his Modern Monarchies Eng. Gent. That is all I have now to do Those Monarchies are two Absolute and Mixt for the first kind all that we have knowledge of except the Empire of the Turks differ so little from the ancient Monarchies of the Assyrians and Persians that having given a short Description of them before it will be needless to say any more of the Persian the Mogull the King of Pegu China Prestor-Iohn or any other the great Men under those Princes as the Satrapes of old being made so only by their being employed and put into great places and Governments by the Soveraign But the Monarchy of the Grand Seignior is somthing different they both agree in this that the Prince is in both absolute Proprietor of all the Lands excepting in the Kingdom of Egypt of which I shall say somthing anon but the diversity lies in the Administration of the Property the other Emperours as well Ancient as Modern using to manage the Revenue of the several Towns and Parishes as our Kings or the Kings of France do that is keep it in their hands and Administer it by Officers And so you may read that Xerxes King of Persia allowed the Revenue of so many Villages to Themistocles which Assignations are practised at this day both to publick and to private uses by the present Monarchs But the Turks when they invaded the broken Empire of the Arabians did not at first make any great alteration in their Policy till the House of Ottoman the present Royal Family did make great Conquests in Asia and afterwards in Greece whence they might possibly take their present way of dividing their conquered Territories for they took the same course which the Goths and other Modern People had used with their Conquered Lands in Europe upon which they planted Military Colonies by dividing them amongst the Souldiers for their pay or maintenance These Shares were called by them Timarr's which signifies Benefices but differ'd in this only from the European Knights-Fees that these last Originally were Hereditary and so Property was maintained whereas amongst the Ottomans they were meerly at will and they enjoyed their shares whilst they remained the Sultan's Souldiers and no longer being turn'd out both of his Service and of their Timarr's when he pleases This doubtless had been the best and firmest Monarchy in the World if they could have stayed here and not had a Mercinary Army besides which have often like the Praetorians in the time of the Roman Tyrants made the Palace and the Serraglio the Shambles of their Princes whereas if the Timariots as well Spahis or Horse as Foot had been brought together to Guard the Prince by Courses as they used to do King David as well as they are to fight for the Empire this horrid flaw and inconvenience in their Government had been wholly avoided For though these are not planted upon entire Property as David's were those being in the nature of Trained-Bands yet the remoteness of their Habitations from the Court and the Factions of the great City and their desire to repair home and to find all things quiet at their return would have easily kept them from being infected with that cursed Disease of Rebellion against their Soveraign upon whose favour they depend for the continuance of their livelihood Whereas the Ianizaries are for life and are sure to be in the same Employment under the next Successor so sure that no Grand Seignior can or dares go about to Disband them the suspicion of intending such a thing having caused the death of more than one of their Emperours But I shall go to the limited Monarchies Doct. But pray before you do so Inform us something of the Roman Emperours Had they the whole Dominion or Property of the Lands of Italy Eng. Gent. The Roman Emperours I reckon amongst the Tyrants for so amongst the Greeks were called those Citizens who usurpt the Governments of their Crmmonwealths and maintain'd it by force without endeavouring to Found or Establish it by altering the Property of Lands as not imagining that their Children could ever hold it after them in which they were not deceived So that it is plain that the Roman Empire was not a natural but a violent Government The reasons why it lasted longer than ordinarily Tyrannies do are many First because Augustus the first Emperour kept up the Senate and so for his time cajold them with this bait of Imaginary Power which might not have sufficed neither to have kept him from the late of his Uncle but that there had been so many Revolutions and bloody wars between that all Mankind was glad to repose and take breath for a while under any Government that could protect them And he gain'd the service of these Senators the rather because he suffered none to be so but those who had followed his Fortune in the several Civil Wars and so were engaged to support him for their own preservation Besides he confiscated all those who had at any time been proscribed or sided in any Encounter against him which considering in how few hands the Lands of Italy then were might be an over-ballance of the Property in his hands But this is certain that what ever he had not in his own possession he disposed of at his pleasure taking it away as also the lives of his people without any judicial proceedings when he pleased That the Confiscations were great we may see by his planting above sixty thousand Souldiers upon Lands in Lombardy That is erecting so many Beneficia or Timarr's and if any Man's Lands lay in the way he took them in for Neighbourhood without any delinquency Mantua vae miserae nimium vicina Cremonae And it is very evident that if these Beneficia had not afterwards been made Hereditary that Empire might have had a stabler Foundation and so a more quiet and orderly progress than it after had for the Court Guards call'd the Praetorians did make such havock of their Princes and change them so often that this though it may seem a Paradox is another reason why this Tyranny was not ruin'd sooner for the People who had really an Interest to endeavour a change of Government were so prevented by seeing the Prince whom they designed to supplant removed to their hand that they were puzled what to do taking in the mean time great recreation to see those wild Beasts hunted down themselves who had so often prey'd upon their Lives and Estates besides that most commonly the frequent removes of their Masters made them scarce have time to do any mischief to their poor oppressed Subjects in particular though they were all Slaves in general This Government of the later Romans is a clear Example of the truth and efficacy of these Politick Principles we have been discoursing of First that any Government be it the most unlimitted and arbitrary Monarchy that is placed upon a right Basis of Property is better both for Prince and People than to leave them
publisht by Mr. Petit of the Temple and Mr. Attwood of grays-Inne being Gentlemen whom I do mention honoris causa and really they deserve to be honor'd that they will spare some time from the Mechanical part of their Callings which is to assist Clients with Counsel and to plead their Causes and which I acknowledg likewise to be honourable to study the true Interest of their Country and to show how ancient the Rights of the People in England are and that in a time when neither Profit nor Countenance can be hop'd for from so ingenious an undertaking But I beg pardon for the deviation Of the three branches of Soveraign Power which Politicians mention which are Enacting Laws Levying of Taxes and making War and Peace the two first of them are indisputably in the Parliament and when I say Parliament I ever intend with the King The last has been usually exercis'd by the Prince if he can do it with his own Money yet ' because even in that Case it may be ruinous to the Kingdom by exposing it to an Invasion many have affirmed that such a Power cannot be by the true and ancient free Government of England supposed to be Intrusted in the hands of one man And therefore we see in divers Kings Reigns the Parliament has been Consulted and their advice taken in those matters that have either concerned War or Leagues And that if it has been omitted Addresses have been made to the king by Parliaments either to make war or peace according to what they thought profitable to the publick So that I will not determine whether that power which draws such consequences after it be by the genuine sence of our Laws in the Prince or no although I know of no Statute or written Record which makes it otherwise That which is undoubtedly the Kings Right or prerogative is to Call and Dissolve Parliaments to preside in them to approve of all Acts made by them and to put in Execution as Supream or Soveraign Magistrate in the Intervals of Parliaments and during their Sitting all Laws made by them as also the Common Law for which Cause he has the nomination of all Inferiour Officers and Ministers under him excepting such as by Law or Charter are eligible otherwise and the Power of the Sword to force Obedience to the Judgements given both in Criminal and Civil Causes Doct. Sir You have made us a very absolute Prince what have we left us if the King have all this Power what do our Liberties or Rights signifie whenever he pleases Eng. Gent. This Objection Doctor makes good what I said before that your skill did not terminate in the body natural but extend to the Politick for a more pertinent Interrogatory could never have been made by Plato or Aristotle In answer to which you may please to understand That when these Constitutions were first made our Ancestors were a plain-hearted well-meaning People without Court-reserves or tricks who having made choice of this sort of Government and having Power enough in their hands to make it take place did not foresee or imagine that any thoughts of Invading their Rights could enter into the Princes Head nor do I read that it ever did till the Norman Line came to Reign which coming in by Treaty it was obvious there was no Conquest made upon any but Harold in whose stead William the First came and would claim no more after his Victory than what Harold enjoy'd excepting that he might confiscate as he did those great men who took part with the wrong Title and French-men were put into their Estates which though it made in this Kingdom a mixture between Normans and Saxons yet produced no Change or Innovation in the Government the Norman Peers â—â—ing as tenacious of their Liberties and as active in the recovery of them to the full as the Saxon Families were Soon after the death of William and possibly in his time there began some Invasions upon the Rights of the Kingdom 〈…〉 gat Grievances and afterwards 〈…〉 plants and Discontents which grew to that height that the Peers were fain to use their Power that is Arm their Vassals to defend the Government whilest the Princes of that Age first King Iohn and then Henry the Third got Force together The Barons call'd in Lewis the Dauphin whilst the King would have given away the Kingdom to the Sarazens as he did to the Pope and armed their own Creatures so that a bloody War ensued for almost forty years off and on as may be read in our History The success was that the Barons or Peers obtained in the close two Charters or Laws for the ascertaining their Rights by which neither their Lives Liberties or Estates could ever be in danger any more from any Arbitrary Power in the Prince and so the good Government of England which was before this time like the Law of Nature onely written in the hearts of Men came to be exprest in Parchment and remain a Record in Writing though these Charters gave us no more than what was our own before After these Charters were made there could not chuse but happen some encroachment upon them but so long as the Peers kept their greatness there was no breaches but what were immediately made up in Parliament which when-ever they assembled did in the first place confirm the Charters and made very often Interpretations upon them for the benefit of the People witness the Statute de Tallagio non concedendo and many others But to come nearer the giving the Doctor an answer you may please to understand that not long after the framing of these forementioned Charters there did arise a Grievance not foreseen or provided for by them and it was such an one that had beaten down the Government at once if it had not been Redressed in an Orderly way This was the Intermission of Parliaments which could not be called but by the Prince and he not doing of it they ceast to be Assembled for some years if this had not been speedily remedied the Barons must have put on their Armour again for who can Imagine that such brisk Assertors of their Rights could have acquiesced in an Omission that ruin'd the Foundation of the Government which consisting of King Lords and Commons and having at that time Marched near Five hundred years upon three Leggs must then have gone on hopping upon one which could it have gone forward as was impossible whilest Property continued where it was yet would have rid but a little way Nor can it be wonder'd at that our great Men made no provision against this Grievance in their Charters because it was impossible for them to imagine that their Prince who had so good a share in this Government should go about to destroy it and to take that burden upon himself which by our Constitution was undeniably to be divided between him and his Subjects And therefore divers of the great Men of those times speaking with that
