Selected quad for the lemma: parliament_n
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A59451
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Some reflections upon the pretended parallel in the play called, The Duke of Guise : in a letter to a friend.
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Shadwell, Thomas, 1642?-1692.
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1683
(1683)
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Wing S2873; ESTC R22792
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13,559
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32
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SOME REFLECTIONS UPON THE Pretended PARALLEL IN THE PLAY CALLED The Duke of Guise In a Letter to a Friend London Printed for Francis Smith sen. 1683. SIR ACcording to your Commands I went several times to see the so long expected and so much talk'd of Play called the Duke of Guise in order to give you my Opinion of it and thô I was very much wearied with the dulness of it and extreamly incensed at the wicked and barbarous Design it was intended for yet the obedience to your Commands made me throughly observe it even to every Line And certainly never was Mountain delivered of such a Mouse nor was ever the Expectation of the People more deceived insomuch that even the fiercest Tories notwithstanding the violence of their Humours and the rashness and insolence of their present Tempers have been ashamed to defend this Piece Yet there are few Follies and Villanies that seem to contribute to their Wicked Ends which they will not publickly and most audaciously vindicate They will assert the lawfulness of using Force upon Elections that have been heretofore always free and ever ought to be so They will justify the carrying those Elections by the Minority or by bringing in False and excluding True Electors They will encourage Men to the resigning of Franchises and Priviledges which they swear when they are admitted into to defend and maintain making their Loyalty as they falsly call it to be founded upon Perjury and Treachery in betraying the Rights of present Freemen and their Posterity They will accuse the Wisest Richest most conscientious Iuries for not finding Bills upon the Testimony of Profligate and Perjur'd Rascals whom they themselves believe not and applaud their Juries for giving most prodigious and unheard of Damages where no Damages were sustained They would promote and defend the imposing of the most xorbitant and unpresidented Fines such as would make the Star-Chamber in vain abolished Yet still they who have any sparks of Wit amongst them are so true to their Pleasure that they will not suffer Dulness to pass upon them for Wit nor Tediousness for Diversion which is the Reason that this Piece has not met with the expected Applause And truly if I may be allowed to Judge as Men that do not Poetise may be Judges of Wit Humane Nature and Common Decences I never saw any thing that could be called a Play more deficient in Wit good Characters or Entertainment than this is This Play at first as I am inform'd by some who have a nearer communication with the Poets and Players than I have was written by another intending to expose that unparallel'd Villany of the Papists in the most horrid Parisian Massacre And Bayes himself as I am also told expressed then an intention of writing the Story of the Sicilian Vespers to lay open the treacherous inhumane bloody Principles of the Disciples of that Scarlet Whore But he is since fallen from all Modesty and common Sense and is not content with his own devil-like Fall but like old Satan he tempts his Friend poisons and perverts his good Intentions and by his wicked Management of the Play turns it from the honest Aim of the first Author to so diabolical an End as methinks it should make a Civil Government blush to suffer it or not to put the highest mark of Infamy upon it But 't is observable though this could not be acted as it was first writtent against the Papists yet when it was turn'd upon Protestants it found Reception I cannot believe the first Author of himself guilty of such evil Intentions because I have heard better things of him but the old Serpent Bays has deluded him as he would have done of the Reputation if any had been gotten by it for so as I am told he did endeavour to do in Discourse with all his own Friends when he joyn'd with him in Oedipus which deserved Applause and since he hath found that this hath gotten little or no Esteem in the Town he renounces all he can of it and endeavours to cast the greatest Odium upon his Partner But Reproaches are thrown away upon this Wretch who is hardned in his Folly and Wickedness as much as any Irish Witness therefore I shall as little as I can touch him hereafter But at present I shall fall upon the Consideration of this Parallel as he impudently calls it in his Prologue as I take it and it is publickly known he intended to have had it acted by that Name before it was forbidden to be acted by the Lord Chamberlain's Order And 't is not enough when he meets some of his old Acquaintance whom he knows to be of an Opinion which he once profess'd to be of and much different from what he now pretends that he thinks as they do still but he must write as he does he is put upon it c. For certainly most exemplary Punishment is due to him for this most devilish Parallel and methinks Magistrates that respect their Oaths and Office should put the Law in Execution against this lewd Scribler First I shall consider in his pretended Parallel the City of Paris in the time of Hen. 3. of France the most tumultuous seditious rebellious City flesh'd in Murthers and Massacres Destruction of Protestants Root and Branch a City which with their Barricades approach'd their King in his Palace cut the Throats of his Guards in the Town and terrified him into Flight from amongst them and when they had him out they kept him out turn'd out all his Friends or abused or imprisoned them rifled their Houses and committed innumerable Outrages nay forced a part of the Parliament of Paris to sit and made the President sign what they pleased and named Officers themselves as the King's Advocates c. which you may see in a Deposition of Brison the Primier President signed before two Notaries in a Book called Le Iournal de Regne de H. 3. p. 145. in short they renounced him for their King and were absolved by the Clergy from their Obedience to him And that City at that time would he make a Parallel to the City of London in this King's Reign whom God long preserve to this City that was so mainly instrumental in his happy Restauration which has been his Bank ever since when he has needed it which has not suffered so much as a Riot to pass unpunished during his Government the Behaviour of whose Citizens has been peacable to one another and loyal to his Majesty And even since these unhappy Divisions when the Majority as the Polls they have published inform us thinking themselves in the highest and dearest Priviledg the choice of those who should govern them injur'd by the Court of Aldermen yet make use of no other Weapons than Petitions and those not satisfactorily answered fly to the King's Iustice alone in his own Courts of Law for a Redress And when arm'd Men were brought into Guild-Hall and some of the Aldermen haled more
