shadow of a Law to countenance them of which more in due place Having made this fair Progress toward the enslaving both the Souls and Bodies of his own Subjects at home let us take a View of his Zeal to the Protestant Religion abroad And first for the Protestants of France his Care and Tenderness for them may be easily conjectur'd from hence that the first Edicts issu'd forth by Lewis the Fourteenth for their Persecution bear date with the Time and Year of his Most Protestant Majesties Restauration And from that day to this in stead of interceding or concerning himself in their behalf he has by his own Example and his strict Correspondence with the French King both countenanc'd and encourag'd their Oppression which the French King at that time when he was formidable in the Love of his Subjects durst no more have prosecuted than Mazarine durst proceed in his Fury against the Hugonots when more Pious Oliver bestir'd himself in their Favour But our Protestant Monarch was so far from sending Succour to the French Protestants that he betray'd those to the Rage of the French Tyrant that came to invoke his Aid in their behalf For when Monsieur Rohan came into England to acquaint his Pious Majesty with the Resolutions taken at Paris to persecute and if possible to root out the Reformed in France and propos'd such Overtures to the King as would have been greatly for his Glory and Interest yet no way contrary to the Allegiance of that poor People he remitted the Monsieur to his Brother the D. of York who not only inform'd the French Embassador of the Gentleman's Errand but plac'd him behind the Hangings to hear whatever Monsieur Rohan had to represent and propose to him Which altho the Embassador could not but abhor in the two Brothers and was asham'd of in himself yet he could do no less then inform his Master of what he had seen and heard Upon which the poor Gentleman upon his Return out of England was so narrowly watch'd and so closely pursu'd that being apprehended upon the Borders of Switzerland he was carried back to Paris and there broken upon the Wheel Nor did it satisfie the King and his dear Brother the Duke to have thus betray'd as well as abandon'd the Protestants in France but with the utmost Malice that Popery could inspire into them they sought the Destruction of the Seven United Provinces upon no other Account but of their being Protestant States and for giving shelter to those who being persecuted by himself and his Confederate the French Tyrant for their Religion fled thither for Protection and Safety For knowing what in due time they intended to bring upon the Protestants at home they thought it most requisite to destroy those Protestant States in the first place that there might remain no Sanctuary for their persecuted Subjects And indeed abating this and one more Ground of their Quarrel with those States never was a War undertaken upon more unjust and frivolous Pretences then those Two which the King engag'd in against the Seven Provinces in the Years 1667. and 1672. Nor can any thing justifie the Discretion and Wisdom of those Wars had they not been undertaken meerly in subserviency to the promoting Popery and Slavery seeing that upon all other Grounds that Reason and Prudence can suggest it was the Interest of England as still it is to preserve the Government of Holland entire Nor can we have a truer Accompt of the Grounds upon which the two Monarchs of England and France agreed the War against Holland in the Year 1672. then by the Representation which the French Embassador made of it both at Rome and Vienna For tho' his Publick Declaration pretended no more but that it was to seek Reparation for the Diminution of his Glory yet the Accompt he gave to the Pope of his Master's and consequently of our Protestant Monarch his strict Confederate's undertaking that War was that he did it in order to the Extirpation of Heresie And in the same manner they sought to justifie the Piety of that Enterprise to his Imperial Majesty by alledging That the Hollanders were a People that had forsaken God and were Hereticks and that all good Christians were bound to associate and unite for their Extirpation Upon which accompt it seems our King and the Duke thought fit to exchange the Appellation of Good Protestants for that of Good Christians However from hence it was plain what sort of Good Christians they were since it was as evident that their uniting with France in that War was to destroy the Protestant Dutch Hereticks And that we may yet more fully understand the Motive upon which the King embark't in that bloody and expensive War it is worthy observation how that when the French King made it one of his Propositions upon which he would be contented to receive the States into his ancient Friendship That they should not only allow the Publick Exercise of the Roman Catholick Religion over all the United Provinces but that they should appoint a Sallary to the Priest allotted to the Churches which the Papists by that Demand were to enjoy the King of England being no less concerned for Popery then his Brother of France gave the States to understand by his Plenipotentiaries That without their Concession of the foregoing Demand of the King of France he could not return to Peace with them So that not only from the Motive upon which the War was commenc'd but from the Proposals which he urg'd them to consent to in order to a Peace we have a most convincing Proof of his Majesty's being no zealous Protestant but rather quite the contrary and of his pious Inclinations to the Extirpation as well as weakning the Protestant Religion in the United Provinces Certainly a most thankful Acknowledgment and Royal Requital of those Provinces for the many Kindnesses which they had vouchsaf'd him during his Exile and for their Favours their liberal Entertainments the high Honours which they had paid him when he made their Country the last Stage of his Retreat in order to his Return to his Crown and Kingdom But this must be ascrib'd to his Zeal for promoting the Catholick Religion which attones for all Defects of Justice and Gratitude and ought to be imputed to those Principles of Popery which he had suck't in with the French Air and which have a peculiar Vertue and Faculty to expel all Morality and good Nature These being the real Grounds and Motives that induc'd the King of England to begin that Impolitick War against the Dutch in the year 1665. whatever was openly and publickly pretended how strangely was the Parliament deluded and blinded by the King's Oaths and Protestations of his Zeal for the Protestant Religion What vast Sums of the Subjects Money they gave the perfidious Monarch to defray the Expences of that unnecessary and baneful War is too well known and yet after all saving one brisk Engagement ill-manag'd tho' with
hands to prevent the Consequences of French and Popish Dictates they were mistaken in the Man and gave their wholsom Advice to him that was bound not to take it and was himself the Primum Mobile of all the Disorders which they besought of him to remedy During this Sessions of Parliament many foul things came to light For while the King had raised an Army and pressed the Parliament for Money to maintain them under pretence of making a War with France which was the earnest desire of all the Protestant part of the Kingdom the Parliament were fully informed that while the King boasted of the Alliances which he had made for the preservation of Flanders and the Protestant Religion both at home and abroad he was secretly entred into Treaties and Alliances at the same time with the French King and Mr. Garraway of the House of Commons had gotten a Copy of the Private Treaty between the King of England and the French King at the same instant that the Secretary and all the Court Pentioners cried out a War insomuch that such of the Conspirators as were in the House began to blush when they saw the Cheat so palpably discerned It was farther discovered that a great Favourite of the Duke 's had been sent over into France under a pretence of Expostulating and requiring satisfaction for the Injuries which the English had received from the French but in reality to carry the Project of Articles for the Peace and to settle and confirm all things fast about the Money that was to come from France and to agree the Methods for shamming the Confederates about their Expected Alliances They found themselves cheated of all the Pole Bill Money which they had given so little a while before upon the assurance of a War intended against France the greatest part of which they perceived was imediately though appropriated to the French Wur only converted to other uses as the paying of old Debts so that very little was left to pay for any Necessaries bought or to be bought toward the pretended War with France Nor were they ignorant of the real Design for which the King had raised his Army and what care the King and his Brother took that there should be no other Officers in that Army than what were fit for the Work in hand which was to introduce Popery and French Government by main force Four parts of Five being downright Papists or else such as resolved so to be upon the least intimation The Duke recommending all such as he knew fit for the Turn and no less than a Hundred Commissions being sign'd by Secretary W. to â—ish Papists to raise Forces notwithstanding the late Act by which means both the Land and Naval Forces were in safe hands And to compleat the Work hardly a Judge Justice of the Peace or any Officer in England but what was of the Duke's Promotion Nor were they ignorant of the private Negotiations carried on by the Duke with the Kings Connivance with the Pope and Cardinal Norfolk who had undertaken to raise Money from the Church sufficient to supply the King's Wants till the Work were done in case the Parliament should smoak their Design and refuse to give any more Nor was the Parliament ignorant what great Rejoycing there was in Rome it self to hear in what a posture his Majesty was and how well provided of an Army and Money to begin the Business The Parliament also understood while they were labouring the War with France and to resist the growth of Popery and Arbitrary Power that the King underhand assisted the French with Men and Ammunition of all sorts and soon after that a Cessation was concluded both at Nimeghen and Paris and that the King had got some money from France for that Jobb by which means the French King was now sure to hold all his Conquests abroad which had England been real to the Confederates might have been easily wrested again out of his Hands But it seems it was not so much Money as the King expected which made him angry so that he began to threaten that if the French King did not perform his Promise of 300000 l. Annuity for three Years he would undo all he had done against the next Parliament But the French King derided those vain Threats menacing in his turn that if the King of England would not be content with his Terms and do and say to the Parliament according to his directions he would discover both him and his Correspondents in betraying the Nation and discover all his secret Contrivances against the Kingdom as afterwards he Published the Dover Treaty at Paris which was the reason that after that His Majesty of England never durst disoblige the French Monsieur but became a perfect Slave to his Interest a Bondage he never needed to have undergone had he been but half as sincere to his English Parliament But to them he was never true with them he always broke his Faith and Royal Word insomuch that after they had given him Money to Disband his Army he employed the Money to another use and kept up his standing Forces to the great Terror of the People in all parts of the Kingdom So that now all things running on the Papistical side to their Hearts desire what with Popish Souldiers Popish Officers Popish Counsels Popish Priests and Jesuits swarming about the Town and Country and France at leisure to help them who had help'd him to be more a Conqueror by the Peace than he could have expected by a War the Duke of York was for the Kings pulling off his Vizard and for setting up Alamode of France according to what had been so often debated at White hall and St. Iames's But while the King and his Brother were thus riding Post to ruin the Laws and Religion of the Kingdom the Discovery of the Popish Plot by Dr. Oats broke all their Measures for a time by laying open the Secret Contrivances of our English Castor and Pollux for the introducing of Popery and Arbitrary Government This Plot was no sooner made known to the King but he imparts it to the Duke not the knowledge of the Plot for that they both knew before but the News of the Plots being discovered Upon which they set themselves with all the care they could to stop the farther Progress of the Discovery To which purpose the Duke gives notice of it to his Man Coleman and the Priests and Jesuits in the Savoy by which means what Papers and Persons were to be conceal'd and conveyed away was carefully looked after All this while by this â—easonable detection of the King and his Brother to the Priests Jesuits Oats himself narrowly escaped Massacred Oats finding himself thus betray'd and abandoned by the King applies himself to Sir Edmund Bury Godfry with a Scheme of the Plot fairly drawn up by that means to be introduced before the Council to have the Business there unfolded which with much ado was done and Oats
Nation he tells the Parliament That he had been obliged to kâ—ep up his Troops to keep his Neighbâ—urs from absolute Despair and that he had been solicited from abroad not to disband them Now was ever such a Story told by a Prince and vouched in the face of the Nation by a Bred Lawyer viz. his Chancellor to justifie the Breach of a Law of the Three Estates of the Kingdom as soon as made and then to flâ—m the Parliament off with Christendom and the Worlds commending us for breaking our own Laws to patch up a Peace which tended to nothing but the Ruine of those for whom it was made The sum of which was in short That the King to serve his own Arbitrary Ends had run hâ—mself 〈…〉 〈…〉 that many Papers of great Importance had with a more than ordinary Industry been convey'd away yet by those that were found so much appeared that the House Voted it to be a damable Plot to root up and destroy the Religion and Government of the Kingdom and privately got the Lord Chief-Justice Sâ—broggs to sign Warrants for the Apprehending the Popish Lords which was done accordingly And for their further Security they prepared a Bill for putting the Nation into a posture of Defence and for raising the Militia throughout the Kingdom to be in Arms for so many days Which passed Both Houses without any difficulty but the King out of his Zeal to the Protestant Religion refused to pass it And then it was that the Parliament found too late the Compliment which they had pass'd upon him in returning him the Power of the Militia which he made use of to keep up Standing Armies for their Destruction but refused for the Security of the Nation This therefore not prevailing they began to provide against Papists sitting in either House and fram'd a Bill with a Test to be taken by every Member of both Houses or else to lose their Seats This though his Protestant Majesty durst not openly oppose himself yet after a close Consultation held at St. Iames's he ordered all his Instruments in the Lords House to withstand the passing of it there which though they could not effect yet they prevail'd so far that they got a Proviso in it for the D. of York whereby they did him the kindness as to declare him a Papist to all the World After this the Parliament proceeded to the impeaching of such Persons as they had found to be deepest in the Contrivance of all our Mischiefs but That His Majesty lookt upon as a Business that so nearly concerned his own Honour that like his Father when the D. of Buckingham was accus'd of poysoning