Selected quad for the lemma: parliament_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
parliament_n	king_n	lord_n	request_n	3,284	5	9.6659	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

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

King he gives the like note upon him that he did upon the Aesymnet that he was in old time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the heroick times The thing that made these heroicall Kingdomes differ from other sorts of Kingdomes was only the meanes by which the first Kings obtained their Kingdomes and not the manner of Government for in that they were as absolute as other Kings were without either limitation by law or mixture of companions Lastly as for Arist Barbaricke sort of Kings since he reckoned all the world Barbarians except the Graecians his Barbaricke King must extend to all other sorts of Kings in the world besides those of Greece and so may go under Aristotles fift sort of Kings which in generall comprehends all other sorts and is no speciall forme of Monarchy Thus upon a true accompt it is evident that the five severall sorts of Kings mentioned by Aristotle are at the most but different and accidentall meanes of the first obtaining or holding of Monarchies and not reall or essentiall differences of the manner of Government which was alwayes absolute without either limitation or mixture I may be thought perhaps to mistake or wrong Aristotle in questioning his diversities of Kings but it seemes Aristotle himselfe was partly of the same minde for in the very next Chapter when he had better considered of the point he confessed that to speake the truth there were almost but two sorts of Monarchies worth the considering that is his first or Laconique sort and his fift or last sort where one alone hath Supreame power over all the rest thus he hath brought his five sorts to two Now for the first of these two his Lacedemonian King he hath confessed before that he was no more then a Generalissimo of an Army and so upon the mater no King at all and then there remaines onely his last sort of Kings where one alone hath the Supreame power And this in substance is the finall resolution of Aristotle himself for in his sixteenth Chapter where he delivers his last thoughts touching the kindes of Monarchy he first dischargeth his Laconick King from being any sort of Monarchy and then gives us two exact rules about Monarchy and both these are point blanke against limited and mixed Monarchy therefore I shall propose them to be considered of as concluding all Monarchy to be absolute and arbitrary 1. The one rule is that he that is said to be a King according to Law Arist pol. l. 3. c. 16. is no sort of government or Kingdome at all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. The second rule is that a true King is he that ruleth all according to his owne will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This latter frees a Monarch from the mixture of partners or sharers in government as the former rule doth from limitation by lawes Thus in briefe I have traced Aristotle in his crabbed and broken passages touching diversities of Kings where first he findes but four sorts and then he stumbles upon a fift and in the next Chapter contents himselfe onely with two sorts of Kings but in the Chapter following concludes with one which is the true perfect Monarch who rules all by his own will In all this we find nothing for a regulated or mixed Monarchy but against it Moreover whereas the Author of the treatise of Monarchy affirmes it as a prime principle that all Monarchies except that of the Jewes depend upon humane designment when the consent of a society of men and a fundamentall contract of a Nation by originall or radicall constitution confers power He must know that Arist searching into the originall of government shewes himselfe in this point a better Divine then our Author and as if he had studied the book of Genesis teacheth that Monarchies fetch their petigree from the right of fathers and not from the gift or contract of people his words may thus be englished At the first Cities were Governed by Kings and so even to this day are Nations also for such as were under Kingly Government did come together for every house is governed by a King who is the eldest and so also Colonies are governed for kindred sake And immediately before he tels us that the first society made of many houses is a village which naturally seemes to be a Colonie of a house which some call fosterbrethren or Children and Childrens Children So in conclusion we have gained Aristotles judgement in three maine and essentiall points 1. A King according to Law makes no kind of Government 2. A King must rule according to his own will 3. The originall of Kings is from the right of Fatherhood What Aristotles judgement was two thousand years since is agreeable to the doctrine of the great modern politician Bodin Heare him touching limited Monarchy Vnto Majesty or Soveraignty saith he belongeth an absolute power not subject to any Law chief power given unto a Prince with condition is not properly Soveraignty or power absolute Except such conditions annexed to the