with a sure foot Though King David was a man after Gods own heart yet could he not please the people for Absolom his own Son made a conspiracy against him and forced him to flye for his life But mark the end of this Traytor though the earth did not open her mouth and swallow him up yet the very Trees took vengeance and caught him up by the head so that he hung between heaven and earth as unworthy to go to heaven or to live upon the earth 11 Sam. 18.9 Then how dare these Pulpit Hunters blaspheme God and prophane his Word and Sanctuary so much as to preach that Rebellion is obedience nay a necessary duty commanded of God and a great means to carry on the work of Salvation inciting the people to cry out for justice accounting all things injustice unless that they have their wicked ends So Absolom did steal the hearts of the people who had controversies telling them that there was no man deputed of the King to hear them 11 Sam. 15.4 And Absolom said moreover O that I were made judge in the Land that every man which hath any sute or cause might come unto me and I would do them Justice A true Lecture of a Traytor for you shall never find Traytors without Law and Justice on their sides to colour their actions The King hath not deputed a man say they to distribute Justice He is popishly given and would bring into the Kingdome the popish Religion He infringeth your Charters breaketh the Laws and destroyeth your Rights and Liberties But O that we were made Judges in the Land how equally and impartially would we give justice to all men we would not take away your Charters nor encroach upon your Liberties The preservation of the Law and Religion is the only cause for which we take up arms But when with their charms and sorcery they have intoxicated the people got the hilt of the sword into their own hands and a power to do what they list then down goeth both Law and Religion and the King too like Jonas must be thrown down from the stern of Government to appease the tempest of the multitude And then and not untill then like the head of a Snail or a Tortoise out of it's shell not seen before doth appear their own cause and indeed the only cause for which they took up arms which is their own private interest and the destruction of the whole Kingdome with their own bodies and souls hereafter Hor. Suis ipsa Roma viribus ruit And Englands own Sword destroyeth poor England But let Traytors pretend what they will yet this is a Principle whose original is the Bible confirmed by our Saviour and the Apostles by all the Fathers of the Church and by all Christian people by all reason and Religion That Kings have the Supreme power over their people and consequently the people no power to resist them either to save their Laws Religion or for what other pretence soever For Rex si supra populum optimatesve agnoscat proprie non est Rex He cannot be a King which hath not the supreme authority and Soveraignty Divisum imperium cum Jove Caesar habet It is God and the King to whom Soveraignty belongeth the people are their Vassals and not sharers in so high a dignity Our Saviour alone was both God and Man and it is a thing impossible for the people to be both king and Subject too at one time But why should I seek stars to light the noon day or press that with arguments to be true to them who with their oaths have confirmed it for a truth swearing I William Lenthal do utterly testify and declare in my conscience that the Kings Highness is the only Supreme Governour of this Realm and all other his Highness Dominions and Countries aswell in all spiritual or Ecclesiastical things or Causes as Temporal And that no forein Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority Pre-eminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spâ—ritual within this Realm And therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all forein Jurisdiction Powers Superiorities and Authorities and do promise that from henceforth I shall bear faith and true allegiance to the Kings Highnesse his heirs and lawfull Successors and to my power shall assist and defend all Jurisdictions Privileges Pre-eminences and authorities granted or belonging to the Kings Highnesse his heirs and Successors or united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of the Realm So help me God and by the Contents of this Book What greater exemplification confirmation or demonstration of the kings Soveraignty can there be than this Sacred Oath of Supremacy For this is the thing which the Lord hath commanded saith Moses Num. 30.1 2. If a man Vow a Vow unto the Lord or swear an Oath to binde his soul with a bond he shall not break his word he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth And is there any English-man so impudently wicked and prophane as presumptuously to break Gods Commandement break his own vows and impiously turn perjured Traytor vix ipse tantum vix adhuc credo malum scarce I even I who have seen it with my own eyes can yet hardly believe so great a villany can be perpetrated Haec facere Jason potuit Could the betrothed do this Heu pietas Heu prisca fides Alas the antient piety Alas the fidelity of old time Debuit ferro obvium Offerre pectus I would have dyed first Quid non mortalia pectora cogis Auri sacra fames What doth not gold more sacred to them than their oathes compel mortals to atchieve Vid. 1. Eli. cap. 1. That the Kings power is above the Law is demonstrated by reason and proved by authority In the beginning were no Laws but the Kings will and pleasure Adams absolute power The King can do no wrong It is better and more profitable that one King than many Tyrants do what they lift with us The King hath no Judge but God That place in learned Bracton which Bradshaw and others used as an authority to kill the King explained and their damnable opinion and false Commentary upon him confuted The King is bound to observe Gods Law yet absolute King That God not the people instituteth kings and that the House of Commons which is but the tail of the Parliament nor any whole Parliament can have power over the king or disinherit him HAving made it evidently manifest that the King hath the supreme power and Soveraignty over the people I will now ascend a step higher and make it as manifest that he hath the supreme power and Soveraignty over the Laws as well as over the people Quidvis facere id est regem esse saith Salustius To do what one will is to be a King Cui quod libet licet Qui legibus solutus est Qui leges dat non accipit proiude qui omnes judicat a nemine
the due course of Law smote the Shepherd and so the sheep of the Protestant flock were all scattered abroad Bradshaw indeed that Pontius Pilate pressed the King very earnestly and by subtil and crafty inventions thought to have wrought upon the King to have submitted to their summa injuria their Arbitrary High Court of Injustice and pleaded So that his Example might have been urged as an irrefragable precedent against the lives and liberties of the whole Kingdome and that after ages might cite King Charles his case as an authority to kill Kings But the King foreseeing their delusive and abominable intentions rather than he would betray the lives and liberty of his free born subjects to the Arbitrary Lusts of these Tyrants told them of the great wickednesse they were about and shewed to his people how these Traitours endeavoured to inslave the whole Realm and so patiently suffered himself to be murdered dying a most true Martyr both for our Lawes and Religion but for plea he said nothing So Bradshaw more wicked than Pilate for instead of washing his hands he impudently bathed them in his Masters innocent blood gave the sentence of their wicked wills against him and delivered him over to the blood-thirsty to be crucified who spit upon him threw Tobacco pipes at him mocked him cryed out Away with him away with him Crucifie him Crucifie him cut off his Head with their wicked Engines and then cast lots for his Garments and Estate giving each Souldier a part But instead of writing over his head This is Charles the King of the Jews his true Title or rather the King of the Devils they writ over his head Exit Tyrannus Regum ultimus anno libertatis Angliae restitutae primo although in truth the best of Kings then went out and the greatest Tyranny under the Heavens then entred into our England comming far short of the Jews in all that is good but exceeding them in all wickednesse treachery perfidiousness and villany Now all this impious Council sought false witnesse against the King to put him to death but found none Therefore that they might do nothing without wickedness but proceed in all their Actions contrary almost to the very colour of Justice and make themselves the greatest and most illegal Tyrants that ever the world heard of they made themselves both Judges Jury Witness Party and Accuser in their own quarrel against the King For whereas by the Laws of the Land our gracious King alwayes made the Judges of the Land Arbitrators between his Subjects and himself in all cases from the lowest offence and trespass to the highest offence Crimen laesae Majestatis High Treason This Amalekite the House of Commons made part of themselves the Judges of the King who had committed the greatest Treason against the King and by the Laws of the Land deserved rather to hang at Tyburn than sit in the Chair of Justice likewise they made the Souldiers his Judges who professed themselves to be the Kings inveterate Enemies by their Remonstrances and Speeches and that they desired nothing more than his Blood and Life fought against him with their Guns and Swords Yet forsooth of this Hotchpotch of Traytors was their high Court of Justice made up Most of them being Collonels of the Army and other Souldiers who fought against him abroad and others Parliament men who conspired his ruine at home By the Laws of the Land it is a just exception to any Jury man who is to try the basest or poorest Felon and a legal challenge for which he must be withdrawn That he is a professed Enemy and Prosecutor who seeks his life and therefore no lawful nor indifferent tryer of him for it yet these bloody Butchers who professed themselves to be the Kings greatest Enemies and Prosecutors seeking after nothing so eagerly as the Kings life were both the Judges and Jury-men too to try the King Perjured O. Cromwell who then intended and afterwards effected to have the supreme power over these three Kingdoms was one of the Tryers to judge whether the King or himself with the rest of his brethren in iniquity deserved death and whether the King and his Royal Progeny ought not to be distroyed and Oliver and his stinking stock take possession O unparraleld lump of impiousness Aliquis non debet esse Judex in propria causà It is a Maxim in Law that no man ought to be Judge in his own cause Yet these villains made themselves the only Judge whether they committed Treason against the King or the King against them Nemo tenetur prodere seipsum No man is bound to accuse himself and it would have been a wonder indeed if these Rebels should have spoke the truth and said that they had committed high Treason against the King Therefore for fear the Law should punish them according to their deserts they thought good to prevent that mischief punish the King as they pleased according to their lusts And that they might make themselves the greatest Tyrants and the people the basest Slaves in the world they took upon them the Governing power which by Law only belongeth to the King 2. The Legislative power which likewise belongeth to the King with the concurrence of the upper and Lower House And 3. The Judicative power which belongeth to the Judges who are known Expositors and Dispencers of Law and Justice in all Causes brought before them So that these Trayterous Tyrants by their boundless and arbitrary wills put us to death when they please for what cause they please and take away our Estates when they see occasion And yet they have the impudence to tell us and many the sottishness to believe that the Parliament having the Supreme power doth all these villanies by Law O Abominable How these Tyrants mock the people with the name of a Parliament the Parliament consisteth of the King the head and about 600 of his Subjects and there were not above 50 or 60 of the Parliament who caused the King to be murthered and ruined his people yet these Schismaticks call themselves a Parliament and so having nothing good but their name Tyrannize over us They may as well say that the parings of the nailes of the toes are the whole man and have the power of all the other members as say that they are the Parliament or have any lawfull power they being nothing but the dregs and lees of the inferiour House from whom we must never expect any thing pleasing to any honest mans palate If the Parliament had power to depose the King yet what power can these few Gaol-Birds have who are scarce the tenth part of the Parliament and no Representatives of the People but only of their own Devilish ambitions By what authority do these Ignes fatui abolish Kingship and the House of Lords as dangedangerous and useless which all our Ancestors have found most profitable and glorious for our Kingdom These Currs have several times been kicked out of
And therefore Sir John Davis in his preface confidently averreth that the Common-law doth excel all other laws in upholding a free Monarchy which is the most excellent form of Government exalting the Prerogative royal and being tender and watchful to preserve it and yet maintaining all the Ingenuous liberty of the Subject Nay so carefull is the law of the Kings Soveraignty that in all cases from the highest to the lowest it demonstrateth the Kings supreme power and dignity The law will not permit any Subject to come so near the King as to be jointenant with him for if Lands are given to the King and a subject or if there be two Jointenants and the Crown descend to one of them the Jointure is severed and they are Tenants in Common for no Subject is equal with the King Co. Lit. 190. Plowd Com. in Seig. Barkleys Case Nay rather than the Suâ—â—ect shall be equal with the King in any thing he shall lose all for the King being Tenant in Common of entier Chattel personal he shall have the whole as if an Obligation be made to two or two possessed of an horse and one is attainted the King shall have the whole duty of the Obligation and the horse 13 El. pl. 322. Finch 178. To instance all particular cases is endlesse and impossible all land is holden of the King immediately or by means himself not having any higher upon earth of whom to hold 50 Ass pl. 1. 18 Eli. Pl. 498. For it would be against Common right and reason that the King should hold of any or do service to any of his subjects saith Cook lib. 8.118 Because he hath no Superior but God almighty Cook Lit. 1. Escheats of all Cities appertaineth unto the King all mines of Gold and silver or wherein the gold and silver is of the greater value appertain unto the King 8 E. 3. Escheat 12. 1 El. Plo. 314. The King is Anima legis he governeth and defendeth the law all Writs and Processe run in his name and receive authority onely from him and all persons have their power from him and by his Writ Patent or Commission The King hath the sole Government of his subjects The body Politick and the natural body of the King make one body and not diverse and are inseparable and indivisible Plo. 234 242.213 lib. 7.12 Rex tuetur legem lex tuâ—tur jus We muâ— be for God and the King because by his laws we are protected and it is a miserable case to be out of the Kings Protection Co. Lit. 129. All Jurisdictions and the punishment of all offenders against the Laws belongs to the King And Treasons Felonies and other Pleas of the Crown are propriae causae regis For why The King is viva Lex a living Law who only hath power to give Laws and therefore he only ought to punish those who break them Not the Parliament as it is called viz. the two Houses or either of them singly because they without the King can make no Law and therefore they are murtherers because they have put to death many worthy Innocents having no other Law but their own wicked wills And for my part if any one should tell me that the Law of England is nothing but the will of the King I could not disprove him for what are the great volumes of our Statutes but the Monuments and Repertory of the Kings will What is the reason that it is a Law that the King cannot make new or alter old Laws but in Parliament with the consent of his Lords and Commons Because the King was pleased to will it so for it was not so from the beginning The King was long before Parliaments and therefore did most certainly make Laws without them What is an Act of Parliament but the will of the King Nay what is Magna Charta but a Roy le veilt All our Rights and Liberties we enioy are by the gracious concessions of our Soveraign Lord the King who esteemeth our good and freedom his best praerogative and happinesse Omnium domos illius vigilia defendit omnium otium illius labor omnium delitias illius industria omnium vacationem illius occupatio The King by his watch and diligent care doth defend and keep every mans house in safety his labour doth maintain and defend every mans rest and quiet his diligence doth preserve and defend every private mans pleasure and delight his businesse doth maintain and defend every mans leasure So that as Manwood hath it even as the head of a natural body doth continually watch and with a provident care still ook about for the safety and preservation of every member of the same body Even so the King being the head of the body of the Commonweal doth not only continually carry a watchful eye for the preservation of peace and quietnesse at home amongst his own Subjects but also to preserve and keep them in peace and quietnesse from any forein invasion Therefore if the Rebells since the murther of our gracious King Charles the first have taken the freeborn Subjects of this Nation and imprisoned them like Slaves without any just cause or due processe of Law If they have violently driven us from our Lands and Livelyhoods possessing themselves of them and taken away our free Customs and Liberties If they have unjustly deprived us of the benefit of the Law banished us out of our Country and destroyed us with their high Courts of Injustice without the verdict of our equalls contrary to the Law of the Land if they have delayed Justice and Right denyed it to all men and granted it to no man but to those who would buy it Blesse God for Charles the first and pray for the restauration of Charles the second Praise God for their noble Praedecessours who have been our Nursing Fathers and their Queens our nursing Mothers who have willed and enacted Magna Charta ca. 29. Nullus liber homo capiatur vel imprisonetur aut dissisietur de libero tenemento suo vel libertatibus vel liberis consuetudinibus suis aut utlagagetur aut exuletur aut aliquo modo destruatur nec super ibimus nec super eum mittemus nisi per legale judicium parium suorum vel per legem terrae nulli vendemus nulli negabimus aut differemus justitiam vel rectum That no man should be arrested imprisoned disseised of his Free-hold of his Liberties or free customes or out-lawed bâ—nished or otherwise destroyed but by the verdict of his equals and the Law of the Land neither should Law and Justice be delayed sold or denyed to any man but the King in judgment of Law is present in all his Courts of Justice repeating these words We will sell deny nor delay Justice and right to no man Inst 2.55 O Magnificent blessed and golden Oration It proceeded from the lips of Kings and we shall never hear such Doctrine preached again in any of our Courts of Justice untill our King be
which is not subject too but resisteth the power shall receive damnation but whosoever with defensive arms resisteth the King is not subject to but doth resist the power Therehe which with defensive arms resisteth the King shall receive damnation The Major no man can deny the Minor is inviolable and the Conclusion is perfect and sound There be those indeed who do confidently averr and have written a book too that there were men before Adam but I could never see any Scripture but their own interpretations and meanings to warrant their averments And untill Mr. Pryn can produce Texts of Scripture to warrant and maintain his confident averment he must excuse me if I still hold St. Paules Doctrine Canonical and his averment meer Apocripha For suppose the King subverteth both Law and Religion yet doth not that take away his supreme power he is still a King and Gods ordinance Saul was a King though an impious sinner and there have been wicked Kings as well as wicked Subjects to do evil saith one is no power but impotency therefore if the King command me to murther my self my Father to destroy my Country or to do any other wicked act I will not do it but obey God not him because it is his corruption not any power he hath from whence his commandment proceedeth and therefore I am not obliged to obey him because I must be a Subject to his power not to his sins yet if he should run after me with a naked Sword to kill me my Father my Mother ruine my Country Laws and Religion Yet would not I with defensive arms lift up my hands against him to resist hurt and destroy him because he is still my King and hath still that supreme power which God placed in him although he doth not then execute it and therefore if I should with defensive Arms lift up my hands to resist hurt and destroy him I should with defensive Arms lift up my hands to resist hurt and destroy the Ordinance of God and so receive damnation for my reward Not to perform the Kings command is a resistance although we suffer death Therefore if it be the Kings power and not his wicked will which commandeth me to do an evil thing if I did not perform his evil commandment I should resist his power and so be lyable to damnation although I patiently and meekly suffered death But doubtlesse the Kings power cannot command me to do any evil but it must proceed from his sinfull will for God is not the Author of any unrighteousnesse and there is no power but what God is the Author of therefore according to venerable Bede the Apostle doth not say Non est cupiditas nisi a Deo est enim mala cupiditas quae non est a deo nocendi autem voluntas potest esse a suo quoque animo pravo That there is no concupiscence but what is of God for there is an evil concupiscence which is not from God and the evil will of sinning proceedeth from our own depraved mindes therefore if the King command me to do an evil thing I ought to obey God not his wicked will but rather than to lift up my hands against him though in my defence I ought cheerfully and meekly to suffer a thousand deaths for by dying unjustly here I shall live eternally in Heaven and since the Glory of a Christian is the Crosse by suffering and dying a Martyr I shall obtain everlasting Glory and by my thus doing well I shall get praise even of the Power which the Kings wicked will made use of to destroy me but defence against the power of a King is offence therefore if with defensive arms I should fight against him I should resist Gods Ordinance and so receive damnation for by Gods Ordinance the King hath the power over all and his Actions ought not to be questioned or resisted by any but the Almighty But for my part I hold clearly that when the King executeth Tyranny taketh away the Lives or Estates of his Subjects unjustly that he doth it not only by reason of his wicked will according to the precedent distinction but by force and virtue of his power which God hath given him and that this is the power which St. Paul commandeth us to be subject unto which if we resist we shall receive damnation and that for several reasons It is most certain that there is no power but of God the powers that be are ordained of God for by him were all things created that are in Heaven and that are in Earth visible and invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers all things were created by him and for him Col. 1.16 Which expressions in the Abstract do expresse existents in the Concrete from whence it followeth that bad Kings have their power from God and are Gods Ordinance as well as good And it is manifest in Scripture that wicked Kings are often sent for the punishment of a Nation as in Hosea 13.11 I gave them a King in my wrath and took him away in mine anger And God commandeth us to pray for and be subject not only to the good but also to the bad Kings I exhort you that Prayers and Supplications and Thanksgiving be made for all men for Kings and such as are in Authority 1 Tim. 2.1 Thus Abraham prayed for King Abimeleck Gen. 20.17 And Jacob blessed the King of Aegypt Gen. 47.10 Yet the Kings of those times were Infidels and most notoriously wicked No man is ignorant that Nebuchadnezzar who destroyed Jerusalem was a great spoyler and oppressor yet the Lord tells us by Ezekiel that he had given unto him the Land of Aegypt for the good service he had done in laying it waste on his Commandement And Daniel said unto him thus Dan. 2.37 Thou O King art a King of Kings for the God of Heaven hath given thee a Kingdom Power and Strength and Glory and wheresoever the Children of men dwell the Beasts of the Field and the Fowls of Heaven hath he given into thy hand and hath made thee Ruler over them all Again to Belshazzar his Son Dan. 5.18 The most high God gave unto Nebuchadnezzar thy Father a Kingdom and Majesty and Glory and Honour and for the Majesty that he gave him all people Nations and Languages trembled and feared before him And again Jer. 27.6 I have made the Earth saith the Lord the Man and the Beast that are upon the ground by my great power and by my outstretched Arm and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me And now have I given all these Lands into the Hands of Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon my Servant and the Beasts of the Field have I given him also to serve him and all Nations shall serve him and his Son and his Sons Son untill the very time of his Land come And it shall come to passe that the Nation and Kingdom which will not serve the same Nebcchadnezzar
