A LETTER from an Absent LORD to one of his FRIENDS in the Convention.  
My Lord,  
SInce you seem surprised that I answered not the Letter in which your Lp. so earnestly pressed to see me at London and at the Convention, in my place in the House of Peers: you will undoubtedly be more surprised to understand now, that the Letter from the House which I have received as well as the rest of the Lords, who stay in the Country, wrought no more upon me, than the many reasons alleged by your Lp. To deal ingenuously, I will freely tell you, that it absolutely confirmed me in my former Resolution to tarry at Home, and have nothing to do with your Assembly, strongly suspecting that we were sent for, only for Forms sake, and that nothing was feared more, than a full House of Lords; for your Lp. (I suppose) will agree with me, that, if we had all come up, you would not have been able to carry every thing according to the Pleasure of your new King, since the Vote of the House of Commons prevailing with much ado by bare two or three Voices, he was forced to make use of Threats and Promises to gain eight or ten more to pass it. You will easily believe that I and the greatest part of those who remain in the Country, would not have Voted on that side: And therefore I leave it with you to judge whether yourself and some sixty more, who Voted with you could have carried it against above one hundred and fifty who have had no hand in your Do: Wherefore I could not but perceive, that when they made Letters be written to us in the Name of the Upper-house, and engaged our particular Friends to urge our repair to London, they mocked both them and us, and feared nothing so much as to see all the Peers of the Kingdom assembled. For then, resolutions so extravagant, and so contrary to the good of the Nation, as have been taken, would never have passed. I pardon those of meaner extraction, as— who being sensible they were the first of their Race honoured with the Title of Lord, and made equal to those in whose Families heretofore they would have been glad to have lived, were the most eager to give the full swing to their new Honour, which they have so ill acknowledged from the King who gave it. I likewise Pardon the Lords,— whom the uneasiness of their Condition has cast into the wrong side, and those who have been drawn in, they themselves, as it often happens among us, not well knowing why. But I must confess I understand not how divers others, no ways subject to the same temptations, could be tainted with Baseness enough, to engage in an attempt so black and abominable as it is, to renounce the Obedience, which by Nature and Oath they own to a lawful King only, to become Slaves to the Prince of Orange.  
'Tis likely another would tell me I speak like a Papist, and an Advocate for Arbitrary Power, but you well know that I am of the Church of England, and that I have been so little employed in public Matters, and so little Favoured, since the death of His late Majesty, that I am not liable to the suspicion of Partiality. 'Tis true, I have not only unconcernedly observed, but sometimes praised the King's zeal to favour his Papists as much as he could, for I always thought, and so, to your knowledge did many of our Friends, that the Protestant Religion had nothing to fear, and that the noisy Designs to destroy it were no more than imaginary. I was always persuaded, and still am, that more improper means to advance Popery could not be taken, than those which were; and so it would never sink into my Head that there was any harm towards Protestant Religion in all those Alarms which startled many Religious Protestants who by their own Fears, and the Artifice of those who care not one pin for Religion, have been dipped in the present do, of which I doubt, we shall not see an end so soon. Pray, my Lord, could a Man of sense be alarmed at an Embassy to Rome when we knew the Ambassador so well as we did? And knew the first thing he did at Rome, was to fall out with good Cardinal Howard, and all that were able to instruct him in what might conduce to his purpose? Nuncio Dada too was a likely man to endanger the Reformation: I for my part, could never believe otherwise, but that he dreamt more of a Red Cap, than making Converts. Had he been put to defend his Religion against our Bishops, in what a case would he have been, whose Divinity stretched no farther, then to exclaim perpetually against, and all to be Heretic the French, often to the Scandal, and sometimes Laughter of the Company, especially when he would take upon him to play the Doctor: To my thinking most of the Papists were much discontented and slighted him among themselves, at least some have told me, that the Pope himself was ill satisfied with him, and would recall him, but since he did it not, it must needs be that he either ill understood the Affairs of England, or cared little for them. However it be these are the only hands, through which past all the Traffic betwixt England and Rome, whereof the one brought as bad Relations from thence, as the other sent from hence: And we may conclude, that the the reunion of the two Churches were possible, it would never be, by the Politics of the Ambassador, or Learning of the Nuncío.  
