that know it already and trouble those that need not know the particular cases for it is one of the Fundamentals of Law That the king is not above the Law but the Law above the King I could easily deraign it from 1 Edward 3. to the Jurisdiction of Courts That the king has no more Power or Authority then what by Law is concredited and committed to him but the most famous Authority is Fortescue Chancellor to H. 6. and therefore undoubtedly would not clip his Masters Prerogative who most Judicially takes a difference between a Government wholly Regal and Seignoral as in Turkey Russia France Spain c. and a Government Politique and mixt where the Law keeps the beam even between Soveraignty and Subjection as in England Denmark Swede and Poland the first where the Edict of a Prince makes the Law resembles an impetuous inundation of the waters whereby the Corn and Hay and other Fruits of the Earth are spoiled as when it is Midwinter at Midsummer the latter is like a sweet smooth Stream running by the pleasant Fields and Meadows That by the Law of England the King ought not to impose any thing upon the people or take any thing away from them to the value of a farthing but by common consent in Parliaments or National meetings and that the people of Common-Right and by several Statutes ought to have Parliaments yearly or oftner if need be for the Redress of publique grievances and for the Enacting of good and wholsome Laws and repealing of old Statutes of Omeri which are prejudicial to the Nation And that the king hath not by Law so much power as a Justice of Peace to commit any man to Prison for any offence whatsoever because all such matters were committed to proper Courts and Officers of Justice And if the King by his verbal command send for any person to come before him if the party refused to attend and the messenger endevoring to force him they fell to blows if the messenger killed the party sent for this by the Law is Murther in him but if he killed the messenger this was justifiable in him being in his own defence so as to sue forth a pardon of course these and many other Cases of like nature are so clear well known that I wil not presume to multiply particulars That the king took an Oath at his Coronation to preserve the Peace of the Nation to do Justice to all and to keep and observe the Laws which the people have himself confesses And it was charged upon the late Arch-Bishop that he Emasculated the Oath and left out very material words Which the people shall chuse which certainly he durst not have done without the kings special Command And it seems to me no light presumption that from that very day he had a Design to alter and subvert the Fundamental Laws and to introduce an Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government but though there had been an Oath yet by special Office and duty of his place every King of England is obliged to Act for the peoples good for all power as it is originally in the people he must needs be extream ignorant malicious or a self-destroyer that shall deny it so it is given forth for their preservation nothing for their destruction for a king to rule by lust and not by Law is a creature that was never of Gods making not of Gods approbation but his permission And though such men are said to be Gods on Earth 't is in no other sence then the Devil is called the God of this world It seems that one passage which the king would have offered to the Court which was not permitted him to dispute the Supreme Authority in the Nation and standing mute the Charge being for High Treason it is a conviction in Law was That 1 Sam. 8. is a Copy of the kings Commission by vertue whereof he as a king might rule and govern as he list that he might take the Peoples Sons and appoint them for himself for his Chariots and to be his Horsemen and take their Daughters to be his Confectionaries and take their Fields and Vineyards and Oliveyards even the best of them and thair goodliest yong men and their Asses and give them to his Officers and to his Servants which indeed is a Copy and Patern of an absolute Tyrant and absolute Slaves where the people have no more then the Tyrant will afford them The holy Spirit in that Chapter does not insinuate what a good king ought to do but what a wicked king would presume to do Besides Saul and David had extraordinary callings but all just power is now derived from and conferred by the people yet in the case of Saul it is observable that the people out of pride to be like other Nations desired a king and such a king as the Heathens had which were all Tyrants for they that know any thing in History know that the first four Monarchs were all Tyrants at first til they gained the peoples consent Nimrod the great Hunter was Ninus that built Nineveh the first Tyrant and Conquerer that had no Title so were all kingdoms which are not Elective till the peoples subsequent consent and though it be by descent yet 't is a continuation of a Conquest till the people consent voluntarily submit to a Government they are but Slaves in reason they may free themselves if they can In France the king begins his Raign from the day of his Coronation the Archbishop asks the