Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	child_n	king_n	lord_n	2,366	5	3.6403	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85293	The anarchy of a limited or mixed monarchy. Or, A succinct examination of the fundamentals of monarchy, both in this and other kingdoms, as well about the right of power in kings, as of the originall or naturall liberty of the people. A question never yet disputed, though most necessary in these times.	Filmer, Robert, Sir, d. 1653.	1648 (1648)	Wing F910; Thomason E436_4; ESTC R202028	34,573	45

is no nonage if a man be not borne free she doth not assigne him any other time when he shall attaine his freedome or if she did then Children attaining that age should be discharged of their Parents contract So that in conclusion if it be imagined that the people were ever but once free from subjection by nature it will prove a meer impossibility ever lawfully to introduce any kind of government whatsoever without apparent wrong to a multitude of people It is further observable that ordinarily Children and Servants are far a greater number then Parents and Masters and for the major part of these to be able to vote and appoint what government or Governours their Fathers and Masters shall be subject unto is most unnaturall and in effect to give the Children the government over their Parents To all this it may be opposed what need dispute how a People can chuse a King since there be multitude of examples that Kings have been and are now adaies chosen by their People The answer is 1. The question is not of the fact but of the right whether it have been done by a naturall or by an usurped right 2. Many Kings are and have bin chosen by some small part of a People but by the whole or major part of a Kingdom not any at all Most have been elected by the Nobility Great men and Princes of the bloud as in Poland Denmarke and in Sweden not by any collective or representative body of any Nation sometimes a factious or seditious City or a mutinous Army hath set up a King but none of all those could ever prove they had right or just title either by nature or any otherwise for such elections we may resolve upon these two propositions 1. That the People have no power or right of themselves to chuse Kings 2. If they had any such right it is not possible for them any way lawfully to exercise it You will say There must necessarily be a right in some body to elect in case a King die without an Heir I answer No King can die without an Heir as long as there is any one man living in the world it may be the Heir may be unknown to the people but that is no fault in nature but the negligence or ignorance of those whom it concerns But if a King could die without an Heir yet the Kingly power in that case shal not escheat to the whole people but to the supream Heads and Fathers of Families not as they are the people but quatenus they are Fathers of people over whom they have a supream power divolved unto them after the death of their soveraign Ancestor and if any can have a right to chuse a King it must be these Fathers by conferring their distinct fatherly powers upon one man alone Chief fathers in Scripture are accounted as all the people as all the Children of Israel as all the Congregation as the Text plainly expounds it self 2 Chr. 1. 2. where Solomon speaks to All Israel that is to the Captains the Judges and to every Governour the CHIEF OF THE FATHERS and so the Elders of Israel are expounded to be the chief of the Fathers of the Children of Israel 1 King 8. 1. and the 2 Chr. 5. 2. If it be objected That Kings are not now as they were at the first planting or peopling of the world the Fathers of their People or Kingdoms and that the fatherhood hath lost the right of governing An answer is That all Kings that now are or ever were are or were either Fathers of their People or the Heirs of such Fathers or Usurpers of the right of such Fathers It is a truth undeniable that there cannot be any multitude of men whatsoever either great or small though gathered together from the severall corners and remotest regions of the world but that in the same multitude considered by it self there is one man amongst them that in nature hath a right to be the King of all the rest as being the next Heir to Adam and all the others subject unto him every man by nature is a King or a Subject the obedience which all Subjects yeild to Kings is but the paying of that duty which is due to the supream fatherhood Many times by the act either of an Usurper himself or of those that set him up the true Heire of a Crown is dispossessed God using the ministry of the wickedest men for the removing and setting up of Kings in such cases the Subjects obedience to the fatherly power must go along and wait upon Gods providence who only hath right to give and take away Kingdomes and thereby to adopt Subjects into the obedience of another fatherly power according to that of Arist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Monarchy or Kingdome will be a fatherly government Ethic. l. 8. c. 12. However the naturall freedome of the People be cried up as the sole means to determine the kind of government and the Governours yet in the close all the favourers of this opinion are constrained to grant that the obedience which is due to the fatherly power is the true and only cause of the subjection which we that are now living give to Kings since none of us gave consent to government but only our Fore-fathers act and consent hath concluded us Whereas many confesse that government only in the abstract is the ordinance of God they are not able to prove any such ordinance in the Scripture but only in the fatherly power and therefore we find the Commandement that enjoynes obedience to Superiours given in