A DISCOURSE OF Monarchy More particularly of the IMPERIAL CROWNS OF England Scotland and Ireland According to the Ancient Common and statute-Statute-Laws of the same With a Close from the whole As it relates to the Succession of his ROYAL HIGHNESS JAMES Duke of York DEUT. 4.32 Interroga de diebus antiquis qui fuerunt ante te ex die quo creavit Dominus hominem super terram c. LONDON Printed by M. C. for Jos. Hindmarsh Bookseller to his Royal Highness at the Black Bull in Cornhil 1684. To the most Honorable JAMES Duke of ORMOND c. Lord Lieutenant of Ireland May it please your Grace IT was a saying of the late Earl of Ossory Lord Deputy of Ireland your Son at what time he deliver'd up the Sword of that Kingdom to the Lord Lieutenant Berkeley Action is the life of Government Common experience tells us Usefulness is the end of Action and without which like a Glass-eye to a Body a man rather takes up a room than becomes any way serviceable The sense of this put me on those thoughts I herewith present your Grace and unto whom more fitly than to a Person in the defence of which few men sate longer at Helm or suffer'd more You that hung not up your Shield of Faith in the Temple of Despair and never seem'd more worthy of the great place you now fill than when farthest from it Nor am I in the so doing without some prospect of advantage to my self in as much as if the censuring Age shall handle me roughly on this account under your great Patronage I shall fight in the Shade And now my Lord I was just breaking off when it came into my head that I had in some of our late pieces found Sir Edward Coke often quoted especially to the defence of those Notions which had better slept in their forgotten Embers and therefore I thought it not altogether forein to the matter that I us'd the words of S. Peter 2 Pet. 3.16 touching S. Paul's Epistles In which saith he are some things hard to be understood which they that be unlearned and unstable wrest as also they do the other Scriptures to their own destruction I have purposely made use of him in many places as an high Assertor of Monarchy and Prerogative Those that find him otherwise Habeant secum serventque Or let him lie indifferent my Argument depends not singly on him which I humbly took leave to advert and am May it please your Grace Your most Obedient Obliged humble Servant John Wilson THE CONTENTS Sect. I. THat Monarchy or the Supreme Dominion of one person was primarily intended by God when he created the World That it is founded in nature As consonant to the Divine Government And of Divine Institution Acknowledg'd by Heathens as well as Christians 1 Sect. II. That Adam held it by Divine right Cain a Monarch By the Kingdoms of the most ancient Gentiles not God's but Monarchs were denoted That the origiginal of Power came not from the People by way of Pact or Contract The unreasonableness and ill consequence of the contrary Noah and his Sons Kings A Family an exemplary Monarchy in which the Pater-familias had power of life and death by the right of Primogeniture Examples of the exercise of it in Judah Abraham Jephthah Brutus Vpon the increase of Families they still continued under one head Esau. The four grand Monarchies Ancients and Moderns universally receiv'd it as precedent to all other Governments 12 Sect. III. That all Governments have a natural tendency to Monarchy Their several Forms and Rotations Of Aristocracy Democracy Tyranny to be rather wisht than either Examples of Athens and Rome the first Consulate Their Tribunes several Seditions Marius and Sylla Crassus Caesar Pompey The two latter divide Caesar complemented to Rome by the Senate The Triumvirate their Proscriptions and breach No peace till Monarchy restor'd under Augustus The sense of those times touching this matter 34 Sect. IV. That the Kingdom of the Jews was a Supreme Sovereign Monarchy in which their Kings had the absolute Power of Peace and War and were Supreme in Ecclesiasticis And an Answer to that Objection That God gave them a King in his wrath 62 Sect. V. What is here intended by a Supreme Monarchy The marks of Sovereignty as the Power of making Laws and exemption from any coactive obedience to them The Power of Peace and War c. That the Kingdoms of England c. are Supreme Imperial Monarchies Those two marks of Sovereignty and seven others prov'd to be no other than what has ever been the undoubted Right of the Kings of England The Kings Sovereignty by the Common Law The like from the Statute Law Power in Ecclesiasticks And that they have justly used those Titles of King and Emperor and that from ancient times and before the Conquest 67 Sect. VI. That the King is none of the Three Estates in which two preliminary Objections are examin'd by Reason and answered by the manner of the Three Estates applying to him What the Three Estates are To presume him one of them were to make him but a Co-ordinate Power The King cannot be said to Summon or Supplicate himself How will the Three Estates be made out before the Commons came in With a short Series during the Saxons to the latter end of Henry III. in all which time they are not so much as nam'd as any constituent part of a Parliament And the time when probably they first came in to be as they are at this day one of the three Estates That the Lords Temporal were never doubted but to be an Estate Four reasons offer'd that the Lords Spiritual are one other Estate distinct from the Lords Temporal and one Act of Parliament in point With other Authorities to prove the Assertion 181 Sect. VII Admitting what has been before offer'd wherein has our present King merited less than any of his Royal Ancestors with a short recapitulation of Affairs as they had been and were at his Majesties most happy Restauration and that he wanted not the means of a just Resentment had he design'd any 181 Sect. VIII That notwithstanding the hard Law of the Kingdom the Jews paid their Kings an entire Obedience Two Objections answered The like other Nations to their Kings A third Objection answered The Precept of Obedience is without restriction Examples upon it Nor is Idolatry any ground to resist much less things indifferent The example from our Saviour in Instituting his last Supper Least of all is injury with the practice of Holy men of old in like cases And that if any ground were to be admitted that would never be wanting 189 Sect. IX The Arts of the late times in working the People from this Obedience It was to be done piece-meal The Kings Necessities answered with Complaints Plots discovered Fears and Jealousies promoted Religion cants its part Leading men some to make it Law others Gospel The examples of Corah c.
of Peace and War and this appears within the very letter of their demands viz. That he might judg them which is the power of Peace and go out before them and fight their Battels which is the power of War And what Authority he had in matters of the Church may be seen in this That Solomon of himself thrust out Abiathar the High-Priest and appointed Zadok in his room And that even the Horns of the Altar were no Sanctuary against him in case of Treason may be also seen in Adonijah and Joab and yet we cannot so much as gather that God was offended with him for his so doing or that his person was the less acceptable to him by reason of those matters To which if it be objected That God gave them a King in his anger I answer Moses having foretold the Israelites that when they came into the Land they would be asking a King charges them to set him over them whom God should choose which shews That a popular Election was utterly forbidden them yet they weary of such Judges as had succeeded Moses and whom God had raised to rule them as Kings demand a King like all the Nations i. e. of a more absolute power than those Judges had and therefore not staying Gods time but taking upon them to be their own Carvers he is said to have given them a King in his wrath in that they had not rejected Samuel but himself who had appointed Samuel In acknowledgment of which and as sensible of their error they ever after accepted their Kings by Succession unless only when their Prophets had anointed and ordained another by Gods special designation Nor do we find any one in Holy Writ chosen King by the Children of Israel but Abimelech the Bastard of Gideon and Creature of the People who also came in by Conspiracy and Murder And as it seems probable Jeroboam who made Israel to sin for they had sent to him at that time a discontented Fugitive in Egypt and he headed them in a complaint of Grievances to Rehoboam which occasion'd the revolt of the ten Tribes both which yet reigned as wickedly as they entred unjustly and perish'd miserably SECTION V. What is here intended by a Supreme Monarchy The marks of Sovereignty as the Power of making Laws and exemption from any coactive obedience to them The Power of Peace and War c. That the Kingdoms of England c. are Supreme Imperial Monarchies Those two marks of Sovereignty and seven others prov'd to be no other than what has ever been the undoubted Right of the Kings of England The Kings Sovereignty by the Common Law The like from the Statute Law Power in Ecclesiasticks And that they have justly used those Titles of King and Emperor and that from ancient times and before the Conquest I Have now brought my Discourse whither I first design'd it and therefore to avoid confusion which ever attends the being too general I shall first shew my Reader what I mean by a Supreme Imperial Monarch at this day and in the next place prove the Kings of England c. are such And lastly that however the Emperors of the West and East have so much striven about that great Title of Emperor or Basileus that yet the Kings of England as Supreme within their Dominions have also and justly from ancient Ages used it as no less proper to their own independent greatness As to the first The Regal Estate and Dignity of a King is of two sorts The one Imperial and Supreme as England France Spain c. who owing no service to the Majesty of another is his own Master and hath an absolute Power in himself no way subject to the controul of another and of such a one speaks Martial Qui Rex est Regem Maxime non habeat The other an Homager or Feudatary to another King as his Superior Lord such as that of Navar and Portugal of old to Castile Granada and Leon to Aragon Lombardy Sicily Naples and Bohemia to the Empire six parts of the Saxon Heptarchy who acknowledged the seventh Anglorum Rex primus and such was Aella King of Sussex the Kings of Man and others of whom I shall have occasion to speak hereafter hereafter The first of these is what I intend and will be the better made out if we cast our eyes a little on the marks of Sovereignty and then consider wherein they differ from our own Laws And amongst others we find these 1. The Power of making Laws and so what our English Translation calls Judah my Law-giver is in the vulgar Latin Juda Rex meus Judah my King This power being one of the principal ends of Regal Authority and was in Kings by the Law of Nature long before Municipal Laws had any Being the people at that time being govern'd by a natural equity which by the Law of Nature all were bound to observe And so the Poet Remo cum fratre Quirinus Jura dabat populo The like of King Priam Jura vocatis More dabat populis And of Augustus Legesque tulit justissimus Auctor So Cicero speaking of Julius Caesar as a Law-giver saith thus Caesar si ab eo quaereretur quid egisset in Toga Leges se respondisset multas praeclaras tulisse Though many yet received Laws at the will of their Prince and thus Barbaris pro legibus semper imperia fuerunt which word barbarous at that time carry'd no disgrace with it but was apply'd to them that spoke a strange Language And so the Hebrews called the Egyptians of all other Nations the most civiliz'd and learned for that they us'd the Egyptian Tongue and not the Hebrew as we have it in the Psalmist When Israel came out of Egypt and the house of Jacob de gente barbaro from a people of strange language And as they gave Laws to others so were they loosed from the force of them themselves i. e. from all coactive Obedience or Obligation to any written or positive Law Thus M. Antony when press'd by his Cleopatra to call Herod in question answer'd It was not fitting a King should give an account of what he did in his Government it being in effect to be no King at all And to the same purpose Pliny Ereptum principi illud in principatu beatissimum quod non cogitur Another mark of Sovereignty is the power of Peace and War and which as Bodin says was never doubted to be in a King In like manner to create and appoint Magistrates especially such as are not under the command of others The power of the last appeal To confer Honors To pardon Offenders To appoint the Value Weight and Stamp of his own Coin and make Forein Coin currant by Proclamation To receive Liege Homage of an inferior King And bear those Titles of Sacred and Majesty only proper to Sovereign Princes apart from all others of