people if he shall be King the twelve Peers or some that personate them say yes they girt the sword about him then he swares to defend the Lawes And is any thing more naturall then to keepe an Oath And though vertuous Kings have prevailed with the People to make their Crownes Hereditary yet the Coronation shews the shell that the kernell hath been in Samuel was a good Judge and there was nothing could be objected against him therefore God was displeased at their inordinate desire of a King and it seemes to me that the Lord declares his dislike of all such Kings as the heathens were that is Kings with an unlimited power that are not tied to laws for he gave them a King in his wrath therein dealing with them as the wise Physitian with the distempered and impatient Patient who desiring to drink wine tels him the danger of inflammation yet wine he will have and the Physitian considering a little wine will do but little hurt rather then his Patient by fretting should take greater hurt prescribes a little whitewine wherein the Physitian doth not approve his drinking of wine but of two evils chooseth the least The Jewes would have a King for Majestie and Splendor like the Heathens God permits this he approves it not it seems to me that the Lord renounces the very Genus of such Kings as are there mentioned and the old word Conning by Contraction king does not signifie power
the Representative stand but for a Cypher 5. But then out of Parliament the people are made to believe That the king hath committed all Justice to the Judges and distributed the execution thereof into several Courts and that the king cannot so much as imprison a man nor impose any thing upon nor take any thing away from the people as by Law he ought not to do But now see what prerogative he challenges 1. If the King have a minde to have any publique spirited man removed out of the way this man is killed the murtherer known a Letter comes to the Judge and it may be it shall be found but Manslaughter if it be found Murther the man is condemned but the King grants him a Pardon which the Judges will allow if the word Murther be in it but because it is too gross to pardon Murther therefore the king shall grant him a Lease of his life for seven years and then renew it like a Bishops Lease as he did to Major Prichard who was lately Justiced who being a Servant to the Earl of Lindsey murthered a Gentleman in Lincolnshire and was condemned and had a Lease of his life from the king as his own friends have credibly told me 2. For matter of Liberty The King or any Courtier sends a man to Prison if the Judge set him at liberty then put him out of his place a temptation too heavy for those that love Money and Honor more then God to bear therefore any Judgement that is given between the King and a Subject 't is not worth a rush for what will not money do Next he challenges a Prerogative to enhance and debase moneys which by Law was allowed him so far as to ballance Trade and no further that if gold went high beyond Sea it might not be cheap here to have it all bought up and transported but under colour of that he challenges a Prerogative that the king may by Proclamation make Leather currant or make a Six pence go for Twenty shillings or a Twenty shillings for Six pence which not to mention any thing of the project of Farthings or Brass money He that challenges such a Prerogative is a potential Tyrant for if he may make my Twelve pence in my pocket worth but Two pence what property hath any man in any thing that he enjoys Another Prerogative pretended was That the king may avoid any Grant and so may cousen and cheat any man by a Law the ground whereof is That the kings Grants shall be taken according to his intention which in a sober sence I wish that all mens Grants might be so construed according to their intentions exprest by word or writing but by this means it being hard to know what the king intended his Grants have been like the Devils Oracles taken in any contrary sence for his own advantage 1. R. In the famous Case of Altonwoods there is vouched the Lord Lovels Case That the king granted Lands to the Lord Lovel and his Heirs males not for service done but for a valuable consideration of money paid The Patentee well hoped to have enjoyed the Land not onely during his life but that his Heirs males at least of his body should have likewise enjoyed it but the Judges finding it seems that the king was willing to keep the money and have his Land again for what other reason no mortal man can fathom resolved that it was a void Grant and that nothing passed to the Patentee I might instance in many cases of like nature through out all the Reports as one once made his boast that he never made or past any Patent or Charter from the Crown but he reserved one starting hole or other and knew how to avoid it and so meerly to cousen and defraud the poor Patentee So that now put all these Prerogatives together 1. The Militia by Sea and Land 2. A liberty to call Parliaments when he pleased and to adjourn prorogue or dissolve them at pleasure 3. A Negative voice that the people cannot save themselves without him and must cut their own throats if commanded so to do 4. The