I hear what is said of the King's dispensing with the Test, his employing and advancing Papists to very considerable Places; his filling his Army with them, and his design of suppressing our Religion and Liberty by them; and I know how much it has been, endeavoured this last twelve Months to heighten these things and fright us all. To say the Truth, I must acknowledge I was myself for sometime of the number of those who believed there might be something in it: But it is now but too plain, that there was nothing. For had the King taken such Measures for such a purpose, he had not been so shamefully betrayed, whereas trusting to Protestants, he has hardly found a Man who would venture his Life for Him. In good Faith, my Lord, the injury we have done our Religion, grieves me strangely. For what Prince will ever trust us more, when all the Declarations of our Church and Universities, our Oaths, and whatever is most Sacred among Men, bind us no longer than we think sit? Our Bishops and Clergy as often as they Preach against Papists and reproach the inconsistancy of their Doctrine with the Duty of Subjects to their Sovereign, are sure to meet with an Answer; and I fancy there will fine Comments be made on a Coronation Sermon, the Dean of Canterbury's Letter to my Lord Russel, and the Oxford Censures, etc. I confess to you I know not what to say, save that all good Protestants will look upon those who have hurried your Convention into such Extremities, as Rebels, insensible of Religion or Law, and that as excusable as many honest dissenting Men among the Commons may be, the rest will not be reckoned among the true Children of the Church of England, nor of her Communion. I am thinking to write of this matter to a Bishop a Learned and an Honest Man, though I believe I know his mind by my own before hand. If the Yea among you alleged reasons of weight enough to silence all the scruples, which the Case must needs raise, you will much oblige me to acquaint me with them. For I declare to you, that as little as I pretend to Learning, I fancy I am Scholar enough to be pretty well assured there was none to be alleged able to satisfy a Man who has never so little smack of the Duty of Christianity; but strangely persuade myself there Votes were grounded upon the detestable maxims of Doleman; and Buchanan, Knox, Goodwin, Milton, and such Presbyterian Saints, whose Books, as often as they have been forbidden and condemned by the Parliaments and Church of England, I expect should now be reprinted by order of the Convention, not that I believe the leading Gentlemen troubled themselves at this time much with scruples: There is no better remedy against the Disease, than that Fanatical spirit which was predominant in your Assembly, chief in the House of Commons, made up for the most part of Nonconformist Presbyterians, who by the Laws of Q. Elizabeth and later Statutes ought to have been excluded. But let your new King alone for that matter, let him once be but steady in his Throne, he will quickly bring in more Christian Principles among you: Tho my Lords the Bishops, I am persuaded, will be the first Reform, according to the primitive Apostolic Pattern, and being eased of the heavy load of useless Riches, and worldly Honours, reduced, according to my Lord Shaftsbury's wish, to a Pension of bare 100 l. per Annum; some of them, to my grief, deserve it but too well, and if I should resolve to make one amongst you, I will not answer I shall Vote against it. But I declare to you, I shall concur in nothing else, and it shall be no fault of mine if those Lords with whom I have any credit; join not to undo all you have done as soon, as the Nation, which I hope it quickly will, shall open its Eyes and become sensible of the infamy which your Convention has thrown upon it.  
