Sir Roger L'Estrange

“ Entring upon Sequester'd Livings had been Oppression: taking away mens Estates had been Robbery; Imprisoning of their Persons had been Tyranny; using the name of God to all This, would have been Hypocrisy, forcing of Contradictory Oaths had been Impiety, and Shedding the Blood both of the King, and his People, had been Murther: And all This would have appear'd so to be, if the Cause had come to be Try'd by the Known Laws either of God, or of Man. ”

“ Although L'Estrange does use the genre for a specific controversial end, he does not lapse into a barren question-and-answer type of organization nor into that of an artificial didactic catechism. While he sketches a setting, develops characterization, and creates believable conversation, L'Estrange does not err in the direction of over-dramatization either. He provides all the requisite machinery to support the dramatic realism necessary in a successful dialogue, but he goes no further. Throughout Citt and Bumpkin, L'Estrange maintains the appropriate "plain, easy and familiar" style. ”

“ To reinforce this ironic self-indictment by Citt and Bumpkin, L'Estrange introduces a third character, Trueman, who enters like a deus ex machina to represent the abstract forces of truth, justice, and morality—albeit with a Tory bias. Because he functions as an abstract symbol in contrast with Citt and Bumpkin, who [Pg viii] are very much of this world, Trueman has a personality uncomplicated by any psychological subtleties or idiosyncrasies which would emphasize his humanity. ”

“ Couched in an authentic colloquial style, the dialogue between Citt and Bumpkin progresses in an entirely natural, credible manner. Their conversation is animated, colorful, humorous, informative, and purposeful. The direction of the conversation is logically dictated by its substance; there is nothing artificial, contrived, or foreordained about it. The interaction of personality is reflected in the verbal exchange. As in a play, the development of the action depends upon each character's immediate and genuine response to the statements made by the other dramatis personae. ”

“ We are come to govern our selves by Dreams and Imaginations; We make every Coffee-house Tale an Article of our Faith; and from Incredible Fables we raise Invincible Arguments. A man must be fierce and violent to get the Reputation of being Well-affected; as if the calling of one another Damned Heretique, and Popish Dog, were the whole Sum of the Controversie. ”

“ Citt. Oh That's a Jugling, Equivocating, Hellish sort of People; 'tis a thousand pitties that they're suffer'd to live upon the Earth; They value an Oath no more then they do a Rush. Those are the Heads of the Plot now upon the Life of the King, the Protestant Religion, and the Subversion of the Government.
Jesuites and Phanatiques compar'd.
Bum. Ay, Ay, Citt, they're a damn'd Generation of Hell-hounds. But, as I was thinking just now; we have so many things among Us, like some things among Them, that I have been run down some times allmost, as if We our selves were Jesuites ”

“ And yet for all this, Citt, I have no minde in the World to be taken.
Citt. And that's because th' art an arrant buzzard; the Lord deliver me from a fellow that has neither Mony, nor Friends, and yet's afraid of being Taken. Why 'tis the very making of many a mans Fortune to be Taken. How many men are there that give mony to be Taken, and make a Trade on't; Nay happy is the man that can but get any body to Take him. Why I tell ye, there are people that will quarrel for't, and make Friends to be Taken. ”

“ The entrance of Trueman may well be regarded as the climax of this little drama, for the plot unfolds gradually and dramatic tension builds to the point of his intrusion, when the course of action is interrupted and diverted in another direction by his arguments. ”

“ If L'Estrange's Tory bias is perfectly evident, it is not aggressive enough to prevent the accomplishment of his polemic objectives. Although the republican political theories of the Whigs are attacked satirically in the first part of Citt and Bumpkin, they are stated and refuted in proper controversial style in the final pages of the pamphlet. On the whole, Citt and Bumpkin conforms to the [Pg xi] conventions of a successful dialogue; where it does not, the infringements are not great enough to destroy its artistic integrity. ”

“ Again, as in the theater, dramatic tension is created as the plot unfolds and the reader waits to see what will happen next. Except for one passage of extended quotation (pp. 32-33) , the dramatic realism is sustained effortlessly.
Although Citt and Bumpkin was the first of L'Estrange's Popish Plot pamphlets written in dialogue, he was thoroughly familiar with the form and had often employed it in his polemic skirmishes during the Civil War. In fact, L'Estrange found the genre so congenial that he chose to write his famous newspaper The Observator (1681-87) in dialogue. ”

