the Scandal of being a Whore that after he had made her a Dutchess he made her also his Wife that is to say he marry'd her by vertue of his Royal Prerogative at the Lord A's House by the Common Prayer-Book according to the Ceremonies of the Church of England A thing in some measure justifiable in a Prince since the Law allows all Men one Wife and therefore a King who is above Law may surely have two And upon this ground perhaps it was that upon a Lord Mayor's Day being at Mr. Eaton's in Cheapside where the King usually stood upon some Discourse that brought it out she cry'd Me no Whore if me thought me were a Whore me would cut mine own Throat And by the same Dispensing Power he provided also for her Children And therefore having no less adulterously begotten a Daughter upon the Lady Wood he join'd her in holy Wedlock to one of his Sons whom he had begot after the same Legitimate manner upon the Body of the Dutchess of Cleveland according to the Answer of Tamar to Ammon of which he wanted not Sycophant Priests enow to put him in mind But these were Peccadillo's readily forgiven by the Religion which he inwardly embrac'd which could readily dispense with such Trifles as these provided he went thorough-stitch with the Work which his Ghostly Fathers had cut out for him Which was the reason perhaps that he made choice of a Devotion so conformable to his lustful Inclinations For certainly what was said of Harry the Eighth might much more properly he said of him That he spar'd no Woman whether Virgin Marry'd or Widow in his Venereal Heats Which fill'd his Court so full of Pimps and Panders that there was hardly any Preferment about his Person for any other This was that which render'd the D. of L. one of the most ill-favour'd of Men so amiable in our Caesar's Eyes And this was that which advanced several others to their gilded Coaches and Places of the greatest Honour and Profit about the Court. Tho nothing was more mournful then to see those vast Sums of Money which the Parliament so profusely gave him for the Honour and Security of the Nation so extravagantly and prodigally wasted upon his Strumpets of which two were Common Harlots of Actresses taken from the Bawdy Stage to his Royal Bed A thousand Pounds every Munday-morning for the Smiles of a Gilt when his necessary Servants pin'd and starv'd for want of their weekly Board-wages and the strength of the Kingdom his Seamen were forc'd to serve his Enemies for Bread Thus from the first hour of his Arrival into these Kingdoms for I dare not call them His he set himself by his own perswasion and influence to withdraw both Men and Women from the Laws of Nature and Morality and to pollute and infect the People with all manner of Debauchery and Wickedness He that ought to have shone like the North Star in the Firmament of Royalty to direct his Subjects in the Paths of Vertue and Honesty was the Sovereign Ignis fatuus to misguide them into all the snares of Ruin and Perdition Execrable Oaths were the Chief Court-Acknowledgements of a Deity Fornications and Adulteries the Principal Tests of the Peoples Loyalty and Obedience And whether it were to affront God who had preserved and restored him to his Throne or to be reveng'd upon the Nation for inviting him so unanimously to weild the Scepter of his Ancestors certain it is that he made it his business to live in defiance of the Fear and Authority of God and to poyson and corrupt the Minds and deprave the Manners of the English People as might easily be observed through the whole Course of his Reign But the King had been well instructed in his Exile and had sufficiently learnt in his banishment that undoubted Maxim of Tyranny that the only way to alter the settl'd Government of a Nation and to introduce Slavery and Popery the support of Thraldom was to weaken and make soft the Military Temper of the People by Debauchery and Effeminacy which generally go hand in hand together Knowing therefore that Regis ad Exemplum totus componitur Orbis he gave these lewd Examples himself on purpose that after he had thus Enervated the Minds and Resolutions of his Subjects he might the more easily trample upon their Necks and reduce them under the perpetual Yoke of Antichrist in expectation of his Mothers Blessing and to fulfil the Agreement between himself the Pope and the French King Certain it is that the Kingdom was never in a better Posture for the King to work upon it then at the time of his return into England For such were the Contests for Superiority among those who had taken upon them the Government after the death of Oliver such the Confusions and Disorders that from thence arose that no body could probably see where would be the End of the general Distraction unless it were by reducing all things to their Primitive Condition under a Prince whose