Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	edward_n	king_n	sister_n	3,180	5	8.7934	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50856	That the lawful successor cannot be debarr'd from succeeding to the crown maintain'd against Dolman, Buchannan, and others / by George Mackenzie ...	Mackenzie, George, Sir, 1636-1691.	1684 (1684)	Wing M206; ESTC R19286	31,910	82

Act of Parliament has justly observed For clearing whereof it is fit to consider that in all powers and jurisdictions which are subordinat to one another the Inferiour should obey but not alter the power to which it is subordinat and what it does contrary thereto is null and void And thus if the judges of England should publish edicts contrare to Acts of Parliament or if a Justice of Peace should ranverse a decree of the judges of West-minster these their endeavours would be void and ineffectual But so it is that by the same principle but in ane infinitly more transcendent way all Kings and Parliaments are subordinat to the Laws of God the Laws of Nature and the Laws of Nations And therefore no Act of Parliament can be binding to overturn what these have established This as to the Law of God is clear not only from the general dictats of Religion but 28 Hen. 8. cap. 7. the Parliament uses these words For no man can dispence with Gods Laws which we also affirme and think And as to the Laws of nature they must be acknowledged to be immutable from the principles of reason And the Law it self confesses that naturalia quaedam jura quae apud omnes gentes peraequè observantur divina quadam providentia constituta semper firma atque immutabilia permanent § sed naturalia Institut de Jur Natural § singulorum de rer divis And when the Law declares that a Supream Prince is free from the obligation of Laws Solutus legibus which is the highest power that a Parliament can pretend to or arrive at Yet Lawyers still acknowledge that this does not exeem these Supream powers from being lyable to the Laws of God nature and nations Accurs in l. Princeps ff de Leg. Clementina pasturalis de re judicatâ Bart. in l. ut vim de justitiâ jure Voet. de Statutis Sect. 5. Cap. 1. nor can the Law of nations be overturned by private Statutes or any Supream power And thus all Statuts to the prejudice of Ambassadours who are secured by the Law of nations are confess'd by all to be null and the highest power whatsoever cannot take off the necessity of denuncing warr before a warr can be Lawful And Lawyers observe verie well that these who would oppose the common dictats of mankind should be look't upon as enemies to all mankind My second argument shall be that the King Parliament can have no more power in Parliament than any absolute Monarch has in his own Kingdom for they are when joyn'd but in place of the Supream power sitting in judgement and therefore they cannot in Law do what any other Supream and absolute Monarch cannot do For all the power of Parliaments consists only in their consent but we must not think that our Parliaments have ane unlimited power de jure so as that they may forfeit or kill without a cause or decerne against the Subjects without citing or hearing them or that they can alienat any part of de Kingdom or Subject the wholl Kingdom to France or any other Forraigne Prince all which deeds would be null in themselves and would not hinder the partie injur'd from a due redress For if our Parliaments had such power we would be the greatest slaves and live under the most arbitrary Government imaginable But so it is that no Monarch whosoever can take from any man what is due to him by the Law of God nature and nations For being himself inferiour to these he cannot overturne their statuts Thus a Prince cannot even ex plenitudine potestatis legitimat a Bastard in prejudice of former children though they have only but a hope of Succession l. 4. sequen de natal restituend and for the same reason it is declared in the same Law that he cannot restore a free'd man restituere libertum natalibus in prejudice of his Patron who was to succeed though that succession was but by a municipal Law For clearing which question It is fit to know that the solid lawyers who treat jus publicum as ARNISAEUS and others do distinguish betwixt such Kingdoms as were at first conferr'd by the People and wherein the Kings succeed by contract and in these the Laws made by King and People can exclude or bind the Successor And yet even here they confess that this proceeds not because the Predecessor can bind the Successor but because the People renew the paction with the succeeding King But where the Successor is to succeed ex jure regni in hereditary Monarchies there they assert positively that the Predecessor cannot prejudge the Successors right of Succession Which they prove by two arguments First that the Predecessor has no more power nor right than the Successor for the same right that the present King has to the possession the next in Blood has to the Succession And all our Laws run in favours of the King and his Heirs and no man can tye his equal or give him the Law par in parem non habet dominium The second is that it were unjust and unequitable that the Predecessor should robbe his Successor nulla ergo sayes Arnisaeus Cap. 7. Num. 5. clausula Successori jus auferri potest modò succedat ille ex jure regni And Hottoman lib. 2. de Regno Galliae asserts that in France which is a very absolute Monarchy Eaquae jure Regio primogenito competunt ne Testamento quidem patris adimi possunt And thus when the King of France design'd to break the Salique Law of Succession as in the Reigne of CHARLES the V. It was found impracticable by the three Estates and when Pyrrhus was to preferre his youngest Son to the Crown the Epirots following the Law of Nations and their own refus'd him Paus. lib. 1. In the year 1649. Also Amurat the grand Seignior having left the Turkish Empire to Han the Tartarian passing by his Brother Ibrahim the wholl Officers of that State did unanimously Cancel that Testament and restore Ibrahim the true Heir tho a silly foole Which shewes the opinion not only of Lawyers but of whole nations and Parliaments Tho vander Graaff an Hollander confesses that it is not Lawfull to choose any of his Sons to succeed him in which the general quiet of the Kingdom is much concerned And therefore tho the next Heir were wiser braver and more generally beloved Yet the more immediat must be received as choos'd by God whither good or bad and as honored with his Character And if Kings could have inverted their Succession and choos'd their own Successor Saint Lewis had preferr'd his own third Son to Lewis his eldest and Alfonsus King of Leon in Spaine had preferr'd his Daughters to Ferdinand his eldest Son And Edward the VI. of England had preferr'd and did actually preferre the Lady Iean Gray to his Sisters Mary and Elizabeth And if Successions especially of such great importance had not been fixed by immutable Laws of God and nature the