own Lands and though they serve him for it yet that does not alter the Case for if you set poor men to work and pay them for it are you a Tyrant or rather are not you a good Common-wealths-man by helping those to live who have no other way of doing it but by their labour But the King of France knowing that his People have and ought to have Property and that he has no right to their Possessions yet takes what he pleases from them without their consent and contrary to Law So that when he sets them on work he pays them what he pleases and that he levies out of their own Estates I do not affirm that there is no Government in the World but where Rule is founded in Property but I say there is no natural fixed Government but where it is so and when it is otherwise the People are perpetually complaining and the King in perpetual anxiety always in fear of his Subjects and seeking new ways to secure himself God having been so merciful to mankind that he has made nothing safe for Princes but what is Just and Honest Noble Ven. But you were saying just now that this present Constitution in France will fall when the props fail we in Italy who live in perpetual fear of the greatness of that Kingdom would be glad to hear something of the decaying of those props What are they I beseech you Eng. Gent. The first is the greatness of the present King whose heriock Actions and Wisdom has extinguished envy in all his Neighbour-Princes and kindled fear and brought him to be above all possibility of control at home not only because his Subjects fear his Courage but because they have his Virtue in admiration and amidst all their miseries cannot chuse but have something of rejoycing to see how high he hath mounted the Empire and Honour of their Nation The next prop is the change of their ancient Constitution in the time of Charles the Seventh by Consent for about that time the Country being so wasted by the Invasion and Excursions of the English The States then assembled Petitioned the King that he would give them leave to go home and dispose of Affairs himself and Order the Government for the future as he thought fit Upon this his Successor Lewis the Eleventh being a crafty Prince took an occasion to call the States no more but to supply them with an Assemble des notables which were certain men of his own nomination like Barbones Parliament here but that they were of better quality These in succeeding reigns being the best men of the Kingdom grew Troublesome and Intractable so that for some years the Edicts have been verified that is in our Language Bills have been passed in the Grand Chamber of the Parliament at Paris commonly called the Chambre d' audience who lately and since the Imprisonment of President Brouselles and others during this King's Minority have never refused or scrupled any Edicts whatsoever Now whenever this great King dies and the States of the Kingdom are restored these two great props of Arbitrary Power are taken away Besides these two the Constitution of the Government of France itself is somwhat better fitted than ours to permit extraordinary Power in the Prince for the whole People there possessing Lands are Gentlemen that is infinitely the greater part which was the reason why in their Asembly of Estates the Deputies of the Provinces which we call here Knights of the Shire were chosen by and out of the Gentry and sate with the Peers in the same Chamber as representing the Gentry onely called petite noblesse Whereas our Knights here whatever their blood is are chosen by Commoners and are Commoners our Laws and Government taking no notice of any Nobility but the persons of the Peers whose Sons are likewise Commoners even their eldest whilest their Father lives Now Gentry are ever more tractable by a Prince than a wealthy and numerous Commonalty out of which our Gentry at least those we call so are raised from time to time For whenever either a Merchant Lawyer Tradesman Grasier Farmer or any other gets such an Estate as that he or his Son can live upon his Lands without exercising of any other Calling he becomes a Gentleman I do not say but that we have men very Nobly descended amongst these but they have no preheminence or distinction by the Laws or Government Besides this the Gentry in France are very needy and very numerous the reason of which is That the Elder Brother in most parts of that Kingdom hath no more share in the division of the Paternal Estate than the Cadets or Younger Brothers excepting the Principal House with the Orchards and Gardens about it which they call Vol de Chappon as who should say As far as a Capon can fly at once This House gives him the Title his Father had who was called Seignior or Baron or Count of that place which if he sells he parts with his Baronship and for ought I know becomes in time roturier or ignoble This practice divides the Lands into so many small parcels that the Possessors of them being Noble and having little to maintain their Nobility are fain to seek their Fortune which they can find no where so well as at the Court and so become the King's Servants and Souldiers for they are generally Couragious Bold and of a good Meen None of these can ever advance themselves but by their desert which makes them hazard themselves very desperately by which means great numbers of them are kill'd and the rest come in time to be great Officers and live splendidly upon the King's Purse who is likewise very liberal to them and according to their respective merits gives them often in the beginning of a Campagne a considerable sum to furnish out their Equipage These are a great Prop to the Regal Power it being their Interest to support it lest their gain should cease and they be reduced to be poor Provinciaux that is Country-Gentlemen again whereas if they had such Estates as our Country-Gentry have they would desire to be at home at their ease whilest these having ten times as much from the King as their own Estate can yield them which supply must fail if the King's Revenue were reduced are perpetually engaged to make good all exorbitances Doct. This is a kind of Governing by Property too and it puts me in mind of a Gentleman of good Estate in our Country who took a Tenants Son of his to be his Servant whose Father not long after dying left him a Living of about ten pound a year the young Man's Friends came to him and asked him why he would serve now he had an Estate of his own able to maintain him his Answer was That his own Lands would yield him but a third part of what his Service was worth to him in all besides that he lived a pleasant Life wore good Clothes kept good Company and had the
conversation of very pretty Maids that were his Fellow-servants which made him very well digest the name of being a Servant Eng. Gent. This is the very Case but yet Service in both these Cases is no Inheritance and when there comes a Peaceable King in France who will let his Neighbours be quiet or one that is covetous these fine Gentlemen will lose their Employments and their King this Prop and the rather because these Gentlemen do not depend as was said before in any kind upon the great Lords whose standing Interest is at Court and so cannot in a change be by them carried over to advance the Court-designs against their own good and that of their Country And thus much is sufficient to be said concerning France As for Spain I believe there is no Country excepting Sweden in Christendom where the Property has remained so intirely the same it was at the beginning and the reason is the great and strict care that is taken to hinder the Lands from passing out of the old owners hands for except it be by Marriages no man can acquire another man's Estate nor can any Grandee or Titulado or any other Hidalgo there alienate or ingage his Paternal or Maternal Estate otherwise than for his Life nor can alter Tenures or extinguish Services or dismember Mannors for to this the Princes consent must be had which he never gives till the matter be debated in the Consejo de Camera which is no Iunta or secret Consejo de Guerras but one wherein the great men of the Kingdom intervene and wherein the great matters concerning the preservation of the Government are transacted not relating to Foreign Provinces or Governments but to the kingdom of Castile and Leon of which I only speak now It is true there have been one or two exceptions against this severe Rule since the great calamities of Spain and two great Lordships have been sold the Marquisate del Monastero to an Assent ista Genoese and another to Sebastian Cortiza a Portuguese of the same Profession but both these have bought the intire Lordships without curtailing or altering the condition in which these two great Estates were before and notwithstanding this hath caused so much repining amongst the natural Godos as the Castilians call themselves still for glory that I believe this will never be drawn into an Example hereafter Now the Property remaining the same the Government doth so too and the King 's Domestick Government over his natural Spaniards is very gentle whatever it be in his Conquer'd Provinces and the Kings there have very great advantages of keeping their great men by whom they Govern in good temper by reason of the great Governments they have to bestow upon them both in Europe and the Indies which changing every three years go in an Age through all the Grandees which are not very numerous Besides Castile having been in the time of King Roderigo over-run and Conquered by the Moors who Governed there Despotically some hundreds of years before it could be recovered again by the old Inhabitants who fled to the Mountains When they were at length driven out the Count of Castile found a Tax set upon all Commodities whatsoever by the Moors in their Reign called Alcaval which was an easie matter to get continued when their old Government was restored by the Cortes or States and so it has continued ever since as the Excise has done here which being imposed by them who drove and kept out the King does now since his happy Restauration remain a Revenue of the Crown This Alcaval or Excise is a very great Revenue and so prevented for some time the necessities of the Crown and made the Prince have the less need of asking Relief of his People the ordinary cause of disgust so that the Cortes or Assembly of the States has had little to do of late though they are duly assembled every year but seldom contradict what is desired by the Prince for there are no greater Idolaters of their Monarch in the World than the Castilians are nor who drink deeper of the Cup of Loyalty so that in short the Government in Spain is as ours was in Queen Elizabeths time or in the first year after his now Majesties Return when the Parliament for a time Complimented the Prince who had by that means both his own Power and the Peoples which days I hope to see again upon a better and more lasting Foundation But before I leave Spain I must say a word of the Kingdom of Arragon which has not at all times had so quiet a state of their Monarchy as Castile hath enjoyed for after many Combustions which happened there concerning their Fueros and Privilegios which are their Fundamental Laws the King one day coming to his Seat in Parliament and making his demands as was usual they told him that they had a Request to make to him first and he withdrawing thereupon for he had no right of sitting there to hear their Debates they fell into discourse how to make their Government subsist against the encroachments of the Prince upon them and went very high in their Debates whch could not chuse but come to the king's ear who walked in a gallery in the same Palace to expect the issue and being in great Passion was seen to draw out his Dagger very often and thrust it again into the sheath and heard to say Sangre ha de costar which coming to the knowledg of the Estates they left off the Debate and sent some of their number to him to know what blood it should cost and whether he meant to murder any body He drew out his Dagger again and pointing it to his breast he said Sangre de Reys leaving them in doubt whether he meant that his Subjects would kill him or that he would do it himself However that Parliament ended very peaceably and a famous settlement was there and then made by which a great person was to be chosen every Parliament who should be as it were an Umpire between the King and his people for the execution of the Laws and the preservation of their Government their Fueros and Privilegios which are their Courts of Justice and their Charters This Officer was called El Iusticia d' Arragon and his duty was to call together the whole Power of the Kingdom whenever any of the aforesaid Rights were by open force violated or invaded and to admonish the King whenever he heard of any clandestine Councils among them to that effect It was likewise made Treason for any person of what quality soever to refuse to repair upon due summons to any place where this Iusticia should erect his Standard or to withdraw himself without leave much more to betray him or to revolt from him Besides in this Cortes or Parliament the old Oath which at the first Foundation of their State was ordered to be taken by the King at his admittance was again revived and which is in these words
Nos que valemos tanto camo nos y podemos mos os eligimos nuestro Rey conque nos guardeys nuestros Fueros y Privilegios y si no no. That is We who are as good as you and more Powerful do chuse you our King upon condition that you preserve our Rights and Priviledges and if not not Notwithstanding all this Philip the Second being both King of Castile and Arragon picked a quarrel with the latter by demanding his Secretary Antonio Perez who fled from the King's displeasure thither being his own Country and they refusing to deliver him it being expresly contrary to a Law of Arragon that a Subject of that Kingdom should be against his will carried to be tryed elsewhere the King took that occasion to Invade them with the Forces of his Kingdom of Castile who had ever been Rivals and Enemies to the Aragoneses and they to defend themselves under their Iusticia who did his part faithfully and couragiously but the Castilians being old Soldiers and those of Arragon but County-Troops the former prevailed and so this Kingdom in getting that of Castile by a Marriage but an Age before lost its own Liberty and Government for it is since made a Province and Governed by a Vice-Roy from Madrid although they keep up the formality of their Cortes still Doct. No man living that knew the hatred and hostility that ever was between the English and Scots could have imagined in the years 1639 and 1640 when our King was with great Armies of English upon the Frontiers of Scotland ready to Invade that Kingdom that this Nation would not have assisted to have brought them under but it proved otherwise Eng. Gent. It may be they feared That when Scotland was reduced to slavery and the Province pacified and Forces kept up there That such Forces and greater might have been imployed here to reduce us into the same condition an apprehension which at this time sticks with many of the common People and helps to fill up the measure of our Fears and Distractions But the visible reason why the English were not at that time very forward to oppress their Neighbours was the consideration That they were to be Invaded for refusing to receive from hence certain Innovations in matters of Religion and the worship of God which had not long before been introduced here and therefore the People of this Kingdom were unwilling to perpetuate a Mungrel Church here by imposing it upon them But I do exceedingly admire when I read our History to see how zealous and eager our Nobility and People here were anciently to assert the right of our Crown to the Kingdom of France whereas it is visible that if we had kept France for we Conquered it intirely and fully to this day we must have run the fate of Arragon and been in time ruined and opprest by our own Valour and good Fortune a thing that was foreseen by the Macedonians when their King Alexander had subdued all Persia and the East who weighing how probable it was that their Prince having the possession of such great and flourishing Kingdoms should change his Domicilium Imperii and inhabit in the Centre of his Dominions and from thence Govern Macedon by which means the Grecians who by their Vertue and Valour had Conquered and subdued the Barbarians should in time even as an effect of their Victories be opprest and tyrannized over by them and this precautious foresight in the Greeks as was fully believed in that Age hastened the fatal Catastrophe of that great Prince Doct. Well I hope this consideration will fore-arm our Parliaments That they will not easily suffer their eyes to be dazled any more with the false glory of Conquering France Noble Ven. You need no great cautions against Conquering France at this present and I believe your Parliaments need as little admonition against giving of Money towards new Wars or Alliances that fine wheedle having lately lost them enough already therefore pray let us suffer our Friend to go on Eng. Gent. I have no more to say of Foreign Monarchies but only to tell you That Poland is both Governed and Possessed by some very great Persons or Potentates called Palatines and under them by a very numerous Gentry for the King is not onely Elective but so limited that he has little or no Power but to Command their Armies in time of War which makes them often chuse Foreigners of great Fame for Military Exploits and as for the Commonalty or Country-men they are absolutely Slaves or Villains This Government is extreamly confused by reason of the numerousness of the Gentry who do not always meet by way of representation as in other Kingdoms but sometimes for the choice of their King and upon other great occasions collectively in the Field as the Tribes did at Rome which would make things much more turbulent if all this body of Gentry did not wholly depend for their Estates upon the favour of the Palatines their Lords which makes them much more tractable I have done with our Neighbours beyond Sea and should not without your command have made so long a digression in this place which should indeed have been treated of before we come to speak of England but that you were pleased to divert me from it before However being placed near the Portraicture of our own Country it serves better as contraria juxta se posita to illustrate it but I will not make this Deviation longer by Apologizing for it and shall therefore desire you to take notice That as in England by degrees Property came to shift from the few to the many so the Government is grown heavier and more uneasie both to Prince and People the complaints more in Parliament the Laws more numerous and much more tedious and prolix to meet with the tricks and malice of men which works in a loose Government for there was no need to make Acts verbose when the great Persons could presently force the Execution of them for the Law of Edward the First for frequent Parliaments had no more words than A Parliament shall be holden every year whereas our Act for a Triennial Parliament in the time of King Charles the First contained several sheets of paper to provide against a failer in the Execution of that Law which if the Power had remained in the Lords would have been needless for some of them in case of intermission of Assembling the Parliament would have made their Complaint and Address to the King and have immediately removed the obstruction which in those days had been the natural and easie way but now that many of the Lords like the Bishops which the Popes make at Rome in partibus infidelium are meerly grown Titular and purchased for nothing but to get their Wives place it cannot be wondred at if the King slight their Addresses and the Court-Parasites deride their Honourable undertakings for the safety of their Country Now the Commons succeeding as was said
