A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF His Sacred Majestie 's DESCENT In a true Line MALE From KING ETHODIUS THE FIRST VVho began to Reign Anno Christi 162. Written in a Letter to a Friend Anno 1681. Saepè tibi Pater est saepè legendus avus EDINBVRGH Printed by the Heirs of Andrew Anderson Printer to His most Sacred MAJESTY Anno Dom. M.DC.LXXXI The Printer to the Reader I Need not Courteous Reader tell you that this was wrote before the last English Parliament sat for the Paper doth so much it self Let it suffice that I now send it abroad if not for thy satisfaction at least I hope for thy diversion use it candidly censure it favourably judge of it charitably and Farewell ERRATA In the 8 Page Line 23 read piâ—â—'d l. 28. r. Bâ—â—in'â— Page 12 l. 10. r. continued l. 16. r. collaterals l. 17 close the parenthesis at Nations P. 13 l. 40. r. Epithetal p. 14 l. 36. r. Carantius P. 16 l. 17. r. the granter p. 21 l. 1. r. ensuring p. 23. l. 21. r. menacing l. 83. r. tense l. 46 r. Keth p. 24 l. 31. r. Collars l. 32. r. Nemo inâ—unt lacesset l. 50. r. the Fable p. 31 l. 17. subjoin to the word Tree corresponding to the Lines on the Dexter which are misplaced l. 27. r. Proavus l. 34. r. Avoque P. 32 l. 3. r. glorying l. 5. r. qui p. 34 in the last Distich read Po. at the Pentameter Edinburgh 18 th of March 1681. SIR THat Business of Secluding His Royal Highness from the Imperial CROWN of England is a matter of so high concern to this our British world yea and in its example to the larger Continent And being the repeated desires of the Commons in some successive Parliaments it may be thought too great a boldness for any single man on this side Tweed to concern himself therewith But under favour as all the Subjects in the three Kingdoms will or may some one way or other be interessed in the Effects and Sequel of this Affair so it is hoped that none can justly blame any who is a Subject to the Monarch of Great Britain modestly to endeavour the satisfaction of his Reason Judgement and Conscience in this so great a Resolve Especially when it was but a hatching and under deliberation And though once hastily passed the Vote of the Commons never yet agreed unto by the Peers and by His Majestie 's Prorogations taken altogether off the File And now that a new Parliament is within a day or two to sit at Oxford which consisting mostly of the same Members perhaps it may be feared they will bring with them the same minds and fall again upon the Succession though it is to be wished by all good and peaceable men that they would study so far to comply with His Majestie 's Proposals as not to irritat Him to any further Prorogations or Dissolutions Allow me then freely Sir to propose to you my weak thoughts upon this so tender a point equally important to the quiet of His Majesties Kingdoms and the duty of His Subjects that I may from your better judgement be either fortified in my grounds or resolved of my doubts and questions First then as in all Cases of this nature for the better avoiding of needless wranglings hereafter let the Question be fairely stated which I humbly conceive may be thus Whether or not a Prince of a Religion differing from that by the Laws of the Land established be he Popish Heretick or Idolater may lawfully conform to the Principles and Precepts of our Reformed Protestant Profession by the people or their Representatives in Parliament whereunto even at last the King should be induced to consent be I say lawfully secluded from His Birthright and Inheritance where I understand the term Lawfully as consonant to the true Rules of Justice and Equity and not as an act of a Legislative power only I stick not here then upon that Cob-web'd limitation of Birthright to him only that first openeth the womb and as little upon that quibling Distinction of Heirs Presumptive and Apparent seing the Law sayes Haereditas non tantum ad proximum haeredem sed ad ulteriores defertur And if his Highness be not in the Case the next Heir why are the Commons so pressing for his Seclusion And as none I hope will deny his Title by Blood so as little need I to prove that the Imperial CROWN of England is an Hereditary Crown which descends to the lawfull Successors by all Laws and Rights of Nature Nations and the Land as their undoubted Birthright and just Inheritance without exception of or relation to Sex Age Qualification Limitation or Restriction whatsomever So you will yield me I hope that the next appparent Heir of such an Hereditary Crown hath at least Spem Succedendi which is to him Jus quoddam as in all other Heritages So then this Seclusion being Exhaeredatio it falls to be considered what is necessarily required before such a disinheriting can be in my sence Lawfull And I hope you will grant that Omnis Exhaeredans debet habere Exhaeredatum sua in Potestate I know there be who would thirle this Theoreme to the Patria Potestas only which yet from the deductions of clear sense and reason must be equally extensive to