Selected quad for the lemma: act_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
act_n	king_n	law_n	prerogative_n	3,673	5	10.4433	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A08939	The case of shipmony briefly discoursed, according to the grounds of law, policie, and conscience and most humbly presented to the censure and correction of the High Court of Parliament, Nov. 3. 1640.	Parker, Henry, 1604-1652.	1640 (1640)	STC 19216; ESTC S114002	21,342	52

of a●d by ship-money or any other without publike consent to bee Proprium quarto modo to the Kings of England and since irrepe●lable since our Kings have in all ages done such noble acts without it and not onely defended but also enlarged their Dominions The last kinde of accept●●on of this word Prerogative is improper Thus to pardon malefactors to dispence with penall Lawes to grant Non obstantes to be free from attainders to call or discontinue to prorogue or dissolve Parliaments c. are not truly and properly called Prerogatives these all in some sense may be called Munities or indemnities belonging to the sacred person of the King as he is inviolable and subject to no force compulsion of any other And as he is the soule of Law in whose power alone it is to execute Law and yet not to be constrained thereto To grant a pardon for some malefactors for some crimes may perhaps be as heynous as to commit them and that which drawes a guilt upon the King cannot be said to be his priviledge If it might be tearmed a Royalty that the King is not questionable or punishable or to be forced to such acts as tend to the obstruction of justice it might as well be so tearmed in acts tending to the transgression of Law for in both he is alike free from any coercive or vindicative force For it is out of necessity not honour or benefit that the King hath a freedome from constraint or restraint in these cases and that this freedome is inseparable because no force can be used but by superiours or equals and he which hath either superiours or equall is no King If a King should shut up the Courts of ordinary Justice prohibit all pleadings and proceedings betweene man and man and refuse to authorize Judges for the determining of suits hee would bee held to doe a most unkingly thing and yet this may be as truly called a Prerogative as to difuse and dissolve Parliaments But it may be objected that the King besides such negative priviledge and freedome from force hath also a positive and siezing subjects lands c. in divers cases as in making Bulwarks upon any mans land for common defence c. To this it may be answered That to such power the King is not intituled by his Prerogative nor is it any benefit to him necessity herein is his only warrant for either this private inconvenience must happen or a publike ruine follow and in nature the lesse and private evill is to be chosen and here the party trespassed enjoyes safety by it and shall after receive satisfaction for his detriment Were there such apparent unavoidable necessity in the Ship-scop that either that course must be taken or the community inevitably pep●rish or where the King wholly disinteressed in point of profit or were there hope of restitution it could not be without consent and so not against Law So then for ought that is yet alleaged Prerogative except that which is essentiall to all Kings without which they cannot bee Kings is alterable and it ought to be deducsed out of the written and knowne Lawes of the Kingdome and Law is not to be inferred out of that we ought not to presume a Prerogative thence conclude it a Law but we ought not to cite the Law and thence prove it to be Prerogative To descend then to our owne Lawes yet there our Judges vary too What the Common Law was in this point is doubted by some and some say if the Common Law did allow the King such a Prerogative to lay a generall charge without consent then Statutes cannot alter it Some doe not accept against the force of Statute Law but avoid our particular Statutes by divers severall evasive answers Some say our Great Charter was but a grant of the King extorted by force some except against the 25. of Ed. 1. because there is sal●o in it some against the 34. of Ed. ● as made in the Kings absence some object against the 14. of Ed. 3. as if it were temporary and because it is not particularly re●ited in the Petition of Right and the common evasion of all beneficiall Statutes of the Petition of right is that they binde the King from imposing pecuniary charges for the replenishing of his owne coffers but not from imposing such personall services as this Ship-scot is in time of danger and necessity J. Crawly maintaines this Ship-scot to be good by Prerogative at the Common Law and not to be altered by Statute What the Common Law was this Court can best determine but it is obvious to all men that no Prerogative can be at the Common Law but it had some beginning and that must be from either King or Subject or both and in this it is not superiour to our Statute Law and by consequence not unalterable The Medes and Persians had a Law that no Law once past should ever be repealed but doubtlesse this Law being repealed first all others might after suffer the same alteration and it is most absurd to think that this Law might not be repealed by the same authority by which it was at first enacted J. Iones sayes our Statutes restraine tollages in generall termes and cites divers cases that a speciall interest shall not passe from the King but in speciall terms but his cases are put of private grantees over whom the King ought to retai●e a great preheminence but the Law is that where the whole state in grantee that grant shall have the force of a Statute because it is pro bono publico and because the whole State is in value and dignity as much to be preferred before the King as the King is before any private grantee But J. Iones sayes further if generall words shall extend to these extraordinary publike levies then they may as well extend to his ordinary private rights intradoes so cut off Aide pur faire filz Chivalier c. The contrary hereof is manifest for the intent of all our Statutes is to defend the subject against such publike tollages and impositions as every man is equally liable to and as are not due in Law otherwise or recoverable by ordinary action Now these aids c. and the Kings ordinary revenues and services are not such as are due from every man but recoverable by ordinary action Howsoever in all these doubts the Law would now be made cleare and not onely the vertue of Statutes in generall but also the true meaning of our particular Charters would be vindicated from these exceptions 2 I come now to our second difficulty when a publike charge may be laid Here the favourers of Ship-money yet agree that the King may not charge the subject meerly to fill his owne coffers or annually or when he will invade a forraigne enemy or when Pirates rob or burn Townes and Burroughs for these ordinary defence is sufficient and when there is imminent and eminent danger of

