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
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
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
eminent men that had never bowed the knee to Baal So that Story was set up which he was not able to prove one Syllable of at his Trial but however it was easily enough believed by them who love to make the King and Court as odious as they can as well as the Papists My Author goes on The heinous nature of the Crime and the greatness of the Persons supposed to be concerned deserved an extraordinary Examination which a Jury who were only to enquire whether Fitz-Harris was guilty of framing that Libel could never make and the Commons believed none but the Parliament was big enough to go through with it The Trial of this Person being extant I must for brevity refer my Reader to it and I see not how it had been possible for the Parliament to have sifted that business of Fitz-Harris his being put upon this by the Court to ruine the eminent men more narrowly than it was at the Trial and there was not one syllable proved by any of the Witnesses he produced which were many and persons of great worth only Mr. Oates said he heard Everard say some such thing which Everard again denied upon his Oath And Sir William Waller owned he had heard the King was discontented at his troubling him with this business but Sir William Waller Mr. Smith and Mr. Everard proved it positively upon him that he had ordered the drawing of that Libel had approved of it when it was drawn and amended some words in it with his own hands And now after all this to lay the Crime upon the Court upon the suggestion of the Malefactor was such a piece of Justice as never was attempted Nor did they the Commons only fear the perversion of Justice but the misapplication of Mercy too c. because when Fitz-Harris was inclined to Repentance and had begun a Confession to the surprize of the whole Nation without any visible cause he was taken out of the lawful custody of the Sheriffs and shut up a close prisoner in the Tower That he had not only begun but gone through with a Confession appears by a Printed Narrative taken by two which I think were both of the House of Commons one I am sure was And when notwithstanding this some eminent men began to tamper with him to turn all this upon the Court then and not before was he taken out of the custody of the Sheriffs and put into the Tower that they might not make an ill use of him to the Damage of the King and the Government The Commons had therefore no other way to be secure that the prosecution should be effectual the Judgment indifferent and the Criminal out of all hopes of Pardon unless by an ingenuous Confession be could engage both Houses in a powerful mediation to his Majesty in his behalf But by impeaching him they were sure no pardon could stop their suit tho the King might release his own Prosecution by his Pardon What need there was here of any further or more ingenuous Confession that he should make than what he had made I cannot imagine but we may guess it was meant that if Fitz-Harris should lay the blame of this Libel on the Court and say it was designed to Trappan the eminent men then they would try to get him pardoned but if he did not do this then he should have been hanged without mercy Well But what if the King would not have consented to the Pardon which was to have been purchased with his dishonour Then the Commons would not have proceeded with their impeachment and the Consequence would have been if the Lords had not rejected the Impeachment that then no inferiour Court could have tried him and so he should never have been tried So that it is plain that if the Lords had not rejected this Impeachment it would as the King saith in the Declaration have been made use of to delay a Trial that We had directed against a profess'd Papist charged with Treasons against Vs of an extraordinary nature And certainly the House of Peers did themselves Right in refusing to give countenance to such a proceeding Part of the 36 and all the 37 38 39 Pages are spent by my Author to prove that a Commoner may be tried by the Peers in Parliament upon an Impeachment of the Commons in which matter I will have no Controversie with him because he may be in the right for ought I know And I have as little to say to him whether such Commoners as are tried there ought to have any Juries or whether the Lords rejecting the Impeachment was or only looked like a denial of Justice For it is plain that as good justice might be had and in this case was had in the Kings Bench as could have been had before the Lords and if Fitz-Harris had been acquitted there then the Commons might afterwards have impeached him of any branch of Treason that was not or could not have been tried in the Kings Bench so that the pretence he makes that part of his Treasons were thought such as could only be adjudged in Parliament is impertinent for the remainder were apparently such as he ought to be hanged for in an inferiour Court and he could suffer but once and the taking notice of the rest would have been impertinent I think I may modestly say this that the impeachment of Commoners before the Lords is so extraordinary a way that it would be used as little as is possible but these Gentlemen were for nothing else and Thompson Sheridon Verdon and the Lord knows how many more were to have been thus proceeded against tho they were not persons of such extraordinary degree or quality but they might full as well have been tried in any other Court and the Consequence of this would have been that neither the Lords nor Commons would have had any leisure for any thing else but this Might it not be well retorted by the People that it had been long a matter extremely sensible to them that so many Prorogations so many Dissolutions so many other Arts had been used to delay the Trials which his Majesty had often desired and the Parliament prepared for against the five professed Popish Lords charged with Treasons of an extraordinary nature The King might if he had pleased have charged this upon the Commons too that notwithstanding the long time they had been imprisoned yet the Commons would not go on with their Trials that they might legally and regularly be discharged The Impeachment of the Earl of Danby before they had tried these five Lords occasioned the dissolution of the Long Loyal Parliament A Controversie betwixt the Lords and the Commons about the Trial of the said Earl of Danby broke the next Parliament Then comes the second short Westminster Parliament and having tried only one of them the Earl of Stafford when all the World were in expectation they would have gone on and have tried the other
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
voted against the Bill should no longer preside in His Councils no longer possess all the great Trusts and Offices in the Kingdom 3. That our Ports our Garrisons and our Fleets should be no longer governed by such as are at his devotion 4. That Characters of Honour and Favour should be no longer placed on men that the Wisdom of the Nation the House of Commons without the Lords for they have it seems lately got a Patent to Monopolize all the Wisdom of the Nation hath judged to be favourers of Popery or Pensioners of France These are great and important Changes but such as it becomes Englishmen to believe were designed by that Parliament and such as will be designed and prest by every Parliament and such as the People will ever pray may find success with the King without these Changes and the Association forgotten by my Author the Bill of Exclusion would only provoke not disarm our Enemies Nay the very money which we must have paid for it would have been made use of to secure and hasten the Duke's return upon us Now this was all perhaps was meant by that passage in the Declaration and the Consequences of these things are such that no beseeching will ever obtain them till his Majesty is weary of all he hath and therefore it well becomes all English men that do not design another Rebellion for time to come to design and pray and our Parliaments to press for some other things that may be fitter for them to ask and his Majesty to grant I conclude with the Wisemans Advice My Son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change Especially to such important changes We are now come to the consideration of that only fault which was peculiar to the Parliament at Oxford and that was their behaviour in relation to the business of Fitz-Harris the Declaration says He was impeached of High Treason by the Commons and they had cause to think his Treasons to be of such an extraordinary nature that they well deserved an examination in Parliament We shall by and by come to examine the reasons that made them think so and in the interim it is worth the while to recite the very words of the Declaration which are these The business of Fitz-Harris who was impeached by the House of Commons of High Treason and by the House of Lords referred to the ordinary course of Law was on the sudden carried on to that extremity by the Votes which the Commons passed on March 26. last that there was no possibility left of a Reconciliation The Votes are these Rosolved That it is the undoubted Right of the Commons in Parliament assembled to impeach before the Lords in Parliament any Peer or Commoner for Treason or any other Crime or Misdemeanor And that the refusal to proceed in Parliament upon such impeachment is a denial of Justice and a Violation of the Constitutions of Parliaments Resolved That in the case of Edward Fitz-Harris who by the Commons hath been impeached of High Treason before the Lords with a Declaration that in convenient time they would bring up the Articles against him for the Lords to Resolve that the said Fitz-Harris should be proceeded with according to the course of Common Law and not by way of impeachment at this time is a denial of Justice and a violation of the