Title was so fair to the Crown Though a great Blunder in Politicks which the necessity of Affairs at that time made to pass for an Act of Prudence But such an Act it was to which all Parties were the more inflam'd by the Kings reiterated Oaths Promises and Declarations to those of the Church of England to maintain the Protestant Religion to the Dissenters that he would indulge their tender Consciences with all the Liberty they could rationally desire and to All in general that he was a most really zealous and unalterable Protestant And so infatuated they were with these ingratiating Wheedles that should all that knew him beyond Sea both at Colen and in Flanders have spoken their discoveries with the Voices of Angels nay should the Letter which he wrote with his own hand in the year Sixty two to the Pope have been shewn them in Capital Letters they would have been all lookt upon but as Fictions and Inventions to obstruct the Happiness of the Nation The People therefore ador'd him as the end of all their Miseries the Dissenters upon the Relations of their Ministers return'd thought themselves happy in the reports of his Mercy and Piety and the Parliament doated upon his Oaths and Promises so that no Prince in the World could ascend a Throne with more Love and Affection or with a greater Reputation in the Opinion of the whole Nation What could be more inhuman more immoral more barbarous then by all the Violations of Royal Faith and the Word of a King to disappoint the Hopes and Expectations of a People that had such a Confidence of his Religion and Vertue Though perhaps such a failure might have been attributed to his Weakness and want of Conduct But to set himself after so high a Veneration of his Vertues such a prostrating of their Lives and Fortunes at his Feet in Combination with a Forreign Prince the only professed and mortal Enemy of their Welfare to destroy their Religion
Pope himself which once was printed in Whitlocks Memoirs but upon the considerations of the danger that might ensue upon divulging it at that time to the World torn out before the publishing of the Book However to supply that defect we shall here insert the Propositions that were sent by him to Rome while he was in Scotland professing the Presbyterian Religion and carried thither and press'd forward by one Dalie an Irish Priest and Confessor to the then Queen of Portugal under the Title of Propositions and Motives for and on the behalf of the most Invincible King of Great Britain France and Ireland to Pope Innocent X. in the Year of Iubilee 1650. Which Dalie taking France in his way spake with the Queen-Mother and receiv'd her Directions for the better management of the Affair Most Blessed Father Our Agent at present residing at Rome with all humility shews to your Holiness That the principal cause and occasion of that Regicide tyrannically perpetrated upon the Person of Charles the First Father of that foresaid Charles the Second by his Rebels and cruel Subjects the like whereof was never heard of from the beginning of the world not only not among civil Nations but even among the most barbarous themselves have been the graces favors and concessions so often and so many ways extended to the Catholick Religion and the Assertors and Professors thereof in the Kingdoms both of England and Ireland The truth of which appears in that the foresaid Charles the First gave Authority to the Marquiss of Ormond by several Commissions for the establishing and perfecting all Conditions with the Confederate Catholicks of the Kingdom of Ireland of sufficient security for the Catholick Faith Furthermore the said Charles the First tearing lest the said Ormond being an Heretick should not satisfie the said Confederates in all things He sent thither the Marquiss of Worcester a Man truly and wholly Catholick with a more ample Commission in which Commission the said Marquiss of Worcester had full Authority of concluding a Peace with the said Confederate Catholicks and of giving them Conditions altogether satisfactory as well concerning Liberty of Religion as also as to other Injuries that had been done unto them which the said Marquiss of Worcester making with them an absolute Peace did abundantly fulfil Further this appeareth in that the said Charles the First even in England it self did by Commissions set the Catholicks namely the said Marquiss of Worcester Sir Arthur Ashton and many others over his Armies and made them Governours of Cities Castles and strong Holds notwithstanding the clamour of the People against it and which was not a slight Motive of the Regicide committed upon him whereby it appears that although the said King Charles the First died not a Catholick yet he died for them Again most blessed Father the same Agent most humbly represents That the present King