which you may read at large in Bodin But I come to the second That the Kingdoms of England c. are a Supreme Imperial Monarchy which will the better appear when by examining those marks of Sovereignty we find no more in them than what the Laws of these Realms have ever acknowledg'd to be the undoubted right of our Kings and that whether we respect the Common Law Statute Law or their Power in Ecclesiasticks I 'll take my rise from the marks of Sovereignty 1. The Power of making Laws The Laws of most Kingdoms saith the Lord Bacon have been like Buildings of many pieces patcht up from time to time according to the occasion without form or model and as to our own that they are mixt as our Language of British Roman Saxon Danish Norman Customs Edgar the Saxon collected those of his time and gave them the force of a Fagot bound which formerly were dispersed The Danes impos'd upon us their Dane-Law And the third of that name before the Conquest Ex immensa Legum congerie quas Britanni Romani Angli Daci condiderunt optima quaeque selegit in unam coegit quod vocari voluit Legem communem Some of which bear his name to this day as Ordain'd by him After him William the Conqueror whom Polidor Virgil calls our Law-giver brought in somewhat of a new Law as may be seen in this That tho he made but little or no alteration in the Fundamentals but formulis juris he found here yet whether it were to honor his own Language or to shew some mark of Conquest he set forth his Publick Edicts in the Norman Tongue and caused our Laws to be written in the same And likewise his Justiciaries Lawyers and Ministerial Officers being at that time all Normans it may be none of the least reasons why all our Pleadings and Entries were in that Tongue until altered by Statute That because of the great mischiefs that had hapned to divers by means of the said Laws being written in the French Tongue which they understood not That therefore all Pleas for the future should be pleaded in the English Tongue and enrolled in the Latin and that we receiv'd our ancient Tenures from the Normans is obvious every where And King John planted the English Laws in Ireland But to come nearer home and examin how our present constitutions agree with it nor are they other than what has been the Practice of all former Parliaments wherein both Houses are so subordinate to the King in the making of Laws that neither of them singly nor both of them together can make any binding Law without the Kings concurrence they might in all times 't is true propose advise or consent or to borrow a Metaphor Spawn of themselves but in the Royal Consent only like the male touch lay the vis plastica which gave the Embrion life and quicken'd it into Laws and the reason of it is because the Legislative Power resideth solely in the King ut in subjecto proprio and the consent of the Lords and Commons is no sharing of that Power which is indivisible but a requisite condition to complete the Kings Power for otherwise all those Bills that have pass'd both Houses and for want of the Royal-Assent lie buried in oblivion might as occasion serv'd be rak'd from their forgotten Embers and set up for Laws Which also further appears in the several forms of our Kings giving their Royal Assent as Le Roy voit Le Roy est Assensus Le Roy Advisera c. and makes good this point That the Power of making Laws resides in the King and that he may as he sees cause either refuse or ratifie And this the Law of Scotland calls his Majesties best and most incommunicable Prerogative And as the Legislative Power resides in the King solely so also to him belongs it to interpret those Laws Si disputatio oriatur Justiciarii non possunt eam interpretari sed in dubiis obscuris Domini Regis erit expectanda interpretatio voluntas cum ejus sit interpretari cujus est condere saith the Lord Ellesmer from Bracton and Britton His is the interpretation of the Law whose is the Power of making the Law In his recurrendum ad Regem justitiae fontem whence he is said to carry all the Laws in scrinio pectoris sui in his Breast To give one instance for all When King Charles the First of happy memory had just given his Royal Assent to the Petition of Right he told the Houses That his meaning was to confirm all their Liberties as knowing that according to their own Protestations they neither meant nor could hurt his Prerogative c. And on the last day of the Session before his Royal Assent to the Bills saying he would tell them the cause why he came so suddenly to end that Session he adds Tho I must avow that I own an account of my actions to none but God And again charging both Houses with their Profession during the hammering that Petition that it was in no ways to trench upon his Prerogative saying they had neither intention nor power to hurt it he commands them all to take notice that what he had spoken was the true meaning of what he had granted But especially adds his Majesty you my Lords the Judges for to you only under me belongs the Interpretation of Laws for none of the Houses of Parliament joynt or separate what new Doctrin soever may be raised have any power either to make or declare a Law without my consent And as the King is the sole Lawgiver and Interpreter of that Law when given so also is he exempt and free from the Law for as much as concerneth the coactive force of the Law as being the Head of the Law and of the Common-wealth and consequently no man can give Sentence of condemnation against him if he do any thing against that Law for besides that every Sentence must be given by a Superior upon his Inferior there must be some Supreme whereunto all are subject but it self to none because otherwise the course of Justice would go infinitely in a Circle every Superior having his Superior without end which cannot be yet admitting it might the People cannot do it for they have no power themselves or if they had are his Subjects and a Parliament cannot do it for besides that they are his Subjects also and not his Peers who shall try him for he is Principium Caput finis Parliamenti and it can neither begin nor end without his Presence in Person or by Representation and hence it is that his Death Dissolves them Again if the People may call him to account the State is plainly Democratical if the Peers it is Aristocratical if either or both of them 't is no way Monarchical which is directly contrary
when Pope Innocent the Third had against the declar'd will of King John caused Stephen Langton to be Elected Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and after that confirm'd him and wrote to the King to receive him the King returns that he the Pope had subverted the Liberties of his Crown and that therefore he would prohibit all People going to Rome and from making appeals thither which confirms my former instance and that this Power was always in the King however for a time it might have happen'd to be neglected for otherwise it had been a vain thing in him to have expell'd the Monks of Canterbury as Traytors which he actually did or to have imagin'd that a Bigotted Seditious Clergy as at that time they were and to be headed by that Arch-Bishop at least no friend to the King if not his Enemy should be frighten'd with an empty Bug bear touching a matter whereof he had no cognisance had he not been satisfi'd it was in his Power to do it as well as his Father before him had done it And having thus occasionally nam'd him let me with all submission offer this to the memory of that unfortunate Prince that his designs in order to the freeing the Crown from Forein usurpation were mighty and that he came short in what Henry the Eighth afterwards effected was not that he was less able but his times worse for considering the unsettled condition of those times and at what disadvantages he came in what wonder if he were oppress'd by a Faction when deserted by his Subjects who otherwise had never suffer'd him to have made that Crown to the defence of which they had all sworn tributary which many years afterward when the Arrears of that Tribute were demanded was too late tho effectually enough declar'd in Parliament he could not do nor they consent to the doing it But to proceed When after this the Sea of Rome would be yet intermedling it was by all the States of Parliament severally examin'd and answering each State one by one personally for it self unanimously Declar'd That the Pope's awarding any Processes or Sentences of Excommunication c. against any Bishops or other Spiritual Persons for executing Judgments given in the Kings Courts was clearly in derogation of the Kings Crown and Regality used and approved of the time of all his Progenitors and which they would maintain as they were bound by their Liegance and thereupon Enacted That the purchasing any Bulls from Rome or elsewhere shall be a Premunire In which it is observable That as the Judges before that time were for the most part Church-men the Laity being not yet come up to Letters or where they were Rari nantes in gurgite vasto The Lords Temporal and the Commons of this Parliament were all Romanists and of what Persuasion the Lords Spiritual and their Assistants the then Judges were I leave to every man the question at that time being not matter of Religion but right of Superiority not the Church but Court of Rome And so Sir E. Cooke speaking of the first Article of the Statute of 25 H. 8. concerning the Prohibition of Appeals to Rome saith it is but declaratory of the ancient Law of this Realm And in another place The same Authority that the Pope ever exercised in this Kingdom by Usurpation was always in the King de jure With which also agrees the Lord Chief Justice Hobart That whatsoever the Pope did in this Kingdom even then when he was in his greatest height and strength was of no better force in right and justice than at the first when he was but simple Bishop of Rome which was coram non Judice and so Jus non habenti tuto non paretur 5. The Power of conferring Honors on which account he may also enable a man to assign his Surname Arms and Barony to another For as by the Laws of England all Lands within the same were originally derived from the Crown and holden of the King either mediately or immediately as Lord Paramount so also by the same Laws were all degrees of Nobility and Honor derived from the King as the Fountain of Honor. So H. 6. granted to H. Beuchamp Ut esset primus praecipuus Comes Angliae and that he should use the Title of Henricus Praecomes totius Angl c. ibid. 361. First Earl of all England c. And to the name Count or Earl which was the most ancient name of Dignity among the Saxons Edw. 3. Ang. Greg. 11. created the Title of Duke as distinct from that of Earl for in elder times they were oft synonimous with us and created his eldest Son the Black Prince then Earl of Chester into the Title of Duke of Cornwal which he created into a Dutchy and about the 18th of his Reign the most noble Order of the Garter And in the 9th of R. 2. Robert de Vere Earl of Oxford was created Marquess of Dublin And H. 6. the 18th of his Reign created John Lord Beaumont Viscount Beaumont of which Titles we find no mention in the Magna Charta 9. H. 3. for they were not at that time in being And to this yet further the Kings of England have and may at this day create a County-Palatine which none but the Emperor or a Supreme Monarch may do for whoever is owner thereof hath in that County Jura Regalia as fully as the King in Palatio Par curis solo diademate dispar So Hugh Lupus Nephew of King William the Conqueror was by him created Earl of Chester and the County given him Tenendum sibi haeredibus ita libere ad gladium sicut ipse Rex tenebat Angliam ad Coronam by which general words he had Jura Regalia within the said County and consequently a County-Palatine without express words and by force thereof he created eight Cheshire Barons So not long after his time was the County-Palatine of Durham raised And in the 10th of H. 1. the Royal Franchise of Ely In the 13th of Edw. 3. the County-Palatine of Pembroke And in the 50th year of his Reign the County of Lancaster was by him erected into a County-Palatine and by him given to his fourth Son John of Gaunt then Duke of Lancaster for life to which if any one shall say that it was De assensu praelatorum procerum Sir Edw. Coke answers for me That the King may make a County-Palatine by his Letters Patents without Parliament Add to this the three first Counties-Palatine created in Ireland by Henry the Second viz. Leinster which he granted to Earl Strongbow who had married the Daughter and Heir of M. Morough Prince of Leinster 2. Meath to Sir Hugh Lacy the Elder 3. Ulster to Sir Hugh Lacy the younger and had their Barons under them answerable to the Barons created by H. Lupus of which before Of which you may read excellent Learning
