First they had a legal Right to continue to sit until both themselves should consent that they might be dissolved and until an Act were past for their dissolution I do confess that the Statute 1640. which I have mentioned was one of the greatest Encroachments upon the Regal Power that ever was and therefore in my Opinion was void in it self because of the direct repugnancy in which it lies to the Essential Rights of the Sovereign and of its Irreconcilableness to those Incidents which are inseparable from Royal Power And as it proved by the Event The day that King Charles gave the Royal Assent to that Bill he put the Scepter out of his own hand and the Sword into the hands of his Enemies Which made the Earl of Dorset salute the King the next Morning after his passing the Bill by the Stile of Fellow Subject because he had by that Act transferred Crown Sword and Scepter to the Parliament And Archy the King's Fool being asked whether the King had done well in passing that Bill Answered That he knew not whether the King was the greater Fool to pass it or they the greater Knaves to ask it And I have been told that the greatest Lawyers at that time in the Kingdom said That it was void in it self And indeed the Law presupposeth that all the Grants and Concessions of the King are to be construed to be made with this Proviso That they are granted salvo jure Coronae But to proceed in what I have undertaken to lay open and demonstrate namely That supposing the King to have been legally and justly Abdicated and Deposed and that his Son the Prince of Wales was rightfully and lawfully Barred and Precluded upon the Score and Foot of Supposititiousness from succeeding immediately to his Father though all that was done Traiterously and Rebelliously yet this Parliament ceased to exist and became dissolved by the Death of the Princess of Orange For these very Gentlemen will not deny neither can they upon their own Principles that upon the Abdication of the King and the Exclusion of the Prince of Wales the Princess of Orange became immediately vested in the Sovereignty as having therein an Estate Tayle unless she had been shut out by some Act or Statute expresly made to exclude and barr her though indeed such a Statute would have been in it self void and treasonable For according to the standing known and acknowledged Laws of this Kingdom the Crown of England upon every Voidance of the Throne is to descend to the next lineal and immediate Heir Female as well as Male and the said Heir according to their own disloyal Hypotheses unless barred by some Act of Parliament becomes actually vested in all the Rights of the Sovereignty Accordingly we have not only a Law in force at present by which it is declared that the Law of the Realm is and ever hath been and ought to be understood that the Kingly and Regal Office of this Realm and all Dignities and Prerogatives Royal c. being invested either in Male or Female are be and ought to be as fully wholy absolutely and entirely deemed judged accepted invested and taken in the one as in the other c. 2 Par. 1 Mar. cap. 1. but we have also another Statute in actual being stiled an Act of Recognition that the Crown of England is lawfully descended to King James viz. the First his Progeny and Posterity which containeth the Words following That we being bound thereunto by the Laws of God and Man do recognize and acknowledge that immediately upon the Dissolution and Decease of Queen Elizabeth the late Queen of England the Imperial Crown of the Realm of England and of all the Dominions and Rights belonging to the same did by inherent Birth-right and lawful and undoubted Succession descend and come to your most Excellent Majesty as being Lineally Iustly and Lawfully next Heir of the Blood-Royal of this Realm c. So that nothing can be more demonstratively Evident than that upon whatsoever Hypotheses or Principles the Conventionists and those who have succeeded them in this Parliament have acted yet that immediately upon the Voidance of the Throne by the abdication of the King and the barring the Prince of Wales to succeed the whole Royal Power became vested in the Princess of Orange And though the exercise and execution of that Power came to be lodged in the Prince her Husband yet that it was in the Administration of the Power of Sovereignty which by the Laws appertained unto and was essentially stated in her which they neither did nor pretended to take from her but the whole which they assumed and took upon them a Right to do was to make a Donation Communication and Conveyance of the same Royal Dignity with all its Powers Prerogatives and Jurisdictions unto him And whereas therefore the Regal Power was owned and acknowledged to reside likewise in the Princess thence it was that her Name was used in the whole executive Part of the Government and that not in Compliment and meerly to testify Respect and Deference but as indispensably Necessary on the foot of the Sovereignty Regal Authority and Power whereof she stood indefeasably seised possessed and vested So that unless her Name had been mentioned in all the executive Acts of Government all those Acts would have been in themselves void illegal and null through the want of the Stamp and Impression upon them of a Person that stood cloathed with the Sovereignty And as to that separating in the late Princess of Orange the exercise of the Regal Power from the Royal Dignity and from the Jurisdictions and Authorities belonging to the same it not only looks like unto and indeed is a plain and manifest Contradiction but it was done in revival of that old Republican and Traiterous Proposition and Notion of distinguishing and severing between the King's Person and his Authority and was intended by the crafty Suggestors of it for the Service of a Commonwealth Design when an Opportunity and a convenient Season do offer For if one Parliament can take the entire and full Exercise of the Royal Power and Government from and out of the hands of a Queen whom themselves acknowledge to have been vested in the Royal Dignities with all the Honours Stiles Titles Regalities Prerogatives to the same belonging another Parliament may by the same Right and with the like Justice take the whole executive Power and the entire Administration of the Government from any King or Queen whatsoever and may place it in both or in either of the Houses or in whom else they please So that a King of England may come in time and by this President if allowed cannot avoid it to be a meer Pageant a King having a glorious and guilded Title but made wholy useless to all the great Ends and Purposes of one and who will serve only to be gazed upon to have the Knee bowed to him and to be made a publick Mockery and
from the Life of any other though of one then vested with the Sovereignty if he was not sole and alone Sovereign But to advance to my second Answer to the forementioned Objection I do say that at some Times and upon some Occasions the executive Power of the Government hath been by Acts of Parliament transferred unto and settled upon those who had no Share or Portion in the Sovereignty and Regal Dignity I will not enquire whether it was done either wisely or legally it being enough for my purpose that it has been done and that oftner than once Of which the first Instance and Example I will assign is that of the 10th Year of Rich. 2. and the 20th Year of his Age For a Parliament being then held and having found that during his Minority there had through the ill Council and Advice of some Persons that were much in his Favour and Confidence been many and great Miscarriages in the Government they thereupon prepared a Bill which upon their obtaining the Royal Assent unto it became an Act or Statute wherein they awarded a Commission to Twelve several Peers and others of great Wisdom and Fidelity giving them Power and Authority in all Things concerning the King's Houshold Courts of Iustice Revenue and every thing else that concerned the good of the Realm to put in execution and finally determine for the Honour of the King Relief of the People and the better Government of the Peace and Laws of the Realm and this Commission to remain in force for a Year at the end whereof the King would be of Age. Now I suppose that no Man will have the Folly as well as the Impudence to say that the Sovereign and Regal Power was vested and inherent in those Commissioners and yet they were possessed of and had thereby given unto them the whole executive Power of the Government So that how much soever this was or at least looks like a Derogation of the Crown an Usurpation upon the Royal Power and a Disherison of the King yet we find it hath been awarded authorised and enacted by a Parliament which demonstratively sheweth That the executive Power of the Government has not only been thought separable but has been actually separated from the Sovereignty and Regal Dignity And consequently that the Prince of Orange's having the full and the sole Exercises of the Regal Power given unto him by the Act of Settlement and his having in the virtue thereof issued out the Writs for the calling of this Parliament doth not entitle it to a Continuance or a Right to sit after the Death of the late Princess there being now a Change and Alteration in the Sovereignty of what it was at the time of calling the said Parliament and before the Death of Mary Forasmuch as the Regal Dignity which was then incorporated in two natural Persons though only one political is now become vested in one single Individual one But the second Instance which I shall mention is yet both more plain and more directly home to the Matter and Subject which I am upon and that is the Statute of the 17 Car. 1. for the calling and holding Triennial Parliaments in which it was ordained and enacted That if the King did not by such a time as was there expressed issue out his Writs for the calling and assembling of a Parliament that then upon such a Failure of the King 's in the executive Part of the Government the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper for the time being and so onwards to others till in case of the Neglect of all those whom they there mention and do both empower and require to do it they give Authority to the Freeholders themselves to meet at or before such a day and to chuse and elect Members Now it will not be denied but that as the Right of calling Parliaments is one of the most noble inherent and essential Prerogatives of the Crown so the exertion of this Sovereign Royal Power in the sending forth of Writs for the actual chusing and assembling of one is one of the most eminent and illustrious Acts and Exercises of the executive Power of Government And here by a Statute introductive of a new Law which had no Foundation in the Common Law and which was besides very derogatory to the Crown was there a Power of issuing out Writs for the calling and assembling of a Parliament transferred unto and devolved upon such as had nothing of the Sovereignty and Regal Dignity Now if through the King 's failing to call a Parliament within the time which was prefixed and limitted by that Act the Lord Chancellor or any of those that were empowered to call it upon the King's neglect to do it should have issued out Writs in persuance of the said Act for the calling and assembling of one all which in fact might very well have been seeing we are to suppose nothing in Statutes to have been idle and impertinent Yet any such Parliament and so called would