Charles the Second the true and undoubted Heir of the foresaid Charles the First and of all his Kingdoms to whom the said Kingdoms belong of right according to that of Christ Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's while his Father yet lived was known to have good and true Natural inclinations to the Catholick Faith following which and going on in his Fathers steps he did not only recommend it to the Marquiss of Ormond but gave it him in express Command to satisfie in all things the Confederate Catholicks in Ireland namely That he should grant them the free exercise of their Religion That he should abrogate the Penal Laws made against them and that he should restore to the said Catholicks whether Laicks or Ecclesiasticks their Lands Estates Possessions or what other Rights did at any time belong unto them and by the said Laws had been unjustly taken away in obedience to which Commands the said Marquiss in the Name and by the Authority of the said two Kings namely Charles the First and the II. made and concluded a firm Peace with the said Confederate Catholicks by the conclusion of which Peace the said present King and all his Dominions hath involved himself with the Catholicks in an irreconcileable War against the Parliamentarian Regicides of England whose Blood therefore the said cruel Tyrants insatiably thirst after as they did after his Fathers The said Agent further offers to your Holiness That the inhumane Regicides do wickedly usurp to themselves in the Dominions aforementioned all the Authority of the King do most cruelly persecute all the Catholicks both in England and in Ireland partly by condemning them to Banishment partly by thrusting them into Prisons and otherwise corporally punishing them and lastly by putting them to death a Witness of the truth hereof is that great slaughter made by Cromwel in the taking of the two Cities of Drogheda and Wexford and other places where all the Catholicks without distinction of either Sex or Age were slaughtered witness hereof also the raging persecution and death of Catholicks in England by all which and by their Parliamentarian Decrees themselves and their Covenant with God as they call it it is evident even beyond the clearness of the light of the shining Sun That these Tyrannical Regicides do ultimately intend and put forth all their Power for the utter destruction of all Catholicks and to extirpate by the Roots and wholly to extinguish the Catholick Faith throughout the World openly asserting and boasting with great glory that these things being once finished in those Dominions they will then invade France and after that run through Germany Italy and all Europe throwing down Kings and Monarchs whose very Titles are most odious and abhorrent unto them Briefly they have no other thing in their Aim than these two namely The extirpation of the Catholick Religion and the destruction of Monarchy To which wicked Machinations of theirs forasmuch as they could never have any the least hopes that either the King or his Father should at any time in the least assent they have put the one to death and the other to exile And these Rebels now with a nefarious boldness have lately called themselves a Common-wealth To meet with and prevent the infernal endeavours of such Rebels our Agent most humbly offers to your Holiness the following Propositions 1. That your Holiness would make an annual supply out of your own Treasury unto the said Charles the Second of considerable sums of Money sutable to the maintaining the War against those Rebels against God the Church and Monarchy 2. That you would cause and compel the whole beneficed Clergy in the world of whatsoever Dignity Degree State or Condition soever to contribute the third or the fourth part of all their Fruits Rents Revenues or Emoluments to the said War as being Universal and Catholick And that the said Contribution may be paid every Three Months or otherwise as shall seem most expedient to your Holiness 3. That by your Apostolick Nuncio's your Holiness would most instantly endeavour with all Princes Common-wealths and Catholick States
