That government, generally considered, is of divine authority, will
admit of no dispute; for whoever will seriously consider, that no man
has naturally a right over his own life, so as to murder himself, will
find, by consequence, that he has no right to take away another’s life;
and that no pact betwixt man and man, or of corporations and individuals,
or of sovereigns and subjects, can intitle them to this right; so that
no offender can lawfully, and without sin, be punished, unless that
power be derived from God. It is He who has commissioned magistrates,
and authorised them to prevent future crimes, by punishing offenders,
and to redress the injured by distributive justice; subjects therefore
are accountable to superiors, and the superior to Him alone. For, the
sovereign being once invested with lawful authority, the subject has
irrevocably given up his power, and the dependance of a monarch is alone
on God. A king, at his coronation, swears to govern his subjects by the
laws of the land, and to maintain the several orders of men under him, in
their lawful privileges; and those orders swear allegiance and fidelity
to him, but with this distinction, that the failure of the people is
punishable by the king, that of the king is only punishable by the King
of kings. The people then are not judges of good or ill administration
in their king; for it is inconsistent with the nature of sovereignty
that they should be so; and if at some times they suffer, through the
irregularities of a bad prince, they enjoy more often the benefits and
advantages of a good one, as God in his providence shall dispose, either
for their blessing or their punishment. The advantages and disadvantages
of such subjection, are supposed to have been first considered, and
upon this balance they have given up their power without a capacity of
resumption; so that it is in vain for a commonwealth party to plead,
that men, for example, now in being, cannot bind their posterity, or
give up their power; for if subjects can swear only for themselves, when
the father dies the subjection ends, and the son, who has not sworn, can
be no traitor or offender, either to the king or to the laws. And at
this rate, a long-lived prince may outlive his sovereignty, and be no
longer lawfully a king; but in the mean time, it is evident, that the
son enjoys the benefit of the laws and government, which is an implicit
acknowledgment of subjection. It is endless to run through all the
extravagancies of these men, and it is enough for us that we are settled
under a lawful government of a most gracious prince; that our monarchy is
hereditary; that it is naturally poised by our municipal laws, with equal
benefit of prince and people; that he governs, as he has promised, by
explicit laws; and what the laws are silent in, I think I may conclude to
be part of his prerogative; for what the king has not granted away, is
inherent in him. The point of succession has sufficiently been discussed,
both as to the right of it, and to the interest of the people: one main
argument of the other side is, how often it has been removed from the
right line? as in the case of King Stephen, and of Henry the Fourth, and
his descendants of the house of Lancaster. But it is easy to answer them,
that matter of fact, and matter of right, are different considerations:
both those kings were but usurpers in effect, and the providence of God
restored the posterities of those who were dispossessed. By the same
argument, they might as well justify the rebellion and murder of the
late king; for there was not only a prince inhumanly put to death, but
a government overturned; and first an arbitrary commonwealth, then two
usurpers set up against the lawful sovereign; but, to our happiness,
the same providence has miraculously restored the right heir, and, to
their confusion, as miraculously preserved him. In this present history,
to go no further, we see Henry the Third, by a decree of the Sorbonne,
divested, what in them lay, of his imperial rights: a parliament of
Paris, such another as our first Long Parliament, confirming their
decree; a pope authorising all this by his excommunication; and an Holy
League and Covenant prosecuting this deposition by arms: yet an untimely
death only hindered him from reseating himself in glory on the throne,
after he was in manifest possession of the victory.[20] We see also the
same Sorbonists, the same pope, parliament, and league, with greater
force opposing the undoubted right of King Henry the Fourth; and we see
him in the end, surmounting all these difficulties, and triumphing over
all these dangers. God Almighty taking care of his own anointed, and
the true succession; neither the Papist nor Presbyterian Association
prevailing at the last in their attempts, but both baffled and ruined,
and the whole rebellion ending, either in the submission, or destruction
of the conspirators.
It is true, as my author has observed in the beginning of his history,
that before the Catholic League, or Holy Union, which is the subject
of this book, there was a league or combination of Huguenots, against
the government of France, which produced the conspiracy of Amboise;
and the Calvinist preachers (as Mezeray, a most impartial historian,
informs us) gave their opinion, that they might take up arms in their own
defence, and make way for a free access to the king, to present their
remonstrances. But it was ordered at the same time, that they should
seize on the Duke of Guise, and the Cardinal of Lorraine, his brother,
who were then chief ministers, that they might be brought to trial by
process before the States; but he adds immediately, who could answer for
them, that the prisoners should not have been killed out of hand, and
that they would not have made themselves masters of the queen-mother’s
person, and of the young king’s, which was laid afterwards to their
charge? The concealed heads of this conspiracy, were Lewis Prince of
Conde, and the famous Admiral de Coligny: who being discontented at
court, because their enemies, the Guises, had the management of affairs
under the Queen Regent, to their exclusion, and being before turned
Calvinists, made use of that rebellious sect, and the pretence of
religion, to cover their ambition and revenge. The same Mezeray tells us
in one of the next pages, that the name of Huguenots or Fidnos, (from
whence it was corrupted,) signifies, League or Association, in the Swiss
language; and was brought, together with the sect, from Geneva into
France. But from whencesoever they had their name, it is most certain
that pestilent race of people cannot, by their principles, be good
subjects; for whatever enforced obedience they pay to authority, they
believe their class above the king; and how they would order him if they
had him in their power, our most gracious sovereign has sufficiently
experienced when he was in Scotland.[21] As for their boast that they
brought him in, it is much as true as that of the Calvinists, who
pretend, as my author tells you in his preface, that they seated his
grandfather, Henry IV. upon the throne. For both French and English
Presbyterians were fundamentally and practically rebels; and the French
have this advantage over ours, that they came in to the aid of Henry III.
