of the Muse he was in thus he proceeds It is not to be denied but that our Kings have in a great measure been intrusted with the power of Calling and Declaring the Dissolutions of Parliaments Have they so Whose Trustees are they When did they first obtain this favour I protest now I was so dull as to think that this right of Calling and Dissolving Parliaments was a Natural Right inherent in the Crown and as old as the British Monarchy and that at the granting of the great Charter and at all other times before or since when the Kings of England granted any new Priviledges to their Subjects they still reserved to the Crown the power of calling Parliaments when and where they pleased and to continue them as long as they thought fit and then to Dissolve or Prorogue them Well but if I was therein mistaken yet he allows our Kings a great measure of that trust and who claims the Remainder of it Not the Petitioners I hope No the Privy Council he tells us are to be advised with Now that is matter of Expedience only not of Right for whatever His Majesty can lawfully do with doubtless he may as lawfully though not in all cases and circumstances so prudently do without the Advice of his Privy-Council who never claimed that I have heard of any co-ordinate right of managing affairs with our Kings and matter of Advice in its own nature supposes a liberty in the Person to whom 't is given either to adhere to or to reject it Well but whoever has the rest of that Trust care hath been anciently taken both for the Holding of Parliaments Annually and that they should not be Prorogued or Dissolved till all the Petitions and Bills before them were Answered and Redressed And for this my Author quotes two Acts of Parliament which because they are short I will insert here The first is this Item it is accorded that a Parliament shall be holden every year once and more often if need be Here is every word in that Statute The second follows Item for maintenance of the said Articles and Statutes and redress of divers mischiefs and grievances which daily happen a Parliament shall be holden every year as another time was ordained by a Statute which is the very same that I have recited before The Record which he 〈◊〉 I can say nothing to So I agree with him that there are two Statutes provided for the holding of Parliaments Annually and more often if need be of which the Kings of England have ever since thought themselves the Judges But where are the Statutes to be found that these Parliaments should not be prorogued nor dissolved till ALL the Petitions and Bills before them were answered and redressed Here is not one tittle of this in either of these he quotes yet that is the main thing in controversie and which only needed proving But he goes on The Constitution had been equally imperfect and destructive of it self had it been left to the choice of the Prince whether he would ever Summon a Parliament or put into his power to dismiss them Arbitrarily at his pleasure Then sure it had been worth the while to have proved for what time they were to sit as well as how often And if this can be made out that it is an Arbitrary that is in the sense he would be understood in an Illegal Act for the King to prorogue or dissolve a Parliament till all the Petitions and Bills be answered and redressed then will it be possible for a Parliament to perpetuate it self for ever by an endless succession of Petitions and Bills mixed with other great affairs which as it is contrary to the practice of all our Kings since these Statutes so if it were true the Menarchy wuld not then be what it now is but be much nearer a Commonwealth So that be the Consequence what it will this learned Gentleman must yield that it is at the choice of our Princes to summon Parliaments when they think it needful and to dismiss them when they please As for the word Arbitrarily which he here useth it is needless and was suggested to him by his Spleen and and not by his Reason That Parliaments should thus meet Annually and thus sit till all the Petitions and Bills before them are answered and redressed is secured to us by the same sacred tye by which the King at his Coronation does oblige himself to let his Judges sit to distribute Justice every Term and to preserve inviclably all other Rights and Liberties of his Subjects I thought the Law had been altered a little in the first particular by a Statute made in the Seventeenth year of his now Majesties Reign Cap. 1. the words of which are as followeth And because by the Ancient Laws and Statutes of this Realm made in the Reign of King Edward the Third Parliaments are to be held very often Your Majesties humble and loyal Subjects the Lords Spititual and Temporal and the Commons in this present Parliament assembled most humbly do beseech your most Excellent Majesty c. that hereafter the sitting and holding of Parliaments shall not be intermitted or discontinued above three years at most but that within three years from and after the Determination of this present Parliament and so from time to time within three years after the determination of any other Parliament or Parliaments or if there be occasion more or oftener your Majesty your Heirs and Successors do issue out your Writs for calling assembling and holding of another Parliament to the end there may be a frequent calling assembling and holding of Parliaments once in three years at least So that surely his Majesty may without breach of his Coronation Oath delay the calling of a Parliament three years if there be no occasion for one sooner of which he is the Judge Therefore as he goes on abruptly to dissolve Parliaments at such a time when nothing but the Legislative Power and the Vnited Wisdom of the Kingdom could relieve us from our just fears or secure us from our certain dangers is very unsuitable to the great Trust reposed in the Prince and seems to express but little of that affection which we will always hope his Majesty bears towards his People and the Protestant Religion That there was then too much need of the Legislative Power and the Wisdom of the Nation united in Parliament is not to be denied and that his Majesty was very sensible of it appears by his calling three Parliaments in twenty six Months as my Author computes it page 46. and we shall have occasion hereafter to enquire by whose fault it came to pass that they were all so abruptly dissolved and that will lead us to a probable conjecture why none hath been since called notwithstanding his Majesties Affection to his People and the Protestant Religion is such that we have great reason to bless God for it and to
this debt But saith my Author as mercenary as they were the Pensioners would never discharge the Revenue of these Anticipations to the Bankers Which is an Excellent and convincing Argument that they how much soever they are slandered were not such mercenary Pensioners as the world is now told they were Now as he tells us the W. Commons made this Vote purely to keep people from being again choused the same way and in mere pity to the Cries of many Widows and Orphans And truly if they had taken care to have had those that wanted this Caution first paid off the world might have possibly thought so And then a Declaration that such securities were void and that no future Parliament could without breach of Trust repay that Money which was at first borrowed only to prevent the sitting of Parliaments might have had a better reception in this Kingdom than the two Votes they made without it As for his quotation of 1 R. 3. Cap. 2. against Loans that and all the after Statutes is against involuntary and forcible taking of money But the Commons were very modest and restrained their Votes to only three branches of the Revenue all which were by several Acts of Parliament given to his present Majesty Sir I think the last Vote is general and extends to the whole Revenue tho the first doth not but only to those three small Branches of Customs Excise and Hearth money A modest restraint indeed The Statute 12 Car. 2. Cap. 4. says That the Commons reposing Trust in his Majesty for guarding the Seâ—s against all persons intending the distarbance of Trade and the invading of the Realm to that intent do give him Toanage and Poundage and this is as direct an appropriation as word can make and therefore as it is a manifest wrong to the Subject to divert any part thereof to other uses so for the King to Anticipate it is plainly to disable himself to perform the trust reposed in him Now here are several ill Consequences from an undoubted true Principle For it is no wrong to the Subject to divert a part of it to other uses if the Seas can be guarded and the Realm secured with less than the whole ar they have been very well all his Majesties Reign hitherto Secondly An Anticipation may be necessary to attain the ends of the trust if Parliaments shall still go on to refuse the King extraordinary Supplies upon extraordinary occasions The Statute of 12 Car. 2 Cap. 23. which did impower the King to dispose of the Excise did Enact that such Contracts shall be effectual in Law so as they be not for longer time than three years So that here is care taken before their Vote that no great Advance or Anticipation shall be taken upon that Branch The Statute of the 13. and 14. of Car. 2. Cap. 10. declares that the Hearth-money was given that the publick Revenue might be proportioned to the Publick Charge and it is impossible that should ever be whilst it is liable to be preingaged and Anticipated Is it so Must a Prince act to the utmost of his power with less prudence and discretion than other men Must I needs Sell or Morgage my Estate for as much as it is worth because I may do it and no man can hinder me The Parliament took another care in relation to this Branch and made it penal for any one so much as to accept of any Pension or Grant for years or any other Estate or any Sum of Money out of the Revenue arising by Hearth-money by virtue of that Act from the King his Heirs or Successors as my Author takes notice and now what reason was there for him to make such a Splutter as he did about Alienations and leaving the Successor a beggar when one of these Branches the Customs and half the Excise is given to his Majesty only for life and such care is taken to keep the third unchargeable by the very Act that gave it If these things tend to the vindication either of my Author or the Votes I have lost my Reason My Author concludes with this smart reflection on the Declaration This we are sure of that if the inviolable observation of these Statutes it should have been Votes will reduce his Majesty to a more helpless Condition than the meanest of his Subjects he will still be left in a better Condition than the richest and greatest of his Ancestors none of which were ever matters of such a Revenue The King complains of the Votes and the Statutes are craftily laid in the way to bear the brunt the intention of a thing may possibly never succeed as I hope it never will here But yet the complaint is just if it apparently tended to such an end tho it never follow But how his Majesty can be in the most helpless and most wealthy condition at one and the same time in fact my Author must inform us His Majesties Expence as well as Revenue is above all his Royal Ancestors and whatever his Revenue is he was not beholden to these Voters for it who gave him nothing but paper and trouble And of the first of these his Majesty had such a quantity that he is said to have chid his Tailor for not making his Pockets big enough to receive it His Cossers in the mean time were not surcharged nor like to surfeit The next thing my Author falls upon is the Vote for suspension of the Execution of the Penal Laws against the Dissenters which he first recites and then justisieth and I will follow him The House of Commons are in the next place accused of a very high Crime the assuming to themselves a power of suspending Acts of Parliament because they declared it was their Opinion That the prosecutier of Protestant Dissenters upon the Penal Laws is at this time grievous to the Subject a weakning of the Protestant Interest an incouragement to Popery and dangerous to the Peace of the Nation The Ministers remembred that not many years ago the whole Nation was justly Alarm'd upon the assuming an Arbitrary power of suspending Penal Laws and therefore they thought it would be very popular to accuse the Commons of such an Attempt Did the Ministers remember how the Nation was Alarm'd and had the Commons forgot it Well let us follow the Gentleman and see how he will clear his Commons from the guilt of this high Crime which he acknowledgeth was so justly blamed in the Ministers But how they the Ministers could possibly misinterpret a Vote at that rate how they could say the Commons pretended to a power of repealing Laws when they only declare their opinion of the inconveniency of them will never be understood till the Authors of this are pleased to shew their Causes and Reasons in a second Declaration The charge in the Declaration is that by this Vote They assumed to themselves a power of suspending Acts of Parliament without any