and the next Successour cannot have a better Game to play nor a better Adversary to deal with than one who leaps in over the Heads of almost all the Protestant Princes Families abroad besides some Papist who are greater and when we have been harrassed with Wars and the miseries that accompany it some few years you shall have all these fine People who now run after him very weary of their new Prince I would not say any thing to disparage a Person so highly born and of so early merit but this I may say That if a Lawful Title should be set on foot in his favour and a thousand Dutch Hosts and such like should swear a Marriage yet no sober Man that is not blinded with prejudice will believe That our King whom none can deny to have an excellent understanding would ever Marry a Woman so much his Inferiour as this great Persons Mother was and this at a time when his Affairs were very low and he had no visible or rational hopes to be restored to the Possession of his Kingdoms but by an assistance which might have been afforded him by means of some great Foreign Alliance Well but to leave all this do these Men pretend that the Duke of Monmouth shall be declared Successour to the Crown in Parliament with the King 's Concurence or without it if without it you must make a War for it and I am sure that no Cause can be stated upon such a point that will not make the Assertors and Undertakers of it be condemned by all the Politicians and Moralists of the World and by the Casuis t s of all Religions and so by consequence it is like to be a very unsuccesful War If you would have this declar'd with the King's Consent either you suppose the Royal assent to be given when the King has his liberty either to grant it or not grant it to Dissolve the Parliament or not Dissolve it without ruine or prejudice to his Affairs If in the first Case it is plain he will not grant it because he cannot do it without confessing his Marriage to that Duke's Mother which he hath already declared against in a very solemn manner and caused it to be Registred in Chancery and which not only no good Subject can chuse but believe but which cannot be doubted by any rational person for it would be a very unnatural and indeed a thing unheard of that a Father who had a Son in Lawful Matrimony and who was grown to perfection and had signalized himself in the Wars and who was ever intirely beloved by him should disinherit him by so solemn an asseveration which must be a false one too to cause his Brother to succeed in his room And whereas it is pretended by some that His Majesties danger from his Brothers Counsels and Designs may draw from him something of this beside that they do not much Complement the King in this it is clear his Brother is not so Popular but that he may secure him when he pleases without hazard if there were any ground for such an apprehension But we must in the next place suppose that the King's Affairs were in such a posture that he could deny the Parliament nothing without very great mischief and inconvenience to himself and the Kingdom then I say I doubt not but the Wisdom of the Parliament will find out divers Demands and Requests to make to His Majesty of greater benefit and more necessary for the good of his People than this would be which draws after it not only a present unsetledness but the probable hazard of Misery and Devastation for many years to come as has been proved So that as on the one side the Parliament could not make a more unjustfiable War than upon this Account so they could not be Dissolved upon any occasion wherein the People would not shew less discontent and resentment and for which the Courtiers would not hope to have a better pretext to strive in the next Choice to make their Arts and endeavours more successful in the Election of Members more suitable to their Designs for the continuance of this present mis-government For if this Parliament do mis-spend the Peoples Mettle which is now up in driving that Nail which cannot go they must look to have it cool and so the Ship of this Commonwealth which if they please may be now in a fair way of Entering into a Safe Harbour will be driven to Sea again in a Storm and must hope for and expect another favourable Wind to save them and God knows when that may come Doct. But Sir there are others who not minding whether the Parliament will consider the Duke of Monmouths concern so far as to debate it do yet pretend that there is great reason to keep up the peoples affections to him and possibly to foment the opinion they have of his Title to the Crown to the end that if the King should die re infectà that is before such time as the Government is redrest or the Duke of York disabled by Law to Succeed the people might have an Head under whose Command and Conduct they might stand upon their Guard till they had some way secured their Government and Religion Eng. Gent. What you have started is not a thing that can safely be discoursed of nor is it much material to our design which is intended to speculate upon our Government and to shew how it is decayed I have industriously avoided the argument of Rebellion as I find it coucht in modern Polititians because most Princes hold that all Civil Wars in mixt Monarchies must be so and a Polititian as well as an Oratour ought to be Vir bonus so ought to discourse nothing how rational soever in these points under a peaceable Monarchy which gives him protection but what he would speak of his Prince if all his Councel were present I will tell you only that these Authors hold that nothing can be alledged to excuse the taking Arms by any people in opposition to their Prince from being Crimen Lesae Majestatis but a claim to a lawful Jurisdiction or Co-ordination in the Government by which they may judg of and defend their own Rights and so pretend to fight for and defend the Government for though all do acknowledg that Populi salus is and ought to be the most Supreme or Soveraign Law in the world yet if we should make private persons how numerous soever judg of Populi salus we should have all the Risings and Rebellions that should ever be made justified by that title as happened in France when La Guerre du bien publique took that name which was raised by the insatiable ambition of a few Noble men and by correspondency and confederacy with Charles Son of the Duke of Burgundy and other enemies to that Crown Doct. But would you have our people do nothing then if the King should be Assassinated or die of a natural death Eng. Gent.
all of them the greatest horrour imaginable to think of doing any thing that may bring this poor Country into those Dangers and Uncertainties which then did threaten our Ruin and the rather for this Consideration that neither the Wisdom of some who were engaged in those Affairs which I must aver to have been very great nor the success of their Contest which ended in an absolute Victory could prevail so as to give this Kingdom any advantage nay not so much as any settlement in Satisfaction and Requital of all the Blood it had lost Mony it had spent and Hazzard it had run A clear Argument why we must totally exclude a Civil War from being any of the Remedies when we come to that point I must add further That as we have as loyal subjects as are any where to be found so we have as gracious and good a Prince I never having yet heard that he did or attempted to do any the least Act of Arbitrary Power in any publick Concern nor did ever take or endeavour to take from any particular person the benefit of the Law And for his only Brother although accidentally he cannot be denyed to be a great motive of the Peoples unquietness all men must acknowledge him to be a most Glorious and Honourable Prince one who has exposed his life several times for the Safety and Glory of this Nation one who pays justly and punctually his Debts and manages his own Fortune discreetly and yet keeps the best Court and Equipage of any Subject in Christendom is Courteous and Affable to all and in fine has nothing in his whole Conduct to be excepted against much less dreaded excepting that he is believed to be of a Religion contrary to the Honour of God and the Safety and interest of this People which gives them just Apprehensions of their Future Condition But of this matter we shall have occasion to Speculate hereafter in the mean time since we have such a Prince and such Subjects we must needs want the ordinary cause of Distrust and Division and therefore must seek higher to find out the Original of this turbulent posture we are in Doct. Truly you had need seek higher or lower to satisfie us for hitherto you have but enforced the Gentleman's Question and made us more admire what the Solution will be Eng. Gent. Gentlemen then I shall delay you no longer The Evil Counsellors the Pensioner-Parliament the Thorow-pac'd Iudges the Flattering Divines the Buisie and Designing Papists the French Counsels are not the Causes of our Misfortunes they are but the Effects as our present Distractions are of one Primary Cause which is the Breach and Ruin of our Government which having been decaying for near two hundred years is in our Age brought so near to Expiration that it lyes agonizing and can no longer perform the Functions of a Political Life nor carry on the work of Ordering and Preserving Mankind So that the Shifts that our Courtiers have within some years used are but so many Tricks or Conclusions which they are trying to hold Life and Soul together a while longer and have played Handy-Dandy with Parliaments and especially with the House of Commons the only part which is now left entire of the old Constitution by Adjourning and Proroguing and Dissolving them contrary to the true meaning of the Law as well in the Reign of our late King as during his Majestics that now is Whereas indeed our Counsellors perceiving the decay of the Foundation as they must if they can see but one Inch into the Politicks ought to have Addrest themselves to the King to call a Parliament the true Physician and to lay open the Distemper there and so have endeavour'd a Cure before it had been too late as I fear it now is I mean the piecing and patching up the Old Government It is true as the Divine Machiavil says That Diseases in Government are like a Marasmus in the Body Natural which is very hard to be discovered whilst it is Curable and after it comes to be easie to discern difficult if not impossible to be Remedy'd yet it is to be supposed that the Counsellors are or ought to be skilful Physicians and to foresee the Seeds of State-Distempers time enough to prevent the Death of the Patient else they ought in Conscience to excuse themselves from that sublime Employment and betake themselves to Callings more suitable to their Capacities So that although for this Reason the Ministers of State here are inexcusable and deserve all the Fury which must one time or other be let loose against them except they shall suddenly fly from the wrath to come by finding out in time and advising the true means of setting themselves to rights yet neither Prince nor People are in the mean time to be blamed for not being able to Conduct things better No more than the Waggoner is to answer for his ill guiding or the Oxon for their ill drawing the Waggon when it is with Age and ill usage broken and the Wheels unserviceable Or the Pilot and Marriners for not weathring out a Storm when the Ship hath sprung a planck And as in the body of Man sometimeâ— the Head and all the Members are in good Order nay the Vital Parts are sound and entire yet if there be a Considerable Putrifaction in the humors much more if the Blood which the Scripture calls the life be Impure and Corrupted the Patient ceases not to be in great Danger and oftentimes dies without some skillful Physician And in the mean time the Head and all the parts suffer and are unquiet full as much as if they were all immediately affected So it is in every respect with the Body Politick or Commonwealth when their Foundations are moulder'd And although in both these Cases the Patients cannot though the Distemper be in their own Bodies know what they ail but are forced to send for some Artist to tell them yet they cease not to be extreamly uneasie and impatient and lay hold oftentimes upon unsuitable Remedies and impute their Malady to wrong and ridiculous Causes As some people do here who think that the growth of Popery is our only Evil and that if we were secure against that our Peace and Settlement were obtain'd and that our Disease needed no other Cure But of this more when we come to the Cure Noble Ven. Against this Discourse certainly we have nothing to reply but must grant that when any Government is decay'd it must be mended or all will Ruine But now we must Request you to declare to us how the Government of England is decay'd and how it comes to be so For I am one of those Unskilful Persons that cannot discern a State Marasmus when the danger is so far off Eng. Gent. Then no man living can for your Government is this day the only School in the World that breeds such Physicians and you are esteemed one of the ablest amongst them And it would be