at his greatest need, or rather were brought over by the king of Navarre,
their declared head, on a prospect of great advantage to their religion;
whereas ours never inclined to the king’s restoration, till themselves
had been trodden underfoot by the independent party, and till the voice
of three nations called aloud for him, that is to say, when they had no
possibility of keeping him any longer out of England. But the beginning
of leagues, unions, and associations, by those who called themselves
God’s people, for reformation of religious worship, and for the redress
of pretended grievances in the state, is of a higher rise, and is justly
to be dated from Luther’s time; and the private spirit, or the gift
of interpreting scriptures by private persons without learning, was
certainly the original cause of such cabals in the reformed churches; so
dangerous an instrument of rebellion is the holy scripture in the hands
of ignorant and bigotted men.
The Anabaptists of Germany led up the dance, who had always in their
mouths, faith, charity, the fear of God, and mortifications of the
flesh: prayers, fastings, meditations, contempt of riches and honours,
were their first specious practices. From thence they grew up, by
little and little, to a separation from other men, who, according to
their pharisaical account, were less holy than themselves; and decency,
civility, neatness of attire, good furniture, and order in their houses,
were the brands of carnal-minded men. Then they proceeded to nick-name
the days of the weeks, and Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, &c. as heathen names,
must be rejected for the first, second, and third days, distinguishing
only by their numbers. Thus they began to play, as it were, at cross
purposes with mankind; and to do every thing by contraries, that they
might be esteemed more godly and more illuminated. It had been a wonder,
considering their fanciful perfections, if they had stopped here. They
were now knowing and pure enough to extend their private reformation
to the church and state; for God’s people love always to be dealing as
well in temporals as spirituals; or rather, they love to be fingering
spirituals, in order to their grasping temporals. Therefore they had the
impudence to pretend to inspiration in the exposition of scriptures;
a trick which since that time has been familiarly used by every sect
in its turn, to advance their interests. Not content with this, they
assumed to themselves a more particular intimacy with God’s holy spirit;
as if it guided them, even beyond the power of the scriptures, to know
more of him than was therein taught. For now the Bible began to be a
dead letter of itself; and no virtue was attributed to the reading of
it, but all to the inward man, the call of the Holy Ghost, and the
engrafting of the word, opening their understanding to hidden mysteries
by faith. And here the mountebank way of canting words came first in
use; as if there were something more in religion than could be expressed
in intelligible terms, or nonsense were the way to heaven. This of
necessity must breed divisions amongst them; for every man’s inspiration
being particular to himself, must clash with another’s, who set up for
the same qualification; the Holy Ghost being infallible in all alike,
though he spoke contradictions in several mouths. But they had a way of
licking one another whole; mistakes were to be forgiven to weak brethren;
the failing was excused for the right intention; he who was more
illuminated, would allow some light to be in the less, and degrees were
made in contradictory propositions. But godfathers and godmothers, by
common consent, were already set aside, together with the observation of
festivals, which they said were of antichristian institution. They began
at last to preach openly, that they had no other king but Christ, and
by consequence earthly magistrates were out of doors. All the gracious
promises in scripture they applied to themselves, as God’s chosen, and
all the judgments were the portion of their enemies. These impieties
were at first unregarded, and afterwards tolerated by their sovereigns;
and Luther himself made request to the Duke of Saxony, to deal favourably
with them, as honest-meaning men who were misled. But in the end, when,
by these specious pretences, they had gathered strength, they who had
before concluded, that Christ was the only king on earth, and at the same
time assumed to themselves, that Christ was theirs; inferred by good
consequence, that they were to maintain their king; and not only so, but
to propagate that belief in others; for what God wills, man must obey;
and for that reason, they entered into a league of association amongst
themselves, to deliver their Israel out of Egypt; to seize Canaan, and
to turn the idolaters out of possession. Thus you see by what degrees
of saintship they grew up into rebellion, under their successive heads,
Muncer, Phifer, John of Leyden, and Knipperdolling, where what violences,
impieties, and sacrileges, they committed, those who are not satisfied
may read in Sleidan.[22] The general tradition is, that after they had
been besieged in Munster, and were forced by assault, their ringleaders
being punished, and they dispersed, two ships-lading of these precious
saints was disembogued in Scotland, where they set up again, and broached
anew their pernicious principles. If this be true, we may easily perceive
on what a noble stock presbytery was grafted. From Scotland they had a
blessed passage into England; or at least arriving here from other parts,
they soon came to a considerable increase. Calvin, to do him right,
wrote to King Edward VI. a sharp letter against these people; but our
Presbyterians after him, have been content to make use of them in the
late civil wars, where they and all the rest of the sectaries were joined
in the good old cause of rebellion against his late Majesty; though they
could not agree about dividing the spoils, when they had obtained the
victory: and it is impossible they ever should, for all claiming to the
spirit, no party will suffer another to be uppermost, nor indeed will
they tolerate each other; because the scriptures, interpreted by each
to their own purpose, is always the best weapon in the strongest hand:
observe them all along, and Providence is still the prevailing argument.