all who challenge a just power and right to Disinherit And I suppose I need not here demur upon that distinction betwixt a naked and supine Preterition and an active and formal Exclusion And so will next come to be considered How far the apparent Heir of an Hereditary Crown is under the power of the People or Parliament in order to the Disinheriting him from the Crown of his Ancestors due unto him by his right of Blood for we are not here in Regno constituendo but in Regno haereditario jamdudum legitime constituto Then I say that the apparent Heir of such an Hereditary CROWN cannot be Disinherited by the People or Parliament because that Power which can Disinherit can also make and constitute For Qui potest haredem praeterire aut exhaeredare potest etiam haeredem sibi instituere And should the People Commons or Parliament be but once gratified in this Point it is to be feared they might be tempted to assume to themselves other things So that here the Commons cannot Exhaeredare because that were well nigh to give the People a Power to make and unmake Kings at their pleasure and so unsensibly unhinge the Hereditary Monarchy that it would at last lodge the Supremacy in the Populace And though the Commons should in a forward zeal hastily pass such a Vote yet the Peers could not agree to it because at the CORONATION of the KING in their Oath of Homage and Fealty they swear to be faithful and true to the Crowned King and His Heirs Kings of England yea not only the Peers but all the Feudataries in the Realm who hold their Land of the Crown in Capite are by
the nature of their Investitures tyed to this Fealty whether the Oath be formally administred or not and whereof the first indispensible branch is by the Lawyers worded quod fidelis Domino suo Haeredibus ejus erit in perpetuum How then can any Peer who was present at the CORONATION or yet any Feudatary who holds his Estate in Capite of the Crown by a free and voluntary act of his own vote the Disinheriting and Secluding of the righteous Heir and undoubted Successor For questionless this Fealty maugre all the Alphabetical niceties of Domino vero meo c. stands from the Obligations of Gratitude beyond all Equivocation conscientiously binding to the Successors of blood in all the Negative tyes though the duties to the present Superior be stronger in the Positives Neither could His Majesty passe or give consent to such an act Because by His Coronation-Oath He swears to maintain the Subject in His Right Liberty and Property And since his Highness is His Majesties Subject though one of His Greatest Noblest Subjects and that as an apparent Heir he hath Spem succedendi and that the CROWN is an ancient Hereditary Crown The KING cannot take away His only Brothers Spem succedendi Because it is by blood his undoubted right from the unalterable Law of Nature ratified by the Law of Nations and secured by the Law of the Land and nature of the Crown which is Hereditary and which fixes it beyond the fears of being altered by either King or Parliament from that Paradoxical State-immortalitie of an Hereditary Monarch And if an Act of Parliament can alter the Succession by excluding or passing by the righteous Heir dare I ask if an Act of Parliament could clip the Commons in their Magna Carta could but the King and Peers fall upon a packed Rump or a Marvellous Parliament that could work wonders though under the Epithet of Indoctum or Insanum Yea should the King Peers and Commons agree to passe such a Bill in Act yet would such an act of Seclusion be but in it self void and null Because it would be contra jus Coronae that great Law which virtually and Originally is a parcel of the Law of the Land and that part of their Common Law which hath the precedence of all Laws and Customs of England And if omnis actus Parliamenti vel consuetudo Regni quae se exaltet in Praerogativam Regis be said to be void in Law how binding will an Act of Seclusion be which strikes not only against the Right and Prerogative but undermines the very Nature and Beeing of an Hereditary Crown And as for his Highness being of a different Religion and the great noise rais'd upon that First To differ in perswasions of Religion while men retain the general name of Christian does not make up a Crime Meritorious of Seclusion Secondly Religion it self under whatever notion is neither essentially constitutive or indispensibly seclusive of Magistracy where the Royalty is Supreame and Hereditary For should an apparent Heir be disinherited by a Protestant Parliament for being a Papist why not a Prelatick heir by a Presbyeterian Parliament And why not a Presbyterian by an Independant an Independant by an Anabaptist and he by a Quaker and so on Is not this not only to found Dominion in Grace but even Property and heritage in Grace For an Hereditary Crown is by Birth-right so far the Successors property heritage as that by all laws he lawfully Succeds to the same Jure sanguinis et haereditario in right of his Progenitors And if