own again which these most unjustly keep from him We cannot serve God and Mammon both at one time Good and evil cannot stand both together If the King come in and rule these men must fall If we serve the King as we ought we cannot serve these at all If God re-establisheth his Anointed Lucifer must call down his Children wickednesse must be abolished when righteousnesse takes place therefore the Gaolers of the Liberty of England must down when Charles the Second our only lawfull Soveraign is restored to his Crown and Kingdome Which they very well know therefore they would fain keep as long as they can their Empire which cost them their Souls and Reputation But let us return to our King When the Conquerour came in He got by right of Conquest all the Land of the Realm into his own hands the whole Kingdom was his direct and proper inheritance in demeasn so that no man can at this day make any greater title than from the Conquest to any Lands in England for the King being owner and sole Lord of the whole Land and the People therein did as he lawfully might dispose of the Land and people according to his will and pleasure he gave out of his hands what Lands he pleased to what persons he pleased and reserved what tenures and services he pleased So that in the Law of England we have not properly Allodium that is any Subjects Land that is not holden We all hold our Lands mediately or immediately of the Crown neither have we any right to our Lands any longer than we are faithfull and loyal to the King who first gave us them upon that condition for by the Laws of the Realm if we take up arms against the King imagine his death or commit any other offence which is high Treason we forfeit our estates to the King so that they return from whence they were first derived the greatest and highest title or property which a Subject hath to his Lands is Quod talisseisitus fuit in dominico suo ut de feodo Now though this word Feodum doth as Littleton teacheth legally signify inheritance and so Feodum Simplex signifieth a lawfull or pure inheritance yet it is apparently manifest that Feodum is a derived right and doth import with it a trust to be performed which trust broken forfeiteth the Estate to the King who only hath as Camden observeth Directum imperium cujus nullus est Author nisi Deus For all the Lands within this Realm were originally derived from the Crown and therefore the King is Soveraign Lord or Lord Paramount either mediate or immediate of all and every parcel of Land within the Realm 18 E. 3.35.44 E. 3.5 48 E 3.9.8 H. 7.12 Therefore though in other places he which findeth a piece of Land that no other possesseth or hath title unto entreth into it gaineth a property by his entry yet in England property to Land cannot be gained any such way for the Subject can have no property but what was first by the Kings grant therefore those Lands are still appropriated to the Crown which the King did not give away to his Subjects as if Land be left by the Sea this Land belongeth to the King and not to him that hath the Lands next adjoyning or to any other but the King Caelum Caeli Domino terram autem dedit filiis hominum All the whole Heavens are the Lords the Earth hath he given to the Children of men for which he only reserved their service as an acknowledgement of his bounteous liberality so the whole Kingdom is the Kings but the Land therein he hath given to his Children the people for which he only reserved their allegiance and service as a remembrance and recognition of his Royal bounty in which reservation the King as my Lord Bacon writeth had four institutions exceeding politick and suitable to the State of a Conquerour First Seeing his people to be part Normans and part Saxons the Normans he brought with him the Saxons he found here he bent himself to conjoyn them by Mariages in Amity and for that purpose ordains that if those of his Nobles Knights and Gentlemen to whom he gave great rewards of lands should dye leaving their Heir within Age a Male within 21 and a Female within 14 years and unmaryed then the King should have the bestowing of such Heirs in Mariage in such a Family and to such persons as he should think meet which interest of Mariage went still imployed and doth at this day in every Tenure called Knights service The Second was to the end that his people should be still conserved in Warlik exercises and able for his defence when therefore he gave any good portion of Lands that might make the party of Abilities or strength he withall reserved this service That that party and his Heirs having such lands should keep a Horse of service continually and serve upon him himself when the King went to Warrs or else having impediment to excuse his own person should find another to serve in his place which service of Horse and Man is a part of that Tenure called Knights service at this day But if the Tenant himself be an Infant the King is to hold this land himself untill he come to full Age finding him Meat Drink Apparel and other necessaries and finding a Horse and a Man with the overplus to serve in the Warrs as the Tenant himself should do if he were at full Age. But if this Inheritance descend upon a Woman that cannot serve by her Sex then the King is not to have the Lands she being 14. years of Age because she is then able to have an Husband that may do the service in person The Third institution that upon every gift of Land the King reserved a Vow and an Oath to bind the party to his Faith and Loyalty that Vow was called Homage the Oath of Fealty Homage is to be done kneeling holding his hands between the knees of the Lord saying in the French tongue I become your Man of Life and Limb and of earthly honour Fealty is to take an Oath upon a Book that he will be a faithful Tenant to the King and do his service and pay his Rents according to his Tenure The Fourth institution was that for Recognizance of the Kings bounty by every Heir succeeding his Ancestor in those Knight service lands the King should have Prâ—mer seisin of the lands which is one years profit of the lands and untill this be paid the King is to have possession of the land and then to restore it to the Heir which continueth at this day in use and is the very cause of suing livery and that as well where the Heir hath been in ward as otherwise Many other Tenures with services did the Conquerour institute as Grand Serjeanty Petit Serjeanty Tenure in Burgage Soccage Escuage c. which being holden of the King are called Tenures in capite which
square Without proportion all his actions are Is Fortune regent that doth blinded go And with unequal hands her gifts bestow Powr acts by will and will without restraint Doth what ambition teacheth and the Saint Is banish't from the Court Oh horrid times When Vertue bears the punishment of Crimes And Wolves pretending harmlesnesse bear sway Forcing the Britains blindly to obey But pious Ah in vain for Gold they hast To th' Indies True Religion is not plac't In Wealth or Fortune surely Heaven denyes Goodness to bad though prosperous treacheries Who were the fiâ—st that brought their private wealth For publick Treasure as 't were by stealth Made that the lure to sin Who first found Gold And Pearls not willing to be known from Mould Before that time no jealousies and fears No dayly Plots appear'd no widows tears Were seen for staughter'd Husbands no mad rage Of civil war corrupted had the age No Sword was sharpen'd yet against its King But uncorrupted Faith did duely bring The People to the Prince with loving zeal Blest Omens of a happy Commonweal The warlike Trumpet was not yet no blood The Wearer or his Arms had yet embrew'd The Sea was rugged free the shore All were contented with a little store They did possess the greatest of their boast Was to have seen and known their proper coast But now both Sea and Land are grown too smal To feed our base ambitious minds withal Desire to have and get burns now more fierce Then Aetnae's flames renown'd by Virgils verse Stands ought it 'h way death shall remove the stock We can bring Kings themselves unto the block If such may be their fate O dearest God How dreadfull are thy Laws how sharp thy rod Alas fool that I was I once had thought That just which now I see is vain and nought Caesar though oft forewarn'd at last was slain By his own Subjects a rebellious trayn But great Augustus on the factious head Of most revenged Caesar murthered But Ah! for Martyr'd Charls what man or State Will vengeance seek before it be too late O come Great God we pray thee at the length For without thee vain is our help or strength Let Charls the second in thy care be chief Guard him and give to his Affairs relief Preserve him safe and when he will demand His right from English Rebels guide his hand Make them to know that thou dost Rule on high Strike them with Lightning from the thundring Sky Revenge his Fathers guiltlesse death on them While there remains or Root or Branch or Stem But whether now my Muse where wilt thou croud Among the Shrubs it fits me best to shroud And not to climb the Cedar proud and tall Lest while I seek to rise I climb to fall Honor or Hopes calls most men to the Court Where one being wrought on by the great resort Is straightway struck and shortly hopes to be Seen in the City in full Majestie Another with much labour toyl and pain Would fain climb high but all his labour 's vain This courts Gemmes and Gold nor th'Indians can Nor Europe sate the hunger of this man Nor fertile Lybiâ—s plentifullest store But as he gets so still he covers more Another to the people shews his tayl Boasts his descent that so he may prevayl To draw the Fish into his Net and there Another for his valour doth appear And in the Publique place himself presents Spoyls of his Foes his new got Ornaments A rustick shepherds life doth laugh on me More sweet than all the lives that be I in my meaner way great things deride For why I know the vales have seldome try'd The force of thundring Jove when mountains high Have trembled at his threatning Majesty The meat and drink purchas 't by me is not Bought with the treasure of much goods ill got My sleep's unguarded I fear not to dye But in my little cot securely lye Not troubled with the noise of men or drums No trumpet there or horseman ever comes Oft when I rife I sit a little while Upon my fragrant bed of Camomile The Strawberries that in the thickets thrive My faintest hunger serve away to drive And pleasant apples as my Grandsire first So do they serve to quench my greatest thirst While Great ones drink in gold poison and blood I drink clear water out of wholsome wood Thus do I passe my time harmlesse to all But birds for whom I make some new pit-fall Thus stranger to the world yet to my self Known shall I dye and leave this worldly pelf But Sol withdrawing the approaching night And Starres appearing do to sleep invite READER ACcept these lines which I have plainly writ Though not adorn'd with curious Art or wit And thou shalt be my Patron at whose beck My Muse shall hoist her sailes or give them check So may I chance hereafter to relate Some things more solid and of greater weight And as our Palat's pleas'd with various fare So is our mind with studies choice and rare All things have changes ev'n the Law it self May lye and gather cob-webs on the shelf Though they be thine grave Cook who didst revise And mend the same or Plowden grave and wise But I love various learning and so do Make it my study and my pastime too And thus while others play at Cards or Drink Away their time I on Apollo think And pray his favour that he will admit Me from the Muses fount to sip some wit 1659. Yours in all officiousnesse and Love most obliged FINIS St. Pauls Jo. 18.37 * Nam quis iniqui Tam patiens orbis tam ferreus ut teneat se * A good Remedy but a bad Cure * The Rump c. * The Rump * Qui Curies simulant Bacchanalia vivunt O the venome of a perpetual Parliament 1 Chron. 21.13 Paradox 4. Res publica signifyeth a whore Quid prodest tibi nomen usurpare alieâ—um vocari quod non es (a) Note Reader that this Chaos of Religions hath justed the true Protestant Religion out of doors so have I seen a flower kill'd by the multitude of weeds and a Lamb destroyed by a number of Woolves a Bradshaw when he tempted the King alias at the Kings tryal but rather his Temptation a He will first suffer himself to be murthered at his own door as was Charls the I. Psa 72.1 Psa 2.12 Eccles 8.23 Zecha 9.9 Isa 49.23 Rev. 1.6 Hos 7.3 Prov. 29.4 Prov. 16.12 Prov 31.4 Prov. 29.2 1 Sam. 15.23 Prov. 17.11 Isa 1 2â— Josh 22.19 Mark 15.18 John 19.15 Mat. 21.38 Mat. 10.23 Rom 13.5 Jude 1.8 10 11. 2 Pet. 2.10 11. Hor. Ode 24. Ambrosius in Orat. contra Auxen Tom 5. 2 Kings 6 32. (a) witness the resolution of all the Judges in England in the reign of Charls the I. c. For suppose that the Parliament turn Traytors and Rebel against the King as did the long Parliament Is it not profitable for the people
Astraea Redeunt Saturnia regna progenies caelo Demittitur alto Bishops the Coâ—on prâ—â—ier Booke â—ewarded Sectaries reiected SALMASIUS HIS BUCKLER OR A Royal Apology FOR King CHARLES the MARTYR Dedicated to CHARLES the Second King of Great Brittain Salus Populi Salus Regis LONDON Printed for H.B. and are to be sold in Westminster-hall and at the Royal Exchange 1662. The Epistle to the Reader THere have been so many Wolves in sheeps-cloathing and so many Innocents by the reviling tongues of their Enemies robbing them of their good names as well as of their good estates made Malignants in this our worse than iron age that I know not what Epithite to give thee If thou art an Honest man Rara avis in terris I invoke thee to be my Patron If thou art not Noli me tangere But since St. Austin once perhaps as zealous a Reprobate as thy self was converted by looking on the Bible by chance I will not prohibit thee from eating of this fruit Though I believe to think that thy view of my Book will work the like conversion on thee is to have a better opinion of thee and the Book than both will deserve For though an Angel should come from heaven or a man arise from the dead yet could he not perswade our hot-headed Zealots but that they did God good service even when they rebell against his own Ordinance transgress his Commandements murther their Father the KING and pollute their once flourishing Mother the CHURCH Before this prodigious off-spring like Vipers destroyed the Mother by their birth The Jews indeed murthered the Lord of life because they did not know him and therefore thought it was pleasing to God But wo be to them who did not only with Ham see their Fathers nakedness and reproach him but commit Paricide see his heart naked and call the multitude to laugh at it En quo discordia Cives produxit miseros O the miserable effects of seditious men Who shall now cure the Kings evil Or who shall cure the evil of the People O purblind City how long will you enslave yourselves to ravenous woolves who by their often changing of their feigned Governments do but change the thief and still your Store-houses must be the Magazine to furnish them with plunder You must never look to enjoy your lives estates or Gods blessing with the fruition of your Wives and Children before your lawfull King and Soveraign CHARLS the II. unjustly banished by Rebells be restored to his Crown and Kingdom For what Comfort can any honest or conscientious man take in any thing so long as he seeth his own native Prince like King David driven from his own natural inheritance by the unjust force of a multitude of Traytors both to God and their King Who Judas-like acknowledging his Master with a kiss so they swore with their mouthes that King CHARLS the I. was their only lawfull King and Soveraign and had the Supreme power over them all and then delivered him to the Sword-men who came out with Clubbs and Staves against their Soveraign as against a Thief and as the Jews did the Lord our Saviour whom they did not acknowledge to be their King otherwise they would not have done it These men murthered their dread Soveraign whom they all acknowledged and vowed to be their only King Excelling the Jewes only in wickednesse Therefore since by the Laws of the Land there can be no Parliament without the King what difference is there between a Protector and one of their Parliaments but only number For their Protectors are but the head thieves and their Parliaments but a headless multitude of thieves For so long as the Royal Progenie of CHARLS the I. which God long preserve remain alive all other our Governours besides them will be but Rebells Traytors and Tyrants let them call themselves a Free State or by what names they please continue until the worlds end Therfore rouze up Citizens and take courage How long will you be the common Hackney to be ridden by every one that will stride you How long shall your Sanctuary be made a Stable and Den for Thieves Shall your Streets blush with the blood of Prophets and with the blood of your Citâ—zens and will not you change your colour where is the reverend Doctor Hewyt that Glory of your City that Glory of all Christians that Glory of the whole World whose fame shall out-live the Sun and his renown shine longer and brighter than the Moon or the lesser Stars Caesar the Usurper was wont to say Si violandum est jus regnandi causa esse violandum That if it is lawfull to forswear one self for any Cause the Cause of gaining a Kingdom is the most lawfull But there are those amongst us who have turned the Supposition into a Proposition and confidently by their practice affirm that it is lawfull to forswear one self for any thing and most sacred to be forsworn if by the perjury a Kingdom may be gained But I will not touch the Soars which lye raw before every mans eyes only this will I say which every one knoweth to be true that no Kingdom in the World was so happy both for peace and plenty law and religion and all other good things as our Kingdom of England was whilest due obedience was lawfully paid to our Soveraign Lord the King but now the King being murthered and all goodness with him no Nation under the Sun is more miserable and so it will continue untill King Charles the second be restored to his Crown The Sword of Gods word ought only to fight for Religion the Iron sword of Rebels did never establish Christian Religion nor ever will set up Christs Kingdom especially if it be unsheathed against Kings by their Subjects And to satisfie all Objections whatsoever against my writing I answer Si natura negat facit indignatio versum It was not to shew my self to the world for as in Tempests so in our daies he is best who is seen least abroad But it was to shew and prefer the Truth which hath been laid asleep by the Charmes of our Sins For to this end was I born and for this cause came I into the world that I should bear witnes to the truth every one that is of the Truth will hear the voice of the truth when I saw the many revolutions turnings of men like Weathercocks being presented almost every day with new strange and various shapes and forms of Government it caused me more diligently to search after the true reason of our changings which I found to be our Sins and the absence of our King also which was the best kind of Government which I found to be Monarchy and that all trayterous Tyrants sine titulo might most lawfully be killed by any privat hand but Kings only by God Truth often getteth hatred and it is the doom of serious books to be hooted at by those who have nothing
else to do but to scrible Pamphlets Every one judging according to his capacity or affection And as Men so Books are pressed to war Ad prelum tanquam ad praelium But Nulla fides pietasve viris qui castra sequuntur there is as little credit as piety to be found in Swordmen and so their calumny will not prejudice me in any wise mans judgement The good of my Country and the settlement of our Distractions is the thing which I aim at let Momus carp while his Teeth ake which Settlement will never be untill Right overcomes Might and every one be established in his own again For what man hath been secure and immutable since the great and wicked change Sen. Quem felicem Cynthia vidit Vidit miserum abitura dies He that shone like the Sun in the Morning was clouded like Night in the Evening a Protector one hour and glad to be protected the next God oftentimes curseth with the same Sins which were committed against him Pharoah hardened his heart the first time for his Pleasure God hardened it the next for his Destruction We changed our Government once to please our wicked Wills God hath changed it oftner to purge our impious Sins But Jam satis terris nivis atque dirae Grandinis mifit pater rubenâ—e Dextera sacras jaculatus arces Terruit urbem Terruit gentes Enough of hail and cruel snow Hath Jove now showr'd on us below Enough with thundering Steeples down Frightned the Town Frightned the World O thou God of Order now hold thy punishing hand cement our Differences and unite the lines of our Discord in the true Centre Let Charls the 2 d. our Augustus and Caesars Successor revenge the bloody Murther of Caesar O most worthy Augustus our only lawfull Soveraign be thou a stay to our falling Kingdom Patiens vocari Caesaris ultor do thou hasten to be Caesars Revenger and then Serus in coelum redeas diuque Laetus intersis populo Quirini Neve te nostris vitiis iniquum Oâ—yor aura Tollat hic magnos potius triumphos Hic ames dici pater atque Prinâ—eps Neu sinas Medos equitare inultos Te duce Caesar Return to Heaven late we pray And long with us the Britains stay Nor let disdain of our offence Take thee from hence Love here victorious Triumphs rather Love here the name of Prince and father Nor let the Rebels scot-free ride Thou being our Guide Which is the continual Prayer of Your Graces most humble true faithfull and obedient Subject and most dutifull Servant usque ad aras Cimelgus Bonde ERRATA THe times are full of errors Parliaments themselves have erred therefore pardon the Errata of the Printer Some Letters nay some words are left out and wrong ones put in their room What then our Nobles nay our King himself hath been dis-throned and wrong ones The Shrubs their Servants have intruded and usurped their places The Rump ruled the whole Body the Feet got above the Shoulders And untill the Head fully enjoyeth its preheminence and Prerogative over the inferiour Members expect no Amendments either publick or private But since our Age hath more need of a Bit than Spurs adde bit to the end of the 21. line fo 6. line 9. fo 42. Munera l. 21. f. 47. of instead of for l. 22. fo 174. read Could such attempts In the Latin Verses read cujus and fonte in the two last lines THe Contents of this Book you may find fo 1. 20 28 40 54 65 73 86 106 119 132 192 204 210 219 267 361 376. And since the last in execution is the first in the intention I must request the Reader to begin with the last part of the Book and end with the first part in his reading And if he meet with any sharp and tart laguage let him remember the Persons whom it concerns whose Actions were more base than the most nipping and satyrical pen could rehearse For what villany so great as for Subjects to murther their gracious King Oh Heavens could the Godly do this Do this Yes root up our Laws and Religion destroy our Church and murder our Prophets with many thousands of their innocent Brethren and yet be accounted Saints too But from such Saints good Lord deliver us who took away the Kings and Bishops lands and then voted them Papistical and dangerous to the Church and Common-wealth It was Naboths Vineyard which made him a Blasphemour and Jack Presbyter would never have made a Covenant to extirpate Episcopacy as contrary to the power of Godliness had not the Bishops had Land and the Presbyter much Pride and more of the form than of the power of Godliness in him But Multa cadunt inter caliceÌ„ Supremaque labra the Independents stept between home and him got the honor of cutting off the Kings head and took to themselves the Revenues of both King and Bishop So that now Iohn could rellish a King and the Office of a Bishop I like his Appetite well but I pray God he do not spoyl the meat in the chewing it But renowned General Monk hath now cheared us with the hopes of a Free-Parliament which will put a period to our miseries that is they will bring in our exiled King without whom they will be but a Gallimaufrey of Confusion increasing not diminishing our Distractions for no Parliament without the King And no doubt but our famous General holds the Scripture Canonical and will never dissent from his Father Solomon who thus teaeheth and commandeth all of us My Son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change for their calamity shall rise suddenly and who knoweth the ruine of them both Prov. 24.21 22. To the Author of the Royal Buckler or a Lecture to Traytors TO speak what ev'ry one desires and in a strain That suits with ev'ry Hearer is no pain No trouble to profess the bloody Creed Of Mahomet among the Turks no need To be afraid amidst ones friends but he That talks of Virtue before Villanie Who can be Christian among the Crew Of Sectaries and bid defiance to the Jew He that i' th worst of Times dares to be good Like Capel seals his Ligeance with his Blood Can strive against th' impetuous wind and wave And all their joynt-conspiracies outbrave In spite of Fortune resolutely stand To argue with a bloudy treacherous Land That Man 's a Man indeed can stoutly cry Hosanna when the Throng sayes Crucifie Sir such are you and such your Lines to whom Or to your shrine Posterity shall come Laden with Laurels and the little brood Of them whose hands were in their Prince's bloud Shall justifie thy Book and read therein Their own Misfortunes and their Father's Sin Shall read the Miracles of Providence And borrow matter for Romances thence Thus Sir your Pen shall to your self create A Monument beyond the Pageant state Of breathless Oliver or those Poor men That rul'd
