Selected quad for the lemma: parliament_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
parliament_n	king_n	power_n	sit_v	3,978	5	7.3782	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33736	Mr. Coleman's two letters to Monsieur L'Chaise, the French king's confessor with Monsieur L'Chaise's answer to Mr. Coleman, which the House of Commons desired might be printed : together with the D. of Y's letter to the said Monsieur L'Chaise, which sheweth what Mr. Coleman wrote to him, was by his special command and appointment.; Two letters to Monsieur L'Chaise	Coleman, Edward, d. 1678.; La Chaise, François d'Aix de, 1624-1709.; James II, King of England, 1633-1701.	1678 (1678)	Wing C5046; ESTC R6884	16,534	28

we would do all we could to stave off the Parliament for our own sakes that we would struggle as hard without money as with it and we having by this time upon our own Interests prevailed to get the Parliament Prorogued till the 13th of April he thought that the Prorogation being to a day so high in the Spring would put the Confederates so much beyond their measures as that it might procure a Peace and be as useful to France as a Desolution Upon these Reasons which I suppose he went upon I had several discourses with him and did open my self so far to him as to say that I could wish his Master would give us leave to offer 300000 l. to our Master for the desolution of the Parliament and shew him that a Peace would most certainly follow a dessolution which he agreed with me in and that we desired not the Money from his Master to excite our Wills or to make us more industrious to use our utmost power to procure a Dissolution but to strengthen our Power and Credit with the King and to render us more capable to succeed with his Majesty as most certainly we should have done had we been fortified with such an Argument To this purpose I promised Monsieur Pompone frequently by Sir William Frogmorton who returned from hence again into France on the 16th of November the day our Parliament should have set but was Prorogueth Monsieur Pompone as I was informed by Sir William did seem to approve the thing but yet had two Objections against it 1. That the Sum vve proposed vvas great and could very ill be spared by his Majesty in the Circumstances he vvas in To which we answered That if by his expending that sum he could procure a Dissolution of our Parliament and thereby a Peace which every body agreed would necessarily follow his most Christian Majesty would save five or ten times a greater sum and so be a good husband by his expence and if we did not procure a Dissolution he should not be at that expence at all for that we desired him only to promise upon that condition which we were contented to be obliged to perform first 2. The second Objection was That the Duke did not move it nor appear in it himself To which we answered That he did not indeed to Monsieur Pompone because he had found so ill an effect of the Negotiation with Father Ferrier when it came into Monsieur Ravignys hands but he had concernd himself in it to Father Ferrier Yet I continued to prosecute and press the Dissolution of the Parliament detesting all Prorogations as only so much loss of time and a means of strengthening all those who depended upon it in opposition to the Crovvn The Interest of France and the Catholick Religion in the opinion they had taken that our King durst not part with his Parliament apprehending another would be much worse 2. That he could not live without a Parliament therefore they must suddainly meet and the longer he kept them off the greater the necessities would grow and consequently their power to compel him to do what they listed would increase accordingly and therefore if they could but maintain themselves a while their day would certainly come in a short time in which they should be able to work their Wills Such discourses as these kept the Confederates and our Male-contents in heart and made them weather on the War in spite of all our Prorogations and therefore I pressed as I have said a Dissolution until February last when our Circumstances were so totally changed that we were forced to change our Councils too and be as much for the Parliaments Sitting as we were before against it Our Change was this Before that time the Lord Arlington was the only Minister in credit who thought himself out of all danger of a Parliament he having been accused before them and justified and therefore was zealous for their sitting and to increase his Reputation with them and to become a perfect Favourite he set himself all he could to prosecute the Catholick Religion and to oppose the French To shew his Zeal against the first he revived some old dormant Orders for prohibiting the Roman Gatholicks to appear before the King and put them in Execution at his first coming into the Office of Lord Chamberlaine And to make sure work against the second as he thought prevailed with the King to give him and the Earl of Ossery who married two Sisters of Myn Heere Odyke's leave to go over into Holland with the said Heere to make a Visite as they pretended