Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
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A33923
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Vindiciæ juris regii, or Remarques upon a paper, entitled, An enquiry into the measures of submission to the supream authority
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Collier, Jeremy, 1650-1726.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing C5267; ESTC R21083
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43,531
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52
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Enquirers Concessions Thirdly From a considerable Instance in our own Government First From the common Notion of a Trust For what is more generally understood by trusting another than that we lodge our concerns with him and put them out of our own disposal When I trust a Man with my Life or Fortune all People agree that I put it in his Power to deprive me of both For to deliver any Property to another with a Power of Revocation is to trust him as we say no farther than we can throw him He that can recover a Sum of Money he has deposited when he pleases to speak properly has it still in his Custody and trusts his Friend no more than he does his own Coffers And therefore if we consult our thoughts we shall find that a Trust naturally implies an entire reliance upon the Conduct and Integrity of another which makes us resign up our Liberty or Estate to his Management imagining them safer in his Hands than in our own In short a Trust where there is no third Person to judg of the performance as in these Pacts between Subjects and Soveraign there is not In this case a Trust includes a Translation of Right and in respect of the Irrevocableness of it is of the Nature of a Gift so that there seems to be only this difference between them that a Gift ought to respect the Benefit of the Receiver whereas a Trust is generally made for the Advantage of him who conveys it Secondly By our Author 's own Concessions a Trustee is sometimes unaccountable for he grants a Man may Sell himself to be a Slave p. 1. And when he has once put himself into this condition his Master has an Absolute Soveraignty over him and an indefeasable right to his service so that notwithstanding all the unreasonable Usage he may meet with he can never come into his Freedom again without the consent of his Lord. This I take to be an uncontested Truth and if it was not St. Peter's Authority ought to over-rule the dispute Who charges those who were in this state of servitude to be subject to their Masters with all fear not only to the good and gentle but also to the froward 1 Ep. 2. 18. Thirdly I shall prove the unaccountableness of a Trust from a considerable Instance in our own Government The House of Commons V. g. are certainly Trustees for the Towns and Counties who choose them the People resign up the disposal of their Rights and Properties into their Hands in hopes of a good management But suppose they prevaricate in their Employment and betray their Electors does this Impower the People to lay their Representatives by the heels when they come into the Country or to punish them farther as their Wisdoms shall think convenient If so then the last resort of Justice must lie in the Sovereign Multitude who have neither capacity to understand the reasons of Government nor temper and tenderness to manage it 'T is pitty the Mobile in Henry the 6th his Reign had not this discovery when the Right of choosing Members was limitted to Forty Shillings per Annum Free-hold whereas before all Tenures if not all Persons had the liberty to elect without exception but this Act in all likelihood barr'd no less then a Fifth of the Nation from this principal Post in the Government And if Columbus had not given them a lift by finding out the West-Indies and abating the value of Money their Grievance had continued to this day as heavy as ever We see therefore that the Author's Notion of a Trust will not hold Water and if it would it can do him no Service for I shall prove in the Second place that the Kings of England hold their Crown by Right of Conquest and Succession and consequently are no Trustees of the People I shall begin with the Point of Succession which because it's generally received I shall only mention an Act of Parliament or Two for the proof of it In the first of Edward the Fourth Rot. Parl. where the Proceedings against Richard the Second are repealed it 's said That Henry Earl of Derby afterwards Henry the Fourth Temerously against RightWiseness and Iustice by Force and Arms against his Faith and Ligeance rered Werre at Flint in Wales against King Richard the Second Him took and Imprisoned in the Tower of London in great Violence and Usurped and Intruded upon the Royal Power Estate and Dignity And a little after they add That the Commons being of this present Parliament having sufficient and evident knowledge of the said Unright-wise Usurpation and Intrusion by the said Henry late Earl of Derby upon the said Crown of England knowing also certainly without doubt and ambiguity the Right and Title of our said Soveraign Lord thereunto true and that by God's Law Man's Law and the Law of Nature He and none other is and ought to be their true right-wise and Natural Leige and Soveraign Lord and that He was in Right from the Death of the said Noble and Famous Prince his Father Richard Duke of York very just King of the said Realms of England do take and repute and will for ever take and repute the said Edward the Fourth their Soveraign and Leige Lord and Him and his Heirs to be Kings of England and none other according to his said Right and Title In the first of Richard the Third there is another Statute very full to this purpose which begins The Three Estates c. But I shall pass over this and proceed to the Act of Recognition made upon King Iames the First his coming to the Crown Wherein it 's declared That He was Lineally Rightfully and Lawfully Descended of the Body of the Most Excellent Lady Margaret Eldest Daughter of the Most Renowned King Henry the Seventh and the High and Noble Princess Queen Elizabeth his Wife Eldest Daughter of King Edward the Fourth The said Lady Margaret being Eldest Sister of King Henry the Eighth Father of the High and Mighty Princess of Famous Memory Elizabeth late Queen of England In consideration whereof the Parliament doth acknowledge King Iames their only Lawful and Rightful Leige Lord and Soveraign And as being bound thereunto both by the Laws of God and Man They do recognize and acknowledge that immediately upon the Dissolution and Decease of Elizabeth late Queen of England the Imperial Crown of the Realm of England and all the Kingdoms Dominions and Rights belonging to the same did by Inherent Birth-right and Lawful and undoubted Succession Descend and come to his Most Excellent Majesty as being Lineally Iustly and Lawfully next and SOLE HEIR of the BLOOD Royal of this Realm as it is aforesaid And thereunto they do most Humbly and Faithfully submit and oblige themselves they Heirs and Posterities for ever until the last drop of their Bloods be spent So much concerning the Succession where by the way we may observe the Deposing Doctrine is directly pronounced unlawful as appears from the