Constitutions of Parliaments and an Obstruction to the further discovery of the Popish Plot and of great danger to his Majesties Person and the Protestant Religion Resolved That for any inferiour Court to proceed against Edward Fitz-Harris or any other person lying under an impeachment in Parliament for the same Crimes he or they stand impeached is a high breach of the Priviledge of Parliament And now let us follow my Authors account of Fitz-Harris his business who he says truly was a known Irish Papist and it appeared by the Informations given in the House he was made use of by some very great persons to set up a Counterfeit Protestant Conspiracy and thereby not only to drown the noise of the Popish Plot but to take off the Heads of the most eminent of those who refused to bow their knees to Baal c. That this might look as unlike a Popish Design and be the better received by the people as was possible they framed a libel full of the most bitter invectives against Popery and the Duke of York it carried as much seeming zeal for the Protestant Religion as Colemans Declaration and as much care and concern for our Laws as the penners of this Declaration would seem to have But it was also filled with the most subtile insinuations and the sharpest expressions against his Majesty that could be invented and with direct and passionate incitements to Rebellion This Paper as it appears by the account of it which was given at Fitz-Harris his Trial was penn'd in the stile and just like the Libels the sober Protestants daily Print and perhaps not much unlike our modest Vindicator in the main but had some things in it which they whisper for the present because it is dangerous Printing of them And some other things plainly spoken which the other Party have a way to insinuate craftily so that it may be understood and yet not hazard their sweet lives This saith my Author was to be conveyed by unknown Messengers Oates says by the Penny Post to their hands who were to be betrayed and then they were to be seized upon and those Libels sound about them were to be a Confirmation of the truth of a Rebellion which they had provided Witnesses to swear was designed by the Protestants and had before prepared men to believe by Private Whispers And the credit of this Plot should no doubt have been soon confirmed by speedy Justice done upon the pretended Criminals And now it is time to give a little better account of this Libel than perhaps the Author has given it was penned by one Mr. Everard by the direction of Fitz-Harris he fearing he might be shamm'd and that it was designed so called in one Mr. Smith and Sir William Waller into the business that so he might clear himself of it and trappan Fitz-Harris These two Gentlemen heard Fitz-Harris dictate the heads of it to Everard and one of them heard him approve of it when it was delivered to him Mr. Everard was promised his reward for all this by the French Embassadour as Sir William Waller swears in the Trial he heard Fitz-Harris say and upon Sir William Wallers giving the King an account of it Fitz-Harris was taken with the Libel about him Being taken and committed to Newgate he was examined the tenth day of March by Sir Robert Clayton and Sir George Treby There he speaks not one word of the Author of the Libel But being thus imprisoned he found there was no way to save his life but to curry favour with those
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
Reasons of a King to have the less weight because he graciously offers them to the Judgment of his People Sure I am sometimes God Almighty is pleased to do it who only hath a right to command our absolute submission upon the account of his infinite both Wisdom and Soveraignty So that to suspect the want of of an Apology on no other grounds than a mans willingness to satisfie the World of the justice of a mans Cause and the reasonableness of his Actions is a perverseness to which common Knaves do seldom arrive the Heroes of Villany do not often rise to that pitch of Brutality without the help of Malmsbury Philosophy And I am persuaded that our Author would have spared this Cavil against his Majesties Declaration if he had before-hand considered that in natural consequence he charges not only the King but also the Three Estates with so many deliberate Acts of folly and injustice as there are Acts of Parliament containing the reasons of Enacting so or so If a Princes Actions are indeed unjustifiable if they are opposite to the Inclinations and apparently destructive of the Interests of his Subjects it will be very difficult for the most eloquent or insinuating Declaration to make them in love with such things And if they be none of all these if a Crafty man may but comment upon them and by Ifs and An ds insinuate into the heads of the Common People that he takes them for such it is possible all the Eloquence in the World may not be powerful enough to bring them into their right wits again but yet this may fail too sometimes And therefore they did certainly undertake no easie task in pretending to persuade men who see themselves exposed to the restless malice of their Enemies who observe the languishing condition of the Nation and that nothing but a Parliament can provide remedies for the great Evils which they feel and fear that two several Parliaments upon whom they had placed all their hopes were so suddenly broken out of kindness to them or with any regard to their advantage No I suppose no body was so silly as to undertake such an impossible task but there was another sort of men who had looked better into things and care was to be taken of them to confirm them and a third sort that were not yet well resolved what to think of things and they were to be directed and assisted and it was not impossible the Declaration might have a good effect upon them as indeed it had as for those that had placed all their hopes upon the two last Parliaments and were pleased with all they did there was neither hopes nor design of working that Miracle upon them but they were to be left to time to be cured And in the interim I would advise them to study Colemans Declaration of which my Author saith fine things which I care not to transcribe But should this Declaration be suffered to go abroad any longer under the Royal Name yet it will never be thought to have proceeded from his Majesties Inclination or Judgment but to be gained from him by the Artifices of the same ill men who not being content to have prevailed with him to dissolve two Paliaments only to protect them from Publick Justice do now hope to excuse themselves from being thought the Authors of that Counsel by making him openly to avow it But they have discovered themselves to the Kingdom and have told their Names when they number amongst the great Crimes of the House of Commons their having declared divers Eminent Persons to be Ememies to the King and Kingdom So his Majesties Inclination and Judgment being kindly absolved from the guilt of this Declaration of purpose to abate the Esteem it ought to have And seeing it is not possible to keep it within doors and that some may think the worse of it because there was a sham Declaration found among Colemans Papers as you know there was a sham Plot in the Meal-Tub and yet there may be others that are real The next Inquiry or rather Hue and Cry is after the Authors and those he thinks he hath found by the passage he cites out of the Declaration those Eminent Persons or some of them must needs out of Revenge and Fear be the Authors of this Pestilent Declaration His Reason is this None could be offended at the Proceedings of the Parliaments but they who were obnoxious none could be concerned to vindicate the Dissolution but they who advised it But is my Author sure of that that never a man in the Nation was offended at their proceedings but such as were obnoxious to them I am of another mind and so is all the world now Is it impossible for any man to be concerned to vindicate the Actions of a Prince but they that advise him What pitiful Sophistry this is But were no men obnoxious to the proceedings of these Parliaments but these eminent men May not it be some of those Subjects who were by Arbitrary Orders taken into Custody for matters that had no relation to Priviledges of Parliament They are mentioned before the Eminent Persons tho of a Meaner degree If I be not mistaken some Members too were very disgracefully Expelled the House Might not some of them have a hand in it We are assured a little lower that the Writer was of another Nation from this Gallicism It was a matter extremely sensible to us So that this Gentleman is suspitious it is but a Translation of a French Copy and the rather because Monsieur Barillon the French Embassadour read it to a Gentleman three days before it was communicated to the Privy Council if his intelligence did not deceive him So here is fair Scope left to find or suspect at least other Authors besides the Eminent Persons other Advisers besides those that were obnoxious For I suppose Monsieur Barillon doth not fear a House of Commons And as for this and other Gallicisms that may occur they are not to be wondred at in an Age that generally understands the French Tongue in a Court where almost all the Great men speak it in a Prince who hath lived in France and is descended of a French Mother And the wonder is not so prodigious neither that the French Embassadour should get a transcript of a Paper intended to be published to the whole Nation two or three days before it was read in Council These things make a great noise to ignorant people whilst I am persuaded this Gentleman smiled to think how finely he was deluding them But be these things as they will the Eminent Persons must expect to answer it And our Author thinks they cannot blame him or his Party for hoping one day to see justice done upon such Counsellours And that the Commons had reason for their Vote when they declared those Eminent Persons who manage things at this rate Enemies to the King and Kingdom and Promoters
