〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 OR THE PICTURE OF THE Late King James Further drawn to the LIFE In which is made manifest by several ARTICLES That the whole Course of his Life hath been a continued Conspiracy against the Protestant Religion Laws and Liberties of the Three Kingdoms In a Letter to Himself PART The Third By TITVS OATES D. D. LONDON Printed by J. D. to be sold by Richard Baldwin near the Oxford-Arms Inn in Warwick-Lane M. DC XCVII TO His most Excellent Majesty WILLIAM III. By the Grace of God And the Choice of the Good People of England Of Great-Britain France and Ireland Rightful and Lawful KING Defender of the Faith and the Restorer of our LAWS and LIBERTIES As well as the Victorious PROTECTOR of Oppressed Europe TITVS OATES D. D. His Faithful Dutiful and Loyal Subject and Servant most humbly dedicates this ensuing MEMORIAL The Contents of this Third Part. INtroduction on K. James's being deserted by the Pope the Scotish Bishops Pag. 1. c. Article XXII He 's charged with Misapplication of the Taxes c. in his Brother's Time 5. XXIII With suspending the Laws against Priests and Jesuits 9. XXIV With the Loss of the Dominion of the Seas 11. XXV With refusing the Test against Popery 13. XXVI With marrying the Daughter of Modena 14. XXVII With making a French General over the English Army 19. XXVIII With oppressing the Kingdom of Scotland with the several Means he made use of 20. XXIX With attempting to break the Vse of Parliaments which is branch'd out into many Divisions and Subdivisions 30. Conclusion giving some Account of King James's Friends here in England c. 94. ERRATA Pag. 1. and some following Pages for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pag. 30. l. antepenuâ—t for with r. without 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Or The Third Part of the Picture of the Late King JAMES SIR I Cannot but acquaint you that many of your Friends here in England are much concern'd that the Whore of Rome that is Mystical Babylon laboured no more to support you when you usurped the Imperial Crown of this Realm and that when God gave the Nation Grace to drive you and your Italian Triggrimate and Welch Cub from amongst us he did not move both Heaven and Earth to restore you again And that since you have fought many a bloody Battel for the Honour of the English Nation you would not venture one more as an additional One to save the Crown on your Head Truly Sir Rome's Prelat did not deal well by you nor you by your self You may remember it appeared to your Red-Letter Friends as if the Grandeur of the Popish Religion and Superstition had been your Gracious Aim and Design and that not without Reason for in a most decent manner you lost the Crown and the little Gentleman his Dominion Nay they hold up their Hands lift up their Eyes and curse that old Coxcomb Innocent XI as the worst and basest of Men that betrayed the Interest of the Church in not doing his Duty to which he was obliged viz. in seconding such a Glorious Design and Undertaking But this thing he never did nor do I believe any of his Successors ever will for in my Conscience I believe they have too much Sense to attempt the Support of a falling House notwithstanding the Conduct and Courage they may pretend to in Cases that are of that Weight and Difficulty It 's true Odescalchi pretended he was to act but 't was according to his own Reason not according to your Sense which if he had followed he might have abdicated Rome the very Day you were driven out of England Therefore what a Varlet you had to do withal judg you Truly he saw that you were losing and that you did in time in a comfortable way quit the Kingdom of England and therefore ought to have sacrificed even the Papacy on your behalf But he was so far from that piece of Heroick Justice that I am perswaded the old Priest would scarce have sacrificed a Sop in his Dripping-Pan to your Service Well then what 's next Since the Church left you I pray what hath the French Monarch done for you I must confess he hath done more for you than the Church did for she left you betimes but he allows you a good Pension and hath not as yet taken it away he does not give and take away Pensions at pleasure and say he hath no Money no it is below him But what is the Reason he doth not come over with you and fix your sweet Bum in the Royal Chair and return as you said he would to France again without putting us to the Charge of a Jack of small Beer for his Pains Or since both the Pope and French King have not done their Duties what 's the Reason that you being a Man of Courage ask Tom Jenner else that has fought so many bloody Battels for the Honour to the English Nation and on behalf of the Crown tho Old Hodg and a Conclave of Inferiour Clergy-men consulted all the History of your Life but could not find one Word of it except that which sav'd them from the Gallows did not fight one single Battel to keep the Crown upon your Head You might have done it and your Clothes have sat never the worse upon your Back Well you had the Courage to run and needs must when the Devil drives and so there is the End of an old Song I have thought upon your Case with as much deliberation as ever the Cathedral Logger-head of a Priest did of getting a Bishoprick by threatning us with disputed Titles and an endless War and yet could never make any thing you ever said or did to be of a Piece Therefore I shall ask you a few Questions and hope you will give me the Satisfaction that one Gentleman ought to give another I do not mean thereby to challenge you for I am no Swords-man I assure you and I think you never took any great delight in one unless it was to hang by your Side As for your Enemies I think you scarce ever fought with any unless it were at the Old-Baily Kings-Bench Court or Western-Circuit where the Odds were ten thousand to one on your Side therefore I mean by Satisfaction a plain honest Answer to the following Questions 1. I remember the villanous Bishops of Scotland took it as a great Affront that our Parliament in England could not reconcile the Security of the Protestant Religion with the admitting of you to be King Now these Bishops poor Rogues had clear another Notion of the Business and thought it might be done with as much ease as for an English Man to catch the Itch in a Scotish Laird's House and therefore went roundly to work and procured your Brother to call a Parliament and constitute you High-Commissioner which was no sooner said but done and your Succession settled and truly you appeared very formidable in that
to you for a moderate Sum of Money a Million or two would by the French King's Assistance have been a competent Stock to open Shop withal that our Laws Liberties and Religion too should have perished at one stroke such was your Rage against us at that Day Your Bullies about the Town had the aid of your Purse to swagger against the Parliament and to admire the French King and tell us how happy we were by being imbarked in the French Interest thrô this Match and why should a damn'd Parliament be suffered to sit till it was consummated beyond the Power of their interposing in it And the King was not to be trusted in this Affair if a Parliament were to sit for he would be wheedled by the House of Commons upon the account of Money to break off this hopeful Match yea and with the King of France too but keep him without a Parliament and he would do any thing to please the French King or your self Now Sir from all this we may conclude how foolish and malicious your Crew did shew themselves in the Prorogation of the Parliament that the King might not be engaged by them to break off that Match to the projudice of the Popish Religion or the French Interest 2. This was not the only Reason for you had another before you viz. The consideration that the Bill for ease of Protestant Dissenters whereby a major part of them should have Liberty of Conscience and be capable of Church-preferment had passed the Commons and was sent up to the Lords in March 1672 3 where it then remained and would not long stick as you and your Party feared before it would obtain the Royal Assent which if once effected you foresaw the uniting the Protestant Interest would tend greatly to the suppression of Popery and consequently no hopes of that Religion 's being replanted here but if you could any how prevent the passing that Bill you doubted not for all the Parliament could do to be safe amongst so many Dissenters and drive on your Designs underhand for the destruction of all Protestants From hence Sir let me observe 1. That this was a time when you and your Party were not for Liberty of Conscience because the uniting of Protestants by Liberty would be very fatal to you and therefore you got the Parliament prorogued that this Blessing might not fall upon you and your Friends But how comes it to pass that you gave God thanks that it was always your Judgment that all Men ought to have the Liberty of their Consciences in Matters of Religion and Worship Were not you a most notorious Hypocrite to say so 2. You must needs be engaged in a most Hellish Design against the Protestant Religion and your Party be resolved to proceed-no farther in any other Work but that must be destroyed or else what needed so much Care for proroguing the Parliament that the Bill for Liberty of Conscience then in the House of Lords might of course come to nothing By which Prorogation you so offended the Parliament that you lost at least the Gift of a Million of Money 3. It argued you certainly very full of Revenge that because your Brother was forced to break his Declaration for Liberty of Conscience you would procure the Prorogation of a Parliament to break the Bill for it tho it was more legal and commendable in the Parliament notwithstanding the Loggerheaded Reasons given against it in 1664 in a Session of the same Parliament for by it we saw plainly that an Arbitrary Declaration for Liberty of Conscience was the Sense of your Soul but a legal Liberty of Conscience you hated from the bottom of your Heart and would rather incur the Displeasure of a Parliament than they should have the doing of that which they would not suffer your Brother your Self and wicked Party to do in a most illegal manner without the Authority of Parliament 4. I perceive at that time it was the Sense of the Lords as well as of the Commons that such a Bill was necessary to secure the Protestant Religion and therefore it would have passed that House and the King have given his Royal Assent to it if there had been but a Million or 1200000 Pounds in the Case Therefore that they might be better informed concerning the Conveniency of your Italian Match and the Inconveniency of that Bill for Liberty of Conscience you obtained a Prorogation tho your Brother good Man lost a swinging Tax by the Bargain 5. That you gained your Point in reference to Liberty of Conscience for Time you know is often Life to a Cause And as the Protestant Interest run high in the Session of Parliament in 1672 3 and this Act came from the Commons to the Lords in favour of them who had passed it but for want of Time and another Bill passed against Popery by which Clifford fell and you and your Party put out of Humour so that Clifford's Fall might be gentle an end was put to that Session the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience was broke or cancell'd and in revenge you put a stop to the passing the Bill that would have established Liberty of Conscience by a Law by breaking up the Parliament from Octob. 20. to 27. and then to Jan. 7. following In this Recess you not only compleated the Italian Design but so ordered the Matter that when the Parliament met in January all Favour to Dissenters was killed as dead as a Door-nail and not one word of reviving the Bill for Liberty of Conscience was heard of but on the contrary our Prickear'd Priests were instructed to preach this to be as true as the Gospel that now there was no more Danger from the Papists but that the Phanaticks were the only dangerous Enemy and you and the Devil's Brokers had found out a Scots Lord and 2 Men who then made a mighty Figure at Court that were impudent and desperate enough to put the King's Affairs on so narrow and weak a Bottom Nay Old Lawderdale rather than fail becomes a Patron of the Church and who but he with his Guts was cried up by our Parasitical Pulpit-hunters Nay I will say this for Clifford that tho Villain enough yet his Principles were very generous in comparison of your new Set of Juglers whose Business it was to ruin those this Year they had supported but the last nay give them their due they would never forgive a Man that had been but once in the Right Those Sir were your trusty Cards and they agreed with our Spiritual Guides and Roger their Master not only in Principles but Passion too therefore you presently joined with them in directing the Judges to put the Laws in Execution against Dissenters which was done as you required 6. Our Holy Church-men as their Zeal was much increased by your Influence to suppress the Dissenters so their Zeal against Popery was to all Intents and Purposes extinguish'd as if you and your Italian Mistress had
they called in an Act that raised it An humble Tender to his Sacred Majesty of the Duty and Loyalty of his antient Kingdom of Scotland And as a Testimony of the same they did offer to the King 20000 Foot and 2000 Horse sufficiently armed with 40 days Provision to be ready upon the King 's call and in the same Act they declared that if the King should have farther Use and Occasion for their Service the Kingdom would be ready every Man between Sixty and Sixteen and hazard their Lives and Fortunes if called for by his Majesty for the Safety and Preservation of his Person Authority and Government Sure one would think you had given them some State Philtre to create in them such a slavish Loyalty and Love to your Brother's Person and Government 4. Nay they went a step farther to please your Brother and your self being resolved not to fall short in expressing their Loyalty and Affection to him therefore do but observe them in another Act of Parliament wherein they most dutifully and humbly recognize his Majesty's Prerogative Royal and declar'd in the said Act That the ordering and disposal of Trade with Foreign Nations and the laying Restraints and Impositions upon Foreign Imported Commodities did belong to his Majesty and his Successors as an undoubted Privilege and Prerogative of the Crown and that therefore they might do therein as they should judg fit for the good of the Kingdom 5. These People certainly were bewitch'd with the thing called Loyalty and made it appear to the World that they placed the Security of all their Interests more in their Confidence of the King's Goodness than the firmest Provision of the best Laws for tho in the Parliament held by your Father in Person in 1641 many Acts were signed by him for settling their Religion Properties and Liberties which the deepest Consideration and Maturity of Judgment imaginable grounded upon long and well-weighed Experience many and well-managed Treaties and the Mediation of England could afford and furnish yet because the Glory of those Laws appeared to these Blockheads to be stain'd by the remembrance of some previous Contentions wherein they thought themselves very infortunate by having your Father differ from them to please your Brother at one blow they repealed the whole Proceeding of that Parliament and all the Laws then and there made for the Preservation of Religion as aforesaid 6. Those whom God will destroy he delivers up to Madness first and s he did these People in evidencing an unparallel'd Submission to the King and a Resignation of all that was near and dear to them into his Hands for tho that Nation since its first Reformation from Popery did continually oppose Prelacy yet after they had destroyed it and enjoyed their Church under a Constitution and Ministry according to their Hearts desire in compliance with your Brother they parted with the Presbyterian Government and reestablished Episcopacy to the Amazement of most Men so acceptable was he to the Scots Parliament at that Time And for the carrying on your cursed Designs you know how your Brother made James Sharp Mr. Hamilton Mr. Farwell and another whose Name occurs not at present to renounce their Presbyterian Ordination who were made Deacons and Priests and then consecrated Bishops by the Bishop of Winchester and two others of that Gang and four Scots Prelates thus made the King fixed the Government of that Church by Arch-bishops and Bishops as in his Father's time in 1637 who had the same Authority derived to them as they had in your Grandfather's Reign so by Proclamation bearing date Sept. 6. 