Bohemia and that by the designed Marriage of His late Majesty with the Infanta of Spain he endeavoured all he could to allay and quench the Fire which the Wars about that and the Palatinate had kindled in Germany and had put too many of our English into an humour and fit of Zeal to desire the propagating of the Protestant Religion by the Sword no such Fears or Jealousies had gained a Possession in the Minds of some unquiet People who were in Duty as well as Reason to have acquiesced in the Constancy and Care of that Religious King for the preservation of the Protestant Religion Nor escape your Observation that the benefits of the Marriage with the Infanta of Spain being not well understood and the misapprehension of a Toleration of Popery to ensue thereupon multiplying the supposed Dangers Having induced the House of Commons in Parliament in the Nineteenth year of his Reign to Petition that peaceable Prince that the time was come that Janus Temple must be opened and the Voice of Bellona not of the Turtle must be heard and therefore they thought it their Duty not only to provide for the present supply of the War but to take Care for the securing of their Peace at home which the dangerous Increase and Insolency of Popish Recusants apparently visibly and sensibly did lead them unto And yet in the same Petition did acknowledge That they did not assume to themselves any Power to determine of any part thereof nor intended to incroach or intrude upon the sacred bounds of his Royal Authority to whom and to whom only they acknowledged it did belong to resolve of Peace and War and the Marriage of the most Noble Prince his Son Unto which he did Answer That his Son in Law 's unjust Usurpation of the Crown of Bohemia from the Emperor had given the Pope and all that Party too fair a ground and opened them too wide a gate for curbing and oppressing of many Thousands of the Protestant Religion in divers parts of Christendom that the Palatines accepting of the Crown of Bohemia had no reference to the Cause of Religion and therefore would not have the Parliament to couple the War of the Palatinate with the Cause of Religion and that the beginning of that miserable War which had set all Christendom on fire was not for Religion but only caused by his Son-in-Law's hasty resolution following evil Counsel to take to himself the Crown of Bohemia and in the last year of his Reign in a Speech to the Parliament wished that it might be written in marble and remain to Posterity as a mark upon him when he should swerve from his Religion And certainly he must be much an Infidel and a great Master in the Phantasticks and School of Opinionastrete that will not believe King Charles the First his Son to have been a great Assertor of it when in the fourth year of his Reign in a Speech to the Parliament he declared That he was and ever should be as careful of Religion and as forward as they could desire and would use all means for the maintenance and propagation of that Religion wherein he had lived and did resolve to die And in the Head of his Army and very great Distresses afterwards profess by the taking of the blessed Sacrament to maintain it and took so great a Care of it as a Popish Book could not peep into England but he speedily appointed some of his Chaplains or some other Learned Man of the Church of England to Print and Publish an Answer unto it made many of his Coins of Silver to Proclaim his resolution to Defend the Protestant Religion Laws Privileges of Parliament and the Liberties of the People and died a Martyr because he would not deliver up his Subjects to a perpetual slavery of a never to be shaken off Arbitrary Power And His Majesty that now is being the Son and Heir of his Constancy in the Protestant Religion hath been so much of that fixed and unalterable Resolution as the Love of a Mother and all those Obligations that a filial Obedience had put upon him could not disswade him from enforcing the Duke of Gloucester his younger Brother out of her Tuition and Intention to breed him up in the Popish Religion and the Syren Charms of Militiere in his Book purposely Dedicated unto him to make him averse to that Religion whose Pseudo-Professors had murdered his Father and been the Cause of those very many Miseries Affronts Ill Usages Wants and Reproaches which he and his Royal Brothers endured in the Twelve years longsome time of his Distresses could never perswade him to accept of a strong and powerful Aid of Catholick Princes for his Re-establishment in his Kingdoms nor incline him to do that to save Three Kingdoms which his Grandfather by the Mother-side the Great Henry of France by reconciling himself to the Church of Rome did to save only one when his Sufferings outwent and far surmounted any which his Grandfather had endured But if any would have our Laws the severest of which was Enacted in the Conspiracy and feared evil Consequences of the Gun-Powder Treason to be put so much in execution as to forfeit and take away two parts of three the whole in three parts to be equally divided of the real Estates of those who have Lands and Subject those that have no Lands to great Forfeitures and Penalties and incapacitate all to bear any Office in the Kingdom They are to consider that it will be as hard as unequal for their King and Common Parent as well as ours to allow a Liberty and Connivance to those that are of worse Principles or at least as dangerous as the Papists fought and were active in our last Wars and Miseries against His Majesty and His Royal Father and all that were their Loyal and Obedient Subjects and deny it to those that fought were Sequestred Plundered and Suffered for them that all the Protestants in the World are not in England and that amongst those in England there are too many the more is the pity who have so rent and divided themselves from the Church of England and do so much and so often vary in their Judgments Practice and Opinions as they appear rather to be no Protestants or very little embracing the Profession and Interest thereof that our Incomparable and Prudent Queen Elizabeth could never have maintained and supported so much as she did the Protestant Religion as well Lutheran as Calvinist in the Parts beyond the Seas and that of the purer and better reformed Religion of the English Church at home by her Aids Embassies Leagues and Intercessions if she had not requited the Catholick Princes with the like Indulgence and usage to any of her Subjects that were of the Romish Religion and that neither the Rebellions of the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland for the advance of Popery many several Attempts to take away her Life and Plots to Dethrone her could ever