his Father he would not endure the Parliament in such a Iehu-like Chace after the Popish Conspirators but foot-ball'd them again with a Prorogation for several Months So careful was his Protestant Majesty to stifle as much as in him lay and to prevent the Prosecution of an Infernal Plot which he knew was so deeply laid like the Axe of Popery to the root of all his Protestant Dominions Nor was this all for so soon as he had dismiss'd the Parliament and had secur'd his Accomplices he took all the care imaginable to discredit Oates and Bedlow's Evidence Forty One was again inculcated into all the Ignorant Pates about the Town and Merry-Andrew Roger had his Pension out of the Gazetts continued to ridicule the Plot which he did in a most leud and shameless manner and Money given to set up a new Divinity Academy in a Publick Coffee House to act the Protestant Whore of Babylon and give about his Revelation-Cup to the Raw Inferior Clergy and instruct them in better Doctrine than ever they learnt in the University Nor did he stop at the endeavouring to discredit the Testimonies of those Witnesses but sent his Head-Emissaries to corrupt them to a denial and retracting what they had discovered and when that would not do Knox and Lane were suborn'd to accused Otes of Buggery thereby to bave taken him Acts of the foulest ignominy which whether a Protestant King would have encouraged to the ruine of the Religion which he professed in partial postcrity will determine with a clearer and more unclouded sight For we God knows are so dazled with those Illustrious Beams of feigned Protestant Majesty that we are not able to stare upon those Rays without blinding our Eyes out of a false Devotion to the Sun of our vain Imagination Add to this his endeavouring to corrupt the yet untainted Members of the House and buy their Votes to the utter exhausting of his Treasure for that which was then call'd Secret Service And which was more than all the rest his Dissolution of this Enquiring Parliament at the Sollicitation of the Duke and the rest of his guilty Minions by the Advice of a certain Lady who to save her Husband from the Impeachment he lay under persuaded them to get the King totally to Dissolve the Parliament using this Argument That in regard the Nation were so dissatisfied in this it would be a means to gain him the favour of the people and baffle the Impeachment by getting it Dissolv'd especially when it should be known that it was done by his procurement So that the Lady's Advice being followed the Parliament was as easily Dissolv'd as it had been a little before lasciviously Prorogued after a continuance of Seventeen Years to the great Admiration of all men tho indeed it proved in some measure a happy day for England For the Dissolution so enraged the Band of Pensioners finding their Service so slighted and their livelihood lost that they began to talk loud and discovered those things which were no way for the disadvantage of the Nation But here we are t observe the extraordinary Diligence of his Protestant Majesty to get the next Parliament fit for his Turn which was suddenly to be called to stop the mouths of the People To which purpose all the Money that could possibly be spared out of the Chequer was issued out to C. B. to manage the Elections all over the Kingdom under the old Notion of secret Service in one Article 1500 l. in another 2000. and the Guinea's stew about the Countrey far and near to the Corporations to hire places and get fit men the Heads of the Counties and Corporations were sent for and told what men would be serviceable and acceptable to the King and particularly the Gentlemen of Essex were sent to by the Ch. Just. Schroggs and cautiones that they should not chuse Mildmay whatever they did And new Charters were obtained foâ— some Corporations with new Privileges and 〈◊〉 them down to be hung out at the Windows to animate the People to chuse such men as they were directed What could more have been done by a Protestant Prince to destroy his Protestant Subjects and advance the Roman-Catholick Cause But when the Conspiraters saw that nothing would but that they perceived that they were deceived in their Expectations by
the Precepts even of Morality it self transvers'd the Witnesses for the King caressed and countenanced in their known Subornations the Testimonies for the pretended Criminals brow-beaten and run down and all the Arguments of Law and Reason urged by the most Learned Council of the Nation over-ruled by Hectoring and Swaggering Judges to take away the Lives of the Lord Russel Coll. Sidney Armstrong Cornish and several others merely to gratify the Rage of Popish Revenge Such were the Violences of the Court at that time in the defiance of Justice as if all fear of giving account to future Parliaments had been thrown off or that they never intended to be troubled with them more till they had framed the Nation into such a posture as to chuse such Members as would not only forgive such Villanies but go sharers with them in the Spoil of the Kingdom And indeed the eager Thirst of all the Great Men at White-hall was so apparent that nothing could be more by the violent Contests for Sheriffs fit for their Turns before they were Masters of the Charter insomuch that they laboured it with that Zeal as if they had been contending pro Aris Focis and some of them were heard to say That upon that hung all their hopes and without it they were undone For by the Verdicts of such Juries that such Sheriffs should return they were in hopes to cut off all that in their Stations had appeared for the Exclusion of the Duke or had shewed their constant Zeal for the Protestant Religion and the Laws of the Land which is easily demonstrable from the Catalogues of those that suffered or were forced to shelter themselves in Foreign Countries from the Malice of their Revengeful Prosecutors Nor was it less remarkable that as all along they embarked themselves in Designs pernicious and destructive to the King and Kingdom So that the structure of this was built upon as wicked a foundation was evident from the Instruments selected and encouraged by the favour of the King and his Brother to promote it For as they made use of the Scum of the World to perjure men out of their lives so they made use of the Scum of the City such as Dodson Masters Cradock Mern and others of the same stamp to give them the command of Juries proper to complete the Tragedies A most ready and clever way to extirpate by degrees the Patriots of our Religion and Liberties But that this was the Design of getting Court-Sheriffs Sir G. Iefferies who well knew the minds of his Superiors at White-hall was neither afraid nor ashamed to own For having after the Tryal of Sir Patience Ward desir'd him to give his Worship a Meeting at Sir Robert Claytons he there told him after an insulting manner That he had satisfied his Revenge for the Loss of the Recordership and besides that having such Sheriffs as they desir'd they had now the Law in their hands and could have the Life of whomsoever they pleas'd Otherwise it had been impossible but for the Treachery of the Judges that encouraged the Injustice of a packed Iury to have found the Lord Russel guilty of death when the whole of what was villanously sworn against him was in the opinion of far more honest and equally Learned Lawyers but Misprision of Treason or to have convicted Collonel Sydney upon Innuendo's made out of old Papers found in his Study and never published But then follow'd the barbarous and horrid Murther of the Earl of Essex which how far it could be laid to the King's Charge is somewhat as yet in the dark However that the King could find no other Morning to accompany his Brother to the Tower but that very Morning that the Earl was murther'd will no doubt very much augment the Suspicion of future Ages and it will be as odly look'd upon that when Letters and Proposals were sent to some Great Persons near the King That if His Majesty would but grant a Pardon to two or three Men that should be nam'd when the Favour was granted the whole Mystery of the Contrivance should be discovered and the Contrivers and Actors be particularly detected such a Proposal should be slghted and neglected There was also another Letter containing the same Offers addressed to the Countess of Essex and sent open to one Cademan a Bookseller in the New-Exchange which was also carried to one of the Secretary's notwithstanding all which there was not the least syllable published to encourage any Inquisition after that Nobleman's Blood which as it amazed all rational people at that time so it will reflect upon the King himself and his memory to all succeeding Ages Now after all these Tricks and Stratagems of the King to introduce Tyranny and Slavery to stifle the Popish-Plot by throwing it upon his Protestant Subjects after such an obstinate and stedfast Conjunction with the sworn Enemy of the Nation the French King for the Subversion of our Laws Liberties and Religion after so many Slights and Contempts to put upon the Grand Council of the Kingdom which he never Assembled but to empty and drain the Purses of the Nation so that there was not a Law which he consented to for the publick Good not a gracious Speech or Declaration to protect and preserve the Protestant Religion which the people did not purchase at a dear rate while the Dissenters among the rest paid for the very Thorns and Briars that tore their own Backs all this designed on purpose to render the Name of Parliaments odious and lastly a League concluded with the French King for their total Subversion After so many Bloody Executions of the chiefest Patriots and constant Assertors of the Protestant Faith to believe the King by whose Authority and by whose Countenance and Permission all this was done to be that sincere Protestant which he profest himself to be is for a Man to shut the Windows of his Understanding against the Light of common Reason But to shut the Door against all Objections that can be made in his behalf there is one proof yet remaining behind which must be an undeniable Convincement to all the World of the truth of what has been hitherto said as standing still recorded under his own Hand if the Original of the Instructions be Exant and that is the following Memorial of his Ambassador to the King of Poland in the year 1667. Most Illustrious Prince THE King my Master has Commanded me to let Your Majesty know the Resolution he has taken in all Points to concur with the Most Christian King in giving Your Majesty all possible Assâ—stance for the Establishing Your Majesties Title in such ways as Your Majesty shall think most effectual for the securing Your Crown and Dignity and the further Honour of Your Queen and Royal Issue The King my Master being truly sensible of the Great Misfortunes of those Princes whose Power must be bounded and Reason regulated by the fantastick Humours of their Subjects Till Princes can be freed
Pope himself which once was printed in Whitlocks Memoirs but upon the considerations of the danger that might ensue upon divulging it at that time to the World torn out before the publishing of the Book However to supply that defect we shall here insert the Propositions that were sent by him to Rome while he was in Scotland professing the Presbyterian Religion and carried thither and press'd forward by one Dalie an Irish Priest and Confessor to the then Queen of Portugal under the Title of Propositions and Motives for and on the behalf of the most Invincible King of Great Britain France and Ireland to Pope Innocent X. in the Year of Iubilee 1650. Which Dalie taking France in his way spake with the Queen-Mother and receiv'd her Directions for the better management of the Affair Most Blessed Father Our Agent at present residing at Rome with all humility shews to your Holiness That the principal cause and occasion of that Regicide tyrannically perpetrated upon the Person of Charles the First Father of that foresaid Charles the Second by his Rebels and cruel Subjects the like whereof was never heard of from the beginning of the world not only not among civil Nations but even among the most barbarous themselves have been the graces favors and concessions so often and so many ways extended to the Catholick Religion and the Assertors and Professors thereof in the Kingdoms both of England and Ireland The truth of which appears in that the foresaid Charles the First gave Authority to the Marquiss of Ormond by several Commissions for the establishing and perfecting all Conditions with the Confederate Catholicks of the Kingdom of Ireland of sufficient security for the Catholick Faith Furthermore the said Charles the First tearing lest the said Ormond being an Heretick should not satisfie the said Confederates in all things He sent thither the Marquiss of Worcester a Man truly and wholly Catholick with a more ample Commission in which Commission the said Marquiss of Worcester had full Authority of concluding a Peace with the said Confederate Catholicks and of giving them Conditions altogether satisfactory as well concerning Liberty of Religion as also as to other Injuries that had been done unto them which the said Marquiss of Worcester making with them an absolute Peace did abundantly fulfil Further this appeareth in that the said Charles the First even in England it self did by Commissions set the Catholicks namely the said Marquiss of Worcester Sir Arthur Ashton and many others over his Armies and made them Governours of Cities Castles and strong Holds notwithstanding the clamour of the People against it and which was not a slight Motive of the Regicide committed upon him whereby it appears that although the said King Charles the First died not a Catholick yet he died for them Again most blessed Father the same Agent most humbly represents That the present King Charles the Second the true and undoubted Heir of the foresaid Charles the First and of all his Kingdoms to whom the said Kingdoms belong of right according to that of Christ Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's while his Father yet lived was known to have good and true Natural inclinations to the Catholick Faith following which and going on in his Fathers steps he did not only recommend it to the Marquiss of Ormond but gave it him in express Command to satisfie in all things the Confederate Catholicks in Ireland namely That he should grant them the free exercise of their Religion That he should abrogate the Penal Laws made against them and that he should restore to the said Catholicks whether Laicks or Ecclesiasticks their Lands Estates Possessions or what other Rights did at any time belong unto them and by the said Laws had been unjustly taken away in obedience to which Commands the said Marquiss in the Name and by the Authority of the said two Kings namely Charles the First and the II. made and concluded a firm Peace with the said Confederate Catholicks by the conclusion of which Peace the said present King and all his Dominions hath involved himself with the Catholicks in an irreconcileable War against the Parliamentarian Regicides of England whose Blood therefore the said cruel Tyrants insatiably thirst after as they did after his Fathers The said Agent further offers to your Holiness That the inhumane Regicides do wickedly usurp to themselves in the Dominions aforementioned all the Authority of the King do most cruelly persecute all the Catholicks both in England and in Ireland partly by condemning them to Banishment partly by thrusting them into Prisons and otherwise corporally punishing them and lastly by putting them to death a Witness of the truth hereof is that great slaughter made by Cromwel in the taking of the two Cities of Drogheda and Wexford and other places where all the Catholicks without distinction of either Sex or Age were slaughtered witness hereof also the raging persecution and death of Catholicks in England by all which and by their Parliamentarian Decrees themselves and their Covenant with God as they call it it is evident even beyond the clearness of the light of the shining Sun That these Tyrannical Regicides do ultimately intend and put forth all their Power for the utter destruction of all Catholicks and to extirpate by the Roots and wholly to extinguish the Catholick Faith throughout the World openly asserting and boasting with great glory that these things being once finished in those Dominions they will then invade France and after that run through Germany Italy and all Europe throwing down Kings and Monarchs whose very Titles are most odious and abhorrent unto them Briefly they have no other thing in their Aim than these two namely The extirpation of the Catholick Religion and the destruction of Monarchy To which wicked Machinations of theirs forasmuch as they could never have any the least hopes that either the King or his Father should at any time in the least assent they have put the one to death and the other to exile And these Rebels now with a nefarious boldness have lately called themselves a Common-wealth To meet with and prevent the infernal endeavours of such Rebels our Agent most humbly offers to your Holiness the following Propositions 1. That your Holiness would make an annual supply out of your own Treasury unto the said Charles the Second of considerable sums of Money sutable to the maintaining the War against those Rebels against God the Church and Monarchy 2. That you would cause and compel the whole beneficed Clergy in the world of whatsoever Dignity Degree State or Condition soever to contribute the third or the fourth part of all their Fruits Rents Revenues or Emoluments to the said War as being Universal and Catholick And that the said Contribution may be paid every Three Months or otherwise as shall seem most expedient to your Holiness 3. That by your Apostolick Nuncio's your Holiness would most instantly endeavour with all Princes Common-wealths and Catholick States
