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law_n	civil_a	ecclesiastical_a	power_n	5,621	5	5.1983	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66129	The declaration of His Highnes William Henry, by the grace of God Prince of Orange, &c. of the reasons inducing him, to appear in armes in the kingdome of England, for preserving of the Protestant religion, and for restoring the lawes and liberties of England, Scotland and Ireland Here unto are added the letters of the aforesaid his illustrious Highnesse to the sea and land forces of England, together with the prayer for the present expedition.; Declaration of his Highness William Henry, by the grace of God, Prince of Orange, &c. of the reasons inducing him to appear in arms for preserving of the Protestant religion and for restoring the laws and liberties of England, Scotland and Ireland.	William III, King of England, 1650-1702.; William III, King of England, 1650-1702. Declaration of His Highness William Henry by the grace of God Prince of Orange, &c. of the reasons inducing him to appear in arms for preserving of the Protestant religion, and for restoring the laws and liberties of the ancient kingdom of Scotland. aut; Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.; Fagel, Gaspar, 1634-1688, attributed name.	1688 (1688)	Wing W2328C; ESTC R221019	18,386	19

THE DECLARATION OF HIS HIGHNES WILLIAM HENRY By the Grace of God PRINCE OF ORANGE c. Of the Reasons inducing him to appear in Armes in the Kingdome of England for Preserving of the Protestant Religion and for Restoring the Lawes and Liberties of ENGLAND SCOTLAND and IRELAND Here unto are added the Letters of the aforesaid his Illustrious Highnesse to the Sea and Land forces of England together with the Prayer for the present Expedition IE MAINTIENDRAY PROT. RELIGION AND LIBERTY Printed at the Hague by ARNOLD LEERS Bookseller at the Signe of Plutarch By speciall order of his Highnesse 1688. With Priviledge of the Great and Mighty the States of Holland and Westfriesland THE DECLARATION OF HIS HIGHNES WILLIAM HENRY By the Grace of God PRINCE OF ORANGE c. Of the reasons inducing him To Appear in Armes in the Kingdome of England IT is both certain and evident to all men that the publike Peace and Happines of any State or Kingdome can not be preserved where the Lawes Liberties and Customes established by the lawfull authority in it are openly transgressed and annulled more especially where the alteration of Religion is endeavoured and that a Religion which is contrary to Law is endeavoured to be introduced upon which those who are most immediatly concerned in it are indispensably bound to endeavour to preserve and maintain the established Lawes Liberties and Customes and above all the Religion and worship of God that is established among them and to take such an effectuall care that the Inhabitants of the said State or Kingdome may neither be deprived of their Religion nor of their Civill Rights VVhich is so much the more necessary because the Greatnes and Security both of Kings Royall families and of all such as are in Authority as well as the happines of their Subjects and People depend in a most especiall manner upon the exact observation and maintenance of these their Lawes Liberties and Customes Upon these grounds it is that Wee cannot any longer forbear to Declare that to our great regret Wee see that those Councellours who have now the chiefe credit with the King have overturned the Religion Lawes and Liberties of those Realmes and subjected them in all things relating to their Consciences Liberties and Properties to Arbitrary Government and that not only by secret and indirect waies but in an open and undisguised manner Those Evill Councellours for the advancing and colouring this with some plausible pretexts did invent and set on foot the Kings Dispencing power by vertue of which they pretend that according to Law he can Suspend and Dispence with the Execution of the Lawes that have been enacted by the Authority of the King and Parliament for the security and happines of the Subject and so have rendered those Lawes of no effect Tho there is nothing more certain then that as no Lawes can be made but by the joint concurrence of King and Parliament so likewise lawes so enacted which secure-the Publike peace and safety of the Nation and the lives and liberties of every subject in it can not be repealed or suspended but by the same authority For tho the King may pardon the punishment that a Transgressour has incurred and to which he is condemned as in the cases of Treason or Felony yet it can not be with any colour of reason inferred from thence that the King can entirely suspend the execution of those Lawes relating to Treason or Felony unlesse it is pretended that he is clothed with a Despotick and Arbitrary power and that the Lives Liberties Honours and Estates of the Subjects depend wholly on his good will and pleasure and are entirely subject to him which must infallibly follow on the Kings having a power to suspend the execution of the Lawes and to dispence with them Those Evill