says they assembled in order to exalt Henry the King 's eldest Son to be King of England He took the Coronation Oath more han once and at one of his Coronations had the Confessor's Sword carried before him by the Earl of Chester one of the Earls Palatine of England for a sign that that Sword was not to be born in vain He having trod in his Father's steps the States were likely to have made good their solemn denunciation 17th of his Reign of deposing him in a Common-Council of the whole Kingdom and creating a new King which as appears by Bracton a very learned Judge in that Reign was no more than the then known Law of the Kingdom Various were the events of a long Civil War in which at last the death of the great Darling of the Church and People the then Hereditary High Steward of England and the bravery of Henry's Son gave him the victory which they who were on his side and his own experience of the consequence of his former Counsels kept withing some bounds of moderation Henry to secure the Succession to his eldest Son Edward had before that success caused many and particularly the Citizens of London to swear to his Son as Successor And after that it should seem that a Parliament had made a Settlement of the Crown For in the 55th of his Reign a Writ was sent to London the execution of which was return'd into the Parliament that year at Winchester and 't is probable the like had been throughout England in pursuance of which Writ the Mayor Barons Citizens and University of the Commons swore Allegiance to the King after him to his eldest Son Edward then to his Son John after that to the right Heirs of the Crown of England which not being to the Heirs of either of those Persons plainly left the Inheritance as I have shewn it was from the beginning Upon the Father's death the Clergy and Laity flock'd to Westminster where they declared or received for King Edward then beyond-sea in the Holy War so called Soon after this as I take it a great Convention of the States was holden in his name there a Chancellor was chosen and other Provisions made for the Peace of the Kingdom in Edward's absence the Writ which they issued out requiring the Subjects in general to swear Allegiance to E. 1. says the Government was devolved upon him by Hereditary Succession and the Will of the Nobility and the Fidelity performed or Allegiance sworn to him Agreeably to which Walsingham says they recognized Edward their Leige Lord and ordained him Successor of his Father's honour Tho' he was a very gallant Prince yet having taken ill advice being to cross the Seas he upon a Pedestal at Westminster-Hall Gate with the Archbishop of Canturbury and the Earl of Warwick by his side publickly ask'd forgiveness of his People entreated 'em to receive him again at his return and if he died to Crown his Son King which they who were then assembled consented to How much it was then known to concern a King to keep to his part of the Contract as he would have his People continue bound appears by two great Authorities in our Law of that time Fleta who as to this matter transcribes Bracton almost verbatim and the Mirrour of Justices which speaks of the first Institution of Kings among us by Election for what End they were Elected and what they were to expect if they answered not that End E. 2. as Walsingham informs us succeeded not so much by Hereditary Right as by the unanimous Assent of the Nobility and Great Men. He was for misgovernment formally depos'd or Abdicated from the Regal Dignity as Walsingham has it and his Son Edward was Substituted or Elected in his stead The Son indeed tho he had headed Forces against his Father seem'd to scruple accepting the Crown without his Fathers consent And ex post Facto after Edw. 2d had been deposed and his Son Elected with a threat that if he refused they would Elect sombody else the Father took some comfort at the Election of his Son and as much as in him lay consented The Son it must be own'd in a Writ cited by Dr. Brady says his Father amoved himself by the assent of the Prelates Earls Barons and other Nobles and also of the Commonalâ—y of the whole Kingdom Which being onely in Writs Issued out of the Chancery can be of no Force to limit or explain that Act of the States And was but a civility or complement from the Son to the Father What the States judged in the matter will be very plain from the following account in a contemporary Author King Edward remaining in Custody at Kenelworth a General Council of the whole Clergy and People of England was Summon'd viz. of every City and every County and Borough a certain number of Persons to Treat and Ordain with the Great Men of the State of the King and Kingdom In which Council at the cry of the whole People unanimously persevering in that cry that King Edward II. should be Deposed from the Throme of the Kingdom becuase from the beginning of his Reign to this day he had misbehaved himself in his Government had Ruled his People wickedly had dissipated Lands Castles and other things belonging to the Crown had by perverse Judgment unjustly adjudged Noblemen to Death had advanced the Ignoble and had done many things contrary to the Oath taken at his Coronation Walter Archbishop of Canterbury pronouncing Articles of this kind by assent and consent of all King Edward 2. is wholly deposed and Edward his eldest Son advanced to be King of England And it is Ordained that from thenceforth he should not be called