therefore if they would but once resolve to be more obedient seek and embrace Peace and Humility more than they do and follow the Council of the Apostle St. Paul to abstain from those that make Divisions And not take every thing that they do hear from foolish lying or malitious Tongues rackets and rebounds to be a certainty of Truth when there is nothing at all to support it unless they will acknowledge that their understanding memories and senses are by the vain and incertain Imaginations of Fears and groundless Jealousies misguided and led into a Frenzy or otherwise that they would under those Pretences hide and cover their very wicked Designs until they can be effected and seduce as many as they can into their Party to help to go through with it might acquiesce in the Opinions Duty Allegiance Understanding Reason and Sense of many Counties Cities and Boroughs of this Kingdom who upon the reading of his Majestie 's Declaration shewing the Reasons and Causes of his Dissolving the last Parliament and His Majestie 's firm and fixed resolution to maintain the Religion and Monarchical Government of this Kingdom now by Law established have by their many several Addresses made their dutiful acknowledgments for His Majestie 's Grace and Favour therein and the happy Government Peace and Plenty wherein they have lived since His Majestie 's happy Restauration humbly offering to defend the Rights and Prerogative of his Crown with their Lives and Estates and concurring with them therein Believe that when they have tired themselves with their feaverish Dreams and Fancies and are awake and shall come to themselves they will upon a more knowing and sober inquest readily find that there are more Dangers and Mischiefs like to happen by Atheists Debauchees and Latitudinarians not a few of the Sectaries and no small number of the wild headed Opinion-Mongers whose giddy Notions makes every thing that tends to their Interest or Conveniency to be Religion enough and are so near Neighbours to Popery as if not speedily prevented are like to gulf into it than there is of any Inundation of Arbitrary Power or of the Common sort of Unjesuited Popery and that Popery it self would much abate if the Atheists Latitudinarians and Debauchees and the daily Quarrellers with our Church and State Government would better regulate their Brains and not make themselves so much as they have done the Seminary Seed-Plot and Nursery of it And it may be a wonder beyond the Seven Wonders of England and more than an hundred added thereunto That by a strange Effascination so great a part of the Nation after that they might well have understood his just and happy Government all the time of his Reign had most wickedly Rebelled against His late Majesty their Soveraign vanquish'd and procured him in the hopes of Peace to deliver up unto them the remainders of his Strength and Garrisons Viz. Oxford Newark Worcester and Wallingford Imprisoned notwithstanding and hunted him to Death and brought him upon a Scaffold before his own House or Palace at White-hall to be barbarously Murthered Where he declared to the Soldiers Army Officers and Spectators after he had received the blessed Sacrament Administred unto him by the Pious and Reverend Dr. Juxon Bishop of London and performed his other Devotions Preparatory to a near approaching Death in his dying and last words which ought to be believed by all that had any thing of Humanity or were ever but Christ'ned That as to his Religion He died a Christian according to the Profession of the Church of England and found it left him by his Father That he desired the Peoples Liberty and Freedom as much as any body whosoever but he must tell them that their Liberty and Freedom consists in having of Government those Laws by which their Lives and their Goods may be most their own It is not for having share in Government that is nothing pertaining to them A Subject and a Soveraign are clear different things and therefore until they do that I mean that you do put the People in that Liberty as I say certainly they will never enjoy themselves It was for this that now I am come here if I would have given way to an Arbitrary way for to have all Laws changed according to the Power of the Sword I needed not to have come here And therefore I tell you and I pray God it be not laid to your charge that I am the Martyr of the People That in stead of a never enough to be repeated Repentance with as much satisfaction as was possible to make it available not by sowing the Seeds of another Rebellion they should be so Sottish which is more than a Frenzy or Lunacy which sometimes alloweth Intervals of understanding of c 〈…〉 g again unto themselves as not only to continue those Fears and Jealousies but to hatch new and greater Additions unto them which in most of the seduced Multitude can have no other Ground or Foundation than their Ignorance Folly and Illusion and in the lesser number of that Party their Villany Treason and a Propensity to Act ever again a second Rebellion to support them Can they read or hear that the Turks or Mahometans in their ignorance