with all Religions but be sure to lead the Van in the most prevalent it matters not whether it be true or false let them look to that who intend to obtain eternal advantages of it we look no further than to enjoy the temporal A Bird in the hand is worth two in the bush It is the greatest obstacle to generous actions not to personate that Religion which will serve ones purpose best be it Canonical or Apocrypha and doubtless that Religion which brings the greatest profit and largest incomes is the most sacred and most consonant to Scripture But why should I blur my paper with the Description of this deceitfull Parliament the Theory whereof is become practical almost in every City Let us therefore lament at the funeral of our Laws and Religion and throw one sprig of rosemary into the grave where all our Rights Libertyes are buried That Son giveth cause of suspition of his Legitimation who will not mourn at his Mothers death And surely he was never a true born Son of the Church or Law that will not shed a tear when they are both fell to ruin Some though very few good Eleazors amongst us have lost their heads and lives for our Laws and Religion And although I am not worthy to dye a Martyr for them Haud equidem tali me dignor honore Yet whilst I live it living tears shall fall from mine eyes for them For Qâ—is talia fan do Mrmidonum Dolopumve aut duri miles Vlyssis Temperet a lacrymis Who what Puritan Independent Anabaptist Presbyterian Quaker c. Or Red-coat as bad though not worse than any of them can restrain his Adamantine heart from grief and his eyes from tears when he considers the deplorable conditions which they have brought upon our Kingdom Who as it now plainly appeareth had no other quarrel against King than because they were not Kings themselves nor no other reason against Episcopacy than because each of them was not a Bishop They could never yet produce any argument sufficient unless the sword to prove that King or Bishop was not Jure Divino And now behold what the sword hath brought them unto I remember Cadmus sowed the teeth of a Serpent which sprung up armed men who presently destroyed one the other I will not determine that the seed of these men came from a Serpent but sure I am they cannot deny themselves but that they destroy each the other like Cadmus his men They kick the Government of our Kingdom about from one to the other like a foot ball And it will be marvail if some of them do not break their shins a swell as their consciences before the game is ended They make the Government Proteus-like to turn into what shape they please a true Common-wealth indeed being common to so many Rivalls And as the unruly Quadrupedes whirried about the Chariot Phoebus their lawfull Soveraign being absent untill they had set the whole world on fire so it is to be doubted that these headstrong Bears having cast away the rains of true obedience will not leave to wurry us untill they have brought us to utter ruine O England England Hei mihi qualis erat quantum mutatus ab illo How is thy fame besmeared and thy honour laid in the dust Once the envy of the whole world for the glory of thy Laws and Religion now become a by-word and a laughing-stock to all Nations Venit summa dies ineluctabile tempus The Sentence is already past and the decree is gone forth and nothing can avert the wrath of an angry Deity Tantaene animis caelestibus irae Can the Almighty be so passionate We want a Moses and we want an Aaron to intercede and make an attonement for us We want a Jonah to preach repentance And we want the hearts of Nineveh to entertain it We have done worse than to touch the Lords annointed and have killed his Prophets all the day long We have not reverenced his Sanctuary But have made it a den of Theeves and Stable for Beasts not altogether so bad as our selves O God why hast thou cast us off for ever why doth thine anger smoak against the Sheep of thy pasture O deliver not the soul of thy Turtle Dove unto the multitude of the wicked Forget not the Congregation of thy poor for ever Fuimus Trâ—es fuit Ilium ingens Gloria Toucrorum Remember thy old mercy and remember our former estate For though now like People like Priest The Prophets lye and the People would have it so Yet like Bethlehem we have not heretofore been the least amongst the Princes of the World We have had those who have thought it Melius tondere qaam deglubere oves better to trimm us than to flea us and Melius servare unum quam occidere mille better to preserve one than kill a thousand Who have been Tardus ad vindictam ad benevolentiam velox slow to do evill and revenge but swift to do good and reconcile Loving Pax bello potior peace better than war and esteeming it Pro patria mori pulchrum honourable to dye for their Country Which they have done and all Law Religion Justice and Equity with them Cum uno paricidio junxerunt juris divini naturalis juris gentium omnium legum publicarum privatarumque eversionem reipublicae perturbationem libertatis populi oppressionem Senatus abolitionem nobilitatis exterminationem innocentium damnationem peculatum aerarii publici direptionem solennis conventionis infractionem perfidiam jurisjurandi violationem statuum omnium confusionem immo subversionem Tempora mutantur nos mutamur in illis Sal. Therefore let no man be offended if I attend the funeral and say something on the behalf of the deceased It is a Christian duty and none will account it superstition to give an Encomium at burialls where it is due unless those who account it superstition to deserve well themselves De mortuis nil nisi bonum We must say nothing but good of the dead Therefore behold the Monument in these insuing political Aphorisms The Monument of the Laws or Regal and Political Aphorisms whereby the Prerogative of the King and the just liberties of the People are set forth and authorized by the Law of God and the Law of the Land KIngs are Jure Divino by Divine right to be obeyed and not by violent force of subjects to be resisted although they act wickedly Prov. 8.15 By me Kings raign Dan. 2.21 He removeth Kings and setteth up Kings Prov. 16.10 A Divine Sentence is in the lips of the King Prov. 21.1 The Kings heart is in the hand of the Lord. Job 34.18 Is it fit to say to a King thou art wicked and to Princes ye are ungodly Prov. 24.21 Fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change Eccl. 8.2 I counsel thee to keep the Kings Commandment Exod. 22.28 Thou shalt not speak evil of thy Prince
nor detract the Magistrate 1 Pet. 2.17 Fear God honour the King Prov. 30.31 A King against whom there is no rising up Eccles 10.20 Curse not the King no not in thy thought 1 Sam. 24.6 The Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my Master the Lords anointed to stretch forth mine hand against him seeing he is the anointed of the Lord. From which premisses none unless those who deny the Scripture can deny these Consequences That the jura regalia of Kings are holden of Heaven and cannot for any cause escheat to their Subjects That active obedience is to be yielded to the King as Supreme in omnibus licitis in all things lawfull But if God for the punishment of a Nation should set up a Tyrannical King secundum voluntatem pravam non rationem rectam regentem governing by his depraved will against reason and commanding things contrary to the word of God we must not by force of arms rebel against him but rather than so if not prevailing by Petition unto him or escaping by flight from him patiently submit to the losse of our Lives and Estates and in that case Arma nostra sunt preces nostrae nec possimus nec debemus aliter resistere Our prayers and tears should fight and not our Swords For who can lift up his hands against the Lords anointed and be guiltless This in Scripture we find practised by Gods people to Pharaoh Exo. 5.1 and the same people to Nebuchadnezzar a Tyrant were commanded to perform obedience and to pray for him Though there was no wickednesse almost which he was not guilty of His Successor Darius Daniel obeyed and said O King live for ever Dan. 6.21 For now no private person hath with Ehud Judg. 3.21 extraordinary commandment from God to kill Princes nor no personal warrant from God as all such persons had who attempted any thing against the life even of Tyrants Nil sine prudenti fecit ratione vetustas 2. The King hath his Title to the Crown and to his Kingly office and power not by way of trust from the people but by inherent bigthright immediately from God Nature and the law 1 Reg. Ja. ca. 1. li. 7.12 Calvins caâ—e 3. The Law of Royal government is a Law Fundamental 1 pars Jnst fo 11. 4. The Kings Prerogative and the Subjects Liberty are determined and bounded by the Law Bracton fo 132. Plowden fo 236 237. 5. By Law no Subjects can call their King in question to answer for his actions be they good or bad Bracton fo 5 6. Si autem ab eo petatur cum Breve non Currat contra ipsum locus erit supplicationi quod factum suum corrigat emendet quod quidem si non fecerit satis sufficit ei ad poenam quòd Dominum expectet ultorem Nemo quidem de factis suis praesumat disputare multo fortius contra factum suum venire If any one hath cause of action against the King because there is no Writ runneth against him his only remedy is by supplication and petition to the King that he would vouchsafe to correct and amend that which he hath done which if he refuse to do Only God is to revenge and punish him which is punishment enough No man ought to presume to dispute the Kings actions much lesse to rebel against him 6. The King is the only Supreme Governour hath no Peer â— his Land and all other persons have their power from him 3 Ed. 3.19 Bracton li. 1. cap. 8. Sunt etiâ—m sub Rege liberi homines Servi ejus potestati subjecti Omnis quidem sub eo ipse sub nullo nisi tantum sub Deo Parem autem non habit in Regno suo quia sic amitterit praeceptum cum par in parem non habeat imperium Item nec multo fortius superiorem nec potentiorem habere debet quia sic esset inferior sibi subjectis inferiores pares esse non possunt potentioribus Ipse autem Rex non debet esse sub homine sed sub Deo sub lege quia Lex facit Regem The King hath no superior but the Almighty God All his people are inferior to him he inferior to none but God 7. The King is Caput Reipublicae the Head of the Commonwealth immediately under God 1 Jnst 73.1 h. 7.10 Finch 81. And therefore carrying Gods stamp and mark among men and being as one may say a God upon Earth as God is a King in Heaven hath a shadow of the Excellencies that are in God in a similitudinary sort given him Bracton fo 5. Cum sit Dei vicarius evidenter apparet ad similitudinem Jesu Christi cujus vices gerit in terris That is to say 1. Divine Perfection 2. Infinitenesse 3. Majesty 4. Soveraignty and Power 5. Perpetuity 6. Justice 7. Truth 8. Omniscience 1. Divine perfection In the King no imperfect thing can be thought No Laches Folly Negligence Infamy Stain or Corruption of blood can be adjudged in him 35. h. 6.26 So that Nullum tempus occurrit Regi 2. Infiniteness The King in a manner is every where and present in all Courts And therefore it is that he cannot be non-sute and that all Acts of Parliament that concern the King are general And the Court must take notice without pleading them for he is in all and all have their part in him Fitz. N. B. 21. H. 25. H. 8. Br tit Non-sute 68. 3. Majesty The King cannot take nor part from any thing but by matter of Record and that is in respect of his Majesty unless it be a Chattle or the like Because De minimis non curat Lex 5. Ed. 4.7 4 E. 6.31 2 H. 4.7 4. Soveraignty and Power All the Land is holden of the King No action lyeth against him For who can command the King He may compel his Subjects to go out of the Realm to war Hath absolute power over all For by a clause of Non-obstante he may dispense with a Statute Law and that if he recite the Statute Though the Statute say such dispensation shall be meerly void 7 E. 4.17.21 H. 7.2 H. 7.7 Calvins case Bracton Rex habet potestatem jurisdictionem super omnes qui in regno suo sunt ea quae sunt jurisdictionis pacis ad nullum pertinent nisi ad Regiam dignitatem habet etiam coercionem ut delinquentes puniat coerceat And therefore ought to have the Militia 5. Perpetuity The King hath a perpetual succession and never dyeth For in Law it is called the demise of the King and there is no Inter-regnum A gift to the King goeth to his Successors though not named For he is a Corporation of himself and hath two capacities to wit a natural body in which he may inherit to any of his Ancestors or purchase Lands to him and the heirs of his body which he shall retain although he be afterwards removed from his Royal estate and a body
have the supreme power over the people is proved in Adam and testifyed by the Law of God the Law of Nations The Law of Nature The Law of Reason The Law of the Realm and by the Oathes of all English men aswel Parliament men as other Magistrates though since broken by our Saviour by the Apostles by all the Fathers of the Church and by all Christian People and Religion The glory of the Martyrs which have sacrificed their lives in this just cause shall live for ever and the Rebells shall go out with stink like the snuffe of a Candle The Majesty and power of the King described Good subjects commended and the punishment of Traytors with Korah Dathan and Abiram manifested The sad effects if the people should have the supreme power and proved by reason that no Government could stand nor any man whatsoever live if the people had power to question the King or other their Governors Two supreme powers cannot stand together Trayterous Tyrants alwayes pretend Liberty and Religion with which they blinde the ignorant people The Oath of Supremacy by whom taken and by whom broken with all Gods Commandments with it How the People of England deal with their King HAving satisfied all but those whose profit it is to believe the contrary who have no other grounds for their belief than other mens grounds and estates that Kings receive their power from God and not from the people and are independent from all but the Almighty I shall now shew 1. That they have the Supreme power over the people 2. That they are above the Law 3. That they are not to give account of their actions to the people but only to God and so conclude that there can be no just cause for the subjects either to take up armes against their Soveraign to call him to the bar to accuse him to condemn him or to kill or murther him First with the first That the first King was made in Paradice your have already heard and that there he received his dominion and power but from whom did he receive his power from God hath not God therefore greater power than the Kingâ— he hath From whence do the people derive their power from the King Hath not the King therefore more power than the people he hath Constituens Constituto potior The Constituent is better and higher in place and dignity than the Constituted But the power of God Constituted the power of Kings Ergo the power of God is greater than the power of Kings And quod efficit tale magis est tale that which maketh any such or such is in it self much more such or such But the King giveth power to the people Ergo the power of the King is higher than the power of the people The King is the only fountain from whence all the streams of authority flow to the people It is he that is the Magazine from whence they derive their power And Derivativa potestas non potest esse major primitiva a Derived power can not be greater than the primitive Therefore those men who place Soveraignty in the palace of the peoples breasts must needs be more knaves than fools for so great ignorance cannot roust in their pates who are so worldly wise But let them glosse the text with what false Commentaries they please make white black and black white and muster up dark clouds of jugling riddles to dazle the purblind sight of the Rascal rable of the people who think the Gown makes the Lawyer That that must needs be Law which the Judge saith esteem all things by their exterior apperances and only know how to be ignorant whose deceived foolishnesse is the Chariot on which our men of war ride triumphant from one degree of wickednesse to another Yet notwithstanding Legibus eversis rerum natura peribit the Law of nature shall perish and the Heavens and Earth shall passe away before Lex Terrae the Law of the Land shall deny this Oracle Omnis sub Rege ipse sub nullo nisi tantum sub Deo All men are under the King and the King is under none but God this is that Divine sentence quod nec Jovis ira nec ignes Nec poterit ferrum necedax abolere vetustas which neither angry Jove nor fiery Vulcan neither devouring age nor the bloudy sword a worse devourer than that shall ever expunge out of our Law-Books or explode out of the memory of every pious man This is that which many worthies have written with their blouds and sealed with their lives To this have many died Martyrs whose fame shall out-live the Sun and their memories be engraven upon the marble of everlasting monuments whilest others their opposers would be glad to have the stench of their ignominious names buried in the grave of oblivion where leaving them let us return to our King For nullum tempus occurrit Regi It is alwaies seasonable to do allegiance to the King whose power like the Ocean is boundlesse and his authority like the wind goeth where it listeth he only can proclaim war and he only can conclude peace he only can call Parliaments and dissolve them when he pleaseth he appointeth what Magistrates he pleaseth and turneth out whom he pleaseth all Laws Customs Privileges and Franchises are granted and confirmed to the people by him He raiseth men that are dead to life again for those that are condemned to die by the Judges are dead in Law but the Kings pardon reviveth them again He hath the sole power of ordering and disposing all the Castles Forts strong Holds Ports Havens and all other parts of the Militia He is the breath of our Nostrils the life head and authority of all that we do Supremam potestatem merum imperium apud nos habens having the Supreme power and meer empire over our bodies members lives and estates he doth whatsoever he pleaseth to be short he is our King And where the word of a King is there is power and who may say unto him what dost thou Eccle. 8.3 4. But so greedy is humane nature of dominion and covetous to rule that we have some amongst us who professe themselves to be born Kings they are Kings by birth nay greater than Kings are here For Par in parem non habet Dominium one King cannot command another King But these men use Kings as Children do birds in a string give him what Liberty and Authority they please clip his wings lest he should fly too high for them put pins in his eyes to make sport with him and clip off his head too to make known their authority But doubtless these men were never bred in Christs University Did they ever hear of him If they did it is the worse for them For they which know the will of God and do it not will fare never the better for their knowledge It is better to be an ignorant fool than a cunning knave Reddite quae sunt Caesaris
Almighty hath said that ye are Gods and I will not say that ye shall die like men The radiant beams of your Countenance declare you more than mortal For in the light of the Kings countenance there is life saith Solomon Prov. 16.15 Neither is their voice like the voice of other men For A divine Sentence is in the lips of the King and his mouth transgresseth not in judgement Prov. 16.10 Therfore I will conclude that the King is a sacred Deitie A day in his Courts is better than a thousand I had rather be a door-keeper in the house of the King than be a Protector c. and reign in the tents of wicked Traytors For the Kings Throne is established by righteousnesse and mercy but Traytors reign by their Villanies and raise themselves up by the bloud and downfall of their superiors But God hath given his judgements to the King and his righteousnesse unto the Kings son and he will judge the people with righteousness and the poor with judgement Therefore kiss the son lest he be angry and ye perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little blessed are all they that are trusty and faithfull unto him I counsel thee to keep the Kings commandment and that in regard of the Oath of God Be not hasty to go out of his sight stand not in an evil thing for he doth whatsoever he pleaseth Rejoyce greatly O daughter of Zion shout O daughter of Jerusalem behold thy King cometh unto thee he is black but comly he is just and will be a nursing father to the people his Queen shall be a nursing mother For God hath made him our King And our King cannot be made glad with our wickedness But our lies and hypocrisie grieve him to the heart The King by Judgement shall establish the Land It is abomination to Kings to commit wickednesse neither is it for Kings to drink wine Mercy and truth preserve the King and his Throne is upholden by mercy Therefore thrice happy would the people be if they did not rebel against the Lords anointed who is righteous and pious For when the righteous are in authority the people rejoyce but when the wicked beareth rule the people mourn Rebellion is as the sin of Witchcraft and stubornnesse is as Iniqvity and Idolatry and an evil man only seeketh Rebellion Therefore a cruel Mâ—ssenger shall be sent against him For if ye rebel ye shall be devoured Therefore Rebel not against the Lord nor the King But when he cometh salute him Hail King but not of the Jews for you professe yourselves Christians Therefore learn of Christ obedience to the King But sâ—ppose you were Jews the Jews abound with reverence to their King and loath to be so wicked as to murther their King For when Pilate said Behold your King shall I Crucify your King They answered We have no King but Caesar accounting it a most barbarous and worse than Jewish act for any people to crucifie their King though in a way of publique justice Therfore even of the Jews let Christians learn their duty to their King and rejoyce at his coming as the Bribe doth at the approach of the Bridegroom The Husbandmen indeed in the Gospel killed the servants and when the son came to demand the fruits of his Fathers Vineyard they conspired against him and said This is the Heir come let us kill him and the Inheritance shall be ours But they were wicked and their Judgement and doom was miserably to be destroyed to have their Vineyard taken from them and to be let out to others who would yield better obedience and render the fruits in their seasons Therefore let all men take heed that they doe not perish in the gainsaying of Core and with those wicked Idolaters Isa 8.21 Curse their King and their God and look upwards Whose reward is Hell where the Devil shall curb them and rule over them for ever because they would not let their King whom God placed over them be as in truth he was and is their only lawfull Soveraign It is so well known to every one who knoweth any thing how the Heathens did honour their Kings as Gods not onely when they were dead but also whilst they were living that it would not only be losse of inke and paper but also expence of time which is better to relate the particulars But pudet heu their obedience and allegiance may shame aswell as be a pattern to the Christians of our age who wander so far from the path their Lord and Master went in And if any one be desirous to know how God hath alwayes esteemed of Kings and with what reverence Gods people have alwayes obeyed them I refer him to the Bible Where I may with confidenee speak it there is no duty more commanded and prest upon the people than obedience and no sin so much punished as Treason and Rebellion And the chiefest end of their obedience to the King is not only for God his glory and the Kings honour but also for their own good praise and profit For for this cause did the Apostle exhort the people to pray for Kings and all that are in authority That we may lead a quiet and peaceable life for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour 1 Tim. 2.2 O Melilaee Deus nobis haec otia fecit Virgil could tell that the welfare of the King brought Tranquillity and Peace upon the Land and therefore he calleth him a God Nay he will therefore honour him as a God Namque erit ille mihi semper Deus saith he And I fear his allegiance and due obedience will rise in Judgement to condemn many who profess themselves Christians yet by their actions are worse than Infidels who Judas like pretend loyalty to their Soveraign whilest they plot and contrive with a kisse to betray him But Judas hanged himself and if these men do not hang themselves It is a great mercy beyond their deserts if some body else do not do it for them before they live out half their dayes For in the fifth Commandment which as Divines hold is most obliging We are commanded to honour our Father and Mother by which words are meant Kings Princes and other Magistrates That our dayes may be long upon the Land which the Lord our God giveth us which is the first Commandment with promise as St. Paul observes Ephes 6.2 But this promise is not absolute lt is upon this condition that we honour and obey our Soveraign and if we do not perform our parts God is not tyed to perform his If we break his Commandments he may well break his promise which was made only on that condition that we should obey and if we had loved him we should have kept his Commandments But whosoever breaketh one one of them it were better for him that a milstone were hanged about his
