the Scandal of being a Whore that after he had made her a Dutchess he made her also his Wife that is to say he marry'd her by vertue of his Royal Prerogative at the Lord A's House by the Common Prayer-Book according to the Ceremonies of the Church of England A thing in some measure justifiable in a Prince since the Law allows all Men one Wife and therefore a King who is above Law may surely have two And upon this ground perhaps it was that upon a Lord Mayor's Day being at Mr. Eaton's in Cheapside where the King usually stood upon some Discourse that brought it out she cry'd Me no Whore if me thought me were a Whore me would cut mine own Throat And by the same Dispensing Power he provided also for her Children And therefore having no less adulterously begotten a Daughter upon the Lady Wood he join'd her in holy Wedlock to one of his Sons whom he had begot after the same Legitimate manner upon the Body of the Dutchess of Cleveland according to the Answer of Tamar to Ammon of which he wanted not Sycophant Priests enow to put him in mind But these were Peccadillo's readily forgiven by the Religion which he inwardly embrac'd which could readily dispense with such Trifles as these provided he went thorough-stitch with the Work which his Ghostly Fathers had cut out for him Which was the reason perhaps that he made choice of a Devotion so conformable to his lustful Inclinations For certainly what was said of Harry the Eighth might much more properly he said of him That he spar'd no Woman whether Virgin Marry'd or Widow in his Venereal Heats Which fill'd his Court so full of Pimps and Panders that there was hardly any Preferment about his Person for any other This was that which render'd the D. of L. one of the most ill-favour'd of Men so amiable in our Caesar's Eyes And this was that which advanced several others to their gilded Coaches and Places of the greatest Honour and Profit about the Court. Tho nothing was more mournful then to see those vast Sums of Money which the Parliament so profusely gave him for the Honour and Security of the Nation so extravagantly and prodigally wasted upon his Strumpets of which two were Common Harlots of Actresses taken from the Bawdy Stage to his Royal Bed A thousand Pounds every Munday-morning for the Smiles of a Gilt when his necessary Servants pin'd and starv'd for want of their weekly Board-wages and the strength of the Kingdom his Seamen were forc'd to serve his Enemies for Bread Thus from the first hour of his Arrival into these Kingdoms for I dare not call them His he set himself by his own perswasion and influence to withdraw both Men and Women from the Laws of Nature and Morality and to pollute and infect the People with all manner of Debauchery and Wickedness He that ought to have shone like the North Star in the Firmament of Royalty to direct his Subjects in the Paths of Vertue and Honesty was the Sovereign Ignis fatuus to misguide them into all the snares of Ruin and Perdition Execrable Oaths were the Chief Court-Acknowledgements of a Deity Fornications and Adulteries the Principal Tests of the Peoples Loyalty and Obedience And whether it were to affront God who had preserved and restored him to his Throne or to be reveng'd upon the Nation for inviting him so unanimously to weild the Scepter of his Ancestors certain it is that he made it his business to live in defiance of the Fear and Authority of God and to poyson and corrupt the Minds and deprave the Manners of the English People as might easily be observed through the whole Course of his Reign But the King had been well instructed in his Exile and had sufficiently learnt in his banishment that undoubted Maxim of Tyranny that the only way to alter the settl'd Government of a Nation and to introduce Slavery and Popery the support of Thraldom was to weaken and make soft the Military Temper of the People by Debauchery and Effeminacy which generally go hand in hand together Knowing therefore that Regis ad Exemplum totus componitur Orbis he gave these lewd Examples himself on purpose that after he had thus Enervated the Minds and Resolutions of his Subjects he might the more easily trample upon their Necks and reduce them under the perpetual Yoke of Antichrist in expectation of his Mothers Blessing and to fulfil the Agreement between himself the Pope and the French King Certain it is that the Kingdom was never in a better Posture for the King to work upon it then at the time of his return into England For such were the Contests for Superiority among those who had taken upon them the Government after the death of Oliver such the Confusions and Disorders that from thence arose that no body could probably see where would be the End of the general Distraction unless it were by reducing all things to their Primitive Condition under a Prince whose Title was so fair to the Crown Though a great Blunder in Politicks which the necessity of Affairs at that time made to pass for an Act of Prudence But such an Act it was to which all Parties were the more inflam'd by the Kings reiterated Oaths Promises and Declarations to those of the Church of England to maintain the Protestant Religion to the Dissenters that he would indulge their tender Consciences with all the Liberty they could rationally desire and to All in general that he was a most really zealous and unalterable Protestant And so infatuated they were with these ingratiating Wheedles that should all that knew him beyond Sea both at Colen and in Flanders have spoken their discoveries with the Voices of Angels nay should the Letter which he wrote with his own hand in the year Sixty two to the Pope have been shewn them in Capital Letters they would have been all lookt upon but as Fictions and Inventions to obstruct the Happiness of the Nation The People therefore ador'd him as the end of all their Miseries the Dissenters upon the Relations of their Ministers return'd thought themselves happy in the reports of his Mercy and Piety and the Parliament doated upon his Oaths and Promises so that no Prince in the World could ascend a Throne with more Love and Affection or with a greater Reputation in the Opinion of the whole Nation What could be more inhuman more immoral more barbarous then by all the Violations of Royal Faith and the Word of a King to disappoint the Hopes and Expectations of a People that had such a Confidence of his Religion and Vertue Though perhaps such a failure might have been attributed to his Weakness and want of Conduct But to set himself after so high a Veneration of his Vertues such a prostrating of their Lives and Fortunes at his Feet in Combination with a Forreign Prince the only professed and mortal Enemy of their Welfare to destroy their Religion
been acquitted All which severities were palpable demonstrations of that Innocent Man's being determined to Destruction right or wrong on purpose to lay the foundation of farther Butcheries So that being fleshed by this Success the next attempt of the King's Justice was upon the Earl of Shaftsbury for the same pretended Treason for which Colledge had suffered And here posterity will make the same Observations and Conclusions in general as in Colledge's Case But more particularly will after Ages easily conclude from hence that it was not for any Contrivance of his Lordship but by a project of Court and Popish Revenge to destroy a person who by his Courage Wisdom and Good Intelligence had Opposed and Defeated so many of their Designs against the Religion and Welfare of the Nation For that this Plot upon his Lordship was so early Communicated to Rome and other Foreign parts That it was talked of at Paris and in Flanders some time before his Lordship was Imprisoned in England They will observe the Injustice done his Lordship in refusing to let him see or know the persons that deposed against him which was not denied either to Coleman or the Iesuites and which being so contrary to Law was a plain Demonstration that either the Witnesses were not thought of credit sufficient to support the Confinement of so great a Peer or else that it was not convenient to trust the general course of their Lives to be scrutinied too soon They will admire at the horrid Injustice done his Lordship in refusing to give an Oath to those that offered to have sworn two Indictments of Subornation against the False Testimonies produced against his Lordship The first president of such an Illegal Obstruction of Justice They will observe the Treachery that was used to have betrayed his Lordship into the Snare For what greater piece of Treachery could there be than after they had intercepted a Letter directed to his Lordship out of France from a Gentleman that had commanded a Regiment of Horse in the Service of C. the I. which Letter was only to desire his Lordship to befriend him with a Receipt of the Gout they added to it a Postscript wherein the Gentleman is made to tell his Lordship That he was able to furnish him with Forty Thousand Men from France to oppose the D. of York and so sent it back again into France to have been returned into England and intercepted a second time but that by a strange providence the Letter happened into the Gentleman's own hands who was not a little consternated at the alteration The Motives that induced the Court to begin with this Great and Eminent Peer will be easily discernible to succeeding Ages For to what man of Sense and Reason is it not apparent that it was the Policy of the Court That their Revenge against this Earl should not be adjourned till they had tried the Credit of their Witnesses upon other considerable Persons for fear lest by his Lordship's Industry and Abilities he should not only have detected and exposed the whole Intreague but have broken the Engine by which the two Brothers thought to have made themselves Absolute Lords of the Laws and Religion of the Kingdom For which reason it was thought best to assault him by way of surprise and to hurry him to prison upon a pretended Conspiracy which People would be astonished at but not have time to unravel For the King and his Brother were assured That the convicting of the E. of Shafâ—sbury upon a Charge of Levying War and Conspiring to seize his Person would be a kind of moral proof against every other Person whom they had a mind to accuse of the same Crime Since people would be easily persuaded That a Person of his prudence and conduct would not easily embark himself in such a dangerous Enterprise without a proportionable number of persons who by their Power Quality and Interest might be supposed to be able to carry it on So that all the Noblemen and Gentlemen of England that ever had any Converse or Acquaintance with the Earl supposing them to be persons obnoxious to the Court were involved in his Ruine But it will remain an Eternal Monument of Reproach upon Royal Subornation That after all the Industry of the Court and their obsequious Instruments after all their laying their heads together to