a Prince may be thus Secluded from his Inheritance for difference of Religion why should not the same be extended to all others who claim any Heritage by right of Blood from their Predecessors For ubi eadem ratio ibi idem jus and so a Popish Son should not succeed to his Protestant Fathers Estate sic de caeteris And it would be seriously considered what a door this opens to the Papists for that principle of deposing and disinheriting of Heretical Kings And I suspect the Doctrinal difference betwixt Secluding and Deposing in this present Case in hand is but too Metaphysical for sound Christian Politicks and all the Arguments that ever I yet heard for that way of disinheriting by an Act of Seclusion were all but ab incommodo inconveniencies jealousies and fears which I fear can never justifie Protestant Subjects to take away the Birth-right from their lawful and Hereditary Prince For as Magistracy is an Emanation of Gods power as Creator who is thereby pleased to Govern and preserve the World from Confusion The difference of Religion does not nullifie his Office as by our Confession of Faith is justly acknowledged so Inheritance being a Gift of Gods bounty and providence from him as Almighty and as he manifests his Dispensations or as the Schoolmen phrase it as he is pleased to act in Regno Naturae difference in Religion I say does not hinder either wicked or Heretical persons or Kings to inherit their Estates Civil Powers Dignities and Hereditary Crowns because Religion stands lifted under the Collours of Reguum Gratiae whose Laws are not destructive to the Laws of Nature and Nations according to the trit saying jus Gratiae non tollit jus Naturae vel Gentium So let us not for the securing of our Kingdoms from fears of dubious events presume to confound the diversified though fixed methods used or offer to remove the Land-marks set by Jehovah Zebaoth in the managing of his Kingdoms of Nature and grace For I do a little doubt if too forward a zeal for the preservation of the Protestant Religion or of any Religion that flows from Christ the Son as Saviour and Mediator will justifie the taking away from our Prince and Neighbour that which by the Laws of Nature Nations and the Land he hath gotten bestowed upon him by the bounty favour and providence of God the Father as Creator and Preserver of the Univerese and the great and eternally loving Benefactor to mankind And will it not be a harsh reflection upon the Protestant Religion that it cannot be secured unless its Professors run into the same ways so much by themselves condemned in some of the Papists For I look upon the disinheriting of the Apparent Heir as much of kin to their Deposing of Kings not of their own perswasion And believe me the Birthright and Blood of Princes stand not many steps distant and we have an ordinary saying who takes away my livelyhood takes away my life And if the Birthright of an hereditary Prince be not his livelyhood sure it is his honour and the honour of a Prince is the life of a Prince And the Protestant Religion will be driven to a hard pull if we cannot keep it but by breaking some of the Rules and Precepts of it and away with that ex duobus malis c. where the Election is allowed only in malis Poenae but can in no Christianity be
extended ad mala Peccati For says not Paul We should not do evil that good may come of it And if it be an evil or injury to take from a man his Birthright why should that injury be done to His Royal Highness seing it is said by Divines that injuriam homini etiam scelestissimo facere nemo sine peccato potest And should the people in their Representatives be but once authorized to Seclude an hereditary Prince from his Royal Office and Dignity it might be feared they would itch to do the like to the function and very foundations of Government it self a near and recent parallel instance whereof we have fresher in our memories then it needs to be named And to represent to His Majesty that there is no securing of the Protestant Religion except he condescend to the Seclusion of His only Brother seems first to be a strnage limitation of the Holy one of Israel For what if his Highness should quit his perswasion or what if His Majesty should Survive secondly Does not this look too like a prescribing unto the prudence of other Parliaments For what if subsequent Parliaments might fall upon smoother and calmer Methods for equally securing of Religion as Protestants and salving of their duty as Subjects to the equal Satisfaction of the Christian World and their own Consciences Thirdly Shall the positive advice be no other way and why the advice and why so positive Be there not many Members in the Commons House who are Feudataries of the Crown and being honoured in their Parliamentary capacities to give Council to the King in arduis Regni are they not by their Feudal fealty to advise their Lord Paramount to nothing but what is honestum For this is one of the six by a Homager required that when admitted to the consults