Soveraignty be directly comprehended within the laws of God and nature Albeit by the sufferance of the King of England controversies between the King and his people are sometimes determined by the high Court of Parliament and sometimes by the Lord Chief Justice of England yet all the estates remaine in full subjection to the King who is no wayes bound to follow their advise neither to consent to their requests It is certaine that the lawes priviledges and grants of Princes have no force but during their life if they be not ratified by the expresse consent or by sufferance of the Prince following especially Priviledges Much lesse should a Prince be bound unto the Laws he maketh himself for a man may well receive a Law from an other man but impossible it is in nature for to give a Law unto himself no more then it is to command a mans self in a matter depending of his owne will The Law saith Nulla obligatio consistere potest quae à voluntate promittentis statum capit The Soveraigne Prince may derogate unto the laws that he hath promised and sworn to keep if the equity thereof be ceased and that of himself without the consent of his subjects the Majesty of a true Soveraigne Prince is to be known when the estates of all the people assembled in all humility present their requests and supplications to their Prince without having power in any thing to command determine or give voice but that that which it pleaseth the King to like or dislike to command or bid is holden for Law wherein they which have written of the duty of Magistrates have deceived themselves in maintaining that the power of the people is greater then the Prince a thing which causeth oft true subjects to revolt from their obedience to their Prince and ministreth matter of great troubles in Common-wealths of which their opinion there is neither reason nor ground for if the King be subject unto the assemblies

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

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

and decrees of the people he should neither be King nor Soveraigne and the Common-wealth neither Realme nor Monarchy but a meer Aristocracy So we see the principall point of Soveraigne Majesty and absolute power to consist principally in giving Laws unto the Subjects in generall without their consent Bodin de Rep. l. 1. c. 8. To confound the state of Monarchy with the popular or Aristocraticall estate is a thing impossible and in effect incompatible and such as cannot be imagined for Soveraignty being of it self indivisible how can it at one and the same time be divided betwixt one Prince the Nobility and the people in Common The first marke of Soveraigne Majesty is to be of power to give Laws and to command over them unto the subjects and who should those subjects be that should yeild their obedience to the Law if they should have also power to make the Laws who should he be that could give the Law being himself constrained to receive it of them unto whom himself gave it so that of necessity we must conclude that as no one in particular hath the power to make the Law in such a state that then the state must needs be a state popular Never any Common-wealth hath been made of an Aristocracie and popular estate much lesse of the three estates of a Common-weal such states wherein the rights of Soveraignty are divided are not rightly to be called Common-weals but rather the corruption of Common-weals as Herodotus has most breifly but truly written Common-weales which change their state the Soveraigne right and power of them being divided find no rest from Civill wars and broiles till they againe recover some one of the three formes and the Soveraignty be wholy in one of the states or other where the rights of the Soveraignty are divided betwixt the Prince and his Subjects in that confusion of state there is still endlesse stirs and quarrels for the superiority untill that some one some few or altogether have got the Soveraignty Id. lib. 2. c. 1. This Judgment of Bodins touching Limited and Mixed Monarchy is not according to the mind of our Author nor yet of the Observator who useth the strength of his wit to overthrow Absolute and Arbitrary Government in this Kingdome and yet in the main body of his discourse le ts fall such truths from his pen as give a deadly wound to the Cause he pleads for if they be indifferently waighed and considered I will not pick a line or two here and there to wrest against him but will present a whole Page of his Book or more together that so we may have an entire prospect upon the Observators mind Without society saith the Observator men could not live without Laws men could not be sociable and without Authority somewhere to judge according to Law Law was vaine It was soone therefore provided that Laws according to the dictate of reason should be ratified by common consent when it afterward appeared that man was yet subject to unnaturall distruction by the tyranny of entrusted Magistrates a mischief almost as fatall as to be without all Magistracy How to provide a wholsome remedy therefore was not so easie to be invented it was not difficult to invent Laws for the limiting of Supream Governors