serve at this time and therefore rejected him as not for his turn Whereupon the Party that should have been his Ensign being by and hearing it moved with Indignation thereat rejected him for his Immoderation and denied to serve him and all this since the Act of Toleration But this Spirit reigns so violently in them that they are now feared to be more ready than formerly should they by Sheriffs like themselves be called upon Juries to murther and undo by false Verdicts all that shall be known to own King William and Queen Mary to be King and Queen de Jure as well as de Facto And now I leave Charles II. whose Council and Favourites left nothing undone which might perfect the Destruction of England save the Selling Tangier to the French which that they did not do is one of the Wonders of this Reign There needs no other Character of this King than his Answer to one who desiring him to have regard in his Deportment to his Memory after Death viz. That Let not Men speak ill of him whilst he lived and he cared not what they should say of him when he was dead How he was taken away is in the dark but vilely suspected His Successor may be said not to be so Godless as he tho not less cruel but from what Principle is not to be determined unless it was from being both equal as to Fear from whence Cruelty doth generally proceed I know all the ill things done by the eldest Brother is ordinarily laid to the Charge of the younger wherein I differ from that common Opinion believing that Charles II. was never imposed upon by James II. but the first having the Master-wit and with it great Cunning was willing his Brother should have the Name of any thing offensive to the People when even it was that himself desired most to have done And thus ends the Reign of Charles II. whose Practices for arriving at Arbitrary Power and Popery appear in some degrees over and above what is before mentioned by the Affidavits hereunto annexed with Captain Wilkinson's Information which shew the Subornation of Perjury to have been used by his Ministers for taking away the Lives of Innocent Men. James II. who succeeded his Brother Charles II. sending two Men to Amsterdam when Duke of York to burn their Ships in Harbour who being taken and at Execution confessing the Fact it sticks much upon him in that Country as do several other Actions in this which for the sake of his vertuous Successors ought to be forgot were it not necessary to give some Hints for the vindication of the present Government and justifying the late King's Abdication The Burning of London and the many Fires since at St. Katherines and Southwark c. belonged without doubt to the Popish Plot and how far the then Duke of York was concerned therein Coleman's Letters in print in some kind shew But to pass by all other things before his coming to the Crown he no sooner arrived at the Throne than he declared himself a Papist a Name in favour of that Religion out of fashion ever since the Restoration but being the Language of the Law I think fittest to be used At his first appearing in Council after his Brother's Death which was as quick as could be he promised to rule according to Law and yet in two or three Days after commanded by Proclamation the Payment of Customs before given by Parliament which is contrary to Law and from that time forward went on in the same way going publickly to Mass the first Lord's Day of which Religion the bigotted Church-men who will never believe any thing till it be too late would not before own him to be His Brother died on the Friday and Saturday-seven-nights after was in the Evening privately buried Before the Burial he knighted Sir Peter Rich and soon after did the same by Sir Roger L' Estrange and made Sir George Jeoffreys a Baron none of which three as may be observed would King Charles II. so far dignifie tho he had made them his Tools to serve the worst of Turns The now Sir Dudley North was knighted in his Sheriffalty and possibly for the sake of his Family for Sir Peter Rich his Partner who joyned with him in appointing the Jury that found my good Lord Russel guilty and brought him to Execution was passed by till James II. came to the Crown and judged him worthy of the Honour of Knighthood This King called immediately a Parliament and thought he had by his Influence so pack'd one that there were not thirty Members that would not do as they were bid They gave him great Supplies of Mony and were as severe against the Duke of Monmouth as himself was by his Instruments Kirk and Jeoffreys against all in the West supposed to be of his Party contrary to the Mercy of former Times when the Suffering of a few attoned for the rest But when Popery came upon the Stage this Parliament would not serve the turn which caused the Adjourning and Proroguing of it from time to time hoping in the Intervals to have moulded it to his purpose but that not succeeding at last he dissolved it and then betook himself to Popish Counsel Petre the Jesuit bing made one of his Council and of his Cabal not only contrary to Law but also to the practice of most if not all other Popish Princes For tho the Jesuits make it their Design to skrue themselves so far into the Favour of Princes as to become their Confessors that having Opportunity of infusing wicked Principles into them and by knowing their Secrets may have the greater Advantage of doing Mischief yet are seldom or never admitted Members of their Councils The wise Venetians banished them their Territories for their pernicious Principles until in requital of the Pope's assisting them in their Wars against the Turks they were received into the City of Venice Anno 1664. but are by the People who hate them very inviduously looked upon there Nay Rome is so jealous of their Immorality as may be presumed that they rarely admit of above two or three at most to be at one time of the Consistory the Pope's Council which consists of Seventy two Cardinals when all are there which is seldom or never These Men hurried this King into all Extravagances and the highest Invasion of the Rights and Liberties of the People that had ever been attempted The Corrupting of our Mercenary Judges to the making any thing Law he would have for taking away the Lives of innocent Men at his pleasure and giving him the Dispensing Power The setting up extrajudicially Ecclesiastical Commissioners to turn Men out of their Free-holds at their pleasure as at Magdalen-College in Oxford The erecting Popish Schools Chapels Convents and Seminaries all expresly against Law The Breach of his repeated Promises and Coronation-Oath These I say were all but Trifles compared to his personal Endeavours of overturning our Foundations in going from
