falling off of the Nobility and Gentry who avow to have no other End than to prevail with the King to secure their Religion which they saw so much in danger by the Violent Counsels of the Priests who to promote their own Religion did not care to what Dangers they exposed the King I am fully perswaded that the Prince of Orange designs the King's Safety and Preservation and hope all things may be composed without more Bloodshed by the Calling a Parliament God grant a happy End to these Troubles that the King's Reign may be prosperous and that I may shortly meet You in perfect Peace and Safety till when let me beg You to continue the same favourable Opinion that you have hitherto had of Your most Obedient Daughter and Servant ANNE A MEMORIAL OF THE Protestants of the Church of England Presented to their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of ORANGE YOur Royal Highnesses cannot be ignorant that the Protestants of England who continue true to their Religion and the Government established by Law have been many ways troubled and vexed by restless Contrivances and Designs of the Papists under pretence of the Royal Authority and things required of unaccountable before God and Man Ecclesiastical Benefices and Preferments taken from them without any other Reason but the King's Pleasure that they have been summoned and sentenced by Ecclesiastical Commissioners contrary to Law deprived of their Birth-Right in the free Choice of their Magistrates and Representatives divers Corporations dissolved the Legal Security of our Religion and Liberty established and ratified by King and Parliament annull'd and overthrown by a pretended Dispensing Power new and unheard-of Maxims have been preached as if Subjects had no Right but what depends on the King's Will and Pleasure The Militia put into the Hands of Persons not qualified by Law and a Popish Mercenary Army maintained in the Kingdom in Time of Peace absolutely contrary to Law The Execution of the Law against several high Crimes and Misdemenours superceded and prohibited the Statutes against Correspondence with the Court of Rome Papal Jurisdiction and Popish Priests suspended that in Courts of Justice those Judges are displaced who dare acquit them whom the K. would have condemned as happened to Judg Powel and Holloway for acquitting the seven Bishopâ— Liberty of chusing Members of Parliament notwithstanding all the Care taken and Provision made by Law on that behalf wholly taken away by Quo Warranto's served against Corporations and the three known Questions All things carried on in open view for the Propagation and Growth of Popery for which the Courts of England and France have so long jointly laboured with so much Application and Earnestness Endeavours used to perswade your Royal Highnesses to consent to Liberty of Conscience and abrogating the Penal Laws and Tests wherein they fell short of their Aim That they most humbly implore the Protection of your Royal Highnesses as to the suspending and Incroachments made upon the Law for maintenance of the Protestant Religion our Civil and Fundamental Rights and Priviledges and that your Royal Highnesses would be pleased to insist that the Free Parliament of England according to Law may be restored the Laws against Papists Priests Papal Jurisdiction c. put in Execution and the Suspending and Dispensing Power declared null and void the Rights and Priviledges of the City of London the free Choice of their Magistrates and the Liberties as well of that as other Corporations restored and all things returned to their ancient Channel c. THE PRINCE of ORANGE HIS DECLARATION of Novemb. 28. 1688. WE have in the course of our whole Life and more particularly by the apparent Hazards both by Sea and Land to which We have so lately exposed our Person given to the whole World so high and undoubted Proofs of our fervent Zeal for the Protestant Religion that we are fully confident no true English-man and good Protestant can entertain the least Suspicion of our firm Resolution rather to spend our dearest Blood and perish in the Attempt than not carry on the blessed and gloâ—ious Design which by the Favour of Heaven we have so successfully begun to rescue England Scotland and Ireland from Slavery and Popery and in a Free Parliament to establish the Religion the Laws and the Liberties of those Kingdoms upon such a sure and lasting Foundation that it shall not be in the Power of any Prince for the future to introduce Popery and Tyranny Towards the more easy Composing this great Design We have not been hitherto deceived in the just Expectation we had of the Concurrence of the Nobility Gentry and People of England with Us for the Security of their Religion the Restitution of the Laws and Re-establishment of their Liberties and Properties Great Numbers of all Ranks and Qualities having joined themselves to us and others at great Distances from Us have taken up Arms and declared for Us. And which we cannot but particular mention in that Army which was raised to be the Instrument of Slavery and Popery many by the special Providence of God both Officers and Common Souldiers have been touched with such a feeling Sense of Religion and Honour and of true Affection for their Native Country that they have already deserted the Illegal Service they were ingaged in and have come over to Us and have given Us full Assurance from the rest of the Army that they will certainly follow this Example as soon as with our Army we shall approach near enough to receive them without the Hazard of being prevented and betray'd To which End and that We may the sooner execute this just and necessary Design We are ingaged in for the Publick Safety and Deliverance of these Nations We are resolved with all possible Diligence to advance forward that a Free Parliament may be forthwith called and such Preliminaries adjusted with the King and all Things first settled upon such a Foot according to Law as may give Us and the whole Nation just Reason to believe the King is disposed to make such necessary Condescentions on his part as will give intire Satisfaction and Security to all and make both King and People once more Happy And that we may effect all this in the way most agreeable to our Desires if it be possible without the Effusion of any Blood except of those execrable Criminâ—als who have justly forfeited their Lives for betraying the Religion and Subverting the Laws of their Native Country We do think fit to declare that as we will offer no Violence to any but in our own Necessary Defence so we will not suffer any Injury to be done to the Person even of a Papist provided he be found in such Place and in such Condition and Circumstances as the Laws require So we are resolved and do declare that all Papists who shall be found in open Arms or with Arms in their Houses or about their Persons or in any Office or Imployment Civil or Military upon any
with Hereticks do watch for all Advantages and Opportunities to destroy them being commanded thereunto by their Councils and the principles of their Church and instigated by their Priests The History of the several Wars of the Barons of England in the Reigns of King Iohn Henry the Third Edward the Second and Richard the Second in Defence of their Liberties and for redressing the many Grievances under which the Kingdom groaâ—'d is a full representation of the Infidelity and Treachery of those Kings and of the Invalidity of Treaties with them how many Grants Amendments and fair Promises had they from those Princes and yet afterwards how many Ambuscades and Snares were laid to destroy those glorious Patriots of Liberty what Violations of Compacts and Agreements and what havock was made upon all Advantages and Opportunities that those false Kings could take Read their Histories in our several Chronicles FINIS A FOURTH Collection of Papers Relating to the Present Juncture of Affairs in England VIZ. I. The Prince of Orange's first Declaration from the Hague Octob. 10. 1688. With his Highnesses Additional Declaration from the Hague Octob. 24. 88. Corrected by the Original Copy printed there II. The Bishop of Rochester's Letter to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners III. The Prince of Orange's Speech to the Gentlemen of Somersetshire and Dorsetshire coming to joyn his Highness at Exeter Nov. 15. 88. IV. A true Copy of a Paper delivered by the Earl of Devonshire to the Mayor of Darby Nov. 20. 1688. V. An Address of the Mayor c. of Lyn-Regis in Norfolk to the Duke of Norfolk And the Duke's Answer Decemb. 6. 88. VI. A Declaration of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in and about the City assembled at Guild hall Decemb. 11. 1688. VII A Paper delivered to the Prince of Orange by the Commissioners sent by his Majesty VIII The King's Letter to the Earl of Feversham on his Majesties leaving White-hall with the Earl's Answer IX A Declaration of the Prince of Orange to the Commanders in Chief of the Dispersed Regiments Troops and Companies to keep them together in Order X. An Address of the Lieutenancy of London to the Pr. of Orange XI An Address of the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Common-Council of London to the Prince of Orange XII A Speech of Sir G. Treby on delivery of the City Address Licensed and Entred according to Order London printed and are to be sold by Rich. Ianeway in Queen's-head Court in Pater-Noster Row 1688. THE DECLARATION Of His HIGHNESS VVilliam Henry By the Grace of God PRINCE of ORANGE c. Of the Reasons inducing him to appear in Arms in the Kingdom of England for preserving of the Protestant Religion and for restoring the Laws and Liberties of England Scotland and Ireland IT is both 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 where 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 most 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 of the said State or Kingdom may neither 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 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 Upon these Grounds it is that we cannot any longer forbear to declare That to our great regret we see that those Counsellors who have now the chief Credit with the King have overturned the Religion Laws and Liberties of those Realms and subjected them in all Things relating to their Consciences Liberties and Properties to Arbitrary Government and that not only by secret and indirect ways but in an open and undisguised manner Those Evil Counsellors for the advancing and colouring this with some plausible Pretexts did invent and set on foot the King 's Dispensing Power by virtue of which they pretend that according to Law he can Suspend and Dispense with the Execution of the Laws that have been enacted by the Authority of the King and Parliament for the Security and Happiness of the Subject and so have rendred those Laws of no effect Though there is nothing more certain than that as no Laws can be made but by the joint concurrence of King and Parliament so likewise Laws so enacted which secure the Publick Peace and Safety of the Nation and the Lives and Liberties of every Subject in it cannot be repealed or suspended but by the same Authority For though the King may pardon the Punishment that a Transgressor has incurred and to which he is condemned as in the Cases of Treason or Felony yet it cannot be with any colour of Reason inferred from thence that the King can entirely suspend the Execution of those Laws relating to Treason or Felony Unless it is pretended that he is clothed with a Despotick and Arbitrary Power and that the Lives Liberties Honours and Estates of the Subjects depend wholly on his good Will and Pleasure and are entirely subject to him which must infallibly follow on the King 's having a Power to suspend the Execution of the Laws and to dispense with them Those Evil Counsellors in order to the giving some credit to this strange and execrable Maxim have so conducted the Matter that they have obtained a Sentence from the Judges declaring that this Dispensing Power is a Right belonging to the Crown as if it were in the Power of the Twelve Judges to offer up the Laws Rights and Liberties of the whole Nation to the King to be disposed of by him Arbitrarily and at his Pleasure and expresly contrary to Laws enacted for the Security of the Subjects In order to the obtaining this Judgment those Evil Counsellors did before-hand examine secretly the Opinion of the Judges and procured such of them as could not in Conscience concur in so pernicious a Sentence to be turned out and others to be substituted in their Rooms till by the Changes which were made in the Courts of Judicature they at last obtained that Judgment And they have raised some to those Trusts who made open profession of the Popish Religion though those are by Law rendred incapable of all such Employments It is also manifest and notorious that as his Majesty was upon his coming to the Crown received and acknowledged by all the Subjects of England Scotland and Ireland as their King without the least Opposition though he made then
Dissenter of one sort himself The King therefore that was so lately could not really put the Catholicks upon Conformity and if he would appear equal to all his People he could not put â—ny other Dissenters on it neither for the same Cause That which the Law requires was both in his Conscience and in theirs a thing prohibited of God. He could not therefore put the Laws in Execution being against God. And if He could not do it acting only but as an honest Man that abides by his Principles we have no reason to apprehend that so good a King and Queen as we have now should be ever brought to do it maugre all the Enticements of the Church of England or Frowns of the Church of Rome FINIS ADVERTISEMENT A Third Volume of Sermons Preached by the Late Reverend and Learned Thomas Manton D.D. In Two Parts The First containing LXVI Sermons on the Eleventh Chapter of the Hebrews With a Treatise of the Life of Faith. The Second containing a Treatise of Self-Denial With Several Sermons on the Sacrament of the Lord's-Supper And other Occasions With an Alphabetical-Table to the Whole Sold by Thomas Parkhurst and Ionathan Robinson ELEVENTH Collection of Papers Relating to the Present Juncture of Affairs in England and Scotland VIZ. I. An Answer to the Desertion Discuss'd being a Defence of the late and present Proceedings II. Satisfaction tendred to all that pretend Conscience for Non-submission to our present Governours and refusing of the New Oaths of Fealty and Allegiance III. Dr. Oates his Petition to the Parliament declaring his barbarous Sufferings by the Papists IV. An Account of the Convention of Scotland V. A Speech made by a Member of the Convention of the Estates in Scotland VI. The Grounds on which the Estates of Scotland declared the Right of the Crown of Scotland Forfaulted and the Throne become Vacant VII The Opinion of two eminent Parliament-Men justifying the Lawfulness of taking the Oaths of Allegiance to King William and Queen Mary London printed and are to be sold by Richard Ianeway in Queen's-head-Court in Pater-noster-Row 1689. AN ANSWER TO THE DESERTION DISCUSS'D IF many of our Long-Rob'd Divines pust up with a Conceit of their own Parts would but keep closer to their Texts and their Duties most certainly our Peace and Union would be much firmer and more assured then it is For being sway'd by Interest and Profit they are more afraid of losing the Advantages of Earthly Preferment then the Treasures of Heavenly Felicity Unless they swim in their own Wishes and Desires all Things are out of Order The Church is in danger they cry here are Sharers coming in among Us And by an odd kind of Ecclesiastical Policy seem rather inclinable to return under the Yoke of Popery then to endure the Equality of a Dissenting Protestant rather to be at the check of a Pope's Nuncio then suffer the Fraternity of a Protestant Nonconformist They said nothing to the late King till he began to touch their Copy-holds then they call'd out for Help and now they are angry with their Relief because they are afraid of well they know not what And this is their Misfortune that if all things answer not the full Height of their Expectations they are the first that should be last dissatisfied If all things go not well as they imagine they presently grow moody and waspish and while they insinuate their empty Notions into others who admiring the fluency of their Pulpit Language either out of Ignorance or Laziness allow them a Prerogative over their Understandings the whole Nation must be embroyl'd by their Surmises and Mistrusts Else what had that Gentleman who wrote the Desertion Discuss'd to do to busy his Brains with a Subject neither appertaining to his Function nor proper for his Talent Why should he be setting himself up against the voted Judgment of â—he chiefest and greatest part of the Kingdom A Man of his Profession would have doubtless better employ'd himself in contemplating the Story of the Three Murmurers against Moses and there have learn'd a more sanctifi'd Lesson then to exalt his Sophistry against the Debates of a Solemn Assembly contriving the Publick Preservation For certainly never was a fairer Prospect then now since the many Revolutions under which the British Monarchy has labour'd of its being restor'd to its ancient Grandâ—ur and Renown and of enjoying the Advantages of Peace and Prosperity in a higher measure then ever So that it must be look'd upon as the Effect either of a most pernicious Malice or a strange distraction of Brain for such Discussers as these to be throwing about the Darnel of their nice and froward Conceptions on purpose to choak the Expectations of so glorious a Harvest For they must be Men that want the government of right Reason within themselves as being enslav'd either to vicious Custom or partial Affection or else they would never run themselves and others with so much precipitancy into the shame and ignominy of upholding the subvertors of National Constitutions And all this to blacken and defame the noble Endeavours and prudent Counsels of those renowned Patriots that pursu'd the only means to rescue a languishing Monarchy from impending Thraldom and Ruin. He does not wonder he says that a Man of so much sense and integrity as his Friend is should be surprized at the Thrones being declared Vacant by the Lower House of Convention For how says his Friend can the Seat of the Government be empty while the King who all grant had an unquestionable Title is still living But the Discusser here forgot that it had been the resolv'd Opinion of two Parliaments already That there was no Security for the Protestant Religion the King's Life or the establish'd Government of the Kingdom without passing a Bill for disabling the Duke of York to inherit the Imperial Crown of England and Ireland and that unless a Bill were pass'd for excluding the Duke of York the House could not give any Supply to the King without Danger to his Person the Hazard of the Protestant Religion and Breach of the Trust in them repos'd by the People Upon which a Bill did pass the Commons and was sent up to the Lords for their Concurrence by which Iames Duke of York was excluded and made for ever uncapable to Inherit Possess or Enjoy the Imperial Crown of this Realm c. and he adjudg'd Guilty of High Treason and to suffer the Pains and Penalties as in Case of High Treason if after such a Time he should claim challenge or attempt to possess or exercise any Authority or Jurisdiction as King c. in any of the said Dominions 'T is true the Lords did not pass this Bill for Reasons well known yet was it such a mutilation to the Duke's Title to be disabled from succeeding in the Kingdom by the whole Body of the Commons who are the Representatives of the Nation that it can never be said that all Men granted his Title unquestionable
accuse him of Capital Crimes but being defeated in that Villanous Attempt they first procured King Charles the Second to withdraw that Protection and Subsistence his Majesty had at the Request of several Parliaments allowed to your Petitioner and then instigated his Royal Highness the Duke of York to prosecute your Petitioner in an Action of Scandalum Magnatum for speaking this notorious Truth viz. That he the said Duke of York was reconciled to the Church of Rome and that It is High Treason to be so reconciled wherein a Verdict and Judgment for one Hundred Thousand Pounds Damages were obtained against your Petitioner and your Petitioner was committed to the King's Bench-Prison After this the same Popish Party obtained leave from King Charles the second to prefer two several Indictments against your Petitioner for two pretended Perjuries in his Evidence concerning the said Conspiracy which they brought on to Tryal in the Reign of King Iames the second and your Petitioner was upon the Evidence of those very Witnesses who had confronted him in three former Tryals and were disbelieved and through the Partial Behahaviour of the Chief Justice Ieffreys in brow-beating his Witnesses and misleading the Juries convicted of the said Pretended Perjuries and received this inhumane and unparallel'd Sentence following viz. To pay two thousand Marks to the King To be devested of his Canonical Habit To be brought into Westminster-Hall with a Paper upon his Head with this Inscription Titus Oates convicted upon full Evidence of two horrid Perjuries To stand in and upon the Pillory two several days for the space of an Hour To be whip'd by the comman Hang-man from Aldgate to Newgate on Wednesday and to be whip'd again on the Friday following from Newgate to Tiburn To stand in and upon the Pillory five times in every Year of his Life and to remain a Prisoner during his Life Which Sentence being intended as your Petitioner hath just reason to believe to murther him was accordingly executed with all the Circumstances of Barbarity he having suffered some thousands of Stripes whereby he was put to unspeakable Tortures and lay ten Weeks under the Surgeons Hands Neither did their Cruelty cease here but because your Petitioner by God's Mercy miraculously supporting him and the extraordinary Skill of a Judicious Chirurgion outlived that Bloody Usage some of them afterwards got into your Petitioner's Chamber whilst he was weak in his Bed and attempted to pull of the Plaisters apply'd to cure his Back and threatned to destroy him And that nothing within their Power or Malice might be wanting to compleat your Petitioner's Misery they procured him to be loaded with Irons of excessive Weight for a whole Year without any Intermission even when his Legs were swoln with the Gout and to be shut up in the Dungeon or Hole of the Prison whereby he became impair'd in his Limbs and contracted Convulsion Fits and other Distempers to the great Hazard of his Life All which illegal Proceedings and barbarous Inhumanities your Petitioner humbly conceives were not only intended as a Revenge upon him but likewise to cast a Reproach upon the Wisdom and Honour of four successive Parliaments who had given him Creâ—it and upon the Publick Justice of the Nation And your Petitioner humbly hopes that since the Papists themselves have verified and confirmed his Evidence by their late open and avowed Violations of our Religion Laws and Liberties this Honourable House will vindicate the Proceedings of former Parliaments and discharge your Petitioner from those Arbitrary and Scandalous Judgments and the unjust Imprisonment he lies under Your Petitioner doth therefore most humbly beseech your Lordships and your Honours to take his deplorable Case into your gâ—nerous and tender Consideration and to give him such Redress â—herein as to your Lordships and your Honours great Wisdom Iustice and Goodness shall seem meet And your Petitioner shall ever pray c. An Account of the Convention of SCOTLAND THE Convention of Scotland met the 14 th of March 168â— in Obedience to the Prince of Orange's Letters They choice the Duke of Hamilton their President after which they had several Debates about the Duke of Gâ—rdon a Papist who keeps the Castle notwithstanding many offers of Surrender does still keep it for King Iames. They read a Letter from the King of England in which he exhorts them to lay aside all Animosities and Factions and mind the Publick Good in securing the Protestant Religion and the ancient Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom on sure and lasting Foundations particularly that they would endeavour a Union between both Kingdoms as one of the best Means for the Happiness of both especially at this time when the common Enemy is restless to procure the ruine of Britain and the Protestant Religion every-where After which a Letter was read from King Iames requiring them to support his Royal Authority by many Threats and Promises which made no Impression on them but after some time they drew up and sent a Letter to King William full of dutiful Respects promising to do that which may be acceptable to him and suitable to the Genius of the Nation After setling the Militia and other State-Matters and having resolved the Power into themselves they appointed a Committee of 24 made up of all the Estates to settle the Government Which Committee have provided for the full Meeting of the Convention Grounds and Reasons on which they have declared the Throne Vacant A SPEECH made by a Member of the Convention of the States in SCOTLAND WE are now called together by his Highness the Prince of Orange to Consult and Deliberate what Methods will be most proper to secure Our Religion Laws and Liberties in order to which the first thing that will fall under our Consideration is the setling the Sovereign Power I take for granted that you are fully convinced that King Iames the Seventh by his many Violations of the Fundamental Laws by his endeavouring to establish a Despotick and Arbitrary Power and introduce Popery tho he himself had confirmed all the Laws that were enacted in Favour of the Protestant Religion has thereby subverted the Constitution and that our Miseries might have no Redress from him has left us in a time when we needed his Protection most The Eyes of all Europe are upon us and it is in our Power to make our Selves and our Posterity either Happy or Miserable by making a choice either to call back the same King Iames and hazard once more all that Men account dear to his Mercy or to settle the Government on some other under whom we may live Quiet and Peaceable Lives without the perpetual Terror of being swallowed up by Popery and Arbitrary Government which all good Men hoped were now banished and yet behold a new Off-spring is sprung up which plead eagerly for both tho under the mistaken Names of Duty and Allegiance It 's strange that any Man can so far degenerate as to prefer Slavery
without Consent of Parliament By Committing and Prosecuting divers Worthy Prelates for humbly Petitioning to be Excused from concurring to the said assumed Power By issuing and causing to be executed a Commission under the Great Seal for erecting a Court called The Court of Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes By Levying Mony for and to the Use of the Crown by pretence of Prerogative for other time and in other manner than the same was granted by Parliament By raising and keeping a standing Army within this Kingdom in time of Peace without Consent of Parliament and Quartering Souldiers contrary to Law. By causing several Good Subjâ—cts being Protestants to be Disarmed at the same time when Papists were both Armed and Imployed contrary to Law. By violating the Freedom of Election of Members to serve in Parliament By Prosecutions in the Court of Kings-Bench for Matters and Causes cognizable only in Parliament and by divers other Arbitrary and Illegal Courses And whereas of late Years Partial Corrupt and Unqualified Persons have been returned and served on Juries in Trials and particularly divers Jurors in Trials for High-Treason which were not Freeholders And Excessive Bail hath been required of Persons committed in Criminal Cases to elude the Benefit of the Laws made for the Liberty of the Subjects And Excessive Fines have been imposed And Illegal and Cruel Punishments inflicted And several Grants and Promises made of Fines and Forfeitures before any Conviction or Judgment against the Persons upon whom the same were to be levied All which are utterly and directly contrary to the known Laws and Statutes and Freedom of this Realm And whereas the said late K. Iames the 2 d having abdicated the Government and the Throne being thereby vacant His Highness the Prince of Orange whom it hath pleased Almighty God to make the Glorious Instrument of Delivering this Kingdom from Popery and Arbitrary Power did by the Advice of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and divers principal Persons of the Commons cause Letters to be written to the Lords Spiritual and Temporal being Protestants and other Letters to the several Counties Cities Universities Burroughs and Cinque-Ports for the Chusing of such Persons to represent them as were of Right to be sent to Parliament to Meet and Sit at Westminster upon the 22 d Day of Ianuary in this Year 1688 in order to such an Establishment as that their Religion Laws and Liberties might not again be in danger of being Subverted Upon which Letters Elections having been accordingly made And thereupon the said Lord's Spiritual and Temporal and Commons pursuant to their respective Letters and Elections being now Assembled in a Full and Free Representative of this Nation taking into their most serious Consideration the best Means for attaining the Ends aforesaid do in the first place as their Ancestors in like Case have usually done for the Vindicating and Asserting their Ancient Rights and Liberties Declare That the pretending Power of Suspending of Laws or the Execution of Laws by Regal Authority without Consent of Parliament is Illegal That the pretended Power of Dispensing with Laws or the Execution of Laws by Regal Authority as it hath been assumed and exercised of late is Illegal That the Commission for erecting the late Court of Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes and all other Commissions and Courts of the like Nature are Illegal and Pernicious That levying of Mony for or to the Use of the Crown by pretence of Prerogative without Grant of Parliament for longer time or in other manner than the same is or shall be granted is Illegal That it is the Right of the Subjects to Petition the King and all Commitments and Prosecutions for such Petitioning are Illegal That the raising or keeping a standing Army within the Kingdom in time of Peace unless it be with Consent of Parliament is against Law. That the Subjects which are Protestants may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Condition and as allowed by Law. That Election of Members of Parliament ought to be Free. That the Freedom of Speech and Debates or Proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or Questioned in any Court or place out of Parliament That Excessive Bail ought not to be required nor Excessive Fines imposed nor cruel and unusual Punishments inflicted That Jurors ought to be duly empannell'd and return'd and Jurors which pass upon Men in Trials for High-Treason ought to be Freeholders That all Grants and Promises of Fines and Forfeitures of particular Persons before Conviction are Illegal and Void And that for redress of all Grievances and for the amending strengthening and preserving of the Laws Parliaments ought to be held frequently And they do claim demand and insist upon all and singular the Premises as their undoubted Rights and Liberties and that no Declarations Judgments Doings or Proceedings to the prejudice of the People in any of the said Premises ought in any wise to be drawn hereafter into Consequence or Example To which Demand of their Rights they are particularly encouraged by the Declaration of His Highness the Prince of Orange as being the only Means for obtaining a full redress and remedy therein Having therefore an intire Confidence that his said Highness the Prince of Orange will perfect the Deliverance so far advanced by Him and will still preserve them from the Violation of their Rights which they have here asserted and from all other Attempts upon their Religion Rights and Liberties The said Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons assembled at Westminster do resolve That William and Mary Prince and Princess of Orange be and be declared King and Queen of England France and Ireland and the Dominions thereunto belonging to hold the Crown and Royal Dignity of the said Kingdoms and Dominions to them the said Prince and Princess during their Lives and the Life of the Surviver of them And that the sole and full Exercise of the Regal Power be only in and executed by the said Prince of Orange in the Names of the said Prince and Princess during their joint Lives and after their Deceases the said Crown and Royal Dignity of the said Kingdoms and Dominions to be to the Heirs of the Body of the said Princess and for default of such Issue to the Princess Ann of Denmark and the Heirs of Her Body and for default of such Issue to the Heirs of the Body of the said Prince of Orange And the said Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons do pray the said Prince and Princess of Orange to accept the same accordingly And that the Oaths hereafter mentioned be taken by all Persons of whom the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy might be required by Law instead of them and that the said Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy be Abrogated I A. B. do sincerely promise and swear That I will be faithful and bear true Allegiance to their Majesties King WILLIAM and Queen MARY So help me God. I A. B. do swear That I do from my Heart Abhor
Detest and Abjure as Impious and Heretical this Damnable Doctrine and Position That Princes Excommunicated or Deprived by the Pope or any Authority of the See of Rome may be Deposed or Murthered by their Subjects or any other whatsoever And I do declare That no Foreign Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate hath or ought to have any Iurisdiction Power Superiority Preeminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm So help me God. Io. Browne Cleric ' Parl. Die Veneris 15 Feb. 1688. His Majesties Gracious Answer to the Declaration of both Houses My Lords and Gentlemen THis is certainly the greatest proof of the Trust you have in Vs that can be given which is the thing that maketh us value it the more and we thankfully Accept what you have Offered And as I had no other Intention in coming hither than to preserve your Religion Laws and Liberties so you may be sure That I shall endeavour to support them and shall be willing to concur in any thing that shall be for the Good of the Kingdom and to do all that is in my Power to advance the Welfare and Glory of the Nation Die Veneris 15 Februarii 1688. ORdered by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal Assembled at Westminster That His Majesties Gracious Answer to the Declaration of both Houses and the Declaration be forthwith Printed and Published And that his Majesties Gracious Answer this Day be added to the Engrossed Declaration in Parchment to be Enrolled in Parliament and Chancery Io. Browne Cleric ' Parliamentorum The Declaration of the Estates of Scotland concerning the Mis-government of King James the Seventh and filling up the Throne with King William and Queen Mary THat King Iames the 7 th had acted irregularly 1. By His Erecting publick Schools and Societies of the Jesuits and not only allowing Mass to be publickly said but also inverting Protestant Chappels and Churches to Publick Mass-houses contrair to the express Laws against saying and hearing of Mass. 2. By allowing Popish Books to be Printed and Dispersed by a Gift to a Popish Printer designing him Printer to his Majesties Houshold College and Chappel contrair to the Laws 3. By taking the Children of Protestant Noblemen and Gentlemen sending them abroad to be bred Papists making great Funds and Donations to Popish Schools and Colleges abroad bestowing Pensions on Priests and perverting Protestants from their Religion by Offers of Places Preferments and Pensions 4. By disarming Protestants while at the same time he employed Papists in the Places of greatest Trust Civil and Military such as Chancellour Secretaries Privy Councellors and Lords of Session thrusting out Protestants to make room for Papists and intrusting the Forts and Magazines of the Kingdom in their hands 5. By Imposing Oaths contrair to Law. 6. By giving Gifts and Grants for exacting of Money without Consent of Parliament or Convention of Estates 7. By Levying and keeping on foot a Standing Army in time of Peace without consent of Parliament which Army did exact Locality free and day Quarters 8. By Employing the Officers of the Army as Judges through the Kingdom and imposing them where there were held Offices and Jurisdictions by whom many of the Leiges were put to Death summarily without legal Tryal Jury or Record 9. By imposing exorbitant Fines to the Value of the Parties Estates exacting extravagant Bail and disposing Fines and Forfaulture before any Process or Conviction 10. By Imprisoning Persons without expressing the Reason and delaying to put them to Tryal 11. By causing pursue and forfault several Persons upon stretches of old and obsolete Laws upon frivolous and weak pretences upon lame and defective Probations as particularly the late Earl of Argyle to the scandal and reproach of the Justice of the Nation 12. By Subverting the Right of the Royal Boroughs the Third Estate of Parliament imposing upon them not only Magistrates but also the whole Town Council and Clerks contrair to the Liberties and express Charters without the pretence outher of Sentence Surrender or Consent So that the Commissioners to Parliaments being chosen by the Magistrates and Councils the King might in effect alsweel nominate that entire Estate of Parliament many of the said Magigrates put in by him were avowed Papists and the Burghs were forced to pay Mony for the Letters imposing these illegal Magistrates and Council upon them 13. By sending Letters to the Chief Courts of Justice not only ordering the Judges to stop and desist sine die to determine Causes but also ordering and commanding them how to proceed in Cases depending before them contrair to the express Laws And by changing the Nature of the Judges Gifts ad vitam aut culpam and giving them Commissions ad bene placitam to dispose them to compliance by Arbitrair Courses and turning them out of their Offices when they did not comply 14. By granting Personal Protections for Civil Debts contrair to Law. All which are utterly and directly contrair to the known Laws Freedoms and Statutes of this Realm Therefore the Estates of the Kingdom of Scotland find and declare That King Iames the Seventh being a profest Papist did assume the Regal Power and acted as King without ever taking the Oath required by Law and have by advice of Evil and Wicked Counsellors invaded the Fundamental Constitution of the Kingdom and altered it from a Legal limited Monarchy to an Arbitrair and Despotick Power and hath exercised the same to the subversion of the Protestant Religion and the violation of the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom Inverting all the Ends of Government whereby he hath forfaulted the Right to the Crown and the Throne is become vacant And whereas his Royal Highness William then Prince of Orange now King of England whom it hath pleased the Almighty God to make the Glorious Instrument of delivering these Kingdoms from Popery and Arbitrary Power did by advice of several Lords and Gentlemen of this Nation at London for the time call the Estates of this Kingdom to meet the Fourteenth of March last in order to such an Establishment as that their Religion Laws and Liberties might not be again in danger of being subverted And the said Estates being now assembled in a full and free Representative of this Nation taking to their most serious consideration the best means for attaining the Ends aforesaid Do in the first place as their Ancestors in the like cases have usually done for the vindicating and asserting their Ancient Rights and Liberties declare That by the Law of this Kingdom no Papist can be King or Queen of the Realm nor bear any Office whatsoever therein nor can any Protestant Successor exercise the Regal Power until he or she swear the Coronation Oath That all Proclamations asserting an Absolute Power to cass annul and disable Laws the erecting Schools and Colledges for Jesuits the inverting Protestant Chappels and Churches to publick Mass-houses and the â—llowing Mass to be said are contrair to Law. That the allowing Popish Books