to break alone with that Monarch which had tired out all Christendom with a tedious expensive War when they were united against him And therefore the best Expedient that could then have fallen into the Heads of the Commons had been to have shewn him and all the Confederates that we were resolved to have stood by our King with our Lives and Fortunes which would have heartned them on to a stout resistance in case of his further encroachments upon them and in likelihood have kept him in some aw whereas the course that was taken had a quite contrary effect and tended more a thousand times to the discouragement of the Confederates than the fruitless attempt he hints at made by the Earl of Danby who was then in the Tower for it So that I believe all Europe will bear me Witness that all the great things the French King hath since done were in a great measure owing to the disorders of our English Parliaments and their declared resolution of giving the King no Supplies upon reasonable terms which rendered the Alliance and Enmity of our King abroad inconsiderable Amongst the great things the French King hath done since the Peace my Author tells us this His Pensioners at our Court have grown insolent upon it and presumed that now He the French King may be at leisure to assist them the Pensioners in ruining England and the Protestant Religion together And they have shaken off all dread of Parliaments and have prevailed with his Majesty to use them with as little respect and to disperse them with as great contempt as if they had been a Conventicle and not the great Representative of the Nation whose Power and Wisdom only could save him and us in our present Exigencies Surely the man that talks thus contemptuously of his Majesty and all the Ministers durst have told us if he could who were these French Pentioners but it was not his design to point out the men but to cast out general Accusations against the King the Ministers and the whole Government thereby to incense the People and to make them ungovernable that so his Majesty might be the sooner necessitated to submit himself to that Power and Wisdom that could only save him and us but might also easily ruine both if things were once put into such a state as his Majesty were no longer Master of that Power As to the Accusation or rather Calumny that the English Ministers are Pensioners to the French King it will easily appear false to any man that doth but reflect on Colemans Letters in 1674 when the King was in a much better condition to oppose and ruine the French designs and enterprizes and the French King had all the Confederates United and in an Actual War with him and there was nothing to fear or hope for but in England yet he then refused three hundred thousand Pounds tho it was pretended it would have assured the Dissolution of that long Loyal Parliament which France feared more than threescore such as have followed it and when at last Coleman descended to 200000 l. and at one time begged shamefully but for 20000 l. He was denied it Monsieur Rouvigni the French Embassadour usually telling him That if he could be sure of succeeding in that design his Master would give a much larger Sum but that he was not in a condition to throw away money upon uncertainties Nor doth it appear that ever Coleman got one farthing at that time And after the discovery of the Plot and the dissolution of the long Loyal Parliament the general Peace having delivered the French King from all Apprehensions of good or hurt from England His Majesty having such ill success in the first short Westminster Parliament and the Divisions of England appearing more fully in the Election of the Second and the year that passed betwixt that and its sitting all which were as well known in Paris as in London it is not to be doubted but he very well understood that there was then less reason to maintain Pensioners in England than before So that we may conclude from that time there hath come but little French Money over into England for Pensions to any Party England being thought in France so inconsiderable by reason of her Domestick Feuds Fears and incurable Jealousies that there is nothing to be feared or hoped from it whereas Pensions are to be imployed in Potent and United States I do not design by this to prove that no French Pensioners are now maintained in England but that they are few and gain but little by it and therefore it is ridiculous to conceive that all our Ministers of State are such and that they should be such fools as to conspire with France to ruine England for nothing or that which is next to it And it is as silly a supposition that the Privy Council and the rest of the Ministers of State who are not Pensioners should not discover those that are as soon as this discontented Gentleman There is a lewd and impossible conceit spread underhand about the Nation that the King himself is a Pensioner to France and all that is pretended to justifie it is only his being able to subsist so long without Parliamentary Supplies Now this I believe is not credited by any men of understanding but yet there are many such who for ill ends speak it in some companies and will shake their heads and shrug their shoulders and look gravely in other companies that they may seem to fear what they durst not speak Now if what I have said before be applied to this instance it will appear more ridiculous for that Pension that may tempt a hungry Courtier who is to raise a Family would be rejected with scorn if it were tendered to a meaner Prince than ours is And it is not to be thought that the French King who is observed to be as sparing of his Wealth as prodigal of his Souldiers would ever be at such an Expence as to maintain our Court and his own for fear the King should unite with a Parliament that would be an Enemy to France no all knowing men understand how little he cares for England if it were quiet at home but as now things stand he scorns it as beneath his Consideration Well but if neither the Ministers nor his Majesty are to be suspected who are I will tell you that in the words of a more knowing man than I dare pretend to be Those that roar most against French Councils and Measures Vnder-hand-bargains and Agreements between both the Kings know they belye their own Consciences and that the French have us in the last degree of Contempt This the Earl of Danby Printed in his own vindication perhaps not ignorant that some of their Ministers did in the year 1677 and 78. before the breaking forth of the Plot declare That Monsieur L. had greater interest and more Friends in England than the Duke of York that
not neglect to give it its due Consideration as appears by their Addresses of November 29. and Decemb. 21. 1680. and they told him no better could be expected of a Town for the most part under Popish Governours and always filled with a Popish Garrison Now this Gentleman might have done the World a Kindness to have told us how the Popery of the Governours or Garrison contributed any thing to the present Exigencies of that place into which it fell not by any neglect or Treachery but by a Siege laid about it by a potent Army of Moors They promised to assist him in defence of it as soon as ever they could be reasonably secured that any Supply which they gave for that purpose should not be used to augment the strength of our Popish Adversaries and to encrease our dangers at home All the rest is of the same kind with this But Sir can you tell what was meant by a reasonable security Or wherein the state of England would have been mended if Tangier had been lost Or can you give us any reason why this Parliament seemed resolved to run the Risque of losing this Town when the former Parliament had Voted so stoutly for the Annexing it to the Crown I might perhaps go near to answer all these questions from the exact Collection of Debates which are Printed but the safer and shorter way is to refer my Reader to them for his satisfaction My Author owns that his Majesty offered to concur in any Remedies that could be proposed for the security of the Protestant Religion but saith he he was pleased to go no further how could he for those Remedies the Commons offered were rejected and those which they were preparing were prevented by a dissolution What was rejected is well enough understood viz. the Bill of Exclusion and if the Association was what was preparing it is not great wonder it should be prevented by a Dissolution But for this we must be contented to remain in ignorance His Majesty had complained of Addresses in the name of Remonstrances rather than Answers Now here my Author cannot guess what the Ministers would have the word Remonstrance sigâ—ifie but he takes it to be a modest expressing the reasons of their resolution Now if this be the meaning of the Word we must own his Majesty hath in this particular charged the Commons wrongfully for there was seldom too much modesty joyned with their Reasons but they rather to us poor Country Folk seemed to have altogether lost that respect that was due to the Crown as any body else would think that should compare their Addresses with those made in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth particularly that made to thank her for taking away a part only of the Monopolies that oppressed them in the 44. year of her Reign when the Speaker and the whole House of Commons sate a good while on their knees to her but our Gentlemen treated our King at quite another rate and not much unlike those who remonstrated to his Majesties Father till they at last fairly brought him to the Block My Author considers in the next place that part of the Declaration which concerns the Arbitrary Orders for taking persons into custody for matters that had no relation to Priviledges of Parliament c. If saith he they the Ministers intended by these general words to reflect on the Orders made to take those degenerate Wretches