They who happen to be in power, will ever urge it against those who
are undermost; as they who are depressed, will never fail to call it
persecution. They are never united but in adversity, for cold gathers
together bodies of contrary natures, and warmth divides them.
How Presbytery was transplanted into England, I have formerly related
out of good authors.[23] The persecution arising in Queen Mary’s reign,
forced many Protestants out of their native country into foreign parts,
where Calvinism having already taken root (as at Frankfort, Strasburg,
and Geneva,) those exiles grew tainted with that new discipline; and
returning in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, spread the
contagion of it both amongst the clergy and laity of this nation.
Any man who will look into the tenets of the first sectaries, will find
these to be more or less embued with them: Here they were supported
underhand by great men for private interests. What trouble they gave
that queen and how she curbed them, is notoriously known to all who are
conversant in the histories of those times. How King James was plagued
with them, is known as well to any man who has read the reverend and
sincere Spottiswoode:[24] And how they were baffled by the church of
England, in a disputation which he allowed them at Hampton-Court,[25]
even to the conversion of Dr Sparks, who was one of the two disputants of
their party, and afterwards writ against them; any one who pleases may be
satisfied.
The agreement of their principles with the fiercest Jesuits, is as easy
to be demonstrated, and has already been done, by several hands: I will
only mention some few of them, to show how well prepared they came to
that solemn covenant of theirs, which they borrowed first from the Holy
League of France, and have lately copied out again in their intended
association against his present majesty.
Bellarmine,[26] as the author of this history has told you, was himself a
preacher for the League in Paris during the rebellion there, in the reign
of King Henry the Fourth. Some of his principles are these following:[27]
“In the kingdoms of men, the power of the king is from the people,
because the people make the king.” Observing that he says, “In the
kingdoms of men;” there is no doubt but he restrains this principle to
the subordination of the pope; for his Holiness, in that rebellion, as
you have read, was declared Protector of the League: So that the pope
first excommunicates, (which is the outlawry of the church,) and, by
virtue of this excommunication, the people are left to their own natural
liberty, and may, without farther process from Rome, depose him.
Accordingly, you see it practised, in the same instance: Pope Sixtus
first thunderstruck King Henry the Third and the King of Navarre; then
the Sorbonne make decrees, that they have successively forfeited the
crown; the parliament verifies these decrees, and the pope is petitioned
to confirm the sense of the nation, that is, of the rebels.
But I have related this too favourably for Bellarmine; for we hear him,
in another place, positively affirming it as matter of faith, “If any
Christian prince shall depart from the Catholic religion, and shall
withdraw others from it, he immediately forfeits all power and dignity,
even before the pope has pronounced sentence on him; and his subjects, in
case they have power to do it, may and ought to cast out such an heretic
from his sovereignty over Christians.”
Now, consonant to this is Buchanan’s principle, “That the people may
confer the government on whom they please;” and the maxim of Knox,
“That if princes be tyrants against God and his truth, their subjects
are released from their oath of obedience.” And Goodman’s, “That when
magistrates cease to do their duties, God gives the sword into the
people’s hands: evil princes ought to be deposed by inferior magistrates;
and a private man, having an inward call, may kill a tyrant.”[28]
It is the work of a scavenger, to rake together and carry off all these
dunghills; they are easy to be found at the doors of all our sects, and
all our atheistical commonwealth’s men. And, besides, it is a needless
labour; they are so far from disowning such positions, that they glory
in them; and wear them like marks of honour, as an Indian does a ring in
his nose, or a Soldanian a belt of garbage. In the meantime, I appeal to
any impartial man, whether men of such principles can reasonably expect
any favour from the government in which they live, and which, viper-like,
they would devour.