of his Master ut quae Domino honesta sunt consulat Say now then and say ingenuously will the expecting World or after Ages say that it is honestum for Charles to Seclude and Disinherit James his only Brother and in the case of Survivage the only Son of Charles the Martyr yea the only Heir Male of the Illustrious Royal Line aftermentioned or by disinteressed or unbyassed persons will it be judg'd altogether honestum for Feudatory Subjects again and again to press the advice of Secluding such an Heir especially in a fortuitous event which may be or may not be I need not I hope tell you Sir that though here I urge some Arguments from the Feudal Law pressing enough I conceive upon Vassals who are not willing to hazard a Disclamation of their Honours and property yet you know I look not upon Monarchy as betwixt Prince and People to be within the verge of Feudal Contracts knowing Kingdoms to be extra commercium holding only of the King of Kings But if ever it should please God in his All-wise-dispensations to suffer the Crown to descend to a Popish Successor I put the Query Whether it be more consonant for Protestant Christians to submit to the Almightie's secret will and bewail our condition laying our mouths in the dust while we examine whether or not the abuse of the Protestant Religion in this Isle making a mask thereof and alledging grounds therefrom for rebelling against the best of Princes might not in some measure have provoked God to suffer a Popish Successor which yet whatever be his private opinions I do not here charge upon his Highness seing the late unnatural Rebellion drove his pious Father to that necessity that he was not able to keep nor maintain His Family or educat His Children as he would And belyke earnest supplications to God in whose hands are the hearts of Princes to turn them whethersoever he listeth under an humble sence thereof might be more Christian and consisting with the Principles of the Protestant perswasion then a wilful Secluding and disinheriting of him And whatever may fall out in matter of fact or what people has done in such cases for I am only here upon the point of right sure it was a good observe that was given upon Josiah that God did in him blesse the Jewish nation with one of the best of their Kings because they rebelled not against nor did cast off his wicked Predecessors Amon and Manasseh I know the English have ready at hand to instance and urge their late Marian Persecution with the miserable bloody and dismal severities thereof which I can much easier regrate then justifie or excuse Yet might I in behalf of a misled zeale ordinary to the weaker sex be but indulged to represent that those times and ours will hardly in all things run parallel I could Suggest that Hendrie the eigth having departed from the Church of Rome he quitted the stage of the World before the Protestant Profession was in his Kingdoms well settled by Law And his Son Edward the sixth succeeding young when most of the Nobility and many of the Nation stood Popishly affected the matter of Religion came not in his short Reign to be so legally adjusted So methinks without offence I might even out of compassion to a Foeminine frailty still zealous for their own opinions wink a little at some shadow of extenuation in favours of Mary from the then standing and unrepealed Statutes But now that it hath pleased God under the happy Reign of Queen Elizabeth and her Protestant Successors to strengthen that Profession by all just and Legal consolidations Little I should hope may now be feared of alteration from his Highness should he even succeed in a Popish perswasion since his justice is so not our the World over that where he is not picpu'd below the Grandeur of His Birth he glories to be an example of Obedience to the Laws of the Land and whose interest certainly it will prove not to disturbe them and who from a tenderness of conscience freely allows his Children to be educat and his Family exercised in the Protestant Profession as by the Laws and Church of England established and injoyned And who besides his personal Character and innate moderation stands a little ingaged in favours of His Race and Ancestors not to forget the Historians observe that Stuartorum Genus was Lene temperatum Let us then be afraid to refuse the watters of Schiolah that go softlie least the Lord be tempted and bring upon us the waters of the River strong and many even with the King of Assyria in all his glory Nay rather let us betimes send some of our humors and opinions to be washt at the Pool of Siloam that so seing our mistakes we may studie to build and cover the walls thereof even to to the Stairs that go down to the Citie of our David nigh to the Kings Garden then thus foolishlie to fancie any solid rejoicing in some popular Rezius or Remalialis sones But suppose the worst that a jealous and fearful fancy can suggest I would gladly ask the directors of our consciences if it be
