Imprimatur May 16. 1693. Char. Heron. Constantinus Redivivus OR A FULL ACCOUNT OF THE Wonderful Providences AND Unparallell'd Successes That have all along Attended the Glorious Enterprises of the Heroical Prince William the 3d Now KING of Great Britain c. Wherein are Many Curious Passages Relating to the INTRIGUES of Lewis the 14th c. Carried on Here and Elsewhere Never Printed before c. By Mr. JOHN WHITTEL Sometime the onely English Chaplain to the Army LONDON Printed and sold by Tho. Harbin at the Wheat-Sheafe over against the Golden-Tun-Tavern in the Strand 1693. TO THE QUEEN'S Most Excellent Majesty August Madam IT being now about IX Years since I was first Conversant with Military Persons and heard the Sound of Drums and Trumpets as well in the Vnited Netherlands as Here and in Ireland And having the Honour to Bear in my Body the Marks of Fervent Zeal and Unshaken Loyalty to Your Sacred Majesty's Which is I confess the Principal Thing in this World I rejoyce in and value my self upon It hath so far encourag'd me as to cast these Unpolisht Papers at Your Majesty's Feet Containing an Account of the Miraculous Providences and Providential Successes That have all along attended the Glorious Enterprises of His Majesty King William for the Publick Good of Christendom But especially of the British Empire together with the Vnited Netherlands and of the Protestant Religion as in the Rest of Europe so particularly in Great Britain and Ireland it 's most Secure and Triumphant Seat And humbly to beg Your Majesty's Most Gracious Acceptance thereof I cannot say of this Enchiridium as the Jews sometime said to Christ of the Centurion although it Treats of so glorious a Subject Dignum est It is worthy that Your Majesty should accept it But I may truly speak in the Centurion's own Words Non Sum dignus I am not worthy to be Grac'd with Your Majesty's Favourable Acceptance As being Conscious of my small Abilities Neither are these Fragments deserving for Excellency of Style or Elegancy of Phrase which is not my Ambition therein Since the true Adamant is best polisht with its own Dust and Heroick Deeds are their own proper Encomium I have not for my own part whereof I can boast but the Honour of being sometime the only English Caplain to His Majesty's Army in the late blessed and memorable Expedition and of reading and dispersing then some hundreds of His Gracious DECLARATIONS between Tor-Bay and London to the Joy of all true Protestants and Dejection of their Adversaries To make no mention of my Service and Wounds received in Ireland c. There is no Man that hath endeavour'd to advance Your Majesty's most just Designs more than my self according to the small Sphere of my Power as is not unknown to several Noble Lords c. May then the covering of the Almighty Wings be ever spread over your Excellent Majesties and underneath the everlasting Arms may your Royal Persons be still most precious in the Eyes of all your Subjects and your Forces prosper by Sea and Land May you be blessed with an Obedient Religious and Loyal People throughout all your DOMINIONS and with a long and happy Reign over them in Health Wealth Peace and Godliness and after this Life may Your Majesties be Crown'd with Glory and Immortality is the Prayer of Your Majesty's most Loyal most Dutiful most Obedient Subject and Servant John Whittell THE Preface THE Author 's Principal Design is not here to Form a History of our Present Gracious Soveraign who is the Main Subject of the following Discourse Nor to give the World any Exact or Minute Account of His Glorious Actions Knowing well enough that Task has been and is perform'd daily by many Abler and Acute Pens who have already Engraven them with such Fair and Lasting Characters in the Adamantine Tables laid up in Honours Temple for the use of Posterity That doubtless they will be found there Brightly Legible when Old-Time shall have Eaten out and Effac'd those of Alexander and the Caesars And that for the People of this Present Age and of this Part of the World there are few or none of them but have either seen His Heroical Exploits heard the Fame of them or felt at least their Comfortable Influence which indeed has proved Beneficial to all but the Noxious part of Mankind and such as like Fishes and Monsters Prey upon the Rest And therefore knows well enough that 't would be Impertinent for him to pretend to Write a History in which it would be altogether impossible to say any New Matter or any thing but what has been already much better exprest by others No his Aims in this Essay are quite different from theirs for though he hath been himself an Eye-witness of some of His Majesties Greatest Archievements having been with him in two Important Expeditions and has already given the World an Account of some of the Chief Passages in them Of which be bears about him continually some very