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A28563 The history of the desertion, or, An account of all the publick affairs in England, from the beginning of September 1688, to the twelfth of February following with an answer to a piece call'd The desertion discussed, in a letter to a country gentleman / by a person of quality. Bohun, Edmund, 1645-1699.; Collier, Jeremy, 1650-1726. Desertion discuss'd. 1689 (1689) Wing B3456; ESTC R18400 127,063 178

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their Arms to some of the Officers of the Ordnance who are to deposite the same in the Stores in the Tower of London And we do require and command all Justices of the Peace Constables and other Officers whom it may concern that they apprehend and seize all such Souldiers as shall not repair to their respective Bodies and that they be dealt with as Vagabonds Given at the Council-Chamber at Whitehall the Fourteenth of December 1688. Tho. Ebor. Hallisax Dorset Carlisle Craven Nottingham Rochester N. Duresme P. Winchester North and Grey J. Trever J. Titus It was but time to put out this Order for on Thursday morning the 13th of December about Three of the Clock there was a dreadful Alarm that the Irish in a desperate Rage were approaching the City putting Men Women and Children to the Sword as they came along whereupon the Citizens all rose placing Lights in their Windows from top to bottom and guarded every man his own Doors with his Musquet charged with Bullet and all the Trainbands in the City were assembled and there was nothing but shooting and beating of Drums all night This Alarm spread it self the whole length and breadth of the Kingdom of England and all that were able to bear Arms appeared at their several places vowing the Defence of their Lives Religion Laws and Liberties and resolving to destroy all the Irish and Papists in England in case any injury were offered them but then there were very few Papists slain in these Tumults and Frights but their Houses were generally rifled on pretence of searching for Arms and Ammunition The Lords after this sent the Lords Feversham Ailes bury Yarmouth and Middleton most humbly to entreat the King to return to Whitchall and ordered his Guards to go down to him to see him safe on board any Ship he should chuse if he persisted in his Resolution to go out of the Nation With them went the Servants of his Houshold to carry him Money and Cloaths all he had of the former being taken from him by the Seamen and his Cloaths rent and torn in the searching of him before he was known as he had in part signified in a Letter to the Lord Feversham Now considering the whole Nation in a manner had submitted to the Prince of Orange before the King was heard of after he had withdrawn himself it had perhaps been but reasonable to have suspended the inviting him back to Whitchall till they had received his Consent or at least asked it or had called a greater Assembly of the Peers than that day met The 12th day the four Lords sent by the Peers with four Aldermen and eight of the Common Council of London parted to wait upon the Prince of Orange with the Declaration signed by the Body of the Peers the day before at Guildhall The 15th the King removed to Rochester in order to his Return to London and some of his Troops of Guard went down thither to him And the next day being Sunday he returned about Five in the Evening to Whitchall attended by one Troop of Grenadiers and three Troops of Life Guard a Set of Boys following him through the City and making some Huzza's whilst the rest of the People silently looked on His Highness the Prince of Orange who was then at Windsor had sent Monsieur Zulestein to the King to desire him to continue at Rochester but he missing him the King came to Whitehall and from thence sent the Lord Feversham with a Letter to the Prince to Windsor to invite him to St. James's with what number of Troops he should think fit to bring with him he could now do no otherwise his own Army having been disbanded by his own order all the Forts in England except Portsmouth being in the Prince's hands and London and almost all the Peers in his absence having sent their Submission and inviting him to come forthwith to Town to take upon him the Care of the City This Letter being by the Prince referred to the Peers that were then at Windsor they concluded that the shortness of the time could admit no better Expedient than that the King might be desired to remove to some place within a reasonable distance from London and Ham a House belonging to the Dutchess of Landerdale was pitched upon and a Note or Paper to that purpose drawn up which was ordered to be delivered after the Prince's Guards were in Possession of the Posts about Whitchall WE desire you the Lord Marquiss of Hallifax the Earl of Shrewsbury and the Lord Delamere to tell the King That it is thought convenient for the great quiet of the City and the greater safety of his Person that he do remove to Ham where he shall be attended by his Guards who will be ready to preserve him from any disturbance Given at Windsor the Seventeenth of December 1688. W. Prince de Orange