Dutchess of Orleance 〈…〉 agreed to break the Triple League to joyn with France against the Dutch and to satisfie the Swede for this Breach Mr. Henry Coventry was sent Ambassador to that Crown who procured from them the Dissolution of the League When this was done and we had recovered Breath after the Disgrace we received in the former War to have a Pretence for a second One of our Yachts was ordered in her coming from Holland to steer out of her Course and through the States Naval Fleet then riding at Sea that in case the whole Fleet did not strike to our Boat we might make that the ground of a Quarrel That great Commander de Ruyter then Admiral not thinking their Articles of Peace could be understood to reach such a little Circumstance did not answer our Demands or Expectation and for not doing it together with some Trivial Medals and Pictures which that People are much addicted to was made the Cause of a Quarrel-without Remedy and Dr. Stubbs as a fit Man for the Work was sent for out of the Country to maintain by Writing the Justice of our Cause which for 400 l. he performed the best he could by two large Pamphlets in the latter of which having been too free in his magnifying the wise and excellent Management of the War against the Dutch in that time called a Commonwealth when we first made known unto the World our Greatness at Sea in beating them when in their Zenith which cost with the Ships in that time Built 210000 l. this Pamphlet was for some time stopped till there being a necessity for it that it passed and when Stubbs was by a Friend of mine questioned how he could in Conscience write so falsly and injuriously against the Dutch He confessed He could write much more for them than he had done against them if he would After a Pretence for War was agreed on the next thing requisite was to find a Fund for the Charge which was very difficult for the Parliament having by woful Experience felt from ill Conduct the Burthen of the first War was unwilling to engage in a second but at last the new made Lord Clifford with the help of his Friends projected the stopping of all private Payments in the Exchequer for which as a Reward he had the Treasurers White Staff given him the Fund gained hereby being about 13 or 1400000 l. which was a loss to particular Creditors many of them 〈◊〉 ruined by it so that from the Immorality of the Project the Author of it deserved rather another Reward than that he received The War was commenced without any previous Declaration by falling upon their Smirna Fleet in the Chanel as we had done in the first War before Cadiz as they were upon their Voyage home wherein we miscarried as well to our Dishonour in being worsted as in beginning the War by Surprize In this War we should have had the Assistance of France and had a Squadron of that Kings Ships joyned us but in design only to teach them to fight sound our Coasts and not help us for as it is before mentioned that one Ship which from ignorance of the Intreague did fight the Captain of her at his return home was as is reported clapped up in the Bastile for hazarding his Masters Ship The Parliament perceiving the drift of the French to be the weakning of both Parties that at long run he might become Superior to either or both pressed the King to a Peace betwixt us and the Dutch which he tho unwillingly consented to for not knowing how to deny so just a request a Peace was concluded Now new measures were taken and a new Minister of State made choice of one intirely devoted to the Kings Will without reserve To gain the Kings ends a Majority of the Members of Parliament was corrupted by Pensions which were liberally bestowed upon such as were of depraved Principles fit for any mischief by which means every thing during some time brought barefaced into the House of Commons and afterwards by side-winds for the Kings particular Designs passed currently until the Court going too high for a standing Revenue the Pensioners suspecting that when that was gained their Pensions would cease they turned readily against the Court which caused them for gaining Mony from the Parliament to pretend a quarrel to France and in all haste to raise an Army to that end and to procure belief of their real Intentions a Book under the Title of Christianissimus Christianandus writ by Dr. Marchemond Needham was published rendring the French King so scandalous in all his Ways Actions and Designs as cannot be thought would have been writ without having first that King 's Leave for writing it The Parliament to take away from the King all Pretences of Complaint gave him a Supply by which he raised an Army but finding in the Issue that he was not real in his Pretensions for a War by refusing to declare War they pressed him to disband his new-rais'd Army and to effect the same gave him Money to do it with appointing Sir Gilbert Gerrard Sir Thomas Player Col. Whitley and Col. Birch to see it done who discharged the Trust reposed in them with all Fidelity and Honesty These Arts or Tricks used for the Service of the French King by which our Parliament was disobliged our King had no Cause to doubt but that that King would hold himself obliged to assist him and therefore he was applied to and probably he had gained from him a stipend of 300000 l. per Annum for some Years had not the Duke of Buckingham prevented it and upon what other Account than of being a Friend to his native Country is unknown However he did not only thereby irrecoverably lose the Favour of the Court but also drew so much the Hatred of it upon himself that he was prosecuted for a Crime which tho the Authors of the Prosecution made little Conscience of the thing themselves they hoped by it to have taken away his Life for being instrumental in preserving the Life of the Nation The Discovery of these and other pernicious Designs begot not without cause a great Jealousie in the Parliament of the Court and their Party which carried them on to the Addressing the King against some considerable Persons as evil Counsellors which was for some time avoided by Adjournments and Prorogations of Parliament till the horrid Popish Plot breaking out those Tricks could not longer hinder the impeaching several of them in Parliament for the highest of Crimes bringing one of them to the Block as had not Dissolution of Parliaments prevented it the rest in all likelihood had had the same Fate all of them having been arraigned at the Bar of the Lord's House where some pleaded Guilty in pleading the King's Pardon by which Time being got for arguing the Point till by the Dissolution of several Parliaments which was on purpose to prevent Justice they were unduly preserved for no
such Pardon as the Lawyers say against an Impeachment in Parliament is valuable in Law and the King having no power to pardon Offences where in the Indictment he is not made a Party as he is not by Impeachments in Parliaments they being by the House of Commons in the Name of all the Commons of England The Dissolution of Parliaments doth not give Prisoners at the Suit of the Commons the privilege of being bailed no inferiour Court having by Law any such power especially the fault of their not being brought to Trial not being in the Parliament but in the King in not suffering them to sit till they had cleared or passed Judgment upon them as he ought to have done This King an Artist in King James I's King-craft observing his Conduct to have lost all Reputation confessed by a Declaration his Errour in governing his Affairs by Cabals and not by Parliaments and his Privy Council by whose Advice he had always thriven best resolving for the future to be ruled by them without Cabals And in Conformity thereunto he dissolved entirely by the said Declaration his Privy Council and chose another under the notion of a new Council into which was taken some of the most popular and honest Members of the House of Commons as the good Lord Russel the then Lord Cavendish Sir Henry Capel Mr. Powle c. but the Majority being of the old Leaven they soon found that the design of bringing them into the Council was merely to give Credit to their sinister Proceedings which made them as soon unanimously withdraw rather than be in the least accessary to their unwarrantable and destructive Counsels and Actions So that tho some will have the small time these Gentlemen were in Council to have been a great advantage to the Court in their Reputation and blame them for it I am of a contrary Opinion and that there could