they will maintain to the utter impoverishing and ruining of the Country yea they have burned sacked plundered many whole Towns Cities Counties and spoiled thousands of all they have contrary to their very Promises Articles Agreements which they never faithfully observe to any in the least degree and all this to ruine the Kingdom People Parliament and Religion yet they justifie these their actions and the Parliament People must not controule nor deem them Traytors to their Country for it And may not the Parliament then more justly impose a moderate in-destructive necessary taxe without the King for the Kingdoms Religions and Peoples defence and preservations against their barbarous Taxes Plunderings and Devastations then the King or his Commanders Souldiers play such Rex and use such barbarous oppressions without yea against the Parliaments Votes and consents Let them therefore first cease their own most detestable unnaturall inhumane practises and extortions of this nature and condemn themselves or else for ever clear the Parliament from this unjust Aspersion The last Objection against the Parliament is That they have Illegally imprisoned restrained plundered some Malignants and removed them from their habitations against Magna Charta the Fundamentall Laws forenamed and the Liberty of the Subject contrary to all Presidents in former Ages To which I answer First That the Objectors and Kings party are farre more guilty of this crime then the Parliament or their Partisans and therefore have no reason to object it unlesse themselves were more innocent then they are Secondly For the Parliaments imprisoning of men pretended to be against Magna Charta I answer first That the Parliament is not with in that or any other Law against imprisonments as I have formerly cleered Therefore is not obliged by it nor can offend against it Secondly That it hath power to imprison restrain the greatest Members of their own Houses though priviledged men exmept from all other arrests and publike persons representing those that sent them thither Therefore much more may they imprison or restrain any other private persons notwithstanding Magna Charta And the Parliament being the supreamest Judicaturo paramount all other Courts their commitments can not be Legally questioned determined nor their prisoners released by Habcas Corpus in or by any other inferior Court or Judicature whatsoever 3. The Parliament hath power to make new Laws for the temporall and perpetuall imprisonment of men in mischievous cases where they could not be imprisoned by the Common Law or any other Act before or since Magna Charta and so against the seeming letter of that Law w ch extends not to the Parliament and what persons they may restrain imprison by a new enacted Law though not restrainable before by Magna Charta or the Common Law without breach of either they may whiles they sit in case of publike danger restrain imprison by their own Authoritie without or before a new Law enacted In how many new Cases by new Statutes made since Magna Charta the Subjects may be lawfully imprisoned both by Judges Justices Majors Constable and Inferiour Courts or Officers whereas they could not be imprisoned by them by the Common Law before these Acts without breach of Magna Charta and violating the Subjects Liberties you may read in the Table of Rastals Abridgements of Statutes and in Ashes Tables Title Imprisonment and False-Imprisonment Yea by the Statutes of 23. H. 8. cap. 1. 31. H. 8. cap. 13. 33. H. 8. cap. 12. 5. Eliz. cap. 14. 1. and 2. Phil. Mary cap. 3. 5. and 6. E. 6. cap. 1. 1. Eliz. cap. 2. with other Acts perpetuall imprisonment during life is inflicted in some cases for which no imprisonment at all could be prescribed before these Acts and for crimes for which the parties were not formerly punishable yet for the publike weale peace safety and prevention of private mischiefs even against the Letter as it were of the great Charter the Parliament hath quite taken away all liberty the benefit of the Common Law and of Magna Charta it self from parties convicted of such offences during their naturall lives and if they bring an Habeas Corpus in such cases pretending their perpetuall imprisonment and these latter Laws to be against Magna Charta they shall notwithstanding be remanded and remain prisoners all their dayes because the Parliament is above all Laws Statutes yea Magna Charta and may deprive any Delinquents of the benefit of them yea alter or repeal them for the common good so farre as they see just cause Though neither the King nor his Counsell nor Judges nor any Inferiour Officers or Courts of Justice have any such transcendent power but the Parliament alone to which all men are parties really present and allowing all they do and what all assent to decree for the common good and safetie must be submitted to by all particular persons though never so mischievous to them this being a Fundamentall Rule even in Law it self That the Law will rather suffer a private mischief then a generall inconvenience Seeing then the Parliament to prevent publike uproars sedition treachery in or against the Kingdom Cities Houses or Counties where factious persons live hath thought meet to restrain the most seditious Malignants especially these about London and Westminster where they sit and to commit them to safe custody till they receive some good assurance of their peaceable behaviour they must patiently suffer their private restraints for the common safety tranquility till the danger be past or themselves reformed who if they reform not their own malignity not the Parliaments cautelous severity themselves must be blamed since they detain themselves prisoners only by not conforming when as the Parliament desires rather to release then restrain them if they would be regular and so they must blame themselves alone not clamour against the Houses All Leprous persons by the Leviticall and Common Law were to be sequestred and shut up from others least they should infect them and so all persons visited with the Plague by late Statute Laws may be shut up without breach of Magna Charta Why then not Malignant seditious ill affected persons who infect others in these times of Commotion and Civill Warres as well as Leapers and Plague sick persons removed into Pest-houses for fear of spreading the Infection upon the self-same grounds by the Houses Authority The Parliament by an Ordinance Act or Sentence hath Power to banish men out of the Kingdom in some cases which no other Court nor the King himself can lawfully dâ— as was expresly reâ—olved in Parliament upon the making of the Sâ—atute of 35. Eliz. cap. 1. as is evident by the case of Thomas of Weyland An. 19. E. 1 Of Pâ—irce Gavaston and the two Spencers in King Haward the second his raign Of the Lord Maltravâ—rs in Edward the third his raign Of Bâ—lknap and divers over Judges in the 10 and 11 yâ—ers of Richard 2. his
made and wars decréed But ordinarily the councellers of the Realm of Poland the Chancellor of the Polish Repub. c. although the King in the mean time hath his own Chamberlains Stewards Ministers Domesticks But he who will dispute among the Polonians whether the King or the whole people of the Kingdom represented by the Estates of the Realm be greater doth just like him who should dispute at Venice whether the Duke or the Republike were the superior But what shal we say of those kingdomes which are wont to be carried by succession Verily the thing is no otherwise there The Realm of France which not long since was preferred before the rest both for the excellency of Laws and Orders was thus constituted in times past and although those who hold that place do not sufficiently discharge their duty yet they are not thereby the lesse obliged to do it The king verily hath his great Master or Arch-Steward his Chamberlains Hunters Guard Butlers and the rest whose Offices heretofore did so depend on the King that he dying themselves seemed also to die in their Office so that even yet after the end of the mourning royall the great Master or Arch-Steward is wont to pronounce certain conceived words wherewith he dismisseth the royall family and bids every one provide for himself Yet notwithstanding the Kingdom of France hath its Officers the master of the Palace who afterwards was stiled the Earl of the Stable the Marshals Admirall Chancellour or great Referendary Secretaries Treasurers and Officers who verily heretofore WERE NOT CREATED BUT IN THE GREAT PUBLIKE COVNCELL of the three Orders of the Clergie Nobilitie and people but since the standing Parliament was ordained at Paris they are not thought setled in their Offices before they be received and approved by the Senate of Paris neither can they be casheer'd without their consent and authority Now all these first plight their faith TO THE KINGDOM that is to all the people after that to the King as the Guardian thereof which is perspicuous even from the very form of the Oath But especially the Earl of the Stable when he is girded by the King with the Liliated sword as appears by the words which he pronounceth is girded to that purpose THAT HE MAY DEFEND AND PROTECT THE REPVBLIKE Moreover the Realm of France hath its Peers as Consuls of the King or its Senators as the Fathers of the Republike every of them denominated from the severall Provinces of the Kingdome to whom the King being to bee crowned is wont to plight his faith as to the whole Kingdome from whence it appeares THAT THEY ARE SVPERIOR TO THE KING These again likewise swear that they will defend not the King BVT THE ROYALL CROWN that they will assist THE REPVBLIKE with their councell and that for this end they will be present in the sacred Councell of the Prince in time of Peace or Warre as manifestly appears out of the formulary of the Peership Therefore by the Law of Lombardy in giving sentences they did not onely sit with the Lord of the Fee as Peers but likewise heard the Causes ofttimes between the Superiour Lord and his Vassall We likewise see these Senators of France to have ofttimes judged between the King and Subjects so that when Charles the 6. would have pronounced sentence against the Duke of Britain they withstood him and said THAT THE JVDGEMENT WAS NOT THE KINGS BVT PEERS FROM WHOSE AVTHORITY HE COVLD DEROGATE NOTHING Hence even at this day the Parliament at Paris which is called the Court of Peers or Senators is in some sort constituted a Iudge between the King and People yea between the King and every private man and is bound as with an obligation to right every one against the King Procurers if he invades any thing against Law Besides if the King determines any thing or makes any Edict at home if he make any compact with neighbour Princes if any Warre be to be waged if any Peace be to be made as of late with Charles the fifth The Parliament ought to approve and bée Authour of it and all things which appertain to the Common-wealth ought to be registred among its acts which verily are not ratified untill they shall be approved by it Now that the Senators might not fear the King heretofore none could be preferred into that Order but such who were nominated by the Senate neither could they Lawfully be removed but by its Authority for a lawfull cause Finally even the Kings Letters unlesse they be subscribed by the Kings Secretary and rescripts unlesse they be signed by the Chancellour who hath a power of cancelling have no authority There are likewise Dukes Marquesses Earles Vicounts Barons Castellanes also in Cities Maiors Deputies Consuls in Sindeches Auditors and the like to whom some particular Region or City are severally commended that they may defend the People so farre forth as their jurisdiction extendeth although some of these dignities at this day are reputed Hereditary And besides this yearly heretofore at leastwise as often as necessity required there was held an Assembly of the three Estates wherein all the Countries and Cities of any note did send their Deputies namely Commons Nobles Ecclesiasticks in each of them apart where they publikely determined of those things which appertained to the Republike Now such was evermorethe authority of this Assembly that not only those things which were therein accorded were reputed sacred and holy whether Peace were to be concluded or War to be waged or the Guardianship of the Realm to be committed to any one or a Tax to be imposed was there concluded but even Kings themselves for their luxury slothfulnes or tyrannie were thrust into Monasteries by their authority even all their Ofsprings deprived of the succession of the Kingdom no otherwise then at first when as they were called to the kingdom by the peoples authority verily those whō consent had advanced dissent did pull down again those whom imitation of paternall vertues had as it were called into that inheritance a degenerate and ungratefull minde as it had made then uncapable and unworthy so it did make them to be disinherited From whence verily it appears that succession truly was tolerated to avoid competition succession an interregnum and other incommodities of Election but truely when greater damages would follow where Tyranny should invade the Kingdom where a Tyrant the Throne of a King the lawfull Assembly of the people Perpetually reserved to themselves an Authority of expelling a Tyrant or slothfull King and of deducing him to his Kindred and of substituting a good King in his place Verily peradventure the French received this from the Gauls Caesar in the fifth Book of the Gallic War being the Author For Ambiorix King of the Eburoni confessed that all that time the Empires of the Kings of Gallia were such that the people duely assembled had no lesse authoritie over the King
then the King over the people which also appears in Vercingetorix who pleaded his cause before an assembly of the people In the Kingdoms of Spain especially in Valentia and Catteloigne of the Arragonians it is even thus for the Soveraignty of the Realme is in the Justice of Aragon as they call it therefore the great men who represent the people fear not to tell the King in direct terms both in his very Coronation it self and likewise every third year in the generall assembly of their Estates Tantum valemus nos quantum vos We are as powerfull as you but the Justice of Aragon is above us both who rules more than you Yea oftentimes what things the King hath asked what he hath injoyn'd the Iustice hath prohibited nay he never dares to impose any tribute without the authority of that Assembly In the Realms of England and Scotland the Supreme power is in the Parliament usually wont to be held almost every year Now they call a Parliament the Assembly of the Estates of the Realme where the Bishops Earls Barons Deputies of the Cities and Counties by common suffrage determine of the Republikes affairs whose authority is so sacred that what things soever it shall once establish it is unlawfull or a wicked act for the king to abrogate Likewise all the Officers of the Realme are wont to receive their Offices from that Assembly and those who ordinarily assist the King or Quéen in Councell In brief other Christian Kingdoms as Hungary Bohemia Denmarke Sweden and the rest have all their Officers of the Realm or Consuls of the Royall Empire who by their own Authority have sometimes used even to depose their Kings themselves as Histories teach or fresh memory sufficiently manifests Neither is there verily any cause that we should think the Royall Authority to be thereby deminished or that Kings should hereby suffer as it were a diminution of their heads Truly we deem not God the lesse potent for this because he cannot sin by himself nor his Empire more restrained because it cannot be ruined nor grow worse therefore not a King if that he who may offend by himself be sustained or kept from sinning by anothers help or if peradventure he had lost any Empire by his own negligence or fault that he may retain by anothers prudence What do you think any man lesse healthy because Phisitians sit round about him who dehort him from intemperance who interdict him the eating of hurtfull meats who likewise oft-times purge him against his will and resisting Or whether doest thou think those Phisitians who take care of his health or flatterers who obtrude the most unwholsome things to be more his friends Therefore this distinction is altogether necessary to be adhibited Some are friends of the King others of Caesar those are friends of Caesar who serve Caesar those friends of the King or Emperour who serve the Kingdom For since any one is called a King for the Kingdoms sake and the Kingdom consists in the people but the Kingdom being lost or decayed the King must altogether cease to be a King or at least be lesse a King those verily who shall study the profit of the Kingdom are truly the Kings friends those who neglect or subvert the profit of the Realm are truly his Enemies and as thou canst by no means separate the Kingdom from the people nor the King from the Kingdom so neither the friends of the King from the friends of the Kingdom or people yea verily as those who truely love Caesar would rather have him to be a King then a private man nor can they have him a King without a Kingdom in good sooth those shall be the Kingdoms friends who are Caesars and those who would seem to be more the friends of Caesar then of the Kingdom or people are truly to be reputed Flatterers and most pernicious enemies But and if they bee truely friends is it not manifest that the King will become more powerfull and stable as Theopompus said of the Ephori when instituted by how much those shall be more and more powerfull to whom the profit of the people or Realm shall be commanded and committed But perchance thou wilt say You tell me of the Senators Peers and Officers of the Realm but I on the contrary see nothing but Ghosts and as it were ancient Cote-Arms in Tragedies but I scarce any where discern any foot-steps of ancient libertie and authoritie Finally you may see most men every where to look to their own affairs to flatter kings to cheat the people scarce any where maist thou finde one who takes pity of the mascerated people much lesse who will give help to the miserable but if there be any who are truely of that minde or thought to be so they are judged Rebels or Traitors they are banished and they are compelled to begge even their very food What the thing is thus It seems almost alwayes and in every place the audacitie of Kings or partly the prevarication partly the slothfulnesse of the Nobility hath been such that kings may seem to have usurped that licentiousnesse wherewith most of them at this day seem to wax insolent by a long prescription of time but the people may seem to have determined their Authority or to have lost it by not using it For so it happens for the most part that no man takes care for that which all are bound to take care of that which is committed to all no man thinks it is commended to him Yet notwithstanding against the people neither this prescription nor prevarication doth any thing It is a vulgar saying that no prescription can hurt the king or Exchequer much lesse all the people who are potenter then the King and for whose sake the Prince hath this priviledge for why else is the Prince only the administrator of the Exchequer but for the people the true proprietors as shal be after proved Furthermore is not this a known truth that no violence no not in the longest lasting servitude can be prescribed against liberty But and if thou objectest that Kings were constituted by the people who perchance lived above five hundred yeer since not by the people extant at this day I answer that although kings doe die the people in the mean time as neither any other Universitie never dyeth for as flowing waters make a perpetuall river so also the vicissitude of birth and death an immortall people Therefore as the Rheine Seine Tyber is now the same as it was above a thousand years agoe so likewise the Germane French Roman people are the same unlesse Colonies shall have casually intervened neither can their right be any wayes changed either by the flux of water or change of individuals Besides if they attribute the Kingdom received not to their people but to their Father he to his Grandfather and so upwards could he transfer more right to another then himself first had But and if he
said in full Parliament that if a treaty of peace or truce should be entertained betweene their Lord the King and his adversary of France that they thought it expedient and necessary if it should please the King that Mounseur de Guyen because he is the most sufficient person of the realme shall goe to the same Treaty And the King said that he liked it well if it pleased the said Lord de Guyen and thereupon Mounseur de Guyen said that he would with a very good will travell and doe any thing which might turne to the honour and profit of the King and of his realme In the Parliament of the 14 H. 6. Num. 10. The Kings grant of the custody of the Town and Castle of Calice the Towne of Risbanke the Castles of Hamures Marke Oye Stangate Bavelingham and of the Castle and Dominion of Guynes in Picardy to be made to Humfrey Duke of Glocester his unkle in the presence of the Lords spirituall and temporall then being in the present Parliament was on the 29 day of October read before them which being understood and mature deliberation taken thereupon the severall reasons of the said Lord being heard it was at last by their assent and consent agreed and ordered that the said Duke should have the custody of the said Towne Castles and premises to the end of nine yeeres then next ensuing which Charter was subscribed by all the Lords there present In the Parliament of 31 H. 6. Num. 41. pro custodia Maris it was enacted For as much as the King considering that as well divers His Clergy men of this his realm inhabiting nigh the coast of the Sea and others His Subjects using the Trade of Merchandises have been oftentimes grievously imprisoned distressed put to great sufferances and ransomes and their Ships Vessels and Merchandises of great value taken upon the Sea by his enemies and also Merchant strangers being under his leageance amity safegard or safe conduct upon the Sea have been robbed and spoyled against the forme and contents of such truces and safe conducts signed His Highnesse willing and intending sufficiently to provide for the remedy of such inconveniences and to eschew and avoyd all such robberies and dispoylers HATH BY THE ADVICE AND ASSENT OF THE LORDS SPIRITUALL AND TEMPORALL in his high Court of Parliament assembled desired certaine great Lords of this realme that is to say Richard Earle of Salisbury John Earle of Shrewsbury John Earle of Worcester James Earle of Wiltshire and Iohn Lord Sturton with great Navies of Ships and people defensible in great number purveyed of abiliments of warre to intend with all diligence to their possibility the safeguard and keeping of the Sea For which cause the subsidies of Tonnage and Poundage granted to the King for his naturall life this Parliament that they might be applied to such uses and intent as they be granted the King BY THE ADVICE AND ASSENT OF THE LORDS SPIRITUALL AND TEMPORALL AND COMMONS IN THIS PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED AND BY AUTHORITY OF THE SAME were granted to the said Earles and Lord Sturton and the survivers of them for three whole yeeres with power for them to appoint Collectors to receive and collect them in every Port without rendering any account so as they kept the covenants and endentures made between the King and them for the safegard of the Seas with a proviso that this Act during the three yeeres should not be prejudiciall to the custome of the Towne or Castle of Calice or Rishbanke for the payment of the wages and arreares of the Souldiers there And over that if the goods of any of the Kings liege-people or any of his friends be found in any Vessell of the Kings enemies without any safe conduct that then the said Earles and the Lord Sturton shall take and depart it among them and their retinue without any impeachment according to the Statute thereupon made In the Parliament of 33 H. 6. Num. 27. the said Lords were discharged of the custody of the Sea by the Parliament in these words For as much as the Earles of Salisbury Shrewsbury and Worcester and the Lord Sturton besought the Kings Highnesse in this present Parliament that it might like his Highnes and Excellency of his Noble grace to have them clearely discharged of the keeping of the Sea the King therefore and for other causes moving his Highnesse BY THE ADVICE OF THE LORDS SPIRITUALL AND TEMPORALL IN THE SAID PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED the 30 day of Iuly the 23 day of the same Parliament admitted their desire and would that the said Earles and Lord Sturton or any other THAT HAD THE KEEPING OF THE SEA BY AN ACT MADE IN THE LAST PARLIAMENT begun and holden at Redding and ended at Westminster be from the 30 day of July fully discharged of the keeping of the same and that IT SHOULD BE ENACTED OF RECORD In the Parliament of 39 H. 6. Num. 32. The King BY THE ADVICE OF THE LORDS SPIRITUALL AND TEMPORALL AND COMMONS IN THIS PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED AND BY AUTHORITY THEREOF ordained and established that his dearest cosin Richard Duke of Yorke rightfull heire to the Countries of England and France and of the Lordship and Land of Ireland have and take upon him the power and labour to ride into the parts of England and Wales where great rebellions murders riots spoylings executions and oppressions be used committed and attempted to represse subdue and appease them And also to resist the enemies of France and Scotland within the realme And further granted ordained and established by the said advice and authority that every Sheriffe with the power and might of his Sheriwicke and every Major Bailiffe Officer Minister and Subject of the said realme of England and of Wales shall attend upon his said cousin for the said intent as the case shall require and to the same intent be ready at the command of his said cousin and the same obey and performe in like case as they ought to doe at his commandement after the course of the Lawes of England and in Wales after the customes there c. And to cite no more presidents in so cleare a case in the Parliament of 21 Iacobi ch 33. The Temporalty having granted three intire Subsidies and three Fifteenes and tenths to King James towards the maintenance of the warres that might then suddenly insue upon the breach with Spaine and more particularly for the defence of the realme of England the securing of Ireland the assurance of the states of the united Provinces with the Kings friends and allies and for the setting forth of the Navy-royall did by that Act for the better disbursing of the said ayd and mannaging that warre according to the Parliaments true intention by that very Act wherein they gave the Subsidies did especially appoint eight Aldermen and other persons of London Treasurers to receive and issue the said moneys and appointed ten Lords and Knights particularly named in the Act to be of the Kings