nomination and making of all the Judges that upon peril of the loss of their places must declare the Law to be as he pleases 5. A power to confer Honors upon whom and how he pleases A covetous base wretch for Five or Ten thousand pounds to be Courted who deserves to be carted 6. To pardon Murtherers whom the Lord says shall not be pardoned 7. To set a value and price of Moneys as he pleases that if he be to pay Ten thousand pounds he may make Leather by his Proclamation to be currant that day or a Five shillings to pass for twenty shillings and if to receive so much a Twenty shillings to pass for Five shillings And lastly a Legal theft to avoid his own Grants I may boldly throw the Gantlet and challenge all the Machiavels in the world to invent such an exquisite platform of Tyrannical Domination and such a perfect Tyranny without maim or blemish as this is and that by a Law which is worst of all But the truth is these are no Legal Prerogatives but Usurpations Incroachments and Invasions upon the Peoples Rights and Liberties and this easily effected without any great depth of policy for t is but being sure to call no Parliaments or make them useless and make the Judges places profitable and place Avarice upon the Bench and no doubt but the Law shall sound as the king would have it But let me thus far satisfie the ingenuous Reader that all the Judges in England cannot make one Case to be Law that is not Reason no more then they can prove a hair to be white that is black which if they should so declare or adjudge it is meer nullity for Law must be Reason adjudged where Reason is the Genus and the Judgement in some Court makes the Differentiae and I never found that the fair hand of the common Law of England ever reached out any Prerogative to the king above the meanest man but in three cases 1. In matters of honor and preeminence to his person and in matters of Interest that he should have Mines Royal of Gold and Silver in whose Land soever they were discovered and Fishes Royal as Sturgeons and Whales in whose streams or water soever they were taken which very rarely happened or to have tythes out of a Parish that no body else could challenge for says the Law The most Noble Persons are to have the most Noble things 2. To have his Patents freed from deceit that he be not overreached or cousened in his Contracts being imployed about the great and arduous affairs of the Kingdom 3. His Rights to be freed from incursion of time not to be bound up by any Statute of Non claim for indeed possession is a vain plea when the matter of Right is in question for Right can never dye and some such honorable priviledges of
an Indian say to this case A King hath all power in his hands to do justice There is one accused upon strong presumptions at the least for poisoning that Kings Father The King protects him from justice Whether do you believe that himself had any hand in his Fathers death Had the Duke been accused for the death of a begger he ought not to have protected him from a Judicial Trial. We know that by Law it is no lesse then misprision of Treason to conceal a Treason and to conceal a Murder strongly implies a guilt thereof and makes him a kind of Accessary to the fact He that hath no nature to do justice to his own Father could it ever be expected that he should do justice to others Was he fit to continue a Father to the people who was without natural affection to his own Father Will he love a Kingdome that shewed no love to himself unlesse it was that he durst not suffer Inquisition to be made for it But I leave it as a riddle which at the day of Judgement will be expounded and unridled for some sinnes will not be made manifest till that day with this only That had he made the Law of God his delight and studied therein night and day as God commanded his Kings to do or had he but studied Scripture half so much as Ben Johnson or Shakespear he might have learnt That when Amaziah was setled in the Kingdom he suddenly did justice upon those servants which had killed his father Joash he did not by any pretended prerogative excuse or protect them but delivered them up into the hands of that Justice which the horridnesse of the fact did undoubtedly demerit That Parliament 4. Car. proving so abortive the King sets forth a Proclamation That none should presume to move him to call Parliaments for he knew how to raise monies enough without the help of Parliaments therefore in 12 years refuseth to call any In which interval and intermission how he had oppressed the people by incroachments and usurpations upon their liberties and properties and what vast summes of mony he had forceably exacted and exhausted by illegal Patents and Monopolies of all sorts I referre the Reader to that most judicious and full Declaration of the state of the Kingdeme published in the beginning of this Parliament That Judgment of Ship-mony did upon the matter formalize the people absolute slaves and him an absolute Tyrant for if the King may take from the people in case of necessity and himself shall be Judge of that necessity then cannot any man say that he is worth 6d for if the King say that he hath need of that 6d then by Law he must have it