being Rational debase his very Nature so much as to call it Justice Would they ascribe an Omnipotency to this their power of Parliaments beyond that of the Almighty and blasphemously allow to this their Created God what the Schools would not the Divinity it self to reconcile Contradiction but still these Statute Mongers that can make any Miscellanies of Parliament for their turn this they will defend to be Legal only because it was past into a Law Let it be so but still there must be much difference between this their Legality which now in their Sense can be nothing but the power of making Laws and common Justice which must be the Reason for which they are made and what is contrary to that and all Reason by the Laws of God and all Nations must be null and void otherways the most Barbarous Immoralities that an Heathen would blush at by such an indefinite Legislative would be truly Legal only because they are past into a Law Murder it self made Statutable as soon as ever those that have the power have Sign'd it for an Act. These Suggestions of Consequences are far from being extravagant because at present the Principles that lead to them are what but very lately have been Printed and Publish'd and the very Practices themselves not long since put in Execution This * Postscr p. 55. Author I am handling has made his Legislative not to be confin'd and that Plato we have pretty well examined allows his People can pass any thing for the good of the Common-wealth and then it may Polygamy too because it was practis'd in his Republick and is now tolerated amongst the Turks and what some Waggs tell us an indiscreet Member was once moving for here But that we can have hard measure for our Lives upon the pretence of a Parliamentary Power the Case of Strafford will attest and that with the pretext of a Parliament a Monarch may be murder'd The Martyrdome of our King these are too terrible Testimonies that our Legislative has been strein'd to make the greatest Injury Law and ‖ By Parl. 12. Car. 2d C. 12. That Session declar'd Traiterous Treason it self the Statute of the Land for they past an Act for the Tryal of their Soveraign and then declar'd it Legal because it was past Their God Almighty of the Law †Cook 4. Inst C. 1. p. 36 huic nec metas rerum nec tempora pono Cook himself whose Words with them is all Gospel too tho' he in his Pedantick Phraseology puts no period to this Power of Parliament yet in the very * Pag. 36. next Page condemns the self same sort of Proceeding and that was in the Case that hard Fate too of another Earl as Innocent perhaps also and as unfortunate ‖ Earl of Essex 35. H. 8. Cromwell was attainted in Henry the Eighth's time much after the same manner my Lord Strafford was in Charles the First but only if so great Injustice can be extenuated the latter was more Inhumane For tho' the First was Sentenc'd and suffer'd by Parliament without being admitted to Answer A Proceeding against our * Magna Charta C. 29. 5 Edw. 3. C. 9. 28 Edw. 3. C. 5. own Laws those of all ‖ The Manner of the Romans was to see Accusers Face to Face and Answer if you believe the Bible Acts 25. v. 16. Matt. Paris vita Reg. Johan 275. incivile videtur contra Canones in absentem ferre Sententiam Nations and of †Deuteronomy Chap. xix Verse iv The Almighty provides for the Prisoner's Defence Heaven it self against all that was Humane or Divine yet Wentworth's Measure was more hard whom they made to suffer with an Attainder after he had argued for his Life confounded his Accusers and convicted some of his own * My Lord Digby with several others Judges The same sort of Severity Sir John Mortimer met with from this Parliamentary Power upon whom they past a Judgment without so much as permitting him to be arraigned but these Barbarities of Mr. Vid. Rot. Parl. 2d H. 6. num 18. Hunt's unlimited Legislative were condemn'd even by this their learn'd Lawyer tho' he would not did not or dared not question their Authority yet damned them in his own Words * But of these says he Auferat Oblivio si potest si non ut câ—nque silentium tegat 4 Inst p. 37. Postscript p. 74. if it were possible to dark Oblivion if not to be buried in Silence but this more Dogmatical Judge with his Postscript has rather Encouraged such Injustice and Severity and represented to his Parliament a power they have of Proceeding more unwarrantably when he tells them tho the Succession of our Crown be Hereditary they can alter the whole Line and Monarchy it self by their unlimited power of their Legislative Authority But I shall also shew him that his Legislative power as it cannot justly extend to such great and impious Extravagancies yet but what we see it has been actually stretch'd to so neither can it to some other things that are less so In King Edward the Third's Time there were several Acts past that took away the power of Pardons from the Prince yet all these made void by the Common ‖ Stanford 2. 101. Law because against the Prerogative of their King And it was resolved by the Judges in King James †2. Jacob. Term. Hill Cook Lib. 7. his Reign that Himself could not grant away the power of Dispensation with the Forfeitures upon the Penal Laws because annext to his Royal Person and the Right of his Soveraignty And if what is only Derogatory from the Crown 's Right and King's Prerogative shall be actually voided by the Common Law as we see it did to the nulling three several Statutes I cannot see how this Bill of Exclusion had it past into an Act would not have been as much null and void unless it can be proved that our Hereditary Descent of the Crown is not so much the King's Prerogative that wears it as the Pardoning of a Felon or the remitting a Fine And that I believe will be difficult to be cleared by those that have spent so much Pains and Paper for its Justification and our Author himself so much Labors for so that even the Common Law it self will anticipate the Work of the Statute and perhaps his Highness need not have stayed till that of Henry the ‖ 1. Henry the Seventh Fol. 4. Que Le Roy est Person dis charge D'ascun Attainder quil prist sur luy le Reign estre Roy. Seventh had taken away his Exclusion as well as Attainder and purged away all his Defects and framed in capacities by his coming to the Crown I have but two Cases more with which I 'll conclude Mr. Hunts great point of Legislative In †5. Ed. 3. Edward the Third's Time an Act was purposely declared void that was past and the King had
but of our own Soveraign's Father and that only because he could not Dissolve them but had in effect signed his Destiny with their Bill of Sitting during the Pleasure of the two Houses Base Hypocrites 't is not a Parliaments Sitting you contend for but the Sitting of such a Parliament that good honest Parliament the late long and healing one which their virulent Villains Libelled for Popish Pensionary perhaps because it would not take the Peoples pay long enough might that have been discontinued or Prorogued wen ever heard then of the Statutes of Edwards and the Triennial Acts but their Pens were employed then to prove even that Dissolution that discontents them now so much 'T is not above Eight years since their * Vide Considerations upon the Question London 1677. The dissolver The Letter of my Lord Shaftsbury Pamphlets would demonstrate a Parliament dissolved for being but for Fiveteen Months Prorogued and were we but assured of having such another the Press had never been pestered for the calling one with their impertinnent prints nor any Petitions prefer'd for their Frequency Would you perswade the World your purses are so full so free too that you long for a Subsidy to fill up the Kings Dissembling Souls the Parliament they clamour for can proceed from nothing else but a presumption of one to be their Patrons to patronize all their Irregularities and Refractoryness to the State to countenance all those gross abuses they put upon the Government they told us this to our faces and Menaced men to make them fear them Is this the way to have them Convened to make them formidable For Gods sake can you credit that honorable Assembly with making them the pretended Abettors of all your Scandalous Actions The only felicity we have in such a Senate 's sitting is That the King must summon them to sit they are Rebels by a ‖ 35. Ed. 3. Law if they convene without they must meet and Associate and the Kings happiness consists in his being able to Dissolve and Discontinue And this furious and indefatigable Scribler might have omitted the mentioning of those †4. Ed. 3. c. 14. Statutes they have beaten so bare been baffled in so much and may now blush to bring upon the Stage but he shall have his answer here to this too That nothing of Mr. Hunt's like his managed Mungrel * Vid. Courantier 4. Volum Numb 30. Julian may be call'd Vnanswerable For the First it is the 4th of this ‖ 4. Ed. 3. c. 3. 14. Edward And I confess in as few words That a Parliament be holden once every year and more often if NEED BE. It is all the Letter of the Law and every Line of it But they might as well tell us too that before the Conquest and for some time after Parliaments were held three times in one year They had then their Easter Parliaments their Whit-sunday Parliaments their Christmas Parliaments but they know then that they were but so many Conventions of that Nobility and Clergy their King should please to call And which they did Arbitrary at their Will more frequently or less as they thought convenient and the †Mirror C. 1. Lib. 3. Books tell us they many times were held but twice a year now if these Gentlemen will tell us so much of old Statute Laws why should not Custom which is Resolved by the very Books to be the * Le common Ley est common Usage Plowdens Com. 195. Common decide the case too for the King as well as the other which is their own must for the People and then we find Our Kings had the sole power of Convening Parliaments by a long prescription of whom where and as often as they pleased Are not all our Judicial Records Acts of Parliament Resolved to be but so many Declarations of the Common Law and that by all our Lawyers even concerning the Royal Government which they make the very Fundamental Law of the Land and tell us ‖ Dr. and Stud. 2. c. 2. lib. That by Common Law is understood such things as were Law before any Statute by general and particular Customs and Maxims of the Realm Now if Statute must be but Declaratory of these Customs of the Kingdom how can it be concluded but that such Acts as directly contradict any of them must be absolutely void for by the same Reason that they can with a Be it enacted void any part of it they may the whole With the same Reason that they can invade any part of the Prerogative of their Prince which the * 2d part Inst 496. tells us so in terminis By the Common Law it is the Kings Prerogative quod nullum Tempus occurret L. Coke Lit. p. 344. Book tells us is the principal part of the Common Law they may abolish the whole make Killing no Murder and except Persons from the Punishment of Treason Does not this Common Law it self void any Statutes that are made against the Prerogative of their King Was it not in this very ‖ Stanfor l. 2. 101. Edward the 3ds time that it was so Resolved even to the nulling three several Acts that put Pardons out of the Princes power The boldest of these Anti-monarchical Zealots cannot deny but that by the Common Customs of the Realm it always was Our Kings undoubted Prerogative to call and dissolve their Parliament when they pleased Chronicle confirms it * Speed 645. Inst 27. 2. Law Resolves it may practice for ever maintain it Now I cannot see why these Statutes that contradict the Customs of the Realm in determining their King to call Parliaments which the Common Law hath left at his Liberty should not be as much void as †2. Ed. 3. c. 2. of King's not pardoning Felons so Also 4. Ed. 3. c. 13. The Conffrmation of that other others that upon the like Reasons have been Resolved so And if the Common Law can avoid any particular Act of Parliament against the Prerogative of the Prince as we see it did more than one If Stanfords Authoty be Law then the Conclusion is unavoidable That for the same Reason it can any or all And in my poor apprehension that Act it self of the late Kings which reasonably repeals that of his * 16. Cap. 2. c. 1. that repeals 16. Car. 1. c. 1. Martyred Fathers that Act with which these reproachful fellows upbraided in their prints their deceased King is so far from countenanceing their clamorous Cause that it corroborates and confirms our own Case for it tells us the very Reason of repealing those Statutes To prevent intermission of Parliaments And what is that but what we say the Common Law would of it self void ‖ Vid. Preamble to 16. Car. 2. c. 1. an Act as they say in derogation of his Majestys just Rights and Prerogative inherent in the Imperial Crown of this Realm for the Calling and Assembling of Parliaments Nay they tell us
besides of Mischiefs and Inconveniences the two main matters the Law labours to avoid might be the Result of such an Act and endanger the safety even of King and Subject And what pray now was this Statute of Charles the First but what some even of these ‖ Vid. Seasonable Question and an useful Answer Printed about 77. by a Bencher of the Temple Factious Fellows themselves confess only a Reinforcement of the two Edwards If it were no more by the same Reason they are gone too as being against the King's Prerogative and in Derogation of his Right But Factious Fools that baffle themselves before they can be confuted by others the Statute they repealed did reinforce indeed those of Edward but it was with a Witness even as they * 16. Car. 2. resolved it with an invading the Rights of the King and endangering the Ruin of the People but still 't is true in that latter clause of their repealing Act they prevail upon their King to grant them a Triennial one how far obliging I leave their Oracles of the Law to Judge For if our Kings have had it by their prerogative indefinitely to call Parliaments by Custom or Common Law 't is as much against both for him to be obliged to convene them in three year as two one or without Intermission And I cannot see how the last enacting Clause is consonant to the Repealing Preamble which is so mighty for the Preservation of the Prerogative and we well know under what Circumstances of State Affairs then stood the People could not have more than so good so gracious a King was even in Policy ready to grant it was within a year or two of his being placed upon the Throne of his Father And a Turbulent Faction as furious again to pull him out A Seditious * Venner and his Fifth Monarchy Men. Sect had but just then alarm'd him that were setting up their Christ's Kingdom before his own was hardly settled Sots that thought their Saviour the great pattern of a Passive Obedience could be pleased with the Sacrifice of Fools and Rebels and an active Resistance unto Blood that has commanded us even to suffer unto it and even in the same Season and Session as damnable a * Vid. Brief Narrative of the Tryal of Tongue Stubs c. Lon. 1661. Conspiracy detected as this Hellish one so lately discovered Arms seiz'd the Tower to be taken and an Insurrection contrived the parting at such a juncture with his Prerogative might be the product of his desire to please the People 't is too much to take the forfeiture in his own wrong when in this very particular the same Law provides so much for the Prince's Right But they 'll tell us the King by his passing such a Bill has parted with his Power and Prerogative But then do not the Laws tell us it cannot be past away Was it not resolved by all the Judges but * 1. Jacob. Term. Hill Coke l. 7. in his Grandfathers time That himself could not grant away the Power of Dispensing with the Forfeitures upon Penal Statutes and why because annext to his Royal Person and the Right of his Soveraignty And shall it not be so much our Soveraign's Right which common Custom the Fundamental Law of all the Land has invested him with the convening of Parliaments at his pleasure But for my part for my Life I cannot apprehend did there lie such a great Obligation upon * 16. Car. 2. his Majesty from this his own very voidable if not void Act how 't is possible to bring him at the same time within the Letter of the Laws of Edward and by them lay a necessity upon him to make all their latter Act an entire Impertinence For if by those Laws â—e be obliged to Call a Parliament at least every Year What signifies the latter that allows him three Years for their Calling And if he has three years for their Calling where can lye the necessity for his Calling them in one for a * Cook himself says it is a Maxim in the Law of Parliament that later Laws Abrogate the former that are contrary to them 4. Inst C. 1. pag. 43. Subsequent Stat. that gives such a larger extent of Time tho it do not actually repeal those Preceding that allow less yet it must at least render them Illusory and Vain And to tell us that the latter is but declaratory of the former Act when it contradicts the very Letter of that Law is as absurd as maintaining an Affirmative may be confirmed with an absolute Negative By all the Rules of Reason I have met with yet and Logick is allowed sure to hold good even in Law unless the Legislators set up for Brutes and Irrationals A Proposition of a larger extent must include that of a less which if it does is in this Case Exclusive For should this Authority suppose to bring the Argument home to their Doors and then they can't say it is far fetcht of the House of Commons command me to dance Attendance at their Bar de Die in Diem for abhorring or so and then with a subsequent Order only demand it every third For my part I cannot apprehend the Obligation there lyes upon me for the performing both but that the former stands still a Cypher in their Journal and by the latter is suspended I could assoon resolve in the Crazyness of the Natural Body when 't is batter'd with an Ague that a Quotidian and a Tertian can at the same time assault it together But Mr. Hunt's Illustrations lying in another Science Number and the Mathematicks he may demonstrate this too * Hunt postscript pag. 46. 