lawful for Subjects in whatever capacity to reject or refuse their Native and undoubted Prince for fear of Persecution under His Government seing God hath gained as much Glory in the perseverance and Martyrdom of His Saints as in any state of the Church Militant whatsomever And though the dayes of Persecution be hot sad and lamentable trials yet should Christians hazard upon an act of injustice to avoid them when they lie but supposedly lurking under the remoter skirts of jealousies and feares which depend upon more uncertain events Thir few grounds Sir with other reasons too large for a Letter do hitherto sufficiently convince me of the justice of the Peers in their rejecting the Bill of Seclusion Not that I desire any wayes to reflect upon the Honourable Members of the Commons who might have gone upon grounds I know not Thir my reasons and doubts I only propose for my own satisfaction Veri investigandi causa and I hope the Commons will grant that Parliaments may erre and that zeal some times may prompt even good men to outrun their duty And it were worth the while seriously to consider how far a Seclusion of this nature may be thought to participate of or dip upon the dangerous Principles of Buchanan Brutus his Vindiciae Boucherus Rutherford's Lex Rex Nepthali and the Jus Populi vindicatum And which makes me still the more admire His Majesties Justice Piety and Prudence in His Proposals by His Chancellor to one of His late Parliaments is that granting the Act of Seclusion should passe what further security can our Protestant Religion be in by such an Act then by the Proposals made by the King Nay surely in a worse condition from a Successour irritated by an Act of Exclussion which for my Reasons aforesaid is but void in Law and so explained in all emergent Cases of that nature For can an Act of Parliament Secluding JAMES of York from the Crown because a Papist be of greater force then was the Act of Richard the 3. against Henry of Richmount then attainted of Treason Not here to speak of the Acts concerning the drumbly successon of Henry the 8. And me fears the renewing the Bill of Seclusion will by some be thought hardly well to consist in all things with the Oath of Supremacie For if the King be the Supreame Judge in all Causes and over all Persons and that his Judgement hath been once and again tryed and his sentiments sufficiently known in this matter of Secluding his Brother from the Crown to provoke His Majesty to give his judgment therein again Superiisdem deductis may by some I say be thought too like a tacit declining of the Kings Supremacy For what Pedaneous judge will readily alter his sentence upon a Reclamation Super iisdem deductis and considering the present posture of affairs in Europe were it not as much for the true interest of the Protestant Religion that the Parliament should here wave the point of Succession and fall cordially to consider and vigorously to comply with His Majesties Proposals trusting God with the event of the two Royal Brothers survivage then by too obstinately stickling upon so near and dear a concern to the King lose so many fair opportunities of doing much good to Religion King and Kingdoms And believe me Sir I write not thir things as being either Popish or Popishly affected but sincerely from the Observations I have taken up of Christianity in its primitive Latitude before it came to be ranked and rended by an Act of Classis And needs must I confess that my zeal participats not so much of the Son of Zebedeus fire but that I can have charity to think there be many who have given up their names to the Church of Rome that do not yet believe all the Idolatrous fopperies either practised in or charged upon her although I can so far regrate the growth and increase of Popery that for the surer instructing of the Vulgar I do heartily wish the old and solid way of Catechetical teaching were more constantly plyed and revived For the running of a glass upon a desultatory Text cannot much confirm them and as little does a Polemical discourse edifie an apron'd auditory Hence take the subtile Jesuits I fear too great advantage under their party-colloured Vizorns to inveigle deceive and even to Rebellions debauch the giddy unstable and not well grounded Plebeians I speak not this any way to reflect upon the Reverend Clergy but if the Fathers of the Church think fit more seriously to recommend to the Incumbents the Cateehetical way for their evening exercise it might perhaps in this juncto be of good use to establish the Comonality in the sound grounds of true Christianity But to return let me tell you His Majestie hath but reason by all just and fair means to defend the Crown in the true and righteous Heir Male if he but either memember or consider that He and His Royal Brother are by the blessing and Providence of Almighty God descended of most Royal Blood in a true Line Male lawfully from Father to Son Kings or Princely Cadets for beyond fifteen entire Centuries But let me not be mistaken For I am not to say that all His