Councellours in order to the giving some credit to this strange and execrable Maxime have so conducted the matter that they have obtained a Sentence from the Judges declaring that this Dispencing power is a Right belonging to the Crown as if it were in the power of the twelve Judges to offer up the Lawes Rights and Liberties of the whole Nation to the King to be disposed of by him Arbitrarily and at his Pleasure and expressly contrary to Lawes enacted for the security of the Subjects In order to the obtaining this Judgment those Evill Councellours did before hand examine secretly the Opinion of the Judges and procured such of them as could not in Conscience concurre in so pernicious a Sentence to be turned out and others to be substituted in their rooms till by the changes which were made in the Courts of Judicature they at last obtained that Judgment And they have raised some to those Trusts who make open profession of the Popish Religion tho those are by Law rendred incapable all such Employments It is also manifest and notorious that as his Majestie was upon his coming to the Crown received and acknowledged by all the subjects of England Scotland and Ireland as their King without the least opposition tho he made then open profession of the Popish Religion so he did then promise and solemnly swear at his Coronation that he would maintain his subjects in the free enjoyment of their Lawes Rights and Liberties and in particular that he would maintain the Church of England as it was established by Law It is likewise certain that there have been at diverse and sundry times severall Lawes enacted for the preservation of those Rights and Liberties and of the Protestant Religion and among other Securities it has been enacted that all Persons whatsoever that are advanced to any Ecclesiasticall Dignity or to bear Office in either University as likewise all other that should be put in any Imployment Civill or Military should declare that they were not Papists but were of the Protestant Religion and that by their taking of the Oaths of Allegange and Supreamacy and the Test yet these Evill Councellours have in effect annulled and abolished all those Lawes both with relation to Ecclesiasticall and Civill Employments In order to Ecclesiasticall Dignities and Offices they have not only without any colour of Law but against most expresse Lawes to the contrary set up a Commission of a certain number of persons to whom they have committed the cognisance and direction of all Ecclesiasticall matters in the which Commission there has been and still is one of His Majesties Ministers of State who makes now publike profession of the Popish Religion and who at the time of his first professing it declared that for a great while before he had beleeved that to be the only true Religion By all this the deplorable State to which the Protestant Religion is reduced is apparent since the Affairs of the Church of England are now put into the hands of Persons who have accepted of a Commission that is manifesty Illegal and who have executed it contrary to all Law and that now one of their

chiefe Members has abjured the Protestant Religion and declared himselfe a Papist by which he is become Incapable of holding any Publike Imployment The said Commissioners have hitherto given such proof of their submission to the directions given them that there is no reason to doubt but they will still continue to promote all such designs as will be most aggreable to them And those Evill Councellours take care ta raise none to any Ecclesiasticall dignities but persons that have no zeal for the Protestant Religion and that now hide their un concernednes for it under the specious pretence of Moderation The said Commissioners have suspended the Bishop of London only because he refused to obey an order that was sent him to suspend a Worthy Divine without so much as citing him before him to make his own Defence or observing the common formes of processe They have turned out a President chosen by the fellows of Magdalen Colledge and afterwards all the Fellows of that Colledge without so much as citing them before any Court that could take legall cognissance of that affair or obtaining any Sentence against them by a Competent Judge And the only reason that was given for turning them out was their refusing to choose for their President a Person that was recommended to them by the Instigation of those Evill Councellours tho the right of a free Election belonged undoubtedly to them But they were turned out of their freeholds contrary to Law and to that expresse provision in the Magna Chartae that no man shall loose life or goods but by the Law of the land And now these Evill Councellours have put the said Colledge wholly into the hands of Popists tho as is abovesaid they are incapable of all such Employments both by the Law of the Land and the statutes of the Colledge These Commissioners have also cited before them all the Chancellours and Archdeacons of England requiring them to certifie to them the names of all such Clergymen as have read the Kings declaration for Liberty