Monsieur Zulestein followed the King to London and there delivered his Letter and the Sixteenth returned to Windsor The Earl of Feversham went the same day with the Letter to the Prince which was mentioned above and was by him committed to the Castle of Windsor The King so soon as ever he came to Whitehall issued out this Order of Councill At the Court at Whitehall the Sixteenth day of December 1688. Present The King 's most Excellent Majesty Duke Hamilton Earl of Craven Earl of Berkley Earl of Middleton Lord Viscount Preston Lord Godolphin Master of the Rolls Mr. Titus HIS Majesty being given to understand That divers Outrages and Disorders are committed in several Parts of the Kingdom by Burning Pulling-down and otherwise defacing Houses and other Buildings and Rifling and Plundering the same to the great terror of His Majesty's Subjects and manifest Breach of the Peace His Majesty in Council is pleased to Direct and Command all Lord Lieutenants Deputy Lieutenants Justices of the Peace Mayors Constables and all other Officers whom it may concern to use their utmost endeavours for the preventing of such Outrages and Disorders for the future and for the suppressing all riotous and tumultous Meetings and Assemblies whatsoever William Bridgeman There having been sufficient care taken for this by the Council before it was not consistent with his Interest thus to shew his Zeal for the Popish Party in the very first Act he did upon his return as if he had come back only to serve them During the time the King stay'd at Whitehall it was crowded with Irishmen Priests Jesuits and Roman Catholicks afrer the old wont and it is said one of the Priests sent an imperious Message to the Earl of Mulgrave the Lord Chamberlain to furnish his Lodgings with new Furniture for he meant to continue in them And the King also as was said discharged Leiburn a Popish Bishop out of Newgate on Monday the Seventeenth of December So that all things were returning apparently into the old Chanel and we were to expect nothing but what we had already seen and felt and
Grievances which the Majority of the three Estates should have judged necessary to be redress'd would have signified as little so that whatever the difficulties or distrusts of the King were at that time he saw he must yield the point after he had strugled as long as was possible and now when he had now passed his Word it was too late to revoke it and therefore there was that necessity added to the other of holding one Now Sr. if we had yielded this point there had been an End of the English Liberties for ever If he had yielded it what inconvenience could have followed which did not certainly attend his Desertion of us but if he had stayed he might in all probability have saved his main Stake and have regained the Affections of his people again and so have ended his Days in Honour and Peace in his own Palace and amongst his good Subjects At least there was so great a probability of all this that no man but he would have taken the other way Nor he neither if he had suffered this Question to have been debated in his Privy Council and had heard what all sides could have said for it Sect. 21. He tells us this expedient the appointing of a representative was not absolutely necessary for the Administration of Justice might have proceeded regularly without any such Deputation by virtue of those Commissions which the Judges and Justices of the Peace had already from the King. So that here was no need of Seals or Commissioners tho the Nation was imbroiled to that heigth that no body durst have undertaken this dangerous Charge as he tells us the Section before and the King was gone Thus men loose themselves when they meddle with what they do not understand The Tumults which arose that very day in London and spread themselves with the news of the Kings withdrawing all over the Nation do sufficiently confute this airy Notion And at this time both the Judges and Justices of the Peace were at almost as Low an Ebb of Authority and Credit with the People as their Master by reason of the many unqualified men which had been imployed and the things they had done contrary to Law he could not but know how the late Lord Chancellor Sir Roger Lestrange and many others were treated by the People and yet he tells us the Administration of Justice might have proceeded regularly yes we might have lived without any King Magistrates or Execution of Justice at all if all men would have been quiet and minded their own business Section 22 We have a whimsey of a Journey of Charles the first into Scotland and that five Lords were appointed by him to sign bills in his Name but the Judges and Justices acted by virtue of their former Commissions without any new Authority from these Representatives of his Majesty Now to what end is all this why to prove that Commissions will hold tho the King is absent Who ever doubted this for without this had been allowed he could have had no representative But I thought he would have given us an instance of a King that had Stole out of his Kingdom and had left no body to have supplied his place which Charles I. did and yet after he was gone no