the Norman Race William the First who is unjustly stiled the Conqueror as having subdued none but Harold and those that abetted him did no otherwise obtain the Crown nor ascend the English Throne save in the vertue of an unanimous and free Choice and Submission of the Peers and Body of the People Convenientibus Francis Anglis illisque omnibus concedentibus Coronam Angliae Dominationem suscepit saith the Anonimous Author subjoyned to Sylas Tailor's History of Gavelkind A Clero populo susceptus ab omnibus Rex acclamatus say Matth. Paris and Florilegus Ab omnibus proceribus Rex est Electus says Walsingham Vniversi Hilari consensu eum sibi in Regem Dominum coronari consonuerunt saith Will Pictav when it had been proposed unto them whether they would receive and admit him or not Nor did the said William only obtain the Crown by the Peoples Choice but he was made to Swear before his Coronation that he should Govern the People justly keep and observe unto them all their old Laws and consent unto the having such farther Laws Enacted as should be found needful for the Preservation and Prosperity of the Realm Se velle cunctum populum juste Regere rectam legem statuere tenere says one antiquas bonas leges inviolabiter observare says another As for William the Third and Henry the First who are the two next in the Roll and List of our Kings it is undeniable that they became possessed of the Crown by the meer Gift and Choice of the People For being advanced to the Throne in prejudice of and to the preclusion of Robert their Elder Brother they could have no other pretence clam or right unto it but what they derived from the People and were indebted for unto Parliamentary Power and Authority Our Writers do not only give us an account of their several Elections and of the Oaths by which they became bound unto the Kingdom but of the previous Conditions Promises and Tearms by which the people were influenced and prevailed upon to raise them unto and honour them with the Regal Dignity For William Rusus having promised Si Rex foret say Eadmer and Brompton se justitiam aequitatem misericordiam per totum Regnum in omni negatio servaturum That if he could be chosen and admitted King by the English he would in all things keep and observe Justice Equity and Mercy throughout the whole Kingdom he was thereupon in Regem Electus Consecratus first Elected and then Consecrated King. And as Matth. Paris tells us He was in a great Council or Assembly of the Nobility and Wise Men of the Kingdom Volentibus omnium animis with the cheerful consent of them all in Regem acceptus accepted for and admitted to be King. And for Henry the First the same Author informs us how that having called a general Council of the Nobles and People to meet at London he promised unto them provided he might be chosen King Emendationem Legum c. A reformation of those rigorous Laws which his Father and Brother had obtruded on the Kingdom and that he would frame just Laws grounded on those of Edward the Confessor and that he would likewise not only remit the Taxes which had been unduely exacted of the Subject but punish such persons as had been the Authors of them and that thereupon the whole Assembly unanimously chose him and appointed him to be Consecrated King. And as he intirely owed his Crown to the Election and Grant of the People so he as freely acknowledged it in his Charter see Hagulst where he says Sciatis me consilio Baronum Regni Angliae ejusdem Regni Regem Coronatum esse Know ye that I am Crowned King of England by the Common Council of the Barons of the said Kingdom But least any should wonder why Robert was all this while Excluded while his two younger Brothers were preferred before him and exalted to the Throne it may not be amiss to take notice of the reason of it as it is assigned by Knighton namely because the said Robert semper contrarius adeo innaturalis extiterat Baronibus Regni Angliae had been always harsh unnatural and averse to the Barons of England 'T were an easie matter to go through all the succeeding Kings to the very entrance of the Scots Race and to shew how the People of England have in all Ages exercised a Right and Power in the Disposal of the Crown but this is enough for an Essay and may serve without an enumeration of more Examples to awaken the Peers and the Representatives of the Commons of England to claim and exert that Power at this conjuncture which from the first original of the Government has belonged inseparably unto them That which now remains to be Treated of is what becomes honest men to desire and what all men have reason at this time to expect from the Wisdom and Justice of the approaching Convention in relation to the bestowing conveying and setling of the Imperial Crown of this Realm And that the Considerations which are to be here offered with all Humility as well as Modesty may both stand in the clearer light and have the greater efficacy upon the Minds of those for whom they are designed I shall briefly premise these things 1 That in the circumstances wherein we are through the Kings having withdrawn himself and forsaken the Government the Crown cannot be said to go by Descent and in the way of Inheritance but the Disposal of it falls to the Body of the People of England in their Representatives by way of Cess and Devolution There