Refractoria disputatio: or, The thwarting conference,: in a discourse between [brace] Thraso, one of the late Kings colonels. Neutralis, a sojourner in the city. Prelaticus, a chaplain to the late King. Patriotus, a well-willer to the Parliament. All of them differently affected, and disputing on the subjects inserted after the epistle, on the dissolution of the late Parliament, and other changes of state.

Of the Kings Prerogative to call and dissolve Parliaments at his own will and pleasure.

AS to the Kings power to call and dis∣solve Parliaments at his will & pleasure, to summon a Parliament with one breath, and blow it away with another blast of his mouth (as 'tis still frequently maintained by Royalists and others newly started up, that by Law and presidents he was enabled to do) is an assertion so irrational, as that I wonder not so much at their ignorance, as their audacious language; since 'tis the known Law of the Land, and by two Statutes of near 400 years standing, ordained, That Par∣liaments shall be call'd once every year, and oftner as the emergency of affairs may give occasion; why then it should rest in the kings onely power to call them, and that his assent to a Triennial Parliament should be such a

boon bestowed on the people, surely may encrease the wonder, since by our old Laws and the usuages of former times, they ought not to be dissolved, until all grievances be heard and redrest; otherwise to what end or use were Parliaments Instituted? which as one calls them, are the Beasoms that sweep clean all the nasty corners of the Common-Wealth. But observe the sad consequences of this absurdity; for suppose the King would not call any Parliament in ten or twelve years together till his necessities inforc't him, how then should the publick grievances be redrest, and by whom shall the disorders and obliquities of the Church and Commonwealth be rectified? Royalists An∣swer, by the king alone, or his Councel of State, as the suprem Magistrate within his own Dominions; A strange task surely for one man to undergo, and more then that active Magistrate Moses was able to per∣form, as we may see by * 1.1 Iethro's Counsel, who advised to take in∣to his assistance, the Princes and best of the people to ayd him in the Ad∣ministration of Justice to the Israelites, and all that with the least in a populous Nation. Well then, let it be considered how many grievous enormities and disorders (during that interval of ten years discontinuance at

least of Parliaments) were crept into the Church and State (meerly through their dis∣use) we have sorry cause to remember, when through the pangs of the kings necessities, the ill managery of the publick affairs, the prodi∣gality of the Court, the corruption of all Courts of Justice & the Judicature, with the li∣centiousness of a dissolute Clergy, inforc't him at last to cal the late Parliament; yet how soon he endevoured by his many wiles & practises to annihilate it, nay, by all possible means he could invent, hindred their endeavors, in reducing the Church and Common-wealth into order, never ceasing to interrupt their consultations, purposly to disorder and thrust all into a Chaos of confusion, insomuch as to this day, the Parliament have had their hands full to finde out the means how to reduce and settle things in that order as at first they might have been, had not the publick affairs been obstructed, and all reformation hindred by his onely means, so to render them as odious to the future, and as contemptible to the people, as heretofore they were bo∣loved and desired of them; notwithstanding that at their first sitting down he promised to contribute his own Authority to theirs, and to leave the re-ordering of all things amiss to their onely managery, an overture so acceptable unto them, as that in retribu∣tion

thereof, how willing and intentively bent they were (in the midst and heat of their distractions) to make him rich and glorious; and how indulgently ready to cover his faults in the recovery of his honour at home, and his reputation abroad, none unless blinde men, or besotted, but may remember: But the truth was, he could not brook any Rival with himself in the Government, pursuing to the last his design of absoluteness so long, that in the end the Parliament was inforc't not to retain any longer such a Rival as a King amongst them, but rather chose to estate the people in the same peaceable Go∣vernment as we see it now established, then to imagine themselves able to better it by retaining of Kingship.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Exo. 18.