like Dogs than Magistrates when they if they would could have torn those pragmatical insolent Officers to pieces yet they bore it with Patience tho an unpresidented Violence Nay when their much beloved and Reverenced Sheriffs in the greatest height of Fermentation in the City at a time when they thought they had most important Use of them were carried through the whole City with not above four to guard them without any Repulse or least sign of Scorn or Affront offered to that slender Guard and so delivered to the Tower shall this loyal peaceable Protestant City be a Parallel with that seditious head-strong rebellious popish one Shall they who make use of nothing but the Law for their Relief be called rebellious by a loose and infamous Scribler But the Eschevins who were Rebels must be compar'd to our Loyal Sheriffs and must be abnsed and kick'd about the Stage by Bully Grillon for he has made him no better who durst as well have flung himself to fasting Lions as have done that in Paris These Eschevins must be call'd Packers of Juries too by this ignorant Fellow who it seems does not know that Juries were not used in Paris no more than he and his Party would have them here but this was to have a fling at our Sheriffs of the two last Years whom this Party accuse of that Crime with most horrible Injustice For who amongst them can complain of being undone during their time by any of their Juries or indeed can give an Instance of one hard Verdict But says Bays the King cannot have Justice against Rebels What! cannot the King have Justice because a wise Grand-Jury sworn without Favour or Affection c. to present Truth according to the best of their Knowledg would not believe Men whom most of them knew had been perjur'd or were too infamous to be allowed for credible Witnesses and in an improbable Matter too Can any Man in his right Wits think the E. of S. who has somewhat more Wit I dare sware than any Tory has would trust such Villains with ten thousand Pounds a Year his Life Honour Posterity and Reputation whom the filliest Tory would not trust with 10 l. and besides there could be no Security of Concealment given by them who whilst they were Papists had violated all the Sanctions of Secrecy which that cursed Religion authorises And if they be since turn'd Protestants as let who will believe so for me they must know that our Religion allows no such Obligation but on the contrary makes it every Man's Duty on the Peril of Damnation to discover all treasonable Conspiracies he shall come to the Knowledg of Besides upon Examination they were inconsistent with themselves and contradictory to one another as plainly appears by the Paper published by Authority Upon what ground then is this Clamour against Ignoramus Iuries Has not the King as much Justice when the Innocent are acquitted as when the Guilty are condemned Sure the Acquittal of Innocence is much the more glorious part of his Justice The next thing I shall consider is this Mercenary Varlet 's intended Abuse of our House of Commons the most August Assembly of Eurrope chosen by the Suffrage of every one who has any considerable Inheritance or Interest in England which I believe the Poet and most of his Party have not And the most important Affair of the Succession must by the parallel of this impious Libeller be canvas'd upon the Stage Was ever such Licence conniv'd at in any Scribler yet that the Succession so solemn a Matter that it is not fit to be debated of but in Parliament and the Alteration of which is only in the Power of King Lords and Commons and by the way to affirm the contrary to this is a Praemunire by the 13 of Eliz. cap. 1. should be profan'd so far as to be play'd with upon the Stage this is a Matter that causes Astonishment in all sober Men. But see the Baseness for it can't be Ignorance in this Fellow to deliver to the World so notorious a Falshood as that the Commons only voted the Exclusion of the K. of Navarre to make that as he thinks more parallel with our Case D'Avila tells us Lib. 9. pag. 729. That the Clergy concluded first that the K. of Navarre by Name and all others suspected of Heresy should be declared incapable of succeeding to the Crown and that this was conformable to the Meaning and Doctrine of the Holy Canon These are his very words and in the same Page he says The Nobility and Commons joyned with the Clergy which done Guilliaume d'Avanson Archbishop of Ambrun with six Deputies of every Order presented this Vote to the King insisting that he would make it a publick Decree causing it to be read and confirm'd in the Assembly which should receive it and swear to it as a Fundamental Law See now the impudent Knavery as well as Folly of this Sycophant to falsify a History so common that it is read by all Gentlemen that pretend to Reading Besides he does not know that the three Estates of France sate in one Room as our two Houses of Parliament formerly did but the Commons only must be mentioned that our House of Commons might be jeer'd and abus'd and call'd Sovereigns and Gods c. and that it might be said as he has learnt from the Observator and such licentious Pamphelteers who have clamour'd over and over is the House of Commons the Government is their Vote a Law is their Vote a Decree Why do these Prevaricating Rascals say this Did ever the whole House of Commons or the Majority of them pretend either or was ever any one Man so impudently foolish to affirm that they were the Government or that their Vote was a Law But let these knavish Coxcombs knov that that House as the Peers are conciliarij nati is called by Writ as the great Councel of the Nation to consult de arduis Regni and are free to give their Opinions and have no way of collecting those but by Votes and a Vote is the Opinion of that House that House at which these Villains may tremble before they are aware on 't Why then has this been all this while the Cry of such Scriblers and particularly of old Bowman Roger with his little pack of inferiour Crape-grown-Men yelping after him The Insolence of those who dare trifle with Parliaments is very great after the Words in his Majesties last Declaration which are as followeth But we still declare that no Irregularities in Parliament shall ever make us out of love with Parliaments which we look upon as the best Method for healing the Distempers of this Kingdom and the only means to preserve the Monarchy in that due Reputation and Respect which it ought to have both at home and abroad The next thing I shall consider is that this Bays would have the Duke of Guise who was a bloody Adviser and barbarous Instrument in the most horrid