Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
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A88839
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The Jacobite principles vindicated in answer to a letter sent to the author. Dedicated to the Queen of England.
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Lawton, Charlwood, 1660-1721.
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1693
(1693)
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Wing L739C; ESTC R215013
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27,077
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30
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pity'd but no Man will in all probability be able to help them How Universal and Catholick soever their Religion may be in other places I am sure they are Fanaticks in England under a Civil Consideration and therefore that they have all the reason in the World to be State-Whigs and as such only will ever be impartially used by us I think nothing that I have said has depretiated the Doctrine of Passive-Obedience I do not pretend to determine who is in the Right in that Controversie much less to handle it as a Religious One But give me leave to tell an admirable Story concerning Dr. Colvil a great Man in the Kingdom of Scotland but one that was thought not to understand clearly the Principle of Non-Resistance The late Earl of Middleton having him once at Dinner asked him Whether there could be no Case in which Defensive Arms were Lawful The Doctor replied It was fit for the People to believe them unlawful and for Kings to believe them lawful It was an admitable Repartee upon a sudden Question But perhaps had he thought of it he would have said likewise That it is fit for the Ministers of Kings to believe them lawful too and I presume the present Earl of Middleton set down that additional Instruction to the Apothegm For tho' to the eternal shame of the Judges who now sit upon the King's Bench they violated our Laws in the continuance of his Imprisonment it must be allowed for his everlasting Honour that that Noble Lord was as cautious of making the Law the Limits of his Ministry as if it were lawful to rise up in Arms whenever the Laws were broken But I must Answer your Postscript wherein you tell me that you neither know how the King can be restored now the Prince of Orange is in possession nor what will become of the Prince of Orange if we should restore the King nor what Security we could have from any Conditions the King could make with us I Answer that if the Prince of Orange is not kept in possession by English men he may soon be brought to Reason and I do assure you that there are many Jacobites that desire rather to see the Prince of Orange return to his Station of Stadtholder again in Holland than wish him any personal Injury And as for the Security you require for any promised Conditions you must forgive me if I think you a little insincere if not trifling when you place so much Weight upon the Pope's giving King James an Absolution for any Promises he should make You might have said this artfully to the Mobb but you cannot suppose that I would believe you were in earnest though you make such a clutter with it I allow as you say that our Histories tell us of some Kings that were absolved by Popes but you know that Bulls Absolutions and the Pope's Excommunications were like to go farther with the Nation in Popish Times than they are like to do now And yet by your very instance of King Henry the Third you might be convinced that the People of England never would even then let a King be at rest till he had performed his Promises I will not write a long Confutation of a thing that I know cannot stick with you or any wise considering Man And besides I do not go about to perswade you to take up with a Constitution that will depend either upon a King's Temper or Religion Honour or Veracity Make a Government that is easie to all and it will be the Interest of all to preserve it But if you would do so you must bring the Right Line into it you must nicely preserve the Church of England as the National Church and yet you must remember that the Kngdom of Heaven is not of this World You must take care in your Civil Compacts that Priestcraft does not spoyl all at last You must take care even of a Protestant in Ordine ad Spiritualia and let the Tares and the Wheat grow up together But farther although you have such wild accounts concerning the Jacobites there are amongst those that serve King James Men that know what you are a doing that know you are looking far and near for a Deliverance that know how impotent you think the Prince of Orange is to Rule how that you depise him as much as the Nation misliked Richard Cremwel before the Restauration that know your extravagant Projects and more temperate Thoughts and yet have accounred for all things and will as things ripen find ways to give you satisfaction if any thing will We know that Maud the Empress even when King Stephen was a Prisoner and though her Title was indisputable and though the Nation was all Catholicks lost the Crown because she was refractory and haughty and denied to the Londoners Edward the Confessor's Laws And I assure you there will be Men that will lay before the King the Necessity and Wisdom of giving Satisfaction to all your Reasonable Demands If you do not ask too much Counter-security things unfit for an English King to grant there are Jacobites that will not only deliver but second your Petitions A Good and Settled Monarchy you may have and a Common-wealth is scarce practicable will be hazardous at present and cannot be lasting I know there are some amongst the Jacobites who are otherwise Men of great Honour and Worth and yet suspect every thing such as you promote is to make the King a Doge of Venice But there are others who have compared and taken in pieces and viewed in parts all the Models of Government who if you would rectifie and not change either the Name or Nature of ours will receive very kindly any thing you offer will instruct you how to make it palatable to the King and shew him how consistent it is both with his Honour and his Interest Let the manner be decent and your Propositions allow King James to have the Ballance that an English King should have and must necessarily have in our Constitution And I assure you many of the Jacobites know no other but such an English King to be our Supreme Head and Governour But after all if King James is called home by the Nation we need no other Security than a well-chosen Parliament The present Parliament may call him home when they please without any other Force but their own denial of Money And the King 's being of another Religion will in some measure check the effects of a Revolutionary Joy and prevent our Excesses And if sober and honest Men would in all Corporations instead of all other Projects instruct all the Populace That all those that drink upon their Members Cost hazard being Slaves for that Draught and that it is time seriously to take Care of Themselves and their Posterity by choosing Men of Virtue rather than the Favourites or the Factions of any Opinion whether they are Jure Divino or Original Contract men Men that are as well Loyal
