to prevent the Fraud and Danger of Holy Pretences for such Unrighteous Attempts against our natural and civil Properties Our Penal Laws are to punish Offences against the Civil Government and Humane Society and tho they be about matters Ecclesiastical the Subjects of England cannot pretend to be exempted from them because of their Consciences any otherwise than they may wickedly claim to be free from the Penal Laws against Felonies and Murders if they shall plead that they Robbed or Killed according to theâ—r Consciences His Majesties avowed Intent and Endeavours are to free the Emissaries of Romes Priests and Papists from the punishments and dangers of those our Penal Laws against such manifest Attempts upon the Freedom Rights and Properties of the Realm that His new Erected Popish Colledges His Convents of Monks His Four Provincial Bishops and His numerous Priests may be authorized by Him without force of Laws to maintain the Church of Romes Canons to be of greater Authority than the Laws of the Realm to Declare all the Power of Magistracy in Protestants Hands to be Unlawful and all Rights and Titles to their Estates forfeited to the Papists by their being Protestants to own and justifie Dispensations from Rome with their Obedience to all such Laws of the Realm as the Pope and His Priests dislike and professedly to hold Communion with the Church of Rome the French King and all Foreign Papists that declare themselves Mortal Enemies to the Religion and Power of the Protestants to contrive with them the Suppression or Extirpation of them out of the Realm This work his Majesty hath so far begun that he hath suspended and stopped the Execution of the Penal Laws against all the High Crimes some whereof the ancient Papists of this Kingdom made Capital and he declares all such Protestants as will not help to finish it not to be qualify'd as Christians or Englishmen for any Imployment in the Kingdom and therefore least of all to be Members of Parliament Hereby his Majesty attempts to Confine the Electors in their Choice to so small a party that he allows them not the choice of one of forty whom our Laws make capable of being Elected for Parliament the Number is so small professed Papists excepted out of which his will is to have Members of Parliament chosen that our Laws will judge it no choice if he can impose his will upon the Kingdom as he hath declared it Hereby your Highnesses may be satisfied that our case is deplorable it seems not sufficient for our Popish Enemies to seek the abolition of all our ancient Penal Laws that are not agreeable to those new invented Doctrines and pernicious Practises of the present Church of Rome which the Penal Statutes shew to have been abhorred by our ancient English Papists but their design is to destroy the Constitution and form of the free Government of the Kingdom from whence arose all those Penal Laws against their Churches proud Domination and their Usurpation of the Rights of the Crown and the whole Realm They know by our Histories and Records that the free Parliament always made the Complaints from age to age against their pernicious claims of power over our Kings our Laws our Courts of Judicature and their Judgments and against their Exactions Impositions Frauds and Delusions of the People with their Superstitious folly whereby they gained a third of the revenues of England and drew so much Money to Rome that they impoverished and almost ruined the Kingdom They are sensible that they have been able to inslave to the Pope and Priests several of the greatest English Kings that they could prevail with the King for Licenses and Pardons to them to transgress the Laws that the Parliament made to preserve the Subjects Rights and properties and that the Parliament only caused new Laws to be made for declaring such Licenses Dispensations and Pardons of the Kings void and null They know that they have perswaded several of the Kings that the Pope could absolve their Conscience from all obligation by the Laws and from Agreements Promises and Oaths to their Kingdom to maintain their great Charters and all their Laws and Liberties and that they prevailed upon one of them to resign the Kingdom intirely to the Pope and to hold it of him by rent and they understand that the People in free Parliament only made and declared all such Dispensations and resignations void and nul and justly required those Kings to renew their Oaths to the Kingdom to preserve their Liberties and scorned with indignation the Popes demands of his pretended rent for the Kingdom declaring that their Kings had no such Patrimonial right in the Kingdom to subject it to any powers on Earth They cannot hope that a freely chosen Representative of this Kingdom can suffer such a delusion to be put upon them to be perswaded that due Christian Liberty of Conscience requires them either to allow the forreign Romish Laws or Canons to contest for power and place with the Laws of England or to suffer any of the Subjects of England openly to profess themselves their Persons Marriages or Estates to be subject to any Foreigners Jurisdiction and to depend of their Authority Offices and Sanctions and the exercise of them for their Eternal Salvation which is in truth to renounce their subjection to England or to own and avow to have the nearest Union and Communion with Foreigners that openly profess themselves Mortal Enemies to more then a hundred to one of the whole Realm and to be bound in Conscience to seek their suppression or destruction They cannot think that a free English Parliament should not always know that no Doctrines of Jesus Christ ever destroyed or changed the Natural and Civil right of any person or Nation or allowed that any part of the People of a free Country should correspond with or depend upon the declared Enemy of the far greatest part of it they have therefore resolved to over-turn the very foundation of our Civil Government the Peoples free choice of their Deputies for Parliament that there may never be a free Parliament more in the Kingdom which is a Plot much worse than their Gunpowder Treason It seems they think it safest to keep a shadow of Elections for their intended Convention by forming Bodies Politick of Cities and Towns to name or return whom the King pleases and by the specious name of Liberty of Conscience with promises of Favour and threats of Displeasure to deceive or affright the other Electors to accept of those for their Deputies that the King shall offer but if this attempt upon the Prime Fundamental of our whole Civil Government shall be suffered the King may hereafter with as much Justice Law and Reason call whom he pleaseth from any parts of the Kingdom to Consult with and in the Name and under Pretence of their Advise change our Laws and Customs impose Taxes and Alter at his pleasure the