occasion from the privacy of the Nuptials to deny her being his Wife and to disavow all Contracts and Ceremonies of Marriage between them But the King detesting so much baseness as being himself a witness of the Marriage would not suffer the Lady to be so heinously abused but constrain'd him after great reluctancy to declare it publickly to all the World A happy Providence for England which by that Conjunction blest us with two Protestant Princesses matchless in Virtue and Piety and all those other Graces that adorn their Sex to the eldest of which we are beholden for our Deliverance from an Inundation of Slavery and Popery under the Auspicious Conduct of a Soveraign truly meriting the Noble and Ancient Titles of King of Men and Shepherd of the People and the yet more dignified Addition of Defender of the Faith And from the youngest of which we have already the earnest of a hopeful Issue to guard us from the like Invasions Such is the provision of Providence that many times it happens the most venomous Creatures carry about them the particular Antidote against their own Poysons Certain it is that the D. of York would never have pull'd off his Protestant Vizour nor have declar'd himself of the Roman Communion so soon had he not been thereto necessitated by a Stratagem of the King his Brother for the Papists having a long time waited for the Accomplishment of the King's Oaths and Promises for restoring their Religion and having annually contributed large Sums of Money towards the effecting of it at length grew impatiently sullen and would advance no more unless the King or the Duke would openly declare themselves for Popery Which the King thinking no way seasonable for him to do and not being able by all his Arguments and Importunities to prevail with his Brother to do it he at length bethought himself of this Project which was To get the Queen to write a Letter intimating her Intention to withdraw into a Monastry which Letter was to be left upon her Closet Table that her Priests as it was concerted before-hand might there seize it and seeing the Contents of it carry it forthwith to the Duke Upon which the Duke being jealous lest the King upon the Queen's relinquishing her Husband might be induced to marry again and thereby deprive him of the hopes of succeeding than which there was nothing which he thirsted after more upon obtaining a previous Assurance that in case he declared himself a Papist she should not withdraw immediately pull'd off his Mask and renounced Communion with the Church of England Being thus quit of his fears from the King his next work was to rid himself of all his Jealousies of the D. of Monmouth To which purpose he lay day and night at the King to require him to turn Roman Catholick Which the King out of his Tenderness to the Romish Cause as well as to gratifie his Brother undertook to do and accordingly sent him into France with an express Command to reconcile himself to the Church of Rome however the Duke of Monmouth out of an aversion to the Fopperies of that Religion fail'd in his performance Which so incens'd the D. of Y. that from that time forward he studied all the ways imaginable to bring him to Destruction In the mean time having by his publickly declaring himself a Papist engag'd all those of the same Religion to his Person and Interest he resolved to drive on Iehu-like and to promote the Catholick Cause with all the vigour and swiftness he was able and to make the utmost use of his Brothers good Intentions And such was his Bigottry to the Romish Church That according to the Principles of that Religion he stuck at nothing per fas nefas to bring about his Popish Designs I shall not here dilate upon his secret Negotiations at Rome his Correspondencies with Foreign Priests and Jesuites or his Private Intrigues with the French King which have been all sufficiently exposed already in Print as for that whatever has been already said of the King is also to be said of him in general while he was Duke in regard they both drew in the same Yoak for the Ruine of the Nation For this is as certain as the rest that he had a most eager desire to Rule and Rule Despotically which was the Reason he was frequently heard to say He had rather Reign one Month as the King of France than Twenty Years as his Brother the King of England did And besides it was as plain That he had a mortal Antipathy against the Protestant Religion and more particularly against the Professors of it in England but more especially the Dissenters upon the score of Revenging his Father's Death An Imbitter'd Hatred which he deriv'd from his Mother who mortally malic'd England upon the same Account and which he acknowledg'd in his Bedchamber at St. Iames's where he openly declar'd That he was resolv'd to be reveng'd upon the English Nation for his Father's Death Which if those unthinking People who are so eager to have him again would but consider they would not be so forward for his return For it is in vain for the Church of England-Men of what degree soever to think that their refusing to Swear Allegiance to King William and Queen Mary would excuse them from that universal Revenge which he would take upon the Nation were it ever again in his Power Only here was the Difference between the two Brothers That the King thought to Ruin his Enemy by main Force and the fair hand of Victory but the Duke hoping to kill two Birds with one Stone made it his Business at the same time to Ruin the Enemy by Force and his own Country by Treachery Thus