acknowledge it thankfully to him My Author goes on thus But it is not only of the Dissolution it self that we complain the manner of doing it is unwarranted by the precedents of former times and full of dangerous Consequents We are taught by the Writ of Summons that Parliaments are never called without the advice of the Council and the usage of all Ages has been never to send them away without the same advice To forsake this safe method is to expose the King personally to the reflections and Censures of the whole Nation for so ungrateful an Action We may grant it the most usual and the best and safest way to consult the Council in both these Cases But yet that will not presently make the Act Arbitrary or Illegal if it be omitted and in this Case if it were otherwise it may possibly in the end appear to have been matter of necessity rather than choice We may very well remember that a great number of the Gentlemen of the Lower House went to Oxford with armed men to guard them from the Papists and some of them told the people at parting They did never expect to see them again The meaning of which is possible to be understood And besides these there were some other zealous men went so that if his Majesty did not think it fit or safe to consult his Council and spend time in deliberating in the midst of such dangers they must bear the blame who gave the occasion and made it necessary So that these are the men next such as my Author who are to be charged tho not with advising yet with necessitating the last dissolution to be made in the manner it was for the security of his Majesties Life and Liberty which yet I would never have said but to justifie his Majesty But yet we must know all this Concern for the Council is not out of kindness or respect to them he saith They are punishable for such Orders as are irregular nor can the Ministers justifie any unlawful Action under colour of the Kings Commands since all his Commands that are contrary to law are void which is the true reason of that well known Maxim that the King can do no wrong a Maxim just in it self and alike safe for the Prince and for the Subject there being nothing more absurd than that a Favourite should excuse his enormous Actings by a pretended Command which we may reasonably suppose he first procured to be laid upon himself But we know not whom to charge with advising this last Dissolution it was a work of darkness and if we are not misinformed the Privy Council was as much surprized at it as the Nation The sorrow was that in the next Parliament this great Patriot would be at a loss in his hunting for some body to blame for an Action so ungrateful as he represents it to the whole Nation which in my judgment is a pretty way of spending his Reflections and Censures on the King And this is not all his vexation neither for in the next Paragraph he tells us Nor will a future Parliament be able to charge any body as the Author or Adviser of the late Printed Paper which bears the Title of his Majesties Declaration tho every good Subject ought to be careful how he calls it so for his Majesty never speaks to his People as a King but either personally in his Parliament or at other times under his Seal for which the Chancellour or other Officers are responsible if what passes them be not warranted by Law Nor can the direction of the Privy Council enforce any thing upon the People unless that Royal and legal Stamp give it an Authority but this Declaration comes abroad without any such Sanction and there is no other ground to ascribe it to his Majesty than the uncertain credit of the Printer whom we will easily suspect of an imposture rather than think the King would deviate from the approved course of his Illustrious Ancestors to pursue a new and unsuccessful method So here is all the Credit of the Declaration gone and the poor Printer left in the lurch to answer it to the next Parliament for putting this imposture on the Nation But what comfort is there in such small game A Lord Chancellour or other great Officer is a Royal Game and worth the pursuit of a House of Commons to pull him down but a pitiful Printer who can find in his heart to imploy his Oratory against such mean Mechanicks and as for the Privy Council they can enforce nothing upon the People without the Seal so that for time to come all Proclamations and other publick Papers may be securely slighted except they come Sealed with the great Seal or some body be sent with them to assure us he saw it to the Original Thus far the Historian went but then the Prophet comes forth and assures us as this Method is new so it will be unsuccessful How truly the World is not now to be told From the Effect of the first Declaration of this kind which he saith was published in 1628. and filled the whole Kingdom with Jealousies and was one of the first Causes of the ensuing unhappy War he proceeds to tell us That Declarations to justifie what Princes do must always be either needless or ineffectual their Actions ought to be such as may recommend themselves to the World and carry their own Evidence along with them of their usefulness to the publick and then no Arts to justifie them will be necessary Were all Mankind wise and honest this Argument would be unanswerable but as long as some men out of Dulness and others out of Obstinacy and Interest shut their Eyes to the plainest and most evident demonstrations of Reason it must of necessity be sometimes necessary and fit for Princes to Inform their Subjects of the reasonableness of their Actions and accordingly the same course hath ever been taken and though it might fail of that end in 1628. yet it hath often heretofore and doubtless will often again succeed and the Jealousies which then arose were not the effect of the Declaration but of those ill Arts by which such a sort of men as we have now to deal with wheedled the Populace into an ill opinion of the best of Princes for Ends that are now too well known to be again imbraced When a Prince descends so low as to give his Subjects Reasons for what he has done he not only makes them Judges whether there be any weight in those reasons but by so unusual a submission gives cause to suspect that he is conscious to himself that his Actions want an Apology I never thought before that the French Kings Logick was the only Argument that became a Prince Car tel est nostre plaisir For so our will and pleasure is And those Subjects must be very ill natured that grow jealous upon the Condescentions of a Prince and judge the
in love with the Book of Common-Prayer as you can wish and have prejudice enough to those who do not love it who I hope in time will be better informed and change their minds and you may be confident I do as much desire to see a Uniformity settled as any amongst you I pray trust me in that Affair I promise you to hasten the dispatch of it with all convenient speed you may relie upon me in it I have transmitted the Book of Common-Prayer with those Alterations and Additions which have been presented to me by the House of Convocation to the House of Peers with my Approbation that the Act of Uniformity may relate to it so that I presume it will shortly be dispatched there And when all is done we can the well setling that Affair will require great Prudence and discretion and the Absence of all Passion and Precipitation The Act of Uniformity being setled and passed his Majesty did not give over all his thoughts for the Dissenters but in the year 1662. was again labouring to revive his Declaration from Breda for Liberty of Conscience which the House of Commons opposed and drew up their reasons against it in the form of an Address wherein they particularly answer the pretences from the Declaration from Breda Which tho the whole Address is in the third part of the Address to the Freemen and Freeholders of the Nation I will here transcribe because this Book may possibly fall into some hands which have not that We have considered the nature of your Majesties Declaration from Breda and are humbly of opinion that your Majesty ought not to be pressed with it any further BECAUSE it is not a Promise in it self but only a Gracious Declaration of your Majesties Intentions to do what in you lay and what a Parliament should advise your Majesty to do And no such advise was ever given or thought fit to be offered nor could it be otherwise understood because there were Laws of Uniformity then in being which could not be dispensed with but by Act of Parliament They who do pretend a right to that supposed Promise put their Right into the hands of their Representatives whom they chose to serve in this Parliament for them who have passed and your Majesty consented to the Act of Uniformity if any shall presume to say that a right to the benefit of this Declaration doth still remain after this Act passed it tends to dissolve the very bonds of Government and to suppose a disability in your Majesty and your two Houses of Parliament to make a Law contrary to any part of your Majesties Declaration though both Houses should advise your Majesty to it Yet still his Majesty was so tender of these men that the tenth of February 1667. the Commons addressed to the King for a Proclamation to enforce obedience to the Laws in force concerning Religion and Church Government as it is now established according to the Act of Uniformity And the fourth of March following the House taking into consideration the Information of the Insolent carriages and abuses committed by persons in several places in disturbing of Ministers in their Churches and holding Meetings of their own contrary to the Laws of this Realm Addressed again for a Proclamation against Conventicles and that there may be care taken for the preservation of the Peace of the Kingdom against unlawful Assemblies of Papists and Nonconformists which was promised the next day The third of November 1669. the House of Commons gave his Majesty thanks for issuing a Proclamation for putting the Laws in execution against Nonconformists and for suppressing Conventicles with the humble desire of this House for his Majesties continuance of the same care for suppressing of the same for the future The Eighth of March 1669. the House having received information of a dangerous and unlawful Conventicle lately met in the West of this Kingdom and of Treasonable words there spoken and that his Majesty had upon information given order for the Prosecution of the Offenders The House returned him their Thanks and desired that his Majesty would be pleased to consider the danger of Conventicles in and near London and Westminster from the nature of those further off and to give order for the speedy suppressing of them and that his Majesty would give order to put the Laws against Popish Recusants in execution Yet after all this the Fifteenth of March 1671-2 his Majesty published a Declaration for Liberty of Conscience by the Advice of his Privy Council which he was hardly persuaded to depart from by the Commons in Feb. 1672. The mischiefs of which Toleration or Indulgence have been so great to his Majesty in particular and the whole Nation in general that no man can well express them And now who can enough admire the Insolence of this discontented Gentleman who dare say as he doth That if the same diligence the same earnest solicitations had been made use of in that affair which have since been exercised directly contrary to the design of it there is no doubt but every part of it would have had the desired success and all his Majesties Subjects would have enjoyed the fruits of it and have now been extolling a Prince so careful to keep sacred his Promises to his People I say on the contrary could his Majesty have been prevailed on by the unanswerable reasons of that most Excellent and most Loyal House of Commons to have enforced the execution of the Laws against Dissenters he had never seen his Affairs reduced to that ill condition they were not long since in And tho I question not but by Gods blessing his Majesty will in a short time resettle things yet I will hope for time to come it shall be a Maxim in England That the Strength of the Dissenters is the Weakness of the Throne As for our Authors jeering reflection on his Majesties other Declaration of April 20. 1679. concerning the Privy Council and some persons then taken into it his Majesty hath had but too much reason not to stick to the same when he see there were some men whom nothing could oblige to be faithful to him but if his Majesty hath not advised with them he hath with some others at least as wise and much honester than some of those who were laid aside so that that Declaration hath been effectually made good to the Nation And therefore we have no reason to question his Majesties Candor in this As for the Declaration read in our Churches the other day there needs no other Argument to make us doubt of the reality of the Promises which it makes than to consider how partially and with how little sincerity the things which it pretends to relate are therein represented it begins with telling us in his Majesties Name That it was with exceeding great trouble that he was brought to dissolve the two last Parliaments without more benefit to the People by the calling
of them We should question his Majesties Wisdom did we not believe him to have understood that never Parliament had greater Opportunites of doing good to Himself and his People He could not but be sensible of the dangers and of the necessities of his Kingdom and therefore could not without exceeding great trouble be prevailed upon for the sake of a few desperate men whom he thought himself concerned to love now only because he had loved them too well and trusted them too much before not only to disappoint the Hopes and Expectations of his own People but of almost all Europe His Majesty did indeed do his part so far in giving opportunities of proving for our good as the calling of Parliaments do amount to and it is to be imputed to the Ministers only that the success of them did not answer his and our Expectations Thus far my Author is recited verbatim that it may appear I do him no wrong By which discourse of his taking for the present no notice of his reflection on his Majesty for a person whose Promises were not real it is agreed that the two last Parliaments had great opportunities of doing good to his Majesty and his People and my Author goes further and adds the Hopes and Expectation of almost all Europe to them That his Majesty called these Parliaments he owns That one of them sat a competent time for that purpose cannot be denied viz. from Thursday October 21. 