King but Edward of Karnarvan the King's Father And immediately Messengers were sent from the Council to the said Edward the King's Father to notifie to him what had been done and to read to him the Articles upon which he had been deposed He answer'd he was detained in custody nor could contradict their Ordinances but said he would bear all patiently And it is observable that a Statute of the Kingdom 1 E. 3. justifies the taking Arms against E. 2. while he was in Possession of the Throne and indemnifies all Persons for the pursuit of the said King and taking and withholding his body E. 3. who knew that himself came in by and election of the States being aware that if he should die before any Provision were made about the Succession the Controversie concerning the Right of Proximity and that of Representation would be revived between his eldest surviving Son and Grandson by the eldest who died in his life time obtained an Act of Parliament whereby Richard his Grandson by his eldest and best beloved Son was declared or made very
be justify'd by Record that H. 4ths saying was not true Upon which 't is observable 1. That Richard's answer goes upon a manifest begging the Question and supposing that he had a Right which could not be barred by Act of Parliament 2. That the Lords having mentioned several Entails upon Heirs Male we are to believe that there was then upon Record the Entail upon Heirs Male in the time of E. 3. pleaded by Judge Fortescue in defence of the Title of his King H. 6. This we are the rather to believe because there was but one Entail upon Heirs male in H. 4ths reign nor is Richard's denial any argument against this it appearing that he thought it sufficient for him to affirm any thing and this was to pass for Truth and Law Thus he denies that there had been any Entail but 7º H. 4. forgetting that which had been made 5º and was amended 8 H. 4. and so very much did he mistake that he supposed the Entail 7º to be upon the Heirs of the Body when it was upon Heirs male of the Body 3. What the Lords say of Richard's not bearing Lionel's Arms confirms another objection against him made by Judge Fortescue from the Barstardy of Philippa born while Lionel was beyond the four Seas and never own'd by him nor did she or her descendants till the time of this claim bear the Arms of that Family 4. Richard's Right of Descent admitting there had been no Illegitimacy is laid as a Right in Nature but either this must be as the Laws of the Land guide the course of Nature or otherwise we must go back in search of this Right if not as far as Adam yet to some descendant from the eldest House of the Saxon Royal Family to such at least as could derive their Pedigree from some House elder than King Alfred's which may be done at this day Besides if we should look back to a Right in Nature all the Kings descendants from H. 2. from whom Duke Richard came as well as H. 6. must have been Usurpers H. 2ds Children having being begotten on another Man's Wife who had been Divorced for her Adultery and therefore by God's Law could not Marry again nor does it appear that the Divorce was from the Contract Or if this Matter should admit of Debate such of our Kings as descended from an other common Ancestor King John must have been Usurpers not only by reasonof John's suppos'd Usurpation upon Arthur of Brittain and his Sister but in that his Children were begotten on an other Man's Wife who does not seem ever to have been divorced and besides according to the Law of Nature it would seem that John had a former Wife in being For he was divorced from her only for their being third Cousins as H. 2 ds Wife was from her first Husband as they were Cousins in the 4 th Degree If the first Marriages in both cases were void or voidable it could have been only by the Laws of the Romish Church but if those Laws shall make a natural right by governing the course of descents much more shall the Laws of particular Countries If by the Law of Nature Duke Richard meant that which the consent of Nations has made to pass for the dictates of nature according to Cujacius this Law of Nature is for the right of Proximity which John of Gaunt from whom H. 6. descended had to his Father before R. 2. and H. 4 John of Gaunt's Son had before the Son of Lionel's Daughter supposing her legitimate And by that Law it should seem that Males are ordinarily to be preferred before Females tho' their Vertues have often rais'd 'em to Empire Farther yet if by this he meant the Law of reasonable nature what shadow of reason can be assigned why the eldest Issue of a King 's eldest Child whether that Issue be an Infant or void of understanding or humanity ought universally to succeed to Crowns before the King 's eldest surviving Son whatever be his Merits or the exigencies of the Publick And why should not a moral incapacity in this sense be a natural one But if the Great Lawyer Fortescue who as may be seen by the Rolls of the King's Bench was Chief Justice there from before Richard pretended to the Crown and to the end of H. 6 ths Reign may be allowed to speak the Sense of the Learned in that Time they held the Power of the Prince to flow or be derived from the People according to which it must have been taken to be more according to natural right that the People who appointed the Succession in any Family should govern and vary it as they saw occasion than that from their pitching upon a Person or Family