increase of Families Esau. Gen. 36 Gen. 14. Josh. 12. The Assyrian Monarchy The Persian The Grecian The Roman Monarchy All other ancient Nations Monarchies Bodin Selden's Tit. Hon. 10. And as universally received by the Moderns Precedent to all other Governments Arist. pol. l. 4 Lord Baeon The several Forms of Government Arist. Pol. l. 3. c. 5. And their Rotations Discourse on Livy Deca 1. Aristocracy Democracy Virgil. Ovid. Metam Tyranny to be rather wisht than either Examples in Athens c. Florus l. 1. Tacitus l. 1. Rome from the first Consulate Florus l. 1. c. 23. Their Tribunes Rosiâ— Antiq. l. 7. c. 19. Lib. 1. c. 24. Id. l 3. c. 14 15 16 17. Several Seditions Marius and Sylla In vita Syllae Fastorum l. 4. Crassus Caesar Pompey The two latter divide Flo. l. 4. c 4. Ibid. cap. 8. Lib. â— Ep. 75. Caesar complemented to Rome by the Senate God Rom. Ant. 171. Flo. l. 4. c. 7. The Triumvirate Rofin Antiq. l. 7. c. 21. Their Proscriptions Rosin Antiq. l. 7. c. 21. And Breach No peace until Monarchy restor'd Florus l. 4. c. 12. The sense of those times touching this matter Amp. in lib. memoriali c. 28. Lucan Statius 1 Sam. 8. throughout 1 Sam. 10.25 1 Sam. 8.20 1 Kings 2.27 1 Kings 25.34 Object Sol. Deut. 17.15 Judges 9.18 1 Kings 12.3 Inst. 4 343. Seld. Tit. Hon. 24. Marks of Sovereignty Power of making Laws Psal. 60.7 Virgil. Livy Psal. 114.1 And exemption from any coactive Obedience to them Joseph Ant. l. 15. c. 14. Panegyr ad Trajan Power of Peace and War De Repub. 163. Id. Bodin 182. That the Kingdom of England is a Supreme Imperial Monarchy The Kings Power in making Laws In his Resusc. fol. 153. Ibid. 154. Ibid. fol. 276 Sir E. Coke's Preface to his third Report Sir Jo. Davys Preface to his Irish Reports 36 Edw. III. cap. 15. Sir Jo. Davys Preface to his Irish Reports Sir E. Cooke Sur West 2. Inst. 4.243 Inst. 2.286 Indictment against the Earl of Areyle 1681. The Kings Power in interpreting Laws Cited by him in his Postnaci Sir H. Spelman's Gloss fol. 107. Inst. 1.99 Inst. 2.168 Vide Petition of Right and his Majesties Answer 3 Car. 1. Vide Stat. at large fol. 1433. His being exempt from their coactive force Inst. 1.99 Ibid. 73. Ibid. 110. Inst. 4.28 Ibid. 46. â—ract l. 1. c. 8. 1 Jac. Claudian The Kings absolute Power of Peace and War Nat. Brev. 113. Ess. of Delay Inst. 3.9 25 Edw. 3.2 7 Rep. 25. 13th of this King cap. 2. Sir E. Cooke Inst. 1.90 * Subscribed to by all the Judges in the case of Ship-Money and by Hatten and Crooke tho they fell off afterward Sir Will. Dugdale's Short View fol. 42. Inst. 1.161 The Kings Power in appointing chief Magistrates and great Ministers Smith de Repub. Ang. l. 2. Inst. 2.26 Inst. 3.7 The Power of the last Appeal Inst. 4.343 Ibid. 341. Matth. Paris cited by Sir J. Davys in his Irish Rep. 61. Answer to Petit. p. 88. Ass. de Clarend 10 H. 2. c. 8. Inst. 4.14 16 R. 2. c. 5. Vide The Case of Premunire in Sir John Davys Inst. 4.341 Inst. 2.602 Sir H. Hobart fol. 146. The sole fountain of Honor Inst. 4.126 Inst. 1.65 Inst. 4.363 Seld. Tit. of Honor 621. Ibid. 628. Ibid. 630. Inst. 1.69 May create a Palatinate Camb. Britt 464. Seld. Tit. Hon. 530. Inst. 4.211 Camb. Britt 600. Plowd 214. Inst. 4.204 in the Margin 9 Jac. in Scac. fol. 49. As also Seld. Tit. Hon. 693. Stat. Hibern 14 Car. 2. c. 20. Have made a King and Lord of Ireland Seld. Tit. Hon. 38.41 Inst. 4.357 Inst. 1.83 Ibid. Seld. 26. Sir E. Cooke 5 Rep. 110. in Foxley's Case Inst. 3.233 241. The King appoints the value c. of Coin Sir J. Davys q. v. Case de mixt Moneys Stat. 25 Edw. 3. cap. 2. Sir J. Davys in Pref. 5. Rep. 114. Inst. 2.576 Inst. 1.207 Liege Homage received by our Kings Seld. Tit. Hon. 26. Ibid. 29. Ibid. 24 25.38 Inst. 3.11 Their burning those incommunicable Titles of Majesty c. Tit. Hon. 594. Ibid. 92. Further instances of the Kings Sovereignty by the Common Law Inst. 1.1 Inst. 2.68 Inst. 1.13 Ibid. 42. Inst. 1.15 1 H. 7.4 Plowd 238. Inst. 4.352 Inst. 3 7. 7. Rep. in Calvin's Case Ibidem 23 H. 6. c. 8. 11. Rep. of the Lord De la Ware 13 Edw. 3. Inst. 4.342 Vide Seld. Tit. Hon. 21. Ann. Reg. 14. Ann. 40. Ed. 3. Inst. 4.13 357. 18 Edw. 3. Inst. 4.88 104. Inst. 2.167 Inst. 1.90 344. Inst. 2.496 Bract. l. 1. Britt f. 27. Regist. fol. 61. 1 Sam. 6.19 The like from the Statute-Law and that the Crown of England is Imperial Inst. 4.343 16 R. 2. c. 5. Vide Article against Woolsey 21 H. 8. Iâ—st 4.89 24 H. 8. c. 12. 25 H. 8. c. 21. Vide Cap. 22. 88 H. 8. c. 7. Vide cap. 16. Stat. Hibern 28. H. 8. c. 2. Stat. Hibern 33 H. 8. c. 1. 1 Eliz. c. 1. and Cap. 3. 5 Eliz. c. 1. 1 Jac. c. 1. Stat. Scotiae 5. Jac. 3. c. 3. Printed at Edenburgh 1681. The Kings Power in Ecclesiasticks Sir H. Hob. 143. Inst. 1.94 Glanv l. 1. c. 7. Inst. 4.285 Inst. 1.134 344. Ann. Reg. 17. Math. Paris fol. 213. Answ. to Pet. fol. 88. 40 Edw. 3. The Act is not in the Statutes at large but you may find it Inst. 4.13 Ibid. 357. 25 H. 8. c. 2. This was set out by Dr. Bernard in 16 1. in a Book entituled Clavi Trabales with the Bishop of Lincoln's Preface to it p. 82. Inst. 4.357 Ibid. 359. Regist. 294. Fitz. N. Breâ— Printed in 1666. 411. 6 Edw. 3.11 11 H. 4.68 11 H 4.60 11 H. 7.12 Sir Hen. Hob. fol. 146. Inst. 3.238 Fitz. N.B. 662. Inst. 1.344 Dyer 348. Ibid. 294. The same 3 Car. 1 c. 4. Inst. 4.342 Inter Leges Ed. c. 17. Mr. Hooker of the Kings Power in matters of Religion Cla. Trab 72. Inst. 4.323 Cro. Jac. 371. 22 Car. 2. That the Kings of England have justly used the Titles of Emperor c. and that from Ancient Ages Seld. Tit. of Honor f. 17. Sir Edw. Coke's Preface to his fourth Report Camb. Brit. 189. Ibid. Seld. Inst. 4.343 Ibidem Ibid Seld. 1 Object 1. Object 2. Sol. 1. Bodin l. 2. Ibid. Bodin Sol. 2. The manner of the Three Estates applying to the King 3 Car. 1. 1 Jac. 1. 1 Eliz. 3. 1 Mar. Sess. 2. 28 H. 8. c. 7. 1 Rich. 3. 3 Edw. 4. 4 Edw. 3. â—5 Edw. 3. 1 Edw. 1. Stat de Scat. 51 H. 3. What these Three Estates are Inst. 4.1 Inst. 1.110 Lib. 5.233 De Repub. l. 1. Coll. Fr. Tâ—â—ffe his Speech to them â—rom the Duke of Lorain 1674. Sir H. Spelm. Gloss. f. 449. 1 Pet. 2.13 To presume him such were to make him but a Co-ordinate Power Bar. Arg. l. 1. He cannot Summon himself Novum Organ Aphor. 46. Where were these three Estates
setling the Common-wealth which was much out of order had chief Power and Authority for five years which expiring they refus'd to resign but held it other five enacting or reversing what laws they pleas'd and that without the consent of the Senate or People and having divided one Common-wealth into three Monarchies viz. Africk both the Sardinia's and Sicily to Octavius All Spain and Gallia Narbonensis i. e. Languedoc Daulphine and Provence to Lepidus and the rest of France of either side the Alps to Antony the defence of Rome and Italy is left to Lepidus while the other two advance against Brutus and Cassius who by a mistake having lost the day kill themselves Upon this the Conquerors return to Rome and exercising all cruelty whatever without any regard of person or condition they proscribe and banish at pleasure Lepidus gave up his Brother Lucius Paulus to gratifie Octavius Antony his Uncle L. Caesar to requite Lepidus And Octavius his friend Cicero whose advice had given him the Empire to appease inexorable Antony concerning the Philippicks And now nothing but slaughter bestrid the Streets when besides the incredible number of Roman Knights and Citizens kill'd in the broil there were no less than 130 Senators proscrib'd between them and of whom those last mentioned were three And now one would think all had been at quiet the Common-wealth as I said before being divided into three Monarchies and Antony married to the Sister of Octavius yet all would not do for Antony being gone for Egypt and Sextus Pompeius overthrown Octavius makes War on Lepidus whose softness and irresolution made him submit with the loss of his share of the Triumvirate and thence to keep a War as he had never less than reason to suspect it from home he follows Antony whose sensuality and unpursutiveness lost him the sole Empire of the World for Octavius having overcome him and Cleopatra in the Naval Battle of Actium the Morning and the Evening of the Roman State made but one day and the Sovereignty once more coming into one hand the Temple of Janus was now the third time clos'd Upon which applying himself to preserve that peace he had so happily restor'd he made severe Laws to restrain those evils a peaceable Age is but too prone to run into in due sense of which it was debated in Senate An quia condidisset imperium Romulus vocaretur sed sanctius reverentius visum est nomen Augusti And it may be observ'd that from the expulsion of the Roman Kings to the Reign of Octavius Augustus about 450 years there was seldom above 10 years without some Civil War or some Sedition whereas Augustus kept the Empire in peace for above 50 years and so it continu'd after his death till the Pretorian Bands began to chaffer for the Empire and others to comply with them gave an Empire for an Empire And now e're I close the Argument it may not be amiss to recollect what the Historians and Poets that speak of those times thought of it Neque aliud discordantis reipublicae remedium quam ut ab uno regeretur saith Tacitus Nor is Florus who wrote not long after him in any thing short of him Gratulandum tamen in tanta perturbatione est quod potissimum ad Octavium Caesarem summa rerum rediit qui sapientia sua atque solertia perculsum undique perturbatum ordinavit imperii corpus Quod ita haud dubie nunquam coire consentire potuisset nisi unius praesidis nutu quasi anima mente regeretur We have this yet in so great a confusion to be glad at that the upshot of all came back to Octavius Caesar rather than another who by his Wisdom and Policy brought the shatter'd and disorder'd body of the Empire into frame again which without dispute had never met and joyn'd together had it not been actuated by one chief Ruler as with a Soul and Intelligence And to the same purpose L. Ampelius who wrote before the division of the Empire speaking of the several turns of the state of Rome and the uncertain condition of the people Donec exortis bellis civilibus inter Caesarem Pompeium oppressa per vim libertate sub unius Caesaris potestatem redacta sunt omnia Until those Civil Wars between Caesar and Pompey began and the publick liberty over-born by violence all things were reduced under rhe obedience of one Caesar. And what the much ancienter Homer's sense of having many Lords was we have every where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nec multos regnare bonum Rex unicus esto And the reason of it is clear Nulla fides regni sociis omnisque potestas Impatiens consortis erit And so another Summo nil dulcius unum est Stare loco sociisque comes discordia regnis From all which we may gather That all Governments of what kind soever have a natural tendency to Monarchy and like Noah's Dove find no rest till they return to the same station whence they first departed It being impossible otherwise but that as Lines from the Center the farther they run the farther they must separate SECTION IV. That the Kingdom of the Jews was a Supreme Sovereign Monarchy in which their Kings had the absolute Power of Peace and War and were Supreme in Ecclesiasticis And an Answer to that Objection That God gave them a King in his wrath I Have hitherto according to my method propos'd discours'd of Monarchy in general it remains now that I bring it down to some particulars I 'll begin with the Kingdom God erected among the Jews his own People and shew That the Monarchy among them was supreme and independent And here we 'l take the case as we find it in Samuel Samuel was become old and his Sons not walking in his ways had distasted the People who ask of him a King to judg them like all the Nations Samuel is displeas'd but God commands him to hearken to them howbeit to protest solemnly against them and shew them the manner of the King that was to reign over them which he accordingly does viz. He will take your sons and appoint them for himself for his chariots and to be his horsemen and some shall run before his chariots He will take your fields and your vineyards and your oliveyards even the best of them and give them to his servants c. A hard saying no doubt whether we respect their persons or their possessions and yet he calls it Jus Regis qui imperaturus est vobis thereby also implying that such was the manner of all other Nations And when he wrote it in a Book and laid it up before the Lord he calls it Legem Regni The Law of the Kingdom and yet a King they must have and had him adding to that of Samuel this other of their own desires that he might have the absolute power
