Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew (1st ed. vol 3).djvu/37

 “The French King durst not throw off his disguise, and shew himself to be like a ravening wolf to his Protestant subjects, until our now King had publicly espoused the Popish design, which he had together with him long prosecuted in the dark; and until he had begun to invade the Protestant liberties and securities, putting the military power in Popish hands; and to demand the Parliament’s consent to a law (which they refused) to authorise him to make his Papists the guardians of the Protestants’ religion and lives.

“The French King then knew that the People of England were in no capacity to interpose in behalf of his Protestant subjects; and (as his Edict says) being by the truce without fear of disturbance he entirely applied himself to the great design; he sent his dragoons to destroy the poor Protestants’ goods, and to torment their bodies with more cruelty and inhumanity than was ever practised since the Creation. He resolved (as his clergy told him) to show himself the first and most illustrious of the Church’s children, and the Extirpator of the Protestant Heresy, which (they told him) was a more solid and immortal title than he acquired by all his triumphs.

“He then prosecuted that work of extirpation, as Saul did, to strange countries, breathing out threatenings and slaughter. He sent to the Duke of Savoy and (as that court complains) persuaded and frighted that prince into a most unchristian and bloody decree, to compel the most ancient Protestants in the Valleys of Piedmont to become Papists forthwith; and they being faithful to their religion, that edict was pursued by the help of his dragoons, and the harmless Protestants tormented and murdered more cruelly than the worst of vermin or serpents, until they were utterly destroyed anil their country given to the Papists. That Court of Savoy seems still ashamed of that horrid wickedness, and says for their excuse, That the French King declared he would root out those Protestants by his own force, and possess the country, if the Duke would not have assisted therein.

“The suppression of the Protestants of England hath been always esteemed the principal part of the Popish design to extirpate the Protestant religion. And therefore all the Romish councils, policies, and industries, their conspiracies, poisoning, and massacres, have been long employed about it, and have perfectly gained our now King to serve their designs. They have united him with the French King, that their conjoined councils, treasures and strength may finish their work of bringing England to the obedience of their Church. It’s, many ways, evident that both the Kings are under the like conduct; and our King proceeds in the same methods against us, wherein the French King hath been successful to destroy the Protestants of his kingdom. His first attempt is to subvert our civil government and laws, and the freedom and being of our parliaments, just as the French King first invaded the supreme legal authority of France, which was vested in the Assembly of Estates, from whom alone he now derives his crown. Our King, in imitation of his brother of France, strives to bring all the offices and magistracy of the kingdom, that were legally of the people’s choice, to be solely and immediately depending on his absolute will for their being, whether they arise by our common law, or be instituted by statutes or charters. He endeavours, by various artifices, to bring the disposal of all the properties and estates of the people and their lives and liberties to be at his mere will, by a perversion of the instituted course of our Juries, and by Judges and a Chancellor fit for that purpose and every moment dei)endent on his will. He seeks to make his Proclamations and Declarations to have as much power over our laws as the French King’s Edicts. And after his example he establisheth a mercenary army to master and subdue the people to his will.

“If he can prevail in these things to overturn the civil government, then the liberty of the Protestant profession and of conscience in all forms, however seemingly settled by liim, will be precarious. And he may as easily destroy it as the French King hath abolished the irrevocable edicts, treaties or laws of his kingdom, confirmed by his oath, which were as good security to those Protestant as any Magna Charta that our King can make for us, or any Act of a Convention (with the name of a Parliament) which is possible for him to hold in the state unto which he hath reduced the kingdom. Our King hath the same French copy by