to be printed and dispersed is contrair to Law. That the taking the Children of Noblemen Gentlemen and others sending and keeping them abroad to be bred Papists The making Funds and Donations to Popish Schools and Colledges the bestowing Pensions on Priests and the perverting Protestants from their Religion by offers of Places Preferments and Pensions are contrair to Law. That the disarming of Protestants and imploying Papists in the Places of greatest Trust both Civil and Military the thrusting out Protestants to make room for Papists and the entrusting Papists with the Forts and Magazines of the Kingdom are contrair to Law. That the imposing Oaths without Authority of Parliament is contrair to Law. That the giving Gifts or Grants for raising of Mony without the Consent of Parliament or Convention of Estates is contrair to Law. That the imploying Officers of the Army as Judges through the Kingdom or imposing them where there were several Offices and Jurisdictions and the putting the Leiges to Death summarily and without legal Trial Jury or Record are contrair to Law. That the imposing extraordinary Fines the exacting of exorbitant Bail and the disposing of Fines and Forfaultures before Sentence are contrair to Law. That the Imprisoning Persons without expressing the reason thereof and delaying to put them to Trial are contrair to Law. That the causing pursue and forfault Persons upon Stretches of old and obsolete Laws upon frivolous and weak Pretences upon â—ame and defective Probation as particularly the late Earl of Aâ—gyle are contraiâ— to Law. That the nominating and imposing Magistrates Councils and Clerks upon Burgâ—s contrair to the Liberties and express Charters is contrair to Law. That the sending Leâ—ters to the Courts of Justice ordaining the Judges to stop or desist from determining Causes or ordaining them how to proceed in Causes depending before them and the changing the Nature of the Judges Gifts ad vitam aut culpam unto Commissions Durante bene placito are contrair to Law. That the granting Personal Protections for Civil Debts is contrair to Law. That the forcing the Leiges to depone against themselves in Capital Crimes however the Punishment be restricted is contrair to Law. That the using Torture without Evidence or in ordinary Crimes is contrair to Law. That the â—ending of an Army in a Hostile manner upon any part of the Kingdom in a peaceable time and exacting of Locality and any manner of Free Quarter is contrair to Law. That the charging the Leiges with Law-burroughs at the King's instance and the imposing of Bands without the Authority of Parliament and the suspending the Advocates from their Imployments for not compearing when such Bands were offered were contrair to Law. That the putting of Garisons on private Mens Houses in a time of peace without the consent of the Authority of Parliament is contrair to Law. That the opinion of the Lords of Session in the two Causes following were contrair to Law viz. 1. That the concerting the demand of a Supply for a Forfaulted Person although not given is Treason 2. That Persons refusing to discover what are their private thoughts and Judgments in relation to points of Treason or other Mens actions are guilty of Treason That the fining Husbands for their Wives withdrawing from the Church was contrair to Law. That Prelacy and Superiority of any Office in the Church above Presbyters is and hath been a great and unsupportable Grievance and Trouble to this Nation and contrair to the Inclinations of the Generality of the People ever since the Reformation they having Reformed from Popery by Presbyters and therefore ought to be abolished That it is the Right and Privilege of the Subjects to protest for remead of Law to the King and Parliament against Sentences pronounced by the Lords of Session providing the same do not stop execution of the said Sentences That it is the Right of the Subjects to Petition the King and that all Imprisonments and Prosecutions for such Petitions are contrair to Law. That for redress of all Grievances and for the amending strengthning and Preserving of the Laws Parliaments ought to be frequently called and allowed to sit and the freedom of Speech and Debate secured to the Members And they do claim and demand and insist upon all and sundry the Premisses as their undoubted Right and Liberties and that no Declarations Doings or Proceedings to the prejudice of the People in any of the said Premisses ought in any ways to be drawn hereafter in consequence and example but that all Forfaultures Fines loss of Offices Imprisonments Banishments Pursuits Persecutions and Rigorous Executions be considered and the Parties seized be redressed To which demand of the Rights and Redressing of their Grievances they are particularly incouraged by his Majesty the King of England his Declaration for the Kingdom of Scotland of the day of October last as being the only means for obtaining a full redress and remead therein Having therefore an entire Confidence That his said Majesty the King of England will perfyte the Deliverance so far advanced by him and will still preserve them from the Violation of the Rights which they have here asserted And from all other Attempts upon their Religion Laws and Liberties The said Estates of the Kingdom of Scotland do resolve That William and Mary King and Queen of England France and Ireland Be and Be Declared King and Queen of Scotland to Hold the Crown and Royal Dignity of the said Kingdom of Scotland to them the said King and Queen during their Lives and the longest Liver of them and that the sole and full exercise of the Royal Power be only in and exercised by him the said King in the Names of the said King and Queen during their joynt Lives And after their deceases the said Crown and Royal Dignity of the said Kingdom to be to the Heirs of the Body of the said Queen Which sailing to the Princess Ann of Denmark and the Heirs of her Body which also sailing to the Heirs of the Body of the said William King of England And they do pray the said King and Queen of England to accept the same accordingly And that the Oath hereafter mentioned be taken by all Protestants of whom the Oath of Allegiance and any other Oaths and Declarations might be required by Law instead thereof And that the said Oath of Allegiance and other Oaths and Declarations may be Abrogated I A. B. Do sincerely Promise and Swear That I will be Faithful and bear True Allegiance to Their Majesties King WILLIAM and Queen MARY So help me God. The manner of the Proclaiming of King WILLIAM and Queen MARY at White-hall and in the City of London Feb. 13. 1688 9. ABout half an hour past Ten in the Morning the Lords and Commons came from Westminster to White-hall in their Coaches and alighted at the Gate went up into the Banqueting-House where they presented the Prince and Princess of Orange with an Instrument in Writing for declaring their Highnesses
Burlington Anglesey Rochester Newport Nom. Ebor. W. Asaph Fran. Ely. Tho. Roffen Tho. Petriburg Tho. Oxon. Paget Chandois Osulston We therefore do most earnestly beseech your Majesty That you would be graciously pleased with all speed to Call such a Parliament wherein we shall be most ready to promote such Counsels and Resolutions of Peace and Settlement in Church and State as may conduce to your Majesty's Honour and Safety and to the quieting the Minds of your People We do likelise humbly beseech your Majesty in the mean time to use such means for the preventing the Effusion of Christian Blood as to your Majesty shall seem most meet His Majesty's most Gracious Answer My LORDS WHAT You ask of Me I most passionately desire And I promise You upon the Faith of a King That I will have a Parliament and such an One as You ask for as soon as ever the Prince of Orange has quitted this Realm For How is it possible a Parliament should be Free in all its Circumstances as You Petition for whil'st an Enemy is in the Kingdom and can make a Return of near an Hundred Voices The Lords Petition with the King's Answer may be printed Novemb. 20. 1688. A Modest Vindication of the Petition of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal for the Calling of a Free Parliament THIS Dâ—fence is grounded upon three Fundamental Principles I. The Right of Petitioning II. The Necessity III. The Duty I. It is the undoubted Right of the Subjects to Petition being founded upon an Act of Parliament and the highest Reason in the World for that is a very monstrous Government where the People must not approach their King and acquaint him with their Grievances The People have the greatest Property in the Land and therefore the most concern'd when a Foreign Enemy is upon it their Welfare is the Supream Law and yet they must not desire to meet in order to consult their own Preservation The Jesuits the sworn Enemies to the English Nation will take care of us and our Posterity therefore why should we trouble our selves at this Juncture They can levy Mony with a Proclamation they can dispense with all Laws and what should we do with a Parliament when the whole Statute-Book serves for no other End but to wipe the Tails of these Reverend Satyrs who fly into their Dens and Thickets at the very sound of a House of Commons II. The Necessity and that an indispensible one The Government turn'd Topsy-Turvy no Law no Rule all in a state of War all Treaties broken all Obligations ceas'd and yet the People must not come together to know why or wherefore they Fight or how they may avoid destroying one another they must hack and cut one another to pieces blindfold and to no other End but to save the Iesuits and the Knaves and to ruin themselves But the most Reverend Bishops are told that they shall have a Free Parliament as soon as ever the Prince of Orange has quitted this Realm that is such a Free Parliament as they were like to have had before the Prince came hither shuffl'd cut and pack'd by Mr. Brent and his Missionaries or perhaps ten times worse or rather none at all for the Church of Rome is grown such an infamous Bankrupt that no Body will trust her further than they can command her She may be compar'd to the Tyger which fawns sneaks and lurks as long as the Hunter is arm'd with his Spear and his Gun but when once the Weapons are laid down the Beast flies upon the unwary Forester tears and devours him III. The Duty For what better Office could those pious Prelats and Patriots of their Country do for the Publick-Good than to make all People Friends to save the Lives of many Thousands and to heal all our Wounds and Sores which they of the Roman Faith have inflicted upon a People too kind and good natur'd for such ravenous Monsters who go about seeking whom they may devour France Ireland Hungary and the Valleys of Piedmont are still reeking with the Blood of their poor innocent Preys and ecchoing with the Lamentations of a People ruin'd by trusting these Crocodiles too much and if God in his infinite Mercy had not watch'd over these Kingdoms and sent a Gabriel to guard them they had certainly fallen a Victim to the intollerable Pride the lawless Fury and untractable Barbariety of a sort of Animals call'd Catholicks subtile and treacherous by Custom and Discipline not to be chain'd by any Law either of God or Man and therefore every Body knows how far we may rely upon them when the Arch-Angel leaves us Exeter Nov. 21. 1688. Extract of the States General their Resolution Thursday 28th October 1688. UPon mature Deliberation it is found sit and resolved that notice be given to all their Ministers abroad of all the Reasons which induce their H. and M. to assist the Prince of Orange going over to England in Person with Ships and Forces with Orders to the said Ministers to make use thereof in the several Courts where they reside as they shall think most convenient and that it be also writ to the said Ministers that it is known to all the World that the English Nation hath a good while very much murmured and complained that the King no doubt with the Evil Counsel and Inducement of his Ministers had gained upon their Fundamental Laws and laboured through the violation thereof and by the bringing in the Roman Catholick Religion to oppress their Liberty and to ruine the Protestant Religion and to bring all under an Arbitrary Government That as this inverted and unjust Conduct was carried on more and more and the Apprehensions thereupon were still greater and that thereby such Diffidence and Aversion was stirred up against the King that nothing was to be expected in that Kingdom but general Disorder and Confusion His Highness the Prince of Orange upon the manifold Representations and the reiterated and earnest Desire which was made to His Highness by several Lords and other Persons of great Consideration in that Kingdom as also upon the account that Her Royal Highness and His Highness Himself are so highly concerned in the Welfare of that Kingdom could not well endure that through Strife and Disunion they should run the danger however it went of being excluded from the Crown held himself obliged to watch over the Welfare of that Kingdom and to take care thereof and also had the thoughts of assisting the Nation and giving them a helping-hand upon so many just and good Grounds against the Government that oppressed them in all manner of ways that lay in his Highness's Power for that His Highness was perswaded that the Welfare of this State the Care whereof is also entrusted to him was in the highest manner concerned that the said Kingdom might continue in Tranquillity and that all misunderstanding between the King and the Nation might be taken away That His Highness well knowing that to succeed in
Pretence whatsoever contrary to the known Laws of the Land shall be treated by Us and our Forces not as Souldiers and Gentlemen but as Robbers Free-Booters and Banditti they shall be incapable of Quarter and intirely delivered up to the Discretion of our Souldiers And We do further declare that all Persons who shall be found any ways aiding and assisting to them or shall march under their Command or shall joyn with or submit to them in the Discharge or Execution of their Illegal Commissions or Authority shall be looked upon as Partakers of their Crimes Enemies to the Laws and to their Country And whereas we are certainly informed that great Numbers of Armed Papists have of late resorted to London and Westminister and parts adjacent where they remain as we have reason to suspect not so much for their own Security as out of a wicked and barbarous Design to make some desperate Attempt upon the said Cities and their Inhabitants by Fire or a sudden Massacre or both or else to be the more ready to joyn themselves to a Body of French Troops designed if it be possible to land in England procured of the French King by the Interest and Power of the Jesuits in Pursuance of the Engagements which at the Instigation of that pestilent Society his most Christian Majesty with one of his Neighbouring Princes of the same Communion has entred into for the utter Extirpation of the Protestant Religion out of Europe Though we hope we have taken such effectual care to prevent the one and secure the other that by God's Assistance we cannot doubt but we shall defeat all their wicked Enterprises and Designs We cannot however forbear out of the great and tender Concern we have to preserve the People of England and particularly those great and populous Cities from the cruel Rage and bloody Revenge of the Papists to require and expect from all the Lord-Lieutenants Deputy-Lieutenants and Justices of Peace Lord-Mayors Mayors Sheriffs and all other Magistrates and Officers Civil and Military of all Counties Cities Towns of England especially of the County of Middlesex and Cities of London and Westminster and Parts adjacent that they do immediately Disarm and Secure as by Law they may and ought within their respective Counties Cities and Jurisdictions all Papists whatsoever as Persons at all Times but now especially most dangerous to the Peace and Safety of the Government that so not only all Power of doing Mischief may be taken from them but that the Laws which are the greatest and best Security may resume their Force and be strictly Executed And We do hereby likewise declare that We will Protect and Defend all those who shall not be afraid to do their Duty in Obedience to these Laws And that for those Magistrates and others of what condition soever they be who shall refuse to assist Us and in Obedience to the Laws to Execute vigorously what We have required of them and suffer themselves at this Juncture to be cajoled or terrified out of their Duty We will esteem them the most Criminal and Infamous of all Men Betrayers of their Religion the Laws and their Native Country and shall not fail to treat them accordingly resolving to expect and require at their Hands the Life of every single Protestant that shall perish and every House that shall be burnt or destroyed by their Treachery and Cowardise William Henry Prince of Orange By his Highness special Command C. HUYGENS. Given under our Hand and Seal at our Head-quarters at Sherburn-Castle the 28 th day of November 1688. FINIS A SECOND Collection of Papers Relating to the Present Juncture of Affairs in England VIZ. I. An Enquiry into the Measures of Submission to the Supreme Authority and of the Grounds on which it may be lawful or necessary for Subjects to defend their Religion Lives and Liberties II. An Answer to a Paper intituled Reflections on the Prince of Orange's Declaration III. Admiral Herbert's Letter to all Commanders of Ships and Seamen in his Majesty's Fleet. IV. An Engagement of the Noblemen Knights and Gentlemen at Exeter to assist the Prince of Orange in the Defence of the Protestant Religion Laws and Liberties of the People of England Scotland and Ireland V. The Declaration of the Nobility Gentry and Commonalty at the Rendezvous at Nottingham Novemb. 22. 1688. VI. The Duke of Norfolk's Speech to the Mayor of Norwich on the first of December instant in the Market-place of Norwich VII The Address of the Lord Dartmouth and the Commanders of his Majesty's Fleet giving his Majesty hearty Thanks for calling a Parliament to settle the Realm both in Church and State. Printed in the Year 1688. AN ENQUIRY Into the Measures of SUBMISSION TO THE SUPREAM AUTHORITY And of the Grounds upon which it may be lawful or necessary for Subjects to defend their Religion Lives and Liberties THis Enquiry cannot be regularly made but by taking in the first place a true and full view of the nature of Civil Society and more particularly of the nature of Supream Power whether it is lodged in one or more Persons 1. It is certain That the Law of Nature has put no difference nor subordination among Men except it be that of Children to Parents or of Wives to their Husbands so that with Relation to the Law of Nature all Men are born free and this Liberty must still be supposed entire unless so far as it is limited by Contracts Provisions and Laws For a Man can either bind himself to be a Servant or sell himself to be a Slave by which he becomes in the power of another only so far as it was provided by the Contract since all that Liberty which was not expresly given away remains still entire so that the Plea for Liberty always proves it self unless it appears that it is given up or limited by any special Agreement II. It is no less certain that as the Light of Nature has planted in all Men a Natural Ptinciple of the Love of Life and of a desire to preserve it so the common Principles of all Religion agree in this that God having set us in this World we are bound to preserve that Being which he has given us by all just and lawful ways Now this Duty of Self-preservation is exerted in Instances of two sorts the one are in the resisting of violent Aggressors the other are the taking of just Revenges of those who have invaded us so secretly that we could not prevent them and so violently that we could not resist them In which cases the Principle of self-Preservation warrants us both to recover what is our own with just Damages and also to put such unjust Persons out of a Capacity of doing the like Injuries any more either to our selves or to any others Now in these Instances of Self-Preservation this difference is to be observed that the first cannot be limited by any slow Forms since a pressing Danger requires a vigorous Repulse and cannot admit
with us a Force sufficient by the Blessing of God to defend us from the Violence of those Evil Counsellors And We being desirous that our Intentions in this may be rightly understood have for this end prepared this Declaration in which as We have hitherto given a true Account of the Reasons inducing us to it so we now think fit to declare that this our Expedition is intended for no other Design but to have a free and lawful Parliament assembled as soon as possible and that in order to this all the late Charters by which the Elections of Burgesses are limited contrary to the Ancient Custom shall be considered as null and of no force and likewise all Magistrates who have been injustly turned out shall forthwith resume their former Imployments as well as all the Buroughs of England shall return again to their Ancient Prescriptions and Charters And more particularly that the Ancient Charter of the great and famous City of London shall again be in force and that the Writs for the Members of Parliament shall be addressed to the proper Officers according to Law and Custom That also none be suffered to choose or to be chosen Members of Parliament but such as are qualified by Law and that the Members of Parliament being thus lawfully chosen they shall meet and sit in full Freedom that so the two Houses may concur in the preparing such Laws as they upon full and free debate shall judg necessary and convenient both for the confirming and executing the Law concerning the Test and such other Laws as are necessary for the Security and Maintenance of the Protestant Religion as likewise for making such Laws as may establish a good Agreement between the Church of England and all Protestant Dissenters as also for the covering and securing of all such who will live peaceably under the Government as becomes good Subjects from all Persecution upon the account of their Religion even Papists themselves not excepted and for the doing of all other things which the two Houses of Parliament shall find necessary for the Peace Honour and Safety of the Nation so that there may be no more danger of the Nations falling at any time hereafter under Arbitrary Government To this Parliament we will also refer the Enquiry into the Birth of the pretended Prince of Wales and of all things relating to it and to the Right of Succession And We for our part will concur in every thing that may procure the Peace and Happiness of the Nation which a Free and Lawful Parliament shall determine since We have nothing before our Eyes in this our Undertaking but the Preservation of the Protestant Religion the covering of all Men from Persecution for their Consciences and the securing to the whole Nation the free Enjoyment of all their Laws Rights and Liberties under a just and legal Government This is the Design that We have proposed to our Selves in appearing upon this occasion in Arms In the Conduct of which We will keep the Forces under our Command under all the strictness of Martial Discipline and take a special care that the People of the Countries through which we must march shall not suffer by their means and as soon as the State of the Nation will admit of it We promise that We will send back all those Foreign Forces that we have brought along with us We do therefore hope that all People will judg rightly of us and approve of these our Pâ—oceedings but We chiefly relie on the Blessing of God for the Success of this our Undertaking in which We place our whole and only Confidence We do in the last place invite and require all Persons whatsoever all the Peers of the Realm both Spiritual and Temporal all Lords-Lieutenants Deputy-Lieutenants and all Gentlemen Citizens and other Commons of all Ranks to come and assist us in order to the executing of this our Design against all such as shall endeavour to oppose us that so we may prevent all those Miseries which must needs follow upon the Nations being kept under Arbitrary Government and Slavery and that all the Violences and Disorders which have overturned the whole Constitution of the English Government may be fully redressed in a FREE AND LEGAL PARLIAMENT And We do likewise resolve that as soon as the Nations are brought to a State of Quiet We will take care that a Parliament shall be called in Scotland for the restoring the Ancient Constitution of that Kingdom and for bringing the Matters of Religion to such a Settlement that the People may live easie and happy and for putting an end to all the injust Violences that have been in a course of so many Years committed there We will also study to bring the Kingdom of Ireland to such a State that the Settlement there may be religiously observed and that the Protestant and British Interest there may be secured And we will endeavour by all possible means to procure such an Establishment in all the three Kingdoms that they may all live in a happy Union and Correspondence together and that the Protestant Religion and the Peace Honour and Happiness of those Nations may be established upon lasting Foundations Given under our Hand and Seal at our Court in the Hague the Tenth day of October in the Year 1688. WILLIAM HENRY PRINCE OF ORANGE By His Highnesses special Command C. HUYGENS. His Highnesses Additional Declaration AFter We had prepared and printed this our Declaration we have understood that the Subverters of the Religion and Laws of those Kingdoms hearing of our Preparations to assist the People against them have begun to retract some of the Arbitrary and Despotick Powers that they had assumed and to vacate some of their unjust Judgments and Decrees The sense of their Guilt and the distrust of their Force have induced them to offer to the City of London some seeming Relief from their great Oppressions hoping thereby to quiet the People and to divert them from demanding a Secure Reestablishment of their Religion and Laws under the shelter of our Arms. They do also give out that we intend to Conquer and Enslave the Nation and therefore it is that we have thought fit to add a few words to our Declaration We are confident that no Persons can have such hard Thoughts of us as to imagine that we have any other Design in this Undertaking than to procure a Settlement of the Religion and of the Liberties and Properties of the Subjects upon so sure a Foundation that there may be no danger of the Nation 's relapsing into the like Miseries at any time hereafter And as the Forces we have brought along with us are utterly disproportioned to that wicked Design of Conquering the Nation if we were capable of intending it so the great Numbers of the principal Nobility and Gentry that are Men of Eminent Quality and Estates and Persons of known Integrity and Zeal both for the Religion and Government of England many of them
the proceeding of a Parliament But if to the great Misfortune and Ruine of these Kingdoms it should prove otherwise We further Declare That We will to our utmost defend the Protestant Religion the Laws of the Kingdom and the Rights and Liberties of the Subject A Letter from a Gentleman at Kings-Lyn Decemb 7. 1688. to his Friend in London SIR THE Duke of Norfolk came to Town on Wednesday Night with many of the chiefest of the County and yesterday in the Market-place received the Address following which was presented by the Mayor attended by the Body and many hundreds of the Inhabitants To his Grace the most Noble HENRY Duke of Norfolk Lord Marshal of England My Lord THE daily Allarums we receive as well from Foreign as Domestick Enemies give us just Apprehensions of the approaching Danger which we conceive we are in and to apply with all earnestness to your Grace as our great Patron in all humble Confidence to succeed in our Expectations That we may be put into such a posture by your Grace's Directions and Conduct as may make us appear as zealous as any in the Defence of the Protestant Religion the Laws and Ancient Government of this Kingdom Being the desire of many hundreds who most humbly challenge a Right of your Grace's Protection His Grace's Answer Mr. Mayor I Am very much obliged to you and the rest of your Body and those here present for your good Opinion of me and the Confidence you have that I will do what in me lies to support and defend the Laws Liberties and Protestant Religion in which I will never deceive you And since the coming of the Prince of Orange hath given us an opportunity to declare for the defence of them I can only assure you that no Man will venture his Life and Fortune more freely for the Defence of the Laws Liberties and Protestant Religion than I will do and with all these Gentlemen here present and many more will unanimously concur therein and you shall see that all possible Care shall be taken that such a Defence shall be made as you require AFter which the Duke was with his Retinue received at the Mayor's House at Dinner with great Acclamations and his Proceedings therein have put our County into a Condition of Defence of which you shall hear further in a little time our Militia being ordered to be raised throughout the County Our Tradesmen Seamen and Mobile have this morning generally put Orange Ribbon on their Hats Ecchoing Huzza's to the Prince of Orange and Duke of Norfolk All are in a hot Ferment God send us a good issue of it Lyn-Regis Decemb. 10. 1688. SIR BY mine of the 7 th Instant I gave you an Account of the Address of this Corporation to hiâ— Grace the Duke of Norfolk and of his Grace's Answer thereto Since which his Grace has sent for the Militia Troops and put them in a posture of Defence as appears by the ensuing Speech The Duke of Norfolk's Second Speech at Lynn I Hope you see I have endeavoured to put you in the posture you desired by sending both for Horse and Foot of the Militia and am very glad to see such an Appearance of this Town in so good a Condition And I do again renew my former Assurances to you that I will ever stand by you to defend the Laws Liberties and the Protestant Religion and to procure a Settlement in Church and State in concurrence with the Lords and Gentlemen in the North and pursuant to the Declaration of the Prince of Orange And so God save the King. The Declaration of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in and about the Cities of London and Westminster Assembled at Guildhal Dec. 1688. WE doubt not but the World believes that in this Great and Dangerous Conjuncture We are heartily and zealously concerned for the Protestant Religion the Laws of the Land and the Liberties and Properties of the Subject And We did reasonably hope that the King having Issued His Proclamation and Writs for a Free Parliament We might have rested Secure under the Expectation of that Meeting But His Majesty having withdrawn Himself and as We apprehend in order to His Departure out of this Kingdom by the Pernicious Counsels of Persons ill Affected to Our Nation and Religion We cannot without being wanting to Our Duty be silent under those Calamities wherein the Popish Counsels which so long prevailed have miserably involved these Realms We do therefore Unanimously resolve to apply Our Selves to His Highness the Prince of Orange who with so great Kindness to these Kingdoms so vast Expence and so much hazard to his own Person hath Undertaken by endeavouring to Procure a Free Parliament to rescue Us with as little Effusion as possible of Christian Blood from the imminent Dangers of Popery and Slavery And We do hereby Declare That We will with our utmost Endeavours assist his Highness in the obtaining such a Parliament with all speed wherein Our Laws Our Liberties and Properties may be Secured the Church of England in particular with a due Liberty to Protestant Dissenters and in general the Protestant Religion and Interest ovâ—r the whole World may be Supported and Encouraged to the Glory of God the Happiness of the Established Government in these Kingdoms and the Advantage of all Princes and States in Christendom that may be herein concerned In the mean time We will Endeavour to Preserve as much as in Us lies the Peace and Security of these great and populous Cities of London and Westminister and the Parts Adjacent by taking Care to Disarm all Papists and Secure all Jesuits and Romish Priests who are in or about the same And if there be any thing more to be performed by Us for promoting His Higness's Generous Intentions for the Publick Good We shall be ready to do it as occasion shall Require W. Cant. Tho Ebor. Pembroke Dorset Mulgrave Thanet Carlisle Craven Ailesbury Burlington Sussex Berkeley Rochester Newport Weymouth P. Winchester W. Asaph Fran. Ely. Tho. Roffen Tho. Petribtrg P. Wharton North and Grey Chandos Montague T. Iermyn Vaughan Carbery Culpeper Crewe Osulston WHereas His Majesty hath privately this Morning withdrawn himself We the Lords Spiritual and Temporal whose Names are Subscribed being assembled at Guild-hall in London having Agreed upon and Signed a Declaration Entituled The Declaration of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in and about the Cities of London and Westminister Assembled at Guild-hall 11 Decemb. 1688. Do desire the Right Honourable the Earl of Pembroke the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Weymouth the Right Reverend Father in God the Lord Bishop of Ely and the Right Honourable the Lord Culpeper forthwith to attend his Highness the Prince of Orange with the said Declaration and at the same time acquaint his Highness with what we have further done at that Meeting Dated at Guild-hall the 11 th of December 1688. A Paper delivered to his Highness the Prince of Orange by the Commissioners sent by
Orange and present to His Highness the Address agreed by the Lieutenancy for that purpose And that they begin their Journey to Morrow Morning By the Commissioners Command Geo. Evans Cl. Lieut. London To His Highness the Prince of Orange The Humble Address of the Lieutenancy of the City of London May it please Your Highness WE can never sufficiently express the deep Sence we have conceived and shall ever retain in our Hearts That Your Highness has exposed Your Person to so many Dangers both by Sea and Land for the Preservation of the Protestant Religion and the Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom without which unparallel'd Undertaking we must probably have suffered all the Miseries that Popery and Slavery could have brought upon us We have been greatly concerned that before this time we have not had any seasonable Opportunity to give Your Highness and the World a real Testimony that it has been our firm Resolution to venture all that is Dear to Us to attain those Glorious Ends which Your Highness has proposed for restoring and settling these Distracted Nations We therefore now unanimously present to Your Highness our just and due Acknowledgments for the Happy Relief You have brought to us and that we may not be wanting in this present Conjuncture we have put our selves into such a Posture that by the Blessing of God we may be capable to prevent all ill Designs and to preserve this City in Peace and Safety till your Highness's Happy Arrival We therefore humbly desire that your Highness will please to repair to this City with what convenient speed you can for the perfecting the Great Work which Your Highness has so happily begun to the general Joy and Satisfaction of us all December the 17 th 1688. THE said Committee this day made Report to the Lieutenancy that they had presented the said Address to the Prince of Orange and that His Highness received them very kindly December the 17 th 1688. By the Lieutenancy Ordered That the said Order and Address be forthwith Printed Geo. Evans To His Highness the Prince of ORANGE The Humble ADDRESS of the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Commons of the City of London in Common Council assembled May it please Your Highness WE taking into Consideration your Highness's fervent Zeal for the Protestant Religion manifested to the World in your many and hazardous Enterprizes which it hath pleased Almighty God to bless you with miraculous Success We render our deepest Thanks to the Divine Majesty for the same And beg leave to present our most humble Thanks to your Highness particularly for your appearing in Arms in this Kingdom to carry on and perfect your Glorious Design to rescue England Scotland and Ireland from Slavery and Popery and in a Free Parliament to establish the Religion the Laws and the Liberties of these Kingdoms upon a sure and lasting Foundation We have hitherto look'd for some Remedy for these Oppressions and Imminent Dangers We together with Our Protestant Fellow-Subjects laboured under from His Majesty's Concessions and Concurrences with Your Highness's Just and Pious purposes expressed in Your Gracious Declarations But herein finding Our Selves finally disappointed by His Majesty's withdrawing Himself We presume to make Your Highness Our Refuge And do in the Name of this Capital CITY implore Your Highness's Protection and most humbly beseech Your Highness to vouchsafe to repair to this CITY where Your Highness will be received with Universal Joy and Satisfaction The Speech of Sir GEORGE TREBY Kt. Recorder of the Honourable City of London to his Highness the Prince of Orange Dec. 20. 1688. May it please your Highness THE Lord Mayor being disabled by Sickness your Highness is attended by the Aldermen and Commons of the Capital City of this Kingdom deputed to Congratulate your Highness upon this great and glorious Occasion In which labouring for Words we cannot but come short in Expression Reviewing our late Danger we remember our Church and State over-run by Popery and Arbitrary Power and brought to the Point of Destruction by the Conduct of Men that were our true Invaders that brake the Sacred Fences of our Laws and which was worst the very Constitution of our Legislature So that there was no Remedy left but the Last The only Person under Heaven that could apply this Remedy was Your Highness You are of a Nation whose Alliance in all Times has been agreeable and prosperous to us You are of a Family most Illustrious Benefactors to Mankind To have the Title of Sovereign Prince Stadtholder and to have worn the Imperial Crown are among their lesser Dignities They have long enjoyed a Dignity singular and transcendent viz. To be Champions of Almighty God sent forth in several Ages to vindicate his Cause against the greatest Oppressions To this Divine Commission our Nobles our Gentry and among them our brave English Souldiers rendred themselves and their Arms upon your appearing GREAT SIR When we look back to the last Month and contemplate the Swiftness and Fullness of our present Deliverance astonish'd we think it miraculous Your Highness led by the Hand of Heaven and called by the Voice of the People has preserved our dearest Interests The Protestant Religion which is Primitive Christianity restor'd Our Laws which are our ancient Title to our Lives Liberties and Estates and without which this World were a Wilderness But what Retribution can We make to your Highness Our Thoughts are full-charged with Gratitude Your Highness has a lasting Monument in the Hearts in the Prayers in the Praises of all Good Men amongst us And late Posterity will celebrate your ever-glorious Name till Time shall be no more Chapman Mayor Cur ' special ' tent ' die Iovis xx die Decemb ' 1688. Annoque R R. Iacobi Secundi Angl ' c. quarto THis Court doth desire Mr. Recorder to print his Speech this day made to the Prince of Orange at the time of this Court 's attending his Highness with the Deputies of the several Wards and other Members of the Common-Council Wagstaffe FINIS A FIFTH Collection of Papers Relating to the Present Juncture of Affairs in England VIZ. I. The hard Case of Protestant Subjects under the Dominion of a Popish Prince II. An Answer to a late Pamphlet entitled A Short Scheme of the Vsurpations of the Crown of England c. III. An humble and hearty Address to all English Protestants in the Army Published by Mr. Iohnson in the Year 1686. IV. Several Reasons against the Establishment of a standing Army and Dissolving the Militia V. A Discourse of Magistracy of Prerogative by Divine Right of Obedience and of the Laws VI. The Definition of a Tyrant by Abr. Cowley With several Queries thereupon proposed to the Lawyers VII A Letter to the King inducing him to return to the Protestant Religion VIII Ten Seasonable Queries proposed by an English Gentleman at Amsterdam to his Friends in England Licensed and Entred according to Order London printed and are to be
so well that he doubted not in a little time their Business would be managed to the utter Ruin of the Protestant Party The effecting whereof was so desirable and meritorious that if he had a Sea of Flood and an hundred Lives he would lose them all to carry on the Design And if to effect this it were necessary to destroy an hundred Heretical Kings he would do it Singleton the Priest affirmed That he would make no more to stab forty Parliament-Men than to eat his Dinner Gerard and Kelley to encourage Prance to kill Sir E. B. G. told him It was no Murther no Sin and that to kill twenty of them was nothing in that case which was both a charitable and meritorious Act. And Grant one of the Massacring Gun-powder Traitors said upon his Execution to one that urged him to repent of that wicked Enterprize That he was so far from counting it a Sin that on the contrary he was confident that that noble Design had so much of Merit in it as would be abundantly enough to make Satisfaction for all the Sins of his whole Life See Everard Digby speaking to the same purpose also the Provincial Garnet did teach the Conspirators the same Catholick Doctrine viz. That the King Nobility Clergy and whole Commonalty of the Realm of England Papists excepted were Hereticks and That all Hereticks were accursed and excommunicated and That no Heretick could be a King but that it was lawful and meritorious to kill him and all other Hereticks within this Realm of England for the advancement and inlargement of the Authority and Jurisdiction of the Pope and for the restoring of the Romish Religion This was that Garnet whom the Papists here honoured as a Pope and kissed his Feeâ— and reverenced his Iudgment as an Oracle and since his Death given him the Honour of Saintship and Martyrdom Dugdale deposed That after they had dispatched the King a Massacre was to follow But surely it may be supposed that the Temper of such a Prince or his Interest would oblige him to forbid or restrain such violent Executions in England Yea but what if his Temper be to comply with such Courses Or his Temper be better Whâ—t if it be over-rul'd What if he be perswaded as other Catholicks are that he must in Conscience proceed thus What if he cannot do otherwise without hazard of his Crown and Life For he is not to hold the Reins of Government alone he will not be allowed to be much more than the Pope's POSTILLION and must look to be dismounted if he act not according to Order The Law tells us That it is not in the Power of any Civil Magistrate to remit the Penalty or abate the Rigour of the Law. Nay if the Prince should plight his Faith by Oath that he would not suffer their Bloody LAWS to be executed upon his Dissenting Subjects this would signify nothing For they would soon tell him That Contracts made against the Common Law are invalid though conâ—irmed by Oath And That he is not bound to stand to his Promise though he had sworn to it And That Faith is no more to be kept with Hereticks than the Council of Constance would have it So that Protestants are to be burnt as Io. Huss and Ierom of Prague were by that Council though the Emperor had given them his safe Conduâ—t in that Solemn manner which could secure them only as they said from the Civil but not Church-Process which was the greatest For 't is their General Rule That Faith is either not to be given or not kept with Hereticks Therefore saith Simanca That Faith ingaged to Hereticks though confirmed by Oath is in no wise to be performed For saith he if Faith is not to be kept with Tyrants and Pirats and others who kill the Body much less with Hereticks who kill the Souls And that the Oath in favour of them is but Vinculum Iniquitatis A Bond of Iniquity Though Popish Princes the better to promote their Interest and to insnare the Protestant Subjects to get advantage upon them to their Ruin have made large Promises and plighted their Faith to them when they did not intend to keep it As the Emperor to Iohn Huss and Ierom Charles the Ninth of France to his Protestant Subjects before the Massacre the Duke of Savoy to his Protestant Subjects before their designed Ruin and Queen Mary before her burning of them But if there were neither Law nor Conscience to hinder yet in point of Interest he must not shew favour to Hereticks without apparent hazard both of Crown and Life for he forfeits both if he doth The Pope every Year doth not only curse Hereticks but every Favourer of them from which none but himself can absolve Becanus very elegantly tells us If a Prince be a dull Cur and fly not upon Hereticks he is to be beaten out and a keener Dog must be got in his stead Henry the Third and Henry the Fourth were both Assassinated upon this Account because they were suspected to favour Hereticks And are we not told by the Discoverers of the Popish Plot That after they had dispatch'd the King they would depose his Brother also that was to succeed him if he did not answer their Expectations for rooting out the Protestant Religion But may not Parliaments secure us by Laws and Provisions restraining the Power which endangers us Not possible if once they secure and settle the Throne for Popery For First They can avoid Parliaments as long as they please and a Government that is more Arbitrary and Violent is more agreeable to their Designs and Principles It being apparent that the English Papists have lost the Spirit of their Ancestors who so well asserted the English Liberties being so generally now fix'd for the Pope's Universal Monarchy sacrificing all to that Roman Moloch being much more his Subjects than the King 's and though Natives by Birth yet are Foreigners as to Government Principle Interest Affection and Design and therefore no Friends to Parliaments as our Experience hath told us But Secondly if their Necessity should require a Parliament there is no question but they may get such a one as will serve their turns For so have every of our former Princes in all the Changes of Religion that have been amongst us As Henry the 8 th when he was both for and against Popery Edward the 6 th when he was wholly Protestant Queen Mary when she was for Burning Alive and Queen Elizabeth when she ran so Counter to her Sister And the Reason is clear that he who has the making of the publick Officers and the Keys of Preferment and Profit influenceth and swayeth Elections and Votes as he pleaseth And by how much the Throne comes to be fix'd in Popery the Protestants must expect to be excluded from both Houses as they have excluded the Papists For as Hereticks and Traitors they as ignominous Persons c. you
