the king of Sweden and the States of Holland would have construed all designes upon the Protestants in England as done against those of the same religion with themselves and in favor of whose profession they had entred into that Alliance 6. He hath not only mantained correspondence with Forrain Princes to the betraying the Kings councels but hath confederated with them for the extirpation of our religion and overthrowing our Legal Government And besides many other evidences of this which it is not convenient to mention at present The depositions which arrived with the Commitee of Seceresy during the Session of the late Parliament together with Colemans letters and that which he wrote in the Dukes name and indeed by his command do uncontrolably demonstrate it 10. He was consenting to and hath cooperated in the whole Popish Plot for both his Confessor and Secretary did with his knowledg and approbation Seal the Resolves for the Kings death 11. It was the Duke who when the King had revealed the first discovery of the Hellish Romish Plot to him immediatly communicated it to Father Beding-field that so the conspirators might know to how secure their papers and abscond themselves 12. It was he who through his command over the Post Office prevented the intercepting the letters From St· Omers and others Forraign Seminaries whereby that whole damnable conspiracy would have been more fully detected 13. He employed his own Dutchess to transport several of the Traitors to Holland that so they might scape the search that was made for them and the punishment which they had deserved 14. It was he who suborned encouraged and rewarded the vilest Miscreants to frame and swear a Plot against the Protestants and this he did to beget a disbelif of the Popish conspiracy and in order to destroy such of the Nobility and Gentry as were the chief assertors of the Reformed Religion and English liberty 15. It was he who advised the several prorogations and dissolutions of Parliaments whensoever they were either considering the bleeding condition of the Protestant interest abroad or supplicating the King to an Alliance with Protestants Princes for its protection and preservation 16. It was he in whose favour the Dissolution of the last Parliament was procured and who hath prevented the sitting of this after Eight several times appointed for their meeting And all to hinder the Trial of the Traitorous Lords in the Tower and to obstruct the further search into the many Hellish Plots wherein himself and the rest of the Papists are engaged for the subversion of our Religion and Laws and the destruction of the lives of his Majesty and People And how much he hath lessened his Majesties interest in the hearts of his Subjects and weakned their confidence in his Royal word by obliging him to treat this Parliament as he hath done seeing in his speech to both Houses March 6. 1678. he had so solemnly declared his resolution to meet his people frequently in Parliaments and into what straits and wants they have thereby also reduced him I shall rather leave your Lordship silently to consider than take upon me at this time to unfold 17. It was he who after he had for so many years promoted the aiding and succoring of France with English Forces till that aspiring Prince was ascended to a power and greatness not to be in any probability withstood or controlled did at last engage his Majestie in making the general peace which is a thing so highly prejudicial to all Europe in the unavoidable consequences of it 18. It was he who countenanced and enlivened the late Traitorous Combination of Prentices and Ruffians and who together with the Lords in the Tower Issued out the Mony both for the expences of their entertainments and for the providing them with Arms to distrube the peace of the Citty and Kingdom and assault the Houses and Lives of his Majesties Liege People 19. It is he who hath enrolled and secretly mustred men in all Counties of England and who besides the English Papists whom at this time he hath called from all parts of the Nation to London is also provided of a great number of Irish who formerly washed their hands in the blood of Protestants or are the genuine off-spring of those that did Now being thus furnished and environed he is resolved unless God in his providence miraculously interpose to put all to a venture and play over the same game in England that was heretofore acted in Ireland 20. It is he who cherisheth in his bosome and exalteth to the highest Trusts such as Coll. Worden who betrayed his Majesties secrets to the usurping powers particularly to Mr. Scot. Nay himself may be charged with many â—hings in those times whereby we may apparently discover both his treachery to his Majesty and his ambition to have usurped the Crown from him For when a Loyal party of the English Fleet had espoused his Majesties Right and Title against the enemies of his Crown and person the Duke who being then aboard should have encouraged and ventured his Life in conjunction with them did instead thereof by a most shameful and