not have been a greater and more prejudicial Affront put upon a Prince than that by such an unanimous and publick Leaving of his Council in a way that amounted to no less than a Protest against his Proceedings which could not but make a more disadvantageous Impression on the Minds of the People than so short a Continuance with them could be of advantage to the King Now new Measures were again taken and with them a new Minister of State chosen several Parliaments are dissolved and new ones called in hopes of getting one at last to serve their turn but the People growing more and more sensible of the Growth of Popery and Slavery sent such suitable Members to the Condition of the Nation that they were almost as soon dissolved as assembled for three Parliaments successively and then to be revenged of the Corporations for sending such Members and of the Members themselves for being averse to the Destruction of the Nation Quo Warranto's by the Advice of a new Set of evil Counsellors were brought to take away the old and give them new Charters that might subject them to the arbitrary Will of the Prince illegal in the highest degree Nay Burroughs by Prescription were destroyed and Charters imposed upon them to the infringing of their Privileges Hereford I think was the first that had a new Charter imposed upon them by which all Power was so reserved in the King as an Example for those that should follow that one might have thought should have wrought an Hatred in all true English Men to the Authors or Abettors of such Counsels The Charter of London by many Acts of Parliaments and in the comprehensivest manner confirmed was so gallantly defended by the City nothing material being against them as appears by the learned Arguments of the Lord Chief Justice Pollixfen and Mr. Attorney General Treby that one may wonder there should be Lawyers found to plead against it and that such were found is a Reproach upon the Persons for being too mercenary As Quo Warranto's were for being revenged of the Corporations so a Protestant Plot was contrived as well to stifle the Popish Plot as to destroy such Gentlemen as were thought to stand in the way of Arbitrary Power and Popery by false Evidence leaving treasonable Papers at their Houses as was done at Mr. Dubois's House in London or putting them into their Pockets and then seizing them of which Mr. Fitz-Harris gave my Lord Shaftsbury warning Which made those that knew they were under the Envy of the Court when they were to come into Crowds to sow up their Pockets to prevent practising such Tricks upon them Fitz-Harris whose Province it was to act in these ways to get or make treasonable Lampoons to trepan Persons falsly judged to be of Antimonarchical Principles for not playing his part well and fearing his Discovery according to his Promise to the then Sheriffs of the Popish Plot had a Rope for his Reward being Drawn Hanged and Quartered but as a Gratuity for his weak Endeavours his Head and Quarters were given to his Wife to bury Soon after he was dead an impudent false and lying Confession was made for him as is fully demonstrated by the published Answer of those concerned in it under the Title of Truth vindicated in reference to the Aspersions cast upon Sir Robert Clayton c. published in the name of Dr. Hawkins as Edward Fitz-Harris ' s Confession As also the falseness of this Confession appears by the last Actions of his Life viz. the Paper he read at his Execution which was printed and his giving the Sheriffs Thanks for their Civility and Kindness to him which were his last Words and yet by his Confession he is made to complain of them The design of this Confession and publishing of it was by it to vindicate the Guilty and accuse the Innocent for certain Persons being determined for Destruction it was thought fit to make them hereby odious to the People that when they should be murthered by Form of Law their Deaths might be the less resented To give an Instance of the Evidence made use of in these Times the Witnesses against my Lord Shaftsbury were so scandalous as Ages to come will not believe that such should be offered against any Man much less one of his Quality As Booth a Minister of the Church of England and Parson of Ogle in Northumberland well known to be an infamous Rascal and violently suspected for the Murther of one of his Servants to conceal his Clipping of Money of which he was notwithstanding convicted and condemned and had been hanged had not the Duke of Newcastle who gave him his Parsonage at Ogle begged his Pardon And I have heard an honest Divine of the Church who had known him from his Youth say that he could write a Volume of his Rogueries So that nothing less than shameless Impudence could have produced him against the Life Honour or Estate of any one The rest of the Witnesses were not better as the Affidavits hereunto annexed do evince Barry or Narrative Smith being one c.
Town to Town to discourage those Magistrates that would not engage to send such Members to the Parliament he then intended as would repeal the Test and Penal Laws and cajole those that would His turning out the Mayor and best of the Aldermen of York and chusing Papists in their room had not the Commission been defective as to the filling those empty Places so that that City was without a Mayor till His present Majesty restored them to their Rights As also his Commissionating others under the Name of Regulators to reform as they called it other Corporations and all to the End of having the Test removed the only Obstacle that the Way might be open for an entire Popish Parliament who would have been sure in twelve Months time to have made new Laws against all Dissenters from Popery and have persecuted them for the same with Fire and Fagot As to the propounding an Equivalent or a new Magna Charta for establishing Liberty of Conscience which should be unalterable that was so vain and idle as could not expect Belief or Regard from any save Men of little Wit or Prospect for it ever will be as it ought to be in the power of succeeding Parliaments to repeal the Acts of former And therefore tho the King might promise he would not consent during his Time to any Alteration he could not promise so much for his Successors and farther as to himself his Steadiness to his Engagement herein after Breach of his Coronation-Oath and re-iterated Promises of Ruling according to Law might well be suspected Besides had he really intended to make good his Promise the Church of Rome which by his own Principles is his Superiour would have forbid it And he that is not ignorant of their murthering Doctrin and Practices in case of Disobedience durst not have disobeyed for fear of a Dose or a Fig. So that it is no less to be admired that the Papists should make such ridiculous Propositions to a knowing Protestant People as that there should be found any among them who would give heed to the least thing of this nature coming from their implacable Enemies There were in a few Days two Proclamations of Pardon published the latter excepting some that had been pardoned by the former when the Parties being beyond the Sea could not be guilty of new Transgressions not hearing of the one before the other the distance of Time being too little and as it is said one or both was not sealed designedly neglected by Jeoffreys that Engine of Cruelty and Monster of Impudence Nay it is said that the King upon hearing of the Prince of Orange's Expedition for England ordered the Restoration of the Fellows of Magdalen-College in Oxford and upon the News of his Disaster at Sea gave