CORRESPONDENCE RELATING TO THE NON-JURORS (1691).
Source.—Letters between Ambrose Bonwicke and Richard Blechynden (Cambridge in the Days of Queen Anne, by J. E. B. Mayor, pp. 217-221).
Aug. 11. Bonwicke to Blechynden.
I suppose ... that king James had a right to my allegiance, and that secured by an oath; and unless he has given away this right or forfeited it, it is still in him. Now to me it does not appear that he has done either, therefore I dare not give it to another, which ... is the design of the new oaths.... I ought not to have entered into the obligation if I had not designed to have kept it.
Aug. 15. Blechynden to Bonwicke.
He that has no longer a right to the government has no longer a right to my allegiance.... King James has shewn, that he neither has the qualifications for government, nor for this of the English.... A full possession of the power, especially when recognised by the grandees and main body of the people, gives him that has it a title to the obedience and fidelity (or, if you will, allegiance) of all within his territories; at least they are guilty of no sin that promise fidelity to him.
Aug. 20. Bonwicke to Blechynden.
I should be glad to find my friends and relations (whom I have so great a concern for) are in the right, and that it is prejudice in me has blinded me so long. Though I suppose it would be perjury in me to quit that oath that I still think obligatory, yet I have a very charitable opinion of those that have taken the new one, and suppose that conscience has been as much their guide in taking it, as it has been mine in refusing it.... I suppose a man may be dispossessed of a legal right no otherwise than by law.... I am to consider how I am to behave myself under a king, that has possession and not right. The execution of those laws that protect me are (sic) in his hands; I will give him all the obedience that is necessary for that purpose.... But to take an oath of allegiance to the king de facto, certainly cancels my oath of allegiance to the former.... If it were barely submitting to him in power, I suppose we should have no great dispute.
Aug. 25. Blechynden to Bonwicke.
Municipal laws are not the sole measure of right and wrong. There is a superior law of right reason, which respects the common good of mankind, which gave beginning to all civil societies.... You say treason against the king de facto is not treason de jure; hereby you must mean according to equity and right reason; for treason against a king de facto is the only treason by the law of the land, if Coke and Hales[27] may be credited.... You call for a legal forfeiture; nothing else, say you, will forfeit a legal right to a crown. But if you please to consult the gentlemen that write politics, who surely are the best guides in this affair, you will find them assign a great many others.... The assemblies of the grandees and parliaments have near forty times either deposed their prince or waived the next of kin for the good of the community.
Aug. 31. Bonwicke to Blechynden.
Reason must be our best guide, and she has directed you to take the oaths, as she does me to refuse them. I consider on one side there is only a little temporal concern, and on the other the danger of perjury.... For what you urge, that therefore I ought to have no protection from king William, I must be contented; but I think it is the law that protects us both. At present it only deprives us of our livings, and that we must submit to. When the laws become more severe, we must shift as well as we can, and if we cannot live in this country, fly to another.... A whole nation can as ill dispense with their oaths as a single person.
Sept. 5. Bonwicke to Blechyenden.
I do really take those laws which have been made since king William's coming to the crown to be good laws.... King James has lost thus much by losing possession: he has lost the assistance of his people, for it would be treason and illegal to fight against king William, who has now the law on his side.
Sept. 8. Blechynden to Bonwicke.
The defence of the society being the sole ground (and measure too) of our obedience and fidelity to our chief governor, it is plain that it is due to him, and to him only, that can and does defend society.... If you will rightly weigh the matter, it is not only a little temporal concern that pleads for your taking oaths. For (pardon my plain dealing) you are chargeable with disobedience to the powers that be, with depriving your country (for which we are all in a great measure made) of the good you may do in your present station, or in the ministry; and with the making or strengthening a party against the public establishment, to the great prejudice of church and state; besides the injury to yourself and family, which an honest man ought not to prejudice but upon very good grounds. All this, I say, you are chargeable with, if the taking the oaths be not manifestly sinful. For the danger or fear of its being so is not sufficient to justify the neglect of any duty, and an opposition to a public establishment and the benefits of it. Reason will prefer the good of the community before that of a single man, especially of one already very false to his trust.... It is not plain that I am sworn to king James; the oath in an equitable interpretation not reaching the present case; nor has king James any reason to insist on it as the present circumstances are; nor ought you to oblige me by my oath to hurt my neighbours, or my country, how rigorous soever I might be otherwise to myself. There is a great deal of difference between a private oath relating to my own concerns of which I am master; and a public, which was made for the good of the public, and therefore ought in no wise to be strained to the prejudice of the same.... The affection that men are bred up with towards the memory of king Charles the first, and the abhorrence of the parliament of 1641, does extremely prejudice men for kings and against parliament; but both extremes are to be carefully shunned.
[27] Coke and Hales were amongst the most eminent of Stuart lawyers.