by the House of the Conspirators supplying the French King with Men not a few but considerable numbers to the great discouragement of the Confederates engaged in the Common Cause against that proud Monster of Mankind So the Vote of May 23 1677. Resolved That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty That he would be pleased to enter into a League Offensive and Defensive with the States-General of the United Provinces and to make such other Alliances with such other Confederates as His Majesty shall think fit against the Growth and Power of the French King and preservation of the Netherlands And what was done upon all these Addresses truly very little but up starts a League made with the Dutch that was not worth one Farthing and how that Sham-League was kept we all very well remember But as a further proof of your Brother's Being unwilling to enter into any firm and hearty League with the Confederates engaged against the French King remember this Thâ—â— through yours and the Power the rest of the Conspirators had over him he could never be brought to enter into and be engaged in an actual War with France notwitstanding all the humble Applications made to him by Parliaments nay tho he passed a Bill to enter into a War with France and had the benevolence given in that Bill in order to the same yet a firm League was made with France the Interest and Religion of the French King and the King your Brother and your self being all one In the first place be pleased Sir to remember that the Parliament that was adjourned to the Third of December 1677. and then put off till the Fifteenth of January 1677 78 but that day being come both Houses met but by a Message to the House of Commons they are ordered to adjourn till the Twenty eighth and the pretended reason the then King gave or rather you and your Conspirators that his Majesty had matters of great Importance in order to the satisfaction of their Addresses for the Preservation of Flanders but it so fell out that things were not then so ripe as in a few days they would be therefore it was his Majesties Royal Will and Pleasure that the House do immediately Adjourn till the Twenty eighth of the same Month. The Message was very Grateful to the House of Commons and to many others who understood not the Conspiracy for the design was clear another thing than what they had conceived The day of their meeting comes and they are entertained with a Speech full of good Words yet he Reprimands them for their distrust and to shew them how they were mistaken they are told what a great care the King had taken of the Protestant Religion And in order thereunto he had concluded a Match with the Lady Mary to the Prince of Orange but you know Sir thaâ— it was full sore against his and your Wills a Prince Professing the same Religion wâ—â—â— us which by King Charles's good leave was a great mistake for I dare say that the Prince of Orange now our King never Receiv'd the Sacrament from the Church of Rome in all his days which to my certain knowledge King Charles did and afterwards Receiv'd it from the hands of a Bishop of the Church of England the self-same day But to go on with his Speech he told them that the Prince of Orange was a Prince ingaged in Arms to Defend the Common Cause of Chridendom and so he goes on and talks of Alliances and forgets not to call for a fresh supply that he might carry on his Alliances made and to be made Well Sir What was the effect of this Most Gracious Speech I remember that the House in return made an humble but a sharp Address and the Speech was not answered with Thanks in General but only in Particular relating to the King's care he had of the Protestant Religion which Address was Concluded on January 31st following In that Address they promise the King Supplies provided he would enter into an actual War with France and join in with the Confederates and Exclaim against the growing Greatness of the French King and that if it must be Peace that they would have the French King left in no better condition than he was upon the Conclusion of the Pyrenean Treaty I remember when this Address was made I was at St. Omers but we had news from Coleman how you resented it nay Sir it 's well known that the Address stuck terribly in your stomach as well as the Match between the Prince of Orange and the Lady Mary our Late Gracious Queen by which Sir you could not but easily perceive that the House of Commons had got some scent of the Damnable Plot that was carrying on against our Religion Laws and Liberty and your underhand-dealing with France and the Popish Interest But that men might not understand you too well your Agents were busy both in City and Countrey to nâ—â—â—ish a Report of Alliances with the Confederates and a War with France and so big they pretended to be of the War with France that they avowed the certainty of it both in words and in Print all this I say was to keep the Nation in horrid Ignorance To this end Sir you hired a Tool that had pawned his Soul for Bread to write against the French King but all was not gold that glistered there was no Money like to come because that the House was resolved to be satisfied that the Alliances were made and the War proclaimed This Sir you and your Party looked upon as a great hardship put upon the King and that the House of Commons took too much upon them but your Rogues made use of this Address to be a poor Cripple to beg Money even from France it self you know who undertook in that Affair to get Money from France upon the strength of that Address and was in a fair way of succeeding had not something happened between the Cup and the Lip In a word Nothing but War with France is talked of the French is content it should be a Bill passed for a War and Money was given the French King concurred with you in it a Law passes against the Importation of French Goods he wills that too for you had so ordered the matter that notwithstanding that Act by the diligent care of the Officers of the Custom-House there was more French Goods brought into the Custom-House than before But Sir you were not idle all this time for while the People of England were talking of War and Alliances you and your Conspirators were busie both at home and abroad oh the multitude of Messages that were sent to Rome and France and you know what Advice was given you that upon the account of the pretended War you should raise Forces for the Priests doubted not through the assistance of the Saints the work would be done you raised Forces and got Money tho for other ends than the Parliament gave it
one all their days Of these Sir you made most excellent Papists in process of time or at least Favourers of the Popish Party Your Conspirators had an Eye upon the City of London and therefore that none might stand in your way of debauching that City all the sober old Officers of the Army was not to come within 20 miles of it This was done by the Advice of your old Friends the Priests who visited all your soured Cavaliers and your Conspiring Villains and never left urging to them the danger the Government was in till they were disarm'd and banish'd London 'T is true the great Argument was the Safety of the Government but the true one was your making your progress in perverting the People to the Popish Religion for all Virtue being discourag'd both in Church and State they had the fairer opportunity of proselyting the prophaner part of Mankind to the Religion of the Church of Rome I must confess that some few that were sober men had the fortune to be prefer'd both in Church and State but what Joy you and your Conspirators conceiv'd when they were remov'd either by Death or Age is not forgotten Those Statesmen that oppos'd Popery or Arbitrary Power were soon remov'd and if they had the hap to dye in their Offices they could do no more against Popery and Arbitrary Power than tell their Friends what Care you took to bring it in But this I say if any were but zealous he was commonly laid aside as useless and dangerous to the Government for as long as they lived or continued in Power you and your Party could not go on so smoothly in your Practices against our Religion Laws and Liberties 2. It is well remember'd how your Conspirators carried a Villanous Design of putting on Sham Plots upon Men in order to take away their Lives and Estates to the utter ruine of their Families and Posterity for ever These were so many that to enter into the Particulars of them would be enough to fill a Volume but I will therefore reckon these that follow as the Chief of them 1. If you please I pray you Sir to call to mind the rising of the Fifth-Monarchy-men on the 6th of Jan. 1660 1. Who drew in those men to that foolish and wicked Attempt but your old Acquaintance Dr. Goff and Strange the Jesuite and Gray and another Jesuite that went by the name of St. George and Ashby that was afterwards Rector at St. Omer's who counterfeited themselves Fifth Monarchy-men For an Uncle of mine one Mr. Thomas Buttivant was engag'd with them and had been in the Rising if the Three hundred Horse had come they promised should joyn Fifteen hundred Foot and this Buttivant was to have been Commander in chief of the Horse He was so intimately acquainted with this Gray that they called Brothers this Gray I having seen so often with that Uncle of mine that when I came to be acquainted with the Jesuits notwithstanding it was so many years after I found this Gray to be a Jesuite who had pretended to Fifth Monarchy Principles and renewing my acquaintance with him he told me That he and Strange and others of the Society with this Goff used to preach to them in Swan-Alley in Coleman-street and at Mr. Buttivant's House in Cobb's Yard in Petticoat-lane and that they had drawn in several of those poor Dogs as they termed them to be hang'd but they themselves were protected by you at St. James's and in Whitehall and 't is true that Gray had the Fifth-Monarchy Notions to a Hairs-breadth In this Affair the Society were at some Hundreds of pounds charge for they were liberal of their Mony and possessed these poor Creatures of your Brother's and your being Papists and that your design was to destroy the Interest of Christ in the three Nations and to set up Popery and Slavery and so drew them into that Folly of Rising and all with this intent that they might obtain some severe Laws against the Protestant Dissenters in order to weaken the Protestant Interest within these three Nations and boasted very much of your being privy to the whole Design And by your Carriage in other Affairs you will be by all sober Protestants judged guilty of This. Against such strange Practices the poor Dissenters did at that time in their Addresses and Declarations to the Government positively without any Equivocation or Mental Reservation declare and protest their abhorrence and disavowed all such Principles as might tend to such irregular and disorderly Practises as tending highly to the dishonour of GOD and the Protestant Religion yet you and your Jesuites and Priests made great use of this to beget a disesteem of them in the future Parliament 2. Another Conspiracy was formed and contrived by you and your Banditti against Protestants and this was in November 1661. A doubty Knight of your Friendship forged several Letters from several Ministers of the Gospel about Worcestershire and several other Counties and in conjunction with this Villain several Jesuites acted amongst whom was Father Fitz Patrick and Father Peter Talbot afterwards the pretended Archbishop of Dublin and old Courtney all of these were employ'd by your self as I have seen in several Letters wherein they complained of your delaying their being satisfied for that Service But the Intrigue did not hold Water tho' several honest men suffer'd Imprisonment for the same But the Forgers and Framers of this Hellish Conspiracy in this pretended Plot had an aim at the rewarding Mr. Baxter for the great Service he did in your Brother's Restauration and yours 3. Another of the same nature was invented by your Conspirators in Oxford wherein the Names of several men of note and value to the number of above a Hundred whose Lives were design'd to have been made Sacrifices to Hell and Rome but neither did that Cheat take any other effect than to continue the then Parliament exasperated against poor Protestant Dissenters as men of restless Spirits that were always disturbing the Government So that by these Artifices you did not only find a way to throw them out of their Livings but endanger'd their Lives also 4. Your Priests and Jesuites not making their Sham-Plots to hold upon the Dissenters your Conspirators try what they could do with two Pillars of the Church of England one Hill and Riggs both highly carress'd by three special Guardians of the Church of England's Interest that is old Cosens old Hinchman and Sheldon three of the Devil's Brokers These two Villains Hill and Riggs both Parsons they pretend to discover a Fanatick Plot as they call'd it against the King's Yours and old Monk's and Turncoat Brown's Lives and this Plot was sworn against several Honest Men for which some lost their Lives the one got a preferment to a Living and the other was preferred to eat Salt Beef and Pork and Pease at Sea and sometimes he acted as a Chaplain in a Ship with great Promises of being preferred but God
that necessity I never took you so much behind hand in Sense and Reason but that you might plainly see that this is but a bantre of these Rogues for they neither stated the necessity and the urgent occasions you had to forswear your self and never inquired whether any necessity or any urgent occasions could excuse you from lying under the guilt of Perjury Then they came off with an impudent lye and say the King is sole Judge of that necessity He is sole Judge of nothing but what he is intitled to by the Law where the Law makes him a sole Judge there I do and own my self bound to obey him as such But once more Sir Where was this necessity of which you were to be sole Judge When did it spring Out of what part of the World I believe if you could have convinced the Nation of this necessity and these urgent occasions they would not so readily concurred to your going to St. Germains were your Popish Friends oppressed And did the necessity arise from thence If it did Why did you not tell the Parliament of this Oppression Were they in want of Places at Court and Imployments under you which they could not hold Truly a great many Protestants went without them notwithstanding their being qualified Oh! but the Priests of the Church of Rome were in danger of the Law I never could yet see that day If they would be quiet and the Religion of the Church of Rome was your Religion Well if it was Had you not better to have refused the Crown rather than to have taken it with such Incumbrances and Clogs as should expose you to such necessities and urgent occasions of Perjuring your self and Damning your Soul and Ruining of three Kingdoms It was well you were the sole Judge of the necessity for if an honest English Parliament had sat in the time of your necessity and urgent occasions they would have made these Rogues have swung for their villainous Advice 5. That this is not in Trust given to the King but the Antient Remains of the Crown which never was nor can be taken from him you nor no King in England ever had any thing but what you received in Trust from the People of England in Parliament assembled therefore this was the greatest of Impudence that these Twelve ignorant Devils could be guilty of for what Authority Power or Riches have the Kings of England but what they received from the People and it is plain the Power and Authority that you received was for the benefit of the People and not for the ruin and destruction of the Laws you consented to you were intrusted with the Conservation of them not to Suspend or Dispense with them at your will and pleasure But what King of England was there since the pretended Conqest that was not Sworn to keep the Laws and defend the Rights and Liberties of the Church and People of England and who Administred this Oath to them but one or more in the behalf of themselves and all the People of England Your Brother though bad enough took the Government as a trust reposed in him by his good People of England what part was it then that was not a Trust they trusted him with vast sums of money they trusted you but with a very little I pray Sir would your Scoundril Conspirators but tell me what parts were the Remains of the Crown and how they came so to be if they cannot it is all Cheat and Nonsence By your management notwithstanding all that might have been said to the contrary even in your Reign without the danger of being hanged you obtained from your Judges this wicked Opinion I suppose you were not Idle but was resolved to proceed according to this Judgment of theirs for you presently invaded the Liberties both of Church and State I have given you some instances of your Invasion upon the Rights of the People of England in relation to Matters of the Church Now let us proceed to see how you carried your self in reference to the Civil Rights and Liberties of the People of England which brings me to a second Instance of your invading our Civil Rights 2. As your Brother did begin and made a very great Progress in so you went on to invade Priviledges and to seize the Charters of the Towns that had a right to be represented in Parliament and by your Tools procured Surrenders of them to be made to you especially where they were poor and not able to defend them And a Gentleman that valued himself upon his Oath that he had made to a Corporation whereof he was a Magistrate and therefore refused to deliver the same you rewarded him with a two or three years imprisonment and had not God interposed it had been to the ruin of himself his Wife and Children By these Surrenders Sir you caused all the Magistrates to give up their Rights and Priviledges to be disposed of at your pleasure and the pleasure of your Villains the Conspirators and by this means you placed in several of these Towns Popish Magistrates notwithstanding their incapacity or such as were Popishly affected and willing to concur with you in all your evil Designs and Purposes assuring your self that when necessity or your urgent Occasions should force you to call a Parliament you might have such a Parliament returned as should at once set up Popery and Arbitrary Power Nay Sir our danger in your time and in the time of your loving and kind Brother did most and doth still arise from those Beggarly and Paltry Borroughs that either are by Charter or Prescription enabled to send Members to Parliament 3. That you might not fail in the Counties of obtaining your wicked ends you gave Orders to Examin all Lords Lieutenants Deputy Lieutenants Sheriffs Justices of the Peace and all other that were in any Publick Employments if they would Concur with you in the Repealing the Test and Penal Laws and those whose Consciences would not permit them to comply with your wicked Designs and Purposes were turned out and others who you found would be more compliant to you in your intentions in defeating the End and Execution of those Laws which had been made with so much Care and Caution to preserve not only the Protestant Religion but also our Civil Rights and Liberties and into many of those places you put in Papists and other persons of Arbitrary Principles notwithstanding the Law had incapacitated the former and the other for want of Reputation and Interest could do their Country but little Service unless like Devils they could do mischief by serving your Designs and the Purposes of your Conspirators so that this Nation was in a deplorable Condition and must have perished had not God raised up the Prince of Orange now our King to come over and deliver us out of your Hands 4. As your Brother in his time hated the Peoples Petitioning him for the redress of their Grievances and had a