the further proof of this Sovereign Imperial Monarchy There are yet other Regalities and Prerogatives which the Common Laws of England have ever allowed and never doubted but to be inherent in their Kings And hence it is that the King cannot be said to be a Tenant because he hath no Superior but God Almighty And if the King and a common Person joyn in a Foundation the King shall be the Founder for the thing being entire the Kings Prerogative shall be preferr'd That he shall have the Escheat of all Lands whereof a person attaint of High Treason was seiz'd of whomsoever they were holden That there is no Occupant against the King nor shall any one gain his Land by priority of Entry for Nullum tempus occurrit Regi That half Blood is no impediment to the descent of the Lands of the Crown as was seen in the Case of Queen Mary who was but of half Blood to King Edward 6. and Queen Elizabeth to both for the quality of the Person alters the Descent That the accession of the Crown purges all Attainders as may be seen in the respective Cases of Henry 6. and Henry 7. whose Attainders were no other than a present disability which upon their assuming the Royal Dignity were ipso facto void That the word King imports his Politick Capacity which is never in minority and never dies but extends to all his Successors as well Kings as Queens That he is King before Coronation for besides that the Law suffers no interregnums he holds it by inherent Birth-Right the Coronation being but a Royal Ornament and outward Solemnization of the Descent and not unlike the publick Celebration of Matrimony between a Man and a Woman which adds nothing to the substance of the Contract but declares it to the world That the Ligeance of his Subjects is absolute and indefinite and due to the natural Person of the King by the Law of Nature which is immutable and part of the Law of the Land before any Municipal or Judicial Law and that an Act of Parliament cannot bar the King of the Service of his Subject which the indelible Law of Nature gave him it being a part of the Law of the Land by which subjection is due to him And therefore the Statute That no man notwithstanding any non obstante shall serve as Sheriff above one year bars not the King from dispensing with it And William Lord la Ware altho disabled by Act of Parliament was nevertheless called to Parliament was nevertheless called to Parliament by Queen Elizabeth by Writ of Summons for she could not be barr'd of the Service and Counsel of any of her Subjects Add to this That all Restrictions upon his Sovereign Liberty are void and therefore Publick Notaries made by the Emperor claiming to exercise their Offices in England were prohibited as being against the Dignity of a Supreme King And with this agrees the statute-Statute-Law of Scotland made in the Parliament of the 5th of King James the Third cap. 3. In short when King John had subjected his Crowns of England and Ireland to Pope Innocent the Third and had become his Feodary under the annual Acknowledgment of one thousand Marks to the Pope and his Successors and when afterwards the Arrearages thereof were demanded the Parliament of that year answered That no King can put himself or his Realm in Subjection without their Assent And how far that Assent reach'd we have it in the 42 of Edward the Third where in full Parliament it was further declar'd That they could not Assent to any thing in Parliament that tended to the Disinherison of the King or his Crown whereunto they were Sworn which is no more than what the Statute that prescribes the Oath of the Kings Justices has in it viz. Ye shall not Counsel nor Assent to any thing that may turn him the King in Damage or Disinherison by any manner way or colour And to the same effect are the several Oaths of the Lord Chancellor and Lord Treasurer You shall not know nor suffer the Hurt or Disinheriting of the King or that the Rights of the Crown be decreased by any means as far as you may lett it In a word to omit many others All such things whereof no Subject can claim Property as Treasure-trove Wreck Estrays c. belong to the King by his Prerogative which extends to all Powers and Preheminences which the Law hath given the Crown and is a principal part of the Law of the Land and is called by Bracton Libertas Privilegium Regis both words signifying the same thing i. e. The Kings Prerogative And by Britton Droit le Roy The Kings Right And in the Register Jus Regium which is the same and Jus Regium Coronae The Royal Right of the Crown And since it has not been wound up so high as to endanger the strings what reason is there to wish it let down so low as to render it profanable by the People When the Philistines return'd the Ark of God which they had taken the men of Beth-Shemesh must be prying into it and he that has a mind to know the effect of their curiosity may read it in Samuel God slew one hundred and fifty thousand of them But enough of the Common-Law we 'l in the next place consider what the Statute-Law in further affirmance of the Common-Law saith to this matter And here it cannot be thought saith Sir Edw. Coke that a Statute made by the Authority of the whole Realm will recite a thing against the Truth I 'll begin with that of Richard 2. commonly call'd the Statute of Premunire in which it is declared That the Crown of England hath been ever so free that it is in no earthly subjection but immediately subject to God in all things touching the Regality of the same Crown and to none other In like manner the Statute of H. 8. against Appeals to Rome saith That by divers sundry old Authentick Histories and Chronicles it is manifestly declared and expressed that this Realm of England is an Empire and so hath been accepted in the world governed by one Supreme Head and King having the Dignity and Royal Estate of the Imperial Crown of the same unto whom a Body Politick compact of all sorts and degrees of people divided in terms by names of Spiritualty and Temporalty have bounden and owen to bear next to God a natural and humble Obedience And near the middle of the said Statute it is further called the Authority and Prerogative of the said Imperial Crown And in the 25 of the same it is called The Imperial Crown and Royal Authority recognising no Superior under God but only your Grace And in the following Chapter besides the frequent use of the word Imperial the Kings thereof are stiled Kings and Emperors of this Realm
Assistance of God King of Britain And Edwine in a Charter of his to the Abbey of Crowland is stiled Edwinus Anglorum Rex totius Britanniae telluris Gubernator Rector Edwine King of the English and of all the British Land Director and Governor In like manner Ethelred in a Charter of his to the Church of Canterbury stiles himself Angligenum Orcadarum necne in gyro jacentium Monarchus Monarch or sole Governor of the English the Isles of Orkeney and all that lie within that Circuit but subscribes it Ego Aethelredus Anglorum Induperator c. I Ethelred Emperor of the English And besides what I said before of King William Rufus that said he had the same Prerogatives in his Kingdom as the Emperor claim'd in the Empire in a Charter of his to the Monastery of Shaftsbury he says Ego Willielmus Rex Anglorum anno ab incarnatione 1089. secundo anno mei Imperii I William King of the English in the year of our Lord 1089. and of my Empire the second And now having brought it thus far I shall in the next place examin the unreasonableness of that new Notion that the King is one of the three Estates and doubt not but to prove the contrary to any man but him who will not be persuaded tho you shall have persuaded him SECTION VI. That the King is none of the Three Estates in which two preliminary Objections are examin'd by Reason and answered by the manner of the Three Estates applying to him What the Three Estates are To presume him one of them were to make him but a Co-ordinate Power The King cannot be said to Summon or Supplicate himself How will the Three Estates be made out before the Commons came in With a short Series during the Saxons to the latter end of Henry III. in all which time they are not so much as nam'd as any constituent part of a Parliament And the time when probably they first came in to be as they are at this day one of the three Estates That the Lords Temporal were never doubted but to be an Estate Four reasons offer'd that the Lords Spiritual are one other Estate distinct from the Lords Temporal and one Act of Parliament in point With other Authorities to prove the Assertion THose that would have the King one of the Three Estates say That our Government is a kind of mixt Monarchy inasmuch as in our Parliaments the Lower House as representing the Commons bear a semblance of a Democracy and the Lords of Aristocracy And others That the King Lords and Commons who as Assembled joyntly to the end of Legislation as one Corporation and no otherwise are the Law-giver We 'll examin it by reason which Neque decipitur nec decipit usquam and only commands belief when all things else beg it And here to come as near the wind as I can that I may the better get up with them admitting the semblance but not granting the thing what does this make for them or serve to prove that yet the Government is not a free Monarchy because the Supreme Authority as I said ere while resteth neither in the one House or the other either joyntly or severally but solely in the King at whose pleasure they are assembled and without whose Royal Assent they can make no Law to oblige the Subject And therefore not denying Bodin's distinction of a Lordly Monarch a Royal Monarch and a Tyrannical Monarch which relateth only to the Power and Practice of the Monarch yet the distinction of a Supreme and mixt Monarchy which designeth the manner of the Government is a contradiction in Terminis because that Government which extendeth it self to more than one can never be a Monarchy as is obvious to every one that understandeth the word Monarchy and was never heard of in our Land till the men of our late times instead of suppressing Idolatry c. had fram'd a new Idol of their own and having made it as gay as they could set it up to be ador'd by the Multitude always prone to admire every thing they least understand And what must the consequence of it be but that the Government must be partly Monarchical partly Aristocratical and partly Democratical which are in themselves contrary and to be governed by contrary Laws and if it be impossible to make any good out of two extremes as Monarchy and Democracy are what then shall be made of three confounded among themselves or how can it be that Sovereignty a thing indivisible can at one and the same time be divided between one Prince the Nobility and the People in common and not to be altogether a State Popular or at best a Venetian Republick wherein albeit there be but one Duke and He for life yet his person being not invested with the Supreme Power of Government he is in effect but Magni nominis umbra And as to the other That the King Lords and Commons as one Corporation and no otherwise are the Law-giver here I take the King to be in a worse condition for tho to the making of an Act the concurrence of both Houses is necessary yet of no effect if the King disapprove yet the Case of a Mayor Aldermen and Burgesses or whatever other the stile of the Corporation be is wholly different for they meeting together by the Princes grant in a kind of Democratical Common Council for the better Government of the place where they reside order every thing by most Voices wherein the Mayor himself has but one and is concluded by the greater number but the King having no Voice nor any one to represent him in the discussive part of any Act cannot be said to give his Royal Assent as one of the Corporation but by his inherent Legislative Prerogative and how improper the contrary is will further appear in that a Common-Council put what By-Laws they please upon the Mayor as long as they are not contrary to the Law of the Land because he has no negative upon them But in case of a Sovereign the first mark of it as I have shewn before is the Power of making Laws now who should those Subjects be that should yield Obedience to that Law if they also had the Power to make Laws or who should that Prince be that could give the Law being himself constrain'd to receive it of his Subjects unto whom also he gave it A thing not only incompatible but even absurd from every days Practice and Experience for do not the Three Estates of this Kingdom upon the passing of all Bills address themselves to his Majesty in the most humble Stile As that of the Petition of Right Humbly shew unto our Sovereign Lord the King the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in Parliament Assembled c. So to King James Most dread and most gracious Sovereign We your most Loyal and Humble Subjects the Lords c. So to Queen