the Queen when they could not be ignorant that it was the voice of common Fame in England and Foreign Countries that her Majesties Conception of a Child was meerly Fictitious and that a supposititious Prince was designed and seeing no Excuse or Pretence is published for the neglect or failure of such a Testimony of his birth we say the Circumstances of the Case being considered it 's most unjust to expect or demand of Your Highnesses or of the People of England or of Foreigners a belief and acknowledgment that this pretended Prince of Wales was born of the Queen As our Common Law informs us who are fit and proper Witnesses whose Testimonies ought to be received in this Case and in the proof of all Matters of Fact respectively so the same declares who are deemed to be unfit and disabled to be Witnesses in all the various and respective Questions of Fact it shews whose Testimonies ought not to be heard and much less believed in divers sorts of Facts that come into question If your Highness and the Kingdom be told of the presence of such persons to have been at the Birth of this pretended Prince as ought not by our Laws to be accounted Witnesses nor their averrments in the case to be heard by your Hss or the Kingdom and much less to be allowed to be of any Validity in the Common course of out Courts of Judicature if parties concerned to prove a Fact do knowingly offer for Witnesses such as our Laws reject in the Facts in question it turns to the prejudice of their other proof we are therefore obliged to acquaint your Highnesses with the Actions Qualities Respects and Circumstances that have disabled many by force of our Common Law to be heard as Witnesses of the Birth of this pretended Prince of Wales First Our Laws utterly disable all those to be heard in the Case that have received either gifts of Money or Honours or any other Reward or Benefits whatsoever for their pretended Assistance about his Birth or by reason or occasion of that pretence 't is the Common Practise of our Law that when a Witness is produced the adverse Party may examine him upon his Oath whether he hath had Money or other Reward or Gift directly or indirectly for or by reason of the matter in question or from the Party in whose behalf he is produced to testifie or from any of his Friends if he cannot acquit himself thereof by his Oath though it cannot be proved against him our Impartial Law deems such a person not only to be partial in the Case but corrupted and bribed and unworthy to be heard Our Law will not admit those to be Witnesses for the Birth of this supposed Prince of Wales that have any Promise Expectation or Hopes of any Advancement Office Place or Benefit by or under him if he shall be received and allowed by the Kingdom to be Prince of Wales they that cannot purge themselves by their Oaths from all such Promises Expectations and Hopes are not in the Judgment of our Law persons indifferent and unconcerned in the Event of the Matter in question nor fit to be heard as Witnesses their Testimonies being partly for themselves and their own Benefit and the allowance of such Testimonies in Judicature would in consequence subvert all Civil Justice and Government Our Law excludes all from being Witnesses to support the pretence of the supposed Prince of Wales as have such dependance on the Patrons and Maintainers of him that they are in danger of damage and loss by them of any kind if they should displease them in their Testimony Our Laws judg all such not to be free and of their own Right in the Case but bound to serve and please the Patrons of the Cause and therefore presume that they may be corrupted by fear of losing the Advantages they love if they should impartially declare the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth of the matter Our Laws seek to know the naked and entire Truth of all Facts that come into legal question or Contest and will not admit of any to be Witnesses of them unless they appear to be free from Fears of any Prejudice to themselves by speaking the Truth impartially We are inforced by the Concern of all the Protestants to speak more plainly than we would we must say that all that hold Offices of Profit and Honour during the Kings Will are by the Laws of England excluded out of the Number of fit and competent Witnesses about the Birth of this Child whom His Majesty hath proclaimed and maintains to be Prince of Wales our good Laws have regard to humane infirmities and will not put a temptation upon men to suffer them to be Witnesses in matters wherein they may damnifie themselves in the loss of their Offices if they happen to displease their Master in his concern in the case by testifying clearly the whole Truth of it they are not free in the Judgment of our Laws to speak the Truth without fear and for that reason are not to be received by the Kingdom as Witnesses in this Case Our Laws will never allow or suffer any to be Witnesses in this Case who are known or may be proved to have Enmity or Prejudice of any kind upon any account whatsoever to Her Royal Highness against