have been as much and as really dissolved by the Death of the King as if the Writs for the calling of it had been issued out by himself and by his own Personal Authority and Command For through their being called by an Exertion of the King 's Regal and Sovereign Power though applied and exercised by one distinct from him and through the Writs being issued forth in his Name whosoever were the Issuers of them and through the Members being chosen in the Virtue and Persuance of those Writs and through their coming together entrusted by the Electors to confer with the King about the quadam ardua Regni such a Parliament upon the Death of the King in whose Name and Time it was chosen could not escape the being dissolved So that nothing can be more alien to the Matter under debate as well as weak in it self then to pretend because the Prince of Orange is yet Living in whom the Exercise of the Government was at the time of the issuing forth of those Writs by which this Parliament was called that therefore the Parliament it self remains still in Being and is in Law indissolved Seeing in this Case it is not in whom the Right and Power resided to put forth exercise and apply the Sovereignty that the Duration Continuance and Existence of a Parliament does bear and depend but in whom the full and entire Sovereignty and Regal Dignity was then vested and settled preclusive of all others And I am sure that no Man who stands not a Candidate for a Preferment in Bedlam will say That the whole and full Sovereignty was then in William to the barring and excluding of Mary But to add a third Answer to the foregoing Objection I do say That the very placing of the Exercise of the Royal Power in the Prince of Orange in the manner it was done by the Convention and as it stands expressed in the Act of Settlement and is confirmed by this Parliament does beyond all contradiction
will the Constitution allow they should by which the King may either be barred of the Allegiance Fealty and Obedience of his Subjects or be deprived and divested of the Counterpart of it inseparaby appendent unto and resident in himself namely of Trust and Power to rule and defend his People And should either a Parliament be so passionate and encroaching as to present and demand these Things in Bills or a King so weak or indiscreet as to raise them unto the Title of Laws by giving the Royal Assent to them yet they never would be good and legal Acts nor have the force and virtue of Laws though they carried the Name but they would ipso facto be void in themselves as being directly repugnant unto and perfectly subversive of the Constitution So that how large extensive and unlimitted soever the Power of a King and Parliament acting in conjunction may be yet there are some Essentials and Fundamentals of the English Government whereof a few relate to Privileges incident to the People of England as they are a free Nation and divers are intrinsical to the Royal Authority and inseparable from the Person and Dignity of the King that the very Constitution makes them Sacredly unchangeable and sets them out of the reach of King and Parliament to meddle with And should they ever attempt it they would thereby immediately destroy themselves and become divested of all the Power and Authority they have or claim because deriving all their Jurisdictions from the Constitution and having no other Title to them but what that gives whensoever that is overturned and subverted all other Powers sink and fall with it Nor is there any Thing more common in our Books than that notwithstanding the Almightiness of Parliaments yet there are some Things that cannot be taken away by them As no Attainder by Parliament lies against a King rightfully gotten into the Possession of the Crown but he stands ipso facto Guiltless and Innocent in the esteem and account of the Law Nor is it in the Power of a Parliament to take away or dispose of the Right of a Kingdom as the Case has it 1 Hen. 7. Neither can a Parliament barr a King of the Right of his Regality as that no Lands shall hold of him and therefore when there was an endeavour carrying on in the beginning of the Reign of King James the First to have taken away all Tenures by Act of Parliament it was resolved by all the Judges That such a Stature had it been enacted would have been a void Statute This might be enlarged in many other Instances but these are enough to illustrate and confirm what I have mentioned only before I dismiss this Head give me leave to make those Reflexions upon the two Revolutional Parliaments and their pretended Parliamentary Proceedings as will serve to set it in a Meridian Light That they have not only exceeded the Bounds prescribed in and by the Nature Frame and Quality of the Constitution but they have altered changed subverted and overthrown the very Constitution itself and thereby destroyed the Ancient Legal Government of England and have acted Traiterously towards their Country as well as Treasonably and Rebelliously against the King And to begin with some Instances in matter of Fact wherein they have departed from and have acted in opposition unto all those main Essentials of the Constitution which relate to the Community whose Trustees they were originally intended to be for the preserving the Constitution entire and inviolated to them and to their Posterity For Parliaments are so far from being by their primitive Institution appointed to be the Representatives of the People to destroy that which was and rightfully still is the English Government that the great end of their Ordination and of their being successively chosen trusted and empowered by the People is that they may assert maintain and uphold it Nor can Five or Six hundred Men though they were both elected by Six hundred thousand which I am sure is a far greater Number than all the allowed Electors of Members to Parliaments amounts unto and though they should receive Credentials and Authorities from those Electors to alter the Government stand empowered by those means to do it but they should and ought previously to the attempting of it to have either an antecedent Signification of the Will and Pleasure of the many Millions of the Community and the Nation besides those or to receive a Substitution by and from them by which they are made their Representatives and Plenepotentiaries to act for them in that matter as they in their Wisdom shall find to be most for the Safety Good and Interest of the whole Society or of the universal Body of the People But instead of this neither was the Community in the least consulted with either as to the knowing their Mind and Sense in that Affair or as to the obtaining from them a Deputation to act and do in their Names and Room whatsoever they in the Place and Quality of Deputies should judge to be necessary and most useful Nor yet came these Parliaments together authorised and empowered for any such matter by those few upon whom the Right of electing Members of Parliament is devolved for the transacting Affairs in subordination unto consistency with and subserviency to the maintenance of the Constitution Neither indeed could these Electors conveigh any such Right Authority or Power unto them seeing all that they stood in a Capacity to chuse them for was that they might be their Representatives for the preserving of the Constitution and for the upholding of the Government on the Basis and Foundation upon which it was originally established and did then stand And yet these Parliaments have in defiance of all the Rules and Measures of the Constitution and in a treacherous Violation of all the Trust and Confidence reposed in them by their Country changed the whole Essential and Fundamental Frame of the Government of England and from an Hereditary Monarchy have made it an Elective For abstracting from the barbarous and treasonable Injustice they have done the King till hereafter they have broken the Chain of the Lineal Succession and by dissolving that Link in the Instrument and Machine of our Government they have destroyed it as to what it was and what it still ought to be according both to the Fundamentals of our first Establishment into a Polity and the Common and Statute Laws of the Kingdom And this they are become guilty of before God and accountable for in their Lives and Fortunes to their Country not only by barring the Right of the Prince of Wales who is lineal lawful and immediate Heir to the King his Father and by their vesting the Regal Administration in the Prince of Orange previously unto the Claim and Title of the late Princess of Orange but by postponing and justling out of its natural lineal and due Place the Right of the Princess of Denmark And herein our unthinking
soft headed Church of England Monarchical Men have suffered themselves to be wheedled by the Republican Whigs into a Conspiracy and Co-operation with them for the destruction of Regal Government And by their having concurred to break the Line of the Descent of the Crown they have made it impossible on the Principles they have acted to assert the Regal Form of Government in any consistency with themselves when they come to be pressed on that hand by the Commonwealth-men For by the same Topicks of Argumentation they may as well be prevailed upon to put by and lay aside any Heir to the Crown as to shut out and debar the Right one For as all that your Democratical People designed by setting up the Man at Kensington was only to make a President whereby to usher in and give countenance to an Attempt against Royalty it self so having compassed their end they are endeavouring all they can to drop that Gentleman and to walk him as fast as they can out of the Kingdom And to be prepared for the effecting of what they have in Projection they are studying by all fraudulent Arts towards the Prince of Orange and by all the Methods of Treachery to their Country to wind themselves into those Posts and Places of Interest Authority and Power by which they may be put into a condition and enabled to accomplish it For though an Elective Monarchy is the worst Government that a People can fall under yet the Republican Whigs will not be willing to allow us so much as that but have in prospect the laying aside Kingship it self For as they know that if the choice of a King were to be made by the Pole they are too few to carry it for one of that Faction by majority of Votes being in themselves a very diminutive and narrow Party and only believed to be numerous because they are more noisy than their Neighbours So they would be loath to have it come to the Saber in the choice of a King as is sometimes practised in the Dyets of Poland the generality of the Faction being dastardly and cowardly though extreamly huffy while they imagine themselves out of the danger of Blows And by that little knowledge I have of them they will always be found more faithless treacherous and worse Friends than daring and brave Enemies But it is hoped that the old Loyalty of the Church of England Party will rouse it self out of that Lethargicalness into which they have been thrown by their Enemies concealed and covered under the Name of Friends and that upon revival and restoration of their former measure of Sincerity and Zeal for Monarchy they will not only obviate and defeat the Designs of the Republicans but make them feel their Resentments for having withdrawn misled and perverted them from ancient Principles And indeed how artfully Zealous and Industrious soever your Trenchards Sommers