasion for their meeting any more for you had hopes to bring the Cause to bear without a Parliament and took it as a great Affront that the Question was asked You know the old Squire your Brother laughed at you for that Capricio of yours tho your Jesuits thought it a piece of Impudence in that Gentleman so much as to mention the name of a Parliament in your Presence he knowing your Opinion as to that way of Government I must conclude that Man to be at a perpetual War with Mankind that will not admit of the sight of either Friends or Enemies If Sir you could not bear the Congress of your Friends that had been so loyal and bountiful you must certainly be averse to the meeting of a Parliament that would call you and your wicked Party to account for your many traiterous Designs against our Laws and Liberties 6. And lastly Your Inclination to Parliaments was seen in your Opinion of the Affection which your Band of Pensioners did bear to you and your Cause You know Sir you had put your self under the Protection of the French King and therefore it was scarce possible for you to engage any more in a Parliamentary way for all English Parliaments are haters of the French Interest Your Friend Coleman in his Letter to La Chaise Sept. 29. says That in Father Ferier 's time he had inculcated the great danger the Catholick Religion and the Interest of his most Christian Majesty would be in at the next Session of Parliament which was to be in Oct 1673. at which I fore saw that the King my Master would be forced to do somewhat in Prejudice to his Alliance with his most Christian Majesty which I saw so evidently and particularly that we should make Peace with Holland that I urged all the Arguments I could which to me were Demonstrations to convince your Court of that Mischief and pressed all I could to perswade his most Christian Majesty to use his utmost Endeavours to prevent that Session of our Parliament Again you find him pressing him for the Dissolution of the Parliament in order to bring the Confederates to a Peace upon the French King's Terms Then he plainly tells you That the Parliament as it was managed by the then Ministry was both unuseful to England and France and the Catholick Religion In another Part he tells you That Prorogations were but loss of time and a means to strengthen those who opposed the Crown and therefore still presses for a Dissolution which would give the Protestant Religion the greatest Blow that ever it receiv'd since its first Birth So that we may see by your Servant Coleman what Opinion you had of the then Parliament But that we may rivet the Matter I pray Sir take but a Note or two of your own Letter to La Chaise wherein you express your self extreamly pleased That the French King was satisfied of the unusefulness of the Parliament in order to the Service of the King your Brother and his most Christian Majesty In another place you say that his Christian Majesty was of Opinion that the Parliament was neither in his Interest nor yours Pray let me know what Parliament would be in your Interest
had your spiritual Myrmidons throughout the Kingdom roaring from their Pulpits against the Proceedings of those Parliaments by the Instruction of some of their Superiours this by the help of new Matter the Court instructed them in lasted several years so that they were rather Court-Agents to carry on some design than Ministers of Christ and Stewards of the Mysteries of God But alas when the Tithe-pig began to squeak they turned their Discourses another way Truly Sir to give the pious Herd of your Ecclesiastical Swine their due they will do any thing to serve you if they can but enjoy their Swill and Grains poor Wretches I never met with any of them that would lose a Meal to save either King or Kingdom 8. You had your Rascals in the most publick Coffee-houses who spent their time chiefly in railing at Parliaments that they were unuseful and were bringing 40 and 41 again upon the Stage that they had a Design to ruin the King by giving no Money and starving his Servants nay Sir they were so insolent as to offer all Indignity to those Gentlemen that had served in any of those Parliaments for doing of which they were not only incouraged by your Grace and Favour in your Smiles but were also well rewarded The Particulars might be set down but I leave them to reply upon those that shall pretend to answer this or any part of it provided they put their Names to their Answer as I have done to this my Memorial otherwise I shall not take notice of any Scribler in your Party You have your Friend Sherridan one of your Devil's Brokers in Ireland and honest Togra Smith another excellent Partisan of yours nay you have a Set of Case-hardned Villains that would if they durst be barking at the Government the Rogues stand still for want of Business I pray give them orders to disprove any part of the truth of what I now write if you do you have a notorious Rogue the Quondam Bp. of Kilmore that walks in your Quondam Park of St. James's he is still a Malignant and hates our English Government you would do well to send for him for he would be a main Champion with you in the Case of governing by Parliaments The Sum of all which is this You may reflect upon the various ways you and your Party took to expose three Parliaments by which you shewed your self an Enemy of all English Parliaments and therefore we could not but judg who were the Men that would poison the People and change the Government even the Enemies of the Constitution and of those who endeavoured to preserve the old English Government Fourthly The unreasonableness of the ill usage of those Parliaments shews you an Enemy to Parliaments in general You cannot but remember what amaâ—â—ment seized every good Man to see two of the greatest Parliaments England ever knew dissolved within the space of three Months I confess the Kings of England have in a great measure been intrusted by the Kingdom with appointing the times of the Sitting and Dissolving of Parliaments but lest thro' defect of Age Experience or Understanding they should forget or mistake our Constitution or by Passion private Interest or the Influence of evil Counsellors be so far misled as not to assemble Parliaments when the publick Affairs require it or should declare them dissolved before the Ends of their Meeting were accomplished the Wisdom of our Forefathers has provided divers Laws both for holding Parliaments annually and oftner if need be and that they should not be put off till all the Bills were passed all Petitions answered and Grievances â—edressed But to be more particular with you I will ask you a few Questions which if any of your Teagues can answer me on your behalf they shall be my Counsellors I assure you if ever I come to be Duke of Modena 1. What Precedent can be produced for such a Dissolution amongst our antient Records in Parliament held in the times of our antient English Kings We are taught by the Writ of Summons that Parliaments are never called without the Advice of the Council and the usage of all Ages has never been to send