â—isloyal deserting of them both discourage them in their fidelity and so far as in him lay obleige them to compound for themselves with a â—eclusion of his Majesties intrest Yea besides this when the Scots were treating the King at Breda in order to the establishing him in the Throne of that Kingdom the D. of Y. was at that very time transacting with such as remained faithful to the Kings Title here that they would renounce his elder Brother and chuse him for their Soveraign Nor do I believe that his Majesty can forget the occasion and design upon which the Duke forsooke him at Bruges and withdrew to Holland so that the King was necessitated not only to command him upon his allagience to return but was forced to send the Duke of Ormond and some other persons of quality to threaten as well as perswade him before he would goe back 21. It is he who not thinking the declaration enough to facilitate his ascention to the Throne or to secure him from resistance in the attempts he purposeth upon our Lives and Liberties hath been and still is endeavouring to be admitted and let further into the Government and accordingly hath accosted the King by my Lord Durass in that matter This is the more surprising forasmuch as one would think that it is not possible he should be further let into the Government having Berwick Hull Langer point Shereness Portsmouth and the Magazine of the Tower Legg being now Master of the Ordnance in the hands of his sworn vassals and creatures and having also the superintendency of all civil affaires in him unless by taking the Scepter actually into his hand he should confine the King to a Country House and and an Annual pension And his partisans about the Town talk of no less than the having the Duke Crown'd during the Kings life as
the seclusion of the Duke of Monmouth from all Title to the Crown may be judged sufficient inducements to have prevailed with him if not to have asserted the said Dukes Bastardy yet to have been silent in the case and not to have proclamed the Legittimacy And yet that very Lord being in danger of an Impeachment in Parliament for advising and perswading the King to a Marriage with Queen Katherine excused himself from all sinistrous ends in that affair by affirming That his Majesty had a lawful Son of his own by a former Marriage specifying by name the D. of M. to succeed to his Crown and Dignity Now though it may be supposed that a person may sometimes lye for his Interest yet no man can be thought to do so in order to the prejudice as well of himself as his whole Posterity And if we believe men speaking falshoods in subserviency to their Honour and Profit Shall we not give credit to them when they speak Truth to their own damage and that of all those who are dear unto them Certainly the positive Confession and Testimony of this one Person being against the Interest of his whole Family of more weight than the denyals of any number whatsoever when meerly to promote their safety and advantage or to serve the Exaltation of the Papal Cause These are but few of the many particulars I could acquaint your Lordship with relating to the confirmation of a Marriage between the King and Mrs. Walters But it is a piece of necessary wisdom at this juncture to know what not to say as well as to understand what to say And to tell you plainly I 'm more a Servant and a Friend to my Country than by pretending to plead the Dukes Cause and to be useful to the Nation to discover the Witnesses which are in reserve or betray the farther Evidences which are to be produced when this matter shall come before a competent Judicature Sixthly 'T is matter of no small trouble to such as truly love his Majesty that the Kings Integrity and Honour should be brought to stake in a matter wherein both the present Age and the succeeding may take occasion to question and bring into examination his Truth and sincerity For though it is not impossible but that Princes considering the Temptations with which they are surrounded may sometimes through inadvertency and at other times upon State Motives endeavour to impose upon the credulity if not abuse the Faith of their People Yet the veracity of a Supream Governour is of that importance to himself and so necessary to the Veneration which his People ought to maintain for him that he is not to bring his Credit to Pawn unless it be in such Cases wherein his People may if not apologize for yet connive at the indiscretion and weakness of their Ruler should he be found to delude them Nor hath any thing obstructed the affairs of Princes more and prevented their Peoples believing them when they spake their most inward thoughts than the forfeiture of their Credit in matters wherein their Subjects relyed upon the Honour and Truth of their Word For they who do not mean as they speak when People are prepared to hear them must not expect that their words should be much relyed upon when their Tongues are the true Interpreters of their minds And let me tell your Lordship that this last Declaration hath caused multitudes of his Majesties best Subjects to