〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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
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
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
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
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
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
of Protestants but against all they were sensible what Advantages your Popish Crew had made of our Divisions and observed with what Subtlety they had escaped Prosecution by the Laws in force against them by fomenting our Jealousies they saw the Strength and Greatness of the French King and how his Interest had been advanced by your Brother and you and judged of his Inclinations by his bloody Usage of his own Protestant Subjects they considered the Number of the Irish Papists and their bloody Principles and Practices and what Conspiracies were formed in that Kingdom and were ripe for Execution and that Scotland was in the Hands of you and your Villains and that you was the Head of the Popish and Popishly affected Party in the three Kingdoms they had with Grief observed that all the Places of Trust both Civil and Military were in the Hands of the avowed Enemies of the Laws and Liberties of England and notwithstanding all the humble Addresses made to the King and all his Proclamations for a strict Execution of the Penal Laws against Papists yet your villanous Faction evaded those Laws and went scotfree and only the poor Protestant Dissenters smarted under their Severity The Case being thus certainly that House of Commons had as much Reason to think of an Union amongst Protestants in 1680 as your Brother had if ever he spake Truth in 1679. And can you think they had any just Ground to believe that the Protestant Dissenters whilst under such Pressures and Provocations should chearfully and couragiously undertake the Defence of their Countrey since by it they had been and then were so ill treated Experience taught them it was in vain to force us to be of one Opinion and therefore the Commons took a very probable way to unite us in Affection 2. It is true they made this Vote not to arrogate to themselves a suspending Power but to shew they had a repealing Power They well knew that your busy Rascals would be striking whilst there were Weapons at hand and therefore that the Land might be in Peace they designed to take away all Occasions of Provocation from each other and resolved to take away those Penal Laws that occasioned them and accordingly began with a Vote declaring the Necessity of it to which if I am not much mistaken there was not one Negative in the House and a Vote of this nature did but precede the bringing in a Bill for the Repeal of that or those Laws they had voted grievous and inconvenient With what Face could you or your Party revile a Parliament for so regular a Proceeding according to the Custom and Usage of Parliaments How could you call the voting of a Law or Laws grievous and inconvenient a suspending of Acts of Parliament and charge them with Contempt of the Law established 3. We will suppose the Commons did not intend to bring in a Bill to repeal the Laws then in force against Dissenters for the Vote was not made to assume a Power of suspending Acts of Parliament neither did they require the Judges to forbear the Execution of them who were bound to see them performed but they only delivered their Opinion as a Matter of great Concern in that Juncture and notwithstanding the Noise your Cattel made it was wise and pious Counsel and tho it could neither command nor secure the Judges or Justices from doing their Duties if required yet we might have justly expected those that had the Management of Affairs to have hearkened in so plain a Case to the Voice of the Nation or given them or other Parliaments a Measure how to confide in them and the Judges and Justices had they not received Direction from your Brother and you were in Discretion and Conscience as much obliged to omit the Execution of those Laws as that of Bows and Arrows and several other Statutes then if not still in force but out of Use If our Ceremony-mongers had but given themselves leave to think and their Romish Zeal would have let them remembred they were obliged to put on Bowels of Compassion they would have found their Proceedings against their Protestant Brethren could not be justified either by Scripture or the Practice of the Primitive Church where nothing was so common as different Rites and Ceremonies nay Doctrines amongst them and yet the Band of Charity and Love maintained and Christians never learnt to persecute till Wealth and Secular Power did attend Religion and the Prince and Church made use of each other to enslave the World 4. Had not the Parliament reason to make that Vote charge them with what Usurpation you please since it was your constant Practice to inflame the Differences you had made thereby to betray us into the Religion of Rome and the Government of the French King therefore the united Strength of all Protestants was little enough to withstand you I pray let me ask you one Question why might not a Parliament attempt to make Abatements in the Terms of Conformity or dispense with the Ceremonies of the Church when those Ceremonies the Form of Worship and the very Hierarchy it self could plead no other Authority by which they are enjoined than some Acts of Parliament Nay Sir the Commons saw there was a Necessity of passing this Vote for your Popish Crew had poxt a Number of Men that pretended to be so zealous for the Protestant Religion that nothing could serve the turn for its Preservation but a Popish Head and tho the sorry Rogues were a Disgrace to any Religion yet they were so dangerously infected that they thought the Dissenters were equally if not more dangerous than the Papists to the Government tho they well knew the Dissenters had never sworn to any foreign Jurisdiction or Power The Parliament therefore seeing such a Division made in order to weaken our Hands and make us a Prey to your Teeth made this Vote in order to strengthen the Protestant Interest by which they manifested a Resolution of repealing those Laws that were used as Scorpions by our Clergy-men and scoundrel Justices to destroy their quiet and peaceable Neighbours 5. A fifth Pretence starts up in your Vindication and pricks up its Ears one would have thought some Countrey Vicar in his Study over the Oven had contrived and sent it up to you sweetly drest and it struts so daintily that I must not let it go without its due Consideration What is it then truly the House of Commons issued out Arbitrary Orders for taking Persons into Custody for Matters that related not to Privileges of Parliament Truly this is a pretty sort of Pretence surely the Parson's Wife or Daughter had a Hand in finding this Business out but it shall have its due Weight and therefore I shall say these three things 1. We will suppose they did issue forth Orders for taking Men into Custody for Matters that had no relation to Privileges of Parliament yet that House of Commons might have had this to say for
I should have much wondered if Scotland had escaped that Grace and Favour of yours which was generally speaking pretty impartial For why should the Administration of Justice be in better Hands there than it was here You were resolved that the doing of Justice in the three 〈…〉 be of a Piece and therefore play'd your Game there tho with more 〈…〉 as you did here To prove this you procured your Brother's Letters â—â— Lauderdale to constitute one Sir Andrew Ramsey one of the Lords of the Sessions who never was bred up to the Law but to Merchandizing Which extravaâ—â—ant Proceeding being complained of in Parliament as of dangerous Consequence Ramsey parted with his Place resigning it up to Lauderdale and was said to have more Knowledg than the other three And by reason of the Insufficiency of the Lords of the Session thereupon Partiality so manifestly crept into that as well as other Courts of Justice that the Foundations of Law and Justice were much shaken as was once ready to be proved in full Parliament in that Kingdom in the Time of Lauderdale's Ministry Now Sir you may see it was not a Fault in a Man to serve the late Protector if he would but join with Lauderdale and you to subvert the Government of that Kingdom and enslave the People in order to establish Popery For this Ramsey had been Provost of Edinburgh in the Protector 's Time and complied with him to the height of being knighted and after that got to be reknighted and reentred Provost by the Favour of Earl Middleton to whom he was a villanous Tool in assisting him to defraud the People of their Religion Laws and Liberties all at once But upon Middleton's Disgrace this Fellow strikes in with Lauderdale who had a greater Sacrifice to offer to Baal than Middleton had yet offered with whom and the Tradesmen of Edinburgh by his long-practised Arts of Flattery and Bribery he so mightily prevailed that continuing Provost for ten Years in that time he so domineered over the poor Citizens and so enriched himself by their Rents and Moneys at his Pleasure that by Lauderdale's Assistance and yours he cheated the King of near 20000 l. Sterling and had an Opportunity of obtaining to be