into Custody who published under their hands Abhorrences of Parliaments and of those who in humble and lawful manner petitioned for their sitting in a time of such extreme necessity Surely they are not in good earnest they cannot believe themselves when they say that these matters have no relation to Priviledges of Parliament if the Priviledge of Parliament be concerned when an injury is done to any particular Member how much more when men strike at Parliaments themselves and endeavour to wound the Constitution But Sir I hope it is no breach of Priviledge of Parliament now to beg a small favour at your Worships hands and that is to produce but one instance of one single man that ever published an Abhorrence of Parliaments in general or of that Parliament in particular before it sate It seems mighty probable to me that these Wretches were a part of them and the rather because my Author is fain to misrepresent the whole matter of Fact to make it seem just Now Sir all the question was whether the manner of Petitioning then taken up by the Rabble was lawful or humble You say it was both but Sir your Sentence is neither Concluding nor yet infallible and therefore we appeal from it to the next Loyal Parliament which we hope some at least of those Degenerate Wretches may live to see and in the mean time there will ever be some ready to abhor a Petition signed by 60000 Shop-Keepers Apprentices c. humbly pretending to instruct the King and Council in spight of a Proclamation to the contrary when its fit a Parliament should sit which some are such fools as to imagine may be done again without abhorring Parliaments and consequently without breach of Priviledge of Parliament And because this was all that was done then to the best of our remembrance and as it is conceived may be made appear by those very abhorrences still extant therefore it is humbly conceived the Imprisonments thereupon were Arbitrary and illegal As to those two Persons my Author names of them that were taken into Custody by Order of Parliament Sheridon and Thompson I will raise no Contest with him because their case will depend upon the general determination The King's Declaration lays down this as a Rule that for the House of Commons to take into Custody any Subject for matters that have no relation to priviledges of Parliament is Arbitrary i. e. Illegal This the Author quarrels at and by a very few Precedents endeavours to prove That the House of Commons may order men to be taken into Custody for matters not relating to priviledge These two are directly contrary each to other and I only desire the liberty to enquire which of these seem likeliest to be in the right The Priviledges of the House of Commons are indeed our own and they enjoy and ought to use them as our Trustees and for our good and therefore it is folly in us to lessen them when they are such as are necessary and it is a great injury in them to extend them beyond what they anciently were to the damage of the Crown or of the Liberties of the Subjects or on the other hand to abuse those they really have and ought to enjoy to our damage or to the Detriment of the Kings Prerogative which is as necessary for our preservation as the Priviledges of Parliament themselves are The Priviledges of Parliament are many and relate either to the whole Body the Three Estates taken Collectively or to the Lords or to the Commons Those
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
could not hurt the Church of England therefore the Dissenters were to be caressed and cherished that they in a small time might be in a capacity to do it And now if these were not good reasons for the Vote let any impartial man that is any but a Church of England man judge In the midst of such Circumstances was there not cause to think an Union of all Protestants necessary and could they have any just grounds to believe that the Dissenters whilst they lay under the pressures of severe Laws should with such Alacrity and Courage as was requisite undertake the defence of a Country where they were so ill treated Whether this question relates to the French King and the Papists or the Duke and the Civil and Military Officers may be a question and therefore it must be so answered As to the first there was all the reason in the world that they should joyn heartily with the Government against the Papists and French for they could not hope to mend their condition by falling into their hands who they knew would treat them with other manner of severities than those they met with from the Laws if they did not know this any of the French Protestants that fled over 〈◊〉 England might have informed them sufficiently Nâ—w of evils the least is to be chosen and tho their conâ—â—tion had not been equal to their desires yet it had been a madness to have made it worse by delivering up themselves and their Country into the hands of the French and Papists But if it relates to the Duke and the Civil and Military Officers then I hope he will excuse me if I do not think it fit to have another Union of Protestants of that sort again A long and sad Experience had shewed how vain the endeavours of former Parliaments had been to force us to be all of one Opinion and therefore the House of Commons resolved to take a sure way to make us all of one Affection This was the very reason of the Declaration of Liberty of Conscience But how unlike that course was to prevail the Nation had sufficient experience in a few years And Sir I can assure you it is above the power of a House of Commons to unite those men in Affection who differ not only in Opinion but Practice too in matters of Religion For these reasons my Author saith this Vote was made in order to a repeal of them by a Bill to be brought in and presently he grows Pettish and tells us None but a Frenchman could have the confidence to declaim against a proceeding so regular and Parliamentary as this Your humble Servant Sir I pray be a little pacified you may possibly be mistaken as well as another man but would I believe take it a little unkindly to be called Monsieur presently They very first Vote they made that day was this Resolved That whosoever advised his Majesty to Prorogue this Parliament to any other purpose than in order to the passing of a Bill for the Exclusion of James Duke of York is a betrayer of the King the Protestant Religion and of the Kingdom of England a promoter of the French interest and a Pensioner to France So they knew they were to be Prorogued that very day and as the Story goes made more than ordinary haste to pass these Votes Now it was impossible that a Bill should be brought in much less passed in that Session which was to end before night and therefore this was not nor could not be the cause of that Vote and all your little Queries founded upon this supposition are silly and impertinent There was not the least direction or signification to the judges which might give any occasion for the reflection which follows in the Declaration The due and impartial execution of the Laws is the unquestionable duty of the Judges and we hope they will always remember that duty so well as not to necessitate a House of Commons to do theirs by calling them to account for making private instructions the Rule of their judgments and acting as men who have more regard to their Places than their Oaths So the Dissenters may see they are mistaken when they think the Judges or Justices may forbear executing the Laws against them upon the score of this Vote But tho the Judges are sworn to execute all Laws yet there is no obligation upon any man to inform against another No Sir Is not every Grand-Jury man every Constable and Churchwarden sworn to Present the breakers of our Laws as well as the Judges are to punish them And as for the next Conundrams of yours the comparing a parcel of Laws made within twenty years to those Antiquated ones about Caps and Bows and Arrows and killing of Lambs and Calves and your business of Empson and Dudley they are such stuff as a man of half your understanding would have been ashamed to have mensioned in a good cause In the next place my Author acquaints us what are the causes usually of disusing Laws alterations of the Circumstances whereupon a Law was made or if it be against the genious of a People or have effects contrary to the intents of the Maker none of which can be said in this case Nor is that true which follows that the quiet safety or trade of our Nation hath been promoted by the not executing of these Laws as any man may know that can remember but ten years backward And therefore notwithstanding the Vote of the Commons the Judges may act wisely and honestly if they should encourage Informers or quicken Juries by strict and severe Charges For the due and impartial execution of the Laws is the unquestionable duty of the Judges according to my Author and therefore I will hope they shall not be accounted Knaves or Fools for doing their unquestionable duty But then my Author hath another quarrel with the Ministers and that was for numbring this Vote amongst the causes of the Dissolution of that Parliament when the Black Rod was at the door of the House to require them to attend his Majesty at the very time when it was made Well suppose we should grant that this was not one of those Votes that occasioned the Prerogation it not being then made when that was resolved on yet it might occasion their Dissolution which hapned some time after And was not this an excellent time to make Votes for the bringing in of Bills for the Repeal of Laws when the Black Rod was at the door to call the House to a Prorogation After a little anger against the Ministers for arraigning one of the Three Estates in the face of the World for usurping power over the Laws imprisoning their fellow Subjects Arbitrarily exposing the Kingdom to the greatest dangers and indeavouring to deprive the King of all possibility of supporting the Government the man hath forgot how often he hath arraigned the Long Loyal Parliament for a