48 49. with his Vnite and Triad and tell us One and Two make Three But to be serious and that in a matter that so much concerns the Soveraign tho there be no better way of baffling Buffoons and Arguments of Fools must be answered but with Folly tho some may think there may be somewhat of sound Reason in such pleasant Similes for Sense and Nonsense are become Terms now but merely Relative and every Author an Ass or an Animal of Reason as his Reader stands affected we being become parties in that too as well as in Principles if we would truly know the Sense of a Law it must be collected from an Historical Account of that time wherein it was enacted and I think my Lord Cook ‖ Cardinal of Winchesters Case who came from Flanders to purge himself before Parliament of Treason as only the Roll of Henry the Sixth says but Consult the History it appears he had some of the King 's Jewe's gaged to him which the King stopt from going after him c. 4. Inst 7. p. 42. tell 's us as much too And then turn but to the story of the Times and see there the Reasons of such Provisions and when those fail then must sure the force of such Proviso's too for certainly
runs all in the sole Wil of the King Charter it self their Act of Liberty they so much Labour in that not the meanest Subject can be Try'd or Judg'd unless it be by his Peers Equals much less so mighty a Monarch that has none and a Fortiori then with lesser Reason by those that are his own Subjects so far from being his Peers or Equals that they are together his Inferiors which has made me think many times these preposterous Asserters of so much Nonsense these Seditious Defenders of those Liberties they never understood did apprehend by the word Pares in the Law not the common Acceptation of it in the Latin but only the abused Application of it of our own English only to our House of Lords And conclude the King might be Judg'd by those we commonly call PEERS because they sit in that Honorable House and at the same to be Judg'd according to Magna Charta that all Judgements be per pares But does not each Dunce and every Dolt understand that the very Letter of the Law looks after this only that every Person be tryed at the least by those that are of his own Condition and that in the Legal Acceptation of the Word every Commoner of the Lower House nay every one of their Electors is as much a Peer as the greatest Person of the House of Lords In short they must put some such silly Seditious Exposition upon the plainest Letter when they pretend to Judge their King or else from the very Law of their own Liberty they labor in allow that their King has no Judges In that Act against Appeals that was enacted in the time of Henry the 8th 24. H. 8. c. 12. the very Parliament upon whom the People and even these Republicans so much depend tells us even in the very Letter of that Law That it is Manifest from Authentick History and Chronicle That the Realm of England is an Empire That its Crown is an Imperial one That therefore their King is furnish'd by the goodness of Almighty God with an intire Power and Prerogative to render and yield Justice to all manner of Folk in all Causes and Contentions This by solemn Act is declared of their King this Excludes the People from Judging of themselves much more their Soveraigns This the Resolution of a popular Parliament they would make even the Supream and this by them resolved even in Opposition to that Popery these Panick Fools so much and so vainly fear Do not the Books the best Declarations of the Law let us understand that which they against the Resolutions of all the Law it self would so foolishly maintain that it was resolved in Edward the 4th's time That the King cannot be said to do any wrong and then surely can't be Judg'd by his very People for doing it when impossible to be done and was not this the Sense of †Vid. 1. Ed. 5. fol. 2. all the Judges and Serjeants of the time to whose Opinion it was submitted was it not upon the same Reason a Resolution of Si Le Roy moy disseisit pur ceo que Le Roy en le ley ne poit moy disseisir il né serrá appell disseisor mes jeo sue mis a petition à Roy. 4. Ed. 4. 25. 13. the Law in Edward the 4th's time that because the Soveraign could not be said to injure any Subject therefore the Law never looks upon him as a disseisor a disposesser of any Man 's Right and all the remedy it will allow you is only Plaint and Petition Does not my Lord Coke himself that in several places is none of the greatest Assertor of the Right of the Soveraign fairly tell us * Coke Comon West 1. 2. Inst p. 158. least it should be vainly fear'd they should reflect upon the King 's own Misgovernment all the fault should rest upon the Officers and Ministers of his Justice Does it not appear from the ‖ Stat. to pursue suggestious 37. E. 3. c. 18. 38. Ed. 3. c. 9. Statutes of Edward the third that notwithstanding the strict Provision of the Charter for the Tryal by Peers that the King was still look'd upon as a Judge with his Council and Officers to receive Plaints and decide Suggestions and tho that and the subsequent of the next year provide against false ones yet it confirms still the power of the King to hear and determine them whether false or true Have they not heretofore answered touching Freehold even before their King and Council and a Parliament Parl. Glocester 2. Ric. 2. only Petition'd their Soveraign with all Submission that the Subject might not be summon'd for the future by a Chancery Writ or Privy Seal to such an Appearance but this they 'll say was the result of the Soveraigns Usurpations upon the Laws of the Land of a King Richard the 2d That did deserve to be deposed Brief History of Succession p. 7. as well as the Articles of his Depositions to be read †Plato Rediviv p. 116. 234. a King that forfeited the executive Power of his Militia for prefering worthless People and was himself of little worth or as the most Licentious and Lewdest Libel of a longer date has it †a King that found Fuel for his Lust in all Lewd and uncivil Courses Now tho March Needham Merc. Polit n. 65. Sept 4. 1651. we have the Authority of the best of our Historians for the good Qualities of this Excellent tho but an unhappy Prince and who could never have fell so unfortunately had his Subjects served him more faithfully tho Mr. Hollinshed Hollinshed 3d. Vol. Chron. F. 508. N. 50. tells us never any Prince was more unthankfully used never Commons in greater wealth never Nobles more cherish'd or the Church less wrong'd and as Mr. How has it in Beauty Bounty How 's Annals p. 277. and Liberality he surpassed all his Predecessors and Baker the best among our Moderns says there were aparent in him a great many good Inclinations that he was only abused in his Youth but if he had been Guilty afterward in his riper Age of some proceedings these Republicans had reason to reproach I am sure he was Innocent of those foolish Innuendo's those false and frivolous Accusations for which they rejected him viz. for unworthiness and insufficiency Vid. Trussel in vit R. 2. when he never appear'd in all his Reign more worthy of the Government than at the very time they deposed him for being unworthy to Govern But whatever were the vices of that Prince with which our virulent Antimonarchists would blast and blemish his Memory yet we see from the President that is cited the Sense of his Subjects Parl. Glocest did not then savor so much of Sedition as insolently to demand it for their Privilege and Birth-right which without doubt they might have pretended to call so as much as any of those the Commons have since several times so
they are positive sure 't is Impudence as well as Capital perhaps to oppose And yet we see these Gentlemen of so little Law to Labour so much in a dispute that is only to be decided by it what Authority is the singular assertion of a Republican or a * pag. 21. Plato Redivivus that the House of Commons is the only part of the old Constitution of Parliament that is left us or the single sense of ‖ Tryal p. 23. §. 2. Mr. Sidney that the Senate of England is above its Soveraign against the form of the very first Act of State that remains upon Record the very †Magn. Chart. 9. H. 3. know ye that we of our mere will have given c. Chart. Forest 9. H. 3. begins also with a we will Stat. Hiber 14. H. 3. only a mere Order of the King to the Son of Maurice his Judge there the words we command you Witness my self Note that was even concerning Free-hold and a Case of Co-parcenary The Stat. Bisex 21. H. 3. tho concerning pleading and Common Law but an Order of the King to his Judges for the words are we ordain and Command you Stat. Assiza 51. H. 3. The King to whom all these shall come greeting de scacc the King Commandeth Charter these Democraticks adore against the form of the following one of the Forest and Consult but the Style of the Statute Book and all the Antient Acts down to Richard the Second and you 'll find not so much as one but what expressly points out in its Enacting part the sole power of the Soveraign by which it was Enacted all in these repeated Expressions of Absolute Majesty We the Kings of England of our free will have given and granted it is our Royal Will and Pleasure the King Commands the Kings Wills our Lord the King has establisht the Lord the King hath ordain'd And most of them made in the manner of Edicts or Proclamations as in the Margin will appear and tho 't is thought now such a piece of Illegality to be concluded by an Order of Council and even his Majesties late command for the Continuance of the Tunnage and the Resolution of the Judges about that part of the Excise which expir'd has by some of our murmurers been repin'd at tho by all Loyal ones it was as chearfully assented to and as punctually paid yet they shall see that the People heretofore paid such a deference even to an Edict of the Prince that they nearly rely'd as much upon it as the Romans did upon their Imperial Institutions who as I before shew'd lookt upon it as a crime like to Sacrilege but to disobey And this will appear from an †31. Hen. 8. c. 8. Stat. Mert. 6. The King our Lord providing hath made these Acts 2d Inst p. 101. Westm 1. 3. Ed. 1. 1. The King willeth and commandeth Stat. Gavelet even of altering the writ which they say can't be done but in Parliament Enacted by the King and his Justices 10. E. 2. Stat. E. 3. several say we will we ordain so also several R. 2. Act of Parliament in Henry the Eighth's time which provided H. 8 that the Princes Proclamations should not be contemned by such obstinate Persons and oppos'd by the willfullness of froward Subjects that don't consider what a King by his Royal Power may do and all that disobey'd were to be punisht according to the Penalty exprest in the Proclamation and if any should depart the Realm to decline answering for his Contumacy and Contempt he was to be adjudg'd a Traytor and tho the Statute limited it to such as did not extend to the Prejudice of Inheritance Liberties or Life yet the King was left the Judge Whether they were Prejudicial or not and these Kings Edicts by this very Act were by particular Clause made as binding as if they had been all Acts of Parliaments and that it may not be said to be an Inconsiderate and Vnadvised deed of the Parliament to give the King such a Power tho 't is hard to say so of a Senate whom the * Coke 4. Inst c. 1. Parl. writ that convokes them says they are call'd to deliberate To avoid that imputation I must tell them it was very Solemnly a Second time Confirm'd again within three †34. H. 8. c. 25. years after and by that Power given to nine of the Kings Council to give Judgment against all Offenders of the former and tho this was repeal'd in the following Reign of King ‖ 1. Ed. 4. c. 12. Edward a Minor and almost a Child A time wherein notwithstanding there is such a woe denounc'd against a People that have such a King the Subjects seldom fail of Invading something of the Prerogative yet still we see â—ho the Law be not now in force plain matter of Fact that there was once such a Law that our Kings Proclamations were once by express words of the Statute made as valid as the very Act of State it self that made them so that the Judicial Power of the Prince was heretofore less limited and that their Libels Plato Rediv lye as well as their lewd Tongues when they tell us and would have us believe That none but our late King as tell as the present ever pretended to so â—uch of Prerogative or had more allow'd â—â—em by the Laws And let any one but leisurably examine as I have particularly the several Acts of each King's Reign and he 'll find that from this Richard the Second to whose time the Stile of the Statutes as you see was in a manner absolutely Majestick down to King Charles the Martyr That the form 1. H. 4. H. 5. H. 6. Ed. 4. Rich. 3. even all those are pen'd in such Words as will exclude the Commons from being Co-ordinate and so much concerned in the Legislative as these popular Advocates have pretended to persuade us their People are for even they all run either in this form The * King with the Advice and Assent of his Lords Spiritual Then begins the other 1. H. 7. H. 8. Ed. 6. Q. Mar. Q. El. Jac. 1. and Temporal at the special Instance and Request of the Commons or The King by and with the Assent of his Lords Spiritual Temporal and Commons and as if the past Parliaments themselves would have provided againsâ— the Seditious Sophistry of a future Age which they could hardly be thought to foresee since it savors so much of almost unimaginable Nonsense and Sedition aâ— if our Ancestors had feared least some of their profligate posterity seduceâ— with the Corruptions of a Rebellionâ— Age should impose upon the Prerogative of the Crown with any such Subâ—â— Insinuation of their King 's making be Wil. Pryn's Power of Parliam one of the three States and by Consequence conclude as they actually did that the two being greater than him alone could be his Judges and their own Soveraign's Superiors why to