1680. till Monday the tenth day of January following which deducting the time spent in the Trial of Viscount Stafford was in some mens opinions sufficient to have dispatched much more business than was then done And yet it doth not appear that his Majesty was enclined to have prorogued them then if he had not been highly provoked by them What my Author means by those few desperate men that prevailed upon his Majesty so much against his Will to part with that Parliament I cannot guess except they be the Eminent Persons which were declared Enemies to the King and Kingdom which if they were they are neither so few nor such desperate men as to be laid aside barely upon a Vote of the House of Commons without any Order or Process of Law any hearing of their Defence or any proof so much as offered against them And I believe the meanest of them is equal to this Gentleman as scornfully as he speaks of them But then in the last place whether or no the dissolution be to be imputed to the Ministers or to the Parliament i. e. the House of Commons will appear best in the examination of his discourse and of the Declaration It is certain saith my Author it cannot be imputed to any of the proceedings of either of those Parliaments which were composed of men of as good sence and quality as any in the Nation and proceeded with as great moderation and managed their debates with as much temper as ever was known in any Parliament If all this is as certainly true as it is confidently asserted then is it but a folly to dispute any further about it But because his Majesty in his Declaration hath said some things that seem to look another way my Reader may if he please suspend his belief of this particular too till his Majesties Allegations and this Gentlemans defence are examined and then he will be better able to pass his Judgment If they seemed to go too far in any thing his Majesties Speeches or Declarations had misled them by some of which they had been invited to enter into every one of those debates to which so much exception hath been since taken Did he not frequently recommend the prosecution of the Plot to them with a strict and impartial inquiry Did he not tell them That he neither thought himself nor them safe till that matter was gone through with Yes doubtless his Majesty did all this but then where is any exception taken against any thing of this Nature they have done Did he not in his Speech April 30 1679. assure them that it was his constant care to secure our Religion for the future in all events and that in all things which concerned the Publick Security He would not follow their Zeal but lead it But Sir did not his Majesty then also let you know that he excepted one thing in which he would neither lead nor follow their Zeal which was the altering the descent of the Crown in the right Line or defeating the Succession which his Majesty commanded to be further explained by the Lord Chancellour in such manner that it appeared to the whole Nation that his Majesty was resolved to do any thing for the freeing his People from their fears of Popery but what might tend to the disinheriting the Duke of York or any other Lawful Successor Now you Sir may remember that nothing but this would satisfie the Commons in either of the two last Parliaments in which they were not misled by any of his Majesties Speeches or declarations much less by this which was made of purpose to prevent the Bill before it was moved in the House of Commons Has he not often wished that he might be enabled to exercise a power of Dispensation in reference to those Protestants who through tenderness of misguided Conscience did not conform to the Ceremonies Discipline and Government of the Church and promised that he would make it his special care to encline the wisdom of the Parliament to concur with him in making an Act to that purpose And did not that very Parliament draw up a long Address to his Majesty containing the reasons why they could not concur with him in that point And is not this one good proof that his Majesty was not unmindful of his Declaration at Breda but was kept from doing what he was otherwise enclined enough to not by a few desperate men but by the Parliament And least the malice of ill men i. e. the Dissenters might object that these gracious inclinations of his continued no longer than while there was a possibility of giving the Papists equal benefit of a Toleration Has not his Majesty since the discovery of the Plot since there was no hopes of getting so much as a connivance for them in his Speech of March 6. 1678-9 express'd his zeal not only for the Protestant Religion in general but for an Vnion amongst all sorts of Protestants His Majesties words here are not truly recited but are these I meet you here with the most earnest desire that man can have to unite the minds of all my Subjects both to me and to one another and I resolve it shall be your faults if the success be not suitable to my desires c. And a little after Besides that end of Vnion which I aim at and which I wish could be extended to Protestants abroad as well as at home I propose by this last great step I have made the
Successor which Blessing his Majesty seems resolved to bequeath to his People one would have thought he might have complied with the Parliament in that Proposal It is very probable his Majesty would have complied with them in that particular tho it is past a perhaps the Fanaticks had not nor ever will as long as they continue such deserve that favour at his hands But modest Sir how doth it appear that his Majesty is resolved to bequeath his People the Blessing of a Popish Successor Hath he promised the Duke to die before him Hath his Majesty obliged him to continue a Papist if he be one in spight of his Interest to the contrary Is this your Justice Is this your Modesty But the Ministers thought they had not sufficiently triumphed over the Parliament by getting the Bill rejected unless it were done in such a manner as that the precedent might be more pernicious to Posterity by introducing a new Negative in the making of Laws than the losing the Bill how useful soever could be to the present Age. That this Bill was not tendered to his Majesty for his Assent appears by three Votes of the Commons at Oxford The House then according to their order the day before took into consideration the matter relating to the Bill which passed both Houses in tbe last Parliament entituled An Act for the repeal of a Statute made in the 35 year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth but was not tendered to his Majesty for his Royal Assent Resolved that a Message be sent to the Lords desiring a Conference with their Lordships in matters relating to the constitution of Parliaments in passing Bills Ordered that a Committee be appointed to consider of and prepare the subject matter to be offered at the said Conference Thus far that Parliament went in order to the discovery of the cause of the not tendering that Bill and I have heard the Lords also were upon an inquiry what was become of it but the dissolution preventing them I never heard that there was any discovery made then or since of the person or persons that took it away Now where my Author had his intelligence that the Ministers took it away to introduce a new Negative in the making of Laws I shall not inquire This we may affirm That if the success of this Parliament did not answer expectation whoever was guilty of it the House of Commons did not fail in doing their part Never did men husband their time to more advantage They opened the Eyes of the Nation they shewed them their danger with a freedom becoming English men It was a Caution given by Queen Elizabeth in the end of a Parliament held in the 35th year of her Reign That she would not have the People feared with reports of great dangers but rather encouraged witb boldness against the Enemies of the State And what the effect of our new Politicks was once before we will remember They Asserted tbe Peoples right of Petitioning Yes that they did too very effectually Tho there was an Act of Parliament then in force with this Preface Whereas it hath been found by sad experience that tumultuous and other disorderly soliciting and procuring of Hands by private persons to Petitions Complaints Remonstrances and Declarations and other Addresses to the King or both or either houses of Parliament for alteration of Matters Established by Law redress of pretended Grievances in Church or State OR OTHER PUBLICK CONCERNMENTS have been made use of to serve the Ends of factious and seditious persons gotten into power to the violation of the Publick Peace and have been great means of the late unhappy Wars Confusions and Calamities of this Nation c. They Proceeded vigorously against the Conspirators discovered and heartily endeavoured to take away the very Root of the Conspiracy They had before them as many great and useful Bills as had been seen in any Parliament and it is not to be laid at their doors that they proved abortive This Age will never fail to give them their grateful Acknowledgments And Posterity will remember that House of Commons with honour Jamque opus exegit quod nec Jovis ira nec ignes Nec poterit ferrum nec edax abolere vetusas Nomenque erit indelebile vestrum And now the work is ended which Jove's rage Nor fire nor Sword shall rase nor eating Age And their immortal name shall never die We come now to the particular enumeration of those gracious things which were said to the Parliament at Westminster His Majesty ask'd of them the supporting the Alliances he had made for the preservation of the General Peace in Christendom It is to be wished his Majesty had added to his gracious asking of Money a gracious Communication of those Alliances that such blind obedience had not been exacted from them as to contribute to the support of they knew not what themselves nor before they had considered whether those Alliances which were made were truly designed for that End which was Pretended very dutifully said or any way likely to prove effectual to it since no precedent can be shewn that ever a Parliament not even the late Long Parliament tho filled with Danby his Pensioners did give money for maintaining any Leagues till they were first made acquainted with the particulars of them That Leagues have been communicated to Parliaments heretofore is not to be disputed but that they were ever tendered before they were asked for is not so plain Nor doth it appear this was denied And as to his Parenthesis I desire only that it may be observed for my excuse in case I happen to speak any thing not respective enough of the renowned Parliament at Westminster But besides this this Parliament had reason to consider well of the general Peace it self and the influence it might have and had upon our Affairs before they came to any resolution or so much as a debate about preserving it since so wise a Minister as my Lord Chancellor blessed be God we have one wise Minister they have all along hitherto in general terms been treated at such a rare as if none of them had had either Wit or Honesty had so lately told us that it was fitter for meditation than discourse He informed us in the same Speech that the Peace then was but the effect of Despair in the Confederates and we have since learnt by whose means they were reduced to that Despair and what price was demanded of the French King for so great a Service It is an old Maxim That men should neither deliberate nor debate about those things that are not in their power Now whatever this General Peace was and whatever the effects of it might be the right of Peace and War was in the King and the Commons could not alter one tittle of it And a small degree of experience in the World will tell any man that England was not then in a condition
relating to the Commons respect either the King or the Lords or the rest of the Subjects which are not Members of their House or the Members of their own House Our Enquiry is only in this point concerning those that relate to those Subjects that are not Members of either House whether they may be imprisoned by Vote of the Commons for matters that have no relation to Priviledge of Parliament In the latter end of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth it was a question whether the Commons could imprison those that were not Members of their own House for matters that had a certain and apparent relation to the known Priviledges of Parliament as for Arresting them or their Servants in time of Parliament which hath been since gained and is no longer Contested by any body but is a strong Argument that they had not then that power the Author claims and for which he brings the Precedents which are indeed of a later date except one and that was in the Minority of Edward the Sixth Anciently if any man were impeached in Parliament there was a Writ directed to the Sheriff to summon him to appear and Answer as my Lord Coke acquaints us and sets down the form of the Writ and upon the return of this Writ the Attachment it is likely went out of the House of Lords but of this Power of the Commons that great man speaks not one word which is a good Argument they had it not and indeed the latter instances are all after his time It is not consonant to reason that any Subject of England should be imprisoned upon a bare suggestion without the Oath of the Accuser Now the Commons have no power to give an Oath in this case and therefore it seems reasonable that they should not imprison any man who is not a Member of their House much less whomsoever they please The House of Commons is not a Court of Judicature except in matters of Priviledge and Elections but all persons accused in Parliament must be tried by the Lords therefore it is contrary to the Law of England that any man should be imprisoned by the Commons who * as the Grand Jury of the Nation are his Accusers It is said that a man taken into Custody by Order of the Commons is taken in Execution but it is contrary to the eternal Laws of Nature and all Nations that a man should be taken in Execution before he have made his Defence and a legal Sentence be passed upon him by Legal Process and proof It is destructive of the Liberty of the Subject that any man should be so taken by them into Custody because he is without all remedy and if the thing happen to prove iujurious and oppressive as it did in the Case of John Wilson and Roger Beckwith Esquires two Torkshire Justices of the Peace who were notoriously injured by it For these reasons which I submit to wiser men than my self I am humbly of opinion that no man ought to be taken into Custody by the Order or Vote of the Commons that is not a Member of their House except it be for matters relating to the Priviledges of Parliament and that such Priviledges as are commonly known for if they may call what they please a Priviledge of a Parliament it will in the Event be the same thing as an unlimited power As to all his Instances they do not deserve any consideration except the first and that no man as he relates it can tell by whom the Commitment was made without the Record which I cannot come at and the latter were the Acts of Popular Parliaments which laid the foundations of our late troubles by such proceedings My Author in the next place comes to justifie the Votes against the Ministers and lays down this as his foundation The Commons in Parliament have used two ways of delivering their Country from pernicious and powerful Favourites The one is in a Parliamentary Course of Justice by impeaching them which is used when they judge it needful to make them publick examples by Capital or other high punishments for the terror of others The other is by immediate Address to the King to remove them as unfaithful or unprofitable Servants Their Lives their Liberties or Estates are never endangered but when they are proceeded against in the former of these ways Then legal evidence of their guilt is necessary then there must be a proper time allowed for their defence In the other way the Parliament act as the Kings great Council and when either House observes that affairs are ill administred that the Advice of Parliaments is rejected or slighted the Course of Justice perverted our Councils betrayed Grievances multiplied and the Government weakly and disorderly managed of all which our Laws have made it impossible for the King to be guilty they necessarily must and always have charged those who had the Administration of affairs and the Kings Ears as the Authors of these mischiefs and have from time to time applied themselves to him by Addresses for their removal from his presence and Councils So here are all the Ministers of State that are or ever shall be exposed to the mercy of the House of Commons if proof can be brought against them then have at all Life Liberty and Estate must go for it but if none can be had then it is but voting them Enemies to the King and Kingdom and Addressing to have them removed from his Majesties Presence and Councils for ever and the work is done without allowing the liberty to answer for themselves And the reason that he gives for it is a pleasant one because the King cannot be guilty therefore they must But may not a House of Commons be mistaken and punish a man for what he never did may not one man give the Advice and another suffer for it at this rate of proceedings But this is an old Custom What then it is an unjust one There may be many things plain and evident beyond the testimony of any Witness which yet can never be proved in a legal way This is true but I hope he will not infer from hence that any man shall be punished for those things without testimony I always thought all these cases were reserved to the Tribunal of God Almighty And I believe this Gentleman would be loth to be tried by his own rule The Parliament may be busied in such great Affairs as will not suffer them to parsue every Offender through a long process Then they may let him alone or leave him to the Common Law but to condemn him unheard for want of leisure is such a piece of justice as no man would be willing to submit to in his own Case There may be many reasons why a man should be turned out of Service which perhaps would not extend to subject him to punishment That there may be reasons why a man should be turned out of Service