whom most immediately this supposed Prince contends she having been most unquestionably the Heir apparent of the Crown and justly so remaining until the Kingdom shall be satisfied by a sufficient Number of lawful Witnesses that there is a Prince born whereby her claim to the next Succession shall be postponed The question of Fact to be decided by Witnesses is apparently between her Royal Highness and this supposed Prince and 't is a legal unanswerable and conclusive Exception against any to be received for Witnesses against her in his behalf that they are declared Enemies to her and the Professed Protestant Religion the destruction whereof they are bound in Conscience to endeavour and for that reason such known Enemies to her right of Succession to the Crown that their Church have decreed and declared her Right and the Right of all Protestants to any Authorities to be absolutely forfeited to the Papists for Protestant Heresie It cannot be denied that all that are sincerely Roman Catholicks and believe their own Church do judg Her Royal Highness to be an Excommunicated Heretick by their Church and that all Her Rights in possession and reversion are thereby confiscated and that they are all obliged by the Law of their Church in Conscience of their Religion and by the hope of Pardon of their sins to defeat and destroy by all ways and means in their Power all Her Pretensions to the Descent of the Crown upon her and to assist to the investing the Right to the Succession in a Roman Catholick We might here add that our English Papists are all in Vnion and Communion with the Pope as appears by his Nuntio in
their hearts against you the effects whereof you have suffered ever since The world hath also seen the Effects of the French Kings prosecution of the same design to take away the support of the Protestant Interest by his Pensions to the Chief Men of the Kingdom of Sweden and to such as he could prevail with in the Court of Brandenburgh and all other Princes-Courts that adhere to the Protestant interest Yet the Chief of his Expence was upon our late King and his Ministers and Counsellors who concurred in all the secret Practises and Contrivances to weaken the Power of the Protestants and to suffer the Greatness Glory and Terror of the French King to be advanced but he durst never openly and avowedly join with him in the great Work against the Protestant Religion for fear of his Protestant Subjects he having deluded them with so many solemn Protestations of his Faithfulness to their Religion and their Liberty The French King found by experience that the Parliaments had prevailed with our King to break all the measures that they had taken together for the destruction of the United Provinces by obliging him to a Seperate Peace with them which had forced him to let fall his then spreading Plumes and in crafty ways to seek and sollicit a Truce and therefore he durst not during our King's life put in Execution his great Work that he declares had been so long in his heart that by Torments Murders and all sort of barbarous Cruelties to suppress the Professors and Profession of the Reformed Religion and intirely to race and expunge the Memory of it as his Edicts and his Practices now declare to be his intentions That French King durst not throw off his disguise and shew himself to be like a ravening Wolf to his Protestant Subjects until our now King had publickly espoused the Popish Design which he had together with him long prosecuted in the dark and until he had begun to invade the Protestant Liberties and Securities his putting the Military Powers in Popish hands and to demand the Parliaments Consent to a Law which they refused to authorize him to make his Papists the Guardians of the Protestants Religion and Lives The French King then knew that the People of England were in no capacity to interpose in behalf of his Protestant Subjects however he should destroy them and as his Edict says being by the Truce without fear of disturbance he intirely applied himself to the great Design he sent his Dragoons to destroy the Poor Protestants Goods and to torment their Bodies with more cruelty and inhumanity than was ever practised since the Creation he resolved for his glory as his Clergy told him to shew himself the first and most illustrious of the Churches Children and the Extirpator of the Protestant Heresy which they told him was a more solid and immortal title then he acquired by all his Tryumphs He then presented that work of Extirpation as Saul did to strange Countries breathing out threatnings and slaughter he sent to the Duke of Savoy and as that Court complains perswaded and frighted that Prince into a most Unchristian and Bloody Decree to compel the most antient Protestants in the Valleys of Piedmont to turn Papists forthwith and they being faithful to their Religion that Edict was persued by the help of â—is Dragoons and the harmless Protestants tormented and murdered more cruelly than the worst of Vermine or Serpents until they were utterly destroy'd and their Country given to the Papists That Court of Savoy seems still Ashamed of that horrid wickedness and says for their Excuse That the French King declared he would root out those Protestants by his own force and possess the Country if the Duke would not have assisted therein The suppression of the Protestants of England hath been always esteemed the principal part of the Popish design to Extirpate the Protestant Religion and therefore all the Romish Councils Policies and Industries their Conspiracies Poysoning and Massacres have been long imployed about it and have perfectly gained our now King to serve their design they have united him with the French King that their Conjoyned Councils Treasures and Strength may finish their work of bringing England to the Obedience of their Church It s many ways Evident that both the Kings are under the like conduct and our King proceeds in the same methods against us