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
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
four they fell upon the Exclusion Bill and that being rejected by the Lords they fell upon the Revenue and seemingly Voted the King a Bankrupt Jar. 7. by declaring that no man ought to trust him further than he had ready money nor lend him any and Declared that several eminent men of the Privy Counsellors were favourers of Popery and enemies to the King and Kingdom and for which and the other things they were dissolved then comes that at Oxford with the Votes I have recited for which and for insisting upon the Bill for Excluding the Duke of York they were dissolved Could none of these Parliaments have tried the Popish Lords without these things Yes doubtless they might but they would not but kept these Lords in the Tower that whatever provocation they should give the King to Dissolve or Prorogue them still the clamour might be that it was to prevent their Trials And I am fully persuaded there are some men in England would almost choose to be hanged themselves rather than be deprived of this glorious and popular pretence of insensing the People against the King and the Court. If there be no other Evidence of the Unparliamentary and mean Solicitations used to promote this pretended Rejection of the Commons Accusation than this scurvy Hint in my Author which he acknowledgeth not fit to be remembred tho he cannot forbear Printing it I suppose it is but a small part of the Nation that will be extremely sensible of it But yet however if their Impeachment had not been rejected Fitz-Harris had long since been executed or deserved mercy by a full discovery of these malicious designs against the King and People and the secret Authors of them And that he would certainly have done to have saved his own life and then we should have had an opportunity to have made the World believe that the King did hire Fitz-Harris to raise a Rebellion against himself to defame himself and insense the minds of the People against him for thus he defamed the King at his Trial. This was all he could do to merit a Pardon by and this he did at his Trial but was able to produce no testimony to back it But this Trial occasioned strange talk in Westminster Hall and Questions were raised of a strange nature that will never have a determination in any inferiour Court but will assuredly at one time or other have a further Examination These questions were moved then by Fitz-Harris his Counsel and need never be determined By the Term in the Declaration of the Lords having done themselves right by refusing to admit the Impeachment he hath discovered the Penman of the Declaration and says he has done himself and the Nation Right and discovered himself by using his ordinary Phrase upon this occasion Now I thought verily the next word would have been his Name no but stay you there The Person is well known without naming him who always tells men they have done themselves no right when he is resolved to do them none Now cannot I tell any more whom he means by this private token than the man in the Moon and if he had graciously vouchsafed to have whispered his name in my Ear and I had known that he had usually thus expressed himself yet I should still be a little jealous some Frenchman or other might be the Author of it because my Author hath given full as good evidence Page 5. to prove it was so As for the Commons nothing says my Author was carried on to extremity by them nothing done but what was Parliamentary they could not desire a Conference till they had first stated their own Case and asserted by Votes the matter which they were to maintain at a Conference This was done effectually in the first part of the first and second Vote without adding That the refusal of the Lords to proceed in Parliament upon such Impeachment is a denial of Justice and a violation of the Constitution of Parliaments and in the second Vote and an obstruction to the further discovery of the Popish Plot and of great danger to his Majesties Person and the Protestant Religion Here the Declaration lays the stress of the business and says That when either of the Houses are so far transported as to pass such Votes concerning the proceedings of the other without Conferences first had to examine upon what grounds such proceedings are made and how far they might be justified this puts the Two Houses out of a Capacity of Transacting business together and consequently is the greatest violation of the Constitution of Parliaments Now surely the House of Commons might have asserted their Right without these Expressions which must needs insense the Lords especially when they were Printed and spread over the whole Nation But the House of Commons was so far from thinking themselves to be out of a Capacity of Transacting with the Lords any further that they were preparing to send a Message for a Conference to Accommodate this difference at the very instant when the Black Rod called them to their dissolution But this it is very probable was not known to his Majesty so that it came too late to save them If every difference in Opinion and Vote should put the Two Houses out of a Capacity of transacting business together every Parliament must be dissolved as soon as called Now Sir I could never have thought that it is so usual a thing for the Two Houses to make such Votes as these against each other I am persuaded the Lords would never have treated with the Commons if a Conference had been demanded till the Conclusions of the first and second Vote had been recanted But the Ministers promoted this difference between the Two Houses what did any of them dictate these Votes and then broke the Parliament lest it should be composed And for this my Author gives you his own honest word over again in the next Page and hopes no man will be so hard-hearted as not to believe him But my Author hath another quarrel against the Ministers because they censure these Votes of the Commons as the greatest violation of the Constitution of Parliaments They ought certainly says my Author to have excepted the power which is here assumed of giving such a Judgment and Publishing such a charge as being not only the highest violation of the Constitution but directly tending to the destruction of it Well then I for my part will never undertake to defend them in it Aut I have observed one thing in these debates that the Priviledges of the House of Commons are not much unlike the Power claimed by the Pope which is to judge all men and to be judged by no man So that whatever they are pleased to call Priviledge of Parliament I am bound to believe is so with an implicit faith For these Priviledges of Parliament are known to none but those that sit in St. Stephens Chappel and if
a man sit there twenty years yet he shall be allowed to know no more of them the day after he is turned out than I do The Declaration mentions one sort of men who are fond of their old beloved Commonwealth Principles and others are aangry at being disappointed in designs they had to accomplish their own ambition and greatness Surely says my Author if they know any such persons the only way to have prevented the mischiefs which they pretend to fear from them had been to have discovered them and suffered the Parliament to sit to provide against the evils they would bring upon the Nation by prosecuting them I cannot but fancy my Author smiled to himself when he made this pleasant Proposition In the next place my Author gives us a description of men of Commonwealth Principles he tells us They are men Passionately devoted to the publick good and to the common service of their Country who believe that Kings were instituted for the good of the People and Government ordained for the sake of those that are to be governed and therefore complain or grieve when it is used to contrary ends and that wise and honest men will be proud to be ranked in this number Now as favourably as he hath drawn it I assure him I for my part am none of the number for tho I know that if there were no People there could hardly have been Kings and that one main end of Government was the good of those that are to be governed yet I believe that God Almighty had some respect for Princes and Governours and did not design only the good of the People but their good too and tho I can grieve yet I am not apt to complain when things go amiss My Author in the next place spends a great deal of learning to prove That the word Commonwealth signifies the common good in which sense it hath been used by all good Authors c. Now this I will yield him with all my hearts that till one thousand six hundred and forty all the World thought that a good Commonwealth man and a good Subject were terms that might be promiscuously and indifferently used but the Author cannot be ignorant that not long after the word Commonwealth was so wholly appropriated to an odious Democracy by the Rebels of the late times whose usurped Seal and Coyn bore the Image and Superscription of the Beast that it is no ways likely it should ever recover its Primitive signification And I dare assure him that many of the English Nation will never be pleased to find in Parliament such men as have so great a kindness for the word as implies a hankering after the thing it has obtained to signifie But if the Declaration says my Vindicator would intimate that there had been any design of setting up a Democratical Government in opposition to our Legal Monarchy it is a Calumny just of a piece with the other thing which the Penners of the Declaration have vented in order to the laying upon others the blame of a design to overthrow the Government which only belongs to themselves Now Sir This is not the first time that his Majesty hath complained of a parcel of men who had such a design and if you please we will inquire a little into the reason of it That there was in the Nation a great number of men