Clifford said, he knew how many enemies he must needs make to himself, by his Speech in the house of lords: but he hoped, that, in it, he both served and pleased the king; and was therefore the less concerned in every thing else: but he was surprized to find by the duke, that the king was now of another mind. The king was in some confusion: he owned all he said was right in itself; but he said, that he, who had sat so long in the h. of commons, should have considered better what they would bear, and what the necessity of his affairs required. Lord Clifford, in his first heat, was inclined to have laid down his staff, and to have expostulated roundly with the king: but a cooler thought stopped him. He reckoned he must now retire; and, therefore, he had a mind to take some care of his family in the way of doing it so he restrained himself, and said he was sorry, that his best-meant services were so ill understood. Soon after this, letters came from the French king, pressing the king to do all that was necessary to procure money of the parliament; since he could not bear the charge of the war alone. He also wrote to the duke and excused the advice he gave, upon the necessity of affairs; but promised faithfully, to espouse his concerns, as soon as he got out of the war; and that he would never be easy, till he recovered that which he was now forced to let go." Address of both Houses against the Growth of Popery. March 7. Both houses agreed to the following Address to his majesty: pleased, that the lord chancellor of England shall, on or before the 25th of March iust. issue out commissions of Dedimus l'otestatem to the Judge Advocate and Commissaries of the Musters, and such other persons as he shall think fit (not being officers commanding soldiers, to tender the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy to all officers and soldiers now in your majesty's service and pay; and that such as refuse the said oaths may be immediately disbanded, and not allowed or continued in any pay or pension; and that the chancellor shall require due returns to be made thereof within some convenient time after the issuing out of the said commissions. 3. That the said Commissaries of the Musters be commanded and enjoined, by your majesty's warrant, upon the penalty of losing their places, not to per mit any officer to be, mustered in the service and pay of your majesty, till he shall have taken the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy; and received the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper according to the laws and usage of the Church of England; and that every soldier serving at land shall take the said Oaths before his first muster, and receive the Sacrament in such manner before his second muster.-And this we present in all dutifulness to your majesty's princely wisdom and consideration, as the best means for the satisfying and composing the minds of your loyal subjects; humbly desiring your maj. graciously to accept of this our petition as proceeding from hearts and affections entirely devoted to your inajesty's service, and to give it your royal approbation." The King's Speech to both Houses.] March 8. This day the king went to the house of lords, and, sending for the commons, made the fol lowing Speech: 66 "Most gracious sovereign; We, your majesty's most loyal subjects, the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present parliament assembled, being very sensible of the great dangers and mischiefs that may arise within this your majesty's realm, by the in- My lords and gentlemen; Yesterday you crease of Popish Recusants amongst us; and presented me an Address, as the best means considering the great resort of Priests and Je- for the satisfying and composing the minds of suits into this kingdom, who daily endeavour to my subjects; to which I freely and readily seduce your majesty's subjects from their reli- agreed and I shall take care to see it pergion and allegiance; and how desirous your formed accordingly. I hope, on the other loyal subjects are, that no Popish Recusants side, you, gentlemen of the h. of commons, be admitted into employments of trust and will do your part; for I must put you in mind, profit, and especially into military commands it is near 5 weeks since I demanded a Supply; over the forces now in your majesty's service; and what you voted unanimously upon it, did and having a tender regard to the preservation both give life to my affairs at home, and disof your majesty's person, and the peace and heartened my enemies abroad: but the seeming tranquillity of this kingdom, do in all humility delay it hath met withal since, hath made desire: 1. That your maj. would be pleased to them take new courage; and they are now issue out your royal Proclamation, to command preparing for this next summer a greater fleet