to their Relations but indeed and in truth to propose the Lady Mary Eldest Daughter to his Royal Highness as a Match for the Prince of Orange not only without the consent but against the good liking of his Royal Highness insomuch as the Lord Arlingtons Creatures were forced to excuse him with a distinction that the said Lady was not to be lookt upon as the Dukes Daughter but as the Kings and a Child of the State and so the Dukes Consent not to be much considered in the disposal of her but the Interest only of State by this he intended to render himself the Darling of the Parliament and Protestants who would look on themselves as secured in their Religigion by such an alliance and designed further by that means to draw us into close Conjunction with Holand and Enemies of Erance The Lord Arlington set forward upon this Errand November the 10th 1674 and returned not till January 6 following During his absence the Lord Treasurer Lord Keeper and Duke of Lauderdale were the only Ministers in any considerable credit with the King and who all pretended to be intirely united to the Duke declared loudly and with great violence against the said Lord and his actions in Holland and did hope in his absence to have totally supplanted him and routed him out of the Kings favour and after that they thought they might easily enough have dealt with the Parliament but none of them had Courage enough to speak against the Parliament till they could get rid of him for fear they should not succeed but that the Parliament should sit in spight of them and come to hear that they had used their endeavours against it which would have been so unpardonable a crime with our omnipotent Parliament that no power would have been able to have saved them from punishment But they finding at his return when they could not prevail against him by such means and arts as they had then tried resolved upon new Councils which were to out-run him in his own course which accordingly they undertook and became as fierce Apostles and as zealous for Protestant Religion and against Popery as ever my Lord Arlington was before them and in pursuance thereof perswaded the King to issue out those severe Orders and Proclamations against Catholicks which came out in February last by which they did as much as in

them lay to extirpate all Catholicks and Catholick Religion out of the Kingdom Which Counsels were in my opinion so detestable being levell'd as they must needs be so directly against the Duke by People that he had advanced and who had professed so much duty and service to him that we were put upon new thoughts how to save his Royal Highness from the deceits and snares of them upon whom formerly we depended we saw well enough that their design was to make themselves as grateful as they could to the Parliament if they must sit they thinking nothing to be acceptable to them as the persecuting of Popery but yet they were so obnoxious to the Parliaments displeasure in general that they would have been very glad of any expedient to keep it off though they durst not engage against it openly themselves but thought this device of theirs might serve to that purpose hoping that the Duke would be so alarm'd at their proceedings and by his being left by every body that he would be much more afraid of the Parliament than ever and use his utmost power to prevent its sitting which they doubted not but he would endeavour and they were ready enough to work underhand with him for their own sakes not his in order thereunto but durst not appear openly And to encourage the Duke the more to dissolve the Parliament their Creatures used to say up and down That these vigorous proceedings against the Catholicks vvas in favour of the Duke and to make the Dissolution of the Parliament more easie vvhich they knevv he coveted by obviating one great Objection vvhich vvas commonly made against it which was That if the Parliament should be Dissolved it vvould be said it vvas done in favour of Popery vvhich Clamour they prevented by the severity vvhich they had shevvn against it before hand As soon as we saw these tricks put upon us we plainly saw what men we had to deal with and what we had to trust to if we were wholly at their mercy but yet durst not seem so dissatisfied as we really were but rather magnified the contrivance as advice of great cunning and skill All this we did purely to hold them in a belief that we would endeavour to dissolve the Parliament that they might rely upon his Royal Highness for that which we knew they longed for and were afraid they might do some other way if they discover that we were resolved we would not At length when we saw the Sessions secured we declared we were for the Parliaments meeting as indeed we were from the moment we saw our selves used by all the Kings Ministers at such a Rate That we had reason to believe they would sacrifice France Religion and his Royal Highness too to their own interests if occasion served and that they were led to believe that that was the only way they had to save themselves at that time for we saw no expedient for to stop them in