is undeniable but then those reasons ought to be alledged and proved for the turning a man out of Service is certainly in many cases a great punishment tho not equal to hanging The People themselves are highly concerned in the great Ministers of State who are Servants to the Kingdom as well as to the King and the Commons whose business it is to present all Grievances as they are most likely to observe soonest the folly and treachery of those publick Servants the greatest of all Grievances so this representation ought to have no little weight with the Prince Here is the true reason as long as the Ministers look upon themselves as the Kings Servants they will adhere to the Crown but if they be taught once that they are Servants to the People too then because it is difficult to serve two Masters they will be more distracted and act more timorously especially if according to the modern distinction the Country-Party get the Ascendent of the Court-Party in a Parliament Queen Elizabeth told the Commons by the Lord Keeper that she misliked that such irreverence towards Privy-Counsellors who were not to be accounted as Common Knights and Burgesses of the House that are Counsellors but during the Parliament whereas the other are standing Counsellors and for their Wisdom and great Service are called to the Council of State They were not then thought to be such publick Servants as might be treated at any rate sent to the Tower or to carry up a Bill to the Lords against which they had given their Vote as if it were to triumph over them But Henry IV. a wise and a brave Prince in the Fifth year of his Reign turned out four of his Servants only because the Commons desired they might be removed But then this Prince had no Title and therefore was not in a capacity to dispute any thing with them and in this very Parliament too they gave him so extraordinary a Tax and so troublesom to the Subject that they would not suffer any Record of it to be left in the Treasury and he was obliged to grant them this extraordinary favour in recompence of it He had but newly in Battel conquered one Rebellion wherein Mortimers Title was at the bottom and was ingaged then in a War with France And he had reason to fear a general Defection of the Nation King Richard being reported to be alive And he was then in great want of Money so that for such a Prince so beset to grant any thing was far from a wonder but ought no more to be drawn into Example than that Tax they then gave him and least of all now when things are in a very different posture But then all these Ministers are censured for doing that which was approved by two of the three Estates The Resolve was this That all persons who advised his Majesty in his last Message to this House to insist upon an opinion against the Bill for Excluding the Duke of York have given pernicious Counsel to his Majesty and are promoters of Popery and Enemies to the King and Kingdom Now this Bill was before this thrown out by the House of Lords and therefore there was no reason to Vote the Ministers Enemies to the King and Kingdom for doing that which was approved by two of the three Estates in Parliament But they ought not to have appealed to the People against their own Representatives Why not The unfortunate Reigns of Henry III. Edward II. Richard II. and Henry VI. ought to serve as Land-marks to warn succeeding Kings from preserring secret Councils to the wisdom of their Parliaments And so ought the Example of his Majesties Father to warn both his Majesty and the whole Nation how they suffer the Ministers of State to be trodden under foot by Factious men and the Prerogatives of the Crown to be swallowed up by pretended Priviledges of Parliament for all these things have once already made way for the Ruine of the Monarchy as that did for the enslaving of the People The next thing my Author falls upon is the business of the Revenue but here I cannot imagine what he would have he makes a long Harangue against Alienation of the Revenues of the Crown and about the reasonableness of Resumptions of those that had been alienated And tells us No Country did ever believe the Prince how absolute soever in other things had power to sell or give away the Revenue of the Kingdom and leave his Successor a Beggar That the haughty French Monarch as much power as he pretends to is not ashamed to own that he wanted power to make such Alienations and that Kings had that happy inability that they could do nothing contrary to the Laws of their Country This and much more my Author hath upon this occasion learnedly but very impertinently written about these two Votes believing his Reader could not distinguish betwixt an Alienation and an Anticipation But the best way to have this clearly understood is to insert the Votes of the Commons which are as followeth Resolved That whosoever shall hereafter lend or cause to be lent by way of Advance any money upon the Branches of the Kings Revenue arising by Customs Excise or Hearth-money shall be adjudged to hinder the sitting of Parliaments and shall be responsible for the same in Parliament Resolved That whosoever shall accept or buy any Tally of Anticipation upon any part of the Kings Revenue or whoseever shall pay such Tally hereafter to be struck shall be adjudged to hinder the sitting of Parliaments and shall be responsible therefore in Parliament Now what Advancing money upon the Revenues and accepting Tallys of Anticipation have to do with Alienation of it I cannot devise For certainly it is one thing to advance a Fine and take a Farm so much the cheaper for three four or seven years and another thing to purchase the same to a man and his Heirs for ever And it is one thing to receive an Order to take such a Sum of Money of the Tenant out of the next half years Rent and a quite other thing to purchase the Feesimple of an Estate which is an Alienation The Revenues of the Crown of England are in their own nature appropriated to Publick Service and therefore cannot without injustice be diverted or Anticipated May not an Anticipation be as well imployed upon the Publick Service as a growing Revenue when it is become due Does Anticipation signifie mispending or diverting from a Publick to a private use Is it impossible the Publick should at any time need a greater Sum of money than the Revenue will afford and may not a Prince in such a case Anticipate and afterward get it up again by his good Husbandry No for Either the Publick Revenue is sufficient to answer the necessary occasions of the Government and then there is no colour for Anticipations or else by some extraordinary Accident the King
causes may be assigned according to the several fancies and imaginations of men of our late miserable distractions they cannot be so reasonably imputed to any one cause as to the extreme poverty of the Crown the want of power could never have appeared if it had not been for the want of money But since that the rising greatness of our Neighbours have mounted the Expences of the Crown above that growing Revenue that was then setled and the Republical Party as his Majesty stiles them promise themselves the happiness of bringing about another Revolution by the same means the last was in his Majesties days if it be possible but however at his Death And therefore if the Crown thus beset shall at any time make use of Anticipations to relieve it self they only ought to be responsible for it who have or shall make it necessary For surely no Prince would borrow when he might have it freely given upon reasonable terms unless he took a pride in counting the number of his Creditors And therefore saith my Author it has ever been esteemed a Crime in Counsellors who persuaded the King to Anticipate his Revenue and a Crime in those who furnish'd money upon such Anticipations in an extraordinary way however extraordinary the occasion might be For this cause it was that the Parliament in the 35 of Henry VIII did not only discharge all these Debts which the King had contracted but Enacted that those Lenders who had been before paid again by the King should refund all those Sums into the Exchequer as judging it reasonable punishment to make them forfeit the Money they lent since they have gone about to introduce so dangerous a precedent It is bad Logick that raiseth general Conclusions from particular instances and it will appear so in this that we have in hand which because I cannot so well and creditably do it my self I will make appear by transcribing a passage out of my Lord Coke tho it be somewhat long Advice concerning new and plausible Projects and Oâ—â—ers in Parliament When any plausible project is made in Parliament to draw the Lords and Commons to assent to any Act especially in matters of weight and importance if both Houses do give upon the matter projected and promised their Consent it shall be most necessary they being trusted for the Commonwealth to have the matter projected and promised which moved the House to consent to be established in the same Act lest the benefit of the Act be taken and the matter projected and promised never performed and so the Houses of Parliament perform not the trust reposed in them as it fell out taking one example from many in the Reign of Henry VIII On the Kings behalf the Members of both Houses were informed in Parliament that no King or Kingdom was safe but where the King had three Abilities First To live of his own and be able to defend his Kingdom upon any sudden Invasion or Insurrection Secondly To aid his Confederates otherwise they would never assist him Thirdly To reward his well deserving Servants Now the Projâ—ct was that if the Parliament would give unto him all the Abbies Priories Friories Nunneries and other Monasteries that for ever in time then to come he would take order that the same should not be converted to private use but first That his Exchequer for the purposes aforesaid should be inrich'd Secondly the Kingdom strengthened by a continual maintainance of Forty thousand well trained Souldiers with skilful Captains and Commanders Thirdly For the benefit and ease of the Subject who never afterwards as was projected in any time to come should be charged with Subsidies Fifteenths Loans or other common aids Fourthly Lest the Honour of the Realm should receive any Diminution of Honour by the dissolution of the said Monasteries there being twenty nine Lords of Parliament of the Abbots and Priors that held of the King per Baroniam that the King would create a number of Nobles which we omit The said Monasteries were given to the King by authority of divers Acts of Parliament but no provision was therein made for the said Project or any part thereof only ad faciendam populum these Possessions were given to the King his Heirs and Successors to do and use therewith his and their own wills to the pleasure of Almighty God and the honour and profit of Almighty God Now observe the Catastrophe in the same Parliament of 32 Henry VIII when the great and opulent Priory of St. Johns of Jerusalem was given to the King he demanded and had a Subsidy both of the Clergy and Laity and the like he had in 34 Henry VIII and in 37 Henry VIII he had another Subsidy And since the dissolution of the said Monasteries he exacted divers Loans and against Law received the same Now let my Reader judge if it be reasonable to make what the Parliament did in the 25 of Henry VIII a standing Rule for all succeeding times when it is morally impossible that ever any King of England should have such a Treasure and Revenue as they had given this King within less than seven years and a Subsidy but the very year before besides If we had such Parliaments now and it were possible to give the King such Supplies as they did I would freely give my Vote to have the next Lender Hanged The true way to put the King out of a possibility of supporting the Government is to let him waste in one year that money which ought to bear the charge of the Government for seven But Sir to put you out of pain for that this would necessitate the sitting of Parliaments and the yielding to whatsoever they could desire So this tho true was not the reason of the Vote but directly contrary to it but the King knows the Consequence of that too well to need any restraint in that particular for he knows as well as you that this is the direct method to destroy not only the Credit of the Crown at home and abroad but the Monarchy it self If the King resolves never to pay the money that he borrows what faith will be given to the Royal Promises and the honour of the Nation will suffer in that of the Prince And if it be put upon the People to repay it this would be a way to impose a necessity of giving Taxes without end whether they would or no. Omitting the undutifulness of these suppositions it is very remarkable that the great Anticipations upon the Revenue were made in the time of the last Dutch War when they who now so much clamour against them were Ministers and they who now are such and bear all the blame were not in a capacity to hinder it Whether they had any such intentions as these in it they best know but I am sure one of them made it out powerfully that there was all the reason in the world that the Parliament should pay off