Vneasie though Honourable Marks Yet duly remembring that he serv'd Him More in Quality of a Divine than a Souldier in His Army And that the Present Age Swarms with a Race of Men that Attribute so much to Second-Causes that they scarce ever look up to God who is Causa Causarum the Author of All and so much Idolaters of Fortune that they will hardly allow any Room to Providence or an Over-ruling-Power Therefore the Author upon this Consideration has endeavoured so to Compile this Relation of His Majesties Actions as it may be more a HISTORY of God's Providence and Over-ruling-Power than of His Majesties GLORIOUS ATCHIEVEMENTS insisting properly upon the First as his Text and upon His Majesties Happy Successes and His Enemies Motions as only a good Comment upon it Needing indeed nothing else but a Full and True Application Being very sensible that herein He is so far from detracting from that he much adds to that Glory which His Majesty without flattery most Affects and Glories in Which is to give all the Glory of his Actions to God alone And being throughly convinc'd That His Majesty in that Point is very much unlike to the Vain-glorious Monarch of France Lewis the XIVth who Arrogantly Ascribes all the Honour of his Successes soly and wholly to himself as very properly he may all things well consider'd because whereas King WILLIAM'S Great Vndertakings are All Men who love the Truth must own really founded upon most Just Motives and directed purely to Noble Religious and Generous Ends yea even to the Common Good The French King 's on the contrary are Grounded upon so Wicked and Persidious a Bottom and tend so very much to the General Destruction of Mankind that for all his Innate Confidence being ashamed to Attribute them to the All-righteous God who knows his inward thoughts he with an Insolent Mind Arrogates them very fairly to himself for fear otherwise of being obliged to Father them upon a Worse Author But to
and so wholly and perfectly resign'd to the Exigence of the Common Good as was this Great and Incomparable Prince even from his very Cradle Whose Right-Noble and Unparallell'd steps having traced through the various and strange Revolutions of Holland Let us now further pursue in his more Glorious Advances in the most Memorable Revolution of Great Britain where his Gratuitous and truly Heroical Charity and not his Ambition have raised Him to a Throne He never sought for but in Vindication of these Nations Rights more than His own private Ends. Thus our Constantine had hitherto been chiefly on the Defensive part and at the Heads of Armies He was not the absolute Sovereign of yet notwithstanding all the many Intrigues and Factions devis'd and form'd against him Maugre all the Malice of his open and secret Adversaries He restored a Torn and tottering State or Republick to its former Peace and Prosperity and forc'd his own and his Countreys grandest and most Politick Enemy in the very midst of his Triumphant Career to give back and even quit all his Encroachments in the Vnited Netherlands with far more Precipitation than he had at first seized them with Celerity Though it was such as had at that time surpriz'd the whole World But blessed and for ever blessed be God now a more glorious and delightful Scene opens it self And to put him in a fair or suitable condition to attack that proud and insulting Adversary in his turn as well as tamely to ward off his furious and cunning passes Kind Providence leads him on with a much more wonderful Career and Success even swifter than Fame it self to seize the Enemies strongest Bulworks As was Great Britain to the French Monarch at that time If I may without offence call it so by the General Consent and Invitation of his Nobles Ministers and Friends made privy to it And there drops two Crowns with a glorious and happy Reverse of things and an unexpected Liberty to all his Subjects upon his Heroical Head shortly to be further Graced and Guarded by the addition of a Third to make him the fitter Match both to Grapple with the Tripple Crown of Rome and the Iron Scepter of France And in order to bring about this great and astonishing Design which Heaven seem'd to have promised him sometime before by those no less than Miraculous Phoenomena's or Apparitions of Glorious Crowns in the Air over the City of Orange in two different years As is related in two Narratives of Authentick Credit to which as well known to the Curious I referr The Great and Almighty Disposer of Kingdoms and Just Governour of the whole World seems to have employed a Chain of Causes all composed of Miracles from one end to the other or at least of Incidents and Events as much beyond the Comprehension as the Expectation both of Friends and Enemies For as when the Tyrant Maxentius and other Pagan Persecutors had filled up the measure of their Cruelties God in his infinite Goodness and