tugging and strugling to regain them whence continual disturbance will ensue and a standing Army must be kept on foot to support this ill acquired Grandâ—ur For those Subjects that contended with King Iohn and King Henry the Third c. tho' they were Papists and of the same Religion with those Princes could not brook it to be Slaves to their Arbitrary Pleasures in their Civil Rights Besides what a waking dream is it for any King that is free from the Roman Yoke to think to make himself more Absolute by involving himself and his Kingdoms in Thraldom to the Church of Rome wherein not only the Pope pretends a Right to domineer over him but every Ecclesiastick esteems himself wholly exempt from his Jurisdiction and all his People will be but half his Subjects viz. in Temporals for in Spirituals and in ordine ad spiritualia a monstrous draw net that may include almost all the Actions of Humane Life they are wholly to be Conducted by his Holiness and his Subordinate Ministers How therefore can your Highness if a Roman Catholick complain of the late successive Houses of Commons for pressing a Bill to exclude you Is it any Disloyalty to endeavour to preserve the Imperial Crown of England from a truckling and shameful Servitude to a Foreign Usurper's Power Or is it any such unheard of thing to debarr a Prince from a Throne that hath obstinately disabled himself Certainly above all Men the Roman Catholicks ought not to murmur at this for did not the Pope issue forth a Bull to exclude your Grandfather King Iames unless he would turn Papist And did not the Romanists though they acknowledged the Title of your other Grandfather Henry the Great to the French Diadem yet refuse to pay him any Obedience because a Protestant and on that only score fought against him as long as he continued so and thought it no Rebellion Your Highness perhaps will say What though they did so true Protestants and the Church of England do not own such Principles Well then if the Protestant Principles be better than those of the Church of Rome what Madness is it in your Highness to abandon the first and chuse the latter I am a dutiful and hearty Lover of Monarchy and when establish'd on such an Equi-pois'd Basis of Wisdom as ours is shall ever assert it to be the best Form of Government in the World and most agreeable to the Genius of English-men But that lineal descent is so sacred a thing that the Heir presumptive can for no default or crime whatsoever be debarr'd from the Crown by an Act of Parliament or publick Decree of State I do not understand For I am sure the practice in all Ages both at home and abroad in almost every Nation in the Earth hath run contrary And as to Right those that pretend such Succession in all Cases to be Iure Divino would do well to shew in what Texts of Scripture the same is prescribed till then they do but talk not argue and if a Candidate to the Crown for any Reasons whatsoever may without offence to the Law of God or Nature be Excluded by an Act of King Lords and Commons Then the Iune-divino-ship vanishes and nothing is left to be considered But whether such next Heir have done such Acts or is so qualified that in Prudence it be necessary for the Tranquillity of the Publick to Exclude him Now I believe there are but few of the Church of England but if the Bill had passed the Lords and his Majesty had given his Royal Assent to it would have acquiesc'd therein and consequently they do not believe the Exclusion to be simply unlawful by the Law of God or Nature for against either of them no Humane Ordinances ought to prevail But all true Loyalists do not despair but your Highness may yet prevent all Occasions of such Disputes by opening your eyes or rather that God in whose hands are the Hearts of Princes may irradiate your Royal Understanding and let you see the horrid Blackness of those Men who have endeavour'd to seduce you and of those Principles to which they would have inveigled you on purpose to have made your Highness a Property to their Ambition and Avarice and that under the shadow of your Illustrious Name they might one day Tyrannize at Pleasure over these Three Kingdoms If Heaven shall be pleased to work such an happy Inclination in your Highness you shall presently see the whole British Empire echoing with Praises and Acclamations and instead of murmurs of Seclusion every good Subject shall erect you a Throne in his heart But the grand difficulty will be to satisfie the prejudiced World of your sincerity herein for if your Highness which God forbid should declare your self a Protestant only to serve a present turn and use the Sacred Name of our Religion but as an Engine to advance the design of our bloody Enemies you would act at once the most dishonourably and in the end most prejudicially to your own Interest in the world and must certainly expect the blasts of Heaven and curses of Earth on all your future proceedings for Hypocrisie is odious to God and Man nor is there any Monster so abominable to serious Men of both sides as a Church-Papist Your Royal Highness I hope will excuse our fears for we are not ignorant of the Arts and Craft of Rome that she esteems no means unlawful to obtain her ends How shall any Oaths be sufficient Tests when a private dispensation may at once allow the taking and warrant the breaking of them Or what signifies the participation of our Sacraments to one that is taught We have no true Ministers of Christ if so no consecration consequently nothing but an ordinary Breakfast of common Brâ—ad and Wine and who shall lose the hopes of three Crowns rather than not taste such harmless viands Not that I dare imagine your Highnesses Understanding would suffer you to believe the lawfulness or your Princely Generosity permit you to practise these lewd dissimulations yet since such Doctrines are daily taught in the Roman Church how shall Protestants be assured they have no Influence on your Conduct I must therefore with all humble freedom assure your Highness that after so general an Opinion of your Highnesses having been a Roman Catholick though you should go never so duly to Church receive the Sacrament a thousand times and take Oaths all the way from Holy-rood House to St. Iames's yet the People would scarce believe the reality of your Conversion unless withal they see it accompanied with some other Demonstrations For as Faith without works is dead so Profession of a Religion without agreeable endeavours to advance it will be vain If his Royal Highness will the People say be a good Protestant he will undoubtedly discourage all Papists the sworn inveterate Enemies of our Religion he will not suffer a Popish Priest to approach his Person or Palace If he have had any intimation of
any ill designs if any have been tampering to reconcile him to Popery which is no less than Treason he will presently detect those mischievous Instruments that they may be brought to condign Punishment and applaud the Iustice that has been done on Coleman the five Jesuits Godfrey's Murderers c. thereby stopping the Mouths of that brazen Tribe who would make the World believe they died innocently He will declare 〈◊〉 all Arbitrary Designs detest those who by sneaking flatteries would unâ—â—ngâ— the ancient and most wise Constitution of our Government He will heartily recommend Parliaments to his Sacred Brother as the wisest and safest Councils and even thank the late Houses of Commons for their zeal against him whilst they apprehended him as an Enemy to his King and the Religion and safety of the Kingdom He will vigorously by his Counsels and Interests oppose the growing greatness of the French which at this day threatens all Europe with Chains and immediately tends not only to the decay of Great Britains Trade and Glory but also to the diminution oppression and if it lay in humane Power utter subversion of the Reformed Religion throughout the World. These and the like Noble Fruits will the People not unreasonably expect from your R. H. when ever you shall please to declare your self a Protestant which that you may speedily do not Politickly or Superficially but with that sincerity as so serious a matter of infinite more value than the Three Crowns you are Presumptive Heir to is the Prayer of all good Men and particularly of Your Royal Highness 's Most Humble and Faithful Servant Philanax Verax LONDON Printed and are to be sold by Richard Ianeway 1688. Ten Seasonable QUERIES Proposed by an English Gentleman in Amsterdam to his Friends in England a little before the Prince of Orange came over I. WHether any Real and Zealous Papist was ever for Liberty of Conscience it being a fundamental Principle of their Religion That all Christians that do not believe as They do are Hereticks and ought to be destroyed II. Whether the King be a Real and Zealous Papist If he be Whether he can be truly for Liberty of Conscience III. Whether this King in his Brother's Reign did not cause the Persecution against Dissenters to be more violent than otherwise it would have been IV. Whether he doth not now make use of the Dissenters to pull down the Church of England as he did of the Church of England to ruin the Dissenters that the Papists may be the better enabled in a short time to destroy them both V. Whether any ought to believe he will be for Liberty any longer than it serves his Turn and whether his great eagerness to have the Penal Laws and Test repealed be only in order to the easie establishing of Popery VI. Whether if these Penal Laws and Test were repealed there would not many turn Papists that now dare not VII Whether the forcing of all that are in Offices of Profit or Trust in the Nation to lose their Places or declare they will be for Repealing the Penal Laws and Test be not Violating his own Declaration for Liberty of Conscience and a new Test upon the People VIII Whether the suspending the Bishop of London the Dispossessing of the Fellows of Magdalen Colledge of their Freeholds the Imprisoning and Prosecuting the Seven Bishops for Reasoning according to Law are not sufficient instances how well the King intend to keep his Declaration for Liberty of Conscience wherein he promiseth to protect and maintain all his Bishops and Clergy and all other his Subjects of the Church of England in quiet and full enjoyment of all their Possessions with any molestation or disturbance whatsoever IX Whether the Usage of the Protestants in France and Savoy for these three years past be not a sufficient Warning not to trust to the Declaration Promises or Oaths in matters of Religion of any Papist whatsoever X. Whether any Equivalent whatsoever under a Popish King that hath a standing Army and pretends to a Dispensing Power can be as equal Security as the Penal Laws and Test as affairs now stand in England FINIS A SIXTH Collection of Papers Relating to the Present Juncture of Affairs in England VIZ. I. Five Letters from Scotland giving Account of expelling Popery from thence II. The Prince of Orange's Speech to the Scots Lords and Gentlemen met at St. Iames's With their Advice to the Prince to take upon him the Administration of the Affairs of Scotland With his Highness's Answer III. A Letter to a Friend advising in this Extraordiry Juncture how to Free the Nation from Slavery IV. The Application of the Bishop and Clergy of London to the Prince of Orange Sept. 21. 1688. V. An Address of the Nonconformist Ministers of London to the Prince of Orange VI. The Address of the City of Bristol to the Prince of Orange VII A Word to the Wise for Setling the Government VIII A Modest Proposal to the present Convention IX An Historical Account touching the Succession of the Crown X. A Narrative of the Miseries of New-England by reason of an Arbitrary Government erected there Licensed and Entred according to Order London printed and are to be sold by Richard Ianeway in Queen's-head-Court in Pater-noster-Row 1689. Advertisement VVHereas there is a sixth and seventh Collection of old Papers with new Title-Pages remote from the present Juncture of Affairs published by R. Baldwin The Reader is desired to take notice that the Person that collected the first five Parts will continue them from time to time as often as matter occurs in which he will take care not to impose any thing but what is new and genuine and worth the Reader 's Money To be sold by Richard Ianeway in Queen's-Head Court in Pater-Noster-Row who sells the former five and so all that shall follow Five LETTERS From a Gentleman in Scotland to his Friend in LONDON Being a True Account of what Remarkable Passages have happened since the Prince's Landing The manner of the taking of the Chancellor and his Lady in Man's Apparel The burning of the Pope Demolishing of the Popish Chappels c. with the total overthrow of the Roman Catholicks Edinburgh Decemb. 3. 1688. THE Students of the University here designed some time ago to burn the Pope's Effigies but that was not more zealously desired to be prevented by some than to be done by others Notwithstanding all the imaginable Care taken to prevent it yet it was done about Ten Days ago after day-light gone at the Cross and blown up with Art that seems to have been beyond their Invention above four Stories high Two Days thereafter they went to the Parliament-House at mid-day passing by the Guards crying No Pope No Papist And being got into the Parliament-House after they had required the Guards to be present at the Sentence and having got upon the Bench they Arraigned his Holiness before his Judges and gave the Jury their Commission who brought him in
the Number of Ninety or upwards attended his Highness the Prince of Orange at St. Iames's being introduced by the Earl of Devonshire the Lord Wharton and the Lord Wiltshire Their Sense was represented by one of those Ministers to this effect viz. That they professed their grateful Sense of his Highness's Hazardous and Heroical Expectition which the Favour of Heaven had made so surprizingly prosperous c. That they esteemed it a common Felicity that the worthy Patriots of the Nobility and Gentry of this Kingdom had unanimously concâ—rred unto his Highness's Design by whose most prudent Advice the Administration of Publick Affairs was devolved in this difficult Conjuncture into Hands which the Nation and World knew to be Apt for the greatest Undertakings and so suitable to the present Exigency of our Case That they promised the utmost Endeavour which in their Stations they are capable of affording for the promoting the excellent and most desirable Ends for which his Highness had declared That they added their continual fervent Prayers to the Almighty for the Preservation of his Highness's Person and the Success of his future Endeavours for the Defence and Propagation of the Protestant Interest throughout the Christian World. That they should all most willingly have chosen That for the Season of paying this Duty to his Highness when the Lord Bishop and the Clergy of London attended his Highness for the like purpose which some of them did and which his Lordship was pleased condescendingly to make mention of to his Highness had their notice of that intended Application been so early as to make their more general Attendance possible to them at that time That therefore tho they did now appear in a distinct Company they did it not on a distinct Account but on that only which is common to them and to all Protestants That tho there were some of Eminent Note whom Age or present Infirmities hindred from coming with them yet they concurred in the same grateful Sense of our common Deliverance His Highness was pleased very favourably to receive this Application and to assure them That he came purposely for the Defence of the Protestant Religion and that it was his own Religion wherein he was Born and Bred the Religion of his Country and of his Ancestors That he was resolv'd by the Grace of God always to adhere to it and to do his utmost Endeavours for the Defence of it and the promoting a firm Vnion among all Protestants The Speech of the Recorder of Bristol to his Highness the Prince of Orange Monday January the 7 th 1688. The Mayor Recorder Aldermen and Commons of the Principal Citizens of the City of Bristol waited upon the Prince of Orange being introduced by his Grace the Duke of Ormond their High-Steward and the Earl of Shrewsbury VVhere the Recorder spake to this Effect May it please your Highness THE Restitution of our Religion Laws and Liberties and the Freeing us from that Thraldom which hath rendred us for many Years useless and at last dangerous to the Common Interest of the Protestant World by your Highness's singular Wisdom Courage and Conduct are not only a Stupendious Evidence of the Divine Favour and Providence for our Preservation but will be and ought to be an Everlasting Monument of your Highness's Magnanimity and other the Heroick Vertues which Adorn your Great Soul by whom such a Revolution is wrought in this Nation as is become the Joy and Comfort of the Presenâ— and will be the Wonder of all Succeeding Ages In the Contrivance and Preparation of which Great Work your Highness like the Heavens did shed your propitious Influences upon us whilst we slept and had scarce any prospect from whence we might expect our Redemption But as since your happy Arrival in England we did amongst the first Associate our selves to assist and promote your Highness's most Glorious Design with our Lives and Fortunes so we now think our selves bound in the highest Obligation of Gratitude most humbly to present to your Highness our humble and hearty Thanks for this our Deliverance from Popery and Arbitrary Power and likewise for declaring your Gracious Intentions That by the Advice of the Estates of this Kingdom you will Rectifie the late Disorders in the Government both Ecclesiastical and Civil according to the known Laws The due and inviolable Observation of which will in our poor Opinion be the only proper Means to render the Soveraign Secure and both Sovereign and Subject happy To which his Highness returned a most Gracious Answer A Word to the Wise for Settling the Government IT is an Universal Truth That no Nation can subsist without some Government and the Wisdom of this Nation hath framed their Government to consist in a King the Lords and the Commons In these three Conjunct wholly resides the Power of making and altering Laws for the Common Good of the whole and iâ— called the Legislative Power The King alone is entrusted with the due Execution of these Laws for the Preservation Protection and Comfort of the People both in Church and State and this Trust and Power is called the Râ—gal Power If then this Nation being Protestant and under Protestant Laws have a King who shall declare hâ—mself a Zealous Roman Catholick and put himself under the Power and Conduct of the Papal Jurisdiction admitting the Pope's Supremacy Nuntio Bishops Appeals c. And to his power endeavour to Establish the Popish Religion in the Realm Quest I. Whether such a King hath not thereby made himself Incompetent and uncapable to Govern a Protestant Church and a Protestant People by their Protestant Laws and notoriously Abdicated or Renounced the Government II. If a King entrusted with the Regal Power ut supra shall Subvert the Fundamental Laws Dispense with Statutes Destroy Colleges and Corporations Erect High and Illegal Courts Invade the Peoples Freeholds and Free Elections to Parliament put the Ports and Power of the Nation into Enemies hands Protect and Promote Traytors and turn the Protective Power of the Nation to the Ruine and Destruction of the People their Laws and Religion Whether by so doing such a King doth not in Fact declare That he will not Rule the Kingdom by its Laws and Constitutions but by his own Absolute Will and Pleasure III. If a King so entrusted with the Regal Power ut supra shall and do voluntarily depart the Realm with the Signals of Government without any provision for the Publick Administration and so deserting both the People Place and Power Whether such a King hath not Divested himself of that Trust and Regal Power IV. If so and the Lawyers Rule be true Quod non est haeres Viventis Then whether this Regal Power be Descended so long as the King is Living V. If the Regal Power be Fallen and yet not Descended whether of necessity it must not fall to its Center or Root from whence it Sprang which is the whole Nation now consisting in Lords and Commons as
Right Line and in the Legal Steps and Degrees And this being done I am persuaded nothing can divide the English Nation or lessen their Zeal and Affection to the Prince of Orange who has deserved the Crown if it were ours to give him The Postscript which is an Huy and Cry after the French League to cut our Throats I leave to the Convention And if I durst be so bold as to ask a Favour of them it should be to enquire what the Ro. Catholick meant by that Threat of theirs so frequently printed and spoken by them If fair means would not obtain the Repeal of our Penal Laws and Tests foul should Now for a Conclusion I would desire you Sir to propose your method of Restoring the King and Securing our Laws and Religion and it shall go hard but I will shew you it is impracticable or impossible that it will never be granted or if it be never observed And if you please to bless the World with a Receipt of an Obligation that will bind the Conscience of any other Roman Catholick so fast that neither Iesuit and Pope can break or untie it I assure you I will joyn with you in a Petition to the Convention for a Treaty forthwith without any other Terms to be proposed than the giving us that Security whatever it is And in the Interim I am SIR YOURS Ian. 24. 1688 9. FINIS The EIGHT Collection of Papers Relating to the Present Juncture of Affairs in England VIZ. I. Proposals to the present Convention for Setling the Government II. Several Queries relating to the present Proceedings in Parliament III. A Protestant Precedent offer'd for the Exclusion of King Iames the Second IV. Reasons offer'd for placing the Prince of Orange singly in the Throne during his Life V. A Breviate for the Convention represented to the Lords and Commons of England VI. King Iames the First his Opinion of a King and of a Tyrant and of the English Laws Rights and Priviledges VII Proposals to the present Convention for perpetual Security of the Protestant Religion and Liberty of the Subjects of England London printed and are to be sold by Rich. Ianeway in Queen's-head Court in Pater-Noster Row 1689. PROPOSALS Humbly offered To the Lords and Commons in the present CONVENTION for Settling of the Government c. My Lords and Gentlemen YOV are Assembled upon Matters of the highest Importance to England and all Christendom and the result of your Thoughts in this Convention will make a numerous Posterity Happy or Miserable If therefore I have met with any Thing that I think worthy of your Consideration I should think my self wanting in that Duty which I owe to my Country and Mankind if I should not lay it before You. If there be as some say certain Lineaments in the Face of Truth with which one cannot be deceiv'd because they are not to be counterfeited I hope the Considerations which I presume to offer You will meet with your Approbation That bringing back our Constitâ—tion to its first and purest Original refining it from some gross Abuses and supplying its Defects You may be the Ioy of the present Age and the Glory of Posterity FIrst 'T is necessary to distinguish between Power it self the Designation of the Persons Governing and the Form of Government For 1. All Power is from God as the Fountain and Original 2. The Designation of the Persons and the Form of Government is eirther First immediately from God as in the Case of Saul and David and the Government of the Ievs or Secondly from the Community chusing some Form of Government and subjecting themselves to it But it must be noted that though Saul and David had a Divine Designation yet the People assembled and in a General Assembly by their Votes freely chose them Which proves that there can be no orderly or lasting Government without Consent of the People Tacit or Express'd and God himself would not put Men under a Governor without their Consent And in case of a Conquest the People may be called Prisoners or Salves which is a State contrary to the Nature of Man but they cannot be properly Subjects till their Wills be brought to submit to the Government So that Conquest may make Way for a Government but it cannot constitute it Secondly There is a Supreme Power in every Community essential to it and inseparable from it by which if it be not limited immediately by God it can form it self into any kind of Government And in some extraordinary Occasions when the Safety and Peace of the Publick necessarily require it can supply the Defects reform the Abuses and re-establish the true Fundamentals of the Government by Purging Refining and bringing Things back to their first Original Which Power may be called The Supreme Power Real Thirdly When the Community has made choice of some Form of Government and subjected themselves to it having invested some Person or Persons with the Supreme Power The Power in those Persons may be called The Supreme Power Personal Fourthly If this Form be a mix'd Government of Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy and for the easy Execution of the Laws the Executive Power be lodg'd in a single Person He has A Supreme Power Personal quoad hoc Fifthly The Supreme Power Personal of England is in Kings Lords and Commons and so it was in Effect agreed to by King Charles the First in his Answer to the nineteen Propositions and resolved by the Convention of Lords and Commons in the Year 1660. And note That the Acts of that Convention tho never confirmed by Parliament have been taken for Law and particularly by the Lord Chief Justice Hales Sixthly The Supreme Power Personal of England fails three Ways 1. 'T is Dissolved For two Essential Parts fail 1. A King. 2. A House of Commons which cannot be called according to the Constitution the King being gone and the Freedom of Election being destroyed by the King's Incroachments 2. The King has forfeited his Power several Ways Subjection to the Bishop of Rome is the Subjection against which our Laws cry loudest And even Barclay that Monarchical Politician acknowledges That if a King alienate his Kingdom or subject it to another he forfeits it And Grotius asserts That if a King really attempt to deliver up or subject his Kingdom he may be therein resisted And that if the King have part of the Supreme Power and the People or Senate the other part the King invading that part which is not his a just Force may be opposed and he may lose his Part of the Empire Grotius de Bello c. Cap. 72. But that the King has subjected the Kingdom to the Pope needs no Proof That the has usurp'd an absolute Power superior to all Laws made the Peoples Share in the Legislative Power impertinent and useless and thereby invaded their just Rights none can deny 'T were in vain to multiply Instances of his Forfeitures And if we consider the Power exercis'd
is evident no Man can serve two Masters Secondly It 's highly necessary and prudent rather to vest the Administration in the Husband than in the Wife 1. Because a Man by Nature Education and Experience is generally rendred more capable to Govern than the Woman Therefore 2. the Husband ought rather to Rule the Wife than the Wife the Husband especially considering the Vow in Matrimony 3. The Prince of Orange is not more proper to Govern as he 's Man and Husband only but as he is a Man a Husband and a Prince of known Honour profound Wisdom undaunted Courage and incomparable Merit as he 's a Person that 's naturally inclin'd to be Just Merciful and Peaceable and to do all Publick Acts of Generosity for the Advancement of the Interest and Happiness of Humane Societies and therefore most fit under Heaven to have the solâ— Executive Power A LORD'S Speech Without Doors To the Lords upon the present Condition of the Government My Lords PRay give me leave to cast in my Mite at this time upon this great Debate and though it be with an entire dissent to some Leading Lords to whom I bear great reverence it is according to my Conscience and that is the Rule of every honest Man's Actions My Lords I cannot forbear thinking that a greater Reproach can hardly come upon any People than is like to fall upon us Protestants for this unpresidented usage of our poor King We feared the security of our Religion because of Him and are now like to Violate a great part of it by forfeiting our Loyalty towards Him Religion is the Pretence but some fear a New Master is the Thing This I take to have been to Business of to Day for notwithstanding we see how feeble a thing Popery is in England that it is beaten without Blows and routed so effectually that it can never hope nor we justly fear it should return upon us and consequently our Religion pretty secure yet I don't see that this satisfies us unless the King goes also He must be turned away and the Crown change its Head for if the Crown be not the Quarrel more than Property and his Majesty's Person than his Religion Why did not the Prince stop when he heard a Free Parliament was calling by the King's Writs where all Matters especially that of the Prince of Wales might have been considered or at least where his Majesties Commissioners of Peace met â—im Who advised him â—o adâ—ance and give his Majesty that apprehension of â—is own insecurity and if any thing but a Crown would have served him Why was a Noble Peer of this House clapt up at Winsor when his Majesty sent him on purpose to invite the Prince to St. Iames's a Message that affected all good Mens Hearts more then any thing but his Majesty's return it look'd so Natural and Peaceable But it seems as if it had been therefore affronted for the Invitation could not have been received without the King 's remaining King and who was there that did not lately say it should be so I and who is there now that does not see it is not so We can my Lords no longer doubt of this if we will remember that the same Night the Prince should have answered his Majesty's kind Message The King's Guards were changed and at midnight the Prince's Guards were clapt upon hiâ— Majesty's Person and which is yet more extravagant to accomplish the business Three noble Lords in view were sent to let him know It was not for his safety or the Princes honour that he should stay in his own Palace A strange way my Lords of treating ones own King in his own House I cannot comprehend how it was for the Prince's Honour the King should go against his Will or how it was against his Honour that his Majesty should be safe in his own House I leave it with your Lordships to think who could render the King's stay unsafe at White-hall after the Dutch Guards were posted there My Lords this I confess is the great Iniquity that sticks with me and deserves our severest Scrutiny and Reflection that after driving our King away we should offer to â—ddress our selves to any Body to take the Government as if he had formally disserted it It becomes us rather to ask Where the King is how he came to go and who sent him away I take the Honour of the Peâ—rage of England to be deeply ingaged both at Home and Abroad to search but this Minor and especially those who are now present most of whom owe their share iâ— thâ—t noble Order to his Majesty his Brother Father or Grandfather It is not unreasonable to believe the King had not gone at first but upon some Messagâ— sent and Letters received to take care of his Person for that nothing less than the Crown was intended but being not out of his own Territories and therefore no Dissertion Abdication or Remise as the Criticks of the Conjuncture we are under pretend for the King may be where â—e will in his own Kingdom we â—ee while it was in his choice to go he returned and by as good as our advise too so that we cannot in truth say his Dissertion is the cause for it is plainly the Effect of our late extraordinary proceedings If any should say He needed not have gone now it is a great mistake for â— King ought to go if he cannot stay a King in his own Kingdom which Force refused to let him be And to stay a Subject to another Authority had been a meaner forfeiture of his Right then can in justice be charged upon his Retirement Wherefore his going must and will lie at their Doors that set him an hour to be gone out of his own Palace Many are angry and yet pleased that he is gone for France but where my Lords should he go Flanders dared not receive him Holland you could not think he should go to and Ireland you would have liked less and when we consider how far a League with France has been made the cause of his Misfortune though to this day it is in the Clouds what other Prince had the same Obligation to receive and succor him Therefore whatever Arts are used to blacken his Retreat we cannot with any shew of Reason imagine that he could think himself safe with us that had exercised Soveraign Power without him our Soveraign Lord and under the protection of a Forraign Prince and his Army though at the same time we had Sworn Allegiance to him and that it was unlawful for us to take up Arms against him under any Pretence whatever My Lords if this be not virtually and in effect to pull the Crown off his Head and dethrone him unheard I am to learn my Alphabet again This is short warning to give Kings for us at least my Lords that boast of Loyalty and were brought to these Seats by the favour of the Crown What can other Nations think of the Nobility of
matter of Fact doth not back and maintain them And this is an Advantage which I would not have us give our Adversaries in these things no more than we have done in the matters of Dispute betwixt them and us Here we have proved all our Charges against their Religion let us therefore prove or else not so eagerly insist upon these Accusations brought against their Persons I shall add nothing further but my real Wishes That I could tho with the loss of all that 's dear to me in this World contribute to the utter Exclusion of Popery by all lawful means and I do and shall always pray for a Blessing upon their Designs who sincerely endeavour to procure a Settlement of the Religion Liberties and Properties of the Subjects upon so sure a foundation that there may be no danger of the Nations relapsing into the like miseries at any time hereafter Some short Notes on a Pamphlet entitled Reflections upon our late and present Proceedings in England A Man must read much of this Author 's profound Work before he can fathom the Depths of it and find what his Design is or whether indeed he has any Design at all unless it be that of making a Book He tells us at length after much Strugling and a tedious Repetition of what every body knows perhaps better than himself That all Orders of Men Ecclesiastick Civil and Military did put the Regal Administration into the Prince of Orange's Hands and that the Intent of our Proceedings will at least excuse if not justify us I would have this knowing Gentleman inform the World into what Hands the Regal Administration could be better put And if the Nation could not do better whether this their Action does not justify it self But says he a little above How did we all generally concur and unanimously agree to forget our Obligations to our Soveraign And in Page 4 he tells us That the Prince of Orange hath done a great thing for us and wrought such Deliverance for the Nation as ought never to be forgotten and can never be sufficiently requited I do not at all doubt but this Gentleman can more easily write half a dozen such Books as this is than reconcile these notable Passages He acknowledges we have been rescued out of the Hands of him that hated us and would have destroyed us without a cause and yet reproaches us with forgetting our Obligations to our Soveraign In Page 5. he has this sharp Question Let every Man ask himself for what reason he became a party in this general Defection Was it to divest the King of all Power to protect his Subjects c. To repeat these Absurdities is a sufficient Answer to them And then again in the next Page That whatever some obnoxious and ambitious Men might aim at all good Christians had other Intentions They were sensibly concerned for the Preservation of their Holy Religion in the first place Their Lives their Laws their Liberties in the next And after the way which some call Heresy so were they desirous still to worship the God of their Fathers and after that manner which some might say was Rebellion so they thought themselves oblig'd to stand up for the Laws and Liberties of their Forefathers What measures of Obedience this Man is for and what he would have us to do or not to do I am not able to divine from his Book for he seems to dislike in one place what he approves in another But he tells us in Page 6 7 of his Fears of the Government being undermined both in Church and State and that he shall be reduced to the Dutch or some other foreign measures which can never be well received in England till an Act be past to abolish Monarchy Episcopacy c. If this Gentleman's Distractions be not so great as to hinder him the use of his two chief Senses he may now perceive that his Fears are as vain as others perceive his Reasoning to be But in Page 8. he states a notable Question for he supposes his Father to be as churlish as Cain and as poor as Job and yet maintains he is his Father O admirably put But what 's this to a King 's apparent Design of ruining and enslaving a People who have the same both Natural and Civil Right to their Lives and Liberties as he has to his But shall we run says he into Popery and perhaps Slavery too and is not the Deposing a Popish Doctrine p. 11. and as for Slavery Must not a standing Army be necessarily kept up to maintain a Title founded only on the consent of the fickle and uncertain People If the Lords and Commons of England are this fickle and uncertain People I know not where our Author will find more substantial Folks unless he fancies they are to be met with amongst the Mobile And as to the Popish Deposing Doctrine I have already shewed our case comes in no sort near it for the late King's Religion did not hinder his possessing himself of the Throne neither was that the Cause of his leaving it for he might have enjoyed it and made the best of it as to himself in all Freedom but he thought it beneath him to stop here and not impose his false Worship on all his Subjects trampling all the Laws of the Kingdom under his Feet and thereby claiming not only an absolute Empire over the Bodies but the Minds of his Subjects Our Author likewise shews himself a notable Well-wisher to our Religion and Liberties when he represents a standing Army page 11. in the present Exigency of Affairs to be such a Grievance and that too under a Prince who has not been only born and educated in the greatest Aversion to Popery and the only Prince uncorrupted by the French King but whose Genius and Interests do every ways so answer the Necessity of our Nation that we have no other cause of Fear or Trouble but at the sense of our own Unworthiness of so great a Blessing He seems in p. 12 and 13 to be in great Labour left the Prince of Orange should make himself a King contrary to the express Terms of his Declaration and Pretences of coming over here To which may be answered that he has in no sort violated that Declaration for he did not thrust himself into the Throne and as to his being so now both de jure and de facto this being a matter decided by the Justice Wisdom and Supream Authority of the Nation it 's foolish Presumption and no less conceited Ignorance for any private Person to argue it Our wise Author seems to be moreover concerned and greatly troubled at the Effects produced by the third Declaration for he says It did more harm to the King's Affairs than all the other Papers publisht at that time whence he concludes its plain that Sophistry and Tricks are made use of if they will but do the Business What would this Man have would he have both to