Empire in the Greek and German Empires derived out of it in the old Graecian Indian Aegytian Realmes in the Kingdomes of France Spaine Italy Hungary Bohemia Denmarke Poland Sweden Scotland yea of Judah Israel and others mentioned in the Scripture the Supreame Soveraignty and Power resided not in the Emperours and Kings themselves but in their Kingdomes Senates Parliaments People who had not only a power to restrain but censure and remove their Emperours and Princes for their Tyranny and misgovernment With an Answer to the Principal Arguments to prove Kings above their whole Kingdomes and Parliaments and not questionable nor accountable to them nor censurable by them for any exorbitant Actions HAving finished the preceding Treatise which asserts The Supreame Authority and Soveraigne Power in the Realme of England legally and really to reside in the whole Kingdome and Parliament which represents it not in the Kings Person who is inferiour to the Parliament A Doctrine quite contrary to what Court Prelates and Chaplaines have for sundry yeeres inculcated into our Kings and People who preach little else but Tyranny to the one and Slavery to the other to support their owne Lordly Prelacy and hinder an exact Church Reformation and directly opposite to the resolutions of many malignant Courtiers Lawyers and Counsellours about His Majesty who have either out of ignorance or malice created him a new Utopian absolute Royall Prerogative unknowne to our Ancestors not bottomed on the Lawes of God or the Realm for maintenance of each Punctilio whereof against the Parliaments pretended Encroachments the whole Kingdome must be engaged in a destructive civill Warre now like to ruine it I could not but conjecture how in all probability these Clergy men Courtiers and Lawyers out of their unskilfulnesse in true Divinity History Law and Policy would upon the first tydings of this strange Doctrine passe a sentence of Excommunication and death against it as guilty not onely of Heresie but High Treason and judge it such a monstrous Antimonarchicall Paradox as was never heard of in much lesse claimed or practised by any Kingdome Realm or Monarchy whatsoever To anticipate which rash censures and undeceive both Kings and Subjects whom these grosse Parasites have over-long seduced in this point to their prejudices convince the consciences of all gainsaying Malignants irradiate this long obscured verity whose seasonable discovery may through Gods blessing conduce very much to period the present Differences between King and Parliament touching matters of Prerogatives and Priviledges claimed by either I conceived it not only expedient but necessary to back theforecited presidents of our own Kingdom with paralelled examples in most forraign Realmes and Monarchies in which it is not mannerly to be overbusie without just cause which I have faithfully though sudenly collected out of the best approved Authors and Historians whereby I shall infallibly prove that in the Roman State and Empire at the first in the Greek Empire since in the German Empire heretofore and now in the ancient Kingdomes of Greece Egypt India and elsewhere in the Kingdomes of France Spaine Hungary Bohemia Denmarke Sweden Poland Scotland and most other Kingdomes in the world yea in the Kingdomes of Judah and Israel and others mentioned in Scripture the Highest Soveraigne Authority both to elect continue limit correct depose their Emperours and Kings to bound their royall power and prerogatives to enact Lawes create new Offices and formes of Government resided alwayes in these or Princes persons I shall begin with whole Kingdomes Senates Dyets Parliaments People not in the Emperors Kings the Roman State as having much affinity with curs which was long under their command heretofore After the building of Rome by Romulus and Remus Romulus being elected King divided the people into two Rankes those of the highest quality he stiled Senators making them a Court of Counsell and Justice much like our House of Peeres the other he termed The People being the body of the State and representing our House of Commons In this distinction made by the Peoples consent the Soveraigne Authority to elect Succeeding Kings to enact binding Lawes to make warre or peace and the like rested not in the Kings person but in the Senate and people joyntly if they accorded yet principally in the people in case either of assent or dissent between them their very Kings and Lawes having their greatest power and efficacy chiefly from the peoples election and assent To begin first with their Kings Election and Authority when Romulus their first King deceased there arose a great controversie in Rome about the Election of a new King for though they all agreed to have a King yet who should chuse him and out of what Nation he should be elected was then controverted In the Interim to avoid confusion the Senators being 150. divided the Regall power between them so as every one in his turne in Royall Robes should doe Sacrifice to the Gods and execute Justice six houres in the night time and six houres in the day which tended to preserve an equality among the Senators and to diminish the envie of the people when in the space of one night and day they should see one and the same man both a King and a private person But the people disliking this Interregnum as tending to put off the Election of a King that the Senators might keep the principallity and divide it among themselves cried out that their bondage was multiplyed having an hundred Lords made instead of one neither would they suffer it any longer unlesse they would admit a King created by themselves Hereupon the Senate thinking it best to offer the people that which they were like to lose to gaine their favour Summa potestate populo permissa permitted to the people the chiefe power of Electing a King but yet that they might not give away more right then they deteined they decreed That when the people had commanded and elected a King it should be ratified if the Senators should approve it or be reputed the authors of it Then the Interex assembling the people spake thus unto them O Romans REGEM ELIGITE chuse yea King so the Senators thinke fit and if he be one worthy to succeed Romulus they will approve him This was so gratefull to the people that lest they should be overcome with the benefit they commanded that the Senate should decree who should reigne at Rome At last Numa Pompilius was named and none of the people or Senate daring to preferre any before him all of them joyntly decreed that the Kingdome should be conferred upon him Whence Canubius the Tribune of the people in his Speech against the Consuls long after used these words Numa Pompilius POPULI JUSSU Patres autoribus Romae Regnavit Reges exacti JUSSU POPULI which manifests the chiefe power to be in the people Numa departing Tullus Hostilius by the people command consent and approbation was made King which Livy thus expresseth Tullum
Hostilium REGEM POPULUS JUSSIT patres auctores facti After him the people created Ancus Martius King Regem POPULUS CREAVIT patres fuêre auctores After him ingenti consensu Populus Romanus Tarquinium REGNARE JUSSIT The People of Rome with great consent commanded Tarquin to reigne But hedying Servins having a strong Guard to defend him primus injussupopuli voluntate Patrum Regnavit was the first that reigned without the command of the people by the Senates consent yet doubting his title for want of the peoples votes and young Tarquin his Competitour giving out speeches se injussupopuli regnare that he reigned without the peoples command he thereupon so courted the Commons by dividing the Lands he had taken from the enemies among them that at last he appealed to the people Vellent nolerintve se regnare whether they would or would not have him reigne tantoque consensu quanto hand quisquam alius ante rex est declaratus But Tarquin the Proud affecting the Kingdome slew Servius and Non Commitiis habitis non per suffragium populi non auctoribus Patribus without the Election of the people or Senate usurped the Crowne neque enim ad jus regni quicquam praeter vim habebat ut qui neque populi jussu neque Patribus auctoribus regnaret writes Livy Whereupon reposing no hope in the love of the people he endeavoured to defend his usurped Soveraignty by force to which purpose he of himselfe without the Senate or Counsell tooke upon him the conusance of Capitall offences and by colour hereof not onely to slay banish and plunder those whom bee suspected or hated but even those from whom hee could expect nothing but prey Then he lesseneth the number of the Senate to diminish their esteeme and power and at last to subvert it Hee was the first of Kings who dissolved the Custome used by all his Predecessours De omnibus Senatum consulendi of consulting with the Senate about all affaires and administred the Common-wealth by his domesticke Counsels making Warre Peace Truces Leagues with whom he would injussu populi Senatus without the peoples and Senates command which Tyrannicall Usurpations of his with his ravishing of Lucretia caused Brutus and the incensed Romanes to rise up in Armes against him deprive him of His Crowne banish him his Wife and Children utterly to abolish the Kingly Government by a Decree and to take a solemne Oath lest afterward they might bee overcome by Royall intreaties or Gifts That they would never suffer any King to Reigne in Rome Which act of Brutus and the People is highly magnified by Livie and Tully This done the people created two annuall Consuls who had the Power but not the name and continuance of Kings Annuum imperium consulare factum est Brutus the first Consull was slaine whilest hee was Consull and Valerius his Companion being suspected by the People to affect the Kingdome because hee demanded no new Companion Valerius heereupon calls the people together layes downe his Fasces the badges of his Soveraignty before them which was a gratefull spectacle to the people confessionemque factam Populi quam Consulis Majestatem vimque majorem esse and a confession made that the People had greater Soveraignty and Power then the Consul who yet had regall Jurisdiction And then there were Lawes enacted of appealing from the Consul or Magistrate to the people and that hee should lose both his head and goods who should but consult to usurp the Kingdome In briefe it is clearly agreed by Dionysius Halicarnasseus Polibius Livy Alexander ab Alexandro Bodin and most who have written of the Roman Republike that the Soveraigne Authority among the Romans during their Kings Consuls Dictators and other Magistrates was originally vested not in the Kings Senate Consuls or other Magistrates but in the whole body of the Senate and People the People had the chiefe Soveraigne Power of enacting and confirming Lawes the Senates Decrees and Lawes being of no validity unlesse the People ratified them of creating and electing Kings Dictators Tribunes and all other great publike Officers of denouncing warre and making Peace these Tribunes and Dictators might restrain curb imprison censure depose the Roman Consuls who had Regall Power yea the Roman Kings Senators and highest Officers and to them the last appeale from King Senate or other Magistrate might be made as to the highest Tribunall they having power likewise to change or annull the very frame of their publike Government which they oft times did as these Authors prove at large to whom for brevity I referre the Reader Yea after the Roman Empire the greatest largest Soveraignty in the world was erected the Supream Power still rested in the Senate and People not in the Emperors themselves which Bodin grants and proves This is clearly evident by these ensuing particulars First the Senate and People had sole right and lawfull power both to elect and confirme their Emperors and to decree them new Honours Titles Triumphs which power of election though some Emperors in a sort usurped by adopting their Successors and the Roman Souldiers too by presuming sometimes to elect Emperours without the Senate yet these adoptions and elections were not held valid unlesse the Senate approved and confirmed them who usually elected all their Emperors as of right according to that of the Panegyrist Imperaturum omnibus ex omnibus elegi debere Plinius Panegyr Trajano dictus and Jacobus Valdesius c. 18. This appeares by the election and confirmation of most Emperors from Octavius to Leo the first and more particularly by the Senates and Peoples election and confirmation of Nerva Pertinax Severus Gordianus Maximus Pupienus Clodius Balbinus Philip Decius Trebonianus Galienus Claudius the second Taâ—itus Probus Iovinianus Aurelius and others This right of the Senate was so cleare that after the death of Aurelianus the Army sent word to the Senate that as reason was they should chuse and name an Emperor and that they would obey him After six months space during which time the Empire was governed by the Senate the Senate made choice of Tacitus who earnestly refused the same at first but in the end accepted thereof to the great joy of the Senate and Roman people After whose decease Prebus being chosen Emperor by the Legions and Army he presently wrote a letter to the Senate excusing himselfe for having accepted the Empire without their knowledge and confirmation whereupon the Senate confirmed his election with many blessings gave him the name of Augustus Father of the Countrey made him High Priest and gave him Tribunall Power and Authority Secondly This is manifest by the confessions and Actions of the best Roman Emperours Volateranus writes of Trajan the best heathen Emperor that Rome enjoyed that he used to call the Senate Father but himselfe their Minister or Servant of their labour And that standing he
to procure his pardon which because it was the first president of this kinde made his advocate say tamen it a inusitatum est Regem capitis reum esse ut ante hoc tempus non sit auditum yet long before that Zedechiah King of Iudah rebelling against the King of Babylon was brought prisoner to the King of Babylon to Riblah where hee gave judgement upon him slew both his sonnes and Princes before his eyes and then put out his own eyes bound him with fetters of brasse and carried him prisoner to Babylon where hee died 2 Kings 25. 1. to 8. Ier. 52. 1. to 12. And after Detoratus Antigonus King of the Iewes being taken prisoner by Antonius for moving sedition against the Roman State was beheaded with an axe at Antioch without any legall triall to prevent further seditions which never befell any King before that time writes Alexander ab Alexandro And Agrippa not long after put Bogus King of the Mores to death for siding with Antonius Of later times I read that Ludovicus Pius the Emperour taking Bernard his Nephew King of Italy prisoner for rebelling and denying his superiority over him carried him into France to determine what should be done with him according to Iustice for this his offence where though a King hee was condemned to death and executed as some or at least cast into prison and had his eyes put out as others write So Charles of France taking Conradine King of Sicily prisoner publikely arraigned and condemned him of high Treason and cut off his head Anno 1208. Yea our owne King Iohn being a Feudatary to the King of France was by Philip the French king in a full Parliament there during his absence in England arraigned condemned to death and deposed from his Crown by the sentence of his Peeres for murthering his Nephew Arthur then a Subject of France with his owne hands So Iohn Bailiol king of Scotland renouncing his homage for that Crowne to king Edward the first was for this offence compelled to resigne his Crown with all his right to the kingdome of Scotland to King Edward the first and sent Prisoner to the Tower of London and Mary Queene of Scots within many mens memories after long debate in Parliament was condemned and beheaded at Fothringhom Castle Febr. 8. An. 1587. for laying claime to the Crowne of England and other particulars mentioned in our Historians And thus much for the Roman Grecian German Emperours kings and kingdomes I shall now give you a briefe Survey of what Greeke Authors write concerning Kings and Kingdoms and of the power the kinds of ancient Kings and Kingdomes in Greece and other places That great Father of Learning and policie Aristotle Tutor to the greatest Emperour Alexander the Great whose Authority is irrefragable in our Schooles resolves That true Kingdoms were erected at first and conferred on the worthiest men by the free voluntary joynt consent of the people and founded confirmed by the customes and Lawes of each country which Polibius also affirmes That there are 4 severall sorts of Kings some of greater some of lesser Authority and continuance then others some elective some successive some during life some Annuall all of them receiving their distinct jurisdictions Formes Limitations and different Royalties from the peoples primitive or subsequent institutions and consents For all men being equall by the Law of nature can have no dominion nor Supercrity one over another but by their own voluntary consents That the Lawes not the Kings Princes or Magistrates be they one or more or never so good ought to be the sole Lords or Rulers of the Common-wealth and that Princes and Governours ought to governe by the Lawes who cannot command what the Lawes doe not command That those who command that the Law should rule command that God and the Lawes should rule but he that commands a man to be a Prince he commands that both a man and beast should be Princes for covetousnesse and the lust of the minde is a certaine beast which poverts both Magistrates and the very best men but the Law is a constant and quiet Minde and Reason voyd of all motions of lusts and desires That the power of the greatest things and greatest power ought DE IVRE of right to be in all the people because their wisdomes resolutions and revenues considered altogether are greater and more considerable then those of a few wise or honest men placed in the highest offices of Magistracie who are but a small particle of the State in respect of all the people That the people ought to be of more power then the King or greatest Magistrates to prevent their Tyranny and Oppression and that a King ought to governe by his Lawes and not to doe any thing against them according to his lust wherefore he ought to have so much power and force wherewith he may protect the authority of the Lawes yea he must necessarily have forces and power yet so much onely as thereby he may be able to curbe every particular man or many also yet not so great power but that a populo autem universo idem REX ILLE IPSE COERCERI POTEST the very King himselfe may yet BE CVRBED by all the people such Guards verily the Ancients gave to their Kings when they would set any Tyrant or Governour over the City And when Dionysius required Guards a certaine Syracusan perswaded them to curbe such Guards to which Polybius also suffragates According to these Rules of Aristotle I read in Dionysius Halicarnassaeus and Polybius that in the Lacedemonian Common-wealth the Kings had not the chiefe Dominion so as they might doe what they pleased sed summa totius Reipub. administratio penes Senatum erat but the chiefe Government of the whole Commonweale was in the Senate from whence the Romanes tooke their patterne Alexander ab Alexandro Boemus and Xenophon write That the Lacedemonians sometimes elected a King out of the Family of the Heraclidae or of Agis but more often two joynt Kings of equall Authority out of the stock of Proclus and Aemisthenes who yet had not the chiefe Command as Kings Quia juris omnis publici potestas penes Senatum erat because the power of all publike law or rule was in the Senate the better to keep their Kings from attempting and usurping a Tyranny they being Kings rather in name then Dominion and like the Athaean two Annuall Praetors whence Aristotle makes them the lowest ranke of Kings Iohn Bodin informes us That in the Lacedemonian Aristocracie the Soveraignty remained in the State wherein were two Kings without any Soveraignty at all being indeed nothing else but Captains and Generals for the managing of their Warres and for that cause were by the other Magistrates of the State sometimes for their faults condemned to pay their fine as was Agesilaus and sometimes to death also as was