various and unconstant inclinations of the present Governours especially when shaken by the importunity of Step-mothers and Mothers or clouded by the jealousie of flatterers or favourits had made the Nations whom they Governed very unhappy and therefore God did very justly and wisely setle this Succession that both King and People might know that it is by him that Kings Reigne and Kingdoms are secur'd in Peace against faction and it were strange that this should not hold in Kings since even amongst subjects the Honour and Nobility that is bestow'd upon a Man and his Heirs does so necessarly descend upon those Heirs that the Father or Predicessor cannot seclude the next Successor or derogat from his right either by renuncing resigning following base or meane Trades or any other For say those Lawyers since he derives this right from his old Progenitors and owes it not to his Father his Fathers deed should not prejudge him therein Fab. Cod. 9. Tit. 28. Def. 1. Warnee Consil. 20. Num. 7. And as yet the Estates of Parliament in both Nations have no legislative power otherwayes than by assenting to what the King does so that if the King cannot himself make a Successor neither can they by consenting and all that their consent could imply wold only be that they and their Successors should not oppose his nomination because of their consent But that can never amount to a power of transferring the Monarchy from one branch to another which would require that the Transferrers or bestowers had the Supream power Originally in themselves nemo enim plus juris in alium transferre potest quàm ipse in se habet And if the States of Parliament had this power Originally in themselves to bestow why might they not reserve it to themselves And so perpetuate the Government in their own hands And this mov'd judge Jenkins in his treatise concerning the liberty and freedom of the subject pag. 25. To say that no King can be Named or in any time made in this Kingdom by the People A Parliament never made a King for there were Kings before there were Parliaments and Parliaments are summoned by the Kings writtes Fourthly A King cannot in Law alienat his Crown as is undenyable in the opinion of all Lawyers and if he do that deed is voyd and null nor could he in Law consent to an Act of Parliament declaring that he should be the last King And if such consents and Acts had been sufficient to bind Successors many silly Kings in several parts of Europe had long since been prevail'd upon to alter their Monarchy from Haereditarie to Elective or to turn it in a Common-wealth and therefore by the same reason they cannot consent to exclude the true Successor For if they may exclude one they may exclude all 5. In all Societies and Governments but especially where there is any association of powers as in our Parliaments there are certain fundamentals which like the Noble parts in the Body are absolutly necessar for its preservation for without these there would be no Ballance or certainty And thus with us if the King and each of the Estates of Parliament had not distinct and known limits sett by the gracious concessions of our Monarchs each of them would be ready to invade one anothers Priviledges And thus I conceive that if the Parliament should consent to alienate the half of the Kingdom or to subject the whole to a Stranger as in King Johns case in England and the Baliols in Scotland it has been found by the respective Parliaments of both Kingdoms that that Statute would not oblidge the Successor Or if the House of commons in England or the Burrowes of Scotland should consent to any Act excluding their Estate and respresentatives from the Parliament doubtlesse that Statute excluding them would not prejudge their Successors because that Act was contrare to one of the fundamental Laws of the Nation And the late Acts of Parliaments excluding Bishops were reprobated by the ensuing Parliaments as such and therefore by the same rule any Statute made excluding the legal Successor would be null and voyd as contrare to one of the great Fundamental Rights of the Nation And what can be call'd more a Fundamental Right than the Succession of our Monarchy Since our Monarchy in this Isle has ever been acknowledg'd to be hereditary And that this acknowledgment is the great Basis whereupon most of all the positions of our Law run and are established such as that the King never dyes since the very moment in which the last King dyes the next Successor in Blood is Legally King and that without any expresse recognizance from the People and all that oppose him are Rebells His Commissions are valide He may call Parliaments dispose the Lands pertaining to the Crown all men are lyable to do him homage and hold their Rights of him and his Heirs And generally this principle runs through all the veins of our Law It is that which gives life and Authority to our Statutes but receives none from them which are the undenyable marks and Characters of a Fundamental Right in all Nations But that this right of lineal Succession is one of the Fundamental and unalterable Laws of the Kingdom of Scotland is clear by the Commission granted by the Parliament for the union in Anno 1604. In which these words are his Majesty vouchsafeing to assure them of his sincere disposition and clear meaning no way by the foresaid Union to prejudge or hurt the Fundamental Laws ancient Priviledges Offices and Liberties of this Kingdom whereby not only the Princely Authority of his most Royal descent hath been these many ages maintain'd but also his Peoples securities of their Lands and Livings Rights Liberties Offices and dignities preserv'd Whilks if they should be innovated such confusion should ensue as it could no more be a free Monarchy 6. There would many great inconveniencies arise both to King and People by the Parliaments having this power For weak Kings might by their own simplicity and Gentle Kings by the rebellion of their Subjects be induced to consent to such Acts in which their Subjects would be tempted to cheat in the one case and rebell in the other Many Kings likewise might be wrought upon by the importunity of their Wives or Concubins or by the misrepresentations of Favourits to disinherit the true Successor and he likewise to prevent this arbitrarienesse would be oblidg'd to enter in a faction for his own support from his very infancy This would likewise animate all of the Blood Royal to compete for the Throne and in order thereto they would be easily induc'd to make factions in the Parliament and to hate one another whereas the true Successor would be ingadg'd to hate them all and to endeavour the ruine of such as he thought more popular than himself Nor would the people be in better case since they behov'd to expect upon all these accompts constant civil warres and animosities