their Carreirs of Persecution and those other destructive Counsels but the Parliament which had set it self a long time to dislike every thing the Ministers had done and had appeared violently against Popery whilst the Court seemed to favour it and therefore we were confident that the Ministers having turned their faces the Parliament would do so too and still be against them and be as little for Persecution then as they had been for Popery before This I undertook to mannage for the Duke and for the King of Frances Interest and assured Monsieur Ravigny which I am sure he will testify if occasion served That that Sessions should do neither of them any hurt for that I was sure I had power enough to prevent mischief tho I durst not answer for any good they should do because I had but very few assistants to carry on the work and wanted those helps which others had of making Freinds The Dutch and Spaniard spared no paines nor expence of monys to anituate as many as they could against France Our Lord Keeper Lord Treasurer and all the Bishops and such as call themselves Old Cavaleers who were all then as one man were not less industrious against Popery and had the Purse at their Girdle too which is an excellent Instrument to gain Friends with and all united against the Duke as Patron both of France and of the Catholick Religion To deal with all this force we had no money but what came from a few private hands and those so mean ones too that I dare presume to say that I spent more my particular self out of my own Fortune and upon my single Credit than the whole body of the Catholicks in England besides which was so inconsiderable in comparison of what our Adversaries could command and we verily believe did bestow in making their party that it is not worth mentioning Yet notwithstanding all this we saw that by the help of the Nou-Conformists as Presbyterians Independents and other Sects who were as much afraid of Persecution as our selves and of the Enemies of the Ministers particularly the Treasurer who by that time had suplanted the Earl of Arlington and was grown sole mannager of affairs himself we should be able to prevent what they designed against us and so render the Sessions ineffectual to their ends though we might not be able to compass our own which were to make some brisk step in favour of his Royal Highness to shew the King that his Majestys affairs in Parliament were not obstructed by reason of any aversion they had to his Royal Highnesses person or apprehension they had of him or his Religion but from Faction and Ambition in some and from a real Dissatisfaction in others That we have not had such fruits and effects of those great summes of mony which have formerly been given as they expected If we could have made then but one such step the King would certainly have restored his Royal Highness to all his Commissions upon vvhich he would have been much greater than ever yet he was in his whole life or could probably ever have been by any other course in the World than what he had taken of becoming Catholick c. And we were so very near gaining this Point that I did humbly beg his Royal Highness to give me leave to put the Parliament upon making an Address to the King That his Majesty would be pleased to put the Fleet into the hands of his Royal Highness as the only person likely to give a good account of so important a Charge as that was to the Kingdom and shewed his Royal Highness such reasons to perswade him that we could carry it that he agreed with me in it that he believed we could yet others telling him how great a damage it would be to him if he should miss in such an undertaking which for my part I could not then see nor do I yet he was prevailed upon not to venture though he was perswaded he could carry it I did

Mr. Coleman's TWO LETTERS TO Monsieur l' Chaise THE French KING'S Confessor with Monsieur l' Chaise's Answer to Mr. Coleman Which the House of Commons desired might be Printed Together With the D. of Y's LETTER to the said Monsieur l' Chaise Which sheweth what Mr. Coleman wrote to him was by his special Command and Appointment Mat. 10. 26. Luke 8. 17. Fear them not therefore For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed and hid that shall not be known and come abroad Psal 7. 14 16. Behold he travelleth with iniquity and hath conceived mischief and brought forth alye His mischief shall return upon his own head and his violent dealing upon his own pate Job 5. 