presently contrary Order All which is a clear Demonstration of his Principles and how little his Promises or Pardons are to be relied upon The Arts and Tricks his Predecessors had made use of for Oppression and Injustice as by Innuendo's c. to take away the Lives and Estates of honest Men were by his blood-thirsty Instruments illegally improved as the Deaths of Alderman Cornish and Mr. Charles Bateman and the barbarous and inhumane Proceedings against Dr. Oates do sufficiently evince he having been without President so cruelly and unmercifully used as may charitably be concluded was intended by that way to have murthered him because they could not have the least Colour of Law for doing it otherwise and that he out-lived the Barbarity of it he hath reason to acknowledge a Miracle of Mercy from God and for it walk thankfully before him all the Days of his Life But besides this this whole Reign was no less than Violence and Cruelty as appears by excepting about One hundred and eighty Persons by Name out of his Pardon upon the Duke of Monmouth's Invasion and by Qualifications scarce any that were not professed Papists or as bad were left unquestionable especially if ever they had crossed the Seas by that Exception of all Treasons beyond the Seas Some of those excepted were Girls at School from seven to ten Years of Age for giving Ribbonds to a few of the Duke's Soldiers and they with the rest were by Order from the King and Council prosecuted for Rebels by the King's Envoys Extraordinary with the States General upon pretence of their Articles of Peace To that End supposing them all to be fled into their Countries and the Faith of the Nation being engaged for the truth of it by the Envoys Averment thereof the States not thinking it decent to question the Validity of the Accusation gave Sentence of Banishment upon pain of Death against the whole Number save two or three that had bought their Pardons the Children being included that should come into their Territories Yet had all that was in any of the Countries under their Dominions been brought to a Trial it was but a few which had been with the Duke of Monmouth that could have been found guilty of Rebellion according to the Process however could they by this Means have got them all sent home they would there right or wrong have been murthered as was Sir Thomas Armstrong But the Injustice of this ought to reflect only upon the King 's evil Council for the Violation of the Faith of the Nation with a Foreign State which ought to be sacred and not upon the States for giving Credit to the Information which according to the Rules of Nations ought to have been authentick and being false it was highly injurious to the States of which had they known they might well have complained But the King for the Immorality of it c. hath received his Reward tho the rest escape in a just Abdication and we the Benefit by an happy Exchange for the better The Lord grant we may not sin away our Mercies After twenty eight Years industrious Endeavours to debauch the Nation by wicked profane and Atheistical Examples which prevail more with corrupt Nature than Precepts this King who by adding of Papists in all Employments having brought the Judges Garisons Sheriffs and Justices of the Peace throughout all the Nation to his devotion and got a standing Army of Six and thirty thousand Horse and Foot every way well accommodated wanting nothing in the Eye of Reason we were left without the least hopes of Recovery the help of Man seeming to be in vain but then when he said in his Heart All was his own and none should control him it pleased God in his Providence for the Good of his People to infatuate him in setting up a supposititious Prince of Wales to dis-inherit his own Children and the Heirs to the Crown which when nothing else in humane Prospect could have done it this opened the Eyes of all sober Protestants to the seeing his Design of leaving us and our Posterity under Popish Idolatry and Thraldom from whence arose an Agreement for forcing him to rule according to Law as he
he failed of his Design his tossing of Parliaments by Prorogations and Adjournments for bringing them to his bow not doing his work he projected for raising of Mony to supply the want of Parliaments the Dignity of Hereditary Baronets and to induce Gentlemen of the best Quality to give Credit to this pernicious Invention by accepting of it he gave them Precedence of all meerly Knights of the Bath and singly Knights Batchelors not being the younger Sons of Barons of whom they have no place but to make the Title more valuable and desirable he ingaged that the number should not exceed two hundred And all this under the Romantick pretence that every person accepting hereof should be obliged to maintain a certain number of Souldiers in Ireland to defend the Protestants against the Papists in that Kingdom and as a badge of their Duty adds a bloody Hand to their Coat of Arms yet with this Condition that each paying 1000 l. into the Exchequer they should be excused from that Service for notwithstanding the pretence in the Patent it was meerly a trick to get Mony without Parliaments As was the conferring Titles upon Women Scotch and Irish Titles upon Persons not having any Lands in either Country a thing not practised before And as to the Title of Baronet it may be observed that tho it is pretended against Papists those of that Religion were as forward to buy this Honour as others and thus he defrauded the People of the benefit of Parliaments by exposing for raising of Mony this and all other Honours to sale which hath been ever reckoned a mark of a depraved and corrupt Government And thus begun our governing by tricks hardly known before which continued till our present happy Change but this according to the Maxim of our Law That the King can do no wrong must refer to his evil Council and not to him This new Honour of Baronets was struck at by several succeeding Parliaments as illegal in the Institution as well as the end the first in being hereditary without annexing it to some place and the latter in depriving the Nation of their Security in the use of Parliaments But in a little time the Interest increased so much in the increase of their Number that nothing could be done to disannul this Project for notwithstanding the cajoling promise of not exceeding two hundred no limitation was observed the Number by falling the price to less than half tho obliged to have a Receipt out of the Exechequer for the whole 1000 l. being increased to near if not 1000. And in these and such like waies this celebrated Solomon spent a Reign of two and twenty years without bringing any Honour to the Nation but on the contrary through evil Counsel a Diminution of it to a great degree and when he had finished his Course left his Presidents to his Son Charles the 1st This King as no Man can deny followed his Fathers steps and in an higher degree affected absolute Monarchy wherein being obstinate it was fatal to him he was free from that open dissoluteness his two Successors have been since guilty of for the Nation not being then arrived at that impudent Profaness it is now come to the People were then modest in their Vices compared with these times yet Lewdness then as it hath ever since increased more and more helped forward by Bishop Laud's Advice in discouraging Piety and giving incouragement to Debauchery by aspersing sober Men with Nicknames as Puritans and Precisians c. promoting Arminianism the Doctrin of Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance and then seconding this King's