them away without the same Advice Now if these Methods of calling and dismissing Parliaments were safe then not to pursue them was to expose the King to the Censures and Reflections of the whole Nation for an Action not only illegal and uncustomary but also very ungrateful to the People 2. Have not the Laws of the Land taken great care to make the King always dear to the People and to preserve his Person sacred in their Esteem by wisely preventing his appearing in any Action that may be unacceptable to them Now was the Dissolution of three Parliaments nay four in the compass of 26 Months acceptable to the People Ought you not then to have used your Interest with him to have acted according to the Laws and Customs of Parliaments which would have rendred you both acceptable to the People And had he given himself leasure to have had this debated in Council because then his Counsellors must have answered for their Advice you and your Brother had remained Honourable in the Eyes of the Nation and not have been judged guilty of such Orders as were not only irregular but also very illegal 3. Suppose you should say the King commanded it to be done and his Ministers were bound to obey and therefore are justified yet Sir let me tell you that the Ministers that advised and assisted in the Administration of Affairs could not justify an unlawful Action under Colour of the King's Commands since all his Commands contrary to Law were in themselves void which is the true reason of that old Maxim in the Law That the King can do no wrong a Maxim not only true in self but safe for a Prince and Subject too for certainly it was Nonsense in your Brother's Favourites to think of excusing their many Enormities under pretence of their Master's Command The truth is it was so unreasonable that the Privy Council was ignorant of the thing and surprised at it not being worthy to be trusted with it but the French Whore near St. James's House had the News of the Parliament's being to be dissolved two days before we knew of it at Oxford so that it was a Work of darkness concerted between Barillon and Portsmouth and the King resolved upon it by their Advice 4. Would it not have been unreasonable in your Brother and you to have dismissed the 12 Judges from sitting in Term-time and from going the several Circuits that Justice and Judgment might not be done Now that Parliaments should meet and sit for Redress of Grievances and making good and wholesome Laws by the same Sacred Tie whereby at his Coronation he obliged himself to let his Judges sit to distribute Justice every Term and in both the Seasons of the Year in their Circuits and to preserve inviolably all the Rights and Liberties of
the People is very evident Therefore Sir abruptly to dissolve Parliaments when nothing but the Legislative and united Wisdom of the Kingdom could relieve the Protestant Party from their just Fears or secure their Religion from its certain Dangers is very inconsistent with the great Trust reposed in your Brother and seems to express but little of that Love and Tenderness which the People of England might justly have expected from him 5. Would not the Constitution of Parliament as by the Laws and Customs of England established have been equally imperfect and destructive of it self had it been left to the Arbitrary Will of a wicked King whether he would summons a Parliament or had it been put into his Power to dismiss them at his pleasure or at the Pleasure of two rascally French Whores or a little scoundrel French Ambassador And therefore was not your Brother's dissolving the Parliaments at Westminster and Oxford by your procurement a most unreasonable thing 6. Was not the Kingdom so alarm'd at the Wickedness of your Brother in dissolving those Parliaments that Men began to be exceedingly concerned not knowing where it would end insomuch that your Brother was necessitated in a sneaking Declaration to let the Nation see he was conscious to himself that his Dissolution of those Parliaments stood in need of an Apology so that it was but at the best an Appeal from his Parliament to the People of England And if your Brother and you could not justify your Usage of these Parliaments because so destructive to the Liberty of the Subject what assurance did your two French Whores Portsmouth and Mazarine and Barillon give you and the rest of your Party that your Brother's Declaration shewing Reasons for such a Violation to our English Government would make the Nation in love with such Treatments of their Representatives For Sir could you think in your Conscience that the People of England did not see themselves hereby exposed to the restless Malice of their Enemies and resented it highly since they could not but be sensible of the languishing Condition of the three Kingdoms and that nothing but a Parliament could cure the Distempers with which we were infected by you and your Party both as to Religion and Morals And had they not with great Charge and Difficulty chosen three Parliaments on whom they placed their Hopes And those being suddenly dissolved could they believe your Brother or you designed any thing less than a total Subversion of the Government Come Sir sit down put on your Irish considering Cap and judg why since Ned Coleman's Protestant Declaration was so unhappily published before its time the Nation should not be as much alarmed at Barillon's Declaration in April 1681 as they were at Coleman's in 1678. And could you and your Irish Teagues imagine that one French Declaration should so soon succeed another nay could you without being confounded see your Servant Coleman's Original fairly drawn by the Advice of the French King's Confessor to bring in Popery and Slavery so much outdone by Barillon's Copy since you judged it could never be outdone by any Man whatever And since the former exposed you and your Brother as the worst of Men how could you expect the latter should not have the same effect upon the English Nation and put them into such a Ferment as to deal by you and your Party just as we did in 1688 7. Did not your Brother April 20. 