all Priests and Jesuits (other than such as, not (as they say) than ever they had yet; so that. being natural-born subjects to your majesty, if the Supply Le not very speedily dispatched, are obliged to attend upon your royal consort it will be altogether ineffectual; and the safety, the queen) to depart within 30 days out of this honour, and interest of England, must of ne your majesty's kingdom; and that if any Priest cessity be exposed. Pray lay this to heart; or Jesuit shall happen to be taken in England and let not the fears and jealousies of some after the expiration of the said time, that the draw an inevitable ruin upon us all-My laws be put in due execution against them; Lords and Gentlemen; If there be any Scruple and that your maj. would please, iu the said remain with you concerning the Suspension of Proclamation, to command all judges, justices Penal Laws, I here faithfully promise you, of the peace, mayors, bailiffs, and other off- that what hath been done in that particular cers, to put the said laws in exccution accord-shall not for the future be drawn either into ingly. 2. That your maj. would likewise be consequence or example; and as I daily ea pect from you a bill for my Supply, so, I assure you, I shall as willingly receive and pass any other you shall offer me, that may tend to the giving you satisfaction in all your just grievances." The King's Answer to the Address.] March 8. The lord chancellor reported, That both houses waited upon the king yesterday, and presented him with the Address against the Growth of Popery; and his maj. hath been pleased to return this Answer: "My lords and gentlemen; I do heartily agree with you in your Address, and shall give speedy order to have it put in execution: there is one part to which I believe it is not your intention that it should extend; for I can scarce say those are in my pay that are presently to be employed abroad; but as for all the other parts, I shall take care it shall be done as you desire." The King cancels the Declaration of Indulgence.] There was another particular," the ford chancellor said, "he thought fit to acquaint them with; which, though it was by his majesty's leave, yet it was not by his command: however, he thought it his duty to acquaint the house with it (Mr. Secretary Coventry intending to acquaint the h. of commons with the same): That his maj. had the last night, in pursuance of what he then intended, and declared this morning, concerning the Suspension of Penal Laws not being for the future drawn either into consequence or example, caused the original Declaration under the great seal to be cancelled in his presence; whereof himself and several other lords of the council were witnesses." All this was so satisfactory to the parliament, that both houses joined in the following vote, *Resolved nem. con. That the humble and hearty Thanks of these houses be returned to his majesty, for his gracious full and satisfactory Answer this day given to their humble Petitions and Addresses.' This was declared to the king in the Banquetting-House, by the mouth of the lord chancellor at the head of both houses: to which his majesty made this Answer, "My lords and gentlemen, I hope there never will be any difference amongst us; I assure you there shall never be any occasion on my part." Debate on the Bill to prevent the Growth of Popery; commonly called the Test Act.] March 12. A Bill to prevent the growth of Popery was read a third time in the house of commons. Mr. Harwood tendered a Proviso 'tor renouncing the doctrine of Transubstantiation, for a farther Test to persons bearing office. Mr. Secretary Coventry. After Consubstantiation, now Transubstantion. Will you not have God there? Will you exclude him? Sir John Birkenhead. In queen Mary's time, persons were never put to swear it. Though there are distinctions of 'realiter, et verè et corporaliter,' would not have a scholastical oath: we say God is there, and the difference is de modo: great charge on the Synod of VOL. IV. Dort, who would impose swearing controversial points: as the words are now penned, people are put to swear they know not what; and for the dangerousness thereof, would lay it aside. Mr. Harwood has discoursed this point with able men. Doubts not, but they must make more of the bread and wine in the Sacrament, than bread and wine; what by faith is one thing, and this tends no farther." Col. Titus thinks the thing of dangerous consequence. If this proviso is to make a Test, you have your end. They hold, that, after Consecration, the elements are turned into the body and blood of Jesus Christ; but we hold, that, after Consecration, nothing remains but bread and wine; and he would have the Proviso no more. Sir Tho. Higgins. If you intend it as a Test, no Papist, after taking the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, but