The truth is, there need no meeting for the matter. For that were to suppose some Authority in what you have done, whereas it has none: and is every way extravagant. You must needs have lost your Wits, if you imagine we shall ever take the Votes of your Houses for Laws. You will know that England acknowledges no other Law, but those which are made by Lawful Authority, that is, by the King in Parliament. Search all Parliaments, search all Court-Rolls, there are no other to be found. I appeal to the very Lawyers, who, after they had been of Council to all the Seditious Men; and Conspirators of late times, were chosen to be yours. These Famous Lawyers and you yourselves, know that no Authority but the King's alone, can call the Peers and Commons together, and you acknowledged it, by not daring at first, to take the Name of Parliament upon you. You are therefore Convened by the bare Authority of the Prince of Orange, and that Authority you gave him, tho' you had none to give him; Put case you had, he was incapable either to receive or exercise it. For having entered the Kingdom in Arms, Declared against the King, and attempted upon His Sacred Person and Liberty; he incurred the Crime of High Treason, and forfeited all his Rights, Honours and Prerogatives in case he be a Subject; If he be not, he is a public Enemy, and against whom the Nation is bound to stand by the King, and not to obey him under pain of High Treason. And yet this is the Authority by which you sit, and which by your own confession cannot make an Assembly, such as our Laws call a Parliament. And yet this notwithstanding your Convention, which, stretch its Power to the utmost, cannot pretend to more than Parliament Power, has done what no Lawful Parliament ever durst do; Judge their King; Declared His forced Retreat, to be an Abdication of the Government, and the Throne Vacant; and finally, disposed of it to the use of P. of Orange. I beseech you, send me word what Precedents your Learned Council brought for these Resolves. Those of the Spencers and other Traitors of those times? or those of Cromwell? I know none else who maintained, that as often as a King Governs not according to Law, his Subjects may take Arms and compel him to it. But you know all Parliaments have placed this case amongst Crimes of High Treason.  
The truth is, you have bethought yourselves of a subtle expedient, which I expect should be clapped for a colour upon your Proceed, viz. that you did not vacate the Throne, but only filled it when it was vacant. But in good faith this is to top upon a whole Nation with your false distinctions. In virtue of what Law I beseech you, could you declare the Throne vacant? can a parcel of Seditious Men, met at the tumultuous call of an Usurper, give sentence in such a cause? Is the Kingdom of England Elective? and is there any uncontested Precedent to be found, which Authorises the People to dispose of the Crown, or declare it Vacant? can an Hereditary Kingdom become Vacant otherwise than by the Death of the Lawful Occupant? This way perhaps your new King might have made it Vacant; but tho' it were, is there no Heir? The Prince of Wales, for whose Birth all England, and the Prince of Orange himself so solemnly Congratulated with his Father, is He no longer in the World? And is He not considerable enough to be thought of? His age is not capable of breaking the Original Contract, which you have fancied between King and People, and therefore the Throne, if it be Vacant, must belong to Him. I know the Prince of Orange would make a Counterfeit of Him, and this becomes his Conscience. But tell me in yours, whether all these impotently malicious surmises, which are spread by his Emissa●ys, be not palpably shameful? So shameful, that he has not yet ventured to press you, as great an Influence as he has among you, to come to a Declaration in that point. It is reserved it seems to your Parliament in which Oats and his Brethren of the Post, will swear some misshapen Oath for Burnet to lick over, and you upon their credit enact him suppositions, in virtue of some new Law which shall reach backwards, as, That the Queens of England (to purpose) shall be no where validly Delivered, but in the Banqueting-house, both Houses of Parliament present.  