1679 not only in Council but Parliament declare how sensible he was of the ill Posture of his Affairs and the great Jealousies and Dissatisfaction of his good Subjects whereby the Crown and Government was become too weak to preserve it self which proceeded from his use of a single Ministry and of private Advices and therefore professed his Resolution to lay them wholly aside for the future and to be advised by those able and worthy Persons whom he had chosen for his Council in all his weighty and important Affairs Now Sir consider was it not most unreasonable in you and your French Vermine to put the King upon such a manifest Violation of his Royal Word and Promise to the Nation But to put the Matter out of dispute Did not your Brother on that Choice of his Council tell the Parliament of his Resolution of meeting his People often in Parliament And who was it that changed his mind and made him alter those Gracious Purposes but you and your wicked Party Would you make us believe that your Brother could so soon forget his Promises or that upon the meeting of these Parliaments there were no weighty Matters to be debated 8. Did not you and your Party in prevailing with the King shew the World that your Cunning kept not pace with your Malice since by this wicked usage of our Representatives in those Parliaments you and your Cutthroats made your selves known tho you had secretly and cautiously given that wicked Advice to your Brother only to be protected from the publick Justice of the Nation But in time you discovered your selves and told your own Names when Case-hardned enough to pull off the Mask and let us see what you would be at But what Offence did you take at those Parliaments Surely it was because the repeated Treasons and traiterous Designs of you and your Conspirators rendred you obnoxious to them And did you not put the King upon dissolving those Parliaments thinking thereby not to have been judged the Authors of that villanous Counsel Alas good Sir you have so exposed your self in that Matter that you left your self and Party not only without Justification but without all pretence hereafter but thanks be to God I lived to see the Justice of the Nation take place upon you and some of your Party There are some yet lurking and basking themselves in good Imployments but I hope our King will rid himself of the Vermine in time I am confident Sir you may reflect upon these Considerations and pronounce your self guilty of this unreasonable Usage of three as great Parliaments as ever England saw Now how can we conclude otherwise than that you then was and still continue an Enemy to Parliaments Fifthly The ill Consequences attending the Dissolution of those three Parliaments are worthy your Consideration and that I may be brief herein take notice 1. What Divisions you and your Party caused amongst the People of England thereby you made such Breaches in Families that I fear are not made up to this day unless Death hath reconciled them this you did by the Advice of your Priests Jesuits and Popish Council at St. James's and the wicked Ministry at White-hall who rather than the People should not be divided took their several Copies by your Original and came in a most comfortable manner to your Assistance hoping to make the People rebel These Differences you nourished with all the Industry imaginable to the great Hazard of the whole Kingdom But Sir this was to betray us into the Hands of our
know what ground you had to raise such a foul Report and Slander upon so considerable a part of the Legislative Power I confess I can give no other name to these Proceedings of yours than a Conspiracy to destroy the use of Parliaments therefore had your Brother called another upon the Dissolution of the Oxford Parliament all English Protestants would have joined as one Man in humble Applications to that Assembly that you and your infamous Crew might have a due Punishment for such scandalous Reflections and false Accusations of those Parliaments It is well known Sir notwithstanding your said usage of these Parliaments that many of those honourable Persons sent up to serve as Members of those Assemblies had ventured their Lives and lost their Estates in endeavouring to restore the Monarchy in opposition to that very thing you charged them withal Nay they were all Lovers of Monarchy not only upon true English Principles but from their own Inclinations for deceive not your self they had too sad experience of a Common-wealth to be in love with that way of Government which they well knew was inconsistent with the Genius of this Nation and that nothing more agreed with the Peoples Temper than a well-regulated Monarchy as ours is by the fundamental Laws of the Realm and if your Brother had but considered the Point he could not have believ'd otherwise than that they were not nor could be true to the Monarchy that joined with you and your Conspirators to subvert the Rights and Privileges of Parliaments 2. The Parliaments not only lay under this filthy Calumny but your Party did also traduce those brave Men that stedfastly asserted the Power and Privileges of Parliament the Protestant Religion and the Liberties of the People as being in a Conspiracy against the King and Government but 't is plain that you knew not one Soul engaged in any such Conspiracy if you did why did you not according to your Duty and Allegiance discover them that they might have been brought to Justice If not why was all that noise made of a Conspiracy against the King's Person and Government But I believe you were afraid that your Folly as well as Knavery would have been manifested to the World and your Malice too into the Bargain Nay Sir let me tell you that upon the Intimation given by your Devil's Broâ—ers and the special Direction of old Hodg the Fidler to your little Parasitical Clerks the Pulpits rung with the noise of a Presbyterian Plot in order to betray us into Popery and Arbitrary Power for many if not all but especially those who made some sort of Figure in the Country hung their Tongues and set the tune of their Preaching to the humour of the Times and like the Devil's Messengers being instigated by your High Priests all they preached was against the Dissenters charging them with a Design to bring in a Common-wealth and Confusion But why was all this noise about a Prebyterian Plot Come I 'll tell you the Reason You may remember that your Popish Party were by me and others charg'd with a Hellish Conspiracy against the Person of the King our Religion and Government and the Lives of all the Protestants in England and this proved against them to the satisfaction of all sober Men as well by their own Papers as the Testimonies of several Witnesses and finding all your devilish Arts and Practices could not bring your selves off from the Reproach you justly lay under or the Punishment you must have suffered had a Parliament been permitted to sit you made this noise of a Dissenters Plot as your last Refuge which you and your Crew said was against the Monarchy under pretence of prosecuting a Popish Conspiracy And therefore with what Application did you form the Intrigue of the Meal-tub and also those Shams of Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey's murdering himself and Lord Howard's penning Fitz-Harris's Libel all which discovered your Purposes as well as your Disappointments at once Surely Sir your Party never considered what a notorious Scandal they endeavour'd to fasten not only upon the most considerable People of England but the whole Kingdom which you caused to suffer much in its Reputation abroad as broken and divided against it self and relapsing into Confusion and Anarchy Nay let me tell you that you and your Party hereby brought your Brother and his Government and Prudence under the greatest Disreputation for must not our Neighbours stand amazed to see a King restored by unanimous Consent to the great Joy of the Nation in so few Years lose that Esteem Honour and Reverence for so great a number of his Subjects as you had caused to be accused