What I have remarked of them is no more than necessary, to show how
aptly their principles are suited to their practices; the history itself
has sufficiently discovered to the unbiassed reader, that both the
last rebellion, and this present conspiracy, (which is the mystery of
iniquity still working in the three nations,) were originally founded on
the French League: that was their model, according to which they built
their Babel. You have seen how warily the first association in Picardy
was worded; nothing was to be attempted but for the king’s service; and
an acknowledgment was formally made, that both the right and power of
the government was in him: but it was pretended, that, by occasion of
the true Protestant rebels, the crown was not any longer in condition,
either of maintaining itself, or protecting them; and that therefore, in
the name of God, and by the power of the Holy Ghost, they joined together
in their own defence, and that of their religion. But all this while,
though they would seem to act by the king’s authority, and under him, the
combination was kept as secret as possibly they could, and even without
the participation of the sovereign; a sure sign, that they intended him
no good at the bottom. Nay, they had an evasion ready too against his
authority; for it is plain they joined Humieres, the governor of the
province, in commission with him, and only named the king for show; but
engaged themselves at the same time to his lieutenant, to be obedient to
all his commands; levying men and money, without the king’s knowledge,
or any law, but what they made amongst themselves. So that, in effect,
the rebellion and combination of the Huguenots[29] was only a leading
card, and an example to the Papists to rebel on their side. And there
was only this difference in the cause, that the Calvinists set up for
their reformation, by the superior power of religion, and inherent right
of the people, against the king and pope. The Papists pretended the same
popular right for their rebellion against the king, and for the same end
of reformation, only they faced it with church and pope.
Our sectaries, and long parliament of forty-one, had certainly these
French precedents in their eye. They copied their methods of rebellion,
at first with great professions of duty and affection to the king; all
they did was in order to make him glorious; all that was done against
him was pretended to be under his authority, and in his name; and even
the war they raised was pretended for the king and parliament. But
those proceedings are so notoriously known, and have employed so many
pens, that it would be a nauseous work for me to dwell on them. To draw
the likeness of the French transactions and ours, were in effect, to
transcribe the history I have translated; every page is full of it;
every man has seen the parallel of the Holy League and our Covenant; and
cannot but observe, that, besides the names of the countries, France and
England, and the names of religions, Protestant and Papist, there is
scarcely to be found the least difference in the project of the whole,
and in the substance of the articles. In the mean time, I cannot but
take notice, that our rebels have left this eternal brand upon their
memories, that, while all their pretence was for the setting up the
Protestant religion, and pulling down of popery, they have borrowed
from Papists both the model of their design, and their arguments to
defend it; and not from loyal, well-principled Papists, but from the
worst, the most bigotted, and most violent, of that religion; from some
of the Jesuits, an order founded on purpose to combat Lutheranism and
Calvinism. The matter of fact is so palpably true and so notorious,
that they cannot have the impudence to deny it. But some of the Jesuits
are the shame of the Roman church, as the sectaries are of ours. Their
tenets in politics are the same; both of them hate monarchy, and love
democracy; both of them are superlatively violent; they are inveterate
haters of each other in religion, and yet agree in the principles of
government. And if, after so many advices to a painter, I might advise a
Dutch-maker of emblems,[30] he should draw a Presbyterian in arms on one
side, a Jesuit on the other, and a crowned head betwixt them; for it is
perfectly a battle-royal. Each of them is endeavouring the destruction of
his adversary; but the monarch is sure to get blows on both sides. But
for those sectaries and commonwealth’s men of forty-one, before I leave
them, I must crave leave to observe of them, that, generally, they were
a sour sort of thinking men, grim, and surly hypocrites; such as could
cover their vices with an appearance of great devotion and austerity of
manners; neither profaneness nor luxury were encouraged by them, nor
practised publicly, which gave them a great opinion of sanctity amongst
the multitude; and by that opinion, principally, they did their business.
Though their politics were taken from the Catholic League, yet their
Christianity much resembled those Anabaptists, who were their original in
doctrine; and these, indeed, were formidable instruments of a religious
rebellion. But our new conspirators of these seven last years are men of
quite another make: I speak not of their non-conformist preachers, who
pretend to enthusiasm, and are as morose in their worship as were those
first sectaries, but of their leading men, the heads of their faction,
and the principal members of it: what greater looseness of life, more
atheistical discourse, more open lewdness, was ever seen, than generally
was and is to be observed in those men? I am neither making a satire nor
a sermon here; but I would remark a little the ridiculousness of their
management. The strictness of religion is their pretence; and the men
who are to set it up, have theirs to choose. The long-parliament rebels
frequented sermons, and observed prayers and fastings with all solemnity;
but these new reformers, who ought, in prudence, to have trodden in their
steps, because their end was the same, to gull the people by an outside
of devotion, never used the means of insinuating themselves into the
opinion of the multitude. Swearing, drunkenness, blasphemies, and worse
sins than adultery, are the badges of the party: nothing but liberty in
their mouths, nothing but licence in their practice.