Father in publishing another Book of Sports giving Liberty on the Lords Day for all manner of Games as Foot-ball Cudgels c. injoyning the reading it in the Churches to the great grief of all serious Christians fearing God His Carriage in the State was as offensive as in the Church he called Parliaments meerly to serve his own turn without any eye to the Publick and when they did but enquire into any grievances as the Death of his Father who was violently suspected to be poisoned c. they were readily dissolved And in Ann. 1628. he forbid by Proclamation the speaking of Parliaments a high Arbitrary Act he passed indeed the Petition of Right asserting the Peoples Liberties but had no sooner given his Consent than he broke through all the Bonds of it illegally forcing the Payment of Tunnage and Poundage Ship-Mony Coat and Conduct Mony Knighthood Mony imprisoning Members for speaking in Parliaments To increase his Revenue monopolized contrary to Law most Commodities made an extrajudicial use of the Star Chamber to the fining and otherwise punishing of Gentlemen without cause removing them for their greater vexation out of their own Counties to Prisons in other Countries and to prevent Complaints had no Parliaments in twelve years nor then till compelled by the Troubles in Scotland to call one For though that Book falsly intituled this Kings for which his Admirers Saint him begins with his spontaneous calling of the Parliament in 1640. that Chapter made one of his own Party upon the reading of it throw the Book away saying If it begun with so known a Lie nothing less could be expected in it and therefore would not read it This Expression ought to be pardoned the King not being concerned in it both his Sons the two last Kings having confessed to the late Earl of Anglesea that their Father did not write the Book but that it was writ by Dr. Gaudin afterwards Bishop of Exeter He wrested the Statute for Forests to the Ruin of many by the inlarging them his Court was filled with Priests and Jesuits He caressed the Heads of that horrid and odious Rebellion in Ireland clapped up a Peace with them in order to bring those Cut-throats into England His Son Charles the 2d confessed that the Marquess of Antrim reckoned one of the massacring Rebels acted by his Fathers Commission and upon that account he had his Estate restored him by the Court of Claims he solicited the Duke of Lorain to bring his more than ordinary rude and wicked Army into England and all this besides his deserting Rochel after he had stirred them up to stand upon their defence promising them Relief to the ruin of the whole Protestant Cause as appears by the History of the Siege of Rochel These are but hints of some few of the Practices in his time which if not sufficient to suspend according to the Romish Rule the Sainting him till after an hundred years that his Vertues may be forgot Those that read Rushworth's Collections will find enough there for deferring the Solemnization thereof His Reign was so Arbitrary that I remember it was commonly said that the studying Proclamations which made a Volume as big as a Church-Bible was more necessary for Lawyers than their Books His endeavouring to impose a more superstitious and approaching Liturgy to Popery upon the Church of Scotland than ours in England
And that such Evidence might pass with the Grand Jury both they and the Witnesses were heard in Court that the first might be brow-beaten and the latter countenanced and hear what one another said at least an unusual Method if not contrary to Law And to help all forward the Lord Chief Justice told the Grand Jury that they were not to enquire into the Credibility of the Witnesses whilst the Law in express Words speaks the contrary And to make all sure that none should escape whom the Court at Whitehall would have destroyed the Witnesses to an Indictment brought against a Combination of Rogues for Perjury and Subornation of Perjury to disable them for taking away the Lives of the Innocent the Lord Chief Justice refused to swear them because against the King's Evidence except the Attorney General would give leave who he could not but know was too much of the Court-Faction to do it By which means those Villains escaped Conviction and left at liberty to hang whom they pleased And tho Mr. Bethel then Sheriff complained publickly in Court that he had Affidavits to prove his Life so far designed against that those profligate Rascals offered in August 1681. to lay Wagers of Ten to One that they would hang him before Christmass following he could not procure any Proceedings against them But it is believed that his Complaint had this Effect that it hinder'd the Attorney General 's producing a Bag of Indictments he had then ready against several honest and innocent Persons against whom these Varlets should have been made use of And this was the Consequence of the Courts turning out and changing Judges till they had got Men for their turn who would make any thing Law the Court would have and who having by Pensions and Rewards got Witnesses to swear accordingly and by packing of Juries got such as would find what they would have found it was in the King's power to hang whom he pleased and that of a large List of Persons marked out for Destruction there were no more murthered must be ascribed to the over-ruling Hand of Providence The Lord deliver us from the like Times when Judges Juries Witnesses and Council all strive who should most signalize their Zeal for Tyranny by strains of Wit and wresting of Law as appears by Mr. Hawle's Remarks upon some of the Trials of those Times Besides ambitious Citizens Officers in Places of Profit Pensioners and Suitors for the like were all the same insomuch that it might in some measure be said that all Flesh had corrupted their Ways and if we should again hunt with the same Dogs they would start the same Hare The Parliament by several Acts hath judged the Lord Russel Colonel Sidney Alderman Cornish murthered voted Sir Thomas Armstrong the same reversed several unjust Verdicts to the perpetual Infamy of all those Juries and yet have pardoned most of the Murtherers and Oppressors by an Act of Indempnity which may well be feared will incourage the like in the future against all that shall stand in the way of Arbitrary Government if we have a King that shall affect it The corrupting and viciating the Nation had been long designed as necessary for introducing Popery and Slavery for whilst Men are virtuous and not afraid of the Laws they will expect and contend for the benefit of them but when by Debauchery and Immorality they stand in need of Indulgence for incouragement of their Lusts they will be careless of their civil Rights and therefore the lewdest Examples were thought fit to be given them with connivance at their Practice as in swearing whoring drinking atheistical and blasphemous Drollery discouraging all Religion save what consisted in meer formality without discouraging dissoluteness some of the worst of Men being made choice of to gratifie with Honours Pensions and places of Profit But of all the odious ways used to gain a Party none like that of teaching Youths to drink Healths with Huzzaes crying up the breach of Laws for Loyalty when nothing is such but Obedience according to Law the contrary being Disloyalty as was the publick feasting of the Apprentices of London with the Kings Venison not leaving it in the power of their Masters without making themselves obnoxious to forbid them that School of Vertue or command obedience in contradiction thereof and that this should be