THE NECESSITY OF SETTLING THE Crown of England.  
WITHOUT making particular remarks upon what I am about to acquaint the Reader with, which is bare matter of Fact, or any application thereof to our present circumstances, as supposing the design of this Paper obvious to all Men's understandings at the first view; I shall in the First place, relate some of those considerations, that induced the whole Parliament in the Twenty eighth year of Queen Elizabeth's Reign to petition the Queen, That sentence of Death, which had been given against Mary Queen of Scots, might be put in Execution; And Secondly, I shall represent how the Succession to the Crown of England now stands, and into what Families it is likely to come, if care be not taken thereof in this present Convention.  
The Parliament in the Twenty eighth of Elizabeth was Summoned and Assembled upon no other cause, or ground, than the timely, and strange Discovery of that bloody, and merciless Treason Plotted by Babington, and others, for the violent taking away of her Majesty's Life, of which Mary Queen of Scots had been first by a most Just and Honourable Trial fully Convicted, and afterwards judicially pronounced to have been in a high nature Guilty. But yet her Majesty not being satisfied with her so just Trial and Attaindure, Assembled the Parliament on purpose, that so all those former Proceed, how just soever, might be further committed and referred to the Impartial Examination, and Final Judgement of the whole Realm.  
Both Houses of Parliament Unanimously voted the Sentence to be just, true and honourable, and Petitioned the Queen that Execution might be done; for that they could find no other way to secure her Majesty's safety, and that of these Realms.  
The Reasons upon which they grounded their Petition, I shall put down, as succinctly as I can, out of Sir Simon D'Ewe's Journal of Queen Elizabeth's Parliaments; and they are as follow, viz.  
For that they had a long time, to their intolerable grief, seen by how manifold, most dangerous and execrable practices, the said Queen of Scots had compassed the destruction of her Majesty's person, thereby not only to bereave them of the sincere and true Religion of Almighty God, bringing them and this Noble Crown back again into the Thraldom of the Romish Tyranny, but also utterly to ruinated, and overthrow the happy State and Commonweal of this most Noble Realm: to Banish and destroy the Professors and Professing of the true Religion of Jesus Christ, and the ancient Nobility of this Land, and to bring this whole State and Commonweal to Foreign Subjection, and to utter ruin and confusion; which malicious purposes would never cease to be prosecuted by all possible means, so long as the said Queen's Confederates, her Ministers, and Favourers had their eyes and imaginations fixed upon the said Queen, the only ground of their Treasonable hopes and conceits, and the only Seed-plot of all dangerous and traitorous Devious and Practices against her Majesty's Sacr●d Person. And for that upon Advised and great Consultation they could not find any possible means to provide for her Majesty's Safety, but by the just and speedy Execution of the said Queen, the neglecting whereof might procure the heavy displeasure and punishment of Almighty God, as by sundry severe Examples of his great Justice in that behalf left us in sacred Scripture, doth appear; and that if the same were not put in Execution, they should thereby (so far as man's reason could reach) be brought into utter despair of the continuance amongst them of the true Religion of Almighty God, and of her Majesty's Life, and of the safety of all the subjects, and of the good estate of this Flourishing Commonweal.  
For that she (the said Queen of Scots) had continually breathed the overthrow and suppression of the Protestant Religion, being poisoned with Popery from her tender Youth, and at her Age joining in that false termed Ho●●●●eague, and had been ever since, and was then a professed Enemy of the Truth.  
For that she rested wholly upon Popish hopes, to be delivered and advanced, and was so devoted and doted in that Profession, that she would (as well for the satisfaction of others, as for the feeding her own humour) supplant the Gospel where and whensoever she might: Which evil was so much the greater, and the more to be avoided, for that it slayeth the Soul, and would spread itself not only over England and Scotland, but also into all parts beyond the Sea, where the Gospel of God is maintained; the which cannot but be exceedingly weakened, if defection should be in these two most valiant Kingdoms.  