do no sooner find the least piece of Paper or any other thing with any writing upon it but fearing that it may be some note or discovery of their Sins which might be carried to God Almighty or their great Prophet Mahomet do make as Besâ—equius relateth all the hast they can to burn or destroy it And at the same time write and hire to write print publish and permit to be Cryed and Sold in the Streets Pamphlets and Books to justifie as much as they can their Perjuries Sedition Treason Rebellion and the Murther of His Majestie 's Royal Father with all manner of Invectives against the Government of Church and State do they read or hear that Athâ—ns once the glory of Learning and Wisdom is by her variety of Humours and change of Government do what the Sage Solon could now become a poor â—iâ—â—er Town under the Ottoman's boundless Arbitrary Power and Slavery and that the stout hearted Spartans without their Ephori or King-Comptrollers are now under as sad and slavish a condition and yet persist in their restless murmurings Or can they find any Reason or Justice or so much as a colour of either of them to charge an Arbitrary Power or faults of Government upon their King or Soveraign when they will so little obey his Laws and Statutes as they do all they can to contemn over-turn trample upon and change them from better to worse from the best of Monarchies to the worst of Anarchies When their King can do no more than make or ordain good and wholesom Laws which with our former Laws are as Sir Edward Coke hath said the Quintessence or best of all Laws in the World and his Subjects will not obey them or the directions and care of his
Ursa Major Minor OR A Sober and Impartial ENQUIRY Into those Pretended Fears and Jealousies OF Popery and Arbitrary Power WITH Some Things offered to Consideration touching His MAJESTIE' 's League made with the King of FRANCE upon Occasion of his Wars with Holland and the United Provinces IN A LETTER Written to a Learned FRIEND LONDON Printed for H. S. MDCLXXXI SIR IF a very long and sad for many years together often repeated Experience with the sence of very many National and Universal needless Miseries which are so certainly to be believed as all the People of the Nation the wickedly-gaining Party by it only excepted may safely make Affidavit of it were able to obtain any thing or prevail with us not one but every man should think that it was and would be a duty Incumbent upon every English-man and true Lover of his King and Countrey for there be too many Counterfeits who do not well understand either the one or the other to abhor and fly as the affrighted Greek and Relator of the Strength and Gigantine Cruelties of the monstrous Polyphemus did with a Fugite ô Fugite from the Phantasms of those ungrounded Fears and Jealousies which usher'd in and fomented that Subversion of our Religion Laws and Liberties especially when it is not yet gone out of memory how many Dismal and ever to be lamented Effects and Calamities the inflamed and affrighted Vulgar and too hasty and inconsiderate Factious part of the People in the Years 1641 and 1642. with the Fancies of Popery and Arbitrary Power and Dangers rushing in upon us viz. a Plague-Plaister supposed to have been Attempted to be delivered to their great Champion Mr. John Pym to Infect and Destroy him Horses kept and trained under Ground the Lord Digby in his Coach and six Horses upon his ordinary occasions appearing at Kingston upon Thames in a Warlike manner with many other dressed up Bugbears not enough to affright old Women and young Children have brought upon us and that a Bloody and Costly War Murder of their King and fellow Subjects Rapine and Spoil of each other the washing over in Blood and almost Destruction of Three Kingdoms and the Ruine of Church and State have been the Products of them And when all was done could not assign any other Ground or Cause for it than Rebellion that Sin of Witchcraft and the Relish and Content which was found in the violation of all the Commandments in the second Table of the dreadfully by God himself pronounced Decalogue and as much as they could of the first and by yielding up their Discretions to the first Summons of their Fears of Imaginary apparitions of Dangers have made themselves to be well deserving or fit for the Reproach or Castigation which St. Paul used to a far less intoxicated People O ye foolish Galatians who hath bewitched you Though your Learning long Conversation and large acquaintance with history together with your curious recherches and retrospection into the Affairs of the World and Ages past a great Insight into the Politiques and a strict watch and observation kept upon the Causes Effects and Events of Actions of State and as many of the Reasons and Intrigues thereof as are proper and do usually come to publick View may sufficiently fortifie you against those kind of Impressions which have bespoken and taken up so much room in the Minds of such as are less Cognisant or do too much accustome themselves to make their Designs to be the only measure of their own Errors in Judgment which are not seldom built upon guess or contraries yet lest your great care and vigilance in all the Concernments of the Protestant Religion and the Property and just Rights of the Subjects should raise in you more than ordinary Apprehensions and carrying you down the Rapid stream of those great mistakings bereave you of that Happiness which hitherto hath attended the Temper and Tranquillity of your Mind and make you a Prisoner to those Fears and false Alarms which your more Sedate Thoughts will I assure my self tell you are not to be numb'red amongst those quoe in virum Constantem cadere possint which can ever be able to disturb the quiet and repose of a Man who from the mountains of Time hath looked further than yesterday and by the Rules of Prudence Policy and former Examples may with more