Popery and this was done by our Priests blind admonition to the people of obedience to our Governors be it good they command or be it evil whatever they command it must be obeyed And what Nation soever came under the misfortune of being robb'd of their Rights and Liberties it was chiefly brought to pass by Priest-craft in preaching up blind obedience and extolling Vicious Kings and calling them excellent tho the vilest of Tyrants who were riding Post to swallow them up This was the Practice of our Pulpit-hunters in the time of the Reign of your Brother and in the beginning of your Usurpation of the Government and so they would have done to this day had not the Tythe-pig been in danger Nothing I say contributed more to the confirming and establishing the late King your Brother's Alliances with France as that progress your Priests and Jesuits made in perverting the people as to their Religion and our Ecclesiastical Brokers debauching their Morals by their immorality and looseness of living and enslaving their minds by their damnable Doctrines of Passive Obedience and Non-resistance and the Divine Right of Succession to the Imperial Crown of the Realm 7. He being fully resolved to follow his Pleasure he left the Administration of the Three Kingdoms to your self and Cut-throat Party who were Enemies to the people of England and were in a damnable Conspiracy against his person and Government and the Protestant Religion That he was resolved upon his Pleasures you nor no man can deny and that you had the ascendency of him it is too plain and manifest to admit of the least doubt or scruple But that which was most wicked you kept him plied with those vile Wretches who promoted that Vice in him And tho he was the vilest of all the Kings that went before for his many Immoralities yet how did his Ecclesiastical Parasites flatter him and admire him as a Prince of the greatest Virtues a King of Peace they called him and a King of Righteousness I am sure he engaged the Government in two unjust Wars against the Dutch and thanks be to God he was by them worsted in both those Wars and it proved fatal to the Conspirators for the great Design of ruining the Dutch was the advancement of Popery and Arbitrary Power here in England which you durst not attempt till they were weakened you fearing their joining their Forces together to rescue us from your damnable Designs against our Religion Laws and Liberties as you know they did and that to very good purpose the effects of which will not be gotten out of your old Bones as long as you live Before I conclude this Head give me leave Sir to observe that whilst the King your Brother was swallowed up in his Pleasures you and your Minions did make it your business to beget in the people a low opinion of the method of Governing and by your Priests you taking opportunity by reason of our then villanous Caterpillars of the Church countenancing it in a very high manner to beget in the people a mean opinion of the Protestant Religion and Interest and you may remember you gained not a few to your Party Therefore when we consider our danger we cannot but be astonished at our deliverance For had your Banditti been avowed Papists our danger might more easily have been conquered for some nay the most of them when the Test came in force quitted their Imployment at Court amongst them Sir your sweet self quitted the Office and Title of Lord High Admiral of England but Sir you had gotten a Crew about you that did undertake with you to ruin and destroy the Government which lay under no temptation of Religion these joined their Forces and Interest against King and Kingdom and truly I think our greatest danger was from them You having this fair opportunity of your Brother's being so addicted to his Pleasures and he leaving the Administration of Affairs to you and your Hellborn Crew it was a great wonder you did not strike sooner and leap into the Chair an Age or two before the time you did It 's certain you came not in without Murther and Murther would have been but Murther if it had been done ten or a dozen years before Truly tho you had Villains that one would have thought were bad enough yet you had not enough for so black a Design as the overthrow of the Government and the Protestant Religion they were not I say ripe enough your Popish Party at home were keen enough but they wanted a good back to their edge therefore Sir you fearing your strength at home you applied you self abroad to the French King he being indowed with all those Qualities which in a Prince may pass for Vertues but in any man of a private Station they would be capital He being a Champion for Popery and Arbitrary Power with him you joined to ruin the Government and the Protestant Religion your damnable Conspiracy being a Project every way suitable to the Inclination and Interest of that Bloody Monster of Mankind You may remember the Trayterous Correspondencies you maintained with him and he with you by your most Excellent Secretary Coleman who you honestly left to be hanged for that great piece of secret Service he did you in that time 8. We well remember how careless he was in the maintenance of our Religion Truly when Princes are given up to their Pleasures it is no great matter what Religion they profess you may well call to mind what breaches you and your Party made upon our Religion through his carelesness and remisness how you advanced the Popish Interest and discountenanced the Protestants and as your Secretary Coleman observed that you would not forget the Tricks the Parliament of England had playd with you so we cannot but remember what Tricks you plaid with us for it is plain that there was not a considerable Preferment in the Church that fell but either he that was preferred was one of no Religion or else that which was worse he was a person that engaged in your unrighteous Cause and Quarrel Sir by your means and the means of your Partisans such men were made use of in the Church that through the ignorance and insufficiency of some of them and oscitancy and remisness of others to whom the Guardianship of her was committed our Religion and Worship became lamentably dismantled misfigured and defaced and this well nigh in all the integral and principal parts of it more or less insomuch that a man that understands the Doctrines and holy Intentions of our first Reformers from the Synagogue of Rome and shall compare things with things could nor yet can hardly be able to say this is the Protestant Religion But how can any man wonder that King Charles the Second should be careless in the support and maintenance of our Reformed Religion since that he was in his heart and soul engaged to the Doctrines and Communion of the Church of Rome
good account of them would he but have joined Sir Edward Spragg's assistance to his own Conduct for Sir Edward was in sight of them at the same time with another Squadron and Captain Legg making sail totward him to acquaint him with the Design till called back by a Gun from his Admiral of which several Persons have their Conjectures possibly Sir Robert Holmes considering that Sir Edward had sailed all along in consort with the Dutch and did but now return from bringing the Pirates of Algiers to reason thought him not proper to engage in this Enterprize before he understood it better But some have believed that it proceeded partly from that jealousie of admitting a share of Honour and Profit in this Piracy and partly out of too strict a regard to preserve his Commission secret but two of a Trade could not agree and by this means the whole Affair miscarried and through the Bravery of the Dutch Merchant-men and their little Convoy Sir Robert was forced to quit the Enterprize and all that was got by this piece of Piracy never answered the great damage his Fleet and Seamen sustained When the News arrived of Sir Robert's Fate I well remember with what a sad Countenance the Conspirators walked about St. James's Park and Whitehall you your self was much out of humour at the Defeat Your Confessor Beddingfield told me That that Defeat was of such ill consequence to their Design that it had almost broke all their Measures 4. Notwithstanding all this a War the Conspirators were resolved upon And if Sir you will give me leave to descend to the bottom of your Hellish Conspiracy and that was that of Religon for so Pious and so Just an Action in which Sir you imployed Sir Robert Holmes could not be better accompanied than by a Declaration of Liberty of Conscience you doubting that he could not find that admirable Commodity in the Hole of an Amsterdam Flyboat therefore while he was trying his Fortune in Battel with the Smyrna Merchant-men on the 13th and 14th of March 1672. the Indulgence was printing off with all haste and was published on the Fifteenth as a more proper means than Fasting and Prayer to obtain a Blessing from Heaven upon his Enterprize and upon a wicked War that was to second it upon which you may remember that the King your Brother at your persuasion and the Counsels of your Conspirators took upon him the Dispensing Power just as you did when you usurped the Throne for by this Indulgence all the Penal Laws against the Papists for which former Parliaments had given so many Supplies to the Crown and against Nonconformists for which the Pentionary Parliament had paid more largely were at one instant suspended in order to cheat the whole Nation at once of all their Religion which they had so dearly purchased But you and your Conspirators may say How was Liberty of Conscience to get Money You well remember Sir that the Popish Party were so well affected to this Point of suspending the Penal Laws and Statutes that were against them and that the King your Brother and your self making such solemn Protestations to the Gentlemen and Noblemen and the Monks and the Dominicans that this Indulgence was but a step to the establishing the Catholick Religion That several Gentlemens Estates were so impaired in contributing to this wicked War that they have not recovered the same to this day The Monks at the Savoy were so undone that they could scarce hold up their heads And the Dominicans having parted with their All were forced to fly for the Debts they had contracted in that Juncture of Affair But the whole amounted to so little that it did turn to little account for the whole you got and paid into the Conspirators Bank amounted to no more than 356000 l. As for the Protestant Dissenters tho they made use of the Liberty you procured for them yet they parted with no Money they remembring what a Cheat was so lately put upon the Nation in the business of the shutting up the Exchequer And considering that the Indulgence it self was but an Arbitrary Act in the King your Brother and would never pass for currant Law when ever a Parliament should meet your Jesuits they pleaded that they had no Cash they having let great Sums upon the security of several Estates belonging to the Noblemen and Gentlemen that were of the Catholick Church And besides all this they had met with a loss from one that had lately fallen from them so that then they had not ready Money to part with all this Project did not answer your Expectation Tho your Conspirators did assure you If it were done it would bring a Million into your Conspirators Bank but such a Sum as it was it hath caused many a Popish Gentleman to sing Lachrymae till your Accession to the Crown and as a Reward and Plaister they were put into Imployments both Civil and Military which Imployments never let them see the fortieth part of the Interest of their Money the Principal being totally lost A War being proclaimed you must now carry it on What did you do with the small Stock you had you equip out a Fleet. The French King seeing you and your Conspirators ingaged beyond retreat comes into the War according to agreement and proclaims War against the Dutch not in so sneaking a manner as you did for he would assign no Cause but said It was for his glory and that such was his pleasure But by his Ambassador to the Pope he gave the Pope the true Cause which you durst not for your Ears give to the Pope or any body else tho that was the Design of King Charles and your self His Ambassador said That his Master had not undertaken the War against the Hollander in conjunction with the English but for the extirpating of Heresie And the French King to the Emperor of Germany saith The Hollanders were a People that had forsaken God and were Hereticks and that all Christian Princes ought to associate together for their Extirpation That it was a War of Religion in order to propogate the Catholick Faith You know that your Brother's the French King's and your Interest and Religion were the same And what other Design then could you have in that wicked War but to advance the Religion of Rome's Church and Power of France both at home and abroad and that the Declaration of Indulgence was but a step towards the setting up the Romish Religion according to the Agreement that was made with Madam your Sister at the Interview in June 1670. and by that means you met with that Contribution from the Romish Party to carry on this War of Religion against the Dutch who you judged to be Hereticks Give me leave Sir to make a little digression You know that the late Duke of Buckingham who was then in the Conspiracy with you was sent into France to borrow 40 Sail of French Ships and by agreement our King
Kingdoms what mischief you pleased Therefore it follows that you now be put in mind what Steps you took for the ruin of the Protestant Religion and the Established Government of these three Nations I shall only name these few that follow 1. The first great Step that your Conspirators took to the ruin of these Nations and subjugate them to Hell and Rome was that wicked Fire of London which was begun and carried on by your Popish Conspirators to ruin this great and populous City that had been for many years the Bulwark of the Protestant Religion which they compleated without the least remorse or pity You your self beheld its Flames with Joy and viewed its Ruins with much rejoycing as old Gray the Jesuite was pleased to say in a Letter of his in November 1666. to the Jesuits at St. Omers Sir I will not charge you with the actual burning of London because it was below you to be ingaged in the very Act and you had Rogues mean enough to serve you in so base a piece of Villany but of this I am certain That when any were taken in the Fact you your self discharged them and not only so but you and your Guards actually hindered many of the poor Citizens from saving their Goods from the Flames and protected those that did aid and abet the Fire and some of them you preferred and since you usurped the Throne you gave them marks of your Favour As for instance the Chyrurgeon that lived in the Savoy a Frenchman that went by the name of Châ—queaux and others whose Names occur not to my memory and several Irish-men in gaged in that Hellish Villany you caused to be preferred Upon the whole Whether you had not a hand in that Fire I leave all the World and your own Conscience to judge It will not be unnecessary Sir to put you in mind of the account I have had of it from some of those who were Conspiratos and were engaged in the Fact Richard Straâ—ge a great Favourite of yours and sometimes your Father Confessor in Ordinary used it as a great Argument to me to go on to assist the Design of the Society who told me that they got 14000 l. in the Fire of London in the Year 1666. and not only so but you your self was in their Counsels when it was determined yea and your Brother too which I durst not for my life discover because of the Promise I had made to Prince Ruport not to mention any thing to the Parliament that might touch the King but he afterwards heartily repented of his giving and I did also of taking that Counsel and so you escaped for I could not Charge you but must Charge him too But the Prince knew of it and so did King Charles himself but this let me tell you That in a Letter of yours Signed Lieutenant to Father Courtney of Aug. 12. 1667. you did declare your Resentment of the Dutch siring our Ships at Chatham and what a dishonour it was to the King and his Friends but this you said was your Comfort that London's Pride was sufficiently pull'd down and as the burning the Ships at Chatham had been the cause of much trouble at Court but it was much allayed by the hopes that Factious City would scarce be built again unless to the ruin of the Undertakers the Fanaticks said you may now studdy again the number of the Beast Langhorne that had a hand in the Fire by being Privy to it who sollicited King Charles more in his behalf than your self and imployed Portsmouth that French Spy and Whore to use her Interest to procure his Pardon I shall add the Promise that I had of your Favour by Sir Allen your Trusty Tool if I would spare that part of my Evidence concerning John Grove about his Firing of Southwark and how you sollicited for his Life in conjunction with Portsmouth you cannot forget I am sure and the King asked you whether you had a desire to bring the whole Nation about his Ears for after the Firing of Southwark was Sworn against him the King told You and Portsmouth too he durst not Pardon Grove You cannot forget Conyers the Benedictine Monk who whilst you were a Votary of that Order was one of your Father Confessors him you brought into White-Hall though Evidence was given in against him of being to be one of the Murderers of King Charles the Second and the King himself told the then Lord Chancellor That if there was no other Evidence against him but that of his being to have a hand in his Murder the said Conyers would surrender himself but the Lord Chancellor told the King That there was other Evidence against him of Matters of high Concern and the Lord Chancellor told you in your Ear That he would be Charged with the Fire of London at which you were much appaled and went to Conyers who you had planted in the Dark Lobby before the Council Chamber that opened into the Privy Gallery and you came out to Conyers and bad him shift for himself and when the Council sat down I was called in and asked if I could make out any thing against Conyers as to the Fire of London I told the King I could and so Sir you must stand Charged in some respects to have had a hand in Firing of London 2. A second Step which you and the unwearied Enemies of the Protestant Religion in these Realms took towards the Extirpation of it and the Subverting the Government was to interest the French King in your Councels and you having in a great measure engaged him to assist you with Money and with what else might be convenient for the Executing your Wicked Enterprises I must justifie this Point from your Letter to Lechaise the French King's Confessor wherein you say thus Hâ— Most Christian Majesty offered me most Generously his Friendship and the use of his Purse to my Assistance against the Dâ—signs of my Enemies and His And professed unto me That His Interest and Mine were so clearly linkt together that those who opposed the one should be loâ—kt upon as the Enemies of the other Arlington tho a Papist in his heart yet he was not of your Interest therefore the French King told you his Opinion of that noble Lord therefore you say thus to the French King's Confessor and told me moreover his Opinion of my Lord Arlington and the Parliament which is That neither the one nor the other is in his Interest or mine and thereupon he desired me to make such Proposals as I should think fit in this Conjuncture Sir give me leave to observe this to you the Jesuits in the Reigns of Q. Elizabeth and of K. James l. till the Match of his Son with France laboured nothing more diligently than the advancing the King of Spain to the Universal Monarchy of Europe but that Crown being by various ways and means much weakened and rendred wholly uncapable of aspiring any farther in that matter