regard to the Laws established This the Author could not deny nor defend and therefore he changeth the terms into a power of Repealing Laws with which the Commons were never charged Now a power of Suspending and a power of Recpealing are vastly different Every Pardon is a suspension of the Execution of the Law in relation to the Party pardoned and so is every Dispensation and when the King put forth the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience there was no design of repealing but only of suspending the Execution of the Penal Laws pro tempore so that if the Commons designed this Vote or Declaration of theirs should have any other effect than to shew their good will to the Dissenters it must extend tho not to a Repeal yet to a suspension of the Execution of the Penal Laws against them which is all the Declaration charged the Commons with and so the Dissenters understood it and have since pleaded this Vote in Bar to the Execution of those Laws against them tho they acknowledge they are not Repealed thereby Every impartial man will own that the Commons had reason for this opinion of theirs Suppose they had reason for it this will not give them a legal Power The King hath good reason to do many things which yet if he should offer at they would clamour against him as an Usurper of an Arbtrary Power for reason gives no man any Author to act except he hath a lawful power to back his reason with There may be great reason to repeat an Act of Parliament and yet in all the Judges in Westminster should thereupon declare it to be either suspended or repealed I know what we should hear of it quickly Well but let us hear their Reasons They had with great anxiety observed that the present design of the Papists was not against any one sort of Pretestants but Vniversal and 〈◊〉 extirpating the Reformed Religion That this might be the ultimate design of the Plot is not much to be doubted but it was immediately bent only against the Religion established and accodingly therwere Successors appointed to all the Bishops and 〈◊〉 Clergy but none to Mr. Baxter Dr. Owen and the rest of that Fry that ever I heard of So that this reason concludes not in favour of the Dissenters but of the Regular Clergy who as they were in most danger ought to have been most taken care of But this Vote left them in the same danger it found them of being destroyed by the Papists and let loose the Dissenters upon them too to encrease that danger 2. They saw what advantages these Enemies made of our Divisions and how cunningly they diverted us from persecuting them by fomenting our Jealousies of one another Did they not Sir observe too how the Dissenters took the occasion of the Plot and of the general hatred against Popery to ruine the Loyal and Conformable Clergy How they presently engrossed the Title of Protestant and endeavoured to make the Rabble believe that all but the Bobtail Holders forth and their Followers were Papists in Masquerade Tories Tantivimen c. If they did not observe these things others did And also that all of a sudden all the Jesuits assumed the shapes of Nonconformists and railed stoutly against Bishops Ceremonies Humane Impositions and Arbitrary Government They knew there was no Possibility of escaping the vengeance of the Church of England men but by setting the Dissenters upon them and they needed no Spur. So this was a good Argument to have taught the Dissenters more modesty but since they had not that it was a strong Argument to have suppress'd them vigorously as the only Auxiliaries of the Papists against the Church and the great hinderers of the prosecution of the Plot. 3. They saw the strength and nearness of the King of France and judged of his inclinations by his usage of his own Protestant Subjects 4. They considered the number and the bloudy Principles of the Irish And 5. That Scotland was already delivered into the hands of a Prince the known head of the Papists in these Kingdoms and the occasion of their Plots and Insolencies as more than one Parliament had declared It should have been worded thus as they had declared in more than one Parliament for these were the same men in several Parliaments who made these several Declarations Now I cannot conceive wherein the force of these three Arguments lies the French King was powerful and hated Protestants therefore the Church of England must be prepared for ruine by giving as many as pleased a free liberty to separate from her and procure her destruction The Irish Papists had ill designs just ripe for execution therefore the English Nonconformists were to be tolerated that they might get strength and be able to rise at the same time to ascertain the destruction of the Church But the fifth Reason is much better Scotland was in the hands of the Duke How came he by it What did he invade it by force and violence against his Majesties Will If he did then let us make a mighty Combination against him But if it were delivered to him by the proper Owner who may govern it by whom he please what occasion is there for the Dissenters service here 6. They could not but take notice into what hands the most considerable Trusts both Civil and Military were put 7. And that notwithstanding all Addresses and all Proclamations for a strict execution of the Penal Laws against Papists yet their Faction so far prevailed that they were eluded and only the Dissenting Protestants smarted under the rage of them That they took very good notice who were imployed in Civil and Military Trusts appears by the Address of December 21. 1680. not many days before this Vote where they tell the King That several Deputy Lieutenants and Justices of the Peace fitly qualified for those imployments have been of late displaced and others put in their room who are men of Arbitrary Principles and Countenancers of Papists and Popery These they would have had turned out and others put in who are men of Integrity and known affection to the Protestant Religion and may be moreover men of Ability of Estates and Interest in their Country His Majesty knew what they meant but did not think fit to change his choice and the truth is they gave him no great encouragement by their own carriage to have any more to do with these able wealthy popular men And therefore it seems this was one reason that moved them to Vote the Protestant Dissenters free from Penal Laws either to keep them out of the hands of these evil Trustees both Civil and Military or else to make a Party out of them not only against the Duke of York but also against these Countenancers of Papists and Popery that is against his Majesties Officers both Civil and Military As if because the French King notwithstanding his great Power and Aversion to the Protestant Religion
ill men upon his Royal mind c. Now let all the World judge betwixt the King and this Party they grant the King has been heretofore compliant enough to their desires and then in the rudest Language that spight and scorn could dictate conclude against sense and reason that it was not fondness to his Brother nor kindness to the Monarchy but the ill influence of a few men that had thus disposed him A likely thing that he which could give up a Brother and be so unconcerned for his Crown should be so stupid rather than stiff as to venture all for a few ill men Creatures to the Duke and Pensioners to France wicked Wretches who have infected him with the fatal Notion that the Interests of his People are not only distinct but opposite to his No words I can write are sharp enough to reprove this Miscreant that thus rails against his and my Sovereign the Lords Anointed and therefore to God Almighty I leave it He tells us in the next place his Majesty doth not seem to doubt of his Power in Conjunction with his Parliament to Exclude his Brother He very well knows this Power hath been often Exerted in the time of his Predecessors Yes doubtless his Majesty hath read the English Story and observed at the same time that more Princes have been deposed by Pretended power of Parliament than Excluded and he very well knows that if he shall yield that an Argument drawn from Example is valid he will then stand upon slippery ground He also knows that the right Heir was never put by but a good plenty of Miseries Wars and Calamities followed upon it and he is able to foresee that if the same should happen again the French King may easily possess himself of these miserable Kingdoms and therefore it is fairly probable love to his People as well as his Brother hath kept him from consenting The reasons he saith that his Majesty hath aliedged are because it concerned him so near in Honour Justice and Conscience not to do it And are not these three powerful Arguments But my Author can ridicule them and turn them all against the King It is not saith he honourable for a Prince to be true and faithful to his Word and Oath To keep and maintain the Religion and Laws Established Yes who doth question it but all this and all that he hath said besides may be done without Excluding his Brother who would have just as much right supposing the King dies without lawful Issue to the Reversion as his Majesty hath to the present Possession And can his Majesty wrong him of that Right without a blemish to his Honour Justice and Conscience Who will ever after dare to relie upon his Majesty if they once see him desert his own Brother But that which follows is amazing All Obligations of Honour Justice and Conscience are comprehended in a grateful return of such benefits as have been received can his Majesty believe that he doth duly repay unto his Protestant Subjects the kindness they shewed him when they recalled him from a miserable helpless Banishment and with so much dutiful affection placed him in the Throne enlarged his Revenue above what any of his Predecessors had enjoyed and gave him vaster Sums of Money in twenty years than had been bestowed upon all the Kings since William the First Should he after all this deliver them up to be ruined by his Brother It should have been Should he after all this deliver them up to be ruined by the Dissenter and the Faction that Murthered his Father drew up an Oath of Abjuration of the whole Family of the Stuarts hanged plundered murthered sequestred and destroyed so many of his Loyal Nobility Gentry and Clergy Sir I am not so ill bred as to Catechise my Sovereign but I thing I may without offence ask the Whigs a few small questions Have you the impudence after all the Villanies you have done to Usurp the Loyalty that you never were guilty of Was it not enough to banish your Sovereign and keep him twelve years in that miserable helpless condition but you must reproach him too with it Did he not pardon you when you had sormited your Lives and all you had to his Justice by all the Laws of God and man Must he once more put himself into your power that he may try whether you will use him as you did his Father Have you not repined at his Restitution endeavoured to Banish him the second time by all the Arts imaginable Have you not murmur'd at all that has been given him Slandered that Parliament that gave it whilst it fate and since it was dissolved laboured to represent it to the Nation as the worst Parliament that ever sate Have not you Sir called them Danby's Pensioners Mercenary Pensioners c. And can you shew any vast or indeed competent Sums of Money given to the King since you know when And after all this have you the insolence to call your selves Protestants or own your selves Subjects And expect the King should in pure gratitude for what you never did lay all at your feet again As for those Protestant Subjects who besides all that you have falsely ascribed to your selves fought for him and his Father they do not fear his Majesties Brother would ruine them if he could and therefore have by thousands thanked his Majesty for his care in preserving the Succession in its due and legal course of descent In the next Paragraph my Author is very Politick and tells us Our Ancestors have been always more careful to preserve the Government inviolable than to favour any personal pretences and have therein conformed themselves to the practice of all other Nations whose examples deseve to be followed That is they have been more careful to preserve the Mornarchy it self and the Liberties of the Subject than the due and legal Descent in the Succession This is certainly true And they have paid well for neglecting the other as is apparent to any body that has read the History of England I will instance only in the Wars betwixt the Houses of Lancaster and York Richard II. being deposed and murthered Henry IV. who had no Title but was a brave Prince was set up But mark the Consequence before this Quarrel could be ended in B sworth Field there perished 80998 Private Souldiers two Kings one Prince ten Dukes two Marquesses twenty one Earls twenty seven Lords two Vicounts once Lord Prior one Judge one hundred thirty nine Knights four hundred forty one Esquires and my Author knows not how many Gentlemen in twelve Battels The total saith my Author of all the persons that have been slain is 85628. Christians and most of them of this Nation Is it fit to run the Risque of suffering all this over again As to his Examples of Princes that have been Excluded upon the account of Religion or for other smaller matters they prove nothing but that ill