of Conscience and of such as have not read it without considering that the reading of it was not enjoined the Clergy by the Bishops who are their Ordinaries The Illegality and Incompetency of the said Court of the Ecclesiasticall Commissioners was so notoriously known and it did so evidently appear that it tended to the subversion of the Protestant Religion that the Most Reverend Father in God William Archbishop of Canterbury Primate and Metropolitan of all England seeing that it was raised for no other end but to oppresse such persons as were of eminent vertue learning and piety refused to sit or to concurre in it And tho there are many expresse Lawes against all Churches or Chappell 's for the exercise of the Popish Religion and also against all Monasteries and Convents and more particularly against the order of the Iesuites yet those Evill Councellours have procured orders for the building of severall Churches and Chappels for the exercise of that Religion They have also procured diverse Monasteries to be erected and in contempt of the Law they have not only set up severall Colledges of Iesuites in diverse places for the corrupting of the youth but have raised up one of the Order to be a Privy Councellour and a Minister of State. By all which they doe evidently shew that they are restrained by no rules or Law whatsoever but that they have subjected the Honours and Estates of the subjects and the establisht Religion to a Despotick power and to Arbitrary Government In all which they are served and seconded by those Ecclesiastical Commissioners They have also followed the same methods with Relation to Civill affairs For they have procured orders to examine all Lords Lieutenants Deputy Lieutenants Sheriffs Justices of Peace and all others that were in any Publike Imployment if they would concurre with The King in the repeal of the Test and Penal Lawes and all such whose consciences did not suffer them to comply with their designes were turned out and others were put in their places who they beleeved would be more compliant to them in their designes of defeating the intent and Execution of those Lawes which had been made with so much care and caution for the security of the Protestant Religion And in many of these places they have put professed Papists tho the Law has disabled them and warranted the subjects not to have any regard to their Orders They have also invaded the Priviledges and seised on the Charters of most of those Towns that have a right to be represented by their Burgesses in Parliament and have procured surrenders to be made of them by which the Magistrates in them have delivered up all their Rights and Priveledges to be disposed of at the pleasure of those Evill Councellours who have thereupon placed new Magistrates in those Towns such as they can most entirely confide in and in many of them they have put Popish Magistrates notwithstanding the Incapacities under which the Law has put them And whereas no Nation whatsoever can subsist without the administration of good and impartiall Justice upon which mens Lives Liberties Honours and Estates doe depend those Evill Councellours have subjected these to an Arbitrary and Despotick power In the most important affairs they have studied to discover before hand the Opinions of the Judges and have turned out such as they found would not conform themselves to their intentions and have put others in their places of whom they were more assured without having any regard to their abilities And they have not stuck to raise even professed Papists to the Courts of Judicature notwithstanding their Incapacity by Law and that no regard is due to any Sentences flowing from them They have carried this so far as to deprive such Judges who in the common administration of Justice shewed that they were governed by their Consciences and not by the directions which the others gave them By which it is apparent that they designe to render themselves the absolute Masters of the Lives Honours and Estates of the subjects of what rank or dignity soever they may be and that without having any regard either to the equity of the cause or to the consciences of the Judges whom they will have to submit in all things to their own will and pleasure hoping by such waies to intimidate those who are yet in Imployment as also such others as they shall think fit to put in the Rooms of those whom they have turned out and to make them see what they must look for if they should at any time act in the least contrary to their good liking and that no failings of that kind are pardoned in any persons whatsoever A great deale of blood has been shed in many places of the Kingdome by Judges governed by those Evill Councellours against all the rules and forms of Law without so much as suffering the persons that were accused to plead in their own Defence They have also by