constituted one of the Lords of the Session And tho he with the other three who as I said before were more unskilful in the Law made such Havock that Lauderdale himself could not keep him in that Station so many notorious Corruptions and illegal Proceedings being proved against him and them yet there was not a Change made in that Court without some difficulty And after all their signal Villanies they were let fall by your self and Lauderdale as Men that had overdone your Business 3. Another Step taken to ruin the People of Scotland was the Gift of a Part of your Brother's Revenue called the King's Casualties which is the Wards and Marriages to another of your Creatures there procured by Lauderdale thrô your Interest with the King tho contrary to all the Laws of that Kingdom in that Case which was not only prejudicial to the Government but extreamly vexatious to the People For these Casualties were an Arbitrary Revenue and paid or not as the King pleased Therefore the giving it to any one Man to make his most of it was both against Law and Reason and the Interest of the Subject This Creature of yours was the Earl of Kincaerden who the more to oppress the People in this Point was by the King's Letters by you procured joined in Commission with Lauderdale in the Treasury and also with the extraordinary Lords of the Session by which they went on without controul to grieve the People Sir It is apparent to those that understand the Constitution of that Kingdom that this Gift of the Casualties was never known in Scotland till attempted 〈…〉 Ministry who not being so bad as to join with you in such a piece of â—â—â—â—â—quency it proved one Cause of his Disgrace 4. You know it was your Rogues Design here in England to diminish and debase the Coin and Plate of the Kingdom the direful Effects whereof we feel at this Day and for which this Nation is bound to curse the Names and Memory of you and your wicked Adherents Thus you proceeded in Scotland tho your Father 's own dear Country where you corrupted the Mint and Coinage For by the King's Letters the Lord Hatton Brother to Lauderdale was constituted chief in that Office I think they call the Master of the Mint General but if I am mistaken in the Names I may be in some measure excused But as to the thing I am sure I am in the right for the Corruption of the Mint and Coinage was so great that the Scots People grew very uneasy and made a fearful Complaint in Parliament proving in that August Assembly that for several Years they had found to their sorrow the intrinsick Value of the Silver Coin sensibly diminished both in Weight and Fineness to the great Damage of that Kingdom Nay the thing rested not here but to vex the People care was taken by Hatton to over-charge the Country with a sort of base Coin without considering the Weight and Value of that sort of Money to the manifest hindering of the Trade of that Kingdom and it was an Artifice your Conspirators used for enslaving that People to impoverish them so that you might the more easily bring them under the Yoke of an Arbitrary Power But Sir that you might help on this Lord of the Mint in depraving the Silver Coin you may remember the Dutch Dollars commonly called Leg-Dollars usually imported by their Merchants and currant with them at 58 d. per Piece were cried down by your Bandog Lauderdale to 56 d. for no other reason but because he procured your Favour to obtain a Command from the King for so doing that the said Dollars might be brought as Bullion into the Mint for the Advantage of the Lord Hatton his Brother and your Favorite And notwithstanding the great Complaint of the People there was nothing done But upon the Adjournment of the Parliament a Sham-Trial was obtained and the Lord Hatton indemnified tho it was proved that none of the Money coined in his Time was either Weight or Standard 5. A fifth Step you took to overturn the Government of that Kingdom and defraud that People of their Religion Laws and Liberties was a certain Monster your Brother and you set up a Body of Villains called the Lords of the Articles The most valuable and considering Men of that Nation some of whom I have had the Honour to be acquainted with have judged this Body of Men to be nothing else but a virtual Subversion of the Power and Liberties of Parliament and highly prejudicial to the King and Kingdom I pray Sir observe 1. That this meeting of the Articles when reestablished by you and your Conspirators consisted of 8 Bishops chosen by the Lords and 8 Lords chosen by the
Antient that no Record can give an Account of their beginning Upon my word I will tell you that a little Chastisement upon these Villains by a parcel of your Dragoons would have wrought a mighty Change upon them Therefore Sir since you have nothing else to do send for them you shall have every one of them that are above Ground and if they do not answer Expectation then hang 'em all and I do think they should be content For Passive-Obedience and Non-resistance and the Divine Right of Ignorance are so fixt in their Bones that nothing but a good dragooning Flux will fetch them out In a word Sir now it is easily known why your Brother in his Reign did not suffer Parliaments to meet and sit for those Ends for which a Parliament was at first constituted for such Rogues as I have mentioned used to teach him the same Doctrine that they taught you only with these different Effects which wrought more upon you than it did upon him For all the brave Notions they gave him of Prerogative and Absolute Power and the Excellency of the Romish Religion above all other Religions could neither give him Strength enough to get Old Catherine with Child nor Courage enough to run away Now the same Doctrine that your Lawyers Judges and Ministers of State taught you had these wonderful Influences upon you of getting a Child for us or shamming one upon us and running from us without the Aid and Assistance of an old English Parliament The Rogues were running after you it had been no great matter if he she or they had been hang'd that stopt them But the Vermin by this time are come to themselves and can tell you for a need that not to suffer Parliaments to sit to answer the great Ends for which they were instituted was and still is expresly contrary to the Common Law and so consequently of the Law of God as well as the Law of Nature and thereby Violence hath been by your Brother and you offered to the Government it self and an Infringement of the Peoplâ—â—â—ndamental Rights and Liberties We have in some measure made our selves â—â—â—aration for the Dammage done us but more of that in its proper place 2. We have laid before you what the Common Law saith concerning Parliaments therefore it will in the second place be convenient to observe what our Statute Law acquaints us withal concerning Parliaments I know you had a great Love to our Laws and therefore I suppose you have read them that when you come again you may make better use of them than you did before and not have the Courage to dispense with them as you did before Old Jenner thought a Wife and nine Children was an admirable Argument for the Dispensing Power and swears when you come again he will never set up for an Expounder of the Law any more he will rather turn Priest to put you into the way of gaining the Kingdom of Heaven since he expounded the Law in so learned a manner as to make you lose the Kingdom of England But to the Point The Statute Laws the Learned say are Acts of Parliament which are or ought to be only declaratory of the Common Law which as you have it told you is founded upon right Reason and Scripture and I think our Learned in the Law have told us That if any thing be enacted contrary thereunto it is null and void and of no Effect Certainly Jenner and the rest of the Dispensing Crew were bewitch'd in not telling you that any Dispensation against Law was in it self null and void But there was a Wife and nine Children in the Case and Law was not his Business Truly for all his hussing Speech to the President and Fellows of Magdalen College in Oxford he knew as little Law as your self that sent him down But since some of the Villains were ignorant of the Law and the rest of them that had some Law and no Honesty did not inform you I pray let me intreat your Patience and observe what I say to you There are several Statutes that require frequent meetings of Parliament agreeable to the Common Law 1. The first of which is 4 Edw. III. cap. 14. in these words Item it is accorded that a Parliament shall be holden every Year once or more often if need be Alas that good King never sent to the French King for leave to call a Parliament nor did he sell him a Session of Parliament for a small Spell of 300000 l. per Ann. it never entred into the old Judges Noddles in his Reign that Parliaments were to be held sooner or later oftner or seldomer as the King pleased no it was your Lambskin Crew you set up in Charles the 2d's Time that taught that Doctrine Nay there were a Set of Rogues in your Father's Time who favoured that Heresy in the Government that the meeting and sitting of Parliaments was at the Will and Pleasure of the King but your Rogues went a Note above Ela for they would have the Laws to be dispensed with or suspended when the gracious Pleasure of the King