Selections from the Declaration of the Prince of Orange, September 30, 1688

... We cannot any longer forbear to declare that, to our great regret, we see that those counsellors who have now the chief credit with the King have overturned the religion, laws, and liberties of those realms and subjected them in all things relating to their consciences, liberties and properties to arbitrary government ...

Those evil counsellors for the advancing and colouring this with some plausible pretexts did invent and set on foot the King's dispensing power, by virtue of which they pretend that, according to the law, he can suspend and dispense with the execution of the laws that have been enacted by the authority of the King and Parliament for the security and happiness of the subject and so have rendered those laws of no effect ...

Those evil counsellors, in order to the giving some credit to this strange and execrable maxim, have so conducted the matter, that they have obtained a sentence from the judges declaring that this dispensing power is a right belonging to the Crown; as if it were in the power of the twelve judges to offer up the laws, rights and liberties of the whole nation to the King, to be disposed of by him arbitrarily and at his pleasure ...

It is likewise certain that there have been, at divers and sundry times, several laws enacted for the preservation of those rights and liberties, and of the Protestant religion; and, among other securities, it has been enacted that all persons whatsoever that are advanced to any ecclesiastical dignity, or to bear office in either university, as likewise all others that should be put into any employment civil or military should declare that they were not papists, but were of the Protestant religion, and that, by their taking of the oaths of allegiance and Supremacy, and the Test: yet those evil counsellors have, in effect, annulled and abolished all those laws, both with relation to ecclesiastical and civil employments ...

[those evil counsellors] have not only without any colour of law, but against the express laws to the contrary, set up a commission of a certain number of persons, to whom they have committed the cognizance and direction of all ecclesiastical matters; in the which commission there has been, and still is, one of his Majesty's ministers of state, who makes now public profession of the Popish religion [Sunderland] ... and those evil counsellors take care to raise none to any ecclesiastical dignities but persons that have no zeal for the Protestant religion, and that now hide their unconcernedness for it under the specious pretence of moderation ...

Both we ourselves and our dearest and most entirely beloved Consort the Princess have endeavoured to signify in terms full of respect to the King the just and deep regret which all these proceedings have given us ...

The last and great remedy for all those evils is the calling of a parliament, for securing the nation against the evil practices of those wicked counsellors; but this could not be yet compassed, nor can it be easily brought about: for those men apprehending that a lawful parliament being once assembled, they would be brought to an account for all their open violations of law, and for their plots and conspiracies against the Protestant religion, and the lives and liberties of the subjects, they have endeavoured, under the specious pretence of liberty of conscience, first to sow divisions among Protestants, between those of the Church of England and the dissenters. ... They have also required all the persons in the several counties of England that either were in any employment, or were in any considerable esteem, to declare beforehand that they would concur in the repeal of the Test and penal laws; and that they would give their voices in the elections to parliament only for such as would concur in it ...

But, to crown all, there are great and violent presumptions inducing us to believe that those evil counsellors, in order to the carrying on of their evil designs, and to the gaining to themselves the more time for effecting of them, for the encouraging of their accomplices, and for the discouraging of all good subjects, have published that the Queen hath brought forth a son; though there hath appeared both during the Queen's pretended bigness, and in the manner in which the birth was managed, so many just and visible grounds of suspicion that not only we ourselves, but all the good subjects of those kingdoms, do vehemently suspect that the pretended Prince of Wales was not born by the Queen ...

And since our dearest and most entirely beloved Consort the Princess, and likewise ourselves, have so great an interest in this matter, and such a right, as all the world knows, to the succession to the Crown ... and since the English nation has ever testified a most affection and esteem both to our dearest Consort the Princess and to ourselves, we cannot excuse ourselves from espousing their interests in a matter of such high consequences; and from contributing all that lies in us for the maintaining both of the Protestant religion and of the laws and liberties of those kingdoms; and for the securing to them the continual enjoyments of all their just rights: to the doing of which we are most earnestly solicited by a great many lords, both spiritual and temporal and by many gentlemen and other subjects of all ranks.

Therefore it is that we have thought fit to go over to England and to carry with us a force sufficient, by the blessing of God, to defend us from the violence of those evil counsellors; and we, being desirous that our intention in this may be rightly understood, have, for this end, prepared this declaration, in which we have hitherto given a true account of the reasons inducing us to it; so we now think fit to declare that this our expedition is intended for no other design but to have a free and lawful parliament assembled as soon as possible ...

We do, in the last place, invite and require all persons whatsoever, all the peers of the realm, both spiritual and temporal, all lords lieutenants, deputy lieutenants, and all gentlemen, citizens, and other commons of all ranks, to come and assist us, in order to the executing of this our design, against all such as shall endeavour to oppose us, that so we may prevent all those miseries which must needs follow upon the nation's being kept under arbitrary government and slavery, and that all violences and disorders, which may have overturned the whole Constitution of the English government, may be fully redressed in a free and legal parliament ...