wherein the French King hath been successful to destroy the Protestants of his Kingdom His first attempt is to subvert our Civil Government and Laws and the Freedom and being of our Parliaments just as the French King first invaded the Supreme Legal Authority of France which was vested in the Assembly of Estates from whom alone he now derives his Crown Our King in imitation of his Brother of France strives to bring all the Offices and Magistracy of the Kingdom that were legally of the Peoples choice to be solely and immediately depending on his Absolute Will for their being whether they arise by our Common Law or be instituted by Statutes or Charters He endeavours by various Artifices to bring the disposal of all the Properties and Estates of the People and their Lives and Liberties to be at his meer will by a perversion of the instituted course of our Juries and by Judges and a Chancellor fit for that purpose and every moment dependant on his Will he seeks to make his Proclamations and Declarations to have as much Power over our Laws as the French Kings Edicts And after his Example he establisheth a mercenary Army to master and subdue the People to his Will. If he can prevail in these things to overturn the Civil Government then the Liberty of the Protestant Profession and of Conscience in all Forms however seemingly setled by him will be precarious and he may as easily destroy it as the French King hath abolished the irrevocable Edicts Treaties or Laws of his Kingdom Confirmed by his Oath which were as good security to those Protestants as any Magna Charta that our King can make for us or any Act of a Convention with the name of a Parliament which is possible for him to hold in the State unto which he hath reduced the Kingdom Our King hath the same French Copy by which he writ assuring the Protestants of Grace and Clemency giving them Promises of Equal Liberty of Conscience with his Papists in preferring unto Offices and Imployments those whom he resolves to suppress and ruin preventing the Execution of Laws and in allowing Liberty of Conscience in some notions and the outward forms of worship in the Christian Religion provided always that they have no regard or Conscience for the substance of Christs Religion in Justice and righteousness nor stumble at complying with him or assisting him in the highest Crimes against Jesus Christ by invading the Rights and Liberty of the Kingdom and assuming a forcible Domination to oppress whom he please which is a subversion of the very foundation
of Justice and Love amongst men and by Consequence of the Religion preached and established by Christ. These matters of fact are self-evidences and clearly shew that our Grievous Oppressions by our King are the effects of the united Councils of the Popish Interest whereof the French King is the Chief That the Conspiracy against true Religion and Liberties that now appears in England Comprizes all the Protestant Princes and States in Europe England is only first attacked as the principal Fortress of the Protestant Profession if the three Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland can be reduced into the pattern of the French King in Government and Religion and the strength of them be united against any single Protestant State or Prince they shall think fit to assault if they can by Artifices keep the rest divided which will not be hard for them for there is little hope of any long defence of such a State. The French King seems not unwilling to have it known that the Popish design is General against all Profession of the Protestant Religion tho especially against England he hath allowed the Bishop of Cosnaes speech to him at Versailes in 1685. to be published who was authorized to be the Mouth of the Clergy of that Kingdom he magnifies the King for suppressing the Protestants of his own Kingdom and asks what they may not yet expect England saith he is just offering to your Majesty one of the most glorious occasions that you can desire the King of England by the need which he will have of succour and of the support of your Arms to maintain him in the Catholick Faith will make you quickly find occasion to give a protection wholly of your self We know very well before the French Clergy declared it by that Bishop that the same head that contrived the pervertion of destruction of so many millions of the Protestants in that Kingdom designed the ruin of the English Religion and Liberty but it surprised us to see that speech published by the French Kings Authority and that our King should suffer the Translation of it to pass freely in England and thorow the World. We thought it beneath the Majesty of a King of England to be content that his subjects should be told that he was to come under the protection of a King of France over whose Kings and Kingdom his Ancestors had so often triumphed but it seems nothing is to be esteemed inglorious that may serve the General Popish design of Extirpating the Protestant Profession We need not put your Hss in mind that the same speech acknowledges that the Popish Councils and Conspiracy against England intend the like ruin to the Religion and Freedom of the United Provinces that Bishop tells the King that he hath undertook the Conquest of new Countries there to re-establish the Prelacy the Religious worship and the Altars that Holland and Germany have been the Theater of his Victories only that Christ might triumph there that is that the Papists might trample upon the Protestants and their Religion and this he speaks as he says in the very Spirit of the Church and signifies their hopes of succâ—ss against the poor Protestants to be unbounded saying what may we not yet Expect We must freely Confess we were too slow to believe this desperate Popish Plot against the whole Protestant Profession and in our particular Case we have been deluded with our Kings promises to protect and maintain our Religion our Laws and Government until