For which reason, they were never esteemed by the zealots of their
faction but as their tools; and had they got uppermost, after the
royalists had been crushed, they would have been blown off as too
light for their society. For my own part, when I had once observed
this fundamental error in their politics, I was no longer afraid of
their success. No government was ever ruined by the open scandal of
its opposers. This was just a Catiline’s conspiracy, of profligate,
debauched, and bankrupt men: The wealthy amongst them were the fools of
the party, drawn in by the rest, whose fortunes were desperate; and the
wits of the cabal sought only their private advantages. They had either
lost their preferments, and consequently were piqued, or were in hope
to raise themselves by the general disturbance; upon which account,
they never could be true to one another. There was neither honour nor
conscience in the foundation of their league, but every man, having an
eye to his own particular advancement, was no longer a friend than while
his interest was carrying on: So that treachery was at the bottom of
their design, first against the monarchy, and, if that failed, against
each other; in which, be it spoken to the honour of our nation, the
English are not behind any other country. In few words, just as much
fidelity might be expected from them in a common cause, as there is
amongst a troop of honest murdering and ravishing bandits: while the
booty is in prospect, they combine heartily and faithfully; but when a
proclamation of pardon comes out, and a good reward into the bargain, for
any one who brings in another’s head, the scene is changed, and they are
in more danger of being betrayed, every man by his companion, than they
were formerly by the joint forces of their enemies. It is true, they are
still to be accounted dangerous, because, though they are dispersed at
present, and without an head, yet time and lenity may furnish them again
with a commander; and all men are satisfied, that the debauched party of
them have no principle of godliness to restrain them from violence and
murders; nor the pretended saints any principle of charity,—for it is an
action of piety in them to destroy their enemies, having first pronounced
them enemies of God. What my author says, in general, of the Huguenots,
may justly be applied to all our sectaries: They are a malicious and
bloody generation; they bespatter honest men with their pens when they
are not in power; and when they are uppermost, they hang them up like
dogs. To such kind of people all means of reclaiming, but only severity,
are useless, while they continue obstinate in their designs against
church and government; for though now their claws are pared, they may
grow again to be more sharp. They are still lions in their nature, and
may profit so much by their own errors in late managements, that they may
become more sanctified traitors another time.
In the former part of our history, we see what Henry III. gained from
them by his remisness and concessions. Though our last king was not
only incomparably more pious than that prince, but also was far from
being taxed with any of his vices; yet in this they may be compared,
without the least manner of reflection, that extreme indulgence, and too
great concessions, were the ruin of them both. And by how much the more
a king is subject, by his nature, to this frailty of too much mildness,
which is so near resembling the godlike attribute of mercy, by so much
is he the more liable to be taxed with tyranny. A strange paradox, but
which was sadly verified in the persons of those two princes. For a
faction, appearing zealous for the public liberty, counts him a tyrant
who yields not up whatever they demand, even his most undoubted and just
prerogatives; all that distinguishes a sovereign from a subject; and
the yielding up, or taking away, of which is the very subversion of the
government.
Every point which a monarch loses or relinquishes, but renders him the
weaker to maintain the rest; and, besides, they so construe it, as if
what he gave up were the natural right of the people, which he, or his
ancestors, had usurped from them; which makes it the more dangerous
for him to quit his hold, and is truly the reason why so many mild
princes have been branded with the names of tyrants by their encroaching
subjects. I have not room to enlarge upon this matter as I would, neither
dare I presume to press the argument more closely; but passing by, as I
promised, all the remarkable passages in the late king’s reign, which
resemble the transactions of the League, I will briefly take notice of
some few particulars, wherein our late associators and conspirators have
made a third copy of the League; for the original of their first politics
was certainly no other than the French. This was first copied by the
rebels in forty-one, and since recopied within these late years by some
of those who are lately dead, and by too many others yet alive, and still
drawing after the same design; in which, for want of time, many a fair
blot shall be left unhit; neither do I promise to observe any method of
times, or to take things in order as they happened.
As for the persons who managed the two associations, theirs and ours,
it is most certain that in them is found the least resemblance: And it
is well for us they were not like; for they had men of subtlety and
valour to design, and then to carry on their conspiracy: Ours were but
bunglers in comparison of them, who, having a faction not made by them,
but ready formed and fashioned to their hands, (thanks to their fathers,)
yet failed in every one of their projections, and managed their business
with much less dexterity, though far more wickedness than the French.
They had, indeed, at their head an old conspirator, witty and turbulent,
like the Cardinal of Lorraine,[31] and for courage in execution much
such another. But the good sense and conduct was clearly wanting on the
English side; so that, if we will allow him the contrivance of the plot,
or at least of the conspiracy, which is an honour that no man will be
willing to take from him, in all other circumstances he more resembled
the old decrepit Cardinal of Bourbon, who fed himself with imaginary
hopes of power, dreamed of outliving a king and his successor, much more
young and vigorous than himself, and of governing the world after their
decease. To die in prison, or in banishment, I think, will make no mighty
difference; but this is a main one, that the one was the dupe of all his
party, the other led after him, and made fools of all his faction. As for
a Duke of Guise, or even so much as a Duke of Mayenne, I can find none in
their whole cabal. I cannot believe that any man now living could have
the vanity to pretend to it. It is not every age than can produce a Duke
of Guise,—a man who, without the least shadow of a title, (unless we will
believe the memoirs of the crack-brained advocate David, who gave him one
from Charlemagne,) durst make himself head of a party, and was not only
so in his own conceit, but really; presumed to beard a king, and was upon
the point of being declared his lieutenant-general and his successor.