1661. the Presbyterian Government ceased to be to all Intents and Purposes and the Council suspended the Meeting of the Presbyteries till they had received Power not from Heaven but from the Arch-bishops and Bishops who were in a short Time to enter upon their Government To compleat this Work the Parliament in the 2d Session reinstated the Bishops in the exercise of their Functions and restored them to all their Privileges Dignities Possessions c. Now one would think this Compliance of the Nation should have obliged your Brother and you to have treated them in some measure sutable to their Loyalty and slavish Resignation of themselves Your great Instrument in carrying on this blessed Work of inslaving the Kingdom of Scotland in these particulars in order to your farther Designs was the Earl of Middleton the first High Commissioner after your Brother's return who was most violent in pursuing this Change but by his impetuous Violence in this mighty Work on which he much valued himself he rendered himself obnoxious and despising Lauderdale who took hold of some of his Miscarriages in a short Time he was unhorsed by him and Lauderdale procured the Commission of Lord High Commissioner for the Earl of Rothes by whom Middleton's Parliament was dissolved upon which Madam Van Harlot their new Church appeared in its proper Colours and being made Triumphant 't is well known what Pranks the Whore played what Tumults her Guides excited and what Tragedies her Reverend Clergy acted in your Brother's Reign Nay old Hodg was not so much as advised withal in the Case and every thing was carried on with that Fury that had not Sir Robert Murray come in to the Relief of the People who were on the very brink of Destruction they must have inevitably perished But Sir I will not dwell here any longer only tell you that Lauderdale was the third Lord High Commissioner of Scotland by whom a lamentable Scene of Rogueries were acted and by whom you made your blessed Steps to ruin that poor Nation 1. Your first Step to ruin Scotland was the making Middleton and Lauderdale so excessively great In truth to give the Beasts their due as the Scotish Nation was not able to bear their Greatness so neither they to bear their own You remember that before Lauderdale was Commissioner by reason of his being sole Secretary of State for that Nation and Court-minister he had the absolute Rule and disposing of the Affairs and Concerns of that Kingdom which gave great Offence to the Scots who in the particulars abovesaid had shewed themselves so abominably Loyal as to quit their Religion Laws and Liberties to please your Brother and you As for Middleton he was invested with such Powers that Lauderdale was jealous of his Greatness who seeing him exercise his Power to the utmost imagined there would be nothing for him to do and therefore as I said justled Middleton out by whose Greatness Scotland by Consent of Parliament delivered up all as if Hallifax himself had issued forth Quo Warranto's against their Franchises both as to Liberty and Religion and you having had enough of Middleton's prostituting himself to your Brother's Will and yours exit Middleton and enter Lauderdale a case-hardened Rogue a Villain fit for the Devil's Service to all Intents and Purposes who the more easily to compleat your wicked Designs you may remember did
hated Parliaments for your Father of ever-notorious Memory hated them and therefore tried Conclusions with Parliaments for 12 Years together 'T is true he did call that blessed Parliament in 1640 that would have redressed England's Grievances had they not been prevented by the factious Spirits of some whose Zeal was not according to Knowledg Dr. Gauden tells you that your Father call'd that Parliament in Novemb. 3. 1640. Not more by the Advice of others or by the Necessity of his own Affairs than by his own Choice and Inclination I could expect no better from a Baal's Priest than to begin with a Lie For what Man that lived in that Time knew not how the Case stood with Charles the First And besides if I had not Access to a King yet I could discover his Inclinations either by those that were about him and in favour with him or by the Currant of his Actions all which I say testified to the World your Father's strange aversness to a Parliament Those that were near him and most in favour with him were Courtiers and Rascally Prelats Vermin whose chief study was to find out how he stood inclined and to imitate him exactly and that which was his Will was their Doctrine concerning Parliaments and so it was with you But that I may proceed in some Method I shall shew 1. That Parliaments are the Right of the People 2. That they are an essential Part of the Government 3. That you hated them tho such and by consequence was an Enemy to the Government of England 1. That Parliaments are the Right of the People of England which they may claim in order to have their Grievances redressed the common Safety of the Nation provided for and their Religion Laws and Liberties secured For call to mind with delight if you can the wonderful Discovery and undeniable Confirmation of the Popish Plot which designed so much Ruin and Mischief to these Nations in all things both Civil and Sacred and the unanimous Sense and Censure of so many Parliaments upon it together with some Acts of Publick Justice upon many of the Traitors The Nation was not without hopes that since that cursed Design of introducing Popery and Slavery and the Murder of your Brother was discovered for the space of 30 Months at least some effectual Remedies should have been applied to prevent the Attempts of your Cut-throat Party upon us the better to secure the Religion and Government of the Nation and the Person of the King But by sad Experience we found that notwithstanding the vigorous endeavours of three Parliaments â—o provide proper and wholsome Laws to answer both Ends by your influencing a pack of Villains you and your Party were so prevalent as to stifle in the Birth those Righteous Endeavours of our Parliaments by many surprizing Prorogations and Dissolutions whereby the Fears and Dangers of the People daily encreased and the Spirits of you and your Party heightned to renew and multiply fresh Plots against the Religion Laws and Liberties of the Realm I will lay down some known Maxims that relate to a King and Parliament of England 1. You know the Kings of England can do nothing as Kings but what of Right they ought to do 2. The King can neither do wrong nor die 3. The King's Prerogative and the Subjects Liberty are determined by Law 4. The King has no Power but what the Law gives him and is called King from ruling well Rex à benè Regendo viz. according to Law and is only a King whilst he rules well but a Tyrant when he oppresses 5. That the Kings of England never appear more in their Glory and Majestick Sovereignty than in Parliaments 6. That the Prerogative of the Crown can do no wrong nor can it be a Warrant for so doing Now Sir having laid down some Truths relating to the Kings of England give me leave to lay before you some that relate to the Parliament 1. Then I say that the Parliament of England constitutes and gives a Being to the Government of England 2. A Parliament of England is to the Government what the Soul is to the Body which is only able to apprehend and understand the Symptoms of all Diseases threatning the Body Politick 3. A Parliament is the Bulwark of our Liberty the Boundary which keeps the People of England from the Inundation of Tyrannical Power and Government 4. Parliaments do make new and abrogate old Laws reform Grievances settle the Succession grant Subsidies and in a word may be called the Great Physician of the Kingdom From all which it appears if Parliaments are necessary in our Constitution that they must have their Times of Session and Continuation to provide Laws essentially needful for the being and well-being of the People and for redressing all Publick Grievances arising either for want of Laws or of undue execution of those in being or otherwise And sutable hereunto are those Provisions made by the Wisdom of our Forefathers as recorded by them both in the Common and Statute Law 1. Sir you was an excellent Man at the Common Law and so were your Gang at St. Germains and tho they have little occasion for it there yet I may refresh their Memories for having had so much leasure to study the Excellency of the French Religion and Government our Common Law may be forgotten by them Nay Rhyming Jack Carryl himself since the loss of his Estate may have resolved to forget the Law since he will not have so much occasion for it as he might have had if he had chosen Sussex instead of St. Germains and so may be at a loss to inform you I therefore give you a touch or so not that I pretend to cure the King 's Evil of the Common Law what it saith concerning Parliaments I pray Sir remember what old Coke saith one of your Grand-father's Judges who was a famous Lawyer and persecuted by him for you know what but never had the Courage to run away he tells us in one of his Law Books which your old Friend Jenner swears he never understood That the Common Law is founded in the immutable Law and Light of Nature agreeable to the Law of God requiring Order Government Subjection and Protection containing certain antient Vsages warranted by the Holy Scriptures and because given to all is therefore called Common Sir if you will send for your old Drudg Frank Withens I dare aver he cannot give you a better for his Life But you will say What is this to Parliaments Well Sir since this may pass the Understanding of your Dispensing Rogues I will tell you what he saith in his 9th Book in the Preface they are his own Words in the Book called the Mirror of Justice in which appears the whole Frame of the Antient Common Laws of this Realm from the Time of K. Arthur An. 516 till near the Conquest which treats also of the Officers as well as the Diversity and Distinction of the Courts of
Inclination you had for any Parliament for certain you nor your rascally Party could never expect to see a Parliament more ready to assist you in all your wicked Designs 3. Your Inclination to Parliaments was seen by the Notions and Practices of your Party in relation to Parliaments especially from those of them that knew you best Were not Coleman Beddingfield Whitebread Strange Nevil and several other Villains of your Privy Council at St. James's and did not these study to find out your Inclinations and to imitate you exactly And how these and the rest of your villanous Crew stood affected to Parliaments in general is not yet forgotten by some that knew them Was it not their common discourse that they hoped there would be no more need of Parliaments did not your Popish Priests and Jesuits go from Coffee-house to Coffee-house and ridicule Parliaments Alas Sir this was but the Copy which your Villains took from your own Words who sometimes when they wanted a Supply for their extraordinary Occasions would be seemingly content that a Parliament should meet and sit to raise such a Supply but never to redress Grievances nay some of them have said that a King's Proclamation ought to be sufficient to raise Money and that it would never be well with us till the whole Government was reduced to the Model of that of France 4. Your Inclinations to a Parliament were seen in your daily Breaches upon the Laws and Customs of the Kingdom You knew the Parliament had made an Act of Uniformity and several Laws against Dissenters in 1663 and several Laws were made against Papists in former Kings Reigns yet to oblige the Popish Party you broke in upon all these Laws at once and procured your Brother in the said Year to put forth an Indulgence for tender Consciences not for the Encouragement of Protestant Dissenters but the Increase and Growth of Popery And as a necessary thing to usher in your second wicked War against the Dutch you put your Brother upon issuing forth another Declaration of Indulgence in 1671. Many other Instances I could give of this Matter but this shall suffice Now how this could consist with an innate Love to English Parliaments I must leave to better Judgments 5. Your Inclinations to Parliaments were seen in your Unwillingness to let that Parliament meet and sit in which you had so great a Band of Pensioners To my certain Knowledg Messenger after Messenger has been sent to France with begging Letters to get Money from the French King to put off the Sitting of the Parliament Give your Brother his due he never cared for their Sitting unless it was to get a Supply that he might exercise his Talent you know where without Molestation which he could not well do at a Session of Parliament Sir when the Parliament was by Prorogation to have met in Feb. 1672 3 O what Interest was used to put it off till October following and it had been done if your Party had brought in a Million as they promised but bringing in but 356000 l. there was no help but a Parliament must meet who I think made up the Defect in the Supply you expected from the Popish Party You know the Parliament was put off from Octob. 1670 till Feb. 1672 3. by which long Interval you had a competent Scope for the mighty Work you had upon your Hands that you and the rest of the Architects of our Ruine might be so long free from their odious and busy Inspection till it were finished A drinking Companion of your Brother's telling you that the Session of Parliament drew near and asking you what you thought of the Humour the Parliament-men would be in at next Session you answered you trusted there might be no Occasion for their meeting any more for you had hopes to bring the Cause to bear without a Parliament and took it as a great Affront that the Question was asked You know the old Squire your Brother laughed at you for that Capricio of yours tho your Jesuits thought it a piece of Impudence in that Gentleman so much as to mention the name of a Parliament in your Presence he knowing your Opinion as to that way of Government I must conclude that Man to be at a perpetual War with Mankind that will not admit of the sight of either Friends or Enemies If Sir you could not bear the Congress of your Friends that had been so loyal and bountiful you must certainly be averse to the meeting of a Parliament that would call you and your wicked Party to account for your many traiterous Designs against our Laws and Liberties 6. And lastly Your Inclination to Parliaments was seen in your Opinion of the Affection which your Band of Pensioners did bear to you and your Cause You know Sir you had put your self under the Protection of the French King and therefore it was scarce possible for you to engage any more in a Parliamentary way for all English Parliaments are haters of the French Interest Your Friend Coleman in his Letter to La Chaise Sept. 29. says That in Father Ferier 's time he had inculcated the great danger the Catholick Religion and the Interest of his most Christian Majesty would be in at the next Session of Parliament which was to be in Oct 1673. at which I fore saw that the King my Master would be forced to do somewhat in Prejudice to his Alliance with his most Christian Majesty which I saw so evidently and particularly that we should make Peace with Holland that I urged all the Arguments I could which to me were Demonstrations to convince your Court of that Mischief and pressed all I could to perswade his most Christian Majesty to use his utmost Endeavours to prevent that Session of our Parliament Again you find him pressing him for the Dissolution of the Parliament in order to bring the Confederates to a Peace upon the French King's Terms Then he plainly tells you That the Parliament as it was managed by the then Ministry was both unuseful to England and France and the Catholick Religion In another Part he tells you That Prorogations were but loss of time and a means to strengthen those who opposed the Crown and therefore still presses for a Dissolution which would give the Protestant Religion the greatest Blow that ever it receiv'd since its first Birth So that we may see by your Servant Coleman what Opinion you had of the then Parliament But that we may rivet the Matter I pray Sir take but a Note or two of your own Letter to La Chaise wherein you express your self extreamly pleased That the French King was satisfied of the unusefulness of the Parliament in order to the Service of the King your Brother and his most Christian Majesty In another place you say that his Christian Majesty was of Opinion that the Parliament was neither in his Interest nor yours Pray let me know what Parliament would be in your Interest