that had imbibed a Notion that all other kinds of Governments but what had something of the Democratical form in them without a single Person were Arbitrary and Tyrannical I suppose will not be denied that these men did not all of them expire when his Majesty landed from Breda is very probable but his Majesty being setled and all things running quite contrary to their Interest as you have told us may appear by comparing the Parliaments that were sent up in 1640. and 1660. these men were forced to seem more loyal than they were that they might one day appear what they were Now Sir it is not to be expected they should openly declare for the Commonwealth of England and desire Charles Stuart to march off and give them their right when blessed be God they have neither Men nor Money to back such an insolence with but yet we may be allowed to guess at their Designs by their Actions and if that may be allowed the Penners of the Declaration were not the only men that thought there was then and is now some Democratical or Commonwealth designs against the very Monarchy driving on and you must excuse me if I say the Calumny lies at your doors get rid of it as well as you can It is strange how this word should so change its significacation with us in twenty years All Monarchies in the world that are not purely Barbarous and Tyrannical have ever been called Commonwealths c. Sir I will grant more than that that all without exception have by some men been so stiled and produced good Authors for it But yet we that had so lately like to have been ruined by the word and men that were fond of it shall ever have reason to hate them and it and a less space of years than twenty such as passed betwixt 40. and 60. might be allowed to render a word hateful which in strict propriety signifies the Publick Affairs of a People managed by many with equal Authority I could easily answer all you have brought to defend the word but the case being plain I will not trouble my self or my Reader and therefore if you have no other Argument to prove men guilty of a fondness to Arbitrary Power than their aversion for this word I shall never go about to contend with you No man can have a greater Veneration for Parliaments than I have but then who are they that have disordered things to that height they lately were You say the Ministers are the men whom you represent as you use to do with bitter reflections on his Majesty and not the Parliament others say it was such men as your self and the case hath been by both Parties referred to the People and they have by thousands given their Verdicts against those their Representatives which to me is a strong Argument the case is not so difficult as you pretend for I do not conceive it possible to delude so great a part of the People into an abhorrence of their own Representatives without their having given them just cause And if we look about us we shall find these who design a change on either hand fomenting a misunderstanding between the King his Parliament and People whilst persons who love the Legal Monarchy both out of Choice and Conscience are they who desire the frequent and successful meetings of the great Council of the Nation Sir if you durst have spoken your mind plainly I might possibly have thought this the only honest passage in this whole Book but as it now stands it is to me apparent
that you would not let your Conscience in this passage give your Passion in all the rest the lie Now if I might interpret your meaning I should guess it to be this They that on the one hand pretend to maintain the Legal Monarchy but do really intend to advance it into an absolute form without any dependence upon Parliaments and they who pretend the same thing but design to throw off the Monarchy and put the whole Power into the hands of the People i. e. the Commonwealth Party are the men that have brought things into the disorder they are now in Whilst they who love the Legal Monarchy both out of Choice and Conscience amongst which persons I will subscribe my name when occasion requires are they who desire the frequent and successful meetings of the Great Coucil Now Sir here seems to be a little Justice in this for as it were a high and flagrant piece of injustice to say that all that made up the House of Commons in the two last Parliaments designed to ruine the Monarchy and set up another Parliamentary Commonwealth of England So it is the same notorious and base injustice in you to traduce the Ministers in general as you do throughout the whole Pamphlet when as it is apparent enough first That his Majesty never did intend to set up one Dram of Arbitrary Government Secondly That it is not possible for the Ministers to do it without his consent Thirdly That it is scarce possible for him and them to do it if they had designed to do it till there hath been another War Fourthly That never any considerable person or number of persons amongst the Ministers did ever yet make one step towards it For all those Acts that have been so basely traduced are fairly defensible Those that look worst the Transactions about 1671. and 72. not excepted one of which you your self have excused viz. the Postponing of all Payments to the Bankers out of the Exchequer And the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience though you stile it an Arbitrary Power assumed to suspend Penal Laws and say the whole Nation was justly alarmed upon it yet I believe should his Majesty do the same thing over again those that now make the greatest noise against Arbitrary Power without cause would willingly enough accept of it And yet there is no reason that the present Ministers should bear the blame of these things when they that promoted them are now Sir in your Interests And Sir that the meetings of the Great Council may be successful as well as frequent one of these things must be that either the People change the Members of the Lower House or that those Members change their Methods of Proceeding and till this be done these meetings how frequent soever can never be successful For if things be carried in the next Convention as they were in the late Parliaments neither can the King neither will the Nation endure it and for all our Threats you will find when you come to bring it into Act such difficulties as I car not to foretel tho I can foresee them As for the other sort of Peevish men of whom the Declaration gives us warning who are angry at the disappointment of their Ambitious Designs If these words are intended to reflect on those men of Honour and Conscience who being qualified for the highest imployments of State have either left or refused or be removed from them because they would not accept ro retain them at the Price of selling their Country and inslaving Posterity and who are content to sacrifice their Safety as well as their Interest for the Publick and expose themselves to the malice of the men in power and to the daily Plots Perjuries and Subornations of the Papists I say if these are the Ambitious Men spoken of the People will have consideration for what they say and therefore it will be wisdom to give such men as these no occasion to say they intend to lay aside the use of Parliaments This your Appeal to the People hath spoiled all the fine things you had said before for supposing all the rest had been true as it is notoriously false yet this making the People the Judges is a kind of attempt to separate them from their Governours and exasperate them against the Government from whence must spring as great inconveniences as those you pretend to avoid and therefore had I been one of these men I would never have appealed to them but to God and my own Conscience and have sate still till he had pronounced the Sentence in this World or that which is to come You know Sir the People are not able to examine any thing but being once put into a rage by such specious Harangues as these are rush into disorder and confusion and take all that endeavour to quiet them for Enemies and Papists and so the guilty escape and then innocent are cut in pieces And besides all this never was any disorder in a Government rectified by the People but by a greater and more fatal disorder as we had experience in the late times and very often before But let the Event be what it will you are resolved to stir up the People to the utmost to revenge your case upon the Government and to that purpose insinuate there is a design to lay aside the use of Parliaments as if you should have said Stand to your Arms Gentlemen against these Ministers for as they have laid us aside men of Honour and Conscience because we would not sell our Country and enslave Posterity so the next thing to be done is the laying aside Parliaments and you are the men that must by your consideration of us prevent this great mischief This was pretty well but the next is excellent In good earnest the behaviour of the Ministers of late gives but too just occasions to say that the use of Parliaments is already laid aside for tho the King has own'd in so many of his Speeches and Declarations the great Danger of the Kingdom and the necessity of the aid and counsel of Parliaments he hath nevertheless been prevailed upon to dissolve four in the space of twenty six months without making provision by their Advice suitable to our dangers or wants My Author was sensible that the People might think that the former hint proceeded from Passion or was not serious or at least the danger was not eminent and he comes now nearer to them and tells them in good earnest they had but too just occasions to say that Parliaments were already laid aside as to any use of them and he proved it too Four had been dissolved in twenty six months but three of them were called in that time And this is an odd sort of laying them aside to call as many in twenty six months as heretofore have been called in so many years Well but there was no provision made by their Advice suitable to our Dangers