of the said Interdict and thereby also promises them a re-payment with thanks so that He only borrows Mony of them on that particular occasion but does not in the least hint or direct them to send their Proxies or Representatives to any Great Council to be then call'd as we have it and the History of that time more at large in the said Answer to Mr. Petit. And now having offer'd thus far to this matter I shall go on with the reason of those times which I take to be thus William the Conqueror having subdu'd England began now to consider the way of securing it and to that purpose as it is in the Proverb cut large thongs out of other mens hides and as a reward of the Service done him granted a certain compass or circuit of Land unto such of his Chief men as had assisted him in the acquisition to them and their Heirs to dwell on and exercise such Jurisdiction therein as he thought good to grant performing also such Services and paying him such yearly Rent as the Grant required they again parcell'd this Land to such other meaner men as had follow'd them in the Expedition under such Services and Rents as they thought fit and by this means as those Great men became Tenants to the King in Chief so the Inferiors became Tenants to them who as Superiors exercised a kind of little Kingship over them The King and his Successors being Supreme Lords of the whole and imposing from time to time such Laws as by the advice and assent of those his Barons were thought expedient and unto which Consentire inferior quisque vis us est in persona Domini sui capitalis prout hodie per Procuratores Comitatus vel Burgi quos in Parliamentis Knights and Burgesses appellamus to which every inferior saith he was presum'd to consent in the person of his Chief Lord from whom he held as at this day by the Representatives of Counties and Burroughs in Parliament whom we call Knights and Burgesses and certainly there is no doubt to be made but that if there had been any such privilege of ancient time belonging to the People that the Historians of those times would not have pass'd so material a thing in silence especially considering how many of lesser account are every where found among them Polidor Virgil would have the Commons to have been brought into those great Councils in the 16th of Henry I. Sir Walter Raleigh about the 18th of that King but Sir Henry Spelman will not allow it his words are these Sine ut sodes dicam collegisse me centenas reor conciliorum edictiones tenoresque ipsos plurimorum ab ingressu Guilielmi 1. ad excessum Hen. 3. existentium nec in tanta multitudine de plebe uspiam reperisse aliquid nil in his delituerit Give me leave saith he to speak frankly I believe I have collected an hundred Acts of Councils and the forms of most from the coming in of William the First to the going off of Henry the Third nor in so great a number have I any where found any thing of the Commonalty nothing of it lies in them And yet it may be probable that Henry the Third toward the end of his long but troublesome Reign brought them in to counterpoise the Factions of his seditious Barons for tho at the making of the Statutes of Merton there is not the least mention of the Commons yet in those at Marleborough they are thus named The more discreet men of the Realm being called together as well of the higher as of the lower Estate And in the Title of the Statute of Westminster the first made in the third of Edw. 1. who as he was first of his name after the Conquest so he was the first that setled the Law and State and freed this Kingdom from the Wardship of the Peers it is thus said These be the Acts of King Edward Son to King Henry made at Westminster at his first Parliament c. by his Council and by the Assent of Arch-Bishops Bishops Abbots Priors Earls Barons and all the Commonalty of the Realm being thither Summoned c. And so that word Parliament which as Sir Henry Spelman says in King John's time nondum emicuit was not yet got up other than by the name of Commune Concilium Regni The Common-Council of the Kingdom came in use as it is now taken and the Commons as they are at this day an essential and constituent part of the same and a third Estate 6. That the Lords Temporal are one Estate of the Realm was never doubted Mr. Selden begins his Privilege of Baronage with it and when the Commons came in to be another I question not but I have fully prov'd and if now I shall make it appear that the Lords Spiritual are one other Estate of the Realm distinct and separate from the Lords Temporal I hope I shall have gain'd my point and that the King is not one of the Three Estates In order to which 1. The Lords Spiritual sit in Parliament by a different Right from the Lords Temporal viz. by Succession in respect of their Counties or Baronies parcel of their Bishopricks and the others by reason of their Dignities which they hold by Descent or Creation 2. They sit in Parliament in a different Robe and on a different side of the House from the Lords Temporal and are commanded thither by a different form in the Writ viz. In fide dilectione c. And the Lords Temporal In fide ligeancia c. 3. They have a Convocation by themselves consisting of an Upper House viz. Arch-Bishops and Bishops and a Lower House viz. the Procuratores Cleri called together by the Kings Writ and have the same Privilege for themselves their Servants and Familiars as other Members of Parliament and grant their Subsidies apart and distinct from the Lay Nobles as may be seen by the respective Acts by which they have been granted as also ratifi'd and confirmed 4. The general stile of all Acts of Parliament hath been such that sometimes the Ecclesiastical Lords are respectively named as Arch-bishops Bishops Abbots Priors as well as the Temporal Lords and sometimes by the inclusive name of the Prelates and so to the 10th of Richard 2. where it is said By the Assent of the Lords and Commons under which general words of the Lords they seem at first to be included as if they were but one Estate with them were it not in the 13th of the said King again said Of the Assent of the Prelates and Lords Temporal and Commons And in another of the 20th By the Assent of the Prelates Lords and Commons and in the 14.15.16 and 17. of the same King By the Assent of his Parliament and the Parliament and none of them named apart from which time till the 4th of Henry 4. the word Prelates was again continued
and then thus altered viz. By the Assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and at the special instance and request of the Commons and in the fifth of the same King By the Advice and Assent of his Lords Spiritual and Temporal and at the request of the Commons which so continued without any variation in substance until the 18th of Henry 6. at what time it became as we have it now viz. By the Advice and Assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons Besides if the Lords Spiritual were not a third Estate what is the reason that at the making of the Statute of Praemunire that the Commons having declared that they would stand to the King in the defence of his Liberties and praying that all the Lords as well Spiritual as Temporal severally and all the Estates of Parliament might be examined how they thought of that matter The Lords Temporal being so demanded answered every one by himself and in like manner the Lords Spiritual severally examin'd answered by themselves which affords me a double Argument 1. That by all the States of Parliament there must be necessarily intended more than two if it were for no other reason than mere propriety of Speech 2. That the King could not make up that other or third Estate because he is desired to examin all the States severally which he could not do if he had been one of them himself so in the 40th of Edw. 3. which I should have named first when the King asks advice of his Parliament Whether King John could have subjected the Realm as what in him lay he did The Prelates by themselves the Dukes Earls and Barons by themselves and the Commons by themselves answered That he could not From which nothing seems clearer to me than that the Lords Spiritual are one Estate distinct from the Lords Temporal or otherwise what needed they have been examin'd by those several names of Spiritual and Temporal or as severally answer'd by the same appellations 5. And now if yet there remain'd any doubt we have one Act of Parliament clear in point where the question being whether the making of Bishops had been duly and orderly done according to Law the Statute says which is much tending to the slander of all the State of the Clergy being one of the greatest States of this Realm And so having found Three Estates without the King I think in good manners we ought to spare him I have hitherto offered some Reasons nor without their Authorities I come now to somewhat more direct if yet those of the 40th of Edw. 3. the 16th of Rich. 2. and the 8th of Qu. Eliz. last mentioned could be thought otherwise I 'll begin with the Statute of H. 8. where this Kingdom is called an Empire governed by one Supreme Head and King unto whom a Body Politick compact of all sorts and degrees of People divideth in Terms and by names of Spiritualty and Temporalty been bounden and who can believe that the Authority of a Parliament should utter any thing in Parables or under double meanings contrary to the common sense of the express words or that there was ever intended by the words divided in Terms and by names of Spiritualty and Temporalty so many mere words and no more However to take off all doubt Sir Edw. Coke says The High Court of Parliament consisteth of the Kings Majesty sitting there as in his Royal Politick Capacity and of the Three Estates of the Realm viz. the Lords Spiritual the Lords Temporal and the Commons And so Cowel The word Parliament in England we use it for the Assembly of the King and the Three Estates viz. the Lords Spiritual Lords Temporal and the Commons And Title Statute he saith it signifieth a Decree or Act of Parliament made by the Prince and the Three Estates unto whom as I said before they are subordinate in the Legislation and of no Power of themselves but joyned to their Figure have the full strength of their places which in short we may thus farther demonstrate under the familiar instance of a Dean and Chapter of whom the Dean is no part but Caput Capituli the Head of them And now if any one shall demand why this term of the Three Estates does not so frequently occur to us of Ancient time I answer That before the Commons were brought in there was no thought of it and since that time no dispute of it until of late where many a worse twig was even learnedly made use of to stilt and bolster a Ricketed Cause· However it is not too late that the Point is cleared now And so we have it in the Act for Unifermity of Publick Prayers made the 14th of this King where the Form of Prayer for the Fifth of November is thus entitled A Form of Prayer with Thanksgiving to be used yearly on the Fifth day of November for the happy deliverance of the King and the Three Estates of the Realm c. And with this agrees the Kingdom of Scotland of which Mr. Cambden in his History of Britain says That their Supreme Court is their Parliament which consisteth of Three Estates The Lords Spiritual the Lords Temporal and the Commons for Cities and Burghs of which the King is Directus totius Dominus And so a Parliament of that Kingdom reckons them It is ordained by the King by Consent and Deliverance of the Three Estates And the Act of asserting the Kings Supremacy over all Persons and in all Causes Ecclesiastical and the late Indictment against Argile and the Acts for the Acknowledging and Asserting the Right of Succession to the Imperial Crown of Scotland And that other for ratifying all former Laws for the security of the Protestant Religion agree in point with it Nor is it strange they should inasmuch as neither their Langue nor their Laws especially such as are criminal as may be seen by comparing their Regiam Majestatem with our Glanvil De Legibus written in Henry the Second's time much differ from ours And the Union of the two Crowns in the Person of King James is called An Union or rather a re-uniting of two Mighty Famous and Ancient Kingdoms yet anciently but one And that the Laws of Ireland a distinct Realm or Kingdom from both say nothing of this matter I take it to be for the same reason that the Romans made no Law against Parricide They never dreamt it SECTION VII Admitting what has been before offer'd wherein has our present King merited less than any of his Royal Ancestors with a short recapitulation of Affairs as they had been and were at his Majesties most happy Restauration and that he wanted not the means of a just Resentment had he design'd any I Have hitherto shewn that the Crown of England c. is Supreme Sovereign and Imperial nor will it be from the purpose now to demand Wherein has our present King less merited than