charged with these Failures while they were living But after they were dead the Custom was to Arraign their Memories and deny them the Honor of a Funeral Solemnity Which punishment was likewise inflicted upon the Iewish Kings who had been very irregular and oppressive in their Government 2 Chron. 24 25 and 28. 27. From all which it appears that a King 's Swearing at his Coronation does not make his Crown forfeitable or subject him to the Censure of the People And since the Breach of an Oath does not imply a forfeiture of Right since the Kings of England claim their Authority by Conquest and Succession from hence these Two Corollaries naturally follow First That with us Power always proves it self unless it appears that it 's given up or limited by any special Agreement Secondly That the Liberties of the Subjects are not founded upon the Reservations of an Original Contract For a Conquered People must not pretend to make their own Terms And therefore their Priviledges are not of their own Creating but Acts of Royal Favour and Condescentions of Soveraignty Indeed when the People are not forced into Submission but freely Elect their Monarch there all remote Inferences and doubtful Cases ought to be Interpreted in favour of the Subject because the Form of the Government had its Beginning from them and in this Case only it is that Liberty proves it self But where the Limitations of a Monarchy are the Condescentions of a Conqueror or his Successors there we are not to stretch the Priviledge of the Subject beyond express Grant. So that whatever Rights or Branches of Government are not plainly conveyed away must be supposed to be still lodged in the Crown For since the Prince was once Vested with Absolute Power and has afterwards bounded himself by his own Voluntary Act The Abatements of his Authority are to be measured by his own evident Declarations and not by any conjectural and consequential Arguings And here that Celebrated Maxim takes undoubted place That all Acts which are made in destruction of Common Law or Antecedent Right are to be Construed strictly and not drawn out into Corollaries and parallel Cases From whence it follows That if it was unlawful at first for the Subjects to resist their Soveraign it must still continue so unless they can prove he has relinquished this part of his Prerogative and given them an express Liberty to take up Arms when they think it convenient which I believe will be hard to find in our Constitution I Confess there is a Resistance Charter granted by King Iohn but such a one as is no ways serviceable to our Author For First It 's a plain Concession from the Crown and consequently far from the nature of a Mutual and Original Contract Secondly Here is no Deposing Power given in case the Articles were broken But on the contrary upon the supposition of a Rupture there is an express Proviso for the security of the King's Person and Royalty for a little after the Clause of Salva Persona nostra we have these remarkable Words Et cum fuerit Emendatum Intendent nobis sicut prius fecerunt That is if the King should fail in his Promise and constrain them to make use of Force When their Grievances were redressed and they had put themselves in Possession of their Rights They should then be obliged to obey him as formerly Matth. Par. p. 219. Thirdly This Charter was extorted from the King in a Menacing and Military manner The Barons were up in Arms the City of London declared for them and received them and the King was deserted by his own Army whereas before this Grant the Subjects had no colour of Authority to Levy Arms against the King. Now Rebellion is a very ill bottom to found our Liberties upon The advantages which are gained by such Monstrous Violences as these are no more to be insisted on than the Acquisitions of Piracy and therefore Fourthly This Charter being obtain'd in such an undutiful and illegal way is without doubt one great reason among others why it has been always counted a Nullity for that it 's no part of our Law I shall fully evince First From the Transactions in the Reign of Henry the Third for first in this King's Charter there is no notice taken of any Grant made by King Iohn whereas in the Confirmation of Magna Charta by Edward the First the granting it by Henry the Third is expresly mentioned and the Liberty recited at large Which is a plain Evidence that the one was not looked upon to have the same Authority with the other Secondly That the Magna Charta of Henry the Third was a pure Act of Grace to the Subject and no Confirmation of an Antecedent Right appears from the Instrument it self where in the Preamble the King declares That out of Our meer and free Will We have given c. And towards the end That for this Our Gift and Grant of these Liberties Our Arch-bishops Earls c. have given us the fifteenth part of their Moveables Now besides the wording of the Act which runs as clear for a Voluntary Concession as is possible the very consideration which was given the Crown is a sufficient Argument that the Subjects had no Title to these Liberties before For who can imagine they would have purchased that which was their own already at so dear a rate Thirdly This Charter of Henry the Third though it contains much the same Liberties with the former yet it has none of the same Ratification there are no Proviso's for Resistance in it but instead of Distraining and taking of Castles c. there was a Solemn Excommunication denounced by the Bishops against all Violators of this Law. So that now the Subjects were evidently returned to their former State of Passive Obedience And therefore those Barons who towards the latter end of this King's Reign took up Arms in defence of their Privileges as Matth. Paris relates were disinherited by a Parliament at Winchester which was soon after confirmed in another Parliament at Westminster Sir W. Raleigh Priv. of Parl. Ap. 31. More to the same purpose may be seen in the Law called Dictum de Kenilworth For though this Order was made by no more than a Committee of Twelve Peers yet they having an Absolute Delegation as to this Point from the King and the Members of Parliament what they agreed upon has the full Validity of a Law. Fourthly That King Iohn's Charter which warrants Resistance though within a Rule had never any Legal Authority is evident from the Militia Act 14 Car. 2. where the Parliament declares That the Militia was ever the undoubted Right of his Majesty and his Predecessors But this was a great Mistake if King Iohn's Grant had been Law For by vertue of that Charter provided the King receded from his Articles the Militia was lodged in the Barons and the People were obliged by Oath to assist them against the Crown Now if the case