the tearms of Honour thy Father so that not onely the power or right of government but the form of the power of governing and the person having that power are all the ordinance of God the first Father had not onely simply power but power Monarchicall as he was a Father immediately from God For by the appointment of God as soon as Adam was Created he was Monarch of the World though he had no Subjects for though there could not be actuall government untill there were Subjects yet by the right of nature it was due to Adam to be Governour of his posterity though not in act yet at least in habit Adam was a King from his Creation And in the state of innocency he had been Governour of his Children for the integrity or excellency of the Subjects doth not take away the order or eminency of the Governour Eve was subject to Adam before he sinned the Angels who are of a pure nature are subject to God which confutes their saying who in disgrace of civill government or power say it was brought in by sin Government as to coactive power was after sin because coaction supposeth some disorder which was not in the state of innocency But as for directive power the condition of humane nature requires it since civil society cannot be imagined without power of Government for although as long as men continued in

the state of innocency they might not need the direction of Adam in those things which were necessarily and morally to be done yet things indifferent that depended meerly on their free will might be directed by the power of Adams command If we consider the first plantations of the world which were after the building of Babel when the confusion of tongues was we may find the division of the earth into distinct Kingdomes and Countries by severall families whereof the Sons or Grand-children of Noah were the Kings or Governours by a fatherly right and for the preservation of this power and right in the Fathers God was pleased upon severall Families to bestow a Language on each by it self the better to unite it into a Nation or Kingdome as appears by the words of the Text Gen. 10. These are the Families of the Sons of Noah after their generations in their Nations and by these were the Nations divided in the earth after the floud Every one after HIS TONGUE AFTER THEIR FAMILIES in their Nations The Kings of England have been gratiously pleased to admit and accept the Commons in Parliament as the representees of the Kingdom yet really and truly they are not the representative body of the whole Kingdom The Commons in Parliament are not the representative body of the whole Kingdome they do not represent the King who is the head and principall member of the Kingdome nor do they represent the Lords who are the nobler and higher part of the body of the Realme and are personally present in Parliament and therefore need no representation The Commons onely represent a part of the lower or inferior part of the body of the People which are the Free-holders worth 40s by the year and the Commons or Free-men of Cities and Burroughs or the major part of them All which are not one quarter nay not a tenth part of the Commons of the Kingdome for in every Parish for one Free-holder there may be found ten that are no Free-holders and anciently before Rents were improved there were nothing neer so many Free-holders of 40 s. by the year as now are to be found The scope and Conclusion of this discourse and Argument is that the people taken in what notion or sense soever either diffusively collectively or representatively have not nor cannot exercise any right or power of their own by nature either in chusing or in regulating Kings But whatsoever power any people doth lawfully exercise it must receive it from a supreame power on earth and practice it with such limitations as that superior power shall appoint To returne to our Author He divides Monarchy into Absolute Limited Absolute Monarchy saith he is when the Soveraignty is so p. 6. fully in one that it hath no limits or bounds under God but his owne will This definition of his I embrace And as before I charged our Author for not giving us a definition of Monarchy in general so I now note him for not affording us any definition of any other particular kind of Monarchy but onely of absolute it may peradventure make some doubt that there is no other sort but only that which he calls absolute Concerning absolute Monarchy he grants that such were the antient Eastern Monarchies and that of the Turk and Persian at this day herein he saith very true And we must remember him though he doe not mention them that the Monarchs of Judah and Israel must be comprehended under the number of those he calls the Eastern Monarchies and truly if he had said that all the antient Monarchies of the world had been absolute I should not have quarreld at him nor doe I know who could have disproved him Next it follows that Absolute Monarchy is when a people are absolutely resigned up or resigne up themselves to be governed by the will of One man where men put themselves into this utmost degree of subjection by oath and contract or are borne and brought unto it by Gods providence In both these places he acknowledgeth there may be other means of obtaining a Monarchy besides the contract of a Nation or peoples resigning up themselves to be governed which is contrary to what he after saies that the sole p. 12. mean or root of all Soveraignty is the consent and fundamentall contract of a Nation of men Moreover the Author determins that Absolute Monarchy is a lawfull government and that men may be borne and brought unto it by Gods providence it binds them and they must abide it because an oath to a lawfull thing is obligatory This position of his I approve but his reason doth not satisfie for men