certainty than Astrology ever afforded foresee what is likely to happen I have adventured here inclosed to send you my Thoughts and Sentiments which I hope will not want your Candid Reception especially when they shall but bring before you and your judicious Censure the Considerations that there will be enough surely to satisfie and quiet the most timerous or melancholick Persons who too often trouble themselves with their own Imaginations that the increase of Popery since the Statutes of the first and 23 th of Queen Eliz. and 3 d of King James in the year 1638. when Liberty Pretence of Religion and Conscience began to run out of their Wits and never stayed until they came to an Open and Horrid Rebellion hath been so little although the Popish Party have gained too many great Advantages by that and our many Divisions in Matters of Religion and Church Government and our late National Debaucheries and Atheism which do carry too many into the Delusions of Popery As it may if a strict accompt were taken probably enough ascertain us that there hath been rather a Decrease than an Increase of it And that if Commissions which will be no way inconsistent with the Rules and reason of Law and good Government were granted by His Majesty unto Orthodox Loyal Discreet Sober and Unbyassed Persons in every County and City of England and Wales to Inquire and Certifie how many Papists there are therein Resident the Result and Conclusion will assure His Majesty and His great Council of Parliament that there is not above Five in every Hundred of the Nation if so many that are guilty of direct Popery or Infected with it and in Scotland not many more unless that small Number should happen something to be increased by the late addition of the Jesuited Masquerade counterfeit Protestants And their increase in Riches or Estate not like to be much when they that shall be Convict and have no Lands or real Estate are by the Statutes of 29 Eliz. to forfeit and pay 20 l. every Month. And they that have Lands and real Estate are to pay 2 parts the whole in the 3 parts to be divided by the Statute of 3 Jac. ca. 4. And if that should not impoverish their Estates and make them less terrible than the Anakims it would nevertheless be effected by the Maintenance Necessities and corroding of their Priests and Jesuits with the multitude of Papal Exactions and Contributions to foreign Colleges and Religious Houses Pensions Censes Peter-pence Procurations Suits for Provisions Expeditions of Bulls Appeals Rescripts Dispensations Licenses Grants Relaxations Writs of Perinde
which should be by them desired for the further securing of their Religion Liberties and Properties and not long ago answered private and particular Persons of ordinary Quality Petitioning him for Right to be done unto them in Matters of Law and some of his own Concernments that God forbid but his People should have Liberty to demand right of him as well as against any of their fellow Subjects They therefore who do over-busie themselves in the carrying about the Buz of false and incertain rumours and the dreadful Imaginations of an Arbitrary and Lawless Power which may be hoped will never happen nor be able if any should desire it to Attack and Demolish those Impregnable Fortresses which our Laws right reason long continued good and reasonable Customs of England have built and provided against it And do make such lamentable Outcries and Exclamations against Arbitrary Power before it happens or they can perceive any likelihood of it and in their Ill-tutor'd Logick would persuade themselves and others it is so because they are pleased to fancy it is possible it may be so and cannot be quiet but do think themselves ill used if they may not be permitted like the Andabatoe to fight with their own shadows and be not a little commended magnified and accompted good Patriots for it Blench at every thing turn their Follies into all kinds of Fears and Jealousies and so strongly fancy them as if they were actually upon them and will not be persuaded but the King will deliver us up to Popery and Arbitrary Power and to that end the King of France hath viewed and sounded our Ports and Havens and with great Armies is ready to invade destroy or make Slaves of us and our Generations But may do better to give some respite to those their needless Affrights and pausing a while sit down and consider What greater assurance his now Majesty could give to his Subjects or they desire than what he declar'd in his Speech to the House of Commons in March 1661 Gentlemen I hear and am very solicitous I thank you for it since I presume it proceeds from a good Root of Piety and Devotion But I must tell you I have the worst luck in the world if after all the reproaches of being a Papist when I was Abroad I am suspected of being a Presbyterian now I am come Home I know you will not take it unkindly if I tell you that I am as Zealous for the Church of England as any of you can be and am as much in love with the Book of Common-Prayer as you can wish and have prejudice enough to those that do not love it And do as much desire to see an Uniformity setled as any amongst you I pray you trust me in that Affair In the year 1664. tells them I do assure you upon my word and I pray you believe me That I have no other Thoughts or Design in my heart but to make you all Happy in the Support of the Religion and Laws established In the same year when they brought him a Bill for the Repeal of the Act of Parliament to exclude the Bishops out of the House of Peers He said I thank you with all my heart indeed as much as I can do for any thing for the Repeal of that Act It was an unhappy Act in an unhappy Time passed with many unhappy Circumstances and attended with miserable Events and therefore I do again thank you for Repealing of it you have thereby restored Parliaments to their Primitive Institutions In his Speech unto both Houses