What Nation would maintain an Alliance with such a King who had so much sunk his Interest How could they expect he should be able to support and answer the ends of such an Alliance Your great Ally the French King could not but laugh in his Sleeve to see the Nation in such a Posture Nay further what Jealousies did you create in the Peoples Minds so that the Popish Party were strengthned to destroy both Conformists and Nonconformists who were both Hereticks to them Hereby also that Impudent Tyrant the French King was emboldned to proceed in his Ravages upon his Neighbours Countries and if your Brother should have had the least Inclination to put a stop to this Nimrod what a Condition would he have been in since you and your French Pensioners had created such Feuds amongst us 8. Another Evil happening upon the Dissolution of those Parliaments was your Endeavours to perswade the People that they were in a secure State with relation to their Religion Laws and Liberties that so the Nation might be a Prey to your Popish Crew Now Sir how can your Party answer the so doing when we were in the midst of so many notorious Dangers Do you not remember that four Parliaments had represented the manifold Dangers the Nation was threatned with And hath it not been one of the greatest Difficulties that ever a Nation groaned under to preserve it self from your Popish Rage and Fury Nay all thinking Men judged it impossible but God with whom all things are possible did the Work his own way you know well enough to your woful experience I remember your Conspirators used to wipe their Mouths and mimp them up with a maidenly God damme the Nation was in no danger from the Popish Party tho the King in several Proclamations had signified the same and if your Rascals had not the manners to believe the Parliament they might have believed the King since he not only published his Proclamations to let the Nation know its danger but also in divers Speeches to both Houses of Parliament acquainted them therewith and upon the whole not only required their Advice and Counsel but proposed that some effectual Laws might be made to prevent those Dangers and Mischiefs that then attended the Nation But Sir you and your Party may say What danger
Brother's Debts and the Parliament would give no Money Come Sir a word or two to the point in general and then I will descend to some Particulars 1. What would not the Parliament give Money to support the Alliances I 'll assure you they were a parcel of naughty Boys indeed to be so refractory I pray Sir with whom were those Alliances made with the Dutchess of Cleveland Alas pious chaste Lady she had been a Cast-whore for several Years the triple League between your Brother her Grace and Mother Knight had been broke for many Years and she had made a new Alliance with her good Confessor the Archbishop of Paris and had given him all she had for a Guaranty What Alliances then were they Were they new ones with the Dutchess of Portsmouth and Nell Waal Truly your Band of Pensioners had so often supplied their extraordinary Occasions that one would think they should not have asked any more and if they knew not when they had enough the Nation could tell them they had too much and wanted nothing but an Apartment at a convenient Mansion-house in Tuttle-fields and the civil Usage of that House once a Week or so as the Ladies of their Profession use to be serv'd as a just Reward of their Diligence in their Calling It may be Sir there were Alliances of another nature as with Barillon your old Friend that were to be supported Alas the Parliament knew full well that your Brother and you could not want a Supply for such Alliances and that rather than fail you might have got a new Bill to have passed Intituled An Act to enter into an actual War with France with which you might haâ—e beg'd Money of the French King as you did in 1678. It may be you will say They were Alliances your Brother had made for Preservation of the General Peace of Christendom You say well and it is a wonder since your Brother was graciously pleased to demand Money that he was not as graciously pleased to tell the Parliament what those Alliances were Surely Sir you did not expect a blind Obedience from that Eagle-ey'd Parliament to contribute to the Support of what they were wholly ignorant of or if they had had some Hints from the Court it would not have been amiss to have used them as civilly as your Band of Pensioners were and to have had those Alliances laid before them those humble Curs never parted with Money for the support of Leagues till acquainted with the Nature and Tendency of them And if the Alliances were not designed for the end pretended you might have asked Money with as good Success for the two Whores at the lower end of the matted Gallery both Mistress and Woman as for those Alliances Let me good Sir ask you one fair Question Did your Brother expect Money for these Alliances and nothing else and for once we will suppose Portsmouth and her Woman not to have had one Great no nor Fitz-Harrris so much as a Sop in the Pan tho he had a hopeful Plot upon the Stocks that deserved two but that it should be applied only for Alliances made to preserve the General Peace of Christendom truly then ought not the Parliament to consider well of the General Peace it self and its Influence upon our Affairs before they came to any Resolution or so much as to debate about it since you had a Tool in the Ministry that told us it was more fit for Meditation than Discourse nay he impudently said the Peace was but the effect of Despair and I think he was not much out in it but he might have been so honest as to have told us the true Cause of that Despair yet for all his Worship's Rhetorick the Nation learn'd by whose means they were reduced to so low a Thought of their Condition nay if that Loggerhead were alive I could tell him what Price you and your Brother demanded of the Fr. King for that noble and most Christian piece of Service In a word Sir we had no reason to simper upon the Business unless with the wrong side of our Mouths for we could not sing any Tune but that lamentable one of a bad Market we all knew the effect of this General Peace of Chistendom that it was the Dissolving the Confederacy against the French King the Enlarging his Dominions and his gaining time to refresh his Souldiers almost harassed out of their Lives by long Service the settling and composing the Minds of his Vassals at home increasing his Fleet and filling his Exchequer for new and greater Designs but your Rogues that were Pensioners to the French King grew impudent upon it and expected he might have a spare hour or so to assist you in ruining the Religion Laws and Liberties of England and to have fairly laid aside the use of Parliaments and broke them up as you would have done a Field-meeting in Scotland or a private Conventicle in England and treated them like Traitors and Villains and not like the great Assembly and Wisdom of the Nation Was it the Alliance your Brother had made with the States General Truly your Band of Pensioners had so stigmatized that that neither the first Westminster nor the Oxford-Parliament would foul their Fingers with it much less give any Money towards the Support of it for the Pensioners speaking modestly could not believe it tended to the safety of the Nation Truly I must look again and see what this new Alliance was and good Sir I beg your pardon it was a new Alliance with Spain and would they not give Money to support this Well let us then see how the Case stood in relation to it I confess Alliances to a Parliament make a very pretty noise and may be as diverting as ever old Hodg's Fiddle was to any of his Tory Gang. Indeed old England stood in need of some new Friends being so beset with Enemies abroad and with Pensioners to those Enemies at home but what shall I say to this Point When I view the Speech at the opening of that Parliament that sat down Octob. 