could there be since the Laws of the Land were the Rule of his Government To which I answer 1. Suppose K. Charles had all his days governed according to the Laws of the Land was his having governed according to the Laws already sufficient to discourage you and your Villains from plotting to destroy us And when your Conspiracy was detected did the King's governing according to Law remove the Fears we had of the Popish Party Object But you will say We had an ill Opinion of your Brother and his Government and thence came our pretended Fears and Jealousies Answ Alas Sir you are mistaken our Fears did not proceed so much from our ill Opinion of him as from the sense we had of the implacable Hatred you and your villanous Popish Party had to him and your Resolution to destroy him because he made not such haâ—â—â— to destroy us as you would have had him But suppose we had entertain'd all evil Opinion of the King we had just Cause for it he having left us in the hands of such as were so far from protecting the Nation that not one Law made to preserve the Protestant Religion was put in execution and you had so filled the Courts of Westminster-Hall with a Set of Rogues that perverted the Law to the hazard of the whole Nation that your Traitors escaped those Punishments due to them for their many Treasons 2. Could the Laws we then had without some additional Provision contribute to our safety since you were to succeed him Were not you and your Party then the worst of Men to declare to the World that we were in no danger notwithstanding your vigorous Application to extirpate the Northern Heresy which you were in a more effectual way to effect than ever Hence may appear the Malice of your Party in preaching Peace when they were preparing to make War upon us I might enumerate other Evils that happened on Dissolving those Parliaments but these at present shall serve and therefore I come to the last Particular of the third Head of this Article viz. Sixthly The foolish Pretences you and your Party made for procuring these 3 Parliaments to be dissolved in so reproachful a manner all which prove you an Enemy to Parliaments and that way of Governing I pray Sir let me put you in mind that your Brother hated Parliaments mortally which appears by his Letter to the French King in June 1676. to this purpose That if he could be assured of his Pension that it might continue he should not continue that way of Governing viz. by frequent Parliaments which at the best was but a clamorous Rabble that took upon them to direct Kings but as he was resolved to be like his Neighbours in Riches and Grandeur so he was resolved to be like them in Religion too Thus it seems at the long-run you were both of a mind except that he was not so hardy in observing his own word to ruin the Nation all at once as you were and what your goodly Pretences were for Dissolving three Parliaments to effect the same you have laid before you in these following Particulars 1st The first Pretence was their too vigorous prosecuting the Popish Plot. Now with what colour could you charge this upon them for as I told you before so I must again that those Parliaments were composed of Men of as good Sense and Quality as any in the whole Kingdom who proceeded and managed their debates with as great Moderation and Gravity as became their Place if they went too far in any thing relating to that cursed Design you might have instanced in the Particular and not have suffered your Hell-born Crew to censure their whole Proceeding in it But let me tell you they were so far from going too far that your Brother and you suffer'd 'em not to sit till they could do any thing considerable in any part of the Discovery Now Sir let me ask you one Question Why did not you and your Party rather fall upon the King and his Ministers for those Speeches and Declarations he made concerning the Popish Plot of which you shall have your full in its proper place But pray observe 1. Your Brother did frequently recommend the Prosecution of the Popish Plot to them with a strict and impartial Inquiry and can you think that a Parliament consisting of so many worthy Patriots would be such Traitors to their King and Country as not to comply in â—ome measure with his Commands especially since in his Speech Octob. 21. 1680. he used that prevailing Argument That he neither thought himself nor them safe till the Matter was gone through with Was not the King's Person nor Government safe and would you not have them zealous in inquiry into the said Plot to prevent the threatning Dangers 2. Did not your Brother in his Speech to his Parliament April 30. 1679. assure them of his constant Care to secure our Religion for the future in all Events and that in all things which concerned the publick Security he would noâ— follow their Zeal but lead it Therefore Sir you may see that by making this a Pretence for dissolving three Parliaments you did fly in the very Face of the King and his leading Zeal to have that Plot discovered and the Criminals brought to publick Justice 2ly A second Pretence you and your Banditti had for dissolving the three last Parliaments was because they would give no Money for supporting the Alliance your Brother had made for preserving Christendom in Peace and the keeping of Tangier by which the Nation might see the true Reason for which those Parliaments were called The truth is Sir you had almost perswaded the King not to use that Parliament which sat down Octob. 21. 1680. and in order to that you made Application to the French King for a Sum of 300000 l. Sterling and promised if your Brother was supplied with it the Parliament should not meet The French King agreed and the Money was to be paid at two Paiments Upon this the Parliament newly chosen in August 1679 was prorogued till November following and your great Ally assuring your Brother of the Paiment of the Money the Parliament was further prorogued till October 21. 1680. so that we had no Parliament sitting from May 1679 till October 1680. but the Duke of Buckingham getting Intelligence of this Contrivance and being in danger of his Life by the Subornation of a Villain to whom he had given Bread as also to his whole rascally Family finding his Head must fly for it if a Parliament did not meet makes a Journey over to France and so prevailed with the French King that the Money promised was not transmitted so that of Necessity not of Choice you permitted your good Brother that one time to meet his People in Parliament Well then Supplies were demanded to maintain the Alliance made for the Support of the General Peace of Christendom the Preservation of Tangier and for the Paiment of your
which means in a great measure they lost their old brave English Courage When our Seamen grow Effeminate and lose that Courage which with God's Blessing made them victorious England is but in a lamentable Condition 7. You punished or at least discountenanced such Officers as stood for the Honour of the Flag How often did the French refuse it And when some Broad-sides were exchanged and the French came off by the Lee their Ambassador used to complain and the Captain was severely check'd if not turned out For you were converted to such a Degree of Zeal to the French King that we must lose the Dominion of the Seas rather than the Holy Alliance with that Monster should in the least be intrenched and in the Private League your Brother made with that King the Business of the Flag was not mentioned and how indifferent your Brother and you were in the Case when it was in relation to the French is not yet forgotten Article XXV YOU stand charged with refusing the Test that was provided by Parliament and passed tho very unwillingly by your Brother to prevent Popery Truly we could not but laugh in our Sleeves when we saw your self with a sort of Irish Magnanimity quit your great Imployments for a Religion that makes Men Fools and renders them as the Sport of the Age But great Examples go a great way in such Cases When the Popish Party saw your Resolution to quit all rather than your Religion scarce worth the keeping several of them took up the Cross and quitted their Imployments also rather than be false to your Cause and Interest They did not do as your Brother did retain the Popish Religion and yet ever and anon to get a little Money of the Parliament was content to pass a Bill or emit a Proclamation or two to the Prejudice of that Religion his Soul was most affected with if with any Alas good Man he was for securing the main Chance If he had not complied for a little Money the Noble Fleet at Whitehall must have lain by the Walls without rigging to the great Disparagement of the old Trade of Whoring But as for your part you were resolved to give up your self to Rome and the French King which you could not have done if you had swallowed the Test Therefore as a great piece of Self-denial away go all Imployments by which you had ruined the Nation for you question'd not but to carry on your Conspiracy against the Protestant Religion and Interest by the help of your good and loving Brother notwithstanding your acquittal of them And 1. You engaged the French King to a closer Friendship with you by which you were sure not only of his Interest but his Purse to assist you against your Enemies and his even that Parliament that advanced this new State-Purgatory in opposition to you and your cursed Villains by which they had declared themselves the French King 's and your mortal Enemies who both of you drove on so furiously to have that Parliament dissolved in revenge for their laying such a Stumbling-block in the way of your Self and Party For as long as these Purgatory-makers were in being it was scarce possible for you to subdue the Northern Heresy that had so long domineer'd in the World And he and you proposed by that Method to be put into such a Condition as should enable you to give the Protestant Religion such a Blow as it had not received since its first Birth and to give you your due your Design of ruining the Protestant Religion was not ill laid and had you not over-done your Design would not have been so soon undone 2. By your not taking the Test you engaged a Party of Case-hardned Villains to espouse your Cause and Interest and for true proof of their Integrity they entered with you into a strict Conspiracy against our Religion Laws and Liberties For seeing they had met with such a terrible Blow from that Parliament they were resolved to try what they could recover by way of Reprisal from the Dutch and hoped some good would come of continuing the War with them but finding themselves defeated there you and they resolved with the gracious Consent of your Brother that England it self rather than fail should be made a Reprisal Which Design prospered so well upon your Hands that you went on as merrily as might be in your Plous Work and accordingly exposed the Nation to the Fury of the French And had old Clifford had the Grace not to have hang'd himself he would have appeared a very deserving Person and eminent in that Holy Confederacy However you did not fail of your Enterprize in some measure of ruining the Nation because of the Protestant Purgatory that was found out for its Service tho you could not find such a one in all your Romish Library 3. By this Example you engaged a great number of Priests and Jesuits to infest the Kingdom in order to storm the Church of England and would have ravished her poor Gentlewoman had she not held up her Smock to save them the trouble and these Varlots with the Argument of your Stedfastness to the Catholick Religion perverted very many of the lewder sort of People both Male and Female And seeing such a Number brought into your Ark you used to say you doubted not of an Army of Roman Catholicks to establish the Popish Religion 4. You made these Villains thus perverted so bold and daring that they drove on with such Fury as it was scarce possible for a Protestant that was any ways known to be zealous for his Religion and for the Interest of his Country to walk near Whitehall or St. James's without the danger at least of being affronted or beaten Whence it was that even that Purgatory-making Parliament thought they had not done enough to expel that Religion whose Professors in all Kingdoms stuck at nothing to establish their Superstition and to that End have troubled the Peace of the Christian World and had at that time by your espousing their Cause sufficiently strengthned as was feared their villanous Party to the overthrow of the Protestant Interest but resolved to use farther means to prevent the Practices of these Rascals that were so notoriously wicked as not any longer to be born One would have thought this Purgatory-Act should have done the Business yet it was backt with a multitude of Gracious Assurances to the Nation from your Brother a Person of great Integrity and Honour in his Promises to maintain and defend the Protestant Religion for a Testimony whereof observe and remember that the Cliffordian and French Designs were carried on notwithstanding the Test-Act in 1673 74 75 76 77 and part of 78 in as pernicious tho different manner from your first Design whose Method you were forc'd to change by reason of that Act which was so made as to execute it self And the Means of introducing that Religion seeming then at a stand you thought of a new Project
that in all probability might not attract that Envy that the preferring of Papists in several great Places of Trust had done yet that the same Ends might be more certainly and easily tho not so soon obtained Which brings me to Article XXVI IN order to strengthen the Popish and French Interest you were pleased to take to Wife the Daughter of the Duke of Modena whom you have and hold to this Day which was in it self a Scoundrel Match but that it might appear somewhat considerable the French King declared her an adopted Daughter of France and promised to give her a Portion sutable thereunto for her Father could not give her a Groat And whether he gave her a Portion or no at that time I cannot tell if he did not I suppose you will eat it out before you leave St. Germains Your Brother consented to the Match without much difficulty by a good Lord a Friend of yours who consummated the Marriage by the Royal Consent and Authority of your Brother according to the Form used amongst Princes as your good Protestant Brother was pleased to express it Before this precious Bit of Italian Flesh could arrive in England your Conspirators who advised this Marriage perceived that the 20th of October would come and that it might probably receive some Obstruction from the Parliament and that some other things were prepared against their meeting for the curbing your Rogues who were grown as observed to you in the First Part damnably Insolent for the Check the Test-Bill had given was far less than the Incouragement from this wicked Marriage And that a fatal Blow might be given to the Preparations of the then House of Commons in prejudice of your Conspirators you procured a Prorogation to the 27th of October 1673 whereby to put an End to that Session and all the Business unperfected in March 1671 3 should fall to the Ground But pray what was the Matter Why must some good Bills fall to the Ground that were so well prepared in March 1672 3 Why truly your Reasons for the Prorogation if I am not much out were these three 1. To prevent and remove from your Brother all Temptations to break the intended Marriage and the French Alliance the Parliament being like to use their utmost endeavour to hinder the Consummation of that Marriage which might render the Popish Religion and the French Alliance impregnable You know Sir that Cardinal Howard promoted the Match to serve the Catholicks and the Catholick Religion was your end too since you were converted to such a degree of Zeal that Coleman your Secretary knew not his Head from his Heels or whether he was awake or in a Dream and then to strengthen the Interest of the French King must be your design since his Interest and yours were so inseparably united that he that was your Enemy was an Enemy to his Interest and he that was an Enemy to his was to your Interest also Now what a wicked Parliament was it that would have separated such an Interest and oppose such a Religion in endeavouring to prevent so hopeful a Match whereby 1. The Folly 2. The Malice of you and your Party did appear 1. The Folly of your Party did appear for that Parliament did never fail to give Money whenever called for if they were but indifferently well used and the King was generally unwilling to let a Session go off without some Pocket-money for the modest Gentlewomen at Whitehall therefore your Partisans should rather have adjourned the Marriage than prorogued the Parliament who having notice of the Conspiracy which you had managed more like an Irish Teague than an English Statesman were very angry at the King's breach of his Word and Royal Promise made to them in March before Therefore notwithstanding the King's Speech Octob. 