“ Reformation is the proper business of Government and Council, but when it comes to work once at the wrong End, there is nothing to be expected from it, but Tumult and Convulsion. A Legal and Effectual provision against the Danger of Romish Practices and Errours, will never serve Their Turn, whose Quarrel is barely to the Name of Popery, without understanding the Thing it self. ”

“ What a blessed State are we in, that Walk up to our Calling, in Simplicity and Truth, whose Yea is Yea, and whose Nay is Nay. 'Tis a strange way thou hast, Citt, of making things out to a man. Thou wert saying but now, that the same thing may be a Sin in One Man, and not in Another. I'm thinking now of the Jesuites. ”

“ Nay Citt, these Men have a Holy way of Language too, as well as of Behaviour, for all their Talk is of Heaven, and Heavenly things, the Saints and the New Jerusalem; they deal mightily, in Expositions upon the Viols, and the Little Horn: and then they are bitterly severe against Wicked Magistrates, and those that Lord it over Gods Heritage. They are in fine a very Consciencious sort of People.
Citt. Oh beyond question so they are: But this is still a Branch of the same Conscience. ”

“ Yes, we have, but the King has this Advantage of us, that We may Forfeit our Liberties but He cannot forfeit his Crown.
Citt. What if a King will Transgresse all the Laws of God and Man? may not the People resume their Trust?
Power is from God, not from the People.
Soveraignty of the People most ridiculous.
True. No, not unlesse you can produce an expresse stipulation to That very purpose. But let me shew you, First, the Errour of taking That to be a Trust from the People, which, in truth, is an Ordinance of Providence, For All Power is from God ”

“ L'Estrange findes Errours of the Press in the Other Tryals and Rectifies them, in his Own: Now if Posterity shall finde in the Right, that the Other are wrong, they are in no danger of being Misled by the One, in what is Corrected by the Other: And if they do not read the Right Copy at all, there's no harm done to the Other, but they must take it as they finde it. So that this Remark is so far from Disparaging the Proceedings, that a greater Right can hardly be done to Publick Justice by a Pamphlet. ”

“ There is likewise a Conscience of Religion, and that's a quiet peaceable Conscience, that rests in the Affections of the Heart, in submission to Lawfull Institutions; and in serving God, and doing Good to our Nighbour, without Noise or Ostentation. ”

“ Sometimes authors identified the speakers with proper names but made no effort at actual characterization. Concern for dramatic realism varied from writer to writer; and all too often, improbable puppet-like creatures were represented in illogical, unbelievable, and contrived conversations. The artistic integrity of a successful dialogue, however, lies in the dramatic exchange of differing points of view or the interplay of opposing arguments in realistic conversation between credible characters with clearly differentiated personalities. ”

“ And it is not but that I highly approve of your Zeal for the Discovery of the Plot, and Suppressing of Popery, but we are not yet to Trample upon Laws, and Publique Orders, for the attaining even of those Glorious ends.
But now I think on't; deal freely with me; did you really go to the Registers ye spake of, to furnish Names for your Subscriptions?
Citt. No; That was but a Flourish: but all the Rest we Literally did.
A gross Cheat upon the Nation.
True. Are not you Conscious to your selves of your Iniquities? who made You a Commissioner for the Town, or You for the Country? ”

“ Citt. Why then Honest Bumpkin, here's a Golden Sentence for thee; Be Taken, Sifted, Imprison'd, Pillory'd, and stand true to thy Principles, and th'art company for the best Lord in Christendom. They'l never dare to trust thee till th' art Jayl and Pillory-proof; and the bringing of thee into a Jayl would be a greater kindness, then the fetching of Another man Out.
Bum. Prethee Cit, tell me one thing by the way, hast thou ever made Tryal of this Experiment thy self?
A Jayl is the High-way to Preferment. ”

“ And Secondly, the Absurdity of the very Supposition, even in the Case of a Trust conferr'd by the People. If the King breaks his Trust, the People Resume it: but who are These People? If a Representative, they are but Trustees Themselves, and may incur a Forfeiture too, by the same Argument. ”

“ Why what are those I prethee?
Church worse to Dissenters then Jesuites.
Citt. They are your Will-worship-men, your Prelates Brats: Take the whole Litter of 'um, and you'l finde never a barrel better Herring. Let me tell thee in Love Bumpkin, these Curs are forty times worse to Us then the Jesuits themselves; for the One is an Open Enemy, the Other lies gnawing like a Canker in our Bowells. And then being train'd up to Latin and Greek, there's no opposing of the Power of Godlinesse to the Sophistry of Human Reason: Beside that, the Law is For us in the One Case, and Against us in the Other. ”