I mean that great Nimrod that would have made all England a Forrest and the People which the Bishop call his sheep to be his Venison to be hunted at his pleasure Nor does the common objection That the Judges and evil Counsellors and not the King ought to be responsible for such male-Administrations injustice and oppression beare the weight of a feather in the ballance of right reason For 1. Who made such wicked and corrupt Judges were they not his own Creatures and ought not every man to be accountable for the works of his own hands He that does not hinder the doing of evil if it lies in his power to prevent it is guilty of it as a commander thereof He that suffered those black Starres to inflict such barbarous cruelties and unheard of punishments as Brandings Slitting of Noses c. upon honest men to the dishonour of the Protestant Religion and disgrace of the Image of God shining in the face of man He well deserv'd to have been so served But 2. He had the benefit of those illegal Fines and Judgments I agree That if a Judge shall oppresse I. S. for the benefit of I. D. the King ought not to answer for this but the Judge unlesse he protect the Judge against the complaint of I. S. and in that case he makes himself guilty of it But when an unjust judgment is given against I. S. for the Kings benefit and the Fine to come immediately into his Coffers he that receives the mony must needs be presumed to consent to the judgement But 3. Mark a Machiaveipolicy Call no Parliaments to question the injustice and corruption of Judges for the Peoples relief And make your own Iudges and let that be Law that they declare whether it be reasonable or unreasonable it is no matter But then how came it to passe that we had any more Parliaments Had we not a gracious King to call a Parliament when there was so much need of it and to passe so many gracious Acts to put downe the Starre-Chamber c Nothing lesse It was not any voluntary free Act of grace not the least ingredient or tincture of love or goodaffection to the people that called the short Parliament in 16 but to serve his owne turne against the Scots whom he then had designed to enslave and those seven Acts of grace which the King past were no more then his duty to do nor halfe so much but giving the people a take of their own grists and he dissents with them about the Militia which commanded all the rest he never intended thereby any more good and security to the people then he that stealing the Goose leaves the feathers behinde him But to answer the question thus it was The king being wholly given up to be led by the counsels of a Jesuited Party who indeavoured to throw a bone of dissention among us that they might cast in their net into our troubled waters and catch more fish for St. Peters Sea perswaded the King to set up a new forme of Prayer in Scotland and laid the bait so cunningly that whether they saw it or not they were undone if they saw the mystery of iniquity couched in it they would resist and so merit punishment for rebelling if they swallowed it it would make way for worse well they saw the poison and refused to taste it the King makes warre and many that loved honour and wealth more then God assisted him down he went with an Army but his treasure wasted in a short time fight they would not for feare of an after-reckoning some Commanders propound that they should make their demands and the King grants all comes back to London and burnes the Pacification saying it was counterfeit they reassume their forts he raises a second warre against them and was necessitated to call a Parliament offering to lay down shipmoney for twelve subsidies they refuse the King in high displeasure breakes off the Parliament and in a Declaration commands them not to thinke of any more Parliaments for he would never call another There was a King of Egypt that cruelly opprest the People they poore slaves complaining to one another he feared a rising and commanded that none should complaine upon paine of cruell death
That the king shall improve his power for their good and make it his work to procure their safeties and they to provide for his honor which it done to the Commonwealth in him as the Sword and Ensigns of Honor carried before the Lord Major are for the honor of the city now as when any one of this people shall compass the death of the Governor ruling well this is a Treason punishable with death for the wrong done to the Community and Anathema be to such a man so when he or they that are trusted to fight the peoples Battels and to procure their welfare shall prevaricate and act to the inslaving or destroying of the people who are their Liege Lords and all Governors are but the peoples creatures and the work of their hands to be accomptable as their Stewards and is it not senseless for the vessel to ask the Potter by what Law he calls it to account this is high Treason with a witness and far more transcendent then in the former case because the king was paid for his Service and the Dignity of the Person does increase the offence for a great man of noble Education and knowledge to betray so great a Trust and abuse so much love as the Parliament shewed to the king by