so mainly necessary there are say they many causes to wit the fresh fear which invaded all men when very lately her health was indangered the opportunity of the times when the Estates of the Realm were now assembled who would maturely deliberate of so weighty matters the terror which she should strike into her adversaries and the immortal joy wherewith she would replenish all her Subjects They commend the Examples of her Ancestors which in such cases have prudently provided for the security of their Posterity condemning that speech of Pyrrhus who said He would leave the Kingdom to him which had the sharpest sword Moreover they propound how great a storm of calamities would hang over England if she should put off her mortality designing no certain Successor That seditious and Civil Wars would break forth wherein the Victory it self were most miserable That Religion would be abolished Justice smothered the Laws trodden under feet When there should be no certain Prince which is the soul of the Law and that the Kingdom would fall as a prey to Foreiners And other calamities of that sort they reckon up and exaggerate wherein all men would be included if she should die without issue Out of the sacred Scriptures also they modestly join hereunto precepts counsels and examples At which time also the Lower House were more vehement in their expressions to the same purpose These things have been the more largely collected and set down that we might see the difference between Parliaments then and since For they were so far from usurping authority to themselves to alter the succession of the Prince in possession which had Heirs under colour of their power of Election during the life of the Prince that they claimed not a right to constitute an Heir or Successor unto him that had Children of his own Even as in the time of Henry the Eight they had at his motion setled the Crown sometimes upon the issue by one wife and sometimes upon another and at last left it to such as he should give it by his last Will and Testament These Parliaments of Q Elizabeth consisting then of Papists chiefly might more justly then now have suspected an aversness from the Religion professed or established fol. 16. especially in Fundamentals But on the other hand says my Author she was much troubled at the impatience of some Ministers of the Word who chose rather to forerun then expect Laws and began to sow abroad the Doctrine of the Gospel more freely first in private houses then in Churches and the people greedy of novelty began to flock unto them in great numbers It might have been objected that she was a Woman and so unfit to be acknowledged Head of the Church which authority had been in the time of her Father setled upon the Imperial Crown of this Realm A thing scoffed at as well by them which seemed more strictly zealous as by the Papists themselves And they might also and with more right have insisted upon an Act of Parliament whereby she stood disabled from the Government and that as one declared illegitimate and whose Mother had been condemned and executed for Adultery Even by an Act of a Parliament consisting of King Lords and Commons and not made by a piece of a piece of a Parliament only Camb. Annal. fol. 18. Whereupon says my Author some seditious persons afterward took occasion thereby to attempt dangerous matters against her as being not lawful Queen albeit the English Laws have long since pronounced that the Crown once worne quite taketh away all defects whatsoever And as this unrepealing of that Act and this Maxim of the Law was then imputed to Bacons wisdome on whom as an Oracle of the Law the Queen wholly relied in such matters so for further satisfaction of mens mindes concerning the undoubted obedience which is due to the Possessor in questions of like kinde I shall set down the determination of him who by Lawyers themselves is accompted an Oracle of the Law since namely my Lord Cook who in the 3. part of his Institutes f. 6 7. in the Title of Treason expounding the words of Nre Seignior le Roy says that by le Roy is to be understood a King regnant and not of one that hath but the name of a King And then also he alleadges the instance of Q. Mary on whom as having indeed the soveraign power the word le Roy was appropriate although she were a woman and her Husband at the same time stiled King of England Afterwards he quotes in the margent the Statute of 11 Henry 7. enacting That none shall be condemned for any thing done in obedience to the present King or Soveraign for so the words of the Statute are King or Soveraign He further saith This Act is to be understood of a King in possession of the Crown and Kingdom For if there be a King regnant in possession although he be Rex de facto non de jure yet is he Seignior le Roy within the purview of this Statute and the other that hath right and is out of possession is not within this Act. Nay if Treason be committed against a King de facto non de jure after the King de jure cometh to the Crown he shall punish the Treason done to the King de facto and a Pardon granted by a King de jure that is not also de facto is void By all which it will appear that the Law directs our fidelity to Nre Seignior our Soveraign Lord not confining it to the stile and title of le Roy or King to whom it is only due as being actually Nre Roy our Soveraign Lord the King And indeed it would have seemed strange if what by the Law is due to inferior powers as Lords of Manors or the like should have been denied to the chief For in that case the exception of a Disseisor against the right Heir is not available to abate any Service or Acknowledgment which ought to come from a Tenant or Homager Having thus Sir as shortly as I could cleered my way of some most material doubts I shall now crave your patience to peruse the following Letter beseeching God to direct and bless you in the setling of the peace and good of these Nations Which is the daily prayer of SIR Your most affectionate Friend and Servant SIR YOu may please to remember that upon some late discourses which passed between us concerning some things relating to the present establishment in our Government and of that question of Hereditary or Elective succession I did then trouble you with the relation of my opinion therein and give you such reasons and arguments as did then occur for the establishment of both And which might serve by way of answer to those ordinary objections made to the contrary which in malicious Pamphlets or otherwise were vulgarly spread abroad both to disaffect the people and to breed a distaste and jealousie both in