putting the administration of justice in the hands of Papists brought all the matters of Civill Justice into great uncertainties with how much exactnes and Justice soever that these Sentences may have been given For since the Lawes of the Land doe not only exclude Papists from all places of Judicature but have put them under an Incapacity none are bound to acknowledge or to obey their Judgements and all Sentences given by them are null and void of themselves so that all persons who have been cast in trialls before such Popish Judges may justly look on their pretended Sentences as having no more force then the Sentences of any private and unauthorised person whatsoever So deplorable is the case of the Subjects who are obliged to answer to such Judges that must in all things stick to the rules which are set them by those Evill Councellours who as they raised them up to those Imployments so can turn them out of them at pleasure and who can never be esteemed Lawfull Judges so that all their Sentences are in the Construction of the Law of no force and efficacy They have likewise disposed of all Military Imployments in the same manner For tho the Lawes have not only excluded Papists from all such Imployments but have in particular provided that they should be disarmed yet they in contempt of these Lawes have not only armed the Papists but have likewise raised them up to the greatest Military Trusts both by Sea and Land and that Strangers as well as Natives and Irish as well as English that so by those means having rendred themselves Masters both of the affairs of the Church of the Government of the Nation and of the course of Justice and subjected them all to a Despotick and Arbitrary power they might be in a capacity to maintain and execute their wicked designs by the assistance of the Army and thereby to enslave the Nation The dismall effects of this subversion of the established Religion Lawes and Liberties in England appear more evidently to us by what wee see done in Ireland Where the whole Government is put in the hands of Papists and where all the Protestant Inhabitants are under the daily fears of what may be justly apprehended from the Arbitrary power which is set up there which has made great numbers of them leave that Kingdome and abandon their Estates in it remembring well that cruell and bloody Massacre which fell out in that Island in the year 1641. Those Evill Councellours have also prevailed with the King to declare in Scotland that he is clothed with Absolute power and that all the subjects are bound to obey him without Reserve upon which he has assumed an arbitrary power both over the Religion and Lawes of that Kingdome from all which it is apparent what is to be looked for in England as soon as matters are duely prepared for it Those great and insufferable Oppressions and the open Contempt of all Law together with the apprehensions of the sad consequences that must certainly follow upon it have put the subjects under great and just fears and have made them look after such lawfull remedies as are allowed of in all Nations yet all has been without effect And those Evill Councellours have endeavoured to make all men apprehend the losse of their Lives Liberties Honours and Estates if they should goe about to preserve themselves from this Oppression by Petitions Representations or other means authorised by Law. Thus did they proceed with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other Bishops who having offered a most humble petition to the King in termes full of Respect and not exceding the number limited by Law in which they set forth in short the Reasons for which they could not obey that order which by the Instigation of those Evill Councellours was sent them requiring them to appoint their Clergy to read in their Churches the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience were sent to prison and afterwards brought to a Triall as if they had been guilty of some enormous Crime They were not only obliged to defend themselves in that pursute but to appear before professed Papists who had not taken the Test and by consequence were men whose interest led them to condemne them and the Judges that gave their opinion in their favours were thereupon turned out And yet it can not be pretended that any Kings how great soever their power has been and how Arbitrary and Despotick soever they have been in the exercise of it have ever reckoned it a crime for their Subjects to come in all submission and respect and in a due number not exceeding the limits of the Law and represent to them the reasons that made it impossible for them to obey their orders Those Evill Councellours have also treated a Peer of the Realme as a criminall only because he said that the subjects were not bound to obey the orders of a Popish Justice of Peace tho it is evident that they being by Law rendred incapable of all such trusts no regard is due to their orders This being the security which the people have by the Law for their Lives Liberties Honours and Estates that they are not to be subjected to the Arbitrary procedings of Papists that are contrary to Law put into any Employments Civill or Military Both Wee our selves and our Dearest and most Entirely Beloved Consort the Princesse have endeavoured to signify in termes full of respect to the King the