was such 2. I have another Statute Law in my green Bag that is at your Service it is 36 Edw. III. cap. 10. read it and if you do not put on your Dispensing Spectacles you will find the Law to speak these words Item For the Maintenance of the said Articles and Statutes and redressing of divers Mischiefs and Grievances which daily happen a Parliament shall be holden every Year as at another time it was ordained by a Statute What Statute good Sir I pray ask your Dispensing Judges let them look into their Law-Books not upon their Wives and nine Children nor 〈◊〉 durante bene placito Commissions and they will find this Statute of the 36th of that King has reference to the Statute of the 4th of the said King above-mentioned Well Sir what 's the English of all this Your Judges have told you what the French of it is already to your Cost Now it shall cost you nothing if we tell you the English of it viz. That a Parliament ought Annually to meet to support the Government and to redress Grievances happening in the interval of Parliaments that being the great End proposed in their said meeting Now for Parliaments to meet Annually and not be suffered to sit to answer the Ends but to be prorogued or dissolved as Gammer Carwell or Nell Waal should direct before they had finished their Work was and would be nothing but an eluding the Law and striking at the Foundation of the Government and rendring Parliaments altogether useless You know there is no great difference between having no Meat at all and having it in abundance without being suffered to eat so I think it is to no purpose to have frequent Parliaments and they not suffered to sit and do the Business of the Nation for which they were sent by the People as well as called by the King You
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
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
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
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
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
Kingdom Nay the Government there did in a manner protect you from the Parliament in England that would have excluded you Nay Dr. Nasty-Gusts the then Bishop of Edinburgh found they had done the Business so well that he blest God the Parliament of Scotland had made such a happy Progress in reducing the Laws of Scotland to the Will of the King Now after all this Pother that was made about you pray how came it that you found no more Friends in Scotland Truly at one time I thought the Courtiers there would have pull'd out both their Eyes to have served you yet when you stood in need of them there were but few that appeared for you Truly poor Pilgarlick did stand and wonder at the thing and advising with a parcel of honest Fellows over a Dish of Coffee at a Coffee-house near the Old House out of which the Prince of Orange warned you to be gone without any more to do one of the Company was very frank in the Point and told the Company plainly that Fear and Interest were the two great Hinges on which the Actions of Mankind did turn and thereby insinuated that Fear made them stand for you against the Parliament of England and Interest made them be against you with K. William Well what then Truly I thought with my self that the Princes of this World ought to be vertuous to a very high degree and to have a Magazine of Assurance because their Favours are more acceptable than their Persons are beloved I confess Princes are in a fair way to be beloved when they put themselves in a Posture of doing much good and that Prince is sure of the Affections of his People who will endeavour with all sweetness to gain their Hearts I have therefore this one thing to say that if you had secured your Antient Kingdom of Scotland you might have done mighty things I pray Sir why did you not cultivate your natural Qualities in order to have secured you an Interest in that Kingdom Truly the Reason is plain because you had none about you but mercenary Rascals that ruined you by their Flatteries And did you not find your self in a most forlorn Solitude notwithstanding their Scots Caresses when you really stood in need of their help And should K. William have any of your Rogues about him I can not but think they would serve him as they did you leave him when he has most need of them 2. You having conversed in Scotland and the Bishops there hanging about you and giving you all the Scots Government could afford I pray resolve me what Religion those Rogues were of Certainly if they were Protestants they have shewed themselves to have as little Brains as your Worship for I find by their management of themselves whilst you afforded them your Gracious Presence as well as before and since you left us they neither understood the Interest of their Traiterous Hierarchy nor of Religion In a word one would think by the Current of their Actions they had been a parcel of Irish Teagues trick'd up with the Dress of a true Scots Clergy-man for they must surely be judg'd Sots to the highest Degree if ignorant of the Disgust they had caused in the People of that Kingdom by embracing your Gracious Declaration for Liberty of Conscience in favour of the villanous Popish Crew It may be you will say that to your own knowledg they were Protestants at the Bottom To this I answer That what either your Brother or you ever said weighed no more with me than if you had sworn Mary Queen of Scots had lived and died an honest true English Virgin But what is it to the Point what they were at the Bottom I am sure they and you were a parcel of Sowce-Crowns to think the Scots would long endure Popery and Arbitrary Power always to domineer over them Truly Experience hath taught us tho you and your villanous Scots Bishops were above such Teachings that the poor Scots wanted but a Leader of Resolution and Bravery and they had thrown off your Brother's Yoke and yours long before the Prince of Orange's coming Object You may say because they wrote to you and told you that the Enterprize of the Prince of Orange was a detestable Invasion therefore you judg'd them Protestants they also having been always against such things Answ It seems they were for Passive-Obedience and Non-resistance For I do not find that they or any of their Admirers stirred one step to serve you and you know that Gracious Doctrine has saved the Credit of many a Coward in the World and therefore your Brother and you promoted it with all the Zeal two such Babes of Grace could shew lest the true Protestant Interest should have storm'd Babylon and all the Hellish Crew she has nourished ever since your Restoration till this Day But they were pleased to say that the Glorious Enterprize of the Prince of Orange was a detestable Invasion What! did this bespeak them to be Protestants Well then let me tell you that your Great Ally might as well wear the Name and all the French Court and your villanous Party here at home for I believe they have said so ten thousand times But I do no more believe they were Protestants than I believe Old Hodg an honest Man or R. Ferguson to be without three false Quarters I pray Sir what did they do for the Protestant Interest We had seven Bishops good Lord went to the Tower and all for the sake of the Protestant Religion I was not a bit sorry nor should I have been if all the twenty six had gone upon the same Account tho they had lain by it as long as I and the rest of my fellow Prisoners did in the Kings-Bench for the Testimony of a good Conscience But what your English-Bishops did for the Interest of the Protestant Religion I will leave to better Pens but for your Scots Tools did they not by their Treachery and Lewdness render themselves the Abomination of the People 3. I pray let me ask you a third Question What was the Reason that notwithstanding the Advice of your Devilish Jesuits to the contrary you would not stay and see the joyful Sight the People of England saw and that after so many Divisions occasioned by your Brother's Reign and yours viz. Our King and the Parliament so happily united together You say you ventured your Life on behalf of the Nation and since your Grace and Favour was such as not to strike one Stroke to keep the Crown upon your Head you might have been so good-natur'd as to have staid and seen our King leaving his Interest to the management of his Parliament on purpose to take care of theirs and his and the Welfare of all Europe The King God bless him remitted Chimney-money and entirely threw himself upon the Affections of his People and you threw your self upon the Affection of the French King I pray try his Affection and let me know by