perform any wickedness which our power will assist us to effect Sen. Medea Tremenda caelo pariter ac terris mala Mens intus agitat vulnera caedem vagum Funus per artus levia memoravi nimis Haec virgo feci Homicides Paricides Mauslaughters murthers oppressions deceits extortions briberies and such like offences we committed in our youthful years when the Gospel was first planted in England but now we are become great proficients in Christianity we are now high and mighty Christians not fit to be fed with milk as babes and sucklings but with the bloud of Kings Regicides are our passe-times and to murther the King is holden to bee one of the chiefest Principles and proofs of a sound Christian whole Nations gather together and make a Covenant to murther their Kings which they hold to be as sacred and as beneficial as the old or new covenant in the Bible but Quae scelere pacta est scelere rumpetur fides That Covenant and trust which is made by wickedness by wickedness may be broken which doth most evidently appear in the transactions of the English and Scotish Rebels For they most wickedly swore and made a Covenant against the King like those Traitors of whom King David complained Psal 102.8 And after they had murthered the King then they swore and made Covenants one partie against another so that like those wicked men in Hosea 4.2 by swearing and lying and killing and stealing and committing adultery they break out blood toucheth blood because there is no truth nor mercy nor knowledge of God in the land verifying the Proverb of King Solomon Prov. 26.27 Who so diggeth a pit shall fall therein and he that rolleth a stone it will return upon him for Rebellion by which they murthered the King is returned upon them and they now rebell one against the other so that we may truly say their own iniquities have taken the wicked themselves Prov. 5.22 and they perish by the devices and imaginations of their own hearts fulfilling the Scripture Prov. 11.21 Though hand joyn in hand the wicked shall not be unpunished but the seed of the righteous shall be delivered For notwithstanding all the wicked plots and inventions of the bloody Rebels yet is our King C. 2. the seed of our most righteous Soveraign whom they destroyed delivered out of their hands as the bird out of the nets and snares of the fowler or as the innocent Hart out of the mouthes of the bloudy hounds Whilest they rage and are madd one against the other O the goodness and providence of the Almighty God! Where the word of a King is there is power and who may say unto him what dost thou Eccles 8. 2 3 4. The fear of a King is as the roaring of a Lion who so provoketh him to anger sinneth against his own soul Prov. 20.2 What sins then are we guilty of who not only provoke our King to anger but quench his anger with his own bloud St. Peter teacheth us another lesson which you cannot hear too often 1 Pet. 2.13 17. Submit your selves to every ordinance of man for the Lords sake whether it be to the King as supreme or unto Governours as unto them who are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers and for the praise of them that do well for so is the will of God Honour all men love the Brotherhood Fear God and honour the King And to see the Civil Law and the Divine Law go hand in hand harmoniously agreeing and consenting to lead a loyal subject into due obedience and allegiance to his Soveraign is no less delightful to the Royalist than envyed by the Rebels which Barclay doth out of the best Civil Lawyers sum up together cap. 14. saying Principem ex certa scientia supra jus extra jus contra jus omnia posse Et esse crimen sacrilegii instar disputare de potestate Principis Et Principem esse legem animatam in terris Et Principem solum posse condere statuta licet humanum sit quod consilio Procerum utatur Denique Principem posse tollere leges positivas quia illis non subjicitur sed illae sibi Et Deum Principi leges subjecisse nullam Legem ejus Celsitudini imponi posse Et licet de jure aliquid non valeat si tamen Princeps de facto mandat servari perinde est ac si de jure valeret quoad subditos Et solum Principem soli Deo habere de peccato reddere rationem soli Caelo debere innocentiae rationem Et temerarium esse velle Majestatem regiam ullis terminis limitare Et Principem re vera esse solutum Legibus The Latine is so elegant that I will not cloath it in English raggs None but blind Sodomites who grope for the wall at noon day will not here see the door which openeth to obedience and go in concluding That the King is free from the Laws and cannot be limitted by any humane invention may do what he please if he be more a Tyrant than Phalaris or Nerone Nerouior degenerate from all humanity and prove a Wolf to his People Yet by the Law of God by the Law of Nations by the Law of Nature by the Law of the Land by the example of all Saints by the rule of Honesty and by all equitable considerations It is not lawful for his Subjects nor any man or any degree or sort of men within his Dominions upon this pretence of Tyranny to rebel against their Soveraign For if any cause should be allowed to be just for the Subjects to rebel then that cause would alwayes be alleged by the Rebels though in truth they had no such cause at all For whom one man and his Company did esteem a good Pious and Religious Prince another party would proclaim him wicked Tyrannical and Idolatrous And who shall be judge between them but the sword and then Excessit medicina modum The remedy would be worse than the disease For it is an undoubted truth that Subjects did never despose their Prince although he was a Tyrant But that a multitude of Tyrants far worse than they pretended their Prince to be did rise up in his room By the cutting off the head of one snake twenty snakes grow in the same place Therefore it is not profitable aswell as not lawfull for subjects to resist their King For hear what Bodine saith O how many Tyrants should there be If it should be lawfull for subjects to kill their Soveraigns though Tyrants How many good and innocent Princes should as Tyrants perish by the conspiracy of their subjects against them he that should of his subjects exact subsidies should be then as the vulgar people account him a Tyrant He that should rule and command contrary to the good liking of the people should be a Tyrant He that should keep strong guards and garrisons for the safety of his person should be Tyrant He that
nisi qui se pronunciavit esse justitiam If any of us offend the King thou mayest correct us but if thou shalt exceed who shall correct thee we may speak unto thee and if thou wilt thou mayest hear us But if thou wilt not none can condemn thee but he who is Justice it self Therefore every one should endeavour to be that true obedient described by St. Bernard Verus Obediens non attendit quale sit quod praecipitur hoc solo contentus quia praecipitur He that is truly obedient regardeth not what is commanded being content only with this that it is commanded We should be as diligent to obey and preserve our King as the apple our eye and take asmuch delight in him as we do in the light for he is worth ten thousand of us Therefore the Israelites would not let David their King adventure himself in the war against his rebellious Son and their reason was Thou art worth ten thousand of us so in the war against the Philistines They swear Thou shalt no more go out with us because they esteemed him as the light of the Kingdom and say 2 Sam. 18.31 That thou quench not the light of Israel if he should miscarry they accounted themselves to be but in darkeness And if we were true Israelites indeed in whom there was no guile we should have the same estimation of our dread Soveraign nulli pietate secundus who is a second David But suppose he was as he is not a Tyrant were it not better for us to serve one hard yet honourable Master than a hundred domineering yet base â—red Tyrants Si pereo manibus hominum periisse juâ—abit If we must be killed and made slaves of let the King who is our superiour do it and not our servants who have no greater pedigree than anâ—ient servants and no other cause of their promotion than their wickedness Praestat timere unum â—uam multos It is better to fear one than many Better one woolf than many to put our lives in continual hazard It is a Maxime in Law that the King shall have the estates and protection of their persons who are non compos mentis Ideots c. May not the King then justly and with good title by this rule challenge both our estates and our persons Surely he may for if we were not worse than mad men and fools we should never expel a gracious and merciful Soveraign and subject our selves to a company of the Lord knows what A monster without head or tayl more wonderful than Chimaera they would and they would not they themselves cannot tell what to make of themselves neither can any man tell where to have them like empty clouds and foggy mists they are blown about with every winde But it is to be feared that the Devil will catch them at the long run who now drink bloud like sponges and only know how to be wicked oppressing both Law and Religion Did the King demand Ship-mony as by the Law in extraordinary cases he might and was he condemned and vilifyed as unjust and a breaker of the peoples liberty What are they then who against all Law and Equity take away all that we have only to satisfy their own ambitions Atheistical appetites and to maintain themselves in their most wicked devillish and incomparable villanies Did the King demand five treacherous Members of the Parliament whom the Law would have condemned guilty of high Treason And was he adjudged an Enemy to Parliaments and an Infringer of their freedoms What are they then to be adjudged who do what they list hang or draw our Members and persons and play with Parliaments as Children do with Rattles or as Butchers their slaughtering axes throw them away when they have done with them and dismount and thrust out that * what do you call it * Quondam Parl. which first gave them their being O viperous brood who destroy that viper which ingendred them But since by the Law of the Land Mad men shall not be punished for committing of Felony or Murther Lest we being mad-men and fools as I have said before should murther our King and think to excuse our selves by pleading non compos mentis Let me tell you that though one that is not of his right mind shall not be punished if he commit Felony Murther petite Treason c. Yet if he kill or offer to kill the King it is high Treason and he shall suffer punishment as other Traytors ought to do let Cook the Oracle of the Law give the reason li. 4. fo 124. Car le Roy Est Caput salus Reipublicae a Capite bona valetudo transit in omnes pur cest cause lour persons sont cy sacred que nul doit a eux offer violence mes il est Reus criminis laesae Majestatis pereat unus ne pereant omnes For the King is the head saith he health of the Commonwealth upon whom the safety of all doth depend and for this cause the Kings person is so sacred that no man can offer violence to the King but he is guilty of high Treason for which he shall die For it is better that one perish than all And since it lyeth in my way this will I speak for the credit of the Common laws of our Realm That though the Law of God the Civil Law and all other Laws do as it were strive to excel each other in maintaining and defending the Prerogative of Kings yet doth not our Common Law which is founded on the Law of God come behind any of them For I should want words to expresse and Paper to contain the many privileges and just immunities which the Law giveth its Soveraign the King and if the Judges had been as just to execute the Law as Dunn the Hangman is The head and feet had still injoyed their proper Functions and there would as there ought still have been a difference betwixt the Servant and the Master the Subject and the Soveraign But silent leges inter arma our law-books like broken Vessels are laid aside and our Laws like Cobwebs are not taken notice of except it be to wipe sweep them away that the Corruption of one thing is the perfection of another is a rule in Philosophy And do not the Sophistical Philosophers of our times prove and approve this rule by practice who perfect themselves by the ruine of the Laws The Sword is their pruning-hook by which they lop others to make themselves grow the better they bait all their designs with Liberty and Rellgion and so catch the people into Hell when they think to go to Heaven The principal end of Government is the advancement of Godâ— honour but these men make the safety of the people the sole and only end of Government only that they might murther their King the Shepheard make a prey of the sheep his subjects and so feed the cruel appetite of themselves the
Woolves with the destruction of the Innocent I need no other proof for this than every mans experience Virgil. Tantane vos generis tenuit fiducia Vestri Jam caelum terramque Dei sine numine venti Miscere tantas audetis tollere moles Quos Deus at motos praestat componere fluctus Post sibi non simili poena commissa luetis Maturate fugam Regique haec dicite vestro O ye Empty Clouds and raging winds of Ambition could Attempts enter into your Dunghill thoughts as to assassinate your King provoke Heaven and molest the Earth Durst you encounter the Almighty pitch battail and sight against his Deity Are your Commandments above his and can your Statutes repeal his Hath not he in his Vpper-house constituted a King and commanded you to honor and obey him and can your Mortal nothings in the Lower-house next door to hell vote him useless Can you put asunder that which Jehovah hath joyned together and take away not only the Crown but the life also of your dread Soveraign Can you do these things and look upwards Aposiopesis But God will that he will Ah rather repent of your villanies It is better for you I think though not your deserts to go peaceably to Heaven than to be thrown headlong into hell For there you will be murthered with the Devils and you cannot murther any more Kings death lyeth at your door and after this life ended you shall not be punished with the Sermons of holy Ministers or with Gods Word which is now odious unto you But with the Scorpions of the Devil Beelzebub and his Angels shall execute Tyranny over you in the infernal pit as you and your Angels have done over the Lords anointed and his innocent subjects in the open air before God and man Therefore Repent for Repentance is your nearest way to salvation Maturate fugam Regique haec dicite vestro Make haste and go and tell your King these things That you are sorrowful and that it gnaweth and biteth your seared Conscience to think that you should be the Authors of so great a wickedness beg his gracious pardon restore his sacred Patrimony which you have torne in pieces and cast lots for his pardon and peace with him will do your Souls more good than all his Lands or Royalties Acknowledge his Soveraignty as ye ought and set the Crown again upon his head which you did injuriously pluck off or else the time will come that one drop of the many tears and waters which you have caused to flow from the eyes of the Royal party their Widdows and Orphans shall be more desired of you to cool your tongues than ever their estates and honours were If a Thief should set upon you or any other subject to rob him It is lawful for the honest man to draw his sword and kill him if he can How dare you then with violence set upon your King to rob him not only of his goods but also of his life yet because he defended himself and so some of the Rebels slain Therefore you impeach him of high Treason and murther O monstrous did you ever hear of any Law in the whole world that ever the King could commit high Treason Be dumb for you did not The Laws of England are divided into three parts viz. 1. Common Law which is the most antient Law of the Realm 2. Particular Customes 3. Statutes or Acts of Parliament There is no offence punishable by the Laws of England unless it be against one of these Laws He that doth not offend against the Law is no sinner for where there is no Law there can be no transgression I had not known sin saith St. Paul but by the Law Rom. 7.7 Then cannot the King be guilty of Treason to the people or of any other offence punishable unless he offend against one of these three Laws And that he did not offend against any of them nor was guilty of those offences laid to his charge by any one or all of those Laws is as clear as the Sun and a Maxim with all honest men For 1. The Common Law is nothing else but the general custome and common usage of the Realm Finch 77. Plowdens Com. 195. Therefore the King cannot be an offender or guilty by the common Law nor the people have power to call him in question for any of his actions because it is so far from being the general custome and common usage of England for the King to be punished by the people that before this first and last great and monstrous distractive and destructive wicked and abominable murther of the last most gracious and merciful King such a thing was scarce ever heard of or entred into the thoughts of any English man Therefore the Rebels are cast by common Law and the Chancery will never give relief against the common Law li. 4.124 D. and St. So that take them which may you will this Dilemma will hang them Amen 2. Customary Law is where a particular custome grounded upon reason differeth from the general usage and common custome of the Realm Now to prove that the King is not an Offender against this Law would be a thing altogether frivolous and ridiculous it being known to every one that he cannot 3. Statute Law is a Law positive made by the King with the assent of the Parliament And there is no Statute or Act of Parliament in England which maketh any offence in the King high Treason or that giveth the people power to call the King to an account accuse or condemn him But there are many offences committed by the people made high Treason against the King by several Acts of Parliament But that the King could commit Treason against the people is such a novelty that Heaven nor Earth never heard of before perditious England hatcht it But since our age is much given to fictions Let us for once feign with our false Republicans That by the antient fundamental Laws of the Realm The King might commit Treason against the people and be a Traytor to the Common-wealth for which the people might lawfully question him Yet since Leges posteriores priores contrarias abrogant The Statute Law may alter and abridge the common Law The King cannot now commit Treason against the people nor be a Traytor to the Commonwealth Because by the Statute made 1 H. 4.10 and several others It is enacted by authority of Parliament who as the common people think may do any thing vote Heaven Hell or Hell Heaven That in no time to come any Treason be Judged otherwise than it was ordained by the Statute of 25 E. 3.2 In which Statute I am sure there is no mention made of any Treason but only against the King as any one may read at large which Statute being it was made by Benedictum Parliamentum a blessed Parliament for so it was called Co. Inst 3.2 I commend it to the perusal of every English man as the best
But these men with their practice most wickedly affirm it King Henry the 7 â— h and many Burgesses and Knights of the Counties being first attainted by Act of Parliament of high Treason against Richard the 3d. The question was in H. the 7 ths Parliament How this Act of Attainder should be reversed and made void It was resolved by all the Judges That those Knights and Burgesses which were attainted should not sit in the House when the Act of Attainder was to â—e reversed But when that Act was reversed then they might come again and sit in Parliament But as for the King it was unanimously agreed and resolved by all the said Judges that ipso facto when he took upon him to be King that he was a person able and discharged of the Attainder for said they the King hath power in himself to enable himself without a Parliament And an Act for the reversal of the Attainder is not at all necessary See 1 H. 7.4 Com. 238. Parliament B. 37. and 105. In which case you may see the power of a King of a King that was attainted of the greatest offence viz. High Treason Here likewise you may view the power of a Parliament of a Parliament who had asmuch right to dethrone their King as ever the long Parliament or any other had Here likewise you may hear the voyce of the Law of the Common law not since repealed by any subsequent Statute But as it was then so it ought to be now the Resolution of all the Judges in England That the King hath power to take pardon and ought not to crave pardon of the people for his offences The Crown once gained taketh away all defect is the Sentence of the Law and an Adage amongst all honest Lawyers If the people had the Supreme power why was not the Attainder of the King in this precedent case reversed by Act of Parliament as were the Attainders of the other Members If the King be but an Officer of trust deputed by the people and receiveth his power from them Why was not the King in this case freed from his offence by the people What would they entrust a person attainted of so great an offence as high Treason with the highest place in the Common-wealth And yet not permit others guilty and attainted of the same offence not so much as to fit and Act as Members of the Parliament without they were first purged of their offence It doth not stand with reason that the highest Offender should exercise the highest office And doubtless if the people had had power the Parliament would have cleared King H. the 7th from his crime before he should have Officiated his Office of Kingship But that Parliament well knew that the feet were not higher than the head and that the Inferiour Members could not impose Laws on the King their Soveraign They knew with Bracton that the King Parem non habet in Regno suo had not in his Kingdom any single man or the people his equal Therefore since it is the Law of the land Magna Charta 29. That no mâ—n shall be judged but by his Peers and being the King hath no Peer or Peers in his Dominions They resolved not to judge their King nor to commit so great a vanity as to reverse the Attainder For can a King be attainted or can the people who have no authority but what they have from him have authority to correct and revise their King O foolish imagination Horac Caelo tonantem credidimus Jovem Regnare praesens Divus habebitur Augustus adjectis Britaunis Imperio Jove governs Heaven with his Nod King Charles he is the earthly God Great Britain being his lawfull Inheritance Our King Augustus high and mighty Solus Princeps qui est Monarcha Imperator in Regno suo Davis Irish Rep. fo 60. Our only Prince who is both Monarch and Emperor in his kingdom hath only authority and the only right to govern the Britains who though long since have been accounted Rigidi hospitibus feri rigid and cruel to strangers yet that they should ever so much degenerate as to be rigid and cruel to their own natural King and kill their natural Soveraign is such a wonder and murther that never entred into the thoughts of former ages and will be a bugbear and scar-crow to all succeeding generations for by robbing their King of his Crown and Life they have robbed the Turk of his cruelty Judas of his treachery and all the Devils of their malicious wickedness For the Turks cruelty Judas his perfidious treachery and the Devils malicious villanies do all conjoyn to make up and center in an English Rebel one of those beasts who like the Enemies of King David Psal 102.8 Have sworn together against their King are mad upon him and revile him all the day long Yet that they may seem religious even when they commit Sacrilege they like the Devil when he tempted our Saviour taking him up into an exceeding high mountain and shewing him all the kingdoms in the world and the glory of them saying unto him All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me Mat. 4.9 will promise fairly and as if they were resolved diametrically to oppose St. Peters Doctrin who commands them 1 Pet. 2.16 Not to use liberty for a cloak of maliciousness they use the liberty of the people as a Wolf doth the Lambs skin to destroy poor Lambs as the only cloak and cover for all their malicious wicked prodigious and damnable actions For if you ask them for what cause did they murder the King Their answer is for the liberty of the people For what cause do they make themselves Governours and Lords and Masters over all that we have For the liberty of the people For what cause do they subvert the Laws expell and throw down the orderly and holy Clergie and all Religion with them For the liberty of the people For what cause do they enslave the whole Nation For the liberty of the people Nay these men are so well furnished with godly pretences and wicked intentions that even whilst they cut the peoples throats they make them believe they give them a blessing And as the man who swore that the Coat of the true owner was another mans only because he might have the use of it himself So these men have the impudence to swear though not without perjury that the Supreme power is in the people only because they might throw down our royal Government with all goodnesse with it and use that Supreme power themselves which they protest is in the people O delusive Mountebanks Was there ever such a jugling deceit acted by any Jugglers or Quacksalvers in the world Surely there was not And did not every one nay they themselves very well know the truth of what I have said I might easily make it clear and evident even to the blind with multitudes of Examples For