12. He disappointeth the devices of the crafty so that their hands cannot perform their Enterprise Printed in the Year 1678. THE FIRST LETTER OF Mr Coleman's To the French Kings Confessor MONSIEUR LE-CHEER Since Father Sir Germaine hath been so kind to me as to recommend me to your Reverence so advantagiously or to encourage you to accept my Correspondence I will own to him that he has done me a Favour without consulting me greater than I could have been capable of if he had advised with me because I should not then have had the confidence to have permitted him to ask it in my behalf And I am so sencible of the honour you are pleased to do me that though I cannot deserve it yet at least to shew the sence I have of it I will deal as freely and openly with you at this first time as if I had the honour of your Acquaintance all my life and shall make no Apollogy for so doing but only tell you I know your Character perfectly well tho I am not so happy as to know your Person and that I have an opportunity of putting this Letter into the hands of Father Sir Germaines Nephew for whose integrity and prudence he has undertaken without any sort of hazard In order then Sir to the plainness which I promise I will tell you what has plainly passed between your Reverend Predecessor Father Ferriers and my self about three years ago when the King my Master sent a Troop of his Horse-Guards into the Most Christian Majestys Service under the Command of my Lord Duras He sent with it an Officer called Sir William Frogmorton with whom I had a particular intimacy and he had then very newly embraced the Catholick Religion and to him did I constantly write and by him address my self to Father Ferriers The first thing of great importance which I presumed to offer to him not to trouble you with lesser matters of what passed here and immediately after the fatal Renunciation of the Kings Declaration for Liberty of Conscience to which we owe all our late mischiefs and hazards was in July August and September 1673. when I constantly inculcated the great danger the Catholick Religion and his most Christian Majesties Interest would be in at our next Session of Parliament which was then to be in October following at which I plainly foresaw that the King my Master would be forced to something in preiudice of his Alliance with France which I saw so evidently and particularly that we should make Peace with Holland that I weighed all the Arguments I could which to me were Demonstrations to convince your Court of that Mischief and pressed what I could to perswade his Christian Majesty to use his utmost force to prevent that Sitting of our Parliament and proposed Expedients how to do it But I was answered so often and so positively that his Christian Majesty was so well assured by his Ambassador here our Ambassador there the Lord Arlington and even the King himself that he had no such apprehensions at all but was fully satisfied of the contrary and lookt upon what I offered as a very zealous mistake that I was forced to give over arguing tho not believing as they did but confidently appealed to time and success to prove who took their measures rightest When it happened that which I fore-saw came to pass the good Father was a little surprised to see all the Great Mens mistake and a Little one in the Right and was pleased by Sir William Frogmorton to desire the Continuance of my Correspondence which I was mighty willing to comply with knowing the interest of our King and in a more particular manner of my more immediate Master the Duke and his Most Christian Majesty to be so inseperably united that it was impossible to divide them without destroying them all Upon this I shewed That our Parliament in the Circumstances it was mannaged by the temerous Counsels of our Ministers who then Governed could never be useful either to England France or the Catholick Religion but that we should as certainly be forced from our Neutrality at their next Meeting as we had been from our active Alliance with France the last that a Peace in the Circumstances we were in was much more to be desired than the continuance of the War that the Desolution of our Parliament would certainly procure a Peace for that the Confederates did more depend upon the Power they had in our Parliament than upon any thing else in the World and were more encouraged from thence to continue the War so that if that were Dissolved their Measures would be all broken and they consequently in a manner necessitated to a Peace The good Father minding this discourse some what more than the Court of France thought fit to do my former urged it so home to the King that his Majesty was pleased to give him Order to signifie to his Royal Highness my Master that his Majesty was fully satisfied of his Royal Highnesses good intention towards him and that he esteemed both their Interests but one and the same that my Lord Arlington and the Parliament were both to be lookt upon as very unuseful to their Interest and that if his Royal Highness would endeavour to Dissolve this Parliament his Majesty would assist him with his Power and Purse to have such a new one as would be for their purpose This and a great many more expressions of kindness and confidence Father Ferier was pleased to communicate to Sir William Frogmorton and commanded him to send them to his Royal Highness and withal to beg his Royal Highness to propose to his Most Christian Majesty what he thought necessary for his own Concern and the advantage of Religion and his Majesty would certainly do all he could to advance both or either of them This Sir William Frogmorton sent to me by an Express who left Paris June 2 1674. Stilo Novo I no sooner had it but I communicated it to his Royal Highness to which his Royal Highness commanded me to Answer as I did on the 29th of the same Month. That his Royal Highness was very sensible of his Most Christian Majesties Friendship and that he would labour to cultivate it with all the good Offices