a King and that of a King greater than that of a Duke or petty Poten●ate and yet of Kings we say that the King of Denmark hath not so great a Prerogative as the King of England nor the King of England as the King of France c. For here though their honour and title be the same yet their power is not Sometimes Prerogative signifies as much as Soveraignty and in this generall consideration wee say that all supreame Commanders are equall and that they all have this essential inseparable Prerogative that their power ought to be ample enough for their perfection and good of the people and no ampler because the supreame of all humane Lawes is salus populi so this Law all Lawes almost stoope God dispences with many of his Lawes rather than salus populi shall bee endangered and that iron-law which we call necessity itselfe is but subservient to this Law for rather then a Nation shall perish any thing shall be held necessary and legall by necessity But to come to the Prerogative of England and to spe●ke of it in generall and comparatively we say it is a harmonious composure of policie scarce to be paralleld in all the world it is neither so boundlesse as to opresse the people in unjust things nor so strait as to disable the King in just things by the true fundamental constitutions of England the beame hangs even between the King and the Subject the Kings power doth not tread ●nder foot the peoples liberty nor the peoples liberty the Kings power All other Countries almost in Christendome differ from us in this module of policie some but very few allow a greater spheare of Soveraignty to their Princes but for the most part now adayes the world is given to republistes or to conditionate and restrained forms of government howsoever we ought not to condemne any Nation as unjust herein though differing from us for though they seem perhaps very unpolitick yet it is hard to be affirmed that God and Nature ever ordained the same method of rule or scope of loyality to all States whatsoever besides what dislike soever we take at other regiments yet except it be in very great excesses or defects we must not thinke change alwayes necessary since custome in those great and generall points obtains the force of another nature nature is not to be changed Divines of late have beene much to blame here in preaching one universall forme of government as necessary to all Nations and that not the moderate equall neither but such as ascribes all to Soveraignty nothing at all to popular liberty Some Lawyers also and Statesmen have deserved as ill of late partly by suggesting that our English Laws are too in●urious to our King and pa●●ly by informing that this King is more limited by Law then his Progenitors were and that till he be as the King of France is Rex As●●orum he is but a subject to his subjects and as a Minor under the command of guardians bnt what hath ensued out of the Kings jealously of his subject and overstraining his Prerogative nothing but irrepairable losse and mischiefe both to King and Commonwealth and indeed the often and great infections and insurrections which have hapned of late almost all over Europe may suffice to warn all wise Princes not to over-straine their Prerogatives too high not to g●ve eare to such Counsellors as some of out Judges are who affirme our Kings Prerogative to be in all points unalterable and by consequence not depending upon Law at all by another exception of this word Prerogative in England we mean such Law here establisht as gives the King such and such preheminences and priviledges before any subject such as are not essentiall to royalty but may bee annulled by the same power by which they were created That a King shall defend and maintaine his subjectes is a duty belonging to the Office not a priviledge belonging to the Crowne of a King this obligation nature layes upon him and no other power can dissolve it Also that subjects shall afford aid and joyne with their Princes in common defence is a duty arising from the allegeance of the people and not an honor redounding only to the Prince natures law hath made this a tie not to be changed or infringed for that which is annexed by an eternall superiour power cannot be made severable by a temporall humane power but that such an Emperour King or Potentate shall have such or such aid and compell it by such or such meanes at such or such times as to the particular modes and circumstances of his aid particular municipall Lawes must direct and these it would bee as dangerous to alter as it is absurd to hold unalterable In a Parlament held by King James it was debated whether or no Tenures in Capite and allowance of Purveyor● might bee repealed and divided from the Crowne and it was held that by ●o Act or statute they could bee taken away because they were naturally inherent to the Crowne This resolution seemes very strange to me since the Law of Tenures and Purveyors is not so naturall and essentiall to Monarchy that it cannot or may not subsist without it For if in other Countries it be held a meere politicall way perhaps an inconvenient thing then why may not the Princes Royalty and the peoples safety 〈◊〉 preserved intire without it in England And if so then why shall not the same authority have vigor to rep●ale it which wanted not vigor to info●● it I cannot conceive that the Parliament herein reflected upon what was formall in Law to be done but rather upon what was convenient such i●signia supremae Majejestatis as these I did not hold it fit to be dismembred from the Crowne in policy I onely hold it a thing possible in law nay though the King enjoyes diverse such like prerogatives more as I. Jones thinkes then any Prince in Christendome yet should not I desire or advise to pl●●●ke away one the least Flower out of the Regall Garland nor would it be perhaps Profitable for the State to suffer the least diminution thereof Wee know also that in England the Prerogative hath beene bound in many cases by Statute-law and restrained of diverse such priviledges as were not essentiall but meerely politicall Nullum tempus occurrit Regi this was one of the English Royalties and very beneficiall many wayes yet wee know this is in diverse cases limited by Act of Parliament and that very justly as I. Hutton argues The great and ancient Tax of Dangelt it was a Subsidue taken by the Kings of England for the common defence of the Kingdo●e yet this was first released by King Stephen and after abolished for ever by the statutes of Edward the first and there is no reason why an Act of Parliament should not bee as valid in our case as it was in that Wherefore it is to be admired that J. Iones should account this way