I will say nothing of your Grievances, as much more cry than wool as there is in them. But I will stop a little at the New Oaths, which you substitute in place of those which are appointed by Law. You, my Lord have taken the Oaths of Allegiance, Supreamacy, and the Test, as well as your Neighbours. Do you believe those Oaths obliged you to perform what you swore, and tied you to the King to whom you swore, or do you not? In likelihood you do not, since those Oaths notwithstanding, you thought yourself free to take up Arms against your King, and to join with His Enemies: of necessity then, you must either be Perjured, or believe there is no regard to be had to Oaths, as indeed you were no Slaves to yours. We must be confident Men to reproach the Papists longer with their Lies and their Equivocations, (to which abundance of them are no greater Friends than we) when your Convention not only teaches, but order us to make such May-Games of our Oaths. Besides they were Enacted by Parliament, the bare dispensing with which, in favour of Papists, is a principal part of your Outcry against His Majesty; with what face can you take them quite away, and pop in others in their room, you who by changing your Convention into a Parliament, acknowledge you have not the Authority of a Parliament? How could you do, what you make a Crime in the King, who at worst has an Authority, which you have not? Zeal, I suppose, for Protestant Religion, will be pleaded for your Proceeding, and your strange Votes against the King. And yet it would puzzle the most Religious Man of quirk among you to cite the Article of Protestant Religion, or Act concerning it, which justify your Zeal. There is none which enables Subjects to dispose of the Crown, in case their King profess not the Protestant Religion. On the contrary, the last Act of Uniformity formally detests the Doctrine of those who teach that Subjects may take up Arms against their King. And tho' some Law had made the Profession of the Protestant Religion necessary, to be King of England, it were to be understood of the Protestant Religion Established by Law: yet you take the boldness to declare the Throne Vacant, (whatever you pretend to in reality) because the King is of the Romish Religion, and at the same time set up a Man who has always been of a Religion contrary to Law, as well as the King, since the Prince of Orange is a Protestant Dissenter, for the Law is against Protestant Dissenters as will as Papists. But I see you take upon you to do, what the fanatics have so often demanded, and no Legal Parliament yet would ever grant, to take away the Penal Laws from Protestant Dissenters, and leave them still in force against Papists. Where I ask again, what Authority you have to alter the Laws, and what pretence to Dispense with them, when you fall out with the King for Dispensing? Turn it which way you will, these Proceed are unmaintainable, and as you are no Stranger to our Laws, you will I make no doubt, acknowledge that there is no speaking of them and your Votes the same day.  
And then the King is traduced with designing Arbitrary Power, when the Arbitrary Power of the Convention has subverted more in a week, than our Kings in a hundred years. It has subverted the Fundamental Law of Succession; all that have been made for the security of Kings and the State; those of Supreamacy, of Uniformity in Religion, and so many other, that there will hardly remain more, than just to keep Nisi prius es going. For in what concerns Criminal matters, all Laws have been laid aside by the illegal Proceed against divers Papists and others, Peers as well as Commons Imprisoned against Law, and this at the very time in which complaint was made of bringing one into the Kings-Bench, who ought to have been Tried in Parliament. Peers are privileged Persons; how then can you take upon you to Arrest even Popish Peers, you who neither had the Authority, nor Name of a Parliament? The Law allows the meanest Man in the Nation his Habeas Corpus, and by it his Liberty upon Bail, and yet you refused it to Peers. The Chancellor is the Third Man in the Kingdom, and has the privilege not only of his Peerage, but of his Office, which makes the usage he has received, Treason. And yet you have put and kept him in Prison; notwithstanding that, even tho' you had been a Lawful Parliament, all you could do, is to Address to the King to punish him for Maladministration, if he be guilty. But I will enlarge no farther upon your irregular do, whereof I do not think it possible to pack a greater number into one Vote. I will only tell you (that to my thinking) your Convention has outdone the long Parliament itself in bare faced contempt of the Laws. Those Seditious Parricides stumbled not, as you do, at the Threshold. They demanded, and (tho' by very bad means) obtained a Parliament, They acknowledged the King's Power when they met, they sought, and (to his, and the whole Nations misfortune) got his consent to an Act for not Disolving or Proroging them, without their own consent. They then, kept at least some measures, you keep none; and they were a Parliament, you are not. I know you ill, if you will always be content the World should think something better of the most execrable Parricides, that ever were, and take you for the less modestly wicked of the two.  