themselves in any thing And it is full as impossible that any person or persons so inconsiderable in number as Magistrates and Rulers are should by force get an Empire to themselves Though I am not ignorant that a whole people have in imminent Dangers either from the Invasion of a powerful Enemy or from Civil Distractions put themselves wholly into the hands of one Illustrious Person for a time and that with good Success under the best Forms of Government But this is nothing to the Original of States Noble Ven. Sir I wonder how you come to pass over the Consideration of Paternal Government which is held to have been the beginning of Monarchies Eng. Gent. Really I did not think it worth the taking notice of for though it be not easie to prove a Negative yet I believe if we could trace all Foundations of Polities that now are or ever came to our knowledge since the World began we shall find none of them to have descended from Paternal Power we know nothing of Adam's leaving the Empire to Cain or Seth It was impossible for Noah to retain any Jurisdiction over his own three Sons who were dispersed into three parts of the World if our Antiquaries Calculate right and as for Abraham whilst he lived as also his Son Isaac they were out ordinary Fathers of Families and no question governed their own Houshold as all others do but when Iacob upon his Death-bed did relate to his Children the Promise Almighty God had made his Grandfather to make him a great Nation and give his Posterity a fruitful Territory he speaks not one word of the Empire of Reuben his first-born but supposes them all equal And so they were taken to be by Moses when he divided the Land to them by Lot and by Gods command made them a Commonwealth So that I believe this fancy to have been first started not by the solid Judgement of any man but to flatter some Prince and to assert for want of better Arguments the jus Divinum of Monarchy Noble Ven. I have been impertinent in interrupting you but yet now I cannot repent of it since your Answer hath given me so much satisfaction but if it be so as you say that Government was at first Instituted for the Interest and Preservation of Mankind how comes it to pass That there are and have been so many absolute Monarchies in the World in which it seems that nothing is provided for but the Greatness and Power of the Prince Eng. Gent. I have presumed to give you already my Reason why I take for granted that such a Power could never be given by the Consent of any People for a perpetuity for though the People of Israel did against the will of Samuel and indeed of God himself demand and afterwards chuse themselves a King yet he was never such a King as we speak of for that all the Orders of their Commonwealth the Sanhedrim the Congregation of the People the Princes of the Tribes c. did still remain in being as hath been excellently proved by a learned Gentleman of our Nation to whom I refer you it may then be enquired into how these Monarchies at first did arise History being in this point silent as to the Ancient Principalities we will Conjecture that some of them might very well proceed from the Corruption of better Governments which must necessarily cause a Depravation in manners as nothing is more certain than that Politick defects breed Moral ones as our Nation is a pregnant Example this Debauchery of manners might blind the understandings of a great many destroy the Fortunes of others and make them indigent insuse into very many a neglect and carelesness of the publick good which in all setled States is very much regarded so that it might easily come into the Ambition of some bold aspiring Person to affect Empire and as easily into his Power by fair pretences with some and promises of advantages with others to procure Followers and gain a numerous Party either to Usurp Tyranny over his own Countrey or to lead men forth to Conquer and Subdue another Thus it is supposed that Nimrod got his Kingdom who in Scripture is called a Great Hunter before God which Expositers interpret A great Tyrant The Modern Despotical Powers have been acquired by one of these two ways either by pretending by the first Founder thereof that he had a Divine Mission and so gaining not only Followers but even easie Access in some places without Force to Empire and afterwards dilateing their Power by great Conquests Thus Mahomet and Cingis Can began and established the Sarazen and Tartarian Kingdoms or by a long Series of Wisdom in a Prince or chief Magistrate of a mixt Monarchy and his Council who by reason of the Sleepiness and Inadvertency of the People have been able to extinguish the great Nobility or render them Inconsiderable and so by degrees taking away from the People their Protectors render them Slaves So the Monarchies of France and some other Countries have grown to what they are at this day there being left but a Shadow of the three States in any of these Mocarchies and so no bounds remaining to the Regal Power but since Property remains still to the Subjects these Governments may be said to be changed but not founded or established for there is no Maxim more Infallible and Holding in any Science than this is in the Politicks That Empire is founded in Property Force or Fraud may alter a Government but it is Property that must Found and Eternise it Upon this undeniable Aphorisme we are to build most of our subsequent Reasoning in the mean time we may suppose that hereafter the great power of the King of France may diminish much when his enraged and oppressed Subjects come to be commanded by a Prince of less Courage Wisdom and Military Vertue when it will be very hard for any such King to Govern Tyrannically a Country which is not entirely his own Doct. Pray Sir give me leave to ask you by the way what is the Reason that here in our Country where the Peerage is lessened sufficiently the King has not gotten as great an Addition of Power as accrews to the Crown in France Eng. Gent. You will understand that Doctor before I have finisht this discourse but to stay your Stomach till then you may please to know that in France the greatness of the Nobility which has been lately taken from them did not consist in vast Riches and Revenues but in great Priviledges and Jurisdictions which obliged the People to obey them whereas our great Peers in former times had not only the same great Dependences but very Considerable Revenues besides in Demesnes and otherwise This Vassallage over the People which the Peers of France had being abolisht the Power over those Tenants which before was in their Lords fell naturally and of course into the Crown although the Lands and possessions divested of those Dependences did
and do still remain to the Owners whereas here in England though the Services are for the most part worn out and insignificant yet for want of Providence and Policy in former Kings who could not foresee the danger a far off Entails have been suffered to be cut off and so two parts in ten of all those vast Estates as well Mannours as Demesnes by the Luxury and Folly of the Owners have been within these two hundred years purchased by the lesser Gentry and the Commons which has been so far from advantaging the Crown that it has made the Country scarce governable by Monarchy But if you please I will go on with my discourse about Government and come to this again hereafter Noble Ven. I beseech you Sir do Eng. Gent. I cannot find by the small reading I have that there were any other Governments in the World Anciently than these three Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy For the first I have no light out of Antiquity to convince me that there were in old times any other Monarchies but such as were absolutely Despotical all Kingdoms then as well in Greece as Macedon Epirus and the like and where it is said the Princes exercised their Power moderately as in Asia being altogether unlimited by any Laws or any Assemblies of Nobility or People Yet I must confess Aristotle when he reckons up the Corruptions of these three Governments calls Tyranny the Corruption of Monarchy which if he means a Change of Government as it is in the Corruptions of the other two then it must follow that the Philosopher knew of some other Monarchy at the first which afterwards degenerated into Tyranny that is into Arbitrary Power for so the Word Tyranny is most commonly taken though in modern Languages it signifies the ill Exercise of Power for certainly Arbitrary Government cannot be called Tyranny where the whole Property is in the Prince as we reasonably suppose it to have been in those Monarchies no more than it is Tyranny for you to govern your own House and Estate as you please But it is possible Aristotle might not in this speak so according to Terms of Art but might mean that the ill Government of a Kingdom or Family is Tyranny However we have one Example that puzzles Politicians and that is Egypt where Pharaoh is called King and yet we see that till Ioseph's time he had not the whole Property for the Wisdom of that Patriarch taught his Master a way to make a new use of that Famine by telling him that if they would buy their Lives and sell their Estates as they did afterwards and preserve themselves by the Kings Bread they shall serve Pharaoh which shews that Ioseph knew well that Empire was founded in Property But most of the Modern Writers in Polity are of Opinion that Egypt was not a Monarchy till then though the Prince might have the Title of King as the Heraclides had in Sparta and Romulus and the other Kings had in Rome both which States were Instituted Common-Wealths They give good Conjectures for this their Opinion too many to be here mentioned only one is That Originally as they go about to prove all Arts and Sciences had their Rise in Egypt which they think very improbable to have been under a Monarchy But this Position That all Kings in former times were absolute is not so Essential to the intent I have in this Discourse which is to prove That in all States of what kind soever this Aphorisme takes place Imperium fundatur in Dominio So that if there were mixed Monarchies then the King had not all the Property but those who shared with him in the Administration of the Soveraignty had their part whether it were the Senate the People or both or if he had no Companions in the Soveraign Power he had no Sharers likewise in the Dominion or Possession of the Land For that is all we mean by Property in all this Discourse for as for Personal Estate the Subjects may enjoy it in the largest Proportion without being able to invade the Empire The Prince may when he pleases take away their Goods by his Tenants and Vassals without an Army which are his Ordinary Force and answers to our Posse Comitatus But the Subjects with their Money cannot invade his Crown So that all the Description we need make of this Kind or Form of Government is That the whole possession of the Country and the whole power lies in the Hands and Breast of one man he can make Laws break and repeal them when he pleases or dispense with them in the mean time when he thinks fit interpose in all Judicatories in behalf of his Favourites take away any particular mans personal Estate and his Life too without the formality of a Criminal Process or Trial send a Dagger or a Halter to his chief Ministers and command them to make themselves away and in fine do all that his Will or his Interest suggests to him Doct. You have dwelt long here upon an Argumentation That the Ancients had no Monarchies but what were Arbitrary Eng. Gent. Pray give me leave to save your Objections to that point and to assure you first That I will not take upon me to be so positive in that for that I cannot pretend to have read all the Historians and Antiquaries that ever writ nor have I so perfect a memory as to remember or make use of in a Verbal and Transient Reasoning all that I have ever read And then to assure you again that I build nothing upon that Assertion and so your Objection will be needless and only take up time Doct. You mistake me I had no intent to use any Argument or Example against your Opinion in that but am very willing to believe that it may be so What I was going to say was this that you have insisted much upon the point of Monarchy and made a strange description of it whereas many of the Ancients and almost all the Modern Writers magnifie it to be the best of Governments Eng. Gent. I have said nothing to the contrary I have told you de facto what it is which I believe none will deny The Philosopher said it was the best Government but with this restriction ubi Philosophi regnant and they had an Example of it in some few Roman Emperours but in the most turbulent times of the Commonwealth and Factions between the Nobility and the People Rome was much more full of Vertuous and Heroick Citizens than ever it was under Aurelius or Antonius For the Moderns that are of that Judgement they are most of them Divines not Politicians and something may be said in their behalf when by their good Preaching they can insuse into their imaginary Prince who seems already to have an Image of the Power of God the Justice Wisdom and Goodness too of the Deity Noble Ven. We are well satisfied with the Progress you have hitherto made in this matter pray go on to
was observed with Processions Sacrifices and Games till the time of the Roman's Dominion over them who encouraged it and ever till the change of Religion in Greece and Invasion of the Sarazens The Roman's having omitted in their Institution to provide for the fixing of Property and so the Nobility called Patricii beginning to take to themselves a greater share in the conquer'd Lands than had been usual for in the first times of the Commonwealth under Romulus and ever after it was always practised to divide the Lands equally amongst the Tribes this Innovation stirred up Licinius Stolo then Tribune of the People to propose a Law which although it met with much difficulty yet at last was consented to by which it was provided that no Roman Citizen of what degree soever should possess above five hundred Acres of Land and for the remaining part of the Lands which should be Conquer'd it was Ordered to be equally divided as formerly amongst the Tribes This found admittance after much oposition because it did provide but for the future no Man at that time being owner of more Lands than what was lawful for him to possess and if this law had been strictly observed to the last that glorious Commonwealth might have subsisted to this day for ought we know Doctor Some other Cause would have been the Ruine of it what think you of a Foreign Conquest Eng. Gent. Oh Doctor if they had kept their Poverty they had kept their Government and their Vertue too and then it had not been an easie matter to subdue them Quos vult perdere Iupiter dementat Breach of Rules and Order causes Division and Division when it comes to be Incurable exposes a Nation almost as much as a Tyrannical Government does The Goths and Vandals had they Invaded in those days had met with the same success which befell the Cymbri and the Teutones I must confess a Foreign Invasion is a Formidable thing when a Commonwealth is weak in Territory and Inhabitants and that the Invader is numerous and Warlike And so we see the Romans were in danger of utter ruine when they were first attacqued by the Gauls under Brennus The like hazzard may be fear'd when a Commonwealth is assaulted by another of equal Vertue and a Commander of equal Address and Valour to any of themselves Thus the Romans run the risk of their Liberty and Empire in the War of Hannibal but their Power and their Vertue grew to that heighth in that contest that when it was ended I believe that if they had preserved the Foundation of their Government entire they had been Invincible And if I were alone of this Opinion I might be ashamed but I am backt by the Judgement of your Incomparable Country-man Machiavil and no Man will condemn either of us of rashness if he first consider what small States that have stood upon right bottoms have done to defend their Liberty against great Monarchs as is to be seen in the example of the little Commonwealth of Athens which destroyed the Fleet of Xerxes consisting of a thousand Vessels in the Streights of Salamis and before the land army of Darius of three hundred thousand in the Plains of Marathon and drove them out of Greece for though the whole Confederates were present at the Battel of Platoea yet the Athenian Army singly under their General