just and deep Regret which all these Proceedings have given us and in Compliance with his Majesties desires signified to us Wee declared both by word of mouth to his Envoy and in writing what our Thoughts were touching the Repealing of the Test and Penall Lawes which wee did in such a manner that Wee hoped Wee had proposed an Expedient by which the Peace of those Kingdomes and a happy aggreement among the Subjects of all Persuasions might have been setled but those Evill Councellours have put such ill Constructions on these our good Intentions that they have endeavoured to alienate the King more and more from us as if Wee had designed to disturb the quiet and happines of the Kingdome The last and great Remedy for all those Evills is the Calling of a Parliament for securing the Nation against the evill practises of those wicked Councellours but this could not be yet compassed nor can it be easily brought about For those men apprehending that a lawfull Parliament being once assembled they would be brought to an account for all their open violations of Law and for their Plots and Conspiracies against the Protestant Religion and the Lives and Liberties of the Subjects they have endeavoured under the specious Pretence of Liberty of Conscience first to sow divisions among Protestants between those of the Church of England and the Dissenters The designe being laid to engage Protestants that are all equally concerned to preserve themselves from Popish Oppression into mutuall quarrellings that so by these some

DECLARATION OF HIS HIGHNES WILLIAM HENRY By the Grace of God PRINCE OF ORANGE c. Of the reasons inducing him To Appear in Armes for Preserving of the Protestant Religion and for Restoring the Lawes and Liberties of the ancient Kingdome of Scotland IT is both certain and evident to all men that the publike Peace and Happines of any State or Kingdome can not be preserved where the Lawes Liberties and Customes established by the lawfull authority in it are openly transgressed and annulled more especially where the alteration of Religion is endeavoured and that a Religion which is contrary to Law is endeavoured to be introduced upon which those who are most immediatly concerned in it are indispensably bound to endeavour to preserve and maintain the established Lawes Liberties and Customes and above all the Religion and worship of God that is established among them and to take such an effectuall care that the Inhabitants of the said State or Kingdome may neither be deprived of their Religion nor of their Civill Rights VVhich is so much the more necessary because the Greatnes and Security both of Kings Royall families and of all such as are in Authority as well as the happines of their Subjects and People depend in a most especiall manner upon the exact observation and maintenance of these their Lawes Liberties and Customes Upon these grounds it is that Wee cannot any longer forbear to Declare that to our great regret Wee see that those Councellours who have now the chiefe credit with the King have overturned the Religion Lawes and Liberties of those Realmes and subjected them in all things relating to their Consciences Liberties and Properties to Arbitrary Government and that not only by secret and indirect waies but in an open and undisguised manner And indeed the lamentable effects of an Arbitrary Power and of Evill Counsells are so Manifest in the deplorable State of the Kingdome of Scotland that both our reason and conscience doe prompt us to an abhorrence of them For when wee consider the sad condition that Nation though always affectionate to the Royall Family and governed for many Ages by Laws made by the authority of their Kings and of the Estates of Parliament and by Common customes is reduced to by endeavours that have been used to change the constitution of the Monarchy regulate by Laws into a Despotick or Arbitrary Power which doth evidently appear not only by the actings of Evill Councellours in power but by the deliberate and expresse publick Declarations bearing that the King is an Absolute Monarch to whom obedience ought to be given in all things without reserve thereby to make way to introduce what Religion they please without so much as the necessity of the consent of the Nation by their Estates in Parliament Whilest wee consider and ponder these things as wee cannot but be touched with a tender sense of those miseries so the giving such a remedy to them as may be proper and may answer the expectation of all good men and true Protestants is the great thing which wee propose to our selves in this undertaking the Equity where of will be justified to the world if what hath been acted at the instigation of those Evill Councellours be further impartially weighed It is well known that the Laws Priviledges and Rights of the Kingdome have been overturned to the great prejudice of King and people whilest thus all foundation of confidence and trust is removed And it is no less known what have been the Arbitrary procedures of an encroaching Privy Councell for although by the Laws enacted by the authority of King