20. for a swinging Supply for carrying on the War against the Dutch the Parliament would vote nothing but an Address against this Match of yours with the Daughter of Modena for they considered the Nation was not able always to lie under the dispensation of parting with Money to secure the Popish Religion and French Interest And as a preparation to the Address you know they passed this Vote viz. This House taking into consideration the Condition of the Nation will not take into any further Debate or Consideration any Aid Supply or Charge upon the Subject before the time of the Payment of the eighteen Months Assesment granted by a late Act of Parliament intituled An Act for raising the Sum of 1238750 l. for the Supply of his Majesty's present Occasions be expired unless it shall appear that the obstinacy of the Dutch shall render it necessary nor before this Kingdom be effectually secured from the Danger of Popery and Popish Counsels and Counsellors and other present Grievances be redressed You having by your little Vermine given out with all Folly and Impudence that you stood in no need of a Parliament but to give Money by this Vote they were even with you who with your Crew were so nettled at their Vote that you were resolved to give them a remove from your Councils but that it might not seem altogether upon the account of denying Money you let the Parliament proceed and the Address was prepared with Reasons against this Match of yours which I have laid down in my first Part and therefore wave them now the Parliament being assured that this Marriage at that time was not so far concluded but that for Reasons of State it might be rejected as has been practised in divers Nations and even by the French themselves in several Examples as manifestly appears in the French Histories I having an Opportunity of discoursing about the Match the Jesuits condemned the Conduct of your Friends at St. James's in deferring it till the Session was so nigh and then putting the Parliament off whereas the Marriage ought rather to have been suspended till the Parliament had given Money and one Million well husbanded would have enabled your Brother to set up Arbitrary Power for the French King would have stood by him And further That your Counsellors had been too open in the steps they took in this Match and had too publickly boasted of the Advantage they should have by it both as to France and Religion and had too much undervalued the Parliament since you could not at that Time subsist without one 2. As your Party shewed their Folly so their Malice for as the King was unwilling to part without Money and also to quit the French Interest all the Grievances of the Nation must be postpon'd which were judged by you to be but Trifles if any difference did arise it was their Faults to insist on such small things therefore with Indignation you procured them to be prorogued that they might recollect themselves and basely comply with your wicked Designs of destroying the Dutch and advancing the Fr. Interest in this Match that they might for the future be of no use
been naturally dead For if any of the young Fry had preached against it he was rebuked as too Pragmatical and Sawcy and truly so they were that presum'd to preach against a Religion your Brother and you had ventur'd Soul and Body to advance in order to pox the whole Nation both Men and Women for the French Disease was so Epidemical that a Man could scarce find fair Quarter no not in the-Church or Chancel unless he was of the French Interest Thus you may remember what Success attended your Design in proroguing the Parliament by which the Liberty of Conscience intended was defeated and how its Defeat with the Consequences thereof prospered upon your Hands But what signifies all this since there was a French Interest the Romish Religion and an Italian Comrade to support all So much for your second Reason for proroguing that Parliament 3. And lastly Your great Design in carrying on this Match by the Prorogation of the Parliament was to create a Jealousy between the King and them exasperating him with their Impertinency and by your prevailing with him to countenance that wicked Match you exasperated the Parliament against the King For tho that Parliament should for ever after that Match have denied to give Money yet you were so sure of the French King that you hoped by the help of his Forces to have brought Popery in upon us and with it Arbitrary Government the first of which your Popish Tools cried up as the best Religion and our High Church-Rogues in conjunction with them cried up the last as the best of Governments yet at the same time they would deny it to be practicable here unless it pleased God to find out some way for both these great Churches to unite together to suppress Phanaticism But the Parliament saw into your Game and observed your Steps You sunk much in their Opinion therefore you resolv'd they should sink in the King's Opinion which occasioned so many Prorogations when you and your Party had any Villany in hand I might have said more to this Point but that I have spoken to it in my First Part. Article XXVII YOUR Brother and you made a French-Man General of your Army to the great Dishonour of the English Nobility This French General was then Count Schomberg and one of the Mareschals of France and he was chosen to bear that Trust before many valuable Noblemen we had at that Day It 's true he was a great Souldier and worthy to have commanded a better Army than you had at Black-Heath but when he saw what Vermin you and your Crew had got together and that their Design was to plunder the City of London and not to fight against the Dutch he fairly quitted his Post and left you tho Sir it is not to be forgotten what Designs you would have engaged that Noble Person in for you proposed to your self and Friends that he being a French Man would have joined with you in the Design of Arbitrary Government but when the thing was put to him he abhorred it and would not therefore continue in the Command But what a Dishonour was this to the Nobility of England that not one of them could be found to take upon him such a Command 1. Were they such Cowards that they dare not undertake it Or 2. Were they so unskilful in the Affair that they could not with Honour do it Or 3. Was the Design so villanous that they were not to understand any part of it Were you-resolved upon the French Government Then Schomberg you judged would join with you in that Affair Or were you resolved that Popery should proceed Then you had the Judicious Major General Fitzgerald that was to have done it I believe Sir you despaired of any of our Noblemen joining with you in these two Parts of your Design Popery and Arbitrary Power and therefore sought for other Persons that might give better hopes of approving themselves fit for your turn which turned to an ill Accompt for it bred ill Blood in the Nobility against you and your villanous Party Article XXVIII YOUR Brother and you oppressed the Kingdom of Scotland in order to ruin the Protestant Interest there Be pleased Sir to call to mind that when in the Year 1660 it pleased God to restore your Brother to the Throne in that Antient Kingdom the news of it was grateful to that People hoping his Restoration would prove a great Blessing and Comfort to them and he had been so if you and your wicked Party had let him taken such Measures as would have settled that Kingdom in Peace and Quietness There are several Particulars relating to that Kingdom worthy your Consideration and supposing you may by Mrs. Abigail's leave have now some time of thinking I pray remember 1. Upon your Brother's Restoration notwithstanding the Troubles and hard Usage the Scots had met with from your Father which cost him his Life at long-run and from Monk who for several Years had acted the part of a Tyrant in his Government of that Kingdom yet they took no advantage of these Miscarriages but with all chearfulness put their Necks under your Brother's Yoke of Absolute Prerogative of chusing all Officers of State Counsellors and Judges in making War and Peace and calling and dissolving Parliaments and Conventions of State It is well known how they had been provoked to renounce your Father's Government and put themselves under the Protection of some other Prince and might have defeated your Brother's Pretensions to that Kingdom since he renounced the Covenant he swore to maintain But they forgot all this and gladly received him their King and for Peace sake parted with many Immunities which that Kingdom antiently had hoping thereby to have engaged him to be a Nursing Father to their Church as then constituted according to the Examples of the Reformers and as they judged to the Word of God 2. You cannot but remember that this was not the only Demonstration of the great Loyalty of that People For tho it is well known that a limited Power in the Prince and the support of it by the Peoples Purse was the just Ballance of the Government of that and all other Kingdoms yet forgetting all Differences in your Father's Reign they testified an affectionate Zeal to your Brother in making the Revenue above double what your Father or he possessed and had they given themselves up to an intire Vassalage he could scarce have desired such a Bounty nay he thought it such a piece of exuberant Liberality that he was pleased to declare it was enough and that he would have no more Yet the Commissioners that held the Parliaments notwithstanding the King was sensible of the greatness of their Benevolence have drawn forth several Taxes pretending the King 's great Necessities even beyond the Ability of that People 3. They also complied with the desire of your Brother by your procurement to submit to the Bondage and Slavery of a villanous standing Army which
basely debar his Countrey-men from speaking with the King otherwise than he pleased for fear they might tell Tales of his exorbitant Power by which he disobliged them in the highest and by reason of his being mostly here at Court the Scots Noblemen and Gentlemen were subjugated to a base and vile dependance upon his Creatures and Favourites nay often-times upon his Servants with whom it 's well known they transacted for obtaining and dispatching Gifts and Sign-manuals and that it was by the said Lauderdale's Servants that Protections to Debtors were so villanously obtained Give me leave Sir to put you in mind how hurtful he was to the Nation as High Commissioner of that Kingdom in order to which we may note that the Office of High Commissioner is altogether extraordinary and for a particular Occasion viz. The holding of a Parliament in the King's Absence therefore scarce known in Scotland till James I. came to the Crown and when the Session of Parliament was upon its determination that Office also determined with it Now when you had made Middleton so great he brought in that Innovation of adjourning Parliaments for a long time that he might tamper with them to betray the Religion Laws and Liberties of the People whereby he most illegally continued his Commission in the Interval of Parliament so that he might fit and prepare that poor People for Destruction Truly he had gone a pretty way in it and that he might finish his Work and serve your Purposes upon that Kingdom he did as I said lengthen the Adjournment of that Parliament for about two Years or so a thing never before known in Scotland for which Sir your old Bandog Lauderdale accused him as a Criminal to the King and you with the reproachful Title of a Subverter of the Government But however the Matter was hush'd up for Middleton having done your Business so well there in time he was rewarded with the Government of Tangier But when Lauderdale got into the same Station he far outwent Middleton in continuing his Commission for he spun it out for four Years and a half for which there was no manner of Necessity if you consider but the State of Affairs then in that Kingdom Nay it was so far from being necessary that it was a notorious Grievance for by it he not only hindred the Proceedings of the Parliament but endeavoured to frustrate all its Meetings which as it was a known Violation of the Antient Constitution of that Government so the unnecessary Continuance and Arbitrary long Adjourments of the Parliament contributed exceedingly to the increase of the Peoples Burdens and Distresses Truly Sir it is plain that the villanous Deportment of that Lauderdale was such in the Trust your Brother and you reposed in him which in time appear'd to be his best Security And why so The Reason Sir is plain for what he had proudly plotted and contrived through his matchless Ambition being conscious to himself that he might be reckoned withal for his devilish Proceedings in that Station he was under some necessity of maintaining by his Power in a most tenacious way that he might perfect the Ruin of that People making good the old Proverb Over Shoes over Boots it would be all one at the Gallows at last So that the Relief of that poor and abandon'd People from the Disorders which you and your wicked Party had made in that Kingdom by those two Men remained only with Almighty God there being no Hopes from your Brother Therefore Sir after the Adjournment of a Parliament which was held if I am not misinformed in 1674. and adjourned in December that Year Duke Hamilton the Earl of Tweddale and some Gentlemen being sensible of the notorious Villanies of old Lauderdale and to prevent his Lies from taking place with the King repair to the Court in England with the Approbation of those to whom they communicated their Intentions being confident they should be delivered from the Oppressions occasioned by Middleton and Lauderdale and hoping the King would receive their faithful Representation of the Affairs of that Nation both as to Religion and Government But Lauderdale who was an Enemy of all Righteousness and Truth omitted no Obstruction he could lay in the way For 1. by a Proclamation he procured that no Scots-man should go out of the Kingdom without Licence from the Council that so the King might not have the Truth of Affairs laid before him whereby to see the State and Condition that poor People were in in order to give them some Legal Redress Again 2. it is well known he imployed a pitiful Rascal at Berwick as a Spy to intercept all free Correspondence who being impowred by him did seize and search Sir William Carnegie a Member of Parliament and detain'd him a Lord of his Name you well remember in his Passage thrô that Town to London 3. Lauderdale having by means of this Rogue got some Packets intercepted he like a base Villain transmitted them to our Court not considering the Violation done to the common Intercourse and good Understanding of the two Nations nor regarding that Tenderness which honest Men have for the Honour of their Country and obtained of the King for this Fellow for such Rogueries instead of a Pillory or Gallows the Reward of 50 l. Sterling to be paid out of the Exchequer in Scotland to the great Satisfaction of the King your Self and wicked Party 4. By the same Means and in the same Place he endeavoured to affront Duke Hamilton and his Company in their Passage by questioning their Retinue and refusing them a Night's lodging which was not known to the Governour of that Town he being absent But at the return of these Noble Persons both Governour and People of the Place testified their Respects to them 5. This Lauderdale incensed the King and you against a Gentleman Duke Hamilton sent before him as one that had been a Sequestrator in the Time of Oliver sometime Lord-Protector of these three Nations and a Person disaffected to the Government But notwithstanding all these Obstacles and many other Discouragements the same Persons arrived at Court and did with all Submission and Sincerity and in all Faithfulness and Truth acquit themselves giving a full Account of the State of Affairs both as to the King 's and Countrey 's Interest What was the Event of all this Truly they were dismissed with fair Words and had positive Promises that the Parliament in Scotland should meet and sit an the Day appointed that Grievances should be redressed and that the Commission Lauderdale held as Commissioner should be revoked Upon which they hasten home the Duke with extraordinary Difficulty both in respect of the rigour of the Season and his weakness of Body that they might attend the Parliament in their respective Places on the 3d of March to which Time the Parliament was adjourned which was the very next Day after their arrival But Sir instead of a Session so much expected by the