21. 1680. there is nothing said of any new Ally except the poor Spaniard whose Affairs at that time thro' the Defects of his own Government and the villanous falseness of our Ministers were reduced to such Extremities that he might sooner have been a Burden to the Nation than a Help unless you let us judg that this Name of a new League was necessary to recommend our Ministers to a new Parliament and bubble our honest Country Gentlemen out of their Money for by it we were like to have trouble enough being to espouse without any Limitation all the Quarrels of the Spaniards tho in the Philippina Islands and the West-Indies or that he had drawn upon himself by any of his Barbarities there or elsewhere nay his difference with the Elector of Brandenburgh was not excepted tho all that Elector had done in Reprisals upon the Spanish Ships for a just Debt
the best of my remembrance 't was in 1680 gave it a due Consideration nay they were so candid as to represent to the King how that important Place came to be in so miserable a Condition after so vast a Treasure consumed to make it useful and that nothing better could be expected of it since it consisted most of Papists and such as were Enemies to the Religion Laws and Liberties of England These Inconveniencies might have been redressed by your Brother had he so pleased and truly the Parliament advised him to it nay Sir you may put on your Spectacles and read the Address of Parliament November 1680 wherein they promised to assist him in the Defence of that Place if they might have a tolerable Security that any Supply for it should not be applied to augment the Strength of our Popish Adversaries and to increase our Dangers at home from that villanous Faction and could you with any reason blame them since they had to their Sorrow seen Money imployed contrary to those Ends for which given by your Band of Pensioners But above all the Popish Party's Insolencies and the Impudence of those that espoused the French Interest threatned the Nation with total Ruine at home and therefore they judged it not prudence to leave the Consideration of England to provide for Tangier it looking like securing one single Cabin whilst the whole Ship was on fire Therefore to conclude this Head let me ask you these plain Questions 1. Whether it could be judged consistent with the Wisdom of a Parliament that had seen the dismal Consequences of the Incouragement your Popish Party had received from your Brother and you to give Money to supply a Garison which was used to augment their Strength and increase the danger of the Nation and whether you would not have laughed as much at them for such a Compliance as you did at your Band of Pensioners for giving 1250000 l. for the King 's extraordinary Occasions in 1673 or for that vast Sum they gave for a War with France in 1678 2. Had you not several Regiments in pay besides the Guards in England which might be transported and maintained as cheap there as here and would it not have been more honourable for them to have been sent to Tangier to have beaten the Moors than to stay at home to beat their Landlords and Landladies in their Quarters 3. Had you not a Company of Popish Gentlemens Sons to be imployed in that Service whose Fathers were undone by the Supply they gave for maintaining Liberty of Conscience and the Dutch War in order to destroy the Protestant Religion all over Europe And could you and your Teagues think on any rational ground that ever a Protestant Parliament would give Money to preserve that Place which was nothing else but a Nursery of Popish Officers and Souldiers I believe your Popish young Gentlemen might want the Charity of those Imployments but the Parliament had a foresight of the fatal Consequences that would attend the placing their Bounty upon such Vermin who would have been ready to return home for those ends designed by you and your Council at St. James's 3. The Parliament would not part with Money for Paiment of the Debt of the Exchequer to the Bankers which your Crew urg'd did put your Brother out of a Possibility of supporting the Government This is the Charge and a heavy one too Now what was this Government that was to be supported but a parcel of nasty Whores Pimps Bawds Informers Suborners of Perjury Murderers and Thieves This was your Government in your Brother's days was it not Nay did he not consume more Money upon such Vermine in one year than would serve the Government of England ten Did the Credit of the Crown both at home and abroad depend upon Portsmouth's having 52000 l. Sterling a Year and Nel Waal for being Bawd in ordinary getting 30 or 40000 l. in Money and other Cattle of the same Profession being maintained in all manner of Luxury for no other merit but having had a hand in the ruin of the Nation No Sir the Credit of the Government did not depend thereupon the Parliaments did not settle Revenues nor give Taxes for such Ends but your Brother and you had advanced the Credit of the Government if you had sent such Vermin to Bridewel to have been set to work for their living as Whores ought to be and to have the Correction of the House all Titles of Honour to the contrary notwithstanding Come Sir to be plain with you the Honours of England are intrusted with the King but were never designed for such Vermin as Portsmouth that was but the Daughter of a poor French Fellow or a Bastard of some Body I name not who nor to have whole Families advanced for providing or pimping another Man's Wife to be a Whore Royal that has had no less to speak modestly than 20 Stallions to attend her besides your dear Brother of blessed Memory Sir it is certain notwithstanding the noise your Party made of your Brother's being thro' the Parliaments refusing to give Money put out of a Possibility to pay his Debts that he never would pay them which was his Resolution and therefore what Faith could be given to his Promises tho he knew the Honour of the Nation would suffer highly in his taking up his Brother of France's Custom of not being a Slave to his Word The truth is had the People always been to pay his Debts there might have been Taxes without end this Sir your Band of Pensioners well knew who therefore as mercenary as they were would never pay the Debt due to the Bankers and the last Westminster Parliament having so fair and fresh an Instance before their Eyes and their Ears filled with the daily Cries of the Widows and Orphans were obliged in duty to give a publick Caution to the People not to run again into the same Error because they judged all Securities of that Nature absolutely void and that no future Parliament could without breach of Trust repay that Money that was at first borrowed to prevent the sitting of a Parliament Thus I have gone through all the Particulars of the second Pretence that is that the Parliament would not supply your Brother with Money to support the Spanish Alliance preserve Tangier and to pay his Debts 3ly You had another Pretence for procuring those three Parliaments to be dissolved viz. two Votes that passed the Commons Jan. 7. 