that the said Princes Common-wealths and States may be admonished in the bowels of Jesus Christ and induced to enter into and conclude an Universal Peace and that they will unitedly supply the said King And that they will by no means acknowledg the said Regicides and Tyrants for a Common-wealth or State nor enter into or have any commerce with them 4. That by the said Nuncio's or any other way all and every the Monarchs of all Europe may be timely admonished and made sensible in this Cause wherein beside the detriment of the Faith their own proper Interest is concerned The foresaid Tyrants being sworn enemies to all Monarchy as they themselves do openly assert both by Word and Writing and to that end both in Germany Spain France Polonia c. and in the very Dominions of the Great Turk they have raised dangerous Insurrections being raised they foment them and to that purpose they supply the Charge and make large Contributions to it 5. That your Holiness would command under pain of Excommunication ipso facto all and singular Catholicks That neither they nor any of them directly nor indirectly by Land or by Sea do serve them in Arms or assist them by any Counsel or help to favour or supply them any way under whatsoever pretext Holy Father The premised Remedies are timely to be applied by which the Catholick Faith now exposed to extreme and imminent hazard may be conserv'd an infinite number of Catholicks may be preserv'd from destruction Monarchy may be established and the most invincible King of Great Britain restor'd to his Rights All which things will bear your Holiness to Heaven with their Praises whom God long conserve in safety c. The Propositions and Motives abovesaid if occasion be our Agent will more largely set forth viva voce Nor could there be a more evident Demonstration of the Kings kind Inclinations to the Head of the Romish Religion whom he had so dutifully courted from Scotland then that soon after his Return he justify'd the Bloody Massacre committed by the Papists in Ireland in the Year 1641. For that the Lord Antrim appearing at the Court of Claims guilty of those execrable Murthers and of that most detestable Rebellion and being thereupon to forfeit his Estate as he had justly deserv'd the King by a Letter under his own Hand as well to the Privy Council as to that Court avow'd That whatever the said Lord had done it was by Commission and Authority from his Father Which as it serves to clear a great portion of our Doubts and Suspicions of the Son's Integrity to the Protestant Religion so it was a shrewd Argument that all that glister'd in the Father was not Gold But being eager to be restor'd he was forc'd to put on a Protestant Mask and to wear one Religion in his Face another in his Heart and no question but he had Plenary Toleration from his Ghostly Father for what he did He had watchful Eyes over him And to shew that as he was a great Lover of Comedies and Enterludes so he could act his part with e're a Moon or Lacy of 'em all there is a Story must not be omitted which may serve to light us into the Occasion how he came to gain the Addition of Pious Otherwise as it is impossible for us to give any Account why Virgil so often gives the Epiphet of Pious to his Hero AEneas after he had so dishonourrably cheated and broke his Faith with Queen Dido so is it as little to be expected that we should afford a Reason why Charles the Second should be so universally dignifi'd with the Name of Pious after such a Prank of Hypocrisie as we are going to relate Certainly he could not be thought to be akin to AEneas for we can never deduce his Extraction from the Loins of Anchises perhaps from Venus we might and therefore the Cause must be sought for nearer home Well then the Story is this While he lay at Breda daily expecting the English Navy for his Transportation the Dissenting Party fearing the worst thought it but reasonable to send a select Number of their most eminent Divines to wait upon his Majesty in Holland in order to get the most advantageous Promises from him they could for the Liberty of their Consciences Of the number of these Divines Mr. Case was one who with the rest of his Brethren coming where the King lay and desiring to be admitted into the King's Presence were carried up into the Chamber next or very near the King's Closet but told withal That the King was busie at his Devotions and that till he had done they must be contented to stay Being thus left alone by Contrivance no doubt and hearing a sound of groaning Piety such was the Curiosity of Mr. Case that he would needs go and lay his Ear to the Closet door But Heavens how was the good Old Man ravish'd to hear the Pious Ejaculations that fell from the King's Lips Lord since thou art pleas'd to restore me to the Throne of my Ancestors grant me a Heart constant in the Exercise and Protection of thy True Protestant Religion Never may I seek the Oppression of those who out of the tenderness of their Consciences are not free to conform to Outward and Indifferent Ceremonies With a great deal more of the same Cant. Which Mr. Case having over-heard full of Joy and Transport returning to his Brethren with Hands and Eyes to Heaven up-lifted fell a congratulating the Happiness of Three Nations over which the Lord had now plac'd a Saint of Paradise for their Prince After which the King coming out of his Closet the deluded Ministers were ready to prostrate themselves at his Feet and then it was that the King gave them those Promises of his Favour and Indulgence which how well he after perform'd they felt to their sorrow Soon after he arriv'd in England where he was receiv'd with all the Pomp and Splendour and all the Demonstrations of Joy that a Nation could express but then as if he had left all his Piety behind him in Holland care was taken against the very first Night that his Sacred Majesty was to lie at Whitehall to have the Lady Castlemain seduc'd from her Loyalty to her Husband and entic'd into the Arms of the happily restor'd Prince Which was not only Adultery but Incest in the Lord 's Annointed it being the Opinion of several Persons who had reason to know more than others did that she was his Sister by the Mother's Side as being begotten by the E. of St. A. upon the Queen's Body after the Death of C. the First which is the rather to be believ'd for that I my self have often heard Mr. R. Osborn then at Paris with the Exil'd King affirm That he saw the said E. and the Queen solemnly marry'd together But he was more kind to the D. of Portsmouth than to any of his Mistresses and thence it was that she might not lie under
the Scandal of being a Whore that after he had made her a Dutchess he made her also his Wife that is to say he marry'd her by vertue of his Royal Prerogative at the Lord A's House by the Common Prayer-Book according to the Ceremonies of the Church of England A thing in some measure justifiable in a Prince since the Law allows all Men one Wife and therefore a King who is above Law may surely have two And upon this ground perhaps it was that upon a Lord Mayor's Day being at Mr. Eaton's in Cheapside where the King usually stood upon some Discourse that brought it out she cry'd Me no Whore if me thought me were a Whore me would cut mine own Throat And by the same Dispensing Power he provided also for her Children And therefore having no less adulterously begotten a Daughter upon the Lady Wood he join'd her in holy Wedlock to one of his Sons whom he had begot after the same Legitimate manner upon the Body of the Dutchess of Cleveland according to the Answer of Tamar to Ammon of which he wanted not Sycophant Priests enow to put him in mind But these were Peccadillo's readily forgiven by the Religion which he inwardly embrac'd which could readily dispense with such Trifles as these provided he went thorough-stitch with the Work which his Ghostly Fathers had cut out for him Which was the reason perhaps that he made choice of a Devotion so conformable to his lustful Inclinations For certainly what was said of Harry the Eighth might much more properly he said of him That he spar'd no Woman whether Virgin Marry'd or Widow in his Venereal Heats Which fill'd his Court so full of Pimps and Panders that there was hardly any Preferment about his Person for any other This was that which render'd the D. of L. one of the most ill-favour'd of Men so amiable in our Caesar's Eyes And this was that which advanced several others to their gilded Coaches and Places of the greatest Honour and Profit about the Court. Tho nothing was more mournful then to see those vast Sums of Money which the Parliament so profusely gave him for the Honour and Security of the Nation so extravagantly and prodigally wasted upon his Strumpets of which two were Common Harlots of Actresses taken from the Bawdy Stage to his Royal Bed A thousand Pounds every Munday-morning for the Smiles of a Gilt when his necessary Servants pin'd and starv'd for want of their weekly Board-wages and the strength of the Kingdom his Seamen were forc'd to serve his Enemies for Bread Thus from the first hour of his Arrival into these Kingdoms for I dare not call them His he set himself by his own perswasion and influence to withdraw both Men and Women from the Laws of Nature and Morality and to pollute and infect the People with all manner of Debauchery and Wickedness He that ought to have shone like the North Star in the Firmament of Royalty to direct his Subjects in the Paths of Vertue and Honesty was the Sovereign Ignis fatuus to misguide them into all the snares of Ruin and Perdition Execrable Oaths were the Chief Court-Acknowledgements of a Deity Fornications and Adulteries the Principal Tests of the Peoples Loyalty and Obedience And whether it were to affront God who had preserved and restored him to his Throne or to be reveng'd upon the Nation for inviting him so unanimously to weild the Scepter of his Ancestors certain it is that he made it his business to live in defiance of the Fear and Authority of God and to poyson and corrupt the Minds and deprave the Manners of the English People as might easily be observed through the whole Course of his Reign But the King had been well instructed in his Exile and had sufficiently learnt in his banishment that undoubted Maxim of Tyranny that the only way to alter the settl'd Government of a Nation and to introduce Slavery and Popery the support of Thraldom was to weaken and make soft the Military Temper of the People by Debauchery and Effeminacy which generally go hand in hand together Knowing therefore that Regis ad Exemplum totus componitur Orbis he gave these lewd Examples himself on purpose that after he had thus Enervated the Minds and Resolutions of his Subjects he might the more easily trample upon their Necks and reduce them under the perpetual Yoke of Antichrist in expectation of his Mothers Blessing and to fulfil the Agreement between himself the Pope and the French King Certain it is that the Kingdom was never in a better Posture for the King to work upon it then at the time of his return into England For such were the Contests for Superiority among those who had taken upon them the Government after the death of Oliver such the Confusions and Disorders that from thence arose that no body could probably see where would be the End of the general Distraction unless it were by reducing all things to their Primitive Condition under a Prince whose Title was so fair to the Crown Though a great Blunder in Politicks which the necessity of Affairs at that time made to pass for an Act of Prudence But such an Act it was to which all Parties were the more inflam'd by the Kings reiterated Oaths Promises and Declarations to those of the Church of England to maintain the Protestant Religion to the Dissenters that he would indulge their tender Consciences with all the Liberty they could rationally desire and to All in general that he was a most really zealous and unalterable Protestant And so infatuated they were with these ingratiating Wheedles that should all that knew him beyond Sea both at Colen and in Flanders have spoken their discoveries with the Voices of Angels nay should the Letter which he wrote with his own hand in the year Sixty two to the Pope have been shewn them in Capital Letters they would have been all lookt upon but as Fictions and Inventions to obstruct the Happiness of the Nation The People therefore ador'd him as the end of all their Miseries the Dissenters upon the Relations of their Ministers return'd thought themselves happy in the reports of his Mercy and Piety and the Parliament doated upon his Oaths and Promises so that no Prince in the World could ascend a Throne with more Love and Affection or with a greater Reputation in the Opinion of the whole Nation What could be more inhuman more immoral more barbarous then by all the Violations of Royal Faith and the Word of a King to disappoint the Hopes and Expectations of a People that had such a Confidence of his Religion and Vertue Though perhaps such a failure might have been attributed to his Weakness and want of Conduct But to set himself after so high a Veneration of his Vertues such a prostrating of their Lives and Fortunes at his Feet in Combination with a Forreign Prince the only professed and mortal Enemy of their Welfare to destroy their Religion