form cohering and probable Proofs of the charge intended to be laid against him after an Illegal Trick devised to have Tryed him within their own Jurisdiction of the Verge which was so contrary to Law that it was exploded by their own Bene placito Lambskin men that at length he was acquitted by a Grand Jury the most Substantial for Estates Integrity and Soundness of Judgment that had been returned for many years in the City to the never dying praise of the two Sheriffs Mr. Pilkington and Mr. Shute A Disappointment which so incensed the King and his Dear Brother That they resolved to make an Islington Village of the Chief Metropolis of the whole Nation and what they could not do by Fire to effect by wresting from them their Franchises and Privileges far more Ancient than the descent of those that wrested them for a time out of their hands For this Reason the Attorney General was ordered to bring a Quo Warranto against the City Charter under the pretence of their Petitioning for the Sitting of the Parliament a thing so far from being a Crime that it was the undoubted Right of the Nation And yet such was the awe which the Antiquity and Legality of the Charter had upon the Judges that the Fountain of Justice was forcâ—d to shift his Chief Justice till he could fix upon one that durst adventure to pronounce Sentence against it Which as it was the greatest Invasion that could be against the Ancient and Fundamental Constitutions of the Kingdom so it plainly laid open the King 's Pious intentions of Governing by Law which according to the new Interpretation of the Court was the downright Subverting all that was most Sacred and Valuable in the Nation For what was all this Bustle for But as Charters of all other Cities and Corporations were chopt and changed throughout the Nation to the end the King might have it in his power to violate the electing of a Parliament and nominate and obtrude upon all Persons of the Kingdom his own Slaves and Creatures Papists and Traytors to their Countrey so by reducing one of the most Ancient Corporations and levelling it with one of the meanest Villages in the Kingdom that he might command the Mayor and Sheriffs and by their means the Juries of the City on purpose to have the Lives of all his Protestant Subjects at his mercy And that this was his end was apparent by the Consequences for when once the King by the overthrow of the Charter had made sure of his own Sheriffs and Juries Heavens how were the Laws of God and the Kingdom wrested by misinterpretation how were
hereunto he falls a buying and purchasing at certain and annual Rates the Votes of the Members at what time the greatness of the number of those who stood ready for Sale as well as their Indigencies and Lusts made the Price at which they were to be bought so much the easier Now being thus hir'd by his Majesty with their own free Offerings of the Nations Money How many Bills did they pass into Acts for enslaving and ruining a third part of the Kingdom under the Notion of Phanaticks and Dissenters and all this in gratitude for their Sallaries and to accomplish the Will and Pleasure of their Lord and Master the King whose bought and purchas'd Vassals and Slaves they were All this while what can we say or think other but that the Purchaser as well as the Sellers were equally guilty of betraying the People who had entrusted them And then to make a President by Law for Tyranny those Hirelings empower'd the Iustices of the Peace to disseize Men of their Estates without being convicted and found guilty by Legal Juries of the Transgressions whereof they stood accus'd By which they not only overthrew all the Common and Statute Law of the Land but they subverted and altered the Fundamental Constitution in making English Men liable to be ruin'd at the Arbitrary Pleasure of the King And as an addition to this those Mercinary Members by the Orders and Directions of their most Pious and Protestant Paymaster the King past another Law which was stiled the Act for Corporations by which Men of Principles and Integrity were debarred all Offices of Magistracy in Cities and Corporate Towns The woful Effects of which the Kingdom not long after both saw and felt in the Surrenders of Charters and betraying of Franchises by Persons upon whom the Government of the Corporations came to be devolv'd by Vertue of that Act. For that had it not been for that Act which excluded so many honest able and vertuous Men the Persons whom the King for his by-ends nominated for fit and loyal Men would never have risen above the Office of Scavengers or Headboroughs or Constables at the highest To this as a thing that mainly contributed to the King's design of enslaving us we may subjoyn their passing an Act whereby they did both limit and confine the number of those that were to present Petitions to the King not to exceed Ten Persons Let the Matter to be represented be ne're so important or the Grievance to be redress'd never so illegal and oppressive yet it was made no less then a Riot if above Ten Persons address'd themselves to the King to crave the Benefit of the Law A Trouble which the King carefully provided against knowing how many Laws he had to break and how burthensom and oppressive he must be to the People before he could compleat the Fabrick of Slavery and Popery which he was erecting Nor was this all for the King strenuously pursuing his Design of being sincere and cordial to the destruction of his People had so bephilter'd them with his Potions of Aurum Potabile that they pass'd another Act to his Hearts desire whereby they plac'd the whole and sole Power of the Militia in the King not only encouraging him to use Force in compassing his Arbitrary Designs but binding up the Hands of the People from defending themselves against armed Violence upon their Religigion Liberties and Lives Add to this the vast sums which they gave him beyond what the Support of the Government or the Defence of the Nation requir'd Which might have produc'd fatal Consequences but that the King knew as little a Measure in spending as that unhappy Parliament did in giving The King therefore conscious of his own Failing and finding that through his own Wastfulness and the Importunities of his consuming Misses he could not depend upon any limited and definite Sum for accomplishing his Promises to his Holy Father the Pope and his trusty Confederate the French King got Two Bills prepar'd and carry'd into the House the Passing of which had compleated the Nations Misery and made him Absolute The one was to empower his Majesty upon Extraordinary Occasions of which he would not have fail'd to have been the Judge as often as he pleas'd to raise Money without a Parliament And the other was for setling a Universal Excise upon the Crown The Passing either of which the King well knew would have soon â—nabl'd him to have govern'd by Basha's and Ianizaries and redeem'd him from having any further need of Parliaments or any apprehension of having the Instruments of his Tyranny impeach'd by Them But what the King had so finely projected to enslave the Nation and obtain whatever he had a mind to prov'd the Ground of their Disappointment and the Occasion of the Nations Escape from the Snare that was laid for it For the Mercenary Members foreseeing that the passing these Bills would have put an end to their Pensions by rendring them useless for the time to come consulted their Gain and preferring it above what the Court styl'd their Loyalty fell in with the Honest Party and so became assistant in throwing out the Bills However the very bringing the Bills into the House was as clear an Evidence of the King's Intention to alter the Government and enslave the Nation as if they had pass'd into Laws And some of his Minions that knew the King's Drift and the inside of his Heart were so zealous for him to have gain'd this Arbitrary Power that they would have it argu'd and spoken to in the House of Lords And who but the Popish Lord Clifford should be the Man that ventur'd to undertake the Business And accordingly he made a long Harrangue in praise of Absolute Monarchy and how much it would be for the Interest of the Kingdom to have his Majesty entrusted with a more unlimited Authority Which some of the Lords resenting with a Warmth and Indignation becoming Persons who by the Constitutions of the Governmeut were design'd for a Bulwark against the Encroachments of Regal Power and as a Fence about the Liberties of the People the Motion not only dy'd without being seconded but Clifford even by him who had encourag'd him in his Attempt was call'd a rash Fool for his pains However Pious AEneas finding the Nation grew sensible of his covert Intentions and Encroachments upon their Laws and Liberties and despairing to get any more Acts pass'd in Parliament toward the promoting his Designs resolv'd to husband the Laws he had already obtain'd as much as he could to the Ruine of the Nation and where they fail'd of being serviceable to his Ends to betake himself to other Methods and Means And therefore besides the daily impoverishing confining and destroying of infinite numbers of honest and peaceable People under pretence of executing the Laws he made it his Business to invent new Projects to tear up the Rights and Liberties of the People by ways and means which had not the least