reflect upon and take a view of many of his former Declarations that from them they may be furnished with reasons for justifying themselves in the suspension of their assent to this And I wish there had not been that cause administred by foregoing ones which may with too many lessen the value of the Royal Word in that bearing date the second of June The first of this kind he ever published after he came in view of being restored to the Sovereignty over these Kingdoms was that dated at Breda the 4 th of April 1660. wherein he promised Liberty to all tender Consciences and engaged the sacred word of a King That no man should be disquieted or called in question for differences in matter of Religion provided they did not disturbe the Peace of the Kingdom Now though I will not dispute about the sence wherein this Declaration was meant nor concerning the End for which it was calculated and fram'd yet this I may be allowed to say that there are a great many of his Majesties Liege People who have tasted dealings directly repugnant unto it and may justly complain of some faileur in the accomplishment of it 'T is true his Majesty is not originally to be blamed that it had not the hoped for effects but withal that Prince that can be over-ruld to recede from a Promise which contributed so much to his happy and peaceable Restoration may be supposed capable of such Impressions from men of ill minds as may make him venture his Royal Word in other cases beyond the measures of Justice But seeing it were a business of too much Fatigue to call over all the Declarations since his Majesty actually occupied the British Throne I shall therefore remind your Lordship only of two more Whereof the first is that of January the second 1671 wherein the King upon shutting up the Exchequer Declares on the Word of a Prince That the restraint put upon payments out of the Treasury should continue no longer than till the last of Decemb. 1672. And yet the fulfilling of this is still Prorogued though it be now above Nine Years since the Royal Word was pledg'd for making it good The other that I shall refresh your memory with is that of the the Twentieth of April 1679. Wherein his Majesty having shrived himself and craved absolution for all past matters solemnly declareth that he would for time to come Lay aside the use of any single Ministry or private Advices or Forreign Committees for the general direction of his Affaires and that he would afterwards Govern his Kingdoms by the Advice of that Counsel which he had then chosen together with the frequent use of his great Council of Parliament as being the true and antient Constitution of this State and Government Far be it from me to blame his Majesty for the disappointment of those hopes which the People had so universally conceived upon that Declaration which was so full of ingenuity and candor and so adapted to the Honour Safety and Interest both of King and Kingdom but this may be said without the least umbrage of irreverence that the same pestilent men who were able to cause his Majesty to violate such a Declaration wherein he spake the most like a wise and good Prince that ever he did may be also able by the same ascendant influence to wrest an unadvised and bad one from him The same Councils which prevailed upon him to go against both his Royal Word and all the Maxims of Pollicy with which he is so richly
free so in plain English the generality of the People and those of the best sense hold themselves no wise affected or prescribed unto by these Declarations For we who knew the tenour of them when they lay concealed in the Councel Books and yet thought our selves at liberty to believe as our Judgments conducted us are not likely to have our mindes altered by the bare Printing of them But how far the Conscience of the king is concern'd or defiled I leave to those of the Theologick Faculty to resolve only I judge that the same Casuistical Divinity whereby they salved the Conscience and vindicated the honor of the king in case the of the Covenant and with all discharged him from the Obligation which it was supposed to have put upon him may whensoever he thinks meet stand him in good stead and affoord him the same relief in the case of the late Declarations Eightly There is one thing further that must not be omitted because it gives us amazement and yet affords us pleasant diversion namely the motive they have brought his Majesty to alledge for his making and publishing this Declaration I confess I could not read it without surprise and wonderful emotion And I dare say when you think seriously of it you will find pitty stir in your heart to your abused Prince and your bood swell in your Veins through indignation at some about him For after the care they have suffered him to take for preserving our Religion Lives and Liberties from the designs of the Papists by dissolving two Parliaments and so often Proroguing a third they bring him now to publish this Declaration to relieve the minds of his loving Subjects from their fears and to prevent the ill consequences which a belief