Miltiades gain'd that renowned Battel of Marathon Noble Ven. I beseech you Sir how was it possible or practicable that the Romans Conquering so many and so remote Provinces should yet have been able to preserve their Agrarian Law and divide all those Lands equally to their Citizens Or if it had been possible yet it would have ruin'd their City by sending all their Inhabitants away and by taking in Strangers in their room they must necessarily have had people less Vertuous and less Warlike and so both their Government and their Military Discipline must have been Corrupted for it is not to be imagined but that the People would have gone with their Families to the place where their Lands lay So that it appears that the Romans did not provide in the making and framing their first Polity for so great Conquests as they afterwards made Eng. Gent. Yes surely they did from their first beginning they were Founded in War and had neither Land nor Wives but what they fought for but yet what you object were very weighty if there had not been a consideration of that early For assoon as that great and wise People had subdued the Samnites on the East and brought their Arms as far as the Greek Plantations in that part of Italy which is now called the Kingdom of Naples and Westward had reduced all the Tuscans under their Obedience as far as the River Arnus they made that and the River Volturnus which runs by the Walls of Capua the two Boundaries of their Empire which was called Domicilium Imperii These were the ne plus ultra for what they Conquered between these two Rivers was all confiscated and divided amongst the Tribes the Rustick Tribes being twenty seven and the Vrbane Tribes nine which made thirty six in all The City Tribes were like our Companies in London consisting of Tradesmen The Country Tribes were divided like Shires and there was scarce any Landed Man who Inhabited in the City but he was written in that Tribe where his Estate lay so that the Rustick Tribes though they had all equal Voices were of far more Credit and Reputation than the Vrbane Upon the days of the Comtia which were very well known as many as thought fit amongst the Country Tribes came to give their Voices though every Tribe was very numerous of Inhabitants that lived in the City Now the Agrarian did not extend to any Lands conquered beyond this Precinct but they were lest to the Inhabitants they paying a Revenue to the Commonwealth all but those which were thought fit to be set out to maintain a Roman Colony which was a good number of Roman Citizens sent thither and provided of Lands and Habitations which being Armed did serve in the nature of a Citadel and Garison to keep the Province in Obedience and a Roman Pretor Proconsul or other Governour was sent yearly to Head them and brought Forces with him besides Now it was ever lawful for any Roman Citizen to purchase what Lands he pleased in any of these Provinces it not being dangerous to a City to have their People rich but to have such a Power in the Governing part of the Empire as should make those who managed the Affairs of the Commonwealth depend upon them which came afterwards to be that which ruined their Liberty and which the Gracchi endeavoured to prevent when it was too late For those Illustrious persons seeing the disorder that was then in the Commonwealth and rightly comprehending the Reason which was the intermission of the Agrarian and by consequence the great Purchases which were made by the Men of Rome who had
when their Affairs went ill elsewhere and the other by provoking the Spaniard and the Pope But I have done now and shal pass to say something of the Modern Policies Noble Ven. Before you come to that Sir pray satisfie me in a Point which I should have moved before but that I was unwilling to interrupt your rational Discourse How came you to take it for granted that Moses Theseus and Romulus were Founders of Popular Governments As for Moses we have his Story written by an Insalliable Pen Theseus was ever called King of Athens though he liv'd so long since that what is written of him is justly esteem'd fabulous but Romulus certainly was a King and that Government continued a Monarchy though Elective under seven Princes Eng. Gent. I will be very short in my Answer and say nothing of Theseus for the reason you are pleased to alledge But for Moses you may read in Holy Writ that when by God's Command he had brought the Israelites out of Egypt he did at first manage them by accquainting the People with the Estate of their Government which People were called together with the sound of a Trumpet and are termed in Scripture the Congregation of the Lord this Government he thought might serve their turn in their passage and that it would be time enough to make them a better when they were in possession of the Land of Canaan Especially having made them Judges and Magistrates at the instance of his Father-in-law which are called in Authors Praefecti Iethroniani but finding that this Provision was not sufficient complained to God of the difficulty he had to make that State of Affairs hold together God was pleased to order him to let seventy Elders be appointed for a Senate but yet the Congregation of the Lord continued still and acted And by the severall soundings of the Trumpets either the Senate or popular Assembly were called together or both so that this Government was the same with all other Democracies consisting of a Principal Magistrate a Senate and a People Assembled together not by Represention but in a body Now for Romulus it is very plain that he was no more then the first Officer of the Commonwealth whatever he was called and that he was chosen as your Doge is for Life and when the last of those seven Kings usurpt the place that is did reign injussu Populi and excercise the Government Tyrannically the People drove him out as all People in the World that have Property will do in the like Case except some extraordinary qualifications in the Prince preserve him for one Age and afterwards appointed in his room two Magistrates and made them Annual which two had the same Command as well in their Armies as in their Cities and did not make the least alteration besides excepting that they chose an Officer that was to perform the Kings Function in certain Sacrifices which Numa appointed to be performed by the King left the People should think their Religion were changed This Officer was called Rex Sacrificulus If you are satisfied I will go on to the consideration of our Modern States Noble Ven. I am fully answered and besides am clearly of Opinion that no Government whether mixt Monarchy or Commonwealth can subsist without a Senate as well from the turbulent State of the Israelites under Moses till the Sanhedrin was instituted as from a certain Kingdom of the Vandals in Africa where after their Conquest of the Natives they appointed a Government consisting of a Prince and a Popular Assembly which latter within half a year beat the Kings brains out he having no bulwark of Nobility or Senate to defend him from them But I will divert you no longer Eng. Gent. Sir you are very right and we should have spoken something of that before if it had been the business of this Meeting to Discourse of the particular Models of Government but intending only to say so much of the Ancient Policy as to shew what Government in General is and upon what Basis it stands I think I have done it sufficiently to make way for the understanding of our own at least when I have said something of the Policies which are now extant and that with your favour I will do I shall need say little now of those Commonwealths which however they came by their Liberty either by Arms or Purchase are now much-what under the same kind of Policy as the Ancients were In Germany the Free Towns and many Princes make up the Body of a Commonwealth called the Empire of which the Emperour is Head this General Union hath its Diets or Parliaments where they are all represented and where all things concerning the Safety and Interest of Germany in General or that belong to Peace and War are Transacted these Diets never intermeddle with the particular Concerns or Policies of those Princes or States that make it up leaving to them their particular Soveraignties The several Imperial Cities or Commonwealths are divided into two kinds Lubeck's Law and Collen's Law which being the same exactly with the ancient Democracies and Optimacies I will say no more of them The Government of Swizerland and the Seven Provinces of the Low-Countries were made up in haste to Unite them against Persecution and Oppression and to help to defend themselves the better which they both have done very gallantly and successfully They seem to have taken their Pattern from the Grecians who when their Greatness began to decline and the several Tyrants who succeeded Alexander began to press hard upon them were forced to League themselves yet in severall Confederacies as that of the Etolians that of the Achaians c. for their mutual defence The Swisses consist of Thirteen Soveraignties some Cities which are most Aristocraticall and some Provinces which have but a Village for their head Township These are all Democracies and are Govern'd all by the Owners of Land who Assemble as our Free-Holders do at the County-Court These have their General Diets as in Germany The Government of the United Provinces has for its Foundation the Union of Vtrecht made in the beginning of their standing upon their Guard against the Cruelty and Oppression of the Spaniard and patcht up in haste and seeming to be compos'd only for necessity as a state of War has made Modern Statesmen Conjecture that it will not be very practicable in time of Peace and Security At their General Diet which is called the States General do intervene the Deputies of the Seven Provinces in what number their Principals please but all of them have but one Vote which are by consequence Seven and every one of the Seven hath a Negative so that nothing can pass without the Concurrence of the whole Seven Every one of these Provinces have a Counsel or Assembly of their own called the States Provincial who send and Instruct their Deputies to the States-General and perform other Offices belonging to the Peace and Quiet of the Province
an Oath to be true Vassals and Tenants to their Lords and to pay their Rents and perform their Services and upon failure to forfeit their Estates and these Tenants were divided according to their Habitations into several Mannors in every one of which there was a Court kept twice every year where they all were to appear and to be admitted to their several Estates and to take the Oath above mentioned All these Peers did likewise hold all their Demesnes as also all their Mannors of the Prince to whom they swore Allegiance and Fealty There were besides these Freemen or Francklins other Tenants to every Lord who were called Villains who were to perform all servile Offices and their Estates were all at the Lâ—â—â—â— disposal when he pleased these consisted mostly of such of the former Inhabitants of these Countries as were not either destroyed or driven out and possibly of others who were Servants amongst them before they came from their own Countries Perhaps thus much might have been unnecessary to be said considering that these Lords Tenants and Courts are yet extant in all the Kingdoms in Europe but that to a Gentleman of Venice where there are none of these things and where the Goths never were something may be said in excuse for me Noble Ven. 'T is true Sir we fled from the Goths betimes but yet in those Countries which we recovered since in Terra firma we found the Footsteps of these Lords and Tenures and their Titles of Counts though being now Provinces to us they have no influence upon the Government as I suppose you are about to prove they have in thâ—se parts Eng. Gent. You are right Sir for the Governments of France Spain England and all other Countries where these People setled were fram'd accordingly It is not my business to describe particularly the distinct Forms of the several Governments in Europe which do derive from these People for they may differ in some of their Orders and Laws though the Foundation be in them all the same this would be unnecessary they being all extant and so well known and besides little to my purpose excepting to shew where they have declined from their first Institution and admitted of some change France and Poland have not nor as I can learn ever had any Free-men below the Nobility that is had no Yeomen but all are either Noble or Villains therefore the Lands must have been Originally given as they now remain into the hands of these Nobles But I will come to the Administration of the Government in these Countries and first say wherein they all agree or did at least in their Institution which is That the Soveraign power is in the States assembled together by the Prince in which he presides these make Laws Levy Money Redress Grievances punish great Officers and the like These States consist in some places of the Prince and Nobility onely as in Poland and anciently in France before certain Towns for the encouraging of Trade procured Priviledges to send Deputies which Deputies are now called the third Estate and in others consist of the Nobility and Commonalty which latter had and still have the same right to Intervene and Vote as the great ones have both in England Spain and other Kingdomes Doct. But you say nothing of the Clergy I see you are no great friend to them to leave them out of your Politicks Eng. Gent. The truth is Doctor I could wish there had never been any the purity of Christian Religion as also the good and orderly Government of the World had been much better provided for without them as it was in the Apostolical time when we heard nothing of Clergy But my omitting their Reverend Lordships was no neglect for I meant to come to them in order for you know that the Northern People did not bring Christianity into these parts but found it here and were in time converted to it so that there could be no Clergy at the first but if I had said nothing at all of this Race yet I had committed no Solecism in the Politicks for the Bishops and great Abbots intervened in the States here upon the same FoundaÌ„tion that the other Peers do viz. for their great possessions and the dependence their Tenants and Vassals have upon them although they being a People of that great sanctity and knowledg scorn to intermix so much as Titles with us profane Lay-Ideots and therefore will be called Lords Spiritual But you will have a very venerable opinion of them if you do but consider how they came by these great possessions which made them claim a third part of the Government And truely not unjustly by my rule for I believe they had no less at one time than a third part of the Lands in most of these Countries Noble Ven. Pray how did they acquire these Lands was it not here by the Charitable donation of pious Christians as it was elsewhere Eng. Gent. Yes certainly very pious men some of them might be well meaning people but still such as were cheated by these holy men who told them perpetually both in publick and private that they represented God upon Earth being Ordained by Authority from him who was his Viceroy here and that what was given to them was given to God and he would repay it largely both in this World and the next This wheedle made our barbarous Ancestors newly Instructed in the Christian Faith if this Religion may be called so and sucking in this foolish Doctrine more than the Doctrine of Christ so zealous to these Vipers that they would have pluckt out their eyes to serve them much more bestow as they did the fruitfullest and best situate of their possessions upon them Nay some they perswaded to take upon them their Callings vow Chastity and give all they had to them and become one of them amongst whom I believe they found no more sanctity than they left in the World But this is nothing to another trick they had which was to insinuate into the most notorious and execrable Villains with which that Age abounded Men who being Princes and other great Men for such were the Tools they work'd with had treacherously poisoned or otherwise murdered their nearest Relations Fathers Brothers Wives to reign or enjoy their Estates These they did perswade into a belief that if they had a desire to be sav'd notwithstanding their execrable Villanies they need but part with some of those great possessions which they had acquired by those acts to their Bishopricks or Monasteries and they would pray for their Souls and they were so holy and acceptable to God that he would deny them nothing which they immediately performed so great was the ignorance and blindness of that Age and you shall hardly find in the story of those times any great Monastery Abbey or other Religious House in any of these Countries I speak confidently as to what concerns our own Saxons that had not its Foundation from some