being no Death Resignation nor Demise of the fore-going Regent there can be no Heir nor any Plea for the Descent of the Crown to a person under that notion Though there may be all the Reason and Justice imaginable for granting and conveying it to the person that in another case would have been so yet there is neither Common nor Statute Law in the vertue of which it can be now said to descend Proximity in Blood may render a person fit to be taken notice of by them who are to Dispose it and Royal Qualities and Vertues may make one deserve and merit it to that degree that it would be the highest injury to the Nation and to the People themselves to bestow it elsewhere but yet for all this nothing doth Legally Entitle unto it but the Will Donation and Gift of the People 2. That in the present case nothing can determine limit or restrain those in whom the disposal of the Crown is become lodged but their own Will guided and regulated by the Measures of what is most conducible to the publick good Many things may serve to indicate and direct where it will be most for the safety and honour of the Kingdom to have it Setled but it is meerly the pleasure of the great Council and of the Representative of the Nation that can authoritatively fix it Former
that are necessary for Peace Preservation and Prosperity so herein lies our signal advantage and felicity that what we become interested in by a positive and Statute Law it doth thereby and from thence become a part of our Right and Property and not to be wrested again from us but by our own consent For as Bracton saith lib. 1. c. 2. though it be also one of the first dictates of Reason and common Sense Leges non possunt mutari nec destrui fine communi consensu confilio eorum omnium quorum confilio consensu fuerunt promulgatae Laws can neither be altered nor vacated save by the consent and concurrence of the same Authority by which they were made and Enacted 'T is true that the Executive part of the Government is both by our Common and Statute Laws conveyed unto and vested in the King but at the same time there is sufficient provision made both in the Terms of our Constitution and in our Parliamentary Acts to prevent this from being hurtful unto us unless our Soveraigns become guilty both of the highest Treachery and withal make an invasion upon and endeavour the Subversion of the whole Government A Right of overseeing the Execution of the Laws being a Prerogative inseparable from the Office of the Supream Magistrate because the very Ends unto which he is cloathed with Rectoral Authority and for which he is designed and established are the conservation of the publick peace and the administration of Justice towards and among the Members of the Body Politick all to be expected from the wisdom of the Society or practicable by them either upon the first erection of and submission to Civil Government or upon their future improvements and farther regulations of it was to direct limit and restrain this Executive power committed unto the Soveraign and to make him and his Subordinate Ministers accountable in case they should deny delay or pervert Justice or be found chargeable with Mal-administration of the Laws Nor was ever a people more provident as to all these than our Predecessors and Ancestors have been For as they have left nothing to the Kings private discretion much less to his Arbitrary Will but have assigned him the Laws as the Rules and Measures he is to Govern by so they not only delegated it unto him as a Trust which he is to Swear faithfully to perform but they always reserved a liberty right and power unto themselves of inspecting his Administration making him responsable for it and of abdicating him from the Soveraignty upon universal and egregious faileurs in the Trust that had been credited and consigned unto him Of this we have indisputable Evidence in the Articles advanced in Parliament against Richard the Second when he was Deposed from the Throne and had the Scepter taken out of his hand Yea to prevent all dangers which might befal the Subject through the Kings being trusted with the Executive power of the Government he is not by our Constitution and Laws allowed to do any thing in his own Person nay not so much as to draw and seal the Commission of those that are to act in his name and under him And as nothing is accounted in our Government a Commission but what the Law Authoriseth and warrants so he is liable to be proceeded against as the highest Criminal that presumeth to Act in the virtue of any other An illegal Commission is so far from conveying a power unto any man to Act that it is a greater Crime to do any thing upon the Authority of it than it would be to commit the same fact without all colour and pretence of power and warrant Seeing the injury in the one case doth only affect and terminate in him that receives it whereas in the other it affects both the King the Government and the whole Body of the People And as if it were not enough to preserve us harmless from the Executive power lodged in the King that all the Commissions issuable from him are to be Legal or otherwise to be accounted null even they who stand warranted and empowered to Act by Legal Commissions are not only to be Sworn to execute them Legally but are obnoxious to be punished for every thing they do