who was it that murthered the King Was it the people Every man knoweth that it was neither the people nor the Parliament But a Company of Jesuitical treacherous Rebels and damnable Usurpers Who flaming the people in the mouth with a tale that the supreme power was in the people made use of this power themselves against the wills of the people as an Engine to perform and bring to passe all their wicked and horrible designs But say they we are the peoples Representatives chosen by the people and so what we do they do Catch a Knave without a Knaves answer and he will give you leave to hang him I must confesse if this were true they might have somewhat the more colour though not the more honesty for what they do But this is as false as themselves For the people chose them to sit in Parliament and act according to the Kings Writ as part of the Kings Parliament according to the Laws of the Realm But since the Parliament is destroyed for what Parliament can there be without a King and House of Lords such a headlesse Monster was never seen untill of late Consequently their power which they derived from the people is gone also Neither are the Commons in Parliament the representative body of the whole Kingdom or people For they do not represent the King who is the head nor the Lords who are the nobler and higher part of the body of the Realm the Commons only represent the Inferior and lower sort of the people but if they did as they do not represent the whole body yet did not the people ever give them any power to cut off their Kings head For the Lords voted it unlawful all the honest Commons forsook the House and the people were all displeased except a few of their own hatching up and every one else murmured against it The Nobility mourned The Gentry were amazed The Common people wept and men women and Children did cry The Heavens cloathed themselves in black And the Sun hid his face The Lion King of Beasts died at the â—ight of his royal blood And the wild foules came wondering to see this execrable fact on the Scaffold And if the Thundering and Lightening of the Almighty be a true sign of Gods Angry Deity Then even from this we may conclude that these Regicides took too much upon them and very much provoked his wrath For Diespiter Igni coruseo nubila dividens Plerumque per purum tonantes Egit equos volucremque currum The Heavens roared with thunder which made the earth shake and the darts of fiery lightening threatened the ruines of both And who can think upon this worse than Gunpowder-Treason plot for then was but intended that which now is put in Execution viz. The murther of our gracious King and the subversion of all Laws and Religion with him and not justly expect all the Plagues of Aegypt and the punishment of Sodom and Gomorah to fall upon him and the whole people For Hor. Hoc fonte derivata clades In patriam populumque fluxit From the death of the King as from a fountain did flow the slaughter of the Nobility and people with the ruine of the Glory and freedom of the English Nation Tantae molis erat perversam condere gentem Such and so great villanies were perpetrated to raise this generation of Vipers Yet forsooth they will tell you that the supreme power and Soveraignty is in the people and that they act under them O grand Delusion Did the people turn out the long Parliament Did the people set up Oliver Protector Did the people turn out Dick his son Did the people foist up again the Rump of the long Parliamene Or did they hunt them out again Did the people sanctifie the Committee of Safety over them Or did they hunt in the Rump again Or have they made all the Revolutions and Choppings and Changings amongst us No neither the people nor their Representatives But the Devil his Representatives have been the cause of all our subversions For as the people have not so neither did the twentieth part of them ever challenge or claim the supreme power But have alwaies acknowledged the Soveraignty to be only in their King and only Soveraign only under God Reader take notice that in many places of this Book by the word Parliament is meant those Traytors the House of Commons who have unjustly usurped the name of Parliament For by the known Laws of the Land there can be no Parliament without the King Therefore let every one of the Regicides repent and pray to God to open his eyes and that the scales of blindnesse may fall from them that he may see his duty which is so evidently written in the Scripture and all other pious Writers which is to fear God and to honour his King which is acceptable in the sight of the Lord. And so I shut up my discourse with these verses which I would have the Reader get without book for his Edification Astra Deo nil majus habent nil Caesare terrae Sic Caesar terras ut Deus astra regit Imperium regis Caesar Deus astra gubernat Caesar honore suo dignus amore Deus Dignus amore Deus dignus quoque Caesar honore est Alter enim terras alter astra regit Cum Deus in coelis Caesar regâ—t omnia terris Censum Caesaribus Solvile vôta Deo A Tyrant without a Title set out in all his Colours and proved by the Laws both of God and man by the sentence of all honest and wise men by the vote of Antiquity and several Examples That it is most lawfull and glorious for any man either publique or private to fall upon Tyrants and kill them without Examination according to the usual forms of Judicature Where the consent of the people after Vsurpation makes an Vsurpers Title good and where not That the assent of the people cannot ratify any Government without him so long as their King liveth though banished but all their acting is Illegal How Tyrants pretend the safety of the people only for their own safe-guard and how they delude the people with specious names for their Magna Latrocinia their great villanies and robberies The Devil was a Rebel so are they and like Satan they have their power only by permission with an incitement to all men to execute them for these are not the Dignities we should obey LEt us now take our Swords in our hands and arme our selves to incounter with this Tyrant sine Titulo a Tyrant without a Title That bird of prey that beast of the game Orbis flagellum that scourge of the world that Devourer of Mankind Fulmen belli that Thunderbolt of war that Maule of the earth Poliâ—rcletes that destroyer of Cities that Hangman that Murtherer that great Robber whose might is his only right whose multitude of thieves makes him formidable builds himself up with honest mens blood feared by all men and fears
take it for a curse or do things worse Some would have children those that have them mone or wish them gone What is it then to have or have no wife But single thraldome or a double strife Our own affections still at home to please is a disease To crosse the sea to any forein soil perils and toil Wars with their noise affright us when they ceasâ— we are worse in peace What then remains but that we still should cry Not to be born or being born to die The King of Englands Soveraignty proved and approved by the Common Law to be above both Parliament and people inferiour to none on earth but God Almighty and that neither the people of England nor any other his Subjects either distributively or collectively in one intire body ought to call the King in question for his actions though they be never so wicked The sweet harmony and concordance of the Law of God and the Law of the Realm in maintaining the Royal Prerogative of our Soveraign manifested The Kings Coronation is onely a Ceremony no part of his Title How the Changeling Statesmen of our times who will not endure that the King should have Soveraignty over them his vassals make themselves absolute Kings over the Scripture and Law books and make the Law and the Gospel speak in what sense their wicked wills and lusts vouchsafe Resistance of the power unlawfull The Subjects duty to their Soveraign Their Reward and remedy if they be punished wrongfully Reverend Bracton cleared from Mr. Pryns false aspersions Mr. Pryns Character his Book entitled the Soverâ—ign Power of Parliaments and Kingdomes arraigned convicted and condemned and his confident averment therein That it was not Saint Pauls nor the Holy Ghosts meaning to inhibit defensive wars of the Subjects against their King proved to be Apocriphal and that Saint Paul like an honest man spoke what he meant when he said Let every soul be subject to the higher powers though Mr. Pryn would have his words and his meaning two things How Mr. Pryn worshipped the long Parliament heretofore as a Sacred Deity when it acted wickedly and now despiseth it as idolatry and an Advertisement to him to write a book of Retractations To go about to prove that the King of England c. hath the Supreme power over the Parliament and people deserveth as much derision as to go about to prove that the Sun shineth at noon day or that the heavens are above the earth yet since there are those amongst us who like the Sodomites grope for light in the clearest day and have the iâ—pudence to publish for truth that which their conscience telleth them is false I will give you a tast of our Lord the Kings Soveraignty which lieth dispersed and scattered about in our Law books Jus Câ—ronae The Law of the Crown is the principal part of the Laws of this Realm Co. Lit. 11.b. 15. b 344. a 25 E. 3 cap. 1. Register inter jura Regia 61 c. For since the Common Law of the Land is common usage expressed in our books of Law and judicial Records Co. Lit. 344 a. Plowden 195. Finch 77a. The Government of this Kingdome by a Royal Soveraign is become a Fundamental Law being as antient as history it self and used from the time whereof the memory of antiquity is not to the contrary And since that the ligeance faith obedience of the Subject is due unto the King by the Law of nature Co. l. 6. fol. 12. as well before as after the municipal and Judicial Laws were made our Law-books like faithfull Subjects being the Magazine of law from their Alpha to Omega could preach no other Doctrine than Allegeance faith and due obedience to their Soveraign the King whom they all confesse and testifie to be the Supreme lord and head of the Common-wealth immediately under God above all persons in all causes Finch in French fol. 20. in English 81. Co. lib. 2.15 Le Roy est caput salus Reipublicae à capite bona valetudo tranfit in omnes lib. 4.124 the King is the fountain of Justice tranquillity and repose Plowden 242. Therefore Nil desperandum Rege duce Auspice Rege Nothing can come amisse to us the King being our guide and Soveraign Reges sacro aleo uncti spiritualis jurisdictionis sunt capaces Kings being the Lords Anointed are nursing Fathers to our Church The King of England est Monarcha Imperator in Regno suo Davis Irish reports fol. 60. the Almighty hath said that they are gods and our common laws of England being founded on the laws of God do likewise attribute to them a shadow of the Divine excellencies viz. VVingates Maxim fol. 301. 1 Divine perfection 2 Infinitenesse 3. Majesty 4 Soveraignty 5. perpetuity 6. Justice 7. Truth 8 Omniscienc Of which I have already treated Nay as God is a King in Heaven so the King is stiled a God upon Earth Finch 81. He is the Head Father Physician and husband of the Common-wealth He is Gods Lieutenant Deputy Vicegerent receiving his Commission from God not from the people These are the titles which the Common Laws of England give to the King A Divine sentence is in the lips of the King his mouth transgresseth not in judgement Prov. 16.10 saith Gods word Therefore the Law receiveth it for a Maxim That the King can do no wrong Co. Lit. f. 19. He is Rex gratia Dei non populi King by the grace of God not of the people The most high ruleth in the Kingdom of men and giveth it to whomsoever he will Dan. 4.17 Therfore all the Lands and Tenements in England in the hands of Subjects are holden mediately or immediately of the King but the King is Tenant to none but God 8 H. 7 12. Co. Lit. 1. For Praedium Domini Regis est Directum Dominium cujus nullus author est nisi Deus Only God is the author and Donor of the Kings Dominions Therefore the possessions of the King are called sacra Patrimonia Dominica Coronae Regis The King is the Lords anointed 1 Sam. 10.1 Therefore the Law giveth reverence to his Person and maketh him supreme in Ecclesiastical causes The villain of a Lord in the presence of the King cannot be seized because the presence of the King is a protection to the villain for that time 27 ass Pla. 49. Is it fit to say to a King thou art wicked and to Princes ye are ungodly Job 34.18 Therefore no Civil much lesse Criminal action lyeth against the King if he doth unjustly the only remedie against the King is by petition and supplication for who shall command the King Stamford Praer fol. 5. Bracton fol. 5. Flera fol. 17. Finch 13. The Prerogative which the Common-law giveth the King is so large as Sir Henry Finch saith that you shall find that to be law almost in every case of the King that is law in no case of the Subject Finch fol. 85.
non debet nec multo fortiùs superiorem and a little after in the same Chapter Exercere Rex debet potestatem juris sicùt dei vicarius in terra et minister quia ea potestas solius Dei est The King doth excell all his Subjects in power He hath no Equal much lesse a Superiour because his power is from God only he is Gods Vicar Therefore not the Peoples And again li. 1. ca. 8. Item in temporalibus sunt Imperatores Reges et Principes in hiis quae pertinent ad regnum et sub eis Duces Comites Barones magnates sive Vavasores et Milites et etiam liberi et villani et diversae Potestates sub rege constitutae And a little after sunt etiam sub Rege liberi homines et servi ejus Potestati Subjecti Et omnis quidem sub eo et ipse sub nullo nisi tantum sub Deo Parem autem non habet in regno suo quia sic amitteret praeceptum cum par in partem non habeat imperium Item nec multo fortius superiorem nec potentiorem habere debet quia sic esset inferior sibi subjectis et inferiores pares esse non possunt potentioribus ipse autem Rex non debet esse sub Homine sed sub Deo et sub Lege quia Lex facit Regem Dukes Earls Baronets Knights the Worthies of the Land Free-Men and Villains all are under the King and the King under none but God He hath no Peer in his Realm because then he would lose his command for amongst Equals there can be no Empire therefore much lesse hath he any Superiour or more powerfull than himself because then he would be inferiour to his Subjects and Inferiours as the Subjects are cannot be equal with the more powerfull as the King is But the King ought not to be under man but under God and the Law because the Law makes him King But what if the King should swerve from the Rules of the Law destroy his Subjects and their Estates without a cause May the Subjects take up arms against their Soveraign and compell him by force to do that which they cannot perswade him to by fair meams No saith Bracton li. 1. ca. 8. Si autem ab eo petatur cum breve non currat contra ipsum locus erit supplicationi quòd factum suum corrigat et emendet quod quidem si non fecerit satis sufficit ei ad paenam quod dominum expectet ultorem Nemo quidem de factis suis praesumat disputare multo fortius contra factum suum-venire No Enditement of high Treason c. lieth against the King our only remedy is to Petition his sacred Majesty but if he will not hearken to our just and reasonrble requests satis sufficit Nay his punishment is more than enough for he must render an account one day to him who judgeth righteously who will give us all a hearing the Beggar as well as the King But let not men in the mean time presume to question the deeds of the King much lesse Rebel against him and undoe by force what the King shall do though not according to right And that you may know that Bracton fully meant that the Subjects ought not to rise against the King though he acted unjustly He repeats his mind in other places li. 5. Tract 3. de defaltis cap. 3.3 where he puts the case that if the King should do injury and will not suffer the Law but his will to take place Quo casu cum dominus Rex super hoc fuerit interpellatus in eadem perstiterit voluntate quod velit tenentem esse defensum injuria cum teneatur justitiam totis viribus defensare ex tunc erit injuria ipsius domini Regis nec poterit ei necessitatem aliquis imponere quòd iâ—laâ— corrigat et emendet nisi velit cum superiorem non habeat nisi deum et satis erit illi pro paena quòd deum expectat ultorem If the King who is bound to administer justice to his utmost power being Petitioned will not recall and amend the wrong he did he injures his Subjects but no body can force him to do right because he hath the Supreme power he hath no Superiour but God and it is punishment enough for him to expect that God to whom vengeance only belongeth will take vengeance on him To every point which I have cited out of Bracton doth Fleta unanimously agree What man then so impudently wicked What hand so wilfully audacious what pen can there be so repugnant and contradictory to all truth as to affirm and publish to the world that Bracton writeth and is so to be understood viz. That the people have the Soverainty over the King and may call him in question for his actions so punish him for his offences O Traytor to the King and Sycophant of Bracton Mr. Willian Prynne of Lincolns-Inne is the man who with his Hand and Pen I cannot say Heart hath promulged this false Doctrine to the World in his Book called The Soveraign Power of Parliaments and Kingdoms Wherein according to Mr. Sandersons expression in his History of King Charls the 1st fo 117. Prynne pretends to overthrow all Scripture proofs against killing Kings and Princes For my part I bear not the least grudge or animosity to the mans person But his book is such a rapsody of nonsense a bundle of Rebellion and Treason a Pamplet so Seditious Pernicious Sophistical Jesuitical Trayterous and Scurrulous that I want Mr. Prynnes Epithites to give his own book its deserved Odium Wherein as Mr. Fuller in his Church History lib. 11. fol. 152. well observeth he delighteth more to be numerous with many than ponderous with select quotations which maketh his Books to swell with the losse of tentimes of the Reader sometimes of the Printer and his pen generally querulous hath more of the Plantiff than of the Defendant therein I mention Mr. Prynne and his book here only to put him in mind of the wrong which he hath done both to our Soveraign the King and the whole Kingdom He being the greatest if not the only Champion who rook upon him to vindicate and applaud those treacherous damnable and rebellious proceedings and unchristian inhumane and unnatural Warr against the King of that Monster called the Long Parliament whom now he laboureth as much to vilifye as he did then to promote O Trayterous Offspring which killeth his Mother only because she will not give him suck If he repent why doth he not write a book of retractations If he looketh upon his book intituled The lawfulnesse of the Parliaments necessary defensive War both in point of Law and Conscience I am sure he will have cause enough to repent of his writing if he hath any Law or Conscience in him And he hath no way better to redeem his credit than by a publique Confession God may pardon him and the King may pardon him if