or Wants The fault says the Declaration was in them The King was willing to have done any thing which would have consisted with the very being of the Government He passed every Bill that was tendred connived so long at the proceedings of the last Parliament of Westminster that many men wondred and some that were neither Papists nor Malefactors murmured And a grave man told the very Parliament that he suspected they were permitted to sit there rather to destroy themselves than to save their Country And now after all this is his Majesty to bear the blame that no provision was made by their Advice suitable to our wants and dangers Well but the People to whom my Gentleman is appealing they will never undestand nor consider these things nor any thing else and therefore my Gentleman did wisely to make them the Judges but for the honesty of it or the truth of any of this I have nothing to say Nor can we hope the Court will ever love any Parliament better than the first of those four wherein they had so dearly purchased such a number of fast friends men who having first sold themselves would not stick to sell any thing after And we may well suspect they mean very ill at Court when their designs shockt such a Parliament The business of the Pensioners hath been considered elsewhere and need not here be repeated Now to me one of these things must be false viz. that there was such a number of men who had so sold themselves Or that the Court are such men as you Sir say they are If these men had sold themselves why did they not go on with the bargain If the Court had such an interest in them and such designs upon them and us why did it part with them Especially when the Ministers knew they lost thereby a constant Revenue of extraordinary Supplies as you say they did and I may say they have had little enough since Oh the Reason was they began in good earnest to examine what was done and what was doing And therefore they were pack'd away Well the matter was not great they were a company of Pensioners men that had sold themselves and would not stick to sell any thing after And Sir if it were so the Nation has no reason to complain of the Court for that and I hope I too shall be excused if I have dropt a few less respective words of the three Parliaments that have since followed for they are not better nor more sacred than this of which many of the Lord Chancellors have given high Encomiums my Lord of Shaftsbury not excepted Now let my Reader reflect on all this seriously and tell me if any person even Fitz-Harris himself could possibly write any thing worse than this and which tended more to heighten the resentments of the Nation and put the People into disorder and confusion The most direct and passionate incitements to rebellion he used are not more likely to stir them than our Authors warm and earnest applications on the behalf of these Ambitious men as I perceive the Declaration rightly stiles them for none but such would ever desire to see their Country imbroyled and to that end appeal to the People And supposing the People to be well disposed that way it would be no wonder that the Ministers dare not suffer a Parliament now to sit till the People are in a better temper to chuse one but then Sir this is owing to such men as you and such Books as yours and you must answer for it But we have gained at least this one point by the Declaration that it is own'd to us That Parliaments are the best Methods for healding the distempers of the Kingdom and the only means to preserve the Monarchy in Credit both at home and abroad Own'd by these very men who have so maliciously rendered many former Parliaments ineffectual and by this Declaration have done their utmost to make those which are to come as fruitless and thereby have confessed that they have no concern for healing the distempers of the Kingdom and preserving the credit of the Monarchy which is in effect to acknowledge themselves to be what the Commons called them Enemies to the King and Kingdom Just before Sir you had been proving them designing to lay all use of Parliaments aside and now you bring them in owning what will certainly ruine that design not long before that you had been convicting them of a design of making the Monarchy Arbitrary and absolute and now they are unconcerned for the very Credit of the Monarchy Are you in your right Wits Do you think thus to prove them Enemies to the King and Kingdom Why must those Parliaments that are to come be as fruitless as those that are past The Ministers may be changed or the People may change or the very Parliament men may change and time may be Gods grace have strange effects And in the mean time his Majesty is not in 〈…〉 wants of a Parliament but he 〈…〉 than a bad one a Rending instead of a Healing Parliament And in the interim his Majesties good Subjects can rely as socurely upon his Royal Declaration that he intends not to lay aside the use of Parliaments as if there were one now actually sitting at Westminister However we rejoyce that his Majesty seems resolved to have frequent Parliaments and hope he will be just to himself and us by continuing constant to this Resolution Yet we cannot but doubt in some degree when we remember the Speech made January 26. 1679. to both Houses wherein he told them that he was unalterably of an Opinion that long intervals of Parliaments were absolutely necessary for composing and quieting the minds of the People Therefore which we ought rather to believe the Speech or the Declaration or which is likely to last longest a Resolution or an unalterable Opinion is a matter too nice for any but Court Criticks to decide The effectual performance of the last part of the promise will give us assurance of the first When or where this Speech was spoken by his Majesty I cannot devise for at the time assigned there could be none The first short Parliament was Prorogued May 27. 1679. And the second met not till October 21. 1680. and was Prorogued the tenth of January following I have read over all his Majesties Speeches too about that time and I find not one tittle in them to this purpose But if there ever were any such Speech spoken for I will not be positive there was not it is fairly reconcileable with the very words of the Declaration for the Statute made in his Majesties Reign calls Triennial Parliaments A frequent calling assembling and holding of Parliaments which yet is a very long Interval in comparison of the time his Majesty hath hitherto interposed betwixt the Dissolving or Proroguing of one Parliament and the sitting of another so that the matter was
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
of the French Interest It is not strange at all that the Parliament at Oxford should anger the Court more than that at Westminster for the Court did never yet dissolve a Parliament abruptly and in heat but they found the next Parliament more averse and to insist upon the same things with greater eagerness than the former English Spirits resent no affronts so highly as those that are done to their Representatives and the Court will be sure to find the effects of that resentment in the next Election The truth of this as matter of History is very apparent for so it came to pass in the Reign of his Majesties Father upon every Dissolution the Commons made choice of the same or worse Members till in 1640. they had fitted themselves with a Parliament to their hearts desire who resented not the Affronts done to themselves as the Peoples Representatives but the several Stops and Rubs that had been laid in their way so highly that the Court i e. the King soon felt the effects of it But did the Nation escape No but Bloud and Violence Anarchy and Consusion took possession of them to that height that the pious Martyr called it A Hell of Misery and Chaos of Confusion The Author in the next line acquaints us That a Parliament does ever participate of the present temper of the People Never were Parliaments of more different Complexions than that of 1640. and that of 1661. yet they both exactly answered the humours which were predominant in the Nation when they were respectively chosen It doth not become me to say whether that of 1680. were liker that of 1640. or 1661. but I must needs say I wonder my Author could reflect so sensibly on the difference and yet at the same time heighten the Popular Heats with inculcating the fears of France and Popery and not rather endeavour to allay them by telling his Country-men that twenty years Misery followed the 1640 Parliament and twenty years Peace the latter which I cannot but esteem a more Loyal and a more Prudent reflection than that he hath made and much more necessary both for the Representatives and Electors Let them however now consider seriously of it and the next time send up men zealous to bring the real Incendiaries of the Nation to Justice and then it is not to be doubted but some that are Country Favourites will be found to promote the French and Popish Interest as well as the Republick And I dare then become their Sponsor if it might not look too presumptuously in so mean a person as I am that by Gods mercy we should enjoy another Score of Halsion years to the confusion of Popery and the extreme damage of France Both which do as certainly promote our present distempers as they did those in Charles the First his times as have been made so apparent that the Dissenters who were the Principals then as they are now would fain persuade the world that the Accessaries the French Emisaries and Jesuits did all that mischief that was then done But as this is ridiculous and impossible so if duly considered it might prevent a relapse into the same misery and confusion which is more to be desired by all good Christians than the most delightful revenge upon the Favorites But it is but reasonable to expect all that I can say will signifie but little to this sort of men if the modest Gentleman I am examining may be presumed better acquainted with their tempers than I am For surely saith