The King.
’TIS hard to make an Accomoda∣tion between the King and the Parliament. If you and I fell out about Money, you said I ow’d you Twenty Pounds, I said I ow’d you but Ten Pounds, it may be a third Party allowing me twen∣ty Marks, might make us Friends. But if I said I ow’d you twenty Pounds in Silver, and you said I ow’d you twenty Pounds in Diamonds, which is a Summ innumerable, ’tis impossible we should e∣ver agree. This is the Case.
The King using the House of Com∣mons, as he did in Mr. Pymm and his Company, that is, charging them with Treason, because they charg’d my Lord of Canterbury and Sir George Ratcliff; it was just with as much Logick as the Boy, that would have lain with his Grandmo∣ther, us’d to his Father, you lay with my Mother, why should not I lie with yours?
There is not the same Reason for the King’s accusing Men of Treason, and carrying them away, as there is for the Houses themselves, because they accuse one of themselves. For every one that is accused, is either a Peer, or a Com∣moner, and he that is accused hath his Consent going along with him; but if the King accuses, there is nothing of this in it.
The King is equally abus’d now as before; then they flatter’d him and made him do ill Things, now they would force him against his Conscience. If a Physi∣cian should tell me, every thing I had a mind to was good for me, tho’ in truth ’twas Poison, he abus’d me; and he a∣buses me as much, that would force me to take something whether I will or no.
The King so long as he is our King, may do with his Officers what he pleases; as the Master of the House may turn a∣way all his Servants, and take whom he please.
The King’s Oath is not security e∣nough for our Property, for he swears to Govern according to Law; now the Judges they interpret the Law, and what Judges can be made to do we know.
The King and the Parliament now falling out, are just as when there is foul Play offer’d amongst Gamesters, one snatches the others stake, they seize what they can of one anothers. ’Tis not to be ask’d whether it belongs not to the King to do this or that: before when there was fair Play, it did. But now they will do what is most convenient for their own safety. If two fall to scuffling, one tears the others Band, the other tears his; when they were Friends they were quiet, and did no such thing, they let one anothers Bands alone.
The King calling his Friends from the Parliament, because he had use of them at Oxford, is as if a Man should have use of a little piece of Wood, and he runs down into the Cellar, and takes the Spiggot, in the mean time all the Beer runs about the House; when his Friends are absent, the King will be lost.