None of these instances will hold in the comparison; and therefore I
leave it to be boasted, it may be, by one party, but I am sure to be
laughed at by another. Many hot-headed Chevaliers d’Aumale, and ambitious
bravos, like Captain St Paul,[32] may be found amongst them; intriguing
ladies and gallants of the times, such as are described in the army of
the League, at the battle of Yvry;[33] and, besides them, many underling
knaves, pimps, and fools; but these are not worthy to be drawn into
resemblance.
Therefore, to pass by their persons, and consider their design, it is
evident, that on both sides they began with a League, and ended with a
conspiracy. In this they have copied, even to the word Association, which
you may observe was used by Humieres, in the first wary League which was
formed in Picardy; and we see to what it tended in the event: For when
Henry III., by the assistance of the king of Navarre, had in a manner
vanquished his rebels, and was just upon the point of mastering Paris, a
Jacobin, set on by the preachers of the League, most barbarously murdered
him; and, by the way, take notice, that he pretended enthusiasm, or
inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit, for the commission of his parricide.
I leave my superiors to conclude from thence, the danger of tolerating
nonconformists, who, (be it said with reverence,) under pretence of a
whisper from the Holy Ghost, think themselves obliged to perpetrate
the most enormous crimes against the person of their sovereign, when
they have first voted him a tyrant and an enemy to God’s people. This,
indeed, was not so impudent a method as what was used in the formal
process of a pretended high court of justice, in the murder of King
Charles I., and therefore I do not compare those actions; but it is much
resembling the intended murder of our gracious king at the Rye, and
other places: And, that the head of a college might not be wanting to
urge the performance of this horrible attempt, instead of Father Edm.
Bourgoing,[34] let Father Ferguson[35] appear, who was not wanting in his
spiritual exhortations to our conspirators, and to make them believe,
that to assassinate the king was only to take away another Holofernes.
It is true, the Jacobin was but one; and there were many joined in our
conspiracy, and more perhaps than Rumsey or West[36] have ever named:
but this, though it takes from the justness of the comparison, adds
incomparably more to the guilt of it, and makes it fouler on our side of
the water.
My author makes mention of another conspiracy against Henry IV., for
the seizing of his person at Mante, by the young Cardinal of Bourbon,
who was head of the third party, called at that time the Politics, that
is to say, in modern English, Trimmers. This, too, was a limb of our
conspiracy; and the more moderate party of our traitors were engaged in
it.[37] But had it taken effect, the least it could have produced, was
to have overthrown the succession; and no reasonable man would believe,
but they who could forget their duty so much as to have seized the king,
might afterwards have been induced to have him made away, especially when
so fair a provision was made by the House of Commons, that the Papists
were to suffer for it.
But they have not only rummaged the French histories of the League for
conspiracies and parricides of kings; I shall make it apparent, that
they have studied those execrable times, for precedents of undermining
the lawful authority of their sovereigns. Our English are not generally
commended for invention; but these were merchants of small wares, very
pedlers in policy; they must like our tailors, have all their fashions
from the French, and study the French League for every alteration, as our
snippers go over once a year into France, to bring back the newest mode,
and to learn to cut and shape it.
For example: The first estates convened at Blois by Henry III. (the
League being then on foot, and most of the three orders dipped in it,)
demanded of that king, that the articles which should be approved by the
three orders should pass for inviolable laws, without leaving to the king
the power of changing any thing in them. That the same was designed here
by the leading men of their faction, is obvious to every one: for they
had it commonly in their mouths in ordinary discourse; and it was offered
in print by Plato Redivivus,[38] as a good expedient for the nation, in
case his Majesty would have consented to it.
Both in the first and last estates at Blois, the bill of exclusion
against the King of Navarre was pressed; and in the last carried by all
the three orders, though the king would never pass it. The end of that
bill was very evident; it was to have introduced the Duke of Guise into
the throne, after the king’s decease: to which he had no manner of title,
or at least a very cracked one, of which his own party were ashamed. Our
bill of exclusion was copied from hence; but thrown out by the House of
Peers, before it came to the king’s turn to have wholly quashed it.
After the Duke of Guise had forced the king to fly from Paris by the
barricades, the queen-mother being then in the traitor’s interests, when
he had outwitted her so far, as to persuade her to join in the banishment
of the Duke of Espernon, his enemy, and to make her believe, that if the
King of Navarre, whom she hated, were excluded, he would assist her in
bringing her beloved grandchild of Lorraine, to the possession of the
crown: it was proposed by him for the Parisians, that the lieutenancy of
the city might be wholly put into their hands; that the new provost of
merchants, and present sheriffs of the faction, might be confirmed by the
king; and for the future, they should not only elect their sheriffs, but
the colonels and captains of the several wards.