prevent these very Rebels and Republicans in such Factious Inferences did they for two hundred years agon in the first of Richard the Third Resolve what was â—â—gnified by the three Estates of the Realm for say they That is to say the Lords Exact Abridgem Fol. 117. p. 1. H. 3. â—piritual Temporal and Commons and even long since that much more lately out in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth in that Act of Recognition of her Right where they endeavor to advance her Royalty as much as possible they can and â—â— make the Crown of this Realm as much Imperial there they tell her 'T is WEE your Majesties most faithful and Keeble Stat. 1. El. C. 3. and does not their own Oracle tell them so L. Coke 4 Inst C. 1. Parliam Obedient Subjects that represent the THREE ESTATES of your Realm of England and therefore in King James and Charles the First 's time â—hen the Commons began to be mutiâ—ous and encroach upon the Crown â—hen they having with the help of their â—â—merous Lawyers which were once by â—articular Act excluded the House and H. 6. if less had State in it perhaps it might have been once less Rebellious too those Gentlemen knowing too well the weight â—f Words and what Construction and Sense Sedition and Sophistry can deduct 4. Inst Stat. de Bigamis concordatum per Justiciarios 2. Inst ibid. Stat. West 2. 13. Ed. 1. Dominus Rex in Parlia mento suo Statuta edidit 2. Inst 331. Stat. Circumspectâ— agatis 13. Ed. 1. begius Rex talibus Judicibus Salutem and tho some would not have it an Act of Parliament my Lord Coke says 't is prov'd so by the Books and other Acts 2. Iust page 487. from a single Syllable I am confident it was they contriv'd the Matter and Method so as to foist in the Factious form of this Be it enacted by the King Lords and Commons for that is the General Stile of the Enactive part of most of the Statutes of those Times and this was most agreeable with their mighty Notion of his Majesties making but up one of the THREE that so they might the better conclude from the very Letter of their own Laws That the TWO States which the Law it self implyed now to be Co-ordinate must be mightier and have a Power over their King whom the same Laws confest to be but ONE and the Reason why the forms of their Bill and the draught of the Lawyers and the Lower-House might be past into Act without any Alteration or Amendments of this Clause was I believe from a want of Apprehension that there ever could be such designing Knaves as to put it in to that Intention or such Factious Fools as to have inferred from it the Commons Co-ordinacy For the Nobility and Loyal Gentry that have commonly the more Honesty for having the less Law cannot be presumed so soon to comprehend what Construction can be drawn from the Letter of it by the laborious cavil of a Litigious Lawyer or a cunning Knave and therefore we find that those Acts are the least controverted that have the fewest Words and that among all the multiplicity of Expressions that at present is provided by themselves that have commonly the drawing of our Statutes themselves also still discover as many Objections against it to furnish them with an Argument for the Merits of any Cause and the Defence of the Right of their Clyent at the same time they are satisfied he is in the wrong And for those Enacting forms of our Statutes whatsoever Sense some may think these Suggestions of mine may want That some Seditious Persons got most of them to run in so low so popular a Stile in the latter end of King James and Charles the first 's time such as Enacted only by the Authority of the Parliament 21. Jâ—â—â— by the Kings Majâ—sty Lords and 6. Car. p. 1. C. 1â— 12. Car. 2. C. â—5 Staâ— 2. 13. Car. 2d Commons yet upon the Restauration of Charles the Second the Words With the consent of the Lords and Commons were again reviv'd and afterward 13 14. Car. 2. C. 10. 19. Car. 2. 8. 25. Car. 2. C. 1. 25. Car. C. 9. they bring it into this old agen With the Advice and Assent of Lords Spiritual Temporal and Commons according to the form of Richard the 3d. and Queen Elizabeth that resolv'd them to be the THREE STATES and this runs on through all the Acts of his Reign and even in several of them the Commons humbly beseech the King that it may be so enacted I thought it necessary to bring home Buchanan and his Disciples in Scotland maintain'd the same Doctrine of the King 's Co-ordinacy and therefore their Acts in the Rebellion too ran in the Name of the three States But when the King was returned to his Crowu and they to their Obedience the old form was retrieved The King with advice and consent of to our present tho most profligate time as much Acknowledgement as possible I could of my Kings Prerogative from the Laws of our Land and the very Statutes themselves because that some great Advocates for the power of the People some times pretend to plead for them too from Acts of Parliaments tho I think in this last lewd and Libellous Contest against the Crown that lasted for about five year in that Lustrum of Treason there was but one that was so laboriously Seditious so eminently popular as to endeavour to prove the Peoples Supremacy from Rolls and Records and Acts of State and for that recommend me to the good Author of the Right of the Commons Asserted tho I should rather approve of such an undertaking when endeavored to be done from the tracing the dark and obscure tracts of Antiquity and the Authority of a Selden than the single Assertion of a Sidney and the mere Maxims of some Modern Democraticks that have no other Foundation for their Establishments than the new Notions of their Rebellious Authors and that ipse dixit of such Seditious Dogmatists But I am satisfied too that this Gentleman who has laboured so much in vindicating the Commons Antiquity and their constituting an essential part of our Saxon Parliaments did design in it much more an Opposition of our Antient Monarchy and the Prerogative of the Crown than a mere clearing the dark foot-steps of our Old Chronicle and a real defence of Matter of Fact and the Truth And this is too clearly to be prov'd from the pestilent Pen-man's P-tyts own Papers that were publish'd at such a time when there was no great need of such an Asserting the Commons Right when themselves were more likely to have Usurp'd upon the Crown and as Mr. Sidney and his Associates would have it made themselves and the People Judges of their own wrong For to see such a task undertaken at a time when we are since satisfied such dangerous designs were a-foot looks only like a particular
to seize the King at Halyrood-House but unsuccessful forc'd to fly and returning better assisted the second time effected what only he design'd at first But the King escaping to Sterling Bothwell is pronounced a Rebel by the States but yet is so well be friended by these Disturbers of all Kingly Government that they gave him the very Moneys they had collected for their beloved Brethren in the Republick of Geneva by which with other Assistances they enabled him to fight his King in the Field Then is that succeeded with a second of the Gowry's the Son of him that rebell'd before where they contriv'd to get the King to dine in their House at Perth seduc'd him up into some higher Chamber and there left him to the mercy of an Executioner from which his Cry and the timely Assistance of his Servants only rescued Him These were the Confusions Distractions and even Subversions of some States that were occasion'd by the restlesness of Implacable Republicans Emissaries of Geneva throughout France Flanders Scotland and Germany You shall see now in the next place what disturbances they have created us here in our own Isle what Plots and Conspiracies their Principles have promoted in England as if in that expostulatory †Que regio in terris c. Virg. Aeneid Verse of Virgil there was no Region upon Earth but what must be fill'd with their diffusive and elaborate Sedition Queen Elizabeth was no sooner setl'd in her Throne but they as seditiously endeavour'd to subvert it They libell'd her Person set their Zealots tumultuously to meet in the Night invading Churches defacing Monuments and so full at last of the Rebellious Insolencies of that Italian Republick to which they commonly repair'd to receive Instruction that her Majesty thought fit to hang up Hacket with a half dozen more of them as dangerous Subjects to her Sovereign Crown and Dignity †In a Speech to her Parliament dissolv'd An. 1585 and of her Reign 27 She declared them dangerous to Kingly Rule vid. Holingshed Stow. When King James who succeeded her came to our Crown did these Malecontents that had molested him so much in Scotland disturb his Government here too as much Melvil that Northern Incendiary was as busie with his Accomplices here too to set Fire to Church and State and for that purpose publish'd several Libels against both for which being then at London he was sent to the Tower And so far had those darling Daemagogues insinuated themselves that the Hydra of a Popular Faction began to shew its fearful Faces in the very first Parliament of his Reign though * 1 Jacob. 1. in that they had so fully formerly recogniz'd his Right For in some of those several Sessions of which that consisted one of the Seditious Senators had the Confidence to affirm in the open Assembly †Fowlis Hist pag. 65. That the giving the King Moneys might empower him to the cutting the Members Throats an Insolency that some of our Modern Mutineers upon the same Occasions have * Vid. Printed Votes H. Com. That the giving the King Money c. as seditiously express'd King James Dissolv'd that Parliament call'd another and that as Refractory as the former which instead of answering the Kings Request draw up their own in a Remonstrance †Vid. even Rushworth Coll. p. 40. c. 16. E. second it with a Protestation for Priviledges representation of Religion and Popery intermedling with his Match of Spain and several Affairs of State so that he was forc'd to dissolve that Politick Body too and soon after suffer'd a Dissolution of his own Natural one dying under the Infirmities of Old Age and leaving behind him an old Monarchy rather weakned with Innovations of Republicans with the worst of Legacies to his Son and Successor A discontented People an Empty Purse with a Costly War into which he was not so much engag'd as betray'd And now we are arriv'd to what all the Stirs and Tumults of our Seditious Souls our discontented Daemocraticks in the Reign of King James did aim at and design the Destruction of the Monarchy which they could not accomplish till this of King Charles in that they never left till they laid such a Plot that at last laid all the Land in Blood and made an whole Kingdom an Akeldama For that they first quarrell'd at the Formality of his Coronation because in the Sacred Part of it the Prayer for giving him Peter 's Key was first added This some silly Sots suggested to savour of Popery tho' it struck purposely at the very Popes Supremacy it self For that they begun to Tax their King for taking his Tonnage without an Act and yet refus'd to pass one that he might take it by Law unless he would accept of it in Derogation of his Royal Prerogative for Years or precariously during the Pleasure of the Two Houses when most of his Ancestors enjoy'd it for life Turner and Coke led up the dance to Sedition and reflect upon their King in their Speeches The Commons command his Secretary Office and Signet to be searcht and might as well have rifled his Cabinets too They clamour against his favouring of Seminary Priests tho' he had sent home the very Domesticks of the Queen and that even to a disgust to France and a rupture with that Crown They upbraid him for dissolving Parliaments tho' grown so insolent as to keep out the Black-Rod when he came to call them to be Dissolv'd tho' their King notwithstanding the provocations assembled another assoon and that tho' he had the fresh President of the then King of France That had laid aside his for a less presumption Thus they call'd all his Miseries and Misfortunes Misgovernments and Faults when themselves had made him both faulty and unfortunate They accuse him for favouring the Irish Rebellion tho' the first disorders in Dublin were by his diligence so vigorously supprest their Goods confiscated their Lands seiz'd their Persons imprisoned and such severities shew'd them by his Commissioners there that two Priests hang'd themselves to prevent what they call'd a Persecution The Scot Mutinies upon the King 's restoring the Lands to the Church of which but in the minority of his Father it had been robb'd assail the Ministers in the Church in the very administration of the Sacrament because according to the Service-Book Protest against their King's Proclamations set up their four Tables at Edenburgh that is their own Councils in opposition to their King 's Hamilton had promised them as Commissioner to convene an Assembly they come and call a Parliament by themselves which tho' dissolv'd they protest shall sit still then desperate in a Sedition break out into open War Invite Commanders from abroad seize Castles at home agree to Articles of Pacification and then break all with as much Perjury Lowden their Commissioner sent to propose Peace At the same time treats with the French Ambassadour for War bring their Army into
History the best account of that King and he tells us he had no less then three Titles to the Crown whatever that Italian States-man Commines could conceive to the contrary first his Title in right of the Lady Elizabeth whom he was resolv'd to marry secondly that of the Line of Lancasters long disputed both by Plea and Arms thirdly the Conquest by his own But the Learned Historian observes the first was look't on the fairest and Yorks line been always lik't as the best Plea in the Crowns descent and for Confirmation of it the Learned Lord tells us that this Henry knew the Title of Lancaster Condemn'd by Act of Parliament Bacon Hist H. 7. p. 3. Ibid. page 12. and prejudic'd in the Common opinion of the Realm and that the root of all the Mischiefs that befel him was the discountenancing of the house of York whom the General body of the Kingdom still affected and whatever stress and reliance this Prince might place in the PARLIAMENT's power this able states-man observes there is still a great deal of difference 'twixt a King that holds by civil Act of State and him that holds Originally by the Law of NATVRE and DISCENT of BLOOD so that we have here a Person vers'd in our own Laws an excellent and allowed Scholar by the whole World and not only Lauds and Bishops as our bigotted Author would have it allowing a Divine right by the Laws of Nature and who I am sure was so good a Naturalist as best understood her Laws and that Natural discent by blood to be much more preferable than any other Human title given by such Inferiour powers of a Parliament whom the most zealou's adorerssure won't acknowledg more Omnipotent then the God of Nature himself I shall observe another Historical Instance that a true lineal discent was then taken for the best title and even in those times had the greatest Influence which was the Lord Stanley's Case who tho the very Person that plac'd the Crown on this Princes head yet suffer'd the loss of Vid Bacon Hist his own only for saying somewhat that savoured of his kindness to the Succession and that if he was sure the Children of Edward were alive he would not â—ear Arms against them so mightily did the sense of the right blood prevail with him that he sacrified all his own for it and rather than recant what he so well resolv'd seem'd no way sollicitous for his Life But that which this Historian might have observ'd too in this Reign as a discouragement to the designs of some of their popular Patriots then afoot when he pen'd this his presumptuous piece was the ill success that two several impostures met with in their pretensions to a Crown to which they were not born no great Inducement certainly for any one to be persuaded to personate the Royal Heir to set up for a Lambert or a Perkin only for their misfortune and fate Lastly I shall conclude my remarks upon this Kings Reign with an Animadversion upon a Paragraph or two that conclude his piece very pertinent to this place since it relates to the times of which we treat and that is the resolution of the Judges upon the Case of this their King that the Descent of the Crown purged all his defects and attainder This their opinion he refutes Brief Hist p. 17. as Frivolous Extrajudicial and here Impertinent but I hope to show this Point a most material one the Resolution to be a good Judgment and their reply much to the present purpose First sure it was a matter and that of a high Nature to know how he was qualify'd to sit in the House that was to preside in it as the head And tho he might in some sense be said to have won the Crown with Arms yet he knew it would wear much Better sit much Easier if setled and establish't according to Law and tho a Conquerer that has the Sword in his hand can soon capacitate himself to sway the Scepter yet he 'l soon find the most regular Proceedings tend most to the Establishment of his Reign this made Henry the Seventh who had a Triple Plea for the Crown and that one by discent from the Lancasters consult his Oracles of the Law how far an Attainder past in the Reign of the Yorks would still taint his Blood and make it less Inheritable Secondly their Resolution that all preceding defects were purg'd in the discent was a Judgment both equitable and reasonable for 't was sure but equal that an Heir to whom an Inheritance and that of a Crown was allowed to discend should be qualify'd to take too for if he was a King no Bill of Attainder could touch him that was past too when he was none And if he was no King Vid Dyer H. 7. f. 59. The King is the head of the Parliament Lords and Commons but Members So no more Parliament without a King than a body without a head It is no Stat. if a King assent not to it 12. H. 7. 