in Anno 1672. said That he would conclude with this assurance that I will preserve the true Protestant Religion and the Church as it is now establish'd in this Kingdom and in the whole course of the Dissenters I do not intend that it shall any ways prejudice the Church but I will support its Rights and its full Power In January 1673. said If there be any thing else which you think wanting to secure Religion there is nothing which you shall reasonably propose but I shall be ready to receive it In April 1675. said The Principal end of his calling the Parliament now is to know what you think may be yet wanting to the security of Religion and to give my Self the satisfaction of having done the utmost of my Endeavours In February 1679. said to both Houses of his Parliament I declare my Self very plainly unto you that I am prepar'd to give you all the Satisfaction and Security in the great Concern of the Protestant Religion as it is establish'd in the Church of England that shall reasonably be ask'd or can consist with Christian Prudence 6 March 1678. I do give you this assurance that I will with my Life defend both the Protestant Religion and the Laws of this Kingdom In January 1673. If there be any thing you think wanting to secure Property there is nothing which you shall reasonably propose but I shall be ready to receive it Febr. 15. 1676. said to His Two Houses of Parliament I do declare my Self freely that I am ready to gratifie you in a further Security of your Liberty and Property if you can think you want it by as many good Laws as you shall propose and as can consist with the Safety of the Government without which there will neither be Liberty nor Property left unto any Man And let all men Judge who is most for Arbitrary Government they that foment such Differences as tend to Dissolve all Parliaments or I that would preserve this and all Parliaments from being made useless by such Dissolutions And remember that there was a Time not long ago when the Phanatick Party who at this Time are too great a part of England and some of the Presbyterians were not in the heretofore justly stiled the Long and Rebellious part of a Parliament so much afraid of Arbitrary Government as now they do seem to be When in that Long and Unhappy misnamed Parliament they procured to be Voted down as many as they could of their Soveraign's Rights Methods and means of Government in an Ancient and well Established Monarchy overturned Peerage Episcopacy Tenures and many other of our Fundamental Laws warranted by the Laws of God and this Nation and as if they feared that Rebellion raising of Armies and Chacing and Fighting against their Pious and Religious King who never gave them any Cause for it if any Cause at all can ever be assigned or able to justifie Rebellion should not be Sin enough made all the hast they could to add Sacriledge unto it and placed in themselves an Arbitrary and boundless Authority over him unto whom they had Sworn an Allegiance due to Superiority trampled upon all their fellow Subjects Plundered Sequestred and did all they could to Perjure the Loyal part of them destroyed the Privileges of Parliament suffered some of their own Members to be pulled out of the House of Commons and Imprisoned by Soldiers and Red-Coats one
Pleadings form and frame thereof to be translated and only used in the English Language on purpose and with a design to Abrogate them and make way for a new Fabrick and Engine of Laws for the establishing of his intended absolute manner of Arbitrary Government encouraged and Pensioned Mr. White a profest Papist and Mr. Hobbs Men of great Learning which might have been better Imployed to Write and Publish Books to vindicate and justifie the necessity of an Absolute Power in Supreme Magistracy and others to Write and Publish their unsound Opinions that Copyhold Estates were a Badge of the Norman Slaveries that the eldest Sons or only Daughters in every Family had no right to any more than a double Portion of their Father's real Estate that University-Learning was needless with a purpose to Confiscate their Revenues and Payment of Tythes unlawful permitted Servants to betray and sequester their Masters Tenants their Landlords Wives their Husbands and Children their Parents only because they were unwilling to be Perjured in their new Oaths and Ingagements or wretchedly willing to forsake their Loyalty and the Laws of God and the Kingdom suffered his illiterate Commanders to threaten to pull the Gowns from off the Lawyers Backs and Publickly to declare That it would never be well until their Gowns were like the Colours taken from their Subdued Scots Brethren hung up in Westminster-Hall made his Major Generals Governors in several Provinces who abusing and domineering over the Laws Imprisoned men without Cause and suffered the Nobility of England to stand bare and uncovered before them and to be Arrested and Drag'd in the Streets by Bailiffs and Catchpoles for Debt when they had nothing left to pay them Prohibited ejected Orthodox Ministers to bring Actions at Law for recovery of their Rights and all others to demand or seek to recover at Law their Debts or other Rights by any Actions or Suits in Law or Equity unless they took the aforesaid Engagement against the King and House of Lords tired and almost starved with tricks and delays the poor deprived Ministers Wives and Children of their fifth part of the Profits of their Husbands and Fathers Benefices which they seemed to allow unto them gave a considerable yearly Salary duly paid to Lilly the fooling and cozening Astrologer to foretel in his State as well as weather Almanacks good or bad Events to Lacquy after his accursed Designs and positively assert by his pretended intimacy with the Stars that in such a year before His Majestie 's happy Restauration Prince Rupert who God be thanked is yet living was certainly to be Hanged Constituted a