they should be for ever debarred from doing justice to the demerits of one and to the merits of another in that very Family I am sure the learned Grotius who distinguishes lineal Succession from Hereditary says an Hereditary Kingdom is one which was made so by the Peoples free consent And in such Kingdoms he supposes several Rules of Succession by guessing at or presuming the will of the People If Duke Richard would have admitted the Law of the Land to govern the course of Descents and Successions to the Crown then 't is evident beyond contradiction that H. 6. came in by a legal and natural course of Descent and however according to laudable custom from the beginning of this Monarchy Acts of Parliament may alter that course However the timerous Lords without concurrence in that matter of the stouter Commons agreed that the Duke's Title could not be defeated and yet thought not themselves discharged from their Oaths to H. 6. unless he would consent to the mean or expedient they found out which was for the King to keep his Estate and Dignity Royal during his life and the Duke and his Heirs to succeed him in the same To this both the King and Duke consented but neither the King 's Right to the Possession nor the Duke 's to the reversion arose from their private agreement but from the Authority of Parliament according to which the King had as much right to the Possession as the Duke to the reversion And it remains as the judgment even of that Parliament whatever force or awe were over it that Richard Duke of York had no right to the Possession and neither was King nor of right ought to be King till H. 6. should die or cease to be King Nay even E. 4 ths Judges owned that H. 6. was not a meer Usurper because the Crown was entailed to him by Parliament As a just judgment upon Richard's pretence of Title contrary not only to the National but Divine Authority giving sanction to the Laws of the Kingdom and his own Oaths he died within sight of the Promised Land But soon after
Heir to the Crown R. 2. following the example of E. 2. had the same fate of which the States of the Kingdom had some years before given him fair warning telling him they had an ancient Statute according to which they might with the common assent and consent of the People of the Realm abrogats him and advance somebody near of kin of the Royal Stock He not profiting by this admonition the States were some years after put to the exercice of their authority and having adjudged that he justly ought to be deposed the whole States appointed Commissioners for giving the Sentence of Deposition And a Record speaking of it says he was deposed for his demerits The Act of State for this says 't was as in like cases had been observed by the ancient custom of the Kingdom This being done Henry Duke of Lancuster as soon as the Kingdom was vacant rose out of his Seat and claim'd the Kingdom begin void His claim was al 's descandit be ryght lyne of the blode comeynge fro the gude Lord Henry therde The reason seems very plain why he claim'd from H. 3. his being the last inheritable blood which he could claim from not from R. 2. because deposed nor from E. 3. because of the forseiture of R. 2. declared or constituted his next Heir not from E. 2. because of his forfeiture nor from E. 1. becuase E. 2. had been his next Heir Hen. 4ths Descent from H. 3. was the qualification for an election This was not as has been supposed a strict right of Succession as he was the next Heir then appearing but he entituled himself to a preference before all other Descendants from that Blood as being a Deliverer of the Nation from Richard's tyranny he having with the help of his Kinsmen and Friends recovered the Kingdom which was upon the point of destruction through the defect of Government and violation of the Laws This induced the States and all the People unanimously to consent that Henry should fill the vacant Throne and they appointed all the Ceremonies of his Coronation But as far as proximity to the last King could infer a right he being Grandson to E. 3. had it before Mortimer descended from Lionel Duke of Clarence under whom the Family of York claim'd besides that H. 4. was undoubtedly the first on the Male line Tho' no Lay-man of knowledge and integrity can be thought at that time to have questioned those grounds upon which H. 4. was declared King yet since 't is hardly possible that there should be any Government which some will not be desirous to shake off as the Jews did the Theocrasy it can be no wonder that some would colour their ambition or malice under pretence of love to justice and that they should object want of right to disturb the most just and equal Government What was at the bottom of objections against H. 4ths Title will appear by the case of a true Head of the Church Militant Merk or Mark Bishop of Carlile who not being able as a Divine to make good his Argument against the receiving H. 4th for King was resolved to justifie it by dint of Sword after he was made King For in second of H. 4. he was indicted and tryed by a common Jury upon a special Commission for that he and other his Accomplices among which there were two bigotted Knights Blunt and Sely were leagued and confederated together with the Adversary and Enemy of England the French and thier Adherents traiterously to bring the said Adversary into the Land of England with intention to destroy the King and all his Leige People of the