Government to the View of the Court of Rome Cardinal Howard in his Letter to Coleman Feb. 8. 1676. saith He doth all he can to serve you He hath writ to Mr. Haies at his Brothers moves that your Brother's Ministers may joyn with the Pope's Ministers about P. Furstenburg and about the Peace and that the Pope will send a Minister on purpose In a Letter on March 1676. signed Cardinal Norfolk which was sent by an Express that was to return with what his Master and Mistress had to communicate This was a Letter of Credence and your Servant Coleman was to be he asked who this Messenger was and was accordingly asked and would not tell but Sir I will and it was Signior Con that went under the notion of an Italian but was an old Scotch Priest that was in the Conspiracy against Charles the First and discovered by Habernfield to Sir William Bozwell the English Ambassador at Holland who discovered the same to the Archprelate of Canterbury who was in a most Reverend Manner pleased to conceal the same by that King's Advice and Direction This Con that was near 80 years of age was intrusted with some Secrets from Rome to your self and Dutchess and what you had to communicate you were to communicate it to him And what was that The King your Brother had promised to dissolve the Parliament Coleman with your Brother's Approbation and yours drew up the Declaration and a Copy was sent to Cardinal Howard and the Resolutions you had taken to establish the Popish Religion and what Measures were taken for the Destroying the Interest of the Lord Arlington and the Prince of Orange and the Dutch at our Court and this Con was to take an Account of the State and Condition of our Fleet and of the Exchequer and these were the things that you and your Spouse were to communicate to the Messenger that brought the Letter dated March 1676. March 14. 1676. The Cardinal in his Letter saith That he ordered Mr. Leybourn his Auditor to write He understood that you had received his That he used to direct his Letters for the Portugal Ambassador For Mr. Coleman takes notice that Plunket had received Letters from Archbishop Talbot at Rome who offers his Service to you and the Catholicks whether they will or no He tells Coleman that Talbot is enough to spoil all His constant Custom is forging Letters Saith if you make use of him you would disgrace your self and put the Catholicks in Derision which is the way to destroy them which if then the Cardinal and his Confriars must shut up their Shops if he had not taken care the Match between you and the Daughter of Modena had been broken off that a Friend of his at Paris first set the Match on foot he saith he promoted the Match to serve you and the Catholick Religion in England and saith that he and his are in great Power at Rome and Spain And saith that it would prejudice you if you were partial Complains of want of Countenance from the King your Brother Proposeth a Barony to be got of the King for him to get Money for Saith that it would be no Scandalum Magnatum tho' for a Catholick than when Sir Francis Radcliff was in motion Takes notice that the Pope is not satisfied with the Education of your Daughters Despairs not of getting a Pension from Rome for your Duchess's Secretary In Cardinal Howard 's Letter of March 24. 1676. he takes notice of the Receipt of Letters on the 17th and the 20th of March and also of your advancing the Catholick Religion to the Joy of the Pope by his of the 27th fully compleated their Joy Hopes your Duchess would bring forth a happy Roman-Catholick Thus Sir you see what Destruction you were then bringing upon the Nation by exposing the King 's Secret Councils and the State and Condition of the Nation to the grand Enemy of the Protestant Religion and Interest Now I have done with the Steps you took for the Destruction of these three Nations and the Protestant Interest in general I come now to every particular Countrey and Nation in which you may behold your Attempts there in particular by which it will appear to what Ruine and Misery you had brought the Protestant Interest to First I will begin with Holland I. HOLLAND YOU may remember Sir with what Respects that Protestant State received and protected your Brother and your self as long as they durst and what particular Friends your Family found there who contributed in some measure to your Support and made what Friends they could for your self and Brothers when you were by the French King Banished France But how you have since treated the States-General by engaging the King your Brother in two most unjust Wars to their great Impoverishing and the Weakning the Protestant Interest But you dealt with them as you did by all your other Friends and Allies You no sooner received the Testimony of their Affections but you forget it and therefore it was well observed of Kirton your old Friend and Fryar that the only way for a Man to ruin his Family was to engage in your Cause and Quarrel You will do well to call to mind the Heats that you and your Incendiaries created in Holland and the Animosities you caused which cost the De Wits their Lives Several Letters of Coleman's to the Jesuits of S. Omers do highly magnifie your prudent Conduct in that Affair and what was the End of all those Heats and Flames you kindled but to exasperate a considerable Party of Men against your Nephew the Prince of Orange nay your Malice against that Prince did not cease here but most unnaturally you engaged the King your Brother to abandon him and to comply with his and the mortal Enemies of this Nation which was so unnatural that an Infidel would not have been guilty of such Ingratitude as your self if you do but remember how the Prince's Father served yours Your Malice yet went further for the Lord Arlington using some Arguments with the King to have a more Regard to his Nephew the Prince of Orange and the States-General of the United Provinces What Care on the contrary did you use to prevent any good Intention of the said Lord Arlington towards the said Prince of Orange and in order to this you dispatch'd Letters to Ashby the Rector of the English College of S. Omers and require him to write to the Confessor of the Emperor to satisfie him that the King your Brother intended no less than the Ruin of the Confederates especially of the Empire and of his Catholick Princes under him and that underhand he furnished the Hungarian Rebels against his Imperial Majesty and found them Money to go on with their Rebellion and that his Design was not to have any Alliances with his Imperial Majesty but only in Shew that he might advance his Nephew the Prince of Orange and in order to that he had brought him over
that the King your Brother was brought to that state of Security that if any Male-content among them should not prove true to them and their Design his Majesty would not give ear to their Information and therefore prayed them to be diligent for now was the time or never and accordingly Messengers were sent to Father La Chaise viz. Edward Nevil your Confessor and William Busby to carry the aforesaid Letters to La Chaise and these did bring home La Chaise's Answer and withal several Letters that Coleman had written to him upon that Affair in your Name and by your Command that bore date in the month of January as these also did in the month of January 1677 8. some little time before the Parliament sat down And then Sir there was a Pension obtained for Coleman your diligent Secretary of 2000 Crowns a Year and another from Rome but what that was I do not so well remember But this is not to be forgotten that the Fathers of S. Omers had great Assurance of considerable Sums from the Pope and from the General of the Jesuits if any Progress were made in that Glorious Attempt Here Sir you and your Party signalize your selves in several particulars worthy of your being put in mind of 1. The great Preparations that were made for the Rising of the Irish Papists 2. That the great Design of Rising was for the Defence of their Liberties and Religion 3. You were not certain but that your Brother might engage in earnest with the Parliament for entring into an actual War with France 4. That in case he should your Conspirators would let in French Forces into Ireland 5. That your Brother was brought to such a state of Security that if any Malecontent amongst you should not prove true to you or your Design he would not give ear to their Information 1. The great Preparations that were made for the Rising of the Irish Papists and this your Agent Talbot was engaged in and your Secretary Coleman was privy to it and you too by the Letters that Coleman wrote by your Order to the said La Chaise with whom you your self left this Jesuit to correspond Coleman being a Servant to you and a trusty one too But there were many Protestants that had their Eyes opened and made their Observations of the Carriage of your Teagues how imprudently insolent they had been and how they were Armed and Countenanced by some in the Government and therefore they can attest the Truth of this Proposition of mine and they are Men of unexceptionable Credit So that if you will try the Merits of the Cause you may come forth and be heard 2. That the great Design of Rising was for the Defence of their Liberties and Religion and the Recovery of their Estates You know Sir that you were converted to the Religion of the Church of Rome and you were so zealous for it even to a Miracle that you regarded nothing in the World in Comparison of your Religion And so it was with your Friends here in Ireland and whilst the English Protestants were uppermost you had instilled this Principle in them by your Jesuites and other Conspirators that they were but Slaves And as for those that could not recover their Estates forfeited by Rebellion by the dint of Perjury they must try by the dint of the Sword to destroy the English Protestant Interest or else they were not only Slaves but Beggars too into the bargain 3. They were not certain but that the King your Brother might engage in earnest with the Parliament in an actual War against France you know Sir he had been but uncertain in his Proceedings with you in this damnable Conspiracy for he had broke the Engagements that he had made with Madam your Sister in the Establishing the Popish Religion in Ireland and that he had passed the Test Bill in England and that he refused to sign Coleman's Declaration for the dissolving the Parliament notwithstanding his solemn Engagements to you and your Party to do it and that he received the Sacrament in his Chappel according to the Usage of the Church of England though he had received the same but that morning from Ireland the Jesuit according to the Rites of the Church of Rome and therefore neither Teague nor your self were sure of him 4. In Case he should heartily engage with the Parliament in an actual War against France your Conspirators would let in French Forces into Ireland and so they did when you Trayterously Invaded that Kingdom and what they did for you then they would have done as much for you eight or ten Years before They were zealous for the Popish Religion and so were you and your Interests were both one and they are to this day I think I need not go further to prove that Point 5. The King your Brother was brought to such a state of Security that if any Malecontent amongst you should not be true to you or your Design he would not give ear to their Information you know who it was that so governed the King and led him by the Nose but you supposed your selves safe But this remember that when Information was made of this Hellish Conspiracy the King your Brother heard it and the Evidence was so strong and the Plot made so plain that he could not gainsay it he being in every part of it himself excepting that of his own Life and was convinced that the Parliament ought to have the Examination of the same put into their hands which was accordingly done And what the Parliament that was within some few days after the Discovery thereof to sit did do and what Credit they gave to it and three other Parliaments you and your Followers cannot forget 9. Your Conspirators the Jesuites from St. Omer's were made acquainted by Letters from those of London in conjunction with your Servant Coleman That William Morgan and one Lovel Jesuites were dispatched as Messengers into Ireland to see how Affairs stood there and this Morgan's and his Companion 's Charges were paid by the said Coleman who gave them Instructions in your Name to encourage the Irish Papists to defend their Religion and Liberties And Coleman and the Jesuites transmitted 2000 Pound for the Supply of their present Wants and a Promise of 4000 Pound was in your Name made by Coleman and the Jesuites in case there should be any Action But Sir these Messengers Morgan and Lovel they went away on the last of January 1677 8. and returned the latter part of March following and gave such a melancholy Account of Peter Talbot's lavishing the Money that you had in a special manner entrusted him withal and not applying the same for the use of the Irish as you had directed that it strook a great Damp upon the Minds of your Conspirators here in London and That the said Talbot had forged Receipts of several Summs of Money by him pay'd to several of their Officers though the same were
of England's Affairs should publickly abjure the Protestant Religion by which means he was not only very unfit but also uncapable of holding any publick Employment And did not the Banditti give you such proof of their submission to your Popish Directions you gave them that they had continued in their Places to this day had not God of his Infinite Mercy deliver'd us from them and your self For they were men of an agreeable disposition to have furthered your designs of Popery notwithstanding all your Promises to maintain the Church of England for they took care that none should be prefer'd that had any zeal for the Protestant Religion for if you will be serious in considering who they were that you prefer'd to the Dignities in the Church and upon what terms you must own that they were men of such Morals and Principles as render'd them a very scandal to that villanous Design that you and your Conspirators were carrying on against the Church of England 3. I pray Sir was the suspension of the Bishop of London another demonstration of your Purpose and Resolution to maintain the Church of England Let any of your trayterous Crew stand forth and answer for you Was not that Prelate suspended for refusing to obey an Arbitrary Order sent to him by your Banditti Commissioners for the suspending of Dr. Sharp now Archbishop of York for preaching against Popery according to his Office and Calling without so much as citing the said Dr. Sharp before him to make his defence or observing any common forms of Process commonly us'd in such cases The Bishop comply'd with your Suspension and what damage it was to him he can tell better than I but it did work for our Good and hasten'd our Deliverance but it shew'd that you had but little regard to your Oath and Promise to maintain the Church of England 4. Another Specimen you gave us of your pious Resolution of maintaining the Ch. of England as by Law establish'd was the dealing with Magdalen Colledge in Oxford In the first place you turn'd out the President who was legally chosen by the Fellows of the Colledge who if I mistake not are sworn to chuse one from among themselves to bear that Office then you turn'd out all the Fellows for refusing to chuse one of your recommendation without so much as citing them to appear before any Court that could take legal cognizance in that affair or obtaining any Sentence against them by a competent Judge and the only reason you gave for the turning them out was because they had refus'd a person that was a Papist who was not only uncapable by the Laws of the Land but also by the Statutes of that Colledge of bearing the Office of a President or Fellow of that Community And having expel'd both President and Fellows you put the said Colledge into the hands of Papists that you might the better maintain the Rights and Liberties of the Ch. of England as by Law establish'd But I hope it may be a warning to that Community and to all others of that University how they advance the Prerogative of the Crown so high and nourish those two pestilent Doctrins of Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance and the Divine Right of Succession lesâ— those Doctrins do expose them to a greater Danger than the last 5. Another demonstration that was given by you of your stedfast Purposes of standing by and maintaining of the Ch. of England was your proceeding against the Vice Chancellor of Cambridge 1687. You had a great Favour for one Francis a Benedictine Monk a Rogue that was fit for any Villany that you could put him upon to act him you sent to Cambridge to corrupt the Youth there and no doubt but for his time he did the business for which you sent him You planted him in Sidney Colledge where you had placed one Basset a Papist in that House as Master but your Monk had an Apartment wherein he perform'd the Office of a Priest according to the Ch. of Rome but being a Fellow that had taken no Degrees in any University either at home or abroad you were resolv'd that he should be a Master of Arts in the University of Cambridge and in order to this you sent a Letter to the said Vice-Chancellor to admit the said Father Francis to be a Master of Arts without taking the Oaths which the Vice-Chancellor refus'd as contrary to the Law of the Land and the Statutes of the University Upon this you caus'd the Vice-Chancellor and the Delegates of the University to be summoned before your Commissioners of Ecclesiastical Affairs where that Villain Jefferies contrary to all Law or Reason pronounced Sentence that the Vice-Chancellor being guilty of great Disobedience to the King's Commands and other Crimes and Contempts should be depriv'd of the Office of Vice-Chancellor and suspended of his headship of Magdalen Colledge in the said University of Cambridge Thus Sir you were pleas'd to maintain the Ch. of England by suffering the Learning and Gravity of that University to be trampl'd upon and by letting in a parcel of silly impudent and illiterate Popish Priests and Fryers who were to joyn with you in supporting the Protestant Religion as it was then by Law establish'd Unless your Commissioners of Ecclesiastical Affairs judg'd that to destroy the two Universities as to Learning and to break in upon their Laws made to preserve their Communities would be a means to preserve the Church of England I cannot but wonder at those extravagant Proceedings in the last years of your Tyranny against them since they had so highly espoused your Cause when you were Duke of York against the Sence of the whole Nation 6. Another Reason you give us to believe that you did design to stand by and support and maintain the Ch. of England was your proceeding and causing to be summoned before your Ecclesiastical Commissioners all the Chancellors and Archdeacons of England and requiring them to certifie the Names of those Clergymen who had read the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience as well as the Names of those who had refused the same without considering that the reading of it was not enjoyn'd the Clergy by the Bishops who are their Ordinaries So that this was another way you intended even by these extrajudicial Proceedings in your Court of Commissioners Ecclesiastical to maintain the Liberties of the Ch. of England This was one great cause why several Persons of Quality both in Church and State refused to be concern'd in this Commission for they at last clearly saw that this damnable Commission tended to nothing less than the total Subversion of the Protestant Religion for you us'd it to no other end and purpose than to oppress such persons as were eminent for Learning and Virtue that should at any time or season preach against Popery Superstition And it was God's great Mercy to the Protestant Interest that they did at last see for sure I am that in the latter part
