and Son of Impiety and Injustice Edmund the Great Earl of Kent with some other persons began to Conspire against them Which Q. Isabel who deserves the name of Jesabel perceiving privately encouraged the Keepers of her Husband to murder him but his Son coming to Maturity of Understanding avenged his blood on Mortimer his Mother's Minion and his Accomplices whom the Lords of Parliament with his assent adjudged and condemned to be executed as Traitors for murdering the King after he was deposed The Queen her self also had like to have been questioned and in the Roll 4 Edw. III. which gives an account of this matter he is stiled by all the Lords and the young King himself their King and Leige Lord. And in the 21 R. II. N. 64 65. the Revocation of the Act for the two Spencers Restitution in the Parliament of 1 Edward III. was repealed because made at such a time by King Edw. III. as his Father being very King was Living and Imprisoned These two Acts of Parliament Doctor do not at all agree with your Reasonings for the Providential King but they agree most exactly with the Reasonings of Some Men which you say contradicts the general sense of Mankind For as Mr. Pryn well observes they shew that Edw. II. was King de jure or King in the Eye of the Law as much after his Deposition as before it and by consequence that his Deposition by the Estates who had no Authority to Depose him was a void Act and if he was very King when he was in Prison and his Regnant Son's King and Leige Lord at the time of his murder as the aforesaid Acts declare him then Doctor I fear it will follow that a pure Providential K. in Possession is no King at all 11. But from this Usurpation let us pass to that of Henry IV. who was set up by Providence and the Estates of the Realm who took upon them to depose Richard II. and place Henry in his Throne But Henry being conscious to himself that he wanted Legal Right though he had all the Right that Providence could give him yet not daring to trust to such an airy Tite nor his false pretences of being the right Heir caused Richard to be murdered but between his Deposition and Murder Thomas Merks Bishop of Carlisle a Brave and Godly Prelate preferring his Duty before his Safety took the courage to make a Speech in Parliament against the Validity of Richard's Deposition and the Justice of Henry's Election and if you please Doctor to read this Speech as it is at large in our Historians you will find in spight of all your prejudice that he was a very Wise and Considering Man and entirely of these Mens Opinion and produced those Reasons for it which you say Contradict the general sense of Mankind in all Revolutions The first part of his Speech is to prove that a King may not be deposed by his Subjects for any imputation of negligence and Tyranny and to make this out clearly he brings an ugly Arbitrary distinction betwixt Kings in a Popular or Consular State which really have not Regal Rights but are subject to a Superior Power and Kings in whom the Sovereign Majesty is as it formerly was in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea c. and now is in the Kingdoms of England Spain France and Scotland c. in which the Sovereignty or Supream Authority is in the King After this distinction which Some among us now use he asserts that in such Kingdoms where the Sovereignty is by Law in the King although the Prince for his Vices be unprofitable to his Subjects yea hurtfull yea intollerable yet they cannot lawfully harm his Person or hazard his Power by Judgment or by Force because neither one nor all the Magistrates have any Authority over him from whom all Authority is deriv'd and whose only presence doth silence and suspend all inferior Jurisdictions and Power and as for force saith he what Subject can attempt assist or counsel or conceal Violence against his Prince and not incurr the high and heinous Crime of Treason Then he proceeds to prove this as you do in your Case of Non-resistance from Examples of Saul and Ahab in the Old Testament and many Texts of Scripture Then he proceeds to answer the great Objection thus Doth the King enjoyn Actions contrary to the Law of God We must neither wholly Obey nor violently Resist but with a constant courage submit our selves to all manner of Punishment and shew our subjection by enduring and not performing Oh how shall the World be pestered with Tyrants if Subjects may Rebel upon every pretence of Tyranny How many good Princes may be suppressed by those by whom they ought to be supported If they Levy a Subsidy or other Taxation it shall be claimed Oppression if they put any to Death for Traiterous attempts against their Persons it shall be exclaimed Cruelty if they do any thing against the lust and liking of the People it shall be proclaimed Tyranny Having shew'd as his words are that King Richard was deposed without Authority Then he proceeds to shew that Henry had no Title First Not as Heir to Richard which he pretended for then he ought to stay till King Richard was dead but then if K. Richard was dead it was well known there were Descendents from Lionel Duke of Clarence whose Offspring had been declared in the High Court of Parliament next Successor to the Crown in case K. Richard should die without Issue Secondly Not by Conquest because a Subject