Riches Clarks and your Commonwealths Men are who being so well known I need not Name them for the extirpating of Monarchy yet they are not very likely to compass the extinguishing and abolishing of that primitive and ancient Government of this Kingdom though they may possibly if longer connived at embroil the Nation and retard the Restoration for a while But that is the most they can effect seeing as they have no large or considerable Interest either in City or Country so they have neither Vertue Honour or any of those Qualities which may gain the People either to esteem or to place confidence in them and much less to follow them with hazard of Lives and Fortunes But in the mean time what becomes true English Men to think of and to do to these Parliaments which have altered and overthrown the Constitution that gave them the Right and Title to all they had either in the Freedom of their Persons or in the Property of their Goods For they that have subverted the Fundamental Laws will much more do the same by other Laws if their Power were but answerable to their Will And they who have disseised the King Prince of Wales and Princess of Denmark of their Right do not out of Principles of Conscience and Justice forbear to treat all Mankind at the same rate Nor have these two Revolutional Parliaments been contented with the altering of the Government which both the Constitution barrs them from all rightful Capacity of doing and which through the Interest that every Subject has in it is the highest Injury and Wrong that can be done to every English Man for whose good Parliaments were originally designed and not for their hurt but these two Parliaments have in Contempt of and with the highest Violation of the very Fundamentals of the Constitution made a Sacrifice to the Man at Kensington of the Freedom and Liberty of our Persons contrary to all the Provisions wrapt up in the Constitution for the preserving and securing them unto us For Sir suffer me to tell you That a Right and Title to the Freedom of our Persons save where we are precluded from that Right by Crimes against the Government or against that Justice which is necessary or convenient to be observed amongst Men doth not accrue and arise unto us either from Magna Charta the Petition of Right or the Statute of Habeas Corpus but it was reserved unto us and we were kept in Possession of it by the very Nature and Frame of our Constitution For our whole Government was founded upon that Supposal and Concession That it was to be a Government of and over Free-men and not of and over Villains and Slaves And the Great Charter and the other Laws which I have mentioned did not create and give us a Right to the Freedom of our Persons but they did only assert vindicate and fence it about They were not Laws of manumission from Bondage but declaratory of our antecedent and inherent Title to Liberty They wrested no new Privilege or Inheritance from the Crown for us they only repossessed us in what we had been illegally and forceably ejected from They do not make us a Title where we antecedently had not one but do only clear up the Title which we had and set it in a brighter Light For we had the same Claim to the Freedom of our Persons before those Laws were made which we have now though through the Fault of those that misled Princes we were sometimes wrongfully outed of it and had not those ready and effectual Remedies for recovering it as we have by Magna Charta and those other subsequent Laws Nor is it unworthy of Remark that though some Kings through the Influence and Advice of some ill Ministers had now and then entrenched and made an Invasion upon that Liberty of our Persons reserved unto us in those Fundamental Rules upon which the Government was established yet Parliaments were always heretofore Advocates and Patrons of the Subjects Liberties Laws relating to the Freedom of our Persons have been in some Reigns and by
have ventured upon Matters which lay wholy out of their Cognizance and beyond all the Precincts of their Legal Rightful and Parliamentary Power The time was when a House of Commons did so well understand the Limits of their own Sphere and the Boundaries within which they were to move that when lawful Kings have asked and prayed their Advice in matters out of the Circle of their Province they have excused themselves from giving it and have declared that they were Things of so high a Nature and so peculiarly incident to the Royal Dignity that they neither could nor durst meddle with them And therefore when Richard II. asked the Opinion and Advice of the House of Commons about the way and manner of prosecuting the War he was engaged in against France they answered Nec doit nec soloit appertaine al eux mes al Roi They neither ought nor used to belong unto them but the King see the Parliament Roll 6 Ric 2. par 2. pag. 9. And when Edward III. had desired the same Thing of the Commons in reference likewise to his War with France and about the guarding of the Sea Coast the Commons make Answer Quils ne sont charge a councell doner al chose des quel ils n'ont pas cognoisance That they desired not to be charged to give their Advice in a matter whereof they can take no Cognizance see the Parliament Roll of the 13 Ed. 3. par 1. n. 2. The like Answers were made by the House of Commons the 23th of Edw. 3. and the 7th of Ric. 2. And whereas in all the Regal Writs for the calling of Parliaments they are required to meet and come together to give the King their Advice it is always with this express Limitation That he desires their Advise pro quibusdam arduis negotiis nos defensionem Regni nostri Angliae Ecclesiae Anglicanae concernentibus About some Affairs which concern the Defence of himself the Kingdom and the English Church But these Parliaments instead of coming together to Advice and Provide for the Defence or for the Restoration of their Rightful King they first abdicated him and have then impoverished the Nation by maintaining an expensive War to hinder his Return Instead of confining themselves to quaedam ardua Regni they have struck at the King's Person Crown and Dignity and have medled as boldly in changing the Polity of England as if they had been determining about some little Privilege of their own House or had been meerly concerned about the Ejecting or Imprisonment of one of their Members But though all of them have been less or more involved in these Crimes yet many became Accessary to them to prevent worse namely to obviate a civil War and to hinder a Republick upon the next voidance of the Throne And they have submitted both to defile and wound their Consciences that they might testify their Love and Zeal for the Monarchy and cover and conceal their Loyalty to the King Rather than put themselves out of Capacity of asserting and upholding the old English Regal Form of Government when it comes directly to be attacked and of doing the King service when an Opportunity offereth they have been contented to undergo a Stain upon their Honour as well as the having their Loyalty brought under an Eclipse For it comes to pass in these Epidemical and Raging Distempers of Kingdoms as it did in the great Plague of Athens of which Thucydides speaks whereof as most died so those who escaped with their Lives were all left deformed and maimed one losing an Eye and another a Limb but hardly one preserved from visible and disfiguring Defects But while those wilful Crimes in many and human Frailties in all have cut out much work to themselves for Repentance so they will only serve to furnish the injured and good King with a large Occasion and an ample Theater of displaying his Mercy and Grace Nor are there any so heinous Offenders against him whom he is not ambitions as well as ready to forgive if they will but make themselves so far capable of Pardon as to desire and accept it And to have any despair of his Grace provided they will repent and return to their Duty would both more grieve and offend him than all they have done in deposing him and driving him from his Kingdoms Nor doth he question but that most of those who have both refused to have him Reign over them and have been ready to abjure him will whensoever they are converted be not only the most zealous in Loyalty themselves but the forwardest to confirm others in their Fealty Neither will any thing be more pleasing and delightful to the King than to see those love much to whom much hath been forgiven But abstracting from the Disloyalty of that Assembly stiled at present a Parliament and its Nullity on that foot to be legally one and granting to those Gentlemen all their own Hypotheses how treasonable and rebellious soever they be yet I say that according to all those Laws which themselves own and profess to be both under the Obligation and Guidance of they ceased to be a Parliament and became dissolved in Law upon the Death of the late Princess of Orange For admitting the Prince and Princess to have been King and Queen and that they had a Rightful and Legal Authority to call a Parliament and that this Parliament was duly chosen lawfully assembled and fat vested with all the Power of acting in that Capacity that ever any Parliament did yet I do both repeat and affirm it That since the Death of the Princess of Orange they have been no Parliament and have no otherwise continued to possess their Seats and to act in the Quality and by the Stile they have done than by a most illegal and unpresidented Usurpation Of all the Parliaments that ever were none had that seeming Security to make their Sitting everlasting as that which met the Third of November 1640. It having been enacted in favour of the Continuance of that Parliament That it should not be prorogued adjourned nor dissolved but by and with their own Consent and by Act of Parliament And yet all the Lawyers are of Opinion that it became dissolved An. 1648 by the Death of King Charles the First whose Writs had raised it into Being and given Existence to it And accordingly the Parliament of the 13 Car. 2. took it for granted That it was undoubtedly dissolved and determined and thereupon declared and adjudged it to be fully dissolved and determined Cap. 1. Though there had never any Act passed for the dissolving of it and consequently in the Opinion of those who made that Statute 166â— it must have come to be dissolved by the Death of King Charles the First who called it and to advise with whom it assembled and met For as to Oliver's turning those Members forceably out of the House that could be no legal Dissolution if after the Death of Charles the