body knew whether to return no body knew when his people had been Governed by his Judges and Justices of the Peace and then this should have been an Example for England Henry the 3d. of France was first King of Poland and hearing of his brothers Death stole away without Leaving any Deputy But then the Kingdom of Poland call'd a Dyet and Judged it an Abdication and proceeded to the Election of a New King as if he had been Dead The Instances of this nature must be very rare but who ever heard of a Prince that withdrew himself from his people or was forced away and yet no body was put in his place Certainly James the 2d foresaw what would follow and in some sort consented to it rather than to the setting of a Parliament § 26. He undertakes to prove in the last place that we have no Grounds either from the Laws of the Realm or from those of Nature to pronounce the Throne void upon such a retreat of a Prince as we have before us This is bold and very peremptory considering there had then a Vote passed for it in the Lower house of the Convention And that this Gentleman is a Clergy-man and knows very little of the Laws of England There is said he no Statute so much as pretended to support this Deserting Doctrine he might have better called it this right of providing for our selves when we had no body to take care off us There is no Statute to enable us to meet and chose a new King if the whole Royal Line should happen to be extinct yet this may very probably happen at one time or another What shall we therefore continue in a State of Anarchy for ever Neither has it any foundation in common Law For common Law is nothing but Ancient usage and Immemorial Custom Now Custom Supposeth Precedents and Parallel Cases But it is granted on all hands that the Crown of England was never judged to be demised by the withdrawing of the Prince before Such a withdrawing as this I believe never happened in England before nor ever will again and it is Stupendioutly wonderful that it happened now There was nothing asked of the King but what he ought to have granted freely viz the calling of a Free and Lawful Parliament which he said he was resolved to have had tho the Prince had not entered England and so soon as he was retired he would hold such a Parliament then he came further and promised to hold a Parliament the 15th of January and sent thee Noble-men to the Prince to adjust the Preliminaries who had as good an Answer as they could expect but before it was possible the late King should know what it would be whilest all men rested secure under the Expectation of that meeting The King for Reasons wholly unknown to us burns the Writs sends away the Seals withdraws himself and disbands his Army Now if he can find a case Parallel to this in the History of the whole world Erit mihi Magnus Apollo Nay saith he our Laws are not only silent in the maintenance of this Paradox but against it as I shall make good by two Instances The first of these is that of Edward the Fourth who was forced to fly without leaving any representative yet returned and regained the Crown King Edward was surprized under pretence of a Treaty and sent Prisoner to Warwick Castle and made his escape out of Custody after this Henry the Sixth was again Crowned and Edward the Fourth declared a Traytor in Parliament and an Usurper of the Crown and all his Estate confiscated and the like Judgment passed against all his Adherents and all the Statutes made by him were revoked
suspected of Sincerity when they act contrary to their Interests and tho' my dutiful Behaviour to your Majesty in the worst of Times for which I acknowledge my poor Services much overpay'd may not be sufficient to incline you to a charitable Interpretation of my Actions yet I hope the great advantage I enjoy under your Majesty which I can never expect in any other change of Government may reasonably convince your Majesty and the World that I am acted by an higher Principle when I offer that Violence to my Inclination and Interest as to desert your Majesty at a time when your Affairs seem to challenge the strictest Obedience from all your Subjects much more from one who lies under the greatest personal Obligations imaginable to your Majesty This Sir could proceed from nothing but the inviolable Dictates of my Conscience and a necessary Concern for my Religion which no good man can oppose and with which I am instructed nothing ought to come in competition Heaven knows with what Partiality my dutiful Opinion of your Majesty hath hitherto represented those unhappy Designs which inconsiderate and self-interested men have framed against your Majesty's true Interest and the Protestant Religion But as I can no longer join with such to give a pretence by Conquest to bring them to effect so I will alwaies with the hazard of my Life and Fortune so much your Majesty's due endeavour to preserve your Royal Person and Lawful Rights with all the tender Concern and dutiful Respect that becomes SIR Your Majesty's Most dutiful and most obliged Subject and Servant The going off of these Great Men struck the King himself with Terror and Affliction and the Army which was before in