can have no right of Conquest against a Sovereign where the War is Rebellion and the Victory High Treason Nor thirdly by K. Richard's Resignation because he made it in Prison where it was exacted of him by force and therefore it had no force or validity to bind him Nor last of all by Election for saith he we have no Custom that the People at pleasure should Elect their King but they are always bound unto him who by Right of Blood is Rightfull Successor much less can they make good or confirm that Title which is before Usurped by violence Then he saith that the deposing of Edw. II. which the Barons produced for an Example to depose Richard was no more to be urged than the Poisoning of K. John or the Murdering any other lawful Prince and that we must live according to Laws and not according to Example and that the Kingdom however then was not taken from the lawfull Successor Then after saying many other things he concludes thus I have declared my mind concerning this Question in more words than your Wisdom yet fewer than the weight of the Cause requires and boldly conclude that we have neither Power nor Policy either to depose King Richard or to Elect Duke Henry into his Place and that K. Richard still remaineth our Sovereign Prince and that it is not lawfull for us to give Judgment upon him and that the Duke whom you call King
hath observed * b. p. 48. That you acknowledge St. Chrysostom to be of their Opinion and he hath cited St. Basil against you for saying expresly That the Higher Powers mention'd by the Apostle were such as attain to the Government by Humane Laws I hope Doctor you will grant that these two Fathers were sober and considering Men who understood the general sense of Mankind and according to this sense in which they understood the Apostle that Author goes on to shew that it was the constant practice of the Primitive Christians to side with that Emperor who had the Legal Title And to their practice I will add the Testimony of the Emperor Justinian in his Letters to * Procop. Caes de Bello Vandalico l. 1. c. 7 8. Gelimer King de Facto of the Kingdom of the Vandals in Affrica who deposed his Cousin Hildericus between whom and Justinian there was always great Friendship But to make you understand the Emperor's Letter to this Usurper the better I must acquaint you Doctor that Gizericus the Founder of that Monarchy who reigned Thirty Nine years settled the Succession in his Posterity upon the Male Descendents according to Seniority so that he should always come to the Crown who was the Eldest among them and accordingly the Crown had peaceably descended for four Successions to Hildericus whom Gelimer depos'd and shut up in Prison with his Brother's two Sons who were faithful to their Uncle As soon as Justinian heard of it he wrote to him to this effect Thou hast acted Gelimer against Right and Duty and contrary to the Testament of Gizericus in Imprisoning an Old Man and thy Kinsman and the King of the Vandals if the Establishment of Gizericus be valid and deposing him by force from the Government to which thou mightest have lawfully succeeded Do not persit in thy Wickedness nor prefer the Name of a Tyrant before the Title of a King which a little time would give thee but let the Old Man who cannot live long enjoy the Royal Power and Dignity and do thou Administer under him and be content to wait a little while till thou mayest take upon thee the Title of King acording to the Law of Gizericus by doing this thou wilt please God and oblige me This Letter having no effect upon the Usurper he wrote again to this purpose I wrote my former Letter to thee hoping thou wouldst not persist to act contrary to my Advice but since thou art resolved to keep Possession of the Kingdom as thou hast acquired it take what will follow thereupon only send unto us Hildericus and Hoemer whose Eyes thou hast put out with his Brother Evagees that they may receive such Consolation from us the one for the loss of his Kingdom and the other for the loss of his sight as Men in their Condition are capable of It is in your power to do this if you do it quickly otherwise the confidence they have in Us will oblige Us speedily to help them nor will it be any infraction of the Peace which our Predecessors made with Gizericus for I shall not make War with one that is his Successor but avenge the injuries thou hast done But Gelimer was too Ambitious to make restitution and therefore Justinian sent his great General Balsarius to make War upon him in behalf of Hildericus the lawfull King but the first thing that Gelimer did after the Landing of Belisarius was to Murder Hildericus but God avenged his blood upon the Usurper whom Belisarius after some years War brought Captive to Constantinople where he cried out on the way as he was led to the Emperor Vanity of Vanities all is Vanity To this Testimony of a Christian Emperor I shall add another of a famous Heathen Prince Lycurgus King of Sparta who though he came lawfully to the Possession of the Crown yet refused to keep it longer than he was allow'd by Law as appears by the following Story which you may find in his Life written by Plutarch in the following words This Confusion and Disorder continued a long time in Sparta which occasion'd the death of the King the Father of