Derision in all the Regal Acts of the Government by having his Name mentioned while others have the Exercise and are in the Exertion of the whole and entire Sovereign Power Nor was the late Princess of Orange upon the Abdication of the King and the Exclusion of the Prince of Wales meerly seised and possessed of the Sovereign and Royal Dignity over this Realm as she was next lineal and immediate Heir to his Majesty but she had also the legal Authority and Power granted and conveyed unto her by the Gift and Donation of the Convention which the present Parliament instead of controuling retracting and annulling did recognize own and confirm Nor had she meerly the bare and naked Name of Queen given and conveyed unto her but she was declared to be vested with the whole and entire Royal and Sovereign Power save that the Exercise of it was limitted and confined to the Prince of Orange Now you must not think that I am so thoughtless and weak as to endeavour to prove her being possessed of the Sovereignty and her being cloathed with the Royal Jurisdiction because Treason might have been committed against her yea and against her natural Person seeing it was not only made High Treason by the Statute of the 2 Parl. in the first Year of Queen Mary to compass the Death of King Philip or to deprive him of the Stile or Kingly Honour of this Realm but because it had also anciently been made Treason by the Statute of the 25 Ed. 3. to compass the Death of the King 's eldest Son and Heir to violate the King's Companion or the King 's eldest Daughter unmarried or the Wife of the King 's eldest Son and Heir or to slay the Chancellor Treasurer or the King's Iustices of the one Bench or the other Iustices in Eyre or Iustices of Assise and all other Iustices assigned to hear and determine being in their Places and doing their Offices But I will do it by laying before you so much of the late Act of Parliament as relates to my purpose which that I may give the greater light strength and vigour unto I shall likewise represent to you the Act of the 2 Parl. of Queen Mary which was held in the first Year of her Reign that by your Observation thereupon in what different Terms and enlarging Expressions of Power the Princess of Orange was made declared and enacted Queen from those by which Philip was precluded and shut out from the having or exercising the Regal Power even when he was honoured with the Regal Stile and Dignity you may easily and fully know that the whole Sovereignty and Regal Power and Jurisdiction were in the late Princess whereas no part of them was allowed to Philip For at the same time and by the same Statute when and by which Philip had the Royal Stile Title and Honour given and imparted unto him and was constituted and pronounced King elevated above the Quality of a Subject which a King or Queen Consort are not it was ordained and enacted That the Queen might and should solely and as sole Queen use have and enjoy the Crown and Sovereignty of and over all these Realms Dominions and Subjects with all the Preeminencies Prerogatives Dignities Authorities Iurisdictions and Honours thereunto belonging c. And that no Right or Claim of Sovereignty should be given come or grown unto the said Philip over these Realms and Dominions But now the Act of Settlement in and by which a Donation is made of the Crown and Royal Dignity to the Prince and Princess of Orange runneth in a much other and far different Stile For after that Assembly had assumed and usurped to it self a Right and Authority of disposing and bestowing the Crown of this Kingdom and after they had in their signal Goodness Condescention and Bounty made a Donation of it and of the Sovereign and Royal Dignity to the Prince and Princess of Orange declaring that thereby they did become our Sovereign Liege Lord and Lady King and Queen of England c. they then further add to those Princely Persons the Royal Estate Crown and Dignity of these Realms with all Honours Stiles Titles Regalities Prerogatives Iurisdictions and Authorities to the same belonging are most Fully Rightfully and Entirely invested incorporated united and annexed So that we may by comparing the Communication of the Royal Name Stile and Dignity made by the former Act with the Conveyance of the same with the subjoined and annexed Jurisdiction c. made by the later Act come to understand that the whole Sovereign Royal Power and Authority over these Realms became vested in the Princess as well as the Prince of Orange which they were not in Philip but only in Queen Mary But to all that which I have already advanced I go on further to add That even on the Principles of the Gentlemen of the two Revolutional Parliaments the whole Sovereignty was not only as wholy and as entirely in the Princess of Orange as it was in the Prince but that it was one and the same Individual Sovereignty though lodged in two different and distinct Persons and I must withall say That though they were Two in genere Physico in the Predicament of Substances yet they were but One in conspectu Legis in the esteem and account of the Law The Royalty and Legal Authority was not divided between them one Share falling to the Lot of the Prince and another becoming the Portion of the Princess but it was the same entire undivided numerical Sovereignty in them both For this the Act of Settlement doth as plainly declare as Words can express it namely That the Prince and Princess of Orange being become our King and Queen that therefore in and to their Persons are the Regal Estate Crown c. fully entirely invested incorporated united and annexed And therefore all Commissions Grants and the many other Exercises of Sovereignty were ordained to be and have accordingly been in both their Names Nor did that Union and Conjunction of their Names in all Cases wherein the Royal Authority did or could exert it self proceed from a Contribution of Regal and Sovereign Efficacy and Authority which each of them gave to every Act of Jurisdiction both clubbing those distinct Shares and Parts of Regal Power which they possessed separately and by Moyeties but it had its Foundation in and flowed from that numerical Unity of Regal Power Authority and Jurisdiction which they stood vested with as one legal Sovereign though two physical Persons In a Word though William and Mary were two several and distinct individual Persons of the human Species they were but un Roi one singular King in their Politick Station And to place iâ— beyond being contradicted by any reasonable and discreet Man that the Sovereignty was as fully in her as in him and that it was but one and the same Sovereignty lodged in both not only all the Acts flowing from the executive Part of the Government do run
be a Parliament notwithstanding the Death of the late Princess nor can either the Wit or the Malice of Man invent and produce more and therefore I shall represent them in all the fairest Colours of Beauty and Strength that they are capable of having put upon them and then I shall give those irresistable Answers to them that Men must sacrifice Reason to Passion and prefer Darkness to Light that can have the Face to alledge them again in behalf of the Westminster Iuncto's remaining to be a Parliament The first is That though by the Act of Settlement there was a Donation made of the Crown to William and Mary and the whole and compleat Sovereignty placed and settled Joyntly in them both as one Regal Head of the Kingdom yet by the same Act The entire and full exercise of the Royal Power and Government was only to be in and to be executed by William in the Names of them both And therefore that the issuing forth of the Writ by which this Parliament was called and had a legal Existence and Being given unto it being an Act of the executive Part and Power of the Government and done by William alone in persuance of that Right and Authority vested in him by the Act of Settlement and he still surviving that consequently this Parliament surviveth also and will continue so to do until he either dissolve it by an Exertion of his Sovereign Regal Authority or until it come to be dissolved by his Death which when it comes I do suppose the Gentlemen of the Club in St. Stephen's Chapel will not be so frontless as not to acknowledge it to be a Demise Now to this Objection I shall take the Liberty and be at the Pains of returning three Answers and all of them evidently Clear and demonstratively Satisfactory The first is That it is not the bare having the Right of executing the Regal Power and Government that enableth a Person to give Being to a Parliament but it is the whole and entire Sovereignty vested in such a Person and then exerted in some executive Act that can and doth give a legal Existence unto it That is every Act that is or can be constitutive of a Parliament must have its Foundation and flow and result from the whole Sovereignty before the exercise and application of such an Act in the issuing out of Writs can in that way of Power that is meerly executive be capable of giving a Legality to what is done And therefore the most Rightful King that is and who hath both the whole and entire Sovereignty and the legal Authority and Power of executing it fully and inherently lodged and vested 〈◊〉 him may nevertheless command and do Things illegal and arbitrary if he extend his executive Power in commanding and doing those Things which by the Rules of the Constitution and the Laws of the Land do lie out of the Verge of his Royal and Sovereign Power For every act that a Prince exerteth his Authority in and about must first lie within the Circle and Precinct of his Sovereign and Legal Power before his Exercise of his Authority in and concerning it can be Lawful and Justifiable otherwise all Exercises of Executive Royal Power though by the most legitimate and lawful King are so far from being legal Acts that they are Acts of force and violence No Man will deny but that King James was a Lawful and Rightful King and that he had both the entire Sovereignty and the executive Power of Government fully and legally vested in him and yet the Convention in their Act of Donation of the Crown to William and Mary and which Act stands confirmed by this Parliament do not only declare that the Power to which he pretended of dispensing with the Laws or the execution of the Laws by Regal Authority was illegal and that his issuing out a Commission for erecting the late Court of Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes and all other Commissions and Courts of the like Nature are illegal and pernicious Not to mention that large Roll of many Exeâ—â—ises of his executive Power which they do there declare to have 〈◊〉 also illegal but they make assign and lay them down as the Grounds Reasons and Motives why they withdrew their Allegiance from him and abdicated and renounced him Now when the present Parliament was called the Prince of Orange had no Sovereign Power distinct and separate from the Sovereign Power that was vested in the Princess but the entire Sovereignty was incorporated in them both Joyntly as one political Head And therefore there being an Abatement by her Death of the Validity of those Writs by which this Parliament both received its Being and was supported and upheld in it it unavoidably followeth That the Parliament became thereupon actually dissolved through the ceasing of the Legal Authority of the Writs upon which its Existence depended For her Sovereignty being once absolutely necessary to give Vertue Vigour and Authority to those Writs and to make them good in Law and operative to the Ends for which they were issued forth and that Sovereignty of hers being wholy departed the Writs and they thereupon in Law being become Nullities it naturally and uncontroulably follows that through the Nullity that by her Death hath overtaken those Writs that which was once a Parliament upon their Hypotheses of Government is also become cassed disabled and annulled from remaining one any longer For as the Author of the Letter to a Friend in the Country hath very well observed It is not Sovereignty in genere that preserveth the Life Power and Authority of a Parliament but it is the Sovereignty of the same individual Royal Person that gave Validity and Efficacy to the Writs by which it was at first called For otherwise as a King never dyes so no Parliament could ever be dissolved by the Death of any nor could any Thing dissolve a Parliament but his pronouncing it to be so that first called it By our Law the King is immortal he never dyeth the King liveth over 〈◊〉 the Regal Dignity and Power do always subsist though there be a Change of the Persons in whom it was inherent 1 Com. 177. 11 Rep. 7. 21 Ed. 4 c. so that according to our Law there is never a Cessation of the Sovereignty but only a Cessation of this or that individual Subject or Person in whom while he survived it was incorporated and inherent So that upon the whole unless you can make William alone to be both William and Mary and can render one single individual Person to be two the Sovereign that we have noâ— is not the same identical Sovereign that we had before the Death of the late Princess And by consequence this Parliament mast in Law be actually dissolved seeing its whole Being and Existence depended upon the Life of the Sovereign we had then and that preclusively from all legal Capacity and Possibility of borrowing a Duration and Continuance in its Existence