Emperor was put off with a Flamm Nay so soon as the Two Confederate Monarchs had thus made a shift to cut the Gordian Knot the now pitiful but formerly vaunted Tripple League was trampled under foot turn'd into Ridicule and less valued than a Ballad Insomuch that to talk of admitting others into the Tripple League was reprehended in print as a kind of Figure of Speech commonly called a Bull. And farther to shew how much he hated the thoughts of the Triple League which he had made for the good of Christendom his most Sacred Majesty suffered an Agent of his one Marsilly whom he had sent to invite the Switzers into the Garranty who was Surprized and taken Prisoner by the French in the execution of the Commands he had not many Months before received from Whitehall to be broken upon the Wheel at Paris tho one single Word from the King would have sav'd his Life Neither did he take it ill that upon the Scaffold Twenty Questions were put to him relating to his own Person or that in such a publick and infamous Place a strict inquiry should be made as to what had pass'd between him and the King of England for that was the best Title they could afford him for all his late Favours And thus it is plain that the Tripple League was broken for no other ends than to be subservient to the ends of the French King to ruin the Dutch and to bring the Three Kindoms of England Ireland and Scotland under the Yoaks of Arbitrary Power and Roman Catholick Idolatry after a total Abolition of the name of Parliaments and subversion of the Fundamental Laws Gratias tibi piissime atque invictissime Rex Carole Secunde And thaâ— he might not as much as in him lay meet with after-rubs Mr. H. C. dispatch'd into Sweden to dissolve the Tripple League in that Kingdom which he did so effectually by co-operating with the French Ministers in that Court that the Swede after it came to Rupture never assisted to any purpose or prosecuted the Ends of the said Alliance only by arming himself at the expence of the League first under a disguised Mediation acted the French Interest and at last threw off his Vizard and drew his Sword on the French side in the Quarrel And at home when the Project ripen'd and grew hopeful the Lord Keeper was discharged from his Office and both he the D. of Ormond Prince Rupert and Secretary Trevor were discarded out of the Committee for Forreign Affairs as being too honest to comply with the Intreagues then on foot Mr. Trevor being the first Secretary of State that was ever left out of a Commission of that Importance All things being so well thus far disposed toward a War with Holland there wanted only a Quarrel and to pick one required much invention The East-India Company was summon'd to know whether they had any thing to object against them but the Dutch had so punctually complyed with all the Conditions of the Peace at Breda that nothing could there be found out And as to the Tripple League they were out at the same time in pursuance of it and to be ready upon occasion to relieve the the Spanish Netherlands which were then threatned by the French But at length a way was found out that never hapned because it was never so much as imagin'd before by sending the Fanfan a sorry inconsiderable Yatcht but bearing the English Flag with Orders to sail into the middle of the Dutch Fleet single out the Admiral and to fire two Guns at him a thing as ridiculous as for a Lark to dare a Hobby However the Commander in Chief in respect to his Majesties Colours and in consideration of the Amity between both Nations paid the Admiral of the Yatcht a Visit to know the reason of his Anger and understanding it was because the whole Fleet had fail'd to strike to his Oyster-boat the Dutch Commander excus'd it as a thing that never hapned before and therefore could have no Instructions in it and so they parted But the Captain of the Yatcht having thus acquitted himself return'd full freighted with the Quarrel he was sent for Which yet for several Months was pass'd over here in silence but to be afterwards improv'd as the design ripen'd For there was yet one jolly prank more to be plaid at home to make the King more capable of what was shortly after to be executed upon his Neighbours The Exchequer for some years before by the Bait of more than ordinary Gain had decoy'd in the greatest part of the most wealthy Goldsmiths and they the rest of the Money'd People of the Nation by the due payment of Interest till the King was run in Debt upon what account no body knew above Two Millions Which served for one of the Pretences in the Lord Keeper's Speech at the Opening of the Parliament to demand and obtain a Grant of the forementioned Supplies and might plentifully have suffic'd to disengage the King with Peace and any tolerable Good Husbandry But as if it had been perfidious to have apply'd them to any of the Purposes declar'd instead of Payment it was privately resolv'd to shut up the Exchequer lest any part of the Money should have been legally expended but that all might be appropriated to the Holy War in prospect and those far more pious Uses to which the King had dedicated it This Affair was carried on with all the secresie imaginable lest the unseasonable venting of it should have spoil'd the Wit and Malice of the Design So that all on a sudden upon the First of Ianuary 1671. to the great astonishment ruine and despair of so many interested Persons and to the Terror of the whole Nation by so Arbitrary a Fact the Proclamation issu'd forth in the midst of the Confluence of such vast Aids and so great a Revenue whereby the Crown publish'd it self Bankrupt made Prize of the Subject and broke all Faith and Contract at home in order to the breaking of both abroad with more advantage What was this but a Robbery committed upon the People under the Bond and Security of the Royal Faith by which many hundreds were as really impoverish'd and undone as if he had violently broken into their Houses and taken their Money out of their Coffers Nay that would have look'd Generous and Great whereas the other was base and sneaking Only it seem'd more agreeable to his Majesties Temper to rob his Subjects by a Trick than to plunder them by direct and open Force Of alliance to this only with some more Gâ—ains if more could be of Vileness and Unworthiness in it was that Action also of seizing part of the Money collected for the Redemption of Slaves out of Argiers and fetching it from the Chamber of London where it lay deposited to that end into the Treasury from whence it was to be dispos'd and made use of for the Enslaving the Nation Could there be an Action of greater barbarity
further supply of French Money And certain it is that though the English Parliament was kept a loof from the Business of War Peace and Alliance as improper for their meddling withal yet with those three Estates of France all things were negotiated and transacted with the greatest confidence imaginable To which purpose they were Adjourn'd from New-Market to London and there continued till the return of the English Parliament but then dismissd home though with all the Signs and Demonstrations of mutual Affection imaginable And indeed the effect of their Negotiation soon after appeared for the Parliament still insisting that the King's Subjects might be recalled out of the French King's Service pressing the King to enter into a League Offensive and Defensive with the States-General and taking up a Resolution that they would proceed upon nothing till satisfied in the Business of the French Affairs and Popery they were put off by Adjournments from time to time or as it may be more truly said kick'd from Adjournment to Adjournment as from one Stair down to another to the end the French King might have the more leisure to compleat his Conquests in Flanders And from this last usage of his Parliament we may justly take occasion to recollect his Behaviour all along to the Grand Council of the Nation of which in his glavering Letters before his Restoration he had so high an Esteem and thought them so necessary for the Government of the Kingdom that neither Prince nor People could be in any tolerable degree happy without them yet to which his Malice was so inveterate after once he came to be safe in his Throne that no Man could use them with more Scorn and Contempt His first Parliament began at Westminster the Eighth of May 1667. a Parliament so kind to him and so confident of the Sincerity and Integrity of his Words that they gave him back the Triennial Bill and laid themselves at his Mercy to do with them what he pleased whereas before they had power to Assemble every three years by an Enacted Law And no less frankly they surrender'd the power of the Militia into his Hands of both which Acts being done in haste they had leisure enough afterwards to repent But notwithstanding all the great Kindness of this Parliament and their more than extraordinary Liberality to the King of several Millions of the Peoples Money which was with the same profusion wasted upon his Pleasures and the carrying on his Designs for the Introducing of Popery and French Government not a Penny hardly for the good of the Nation while the Seamen were fed with a Bit and a Knock and the Merchants that supplied the Stores of the Nay were cheated of their Money and never paid to this day with what Scorn and Contempt he used them and how far from that Esteem and Veneration he professed to have for them while he was wheedling for his Restoration is apparent to all the Kingdom 'T is true the King continued them till all men of Impartial Knowledge and Judgment thought them Dissolved by Law and till at length they were Dissolved by himself the Twenty fifth of Ianuary 1678. Not that they Sate so long but were discontinued and contemptuously spurn'd from Meeting to Meeting many times by the intimated Orders and to promote the Designs of the French King and never suffered to Sit but when the King was in extream necessity of Money Among the rest of these Prologations there was one at a time when the greatest urgency of Affairs the greatest danger that ever threatned the Welfare of this Nation required their Sitting when they were diving into the bottom of the Popish Plot and endeavouring to bring to condign Punishment the chief Instruments which the King had made use of to compass his Arbitrary and Popish Design But then it was that the King to screen his wicked Ministers from Publick Justice preferr'd the Caresses of the expanded nakedness of a French Harlot before the preservation of three Nations For then it was as Mr. Andrew Marvel with a Satyrical Indignation expresses it That Carwel that Incestuous Punk Made our most Sacred Sovereign drunk And drunk she let him give the Buss Which still the Kingdom 's bound to Curse This was the Effect of that nights bloudy debauch which continued till the morning and all the morning till the Parliament was Dissolv'd or Orders at least given for the doing it For the Duke of York and the rest of the Conspirators being very uneasie under the terrible Inspections which the two Houses made into the Secrets of this Popish Plot but lately discover'd would not endure their Sitting any longer On the other side the King being alarm'd by the detection of so many design'd Contrivances against his Person to remove him out of the World for which the Papists had so little reason unless it were to make him more hasty than stood with the Rules and Methods of his Politicks was the more willing to let the Parliament sit for fear of exasperating the Nation at such a ticklish Conjuncture of Affairs as at that time when all the Protestants of the Kingdom were awakened by such dreadful Consternations and Jealousies What therefore could not be obtained by open Perswasion when His Majesty was sober and sensible must be wrested form him when he was intoxicated To this purpose Portsmouth was fully instructed what to do and as being privy to the whole Conspiracy against the Kingdom was entrusted to manage the Business The Night was spent in Carousing and Buffooning so that His Majesty by Morning was far from that Condition in which he used to appear at Chappel In the Morning Portsmouth retir'd with the King and two Great Ladies more into a more Private Room where to bind him the faster in her Charms and that he might have no time for second Thought the three Ladies placed themselves before his Eyes in the posture of the three Naked Goddesses in expectation of their Sentences from the Trojan Sheepherd and in that Posture going to the Sport of Questions and Commands when it came to Portsmouth's turn to Rule she asked her Monarchical Subject whether he would have Two Commands and One Question or Two Questions and One Command To which when the King replied One Command and Two Questions The Strumpet presently cried our Then I command ye to Dissolve the Parliament Ahassuerus could have said no more nor have been more absolutely obey'd for that very Morning the Parliament was Prorogu'd accordingly notwithstanding all that P. Rupert when he heard the Resolution was taken could urge with all the vehemency imaginable against it while the D. of York stuck close to his Brother and told him his Cousin rav'd So that the Duke that advised for the Ruine of the Nation was believed but the Prince who spoke his mind freely for the good of the Kingdom was dismissed for a Mad-man So well did the King act his part that when his well-meaning Counsellors lent their assisting