20. all the concurrence of the Lords and Commons cou'd never have made him an Act for his being so there being no Royal Authority to pass it into Law and nothing by the very constitution of our Government can be made a Law without so that such a resolution certainly was highly reasonable and unavoidable that that should purge its own defects which no power had perfection anough to purge wou'd he have a King pass an Act with his two Houses for the reversal of his own Attainder or the two Houses reverse the Attainder of their King If the first the allowing him to pass such an Act supersedes the end for which it should be past and makes him de Facto capable whom they would capacitate if he allows the Latter then he must an Interregnum too extinguish that Monarchy for a while of which the very Maxim says the Monarch can't dye and place that Supream power in the People which all our Fundamental Laws have put in the King Thirdly this Resolution is very pertinent to the present purpose to which 't is commonly now apply'd and that is the Bill of Exclusion But his passion and prejudice would not permit him to Examin the little difference there is between them For certainly that ability that can discharge any attainder is as efficacious for the voiding and nulling any Bill that shall hinder the descent for a Bill of Exclusion would have been but a Bill or an Act of the House for disabling the next Heir And an Attainder can do the same and is as much the Houses Act and to distinguish that in an Exclusion the Discent it self is prevented by a Law makes just no difference for whoever is Attainted has his Discent prevented by a Law too and that antecedently also before the Descent can come to purge him so that they only differ in this formal sort of Insignificancy In an Exclusion the Discents prevention would be
enjoying the Power of garrisoning and fortifying Places one of the Powers that hinder our Happiness ibid. 9. To imploy only such People about him as the Parliament might confide in 9. That those of the Four Councils appointed by Parliament if his Majesty pleases to have the ordering his oeconomy and Houshold c. pag. 242. 10. No Peer hereafter to be made to sit in Parliament without their consent 10. That for the future no Peer shall be made but by Act of Parliament pag 252. These made the Substance of those Seditious Propositions that they prest upon the poor Prince with which they would have forc't our Charles the First to the Misfortune and Fate of a Richard the Second the most aggravated Misery that can befal a Monarch the deposing of himself These were they that filled their Parliament Papers and Proposals to their King at York the most Insolent that could be proposed surely to a Prince that was then in a Condition more likely to demand with Arms what he was denied against Law whom they might expect to see as they did soon after at the Head of good Souldiers as well as in the Hearts of Loyal Subjects such Insolencies as would have been Insufferable had they tryed and gained what was afterward so unhappily gotten that unlucky Fortune of the Day had they then what their Prosperous Villany did at last effect made their Mighty Monarch their Peoples Slave and a meer Capâ—â—ne of a King Carisbrook and the Isle of Wight could not have born with of much Indignity as was offered to him heâ—e when even at Nottingham and York their Non Addresses when his Person was in the Castle were less hard than such an Address when his Standard was in the Field These were those that provok't even the Mildest Prince to Protest in some rage That if he were their Prisoner Vid. Baker â—1â— he would never stoop so low These were those by which he must have made Himself what our Republican would have him now made of a King of England but a Duke of Venice and with These did they never cease to perplex his unshaken Heart his unmoved Soul continually upon all their Messages Treatises and Remonstrances and Petitions These still the Subjects of their demands when their Commissioners were sent to Oxford after their Newbury Battle these when the perfidious Scot had gotten him in their Power and Hands at Newark and New-Castle but bandied then only for the better buying of their King whom his own Country as basely sold then offered rather to make matter of delaying War then truly design'd for Peace that there might be somewhat in Agitation till the Summ was agreed upon and his Majesty diverted with the small Hopes of being at last a Titular King while they were selling him to Foreigners for an absolute Slave Lastly with these did they Plague and Pester the Poor Prince when they had made him a perfect Prisoner at Hampton Court and how well these Proposals of the late Rebels agree with the Politicks of this present Republican I 'll submit even to the most partial Person of the Party upon the perusal of this Parallel And what could be the design then at such a Season of Publishing such a piece of our Mutinous Members hugging in their Hearts and applauding with their Tongues Printed and Publisht Treason But that what was offered in their Plato was once presented in Parliament that the Politick Rebel could be pickt even out of the Journals of their House That they had Presidents there too for a Common Wealth as well as in Starkey's Shop and hoped to see her Revive again by Vote as well as by Book But these blessed Expedients tho but proposed out of the Press are the more Pernicious at the same time its Publisher makes them pertinent to what I have here applyed them the Propositions of a Parliament for he tells us he would not have them wrested from his Majesty but that he be petitioned to part with them very seasonably suggested I confess when we were so full of petitioning He would not have it effected by the Power of the Sword the Politician it seems is mightily for Peace and the Preservation of his Majesties Person but would only have them raise at first a civil War upon his Soul use the Son a little more kindly than they did the Father and not seize his Militia with an Ordinance because they cannot Fight him with his consent nor Rebel first against their King with an open War and then send him Propositions for Peace and the making him a Slave And since some of our Seditious Souls have not only a great Veneration left for these Parliamentary Projects and as great esteem for this Statesman for the reviving them in his Politicks since some that would be thought Persons sober and moderate can think the Kings Complyance in some of these Grants and Concessions somewhat necessary and a Trifle of the Crowns prerogative to be pared from the State as requisite as a Surplice or Ceremony to be partted with in the Church since the Propositions of that Rebel Parliament and the Politicks of this rank Republican make up so perfect a Parallel It will supersede some separate labour and pains to be able to animadvert upon them together and at once His Answerer will be somewhat obliged to his Authors being but a Thief and will shew that whatever some think that such pieces of Power might be par'd from the Crown like some sappy Excrescencies from the Trunks of Trees for the better Nourishment of the Stock that all and every one of them strike directly at the very Root That the Government cannot well subsist without them all and that all of them are inseperably settled in the Crown by all the Fundamental Laws of all the Land The first that feels the reforming Cook 4. Inst Cap. 2. p. 53. Vid. Ten several Rolls of Par. cited by him for it's Iustification Rot. Par. 50. Ed. 3. n. 10. 1. R. 2. n. 4. c. stroke of their Fury we find to be the Kings Privy Council and what is that why their own Oracle of the Law will assure them the most Noble most Honorable and reverend Assembly consulting for the publick good and that the number of them is altogether at the King's Will And shall those be numbered now and regulated at the Will of a Parliament whom their own Acts Statutes Rolls declare acknowledge and confess to depend upon the Nomination Power and Pleasure of the Prince would they repeal those Laws of their Ancestors enacted even according to the greatest Reason only for an Introducing their own Innovations against all Reason and Law Can it be consonant to common Sense that those whom their King is to Consult and Sit with at his Pleasure and that according to the very express Words of Authentick Rolls and Records that those should depend for their being and Existence Rot. Claus 12. Ed. 3. Par. â—â—m 19. 39. Ed.
Interest in the Militia Military power without the Peoples consent but why may it not be with less Presumption supposed That a Parliament by special ‖ 12. Car. 2d c. 12. Act declared Traytors pitcht upon Him for their Pen-Man against the Prerogative and then it may be more easily concluded that Pryn was the most prejudic'd partial Person that ever put Pen to Paper for in spight of his Factious Heart he must be forc'd to confess that not only this very Charter of Liberties settled this Militia but that it was confirmed to the King almost in every Reign by Act of Parliament since the Time the very FIRST was made To the very Son and Successor of Henry that Great Confirmer of the great Grant they declare * 7. Ed. 1. c. 1. that to the King belongs to defend Force of Armour c. All that held by Knights Service the King could distrain them for the taking up Arms. By the Laws of the very next ‖ 1. Ed. 2. Reign And in his Son and Successors that Usurpt upon his †1. Ed. 3. Father's Right before it could be call'd his own they declare the manner of his Mustering and Arraying the Subject and this they did too to Henry * 4. H. 4. the Fourth A Prince that had truly no other Title to the Swords of his Subjects than what he had gotten by the Conquest of his own yet so necessary was this inseparable power of the Prince thought then to be solely in him by the People that they Acknowledg'd it to be absolutely even in him that could hardly pretend to the Crown so inseparable from the Right of Soveraignty did the Laws allow this unalterable part of the Prerogative that they have declared it Inherent even in such a sort of Soveraigns as seemed not very well qualified for an Execution of that Royal Power which the Judgment of their very Parliaments decreed to be entirely theirs They resolved it to be the Right of the Prince in the Reign of a ‖ 2. Ed. 6. c. 11. Child They resolved it so when Subjected to the Government of a * 4. 5. Mar. c. 3. Woman The Commission of Array was revived again to King †1. Jacob. James in whose Time they resolved it such a Necessary Right of the Crown that they repealed for it the very repealing Statute of the Queen This their * Lord Cook 4. Inst Oracle tells us and that in those parts of his Works which the Parliament that opposed this very power in their King themselves ordered to be Printed yet themselves could as impudently Assert against the Sense of the very Law they Published against the very Law that was reviv'd but in his very Father's ‖ Die Mer. 12. maji 41. Vid. Journal and last p. Cook 2. Inst Time that his Son and Successors tho necessitated for suppressing such Insurrections as themselves had raised †20. Jun. exact Col. p. 372. could not Issue out such Commissions of Array tho the very preamble of the Act declares the very purpose of it was to prevent and preserve the Prince from such Rebellious Subjects And in truth the Rebels were Conscious of their Guilt and that it was which made them resolve not to know the Law But presently represented in a Declaration that this 1 July exact Col. p. 386. Vid. also Dugd. p. 97. Commission was contrary to the Laws of the Land and the Libertie of the Subject tho the very express privilege the Statutable Right of all their Kings Royal Ancestors but would not those wicked Miscreants have made even the Crown an Usurpation in their King that just before ‖ This Declaration expressly against the very Words of 11. H. 7. Cap. 1. declared that it was against the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom that the Kings Subjects should be commanded to attend him at his Pleasure And ordered * 17. May exact Col. 193. that if they should be drawn in a Posture of Defence for their Soveraign the Sheriffs of the County should raise Forces to suppress them and then how can the most prejudiced partial Person presume to tell us that this their Kings Commission was contrary to the Liberty of the Subjects when they set themselves in Contradiction to all the Laws of the Land in the very Declaration that denyed him his Array Their Eighth Proposition is for the Forts and Castles and that the Fortifying them be in the Parliaments power but even that too base Caitiffs your selves know to be by the very Letter of the Law in the Kings the very Charter of their own Liberties in this point confirms also the Soveraign's Right where it is provided ‖ Si nos ab duxerimus vel Miserimus eum in exercitum sit quietus de Custodia Castri char c. 20. Statute Keeble 2. Inst 34. that the King can dispence with the Services that are due for the keeping of his Castles when he sends those that ought to do them to serve in his Host By the very * Castle-gaurd an old Service alway due to the King 1st Inst 70. 111. 121. till such Services were taken away 12. Car 2d common Law and Custom of the Realm before there was alway such Services due to the King for the keeping of Castles And certainly they were lookt upon then to be in the Disposal of the Prince when the Subject was but a Tenant to serve him in his Fortifications And this Chapter of their very Charter I hope proves sufficiently not only that the King can command his Castles to be defended but send his Subjects any where for his Defence which the Declaration of the Commons did as Rebelliously deny But besides the taking of the Kings Castles Forts Ports or Shipping is resolved and ever was reputed ‖ Brook Treason 24. Treason and were not the two Houses Traytors then by a Law before that of this King made them so by Statute when they ordered * Parl. 1641. Vid. Exact Coll. p. 123. 21. Mart. 22. Martii upon the London Petition and that of the Cinque-Ports that all his Majesty's Forts and Castles should be presently fortified that no Forces should be admitted into Hull without the Consent of Lords and Commons seized their Kings Shipping and made Warwick Vice-Admiral of the Fleet This was a sort of accumulated Treason whose every Individual Act was truly so as if they designed that the Statutes should not declare more things Treasonable than they could dare to commit My †Cooke 1. Inst pag 5. A. Lord Cooke tells us whom they cannot but believe that no Subject can build a Castle or so much as a House of strength imbattailed or any Fortress Defensible without the Soveraigns consent much less sure shall they seise those that are the Kings and Fortifie them for the People and tells us again the * 2d Inst Comment Chart. Chap. 15 same in his Comment upon the very Charter of