therefore proved this Parliament to be in Law dissolved beyond the possibility as well as suspition of having any just and reasonable Answer made and returned to what I have said I cannot in duty to my Country and Posterity forbear adding something of and concerning the Criminalness of those Persons in both Houses who since the Death of the late Princess have coninued to sit and act under the Name and Sâ—ile and with the pretended Power and Authority of a Parliament and to imprison the Persons and to dispose of the Properties of the Subject and Free-born People of England And I am not ignorant how that besides the Hazards I shall thereby expose my self unto unless I get to the other side of the great Ditch I shall likewise be esteemed guilty of Rudeness as well as of ill Breeding in bestowing upon them the Titles and Appellations and in treating them in the manner that they deserve And therefore whatsoever Names of Epithets I may unavoidably be obliged to dignify them with as they claim and challenge the being a Parliament and thereupon usurp an Authority of invading and breaking in upon the Liberties and of alienating transferring and giving away the Estates of the People and that to a degree and measure unpresidented in all former Ages and which no lawful Parliament ever ventured upon or thought consistent with the Duty that they owed to those whom they represented and by whom they were entrusted to act for their Safety and Advantage and not for their Impoverishment Enslavement and Ruin yet neither will I forget what becomes my own Character nor what is due to them answerable to their several and respective Conditions and Qualities abstracting only from their being a Parliament and much less will I borrow any of that undecent unclean and ribaldry Language to give them which was not without demerit thrown upon the Rump when the lampooning of it was for a great while made the Sport and Divertisement of the Kingdom For the wost terms I will allow my self to use shall be to call a Spade a Spade and to fasten upon them the Characters and Titles which Law and Reason instruct and authorise me to give them and which our English Dialect enables me to do and which I am sure ought in Justice to be so far from being held and accounted Scandalous that it falls below being piquant and keeps within the Limits and Precincts of modesty The first Thing then which they are hereby become guilty of is their having rendered the continuance of the Session of all Parliaments for the future uncertain and arbitrary For by their destroying all the legal Security we have of defining and determining the period of a Parliaments Right of remaining to sit and act they have done what they can to make the Session of any Parliament perpetual at least arbitrary unless it come to be turned out of the House by Violence and armed Force as Oliver 1653. drove away the Rump For the tenor of the Writ by which a Parliament is called being all the legal Security we have both for the Declaration of the use and end it is called for and for the giving Power Strength and Authority for its whole legal Existence it undeniably follows That whensoever it goes beyond the Boundaries and Confinements of that Writ that from thence forward the time of their sitting is made arbitrary and put out of the Power of the Law to determine And a Parliament being equally if not more dissolved by a Demise in the Sovereign by whose Regal Power it was raised than it is by any King 's pronouncing it dissolved in the Virtue of his Sovereign executive Power it naturally follows That this Assembly may not only as well but better refuse to dissolve upon William's pronouncing and declaring them dissolved than it hath withstood the being dissolved by the Death and Demise of Mary So that by the President of these Mens continuing to sit it is put out of the Power of the Prince unless backed by force as well as out of the Power of the Law to dissolve a Parliament And it is but for Five hundred People to get in the customary and usual way into St. Stephen's Chapel and they are then as safe as in an enchanted Castle and may there sit act and reign as long as they please and that with a Despoticalness becoming the Grand Seigniors of the Republick And having superceded the Law and manumitted themselves from the Authority of it it is but for them to bribe the Mob or wheedle the soft-headed People of the City to come down to Westminster to be their Guard and then they will sit encircled and fenced against the military Power of the King as well as against his Sovereign Regal and Executive Authority And seeing the present Assembly has thought fit to continue and act as a Parliament in contempt and defiance of the Law and in a direct transgression of all the Limits and Boundaries that it had set them and have put themselves out of the reach and power of coming ever to be dissolved by Law I have only this Advice to give them That they would gain Capt. Tom and his Legions to befriend and protect them and then the great Hero of the Age will find it more hazardous though in the Head of his invincible Dutch to attack them or to interrupt disturb and determine their sitting than ever Don Quixot found it to combat the Wind-mills But waving being further pleasant upon so melancholy a Theme and Subject as this is I will only add that by the Example which the present Juncto which stiles it self a Parliament has made for all those that shall be assembled hereafter both the whole Constitution and all the Laws of England that relate to the calling regulating and determining the Sittings of Parliaments are plainly subverted and overthrown which may be of that fatal consequence to Posterity as no Words can serve fully to express The next Crime therefore whereof they were accusable for continuing to sit and act as a Parliament since and notwithstanding the Death of the late Princess is That they have thereby broken and falsified all that Trust which was placed and reposed in them by their Country Now a Trust is or at least should be one of the most sacred Things of the World because not only much of all the Intercourse that is among Men depends upon it but because it is the Bafis of every Society and the Foundation of the Fabrick of all Governments be the Kind and Species of them what it will And by how much the Trust is the more extensive and great by so much it is in Justice as well as Honour to be the more punctually observed and persued and the breach of a Trust does not only imply and include Falsehood and Infidelity in him that violateth it but it imports and involves the blackest Treachery towards those that had reposed their Confidence in them Now the Members of the
Whether the Parliament be not in Law dissolved by the Death of the Princess of Orange And how the Subjects ought and are to behave themselves in relation to those Papers emitted since by the Stile and Title of Acts With a brief Account of the Government of England In a Letter to a Country Gentleman as an Answer to his second Question THough you have exceedingly mistook your Man in demanding my Opinion about a Case that lies so much out of my Province and Circle that it hath hardly come within the Boundaries of my Conversation either with Books or Men. Yet not being altogether a Stranger to the Nature of the Government and the Rules of the Constitution under which I live nor wholy unacquainted with the ancient and modern Transactions of my Country neither utterly ignorant of the Practices of Ages as they remain registred in Histories I will rather both venture my own Reputation and run the Risque of being censured for straying beyond the Limits of my proper Studies than not obey your Command in what you were pleased to require of me and thereby give you fresh and repeated Evidence both of the Authority you have over me and of the Deference I pay to your Merit as well as to your Quality And though I will not pretend to say the hundredth part of what might or ought to be said on this Subject yet by what I shall be able to lay before you in relation to it you will easily guess what might have been done or what yet may by a better and more proper hand Nor can I now without a Forfeiture of my Credit and a Departure from Truth refuse to give you my Thoughts in this Matter having in my Answer to your first Question stated and pledged my Honour and Faith that I would also reply to your second and having also told you that I had brought under the compass of my thoughts and in effect digested whatsoever was needful towards a clear though brief Resolution of it And I do lay claim to no such Privilege as the breaking of my Word but am willing to leave the Credit or Infamy of that to the Authors and Publishers of Hague Delarations Now I am so far from quarrelling at Parliaments or detracting from the Esteem they ought to be in or from the Respect that is commonly paid them that I preserve for them all the Honour and Veneration imaginable while they confine themselves to the Uses and Ends unto which they were primitively ordained and govern themselves by the Measures chalked out for them in the Constitution They are of that early Original and ancient Standing that for any Thing I know they are in some sense and degree though under difference variety and distinction of Names coeval with or very little subsequent and posterior to our Government Their Antiquity is such though not always under the same Appellation and by the same Stile nor with the same Allowances of Power and Authority that Caput inter nubila condunt their beginning is immemorial So I will not dispute and much less controul the Testimonies which we have in the Commentarios upon Littleton fol. 100. namely That before the Conquest and from thence downward till the end of Hen. 3. there had been no fewer than Two hundred and eighty Sessions of Parliament which doth much exceed the Number during the Reigns of Eighteen Sovereign Kings and Queens that have ruled over this Kingdom since But were their Institution as modern as some Men will have it and were they at first illegitimately obtained and wrenched from the Crown by Insurrections Tumults and Wars yet having once acquired an Establishment by Law confirmed by Custom and ratified by Charters and sworn unto by our Kings our Title to the having of Parliaments for the Ends and Uses whereunto they were appointed is not now precarious but in right belongeth unto us For unquestionably many Things were at first vested in the Crown which it having afterwards