Numb. 49
Domestick Intelligence,
Or, News both from
CITY and COUNTRY.
Published to prevent false Reports.
Tuesday, Decemb. 23. 1679.
London Decemb. 22.
LAst Friday being the nineteenth of this Instant December, the Justices of the Peace of Middlesex and Westminster attended His Majesty in Council, to receive Power and Instructions for the removal of all Papists from the Cities of London and Westminster, in pursuance of His Majesties late Proclamation to that Purpose, and being called in, there were Orders given them, to make strict search for all Papists that are His Majesties Subjects, or any other Popish Recusants who have not the Priviledge of continuing here, (in Sommerset House in the Absence of the Queen, as also in His Majesties Palace at St. Jame’s,) and that the said Justices of the Peace, shall seize and Imprison all that be found Transgressors of the Law, and Condemners of His Majesties Authority. His Majesty hath also sent Orders into the Countrey to the several Knights of the Shire, to take an Exact List of the Names of all the Papists of any repute in their Respective Counties, and to return the said List to the Secretary of State, to be communicated to the Council, and that thereupon such Effectual proceedings would be used against them as the utmost Severity and Rigour of the Law will allow, and the said Lists being accordingly returned to the Lords of the Committee appointed to consider of the most Effectual means for putting the Laws in Execution against Papists, and for the suppression of Popery (mentioned in our last) the Lord Chancellor has order to prepare Commissions (in which the said Lists are to be Inserted) which do Impower and require the Justices of Peace of the several Counties in England and Wales, to tender the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy to all Persons mentioned therein, and in case of their Denial to take the same, to proceed against them according to Law, in order to their speedy Conviction; with the said Commissions are also to be sent special Instructions for the better direction of the said Justices therein, and also Letters from the Council Board, to require and Encourage them diligently to Execute the said Commissions, and to send up an Account of their proceedings, as likewise the Names of all other Papists and Suspected Papists as are not in the said Commissions, And that no Papist shall be allowed a License or Dispensation to stay in Town; Further that a List be taken of all House-keepers, and especially such as entertain Lodgers within the Bills of Morality, and of all Midwives, Apothecaries and Physicians that are Papists or suspected to be such, and to return the List to the Council: And that no Papist may Harbour in any of His Majesties Palaces, a Commission is ordered for the Green-cloth to offer the Oaths of Allegiance, Supremacy and the Test to all Papists and Suspected Papists as shall be found in Whitehall, and the Precinct thereof, who upon refusal are to be proceeded against according to Law, And the Messengers and Knight-Marshals men are ordered to seize and bring them before the said Officers, and a Reward of Ten pound is to be paid to those who shall discover any Papist or suspected Papist in any of His Majesties Houses, and the Officer that harbours them shall be turned out of his Place, and Imployment. And the Officers of the Parishes, where Ambassadors and Forreign Ministers reside shall have Lists brought them of their Menial Servants, and if any others shall presume to resort to their Popish Chappels they shall be seized and prosecuted.
It hath been given out that Francis Smith the Bookseller, was upon the seventeenth of this Instant December, by order of the Council Board, Committed to Newgate for Printing the Association, and Seditious Queries upon it, and Promoting Tumultuous Petitions, but our last gave you a True Account of his Committment as expelled in the Warrant, and that he had brought his Habeas Corpus upon the late Act of Parliament, and we can now assure you that upon Friday the Nineteenth Instant he was thereupon restored to his Liberty.
This day, December 22. was the Election (according to the Custom of the City of London) of the Common-Council-men for the year ensuing, and all good Protestants are abundantly satisfied, that those who are chosen are such as will stedfastly adhere to the Protestant Interest, and will upon all occasions assert their own, and the Rights of this City.
The Gazette having told you, That the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London, were directed by the Lord Chancellor, by His Majesties Command, not to suffer such persons as should sign tumultous Petitions to go unpunished, but that they should proceed against them, or cause them to be brought before the Council Board to be punished as they deserve, according to a Judgment of all the Judges of England 2 Jacobi, we suppose it may gratifie our Readers curiosity, (and prevent this danger too) to see what the Law Books say therein. Judge Crook in his Reports, folio 37. saith, That by command from the King, all the Justices of England, and divers of the Nobility, with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Bishop of London, were Assembled in the Star-chamber, when the Lord Chancellor demanded of the Judges, whether it were an Offence punishable, and what punishment they deserve, who framed Petitions, and Collected a multitude of hands thereto, to present to the King in a publick cause, as the Puritans had done, (which was as it seems for Alteration of the Law (with an intimation to the King, that if he denied their Suit, many Thousands of his Subjects would be discontented;) whereto all the Justices answered, “That it was an Offence fineable at Discretion, and very near Treason and Fellony, in the punishment, for they tended to the Raising of Sedition, Rebellion, and Discontent among the People,” To which Resolution all the Lords agreed, and then many of the Lords declared that some of the Puritans had raised a false Rumor of the King, how he intended to to grant a Toleration to Papists, which offence the Justices conceived to be highly fineable by the Rules of the Common Law, either in the Kings Bench, or by the King and his Council, or now since the Statute of the 3. Henry 7. in the Star-chamber, The Lords severally, declared how the King was discontented with the said false Rumor, and had made but the day before a Protestation unto them, That he never Intended it, and that he would spend the last Drop of Blood in his body before he would do it, and prayed that before any of his issue should maintain any other Religion then what he truly professed and maintained, that God would take them out of the world.