will swallow this. Why do not you put renouncing all the rest of the Romish points? Sir Wm. Coventry. Higgins says, 'the Test is unnecessary, because evaded.'' Has studied controversy little if he crrs in the matter, asks pardon: thinks a farther Test requisite. The Sacrament they will take, and the Oath of Allegiance, but not that of Supremacy; certain bulls forbidding them, and the Pope may dispense with his own bulls. This doctrine of Transubstantiation is part of their faith, and the Pope cannot dispense with it; therefore there is need of a farther Test, and this the Pope cannot take away: it would be ill resented abroad to refuse a better and farther Test than the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy, and he would have this received. Mr. Vaughan. The Church of England holds, that our Saviour spoke the words, This is my Body,' figuratively: no remembrance but of things absent: the church of Rome says, we hold Christ is mystically there; they, that Christ is as much present then, as when crucified. Cannot but hold, that Christ was but once crucified-[He reads the passage in the Common Prayer Book, of no corporal presence.] Sir Tho. Clarges is afraid of this proviso: swearing doctrinal points will give offence to the Lutherans: the Papists say, Christ is really there after consecration; and therefore adora-, tion. The Lutherans believe Transubstantiation, but only at the instant when delivered, and communicated: you are told, It is matter of faith, and the Pope cannot dispense.' If the Pope can dispense with one thing, he may do it with another. He never heard the Oath of Supremacy dispensed with in the troops, some few years since here, few soldiers would take the Oaths of Supremacy; they would rather lose their places: in the late times there was an Oath like this Test, which many that now go to mass would take. Mr. Solicitor North would have no swearing: he was for the Covenant Test, as a seditious * Afterwards successively attorney general, 20 thing; but as this is no way tending to it, but only as to doctrinal points, is against such an oath. Mr. Waller. The word, merely bread and wine,' in the proviso, he excepts against: be. lieves the doctrine of the Sacraments well expressed in the 39 Articles: the thing is of great consequence, and no Clergy here present; we believe the very body, and therefore the word 'merely' is not reconcileable: would have the subscription in the very words of the Articles, which will take off the objection of swearing scholastically. Sir Rob. Holt. Pope Pius V. offered a dispensation to the emperor Maximilian, as well as to queen Eliz.; you are to renounce all the Articles of the Council of Trent, as well as this: thinks the thing secure enough by the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, but if will go farther, would have the bishops consulted with. you Earl of Ancram. The Lutherans opinion, as Clarges said, is not Transubstantiation; the Papists say, one body goeth, and another cometh in the place: consubstantiation, which the Lutherans hold, is grammatically with it,' and not changed into it.' Sir Rd. Temple. If we so scruple the wording it here, it will be much more scrupled in the nation : in Henry viii th's tine, the five Articles were to be subscribed, under the penalty of treason: knows not that the Pope ever gave indulgence for taking the Oath of Supremacy, but believes he grants absolution after the thing is done: besides this Test, would make subscribing the 39 Articles, but pray leave these Oaths of Abjuration in matters so mystical. Sir Eliab Harvey observes one thing in this Ease we have been told, we have no Test upon the Papists; if there be none for the Papists, this is none for the Protestants, in the bill of Easc. Sir John Duncombe fears it will have this effect, that some will let religion and all go, if preferment lies in the way, and so it will make men Atheists. Sir John Birkenhead. Did ever any Church impose swearing doctrinal points? No Church, either Greek or Latin, ever did it; never was such an oath before. Col. Strangways. Though great disputes 'are between us and the Papists, yet all Protestants hold against it: if once we deny our senses, we lose our senses; for every new shift of the Pope, would have another shift from us: you are now making distinction betwixt Protestant and Papist: a criterion you must have; the Pope will never dispense with doc lord chief justice of the common pleas, and lord keeper, and, in 1683, created lord Guilford. We are told by his nephew Mr. North, "that he was not an orator, as commonly understood, that is, not a flourisher, but all his speech was fluent, easy, and familiar, and he never used a word for ornament, but for intelligence only." Life, p. 332. | | The Bill with the Amendments passed; the title was, "An