Counsellors whom he had pardoned and was in Honour bound to protect them having himself forced them to be Criminals 3. The third was The consenting to the entire Ruin of Popery in England by hanging many of his Priests and Jesuits and banishing all the rest and pulling down all the Schools and Chappels they had erected all over England a sure Sign they were built upon an Immortal Prince of Wales though this was done before by the unaccountable Zeal of the Mobile 4. He foresaw such a Parliament would not only damn the Ecclesiastical Court that Beast with seven Heads and the Dispensing Power but would in all probability lessen his Revenue and bind up the Prerogative which his great Spirit could not bear 5. The Prince he foresaw would have demanded some Forts to be put into his Hands and the Parliament for their Security so said he If I stay I shall be but a Nominal King of England and only be an Instrument to ruin my Religion my â—riends the Monarchy and the Child also At first he alledged That the Disorders the Preparations to repel the Invasion caused would not suffer a Parliament to meet Secondly After the Prince was landed that all the Countries he had under him would not be free Thirdly That all that had joined with him ought not to sit but when he saw the whole Army and Nation the Roman Catholicks excepted of the same mind mere Force drove him to consent to Call a Parliament and when he had again considered the Consequences of it he at last resolved to throw up the Crown and Government all at once rather than to submit to all these Hardships He seems to have had at the same time a fluttering hope that 1. We should never be able long to agree after he had made it impossible for us to have a Legal Parliament by burning the Writs 2. That the Church of England Principles would when the fear and disorder was over form for him a potent Army in the Nation And 3. That the French King would lend him potent Forces and good store of Mony and if he recovered the Throne by force he should be freed of all these Miseries and have what he only wanted before a Popish Army to insure the Slavery of England for ever Now I would desire those Protestants who pretend now too late to be so zealous for him to consider whether what I have said would not have been expected from him by them for their Security and what they would have done had he called a Parliament and refused them all these things and have insisted That they should have taken his Word as to the Birth of the Prince of Wales have suffered him to have been educated in France and have suffered the Army the Prerogative the Ministers and the Revenues to have continued entirely as they were upon a Promise He would have used them better for the future If they say No They would have had the best Security that Law or Reason could have required Then all the hard things I have mentioned must have been granted them and I much question whether he would now return to the Throne on those terms If they say We ought however to have treated with him have offered him terms I say it would have come to a separate Treaty and the Church the Liberties of the Nation and the Government would have been ruined that way and when all had been done no Bond that he could have broken would have held him longer than the Necessity had continued The only Advantage we could pretend to have by the coming over of the Prince of Orange with an Army was to force the King to what he would never have yielded without that Force Now when he had accordingly passed his Word to the Nation in the Proclamation of the Thirtieth of November That there should be a Free Parliament and to the Prince of Orange in his Message by the three Lords That he would consent to every thing that could reasonably be required for the Security of those that come to it and yet without any Provocation would burn the Writs and resolve to withdraw his Person before these Lords couâ—d possibly return him any Answer for he promised the Queen to follow her who went away the day before him I say this breach of his Word so solemnly made and given both to the Nation and the Prince shew that he was not Master of himself but turned about by others whither they pleased Now suppose the Prince had suffered him to continue at Whiteâ—al and to call a Third Parliament what aâ—surance could he have given that in the end of another forty days we should not have the same trick play'd us and then in March or April have been left in the same state of Confusion we were in in December to the certain Ruin of these three Kingdoms and Holland into the bargain And when all had been done the Scruples would have been the same they are now the Obligations of the Oath of Allegiance the same and the sin of Deposing a Lawful Prince who resolved to do the Nation no Right would have been much greater and more scandalous than barely to take him at his Word and since he had left the Throne empty when he needed not to resolve he should ascend it no more Lastly Suppose the Prince had been Expelled by the King Would the King have then granted us what he would not grant us now Would he not have Disbanded his Protestant Army and have kept the Irish Forces in Pay and have every day encreased them What Respect would he ever after this have shewn to the English Laws Religion or Liberties when he had no longer any thing to fear The memory of what happened after the Monmouth defeat though effected only by Church of England Men will certainly never be forgotten by others whatever the Bigots of this sort of Loyalty may pretend or say That Expression of the Lord Churchil's in his Letter That he could no longer joyn with Self-interested Men who had framed Designs against His Majesty's true Interest and the Protestant Religion to give a pretence by Conquest to bring them to effect ought to be seriously considered by all the Protestants of the Nation This one Argument prevailed upon him when he ran the hazard of his Life Reputation and Fortunes and now they are all on the other side I should consider very seâ—iously if I were one of them what Answer I could make to this turned into a Question in the Day of Death and Judgment before ever I should Act the direâ—t contrary to what he has done For my part I am amazed to see Men scruple the submitting to the present King for if eveâ— Man had a just cause of War he had and that creates a Right to the thing gained by it the King by withdrawing and disbâ—nding his Army yielded him the Throne and if he had without any more Ceremony ascended it he had done no more
Divine Infatuation in it However certainly no rational Man will think that all the Princes of Europe would sit still and suffer the French King to conquer Britain under pretence of restoring Iames the Second to that Throne which he had abandon'd because he could not bring the Prince of Orange their Allie and all his Protestant Subjects to his own Terms And yet if none of them should interpose but the Hollanders alone the English and Dutch Fleets being united would render the landing a French Army so difficult and uncertain that it would be next door to madness to trust one to their Navy which is so much inferior to either of the others singly taken So that all things considered either Iames the Second ought to have stayed at home and have made as good terms as he could with the Prince of Orange and his own Subjects Or if he would have abandon'd his Kingdoms he ought to have despaired of any restitution and have betaken himself to a private Life as Christina Queen of Sweden did But we have now certain Intelligence that Iames the Second Landed the 12 th of March at Kingsale in Ireland so that now it cannot be doubted but that he hopes to recover England and Scotland by the help of the Irish as well as the French. His succeeding in this Design laying us at the Mercy of an Irish-French Roman Catholick Army whose Civility and Kindness to our Nation we may learn from our Country-men who after having lost all but their Lives have been forced to flee over to us for Shelter and Protection I shall not add any other consideration to perswade my Country-men to defend their King Queen and the whole Protestant Succession their Lives Liberties Priviledges and Religion because this alone is sufficient The Iudgment of the Court of France concerning the Misgovernment of K. James the Second THE Author who is a Papist that wrote that smart Treatise called A Letter from Monsieur to Monsieur concerning the Transactions of the Times c. writes thus concerning the late King Iames viz. King Iames ought to learn what he has to expeâ—t from France into whose Arms he has thrown himself France already knows all his Faults and publishes them For this Composure issuing immediately from that Court owns 1. His whole Conduct was very little judicious 2. That he has followed blind Counsels and such as are very pernicious to his own Repose and Security 3. That he has unadvisedly affected to pull down the Protestant Religion which was that of the State. 4. That he has used an imprudent Rigour as well to the Bishops as to the Universities 5. That he was unwise in going about to take off the Test and Penal Laws which the English look upon as the Sanctuary of the Kingdom 6. That his Gust and Fondness for the Court of Rome and the Monks whom he meant to restore was ridiculous and whimsical 7. That his going about to give Imploys to Catholicks by taking them away from Protestants gave but two much reason to all the Members of the State to complain This is exactly the Judgment passed by the Court of France upon the late K. Iames of England I leave him to think what Succours he is like to expect from a Court that values him so little and that without any more ado speaks of him at this rate would he have more It roundly declares to him That the restoring the King of England is not an Enterprise easy to be executed by a King how great soever he may be against whom all the Powers of Europe are preparing to make War. This is a Hint broad enough o' Conscience and King Iames ought to be satisfied that he knows the French Courts mind The Emperor of Germany's Account of K. James's Misgovernment in joining with the King of France the Common Enemy of Christendom in his Letter to King James viz. LEOPOLD c. WE have received your Majesties Letters dated from St. Germans the sixth of February last by the Earl of Carlingford your Envoy in our Court By them we have understood the Condition your Majesty is reduced to and that you being deserted after the landing of the Prince of Orange by your Army and even by your Domestick Servants and by those you most confided in and almost by all your Subjects you have been forced by a sudden Flight to provide for your own safety and to seek Shelter and Protection in France Lastly that you desire Assistance from us for the recovering your Kingdoms We do assure your Majesty that as soon as we heard of this severe turn of Affairs we were moved at it not only with the common sense of Humanity but with much deeper Impressions suitable to the sincere Affection which we have always born to you And we were heartily sorry that at last that was come to pass which though we hoped for better things yet our own sad thoughts had suggested to us would ensue If your Majesty had rather given Credit to the Friendly Remonstrances that were made you by our late Envoy the Count de Kaunitz in our Name than the deceitful Insinuations of the French whose chief aim was by fomenting continual Divisions between you and your People to gain ther by an Opportunity to insult the more securely over the rest of Christendom And if your Majesty had put a stop by your Force and Authority to their many Infractions of the Peace of which by the Treaty at Nimegen you are made the Guarantee and to that end entred into Consultations with us and such others as have the like just Sentiments in this matter We are verily perswaded that by this means you should have in a great measure quieted the Minds of your People which were so much exasperated through their aversion to our Religion and the publick Peace had been preserved as well in your Kingdoms as here in the Roman Empire But now we refer it even to your Majesty to judg what condition we can be in to afford you any Assistance we being not only engaged in a War with the Turks but finding our selves at the same time unjustly and barbarously Attacked by the French contrary to and against the Faith of Treaties they then reckoning themselves secure of England And this ought not to be concealed that the greatest Injuries which have been done to our Religion have flowed from no other than the French themselves who not only esteem it lawful for them to make Presidious Leagues with the sworn Enemies of the Holy Cross tending to the destruction both of us and of the whole Christian World in order to the checking our Endeavours which were undertaken for the Glory of God and to stop those Successes which it hath pleased Almighty God to give us hitherto but further have heaped one Treachery upon another even within the Empire it self The Cities of the Empire which were surrendered upon Articles signed by the Dolphin himself have been exhausted by excessive Impositions and
by my Lord of Canterbury intimate their Thoughts about that Affair and their readiness to the King who was pleased not only to permit them to give him the best and most particular Advices but to encourage them to do it with all the freedom that was necessary for the present Occasion Upon this Royal Invitation their Lordships assembled together the next day at my Lord of Canterbury's Palace and prepared upon the most mature deliberation such Matters as they judged necessary for hiâ— Majesty's Knowledg and Consideration And on the Wednesday after waited on the King in a Body when his Grace in his own and in the name of the rest of the Bishops then present did in a most excellent Speech represent to his Majesty such things as were thought by them absolutely necessary to the Settlement of the Nation amidst the present Distractions and to the publick Interest of Church and State. I am assured that his Grace delivered himself upon this Critical Occasion as with all dutifulness to his Majesty so with all the readiness and the courage that did become such an Apostolical Arch-Bishop as God hath blest our Church of England with at this Time. You must not expect here his excellent Words but an Abridgment of them according to my Talent in a meaner Stile I. First the Bishops thought fit to represent in general to his Majesty That it was necessary for Him to restore all things to the state in which He found them when He came to the Crown by committing all Offices and Places of Trust in the Government to such of the Nobility and Gentry as were qualified for them according to the Laws of this Kingdom and by Redressing and Removing such Grievances as were generally complain'd of II. Particularly That his Majesty would Dissolve the Ecclesiastical Commission and promise to His People never to Erect any such Court for the future III. That He would not only put an effectual stop to the issuing forth of any Dispensations but would Call in and Cancel all those which had since his coming to the Crown been obtained from Him. IV. That he would Restore the Vniversities to their Legal State and to their Statutes and Customs and would particularly Restore the Master of Magdalen Colledge in Cambridge to the Profits of his Mastership which he had been so long Deprived of by an Illegal Suspension and the Ejected President and Fellows of Magdalen Colledge in Oxford to their Properties in that Colledge And that He would not permit any Persons to enjoy any of the Preferments in either Vniversity but such as are qualified by the Statutes of the Vniversities the particular Statutes of their several Foundations and the Laws of the Land. V. That He would suppress the Iesuits Schools opened in this City or elsewhere and grant no more Licenses for such Schools as are apparently against the Laws of this Nation and His Majesty's True Interest VI. That He would send Inhibitions after those Four Romish Bishops who under the Title of Apostolick Vicars did presume to Exercise within this Kingdom such Iurisdictions as are by the Laws of the Land Invested in the Bishops of the Church of England and ought not to be Violated or Attempted by them VII That He would suffer no more Quo Warranto's to be issued out against any Corporations but would restore to those Corporations which had been already disturbed their ancient Charters Priviledges Grants and Immunities and Condemn all those late Illegal Regulations of Corporations by putting them into their late Flourishing Condition and Legal Establishment VIII That He would fill up all the Vacant Bishopricks in England and Ireland with Persons duly qualified according to the Laws and would especially take into His Consideration the See of York whose want of an Archbishop is very prejudicial to that whole Province IX That He would Act no more upon a Dispensing Power nor insist upon it but permit that Affair at the first Session of a Parliament to be fairly Stated and Debated and Settled by Act of Parliament X. That upon the Restoration of Corporations to their Ancient Charters and Burroughs to their Prescriptive Rights He would Order Writs to be issued out for a fair and free Parliament and suffer it to Sit to Redress all Grievances to Settle Matters in Church and State upon just and solid Foundations and to Establish a due Liberty of Conscience XI Lastly and above all That His Majesty would permit some of His Bishops to lay such Motives and Arguments before him as might by the Blessing of GOD bring back His Majesty unto the Communion of Our Holy Church of England into whose Catholick Faith He had been Baptized in which He had been Educated and to which it was their earnest and daily Prayer to Almighty GOD that His Majesty might be Reunited All these Counsels were concluded with a Prayer to GOD in whose Hands the Hearts of Kings are for a good Effect upon them especially the last about bringing the King back to the Protestant Religion And now Sir I cannot but ask you What grounds there are for any Mens Jealousies of the Bishops Proceedings Pray shew this Letter to all your Friends that some may lay down their Fears and others may have this Antidote against taking any up I do assure you and I am certain I have the best grounds in the World for my assurance That the Bishops will never stir one Jot from their PETITION but that they will whenever that happy Opportunity shall offer itself let the Protestant Dissenters find that they will be better than their Word given in their Famous PETITION In the mean time let You and I Commend the Prudence of these Excellent Bishops Admire their Courage and Celebrate their just Praises and never forget to offer up most fervent Thanks to GOD for his Adorning the Church of England at this Juncture with such Eminent Apostolical Bishops I am with all Respect Yours N. N. The PETITION of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal for the Calling of a Free Parliament Together with his Majesty's Gracious Answer to their Lordships To the KING 's most Excellent Majesty The Humble Petition of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal Whose Names are Subscribed May it please your Majesty WE your Majesty's most Loyal Subjects in a deep Sense of the Miseries of a War now breaking forth in the Bowels of this your Kingdom and of the Danger to which your Majesty's Sacred Person is thereby like to be Exposed and also of the Distractions of your People by reason of their present Grievances do think our selves bound in Conscience of the Duty we owe to God and our Holy Religion to your Majesty and our Country most humbly to offer to your Majesty That in our Opinion the only visible Way to preserve your Majesty and this your Kingdom would be the Calling of a Parliament Regular and Free in all its Circumstances And Your Petitioners shall ever pray c. W. Cant. Grafton Ormond Dorset Clare Clarendon
Oath of the German That he would either do that which he was to propose to him or presently go out of the Country The German said He could not go out of the Country for he had no Mony And then he gave him eight Ducats in Gold and then he he swore the Oath So the other proposed to him the poysoning the Prince of Orange that startled him but apprehending he should be killed if he refused it he undertook it The other told him That in the last Age Men had tried Stabbing or Shooting but these were dangerous Things Poisoning was a safe and sure way He added That he should have 3000 Pistols in hand and a Fortune besides The German ask'd From whom The other who called himself Corne and spoke French like a Stranger but the German cannot judg what Nation he was of the other I say said to him That if he had the Mony he was not concern'd to know from whence it came In short he made a Proposition to the German giving him a Quill with a Water in it carefully stop'd and told him that he the German lodged in the House of an inconsiderable Man of whom no regard would be had and if he would cut the Quill so that one drop of the Liquor fell into any thing that his Landlord was to drink he would be certainly dead before to Morrow and if he would begin with him one should come to him to such a place to Morrow having a white Feather in his Hat who should deliver him 1500 Pistols and instruct him how to manage the Poisoning the Prince which he should find would be easy and safe then upon his going on he should have the rest of the Mony. The German went Home but was struck with Horror and so resolved to keep that part of his Oath of going out of the Country yet he shew'd another his Gold and told him of his going Home But from Osnaburgh he writ to one about the Prince this happned in the beginning of March last So he was desired to come back which he did and the Matter being brought into the Court of Holland upon an Oath of Secresy Mr. Halewyn Deputy of Dort and another were sent with him to Amsterdam they found many collatoral Confirmations of part of his Story but no such Man could be seen in all the Places where he had met with him formerly the German came to the Hague and being in the Fair seeing one of the Shews and a Dane with him as they came out in a huge Crowd the German complain'd that one struck him on the Breast with a Battoon But this was not minded till they were quite out and he found one had struck at him as it seems with a Stilletto under the left Pap his Cloak and Coat were cut and the Wound proved but a slight Scratch the Quill with the Poison in it sealed is in the Court. It seems a German was thought a fit Tool being of a Nation that would not be easily suspected and the putting it on a Lutheran would have been thought a Master-piece I give you this Account which I will Answer for to satisfy some of your Friends both Here and in England who will perhaps desire to know the Certainty of this Matter A Relation from the City of Orange of a Crown of LIGHT that was there seen in the Air the 6 th of May 1688. ON the 6 th of May 1665 when his Royal Highness the Prince of Orange took Possession of that Principality and whilst his Deputy Mr. Ziulechem was taking the Oath of Allegiance of all the People in the Prince's Name which was done in the Fields in the Enclosure of the old Roman Cirque that yet remains over the Chair of State that was set there for the Prince a Crown of Light appear'd in the Air and hover'd over the Chair above an hour And now this Year 1688 the same day of the Month in the same place the like Crown appear'd and continued there three Hours all the People of Orange looking on all the difference between this Years Crown and that of 1665 being that this had an Edg of Red about it This is written from Orange by an Old Professor of Physick that is past sixty and not apt to take Things upon Trust he writes that he himself as well as all the Town look'd on it for above two Hours with great admiration of that strange Meteor An Account of that strange Meteor in 1665 is relatâ—d by Aitrema in his 5 th Tome fol. 595. well attested and he is a good Author Lord Del r's Speech THE occasion of this is to give you my Thoughts upon the present Conjuncture which concerns not only you but every Protestant and Free-born Man of England I am confident that wishes well to the Protestant Religion and his Country and I am perswaded that every Man of you thinks both in danger and now to lie at stake I am also perswaded that every Man of you will rejoice to see Religion and Property settled if so then I am not mistaken in my Conjectures concerning you Can you everhope for a better Occasion to root out POPERY and SLAVERY than by joining with the P. of O. whose Proposals contain and speak the Desires of every Man that loves his Religion and Liberty And in saying this I will invite you to nothing but what I will do my self and I will not desire any of you to go any further than I will move my self neither will I put you upon any Danger where I will not take share in it I propose this to you not as you are my Tenants but as my Friends and as you are Englishmen No Man can love fighting for its own sake nor find any Pleasure in Danger And you may imagine I would be very glad to spend the rest of my Days in Peace I having had so great a share in Troubles but I see all lies at Stake I am to chuse whether I will be a Slave and a Papist or a Protestant and a Freeman and therefore the Case being thus I shall think my self false to my Country if I sit still at this time I am of Opinion that when the Nation is deliver'd it must be by Force or by Miracle It would be too great a presumption to expect the latter and therefore our Deliverance must be by Force and I hope this is the Time for it a Price is now put into our Hands and if it miscarry for want of Assistance our Blood is upon our own Heads and he that is passive at this Time may very well expect that God will mock when the Fear of Affliction comes upon him which he thought to avoid by being indifferent If the K. prevails farewel Liberty of Conscience which has hitherto been allowed not for the sake of the Protestants but in order to settle Popery You may see what to expect if he get the better and he hath lately given you of this Town a
taste of the Method whereby he will maintain his Army And you may see of what sort of People he intends his Army to consist and if you have not a mind to serve such Masters then stand not by and see your Country-men perish when they are endeavouring to defend you I promise this on my Word and Honour to every Tenant that goes along with me That if he fall I will make his Lease as good to his Family as it was when he went from home The thing then which I desire and your Country does expect from you is this That every Man that hath a tollerable Horse or can procure one will meet me on Boden-Downs to morrow where I Randezvouz But if any of you is rendred unable by reason of Age or any other just Excuse then that he would mount a fitter Person and put five Pounds in his Pocket Those that have not nor cannot procure Horse let them stay at home and assist with their Purses and send it to me with a particular of every Man's Contribution I impose on no Man but let him lay his Hand on his Heart and consider what he is willing to give to recover his Religion and Liberty and to such I promise and to all that go along with me that if we prevail I will be as industrious to have him recompenced for his Charge and Hazard as I will be to seek it for my self This Advice I give to all that stay behind That when you hear the Papists have committed any Out-rage or any Rising that you will get together for it is better to meet your Danger than expect it I have no more to say but that I am willing to lose my Life in the Cause if God see it good for I was never unwilling to die for my Religion and Country Prince GEORGE'S LETTER TO THE KING SIR WIth a Heart full of Grief am I forced to write that Prudence will not permit me to say to your Face And may I e'er find Credit with your Majesty and Protection from Heaven as what I now do is free from Passion Vanity or Design with which Actions of this Nature are too often accompanied I am not ignorant of the frequent Mischiefs wrought in the World by factious Pretences of Religion but were not Religion the most justifiable Cause it would not be made the most specious Pretence And your Majesty has always shewn too uninterested a Sense of Religion to doubt the just Effects of it in one whose Practices have I hope never given the World cause to censure his real Conviction of it or his backwardness to perform what his Honour and Conscience prompt him to How then can I longer disguise my just Concern for that Religion in which I have been so happily educated which my Judgment throughly convinces me to be the best and for the Support of which I am so highly interested in my Native Country and is not England now by the most endearing Tie become so Whilst the restless Spirits of the Enemies of the REFORMED RELIGION back'd by the cruel Zeal and prevailing Power of France justly alarm and unite all the Protestant Princes of Christendom and engage them in so vast an Expence for the support of it can I act so degenerous and mean a part as to deny my Concurrence to such worthy Endeavours for disabusing of your Majesty by the Reinforcement of those Laws and Establishment of that Government on which alone depends the well-being of your Majesty and of the PROTESTANT RELIGION in Europe This Sir is that irresistable and only Cause that cou'd come in Competition with my Duty and Obligations to your Majesty and be able to tear me from you whilst the same Affectionate Desire of serving you continues in me Could I secure your Person by the Hazard of my Life I should think it could not be better emploied And wou'd to God these your distracted Kingdoms might yet receive that satisfactory Compliance from your Majesty in all their justifiable Pretensions as might upon the only sure Foundation that of the Love and Interest of your Subjects establish your Government and as strongly unite the Hearts of all your Subjects to You as is that of SIR Your Majesty's most Humble and most Obedient Son and Servant The Lord CHURCHIL'S LETTER to the KING SIR SInce Men are seldom suspected of Sincerity when they act contrary to their Interests and though my dutiful Behaviour to your Majesty in the worst of Times for which I acknowledg my poor Services much over-paid may not be sufficient to incline You to a charitable Interpretation of my Actions yet I hope the great Advantage I enjoy under Your Majesty which I can never expect in any other Change of Government may reasonably convince Your Majesty and the World that I am acted by a higher Principle when I offer that violence to my Inclination and Interest as to desert Your Majesty at a time when your Affairs seem to challenge the strictest Obedience from all Your Subjects much more from one who lies under the greatest personal Obligations imaginable to Your Majesty This Sir could proceed from nothing but the inviolable Dictates of my CONSCIENCE and a necessary concern for my RELIGION which no good Man can oppose and with which I am instructed nothing ought to come in Competition Heaven knows with what partiality my dutiful Opinion of Your Majesty hath hitherto represented those unhappy Designs which inconsiderate and self-interested Men have framed against Your Majesty's true Interest and the Protestant Religion But as I can no longer joyn with such to give a pretence by Conquest to bring them to effect so will I always with the hazard of my Life and Fortune so much Your Majesty's due endeavour to preserve Your Royal Person and Lawful Rights with all the tender Concern and dutiful Respect that becomes SIR Your Majesty's most dutiful and most obliged Subject and Servant The Princess ANNE of Denmark's LETTER to the QVEEN MADAM I Beg your pardon if I am so deeply affected with the surprising News of the Princes being gone as not to be able to see You but to leave this Paper to Express my humble Duty to the King and your Self and to let You know that I am gone to absent my self to avoid the King's Displeasure which I am not able to bear either against the Prince or my self and I shall stay at so great a distance as not to return before I hear the happy News of a Reconcilement And as I am confident the Prince did not leave the King with any other Design than to use all possible means for his Preservation so I hope You will do me the Justice to believe that I am uncapable of following him for any other End. Never was any one in such an unhappy Condition so divided between Duty and Affection to a Father and a Husband and therefore I know not what to do but to follow one to preserve the other I see the general
Administration of Justice so that it is really a Dissolution of the Government since all Trials Sentences and the Executions of them are become so many unlawful Acts that are null and void of themselves The next Thing in our Constitution which secures to us our Laws and Liberties is a Free and Lawful Parliament Now not to mention the breach of the Law of Triennial Parliaments it being above three Years since we had a Session that enacted any Law Methods have been taken and are daily a taking that render this impossible Parliaments ought to be chosen with an entire Liberty and without either Force or Preingagements whereas if all Men are required before-hand to enter into Engagements how they will vote if they are chosen themselves or how they will give their Voices in the Electing of others This is plainly such a preparation to a Parliament as would indeed make it no Parliament but a Cabal if one were chosen after all that Corruption of Persons who had preingaged themselves and after the Threating and Turning out of all Persons out of Imploiments who had refused to do it And if there are such daily Regulations made in the Towns that it is plain those who manage them intend at last to put such a number of Men in the Corporations as will certainly chuse the Persons who are recommended to them But above all if there are such a number of Sheriffs and Mayors made over England by whom the Elections must be conducted and returned who are now under an Incapacity by Law and so are no legal Officers and by consâ—quence those Elections that pass under their Authority are null and void If I say it is clear that things are brought to this then the Government is dissolved because it is impossible to have a Free and Legal Parliament in this state of things If then both the Authority of the Law and the Constitution of the Parliament are struck at and dissolved here is a plain Subversion of the whole Government But if we enter next into the particular Branches of the Government we will find the like Disorder among them all The Protestant Religion and the Church of England make a great Article of our Government the latter being secured not only of old by Magna Charta but by many special Laws made of late and there are particuâ—ar Laws made in K. Charles the First and the late King's Time securing them from all Commissions that the King can raise for â—udging or Censuring them If then in opposition to this a Court so condemned is ercted which proceeds to Judg and Censure the Clergy and even to disseise them of their Free-holds without so much as the form of a Trial though this is the most indispensable Law of all those that secures the Property of England and if the King pretends that he can require the Clergy to publish all his Arbitrary Declarations and in particular one that strikes at their whole Settlement and has ordered Process to be begun against all that disobey'd this illegal Warrant and has treated so great a number of the Bishops as Criminals only for representing to him the Reasons of their not obeying him If likewise the King is not satisfied to profess his own Religion openly though even that is contrary to Law but has sent Ambassadors to Rome and received Nuncio's from thence which is plainly Treason by Law If likewise many Popish Churches and Chappels have been publickly opened if several Colledges of Iesuits have been set up in divers parts of the Nation and one of the Order has been made a Privy Counsellor and a principal Minister of State And if Papists and even those who turn to that Religion though declared Traitors by Law are brought into all the chief Imploiments both Military and Civil then it is plain That all the Rights of the Church of England and the whole Establishment of the Protestant Religion are struck at and design'd to be overturned since all these Things as they are notoriously illegal so they evidently demonstrate That the great Design of them all is the rooting out of this Pestilent Heresy in their stile I mean the Protestant Religion In the next place If in the whole course of Justice it is visible that there is a constant practising upon the Judges that they are tâ—rned out upon their varying from the Intentions of the Court and if Men of no Reputation nor Abilities are â—ut in their places If an Army is kept up in time of Peace â—â—d Men who withdraw from that illegal Service are hanged up as Criminals without any colour of Law which by consequence are so many Murders and if the Souldiery are connived at and encouraged in the most enormous Crimes that so they may be thereby prepared to commit greater ones and from single Rapes and Murders proceed to a Rape upon all our Liberties and a Destruction of the Nation If I say all these things are true in Fact then it is plain that there is such a Dissolution of the Government made that there is not any one part of it left sound and entire And if all these things are done now it is easie to imagine what may be expected when Arbitrary Power that spares no Man and Popery that spares no Heretick are finally established Then we may look for nothing but Gabelles Tailles Impositions Benevolences and all sorts of Illegal Taxes as from the other we may expect Burnings Massacres and Inquisitions In what is doing in Scotland we may gather what is to be expected in England where if the King has over and over again declared that he is vested with an Absolute Power to which all are bound to obey without reserve and has upon that annulled almost all the Acts of Paâ—liament that passed in K. Iames I. Minority though they were ratified by himself when he came to be of Age and were confirmed by all the subsequent Kings not excepting the present We must then conclude from thence what is resolved on here in England and what will be put in Execution as soon as it is thought that the Times can bear it When likewise the whole Settlement of Ireland is shaken and the Army that was raised and is maintained by Taxes that were given for an Army of English Protestants to secure them from a new Massacre by the Irish Papists is now all filled with Irish Papists as well as almost all the other Imployments it is plain that not only all the British Protestants inhabiting that Island are in daily danger of being butchered a second time but that the Crown of England is in danger of losing that Island it being now put wholly into the Hands and Power of the Native Irish who as they formerly offered themselves up sometimes to the Crown of Spain sometimes to the Pope and once to the Duke of Lorrain so are they perhaps at this present treating with another Court for the Sale and Surrender of the Island and for the
his time than be justly reproach'd and curs'd to the End of the World by all such as love the Protestant Religion and ancient Government of England for appearing too late in their Defence The Example of Henry the Fourth of France may teach us how hard it is for a Protestant Prince to obtain his Right where the Catholick Religion is predominant nor was the new Armour of Popery he put on at last sufficient to defend the old Protestant against the Stab of a Jesuited Novitiate 4. His fourth Reflection acquaints us the Protestant Religion is at once expos'd and hazarded for if the King prevail what can the Prince of Orange's sort of Protestants expect at his Hands which are indeed all sorts of Protestants that I know of for the Presbyterians Independants Phanaticks Church-of-England Men are in his Army 'T is fair warning and I hope God will give the Protestants Grace to make the right use of it As for their changing Masters 't is a Chimera of his own and utterly foreign to the Declaration he pretends to reflect upon Lest we should forget he remindâ— us with that admirable Demonstration of I say that the whole Protestant Religion is at stake for which I heartily thank our worthy Reflector for tho it be very true we had not seen it in Print but for him 5. In his fifth Reflection he tells us that some Laws are better broken than kept which will not be easily granted 't is indeed true that some Laws were better be repealed than continued But then they must be null'd by the same Power they were constituted and not by any part of it in contradiction to the whole His instance is That Christianity could not have been introduc'd had the Pagan Laws been executed by which Parallel he would warrant Popery to be the true Christianity and the Protestant the Heathen Persecutors Laws for Idolatry cannot bind therefore Laws against it cannot a very strange Inference and I allow that a Lawful Authority by exceeding their just Bounds may act unlawfully but the Legislative Power cannot since all over the World the Supream Power ever was absolute be it in one or more He says no Man is obliged to maintain a Religion that is not true be it never so legally established So that it is but saying the Protestant Religion is not true and His Majesty notwithstanding his repeated Ingagements is no longer bound to protect it For in the words of our Reflector 't is an Absurdity and Impiety to do so 6. The sixth thing considerable in our Reflector is his Defence of the Dispensing Power and the use His Majesty seduc'd by his Evil Councellors makes of it which is no other than the setting aside of all our Laws made for the Security of the Protestant Religion but sure such a Prerogative can never be legally vested in the Crown which if admitted were the destruction of all Law. Had those Evil Counsellors only prevailed with his Majesty to have dispensed with the Penalties inflicted on Catholicks and other Dissenters for serving of God according to their particular Consciences though perhaps contrary to Law the matter had never been complained of But to put them into Places of the highest Trust to make one Lieutenant of Ireland another President of the Council a third Lieutenenant General of the Tower a fourth a Judg imploying numbers of them in the Army Court c. is a Transgression of the Law which is certainly very dangerous if not immediately yet inevitable in its Consequences to the Protestant Religion and Government and therefore a Mischief remote only as an Egg is from a Chicken from the worthy Reflector's Malum in se which he acknowledges this Dispensing Power extends not to And the particular Catholicks breaking the Law in these Points are without Excuse For no Man is obliged in Conscience to be a Judg a Priest a Minister a Privy-Councellor a Courtier or a Souldier in time of Peace contrary to the Laws of the Land. Nor do those Laws deprive the King of the Service of any of his Subjects absolutely since all Men if they please may capacitate themselves for Imployment If the High-Commission-Court be at an end Magdalen-Colledge and the Bishop of London restored we may in all appearance thank the Honesty and Caution of some of its worthy Members and the Noise of what our Reflector calls the Prince of Orange's Invasion though some will say a Descent upon England made by a Prince of the Blood Married to the Eldest Daughter of the present King upon the Invitation of many Lords both Spiritual and Temporal and of the considerable Gentry Commonalty of all Counties might have deserved a fairer Name Nor ought any Man to complain if his honest Neighbour break violently into his House at a time when his Family cry out Fire or Murther the common Obligation of Humanity and a due care of their own Preservation exact no less of them But this Paper is not intended for a Vindication of the Prince I will therefore return to my Reflector again who undertakes for all good Protestants that they only refus'd to repeal the Test by reason of the Security it affords to their Religion As if they had cast off all care of their Civil Concerns and were only intent upon Religious Affairs so as to consent to give his Majesty a Majority of Papists in the House of Lords by which he might have two Negative Voices upon all Laws to be offer'd and an House of Pears ready to repeal the Habeas Corpus Bill and such Statutes as any ways seem to incumber what Papists think his Majesties Prerogative of which they maintain the Dispensing Power to be an Essential Part and well they may since it is the very Power by which he maintains them in Places and Imployments So that by leave of my worthy Reflector the Considerations of Religion tho they are the principal are not the only Reasons that have determined all good Protestants to a Non-concurrence with his Majesty in the Repeal of the Test. 8. In his eighth Reflection he tells us That Chappels are places of Devotion so are Turks Mosques and the Iews Synagogues yet no good Christian but would be offended to see them multiply'd and encouraged either in his own or his Neighbours Country 9. In his ninth he tells us The King was content the Test should remain I answer These Evil Counsellors were not content the Test should remain but sent their Regulators and other Agents to threaten promise remove and change the Magistrates in all Corporations in order to the procuring Members of Parliament such as were to enter the House under solemn Promises and firm Resolutions to take off the Penal Laws and Test notwithstanding all the weighty nay convincing Arguments they might meet with there to the contrary A desperate sort of Senators and fitter for Catalines Conspiracies than an English Parliament Nor did these Evil Counsellors cease to sollicit even Knights of the Shire till