things have been done but ought they therefore to be reacted As for his railing Accusations brought against his Royal Highness they deserve so much the less consideration because he treats the King at that abominable rate he doth of whose Clemency Justice and Compassion all Europe are Witnesses Having concluded there must be a War he saith Let it be under the Authority of Law let it be against a Banished Excluded Pretender There is no fear of the Consequence of such a War No true Englishman can joyn with him or countenance his Vsurpation after this Act and for his Popish and Forein Adherents they will neither be more provoked nor more powerful by the passing of it This man all along supposeth that neither the Duke nor the King have any natural Hereditary Right to the Crown but talketh as if it were meerly at the pleasure of the People and their Representatives to make what man they please King of England supposing that a Son of an Emperour of Germany or of a King of Poland were passed by or Excluded and should enter a War for the gaining of that Crown to which for want of an Election he had never any legal right he might be stiled a Pretender or an Usurper but in an Hereditary Kingdom it can never be so if according to the before cited opinion of K. James no Act of Parliament can extinguish the Dukes Right which God and Nature hath given him in case the King should die before his Royal Highness without lawful Issue tho it may prevent his obtaining it So that he can never be an Usurper or Pretender till the Monarchy of England is declared to be Elective And this may be thought to be one reason why his Majesty should never yield the point And as for my Authors confidence in the success of such a War it speaks nothing but his earnest desire of one rather than not to have his Will and I hope the Nation will have no occasion to prove him a false Prophet Nor will his Exclusion make it at all necessary to maintain a standing Force for preserving the Government and the peace of the Kingdom The whole People will be an Army for that purpose and every heart and hand will be prepared to maintain that so necessary so much desired Law If all this were true there would be no need of an Army indeed but then there would also be as little need of an Association too for I never heard of a Prince that was able to compel three whole Nations to submit to him against all their Wills and without Forein Aids But Sir the House of Commons thought the latter necessary or else they would never have desired that his Majesty would be likewise Graciously pleased to Assent to an Act whereby his Majesties Protestant Subjects may be enabled to Associate themselves for the defence of his Majesties Person the Protestant Religion and the security of your Kingdoms This was thought as necessary as the Bill of Exclusion and what kind of Association some men intended is well enough understood now by the whole Nation As to his Recrimination upon the Ministers for the two Armies and the Guards let him set his heart at rest for the World is very well satisfied the one were never intended to be kept up and it is hoped the other the Guards will be ever formidable to such Gentlemen as my Author who in kindness to the Queen of Scots Title and the Bill of Exclusion is like a good Protestant contented to insinuate that Queen Elizabeth was a Bastard though born in Matrimony For so she must be if what the Papists say of her having no other Right but only that of an Act of Parliament by which Mary Queen of Scots was Excluded be true In the next Paragraph my Author endeavours to face his Majesty down That nothing was intended by those other ways which were darkly and dubiously intimated in his Majesties Speech unto the Parliament at Oxford and repeated in the Declaration and he saith that his Majesty in his wisdom could not but know that they signified nothing Now this is a strange way of proceeding with Princes and would anger a private man The Regency signified nothing the distinction betwixt the Kings Personal and Politick Capacity was unfeasible the Pope might absolve him from all Oaths as he did King John and Henry III. and it would be more fatal to us when Religion is concerned which was not then in question His Confessor would excite him against us and he who has made use of all the Power he has been intrusted with hitherto for our destruction witness his Naval Wars against the Dutch would certainly Elude all Methods but the Bill of Exclusion and if it were otherwise there was no hopes of having any fruit of any Expedient without a War and to be obliged to swear Allegiance to a Popish Prince to own his Title to acknowledge him supreme Head of the Church and Defender of the Faith seems says my Author a strange way of entitling our selves to fight with him It doth so and therefore all those that are resolved on a War will I suppose never do it But are all these Titles annexed to the Crown as Protestant or as imperial and subject to none but God Did they belong to Henry VIII or did they not And supposing no Expedient should be used would not the Number Constancy and Resolution of the English Nation and Protestants in it preserve the Religion in one Prince's Reign tho of a different Religion without a War The Expedient propounded by his Majesty that if means could be found That in case of a Popish Successâ—r the Administration of the Government might remain in Protestant hands whether it be feasible or no shews an inclination in his Majesty to submit to any thing but what will ruine both him and his Brother as the Bill of Exclusion backed with such an Association as was lately found certainly will In short this Case is beset with so many and great difficulties that it baffles all humane wit and understanding to provide such an Expedient for it as may be secure and satisfie and therefore when all is done that can be done it must be left to God Almighty who only can and will determine it Having denied the charge in the Declaration That there was reason to believe that the Parliament would have passed further to attempt some other great and important changes even at present and according to his wont schooled the King and told the Ministers That they hate Parliaments because their Crimes are such that they have reason to fear them He relents a little and tells us if they the Ministers by that expression meant That the Parliament would have besought the King that the Duke might no longer have the Government in his hands This is a little hard to be understood the Duke not being then in England 2. That his Dependants those that had
not so nice but it might have been â—een determined by a meaner Critick than our Author who hath shewn his great skill in the French Tongue in his learned Remarques on the Phrase it is a matter extremely sensible to us And in the Latine upon the word Republick or Commonwealth If he had not from hence sought an occasion to call his Majesties Fidelity in question which tho it may become a Republican is very indecent in a good Subject When we see the real fruits of these utmost endeavours to extirpate Popery out of Parliament when we see the Duke of York no longer first Minister or rather Protector of these Kingdoms and his Creatures no longer to have the whole direction of Affairs when we see that love to our Religion and Laws is no longer a Crime at Court no longer a fore-runner of being disgraced and removed from all Offices and Imployments in their Power That is when the Duke of York is ruined and not only his Popish but his Church of England Creatures who have shewn themselves such by Voting against the Bill of Exclusion be laid aside When our Religion which no man knows what it is and that part of the Laws which we skulk behind now to ruine all the rest and the King and Kingdom to boot shall not hinder our Preferment whatever we do or say When the word Loyal which is faithful to the Law shall be restored to its own meaning and no longer signifie one who is for subverting the Laws That is when men may safely pretend so much respect to the Laws that they may affront his Majesty who is the Fountain of all Laws and the Protector of them and us by them when the word Loyal shall have no other relation to his Majesty than the same word if in use there hath in Venice when spoken concerning their Duke When we see the Commissions filled with hearty Protestants that is with Whigs and Republicans and the Laws executed in good earnest against the Papists and the Dissenters passed by unpunished The Discoverers of the Plot countenanced or at least heard and suffered to give their Evidence except when they make bold with our selves and such a Colledge and Fitz-Harris and the Association-men in which cases they ought neither to be heard nor believed The Courts of Justice steady and not avowing a jurisdiction one day which they disown the next but just such as they were in the late times When we see no more Grand-Juries discharged lest they should hear Witnesses nor Witnesses hurried away lest they should inform Grand-Juries tho it were against his Majesty and when all Grand-Juries are of the Family of Ignoramus the Lawyer and will find according to their Conscience tho against both their Oath and their Evidence especially when a Precious man is in jeopardy to be hanged for something done or said against the King When we see no more instruments from Court labouring to raise jealousies of Associating Petitioning Protestants who have a Patent from heaven to retail all the fears and jealousies that ever shall from henceforward be put off in England Scotland and Ireland and in all other his Majesties Dominions and Countries whatsoever And to that purpose have erected several Mints for the Coining of them in London and the parts adjacent and do maintain several Presses and a great many Intelligencers to collect and disperse the same for the benefit of his Majesties discontented Subjects who receive much comfort by the worst and falsest of them and hope to have just such another harvest in the end as they reaped from the same Seed in and about the years 1640 41 42 and so on till 1660. When we see some regard had to Protestants abroad tho his Majesty should be by our defaults brought into such straits as hardly to be able to maintain the Government at home When we observe somewhat else to be meant by Governing according to Law than barely to put them in execution against Dissenters in whom our strength against the Government doth chiefly consist the Laws made against Papists In which number we desire the Church of England men that is all that stick to the Religion by Law Established may be included and then we shall promise our selves not only frequent Parliaments but everlasting ones and all the blessed effects of pursuing Parliamentary Councils the Extirpation of Popery and Prelacy the redress of Grievances the flourishing of Laws and the perfect restoring the Monarchy to the credit which it had in 1658 and 59. both at home and abroad There needs no time to open the Eyes of his Majesties good Subjects the Whigs and their hearts are ready prepared to meet him in Parliament in order to perfect all these good Settlements and Peace which are now wanting in Church and State But whilst there are so many little Emissaries imployed to sow and encrease divisions in the Nation as if the Ministers had a mind to make his Majesty head of a Faction and joyn himself to one Party in the Kingdom who has a just right of Governing all which Thuanus lib. 28. says was the notorious Folly and occasioned the destruction of his great-Grandmother Mary Queen of Scots whilst we see the same differences Promoted industriously by the Court which gave the Rise and Progress to the late troubles and which were once thought fit to be buried in an Act of Oblivion What is meant by the little Emissaries here I know not nor will I guess Nor did I ever observe the Ministers had a mind to make his Majesty the Head of a Faction which your Author much blames in Henry III. of France too when he suffered the Holy League the Prototype of the Association to be set afoot and propagated so far before he took notice of it that he was forced at last to attempt to make himself the Head of it which was properly a Faction combined by an Oath against the Right Heir to the Crown and a part of the Natural Subjects of France on pretence of Religion for the Exclusion of the first and destruction of the latter without and against the consent of the King which caused a Rebellion in France the destruction of the King a sooner Succession of Henry IV. the right Heir upon changing his Religion and if God had not prevented it had betrayed France into the hands of the Spaniards or Cantoned it into small Principalities Now this is properly to make a Prince the head of a Faction without consideration of the Rise of our late Troubles which sprung from such another League but to countenance a Loyal Party more than a Rebellious one is not so and whatever effect it had in the Reign of Queen Mary his Majesties Grandmother seems the only way now to save England and prevent the need of another Act of Oblivion and Indemnity for all those Crimes that were pardoned by his Majesty but never repented of by them that acted them Whilst
we see then the Popish Interest so plainly countenanced which was then done with caution when every pretence of Prerogative is strained to the utmost height when Parliaments are used with contempt and indignity and their Judicature and all their highest Priviledges brought in question in inferious Courts we have but too good reason to believe tho every Loyal and good man does yet the Ministers and Favourites do but little consider the Rise and Progress of the late troubles and have little desire or care to preserve their Country from a relapse All this is Party-per-pale a justification of the last and an Exhortation to another Rebellion upon the self-same false pretences only a little aggravated because the People are more slow to a new Rebellion than they were to the last And who the Ministers as they never yet shewed regard to Religion Liberty or Property so they would be little concerned to see the Monarchy shaken off if they might escape the Vengeance of Publick Justice due to them for so long a course of Pernicious Counsels and for Crowning all the rest of their faults by thus reflecting upon that High Court before which we do not doubt but we shall see them one day brought to Judgment Sir I suppose my Reader is very well informed by this time that your Pen is no slander and I assure you there is some hopes of seeing your Party one day brought in Judgment for all your ill Courses which have so much dishonoured Parliaments and by these repeated Threats endeavoured to make them Odious as well as Dreadful to so many who are Loyal not in your hide-bound Notion but in the good old Christian acceptation of the word in the affection of their Souls of which humane Laws can take no notice and that not to the Law which is nonsense but to the King But Sir how can you be so positive in your Menaces who in the Page before were in some degree of doubt there might be a long interval of Parliaments and so you may not see this One desirable day but may happen to be brought to Judgment in the interim before a higher Court for all your slanders and defamations of your Sovereign the Lords Anointed And now Sir I have taken the same liberty in relation to you which you took with less modesty and reason against all the Ministers and if you please you may reply and for ought I know the Press is as open for you as me and I had not taken all this pains but to shew the World your sheets are as weak and as full of Errors as of Malice against the Ministers in pretence but against his Majesty in good earnest And if you had been pleased to have used the name of Evil Counsellors instead of Ministers it would have been more apparent what you designed and I do not in the least question but there are very many Persons in his Majesties Dominions who are not only of true English courage but of greater intellectuals than to be Cajoled by such a Pamphlet as yours into an ill opinion of the King his Ministers or the Declaration of which number in every respect I do acknowledge my self to be one of the meanest POSTSCRIPT THe Vindicator Pag. 43. of his Book hath concluded