subvert their Laws and Liberties to undermine and impoverish their Estates and Fortunes and to reduce a Plump Wealthy and Well-nourish'd Nation into a Skeleton of a Kingdom what could be more infernally ingrateful Yet that this was the Study and Practice of his whole Reign the following Passages will make Geometrically demonstrable The King was not ignorant that he was furnish'd already with a stock of Gentlemen who being forc'd to share the Misfortunes of his Exile and consequently no less imbitter'd against those whom they lookt upon as their Oppressors he had moulded them to his own Popish Religion and Interests by corrupting them in their Banishment with him to renounce the Protestant Doctrine and Worship and secretly reconcile themselves to the Church of Rome Insomuch that Mr. R. offer'd to prove one day in the Pensionary House of Commons that of all the Persons yet Persons all of Rank and Quality who sojourn'd with the King abroad there were but three then alive viz. P. Rupert the Lord M. and Mr. H. Coventry who had not been prevail'd upon by his Majesty to go to Mass. Nor could their being restor'd to their Estates at his return separate them from their Masters Interests for that besides the future Expectations with which the King continually fed them and the Obligations that the Principles of the Religion to which they had revolted layd them under they had bound themselves by all the Oaths and Promises that could be exacted from them to assist and cooperate with him in all his Designs for the Extirpation of the Protestant Religion and introducing of Popery though they were dispenced with from appearing bare-fac'd So soon therefore as the Parliament that gave him admittance into the Kingdom was Dissolv'd the King call'd another the first of his own Calling and so ordered the Matter that the greatest part of the Mask'd Revolters got in amongst the Real Protestants By which means all things went trim and trixy on the King's side They restor'd him the Militia which the Long Parliament had wrested out of his Fathers hands they sacrific'd the Treasure of the Nation to his Profuseness and Prodigality the only Vertue in him that sav'd us from utter Ruin for had he been more sparing he had done us more mischief They offer'd up the Rights and Liberties of the People by advancing his Prerogative and what was most conducing to the King 's Popish Designs they made him by private Instructions those Penal Statutes which divided the two prevailing Protestant Parties and set them together by the Ears by arming one Party of the Protestants against all the rest such a darling advantage to the Papists and upon the obtaining of which he set so high a value that neither the necessity of his Affairs at any time afterwards nor the Application and Interposure of several Parliaments for removing the grounds of our Differences and Animosities by an Indulgence to be past into a Law could prevail upon him to forego the advantages he had got of keeping the Protestants at mutual Enmity one with another and making them useful to their own Designs of supplanting the Protestant Religion and re-establishing the Idolatry of Rome Nor was this all but that he might carry on his Popish Designs the more safely and covertly under the cursed Mask of Hypocrisie he procur'd the passing of an Act in his Pensionary Parliament 1662. whereby it was made forfeiture of Estate and Imprisonment for any to say the King was a Papist or an Introducer of Popery Nevertheless notwithstanding he was thus become a Protestant by the Law of the Land to repeat how he exerted the Power given him by the P2rliament how he persecuted and prosecuted the Protestant Nonconformists from one end of the Kingdom to the other how he caus'd them to be Excommunicated imprison'd and harrass'd when nto a Papist in the Three Kingdoms was so much as troubled or molested is a thing that would be altogether needless as being so well known to the World and still too sadly remembred by Thousands of Families that to this day too deeply wear the Scars of his Cruel Dilaniations However it shew'd sufficiently the aim of our dear Defender of the Protestant Faith which was to weaken and enervate the Protestant Party that so they might be come the more easie Prey to Popish Rage and Cruelty when the blessed Hour should arrive for the putting in Execution those bloody designs with which he had been so long travailing which because he could not carry on without assistance therefore although he were sometimes oblig'd by the necessity of his Affairs and in complyance with the Times to palliate his Contrivances to make use of sincere and real Protestants yet they who were admitted into his secrets and in whom he placed his chiefest Trust and Confidence were always Papists He who would needs have himself enacted the best Protestant in his Dominions took no notice that whosoever was reconciled to Rome stood debarr'd from all Offices and obnoxious to several kinds of punishment but still out of the number of Papists or else such as were of no Religion at all which was the same thing for his purposes chose his Embassadors Generals Ministers of State and many of his greatest Bishops too What else recommended Sir W. Godolphin to be Embassador in Spain or Sir Lionel I. to be his Plenipotentiary at Nimeguen and afterwards his drudging Sham-plot Secretary It was his being a zealous Roman Catholick that preferr'd the Lord Clifford to the Treasurers Staff with several others of the same stamp to other high Preferments more Eminent for their Dignities than for their Parts and lastly what was it but this Indulgence and finding ways to dismiss the Papists without any harm or damage when Indicted or Presented at the Sessions that advanced so many Beneplacito Judges and continued them in their Places I had almost forgot another very great kindness which the same Parliament did him which was at the Private Instance of the King to abrogate the Triennial Act by which the sitting of Parliaments once in three years was infallibly secur'd to the Kingdom So well did his Majesty know where the Shoe pinch'd him and so crafty was he to take his Advantage from the Delirium and Frenzy the Nation was in upon his Restoration to obtain the repealing of the Principal Laws by which his wriggling into Arbitrary Government would have been curb'd and restrain'd But whether it were that the Prodigal Zeal of those Members began to cool conscious perhaps that they had already open'd too large a Gap to Tyrannous Invasion upon the Liberties of the People which they had so treacherously laid at the Kings Mercy or whether it were that the King resolv'd to quicken his pace to Arbitrary Rule to the end he might see Popery flourish in his own Days certain it is that his next Attempt was to make the Parliaments themselves the Ministers and Instruments of his own Popish Ambition and our Slavery In order
some Loss to the Dutch at length no Fleet was set out and the choicest of the Royal Navy either burnt or taken in Harbour to save Charges And tho' the French at length join'd themselves in assistance with the Dutch against us yet by the Credit he had with the Queen Mother he so far impos'd upon Charles the Second no less ready for his own private Conveniencies to be impos'd upon that upon assurance which no Man of Prudence and Foresight would have believ'd that the Dutch would have no Fleet at Sea that Year he forbore to make ready and so incurr'd that ignominious Disgrace at Chatham the like to which the English never suffer'd since they claim'd the Dominion of the Sea And which was more as he had been beholden to his great Friend the King of France for the Ignominy he had suffer'd so was he glad to receive the Peace from his Favour which was concluded at Breda And now we come to the best Act that ever he did in his Life had he had the Grace to pursue it which shew'd how happy a Prince he might have been had he been ever faithful to his own and the Interests of his People and that Religion which he outwardly profest For upon conclusion of that Peace having leisure to look about him and to observe how the French had in the Year 1667. taken their Opportunity and while we were embroyl'd and weakned by the late War had in violation of all the most Sacred and Solemn Oaths and Treaties invaded and taken a great part of the Spanish Netherlands which had always been consider'd as the Natural Frontier of England the King then prompted more by his own Fears then out of any kindness he had for the Nation judg'd it necessary to interpose before the Flames that consum'd his next Neighbour should throw their Sparkles over the Water Thereupon he sent Sir William Temple then his Resident at Brussels to propose a nearer Alliance with the Hollanders and to take joint Measures against the French Which Proposals of Sir William Temple's being entertain'd with all Compliance with the Dutch within Five days after Two several Treaties were concluded between the King and the States The one a Defensive and Stricter League than before between the Two Nations and the other a Joint and Reciprocal Engagement to oppose the Conquest of Flanders and to procure either by way of Mediation or by Force of Arms a speedy Peace between France and Spain upon the Terms therein mentioned And because Sweden came into the same Treaty within a very little while after from the Three Parties concern'd and engag'd it was call'd the Triple League In pursuance of which the Treaty of Aix la Chapelle was also forc'd upon the French and in some manner upon the Spaniards who were very unwilling to part with so great a Part of their Country by a Solemn Treaty But both the King and the Hollanders thought it a very great and good Work and judg'd it an extraordinary Happiness not only for Spain but for all Europe to come off with a broken Pate and to have at least for that while kept France from going farther Besides all this to tye the Knot the faster and take even the very thoughts from the French King of ever stirring or being troublesom to his Neighbour the King sent an Extraordinary Envoy to several Princes of Germany to invite them into the Triple League and his Minister to perswade them to it laid open with no less heat then plainness the danger all Europe was in urging the insensibility of most Princes and their carelesness the watchful Ambition of the French the Greatness of their Forces and the little Reason there was to trust him In fine omitting nothing that could Alarm all the World and procure a general Confederacy against the Common Oppressor More than this in regard the Spaniards were very much wanting to themselves by their backwardness in the Payment of the Subsidies promised to Sweden the King af England being not without some fears least the Swedes should fall off uless the Money agreed upon were paid them without farther delay he offer'd to advance part of it himself and had accordingly done it in case the Dutch would have advanced the rest The Kidg of France thus stopp'd in his Career by the Tripple League and by the Peace of Aix la Chapelle soon after concluded though for a while he dissembled his dissatisfaction yet resolved to untye the Tripple Knot whatever it cost him To which purpose the Dutchess of Orleans was sent over as one that would be a welcom Guest to her Brother and whose Charms â—nd Dexterity joyn'd with her other adâ—antages would give her such an ascenâ—ent over him as could not fail of Success â—nd indeed she acquitted her self so well â—f her Commission that she quite supplanted all the King 's good Councils and by yielding to his Incestuous Embraces while the D. of B. held the Door so charmed his most Sacred Majesty and he quite and clean forgot his Tripple League and entred into a new and stricter Alliance with France than ever 'T is true the Peace was dear bought by the Zealous Lady in regard it cost her her Life upon her return into France For though she might seem to have atton'd for the Crime and to have merited forgiveness from her Husband by the advantageous League which she had pleasantly syren'd her Brother to make with the French Monarch yet jealous and incensed Orleance was not so much a lover of his Country as to remit the Indignity done to his Bed or such a Bigot as to pardon the Woman that had sacrificed his Honour to the Interest of Popery However the Articles being thus sealed at Dover by his Majesty the Marquis of Belfonds was immediately sent hither and a Person of great Honour sent thither and so the League it self being drawn into form was ratified on both sides This Treaty was for a long time a work of Darkness and lay long concealed tilâ— the King of France to the end the King of England being truly set forth in hiâ— Colours out of a disâ—air of ever being trusted or forgiven by his People hereafter might be push't to go on barefac'd and follow his steps in Government as well as Religion most treacherously and unking-like caused it to be Printed at Paris tho upon Complaint made at the French Court it was again stifled and the Author tho' he had his instructions from Colbert to humour the King committed to the Bastile for a short time and then let out again However the Book being Printed some few Copies lit into safe hands from whence take the Substance of that Mystery of Iniquity as follows After that M. de Croisy the French Embassador at London had laid before the Eyes of the King of England all the Grounds which his Majesty had of Complaint against Holland c. He told him that the time was come to revenge himself of a
Nation that had so little respect for Kings and that the occasion was never more favourable seeing many of the Princes of Germany were already entered into the League and that the King of France was powerful enough to be able to promise to his Allies in the Issue of that War satisfaction both as to their Honour and Interests whereby he prevailed with that Prince to enter into secret Alliance with France And for his greater Assurance and the more to confirm him Henrietta Dutchess of Orleans went for England and proposed to her Brother in the Name of the Most Christian King that he would assure him an Absolute Authority over his Parliament and full Power to establish the Catholick Religion in his Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland But withal she told him that to compass this before all things else it would be necessary to abate the Pride and Power of the Dutch and to reduce them to the sole Province of Holland and that by this means the King of England should have Zealand for a Retreat in case of necessity and that the rest of the Low-Countries should remain to the King of France if he could render himself Master of it This is the Sum of that famous League concluded at Dover fram'd and enter'd into on purpose for the Subjugation of these three Nations to Popery and Slavery However as at first this Treaty was kept so close that it was no way to be discover'd so before the Effects appear'd it was necessary that the Parliament after the old wont should be gull'd to the giving of Money for the carrying on this grand and deep Conspiracy The Parliament met Octob. 24. 