notwithstanding their Quality and the signal Services performed for their pretended King Many Instances might be given of this nature and a reasonable Man might have judged that the many Instances of those Slights and Contempts that have been put upon them should have convinced them of the Folly and Madness of any of those that pretend to the Protestant Religion and Church of England who should Espouse the Cause of a Man that hates their Religion and Liberties Can they think that the present Misfortunes that the late King James lies under would if he should be re-invested with Power frighten him to alter his Measures and Resolutions of invading our Laws and Liberties for time to come seeing that neither the abandoning of Wives Children and Estates nor the hazarding nay loss of Life in his Service can render him just and favourable to those Protestants who have made a Sacrifice of all these things to follow him and yet that these Men should be found in so Villanous a Conspiracy to Murder him that delivered the Nation What Tongue can speak for such brutish and sensless Wretches I must leave to the Judgments of wiser Men than my self And what can they expect from a Man whose Father's Misfortunes his Brothers Exile wherein he himself was a sharer have not wrought a Reformation in him Can we expect that ever he will be more cautious of violating our Laws intrenching upon our Liberties or subverting our Religion or that ever he will be made more pliable For if he denies Men that have followed him into France the Exercise of their Religion what hopes have they of obtaining and enjoying it whenever he shall return Nay what then must your Majesties Protestant Subjects expect who have renounced him and associated to defend your Majesty as our Lawful and Rightful King against this pretended King and all his Wicked and Trayterous Adherents But Sir give me leave a little further to plead with your Majesty concerning these People that certainly never give themselves leisure to think I am sure no Man in his right Wits but must judge it the highest degree of Stupidity and Folly that these very Men should expect good Terms from a Person who doth not only treat his Protestant Adherents very ill who have followed him in his Misfortunes but also whose Religion lays him under the necessity of using them thus What Obligations did our Church lay upon him when he was a Subject Did she not like a Prostitute save him from being Prosecuted for the Popish Plot and from being Excluded from the Succession to the Crown Who were so Hot in that point on his behalf as the then Prelates in the House of Peers and afterwards from being driven out of the Kingdom by the late Duke of Monmouth yet all those Obligations were of no more value with him than his Coronation-Oath which he violated without the least regret and spared not to invade the Protestant Religion in general but the Liberties of the Church of England in particular What wicked Traytors are these wretched Men that shall assist the Popish Party in their attempts to pervert the Church and to bring that about in effect which even to mention makes every Loyal Subject of your Majesties to tremble For certainly had these Conspirators been all of them avowed Papists your Majesties Person and Government had not been in that danger but some of them that have undertaken this Horrid Design are such as lye under no Temptations of Religion Men thought to be secure that these now the Mystery of Iniquity is revealed are found Men obliged by all the Sacred Ties of Malice and Ambition to assist in the advancing your Majesties Ruin and the Ruin of the three Kingdoms and much better qualified than others under the Name of Good Church of England Men nay Preachers of Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance will not be shut out of this Hellish Conspiracy for Wranglers but will have a hand against your Majesty's Person rather than so Eminent a piece of Service shall go unperfected Give me leave therefore Sir with the greatest Duty and Submission to observe to your most Excellent Majesty the Excellency of that Religion they would subvert by shewing the Vileness of that they would introduce and the happy Government they would destroy in the attempt they have made upon your Majesty's Person These Conspirators that say they are Protestants cannot but own that we are exceeding happy in relation to our Religion since by your Majesty's happy Accession to the Throne that we are once more freed from the Romish Yoke which so great a part of Europe do yet draw and labour under that Popery is such a thing as cannot but for want of a Word to express it be called Religion nor is it to be mentioned with that Civility which is otherwise decent to be used in speaking of Differences of Humane Opinion about Divine Matters were it open Judaism or plain Turcism or honest Paganism there is yet a certain Bonafides in the most extravagant Belief and the Sincerity of an Erroneous Profession may render it more pardonable But this Popery is a Compound of all the three an Extract of whatsoever is most Ridiculous and Impious in them incorporated with more peculiar Absurdities of its own in which those were deficient and all this deliberately contrived and knowingly carried on by the Rascally and Villainous Clergy under the Name of Christianity The Wisdom of this fifth Religion in this last and most Insolent Attempt upon the Credulity and Conspiracy against the Liberty of Mankind seems to all Understanding Men principally to have consisted in their owning the Scriptures to be the Word of God and the Rule of Faith and Manners but wickedly prohibiting at the same time their common Use or the Reading of them by those of their Communion there being no better or more rational way to frustrate the very design of our Lord Jesus Christ who first planted by the miraculous Power and extraordinary Gifts of the Holy-Ghost than to forbid the use of them in such a Language as the People could understand for having the Scripture which by all Christians are avowed to be of Divine Authority but appointing it to remain in such hands as were intrusted to undertake and carry on their holy Cheat they had the Opportunity to vitiate suppress or interpret to their own advantage for the support of their Villainous Priestcraft those admirable Evidences by which the common People hold their Salvation and they having by this Fraud gained their Point there was from that time nothing so monstrous to Reason and so abhorring from Morality or so contrary to Scripture which they might not in prudence venture on The Idolatry of Adoring and praying to Saints and Angels and worshipping Pictures Images and incredible Miracles and palpable Fables to promote that Veneration The whole Liturgy and Worship of the blessed Virgin the saying of Pater Nosters and Creeds the Honour of Saints and Ave-Maries too not to her
Qualities than Popery The Pagans are excusable by their natural Darkness without Revelation The Jews are tolerable who see not beyond the Old-Testament Mahomet was so honest as to own what he would be at That he himself was the greatest Prophet and that his was a Religion of the Sword So that these were all as I may say of another Allegiance if they were Enemies yet they were not Traytors But the Romish Beast avowing Christianity by Profession doth in Doctrin and Practice renounce it and presumeing to be the only Catholick doth presume to prosecute those to death who dare Worship the Author of their Religion instead of his pretended Vicegerent And yet there is nothing more manifest notwithstanding all his most notorious Forgeries and falsifications of all Writers than that the Prelate of Rome was for several hundreds of Years an honest Bishop as other Men are and never so much as dreamed of the Seven Hills of that Universal Power which he is now come to Nay he was the first that opposed that Pretension But some of them at last growing Wiser by foisting a Counterfeit Donation of Constantine and wresting another Donation from our Saviour advancing themselves in a Weak Ignorant and Credulous Age to that Temporal and Spiritual Principality that they are now seized of Thou art Peter and upon this Rock will I build my Church Of this I may say to your Majesty That never was a Bishoprick and a Text of Scripture so Improved by good Management thus by exercising in the quality of Christ's Vicar the Publick Function under an invisible Prince the Pope like the Maiors of the Palace hath set his Master aside and delivered the power over to a new Line of Papal Succession But who can unless wilfully be ignorant what wretched doings what Bribery what Ambitions there are how long the Church is without a Head upon every Vacancy till among the filthy Crew of bandying Cardinals the Holy Ghost hath declared for a Pope of the French or Spanish Faction Surely Sir your Majesty will judge it one of the greatest Miracles of the Synagogue of Rome that it should still continue and that in all this time the Gates of Heaven should not prevail against it Give me leave Great Sir to observe to your Majesty that it is almost inconceivable how Princes can yet suffer a Power so pernicious and Doctrins so destructive to all Government that so great a part of the Land should be alienated and condemned to Pious Uses as they call it That so many Thousands of the People that are Clergy should by remaining unmarried either frustrate Humane Nature if they live chastly or if otherwise adulterate it that they should be privileged from all Labour and publick Service and exempt from the power of all Secular Jurisdiction that they being all bound by strict Oaths and Vows of Obedience to the Pope should evacuate the Fealty that is due to the Sovereign nay that not only the Clergy but the Laity too if of the Cursed Communion of that Synagogue should be obliged at any time to Rebel at the Pope's pleasure And yet how many of the Neighbouring Princes are content or do choose to Reign upon those Conditions which being so dishonourable and dangerous surely some great and weighty Reason does cause them to submit to whether it be out of personal Fear having heard perhaps of several attempts which the blind Obedience of Popish Zealots hath executed against the Princes or whether aiming at a more absolute and tyrannical Government they think it still to be the Case of an Usurping Emperor and an Usurping Bishop and that this as other Cheats is to be managed by Confederacy But Sir as far as I can apprehend there is more of Sloth than of Policy on the Princes side in this whole matter and all that pretence of enslaving Men by the assistance of Religion is neither more nor less than when the Bramine by having the first Night of the Bride assures himself of her Devotion for the future and makes her more fit for the Husband This Reflection upon the state of our Neighbours in respect to Religion doth sufficiently illustrate our Happiness we enjoy by your Majesties Accession to the Crown of ours Therefore it spares me the labour of describing it further than by the rule of Contraries our Religion and Interest standing upon all points in a direct Opposition to the above-mentioned Errors our Doctrin being true to the Principles of the first Institution of Christ the Ministry being formed upon the Primitive Model and no Ecclesiastical Power justling with the Civil but all concurring in the Common Obedience to the chief Magistrate Nor therefore is there any whether Prince or Nation that can at this time with less probability be reduced back to the Romish Communion than the Protestant Interest here in England For if we respect our Obedience to God what appearance is there that after so durable and general enlightning of our Minds with the sacred Truth of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ we should again put out our own Eyes to wander through the palpable Darkness of that Gross Superstition But for as much as many Men are less concern'd for their Interest in Heaven than on Earth this seeming the nearer and more certain also on this account our Alteration from the Protestant Religion is the more inconsistent with temporal Advantage when besides the common ill Examples and Consequences observable Abroad whereby we might grow wise at the Expence of our Neighbours we cannot but reflect upon our own Experiments at Home which would make even Fools docible The whole Reign of Queen Mary the First in which the Papists made Fuel of the Protestants the Excommunicating and Deprivation of Queen Elizabeth by the Pope pursued by so many Treasons and Attempts upon her Person by her own Subjects and the Invasion of Eighty-Eight by the Spaniard The two Breves of the Pope in order to exclude King James the First from the Succession to the Crown seconded by the Gunpowder-Treason In the time of K. Charles the first besides what they contributed to the Civil Wars in England the Rebellion and Horrid Massacre in Ireland which ended in the Ruin and Destruction of the Person and Government of that King In the time of King Charles the Second we saw several visible Effects of the same Spirit as the Firing of London the Popish Design carried on against the Person and Government of that King not that he was a Protestant but because he came not up to the Measures of the Jesuits and his Brother the late King James But as for him his whole Life was nothing else but a Contrivance or a Plot against our Religion Laws and Liberties But this Horrid Conspiracy against your Majesty's Person and Government being so happily discovered we cannot but hope that the Discovery of such a tremendous Villany will so rivet the Protestant Interest and Religion that it shall stand so sure that
Life Then they procured King Charles to take away my Maintenance and Protection and this angry Duke he Sued me for charging him to be reconciled to the Church of Rome and then Suborned Witnesses against me and procured me in his Brother's Reign to be Indicted of two pretended Perjuries but he being impatient in his Expectation he snatched the Crown from his Brother's Head and mounted the Throne and then he and his Popish Witnesses his Packt Juries and Impudent Lawless Senseless and Mercinary Judges compleated my Ruin and I must have been destroyed had not God by your Majesty's coming to England rescued me beyond all Expectation Give me leave Sir with the humblest Submission to your Majesty to observe that where there is a Subject of such Credit with the King of such Authority with the Court and such Power in every County of the Kingdom as the Duke of York had when he was a Subject and to have such an Interest in the Church and Civil Government and Military Employments and Naval Preferments Could it be possibly hard or difficult for him to insult over and suppress those Truths I then Revealed for the service and preservation of the Religion Laws and Liberties of my Native Country against him and his numerous Party And how much more was it easie for him to destroy me when he had the Crown it self upon his own Head But above all Great Sir how can it be that such a Subject perverted to such a Villainous Religion should not be most dangerous to his Prince and Country And to what a lamentable State and Condition he brought it when he had Possession your Majesty well knows It was therefore high time for the Protestants of this Kingdom to implore your Majesties Aid and Help in that Hour of Distress that the Nation was brought to by that unhappy Person and his wicked Accomplices and blessed be God for putting it into your Royal Heart to come over to us and to bring along with you a Force sufficient to defend your Person from him and his Conspirators and tho he and they would have insinuated that your Majesty came to Conquer us and Enslave us and notwithstanding the villainous Scribling of some that would to this day assert your Majesty's Title to be by Conquest We that are Protestants do from the bottom of our Hearts believe That your Majesty had no other design in your Royal Undertaking but to procure a settlement of Religion Liberty and Property of the People of this Nation on so sure a Foundation that there might be no danger of this Nation 's Relapsing into the like Miseries at any time hereafter And for the Justice of your Cause your Majesty may appeal to God and to all Protestant Kings Princes States and People in bringing a Force sufficient to suppress the Conspirators and their damnable hellish Conspiracy And with the like Justice your Majesty then might require and adjure all English Protestants to assist you against those Enemies of God his Christ his Gospel and the Rights of this Nation and Liberties of Mankind And your Majesty might with the like Justice have Punished those as Banditi and Free-booters and common Rogues and Traytors to their Country that should have appeared to Oppose your Majesty in so Glorious a Work you had undertaken for the Rescuing three Kingdoms out of the Jaws of Hell Rome and France Since God engaged me in asserting the Laws and Liberties of England and the Protestant Religion and in discovering the Malicious and Hellish Designs of the Popish Party against us the Opposition of that Party and the Passive-Obedience and Non-Resistance Clergy-men grew strong and thick upon me and how those Varlets run in with the Popish Party together with their Guide Sir Roger L'Estrange to decry the discovery of the Popish Plot and would to this day decry by the very same Method they then used the present Discovery of this Hellish Design against your Majesty's Royal Person and the Religion and Government of this Nation if they had but hopes to go off with Impunity and by your Majesty's leave I dear challenge any of these Men to tell me what particular there was by me discovered that did not in process of time come to pass It will be to tedious to recite all particulars of the discovery of the Popish Plot that did come to pass and from the dismal and sad Consequences of that Conspiracy your Majesty under God hath delivered us or else these Villainous Traytors would insult and ask why and to what end your Majesty exposed your Royal Person in your late Glorious Undertaking in the Year 1688 The evil usage I have had from our Popish high Church Non-juring Conspirators hath so hardened and inured me to suffering that I praise God who hath taught me some weak Rudiments of his heavenly Art of drawing Light out of Darkness for mine own use I have not been trampled upon for so many Years to so little purpose as to remain yet either ignorant or insensible of mine own Vileness and to what Element I am nearest allied or so tender or querulous as either to complain of the weight of those who still go over me as the Stones in the Street or to project the suffering of any Man in order to please or solace my self my long Deprivation and want of respects from some that should have treated me as a Christian a Gentleman and a Presbyter of the Church of God is now turn'd into an Athletique habit some what after the manner of those who through long Fasting lose their Appetites and withall either Contract or find an Ability or Contentedness of Nature to live with a little or no Meat afterwards I can through the Strength of Christ suffer my self to be oppressed and from my poor Dunghil whereon I sit behold both Friends and Enemies that with much Contentment and sufficient Enjoyment of my self partaking of the good Things of this Life the more because that God still preserves your Royal Person from the Attempts that the Trayterous Conspirators have so often made to destroy You and the Nation from the intended Invasion by our implacable Enemies that would destroy and enslave us Next to Christ and this Truth I shall with the utmost Breath and Power I have according to my Oath and Duty in what Place and Station soever I am endeavour to be found Loyal and True to your Majesty as my Rightful and Lawful Sovereign Lord and King as all good Subjects and Christians ought to be and I cannot forbear out of the great and sincere Zeal and Affection that I bear to your Majesty bless God for the great Concord there is between your Majesty and Protestant Subjects which your Majesty hath found to have turn'd to a good account to your Ease Comfort and Peace in the managing your Affairs of Government both in Church and State and it is a great Comfort to your good People to see your Majesty relying upon your two Houses