excellent Prince King Edward the First about it he to take away from his People all fear and apprehension that he intended to change the Ancient Government called speedily a Parliament and in it consented to a Declaration of the Kingdoms Right in that point without the clearing of which all our other Laws had been useless and the Government itself too of which the Parliament is at the least as Essential a part as the Prince so that there passed a Law in that Parliament that one should be held every year and oftner if need be which like another Magna Charta was confirmed by a new Act made in the time of Edward the Third that glorious Prince nor were there any Sycophants in those days who durst pretend Loyalty by using Arguments to prove that it was against the Royal Prerogative for the Parliament to entrench upon the Kings Right of calling and Dissolving of Parliaments as if there were a Prerogative in the Crown to chuse whether ever a Parliament should assemble or no I would desire no more if I were a Prince to make me Grand Seignior Soon after this last Act the King by reason of his Wars with France and Scotland and other great Affairs was forced sometimes to end his Parliaments abruptly and leave business undone and this not out of Court-tricks which were then unknown which produced another Act not long after by which it was provided That no Parliament should be dismist till all the Petitions were answered That is in the Language of those times till all the Bills which were then styled Petitions were finished Doct. Pray Sir give me a little account of this last Act you speak of for I have heard in Discourse from many Lawyers that they believe there is no such Eng. Gen. Truly Sir I shall confess to you that I do not find this Law in any of our Printed Statute-Books but that which first gave me the knowledg of it was what was said about three years ago in the House of Commons by a worthy and Learned Gentleman who undertook to produce the Record in the Reign of Richard the Second and since I have questioned many Learned Counsellors about it who tell me there is such a one and one of them who is counted a Prerogative-Lawyer said it was so but that Act was made in Factious times Besides I think it will be granted that for some time after and particularly in the Reigns of Henry the 4 th Henry the 5 th and Henry the 6 th it was usual for a Proclamation to be made in Westminster-Hall before the end of every Session that all those that had any matter to present to the Parliament should bring it in before such a day for otherwise the Parliament at that day should determine But if there were nothing at all of this nor any Record extant concerning it yet I must believe that it is so by the Fundamental Law of this Government which must be lame and imperfect without it for it is all one to have no Parliaments at all but when the Prince pleases and to allow a power in him to dismiss them when he will that is when they refuse to do what he will so that if there be no Statute it is certainly because our wise Ancestors thought there needed none but that by the very Essence and Constitution of the Government it is provided for and this we may call if you had rather have it so the Common-Law which is of as much value if not more than any Statute and of which all our good Acts of Parliament and Magna Charta itself is but Declaratory so that your Objection is sufficiently aswered in this That though the King is intrusted with the formal part of summoning and pronouncing the Dissolution of Parliaments which is done by his Writ yet the Laws which oblige him as well as us have determin'd how and when he shall do it which is enough to shew that the Kings share in the Soveraignty that is in the Parliament is cut out to him by the Law and not left at his disposal Now I come to the Kings part in the Intervals of Parliament Noble Ven. Sir before you do so pray tell us what other Prerogatives the King enjoys in the Government for otherwise I who am a Venetian may be apt to think that our Doge who is call'd our Prince may have as much Power as yours Eng. Gent. I am in a fine condition amongst you with my Politicks the Doctor tells me I have made the King Absolute and now you tell me I have made him a Doge of Venice But when your Prince has Power to dispose of the Publick Revenue to name all Officers Ecclesiastical and Civil that are of trust and profit in the Kingdom and to dispose absolutely of the whole Militia by Sea and Land then we will allow him to be like ours who has all these Powers Doct. Well you puzzle me extreamly for when you had asserted the King's Power to the heighth in Calling and Dissolving Parliaments you gave me such satisfaction and shewed me wherein the Law had provided that this vast Prerogative could not hurt the People that I was fully satisfied and had not a word to say Now you come about again and place in the Crown such a Power which in my Judgment is inconsistent with our Liberty Eng. Gent. Sir I suppose you mean chiefly the Power of the Militia which was I must confess doubtful before a late Statute declar'd it to be in the King For our Government hath made no other disposal of the Militia than what was natural viz. That the Peers in their several Counties or Jurisdictions had the Power of calling together their Vassals either armed for the Wars or onely so as to cause the Law to be eâ—â—cuted by serving Writs and in case of resistance giving possession which Lords amongst their own Tenants did then perform the two several Offices of Lord-Lieutenant and Sheriff which latter was but the Earls Deputy as by his Title of Vice-Comes do's appear But this latter being of daily necessity and Justice itself that is the Lives Liberties and Estates of all the People in that County depending upon it when the greatness of the Peers decay'd of which we shall have occasion to speak hereafter the Electing of Sheriff was referred to the County-Court where it continued till it was placed where it now is by a Statute For the other part of the Militia which is the Arming the People for War it was de facto exercised by Commission from the King to a Lord-Lieutenant as an image of the Natural Lord and other Deputies and it was tacitely consented to though it were never setled by Statute as I said before till His Majesties happy Restauration But to answer you I shall say That whatever Powers are in the Crown whether by Statute or by old Prescription they are and must be understood to be intrusted in the Prince for the preservation of the
five or six Thousand pounds a year as it is probable you have and keep forty Servants and at length by your neglect and the industry and thrift of your Domesticks you sell one Thousand to your Steward another to your Clerk of the Kitchen another to your Bayliff till all were gone can you believe that these Servants when they had so good Estates of their own and you nothing left to give them would continue to live with you and to do their service as before It is just so with a whole Kingdom In our Ancestors times most of the Members of our House of Commons thought it an honour to retain to some great Lord and to wear his blew Coat And when they had made up their Lord's Train and waited upon him from his own House to the Lords House and made a Lane for him to enter and departed to sit themselves in the Lower House of Parliament as it was then and very justly called can you think that any thing could pass in such a Parliament that was not ordered by the Lords Besides these Lords were the King 's great Council in the Intervals of Parliaments and were called to advise of Peace and War and the latter was seldom made without the consent of the major part if it were not they would not send their Tenants which was all the Militia of England besides the King's tenth part Can it be believed that in those days the Commons should dislike any thing the Lords did in the Intervals or that they would have disputed their Right to receive Appeals from Courts of Equity if they had pretended to it in those days or to mend Money-bills And what is the reason but because the Lords themselves at that time represented all their Tenants that is all the People in some sort and although the House of Commons did Assemble to present their Grievances yet all great Affairs of high Importance concerning the Government was Transacted by the Lords and the War which was made to preserve it was called the Barons Wars not the War of both Houses for although in antienter times the word Baron were taken in a larger sense and comprehended the Francklins or Freemen yet who reads any History of that War shall not find that any mention is made of the concurrence of any assembly of such men but that Simon Monford Earl of Leicester and others of the great ones did by their Power and Interest manage that contest Now if this Property which is gone out of the Peerage into the Commons had passed into the King's hands as it did in Egypt in the time of Ioseph as was before said the Prince had had a very easie and peaceable reign over his own Vassals and might either have refused justly to have Assembled the Parliament any more or if he had pleased to do it might have for ever managed it as he thought fit But our Princes have wanted a Ioseph that is a wise Councellor and instead of saving their Revenue which was very great and their expences small and buying in those Purchases which the vast expences and luxury of the Lords made ready for them they have alienated their own Inheritance so that now the Crown-Lands that is the publick Patrimony is come to make up the interest of the Commons whilest the King must have a precarious Revenue out of the Peoples Purses and be beholding to the Parliament for his Bread in time of Peace whereas the Kings their Predecessors never asked Aid of his Subjects but in time of War and Invasion and this alone though there were no other decay in the Government is enough to make the King depend upon his People which is no very good condition for a Monarchy Noble Ven. But how comes it to pass that other Neighbouring Countries are in so settled a State in respect of England does their Property remain the same it was or is it come into the hands of the Prince You know you were pleased to admit that we should ask you en passant something of other Countries Eng. Gent. Sir I thank you for it and shall endeavour to satisfie you I shall say nothing of the small Princes of Germany who keep in a great measure their ancient bounds both of Government and Property and if their Princes now and then exceed their part yet it is in time of Troubles and War and things return into their right Chanel of Assembling the several States which are yet in being every where But Germany lying so exposed to the Invasion of the Turks on the one side and of the French on the other and having ever had enough to do to defend their several Liberties against the encroachments of the House of Austria in which the Imperial dignity is become in some sort Hereditary if there had been something of extraordinary power exercised of late years I can say Inter arma silent leges but besides their own particular States they have the Diet of the Empire which never fails to mediate and compose things if there be any great oppresson used by Princes to their subjects or from one Prince or State to another I shall therefore confine myself to the three great Kingdoms France Spain and Poland for as to Denmark and Sweden the first hath lately chang'd its Government and not only made the Monarchy Hereditary which was before Elective but has pull'd down the Nobility and given their Power to the Prince which how it will succeed time will shew Sweden remains in point of Constitution and Property exactly as it did anciently and is a well-Governed Kingdom The first of the other three is France of which I have spoken before and shall onely add That though it be very true that there is Property in France and yet the Government is Despotical at this present yet it is one of those violent States which the Grecians called Tyrannies For if a Lawfull Prince that is one who being so by Law and sworn to rule according to it breaks his Oaths and his Bonds and reigns Arbitrarily he becomes a Tyrant and an Usurper as to so much as he assumes more than the Constitution hath given him and such a Government being as I said violent and not natural but contrary to the Interest of the people first cannot be lasting when the adventitious props which support it fail and whilst it does endure must be very uneasie both to Prince and People the first being necessitated to use continual oppression and the latter to suffer it Doct. You are pleased to talk of the oppression of the People under the King of France and for that reason call it a violent Government when if I remember you did once to day extol the Monarchy of the Turks for well-founded and natural Are not the people in that Empire as much oppressed as in France Eng. Gent. By no means unless you will call it oppression for the grand Seignior to feed all his People out of the Product of his