but to invent how those laws should be executed or by whom interpreted was almost impossible Nam quis Custodiet ipsos Custodes to place a Superior above a Supream was held unnaturall yet what a lifelesse thing would Law be without any Judge to determine and force it If it be agreed upon that limits should be prefixed to Princes and Judges to decree according to those limits yet an other inconvenience will presently affront us for we cannot restrain Princes too far but we shall dis-able them from some good long it was ere the world could extricate it selfe out of all these extremities or find out an orderly means whereby to avoid the danger of unbounded Prerogative on this hand and to excessive liberty on the other and scarce has long experience yet fully satisfied the minds of all men in it In the Infancy of the world when man was not so artificiall and obdurate in cru●lty and oppression as now and policy most rude Most Nations did chuse rather to subject themselves to the meer discretion of their Lords then rely upon any limits and so be ruled by Arbitrary Edicts then written Statutes But since tyranny being more exquisite and policy more perfect especially where learning and Religion flourish few Nations will endure the thraldome which usually accompanies unbounded and unconditionate Royalty Yet long it was ere the bounds and conditions of Supream Lords was so wisely determined or quietly conserved as now they are for at first when as Euphori Tribuni Curatores c. were erected to poise against the seale of Soveraignty much blood was shed about them and States were put into new broiles by them and some places the remedy proved worse then the disease In all great distresses the body of the people were ever constrained to rise and by force of the Major party to put an end to all intestine strifes and make a redresse of all publike grievances But many times calamities grew to a strange height before so cumbersome a body could be raised and when it was raised the motions of it were so distracted and irregular that after much spoile and effusion of blood sometimes only one tyranny was exchanged for another till some was invented to regulate the motions of the peoples molimenous body I think arbritrary rule was most safe for the world But Now since most Countries have sound an art and peaceable order for publick Assemblies whereby the people may assume its owne power to do it selfe right without disturbance to it self or injury to Princes He is very unjust that wil oppose this art or order That Princes may not be Now beyond all limits and laws nor yet to be tied upon those limits by any private parties The whole community in its underived Majesty shall convene to do justice and that the convention may not be without intelligence certaine times and places and formes shall be appointed for it reglement and that the vastnesse of its own bulke may not breed confusion by vertue of election and representation a few shall act for many the wise shall consent for the simple the vertue of all shall redound to some and the prudence of some shall redound to all and surely as this admirably composed Court which is now called a Parliament is more regularly and orderly formed then when it was called mickle Synod of Wittena gemot or when this reall body of the people did throng together at it so it is not yet perhaps without some defects which by art and policy might receive farther amendment some divisions have sprung up of late between both Houses and some between the King and both Houses by reason of incertainty of jurisdiction and some Lawyers doubt

how far the Parliament is able to create new formes and precedents and has a jurisdiction over it self All these doubts would be solemnly solved But in the first place the true priviledges of Parliament belonging not only to the being and efficacy of it but to the honor and complement of it would be clearly declared for the very naming of priviledges of Parliament as if they were chimeras to the ignorant sort and utterly unknown unto the learned hath been entertained with scorne since the beginning of this Parliament In this large passage taken out of the Observator which concernes the originall of all Government two notable Propositions may be principally observed First our Observator confesseth arbitrary or absolute government to be the first and the safest government for the world Secondly he acknowledgeth that the jurisdiction is uncertaine and the priviledges not cleerely declared of limited Monarchy These two evident truths delivered by him he labours mainely to disguise He seemes to insinuate that arbitrary Government was but in the infancy of the World for so he termes it but if we enquire of him how long he will have this infancy of the world to last he grants it continued above three thousand years which is an unreasonable time for the world to continue under age for the first opposers he doth find of arbitrary power were the ephori tribuni curatores c. The ephori were above three thousand years after the Creation and the tribuni were later as for his curatores I know not whom he meanes except the Master of the Court of Wards I cannot English the word curator