we see them all undermined and the train laid to blow them up by a packed Convention of men preingaged perverted or corrupted to serve the Kings will and designs that shall assume the name of Parliament we were not utterly insensible of the danger of our Liberty in our Religion and our Government from the time his now Majesty declared his late Majesty to have been a Papist but who saw that by their secret Conjoyned Councils they had not been able to prevent the making some Laws to secure the Protestants by Excluding Papists from our Parliaments and all Offices and Imployments and we hoped that our Kings life would not be sufficient to overturn by degrees as they had begun to proceed the Excellent foundations of our Civil Government nor to Extinguish the clear light of the truths of Christ Professed in our Religion and we were assured that your Hss minds were clearly inlightened in the Doctrines of the Protestant Religion and adorned and accomplished with all Christian and Royal Vertues fit to possess the highest throne Thereupon we incouraged each other to suffer with patience his Majesties attempts against our Laws and Liberties presuming that your Hss would ere long be our joyful deliverers to the Everlasting Confusion of the Popish designs against our Government and Religion and to the Vindication of the Innocency of the Protestant Martyrs in all the Kingdoms of Europe But as your Hss were the greatest objects of our earthly hopes so the thoughts of her Royal Highnesses succession to the Crown in Conjunction with your Highnesses Virtues and Military prowess and magnaninity were matters of the greatest horror and dread to all the Popish Councils of Europe They have therefore applied themselves to various consultations sometimes it hath been proposed by his Majesty's Power with a Parliament by the deluding Names of Liberty of Conscience and a Magna Charta therein to Fetter Your Highness in Your accession to the Crown with such Conditions as were obtained in Parliament in the cases of Queen Mary and Elizabeth which they hoped to strengthen by his Majesty's putting the Papists into possession of all the strength and Authority of the Kingdom united with all the power of the French King that your quiet Admission to the Throne might not be possible unless you should submit unto and depend upon the Papists and the Conditions that they should impose But they found it of greater difficulty than they at first imagined to get a Parliament that would joyn with his Majesty in such a project against your Highnesses Therefore some of the more cautious Papists of considerable fortunes stumbled at the absolute force of a mercenary Army and the French Power to put a force upon the Heiress of the Crown they propounded that his Majesty should rather try the force of his Paternal Power with her Royal Highness and use all the arguments of interest to induce her either to change her sentiments in her Religion or at least to moderate her thoughts concerning them and incline her to concur in their full Liberty If such Endeavors should be hopeless that then Your Highnesses should be at least prevailed with to declare your Consents to his Majesties Declaration for Liberty of Conscience and your concurrence in his desires to a Parliament for the repeal of all the Penal Laws in matters Ecclesiastical and the Test It was presumed That Your Highnesses might have been perswaded that the Laws suspended and dispensed with by his Majesty were only
demand and insist immovably That the antient free Government of England by its 〈…〉 and Law â—nly made or approved in Parliament be immediately restore 〈…〉 all th 〈…〉 at is that the Rights of the Crown and Freedom of the Realm be forth 〈…〉 Submissions publickly made to the Pope by the King that now is to the Disho 〈…〉 English Crown and Realm and from all the Claims made by the Romish Church â—â— any Powers and Jurisdictions whatsoever over the Christians o 〈…〉 England â—â—â—t all the Laws now in force against the Admission of the Canons and Jurisdiction of Rome contrary to our Customs and Laws and against the maintainers of them be forthwith declared to be put in due Execution and all Suspensions of them or Dispensations with them without the Authority of Parliament be declared null and void That the Ancient Customs Liberties and Priviledges of the City of London and the whole form and course of its Government be forthwith restored the Customs thereof being part of the Common Law of England and its Liberties being established by the great Charter and many Acts of Parliament that the Customs Free Election of their Magistrates and all the Priviledges of all the Cities and Boroughs of England confirmed by the great Charter and other Laws be duely restored That Legal Officers both Civil and Military be settled in all the Places of Magistracy and all the Commands throughout the Kingdom That all Commissions whatsoever be forthwith revoked and declared null and void whereby are granted any Powers of Discretion over the Persons or Interest of the Subject contrary to the Laws and Customs of England especially the Commission for Ecclesiastical Affairs with its monstrous non obstante to all our Laws That the Freedom of Elections which is the Foundation of the Government be duely vindicated and all the most unworthy Preingagements revoked and renounced to elect and vote as the King would have them That the Kingdom may be restored as soon as possible to a Capacity of holding a Legal Parliament in such Form and Manner as the Laws require by whose help the Civil Government may be reestablished and force and arbitrary Powers therein utterly abolished We crave your Highnesses Pardon that we further humbly offer to your Hignesses that time and accident always made Changes in the Usefulness of Laws and that it hath so happened in our Penal Laws made for Uniformity in the Profession of Faith and in the outward Worship of God four of our succeeding Parliaments