Lycurgus for as he was endeavouring to quell a Riot in which the Parties were a fighting he was stab'd with a Cook 's Knife and left the Kingdom to his Eldest Son Polydectes but he too dying soon after the Right of Succession as all Men judged rested in Lycurgus and he Reigned untill it was perceived that the Queen his Sister in Law was with Child But as soon as this appear'd he declared that the Kingdom belonged to her Issue if it proved a Male and that he would administer the Government only as his Guardian and Regent Soon after a private offer was made him by the Queen that she would make her self miscarry upon condition he would Marry her when he was sure of the Crown He hated the Woman for this wicked Proposal yet wisely smothering his resentment he did not speak astainst it but seem'd to approve and accept it but diswaded her earnestly from making her self miscarry because it might endanger her Health or her Life assuring her that himself would take care that the Child as soon as it was born should be taken out of the way Thus having drawn on the Queen to the time of her Labour as soon as he heard she was in Travail he sent some to be present and observe the Birth with order that if it were a Girl they should deliver it to the Women but if a Boy they should bring it to him whatsoever he he happened to be a doing It happened that the Queen was delivered of a Boy while he was at Supper with the principal Magistrates and his Servants brought the Boy to him as he was at Table and he taking him into his Arms said to those about him Behold my Lords of Sparta here is your King and having said this he laid him down upon the Chair of State and named him Charilaus that is The Joy of the People because they were so much transported with Joy at the Birth of the young Prince and with Admiration at the Noble Mind and Justice of Lycurgus who I fear Doctor will rise up in Judgment against you and condemn you and your unrighteous Doctrine For though he had Providence on his side as much as ever Prince had yet he did not think the Providence of the Gods could give him a Right against the Laws of Nature and Sparta And therefore he became a Subject of a Sovereign and of a King a Regent because he could not justly wear a Crown which by the Law of his Countrey became another's and ceased to be his And to pass over other Kingdoms I will proceed to shew that there have been many Wise and Brave Men of that Opinion in our own I will begin with the Reign of Stephen who as Hoveden saith Invaded the Crown of England like a Tempest so that all the Nation was forced to
hath more offended against the King and the Realm than the King hath done against him or us Thus Sir spoke that Heroick Prelate in the Court of Parliament and his practice was answerable to what he spoke For he chose not the safer but the juster side as all good Men ought to do He knew while he spoke that Bonds and Persecutions would attend him nevertheless he spoke freely and after speaking was committed to Prison and after that was crushed with many other brave Men by the Usurper against whom they rose up Afterwards about the sixth year of his Reign Rich. Scroop A. B. of York with the L. Maubray Marshal of England H. Piercy E. of Northumberland L. Bardolf and * As I suppose the Earls of Salisbury Huntington Glocester the Lords Clarenden Roper with divers other Knights and Esquires and after that the Lord Thomas Piercy Earl of Worcester and Lord Henry Piercy Son and Heir to the Earl of Northumberland many others published an Excommunication and †In the first Volume of Fox's Acts and Monuments in the Reign of H. IV. Remonstrance consisting of several Articles against Henry which they fixed upon the doors of Churches and Monasteries to be read of all It begins thus IN THE NAME OF GOD Amen Before the Lord Jesus Christ Judge of the quick and the dead We not long since became bound by Oath upon the Sacred Evangelical Book unto our Sovereign Lord Richard late King of England that we as long as we lived should bear true Allegiance and Fidelity towards him and his Heirs succeeding him in the Kingdom by just Title Right and Line according to the Statutes and custom of this Realm have here taken unto us certain Articles subscribed in form following to be proponed heard and tried before the just Judge Christ Jesus and the whole World but if which God forbid by Force Fear or Violence of wicked Persons we shall be cast in Prison or by violent death be prevented so as in this World we shall not be able to prove the said Articles as we wish then we do appeal to the High Coelestial Judge that he may judge and discern the same in the day of his Supream Judgment First We depose say and except and intend to prove against Lord Henry Darby commonly called King of England himself pretending the same but without all Right and Title thereunto and against his Adherents Fautors Complices that they have ever been are and will be Traitors Invaders and destroyers of God's Church and of our Sovereign Lord Richard late King of England his Heirs his Kingdom and Commonwealth as shall hereafter manifestly appear In the second Article they declare him forsworn perjured and excommunicate for that he conspired against his Sovereign Lord King Richard In the fourth they recite by what wrong illegal