projected by the greatest of the Court who graced their Society with their presence may be reckoned for all their Wit an Error in Politicks in courting in such manner the Mobile or rather Rabble as it was no less in whom there is no constancy for being acted by present apprehensions or humor they are as uncertain as the Wind nothing being to be relied upon save honest unselfish Principles for such will in the end prevail in spite of all the Devils in Hell and in the Faith of this I shall dye tho I may not live to see it These and such like courses which most of our Conforming Parsons teaching from their Pulpits in Taverns and Coffee-houses the Doctrin of Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance without limitation hath so poisoned the Nation that without an extraordinary Work of God a Recovery cannot be expected for tho I think the good People of England of all Communions are the best I believe the Profane as they are by ill Examples of late years brought unto are the worst of Men exceeding all others in wicked and immoral Practices which we owe chiefly to the two last Kings Examples their evil and pernicious Counsellors and Favourites It is a Maxim in our Law that the King can do no wrong which must refer only to Matters of State and not personal Actions for that it cannot be denyed but he that lies with another Man's Wife or kills his Neighbour c. doth them wrong but as the King in other cases must act by Instruments so it is but reasonable they should be answerable for miscarriages in Government because being free Agents what they do is of choice the Service of Princes being sought and not compulsed and were it not for evil Counsellors Princes would no be so bad as they often are Queen Elizabeth of famous Memory her Vertue appeared not only in her natural just and equal Principles but also in the election of suitable Counsellors Men at least morally honest aiming more at publick than their own private Benefit she incouraged Vertue making Honour the Reward of it and not of pimping and all manner of Vice she reproved her great Favourite that unhappy Earl of Essex whom she made General in her Expedition for Cadiz for conferring the honour of Knighthood upon some few whose Service at that time he judged deserved it when she thought a less Reward might have served In her time Knighthood was not expected voluntarily by any Citizens save the Lord Mayor nor was it thought of by the two succeeding Kings till Charles the First at his Return from Scotland in 1641. after failing in his design there
against the Pope and his Adherents the Designs of our late Governors have been for him and his Friends All the little tricks serviceable therein having been made use of as the imposing Consuls upon our Merchants abroad in places where they had never been before meerly at their charge to gratifie and oblige to them the worst of Men giving them Patents to levy Mony under pretence of their Office upon the Subjects without their consent contrary to the fundamental Liberties of England as was done at Amsterdam c. And the like vigorously endeavoured in behalf of a professed Papist at Roterdam but by the suddenness of our Revolution they failed in that And also another approach to Arbitrary Government was the passing by the Rules directed by the Law for chusing Sheriffs for the Counties and taking them at large as might be most serviceable to unlimited Will and Lust c. And such Practices as these were so many as are hardly to be enumerated and now having remembred these they with what goes before and our League with France for exalting him in order to his humbling and bringing us low one may think are enough to render those times and the Actors in them odious and unfit for future Trust nothing that comes from such tho never so plausibly delivered but the Integrity of it ought to be suspected For as formerly they cryed out of 41 as a Scarecrow that Notion being now worn thread-bare they have taken up that of a Commonwealth and the care of the Church to cousen the good People of this Nation into a jealousie of their best Friends whilst their Enemies work their ruin but it is hoped that experience hath made them wiser than to be so imposed upon by misapplying of Names The Word Commonwealth tho the Language of the Law was endeavoured to be made an obnoxious Character of all such as should speak of Law or expect the benefit of it and it is to be feared that the same Projectors do aim at the same Design in adding to the word Commonwealth the Care of the Church because a plausible Notion when it is in no danger except of reducing them to a more sober and vertuous Life and Conversation otherwise they would think it for the honour of the Church to have Men of Sobriety and Morality accounted Members of it and yet they will not allow any to be of the Church of England tho such as were never at a separate Congregation in their Lives and as ready and perfect in their Responses as any Cathedral Man whatever if free from Immorality and for ruling according to Law But it is no wonder that our Bigotted Churchmen who are the only Men I mean should be willing to forget Forty one and in place thereof to take up an outcry for Care of the Church because about that time the Committee for scandalous Ministers appointed by Parliament discovered great Lewdness and Ignorance in many of the Clergy and had not the War prevented their Proceedings they had at that time purged the whole Kingdom of insufficient Popishly affected superstitious and debauched Ministers but having no Command over any by reason of the War save such as were near hand they could not receive Information from above six or seven Counties which afforded them according to my Information not above three Centries the first of which having escaped the Flames of London is to be bought at Mr. Millers Bookseller near Paul's Church by which it appears they were so horridly scandalous that the Parliament could not have exposed the Church and therein the Bishops of those times for want of care in their Visitations had not Complaints from Oxford for having unjustly deprived them forced the Parliament for their own Vindication to make the Names of the particular Ministers with their Crimes known by publishing them in Print And if by the outcry of having a Care of the Church is meant the having such another Inquisition all sober Men will readily agree to it and if in the time of Charles the First of so celebrated a memory for Piety there was need of such an Inquiry into the Lives Conversations Popishly affected and Sufficiency of the Clergy it may well be thought much more needful after the several Reigns of his two Sons besides if they be not prevented they may as they have already begun go on in taking upon them the Legislative Power by farther Impositions in the Worship of God For though the Act for injoyning the Book of Common Prayer forbids both affirmatively and negatively any other Method or Form of Service Rights or Ceremonies than is there directed they are great Non-Conformists in disobeying that rule in several additions in approach to Popery as in their second Service c. as also in being superabundant to Popery in endeavouring to make a superstitious fashion to sit bare during Sermon which is but a new thing in England and not known in any other Christian Church for tho the Papists are bare in their Church out of Service time whom we indeavour to imitate in that circumstance yet they are covered during Sermon wherein we outgo them the reason for which I leave to themselves confessing I never understood any for the one more