from hearing the appeals or addresses of their Subjects which they arbitrarily govern according to their own privat laws and not after the common law of the Empire and Kingdom they must thereupon be by so much the more enslaved as their Emperor or King is less powerfull And that which yet makes their case more hard is that since they are also liable to more Taxes then others paying not onely to the support of their own Lords what they shal think fit but also to the support of the Empire and Kingdom upon all publique Levies they are thereby unreasonably put to maintain a power that cannot protect them And from the foregoing grounds it is found that as Elective governments may be observed more short-lived then Hereditary so also of those that have or doe continue there may be a daily lessening and dâ—clension observed in them by suffering severall parcels to be taken away by their Neighbours or else to stand upon terms of absolute independency as may be seen by those severall petit States of Italy and elswhere canton'd off from the German Empire For why should those absolute Princes and Lords that have their peculiar Seignories and power be so much concerned herein as to undergoe the charge and hazard of recovering those Territories and Dominions to a common Soveraignty only whereof themselves have so little honor or benefit and why should the Emperor or Prince who holds but for life endanger or impoverish himself herein since he shall still keep on the same rank and title and have it may be a good sum for his connivance And so again for that very time they doe continue they come to owe their preservation more to outward occurrences and good luck then their inward prudence or policy As for example the German Empire is beholding to the Turk and to the Christian Princes its Neighbors for their agreement who by their continuall fears from abroad keep them united and in peace at home And by the like accident is the Kingdom of Poland often kept from Civill War also and also by keeping close to one family which cannot afford many persons at once whereby to make civil disturbance about Election Besides the German Empire is also kept in some agreement by that respect therein given to the Papall Sea For the Pope having by much strugling and policie pulled down the power of those Emperors and by his golden Bull setled it as now it is having half the Electors Bishops hath still kept up such a power and reverentiall respect amongst them as to awe any one there from making himself so great and absolute as to be again in competition with him for mastery or on the other side to suffer the Electors or other Estates to invade or diminish that greatness and glory left him least also that honour of his own should abate in the loss of so honourable a servant And since the time of Luther it hath been preserved by the policie of the Austrian family who ever since getting their sons setled in their life times have kept it from those distractions which might accompany new choice Another inconvenience attending elective Soveraignties is decay of publique Revenue and provisions of all kinds both for war and peace For how shall it be thought that those that hold but for his life should either repair what was done by another or attempt the erection of such magnificent works and foundations which could not likely be in that time accomplished and which in the doing also must rob his family of so much in propriety as that cost would have come to So that these things having their reasons apparent I shall forbear examples therein as I have done in many things foregoing and shall do in most that follow fearing also Sir that I have already made too great an assault on your patience and transcended the allowable bulk of a Letter But Sir since all mens reading and experience do inform them that money hath been and will be the usual purchaser of preferment it must be presumed that the person aiming at this greatness doth intend that the publick stock shall again make good his disbursment But may some think the Princes and Nobles or those in power will look to all exorbitance in this kind No Sir they will rather encourage it for they were the persons that were first bribed for his entrance and so cannot in justice but see him at least repay himself again Besides they being but few and bearing no great proportion in their own particulars towards publick levies may be suspected less careful of what is done therein and may also have their good will purchased by part thereof As the necessity of compliance with the great ones that holp him in and do support him must thus exhaust the publick stock so also the care and thought for preservation and maintenance of his own family and other dependents must cause him to imploy that study and endeavour which should be intent to advance the publick stock as his own to seek to take from it all he can that it may be so indeed So that if we should still make change of families for our Governor and pick out of any according as one happened to have a fitter person then another it must be supposed that the same sum that would suffice for the maintenance of one family would not by much be sufficient to afford proportions to advance and ennoble a great many in such sort that they may carry a continual shew and rank answerable to that place which was once executed by their ancestor And if we think of putting the election and power of comptroll in more persons as in the people in Parliaments or the like as thinking a multitude of suffrages and consents are not so easily purchased we might yet be herein mistaken also since we are informed that Caesar and others could tell how to bribe whole Commonwealths or those that bore the name thereof both to be elected and kept Dictators or the like offices And that Senators or Parliament-men may be drawn by money preferment or other relation or interest is but too truly known If Sir you should think fit to choose but out of some few more Noble families to avoid the impoverishing of the common stock by enriching so many little ones as they do in Germany then how will you do to pick out such in England as now it is without discontent and danger too to arise from those that are secluded Will you keep to one family as they in Poland have done why this is yet better But the best course of all is to do as they do now in Germany and as hath been ever practised in these Nations to keep not only to one family but to observe the same order of descent in this chief place of authority as is by the law of God and the Land observed in other families in the inheritance of all things else Sir when you have thus done you and