Mercy was pleased to make not only part of the Imperial Authority to devolve upon Constantine the Revenger of all his Churches wrongs and Restorer of her Liberties by the death of his Father and unanimous Election of the British Legions But to order and dispose of all things so as most strangely to concur to the elevating him to such a further power although he was but the least amongst the Seven Sharers of the Roman Greatness as to trample upon the rest and even throw them all down and set himself up unrivall'd in the Throne Where fearless of the Attempts of any future Opposers he might most effectually protect and propagate the true Religion according to his pleasure So the most Barbarous Maxentius of our present Age or Common Enemy of Truth and Oppressor of Peace and Religion in Europe viz. the Gallick Tyrant having now carried on his Fury to the greatest Extremities that either his hellish Hounds or blood thirsty Dragoons could Act or humane Nature possibly suffer both against his own innocent Protestant Subjects and against those of all his Neighbour Princes and States of what Religion soever that durst presume to dispute his most imperious Orders And having like the Dragon in the Apocalypse already beaten down with his Massy Tail some of the supream Powers next him which are the lesser Stars of Europe's bright Heaven and being in a fair way to sweep down all the rest sometime ago and bring them at least under Subjection it pleased Almighty God in his due time for to raise up another Michael or another Constantine many learned Expositors thinking that by Michael in that place of the Revelation of St. John 12. is meant Constantine to stop the rage and fury of this French Dragon who with his long Train of bloody Miscreants hath so very much infested Christendom of late Years and totally to rout this new Maxentius and restore Peace Justice and Liberty to the Church and People of God even out of that most ancient as well as illustrious House of Nassaw A House that once before had stopt the dangerous Torrent of the Spanish Power and redeem'd the Captive Netherlands from its Yoak and Thraldom And to let the World know that the All-wise Governour and most righteous Judge of the whole Earth intended to make use of him not only to retard the Progress of the French Tyranny for a while but we hope even totally to destroy it and that as the Tyrant himself had begun his own ruine so like the Champion of the Philistines he should go on and continue to compleat it and make every Man's Sword in his Idolatrous Army to be against his Fellow insomuch that our happy Joshua's men may with Triumph trample upon their Necks The Almighty Avenger of the Injuries of his Elect which cry day and night to him in compassion to his suffering Saints was not content to use the Valour and Conduct of our warlike Prince only to rescue the united Provinces but even the whole Protestant Religion and the civil State of all Europe from the same Bondage and Oppression And therefore that he might no longer at so great a disadvantage combate with such an over-grown Monster he resolves to exalt him to the sublime and sacred Station of Royalty and that too in those Ancient and Warlike Kingdoms which he was most rightfully intituled to not only by Consanguinity but Affinity and which had before been happily instrumental to lower the Spanish pride on the one hand and so often to chastise the insolency of the more formidable and crafty French on the other And if this work was great enough to amaze all beholders and to put the Historical Faith of all succeeding Generations to the very uttermost proof the manner by which it was effected must of necessity appear much more wonderfull since towards his mighty and glorious effect even the most contrary Interests Inclinations Accidents and Events and in a word all the most opposite Causes
and of the whole Fabrick of the Roman Catholick Religion as distinguished from the Protestant No they now scann'd every Period and Expression of Maimburgh's Works and presently smelt out whose Sense and in what view he spoke And that he depress'd the Monarchy of the Roman Bishop only to erect upon its Ruines an Universal Empire for his Master Lewis They thoroughly examined the Proceedings of the Sorbonne and of all the French Clergy Took good notice of the many odd Theses put up and maintain'd daily in that Kingdom And in a word let nothing pass of that nature without the strictest Observation nor without preparing under-hand an Opposition ready to be exerted in fit time and place The Pope though indeed for his part he could heartily have wish'd that the Protestant Name were utterly abolish'd and all Christian States as firmly subjected to his See as some Ages before and particularly would have unfeignedly rejoyc'd to have seen the Return of so important a Member of his pretended ancient Empire to his