witness his being reconciled to that Church by Father Richard Huddleston who was related to John Huddleston of whom the said King Charles had such a tender care and not only so but Receiv'd the Sacrament from Father Ireland the Jesuit in the Duchess of Portsmouth's Lodgings and the same day afterwards he receiv'd it according to the Usage of the Church of England it being the Sunday called Easter-day In the last place witness those Papers that were found under his own hand in his Strong Box all which testify his inclinations were bent that way and therefore how can any man wonder at his being careless of supporting the Protestant Religion Nay Sir I must not forget one Instance more of his being of the Romish Persuasion that is that most Excellent Memorial that he put in by his Protestant Envoy to the Court at Poland wherein there was a passage to this effect That he had a great Esteem of the Roman-Catholick and Apostolick Religion as being most consistent with Monarchy give me leave to Cite a passage of a Letter of his to the Governor of St. Omers when it was by Conquest reduced to the Obedience of the French King which was That he should take care of the Jesuits according to the Contract he had made with his Master they being men upon whom the hopes of England did depend Give me leave Sir to put you in mind of his promises he made to the Jesuits in Spain after he was reconciled to the Church of Rome upon their Contributing Three thousand Pistols for his support of restoring the Catholick Religion when ever he should come to the Enjoyment of his Right in England and not only to them but to the Nuns in Ghent when he borrowed Money of them for which they waited several Years Then I say he declared he would restore their Religion when ever he should come to his Right When the Princess Henrietta came to Dover you know what her Errand was to press the King to restore the Romish Religion here in England and that the breach of the Peace with the Dutch was then and there contrived by you and your Conspirators and consented to by the King and all in order to the reducing those State to the Catholick Faith And it was determined to begin the Publick Exercise of the Romish Religion in Ireland and to facilitate that work you may well remember who was sent over Lord Lieutenant Upon all these Considerations a Man may not now wonder at King Charles's carelesness in the Support and Maintenance of the Protestant Religion You well remember that you your self and your other Conspirators had begot in the King your Brother a full persuasion of the Truth of this Proposition That the Roman-Catholicks were the greatest favourers of Monarchy therefore in his Letter to the French King bearing Date June 1676. that he resolved to be like his Neighbours in Religion but you know that he was prevented by the Lord Arlington and the Parliament for which you were pleased to tell Father Lacheise in your Letter of July 1676. that the Lord Arlington and others by a Thousand deceits endeavoured to break the good Intelligence that was betwixt the King your Brother and his most Christian Majesty and your self to the end they might deceive you all Three and therefore the Parliament and the said Lord Arlington and his party were by you declared in that Letter as useless and dangerous for that the said Arlington and his Friends did work incessantly to advance the Interest of the Prince of Orange and the Dutch and to lessen the Interest of the French King Now the King your Brother being a man unsteady in his resolutions he sometimes failed your Brother of France as well as your self and other Conspirators 9. We in his Life-time saw there was no likelihood of his having any legitimate Issue to Succeed him in the Government Truly Sir I think I may say that was contrived by your Father Clarendon and your self and in it you intended the hurt of the People of England but God who governs the World hath made his want of legitimate Issue to be the greatest Blessing that ever England saw for by that means we have a King that well knows that it is most certain and evident to all men that the publick Peace and Happiness of any State or Kingdom cannot be preserved where the Laws Liberties and Customs Established by the Lawful Authority in it are openly Transgressed and Annulled more especially when the alteration of Religion is endeavoured and that a Religion which is contrary to Law is endeavoured to be introduced Upon which those who are immediately concerned in it are indispensably bound to endeavour to Preserve and Maintain the Established Laws Liberties and Customs and above all the Religion and Worship of God that is Established among them and to take such an effectual care that the Inhabitants in that State or Kingdom may not be deprived of their Religion nor of their Civil Rights which is so much the more necessary because the Greatness and Security both of Kings and Royal Families and of all such as are in Authority as well as the Happiness of their Subjects and People depend in a most especial manner upon the exact Observation and Maintenance of these their Laws Liberties and Customs This Sir is the Sentiment and Blessed Resolution of King William and this he and his Ministers put in Execution which is a blessed Change which we could not have lived to enjoy had Charles your Brother left any Issue behind him that had been capable of the Crown but that which you contrived for our Mischief is turned to our greatest Good for we have the best of Kings upon the Throne and the worst of Men taking of the Air at St. Germains 10. The late King Charles your Brother did obstinately refuse to enter into a League with those who intended to uphold and maintain the Protestant Religion This I must say of the Dutch that ever since they delivered themselves from the intollerable Yoke of the Crown of Spain their great aim and design hath been to promote the Interest of the Reformed Religion and have endeavoured to make Alliances with those Princes that were and are of the Reformed Religion and have endeavoured to make good these Alliances but how King Charles your Brother your self and the rest of your Partisans treated the Dutch ever since his Restoration to the Crown it is well known and how he in the compass of Ten years made Two ungodly Wars but as I said before I must say again The Dutch did most commonly send us home with broken bones Our Cause was Wicked and God gave us Success suitable thereunto and for what ends and purposes these Wars were made you and your most Christian Brother can very well tell but least Sir you should have forgotten those Wars give me leave to give you a brief note of them In the year 1665. it is well known that
and the Rites and Ceremonies required by Law in their Worship and Service of God so that there being little or no jealousy of any danger to the Church of England from the Protestant Dissenters how zealous soever they might be in their way yet the watchfulness of the Prelates and their Curates were chiefly exercised upon those of the Romish Communion But the Protestant Dissenters since are like to the People of Israel in the Land of Egypt very much multiplied to that degree that they are come nearer to the other Party than heretofore they did the main care therefore of the Prelates and their inferior Clergy together with old Roger their Guide did much abate towards their old Friends of the Church of Rome and exerted the same to the Protestant Dissenters 2. But another great Cause of the dividing the Protestant Interest was the very severe but just Entertainment the Prelates with the Scandalous and Ignorant Clergy met with from the Protestant Dissenters in the late Times of Reformation when they were restored by the return of your Brother from Exile they measured the same again to the Protestant Dissenters when they had the Law on their side and your Grace and Favour into the bargain they remembred all the old Scores by which great Animosities and Heats have been between Party and Party the Prelates aiming then at the ruin of the Dissenters for aiming at the reformation of Prelacy and Superstition By this I say a difference is risen that in all humane probability can never be made up We cannot but from hence very easily not only by Reason but by Experience gather the great use you and the rest of the Popish Party made of them to carry on their Designs for the subverting the Religion and Government of this Nation For as the pretence of these Divisions hath been made use of as an Argument to pervert such as knew not that the Divisions of your Synagogue of Rome are more numerous and their Fewds more irreconcileable than ours so subtile have your Conspirators been by winding themselves into all Companies nay mustering themselves in all Parties endeavoured both to heighten the Differences to make their Annimosities not only hotter but more immortal and while the one Party of Protestants have been crying out against the other for their Schism and the other crying out against them for their Superstition and Persecution you and your Party to the reproach of both were undermining that holy Faith which they equally center in and carrying a Design of destroying the one as well as the other they being in you esteem both equally Hereticks 3. A third thing that contributed much to your bringing of Popery and Slavery into these Kingdoms was the general Prophaneness and Debauchery which had overspread these Nations beyond what in any former Reign had been observed Sir You in this by and with the Consent Advice and Example of the King your Brother and your Conspirators followed the Counsel of Cardinal Mazarine in the Year 1654. at Paris when the Popish Party were but at a low ebb in England That the only way to accomplish the Work in England was to debauch them first and make them Atheists and when that was done they would soon make good Papists for this you well knew and so did your Popish Party That a prophane debauched Person is truly of no Religion and therefore indifferent to seem to be of any as Interest and Temptation sways him so it is plain that no man cares to be of that Religion which condemns all those Ways and Practices which he is resolved to pursue with his utmost vigour Do but take notice that the Popish Religion was such as would allow them in all those wicked ways to which their vicious Inclinations led them and doth secure them from the horror and dread of Eternal Wrath and Vengeance for your Religion maketh those to be no Sins tho committed by some against the express Command of Christ himself If they are such things as the Word of God hath set a mark upon as enormous then they are made Venial Offences only and if they are Sins which your Synagogue calls Mortal which are indeed the most daring and prodigious Enormities through their Doctrines of Pennance and Absolutions and Papal Indulgences you are secure from the Pains of the damned in the other World By this means Sir you and your Conspirators increased the number of your Converts and strengthened your hands so far that you boasted to Beddingfield your Confessor That you did not doubt but in a very few years to have such a number of Catholick Gentlemen and others tha you feared not but to have a Catholick Army sufficient to suppress the Factious Protestant Party in case they should rebel this saying of yours Beddingfield the Jesuite communicated to the Jesuites at Wild-House upon the 24th of April 1678. Nay Your Zeal was such for the Popish Religion that poor Mr. Jones your Chaplain-Naval and Domestick for opposing Popery was by you turned out of his Imploy and left as a Sacrifice to that wicked Prelate of Winchester Dr. Morlay for saying That it was his fault that your Dutchess turnest Papist and that the said Morlay might have prevented the Dutchess of York 's being seduced to Popery if he pleased and that her turning Papist was to be laid at his door You therefore would not for a long time pay him his Wages tho that most Christian Prelate had sued him upon the Statute de Scandulis Magnatum to the poor man's utter ruin for his Living was extended and he left to perish for want of Bread And he had never received his Arrears due to him in your Service had I not shamed old Sir Allen Apsley publickly in Westminster-Hall for it you pretending it was referred to him Moreover I told him If he did not pay Jones I would fetch it out of his old Bones it was a time Sir when Men began to observe your steps and perceive your Designs so Jones much against your Will got his Money and after that Jones had suffered several years Famine from that Villanons Old Priest of our Church and he could not hold his Living from him any longer he most Graciously delivered Jones from the extent but Jones being so ill used by Morley he died within a year or two after he had his Living restored but by the way Sir by the Dutchess of York I mean her that was the Daughter of the Earl of Clarendon sometimes Lord Chancellor but the two Ladies your Daughters were by God's Providence saved from being corrupted by you and your Conspirators Now Sir it remains that I tell you or rather put you in mind what Steps your Conspirators took to ruin these Nations they were Sir your Favourites and of the same Religion and of the same Interest with your self for you having made such Advantages from the three Heads before-mentioned and by these means strengthened you Hands to dispose you to do the Three
to that of England Holland and the Reformed Churches of Europe to the Support of the Protestant Religion which You and the French King were to destroy by the Name and Title of the Northern Heresie I pray then what signifies a Nephew and a Son-in-law in such a Case as this Can any Man that ever knew you believe that natural Affection should interpose and prevent your destroying him since your natural Affection and Bigotry were and are still no Strangers in England or Holland Consider once more and then I have done with this Point You may remember that the French King did most generously offer you the use of his Purse to assist against the Designs of those that were Enemies to you and that Monarch Nay you know he protested That those that opposed you he should look on them his Enemies and you did as well protest That those who opposed him you would look upon them as your Enemies and it was the Opinion of the French King that the Parliament of England was neither in his Interest nor yours and you entirely agreed with him in that Thought of his so that it was your Opinion that it was necessary for you both to make use of your joint and utmost Credits to prevent the Success of the Parliaments Evil Designs against you both What Designs against you and the French King Yes Designs against you and the French King nay that which is more a dangerous Plot. Who are the Plotters And what was the Plot my Lord Arlington was at work without ceasing to advance the Interest of the Prince of Orange and the Hollanders and to lessen that of the French King And that he and several others were endeavouring to break the good Intelligence between Charles the Second the French King and your self wherefore you earnestly solicited the French King to assist with the Help of his Purse to prevent such Rogueries Thus Sir you make a Tripple League and set it up in Opposition to another In the one King Charles the French King and your sweet Self are engaged in the other the Parliament of England the States of Holland and the Prince of Orange are engaged The French is to furnish you with Money which is the Sinews of War the Parliament are declared Enemies King Charles stands as a Cypher only and therefore the French King and your self put your selves under the solemn Engagements to perform what was stipulated and strenuously to assist each other against the Designs of your and the French King's Enemies for that there was a dangerous and desperate Design on foot to advance the Prince of Orange and to lessen the French King And therefore can any think that it was unreasonable in you to endeavour to destroy him since his Advancement was of such a desperate and dangerous Consequence to the French King your Self and Romish Religion These things duly considered no Man that hath his Thoughts and Judgment keeping pace with each other but must from the Premisses rationally conclude That you and your Incendiaries must have a design of destroying the Prince and his Party and Protestant Interest in Holland notwithstanding any Excuses you may make to the contrary or your Party for you II. IRELAND Since Sir you have not left so good a Name in Holland as you might have pretended to it is much to be feared that upon enquiry your Name and Memory will not be very precious here in Ireland If you please to give me your Company thither I 'll assure you if you deserve it you shall have my good Word from thence for all the old Favours I receiv'd from you in the Day of your Power here amongst us but I suppose I shall find sad havock there made by you and your Plotters of the Protestant Religion and of the Civil Rights Liberties and Customs of the English and Protestant Interest Sir it pleased King Charles the Second to send the Lord Roberts as his Vicegerent into Ireland who was a warm Man and not at all Popishly affected and therefore not for your Turn or one that would gratifie the Conspirators in any one Point of countenancing Popery and therefore you procured him to be removed so that Ireland was put into such Hands as your Heart and Soul could wish for For whoever was Deputy or Lieutenant your Conspirator Boyle an Archbishop was the Governor a Fellow ' tho' of the Communion of the Church of England yet was a well-wisher to the Romish Mathematicks So Ireland was in a fair way to be Over-run and Ruined to all Intents and Purposes by yours and the Procurement of the Jesuites Upon the Removal of the Lord Robarts afterwards Earl of Radnor you remember who succeeded him and what Promises was made by this Successor and what Terms you required from him and how he complied and who it was that recommended this new Lieutenant as a Person fit to all Intents and Purposes to execute your Designs These things are worthy of consideration I assure you for we have considered them and what could be done in so little time as our King hath had many of those Abuses have been corrected and amended This Tool brought the Kingdom of Ireland into a sad condition by encouraging the Popish Recusants who are the profess'd Enemies to the Protestant Religion and English Interest by his or rather your Encouragement they grew more Insolent and Presumptuous than before that Tool of a Lieutenant came there which was of a dangerous Consequence to that Kingdom and the Protestant Religion and English Interest And it was like to have proved Fatal to that Kingdom had it not been in some measure prevented by the sending in his room that Great and never-to-be-forgotten Earl of Essex whom you and your Party procured to be Murthered in the Tower to make the Murther of the Good Lord Russel less difficult 1. For in the First Place in the Month of January 1672 3. you procured a Commission of Enquiry into Irish Affairs containing many Powers that were new and extraordinary not only Prejudicial to the English whose Estates and Titles were liable to be questioned but in a manner to Overthrow the King's Acts of Settlement which Commission you caused to be pursued to the great Charge and Attendance of many of the Protestants there And by this means you shook the Peace and Security of the whole Kingdom of Ireland It is well known Sir that you gave the Jesuites great Hopes of making a fair Step to establish the Romish Religion and old Gray the Jesuite in a Letter of February 1672. exhorts the Fathers at St. Omers to be very thankful to God that he had put it into the Hearts of the King and Duke to remember the sad Estate of the Catholick Religion in Ireland and that now there was some Hopes of Establishing it there since the Lord-Lieutenant was so well disposed towards it by the especial Care of His Royal Highness II. You were pleased to cause the Popish Party to be armed