or were offended in minde that on the contrary they thought they lived a most blessed life For other men rashly giuing indulgence to the affections of nature acted many things accompanied with losses and dangers yea some men ofttimes although they foreknew they should sinne did notwithstanding perpetrate evill things being led away with love or hatred or some other perturbation of minde but they imbracing the rule of life approved by the most prudent men resolved not to erre from their duty in the least degree Whiles Kings used this Iustice towards their Subjects they had their Subjects bound unto them in greater benevolence and love then their very kindred For not only the Colledge of Priests but the whole Nation of the Aegyptians and likewise every one of them were not so carefull of their wives and children and private goods as of the safety of their Kings Wherefore they preserved the estate of the Republike intire for a long time under the mentioned kings spending their life in greatest felicity as long as this constitution of Lawes flourished And when these kings dyed all the Aegyptians generally mourned for them in an extraordinary manner divers wayes made solemne Orations in their praise buried them with great pompe and solemnity and erected Pyramides to their eternall honour all which funerall pompous solemnities many ill kings wanted after their deaths ob plebis refragationem because the people gain-sayed it who together with the Priests and Senates who were ever present with the kings to assist counsell and direct them were superiour to their kings since they could thus decree or deny them these funerall honours which made many of their following kings to addict themselves to just actions too for feare of contumelious handling and sempiternall ignominy after their decease So this Author To which I shall adde Xenophons definition of a Kingdome and Tyranny A kingdome is an Empire over men by their free assents according to the Lawes of the City And a Tyranny is an unlawfull Empire over men against their wills which depends upon the will of the Prince And this observation of Polybius That Kings in ancient times did give themselves wholly to doe that which was honest and just and to suppresse the contrary the very beginning of all true kingdomes and the end for which kings were first instituted by the people Whiles they thus demeaned themselves they were subject to no envy because they differed not much from others neither in apparell nor in meat and drinke but observed a conversation of life conformable to other men and lived perpetually like to others But afterwards when those who obtained the principality of succession and the prerogative of their blood had those things already provided which made them able to secure themselves and to support their state following their lusts by reason of their abundance they then thought it belonged to Princes to be better clad then subjects to exceed them in costlinesse and variety of meats and to use venery with whom they pleased Hence envy and offence was begotten and implacable hatred and anger kindled and a kingdome by this meanes changed into a Tyranny Hence men most generous and magnanimous bold spirits unable to beare such affronts and insolences of Princes seditiously conspire against them and the people having got such Captaines to make resistance joyne with them for the foresaid causes that the Princes may be repressed And thus the forme of a Kingdome and Monarchy is utterly taken away by the roots and the beginning of an Aristocracy again laid the people refusing to set any more a King over them yet not daring to commit the Republike to many fearing as yet the iujustice of Superiours and therefore most esteeme equality and liberty So that the Soveraigne power of setling of changing the Kingdome and forme of government resides principally in the people who as hee there largely proves by the Lacedemonian and Roman state ought to enjoy the Supreame authority and to be above their Kings as it seems the Aegyptian did who deposed and expelled Evergetes their King for his cruelty and after him their King Ptolomaeus Auletes setting up Cleopatra his eldest child in his Threne and as the Romane Senate did who had power to dispose of the common Treasury and revenue one of the greatest points of Soveraignty to appoint Lieutenants and Governours of Provinces to grant Triumphes to dispose of Religion for which cause Fertullian saith that never any God was received in Rome without the decree of the Senate and to receive answer and dismisse the Ambassadours of Kings and Nations which none else did but the Senate whose Soveraigne power was such that Tiberius the Emperour in the beginning of his Reigne called the Senators assembled altogether in the Senate Indulgentissimos DOMINOS his most loving LORDS and moved the Senate to divide the Empire not to commit it all to one man as we read in Tacitus though they were his Subjects and inferiours when divided and severally considered And such Soveraigne power had the Panaetolium or generall assembly of Parliament among the Aetolians who received and answered all Embassadours determined all affaires of warre and peace it being provided by the Lawes of the Aetolians that nothing should be intreated of concerning peace or war but in their Panaetolium or Pelaicon Councell as Livy and Bodin record But to leave these ancient and come neerer our present neighbor Kings and Kingdomes of greatest eminencie and power which may parallell our owne The Kings of France to whom Caessanaeus in his Catalogus Gloriae mundi gives precedency before all others and to the Emperour himselfe while but elect before his Coronation have in ancient times been inferiour to their Kingdomes Parliaments and subject to their censures even to deposition if not more though some cry them up for absoluts Monarchs and make them little better then Tyrants now Iohn Bodin a learned French Lawyer and Statesman writes That in ancient times the Kings of the Cities of the Gaules were subject to their States whom Caesar for this cause oftentimes calleth Reguli little Kings being themselves subjects and justifiable to the Nobility who had all the Soveraignty causing them even to be put to death if they had so deserved And that is it for which Amphiorix the Captaine Generall whom they called the King of the Lingeois said Our commands are such as that the people hath no lesse power over us then we over the people Wherein he shewed evidently that he was no soveraigne Prince howbeit that it was not possible for him to have equall power with the people as we have before shewed Wherefore these sort of Princes if they polluted with wickednesse and villany cannot be chastised by the Authority and severity of the Magistrate but shall abuse their wealth and power unto the hurt and destruction of good men IT ALWAYES HATH AND SHALL BE LAWFVLL not for strangers onely but
even for the subjects themselves also to take them out of the way But if the Prince be an absolute Soveraigne as are the true Monarchs of France c. where the Kings themselves have the soveraignty without all doubt or question not divided with their subjects in this case it is not lawfull for any one of their subjects in particular or all of them in generall to attempt any thing either by way of fact or justice against the honour life or dignity of the Soveraigne albeit hee had committed all the wickednesse impiety and cruelty that could be spoken so Bodin By whose words it is cleare that the ancient kings of France were inferiour in Jurisdiction to their whole kingdomes and Parliaments yea censurable by them to deposition or death Yet that their kings of late are growne absolute Monarchs above their kingdomes Nobles Parliaments and so not responsible to nor punishable by them for the grossest misdemeanours But if this their absolute Monarchy be onely an usurpation as many conceive it not of right by their Parliaments and kingdomes free grants and consents they are still in truth of no greater Authority nor no more exempted from iust censures then their predecessours Now it is clear that in ancient times the 3. Estates and great Councell of France assembled in Parliament and their twelve Peeres or kings as Fabian termes them were the highest power and judicature from which there was no appeale that the Kings of France could make no binding Lawes but by their Authority though now of late they doe what they please and that they have judged the differences between the Crownes of England and France as I have formerly proved and exercised the same or as great authority as the Parliament of England hath done which authority it hath lost by certaine degrees To give a few more instances to cleare this truth Pharamond the first King of the Franks that Reigned in France An. 420. was elected King by the unanimous vote and consent of all the people and by their advice and consent in his Raign the Salique Law was made to Regulate the discent of the Crowne that no women should be heires to it or claime it by discent which Law continues of force untill this day as all the French historians generally accord who make frequent mention of it though our English have much oppugned it as you may read in Hall and Speed Childericus the fourth King of France about the yeare 460. giving himselfe to all vice and cruelty in such extreame wise that hee became obible to his subjects perceiving the murmur of the people and fearing his sudden destruction by the counsell of Guynemeus fled out of his kingdome to Beseigne king of Thuringes Whereupon the French-men with one assent chose Gyll a Roman for their King and governour who laying grieveous Taxes upon his Subjects by the fraudulent counsel of Guynemeus a fast friend to Childericus and using sharp execution upon some of the Nobles so farre discontented his subjects that by the helpe of Guynemeus they deposed and chased him into Soysons and sending for Childerious againe restored and made him King after whose death his sonne Clodovius was by the people ordained and authorised for King of France between whose foure sonnes it was afterwards divided After the death of Chilpericus Clotharius being very young Gunthranus king of Orleans his uncle with the assent of the Nobles of the Realme was made his Tutor who comming to age hee offered to referre the differences between Sigebert and himselfe touching Austracy to which both laid claime to an Assembly of the Lords of that Kingdome and condemned Queen Brunicheild by the unanimous consent of the Lords to bee tyed by the haire of her head to a wilde horse taile and so to be drawed while shee was dead for her many murthers and criminous deeds which was accordingly executed King Dagobert exercised such tyranny and iniustice in pillaging his commons by Exactions and Tributes that those who dwelled in the out parts of the Realme neere the Turkes and other strange Nations chose rather to put themselves under their government than under the Rule of their owne naturall prince Poytiers rebelled against him his Lords murmured so much against him that Pipin and Martain two of his great Lords and agents to save his Crown dissuaded him from his ill counsells whence a little before his death calling a great counsell of his Lords Spirituall and Temporall hee made his will and setled his Kingdome by their advice dividing it between his two sonnes Theodoricus king of France giving himself to sloath and idlenesse committed the government of the Realme to Ebroyn Mr. of his Palace who did what he liked and vexed and troubled the Subjects grievously wherefore by assent the Lords assembled them and by authority deprived the King of all Dignity and closed him in a Monastery during the residue of his life when he had borne the name of a King without executing of the art thereunto belonging three yeares the cruell Ebroyn they exiled to Luxenbourgh during life making Childericus brother to Thesdericus King Ann. 669. who oppressing his subjects grievously and using the Lawes of his progenitors after his pleasure and uniustly causing a Noble-man called Belin to bee tyed to a stake and beaten to death without guilt or Treaspasse Hereupon the Lords and Commons fearing like punishment without deserving murmured and conspired against him and slew him and his wife then great with Childe as they were hunting in a wood After which they restored Theodericus whom they had deposed to his former dignity under whom Ebroyn getting into place and favour againe used such Tyrannie towards the Nobles and People that Pipin and Martaine raised a great army against him lest he should destroy the Commom-weale gave him battell and at last Hermefreditus slew him After which Pipin was made Master of the Palace in his place K. Daegobert the second dying without any Issue or knowne Heire at all one Daniel after named Chilpericke a Priest was by the Lords and peoples generall assent chosen King of France Anno 721. for that by their former experience of him they deemed him apt for the rule of the Land After whose death Theodoricus sonne to Dagobert secretly fostered among Nunnes within Nunneries in womans cloathing was espied and admitted for King During most of the forenamed Kings the grand Master of the Palace swayed the Kingdome at his pleasure and executed the Office of the Kings who had nothing but the bare name of Kings and were subject to this grand Officer Whereupon Theodoricus dying Childericus his sonne being a Sott and for his dulnesse unfit to governe Charles Martell Master of the Palace who swayed all things in Theodoricus raigne deceasing his two sons Charlemaine and Pipin by the advice of the Nobles of the Land considering the insufficiency of the King to rule so great a charge
which Lewes Duke of Orleance should be President Lewes discontented with the device seekes to hold his ranke he pretends that being the first Prince of the blood the Regency belonged unto him he assists at the Councell in Parliament and in the assemblies in Towne and notwithstanding the last VVill of King Lewes and the Decree of the Estates yet will he by force have the name and effect of Regent VVhereupon discontents arising he leaves the Court in discontent and raised a civill warre However the Estates setled the Regencie and affaires of the Realme Anno 1525. Francis the first King of France was taken prisoner by the Emperour Charles the fifth in the Battell of Pavia who by mediation of Friends for his enlargement sent the Earle of Reux his Lord Steward to offer the King Liberty so as he would resigne all the rights he pretended in Italy restore the Dutchy of Burgongue as belongeth to him by right with Provence and Dolphine for the Duke of Bourbon to incorporate them with other Lands which he had formerly enjoyed and to make all together a Kingdome Moreover the Emperour offered to give him his sister in marriage propounding many other conditions so absurd and void of reason as it is better to let the curious reade them in the Originalls themselves Amongst all losses that of Liberty toucheth neerest but Francis having learned to withstand all adversity with a constant resolution said I will dye a Prisoner rather then make any breach in my Realm for my deliverance whereof I neither WIL NOR CAN alienate any part without the consent of the Soveraign Courts and Officers in whose hands remains the authority of the whole Realm We preferre the generall good before the private interest of Kings persons If the Emperour will treat with me let him demand reasonable things which lye in my power then shall he finde me ready to joyne with him and to favour his greatnesse The Emperour seeing the King constant in this resolution in the end yeelded to his delivery upon these termes That within six weekes after his delivery he should consigne the Dutchy of Burgengue to the Emperour with all the dependancies as well of the Dutchie as of the County the which should hereafter be sequestred from the Soveraigntie of the Realme of France That he should resigne to the Emperour all his rights pretended to the Estates of Naples Milan Genoa and Ast That he should quit the Soveraignty of Flaunders and Arthois c. Hereupon the King being enlarged and arrived at Beyonne he was required to ratifie the Accord which he had promised to doe when hee came to a free place but he delayed it with many excuses giving the Emperour to understand that before he proceeded to such an act it was necessary that he should pacifie his Subjects who were discontented with bonds which tended to the diminution of the Crowne of France c. After which the Pope and the Venetians sending Messengers unto him he complained of the Emperour that he had wronged him in that he had forced him to make impossible promises and that he would be revenged if ever occasion were offered and that he had often told him that it was not in the power of a French King to binde himselfe to the alienation of any thing depending of the Crowne without the consent of the Generall Estates that the Lawes of Christians did not allow that he which was taken in Warre should be detained in perpetuall prison which was a punishment proper to Malefactors and not for such as had bin beaten by the cruelty of fortune that all men knew that Bonds made by constraint in prison were of no value and that the capitulation being of no force the faith likewise which was but accessary and the confirmation of the same could not be bound that by the oath which he had taken at Rhemes at his Coronation he was bound according to the custome of other Kings of France not to alienate the patrimony of the Crowne and therefore for these reasons he was no lesse free then ready to abate the Emperors pride The Emperor growing jealous of the Kings delayes for ratification thereof sent one unto him to be certified of his intent who found him very unwilling to leave Burgundy which being very prejudicall to the Crowne of France he said was not in his power to observe and that hee could not alien the Bourguinans without their assents in an assembly of the Estates of the Country which he intended to call shortly to know their minds By which it is most apparent that the Kings of France have no power at all to dispose of their Crown lands or alienate them to others as other Subjects may doe because they hold them onely in the right of their Crowne for their Kingdomes use and service the true proprieters of them Upon which very ground Philip Augustus King of France Anno 1216. in a solemne Assembly of the States at Lyons told Walo the Popes Legate who came to prohibit his Sonne Lewes to goe to receive the Crowne of England because King Iohn had resigned it to the Pope That no King or Prince can give away his Kingdom without the consent of his Barons who are bound to defend the Kingdome and if the Pope decreed to defend this errour he should give a most pernitious Example to all kingdomes Whereupon all the Nobles of France began to cry out with one mouth That they would stand for this Article unto death That no King or Prince by his sole pleasure could give his Kingdome to another or make it tributary whereby the Nobles of the Realme should be made servants And the next day Lewes his Advocate alledged that King Iohn for his homicides and many other enormities was justly rejected by his Barons that Hee should not reigne over them That he could not give the Crowne of England to any one without the assent of his Barens and that when he had resigned it he presently ceased to be a King and the Kingdome became void without a King and being so vacant could not be disposed of without the Barons who had lawfully elected Lawes for their King who in pursuance of this his Title which the Estates of France held just sailed into England took possession of the Kingdome received homage of all the Barons and Citizens of London who joyfully received him taking an Oath upon the Evangelists to restore them their good Lawes together with their lost Inheritances Henry the 2. of France being casually slaine by the Earle of Montgommery in running at the Tilt left the Crowne to Francis the 2. being but about 16. yeares of age the Queen Mother with his wives Vncles the Duke of Guise and the Cardinall of Loraigne hereupon usurped the Government of his person and Realme dispossessed the chiefe Officers of the Crowne kept backe the Princes of the Blood from Court the true and lawfull Governours of the State during the Kings minority