they called in an Act that raised it An humble Tender to his Sacred Majesty of the Duty and Loyalty of his antient Kingdom of Scotland And as a Testimony of the same they did offer to the King 20000 Foot and 2000 Horse sufficiently armed with 40 days Provision to be ready upon the King 's call and in the same Act they declared that if the King should have farther Use and Occasion for their Service the Kingdom would be ready every Man between Sixty and Sixteen and hazard their Lives and Fortunes if called for by his Majesty for the Safety and Preservation of his Person Authority and Government Sure one would think you had given them some State Philtre to create in them such a slavish Loyalty and Love to your Brother's Person and Government 4. Nay they went a step farther to please your Brother and your self being resolved not to fall short in expressing their Loyalty and Affection to him therefore do but observe them in another Act of Parliament wherein they most dutifully and humbly recognize his Majesty's Prerogative Royal and declar'd in the said Act That the ordering and disposal of Trade with Foreign Nations and the laying Restraints and Impositions upon Foreign Imported Commodities did belong to his Majesty and his Successors as an undoubted Privilege and Prerogative of the Crown and that therefore they might do therein as they should judg fit for the good of the Kingdom 5. These People certainly were bewitch'd with the thing called Loyalty and made it appear to the World that they placed the Security of all their Interests more in their Confidence of the King's Goodness than the firmest Provision of the best Laws for tho in the Parliament held by your Father in Person in 1641 many Acts were signed by him for settling their Religion Properties and Liberties which the deepest Consideration and Maturity of Judgment imaginable grounded upon long and well-weighed Experience many and well-managed Treaties and the Mediation of England could afford and furnish yet because the Glory of those Laws appeared to these Blockheads to be stain'd by the remembrance of some previous Contentions wherein they thought themselves very infortunate by having your Father differ from them to please your Brother at one blow they repealed the whole Proceeding of that Parliament and all the Laws then and there made for the Preservation of Religion as aforesaid 6. Those whom God will destroy he delivers up to Madness first and s he did these People in evidencing an unparallel'd Submission to the King and a Resignation of all that was near and dear to them into his Hands for tho that Nation since its first Reformation from Popery did continually oppose Prelacy yet after they had destroyed it and enjoyed their Church under a Constitution and Ministry according to their Hearts desire in compliance with your Brother they parted with the Presbyterian Government and reestablished Episcopacy to the Amazement of most Men so acceptable was he to the Scots Parliament at that Time And for the carrying on your cursed Designs you know how your Brother made James Sharp Mr. Hamilton Mr. Farwell and another whose Name occurs not at present to renounce their Presbyterian Ordination who were made Deacons and Priests and then consecrated Bishops by the Bishop of Winchester and two others of that Gang and four Scots Prelates thus made the King fixed the Government of that Church by Arch-bishops and Bishops as in his Father's time in 1637 who had the same Authority derived to them as they had in your Grandfather's Reign so by Proclamation bearing date Sept. 6. 1661. the Presbyterian Government ceased to be to all Intents and Purposes and the Council suspended the Meeting of the Presbyteries till they had received Power not from Heaven but from the Arch-bishops and Bishops who were in a short Time to enter upon their Government To compleat this Work the Parliament in the 2d Session reinstated the Bishops in the exercise of their Functions and restored them to all their Privileges Dignities Possessions c. Now one would think this Compliance of the Nation should have obliged your Brother and you to have treated them in some measure sutable to their Loyalty and slavish Resignation of themselves Your great Instrument in carrying on this blessed Work of inslaving the Kingdom of Scotland in these particulars in order to your farther Designs was the Earl of Middleton the first High Commissioner after your Brother's return who was most violent in pursuing this Change but by his impetuous Violence in this mighty Work on which he much valued himself he rendered himself obnoxious and despising Lauderdale who took hold of some of his Miscarriages in a short Time he was unhorsed by him and Lauderdale procured the Commission of Lord High Commissioner for the Earl of Rothes by whom Middleton's Parliament was dissolved upon which Madam Van Harlot their new Church appeared in its proper Colours and being made Triumphant 't is well known what Pranks the Whore played what Tumults her Guides excited and what Tragedies her Reverend Clergy acted in your Brother's Reign Nay old Hodg was not so much as advised withal in the Case and every thing was carried on with that Fury that had not Sir Robert Murray come in to the Relief of the People who were on the very brink of Destruction they must have inevitably perished But Sir I will not dwell here any longer only tell you that Lauderdale was the third Lord High Commissioner of Scotland by whom a lamentable Scene of Rogueries were acted and by whom you made your blessed Steps to ruin that poor Nation 1. Your first Step to ruin Scotland was the making Middleton and Lauderdale so excessively great In truth to give the Beasts their due as the Scotish Nation was not able to bear their Greatness so neither they to bear their own You remember that before Lauderdale was Commissioner by reason of his being sole Secretary of State for that Nation and Court-minister he had the absolute Rule and disposing of the Affairs and Concerns of that Kingdom which gave great Offence to the Scots who in the particulars abovesaid had shewed themselves so abominably Loyal as to quit their Religion Laws and Liberties to please your Brother and you As for Middleton he was invested with such Powers that Lauderdale was jealous of his Greatness who seeing him exercise his Power to the utmost imagined there would be nothing for him to do and therefore as I said justled Middleton out by whose Greatness Scotland by Consent of Parliament delivered up all as if Hallifax himself had issued forth Quo Warranto's against their Franchises both as to Liberty and Religion and you having had enough of Middleton's prostituting himself to your Brother's Will and yours exit Middleton and enter Lauderdale a case-hardened Rogue a Villain fit for the Devil's Service to all Intents and Purposes who the more easily to compleat your wicked Designs you may remember did
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
Bishops 8 Commissioners of the Shires and 8 Burgesses chosen by the 8 Lords and 8 Bishops to which the Commissioner added the Officers of State 2. That those who contended for this Body of Men have asserted that not only all Business must be by the Lords of the Articles and them only registred in Parliament but also that if in the Debates upon their Reports any new thing should be started the Parliament ought to take no notice of it further than to return the whole Matter to the meeting of the Articles to be there entertained or suppressed at their pleasure 3. It is manifest from all the Records of that Antient Kingdom that the Original Constitution of this Meeting or Body of Men was at first by the free appointment of their Parliaments who thought fit to name certain of their Number for framing such Overtures as were offered for the Publick Good into Articles in order to be turned into Laws according to the Antient Form And therefore it being at first devised by the Parliament as a simple Expedient for Order and Dispatch it was not always used but the Number was changeable as also its Method according as the Parliament saw Cause 4. You could not be so ignorant but that at one time or other when you was in that Kingdom you must be informed that as this Body of Men was in effect the Committee of Parliament to prepare and bring in Laws so that there was another of more antient Date called the Committee of Complaints or the Lords of the Grievances which was of use in all times and never laid aside till the second Session of the Parliament called in 1661 in the time of Middleton's Ministry 5. The Act of Parliament of K. James your Grandfather appointing four of every State to meet 20 days before the Parliament to receive all Articles and Petitions and deliver them to the Clerk of the Register to be presented to the Parliament for their Consideration that things reasonable might be formally made and presented to the Lords of the Articles in Parliament-time and frivolous Matters rejected doth no ways countenance that exorbitant Power these Lords of the Articles did assume to themselves it being manifest by the Order therein set down of preparing Matters by a Meeting before-hand and their subsequent forming and presenting by the Parliament to these Article-men that the Parliament's Power of first receiving and then committing Matters to that Body of Men was not then so much as the Subject of the Question But the only thing intended was the orderly setting down of things in Parliament as is apparent in the words of that Act of your Grandfather That no Article or Petition wanting a special Title or unscribed by him that presented the same shall be read or answered in that Convention or Parliament following the same Which was Sir a Provision so clearly preparatory to the Meeting and Business of the Lords of the Articles that 't is very strange your Brother should be so imposed upon by you and your Conspirators to prove this pretended Meeting had a Prerogative above that