alienated and parted with either for the ease and safety of the Monarchy or for the good and advantage of the People it were unjust as well as unwise for any King to reassume them Whatsoever comes once to be Legally established by a plenary and lawful Power is not reversable at the Prince's Will nor doth it lie under his Authority to annul it at his Pleasure And therefore all who have written with any Judgment of Governments Laws and Politicks do unanimously tell us That amplitudo restrictio-potestatis Regum circa ea quae per se mala injusta non sunt pendet ex arbitrio hominum ex conventione vel pacto inter Reges Regnum that the extent and restriction of Royal Power in and about such Things as are not intrinsically evil and unjust do result and proceed from Agreements Stipulations and Compacts between Kings and those Communities over which they rule See Suarez de Legib. lib. 1. cap. 17. And indeed our Magna Charta and other Charters as likewise many of our Statutes are no other than enacted and declared Limitations and Restrictions of the Sovereign and Royal Power nor can our Kings lawfully depart from or exceed the Confinements and Boundaries of the English Monarchy which are therein stipulated fixed and settled The Books of the 24 Ed. 3 65. Stamford's Prerogative of the Crown fol. 10. and Coke's Institutes fol. 73. tell us That the first Kings of this Realm had all the Lands of it in their own hands and were the sole Proprietors of the whole Ground but it being now alienated and transferred from them either as Recompences for Services or as Gifts on the score of Friendship and Bounty or by way of Sale for a valuable equivalent in Money they that are become Possessors cannot be disseized of them without a Violation of Law Honour and Justice So that Parliaments howsoever and whensoever they came to be instituted they are now incorporated into the Constitution of England as Apelles Picture woven into Minerva's Shield and cannot cease to have an Ingrediency into the Government without a dissolution of the whole Frame of it Nor will it ever be the Interest of a King of England to lay aside Parliaments were it within the reach of his Power to do it and as a good and wise King will never attempt it so a tyrannous and arbitrary one will not be able to effect it were he never so inclinable provided they behave themselves so as not to forfeit their Credit in the Nation The only danger we can fall into of having Parliaments abolished is the Peoples growing weary of them and their being provoked to hate them and this they both may and will have cause for when Parliaments become not only useless but hurtful When instead of preserving the Gravity of a Legislative Assembly and maintaining the Character of the Representative Body of a great and wise People they turn more Mobbish than a Dover Court and more rude and tumultuous than
quod injuriam suam corrigat emendet cum superiorem non habeat nisi Deum satis erit ei ad paenam quod Dominum expectet ultorem None can correct the King in that he hath no Superior but God and that will be sufficient Punishment that he expect the Lord for his Avenger Indeed the Constitution both instructs Princes for what end we pitched upon this Species and Kind of Regal Government and directs them to rule for the Safety Interest and Prosperity of their Subjects but there is no Original Contract nor Stipulatory Agreement by which it is provided That if Princes do not as they should they do either forfeit their Sovereign Authority or that we may lawfully rebel against and dethrone them Nor do any Presidents or Examples of that kind as those of deposing Edward the Second and Richard the Second shew that it was lawful or a Thing that either the Constitution or subsequent Laws did authorise and countenance but they only declared what a provoked People will sometimes do though it be never so much against their Allegiance and Duty to their King and most highly offensive to God However vivendum est legibus non exemplis we are to live according to the Laws and not according to a few occasional ill Practices and Examples And via facti is not always via juris Nor will the Repetition of evil Things change the Nature of them and render them Justifiable For as Civilians say Multitudo criminum peccantium non parit crimini patrocinium What can be more inconsistent with the Legality of the Abdication than the King 's being vested by the Constitution with such Incidents to Government as lie in a direct Contradiction to our being allowed either a legal or moral Capacity of doing it namely That no act of Parliament can barr the King of his Regality and thereupon that the Allegiance and Fealty of his Subjects to him are indefeasable and that they can neither be lawfully withheld nor transferred from him That the Power and Right of Peace and War are wholy solely and unalienably in the King and that all the Subjects of England cannot make and denounce War Indicere bellum without him as Coke tells us in his 7 Rep. 25. Nor need we go farther for understanding the Nature of our Institution in this matter and for knowing what was involv'd and implied in it relative to the particular before us than to those many Statutes that are Declarative and Explanatory of the meaning of it As that 13 Car. 2. act 6. wherein it is enacted That the Sole Supreme Government Command and Disposition of the Militia and all Forces by Sea and Land c. is and by the Laws of England ever was the undoubted Right of the Kings and Queens of England And that both or either Houses of Parliament cannot nor ought not to pretend to the same nor can or lawfully may raise or levy any War offensive or defensive against his Majesty his Heirs and lawful Successors And that other Act 13 Car. 2. wherein it is ordained That whosoever shall hold that both Houses of Parliament or either House of Parliament have or hath a Legislative Power without the King shall incur the danger and penalty of a Premunire according to the Statute of the 16 Rich. 2. And that other of the same Year of Car. 2. Which made it Treason during his Life to compass imagine invent devise or intend to deprive and depose him from the Stile Honour or Kingly Name of the Imperial Crown of this Realm The President whereof we had 23 Eliz. namely That whosoever shall wish or desire the Death or Deprivation of the Queen that every such Offence shall be adjudged Felony To which I would only subjoyn that known Statute which makes it Treason to take up Arms against the King upon any Pretence whatsoever And to shew the Impudence that always attendeth Disloyalty notwithstanding all that these Parliaments have perpetrated they have suffered all these Laws to remain still unrepealed to remain Monuments of their Treasonable Guilt and to abide Warnings to all Kings that shall come after how little Safe they are under the Fence Covering and Protection of Laws when they have false and treacherous Men to deal with And that which heightens the Crime and enhaunceth the Guilt of those Parliaments is that they have usurped and exerted a Power inconsistent with and subversive of the Constitution in the abdicating and driving away a Prince who was the least chargeable with Miscarriages and Excesses in his Government of any that ever fat upon the Throne For as his greatest pretended Faults were rather Mistakes he was led into by others than Injuries he chose to do of himself so most of them proceeded from an excess of Love to his People and from an Ardour of making them happier than they were willing to be and not from Disaffection to them or a Design to render them miserable Nor did those flight Grievances of which his People so clamourously complained flow from his being a bad King but from the having bad and treacherous Friends about him For though no Prince did ever by Condescention Bounty and Confidence deserve to have had better Ministers and Friends yet with respect to too many about him few Princes ever less had them So that what Tacitus says of one may with a great deal of Truth be applied to his Majesty though not so much to his Dishonour as to the Infamy of those whom he employed and trusted namely That Amicos meruit magis quam habuit He was worthy of faithful Friends rather than had them I would not be thought to intend what I have said of all that had the Honour to be esteemed his Friends Ministers and Servants it being only designed to affect a few of them but they were such as had frequentest and nearest Access to him and greatest Interest in and Influence upon his Councils whom he trusted too much to be well served by them and put himself too much in their Power to have them remain Faithful For that of Tacitus will always hold true Nec unquam satis fida potentia ubi nimia est In a word never did a People run head-long into Rebellion and War upon so few and small Faults in Government and so easy to have been borne with or obviated in modest and legal ways So that had the means which we fled unto for Relief been Lawful whereas they were Criminal and Treasonable in the highest degree yet it was the height of Folly and Madness to use them upon such flight Occasions where the Remedy hath been a Thousand times worse than ever the Disease could have been Common Prudence had we renounced Loyalty should have taught us That Force is never to be practised where Laws and humble Applications would have served and that violent means should not have been used where gentle would have done Non utendum Imperio says Tacitus and I will add
multo minus bello ubi legibus agi possit And the mildest Character I can fasten upon our two Revolutional Parliaments abstracting from their Disloyalty and Treason is that they have been graviores remediis quam delicta erant they have almost ruined and destroyed the Nation on pretence of redressing Trifles Nor indeed was it any Thing he either had done or designed to do that threw us into that brutal and disloyal Rage but he was a Catholick and the Demagogues and Indendiaries had taught the weak and bigotted part of Protestants to hate him for his Religion invisâ— semel Principe seu bene seu male facta premunt When a Prince is once wormed out of the Love of his People whatsoever he then doth though it be never so much for the Benefit of his Subjects it will be misinterpreted as done to their hurt Nor will it ever cease to be an Aggravation of the Guilt of our Rebellion that we feared his Majesty's redressing what we had gotten represented unto and believed by the Nation to have been illegal grievous and arbitrary For most Men do now know That if the Submission which they of Magdalen College sent up to my Lord S to be laid before the King had come to his hands it would immediately have stopt all Proceedings against them and have restored them fully to his Favour and Grace But that Submission was concealed from his Majesty not only out of Treachery to him but out of Design to serve the Prince of Orange in keeping on foot one of the great Designs of his Invasion And although the King gave large and uncontroulable Proofs of having Royal Inclinations beyond what any King ever had that sat upon the Throne of this Kingdom of retracting and redressing all those Things which he came to be convinced of to have been done amiss and illegally yet that would not allay the Furious and Rebellious heats of those who had a mind to enrich themselves with the Spoils of the Crown and Kingdom And therefore when all Things were restored to the State and Condition which his most peevish Enemies