he repenteth But without repentance he must expect nothing but a Traytors reward in this World I leave him to Gods mercy in the World to come But since it is the manner of Worldlings to set the best side formost the purest grain commonly lyeth in the mouth of the Sack and a fair Apple many times hath a rotten coar Therefore behold the specious Title of Mr. Prynnes book and the cunning Sophistry in his Mental Reservation by which he hath deceived the common people befooled himself and undone the whole Kingdom the Title of his book is The Parliament and Kingdom are the Soveraign power Any man would think that by the word Parliament Mr. Prynne meant the King the House of Lords and the House of Commons because by the Law of the Land there can be no Parliament without the King neither can the two Houses by Law act any thing without him and then if he means so no man will deny but that the Parliament hath the Soveraign power But alas he hath no such thoughts he means as by the stuff of his book is manifest that the two Houses or the major part of them have the Soveraign power and that they may enact any thing without the King as well as with him Thus by lifting up the Legs and Feet too high he hath given the Head a fall and battered the whole Body into pieces O unhappy Member who would have the Heels execute the Office of the Brains and maintain the Warr of the inferiour Members against the Superiour to be legal and consciencious In his Epistle Dedicatory to the Lords and Commons whom he calleth Eternally Renowned Senators and most cordial Philopaters he will not now tell you they were eternal Mr Prynne termeth all contrary opinions to his though they be the opinions of Bishops and farr better Lawers than himself to be but the vain empty brain-sick lying fancies of a few illiterate impolitick Court Chaplains Lawyers Sycophants c. How irreverently and discourteously he hath dealt with his Gracious Soveraign Lord and Master the King let his book judge where he can scarce speak of the King at any time without taxing him with perjury lying popery and murther He raileth against the treachery and disloyalty of Popish Parliaments Prelates Lords and Subjects to their Soveraign and so concludeth that they have made greater innovations and encroachments on the Crown and in an higher degree than ever did the long Parliament which he hopes will for ever silence the clamorous tongues of all ill Counsellers Courtiers Royalists Malignants Papists and Cavalliers against the proceedings of that Parliament see the 1. part of his Book fol. 33. as if the excessive abundance of other mens sinnes would justifie the sinnes of the long Parliament And indeed the most of his arguments are à facto ad jus which especially in the Kings case is no argument at all The books of the Royalists to maintain the Kings just prerogatives he calleth anti-Parliamentary Pamphlets and the Authors of them he calleth Malignant Popish Vipets illiterate ignorant injudicious Court Doctors and Lawyers and Anti-parliamental Momusses But is not Mr. Prynne the Anti-parliamental Momus and viper who setteth the body above the head maintaineth that the two Houses or the major part have the Soveraign power may act without the King levy warre against him and kill him too by defending themselves which as he telleth you he will justifie both in point of law and conscience O unhappy law O the no Conscience which teacheth men to kill Kings and the Subjects to levy warre against their Soveraign David the Lords anointed cryed The Lord forbid that he should do this thing But Mr. Prynne a Presbyterian cryeth The Lord forbid that it should not be done Oh the difference between a holy David and a rigid Presbyterian He maketh the ignorance as he termeth it of other men the greatest ground of his arguments He calleth all Divines and Lawyers a company of seemingly scient though really inscient self-conceited Court Doctors Priests and Lawyers Doctum genus indoctissimorum hominum vix ad Doroberniam usque docti who hold an opinion contrary to his truely so named by himself Vid. Epist 1. part of Soveraign power c. dangerous Paradoxes and upstart Enthusiasmes He endeavoureth to make us all our Ancestors and all Kingdomes fooles himself the only omniscient He revileth the King and all his royal party by the names of Murtherers Popish cut-throats ignorant Momusses and an unnatural generation of popish and malignant vipers But To his ever honoured noble kind friends the right Honourable Lord Ferdinando Fairfax the right worshipfull Sir William Waller and Sir William Bruerton Knights Commanders in Chief of the Parliaments forces which is the superscription to his Epistle of the 3d. part of the Sovereign power c. These he calleth in the Vocative case Deservedly renowned worthies So that as none but Homer could expresse the praises due to Homer so none but Mr. Prynne can expresse the aspersions which Mr. Prynne hath cast upon his Master the King and his betters the loyal Royalists for who can come after Mr. Prynne in railing where he letteth his pen flye out You must take his own interpretations for true Maxims and his own meaning both of Scripture and Law-books must go for current Doctrine otherwise you spoil his whole building and that which he recites for him will be most against him Nay his averments must passe for undoubted axioms But you will ask me then How can Mr. Prynne be clear from the guilt of blasphemy who in his 3d. part of the Soveraign power of Parliaments fol. 6. declareth himself in these words viz. I dare confidently averre it was never the thought nor intention of Paul or of the Holy Ghost to inhibit Subjects by defensive armes to resist Kings themselves under pain of damnation For my part I will not invectively censure Mr. Prynne as guilty of Blasphemy nor scold at him as a Subverter of Scripture Parasite c. as he hath done at others who are contrary to him in opinion but let me tell him that if he had averred that it was never the thought nor intention of St. Paul or the Holy-Ghost to inhibit Subjects by offensive arms to resist Kings themselves under pain of damnation I should have as soon believed him for Saint Paul saith Rom. 13.1 2. Let every Soul be Subject unto the higher Powers for there is no power but of God the powers that be are ordained of God whosoever therefore resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation Now if St. Pauls thoughts and intention be not according to his words then Mr. Prinns confident averrment perhaps may be true but if St. Paules thoughts and intention be according to his words as most certainly they are then Mr. Prinns averrment is but a false allegation and a belying of St. Paul and the Holy-Ghost for by Saint Paules Doctrine he
is never good which turneth again and the good Christian will suffer himself to be broken in a thousand pieces before he will turn again with resistance against his persecuting King for why He knoweth that though he suffer here on Earth yet God will glorifie him in Heaven though he be contemned by the King yet he shall be exalted by God and though he dye by the Kings unlawfull command yet his comfort is that his dead body shall arise by the eternal Decree of the Almighty and so the good will always receive praise of the Power Neither are the Rulers a terrour to him because he always aboundeth with good works Hor. Integer vitae scelerisque purus Non eget Mauri Jaculis nequè arcuâ— Nec Venenatis gravida sagitis Fusce Pharetra Who lives upright and pure of heart Oh Fuscus neither needs the Dart Nor Bow nor Quiver fraught with store Of Shafts envenom'd by the Moor. Innocence is the only buckler which protecteth a loyal Subject from the terrour of his Soveraign But Traytors who have rebelled against their king deserved death by the known Laws of the Land These men must preach up Mr. Prynnes Doctrine to cover their malice hold the truth in unrighteousnesse and when with offensive Arms contrary to all Law and Religion and against their allegiance and oaths they set upon the Kings sacred Majesty and with an innumerous multitude of unhallowed Rebels they fight against and strive to murther their dread Soveraign in the open Air They must have the impudence with Mr. Prynne to excuse themselves may think it a glorious Apology To averr confidently that it was never the meaning of St. Paul nor the Holy Ghost to inhibit Subjects to take up defensive Arms against Kings themselves And thus they invoke St. Paul himself and the Holy Ghost to patronize their wicked Treasons and unparallel'd Rebellions and belch out Blasphemy to defend their injustice and themselves from the justice of their injured Soveraign The Apostles did not only teach us with their Doctrine that resistance of the power was unlawful but also suffered themselves to be wickedly massacred and murthered before they would resist an unjust power Nay all the primitive Christians which Mr. Prynne confesseth although they were many in number and sufficiently able to defend themselves against their Persecutors by force and Arms yet did refuse to do it yielding themselves up to any tortures punishments deaths without the least resistance of the power either in word or deed Nay our Saviour himself acknowledged that Pilate had power given him from above to Crucifie him as you may read in St. Iohn 19.10 Then saith Pilate unto him Speakest thou not unto me knowest thou not that I have power to Crucifie thee and have power to release thee Jesus answered Thou couldest have no power at all against me except it were given thee from above Therefore he which delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin Yet Mr. Prynne with his confident averrment for he cannot bring one word of Scripture for what he saith goeth about to maintain the defensive Warr as he calls it of the Subjects against their Soveraign Lord the King lawfull both in point of Law and Conscience Tantumnè potest suadere malorum Religio Could his Religion do this His surely and only his for it is against the foundation of Christian Religion and Mr. Prynne must publish a new Gospel or else rectifie the Bible at the Presbyterian Oracle before his King-killing books will be Canonical He bringeth his arguments from the time that never was nor ever will be for saith he 2d pâ—rt of his Soveraign power of Parliaments fo 82 83. Kingdoms were before Kings ergo the King hath no absolute negative voyce c. I alwayes thought that Kings were before Kingdoms they being correlativa and doubtlesse if Fathers were before Sons and Masters before Servants then Mr. Prynne speaks nonsense but for his Apology you must understand that he means Countryes and people were before Kings but I think that is false too for the first man Adam was a King and Mr. Prynne cannot shew any time before England was governed by Kings And the word Kingdom in the Reports of our book cases and in Acts of Parliaments also is oftentimes taken for the King himself as you may read in Calvins case lib. 7.12 Therefore since by the Laws of the Land there can be no Parliament without the King that the word Kingdom is often used for the King himself who can deny the truth of the Title of Mr. Prynnes book which saith That the Parliament and Kingdom are the Soveraign power But latet anguis in herba Open the leaves of his book and you will see the mystery of iniquity clouted together If the King saith Mr. Prynne dye without heir then the people might make what lawes they should think fit Ergo the Members at this day have power without the King to make Lawes and are the most absolute supreme power and law-giver not the King If the Sky fall we may perhaps catch Larks but it doth not therefore follow that we may catch Larks presently Mr. Prynne knoweth that it is a Maxim in Law that the King never dyeth But admit the King should dye without heir and that then the people had power to make Lawes yet grosse it were to conclude that the members of the two Houses might so do because they are dissolved and are extinct when the King dyeth Therefore with more reason as a Royalist observes the King might argue thus All the lands in England are holden mediatly or immediately of the King and if the owners dye without heir by the lawes of the Realm their lands escheat to the Crown and so become at the Kings disposal But every man may dye without heir Ergo All the lands in England at this present are the proper inheritance of the King No Lawyer can deny Major or Minor yet the Conclusion thereupon is absurd The Court of Parliament saith Mr. Prynne hath power to avoid the Kings Charters c. made against law Ergo it hath the Soveraign power and is above the King and why not Ergo the Court of Chancery or any other of the Courts of Law at Westminster have the soveraign power and are above the King for they have power to nullifie and avoid the Kings Charters c. made against Law But I am sick of Mr. Prynnes impertinence and nonsense if any one be desirous to drink more of it I referre him to the Ocean his Book I will only give you a taste of the abuses which Mr. Prynne hath cast on Venerable Bracton and how Mr. Prynne endeavoureth to make Bracton speak Mr. Prynne's own sense against Bracton's own sense expresse words and meaning And since Mr. Prynne can make the Gospel and Holy Ghost speak what he pleaseth no wonder if he hath the Law-books at his beck Bracton saith as you have already heard That the King
odious woman when she is married and an Hand-maiâ— that is Heir to her Mistresse Is not our Englanâ— disquieted with all these Oh who can bear it yet these Tyrants rejoce at it Delight is not seemly for a Fool much lesse for a Servant to have ruâ— over Princes Pro. 19.10 Yet these Slaves tryumph over their Prince and scoff at his Miseries And as the Jews in a deriding manner said of oâ— Saviour This is Jesus King of the Jews So thesâ— Jews scoffingly call their Soveraign Lord The King of Scots yet keep his Kingdom from him jeeâ—ing him out of his Estate O Heavens As perpetually afterwards so allwayes before the Conquerour the legislative power did continue in the King tanquam in proprio subjecto as in the true and proper subject of that power and the Kings Edicts were the only positive Laws of the Realm and indeed who can be a King without this power for what difference is there between the King and Subject but that the one gives the Laws the other receiveth them And most clear it is by all Historians that the Common Council of our antient Kings were composed only of Prelates and Peers the Commons were not admitted to any Communication in affairs of State Camden in his Britannia telleth us that in the times of the Saxon Kings and in after Ages the Common Council of the Land was Praesentia Regis Praelatorum Procerumque collectorum The presence of the King with the Prelates and Peers Ingulphus who dyed before 1109 saith Rex Eldredus Convocavit Magnates Episcopos Proceres Optimates ad tractandum de publicis negotiis Regni He did not call the Commons So Edward the Confessor that great Legislâ—tor made all his Laws without the consent of the Commons Now when the Norman Conqueror one of the Praedecessors of Charles the Martyr came in who had a triple title to this Kingdome to wit by Donation Conquest and by the Consent of the people for as it is well known when Edward the Confessor lived in Normandy he gave this Kingdom after his decease to William Duke of Normandy as he was his kinsman near of bloud so that the Conquerour was heir of the Crown to the Confessor by adoption Which title if it was invalid you must know he was a Conquerour and no man will deny that Conquest maketh a legal title Jure Belli But suppose both those titles were as they were not invalid yet by the Law of Nations the Consent of the people maketh an inviolable title even to an Usurper in continuance of time if they have no other lawfull King much more to a lawfull Soveraign And his people our Ancestors ever since the Conquest for the space of about six hundred yeares have all done allegiance to and unanimously resolved that the Conquerour and his Successors were our only true Kings Liege Lords and Soveraigns having the supreme power over us and never did the people claim power to depose the King until those Monsters at Westminster under pretence of such a power murthered Charles the first and against all Law Justice and Equity and against thâ— wills of the people make themselves masters of our lives and fortunes and of all that we have taking them away when they please It would make a man cry and it would make a man laugh to see what fools these fellowes make of us Royal Government by Kings hath been used here time out of mind and approved by all our Ancestors to be the best of Governments and most natural and profitable for us yet these few stinking Members at Westminster made an Act March 17. 1648. contrary even to their own Oaths and Protestations to abolish the Kingly Government as unnecessary I use their own words burthensome and dangerous to the people as if this small company consisting of fifty or sixty at the most of the Scum and tail of the people were wiser and knew what was better for us than all our Ancestors both noble and ignoble in all ages But what was their reason to abolish Kingship To make each of themselves Kings nay Tyrannical Kings over us So may the slave say that the government of his Lord over him is unnecessary burthensome and dangerous and therefore he will murther his Lord and make himself Maâ—ter changeing the name and execute the office worse So may High-way men take away the true owners purse and tell him it was unnecessary for him to keep it or by the same law may thieves murther and rob the Master of his house and then vote the Master burthensome and dangerous to his family Yet notwithstanding while these Tyrants destroy our fundamental Government Lawes Religion Freedoms and Liberties making of us absolute slaves villains only to satiate their lust and pleasure yet even then they stile themselves The Keepers of the Liberty of England by Authority of Parliament Close and trusty keepers of our liberty indeed for we can come at none of it they keep it from us not for us so Wolves may call themselves keepers of the Lambs which they have caught or by the same law may a Cut-purse be called the keeper of the purse and be said to have the same care of it for they are heepers of our liberty only to keep themselves For by what authority was this Individuam vagum the Keepers erected By what authority why they will tell you by authority of Parliament Cunning Curres How they take the people with this word Parliament when God knows they themselves were all the Parliament by whose authority the thing called Keepers I know not what they be for I never yet heard them named were invented So may Adulterers vote themselves keepers of Chastity or so may I murther a man against his will and then call my self keeper of his life by his authority For they destroyed the Parliament when they destroyed the King and there hath been no Parliament since Vide 1 H. 4. Rot. Parl. n. 1.14 li. 4. Coke 4 Inst p. 46. and 4 C. 4. f. 440. Therefore they most falsly call themselves a Parliament Neither are they the Representatives of the people as I shewed before but a company of Ungracious Tyrants acting against the wills of the people Yet forsooth they tell us that the people have the supreme power and that they act for the people being their Representatives Just as if I should take away all that another man hath against his will and then tell him that he hath the supreme power over his goods and that I took them away by his authority and power or as if I should take away his money without his leave and tell him that I am his Representative So these Foxes cozen the people with nonsensical cheats and in all things are Representatives of the Devil not of the People for they all well know and some of them have declared so that if the people might chuse their Representatives those Representatives would restore the King to his
is as much to say as Tenures de persona Regis because the head is the principal part of the body and the King is the head of the body of the Commonwealth Which Tenures brought many profits and commodities to the Crown which would be too tedious here to particularize and are a clear testimony of the Kings Soveraignty For no man can alien those lands which he holdeth in Capite without the Kings Licence if they doe the King is to have a fine for the contempt and may seise the land and retain it untill the fine be paid By example and in imitation of the King For Regis ad exemplum totus componitur orbis Did the Nobles and Gentry of this Nation to whom the King had given large portions of land grant out parcells of their land to their Servants and under-Tenants reserving such services and appointing such like Tenures as the King did to them as Homage Fealty c. whereof you may read plentifully in Littletons Tenures But their Tenants in doing Homage and Fealty to them did alwayes except the Faith which they did owe unto the King As in their making Homage appeareth viz. I become your man from this day forward of Life and Limb and of earthly worship and unto you shall be true and faithful and bear you faith for the Tenements I claim to hold of you saving the Faith that I owe unto our Soveraign Lord the King Though they Swore to become the men of and be true and faithfull to their Lords yet not so but that they still were the men of and ever would be true and faithful to the King their Soveraign who was Lord over their Lords and over the whole Realm Omnis homo debet fidem Domino suo de vita membris suis terreno honore observatione consilii sui per honestum utile salva fide Deo Terrae Principi Lib. Rub. cap. 55. We can oblige our selves to no men so deeply as to take away our allegiance and fidelity towards the King We must be for God and the King in all things all our actings and undertakings should tend to their Glory which would prove our greatest good and comfort Homagium Ligeum is only due unto the King the Law prohibiteth us to do Homage to any without making mention of this Homage due unto the Lord our King therefore we must not be opposite to or armed against him but both our lives and members must be ready for his defence because he is Soveraign Lord over all Co. Lit. 65. As the Conquerour did make all his Subjects Feudaries to him so likewise did he change our Lawes and Customes at his pleasure and brought in his own Country fashions which is the Common use of Conquerours He caused all Lawes to be written in his language and made what Lawes he thought meet Quod Principi placuerit legis habet vigorem whatsoever the King willed was the only law His fiat was as binding as an Act of Parliament and what he voted no man no not the whole Kingdome had power to dispute There was no question then made but that the King ought to have the Militia neither did any one think of much lesse deny him a Negative voice The Commons then thought it an high honour to look upon the Kings Majesty a farre off To sit and rule their families at home was all the Jurisdiction which they had or claimed They had not power to condemn one of their servants to death much lesse their Soveraign Lord the King from whom they then and we now have our being The King had not then made them so much as the Lower House nor ever did admit them to his Counsel The Lords their Masters were only deemed worâ—hy of this dignity for why Tractent fabrilâ—a fabri Let the Shepheard keep his sheep and the Hogheard keep his hogs and not meddle with the tuning of musical Instruments Though the Plow-man can drive and guide his horses well yet he would make an ill Pilot to steer a ship The Blacksmith may have skill to make a horse-shooe but he would rather marre than make a watch The Commons may make good Subjects but experience teacheth us they will rather destroy both King and Kingdome than reform or rectifie either Therefore the Kings of England did never admit the Commoners into their Counsels much lesse intrust them with the Legislative poâ—er For it is a Meridian truth that as before so from the Conquest until a great part of the Reign of Henry the third in whose dayes as some hold the writ for election of Knights was first framed the Barons and Prelâ—tes only made the Parliament or Common Council of the Realm whom the King convoked by his Royal Summons when he pleased Neither did the Council so convened consist of any certain number but of what number and of what persons the King vouchsafed Nay clear it is by the Lawes made in the Reign of Edward the first which was above two hundred yeares after the conquest that there was no certain persons or formed body whose consent was requisite to joyn with the King in making an act of Parliament but when the King conceived it fit to make a Law he called such persons as he thought most proper to be consulted with Indeed at the Coronation of Henry the first all the People of England were called by the King and Laws were then made but it was per Commune Concilium Baronum And that King and his Successours did not usually call the Commons but made Laws with the advice of which of their Subjects they pleased and as Sir Walter Rawleigh and others write the Commons with their Magna Charta had but bastard births being begotten by Usurpers and fostered by Rebellion for King Henry the first did but usurp the Kingdom and therefore to secure himself the better against Robert his eldest brother he Courted the Commons and granted them that Great Charter with Charta de foresta which King John confirmed upon the same grounds for he was also an Usurper Arthur Duke of Brittain being the undoubted heir of the Crown so the House of Commons and these Great Charters had their original from such that were Kings de facto not de jure But it maters not which of the Kings first instituted the House of Commons certain it is that long after the Conquerour its name was not so much as heard of in England but as it is apparent one of his Successours did form them and grant not to make Laws without their consent and by a Statute made 7 H. 4. the Writ of Summons now used was formed and by an other Act made 1 H. 5. direction is given who shall be chosen that is to say For Knights of the Shires Persons resiant in the County and for Cities and Boroughs Citizens and Burgesses dwelling there and Free-men of the same Cities and Boroughs and no other So that now by the