in the Property of the Peers and Church whose Lands five parts of six have been alienated and mostly is come into the same hands with those of the King and Peers have inherited likewise according to the course of nature their Power But being kept from it by the established Government which not being changed by any lawfull Acts of State remains still in being formally whereas virtually it is abolished so that for want of outward Orders and Provisions the people are kept from the Exercise of that Power which is faln to them by the Law of Nature and those who cannot by that Law pretend to the share they had do yet enjoy it by vertue of that Right which is now ceased as having been but the natural Effect of a Cause that is no longer in being and you know sublata causa tâ—llitur I cannot say that the greater part of the people do know this their condition but they find very plainly that they want something which they ought to have and this makes them lay often the blame of their unsetledness upon wrong causes but however are altogether unquiet and restless in the Intervals of Parliament and when the King pleases to assemble one spend all their time in Complaints of the Inexecution of the Law of the multiplication of an Infinity of Grievances of Mis-spending the Publick Monies of the danger our Religion is in by practices to undermine it and the State by endeavours to bring in Arbitrary Power and in questioning great Officers of State as the Causers and Promoters of all these Abuses in so much that every Parliament seems a perfect State of War wherein the Commons are tugging and contending for their Right very justly and very honourably yet without coming to a Point So that the Court sends them packing and governs still worse and worse in the Vacancies being necessitated thereunto by their despair of doing any good in Parliament and therefore are forced to use horrid shifts to subsist without it and to keep it off without ever considering that if these Counsellers understood their Trade they might bring the Prince and People to such an Agreement in Parliament as might repair the broken and shipwrack'd Government of England and in this secure the Peace Quiet and Prosperity of the People the Greatness and Happiness of the King and be themselves not only out of present danger which no other course can exempt them from but be Renowned to all Posterity Noble Ven. I beseech you Sir how comes it to pass that neither the King nor any of his Counsellors could ever come to find out the truth of what you discourse for I am fully convinced it is as you say Eng. Gent. I cannot resolve you that but this is certain they have never endeavoured a Cure though possibly they might know the Disease as fearing that though the Effects of a Remedy would be as was said very advantagious both to King and People and to themselves yet possibly such a Reformation might not consist with the Merchandize they make of the Princes Favour nor with such Bribes Gratuities and Fees as they usually take for the dispatch of all Matters before them And therefore our Counsellors have been so far from suggesting any such thing to their Master that they have opposed and quashed all Attempts of that kind as they did the worthy Proposals made by certain Members of that Parliament in the beginning of King Iames's Reign which is yet called the Undertaking Parliament These Gentlemen considering what we have been discoursing of viz. That our old Government is at an end had framed certain Heads which if they had been proposed by that Parliament to the King and by him consented to would in their Opinion have healed the Breach and that if the King would perform his part that House of Commons would undertake for the Obedience of the People They did believe that if this should have been moved in Parliament before the King was acquainted with it it would prove Abortive and therefore sent three of their number to his Majesty Sir Iames a Croft Grandfather or Father to the present Bishop of Hereford Thomas Harley who was Ancestor to the Honourable Family of that Name is Herefordshire and Sir Henry Nevill who had been Ambassador from Queen Elizabeth to the French King These were to open the matter at large to the King and to procure his leave that it might be proposed in Parliament which after a very long Audience and Debate that wise Prince consented to with a promise of Secresie in the mean time which they humbly begged of His Majesty However this took Vent and the Earl of Northampton of the House of Howard who ruled the Rost in that time having knowledg of it engaged Sir R. Weston afterwards Lord Treasurer and Earl of Portland to impeach these Undertakers in Parliament before they could move their matters which he did the very same day accompanying his Charge which was endeavouring to alter the established Government of England with so eloquent an Invective that if one of them had not risen and made the House acquainted with the whole Series of the Affair they must have been in danger of being impeached by the Commons but however it broke their designe which was all that Northampton and Weston desired and prevented Posterity from knowing any of the Particulars of this Reformation for nothing being moved nothing could remain upon the Journal So that you see our Predecessors were not ignorant altogether of our condition though the Troubles which have befallen this poor Kingdom since have made it much more apparent for since the Determination of that Parliament there has not been one called either in that King's Reign or his Son 's or since that hath not been dissolved abruptly whilst the main businesses and those of most concern to the publick were depending and undecided And although there hath happened in this Interim a bloody War which in the Close of it changed the whole Order and Foundation of the Polity of England and that it hath pleased God to restore it again by his Majesty's happy Return so that the old Government is alive again yet it is very visible that its deadly Wound is not healed but that we are to this day tugging with the same difficulties managing the same Debates in Parliament and giving the same disgusts to the Court and hopes to the Country which our Ancestors did before the Year 1640. whilst the King hath been forced to apply the same Remedy of Dissolution to his two first Parliaments that his Father used to his four first and King Iames to his three last contrary to his own visible Interest and that of his people and this for want of having Counsellors about him of Abilities and Integrity enough to discover to him the Disease of his Government and the Remedy which I hope when we meet to Morrow Morning you will come prepared to enquire into for the Doctor says he will
advise you to go take the Air this afternoon in your Coach Noble Ven. I shall think it very long till the morning come But before you go pray give me leave to ask you something of your Civil War here I do not mean the History of it although the World abroad is very much in the dark as to all your Transactions of that time for want of a good one but the grounds or pretences of it and how you fell into a War against your King Eng. Gent. As for our History it will not be forgotten one of those who was in Employment from the Year 40. to 60. hath written the History of those 20 Years a Person of good Learning and Elocution and though he be now dead yet his Executors are very unwilling to publish it so soon and to rub a Sore that is not yet healed But the Story is writ with great Truth and Impartiality although the Author were engaged both in Councils and Arms for the Parliaments side But for the rest of your Demand you may please to understand that our Parliament never did as they pretended make War against the King for he by Law can do no Wrong and therefore cannot be quarrelled with The War they declared was undertaken to rescue the King's Person out of those Mens hands who led him from his Parliament and made use of his Name to levy a War against them Noble Ven. But does your Government permit that in case of a disagreement between the King and his Parliament either of them may raise Arms against the other Eng. Gent. It is impossible that any Government can go further than to provide for its own Safety and Preservation whilst it is in being and therefore it can never direct what shall be done when it self is at an end there being this difference between our Bodies Natural and Politick that the first can make a Testament to dispose of things after his death but not the other This is certain that where-ever any two Co-ordinate Powers do differ and there be no Power on Earth to reconcile them otherwise nor any Umpire they will de facto fall together by the Ears What can be done in this Case de jure look into your own Country-man Machiavell and into Grotius who in his Book De jure Belliac Pacis treated of such matters long before our Wars As for the ancient Politicians they must needs be silent in the Point as having no mixt Governments amongst them and as for me I will not rest my self in so slippery a Place There are great disputes about it in the Parliaments Declarations before the War and something considerable in the King's Answers to them which I shall specifie immediately when I have satisfied you how our War begun which was in this manner The Long Parliament having procured from the King his Royal Assent for their Sitting till they were dissolved by Act and having paid and sent out the Scottish Army and disbanded our own went on in their Debates for the settling and mending our Government the King being displeased with them for it and with himself for putting it out of his Power to dissolve them now the business which they pretended for their Perpetuation was quite finished takes an unfortunate Resolution to accuse five principal Men of the Commons House and one of the Peers of High-Treason which he prosecuted in a new unheard-of way by coming with armed Men into the Commons House of Parliament to demand their Members but nothing being done by reason of the absence of the five and Tumults of discontented Citizens flocking to White-Hall and Westminster the King took that occasion to absent himself from his Parliament Which induced the Commons House to send Commissioners to Hampton-Court to attend his Majesty with a Remonstrance of the State of the Kingdom and an humble Request to return to his Parliament for the Redressing those Grievances which were specified in that Remonstrance But the King otherwise Counselled goes to Windsor and thence Northwards till he arrived at York where he summons in the Militia that is the Trained-Bands of the County and besides all the Gentry of which there was a numerous Appearance The King addressed himself to the latter with Complaints against a prevailing Party in Parliament which intended to take the Crown from his Head that he was come to them his loving Subjects for Protection and in short desired them to assist him with Moneys to defend himself by Arms. Some of these Gentlemen petitioned His Majesty to return to his Parliament the rest went about the Debate of the King's Demands who in the mean time went to Hull to secure the Magazine there but was denied Entrance by a Gentleman whom the House had sent down to prevent the seizing it who was immediately declared a Traytor and the King fell to raising of Forces which coming to the Knowledge of the House they made this Vote That the King seduced by Evil Counsel intended to levy War against his Parliament and People to destroy the Fundamental Laws and Liberties of England and to introduce an Arbitrary Government c. This was the first time they named the King and the last For in all their other Papers and in their Declaration to Arm for their Defence which did accompany this Vote they name nothing but Malignant Counsellors The Kings Answer to these Votes and this Declaration is that which I mentioned wherein His Majesty denies any intention of invading the Government with high Imprecations upon himself and Posterity if it were otherwise and owns that they have Right to maintain their Laws and Government This is to be seen in the Paper it self now extant and this Gracious Prince never pretended as some Divines have done for him that his Power came from God and that his Subjects could not dispute it nor ought he to give any Account of his Actions though he should enslave us all to any but him So that our War did not begin upon a point of Right but upon a matter of Fact for without going to Lawyers or Casuists to be resolved those of the People who believed that the King did intend to destroy our Liberties joyned with the Parliament and those who were of opinion that the prevailing party in Parliament did intend to destroy the King or dethrone him assisted vigorously His Majesty with their Lives and Fortunes And the Question you were pleased to ask never came for both parties pretended and believed they were in the right and that they did fight for and defend the Government But I have wearied you out Noble Ven. No sure Sir but I am infinitely obliged to you for the great care you have taken and still have used to instruct me and beg the continuance of it for to morrow morning Eng. Gent. I shall be sure to wait upon you at nine a Clock but I shall beseech both of you to bethink your selves what to offer for I shall come with a design to learn
Substance and satisfying themselves with this Appearance to do their ordinary Work of giving Money and be gone and leave the Business of the Kingdom as they found it For it was proposed that whatsoever Security we were to receive should be both Conditional and Reversionable That is First We should not be put into Possession of this new Charter be it what it will till after the death of His Majesty who now is whereas such a Provision is desirable and indeed necessary for us for this only reason that when that unfortunate hour comes we might not be in that Confusion unprovided of a Calm Setled and Orderly as well as a Legal Way to keep out Popery Whereas otherwise if we be to take Possession in that Minute it must either miscarry or be gotten by a War if it be true that Possession be Nine Points of the Law in other Cases it is in this the whole Ten and I should be very unwilling in such a Distraction to have no Sanctuary to fly to but a piece of Parchment kept in the Pells and to have this too as well as other Advantages in the Power and Possession of him in whose prejudice it was made this had been almost as good an Expedient to keep out Popery as the Bill which was thrown out that Parliament which provided that in the Reign of a King that should be a Papist the Bishops should chuse one another upon Vacancies Those Counsellors who put my Lord Chancellor upon this Proposal were either very slender Politicians themselves or else thought the Parliament so If Magna Charta and The Petition of Right had not been to take place till after the Decease of those Princes who confirmed them neither had the Barons shed their Blood to so good purpose nor the Members of the Parliament in Tertio Caroli deserved so Glorious an Imprisonment after it was ended The other Condition in this renowned Proposal is That all Provision and Security which is given us to preserve our Religion shall cease immediately whenever the Prince shall take a certain Oath to be penned for that purpose and I leave it to all thinking men to determine what that will avail us when we shall have a King of that Profession over us who shall not have so much Zeal for his Religion as he who is now the next successor hath but shall possibly prefer his Ambition and his desire to get out of Wardship before the Scruples of his Confessor and yet may afterwards by getting Absolution for and Dispensation from such Oaths and Compliance employ the Power he gets himself and the Security he deprives us of to introduce violently what Worship and Faith he pleases This Gracious Offer had the fatality to disguist one of the best Parliaments that ever Sate and the most Loyal so that laying it aside they fell upon the Succession the only thing they had then left and were soon after Dissolved leaving the Kingdom in a more distracted Condition than they found it and this can no way be composed but by mending the Polity so that whoever is King cannot be he never so inclined to it introduce Popery or destroy whatever Religion shall be established as you see in the Example of the Dutchy of Hanover whose Prince some fourteen Years since was perverted to the Roman Church went to Rome to abjure Heresie as they call the truth return'd home where he lived and Governed as he did before without the least Animosity of his Subjects for his Change or any endeavour of his to Introduce any in his Government or People and dying this last Spring left the Peaceable and undisturbed Rule of his Subjects to the next Successor his Brother the Bishop of Osnaburg who is a Protestant and this because the Polity of that Dukedom has been conserved entire for many years and is upon a right Basis and if our Case were so we should not onely be out of danger to have our Religion altered as I said before whoever is King but should in other things be in a happy and flourishing condition But I