1680. 1. That whosoever should lend or cause to be lent by way of Advance any Money upon the Branches of the King's Revenue arising by way of Customs Excise and Hearth-money shall be adjudged the hinderer of the sitting of Parliaments and be responsible for the same 2. That whosoever should accept or buy any Tally or Anticipation upon any part of the King's Revenue or shall pay such Tally hereafter to be struck shall be adjudged to hinder the sitting of Parliaments and be responsible
King and Kingdom but if there was not Evidence truly then they had been acquitted with more Honour to themselves and Families than they acquired by sending home that Parliament Again Sir do but consider a little and set your own Mother-Wit at work and you will find that a Parliament may act as the great Council of the King and the Wisdom of the Nation I use your Brother 's own Phrase and when they saw Affairs ill administred and their Advice rejected the Course of Justice perverted the King's Counsels betrayed Grievances multiplied and the Government it self managed in a most weak and disorderly Manner who should they have charged the King No you will say he could do no Wrong Who then should they accuse but those that had the Administration of Affairs that had the King's Ear as the villanous Authors of those Evils that hung over our Heads And ought they not to have applied themselves to the King by humble Addresses to remove such Persons from his Presence and Councils for ever You may say they had no Testimony against them you know to the contrary but suppose they had not legal Proof yet you know to your woful Experience there were many things plain and evident even beyond the Testimony of Witnesses so that it was impossible as well as unnecessary to have had legal Proof What if it was your Brother's Pleasure to hear those Villains was it therefore unlawful for the Commons to conclude that all the Evils the Nation groaned under came from their wicked Advice and Counsel and then might they not represent those things to the Nation that it might appear they had not been negligent in making Inquisition after those Men who had been for several Years carrying on their wicked Designs with you and your Popish Party They imagined to secure themselves by whispering in the King's Ear What then must not a Parliament inquire into the Names of these Whisperers and tho they had not legal Proof to make these Men publick Examples yet they had so much Certainty of the Matter of Fact as was Ground enough to stigmatize them as Promoters of the French Interest and Enemies to the King and Kingdom Come Sir to be plain with you the People of England were highly interested in all those great Officers of State and as they were your Brother's Servants so they were Servants to the whole Kingdom therefore who should have detected the Treachery and Villany of those Servants but their Representatives in Parliament whose Business it was to represent all the Nation 's Grievances to the King Certainly such a Representation ought to have been esteemed by him worthy of Consideration and not to have treated them as having made illegal Votes but this you and your Brother made a Pretence for dissolving that Parliament and preferred your secret Counsels before the publick Council of the Kingdom In a word therefore to conclude this Head let me tell you in all Faithfulness that those Votes your Party was pleased to term strange and illegal were not so strange as honest and not illegal but very righteous The House of Commons had before addressed the King for their removal from his Person and Councils but he was graciously pleased to take no notice of their Addresses tho made with all Humility and Duty nay Sir he was so far from that that it was observed even by that House of Commons and many other sober Men that an Address from the Commons against any evil Man at Court was a fore-runner of his being preferred to a Place of greater Profit or Honour if not both it proved so thrice to that old Traitor Lauderdale and on the other hand if those three Parliaments had addressed on behalf of any Man he was sure to receive no Favour and came off very well if he was not mark'd out for some Vengeance Now I think it no Crime to tell you that your Brother ought not to have entertained any of those Vermin after they had a Blast of angry Breath from that or any other House of Commons for certainly if a House of Commons declar'd any number of Men Persons that put the King upon Arbitrary Counsels or Betrayers of the Interest of the Nation there needed no Process of Law and Legal Proof against them before they are dismissed tho it was but reasonable if they had proceeded against them in order to fine imprison or put them to death but to remove them from the King certainly the Advice and Opinion of the Nation by their Representatives was enough if not you would have allowed them time to act their Villany to the Hazard of the Government it self and till this was done with what face could your Brother expect Supplies from the Parliament Your Cattel at St. Germains can tell you there are some things so reasonable that they are above any written Law and will at all times have their Effect in despite of all Power on Earth whereof this was one so that from the whole Matter this Pretence of yours falls to the Ground with the others before named 8ly Your eighth Pretence was the Parliament's Behaviour in the Case of Fitz-Harris and this was rendered a very hanious Crime and just Cause hereby was given to your Brother and you to send that Parliament packing which accordingly after 8 days sitting was dissolved for no other reason but because the House of Commons impeached him of High Treason Truly Sir I 'll appeal to Jack Caryl or any of your ragged and outlawed Crew at St. Germains whether that House of Commons had not reason to judg the Treasons of that wretched Man of such a nature as to deserve Examination in full Parliament and the reason was as plain as the Sun at noon-day if you but remember that this Fitz-Harris was one of your own dear Religion and an Irish Teague and appeared to the House of Commons as made use of by you know who to set up a Counterfeit Protestant Conspiracy in order to stifle the Popish Plot and to destroy those worthy Patriots who had kept their Consciences chaste and had not bowed the Knee to Rome and France and betrayed the Interest of their Countrey for Preferments at Court There had been many such polite Designs on foot before a Particular of which you shall have in its proper place but they proved abortive but your principal Conspirators avoided the Discovery as others had the Punishment in what manner and by whose assistance the Nation was then very sensible but your Villains being warned by their ill Success in former Shams grew more cautious and therefore that this damnable Treason might not look like a Popish Design your Tools by your Appointment composed a Libel full of the most bitter Invectives against Popery and your sweet self this Libel carried as much Zeal for the Protestant Religion as ever your Declaration penn'd by your quondam Servant St. Coleman did and had as much concern for our Laws and Liberties as Portsmouth