of the Parliament and it has been affirmed by several Persons of that Kingdom that understood the Scotish Parliament and Constitution that this villanous Authority was never intended by the King or Parliament to be in the Lords of the Articles nor had they the Impudence to pretend to it till they were countenanced in that Pretension by you and your Conspirators 6. You cannot but remember that Lauderdale had a great Influence on that Parliament that was called in 1663 when a particular Act passed for settling the Constitution and chusing Lords of the Articles for the time to come in which it was expresly provided that the Lords of the Articles are to proceed in the discharge of their Trust in preparing of Laws Acts and Proposals and ordering all things remitted to them by the Parliament which words remitted them imported no more nor less than that the Power of proposing was in the Body of the Parliament and that the Lords of the Articles were to act upon the things referred to them by Parliament as a Committee of Parliament 7. And lastly These Lords of the Articles were but the Parliament's Delegates and Servants and therefore how could they determine the Points the Parliament was to debate or not as they should see fit Therefore Sir if you consider but a little of this Matter you will find that your Fellow-Conspirator by attributing so much to these Lords of the Articles of Power and Prehemince over the Parliament design'd in time to destroy the Use of Parliaments For what was the Liberty Authority and Dignity of a Parliament if thus trampled on by these Miscreants who were by this Insolency become a great Grievance to the Kingdom Truly Sir I cannot but think that this Conspirator Lauderdale by his many Villanies had put himself under some Necessity of those Men and was prompted by some cogent Reasons to promote that exuberant Power in them For 1. I suppose he could not but be filled with the Terror of the Guilt he contracted thrô his wicked Proceedings and therefore might rationally suppose these Men thrô the base Compliance of the wicked Bishops would be a Refuge to him as they always were to Rogues and Traitors in that Kingdom And truly had he not improv'd the Use of these Tools his Actions might have been set in order before him in order to his severe Punishment by a faithful Parliament And 2. he knew that some warm Men as he called them had an itching to have him by the Collar and only forbore him because of your Brother's Respect and Kindness for him These Reasons were sufficient for him to keep up the Power of those Lords for the Parliament was so kind that when there was a vacancy in the Committee of the Articles he had the nominating of one to succeed 3. Because contrary to the Custom of the Parliament there he caused all such Members as were not named Lords of the Articles to be excluded the Meetings of the Lords of the Articles which you know was to no other End than that the Parliament being less prepared might the more implicitly go along with their Conclusions Thus you may see what a Grievance these Lords of the Articles were Sir by this time you cannot but see what havock you made of the Laws and Liberties of Scotland by those two great Villains Middleton and Lauderdale I might have enlarged upon this Subject but 't would fill a Volume to give account of every little Passage of yours there in order to enslave that People and establish Popery in that Kingdom Article XXIX YOU stand charged with many villanous Attempts to break the use of Parliaments and ridiculing that way of Government O Sir it was the more hateful to you because it preserv'd Liberty and Property which of all Men in your Day you most hated But you were not the first Man of Figure that
Justice which are Officina Legis and particularly of the High Court of Parliament so called from Parlerlament speaking judicially his Mind And amongst others he gives us the following Law of K. Alfred who reigned in 880 and ordained for a Usage perpetual That twice a Year or oftner if need be in time of Peace they shall assemble themselves at London to treat in Parliament of the Government of the People of God how they should keep themselves from Offences should live in quiet and should receive Right by certain Laws and holy Judgments And thus saith this Great Coke you have the Law of K. Alfred as well concerning the holding this Court of Parliament here every Year at the City of London as to manifest the threefold End of this Great and Honourable Assembly 1. That Men might be kept from offending that is that Offences might be prevented both by good and provident Laws and by the due Execution of them Truly Sir here is Grief in one Hand and Sorrow in the other for your Brother and you you hated the one and despised the other Provident Laws you hated as much as you did an honest Woman and the other you despised as much as you did an honest Man And you were never more at ease than when thrô the want of a good Law or so you and your Party were not only emboldned but enabled to do Mischief 2. That all Men might live safely and quiet This is another End of Parliament Old Wright your quondam Justice of the Kings-Bench used to say That the Man that resigned himself up to the Will of his Prince was always safe and quiet But yet that Loggerhead of a Judg with Old Hodg and all his Inferior Crew could never find one such Saying in the Reports or Institutes of Judg Coke for the Saying was so silly that a Man must have judged it to have been his own unless he had humbly borrowed that wise Saying from Sir your sweet understanding Self for he understood as little of the Design and End of a Parliament as your self The Wretch is gone to his Place but as for Law and Parliaments no Man no not Jenner himself understood less than his Worship 3. That all Men might receive Justice by certain Laws and Holy Judgments not by Proclamations or French Edicts as you and your Brother did design but by certain Laws to the end Justice might be the better administred that Questions and Defects in Laws might be by the High Court of Parliament explained and reduced to certainty Your Brother and you if you had understood this would not have sent for a set of Rogues clothed in Purple to have gained their Opinion about suspending the Penal Laws against a parcel of Papists and Popish Priests no you would have applied your selves to Parliament to have explained the difficult and dark Parts of the Laws in force against those Men but you loved Darkness and dark Judges and therefore what you did was dark for Sir your Brother and you little thought and believed that the High Court of Parliament was the Supream Court of the Realm and that it was a part of the Frame of the Common Laws and that in some Cases Parliaments do proceed legally according to the Course of the Common Laws Had your Brother or you understood or believed the Antiquity of Parliaments you would not have preferred a Privy Council before them nor if you had valued the Dignity of Parliaments would you have preferred the Opinion of a parcel of Lambskin Rogues before a plain and positive Law nor if you had learned the Sovereign Jurisdiction of Parliaments would you have followed the Advice and Direction of your villanous Ministers of State tho against the Fundamental Constitution of the Government I wonder you did not take the Villains along with you to St. Germains your Ministers Judges and your Counsellors Learned in the Law your Wrights Jenners Miltons Withers Sawyers and the rest of the Hellish Crew I do not name them all but you might have had the Honesty not to have left them to disgrace their Profession which is well improved since I saw you last and to have procured an Apartment for them that your Ministers might have thought upon some better Politicks and your Roguy Judges and Lawyers might have understood the Law a little better than scribere est agere If that Bird had been but hang'd up in a Cage in your Presence-Chamber he would have sung another Tune For all his Brave-alls he and the rest of his Crew might have found some Expedient or another to have helped you to some other Kingdom since by the Law of some of them and the Politicks of others they fairly walked you out of three Kingdoms at once I do not see any great Reformation of their Manners or any great Improvement they have made of their Law since you was graciously pleased to take up your Residence at St. Germains and if you had taken the Vermin along with you there might have been a parcel of Dragoons that might have drub'd them to their Books so that by their Scribere's and Agere's they might have found some convenient Government for you which they might have kept you in to better purpose than did by their Law and Counsel keep you here Nay if you had advanced them a little above their Neighbours they might have seen the difference between a Declaration of Indulgence and a Statute-Law for Liberty of Conscience and between an Act of Parliament and a Proclamation A good Whip dear Sir would have been of admirable Use and Instruction for it would have made them to understand and they would have told you tho somewhat too late 1. That Parliaments are part of the Frame of the Common Law which is founded on the Law and Light of Nature right Reason and Scripture 2. That according to this Law of Equity and Righteousness Parliaments ought freely to meet for the Common Peace Safety and Benefit of the People and Support of the Government 3. That Parliaments have been all along esteemed the Essential Part of the Government as being the most Antient Honourable and Sovereign Court in the Nation which ought frequently to meet and sit for the making and abolishing of Laws redressing Grievances and to see to the due Administration of Justice 4. That as to the Place of the meeting it ought to be at London not at New-Market at London not at Windsor at London not at St. Germains because London is the Capital City the Eye and Heart of the Nation as being not only the Royal Seat but the principal Place of Judicature and Residence of the chief Officers and Courts of Justice where also the Records are kept as well as the principal Place of Commerce and Concourse in the Nation and to which the People may have the best Recourse and where they may find the best Accommodation 5. They would have instructed you in the Antiquity of Parliaments which have been so