by his providence and usual way of dispensation in that kind set over us For as he did never set up any government but Monarchy nor did ever give that or any setled office to any person but he did withall give it to his posterity so is it to be left to him alone to find out the means to change the same from family to family as he shall really know the deserts both of the one and the other and not leave it to us to contrive and set up elective Monarchies upon any such fond suppositions For if such a consideration had been valuable to have made places of supreme trust and power elective then certainly the High-Priesthood requiring far more personal execution and that in more divine affairs then that of King who was the first established Officer in Civil affairs should not also have been entailed to a single family In which kind notwithstanding it was still setled and so to continue till God by himself or by his Vicegerent saw just cause for alteration thereof In which case as there were others ready still to supply those defects which childhood or other insufficiencie might occasionally make in the highe Priest hood so may there be in the Civil Magistracie also without running into danger of civil war through the abdication of a family of known desert and still be but at the same hazard for goodness or sufficiencie in the choice of another If we appeal from discourse and argument to matter of experience and practice in this question of the benefit of Election we shall also find things to fall out quite contrary to their imagination and promises and that upon examination of foreign stories and comparing the vertues and good government of such as have ruled in places elective with the vertues and good rule of such as reigned in places hereditâ—ry we shall truly find the people in a much happier condition under the last then under the first For where shall we pick out any instance for a succession of Princes so notoriously wicked and in so great a number as was in the Roman Empire after the Souldiery and Senate would there take upon them to make that Government elective and neglect that more direct line of succession and that hereditary right which belonged to the issue of their brave and victorious Chieftain Caesar What think we of Caligula Nero Otho Vitellius Caracalla Heliogabalus and other unmatchable examples both for ill life and ill government And when we have pitcht upon the best of them it will not be any encouraging example for Christians to set up their Governor by election since on their score we may justly lay the greatest part of those most bloody persecutions made against them which until the time of Constantine the Great who with his Christianity did again establish an hereditary succession and so somewhat more increase and settle the glory of that Empire the poor Christians found little joy or intermission So easie and usual a thing it is for dissimulation force or bribery to prevail in this kind And if you will imploy your thoughts upon the collection of such Princes as have been highly illustrious and eminent either in sacred or prophane story I do not think you will find any one that came in by election only in sacred story I am sure you will not that deserves to be put either in the first or second rate No those Princes that were so glorious in conquests as to establish the three first Monarchies of the world were all of them such as were hereditary Nay that which we call the fourth Monarchy because it was longest a Monarchy and under that government it was longest and had under it both rise and perfection being from the Creation but 480 years a Common-wealth doth owe unto hereditary Monarchy its chief and fundamental laws and also that warlike discipline by means whereof it became so great and victorious afterwards For all which Sir there is a reason at hand Even because the foundation and atchievement of greatness and empire requiring a foregoing design and councel and that which is made upon experience also and requiring a foregoing stock of Treasure Navy and other warlike ammunition and preparations together with a well disciplined and obedient Amry lastly requiring a good proportion of time for the prosecution and finishing thereof it is not to be supposed that the life of any one person can be sufficient both to continue and perfect things of such length and difficulty but rather upon these considerations it is to be conceived that every elective Prince will be discouraged from such attempts not only because of danger and hardship but also because he shall venture and labour for what shall not accrue to his family and it may be that the glory and profit of all his works may come to be enjoyed by such a successor as is his enemy And so again in case any such enterprise should have been set on foot it is as vain a thing to suppose that the emulation that doth usually attend Princes of this condition and those that are best of them too will let the successor contribute towards the accomplishment of any work begun by another but rather to contrive one of his own and that contrary also to the increase of his own glory by the others disgrace So that it being probable that his predecessor was not allied to him but of another party or faction those that were Enemies to the other are but so much the more likely to expect favour and protection in stead of war and conquest from him And it is farther considerable that it will also require a good space of time for every new elected Prince to understand the state of his own affairs and both to settle them and secure himself against those of other parties and factions which he mistrusts and have opposed him at home before he can have time and opportunity to think of and make provision for conquests abroad which then also must be supposed the more short for that Princes are not elected young So that we are then only to expect such glorious and great acts to be atchieved by any one such person as a Solomon or an Alexander when they have succeeded as heirs to a David or a Philip who as well in love and care to their Kingdoms as to their posterity that shall enjoy them have been so provident and industrious in laying up all sort of provisions and making such preparations and beginnings as are unto the accomplishment of so great works necessary And it is very observable that when God hath any great and glorious act or change to make in the world or in any one Nation he doth then also not only raise up a new family like those of Caesar and Pepin for the greater manifestation of his power and appearance but doth also bless the same with an Augustus or a Charlemain such a famous heir and successor as may serve for