great Difference between the Changing or Abolition of some particular Laws and altering Fundamentals And the greatest Assertors of Liberty must acknowledge that Prerogatives in Kings suitable to the Respective Constitution are necessary to maintain those Constitutions and to protect their Subjects and consequently that in all Pacts and Compositions their People make with them due care should be taken even by the People not to take from their Kings any essential Powers Prerogative like a River sometimes gains and sometimes decreases in its Banks but the Balk of the Community sails safest when it keeps its own Natural Channel according to the respective Constitutions Bacon that writes the Uniformity of the Government of England is certainly no over Monarchical Author yet he has this Expression in relation to King Stephen Too much Counter-security from the King to the People is like too many Covenants in Marriage that make room for Jealousy and are but Seeds of an unquiet Life After all it is certainly the Nature of English-men to delight in and they have been used to a Limited Explained and Hereditary Monarchy and Naturam licet expellas furca tamen ipsa recurrat will be found true in a Politick as well as a Natural Sense by all those who would change our Government into an Absolute Monarchy or Downright Democracy or that will interrupt the Succession The Lancastrian Usurpations and the Late Times witness this But perhaps some of these Jacobites you complain of may think to disgrace what I have said by calling these Notions Republican To these Gentlement I will first Answer That since we are so Elemented for a Common-wealth there is no keeping it out but by a Reformation of the Monarchy that may as apparently Answer all the Reasons why Government was first deposited in the Magistrates hands either by God or the People I will not dispute the Original of Government at this time but I will offer one thing to these Speculators to consider of which is That whilst they too much cajole Kings they lose their Interest with the People and mislead an English Monarch and make way for that Government both in Church and State which they would if they understood how oppose They help the Real Common-wealths men to Arguments and give the Presbyterians opportunity to insinuate and gain the Hearts of the People Perhaps were the People of England a Prima Materia I would be very well content that the Draughts of these superfine Projectors should be debated but I think Machiavel was as good a Politician as most of Them and yet he says If the Variations of Times are not observed and Laws and Customs altered accordingly much Mischief must follow And in another Place he affirms it a very had Thing to keep them in Servitude who are disposed to be Free And whoever has reflected upon the extravagant Courses we have taken to be so ever since the Beginning of the late Civil Wars cannot sure doubt of our Disposition For tho we have been mistaken in our Cures no body can be mistaken in our Propensity I am no Lord nor ever desire or hope for any Title I had rather serve my Country in the Lower than the Vpper-House and if my Country never thinks fit to send me to that neither I shall never Court much less Bribe for that Imployment from my Country for I would not be Bribed in it Yet considering how much the Power of the Lords has in some Reigns been a check to the Incroachment of Kings and in others to the hot-headedness of the People I should be willing to screw up the Aristocratical part of our Government though not to the heighth it sometimes has had in our Policy but the present Ferments of England make it impracticable And tho some Men are I am not for driving Nails that will not go when we may without breach of Conscience let that Work alone to a more clâ—aâ—â—sighted Age. Though I think our Oaths and the Original Contract of our Law Books bind us to restore the King yet I know no Obligation we lie under to restore Power to the Lords but as there shall appear both great Feasibility and Expediency I am not for hazarding much for bringing things exactly and minutely to my Platform It will be always enough for me if the Fundamentals of our Government are preserved A Trimmer in Politicks if it means one that would avoid Extremities and compose Things and not one that serves himself by all Times and Changes is a Name and Character that I shall always revere But to give these Gentlemen a farther Answer I must tell them that it is plain by undeniable Matter of Fact that to those Persons that ingaged in the Scotch Plot tho he had not tried his Fortune in Ireland nor could the Persons ingaged assure his Return even upon such Condescensions yet the King granted under the Broad Seal of that Kingdom a full Redress for all Grievances and that at the Request of People that had opposed him so that talking of Terms will be no harsh Language to him now he can want no farther Illumination by a longer Series of Misfortunes to let him see that Compliance with his People is his true and only Interest In a private Pamphlet and in a private Capacity it is not proper to state the Manner and Bounds of our Redresses But did ever People re-admit a King they had ejected upon the Male-administrations of his Ministers if they could any ways help it without making good Provisions Can any body imagine we expect the People of England should The Men of Sâ—nse and Quality and Estates amongst the Jacobites be they Protestants or Papists don't wish they should do it Would you have Tryals secured It is the Interest of all Parties care should be taken about them or all Parties will suffer in their turns Plunket and Sidney and Ashton were doubtless all Murdered tho they were never so guilty of the Crimes wherewith they were charged The one Tryed twice the other found guilty upon one Evidence and the last upon nothing but presumptive Proof Either let Prisoners have Counsel or the Judges be forced to be more impartially so than they were in any of these Cases and let Juries understand that only Allegata and Probata are to direct their Verdict and not Deadly Feuds Foreign Belief or State Necessity In Scotland at all Tryals the whole is taken down in Writing Word for Word as well all Probations as what is said both by the King's Advocate and the Pannel or Criminal and is all made a Record that After-times when the heat of the Prosecution is over may examine whether the Judge dealt impartially and if he did not and is alive at the review of those Proceedings if the Prisoner suffered Death by his warping the Law the Judge is to undergo the same Punishment and if he is dead the Heirs of the injur'd Person is to recover equal Damages to what they sustained in their