castle. The king, indeed, had another kingdom in view, where he hoped to enjoy 4. It was further asserted, "That a magistrate dispossessed hath no right to be restored, nor the subject any obligation to seek to restore, but oppose him. For, what is man, or rather mankinde (for so we have styled a nation), better than a herd of sheep or oxen, if it be to be owned, like them, by masters? What difference is there between their masters selling them to the butcher, and obliging them to venture their lives and livelihoods for his private interest? We know it is natural, that the part should venture for the whole; but that the whole should venture the loss of itself to save the part, I cannot understand. The governour is the highest and noblest part, yet but a part; the people is the whole, the end (though not by office, yet by worth and dignity), the master and lord, for whom those who are lords by office are to be vested and devested in lordship, when it is necessary for the common good. Who thinks otherwise deserves not the name of man."--Such were the arguments alleged in behalf of obedience and submission to the new government: arguments which demonstrate the writers of them to be men of real abilities, and knowledge of politics! Arguments which shew they had got loose from the trammels of education, custom, and prejudice; and dared to think and speak like men. Strong were our sires, and as they fought they writ, DRYDEN. And to manifest still farther the utility of submitting to the commonwealth government, it was shewn, that The Ground of Obedience and Government, by Thomas White, p. 142 2d edit. Lond. 1655. his own will without restraint, and to be the young king had not the least probability of success in any attempts he might make against it; or that, if he should succeed, the consequences would be terrible. -"From foreign nations he could expect little aid;for as things were then constituted, some princes wanted leizure, others ability, to assist him; and divers refrained for particular reasons of state. Nor could he reasonably expect much assistance from our own nation, as the people will be less apt to engage in new insurrections, since the last thrived so ill, to the prejudice and shame of all the undertakers. Mobs might rise; but it is not like that the gentry, men of estates, will stir in any considerable number, to hazard their possessions, being yet scarce warm in them, after a purchase made upon dear rates of composition.-But should the royalists proceed with success to the ruin of this government, such inconveniences would follow to the whole nation, as would hinder all wise men from wishing well to them. For the king must come in by the power of the sword; he will be perswaded, if not inclined, to tyrannize; there will be no act of oblivion pass'd beforehand, and if he gain possession, it is a question then, whether he will grant any afterward; or if, for fashion sake, he do grant one, how far shall it extend, and whether it may not be eluded, to make way for revenge against particular persons, who, perhaps, little dream of an inquisition for past offences, as being of the moderate sort of offenders against the regal person and prerogative.-Kings, it was said, were revengeful, and princes that come from banishment to a kingdom, were observed to reign very bloodily:whereof they shall be first sensible," adds this writer, "that have opposed his interest; and such are all assisted, on his own terms, to recover his those in this nation that have appeared for the parliament against the encroachments of the prerogative. Nor let them flatter themselves, that they shall scape better than others, because they never opposed this princes person. It will be ground sufficient for his hatred, that they bandied against his father, and the prerogative, to which he is heir. Nor is it likely he will forget the observation made by one of his chaplains, in a sermon before him at the Hague; how that the presbyterians held his father by the hair, and the independents cut off his head; nor is it to be supposed that we shall have many parliaments hereafter; for, besides the provocations given by parliament, it is against the nature of kings to love parliaments or assemblies of their people; and it was left as a legacy by king James to his family, in his Basilicon Doron, that his successors should neglect parliaments as much as might be so that consider how this prince is engaged, not only by the interest of the crowne, his particular personal interest of revenge, but also by the precepts of his grandfather, and the common inclination of all monarchs; and we may easily imagine what will become of parliaments, and parliament patriots, if ever he get possession."" And whereas many adhered to the prince, in their hearts, in hope they shall be eased of excise and taxes, &c. if he be restored, they are exceedingly mistaken. If now we have burdens, we must then look to have furrows made upon our backs. If now we are, through necessity, put to endure a few whips; we shall then, of set purpose, be chastised with scorpions. It is not an excise, or : ⚫ Case of the Commonwealth, p. 40-45. See also note 36. other dominions. This was Ireland; where an army, that we shall escape; but be visited with whole legions of foreign desperadoes, which must be fed with greater payments than ever, and God knows when we shall be rid of them, if the prince settle upon their shoulders! Consider, how many hungry Scots gape after this gude land, who, with those of other nations, must be satisfied out of the purses of our own, whilst those that are their leaders will be gratified with this, that, and the other mans lands and possessions.Lastly, the princes consideration with the Scots, and our English presbyters (were there no other reason), might be enough to terrify any ingeniously-minded people from giving their assistance, be they royalists or not. For if the kirk be able to bind the prince to hard conditions, and prove (like the sons of Zeruiah) too strong for him, so that his interest. bow to theirs, then, instead of a regal (which is more tollerable) we must all stoop to the intollerable yoke. of a presbyterian tyranny, that will prove a plague upon the consciences, bodies, and purses of this free nation. The Scots by this means will effect their designe upon us, by stretching their covenant-union to an equality of interest with us in our own affairs: and the English grandees of that party will seat themselves again in the house, and exclude all others, or else a new party shall be called of persons of their own faction; so that if they should carry the day, all the comfort we shall have by casting off the present governors, will be only that we shall have these furious jockies for our riders. Things, perhaps, shall be in the old statu quo, as they were when the late king was at Holdenby, whose son must then lay his scepter at the foot-stool of the kirke, or else they will restore 1 he had been proclaimed by the marquis him by leizure (as they did his father) into the exercise of royalty: by which means we should be brought again, as far as ever we were, from a condition of settlement, and the commonwealth reduced to ashes by endless combustions. On the other side, put the case the prince have the better end of the staffe of the presbyters (they relying upon his courtesie, as well as the rest of the people), then, in case he carry the day, they, and all, are at his mercy, and no bar will be in the way to hinder him from an ascent unto an unlimited power. So that you plainly see, this present combination of royallists and presbyters (whichsoever of them be most prevalent) must of necessity put the nation in a hazard between Scylla and Charybdis, that we cannot chuse but fall into one of the pernicious gulphs, either of presbyterian or monarchical tyranny. The reader doubtless will expect to find what effect this controversy produced on the behaviour of the people, for whose satisfaction, as well as the respective interests of the king and the commonwealth, it was, as pretended, set on foot. Bishop Sanderson tells us, "that very many men, known to be well affected to the king and his party, and reputed otherwise both learned and conscientious (not to mention the presbyterians, most of whom, truly for my own part, when we speak of learning and conscience, I hold to be very little considerable), have subscribed the engagement; who in the judgment of charity, we are to presume, would not so have done, if they had not been perswaded the words might be understood in some such qualified sense as might stand * Case of the Commonwealth, p. 47. |