Kingdom and to new plant the Kingdom of England with our enemies of France that they in an hostile manner went up and down making great destruction and slaughter and without any Authority assuming to themselves Royal Power proclaim'd Richard to be King and that they would not suffer Henry to be their Lord or King To this Indictment the Bishop pleaded Church-Priviledge as an anointed Bishop which the Court over-ruled the the reason for which is very remarkable because the matters contained in the said Indictment concern the death of our Lord the King and the destruction of the whole Kingdom of England and consequently the manifest depression of the Church of England by which he claims to be priviledged all which is high and the greatest Treason and the Crime of laesa Majestas nor ought any man of right to pray in aid of the Law or to have it who commits such a Crime or intends to commit it c. His plea being thus over-ruled the Bishop pleaded not guilty but being convicted of the horrid matter contained in the Indictment it seems he did not think this a fit cause to die for and whether he merited a Pardon or no by sincere Repentance at least obtained one in which it is observable that he is called the late Bishop for this restitution to the Peace did not restore his Ecclesiastical Dignity He who is still called the late Bishop having a pardon sent him petitioned to be delivered out of Prison which was granted upon his finding Sureties for his good behaviour and four undertook that he should for the future behave himself well towards the King and his People Thus the fear of death reformed this stiff Prelate and made him engage to sit quietly under a Government which none but the Enemies to England and their Adherents endeavoured to subvert Still some were found calling themselves Englishmen who for the like ends with Merk would do their utmost to blemish H. 4ths Title this occasioned Oaths of Recognition thrice repeated 5o. of his Reign first at a Council of Worcester then at a Great Council at Westminster and after that in a full Parliament where the two former recognitions which were voluntary Associations were affirmed tho' as is there said there was no need of it By those Oaths they acknowledged the then King to be their Sovereign Leige Lord to obey him as their King and acknowledge the Prince his eldest Son as Heir apparent and inheritable to the Crown of England to him and the Heirs of his Body And for default of such Issue to his Brothers and their Issue successively and hereditably according to the Law of England to live and die against all People in the World The perjury of some and the doubts rais'd by others upon some of the expressions in the Act 5 H. 4. occasioned an other 7o. which by the Counsel and Assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal to wit the Prelates Great Men Peers and Clergy and also at the earnest Petition of the Commons and by Authority of the said Parliament declares that the King 's eldest Son shall be and is and ought hereafter and now to be
a Settlement made in the Ancestor's life time it will not be so where there has been none as was the case of C. 2. 3. If one should in the eye of Law be King immediately upon the death of an other it would not follow that this would be by a strict right of descent but that after the being admitted King there should be a relation backwards to prevent the loss of any rights belonging to the Crown and thus it was plainly taken by the Chief Justices Dyer and Anderson who say that the King who is Heir or Successor may write and begin his Reign the same day that his Progenitor or Predecessor died And agreeably to this it was the resolution of all the Judges of the King's Bench in Elizabeth's time that a saving to a King and his Heirs shall go to a Successor of the Crown tho' not Heir to that King That J. 2. made too great haste to succeed his Brother C. 2. now at least Men will be apt to believe of whom I shall observe only in short 1. That he was within no Parliamentary Settlement of the Crown then in force 2. The best pretence J. 2. had of coming to the Crown without an immediate election must have been the Settlement 1º H. 7. But no shadow of reason can be assigned why the late Act of Settlement was not as rightful and with as true Authority as that 1º H. 7. 3. J. 2. being reconciled to the Sea of Rome which is High Treason by our Law and for which he had been convicted in his Brother's time if the Indictment had not been arbitrarily defeated was as much disabled from succeeding to the Crown as the Family of George Duke of Clarence by reason of that Duke's attainder 4. Admit the assuming the Royal Dignity had purged the former disability the continuing a Papist was a constant incapacity to be the Head of this Protestant Church and Kingdom rendring it impracticable for him to answer the end for which our Kings had been constituted 5. He was never duely invested with the Royal Dignity not having taken the appointed Coronation-Oath which for his sake was traiterously altered with an omission of the Rights of the People and an unjustifiable Salvo for Prerogative Nor was he ever fully recognized 6. By seizing the Customs and raising Taxes without Authority of Parliament dispensing with the Laws of the Kingdom raising and keeping a standing Army in the time of Peace and the like enormities he violated that constitution which should have made or kept him King and if he ever