Act for preventing dangers that may happen by Popish Recusants." The Eart of Bristol's Speech in favour of the Test-Act.] March 15. When the Bill came to be debated in the house of peers, in the presence of the king himself, the earl of Bristol, though a professed Roman Catholic, unexpectedly stood up for the Bill in general, and spoke remarkably upon it; of which some account shall be given to shew the temper of the times, as well as the ingenuity of the speaker. Towards the beginning of his speech he declared himself a Catholic of the Church of Rome, not a Catholic of the Court of Rome; a distinction he thought worthy of memory and reflection, whenever any severe proceedings against those they called Papists should come in question, since those of the court of Rome did only deserve that name.' Therefore be insisted, 1 hat they should not speak here as Roman Catholics, but as faithful members of a Protestant parliament.' Coming to the Bill itself he proceeded thus: "In the first place, my lords, I beseech you to consider, that this bill * ، The Popish party had rendered themselves formidable by their obtaining many places of honour, profit, and trust; but now a Bill was depending that would certainly throw them out of all, and secure all places to those of the Church of England alone. This was called the Test-Act, which was particularly promoted, if not invented by the earl of Shaftsbary, who resolved to strike directly at the duke of York and his friends; though the act reached all sorts of Dissenters. This bill gave a great alarm to many persons, who used all means to oppose it; but it soon passed the house of commons, whose apprehensions of Popery daily increased. By this Act, it was provided, That all persons bearing any office, or place of trust, or profit, should take the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance in public and open Court, and should also receive the Sacrament of the Lord's-Supper, according to the usage of the Church of England, in some parish church, on some lord's day immediately after divine service and sermon, and deliver a certificate of having so received the Sacrament, under the bands of the respective minister and church-wardens, proved by two credible wit nesses upon oath, and put upon record in court: and that all persons taking the said Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance, should likewise make and subscribe this following Declaration: I, A. B. do declare, that I do be'lieve there is not any Transubstantiation in the Sacrament of the Lord's-Supper, at, or 'after the Consecration thereof, by any person whatsoever.' This Act, and Test therein prescribed, has been generally accounted a great Bulwark to the Established Church of England." Echard. | for securing of general fears, is brought up to disturbance of mens minds in the concernments Debate on ingrossing the Bill for the Supply.] March 15. Mr. Sec. Coventry. Hears that the Dutch call in their privateers, and will be speedily out: Remember Chatham business: Whenever the king neglects execution of the laws, he fails of his duty; and when you neglect to supply him you do not your duty; the king has done his part to the full: moves for a shorter day, for reading the ingrossed Bill. Captain Legge gives an account of many Created lord Dartmouth in 1682. He was afterwards Master of the Horse to James ii, Governor of the Tower, &c. and at the time of the Revolution, he was Admiral and Commander in Chief of the English fleet, which was detained in the Thames by the same wind that brought the Prince of Orange over. In 1691, he was committed to the Tower, where he died of an apoplexy, three months after. Burnet says, "He was one of the worthiest men of king James's court. He loved him, and had been long in his service and in his confidence: But he was much against all the conduct of his affairs; yet he resolved to stick to him at all hazards." + Echard. men deserting his ship, (the Royal Catherine) | a printed paper of imposition on commodities, upon the rumour that the parliament would give the king no money. Sir Tho. Meres. There was such a time as seamen's deserting us, (within a fortnight) and then there was reason for it; but now, blessed be God! the reason is removed: The motion is good, in relation to the king's affairs: Remembers with what unanimous consent the money was given, intended for his best service; and remembers then who moved for it. The bill may have its due execution, within its time, if delayed a little: As to the affairs of this house, businesses cannot go fairly up to the lords house, now upon our hands: As to the lords, he denies not but things do yet go fairly on. Would not have this bill sent up to hinder them, to make the parenthesis in a business there to interrupt them; he offers the lords leisure, but imposes nothing on