and false means he exalted himself into the Throne of the Kingdom and then describing the miserable State of the Nation which followed after his Usurpation they again pronounce him Perjured and Excommunicate In the fifth Article they set forth in what a barbarous and inhumane manner Henry and his Accomplices imprisoned and murdered K. Richard and then cry out Wherefore O England arise stand up and avenge the Cause the Death and Injury of thy King and Prince if thou do not take this for certain that the Righteous God will destroy thee by strange Invasions and Forreign Power and avenge himself on thee for this so horrible an Act. In the seventh they depose against him for putting to death not only Lords Spiritual and other Religious Men but also divers of the Lords Temporal there Named for which they pronounce him Excommunicate In the ninth they say and depose that the Realm of England never flourished nor prospered after he Tyrannically took upon him the Government of it And in the last they depose and protest for themselves and K. Richard and his Heirs the Clergy Commonwealth of the whole Realm that they intended neither in Word nor Deed to offend any State of Men in the Realm but to prevent the approaching Destruction of it and beseeching all Men to favour them and their Designs whereof the first was to exalt to the Kingdom the true and lawfull Heir and him to Crown in Kingly Throne with the Diadem of England Upon publishing these Articles much people resorted to the Archbishop but he being circumvented by the Earl of Westmoreland who pretended to join with him dismissed his Forces at his persuasion upon which he was immediately made Prisoner and beheaded at York with the Earl Marshal and divers York shire Gentlemen and Citizens of York who had joined with him The Earl of Northumberland and Lord Bardolph escaped and held out two years longer before they were crushed by the Usurper but at last they were both slain Fighting in the Field against him You see Doctor in this Remonstrance how the Archbishop and Lords that joined with him contrary to the general sense of Mankind unking'd this Providential King for want of a Legal Title and Remonstrated against him as a Perjured Traytor and Vsurper and when he lay upon his Death-bed he himself also began to be of their Opinion contrary to the general sense of Mankind when his guilty Conscience forced him to tell his Son That he had no good Title to the Crown but he not inferior to his Father in Ambition snatched it from his Pillow and plainly told him That as he had got it by the Sword so by the Sword he would keep it And in truth Doctor your Title by Providence against Law is Sword Title and your Providential Kings Sword-Kings for in all Kingdoms the Sword is King where their lawfull Prince is not the Sword or Supream Force Rules all and that Supream Crushing Force which by God's permission gets and keeps possession makes your Providential Kings 12. I have hitherto shewed you what Opinion many Wise and Considering Men had of Henry IV. and his Reign for want of Legal Right and Title And I now proceed to shew the sense that a whole Parliament had of him and of his Son and Grand-Son's Succession the latter sitting in the Throne This appears from Roll. Parl. 39 Henry VI. as it is in Cotton's Abridgement or rather from the Record at large as it is to be seen as it was lately printed in an Answer by a skillful and faithful hand to The unreasonableness of the new Separation upon account of the Oaths This Roll gives an account how Richard Duke of York Father of Edward IV. brought to the Parliament Chamber in writing not a Petition but a Claim to the Crown of which Henry had been long fully and quietly possessed and his Title which was only Succession by Birth-right being fully made appear it was the Opinion of all the Lords that it could not be defeated That single Title by Proximity of Blood was thought sufficient to supersede all the patch'd Titles of Henry and all that could be said in
in the Decree runs in these Words Possession and Strength give a Right to Govern and Success in a Cause or Enterprize proclaims it to be lawful and just to justify it is to comply with the Will of God because it is to follow the Conduct of his Providence And then in the Margent over against it they cite Hobbs Owen Baxter and Jenkins and in the next Impression I hope they will put your Name in that glorious Company to shew the Sense of Mankind I ground my Confidence in this Appeal upon Discourses which I and others have had with several worthy Members of the Convocation who have been so free as to tell us that they could not be of your Opinion nay some of them have told me frankly that they abhorred your Principle and could never have taken the Oath upon it I believe you would be angry with them should I tell you their Names but I do not know why they may not contradict you as well as you have contradicted the Bishop of St. Asaph for contrary to his Sermon entituled God's ways of disposing Kingdoms which he preached before the Queen You in your Fast-Sermon preached not long after before her in June the last year and printed as his was by her Majesties Special Command tell us That God doth not always determine what is right and wrong by the Events of War for he is the Sovereign