“ Citt. We must joyn the Wisdom of the Serpent, to the Innocence of the Dove; and endeavour to compass that by stratagem, which we cannot gain by Argument. But now am I going to open a Mistery to thee, that's worth——
Bum. Prethee the Worth on't Citt: For talk is but talk, the Worth is the Main point.
Citt. Why then let me tell thee Bumpkin, the Mistery that I am about to disclose to thee, was worth to our Predecessours not long since, no less then Three Kingdoms, and a better penny. ”

“ But let the Government be what it will, and where it will, let it do Right or Wrong, it is Equally Unaccountable, for there lies no Appeal, but to a Superiour, and the [Pg 37] Supreme has none but God Himself.
Citt. But if we be a Free People, have not We as much Right to Our Liberties, as the King has to his Crown? ”

“ Taking up the topics previously discussed by Citt and Bumpkin while he was concealed in a nearby closet, Trueman confronts them with their confessed treachery, denounces their chicanery and folly, and refutes their political views with Tory arguments. The fact that Trueman symbolizes extrahuman moral forces lends authority to his defense of absolute monarchy and the established Church. ”

“ The Tories, who objected to petitioning as a popular movement carried on by men without substance or position, received the Proclamation everywhere as an expression of the King's disapproval, and cited it as an authority to discourage others from promoting and subscribing to petitions. The Whigs, on the other hand, protested that petitioning was the legal right of the subject and resumed their petitioning activities with added vigor. ”

“ A Conscience of using no Conscience at all.
Citt. That's for want of a Discerning Spirit Bumpkin. What does Conscience signifie to the Saints, that are deliver'd from the Fetters of Moral Obligations, by so many Extraordinary and Over-riding Priviledges, which are granted in a peculiar manner to the People of the Lord? What's he the better, or the worse, for keeping or for breaking the Ten Commandments, that lies under the Predestinarian Fate of an Unchangeable Necessity and Decree? What needs he care for any other Guide, that carries within himself an Infallible Light? ”

“ The Protestant Dissenters great Promoters of the Petition.
Citt. What do you talk of your Non-conformists? They do but work Journey-work to Ours. We have the Heads of all the Protestant Dissenters in the Nation here in this Town, why, we have more Religions, Bumpkin, in this City, then you have People in your whole Country. ”

“ I was a Justices Clerk in the Countrey, till the bus'nesse of the Petitions; and my Master was an Honest Gentleman too, though he's now put out of Commission: And to shew ye that I am none of your simple Fellows (do ye mark) if ye have a minde to dispute upon Three Points, I'm for you. First, the King is One of the Three Estates; [Pg 27] Secondly, the Sovereign Power is in the People. And Thirdly, 'Tis better to Obey God then Man.
Citt. Always provided, Bumpkin, that the Gentleman take no advantage of what's spoken in Discourse. ”

“ There's no man under Five and Fifty, at Least, that is able to give any Account, of the Designe, and Effects of this way of Petitioning in Forty and Forty One, but by Hear-say: so that This Nation proceeds mostly upon the Maxims, and Politiques, which That Republican Humour deliver'd over to us: But yet let the Thing, or the Manner of it be as it will, Those that disarm'd, and turn'd back the Kentish Petitioners at London-bridg. ”

“ Citt. Be enlighten'd then. It is not the Destruction of those that are Really Papists, that will do our Work; for there's nothing to be got by't. But it must be our business to make those people pass for Papists, that are not so, but only have Places to Lose: such as we our selves, by the removal of them, may be the better for; and This, Bumpkin must be our Master-piece. ”

“ But do you think because the First Petition has receiv'd a checque, and the Parliament is Prorogu'd, that therefore the other Petitions must fall to the ground?
Bum. I cannot well see how it should be otherwise.
Citt. Why then let me tell you, Bumpkin, We'l bring the whole business about again, and carry it on, in spite of Fate: for we have better heads at work perhaps then you are aware of.
Bum. Ay, but what Hands have we Citt? for it will come to that at last.
Citt. Those Heads will find Hands, never trouble your self, if there should be occasion; but 'tis too early-days for that sport yet. ”

“ Citt. Well, I'm satisfy'd, and now give attention; thou seest how unanimously fierce all the several Parties of the Protestant Dissenters are against the Papists. Whence comes this Conjunction, I prethee, of so many separate Congregations, that are many of them worse then Papists, One to Another? There must be in it, either Conscience, or Interest: If it were Conscience, we should fall foul One upon Another, and for matter of Interest; when the Papists are destroy'd, we are but still where we were. ”