perceived the abuse of these Laws and the Mischief thereby to conscientious Christians and declared their Intention of relieving them if the King would have permitted them and they endeavoured to stop the Execution of them and desired a Settlement of Liberty of Conscience as is due to Christians In these Regards and the Subversion of the whole Government since made Necessity and Charity may have the force of Laws to inforce the stay of the Execution of some of those Laws for Conformity until those Matters may be settled in Parliament We therefore humbly pray your Highness to procure as a case of Necessity that none be disturbed until a Legal Parliament shall have resolved the case for the Profession of their Faith in Matters meerly supernatural or the outward Expression of their Worship so as both terminate only in God and neither wrong nor hurt any Man on Earth in Body Goods and good Name but their own Souls only if they be mistaken therein We now most humbly submit our selves and all herein contained to your Highnesses Wisdom Candor and Charity 〈◊〉 shall pray the just and great God to fill your noble Souls with perfect Love and Wisdom and all the most resplendent Vertues that are fit to shine in the highest Thrones and Power that ever the Sun beheld Sr The Character we have had of your Worth makes us confident of your Faithfulness to deliver the inclosed forthwith to his Highness the Prince of Orange or in his Absence to her Royal Hss the Princess we could not trust it by the Post and therefore have sent it by an Express which may perhaps make it longer in coming the Messengers only Order is to deliver it to one of your Servants and we confide in your Integrity and remain To Monsieur M 〈…〉 at the Hague SIR Your most humble Servants whom you may hereafter know (*) The Instances hereof are too many to be recited but some thereof are these viz. 1. Most of the Protestants are pressed to declare for a Repeal of all the Laws made for the Reformation of our Religion and its settlement 2. All the Subjects are forced to submit to Serve and Obey those that are no lawful Judges Sheriffs Justices of the Peace Mayors Lords Lieutenants and other Commanders and all are Threatned Vexed and Prosecuted as the Lord Lovelace now is that dare but say that such have no lawful Authority 3. All the Subjects are commanded to suffer all the Actions and Offences of their Lives and the secrets of their Hearts to be searched into and their chief Interests and many of their Free-holds to be judged by the discretion of a few of the Kings Creatures called his Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Affairs whose Commission is to proceed without and against the Rules of our Laws with a non obstante to all other Laws and every Man is required to assist their Arbitrary Powers on peril of their Censures which extend to imprisonment for Life 4. All our Ministers are required under grievous menaced Penalties to be the Kings Cryers to Proclaim in the Churches the Kings Power to suspend at once the force and use of all our Penal Laws made in 400 Years past to secure the Rights of the Crown the freedoms and properties of the Realm and the profession of the Protestant Religion 5. All the Protestants are forced by fear of the Kings Wrath to suffer the Rights of the Crown and the freedom of the Realm against Foreign Powers and Laws to be publickly denied and the force of Foreign Laws over them to be maintained they are injoined by the King to neglect their sworn duties to God to the Crown and Kingdom of prosecuting at Law those Treasons which they know and see to be daily committed for which no excuse can be made by pretence of Liberty of Conscienâ—e in Christs Religion 6. The Constables and other Officers throughout the Realm are forced to quarter Irish and Scots and oâ—her mercenary Souldiers in their Neighbours Houses against their Wills in contempt of the Ancient Laws and the express Words of the late Statutes 7. All the Gentlemen and Free-holders are pressed to renounce their native and legal freedom in their choice of Members for Parliament 8. The Freemen of the Cities and Towns are urged to yield up to the Kings Will the Tenure of their Magistracies and all their free Customs and Priviledges 9. All the People are forced by fear of Punishments to suffer a Child to be
Succession of the Crown We must with sorrow shew your Hss that they have so far prosecuted this their Design against our Government that they have rendred it impossible to have a Legal Free Parliament Elected and returned in the present State of the Cities and Boroughs the Sherifs and Officers and the Condition of the Electors great Numbers of them are quite barred of their Freedom and indifferency to elect which our Law requires by the declared Displeasure of the King and the threatned and certain loss of their Offices and Imployments and Benefits if they accept not of such for their Trustees as have unworthily resolved or promised to Vote against our Established Laws as the King will have them without hearing the Reasons about them by the Kingdom in Parliament and as we believe without knowing the Intent and Purpose of the Laws they promise to abrogate 'T is not now practicable to have the Legal Free Consent of the Kingdom unto the making or repealing of any Laws without which they cannot be obligatory until there be a just Restoration of the Customs and Liberties of the Cities and Boroughs which have been illegally and treacherously surrendred or unduly wrested from them and legal Magistrates shall be duly chosen to execute Writs for Elections and make Returns until there be a Revocation of the Kings terrifying Declaration of the unfitness for Parliament and publick Imployments of all that will not help to finish his great Work begun of destroying all our Penal Laws for preventing the Popish Practices against the Rights of the Crown and the Realm Nor until there be an absolute Renunciation of all the