are bound to obey a lawfull Governour though neither they nor their Ancestors ever took oath Then he proceeds and confesseth that in Rom. 13. the power p. 7. which then was was Absolute yet the Apostle not excluding it calls it Gods ordinance and commands subjection to it so Christs commands Tribute to be paid and paies it himselfe yet it was an arbitrary ●ax the production of an absolute power These are the loyall expressions of our Author touching absolute or arbitrary Monarchy I doe the rather mention these passages of our Author because very many in these daies doe not stick to maintain that an arbitrary or Absolute Monarch not limited by law is all one with a Tyrant and to be governed by one mans will is to be made a slave It is a question whether our Author be not of that mind when he saith absolute subjection is servitude and thereupon a late friend to limited Monarchy affirmes in a discourse upon the question p. 54. in debate between the King and Parliament That to make a King by the standard of Gods word is to make the Subjects slaves for conscience sake A hard saying and I doubt whether he that gives this censure can be excused from blasphemy It is a bold speech to condemn all the Kings of Judah for Tyrants or to say all their Subjects were slaves But certainly the man doth not know neither what a Tyrant is or what a Slave is indeed the words are frequent enough in every mans mouth our old English Translation of the Bible useth sometimes the word Tyrant but the Authors of our new Translation have been so carefull as not once to use the word but onely for the proper name of a man Act. 19. 9. because they find no Hebrew word in the Scripture to signifie a Tyrant or a slave Neither Arist Bodin nor Sir Walter Rawleigh who were all men of deep judgement can agree in a definition or description of tyranny though they have all three laboured in the point And I make some question whether any man can possibly describe what a Tyrant is and then tell me any one man that ever was in the world that was a Tyrant according to that description I return again to our Treatise of Monarchy where I find three DEGREES of absolute Monarchy 1. Where the Monarch

particular the power of convocating such persons they are both so far from making a Monarch that they are the only way to make him none by choosing and calling others to share in the Supreame power 4. Lastly concerning his Authority being the last and greatest in the establishing every Act It makes him no Monarch except he be sole that hath that Authority neither his primity of share in the Supreame power nor his Authority being last no nor his having the greatest Authority doth make him a Monarch unlesse he have that Authority alone Besides how can he shew that in his mixed Monarchy the Monarchs power is the greatest The greatest share that our Author allowes him in the legislative power is a negative voice and the like is allowed to the Nobility and Commons And truly a negative voice is but a base tearme to expresse a Legislative power a Negative voice is but a privative power or indeed no power at all to do any thing onely a power to hinder an Act from being done Wherefore I conclude not any of his four nor all of them put p. 26. into one person makes the state Monarchicall This mixed Monarchy just like the limited ends in confusion destruction of all Government you shall hear the Authors confession That one inconvenience must necessarily be in all mixed Governments p. 28. which I shewed to be in limited Governmēts there can be no constituted legall Authorative Judge of the fundamentall controversies arising between the three Estates If such do rise it is the fatall disease of those Governments for which no salve can be applied It is a case beyond the possible provision of such a Government of this question there is no legall judge The accusing side must make it evident to every mans conscience the appeale must be to the community as if there were no Government and as by evidence consciences are convinced they are bound to give their assistance The wit of man cannot say more for Anarchy Thus have I picked out the flowers out of his Doctrine about limited Monarchy and presented them with some brief Annotations it were a tedious worke to collect all the learned contradictions and ambiguous expressions that accur in every page of his platonique Monarcy the booke hath so much of fancy that it is a better piece of Poetry then Policy Because many may thinke that the maine doctrine of limited and mixed Monarchy may in it self be most authenticall and grounded upon strong and evident reason although our Author perhaps have failed in some of his expressions and be liable to exceptions Therefore I will be bold to enquire whether Aristotle could find either reason or example of a limited or mixed Monarchy and the rather because I find our Author altogether insists upon a rationall way of justifying his opinion No man I thinke will deny but that Aristotle was sufficiently curious in searching out the severall formes of Common-wealths and Kingdomes yet I do not find that he ever so much as dreamed of either a limited or mixed Monarchy Severall other sorts of Monarchies he reckons up In the third booke of his Politiques he spends three whole Chapters together upon the severall kindes of Monarchy First in his fourteenth Chapter he mentions four kindes of Monarchy The Laconique or Lacedemonian The Barbarique The Aesymneticall The Heroique The Laconique or Lacedemonian King saith he had only Supreame power when he was out of the bounds of the Lacedemonian territories then he had absolute power his Kingdome was like to a perpetuall Lord Generall of an Army The Barbarique King saith Aristotle had a power very neere to tyranny yet they were