Petitioning him as good Subjects praying for him as good Christians advising him as good Counsellors and treating with him as the great Counsel of the kingdom with such infinite care and tenderness of his honor a course which Gods people did not take with Rehoboam they never petitioned him but advised him he refused their counsel and hearkened to yong Counsellors and they cry To thy tents O Israel and made quick and short work of it after all this and much more longanimity and patience from the Lord to the Servant for him not onely to set up a Standard of War in defiance of his dread Soveraign The People for so they truly were in Nature though Names have befool'd us but to persist so many years in such cruel persecutions who with a word of his mouth might have made a Peace If ever there were so superlative a Treason let the Indians judge and whosoever shall break and violate such a trust and confidence Anathema Maranatha be unto them Q. But why was there not a written Law to make it Treason for the King to destroy the people as well as for a man to compass the Kings death Resp. Because our Ancestors did never imagine that any King of England would have been so desperately mad as to leavy a War against the Parliament and people as in the Common instance of Paricide the Romans made no Law against him that should kill his Father thinking no childe would be so unnatural to be the death of him who was the Author of his life but when a childe came to be accused for a Murther there was a more cruel punishment inflicted then for other Homicides for he was thrown into the Sea in a great Leather Barrel with a Dog a Jackanapes a Cock and a Viper significant companions for him to be deprived of all the Elements as in my Poor mans Case Fol. 10. Nor was there any Law made against Parents that should kill their children yet if any man was so unnatural he had an exemplary punishment Obj. But is it not a Maxime in Law That the King can do no wrong Resp. For any man to say so is blasphemy against the great God of Truth and Love for onely God cannot erre because what he wills is right because he wills it and 't is a sad thing to consider how learned men for unworthy ends should use such art to subdue the people by transportation of their sences as to make them believe that the Law is That the King can do no wrong First For Law I do aver it with confidence but in all humility That there is no such Case to be found in Law That if the King Rob or Murther or commit such horrid Extravagancies that it is no wrong Indeed the case is put in H. 7. by a chief Judge that If the King kill a man 't is no felony to make him suffer death that is to be meant in ordinary Courts of Justice But there is no doubt but the Parliament might try the King or appoint others to judge him for it We finde Cases in Law that the King hath been sued even in Civil Actions In 43 E 3. 22. it is resolved That all maner of Actions did lie against the King as against any Lord and 24 E. 3. 23. Wilby a learned Judge said that there was a Writ Praecipe Henrico Regi Angliae Indeed E. 1. did make an Act of State That men should sue to him by Petition but this was not agreed unto in Parliament Thelwall title Roye digest of Writs 71. But after when Judges places grew great the Judges and Bitesheeps began to sing Lullaby and speak Platentia to the king that My Lord the King is an Angel of light Now Angels are not responsible to men but God therefore not kings And the Judges they begin to make the king a God and say that by Law his stile is Sacred Majesty though he swears every hour and Gracious Majesty though gracious men be the chief objects of his hatred and that the king hath an Omnipotency and Omnipresence But I am sure there is no Case in Law That if the king leavy a War against the Parliament and people that it is not Treason Possibly that Case in H. 7. may prove That if the king should in his passion kill a man this shall not be Felony to take away the kings life for the inconveniency may be greater to the people by putting a king to death for one offence and miscarriage then the execution of Justice upon him can advantage them But what 's this toa leavying of War against a Parliament never any Judge was so devoid of understanding that he denyed that to be Treason But suppose a Judge that held his place at the kings pleasure did so I am sure never any Parliament said so But what if there had in dark times of Popery been an Act made That the king might Murther Ravish Burn and perpetrate all mischiefs and play Reaks with impunity will any man that hath but wit enough to measure an Ell of cloath or to tell Twenty say That this is an Obligation for men to stand still and suffer a Monster to cut their throats and grant Commission to rob at Suters hill as such and no better are all Legal thefts and oppressions The Doctor says That a Statute against giving an alms to a poor man is void He is no Student I mean was never bound Prentice to Reason that says A king cannot commit Treason against the people Ob. But are there not Negative words in the Statute of 25 Ed. 3. That nothing else shall be construed to be Treason but what is there exprest Res That Statute was intended for