of his having been Married to the D. of M's Mother may have in future times upon the Peace of these kingdoms A most proper way to extinguish our fears by doing all that he can to subject us hereafter to one who is the professed Enemy of our established Religion and Legal Government But that your Lordship may the better comprehend how highly we are obliged to his majesty for his love and tenderness to his People in all that they judge dear and valluable by designing so hopeful a Successor over them I shall recount some of those many particulars from which we esteem our selves capable of judging what a gracious and desirable Prince this dear and beloved Brother is like to prove 1. He is a Gentleman that hath renounced the Religion wherein he was not only educated and which these Nations profess but which he had consigned unto him sealed with the Blood of his father and entailed upon him and the whole Line by no less then his Grandfathers Curse in case any of old Jame's off-spring should depart from it 2. He hath made it his business to seduce his Majesties Subjects to the papal Faith and to enslave them to a forraign Jurisdiction And by his addresses solicitations and preferments wherewith he is able to reward such mercinary soules as are ready to make sale of their Religion he hath made more converts to the Church of Rome than all the English Missionaries have been able to do 3. Through the power which he hath obtained over the King he hath procured the chiefest places of strength in the Nation and some of the greatest Trusts as well Civil and Religious as Military to be conferred upon known Papists and sworn enemies to the Protestant Cause and English Liberties 4. He hath been the principal promoter of Arbitrary Government and of making the Kings interest both distinct from and opposite to that of his People And this he hath done in pursuance of Papal advice and in subserviency to the Romish interest For where the Monarch is absolute and the Lives and Fortunes of whole Nations are enslaved to the will and pleasurâ— of one person the meer wheedling of a lustfull weak or inconsiderate Prince will go a great length in the gaining vast multitudes to adore the Triple Crown And for such as shall provâ— stubborn and refractory it is but meritoriously to kill them and then convert their Lands to the use of the holy Sea 5. It was this darling and beloved One that Authorised thâ— burning of London and not only made his own palace a Sanctuary to the Villan's who were suspected as instruments of that dreadful conflagration but rescu'd and discharged diverse who were apprehended in the very Fact And this he did partly in revenge for as much as London had been both the Magazine of Strenth and Treasure during the War with the late King and partly to gratify his Popish friends by destroying the bulwark of the Protestant Religion and the chief Receptacle of the Hereticks 6. It was this presumptive Heir that all along obliged his Majesty to neglect the concerning himselfe in favour of the Protestants abroad and did so order it through his power over the King that never any forrain Alliance was made but what was abused to the betraying of them And here let me call over a story and perhaps a more Tragical one and accompainied with baser Treachâ—ry then any History is able to acquaint you with One Monseiur Rohux a French Gentleman coming into England to treat with the King concerning an Alliance between his Majesty and Forrain Protestants meerly for the preservation of their Religion and having acquainted the Duke of York with his errand after he had in a private conference or two transacted with the King about iâ— This Royal Prince out of his wonted kindness to the Protestants and the reformed religion caused Rouveny Lieger Ambassador from France at this Court to stand behind the hangings at St James while he made this innocent Gentleman discourse over the whole business Upon which Mons. Rouveny being obâ—iged to acquant his master with it Mons. Rohux who upon some â—ntimation that the Duke had betrayed him had withdrawn â—ence to Switzerland was there seized by a party of French Horse and brought to the Bastile whence after some times imprisonement he was carried to the place of Excution and broken â—pon the Wheel 7. It was through the Duke of Yorks means that both the first â—nd second Wars were commenced against the Dutch and that â—n order not only to weaken the Protestants by their mutual deâ—troying of each other but in hope to have turned the victorious Arms of the King upon the Hereticks at home and the patrons of English liberty 8. It was this zealous Prince for the honour and safety of Brittain that adviced the breaking the Tripple-League which was the wisest conjunction and most for the glory of the Kings Reign and the preservation of his Dominions that ever he entered into And this he did not only to gratify France whose Pensioner as well as whose confederate he hath been but to leave the Protestants here naked to the attempts of the papists For he knew that while that League continued firm