For what concerns your new King, he has nothing but Force to trust to, the only thing which can silence the Laws and preserve him. But I am persuaded that you, who are his Favourites, will be the first to repent the trusting your Liberty in such bad hands. Those Brutes of Hollanders, are far from the Freemen which he found them. He persuaded them to rid themselves of their best Patriots, as he has persuaded you to rid yourselves of your King: and is like to make you sensible one day, that your great Liberty which you found, it seems, uneasy, will bid fair to enslave you. If persuasions will not do, there are other expedients in the World, which may, and if we will believe malicious Tongues, have been thought of, I for my part am resolved to stay at home, till I see which way matters are like to go. Whatever you Writ, I cannot but think them wondrous tottering still, tho' he has appeared in his Robes, perhaps suspecting, that if he had stayed his Coronation day, he might never have worn them,. Between you and me, the Description you make, puts me in mind of Kings in old Tapestry, with their Crowns and their Mantles always on, even in Bed. 'Tis like that day he went to Bed with his, to expose the Raree-Show a while longer: But let him Reign over those, who find him, and his ways to their mind, happen what will, I will not taint my Family and my Credit, no not with Treason, if sure to be pardoned, and the Infamy of acknowledging a Foreign Usurper, whose double Alliance to the Royal Family, is the only pretence he has to the honour of commanding us. When I take a fancy to choose a Master, I will pitch upon one of a higher rank. As my humour is, I should rather, if I had been a Hollander, have obeyed the King of Spain, than a Gentleman of Germany; and being an Englishman will never submit to a man, whose Nobility is no higher raised above mine. And this is my Resolve upon the Question, to which I believe, I shall always adhear, let what will be offered to the contrary. As for the dismal consequences, with which you threaten me, I hope they will pass one way or other. For we live in the Land of Revolutions, where Changes happen in a moment, and always without knowing why. If they will not let me stay quietly at home, Ireland is not so far off, but that I may slip thither, where, as I have a Title, I declare to you before hand, that if the King call a Parliament, you are like to hear news of Dametas. I do not mean to be Deaf and Dumb there, as I have been to your Convention. Only I am troubled for my Countrymen, whom their Titles, or other considerations, make answerable before a Parliament of Ireland. If the rigour of the Law should fall upon them, they can the less complain, because the English having set the Irish so many examples of severity, and that too in the case of men, who had done and suffered much for the King, they cannot well expect to be spared by the Irish. These thoughts grieve a man who loves his Nation. But since all the Calamities, still fresh in memory, which the last long Rebellion powered upon the Kingdom, cannot extingvish that violent Animosity, which some men have against Lawful Princes, who can complain or wonder, if Providence permit it those which are not so. I shall have at least, the satisfaction to have had no hand in them, and will never with your distinction of de facto, and de jure Kings, distinguish myself into the Politic Idolatry of falling down before the Idol of the Commons, Perhaps we may one day see the Golden Calf bruised to pieces. You may dance about it in the mean time, and your Aaron the Bishop of London and such Levites cry out, These are thy Gods O Israel, which have brought thee out of the Bondage of Egypt. This is the MESSIAH of the Presbyterians, who has broken in pieces the CHAINS of POPERY, and delivered you from the Slavery of Arbitrary Power. They may amuse, and they may lull you asleep, till you wake, much I fear, in Blood. God in his Mercy, will I hope, take pity on honest Men. And as to the Gentlemen of the House of Commons, we may possibly live to see some of them led to Tyburn. Many to my knowledge did deserve it long before the Convention, and without that Dispensing Power, against which they are now so eager, bid much fairer for the Halterlative than the Legislative Power, for Hanging than for Parliament Speeches. The worst is, that nothing they have, or can do, can keep them clear of the guilt of High Treason, into which they have run you All; and the best I can wish you, is that our Lawful King may speedily return, and bury all Faults in an Act of Oblivion, the only thing which can secure your Estates, your Honours, and your Lives. It was the Advice of Honest Judge Jenkins to the Roundheads who came to him for Council in the time of Charles the I. They Laughed at him, as you perhaps will at me. But he was found to be in the right at last, and so, I hope, shall I. In the mean time I entreat you that these matters may not slacken our old Friendship, I am, etc.  
At— 20th. April 1689