him to say with his Grandfather of the same Name Let me make what Iudges I please and I will easily have what I please to be Law No wonder then these Judges having Instruments drawn up by Brent which pass'd the Great Seal to Indemnifie them for whatever they did or said Illegally affirm'd it to the King for Law That the King was an Independent Prince That the Laws of the Kingdom were the Kings Laws That the Kings of England might Dispence with all Laws that regarded Penalties and Punishments as oft as necessity required That they were Iudges and Arbitrators who have Power to Iudge of the Necessity which may induce them to make use of these Dispensations And Lastly That the King of England could not Renounce a Prerogative annexed to the Crown By Vertue of which Concessions and Opinions of the Judges all the Laws in England made in the Reigns of four several Princes for the security of the Nation against Popery and Arbitrary Government were rendred of no Effect By Vertue of these Concessions Arundel of Warder was made Lord Privy Seal Alibone a Judge and Castlemain was sent with great Pomp an Embassador to Rome to be there contemn'd and despis'd by his Holiness for the bad name which his Master had among all the Princes of Europe and the ill Opinion the Pope himself had of him By Vertue of these Concessions it was that the greatest part of the Kingdom 's Military Safety and Defence was put into the hands of persons incapable to be intrusted with them by the Express Laws of the Kingdom and that the Execution of the Ancient Laws and Statutes of the Realm against divers sorts of Treasons and other hainous Crimes was stopt By Vertue of these Concessions Sir E. Hales was made Lieutenant of the Tower to Terrifie the City with his Mortar-pieces and level his Great Guns to the Destruction of the Metropolis of the Kingdom when the Word should be given him By Vertue of these Concessions it was that Peters was made a Privy Councellor to outbrave the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London that he had his four Provincial Bishops and that the Priests and Jesuites swarm'd in all parts of the Kingdom Built themselves Convents hired Mass Houses made open Profession of their Foppish Religion in the Chief City of the Nation and in several of the Great Cities and Towns of the Kingdom and publickly Ridicul'd the Scripture in their Pulpits All which Transgressions of all the Laws of the Land both Civil and Ecclesiaâ—tick are so fully Represented in the Memorial of the Protestants to their Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Orange That they cannot be more fully noâ— more sensibly repeated But the Inundation stopt not here it was to be a general Deluge or nothing at all To which purpose all Obstructions that oppos'd the â—orrent were to be levell'd or remov'd out of the way for effecting of which there could be no Engine thought sufficient but that of the Ecclesiastical Commission so arbitrary in its Origâ—nal that it had nothing but the Pillars of the Prerogative to support it and manag'd with that Arbitrary Fury by Iefferies That he look'd like a Monstrous Titan Warring against the Heaven of Law and Justice For he had no way to carry Illegality with a high hand but by arrogant Domineering and surly Incivility while he had nothing to offer to any Person that offer'd Law to him but Sic Volo Sic Iubeo To tell a Peer of England and the Bishop of London so much his Superiour only that he Sate upon the Throne of his Commission he that was not to be mentioned with the Bishop in the same day was such a foul piece of Exeuberance of his Guildhall Eloquence which only could have dropt from the lips of Insulting Barbarism All that can be said for him is this That as many men commit Absurdities when loden with Wine this was one of his Extravagancies in his Drink of Honour And indeed after he had tasted of that potent Charm the whole Course of his Behaviour seem'd to be a meer Intoxication which made him afterwards make use of the same Receipt to drown both his Life and his Dishonour together However the Suspending this Noble Peer and Bishop contrary to all pretence of Law for refusing to obey the Kings unjust and illegal Command was no such Advantage to the King's Cause that he had so much reason to thank the Chancellor or Peters either for putting him upon committing a greater Act of Injustice to justify a less The Bishop was too well and too generally belov'd among all the professors of Protestantism for the Papists to put such an Affront upon so Eminent a Father of the Protestant Church for them not to resent it even the more prudent Papists thought it a Proceeding too harsh and unreasonable and the more moderate look'd upon it as too base and unworthy so that the Hot-spurs of the King's Council were losers on every side And besides it was such a stabbing contradiction to the King's Speech in Council upon his Brother's Death That since it had pleased God he should succeed so good and gracious a Prince as his dear Brother he was resolv'd to follow his Example more especially in that of Clemency and Tenderness to his People That the barbarous suspending this Bishop was one of the main things which destroyed the solemn verity of Royal Word Which though he had falsified already in his severity to Otes and Dangerfield yet the Person of a Peer and Bishop and a Star of the first Magnitude in the Church of England render'd much more conspicuous But the King was under a necessity he had declar'd one thing to the Protestants but he had bound himself to do another for the Papists If he falsified with the Protestants the Papists could absolve him If he prov'd unfaithful to the Papists they would never forgive him And in this Dilemma he resolv'd to follow the Maxim of his Profession Not to keep Faith with Hereticks Neither were the steps he made the steps of State-convenience now and then upon an exigency but all in a huddle out of his Zeal to make large steps for fear he should dye and leave the Papists worse than he found them These severe Proceedings against the Bishop of London were the Violation of that part of his Declaration wherein he promis'd the Preservation of the Ecclesiastical Government as Established by Law But the Barbarous usage of the Gentlemen of both Maudlin Colledges was an unsanctified breach of another part of his Declaration wherein he no less solemnly engaged to maintain the Protestants in all their Properties and Possessions as well of Church as Abby-Lands as of all other their Properties whatsoever Notwithstand all which how he turn'd those Gentlemen out of their Legal Freeholds by the Arbitrary Power of his High Commission how he violated the Constitutions of the deceased Founders and with what an embitter'd rage and fury he rated
THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE REIGNS OF K. CHARLES II. AND K. IAMES II. Printed in the Year 1690. PREFACE IT is one of the Encomiums given to Suetonius That he made Publick to the World the Vices and Miscarriages of the Twelve Caesars with the same freedom with which they were by them Committed And there is no question but one of his chiefest reasons for so doing was this Because he would not deceive Posterity and all agree that he was Contemporary with the Three last So that the Enormities of Domitian could not but be fresh in his Memory when he wrote his Life and there might be several Persons Living as might have the same Partial Affections for Domitian as there are now Adorers of C. II. and J. II. For which reason there is a wary Caution among some People That Truth is not always to be spoken Which perhaps may be sometimes True but as the Case stands with these Sheets not at all to be taken notice of The pains of this short History being as well to Vindicate as to Inform and written in Opposition to one of the French King 's most Scandalous Libels and bitter Invectives against our Present Sovereign Intitled The True Portraicture of William Henry of Nassau c. Now to have made a Particular Answer to all the Extravagancies and Impertinent Flams of a Malicious Libeller would have been a Fending and Proving altogether fruitless It was therefore thought the more concise way to bring the Two Last Reigns upon the Stage and then let all the World judg of the Furberies and Tyranny of those Times and the Integrity Sincerity and Sweetness of Their Present Majesties Reign As for the Truth of what is here contain'd I will not Apologize for it for as to the more secret Transactions the Consequences and Events are my Testimonies and for what was more publickly carried there are the loud and general Complaints of the Kingdom to confirm it So that I shall say no more THE SECRET HISTORY c. WHEN Charles the Second was restored to the Thrones of England Scotland and Ireland never any Monarch in the World came to the Possession of so large a Dominion with more Advantages to have done good for himself to his Subjects at home and to his Allies abroad The People all experienc'd in Martial Discipline as having but newly sheath'd the Sword of Civil War and Foreign Conquest so that their Valour was dreaded abroad where-ever he should have menac'd an Enlargement of his Territories Besides all this he had the Love of his Subjects equal if not superior to any Prince that ever reign'd before him and he had the Affection of â—is Parliament to the highest degree But after all this he was no sooner setâ—ed in his Throne but through the Influâ—nce of Evil Consellors upon a dispositiâ—n naturally vicions and easily corrupted with Effeminate Pleasures he abandon'd himself to all manner of Softness and Voluptuous Enjoyments and harbouring in his Bosom the worst of Vices base Ingratitude betray'd himself that he might betray his People For where the Constitution of a Nation is such that the Laws of the Land are the Measures both of the Sovereigns Commands and the Obedience of the Subjects whereby it is provided that as the one are not to invade what by Concessions and Stipulations is granted to the Ruler so the other is not to deprive them of their lawful