Liberties and will not that neither with our Licentious Libertines be allowed for Law Is not all the Military power both by Sea and Land declared the undoubted Right of His present Majesty and that by particular ‖ 13. Car. 2 d. Chap 6. Vid. the same repeated 14. Car 2. c. 3. Act in his own Reign does not the very preamble of it seem to provide against this very Proposition of such a Parliament or a Plato when it tells us expresly that all Forts and places of Strength is and ever was by the Laws of England the Kings undoubted Right and of all his Royal Predecessors and that neither both or either Houses can or ought to pretend to the same and declares that all the late Principles and Practices that assumed the same were all Rebellious And could some of our Mutinous Members embrace such Propositions from the Press that presumed to tell them they had of late made two such Impertinent Acts in the House †Plato p. 239. 240. 277. Acts invading the Subjects Property Acts betraying the Liberties of that very People they represent In short and that in his own Words Acts that empower the Prince to invade the Government with Force Acts to destroy and ruin the State hindering the Execution of the Laws and the preventing our Happiness and Settlement had they had but the least Reverence for their own Constitution and that Honorable Assembly wherein they sate sure there would have been some Ordered and Resolved for the sifting out such a Pen-man and sentencing such Papers to the Hangman and the Flames what can be the result of this to sober Sense or Common Reason that such Villanous Authors should appear in publick at such a Session of Parliament to Censure and Arraign the very Acts of their former Representatives but that they thought themselves secure from any Violent Prosecution from those that then were sitting and that it was not the Constitution it self of that most Honorable Assembly the Seditious Sycophants were so Zealous for but only the present Persons its Constituent Members they so much admired The last the Tenth of those pretty Proposals that deserves particular Animadversion for several of them Symbolize with one another and so are by a general asserting of the Kings Supremacy sufficiently refuted is the Parliaments Right to the making Peers the prettiest Paradox that the Abundance of Sedition with the want of Sense could suggest I have heard the Laws declare the King to be the Fountain of Honor as well as Justice but the Commons I think as they are no Court of Judicature so were never yet known to be concerned in the making Lords The King whom only our ‖ 3. Ed. 3. 19. Law declares to have no Peer is sure the only Person that can make Peers has not this Power been unquestionably in the Prince ever since these Realms had one to Rule was not the Title of Baron in Edward the First 's Time confined expresly to such only as by the Kings Writ were sommoned to sit in Parliament And even when there was an Innovation in this Point In †11. Rich. 2 d. Richard the Second's Tumultuous Time this Power was then not taken from the King till they took away his Crown did not he take upon him to confer the Peerage and as the first President per his Letters Patents And Beauchamp Baron of Kederminster the First of that Creation did the Parliament ever pretend to make Peers but when the Body had rebelled against the Head and rejected their Prince But the Creation of Honors might well then be inverted when the State it self was turned Topsie It was then I confess they denyed their King too not only the conferring of Honors for the future but passed an * 4 Feb. 1651. Scob. Col. pag. 178. Act for Voiding all Titles Dignities and Precedencies already given by him But this was done to extinguish the very Remains of Royalty that there might not be left behind him the meer marks the Gracious Dispensations of the very Favor of a King the inveterate Villains labouring with their Monarch to Murder his very Memory And sure none of the Nobility have great Reason to relie upon Parliaments for the maintaining of their Old Honor or creating New for the Privilege of their Peerage or the making Peers when the very First thing that they did when they had got the Power was an †Vid. vote Journal 6. Feb. 1648. Vid. Hist independ pag. 15. perfect Diurnal p. 1250. Ordered and Resolved that the House of Peers was useless dangerous and ought to be Abolisht And all the Kindness their Lordships could be allowed was to be capable of being elected into the Lower House and what an Honourable House of Lords was afterward Establisht even by those that had purged away the Peerage may be seen in the Persons of those that Usurper put up afterward for Peers But under the Name the Notion of that other House when they granted that power of their Nomination to that Arch Rebel which they but so lately denyed their Lawful King why we had there then †See the List of their Lordships in Dugd. view pag. 454. Lords of no quality no worth little Land and less Learning Mr. Hewsons Lordship that Honest Cobler Sir Thomas Pride's Lordship Knight and Dray-man My Lord James Berry Black-Smith My Lord Barksted the Bodkin-Seller and the Cant of their Counterfeit Cromwell their Creator might well tell them from the Text not many Nobl's not many wise were called but a Creation according to the very Notion of the Schools An House like that of the World too out of nothing framed by Him that had Himself * Vid. Engagement and Protectors Oath Sworn to be true to the Government without founded in the Perjury of him that made them Peers and of Persons that would have disgrac'd a Pillory Persons prefer'd for their little Honesty little Quality little Sense Persons whose Lands and Possessions could only qualifie them to be Noble by being purchased with the Blood of our best Nobility Lastly Persons that were only samed for their Villanies Mighty but in Mischief making it an House indeed not of Peers but Correction which the very Law tells us must be made up of Beggars and Malefactors This Gentlemen was the Peerage produced †Their 19th Proposition to the King at York by a Parliament's Rebellion to make Peers of which it was too the most natural Result for that very Act upon a Just Judgment would have Tainted all their Blood but they provided here for the purpose Persons that defied superseded the Work of an Attaindure Persons whose Blood even Treason could not more Corrupt This Gentlemen was the product of that most preposterous Inversion when the * The First Feb. 6. 1648. Commons could make Lords and their Kings House of Peers with their very Titles and Honors ‖ The Second 4. Feb. 51. Abolisht by an House of Commons
they seemed to be ashamed of that very Bastard Honor of which they were brought to Bed and could not tell how to Christen the base Bantling they had begot till at last some simpering Gossips stept up and Named it an other House i. e. an House without a Name Distracted Dolts the Compounds of Madness and Folly did you for this destroy your Kings Nobility created by Law to dignifie the meanest Men the Vilest Villains against the †17. Ed. 4. an Act for degrading Nevil Marquess Montague Because not sufficient for the maintaining the Dignity adding that Men of mean Birth preferred to Honor promote all manner of Injustice Statutes of the Land did not you confess that of the Kings Lords to be a Lawful Government and the best by recalling it tho compounded of Wretches the very worst poor Prodigals whose Repentance only rendered you more Miserable and reverst the Fate of him that fed on Husks who returned to Herd with Swine Have we not had heretofore Peers by particular †Act degraded for being a disgrace to their Peerage Lords whom the Kings Law made Honorable only their Lands could not maintain their Lordships Honors and that tho Blood and Descent had entitled them to it whereas many of these their Parliament Peers had neither Law Land Blood or Money to make them so Did not the Parliament that very Parliament that Abolisht afterward our English Peers Petition the ‖ 2. Car. 1. King against Scots and Irish Titles and told him to this purpose that it was Novelty without president that persons should possess Honor where they possess nothing else and have a Vote for the making Laws where they have not a Foot of Land had their own Objection been afterward applyed to some of their own Country and that pitiful Peerage of their own chusing they must have Blusht upon the Reflection of their own Thoughts when they remember'd with what they upbraided their King The possessions of their Noble Peers being Just none at all or what was worse than nothing the purchase of their Villanies It is recorded I remember in the Conqueror's Time that Hugh Lupus Earl of Chester upon special Favor of his Prince being the Son of his own Mother by a Second Husband Arlott having Marryed Harlowin a Noble-Man of Normandy that his Earldom was granted him by William the First with as ample Jurisdiction as himself held the Crown A power I think beyond any of our present Palatinates upon which he presumed to make three or four Barons but Historians observe it was such an Honorable Concession as never any Subject before or since enjoyed and how they can presume to pretend to it now I cannot Apprehend It was alway a particular piece of Providence amongst all Nations not to render that pitiful and Contemptible to the People which they resolved should be Reverenced and Esteemed and unless we can imagine our Idolaters of the Peoples Peers would like some Infidels adore their Wooden Deities only for beeing Ugly and Deform'd or like the Israelites Worship Calves of their own Rearing I am sure that empty Title with which their Honors of that other House were only full could draw no other Reverence and Respect than that Ass in the Apologue from an Image that it carried This I remember was the result of the Petition of the Portugals to Philip the Second of Spain and he I think obtained that Kingdom too as our Republicans did once and would again ours with the Subversion of its Laws and the Force of Arms it was their request that he would not make their Nobility of which they are not a little proud pitiful and contemptible by preferring such to that Degree whose Quality could not deserve it what Peers we had when pickt by the Council of State What Lords when cullyed out by the Commons let those remember who are so ready to forget it Seditious Sots have not the Laws of all Nations as well as our own provided that this power be the peculiar prerogative of the Prince and must these Politicks would Be 's be wiser now than the wide World Do not the Digests declare those Civil Sanctions whose Authority obtain with all Civiliz'd Subjects i. e. with almost all besides our own and whose Reason can't be refuted by the best of the Rebellious Republicans that so little regard those that their so much admired Legislators their Solon or Licurgus never saw the like Laws that must be allowed the most Rational by being so generally received those †Postquam ad Curam Principis Magistratuum creatio pertinere cepit c. D. 48. 141. Ordinis vero cujusque arbitrium primo Penes Imperatorem Zouch de jure milit nobilitat pars 2. Sect. 2. tell us and the World that the conferring of Dignities depends upon the Sole care of the Soveraign that the Subjects ought not to dispute it and such a Religious Observance of this settled Soveraignty do those sacred Sanctions recommend that they Censure it for a Crime as great as †Sacrilegii instar sit dubitare An is Dignus sit quem Princeps elegit C. 19. 20. 3. Sacrilege it self to suspect his insufficiency whom the Prince should prefer some of those Laws were the Constitutions of Heathens as well as other of those that afterward learnt Christ and had not the Doctrine of his Disciples declared Kings even an Ordinance of God the pious Pagans always esteemed their Princes Sacred and such a source of Honor was in their Soveraign Emperors that even against their very Laws they could allow them to continue those Noble whom the Marriage with a Plebeian had degraded from their Nobility as Antonius Augustus did for his Neece Julia. 'T is Nonsense I confess to talk of the Laws of all Nations to those that cannot obey their own or the Decrees of Emperors for the Preservation of their Majesty to those that will break Statutes to Libel their King yet still it serves to shew that even in this very point the Laws so long before ours †Vid. Coke Calv. Case fol. 15. Coke 7. fol. 33. None but Peers of the Realm to sit In House of Peers no Peer to be made but by the King allowed this power to be the peculiar prerogative of the Prince and tho we are bound only to submit to the Singular Laws and Customs of our little Land yet still if in our Senses we must be Subject to such Laws as are founded upon an Universal Reason and for these Republicks that have revolted from that Regal Government from whence they must derive their Honors we find the best of their Nobility to be but Burghers And the very Nobleman of Venice this Courteous Author so much Caresses and Admires one that must make himself so and at best but equivalent if such great things according to the Latin Aphorism may be compared with small to a Gentleman of England who wears only a shorter Coat while the other a longer Gown 'T
ensued a discovered Assassination of their Soveraign and was there no danger of a Parliament no sign of a Protestant Plot Only because the King did not leave Whitehall and go down to Hampton Court because there was no Essex in the Field as well as the Plot no King secured at Oxford as well as in the Isle of Wight that there was no High-Court erected at Westminster but only a better expedient found out at the Rye If these are Arguments to render an House of Commons unsuspected and a Plot of the Protestants unimaginable if because here are perfect Parallels of Proceedings as even as if drawn with a Compass Mathematical and which according to their proper Definition I could draw to infinity yet still there must be presumed a great Disparity between the Subversion of the Government that was actually compast and the Destruction of it now that was so lately intended If there be the least Difference between what led to the last setting up an Usurper an Arch-Rebel in the Throne and these late Machinations of Hell to retrieve the same Usurpation bating but the Providence that interposed against its Accomplishment Then will I own what this Villanous Author will have taken for granted That those that have the least Suspicion of any sort of Parliaments are the greatest Villains that a Plot of Protestants proved by Confession is still a Paradox and that my self deserve what he has merited a PILLORY The Pages that he spends in declaiming against trifling Wit supersedes all answer and Animadversion which himself has prevented in being Impertinently Witty upon the very thing he condemns The stress of his Ingenuity is even strained in the very declaiming against it And Settle has not so much answer'd Himself as Hunt here his own Harangue That Gentleman sate down a while for his second Thoughts but this preposterous Prigg sets himself in his own glass at the same time a Contradiction to his own Writings His * pag. 39. Observations upon the perjuries as he calls them of the Popish Priests that dy'd is so severe that the absolute Argument of their Guilt is drawn from their very denial and their equivocations he suspects from those very dispensations they renounc'd to dying words certainly such an inhumanity is hard which unless he had reveal'd Assurance by Christians must be blamed I confess there is not a Criminal of our latter Conspiracy I will declare Guilty beyond his own Confession and then there is not one that dyed but whom I can well think Guilty His next †pag. 59. Observation that is worth Ours Is that upon the Legislative Power and there he makes each of the two Houses to have as much of it as the King and that I deny with better Reason than he can assert that the two Houses are concurrent in their Assents that Bills be preferr'd to be made Laws I 'll willingly grant 't is my Interest 't is my Birth-Right But that which I look upon to be truly Legislative is the Sanction of the Law and that still lies in the breast of our Sovereign If Mr. Hunt that in many places is truly Pedantick will rub up his Priscian the Grammatical Etymology will make it but Legem ferre and then I believe his House of Commons will be most Legislative 't is their Duty their Privilege rather to bring and offer up all Bills fit for Laws and the King still I hope will have his Negative in passing them the Commons pray petition to have them past and that implies a consent Superiour to be required that can absolutely refuse ‖ Vid. quel Impositions le Roy poit grant sans Parlm Roll. Abr. 171. Le Roy poit Charge le sujet lo◠per benefit del Sujet sans Parl. 1. H. 4. 