was King more than Harold the Son of Earl Godwin manifestly ceased to be King before his abdication 7. However it may have been at his first leaving the Kingdom without any other Government than what according to ancient Custom fell upon the States of the Kingdom he having since discovered a settled intention to destroy the People of England or the greater part of 'em by a Foreign Power with their Party here according to those Casuists who are most favourable to such rights as he has claimed from the time at least of his manifesting such intention he ceased to be King and His present Majesty having been regularly declared King the other is totally barred from all claim and colour of pretence How great a noise soever some make for him since his flight after their deseting him the greatest sticklers for his suppos'd rightful Authority being disappointed of their sanguine expectations warmly opposed his exercice of those rights to which their servillity had encouraged him the very Bishops who for his sake have set up for heads under him of a separate Church not only disobeyed his positive commands in matters which at other times at least in things of the like nature they would have contended to belong to his Headship of the Church but they would have limited his Power little less than the 19 Propositions to C. 1. which they had long seem'd to abhor Some of their Party if not themselves joyn'd in solliciting his present Majesty to undertake our Deliverance and a certain Person who would be thought never to have departed from their Principles is said to have gone so far as to sign the invitation tho' upon second thoughts he desired to have his name scratch'd out The Bishops being required to sign an abhorrence of that enterprize absolutely refused it Their Archbishop was one of them who petitioned his present Majesty to take the Government upon him before the late King left England and Non-assistance to their jure Divino King was become as Catholick Doctrine as Non-resistance During this time the designs of the Party were kept secret but the People began to hope well of the Body of the English Clergy believing them by a wonderful providence to be reformed in their Principles of Government with which they had brought a scandal upon the Reformation But the Convention meeting to provide for the Peace and Settlement of the Nation it then appear'd that the mighty Zealots for the Monarchy were only for setting up themselves and in truth would have no Sovereignty but in the Church as they called their Faction for as they would not have his present Majesty to be King but a Regent or Officer for the interim till the late King should come to their terms neither did they truly own him for their King whom they neither would assist as Subjects nor consult in choosing a new Government However the Throne having according to former Presidents and the plain right of the Kingdom been declared vacant upon King's breach of the original contracts and abdication the Lords and Commons reciting many particulars of his misgovernment resolve that William and Mary Prince and Princess of Orange be and be declared King and Queen and make a farther Settlement of the Crown They having accepted the Crown the Lords and Commons together with the Mayor and Citizens of London and others of the Commons of this Realm with full consent publish and proclaim William and Mary Prince and Princess of Orange to be King and Queen of England France and Ireland and in the Proclamation own a miraculous deliverance from Popery and Arbitrary Power and that our preservation is due next under God to the resolution and conduct of His Highness the Prince of Orange whom God hath chosen to be the Glorious Instrument of an inestimable Happiness to us and our Posterity A Parliament called soon after declares and enacts that they do recognize and acknowledge that Their Majesties are and of Right ought to be by the Laws of this Realm their Sovereign Liege Lord and Lady King and Queen of England c. in and to whose Princely Persons the Royal State Crown and Dignity of the said Realms with all Honours Prerogatives c. are fully rightfully and entirely Invested Incorporated United and Annexed Notwithstanding which many who have sworn to bear Faith
and true Allegiance to King William will be wiser than the Law not only declared by this Act of Parliament but by several in former Reigns and with a gross Jesuitical evasion without any colour of foundation in Law or Reason pretend that they have sworn to K. William only as King in Fact but that another was rightful King at the same time This groundless and wicked distinction appears to have engaged some Men in an horrid and barbarous Plot against his Majesty's Person and Government tho' they had sworn to be true and faithful to him and it seems by the case of Sir John Perkins that neither he nor his Casuists thought the Oath to King William any departure from the Allegiance to King James nor the design of Assassinating King William any breach of the Oath to him Since therefore the deceit has taken rise from the supposition that the late King continues King of Right together with the general terms of the Oath which are pretended to leave a latitude for this illegal and nonsensical supposition and an Oath more explicit has been artfully kept off a voluntary Declaration that his present Majesty King William is Rightful and Lawful King of these Realms as it is fully