and determin'd Rights and Liberties there the Prince who strives to subvert the Fundamental Laws of the Society is the Traytor and the Rebel and not the People who endeavour to preserve and defend their own Nor must we ascribe the Miscarriages of his Reign altogether to the remissness of his Nature but to a Principle of Revenge which his Mother had infus'd into him not so much for the loss of her Husband but out of her inbred Malice to the Protestant Religion which no where flourish'd in that Splendour as in England foster'd anâ— cherished by the vow'd Enemy of this Nation his Brother the D. of York who haâ— been openly heard to declare in his Bed chamber at St. Iames's That he was resolv'd to be reveng'd upon the English Nation for the Death of his Father And what an Ascendant this Brother had over him the whole Kingdom has felt by sad and woful experience For indeed the King had all along an Affection for him so entire and baneful to the Nation that he could only be said to Reign while his Brother Rul'd With all these Royal Vertues and imbred and fomented Animosities to render him at his return a Gracious Sovereign to this Kingdom let us trace him from his Cradle to find out those Princely Endowments which invisibly encreasing with him as he grew in Years dazled in such a manner the Eyes of the doating Politicians of that Age to recal him against that known and vulgar Maxim of Common Prudence Regnabit sanguine multo Ad Regnum quisquis venit ab exilio When he was but very young he had a very strange an unaccountable Fondness to a wooden Billet without which in his Arms he would never go abroad nor lie down in his Bed From which the more observing sort of People gathered that when he came to Years of Maturity either Oppressors and Blockheads would be his greatest Favourites or else that when he came to reign he would either be like Iupiter's Log for every Body to deride and contemn or that he would rather chuse to command his People with a Club than rule them with a Scepter And indeed they that made the first and last Conjectures found in due time they were not altogether in the wrong For the Throne was no sooner empty by the death of his Father before he could be permitted to seat himself in it but he gave us a plain discovery what sort of People they were who when he came to Reign were most likely to have the Principal Room in his Favour and Trust and by whose assistance he was in hopes to tyrannize over his English and Scottish Subjects For when the Parliament of Scotland sent to him as he was then cruizing about Guernsey to treat with him about receiving him to be their King he would not so much as transact with them till he had first sent to Ireland to assure himself whether those Rebels who had murder'd no less than two hundred thousand Protestants were in a condition or no for him to cast himself upon their Assistance But those hopes failing in regard they were in a fair way to be subdu'd themselves he was at length inclin'd to entertain the Overture made him by the Scots And yet even then was his mind so full fraught with the thoughts of Despotical Dominion and purposes of introducing Popery into his Territories that had it not been for the P. of Orange he would never have comply'd with the Terms which the Scots had order to propose tho' no other than what were necessary for the security of the
Lives Liberties Laws and Religion of his People And how he employ'd his wooden Billet afterwards may easily be understood by his many acts of barbarous Tyranny over those poor People and the Slavery under which the whole Nation began so lately to groan Being admitted to the Scepter of Scotland at what time the Scourge of English Victory hung hourly over his Head tho he was diligently watched and observ'd by Men of Piety and Vertue he could not forbear the satisfaction of his Youthful Inclinations to all manner of Wantonness and Lasciviousness insomuch that having in the Year 1650 to the many Fornications and Adulteries which he there committed added the perpetration of a Rape upon a modest and vertuous Lady he had incurr'd the general disatisfaction of his best Friends However since they had brought him in and restored him to the Regal Dignity and that what was done could not now be undone they deem'd it no less their Duty to retrieve him if possible from those infamous and violent Courses and to that purpose concluded that the Danger as well as the Sin and Scandal of the Crimes he had committed should be privately represented to him by some of the most sober Noble Men and Ministers But some declining the Office as apprehending it would be ungratefully received by the young King others not deeming they had that Awe upon him which was sufficient it came at length to be devolv'd upon the Marquiss of Argyle For they suppos'd that if he hearkned to any Person it would be to him not only by reason of his Quality but because he had been the chief Instrument of perswading and prevailing with the Parliament to call him home to inherit the Crown of his Ancestors when most of the Members were thinking to exclude him But tho that Noble and Prudent Peer manag'd the Address which upon that Occasion he made to the King with the highest Piety of a Christian and the greatest Submission of a Subject yet the King look'd upon it as so Sacrilegious a Crime that any one should presume to rebuke him for his Darling Pollutions and Impurities that he resolv'd that nothing should expiate the Offence but the Blood of that Great and Vertuous Nobleman It is true he was destroyed upon a pretended legal Process but they who consider'd that it was for strain'd Faults and Failings of a Person who never acted but in a publick joint way without any sinister or treasonable Design against the King or his Father and against which he was either able to defend himself by Acts of Approbation or Oblivion in verbo principis then which there could not be a more Supream Sacred and inviolable Security or by an insuperable Necessity They who remembred the Marquisse's faithful Endeavours for restoring the King to the Crown of Scotland thought it a severe Case and look'd upon his Condemnation as unjust and his Life an ungodly Sacrifice to the angred Lust of a Lascivious Prince He had called God and all the Records of Heaven to witness his Innocency as to the most pungent Articles against him and to avoid giving the Parliament the trouble of a Defence in all humility he threw himself down at the Kings Feet and wholly submitted himself to his Mercy Nay when all this would not do he put in a Justification for himself so full of Reason and good Proof as was thought would have satisfied all Mankind But notwithstanding all this such was the remorceless Cruelty of our good natur'd Prince of Mercy and Clemency that nothing but so Noble a Person must be a Victim to his private Animosity Nor does the getting him put to death by a seeming Course of Law excuse or extenuate the Guilt of the Fact but is rather an Aggravation of it before God and Men in regard the Law which is design'd for the security of Men's Lives was here wrested and perverted to their Destruction And in imitation of this unjust Prosecution it was that when the D. of York hunted the Son of this Noble Man to death and was told by the Scot's Lawyers that there was nothing in what the Earl had said or done which could be made Criminal by the Law of the Land his Highness was pleas'd to reply But cannot it be wrested to Treason Nor was the King less early in Hypocrisie and breach of Promise For the confirmation of which to be a Solemn Truth there needs no more than to lay the Foundation of the Proof upon his own Words and Solemn Engagements For in the Kings Letter to the Speaker of the House of Commons just before his Restauration he has these Words We assure you upon our Royal Word that none of our Predecessors have had a greater esteem of Parliaments than We have as well in Our Judgments as from Our Obligation We do believe them to be so Vital a part of the Constitution of the Kingdom and so necessary for the Government of it that We well know neither Prince nor People can be in any tolerable degree happy without them and therefore you may be confident that We shall always look upon their Counsels as the best We can receive and shall be as tender of their Priviledges and as careful to preserve and protect them as of that which is most near our Self and most necessary for our own Preservation This in part demonstrates his Prevarications with Man Now for his Prevarication with Heaven we must produce another Paragraph of the same Letter wherein he uses these flattering Expressions If you desire the Advancement and Propagation of the Protestant Religion We have by our constant Profession of it given sufficient Testimony to the World That neither the unkindness of those of the same Faith towards Us nor the Civilities and Obligations from those of a contrary Profession could in the least degree startle Us or make Us swerve from it and nothing can be propos'd to manifest Our Zeal and Affection for it to which we will not readily assent And We hope in due time our Self to propose something to you for the Propagation of it that will satisfie the World that We have always made it both Our Care and Study and have enough observed what is most like to bring disadvantage to it As for the first his Veneration for Parliaments the succeeding Transactions of his Reign which are to be related will manifestly make it appear how far those Words were from his Heart when dictated by his Lips And as for the second his Zeal for the Protestant Religion nothing could render him more a Hypocrite then such a Profession when at the same time he was both himself a Papist and under Promises and Obligations to the Pope and the Romish Clergy to destroy the Protestant and introduce the Roman Catholick Religion as afterwards appear'd by the Attestations of Ocular Witnesses who often saw him at Mass during his Exile and was yet more evident by a Letter under his own Hand written in the Year 1652. to the