of their Kingdom and Estates assembled as some falsly averre they are because our Royalists and Court Doctors parallell England with France making both of them absolute Monarchies and our greatest malignant Councellors chiefe Designe hath been to reduce the Government of England to the late modell and new arbitrary proceedings of France which how pernicious they have proved to that unfortunate Realm what infinite distructive civill warres and combustions they have produced and to what unhappy tragicall deaths they have brought divers of their Kings Princes Nobles and thousands of their people the premisses other Storyes will so far discover as to cause all prudent Kings and Statesmen to steer the Helme of our own and other Kingdoms by a more safe steddy and fortunate compasse Thus I have done with France and shall recompence any prolixity in it with greater brevity in other Kingdoms when I have overpassed Spain From France I shall next steer my course to the Kingdomes and Kings of Spaine whom Iacobus Valdesius Chancellor to the King of Spain in a large Book de Dignitate Regum Regnorumque Hispaniae printed at Granado 1602. professedly under takes to prove to be of greater dignity and to have the Precedency of the Kings and Kingdoms of France which Cassanaeus and all French Advocates peremptorily deny The first Kings of Spain over-run by the Goths and Wisigoths are those their Writers call the Gothish Kings who as Michael Ritius de Regibus Hispaniae L. 1 2. Iohannis Mariana de rebus Hispaniae L. 2 3. the Generall History of Spain and othes affirme were elected by and had their authority from the people You may reade their lives and successions at large in these Authors and finde some of there dis-inherited and deposed by their subjects others of them in ward during their minorities to such as the State appointed others murdered but all of them subject to the Lawes of their Realms as it is evident by the expresse ancient Law of the Wisigoths having this Title Quod tam Regia potestas quam populorum universitas Legum reverentiae sit subjecta by other lawes thereto annexed by Iohannis Mariana De Rege Regis institutione L. 1. c. 9. Those whom they properly call Kings of Spain had their royall authority derived to them conferred on them by the people upon this occasion Spain being a Provincesubject to the Roman Empire was spoyled over-runne and possessed by the barbarous Moors for many years in which time the Spanyards oft solicited the Roman Emperours for ayde to expell the Moors but could gain none Whereupon to free themselves and their Countrey from slavery they chose one Pelagius for their Captain by whose valour they conquered the Moors and thereupon by unanimous consent Elected and Crowned Pelagius King of Oviedo whom the Spanish Writers mention as the first King of Spain And this their desertion by the Emperours the Spanish Writers generally hold and g Iacobus Valdesius proves it largely to be a sufficient lawfull ground for the Spanyards even by the generall law of Nations to cast off their subjection to the Roman Empire and to elect a King erect a Kingdom of their own exempt from all subjection to the Emperor since they purchased their own libertie and Countrey from the Gothes by conquest of themselves alone without any aide or assistance from the Roman Emperours to whom for this reason they hold themselves and their Kingdom no wayes subject yet for all this they deem their Kings inferiour to their whole Kingdoms and censurable yea deposable by them as is cleer by the forecited passage of the Bishop of Burgen Ambassadour to the King of Spain in the Councell of Basill and by Johannis Mariana the Jesuites Book de Rege Regis Institution dedicated to Philip the third King of Spain printed at Madrit in Spain by this Kings own speciall priviledge Dated at Madrit January 25. 1599. and after this reprinted at Mentz in Germany Anno 1605. Cum privilegio sacrae Caesariae Majestatis to wit of the Emperour Radulph the second permissu Superiorum who certainly would not thus specially approve authorize this Book for the Presse had it maintained any Positions contrary to the Laws or derogatory to the Prerogative Royall of the Crownes and Kingdoms of Spain though other States cannot so well digest it In this very Book the Authour who hath likewise written a large History of the affaires and Kings of Spain professedly maintains in a speciall Chapter wherein he debates this Question Whether the power of the Republike or King be greater That the whole Kingdom State and People in every lawfull Kingdom and in Spain it selfe are of greater power and authority then the King His reasons which I have for brevity digested into number in his own words are these First because all Royall Power that is lawfull hath its originall from the People by whose grant the first Kings in every Republike were placed in their Royall Authoritie which they circumscribed with certain laws and sanctions lest it should too much exalt it selfe to the distruction of the Subjects and degenerate into a Tyrannie This appears in the Lacedaemonians long since who committed onely the care of Warre and procuration of holy things to the King as Aristotle Writes Also by a later example of the Aragonians in Spain who being incited with an earnest endeavour of defending their libertie and not ignorant how the hights of Libertie are much diminished from small beginnings created a middle Magistrate like the Tribunall power commonly called at this time Aragoniae Iustitia the Justice of Aragon who armed with the lawes authoritie and endeavours of the people hath hitherto held the Royall Power included within certain bounds and it was specially given to the Nobles that there might be no collusion if at any time having communicated their counsell among themselves they should keep assemblies without the Kings privity to defend their Lawes and Liberties In these Nations and those who are like them no man will doubt but that the authoritie of the Republike is greater then the Kings Secondly because in other Provinces where the people have lesser and the Kings more power and all grant the King to be the Rector and supream Head of the Commonwealth and to have supream authoritie in managing things in times of warre or peace yet there the whole Commonwealth and those who represent it being chosen out of all Estates and meeting together in one place or Parliament are of greater power to command and deny than the King which is proved by experience in Spain where the King can impose no Taxes nor enact no Laws if the people dissent or approve them not Yea let the King use art propound rewards to the Citizens sometimes speak by threats to draw others to consent to him solicite with words hopes and promises which whether it may be well done we dispute not yet if they shall resist their judgement shall be
Kings consent and Proclamations is so fresh in memory so fully related in the Acts of Oblivion and Pacification made in both Parliaments of England and Scotland ratified by the King himselfe and in particular Histories of this Subject that I shall not spend time to recite particulars but will rather conclude from all the premises with the words of Buchanan The Ancient custome of our Ancestors in punishing their Kings suffers not our forcing of the Queene to renounce her right unto the Crowne to her sonne to seeme a Novelty and the moderation of the punishment shewes it proceeded not from envie for so many Kings punished with death bonds banishment by our Ancestors voluntarily offer themselves in the ancient Monuments of Histories that we neede no forraigne examples to confirme our owne act For the Scottish Nation seeing it was free from the beginning created it selfe Kings upon this very Law that the Empire being conferred on them by the suffrages of the people if the matter required it they might take it away againe by the same suffrages of which law many footsteps have remained even to our age for in the Islands which lye round about us and in many places of the Continent wherein the Ancient language and constitutions have continued this very custome is yet observed in creating Governours likewise the Ceremonies which are used in the Kings inauguration have also an expresse image of this Law out of which it easily appeares that a Kingdome is nothing else but the mutuall stipulation betweene the people and their Kings the same likewise may be most apparently understood out of the inoffensive tenor of the ancient Law preserved from the very beginning of raigning among the Scots even unto our age when as no man in the meane time hath attempted not onely not to abrogate this Law but not so much as to shake it or in any part to diminish it Yea whereas our Ancestors have deprived so many Kings as would bee tedious to name of their Realme condemned them to banishment restrained them in prisons and finally punished them with death yet there was never any mention made of abating the rigor of the Law neither perchance undeservedly since it is not of that kinde of Lawes which are obnoxious to the changes of times but of those ingraven in the mindes of men in the first originall of mankinde and approved by the mutuall consent well-nigh of all Nations which continue unbroken and sempiternall together with the Nature of things and being subject to the commands of no man domineere and rule over all men This law which in every action offers it selfe to our eyes and mindes and dwels in our brests will we nill we our Ancestors following were alwayes armed against violence and suppressed the unrulinesse of Tyrants Neither is this Law proper onely to the Scots but common to all well-ordered Nations and People as the Athenians Lacaedemonians Romanes Venetians Germanes Danes which he there manifests by examples So that I may hence infallibly determine the Realme Parliament and Nobles of Scotland collectively considered to be the Soveraigne power in that Realme superiour to the Kings themselves from whom I shall proceede to Scripture Presidents in the Kings and Kingdomes of the Gentiles Israel and Iudah recorded in Scripture The Kings of the Gentiles Israel and Iudah Now least any should object that all the forecited Examples and Authorities are but humane and no convincing evidences to satisfie the Conscience That whole Kingdoms States and Parliaments are above their kings and of greater power then they I shall therefore to close up this Posterne Gate of Evasion conclude with Scripture Presidents ratifying this truth beyond all contradiction To begin with Heathen kings and States therein recorded I read in the 1 Sam. 29. and 1 Chro. 12. 19. That when David with his men offered to go with Achish and the Philistines against King Saul his Soveraign and the Israelites to Battell and passed on in there reward with Achish the Princes of the Philistines seeing it said What do these Hebrews here To whom Achish answered Is not this David the servant of Saul King of Israel which hath been with me these years and I have found no fault in him since he fell unto me unto this day Hereupon the Princes of the Philistines were wroth with him and taking advice together said to their King Achish Make this fellow returne that he may goe again to his place which thou hast appointed him and let him not go down with us to Battell lest in the Battell he be an adversary to us for wherewith should he reconcile himself to his Master should it not be with the Heads of these men Is not this David of whom they sang one to another in dances saying Saul slew his thousands and David his ten thousands Then Achish called David and said unto him Surely as the â—ord liveth thou hast been upright and thy going out and coming in with me in the Host is right in my sight for I have not found evill in thee since the day of thy coming neverthelesse the Lords favour thee not wherefore now return and go in peace that thou displease not the Lords of the Philistines And when David replied What have I done c. that I may not fight against the Enemies of my Lord the King Achish answered him I know thou art good in my fight as an Angell of God notwithstanding the Princes of the Philistines have said HE SHALL NOT GOE VP WITH VS TO BATTELL wherefore rise up early in the morning with thy Masters servants that are come with thee and assoon as ye have light depart whereupon they returned Here we see the Lords of the Philistines did peremptorily overrule their king against his will who durst not contradict them therefore they had a Power superiour to his as will further appear by 1 Sam. 5. 7 8 9 10 11. and ch 6. 1 to 13. where when the Ark of God was taken by the Philistines the Lords and People of the Philistines not the King met consulted and ordered how it should be removed from place to place and at last sent it back again So Ahasuerus the great Persian Monarch was advised over-ruled by his Councell of State as appeareth by the case of Queen Vashti Ester 1. and what his Princes thought meet to be done that he decreed and proclaimed verse 19 20 21 22. So Artaxerxes king of Persia did all things of moment by the advise of his Counsellors and Princes Ezra 7. 28. and Chap. 8. 25. Great Nabuchadnezzar King of Babylon Dan 3. 2 3. 24. chap. 4. 32 to 36. was for his pride driven from men put to eat grasse with Oxen for aspace till he knew that the most High ruleth in the Kingdoms of men After which his understanding and reason returned to him and the glory of his Kingdom and his Councellors and Lords sought unto him and established him in his Kingdom he being over-ruled and counselled
afterwards by them So Daniel 6. Darius King of the Medes and Persians was over-ruled by his Lords and Princes even against his will to Signe a Decree and to cast Daâ—iel into the Lyons Den for breach of it and though the King were sore displeased with himself for Signing this Decree and set his heart on Daniel and laboured till the going down of the Sun to deliver him yet the Princes assembling and telling the King Know O King that the Law of the Medes and Persians is that no Decree nor Statute which the King establisheth by the advice of his Nobles may be changed to wit by the king alone without their advise a clear evidence that the greatest Persian Monarchs were subject to the Laws of their Kingdoms as well as other Princes Whereupon the King commanded and they brought Daniel and cast him into the Den of Lyons and a stone was brought and laid upon the mouth of the Den and the King Sealed it with his own Signet and with the Signet of the Lords THAT THE PVRPOSE MIGHT NOT BE CHANGED concerning Daniel Here this great king was even against his will constrained to be subject both to his Laws and Lords The like we read of Pharaoh king of Egypt Exod. 1. 8 9 10 11. who consulted with his people how to oppresse the Israelites as being unable to do it without their consents And Exod. 10. Pharaohs Councellors and Lords after sundry Plagues on the Land said unto him How long shall this man Moses be a snare unto us Let the men go that they may serve the Lord their God Knowest thou not that Egypt is destroyed Whereupon Moses and Aaron were brought before Pharaoh who said unto them Go serve the Lord your God And Esay 19. 11. to 16. Surely the Princes of Zoan are foolâ— the counsell of the wise Counsellors of Pharaoh is become brutish They have also seduced Egypt even they that are the stay of the Tribes thereof They then had an overruling power above their kings So the great King of Nineveh Ionah 3. 7 8 9. proclaimed and published a generall fast thorowout the City by the Decree of the King and of his great men making no publike Laws but by their advice and assents In like manner we read in the 2 Sam. 5. 3 4 5. That the Princes of Hanun King of the Ammonites coâ—selled and overruled him out of overmuch suspition to abuse Davids messengers sent to him in love And in the 1 Kings 22. 47. There was then no King in Edom a Deputy was King the kingdom appointing a Deputy then to rule them in stead of a king and giving him royall authority And in the 2 Kings 8. 22. 2 Chron. 21. 8. In the dayes of Ioram Edom revolted from under the hand of Iudah which had conquered it and MADE A KING OVER THEMSELVES and though Ioram smote the Edomites who encompassed him yet they revolted from under the hand of Iudah till this day The electing and constituting of a king being in their own power See Gen. 23. 3. to 20. and c. 34. 20. to 25. to like purpose These being all Pagan Kings and States I come to the Israelites themselves wherein for my more orderly proceeding and refutation of the many grosse erronious Assertions of * Court Doctors and Royallists touching the estate and Soveraignty of their Kings whom they would make the world beleeve to be absolute Monarchs subject to no Laws to derive all their royall authority from God alone and no wayes from the people to be meerly hereditary and elective to be above all their people irresistible in their Tyrannicall wicked proceedings and no wayes subject to their Realms and Congregations overruling controll much lesse to their defensive oppositition or deprivation I shall digest the whole History of their Kings and Kingdoms Iurisdictions and power into these ensuing propositions which I shall clearly make good out of Scripture as I propound them in their order First That the originall Creation and Institution of the Israelites Kings and Kingdoms proceeded onely from the power and authority of the people and that solely by Divine permission rather then institution This is most apparent by Deuter. 11. 14 15. When thou art come unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee and shalt possesse it and dwell therein and shalt say I WILL SET A KING OVER ME like as ALL THE NATIONS THAT ARE ABOVT ME THOV SHALT in any wise SET HIM KING OVER THEE whom the Lord thy God shall chuse one from among thy brethren SHALT THOV SET OVER THEE THOV MAIST NOT SET A STRANGER OVER THEE which is not thy Brother Where God himself by way of prophesie of what afterwards should come to passe expresly declares first that the primary motion of changing the government of the Iews from Iudges and an Aristocracy into a Kingdom should proceed from the peoples inclination as the words and shalt say I will set a King over me c. import Secondly that the authority to change the Government into a Regality to creat and make a King resided in and the authority of the King proceeded meerly from the people as the words I will set a King over me Thou shalt set him over thee four times recited in two Verses manifest beyond dispute Thirdly that all Nations about them who had Kings had the like power to create and make their kings as the words Like as all the Nations that are about me witnesse All which is eviâ—ently confirmed by Iosephus Antiqu. Iudaeorum l. 4. c. 8. by Carolus Sigonius de Repub. Hebraeorum l. 7. c. 3. Bertram Cunaeus Schikardus and divers Commentators on this Text The History of the change of their State into a Kingdom and of their Iudges into kings added to this Prophesie and precept will leave no place for any scruple We read in the 1 Sam. 8. that the people growing weary of Samuels government who judged them by reason of the ill government of his sonnes who tooke Bribes and perverted judgement thereupon ALL THE ELDERS OF ISRAEL GATHERED THEMSELVES TOGETHER and came to Samuel unto Ramah and said unto him Behold thou art old and thy sons walk not in thy wayes now MAKE VS A KING TO IVDGE VS LIKE ALL THE NATIONS But the thing displeased Samuel when they said Give us a King to judge us and Samuel prayed unto the Lord And the Lord said unto Samuel HEARKEN VNTO THE VOYCE OF THE PEOPLE IN ALL THAT THEY SAY VNTO THEE for they have not rejected thee but they have rejected me that I should not reign over them According to all the works that they have done since the day that I brought them out of Egypt even unto this day wherewith they have forsaken me and served other gods so do they also unto thee Now therefore hearken to their voyce howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them and shew them the manner of the King that shall reign over them And Samuel told all the words
Lord will not hear you in that day Verse 17 18. Certainly the people neither would nor ought to crie to god against the proceedings of a just upright King but onely of a Tyrant and Oppressour therefore this Text must needs be meant of such a one who should be a scourge and punishment to them as Tyrants are not a blessing as good Kings alwayes be Fifthly consult we with all Polititians whatsoever this description suites onely with a Tyrant not with any lawfull King and that it is meant of such a one we have the testimony of Iosephus the generall concurring suffrage of all Commentators and Expositors one the place see Lyra Hugo de Sancto Victore Carthusian Angelomus Lexoviensis Calvin Brentius Bugenhagius Beda Bertorius Martin Borrhaeus Peter Martyr Zanchius Piscator Serrarius Strigelius Doctor Willet Deodate the English Bibles notes with others and of sundry who descant on this Text in other writings by name of M. Iohn Calvin Instit l. 4. c. 20. sect 26. Bishop Ponet his Politicall Government p. 44. Iunius Brutus Vindiciae contra Tyrannos qu. 3. p. 121. 122. 134. 135. 153. 154. 155. 159. De Iure Magistratus in Subditos p 270. 271. Bucholceri Chronichon p. 208. Petrus Cunaeus de Repub. Hebraeor l. 1. c. 14. Bertrami Politia Iudâ—ic p. 53. Shickardus jus Regium Iudae p. 64. Albericus Gentilis de jure Belli l. 3. c. 15. p. 613. Hugo Grotius de jure Belli Pacis l. 1. c. 3. Adnotata p. 72. Governado Christiano p. 87. Georgius Bucanus de jure Regni apud Scotos p. 44. Dole-man p. 68 70. Haenon disp polit p 432. Weemse 2 Vol 2. Part. p. 14. Hotomani Franco Gallia c. 10. Amesius de Casibus Conscienciae p. 306. and to name no more in so plain a case of Doctor Ferne himself in his Resolving of Conscience sect 2. p. 10. where hee writes That Samuel here tels the people how they should be oppressed under Kings yet all that violence and injustice done unto them is no cause of resistance c. This Text then being cleerly meant of their Kings Oppression violence injustice against Law right and a clear description of a Tyrant not a King I may safely conclude from all the premises that even among the Israelites and Iews themselves their Kings were subject to the Lawes and that the whole Congregation Kingdom Senate Sanhedrin not their Kings were the Supreme Soveraign power and Paramount their Kings themselves whom they did thus freely elect constitute and might in some cases justly censure resist depose if not put to death by common consent for notorious grosse Idolatries and publike multiplied crimes as the forecited authors averre All which considered eternally refutes subverts confounds the erronious false Positions and Paradoxes which Doctor Ferne Griffith Williams Bishop of Ossery the Authour of The necessitie of Subjection with other late ignorant Pamphletters have broached to the contrary without either ground or presidents to warrant what they affirm touching the absolute Soveraignty Monarchy irresistibilitie incorrigibility of the Kings of Iudah and Israel by their whole States Congregations Kingdoms generall assents and utterly takes away those sandy fabulous foundations upon which their impertinent Pamphlets against the Soveraign Power of Parliaments Kingdoms and the illegality of Subjects taking up defensive Arms against Tyrannicall Princes bent to subvert Religion Laws Liberties the Republike are founded which must now needs vanish into nothing before this Catholike irrefragable clear-shining verity abundantly ratifyed by innumerable presidents in all eminent Kingdoms States Nations that either have been in any former ages or are yet extant in the world which must and will infinitely over-sway swallow up the inconsiderable contrary opinions of some few privadoes who either out of flattery hopes of getting or keeping undemerited preferments fear of displeasing greatnesse or inconsiderates following of other reputed learned mens mistakes without due examination of their erronious Tenents have engaged themselves in a Polemicall blinde Combate against these infragable transparent Verities whose defence I have here made good against all their misprisions and bootlesse assaults Having now Historically ran over the most eminent Empires Kingdoms of ancient and present times in a kinde of confused method their copious vastnesse and varietie being so boundlesse and my time to collect them so small that I could hardly marshall them into any comely distinct Regiments or reduce them to the particular Heads debated in the premises I shall therefore for a conclusion deduce these distinct Conclusions from them to which the substance of all the recited Histories may be aptly reduced and are in truth abundantly confirmed by them beyond all contradiction annexing some new punctuall Authorities of note to ratifie and confirme them First it is undeniably evident from all the premises That all Monarchies Empires Kingdoms Emperours Kings Princes in the world were originally created instituted ordained continued limited and received all their jurisdiction power Authoritie both from by and for the people whose Creatures Ministers Servants they are and ought to be If we survey all the severall Lawfull Monarchies Empires Principalities Emperours and Kings that either have been or yet are extant in the world we finde all sacred and prophane Histories concurre in this that they had their originall erections creations from by and for the People Yea we read the very times when the most Monarchies of note were instituted the Names of those on whom the first Monarchies were conferred by the peoples free election onely yet extant on record in most Histories and withall expresse relations of many different kinds of Kingdoms Kings in respect of succession continuance Power jurisdiction scarce any two kingdoms or their Kings being alike in all things in regard of Prerogatives jurisdictions all Histories Polititians concurring resolving with Peter that Kings are humane Creatures or Ordinances instituted diversified thus by men and the people alone out of Gods generall or speciall providence not one of them all being immediately or directly ordained by God as the onely efficient cause without the free concurrence consent and institution of the people This truth is not onely ratified by Lex Regia whereby the Roman Emperours were created yea invested with all their power registred by Iustus Eccardus de Lege Regia Marius Salamonius de Principatu l. 6. formerly transcribed by Plato Aristotle Xenophon Berosus Polybius Cicero Livy Iustin Plinie Strabo Plutarch Dionysius Hallicarnassaeus Diodorus Siculus Pausanias Solinus Alexander ab Alexandro Hermannus Schedell Herodotus Boëmus Pomponius Mela forecited and generally by all Historians Chronologers Antiquaries Lawyers Politians whatsoever but directly averred and proved by Franciscus Hotomanus a famous Lawyer in his Franco-Gallia c. 1. 6. 10 13. the Author of De Iure Magistratus insubditos Quaest 5. p. 239. 240 c. Thomas Garzonius Emporij Emporiorum Pars 1. Discursus 1. de Dom. p. 13. Vasquius Controvers Illustrium 12. n. 133. 59. n. 8. 61. n.