and Parliament it is expressly prohibited that the Popish Religion should be professed or Seminary Priests suffered within the Kingdom or that the children of any Noblemen or Gentlemen should be sent abroad to be educated in Popish Colledges yet have these Evill Councellours ordered or suffered young Noblemen to be taken from their relations and to be sent abroad to be instructed in Jesuites Colledges and have likewayes caused Schools to be erected under the conduct of Popish Priests and that in the Capitall City of the Kingdom In an open contempt also of the known Laws of the Kingdom Papists are put into places of Highest Trust both Civil and Military and entrusted with all the Forts and Magazins The rights and Priviledges of the Royall Burrows the Third Estate of Parliament having as many Deputies in it as all the Shires in the Kingdom are taken away and they hindred in the free election of their Magistrats and Town-Councells to the manifest violation of their Charters established by Law and Immemoriall possession And all this is done by meer Arbitrary power without any Citation Triall or Sentence And whereas no Nation whatsoever can subsist without the administration of good and impartiall Justice upon which mens Lives aud Liberties their Honours and Estates depend yet those Evill Councellours have subjected these to an Arbitrary and Despotick power having turned out Judges who by Law ought to continue during their Life or their good behaviour becase they would not conform themselves to their Intentions and put others in their Places who they believe would be more complyant and that without any regard to their abilities by which it evidently appears that those Evill Councellours design to render themselves the Absolute Masters of the Lives Honours and Estates of the subjects without being restrained by any rule or Law. By the inflence of the same Evill Counsellours hath a most exorbitant power been exercised in imposing Bonds and Oaths upon whole Shires without any Law or Act of Parliament in permitting Free quarters to the souldiers although they had a sufficient Establisment for their pay whereby the Kingdom was doubly burdened without any redres in imprisoning Gentlemen without any so much as alledged Reason for ceing many to accuse and witness against themselves imposing arbitrary fines frighting and harassing many parts of the Countrey with Intercommoning and Justice-Aires making some incurre forfeiture of life fortune for the most generall and harmless converse even with their nearest relations outlawed And thus bringing a consternation upon a great part of the Kingdom which when Outlawries and Intercommonings went out against multitudes upon the slenderest pretexts was involved so universally in that danger that those Councellours themselves were so obnoxious as to find it necessary to have Pardons and Indemnities whilest the poor people were left to mercy impowering Officers and Souldiers to Act upon the subjects living in quiet and full peace the greatest Barbarities in destroying them by hanging shooting and drouwning them without any forme of Law or respect to Age or Sexe not giving some of them time to pray to God for mercy And this for no other reason but because they would not answer or satisfy them in such questions as they proposed to them without any warrant of Law and against the Common Interest of Mankind which frees all men from being obliged to discover their

and securing of all such who will live peaceably under the Government as becomes good Subjects from all Persecution upon the account of their Religion even Papists themselves not excepted and for the doing of all other things which the Two Houses of Parliament shall find necessary for the Peace Honour and Safety of the Nation so that there may be no more danger of the Nations falling at any time hereafter under Arbitrary Government To this Parliament wee will also referre the Enquiry into the birth of the pretended Prince of Wales and of all things relating to it and to the Right of Succession And Wee for our part will concurre in every thing that may procure the Peace and Happines of the Nation which a Free and Lawfull Parliament shall determine since wee have nothing before our eyes in this our undertaking but the Preservation of the Protestant Religion the Covering of all men from Persecution for their Consciences and the securing to the whole Nation the free enjoyment of all their Lawes Rights and Liberties under a Just and Legall Government This is the designe that wee have proposed to our selves in appearing upon this occasion in Armes in the Conduct of which Wee will keep the Forces under our Command under all the Strictnes of Martiall Discipline and take a speciall Care that the People of the Countries thro which Wee must march shall not suffer by their means and as soon as the state of the Nation will admit of it Wee promise that Wee will send back all those Forreigne Forces that Wee have brought along with us Wee doe therefore hope that all People will judge rightly of us and approve of these our Proceedings But VVee