their Pleasures before Grievances were redressed and publick Bills of Common-Safety passed because to dissolve and prorogue at Pleasure is a Privilege which belongs to the Crown Answ This word Prorogue is but a new-fangled Business a thing brought up in latter Days but as for dissolving Parliaments at Pleasure that has been the Practice of our former wicked Kings by the Advice of their Roguish Ministers and Judges who laid aside all Law Honour Honesty and Conscience to prostitute themselves to the abominable Lust of a filthy Prince who designed nothing less than the Ruin of the Kingdom What your Father did I will not here concern my self but what your Brother did by your Procurement is my Province at this Time Your Brother when he held his French Parliament at New-Market in 1677 where most of the Rogues and Whores of the Court were present and your gracious Self waiting on him did much aggrandize himself by that Glorious Assembly Upon April 16. the Parliament at Westminster was adjourned till May 21. following Immediately upon the Recess the Duke of Crequi aâ—d that modest sober chaste Man of God the A. Bp of Rheims and Monsâ—eur Barillon and a Train of 3 or 400 Persons of all Qualities appear'd there so that the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of France with so many of their Commons made it look like an old-fashioned French Parliament And the Parliament at Westminster had been adjourned for their better Reception But what Address they made to the King or what Acts passed at that Noble Parliament I cannot tell they having not been yet published But I suppose they were these that follow 1. An Act for continuing his Majesty's Subjects in the Service of France 2. An Act for enabling the Dutchess of Cleveland to use the Arch-Bishop of Paris for her Father-Confessor c. 3. An Act to discharge her Grace from farther Attendance upon the King 4. An Act to constitute the French Gentlewoman to be Whore in her room and a Spy for the French King 5. An Act to enable Nell Waal to be Woman and Bawd in ordinary to the said French Gentlewoman and his Sacred Majesty 6. An Act to supply the Extraordinary Occasions of that Whore Portsmouth and her Woman Nell Waal 7. An Act to enable the Dutchess of Portsmouth in order to her Health to possess and enjoy a certain Apartment in a House-Royal called the Lock situate at the end of Kent-street and Nell to have the Reversion after her decease in case of Necessity 8. An Act for the further Supply of French-Money in order to enslave the Kingdom of 3000000 Livres per Annum 9. An Act for enabling James Duke of York to go on with his Conspirators in the Conspiracy against the Laws Liberties and Religion of the People of England and to demand the French King's Purse Credit and Interest for his Help and Assistance 10. An Act to invest Edward Coleman with the Sum of 20000 l. and a good Pension from the French King for his great Services done and to be done for the Catholick Religion and French Interest 11. An Act of Abolition of all Claims and Demands from the Subjects of France on Account of all Prizes made of the English at Sea since the Year 1674 till that Day and for the future 12. Act to supply the extraordinary Needs of the Pensioners at Westminster 13. An Act to continue the Sham-Alliance with the States-General of the Vnited-Provinces There were I suppose several Private Bills in favour of the Pimps Bawds and Whores that were not sworn in Ordinary but passed the Royal Assent as I may suppose because at that time all things between England and France moved with that punctual Regularity that it was like the Harmony of the Spheres so consonant with themselves tho I could not hear the Musick I pray Sir let us know in your next Declaration what other Secret Bills were passed in that August Assembly wherein the Affairs of Peace and War were transacted with the greatest Confidence and when good Boys they had done their Master's Business with your Brother's Aid and Help they were adjourned from New-Market to London where they dissolâ—ed themselves without your Brother's Prerogative to make way for the Westminster Parliament and so rubb'd off with all Demonstration of mutual Affection and Friendship Alas Sir these were Matters of that Import that they required all imaginable Expedition and Secresy and it would have been the highest Presumption for the poor Pensioners in the Westminster Parliament to have intermedled with them Alas if they had been admitted to end the Work it might have ended in their own Dissolution in order to a couragious running away You say by way of Objection Your Partisans made that which your Brother and other Kings did by their Prerogative Royal dissolve Parliaments before Grievances were redressed and necessary Bills past because things did not move with that punctual Regularity between your Brother and them that was between him and the French King I pray what was the Reason Had they not had Gratuities at the Charge of the Nation Or had the Dutchess of Portsmouth jilted them out of the French King's Blessing which the Duke of Crequi and the Arch-Bishop of Rheims brought them of 200000 Lewis d' Ores Who can tell what to say to these things It is no wonder then that Crew of Voters were grown resty and did not move regularly Well what then the Parliament must not sit till some State-Clockmaker had mended their Motions and made them go true the House then had some good Bills over which they roared only and then were sent Home by a blast of Prerogative-Breath Had your Brother any other Prerogative but what the Law gave him and what he was invested with at his Coronation If he had let us know it but for once I will grant he prorogued and dissolved Parliaments at his Pleasure to serve you and your Cut-throat Crew It doth not therefore follow that he had a Right so to do according to a Maxim I learned almost 30 Years since A facto ad jus non valet consequentia especially when such Prorogations and Dissolutions are against so many express and positive Laws such Principles of Common Right and Justice and so many particular Ties and Obligations to the contrary Your Brother might by the Advice of wicked Statesmen and villanous Judges pretend to a Prerogative the Law had given him of which nothing ever was known unless revealed by some French Maxims learned abroad in his Travels Yet such a Prerogative could not justify such Practices for if he had been invested with such Prerogatives by the Law yet the Law could give none to destroy it self and those it protects But Old Hodg and his Inferior Clergy may interpose and say Had not King Charles his Prerogative founded upon Law Who questions Sir but the Kings of England had their Prerogatives Yet observe what Old Bracton saith Pag. 487. That tho the Common Law allows many
that attended the Dissolution of those Parliaments 6ly What Pretences you and your Party used for procuring the Dissolution of those Parliaments with Answers thereto First Your Inclinations shew'd you an Enemy to a Parliamentary Way of Government and this appears in the following Particulars 1. From your Nature and Temper 2. From your Usage even of the Pensioner-Parliament 3. From the Notions and Practices of your traiterous Party in relation to Parliaments 4. From the daily Breaches you made upon our Laws 5. By your Unwillingness to let that Parliament meet and sit 6. By the Opinion you had of their Affection to you 1. From your own Nature and Temper which I shall set forth before you in relation to 1. Your Religion 2. Your Politicks 3. Your Morals 1. Let us consider your Nature and Temper in respect to your Religion and this will prove your Aversion to English Parliaments and that way of Government Your Nature and Temper inclined you to set up the Popish Religion How was this to be done was it by an English Parliament If any of your Party should suppose this let me tell you the Supposition in it self was Nonsense Your Religion was such and I am perswaded you are no Changeling as went not altogether in the Old Primitive Apostolical Way of Preaching and Praying and teaching all Nations c. but Scourging Wracking and Broiling Men into the Fear of God Nay is not your Religion such that for its own Propagation it will make its Champions divest themselves of Humanity and act worse than Devils in order to be Saints Now Sir where could you get a Parliament to have established such a Religion by a Law And can any Man judg you in love with Parliaments who are such Enemies to this excellent Religion of yours I pray Sir reflect upon your Servant Coleman's Words in his Letter to Father La Chaise the French King's Confessor We have a mighty Work upon our Hands no less than the Conversion of three Kingdoms and by that perhaps the utter subduing of a Pestilent Heresy which hath domineered over great Part of this Northern World a long time there were never such Hopes of Success since the Death of our Queen Mary as now in our Days What Reason gives Coleman for this Doctrine when saith he God hath given us a Prince who is become I may say to a Miracle zealous of being the Author and Instrument of so glorious a Work but the Opposition we are sure to meet with is also like to be great so that it imports us to get what Aid and Assistance we can for the Harvest is great and the Labourers but few Here was a mighty Work and a mighty zealous Prince engaged in this Work I pray Sir why did you not apply to your mighty Band of Pensioners in your Long Parliament for Aid and Assistance No your Religion would not comply with that nor their Religion advance your mighty Work tho they were Villains enough in some Sense yet you did not think fit to trust them with the managing this mighty Work or to let them know your mighty Mind and Zeal in this great Work To whom then do you apply your self Why truly to the mighty Lewis the French King for do but observe your Agent 's Words in the same Letter where he saith That which we rely upon most next to Almighty God and the Favour of my Master the Duke is the mighty Mind of his Christian Majesty whose Soul inclines him to great Vndertakings Truly Sir I think the Case is plain that the subtle Jesuits had formed a Design to bring in Popery and to kill the King which they would never have been such Sots to attempt had they not been sure you would engage in this mighty Work Yet you were not privy to it Let who will believe that I cannot for do you think the Jesuits and Coleman would have ingaged in that mighty part of the Conversion had not they seen into your very Heart and Soul Now upon the whole Matter can any one think if there were no such thing in Nature as a mighty English Parliament to have joined with your mighty Zeal in the mighty Work you had upon your Hands that ever the Religion which you profest would incline you to be in love with an English Parliament that was ever averse to Popery and Slavery since the Reformation And because of your Aversion to an English Parliament as an Enemy to your Religion you apply your self to the French King which I am sure was not consistent with a hearty Love to an English Parliament 2. Let us consider your Nature and Temper as to your Politicks and by that I shall shew your natural Aversion to Parliaments and a Parliamentary way of Government As your Religion so your Judgment leads you to Arbitrary Government for it was not only Rome's Religion but the French Mode of Governing that was your Design and the end of all those Counsels you had with your Jesuits and your Servant Coleman who was a main Agent in that Affair yet when your glorious Enterprize was discovered you graciously left him to be hanged for all his good Secret Services done you in furthering the mighty Work you had upon your Hands But some of your Party may say That in opposition to a Parliament it was impossible to bring in Popery and Arbitrary Power it being inconsistent with the Rules of Policy to attempt such a thing in England To this I answer Let the Popish Crew say so if they dare I am certain they must bely their Consciences in this point whatever they do in other Points in their Politicks the hellish Popish Plot being a plain Demonstration that your Cut-throat Papists did believe it possible or else Coleman and others would not have on your Behalf so far engaged the French King's Aid and Assistance in the Affair for you attempted to be restored to all your Commissions and how came it to pass that you did not effect your Restoration It was not saith Coleman hindred by reason of any Aversion they had to your Person What then it was because of the Dissatisfaction the Faction entertained against you Who was this Faction but the English Parliament to whom you were so averse that the Popish Party could make no brisk Attempt on your Behalf for the Parliament then was very sensible that the French King's Interest was much attracted to yours which declared you to be no Friend to them and engaged them to provide for themselves against you and your cursed Party Again Sir by your leave could any thing be plainer than the Design that Coleman and the Jesuits had formed and had Hopes of effecting since they had joined you so close to the French King's Interest I am sure 't was contrary to Reason and Nature it self for them to attempt your Brother's Life and thereby commit the basest of all Murders for Murder-sake and tho natural Affection might interpose in that Design had you
been privy to it yet the Jesuits well knew it was impossible for you that was converted to that degree of Zeal for the Romish Religion and French Interest to have given ground in that Affair Now Sir I hope your Villains here will be fully satisfied that it was possible for the Popish Party to carry on such a Design as this in opposition to a Parliament which is a great Proof of your Aversness to Parliaments But to come close to the Point That your Nature and Temper in relation to your Politicks demonstrated your Aversness to English Parliaments the Jesuits you know were very industrious with you for the Promotion of their Religion which you consented to and what did you in order to this Did you not lay some Foundations for Popery in order to its being established Were there not Judges Justices of the Peace Sheriffs and other Judiciary Officers of your procuring in order to deprave the Law of the Nation and defile the Throne of Justice I pray how did the villanous Judges use even the Protestant Laws to open the first Gate to Slavery and our Laws being in their Hands did they not use them as barbarously as they could to the Discouragement of Vertue and promoting Vice Did not your Brother's Ministers of State betray our Liberties What Remedy had the People If a Session of Parliament was near you so hated them upon this very Principle of Arbitrary Power that either the Session was put off for a longer time or else it was to be so short that Grievances could not be redressed and when you got a Period put to a Session your wicked Judges were to play their Parts with the Laws whilst your Ministers were ravishing all our Liberties from us and as for Religion you had a Set of Apostolical Caterpillars who were to manage that for your Service and Interest These Measures of yours taken from your Popish Crew had rendred you so out of love to an English Parliamentary Government that you were at one time looked upon by Parliament the greatest Grievance of the Nation the universal Object of their Hate and Fear and the Subject of their Clamours and Curses At whose door did all the Discontents and Murmurs lie but at yours Were not the Murmurs so violent against you that they became a great part of the Complaints of good Men to Heaven in their own and their Country's Behalf Nay Murmurs were so bold that your Brother was attackt with them for did they not look upon you as Jupiter's Stork amongst the Frogs Notwithstanding all your former Glories and Conquests your whole Stock of Fame was lost and buried in your Apostacy from the Protestant Religion How all this and an innate Love to your Country and its Government could stand together I leave to wiser Men to judg We saw you design'd to make us submit to an Arbitrary Power Our Magna Charta was to have been destroyed by you and your Cut-throats our Religion and Liberties to have been abolished Popery and a Despotick Power set up the Lords and Commons extirpated and all to have devolved into you when they had given the fatal Blow that you might have set up Idols and Molten Calves and we have bowed down to them Now Sir consider who the Man was that took such Measures and laid such Designs and if it were possible for him to love an English Protestant Parliament I 'll be his Slave To conclude this Head Did you not by these Politicks