by a set of wicked Rogues yet before they had ravished this Prince and weaned him from his Peoples Love he made this excellent Law in which Sir you may observe 1. A Complaint of former Remisness their Bills afore-time have not been passed and their Grievances unredressed by unseasonably dissolving of Parliaments before their Laws could pass 2. That a Law might pass in that very Parliament to rectify that Abuse for the future And 3. that it should not pass for a Temporary Law but to last for ever being of such absolute Necessity that before Parliaments be dismissed Bills of Common Right might pass to which the then King Richard did freely agree 5. I have another Proof which is from that great Oracle of the Law the Chief Justice Coke in Institut 4. B. p. 11. asserting That Petitions may be truly preferred tho very many have been answered by the Law and Custom of Parliament before the end of the Parliament This that Great Lawyer delivers not as his own single Opinion but tells us that what he laid down in this Particular appeared in an Antient Treatise de modo tenendi Parliamentum in these words faithfully translated The Parliament ought not to be ended while any Petition dependeth undiscussed or at least to which a determinate Answer is not made And again That one Principle of calling Parliaments is for the redressing Grievances that daily happen Further yet concerning the departing of Parliaments It ought to be in such a manner saith Modus Tenendi demanded yea and publickly proclaimed in the Parliament and within the Palace of the Parliament whether there be any that hath delivered a Petition to the Parliament and hath not received answer thereto If there be none such it is to be supposed that every one is satisfied or else answered unto at the least so far forth as by the Law he may be This Custom was observed in after Ages as you heard before Once more and I have done Observe what this Great Judg saith concerning the Authority and Antiquity of this Antient Treatise called Modus tenendi Parliamentum which we often make use of in our Institutes Certain it is this Modus was rehearsed and declared before William I. called the Conqueror and by him approved for England upon which according to the Modus he held a Parliament for England as appears 21 Edw. 3. Fo. 60. Well Sir how do you by this time and how doth my old Mistress and the little Welch Gentleman Are you not satisfied of the Necessity of the Meeting and Sitting of Parliaments I pray call Tom Jenner and Frank Withens those two Rascals and all the Crew of Villains that misled your Brother and you or were misled by you for they were willing Vermin I confess to do what they were bid upon pain and peril of losing their Places And lest these Scoundrels should be too ignorant let us call in Old Pemberton that did several Jobs of Journey-work for your Brother and you he impudently tried Fitz-Harris tho he was impeached in Parliament which Scroggs would not undertake and he tried the Great and never-to-be forgotten Lord Russel and how he carried himself let the World judg I am sure my Ld Russel was murdered But I have heard Pemberton talk as like a Villain as any of the rest which was not because of his Ignorance I say let us summon them all that remain in the Land of the Living for the Devil hath not fetch'd them all yet and tho they are not prating upon the Bench yet the Rogues are getting a Penny at the Bar These Vermin I dare say with a little drubbing will aver that it is most certain these wholsome Laws are not only in full Agreement with the Common Law and declarative thereof but fully agree with the Oath and Office of our Kings who have that great Trust by the Law lodged with them for the Good and Benefit and not Hurt and Mischief of the People But if these Dunghil Rascals should be fullen because not imployed once more to oppress and murder the People under a Form and Colour of Law and refuse to satisfy you I will with that little Law I have propose these three things upon the whole of what has been said upon this fifth Head 1st These Laws are very sutable to the Office and Duty of a King and the End for which he was instituted by God himself who commands him to do Justice and Judgment to all especially the Oppressed but not deny them any request for their Relief Protection or Welfare It had not been below you to have obey'd the Laws as a Subject nor your Brother to have kept them as a King and had he relied more upon his Parliament than he did upon your Counsel and that of his wicked Ministry he might have liv'd to this Day But you and your Crew perswaded him he was above Laws and that the Statutes of the Realm signified nothing no longer than they would serve his Turn who therefore made no Conscience of the Sitting of Parliaments for redress of Grievances 2ly These Laws relating to Parliaments do also fully agree with the Coronation Oath your Brother took and solemnly made to his People viz. To grant fulfil and defend all rightful Laws which the Commons of the Realm shall chuse and to strengthen and maintain them to the utmost of his Power But Sir suppose any of the Learned in the Laws of the Realm should stand at your Elbow as Tom Jenner or Old Holloway or any of that Crew and tell you that your Brother did not take any such Oath To this I may say that if he did not the Nation had the more wrong but I never heard yet that any had the Impudence to deny it I confess when you shuffled on the Crown it was said some things were abated for which those concerned in that Ceremony ought to have been hanged 3ly Those Laws do also fully agree with Magna Charta it self which hath been confirmed to us by 40 Parliaments at least which saith We shall deny nor defer to no Man Justice and Right much less to the whole Parliament and Kingdom in denying and deferring to pass such necessary Bills the Necessities of the People call for Had Old Brown had but half the Honesty of an Irish Rapparee he would not have consented to your Brother's dropping of a Bill in the Year 1680 it was intituled An Act for repealing an Act of the 35th of Q. Elizabeth a good Bill to have preserved the Protestant Dissenters But your Party had some barbarous Murders and Outrages to commit and could not well go on with their Show unless such a Bill as that of Q. Elizabeth was in Force so that it might now and then aid and assist your everlasting Holy Cut-throats in their bloody Conspiracy against God and his Christ Object But you may say That your Brother and Father and several other Princes have otherwise practised by dissolving or proroguing Parliaments at
happy in his People and both secured by frequent Parliaments which therefore could never endanger your Brother's Crown Mistake not your self nor think that we could be cheated with that Nonsense for nothing could endanger his Crown but your advancing the Religion of Rome and the Arbitrary Power of France in England It was these things endanger'd your Brother's Government nothing else could but good Gentleman he was engaged with you in these things beyond recovery to the ruin of himself and the endangering of all our Laws and Liberties The Devil's Brokers did not join with you in dissolving the Long Parliament but cried out if that Parliament was dissolved the Church would fall but Sir I will say that for you you had as little regard for the Church as you could considering how the Rogues had espoused your Quarrel and thought that Passive-Obedience Nonresistance and the Divine Right of Succession would have been admirable Orvâ—etans against the Plague of Rebellion But why must this Church fall with the Pensioners Alas alas the poor distressed Church and the poor distressed Band of Pensioners For the latter they were a Parcel of matchless Villains and she Whore enough not to be in the Nation 's Interest but dissolved they were and what escaped the Jail were secured by the Friars those who had stood by the Interest of their Country were sent again and such a Set of Gentlemen as no King would have sent home in so ignominious a manner but your Brother at your procurement and being sent home you and your Party made it your Business to expose them 1. You had them exposed on your Stages in your rascally Play-houses by a Parcel of mercenary