them: If any man would have the Money Bill pass in the lords house the next week, concludes that the rest of the bills cannot go with this. Sir Tho. Osborne, is sorry to hear a day named so far off, you hear the approach of the Holland fleet and is sorry to have occasion so often to tell you of the backwardness of ours. Mr. Vaughan. The giving this Bill so speedily out of our hands may call us a kind and bountiful parliament, but never a wise one: The not passing the other bill will expose us to right of conquest again: A greater matter than any thing else: When the king has hearts, he has purses also, and can never want seamen: There is that scatters and yet increases; and there is that with-holdeth more than is ineet, and it tendeth to poverty.' Sir Rob. Howard. After Chatham business, the king had a greater opportunity to impose than he has now: It looks hard, that after the king has granted so much, you should be jealous: the king has not left any thing to do to us; and must we stop Supply, because other persons (the lords) have not done what you would have them? This bill cannot be ingrossed suddenly: It would look ugly in any man to do it: no man can write the Bill fairly till Tuesday: hopes the thing will be as full of good intentions as ever; but that those intentions, with delay, will be defeated. Mr. Garroway, hopes in time we shall have an answer from the king, as to the impositions; and possibly some persons, that advised that with the Declaration, may have apprehensions upon them he forgives them and prays God that he would: hopes for a general pardon, that they may have the benefit of it. Mr. Powle, conceives it the right of parliament not to enter into debates, so much as of Supply, till redress of grievances; and it seems a tacit obligation upon the king, to redress the grievances, because it smooths the way the better for money: no man can think that we have no more grievances than already complained of: would not delay the bill till all the grievances be redressed, but would till they are stated to the king: sees by authority, not imposed by act of parliament: It is said, that, by stopping the bill, we shall put a violence on the lords; but we put none upon them: if this issue with them answers not our ends, we may think of something else: all ar guments he hears spoken of, for the hastening this bill, are the tragical fates of necessity; but still asks, Who occasioned this necessity: when it might have been prevented by the parliament's being called in Oct. last; and thinks them guilty of a great crime that were the authors of the advice of prolonging it till now; and hopes to have that, and some other grievances, redressed; your clerk, he hears, sat up all night to ingross part of the Money Bill, and it cannot be retarded by a few days. Mr. Thomas. We have exposed the person of the king, by answering our grievances of Popery; and thinks the king not safe without removing some persons; and names lord Arundel of Wardour, col. Rd. Talbot, and father Patrick. Sir John Duncombe, is much surprized at the motions he has heard to day; very unreasonable, and untimely brought forth: no prince ever made such an answer as the king bas made; he has done what lies in him: is sorry to see still new clouds rise: nothing is gone from you yet, but the Bill of Popery, and the first moment read in the house of lords, and they are now sitting upon it: why is this? He never heard a question, that after this bill is perfected, it should not be ingrossed: your fears are taken away; if ingrossed, you may stop it still. Is ashamed to tell you of the lowness of the exchequer *; but those arguments are stopped by money: appeals to gentlemen concerned in the revenue and navyoffice, if things are not at a stop for want of money: the thing is not graceful, it has not a good countenance; it is so methodical, so easy and decent, the question for ingrossing, that he wonders any man can press against it: no man can take any thing from us: the bill, after being ingrossed, may lie upon the table, and you may call for it as you shall see occasion. Col. Strangways. Consider the nature of the thing; we owe the removal of our jealousies to the king, who has graciously done it: was it not a great point, the redressing our laws, when attempted to be destroyed at one blow? every man knows, that these Money Bills are ingrossed to your hands: when we follow the steps of our ancestors, we shall do as wise things as they did. Let the Bill be ingrossed, and lie upon your table,' say some; but what calling will there be for it then? fears nothing but surprizes: would not force the lords, but would have them pressed by some arguments we use here is for Friday. Sir Tho. Lee. If one great and extraordinary grievance be, and that redressed, shall * He was at this time chancellor of the exchequer. |