How nearly this was copied in the tumultuous meetings of the city for
their sheriffs, both we and they have cause to remember; and Mr Hunt’s
book, concerning their rights in the city charter, mingled with infamous
aspersions of the government, confirms the notions to have been the
same.[39] And I could produce some very probable instances out of another
libel, (considering the time at which it was written, which was just
before the detection of the conspiracy,) that the author of it, as well
as the supervisor, was engaged in it, or at least privy to it; but let
villainy and ingratitude be safe and flourish.
By the way, an observation of Philip de Comines comes into my mind: That
when the Dukes of Burgundy, who were Lords of Ghent, had the choice of
the sheriffs of that city, in that year all was quiet and well governed;
but when they were elected by the people, nothing but tumults and
seditions followed.[40]
I might carry this resemblance a little farther: for in the heat of the
plot, when the Spanish pilgrims were coming over,[41] nay more, were
reported to be landed; when the representatives of the Commons were
either mortally afraid, or pretended to be so, of this airy invasion, a
request was actually made to the king, that he would put the militia into
their hands; which how prudently he refused, the example of his father
has informed the nation.
To shew how the heads of their party had conned over their lesson of the
barricades of Paris, in the midst of Oates his Popish plot, when they
had fermented the city with the leven of their sedition, and they were
all prepared for a rising against the government; let it be remembered,
that as the Duke of Guise and the council of sixteen forged a list of
names, which they pretended to be of such as the king had set down for
destruction; so a certain earl of blessed memory caused a false report
to be spread of his own danger, and some of his accomplices, who were to
be murdered by the Papists and the royal party; which was a design to
endear themselves to the multitude, as the martyrs of their cause; and at
the same time, to cast an odious reflection on the king and ministers,
as if they sought their blood with unchristian cruelty, without the
ordinary forms of justice. To which may be added, as an appendix, their
pretended fear, when they went to the parliament at Oxford; before which
some of them made their wills, and shewed them publicly; others sent to
search about the places where the two houses were to sit, as if another
gunpowder plot was contriving against them, and almost every man of them,
according to his quality, went attended with his guard of Janizaries,
like Titus:[42] so that what with their followers, and the seditious
townsmen of that city, they made the formidable appearance of an army; at
least sufficient to have swallowed up the guards, and to have seized the
person of the king, in case he had not prevented it by a speedy removal,
as soon as he had dissolved that parliament.
I begin already to be tired with drawing after their deformities, as a
painter would be, who had nothing before him in his table but lazars,
cripples, and hideous faces, which he was obliged to represent: yet I
must not omit some few of their most notorious copyings. Take for example
their Council of Six, which was an imitation of the League, who set up
their famous council, commonly called “Of the Sixteen:” And take notice,
that on both sides they picked out the most heady and violent men of the
whole party; nay, they considered not so much as their natural parts,
but heavy blockheads were thrown in for lumber, to make up the weight.
Their zeal for the party, and their ambition, atoned for their want of
judgment, especially if they were thought to have any interest in the
people. Loud roarers of _aye_ and _no_ in the parliament, without common
sense in ordinary discourses, if they were favourites of the multitude,
were made privy counsellors of their cabal; and fools, who only wanted
a parti-coloured coat, a cap, and a bawble, to pass for such amongst
reasonable men, were to redress the imaginary grievances of a nation,
by murdering, or at least seizing of the king. Men of scandalous lives,
cheats, and murderers, were to reform the nation, and propagate the
Protestant religion; and the rich ideots to hazard their estates and
expectations, to forsake their ease, honour, and preferments, for an
empty name of heading a party; the wittiest man amongst them to encumber
and vex his decrepit age, for a silly pique of revenge, and to maintain
his character to the last, of never being satisfied with any government,
in which he was not more a king than the present master. To give the
last stroke to this resemblance, fortune did her part; and the same
fate, of division amongst themselves, ruined both those councils which
were contriving their king’s destruction. The Duke of Mayenne and his
adherents, who were much the most honest of the Leaguers, were not only
for a king, but for a king of the royal line, in case that duke could not
cause the election to fall on himself, which was impossible, because he
was already married. The rest were, some for this man, some for another,
and all in a lump for the daughter of Spain; this disunited them, and
in the end ruined their conspiracy. In our Council of Six, some were
for murdering, and some for securing of the king; some for a rising in
the west, and some for an insurrection of the Brisk Boys of Wapping:
in short, some were for a mongrel kind of kingship, to the exclusion
of the royal line, but the greater part for a bare-faced commonwealth.
This raised a division in their council; that division was fomented into
a mutual hatred of each other; and the conclusion was, that instead of
one conspiracy, the machines played double, and produced two, which were
carried on at the same time. A kind of spread eagle plot was hatched,
with two heads growing out of the same body: such twin treasons are apt
to struggle like Esau and Jacob in the womb, and both endeavouring to be
first born, the younger pulls back the elder by the heel.