of yours fet the whole Kingdom in a Flame and then please your self with it When you burnt our City you and your Party sung Te Deum for Joy whilst others were astonished at the dismal Sight Did not your unbounded Thirst for innocent Blood make the Kingdom of England a Slaughter-house And might you have had your Will you would have made Smithfield your Original Shambles It is well known Sir how you loved humane Sacrifices and what Measures you took from France and Rome to propagate your Cause is not yet forgotten nor I hope never will 3. Let us consider your Nature and Temper as to your Morals from which we will demonstrate your Disaffection and Aversion to Parliaments What Morality could we expect from you that was and still is a Papist and a bigotted one too And being so all your Morals are but Slaves to your Zeal Nay had you been Master of all the Cardinal Vertues there 's not one but must have been used to destroy our Religion Laws and Liberties Your Fortitude and Courage if ever you had any made you the more daring to push on Rome's Religion and the French Interest and to withstand the Opposition you met withal in Parliament Your Justice you made use of to restore the Power and Authority of the Bishop of Rome believing him to be Christ's lawful Vicar and Peter's true Successor and the said Office including the Ecclesiastical Supremacy you declared it your Duty to give the Pope the same Right over the Consciences of the People of England as you had to succeed your Brother tho through his Blood Let us consider Sir your Temperance which for once I will suppose you to be Master of too not for the publick Good but only to testify that you could conceal your Passions which were great enough to do publick Mischief for you had always a most firm Resolution to ruin these Kingdoms As for your Constancy it was no more than fixed Obstinacy But it may be your Party may say you were never heard to rage or scarce seen to frown how true that may be I cannot tell for I never was your Pimp or Admirer and therefore cannot pretend to that Familiarity with you that some may Yet what was your Temperance and Constancy but fit Pillars to support your damnable Designs against the Religion and Government of these three Kingdoms But Sir if we should again take a view of your admirable Temperance in its larger Signification that is a Denial of worldly Desires it was still worse and worse for when you voluntarily took up your Cross and quitted your great Employments under your Brother you left the Management of those Offices to Villains of a deeper dye than the rest of Mankind who still carried on your Design to destroy us you only quitted the toil of the Power and left it to your subordinate Villains In the last place we will comply with your Admirers and Flatterers and own you had Prudence if you had it was the worse for us because that and that alone could be your Trump-Gard the only leading Vertue that managed your Conduct in all your Hellish Plots and Designs with that Care and Art that you made a fair Progress in effecting the Business of Rome as to Religion and of the French King as to Arbitrary Power to enslave and pox us both in Religion and Liberty To give you your due you ripened that mighty Work you and Coleman had upon your Hands to a mighty Perfection
joined to that of the French King Shew me such a Parliament and I will then say I can shew you one that you would have a good Opinion of and since you could retain no good Opinion of your Band of Pensioners you can certainly have none of those that are for preserving the English Protestant Interest So that I think I have sufficiently shewed your Inclinations and by them your Enmity to Parliaments Secondly I now come to shew what those Parliaments were to which you were so averse and which you procured to be dissolved whereby your hatred to Parliaments and that way of Government did appear Were they Men of Common-wealth-Principles or did they aim at the Promotion of their own Ambition and Greatness did you or your Rogues know of such Persons why then did you not discover them The Nation would have charged the Account to themselves and have made your Party some recompence for so signal a Piece of Service to the Publick Nay if your Crew had brought these People to light and let the Parliament sat to have tossed them in a Blanket they would have found a little severer quarter than the Mayor of Scarborough did from one of your Apostles whom you sent to plant a Colony of Red-coat-Christians in that Place But Sir in plain English your Common-wealth-Christians we found were a number of Men that were in a most zealous manner devoted to the publick Good and common Service of their Country who believed Kings were instituted for the Good of their People and Government ordained for the sake of the Governed and therefore complained or were grieved when it was used to contrary ends Every wife and honest Man would then and still be proud to be of that Rank and Number And if Common-wealth signifies Common Good in which sense it has been taken in all Ages by most good Authors as Bodin speaking of the Government of France calls it a Common-wealth as do our own Authors the Mirrour of Justice Bracton Fleta Fortescue c. in former times as well as those of later Years particularly Sir Thomas Smith in the time of Q. Elizabeth and not only several Statutes use the word Common-wealth but K. James your Grandfather in his first Speech to an English Parliament own'd himself the Servant of the Common-wealth and K. Charles I. your dearest Father of famous Memory both before and in the time of the War never exprest himself otherwise to be fond then of such Common-wealth Principles becomes every good English Man and the whole Kingdom were glad to find they had sent such Men to Parliament But Sir your Villains used to call those Parliaments which you procured to be dissolv'd Persons conspiring to set up a Democratical Power in opposition to Monarchy that would overthrow the Government both in Church and State tho it was that which you and your Rogues designed in that villanous Alliance you made with France to destroy the King and the Protestant Religion The Nation saw it was not those they had sent up to Parliament but you that had a Design to overthrow the Government for you were so fond of your beloved Arbitrary Power and therefore resolved to subvert our legal Monarchy instituted for the Benefit of the Common-wealth by destroying the Honour and Reputation of our English Parliaments I pray Sir call to mind the Band of Pensioners you had in that Parliament which your Brother kept so long yet you could not bear with their Proceedings against your Party when your Designs were laid open before them and so plainly proved that they could not withhold Justice from being executed upon several of your Case-hardned Traitors When they were dissolved it is manifest that three greater Parliaments were never known in England since the time of William I than what succeeded them viz. those two that met at Westminster and that at Oxford they were I dare say the Flower of the whole Kingdom and might with all Justice be termed the Wisdom of the Nation their Debates and Votes which were printed and published shewed them to be Gentlemen of very great Ability and Integrity those that sent them knew them to be Persons of great Estates not beggarly Rascals such as were in your Pensionary Parliament that had betrayed us to you and your Party in a great measure these did not please you because they would not perpetrate so great a Piece of Villany how then could those please you that met together afterwards and approv'd themselves Well-wishers to the Protestant Religion and duly consider'd the State of the Nation and the many Dangers to which it was exposed by you and your Villains Therefore Sir if any one can inform me how all this doth not prove you an Enemy to the Constitution of Parliaments let him come forth and he shall be heard or let us know what sort of Men you are inclined to for I believe if you could obtain 513 Papists that were not of the French Interest to establish Popery separate from Arbitrary Power even such could not please you but would soon be exposed as others have been and if you should have met with 513 Men that could have complied with you in both you must have met with such as would have destroyed their own Constitution and put a Period to all Parliaments Now if any of your Party can say this would be a Demonstration of your Affection to Parliaments and proveâ—t Erit mihi magnus Apollo Thirdly Remember what Arts and Methods you and your Party used to expose the three last Parliaments your Brother held in 1679 1680 1681. It is worth your considering that when you had a great desire to have the long Parliament dissolved some objected that if that was dissolved the Crown was in danger because a new one was to be called But those that made the Objection did not consider a new one must be chosen which if they did yet they did not consider what the Men were that would in all probability be chosen and those new Parliaments if they might have been suffered to redress Grievances would have stuck at nothing to have rendred themselves acceptable both to Prince and People for it was first the best way your Brother took to become acquainted with the Nation to dissolve that Parliament that had so long continued Secondly the King might if he would have let his Parliaments sat obtained a great Sum of Money for Payment of his Debts nay they would have given it him as a Pledg of Endearment between him and the People they resolved to give freely and hoped he would receive as graciously in truth Sir they would have been generous even to your self for they would have excluded you from being King that you might enjoy the greater Security of your Person and Estate as a Subject which if you would have believed you had not at this day been rattling your Beads at St. Germains the People would have been free under their King as the King would have been
Popish Adversaries which they could not do but by inflaming the Differences between the Conforming and Non-conforming Protestants that we might not unite our Forces against the Common Enemy 2. You and your Party by this means weakened the Protestant Interest There can be nothing more plain than this for upon the Dissolution of the Oxford Parliament Swarms of Priests and Popish Conspirators returned home and fell to work to pervert the People to the Obedience and Communion of the See of Rome What Pensions then you got for some and Imployments for others and with what care you maintain'd their Interest and defended their Cause and Quarrel against those that pursued them for their many Treasons against the Government we all saw to our great Sorrow And what help was there since you and your Party had so much countenance from your Brother who was ingaged with you in the whole Popish Conspiracy saving that of his own Life 3. You procured a severe Persecution against Protestant Dissenters which you nor none of your rascally Crew durst do during the Session of Parliament but immediately upon their Dissolution you fell upon them either because they had occasioned the sending of good Men to Parliament or because they were zealous Assertors of the Protestant Religion against Popery and of our English Liberties against Slavery these were indeed high Crimes for which you and your Villains made them smart to the ruine of several thousand Families and had you continued somewhat longer in that glorious Adventure you might have made poor England a howling Wilderness tho when your Brother and you came home you found it a Land flowing with Milk and Honey Nay you had rather all should have run into Confusion than the Dissenters should not be ruined because they could not comply with a few Ceremonies for which your Party had no other Authority than a few Acts of Parliaments 4. You advanced Arbitrary Proceedings in Westminster-Hall where you had a Set of rognish Judges exactly of a size for that turn who had as much Impudence for the Court as they had had Dread of being called to Account in Parliament for all their Villanies And tho it was a standing Constitution that if any Man stood impeached by the Commons of England before the Lords in Parliament no inferiour Court could take Cognizance of that Cause or try him for that Treason in Westminster-Hall for which he stood impeached in Parliament which upon the Dissolution of the Oxford-Parliament was Fitz-Harris his Case yet for all this you found out your Pemberton your Jones and your Raymond that had Impudence enough to try the said Fitz-Harris and condemn him for alas good Men they were not to lose their Places for every small Peccadillo if it were to serve the Government especially to do a Job for you and your Crew 5. Upon the Dissolution of the 3 last Parliaments to alienate the King from his People you and your Party did industriously revive the Memory of the late unhappy Civil War between your Father and the Parliament which was your Brother's Interest as well as the Nation 's to have buried in oblivion the mentioning that unhappy War serv'd only to put us in mind of the sudden Dissolution of 3 Parliaments and the 12 years want of one and what the Villains had done in your Father's Reign and the better to colour your procuring the Dissolution of those three Parliaments you had your Parties abroad to asperse and brand the Members as being of the same Complexion with those that met Nov. 3. 1640 but none of your Cut-throats did ever mention the bloody Massacre in 1641 because begun and carried on by your Father's Command and for his Service But Sir let me tell you that none lived more peaceably under your Brother's Government than they who were engaged in that War on the Parliament's side therefore I cannot tell by what prudent Topick you went when you discourag'd those Men in their obedient living by such villanous Reflections and upbraided them with what the Law had pardoned and they had expiated by their Loyalty since supposing they had been Criminals which yet I think they were not But this is plain beyond all dispute that the Parliament that restored your Brother to his Throne and you to be a constant Plague to this Nation made an Act of Indemnity wherein many things were enacted which they judged necessary for the Settlement of the Nation they prohibited under a Penalty one Man's reproaching another with being concerned in that War for the space of three years after the Date of the said Act sure then they never intended Men should afterwards take the liberty to upbraid one another with it 6. Another ill Consequence of dissolving those three Parliaments was that by this means you made a way to succeed your Brother in the Government If those Parliaments had sat and their Counsels not been defeated by their unexpected Dissolutions you must have been disabled from ever inheriting the Imperial Crown of these Realms and it was plain those Whores and other Traitors that procured the Dissolution of those Parliaments aim'd at your coming to the Throne But Sir I think your Party should have shown so much Ingenuity and Candour as to have owned that all the People of England particularly those that were for your Exclusion were as zealous for Monarchy even in the Royal Line as any of your clamorous Bullies durst for their Ears be I am sure nothing so much endanger'd the legal Monarchy of England as your coming to the Crown which the Wisdom of the Nation foresaw and therefore that it might be preserved resolved to pass you by and let it descend to another Heir Nay Sir if you had continued James Duke of York I am sure you might have lived with more Honour and Comfort than you can propose by putting your Feet under the French King's Table but God having ordained you to be a Plague to us for our Sins I think you let us see what you aimed at in your four Years Tyranny There are some blind Puppies whose Eyes are not yet opened I could wish you had their Company at St. Germains being confident you would soon lick them open 7. Another Consequence of the Dissolution of those three Parliaments was the possessing the King of a Design carried on by the dissenting Party for his Destruction and to introduce a Democratical Power which they called a Common-wealth nay that you might hasten the Dissolution of the Oxford-Parliament you made use of this Lie for an Argument which your Brother was willing to believe that he might have some Pretence for quitting that way of Government There were two sorts of Persons charged 1. The Parliaments themselves 2. Those who stedfastly asserted the Power and Privileges of Parliaments the Protestant Religion and Liberties of the People in opposition to Popery and Slavery 1. These Parliaments were charged with a Design against his Majesty's Person and Government Now Sir let us