1670. where the Lord Keeper Bridgeman guided more by his Instructions than by any knowledge he had of the devilish Design omitted nothing to make Both Houses sensible of the great Service done to England and in a manner to all Mankind by chaining up the devouring Lyon that was never satiated with Prey and the more to incite their Liberality he told them of several other Leagues which the King for the good of his People and the Advancement of the Trade of the Nation had made with other Princes as the D. of Savoy the King of Denmark and the King of Spain by which as his Lordship was pleased to say it was evident that all the Princes of Europe sought his Majesties Friendship as acknowledging they could not secure much less improve their present Condition without it concluding that for the Support of these Alliances the annual Charge of His Majesties Navy came to no less than Five hundred thousand Pounds nor could be maintain'd with less Upon the telling of which Story notwithstanding the immense Sums lavish'd to no purpose or rather to our Loss in the former War with Holland notwithstanding they had given the Additional Duty upon Wines for Eight years amounting to Five hundred and sixty thousand Pounds and confirmed the Sale of the Fee farm Rents no less their Gift being a part of the Publick Revenue to the value of one Million and Eight hundred thousand Pounds they could not hold but gave with both hands again a Subsidy of Twelve Pence in the Pound to the real value of all Lands and other Estates proportionably with several more beneficial Clauses in the Bargain to which they joyned the Additional Excise upon Beer Ale c. And lastly the Law Bill which being summ'd up together could not be estimated at less than two Millions and half So that for the Tripple League here was a Tripple Supply and the Subject had now all the reason to believe that this Alliance which had been fix'd at first by the Publick Interest Safety and Honour was by these three Grants as with three Golden Nails sufficiently clinched and rivetted But now therefore was the most proper Time and Occasion for the King and his chosen Ministers to give Demonstrations of their Fidelity to the French Monarch and for his Sacred Majesty by the Forfeiture of all these Obligations to his Subjects and the Princes abroad and at the Expence of all this Treasure given for quite contrary Uses to recommend himself the more meritoriously to his Patronage The Parliament therefore after they had given all this Money were presently Prorogued and sat no more till the latter end of February 1672. that there might be a competent time allowed for so great a work as was designed and that the Architects of our Ruine might be so long free from the busie and odious Inspection of the Parliament till the work were finish'd And now all Applications made by his Majesty of Great Britain to induce Foreign Princes into the Garranty of the Peace of Aix la Chapelle ceased while on the other side those who desired to be admitted into it were here rejected The Duke of Lorrain who had always been a true Friend to the King and for his Affection to the Tripple League had incurred the French King's Displeasure with the loss of his Country Seizd upon in the year 1669. against all the Laws not only of Peace but Hostility yet by vertue of the Dover Treaty was refused the favour to which others had been so earnestly invited and though his Envoy was sent back with Complements and many Expressions of Kindness yet he was told withal that the French Invasion was a torrent not to be stopp'd at that time which was as much as to say the Case was alter'd and the Tripple League must signifie nothing At the same time also the Emperour by a Letter invited himself into the same Garranty in conformity to one of the Articles of the said Treaty of Aix Upon receipt of which Letter the King assured the Spanish Embassador that he was glad his Imperial Majesty was so ready to come into the League and told him he would cause an Instrument to be prepared in order to his Admission But when the Resolution was taken and orders given for preparing the said Instrument it was moved that Mr. Secretary Trevor who was not initiated in their holy Mysteries might not have the drawing of it though it was his proper Province By which means the Popish Cabal having made themselves sole Masters of the thing at first a reasonable honest Draught was brought in but before it was perfected Monsieur Colbert being consulted the King was possessed with an opinion that the admitting the Emperor would be attended with dangerous Consequences and that in case he came into the League his Majesty would be engaged in all his Quarrels and bound to make his Forces March into the farthest parts of Germany as often as it should happen to be Invaded by the Great Turk which Secretary Trevor oppos'd as much as he was able and endeavoured to satisfie the King that the Garranty of the Tripple League as well as of the Treaty of Aix related only to Hostilities either from France or Spain yet the wary Men of the Cabal being on the King's side carry'd it and so the
than to take the Charity and Benevolence of good People which had been given toward the Releasing of poor Christian Captives from Mahometan Thraldom and to turn it either into Wages for his Myrmidons or into Pensions to reward suborn'd Witnesses for swearing the Innocent out of their Lives There remain'd nothing now but that the King after this famous Exploit upon his own Subjects should manifest his Impartiality to Forreigners and assert the Justice of his intended Quarrel with the Hollanders Thereupon the Dispute about the Flag upon occasion of the Fanfan Yacht was started afresh and a great noise was made of infamous Libels horrid Pictures Pillars set up and Medals coin'd to the infinite dishonour of his Majesties Person his Crown and Dignity tho' not one of those Libels or Pictures could be produced and as for the Pillars they never had any Being but in the Imaginations of those that made it their Business to raise Jealousies between the two Nations 'T is true there was a Medal coin'd which might have been spar'd but so soon as it was known in Holland that Exceptions were taken at it the Stamp was broken to pieces Then the Difficulties which arose about the Surrender of Surinam were improv'd to the height and this after Secretary Trevor had adjusted the Matter with the States Though these things were handl'd so nicely as if they had been afraid of being prevented in their design by receiving all the satisfaction they could have desired from the Dutch The Dutch therefore being not conscious of any Provocation which they had given the English but of their readiness if there had been any to repair it and relying upon the Faith of the Kings Treaties and Alliances pursu'd their Traffick and Navigation through the English Seas without the least suspicion And accordingly a numerous and rich Fleet of Merchant-men from Smyrna and Spain were on their Voyage homeward near the Isle of Wight under a small Convoy of five or six Men of War This was the Fleet in expectation of which the King had so long deferr'd the War to plunder them in Peace The Wealth of this was that which by its ponderous weight turn'd the Ballance of all his Publick Justice and Honour With this Treasure he imagined he should be in stock for all the Wickdness he was capable to act and that he should never after this Addition stand himself in need nor his Instruments in fear of a Parliament To this purpose Sir R. H. being pitch'd upon for the Exploit according to his Instructions fell in among them with the Squadron under his Command But the Dutch Merchant-men themselves and their small Convoy so bestir'd themselves that Sir Robert finding himself not strong enough was forced to give over the Enterprize So that all the Booty that was gotten hardly sufficed to pay the Surgeons and Carpenters And so hotly did the King pursue his Chase of the Protestant Religion that while he was so piously and justly Violating his Royal Contracts upon the Sea in order to his mastering the Protestant Religion abroad he at the same time was undermining and sapping it at home For while he was trying his Fortune in Battel with the Smyrna Fleet a Declaration for Liberty of Conscience was Printing off at the Press as a more proper means than Fasting and Prayer to propitiate for Success to his Enterprize and to the War that must second it By this Declaration all the Penal Laws against Papists for which former Parliaments had given so many vast Sums were in one Instant suspended in order to defraud the Nation of all that Religion which they had so dearly purchas'd and for which they ought at least the Bargain being broken to have been reimburs'd By all which it was plain that the King did all that lay in his power toward the advancement of Popery and Slavery but that still his luck was nought For having been thus true to his great Design and made so considerable a Progress though with an inauspicious beginning at length he thought it high time to declare the War after he had begun it And though in subservience to France and his Dover Tâ—eaty he undertook to be formost to discompose the State of all Châ—istendom and though he made himself Principal to all the horrid Destructions Devastations Ravage and Slaughter which after that ensued yet had he the Confidence in the winding up of his Manifesto to expose the following Words to the World And whereas we are engaged by a Treaty to support the Peace made at Aix la Chapelle We do finally declare That notwithstanding the Prosecution of this War we will maintain the true intent and Scope of the said Treaty and that in all Alliances which We have or shall make in the Progress of this War We have and will take care to preserve the ends thereof inviolable unless provoked to the contrary And yet it was as clear as the Sun that the French had by the Treaty of Aix la Chapelle agreed to acquiesce in their former Conquests of Flanders and that the English Swedes and Hollanders were reciprocally bound to be aiding against whomsoever should disturb that Regulation Besides the League Offensive and Defensive which the King had made with the States General all which by this Conjunction with France was dash'd in pieces So that what is here declared were it reconsilable to Truth yet could not consist with possibility unless by one only Exception that the English who by their new league with France were to be the Breakers of the Peace of Aix and by the Tripple League were to fulfil their Obligations to both Parties should have sheath'd the Sword in our own Bowels But such was the Zeal of the King and his select Instrument for the Promotion of Slavery and Popery that it easily transported them to say what was untrue or to undertake what was impossible for the Service of the French And now the French King seeing the English engaged past all retreat comes in with his Fleet not to fight but only to sound our Seas to spy our Ports to learn our Building to learn our way of Fighting and to consume ours and preserve his own Navy For no sooner had the D. of York as the design was laid suffered himself to be shamefully surprized but the Vice-Admiral the Earl of Sandwich was sacrificed and the rest of the English Fleet so torn and mangled that the English Honour was laid not in the Dust but in the Mud while his Royal Highness did all that was expected from him and M. d'Estrees who commanded the French did all that he was sent for There were three other several Engagements of ours with the Dutch the next Summer But while nothing was tenable at Land against the French so it seemed that to the English every thing was impregnable at Sea which was not to be attributed to the want of Courage or Conduct of the then Commanders but rather to the unlucky Conjunction of the
English with the French like the Disasters that happen to Men by being in ill Company In the mean time the hopes of the Spanish and Smirna Fleet being vanished the slender Allowance from the French not sufficing to defray farther Charges and the ordinary Revenue of His Majesty with all the former Aids being in less than one years time exhausted the Parliament with the King 's most gracious leave was permitted to sit again at the time appointed At what time at the King 's and the Lord Keeper's usual daubing way the War was first communicated to them and the Causes the Necessity the Danger so well painted out that upon the King 's earnest Suit the Commons though in a War begun without their Advice readily Voted the Royal Mumper no less than One million two hundred and fifty thousand Pounds though they would not say it was for the War but for the King 's extraordinary Occasions Nevertheless it was but yet a Vote to Embryo and therefore now beginning in grow more sensible of the true Causes of the Quarrel they prepared an Act before they let the Money-Bill slip out of their Hands by which the Papists were obliged to pass through a new State Purgatory if they intended to be capable of any Publick Employment The Declaration also of Indulgence was questioned which tho His Majesty had out of his Princely and Gracious Inclinations to Popery and the Memory of some former Obligations granted for the sake of the Papists yet greedy after the Coin he was pleased to cancel at the humble request as he pretended of the Parliament and declared it should be no President for the future After which compelled by his want of a fresh Supply he passed the Bill concerning the Papists in exchange for the Money and then the Parliament growing uneasie they were again sent a Grazing for a good while The King hoping when he had the management of the Cash to frustrate the Effect of the Act which he had passed against his good Friends the Roman Catholicks And now the King having got the Money in his Hands a new Project was set on foot to set up an Army in England for the introducing of Slavery and Popery under pretence of Landing in Holland Which was raised with all the Expedition imaginable over which as Colonel Fitzgerald an Irish Papist was made Major General so were the greatest number of the Captains and other Officers of the same Stamp And because that pretence was soon blown over it was afterward still continued on foot under the more plausible Colour of a War with France But after all these cunning Contrivances to alter the Religion and Government of the Nation the King being disappointed in all his Projects and finding that the Parliament grown more sensible of his abstruse designs and alarum'd at his extraordinary new Militia both Burthensom and unnecessary for any other Employment but the support of Arbitrary Power would give him no more Money but began to call his Ministers in question was forc'd to make a Peace with the Dutch and disband the Army to his great regret However what he could not do at hope he resolved to do abroad and therefore the English Scotch and Irish Regiments that were already in the French Service were not only kept up in their full Complement but new numbers of Soldiers were daily transported thither to make up in all a constant Body of Ten thousand Men. Which was done on purpose that he might have an Army train'd up under the French Discipline and Principles ready seasoned to be call'd back into England for the Execution of any opportune Enterprize upon his Protestant Subjects Thus far we have seen the King's inveterate Malice to his Neighbours and Allies the Dutch meerly upon the account of their being Protestants and Protectors of the Protestant Religion and his pernicious Conjunction with the French King to their utter Destruction and Desolation A continued Series of Treachery and Faith-breaking which only that Romish Principle That there is no Faith to be kept with Hereticks could have infused into his Breast Now let us take a short view of his Carriage from the beginning of his Restoration to the French King the Mortal Enemy of his Subjects and the Religion which they profess It is well known in general how much the Extraordinary Kindness of Charles the Second to Lewis the Fourteenth has contributed to that vast increase of Shipping and Experience in the Art of Navigation to which they are now arrived which no Prince in the World that might have been so strong at Sea as his Majesty might have been with half the Expence which he squander'd away to ruin the nation had he been sensible in the least of his own Grandure the welfare of his ow Subjects and the danger of having so potent a Rival for the Dominion of the Sea which God and Nature seemed to have appropriated to himself We have been told of brisk Messenger sent to the French Kings so soon as they did but lay the Carkass of a pitiful Flyboat upon the Stocks But such was the Complaisance of our Supine Monarch that he not only connived at the industrious Preparations of the French King but lent him his helping Hand to make him Master of his own Rights When they had none of their own he sent Vice-Admirals and other considerable Sea-Officers to encourage and promote the setting out of their Fleets He pitied their want of Experience in Sea Affairs and out of Compassion and Brotherly Love lead their rare Sea-men by the Hand train'd them up in his Fleets and among the best of his Sea-men taught them the Skill which they had been forcod to toyl for by the Experience of many Ages and to crown all even to fight for them and to interpose between them and Danger with so good Success that the French Squadron as if the Engagement had been only designed for a Diversion and Entertainment to them came off as fresh and as whole as when they first sailed out of their own Ports was such an unparallell'd Kindness that nothing but the extraordinary hopes the King had placed in him of being his great Assistant for the compassing of his pernicious designs upon his own Subjects could have made him condescend to But to come to Particulars It was a strange Demonstration of the King of England's kindness to the French Interest though to the unspeakable Detriment of his own People that after all those Expressions in the Lord Keeper Bridgman's Speech of the Treaty between France and the King of England concerning Commerce wherein the King would have as he said such a singular regard to the Honour and Trade of this Nation notwithstanding the intolerable Oppression upon the English Traffick in France ever since the King's Restoration he had not in all that time made one step toward a Treaty of Commerce or Navigation with him no not even at that time when the English were so necessary to him that he
