Next to Stephen succeeded Henry the second, the son of
Mand, who as heir of his predecessours way of usurpation,
quartered the arms of England, with the Lordship of Ireland,
by the Sword; as his successor Edward the first, by
the same means, cemented the principality of Wales to the
Kingdom of England, with the blood of Leoline, and his
brother David, the last of the Welsh Princes.
Next, Edward second was forced by arms to surrender
his right to his son Edward the third, whose Grandchild
and successor Richard the second, was in like manner,
by force of arms, deprived by Henry of Lancaster, called
Henry the fourth; whoseson Henry the fifth, made good
not only that Title, but carved out a new one with his
Sword to the Crown of France, in defiance of the Salick
Constitution, and lest it so confirmed unto his son Henry
the sixth, that he was Crowned King of France, at Paris;
And so he continued, till (Fortune turning) his Title was
cancelled there by the Sword of the French, as it was likewise
in England by that of Edward the fourth; whose son
Edward the fifth, was forced to leave the Crown in the bloudy
hands of Richard the third; from whom again it was wrested
by Henry the seventh. This Henry, (from whom the
young Pretender at present derives his claim) was little less
then a Bastard, issued from one of the spurious branches of
John a Gaunt; he was also a private man; and not onely so,
but an Exile; one that had been attainted in Parliament, and
fled out of the Nation; yet this man, by meer Fortune and
Power, made a shift to carve out a Title to the Crown; For,
as he came in with an Army, so by Power he was made
King in the Army, and by the Army: So that his Successors
downwards, can produce no other Patron then the Sword,
to all their sacred and glorious Pretences.
Was it the Sword then that did thus enslave us from time
to time, and shall we not free our selves now we have the
Sword in our own hands? Must usurpers ride in triumph,
with the Sword by their sides, over the heads of the people?
and shall not the Patriots of England, adorned with all