know what ground you had to raise such a foul Report and Slander upon so considerable a part of the Legislative Power I confess I can give no other name to these Proceedings of yours than a Conspiracy to destroy the use of Parliaments therefore had your Brother called another upon the Dissolution of the Oxford Parliament all English Protestants would have joined as one Man in humble Applications to that Assembly that you and your infamous Crew might have a due Punishment for such scandalous Reflections and false Accusations of those Parliaments It is well known Sir notwithstanding your said usage of these Parliaments that many of those honourable Persons sent up to serve as Members of those Assemblies had ventured their Lives and lost their Estates in endeavouring to restore the Monarchy in opposition to that very thing you charged them withal Nay they were all Lovers of Monarchy not only upon true English Principles but from their own Inclinations for deceive not your self they had too sad experience of a Common-wealth to be in love with that way of Government which they well knew was inconsistent with the Genius of this Nation and that nothing more agreed with the Peoples Temper than a well-regulated Monarchy as ours is by the fundamental Laws of the Realm and if your Brother had but considered the Point he could not have believ'd otherwise than that they were not nor could be true to the Monarchy that joined with you and your Conspirators to subvert the Rights and Privileges of Parliaments 2. The Parliaments not only lay under this filthy Calumny but your Party did also traduce those brave Men that stedfastly asserted the Power and Privileges of Parliament the Protestant Religion and the Liberties of the People as being in a Conspiracy against the King and Government but 't is plain that you knew not one Soul engaged in any such Conspiracy if you did why did you not according to your Duty and Allegiance discover them that they might have been brought to Justice If not why was all that noise made of a Conspiracy against the King's Person and Government But I believe you were afraid that your Folly as well as Knavery would have been manifested to the World and your Malice too into the Bargain Nay Sir let me tell you that upon the Intimation given by your Devil's Broâ—ers and the special Direction of old Hodg the Fidler to your little Parasitical Clerks the Pulpits rung with the noise of a Presbyterian Plot in order to betray us into Popery and Arbitrary Power for many if not all but especially those who made some sort of Figure in the Country hung their Tongues and set the tune of their Preaching to the humour of the Times and like the Devil's Messengers being instigated by your High Priests all they preached was against the Dissenters charging them with a Design to bring in a Common-wealth and Confusion But why was all this noise about a Prebyterian Plot Come I 'll tell you the Reason You may remember that your Popish Party were by me and others charg'd with a Hellish Conspiracy against the Person of the King our Religion and Government and the Lives of all the Protestants in England and this proved against them to the satisfaction of all sober Men as well by their own Papers as the Testimonies of several Witnesses and finding all your devilish Arts and Practices could not bring your selves off from the Reproach you justly lay under or the Punishment you must have suffered had a Parliament been permitted to sit you made this noise of a Dissenters Plot as your last Refuge which you and your Crew said was against the Monarchy under pretence of prosecuting a Popish Conspiracy And therefore with what Application did you form the Intrigue of the Meal-tub and also those Shams of Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey's murdering himself and Lord Howard's penning Fitz-Harris's Libel all which discovered your Purposes as well as your Disappointments at once Surely Sir your Party never considered what a notorious Scandal they endeavour'd to fasten not only upon the most considerable People of England but the whole Kingdom which you caused to suffer much in its Reputation abroad as broken and divided against it self and relapsing into Confusion and Anarchy Nay let me tell you that you and your Party hereby brought your Brother and his Government and Prudence under the greatest Disreputation for must not our Neighbours stand amazed to see a King restored by unanimous Consent to the great Joy of the Nation in so few Years lose that Esteem Honour and Reverence for so great a number of his Subjects as you had caused to be accused What Nation would maintain an Alliance with such a King who had so much sunk his Interest How could they expect he should be able to support and answer the ends of such an Alliance Your great Ally the French King could not but laugh in his Sleeve to see the Nation in such a Posture Nay further what Jealousies did you create in the Peoples Minds so that the Popish Party were strengthned to destroy both Conformists and Nonconformists who were both Hereticks to them Hereby also that Impudent Tyrant the French King was emboldned to proceed in his Ravages upon his Neighbours Countries and if your Brother should have had the least Inclination to put a stop to this Nimrod what a Condition would he have been in since you and your French Pensioners had created such Feuds amongst us 8. Another Evil happening upon the Dissolution of those Parliaments was your Endeavours to perswade the People that they were in a secure State with relation to their Religion Laws and Liberties that so the Nation might be a Prey to your Popish Crew Now Sir how can your Party answer the so doing when we were in the midst of so many notorious Dangers Do you not remember that four Parliaments had represented the manifold Dangers the Nation was threatned with And hath it not been one of the greatest Difficulties that ever a Nation groaned under to preserve it self from your Popish Rage and Fury Nay all thinking Men judged it impossible but God with whom all things are possible did the Work his own way you know well enough to your woful experience I remember your Conspirators used to wipe their Mouths and mimp them up with a maidenly God damme the Nation was in no danger from the Popish Party tho the King in several Proclamations had signified the same and if your Rascals had not the manners to believe the Parliament they might have believed the King since he not only published his Proclamations to let the Nation know its danger but also in divers Speeches to both Houses of Parliament acquainted them therewith and upon the whole not only required their Advice and Counsel but proposed that some effectual Laws might be made to prevent those Dangers and Mischiefs that then attended the Nation But Sir you and your Party may say What danger
Brother's Debts and the Parliament would give no Money Come Sir a word or two to the point in general and then I will descend to some Particulars 1. What would not the Parliament give Money to support the Alliances I 'll assure you they were a parcel of naughty Boys indeed to be so refractory I pray Sir with whom were those Alliances made with the Dutchess of Cleveland Alas pious chaste Lady she had been a Cast-whore for several Years the triple League between your Brother her Grace and Mother Knight had been broke for many Years and she had made a new Alliance with her good Confessor the Archbishop of Paris and had given him all she had for a Guaranty What Alliances then were they Were they new ones with the Dutchess of Portsmouth and Nell Waal Truly your Band of Pensioners had so often supplied their extraordinary Occasions that one would think they should not have asked any more and if they knew not when they had enough the Nation could tell them they had too much and wanted nothing but an Apartment at a convenient Mansion-house in Tuttle-fields and the civil Usage of that House once a Week or so as the Ladies of their Profession use to be serv'd as a just Reward of their Diligence in their Calling It may be Sir there were Alliances of another nature as with Barillon your old Friend that were to be supported Alas the Parliament knew full well that your Brother and you could not want a Supply for such Alliances and that rather than fail you might have got a new Bill to have passed Intituled An Act to enter into an actual War with France with which you might haâ—e beg'd Money of the French King as you did in 1678. It may be you will say They were Alliances your Brother had made for Preservation of the General Peace of Christendom You say well and it is a wonder since your Brother was graciously pleased to demand Money that he was not as graciously pleased to tell the Parliament what those Alliances were Surely Sir you did not expect a blind Obedience from that Eagle-ey'd Parliament to contribute to the Support of what they were wholly ignorant of or if they had had some Hints from the Court it would not have been amiss to have used them as civilly as your Band of Pensioners were and to have had those Alliances laid before them those humble Curs never parted with Money for the support of Leagues till acquainted with the Nature and Tendency of them And if the Alliances were not designed for the end pretended you might have asked Money with as good Success for the two Whores at the lower end of the matted Gallery both Mistress and Woman as for those Alliances Let me good Sir ask you one fair Question Did your Brother expect Money for these Alliances and nothing else and for once we will suppose Portsmouth and her Woman not to have had one Great no nor Fitz-Harrris so much as a Sop in the Pan tho he had a hopeful Plot upon the Stocks that deserved two but that it should be applied only for Alliances made to preserve the General Peace of Christendom truly then ought not the Parliament to consider well of the General Peace it self and its Influence upon our Affairs before they came to any Resolution or so much as to debate about it since you had a Tool in the Ministry that told us it was more fit for Meditation than Discourse nay he impudently said the Peace was but the effect of Despair and I think he was not much out in it but he might have been so honest as to have told us the true Cause of that Despair yet for all his Worship's Rhetorick the Nation learn'd by whose means they were reduced to so low a Thought of their Condition nay if that Loggerhead were alive I could tell him what Price you and your Brother demanded of the Fr. King for that noble and most Christian piece of Service In a word Sir we had no reason to simper upon the Business unless with the wrong side of our Mouths for we could not sing any Tune but that lamentable one of a bad Market we all knew the effect of this General Peace of Chistendom that it was the Dissolving the Confederacy against the French King the Enlarging his Dominions and his gaining time to refresh his Souldiers almost harassed out of their Lives by long Service the settling and composing the Minds of his Vassals at home increasing his Fleet and filling his Exchequer for new and greater Designs but your Rogues that were Pensioners to the French King grew impudent upon it and expected he might have a spare hour or so to assist you in ruining the Religion Laws and Liberties of England and to have fairly laid aside the use of Parliaments and broke them up as you would have done a Field-meeting in Scotland or a private Conventicle in England and treated them like Traitors and Villains and not like the great Assembly and Wisdom of the Nation Was it the Alliance your Brother had made with the States General Truly your Band of Pensioners had so stigmatized that that neither the first Westminster nor the Oxford-Parliament would foul their Fingers with it much less give any Money towards the Support of it for the Pensioners speaking modestly could not believe it tended to the safety of the Nation Truly I must look again and see what this new Alliance was and good Sir I beg your pardon it was a new Alliance with Spain and would they not give Money to support this Well let us then see how the Case stood in relation to it I confess Alliances to a Parliament make a very pretty noise and may be as diverting as ever old Hodg's Fiddle was to any of his Tory Gang. Indeed old England stood in need of some new Friends being so beset with Enemies abroad and with Pensioners to those Enemies at home but what shall I say to this Point When I view the Speech at the opening of that Parliament that sat down Octob. 21. 1680. there is nothing said of any new Ally except the poor Spaniard whose Affairs at that time thro' the Defects of his own Government and the villanous falseness of our Ministers were reduced to such Extremities that he might sooner have been a Burden to the Nation than a Help unless you let us judg that this Name of a new League was necessary to recommend our Ministers to a new Parliament and bubble our honest Country Gentlemen out of their Money for by it we were like to have trouble enough being to espouse without any Limitation all the Quarrels of the Spaniards tho in the Philippina Islands and the West-Indies or that he had drawn upon himself by any of his Barbarities there or elsewhere nay his difference with the Elector of Brandenburgh was not excepted tho all that Elector had done in Reprisals upon the Spanish Ships for a just Debt
often demanded in vain was according to the Law of Nations and the Rules of Justice nay Sir we might have been engaged in his Quarrel with old Kate's native Country which we ought to have had special regard of for the Blessing they sent us in 1662. And pray what was the Quarrel Truly nothing but a treacherous seizing the Island of St. Gabriel which the Portuguese had peaceably enjoyed several Years upon which you know Jack the Portuguese invaded some part of the Spanish Country Also by virtue of this Alliance we were even obliged to assist the Spaniard in case of any disturbance in his own Dominions You and your Brother were admirable good at secret Articles and in one of those it is plainly expressed we were to furnish him 8000 Men for 3 Months so that if he inclin'd to make his Subjects as great Slaves to the Crown as they are to the Church our good King was to assist him in so good a Work Truly Sir when I reflect on Philip the Second's Barbarity to the People of the Low Countries whom our Ancestors thought fit to succour I could not but think this Alliance now under debate was for the Preservation of the Protestant Religion and the Good of the Nation because my Lord Hallifax and old Lauderdale told me so and therefore as the Stars would have it it was not fit the League should be laid before the Parliament lest they should think so too and find a blind side or two in it and think it would contribute but little to the Good of the Nation or securing the Peace of poor Flanders Well Sir your Cake proved Dough that bout for there was Death in the Pot a standing Army aimed at in England that would not down with us at that time of which you were to have been General that would have done more good Business upon Hounslow-Heath than in Flanders for they were not to help the Spaniard till the French had invaded them three Months and it 's well known he could then have been Master of a considerable part of that Country But yet no Money came nor can I help it if I should cry my Eyes out let me therefore be a little more particular with you and ask two or three Questions it may be we may find some Expedient they might have used to allay the matter on your side Now supposing this League the best that ever could be made yet 1. Had not the Parliament just Cause to be very jealous of your Brother's Sincerity in this Alliance and the more because he would not declare what it was nor suffer it to be laid before them Therefore had it been the best in Christendom nay as good as that between him and Cleveland and Mother Knight the Bawd which he had broken for several years or that that was then in being between Mrs. Portsmouth and her Woman Nell Waall yet what could they say to such a League or what Security could they have that it should be kept more than the Triple League or that with the Prince of Orange or that with the States General which were all broken almost as soon as made 2. The Parliaments of England had been ill used by you and your Banditti and therefore you must allow this not to meet with that Temper you desir'd who after they had heard of this Alliance were not suffered so much as to have it laid before them to consider of tho it had been before your Council at St. James's and Barillon the