Majesties Progenitors were in this account Kings but that they were all by Agnation Cadets and Descendants of the Royal Family I hope to evince For as to His descent from King Fergus the first by some interposition of Daughters the same is clear obvious and beyond contradiction sufficiently by our Historians and others already established But here my assertion is repeated that His Sacred Majesty and His Royal Brother are lawfully descended from King Ethodius the first and that by Princes or Princely Descendants in a true Line Male from Father to Son as I have already expressed it You know then Sir that Ethodius the first of that Name and twenty fifth King of SCOTLAND was Sisters Son to King Mogallus and Succeeded to His Cousin King Conarus about the year of our Saviour 162. when the two Collegiat Antonin's Philosophus Verus govern'd the Roman Impire So shall I mark Ethodius and his Succession as followeth giving the letter K. for King with the figures to show what number the persons so marked stood in and to avoid repetitions of Father and Son be pleased to understand that where the same is not so nominated the person over-head is still Father to him who is placed next immediately below Tritavi 7. Proavus 46 1 Ethodius the 1. K. 25. 45 2 Ethodius the 2. K. 28. 44 3 Athirco K. 29. 43 4 Donald the 2 and 3. Son to Athirco Tritavus 7. 42 5 Fincormachus K. 35. 41 6 Ethodius or Achadius second Son to Fincormachus 40 7 Erthus who with his Father expulsed by the Romans died uncrowned in Denmark 39 8 Fergus the 2. K. 40. 38 9 Dongardus second Son to Fergus the 2. K. 42. Tritavus 6 37 10 Conranus second Son to Dongardus K. 45. 36 11
di Stato it being thought belike then convenient that the Summus Oeconomus should be made also Magnus Senescallus while both were conjoyned in the person of a near and Loyal Kinsman And have I not seen an old Coat of Arms for the Stuart Entasselled or cordeleired with Thistles and as it were some leaves or twigs interwoven and giving the Motto Nemo me impune lacessit where the Supporters held one of them upon a Standart the Flag of the Family and the other bore a St. Andrews Cross And what more proper Hierogliphick in Herauldry could be given to the Counting Oeconomus then the Fesse Chequie And what fitter for a Magnus Senescallus Scotiae then the Badge then used by the Kingdom with the Thistles and Motto abundantly expressive of his Duty Courage and Loyalty when conjoyned with the Crest which was the head of an Unicorn And in a Letter from the Nobility of Scotland to the Pope Anno 1320. among some thirty eight Seales appending when I did see it the Seale of Walter Son-in-Law to Robert the Bruce was only a plain Saltier or St. Andrew's Cross as in my Notes upon that Letter I have observed And his Son Robert the first King of the Stuarts when he reserved and annexed the Estate and Office of the Great Steward of Scotland for ever to the Crown to be enjoyed alwayes by the Kings eldest son the Prince Politickly said It was too dangerous to make anie a Magnus Senescallus or hereditarie General but the next Heir of the Crown although even that King shewed more then ordinary kindness for his second son Robert yet for the honour of his Fathers House for he came to the Crown in right of his Mother did he advance the Badges and Symboles of the Office to stand external Imbellishments to the Coat Royal dignifying and inlarging the old Crest by tying his gorged Vnicorn with a chain of Loyal Magnanimity to suport the Regal Lyon teaching thereby the Prince and Steward of Scotland for ever to be faithful and Loyal to the Crown which may convince such of their foolish ignorance who from the Chain in our Kings Atchievement would forsooth by a strange Armorial Logick argue a Vassalage to England What! Our Vnicorn is not chained nor does he chain his Lyon to their Leopards while in defence of his Quadrupedal Monarch he bears a Horn with a Nemo me impune lacessit Hence Sir you may readily conceive I stand a little ingadged to crave pardon why I so formally differ from those who write the Epigraph Nemo me impune lacesset in a Circle environing the Image of St. Andrew when I attribute all to the Magnus Senescallus Permit me then Sir to offer my Arguments and guess at their grounds and though this be a digression yet speaking here of His Majesties Line Male I hope it will not be to you unpleasant that this Paper present you my thoughts of the Royal Badges of the Kingdom with the Principal order of Knighthood ordinarily thereunto assigned The tale then goes That Hungus King of the Picts assisted by Achaius against the Saxon Athelstane did at Elsanfoord neare Haddingtown upon an Apparition of St. Andrews Cross obtain a memorable and unexpected Victory whereupon that Apostle became St. Patron to the Scots and Picts And in all Battels thereafter was success under his Banner equally pray'd for expected and promised And to whose greater honour did Achaius erect in the City of St. Andrews an order of the Knights of the Thistle