Page:A Letter from a Person of Quality, to His Friend in the Country (1675).pdf/31

 as the same is or shall be establish'd by Act of Parliament, but this was not endured at all, when the Lord Grey of Rollston, a worthy and true English Lord, offered another Expedient, which was the addition of words, by force or fraud, to the beginning of the Oath, and then it would run thus, I do swear not to endeavor by force or fraud to alter; this was also a cure that would have passed the whole Oath, and seemed as if it would have carried the whole House. The Duke of York and Bishop of Rochester both seconding it; but the Lord Treasurer, who had privately before consented to it, speaking against it, gave the word and sign to that party, and it being put to the question, the major Vote answered all arguments, and the L. Grey's Proposition was laid aside.

Having thus carried the question, relying upon their strength of Votes, taking advantage that those expedients that had been offered, extended to the whole Oath, though but one of the 3 Clauses in the Oath had been debated, the other two not mentioned at all, they attempted strongly at nine of the Clock at night to have the whole Oath put to the question, and though it was resolutely opposed by the Lord Mohun, a Lord of great courage, and resolution in the Publick Interest, and one whose own personal merits, as well as his Fathers, gave him a just title to the best favors of the Court; yet they were not diverted but by as great a disorder as ever was seen in that House pro­ceeding from the rage those unreasonable proceedings had caused in the Country Lords, they standing up in a clump together, and cry­ing out with so loud a continued Voice Adjourn, that when silence was obtain'd, Fear did what Reason could not do, cause the question to be put only upon the first Clause concerning Protestant Religion, to which the Bishops desired might be added, as it is now established, and one of the eminentest of those were for the Bill added the words by Law; so that, as it was passed, it ran, I. A. B. do swear that I will not endeavor to alter the Protestant Religion now by Law established in the Church of England. And here observe the words by Law do directly take in the Canons though the Bishops had never mentioned them. And now comes the consideration of the latter part of the Oath which comprehends these 2 Clauses, viz. nor the Goverment either in Church or State, wherein the Church came first to be con­siderd. And it was objected by the Lords against the Bill that it was Rh