lawfull and paternall because the Barbarians are of a more servile nature then the Grecians and the Asiatiques then the Europeans they do willingly without repining live under a masterly Government yet their government is stable and safe because they are paternall and lawfull Kingdomes and their guardes are Royall and not tyrannicall for Kings are guarded by their owne Subjects and Tyrants are guarded by strangers The Aesymneticall King saith Arist in old time in Greece was an elective Tyrant and differed only from the Barbarian Kings in that he was elective and not paternall these sorts of Kings because they were tyrannicall were Masterly but because they were over such as voluntarily elected them they were Regall The Heroique were those saith Aristotle which flourished in the heroicall times to whom the people did willingly obey and they were paternall and lawfull because these Kings did deserve well of the multitude either by teaching them arts or by warring for them or by gathering them together when they were dispersed or by dividing lands amongst them These Kings had Supreame power in war in sacrifices in Judicature These four sorts of Monarchy hath Aristotle thus distinguished and after summes them up together and concludes his Chapter as if he had forgot himself and reckons up a fift kind of Monarchy which is saith he when one alone hath Supreame power of all the rest for as there is a domesticall Kingdome of one house so the Kingdome of a City or of one or many Nations is a family These are all the sorts of Monarchy that Aristotle hath found out and he hath strained hard to make them so many First for his Lacedemonian King himselfe confesseth that he was but a kind of military Commander in war and so in effect no more a King then all Generals of Armies And yet this No-King of his was not limited by any Law nor mixed with any companions of his Government when he was in the wars out of the confines of Lacedemon he was as Aristotle stiles him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of full and absolute command no Law no companion to govern his Army but his owne will Next for Aristotles Aesymneticall King it appears he was out of date in Aristotles time for he saith he was amongst the ancient Greekes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristotle might well have spared the naming him if he had not wanted other sorts for the honour of his owne Nation for he that but now told us the Barbarians were of a more servile nature then the Graecians comes here and tels us that these old Greeke Kings were elective tyrants The Barbarians did but suffer tyrants in shew but the old Graecians choose tyrants indeed which then must we thinke were the greater slaves the Greeks or the Barbarians Now if these sorts of Kings were tyrants we cannot suppose they were limited either by Law or joyned with companions Indeed Arist saith some of these tyrants were limited to certaine times and actions for they had not all their power for terme of life nor could meddle but in certaine businesses yet during the time they were tyrants and in the actions whereto they were limited they had absolute power to do what they list according to their owne will or else they could not have been said to be tyrants As for Aristotles Heroicke

in the whole body or p. 17. a part of it you destroy the being of Monarchy Now let us see if his mixed Monarchy be framed according to these his own principles First he saith in a mixed Monarchy p. 25. the soveraign power must be originally in all three Estates And again his words are the three Estates are all sharers in the Supream power the primity of share in the supream power is in One. Here we find that he that told us the supream power must be in one will now allow his mixed Monarch but one share only of the supream power and gives other shares to the Estates thus he destroies the being of Monarchy by putting the Supream power or culmen potestatis or a part of it in the whole body or a part thereof and yet formerly he confesseth that the power of Magistracy cannot p. 5. well be divided for it is one simple thing or indivisable beam of divine perfection but he can make this indivisable beam to be divisable into three shares I have done with the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 solus alone I have dwelt the longer upon this definition of Monarchy because the apprehending of it out of the Authors own grounds quite overthrows both his Monarch Limited by law and his Monarch Mixed with the States For to Govern is to give a Law to others and not to have a Lave given to Govern and limit him that Governs And to govern alone is not to have sharers or companions mixed with the Governor Thus the two words of which Monarchy is compounded contradict the two sorts of Monarchy which he pleads for and by consequence his whole Treatise for these two sorts of limited and mixed Monarchy take up in a manner his whole Book I will now touch some few particular passages in the Treatise Our Author first confesseth it is Gods expresse ordinance there p. 2. should be Government and he proves it by Gen. 3. 16. where God ordained Adam to rule over his Wife and her desires were to be subject to his and as hers so all theirs that should come of her Here we have the originall grant of Government the fountain of all power placed in the father of all mankind accordingly we find the law for obedience to government given in the tearms of honor thy Father not only the constitution of power in generall but the limitation of it to one kind that is to Monarchy or the government of one alone and the determination of it to the individual person line of Adam are all three ordinances of God Neither Eve nor her Children could either limit Adams power or join others with him in the government and what was given unto Adam was given in his person to his posterity This paternal power continued monarchicall to the Floud and after the Floud to the confusion of Babel when Kingdomes were first erected planted or scattered over the face of the world we find Gen. 10. 