sides and esteeming all men indiscreet who publickly own their King and therby incurr the displeasure of these domineering Tyrants But for my part I had rather be a Servant to God and my King than a Master amongst the unrighteous I am a Member of the body of the Common-wealth and therefore cannot see my head the King cut off without crying Lord have mercy upon us It is the duty of all his Subjects both with pens and hands to help their King out of the mire into which these Rebels have cast him not only the law of God but the law of the land injoyneth us thereto And I cannot see our Laws and Religion rooted up without groans and sighs It is no time to be silent when the fabrick wherein our whole treasure and happines consisteth is set on fire Neither can silence or innocence protect one from the unjust violence of these Wolves Sleeping or waking we are alwayes their prey Some of us they murther for our Estates some for their pleasure but all according to their wicked wills not law Therefore God knows whether I may be the next who must come to their pot Howsoever I had rather be taken doing God my King and my Country service than in a drowsie Lethargy I commit my Soul and Body to the protection of the Almighty who dorh not let a sparrow fall to the ground without his divine providence therefore will not let me fall into the power of their lust without his permission The King fell and why should not I The Lords will be done who when he hath corrected his Children will burn the rod. They can destroy only my Body him only will I fear who can destroy both Body and Soul Give Cerberus a sop cryes some men and speak fairly to the Monster now in power But it is but to go into Hell Therefore I will neither flatter nor dissemble with them Not to speak of the Modesty of the House of Commons in former Ages scarce adventuring to doe what they might for fear they should arrogate too much As in 21 Ed. 3. When their advice was required concerning the prosecution of a Warr with France They answered That their humble desire of the King was that he would be advised therein by the Lords being of more experience than themselves in such affairs The like president of their Modesty may you find in the 6 R. 2. and in the 3 E. 3. They disclaimed to have Cognisance of such matters as the Guarding of the Seas and Marches of the Kingdom We may conclude that unlesse it be the property of the Servant to command and the Master to obey or of the Souldiers to march before their Captain that the King hath the supreme power and is the sole Legislator not the House of Commons For the King representeth God the Commons only the ignoble People As for both Houses joyntly together they are no Court at all therefore can have no thoughts of having the Legislative power And as the two Houses have no power but what the King bestoweth on them so neither have they any title of honour and dignity but by the Kings gift For as all the lands in England and all power and authority is derived from the Crown So by the laws of England all the degrees of Nobilitie and Honour are derived from the King the Fountain of Honour and Majesty it self 4. Inst 363. What then have the two Houses joyntly or the House of Commons singly the Soveraign power because they have none but what the King giveth them Have they the Majesty because they have no honour or dignity but by the Kings gift Surely this is all the reason The King made the Lords not the Lords the King a Peasant to day may be a Lord to morrow if the King pleaseth and is the Pesant therefore the Kings master surely no it is the King who createth Barons and so maketh them capable to sit in the House of Peers but they are made but Peers not Kings nay they are but Peers of the Realm not of the King They are under not above the King For sunt alii Potentes sub Rege qui dicuntur Barones hoc est robur belli saith Bracton l. 1. c. 8. Though they are Potentes yet they are sub rege As for the House of Commons they are so far from being our keepers or the masters of our King and kingdom that there is not a Noble man amongst them They receive their being from the breath of the Kings Writ and having their being in a collective body they are but the Lower House whose name importeth subjection But if the Commons when they sit in the House have the Soveraign power where was it before their Sessions and where is it when they are dissolved What doth it hang in the Clouds and drop on them when they sit and dissolve like the Snow with the VVinter when the King dissolveth them Soveraignty is permanent and always continueth waking The House of Commons are and they are not according to the Kings pleasure he assembles and dissolves them at his will And what doth the Soveraign power sleep or die during their interregnum one would think it belonged to the King because he never dieth O ridiculous Commons I am weary of their absurdity in claiming the Soveraignty But as once it was demanded of an Oraaor speaking very much in the commendation of Hercules Quis vituperavit So it may be demanded of me treating of the Kings Soveraignty who hath brought arguments against it Truly for my part I never saw any reasonable argument against it many cavils but no reasons Evasions are the best proofs used by the Anti-Royalists And when they shift a Question with forein matter or a forein meaning They think they have not only made a good answer but also proved the point in question to be on their side As when our Books say Every man in the kingdom is under the King but the King is under none but God They answer the meaning of the book is That every single man in the kingdom is under the King but not the whole people collectively for they are above the King Just as if the Book should say every man in the world is under the Heavens but the Heavens are under none but God And they should answer to evade it The meaning of the Book is That every single man is under the Heavens but not the whole body of the people for they are above the Heavens O miserable invention such absurdities are most of their Arguments Therefore we may conclude that since Club-Law set them above reason it must be Club-Law which must pull them down Let the Sword argue them out of the Kings possessions which they have gotten by Rebellion and it will be easie then to convince them that Rebellion against the King is unlawful Had the King had no Revenues he had still injoyed his Crown It is the profit which maketh King-killing honest
appoinâ— him Captains over thousands and Captains oveâ— fifties So 11 Sam. 12.29 David gathered aâ— the people together and went to Rabbath and foughâ— against it and took it But why do I cite David Had not all the Kings in the Scripture nay havâ— not all the Kings in the world the chief poweâ— over their Militia Surely nothing is more certain otherwise what difference would there be between the King and Subject Militarem autem prudentiam ante omnia necessariam Ego Principi assero adeo ut sine ea vix Princeps Quomodo enim aliter se tueatuâ— sua ac suos saith Justus Lipsius No Militia no King For how can he defend himself and Kingdome without it The Puppy dogs would master the Lyon were it not for his pawes the cowardly Owles would conquer the Eagle if he had no talons and the King would be a laughing stock both at home and abroad were it not for the sword which God not the people hath girded to his side The King beareth not the sword in vain saith St. Paul Rom. 13.4 But surely he would bear it in vain had he not power of himself to draw it or sheath it but when the people pleased he would be but a poor revenger to execute Gods wrath had the people as our Novists feign not he the sole disposing of the Militia Unges eum ducem 1 Sam. 9.16 Thou shalt annoint him to be captain over my people Which shewes the Kings right to the Militia being Captain over his people Unum est Regi inexpugnabile munimentum amor civium I must confesse the Citizens and Peoples love is the best fortresse and bulwork for Kings but Charity growes cold Loyal love and Citizens are not alwayes companions whole Cities nay whole Countries may prove perfidious to their King and whilst the King dischargeth the office of a loving father his people may turn Traytors and rebell against his goodnesse Therefore it is good walking with a horse in ones hand and ever safest for Princes even in the greatest peace to have a well-disciplin'd Militia in a readinesse for the affection of the people like the wind is never constant In Rege qui recte regit necessaria sunt duo haec arma videlicet leges quibus utrumque tempus bellorum pacis recte possit gubernari utrumque enim istorum alterius indiget auxilio quo tam res militaris possit esse in tuto quà m ipsae leges usu armorum praesidio possint esse servatae Si autem arma defecerinâ— contra hostes rebelles indomitos sic erit regnum indefensum si autem leges sic exterminabitur justitia nec erit qui justum faciat judicium The Law and Arms are so necessary and requisite in a King that without both he can have neither for how could he execute and maintain his lawes withouâ— arms and how could he levy war without lawes to direct and guide his Arms He could neither proclaim war nor make leagues or peace without them The King is Custos totius Regni and by law ought to defend and save hiâ— Realm But surely he would bâ— but a poor keeper if the peoplâ— had power to keep his weapon from him at their pleasure Custodes libertatis Angliae The Keepers of our liberty could not keep it from us without the force of the Militia and how should the King maintain his Realm in peace and defend our lives liberties and estates from the forein and domestick Tyranny of Traytors and Rebels had he not the sole power and strength of Arms The Subjects of England are bound by their liegeance to go with the King c. in his wars as well within his Realms as without as appeareth by the Statute of 2 Ed. 6. cap. 11. and by a Statute made 11 H. 7. c. 1. The Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament declare it to be the duty and allegiance of the Subjects of England not only to serve their Prince and Soveraign Lord for the time being in warres but to enter and abide in service in battel and that both in defence of the King and land against every rebellion power and might reared against him But wherefore should I make my self ridiculous in attempting to prove that which no age hath denied It hath been the Custome of all Kingdoms the practice of all times and the Common Law of the Realm of England ever since it was a Realm that the power of the Militia did alwayes belong unto the King nay it is proper to him quarto modo he hath an inherent and inalienable right to it Which right hath been declared and affirmed by many Acts of Parliament in all succession of ages which in a case so clear need not to be recited It belongs to the King only to make leagues with forein Princes 2 H. 5. ca. And as it is resolved in our Law Books if all the people of England should break the league made with a foâ—eâ—n Prince without the Kings consent yet the league holds and is not broken Nay so farr are the People or House of Lords or Commons from having the power of the Militia that as you may read the expresse words 3 Inst pa. 9. If any levy Warr to expulse strangers to deliver men out of Prisons to remove Counsellors or against any Statute or to any other end pretending Reformation of their own heads without Warrant it is high Treason For no Subject can levy Warr within the Realm without Authority from the King for to him it only belongeth O then admire at the impiousnesse and impudence of the long called Parliament who murthered their King for committing Treason against them whereas by the Laws of the Land they were the only Traytors against him So may the offender punish the offended for the offence which he himself committed and so may the Prisoner condemn and execute the Judge for the Crime whereof himself is only guilty The only reason why they demanded the Militia of the King and said that it only belonged to them was not because the King ought not to have it for they well knew that by the Law of all Ages it did only belong to him and not to them But how then could they carry on and accomplish their wicked design of Murthering him if they still let his Sword hang by his side Therefore they first laid hold on that and wrested the Militia out of his hands arguing that it did not belong to the King but to them So Murtherers may say that the Sword of him whom they intend to murther doth not belong to the owner but to them to the end they may with the more ease and safeguard perpetrate their wickedness And that they might have a shadow to hide all their filthynesse They first got several Counties to Petition for the Militia which they afterwards took by violence nay they themselves did first Petition the King for it So sturdy Beggars first beg
for an Almes and by and by knock their Benefactor on the head and make themselves Masters of what they before entreated for And indeed the most part of their Villanies did commence with Petitions for in driving on their wicked designs they alwayes got the Rascal rable of the People to heap in Petitions for what they themselves set them upon as if these Godly Villains did nothing but what they were driven to through commiseration of the people when God knows they did nothing but what was for the satisfaction of their own wicked Lusts and Ambition For when the Souldiers and other baser sort of the people cryed out for Justice and Privilege of the Parliament Even then was the Injustice of these Rebels most promoted and the Parliament did not then only lose its privileges but its very life and being Thus Barbers may cut off the Head when they pretend to trim the Hair and so may Physicians destroy and kill the Body when they pretend to apply Medicines For as now it appeareth even to the blind their pious pretences were but a Colour for their wicked intentions to destroy both King and Parliament and root up all our Laws and Religion when they seemed to act most to preserve them Now since the power of Warr only belongeth unto the King it must of necessity follow that the King hath power to levy Taxes and impose Subsidies on his people to maintain the Warr otherwise it would be in vain to think of waging Warr for all Souldiers must have Vectigalia Food Apparel and Arms and where should the King have this but in his own Kingdom To be short it is a duty laid upon the Consciences of all Subjects to supply their King with all necessaries both in time of Warr and Peace And a thing commanded both by our Saviour and his Apostles Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesars And 13 Rom. Render therefore to all their due Tribute to whom Tribute is due Custom to whom Custom Fear to whom Fear Honour to whom Honour But our Antipodes subverting all Scripture render to no man their dues and that they may act contrary to the very words and meaning of every Text They do not render Tribute Custom Fear and Honour to the King to whom it is only due but forsooth to themselves to whom it is not due So may the Servant murther his Master and take all his Revenues and Honour as due only to himself He which argueth that the King hath not right to chuse his Privy Counsellors Great Officers and Judges c. will likewise say that the Master hath not right to chuse his Servants it being the practice of all Kingdoms as well as of England and due to him by the Law of Nature Thou shalt provide out of the People able Men saith Jethro to Moses when the 70. grand Senators of Israel the Great Sanhedrim of the Jews were to be chosen By which you see the great Officers c. are to be chosen out of and not by the people but by the King So Pharoah not the people made Joseph Ruler over all the Land of Aegypt and Nebuchadnezzar and not his people made Daniel Ruler over the whole Province of Babylon And since our Lawyers are so forward to take Commissions and be made Judges by every power which getteth uppermost be it right or wrong Let me tell them that it is an undoubted truth that every person who hath been since the murther of Charls the Martyr or shall hereafter without the authority of Charls the second be condemned and executed for any Crime whether guilty or not guilty in the Kings Bench or at the Assizes or elsewhere is murthered and all the Judgments acts and proceedings of those nominal Judges or Commissioners are void as things done Coram non judice So that it consequently followeth that these lawless Judges are principals in every murther so committed Vengeance only belongeth unto God Deu. 32.35 The King is the Minister of God a Reuenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil Therfore whosoever prosecuteth in the Kings Courts against the life of any man as in an Appeal c. or sueth for recompence for any wrong done unto him he doth not take vengeance but God who executeth his wrath by his Minister the King But if any private man or the whole people take upon them to make themselves their own Carvers taking what recompence they think fit either against the King or any of their fellow Subjects in this case they make themselves their own Revengers and rob God of his rights for vengeance belongeth to him not to them Therefore if any man though in a way of publick Justice take upon him to condemn and execute any man without authority and power from the King he is a Murtherer and malicious Revenger upon whom the vengeance of God whom he endeavoureth to cheat and rob will fall Oh then admire and bewail the Infandous Murthers and Murtherers of our age wherein the good are destroyed for performing their duty towards God and their King and the wicked flowrish only because they are sinfull for whosoever will not be a Rebel must not be a Common-wealths-man amongst these new Republicans Yet forsooth they have such a form of Godlinesse amongst them that whosoever doth not approve of their wickednesse but speaketh of their actions according to their deserts they call such men the ungodly and flatter themselves saying the Saints of all ages have been spoken evil of by the wicked holy David nay our Saviour and his Disciples were reviled by the Reprobate therfore no wonder if the Malignant Cavaleers do reproach and vilifie our piousness and brotherly love and charity one towards the other So Belzebub may call them impious who do not account him the only good Angell How these men would be esteemed most Religious even when they commit Sacrilege and seem righteous even in the very act of wickednesse They murther many and take away the Estates of all Royalists yet if the Royalists whom they have thus spoyled tell them according to Gods Commandments that they ought not to be swift to shed blood nor covet their neighbours goods these Saints presently tell them that they have not the Spirit of Godliness in them but that they are the abusers of Gods word and his Children as if Gods Spirit gave them authority to act wickedly and that none but they were the children of God who had got their wealth by murther rapine and sacrilege O Monstrous If you call their ill gotten Government Tyranny or Usurpation they number you amongst those filthy Dreamers who speak evil of Dignities and will noâ— submit to lawfull authority Yet these Antipodes could revile their Soveraign the King with multitudes of scurrilous Pamplets cut off his head and banish his Royal Progeny taking away their Lands and the Estates of thousands more yet they would make one believe that they never spoke evil of Dignities nor ever resisted lawfull
authority O pious Rebels So far are our Laws of England from allowing Subjects to take up arms against the King or to condemn execute him that it is high treason for any one or all of his Subjects but to imagine the Kings death which the wisdom and Religion of our Realm hath from age to age so much hated and abhorred that an offender therin by the Laws of the Land shall be hanged and cut down alive his bowels shall be cut off and burned in his sight his head shall be severed from his body his quarters shall be divided asunder and disposed at the Kings pleasure and made food for the birds of the air or the beasts of the Field and his wife and children shall be thrust out of his house and livings his seed and blood shall be corrupted his Lands and goods shall be confiscated and as by the Statute of 29 H. 6.1 It is ordained of the Traytor John Cade hee shall be called a false Traytor for ever But the Traytors against Charls the Martyr have prevented this punishment most due to them by the greatnesse of their villanies Yet though they are got out of the reach of Justice and trample our Laws and King under their feet let them remember that God is above Earth and will give them their reward if not in this world yet in the world to come The aforesaid Statute of 25 Ed. 3. as you may read in Pulton de pace Regis Regni fo 108. doth confirm it to be high treason for any person to compasse or imagine the death of our Soveraign Lord the King the Queen c. by which words it doth approve what a great regard and reverend respect the Common Law hath alwayes had to the person of the King which it hath endeavoured religiously and carefully to preserve as a thing consecrated by Almighty God and by him ordained to be the head health and wealth of the Kingdom and therefore it hath ingrafted a deep and settled fear in the hearts of all sorts of Subjects to offer violence or force unto it under the pain of High Treason insomuch as if he that â—s Non Compos Mentis do kill or attempt to kill the King it shall be adjudged in him High Treason though if he do commit petit Treason homicide or larceny it shall not be imputed unto him as Felony for that he knew not what he did neither had he malice prepensed not a felonious intent And this law doth not only restrain all persons from laying violent hands upon the person of the King but also by prevention it doth inhibit them so much as to compasse or imagine or to devise or think in their hearts to cut off by violent or untimely death the life of the King Queen c. for the only compassing or imagination without bringing it to effect is High Treason because that compassing and imagination doth proceed from false and traiterous hearts and out of cruel bloudy and murdering minds Thus you see with what reverence our Lawes do adore his sacred Majesty our King detesting nothing more than the violence or dammage offered to him yet forsooth the Rebels affirm they killed the King by the Common Law and why by the Common Law what because the Commons made it surely that is all the reason for there is no law under the Heavens which warranteth Subjects to kill their King but all lawes both humane and divine command the contrary Many are the publick oaths as you may read in Mr. Prynne's Concordia discors protestations leagues covenants which all English Subjects especially Judges Justices Sheriffs Mayors Ministers Lawyers Graduates Members of the House of Commons and all publick officers whatsoever by the Lawes and Statutes of the land have formerly taken to their lawful hereditary Kings their heirs and successors to bind their souls and consciences to bear constant faith allegiance obedience and dutiful subjection to them and to defend their Persons Crowns and just royal Prerogatives with their lives members and fortunes against all attempts conspiracies and innovations whatsoever But since all those sacred oaths have been trayterously violated and broken by the Rebels against Charles the Martyr I will only present you with the effect of the Oath of Allegiance which every one is to take when he is of the age of twelve years and this oath was instituted in the time of King Calvin's Case fo 7. Co. Lit. fo 68.172 You shall swear that from this day forward you shall be true and faithful to our Soverain Lord King Charles and his heirs and truth and faith shall bear of life and member and terrene honour and you shall neither know nor hear of any ill or dammage intended unto him that you shall not defend So help you Almighty God The substance and effect of this oath as it is resolved and proved in Calvin's case is due to the King by the law of Nature and is called Ligeantia naturalis being an incident inseparable to every Subject for so soon as he is born he oweth by birth-right ligeance and obedience to his Soveraign and therefore the King is called in his Statutes our natural liege Lord and his people natural liege Subjects But Ligeantia legalis is so called because the Municipal Laws of this Realm have prescribed the order and form of it None can deny but that obedience is due from the Son to the Father by the Law of Nature yet may the Municipal Laws of the Realm prescribe formality and order to it not diminishing the substance So likewise may they to the Allegiance due by nature to the King Thus have you seen how the English Trayterous Rebells contrary to all the Laws of God the Law of Nature the Law of Nations the Laws of our Realm and against the foundation of Christian Religion have by an unheard of example most wickedly murthered as a common Thief and vile vassal of the people condemned their gracious King whose name from the very beginning of the world hath ever been esteemed amongst all Nations great and holy whom the Prophets and Apostles nay our Saviour himself and all the Primitive Christians both with their lives death examples and Doctrine have taught and commanded us to reverence and pray for and to be subject to not violently to resist him though he violently persecute us whom God himself in his old and new Testament hath declared to be constituted by him and reign by him not by the People and particularly whom our fore-Fathers of this Realm of England have always accounted sacred and ever found by experience Kingly Government to be most glorious and profitable for them yet these forty or fifty Tyrannical Rebels contrary even to common sense and feeling upholding themselves by Force and Arms Treason and Usurpation do sit and Vote Kingship dangerous and burthensom to the good people of this Common-wealth when in the mean time out Merchants turn Bankrupts our Tradesmen break Food groweth
