An Answer to a Question that Nobody thinks of, viz., But what if the Queen should Die?Defoe, Daniel
History
An Answer to a Question that Nobody thinks of, viz., But what if the Queen should Die?
Defoe, Daniel
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1702-1714
But we have another melancholy incident, which attends the queen's
mortality, and which makes this question more than ordinarily
seasonable to be asked at this time; and that is, that not only the
queen is mortal, and she must die, and the time uncertain; so that she
may die, even to-day, before to-morrow, or in a very little space of
time: but her life is, under God's providence, at the mercy of papists
and jacobites' people; who, the one by their principles, and the other
by the circumstances of their party, are more than ordinarily to be
apprehended for their bloody designs against her majesty, and against
the whole nation. Nay, there seems more reason to be apprehensive of
the dangerous attempts of these desperate people, at this time, than
ever, even from the very reasons which are given all along in this
work, for our being safe in our privileges, our religious and civil
rights, during her majesty's life. It would be mispending your time to
prove that the papists and jacobite parties in this nation, however
they may, as we have said, be under ties and obligations of honour,
interest, and gratitude, &c., not to make attempt upon us during the
queen's life; yet that they are more encouraged at this time than ever
they were to hope and believe, that when the queen shall die, their
turn stands next. This, we say, we believe is lost labour to speak of:
the said people, the popish and tory party, will freely own and oppose
it. They all take their obligations to the queen to end with her
majesty's life. The French king, however in honour and gratitude he
may think himself bound not to encourage the pretender to insult her
majesty's dominions, while the queen, with whom he personally is
engaged by treaty, shall remain alive, will think himself fully at
liberty from those obligations when the queen shall die. If we are not
misinformed of the French affairs, and of the notions they have in
France of these things, they are generally no otherwise understood
than that the king of France is engaged by the peace now in view, not
to disturb her majesty's possession during her reign and her life; but
that then the pretender's right is to be received everywhere. The
pretender himself, howsoever, as above said, he may despair of his
success in attempting to take possession during the queen's life, will
not fail to assume new hopes at her majesty's death: so much then of
the hopes of popery and French power; so much of the interest of the
pretender depending upon the single thread of life of a mortal person;
and we being well assured that they look upon her majesty only as the
incumbent in a living, or tenant for life in an estate, what is more
natural, than in this case for us to apprehend danger to the life of
the queen; especially to such people, who are known not to make much
consciences of murdering princes, with whom the king-killing doctrine
is so universally received, and who were so often detected of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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