upon them that deviates from the Measures of the Law. And as 't is the Duty and hath been the Practice of those who have been faithful to the Trust reposed in them regardful of their own Honor and Just to the Kingdom to punish their Officers and Ministers for Malversation and for departing in their Administration from the Rules of our Common and Statute Laws Witness King Alfred who caused forty four Justices to be hanged in one year for illegal false and corrupt Judgments so it belongeth unto our Parliaments as being one of the great Ends as well as Reasons for which they ought to be frequently called and Assembled to inquire into and to punish the Crimes of Judges and of all others employed by and under the King in the Executive part of the Government From hence it is that as the House of Commons among other capacities in which they sit and Act are by the Constitution to be the great Inquest of the Kingdom to search into all the Oppressions and Injustices of the King's Ministers so the House of Lords among their several other Rights and Priviledges stand cloathed with the Power and Authority of the High Court of Judicature of the Nation who are to punish those who have misbehaved themselves in all other Courts as well as those whom Inferiour Courts have either connived at or have been so wicked as unrighteously to justify Of this all Ages afford us Presidents and nothing but the supiness of this in not making so frequent and signal Examples of Parliamentary Justice among the Ministerial Dispensers of our Laws and among the Officers of our late Kings as our Ancestors used to do hath rendered our withdrawn Prince's being trusted with the Executive part of the Government so mischievous unto the Kingdom and the Abuse of it so Fatal at last unto himself Having with all imaginable brevity declared the Nature and stated the Boundaries of our Government both in what is entrusted with the King as well as in what is reserved unto the People that which in the next place I am to Address my self unto is to inquire whether a King of England can so misbehave himself in his Office as that according to the Rules of our Constitution and the Measures of Justice he may be either Resisted in his Arbitrary and Illegal Exercise of it or Degraded and Deposed from his Regal Dignity And it ought to have no small Influence upon our Understandings towards our assenting unto and embracing the Affirmative that our Predecessors not only managed open War with a Nolumus Leges Angliae mutari upon their Banners against King John and Henry the Third for Usurpation upon their Laws and Liberties but that within the same compass of
him Nor was there any thing whereby the King can be supposed to have been prevailed upon to forsake both the Government and the Kingdom but a sense of his own Guilt and an apprehension of his demerit There was neither Force nor Menace used to drive him from the one or the other only the Thoughts of a Free Parliament and of what he might be found obnoxious unto by the Fundamental Rules of the Government chased him from the Throne and out of the Nation And as we have various Presidents in all Free Nations giving countenance to what we have been doing so no Kingdoms afford more examples in Justification of it than our own However after all the Evils which this late King had done us we are willing to acknowledge the kindness we have received from him at last in his leaving the Nation and retiring beyond Sea. And that which is now incumbent upon us as we would be just both to him and our selves is to bolt the Door after him and so fore-close his Return Though we were once so foolish as to trust him notwithstanding his Religion as hoping the King would have been two strong for the Papist yet it were madness to do it a second time especially after we have seen the Monarch all along too weak for the Papal Bigot The fault is his in the deceiving us once but it would be ours should we give him an advantage of deceiving us again We have provoked him too far to think of laying our selves any more at his mercy Nor is it possible to receive any Security from him but what he hath already falsified The whole Kingdom is embarked too far to think ever of Retreating and his Misgovernment during the whole time he was permitted to Reign disableth him from being trusted with Authority any more A few little and desperate people may if they think fit talk their Necks into a Noose but they will soon find that the Nation is not to be twatled again into Slavery His very Retreating into France is a just bar against the admitting his return seeing it is morally impossible he should come back from thence but under Confederacies with that Monarch for the Extirpating the Reformed Religion every where and for the Ruining of these Nations and of all Europe Nor will those Provinces and States that lent their Forces to inable us to vindicate and assert our Rights ever suffer the King to get into a condition of wrecking his malice upon them for their kindness to us And should we be so far infatuated as to reinthral our selves it will be our fate to be neither pittied in our miseries nor relieved from them Yea God himself will laugh at our Calamities when they come to overtake us through our own wilfulness and choice But though James the Second stand unqualified and morally