when he had engag'd his Brother in the First Holy Dutch War of the Extirpation of Hereticks he permits the English at first to exercise all the Bravery of their Skill and Courage to a great Probability of Success but then falls asleep in the height of his Conduct to the end the Dutch for want of Orders might have an Opportunity to wrest the Victory out of the Hands of the English on purpose to keep the Ballance of Destruction on both sides even Thus he permitted himself to be surpris'd at Soul-Bay knowing there were enough to Maul the Enemy but not enough to preserve those that Fought on our side So that the Dutch may be said to be well Thrash'd and the English to be well Sacrific'd And as a farther Demonstration of his Perfidious Soul when he found the Contest would be too tedious between two Nations so well match'd it was the Duke's Contrivance to Suborn and Bribe two Indigent and Desperate Villains to go over and Fire the Dutch Ships as they lay in their Harbours and when he had done that it was the same Treachery that with a sham Story lull'd his Brother asleep and procur'd the Firing of our Ships at Chatham The Burning of London was such a
Lives Liberties Laws and Religion of his People And how he employ'd his wooden Billet afterwards may easily be understood by his many acts of barbarous Tyranny over those poor People and the Slavery under which the whole Nation began so lately to groan Being admitted to the Scepter of Scotland at what time the Scourge of English Victory hung hourly over his Head tho he was diligently watched and observ'd by Men of Piety and Vertue he could not forbear the satisfaction of his Youthful Inclinations to all manner of Wantonness and Lasciviousness insomuch that having in the Year 1650 to the many Fornications and Adulteries which he there committed added the perpetration of a Rape upon a modest and vertuous Lady he had incurr'd the general disatisfaction of his best Friends However since they had brought him in and restored him to the Regal Dignity and that what was done could not now be undone they deem'd it no less their Duty to retrieve him if possible from those infamous and violent Courses and to that purpose concluded that the Danger as well as the Sin and Scandal of the Crimes he had committed should be privately represented to him by some of the most sober Noble Men and Ministers But some declining the Office as apprehending it would be ungratefully received by the young King others not deeming they had that Awe upon him which was sufficient it came at length to be devolv'd upon the Marquiss of Argyle For they suppos'd that if he hearkned to any Person it would be to him not only by reason of his Quality but because he had been the chief Instrument of perswading and prevailing with the Parliament to call him home to inherit the Crown of his Ancestors when most of the Members were thinking to exclude him But tho that Noble and Prudent Peer manag'd the Address which upon that Occasion he made to the King with the highest Piety of a Christian and the greatest Submission of a Subject yet the King look'd upon it as so Sacrilegious a Crime that any one should presume to rebuke him for his Darling Pollutions and Impurities that he resolv'd that nothing should expiate the Offence but the Blood of that Great and Vertuous Nobleman It is true he was destroyed upon a pretended legal Process but they who consider'd that it was for strain'd Faults and Failings of a Person who never acted but in a publick joint way without any sinister or treasonable Design against the King or his Father and against which he was either able to defend himself by Acts of Approbation or Oblivion in verbo principis then which there could not be a more Supream Sacred and inviolable Security or by an insuperable Necessity They who remembred the Marquisse's faithful Endeavours for restoring the King to the Crown of Scotland thought it a severe Case and look'd upon his Condemnation as unjust and his Life an ungodly Sacrifice to the angred Lust of a Lascivious Prince He had called God and all the Records of Heaven to witness his Innocency as to the most pungent Articles against him and to avoid giving the Parliament the trouble of a Defence in all humility he threw himself down at the Kings Feet and wholly submitted himself to his Mercy Nay when all this would not do he put in a Justification for himself so full of Reason and good Proof as was thought would have satisfied all Mankind But notwithstanding all this such was the remorceless Cruelty of our good natur'd Prince of Mercy and Clemency that nothing but so Noble a Person must be a Victim to his private Animosity Nor does the getting him put to death by a seeming Course of Law excuse or extenuate the Guilt of the Fact but is rather an Aggravation of it before God and