Charles the bald Nephew by Lewis the godly and Iudith professeth himselfe An elected King in Aimoinius the Historiographer In summe all kings whatsoever from the beginning were Elective and those who at this day strive to come to the kingdome by succession must of necessity be First ordained by the people Finally albeit the people by reason of certain egregious merits hath in certain Realmes used to chuse kings out of the same stock yet they chuse the stock it self nor the branch neither do they so chuse it but if it degenerates They may elect another But even those who are neerest of that stock are not so much born as made kings are not so much accounted kings as the Attendants of kings which Franciscus Hotomanus in his Franco-Gallia cap. 6. 7. 10. prosecures more at large and manifests by sundry pertinent Presidents and Authorities Secondly that it is apparant by all the premised Histories That in all Empires Monarchies the whole Empire State Kingdome with the Parliaments Senates States Diets publike Officers and generall Assemblies which represent them are the Supreamest Soveraign power superiour to the Emperours Kings and Princes themselves who are subordinate Ministers and servants to them elected created by them for their common good and not absolute Soveraign Lords or Proprietors to rule domineer over them at their pleasure Which conclusion you shall find abundantly ratified and professedly maintained by Marins Salamonius de Principatu in six severall Books by Iohn Mariana de Rege Regis Instit l. 1. c. 8. Stephanus Iunius Brutus his Vindiciae contra Tyrannos throughout especially p. 91. to 110. the Treatise De Iure Magistratus in Subditos throughout Iustus Eccardus de Lege Regia Henricus Ranzovius Commentarii Bellici lib. 1. c. 3. and elsewhere Georgius Obrechtus an eminent Civill Lawyer Disputationes Iuridicae de Principiis Belli sect 115. to 200. where he thus resolves The inferiour Magistrates as in Germany the Electors Princes Earles Imperiall Cities in France the Peers of France in Poland the Vayuodes or Palatines and in other Kingdomes the Nobles Senators and Delegates of the Estates as they are severally inferiour to the Emperour or King Ita Vniverst Superiores existunt so collectively They are superiour to them as a Generall Councell is above the Pope the Chapter above the Bishop the Vniversity above the Chancellor The Prince saith Pliny the second even the greatest is obliged to the Commonwealth by an Oath as its servant ac ipsa Republica seu Regno Minor est and is lesse then the Republike or Kingdome it selfe by Franciscus Hotomanus a learned French Lawyer in his Franco-Gallia c. 6 7. 10 11. 14 15 16 18 20. Aquinas de Regimine Principum c. 6. by Hemingius Arnisaeus De Auctoritate Principum in populum c. and De Iure Majestatis Sebastianus Foxius De Regni Regisque Institutione Vasquius Controvers Illustrium passim Cavarnuius Contr. Illustr T. 2. 505. n. 1. 399. n. 6. Haenon Disp Polit. p. 179. c. Alhusius Polit c. 4. p. 146. to 154. with Iohn Calvin Instit l. 4. c. 20. sect 31. and divers others forecited Heare Iunius Brutus instead of all the rest to this particular being a Frenchman by birth and writing his mind herein both freely accutely and ingeniously in these words Now verily since Kings are constituted by the people it seems necessarily to follow populum universum Rege potiorem esse That all the people are better and greater then the King For such is the force of the word that whoever is constituted by another is reputed lesse then him he who receiveth authority from another is inferiour to his Author Potipher the Aegyptian appointed Ioseph over his family Nebuchadonozer set Daniel over the Province of babylon Darius set an hundred and twenty Princes over the Kingdome Verily Masters are said to appoint servants Kings Ministers so likewise the people appoints the King as the Minister of the Commonweale which title good Kings have not contemned and ill Kings have affected so that for some ages none of the Roman Emperours but an apparant Tyrant such as Nero Domitian Caligula would be called LORD Moreover it appeares that Kings were instituted for the peoples sake neither wilt thou say that for an hundred Homuncices more or lesse for the most part far worse then the rest all inferiours whatsoever were created rather then they for them Now reason requires that he for whose sake another exists is to be accounted lesser then he Thus the Governour of a Ship is instituted by the owner for the Shippes sake who sits at the Helme lest the Ship should be broken on the Rocks or ill hold her course And verily whiles he intends this businesse the other Mariners serve him and the owner himselfe obeyes him and yet he is a servant of the Ship as well as any mariner neither differs he from a mariner in gender but in kind In the Republike which is usually compared to a Ship the King is in place of a Master the people of an Owner Threfore to him seeking the publike safety the people obey and submit when notwithstanding he is and ought no lesse to be accounted a servant to the Republike as well as any Judge or Captain neither differs he from those in any thing but that he is bound to beare greater burthens and undergoe more dangers Wherefore verily what things soever the King acquires in warre or when he gaineth adjoyning Coasts by right of warre or by sentence of Law as those things which are brought into the Eschequer he acquires to the Kingdom not to himselfe to the people I say which constitute the kingdome no otherwise then as a servant purchaseth to his Lord neither can any obligation be contracted with him but by their authority Furthermore innumerable people live without a king but thou canst not conceive a King without a people so much as in thy mind Neither have some attained a Royall Dignity because they differed in kind from other men and ought to rule over others by a certain excellency of nature as shepheards doe over their Flocks but rather the people created out of the same Masse have advanced them to that degree that so if they enjoyed any authority any power they should acknowledge it received from them and possesse it as during their pleasure which the ancient custome of the French aptly sheweth who lifting their King up on a Buckler proclaimed him King For why I pray are Kings said to have innumerable eyes many eares long hands most swift feet what because they are like to Argus Gerion Midas or to those whom fables have feined verily no but indeed because all the people whom it concerns lend all their eies their ears their hands feet and faculties to the king for the use of the Republike Let the people recede from the King he who even now seemed eyed eared strong and flourishing will suddenly wax blind
WHO IS SEDITIOVS The same Doctrine is taught by Dominicus Soto de Iustitia l. 5. quaest 1. art 3. Ludovicus Molina Tom. 4. De Iustitia Iure Tract 3. disp 6. to 20. Dominicus Bannes 2 a. 2 ae quaest 64. Art 3. Dub. 2. Petrus de Aragon 2. 2 ae vu 64. art 3. Explicatio art p. 248. Michael Bartholomaeus Salon de Iustitia Iure in 2. 2 ae Tom. 1. qu. 64. art 3. cont 1. pag. 385. Petrus de Lorca in 2. 2 ae D. Thomae quaest 40. art 3. sect 3. throughout specially Disput 50. n. 2. Disp 52. 53. Azorius Tom. 2. l. 21. disp 5. qu. 8. 5. Franciscus Victoria Relectio De Iure Belli n. 9. 14. Alphonsus Salmeron in cap. 13. Epist ad Romanos Disp. 5. Fran. Suarez in Defensione fidei l. 3. cha 3. l. 6. chap. 4. throughout specially num 5. 6. 13. 14. 15. 16. Ioan Gerson de Auferibilitate Papae where also he avers consid 6. that one who is truly Pope may lawfully bee bound imprisoned and put to death for his offences though the head of the Church as Papists hold as well as Kings the head of their Realmes Dionysius Cathusianus de Regim Polit. Artic. 19. Franciscus Tollet in summa l. 5. c. 6. Leonardus Lessius de Iustit Iure c. 9. dub 4. Tannerus Tom. 3. disp 4. qu. 8. dub 3. Emanuel Sa. in Aphorism Verb. Tyrannus n. 2. Iohannis Mariana De Rege Regis Instit l. 1. c. 5 6 7 8. Alvarus Pelagius de Plan. Eccles l. 1. c. 21. Simancha Pacensis de Cathol instit tit 23. n. 11. p. 98. tit 45. n. 25. p. 209. Gregorie de Valencia Tom 3. p. 444. Cardinall Bellarmine de Pontif. Rom. l. 5. c. 6. 7. 8. Tract de Potest Sum. Pontif. advers Gul. Barcl p. 97. Iac. Gretzerus Pharetra Tertulliana Vespertilio Haeritico-Politicus Ludovicus Richehom Expostulatio Aplogetica pro Societate Iesiu Vincentius Filiucius Tra. 28. p. 2. dis 4. prae Dec. n. 12. Mart. Becanus Anglicana de Potestate Regis Pontificis Caspar Schoppius Alexi Pharmacum Regium Collyrium Regium Valentine Jacob. An. 1524. and Iohn Tanquerel Anno. 1561. whose opinions are recorded by Bochellus Decreta Eccles Gal. l. 5. tit 4. c. 6. 8. the Cardinall of Como his Letter from Rome 30. January 1584. to Doctor Parrey to murder Queen Elizabeth Franciscus de Verona Constant in Apolog. pro Io Chastel p. 133. Bonarscius the Iesuite Amphith p. 101. Barclay l. 3. advers Monarch c. 8. l. 6. c. 23. 24. erarius in c. 3. Iudicum Hieronymus Blanca Rerum Aragonens Commentarius passim Cajetan upon Aquinas his forecited Summes the Doctors of Salamancha in their Determination Anno 1602. recorded by G. Blackwell qu Bip. p. 56. and Doctor John White his Defence of the Way c. 6. p. 16. Governado Christiano p. 43. Antonius Massa Tract contra Duell n. 78. 79. Baldus 3. Consid 313. Cavarruvias Quaest Illustr T. 2. 505. n. 1. 399. n. 6. Vasquius contro Illustr 16. n. 15. 19. 21. 17. n. 1. 23. 20 n. 344. n. 3. 73. n. 12. 13. 5. 72. n. 7. and elsewhere Hemingius Arnisa us de Authoritate Principum p. 18. 50. 77. 80. 83. 95. 122. Fran. Hotomani Franco-Gallia c. 6. 7. 10 13. 15. 18. 19. c. To which I might adde our English Priests and Iesuites as Doctor Nicholas Saunders Visib Monarch p. 70 71. Doctor Allen Parsons Creswell Philopater Rossaeus Doleman p. 32. to 74. sparsim with sundry others all professedly averring Aquinas his Doctrine and the premisses yea farre exceeding them in sundry particulars many or most of them attributing sufficient Authority and power to the Pope and Prelates alone without the Parliaments Nobles Peers or Peoples assent to depose adjudge Haereticall or tyrannicall Kings to death and devote them to assassination which all Protestants unanimously disclaim But wee need not fish in these unwholesome Romish Streams of Tyber or make use of these Popish Champions whom I have onely named to stop the mouthes of all Papists Priests Iesuites who now much exclaim against the Parliaments present defensive Warre condemning all for Rebels and Traitors who assist the Parliament against their invading traiterous Rebellious armed Forces both in Ireland and England they being in verity such themselves yea the originall contrivers fomenters the principall abettors of the present bloody destructive civill Wars in both our Realms 〈…〉 which most confirms me in this beliefe is a particular late Discovery of the horrid Conspiracy of Con the Popes late Nuncio here and his Iesuited Popish Confederates to undermine and extirpate the Protestant Religion to raise the Scottish and succeeding Irish and English Wars thereby to ingage the King to resort to them for assistance under pretence whereof to rise up in arms and work him to their own conditions or else to poyson him with a Indian poysoned Nut after the example of his Father and then seize upon the Prince and train him up in their Antichristian Religion as you may reade at large in Romes Masterpeece to which I shall referre you for fuller satisfaction from one of the chief Conspirators own Confession But passing by all these I shall proceed to Authorities of Lawyers and Divines professing the Protestant Religion Georgius Obrectus a publike Professor of Law and Advocate to the City of Strasburge in his Disputatio Juridica 1. De Princâ—piis Belli layes down these severall Positions for Law Num. 125. to 139. That all the Inferiour Magistrates in the Empire or other Kingdoms collectively considered are above the Emperour and Kings themselves that if they be unjustly assaulted with unjust violence by any whomsoever they may by a necessary and just warre defend both themselves and theirs and repell and prosecute the unjust assailants That if the Superiour Magistrate neglect to do his duty as if the Turke should invade any Countrey and the Supreme Magistrate would not resist him the inferiour Magistrate may call the people to Arms raise an Army and exercise all forces policie and devices against the common enemy of Christians Or if the Supreme Magistrate should exercise manifest Tyrannie it is verily lawfull to the Inferiour to undertake the care of the Republike which he endeavours to oppresse with all his power That those who represent all the people as the Electors Palatines Nobles Parliament may admonish the Prince of his duty and ought to seek by all means to divert him from his Tyrannicall and impious purpose but if he proceeds and repenteth not being frequently admonished but wilfully subverts the Common-wealth obstinately perverts Laws hath no care of faith covenants justice piety and tends onely to this that he may perpetrate any thing with impunity and impiously reign over mens consciences then verily he is accounted a Tyrant that is an enemy of God and man whence if he hath proceeded to that hight of malice that hee cannot bee expelled but by armed force It is Lawfull for the Electors Palatines
read that many Popes have beene deposed by authority of a Councell But if saith Baldus they be pertinaciously abused at first they must use words secondly herbes that is medicines lastly stones and where the truth of vertue sufficeth not there the defence of weapons ought to prevaile But and if by the suffrages almost of all learned men the Decrees of Councels and the Acts themselves done it be proved that a Councell as they speak may lawfully depose the Pope who yet boasts himselfe to be the Kings of Kings and claimes as much to be above the Emperour as the Sunne is above the Moone yea also arrogates to himselfe an authority of deposing Kings and Emperours at his pleasure who at last can doubt but that by the publike Councell of every Realme not onely a tyrant but a King pernicious to his Kingdome for his madnesse or folly may be deposed or removed Goe to now in this our politicke Ship the Master gluts himselfe with wine most of his assistants either asleepe or drunke with mutuall cups sportingly behold an imminent Rocke The Ship in the meane time either holds not that course which is expedient for the owner or seemes speedily to be wracked what thinkest thou is here to be done under the Master by one who is vigilant and sollicitous Shall he pull those by the eares who are asleepe or onely jogge them by the sides but in the meane time lest he should seeme to doe ought without their command shall he not afford his helpe and assistance to the indangered Ship Truly what madnesse or rather impiety will this be Seeing then as Plato saith tyranny is a certaine phrensie and drunkennesse the Prince may utterly subvert the Republike the most of the Nobles may collude connive or at least are fast asleepe the people who are Lords of the Republike by the fraud or negligence of these ministers which is their fault are reduced into greatest straights in the meane time there is one of the Nobles which considers the incroaching tyranny and detests it from his soule what thinkest thou is now to be done against him by this man Shall he onely admonish his Colleagues of their duty who themselves doe as much hurt as they may But besides as it is perillous to admonish and in that state of things it may be deemed a capitall crime shall he do like those who contemning other helps casting away their armes shall cite Lawes and make an Oration concerning justice among theeves in the midst of a wood but this truly is that w ch is cōmoly said to be madde with reason What then shall he grow deafe at the peoples groanes shall he be silent at the entrance of theeves or shall he finally grow lasie and put his hands into his bosome But if the Lawes appoint the punishment of a Traytor against one wearing buskins on his legs who counterfeits sicknesse for fear of the enemies what punishment at least shall we decree against him who either through malice or sloathfulnesse shall betray those whom he hath undertaken to protect But rather he shall command those things that are needfull to such as are wary by a Mariners shout he shall take care lest the Common-wealth receive any detriment and shall preserve the Kingdome even against the Kings wil and resistance by which he himselfe becomes a King and shall cure the King himselfe as a frantick man by binding his hands and feet if he may not otherwise doe it For as we have said the universall government of the Realme is not committed by the people to the King as neither the oversight of the whole Church to the Pope but to every one of the Nobles according to his power But certainely because concord proceeds from unity that there should be no emulation among Peeres a King was instituted who should hold the supreme place in the administration of the Common-wealth The King swears that he will seeke the safety of the Realme the Nobles swear every one the same by himselfe whether therefore the King or most of the Nobles neglecting their oath shal either destroy the Common weale or desert it being in danger ought the rest therefore to desert the Republike or at least be lesse bound to defend it as if they were absolved from their oath But rather then especially they ought to shew their fidelity when as others neglect it especially since they were principally instituted for that end like the Ephori and every thing may then be reputed just when it attaines its end whether truly if many have promised the same thing is the obligation of the one dissolved by the perjury of the other whether if many be guilty of the same sinne are the rest freed by the fraud of one Whether if many Co-gardians ill defend their Pupill shall one good man be lesse bound with the burthen of the wardship through their default But rather neither can they avoyd the infamy of perjury unlesse they endeavour to satisfie their trust as much as in them lieth neither can those exempt themselves from the danger and judgement of a Gardianship ill administred unlesse they implead the other Gardians suspected when as verily one Gardian may not only implead the rest suspected and take care of those to be removed but also remove them Therefore those who have promised their aide and assistance to all the Realme or Empire such as Earles of the stable Marshals Senators and the rest or those who have done it specially to any County or City which may make a part of the Realme as Dukes Marquesses Earles Majors and the rest are bound to aide the whole Common-weale oppressed with tyranny or that part thereof which the people have committed to them next after the King And these truly ought to vindicate the whole Commonweale from tyranny if they be able those as Gardians assigned throughout Counties that part of the Realme whose defence they have undertaken These I say are bound to restaine a tyrant those to drive him out of their coasts Therefore Mattathias as one of the Nobles the rest partly conniving partly colluding when Antiochus tyrannically oppressed the Kingdome of Judah speakes thus to the people ready to take up armes Let us restore the state of our people let us fight for our people and our holy places whence it plainely appeares that we may not onely lawfully fight for Religion but for our Countrey for an hearth I say no lest justly then for our Altars and take up armes against such a tyrant as he was neither are they blamed by any for recovering the Kingdome but that they claimed the royall dignity to themselves which pertained to the Tribe of Iudah Many pertinent examples to this purpose occurre in Historians Arbactus governor of Media slew Sardanapalus spinning among women and spending the royall treasure among whores Vindex President of the French and Galba of the Spaniards revolted from Nero together with all France and Spaine