mistaken as Monmouth was Notwithstanding those eminent Peers Gentry and Commonalty of all sorts that are already in his Camp and such as are going daily as well Souldiers as others nor considering the great number of the Nobility that are in the Country and have not been examin'd and that such as were examin'd here in Town did no more than answer Not Guilty to the Charge of High-Treason So that there are more Nobility and Gentry with him than with his Majesty In his three and twentieth Reflection on the 19 th and 20 th Paragraph where the Prince refers all to a free Parliament our Reflector says it belongs not to him to refer other Mens business as if the Prince had no relation to the Crown Then tells us we are already in possession of what the Prince promises us as if the Catholicks were all out of imployment the Dispensing power given up no standing Army no apprehensions of Popery and Arbitrary Power and a Free Parliament for redressing of Grievances of all kinds in being 24. In the twenty fourth Reflection on the three last Paragraphs of the Princes Declaration he tells us The Prince has a manifest design upon the-Crown because he summons the Nobility Gentry and People of England to his Standard And if so who must stay with the King To that may be answered All such as believe the Prince of Orange has brought this Army and intends to make War upon England to subdue it to his meer will and pleasure trample all Laws both Divine and Humane under his Fleet dethrone his present Majesty and make himself King they will stay and fight for him or at least to the best of their power in some other manner assist and help him On the contrary part such as believe the Prince means nothing of all this but brought over his Army only the better to assist the Nobility Gentry and People of England upon their earnest desires and frequent solliciations and reiterated complaints in the recovering of the old Legal way of choosing Members for Parliament which by Illegal new Charters on pretended Forfeitures was in a ready way to be for ever lost in rescuing all the Laws of England from the devouring Jaws of a Dispensing Power in reducing Popery within those bounds the Law has prescribed it which like an Inundation had so over-flowed its Banks that our Religion and Government were in peril to be swallowed up by it and finally to redress these and all other grievances if for these and no other ends or concerns Men think the Prince has landed here such Men will take his part espouse his quarrel and contribute to his success and in these cases every Man will judg for himself as they did in our late Civil Wars Again he charges the Prince with a design of Conquest which not only the Prince himself disclaims throughout his Declaration and will hereafter disown in all his Manifesto's but the States of Holland who have so vigorously assisted and engaged themselves with all their Power and Credit to maintain him in this Attempt have assur'd us he left Holland under high and solemn Protestations to the contrary All this is I hope sufficient to dash the strain'd inferences of an inconsiderable Reflector As for that impudent Calumny of Perjury he endeavours to fix upon the Prince it needs no other refutation than a serious consideration of the Charge it self his Words are The Prince of Orange swore to the States of Holland never to be their State-holder tho' it were offered him and yet is now that very State-holder he swore never to be on any terms Now let any reasonable Man consider whether it be possible a Wise State should by an Oath given him disable the Prince of Orange from being their State-holder tho' Circumstances and times should so change that their immediate preservation and very existence of their State should require him to accept and execute that Office. For his personal Reflections towards the latter end I think very Impertinent and only fit to be buried in Contempt Thus having followed my tedious Reflector through his twenty four Reflections I take my leave of him reserving the Princes farther Vindication to some time when I shall be more at leisure to write and people willinger to read than they can be under the present surprize hourly expectation and continual anxiety for the event of this Heroick Enterprise Admiral HERBERT's Letter to all Commanders of Ships and Sea-men in His Majesty's Fleet. Gentlemen I Have little to add to what his Highness has express'd in general Terms besides laying before you the dangerous Way you are at the present in where Ruin or Infamy must inevitably attend you if you don't join with the Prince in the Common Cause for the Defence of your Religion and Liberties for should it please God for the Sins of the English Nation to suffer your Arms to prevail to what can your Victory serve you but to enslave you deeper and overthrow the True Religion in which you have liv'd and your Fathers dy'd Of which I beg you as a Friend to consider the Consequences and to reflect on the Blot and Infamy it will bring on you not only now but in all After-Ages That by Your means the Protestant Religion was destroy'd and your Country depriv'd of its Ancient Liberties And if it pleases God to bless the Prince's Endeavours with Success as I don't doubt but he will consider then what their Condition will be that oppose him in this so good a Design where the greatest Favour they can hope for is their being suffer'd to end their Days in Misery and Want detested and despised by all good Men. It is therefore and for many more Reasons too long to insert here that I as a true English-man and your Friend exhort you to join your Arms to the Prince for the Defence of the Common Cause the Protestant Religion and the Liberties of your Country It is what I am well assured the major and best part of the Army as well as the Nation will do so soon as convenience is offered Prevent them in so good an Action whilst it is in your Power and make it appear That as the Kingdom hath always depended on the Navy for its Defence so you will yet go further by making it as much as in you lies the Protection of her Religion and Liberties and then you may assuâ—â— your selves of all Marks of Favour and Honour suitable to the Merits of so great and glorious an Action After this I ought not add so inconsiderable a thing as that it will for ever engage me to be in a most particular manner Your faithful Friend and humble Servant AR. HERBERT Abord the Leyden in the Gooree AN ENGAGEMENT OF THE Noble-men Knights and Gentlemen at EXETER to Assist the Prince of ORANGE in the defence of the Protestant Religion Laws and Liberties of the People of England Scotland and Ireland WE do ingage to Almighty God and to
his Highness the Prince of Orange and with one another to stick firm to this Cause and to one another in the Defence of it and never to depart from it until our Religion Laws and Liberties are so far secured to us in a Free Parliament that we shall be no more in danger of falling under Popery and Slavery And whereas We are ingaged in the Common Cause under the Protection of the Prince of Orange by which means his Person may be exposed to Danger and to the desperate and cursed Designs of Papists and other Bloody Men We do therefore solmnly ingage to God and to one another That if any such Attempts be made upon Him We will pursue not only those that made them but all their Adherents and all we find in Arms against Us with the utmost Seveâ—â—ty of just Revenge in their Ruine and Destruction and that the executing any such Attempt which God of his Infinite Mercy forbid shall not deprive us from pursuing this Cause which we do now undertake but that it shall encourage Us to carry it on with all the Vigor that so barbarous Approach shall deserve The Declaration of the Nobility Gentry and Commonalty at the Rendezvous at Nottingham Nov. 22. 1688. WE the Nobility Gentry and Commonalty of these Northern Counties assembled together at Nottingham for the defence of the Laws Religion and Properties according to those free-born Liberties and Priviledges descended to us from our Ancestors as the undoubted Birth-right of the Subjects of this Kingdom of England not doubting but the Infringers and Invaders of our Rights will represent us to the rest of the Nation in the most malicious dress they can put upon us do here unanimously think it our Duty to declare to the rest of our Protestant Fellow-Subjects the Grounds of our present Undertaking We are by innumerable Grievances made sensible that the very Fundamentals of our Religion Liberties and Properties are about to be rooted out by our late Jesuitical Privy-Council as hath been of late too apparent 1. By the King's dispensing with all the Establish'd Laws at his pleasure 2. By displacing all Officers out of all Offices of Trust and Advantage and placing others in their room that are known Papists deservedly made incâ—pable by the Establish'd Laws of our Land. 3. By destroying the Charters of most Corporations in the Land. 4. By discouraging all persons that are not Papists preferring such as turn to Popery 5. By displacing all honest and conscientious Judges unless they would contrary to their Consciences declare that to be Law which was meerly arbitrary 6. By branding all Men with the name of Rebels that but offered to justify the Laws in a legal Course against the arbitrary proceedings of the King or any of his corrupt Ministers 7. By burthening the Nation with an Army to maintain the Violation of the Rights of the Subjects 8. By discountenancing the Establish'd Reformed Religion 9. By forbiding the Subjects the benefit of Petitioning and construing them Libellers so rendring the Laws a Nose of Wax to serve their Arbitrary Ends. And many more such like too long here to enumerate We being thus made sadly sensible of the Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government that is by the Influence of Jesuitical Counsels coming upon us do unanimously declare That not being willing to deliver our Posterity over to such a condition of Popery and Slavery as the aforesaid Oppressions inevitably threaten we will to the utmost of our Power oppose the same by joining with the Prince of Orange whom we hope God Almighty hath sent to rescue us from the Oppressions aforesaid will use our utmost Endeavours for the recovery of our almost ruin'd Laws Liberties and Religion and herein we hope all good Protestant Subjects will with their Lives and Fortunes be assistant to us and not be bugbear'd with the opprobrious Terms of Rebels by which they would fright us to become perfect Slaves to their tyrannical Insolencies and Usurpations for we assure our selves that no rational and unbyassed Person will judg it Rebellion to defend our Laws and Religion which all our Princes have sworn at their Coronations Which Oath how well it hath been observed of late we desire a Free Parliament may have the consideration of We own it Rebellion to resist a King that governs by Law but he was always accounted a Tyrant that made his Will the Law and to resist such an one we justly esteem no Rebellion but a necessary Defence and in this Consideration we doubt not of all honest Mens Assistance and humbly hope for and implore the great God's Protection that turneth the Hearts of his People as pleaseth him best it having been observed That People can never be of one Mind without his Inspiration which hath in all Ages confirmed that Observation Vox Populi est Vox Dei. The pesent restoring of Charters and reversing the oppressing and unjust Judgment given on Magdalen Colledge Fellows is plain are but to still the people like Plums to Children by deceiving them for a while but if they shall by this Stratagem be fooled till this present storm that threatens the Papists be past assoon as they shall be resetled the former Oppression will be put on with greater vigour but we hope in vain is the Net spread in the sight of the Birds For 1. The Papists old Rule is That Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks as they term Protestants tho' the Popish Religion is the greatest Heresy And 2. Queen Mary's so ill observing her promises to the Suffolk-men that help'd her to her Throne And above all 3. the Popes dispensing with the breach of Oaths Treaties or Promises at his pleasure when it makes for the service of Holy Church as they term it These we say are such convincing Reasons to hinder us from giving Credit to the aforesaid Mock-Shews of Redress that we think our selves bound in Conscience to rest on no Security that shall not be approved by a freely Elected Parliament to whom under God we refer our Cause His Grace the Duke of NORFOLK's Speech to the Mayor of NORWICH on the First of December in the Market-place of Norwich Mr. MAYOR NOT doubting but you and the rest of your Body as well as the whole City and Country may be allarmed by the great Concourse of Gentry with the numerous Appearance of their Friends and Servants as well as of your own Militia here this Morning I have thought this the most proper place as being the most publick one to give you an account of our Intentions Out of the deep sense we had that in the present unhappy Juncture of Affairs nothing we could think of was possible to secure the Laws Liberties and Protestant Religion but a Free Parliament WE ARE HERE MET TO DECLARE that we will do our utmost to defend the same by declaring for such a Free Parliament And since His Majesty hath been pleased by the News we hear this day to order Writs for a
they are more proper for the Gravity of an Historian or the Authority of a Parliament to handle than for a private Gentleman in a Letter to his Friend The Bishops Papers and the Prince of Orange's Declarations are the best Memoires of them but they only begin where the two parts of the History of the growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government left off and how far we may trust to Catholick Stipulations Oaths and Treaties the Facts of past and the present Age are the best Criterions and Rules to guide and determine us for what happens every day will in all probability happen to morrow the same Causes always produce the same Effects and the Church of Rome is still the same Church it was an hundred Years ago that is a Mass of Treachery Barbariety Perjury and the highest Superstition a Machine without any Principle or setled Law of Motion not to be mov'd or stop'd with the weights of any private or publick Obligations a Monster that destroys all that is Sacred both in Heaven and Earth so Ravenous that it is never content unless it gets the whole World into its Claws and tears all to pieces in order to Salvation a Proteus that turns it self into all shapes a Chameleon that puts on all Colours according to its present circumstances this day an Angel of Light to morrow a Beelzebub Amongst all the Courts of Christendom where I have conversed that of Holland is the freest from Tricks and Falsehood and tho I am naturally jealous and suspicious of the Conduct of Princes yet I could never discover the least Knavery within those Walls it appear'd to me another Athens of Philosophers and the only Seat of Justice and Vertue now left in the World. As for the Character of the Prince of Orange it is so faithfully drawn by Sir William Temple Doctor Burnet and in a half sheet lately printed that I who am so averse from Flattery that I can scarce speak a good word of any Body or think one good thought of my self will not write any further Panegerick upon his Highness only that he is a very Honest Man a Great Souldier and a Wise Prince upon whose Word the World may safely rely A late Pamphleteer reviles the Prince with breaking his Oath when he took the Stat-holder's Office upon him not considering that the Oath was impos'd upon his Highness in his Minority by a French Faction then jealous of the aspiring and true Grandeur of his Young Soul that the States themselves to whom the Obligation was made freed his Highness from the Bond and that the Necessity of Affairs and the Importunities of the People forced that Dignity upon him which his Ancestors had enjoy'd and he so well deserv'd that he sav'd the sinking Common-wealth their Provinces being almost all Surpriz'd and Enslav'd by the French compared to the gasping State of Rome after the loss at Cannae His Highness was no more puft up with this Success than he had been daunted with Hardships and Misfortunes always the same Hero Just Serene and Unchang'd under all Events an Argument of the vastness of his Mind whereas on the contrary Mutability sometimes Tyrant sometimes Father of a Country sometimes Huffing other times Sneaking is often-times a Symptom of a Mean and Cowardly Soul vile and dissolute born for Rapine and Destruction As for the Princess she may without any flattery be stiled the Honour and Glory of her Sex the most Knowing the most Vertuous the Fairest and yet the best Natur'd Princess in the World belov'd and admir'd by her Enemies never seen in any Passion always under a peculiâ—r sweetness of Temper extreamly moderate in her Pleasures taking delight in Working and Study humble and affable in her Conversation very pertinent in all Questions charitable to all Protestants and frequenting their Churches The Prince is often seen with her at the Prayers of the Church of England and â—he with the Prince at the Devotion of his Church She dispences with the use of the Surplice bowing to the Altar and the Name of Jesus out of Compliance to a Country that adores her being more intent upon the Intrinsick and Substantial Parts of Religion Prayer and Good Works She speaks several Languages even to Perfection entirely obedient to the Prince and he extreamly dear to her In a word She is a Princess of many extraordinary Vertues and Excellencies without any appearance of Vanity or the least mixture of Vice and upon whose Promise the World may safely depend As for the many Plots and Conspiracies against this Royal Couple a short time may bring them all to light and faithful Historians publish them to the World. Lastly We may observe that whereas it hath been the Maxim of several Kings both at home and abroad of late Years to contend and outvie each other in preying upon and destroying not only their Neighbours but their own Protestant Subjects by all methods of perfidiousness and cruelty the only way to establish Tyranny and to enslave the natural Freedom of Mankind being to introduce a general Ignorance Superstition and Idolatry for if once People can be perswaded that Statues and Idols are Divinities and adorable and thaâ— a Waâ—er is the Infinite God after two or three ridiculous words utter'd by a vile Impostor and impudent Cheat then they may easily be brought to submit their Necks to all the Yokes that a Tyrant and a Priest can invent and put upon them for if once they part with their Reason their Liberty will soon follow as we behold every day in the miserable enslav'd Countries where Popery domineers On the contrary it hath always been the steady and immutable Principle of the House of Orange to rescue Europe from its Oppressours and to resettle Governments upon the Primitive and Immortal Foundation of Liberty and Property a Glorious Maxim taken from the Old Roman Common-wealth that Fought and Conquer'd so many Nations only to set them Free to Restore them wholsome Laws their Natural and Civil Liberties a Design so Generous and every way Great that the East groaning under the Fetters and Oppressions of their Tyrants flew in to the Roman Eagles for Shelter and Protection under whose Wings the several Nations liv'd Free Safe and Happy till Traitours and Usurpers began to break in upon the Sacred Laws of that vertuous Constitution and to keep up Armies to defend that by Blood and Rapine which Iustice would have thrown in their Face and punished them as they deserved the Preservation and Welfare of the People being in all Ages call'd the Supreme Law to which all the rest ought to tend From the foregoing Relation of matter of Fact it appears most plain that the Roman Catholicks are not to be ty'd by Laws Treaties Promises Oaths or any other bonds of Humane Society the sad experience of this and other Kingdoms declares to all Mankind the invalidity and insignificancy of all Contracts and Agreements with the Papists who notwithstanding all their Solemn Covenants
open profession of the Popish Religion so he did then promise and solemnly swear at his Coronation That he would maintain his Subjects in the free enjoiment of their Laws and Liberties and in particular that he would maintain the Church of England as it was established by Law It is likewise certain that there have been at divers and sundry times several Laws enacted for the preservation of those Rights and Liberties and of the Protestant Religion And among other Securites it has been enacted that all Persons whatsoever that are advanced to any Ecclesiastical Dignity or to bear Office in either University as likewise all other that should be put in any Imploiment Civil or Military should declare that they were not Papists but were of the Protestant Religion and that by their taking of the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and the Test yet these Evil Counsellors have in effect annulled and abolished all those Laws both with relation to Ecclesiastical and Civil Emploiments In order to Ecclesiastical Dignities and Offices they have not only without any colour of Law but against most express Laws to the contrary set up a Commission of a certain Number of Persons to whom they have committed the Cognizance and Direction of all Ecclesiastical Matters In the which Commission there has been and still is one of his Majesty's Ministers of State who makes now publick profession of the Popish Religion and who at the time of his first professing it declared That for a great while before he had believed that to be the only true Religion By all this the deplorable State to which the Protestant Religion is reduced is apparent since the Affairs of the Church of England are now put into the Hands of Persons who have accepted of a Commission that is manifestly Illegal and who have executed it contrary to all Law and that now one of their chief Members has abjured â—he Proâ—estant Religion and declared himself a Papist by which he is become incapable of holding any Publick Emploiment The said Commissioners have hitherto given such proof of their submission to the Directions given them that there is no reason to doubt but they will still continue to promote all such Designs as will be most agreeable to them And those Evil Counsellors take care to raise none to any Ecclesiastical Dignities but Persons that have no Zeal for the Protestant Religion and that now hide their unconcernedness for it under the specious pretence of Moderation The said Commissioners have suspended the Bishop of London only because he refused to obey an Order that was sent him to suspend a Worthy Divine without so much as citing him before him to make his own Defence or observing the common Forms of Process They have turned out a President chosen by the Fellows of Magdalâ—ne Colledg and afterwards all the Fellows of that Colledg without so much as citing them before any Court that could take legal cognizance of that Affair or obtaining any Sentence against them by a competent Judg. And the only Reason that was given for turning them out was their refusing to chuse for their President a Person that was recommended to them by the iâ—â—â—igation of those Evil Counsellors Though the right of a free Election belonged undoubtedly to them But they were turned out of their Freeholds contrary to Law and to that express Provision in Magna Charta That no Man shall lose Life or Goods but by the Law of the Land. And now these Evil Counsellors have put the said Colledg wholly into the Hands of Papists though as is above said they are incapable of all such Imploiments both by the Law of the Land and the Statutes of the Colledg These Commissioners have also cited before them all the Chancellors and Arch-deacons of England requiring them to certify to them the Names of all such Clergy-men as have read the King's Declaration for Liberty of Conscience and of such as have not read it without considering that the reading of it was not enjoined the Clergy by the Bishops who are their Ordinaries The illegality and incompetency of the said Court of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners was so notoriously known and it did so evidently appear that it tended to the subversion of the Protestant Relâ—â—ion that the most Reverend Father in God William Arch-bishop of Canterbury Primate and Metropolitan of all England seeing that it was raised for no other end but to oppress such Persons as were of eminent Virtue Learning and Piety refused to sit or concur in it And though there are many express Laws against all Churches or Chappels for the exercise of the Popish Religion and also against all Monasteries and Convents and more particularly against the Order of the Jesuits yet those Evil Counsellors have procured Orders for the building of several Churches and Chappels for the Exercise of that Religion They have also procured divers Monasteries to be erected and in contempt of the Law they have not only set up several Colledges of Iesuits in divers places for the corrupting of the Youth but have raised up one of the Order to be a Privy Counsellor and a Minister of State. By all which they do evidently shew that they are restrained by no Rules or Law whatsoever but that they have subjected the Honours and Estates of the Subjects and the Establish'd Religion to a Despotick Power and to Arbitrary Government In all which they are served and seconded by those Ecclesiastical Commissioners They have also followed the same Methods with Relation to Civil Affairs For they have procured Orders to examine all Lords-Lieutenants Deputy-Lieutenants Sheriffs Justices of Peace and all others that were in any Publick Employment if they would concur with the King in the Repeal of the Test and Penal Laws and all such whose Consciences did not suffer them to comply with their Designs were turned out and others were put in their places who they believe would be more compliant to them in their Designs of defeating the Intent and Execution of those Laws which had been made with so much Care and Caution for the Security of the Protestant Religion And in many of these places they have put professed Papists though the Law has disabled them and warranted the Subjects not to have any regard to their Orders They have also invaded the Priviledges and seized on the Charters of most of those Towns that have a right to be represented by â—heir Burgesses in Parliament and have procured Surrenders to be made of them by which the Magistrates in them have delivered up all their Rights and Priviledges to be disposed of at the pleasure of those Evil Counsellors who have thereupon placed new Magistrates in those Towns such as they can most entirely confide in and in many of them they have put Popish Magistrates notwithstanding the Incapacities under which the Law has put them And whereas no Nation whatsoever can subsist without the Administration of good and impartial Justice upon which Mens Lives
Liberties Honours and Estates do depend those Evil Counsellors have subjected these to an Arbitrary and Despotick Power In the most important Affairs they have studied to discover before-hand the Opinions of the Judges and hâ—ve turned out such as they found would not conform themselves to their Intentions and have put others in their places of whom they were more assured without having any regard to their Abilities And they have not stuck to raise even professed Papists to the Courts of Judicature notwithstanding their Incapacity by Law and that no Regard is due to any Sentences flowing from them They have carried this so far as to deprive such Judges who in the common Administration of Justice shewed that they were governed by their Consciences and not by the Directions which the others gave them By which it is apparent they design to render themselves the absolute Masters of the Lives Honours and Estates of the Subjects of what Rank or Dignity soever they may be and that without having any regard either to the Equity of the Cause or to the Conscience of the Judges whom they will have to submit in all things to their own will and Pleasure hoping by such ways to intimidate those who are yet in Imployment as also such others as they shall think fit to put in the rooms of those whom they have turned out and to make them see what they must look for if they should at any time act in the least contrary to their good liking and that no failings of that kind are pardoned in any Persons whatsoever A great deal of Blood has been shed in many places of the Kingdom by Judges governed by those Evil Counsellors against all the Rules and Forms of Law without so much as suffering the Persons that were accused to plead in their own Defence They have also by putting the Administration of Justice into the hands of Papists brought all the matters of Civil Justice into great uncertainties with how much Exactness and Justice soever that these Sentences may have been given For since the Laws of the Land do not only exclude Papists from all places of Judicature but have put them under an Incapacity none are bound to acknowledg or to obey their Judgments and all Sentences given by them are null and void of themselves so that all Persons who have been cast in Trials before such Popish Judges may justly look on their pretended Sentences as having no more force than the Sentences of any private and unauthorized Person whatsoever So deplorable is the Case of the Subjects who are obliged to answer to such Judges that must in all things stick to the Rules which are set them by those Evil Counsellors who as they raised them up to those Imployments so can turn them out of them at pleasure and who can never be esteemed lawful Judges so that all their Sentences are in the Construction of the Law of no Force and Efficacy They have likewise disposed of all Military Imployments in the same manner for tho the Laws have not only excluded Papists from all such Imployments but have in particular provided that they should be disarmed yet they in Contempt of these Laws have not only armed the Papists but have likewise raised them up to the greatest Military Trusts both by Sea and Land and that Strangers as well as Natives and Irish as well as English that so by those means having rendred themselves Masters both of the Affairs of the Church of the Government of the Nation and of the course of Justice and subjected them all to a Despotick and Arbitrary Power they might be in a Capacity to maintain and execute their wicked Designs by the assistance of the Army and thereby to enslave the Nation The dismal Effects of this Subversion of the established Religion Laws and Liberties in England appear more evident to us by what we see done in Ireland Where the whole Government is put into the Hands of Papists and where all the Protestant Inhabitants are under the daily Fears of what may be justly apprehended from the Arbitrary Power which is set up there which has made great numbers of them leave that Kingdom and abandon their Estates in it remembring well that cruel and bloody Massacre which fell out in that Island in the Year 1641. Those Evil Counsellous have also prevailed with the King to declare in Scotland that he is clothed with Absolute Power and that all the Subjects are bound to obey him without Reserve upon which he has assumed an Arbitrary Power both over the Religion and Laws of that Kingdom from all which it is apparent what is to be looked for in England as soon as matters are duly prepared for it Those great and insufferable Oppressions and the open Contempt of all Law together with the apprehensions of the sad Consequences that must certainly follow upon it have put the Subjâ—â—ts under great and just Fears and have made them look after such lawful Remedies as are allowed of in all Nations yet all has been without Effect And those Evil Counsellours have endeavoured to make all Men apprehend the loss of their Lives Liberties Honours and Estates if they should go about to preserve themselves from this Oppression by Petitions Representations or other means authorised by Law. Thus did they proceed with the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and the other Bishops who having offer'd a most humble Petition to the King in terms full of Respect and not exceeding the number limited by Law in which they set forth in short the Reasons for which they could not obey that Order which by the Instigation of those Evil Counsellors was sent them requiring them to appoint their Clergy to read in their Churches the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience were sent to Prison and afterwards brought to a Trial as if they had been guilty of some enormous Crime They were not only obliged to defend themselves in that pursuit but to appear before professed Papists who had not taken the Test and by Consequence were Men whose Interest led them to condemn them and the Judges that gave their Opinion in their Favours were thereupon turned out And yet it cannot be pretended that any Kings how great soever their Power has been and how Arbitrary and Despotick soever they have been in the exercise of it have ever reckoned a Crime for their Subjects to come in all Submission and Respect and in a due Number not exceeding the Limits of the Law and represent to them the Reasons that made it impossible for them to obey their Orders Those Evil Counsellors have also treated a Peer of the Realm as a Criminal only because he said that the Subjects were not bound to obey the Orders of a Popish Justice of Peace tho it is evident that they being by Law rendred incapable of all such Trusts no regard is due to their Orders This being the Security which the People have by the Law for their Lives Liberties Honours and
Estates that they are not to be subjected to the Arbitrary Proceedings of Papists that are contrary to Law put into any Employments Civil or Military Both We our selves and our Dearest and most Entirely Beloved Consort the Princess have endeavoured to signify in terms full of Respect to the King the just and deep Regret which all these Proceedings have given us and in Compliance with his Majesties Desires signified to us We declared both by word of Mouth to his Envoy and in writing what our Thoughts were touching the repealing of the Test and Penal Laws which we did in such a manner that we hoped we had proposed an Expedient by which the Peace of those Kingdoms and a happy Agreement among the Subjects of all Perswasions might have been settled but those Evil Counsellors have put such ill Constructions on these our good Intentions that they have endeavoured to alienate the King more and more from us as if We had designed to disturb the Quiet and Happiness of the Kingdom The last and great Remedy for all those Evils is the calling of a Parliament for securing the Nation against the evil Practices of those wicked Counsellors but this could not be yet compassed nor can it easily be brought about For those Men apprehending that a lawful Parliament being once assembled they would be brought to an account for all their open Violations of Law and for their Plots and Conspiracies against the Protestant Religion and the Lives and Liberties of the Subjects they have endeavoured under the specious Pretence of Liberty of Conscience first to sow Divisions among Protestants between those of the Church of England and the Dissenters The Design being laid to engage Protestants that are all equally concerned to preserve themselves from Popish Oppression into mutual Quarellings that so by these some Advantages might be given to them to bring about their Designs and that both in the Election of the Members of Parliament and afterwards in the Parliament it self For they see well that if all Protestants could enter into a mutual good Understanding one with another and concur together in the preserving of their Religion it would not be possible for them to compass their wicked Ends. They have also required all Persons in the several Counties of England that either were in any Imployment or were in any considerable Esteem to declare before-hand that they would concur in the Repeal of the Test and Penal Laws and that they would give their Voices in the Elections to Parliament only for such as would concur in it Such as would not thus preingage themselves were turned out of all Imployments and others who entred into those Engagements were put into their places many of them being Papists And contrary to the Charters and Priviledges of those Buroughs that have a Right to send Burgesses to Parliament they have ordered such Regulations to be made as they thought fit and necessary for assuring themselves of all the Members that are to be chosen by those Corporations and by this means they hope to avoid that Punishment which they have deserved tho it is apparent that all Acts made by Popish Magistrates are null and void of themselves so that no Parliament can be lawful for which the Elections and Returns are made by Popish Sheriffs and Mayors of Towns and therefore as long as the Authority and Magistracy is in such hands it is impossible to have any lawful Parliament And tho according to the Constitution of the English Government and immemorial Custom all Elections of Parliament-Men ought to be made with an entire Liberty without any sort of Force or the requiring the Electors to chuse such Persons as shall be named to them and the Persons thus freely elected ought to give their Opinions freely upon all matters that are brought before them having the Good of the Nation ever before their Eyes and following in all things the Dictates of their Consciences yet now the People of England cannot expect a Remedy from a free Parliament legally called and chosen But they may perhaps see one called in which all Elections will be carried by Fraud or Force and which will be composed of such Persons of whom those Evil Counsellors hold themselves well assured in which all things will be carried on according to their Direction and Interest without any regard to the Good or Happiness of the Nation Which may appear evidently from this that the same Persons tried the Members of the last Parliament to gain them to consent to the Repeal of the Test and Penal Laws and procured that Parliament to be dissolved when they found that they could not neither by Promises nor Threatnings prevail with the Members to comply with their wicked Designs But to crown all There are great and violent Presumptions inducing us to believe that those Evil Counsellors in order to the carrying on of their ill Designs and to the gaining to themselves the more time for the effecting of them for the encouraging their Complices and for the discouraging of all good Subjects have published that the Queen hath brought forth a Son tho there have appeared both during the Queen's pretended Bigness and in the manner in which the Birth was managed so many just and visible grounds of Suspicion that not only We our selves but all the good Subjects of those Kingdoms do vehemently suspect that the pretended Prince of Wales was not born by the Queen And it is notoriously known to all the World that many both doubted of the Queen's Bigness and of the Birth of the Child and yet there was not any one thing done to satisfie them or to put an end to their Doubts And since our Dearest and most Entirely Beloved Consort the Princess and likewise We our Selves have so great an Interest in this Matter and such a Right as all the World knows to the Succession to the Crown Since also the English did in the Year 1672. when the States General of the Vnited Provinces were invaded in a most unjust War use their uttermost Endeavours to put an end to that War and that in opposition to those who were then in the Government and by their so doing they run the hazard of losing both the Favour of the Court and their Imployments And since the English Nation has â—ver testified a most particular Affection and Esteem both to our Dearest Consort the Princess and to Our Selves We cannot excuse our selves from espousing their Interests in a Matter of such high Consequence and from contributing all that lies in us for the maintaining both of the Protestant Religion and of the Laws and Liberties of those Kingdoms and for the securing to them the continual Enjoyment of all their just Rights To the doing of which we are most earnestly solicited by a great many Lords both Spiritual and Temporal and by many Gentlemen and other Subjects of all Ranks Therefore it is that we have thought fit to go over to England and to carry over