but procured it after the Violence committed and it was antedated on design to serve a turn at that time yet the said Baily was fined 6000 Marks and kept in Prison for a long time which sort of Proceedings put the poor Protestants under sad Apprehensions 3. Now Sir I pray remember how your Conspirators used the poor Protestants when they had them in Prison There was fourteen Men taken at a Field Meeting who without being legally convict of that or any other Crime were secretly and in the Night taken out of a Prison upon a Warrant signed by the Earl of Linlithgo and the Lords Hatton and Collington and were delivered to Captain Maitland who had been Page to Duke Lauderdale but after a French Officer and was making his Levies in Scotland and were carried over to the Service of the French King in the Year 1676. Your Conspirators in Scotland did for your Brother's Service and yours upon many Occasions proceed to the most unreasonable and arbitrary Fines either for slight Offences or for Offences where the Fine is regulated by Law which they have never considered when the Persons were obnoxious to them So the Lord Cardross was fined 11000 l. for his Ladies keeping two Meetings in his House and Baptizing a Child by an outed Minister without his Knowledge the Provost formerly mentioned and Baily and many others were also fined without any Regard had to the Law 4. Give me leave Sir to put you in mind of a fourth Piece of Villany acted by you and your Brother upon the Protestants of Scotland Your Conspirators by your Brother's Authority and your Procurement did several times proceed to take away Gentlemens Dwelling houses from them and to put Garrisons into them even in the time of Peace contrary to all Law Justice and Reason In the Year 1675 it was designed against twelve Protestant Noblemen and Gentlemen and executed upon the Houses of the Earl of Callendar the Lord Cardross the Lady Lumsden c. and it was again attempted in the Year 1678 upon the Houses belonging to the Lairds of Chesnock Blaghan and Rowallane and they were possessed by Souldiers and declared Garrisons Nor did it rest here but your Conspirators sent Orders and required the Countries about those Houses to furnish them for the use of your Souldiers and to supply them with Necessaries contrary to the Laws of that Kingdom It was against this that Sir Patrick Hume now a Peer of Scotland applied himself to the Conspirators to have Redress and common Justice being denied him he used a legal Protestation in the ordinary Form of the Law of that Kingdom and was thereupon kept many Months in Prison and declared uncapable of all Publick Trusts 5. I must put you in mind how you by your Conspirators endeavoured to kindle a Flame amongst the Scotch for since you had disobliged so many of them and had begot such a Disaffection in them against you and your Brother your great Design was to keep that Disaffection alive and not only so but so to increase it as to make them rise and take up Arms in their own defence therefore in order to this in the Year 1677 April 19. the Letters of your Conspiring Jesuits to the Procurator-General at Madrid gave him notice that your Conspirators at London the Fathers of the Society had sent for Scotland three Jesuits in Masquerade to give the poor provoked Scots to understand these three things 1. That all the Miseries under which they groaned was from the Bishops and their Clergy which Doctrine they were inclined enough to believe they naturally hating the Government of the Church by that sort of Men as being against the express Word of God and tending to Tyranny 2. That there was no other way to recover their Liberty and Religion but by the Sword and this was certainly true for they had made all the humble Applications that could be made by Men both to the King your Brother and the Council in Scotland and could find no Redress of their Grievances for as these Villains were sent to exasperate them on the one hand so you and your Traitor Lauderdale augmented their Miseries on the other hand and all in Order to make them take up Arms in their own Defence 3. That the King your Brother was so addicted to his Pleasure that he neither would nor could take care in that Concern but left them to be redressed by those that cruelly oppressed them which was as notoriously true and you wanted not your wicked Instruments to accomplish the great Design you had in hand of enslaving the Protestants of that Kingdom so that the Method you took by your Jesuits by their Insinuations and by your Task-masters to oppress them you did very much incline them to take up Arms against your Conspirators in their own Defence Sir Your Jesuits in Scotland laid not aside their Attempts there to make the distressed Protestants rise for the whole Popish Party was at Work to stir up the Commotion by them designed in that Kingdom as appears by Letters from thence from your Incendiaries of the 11th of August 1678. Nay that the Work might take effect Eight thousand Scots that were of the Romish Religion should be ready For what to join with the disaffected Scots Such Sots you employed as if the disaffected Scots would join with them But the Truth of it was to Pillage and Destroy the Habitations of those that should rise in the Defence of their Lives Liberties and Religion for that was the Intent whatever Imaginations your Cut-throat Jesuites had in their empty Noddles that appears in their Pacquet of August the 10th 1678. directed to John Grove For you must remember that was your Design and Lauderdale's tho' your Jesuites thought that the poor Protestants might be brought to join with the Popish Party to make a Commotion there for when your Secretary perused the Contents he laughed at the Folly of the Scotch Jesuites but said If the Scotch would rise he cared not with whom they joined for their Rising was the thing that was desired Your Design had its effect for their Provocations were so many and their Oppression so great from Lauderdale and his wicked Party who were serving your Brother's and your Popish Designs to bring that People under a despotick Power and the Insolencies of your impudent Clergy was such that they could no longer bear and therefore in the Year 1679. they did raise Forces and armed them and by their Declaration they were far from carrying on a Popish Design for their Design was the Extirpation of Popery and Popish Prelacy out of Scotland which had been a great Grievance to that Kingdom And because Sir you may have forgotten their Declaration I will give it Word for Word and is as follows AS it is not unknown to a great Part of the World how Happy the Church of Scotland was whilst they enjoyed the Ordinances of Jesus Christ in Purity and Power of which we have been
deplorably deprived by the Re-establishment of Prelacy so it is evident not only to impartial Persons but to professed Enemies with what unparalell'd Patience and Constancy the People of God have endured all the Cruelty Injustice and Oppression that the Will and Malice of Prelacy and Malignants could invent and exercise And being most unwilling to act any thing which might import Opposition to lawful Authority or engage the Kingdoms in War although we have been all along groaning under the Over-turning the Work of Reformation Corruptions of Doctrine Slighting of Worship Despising of Ordinances the Changing the Ancient Church-Discipline and Government Thrusting out so many of our Faithful Ministers from their Charges Confining straightly Imprisoning Exileing yea and putting to Death many of them and Intruding upon their Flocks a Company of Insufficient Scandalous Persons Confining Imprisoning Torturing Tormenting Scourging and Stigmatizing Poor People Plundering their Goods Quartering upon them Rude Soldiers Selling their Persons to Foreign Plantations Horning and Intercommuning many of both Sexes whereby great Numbers in every corner of the Land were forced to leave their Dwellings Wives Children and Relations and made to wander as Pilgrims still in Hazard of their Lives none daring to Recet Harbour or Supply though Starving or so much as to speak to them though upon Death-bed without making themselves obnoxious to the same Punishments And these things acted under colour of Law in effect tending to banish not only all Sense of Religion but also to extinguish all natural Affection even amongst Persons of nearest Relations and likewise groaning under the intolerable Yoak of Oppression in our Civil Interest our Bodies Liberties and Estates so that all manner of Outrages have been most arbitrarily exercised upon us for a Tract of several Years past particularly in the Year 1678. by sending us an armed Host of Barbarous Savages contrary to all Law and Humanity and by laying on us several Impositions and Taxes as formerly so of late by a Meeting of Prelimited and Over-awed Members in the Convention of Estates in July 1678. for keeping up of an armed Force intrusted as to a great part of it into the Hands of avowed Papists or Favourers of them by whom sundry Invasions have been made upon us and most exorbitant Abuses and incredible Insolencies committed against us and we being continually sought after while meeting in Houses for Divine Worship Ministers and People frequently apprehended and most rigorously used and so being necessitated to attend the Lord's Ordinances in the Fields in the most desert Places and there also often hunted out and assaulted to the effusion of our Blood and killing of some whereby we were inveitably constrain'd either to defend our selves by Arms at those Meetings or be altogether deprived of the Gospel preached by Faithful Ministers and made absolute Slaves At one of which Meetings upon the First Day of June instant being the Lord's Day Captain Graham of Claverhouse being warranted by a late Proclamation to kill whomsoever he found in Arms at Field-Conventicles making Resistance did furiously assault the People assembled and further to provoke did cruelly bind like Beasts a Minister with some others whom he had found that same Morning in Houses and several being killed on both sides they knowing certainly that by Law they behoved if apprehended to dye they did stand to their own defence and continue together and there after many of our Friends and Countrymen being under the same Oppression expecting the same measure did freely offer their Assistance We therefore thus inevitably and of absolute Necessity forced to take this last Remedy tho Magistrates having shut the Door by a Law against Application that whatever our Grievances be either in things Civil or Sacred we have not the Privilege of a Supplicant do judge our selves bound to dcelare That these with many other horrid Grievances in Church and State which we purpose to manifest more fully hereafter are the true Causes of this our Lawful and Innocent Self-defence And we most solemnly and in the presence of Almighty God the Searcher of all Hearts declare that the true Reasons of our continuing in Arms candidly and sincerely are these First The defending and securing of the true Protestant Religion and Presbyterian Government founded upon the Word of God and summarily comprehended in our Confessions of Faith and Catechism and established by the Laws of this Land to which King Nobles and People are solemnly sworn and engaged in our National Solemn League and Covenant and more particularly the Defending and Maintaining the Kingly Authority of our Lord Jesus Christ over his Church against all sinful Supremacy derogatory thereto and incroaching thereupon Second The preserving and defending the King's Majesty his Person and Authority in the Preservation and Defence of that true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdom that the World may bear Witness with our Consciences of our Loyalty and that we have no Thoughts nor Intention to diminish his just Power and Greatness Third The Obtaining of a Free and United Parliament and a Free and General Assembly in Order to the Redressing of our foresaid Grievances for the preventing the eminent Danger of Popery and extirpating Prelacy from amongst us This therefore being the Cause we appear for and resolve in God's Name to own hereby homologating all the Testimonies of faithful Sufferers for the Truth in Scotland these eighteen Years by gone We humbly request the King's Majesty to restore all things as he found them when God brought him home to his Crown and Kingdoms and if that cannot be obtained then we heartily and humbly invite and intreat beseech and obtest by the Bowels of Jesus Christ all who are under the same Bonds with us to occur in this Common Cause and Interest and that they will not stand still and see not only us oppressed but this foresaid Cause ruined Adversaries proudly and highly insult against God and all good Men Friends of the Truth discouraged yea the Protestant Cause in Britain and Ireland and even your selves within a little time made a Prey of or else forced when we are broken which the good Lord prevent dreadfully to wrong your Consciences Finally because we desire no Man's hurt or blood we request our Country-men now the standing Forces of this Kingdom some of them being our Friends and Kinsmen not to fight against us least in so doing they be found fighting against the Lord whose Cause and Quarrel we are sure he will own and signally countenance seeing we fight under his Banner who is the Lord of Hosts This Sir you know was the Declaration of these Blessed Servants of God but you had not filled up the measure of your Sins and therefore God was pleased to deliver these miserably enslaved wretches into your hands and they were made a prey to your never to be forgotten Cut-throats and some of them sealed their Testimony of Jesus with their Blood You may remember what Havock your Popish Crew made of them
the said Persecution were reduced almost to Beggery or to live upon the Charity of Friends Some were forced to fly the Nation and yet were more loyal under their Pressures and Provocations than your Cut-throat Papists were under their then Caresses and Favours received from your Brother and your self Nay a reverend Minister of the Gospel of Christ who had been very instrumental in your Restauration yea and ventur'd his Life for your Brother's Restauration in the year 1650 you suffer'd to perish in Newgate as a Reward for so great a piece of Service to your Brother and your self and Family and for no other reason but because he could not comply with some Rascally Ceremonies that our Ecclesiastical Vermin had borrow'd from the Church of Rome to Adorn our Protestant Worship and because he would not take the Oxford Oath lay'd upon the Nation to enslave it 8. Another Project you had for the ruining the Interest of the Protestant Religion and the Interest of England was the Advancing of Men that were Enemies to the Protestant Interest into the greatest Places of Trust As What a Sett of Villains had you made Judges of the Land by which means you brought all the Matters of Civil Justice into great Uncertainties by reason of the Tenour of their Commissions and the Ignorance of the Rogues you employ'd Therefore how miserable was the Nation who were obliged to Answer to such Judges that were forced to comply in all things with the Directions that were given by you and your Wicked Cut-throats or else to be turned out at yours and their Pleasure If we look further you had in your Brother's time the disposing of all Military Employments And how you did shew your Hatred to the Protestant Religion and the English Interest You did in his time raise a great many Persons to the greatest Military Trusts both by Sea and Land Strangers as well as Natives so that by these measures your Conspirators became Masters of the Affairs of the Government of the Nation and of the course of Justice and you had all the Church Vermin engag'd with you to subject the whole Kingdom to a despotick Arbitrary power and all these joyn'd together to execute your wicked Designs to enslave and debauch the People of the Land 9. To compleat the Work that nothing might stand in your way of Establishing your Popish Religion you murder'd your Brother who was uncertain in his Engagements in the Conspiracy for when he found it was not safe for him to appear in promoting Popery he soon left you Or if a Sum of Money could be gotten from a Parliament he commonly bless'd the Nation with a Proclamation or two against Popish Priests Jesuites and Popish Recusants or pass a Bill or so to the prejudice of the Popish Party as he did in 1673 when the Test-Bill passed as also another in 1678. This obliged you and your Conspirators to hasten his destruction which you had long contrived You found a fit Tool and as fit a Dose to do the Work in it you had your desired Ends and so you mounted the Throne Which brings me to the Second Point What you did in order to the Ruine of the Protestant Religion and the Government after your accession to the Crown II. Your Tyranny was very cruel but short yet full of strange and surprising Circumstances It was highly astonishing to see a Popish Prince ascending the Throne to rule a Protestant Nation and defend a Protestant Church but Sir you had no such Designs in your Head for you shew'd what you would do with our Laws when you could engage your Conspirators to dispense with part of the Oaths that you should have taken It is manifest and notorious that when you were upon the coming to the Crown you was receiv'd by all the People of England Scotland and Ireland as King without the least opposition for our Ecclesiastical Vermin had made your way clear by their Doctrine of Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance and the Divine Right of Succession and the possibility of preserving the Glory and Grandeur of their Church of England by a Popish Prince and that there was more danger from Fanaticks than from Papists and such-like scoundrel Notions You cannot but remember that King Charles your Brother having received the deadly Dose your Conspirators had prepar'd for him on February the 6th 1684 5 he went to his Place that very day Sir you were proclaim'd King to the sorrow of all that wish'd well to England and its Religion Liberties and Laws you then appear'd at the Council-Table as King and by all your Conspirators you was owned and saluted as such to whom you were pleas'd to make a sort of a Speech in which you were pleas'd to declare your self to this effect THat Since it hath pleased Almighty God to place you in that station and that you were now to succeed so Good and Gracious a King as well as so Kind a Brother you thought it fit to declare That you would follow his Example and more especially in that of his great Clemency and Tenderness to all his People That you had been reported to have been a man for Arbitrary Power tho' that had not been the only Story that had been made of you That you would make it your Endeavour to preserve Government both in Church and State as it was by Law establish'd That you knew the Principles of the Church of England were for Monarchy and that the Members of it had shewn themselves good and loyal Subjects and therefore you would take care to defend and support it That you knew the Laws of England were sufficient to make the King as great a Monarch as you could wish and therefore as you would never depart from the Just Rights and Prerogatives of the Crown so you would never invade any Man's Property And that you had ventur'd your Life very often in the defence of the Nation And that you would go as far as any Man in preserving it in all its Just Rights and Liberties This Sir is the sum and substance of what you were pleas'd to say at the Council board and one would have sworn that you would have taken up the Trade of being Speech wright-general to the whole Band of your Conspirators I am confident your old Friends the Jesuites that had been hang'd but a little before could not have outdone you though it had been to have saved their Lives Well it was a Speech and how true you were to this Speech you shall judge and your Conspirators too if you will but consider 1. You said You would not invade any man's Right and Property and that you would preserve the Nation in its Just Rights and Liberties And so you did for you the next day after your accession to the Crown publish'd a Proclamation for the continuing the payment of the Custom and Excise which were expir'd by the death of the King your Brother for several weeks after Did not this shew