better I doe not believe that he can shew that any curatores or et caeteras which he mentions were so ancient as the ephori As for the tribuni he mistakes much if he thinkes they were erected to limit and bound Monarchy for the state of Rome was at the least Aristocraticall as they call it if not popular when tribunes of the people were first hatched And for the Ephori their power did not limit or regulate Monarchy but quite take it away for a Lacedemonian King in the judgement of Aristotle was no King indeed but in name onely as Generalissimo of an Army and the best polititians reckon the Spartan Common-wealth to have been Aristocraticall and not Monarchicall and if a limited Monarchy cannot be found in Lacedemon I doubt our Observator will hardly find it any where else in the whole World and in substance he confesseth as much when he saith Now most Countries have found out an art and peaceable order for publique Assemblies as if it were a thing but new done and not before for so the word Now doth import The observator in confessing the Jurisdiction to be incertaine and the priviledges undetermined of that Court that should bound and limit Monarchy doth in effect acknowledge there is no such Court at all for every Court consists of Jurisdictions and Priviledges it is these two that create a Court and are the essentials of it If the admirably composed Court of Parliament have some defects which may receive amendment as he saith and if those defects be such as cause divisions both between the Houses and between the King and both Houses and these divisions be about so maine a matter as Jurisdictions and Priviledges and power to create new Priviledges all which are the fundamentals of every Court for untill they be agreed upon the act of every Court may not onely be uncertaine but invalid and cause of tumults and sedition And if all these doubts divisions have need to be solemnly solved as our Observator confesseth Then he hath no reason at all to say that Now the conditions of Supream Lords are wisely determined and quietly conserved or that Now most Countries have found out an art and peaceable order for publick affaires whereby the people may resume its own power to do it self right without injurie unto Princes for how can the underived Majesty of the people by assuming its own power tell how to do her selfe right or how to avoid doing injury to the Prince if her jurisdiction be uncertain and Priviledges undetermined He tels us Now most Countries have found an art and peaceable order for publick Assemblies and to the intent that Princes may not be Now beyond all limits and Laws the whole community in t is underived Majesty shall convene to do Justice But he doth not name so much as one Country or Kingdome that hath found out this art where the whole Community in its underived Majesty did ever convene to do Justice I challenge him or any other for him to name but one Kingdome that hath either Now or heretofore found out this art or peaceable order We do hear a great rumor in this age of moderated and limited Kings Poland Sweden and Denmark are talked of for such and in these Kingdomes or no where is such a moderated Government as our Observator meanes to be found A little enquiry would be made into the manner of the Government of these Kingdomes for these Northern people as Bodin observeth breathe after liberty First for Poland Boterus saith that the Government of it is elective altogether and representeth rather an Aristocracie then a Kingdome the Nobility who have great authority in the Diets chusing the King and limiting His Authority making His Soveraignty but a slavish Royalty these diminutions of regality began first by default of King Lewis and Jagello who to gaine the succession in the Kingdome contrary to the Laws one for his daughter and the other for his son departed with many of his Royalties and prerogatives to buy the voices of the Nobility The French Author of the book called the Estates of the world doth informe us that the Princes Authority was more free not being subject to any Laws and having Absolute Power not onely of their estates but also of life and death Since Christian Religion was received it began to be moderated first by holy admonitions of the Bishops and Clergy and then by services of the Nobility in war Religious Princes gave many Honours and many liberties to the Clergy and Nobility and quit much of their Rights the which their successors have continued The superiour dignity is reduced to two degrees that is the Palatinate and the Chastelleine for that Kings in former times did by little and little call these men to publike consultations notwithstanding that they had absolute power to do all things of themselves to command dispose recompence and punish of their own motions since they have ordained that these dignities should make the body of a Senate The King doth not challenge much right and power over His Nobility nor over their estates neither hath he any over the Clergy And though the Kings Authority depends on the Nobility for His election yet in many things it is absolute after he He is chosen He appoints the Diets at what time and place He pleaseth He