I promised to observe no order, and am performing my word before I was
aware. After the barricades, and at many other times, the Duke of Guise,
and Council of Sixteen, amongst the rest of the articles, demanded of the
king to cashier his guards of the forty-five gentlemen, as unknown in the
times of his predecessors, and unlawful; as also, to remove his surest
friends from about his person, and from their places, both military and
civil. I leave any man to judge, whether our conspirators did not play
the second part to the same tune; whether his majesty’s guards were not
alleged to be unlawful, and a grievance to the subjects; and whether
frequent votes did not pass in the House of Commons at several times,
for removing and turning out of office those, who, on all occasions,
behaved themselves most loyally to the king, without so much as giving
any other reason of their misdemeanors than public fame; that is to say,
reports forged and spread by their own faction, or without allowing them
the common justice of vindicating themselves from those calumnies and
aspersions.
I omit the many illegal imprisonments of freeborn men, by their own
representatives, who, from a jury, erected themselves into judges;
because I find nothing resembling it in the worst and most seditious
times of France. But let the history be searched, and I believe Bussy
Le Clerc never committed more outrages in pillaging of houses, than
Waller in pretending to search for Popish relics:[43] Neither do I
remember that the French Leaguers ever took the evidence of a Jew, as
ours did of Faria.[44] But this I wonder at the less, considering
what Christian witnesses have been used, if at least the chief of them
was ever christened. Bussy Le Clerc, it is true, turned out a whole
parliament together, and brought them prisoners to the Bastile; and Bussy
Oates was for garbling too, when he informed against a worthy and loyal
member, whom he caused to be expelled the House, and sent prisoner to the
Tower:[45] But that which was then accounted a disgrace to him, will make
him be remembered with honour to posterity.
I will trouble the reader but with one observation more, and that shall
be to show how dully and pedantically they have copied even the false
steps of the League in politics, and those very maxims which ruined the
heads of it. The Duke of Guise was always ostentatious of his power in
the states, where he carried all things in opposition to the king: but,
by relying too much on the power he had there, and not using arms when
he had them in his hand, I mean by not prosecuting his victory to the
uttermost, when he had the king enclosed in the Louvre, he missed his
opportunity, and fortune never gave it him again.
The late Earl of Shaftesbury, who was the undoubted head and soul of
that party, went upon the same maxims; being (as we may reasonably
conclude) fearful of hazarding his fortunes, and observing, that the
late rebellion, under the former king, though successful in war, yet
ended in the restoration of his present majesty, his aim was to have
excluded his royal highness by an act of parliament; and to have forced
such concessions from the king, by pressing the chimerical dangers of a
popish plot, as would not only have destroyed the succession, but have
subverted the monarchy; for he presumed he ventured nothing, if he could
have executed his design by form of law, and in a parliamentary way. In
the mean time, he made notorious mistakes: first, in imagining that his
pretensions would have passed in the House of Peers, and afterwards by
the king. When the death of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey had fermented the
people; when the city had taken the alarm of a popish plot, and the
government of it was in fanatic hands; when a body of White Boys was
already appearing in the west,[46] and many other counties waited but the
word to rise—then was the time to have pushed his business: but Almighty
God, who had otherwise disposed of the event, infatuated his counsels,
and made him slip his opportunity; which he himself observed too late,
and would have redressed by an insurrection, which was to have begun at
Wapping, after the king had been murdered at the Rye.
And now, it will be but justice, before I conclude, to say a word or two
of my author.[47] He was formerly a Jesuit. He has, amongst others of his
works, written the history of Arianism, of Lutheranism, of Calvinism,
the Holy War, and the Fall of the Western Empire. In all his writings,
he has supported the temporal power of sovereigns, and especially of his
master the French king, against the usurpations and encroachments of the
papacy. For which reason, being in disgrace at Rome, he was in a manner
forced to quit his order, and, from Father Maimbourg, is now become
Monsieur Maimbourg. The great king, his patron, has provided plentifully
for him by a large salary, and indeed he has deserved it from him. As
for his style, it is rather Ciceronian, copious, florid, and figurative,
than succinct: He is esteemed in the French court equal to their best
writers, which has procured him the envy of some who set up for critics.
Being a professed enemy of the Calvinists, he is particularly hated by
them; so that their testimonies against him stand suspected of prejudice.
This History of the League is generally allowed to be one of his best
pieces.[48] He has quoted everywhere his authors in the margin, to show
his impartiality; in which, if I have not followed him, it is because
the chiefest of them are unknown to us, as not being hitherto translated
into English. His particular commendations of men and families, is all
which I think superfluous in his book; but that, too, is pardonable in a
man, who, having created himself many enemies, has need of the support
of friends. This particular work was written by express order of the
French king, and is now translated by our king’s command. I hope the
effect of it in this nation will be, to make the well-meaning men of the
other party sensible of their past errors, the worst of them ashamed, and
prevent posterity from the like unlawful and impious design.