House composed of his Army Commanders and some other of his Nymrods and Deputy-oppressors many whereof had been formerly well instructed in the Arts of Coblers Draymen and Bodies-making c. and instead of an House of Peers called it the Other House And when Mr. Coney a London Merchant being Imprisoned against the Law without a Cause shewn had brought his Habeas Corpus to be Bailed sent Mr. Maynard Mr. Twisden and Mr. Wadham Wyndham his Lawyers Prisoners to the Tower of London for Pleading for him and the Liberties of the People and called our Magna Charta Magna farta Prohibited all Lawyers to Plead for any of the Sequestred Orthodox Ministry that would not crouch under and kiss the Rod of their Persecution Many notwithstanding of those better now than they were before Informed Members of that over long and unhappy Parliament and continued to be Members of Parliament through all the Changes from thence to Oliver and from Oliver to his Son Dick seemed not then to be out of love with those new Authorities or over turning Rota's of Government Laws and Liberties And too many of the gaining and Phanatick Party who might have foreseen the dismal Apprehensions of an approaching Arbitrary Power had in the days of Oliver and his Son Mr. Richard so little a dread or were not so much afraid of it when they had reason to have been a great deal more as they being no small Gainers by it rejoyced in it thought themselves happily placed in the blessed Land of Canaan and Conducted into it by the hand of Heaven and Singing a Magnificat to Oliver and a Requiem to themselves and their chosen Posterity could be at no rest until they had obtained Declarations out of many Counties and Cities subscribed by the most considerable Men of their Rebellious and Sacrilegious Party and caused them to be Printed and delivered unto his Counterfeit Highness with Solemn Addresses upon their Knees and other actions of Veneration by some of their most active Accomplices wherein they stiled Oliver Moses and Joshua made up his Praises with almost Blasphemy and prayed for the continuance of his Care for their Protection and as they called it the Publick Good and were after his Death as busie with the like Adoration several solemn Declarations Addresses and Thanksgivings to his Son Richard's ridiculous parcel of Highness Wherefore they who were then so willing to bow their Necks under the hard galling Iron yoke which a Long Parliament by Colour of a false Authority assistance of a standing Army and a Rebel Brewer had put upon them And to take Arms against their own Happiness and betray their own good Laws Liberties Privileges and Customs to Usurpers which were so unparallel'd as the Devil with a pair of Spectacles cannot upon the most malicious and exactest search find any Nation under Heaven so happy and blessed as England hath been in the security of their Liberties Properties and Privileges since the beginning of the Reign of King Henry the First thorough the Reigns of all our Succeeding Kings who upon the least appearance or complaints of Grievances either as to particulars or generals rarò contingentibus or but feared or likely to happen never denied good Laws and Remedies to their People as all our Law-Books Year-Books Reports of Cases Adjudged Parliament Rolls and Books of Statutes will abundantly testifie may with shame and horror of so foul and grand ingratitude recall to their remembrance that they that were the Disciples of the late Wars and Usurpations and gainers by the Ruin and Misery of this and two other Kingdoms by their Arts and Power of cheating and haring their fellow Subjects out of their Loyalty Religion Estates Laws and Liberties Could be well contented to receive of His Majesty after his Return from his Distresses not only a Pardon unto all but a few excepted of their great and many Offences and Misdeeds after that he had by several Acts of Parliament Unfornicated or Unadulterated the Wives and Husbands and Legitimated the Children of those that were mis-married and taken away the Errors of their Illegal Proceedings and Judgments and Recoveries had at Law in the time of their many years abominable Rebellion but the greatest acquital of Money Arrears and Forfeitures due unto him amounting unto many Millions Sterling that ever any People of England had and received
League with the French may as little Prejudice us and our Laws and Liberties as it did those of the Dutch when they were in the strictest Alliance or Confederacy with them For no man can be so transported out of himself as to believe that a Neighborhood or a League for Civil and other Respects can work any Prejudice to the Religion Laws and Liberties of the Subjects of either Prince or State not granted away or Contracted for by such Leagues when every days Experience declares the contrary for otherwise the Poles whose King is Elective and their Laws so very much obliging him as he cannot alter the Freedom and Constitutions of the Peoples Liberties would be in danger of the Mahometan Extravagancies of Power to be brought in upon them when their Kings have made any Leagues with the Turks or Grand Seignior and the Sweedish Nation in fear of their Elective King 's introducing the vast and unruly Power of the Muscovite whose Subjects being under a mighty awe Ignorance and enforced Obedience have no more to answer when any State-Affairs are enquired of them than that God and the Great Duke do only know it Insomuch as the Provocation of the Dutch being so great and the Vindication of the Honour of the King Trade of the Nation Safety of the People and Soveraignty of the Sea so necessary as a War with them could not be avoided There was no other either visible or possible means to manage it with Prudence or Success than by the making of the League with France who had pretences of his own to joyn with ours In regard that Land-Armies and Forces were not able alone to bring