lawful because of the uncircumscribed Power of Parliaments in judging what is lawful and what is necessary for the Safety of the People by whom they are sent to Parliament for redress of Grievances which no written Law could provide against in an universal way So then it being lawful in it self to propose a Bill to exclude you from the Crown the doing it after your Brother had signified his Pleasure against the Bill could not make it against Law for I remember no Law written or unwritten that ever constituted him Lord of the Articles upon the Parliament which they were to debate and propose or not But what was his Will and Pleasure or the Pleasure of two or three Villains and Whores that joined with him in usurping such a Power altogether strange to our English Constitution of Parliament And I must tell you your Brother 's intolerable Stiffness in that Particular I cannot think was out of Kindness to you or from any suspicion he had of the Danger of the English Monarchy by such a Law but from the Influence of some ill Men engaged in the Conspiracy with you to destroy that Constitution who knowing your Brother's Inclination in that Particular as well as yours made it their Business to nourish in your Absence a Misunderstanding between him and the People whom you and he mortally hated justly fearing if he should ever have come to the due Temper of an English Monarch and to have a Sense of the Peoples Affection to him as the Father of the Kingdom he would have delivered up you and your Rogues who had infected him with that deadly Notion that the Interest of an English Parliament was not only distinct from but opposite to his Interest and Designs 2. Your Conspirators used to urge another Argument against the Bill of Exclusion no doubt your own first or they would never have presumed to use it so long till it was become thredbare viz. that the King could not comply with the House of Commons in it tho the Interest as well as the Desire of the People of England because it so nearly concerned him in point of Honour Justice and Conscience Your Brother and you were both Men of Honour Conscience and Justice of which you both made this Nation sensible Well since it was so let me argue upon the Topicks of Honour Justice and Conscience with you Had it not been honourable in your Brother to be true and faithful to his Word and Oath to keep and maintain the Religion and Laws established Nay Sir could any Man have thought it dishonourable in him to have loved the Safety and Welfare of his People and the true Religion established amongst them above the temporal Greatness of his Relations Was it not just in conjunction with his Parliament for his Peoples Safety to make use of a Power warranted by our English Laws and the Examples of former Ages Or where was his Justice that was the Father of his Country to expose his Children to ruin out of Fondness to a perverse Brother and to abandon the Religion Laws and Liberties of these Kingdoms which he was sworn to maintain and expose them to the Rage of you and your traiterous Jesuits who thought your selves in Conscience bound to subvert them Your Brother by his own might have remembered your Religion and what your Brother's Conscience was in relation to your Succession a cunning Man could scarce find out but if he had been a Protestant I might have asked what Conscience obliged him to ascend the Throne to overthrow the Protestant and set up the Popish Religion â—ir since your Brother insisted so much upon Honour Justice and Conscience I 'll say of him as I ought that he was a Papist yet I am sure he was bound in Honour Justice and Conscience to have preserved to the People of England their Religion Laws and Liberties and in conjunction with this Parliament to have secured them from being subverted by you and your Followers since withâ—â— much Duty and Affection they recalled him from a miserable Banishment attended with Poverty and Dishonour and chearfully placed him upon the Throne and enlarged his Revenue above what any of his Predecessors had enjoyed and gave him vaster Sums in 20 Years than had been given to all the Kings since William the Norman Where then was his Honour Conscience and Justice in leaving them to be destroyed by you It cannot be said he had therein more regard to the Government than to the Person that succeeded him seeing if he had passed the Bill of Exclusion he had no ways prejudiced the legal Monarchy which he did enjoy with all those Rights Prerogatives and Powers which his Ancestors did ever claim besides what he usurped against Law which yet the People quietly submitted to 3. A third Argument your Party used was That it was a hard Case that a Man should lose his Inheritance because of this or that Perswasion in Matters of Religion Truly Sir had your Case been only so I should have thought your Argument pretty strong but alas Popery was not in you and your Conspirators an innocent Perswasion of Men differing from others in religious Matters but a real Conspiracy against Christianity it self nor was this Inheritance your Cattel used to mention a bare Inheritance of a private Person without the Consideration of an Oâ—â—â—ce annexed to it which required you to be Par Officio I pray what did your Logger-heads mean when they made such a Noise about an Inheritance nothing less than a Government of three Kingdoms the Protection of several Nations the making of War and Peace for them the Preservation of their Religion the disposal of all publick Places and Revenues the Execution of all Laws with many other things of the greatest Importance Truly Sir these inconsiderate Persons were mightily out in their Claim for the three Parliaments had reason to look about them when they had reflected upon the Bloody Tenets of the Church of Rome and more particularly upon the hellish Conspiracy then discovered and at that Time carrying on with Vigour by your Popish and Popishly affected Traitors and finding you to be the avowed Head of this devillish Party could you with any Justice think they should not prevent as much as in them lay your being a Shepherd since you had declared your self a Wolf And since you were a Papist how could they believe you would ever appear in the Defence of the Protestant Religion I think this may suffice for this Argument 4. A fourth Argument against the Bill of Exclusion was the Oath of Allegiance taken to your Brother by the Parliament of England Truly I never heard the Argument from any but an Irish Man not but we had then Fools enow to invent such an Argument as we have at this Day to attempt your Restoration But their Arguments were as silly as their Plots and this is one of the most foolish Arguments could be used against such great and wise Assemblies as