any of his Regal Ancestors that it should appear less on his Head than theirs especially considering he is so far from not getting up to 'em that his Royal Father only excepted he has out-gone them all in his own example albeit he wanted not the too many just occasions of having been otherwise To recapitulate some few of them nor is it less than fit to burn Incense where ill Odors have been cast or rais'd To have seen then three famous Kingdoms that had so often acknowledg'd his Princely Progenitors their undoubted Heirs like Aesop's Pots broken against one another To have examin'd the Quarrel of which whatever were the pretences nothing other was in the bottom than to kill the Heir and divide the Inheritance To have beheld his Glorious Father Disarm'd by one Party and in that condition left to the growing designs of another and the merciless Cruelty of both To have consider'd him not forsaken only but ingratefully edg'd forward to his Destruction by those Mushromes whom his Royal Influence had fermented into somewhat To have recollected his many Messages fruitless Treaties and that after all condescensions nothing would content them without the Kingdom also If there be yet room for a thought to have remember'd after the Faith of both Houses given him how he was brought to Jerusalem to be Crucifi'd by the Jews To have once more remembred Him The Fountain of all Law Justice and Honor publickly arraign'd by the Tail of the People and that too under the false detorted names of Law Justice and Honor of the Nation nor without the Fucus of their Religion also brought in to sanctifie the Ordinance To have remember'd him I say Traiterously Sentenc'd by his own Subjects and as ignominiously even while the Heads of the Faction as the Phrase of that time was Were seeking God Infesto Regibus exemplo Securi percussum and Murder'd before his own Palace Kingly Government abolish'd the Name Stile Title and Test of the King alter'd into The Keepers of the Liberty of England by Authority of Parliament That notion of a Parliament too which by the same fatal blow cut themselves off also Let me not seem tedious to have remembred himself Proscrib'd and thereby made High Treason to Proclaim him King The Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy damn'd The Royal Ensigns defac'd The Coin alter'd The Regal Statue thrown down and under that Vacancy Engraven Exit Tyrannus Regum ultimus Anno Libertatis restitutae primo In short to have remembred his helpless Friends either starving at Home or by not complying necessitated into Forein Arms and not the least number of them so unfortunate as to have surviv'd the Ruines of their once Families and lastly the more unhappy himself that could only look on and pity them Quis talia fando Temperet What private Gentleman could have born it But perhaps you 'l say he wanted the opportunity I think not For if we consider him as he was at that time not only return'd from his Fathers Allies but the same Profest Son of the Church of England he first went out and in that the Darling of the People what particular person or number of men might he not have singled from the Herd as a just Sacrifice to his Fathers Ashes and his own Revenge had he design'd any He had an Army at his beck The Navy regenerated All Forts and Garrisons re-inforc'd with Royalists The Country return'd to its former Allegiance and the City crying out Yea let him take all since my Lord the King is return'd to his own House in peace What I say might he not have done especially considering that such as had been obnoxious could not but expect that the Cloud must break and be afraid where it might fall and consequently ready each man to have given up his nearest Relation to save himself Et quae sibi quisque timêre Unius in miseri exitium convertere Can a Mother forget her Son Or a Son such a Father And yet Quanquam animo redit usque Pater tamen excutit omnem Rex melior he so far forgot it as to avoid the occasions of remembring it Nay which of his Enemies lookt up to him and return'd empty Was not the Childrens Bread thrown among them while the helpless Orphans scarce lickt up the Crums And has not that fulness of Bread provok'd them into wantonness They have eat drunk and now rise up to play and 't is a shrewd sign they are idle when nothing will serve them but they must be Sacrificing in a Wilderness yet what greater Testimonies could there be of an entire Forgiveness And if so this methinks should at last mind us that as Vapors rising from the Earth stay not long in the Air but fall on the same Earth again That we also as truly sensible of the Mercy return him at least the grateful Acknowledgments of an humble Obedience SECTION VIII That notwithstanding the hard Law of the Kingdom the Jews paid their Kings an entire Obedience Two Objections answered The like other Nations to their Kings A third Objection answered The Precept of Obedience is without restriction Examples upon it Nor is Idolatry any ground to resist much less things indifferent The example from our Saviour in Instituting his last Supper Least of all is injury with the practice of Holy men of old in like cases And that if any ground were to be admitted that would never be wanting I Gave an account before of that hard Law of the Kingdom given to the Jews and yet we find not throughout the Story that they did in the least repine at it but rather the contrary for when upon the Constitution of Saul some Children of Belial for so the Text calls them had despis'd him saying How shall this man save us The People whose hearts God had toucht in the next Chapter ver 12. say unto Samuel Who is he that said Shall Saul reign over us Bring the men that we may put them to death And what value they put on their Kings Person may be seen in this that Saul's Armor-bearer chose rather to kill himself than perform that last if yet I may so call it charitable Office to his distressed Master then ready to fall into his Enemies hands and praying it neither would the People suffer David to go forth before them to Battel For if we flee say they they will not be much concerned at it neither if half of us die will they care for us but thou art worth ten thousand of us In short he that was King among them did whatever pleased him And whatever the King did pleased all the people And was not this a perfect love between a King and his People was there ever a more exact or entire Obedience An Obedience to be reckon'd for Righteousness And yet what new paths do we take to our selves when if we would but examin Holy Writ we might find that every
where directing us to our Duty As 1. Negatively in that we are commanded not to think ill of the King Curse not the King no not in thy thoughts much less then may we speak it Thou shalt not speak evil of the Ruler of thy people Least of all may we do him hurt Touch not mine Anointed 2. Affirmatively We are commanded to keep his Commandments and that in regard of the Oath of God Neither may we give him any just cause of anger Whoso provoketh him to it sinneth against his own soul. To which if any one shall say they were Kings themselves that spake it and 't were much they could say nothing in their own behalf I answer That besides that it has been ever receiv'd for Holy Writ Job who wrote many Centuries before there was any King in Israel puts the question Is it fit saith he to say to a King thou art wicked or to Princes ye are ungodly The Interrogation is affirmative and after the manner of affirmative Interrogations concludes negatively i. e. No it is not fit for says the same Eccles. which is another of the same who may say unto him What do'st thou To which also if it be yet objected that this Law was given to a peculiar People and that no Law but the Law of Nature which is immutable obliges any to whom it was not given I answer as before besides that it is Holy Writ what inconvenience is it if we give the same credit to God Almighty we generally allow to other Law-givers and the rather in that God is not the God of the Jews only but the Gentiles also That Reverence the Jews paid their Kings by a Written Law the Ancient Heathens took up from a mere impulse of Nature and yet what the manner of their Kingdoms were in that the Jews did but desire to be like all other Nations you have had before Q. Curtius tells us that the Persians had such a love to their King that Alexander could not persuade them either for fear or reward to tell him whither their King had fled or reveal any of his intentions In like manner when Xerxes fled from Greece in a small Vessel so full of men that it was impossible for him to be sav'd without throwing some over-board the Nobility leapt into the Sea and by their example others till the Ship was lightned and the King preserv'd And so Boëmus Aubanus speaking of the Aegyptian Kings saith that they had so much love from their People Ut non solum sacerdotibus sed etiam singulis Aegyptiis major Regis quam uxorum filiorumque salutis inesset cura That not only the Priests but every one of them had a greater care of the Kings safety than of their Wives and Children And in another place speaking of the Tartars Albeit their King saith he upon his Inauguration tells them Oris mei sermo gladius meus erit My word 's my Sword and that all things are in his power and no man may dwell in any part of the Land but what is assign'd him by the King yet nemini licet imperatoris veâ—ba mutare nemini latae ab illo sententiae qualicunque modo contraire No man may alter his Decree or in the least tittle dispute his Commands Besides all which the obsequious impiety of elder times attributed the name of God to their Emperors and whence perhaps it might be that Joseph swore By the life of Pharaoh Sceptrum capitisque salutem Testatur And the Romans By the Majesty and Genius of the Emperor And the drinking his Health at Publick Feasts was decreed to Augustus as we have it in Peter Ursinus his Appendix where also he cites S. Ambrose speaking of the custom of his time Bibamus inquiunt pro salute Imperatorum qui non biberit sit reus in devotione Let us drink say they the Emperors Health and let him be damn'd that refuses it in which the Father taxes not the thing but their ill of doing it In the offering of all which let me not be mistaken as if I design'd to insinuate that such a Power as those Kings I so lately mentioned did exercise might be practicable now or any municipal Law alter'd ad libitum no that were to justifie that Arbitrary Power so often talkt of and against which our present King hath so publickly declar'd the absolute and unlimited Sovereignty which they have by the Ordinance of God having from time to time by their Bounty been limited and bounded in the ordinary exercise thereof by such Laws and Customs as themselves have given the Royal Assent unto and allowed so that in effect it may be said What have we that we have not received Upon which score it is that a Subject may maintain his Right and Property and have Judgment against the King and in such cases the Judges are bound to right the party according to Law And there are many things also of which it is said The King cannot do them i. e. because he will not do them quia refragantur ordini as being contrary to the Law and Order establish'd in his Realm And therefore neither can our Kings or ought they in common justice to be esteem'd or thought the less when they have scatter'd any Flowers of their Crown on their Subjects in asmuch as the root rests in the same place and is as productive of more when deserved But suppose may some say the King be a wicked King a Tyrant an Idolater or however else the licentiousness of an enrag'd Rabble may render him may not the subordinate Magistrate the Nobility or People restrain or remove him I answer No for besides that the Precepts of Obedience to Kings are without restriction and therefore extend to all Kings be they what they will if it be not lawful for me to judg another man's Servant how much less then my own Master whose Power over me is just tho it may so happen that he use it unjustly The Israelites had a sharp bondage under the Egyptians and wanted not numbers to have made their party good The Land was filled with them and Pharaoh confesseth them the more mighty yet they thought it better to quit the Country than rebel Nor was their condition much improv'd in Babylon and yet they are commanded to offer Sacrifices and pray for the Life of the King and of his Sons and to seek the peace of the City where they were Captives Samuel pronounced the rejection of Saul whom also David afterward spar'd yet neither incited the People to rebel against him Nebuchadnezzar Achab Manasses were Idolatrous Kings and yet Daniel Elias and the Holy men of those times continu'd their Obedience and tamper'd not with others to infringe theirs What shall I add our Saviour commands us to give unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and the Apostle who exhorts