THE FOVRTH PART OF THE SOVERAIGNE POWER OF PARLIAMENTS and KINGDOMES Wherein the Parliaments Right and Interest in ordering the Militia Forts Ships Magazins and great Offices of the Realme is manifested by some fresh Records in way of Supplement The two Houses Imposition of moderate Taxes and Contributions on the People in cases of extremity without the Kings assent when wilfully denyed for the necessary defence and preservation of the Kingdome and their imprisoning confining of Malignant dangerous persons in times of publicke danger for the common saâ—ety are vindicated from all Calumnies and proved just Together with an APPENDIX Manifesting by sundry Histories and Foraine Authorities that in the ancient Kingdome of Rome the Roman Greeke German Empires the old the present Graecian Indian Aegyptian French Spanish Gothish Italian Hungarian Polonian Behemian Danish Swedish Scottish with other Foraine Kingdomes yea in the Kingdomes of Judah Israel and other Gentile Royalties mentioned in Scripture the Supreame Soveraigne Power resided not in the Emperours or Kings themselves but in the whole Kingdome Senate Parliament State People who had not onely Authority to restraine resist yea call their Emperours and Kings to an account but likewise when they saw just cause to censure suspend deprive them for their Tyranny vices mis-government and sometimes capitally to proceed against them With a briefe Answer to the contrary Objections and tenne materiall Observations confirming all the Premises By WILLIAM PRYNNE Utter-Barrester of Lincolnes Inne Olaus Magnus l. 8. c. 32. De Iniquis Consiliariis c. 33. Iniqui Consiliarii aiunt Regem nihil injuste facere posse quippe omnia omniunt ejus esse ac homines etiam ipsos-Tantum vero cuique esse proprium quantum Regis Benignitas ei non ademerit c. Vtcunque sit multi Principes his similibus consiliis consiliariis facti sunt enules miseri infames inhabiles in se posteritate sua amplius gubernandi Principis itaque Officium est ut non secus curet subditos quam fidelis Pastor oves ut dirigat foveat conservet It is this tenth day of July Ordered by the Committee of the House of Commons concerning Printing that this Booke Intituled The fourth Part of the Soveraign power of Parliaments and Kingdoms c. be Printed by Michael Sparke senior John White Printed at London for Michael Sparke Senior 1643. To the READER Courteous Reader I Here present thee with the last Part of The Soveraigne Power of Parliaments and Kingdomes and An Appendix in pursuance of it abundantly manifesting from the very fundamentall Constitutions Lawes Customes Resolutions Remonstrances Oathes Inaugurations Elections Ceremonies Histories publique Transactions Treaties Agreements Wars of Forain Empires Emperors Realmes Kings States Senates Diets Parliaments in all Ages and the most judicious foraine Authours of all sorts That whole Kingdomes Parliaments Senates States Nations collectively considered have ever constantly enjoyed in all Ages Nations the most Soveraigne Jurisdiction and Authority and beene Paramount their Kings and Emperours who were and are subordinate accountable for their actions to them and copiously refuting the fond erroneous fancies of all illiterate flattering Court-Doctors Theologasters Lawyers Statists who without any shadow of Truth or Reason audaciously averre the contrary not so much to flatter or seduce their Princes as to advance themselves against whom the contrary constant practice and resolutions of most lawfull Kingdomes that either are or have beene in the world from Adams dayes till now shall unanimously rise in judgement and passe a most Catholike irreversible sentence on them for their notorious flatteries and Impostures For mine owne particular as I have alwayes beene and ever shall be an honourer a defender of Kings and Monarchy the best of Government whiles it keepes within the bounds which Law and Conscience have prescribed So I shall never degenerate so farre beneath the duty of a Man a Lawyer a Scholar a Christian as to mis-informe or flatter either nor yet out of any popular vain-glory court either Parliaments or People to the prejudice of Kings just Royalties but carry such an equall hand betweene them as shall doe right to both injury to neither and preserve support their just Legall severall Soveraignties Jurisdictions Rights within their proper limits without tyrannicall invasions or seditious encroachments upon one another to their mutuall and the Republickes prejudice It fares with Regall and Popular Powers usually as with Seas and mighty Rivers if they violently breake downe or swellingly overflow their fixed bankes they presently cause an Inundation and in stead of watering surround and drowne the Countries round about them for a season sometimes for sundry yeares ere they can be perfectly drained and their bankers repaired to confine them to their ancient proper Channels of which we have present sad experience written in Capitall red Bloody Letters throughout the Realme To redresse prevent which overflowing mischiefe for the future I have without feare or flattery of any humane Power or party whatsoever by Publicke Authority divulged this last and the three preceding Parts of this Discourse together with the Appendix all hastily collected and more confusedly compacted through want of time and sundry interrupting Avocations then I desired wherein I have impartially according to my judgement conscience defended nought but ancient undoubted universall Truthes of reall State-Policy and true Theologie almost forgotten in the world yea cryed Preached Printed down for erronious seditious Paradoxes if not Treasons by Sycophants and Malignants in these later ages out of a cordiall affection as much as in me lyeth to restore and settle the weale tranquillity and safety of my bleeding dying Country now miserably distracted wasted consumed every where through the long foreâ—plotted conspiracies of Romish Priests and Jesuites to subvert the Protestant Religion and our Realmes upon a pretended quarrell unhappily raised by them betweene the two much mistaken Grand Soveraigne Jurisdictions of King and Parliament Crowne and Kingdome now miserably clashing one against the other through ignorance and mistakes and trying their Titles in the open field BY BATTAILE in stead of Law by the Sword of the Souldier not of the Spirit the onely proper peaceable Judges in these Quarrels by which alone they can and must be finally resolved settled else neither King nor kingdome can be ever quiet or secure from dangers and Commotions I dare not presume to arrogate to my selfe a Spirit of in-errability in the grand Controversies here debated wherein I have travelled in no beaten common road No doubt Generall Nationall Councells Parliaments Popes Kings Counsellors Statesmen Lawyers Divines all sorts of men both may and usually doe erre from Truth especially in Questions which concerne their owne Jurisdictions Honours Profits and so may I. But this I darewith safe conscience protest to all the world that I have not willingly erred in any particular and if I have casually failed in any thing out of humane frailty I shall upon better information acknowledge and retract it
did reverence to the Consuls sitting quia SE ILLIS INFERIOREM EX LEGIBUS esse REPERIRET because he found by the Lawes he was inferior to them Whence Dion Niciphorus and Speed record of him that when he invested any Praetor or Commander in giving him the sword he openly commanded him before all to use the same even against his owne person if he governed not the Empire well or violated Law and Equity confessing thereby that he was subject not only to the Lawes but to the sword of Justice too in these Officers hands in case he did offend much more then to the Senate I read of the Emperor Decius elected by the Senate that he preserved the authority of the Senate who compelled him to make his Sonne his companion in the Empire following their Counsell in all matters of Government governing all things with great wisdome and equity by the advice and consent of the Senate to the great contenment of all the Roman People and going into Thracia against the Gothes he left the Government in the hands of the Senate permiting them to chuse a censor at their pleasure who had Supreme Iurisdiction over all men which office some former Emperors had usurped making themselves Censors So Claudius the second and Tacitus did nothing without the consent advice and counsell of the Senate either in matter of Warre or Peace And Polybius writes expresly That the Roman Emperors Counsels and purposes were efficatious or invalid at the pleasure of the Senate which had power to remove or continue them to encrease or abridge their power and wealth to decree or deny them triumphs towards which they contributed and and that they could neither make warre nor peace nor truces without the peoples consent Their Emperors in truth being but their chiefe Generals in their warres at the first in right Thirdly They had power to create one two or more Emperors at once as appeares in their election of Gordianus the Father and Sonne to be Joint-Emperors at once and of Maximius Pupienus and Clodius Balbinus and Gordianus to be Caesars at once And those who could thus create more Emperors then one when they pleased no doubt had a power above the Emperors Fourthly They had a Soveraigne power judicially to convent censure yea to depose and adjudge their Emperours to death for their tyranny and misgovernment this appeares by the case of Nero that wicked Emperour whom the Senate judicially deposed condemned for his tyranny and misgovernment as a publike enemy to the State adjudging him to have his head fastned to aforke and so to be publikely whipped to death and then precipitated from a rock upon which sentence he being sought for and forsaken of all to avoyd the execution of it murthered himselfe with a poinyard So when Domitian was slain the Senate assembling the same day caused all his Statues to be throwne downe and all the inscriptions and memorials of him to be cancelled defaced and elected Nerva Emperour Didus Julianus who purchased the Empire by bribing the Soldiers comming to Rome with an Army went to the Senate where assembling such Senators as were present by their decree he was proclaimed Emperour and they presently made his Son in law Cornelius Repentinus Praetor of Rome putting Sulpetianus out of that office and from thence he was caried to the Imperiall Pallace and held for Emperour more through force then good will of any honest men But the people hateing and cursing him at last a full Senate being assembled by the common consent of all the Senators it was decreed that Julianus should be deprived of the Empire as a man unworthy to rule and Severus proclaimed Emperour to whom two of the principall Senators were sent to yeild him their obedience with the Ensignes of the Empire and Julianus being generally abandoned they commanded him to be slaine in his pallace Heliogabalus that monster of wickednesse was slaine by the praetorion Souldiers by the Senates and peoples approbation who commanded he should no more be called Antoninus and that in detestation of him no other Emperour should after that be called by this name and that he should be called Tiberinus according to the manner of his death his body being tyed to great stones and sunke in Tiber that it might never be found So Maximinus the Emperour oppressing and Tyrannizing over the people with great cruelty was deposed by the Senate and he with his sonne though already made Caesar and declared Emperour adjudged enemies and Rebels and Gordianus with his Sonne elected and proclamed Emperours by the Souldiers people and Senate of Rome After which they considering the great power of Maximinus â—o secure the City made great preparations to resist him and writ letters to all their Provinces that all those Governours that Maximinus had there placed should be displaced which direction was generally obeyed and the Governours most of them slain Thereupon Maximinus then in Hungary posts with his Army and Son towards Rome and young Gordianus being slain his Father strangled in the interim the Senate assembled in the Temple of Jupiter chose Maximus Pupienus and Clodius Balbinus Emperours and to please the people which consented not to their election they likewise named young Gordianus Caesar and raised forces to resist Maximinus who lying before Aquilia his Souldiers hearing that he with his Sonne were proclamed Rebels at Rome and new Emperours elected came bodily to their Pavilions about noone slew them and sent their heads to Rome By these with sundry presidents of like nature it is apparent that the Soveraigne power and Jurisdiction even after the Roman empire erected continued still in the Senate and people to whom the Emperours were responsible by whom they were deposed yea put to death for their misdemeanours and offences against the state and oppressions of their Subjects Which power they retained till the Emperours removed their Courts from Rome to Constantinople by which meanes the authority of the Senate and dignity of the Consuls was almost wholly lost by degrees in Justine the seconds reigne After the seat of the Empire was translated to Constantinople the Senate People Souldiers and Patriarchs of Constantinople claimed a right and power to elect their Emperours to prescribe conditions and Oaths unto them before they were crowned as also a power in some cases to depose them yea execute them as you may read at large in their lives Of which I shall recite some instances Julian the Apostate dying Jovinian assensu omnium by the joynt assent of all the Souldiers Captains and people was elected Emperor who absolutely refused the Empire saying that he being a Christian would not be an Emperor over Infidels But all men were so pleased with his election that they cryed out aloud saying we are all Christians And for his sake those which were not so resolved to become Christians upon condition that he would accept the Empire which
to the Barbarians and others taking this occasion and opportunity and grieving that the Empire of the world which with their blood they had gotten and established by their vertues should be governed and ruined by Irene a lewd woman Constantines mother who swayed all at her pleasure did thereupon elect and proclaime Charles for their Emperour and commanded Pope Leo to crowne him Platina Blondus Nauclerus Sabellicus Aventinus Sigebert â—risingensis and Aeneas Sylvius all record that this was done not by the Popes authority alone as some late Romanists pretend for he poore man had no such power but by THE DECREE DETERMINATION ASSENT AND REQUEST OF THE SENATE AND PEOPLE OF ROME who tacito SENATUS CONSULTO PLEBIS CITOQUE DECERNUNT to transferre the Empire JURE SUO By their owne right from the Greekes to the Germans and from Constantine to Charles the Great ever since which time it hath continued thus divided in the blood of Clarles and other French and German Princes A most cleare demonstration that the most absolute Soveraigne power and disposall of the Empire resided not in the Emperours themselves but in the Senâ—â—e and people even from the very first Emperours till this partition of the Empire more then 800 yeares space and that their Emperours neglect to protect to ayde them against their enemies when they needed and craved help was a iust ground for them to reject his Soveraignty yea to create a new Empire and Emperour of another race as Pope Leo with all the Roman Clergy Senate and people then resolved not only in point of State policy but of Conscience too upon which very ground not only the Spaniards fell off from the Roman Empire electing them Kings and erecting Kingdomes of their own but likewise our Iland of Brittain the fairest plume of the Roman Diadem rejected the Roman yoake and Government to which it had been subject almost 500 yeares craving ayd against the Scots and Picts from the Saxons who therereupon became their Soveraigne Lords at last and disposessed them of the Kingdome Now that these revolts and changes of the Empire in this case were lawfull even in point of Conscience we have the resolution of Bishop Bilson himselfe in his Booke dedicated to Queen Elizabeth wherein he professedly defends the Soveraignty of Kings in these very words The Roman State and Commonwealth had as good right to dispose the Roman Empire as all other Christian and Heathen Kingdomes and Countries had to settle the sword and scepter that Reigned over them And since all other Nations once members of the Roman Empire were suffered to plant those severall formes of regiment which they best liked and when the Right Heires failed to elect their owne Governours I SEE NO CAVSE why the Romans might not provide for themselves as well as other Realmes had done before them especially if the reports of your stories be true that they were neglected by the Grecians when they were beseiged by the Lombards and the scepter at Constantinople went not by descent or succession but by violent and wicked invasion and usurpation So he with whom Cassanaeus in his Catalogus Gloriae mundi pars 5 consid 30. p. 248. accords and iacobus Valdesius de Dignitate Regum Hisp c 18. n 20 21. Sixthly After this division and translation of the Empire unto Charles the Great the Roman Empire for a time by permission and connivence of the French German States went by succession till Charles the Grosse after him wholly by Election the power of electing the Emperour residing in all the French German Princes till at last it was by consent about the yeare 1001. translated to the 6 or rather 7. Princes Electors Yet during all this time the Soveraigne Power and Iurisdiction of the Empire resided only in the German Princes States and Diets not the Emperours themselves who had power not only freely to elect what Emperours they pleased but also to censure and depose their Emperours upon just grounds and to set limits to their Imperiall Iurisdictions Not to trouble you with the Histories of Ludovicus Pius Otho the great Henry the 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. Lotharius Fredericke Barbarossa Phillip Otho the fourth fifth Fredericke the 2 7. Albert the 1 Ludovicus Bavarus Sigismond and other Emperours who were much affronted persecuted warred against and some of them unjustly deposed and murthered by their Subjects Sons and the Princes electors through the Popes procurement I shall pitch only upon such presidents as are pertinent to my purpose Charles the third surnamed the fat though he came to the Empire by discent yet the Princes Dukes and Governers of the Provinces of Germany and France seeing his great insufficiency and unaptnesse to governe he being growne a very foole and having lost his understanding did thereupon deprive him of his Empire and other Kingdomes and elected and crowned Arnolph Emperour in his stead He being thus degraded both of Realme Empire and forsaken of all the world not having so much as an house wherein to shroud himselfe retired into a poore village of Suabe where he lived some few dayes in excream misery and penury and soone after dyed not lamented nor pitied of any man Which deposition of his I have formerly proved lawfull though his subsequent ill usage was no doubt dishonourable and unjust So the Emperour Wenceslaus was deposed by the Princes Electors of the Empire for his insufficiency to governe and the little care he tooke to suppresse and pacifie the civill warres and dissentions in the Empire giving himselfe over to vaine pleasures and delights which made his government dangerous and unprofitable for the Empire and Christian common wealth and Rupert made Emperour by them in his room After this about the end of Rodulph the second his imperiall raigne the Electors called a Dyet at Nurenberg from whence they sent ambassadors to the Emperour to acquaint him with the State of the Empire who told him that the Electors required above all things a reformation of justice That he should make choice of more faithfull officers and Councellors then formerly he had done That a generall Dyet might be called the spring following That the reason of the bad government of the common weale was for that his Majesty did not impart the important affaires of the Empire unto them as his Predecessours had done c. Whereupon he appointed a generall Dyet to redresse these disorders but dying before the day according to the golden Bull made in the yeare 1356 the Elector Palatine and he of Saxon were appointed Vicars Governours and Administrators of the Empire untill there were a King of Romans chosen to be Emperour After which they Elected Mathias who as Emperour and King of the Romans had not any City or Towne within the Empire the whole Territory of Germany belonging to the Electors Bishops Abbots Princes Earles Noblemen and free