11. It was done by Colonies of whole families over which the prime Fathers had supream power and were Kings who were all the sons or grand-children of Noah from whom they derived a fatherly and regall power over their families Now if this supream power was setled and founded by God himself in the fatherhood how is it possible for the people to have any right or title to alter and dispose of it otherwise what commission can they shew that gives them power either of limitation or mixture It was Gods ordinance that supremacy should be unlimited in Adam and as large as all the acts of his will and as in him so in all others that have supream power as appears by the judgement and speech of the people to Joshuah when he was supream Governour these are their words to him All that thou commandest us wee will do whosoever he be that doth rebel against thy commandement and will not hearken unto thy words in all that thou commandest him he shal be put to death we may not say that these were evill Counsellours or flattering Courtiers of Joshuah or that he himself was a Tyrant for having such arbitrary power Our Author and all those who affirm that power is conveyed to persons by publick consent are forced to confesse that it is the fatherly power that first inables a people to make such conveyance so that admitting as they hold that our Ancestors did at first convey power yet the reason why we now living doe submit to such power is for that our Fore-fathers every one for himself his family and posterity had a power of resigning up themselves and us to a supream power As the Scripture teacheth us that supream power was originally in the fatherhood without any limitation so likewise reason doth evince it that if God ordained that Supremacy should be that then supremacy must of necessity be unlimited for the power that limits must be above that power which is limited if it be limited it cannot be supream so that if our Author will grant supream power to be the ordinance of God the supream power will prove it self to be unlimited by the same ordinance because a supream limited power is a contradiction The monarchicall power of Adam the Father of all flesh being by a general binding ordinance setled by God in him his posterity by right of fatherhood the form of Monarchy must be preferr'd above other forms except the like ordinance for other forms can be shewed neither may men according to their relations to the form they live under to their affections and judgments in divers respects prefer or compare any other form with Monarchy The point that most perplexeth our Author and many others is that if Monarchy be allowed to be the ordinance of God an absurdity would follow that we should uncharitably condemn all the cōmunities which have not that form for violation of Gods ordinance and pronounce those other powers unlawfull if those who live under a Monarchy can justifie the form they live under to be Gods ordinance they are not bound to forbear their own justification because others cannot do the like for the form they live under let others look to the defence of their own government if it cannot be proved or shewed that any other form of government had ever any lawfull beginning but was brought in or erected by rebellion must therefore the lawfull and just obedience to Monarchy be denied to be the ordinance of God To proceed with our Author in the 3 page he saith the Higher Power is Gods ordinance That it resideth in One or more in such or such a way is from humane designment God by no word binds any people to this or that form till they by their own act bind themselves Because the power and consent of the people in government is the burden of the whole Book and our Author expects it should be admitted as a magisteriall postulation without any other proof then a naked supposition

chooseth Lay Councelors and nominates the Bishops and whom He will have to be His Privy Counsell He is absolute disposer of the Revenews of the Crown He is absolute establisher of the decrees of the Diets it is in His power to advance and reward whom He pleaseth He is Lord immediate of His Subjects but not of His Nobility He is Soveraigne Judge of His Nobility in criminall causes The power of the Nobility daily encreaseth for that in respect of the Kings election they neither have law rule nor forme to do it neither by writing nor tradition As the King governs His Subjects which are immediately His with absolute Authority so the Nobility dispose immediately of their vassals over whom every one hath more then a regall power so as they entreat them like slaves There be certaine men in Poland who are called EARTHLY MESSENGERS or Nuntios they are as it were Agents of Jurisdictions or circles of the Nobility these have a certaine Authority and as Boterus saith in the time of their Diets these men assemble in a place neer to the Senate House where they choose two Marshals by whom but with a tribune-like authority they signifie unto the Counsell what their requests are Not long since their authority and reputation grew so mightily that they now carry themselves as heads and governours rather then officers and ministers of the publike decrees of the State One of the Counsell refused his Senators place to become one of these officers Every Palatine the King requiring it cals together all the Nobility of His Palatinate where having propounded unto them the matters whereon they are to treate and their will being known they choose four