Communion as were the Brittish Dominions Yet he could not well brook to see them or the French Protestants either made but as Steps to raise the Throne of the French Monarch high enough to over-look his And of an Absolute Pope to make him but as a Precairous Mufti under a New Western Sultan He thought with himself that it would signifie very little for him to gain ground upon the Quicksands of Great Britain and Ireland where he could promise himself no sure footing Whilst he should lose his firmer Possessions in Italy and Rome it self And took but little pleasure whatever outward countenance he shew'd in the hopes that were given him by the French Tyrant of the Establishment of a Mock-Popery there whilst the true one should be ruin'd and totally blown up by the Crafty Engineers of France And the Apprehensions of a Prevailing French Popery were indeed to him far more dreadful of the two than that of the Triumphing of what they foolishly call'd the Northern Heresie And the Religious old Father thought as well he might that there was much less danger from an open and profess'd Enemy than a secret Traytor And that according to the Proverb Ira quae tegitur nocet There was less harm from an openly assailing Lion than a private Bosom Viper Neither was he ignorant of Lewis the XIVth's strict Confederacy with the Male contents in Hungary who are all Lutherans or Calvinists At the very same time he Persecuted his own Subjects at home and abolish'd the Foundation and ordered the Nuns of the Infancy because they sided with the Pope to go home to their Parents or wheresoever else they pleased Commanded that their Altars should be pull'd down the Ornaments and Holy Utensils carried away and those Consecrated Places to be most vilely prophan'd And yet at this very time he suffer'd himself in Publick Theams to be advanc'd above the Glorious Angels of God and to be look'd upon as a Proof of the most sublime Mysteries And those same words which were once spoken of the Holy Jesus the Son of God he allow'd to be apply'd to himself Yea in some sort Commanded it My Works are for the King Who is the King 'T is Lewis the Great the King of Glory Nay which is much more he suffer'd himself to be Worshipp'd like a Deity You might have seen this in the Five Works upon the Greeve under the Title of the Temple of Honour which was made to Solemnize the Erecting the New Statue that was set up in the Court of the Common-Hall of the City The Inscriptiono which was upon the Frize and upon the Four Fronts of the Temple was after the Jesuitical manner and no less Impious The City of Paris Pious Loyal Obedient Devoted by Publick Vows To the Divinity and Majesty of Lewis the Great the Father of his Country As a Monument of their Duty Dedicate And Consecrate a Temple The Pope who was not half so timorous as some of the other Temporal Princes of his Communion could not nor did not look tamely on these Proceedings but opposed them with all his Might and with a Vigour that shewed a Magnanimous Spirit and that waked all the rest of the Roman Catholick Princes out of the Lethargy they seem'd to have been laid into by the Charms of French Sorcery For he Wrote vigorously against the Severities used against the Protestants causing his Beloved Daughter the late Queen Christina of Sweden to Write to the same purpose He disapproved the French King's Dragoon Conversions loudly declaim'd against his Violences and Sacrilegious Usurpations Cloaked under the Name of Regalia Cited Father La Chaiese and Father Maimbourg to Rome to Answer their Disobedience and caused the latter to be actually thrust out of the Jesuits Society Takes away the Liberty of Quarters from the French Ambassadors at Rome which with all their Hectoring they could never yet regain Caused the Proceedings of the French Clergy to be Censured Denies to Preconize or Confirm any French Bishops stirs up the Illustrious House of Austria to act vigorously against the French King Fiercely opposes the Election of the Cardinal of Furstemburg to the Arch-Bishoprick and Electorate of Cologne and lets all the Popish Princes of Germany as well as the Protestants see their danger therein and even doth all he can by his Nuncio at London and the Remonstrances of the Spanish and Imperial Ambassadours there to draw off King James from the French Interest and from taking French Measures either in Religion or Politicks And to perswade him to forbear making use of Frenchified Jesuits or Priests of what Nation soever and use only those of the Austrian Party And to please his own People by minding the true Interest of England and holding the Balance of Europe stiff against France and for that end whatever Private Submissions he had made to His Holiness yet to have let matters in Religion throughout the British Dominions be in Statu quo prius at least till the present Great War with both the