would have wished or desired to have had them yet the traiterous Ferment was kept up still in the former height Nor doth any Thing better demonstrate how imprudently as well as wickedly we abdicated the King than that Four parts of Five of the Kingdom would be glad to have him here again upon the Terms he offered before we drove him away and very many would think themselves happy and account it a good Bargain to have him here upon any How little does the King's employing a few Catholicks in Civil and Military Trusts weigh and amount unto when laid in one Scale against all the Blood that has been spilt and all the Losses that have been sustained and all the Treasure that hath been consumed for supporting of this Rebellion when they are laid in the other Scale And the Exchange we have made so infinitely for the worse sheweth both our Folly and is a just Punishment of our Sin in making of it Nor wanted there Truth or good Sense in the Reply which a plain Country Farmer made to his Neighbour who was complaining of the grievous insupportable Taxes and of the many other Losses Pressures and Oppressions under which the Nation groaneth viz. That these were the Blessings and Advantages which we had gotten and obtained by swopping of Kings For this Man 's little Finger is much heavier than the King's Loins were His Majesty loved his People and would have been contented to have made them happy at the Expence of his own Prerogative and with some diminution of his Sovereign Rights But this Intruder into the Throne hates both Country and People and only useth us in the Service of his own ambitious Ends and to gratify the Rapacity and Covetousness of his beloved Dutch And in the same manner that Solomon distinguished the true Mother from the false namely by the compassionate tender yearning Bowels of the one and the inhuman barbarous Cruelty of the other may we distinguish our Rightful King from the Usurper and learn which of them we are in Duty to chuse and obey I might add as a further Aggravation of the Folly of those two Parliaments in what they have done That by their violating the Constitution to the Injury of the King they have set a Pattern as well as given Provocation to some brave and daring Prince that may hereafter sit upon the Throne to do the like in prejudice of the Subject For it is the same Injustice abstracting from Treason in the People to rob the King of his Crown and Royal Dignity as it would be in a King to invade the Liberties and Properties of his People Nor is it more unlawful for the one to overthrow the Constitution and change the Government than it is for the other to do it Not that such a Thing is to be feared though we have deserved it For though some Subjects may grow Rich by spoiling the Crown yet no King of England can ever become Great or Opulent by breaking in upon the Privileges of the People And therefore he will forbear it out of Interest if he should not out of Duty And he will keep to the Terms of the Constitution upon Motives of Wisdom should he not be inclined to do it upon Inducements of Justice For whensoever a King of Great Brittain insults over his People he immediately sinks himself into a Condition of being contemned and despised by all the World I might also Sir lay before you how that Parliaments are not only in the Exercises of their Parliamentary Power under the Direction and Confinement of the Essential and Fundamental Rules and Measures of the Constitution but how they are under the Regulations Limitations and Restrictions both of our Common and Statute Laws For as their being is a legal Being their Capacities under which they sit and act legal Capacities their Business and Employment a legal Employment and the Ends they come together for legal Ends So they are in all these and in all the Concernments they assemble consult or act about under the Influences Direction Conduct and Restriction of the Laws Though there be a Provision made in the Constitution that at Times and Seasons and upon necessary Exigencies and Occasions and for needful and indisputable Ends there should be Parliaments and that it is the Right and Due of the People of England to have them yet they do receive their actual Existence and come into Being by the Fiat of Sovereign Authority and by the King's Writs that raise and assemble them And they would according to the Common Law be a riotous and tumultuous Rout and not a Parliament or a legal Assembly should they meet without being called and raised into their Existence by the creative Writs of the King And suppose that those Laws of Ed. 3. were yet in force for our having Parliaments once a Year or oftner if there be
need or suppose there were or be any other existent standing Law adjusting and defining the Times and Seasons within the Compass and Circle of which we ought and are to have them Yet it is not only from the Regal Authority in granting those Laws that it comes to be our Claim to have them within the Bounds of such Periods of time but the performing and putting in Execution what such Laws enact and direct is still so lodged in the King that unless he pleaseth to call them by his Royal Writs they have no Power to meet notwithstanding those Laws And should a King omit the issuing out his Writs whereby to call them at and within those Seasons it would possibly be a Failure in his Administration and in the executive Part of his Government but our Remedies in that Case were only Patience and humble Applications to the King by decent and modest Petitions for his vouchsafing to give us the Benefit of those Laws For after all the Laws that can be made for adjusting and determining the Times for the meeting of Parliaments yet the Power to call them remains still so inseparably inherent in the King that they cannot assemble nor rise and spring up into Being but in the Virtue and by the constitutive Power of his Writs Nor when assembled can they continue a Moment longer in their Existence than he thinketh fit to allow but they are dissolvable and become actually dissolved when he pleaseth to pronounce them to be so And were there a Pretence of Claim resulting to Parliaments when once called and assembled that they should continue to sit till all the important Petitions of the Subjects were answered as is said to have been the Practice during the Reigns of Hen. 4. Hen 5. and some part of the Reign of Hen. 6. yet this would not disable the King from dissolving them in the Interim and antecedently to their making Answers to such Petitions though possibly his doing so may be stiled Irregular And as Parliaments both come into Existence and fall into Dissolution by the Will and Pleasure of the King exerted in the known Methods of Regal Administration So while they are permitted to sit they can neither make nor repeal a Law without the Royal Assent giving the legislative and enacting Efficacy to their Bills which in the Language of former Ages was called the giving Answers to their Petitions Nay should Parliaments prepare Bills containing in them no new Demands or Provisions of Safety and Advantage to the People but only claiming a declarative Confirmation of what already belongeth to the Subjects by Antient Laws yet even a Bill of that Nature which hath the quality of a Petition of Right cannot grow up and commence into a Law but by the King's Soit Droit fait comme il est desire Let Right be done as is desired I might add how Parliaments are under the Direction of the Laws both with Reference to all the several Capacities in which they sit and with Respect to all the principal Matters they are to meddle with For Example whereas the House of Commons being once legally met doth sit in a fourfold Capacity namely as the great Representative of the Community for relieving the King's Wants and enabling him both to defend the Kingdom and to live in a Port answerable to his Royal Dignity And as the grand Inquest of the Nation for inquiring into Grievances and prosecuting Offenders And as a part of the King 's great Council to give him Advice in the quibusdam Arduis about which he calls them And as part of the Legislative Body of the Kingdom to prepare or concur to such Bills as are to be offered to the King for the Royal Assent Now in all these several Capacities they are to act under the Regulations and Restrictions of the Law Nor are they in any of them to act Arbitrarily but to behave themselves in every one of them according to the Laws and Customs of the Land the Rules and Methods of Parliament and the Paterns and Examples of foregoing Ages Now it were easy to shew beyond all possibility of being rationally contradicted how the two late Assemblies abusively stiled Parliaments have in all those Capacities departed from exceeded and transgressed against the known Laws of the Kingdom and the Rules of Parliaments and the Examples and Presidents of former Ages For as the present Assembly of Men at Westminster which passeth under that Name met and have sat upon the Writs of an Usurper who hath no more legal Power to call and summon a Parliament than a Jack Kade or a Perkin Warbeck have So that Company stiled a Convention came together upon the Invitation of a Person who at that time even upon their own Principles had not a Shadow or Umbrage of Right for calling them but what a Masianello or a fortunate Robber may at any time claim And their meeting under the Notion and in the Quality of a Convention which is a Term that hath no Existence in our Law clearly demonstrates That the Thing so denominated must by consequence be altogether and wholy illegal Nor had they any more Right for their coming together and acting upon the Prince of Orange's Invitation than a Rout and an Assembly of Rioters have to dispose of other Mens Properties and to transfer their Estates And it is without President in any Age save in Times of acknowledged Usurpation and Rebellion That a Company of Men pretending to no other Stile save that of a Convention should change and transform themselves into a Parliament and be the Creators of themselves into a Creature which they were not before Nor are any of the Metamorphosations in Oivd though all meerly Poetical and Fabulous so ridiculous and extravagant as that of the Conventions translating it self into a Parliament For all those of that ingenious and witty Poet save where the feigned and imagined Gods themselves put on and assumed new Shapes were the Effects and Operations of pretended Deities upon inferior and different Beings But that Parliament made of a Convention was a Production and Generation of it self into a Creature specifically distinct from it self and that by no higher or other Power than its own And were it not for the woful and ruinous Effects which they have caused and produced the reasonable Part of Mankind would have lookt upon that Transformation as a Piece of Legerdemaine and a Trick of Mountebanks whereby to divert the Idle and make sport to the Kingdom And it is hard to forbear being pleasant upon it and the exposing it with all the keeness and piquancy of a just and deserved Railery but that the many Mischiefs which they did the Nation and the Poverty Slavery and Bondage which they have derived upon us will not allow but do forbid the being merry and jocose I might subjoin how both the Parliaments since the Revolution have shamefully exceeded the Bounds which Laws and Presidents should have restrained them unto and