For that if she prevailed, she would rather take the Subjects of England for Slaves than for Children.  
For that she had already provided them a Foster-father and a Nurse, the Pope and the King of Spain; into whose hands, if it should happen them to fall, what could they else look for, but ruin, destruction and utter extirpation of Goods, Lands, Lives, Honour and all?  
For that, as she had already by her poisoned baits, brought to destruction more Noble men and their Houses, and a greater multitude of Subjects, during her being here, than she would have done, if she had been in possession of her own Country, and armed in the Field against them; so would she be still continually the cause of the like spoil, to the greater loss and peril of this Estate; and therefore this Realm neither could, nor might endure her.  
For that her Sectaries both Wrote and Printed, that the Protestants would be at their wit's end, world's end, if she should overlive Queen Elizabeth: 〈◊〉 thereby, that the end of the Protestant world was the beginning of their own and therefore if she, the said Queen of Scots, were taken away, their world would be at an end before its beginning.  
For that since the sparing of her in the fourteenth year of Queen Elizabeth's Reign, Popish Traitors, and Recusants had multiplied exceedingly: And if she were now spared again, they would grow both innumerable and invincible also: And therefore mercy in that case would prove cruelty against them all: Nam est quaedam crudelis misericordia; and therefore to spare her blood, would be to spill all theirs.  
For that God's Vengeance against Saul for sparing the Life of Agag, and against Ahab for sparing the Life of Benhadad, was most apparent; for they were both by the just Judgement of God deprived of their Kingdoms, for sparing those wicked Princes, whom God had delivered into their hands. And those Magistrates were much commended, who put to death those mischievous and wicked Queens, Jezabel and Athalia.  
How far these Reasons, that then swayed with the Lords, both Spiritual and Temporal, and all the Commons, to Petition the Queen for the Execution of Mary Queen of Scots, aught in this present Conjuncture of Affairs to sway with the people of England against any Application to, or coming to any manner of Accommodation with the now withdrawn King, will farther appear, if we take a view how the Succession to the Crown of England now stands, and into what Families we are like to fall, if timely remedy be not carefully applied.  
I shall say no more of the pretended Prince of Wales, than this, That if he be an Imposture, who shall secure us against having many more such tricks played us? If he be not an Imposture, he ought at least to be delivered into Protestant hands, to be Educated in that Religion, which whoever comes to be King or Queen of England must swear to Maintain and Defend: If not, every man is at liberty to imagine, what the Nation may expect from such a Successor.  
The next Heir to the English Crown, after the two Princesses, and the Prince of Orange, was the Princess Henrietta, King Charles the First's Youngest Daughter, she was Married to the only Brother of the French King, by whom she had Issue, two Daughters; the Elder of which is Married to Charles the Second of that name, now King of Spain, by whom she as yet had no Issue.  
The younger Daughter is Married to the Duke of Savoy; by whom she hath Children.  
The next Heir to the Crown of England, is the Princess Lovisa, only Daughter of Charles Lodowick, Prince Palatine, Married to the present Duke of Orleans, by whom she hath divers Children.  
The next Heir to the Crown of England, after the Issue of the present Duchess of Orleans, were three French Ladies, Daughters of Prince Edward, who was a Younger Son of the Queen of Bohemia; the Eldest of these is Married to the Duke d' Enguien, Eldest Son to the Prince of Co●de, the other two ●●e dead without Issue.  
So that unless the Nation take advantage of this opportunity, now so miraculously put into their hands by Almighty God, of securing to themselves their Religion, and Liberties, and securing the Government in Protestant hands; what can we expect, but to be delivered up in a few years' space, to a Spanish Inquisition, to French Dragooning, to Massacres, and all sorts of persecutions, which the poor Protestants have been harassed with in those Countries, by Princes of an inveterate and hereditary malice to us and our Religion; from whose Families we shall be forced to admit of Successors?  
FINIS.   

LONDON, Printed in the Year, 1689.