Promises Ingagements and Subscriptions of the Electors for Parliament taken by His Majesties Orders and Ministers to restrain their Freedom and Indifferency in their Elections Thus the cunning and Malice of our Popish Adversaries have cut off all our Legal Means of relief by the Free Common Councils of the Kingdom whilst they lay close siege to take our Bodies and Souls captive We need not remember your Highnesses that these Attempts and Endeavours to subvert our Liberty in our Religion and Government is a part of that general Design that was formed and concluded on many years since in the most Seccret Councils of the Popish Princes chiefly managed by the Jesuits to root out of all Europe the profession of the Protestant Reformed Religion and the Peoples Liberties We will not mention the notorious actual Prosecutions of that Popish Resolution in several Kingdoms and Dominions nor the treacherous Falseness of those Princes in their Treaties Agreements and Oaths nor the Oppressions and Bloodshed and all kinds of Unrighteousness that have been practised by them in Order to that general great Design The instance alone of the French King is enough to be named instead of all because he hath owned and published to the whole World his part in that Design and by comparing the Violences Banishments and Murders done upon the Protestants at the same time by other Popish Princes as they were able with his publick Confessions of his long laid Design we may make a true judgment of the whole The French King by his Edict of 1685. hath declared that he entred into that Design from his coming to the Crown and it appears by the Edict then prepared and agreed by his Council of Conscience that all his renewed Edicts in the Protestants Favour his acknowledging and registring in Parliament their great Services for him and his Advancement of many of them to the highest Dignities Military and Civil in his Kingdom were done to flatter and deceive them he calls God to be Wiâ—ness of his Designs and Resolutions at that time to abolish their Religion by degrees and that he only attended his fit opportunity for that great Work as it s called by our King and by that Edict In that interim of his seeming kindness to the Protestants and solemn professions to them and some of the Protestant Princes for their observing faithfully the Law and Edict of Nants that was like the French Protestants great Charter there were all possible secret Contrivances and Practices to prepare for that great Work especially in England that hath long been the head of the Reformed Religion and the Chief terror of the French King and the Popish World he shewed his fear of the People of England when he barbarously banished his now Majesty and the late King in their distress rather then displease Cromwel he therefore applyed his principal Councils and Endeavours to distract and weaken the Protestants of England and to perswade and assist the late King covertly to increase and strengthen the Popish Party for that end his dearest Confessor the Jesuite le Chaiz was ordered to correspond with Mr. Coleman that was then Secretary to his now Majesty and the Letters Confessed by him before thousands shewed that the Matter proposed was to root out of the World the Protestant Religion under the name of the Northern Heresie and ten times more of the particulars of that wretched design had appear'd if all Mr. Colemans latest Letters for two years and a half that were brought to Whitehal and many culled out of the rest had not been there supressed and kept from the sight of the Parliament yet Mr. Coleman on his Tryal confidently avowed before all the People that design of Subverting the Protestant Religion and that he was only a subordinate Minister in it It appears by those Letters that the French Kings Money was to manage that Work and the Letters brought into Parliament by the now Lord Mountage acknowledged by the late King to be written by his order prove to the world that the late King was content to become the French Kings Pensioner for five hundred thousand pound per annum to keep off the meeting of Parliaments we had then discovered the increase of Popery and the danger of the Protestant Religion and had thereupon formed the Parliaments Test and were preparing other Laws for security against the Popish Designs It hath also been manifest to the world that all kind of Devices and Artifices that the Jesuits Councils could invent were about the same years used to pervert the Faith and Religion of the United Provinces or to betray them into the French Kings Power or at least a dependance upon him 'T is now notorious to the world that an agreement was made between the French King and his late Majesty of England to subdue and divide those Provinces that they might no more be either a Support or refuge for the Protestants We crave pardon for our boldness that we humbly appeal to your Highness whether your Integrity and Constancy in the Protestant Religion and your Fidelity to your Countries Freedom were not about those years vainly attached by those two Kings or at least by one of them and whether the Piety Generosity and brave scorn and indignation expressed at their proposals did not fix an Enmity in