his Character of a Commonwealth man and his Principles with this Expression that Every wise and honest man will be proud to be ranked in that number perhaps yet all of them will not be of the same opinion when they have read that which follows which I dare presume to say is more truly drawn He is a great Admirer of the collective body of Protestants as â—â—â—onsists of a hundred and fifty Sects for any one of which distinctly considered he has just as much veneration as I have for the Musulmen He divides himself so exactly betwixt the Church and a Conventicle that he doth not know to which he belongs and would gladly be excused from the trouble of going to either if it were possible to beguile the People without a pretence to Religion and Devotion He treats his Prince as the Souldiers did our Saviour first Crowns him with Thorns and then kneels before him and mixes his submissions and reproaches so equally that no man can tell which is the principal ingredient and he intends to crucifie him too when it is safe to conclude the sport He is ever talking of the Laws and hath listed a parcel of them to take his part against all the rest and with these and his other Auxiliaries and Ignoramus Iuries he hopes to prevail And then the Book of Statutes shall again be reformed into a Packet of Votes and Ordinances He hates nothing so heartily as he doth Monarchy and Majesty and thinks that as Princes were instituted for the good of their People so they ought to be sacrificed to it too and in order to it he Crowns them first with Garlands and then lays all the sins and follies of the People upon their Heads and is in great pain for a Knife or an Ax to finish the Attonement The next thing he hates is Popery of which he hath no more true and determinate Notion than he had of the number or the Hairs of his head nor ever took more care to inform himself of the one than the other and the reason is because his Ignorance will excuse him if he calls that Popery to morrow which was good sound Protestantanism three days agone He takes Oaths not to bind but loose him 〈◊〉 men do Alloways and Rubarb for the Evacuation of suspicion and they have usually the same effect upon-him only they operate cross-ways and purge out all his natural good humours too and leave all the bad ones behind them He pronounceth of a Clergy man at first sight by his Habit all that wear Cassocks are drunkards and Popishly affected the Cloak-men are all sober Protestants He is something shie of a Stranger and therefore first Pumps a man before he opens himself if he finds him Loyal he is so too but not without some dissatisfaction If the Party be of his own side then he cherisheth his malice and spite against the Government by communicating his own to him If the Company happen to be mixt then he hath a Set of Canting Language which signifies quite different things to the different parts of the Company as for instance Popery signifies the Church of England to one Party and Arbitrary Government Monarchy to the other Party quite another thing Next the 〈◊〉 he hates most a Wise Loyal States-man and because he knows it is not yet safe to attack the Master he takes care to represent all his Servants as Knaves and Traytors French Pensioners and Popishly affected for he knows that if the People can once generally be brought to think the Court a Den of Thieves the Master of the Family that chuseth and employeth them
must answer for their misdemeanors as well as they must for his Next the Ministers his great care is to instil into the People a great aversion for the Loyal Judges and Magistrates but if they warp a little then he admires them for men and lovers of the Liberty of the People But that which next Hanging is most dreadful to him are the Loyal Gentry and their dependents These he knows can neither be wheedled nor frighted generally and therefore all the Forces he provideth are only against these Canaanites who keep the good People out of the Land of Promise or make their lives uneasie in it by denying them liberty of Conscience to be of any Religion or none as occasion serveth besides they have great Estates good meat and drink and some Authority all which belong to the Godly After Liberty of Conscience he places a Lawless Licence to do what he list and take what he please which he calls Property for he would fain have the Hedge broken down that all mens Estates Wives and Daughters might be common to him which is the most beloved Notion he has Reipublicae of a Commonwealth His Study is well stuffed with seditious Pamphlets and intelligences but his Staple Author is the Loviathan which he hath read ten times oftener than the Bible and Practiseth a thousand times more yet he hath a good Parcel of other Commonwealth Authors too and admires nothing in the Greeks and Romans but their hatred to Monarchy and love of Liberty and Popular Governments and were it not for this would be contented all their Books were burnt When all things are well he frights the little Folk with Predictions of what may be or is intended shall be and the less probable the thing is the more easily it is sometimes believed Only the wonder is men should court Fear and fall in love with Jealousie which are uneasie Passions to them but profitable to our Gentleman who to create them in his Followers pretends himself horribly over run with them when indeed his only fear is he should not after so many Cheats put upon the People be believed The Plot and the Duke are his two great Pretences and he wisheth they may never fail till he hath overthrown the Monarchy for then he shall want his best handles to take the People by Priviledge of Parliament is his last retreat and if that fails then he must take Achitophels course and set his house in Order to provide for what follows FINIS Pag. 3. Pro. Dom. Rege dicit quod cum placeat ei Parliament suum tenere pro utilitate Regnà sui de Regali potestate suâ facit summoneri ubi quando c pro voluntate sua Cok. Jurisdict p. 16. * The Three Estates do but Advise as the Privy-Council doth which if the King imbrace it becomes the Kings own Act in the one and the Kings Law in the other for without the Kings Acceptation both the publick and private Advices be but as empty Egg-shells Sir Walter Ralcighs Prerogative of Parliaments pag. 57. Vide Grotium de imp sum potest circa Sacra Cap. 6. Pag. 3. 4. Ed. 3. c. 14. 36 Ed. 3. c. 10. 2 R. 2 Num. 28. Pag. 2. Pag. 2. Pag. 2. Colledges Trial p. 37 57 73. Colledges Trial p. 27 30. Pag. 2. Pag. 3. Pag. 3. Pag. 3. Pag. 3. Pag. 3. Pag. 4. Pag. 4. Declaration Pag. 5. Pag. 4. Pag. 5. Pag. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cap. 15. â—â—lledge averred that the 〈…〉 of 40. did 〈…〉 what they had just 〈…〉 for and the Parliament 〈…〉 last at Westminster 〈…〉 of the same opinon 〈…〉 83. And to this 〈…〉 a great while 〈…〉 had excused the 〈…〉 from 〈…〉 War and 〈…〉 King which he 〈…〉 Papists did â— du Moulin's Vindication of the sincerity of P. c. p. 58. London 1679. Colledges Trial â— 81 82 83. Pag. 6. Pag. 7. Declaration from Breda April 4. 1660. ☞ Declaration concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs Octob. 25. 1660. ☜ ☜ ☜ There are some seditious Preachers who cannot be content to be dispenced with for their full Obedience to some Laws Established without reproaching and inveighing against those Laws how Established soever who tell their Auditors that the Apostle meant when he bid them stand to their Liberties that they should stand to their Arms c. Lord Chancellors Speech May 8. 1661. Address to the Freemen and Freeholders of the Nation Part. 1. By a Declaration published December 26. 1662. in which are these words We shall make it our special care so far forth as in us lies without invading the freedom of Parliament to incline them to make such an Act c. Friday Feb. 27. 1663 Collection of Messages Addresses c. Pag. 6. ☞ See the first part of the Address to the Freemen c. Pag. 7. The Declaration Pag. 7. Speech Octob. 21. 1680. Pag. 8. Address to the Freemen and Freeholders Part II. pag. 22. * Though his Majesty could not do that without acting contrary to his own judgment strengthened with the Opinion and Advice given by his Royal Grandfather King James of blessed memory to his Eldest Son Price Henry in these words But if God give you not Succession defraud never the nearest by right whatsoever conceit ye have of the person For Kingdoms are ever at Gods disposition and in that case we are but live-rentars lying no more in the Kings nor Peoples hand to dispossess the righteous Heir Basil Doron 62. ult Ed. Pag. 8. Speech Octob. 26. 1662. Speech Deceâ— 26. 1662. Pag. 8. Pag. 8. Speech Mar. 6 1678-9 Pag. 8. Lord Chancellors Speech March 6. 167â—-â— Pag. 9. Speech Mar. 6. 1678-9 Pag. 9. A seasonable Address to both Houses of Parliament pag. 4. Pag. 9. Pag. 10. Pag. 10. Pag. 10. Votes Nov. 13. 1680. Pag. 10. * 16 Car. 2. c. 4. Pag. 10. Friday March 25. 1681. Pag. 10. Historical Collect of the four last Parliaments of Q. Eliz. p. 47. 13 Car. 2. ca. 5. Pag. 10. * By the Bill to disinherit his Royal Highness Pag. 11. Pag. 11. Lord Chancellors Speech May 23. 1678. The words are these The influence such a Peace will have upon our Affairs are fitter for Meditation than Discourse Therefore it will import us to strengthen our selves at home and abroad that it may not be found a cheap or easie thing to put an Affront upon us * Dr. Nalson observes that the like disorders had the same effect in the time of His Majesties Father who he saith by this means lost the opportunity of being able to support his Friends and Allies as also that Honour and Terrour among his Enemies Abroad which the Union and hearty Affections of his Parliament would have rendred great and dreadful but now he became mean and contemptible that Prince who hath not power oâ—â—â— his own Subjects at home being in no probable capacity of doing any great matters abroad Preface to his impartial Collection Pag.
61. Pag. 11. Colemans long Letter A seasonable Address to the Parliament pag. 6 7. Pag. 12. Pag. 12. Verbae strictius quam fere proprietas sumenda erunt si id necessarium erit ad vitandam iniquitatem vel Absurdltatem atsi non talis est necessitas sed manifesta aequitas vel utilitas in restrictione subsistendum erit intra arctissimos terminos proprietatus nisi Circumstantia aliud suadeant Grot. de jure Belli Pacis lib. 2. cap. 16. sect 12. Pag. 13. Pag. 13. Seasonable Address p 3. Pag. 13. Pag. 13. April 7 and 9. 1678. Pag. 14. Pag. 14. Hist Col. of the four last Parliaments of Q Eliz. Pag. 15. Proceedings of the four last Parliaments of Q. Eliz. p. 254. Anno Regni 44. It seems probable to me that this question was then first resolved by the Arguments brought for it which use not to be in plain cases and one Member opposed it and another said many were sent for but none appeared none were punished Cokes Instit part 4. of the proceedings in Parliament against absents p. 38. * Owned by this Author p. 39. Cokes Instit part 4. p. 24. Debates of the House of Commons pag. 217. A Commitment of this House is always in nature of a Judgment and the Party not Bailable Address to the Freemen c. Part. 2. p 38. 4 Edw. 6. 18 Jac. 20 Jac. 3 Car. Pag. 16. Pag. 17. Ibid. Pag. 17. Ibid. Proceedings of the four last Parl. p. 47. Pag. 17. In hoc Parliamento concessa suit Regi taxa insolita incolis tricabilis valde gravis Wals nec servarentur ejus Evidentiae in Thesauria Regia Ibid. Polid. Virgil. Sunorum crebris conjurationibus vexatus Jan. 7. 1680. Pag. 18. Pag. 19. There were two Votes of the same nature passed in 1626 concerning Tonnage and Poundage Nalsons Preface to his Collections pag. 60. Pag. 19. Pag. 19. Pag. 20. ☞ ☜ ☜ Pag. 20. Cokes Instit part 2. p. 44. ☞ ☜ ☜ 27 â— 8. 31 â— â— c. 13. 32. H. 8. c. 14. 27 H. 8. c 24. Pag. 20. Ibid. Pag. 21. Pag. 21. Ibid. Pag. 22. Pag. 22. Pag. 22. Pag. 22. Pag. 22. Pag. 22. Pag. 22. Pag. 23. Pag. 23. Pag. 23. Pag. 23. * Suppose that the Church of England were disarmed of all those Laws by which she is guarded and would not this turn a National Church into nothing else but a Tolerated Sect or Party Would it not take away all appearance of Establishment from it Lord Chancellors Speech April 13. 75. Would this Unite us in one Affection Pag. 24. Pag. 24. Ibid. Pag. 25. Pag. 25. Pag. 11 20. Pag. 26. The gracious Speech there made and the gracious Declaration that followed are so much of a piece that we may justly conclude the same persons to have been the Authors of both Pag. 27. of this Book Pag. 27. Pag. 6. Pag. 27. Proceedings of the four last Parl. Pag. 32. Viide p. 178. ☜ Pag. 27. Feb. 24. 1592. 35 Eliz. Prerogative of Parliaments Pag. 56. Feb. 28. 1592. And accordingly in this Session of Parliament was the sharp Statute made against the Dissenters which was designed to have been repealed when the Bill of Repeal was lost in the House of Lords Pag. 27. Pag. 28. Pag. 28. Ibid. Pag. 28. Pag. 29. The Lord Chancellor told the Parliament May 1â— 1662. that they had well provided for the Crown by the Bill of the Milâ—â—â—â— and the Act for the Additional Revenue to their high Commendationâ— How â—â—owaâ—d and indisposed soever many are at present who 〈◊〉 such obstructions laid in their way to Mutiny and Sedition use all the Artifiâ—e they can to persuade the people that yoâ— have not been soiretou enough for their Liberty nor 〈◊〉 enough for their proâ—â—â— and 〈◊〉 labour to 〈◊〉 their reverence towards you which sure was 〈◊〉 more due to any Parliament Pag. 30. The continuation of the History of England by John Trussel Pag. 31. Pag. 31. Address of Decemb. 21. 1680. Pag. 32. Pag. 33. Pag. 34. In plain English there must be a Change we must neither have Popish Wife nor Popish Favourite nor Popish Mistris nor Popish Counsellor at Court nor any new Convert We want a Government and a Prince that we may trust c. A Speech of a Noble Peer of the Realm Pag. 35. Pag. 35. Oatos tells us these were the Protesting Lords and the Leading men in the House of Commons Trial pag. 28. Trial pag. 21. Pag. 35. Pag. 24. Feb. 27. Said Colledge If you do not joyn with Fitz-Harris and charge the King home you are the basest fellow in the world c. Colledge Trial. pag. 30. Pag. 36. Pag. 36. Ibid. Pag. 36 37 38 39. Pag. 40. Pag. 41. * 〈…〉 the Third 's time they put down the Purveyor of the Meat for the maintenance 〈…〉 House as if the King had been a Bankrupt and gave order that without ready Money he shâ—â—â— not take up a Chicken Prerogative of Parliaments p. 15. Pag. 41. Trial p 54. Pag. 41. Pag. 42. Ibid. Pag. 42. Pag. 43. Ibid. Ibid. Pag. 44. There hath not been a Week since Venners rising in which there have not been Combinations and Conspiracies formed against his Majesties Person and against the Peace of the Kingdom c. Lord Chancellors Speech May 8. 1661. Pag. 6. Pag. 44. Tacitus in the end of the Reign of Augustus saith Senes plerique inter Bella Civium nati quotusquisque reliquâ—s qui Rempub. vidisset igitur versus Civitatis status nihil usquam prisâ—i integri moris Omnis exuta aequalitate jussa Principis aspectare H. lib. 1. In which passage Monarchy is opposed to the ancient Liberty or Commonwealth Pag. 45. See the Preface to the first part of the Addreâ—s to the Freemen c. Pag. 19. Pag. 22. Pag. 45. Pag. 46. Declaration Debates p. 19 1. Pag. 46. Address to the Freemen p 39. part 2. * Speech to the Parliament Feb. 5. 1672. Pag. 35. Pag 6. Ibid. Pag. 47. 17 Car. 2. C. 1. Pag. 5. Pag. 43 44 Pag. 47. Ibid. Colledges Trial p. 18. 25. Pag. 48. Pag. 48. Ibid. Redde Reverentiam Praelato Obedientiam quarum altera Cordis altera Corporis est Nec enim sufficit exterius obtemperare majoribus nostris nisi ex intimo Cordis Affectu sublimiter sentiamus de tis S. Bernard Serm. 3. de Advent This internal reverence due to the Sacred Majesty of our Kings above all other Superiours whatsoever is that which we express by the word Loyalty Conclusion Religion Loyalty Laws The Republicans are eveâ—y day calling in the Aid of the Law that they may overthrow the Law which they know to be their irreconcilable enemy Lord Chancellors Speech May 19. 1662. Monarchy Popery Oaths Clergy Conversation Ministers C'est à un Prine à regler leâ— Courtisans dautant qu'on lâ—â— impute tous leurs disorders qu' on presume quand â—ls en 〈◊〉 que c'est luy mesme qui les commet garcâ— qu'il est oblige dâ— les empescher Judges and Magistrates Gentry Liberty and Property Books Fears and Jealousies Plot. Priviledge