he this DECLARATION what great things soever may be expected from it will make but very few Converts not only because it represents things as high Crimes which the whole Kingdom the contrary of which is now too apparent to be proved on one hand or denied on the other has been celebrating as meritorious Actions but because the People have been so often deceived by former Declarations that whatsoever carries that Name will have no credit with them for the Future This I confess is one good way to prevent the making too many Converts to Loyalty for if a People can once be effectually persuaded their Governours are faithless perfidious men that seek nothing but an opportunity to delude and abuse them by false pretences there will be no great danger they will pay them too much respect and obedience But surely the man that talks thus is some French Emisary or Jesuit such thoughts as these never arose from a Church of England Gentlemans heart for the worst enemy of England could not have breathed a worse insinuation into the hearts of his Majesties Subjects They have not yet forgot the Declaration from Breda tho others forgot it too soon and do not spare to say that if the same diligence the same earnest solicitations had been made use of in that affair which have been since exercised directly contrary to the design of it there is no doubt but every 〈◊〉 of it would have had its desired effect and all his Majestâ—â—â— Subjects would have enjoyed the fruits of it and 〈…〉 extolling a Prince so careful to keep his Sacred Promise◠〈…〉 People Before this unworthy Insinuation can be 〈…〉 â—â—swered I must transcribe so much of that Declaratio◠〈…〉 here supposed to have sailed of its 〈…〉 followeth And because the Passion and uncharitableness of the times have produced several opinions in Religion by which men are engaged in Parties and Animosities against each other which when they shall hereafter unite in a freedom of Conversation will be better understood we do declare a liberty to tender Consciences and that no man shall be disquieted or called in question for differences of Opinion in matter of Religion which do not disturb the Peace of the Kingdom and that we shall be ready to consent to such an Act of Parliament as upon mature deliberation shall be offered to us for the full granting that Indulgence Here is his Majestie Royal Promise wherein ought to be observed that his Majesty promised nothing to any Party that should disturb the peace of the Kingdom Nor to them that did not further than that he would consent to such an Act of Parliament when it should be offered to him So that he was not obliged to procure such an Act nor yet to do it without an Act. And now let us see how they behaved themselves towards him Whilst says his Majesty we continued in this temper of mind and resolution and have so far complied with the persuasion of particular persons and the distemper of the times as to be contented with the exercise of our Religion in our own Chappel according to the constant practice and Laws established without enjoying that practice and the observation of those Laws in the Churches of the Kingdom in which we have undergone the Censure of many as if we were without that zeal for the Church which we ought to have and which by Gods Grace we shall always
is reduced to want an extraordinary supply and then he ought to resort to his Parliament Well but suppose as it may happen the necessity is so urgent that it cannot be put off till a Parliament can be called and meet and raise money Or if you please suppose a Parliament dare not trust the King with money or which is all one will pretend so Or will not supply him unless he will pass an Act that they shall sit as long as they please or unless he will let them turn out what Ministers of State Justices of the Peace c. they think sit and put in others as they please May not a Prince relieve himself in these cases by an Advance or Anticipation but must submit absolutely to the Commons I hope he will not say these are impossible accidents Our Ancestors did wisely provide that the King and his People should have frequent need of one another and by having frequent opportunities of mutually relieving one anothers wants be sure ever to preserve a dutiful affection in the Subject and a Fatherly tenderness in the Prince When the King had occasion for the liberality of his People he would be well inclined to hear and redress their Grievances and when they wanted ease from oppressions they would not fail with alacrity to supply the occasions of the Crown All this is certainly true and was the very reason why the two first Parliaments of his Majesties Reign of whose Loyalty and hearty affections to the Crown no man ever doubted setled part of the Revenue on his Majesty for his Life only that his Successor might be obliged by a regrant of it And the whole which they gave to this King was but equal to the constant and regular Expences of the Government as they designed it tho it is said it falls short of that too Now might things be thus carried as my Author tells us they were designed to be England would certainly be the happiest Nation in the World The King would be as rich as his People could make him and the People as happy as a tender and good King could make them But alas there is sprung up a new Generation of men who have taken such an Aversion for Monarchy and the just Prerogatives of the Crown that till these Grievances the greatest Grievances that ever can betide a free-born people be totally taken away they can find no gust in the removal of all those other petty Grievances of which our Ancestors complained so often and as often found redress There is also arisen a sort of sober Protestants as the Dissenters will needs be called who can neither agree one with another nor with the Religion that is Established and to them it is an intolerable Grievance to see Episcopacy a Liturgy and a few innocent Ceremonies which they call Popery established in the Church and till these are extirpated Root and Branch and every of their pious Whimsies setled successively in the place of them or tolerated at once they good men cannot be at ease neither These two have twisted their interests together with a third sort that have no Religion at all but have a damnable inclination to the Spoils of the Church and the Plunder of the Nation And they by Popular Arts have wheedled and deluded great numbers of the Freemen and Freeholders of the Nation into a strong belief that Popery is by our Governours designed to be set up in the Church and Arbitrary Government in the State things which these good men hate mightily as there is good reason for it but are very much abused by the Information and much more by being persuaded as they have been that the chusing discontented men to be their Representatives in the House of Commons was the only way to prevent these two dreadful things from falling upon them These men however have sometimes got to be the major part of that House and the Consequence hath ever been that the King could get no Supplies be his necessities what they could be unless he would grant such things as tended immediately to the ruine of the Church and Monarchy And if he were a little averse to it then he was presently Libelled to the Nation as a favourer of Popery and a designer of Arbitrary Government but if it were not safe to attack him then according to the method of the late Rebels the cry was raised against the Evil Counsellors or the Corrupt Ministers and nothing would do but the turning them out of their employments as treacherous Servants to the Kingdom for being too faithful to the King And because they can never effect these great things by other means they have always turned this excellent Constitution against it self and that which was intended to endear the King and his People each to others their mutual want of each others assistance hath been made a Steppal to mount the Throne and pluck down the Mitre So that his Majesty who knew how things went in his Father's days was not out when he told the Commons in his Speech March 1. 1661. as followeth Gentlemen I need not put you in mind of the miserable effects which have attended the wants and necessities of the Crown I need not tell you that there is a Republick Party still in the Kingdom which have the courage to promise themselves another Revolution and methinks I should as little need to tell you that the only way with Gods blessing to disappoint their hopes and desires and indeed to reduce them from those extravagant hopes and desires is to let them see that you have so provided for the Crown that it hath wherewithal to support it self and to secure you which I am sure is all I desire and desire only for you preservation Therefore I do conjure you by all the professions of affection you have made to me by all the kindness I know you have for me after all your deliberations betake your selves to some speedy resolutions and settle such a real and substantial Revenue upon me as may hold some proportion with the necessary Expences I am at for the Peace and Benefit and Honour of the Kingdom that they who look for troubles at home may despair of their wishes and that our Neighbours abroad by seeing that all is well at home may have that esteem and value of Us as may secure the Interest and Honour of the Nation and make the happiness of this Kingdom and of this CITY once more the Admiration and Envy of the World This Parliament understood things well and provided accordingly so that the nineteenth of May following the Lord Chancellor in a Speech made at their Prorogation told them They had wisely very wisely provided such a constant growing Revenue as may with Gods blessing preserve the Crown from those scandalous wants and necessities as have heretofore exposed it and the Kingdom to those dismal miseries from which they are but even now buoyed up for whatsoever other humane
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