with the Motto as last aforesaid Nemo me impune lacesset And yet there be some who attribute this to a congratulation of the League with Carlemain as if it should be touchie and uneasy for any to disquiet the Scots when so assisted by the French As to the truth of the Apparition I leave it to those who list to believe it Nor will I here concern my self whether St. Andrew was Patron to the Picts before the days of Hungus when Regulus the Grecian Monk first brought some of his Reliques to King Hergustus Far lesse will I now state the Question When or by what methods and devices the Religious remembrance of or respectful reverence to the Names and Virtues of the Saints departed did first in our Church creep up to a formal adoration and superstitious Invocation of them Since I verily believe if our Historians abuse us not Spots 1. B. Boes 10. B. that the storied Vision appeared not to Achaius For the Scots Auxiliaries went under the conduct of his son Prince Alpine the Crowned King judging it below his Royal Dignity to march in person as an Allie in the but extrinsick quarrel of his bordering and oftentimes offensive neighbour And although the Badge of St. Andrew be derived to us from the Picts yet some in their relations thereof are not so fully clear in either the cause occasion or time whether before or after the destruction of the Picts If before what tempted a Scots King to borrow from a Pictish could he not have devised of his 〈◊〉 or should the one brother-in-brother-in-law rob from the other one of the choicest Badges of his Christian devotion and Princely honour But if the Scots assumed it after the fatal period of the Pictish Kingdom sure Achaius lived not to see that exterminating blow And how peaceable will you make Hungus with his Picts who suffered a Scots King not only quietly but even gloriously to erect himself Sovereign of an order of Knighthood in one of the chieft Cities of their own Otholinia before Kirk-Rule was Christned St. Andrews and that too in the name and under the Protection of their beloved Tutelary Saint with the blessing of large promises for Victory to his Votaries under no less then the menacing Epigraph of Nemo me impune lacesset for who would think that the poor passive Thistle could ever be so boistrous in the future But why contrary to all other Mottoes so severe a menace in the Future Did the deceased Brother of St. Peter so soon forget the dictates and example of his living Master who when he was reviled stood so far wide of revenge as never so much as once to revile again teaching his Disciples to learn of him to be meek and lowly and not to suffer the Sun to go down upon their wrath And why from a peaceable and inspired Apostle such an ensurng word for Victory successe and revenge as Nemo me impune lacesset when the infallible Oracle bids tell a Puissant and Martial Monarch Let not him that girdeth on his Harnesse boast himself as he that putteth it off But belike that Ventorious rather then Victorious Promise hath been conceived a little scrimp of the common stile Conjunctly but not severally else what a pitiful pickle will they put St. Andrews in for an Orleans gloss upon his Text when the Oy of Achaius successively and utterly defeated Druskenus with his Vicomagian Horestian Otholinian and all his other Picts where the ears
of a People Nation or Kingdom And the Monarchy of England was no gift of Queen Elizabeths to King James because a Protestant but his due Inheritance from K. Henry the seventh by his eldest Daughter neither were the Queens words James of Scots the Protestant but James of Scots my Cousin It is true happy was the Conjunction in that blessed Peace-maker whom Heaven it seems had preordain d to be Vnionum Vnio a Pearl of price amongst the other Gems But woe be to Princes if Religion nay rather the Forms Modes Sects conceited Opinions nicknamed Principles and parties of assumed Designations from either the dismembred parts hems or Fringes thereof which in thir dregs of Time are atomed beyond Arithmetick come once to be the only Standart of their Scepters But blessed be God Crowns of the Lords anointing do not so easily totter consider that strange Eteostick for His Majesties Birth eCCe VeL angLorVM aC haCtenVs VLLVs oVat 1630. As strangely answered by the Minted Hactenus Anglorum Nullus which equally befool'd the Devils Nullus in his vir puer alecto c. And Olivers more hellish Nollus most strangely suffering an Ecclipse and direful Synalaepha more sadly Historical then Grammatically Prosodiacal before the English can scan the Ovat of the Restauration And if it were lawful for the Subjects of Charles to vote their King by pole would not the Scots do injustice to themselves should they prefer any to one lawfully descended from their own First Fergus when they have here Lochaber imped in the House of Galloway by the last Great Steward and Marjory Bruce And this from David of Huntingtoun Ingraft in the Stock by King David the First that by Bancho and his