Western and Eastern Turk had been over when by the Favour of a profound Peace Reigning among all Catholick Princes he might have made use of their United and Concurring Assistance to have securely Re-establish'd not the French but true and Genuine Popery in Great Britain and Ireland without hazarding the Diminution of the Majesty of his Crown or of the Greatness and Independency of his Power or rendring himself to be but a Deputy or Tributary King as he must do if he went on to augment the already too formidable and insolent Power of France and to take French Measures and neglecting to use his own Eyes and the Advices of his own Agents Spies and Intelligencers to make use only of French Spectacles French Intelligences and the Dictates of French Ministers of State and Frenchified Jesuits or Monks to steer by which would at length but make him Split against a Fatal Rock a Ship fraught with the fairest hopes that
their Words by popping up a Child all on a sudden to act the Prince of Wales and put him and his Royal Princess by the Succession of these Crowns of which they were the true undoubted presumptive Heirs no less unjustly than they had depriv'd him of his other possessions and all this only to put him out of Power and make him uncapable to vindicate his own and his poor Subjects former wrongs to protect any longer with success the Re-publick he had hitherto so prosperously defended to revenge the unspeakable oppressions of the people in France or support or retrieve the Protestant Religion and civil Rights and Liberties of the ancient and warlike people of Great Britain whereof he appeared a kind and powerful Defender and who were his undeniable Subjects in Reversion and whose Interests he seem'd resolv'd zealously to espouse and as stiffly to defend as his own And when he saw the people of all Ranks and Qualities and of all Religions and Interests in the three Kingdoms but one to wit the Papists with one common and earnest mind and voice call to him as next undoubted Heir at Law to take care no Damage might be done by the present Possessour in the Lands of his Succession to resist the most unjust Usurpation or Alienation intended by a Supposititious Child and the malicious Intrigues of a Jesuited Step-Mother and in a word to redress all the manifold Wrongs and Oppression of the Subjects to save the Protestant Religion and the civil Liberties of all Europe which depended chiefly in that dangerous Juncture upon the Preservation of Great Britain to 〈◊〉 Confederacy from becoming a Pâ—ey to the overgrown Monster of France Of the loss of all which and of the vast Detriment that would have thence happen'd to so many millions of precious Souls and to the publick Weal of all Christendom he would have been undoubtedly thought highly guilty had he neglected so many forcible Calls and indispensible Obligations both of Nature Duty and Interest And lastly when besides all these irresistible Motives he considered that the danger was extreamly pressing that Ireland was already Haltered and bound as a Sacrifice ready to be offered Scotland strongly manacled and the intolerable Chains just ready to be thrown over England's Neck and the terrible glittering Sword drawn out and ready to be Brandish'd against himself and his Republick and that unless he would resolve to strike the first Blow it would be too late to strike at all And Finally that unless he made an attempt upon England while his Allys had Forces and time to spare for his assistance and the Armies in England as well as the people of all sorts were in a Condition as well as Disposition to second his noble and excellent Efforts that the very next Spring perhaps some of the Allys might find an English Army upon their Frontiers intermixt with French and an Army of Frenchified Switzers and Irish Tories in possession of England and the English and French Fleets masters of the Sea asserting the Greatness of Lewis the 14th and Holland and the Spanish Netherlands swallow'd up by a sudden inundation breaking violently in upon them on all sides before they were aware or that their nearest and most powerful Allys could come up within sight much less within reach enough to give them any Assistance I say when our wise and presaging Prince now his most Excellent Majesty saw and duly weighed all this how loath soever he were to do any thing that might bear the least Shadow or Semblance of ill or that might seem to violate that Tenderness and Respect he had naturally for an Uncle and a Father-in-law of that great Quality Yet now when not only his private Interests lay at stake but the publick Happiness and Well-fare of so many Myriads of Souls so many Kingdoms and Territories some of which he had such an indispensible Obligation to take care of were in such extraordinary pressing Danger and Honour of Conscience even of King James himself basely beslur'd and