disabled from being any more King yet it is indispensably necessary we should have One a King being no less essential in the Body Politick of England than the Head is in the Body Natural To dream of reducing England to a Democratical Republick is incident only to persons of shallow Capacities and such as are unacquainted with the Nature of Governments and the Genius of Nations For as the Mercurial and Masculine Temper of the English people is not to be moulded and accommodated to a Democracy so it is impracticable to establish such a Common-wealth where there is a numerous Nobility and Gentry unless we should first destroy and extirpate them This is demonstrable from all Histories extant whether they be Modern or Ancient And either to hope for or to endeavour to do this in England were the highest folly as well as the most prodigious wickedness imaginable To think of precluding Kingship out of the Constitution of the English Government would lay us under a necessity of Excluding also a House of Peers which for any one to attempt would be equally as imprudent as it would be unjust Nor is the naturalness of this inference meerly supported by the practice of the late times but it deriveth its light and evidence from the nature of the thing itself For as the very end of a House of Peers is to be a skreen between the Monarch and the Commons to prevent his Invading the Priviledges of the People and their usurping upon the Prerogatives of the Crown so without our having a King they would become not only useless but burthensome Yea to shut Kingship out of the Constitution would draw after it the alteration of the whole Body of our Laws which would be of ill consequence to the whole State as well as to particular Men. There is nothing more obvious than that the Stile and Authority of King is so Incorporated with and woven into our Laws that without it they are neither intelligible nor can they be applied to the Uses and Ends for which they were Enacted and made This one of Oliver Cromwels Parliaments was sensible of and therefore advised him to exchange the Name of Protector for that of King. Which he either out of a Capricio of his own or for fear of disgusting his Army refusing to comply with gave first an opportunity and advantage to his own Creatures for the Deposing his Son and secondly paved the way and laid it open for the Restoration of the Royal Family And as the Government of England is imperfect without a King so it is not only needful that we should cure this defect in the Body Politick but that it should be done with all the Expedition that is possible For until then the Government can exert it self but in few of its proper operations nor can it either Repeal ill Laws nor Enact such good ones as we want and need Besides this is the first means of rendring us safe at home and formidable abroad Were this once accomplished Forreign Enemies would dread us and Intestine Foes shrink in their Heads Nor can any thing less check the intemperate and seditious Language of some and discourage the audacious Caballings and dangerous Machinations of others Now the Case that we are to Discourse falls not within the compass nor under the Regulation of what a King and the Two Houses of Parliament may do in the disposal of the Crown The many Statutes by which it hath been Entailed do plainly shew that they have a Right to Settle it And though they may be confined from going out of the Royal Line yet it is evident from those upon whom it hath been conferred that they are not always obliged to bestow it in the order and way that common Inheritances descend For whereas both Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth succeeded to the Crown yet it could be in the vertue of nothing but the Act of Settlement of the 35 Hen. 8. seeing if the one of them was Legitimate the other could not nor as such pretend to any Title or Claim Yea our Law does expresly declare that the Prince Regnant whosoever he be may and can with
I have mentioned seeing every thing beyond that would both be a detracting from the Glory of her Husband and to the damage and prejudice of the Community That which remains then to be done is to declare the Prince of Orange King and to settle upon him the Soveraignty and Regal Power allowing in the mean time unto the Princess the priviledge of being named with him in all Leases Patents and Grants This we owe him in point of Gratitude nor is his delivering the Nation to be otherwise requited than by calling him to Rule and Govern it His vindicating our Liberties and Laws deserves his being trusted with the Execution of the one and with the Defence of both And by how much he forbears to challenge it by so much is his Merit unto it the greater What he avoides claiming out of Temperance we ought to have the Generosity to give Nor is there any one so likely to sway the Scepter with Moderation when possessed of it as he who declined to snatch it when it lay within his reach His unchangeable adherence to what he promised in his Declaration as a Prince shews with what Sacredness he will observe his Oath as a King. Nor will he ever invade our Priviledges who hath exposed himself to so many hazards for restoring of them We owe it unto him also in point of Justice At the same time that it is a Gift and Benevolence it is a debt due unto