14. Roll. 2d Abr. 171. Les Commons Priont was wont to be a Form Croke 2d part 37. the King can with out Parliament charge the Subject where 't is thought for their Benefit and allowed to dispence with a Statute that concerns his own resolv'd by all the Justices the King by himself might make Orders and Laws for the regulating Church Government in the Clergy and deprive them if they did not obey 22. Ed. 3. says the King makes the Laws by the Assent of the Lords and Commons and so in truth does every Act that is made and every clause in it * Bract. Lib. 1. C. 2. Bracton says the Laws of England by the Kings Authority enjoyn a thing to be done or forbid the doing These are Arguments that our King sure has somewhat more than a bare Concurrence in the Legislative If not he must be co-ordinate and then we have three Kings which is what they would have and then as well may three hundred I love my Liberty better than our Author who has forfeited his yet I remember when too much freedom made us all Slaves The Extent of the Legislative Power is great but then I hope 't is no greater than the King shall be graciously pleased to grant it shall extend And then I hope it must be allowed that Equity and Justice must always determine the Royal Sanction too which cannot of it self make all things Equal and Just should it stamp a Le Roy vult at the same time upon Acts inconsistent and contradictory upon such as were against the Law of Nature and all Reason such would be de facto void 'T is hard to be imagined such Error and Ignorance in so wise an Assembly but what has but bare possibility in Argument must still be supposed but that it has actually been done will I prove possitively and not with some of their illogical Inferrences suggest that a thing must be so only from a bare possibility of Being Be it therefore enacted by the Kings most excellent Majesty and by the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament Assembled 't was then first those that were by special Act since declared Traytors made their King * Lords Spiritual Lords Temporal and Com. the three Estates Cook 4. Inst of Par. the very first Leaf and Line and won't they believe their own Oracle co-ordinate assumed to themselves so much of the Legislative that they left out the Fundamental form by and with the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons that the said Earl of ‖ Strafford's Bill of Attainder Strafford be adjudged and attainted of high Treason provided that no Judge or Judges shall adjudge or interpret any Act or thing to be Treason then as he or they should or ought to have done before the making of this Act as if this Act had never been made This piece of Paradox the Contradiction to Common Law Common Sense and Reason had all the Consents all the Concurrences that could if possible have made it truly Law and even his unhappy Majesties forc'd extorted Complyance But will any Creature that is barely distinguish'd from a Brute that can only offer at the mere privilege of his
trump'd up his Treatise That his Majesty 's had not an absolute Negative Voice to deny Bills of Common Right For this ‖ Plato Red. Plato tells us That His Majesty having it evacuated the very ends of Government For this Hunt Harangues and says He is so bold to say That never any Bill in Parliament Hunt p. 50. wanted the Royal Assent that was presented by the Desires of the People And I think 't is bold enough said with a Witness For is not this King left at last by the Laws of all the Land Sole Soveraign Judge what is really fit for his Peoples good to be past whereas he presumes that their bare presenting signifies the Desires of the People and that must absolutely determine the Jurisdiction of the Prince * pag. 47. He tells us when a matter is moved in Parliament by the King the Commons consent last and are therefore the Commons Co-ordinate with their King Or does that only signifie the Candid Custom of the Proceedings in Parliament The King is presumed upon his own Proposal of any matter the Party and they being consulted is only for their ‖ Consilium impensuri the Words of the Barons Writ 4. Inst p. 4. Advice as the very Words of the Writ expresly have it by which they are called and the very Etymology of their very Name the great Council expresses Controversies in such Cases will be Eternal until the Disputants agree in the same Notion of the Thing they so much dispute For otherways it is but making of Words instead of Arguments if they mean by the Legislative of the two Houses a power of Concurrence with their King in the making Laws and that their Consent is to be required they labor to prove just nothing or what they may have without so much pains and to so little purpose If they will insist upon the Natural Etymology of the very Word they will find the Derivative Legislative to be deduced as above from the Latinism Legem ferre and then in God's Name let the two Houses enjoy even of that an Arbitrary power and bring in what Bills they please so long as they will not again force upon us an Ordinance or Vote for Law and the Statute of the Land but if their Sense of this Legislative power must signifie That their Commons have as much of it as their King and That 't is that which makes their King Co-ordinate with his Commons as is sufficiently clear from their Writings that it is then I affirm 't is against Law against Reason and a Lye For the King by the very Law it self hath power to dispence with Statutes his Proclamation is a Law and an Edict and as much as any of the Decrees of the Roman Emperor's with the Advice of his Judges he will dispence with the rigor of the Laws if too severe and resolve their meaning if Ambiguous Have their two Houses whom they would have these mighty Law makers the power of repealing or so much as altering those very Laws they make without their Kings consent And tho this Laborious Lawyer observes That neither their King can pass any thing he proposes without theirs yet this his power and that when they have not so much as a Being Evinces the Prince at least supream in the Legislative The Learned in other Laws besides our own tell us a Legislative power may partly be delegated to other Persons tho Subjects and yet remain in the Prince even entirely notwithstanding such a Communication I confess the Opinion of Canonists and Civilians may not be so Authentick with some that abhor their very Names yet Grotius himself is of that Opinion and he a Person that our ‖ Plato Redivivus Republicans can cite even on their own Side but our own * Vid. Brit. Fol. 1. 4. Inst 70. Laws allow it or else I think our Judges too might make themselves Co-ordinate because their King's Commission communicates to them all the power of destributive Justice that is in the King We are told the King has committed all his power Judicial some in one Court some in another and therefore the Judgements run Consideratum est per Curiam c. and ‖ 8. H. 4. 19. 'T is resolved That if one should render himself to the King 's own Judgement it would be of none effect yet for all this it would be false to affirm That he does not do justice because he has delegated it to others to be done The King does not put in Members of Parliament as he does Judges yet Peers he makes and calls them to Sit and Commons cannot come without his Writs for Election but certain it is that our Kings once had a more absolute Legislative for they all know their Lower House commenced but so late and heretofore their Nobles and Bishops but such as the King should be pleased to call And I cannot imagine that when our Princes admitted the Commonalty to be concerned in the making Laws they then designed he should lay aside his own Legislative or put it in Common as they do their Land in Coparcenary or in their great * Coke 1st Inst Corp. Coke's the learned Lawyers Language make an Hotchpotch a Pudding of his Prerogative If every Politick Body that has but a share in this Legislative must also be presum'd to participate as much of it as the King I can prove to them every petty Corporation Co-ordinate with their great Convention of States and even a poor Parish as great Legislators as an House of Parliament for by the Laws of the Land even those can make their by-By-Laws without Custom or Prescription if they be but for the good of the * Pour Reparation del ' Eglise d'an haut voy c. 44. Edw. 3. 19. Publick and if they can but prescribe to it may pass any private Acts for their own The Civilians make their Law to be the Will and pleasure of their Prince But tho our ‖ Bracton l. 1. c. 9. Antient Lawyers would not expound that absolutely for our †Fleta l. 1 c. 17. own yet they seem to make it but little less only say it must not be meant with us of his unadvised Will but such an one as is determined upon the Deliberation and Advice of His Council Pryn that preposterous Assertor of this their Legislative has furnished them sufficiently with as contradictory Arguments as absurd as irrational Inferrences for its defence He tells us in his Treatise * Pryn's Treatise for the Peoples Legislative that Kingdoms were before Kings and then the People must needs make Laws that I confess setting aside the very Contradiction that there is in Terms For certainly the Word Kingdom was never heard of till there were Kings to Govern He might as well have told us of a Derivative that was a long time before the Primitive but bating this Solecism in Sense and Speech well meaning Will designed it perhaps for
on whom it was Entailed before and with his 35th reinstated them both again and that both in Birth and Tail And lastly that of Queen Mary's Entail was by a biggoted House of Commons that brought in that very Popery they now so much and so vainly fear and were like to have Entailed their Religion and Laws to the Vassalage of Rome as well as the Crown to the Heirs of Spain And is this thy Loyalty Seditious Sycophant this thy Religion to bring us presidents for Rebellion from Acts of Parliament and the Statutes of Apostates for the Establishing Popery The ‖ 13. Eliz. 13. of Elizabeth is such an one too as none but a †Hunt's Postscript page 51. Defier of Sense could have design'd for Application It is apparent that it was a Design to Secure the Crown to Her the Right Heir and that tho by an Indirect means An Act which she doubted her self whether with all her Parliament she could pass but was assured all her Subjects would like it when it was done upon a double Design to Secure her Title against the Pope and the Pretensions of the Queen of Scots * Cambd. vit Eliz. Cambden the best Account of her Life makes it a Trick of Leicester's ‖ Besides had he Consulted other Books before he writ his own by what appears by Keeble Stat. that very Act is expir'd of no Force and so he has made himself a Knave in Fact as well as Fool in Application but let them Lye for it for once and raze the Sacred Truth of History and Record which the Law makes Felony even in their own sense it was enacted for securing a Lineal Descent to those that they thought the Right Heir But theirs would have been a Disinheriting of one they knew to be so It is Prodigiously strange to me that those that contend so much for this Parliamentary Power over the Succession of the Crown that this Judge Advocate for the Parliament * Postscript p. 71 72. Hunt himself that tells us plainly 't is not establisht by any Divine Right but is governed according to the presumed Will of the People that these Sycophants do not consider they do the greatest Disservice to that Honorable Assembly put the greatest abuse upon that Ancient and truly venerable Constitution they give the Lye to several Acts of Parliament made in the best of times and make those Legislators the worst of Villains or the greatest Fools or in his own phraseology Wicked Impious Sacrilegious for have not they in several Reigns by Special Act recognized even a Divine Right as well as an Hereditary In the first of ‖ 1. Ed. 4. Rot. p. n. 9 10 c. Edward did they not declare that their Soveraigns Title to the Crown was by Gods Law and the Law of Nature Did they not even to a Tyrant a Murderer one fit only to be the Peoples Creature whom no Nature or God did design for the Throne Did they not resolve his Right to be both by God and Nature ‖ Exact Abridg. fol. 713. Rot. R. 3. Tell me was it thought so Divine so natural so Sacred THEN even in the worst of Men and must it be impious Sacriligious in the best of Princes Did not their best of * 1. Elz. c. 3. Queens receive her Crown with a Recognition of it's Descent to be by the Laws of God And lastly look upon that of King †1. Jac. c. 1. James where with unspeakable Joy they acknowledge he Reign'd by the Laws of God And as * Posts p. 87. new as he calls the Doctrine for five hundred year agon both by Divines and Lawyers it was allowed of and maintained ‖ Gervasius Doroberbensis Coll. 133. 30. Gervase the Monk tells us it is manifest the Kings of England are obliged to none but GOD and †Bracton l. 4. c. 24. Sect. 5. Bracton that lived and wrote in the same Reign of Henry tells us their King was then only under God and will neither Law nor Gospel History Ancient and Modern Rolls Acts and Acknowledgements of Parliaments themselves satisfy them that they have nothing to do with the * Dr. Burnet tells us H. 8. declared upon a dispute about Ecclesiastical Immunity very warmly that by the Ordinance of God he was King Hist Reform l. 1. pt 1. fol. 17. Either the Dr. lyes or Harry the 8th or this Doctrine is not so new but 200. year old SUCCESSION Never could any Person that had not Proclaimed open War with Reason and broke all Truce with Sense suggest as he does that the difference between the Descent of the Crown and that of a Private Estate are Reasons for altering the Succession which is one of the best Arguments for it's being Vnalterable Does not the Law provide that but one Daughter shall succeed to the Crown and that for the Preservation of the Monarchy which must be but of one and no Co-partners of a Kingdom And so also the Son of a Second Venter to prevent the want of Succession shall be admitted to the Throne when he shall be Excluded an Estate His fancy of the Royal Families being Extinct and that then the Majesty of the People commences was long since the pretty conceit of Will. Pryn too In which they tell us as Pryn's Parl. right c. I 've told them before just as much as an old Aphorism When the Sky falls and spoil another good Proverb that No man dyes without an Heir But suppose what can be may be Would not all this mighty Constitution of Parliament be gone too when there was no Successor of a King to Summon it His * Postscr pag. 73. Majesty of the People might set up another Policy of Government they think if it pleased But would not their Majesty of the People find it more agreeable to Divine Institution to agree upon the same Government in another person in an Extremity for would it not be more agreable even to their own Interest to prefer that under which they had enjoyed so long such an Experienced Happiness since the Almighty does not Reveal himself as he did of old to Moses and the Prophets and bid them arise and Anoint him a King over his Israel But as Mr. Hunt's private Estates tho I know not with what equity a mere Fiction in Law robs a man of so much Realty are frequently recovered with fine at Common Law against the Right Heirs he won't pretend therefore sure a Parliament shall a Kingdom and a Crown against a Royal Successor His own Reason for it is the best Refutation for I say too the Crown is ‖ Postscr l. p. 72. Governed by other Rules than a private Estate and the Romans who were Governed by those Civil Sanctions that have since the whole World tho by those they had a Dominion over their Issues Heirs and Estates yet those will not grant even to Kings the power of Disenheriting their own