the power which they then and now exercise over these three Kingdoms is unjust and Tyrannical because not derived from the People There are no Representatives amongst them for Scotland nor Ireland nor the greatest part of England neither did they ever receive any power at all from the People of either England Scotland or Ireland and now all the People publiquely declare against them as the greatest Usurpers and Tyrants in the world yet contrary to all the Peoples wills they sit and Rule and will admit of no Member of the Peoples chusing to come amongst them unless they first qualifie and fit him for their own purpose therefore it plainly appeareth that this Vote that the People had the supreme power under God was but a meer juggle to gull the people and to bring their wicked designs to passe So that as A whip for the Horse or a bridle for the Asse have the People made of this quondam Parliament a rod for their fools-backs Pro. 26.3 The King being murthered by these Tyrants and all our Laws and Religion totally subverted a time wherin every one did what was right in his own eys Oliver Cromwel who for his excellency in wickedness and villanies was made General of the long called Parliaments unjust Forces the twentieth of April 1653. entred the House attended with some of the chief Commanders of his Army and delivering his reasons to them in a Speech why he came to put a period to their siting as judging it a thing much conducing to the publick wellfare of the Nation dissolved them And why might not he turn out them by force who by force had already turned out the King Lords and all the Commons besides themselves Surely if he had taken and hanged them all it would have been a glorious Act pleasing to God and the whole people and a Cordial to heal the miseries of our long-distressed Nation But his ambition was to make himself Great not to give relief and take away the Tyranny therfore he summoned a certain select number of his own creatures to appear at Westminster on the fourth of July next which he called a Parliament and none could deny but that they had the Soveraign power because Cromwel said so yet not so but that he made them resign up their power to him and make him the Lord protect us Lord Protector not a King because a King might do nothing but by Law but the Protector did nothing but according to his will and pleasure yet in this were we happy that in his reign one Tyrant Lorded it over us but in the long Parliaments many It is worth the observation that notwithstanding a Parliament had newly abrogated the very name and being of a King as dangerous and burthensom to the Common-wealth yet a Parliament summoned by Cromwel in July 1656. to meet on the 17 of September Petitioned and made many humble addresses to Cromwel that he would take Kingship upon him and be anointed King which old Nolls mouth watered at yet because some things did not fall out according to his expectation he declined it and refused to be what he eagerly though not openly persued Cromwel likewise created a House of Lords which was called the other House but the high aspiring thoughts of this turbulent Scorpion were at length blown down and extinguished by a high and mighty wondrous and unparalleld wind which out raunted Old Nol and whirried his black Soul down ad inferos So that after this storm we had a Calm and as the Sheep are at quiet ease when the bloody Woolf forsakes them so the People did rejoice and solace their hearts when this Tyrant made his Exit yet no sooner were we rid of this crafty Knave the Father but we were troubled with a simple Fool his Son Richard his eldest Son was proclamed by the new Courtiers and Army-Officers Lord Protector of England Scotland and Ireland and so tumble down Dick thought to have risen and Reigned in his Fathers room But a Fools bolt is soon shot Richard was quickly up quickly down No sooner had he called a Parliament but the Souldiers who feared that his Parliament should be honest and disband them as the only instruments to execute all Villanies went to the Mushroom Protector and by dnresse made him dissolve the Parliament and divest himself of all his Power and Authority And in this respect it is better to be a Knave than a Fool For crafty Noll kept the rude Souldiers in due obedience But simple Dick let them be his Masters whereas he might easily have made them and the whole people have been his Servants to this day When Richard was dismounted the Souldiers could not well tell where to hang the Government to secure them in their Rebellion and Roguery At last they pitcht upon the old rotten Rump viz. the fagg end of a worn-out perjured Parliament who had formerly dissolved themselves witnesse the Entry in their own Journal Book April 20.1653 although they pretend to be interrupted by Cromwells force So these Knaves the worst of Tyrants cemented together again like a Snakes tail and for colour called themselves the Revivers of the Good Old Cause and were as busie as if they had had another King and 3. Kingdoms to destroy So these infamous wicked Traytors returned to their wickedness as a Dog to his vomit to the great grief and grievance of all sorts of People in the Land who groaned and murmâ—red as if they were entering into a far worse than Egyptian bondage and Slavery under these task-masters To say that the people not they had the Soveraign power was now high Treason although they themselves had voted so formerly and to talk of a Free Parliament the antient birthright of the people as they themselves likewise formerly affirmed was now made a greater offence than Crimen lae sae Majestatis These Custodes filled all the Prisons in the Kingdom with those persons who desited a Free Parliament and in that respect they may be called The Keepers of our Liberty as Gaolers do Thieves in Chains or as the Cage doth Birds in grates For they keep us so much from our Free Liberty to do well that they will not so much as give us leave to speak or think well But there is no peace with the wicked when these Tyrants had beaten down Sir George Booth and other Assertors of a Free Parliament and made themselves as secure as Force and Violence could make them One Lambert a Chip of the old Block newly made General of their Forces displaced the Rump and with his Souldiers inhibited their usuped sitting which made the whole people not only rejoyce inwardly but break out in open laughter for joy But nullum commodum sine incommodo there is no pleasure without a displeasure No sooner did the Rump leave riding of us but up gets the Committee of Safety into the Saddle who made account that they were so absolutely our Masters as
and lawful for the King alone to command money and assistance of his subjects to subdue the Rebels and oppose a forein Navy who are coming to destroy and swallow up both King and people Surely none but a mad-man will deny but that it is most lawful just and the only safety of the people and their estates Indeed as it is the best way for a thief to binde the honest man he doth intend to robb so it is the safest and best way for that Parliament who do intend to murther the King and take away all that he hath to binde the King as fast as they can to take away his Negative voice and all his just praerogatives to make all his legal power whereby he might withstand their violence illegal Nay it is their best way to tye the King up from his meat to make him stand for a Cypher a meer nothing that so they being the predominant figures may chop off his head or do what they list with him as did the long Parliament who from trespass to high Treason against God and the King have omitted no offence undone But their soundest Doctrine will prove but Apochrypha to all honest Parliaments I do confesse that except it be in cases of necessity the King can lay no tallage upon the people without their consent in Parliament and so not shipmoney which in truth is condemned by the Statutes of 25 E. 1 34 E. 1. de Tallagio non concedendo Dangelit Englishty because the King hath restrained his power by his Statutes But if the King could not tax the people with shipmony and other impositions in extraoâ—dinary cases of necessity aa when a forein Enemy doth suddenly invade the Land being invited in by a prevalent faction in a refractory Parliament who would ruine themselves and the whole Kingdom so that they might ruine their King and fulfill their wicked wills who will not grant shipmoney or any thing else to the King lest he should be provided to oppose them and defend himself and the people in safety I say that if in this and such like cases the King may not lawfully lay tallages on the people and command their assistance I had rather be a slave than a King and should account my self the Vassal of the people not their King But in truth the King cannot denude himself of this power nor by any Statute or Law tye himself from it For it is inseparable from the Crown Et quod sceptro inhaeret non potest tolli nisi sublato sceptro And therefore cannot be taken from the King unless the Crown with it which rule the long Parliament have truly verifyed For when they had taken away his chiefest praerogative they could not forbear but presently took off his Crown from his head and then his head from his shoulders Sic transit gloria mundi (e) Aposiopesis est * Omnibus esse Lupos licet in regione Lupoporum Gal. 2.18 If I build again the things which I destroyed I make my self a transgressour * The strifes and divisions now amongst the Rebels do further the Kings Restauration to his own of which they robbed him Vid. Epist 2 part of Soveraign power Inde illis potestas unde spiritus Tertul Apol. pa. 6.5 Co. Lit. 1.12 l. 7.20 4 Inst 1. 1 Inst 110 Bodin de Rep. l. c. 8. Camden in Britan. descript Mat. 26.34 Luke 22 3 4 5 6. Ovem in fronte vulpem in corde gerentes The Nobles which were faithfull to the King they called Evil Counsellers Witness their Oath of Supremacy Dangerous and useless only to their villany Witnesse all their actions Bodin li. 2. ca. 5. King Charles his title had been good to the Crown of England though he had borrowed no part of this Claim from the Conquerour See reverend Heylin's life of King Charles Co. Lit. 1. Who then ought to have the Militia but the King Co. Lit. 108. Co. Lit. 64. Mr. Howels Philanglus â— Inst 25. Summum jus summa injuria Decl. of the Treaty p. 15. 4 Inst 9. Yet forsooth these the Lowest set up the Highest Court viz. The high Court of Justice So Servants may set up a high Court to try and condemn their Mastets Asperius nihil est humili cum suâ—git in altum 4 Inst 11. 5 Eli. ca 1. 4 Inst 8. 4 Inst 2. They are dead Members who do not Davis Irish Rep. so 90. Jer. 6.16 Psal 10.16 29.10.47.2.7.44 4. Cambdens Remains See 2 Chro. 15 17 29 30 31. Isa 49.23 Teste Anglia Bract. fo 1. Justin Institutes Fleta Davis Irish Reports fo 58. Fitz. n. 6.113.233 Calvins case so 7. 19 E. 4.46.22 E. 4. 25 E. 3.2 Leges Auredi ca. 4. Co. Lib. 4.124 See 3 Inst pag. 4. and 6. The People declare for a free Parliament but these Rebels only for themselves Read his incomparable heavenly Book which will make thee weep for our loss but rejoice and admire at his piety Luk. 11.18 See their charge against him Vulgarly called the Secluded Members So he which playeth at Knave out of doors getteth the Knave to beat all the rest of the Cards Our Soveraign Charls must be no King because pious but Oliver must be a King because a Rebel Oh the mystery of their iniquiâ—yâ— Though the Kings Nobility might not yet Cromwels might be a House of Peers Tristius haud illis monstrum nec saevior ulla Pestis ira Deum Slyâ—iis sese extulit undis What pretty names these State Thieys have for their Robberies and Tyranny viz. The titular Parliament Alas not for so good a use I commend you to the History of Independency 11th of February 1659. Cressa ne careat pulchra dies aota Brave for thieves if they might qualifie their Judges But I think they can scarce pick out men enough in England to fill up the House who will admit of their wicked Qualifications To be short saith Comines in mine opinion of all the Seigneuries in the world that I know the Realm of England is the Countrey where the Commonwealth is best governed the people least oppressed and the fewest buildings and houses destroyed in Civil war and alwayes the lot of misfortune falleth upon them that be the Authors of the war Magnae discordia pereunt concordiavalent You may guesse with what a countenance the Rump looked upon them Episcopacy was a bulwork against Popery and other factions Therfore the Papists and the Factions did batter down that to make way for their Sects which they call liberty of conscience (a) Rex (b) O Cromwel (c) Ironice [a] The King O. Cromwel c. Ironice
politick in which he may purchase to him and his heirs Kings of England or to him and his Successors Yet both bodies make but one indivisible body Plowden 213.233.242 li. 7.12 6. Justice The King can do no wrong Therefore cannot be a disseisor He is all Justice Veritas Justitia saith Bracton circa solium ejus They are the two Supporters that do uphold his Crown he is Medicus regni Pater patriae sponsus Regni qui per annulum is espoused to his Realm at his Coronation he is Gods Lieutenant and is not able to do an unjust thing 4 Ed. 4.25 5 Ed. 4.29 Potentia injuriae est impotentia naturae His Ministers may offend and therefore are to be punished if the Laws are violated but not he 7. Truth The King shall never be estopped Judgement finall in a writ of right shall not conclude him 18 E. 3.38 20 E. 3. Fitz. Droit 15. 8. Omniscience When the King licenceth expresly to aliente an Abbot c. which is in Mortmain he needs not make any Non obstante of the Statutes of Mortmain For it is apparent to be granted in Mortmain And the King is the head of the Law and therefore shall not be intended misconusant of the Law For Praesumitur Rex habere omnia jura in scrinio pectoris sui 1 Jnst 99. And therefore ought to have a Negative voice in Parliament For he is the fountain of justice from whence the Law floweth 8. The Opinion of the two Spencers in Ed. 2. Who held that the oath of allegiance was more by reason of the Kings Crown that is his politick capacity than by reason of his person Is a most detestable excreable damnable and damned invention 7 Rep. fo 11. Calvins case 9. High Treason can be committed against none but the King neither is any thing high Treason but what is declared so to be by the Statute 25 Ed. 3. c. 21. To leavy war against the King to compass or imagine his death or the death of his Queen or of his eldest Son to counterfeit his Money or his great Seal to imprison the King untill he agree to certain demands to leavy war to alter Religion or the Law to remove Counsellours by arms or the King from his Counsellours be they evil or good by arms to seize the Kings Forts Ports Magazine of war to depose the King or to adhere to any State within or without the Kingdome but the Kings Majesty is high Treason For which the Offendor should have judgement First to be drawn to the Gallows 2. There to be hanged by the neck and cut down alive 3. His Intralls to be taken out of his belly And he being alive to be burnt before him 4. That his head should be cut off 5. That his body should be cut in four parts and 6. That his head and his quarters should be put where the Lord the King pleaseth 10. Treason doth ever produce fatal destruction to the Offender either in body or soul sometimes in both and he never attains to his desired end 3 Par. Jnst pag. 36. Peruse over all Books Records and Histories and you shall finde a Principle in Law a Rule in Reason and a tryal in experience that Treason doth ever produce fatal and final destruction to the Offender and never attains to the desired end two incidents inseparable thereunto and therefore let all men abandon it as the Poysonons bait of the Devil and follow the precept in holy Scripture Serve God Honour the King and have no company with the seditions 11. That Kings have been deposed by their Subjects is no argument or ground that we may depose ours A facto ad jus non valet argumentum Because Children have murdered their own fathers is no warrant for us to murder ours Judas betrayed his Soveraign yet should not we follow his example unless we strive for his reward There was never King deposed but in tumultuous and mad times and by might not by right 12. The King is Principium caput finis Parliamenti the begining head and end of a Parliament The body makes not the head nor that which is posterior that which is prior Kings were before Parliaments There were not in England any formed bodyes called the two Houses of Parliament untill above 200. years after the Norman Conquest 13. The King of England is armed with diverse Counsels one whereof is called Commune consilium the Common counsel and that is the Court of Parliament and so it is legally called in writs and judicial proceedings Commune Consilium Regni Angliae Consilium non est praeceptum Consiliarii non sunt praeceptores It is not the office or duty of a Counseller to command and make precepts but only to advise 14. The King is the fountain of justice and the life of the Law The two Houses frame the body the King giveth the soul for without him it is but a dead carcase And Si componere magnis Parva mihi fas est If I may compare small things with great As in a bond though one find paper and another write it yet if the obligor do not seal and deliver it it is nugatory and no obligation So if the King assent not to an act of the two Houses it is void and no Statute It is the royal Scepter which gives it the force of a Law Witnesse the whole Academy of the Law perspicua vera noâ— sunt probanda It would be foolish to light the Sun with Candles 15. Originally The King did make new Laws and abrogate old without the assâ—nt of any known body oâ— assembly of his Subjects But afterwards by his gracious goodnesse perceiving that his people could best know their own soars and so consequently apply the most convenient remedy he vouchsafed so much to restrain his power that he would no make any Law concerning them without their assent For at the first Populus nullis legibus tenebatu sed arbitria regum pro legibus erant Which truth iâ— so clear that it shines almost in every History The oldest and best stile of an act of Parliament is Be it enacted by the Kings Majesty with the assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons c. which proves where the virtual power is 16. The Commons have no Authority but by the Writ of Summons That Writ gives them no power to make new Lawes but onely to do and consent to such things which shall happen to be ordained by Common Counsel there in Parliament which are the words of the writ and all their Jurisdiction At a Conference the Commons are alwayes uncovered and stand bare when the Lords sit with their hats on which shews that they are not Colleagues in Judgement with the Lords Every Member of the House of Commons takes the oath of allegiance and supremacy before his admission in the House and should keep it too 17. It is Lex consuetudo Parliamenti The Law and Custome of a Parliament
King of Babylon and that will not put their Neck under the Yoke of the King of Babylon that Nation will I punish saith the Lord with the Sword and with Famine and with the Pestilence Wherefore serve the King of Babylon and live And St. Peter saith Servants all the Kings Subjects are his Servants be subject to your Masters the King is our Soveraign Lord and Master with all fear not only to the good and gentle but also to the froward For this is thanks worthy if a man for Conscience toward God endure grief suffering wrongfully From which it is most evident that we ought and are commanded to be Subject to evill Kings who are degenerated into Tyrants If then the power of evil Kings commeth from God if God commandeth us to pray for them and to be subject to them and if they are Gods ordinance as most certainly they are it consequently followeth that he which with defensive or offensive I can make no distinction for ubi lex non distinguit non est distinguenda Arms resisteth an evil King resisteth Gods ordinance and shall receive damnation What then if the King command us to doe Evill must we doe it God forbid nay God hath forbidden it therefore we must obey God not the King yet must we not unjustly resist him but rather resign up our lives and estates into his hands For we must needs be subject to the King not only for wrath but also for conscience sake saith S. Paul But our objecter saith that if it be the meaning of the Apostle to inhibit the resistance of the Kings unlawful commands then to flye or to die rather than obey is likewise inhibited because the not performance of the command is a resistance To which I answer that I may confidently averre that it was never the meaning of St. Paul nor the Holy Ghost to inhibit this kind of resistance under the pain of eternal damnation it being the Doctrine and practise of our Saviour and all the Apostles when they were persecuted in one City to fly into another Matth. 10.23 and all of them willingly suffered death under wicked Kings but you shall never find that they resisted with defensive arms but both with their lives deaths and doctrine set forth the contrary But if this kind of resistance be inhibited by the Apostle you must understand that the penalty is temporal not eternal damnation The word in the Original is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth judicium and so it is used in several places in the New Testament as in Matth. 7.2 Luke 24.20 c. for temporal damnation and judgment So that we may conclude that the intention of the Apostle was that whosoever resisteth the lawful commands of the King shall receive damnation both from God and the King and he which doth not perform the unlawful commands of the King shall receive temporal judgment and damnation from the King but salvation and life everlasting from God but whosoever useth unlawful resistance against the Kings unlawful commands as defensive arms c. must expect temporal judgment and damnation from the King and eternal judgment and damnation from the Almighty But what doth God give power to Kings to take away mens lives and estates unjustly I answer that he doth the Devil himself hath no power but what God giveth him It is the wisdome of the Almighty oftentimes to scourge his people for their sins with the power which he giveth to wicked Kings The King is a minister of God saith St. Paul a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil and sometimes to try them that he may make them the more happy and glorious God gave power to the Devil to afflict Job who had not his like in the whole earth a perfect and an upright man one that feared God and eschewed evil Job 1.8 and what made Job so famous as his miseries Had not Job had sore boyles we should never have heard of Job's glory and good fortunes and was it not the Lord which authorized the Devil to afflict him It was for the Devil had not power to touch him until he had desired God to put forth his hand and touch his bone and his flesh which made holy Job to cry the Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken not the Devil for he was but the instrument so God oftentimes by the power which he giveth to Kings afflicteth his dearest children both in their bodies and estates yet cannot unrighteousnesse be imputed unto God because he doth it for their good but the wicked wills of Kings which use the power which God giveth them so unjustly are unrighteous and shall by the Almighty be punished according to venerable Bede Injustum enim non est ut improbis accipientibus nocendi potestatem bonorum patientia probetur malorum iniquitas puniatur It is not unjust in God that the patience of the good be proved and the sins of the wicked punished by the power which is given the wicked to offend for by the power given to the Devil Job was tried and appeared to be just St. Peter was tempted that he should not presume too much upon himself and Judas was condemned that he hanged himself But it is unjust in the King to use it Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power saith the Apostle Do that which is good and thou shalt have praise of the same A good man will have praise of the power let the King be good or evil If the King be good he will cherish the good and reward their piety and goodnesse with praise and dignity But if the King be evil yet shall the good receive praise from the power It is the Glory of a Chrstian to suffer wrongfully his unjust miseries are his best herauldry to ennoble him and every injury offered to him is as a Crown of gold set on his head he had rather be punished for a thousand faults wrongfully than for one justly For what glory is it if when ye be buffeted for your faults ye shall take it patiently but if when ye do well and suffer for it ye take it patiently this is acceptable with God 1 Peter 2.20 Non dicit ab illa sed â—ex ea saith reverend Bede quia etsi potestas humana non laudat immo si etiam persequitur si occidit gladio ut Paulum si crucifigit ut Petrum habebis ex illa laudem dum ex eo quod illa malefacit in te justum et innoxium tuae virtutis patientia Coronam laudis meretur All the Apostles and Martyrs received a Crown of Glory by their sufferings under Tyrants and so will every good Man For they are the Ministers of God to them for good though they oppresse nay kill the Innocent and Righteous they do not hurt them but do them good as the best Gold is purified in the fire so the best Christians are discerned from the drosse by their afflictions That mettle