than for th' other and if it be objected that our Church doth not command being bare during Sermon yet they do it in making it uncivil to do otherwise And the Minister of Finchly not long since caused one for being covered whilst he was in his Sermon to be committed who bringing his Action against the Justice for false Imprisonment recovered good damages of him which tho sufficient to prove the Churches Usurpation in this matter they do notwithstanding go on in it as a part of that new Popery formerly intended by Laud in his time This may perhaps be thought Severity upon the Church but there is no general Rule without an Exception and I believe there are many good Men to be herein excepted tho the Generality are guilty and so bigotted that there is no obliging them or Quarter to to be had with them by any but such as themselves which is the unhappy Cause of our great Divisions at this time especially in the City of London and that which is worst of all without Remedy so long as nothing less than the Denial of Sense Reason and Morality will be allowed by our Bigots the Persons I only complain of as the Conditions of Union and Conversation and these following Instances may well be thought in some measure a proof hereof As The Lieutenancy refusing a Captain because it was objected against him that he had sixteen Years before heard that eminent Minister of the Gospel Mr. Jenkins now with God preach a Sermon As another was refused by one of their Captains being his Lieutenant for answering to the Question of What Minister he heard That he heard such an one a moderate Church-man Upon which he was told by the Captain that Moderation would not
a great measure the Bigots of the Church have had the Conduct of Affairs this two years with ill success that the moderate Men of all sides might be tryed whether Affairs will prosper better in their hands By moderate Men I mean those of both Judgments that are free from gross and open Scandal which are the persons upon whose endeavours we may most reasonably expect a Blessing from God for from the contrary qualifications it is not to be hoped And therefore till Men of Religious or at least Moral Principles who shall serve their King and Country not from self-ends but from a true zeal for Civil as well as Religious Liberty be imployed as such are to be had it cannot be expected that England should prosper for common Swearers Drunkards Whore-masters who impudently carry their Whores into the Field and to Sea to corrupt by their Examples the People nor those for King William as King de facto only will ever do the Work And the Bigots of the Church cannot with so much reason call those of their own Communion Dissenters because they have Christian Charity for Non-Conformists as they themselves may be called of the Church of Rome for declaring they had rather be Papists than Presbyterians as many of them do when their difference with the Papists is upon fundamentals which concerns their Salvation and with the Presbyterians by their own Confession but about things indifferent which ought not to be imposed according to that Scripture For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay upon you no greater burthens than these necessary things Acts 15. ver 28. And farther to inforce this Argument which I know will be little regarded by Church-Bigots and Formalists it is to be observed that it was until the King's Arrival in Ireland those of Religious Principles there as also in Scotland and Piemont that hath done any thing of moment and it is not without strong suspicion that those two excellent Gentlemen Lieutenant Col. Cleland and Major Henderson was deserted who to save the Life of their Country lost their own and that the relieving of Londonderry in Ireland was delayed both in design to reduce those over-sober Men as of too vertuous Examples for those Times And as to Savoy that Duke whose Family hath from all Antiquity been great Persecutors is now come totally off from that Hellist and Devilish Principle in usurping the Prerogative of God who only hath dominion over the Conscience and is willing to receive the Assistance of his reformed Subjects without debarring them by a Sacramental Test the benefit of which he hath already sufficiently experienced And to this may be added the Example of Spain as a warning to all of undepraved sense to avoid Persecution upon account of Religion for that Country when under Paganism Mahometism with a mixture of Jewdaism was populous rich and flourishing beyond all or most Countries is now under Christianity by Persecution become dispeopled beggerly and of little account compared to others formerly of no consideration to them And it may be foretold that our great Neighbour who by Liberty in Religion first raised himself to that height he is now arrived at shall by his late contrary actings lose his Grandure have all his Honour laid in the dust and brought as low as he is now great I think no sober person but will after the perusal hereof own our two last Reigns to have been cruel unjust and oppressive to the last degree and that such Guilt could not be contracted by our Kings without Instruments imployed by them who by Law are answerable for miscarriages in Government And as Oppression is a crying Sin that pulls down Gods Judgments upon a People if not repented and reformed so there is a Duty incumbent upon us to answer the Rebukes we have lately met with from God in our Affairs by a speedy and thorough Reformation not deferring it till times of Peace the want of Reformation being generally the occasion of War And God seems to call for it by the little use he hath made of our Immoralists either at Sea or Land other than as a scourge for our Sins His Majesty hath a great Reputation for a professed Enemy to Swearing Drinking and Cheating c. And if those whose Calling makes it their Duty to promote Reformation be the Obstructers of it Flattery which never proceeds from a sincere Heart will not defend them against the Almighty to whom I leave them with putting them in mind that an Instance might be given of a Reformation that was made in the height of a War which never had success till then The way to appease God's Wrath is to inquire after Men of debauched Lives and avoid them after the Authors and Abettors of our former Grievances cause Restitution to be made to sufferers by those that did the Wrong and to disable for the future all Offenders therein from bearing any Office either in Church or State in whom doth not appear a true change in practice and espousing honest Principles to the end they may have no more opportunity for acting their Mischiefs over again The Lord seems to have done his part in punishing the Principal leaving the Instruments to us for it may be reasonably thought that had it not been for evil Counsellors our Kings could not alone have projected or endeavoured the ruin of our Nation by introducing Popery and Slavery as was without contradiction intended By what goes before together with what may be farther observed it will appear that the Preservation of our Rights and Liberties hath to a miracle been solely from the Providence of God viz. 1. That the late King James in favour of Popery should set up a supposititious Prince of Wales to disinherit his own Children and all the Heirs of the Crown whereby he alienated the Hearts of the People when nothing less could have done it was a great Providence 2. The King when Prince of Orange his disaster at Sea upon his first setting sail causing the late King James's recalling his Order for restoring the Fellows of Magdalen College in Oxford was a Providence in that he thereby convinced the People that there was no relying upon his Promises which before they were ready to do 3. That when the Prince was designed for the North he should change his Course for the West where the Wind and Weather was miraculously serviceable to him was a saving Providence 4. That the late King James's Naval Fleet which might with ease have destroyed the Fly-Boats which transported the Prince's Army and did not do it was a signal Providence 5. That the late King James deserted his Army at Salisbury when half of it was more than sufficient to have fought the Prince was a Providence not to be forgot 6. That the late King James abdicated the Government when otherwise we must have been all in Blood some of the chief of the City shewing so much fondness of him that with speed