Heaven because he had his Clergy allowed here upon Earth can he Prescribe with the Laws of the Land to impunity from the Decalogue and tell the Almighty some Killing is mâ— Murder Here his God his Saviour is invoked in a Solemn and Sacred Oath upon the Gospel and one that should be a Divine Expositor of both consults upon it the Readings of Mr. Hunt and a Resolution of the Common Law here he Swears to the Vid. Form of Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy plain meaning of the Words without any Mental Reservation whatsoever and yet thâ—â— Mungrel in Divinity means now to taken in his mind according to a ereiv'd Maxim in the Law And this Libeller of the Primitive Christians looks like an Apostate that was as Primitive who kept pointing to the papers he put upon his Breast while he was Swearing to others that he held in his hand But yet I dare Appeal even to his own Breast who without doubt had often taken these Oaths being graduated in an University and Ordain'd a Divine tho unworthy of both whether the Words Heirs and Successors were not understood by himself of such as were to Succeed by an Hereditary Right by Birth and Blood to the Crown and whether that he did then Reserve to himself only such as did Actually succeed by Consent of Parliament and whether he did not think that by them he was not only obliged to obey those Heirs when they came to the Crown but also to do all that in him lay to promote in the due time their coming to wear it certainly to confine their Sense only to those that shall de facto succeed is but Swearing an Implyed Allegiance to any Rebel or Vsurper and the word Lawful that still accompanys Successors will not mend the Matter with such men for all is presently Legal and just with them that has but the shadow of a Parliamentary power for it's pretence And I am well assured That those that would have thought such an Exclusion just and equal with their King 's passing it would have thought it as Legal could they have sate till they had made it pass without The good old King at first disputed his Militia as hard with them and who could have believed any sort of men could have thought it the Parliament's without his Consent But assoon as the Rebel House had made their Ordinance for the Seizing it which of those Miscreants did not think it as much Law And the more than probable project at Oxford shrewdly Insinuates they would have warranted an EXCLVSION without their Kings leave Legal had they been allo'w but a further progress in their ‖ Vid. King's Speech to the Parliament there Vnwarrantable Proceedings But as much as Mr. Johnson Triumph 's with this his Maxim of the Law * Julian pag. 19 20. as if he were the first Divine that had discover'd this deceitful Evasion this Jesuitical interpretation of his Protestant Oath Tho he and his Hunt and all his Lawyers in the Hall should tell us Ten Thousand times of this Seditious sort of Construction this Senseless Sophistry upon the plain word Heir as well as he Page 19. says they do an Hundred still all their Noise and Nonsense about Presumptive Apparent Actual possible will be nothing more than what the late Rebels that had Actually Murder'd the best of Monarchs made their defence to Justifie Treason and Sacrilege it self so that all this Divine's Sophistry savours not only of Nonsense and Sedition but of an old odious rank Rebellion and for to satisfie him that the Suggestion is serious and founded upon Matter of Fact if he can find among all his Seditious Papers he has habituated himself to peruse and what if he pleases I can lond him for his perusal such an old obsolete piece as was publisht after they had Butcher'd the best of Kings * A Treatise perswading Obedience in Lawful things to Authority tho unlawful Printed London about 1649 Ibid. wherein they endeavour'd to persuade the people to be subject to their Tyrannous Usurpation there will he find the very two Pages that he spends to promote the Quaint Conceptions of his Noddle about nothing or what is worse Faction and Folly for tho he tells us these tales Fifteen Hundred times over they told us so much for Forty years agon and that to satisfie Tender and Malignant Consciences that there lay no Obligation from their Oath of Allegiance upon them to adhere to the right Heirs of Charles Stewart because that those Branches Page 10. of the Oath which the Providence of Ibid. God had made Impossible to be observed must be lay'd aside and then they go on to shew that Heirs and Successors must Page 12. be taken Copulatively and so the word Heirs must be meant only of those that do Actually succeed But the Providence of God * Vid. Also a Religious Demurrer about submission to the present Power Printed London 1649. as they call'd it having kept the Heir of Charles Stewart from succeeding his Father had made say they that part of the Oath Impossible to be Observ'd and so the power must now be Obey'd Actively in what hands soever it be Seditious Soul 'T is too much to be Senseless too Consider but upon this Occasion a Case your self have * Julian pag. 12. Cited 't is that of the Lady Jane Did not the Laws adjudge it Treason in that poor imposed Princess for endeavouring to hinder the True Heir from being the Actual Successor and to say Queen Anno Mariae 1. Mary was then already Succeeded will not salve the Matter for it was resolv'd Treason too in her Father Northumberland his Contrivance of the Will for the Queens Exclusion which confirm'd as it was by the Privy-Council was as much an Act of State as the Bill by which our present Heir was to be Excluded and then what they did was but in pursuance of that Will after Edward's Death and as the Duke told Arundel that Arrested him that he had Acted only by the Council and Commission of King Edward Yet all was adjudg'd a defence Insufficient and I cannot see why the same Law would not have made those Traytors had the Bill past that rebell'd upon pretence of such an Act of Parliament as well as it did others that resisted upon the pretext of a Will Confirm'd in Council and which * themselves would Julian p. 12. have a sort of Exclusion and is almost as much an Act of state 'T is strange that men that would be thought so mighty Rational should not only argue against the known Rules in all Logick but against the very Inferences of Common Reason a man of Ordinary Sense without the help of his Hereboord will allow that any Vniversal and General Assertion in includes all Particulars And shall vve vvhen vve svvear Faith and Obedience to the Kings Heirs and Successors Generally Reserve an Exception of such whom the
part of that general Plot and Conspiracy that has been since discovered and that all sorts of Pens were imployed as well as all Heads Hearts and Hands at work for the carrying on Mr. Sidney's OLD CAVSE as indeed all this Gentlemans Works tended to for which the Almighty was supposed so often to have declared and signaliz'd himself and illustrates only this That there was not any Person qualified for undermining of our Monarchy either from his Wit or Parts Boldness or Courage from his Virulency in Satyr or his Knowledge in History from his skill in any Science or Profession but what some or other of the most eminent was made Serviceable to this Faction and contributed his Talent to the carrying on the Design according to the gift and graces that they had in their several Abilities to promote it neither can this Gentleman think himself libell'd in this Accusation unless he would give his own works the Lye for who but him that had such a Design for the subverting our Monarchy would at a season when the Succession of our Crown was struck at in the Commons Vote a Succession that several Laws of our Land have declared to be Hereditary even by that of God who but one so Seditious would not only have encouraged such unwarrantable Proceedings which was the late Kings Car. 2d Speech to the late Oxford Parliam own Words for 't in such an Assertion of the Commons Right but in that too brought upon the Stage several Arguments from our History several Presidents of our Soveraign's being here Elected by their Subjects when they might as well too tell us That our present Soveraign was so chosen because the Question was put to the People upon his Coronation but yet this elective Kingdom of ours did this Laborious Petyt's Right of the Commons asserted from his Cleri populi consensu drudg of Sedition drive at too Does he not tell us William Rufus and several others were Elected that is Henry the First King Stephen King John tho I am satisfied that consent of the Clergy and People they so much rely upon was nothing more than the Convention of those Persons that appeared upon the solemn Coronation or at least the Proclaiming of the King Themselves are satisfied all our old Statutes clearly confirm'd the sole Legislative Power of the Prince and therefore they won't when they are objected to them allow them to be Statutes at all because made I suppose only by their King but so my Lord Coke says they said of the Statute of Edward the First which notwithstanding he 4. Inst calls an Act of Parliament but yet however we see that the Style of all other Acts of Parliament put all the enacting part in the power of the King so that Mr. Sidney's making his People and Parliament the Supream Judges of their Kings violating the Laws is only a Position that opposes every Act in the Statute Book from the Great CHARTER to the last grant of our late King CHARLES But our Author Triumph'd as he thought over his Adversaries in forcing back their own Argument upon his Foes for says Mr. Sidney if no man must be Judge because he is party then neither the Tryal pag. 24. King and then no man can be try'd for an Offence against him or the Law I confess with such a sort of disputants as are resolv'd to beg the Question and take their Premisses for principles of eternal truth you cannot avoid the Conclusion tho it be the greatest Paradox and an absolute Lye for he presumes the Parity of Reason and then concludes they are both alike Reasonable he takes it for granted the People may judge the King tho party as well as the King the People who must be suppos'd as much partial and that is truly just as if he had said A Sophism Logician call the Petitio principi when we believe as they do and what then Why then we shall be of their mind i. e. that it would follow the King or his Judges could not hang a Fellow for Fellony or this Author himself for a Traytor to the State Nay more as the Gentleman has manag'd the matter it is made an Argument a Fortiori for he supposes the Absurdity to be such that if the King in his own Case must Judge the People and not the People the King in theirs that this Contradictory Consequence would be as much conclusive That the Servant entertain'd by the Master must Judge him but the Master by Page 42. no means must the Servant or in the Metaphor of his own more Blasphemous Sedition The Creature is no way bound to its Creator but the Creator it self to the thing it has Created and now all is out and all the large Volume all his mighty Treatise not to be finisht in many years is founded upon that first Principle of all Republicans The Peoples Supremacy or as Mr. * Vid. Paper at his Execution He has too that Old Seditious Aphorism us'd by Junius Brutus all the rest of the Republicans Singulis Major Tryal p. 23. tho in the next paragraph he is no more than any of his Subjects Sidney says the Soveraign being but a Servant to his Subjects a Creature to these God Almightys of the People the Creators of their King truly this they are resolv'd we shall grant or as resolutely suppose we cannot Contradict and so put upon us their presumptive absurdities for our own and make them the Consequence of those Concessions that were never yeilded who taught this Gentleman who granted him that the Magistrate was the Peoples Creature but a Brutus in his Vindiciae or that as abominable a Book De ‖ This Gentleman seems only to have translated that Authors own words non populus propter Magistratus sed Magistratus propâ—eâ— poâ—ulum fuisse creatos jure Magistratuum and for this must it follow that Filmer is so absurd only because he does not suppose the very pernicious principles of those very Rebels and Republicans he endeavours to refute It is an easy sort of a Conquest and you may soon prove your Foes to be De Jure Magist Quaest 5. p. 10. Edit Francs Fools too if you 'll oblige them to maintain their own positions from the Contradictory Maxims of their Enemies they oppose and this Collonel that once was a Souldier and in Arms for his Common-wealth as well as a Polemical pen man against the Monarchy would soon have remain'd sole Master of the Field had the Measures of his Foe been forc't to be taken from the Rules and Maxims of the Enemy which he fought and many would think the Man a little mad that could imagine two Armies that faced in their Fronts to meet so as to stand upon the same ground It can't be well effected without a penetration of body neither can Mr. Sidney conclude us in that absurdity unless he would make us mingle Principles a thing perhaps
among the Romans and if the People had any Right to this Judicial power those Miscreants more modestly place it among the most eminent whereas our brisker Assertor of this Anarchy makes it out That therefore our more eminent Memberships have this Original Power only because Communicated them from the meanest People so that now we have a Parliament that has an Original Natural Liberty of the People tho their very Constitution it self commenc'd from the very Grant Grace and Favor of the King I could never meet with any Record yet that rehearsed these Privileges of Parliament But we have many extant and Presidents even of the House of Commons themselves that their Privileges and much of their Power proceeds from the Liberalities of their Prince more than this Natural Liberty of the People not to mention that their very being was first the result of such an Act of his Grace for from whom pray had they that freedom of Speech they upon every Session desire by their Speaker but from that King before whom they are to Speak who is it that fills their Chair those that present him or the King that accepts or disapproves whom they have presented who is it that gives them access to his Person the Commons that desire it or he from whom 't is desir'd 2. Lastly who impowers them to consent to a Bill those that supplicate his Majesty would be pleased to enact or his Majesty that says Be it enacted could this Natural Original power of the People be communicated to their Representatives the dispute about the Commons Right would be carried for ever on their side and we need not date their Original from Henry the Third or the Barons Wars or from the Saxon Heptarchy it self to be sure they then had their Representatives assoon as they had this Power and this Power it seems was assoon as they were a People And by this Original Power which they delegate for ought I see they may by the same rule as well retain it suffer no Representatives at all but assemble themselves and exercise the Soveraignty If the People delegate an Original power and a Natural Liberty to this Parliament it cannot certainly be comprehended how these Parliaments as now constituted could commence by the Grants and Concessions of the Prince and yet all will allow tho they disagree in the time that they did begin at first to be so Assembled by the Bounteous Permission of the King and that all the Privileges they claim were the result of an entire Favour of the Soveraign and not the Original freedom of the Subject if they 'll call that an Original Power to send Representatives it must be somewhat like that Author 's Secondary Original we so lately consider'd and that tho they prescribe to it for this seven hundred year as well as they cannot for above four or five 100 still it will recurr to this That this first power was the Grant of the Crown And these prescriptions as themselves allow being whenever they begun the result of the Soveraigns Bounteous Permission I cannot see why those Immunities may not be resign'd to the same Crown from which they were once receiv'd or those Franchises for prescription it self in this case is properly no more may not be Absolutely forfeited by those that at best can but be said to hold them on Condition I know the Common Law Favours a Prescription so far as in Inheritances to let it have the force of a Right when their cannot be made out any other Title but this I look upon to be of another Nature when the Original of what they prescribe too by their own Concessions was the Grant of their King and even this Common Law commonly in all its Customary Rules excepts the Prerogative of the King nay this very Prerogative of his by that very Law is allowed to be the Principal * Case of Usurpation Coke Litt. 344. B. The Prerogative of the King is given by the Common Law and is part of the Laws of the Realm 3. Instit p. 84. Stamf. pl. Cr. 62. a Prerog 5. part of it I urge this because it is both apposite here and a Case upon our late Elections much controverted and to say as some do That such a Prescription cannot be forfeited proceeds from a confounding of the word in this Case with that Prescription by which some of them have a Title to their Estate for their Common Objection about this their Elective power is That the King may as well deprive them of their Birth-right when this their Birth-right might commence by an Original Right but the Power of this Electing must Necessarily and Originally first come from the Crown But yet they know too that this their very Birth-right is in many Cases forfeitable by their own Act to the Crown and for their Burgage it self should we abstract Burgh an Antient Town holden of the King Coke Litt. 164. from that Elective power that attends it nothing else but an Antient tenure of their very King And if in the Saxons time as the popular advocates would persuade us the Commons were call'd to sit in Parliament 't is certain they could not come as Burgesses too for all that Borâ—oe in their Toungue signified if we can â—elieve my Lord ‖ Ibid. Our Neighbours Kingdom of Scotland had Parliaments not above 700. years agon and even their Republicans will allow they had Kings long before that call'd only the Preceres as a worthy Author of theirs observes Sir G. M. Jus. Reg. That their old Laws run just like ours here the Kings only Acts and that their Burgesses did not begin till about 300. year agon Which makes it more likely that our own was not summon'd much long before for tho they were different Kingdoms yet Neighbouring Nations and might nearly follow our Innovations vvhen in a thing that must be lik'd by all Subjects Coke and from which the word Burgh was since deriv'd its signification was only this Those ten Companies or Families that were one anothers pledge and so should they prove it to us as clear as the Sun as well as they have left it much in the dark still those their Commons could never be of those that had any Right to come but only such as the Grace of the King should call and even in Edward the first 's time those very Barons some say that were only most wise were summon'd by the King and their Sons if they were not thought so prudent as their Fathers were not call'd to Parliament after their Fathers death Therefore since Prescription since Parliament it self depended all heretofore upon the pleasure of the Prince I cannot see how the Subject shall ever be able to make it his Original Right and tho some are so bold as to say such a prescription cannot be forfeited or resign'd by the Subject resum'd or restor'd to the Crown for they must maintain those propositions or else they have no reason for their