Progenitors from K. Ethus And if there be yet any of the Pictish Blood remaining would they refuse a Prince from the Loins of their own King Hungus-Father or if there be beyond Tweed who delight in variety and sickly Stomach 's nauseat a constant Diet let them here pick and choose which of the Roses smelleth sweetest since our James the fifth by his Mother can furnish them with either Will they have the Normans from France or from Flanders before or after the Conquest Then our James the first gives the one by a Daughter of Somerset from John of Ghaunt Son to Edward the third and our Kenneth the third by the Daughter of William Longespee does without a stain supply them with the other Would they have the outlaw'd Edward restored our Malcolme Canmoir in his St. Margaret hath done it to their hand Wish they the Danes our James the fourth by his Mother may please them Which of the Heptarchies desire they Egbert the Great can direct them And what Welshman will refuse the Ofspring of Cadwallader be he North or South Hursell will be pleased when Hur hears it is by the Wife of Fleance but the Progeny of Griffith ap Lewelin ap Sitsylth Prince of Guinedh and the Lady Angharad Daughter to Meredith ap Owen Prince of Deheubarth And both the Grand-fathers from Roderick Mawre without a doubt descended of Cadwallader Or what will they have the Native Britons Whether from the Greater Britain or the Lesser Bretagne And whether before or after Lucius Legacy to the Romans even to the Ancestors of the Founder of their beloved Trino hantin-Caerlud Cadwallader then from Constantine the Son of Aldroenus King of Armorica in France does for me sufficiently the one and their own Geoffrie of Monmouth spares me the labour to do for them the other Or if yet any wild Irish dare offer to disown the juster and nobler Scepter of Gathelus Simon Breck and Ferquard the Father of our Fergus it will be easie to Harp them a spring upon the harsher Title of Conquest Yea is not our Sacred Soveraign a King who by his Predecessors through the Mother of the third English Edward from the fourth Philip of France hath as the nearest Heir by the Law of Nations and Nature a fairer pretence to the Lillies then could in justice the Posterior and more unequitable Salique constitution give either to the House of Valois or Bourbon Yes a Line Sir wherein the Prince Regnant for the time may with greater justice then any Potentate under the great beaming Luminary without complement name his Vassalls his Cousins For let the Baronages of his Treeple Crowned Kingdoms be but impartially surveyed And if they be of any standing the greatest Nobility they can glory in will be found soon or sine derived to them by some blood-rillet or other from this very same Royal Fountain So that the Peerage not to say how dim those Stars hang in the Firmament of the State during the least Ecclipse of the Monarchical Sun as was by a total both lately and sadly experimented So that the Peerage I say of Britain and Ireland are not faithful to their own honour if they do not here even without Oaths of Allegiance acknowledge they owe their Native Prince all Homage and Loyalty since most of them leave to say that they are Flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone And yet I know not how it comes to pass that this very Line seems to have equally intail'd upon it the Fate and Blessing of Joseph For the Archers have shot at it yea verily the Archers have shot and grieved it sorely yea hated it too but blessed be the God of Jacob its Bow yet abideth in its strength And by the hands of the Almighty hath it become a fruitful Bough whose Branches have run over the Christal Walls of Albion Is it not then the duty as well as honour of all in this British World to pray that there may never want one from this Stock Dum Saecula Mundus Volvet qui Patrij Scepiri moderamen habebit AND now Sir I have wearied You but because Finis would contradict the Verse Let me tell you I have caused deliueat a Genealogical Tree of this His Majesties Descent from Ethodius though at first indeed intended only from Achaius which you Sir or any may upon a small expence have either in Tallyduce or Illuminat from George Porteou or Mr. John Shambothy And because you know amant alterna Camaenae suffer me to close with a few fancies I wrote for the handsome adorning of the Tree Where should you meet with a critical Word or bold Construction any crytical Phrase or antick Line you will easily I hope excuse it to the antiquity of times personated speakers and straitness of the Composure And seing such is your perfect knowledge in the minutest and darkest Passages of our Histories any Explanation would but look like him who painting an Elephant was sure to note down the Word lest the Creature should have been mistaken for a Pig Some of the Lines if Communicat may belike chance to rouse and awaken the memories of such as Read our Histories and to such as care not for them any Exposition it but needless to the more knowing