opposing and defeating the Design of an Universal Excise which your Montagues Smiths and many others had projected and resolved to impose upon the Kingdom which could they have effected as they had promised the Gentleman at Kensington to do we should in a little time have been made greater Slaves than the Turks are and William had been put into a Condition of ruling as despotically as the Grand Seignior does But how strangely are English Men degenerated since they got a Dutch King that there should be so many Advocates for that now that our Subjection to it could not have been avoided without much Art Industry and Courage in a few generous Patriots which but to have mentioned within these Walls some Reigns ago would have drawn both a Punishment and Disgrace upon him that did it For when Sir Dudley Carleton who was then Secretary of State did but once Name it in that House though to no ill Intent he was not only called to the Bar but hardly escaped being sent Prisoner to the Tower But since Members have learned to sell their Honours and Consciences as well as their Votes and thereby their Country for Places and Pensions let no man marvail That what was heretofore the Bugbear of all in a House of Commons should now become the Idol of too many there All that doth remain to be represented to you in relation to the present Subject is in what Esteem and Account the Acts of this pretended Parliament ought to be with the People And suffer me upon this Occasion to tell you That no Man alive has a greater Respect for a legal Parliament called by the Authority of a Rightful and Lawful King and answering the Ends for which they were originally instituted than I have But for every Assembly that hath called it self a Parliament and which in some unhappy times have been generally owned as such I do confess to you that I have not the same Veneration For when I do read how many Parliaments have preferred Usurpers before the Rightful Heirs and that never any Person invaded the Throne though never so traiterously and unjustly but that he always found a Parliament to recognise and support him I cannot have that Esteem for every Convocation of Men that goes by that honourable Name as some have who will Worship the Tree on which their Father was hanged if it be put shaped into the Image and get the Title of a Madona Richard the Third and Oliver Cromwel had Parliaments who as much adored them and as readily gave Subsidies and Taxes for answering the Occasions of these Usurpers as ever Queen Elizabeth or Edward the Sixth had Nor can I so far conquer my Understanding or get the Victory over my Conscience as to have a reverend Opinion of those Parliaments in Henry the Eighth's time Whereof one enacted That Proclainations should be equivalent to Laws and another ordained That he might by his last Will and Testament appoint whom he pleased to be his Successor How many Parliaments might be named that have been the Tools of a haughty Prince's Tyranny and the Panders of a lascivious King's Lusts who have been of a Complexion to worship the Devil that he might do them no hurt with the same readiness that they do God Almighty who bestowed upon them all that is good Nor am I willing to omit mentioning how those few Men whom Oliver Cromwel called together by his private Letters without any previous Choice of them by the Nation had not only the Impudence to call themselves a Parliament but that even a great many People who laid claim to more of Religion than they had right to do to good Sense were ready to fall down and worship them as such And permit me here to tell you one Thing in reference to that Assembly which hath been commonly stiled Oliver's little Parliament which though it may seem a Digression from the present Subject yet it will not be unseasonable for me to relate nor unfit for you to know Namely That whereas Oliver pretended to call them together towards settling the Nation upon the Motive and Merit of their Piety yet the true Reason of it was the Jealousy he had least they should supplant him in the Power he had assumed which they stood the better qualified for effecting by means both of the Reputation they had among the Partizans against Kingship and of the Interest they had in many of his own Army And therefore Oliver knowing the Temper and Bigottry of the Men and that if they came together and were allowed to meddle with Affairs of State and the general Concerns of the Kingdom how they would by their wild and extravagant Proceedings not only lose all the Esteem they had acquired in their private Stations but render themselves the Scorn and Contempt of Mankind and thereby lose all Capacity of undermining him in his Seat or of doing him afterwards any hurt upon these Motives he called them together and upon no other whatsoever he pretended All which not only came to pass as he had projected and foresaw but even while they were together they were through the Folly and Frantickness of their Actions the Derision of the few wise Men that were among themselves Of which I shall recount one pleasant Instance viz. That being endeavouring with great Zeal and Earnestness to engross and monopolize all Power and Places into their own hands and into the hands of those they stiled Saints in that such only had right to govern the Earth all Dominion being founded in Grace they were baffled and bantered out of their Design by a cunning Man's standing up in the House and telling them that it was true the Saints deserved all Things but that publick Employment was so great a Drudgery in it self and so strong a temptation to Sin that it would be unjust to condemn the Godly to it and that the best Service they could do for the Common-wealth was in a pious Retirement to intercede for it at the Throne of Grace But to return to what I am upon no Man that is not a perfect Stranger to England can be ignorant of the three Essential Properties belonging to a Parliament namely Fairness of Elections Fulness of Members and Freedom of Speech and that several Parliaments have laboured under Deficiencies of one or another of them And there are Instances where one Parliament hath declared a former Parliament void and null in it self because of some Irregularity either in their being chosen or in their fitting though called by a Lawful and Rightful Prince Thus the Parliament of the first of Hen. 4. declared that of the 21. Rich. 2. to have been a void Parliament Roll. 21. 22. Nay Sir Edward Cook whom all must acknowledge to have been a Champion for Parliaments especially for a House of Commons yet he declareth that Parliaments have been often utterly misled and deceived and that in Cases of the greatest moment And had we not overthrown the legal
ruin him for they do reckon by what they have robbed and plundered the Nation of under him they shall be able both to purchase their Pardons and to live plentifully upon the next Revolution Nor are most of the Addresses with which our Gazettes are Weekly stufft to be otherwise accounted of then as the Arts and Tricks of Knaves to banter and deceive Fools And they do only act that over again upon the Prince of Orange which was long ago practised upon Manlius Valence of whom Tacitus says Quo incautius deciperetur palam laudatus they court him to his Face that they may the better cut his Throat behind his Back For there are none so weak or unthoughtfull but they must from their own woful Experience allow that to be true which Mr. Pryn observeth in his Preface to Sir Robert Cotton's Records namely That Kings created and set up meerly by Parliaments without any hereditary Title have seldom answered the Lords and Commons Expectations in the Preservation of their just Liberties and answers to their Petitions But if People want bravour to push the Defence of their Liberties and Estates thus far though legally they may let them at least calmly refuse to pay and warn the Officers that if they take any Thing it is at their peril And I shall account those Collectors and Constables both very unwise and very bold who will be so hardy as to break into Mens Houses and to make destraints For let them be assured That whosoever ventureth upon it will ere long be called to a reckoning and besides other Punishments they will be brought to undergo they will feel what it is to fall under Reprizals But should any Frantick Williamite be so far transported as that amounteth unto it becomes every true English Man in that Case to make a Replevin and we shall then see how the Gentlemen in Scarlet will decide the Question Whether this Parliament be a legal Parliament Nor are they ignorant of the Laws as most others are which will make their Crime the more unpardonable as well as the greater if they shall subvert and trample upon them And seeing they know what was the Fate of Wayland Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in Edward the First 's time and of Thorpe Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench in Edward the Third's time and of Tresilian and Belknap and four Judges more in the time of Richard the Second it is to be supposed that they who fill the Benches now will not be ambitious of the like Destiny Nor will it be amiss for them to remember also the Reign of King Alfred who caused hang 44 Justices or Judges in one Year for corrupt and false Iudgments see Mirrour of Iust. Cap. 5. Sect. 6. And being acquainted with Foreign Histories both Ancient and Modern it cannot have escaped them in their Reading with what beautiful Hangings a certain Emperour caused adorn a Court of Jedicature namely with the Skins of corrupt Judges stuff with Straw and hung over the Bunch where they had prevaricated from Equity Justice and Law But if they be loath to look so far back let them only recollect the Proceeding of the Parliament in the Year 1640. against those Judges who in the matter of Ship-money had given Judgment against Mr. Humbden And if that Gentleman being only assessed â—o 〈◊〉 yet rather than pay it when he thought not himself obliged to it by Law chose to undergo great Trouble and to be at vast Charges in order to bring the Validity of the Ship Writs to a legal Tryal What will Posterity say of us if in a Matter of more weight in it self and where all the Law of England is on our side we have not the Fortitude and Generousness through the refusing to pay Taxes to force the Case of this Parliaments being dissolved by the Death of the late Princess into Westminster Hall And I will only say to all true English Men what Germanicus when dying said to his Friends viz. Erit vobis locus querendi apud Senatum invocandi leges That this is the Time if ere there was one of appealing to the Westminster Hall Courts and for calling for the Relief and Benefit of the Laws of the Kingdom And thus Sir I have returned you the best Answer I can to your second Query as I had given you one about a Week ago to your first Nor will I prefume to trouble you any farther at present save meerly to add That as you do still retain an Authority over me and are at Liberty to command me in whatsoever you Judge to be for the Service of my King and Country So I do assure you that I will never in any Thing decline to obey you the highest Ambition I have being to appprove my self SIR Your most humble and most obedient Servant April 24. 1694. ERRATA Page 2. line 4. for 〈◊〉 read 〈◊〉 p. 4. l. 14. before also r. is p. 5. l. 6. r. insensius ibid. l. 25 before Man r. the ibid. l. 35. before unlikely r. not p. 10. l. 13. for a r. the p. 12. l. 16. for hand r. head p. 15. l. 36. dele his p. 39. l. 23. r. Exercise p. 42. l. 3. and p. 41. l. 24. r. Hypothesis