to the known Laws of the Land for Omnis sub Rege ipse sub nullo nisi tantum sub Deo Every man is in subjection to the King and he to none but God and so the Oath of Supremacy declares him the onely Supreme Governor of this Realm of which more hereafter when I come to speak of the Statute-Law and therefore if the King refuse to do right seeing no Writ can issue against him there is a place for Petition and if that prevail not Satis ei erit ad poenam saith the same Bracton quod Dominum habeat ultorem And with this agreeth that of Horace Regum timendorum in proprios greges Reges in ipsos imperium est Jovis And in this respect a Prince is not loosed from the Law for as much as concerneth the directive Power of it but having not the Law becomes a Law to himself as well knowing Observantior aequi Fit Populus nec ferre negat cum viderit ipsum Auctorem parere sibi 2. As to the Power of Peace and War It is the right of the King saith Fitzherbert to defend his Kingdom as well against the Sea as against Enemies which implies that it is his right to defend it against Enemies and how can he do it without the right of his Sword when if he should be oblig'd to pray in Aid of others perhaps they may be of another mind or take up so much time in the Debate that the Kingdom may be lost ere they resolve what to do And this I take to be one of the effects of Con-si-de-ra-ti-on in those matters whose good or ill fortune solely depends on Expedition and Secresie for Dangers as the Lord Bacon saith are better met half way than by keeping too long a watch upon their approaches for if a man watch too long 't is odds he will fall asleep But to proceed Sir Edw. Cooke says no Subject can levy War within the Realm without Authority from the King unto whom it only belongeth and that it was High-Treason at the Common Law before the Statute De proditionibus And in Calvin's case he makes it clear That to make Leagues or denounce War only belongs to the King who without his Subjects may grant Letters of safe Conduct and Denization and that this high point of Prerogative Royal cannot be conferred upon any other it being a right of Majesty and among the badges of Supreme Power And now one would think this were enough and yet a late Statute of this Kingdom makes it yet clearer it being thereby declared That the sole Supreme Government Command and disposition of the Militia and all Forces by Sea and Land and of all Forces and places of Strength is and by the Law of England ever were the undoubted right of his Majesty and his Royal Predecessors Kings and Queens of England and that both or either of the Houses of Parliament cannot nor ought to pretend to the same nor can nor lawfully may raise or levy War Offensive or Defensive against his Majesty his Heirs and lawful Successors c. all which is not introductive of a new Law but declaratory of the old as may be further seen by the penning thereof And now what can be added more but the Purse without which what 's the Sword but as the Greek Proverb has it A Bow without a Bow-man For in as much as Mony is the Sinews of War and Peace firmamentum belli ornamentum pacis they that hang the Sword on one side and the Purse on the other seem to me to hazard both for neither can any sudden danger of which the King was ever thought the Judg be stav'd off nor War carried on nor the Publick Peace be long preserv'd without it And therefore on such occasions have Parliaments advis'd and assisted the King in supplying his Wants without directing him it seeming hard that he should have Power to Proclaim War and not be able to maintain it and be bound to defend his Subjects but deny'd the means Qui dirimit medium destruit finem 3. As to the creation and appointing Magistrates and Officers especially such as are not under the command of others this also resides solely in the King for besides what I have said in the last Paragraph touching his sole Power in the ordering and disposing the Militia and all Forces by Sea and places of Strength by Land His is the appointing all the great Officers and Ministers of the Realm whether Spiritual or Temporal the highest immediately by himself the inferior mediately by Authority derived from him and as it were De lumine lumen So the King appoints the Lord Commissioner and all other the grand Ministers and Officers of Scotland and the Lord Lieutenant Lord Deputy Lords Justices and all other the grand Ministers and Officers of Ireland who also but in his Kings name appoint under him according to the extent of their respective Commissions so the Kings of England have and may at this day by Letters Patents make a Prorex Locum tenens or Guardian of the Realm before whom in their absence in remotis a Parliament may be held And such was Edward Duke of Cornwal 13 Edw. 3. Lionel Duke of Clarence 21 Edw. 3. John Duke of Bedford 5 Henry 5. And the Test of the Writ of Summons shall be in the Guardians name or by Commission under the great Seal to certain Lords of Parliament authorise them to hold a Parliament the King being then in the Realm but indisposed and such was that 3 Edw. 4. to William Lord Arch-Bishop of York and that other 28 Eliz. to John Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and others ad inchoandum c. ad Procedendum c. ad faciendum omnia singula c. nec non ad Parliamentum adjournandum Prorogandum c. And so are Parliaments held in Scotland and Ireland before the Lords Commissioners Lord Lieutenant Lord Deputy c. of the respective Kingdoms 4. The Power of the last Appeal i. e. from whose Sentence no Appeal lies The only person besides the Kings of England that ever pretended to it here was the Pope tho yet the first attempt ever made that way was by Anselme Arch-Bishop of Canterbury in the Reign of King William Rufus but it took no effect And the Arch-Bishop concerning himself too much touching the Jurisdiction of the Pope in England the King told him Ad Officium Imperatoris spectat c. That it belong'd to the Emperor to make whom he pleas'd Pope and that for the same reason no Arch-Bishop or Bishop within his Realm should yield any subjection to the Court or Pope of Rome and chiefly in this respect cum ipse omnes libertates haberet in regno suo quas Imperator vindicabat in Imperio That he had the same Prerogative in his Kingdom that the Emperor claim'd in the Empire And
take away either our place or Nation and much more to raise any superstructure of their own Besides the Crown of England is an ancient old Entail the Reversion in Him by whom Kings Reign and is it not reasonable that he were first consulted before it be dockt or admitting it were to be done how are we sure that he that is to come after shall always continue of the same opinion or how are we secure he shall not be worse The Spaniards have an excellent Proverb Better is the evil we know than the good we do not know Sana Corpora difficile medicationes ferunt saith Hippocrates 't is better to make alterations in sick Bodies than sound Twigs and Saplings may be easily bow'd or remov'd but old grown Trees are not so safely ventur'd on 'T is the same in State Innovations and alterations even in little things are dangerous for it seems to acquaint the people with the sweetness of a change and that there may be somewhat yet still better which like our Philosophers of the Stone they had undoubtedly hit but that something in it unluckily miscarried But may some say have not such things been done before Was not Richard Duke of York in Henry 6. 's time declar'd by Parliament incapable of Succession Nay after he had been declared Heir apparent and was not Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth the same I grant it but 't is ill arguing à facto ad jus That because such things have been done that therefore they may be done again Examples must be judged by Laws and not Laws by Examples We have in our own times seen A King murder'd by his own Subjects and that too under the specious pretences of Religion and Law Monarchy abolish'd Allegiance made Rebellion and Iniquity establish'd by a Law And is this an Argument think ye that the same things may be yet practis'd To give it a more particular answer They were declar'd incapable of Succession 't is true but not upon any account of Religion but interest as the affairs of those times then stood but yet 't is as true that Edw. 4. Son of Richard Duke of York recover'd the Crown notwithstanding the said Declaration the only cause of the War between the Houses of York and Lancaster proceeding from the Right of one and the Possession of the other In like manner Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth were both declar'd by Parliament not inheritable and excluded from all Claim or Demand to the Crown and yet they both successively Reigned notwithstanding the said Temporary Disability which it seems the accession of the Crown purg'd as well as it has been said of an Attainder and yet their different Persuasions diametrically opposite to each other No man yet ever chang'd his condition but in hopes of bettering it Hath a Nation chang'd their gods which yet are no Gods saith Jeremiah upbraiding the ingratitude of the Jews And therefore a wise man begins from the end and first considers whether that be adequate to the hazard he runs Touching the security of Religion I have already spoken and next to the glory of God on High the chiefest end of Man is peace on earth The end of War is Triumph and the end of Triumph Peace The clashing of the Steel and Flint wears out one another and brings forth nothing but Fire whereas Peace is the Balm that heals the Wounds and the Cement that fills up the Breaches of War How careful then ought we be to avoid even the beginnings of strife which Solomon aptly calls the letting out of waters and will of themselves quickly wear the breach wider Upon which it properly follows that we weigh the advantages we have by continuing as we are and the disadvantages or inconveniencies that have follow'd such Exclusions As to the former 1. The continuance of a Succession in one descent and according to proximity of Blood is a bar to Pretenders and the ordinary occasions of Mutiny Competition and Invasion are thereby taken off And to this purpose Tacitus Minoris discriminis est Principem nasci quam sumi It is less hazard to have a Prince born to hand than to be forc'd to seek one because Subjects more naturally submit to an undoubted unquestionable Title and Enemies will not be so ready to be fishing in clear water A third never attempts the bone till two are quarreling 2. We secure our selves against those disorders which such a breach opens an infallible entrance into and gives Ambition and Insolence the reins at large which seldom stop but multiply themselves and the whole State into confusion when after all the best seldom carries the day but the violent takes it by force Of which we need no further for instance than the ancient Brahon Tanistry before Hen. 2. his Conquest of Ireland 3. It takes away the danger of having a new Family to provide for Time was the Empire could have spread her wings but now she has past so many hands and been so deplum'd upon every change that she has almost lost all her best Feathers and kept little to her self but the despair of getting them back again 4. It avoids the indignity of a repulse Was ever Prince yet content to see another sit on his Throne Or did ever men reckon the Sun the less that it had suffer'd an Eclipse No mankind naturally pities any thing in distress and passionately croud to the recovering beams In short we picture Time drawing Truth out of a Pit and seldom find Majesty so sunk under water but some or other have been ever buoying it up again 5. There is a present Union and Amity between these Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland and who knows whether they may be of the same Opinion As to Ireland it has been determin'd where it shall be bound by an Act of Parliament made in England howbeit there is a Gulph between us But as to Scotland the Question was never yet put not that I speak as if the Kingdom of Scotland which never did should now begin to give England Law No nor will I believe it ever thought however were we at odds Fas est ab hoste doceri Which was the better Son he that said he would not go but went or he that said he would go but went not They have Recogniz'd and Declar'd That the Kings of that Realm deriving their Royal Power from God alone do succeed thereto according to the proximity of Blood And that no difference in Religion nor any Law nor Act of Parliament made or to be made can alter or divert the right of Succession and Lineal Descent of that Crown to the nearest and lawful Heir according to the degrees aforesaid And that by Writing Speaking or any other way to endeavour the Alteration Diversion Suspension or debarring the same by any Subjects of that Kingdom shall be High Treason So now if it