or six out of the company of the EARTHLY MESSENGERS these deputies meet and make one body which they call the order of Knights This being of late years the manner and order of the government of Poland it is not possible for the Observator to find among them that the whole community in its underived Majesty doth ever convene to do Justice nor any election or representation of the Community or that the people assume its owne power to do it self right The EARTHLY MESSENGERS though they may be thought to represent the Commons and of late take much upon them yet they are elected and chosen by the Nobility as their agents and officers The Community are either vassals to the King or to the Nobility and enjoy as little freedome or liberty as any Nation But it may be said perhaps that though the Community do not limit the King yet the Nobility do and so he is a limited Monarchy The Answer is that in truth though the Nobility at the choosing of their King do limit his power and do give him an oath yet afterwards they have alwayes a desire to please him and to second his will and this they are forced to do to avoid discord for by reason of their great power they are subject to great dissentions not only among themselves but between them and the order of Knights which are the earthly messengers yea the Provinces are at discord one with another and as for Religion the diversity of Sects in Poland bred perpetuall jars and hatred among the people there being as many Sects as in Amsterdam it self or any popular government can desire The danger of sedition is the cause that though the Crown depends on the election of the Nobility yet they have never rejected the Kings successour or transferred the Realme to any other family but once when deposing Ladislaus for his idlenesse whom yet afterward they restored they elected Wencelaus King of Bohemia But if the Nobility do agree to hold their King to his conditions which is not to conclude any thing but by the advise of his Counsell of Nobles nor to choose any wife without their leaves then it must be said to be a Common-weal not a Royalty and the King but only the mouth of the Kingdome or as Queen Christina complained that Her Husband was but the shadow of a Soveraigne Next if it be considered how the Nobility of Poland came to this great power it was not by any originall contract or popular convention for it is said they have neither Law rule nor forme written or unwritten for the election of their King they may thanke the Bishops and Clergy for by their holy admonitions and advise good and Religious Princes to shew their piety were first brought to give much of their Rights and Priviledges to their Subjects devout Kings were meerely cheated of some of their Royalties What power soever generall Assemblies of the Estates claime or exercise over and above the bare naked act of Counselling they were first beholding to the Popish Clergy for it it is they first brought Parliaments into request and power I cannot find in any Kingdome but onely where Popery hath been that Parliaments have been of reputation and in the greatest times of Superstition they are first mentioned As for the Kingdome of Denmarke I read that the Senators who are all chosen out of the Nobility and seldome exceed the number of 28 with the cheif of the Realme do choose their King They have alwaies in a manner set the Kings eldest Son upon the Royall Throne The Nobility of Denmarke withstood the Coronation of Frederick 1559 till he sware not to put any Noble man to death untill he were judged of the Senat that all Noble men should have power of life and death over their Subjects without appeal and the King to give no office without consent of the Councell There is a Chancelour of the Realme before whom they do appeal from all the Provinces and Islands and from him to the King himselfe I hear of nothing in this Kingdome that tends to popularity no Assembly of the Commons no elections or representation of them Sweden is governed by a King heretofore elective but now made hereditary in Gustavus time it is divided into Provinces an appeale lieth from the Vicount of every teritory to a Soveraigne Judge called a Lamen from the Lamens to the Kings Councell and from this Councell to the King himself Now let the Observator bethinke himself whether all or any of these three Countries have found out any art at all whereby the people ●r community may assume its owne power if neither of these Kingdomes have most Countries have not nay none have The people or Community in these three Realms are as absolute vassals as any in the world the regulating power if any be is in the Nobility Nor is it such in the Nobility as it makes shew for The election of Kings is rather a formality then any real power for they dare hardly choose any but the Heire or one of the blood Royall if they should choose one among the Nobility it would prove very factious if a stranger odious neither safe For the Government though the Kings be sworne to raigne according to the Laws and are not to do any thing without the consent of their Councell in publick affaires yet in regard they have power both to advance and reward whom they please the Nobility and Senators do comply with their Kings and Boterus concludes of the Kings of Poland who seem to be most moderated that such as is their valour dexterity wisdome such is their Power Authority and Government Also Bodin saith that these three Kingdomes are States changeable and uncertaine as the Nobility is stronger then the Prince or the Prince then the Nobility and the people are so far from liberty that he saith Divers particular Lords exact not only customes but tributes also which are confirmed and grow stronger both by long prescription of time and use of Judgements The End