have made a long and tedious digression to answer your demands Now 't is time you assist me to find the Natural Cure of all our Mischiefs Doct. Stay Sir I confess my self to be wonderfully Edified with your discourse hitherto but you have said nothing yet of the Duke of Monmouth Eng. Gent. I do not think you desire it though you were pleased to mention such a thing for I suppose you cannot think it possible that this Parliament which is now speedily to meet by his Majesties Gracious Proclamation can ever suffer such a thing to be so much as Debated amongst them Doct. Sir you have no reason to take that for granted when you see what Books are Printed what great and Honourable Persons frequent him in private and countenance him in publick what shoals of the middle sort of people have in his Progress this Summer met him before he came into any great Town and what Acclamations and Bon-fires have been made in places where he lodged Eng. Gent. These things I must confess shew how great a Distemper the People are in and the great reason we have to pray God of his Mercy to put an end to it by a happy Agreement in Parliament But certainly this proceeds only from the hatred they have to the next Successour and his Religion and from the compassion they have to the Duke of Monmouth who as they suppose hath suffered banishment and dis-favour at Court at his Instance and not from any hopes of expectations that the Parliament will countenance any pretence that can be made in his behalf to the Succession Doct. It may be when we have discoursed of it I shall be of your mind as indeed I am enclined already But yet nothing in War is more dangerous than to contemn an Enemy so in this Argumentation that we use to secure our Liberties we must leave nothing unanswered that may stand in the way of that especially the Duke of Monmouth's Claim which is pretended to confirm and fortifie them for say some Men if you set him up he will presently pass all Bills that shall concern the Safety and Interest of the People And so we shall be at rest for ever Eng. Gent. Well I see I must be more tedious than I intended First then the reasoning of these men you speak of does in my apprehension suppose a thing I cannot mention without horrour which is That this Person should be admitted immediately to the Possession of the Crown to do all these fine Matters for otherwise if he must stay till the Death of our Soveraign who now Reigns which I hope and pray will be many years possibly these delicate Bills may never pass nor he find hereafter the People in so good a humour to admit him to the Reversion which if it could be obtain'd as I think it impossible Politically yet the Possession must be kept by a standing Army
admired if not adored by the people and considering too that all the power they leave him will serve but to enable him to defend us the better from Popery and Arbitrary power for which latter Monarchy was first Instituted Thus we may exercise during a Parliament or two love-tricks between the Prince and his people and imitate the hony-moon that continued for about two years after his Majesties Restauration till the ill management of affairs and the new grevances that shall arise which will be sure never to fail till our true cure be effected notwithstanding the care of the new King and his Councellors shall awaken the discontents of the people and then they will curse the time in which they made this election of a Prince and the great men for not hindring them Then men will be reckoning up the discontents of the Peers sometime after they had made a rash choice of H. the 7th in the field who had then no title when they saw how he made use of the power they gave him to lessen their greatness and to fortifie himself upon their ruins when it comes to this and that the Governing party comes to be but a little faction the people who never know the true cause of their distemper will be looking out abroad who has the Lawful title if the next Heir be not in the meantime with an Army of English and Strangers in the field here as is most likely and look upon the Prince of Orange or the next of kin as their future Saviour in case the Duke be dead in the mean time and so the cause of all their distrust taken away thus most men not only discontented persons but the people in general lookt upon his Majesty that now is as their future deliverer during our late distractions when his condition was so weak that he had scarce wherewithall to subsist and his enemies powerful at home and victorious abroad which will not be I fear our case I Prophesy then because you will have me use this word that if Nobles or people make any such unfortunate choice as this during the distractions we may be in upon his Majesties death we shall not only miss our cure or have it deferred till another Government make it but remain in the confusion we now suffer under and besides that shall be sure to feel first or last the calamity of a Civil and Foreign War and in the mean time to be in perpetual fear of it and suffer all the burden and charge which is necessary to provide for it besides all the other ill consequences of a standing Army To conclude I assure you in the Faith of a Christian that I have made this discourse solely and singly out of zeal and affection to the Interest of my Countrey and not at all with the least intention to favour or promote the Cause or Interest of the D. of York or to disparage the Duke of Monmouth from whom I never received the least unkindness nor ever had the honour to be in his Company and to whom I shall ever pay respect suitable to his high Birth and Merit Noble Ven. Well Sir your Reasoning in this point has extreamly satisfied me and the Doctor I suppose was so before as he averred therefore pray let us go on where we left Eng. Gent. I cannot take so much upon me as to be Dictator in the Method of our Cure since either of you is a thousand times better qualified for such an Office and therefore shall henceforth desire to be an Auditor Doct. Pray Sir let us not spend time in Compliments but be pleased to proceed in this business and we doubt not but as you have hitherto wonderfully delighted us so you will gratifie us in concluding it Eng. Gent. I see I must obey you but pray help me and tell me in the first place whether you do not both believe that as the causa causarum of all our Distractions is as has been proved the breach of our Government so that the immediate Causes are two First The great distrust on both sides between the King and his People and Parliament the first fearing that his Power will be so lessened by degrees that at length it will not be able to keep the Crown upon his head And the latter seeing all things in disorder and that the Laws are not executed which is the second of the two Causes fear the King intends to change the Government and be Arbitrary Noble Ven. I am a Stranger but though I never reflected so much upon the Original Cause as I have done since I heard you discourse of it yet I ever thought that those two were the Causes of the Unquietness of this Kingdom I mean the Jealousie between the King and his People and the Inexecution of the great Laws of Calling Parliaments Annually and letting them sit to dispatch their Affairs I understand this in the time of His Majesties Grand-Father and Father more than in His own Reign Eng. Gent. Then whoever can absolutely lay these two Causes asleep for ever will arrive to a perfect Cure which I conceive no way of doing but that the King have a great deal more Power or a great deal less And you know that what goes out of the King must go into the People and so vice versa Insomuch that the People must have a great deal more Power or a great deal less Now it is no question but either of these two would rather increase their Power than diminish it so that if this cannot be made up by the Wisdom of this Age we may see in the next that both the King will endeavour to be altogether without a Parliament and the Parliament to be without a King Doct. I begin to smell that you would be nibbling at the pretence which some had before his Majesties Restauration of a Commonwealth or Democracy Eng. Gent. No I abhor the thoughts of wishing much less endeavouring any such thing during these Circumstances we are now in That is under Oaths of Obedience to a Lawful King And truly if any Themistocles should make to me such a Proposal I should give the same Judgment concerning it that Aristides did in such a Case The Story is short After the War between the Greeks and the Persians was ended and Xerxes driven out of Greece the whole Fleet of the Grecian Confederates except that of Athens which was gone home lay in a great Arsenal such as were then in use upon the Coast of Attica during their abode there Themistocles harrangues one day the People of Athens as was then the Custome and tells them that he had a design in his head which would be of Infinite profit and advantage to the Commonwealth But that it could not be executed without the Order and Authority of them and that it did likewise require secresie and if it were declared there in the Market place where Strangers as well as Citizens might be present it could
Impositions upon the People this is reserved to the Parliament it self and the Execution of all Laws to the Judges and Magistrates And I can think of no other Affairs of State than these Doct. Do you intend that the Council for chusing Officers shall Elect them of the King's Houshold that is his Menial Servants Eng. Gent. No that were unreasonable except any of them have any Jurisdiction in the Kingdom or any place or preheminence in Parliament annexed to such Office but in these things which concern the powers and Jurisdictions of these several Councils wherein la guardia della laberta as Machiavil calls it is now to be placed I shall not persume to say any thing but assure your self if ever it come to that it will be very well digested in Parliament they being very good at contriving such Matters and making them practicable as well as at performing all other Matters that concern the Interest and greatness of the Kingdom Doct. I have thought that the Ephores of Sparta were an admirable Magistracy not only for the Interest of the People but likewise for the preservation of the authority of the Kings and of their lives too for Plutarch observes that the Cities of Mesene and Argos had the same Government with Lacedemon and yet for want of erecting such an Authority as was in the Ephores they were not only perpetually in broils amongst themselves and for that reason ever beaten by their Enemies whereas the Spartans were always victorious but even their Kings were the most miserable of Men being often call'd in question Judicially and so lost their Lives and many of them murdered by Insurrections of the People And at last in both these Cities the Kings were driven out their Families extirpated the Territory new divided and the Government turn'd into a Democracy And I ever thought that this expedient you propose for I have heard you discourse of it often before now would prove a more safe and a more noble reformation than the Institution of the Ephores was and that a Prince who is a lover of his Country who is Gracious Wise and Just such a one as it has pleased God to send us at this time shall be ten times more absolute when this Regulation is made than ever he was or could be before and that whatsoever he proposes in any of these Councils will be received as a Law nay as an Oracle And on the other side ill and weak Princes shall have no possibility of corrupting Men or doing either themselves or their People any kind of harm or mischief But have you done now Eng. Gent. No Sir when this Provision is made for the Execution of the Laws which I think very effectual not to say Infallible although it is not to be doubted but that there will be from time to time many excellent Laws Enacted yet two I would have passed immediately the one concerning the whole Regulation of the Elections to Parliament which we need very much and no doubt but it will be well done that part of it which is necessary to go hand in hand with our Settlement and which indeed must be part of it is that a Parliament be Elected every year at a certain day and that without any Writ or Summons the People Meeting of course at the time appointed in the usual place as they do in Parishes at the Church-House to chuse Officers and that the Sheriffs be there ready to preside and to certifie the Election And that the Parliament so Chosen shall Meet at the time appointed and Sit and Adjuorn as their business is more or less urgent But still setting yet a time for their coming together again but if there shall be a necessity by reason of Invasion or some other Cause for their Assembling sooner then the King to Call the Councellors of these Four Councels all together and with the consent of the major part of them intimate their Meeting sooner but when the day day comes for the Annual Meeting of Another Parliament they must be understood to be Dissolved in Law without any other Ceremony and the new one to take their place Doct. I would have this considered too and provided for That no Election should be made of any person who had not the majority of the Electors present to Vote for him so the Writ orders it and so Reason dictates for else how can he be said to represent the County if not a fifth part have consented to his choice as happens sometimes and may do oftener for where seven or eight stand for one vacant place as I have know in our last Long Parliament where the Votes being set in Columns he who has had most Votes has not exceeded four hundred of above two thousand who were present Noble Ven. This is a strange way I thought you had put every Man by himself as we do in our Government and as I understood they do in the House of Commons when there is any nomination and then if he has not the major part he is rejected Eng. Gent. This is very Material and indeed Essential but I make no doubt but if this Project should come in play in Parliament this and all other particulars which would be both needless and tedious to discourse of here will be well and effectually provided for The next Act I would have passed should be concerning the House of Peers that as I take it for granted that there will be a Clause in the Bill concerning Elections that no new Boroughs shall be enabled to send Members to Parliament except they shall be capacitated thereunto by an Act so it being of the same necessity as to the Liberty of Parliament that the Peers who do and must enjoy both a Negative and Deliberative Voice in all Parliamentary Transactions except what concern Levying of Money Originally be exempted from depending absolutely upon the Prince and that therefore it be declared by Act for the future that no Peer shall be made but by Act of Parliament and then that it be Hereditary in his Male Line Noble Ven. I am not yet fully satisfied how you can order your Matters concerning this House of Peers nor do I see how the Contests between the House of Commons and them can be so laid asleep but that they will arise again Besides the House of Commons must necessarily be extreamly concerned to find the House of Peers which consists of private persons though very great and honourable ones in an Instant dash all that they have been so long hammering for the good of all the People of England whom they represent were it not better now you are upon so great alterations to make an Annual Elective Senate or at least one wherein the Members should be but for Life and not Hereditary Eng. Gent. By no means Sir the less change the better and in this Case the Metaphysical Maxime is more true than in any viz. Entia non sunt multiplicanda sine necessitate for