sent for to be Examined at Whitehall where he managed himself with that Courage that though he were Brow-beaten and opposed most strenuously though there were many that studied by all the ways imaginable to dash and confound him yet it was impossible he stood as firm as a Rock and gave such pregnant Reasons for what he said that the Council how unwilling soever to meddle or stir in his behalf yet at last were constrained by the clearness of his Evidence to grant Warrants for the seizure of several Priests that Night who were taken and sent to Prison Upon this followed the Assassination and Murder of Sir Edmundbury Godfry perpetrated by the Countenance and Connivance of the King as well a by the Contrivances and express Command of the Duke For proof of which a little opening of the Cause and Occasion and a short relation of the Effects Consequences and Events which enstied upon it will both enlighten us to the truth of the Matter and confirm our Belief who were the Authors of and Accessors to it For as has been already said that Gentleman had received an Information upon Oath from Dr. Oats about a Plot against our Laws Lives and Religion But finding somthing in the Deposition that reflected upon Mr. Coleman with whom he had an intimate Acquaintance he thereupon took an opportunity to let him understand what Information he had receeived and to tell him that the only way to justifie his own Innocency was to contribute all his Endeavours and Assistance to prevent so Bloody 〈◊〉 Design But Coleman instead of denying â—he Truth of those things which Sir Edmund related or offering his Endeavours â—o obstruct the Progress of it or to deâ—eat the Success of the Plot not only acâ—nowledged that there was a Conspiracy â—gainst our Laws Liberties and Religion but that it was advanced so far and seconded by Persons of that Quality in the Nation and Figure in the Government there was no possibility to give a Lett or Disappointment to it And more particularly he told him that the King was the Principal Author and Chief Promoter of the whole Design of overthrowing the Protestant Religion and altering the Government which Coleman calling to mind after his being committed to Newgate and considering that by that means Sir Edmond was enabled to come in a second Witness against him he therefore order'd it so as not only to get the Duke acquainted with his own danger but that His Highness and others whom he had mentioned in conversation with Sir Edmund were in the seme Predicament and would certainly be brought upon the Stage To which he received this Answer from the Duke That he should not be apprehensive of any danger from Sir Edmund in regard there would be a way found to prevent his hurting Coleman or any body else Now that he was thereupon most barbarously Murdered is a thing too well known and then by whose Authority it was done the Circumstances make it plain First the Circumstance of the Place as being committed in one of the Courts of the King's Palace in some of the Apartments of which the Murther'd Body was also concealed for several days The next circumstanâ—e was the guarding of the Gate and Avenues of the Palace so strictly all the time and denying the People their wonted Liberty of access to the House and passage through which could not have been done but by the King's Authority Nor would the Dutchess of Portsmouth and somebody of the same Sex greater than She have adventured to have gone and viewed the Body while it lay there concealed by which they involved themselves in the Guilt of the Crime but that they knew they could not be called to an Account for it considering by whose Connivance and Command the Fact was committed Nor was it a less Argument that the King was privy to the Fact That he protected from Justice both the Duke and others which were charged with that Murther Than which nothing more than the doing of it with his own hands could lay him under the Reproach and Inâ—amy of it before Men and under the dreadful Guilt of it before God Add to this That when we consider the Motives that urged the necessity of this Murther which was Coleman's having acknowledg'd to Sir Edmund that the King as well as the Duke was in the Conspiracy to alter the Government and overturn our Religion it would be nonsense to believe the King less willing to have him destroy'd than his Brother Since no Body at that time was so sorry for the detection of that part of the Plot as the King neither did any body labour afterwards to baffle the belief of it as he did Nor had he any thing in the World to excuse himself for so doing but that he was the principal Author of all that part of the Popish Plot which related to the overthrow of the Laws and Religion of the Nation and the destruction of the chief and most zealous Protestants in the Kingdom as was sufficiently acknowledged by Coleman not only to Sir Edm. Godfrey but to the Committee of Parliament that examined him in Newgate Which was so plain that nothing influenced those Gentlemen to conceal that part of his Confession in their Report to the House but their pity and compassion to the King which would not permit them to expose him so black as in truth he was to the Nation though it was as certain that they frequently imparted their Knowledge to their Frinds Nor did it a little add to confirm the Truth of what is here related That Emissaries should be sent from the Court to deal under-hand with the Coroner and the Jury to have gotten a Verdict of Felo de se. But the proofs of his being murther'd were so apparent such as his Neck being broke and the cleanness of his Shoes that nothing could corrupt the Jury from bringing it in otherwise than it was Under these Distresses did the King and the Duke labour Terribly afraid of the approaching Parliament for the sake of their Popish Minions and Instruments whose utmost care and industry could not prevent it but that several of Coleman's Letters and other Papers were found which detected the Negotiations of the King and Duke for all the World can never separate them by maintaining that the Duke durst ever have transacted such Treasons abroad being then no more than another Subject without his Brother's Consent so that they were in an extraordinary quandary whether the Parliament should Sit or no. But the King 's extreme necessity for Money prevail'd upon him to let them Sit Besides that the King who all along acted under his Protestant Mask was sensible that the Kingdom would have cry'd out shame had he put off the Parliament of such a Conjuncture of Combustion and Distraction as that was 〈…〉 spent the Money upon his other Occasions and kept up the Army 〈◊〉 Nevertheless to excute the Fraud and Châ—at which he had put upon the disguâ—â—ed
yet there was another quickly hatch'd of the same stamp and nature though carried on by other Instruments Nell Wall an Irish Papist and a Wench formerly employed only to empty Close-stools at White-Hall but afterwards for her Religion advanced to be one of the French Dutchesses Women and so to the King's Favour by which she became a great States-Woman as well as a common Whore To this Woman a great part of the Popish Secrets were discovered and by her means Fitz-Harris was first introduced to the Dutchess and then to the King where he was told That the Plot would undo them unless a way could be found to make a Counter-plot therefore he was bid to try all ways to effect it for that no Cost should be spared but such Rewards should be given as were fit for so great a Service Draw Painter here England's pious Protestant Monarch Counter-plotting with his Popish Concubine and her Close-stool Wench against his Parliament and Kingdom in favour of those that sought the destruction of both The business of this Irish Tool was to find out Seditious Lampoons and Pamphlets and carry them to White-Hall where he had Audience and private Conferences with Nell Wall the Dutchess and the King himself and where he had sometimes given for secret service a Hundred and Two Hundred Pound at a time and was no less slabber'd by his Gracious Soveraign than Dangerfield had been before So zealous were We for the Popish Cause that rather than miss of the Designs of enslaving the Nation by Arbitrary Government and Popery that We would have declar'd our selves even to have kiss'd the Tail as well as the Cheeks of the most Contemptible Creatures in the World Nor must it be omitted as an Argument of His Majesty's great Zeal for the Protestant Religion That when one Sergeant a Priest made a discovery of the Popish Plot from Holland which he caus'd to be transmitted to the Court with an intention to have discovered several others he was first brib'd off by Pillory-Carr then sent for into England slightly and slily examined had his Pardon given him and sent back with Five Pound a week to say no more And in this game that we may understand by whose Countenancing the thing was done Sir L. Ienkins shewed the utmost of his Parts and Fidelity being just enter'd Secretary in the room of another who did not care to venture so far as that both Fool as well as Knave did Among whose good Services to his Master we may reckon his endeavours as much as lay in his Power to conceal the Murther of the Priest at Abbeville in France upon intimation that he was coming into England to make a farther discovery of the Plot Which together with his fasting and other infallible tokens shewed him to be plainly what was well enough known before Father Goff's Creature as well as the King 's and Duke's Nor was it a thing less astonishing to the Nation to see the Parliament prorogued from time to time no less than seven times before permitted to sit on purpose to get time for the Popish Duke to settle the Protestant Religion in Scotland and to the end the Conspirators might get heart and footing again and retrieve their Losses in England and in this Interval it was that Messengers were sent to their Friends at Rome and others their Associates for Money to strike while the Iron was hot in regard that Scotland by this time was secur'd and all things in such a forwardness that now or never was the time but the Pope had such an ill opinion of our Soveraign's Fidelity that he slipt his neck out of the Collar and in imitation of him the rest excused themselves upon the score of their poverty Thus missing money from Rome and the rest of their Popish Associates and the King of France refusing to part with any more Cash there was no way but one at a forc'd-put which was to let the Parliament sit and to make them the more willing to give money to undo the Nation the King in a framed Speech told them of the wonderful Advantageous Alliances for the Kingdoms good he had made with Foreign Princes and particularly with Hâ—lland and how necessary it was to preservâ— Tangier which had already run him in Debt Upon which Considerations the Burden of his Song was More Money But the Parliament Incensed at the frequent Prorogations fell upon Considerations more profitable for the Kingdom such as were the bringing to Condign punishment the Obstructers of their Sitting the Impeaching of North for Drawing the Proclamation against Petitioning and three of the Judges for dismissing the Grand Jury before whom the Duke was Indicted of Recusâ—ncy before they could make their presentments the prosecution of the Popish-Plot and the Examination of the Meal-Tub-Sham all which they lookt upon to be of greater moment than the King's Arguments for his wants For it was well known that by His perâ—idious Dealings abroad he had so impaired his Credit with all the Foreign Princes to whom he sent that they slighted his Applications as one upon whose Word they could never Rely And as for the preservation of Tangier there was nothing less in his Thoughts A fine Credit for a Prince and an excellent Character to recommend him to Posterity that he had no other than his own Sinister ends upon the Grand Council of his Kingdom nor no other way to work them to â—hose ends unless by forging untruths to make them accessary to the betraying of the â—eople that had entrusted them The Parliament therefore bent all their Cares to secure the Kingdom from Popery â—oncluding that the Dukes Apostâ—tizing from â—is Religion was the sole Evil under which â—he Nâ—â—â—ons in a more particular manner â—roaned and consequently that he was to 〈◊〉 Dismoâ—â—ted But the King being reâ—â—lved not to forsake his Brother whatever â—â—came of the Kingdom out of a proâ—ense â—alice to the Nation and â—oresight of the Miseries which his Brother's Government would bring upon the people rather than out of any natural Affection that he bore him took such a high Resentment against these honest and just proceedings of the Houses that after he had Sacrificed the Lord Stafford to his hopes of obtaining money upon the Dukes undertaking to furnish him he Dissolved this Parliament too with promise of another at Oxford to sweeten the bitter Pill which he had made the Nation to swallow In the mean time all the Care imaginable was taken to bring the Protestant-Plot to perfection preparative to which Judges were selected with Dispositions Thoughts and Minds as Scarlet as their Gowns And the Choice of Sheriffs was wrested by force from the people that they might pick out Juries without Conscience and Honesty A Plot contrived by Perfidiousness and Treachery beyond the parallel of History A Plot with Parisian Massacre in the Belly oâ— it designing no less an Innundation of Innocent Protestant Blood under the colour and forms of Justice and yet