Men in regard the Law which is design'd for the security of Men's Lives was here wrested and perverted to their Destruction And in imitation of this unjust Prosecution it was that when the D. of York hunted the Son of this Noble Man to death and was told by the Scot's Lawyers that there was nothing in what the Earl had said or done which could be made Criminal by the Law of the Land his Highness was pleas'd to reply But cannot it be wrested to Treason Nor was the King less early in Hypocrisie and breach of Promise For the confirmation of which to be a Solemn Truth there needs no more than to lay the Foundation of the Proof upon his own Words and Solemn Engagements For in the Kings Letter to the Speaker of the House of Commons just before his Restauration he has these Words We assure you upon our Royal Word that none of our Predecessors have had a greater esteem of Parliaments than We have as well in Our Judgments as from Our Obligation We do believe them to be so Vital a part of the Constitution of the Kingdom and so necessary for the Government of it that We well know neither Prince nor People can be in any tolerable degree happy without them and therefore you may be confident that We shall always look upon their Counsels as the best We can receive and shall be as tender of their Priviledges and as careful to preserve and protect them as of that which is most near our Self and most necessary for our own Preservation This in part demonstrates his Prevarications with Man Now for his Prevarication with Heaven we must produce another Paragraph of the same Letter wherein he uses these flattering Expressions If you desire the Advancement and Propagation of the Protestant Religion We have by our constant Profession of it given sufficient Testimony to the World That neither the unkindness of those of the same Faith towards Us nor the Civilities and Obligations from those of a contrary Profession could in the least degree startle Us or make Us swerve from it and nothing can be propos'd to manifest Our Zeal and Affection for it to which we will not readily assent And We hope in due time our Self to propose something to you for the Propagation of it that will satisfie the World that We have always made it both Our Care and Study and have enough observed what is most like to bring disadvantage to it As for the first his Veneration for Parliaments the succeeding Transactions of his Reign which are to be related will manifestly make it appear how far those Words were from his Heart when dictated by his Lips And as for the second his Zeal for the Protestant Religion nothing could render him more a Hypocrite then such a Profession when at the same time he was both himself a Papist and under Promises and Obligations to the Pope and the Romish Clergy to destroy the Protestant and introduce the Roman Catholick Religion as afterwards appear'd by the Attestations of Ocular Witnesses who often saw him at Mass during his Exile and was yet more evident by a Letter under his own Hand written in the Year 1652. to the
with the World whose whole Course had been to deal thus deceitfully and treacherously with God He who made it his business to impose upon the All-seeing Eye of the Heavenly Majesty might easily bear with that Infirmity of his of not scrupling the deluding Nations and abusing the Credit of Mankind 'T was his Practice to be a Papist in his Closet and a Protestant in his Chappel to be this hour at the Mass bearing a Part in the Romish Ceremonies upon Christmas-Eve at Sommerset-House and the next day communicating after the maning of the Church of England at White-Hall This the Dutchess of Cleveland well knew and therefore had been often heard to say That She did not embrace the Catholick Religion out of any esteem that she had for it but because that otherwise she could not continue the King's Mistress And consequently Miss of State Add to this his sending the D. of Monmouth into France with an express Command to reconcile himself there to the Church of Rome So that his whole Life may be said to be made up of Contradictions and that to save others the trouble of charging him with falshood he employed his own Tongue in all his publick Speeches and Declarations to give his own Heart the Lye and justly merited the Character which a certain Person gave him to carry with him to his Grave That he was an irreconcileable Enemy of the Protestant-Religion a Parliament and a Virtuous Woman But what car'd he who being put in mind to consider what Infamy the History of his Life and Reign would entail upon his Memory replied That he car'd not tho the World made a Whistle of his Tail when he was dead Neither indeed was there any true Zeal for any Religion to be believed in a Man who coming into the Chamber of a certain Peron and finding a Bible there reproached