French Ambassadour had perused it and was privy to the secret Article in it and had not like a Man of Truth given a Copy of it to one that let some have a sight of it Surely Sir you and your Party could not but provoke a Parliament by these Carriages and how then could you expect Money to support this new Alliance 3. I pray Sir how was it possible any good could come to Christendom in general or to these Nations in particular by this new Alliance It is plain that all Christendom after the separate Peace with the Dutch could not preserve Spain and the Spanish Netherlands from falling under the Dominion of the French King how then could your Brother by this new Alliance be in a Condition to support them without the Dutch since by the help of you and your Traitors he brought this Nation into a distracted and deplorable Condition Nay Sir one word more What good could these Kingdoms expect by this Alliance since thereby all the Hardships imaginable were put upon our Traders both to Spain and the West-Indies and had that King been as able as willing he would have let you known it ' ere this time 4. Was it not unreasonable to ask Money for the support of this League tho we suppose it the best that ever was made Your Brother was the first King that ever asked Money to support Alliances I have read of Kings when by the Advice of Parliament they have made War upon any of their Neighbours they have called for Money to carry it on with Vigour but I never find any of our Kings that ever called for Money to support Alliances especially when they were justly ashamed to declare what they were 5. Again Your Crew I confess at that time made a horrid noise about the Spanish Alliance and wondered the Parliament would give no Money to maintain it Alas Sir there was never yet an Alliance made with any State in Christendom if a good one but would earn its own living and therefore needed no Money to support it if it were a bad one I am sure it deserved none 6. Once more and I 'll conclude this Point since your Party made such a noise about the Spanish Alliance pray Sir how was it kept If my Memory fails not it was not over-well observed for I think in 1682. your Ally the French King blocked up Luxemburgh and in the year my Lord Russel was murdered took Courtray one of the six Towns delivered up by the French to the Spaniard and keeps it to this Day as he doth Luxemburgh which he took by force in 1684. Now I do not find your Brother ever assisted this Confederate of his according to the tenour of the Alliance or as he was Guarantee in the Treaty of Aix la Chapelle which in his excellent Declaration of War against the Dutch he declared he would maintain Upon the whole I see no reason why the Parliament should have given any Money to support this Alliance 2. As the Parliament would give no Money for the support of this Alliance so neither for the support of Tangier this stuck mightily in your Stomach and in the Maws of all your Party Now Sir Tangier being most valiantly deserted it deserves not to be mentioned but because it so highly offended your Friends who to this day mention it with reluctancy I will say a word or two to it It is some years since that the Commons of England to
the best of my remembrance 't was in 1680 gave it a due Consideration nay they were so candid as to represent to the King how that important Place came to be in so miserable a Condition after so vast a Treasure consumed to make it useful and that nothing better could be expected of it since it consisted most of Papists and such as were Enemies to the Religion Laws and Liberties of England These Inconveniencies might have been redressed by your Brother had he so pleased and truly the Parliament advised him to it nay Sir you may put on your Spectacles and read the Address of Parliament November 1680 wherein they promised to assist him in the Defence of that Place if they might have a tolerable Security that any Supply for it should not be applied to augment the Strength of our Popish Adversaries and to increase our Dangers at home from that villanous Faction and could you with any reason blame them since they had to their Sorrow seen Money imployed contrary to those Ends for which given by your Band of Pensioners But above all the Popish Party's Insolencies and the Impudence of those that espoused the French Interest threatned the Nation with total Ruine at home and therefore they judged it not prudence to leave the Consideration of England to provide for Tangier it looking like securing one single Cabin whilst the whole Ship was on fire Therefore to conclude this Head let me ask you these plain Questions 1. Whether it could be judged consistent with the Wisdom of a Parliament that had seen the dismal Consequences of the Incouragement your Popish Party had received from your Brother and you to give Money to supply a Garison which was used to augment their Strength and increase the danger of the Nation and whether you would not have laughed as much at them for such a Compliance as you did at your Band of Pensioners for giving 1250000 l. for the King 's extraordinary Occasions in 1673 or for that vast Sum they gave for a War with France in 1678 2. Had you not several Regiments in pay besides the Guards in England which might be transported and maintained as cheap there as here and would it not have been more honourable for them to have been sent to Tangier to have beaten the Moors than to stay at home to beat their Landlords and Landladies in their Quarters 3. Had you not a Company of Popish Gentlemens Sons to be imployed in that Service whose Fathers were undone by the Supply they gave for maintaining Liberty of Conscience and the Dutch War in order to destroy the Protestant Religion all over Europe And could you and your Teagues think on any rational ground that ever a Protestant Parliament would give Money to preserve that Place which was nothing else but a Nursery of Popish Officers and Souldiers I believe your Popish young Gentlemen might want the Charity of those Imployments but the Parliament had a foresight of the fatal Consequences that would attend the placing their Bounty upon such Vermin who would have been ready to return home for those ends designed by you and your Council at St. James's 3. The Parliament would not part with Money for Paiment of the Debt of the Exchequer to the Bankers which your Crew urg'd did put your Brother out of a Possibility of supporting the Government This is the Charge and a heavy one too Now what was this Government that was to be supported but a parcel of nasty Whores Pimps Bawds Informers Suborners of Perjury Murderers and Thieves This was your Government in your Brother's days was it not Nay did he not consume more Money upon such Vermine in one year than would serve the Government of England ten Did the Credit of the Crown both at home and abroad depend upon Portsmouth's having 52000 l. Sterling a Year and Nel Waal for being Bawd in ordinary getting 30 or 40000 l. in Money and other Cattle of the same Profession being maintained in all manner of Luxury for no other merit but having had a hand in the ruin of the Nation No Sir the Credit of the Government did not depend thereupon the Parliaments did not settle Revenues nor give Taxes for such Ends but your Brother and you had advanced the Credit of the Government if you had sent such Vermin to Bridewel to have been set to work for their living as Whores ought to be and to have the Correction of the House all Titles of Honour to the contrary notwithstanding Come Sir to be plain with you the Honours of England are intrusted with the King but were never designed for such Vermin as Portsmouth that was but the Daughter of a poor French Fellow or a Bastard of some Body I name not who nor to have whole Families advanced for providing or pimping another Man's Wife to be a Whore Royal that has had no less to speak modestly than 20 Stallions to attend her besides your dear Brother of blessed Memory Sir it is certain notwithstanding the noise your Party made of your Brother's being thro' the Parliaments refusing to give Money put out of a Possibility to pay his Debts that he never would pay them which was his Resolution and therefore what Faith could be given to his Promises tho he knew the Honour of the Nation would suffer highly in his taking up his Brother of France's Custom of not being a Slave to his Word The truth is had the People always been to pay his Debts there might have been Taxes without end this Sir your Band of Pensioners well knew who therefore as mercenary as they were would never pay the Debt due to the Bankers and the last Westminster Parliament having so fair and fresh an Instance before their Eyes and their Ears filled with the daily Cries of the Widows and Orphans were obliged in duty to give a publick Caution to the People not to run again into the same Error because they judged all Securities of that Nature absolutely void and that no future Parliament could without breach of Trust repay that Money that was at first borrowed to prevent the sitting of a Parliament Thus I have gone through all the Particulars of the second Pretence that is that the Parliament would not supply your Brother with Money to support the Spanish Alliance preserve Tangier and to pay his Debts 3ly You had another Pretence for procuring those three Parliaments to be dissolved viz. two Votes that passed the Commons Jan. 7. 1680. 1. That whosoever should lend or cause to be lent by way of Advance any Money upon the Branches of the King's Revenue arising by way of Customs Excise and Hearth-money shall be adjudged the hinderer of the sitting of Parliaments and be responsible for the same 2. That whosoever should accept or buy any Tally or Anticipation upon any part of the King's Revenue or shall pay such Tally hereafter to be struck shall be adjudged to hinder the sitting of Parliaments and be responsible
happy in his People and both secured by frequent Parliaments which therefore could never endanger your Brother's Crown Mistake not your self nor think that we could be cheated with that Nonsense for nothing could endanger his Crown but your advancing the Religion of Rome and the Arbitrary Power of France in England It was these things endanger'd your Brother's Government nothing else could but good Gentleman he was engaged with you in these things beyond recovery to the ruin of himself and the endangering of all our Laws and Liberties The Devil's Brokers did not join with you in dissolving the Long Parliament but cried out if that Parliament was dissolved the Church would fall but Sir I will say that for you you had as little regard for the Church as you could considering how the Rogues had espoused your Quarrel and thought that Passive-Obedience Nonresistance and the Divine Right of Succession would have been admirable Orvâ—etans against the Plague of Rebellion But why must this Church fall with the Pensioners Alas alas the poor distressed Church and the poor distressed Band of Pensioners For the latter they were a Parcel of matchless Villains and she Whore enough not to be in the Nation 's Interest but dissolved they were and what escaped the Jail were secured by the Friars those who had stood by the Interest of their Country were sent again and such a Set of Gentlemen as no King would have sent home in so ignominious a manner but your Brother at your procurement and being sent home you and your Party made it your Business to expose them 1. You had them exposed on your Stages in your rascally Play-houses by a Parcel of mercenary Rogues and Whores who you and your villanous Party set up to debauch the Nation and to ridicule the essential Parts of the Government as if the Votes and Debates of that August Assembly were to be ridiculed by such Vermine who were Tools you made use of in some part to do your Drudgery But stay it is not fit the Whores that are Stage-players should be reflected on left there should be a more severe Act made for cutting of Noses for a Parliament-Man you know had his Nose cut for speaking against that sort of Vermine but I will not be afraid to mention their contemptuous reproaching of Parliaments 2. You had Monsieur Barillon who managed the Intrigue of charging the principal leading Members of both Houses of those three Parliaments with being in a Conspiracy against your Brother and your self and this he and your Jesuits Priests and other Vermine contrived by Subornation and Perjury a Proceeding not unusual to some Persons and Courts all the Mischiefs Poisonings and Villanies in all the European Courts were owing chiefly to his and his Master 's most Christian Politicks he was used as a main Agent fit to expose three as great Parliaments as England ever knew to all the Courts of Christendom as a Confederacy of Men in a Plot to destroy the King and your self and as Enemies to Monarchy And what was this but to render Parliaments odious to all the Princes of Europe 3. Notwithstanding those three Parliaments had nothing before them but to secure the Government against the Depredations that Popery and Arbitrary Power would have made upon it and notwithstanding their great Duty to the King yet what a scandalous Declaration was emitted wherein the said Parliaments were most villanously treated as if they had aimed at nothing but the change of the Government This Declaration may be supposed to be drawn by that Villain the French Ambassador in his own Mother-Tongue because tho it was turned into English yet the French way of wording it shews there was a French Counsellor in the case which could be none but he who was the chief Counsellor your Brother and you used in the management of your Conspiracy yet it is but the Copy of your Grandfather's and Father's way of Proceeding which your Brother and you thought fit to use to asperse Parliaments you were all Friends alike to that Constitution of the English Government 4. It is very remarkable that your villanous Judges were instructed in their Circuits to spit their Venom against the Proceedings of the said Parliaments and in their respective Stations they were to let their Grand Juries know what reason the King had to dissolve them and how they recommended the King's most Gracious Declaration to their Consideration and what Converts they made I was never curious to inquire for I could not suppose but the Country knew the Men and their Character and under what necessity they lay to be Villains from the tenour of their illegal Commissions and that they must prostitute themselves to the Will of the Court or be dismissed from their Imployments but they chose rather to be Scandals to the Bench than to appear as so many Reproaches to their Professions at the Bar. Upon all which Considerations I cannot believe they ever made any farther Profelytes against the English Parliaments than a paltry Sheriff of a County or a villanous Grand Jury pack'd on purpose to draw up an Address of Thanks for the Court 's attempting to ruin the Government as established by Law 5. Since Sir the City of London could not be debauched but the eminent Merchants and Traders in it stood firm to their Laws and Liberties and to the Government of England by Parliaments so that you could not influence the Masters you took an unheard-of Course to debauch the Servants and Apprentices in their Morals and procured a Day of Feasting for them whâ—re they were incouraged to huzza it away against Parliaments and to reproach the Senators as a Herd of Men set upon the Destruction of the Government both in Church and State but it pleased God to open the Eyes of several of those young Gentlemen to see that this Feasting and Rioting was carried on by ill Men and that the dissolving of Parliaments was only to screen some publick Offenders from Justice and by degrees quitting themselves of that scandalous Congress in a year or two their Feasting fell to the ground 6. You imployed old Hodg your Buffoon in ordinary to write against the Proceedings of those Parliaments the Rogue by his Lies Equivocations and Prevarications did much Mischief having called in a parcel of little Priests who engaged themselves to rail at Parliaments and admire the Loyalty of old Hodg their Guide whose Observators were the Subjects of their Discourses every Lord's day nay they would scarce look upon a Sacramental Discourse the first Sunday in the Month to be well dish'd up unless some of Roger's Frippery was mingled with it so that the old Villain was not unsuccessful in his traiterous Papers which he published several times a week till God in his Mercy opened the Eyes of some of our Passive-Obedience-Puppies and let them see the Villain was aiming at Popery and destroying the Church of England notwithstanding his specious Pretences to defend it 7. You