from those Inconveniences the King my Master sees no possible prospect of establishing the Roman Catholick Religion If this be not enough to discover his Inclinations and the whole drift of his Intrigueing Reign there can be nothing sharp enough to penetrate the stupid and besotted Bigotry of those that stand up in his Justification But notwithstanding the wilful Blindness of such People it is to be hoped that other Men less biassed and having the same just pretences to common Understanding have a greater value for their Reason than to forfeit it to Prejudice and an Interest now exploded by all the sober part of the World And having once disintangled their Judgments from the Incumbrances of Iure Divino Nonsence they will then find that the whole Course of his Reign was no more than what this Memorial discovers and that the frequent Breaches of his Word and Promises both to his Parliaments and People were but the Effects of the Religion he profess'd and own'd in his Ambassadors's Memorial one of the chief Principles of which it is Not to Keep Faith with Hereticks and by which he was obliged to be more faithful to the King of Poland than the King of Heaven Hence it was that notwithstanding his Declaration from Breda design'd and penn'd to obtrude a seeming appearance of Truth and specious Face of Integrity upon the Nation after he came to be Restor'd and Settl'd we found our selves deceived in all that we expected from the Faith and Credit of his Royal Word To which we may subjoyn that other famous Declaration upon shutting up of the Exchequer Wherein tho his Sacred Word and Royal Faith were in plain emphatical Terms laid to Pledge for Repayment yet the Events in the Ruin and Impoverishing of so many Families did no way consist with his graciuos and solemn Promises As for the Covenant whathever the Oath were it matters not here to dispute but they who were Witnesses of his taking it observed that if ever he seem'd Sincere in what he did it was in binding his Soul by that solemn Oath and yet he not only openly and avowedly broke it but caused it to be burnt in all the three Nations by the Hands of the Common Hangman Where can we find a more matchless piece of Dissimulation than in his Signing that Declaration in Scotland which he published under the Title of A Declaration of the King's Majesty to his Subjects of the Kingdoms of Scotland England and Ireland which because it has lain long dormant and was doubtless designed to have been buried in Oblivion may not now be unseasonable revived again to shew how much the World was deceived in him and how little reason his Admirers have to have so high an Opinion of him The whole is too long to be Inserted in these few Sheets but that which most conduces to our purpose is as follows HIS Majesty taking into Consideration the merciful Dispensation of Divine Providence by which he has been recover'd out of the Snare of Evil Counsel and having attain'd so full a Persuasion and Conscience of the Loyalty of his People of Scotland with whom he has too long stood at distance aâ—d of the Righteousness of their Cause as to join in one Covenant with them and to cast himself and his Interests wholly upon God and in all matters Civil to follow the Advice of his Parliament and such as shall be entrusted by them and in all matters Ecclesiastical the Advice of the General Assembly and their Commissioners and being sensible of his Duty to God and desirous to approve himself to the Consciences of all his good Subjects and to stop the Mouths of his and their Enemies and Traducers does in reference to his former Deportments and his Resolutions for the Future declares as follows Here is a Iove Principium the Motives that induced His Majesty to make this Declaration were no Considerations of State-Policy but in acknowledgment of the ill-merited Mercies of Divine Providence conferred upon him a Covenant between God the People and Himself like that of David in Hebron Now see what ensues Tho His Majesty as a dutiful Son be obliged to honour the Memory of his Royal Father and to have in Estimation the Person of his Mother yet doth he desire to be deeply humbled and afflicted in Spirit before God because of his Father's hearkning to and following Evil Counsels and his Opposition to the Work of Reformation and to the solemn League and Covenant by which so much of the Blood of the Lord's People has been shed in these Kingdoms And for the Idolatry of his Mother the Toleration whereof in the King's House as it was matter of great stumbling to all the Protestant Churches so could it not but be a high Provocation against him who is a Iealous God and visits the Sins of the Fathers upon the Children And altho His Majesty might Extenuate his former Carriages and Actions in following the Advice and walking in the way of those who are opposite to the Covenant and the Work of God and might excuse his delaying to give Satisfaction to the just and necessary Desires of the Church and Kingdom of Scotland from his Education and Age and from his Evil Counsel and Company yet knowing he hath to do with God he doth ingenuously acknowledg all his own Sins and all the Sins of his Father's House craving Pardon and hoping for Mercy and Reconciliation through the Blood of Iesus Christ. And his Majesty having upon full Persuasion of the Iustice and Equity of all the Heads and Articles thereof sworn and subscribed the National Covenant of the Kingdom of Scotland and the Solemn League and Covenant of the three Kingdoms of Scotland England and Ireland does declare That he has not sworn and subscribed these Covenants and entred into the Oath of God and his People upon any sinister Intention or crooked Design for obtainings his own Ends but as far as humane Weakness will permit in the Truth and Sincerity of hie Heart And that he is firmly resolved in thd strength of the Lord to adhere thereto ane to prosecute to the utmost of his Power all the Ends thereof in his Station and Calling really constantly and sincerely all the days of his Life After such a solemn Stipulation between Heaven and the Nation of Scotland no wonder that he had recourse to the Church of Rome for Absolution For seeing that he had such a Confidence of St. Peter's Power deriv'd to the Pope there is no other Argument to be urg'd in his behalf that either he thought there was any Faith to be kept with Man or that he believed in God And how far the Breach of this when we reflect how much he was abandoned to Misfortune and the Reproach of Infidelity both at Home and Abroad pursued him to his Grave is worthy the serious Consideration of his Brother and Lewis the 14 th But who could rationally hope that he should deal sincerely and above-board
with the World whose whole Course had been to deal thus deceitfully and treacherously with God He who made it his business to impose upon the All-seeing Eye of the Heavenly Majesty might easily bear with that Infirmity of his of not scrupling the deluding Nations and abusing the Credit of Mankind 'T was his Practice to be a Papist in his Closet and a Protestant in his Chappel to be this hour at the Mass bearing a Part in the Romish Ceremonies upon Christmas-Eve at Sommerset-House and the next day communicating after the maning of the Church of England at White-Hall This the Dutchess of Cleveland well knew and therefore had been often heard to say That She did not embrace the Catholick Religion out of any esteem that she had for it but because that otherwise she could not continue the King's Mistress And consequently Miss of State Add to this his sending the D. of Monmouth into France with an express Command to reconcile himself there to the Church of Rome So that his whole Life may be said to be made up of Contradictions and that to save others the trouble of charging him with falshood he employed his own Tongue in all his publick Speeches and Declarations to give his own Heart the Lye and justly merited the Character which a certain Person gave him to carry with him to his Grave That he was an irreconcileable Enemy of the Protestant-Religion a Parliament and a Virtuous Woman But what car'd he who being put in mind to consider what Infamy the History of his Life and Reign would entail upon his Memory replied That he car'd not tho the World made a Whistle of his Tail when he was dead Neither indeed was there any true Zeal for any Religion to be believed in a Man who coming into the Chamber of a certain Peron and finding a Bible there reproached the owner for having less wit than he took him to have since he troubled himself with such a Book But tho he had long trifled with the Papists his beloved Friends and indeed had so carried himself that neither Papist nor Protestant could tell what to make of him yet the Papists resolv'd they would be no longer dallied with by him And therefore so soon as he had made all things ready for his Brother's Exaltation after he had prevented his Exclusion from the Throne and put all the power of his Dominions into his Hands to give way for him that truly Reign'd while he but only wore the name of King he was struck with an Apoplexy as it was given out for let the true Cause be what it will a Prince always dies of some Disease or other in the Physicians Catalogue but such were the Circumstances of his Death that Men began to discover their Suspicions freely to the World before he was cold However it were certain it is that he was Absolved from all his sins by his great Friend Iohn Huddleston and that the Priests gave him extream Unction At what time one of his Relations forcing his way into the Room and seeing them at it could not forbear saying That now they had Oyl'd and Greas'd his Boots they had made him fit for his Iourney And this is yet more remarkable That all the while he lay upon his Death-bed he never spoke to his Brother to put him in mind of preserving the Laws and Religion of his People but only recommended to him the Charitable care of his two Concubines Portsmouth and poor Nelly Nor was it a small aggravation of the general Suspition to find him hurried to his Grave with such an ungrateful secrecy in the dead of the Night as if they had feared the Arresting of his Corps for Debt not so much as the mean Pomp of the Blewcoat Boys to sing him to Heaven Insomuch that he was Buried by his Brother whom he had so highly obliged with far less decency than was permitted for the Funeral of his Father by his capital Enemies that had beheaded him But that perhaps might be so ordered by Providence to signify that he was not worth the publick Lamentation of the People whose Religion and Liberties he had been always designing to subvert To him succeeded Iames the II. not more perniciously designing but more eargerly bent in the Chase of National Ruin and Destruction He came in to England full freighted with his Mother's Religion and her Malice to the People of the Nation but wore at â—â—st the same Vizard Mask of Protestantism which his Brother did But tho he were fitter for the business they both design'd yet he understood not how to manage it so well so that had he been the elder Brother we may undoubtedly presume to say he would have been much sooner thrown out of the Saddle greatly to the saving both the Honour and Treasure of the Nation and the Life of many a worthy Gentlemen and true Lover of his Country 'T is well known and a thing confirm'd by two Letters yet to be seen wherein one of the King 's own Chaplains then upon the spot when it was done imparts and laments it to a Bishop That the Duke of York while he was yet but very young made a solemn Renunciation of the Protestant Religion and was reconciled to the Church of Rome while he sojourned with his Mother in France in hopes by the assistance of the Papists to have defeated his elder Brother of his Right of Inheritance tho he had all the Indulgence imaginable to conceal his Conversion where it might be for his private Advantage and the general good of the Cause And so early was this Ambition of his to supplant his Elder Brother That when the Scots were treating with the Exil'd King to restore him to the Throne of Scotland That he was at that very time practising with such as remain'd faithful to the King's Title here that they would renounce his elder Brother and chuse him for their Soveraign And for that Reason it was that the Duke forsook him at Bruxels and withdrew into Holland so that the King was necessitated not only to command him upon his Allegiance to return but was constrain'd to send the Duke of Ormond and some other Persons of Quality as well to threaten as persuade him before he would go back And as he was an early Traytor to his Brother so did he no less treacherously attempt the disowning of his first Wife For finding her extraordinary Chastity to be such that he could not be admitted to her Bed but upon the lawful score of Matrimony he was at last Married to her but so very privately that only the King was privy to it After which perceiving that his Brother's Restoration was fully determin'd in England under pretence that it would be more for his own and the Honour and Interest of his Brother to Marry with some great Princess that would both enrich and strengthen them by the largeness of her Dowry and the greatness of her Relations he would have taken an
occasion from the privacy of the Nuptials to deny her being his Wife and to disavow all Contracts and Ceremonies of Marriage between them But the King detesting so much baseness as being himself a witness of the Marriage would not suffer the Lady to be so heinously abused but constrain'd him after great reluctancy to declare it publickly to all the World A happy Providence for England which by that Conjunction blest us with two Protestant Princesses matchless in Virtue and Piety and all those other Graces that adorn their Sex to the eldest of which we are beholden for our Deliverance from an Inundation of Slavery and Popery under the Auspicious Conduct of a Soveraign truly meriting the Noble and Ancient Titles of King of Men and Shepherd of the People and the yet more dignified Addition of Defender of the Faith And from the youngest of which we have already the earnest of a hopeful Issue to guard us from the like Invasions Such is the provision of Providence that many times it happens the most venomous Creatures carry about them the particular Antidote against their own Poysons Certain it is that the D. of York would never have pull'd off his Protestant Vizour nor have declar'd himself of the Roman Communion so soon had he not been thereto necessitated by a Stratagem of the King his Brother for the Papists having a long time waited for the Accomplishment of the King's Oaths and Promises for restoring their Religion and having annually contributed large Sums of Money towards the effecting of it at length grew impatiently sullen and would advance no more unless the King or the Duke would openly declare themselves for Popery Which the King thinking no way seasonable for him to do and not being able by all his Arguments and Importunities to prevail with his Brother to do it he at length bethought himself of this Project which was To get the Queen to write a Letter intimating her Intention to withdraw into a Monastry which Letter was to be left upon her Closet Table that her Priests as it was concerted before-hand might there seize it and seeing the Contents of it carry it forthwith to the Duke Upon which the Duke being jealous lest the King upon the Queen's relinquishing her Husband might be induced to marry again and thereby deprive him of the hopes of succeeding than which there was nothing which he thirsted after more upon obtaining a previous Assurance that in case he declared himself a Papist she should not withdraw immediately pull'd off his Mask and renounced Communion with the Church of England Being thus quit of his fears from the King his next work was to rid himself of all his Jealousies of the D. of Monmouth To which purpose he lay day and night at the King to require him to turn Roman Catholick Which the King out of his Tenderness to the Romish Cause as well as to gratifie his Brother undertook to do and accordingly sent him into France with an express Command to reconcile himself to the Church of Rome however the Duke of Monmouth out of an aversion to the Fopperies of that Religion fail'd in his performance Which so incens'd the D. of Y. that from that time forward he studied all the ways imaginable to bring him to Destruction In the mean time having by his publickly declaring himself a Papist engag'd all those of the same Religion to his Person and Interest he resolved to drive on Iehu-like and to promote the Catholick Cause with all the vigour and swiftness he was able and to make the utmost use of his Brothers good Intentions And such was his Bigottry to the Romish Church That according to the Principles of that Religion he stuck at nothing per fas nefas to bring about his Popish Designs I shall not here dilate upon his secret Negotiations at Rome his Correspondencies with Foreign Priests and Jesuites or his Private Intrigues with the French King which have been all sufficiently exposed already in Print as for that whatever has been already said of the King is also to be said of him in general while he was Duke in regard they both drew in the same Yoak for the Ruine of the Nation For this is as certain as the rest that he had a most eager desire to Rule