subvert their Laws and Liberties to undermine and impoverish their Estates and Fortunes and to reduce a Plump Wealthy and Well-nourish'd Nation into a Skeleton of a Kingdom what could be more infernally ingrateful Yet that this was the Study and Practice of his whole Reign the following Passages will make Geometrically demonstrable The King was not ignorant that he was furnish'd already with a stock of Gentlemen who being forc'd to share the Misfortunes of his Exile and consequently no less imbitter'd against those whom they lookt upon as their Oppressors he had moulded them to his own Popish Religion and Interests by corrupting them in their Banishment with him to renounce the Protestant Doctrine and Worship and secretly reconcile themselves to the Church of Rome Insomuch that Mr. R. offer'd to prove one day in the Pensionary House of Commons that of all the Persons yet Persons all of Rank and Quality who sojourn'd with the King abroad there were but three then alive viz. P. Rupert the Lord M. and Mr. H. Coventry who had not been prevail'd upon by his Majesty to go to Mass. Nor could their being restor'd to their Estates at his return separate them from their Masters Interests for that besides the future Expectations with which the King continually fed them and the Obligations that the Principles of the Religion to which they had revolted layd them under they had bound themselves by all the Oaths and Promises that could be exacted from them to assist and cooperate with him in all his Designs for the Extirpation of the Protestant Religion and introducing of Popery though they were dispenced with from appearing bare-fac'd So soon therefore as the Parliament that gave him admittance into the Kingdom was Dissolv'd the King call'd another the first of his own Calling and so ordered the Matter that the greatest part of the Mask'd Revolters got in amongst the Real Protestants By which means all things went trim and trixy on the King's side They restor'd him the Militia which the Long Parliament had wrested out of his Fathers hands they sacrific'd the Treasure of the Nation to his Profuseness and Prodigality the only Vertue in him that sav'd us from utter Ruin for had he been more sparing he had done us more mischief They offer'd up the Rights and Liberties of the People by advancing his Prerogative and what was most conducing to the King 's Popish Designs they made him by private Instructions those Penal Statutes which divided the two prevailing Protestant Parties and set them together by the Ears by arming one Party of the Protestants against all the rest such a darling advantage to the Papists and upon the obtaining of which he set so high a value that neither the necessity of his Affairs at any time afterwards nor the Application and Interposure of several Parliaments for removing the grounds of our Differences and Animosities by an Indulgence to be past into a Law could prevail upon him to forego the advantages he had got of keeping the Protestants at mutual Enmity one with another and making them useful to their own Designs of supplanting the Protestant Religion and re-establishing the Idolatry of Rome Nor was this all but that he might carry on his Popish Designs the more safely and covertly under the cursed Mask of Hypocrisie he procur'd the passing of an Act in his Pensionary Parliament 1662. whereby it was made forfeiture of Estate and Imprisonment for any to say the King was a Papist or an Introducer of Popery Nevertheless notwithstanding he was thus become a Protestant by the Law of the Land to repeat how he exerted the Power given him by the P2rliament how he persecuted and prosecuted the Protestant Nonconformists from one end of the Kingdom to the other how he caus'd them to be Excommunicated imprison'd and harrass'd when nto a Papist in the Three Kingdoms was so much as troubled or molested is a thing that would be altogether needless as being so well known to the World and still too sadly remembred by Thousands of Families that to this day too deeply wear the Scars of his Cruel Dilaniations However it shew'd sufficiently the aim of our dear Defender of the Protestant Faith which was to weaken and enervate the Protestant Party that so they might be come the more easie Prey to Popish Rage and Cruelty when the blessed Hour should arrive for the putting in Execution those bloody designs with which he had been so long travailing which because he could not carry on without assistance therefore although he were sometimes oblig'd by the necessity of his Affairs and in complyance with the Times to palliate his Contrivances to make use of sincere and real Protestants yet they who were admitted into his secrets and in whom he placed his chiefest Trust and Confidence were always Papists He who would needs have himself enacted the best Protestant in his Dominions took no notice that whosoever was reconciled to Rome stood debarr'd from all Offices and obnoxious to several kinds of punishment but still out of the number of Papists or else such as were of no Religion at all which was the same thing for his purposes chose his Embassadors Generals Ministers of State and many of his greatest Bishops too What else recommended Sir W. Godolphin to be Embassador in Spain or Sir Lionel I. to be his Plenipotentiary at Nimeguen and afterwards his drudging Sham-plot Secretary It was his being a zealous Roman Catholick that preferr'd the Lord Clifford to the Treasurers Staff with several others of the same stamp to other high Preferments more Eminent for their Dignities than for their Parts and lastly what was it but this Indulgence and finding ways to dismiss the Papists without any harm or damage when Indicted or Presented at the Sessions that advanced so many Beneplacito Judges and continued them in their Places I had almost forgot another very great kindness which the same Parliament did him which was at the Private Instance of the King to abrogate the Triennial Act by which the sitting of Parliaments once in three years was infallibly secur'd to the Kingdom So well did his Majesty know where the Shoe pinch'd him and so crafty was he to take his Advantage from the Delirium and Frenzy the Nation was in upon his Restoration to obtain the repealing of the Principal Laws by which his wriggling into Arbitrary Government would have been curb'd and restrain'd But whether it were that the Prodigal Zeal of those Members began to cool conscious perhaps that they had already open'd too large a Gap to Tyrannous Invasion upon the Liberties of the People which they had so treacherously laid at the Kings Mercy or whether it were that the King resolv'd to quicken his pace to Arbitrary Rule to the end he might see Popery flourish in his own Days certain it is that his next Attempt was to make the Parliaments themselves the Ministers and Instruments of his own Popish Ambition and our Slavery In order
who but he who in his last wheedling Speech to pick the Nations Pocket had promised to Consenâ— to any Laws against Popery at the bottoâ— of it Who but he the Suborner and Instructer of Fitzharris and the Gratifier of him too with his own Hand And why was W p readmitted to his and his Brother's Favour but to be the principal Broker for Witnesses and grand Minister of Subordination for the carrying on this bloody Design that since he could not advance his Fortune by the prostitution of his own Daughter he might do it by betraying the Innocent to slaughter What a crew of Devils in the shape of Men a Regiment of Miscreants in whom all the Transgressions of the Law and Morality were muster'd together I say what a band of such Caitiffs were rendevouz'd and with that Money which Parliaments gave to promote the Security of the Kingdom carress'd and pamper'd even to excess for the destruction of the Innocent And all this at the expence of him that bore the Stile and Character of our Gracious Soveraign For full proofs of which there needs no more than to look into the Tryal of Fitzharris himself and observe the Shuffâ—ng and Hectoring of Portsmouth and her Close-stool Wench Mrs. Wall when they were ask'd the Question about the Money that was given him at White-Hall and yet one would have thought that the modest and humble Address and Petitions of so maâ—y Parliaments to secure the Lives and Religion of his people that the care and tenderness which they had still out of mistake for his person that the prostrated Complaints of a distressed Nation and that the foresight of these dismal Calamities he was bringing upon three spacious and opulent Kingdoms might have interceded for some Compassion had there been a grain of common Humanity in his Adamantine Heart or that the heat of his Lust had not petrified all his pity And yet as horrid as this Plot was which nothing could equal but that horrid Plot of his own which this was contrived to coveâ— and stifle by excelling it was carried on with all the vigour imaginable insomuch that the more fatal Libel than the Gorgon's Head that was to kill unseen was ready prepared for the Work and the Train ready to take fire had not Everard's Jealousie of some design upon himself outwitted Fitzharris and first betrayed him to save his own Bacon To recite the particulars of a Design already so well known and publickly exposed to all the World would be a repetition altogether needless This however was observable that we were come to the height of Tiberius's Reign when Informers and 〈◊〉 Accusers a sort of Men found out for thâ— Ruine of the Publick and for the punishment of which no Laws can be too severe were encouraged and courted with Rewards Nullus à poena hominum cessavit dies decreta accusatoribus precipua premia nemini delatorum fides abrogata omne Crimen pro Capitali receptum etiam paucorum simpliciumque Verborum No day passed without some punishment inflicted great Rewards given to Informers no Informer but what was believed all Crimes were adjudged Capital though merely a few idle Words Such a Harmony there was between these times and the pernicious Reign of that Master in Cruelty and Dissimulation Tiberius But the Roguery being discovered while Fitzharris thought to have put Everard upon this Dilemma either to hang or prove the Libel upon others he came to run himself into the Noose Lord into what an Agony it put the King the Duke his dear Brother and their then juggling Instruments that the King who a little before was so overjoyed with the accompt of the Contrivance which was given him at White-hall that he could hardly contain himself from displaying the Raptures of his Soul was now so highly incensed against Fitzharris that he was heard to say He should die if there were no more Men in England But his Confession to the Recorder Sir George Treby and others what the design of the Conspiracy was that is to say to thrust papers into the pockets and Lodgings of such and such Gentlemen and then to seize them with the papers about them so enraged his Employers that he was presently lockt up in the Tower out of the reach of all Men but the Lieutenant to damn him for spoiling so hopeful a Design and Secretary Ienkins who was only admitted to him either to threaten or cajole him with fair promises into a Recantation But above all things there was such a dread among the Conspirators lest the Parliament should come to the knowledge of the depth of the Design that their resolute insisting to have the Cognizance of the Crime within their own jurisdiction was the occasion of their sudden Dissolution After which a Chief Justice was exalted on purpose to hang Fitzharris out of the way to prevent his farther discovery though the rejecting of Fitzharris's Impeachment by the Lords was a thing so new and unusual as to the Proceedings of Parliament that the Commons who knew the Law as well as the Judges voted it a Denial of Justice and that no Inferior Court should dare