Townes What power the Princes Electors and German states had and yet have in electing rejecting deposing restraining their Emperours in calling Diets and making Lawes you may read more largely in Munster and Grimston By all which and other particulars which for brevity I shall omit it is most evident that the Supream Soveraigne Authority of the Roman State both under their ancient Kings and Emperours and of the Greeke and German Empires resided not in the Kings and Emperours themselves but in their Senates Diets People States who prescribed them conditionall Oaths at their Coronations and to whom they were still accountable for their actions and misgovernment This Iohn Bodin a famous learned French Lawyer of great experience in State affaires surpassing all who writ before him of Republikes plainly affirmes in these words The Roman Emperours were at first nothing else but Princes of the Common weale that is to say the cheife and principallmen the SOVERAIGNTY neverthelesse still RESTING IN THE PEOPLE AND SENATE the Emperour having the Soveraigne authority only in fact not in right the State being but a very Principality wherein THE PEOPLE HAD THE SOVERAIGNTY So the German Empire at this day is nothing else but an Aristocraticall Principality wherein the Emperour is head and chiefe the POWER and majesty of the Empire BELONGING VNTO THE STATES THEREOF who thrust out of the Government Adolphus the Emperour in the yeare 1296 and also after him Wenceslaus in the yeare 1400 and that BY WAY OF IVSTICE AS HAVING IVRISDICTION AND POWER OVER THEM And so properly ancient Romans said Imperium in Magistratibus Auctoritatem in Senatu Potestatem in Plebe Maiestatem in Populo Command to be in the Magistrates Authority in the Senate Power in the Maeniall People and Majesty in the People in Generall The Senate in Rome did consult the people command for Livy oft times saith Senatus decrevit populus iussit the Senate hath decreed and the People commanded Which he there more largely prosecutes as you may read at leysure To all which Bishop Bilson himself doth fully assent affirming that Germany is a free state that the Emperour holds the Empire by election and that but on condition which he takes an oath to performe And if he violate their liberties or his oath they may not only lawfully resist him by force of armes but repell and depose him as a tyrant and set another in his place by the right and freedome of their Countrey And Cassanaus holds that the people may take away the very name of the Emperour at this day degrade him and resume his royall power This then being an unquestionable verity disproves that palpable common mistake of Dr. Ferne with other ignorant Court Doctors and Royalists who would make the world and Kings beleeve that the Roman Emperours were of greater power and authority than the Senate people the highest powers upon earth to which all persons yea the Senate and people collectively considered ought to submit and that it was unlawfull either for the Senate or people forcibly to resist Caligula Claudius Nero and other their wickedest and most tyrannicall Emperours much lesse to depose take armes against or call them to a strict just account for their Tyranny Oppression or Misgovernment it being directly contrary to Pauls Doctrine Rom. 13. 1 to 6. Let every soule be subject to the higher powers c. which false groundlesse principle is the sole foundation upon which all their late Sermons Books and rayling Discourses against this Parliaments proceedings and taking up of defensive armes are built when as in truth the Senate people were the highest powers to whoÌ„ the Roman Emperours themselves were to be obedient in all iust requests commands under paine of damnation and subiect to the Senates sword of â—ustice in case of disobedience misgovernment as all the premises evidence yea it likewise manifestly evidenceth that whole States Parliaments are the highest power and above their Kings who are subject to theÌ„ since the Roman and Greek Senates and people heretofore the very German States at this day are the highest power and above their Emperours though ever reputed of greater power Soveraignty and dignity than any Kings and the greatest Monarchs in the world and that therfore Kings even by Pauls Doctrine Rom. 13. ought to be subiect to the higher power and Iurisdiction of their Parliaments the Laws and Statutes of their Realmes and to be accountable to them if not subiect to their censures as some affirme in exorbitant cases of misgovernment which concern the Kingdomes and peoples safety If Kings iniuriously take away the lands goods or imprison the persons of any particular subjects the Law gives every one a particular remedy against them by way of Action or Petition of Right If then every private subiect may have redresse much more the whole Kingdome in and by Parliaments only not in inferiour Courts against their Soveraigns which oppresse them who being subiect unto the Lawes of God and their Realmes which have no respect of persons may as many affirme be questioned and iudged by them in their Parliaments as well as other princes great officers of State and Magistrates who in scripture are called Gods the higher powers and said to be â—rdained to rule judge by and for God as well as Kings and Emperours It is branded as a spice of Antichristian pride in Popes and their Parasites to deem themselves so High above other men that they are accountable to none but God for their wicked actions though many Popes in former and later times have been questioned consured imprisoned and deposed both by Emperours Kings and Councels for their intollerable misdemeanors And is it not the very selfe same crime in Kings in Emperours and their flatterers to hold this Popish erronious opinion that they are in no case responsible to their whole Kingdomes or Parliaments for their grossest exorbitances Our Popish Prelates and Clergy generally heretofore and some of our Protestant Bishops and Divines of late times from St. Ambrose his practise have held that kings for murthers rapes and great crying offences may be Lawfully excommunicated and censured by the spirituall Law and sword as sundry Emperours and Kings have been then why not likewise by the temporall when their Parliaments and whole Kingdoms see just cause the case of hundreds of Emperours and Kings in former times as the Histories of all Nations and ages prove abundantly beyond all contradiction I shall here instance in some few Kings censures subject to the Roman State and Empire with whom I shall conclude this discourse touching the Roman Monarchs Deioratus King of Galatia under the Romans Iurisdiction and one of their allies was accused of Treason and condemned to lose both his head and estate for certaine offences against C. Caesar and the Roman State as appeares by Tullies Oration to Caesar in his behalfe
great Councell of Parliament at Paris where among many Acts made for the weale of the Realme he with the assent of the Lords and Commons there assembled enacted for a Law after that day to be continued That all Heires of the Crowne of France their fathert being dead may be crownned as Kings of France so soone as they attained to the age of fourteene years And in the fifteenth yeare of his reigne the Duke of Flanders granted to those of Gaunt such Articles of agreement for the confirmation of their liberties the repealing of illegall taxes the electing of their owne Officers the Dukes Councellours and the like which you may read in Fabian as plainly manifest this whole Dukedome and people to be of greater jurisdiction then himselfe though invested with regall authoritie and that he had no power to impose any taxes on them without their grant and consent the contrary whereof caused many bloudy warres among them Charles the seventh after Fabians account but sixt after the French History a Childe of thirteene yeares by reason of the difference between the Lords who should be Vicegerent was by the advice of the major part of the Lords for the common good of the Realme Crowned at Raynes within the age of fourteen yeares contrary to a Law made in the eleventh yeare of his Father In the fourth yeare of his reigne the Citizens of Paris murmuring and grudging for divers impositions and taxes unduely leavied upon them suddenly arose in great multitudes intending to have distressed some of the kings Houshold Whereupon soone after the Kings Councell considering the weaknesse of the Treasure and his great charges and needs and assembling a Parliament of the Rulers of Paris Roan and other good Townes exhorted them to grant the King in way of Subsidy twelve pence in the pound of all such Wares at that day currant for the defence of the Realme and subjects To the which request after consultation taken it was answered That the people were so charged in times past that they might not beare any more charges till their necessity were otherwise relived and so the King and his Councell at this time were disappointed In his seventh yeare by the Duke of Angeau his procuring a tax was laid upon the Commons of France without the three Estates Which to bring to effect many friends and promoters were made as well of Citizens as others Whereupon the Commons of Paris and Roan became wilde assembled in great companies chose them Captains and kept watch day and night as if enemies had been about the Citie utterly refusing to pay that Tax This Charles being none of the wisest Prince ruled by his houshold servants and beleeving every light Tale brought unto him marching against the Duke of Brittaine as he came neare a wood was suddenly met of a man like a Beggar which said unto him Whither goest thou Sir King beware thou goe no further for thou art betrayed and into the hands of thine enemies thine owne Army shall deliver thee With this monition the King was astonied and stood still and began to muse In which study one of his followers that bare his Speare sleeping on Horsback let his Spear fall on his fellowes Helmet with which stroke the King was suddenly feared thinking his enemy had come unawares upon him wherefore in anger he drew his sword slew foure of his owne Kinghts ere he refrained and took therewith such a deadly fear as he fell forthwith distracted and so continued a long season being near at the point of death VVhereupon his brother Lewes of Orleans being but young the States of France thought it not convenient to lay so heavy a burthen upon so weake shoulders wherefore his two Vncles the Dukes of Berry and Burgaine BY AVTHORITY OF THE STATES OF THE LAND specially assembled in Parliament upon this occasion tooke upon them to rule the Realme for that season it being ordered by a speciall Law that they should abstain from the name of Regent unfit in this sudden accident the King being alive and of years And because the Duke of Berry had but an ill name to be covetous and violent and was therefore ill beloved of the French his younger brother Philip Duke of Burgoyn had the chiefe charge imposed on him and though the Title was common to both yet the effect of the author tie was proper to him alone who changed divers Officers After which the Duke of Orleance was made Regent being the Kings younger brother who pressing the people with quotidian taxes and tallages and the spirituall men with dismes and other exactions he was at length discharged of that dignitie and the Duke of Burgoyne put in that authoritie After this our King Henry the fift gaining a great part of France and pretending a good title to the Crowne recited at large by Hall and Iohn Speed the Frenchmen to settle a peace made this agreement with King Henry That he should marry Katharine the French Kings daughter and be admitted Regent of France and have the whole government and rule of the Realme during Charles his life who should be King of France and take the profits of the Crowne whilest he lived and that after the death of Charles the Crowne of France with all rights belonging to the same should remaine to King Henry and to his Heires Kings That the Lords spirituall and temporall and the Heads and Rulers of Cities Castles and Townes should make Oath to King Henry to be obedient to his lawfull commands concerning the said Regency and after the death of Charles to become his true subjects and liegemen That Charles should in all his writing name King Henry his most dearest sonne Henry King of England and inheritour of the Crowne of France That no imposition or tax should be put upon the Commons of France but to the necessary defence and weale of the Realme and that by the advice of both Councels of the Realmes of England and France such stablished Ordinances might be devised that when the said Realme of France should fall to the said Henry or his Heires that it might with such unity joyne with the Realme of England that one King might rule both Kingdomes as one Monarch reserved alwayes to either Realme all Rights Liberties Franchises and Lawes so that neither Realme should be subject unto other c. VVhich Articles were ratified and agreed with the consent of the more part of the Lords spirituall and temporall of France But Charles dying his sonne Charles the eight was by some part of France and many Lords reputed and knowledged King but not crowned whiles the Duke or Bedford lived and remained Regent our Henry the sixth both in Paris and many other cities being allowed for king of France After his death his sonne Lewes the eleventh 〈◊〉 Fabian accounts by strength of friends was crowned king of France who refused the counsell and company of his Lords and drew unto him as
be supprest by such a conspiracie Vpon this the king and Q. Mother through advise of these ill Counsellors raise an Army declare these Princes and Nobles Rebels and Traitors if they submit not by a day whereupon they Arm raise Forces in their own the publikes defence and being at Noyon concluded That as their Armes were levyed for the maintenance of the Crown so they should be maintained by it to the which end they seized on the kings Rents and Revenues in sundry places Mean while the Protestants being assembled in a generall Synod at Grenoble Marsh Desdiguires makes an Oration to them to disswade them from opposing the mariage with Spain wherein he hath this memorable passage to justifie the lawfulnesse of a necessary defensive war for the preservation of Religion and Liberties We have leisure to see the storme come and to prepare for our own preservation Finally having continued constant in our Duties if they seek to deprive us of our Religion and to take that from us wherein our libertie and safetie depends purchased by the blood of our Fathers and our own and granted unto us by that great King Henry the fourth the restorer of France we shall enter into this comerce full of justice and true zeale finde againe in our breasts the courage and vertue of our Ancestors We shall be supported IN OVR JVST DEFENCE by all good Frenchmen assisted by all Princes and Estates which love the true Religion or the good of this State and in a word we shall be favoured of the blessings of God whereof we have hitherto had good experience in our Arms and which will be to the glory of his Name and the spirituall advancement of our Churches After which the Duke of Rhoan and Protestants in defence of their Religion and Liberties joyn with the Princes and Nobles At last both sides came to Articles of agreement made at Luudun Anno 1616. whereof these were a parcell That the grievances of the generall State should be speedily answered That Soveraign Courts should be preserved in their authority and the Remonstrances of the Parliament and Peers considered of That such as had been put from their Offices should be restored That all moneys they had taken out of the kings Revenues should be discharged All Edicts of pacification granted to them of the Reformed Religion observed The prince of Conde and all those of either Religion who had assisted him in this war held for the Kings good and loyall subjects all illegall Imposts removed and all prisoners taken on either side set at liberty Anno 1617. the King and Queene Mother seizing upon the Prince of Conde his person and sending him to the Bastile upon false pretences of disloyaltie and treason caused new insurrections warres and tumults and the Princes hereupon meeting at Soyssons resolved to make open war to seize on the Kings Revenues and to fortifie those Towns and Castles which they held in their Government which they executed and withall set forth a Remonstrance of their grievances unto the king complaining especially against the Marshall of Ancre and his Wife with their adheronts who were the causes of all their miseries who having drawn unto himselfe the whole administration of the Realme made himselfe master of the Kings Councels Armies and Forts thereby supprest the lawfull libertie and Remonstrances of the Parliament caused the chief Officers to be imprisoned and was the cause of the violence done to the Prince of â—onde first Prince of the Blood To the end therefore that they might not be reproached to have been so little affected to his Majestie so ungratefull to their Countrey and so unfaithfull to themselves and their posterity as to hold their peace seeing the prodigious favour and power of this stranger they beseech his Majestie to provide by convenient means for the disorders of the Estate and to cause the Treaty of Loudun to be observed and to call unto his Councels the Princes of the Blood with other Princes Dukes Peers ancient Officers of the Crowne and Councellors of State whom the deceased King had imployed during his reigne Withall they publish a solemne Declaration and Protestation for the restoring of the Kings authority and preservation of the Realme against the conspiracie and tyrannie of the Marshall of Ancre and his adherents Who finding no safetie in the settling of justice resolved to make triall of his power by violating the publike faith thereby to plunge the Realme into new combustions conspiring to destroy the princes of the blood of Peers and chiefe Officers of the Crowne and to oppresse them altogether with the State who might be an obstacle to his ambitious designes To which end he raised false accusations against them as if they meant to attempt the Kings and Queen Mothers persons and caused the King to go in person to his Court of Parliament to publish a Declaration whereby they were declared guilty of Treason though at last being better informed he declared them to be his good Subjects and caused De Ancre to be suddenly slain in the Louure and his Wife to be legally condemned and executed Vpon which the new Councellors and Officers advanced by him were removed the old restored the Princes reconciled to the King and by him declared for his good and loyall subjects Vpon which followed a generall assembly of the Estates wherein divers grievances were propounded and some redressed the King therein craving their advice for the setling and ordering of his Privie Councell Anno 1620. there happen differences between the King and Queen Mother who fortified Towns and raised an Army against the king at last they came to an agreement and were reconciled The two following years were spent in bloody civill warres betweene the King and those of the Religion who avowed their defensive warres lawfull which at last concluded in peace that lasted not long but brake out into new flames of war by reason of the great Cardinall Richelieu who of late years proved the greatest Tyrant and Oppressour that France ever bred reducing both Nobles Gentlemen and Peasants into absolute slavery and vassallage to make the King an absolute Monarch of France and himselfe both Pope and Monarch of the world But he lately dying by the of Divine Iustice of filthy Vicers and Diseases and the King since being some say poysoned by the Iesuites who murthered his two immediate Predecessors wise men conjecture the French will now at last revive and regain their ancient just hereditary freedom rights Liberties and cast of that insupportable yoke of bondage under which they have been oppressed for sundry years and almost brought to utter desolation I have the longer insisted on these Histories of the Kings and Kingdom of Frances which clearly demonstrate the Realm Parliament and three Estates of France to be the Soveraigne Power in that Kingdom in some sort paramount their kings them selves who are no absolute Monarchs nor exempted from the Laws jurisdiction restraints censures
preferred and ratified before the Kings will Thirdly because when the King dies without Issue or Heir the Kingdom and people not the Prince deceased ought to chuse the succeding King out of another Family Fourthly because if the King vexe the Republike with his evill manners and degenerate into an open tyrannie the same Commonwealth may restrain him yea deprive him of the Principalitie and of his life to if need be which it could not do unlesse it were of greater Power then the King Fiftly because it is not likely that the whole Kingdom and Common-weal would ever strip themselves of all Power and Authority and transfer it to another without exception without counsell and reason when they had no necessitie to do it that so the Prince subject to corruption and wickednesse might have greater Power then they all and the Issue be more excellent then the Father the River than the Spring the Creature than the Creator of it And although perchance it be in the pleasure of the Commonweal to take away the plenary Power from it self and give it to the Prince yet the Commonwealth should do unwisely to give it and the Prince rashly to receive it by which the subjects of Free men should become Slaves and the Principalitie given for their safetie should degenerate into a Tyrannie which then onely is Regall if it contain it self within the bounds of modesty and medâ—critie which Power whiles some unwisely labour daily to augment they diminish and utterly corrupt it that Power being onely safe which puts a measure to its strength for a Prince ought to rule over those who are willing to gain the love of his subjects and seek their welfare which Power if it grows grievous takes the King off his peoples love and turns his power into weaknesse Which he proves by the forecited Saying of Theopompus For Princes who impose a Bridle on this greatnesse more easily govern themselves it and their subjects whereas those who forget humanity and modestie the higher they climb the greaâ—er is their fall This danger our Ancestours wise men considering how they might keep their Kings within the limits of mediocrity and modesty so as not to lift up themselves with overmuch power to the Publike prejudice have enacted many things wisely and excellently among others this That nothing of great moment should be decreed without the consent of the Peers and people and to that end they had a custom to assemble Parliaments chosen out of all orders of men as Prelates Lords and Burgesses of Cities which custom at this time is still retained in Aragon and other Provinces and I wish our Princes would restore it For why is it discontinued for the most part in our Nation but that the common consent being taken away and Parliaments excluded wherein the publike safety is contained both publike and private affairs may be turned into the Princes pleasure and the lusts of a few corrupt vicious and voluptuous Courtiers and Parasites may domineer and order all things Sixtly because many great and learned men held that the Pope of Rome who is of greater Power then any King is yet subject to the whole Church and a Generall Councell therefore the King must much more be inferiour to his Kingdom Seventhly because the whole Commonwealth hath greater strength and forces than the Prince be he never so great in Power and therefore if they disagree their Power will be greater Yea Aristotle wisely would have the Commonweal not onely to be of greater authority but likewise to have stronger Forces then the King which he proves by Aristotles forceited words by the practice of the Ancients and those of Syracuse who did moderate their Tyrants and Kings Guard so that they might be able to over-power and master them upon any occasion How great the authoritie of our Republike and Nobilitie was in the times of our Ancestors I will give you but one example and so conclude Alfonso the eight King of Casteil besieged Concha a City seated in Rockie places and the most firme Bulwark of the Moors territories on that part wanting money to pay his souldiers and thereupon provisions failing the King hastens to Burgon and in a nationall assembly he demands that because the people were wearied with Taxes for supporting the Warre the gentlemen would give five Muruedines a Poll to his treasury that this opportunitie of blotting out the name of the Mores was not to be omitted Dieglius then Governour of Cantabria assented to this Counsell Peter Earl of Cara withstood this motion and gatherieg a band of Nobles departed from the assembly readily to defend with Armes the Liberty gotten by their Ancestors with Armes and valour affirming that he would neither suffer a beginning to be made of oppressing and vexing the Nobilitie with new Subsidies from this entrance or occasion That to suppresse the Mores was not of so great moment that they should suffer the Commonwealth to be involved in a greater servitude The King moved with the danger desisted from that purpose The Nobles taking advice decreed to entertain Peter with a banquet every year as a reward to him and his Posteritie of this good service a monument so posterity of a thing well done and a document that they should not suffer the right of libertie to be diminished upon any occasion Let it be a fixt resolution therefore to provide for the safetie of the Commonwealth for the Authority of the Prince yet so as to retain their royall principality in order with certain bounds and limits and that those vain talking parasites and decevers may not ruine both who exalt the Princes Power without measure of which we may see a great number in Princes Courts excelling in wealth favour and power which plague shall alwayes be accused and complained of but shall ever be and continue Thus Mariana who in his next Chapter worthy reading proves at large by invincible arguments That all Kings and Princes among others the Kings of Spain are and ought to be bound by Laws and are not exempted from them that this doctrine ought to be inculcated into thy mindes of Princes from their infancy and to be beleeved yea oft considered of them that they are more strictly obliged to observe their Laws than subjects because they are sworn to do it they are the Conservators of the Laws the Avengers of those that infringe them and their examples are the best means to draw subjects to obey them Where he again affirms That the whole Kingdom is above the King and may not onely binde him by Lawes but question him for the breach of them Before both these in his first Book De Rege Regum institutione Chap. 3 4 5 6 7. he affirms the like adding moreover That in many other Realms more where the Crown is hereditary the whole Commonwealth not the King hath and ought to have the chief power to designe by a Law which the King himself may not alter but by