of what they had confess'd against themselves others that had been in actual Arms hundreds of them were hang'd in the principal Towns and their Quarters hang'd up in the Highways as lasting Monuments of your Grace and Compassion And you being glutted with Blood you then thought of other Punishments for some other of those Offenders many Men and Women were order'd to be whip'd publickly in the Market-Towns others had their Estates seiz'd and a great number were sold into America to serve all days of their Lives so that there was nothing but the Voice of lamentation and weeping to be heard In a word your Grace Clemency and Tenderness was such that several of the Western Counties were made so many Fields of Blood and Butchery Nay Sir those who escaped your Mercy by vertue of your Proclamation were forced to retire to the Woods and desolate places their nearest and dearest Relations not daring so much as to harbour or relieve them so that several starved to death or perish'd with cold for want of things necessary for the preservation of Human Nature Some fled to the Dutch for shelter and were not only kindly receiv'd but as civily entertain'd till you began to have some Shame in you and pardon'd some in hopes that they would be of use to you and others came over with the Prince of Orange who by the Just Judgment of God upon you and your Adherents banish'd you the Kingdom and the Lords and Commons of England deposed you as useless to God and Man But Sir this is notorious that you never entertain'd the least Remorse of Conscience for the murther of these men in the West for those you pardon'd paid a Price sufficient for their Pardons or if you gave them Pardon freely it was to prevent their setting up their Trades in other Countries And Jefferies your Tool that you ought to have hang'd you let him go off with no other Punishment than to be made Lord High Chancellor of England who also did enrich himself with the Sum of 15000 l. extorted from one person who wanted a Pardon for nothing else but the not delivering his Country which he might have done for half the Mony I am more sorry that Jefferies got the Mony than for that Gentleman 's losing that Sum. Truly Sir I was in hopes that the Time of that Villain Jefferies had been come in which he should not only have paid his Debt to Nature but to his Faults too but he is gone to his Place and thereby he hath sav'd the Hangman a Labour but had he liv'd he would in my opinion have been made an Example for all his Villanies that he had committed both as a corrupt Judge and a trayterous Chancellor 3. You were pleased in the years 1687 1688 to publish a Declaration for Liberty of Conscience and professed in both the said Declarations That it was always your Judgment that no man's Conscience should be restrain'd in Matters of Religion Now Sir if that were true why then did you persecute the Protestant Dissenters for their Conscience from Feb. 6. 1684 till the latter end of the year 1686 And if it were not your Judgment why then did you proclaim Liberty of Conscience as your Judgment But Sir to deal truly in the point you had a Popish Fabrick to erect and you wanted Liberty of Conscience to be the Scaffold and when you had done your business of settling Popery you would have laid Liberty of Conscience aside as your Brethren abroad of the Popish Religion have always done And this was the Clemency your Brother was pleas'd to shew to Dissenters and afterwards he and you could with great Tenderness suffer them to perish in Prison and you your self when you were in the Chair persecuted them to the ruine of some Thousands of Families you surfeited your self and Party with the murder and ruine of so many Men and yet you pretend to Clemency and Tenderness To conclude this particular your Brother and you made two Declarations for Liberty of Conscience for no other intent but to cheat the People of England into Slavery and Popery to the end that you might damn the Body and Soul of the Nation at once From such Clemency and Tenderness I trust God hath deliver'd this Nation and will preserve her under the present Government all your pretences to the contrary notwithstanding 4. What shall I say of those worthy persons that you kept in Jayl for the pretended Damages of 100000 l. and others of 10000 l. and others for one Fine or another What shall I say of the Murther of the Lady Lisle and Alderman Cornish Mr. Ayliff and Mr. Nelthrope and poor Disney These were Monuments of your Clemency and Tenderness 3. You promis'd in your Speech to the Council That you would maintain the Church of England as it was establish'd by Law Nay I think if you had not wrong done you you swore it too at your Coronation And Sir if you please call to mind how you kept your Promise and Oath in relation to the Church of England and the Protestant Interest nay you gave a reason for your Promise it being the only Reason that you ever gave in your Life I will put you in mind of it Because said you Her Members had shew'd themselves Loyal Subjects and that the Principles of the Church of England had been for Monarchy Therefore 1. How did you maintain the Church of England as by Law establish'd Were there not Laws in force for the preservation of the Church of England that had been enacted in the Reigns of several Princes that were your Predecessors amongst which Laws as a security of the Church of England against Popery That all persons whatsoever that were advanced to any Ecclesiastical Dignity or to bear Office in either University as likewise all Civil and Military Officers should declare they were not Papists but of the Protestant Religion and that by taking the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and the Test yet you and your Conspirators annulled all those Laws that were made to secure the Protestant Religion against Popery Was this to defend the Church of England and to maintain Her Laws I leave it to all men to judge But you and your villanous Commissioners thought your selves so wise as to reconcile Contradictions and therefore you were resolv'd to try your Skill upon the Church and the Nurseries of Learning which prov'd fatal to you and your Party by the Just Vengeance of Almighty God 2. Did you not against express Law and against the Promise of your maintaining the Church of England set up an Ecclesiastical Commission and impower the Persons named in that illegal Commission to take cognizance and to give arbitrary directions in matters Ecclesiastical in which Commission there was one who profess'd the Popish Religion and others that were Abettors of Popery and Popish Superstition therefore to what deplorable condition was the Church of England reduc'd that a Commissioner for the Church
of your Brother's time and in the beginning of your time they were given up to such a secure state and judicial blindness that the Protestant Religion was in greater danger of being supprest than ever it was since the Reformation notwithstanding your Promise of maintaining and preserving it 7. Another Indication of your Care for the maintenance of the Ch. of England was the breaking thro' those Laws which forbid the erecting Churches and Chappels for the exercise of the Popish Religion and also against Monasteries and Convents and more particularly against the Order of the Jesuites for you did contrary to your Oath and Promise made to support the Ch. of England give out arbitrary and illegal Orders to erect Monasteries and in contempt of the Law you set up several Colledges of Jesuites to corrupt the Youth of the Nation Nay Sir that you might not leave your self without Witness of your stedfast Resolution of maintaining supporting and defending the Ch. of England you rais'd up a Jesuite that was in the Popish Plot in which the death of the King your kind and loving Brother was plotted and contriv'd and the subversion of the Government both in Church and State to be a Privy Councillor and a Minister of State By all which you did evidently shew that you were restrain'd by no Laws and therefore the Ch. of England must perish you being so well seconded in your Popish Progress by your most excellent Commissioners of Ecclesiastical Affairs But to conclude this Paragraph how those Villains that acted in that Commission of yours can look Mankind in the Face after they have done so many things against all Law Honour and Conscience I do not understand The truth is those that are yet alive have with the Whore in the Proverbs wiped their Mouths and say They have done no wickedness and without all doubt if they might be trusted would with as great earnestness appear against your Cause and Interest as they did wickedly in your time espouse it but they would be such a Reproach to an honest Government as would render the best and most honest Cause suspicious if engag'd in it IV. I come now to consider a 4th Passage in your Speech to the Council wherein you were pleas'd to say That you had been reported to have been a man for Arbitrary Power but you did assure them that you would preserve the Government in Church and State as by Law establish'd And That you knew that the Laws of England were sufficient to make the King as great a Monarch as he could wish How you preserv'd the Government of the Church is plain enough nothing indeed is more plain than this that you intended its Destruction and utter Subversion and that nothing less would serve your turn notwithstanding its Principles were for Monarchy and its Members had shew'd themselves Loyal Subjects How fared it then with the State Surely the Civil Government was preserv'd since the Laws of England were sufficient to make the King as great a Monarch as he could wish In truth Sir there was but a lamentable account to be given to your more than Glorious Successor of your management of Affairs in the Civil Government all things were out of order at his accession to the Crown which you may have forgotten therefore Sir be pleas'd to remember in the first place your Villains of your Council and of your Ecclesiastical Commission As they were in a Conspiracy against the Ch. of England to turn our Religion into downright Popery so they were in a Conspiracy against the State to turn the well establish'd Government of this Land into downright Slavery and this not secretly as if those Rascals were not asham'd of what they did for they had that matchless Impudence to act in an open and undisguis'd manner and to carry on your villanous purposes you and your Accomplices set up the Dispensing Power by vertue of which you might suspend and dispense with the execution of the Laws at your pleasure and in order to give this devilish Maxim of yours and your Conspirators countenance and credit you so manag'd that matter that you obtain'd an Opinion from the Judges most of which were mercenary Rogues who declar'd their opinion That this Dispensing Power was in the Kings of England as if it were in the power of these Villains to offer up the Laws and Liberties of the whole Nation to your self to be dispos'd of by you arbitrarily at your pleasure and expresly contrary to those Laws that were enacted for the liberty of the Subject In order to obtain this Judgment your Conspirators did before hand examine secretly the Sentiments of the Judges and procur'd such of them as could not in Conscience concur in so villanous an opinion or sentence to be turn'd out and others that had neither Law nor Conscience were substituted in their rooms so that by changing of hands they found out 12 matchless Rogues from whom you obtain'd that wicked Judgment which if my Memory fail me not was laid down in these 5 particulars 1. That the Kings of England are Soveraign Princes 2. That the Laws of England are the King's Laws 3. That it is an inseparable Prerogative of the K. of Engl. to dispense with Penal Laws upon necessity and urgent occasions 4. That the K. is the sole Judge of that necessity 5. That this is not in Trust given to the K. but 't is the ancient Remains of the Crown which ne'r was nor can be taken from him Give me leave Sir to examin these Particulars and let the world see how you were abus'd and how you abus'd the Government by the Opinions of these 12 mercenary Rogues 1. That the Kings of England were Soveraign Princes What then Must you by a Dispensing Power do what you list were you not subject to those Laws which you were sworn to keep And if you had not fled might you not have been call'd to an account Might not the People from whom you deriv'd your Authority have had any Power over you And was it not dangerous both to Church and State to have a Popish Prince so mighty that no Protestant House of Peers or Commons dare controul him Truly Sir I own that the Kings of England are soveraign Princes yet the Nation by their Representatives did ne'r allow the Kings of England to do what 12 mercenary Judges should deliver as their Opinions for Sir it was ne'r intended when you assumed the Government that your Will and Pleasure should stand for a Law for the Laws that support the Grandeur of the Crown limited your Will to Reason and ty'd your Commands to the Word of God the Laws of the Realm and the Weal of the People And since Sir you regarded not these things but follow'd the Sentiments of your corrupt Judges your Will was unlawful and Commands unjust The Kings of England always have been and still are Soveraign Princes but what makes them so Is it not the Law of the Land And
them and you could not have added to or detracted from any thing in such a manner perfected without the consent of the people with whom you made this Contract for we were to have been benefited by this Oath and Contract of yours and not deceived again If Princes may break their Oaths and Contracts made to and with their Subjects How can we deal with such a King How can we tell when we obey We must be then at great uncertainties and so by consequenue we cannot be safe Furthermore Did it not lye at your door to have preserved your self from Scandal and Fraud Of which you took no care therefore you made no Conscience of of your Oaths and Contracts Again Sir we must suppose you to be a reasonable Creature and if so we must also conclude you ought to have submitted to Reason that you might have at least have had the reputation of a Man and not be signalized with the Character of a filthy Monstrous Beast Hence it is that Tyrants in sacred Writ are called Beasts because they will not submit to nor be governed by the Rules of right Reason In the last place Sir other Men may in their Oaths and Contracts have an Eye to their Profit but you ought to have had an Eye to your Honour and to have had an especial regard thereof Now what can be more Dishonourable in a King than to break his Word falsifie his Faith and violate his Contract And was not your Word Faith and Contract confirmed by a solemn Oath 3. There was a third Doctrine that was much promoted by your Conspirators that although Kings should be strictly bound to stand to their Contracts and their Oaths yet if they were induced to make a Contract and to take an Oath in things wherein they were not well informed or if the Contract and Oath do contain things too much derogating or diminishing their Jurisdiction or Authority Royal or if they have made a Promise that may be prejudicial to their Greatness they may then lawfully break their Contract Faith and Oath This Doctrine was very industriously spread about by your Party especially by your Jesuits and your Jesuited Papists and Passive Obedience Men. But certainly Sir your Conspirators represented your understanding to be but of Irish Standard and to be of the same Scantling with their Honesty Give me leave to ask you this one fair Question Was you not well informed what you were to do and what you did promise to do when you took the Coronation Oath to defend the Protestant Religion and preserve and maintain the Laws of the Realm and by them to govern this great People you took the Charge of Can any Man think Sir that you should be the only Man that was Ignorant of that which all the Nation knew and what your Grand-father Father and Brother had done before you Where Sir was the Dishonour or Blemish that might fall upon you if you had kept your Oath and made the Laws of the Land the Rule of your Government If you had been a good King you would have delighted to have been bound by the Laws of the Land and have rejoyced the Hearts of the People of England and then you would not have at this time have been obliged to France for your Subsistance But Sir God in his just Judgment gave you up to believe these lies and therefore you violated those Laws by which you were Sworn to govern to gratifie your Popish Hellborn Crew they have got you to themselves We have a King that thinks it no Blemish to his Regal Authority to maintain and keep our Laws he judges it no Dishonour to preserve the Liberties of his People and their Honours and Estates You have the reward of your Unrighteousness I wish you much Joy of it 4. Some of the Doctors and Casuists of your Synagogue of Rome say that Princes who may dispense with others may give a sufficient Dispensation to themselves and so revoke their Contracts and break their Oaths for that they have Might and Power and Authority there is no Law no Judge that can compel them to keep their Oaths and observe their Contracts It is manifest that you did take upon you to dispense with others and to give your self a Dispensation too and we own that we were not then in a Condition to call you to an Account but you were Admonished very often by the best and greatest of your Subjects to reform all that was amiss But after all this Admonition you did remain incorrigible then what could we do but make your Actions Cruelties and Tyrannies and Perjury known to the World And we implored the Aid and Help not of the French King but William Prince of Orange who came and suppressed you as an incorrigible Oppressor and Tyrant And your Party appearing bare-faced to murther our King and invade the Kingdom with a Foreign Force in order to enslave us will be treated as Villains and Common Rogues and receive the just recompence of Reward for all their Treasonable Conspiracies against our King and the well established Government of the Kingdom and the Protestant Religion To conclude this point How detestable and odious hath your Perjury made you it hath excluded you from that great Honour to which you arrived and it hath removed you from your native Country in a word it hath clothed you with so much infamy that it is impossible for you to attain that Honour Power and Authority and Majesty you have lost And therefore it is highly unreasonable for you or your Conspirators ever to attempt your Restauration 2. As your Perjur is an argument why it is not only impossible for you to be restored and folly for you to attempt it so in the second place we are Protestants And what can a Popish Apostate do at the head of a Protestant Interest The Popish Queen Mary she no sooner obtained the Crown by a Protestant Interest but she destroyed that very Interest by which she was advanced to the Throne This we well remember Sir and we need not burn our Fingers again the third time Suppose Sir that we should have so little sense as to try you once more and should succeed What Monsters must we appear to the World a Body of Protestants with a Popish Head This doth much astonish me that our little Prick-ear'd Priests of the Church of England have so much admired your Cause and pleaded it with such earnestness when as they cannot but conclude that you must of necessity deal by the Church of England as you would with an impudent Harlot Your Brother was careless in the maintenance of our Religion because he was a Papist though a loose one And can we otherwise conclude but you who have at all times and in all places whereever you have come shewed your self a bigotted Papist will not only discountenance the Protestant Religion but destroy it with all that Zeal that is consistent with the Principles of a perverse