to try an Offender by them impeach'd But the Judges over-ruling the Law and the Court over-ruling the Judges no sooner was the Parliament Dissolved but Fitzharris was Hanged and by that means many a Mystery of Iniquity concealed The dissolution of this and the foregoing Parliament was justified by a Declaration in the King's Name which being published with all the severity and reproach that could be cast upon those worthy Patriots verified the Report of what the King had been heard to say That he would make the name of Parliaments to be forgotten in England However the Parliament being blown up and the King running away in a pretended pannick fear from Oxford to colour the ensuing projects of Plotting and Subornation no sooner was he settled again at London and Fitzharris Hang'd to the great joy of those that adored him before but the Gazett was cram'd with Addresses from all parts of the Nation to thank the King for his expressions and promises to Govern by Law which was no more than his Duty But those Addresses were only signed by the unthinking loose and rascally part of the people who were not sensible of the mischief which was thereby intended which was to make the Nation out of Love with Parliaments thereby to unhinge the Government and to introduce Tyranny and Arbitrary Power And that th Addressorse were only the Canaille of the Kingdom with only a Tool of Quality at the Head of them the Conspirators well knew which was the reason they never durst adventure to call any more Parliaments upon the Credit of their Addresses notwithstanding the mighty brags of their Number and Reputation in the Countries As for the Tryal of Fitzharris I shall say nothing of it as being already in Print Only this is to be observed by the way That no Attorney or Sollicitor-General durst
the Precepts even of Morality it self transvers'd the Witnesses for the King caressed and countenanced in their known Subornations the Testimonies for the pretended Criminals brow-beaten and run down and all the Arguments of Law and Reason urged by the most Learned Council of the Nation over-ruled by Hectoring and Swaggering Judges to take away the Lives of the Lord Russel Coll. Sidney Armstrong Cornish and several others merely to gratify the Rage of Popish Revenge Such were the Violences of the Court at that time in the defiance of Justice as if all fear of giving account to future Parliaments had been thrown off or that they never intended to be troubled with them more till they had framed the Nation into such a posture as to chuse such Members as would not only forgive such Villanies but go sharers with them in the Spoil of the Kingdom And indeed the eager Thirst of all the Great Men at White-hall was so apparent that nothing could be more by the violent Contests for Sheriffs fit for their Turns before they were Masters of the Charter insomuch that they laboured it with that Zeal as if they had been contending pro Aris Focis and some of them were heard to say That upon that hung all their hopes and without it they were undone For by the Verdicts of such Juries that such Sheriffs should return they were in hopes to cut off all that in their Stations had appeared for the Exclusion of the Duke or had shewed their constant Zeal for the Protestant Religion and the Laws of the Land which is easily demonstrable from the Catalogues of those that suffered or were forced to shelter themselves in Foreign Countries from the Malice of their Revengeful Prosecutors Nor was it less remarkable that as all along they embarked themselves in Designs pernicious and destructive to the King and Kingdom So that the structure of this was built upon as wicked a foundation was evident from the Instruments selected and encouraged by the favour of the King and his Brother to promote it For as they made use of the Scum of the World to perjure men out of their lives so they made use of the Scum of the City such as Dodson Masters Cradock Mern and others of the same stamp to give them the command of Juries proper to complete the Tragedies A most ready and clever way to extirpate by degrees the Patriots of our Religion and Liberties But that this was the Design of getting Court-Sheriffs Sir G. Iefferies who well knew the minds of his Superiors at White-hall was neither afraid nor ashamed to own For having after the Tryal of Sir Patience Ward desir'd him to give his Worship a Meeting at Sir Robert Claytons he there told him after an insulting manner That he had satisfied his Revenge for the Loss of the Recordership and besides that having such Sheriffs as they desir'd they had now the Law in their hands and could have the Life of whomsoever they pleas'd Otherwise it had been impossible but for the Treachery of the Judges that encouraged the Injustice of a packed Iury to have found the Lord Russel guilty of death when the whole of what was villanously sworn against him was in the opinion of far more honest and equally Learned Lawyers but Misprision of Treason or to have convicted Collonel Sydney upon Innuendo's made out of old Papers found in his Study and never published But then follow'd the barbarous and horrid Murther of the Earl of Essex which how far it could be laid to the King's Charge is somewhat as yet in the dark However that the King could find no other Morning to accompany his Brother to the Tower but that very Morning that the Earl was murther'd will no doubt very much augment the Suspicion of future Ages and it will be as odly look'd upon that when Letters and Proposals were sent to some Great Persons near the King That if His Majesty would but grant a Pardon to two or three Men that should be nam'd when the Favour was granted the whole Mystery of the Contrivance should be discovered and the Contrivers and Actors be particularly detected such a Proposal should be slghted and neglected There was also another Letter containing the same Offers addressed to the Countess of Essex and sent open to one Cademan a Bookseller in the New-Exchange which was also carried to one of the Secretary's notwithstanding all which there was not the least syllable published to encourage any Inquisition after that Nobleman's Blood which as it amazed all rational people at that time so it will reflect upon the King himself and his memory to all succeeding Ages Now after all these Tricks and Stratagems of the King to introduce Tyranny and Slavery to stifle the Popish-Plot by throwing it upon his Protestant Subjects after such an obstinate and stedfast Conjunction with the sworn Enemy of the Nation the French King for the Subversion of our Laws Liberties and Religion after so many Slights and Contempts to put upon the Grand Council of the Kingdom which he never Assembled but to empty and drain the Purses of the Nation so that there was not a Law which he consented to for the publick Good not a gracious Speech or Declaration to protect and preserve the Protestant Religion which the people did not purchase at a dear rate while the Dissenters among the rest paid for the very Thorns and Briars that tore their own Backs all this designed on purpose to render the Name of Parliaments odious and lastly a League concluded with the French King for their total Subversion After so many Bloody Executions of the chiefest Patriots and constant Assertors of the Protestant Faith to believe the King by whose Authority and by whose Countenance and Permission all this was done to be that sincere Protestant which he profest himself to be is for a Man to shut the Windows of his Understanding against the Light of common Reason But to shut the Door against all Objections that can be made in his behalf there is one proof yet remaining behind which must be an undeniable Convincement to all the World of the truth of what has been hitherto said as standing still recorded under his own Hand if the Original of the Instructions be Exant and that is the following Memorial of his Ambassador to the King of Poland in the year 1667. Most Illustrious Prince THE King my Master has Commanded me to let Your Majesty know the Resolution he has taken in all Points to concur with the Most Christian King in giving Your Majesty all possible Assâ—stance for the Establishing Your Majesties Title in such ways as Your Majesty shall think most effectual for the securing Your Crown and Dignity and the further Honour of Your Queen and Royal Issue The King my Master being truly sensible of the Great Misfortunes of those Princes whose Power must be bounded and Reason regulated by the fantastick Humours of their Subjects Till Princes can be freed
with the World whose whole Course had been to deal thus deceitfully and treacherously with God He who made it his business to impose upon the All-seeing Eye of the Heavenly Majesty might easily bear with that Infirmity of his of not scrupling the deluding Nations and abusing the Credit of Mankind 'T was his Practice to be a Papist in his Closet and a Protestant in his Chappel to be this hour at the Mass bearing a Part in the Romish Ceremonies upon Christmas-Eve at Sommerset-House and the next day communicating after the maning of the Church of England at White-Hall This the Dutchess of Cleveland well knew and therefore had been often heard to say That She did not embrace the Catholick Religion out of any esteem that she had for it but because that otherwise she could not continue the King's Mistress And consequently Miss of State Add to this his sending the D. of Monmouth into France with an express Command to reconcile himself there to the Church of Rome So that his whole Life may be said to be made up of Contradictions and that to save others the trouble of charging him with falshood he employed his own Tongue in all his publick Speeches and Declarations to give his own Heart the Lye and justly merited the Character which a certain Person gave him to carry with him to his Grave That he was an irreconcileable Enemy of the Protestant-Religion a Parliament and a Virtuous Woman But what car'd he who being put in mind to consider what Infamy the History of his Life and Reign would entail upon his Memory replied That he car'd not tho the World made a Whistle of his Tail when he was dead Neither indeed was there any true Zeal for any Religion to be believed in a Man who coming into the Chamber of a certain Peron and finding a Bible there reproached the owner for having less wit than he took him to have since he troubled himself with such a Book But tho he had long trifled with the Papists his beloved Friends and indeed had so carried himself that neither Papist nor Protestant could tell what to make of him yet the Papists resolv'd they would be no longer dallied with by him And therefore so soon as he had made all things ready for his Brother's Exaltation after he had prevented his Exclusion from the Throne and put all the power of his Dominions into his Hands to give way for him that truly Reign'd while he but only wore the name of King he was struck with