chiefly rely on the blessing of God for the successe of this our undertaking in which Wee place our whole and only Confidence Wee doe in the last place invite and require all Persons whatsoever All the Peers of the Realme both Spirituall and Temporall all Lords Lieutenants Deputy Lieutenants and all Gentleman Citisens and other Commons of all ranks to come and assist us in order to the Executing of this our Designe against all such as shall Endeavour to Oppose us that so VVee may prevent all those Miseries which must needs follow upon the Nations being kept under Arbitrary Government and Slavery and that all the Violences and disorders which have overturned the whole Constitution of the English Government may be fully redressed in a FREE AND LEGALL PARLIAMENT And Wee doe likewise resolve that as soon as the Nations are brought to a state of Quier Wee will take care that a Parliament shall be called in Scotland for the restoring the Ancient Constitution of that Kingdome and for bringing the Matters of Religion to such a Setlement that the people may live easy and happy and for putting an end to all the Injust Violences that have been in a course of so many years Committed there Wee will also study to bring the Kingdome of Ireland to such a state that the Setlement there may be Religiously observed and that the Protestant and Brittish Interest there may be secured And VVee will endeavour by all possible means to procure such an establishment in all the three Kingdomes that they may all live in a happy Union and Correspondence together and that the Protestant Religion and the Peace Honour and Happines of those Nations may be established upon Lasting Foundations Given under our Hand and Seal at our Court in the Hague the Tenth day of October in the year 1688. WILLIAM HENRY PRINCE OF ORANGE By his Highnesses speciall command C HUYGENS. His Highnesses Additionall Declaration AFter wee had prepared and printed this our Declaration wee have understood that the subverters of the Religion and Lawes of those Kingdomes hearing of our Preparations to assist the People against them have begun to retract some of the Arbitrary and Despotick powers that they had assumed and to vacate some of their Jnjust Judgments and Decrees The sense of their Guilt and the distrust of their force have induced them to offer the City of London some seeming releefe from their Great Oppressions hoping thereby to quiet the People and to divert them from demanding a Secure Reestablishment of their Religion and Lawes under the shelter of our Armes They doe also give out that wee Intend to Conquer and Enslave the Nation And therefore it is that wee have thought fit to adde a few words to our Declaration Wee are Confident that no persons can have such hard thought of us as to Imagine that wee have any other Designe in this Undertaking then to procure a setlement of the Religion and of the Liberties and Properties of the subjects upon so sure a foundation that there may be no danger of the Nations relapsing into the like miseries at any time hereafter And as the forces that wee have brought along with us are utterly disproportioned to that wicked designe of Conquering the Nation if wee were Capable of Intending it so the Great Numbers of the Principall Nobility and Gentry that are men of Eminent Quality and Estates and persons of known Integrity and Zeal both for the Religion and Government of England many of them being also distinguished by their Constant fidelity to the Crown who doe both accompany us in this Expedition and have earnestly solicited us to it will cover us from all such Malicious Insinuations For it is not to be imagined that either those who have Invited us or those that are already come to assist us can joyne in a wicked attempt of Conquest to make void their own lawfull Titles to their Honours Estates and Interests Wee are also Confident that all men see how litle weight there is to be laid on all Promises and Engagments that can be now made since there has been so litle regard had in time past to the most solemne Pormises And as that Imperfeit redresse that is now offered is a plain Confession of those Violations of the Government that wee have set forth So the Defectivenes of it is no lesse Apparent for they lay doune nothing which they may not take up at Pleasure and they reserve entire and not so much as mentioned their claimes and pretences to an Arbitrary and Despotick power which has been the root of all their Oppression and of the totall subversion of the Government And it is plain that there can be no redresse nor Remedy offered but in Parliament by a Declaration of the Rights of the Subjects that have been invaded and not by any Pretended Acts of Grace to which the extremity of their affairs has driven them Therefore it is that wee have thought fit to declare that wee will referre all to a Free Assembly of the Nation in a Lawfull Parliament Given under our Hand and Seal at our Court in the Hague the 24. day of October in the year of our Lord 1688. WILLIAM HENRY PRINCE OF ORANGE By his Highnesses speciall Command C HUYGENS. THE