parcel of Mercenary Pensioners he in the next place falls foul upon the Clergy for publishing this Declaration like an Excommunication in all Churches But if they the Ministers erred in the things they judged rightly in the choice of the persons who were to publish it Blind Obedience was requisite where such unjustifiable things were imposed and that could be no where so intire as amongst those Clergy-men whose preferment depended upon it Yes without doubt ten thousand Clergy-men did expect to be preferred presently for this piece of blind Obedience Yet he is at it again in the next page a Set of Presbyterian Clergy would not have been so tame Well but this would not have done tho If the Paper which was to be read in the Desk had not been so suitable to the Doctrine which some of them had often declared in the Pulpit Then it did not go against their Consciences It did not become them to inquire whether they had sufficient Authority for what they did since the Printer calls it the Kings Declaration No Where or of whom should they have enquired And it being Printed by the Kings Printer with his Majesties Royal Arms before it and sent them by their Ordinaries the Bishops they had no reason to question whether it were the Kings or no. And there was as little reason that they should concern themselves Whether they might not one day be called to an account for publishing it They had reason to trust that his Majesty who commanded them to do it would protect them in their blind Obedience And as for his Law-Quirks whether what his Majesty singly Ordered when he sate in Council and came forth without the Stamp of the Great Seal gave them a sufficient warrant to read in publickly These things never entered into their heads Well but Sir tho those same Clergy-men driven on by Ambition might act in this without fear or shame and think as little of a Parliament as the Court Favourites who took care to dissolve that at Oxford before they durst tell us the faults of that at Westminister Tho it might be so as you say yet the Shoal of Addressors that came in to thank his Majesty for that Declaration they had more light and Sir if you be resolved to call all these Ministers all these Clergy-men all these Addressors to an account in the next Parliament pray for cold weather and long days and another Parliament that may sit for ever if it please or you may happen to want time to go through with so pious and good a work But Sir tho the Ministers durst not discover the faults of the Westminster Parliament till they had taken care to dissolve that Oxford his Majesty in his Speech there did Which he began thus The unwarrantable proceedings of the last House of Commons were the occasion of my parting with the last Parliament For I who will never use Arbitrary Government my self am resolved not to suffer it in others I am unwilling to mention particulars because I am desirous to forget faults c. So that you may see if you please that the Oxford Parliament was told in general the faults of that which preceded in order to their avoiding them if they could have made that good use of his Majesties Advice which will render them the less excusable to all the world So now we come to that Parliament at Oxford which saith the Declaration was assembled as soon as that was dissolved and saith my Author might have added Dissolved as soon as Assembled the Ministers having imployed the People forty days in chusing Knights and Burgesses to be sent home in Right with a Declaration after them as if they had been called together only to be affronted As to the People if their Knights and Burgesses came back sooner than they expected they had reason to thank themselves who had twice before sent up the same men and as you observed before the people do not change suddenly so neither doth the Court but doth as certainly send back a Parliament that will not be governed as the People send them And the People were overjoyed too to see them again for when they went out they had told them they never expected to come back again So that so speedy and safe a return was as welcome to them that sent them as could be imagined As for the Knights and Burgesses themselves they had fair warning given them by his Majesty before-hand and if they would affront either Him or the Upper House they did it at their apperil and it was well they scaped so well as to be sent home with a Declaration after them My Author acknowledgeth that his Majesty failed not to give good Advice unto them who were called together to Advise him And so many I might say all our former Princes have done before his Majesty and commanded them too not to meddle with such and such things yea and punished private Members sometimes for doing otherwise The Lord Keeper in the 35 year of Queen Elizabeths Reign spoke thus to the Commons It is her Majesties pleasure the time be not spent in devising and enacting new Laws the number of which are so great already that it rather burtheneth than easeth the Subject c. And whereas heretofore it hath been used that many have delighted themselves in long Orations full of Verbosity and vain Ostentations more than in speaking things of substance the time that is precious would not be thus spent And in the same Parliament the Lord Keeper upon the usual demands by the New Speaker said thus To your three demands the Queen answereth Liberty of Speech is granted you c. but you must know what priviledge you have not to speak every one what he listeth or what cometh in his brain to utter but your priviledge is to say Yea or No. Wherefore Mr. Speaker her Majesties pleasure is that if you perceive any Idle Heads which will not stick to hazard their own Estates which will meddle with Reforming of the Church and transforming of the Commonwealth and do exhibit any Bills to that purpose that you receive them not until they be viewed and considered of by those whom it is fitter should consider of such things and can better judge of them To your persons all priviledge is granted with this Caveat that under colour of this Priviledge no mans ill doings or not performing of Duties be covered and protected The last free Access is also granted to her Majesties Person so that it be upon urgent and weighty causes and at times convenient and when her Majesty may be at leisure from other important causes of the Realm Now let what his Majesty said at Oxford be compared with this and let any man tell me whether the Parliament deserved any commendation from my Author for their having so much respect to the King as not particularly to complain of the great invasion that was made
upon their Liberty of Proposing and Debating Laws by his telling them before-hand what things they should meddle with and what things no reason they could offer should persuade him to consent unto In that very Parliament I have mentioned Mr. Peter Wentworth and Sir Henry Bromley delivered a Petition unto the Lord Keeper therein desiring the Lords of the Vpper House to be suppliants with them of the Lower House unto her Majesty for entailing the Succession to the Crown whereof a Bill was already drawn Her Majesty was highly displeased therewith after she knew it as a matter contrary to her former streight Commandment and charged the Council to call the Parties before them Sir Thomas Henage presently sent for them and after speech with them commanded them to forbear coming to the Parliament and not to go out from their Lodgings The next day being Sunday Mr. Peter Wentworth was sent prisoner to the Tower Sir Henry Bromley one Mr. Richard Stephens and Mr. Welch the other Knight for Worcestershire were sent to the Fleet. And Sir Walter Rauleigh tells us Wentworth died in the Tower tho this Motion was but supposed dangerous to the Queens Estate Yet here was no express Command against it but only a general Command which I have recited neither doth it appear that any disherison of any right Heir to the Crown was intended And in this very Parliament one Mr. Morris Attourney of the Court of Wards bringing in a Bill against the abuses of the Bishops as he pretended in Lawless Inquisitions injurious Subscriptions and binding Absolution he was the next day sent for to Court and committed unto Sir John Fortescues Keeping And upon both these the Queen sent this Message to the House by their Speaker It is in me and my power to call Parliaments and it is in my power to end and determine the same it is in my power to Assent or Dissent to any thing done in Parliament The Calling of this Parliament was only that the Majesty of God might be more religiously served and those that neglected this Service might be compelled by some sharper means to a more due Obedience and a more true service of God than there hath been hitherto used And further that the safety of her Majesties Person and of this Realm might be by all means provided for against our great Enemies the Pope and the King of Spain Her Majesties most excellent pleasure being then delivered unto us by the Lord Keeper it was not meant we should meddle with Matters of State or in Causes Ecclesiastical for so her Majesty termed them she wondered that any would be of so high Commandment to attempt I use her own words a thing contrary to that which she had so expresly forbidden wherefore with this she was highly displeased And in all her Reign after durst no man attempt to meddle with either of these things Now I have taken the pains to transcribe all this out of the transactions of her Reign rather than of any other because she was never accused of affecting Arbitrary Government or Popery but was beloved of all her Subjects whilst she lived and her Memory is and ever will be had in honour by all English men and she ought to be a pattern for all her Successors And now let us hear our modest Vindicator But every man must be moved to hear it charged upon them as an unpardonable disobedience that they did not obsequiously sub mit to that irregular command of not touching on the business of the Succession Shall two or three unknown Minions take upon them like the Lords of the Articles of Scotland to prescribe unto an English Parliament what things they shall treat of Do they intend to have Parliaments inter instrumenta servitutis as the Romans had Kings in our Country This would quickly be if what was then attempted had succeeded and should be so pursued hereafter that Parliaments should be directed what they are to meddle with and threatned if they do any other thing For the loss of Liberty of freedom of Debate in Parliament will soon and certainly be followed by a general loss of Liberty This is the right temper and Spirit of a good Common-wealth man thus did your Fathers talk in the days of his Majesties Father till Priviledge of Parliament had eat up all the Prerogatives of the Crown and the Liberties of the Subjects and delivered us over to slavery poverty and confusion so that the Tyrannical Arbitrary bloudy Government of Oliver Cromwel was thought a blessing to the Nation in comparison of these Parliamentary Instruments of slavery and their Legions which I hope this Generation will so well remember as never to set it up or suffer it to be set up more in my days My Author having told us in the next place That the King ought to divest himself of all private inclinations and force his own affections to yield unto the Publick Concernments and therefore his Parliaments ought to inform him impartially of that which tends to the good of those they represent without regard of personal passions and might worthily be blamed if they did not believe that he would forgo them all for the safety of his People Concludes That therefore if in it self it was lawful to propose a Bill for Excluding the Duke of York from the Crown the doing it after such an unwarrantable signification of his pleasure would not make it otherwise To which I reply that Parliaments as Subjects are more bound to comply with the natural and reasonable Affections and Passions of their Princes than Princes are in the same Circumstances with those of their Subjects And that in this case his Majesties own Personal safety and interest was wrapt up in that of his Brother for if he might be Excluded another might be Deposed on the same pretence as Coleman said truly enough And tho it should be granted that Parliaments ought to inform Princes yet it is certain they ought not to force them they had informed the King in the two former Parliaments what they thought of this Affair and his Majesty had rejected their Advice and in the beginning of this Parliament at Oxford had told them That what he had formerly and so often declared touching the Succession he could not depart from And after all this for them to enter again upon it in the very first place looked like an intended force And then tho the thing were lawful in it self it may be thought unreasonable thus to pursue it and Queen Elizabeth would have made them have felt the Effects of her resentment for presuming to be of so high Commandment if she had been in his Majesties place In the next place we are told his Majesties unusual stiffness upon this occasion begins to be suspected not to proceed from fondness to his Brother much less from any thoughts of danger to the English Monarchy by such a Law but from the influence of some few