them to good Terms without the assistance and aid of a great and mighty Navy at Sea which might be able to overcome and beat them in that which was their greatest Strength without which it would have been impossible for the English or French joyntly or seperately ever to have forced them to reason The King of Spain who would heretofore have been glad of such a Part'ner as the English to help to subdue those his formerly truly accompted Rebels of the United Provinces who by the help of the English and French had in a War of almost Sixty years together done him so very much wrong and many Mischiefs was then become so jealous of the growing greatness of France as he found it to be his Interest to assist those that had so greatly damnified him and were no other than his Hogen Mogen Rebels The Swede and Danes greatly concerned in their Trade and the Profit and Gain which they daily received by them in the Baltick Sea would not joyn in any War against them and if they would have been willing were at too great a distance and the forcing of passage would have been as difficult and dangerous as it would have been Chargeable and the like might have been said of the Elector of Brandenburgh who was in League Amity and Interest with them and the most part of the other German Princes being of small Power far off and inconsiderable who might not make War with any Members of the Empire as the Dutch being part of the lower Circle of Burgundy were without the Approbation of the Emperor and their Diets and the Charge and little Success of hiring the Bishop of Munster to raise Forces whereby to make a Diversion and Incumbrance upon them in our former Wars with them had taught us what little good and at how great an Expence that design effected And it is well known that an Army for the intended Recovery of the Palatinate was in the 21 th year of the Reign of King James by an able and select Council of War and the Approbation of the Parliament then thought not to be sufficient with the Aid of the Dutch in their Provisions and passage under the Number of 25000 Foot and 5000 Horse and the Charge of 30000 l. to furnish them with Necessaries And when afterwards Count Mansfeild a second Hannibal and one of the greatest Captains of his time in Christendom had with 12000 Foot and 200 Horse Levied here and encouraged by K. James and the Parliament some promised Aids from France and some other States and Princes undertook to regain that wasted Countrey of the Palatinate Ship'd his Men and was at Sea with them the King of France's denying their Landing at Calice and promised Passage and the Province or States of Zealand when he attempted to Land his Men upon their Coasts making a like refusal the Pestilence and Flux whilst they were at Sea penn'd up and almost stifled in the Ships killed two parts in three of them and the remaining third part mouldring away that Action and all the Design hopes charges and Endeavours of it miscarried and came to nothing And certainly the English War with the Dutch Petitioned for by the Parliament put and carried on with so much reason of State and by so many very Important Necessities might Claim to be as well allowed to be without any detriment to the Interest of the Protestant Religion as other Wars betwixt Protestants heretofore have been upon Civil Accompts and Controversies The Dutch upon a pretence of their better defending themselves against any Attempts or Increase of Power of the Spaniard their then Enemy did take and keep Wesell and some Towns in the Dutchies of Cleve and Juliers and other Frontier Towns belonging to the Elector of Brandenburgh a Protestant Prince the Justice whereof hath not yet been understood by the Learned in Politicks and Affairs of State were not Incumbred with any Accusation of weakening the Protestant Religion and it must needs remain a Problem never to be determined but put upon the File of Eternity what can be the Reason that Oliver Cromwell and his Party of Regicide Rebels about the year 1654. upon far less Provocations should so chearfully be aided and assisted in his Maritine Wars with the Hollanders until he beat them into a Peace and acknowledgment of the English Soveraignty over the Brittish Seas enforced upon them the Act of Navigation That no Commodities Transported into England from thence or of the growth of those Countries or any other Neighbour Countries should be brought by them but in English Bottoms and made them stink in the Nostrils of all Nations and to be guilty of a most horrid Ingratitude in the renouncing the Prince of Orange and his Illustrious Family and taking from them those Offices and Places which they and their Ancestors had in their Defence so dearly purchased and yet his Cromwellian Power was not at all accused for hurting the Protestant Religion or how our Wars with the Dutch in the years 1664. and 1665. upon far less Provocation should be Petitioned for by our Merchants and both Houses of Parliament and willingly contributed unto and not at all believed to be against the Protestant Religion and why the War now made upon greater Affronts and Injuries should be an undermining of