to govern himself by and of those advantages vvhich a little money vvell managed vvould certainly have gained us I am affraid vve shall not be much better at the end of this Session then vve are novv I pray God vve do not loose ground By my next vvhich shall be ere long I shall be able to tell your Reverence more perticularly vvhat vve are like to expect In the mean time I most humbly beg your holy prayers for all our undertakings and that you vvill please to honour me so far as to esteem me vvhich I am entirely and vvithout any reserve Sir Most Reverend Father Your Reverences most humble and most obedient Servant A Coppy of his R. H. his Letter to L' Chaise about the time Mr. Coleman vvrote his long Letter 1675. THE 2d of June last past his Most Christian Majesty offered me most generously his Friendship and the use of his Purse to assistance against the designes of my Enemies and his and protested unto me That his Interest and mine were so clearly linckt together that those that opposed the one should be lookt upon as Enemies to the other and told me moreover his opinion of my Lord Arlington and the Parliament which is That he is of opinion that neither the one nor the other is in his Interest or mine and thereupon he desired me to make such Propositions as I should think fit in this Conjuncture All was transacted by the means of Father Ferrier who made use of Sir William Frogmorton who is an honest man and of truth who was then at Paris and hath held correspondence with Coleman one of my Family in whom I have great confidence I was much satisfyed to see his most Christian Majesty altogether of my opinion so I made him Answer the 29th of June by the same meanes he had made use of to write to me that is by Coleman who adrest himself to Father Ferrier by the forementioned Knight and entirely agreed to his most Christian Majesty as well to what had respect to the Union of our Interests as the unusefulness of my Lord Arlington and the Parliament in order to the service of the King my Brother and his most Christian Majesty and that it was necessary to make use of our joynt and utmost credits to prevent the success of those evil designs resolved on by the Lord Arlington and the Parliament against his most Christian Majesty and my self which of my side I promise really to perform of which since that time I have given reasonable good proof Moreover I made some Proposals which I thought necessary to bring to pass what we were obliged to undertake assuring him that nothing could so firmly establish our Interest with the King my Brother as that very same offer of the help of his Purse by which means I had much reason to hope I should be enabled to perswade to the Dissolving of the Parliament and to make void the designs of my Lord Arlington who works incessantly to advance the Interest of the Prince of Orange and the Hollanders and to lessen that of the King your Master notwithstanding all the Protestations he hath made to this hour to render him service But as that which was proposed was at a stand by reason of the sickness of Father Ferrier so our Affaires succeeded not according to our Designes only Father Ferrier vvrote to me the 15th of the last Moneth That he had communicated those Propositions to his most Christian Majesty and that they had been very vvell lik't of but as they contained things that had regard to the Catholick Religion and to the offer and use of his Purse he gave me to understand he did not desire I should treat vvith Monsieur Ravigny upon the first but as to the last and had the same time acquainted me that Monsieur Ravigny had order to grant me vvhatsoever the conjuncture of our Affaires did require and have expected the effects of it to this very hour but nothing being done in it and seeing on the other hand that my Lord Arlington and several others endeavoured by a thousand deceits to break the good Intelligence which is between the King my Brother his most Christian Majesty and my Self to the end they might deceive us all three I have thought fit to advertise you of all that is past and desire of you your assistance and Friendship to prevent the Roguerys of those who have no other design than to betray the Concerns of France and England also and who by their pretended service are the 〈◊〉 they succeed not As to any thing more I refer you to Sir William Frogmorton and Coleman who I have comanded to give an account of the whole state of our Affair and of the true condi●●●●of England with many others and principally my Lord Arlingtons endeavours to represent to you quite otherwise than it is The two first I mentioned to you are firm to my Interest so that you may treat with them without any apprehension FINIS Errata Page 1. line 6. for LE-CHEER read L'CHAISE and so where-ever you meet with that Name l. 〈…〉 Sir Germaine r. Saint Germaine and so throughout 〈…〉