22. 80. n. 4. 108. n. 29. 141. n. 2. Covarunius Quaest Illust. T. 2. 396. n. 2. 4. Hugo Grotius de Jure Belli l. 1. c. 4. sect 7. l. 2. c. 14. sect 11. and elsewhere Marius Salamonius de Principatu Eccardus de lege Regia with others cited by them Hookers Ecclesiasticall Polity l. 1. sect 10. p. 69 70 71. a pregnant place Albericus Gentilis de Iure Belli l. 3. c. 10. 15. Ioannes Mariana de Rege Regum Instit l. 1. c. 1. to 10. Sparsim Iunius Brutus Vindiciae contra Tyrannos Quaest 3. p. 83. to 94. with whose words I shall close up this observation having elle where particularly proved the verity thereof and answered all Obiections against it from misinterpreted Scriptures We say now writes he that the people constitute Kings deliver Kingdoms approve Kings elections with their suffrages which God would have to be thus that so whatsoever authority and power they should have they should next to him referre it to the people and therefore should bestow all their care thoughts industrie for the peoples profit neither verily should they think themselves advanced above other men for their excellency of nature no otherwise then men are over Heards and Flocks but should remember that being born in the same condition with others they were lifted up from the ground unto that condition by the suffrages as it were by the Shoulders of the people upon whose Shoulders the burthen of the Common-weale should for a great part rest After which he proves by Deut. 17. and divers forecited presidents in Scripture that God gave the Election and Constitution of the kings of Israel to the people and that notwithstanding the succession of the kingdom of Iudah was by God entailed afterwards to the Linage of David yet the Kings thereof actually reigned not before they were ordained by the people Whence we may conclude that the Kingdom of Israel if we respect the stock was certainly hereditary but if we regard the persons altogether elective But to what end was this if the Election appear as it is confessed but that the remembrance of so great a dignitie conferred by the people should make them alwayes mindefull of their duty So likewise among the Heathens we read that Kings were constituted by the people for when they had wars abroad or contention at home some one man of whose fortitude and justice the multitude had a great opinion was by common consent assumed for King And among the Medes saith Cicero Deioces was of an Arbitrator made a Iugde of a Iudge created a King and among the Romanes the first Kings were elected Therefore when Romulus being taken away the Inter-regnum of the hundred Senators was displeasing to the Romans they accorded that afwards Kings should be chosen by the Suffrages of the people the Senate approving it And Tarquin the proud was therefore reputed a Tyrant for that being created neither by the people nor Senate he held the Empire onely by force and power Wherefore Caesar although he invaded the Empire by force yet that he might cosen the people at least with some pretext of Law would seem to have received the Empire from the Senate and people But Augustus although he was adopted by Caesar yet he never bare himselfe as heire of the Empire by divise but rather received it as from the Senate and people as did also Caligula Tiberius Claudius whereas Nero who first invaded the Empire by force and wickednesse without any colour of Law was condemned by the Senate Since then no man could be born an absolute King no man can be a King by himselfe no man can reigne without the people Whereas on the contrary the people may both be and are by themselvs and are in time before a King it most certainly appears that all Kings were first constituted by the people Now albeit that from the time that Sons or Nephews imitated the vertues of their parents they seem to have made kingdomes as it were hereditary to themselves in certain Countries where the free power of Election may seem in some sort to have ceased yet that custome hath continued in all well constituted kingdomes that the children of the deceased kings should not succeed untill they were as de nono newly constituted by the people nor should not be acknowledged as heires to their Fathers but should onely then at length be reputed kings when they had as it were received investiture of the Realme from those who represent the Majesty of the people by a Scepter and Diadem In Christian kingdomes which at this day are said to be conferd by succession there are extant most evident footsteps of this thing For the kings of France Spain England and others are wont to be inaugurated and as it were put into possession of the Realm by the States Senators Nobles and great men of the Realm who represent the universality of the people in the same manner as the Emperours of Germany are by the Electors and the kings of Poland by the Vaynods or Palatines where the intire right is onely by election neither is royall Honour yeelded to them in the Cities of the kingdomes before they have been duly inaugurated Neither also heretofore did they compute the time of the reigne but from the day of the inauguration which computation was accurately observed in France And that we may not be deceived by reason of any continued stories of succession even in those very kingdoms the States of the Realme have oft times preferred a kinsman before a sonne the second sonne before the eldest is in France Lewis the brother before Robert Earl of Dreux also Henry the second brother before Robert Capet the Nephew with others elsewhere Yea and the same kingdome by Authority of the People hath been translated from one Nation and Family to another whiles there were lawfull heires extant from the Merouingi to the Carlingi from the Carlingi to the Capets which hath been likewise done in other Realms as it sufficiently appears out of the truest Histories And that we may not recede from the kingdome of France which hath ever been reputed the pattern of the rest in which I say succession seemes to have obtained greatest strength We read that Pharamond was elected Anno 419. Pipen An. 751. Pipens sonnes Charles the great and Charlemain 768. not having respect of the Father Charlemain being at last taken away 771. the Brothers part did not immediatly accrue to Charli the Great as is usually done in inheritances but by the determination of the people and publike Councell and by them Ludovicus pius was elected An. 812. although he were the sonne of Charles the great Yea in the very Testament of Charles which is extant in Nauclerus he Intreats the People by the Common Councell of the Realm to elect one of his nephews whō they pleased as for his Vncles he bids thē rest satisfied with the Decrée of the people Whence
made this wholesome sanction admonishing all the Iudges of his whole Republike that they should suffer no Rescript no pragmaticall sanction no sacred adnotation which should seem repugnant to the generall all Law or the publike profit to be produced in the pleading of any suite or controversie enough eternally to shame and silence those flattering Courtiers Lawyers Divines who dare impudently yea impiously suggest the contrary into Princes Ears to excite them to Tyrannize and oppresse their subjects against their expresse Oathes inviolably to observe and keep the Laws their Duties the very Lawes of God and man of which more in the seventh and eigth Observation Fourthly That Kings and Emperours can neither anull nor change the Laws of their Realms nor yet impose any new Laws Taxes or Impositions on them without the consent of their People and Parliaments This I have largely manifested in the first Part of this Discourse and the premised Histories with the Authors here quoted in the three precedent Observations attest and prove it fully for if the whole Kingdom Parliament and Laws themselves be above the King or Emperour and they receive their Soveraign Authority from the People as their publike servants It thence infallibly follows that they cannot alter the old Laws which are above them nor impose new Lawes or Taxes to binde the whole Kingdom people without their assents they being the Soveraigne Power This point being so clear in it self so plentifully proved in the premises I shall onely adde this passage out of Iunius Brutus to ratifie it If Kings cannot by Law change or extenuate Laws once approved without the consent of the Republike much lesse can they make and create new Laws therefore in the German Empire if the Emperour think any Law necessary he first desires it in the generall assemblies if it be approved the Princes Barons and Deputies of Cities subsigne it and then it is wont to be a firme Law Yea he swears that he will keep the Laws Enacted and that he will make no news Laws but by common consent In the Kingdom of Poland there is a Law renewed An. 1454 and 1538. That no new Laws or Constitutions shall be made but onely by publike consent or in any place but in Parliament In the Realm of France where yet commonly the authority of Kings is thought most ample Laws were heretofore enacted in the Assembly of the three Estates or in the Kings ambulatory Councell but since there hath been a standing Parliament all the Kings Edicts are void unlesse the Senate approve them when as yet the Arrests of that Senate or Parliament if the law be wanting even obtain the force of a Law So in the Kingdoms of England Spain Hungarie and the rest there is and of old hath been the same Law For if Kingdoms depend upon the conservation of their Laws and the Laws themselves should depend upon the lust of one Homuncio would it not be certain that the Estate of no Kingdom should ever be stable Would not the Kingdom necessarily stumble and fall to ruine presently or in a short space But if as we have shewed the Lawes be better and greater than Kings if Kings be bound to obey the Laws as servants are to obey their Lords who would not obey the Law rather then the King who would obey the King violating the Law who will or can refuse to give ayd to the Law thus infringed Fiftly that all publike great Officers Judges Magistrates and Ministers of all Realms are more the Officers and Ministers of the Kingdom than the Kings and anciently were and now ought to be of right elected onely by the Kingdom Parliament people and not removable but by them which is largely proved by Iunius Brutus Vindiciae contr Tyrannos qu. 1 2 â— De Jure Magistratus in Subditos qu. 5 6 7 8 9. with others the Histories forecited and Hotomani Francogallia c. 6 11 12 13 14. 6. That Kings and Emperors have no absolute power over the lives liberties goods estates of their subjects to dispose of them murther imprison or strip them of their possessions at their pleasure but ought to proceed against them in case of Delinquency according to the known Lawes and Statutes of their Realmes This truth is abundantly evidenced by all the premises by Magna Charta c. 29. and all Statutes Law-Books in affirmance of it by resolution of the Judges in Henry 8. his reigne Brook Corone 29. That it is Felony to slay a man in justing and the like notwithstanding it be done By command of the King for the command is against the Law and of Judge Fortescue 19. H. 6. 63. That if the King grant to me that if I kill such a man I shall not be impeached for it this grant is void and against Law By Junius Brutus Vindiciae contra Tyrannos Quast 3. p. 136 to 137. and the Treatise De Jure Magistratus in subditos in sundry places where this undeniable verity is largely proved confirmed and by others forecited Seventhly That Emperours Kings Princes are not the true Proprietory Lords or Owners of the Lands Revenues Forts Castles Shipps Iewels Ammunition Treasure of their Empires Kingdoms to alienate or dispose of them at their pleasures But onely the Guardians Trustees Stewards or Supervisors of them for their Kingdoms use and benefit from whom they cannot alien them nor may without their consents or privities lawfully dispose of them or any of them to the publike prjudice which if they doe their grants are void and revocable This proposition formerly ratified by many reasons authorities sundry Historicall Passages in this Appendix is not only evident by the Metropolitans usuall speech to all elected Kings prescribed by the Roman Pontificall ratified by the Bull of Pope Clement the eight where the Metropolitan when any King is presented to him to be Crowned first demands of the Bishops who present him Do you know him to be worthy of and profitable to this dignitie to which they answer We know and beleeve him to be worthy and profitable to the Church of God and for the Government of this Realme After which the Metropolitan among other things useth this Speech unto him Thou shalt undeniably administer Iustice without which no society can continue towards all men by rendring rewards to the good punishment to the evill c. and shalt so carry thy self that thou maist be seen to reign not to thine own but to all she peoples profit and to expect a reward of thy good deeds not in earth but in heaven which he immediately professeth with a solemn Oath to perform to the uttermost of his power and knowledge but likewise professedly maintained by Iustus Eccardus de Lege Regia Marius Salamonius de Principatu Hugo Grotius de Iure Belli Pacis l. 1. c. 4 sect 10. Lib 2. c. 13. 14. Hotomani Franco-Gallia c. 6. 10. 14. Ruibingius l. 2. Class 11. c. 8. n.
the Senate conniving at his tyranny But especially that Laconick judgement is observable which verily proceeding from that Senate ought to passe into a thing adjudged among all Nations When the Lacedaemonians possessed Byzantium they made Clearches Captaine of the Army Governour of the City who taking corne from the Citizens distributed it to the forraine souldiers but in the meane time the families of the Citizens perished with famine Anexilaus therefore one of the Magistrates of the City moved with that tyranny agreed with Alcibiades about the yeelding up of his Countrey to him and he soone after is received into the City Anexilaus being accused at Sparta for yeelding up of Byzantium pleaded his cause himselfe the Spartanes absolved the man because they said warres were to be waged with enemies not with the nature of things now nothing is more repugnant to nature then if those who are bound to defend a City became more unjust then the enemies Thus the Lacedaemonians determined justly to whom scarce any good Kings will not assent verily those who desire to rule well care not at all what is determined concerning tyrants or what the Nobles or people themselves may doe by Law But we must yet proceed further Every one of the Mariners is bound if the Ship be endangered through the default or negligence of the Ship-master to put to his helping hand every one of the Nobles is bound if the Republike perish by the wickednesse or carelesnesse of the Prince and his Colleagues to helpe it being like to fall and to vindicate the whole Kingdome or at least that part thereof which is committed to him from tyranny But then shall it be lawfull for every ordinary slave to doe the like or peradventure shall it be lawfull to Herdonius Sabinus Euno Surianus Spartacus the fencer or I say to any private man to enfranchise servants to stirre up Subjects to armes finally to combate with the Prince if tyranny urge them No verily The republike is not committed to single or private men yea they themselves are committed to the care of the Nobles and Magistrates no otherwise then Pupils Therefore they are not bound to defend the Republike who cannot defend themselves The sword is not committed to every man neither by God nor by the people therefore if they draw the sword without command they are seditious although the cause may seeme to be just Finally private men doe not make the Prince but all Therefore they ought to expect the command of all or of those I say who represent all in a Realme Countrey or City which may make a part of the Realme or at least of one of them before they attempt any thing against the Prince For as a Pupill cannot bring an action without authority of his Tutor although the Pupill be truly a Lord and the Tutor onely is reputed for the Lord as farre forth as appertaines to his tutelary providence So neither may the people doe ought but by the authority of those on whom they have transferred their authority and power whether they be ordinary Magistrates or extraordinarily created in a publike Assembly whom I say they have guirded with the sword for this purpose to whom they have delivered themselves up to be governed and cared for who finally like that Pretor of Rome who judged betweene servants and masters are truly constituted in that place that if any contention arise betweene King and Subjects they may shew themselves Judges and Redressors lest the Subjects themselves should pronounce sentence in their owne cause Therefore if unjust customes or grievous taxes be imposed if things be done against pacts or fraudulently and yet not one of the Nobles speakes against or resists it let them thinke they must then sit still and thinke that the best Physitians to prevent or take away a disease doe oft-times prescribe the opening of a veine the evacuation of humours yea and scarification For such is the nature of things that scarce any mischiefe can be cured without another scarce any good may be acquired without diligent labour They have the example of the people under Solomon who refused not the grievous tributes imposed on them for the building of the Temple and fortifying the Kingdome because they judged those things to be imposed by the publike Councell to the glory of God the beauty and ornament of the Republike They have likewise the example of Christ our Saviour who although he were the King of Kings yet because he then sustained a private person he payed tribute willingly If the Nobles and Magistrates themselves favour apparent tyranny or at least oppose it not they may remember that for the sinnes of the people God suffers Hypocrites to reigne whom unlesse they turne themselves to God with all their heart cannot be overturned with any engines Therefore there is no need of feet or hands but bended knees Finally they must suffer evill Princes wish for better and thinke they must beare that tyranny with a patient minde as they doe haile stormes tempests and other naturall calamities or change their habitations David retired into the Mountaines and spared Saul a tyrant because he was none of the Nobles of the people Christ because he was not of this world fled into Egypt to avoyd Herods tyranny Paul because he describes the office of private Christians not of Magistrates teacheth that they must obey Nero himselfe But if all the Nobles or most of them or at least one of them endeavour to restraine apparent tyranny or the Magistrate to drive it from that part of the Realme which is committed to him if he be such a one as under pretext of expelling it may not introduce another tyranny then verily assembling together they may run who shall goe fastest to this choyce man they may earnestly assist with their feete and hands and as if God himselfe had given a signe from Heaven of a fight against tyrants endeavour to free the Kingdome from tyranny For as God punisheth and chastiseth the people by tyrants so likewise tyrants by the people and that is a perpetuall truth which Syrach saith that Kingdomes are translated from Nation to Nation for the iniquities injuries and wickednesse of Princes and that every tyranny continues but a short space Thus the Captaines and souldiers carefully executed all the commands of Iehojada the High Priest in revenging the tyranny of Queene Athaliah Thus all the godly men of Israel went to the Maccabees partly that they might defend the true worship of God partly that they might free the Republike against the impious and unjust attempts of Antiochus yea God favoured their just endeavours and gave them prosperous successe What then May not God likewise out of private men themselves raise up some avenger of tyranny Cannot the very same who raiseth up tyrants out of the people backed with no title no pretext to punish the people likewise raise up deliverers also out of the lowest of the people