they with Tears for Joy congratulated his Return after his first leaving of the Town was a Mercy 7. That London-Derry a little insignificant place without regular Fortifications should with so much Misery and Hardship defend themselves and in that preserve Ireland against the late King who was said to have 60000 Men in Arms and to lose 8000 before it and this done by the Mobile headed by some honest Officers against the good Will of those in Authority was a Providence which in after Ages will hardly be believed 8. That the French had surprized us whilst at anchor had not the Wind providentially turned to our preservation was a Mercy that ought not to be forgot 9. That the French should not understand the advantage Torrington gave them at Sea in retreating before them and that they should neglect the opportunity of intercepting at the Mouth of the Channel our several Fleets of Merchants Ships then expected from several Parts of the World and no care taken by us for their Preservation was an unexpressible Providence For if those Fleets had miscarried the trading Party of the Nation had in a great measure been ruined So that upon the whole we may say we have been preserved by the Providence of God against our own Wills whether we will or no. But this miraculous Deliverance gives us no Warrant to rely upon Miracles for our Preservation but is a Caution to us for the future to be careful in the choice of Officers of Trust I know it is ordinarily pleaded in the behalf of Favourites to Princes That the Complaints against them are from Envy and not Justice but in contradiction to that it may be answered that the Counsellors to good Queen Elizabeth were for ought we find free from all Complaints by the People in Parliament Nay Lester who had much of the Queens Ear being an ill Man or none of the best could not influence her in what was not good nor prevent her Reproofs when guilty of Miscarriages which obviated Parliaments Complaints And I think it may be relyed upon that the Commons in Parliament will never complain of any who seek not themselves but the good and true Interest of King and Country And as the ways for Kings to gain Love and Honour and be in Safety is to make the Law their Rule and not as the two last Kings without regard to their Coronation Oath setting all Law aside and acting Arbitrarily as in their pricking of Sheriffs for the Counties not out of those presented to them as the Law directs but taking them at large as they please or corrupt Interest directs For to govern well which is a Security beyond Arms Oaths or all the tricks of ill Men and Favourites so it is the Interest of Favorites tho they seldom believe it to make publick Interest equal if not superior to their own private for we do not find the Families raised formerly by evil Counsel given to their Princes to have been of long continuance Our Divisions at present are deplorable and far be it from me to desire the widening of them but they may be said to arise from Selfishness in the Clergy and some Criminals who joyned with them to make a Party for their own particular Interest and Preservation against the true Interest and Sense of vertuous and honest Men so that in this distracted condition we are divided into those for the present King and those for the Abdicated King these latter being irreconcilable to all that are not of their Opinion and the former subdivided into those that are professedly for King William as King de Jure and those for him only as King de Facto whereby the latter making the King no better than an Usurper must themselves be little less than Jacobites whose Actings gives us cause to have sad Thoughts of Heart in seeing some of the late ways or proceedings put in practice with improvement I do not remember any formerly taken up and imprisoned without pretended Proof of some Crime against them or at least of pretended great Suspicion but of late we had Persons freest from suspect first seized and then their Studies and Writings searched to get matter to justifie the Seizure which leaves all Men unsafe as well in reference to their Estates from the danger their Writings are thereby in as in reference to their Liberty And herein they shewed their Spleen against such as are for the present King as King de Jure for of any other Crime one lately imprisoned could not be suspected having expressed himself sufficiently in Print against a Commonwealth a Notion out of hatred to Liberty our natural Right lately started to render all those obnoxious that are for Common Freedom Our ancient Government according to Law knowing that in a corrupt and factious Age the honestest things may be blasted by misapplying of Names as in calling Evil Good and Good Evil Disloyalty Loyalty and Loyalty Disloyalty c. And this whilst de Facto Men can hardly in some Mens Opinion offend in any thing they do or say But his Majesty being now through Mercy returned in Health and Safety from Ireland we hope that Men sincerely honest real and faithful to him without reserve in reference to any Pretender will be as well in Security as Enemies or those that are no farther for his Interest than may render them meritorious Should the Abdicated King return from which good Lord deliver us and from all such whose Design is to justifie the two last Reigns by disowning any Fault in them save the endeavour of introducing of Popery of which they make the King soly guilty that by his Instruments and such like they may the more plausibly play the same Game over again As there is no perfection in this World so there is nothing good but as it is compared with worse The Reign of good Queen Eliz. who was a true Lover of her People and Country may perhaps be liable to some exceptions but being a Reign of glorious Actions of impartial Justice not murthering and otherwise undoing innocent Men by corrupt Juries Judges and suborned Witnesses so free from tricks for plundering the Subjects Purses to spend viciously and profusely to make a Party for Arbitrary Government that when Mony hath been given her for certain Occasions the Cause being taken away she returned the Mony to her Subjects This Reign I say compared to the four succeeding Reigns chargeable with all that is contrary to these Excellencies may comparatively be reckoned perfect The Counsellors and Favorites of this great Queen may have had some Errors in Politicks tho unknown to me yet having made the end of all their Counsels the Honour Prosperity Safety and joynt Interest of the Queen and Country without separating them I say those Counsellors and Favorites compared with those of the four last Reigns whose Counsels and Actions have been diametrically opposite to theirs may comparatively be said to have been unblameable Tho the Church in good