abused by so gross a Cheat put upon him by the subtil Intrigues of Jesuits and his Jesuited Consort in prejudice of his own Natural and undoubted Issue in order to the inslaving Him as well as his Subjects every whit as much to the Caprices of France as he is now and to the manifest greater peril of his Life than since has happen'd by the attempts his people would have made against the Intrigues of his Deluders had not they found a far more regular and legal Assistance otherwise And considering that there was no other remedy but breaking the neck of their mischievous Proceedings by some sudden and surprizing Master-stroke of Power and Policy He now stood no longer consulting with Flesh and Blood and parling with the unseasonable reasonings of the tenderness we have been speaking of but fully resolve with all Expedition to prepare for the prevention and happy redress of so great a storm of Evils as otherwise he foresaw would most inevitably fall upon England Scotland and Holland Yea on all the greatest part of Europe But leave we our Gracious Prince a while making his war like Preparations and stuffing his stately Wooden Horses with fierce courageous Troops not to Burn but to save our otherwise lost Troy and make a step back to England to see how all things there concurr'd and worked together to meet his most noble Endeavours and Crown his so glorious and heavenly Enterprises with a bless'd Success beyond all Expectation If we come then to examine things there likewise we shall still find that our Royal Heroe's Enemies whilst they were plotting his Destruction and the enslaving of these Nations under a double Yoak of Popery and Arbitrary power which were both to Centâ—â— in an entire Subjection to the Tyrâ—nny of the French King made Tools of themselves by an Over-ruling Providence not only to save but to exalt them whose utter ruine they really design'd and even lift them up to such a Power as to be able to throw down their New Erected Babel in England and to shake the very Foundations of their Old one so long setled even in France it self For the late King James besides the Mistakes and Faults which he had all along fallen into and daily persisted to commit for want of discerning his own true Interests from those of France and for lack of seeing the Bottom of the French King's Designs made all other steps that his Enemies could have wish'd him to take towards the bringing upon himself Swift Destruction and the Advancement of that Warlike-Prince to the Throne of Great Britain which against the strong Obligations of Nature and without any sense or regard of his own highly injured honour thereby his late Majesty shamefully went about by the subtle Stratagems of Jesuits and Priests to bereave him and his Royal Consort of For besides his â—â—â—ing so openly with France and most highly disobliging thereby the rest of the Roman Catholick Powers as we have
they had out of an Excess of Respect to the Late King born till a Remedy was within an Ace of being too late the Insolences of a few despicable hot-headed Jesuits and Monks influenc'd by the French Father la Chaiese whose blind Unthinking Passive Tool P. Peters was to call for Assistance to the Next Presumptive Heirs of the Crown These then were their further Designs upon the Clergy I. To New-Rate all Ecclesiastical Preferments and make them pay First-fruits Tenths c. according to their present yearly value and not according to the old Rates II. To examine at their Ecclesiastical Commission the ways and means used by Clergy-Men possess'd of Benefices to come into them and if they could be charged with the least appearance of Simony to deprive them and give their Livings to Popish-Priests or formerly depriv'd Nonconformist Ministers or others devoted to their Interests to hold by Dispensation or otherwise III. To Nose the Conformable Clergy by allowing a Right to Papists and Dissenters to keep publick Registers and to pay but half-Dues to the Parish Ministers for burying IV. To nominate no New Protestant Bishops or other Ecclesiastical Dignities in place of those that should die and to foist in as many Popish Priests and Dissenting Ministers as they could into all Ecclesiastical Benefices that should be vacant from time to time who were to hold them by Dispensation and supply them by conforming Curates till they should be strong enough to establish Popery by open Force V. To have the Jurisdiction of vacant Bishopricks administred by Commissioners and their Revenues employed for maintenance of Popish Bishops Priests or Seminaries c. As likewise the Revenue of all vacant Deaneries Prebendships c. And to obtrude as many Popish School-masters as they could into all vacant Free-Schools with several other projects VI. To remove all Causes from the Bishops Courts to their Ecclesiastical Commission VII After some time to sieze the Cathedral of