Rogues and Whores who you and your villanous Party set up to debauch the Nation and to ridicule the essential Parts of the Government as if the Votes and Debates of that August Assembly were to be ridiculed by such Vermine who were Tools you made use of in some part to do your Drudgery But stay it is not fit the Whores that are Stage-players should be reflected on left there should be a more severe Act made for cutting of Noses for a Parliament-Man you know had his Nose cut for speaking against that sort of Vermine but I will not be afraid to mention their contemptuous reproaching of Parliaments 2. You had Monsieur Barillon who managed the Intrigue of charging the principal leading Members of both Houses of those three Parliaments with being in a Conspiracy against your Brother and your self and this he and your Jesuits Priests and other Vermine contrived by Subornation and Perjury a Proceeding not unusual to some Persons and Courts all the Mischiefs Poisonings and Villanies in all the European Courts were owing chiefly to his and his Master 's most Christian Politicks he was used as a main Agent fit to expose three as great Parliaments as England ever knew to all the Courts of Christendom as a Confederacy of Men in a Plot to destroy the King and your self and as Enemies to Monarchy And what was this but to render Parliaments odious to all the Princes of Europe 3. Notwithstanding those three Parliaments had nothing before them but to secure the Government against the Depredations that Popery and Arbitrary Power would have made upon it and notwithstanding their great Duty to the King yet what a scandalous Declaration was emitted wherein the said Parliaments were most villanously treated as if they had aimed at nothing but the change of the Government This Declaration may be supposed to be drawn by that Villain the French Ambassador in his own Mother-Tongue because tho it was turned into English yet the French way of wording it shews there was a French Counsellor in the case which could be none but he who was the chief Counsellor your Brother and you used in the management of your Conspiracy yet it is but the Copy of your Grandfather's and Father's way of Proceeding which your Brother and you thought fit to use to asperse Parliaments you were all Friends alike to that Constitution of the English Government 4. It is very remarkable that your villanous Judges were instructed in their Circuits to spit their Venom against the Proceedings of the said Parliaments and in their respective Stations they were to let their Grand Juries know what reason the King had to dissolve them and how they recommended the King's most Gracious Declaration to their Consideration and what Converts they made I was never curious to inquire for I could not suppose but the Country knew the Men and their Character and under what necessity they lay to be Villains from the tenour of their illegal Commissions and that they must prostitute themselves to the Will of the Court or be dismissed from their Imployments but they chose rather to be Scandals to the Bench than to appear as so many Reproaches to their Professions at the Bar. Upon all which Considerations I cannot believe they ever made any farther Profelytes against the English Parliaments than a paltry Sheriff of a County or a villanous Grand Jury pack'd on purpose to draw up an Address of Thanks for the Court 's attempting to ruin the Government as established by Law 5. Since Sir the City of London could not be debauched but the eminent Merchants and Traders in it stood firm to their Laws and Liberties and to the Government of England by Parliaments so that you could not influence the Masters you took an unheard-of Course to debauch the Servants and Apprentices in their Morals and procured a Day of Feasting for them whâ—re they were incouraged to huzza it away against Parliaments and to reproach the Senators as a Herd of Men set upon the Destruction of the Government both in Church and State but it pleased God to open the Eyes of several of those young Gentlemen to see that this Feasting and Rioting was carried on by ill Men and that the dissolving of Parliaments was only to screen some publick Offenders from Justice and by degrees quitting themselves of that scandalous Congress in a year or two their Feasting fell to the ground 6. You imployed old Hodg your Buffoon in ordinary to write against the Proceedings of those Parliaments the Rogue by his Lies Equivocations and Prevarications did much Mischief having called in a parcel of little Priests who engaged themselves to rail at Parliaments and admire the Loyalty of old Hodg their Guide whose Observators were the Subjects of their Discourses every Lord's day nay they would scarce look upon a Sacramental Discourse the first Sunday in the Month to be well dish'd up unless some of Roger's Frippery was mingled with it so that the old Villain was not unsuccessful in his traiterous Papers which he published several times a week till God in his Mercy opened the Eyes of some of our Passive-Obedience-Puppies and let them see the Villain was aiming at Popery and destroying the Church of England notwithstanding his specious Pretences to defend it 7. You
themselves that they had erred with their Fathers the Power of that House concerning taking Men into Custody had not then nor to this Day has received an exact Adjustment and therefore wants not Precedents of the like Nature and if they were Arbitrary Orders they were such as had been executed by Parliaments many a fair Year before your Sires of the antient Kingdom of Scotland were born and since Orders of the same nature had been made by Parliaments in the times of our antient Kings these Orders might have been passed by and not branded with the reproachful Name of being Arbitrary 2. Tho we have supposed that the Commons might issue out those Orders yet they took none into Custody by such Orders but what might well be supposed guilty of Breaches of Privilege in the highest Degree the Truth is when Parliaments met annually or at least frequently we find few or no Complaints but when they were not frequent but there were long Intervals of Parliament the Consequence of which was long sitting which began within these two hundred Years there were some Complaints of the Breaches of Privilege as in the time of Hen. 8. the 4th of Edw. 6. and in the time of Q. Eliz. when the Justice of the Commons hath been applauded by our former Kings for asserting their Privileges and not stigmatized for exerting an Arbitrary Power 'T is true the most notorious thing that could be fixed upon that House was the Fees extorted by the Serjeant of the House who tho he attends the House of Commons yet he ought to have considered that he was the King's Officer and by Law no Officer of the King 's shall take any Fee or Reward for doing his Office but what he receives from the King upon Penalty of returning double to the Plaintiff and being further punished at the Will of the King but of this you and your Party took no notice because the then Serjeant was a Creature of your own tho I think he smarted for it and your Brother laughed at his Calamity in the Case of an Under-Sheriff of Norfolk Therefore I say that to assert that their Orders that were made for the taking Men into Custody were for Matters that had no relation to Privileges of Parliament was an impudent Lie for there were a Number of Men who to distinguish themselves from the rest of their Countrey had basely given their Hands for Abhorrences of Parliaments and of those who most humbly petitioned for their sitting in a time of such extream Necessity their Names I will give that you may put a Mark of Favour upon those of them that are alive whenever they shall have occasion to meet you at St. Germains You may remember that House did fall upon such as had countenanced the Popish Plot and were Abhorrers of petitioning for the sitting of Parliaments and voted that it was and ever had been the undoubted Right of the Subjects to petition the King for the Calling and Sitting of Parliaments and Redress of Grievances and that to traduce such Petitioning as a Violation of Duty and to represent it to his Majesty as tumultuous and seditious is to betray the Liberty of the Subject and contributes to the subverting the antient and legal Constitution of this Kingdom and introducing Arbitrary Power The first that fell under these Votes was Withens that was knighted for his Abhorring and after made a Judg he was expelled the House and voted a Betrayer of the undoubted Rights of the Subjects of England and received his Sentence at the Bar of the House he is yet alive I suppose he and his Brother Jenner may set up at St. Germains for Expounders of our Law in good time The next was Sir George Jefferies then Recorder of London against whom they voted an Address to the King to remove him out of all publick Offices and that the Members which served for the City should communicate the Vote to the Court of Aldermen There were several others that upon the same Account were taken into Custody as Sir Giles Phillips Mr. Coleman Capt. William Castle Mr. John Hutchinson Mr. Henry Walrond Mr. William Stawel Mr. Thomas Herbert Mr. Sheridon and Parson Thompson of Bristol And because Sir Francis North the Chief Justice of the