being also distinguished by their constant Fidelity to the Crown who do both accompany Us in this Expedition and have earnestly solicited Us to it will cover Us from all such Malicious Insinuations For it is not to be imagined that either those who have invited Us or those that are already come to assist Us can join in a wicked Attempt of Conquest to make void their own lawful Titles to their Honours Estates and Interests We are also confident that all Men see how little weight there is to be laid on all Promises and Engagements that can be now made since there has been so little regard had in Time past to the most solemn Promises And as that imperfect Redress that is now offered is a plain Confession of those Violations of the Government that we have set forth so the defectiveness of it is no less Apparent for they lay down nothing which they may not take up at pleasure and they reserve entire and not so much as mentioned their Claims and Pretences to an Arbitrary and Despotick Power which has been the root of all their Oppression and of the total subversion of the Government And it is plain that there can be no Redress nor Remedy offered but in Parliament by a Declaration of the Rights of the Subjects that have been invaded and not by any pretended Acts of Grace to which the extremity of their Affairs has driven them Therefore it is that we have thought fit to declare that we will refer all to a Free Assembly of the Nation in a Lawful Parliament Given under our Hand and Seal at our Court in the Hague the 24 th day of October in the Year of our Lord 1688. William Henry Prince of Orange By his Highness special Command C. HUYGENS. To the Right Honourable My Lords of his Majesty's Commission Ecclesiastical IMost humbly Intreat your Lordships Favourable Interpretation of what I now Write That since your Lordships are resolved to Proceed against those who have not complyed with the King's Command in Reading His Deelaration It is absolutely impossible for me to Serve His Majesty any longer in this Commission I beg leave to tell your Lordships that though I my Self did submit in that particular yet I will never be any way Instrumental in Punishing those my Brethren that did not For as I call God to Wittness that what I did was meerly in a Principle of Conscience So I am fully satisfied that their forbearance was upon the same Principle I have no Reason to think otherwise of the whole Body of our Clergy who upon all Occasions have signaliz'd their Loyalty to the Crown and their Zealous Affections to His Present Majesty's Person in the worst of Times Now my Lords the safety of the whole Church of England seeming to be exceedingly concerned in this Prosecution I must declare I cannot with a safe Conscience Sit or Iudg in this Caufe upon so many Pious and Excellent Men with whom if it be God's Will it rather becomes me to Suffer than to be in the least an Occasion of their Sufferings I therefore earnestly request your Lordships to interceed with His Majesty that I may be Graciously dismissed from any further Attendance at your Board And to assure him that I am still ready to Sacrifice what ever I have to His Service but my Conscience and Religion My Lords I am your Lordships most Faithful and Obedient Servant ROCHESTER This Letter as also the foresaid Declaration should have been in the first Collection but were forgotten till this The Speech of the Prince of Orange to some Principle Gentlemen of Somersetshire and Dorsetshire on their coming to Ioyn his Highness at Exeter the 15th of Nov. 1688. THO we know not all your Persons yet we have a Catalogue of your Names and remember the Character of your Worth and Interest in your Country You see we are come according to your Invitation and our Promise Our Duty to God obliges us to protect the Protestant Religion and our Love to Mankind your Liberties and Properties We expected you that dwelt so near the place of our Landing would have joyn'd us sooner not that it is now too late nor that we want your Military Assistance so much as your Countenance and Presence to justify our declar'd Pretensions rather than accomplish our good and gracious Designs Tho we have brought both a good Fleet and a good Army to render these Kingdoms happy by rescuing all Protestants from Popery Slavery and Arbitrary Power by restoring them to their Rights and Properties established by Law and by promoting of Peace and Trade which is the Soul of Government and the very Life-Blood of a Nation yet we rely more on the Goodness of God and the Justice of our Cause than on any Humane Force and Power whatever Yet since God is pleased we shall make use of Humane means and not expect Miracles for our preservation and Happiness let us not neglect making use of this gracious Opportunity but with Prudence and Courage put in Execution our so honourable Purposes Therefore Gentlemen Friends and Fellow-Protestants we bid you and all your Followers most heartily Well come to our Court and Camp. Let the whole World now Judg if our pretentions are not Just Generous Sincere and above Price since we might have even a Bridg of Gold to Return back But it is our Principle and Resolution rather to dye in a Good Cause than live in a Bad one well knowing that Vertue and True Honour is its own Reward and the Happiness of Mankind Our Great and Only Design The True Copy of a Paper delivered by the Lord Devonshire to the Mayor of Darby where he quarter'd the One and twentieth of November 1688. WE the Nobility and Gentry of the Northern Parts of England being deeply sensible of the Calamities that threaten these Kingdoms do think it our Duty as Christians and good Subjects to endeavour what in Us lies the Healing of our present Distractions and preventing Greater And as with Grief We apprehend the sad Consequences that may arise from the Landing of an Army in this Kingdom from Foreign Parts So We cannot but deplore the Occasion given for it by so many Invasions made of late years on our Religion and Laws And whereas We cannot think of any other Expedient to compose our Differences and prevent Effusion of Blood than that which procured a Settlement in these Kingdoms after the late Civil Wars the Meeting and Sitting of a Parliament freely and duly Chosen We think our Selves obliged as far as in Us lies to promote it And the rather because the Prince of Orange as appears by His Declaration is willing to submit His own Pretensions and all other Matters to their Determination We heartily wish and humbly pray That His Majesty would Consent to this Expedient in order to a future Settlement And hope that such a Temperament may be thought of as that the Army now on foot may not give any Interruption to
were the first that suffered Persecution under her And after she had put to death near three hundred Persons without respect to Quality Age or Sex it pleased God to put an end to the Romish Cruelty and Idolatry by her unexpected and unlamented Death Nor is her Memory preserved from Oblivion by any thing but her repeated Acts of Cruelty and Injustice This was the Success that attended her this the Happiness the Liberty the Religion establish'd in the English Nation during her sive Years Tyranny That I may not detain the Reader any longer I will conclude this Advice to our Learned Pamphleteer That for the future he do not so positively ascribe all unhappy Accidents as frequent Wars and Rebellions the Effusion of English Blood the unfortunate End of some of our Princes to the Divine Vengeance upon them for the Usurpations he accuses them of since if he will consult our Historians he may find that Edward II. Richard II. and the Incomparable Prince King Charles I. though their Title from William the Conqueror is indisputable were far unhappier than any of the Usurpers he mentions That in Edward the Fourth's and Henry the Eighth's Reign a great deal of English Blood was shed both at Home and Abroad though their Right was unquestionable and universally acknowledged And that as to the promiscuous good or ill Success of all Affairs in this lower World the observation of the Wisest of Princes and of Men is very often exactly verified There is one Event to the Righteous and to the Wicked To the Prince who ascends the Throne by an unquestionable Right and to him that ascends it by Violence and Usurpation To the Prince that religiously performs the Solemn Oath taken at his Coronation and to him that wilfully breaks through all the Obligations he is under and endeavours by the most base Methods to dissolve the Establish'd Government The following Paper was published by Mr. Samuel Iohnson in the Year 1686. for which he was sentenc'd by the Court of Kings-Bench Sir Edward Herbert being Lord Chief Justice to stand three times on the Pillory and to be whipp'd from Newgate to Tyburn Which barbarous Sentence was executed An Humble and Hearty Address to all the English Protestants in this present Army GENTLEMEN NEXT to the Duty which we owe to God which ought to be the principal Care of Men of your Profession especially because you carry your Lives in your Hands and often look Death in the Face The second Thing that deserves your Consideration is The Service of your Native Country wherein you drew your first Breath and breathed a free English Air. Now I would desire you to consider how well you comply with these two main Points by engaging in this present Service Is it in the Name of God and for his Service that you have joined your selves with Papists who will indeed fight for the Mass-Book but burn the Bible and who seek to Extirpate the Protestant Religion with Your Swords because they cannot do it with their Own And will you be Aiding and Assisting to set up Mass-Houses to erect that Popish Kingdom of Darkness and Desolation amongst as and to train up all our Children in Popery How can you do these Things and yet call your selves Protestants And then what Service can be done your Country by being under the Command of French and Irish Papists and by bringing the Nation under a Foreign Yoke Will you help them to make forcible Entry into the Houses of your Country-men under the Name of Quartering directly contrary to Magna Charta and the Petition of Right Will you be Aiding and Assisting to all the Murders and Outrages which they shall commit by their void Commissions Which were declared Illegal and sufficiently blasted by both Houses of Parliament if there had been any need of it for it was very well known before That a Papist cannot have a Commission but by the Law is utterly Disabled and Disarmed Will you exchange your Birth-right of English Laws and Liberties for Martial or Club-Law and help to destroy all others only to be eaten last your selves If I know you well as you are English Men you hate and scorn these Things And therefore be not unequally yoaked with Idolatrous and Bloody Papists Be Valiant for the Truth and shew your selves Men. The same Considerations are likewise humbly offered to all the English Seamen who have been the Bulwark of this Nation against Popery and Slavery ever since Eighty Eight Several Reasons for the Establishment of a Standing Army and Dissolving the Militia 1. BEcause the Lords Lieutenants Deputy Lieutenants and the whole Militia that is to say the Lords Gentlemen and Free-holders of England are not fit to be trusted with their own Laws Lives Liberties and Estates and therefore ought to have Guardians and Keepers assigned to them 2. Because Mercenary Souldiers who fight for twelve Pence a Day will fight better as having more to lose than either the Nobility or Gentry 3. Because there are no Irish Papists in the Militia who are certainly the best Souldiers in the World for they have slain Men Women and Children by Hundreds of Thousands at once 4. Because the Dragooners have made more Converts than all the Bishops and Clergy of France 5. The Parliament ought to establish one standing Army at the least because indeed there will be need of Two that one of them may defend the People from the other 6. Because it is a thousand pities that a brave Popish Army should be a Riot 7. Unless it be Established by Act of Parliament the Justices of Peace will be forced to suppress it in their own Defence for they will be loth to forfeit an hundred Pounds every day they rise out of Complement to a Popish Rout. 13. H. 4. c. 7.2 H. 5. c. 8. 8. Because a Popish Army is a Nullity For all Papists are utterly disabled and punishable besides from bearing any Office in Camp Troop Band or Company of Souldiers and are so far disarmed by Law that they cannot wear a Sword so much as in their Defence without the allowance of four Justices of the Peace of the County And then upon a March they will be perfectly inchanted for they are not able to stir above five Miles from their own Dwelling-house 3. Iac. 5. Sect. 8 27 28 29.35 Eliz. 2.3 Iac. 5. Sect. 7. 9. Because Persons utterly disabled by Law are utterly Unauthorized and therefore the void Commissions of Killing and Slaying in the Hands of Papists can only enable them to Massacre and Murder A Discourse of Magistracy of Prerogative by Divine Right of Obedience and of the Laws CHAP. I. Of MAGISTRACY I. RELATION is nothing else but that State of Mutual Respect and Reference which one Thing or Person has to another II. Such are the Relations of Father and Son Husband and Wife Master and Servant Magistrate and Subject III. The Relations of a Father Husband and Master are really distinct and different that is
of all the Judges of England that even the known and undoubted Prerogative of the Iewish Kings do not belong to our Kings and that it is an absurd and impudent thing to affirm they do Coke 11. Rep. p. 63. Mich. 5. Iac. Note upon Sunday the Tenth of November in the same Term the King upon Complaint made to him by Bancroft Arch-bishop of Canterbury concerning Prohibitions was informed That when Question was made of what matters the Ecclesiastical Judges have Cognizance either upon the Exposition of the Statutes concerning Tythes or any other thing Ecclesiastical or upon the Statute 1 Eliz. concerning the High-Commisâ—ion or in any other case in which there is not express Authority by Law the King himself may decide it in his Royal Person and that the Judges are but the Delegates of the King and that the King may take what Causes he shall please to determine from the Determination of the Judges and may determine them himself And the Archâ—bishop said That this was clear in Divinity That such Authority belongs to the King by the Word of God in Scripture To which it was answered by me in the presence and with the clear consent of all the Justices of England and Barons of the Exchiquer That the King in his own Person cannot adjudg any Case either Criminal as Treason Felony c. but this ought to be determined and adjudged in some Court of Justice according to the Law and Custom of England And always Judgments are given Ideo consideratum est per Curiam so that the Court gives the Judgment And it was greatly marvelled that the Arch-bishop durst inform the King that such Absolute Power and Authority as is aforesaid belonged to the King by the Word of God. CHAP. III. Of OBEDIENCE I. NO Man has any more Civil Authority than what the Law of the Land has vested in him nor is he one of St. Paul's Higher Powers any farther or to any other purposes tâ—an the Law has impowered him II. An Usurped Illegal and Arbitrary Power is so far from bâ—ing the Ordinance of God that it is not the Ordinance of Man. III. Whoever opposes an Usurped Illegal and Arbitrary Power does not oppose the Ordinance of God but the Violation of that Ordinance IV. The 13 th of the Romans commands Subjection to our Temporal Governours because their Office and Imployment is for the Publick Welfare For he is the Minister of God to Thee for good Verse 4. V. The 13 th of the Hebrews commands Obedience to Spiritual Rulers because they watch for your Souls Verse 17. VI. But the 13 th of the Hebrews did not oblige the Martyrs and Confessors in Queen Mary's Time to obey such blessed Bishops as Bonner and the Beast of Rome who were the perfect Reverse of St. Paul's Spiritual Rulers and whose Practice was murdering of Souls and Bodies according to that true Character of Popery which was given it by the Bishops who compiled the Thanksgiving for the Fifth of November but Arch-Bishop Laud was wiser than they and in his time blotted it out The Prayer formerly ran thus To that end strengthen the Hands of our Gracious King the Nobles and Magistrates of the Land to cut off these Workers of Iniquity whose Religion is Rebellion whose Faith is Faction whose Practice is murthering of Souls and Bodies and to root them out of the Confines of this Kingdom VII All the Judges of England are bound by their Oath and by the Duty of their place to disobey all Writs Letters or Commands which are brought to them either under the Little Seal or under the Great Seal to hinder or delay common Right Are the Judges all bound in an Oath and by their Places to break the 13 th of the Romans VIII The Engagement of the Lords attending upon the King at York Iune 13. 1642. which was subscribed by the Lord Keeper and thirty nine Peers besides the Lord Chief Justice Banks and several others of the Privy-Council was in these words We do engage our selves not to obey any Orders or Commands whatsoever not warranted by the known Laws of the Land. Was this likewise an Association against the 13 th of the Romans IX A Constable represents the King's Person and in the Execution of his Office is within the purview of the 13 th of the Romans as all Men grant but in case he so far pervert his Office as to break the Peace and commit Murther Burglary or Robbery on the High-way he may and ought to be resisted X. The Law of the Land is the best Expositor of the 13 th of the Romans here and in Poland the Law of the Land there XI The 13 th of the Romans is received for Scripture in Poland and yet this is expressed in the Coronation-Oath in that Country Quod si Sacramentum meum violavero Incolae Regni nullam nobis Obedientiam praestare tenebuntur And if I shall violate my Oath the Inhabitants of the Realm shall not be bound to yield me any Obedience XII The Law of the Land according to Bracton is the highest of all the Higher Powers mentioned in this Text for it is Superiour to the King and made him King Lib. iii. cap. xxvi Rex habet Superiorem Deum item Legem per quam factus est Rex item Curiam suam viz. Comites Barones and therefore by this Text we ought to be subject to it in the first place And according to Melancthon It is the Ordinanee of God to which the Higher Powers themselves ought to subject Vol. iii. In his Commentary on the fifth Verse Wherefore ye must needs be subject not only for Wrath but also for Conscience sake He has these words Neque vero hac tantum pertinent ad Subditos sed etiam ad Magistratum qui cum fiunt Tyranni non minus dissipant Ordinationem Dei quam Seditiosi Ideo ipsorum Conscientia fit rea quia non obediunt Ordinationi Dei id est Legibus quibus debent parere Ideo Comminationes hic posite etiam ad ipsos pertinent Itaque hujus mandati severitas moveat omnes ne violalationem Politici status putent esse leve peccatum Neither doth this place concern Subjects only but also the Magistrates themselves who when they turn Tyrants do no less overthrow the Ordinance of God than the Seditious and therefore their Consciences too are guilty for not obeying the Ordinance of God that is the Laws which they ought to obey So that the Threatnings in this place do also belong to them wherefore let the Severity of this Command deter all Men from thinking the Violation of the Political Constitution to be a light Sin. Corolary To destroy the Law and-Legal Constitution which is the Ordinance of God by false and Arbitrary Expositions of this Text is a greater Sin than to destroy it by any other means For it is Seething the Kid in his Mothers Milk. CHAP. IV. Of LAWS I. THere is no natural
the Advice to be writ clean over according to the Amendments But as they were about to part for that Dyet the Earl of Arran proposed to them as his Lordship's Advice that they should move the Prince of Orange to desire the King to return and call a Free-Parliament which would the best way to Secure the Protestant Religion and Property and to Heal all Breaches This Proposal seemed to dissatisfy the whole Meeting and the Duke of Hamilton their President Father to the Earl but they presently parted Wednesday the Ninth of Ianuary they met at three of the Clock in the same Room and Sir Patrick Hume took notice of â—he Proposal made by the Earl of Arran and desired to know if there was any there that would second it But none appearing to do it he said That what the Earl had proposed was evidently opposite and inimicous to his Highness the Prince of Orange's Undertaking his Declaration and the Good Intentions of preserving the Protestant Religion and of Restoring their Laws and Liberties exprest in it and further desired that the Meeting should declare this to be their Opinion of it The Lord Cardross seconded Sir Patrick's Motion it was answered by the Duke of Hamilton President of the Meeting That their Business was to prepare an Advice to be offered to the Prince and the Advice being now ready to go to the Vote there was no need that the Meeting should give their Sense of the Earl's Proposal which neither before nor after Sir Patrick's Motion any had pretended to own or second so that it was fallen and out of doors and that the Vote of the Meeting upon the Advice brought in by their Order would sufficiently declare their Opinion This being seconded by the Earl of Sutherland the Lord Cardross and Sir Patrick did acquiesce in it and the Meeting voted unaâ—imously the Advice following To His HIGHNESS the PRINCE of ORANGE WE the Lords and Gentlemen of the Kingdom of Scotland Assembled at your Highness's desire in this Extraordinary Conjunction do give your Highness our humble and hearty Thanks for your Pious and Generous Undertaking for Preserving of the Protestant Religion and Restoring the Laws and Liberties of these Kingdoms In order to the Attaining these Ends our humble Advice and Desire is That your Highness take upon You the Administration of all Affairs both Civil and Military the Disposal of the Publick Revenues and Fortresses of the Kingdom of Scotland and the doing every Thing that is necessary for the Preservation of the Peace of the Kingdom until a General Meeting of the States of the Nation which we humbly desire your Highness to Call to be holden at Edinburgh the Fourteenth day of March next by your Letters or Proclamation to be published at the Market-Crosses of Edinburgh and other Head-Boroughs of the several Shires and Stewartries as sufficient Intimation to All concerned and according to the Custom of the Kingdom And that the Publication of these your Letters or Proclamation be by the Sheriffs or Stewart Clerks for the Free-holders who have the value of Lands holden according to Law for making Elections and by the Town-Clerks of the several Burroughs for the meeting of the whole Burgesses of the respective Royal Burroughs to make their Elections at least Fifteen Days before the Meeting of the Estates at Edinburgh and the Respective Clerks to make Intimation thereof at least Ten Days before the Meetings for Elections And that the whole Electors and Members of the said Meeting at Edinburgh qualified as above exprest be Protestants without any other Exception or Limitation whatsoever to Deliberate and Resolve what is to be done for securing the Protestant Religion and Restoring the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom according to Your Highness's Declaration Dated at the Council-Chamber in Whitehal the Tenth Day of January 1689. This Address being Subscribed by 30 Lords and about 80 Gentlemen was presented in their presence at St. Iames 's by the Duke of Hamilton their President to his Highness the Prince of Orange who thanked them for the Trust they reposed in him and desired a Time to consider upon so weighty an Affair Upon the Fourteenth of Ianuary his Highness the Prince of Orange met again with the Scots Lords and Gentlemen at St. Iames 's And spoke to them as follows My Lords and Gentlemen IN persuance of your Advice I will untill the Meeting of the States in March next give such Orders concerning the Affairs of Scotland as are necessary for the Calling of the said Meeting for the Preserving of the Peace the applying of the Publick Revenue to the most pressing Vses and putting the Fortresses in the Hands of Persons in whom the Nation can have a just Confidence And I do further assure you That you will always find me ready to concur with you in every Thing that may be found necessary for Securing the Protestant Religion and Restoring the Laws and Liberties of the Nation The Earl of Crawfourd desired of his Highness That himself the Earl of Louthian and others come to Town since the Address was presented might have an opportunity to subscribe it which was accordingly done His Highness retireâ— and all shewed great Satisfaction with his Answer A LETTER to a Friend advising in this Extraordinary Iuncture how to free the Nation from SLAVERY for ever SIR I Doubt not but the Wisdom of the Nation will take the most effectual way to secure our Religion our Liberties and Property However being a Lover of all these I can't forbear communicating my Thoughts unto you with an assurance you 'l consider them God hath done great things for us and yet the greatest thing is not yet done there are many Difficulties in the way and many more will be thrown into it Slavery is most to be dreaded at this time What is done must be chiefly to guard against it How to do it is the principal business of the Great Men in the next Convention To know where we are is the first step to be taken Is the Government dissolved or only under some Disorders If the latter Are the Disorders such as must be laid to the Charge of the King or to his Ministers or both If to the King Are they sufficient to depose him If that be done Are we more secure from Slavery than now Will there be more than a Change of Persons in the Throne A Child for a Father a Protestant for a Papist And in a few Years the Succession may fall to the Queen of Spain or Dutchess of Savoy both Roman Catholicks and we in as great or greater danger of Popery and Slavery than we were the other day the Constitution remains the same the Iura Majestatis viz. the Militia the Power to make War or Peace the choosing Judges Sheriffs c. still in the Person of the King or if only by one Parliament restored to the People another Parliament may give them the King again Leges Posteriores priores abrogant And
some kind of possession of the Kingly Office. Bâ—t after the Judgment made and declared there seems to be no dâ—fference in the consequence and result of the thing between such an extraordinary case of the Cesser of the Royal Dignity and the case of Death or voluntary Resignation or as if the King had been prosest and made himself a Recluse in a Religious House Then it must devolve upon the next Heir her Royal Highness the Princess of Orange As to the pretended Prince of Wales if there had been no Suspicions as to his Birth as there are many violent ones yet his being conveyed into unknown Places by Persons in whom no credit can be reposed and at an Age which exposes him to all manner of Practices and Impostures touching his Person then can there hereafter be no manner of Certainty of him so as to induce the Nation ever to consider any Pretence of that kind These things being considered First Whether will not the declaring her Royal Highness Queen of England as next in Succession be the surest and beâ—t Foundation to begin our Settlement upon rather than upon a groundless Conceit of the Government being devolved to the People and so they to proceed to Elect a King Secondly If that Conceit of devolving to the People be admitted Whether must we not conclude that the Misgovernment of King Iames the Second hath not only determin'd his Roylaty but put a period to the Monarchy it self And then 't is not only a loss as to his Person but to the whole Royal Family Thirdly Whether those Persons that have started this Notion upon pretence of giving the Nation an opportunity of gratifying his Highness the Prince of Orange in proportion to his Merits which it must be acknowledged no Reward can exceed if they were searched to the bottom did not do it rather to undermine this Ancient and Hereditary Monarchy and to give an Advantage to their Republican Principles than out of any Affection and Gratitude to his Highness For if the latter was that they had tâ—e chief respect to would it not be the more proper way to declare her Royal Highness Queen which will immediately put the Nation under a regular Constitution and posture of Government Then it will be capable of expressing its Gratitude to the Prince of Orange in matters touching even the Royal Dignity it self without making such a Stroke upon the Government as the Electing of a King or making any other immediate Alteration in the right of the Monarchy before the Parliament is compleated and constituted in all its parts must amount unto The Heads of the EXPEDIENT proposed by the Court-party to the Parliament at Oxford in lieu of the Bill for excluding the Duke of York I. THAT the Duke of York be banish'd during his Life five hundred Miles from England Scotland and Ireland and the Dominions and Territories to them belonging II. That the whole Government both Ecclesiastical and Civil shall upon the demise of the King be vested in a Regent for such time as the Duke of York shall survive III. That the Regent be the Princess of Orange and in case of her Decease without Issue or with Issue in Minority then the Lady Ann. IV. That if the Duke have a Son educated a Protestant then the said Princesses respectively shall succeed in the Regency during the Minority of such Son and no longer Which obviates an incurable Absurdity in the former Bill of Exclusion V. That the Regent nominate the Privy-Council and they to be or not to be approved in Parliament as shall be judged safest upon directing the drawing up of this intended Act. VI. That notwithstanding these Kingdoms out of respect to the Royal Family and Monarchy it self may be governed by the said Regent in the Name â—nd Stile of Iames the Second c. yet it shall by this intended Act be made Capital for any to take up Arms on his behalf or by a Commission not signed by the said Regent or not granted by lawful Authority derived from and under such Regent or to maintain an Opinion that the retaining the said Name and Stile shall in this case purge the disabilities imposed by this Act or elude the force thereof VII That Commissioners be forthwith sent to the Prince and Princess of Orange to take their Oaths that they will take upon them the execution of this Act and that their Oaths be here recorded VIII That all Officers Civil and Military forthwith take Oaths to observe this Act and so all others from time to time as in the Act for the Test. IX That his Majesty would graciously declare to call a Parliament in Scotland in order to the passing the like Act there and recommend the same and the like to be done in Ireland if thought necessary X. That in case the said Duke shall come into any of these Kingdoms then he shall be ipso facto totally excluded and shall suffer as in the former Bill and the Sovereignty shall be forthwith intirely vested in the Regent upon such his coming into any of these Kingdoms XI That all considerable Papists be banish'd by Name XII That their fraudulent Conveyances be defeated XIII That their Children be educated in the Protestant Religion By these means these three Kingdoms will be united in defence of the Protestant Religion his Majesty's Person and Government and a sure Foundation laid of an effectual League with Holland and consequently with the rest of Christendom in opposition to the growing Greatness of France ☞ 'T was thought fit to reprint this Expedient that the Reader may compare it with the Bill of Exclusion which may be seen at large in the Debates of the House of Commons lately published and judg which was the greatest Evil of the two viz. that which would have set the Duke aside and given him liberty to live where he pleased or that which would have strip'd him of all Power and banish'd him 500 Miles off and left him only the Name of a King. An Excellent Expedient indeed An Account of the irregular Actions of the Papists in the Reign of King James the Second With a Method proposed how to rid the Nation of them By a Person of Quality THE dreadful Revolutions Plots and Conspiracies which have been promoted by the Roman Catholicks in England since the Resormation are of that nature and have caused such fearful Convulsions in our Church and State that it is a great Argument of the Goodness and Providence of God that we have been able to bear so many Shocks and to avoid so many deep Designs as have now twice within the memory of Man brought us to the brinks of Ruin. We must be very impious or very stupid if our last Deliverance has not been able to make us adore the boundless Goodness of God towards us his sinful and unthankful Servants he having defeated the Hopes and totally overthrown the Contrivances of that restless implacable persidious Faction when they seemed
to be in such a Condition that they need fear nothing but the Almighty Power of God miraculously exerting it self as in the case of Sennacherib which they neither feared nor suspected The Non-resisting Doctrine had so ty'd the hands of the Church of England Men that they thought they might safâ—ly inâ—â—l over us and ridicule the Bond that bound us to our good Behaviâ—ur The Dissenters were as they thought so obliged by the Liberty of Conscience and the fulsom Applications they had made to them in many ill writ pieces and by the Favours â—eâ—â—owed on Pen and Lob the two Patriarchs as they would have been thought of that Party That they not only suspected no oppositions from them but really conceived they would have been more than Scaffolds in the ruining Design they had then on foot The Gentry were reduced to the utmost degree of Contempt and the Nobility who only were capable of putting a stop to such notorious and impolitick Encroachments on our Birth-rights and Liberties were not only closeted examin'd re-examin'd turn'd out of their Stations brow-beaten ridicul'd at Court and in short driven into the Country but they were also by all the Arts that were possible rendred odious to the Crown contemptible to one another and of no use to their Inferiours The Army which was the next great Engine to bring about their Design was managed with more Art than is commonly considered for first there was a Party of Roman Catholicks mixed with the Common Souldiers to be as it were Spies and Tempters to creep into all the places of their resort to observe their Words Looks and Actions and to take the opportunity of all their Needs Crimes Vices and Follies to pervert them and draw them over to the Church of Rome and in the mean time to secure them from contriving any thing that might interrupt their Projects upon us Secondly They punished all who deserted the Service with the utmost Rigour and Severity to keep up â—hâ—ir numbers And thirdly They sent them to quarter in those places that had in any degree refused to comply with their Wills and not only suffered but encouraged them to outrage and sometimes to murder their Hosts but to be sure in all places they very much impoverish'd those that entertain'd them and in the Interim they kept all in awe and quiet whilst the State-Mountebanks practised upon their Lives Consciences Liberties and Properties A People thus harassed and beset one would have thought had been consigned to Ruin and Destruction for where could our Deliverance begin The Parliament which is our last resort was at the same time practised on with all the Art and Address that the Wiâ— of Men or Dâ—vils could invent and he must be of a deep Reach or a Sanguine Complexion who in the beginning of September last could hope to see a â—ree and a quiet Parliament meet and sit one Month to represent with any degree of Liberty our deplorable State and Condition much less to redress any of our Grievances We had one Hope which if they had left us still we had certainly been as quiet and patiâ—nt as Iob himself and that was that the Princess Mary of Orange would when God thought fit succeed his Majesty and then we promis'd our selves a Day of Redemption from all our Calamities and Oppressions so that our Posterity would at worst see better days To deprive us of this remote Comfort that Scene was laid and the Lady of Loretto sollicited to procure a Prince of Wales to reduce us to an utter Desperation of any Redress for ever And now they thought they were so secure of the Day that they might attack the Heretical Bishops and the whole body of our Clergy at once and make them eat their own Dung in the Faces of their respective Congregations if they had comply'd the whole Nation would have abhorred them as a parcel of Cowards if they did not the Ecclesiastical Commission was to have mowed them down by whole sale and when the People had been once deprived of their faithful and learned Shepherds the Wolves in Sheeps-clothing hoped to have had much better Success than hitherto but the Bishops interposing so united the inferior Clergy that this Design proved abortive and the declaring the Bishops Petition a Seditious Libel and so much the more dangerous because penn'd with great Modesty and Humility so far opened the Eyes of all Men that the most Ignorant saw nothing less than the Extirpation of the Protestant Religion was aim'd at The Army however which was the great Wheel in this most dreadful Machine was for the most part Protestant and had express'd so much Joy at the acquittal of the Bishops in the Camp at Hownslow-Heath that they clearly saw till it was new-modell'd it could nâ—t bâ— relied on and therefore the French and Irish were to be invited over and the Companies changed by degrees and when six of the Oâ—ficers at Portsmouth had with the greatest Humility imaginable only desired leave to fill up their Companies with such Men of this Nâ—tion as they judged most serviceable to the King or otherwise that thâ—y might be permitted with all imaginable Duty and Respect to lay â—own their Commissions for this Offence they were brought up Prisoners to London and it was given out they should be hanged as perhaps they had been if Monsieur de Avaux's Memorial given in at the Hague had not come in that very Post to enlighten our little Statesmen and shew them their approaching Danger and yet after all the 10 th of September last they were cashier'd at Windsor And when the Storm from Holland seemed unavoidable with what Insolence did they treat the Eleven Proposals made by the Bishops and the Petition presented the 17 th of November last by the Bishops and Peers about the Town So that till the Army began to go over to the Prince of Orange and the greatest part of the Nation had declared for him No Parliament was to be thought of and the Dispensing Power was the most Sacred of all the Prerogatives of the Crown That we may not imagine all this was undertaken and entred upon without good Consideration of the Difficulties the Roman Catholicks were to met with I would desire the Reader to peruse a small Piece by them published in the Year 1685 during the first Session of Parliament of Iames the Second stil'd Salus Britannica or the Safety of the Protestant Religion against all the present Apprehensions of Popery in Folio The Design of which as the Author himself tells us is to examine what National Operation or Influence a Real Popish Crown'd Head can have over the Lives Liberties or Estates of English-men as now enjoyed and the Religion of the Kingdom as at present Establish'd and by confuting even the most substantial of their imagined Dangers to dissipate those false fears of Popery c. page 1. And in truth I believe no Man can deny but he has very effectually