Grandfather King Henry the Seventh the happy Uniter of the White and Red Roses having by a Provident Care made such a Choice of Wise and ValiantSea and Land Commanders Sage Counsellors and Ministers of State and Judges of the Law as no Prince of her Age or Time could equal did by a constant encouraging and imploying no other than those who made it not their only Business to seek their own Profits but were as fixt to her as she was to them by whom and her own careful Conduct and Guidance she withstood all the Assaults of Rome and Spain and the Machinations which their Jesuits could Plot or Promote against her and her most excellent steddy Monarchical Government weather'd out the Storms and Rebellions raised up against her with no single or few Attempts to take away her Life supported her Allies and was a Bulwark impregnable not only to the more refined Protestant Religion which she had planted and defended here in England but to those different Forms elected or set up by Luther and Calvin and the Huguenots in the Foreign and other Parts of Christendom was in her glorious and ever to be imitated happy Reign as she made her Subjects as happy as her self in the Councils Love Duty and Allegiance of her Parliament and assistance of her People for their own as well as her Preservation and Good who although they were by her limitted not to meddle with Church or State Government forbid and sharply reproved for medling with the Successors had some of their several Members as Mr. Peter Wentworth and Sir Henry Bromley Prohibited to sit in the House of Commons and afterwards Committed Prisoners to the Tower of London sent for Sir Edward Coke their Speaker and charged him to deliver her Message to the House which he did not omit to do That It was in her Power to Call Prorogue Adjourn Dissolve or Determine Parliaments and to Assent or Dissent And in one of the said Parliaments refused her consent to 48 Bills which had passed in both Houses informed the House of Commons That she misliked their Irreverence towards her Privy Councellors Members of that House who were not to be accompted as Common Knights and Burgesses that are Councellors but during the Parliament whereas the others were standing Councellors and for their Wisdom and great Service were call'd to the Council of State Blamed some that seem'd to make their Necessities more than they were forgetting the urgent Necessities of the Time and Dangers would not have her People feared with Reports and speaking to them that she heard that upon the last Attempt of the Spaniard some had abandoned their Towns fled higher into the Countrey and left all Naked said I swear unto you By God if I knew those Persons or any that shall do so hereafter I will make them know and feel what it is to be so fearful in so urgent a Cause And when the Commons had Petition'd unto her against some grievances of her Purveyances and Court of Exchequer answer'd That she had given some Order to the Lord Steward for the redress of the Purveyances That she had as much Skill and Power to rule and govern her own House as any of her Subjects whatsoever to rule and govern theirs without the help of their Neighbours and would shortly take further order therein by the advice of her Judges and Learned Council Commanded the Speaker of the House of Commons That if any Bills should be there exhibited touching the Succession Matters of State or Causes Ecclesiastical he should not receive them Which several Speeches Directions and Messages of her Majesty with many others in all the time of her Parliaments and long and happy Reign were well esteemed of whose Birth-Day for now almost Fourscore years last past in London and many other Places of England hath upon every 17 th day of November by Legacies of Annual Commemorative Sermons and Ringing of Bells been Celebrated and was so happy in the Duty Allegiance and Obedience of her Parliaments As a Prudent very Eminent Learned Member of the House of Commons said That before he would speak or give any consent to a Case that should debase her Soveraignty or Abridge it I would wish my Tongue cut out of my Head Anno 43. of her Reign A Bill being brought into the House of Commons for Explanation of the Common Law concerning the Queens Letters Patents and certain Monopolies Mr. Spicer a Burgess of Warwick said That that Bill might touch the Prerogative Royal which was as he had Learned so transcendent as the eye of the Subject may not aspire thereunto and therefore be it far from him that the State and Prerogative of the Prince should be Tyedly him or any other Subject Mr. Francis Bacon after Lord Chancellor said That for the Prerogative Royal of the Prince for his part he ever allowed it and is such as he hoped should never be discussed And said Mr. Speaker pointing to the Bill This is no stranger in this place but a stranger in this Vestment The Use hath been ever by Petition to humble our selves to her Majesty and by Petition to desire to have the Grievances redressed especially when the remedy touchethiher in Right or Prerogative I say and I say again That we ought not to deal or meddle with or judge of her Majesties Prerogative I wish every man therefore to be careful of this point Mr. Lawrence Hyde said I do owe a Duty to God and Loyalty to my Prince I made it and I think I understand it far be it from this heart of mine to write any thing in Prejudice or Derogation of her Majesties Prerogative Royal and the State Mr. Serjeant Harris moved That the Queen might be Petitioned by the House in all Humility Mr. Francis Moore afterwards Serjeant Francis Moore said He did know the Queens Prerogative was a thing curious to be dealt with Sir Robert Wroth a Member of that House did in his own particular offer 100 l. per Annum to the Wars Upon a Debate of Monopolies the Queen understanding that a List of such as she had granted had been brought into the House sent for their Speaker and declared unto him That for any Patents granted by her whereby any of her Subjects might be oppressed she would take present order for Reformation thereof her Kingly Prerogative was tender and therefore desired them not to speak or doubt of her Reformation but that some should be repealed others suspended and none put in Execution but such as by a Trial at Law should appear to be for the good of the People which being reported by him to the House filled them with unspeakable Joy Mr. Wingfield wept and said His heart was not able to conceive or his tongue express the Jov that he had in that Message And thereupon Mr. Secretary Cevill said That there was no reason that all should be revoked for the Queen meant not to be swept out of her Prerogative And