the owner for having less wit than he took him to have since he troubled himself with such a Book But tho he had long trifled with the Papists his beloved Friends and indeed had so carried himself that neither Papist nor Protestant could tell what to make of him yet the Papists resolv'd they would be no longer dallied with by him And therefore so soon as he had made all things ready for his Brother's Exaltation after he had prevented his Exclusion from the Throne and put all the power of his Dominions into his Hands to give way for him that truly Reign'd while he but only wore the name of King he was struck with an Apoplexy as it was given out for let the true Cause be what it will a Prince always dies of some Disease or other in the Physicians Catalogue but such were the Circumstances of his Death that Men began to discover their Suspicions freely to the World before he was cold However it were certain it is that he was Absolved from all his sins by his great Friend Iohn Huddleston and that the Priests gave him extream Unction At what time one of his Relations forcing his way into the Room and seeing them at it could not forbear saying That now they had Oyl'd and Greas'd his Boots they had made him fit for his Iourney And this is yet more remarkable That all the while he lay upon his Death-bed he never spoke to his Brother to put him in mind of preserving the Laws and Religion of his People but only recommended to him the Charitable care of his two Concubines Portsmouth and poor Nelly Nor was it a small aggravation of the general Suspition to find him hurried to his Grave with such an ungrateful secrecy in the dead of the Night as if they had feared the Arresting of his Corps for Debt not so much as the mean Pomp of the Blewcoat Boys to sing him to Heaven Insomuch that he was Buried by his Brother whom he had so highly obliged with far less decency than was permitted for the Funeral of his Father by his capital Enemies that had beheaded him But that perhaps might be so ordered by Providence to signify that he was not worth the publick Lamentation of the People whose Religion and Liberties he had been always designing to subvert To him succeeded Iames the II. not more perniciously designing but more eargerly bent in the Chase of National Ruin and Destruction He came in to England full freighted with his Mother's Religion and her Malice to the People of the Nation but wore at â—â—st the same Vizard Mask of Protestantism which his Brother did But tho he were fitter for the business they both design'd yet he understood not how to manage it so well so that had he been the elder Brother we may undoubtedly presume to say he would have been much sooner thrown out of the Saddle greatly to the saving both the Honour and Treasure of the Nation and the Life of many a worthy Gentlemen and true Lover of his Country 'T is well known and a thing confirm'd by two Letters yet to be seen wherein one of the King 's own Chaplains then upon the spot when it was done imparts and laments it to a Bishop That the Duke of York while he was yet but very young made a solemn Renunciation of the Protestant Religion and was reconciled to the Church of Rome while he sojourned with his Mother in France in hopes by the assistance of the Papists to have defeated his elder Brother of his Right of Inheritance tho he had all the Indulgence imaginable to conceal his Conversion where it might be for his private Advantage and the general good of the Cause And so early was this Ambition of his to supplant his Elder Brother That when the Scots were treating with the Exil'd King to restore him to the Throne of Scotland That he was at that very time practising with such as remain'd faithful to the King's Title here that they would renounce his elder Brother and chuse him for their Soveraign And for that Reason it was that the Duke forsook him at Bruxels and withdrew into Holland so that the King was necessitated not only to command him upon his Allegiance to return but was constrain'd to send the Duke of Ormond and some other Persons of Quality as well to threaten as persuade him before he would go back And as he was an early Traytor to his Brother so did he no less treacherously attempt the disowning of his first Wife For finding her extraordinary Chastity to be such that he could not be admitted to her Bed but upon the lawful score of Matrimony he was at last Married to her but so very privately that only the King was privy to it After which perceiving that his Brother's Restoration was fully determin'd in England under pretence that it would be more for his own and the Honour and Interest of his Brother to Marry with some great Princess that would both enrich and strengthen them by the largeness of her Dowry and the greatness of her Relations he would have taken an