should happen that the Kingdom of England should be of a contrary Opinion must it not in all moral probability open a gap to a new breach and thereby hazard the rending asunder those two Crowns in Blood the uniting of which were so wisely design'd by H. 7. and as happily took effect in King James without Blood and what must the consequence of it be but that we once more fall to the old trade again Furit omnis turba suoque Marte cadunt And when perhaps it shall be said of the Conqueror as of Alexander in his Expedition against the Parthian That he lost more by the War than he got by the Victory whereas Prudence in the Adventure looks at the return and in the hazard at the likelihood and advantage of the success Lastly We hereby take off all occasions of jealousie to which almost every thing serves for Fuel scarce any thing for Physick it being but natural That he must fear many whom many fear how groundlesly soever But may some say Peace without safety is but a breathing or bare Truce at best How can that man sleep securely over whose head a drawn Sword hangs by a single Hair And who shall be Judg of that The Prince whose safety depends on the love of his Subjects and never Acts but by his Council or the Multitude who besides that number and Truth are seldom of the same side never condsier what they do or the true reason why it happen'd to be so hung What causes that Thunder in the Clouds but the cross encounter of Fire and Water mutually tending to their centre of safety And while a people keep within their own Circle what danger is there of a Prince's breaking in upon them God had looked upon the Earth and pronounc'd it corrupt before he sent a Deluge among them to cleanse it In short there is an old saying Divide impera and I think another no ways inferior Vis unita fortior I am sure it is true in experience he that would pluck off a Horses Tail must do it hair by hair and he that would shake a Faggot in pieces must first pull out some considerable Stick or cut the Band. I come now to the disadvantages or inconveniencies that have attended the laying by the right Heir Revolts Usurpation and Exclusion differ in term and sound but are the same in effect and which they hold in common never wanted their Embroils The revolt of the Ten Tribes from Rehoboam was the fore-runner of the Captivity for having drein'd and weaken'd themselves with intestine War what wonder if like the Frog and Mouse in the Fable they became a prey to the next offerer The Senate of Rome excluded Nero but mist their aim for one part of the Army set up Galba another Otho against him a third Vitellius against Otho a fourth Vespasian against Vitellius still bickering and beating one another to pieces until Vespasian brought all into one hand again Harold usurp'd on Edgar Atheling and what was the effect of it but that it open'd William the Conqueror a passage to the Kingdom and gave both encouragement and success to the enterprise In like manner those more prosperous Usurpations of William Rufus and Henry the First upon their elder Brother Robert King Stephen on Maude the Daughter of Henry the First and her Son afterwards Henry the Second King John on his Nephew Arthur Henry the Fourth on Richard the Second and Richard the Third on Edward the Fifth were they not founded in Blood and defended with more and therefore he that shall bring them in precedent had as good save a ramble abroad and instance in O. Cromwel at home In short the Exclusion of our King Edward the Third Son and Heir of Isabella Daughter and Heiress of France under pretence of a Salique Law occasioned the loss of their best men and Kingdom also and did not we half lose it again on the same account by Henry 4. his Usurping on Richard 2 It is true Henry 5. recovered it again but his Son Henry 6. almost as soon lost it by the civil Broils between him and Richard Duke of York slain at Wakefield which yet ended not till his Son Edw. 4. had recovered the Possession And what fruit I pray did we reap of those Wars or rather were they not such as of which the Poet speaks Bella geri placuit nullos habitura triumphos How much better then is it by learning from other mens harms to keep the beaten road with safety than upon every new notion to entangle our selves in those passes wherein so many before us have lost their way And especially having the light of an Act of Parliament directing and telling us That the ambiguity of several Titles pretended to the Crown then not so perfectly declar'd but that men might expound them to every ones sinister affection and sense contrary to the right legality of the Succession and Posterity of the Lawful Kings and Emperors of this Realm had been the cause of that great effusion and destruction of mans Blood And what can any man expect but that the same cause will again produce the same effects and the like Asterism the like Revolutions To draw towards an end It is the advice of our Saviour Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them for this is the Law and the Prophets Would any one think ye submit to be brain'd by a Billet albeit in amends it were said to his Heir the like shall never be done to your self especially when the same hand that did the one cannot promise for any that shall come after it To one praying Lycurgus to settle a popular State in Lacedaemon that the basest might have the same Authority as the highest Begin quoth he to do it it in thy own house first I know not of what Spirit other men are but if there be such a one to be found let him throw the first stone And yet who knows but there may be somewhat more than we see Is there no old grudg No Manet altâ mente repôstum No Spreti injuria Is it all pure Religion and undefil'd All dry down-right conscience No biass No interest No self in the case 't is very well Judas made a charitable motion for the Poor yet it might have seem'd better had he not carried the Bag tho he headed no Party In short Commines saith He is to be esteemed a good Prince whose Virtues are not over-ballanc'd by his Vices And the Persians never condemn'd any man tho convicted till his former life had been weigh'd by the same Ballance and found wanting To apply it I skill not to flatter even the dead and yet a moral justice is due to the living or our Saviour had never said The laborer is worthy of his hire and Solomon Withhold it not Is not his Royal Highness the Son
of that King whom our late Parliaments have so often declar'd a Martyr and the onely Brother and as yet indisputable Heir of this King who hath forgiven so much and to speak once for all Crimes greater than every thing but the mercy that forgave them And what could the world have design'd him more than what the eepectation of his mighty Birth must by course of Nature have given him Even the new phrase acknowledges it The Presumptive Heir of three Imperial Crowns and yet during the Banishment of the Royal Family who serv'd with more Courage Abroad And since their happy Restauration what Private Person made more Honorable Hazards at Home When yet he had many things to fear and nothing to desire but the Peace and Honor of the Kingdom I need not far for instance of what meets us every where Witness for all that memorable 3. of June 1665. in which great Action with the loss of one single Ship he destroy'd and took 18 of the Dutch Ships of War whereof half were the best they had and touching which a late learned Judg of the Kingdom of Ireland thus Epigrammatically accosted his Majesty Ad Regem c. Subdidit Arctoum tribus olim classibus aequor Edgarus At vestrae pars quota laudis erit Obsessum Maris Imperium felicior armis Asseris Batavas conteris ultor opes Euge triumphato da jura perennia Ponto Jam scit cui Domino pareat unda Maris And must he after all this be smother'd in his own Perfumes Must those Glories he reapt from the Enemy serve him only as so many Garlands to a destin'd Sacrifice And because he has deserv'd too much will nothing but an Ostracism pay off his Debentures Let every man lay his hand on his breast and once more make the case his own and then I doubt not but he will walk up to the thing he startled at and by giving himself a distinct view of what before frighten'd be the more easily persuaded into his senses and shame his fear And I press it the rather in that his Royal Highness I have it from a Noble hand of too much Honor to falsifie hath so often declar'd That were it in his power to effect it he would rather cut off his Arm than make the least alteration in the Religion or Law of the Kingdom as it is now establish'd And if Truth be sacred with private men how much more must it be with a Prince when whoever wounds it to save himself does but take a blow on his head to save his hilt To draw to an end Has any man for companies sake been persuaded out of his way what dishonor is it if he comply with the advice of the Angel to Hagar Return and submit or that other of our Saviour to the Lawyer tempting him Go and do thou likewise and then he will the more unbiastly determin whether Religion or Monarchy be the point in question and what these murmurings against the Heir mean if they carry not under 'em a design on the Inheritance for let the pretences be what other they please even the best Virtues may be suspected when they become ostentations and therefore when men shall mask their Conspiracies with the name of Publick Good pretend Conscience against Duty love to their Country whereby to chalk a way to their own Ambition zeal to Religion to cover their own wild-fire they may I say be suspected as made use of rather to purchase a Principality on Earth than the Kingdom of Heaven in as much as such courses have been ever condemned by the same Religion they would pretend to defend Upon the whole matter What the pretences of the late times ended in we have most of us seen and what influence they yet held on our own we had ere this felt had not God been more merciful in the discovery of the late horrid Association and Conspiracy against the lives of his Sacred Majesty and his Royal Brother Who would not swear they were of the same batch for they agreed in substance however otherwise they might differ in circumstance both like Sampson's Foxes were set upon destruction tho they drew the fire-brands a contrary way Those of 1641. did their work by degrees Nemo repente fuit turpissimus One Party murder'd our late Sovereign as a King before the other murder'd him as a man tho each yet as deep in the guilt as t'other for Qui vult media ad finem vult etiam ipsum finem He that wills the means conâ—â—ucing to the end wills also the end it self These of this present have seen that error and thus far repented it to his Son That they laid the Ax to the root of the Tree and took up the advice of Abishai to David when they had found Saul sleeping Let me smite him even to the earth at once and I will not smite him the second time But God has been once more seen in the Mountain They are sunk in the Pit they made in the Net which they hid is their own foot taken And therefore to the numerous congratulations on this happy delivery I 'll close all with that of Barclay Vicimus O tandem non inaudita piorum Vota Deis Nunc alma salus nunc secula curat Jupiter Omnis Io superum domus omnis honores Ara ferat nullaeque vacent a fronte Coronae Which I have thus adventur'd to Translate as more agreeable to the present sense than any useless dwelling on the Letter We have o'recome nor were our Prayers in vain We 're once more safe and Heav'n proves Heav'n again Your Organ Temples Deck your Altars round Hallow the Threshold Let the Posts be Crown'd FINIS Cicero de legibus lib. 3. Ovid Metam Gen. 1.26 27 28. That it is founded in nature Virgil Geo. As consonant to the Divine Government And of Divine Institution 1 Chron 29.23 2 Chron. 9.8 1 Sam. 2.10 2 Sam. 22.51 Obj. Sol. 1 Lam. 4.20 Isa. 45.1 Jer. 25.9 Acknowledg'd by Heathens as well as Christians Hesiod Homer Acts 17.28 Psal. 82.6 Arch-Bishop usher Psal. 8.6 1 Pet. 2.13 Cain a Monarch Seld. Tit. Hon. 4. The Kingdoms of Saturn c. Monarchies De legibus l. 3. Just. l. 1. That the original of Power came not from the People The Irrationality of the contrary Co. 8. Rep. 92. Vide Bishop Sanderson's Preface to the Power of Princes The ill consequence of it Rom. 13.2 Dyer 256 Coâ— 4. Rep. 24. Noah and his Sons Kings Seld. Tit. Hon. 5 6. Gen. 10.32 Ecclus. 17.17 A Family an exemplary Monarchy Gen. 9. Gen. 21. Aristot. pol. l. 1. c. 8. What the Paterfamilias was Pro Quintio De Repub. l. 5. His power of life and death Pro domo sua Gen. 49.1 Pol. l. 1. c. 8. Gen. 4.7 2 Kings 2. The exercise of it in Judah Gen. 38. Abraham Gen. 22. Jephthah Judges 11. Gen. 22. Godw. Jew Anâ—â—q c. 1. Judges 8. Brutus Monarchy upon the