Common-pleas advised and assisted in drawing up a Proclamation against petitioning for the sitting of the Parliament the Commons voted it a sufficient Ground to proceed against him for high Crimes and Misdemeanours the like Vote passed against Sir Thomas Jones one of the Judges of the King's Bench and upon Sir Richard Weston one of the Barons of the Exchequer but they went higher with Scroggs for they impeached him of High Treason for discharging the Grand Jury of Middlesex before they had finished their Presentments and for the Order made in the King's-Bench against Care 's Pacquet of Advice from Rome That it should be no more printed or published by any Person Well Sir what say you now to these Vermine Those now alive are still the same Rogues and your very humble Servants and Admirers and I could wish you had them with you at St. Germains being pretty Company and worthy of your Favour indeed to give them their Due they have been pretty false in their Oaths to King William whom some of your Party stile Prince of Orange These were the Men that House of Commons did censure I pray Sir on with your Spectacles and see whether the Crimes they were guilty of had no Relation to Privileges of Parliaments surely your Friends when they charged the House of Commons with this Crime were not in good earnest if they were they shall have a Rowland for their Oliver I 'll be in good earnest too and let them know that if the Privileges of Parliament be concerned when an Injury is done to a particular Member how much more when they strike at Parliaments themselves and endeavour to wound the very Constitution Nay in the Case of Sheridon who afterwards troubled the Nation with a Litter of scandalous Pamphlets upon that Account 't is plain that his Commitment was only in order to examine him about the Popish Plot and his Endeavours to stifle it Do not you know that Sheridon Say you never did yet let me tell you it was you instructed him how he should behave himself to the House whose Behaviour indeed was with as much Contempt and Insolency as if you or your Father had been demanding some of the Members and therefore they had reason surely to commit him Thompson you know him too very well he was zealous in divers Breaches of Privilege to serve you and the Popish Party witness his Usage of poor Bedlow and the rest of the Discoverers of the Popish Plot yet his Commitment was only in order to an Impeachment and as soon as they had gone through with his Examination he was set at Liberty giving Security to answer the Impeachment they had voted against him But 3. What if the Matters
those Parliaments were composed of Give me leave Sir to put this Question to you Suppose you had been found guilty of Treason by your Peers in Parliament or in any Court of Peers and the Case so plain that you had been condemned and executed for that Treason whether or no that Parliament or Court of Peers that had condemned you had been guilty of a Breach of their Allegiance and Murder This you cannot say then I must tell you that since whilst you were Duke of York you had made your self obnoxious to the Government in a lower degree why might not the same Authority proportion the Punishment and leave you your Life and debar you of the Succession This is to shew the Absurdity your Crew were guilty of in this Argument Now I will speak one Word by way of Answer Whereas your Conspirators did say the Bill of Exclusion was diametrically opposite to the Oath of Allegiance taken to your Brother and his Heirs no Man could bear Allegiance to two Persons at once nor could Allegiance be due to a Subject the Word Heirs obliges no Man till the Heir is in Possession of the Crown then the Obligation is fixed by virtue of the Oath made to his Predecessor Now Sir do but consider what Mischief your Party did to the Succession it self for the next Heir by their way of prating for by it they let loose your self from all the Restrictions and Penalties of human Laws so that you had no other Ties upon you not to snatch the Crown from off your Brother's Head than purely those of your own Conscience and what they were the Nation quickly saw 5. A fifth Argument you and your Conspirators used against the Bill of Exclusion was That it argued a Distrust of the Providence of God Now Sir was our Care to preserve the Protestant Religion a Mistrust of God's Providence and must those that were thus zealous be judged Men of little Faith God forbid 'T is true I cannot allow the least Evil to be done that Good may come of it but the Bill against you was justifiable by the Laws of God and the Constitution of the Government for Sir look back and consider how the Protestant Religion was first established here in England it was indeed by the mighty Hand of God influencing the publick Counsels of the Nation so that all imaginable Care was taken both by Prince and People to rescue themselves from the Romish Yoke and accordingly most excellent Laws were made against the Usurpation and Tyranny of the Bishop of Rome our noble Ancestors in those Days did not manifest a want of Zeal for their Religion with a lazy Pretence of trusting God's Providence but together with their Prayers to and Affiance in the great Jehovah joined the Acts of their own Duty without which they well knew they had no reason to expect a Blessing And a young Whipper-snapper a Friend of yours in a certain Coffee-house had prated at this rate till he was plentifully kickt for his Pains which was the best Way of answering such a Coxcomb that was not to be answered any other way 6. Another Argument against the Bill of Exclusion was this A standing Force would have been absolutely necessary to place and keep the Administration of the Government in Protestant Hands and the Monarchy it self would have been destroyed by a Law which was to have taken all sort of Power from the King and made him not so much as a Duke of Venice This I have heard your Brother talk but it was when he was drunk and this was the Talk of your Party drunk or sober truly they had little in their Discourses but Absurdity and Incoherence Sometimes they would say the Government and Succession to the Crown was of such Divine Right that nothing could lessen your Right nay some of them were so fulsome and nauseous as to talk of Acts of Parliament to banish you out of your own Dominions and to deprive you of your whole Power of Kingship after your being actually King but truly this nasty Cheat appeared so plain to the Parliament that one of your professed Vassals who had more Honour than the rest of your nonsensical Parasites was ashamed of it and openly renounced that self-contradicting Project which they had been so long contriving and thought they had so artificially disguised but tho it was so well-favouredly exposed in the House yet your Coxcombs thought the Nation might be deceived and therefore blusht not to offer it in their common Discourses in all Places and Companies but who they converted to the Cause I never was curious to inquire But Sir was a standing Force so necessary in case of your being excluded suppose it was nay I will go farther suppose a War had been necessary yet would it not have been a War justified by the Authority of Law and against a banished excluded Pretender There would have been no fear of its Consequence no true English Men could have joined with you or countenanced your Usurpation after such an Act and as for your Popish and French Adherents they would neither have been more angry nor more strong by the passing that Bill Truly Sir I must be plain and tell you that your being excluded when Duke of York would by no Means have necessitated a standing Army for the Preservation of the Government and Peace of the Kingdom the whole People of England would have been an Army for that Purpose and every Heart and Hand would have been prepared to maintain that so necessary and much desired Law for which those three Parliaments were so earnest with your Brother not only in pursuance of their own Judgments but by the Directions of those that sent them to remove so great a Grievance from the Nation as you then was and continued to be till you were graciously pleased to let us know that one pair of Heels was worth two pair of Hands Your notorious great Grand-mother was excluded by Act of Parliament yet Queen Elizabeth enjoyed the Crown with much Comfort and Peace for 44 Years and needed no standing Force to secure her from that pretty conditioned Gentlewoman's pretended Right Again a Word more to this standing Army I wonder that you and your Party should be so afraid of what you so eagerly desired nay some of them almost ventured a hanging to get one established If I am not much mistaken I have seen two Armies raised for no other Design than to bring in Popery and Slavery as was proved to the Shame of him that raised them and the first was as shamefully disbanded as it was impudently and against Law raised but the last Army you procured to be raised you and your Party were so unwilling to part with that two Acts were passed before we could get them disbanded And after your Brother had thrown off the use of Parliaments at your Instance he so increased the Number of his Guards that they became formidable to the People of England
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