and Rule Despotically which was the Reason he was frequently heard to say He had rather Reign one Month as the King of France than Twenty Years as his Brother the King of England did And besides it was as plain That he had a mortal Antipathy against the Protestant Religion and more particularly against the Professors of it in England but more especially the Dissenters upon the score of Revenging his Father's Death An Imbitter'd Hatred which he deriv'd from his Mother who mortally malic'd England upon the same Account and which he acknowledg'd in his Bedchamber at St. Iames's where he openly declar'd That he was resolv'd to be reveng'd upon the English Nation for his Father's Death Which if those unthinking People who are so eager to have him again would but consider they would not be so forward for his return For it is in vain for the Church of England-Men of what degree soever to think that their refusing to Swear Allegiance to King William and Queen Mary would excuse them from that universal Revenge which he would take upon the Nation were it ever again in his Power Only here was the Difference between the two Brothers That the King thought to Ruin his Enemy by main Force and the fair hand of Victory but the Duke hoping to kill two Birds with one Stone made it his Business at the same time to Ruin the Enemy by Force and his own Country by Treachery Thus when he had engag'd his Brother in the First Holy Dutch War of the Extirpation of Hereticks he permits the English at first to exercise all the Bravery of their Skill and Courage to a great Probability of Success but then falls asleep in the height of his Conduct to the end the Dutch for want of Orders might have an Opportunity to wrest the Victory out of the Hands of the English on purpose to keep the Ballance of Destruction on both sides even Thus he permitted himself to be surpris'd at Soul-Bay knowing there were enough to Maul the Enemy but not enough to preserve those that Fought on our side So that the Dutch may be said to be well Thrash'd and the English to be well Sacrific'd And as a farther Demonstration of his Perfidious Soul when he found the Contest would be too tedious between two Nations so well match'd it was the Duke's Contrivance to Suborn and Bribe two Indigent and Desperate Villains to go over and Fire the Dutch Ships as they lay in their Harbours and when he had done that it was the same Treachery that with a sham Story lull'd his Brother asleep and procur'd the Firing of our Ships at Chatham The Burning of London was such a
Liberties of Scotland as himself Such Exorbitancies of Injustice and Arbitrary Power that his Brother could never have endur'd in a Subject had they not been acted all along with his knowledg and consent Otherwise had not the King been strangely infatuated to believe that whatever his Brother did was for the advancement of that Cause to which he was so well affected himself he could never have been so unapprehensive of the Danger he was in from a Brother so actually in a Conspiracy against his Life For which Reason he was by the E. of Shaftsbury said to be a Prince not to be parallel'd in History For certainly besides the early tryal which the King had of his Ambition beyond-sea he had a fair warning of the hasty Advances which he made to his Throne in a short time after his Marriage to the Queen For no sooner was it discover'd the Queen was unlikely to have any Issue by the King but he and his Party make Proclamation of it to the World and that he was the certain Heir He takes his Seat in Parliament as Prince of Wales with his Guards about him He assumes the Princes Lodgings at White-hall his Guards upon the same place without any interposition between him and the King so that the King was in his Hands and Power every night All Offices and Preferments are bestowed upon him and at his disposition Not a Bishop made without him After this he changes his Religion to make a Party and such a Party that his Brother must be sure to Dye and be made away to make room for him And for the undeniable proof of all this at length the Plot breaks out headed by the Duke his Interest and Design Plain it was that where ever he came he endeavour'd to remove all Obstacles to his intended Designs out of the Way And therefore some there are who attribute the extremity of the Duke's rigour toward the E. of Argyle to the great Authority which the Earl had in the High-lands and the Awe which he had over the Papists as being Lord Justiciary in those Parts and his being able upon any Occasion to check and bridle the Marq. of Huntly from attempting the Disturbance of the Publick Peace or the Prejudice of the Protestants However this is observable That notwithstanding the height of Severity which was extended to him there was as much Favour shewn the Lord Macdonald whose invading the Shire of Argyle with an Armed Force merely because he was required by the said Earl as being a Papist to deliver up his Arms was never so much as questioned nor so much as a Reprimand given him for what he did tho when the Council sent an Herauld to him to require him to disband his Forces he caus'd his Coat to be torn from his Back and sent him back to Edinburgh with all the Marks both of Contempt of themselves and Disgrace to the Publick Officer But his Religion was sufficient to atone at that time for his Treason And now the Duke having a standing-Army of Five Thousand Foot and Five Hundred Horse in Scotland at his Devotion as well as in England and the Parliament the main Object of his Hatred and his Fear being dissov'd back he returns into England where under the Shelter of his Brother's Authority he began in a short time to exert his tyrannous Disposition and play the same Unjust and Arbitrary Pranks as he had done in Scotland and because it was not seasonable yet to make use of armed Forces he set his Westminster-Hall Redcoats like Pioneers before a marching Army to level the way for Popery and Arbitrary Controul to march in over the ruin'd Estates and murder'd Bodies of their Opposers The Judges were his Slaves the Juries at his Beck nothing could withstand him the Law it self grows Lawless and Iefferies-ridden plays the Debaushee like himself Justice or something in her likeness Swaggers Hectors Whips Imprisons Fines Hangs Draws and Quarters and Beheads all that come near her under the Duke's displeasure Alderman Pilkington for standing up for the Rights and Liberties of the City and for refusing to pack a Jury to take away the Earl of Shaftsbury's Life is prosecuted upon a Scandalum Magnatum at the Suit of the Duke Convicted and Condemn'd in a Verdict of an Hundred Thousand Pounds And Sir Patience Ward for offering to confront the suborn'd Witnesses is Indicted of Perjury for which he was forced to fly to avoid the Infamy of the Pillory though in all his Dealings so well known to be a Person of that Justice and Integrity that for all the hopes of the Duke he would not have told an untruth Sir Samuel Barnardiston for two or three treacherously intercepted Letters to his Friends in the Country fin'd Ten thousand Pounds which he was not suffer'd to discharge by Quarterly Paiments but the Estate seiz'd by the Duke's Sollicitors to the End they might have an Opportunity to be more prodigal in the waste of it But his hunting after the Lives as well as the Estates of other was more intolerable and that by the prostituted Testimony of Suborn'd Irish Rogues and Vagabonds and when that would not take the desir'd Effect by the forc'd Evidence of persons ensnar'd and shackl'd under the Terrors of Death till their drudgery of Swearing was over Men so fond of Life that they bought the uncertain Prolongation of a wicked Mortality at the unhallow'd price of certain and Immortal Infamy And therefore not knowing how to Die when they knew not how to Live accounted it a more gainful Happiness to quit the Pardon of Heaven's Tribunal for the Broad Seal of England By this means fell the Virtuous Lord Russel a Sacrifice to the Bill of Exclusion and the Duke's Revenge and yet of that integrity to his Country and untainted course of Life of whom never any spoke evil but those that knew no Evil in him only because he was one of those that sought to exclude the Duke from the hopes of Tyranny and Oppression the Duke was resolv'd to exclude him from the Earth But then comes the Murther of the Earl of Essex for that it was a most Barbarous and inhuman Murther committed by Bravo's and Bloody Ruffians set on hir'd and encourag'd by Potent Malice and Cruelty the pregnant Circumstances no less corroborated by Testimonies wanting only the confirmation of Legal Judicature has been already so clearly made out that there is no place left for a hesitating belief A Truth so conspicuous as stands in defiance of the Ridiculing Pen of R. L'Estrange to sham it over with the Buffoonry of his Bantring Acquirements It cannot be imagin'd but that so black a Deed of Darkness was carried on by the Contrivers with all the secrecy that could be studied by humane Wit But never yet was humane Wit so circumspective but that the most conceal'd of Villanies have been detected by strange and little Accidents which all the Foresight of humane Sagacity could never prevent More
them like Dogs when they lay prostrate at his feet more like a Pagan Tyrant than a Christian King is notoriously known and all this to make a Popish Seminary of one of the most noble and best endowed Colledges in the University And this Peters look'd upon as one of his great Master-pieces as appears by a Letter of his written to the French King's Confessor Father La Chese wherein he had this vaunting expression I have gain'd a great point in perswading the King to place our Fathers in Magdalen-Colledge in Oxford where they will be able to tutor the young Scholars in the Catholick Religion Nor was it thought sufficient to turn the Proprietors out of their Freeholds but under pretence of disobedience to the King's Commands they were also made uncapable of any Ecclesiastical Preferment or of the Exercise of Holy Orders and depriv'd of all those other ways and means of Livelihood for which their Education had qualified them Which as it was a piece of Inhumanity without parallel so it was a plain demonstration of the main drift and design of the King and his Popish Furies first to draw the Protestant Clergy into the snare of Disobedience and then under the pretence of Obstinacy and Stubborness totally to suppress and silence them And yet after all this for the King so publickly to give himself the Lye by proclaiming to all the World as he did such a notorious untruth as That he had never invaded the Property of any Man since his coming to the Crown was such a piece of Dissimulation that Oliver Cromwell himself with all the Irreligion laid to his Charge was never guilty of Unless his Father Confessor design'd it for a Miracle to be Recorded among Popish Wonders That he who had done nothing else from the beginning of his Reign but invaded the Liberties and Propâ—rties of his Subjects should be so confident as to deny it But whatever through the frailty of his memory he had till then forgot he was resolv'd it seems for the future to make amends for his omission To which purpose he was now provided with such a Gunpowder-Plot that had it taken effect would ere a few Months had gone about have blown up all the Properties of the whole Clergy of England without exception of any person that had either Honour or Conscience and the greatest part of the Bishopricks and Livings of England would have been pronounc'd void to make way for Sandals and shaved Crowns This was that cunning Declaration for Liberty of Conscience whereby he undertook to dispense with the Laws by the sole vertue of his Prerogative An attempt wherein his Brother had miscarried being forc'd to surrender up and Cancel the Illegal Contrivance he had prepar'd for a Tryal But King Iames puffed up with the great Exploits he had in person perform'd upon Honslow-Heath and the Glorious shew his Army made there Rendezvouz'd at the same time in the same place to add terror to his Commands resolv'd to make all Opposition bow the Knee to Baal In pursuance of those Resolutions he Orders his Declaration to be printed requires the Bishops to cause it to be distributed through all their Diocesses and to take care that it should be read in all the Churches and Chappels throughout the Nation Upon this the Bishops Petition the King setting forth the Illegality and the ill Consequences of it to the whole Nation both in Church and State and beg the King not to insist upon the Reading it This so incens'd Peters and the rest of the furious Hotspurs and consequently provok'd the King to that degree That the Court-Lawyers are presently consulted who adjudge the Petition Tumultuary and Libellous and thereupon the Archbishop of Canterbury together with the Bishops of Asaph Ely Chichester Bath and Wells Peterborough and Bristol are first sent to the Tower and then Arraign'd and Tried for Mutineers against the King's Popish Government being Charg'd with an Information for Publishing a Seditious Pernicious and Scandalous Libel But notwithstanding all that the King's Council and the C. J. Wright and Alibone the Papist could do Judge Hâ—lloway and Judge Powel to their Eternal praise stuck so close to their Protestant Principles and so strongly oppos'd the King's Dispensing Power for which they were turn'd out the next day that the Bishops were acquitted to the general Joy and Satisfaction of the whole Nation and particularly of the Soldiers upon Honslow-Heath whose Shouts and Acclamations upon the News of their Acquittal were so harsh and unpleasant in the King's ear that from thence forward he began to wish he had more Irish and fewer English in his Army But notwithstanding this Fatal Blow the most undaunted High Commissioners drove on furiously sending forth their Mandates to the Chancellors Archdeacons c. of the several Diocesses to send them an exact account of all such Ministers as had refus'd to Read the Declaration And there is no question to be made but that the severity of that Imperious Court would in a short time have swept the Kingdom clear of all the Protestant Clergy had not indulgent Heaven put a stop to their impetuous Career That which follows is so Romantick that it looks more like a Novel than a Story fit to gain Credit hardly carrying so much Probability with it as the Fable of Bacchus cut out of Iupiter's Thigh and which looks more Romantick than all the rest That the King himself should believe and urge it for an Argument to delude the World That he who had suffer'd so much for Conscience sake could not be capable of so great a Villany to the prejudice of his Children and inforcing the same Argument yet further by saying That it was his Principle to do as he would be done by and therefore would rather dye a thousand Deaths than do the least Wrong to his Children When the World was convinced that he could not have suffered such an Affront to have been put upon him but for the very Reason he alledged and that as for his doing as he would be done by it was apparent by all his Actions that he could not speak those Words from his Heart without some Mental Expositions reserved to himself Certainly therefore since it was for the Preservation of the Roman Catholick Religion that the Contrivance was set on foot it argues that his Conscience was under the most dreadful Subjection to his Popish Confessors or that his Zeal was no less strangely govern'd by an imperious Woman that for the sake of Popery he should consent to a Conspiracy against his own Flesh and Blood He would not endure to be Excluded from the Succession but he would Exclude his own Daughters from the Succession and yet tell us 't is his Principle To do as he would be done by as if he thought the way to make us credit a Story of his Son were to tell an untruth of himself The World that grows Wiser every day than other will never be made believe that