Judge of the World P. 25. and may often punish a wicked Nation by unjust Oppressors as he did the Israelites The good Lord be merciful to the poor Jacobites who are like never to be converted at this rate when one of you so apparently contradicts another and each part of the Contradiction hath Royal Authority on its side I do not say that you designedly contradicted the Bishop and I had almost said your self too for that Proposition seems to look very foul upon your Doctrine of Providence and almost needs an Explication and in good Truth Doctor the Sense of Mankind and the natural Notions are on the other side of the Controversy and if you do not carefully prevent them they will obtrude upon you and carry you to contradict your self as your Father Hobs did in his History of the Civil Wars who before he was aware of it run into the Arbitrary distinction betwixt Supream Strength and Right to govern For to the Question Who had the Supream Power when there was no Parliament P. 252. If by Power saith he you mean the Right to Govern no Body had it but if you mean the Supream Strength that was clearly in Cromwel who was obeyed as General of the Forces in England Scotland and Ireland Here Doctor I stopt a little to review the Authorities I have brought against you and I find that as a Man who has many Witnesses at a Tryal may forget to call some so I have forgot two Testimonies against you which I desire may be now heard speak The first is the Testimony of the Judges and Peers in Queen Mary's time and the second is that of the First Parliament of William and Mary c. p. 32 33. The former at the Tryal of the Duke of Northumberland made Answer to the Duke Querying by way of Plea Whether a Man acting by the Authority of the Great Seal and Order of the Privy Council could become thereby Guilty of Treason That the Great Seal of One that was not Lawful Queen could give no Authority nor Indemnity to those that acted on such a Warrant The latter in several of their Acts as in that for a Poll towards reducing Ireland 1 Gul. Mar 1 May 1689. and that for the Relief of their Majesties Protestant Subjects in Ireland 1 Gul. Mar. Jan. 27. 1689. declared the Irish then under King James ' Possession and actual Government to owe their Obedience to King William and for breach thereof to be Rebels though King James had been solemnly recognized by the Estates of the Realm But now Doctor after all these Testimonies against you perhaps you will reply that these are only Testimonies as to the Sense but not as to the Practise of Men whereas you have Asserted the Reasonings of some among our selves to be not only against the General Sense but the General Practice of Mankind in all Revolutions and that this is apparently on your side But if you or any for you object this against me I pray you to consider that the Practises of Men are to be tryed by Principles and not Principles by the General Practises of men for Mankind Doctor is a very corrupt Creature apt to act against the most acknowledged Principles of Truth and Falshood Good and Evil which God has engraven on all men's hearts as the Common Law or Common Sense or Common Notions of all mankind And as they will act against these Common Notions or the Law of Nature so will they act against the Law of Grace or the Notions of revealed Religion more especially they will act against both in times of Persecution when Ease Safety Honour and Preferment attend those who take part with Error against Truth and Wrong against Right and Danger Trouble Disgrace and poverty those who side with Truth against Errour and Right against Wrong In such hard Cases Doctor few will choose the Suffering side but the generality of men will act not only against the general Sense of mankind but against the inward Sence and Checks of their own Consciences as in the Idolatrous Reign of Ahab when Idolatry was the general practise of the Jews in the Arrian Reign of Valens when the Arrian Doctrine denying Jesus to be true God was the general profession and Arrian Worship the general practise of Christians Sir Simon Dew's Journal p. 23. in the Popish Reign of Queen Mary when all the Clergy of the Church of England but one hundred seventy seven turn'd Papists after Popery was throughly settled by Parliament and recognized by the Estates of the Realm and so became the Providential Religion of the Church so in the late French Persecution the generality of Protestants preferring Ease and Safety before a good Conscience turn'd Converts to Popery against their own Faith and Principles and as for those few which did not the Bp. of Meaux might have told them That they had nothing to support them but some uncertain Reasonings which contradict the general Practice of Mankind in all Revolutions of Religion You see Doctor what a poor Argument the general Practice of mankind is in Revolutions where the great majority will go with the Stream of Power and Preferment And therefore we are bid not to follow a multitude to doe Evil but to stick to Principles against Men's Practices and the Precepts of natural and revealed Religion against Men's Examples be they never so many and great For in truth Doctor few Men will doe their duty in any kind and therefore there are but few that will be saved especially in such an Age of latitude