warranted by the fundamental constitution of this Government is at this time become a necessary duty when it is evident to the World what they who are of a contrary Opinion will act as they have opportunity But to engage to stand by and assist each other in the defence of His Majesty's Person and Government is not more a consequence of the declaring him rightful and lawful King than it is implied in the Oath of Allegiance appointed by the Act of Parliament which settles the Crown and however the Common-Law Oath and the legal sense of Allegiance manifestly require it If any who have taken the Oath of Allegiance to his present Majesty scruple to associate because of the declaring His Majesty to be rightful and lawful King it is evident that they prevaricated when they swore If they questioned the legality of entring into this before there was a positive Law for it 't is certain they have been little acquainted with the Common-Law Oath of Allegiance and the warrantable Presidents of former times according to which the late Act late Act which enjoyns some to Sign the Association not only gives it Sanction for the future but with express relation to its being voluntarily enter'd into by great numbers of His Majesty's Subjects declares that it is good and lawful And any Man who impartially weighs what I have laid together from Records and other Authentick Memorials of pass'd times must own that it is with full and indubitable Authority enacted That if any person or persons shall maliciously by Writing Printing Preaching Teaching or advised speaking utter publish or declare that His present Majesty is not the lawful and rightful King of these Realms or that the late King James or the pretended Prince of Wales hath any Right or Title to the Crown of these Realms or that any other person or persons hath or have any right or title to the same otherwise than according to an Act of Parliament made in the first year of the Reign of His present Majesty and the late Queen Intituled An Act declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and settling the Succession of the Crown such person or persons being thereof lawfully Convicted shall incur the danger and penalty of Praemunire To imagine that after all this the late King either is or ought to be King is to flight all Authorities Ancient as well as Modern Which leads me to the Nature of our Lawyer 's offence who before the Act for the Security of His Majesty's Person and Government held the Signing the Association to be an Overt-Act of Treason against the King de Jure which as has appeared above tends manifestly to depose and unking His present Majesty as in the Eye of the Law there is but one King and he is the only King de Jure Besides this Gentleman admits That by the Statute 11 H. 7. Allegiance is due to a King in Fact and that the Oath of Allegiance was to be taken to him nor can pretend that there ever till of late was any other Oath but what expresly obliged to the Defence of the King and Kingdom against all Men therefore in consequence of his own Notion he must grant that to contend that there may be Treason against any other but the King for the time being is to suppose two contrary Allegiances and therein to depart from that Allegiance which was due even by his own interpretation of the Statute 11 H. 7. But it being evident that by that Statute and the whole course of the Common Law there is but one King I need not tell him the Crime of publishing a written Opinion manifestly importing an endeavour to Depose him If this had been delivered only in Words it is well known who used his Oratory to make words alone Treason within the Statute 25 E. 3. for which I may refer him to the Trial of the now Earl of Macclesfield in the beginning of the late King's Reign and to the Author of the Magistracy and Government Vindicated But as the Opinion was written he may well know from what late Authority Soribere est agere is become a Maxim or Proverbial Nor can he deny the Words to be within the reason of what the Court held in Flower 's Case of a Man's affirming the King to be a Bastard or that another had better Tittle to the Crown because it may draw the Subjects from their Allegiance and beget Mutiny in the Realm or Owen's Case of declaring it Lawful to kill the King being Excommunicated by the Pope both which not to mention more of the like kind were adjudged High-Treason According to the Print of the later Case it would seem that Words alone made the Treason ' but it appears by a MS. Report of one who had been Attorney General and afterwards Chief Justice of the Common-Pleas that Owen's Subscribing his Confession of what he had publickly declared was given in Evidence as the Overt-Act But if any Lawyer who has labour'd to make Treason of Words alone or Writing alone without Publication or Signing an Association to defend the King for the time being against one who had been King but is not should appear not only to have Written or Signed the Opinion above after a Discourse shewing to what Persons it related but to have publish'd this and to have Solicited Men not to Subscribe the Association upon those or the like topicks should he be Convicted of High-Treason against our Sovereign Lord the King it would be difficult not to apply that of the Poet Nec lex est justior ulla Quam necis artifices arte perire suâ None can the Justice of that Law deny By which who strain'd it against others dye FINIS The