St. Paul's when it should be Built and the Abby of Westminster for Popish use allowing only the Dean and Prebends in case they quietly abandoned the possession of them their full Revenues during life These things were really intended against the Clergy over and above what was actually already done but then to Curb the Laity of all Degrees these further Measures were concerted to put in Execution as fast as they could I. A new Court like that of the Star-Chamber though under a disguised name was to be erected II. To Awe and Balance the Power and Interest of the Metropolitan City of London without the rougher Methods of a Tower or Garrison c. It was resolv'd to erect the City of Westminster into a Corporation like to that of London to be govern'd by a Lord Mayor Aldermen common Council c. with as ample Privileges Immunities and Freedoms as the ancient City of London enjoys in order to invite People of Wealth and Trade as great Merchants c. to settle there as well as in London and thereby to cause an Emulation between them that might keep both Cities tight to the Crown or at least to keep that of London from being potent enough alone to contest any more with their King or make too strong a party against him III. The Militia when they durst were to be all Disarm'd and the Money levied for the maintenance of them applyed for that of a standing Army IV. In case the Parliament to be call'd after the new model of Corporations and Counties that then was endeavouring was finished answered not expectation Then a Parliament was to be packt after the method of those of Cromwell's composed most of Army Officers Courtiers and such others as they knew were disposed vigorously to concurr with all projects to the ruining of the publick Liberty V. After things were come to perfection the House of Commons was to be declared unnecessary and pernicious and all Legislative Authority to reside in the King and a select Council of Lords and Gentry VI. In order to this the Army was by degrees to be new Modell'd and stuft with English French Scotch and Irish Papists or Persons indifferent in Religion or of none at all with some Dissenters c. And all Church of England Men by little and little put out of the Council and out of all places of Trust both Civil and Military VII That most of the English Forces should be on some suddain pretence shipt over into French Service and reimplac'd by as many French who with something a greater number of English Scotch Irish Papists and Popish Swissers were to constitute the King's Guards and the standing Forces of England And Scotland and Ireland were to be guarded by natural Irish and such others of English or Scotch extraction that were Papists VIII A new Court of Wards was to be Establish'd by virtue of which all Minors and Infants being brought under the King's Tutelage should be brought up in the Romish Religion as was already begun to be practised in Scotland But notwithstanding all these Attempts upon the Rights and Liberties of the Subject contrary to positive Law his own Solemn Promises and his Coronation Oath so extreamly affectionate were the best part of the Nation to the person of their Prince and so wholly averse to the contributing any thing to the embroiling these Nations a second time in Civil Wars as being so very sensible of the miseries of the last whose deep Scars scarcely well healed yet remain'd in view not without horrour before their Eyes and reluctancy on their Spirits That they were very hardly and with much difficulty induced to believe any thing of their King that savour'd of an ill design and when they were convinc'd of it by infallible Proofs and the undoubted Testimony of their own Senses together with Church and State now smarting under the Burthen Yet would they have thought it their most dutiful safe and wisest Course tamely to suffer almost any Inconveniences and Insults from him rather than to involve the three Kingdoms in fresh dangers by any active Resistance especially considering that he was already well stricken in Years and could not Reign long Had not they seen those very Princely Heirs and Nursing Parents to the Church in whom they reposed all hopes of Redress treated after the same Injurious manner as the Subjects and not only Menac'd but plainly going to be both for ever excluded of their Succession by a Jesuitical imposture or a supposititious Prince of Wales and driven even from their present possessions both in the Netherlands and Germany as they had newly been already from those in France by a formidable Invasion and that they namely the Subjects were to be made Tools of both for their own Destruction and that of those pious famous and most gracious Princes from whom only under God they hoped for Relief and Deliverance And had not they had perfect Information by means of the Spanish Ambassadour as aforesaid of all the Intrigues and