proved that it is utterly impossible for a Popish Prince who has none but these Three Kingdoms to set up Popery in this Nation and that all he can gain by the Attempt will be the Ruine of himself And certainly they could not but apprehend this might possibly if not probably be the Event yet after all King and Kingdom was at last to be sacrificed to the holy See of Rome and on they went when they had proved it impossible to succeed I need be the less exact in setting down what they have done it being within the space of four Years last past that they have had the management of Affairs and so all things are as fresh in all Mens Memories as if they had been acted but yesterday I think then that I may from these Premises safely conclude that a more daring restless and implacable Faction never appeared under the Sun than this is And that it is the Interest of every true English Protestant of what Perswasion soever he be to do his utmost to free this miserable Nation from the Danger and Fear too if it be possible of ever feeling again the dire Effects of Popish Zeal or rather Fury Our wise Ancestors for above these three hundred Years have been labouring to restrain this Demonâ—ick by Laws Oaths and Tests and when all the Methods of Severity fail'd we have tried the Charms of Kindness Trust Friendship and Reliance We set up a Prince of their Communion and opposed all those that would have Excluded him with a Zeal which made us look a little too much in love with one who seem'd designed to be our Scourge by Heaven it self When he had declared his Religion and some of his Party amongst whom Nevel Paine was one had given us clear Indications of their Rage against us yet we in Parliament not only attainted and thereby ruin'd the late Duke of Monmouth and his Party but when some Gentlemen propos'd to have the Security of the Protestant Religion taken into Consideration the House declared they would intirely rely upon his Majesty's Promise for the Security of their Religion which they valued more than their Lives And before this when Charles the Second the 30 th of April 1679 to avoid the Exclusion-Bill propos'd very advantageous Restrictions of the Authority of a Roman Catholick Prince the Church-of-England-men rejected them for fear they should too much weaken and expose the Regal Authority not to mention the Favours shewn to all the whole Roman Catholick Party during the fierce Prosecution of the Popish Plot in that Prince's Reign Well what could have been done more than was to oblige Men or Christians to treat us like Friends when they had an opportunity to express their Gratitude No stay you there Gentlemen we Roman Catholicks have but one Friend in this World and if you are not for him too stand off expect nothing from us but Ruin and Desolation Will you Repeal the Penal Laws and the Tests Why I cannot betray my Religion Then make room for one that will Turn out Ite Procul Ite Profani And we all know what follow'd and I suppose no body in this Generation will have so little wit as to pretend any more to oblige a Roman Catholick by any of these things Well will Oaths bind them No they have a Pope and a Maxim that will frustrate that Ligament when ever it is for their convenience to be free And of this we have seen and felt too much already Will Laws If you catch and hang the Priest the Traitor the Cut-throat he is made a Martyr his Crime 's deny'd palliated excus'd or it may be justified and defended as occasion serves and yet after all they shall have the Satisfaction of clamouring against you for a persecuting Church and a bloody Nation Well what is to be done Why for my part I can see but one possible Method to quiet the Nation and that is once for all to clear it of these Monsters and force them to transplant themselves not out of the English Dominions but out of this Island As long as they continue amongst us they neither can nor will be quiet Priests they must and will have and that Ferment will suffer nothing near it to be at rest The remembrance of what is past will irritate the Minds of Men and make them jealous of future Evils so that no care of the wisest and best Governours can long keep the Nation in Tranquillity and Peace if these Men-catchers are suffered to nestle amongst us But then I would have this extended only to England and Scotland because Ireland would be laid desolate by such an Expedient and if the English Nation which has not above 40000 Roman Catholicks were once cleared it would very easily suppress and revenge any Attempt could be made in that Kingdom Besides this all Feme Coverts all Persons above sixty or fifty years of Age all Day-labourers and Handy-crafts-men might be excepted these can maintain no Priests nor much imbroil the Peace of the Nation or at least for no long time but then all the Nobility Gentry Merchants and rich Tradesmen of that Religion I think ought to be sent packing and for the future a Law be made to disfranchise them and make them incapable of possessing purchasing inheriting or transmitting any Lands Tenements or Hereditaments to the value of forty Shillings per Annum or upwards To make this the more easy yet it were fitting that every individual Person should be asked whether he had rather leave Country or his Religion and all that would promise the latter upon Oath to be excused but so as to forfeit their Estates if they relapsed after the Oath so taken or brought up their Children in that Religion Secondly To allow all that would transplant themselves the full value of their Estates both Real and Personal their Debts being first paid and deducted This would enable them to live in as great or a greater Equipage and Grandeur in our Plantations as they ever had here in England and if they removed into Germany or France Italy or Spain their Estates would make their Lives easy and their Banishment honourable The World is wide and if I were one of them I should never stay for an Act of Parliament but would certainly sell what I had and be gone that I might enjoy my Religion and my Estate in a warmer Climate But alas they love their Country too dearly to leave it what is it in England they love The Civil Liberties they had brought to the utmost limits of Destruction The Religion of England they hate above all other the Earth is not more Fruitful and the Air is much colder than that of other Countries and I am confident the English Humour is so far exasperated against Popery that half a hundred Years will not allay the Fever the last four Years have raised in the English Blood against Popery so that they have nothing to attach them to England but the sullen
in the case of the Lawful Heirs whom every good Englishman and Protestant to their utmost Danger and Peril are ready to defend and maintain to take such Measures for our future Security and lawful Establishment as shall not by any Humane Art or Endeavour be liable to Interruption But as Precedents are least satisfactory or least confronting to obstinate Opposers where they make only for one party A Popish Sigismund deposed for Male-Administration in a Protestant Kingdom may not perhaps be allowed to carry its sufficient Justification with the Romanists and therefore the Tables ought to be turn'd and the Ballance made by Parallels of their own side the most prudent way of combating and securing a Victory in this matter being to lay the Scene of War in the Enemies Country To confute therefore and silence all the Romish Pretensions of Disgust and Murmur against the Injustice of such a Deprivation from Examples of Popish Deposals of Male-administring Protestants we 'll begin with Henry of Navarre afterwards Henry the Fourth of France The famous Holy League enter'd into by the Pope himself and so many potent Allies together with all the Romish Subjects of Franâ—e against that undoubted Heir of the Crown of France and at that time by succession the rightful King is so notoriously known to the World that all the tedious Particulars of the History would be impertinent Let it suffice here was a Prince the unquestion'd Inheritor of the Crown of France actually by all Open and Hostile Means and all such Hostility avowed and abetted and his very Birth-right fore-closed by the Pope himself opposed and denied his Accession to the Throne for no other Unqualifications but be a Hugonot that is of a Perswasion contrary to the Establish'd and Regnant Romish Religion in France being in all other Respects acknowledged a most excellent Prince Insomuch that after all other ineffectual Endeavours of recovering his Birth-right he had no means left to repeal his Exclusion and Debarment from the Throne but by his Abjuration of the Reformed Religion and return to the Romish Worship This Case of Henry the Fourth instead of a Parallel to ours does not come up to half the Justification of the present Measures of England For here was a Soveraign Prince under Deprivation for no other Default but his meer Religion for this Henry the Fourth being then but in his Entrance to the Empire if truly that was consequently yet at least whatever they might fear under no Dilemmas of the least breach of Compact with his People no Forfeitures for Male-Administration or Violation of the Laws of the Land or Rights of his Subjects their Dangers as then being only Apprehensions If therefore the meer private Opinion of a Crowned Head different from the Establish'd Religion of the Land has been of weight enough it self alone in their own Scales to oversway the Birth-Right of Princes and make a Bar to Empire and that too so solemnly confirmed and ratified even by the Sanction Apostolick the Decretals of Rome it self What Objections or Allegations can our Romish Disputants whether Foreign or Domestick make against the like Bar in Empire after so notorious an actual Male-Administration in the present Case of England such too visible Ruptures of the Laws of the Land and in defiance of all Obligations of Engagements Covenant Word Honour or OATHS themselves The next Example I shall point them to is that of the late Portuguese King who by the Ordinance of the States of Portugal ratified by the Pope's Assent was dethroned and his Brother invested with the Soveraignty and not only that but his Queen too taken from him Divorced and by a Dispensation married to his Brother The Grounds of this Deposal being only this that the King was sometimes taken with Delirious Fits. If such a Personal Infirmity was ground sufficient to displace the Crown Have not the Peopâ—e or Community of England in Convention asseâ—bled as much Right on their Side for the Deposal of a King for a far greater Infirmity of the two a more violent Madness his loâ—g tried and radicated Incapacity of being held either by the Bonds or Ties of Honour Laws or Oaths There being this infinite Difference between the Outrages of the one and the other as that a Prince so bigotted resolved for the Introduction right or wrong of his own Religion is the more Dangerous Frantick For his Superstitious Frency may push him to Violences that will hurt whole Nations whereas the Outrages of the other can be only Personal And if the Hands of the Lunatick Portuguese were thought Just to be tied up with no less Shackles than taking both his Kingdom and Queen away from him who shall Arraign the Wisdom of the English for depriving their King of his Kingdom much good may do him with his Queen under an infinite larger Capacity and more dangerous propensity to Mischief And for so doing what Warrant shall they want when the present unforced Desertion of the King and quitting the Helm has put the Power of Decision in that Point into their own Hands and lost him all Right of Appeal against the Alienation I shall venter to add one last Consideration viz. The Bull of Pope Pius Quintus against Queen Elizabeth by which the Pope deprives her of all Title to the Imperial Crown and all Dominion Dignity and Priviledg whatever declaring that all the Nobility Subjects and People of England and all others which have in any sort sworn unto her to be for ever absolved from any such Oath and all manner of Duty of Dominion Allegiance and Obedience c. and all forbidden to obey her or her Motions Mandates or Laws upon pain of Anathema Vide Bishop of Lincoln's Brutum Fulmen p. 6. I recite this unjust Deposal of a Lawful Queen by the pretended Authority of the Pope no other than to let the World know that the Romish Party have the least Reason in Nature to complain of the Deprivation of Princes They whose Infallible Guides can so insolently and arbitrarily place or displace Crown'd Heads not to mention the Illegality of the Pope's Interposition in the Affair in any kind for only acting by Law in Matters of Religious Changes for such were all Ecclesiastick Alterations of that Queen by the unquestion'd Authority of Acts of Parliament can be but ill furnish'd with Arguments against the present Deprivation enacted by the whole Community of England for such violent Measures and Foundations already form'd and begun for the subversion of Church and State against all Law. Reasons humbly offer'd for placing his Highness the Prince of Orange singly in the Throne during his Life I. IT will be a clear Assertion of the Peoples Right Firm Evidence of a Contract Broken and a sure Precedent to all Ages when after a most Solemn Debate the Estates of England Declare That the King having Abdicated the Government and the Throne thereby Legally Vacant They think fit to Fill it again with One who is
not Immediate in the Line II. It will be a Caution to Succeeding Kings of what Fatal Consequence a general Derogation from the Laws may be when they find by this Instance the Exercise of the Kingly Office in Danger not only with Reference to Themselves but Precarious to their Family by the Misgovernment And Generations to come shall praise our Conduct when reading the History of this Day it appears we understood our Case had Honour and Honesty to maintain it and Wisdom enough to transmit it Perfect to our Posterity III. It will be the highest Obligation upon the Two Princesses that can be expected from a sensible People when next to Asserting our own Right by a Fact which is absolutely necessary and above all other humane Arguments they see themselves of Inestimable Value with Us by Recontinuing the Line in Remainder And that their own strict Adherence to the Protestant Religion and Interest out-weighs the Demerits of their Unhappy Father IV. The Princess of Orange will share in all the Glory of a Crown without the Trouble of it Easy from Popish Reflection That She sits in her Father's Throne while he lives And it concerns the Kingdom as well as the Princess to take care That She be at Rest from those Sollicitations on the Behalf of Papists which under the Countenance of Her Father will perpetually assault Her tender Breast Nor is there any room for the Princess of Denmark to think Her self Neglected The Exchange being attended with many Advantages such as it would be lost Time to repeat they are so very Obvious and likewise too many for the Compass of this Paper V. If the Prince of Orange be not King in His own Right His Interest cannot be intirely Ours For though His Gallantry be an Assurance of Sincerity to Us yet if there remain any Probability of His Returning to Holland as upon the Death of His Wife if She only be Sovereign his Interest must be divided Nor will it according to the Art of Government become the Prudence of any Nation to open the Secrets of their Policy to One whom they may be so Unfortunate as to part with into a Country that may possibly interfere with Us. VI. It is dangerous to the Government it self to vest the Exercise of the Sovereignty in Both for they may differ in Sentiments of things and if there be a possibility of Division it would be an unancountable Weakness and great Oversight not to secure our selves in so Important a Point VII It is Repugnant to grant the Crown to Both and fix the Administration in One For the Administration is an Incident Inseparable from the Sovereignty To be a King or Queen and not to have the Exercise of King or Queen is a Contradiction a Departure from all the Rules that were ever laid down in Government unless in case of Personal Incapacity and therefore below a Masculine way of Reasoning Lastly It supports the noble Maxim That a neighbouring Nation may take Arms to assist the Rescue of a People oppressed by Tyranny And Foreign Princes will be apt to look into themselves when they hear by our Example of Gratitude That they are no longer Safe than Just to their Subjects Good Advice before it be too Late Being a BREVIATE for the CONVENTION Humbly Represented to the Lords and Commons of England WHereas we cannot but be made very apprehensive by those several efficacious Papers such as Dr. B's Mr. F's A Word to the Wise and another as close Four Questions Debated and the like which go about left the swaying part of the Nation should be so much intent upon One Thâ—ng as that Others be neglected or lest they be so taken up with putting the Crown upon an Head most deserving it as that they forget what is to be done first which is The Consideration of the Constitution of the Realm and the declaring that Constitution before any Person be admitted into actual Regiment it being common for those that look but on one Thing to be too sudden We therefore judg it meet That this ensuing Paper which was in a few Copies given to some Members of the Houses for preventing that Evil should also be made publick to go abroad with such Papers as those of the former Nature For as it is wise in a People when they make any Compact whether with their Rulers or others that though they believe the Party they deal with to be the best in the World to treat with him for all that and be as punctual upon the Terms to make all secure as if they were dealing with the worst So it is also honest for them in seeking the Good of their Country to deny Self-interest and to prefer the benefiting a Nation before the magnifying any single Person whatsoever The BREVIATE THE People of this Nation are by Birth a Free People who are born to a Liberty of Person and Propriety in their Goods and Lands and therefore England is rightly call'd a Free State. To understand the Government we must know that these two Things are always to be distinguished the Constitution and the Administration The Constitution of a Government does lie in the Original Agreement of the People which they make between themselves or with their intended Governour or Governours before the Government be set up whether there be none before or the Former at an end When the People are in such a State while there is no Order of Superiority or Inferiority introduced it is called a Community When a Ruler is chose so that there is a Ruling and Ruled Part it is a Society or called a Common-Wealth Let us suppose a Company of Families that having no dependance on one another nor any one having Power over the other yet living near each other do find it convenient to join together in a Society for mutual Defence against some Foreign Enemy or for the reaping several Advantages which they shall receive by it The Heads or Representatives of these Families assembled are to consider what is to be done in order to these Ends. Three Things more especially they must consult upon 1. What Government as to the Sort or Kind is best for them 2. Who shall be Governour or Governours 3. And by what Laws or Rules they shall govern who are entrusted with the Supreme Power And more particularly in relation to what Measure of it they will allow them to have over their Persons and Estates to use them as they have Occasion for the Publick Good. For when they are yet free in both the Governour can have Power so far but no farther than they at first consent Whatsoever Reservations of Liberty the People make in their Agreement these are to be look'd upon as their Rights by the Laws of the Constitution and essential thereunto and consequently inviolable by any of these Governours whom they set up for the Administration the very Laws of the Administration being void so far as they interfere with any of these
into utter Despair of the Continuance amongst them of the true Religion of Almighty God and of her Majesties Life and of the Safety of all her Subjects and of the Good Estate of this flourishing Commonweale For that she the said Queen of Scots had continually breathed the Overthrow and Suppression of the Protestant Religion being poysoned with Popery from her tender Youth and at her Age joyning in that false termed Holy League and had been ever since and was then a powerful Enemy of the Truth For that she rested wholly upon Popish hopes to be delivered and advanced and was so devoted and doted in that Profession that she would as well for the satisfaction of others as for the feeding her own Humour supplant the Gospel where and whensoever she might which Evil was so much the greater and the more to be avoided for that it slayeth the Soul and would spread it self not only over England and Scotland but also into all Parts beyond the Sea where the Gospel of God is maintained the which cannot but be exceedingly weakned if Defection should be in these two most violent Kingdoms For that if she prevailed she would rather take the Subjects of England for Slaves than for Children For that she had already provided them a Foster-father and a Nurse the Pope and King of Spain into whose hands if it should happen them to fall what would they else look for but Ruin Destruction and utter Extirpation of Goods Lands Lives Honours and all For that as she had already by her poyson'd Baits brought to Destruction more Noble-men and their Houses and a greater multitude of Subjects during her being here than she would have done if she had been in Possession of her own Country and arm'd in the Field against them so would she be still continually the cause of the like spoil to the greater loss and peril of this Estate and therefore this Realm neither could nor might endure her For that her Sectaries both Wrote and Printed that the Protestants would be at their Wits end Worlds end if she should out-live Queen Elizabeth meaning thereby that the end of the Protestant World was the beginning of their own and therefore if she the said Queen of Scots were taken away their World would be at an end before its beginning For that since the sparing of her in the Fourteenth Year of Q. Elizabeths Reign Popish Traitors and Recusants had multiplied exceedingly And if she were now spared again they would grow both innumerable and invincible also And therefore Mercy in that case would prove Cruelty against them all Namâ—st quaedam crudelis mâ—sericordia and therefore to spare her Blood would be to spill all theirs And for God's Vengeance against Saul for sparing the life of Agag and against Ahab for sparing the life of Benhadad was moâ—t apparent for they were both by the just Judgment of God deprived of their Kingdoms for sparing those wicked Princes whom God had delivered into their Hands And those Magistrates were much conmmended who put to Death those mischeivous and wicked Queens Iezabel and Athaliah And now I would desire our Grumbletonians especially they of the Clergy to consider how extreamly they have degenerated from the good and laudable Principles of their Fore-fathers They may see how urgent the Bishops and others in Queen Elizabeth's days were to have the Queen of Scots removed as above said and how they encouraged the Queen to assist the Dutch against their Soveraign Lord when he attempted them in their Religion and Laws but now they that first opposed One that has broken the Original Contract between King and People and done horrid things contrary to the Laws of God Nature and the Land yet when God out of his merciful Providence and singular favour to us all has inclined him being sensible of his own Guilt to leave the Throne these Very Men that first withstood him as I said begin to pitty him plead for him and extol him and continually both in Pulpit for one of them lately said there That a parcel of Attoms could as soon make a World as a Convention make a King and also in Coffee-houses mutter and grumble against the Proceedings of the great and Honorable Convention of the Kingdom and are busy in sending out and privately scattering their puling Pamphlets under the Titles of Mementoes Speeches and Letters empty of ought else but the spleen of a foolish and frustrated Faction Good God! what inconstancy folly and madness possesses the Breasts of these Men to what a miserable slavery would they lead us and how fond and eager do they seem to have him rule over Us who like the Stork in the Fable has and would make it his greatest delight to devour the best of free-born Subjects But I hope that in a little time they will know the Things that belong to the Kingdom 's Peace and dutifully pray for tho at present there is no uniformity in their Pulpits save in the Dissenters and submit chearfully and thankfully to him whom God has made the Glorious Instrument of our Deliverance from Popery and Slavery God save King William and Queen Mary ADVERTISEMENT ☞ THere is lately published the Trial of Mr. PAPILLON by which it is manifest that the then Lord Chief Justice Iefferies had neither Learning Law nor good manners but more Impudence than ten Carted Whores as was said of him by King CHARLES II. in abusing all those worthy Citizens who voted for Mr. PAPILLON and Mr. DUBOIS calling them a parcel of Factious Pragmatical Sneaking Whining Canting Sniveling Prickear'd Cropear'd Atheistical Fellows Rascals and Scoundrels c. as in p. 29. and other places of the said Trial may be seen Sold by Richard Ianeway and most Booksellers FINIS A TENTH Collection of Papers Relating to the Present Juncture of Affairs in England VIZ. I. Reflections upon our late and present Proceedings II. Some short Notes on a Pamphlet entituled Reflections upon our late and present Proceedings III. The Scots Grievances or A short Account of the Proceedings of the Scotish Privy-Council Justiciary Court and those commissioned by them c. IV. The late Honourable Convention proved a Legal Parliament V. The Amicable Reconciliation of the Dissenters to the Church of England being a Model or Draught for the Universal Accommodation in the Case of Religion and bringing in all Parties to her Communion London printed and are to be sold by Richard Ianeway in Queen's-head-Court in Pater-â—oster-Row 1689. Reflections upon our Late and Present Proceedings in England THO no Man wishes better to the Protestant Religion in general and the Church of England in particular than I do yet I cannot prevail with my self to approve all those Methods or follow all those Measures which some Men propose as the only Security both of the one and the other Never perhaps was there a more proper time wherein to secure our Religion together with our Civil Liberties than now offers it self if we have but the
notwithstanding any want of thâ— Kings Writs or Writ of Summons or aâ—y defect whatsoever and as if the King had been present at the beginning of the Parliament this I take to be a full Judgment in full Parliament of the case in question and much stronger than the present case is and this Parliament continued till the 29 th of December next following and made in all thirty seven Acts as aboâ—e mentioned The 13 Caroli 2. chap. 7. a full Parliament called by the Kings Writ recites the other of 12 Caroli 2. and that after his Majesties return they were continued till the 29 th of December and then dissolved and that several Acts passed this is the plain Judgment of another Parliament 1. Because it says they were continued which shews they had a real being capable of being continued for a Confirmation of a void Grant has no effect and Confirmation shews a Grant only voidable so the continuance there shewed it at most but voidable and when the King came and confirm'd it all was good 2. The dissolving it then shews they had a being for as ex nihilo nihil sit so super nihil nil operatur as out of nothing nothing can be made so upon nothing nothing can operate Again the King Lords and Commons make the great Corporation or Body of the Kingdom and the Commons are legally taken for the Free-holders Inst. 4. p. 2. Now the Lords and Commons having Proclaimed the King the defect of this great Corporation is cured and all the Essential parts of this great Body Politique united and made compleat as plainly as when the Mayor of a Corporation dies and another is chosen the Corporation is again perfect and to say that which perfects the great Body Politique should in the same instant destroy it I mean the Parliament is to make contradictions true simul semel the perfection and destruction of this great Body at one instant and by the same Act. Then if necessity of Affairs was a forcible Argument in 1660 a time of great peace not only in England but throughout Europe and almost in all the World certainly 't is of a greater force now when England is scarce delivered from Popery and Slavery when Ireland has a mighty Army of Papists and that Kingdom in hazard of final destruction if not speedily prevented and when France has destroyed most of the Protestants there and threatens the ruin of the Low-Countries from whence God has sent the wonderful Assistance of our Gracious and therefore most Glorious King and England cannot promise safety from that Forreign Power when forty days delay which is the least can be for a new Parliament and considering we can never hope to have one more freely chosen because first it was so free from Court-influence or likelihood of all design that the Letters of Summons issued by him whom the great God in infinite Mercy raised to save us to the hazard of his Life and this done to protect the Protestant Religion and at a time when the people were all concerned for one Common interest of Religion and Liberty it would be vain when we have the best King and Queen the World affords a full house of Lords the most solemnly chosen Commons that ever were in the remembrance of any Man Living to spend Mony and lose time I had almost said to despise Providence and take great pains to destroy our selves If any object Acts of Parliament mentioning Writs and Summons c. I answer the Precedent in 1660 is after all those Acts. In private cases as much has been done in point of necessity a Bishop Provincial dies and sede vacant a Clerk is presented to a Benefice the Presentation to the Dean and Chapter is good in this case of Necessity and if in a Vacancy by the Death of a Bishop a Presentation shall be good to the Dean and Chapter rather than a prejudice should happen by the Church lying void Surely â fortiori Vacancy of the Throne may be supplied without the formality of a Writ and the great Convention turn'd to a Real Parliament A Summons in all points is of the same real force as a Writ for a Summons and a Writ differ no more than in name the thing is the same in all Substantial parts the Writ is Recorded in Chancery so are His Highnesses Letters the proper Officer Endorses the Return so he does here for the Coroner in defect of the Sheriff is the proper Officer the People Choose by virtue of the Writ so they did freely by Virtue of the Letters c. quae re concordant parum differunt they agree in Reality and then what difference is there between the one and the other Object A Writ must be in Actions at Common Law else all Pleadings after will not make it good but Judgment given may be Reversed by a Writ of Error Answ. The case differs first because Actions between party and party are Adversary Actions but Summons to Parliament are not so but are Mediums only to have an Election 2. In Actions at Law the Defendant may plead to the Writ but there is no plea to a Writ for electing Members to serve in Parliament and for this I have Littleton's Argument there never was such Plea therefore none lies Object That they have not taken the Test. Answ. They may take the Test yet and then all which they do will be good for the Test being the distinguishing Mark of a Protestant from a Papist when that is taken the end of the Law is performed Object That the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy ought to be taken and that the new ones are not legal Answ. The Convention being the Supream Power have abolish'd the old Oaths and have made new ones and as to the making new Oaths the like was done in Alfreds time when they chose him King vide Mirror of Justice Chap. 1. for the Heptarchy being turn'd to a Monarchy the precedent Oaths of the seven Kings could not be the same King Alfred swore Many Precedents may be cited where Laws have been made in Parliament without the King 's Writ to summon them which for brevity's sake I forbear to mention For a farewel the Objections quarrel at our Happiness fight against our Safety and aim at that which may indanger Destruction The Amicable Reconciliation of the DISSENTERS to the CHURCH of ENGLAND being a Model or Draught for the Universal Accommodation in the Case of Religion and the Bringing in all Parties to Her Communion Humbly presented to the Consideration of Parliament WHereas there are several parties of Christians in the Nation who must and will ever differ in their Opinions about the Church and Discipline of it in the Question which is of Christ's Institution it is not our Disputes about the Church â—s Particular which are rather to be mutually forborn and every party left herein to their own Perswasion but a common Agreement in what we can agree and that
is in the Church as National must heal our Breaches The Catholicks are for one Universal Organical Church throughout the World whereof the Pope is Head according to some and the Bishops Convened in a General Council according to others That there is a Catholick Church Visible on earth as well as invisible whereof CHRIST is Head who was on Earth and is now Visible in Heaven is past doubt also with Protestants But that this Church is Organical and under the Government of a Monarchy by the Pope or of an Aristocracy by a General Council it seems a thing not possible in nature because neither can any Oeâ—umenical Council ever be Called or any One Man he sufficient to take on him the Concernmenâ—s of the whole World. A Political Church is a Community of Chrisâ—â—ans brought into an Orber of Superiority and Inferiority by an Head and Members organized for the Exercise of that Government which is proper to it but the whole Earth is not capable of any such Order And Councils therefore which are gather'd out of several Countries or of Bishops belonging to more Dominions than of one Supreme Power may behad for mutual Advice and Concord but not for Government A Nation Empire or Kingdom which consists of one Supreme Magistrate and People who are generally Christians are capable of such an Ecclesiastical Polity and a National Church Political in England is to be asserted and maintained The Church of England then is a Political Society of all the Christians in the Land united in the King as Head and organized by the Bishops for the executing those Laws or Government which he chooses for their spiritual Good and the publick Peace There is this difference between a Church National the Church Catholick and Particular Churches The two latter-are of Divine Right and Essential Consideration but the former is and can be only of Humane Institution for it is manifestly Accidental to the Church of Christ that the chief Magistrate and the whole People should be Christian. Distinguish we here of the Government of the Church as Internal belonging to the Spirit and External which belongs to Men And of the External Regiment thereof which is either Formal belonging to the Ministers or Officers of Christ or Objective belonging to the Magistrate the one being only by the Keyes the other by the Sword. Whether the Community now of Christians in England may be accounted a National Church in respect to any Formal Government of it we leave for dispute to others let them judg according to the foregoing Definition of a Political Church But that the main Body of the Nation are or may be constituted a proper Political Church National in respect to that External Objective Regiment which is or should be exercised by the Bishops as the proper Organs thereof under the King is what we hold reasonable and would lay as the Foundation-Stone of Peace in the matter of Religion between all Persons in the Kingdom Let the Parliament therefore we have be heartily for the Publick Good and thriving of England which must and can be only by an entire Liberty of Conscience in opposition to the narrow Spirit of any single Party or Faction and when such a Parliament as this shall set themselves about the Business of Union to purpose a Bill should be brought in Entituled An Act for declaring the Constitution of our Church of England A Parliament is the Representative of the whole Nation and no doubt but by Consent and Agreement they might upon the account mentioned Make a new Constitution and much more may they Declare the Constitution of it It should be declared then in such a Bill or Act that the Church of England consists of the King as the Head or pars Imperans who is to give Laws thereto and all the several Assemblies of Christians which he shall tolerate as the pars subdita or Body Some Discrimination between the Tolerable and Intolerable is indeed never to be gainsaid by any wise and good Man unto whom there is no Liberty can be desirable which is not consistent at least with these three things the Articles of our Creed a Good Life and the Fundamental Government of the Kingdom It is not for any private persons but a Parliament to prescribe the Terms of National Communion But we would have all our Assemblies that are Tolerable to be made Legal by such an Act and thereby parts of the National Church as well as the Parochial Congregations The Church here therefore must come under a double consideration as the Church of Christ and as the Church of England Take the Church as the Church of Christ and there must be as we have said at first endless Controversy about this point who are the true Members of it but take it under the consideration as National and there will be none at all for those must be Membâ—rs whom the Head by a Law does allow to be parts of the Body and the King under this notion only is made Head of the Church by the Stature that is as it is called Ecclesia Aâ—glicana The Protestant Dissenterâ— of all sorts as well as the Conformists will acknowledg the King to be Supreme Coercive Governour over all Persons and in all Causes Ecclesiastical and Civil throughout his Dominions And will not those who are Roman Catholicks do the like Did they not do so in Henry the Eight's time when they were generally such Again the Dissenters of all sorts even the Congregationalists of every Sect are ready to submit to any power legally derived from the King and upon such an account will admit of a superintendency of the Bishops as Ecclesiastical Magistrates under him when they cannot own any Authority that they have over other Ministers from Iesus Christ and will not Papists also be subject to all Authority that is exercised legally in his Name howsoever they may question the Spiritual Title of the English Clergy and their succession We would have the Bishops then qua Bishops as distinct in Office from Priests declared no other than the King's Officers whose power is but Objectively Ecclesiastical and to act Circa Sacra only by Vertue of his Authority and Commission As Iehoshaphat did comit the Charge incumbent upon him as Supreme Magistrate in regard to all Matters of the Lord unto the care of Amariah being Chief Priest and in regard to the King's Matters unto Zebadiah being as the Chief Iustice of the Realm so should the Diocesian Bishop be in our Ecclesiastical as the Judges are in Civil Matters the Substitutes altogether of His Majesty and execute his Jurisdiction This is indeed at State point which was throughly canvased by Henry the Eight whose Divines did agree on two Orders alone Priest and Deacon to be of Divine Appointment and that the Superiority of a Bishop over a Presbyter or of one Bishop over another was but by the Positive Laws of Men only as appears in that Authentick Book then put out entituled
as the Discusser imposes upon the World. Besides the many Instances in History of several Princes who have forfeited their Succession and consequently their Title to the Crown for revolting from the Establish'd Religion of the Realm But says the Discusser for I look upon his Friend and Him to be all one and that he does but put the Question with one side of his Mouth and answer it with the other I had thought our Laws as well as our Religion had been against the Deposing Doctrine That 's not the Question but whether a Prince may commit those Miscarriages in Government whether he may not so far peccare in Leges Rempublicam as to incur the Forfeiture of his Regal Power and whether a Prince may be allow'd to subvert the ancient Constitutions and Religion of a Nation and yet be said to be the Lawful King of that Realm These are the Questions For theâ— it is not the Law that deposes him nor the Religion that justifies it But it is He that deposes Himself 't is the bad Advice of Evil Counsellors to which he Listens and which he follows to the ruin of the Kingdom contrary to the Original Contract between Princes and People grounded upon the Foundations of all Original Government I say 't is that Adhering to Evil Counsel which deposes a Prince by degrading him from a Lawful King to an Unlawful Tyrant and renders him Liable to the Animadversion of the Law and the impeachments of the oppress'd and injur'd People To assert otherwise were to deprive all National Law and Religion of their self Defence which is against all the Law and Religion in the World. I am apt to believe that Christ himself had no very good Opinion of the lawfulness of Herod's Regality when he sent him that Message Go tell that Fox Herod Which I look upon as a Deposal and Degrading of that Arbitrary Prince by the Founder of our Religion in his own Breast and Judgment though he forbore the Execution of his Celestial Power And therefore it is not the Error of Religion but the Fault of those that do not well distinguish that Religion suffers in her Doctrines For only he who governs according to Law is a King he that endeavours to subvert the Law is none Nor is every rambling and precipitate Brain to be Judg of this neither but the Solid Law and fundamental Constitutions of the Realm So that the Country Gentleman was mistaken in his Thoughts both of our Laws and our Religion However the pretended Scrupulous Country-Gentleman desires the Discusser to expound the State-Riddle of the Vacancy and to give him the Ground of the late extraordinary Revolution To which the Discusser gives no direct answer at present but desires his Friend to take notice That the Gentlemen of the Convention who declar'd a Vacancy in the Government lay'd the main Stress of their opinion upon the King's withdrawing himself For that since the Story of the French League and the Business of the Prince of Wales were pass'd over in silence most Men believed that the pretended Breach of that which they called the Original Contract was no more then a popular Flourish All which is such an imperfect peice of Incoherence that none but a madman would have thrust in by Head and Shoulders as the Discusser has done For how can it be inferr'd that the Breach of the Original Contract should be a Popular Flourish because the Clandestin League and the False Birth are hitherto pass'd over in silence As for the surreptitious Birth one would think it was sufficiently dilated upon in the Declaration of the Lords and why it is not farther brought upon the Stage there may be several Reasons given and among the rest because it may be thought that the Imposture will vanish of it self and so there will be no need of casting an Eternal Blot upon the memory of them that contriv'd and own'd it Then for the Clandestin League it Suffices that there is apparent Proof of it in Bank. But to call the Breach of the Original Contract pretended and a Popular Flourish is a yerk of Malitious Reflection which only serves to expose the Discusser to Publick censure For as there is nothing more certain then that there is an Original Contract between the King and People of England the Breach of which has cost the Effusion of so much Blood so is it as certain that that Original Contract was never so infallibly broken then it was of late Which as it is allow'd by all the Laws of God and Man to be a sufficient ground to seek a Remedy so was nothing more vigorously urg'd by the Convention Which might have convinc'd the Discusser that they did not pretend it for a popular Flourish But now lest the Country Gentleman should be shogg'd by seeing the Votes of so considerable a Meeting debated by a private Hand the Discusser reminds him That a Parliament and a Convention are two different Things The latter for want of the King's Writs and Concurrence having no share in the Legislative Power But the Discusser forgets that it was only a Convention of Lords that sent to Richard the Second to meet them at Westminster which the King at first promis'd to do but upon altering his Mind sent him another peremptory Message that if he would not come according to his Promise they would chuse another King and then proceeding farther according to that Power they had expell'd against the King's Will several of his chiefest Favourites from the Court constrain'd others to put in Sureties to appear at the next Parliament and caus'd several others to be arrested and committed to several Prisons If a Convention could do this where the King was present what signifi'd the Writs and Concurrence of an absent Prince Nor did they contend for Legislative Power but only met in a kind of embodied Dictatorship to take care of the present Necessity of Affairs But this says the Discusser was not justifiable for that the Nenessity which they pretended was either of their own making or of their own submitting to which is the same Thing But this is all Nonsence For if the Necessity was of their own making then were the Lords and Commons the Authors of all the Miscarriages which they laid to the late King's Charge If of their own submitting to then would they never have call'd out for succour and crav'd Relief from their Oppressions No They were those crying Grievances sum'd up in the Declaration of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons assembl'd at Westmister presented to their Present Majesties upon the Twelfth of February Last which when the late King could not justify them by force of Arms but fled for it not being able to answer his endeavours to subvert and Extirpate the Protestant Religion and the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom put them to that necessity of assembling after an Unusual Manner to provide for the Common Safety How ever the Discusser will have it a