Father to a Child to do a Service to their Church which is by their Doctrine so meritorious Your Highnesses will the better consider all these Circumstances mentioned if you will please to call to mind the Occasion and Time when this Design was first resolved on to set up a Prince to bar her R. H's of the immediate Succession to the Crown Be pleased to remember that 't is before observed that the going to the Bath and the visit to St. Winifreds Well and the Present made to the Lady were preparations for a Report of the Queen's being with Child and were all concluded upon about the end of August and beginning of September 1687 and then was your Highnesses compliance with the Popish Design despaired of The abstract of Mr. Steward's Letters to Mijn Heer Fagel which we just now find printed confirms all our Memorials in that Matter He was Pardoned and chosen by the King to have perswaded your Highnesses to a consent that the Penal Laws and Test should be repeal'd which had been a full establishment of Popery in his two first Letters of July he seeks to perswade your Hss that the King was resolved to preserve and observe the true right of Succession to the Crown and was very desirous of your Hss consent and concurrence in his Design and troubled to find them so averse from it in his next Letters of the same July he pressed that your Highnesses should have been disposed to hearken to a well-chosen Informer to be sent by his Majesty to perswade your concurrence with him and he presseth extreamly for a hasty Answer the new Councils for setting up a Supposititious Prince seem then to have been begun That Letter seems to threaten what we now see if your Highnesses refused he doubled his assurance to him that was to sollicit your Highnesses that if you were obstinate as they call it it will be fatal to the Dissenters and he feared productive of Ills yet unheard of And his Letter of August 5. seems to give your Highneesss your last time to chuse the Settlement of Popery or to resolve to be true to the Protestant Religion He says if your Highness did what was 〈…〉 he best Service to the Protestants the highest Obligation on his Majesty and the gre 〈…〉 of your own Interest that you could think on but if not then all is contrary There can be no other meaning in saying if your Highnesses refused all is contrary save only this that the Protestants should then have no Mercy from the Papists His Majesty would be so offended that he would become your Highnesses Enemy and it would be the loss of your Highnesses greatest Interest that you can think on which certainly could be no other than the just Expectancy of the three Kingdoms As these Letters threaten that the King would destroy your Highnesses greatest Interest if you refused so the attempt of it soon after appeared It 's now known that in September and October the Resolutions were taken to publish that the Queen was with Child but before it was publickly declared that is October 8. Mr. Steward says he would use no more Arguments to your Highnesses but he then laments your Highnesses loss of the time of compliance Alas said he that Providence should not be understood Then in Novemb. he speaks more plainly notwithstanding your Hss moderation towards the Papists and their Liberty was shewn by Mijn Heer Fagel's Letter he says that all hope of your Hss concurrence in the King's Design was quite given over and Men were become as cold in it here as your Hss were positive there And upon his new Conference with the King he not only shews the King's dislike of that Letter but says expresly That your Hss Answer was too long delay'd and that the King was quite over that matter There can be no other reasonable construction of this than that the King had then resolved of another way to prosecute the Popish Design and time hath now shewn and proved to the World that the way resolved on was to set up this Supposititious Prince for a Popish Successor These Letters by the help of time shew the Design when it was in Embrio and help to make a Judgment upon all the other Circumstances that we have mentioned and no doubt if an Evidence made up of all the Circumstances we have mentioned in their order and connexion were given to any impartial Judges it would be judged as strong a presumptive Evidence as ever was given and in the proceedings of our Laws against Criminals Judgment hath passed against the Lives of many upon far less Evidence this being as full as the nature of the thing can possibly suffer in your Hss and the Kingdom 's Case But notwithstanding this sort of Circumstantial Evidence be sufficiently forcible and convincing to disinterested Persons to prove this supposed Prince to be an Impostor and it may be more Circumstances of the same nature are known to your Highness yet we most humbly pray your Highness to wave insisting upon any of them as entirely as if you could neither prove nor knew more about this pretended Prince than common Fame hath proclaimed without contradiction It no ways belongs to your Highnesses nor to the Kingdom to prove the Falshood of his Pretences or any Circumstance about his Birth and it would be very prejudicial for your Highnesses to take upon you the burden of producing Witnesses and Proofs and admitting your Highnesses Adversaries to dispute their force and sufficiency when it belongs to them wholly and only to bring forth such lawful Witnesses in due numbers as may satisfy your Highnesses and the Kingdom of the Truth of their Pretences and 't is an infinite wrong to your Highnesses and the Kingdom that they have not done it long since if there had been a true Prince born of the Queen Since 't is the Kingdoms great concern as well as your Highnesses we are the bolder to propose that the Method of Defence against the publick Injury be made according to the known Laws and Customs of England that is That an open free demand be made in the name of her R. Hss as Heiress apparent of the Crown and in behalf of all the People of the Realm that there be forthwith declared and published to the Kingdom a sufficient Number for this Case of lawful Witnesses of either Sex such as the Laws of England and Natural Justice require in the Case who do testify that according to the usual practice of their respective Sexes at the Birth of Princes Heirs to Crowns they were Eye-Witnesses that the Child now called the Prince of Wales was naturally born of the Queen's Body 'T is but just regular and modest for your Hss to make that Demand and your insisting upon it to be done immediately without the least delay is no more than the Right of your Hss and the Kingdom as must be confessed by all that either know the Rules of natural Justice