an Apoplexy as it was given out for let the true Cause be what it will a Prince always dies of some Disease or other in the Physicians Catalogue but such were the Circumstances of his Death that Men began to discover their Suspicions freely to the World before he was cold However it were certain it is that he was Absolved from all his sins by his great Friend Iohn Huddleston and that the Priests gave him extream Unction At what time one of his Relations forcing his way into the Room and seeing them at it could not forbear saying That now they had Oyl'd and Greas'd his Boots they had made him fit for his Iourney And this is yet more remarkable That all the while he lay upon his Death-bed he never spoke to his Brother to put him in mind of preserving the Laws and Religion of his People but only recommended to him the Charitable care of his two Concubines Portsmouth and poor Nelly Nor was it a small aggravation of the general Suspition to find him hurried to his Grave with such an ungrateful secrecy in the dead of the Night as if they had feared the Arresting of his Corps for Debt not so much as the mean Pomp of the Blewcoat Boys to sing him to Heaven Insomuch that he was Buried by his Brother whom he had so highly obliged with far less decency than was permitted for the Funeral of his Father by his capital Enemies that had beheaded him But that perhaps might be so ordered by Providence to signify that he was not worth the publick Lamentation of the People whose Religion and Liberties he had been always designing to subvert To him succeeded Iames the II. not more perniciously designing but more eargerly bent in the Chase of National Ruin and Destruction He came in to England full freighted with his Mother's Religion and her Malice to the People of the Nation but wore at â—â—st the same Vizard Mask of Protestantism which his Brother did But tho he were fitter for the business they both design'd yet he understood not how to manage it so well so that had he been the elder Brother we may undoubtedly presume to say he would have been much sooner thrown out of the Saddle greatly to the saving both the Honour and Treasure of the Nation and the Life of many a worthy Gentlemen and true Lover of his Country 'T is well known and a thing confirm'd by two Letters yet to be seen wherein one of the King 's own Chaplains then upon the spot when it was done imparts and laments it to a Bishop That the Duke of York while he was yet but very young made a solemn Renunciation of the Protestant Religion and was reconciled to the Church of Rome while he sojourned with his Mother in France in hopes by the assistance of the Papists to have defeated his elder Brother of his Right of Inheritance tho he had all the Indulgence imaginable to conceal his Conversion where it might be for his private Advantage and the general good of the Cause And so early was this Ambition of his to supplant his Elder Brother That when the Scots were treating with the Exil'd King to restore him to the Throne of Scotland That he was at that very time practising with such as remain'd faithful to the King's Title here that they would renounce his elder Brother and chuse him for their Soveraign And for that Reason it was that the Duke forsook him at Bruxels and withdrew into Holland so that the King was necessitated not only to command him upon his Allegiance to return but was constrain'd to send the Duke of Ormond and some other Persons of Quality as well to threaten as persuade him before he would go back And as he was an early Traytor to his Brother so did he no less treacherously attempt the disowning of his first Wife For finding her extraordinary Chastity to be such that he could not be admitted to her Bed but upon the lawful score of Matrimony he was at last Married to her but so very privately that only the King was privy to it After which perceiving that his Brother's Restoration was fully determin'd in England under pretence that it would be more for his own and the Honour and Interest of his Brother to Marry with some great Princess that would both enrich and strengthen them by the largeness of her Dowry and the greatness of her Relations he would have taken an
them like Dogs when they lay prostrate at his feet more like a Pagan Tyrant than a Christian King is notoriously known and all this to make a Popish Seminary of one of the most noble and best endowed Colledges in the University And this Peters look'd upon as one of his great Master-pieces as appears by a Letter of his written to the French King's Confessor Father La Chese wherein he had this vaunting expression I have gain'd a great point in perswading the King to place our Fathers in Magdalen-Colledge in Oxford where they will be able to tutor the young Scholars in the Catholick Religion Nor was it thought sufficient to turn the Proprietors out of their Freeholds but under pretence of disobedience to the King's Commands they were also made uncapable of any Ecclesiastical Preferment or of the Exercise of Holy Orders and depriv'd of all those other ways and means of Livelihood for which their Education had qualified them Which as it was a piece of Inhumanity without parallel so it was a plain demonstration of the main drift and design of the King and his Popish Furies first to draw the Protestant Clergy into the snare of Disobedience and then under the pretence of Obstinacy and Stubborness totally to suppress and silence them And yet after all this for the King so publickly to give himself the Lye by proclaiming to all the World as he did such a notorious untruth as That he had never invaded the Property of any Man since his coming to the Crown was such a piece of Dissimulation that Oliver Cromwell himself with all the Irreligion laid to his Charge was never guilty of Unless his Father Confessor design'd it for a Miracle to be Recorded among Popish Wonders That he who had done nothing else from the beginning of his Reign but invaded the Liberties and Propâ—rties of his Subjects should be so confident as to deny it But whatever through the frailty of his memory he had till then forgot he was resolv'd it seems for the future to make amends for his omission To which purpose he was now provided with such a Gunpowder-Plot that had it taken effect would ere a few Months had gone about have blown up all the Properties of the whole Clergy of England without exception of any person that had either Honour or Conscience and the greatest part of the Bishopricks and Livings of England would have been pronounc'd void to make way for Sandals and shaved Crowns This was that cunning Declaration for Liberty of Conscience whereby he undertook to dispense with the Laws by the sole vertue of his Prerogative An attempt wherein his Brother had miscarried being forc'd to surrender up and Cancel the Illegal Contrivance he had prepar'd for a Tryal But King Iames puffed up with the great Exploits he had in person perform'd upon Honslow-Heath and the Glorious shew his Army made there Rendezvouz'd at the same time in the same place to add terror to his Commands resolv'd to make all Opposition bow the Knee to Baal In pursuance of those Resolutions he Orders his Declaration to be printed requires the Bishops to cause it to be distributed through all their Diocesses and to take care that it should be read in all the Churches and Chappels throughout the Nation Upon this the Bishops Petition the King setting forth the Illegality and the ill Consequences of it to the whole Nation both in Church and State and beg the King not to insist upon the Reading it This so incens'd Peters and the rest of the furious Hotspurs and consequently provok'd the King to that degree That the Court-Lawyers are presently consulted who adjudge the Petition Tumultuary and Libellous and thereupon the Archbishop of Canterbury together with the Bishops of Asaph Ely Chichester Bath and Wells Peterborough and Bristol are first sent to the Tower and then Arraign'd and Tried for Mutineers against the King's Popish Government being Charg'd with an Information for Publishing a Seditious Pernicious and Scandalous Libel But notwithstanding all that the King's Council and the C. J. Wright and Alibone the Papist could do Judge Hâ—lloway and Judge Powel to their Eternal praise stuck so close to their Protestant Principles and so strongly oppos'd the King's Dispensing Power for which they were turn'd out the next day that the Bishops were acquitted to the general Joy and Satisfaction of the whole Nation and particularly of the Soldiers upon Honslow-Heath whose Shouts and Acclamations upon the News of their Acquittal were so harsh and unpleasant in the King's ear that from thence forward he began to wish he had more Irish and fewer English in his Army But notwithstanding this Fatal Blow the most undaunted High Commissioners drove on furiously sending forth their Mandates to the Chancellors Archdeacons c. of the several Diocesses to send them an exact account of all such Ministers as had refus'd to Read the Declaration And there is no question to be made but that the severity of that Imperious Court would in a short time have swept the Kingdom clear of all the Protestant Clergy had not indulgent Heaven put a stop to their impetuous Career That which follows is so Romantick that it looks more like a Novel than a Story fit to gain Credit hardly carrying so much Probability with it as the Fable of Bacchus cut out of Iupiter's Thigh and which looks more Romantick than all the rest That the King himself should believe and urge it for an Argument to delude the World That he who had suffer'd so much for Conscience sake could not be capable of so great a Villany to the prejudice of his Children and inforcing the same Argument yet further by saying That it was his Principle to do as he would be done by and therefore would rather dye a thousand Deaths than do the least Wrong to his Children When the World was convinced that he could not have suffered such an Affront to have been put upon him but for the very Reason he alledged and that as for his doing as he would be done by it was apparent by all his Actions that he could not speak those Words from his Heart without some Mental Expositions reserved to himself Certainly therefore since it was for the Preservation of the Roman Catholick Religion that the Contrivance was set on foot it argues that his Conscience was under the most dreadful Subjection to his Popish Confessors or that his Zeal was no less strangely govern'd by an imperious Woman that for the sake of Popery he should consent to a Conspiracy against his own Flesh and Blood He would not endure to be Excluded from the Succession but he would Exclude his own Daughters from the Succession and yet tell us 't is his Principle To do as he would be done by as if he thought the way to make us credit a Story of his Son were to tell an untruth of himself The World that grows Wiser every day than other will never be made believe that