very much disorder became thereby so full of Fear and Suspicion that a false Alarm being made by design or accident on Sunday the 25th of November the King and the whole Army left Salisbury the Army retreating to Reading and the King to Andover and on Monday the 26th of November returned in the Evening to London The Princess Ann of Denmark his second Daughter was gone privately the night before from Whitehall with the Lady Churchil and if she had not left a Letter too behind her which shew'd the reason of her retiring in all probability all the Popish Party about Whitehall had been cut in pieces by the King 's own Guards upon a surmise they had made away this beloved Princess So that they were forced to print her Letter to the Queen to secure them selves from Violence The first thing the King did after his return to London was to remove Sir Edward Hales from being Lieutenant of the Tower and to put Sir Bevil Skelton a Protestant in his place Sir Edward had angered the whole City to the utmost by planting several Mortar pieces on the Walls towards the City which tho' designed only to awe it had enraged more than frighted them So that His Majesty saw he was not safe at Whitehall as long as Sir Edward was Master of the Tower. The 28th day His Majesty ordered in a Privy-Council the Lord Chancellor to issue out Writs for the Sitting of a Parliament at Westminster the 15th day of January following But it was now too late and the Nation was in that Ferment that it was not much regarded what the Court did or said The 30th day of November the King to appease the Minds of the People issued out this Proclamation WEE have thought fit as the best and most proper means to Establish a lasting Peace in this our Kingdom to call a Parliament and have therefore ordered our Chancellor to cause Writs to be issued forth for summoning a Parliament to meet at Westminster upon the Fifteenth day of January next ensuing the Date of this our Royal Proclamation And that nothing may be wanting on our part towards the Freedom of Elections as we have already restored all Cities Towns Corporate and Burroughs throughout our Kingdom to their ancient Charters Rights and Priviledges so we command and require all Persons whatsoever that they presume not by Menace or any other undue means to influence Elections or procure the Vote of any Elector And we do also strictly require and command all Sheriffs Mayors Bailiffs and other Officers to whom the Execution or Return of any Writ Summons Warrant or Precept for Members to the ensuing Parliament shall belong that they cause such Writ Summons Warrant or Precept to be duly published and executed and Returns thereupon fairly made according to the true merits of such Elections And for the Security of all Persons both in their Elections and Service in Parliament we do hereby publish and declare That all our Subjects shall have free Liberty to elect and all our Peers and such as shall be elected Members of our House of Commons shall have free Liberty and Freedom to serve and sit in Parliament notwithstanding they have taken Arms or committed any act of Hostility or been any way aiding or assisting therein And for the better assurance hereof We have graciously directed a general Pardon to our Subjects to be forthwith prepared to pass our Great Seal And for the reconciling all publick Breaches and obliterating the very Memory of all past Miscarriages We do hereby exhort and kindly admonish all our Subjects to dispose themselves to elect such persons for their Representatives in Parliament as may not be byassed by Prejudice or Passion but qualify'd with Parts Experience and Prudence proper for this Conjuncture and agreeable to the ends and purposes of this our Gracious Proclamation month December The Account of this Resolution going to the Fleot all the Officers and the Admirals drew up this Address To the KING' 's Most Excellent Majesty The Humble Address of George Lord Dartmouth Admiral of your Majesty's Fleet for the present Expedition and the Commanders of your Majesty's Ships of War now actually at the Spithead in your Majesty's Service under his Lordship's Command Most Dread Soveraign THE deep Sense we have had of the great Dangers your Majesty's Sacred Person has been in and the great effusion of Christian Blood that threatned this your Majesty's Kingdoms and in all probability would have been shed unless God of His infinite Mercy had put it into your Majesty's Heart to call a Parliament the only means in our Opinions under the Almighty left to quiet the Minds of your People we do give your Majesty our most humble and hearty Thanks for your gracious Condescension beseeching Almighty God to give your Majesty all imaginable Happiness and Prosperity and to grant that such Counsels and Resolutions may be promoted as conduce to your Majesty's Honour and Safety and tend to the Peace and Settlement of this Realm both in Church and State according to the established Laws of the Kingdom On board the Resolution at Spithead Decemb. 1. 1688. Signed Dartmouth Berkley Ro. Strickland And under them by 38. other Commanders In the week following the pretended Prince of Wales