his Vertue He hath all the Wisdom Moderation and Equity requisite in a King and all the Courage and Conduct needful in a General War and Peace are equally his Province and he stands imbu'd with all qualities both for swaying the Scepter and weilding the Sword. His very Passions plead for him and in nothing can we be kinder to our selves than in putting him into a condition of gratifying them The Ambition that Acts him of being the Head of the Protestant Interest in Europe tendeth no less to our benefit and safety than it doth to his honour and glory And the Recentment he retains of Injuries done him by the French King will lead him not only to avenge himself but this Kingdom also upon that common Enemy And to add one thing more the Crown ought to be bestowed upon Him on the score of Wisdom and Interest Nothing save the doing thus will cure the Evils we have felt and obviate those we fear or state us in the possession of all the good we need and desire For first we shall hereby restore the Body of the people of England to their ancient Right and reestablish the Government upon its Primitive and Original Foundation The pretence of a Divine Right of Succession which had almost destroyed us of late and which after two or three removes may again hazard our being Ruined will by this means stand for ever branded and condemned Nor will there be any cause of apprehending a storm hereafter towards the Kingdom from Spain or Savoy when once the Nation hath in its whole Political Body exercised the power belonging unto it of altering and ordering the Succession as it is found convenient for its own safety 2. We shall hereby shut and bolt the dore against the return and re-entry of the abdicated and withdrawn King. Neither himself nor Parizans will either hope or venture to break open a gate where so vigilant magnanimous wise and Martial a person stands Guardian as his Highness the Prince of Orange is by all men acknowledged to be 3. We shall hereby foreclose all Claim unto the Crown arising by the plea and pretence of an immediate Successor and a next Heir For by the exclusion of all Right to the Soveraignty in way of Descent there is no room left for any to challenge a Title to the Government upon that bottom and foundation And though it would be easie to demonstrate the suppositiousness of the pretended Prince of Wales and to lay open the unnatural and horrid Imposture of obtruding him upon the Nation as a Legitimate Son yet we shall by the Method proposed both deliver our selves from the necessity of that Inquiry and prevent the infamy with which the King must be eternally covered upon that detection 4. We shall by this one thing of bestowing the Soveraign Authority upon the Prince of Orange more effectually secure our retrieved Liberties and Priviledges than by all the Laws with which we Fence and Hedge them He that scornfully rejected the offer of Soveraignty over Holland when made unto him by the French King as the price of Betraying and Enslaving his Country can never become guilty of invading the Rights and Priviledges of England when trusted with their preservation and defence Nor will he ever abuse that power to the Nations prejudice which he receives and holds by its kindness and bounty His using to say that he cannot have so unworthy a Conception of God nor so base thoughts of Mankind as to believe that one person should ever be designed by the Supream and Almighty King to trample upon a Society and rule over it by way of oppression doth not only declare his knowledge of the Nature End and Principles of Government but how it is repugnant to his Nature and inconsistent with his avowed Judgment to wrong and injure a Society either by fraud or violence 5. We shall by this means become united among our selves and great and prosperous at home For as he can have no Interest either distinct or divided from that of the whole people so he can fall under no temptation either of quarrelling with the Community or of wheedling using and improving one party to the inconvenience and prejudice of another And though those of the National Communion may be fully assured of their being maintained and protetected in every thing which the Laws shall give them a Right and Title unto yet no man needs to fear that he whose glorious aim is to be the Head of the whole Protestant Interest will ever become so attached to one party as to become an Instrument and Tool of harassing and persecuting all others 6. We shall hereby become strong both in power and Allies abroad For besides the addition of the Force and opulency that will accrue unto the Kingdom during his Life and Reign by the Hereditary Principalities Dominions States and Territories that appertain unto him all the Princes and States of Europe with whom it is our Interest to be Confederated will be ambitious of becoming Leagued and Allied with us His greatness and power whensoever he is King of England will make them covet and desire it and his inviolate Sincerity in every thing he promiseth will make them trust unto and rely upon it He that in the station of Statholder of Holland could make that figure in the world as he hath done and be able to bring so many Princes of different Religions and Interests into an Union against the common Enemy of Europe what will he not be in a capacity to effect