upon the matter and if you cannot be satisfied but you must have a Cross I have told you the way you may do what you please and if all I have said will not do then I pray write to honest Robin who may find you out some Scots Trick or another that may do your Business more effectually but if the Villain should not be as good at stealing as he has been at lying cheating and plotting then he that broke up your Brother's Closet and yours may have a good Hand at breaking up a Church or so for your Service I pray Sir do not let him lie here for certainly his Hand will be out of use the Rogue has got a good Estate by these Courses therefore I advise you to send for him over that he may be an absolute Master of his Trade there may be many a Peny got and were it not for hanging I believe the Villain could like the Trade better than if he were to continue in his Secretary's Place he knows where well enough and where he meets with many a hearty Curse If my old Landlady wants a female Servant I can more easily help her than I can you to your Crucifix she is a worthy Person I assure you and a Woman of an excellent Reputation she knows how to plant behind the Hangings as well as you can for your Heart's Blood and has given as good Proof of her Dexterity in that Piece of Service upon a Relation of hers as she has of her Reputation for many Years last past notwithstanding the wicked Aspersions thrown upon her good Woman I pray be pleased to admit her into my Gammar Sweetapple's Service I believe you are all so much alike in Vertue Honour and Truth that it is pity she should be a Minute from you tho her quondam Gallant should cry his Eyes out Your old Eves-dropper shall attend her and you may take him as Paper and Packthred into the Bargain and the rather because he is a French Man and stood behind the Hangings to serve you and your Brother 's wicked Designs upon an honest French Protestant that applied himself to him and you not knowing you to be a Papist for the Security of the Protestant Interest in France Now I rather propose this because you your self were planted behind the Hangings or Wainscot with old Coventry and your old Chymist to hear what passed between your Brother and my self when there was some Discourse to be in relation to your sweet self and old Kate of Lisbon What Advantage you got by your Evesdropping I know not if you got any much good may it do you but upon the whole Matter I think I have made you a pretty Proposal and should be glad if it takes for I would fain have you easy and comfortable in your Company for you know the old Proverb like to like as the Devil said to the Collier Now for all this Piece of Good Will I desire nothing of you but a Coat the Virgin Mary made for her Son which is at present in the Church of St. Martinellus for my Coat is very thredbare and I have been told it is as fresh as when it was first made now such a Coat that will never be old would do my Business for I cannot tell when I shall have a new one When you come to Rome you will be ambling from Church to Church I pray call in there and beg it for me since I have been such a Friend to Rome's Chair and your self they will not deny me that Favour being sensible of the great Value I have for you for the many gracious Obligations you have laid upon me in particular as well as upon this Nation in general for whose Honour you have fought many a bloody Battel but old Hodg swears and damns too by his Treble and Base Viols that he cannot tell the Time when or the Place where you entered upon these noble Adventures except it were between a Pair of Sheets with Jenny Roberts or some of those noble Fireships that were rigg'd at White-Hall or St. James's and if by any of those noble Adventures you did the Nation any Honour you have met with a competent Return of our Gratitude especially since you were so great a Sufferer by one of them for whose sake you wear a Meâ—â—â—andum to this day you know what I mean and a Word to the Wise is enough Now Sir I have but one thing more to say and then you may go and dry the Clouts whilst my Landlady gets the Welsh Tiler to Bed and that is this Doth it not appear as plain as the Sun at noon-day how you have not only in conjunction with your Brother sham'd the Nation but been also sham'd by your Priests and Rogues and by your Pope and French King and your Passive-Obedience and Non-resistance-Rogues here in England For the former that is your Popish Priests and Jesuits how were you fooled with their lying Fables And had you not been blest with an Irish Understanding you might have seen they were Forgeries and meer Fopperies they told you of their Houses being the Houses of Cloe and their Housholds the Housholds of Onesiphorus but alas they were but the Sons of Sodom and villanous Offspring of cursed Gomorrah and take them from their Uncleanness what they study is nothing but imposture and Legerdemain These were the Men you countenanced Beddingfield your Jesuit was a Pimp a Drunkard a Whoremonger and a Sodomite yet you used to say he was a holy humble Man What say you to your Sabran that was a Reproach to Sodom and the Scandal of Gomorrah or to your trusty Ned Petre and his Brother Charles two notorious Villains one famous for his Ignorance and the other for his Impudence Drunkenness and Blasphemy against God and his Word What say you to your four ignorant Popish Bishops you procured to be made these were your Counsellours As to your Religion I pray what have your Popish Crew done for you in your Distress Nay how did your old Odescalchi leave you in the lurch 't is true he told Porter you should have his Prayers but if they had been worth a Groat or half the Money you must have gone without them half the Money would have perswaded him to have given you a Maâ—nday Curse What Subsidies have you had from St. Oâ—â—irs and Liege and from your Popish Party Alas like Rats they forsake a falling-House or a sinking Ship But I pray in the next place what 's become of your mighty Ally Lewis the Great How stands his Friendship with you What use have you of his Purse and Assistance against your Enemies how fares it with your inseparable Interests Come come tell me plainly how is the Pension paid that you and my good Landlady may chew the Cud comfortably together If it be no better paid than mine you may â—ang your self for ought I know and no body be the wiser or better for it â—â—ray how do the