common Consent But you were pleased to raise Money upon the People by your Proclamation The very Day after you had promised to invade no Mans Property Now no Man is for Life Limb Goods or Liberty at the Sovereigns Direction but how soon it would have been had not a period been put to your Tyranny For your Sycophant Parasites were very zealous to have delivered up those Priviledges in to your Hands judging it would not be well with England till you were as Absolute as the Monster of France by which we might easily understand your Intentions For Sir who knows not that the inclination of a Prince is best known either by those that are about him and most Favour with him or by the current of his own Actions Those who were nearest to you and most your Favourites were your Irish and French Courtiers and your Popish Priests and Prelates who these Men stood affected to Your Discretionary Dispotick Power can never be forgotten No Man but may remember that in their common Discourse were for advancing your Will and Pleasure over your Subjects to be equal with that of the King of France is over his This was but a Copy which those Villains had industriously taken from your own Words and Actions In Scotland you did publickly set up for that Power and openly declared you would be obeyed without reserve The attempt you and your Conspirators made in the time of the Lord Chancellor Hyde upon our Liberties is never to be forgetten a Bill was prepared to enable the King your Brother in the time of any interval of Parliament to raise what Money he pleased upon an extraordinary occasion as the Dutch War was pretended to be This had taken its much desired effect had not that Lord Chancellor been awakened by an intimate Friend of his who understanding what was doing in the House of Commons came to him and shewed him what the Consequences were which such an unheard thing would produce and he using one Argument above all the rest in telling him he came to his Honour and Greatness by the Gown and not by the Sword and if that Bill passed he advised him to consider what his Gown or all the Lawyers Gowns in England were worth which that Lord Chancellor though one of the Actors with you to enslave the Nation being a Man of Sense had that Honor as to think it no Dishonor to retreat from that Devilish Invention which he to comply with your Ambition and Pride had set on foot to destroy us at once So that Bill though once read in the House for enabling the King your Brother to raise Money at pleasure was by the Providence of God and the Prudence of that Noble Penitent Lord droped so far as that it dwindled into a Bill of 75000 l. not exceeding a Months Tax No doubt but you had procured this Bill to be dressed in the French Mode for emergent Occasions yet had it passed in the same manner as you and your Accomplices designed there would not have wanted emergent Occasions and extraordinary Services to have given Colour for keeping that Power on foot until Dooms Day in the Afternoon The French King whose Example you followed in this particular got his Power by such a villainous Stratagem but he hath not been at leisure yet to call his Parliament to dispute that Point I question not but that your loving Brother and you would have found other Matters of moment to have diverted you from that way of raising Money so England must have taken leave of Parliaments for ever and we must have submitted all we had to your French Discretion But through the Blessing of Heaven and the Care of our Legislators we are delivered not only from your Government and your intended French way of Governing for we continue to have the same Right modestly understood in our Propriety that our Prince hath in his Royalty and in all Cases where the King himself is concerned we have our just Remedy as against any private Person in the Nation in the Courts of Westminster-hall or in the High Court of Parliament for his Prerogative is not like that you would have usurped but what the Law hath only determined His great Seal which is the legitimate Stamp of his Royal Will and Pleasure yet it is no longer currant than upon the Tryal it is found to be according to Law and Justice The King cannot commit any Man by his own particular Warrant he cannot be himself a Witness in any Cause whatever tho your Brother would have been one against me The Ballance of publick Justice being so delicate that not the Head only but even the Breath of the King would turn the Scale nothing is left to the Win of the King but every thing is subject to his legal Authority by which means it follows that as he can do no Wrong nor can he receive Wrong But you by your Dispensing Power put your self in a state of Wronging the Nation and destroying your self and Government but had you kept to the Measures of an English King you might have remained to this Day to have been the only intelligent Ruler over a rational People your Person had been Sacred and Inviolable and whatever Excess had been committed in your Reigh would not have been imputed to you as being free from the Necessity and Temptations Your Ministers would have been only accountable for all and must have Answered it at their Perils You had a vast Revenue and if any emergency of Affair should have appeared you had at your Call a number of Men to have advised with a supply would have been readily granted You were the Fountain of Honour the disposer of many profitable Places both in Church and State but this would not serve your turn for you would not be abridged the Power of injuring the People of England but against all Law invaded our Rights and designed nothing so much as enslaving us and our Posterity for ever And we that have tasted so much of the sweetness of Liberty and on the other hand have smarted under your short but cruel Tyranny will never be intangled again with the French Popish Yoke of Bondage but stand in defence of the King we have chosen and the Liberty we have recovered as long as we have a Being in this World Therefore consider with your self the impossibility of your return to that Government you abused to the Administration of those Laws you violated to a Nation that you made a Field of Blood and if you had remained for ought I know England might have been a Howling Wilderness In fine then I am sure if you should make any attempt to return it will be in vain and appear very rediculous 5. We have Sworn Allegiance to King William who is of the same Religion and Interest with us who delivered us out of your Hands and the Hands of your villainous Conspirators and hath fixed us upon those Foundations against which France Rome nor
Hell shall prevail he hath secured us our Liberties Laws and Religion he hath brought himself and Government to that Perfection notwithstanding the vexatious War which lies hard upon us that he is capable of doing good to all Mankind and he hath totally disabled himself from doing hurt to any he wants not the French King's Purse nor his Friendship he wants not his Interest for his Interest is his Peoples and his Peoples his by which they are so united that the attempts of your Scoundrel Crew for your Restoration will be in vain the Hearts of the Nation are set against you and for your perfidious dealing both in Church and State the People of England will trust you no more Sir We have Sworn Allegiance to this King we chose in your stead and we are bound to stand by him our choise of him was from a Principle of Love to God and the Protestant Religion which he hath asserted You kept not your Faith with us and therefore our Allegiance ceased to you your Actions have been very plain and open and so pernitious that it was a Wonder of Wonders thaâ— we and our Religion have been delivered from Blood and Oppression And Sir I would let you know that we are not afraid of you and your Adherents for I believe the Protestant Religion and Protestant King will stand notwithstanding alâ— your Attempts and if you had brought your French Dragooning Apostles oâ—er to us yet we would and should have maintained our Ground and destroyed â—â—em and you We value not your little Two-penny Stuff that you have left â—â—hind you to plead your Cause your impertinent ignorant Non-juring Clergy-men can never preach us out of love to that Loyalty that we owe to K. William â—e have scarce a Williamite Cobler but can baffle them all These things consiâ—ered How can you ever expect any thing less than that Judgment the Psalmist â—rays for to be inflicted upon his Enemies Hath not God already set a wicked Tyrant over you Have you not been Judged by the Lords and Commons of England and Condemned Was not your Reign short And hath not another taken your Office In time Sir the Judgment may be compleated upon you There is of your Issue that have had no Hand in our Miseries and for this Cause our Eyes are set upon them for good and we shall pray for their long Life But as for you that God would cloth you with Shame and Confusion of Face and that he would upon the Head of our Protestant King let the Crown long florish And I do not question but God will hear the Prayers of his Faithful Subjects and will by his means bring the Nation to such a Settlement that our Allegiance will be firm to him and his Successors notwithstanding all those villainous Attempts that you and that Monster of Mankind your Brother of France by his and your Traiterous Accomplices have made to deprive us of so great a Blessing Which brings me to a Sixth Consideration 6. The last Reason I shall give you why it will be impossible for you to return to the Administration of the English Government and that all Attempts of that nature will be in vain because of your late barbarous and villainous Attempt you by your Conspirators have made upon the Person of our King and your purpose of backing that intended Murder by an unnatural Invasion you had some that pittied you but now our Hearts are shut up against you and are hardned against all your Cursed Adherents For now your Plot is discovered and it is a Plot and a Villainous One nothing can be plainer no Man of Common Understanding but must see your Conspiracy to bring in Popery and Slavery and to destroy the Protestant Religion and the Liberties of England We know Sir the Doctrine of your Popish and Non-juring Priests too well and your wicked Practices and we are now assured that you will not stick at any thing that may bring your wicked Designs about You must excuse me if I am plain with you I would not asperse you with hard Words if they were not very true I should not have been so Hot if you had not been concerned in the late wicked Design of murthering our King but if you had succeeded it would have been no more than you did to your Loving and Kind Brother but all this as well as the other is owing to you and your Popish Traiterous Crew who have debauched Mens Understandings overturned all Morals and destroyed all Divinity What shall I say of you and your villainour Party What is your Charity such as to destroy Kings And where was the Humility of insulting over the Nation The Mystery of Iniquity is revealed and you are disappointed The Nation sees that you are no Changeling as to yâ—â—r Vices and you will find that English-men are no Changelings Therefore it wâ—ll be in vain to make any more attempts to be Restored again for the future To conclude this Memorial Sir give me leave to tell you that I have thus fâ—â— laid open the Conspiracy against our Religion and Government and indeed it waâ— more than time it should be discovered for I think here hath been nothing asserteâ— but what hath been and can be made out we see how the French have been courted by you and your Party with what Ease have they been assisted and witâ— what Difficulty the Dutch both in your Brothers and your Reign We see your Brother and you abandon the Prince of Orange now our King in compliance with his and the Nations Enemies How can any Man think upon the French Depredations and Cruelties exercised at Sea upon the Subjects of England without Regret Call to mind your notorious Treacheries in that Affair Remember the constant Irregularities and Injustice from term to term of those who should have administred Justice between King and People Remember the search you made throughout the whole Kingdom to find Men of Arbitrary Principles that would bow the Knee to Baal in order to their being promoted to all publick Commissions and Employments and disgracing and displacing all those that durst in so universal a Depravation be honest and faithful in their Trust and Offices We saw to our great Grief the Defection of considerable Persons both Male and Female to the Popish Religion as if they enter'd by Couples Clean and Unclean into the Ark of that Cursed Synagogue not more in order to their Salvation than for their Temporal Advantage and Safety Sir the State of Ireland managed by your Brother and you would require a Volume to represent it and in your Time we could not but observe that all your Affairs and Councils in the Nation tended to a Popish Revolution And by the Foresight and Civility of the Man of Sin there was an English Cardinal prepared like Cardinal Pool to give us Absolution Benediction and to receive us to the Obedience of the See of Rome It is true your Conspiracy had taken effect had you not met with many Disappointments but the last Disappointment was the overturn of all your Designs at once which was occasioned by the Arrival of the Prince of Orange Guilt made you to flee The Sense the Nation had of your wicked Intentions against our Laws and Liberties caused the People of England to make choice of our Deliverer to reign over us He is anointed our King and as God hath set a Crown of pure Gold upon his Head so we question not but the same God will satisfy him with long Life and Happiness and that he will give him the Spirit of Wisdom Knowledge Zeal and Faithfulness to do what in him lies to the bringing on the New Heavens and the New Earth wherein Righteousness and Peace shall dwell by repairing the Breaches and decayed Places that you have made and caused amongst us And from hence Sir remember that though Hand join in Hand yet the Wicked shall not go unpunished they are Gods own Words who hath also declared with the greatest Solemnity that there shall be no Peace to the Wicked Isa 57.21 You have leisure to consider of these things and so Farewell FINIS
the Gates of Hell and Rome shall not prevail against it 'T is true Sir before the Discovery of the Popish Plot in the time of King Charles the Second many loose People some also of Note were perverted to the Church of Rome but when that Villany was detected then a Check was put for a time to the Popish Parties making such a number of Converts till the Priests saw that King Charles the Second did not Prosecute the Discovery of that Conspiracy he being in every part and particular thereof but that of his own Life then they let loose their Seducers who were not only incouraged but also recompensed for such a piece of Treachery But when the late King invaded the Crown then large steps were taken to ruin the People and to Pox them in their Religion Upon your Majesties Landing in the Year 1688 the Keeper of the Prison of the King's-Bench gave me some liberty and I went amongst some of the most substantial of my Friends who did inform me under what a Consternation our Great Conspirators were and how ready they were to have given up all their Ill-gotten Estates by which they had been enabled to prosecute the wicked Designs of the late King to subvert our most Excellent Religion and none of us did question but that they would have been called to an account for all those trayterous Devices of theirs of this I am sure they would have given up their All to have saved their Lives But your Majesty being resolved not to begin your Reign with Blood was inclined not to make any severe Examples of these Men which a thinking Man might judge would lay such an Obligation upon them all of Gratitude and Obedience to your Majesty and Government nay these above-named fresh Instances of the Papal Tyranny in Religion might have been enough to have cautioned the Kingdom from giving them little hopes of being able of being brought to restore King James who was so bigotted to the Arbitrary Proceedings of the Romish Synagogue our Noble-men some of them had a great part of Church Lands in their hands our Clergy-men great Preferments all which must have gone notwithstanding their Zeal for the Divine Right of Succession and Passive Obedience and Non-resistence Therefore the Consideration of Temporal Interest one would have thought might have gone a great way to have engaged them to be true to their own Cause and Quarrel In a word a Man that observed the Insolencies of the Popish Party against those Prelates that were committed to the Tower would have made them for ever to have declared an everlasting War against that Party of Red-letter'd Men and heartily have come into your Majesties Interest in order to have secured our Liberties Properties and Religion But to conclude this Head the Excellency of that Religion of which some of the Conspirators had made a Profession since they were English that had Bodies Souls and Estates to save and found your Majesty resolved if they had pleased to save all they upon the score of your Royal Grace and Mercy to them shewed at the beginning of your Reign and continued Clemency would have invited to have joined in with your Majesty to have preserved that Religion they profess and not in stead of that to have attempted the Murther of your Person and the Invasion of your Realm with a Foreign Power in order to restore an Abdicated King who hates their Religion and will violate their Liberties I come Sir now to observe to your Majesty the Excellency of this Civil Government which these Conspirators would change into Slavery The Kings of England Rule not upon the same Terms with those of our Neighbour Nations who having by Force or by Fraud Usurped that due share which their Subjects had in the Government are now for some Ages past in Possession of an Arbitrary Power which yet no Presciption can make legal and Excercise it over their Persons and Estates in a most Tyrannical Manner but here in England the Subjects do retain their Proportion in the Legislature and the very meanest Commoner of England is represented in Parliament and is a Party to those Laws by which the Prince is sworn to Govern himself and his Subjects No Mony is to be levied but by common Consent no Man is for Life Limb or Goods or Liberty at the discretion of the Supream Magistrate but we have the same Right modestly understood to our Property that the Prince hath to his Regality In all Cases where the King is concerned we have our just Remedy as against any private Person in the Neighborhood in the Courts of Westminster-Hall or in the High-Court of Parliament his very Prerogative is no more than what the Law hath determined His Great Seal which is the Stamp of his Legitimate Pleasure yet is no longer current than upon the tryal it is found legal he cannot commit any Person by his particular Warrant he cannot himself be Witness in any Cause the ballance of Publick Justice being so delicate that not the Head only but even the Breath of the Prince would turn the Scale nothing is to be left to the King's Will but all is subjected to his Authority by which it follows that he can do no wrong nor receive wrong and a King of England keeping these measures may without Arrogance be said to remain the only Intelligent Ruler over a Rational People in recompence therefore and acknowledgment of so good a Government under his Influence his Person is most Sacred and Inviolable and whatever Excesses are committed against so high a Trust nothing of them is imputed to him as being free from the necessity or temptation but his Ministers only are accountable for all and must answer it at their Perils He hath a vast Revenue constantly arising from the Sweat of the Labourers and the Rent of the Farmer and the Industry of the Merchant and consequently out of the Estate of the Gentleman a large competence to defray the ordinary Charge of the Crown and maintain its Grandure and Lustre and if any extraordinary occasion happen or be but with any probable descency pretended the whole Land at whatsoever season of the Year doth yield them a plentiful Harvest So forward are the People to give that a Foreigner would think that they could neither will nor chuse but that the asking of a Supply was a meer piece of Formality the People of England being so ready to give it The King of England is the Fountain of Honour and hath the distribution of so many profitable Offices of the Houshold of the Revenue of State of Law of Religion of the Navy and when it is necessary that the King hath an Army he disposeth of a multitude of Military Offices that it seems as if this Nation had scarce Men of Abilities to supply all these Employments So that the Kings of England are nothing inferior to other Princes saving in being abridged in injuring their own Subjects but have as large