Years been Embezl'd to keep up a standing Army of Irish Ragamuffins as if England were now in its Turn to have been conquer'd by Ireland as formerly Ireland had been conquer'd by England From which fears when his present Majesty had delivered the Nation it was but reason that his Army should be pay'd out of the Publick Stock for their happy Toyl and labour For the Publick Revenue of all Kingdoms and States was ever Originally intended for the Preservation and not the Destruction of the People Upon the Disbanding of the Papists the Discusser makes a special Observation That no Test-Acts nor any Others could barr the King from Listing them as Common Souldiers This perhaps may be true that is to say that a Protestant Prince may list Papists and a Popish Prince Protestants to follow him in a lawful War. But when a Popish Prince in a Protestant Nation had made his chiefesâ— Levies of Popish Common Souldiers to over-aw his Protestant Subjects and put his sole Confidence in them for his known and open Designs and manifest Endeavors to introduce Popery into a Protestant Kingdom contrary to the Law 't was time then to think of disbanding such Vermin and ridding them out of the Land. And the reason why the Protestants could not be trusted was as certain For if the King would not trust his Protestants nay disarm'd them when Papists were both arm'd and Employ'd what reason had the Protestants to trust the King. And this was that which among other Things created and foster'd those General and Violent Dissatisfactions in the Nation For Men have naturally a general and violent Antipathy against having their Throats Cut if they can help it And therefore since the Kingdom by a Miraculous Providence had obtain'd its Redemption 't is to be wonder'd the Discusser should imagine 't was ever intended that the late K. should be in a Condition again to oppose either his own or the persons of any others against the Arms of the Prince or those of his own Subjects And whereas he says that the King 's Mortal Enemies were to be the Judges of his Crown and Dignity the Discusser should have done well before he had made his Reflection upon so many Eminent Patriots to have consulted Grotius l. 1. c. 4. Par. 8. and the Example of Pausamias King of Lâ—cedaemon there cited Certainly there was no such Impossibility but that a Free and Indifferent Parliament might have been chosen to deal equally between the King and the People For tho the King perhaps might be conscious that he could not so well rely upon the Kindness of those to whom he had always had such an inveterate Antipathy yet he might have rely'd upon the Justice of so many Great and Worthy Personages So that it is the Discusser himself who out-faces the Sun and tramples upon the Understandings and Senses of the whole Nation who makes these little Rhetorical Flourishes to palliate and obscure the Truth and to insinuate among the People as if Wrong and Injustice had been done where nothing was acted but what was a due debt to Self-Preservation And with the same Brazening the Discusser out-faces the Sun and tramples upon the Senses of the Nation to assert that a Desertion of the Government after such Proposals which were rather Assurances of his Safety was no Desertion He had been safer in the Affection of the People when all his evil Counsellers had been remov'd from about him he had been safer from the Importunities of his Priests and Jesuites He had been more secure from running himself into farther danger and safer in the Enjoyment of his Royal Dignity But he who had so Solemnly sworn to Establish Popery in England or die in the Attempt thought himself no where safe perhapps but where he might be procuring his future Bliss by the Performance of his Vow The Discusser now advances to the King 's second withdrawing and puts the Question what the King had done to incur a forfeiture by his first Retirement Indeed what had he not done If the Discusser â—orgot in his Discussing Heat the Declaration presented to their Present Majesties would have rubb'd up his Memory Among the rest there was one That he had endeavoured to Subvert and Extirpate the Protestant Religion and the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom by raising and keeping a Standing Army in the Kingdom in time of Peace without Consent of Parliament and quartering Souldiers contrary to Law and by causing sâ—veral of his good Subjects to be Disarm'd at the same time when Papists were both Arm'd and Employ'd Now to what purpose was all this but to Subject the Kingdom to the Tyranny of the Pope In such a case Barclay cited by Grotious l. 1. c. 4. per. 10. gives this for his Opinion Si Rex regnum alienet aut alij Subjiciat amitti ab eo Regnum To which Grotius himself adds Si Rex reipsa tradere regnum aut Subjicere molliatur quin ei resisti in boc posse non dubite Aliud est enim Imperium aliud habendi modus qui nâ— mutetur obstare poâ—est Populus After all this it cannot be imagin'd that the King returned the second time with an intention to govern unless he might govern at his own will and Pleasure as he did before But that would not be suffer'd him for they who had now avoided the Yoke so near putting about their Necks would never endure it should come so near their shoulders again Therefore all the Probality in the World is on this side That the King perceiving that by taking the Government upon him again he should not be able to attain those Ends which he had made the Business of his whole Reign resolv'd to relinquish it altogether At which time being at liberty to go or stay his Departure must of necessity be accounted Voluntary and consequently an Absolute Abdication Lastly it is impossible that the King could be frighted out of his Dominions by the making of two or three Addresses to his then Royal Highness the Prince of Orange for it was no more than rationally he could expect would be done more especially from the City to the Person who next under God had deliver'd them from their Continual fears of Fire and Sword. Nor by the denying him a little Gold to Heal with which looks like an improbable Story of the Discusser's own framing These are Motions so inconsiderable for a King to forsake his Dominions that the Discusser seems to have Conjur'd them up meerly to degrade the Courage of the Absenting Monarch and to mortify his own Discussion But after all the Question may be fairly put whether Withdrawing in the Construction of our Law does not rather imply a Guilt than an Apprehension of Danger unless it be that of being call'd to an Account since the Query always propounded to the Jury is Did he fly for 't Which indeed ought to be the Legal Determination of this Dispute However the Discusser goes on and tells
different and distinct Administrations they liv'd under absolute Monarchs their Grandeur was won by the Sword and confirm'd by a pure Despotick Power and therefore their Resistance had been unlawful contrary to the Rule and Force of their Government but it is quite otherwise with us We are setled upon a Gothick Model our Princes make no Laws without our own Consent they are obliged to the excution of Laws made by our selves with their Consent they have no Power to dispense with the breach of them by others nor to invade them themselves This was own'd by the seven Bishops declar'd by former Parliaments so that no Man is bound to pay their Allegiance any further Let Caesar have what is Caesar's and the Subjects what is theirs their Laws their Birth-right In some cases Moral positive Duties are superseded by what is naturally Moral as in the Duties of the fourth Command so here Tho Government in general be founded upon Nature yet this or that Form is but positive and if it be not consistant with the end of Government Self-preservation Why should not it be either altered or fixed in those who will prosecute the right end the Preservation of the publick Peace and Liberties of the People To what hath been said let me add ex abundanti the late King 's retiring into France if it amount not to an Abdication it comes near unto a Forfeiture and no Prince or State can have less Reason to indeavour to restore him to his Crown and Dignity than that Monarch Whence hath he his Claim but from Hugh Capet and he from the Election of the great Men of the Kingdom and why did they pretend to lay aside Charles Duke of Lorrain whose Right it was by Succession but meerly upon this ground He had joyned himself to the Enemies of the Kingdom and so they transfer the Crown unto another Family that of the Capets And does not all Christendom in general and the English Nation in particular look upon that great Man of France as a Common Enemy shall not that which may hinder Succession justify in part a translating of it unto another But blessed be God all these are cleared in an Abdication and that asserted by the Representative Body of the whole Nation And now good Sir be perswaded to lay aside all Prejudice submit your Sentiments to the Judgment of your Superiors yield your Obedience and Fealty in taking the Oaths this you see is your Duty and not only so but your Interest It is not long since we were apprehensive of Popery and the Church-of England-Men did set themselves in direct Opposition against it and all the Accesses toward it for which the Generations to come shall call them blessed But whence come these Apprensions to be lessened can we expect a perfect Freedom from these Fears should he be re-admitted to his Authority It is not possible a Popish Soveraign should keep Promise with his Heretical Subjects as they stile us their words and Oaths if Roman Catholicks bind no further then stands with the Interest of their Religion and we know who both can and will dispence with Oaths and Promises made to Hereticks Would you fetter him by Laws these have been like Sampsons Cords easily broken Would you place him under Tutors and Governours He is no minor cannot submit aut Caesar aut Nullâ—s Men are but Men at the best and Time and Preferment may alter their Judgments However these would make him a Prisoner and no King. Should we submit in hopes of another Opportunity Would he not settle a Correspondence with Male-contents at Home and Foreign Princes Abroad and if he prosper in the Design hath that Common plea That his Promises are Void because made by him when under Restraint And then What will become of all that is dear unto us Religion Lives Liberties and Estates This is prevented by an Abdication so that if he return it must be by Conquest and then he will rule by the Sword we shall all be in the same Condition lie under the charge of Hereticks Rebels and Traytors the Government chang'd from a regulated Monarchy into an absolute Tyranny our Religion abrogated we shall be sold as Slaves or burnt as Hereticks If Men love Bonds and Imprisonments Rapine and Sequestration Racks and Tortures Fire and Faggots let them continue this Humor and Aversation but if none of these be lovely as indeed they are not let us bless God who hath redeemed us from the Hand of our Enemies and the Hand of all that hate us Let us joyn issue with the Divine Providence which hath delivered us from all these Evils in submitting and yielding our Obedience to our Soveraign Lord and Lady by whose Conduct and Courage we are brought into a state of Freedom and Peace Be not affrighted out of this by the false Rumors and Reports spread abroad by evil-minded Men but let us unite in our Submission to our present Rulers that thereby we may strengthen their Hearts and Hands in our common Defence There remains one Prejudice but no Objection arising from the vain Fears of some Men that the Church begins to be shaken in her Authority whilst matters of Religion fall under a Dispute and no Convocation consulted with But this if fully considered would swell a private Letter into too great a Bulk Let me for the present desire you to consider there is nothing design'd in Doctrinals but meer Matters of Ceremony and a relaxation of some Laws not consistent with the greatest Interest of the Nation in this present Juncture the Union of Protestants And out of experience that the severity of those Laws never reclaim'd one Dissenter but rather did drive others out of the Pale of the Church it is not unworthy of but highly becoming the Wisdom of those worthy Patriots to find out a Method whereby all Protestants of every Form may be brought into an easy Condition This Subject if this Letter find a candid Reception may be more fully considered of by Your very Friend Servant and Brother R. B. To the Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal And to the Honourable the Knights Citizens and Burgesses in this present PARLIAMENT Assembled The Humbletition of TITUS OATES D. D. Most Humbly sheweth THat your Petitioner in the Year 1678 discovered a horrid Popish Conspiracy for the Destruction of the late King Charles the Second His Present Majesty and the Protestant Religion within these Kingdoms and prov'd it so fully that several Parliaments and Courts of Justice before whom he gave his Testimony declared their Belief of it by publick Votes and the Condemnation of several of the Conspirators For which Reason and because your Petitioner would not be terrified by their Threats nor seduced by their Promises of great Rewards with both which Temptations they often assulted him to desist in his Discovery the Jesuits and Papists pursued him with an implacable Malice and endeavoured to take away his Fame and Life by suborning Witnesses to
If the dissatisfied Party accuse the Convention for making the Prince of Orange King it is not my Duty to judge those above me therefore I shall only say that if they have done ill Quod fieri non debuit factum valet aâ—d they of the Clergy ought not to censure their Superiours but obey according to the Law and Doctrine of Passive Obedience FINIS The TWELFTH and Last Collection of Papers VOL. I. Relating to the Present Juncture of Affairs in England and Scotland VIZ. I. The Secret League with France proved II. The Reasons why the late King Iames would not stand to a Free and Legal Parliament III. The Reason of the Suddenness of the Change in England IV. The Judgment of the Court of France concerning the Misgovernment of King Iames the Second V. The Emperor of Germany his Account of the late King's Unhappiness in joining with the King of France VI. A full Relation of what was done between the Time the Prince of Orange came to London till the Proclaiming him King of England c. VII The Declaration of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons of England concerning their Grievances presented to King William and Queen Mary With their Malesties Answer VIII The Declaration of the States of Scotland concerning their Grievances IX The Manner of Proclaiming King William and Queen Mary at Whitehal and in the City of London Feb. 13. 1688. X. An Account of their Coronation at Westminster Apr. 11. 89. XI The Scots Proclamation declaring William and Mary King and Queen of England to be King and Queen of Scotland XII The manner of their taking the Scotish Coronation Oath at Whitehal May 11. XIII The Coronation Oaths of England and Scotland London printed and are to be sold by Richard Ianeway in Queen's-head-Court in Pater-noster-Row 1689. The Secret League with France proved 1. BY the Treaty managed by the Dutchess of Orleans between Charles II. her Brother and Lewis XIV 1670 published by the Abbot Primi in his History of the War with Holland with the priviledg of the French King This Treaty expresly tells us That the French King did promise Charles II to subject his Parliament to him and to Establish the Romish Religion in his Kingdom But before this could be done the said Dutchess told him the Haughtiness and Power of the Hollander must be brought down 2. By the Current of the Design throughout all Coleman's Letters which contain nothing else but the Conspiracy of the Duke of York and the Jesuits against the Government and the Protestant Religion For you know says he in his Letter to Sir W. Throgmorton Feb. 1. 1674 5. when the Duke the late King Iames comes to be Master of our Affairs the King of France will have reason to promise himself all things that he can desire c. Both he and the two Royal Brothers being closly joined together to destroy the Northern Heresy as he in his Letter to Monsieur La Cheese assures us 3. Which Friendship with the French Court is further confirmed by a French Author who wrote the Life of Turene in which he brings in the Duke of York lamenting the Death of that great Marshal of France after this manner Alas says the Duke the loss is great to me in that I am greatly disappointed in those great Designs I have been long meditating upon if ever I come to the Crown of England For the sake of which Passage the then Secretary of State of England forbad the printing of that Book which was then translated and prepared for the Press 4. The French Ambassador at the Hague in a Memorial to the States General Sept. 9. 1618 peremptorily declares there was such an Alliance between the King his Master and King Iames II as to oblige him to succour him c. 5. Both King Charles II and King Iames II were so engaged with the great Nimrod of Francâ— that â—hough several Parliaments of England strugled hard to break the Friendship and gave a vast Sum of Mony in order thereunto yet all in vain And King Iames II was so eager to follow the French Measures that after the Defeat of Monmouth he declared to the Parliament that for the time to come he would make use of Popish Officers as well as keep up a standing Army contrary to Law. 6. We have had sufficient Evidences of his Designs by the care he took to fill his Army with Irish Papists at the same time that he disbanded all the Protestants that served him in Ireland that he might always have an Army at hand in that Kingdom ready to promote his Popish Designs in England which could not be done without a Secret League with France and without a very express assurance of being vigorously supported from thence when the nick of time should come 7. His flying to France and secret conspiring with the great Leviâ—tâ—an there and bringing French Aids with him into Ireland are no other than the putting the Secret League into Execution Many more Proofs may be produced but what has been said may convince any rational unprejudiced Protestant As for those Pharisees that wilfully shut their Eyes of whom we may say That seeing they see and do not peeceive because they are resolved not to yield to the most convincing Evidences that this Affair is capable of for the Parties concerned will hide it as much as they can I bewail their Condition and believe they are so obstinate that only the French Dragoons those booted Apostles can convince them when they come with the League in their Hands to put the Popish Penal Laws in Execution on their Backs from Neâ—gaâ—e to Tybâ—â—n The REASONS why the late K. James would not stand to a Free and Legal Parliament proposed to those that are fond to have him again WHEN the Prince of Orange now our Gracious King his Glorious Expedition was first made known to the late King he resolved to have a Parliament upon the Belief that he should have been intirely Master of the Lower House by Reason of the Regulations he had made in Corporations in order to his Popish Designs But when he was forced to take other Measures as he told the Dissenters when he sent for them in the time of his Distress in restoring the Charters the Bishop of London the Fellows of Magdalen-Colledg c. He dreaded nothing more than a Parliament on the old Foundations to which the Prince in his Declaration had referred all for he knew several things would have been done by such a Parliament that he chose rather to perish than submit to 1. The first thing is The Examination of the Birth of the Prince of Wales as he is call'd the questioning of which was a Stab at his Heart as appears by his last Letter And the Reflections on the Bishops Petition mentioning That as a Business not fit to be referred then to a Parliament 2. The next thing was That Justice would certainly have been demanded against the Evil
after their being exhausted have been Plundered and after Plundering have been burned and razed The Palaces of Princes which in all times and even in the most destructive Wars have been preserved are now burnt down to the Ground The Churches are robbed and such as submitted themselves to them are in a most Barbarous manner carried away as Slaves In short it is become a Diversion to them to commit all manner of insolences and Cruelties in many places but chiefly in Catholick Countries exceeding the Cruelties of the Turks themselves which having imposed an absolute necessity upon us to secure our selves and the Holy Roman Empire by the best means we can think on and that no less against them than against the Turks We promise our selves from your justice ready assent to this That it ought not to be imputed to us if we endeavour to procure by a just War that security to our selves which we could not hitherto obtain by so many Treaties and that in order to the obtaining thereof We take measures for our mutual Defence and Preservation with all those who are equally concerned in the same Design with us It remains that we beg of God that he would direct all things to his Glory and that he would grant your Majesty true and solid Comforts under this your great Calamity we embrace you with tender Affections of a Brother At Vienna the 9 th of April 1689. An Account of what was done between the Time the Prince of Orange came to London till the Proclaiming him King of England 1688. IN December last the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and all the Members of the three last Parliaments of King Charles the Second with the Lord Mayor and Aldermen and several of the Common Council of London were summoned by the Prince in that extraordinary Conjuncture when the late King had deserted the Government to consult what was fit to be done And they the said Lords and Commons did desire the Prince to take upon him the Administration of Publick Affairs both Civil and Military and the disposal of the Publick Revenue for the preservation of our Râ—ligion Rights Laws Liberties and Properties and of the Peace of the Nation and that he would take into his Care the Condition of Ireland till the Meeting of a Convention of Lords and Commons which he was entreated by his Circular Letters to summon to meet on the 22 d of Ianuary The Prince accordingly accepted the Administration and issued out his Letters for a Convention to meet on the 22 d of Ianuary as aforesaid The Prince then on December the 30 th issued out his Proclamation for the Continuance of the Sheriffs Justices of the Peace and other Officers and Ministers not being Papists to act in their respective Places till the Meeting of the Convention or other Order to the contrary c. On the 2 d of Ianuary He put out a Declaration for the better collecting of the Publick Revenue On the 5 th of Ianuary he put forth an Order for all Military Officers with their respective Companies to march out of the Quarters where any Elections should be the several Garisons excepted the day before the same be made to the next adjoining Town or Towns being not appointed for any Elections and not to return to their first Quarters till the said respective Elections be made and fully compleated that so the Election of Members for the intended Convention may be free and without any colour of Force or Restraint On the 7 th of Ianuary the Scotish Nobility and Gentry waited on the Prince what was done by them see the 6 th Collection pag. 9 10 11 12. On the 8 th day his Highness put out a Declaration against Quartering of Souldiers in private Houses He found the Treasury very empty of Cash it being said to be but 40000 l. Whereupon he desired the City of London to advance a Sum for his present Occasion and on the 10 th of Ianuary they agreed to lend 100000 l. But it being raised by Subscription it amounted to above 150000 l. On the 16 th of Ianuary He put out a Declaration to assure the Mariners and Seamen of their Pay. The two Houses met on the 22 d of Ianuary 1688 9 the Lords chose the Marquess of Hallifax for their Speaker and the Commons chose Henry Powle Esq for theirs After which a Letter was read in both Houses from the Prince of Orange on the occasion of their Meeting to this Effect That he had endeavoured to perform what was desired from him for the Publick Peace and Safety during his Administration and that it now lay on them to lay a Foundation of a firm Security for their Religion Laws and Liberties That he did not doubt but that by such a full and free Representative of the Nation the Ends of his Declaration would be attained He recommended to them the dangerous Condition of Ireland and also of the States of Holland both which required large and speedy Succours and told them That since it had pleased God hitherto to bless his good Intentions with so great Success he trusted in him that he would compleat his own Work by sending a Spirit of Peace and Union to influence their Counsels that so no Interruption may be given to a happy and lasting Settlement The first Thing the two Houses took care of was by mutual Consent to make an Address to the Prince in which they acknowledged him the Glorious Instrument under God in the great Deliverance of the Kingdom from Popery and Arbitrary Power They acknowledged also his great Care in the Administration and entreated him to continue it till further Application and that he would take into his Care the State of Ireland Then the Houses ordered that Thursday Ian. 31. be a Day of Thanksgiving in the City of London and places adjacent within ten Miles and the 14 th of February throughout the whole Kingdom Then the Lords ordered that no Papist or reputed Papist should presume to come into the Lobby Painted Chamber Court of Requests or Westminster-Hall during the Sitting of the Convention And after several Days Debates in both Houses about the Abdication of the Government and the Vacancy of the â—hrone On the 12 th of February the two Houses at last fully agreed all Things in Dispute between them in the following Declaration The Declaration of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons Assembled at Westminster Concerning the Misgovernment of King James and filling up the Throne Presented to King William and Queen Mary by the right Honourable the Marquess of Hallifax Speaker to the House of Lords With His Majesties most gracious Answer thereunto WHEREAS the late King Iames the Second by the Assistance of divers Evil Counsellors Judges and Ministers imploy'd by Him did endeavour to Subvert and Extirpate the Protestant Religion and the Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom By Assuming and Exercising a Power of Dispensing with and Suspending of Laws and the Execution of Laws
Massacre of the English in it If thus all the several Branches of our Constitution are dissolved it might be at least expected that one 〈◊〉 should be left entire and that is the Regal Dignity But â—â—â—cerâ—â—ng the Birth of the supposed Prince of Wales no Proofs â—â—re ever given either to the Princess of Denmark or to any othâ—â— Protestant Ladies in whom we ought to repose any Conâ—â—â—â—â—ce that the Queen was ever with Child that whole Matter bâ—â—â—g managed with so much Mysteriousness that there were violent and publick Suspicions of it before But the whole Contrivance of the Birth the sending away the Princess of Denmark the sudden shortning of the Reckoning the Queen 's sudden going to St. Iames's her no less sudden pretended Delivery the hurrying the Child into another Room without shewing it to those present and without their hearing it cry and the mysterious Conduct of all since that time no Satisfaction being given to the Princess of Denmark upon her Return from the Bath nor to any other Protestant Ladies of the Queen's having been really brought to Bed. These are all such evident Indications of an Imposture in this Matter that as the Nation has the justest Reason in the World to doubt of it so they have all possible Reason to be at no quiet till they see a Legal and Free Parliament assembled which may impartially and without either Fear or Corruption examine that whole Matter If all these Matters are true in Fact then I suppose no Man will doubt that the whole Foundations of this Government and all the most sacred Parts of it are overturned And as to the Truth of all these Suppositions that is left to every Englishman's Judgment and Sense An ANSWER to a PAPER intituled Reflections on the Prince of ORANGE's Declaration IT seems a strange piece of Arrogance that any Man should reflect on a Declaration because it does not begin as he would have it that is with a Manifestation of our Clandestine League with France whereby an Army of Frenchmen together with our Papists Irish and other Mercenaries might establish Popery in England The Reflector ought to have consider'd that a Clandestine League tho' it may be very notorious to its Existence and Effects may likewise be very difficult to prove according to the meaning of the word Clandestine But that there is such a one we have the Testimony of the King of France in a Memorial delivered to the States of Holland and though it has been since disowned by our Court and Mr. Skelton upon it committed to the Tower his short Confinement and sudden Advancement to a Regiment shews that his Disgrace was but a trick of State It is also an inconsequential way of Arguing that because the Prince does not begin his Declaration with it therefore there is no such League things of that high consequence being easier and better carried on by secret Messages than Writings under Hand and Seal 2. In his second Reflection he tells us the Prince had needed less Apology if he had pretended only to have come to deliver the King from Evil Counsellours and to ingage him further in the Interest of Europe forgetting the Prince does declare to us he comes for that end tho' not singly and brought over his Army to secure him from the Rage and Fury of those Evil Counsellours His next Quarrel is that the Prince uses the Stile Of We and Vs within His Majesties Dominions a thing I believe ordinary enough in Great Princes when they speak or write to their Inferiours The Prince of Orange is General of a great numerous Army Admiral of a vast Fleet State-holder to a High and Mighty Common-wealth and consequently too great to speak in the Stile of a Private Person so that Rewarding Punishing Commanding Advancing may very naturally fall within his Power Nor is it any Crime to endeavour the calling of a Free Parliament and settling the Nation tho by ways and methods unusual in our days nothing being more frequent in our Histories than for our Barons with Arms in their Hands to compel their Kings to call and hearken to their Parliaments But now there being a standing Army of fourty thousand Mercenaries in the Land it was grown a Crime to petition for a Parliament and a Folly to expect a free one new Charters and Corporations and a general Nomination of incompetent Magistrates having taken the Election of Members for Parliament out of those Hands the Laws of the Land and Memorial Custom had intrusted with them According to the new Scheme designed by those Upstart and Popish Counsellours no Man was to Elect or be Elected for Parliament that would not ingage as far as in them lay to take away the Penal Laws and Test nay those wicked Counsellors prevailed yet farther upon his Majesty and he that pardoned so many of his Enemies was not suffered to forgive his best Friends and most Loyal Subjects a Refusal or Excuse in that particular That the Prince will send back his Army seems to some a strong presumption that he will not stay behind since even our own lawful King thinks himself not safe without an Army of Mercenaries in his own Kingdom From a strain'd Phrase or two Of We and Vs Require and Command sometimes used in his Declaration to infer That the Prince of Orange intends to make himself King of England seems to all rational Men a very captious and unsatisfactory way of arguing and a very unjust Calumny cast upon so great a Prince since more than once in express terms he declares he has no design upon his Majesty's Crown or Person so that all that Reproach falls to the Ground 3. In his third Reflection he tells us the Prince wants a clear Call and that a Son against a Father a Nephew against and Unkle a Neighbour against a Neighbour cannot be such That he is a Son-in-Law and a Nephew to his Present Majesty gives the Prince a fair and just pretence to interpose in our Affairs had he been a Foreigner as our Reflector terms him it might have look'd like an intended Conquest had he not been a Neighbour it had been Impossible for him to have afforded us this seasonable Assistance But some think that where Attempts are made to introduce the Catholick Religion by a Conspiracy against the Laws that secure and establish the Protestant Religion and the Test that only can keep the Papists out of the Government And to carry on this Conspiracy the better the old Charters are taken away under pretence of Forfeiture and Surrender new ones granted such as might bring Elections within the Power of those Evil Counsellors Papists upon the Bench a Jesuit in the Council and whole Troops of them in the Army 'T was high time for a Protestant Prince that had so near relation to the Crown of England to look about him and choose rather to be censured by our Reflector and such as he for entering upon the Stage a little before
Necessity of their own creating tho never so false For says he if the King had either not bin driven out of his Dominions or invited back upon honourable Terms they needed not have had recourse to such unusual singular Methods of proceeding And thus the Discusser rambles out of one Untruth into another For he fled from offer'd Treaty forsook the defence of his own Forces and left them to be disbanded in Arrears and without Payment slipt from his own Council by Night after he had appointed to meet them in Consultation the next Morning Nor could he justly suspect that any Violence would have been offer'd to Him in particular being so well assur'd as he could not choose but be of the Generous Inclination and profound Respect which the Prince had to his Person But if the Guilt of peculiar Miscarriages hasten'd his Departure or oversway'd him toleave the Heâ—m of Rule without any Form or Face of Goverment That could ne're be call'd an Expulsion out of his Dominions And therefore when a certain Gentleman waiting on him at Feversham besought him to return to London he gave the Person this Reply That he was an honest Gentleman but knew not what he knew And when he had once abandon'd the Kingdom all forlom without either Head or Conduct without Council or any Countenance of Authority then according to the Judgment of the Common-wealth of Venice in reference to the Succession of Henry the 4 th it belong'd to the Nobility and chief Persons of the Land as they are the chief Defence of the Royal Authority to take care of the Publick Safety whether by usual or unusual Methods of proceeding it matters not and they have both the Authority of Law and Necessity to justify their Proceedings As for his being invited back upon Honourable Terms 't is well known how he return'd back and went through the City on the Sunday Night attended by his own Guards and lodg'd in White-Hall and this most certainly in order to an Accommodation Only because the Prince was coming to Town he was sent to and for the avoiding any Disturbance that might be prejudicial to his Person was humbly desir'd to retire to Ham-House with Liberty to make choice of what Persons he thought fit to attend him Which he promised to do but recollecting himself and desiring to know whether he might not return back to Rochester word was sent him the next Morning that he might do as he pleas'd All this while here was no Constraint put upon him so that he could not be said to be driven out of his Dominions but that it was his own Choice to forsake it Notwithstanding all this The Discusser will undertake to prove That the King before his withdrawing had sufficient Grounds to make him apprehensive of Danger and therefore it could not be call'd an Abdication But through the whole Pursuit of his Argument the Discusser most wretchedly mistakes the Point quite mistaking the Effects for the Causes For says he Had not the King great Reason to retire to secure his Person and his Honour when he had met with so many unfortunate Disappointments with so many surprising and unparallel'd Accidents When part of the Army was revolted and the Remainder too apparently unserviceable When the People had such fatal and unremoveable Prejudices against his Service When there were such terrible Disorders in the Kingdom and all Places were either flaming or ready to take Fire What should a Prince do when he had scarce any thing left him to lose but himself but consult his Safety and give way to the irresisâ—able Evil These are very great Disappointments and evil Accidents indeed to befal a Prince But the Discusser forgets to tell ye That the Prince brought all these Inconveniencies upon himself The Discusser tells ye that part of the Army revolted but he omits to tell ye that it was out of a Generous Principle for that being Protestants they would not embrue their Hands in the Blood of their Fellow-Protestants and Countreymen nor be Instruments to enslave the Nation He tells ye of terrible Disorders in the Kingdom but does not tell ye it was time for the People to be in Disorder when they saw such Incroachments upon their Ancient Franchises such Inundations of Popery flowing in upon their Consciences and such a rapid Violence of French Thraldom tumbling in upon their Necks He complains that all Places were either flaming or ready to take Fire but forgets to tell you who were the Incendiaries These therefore with several others of the same Nature being the true Causes that drew the foresaid Inconveniencies upon the King it follows that tho the Secondary Constraint of his withdrawing might be occasion'd by the Effects yet the Primary Cause of his withdrawing proceeded from the First Causes which produced the Effects Consequently such a Retiring was voluntary and not forc'd because he may be justly said to fly from something of dreaded Punishment rather then pursuing Danger from which he was always at a distance â—ar enough off but dubious what would become of him as to the Former The Discusser makes many other grievous Complaints to justify the King's First withdrawing for hitherto he is altogether upon that but when he comes to sum up all In short says he when the Forts and Revenue were thus disposed of when the Papists were to be disbanded and the Protestants not to be trusted when the Nation was under such general and violent Dissatisfactions when the King in case of a Rupture had nothing upon the matter but his single Person to oppose against the Princes Arms and those of his Subjects when his Mortal Enemies were to sit Judges of his Crown and Dignity if no farther when Affairs were in this tempestuous Condition to say that a Free and Indifferent Parliament might be chosen with the Relation to the King 's Right as well as the People's and that the King had no just visible Cause to apprehend himself in Danger is to out-face the Sun and trample upon the Understandings and almost upon the Senses of the whole Nation As for the Fortified Towns it was but Reason that his then Highness the Prince of Orange who came over to rescue the Nation from Arbitrary Violence and Oppression should demand them to be put into his Power well Knowing them to be then in the Hands of Irish Papists and Cut-Throats of whom the People stood in Perpetual Fear and who were rather a Consternation then Security to the Kingdom And the same reason holds in Relation to the Revenue For all the World knows what Vast Sums had been Squander'd away by the late King when Duke to keep off the sitting of Parliaments and to buy off the Members when they Sate and when that Money was spent so much to the Detriment of the Realm what Sollicitations were made to the French King for more to carry on the Popish Cause and Interest It was as well known how the Revenue had of late