Great â—ven he was not depos'd and dispatcht by the suffrages of the people but by a Perjur'd band of Conspirators and Assassinates in the Senate and whom the very people * Plebs statim â— funere ad domum Bruti Cassii tetendit Cinnam per errorem nominis occidet caputque prefixum hastae circumtulit columnaÌ„ parenti patriae statuit in scripsit sacrificare per CaesareÌ„ jurare perseveravit in deonumerum relatum percussoruÌ„ nullussicca morte obiit Sueton. p. 51 52. too pursu'd for the Fact and even ador'd their deceas'd Emperor tho Heathens and their Empire was not Hereditary to the shame of some of our good Christian Subjects that live under a Monarchy that is so acquies'd more quietly under their oppressions of their Lawless Emperors then some of ours under the good Government of their Gracious Kings who as they have often promis'd so have still Govern'd according to Law The depositions and Barbarous Butcherys of some of the Roman Emperors was never an Act of State of the Citizens or the people but the Force and Fury of a Faction in the Army and 't is with that excuse I am sure our Presbyter with his good Excluded Members would wipe his mouth of the Blood of his Soveraign for those were several times ‖ As Nero Claudius Galba Vitellius Otho Vid. Sueton. set up by the Souldiers and assoon pull'd to pieces by those that had plac'd them on the Throne which effusion of Royal Blood was the clear effect of their not claiming it by an Absolute Inheritance of that Blood Royal for those Adoptions they many times made ware of little force against the salutations of a Legion and the powers of the Field and therefore * Unde Apparet ipsos etiam Caesares Juridice damnari coerceri potuisse de jure Magistrat p. 38. that Author when he says even those Caesars were Legally and justly Condemn'd as if the Romans too â—ad once their High Court of Justice abuses â—he world both with a Factious insinuation and in the very matter of Fact In the next place they must consider that if there was such a Contract and Agreement among the People to accept of such an one for their King upon his performance of such Conditions tho I am sure his Deposition or Censure in our Kingdom were never formally annext to the Penalty of the Bond for his Non-performance neither can they show us in all their Charter of Liberties such a Conditional License to Rebel yet yet still it must be supposed the consent of every individual Subject which was somewhat difficult to be compast was required to such an Agreement for upon the first Constitution of our Government 't is certain we had no such Parliaments wherein they could deleâ—ate their Suffrages to some few Representatives and then by the same Reason we must have the Concurrence of all the particular Persons in the Land when we would Judg of the breach of that Covenant upon which all their Ancestors were supposed to have accepted their King And then I think from the Result of their own Seditious Reasoning our Soveraign may sit pretty safely and he rule as Arbitrary as he pleases when it must be carried against him with a true nemine Contradicente and not a single Subject left in the Land to be friend him with his Vote For upon such a conferring off the Supream Power it must be supposed that the several Subjects have bound themselves to one another to suffer such an one to be their Soveraign and made contract too with one another in some such implied Sense that A. confers hiâ— Right to Power and Government upon B. as Supream Governor upon Condition that C. does so too upon the same Person now to put it in the terms of our own Law the Subjects A. and C. here are both mutual Obligors and Obligees to one another and both Obligors to B. the Soveraign Obligee Now 't is certain that A. cannot recal this power he has confer'd on B. without the consent of C. his joint Obligor but iâ— must be with a breach of Covenant to his Fellow Subject as well as of Faith and contract to B. his Soveraign and this mutual Obligation between two to a third will extend as well to two Millions And I hope we may make at length â—he terms of our Law plead Loyally tho I 've heard an eminent Council at the Bar but commonly for none of the best Clyents Assert Loyalty to be nothing else but an adhering to the Letter of the Law with this good Innuendo as if that would contradict the common Acceptation of the word among the Royalists who make it to signifie an Asserting the King's Prerogative whereas in their Law French they would confine the word Loyalty to express nothing else but bare Legality And be it so I believe they 'll be but little the better for the quaintness of the Criticism for I dare avow that he that will be truly legal in their Sense must be as heartily Loyal in ours for nothing we see runs higher the Royal Prerogative then that The King's Prerogative part of the com Law very Law by which they would run it down But to come to the Nature of this political Contract this Stipulation of Monarchy as they would make it which will be better exprest in the Language of a Civilian when the Subject it self is about Civil Government and an Imperial Crown In this Case rhere is also a Convention as they call it of two Parties the Subject and he that is to be the Soveraign one upon such a contract stipulates to Govern the other to obey Now in such Stipulations it is a receiv'd Rule that no man stipulates but for himself and that there is no Obligation arises D. 45. 1. 38. from any one 's promising another Mans Deed so that every single Subject Alteri stipulari nemo potest nemo promitendo alienum factum obligatur Zouch Element pars 3. §. 8. Vid. Inst lib. 3. c. 19. must in Person here as I've said have made such a Subjection to that Authority to which he submitted if this their Convention and Contract with their King can be supposed and then by the same Rule every man must in his proper Person come and retract his Obedience before this Right to Govern can be absolutely Dissolv'd tho 't is the Opinion too of these sort of Lawyers that what is promised by Subjects to the publick which in a Monarchy is always represented in the King can't be revok'd D. 50. 12. 3. by them no not tho they have reason to repent of their promise and if this shall hold him tho without any Consideration or Cause and tho it be but of a Gift to the publick use much more then D. 50. 12. 1. will it oblige him in his promised Faith and Allegiance But here in this Case there is not only a Stipulation between the Soveraign and every
the Parliament A. D. 1625. Finch then the Lord Keeper as things unwarrantable and unusual they prosecuted too Buckingham with the more violence only because the King had told them That he acted nothing of publick Employ without his special Warrant That he had discharged his trust with fidelity That he had merited it by desert and that it was his express Command for them to desist from such an unparliamentary disquisition And for my part I cannot apprehend how according to common sense and reason both in this case and Strafford's that succeeded they could make those Traytors to their King of whom their King declar'd they had never betray'd their trust It was such a sort of Treason against their King which their King knowing and approving did not think High Treason and the person against whom it could only be committed apprehending no Commission of it at all But those Statesmen were so unhappy as to live in an age that made Treason as unlimited as ever it was before Edward the Third and which for all his * 1. Mâ—â— twenty 25. Ed. 3d. fifth and the first of Mary restrained Treason to conspiring against the King and the Laws of all the World makes it a Crime only of †Lex Julia Inst 4. 18. 3d. Laesae Majestatis they could bring it now to a levying War against the Majesty of the * Merc. Polit. People A hard fate for many Ministers of State that are sacrific'd sometimes only for serving too well But these proceedings against the King were long I hope before the King proceeded only to take Traytors out of an House of Commons this was seditiously done in twenty five the other not lawfully attempted till forty one And judg now malitious Miscreants where when and by whom were the first provocations given to discontent and who were the first Agressors in a barbarous and a bloody Civil War Why don't they tell us too our present Soveraign invaded first the Rebels in Scotland and those that â—anded at Lime The next age may as well be brought to believe this as the present that All that their best Advocates unless absolute Rebellious can urge in their defence is the Parliament seiz'd only upon the King's Forts for fear he should fortify them against the Parliament very good that is they first made War upon him for fear he should make War upon them that 's the English trick of it And I can tell it them in a Spanish one too so Gondamor got Raleigh's Head he told them not for the mischief he had done them but for that which he might do But had not the Laws provided so particularly for the King this would be madness and cruel injustice even among common Subjects reduce us both into Hobs's his state of nature and his fear to kill every one we meet for fear of being kill'd or set our Neighbours House a fire for fear it should catch of it self and consume our own And now be witness even the worst and the most warm Assertor of a Common-wealth in this case be for once what you so much affect Judge between you and your King The King had his Court of Starchamber constituted by a 4 Institutes c. 5. Common Law and confirmed by special b Reg. Hen. 7. Act of Parliament The Commons they send up a c The 9th of June 1641. Vote and Bill for suppressing it The High Commission was establisht by the d 1 El. c. 1. Statute of the Queen the Commons come and would put it down with a e The ninth of June 1641. Vote The Court of Wards and Livery the tenures of which were even f 4 Inst p. 192. before the Conquest and drew Ward and Marriage after it was establisht by particular g 32. H. 8. c. 46. Act the Commons clamour to have it supprest which to please them is done The King had several priviledges that belong to the Clerk of his Market confirm'd by ancient h 4 Inst c. 61 Custom and i Ed. 1. Hen. 8. R. 2. H. 5. several Statutes abolisht by the Parliament in the Year 1641. The k Chart. Forest King had the Courts of his Forests his Judge in it constituted of old by Writ then by l 27. H. 8. c. 24. Letters Pattents This was a grievance which was never before and therefore must and was supprest with the rest The m Magn. â—har â— 29. and their Petition of Right Law required no person was to be Imprisoned or put out of his Lands but by due course and custom None to be adjudged to Death but by the Law establisht they n Dug view p. 68. 19. April confined several of the Kings Subjects send the Bishops by order of the House to the Tower and by special Bill attaint Strafford and Behead Laâ—d o 10. Jan. 1644. with an Ordinance Resolved by all the Judges in Queen Elizabeths time that to levy War â—o remove evil Counsellors â—s High Treason against the King they past a Vote p May. 20. Exact Coll. p. 259. that the King was seduc'd by evil Counsellors against whom they levied War to remove There is a q 12. H. 7. c. 1. special Statute that says expresly that the Subjects that aid the King shall not be molested or questioned They publisht their Declaration r 17. May. Ex. Coll. p. 193. That it was against the Laws and Liberty of the Kingdom to assist the King that the Sherriff of the County ought to suppress them The s Coke Lit. p. 164. Law makes those Delinquents that adhere to the King's Enemies they t 20. May. Vote those that serve him in such Wars Traitors by a Fundamental Law The u Ed. 2. Statute provides that the Parliaments should assemble peaceably they by particular order bring Horse and Foot into the Palace Yard In short The Parliament first seizes the Militia against an express x 7. Ed. 1. Act that setl'd it solely on the King The King sent out after his Comission of Array for which he was impower'd by y 5. H. 4. Act of Parliament The Parliament order the raising an Army against the K. declared Treason by special z 25. E. 3. Act The King then Summons his Subjects to his assistance at a 5 July 42. Exact Coll. York and comes and sets up his Standard at Nottingham for that was warranted by the Laws of the Land and b 1. Ed. 2. de mi. litibus 7. Ed. 1. several Statutes of the Realm I have taken this pains both to prove that bloody War that general Revolt to be a plain Rebellion and that the War it self was begun by those that were the only Rebels the Parliament because you see that both those positions have been laid down among our * Sidney 's Tryal p. 26. Plato Redivivus p. 167. Republicans either of which should it gain credit is enough to run us again
jure must be Kings they know the first of James declares his Royal Office an Heritage Inherent in the very Blood of him 1. Jacob. and also that all our Books of Law besides the Fundamental Constitution of the Land do make the Regal Power Hereditary and not Elective and such an Elected Usurpers Laws can no further oblige the Subjects of England then they they 'l submit no more then the Czars of Muscovy a pecuniary mulct must be but a bare oppression and a Capital Punishment MURDER But Will. Prynn I Pryn's That the Parliament and Kingdom are the Sovereign power a piece Printed by Order of the house of Commons Confess in another of his Treatises that he Printed will have all such Acts made by Consent of Vsurping Kings bind the right Heirs of the Crown that Reign by a just Title That all such Acts oblige them is utterly false for one of them is commonly for their Exclusion but that some are admitted to bind is as really True but that is rather upon a Political account of their being serviceable to the Publick and the Country's Good And is it not now an unaccountable boldness that the very same Cases of Usurpers upon the Crown that this Indefatigable piece of Faction publish't against the Father they fought and Murder'd should be retrieved against the Son whom the kind Heavens ev'n by Miracle so lately restor'd But at last allowing those palpable falsehoods they so much Labour for falsehoods so gross that they can be felt to be matter of Fact contradict the true sense of all Chronicle with a Seditious Supposition to be secur'd of Truth give all the Laws of the Land the Lye raze Rolls and Records the better to rise a Rebellion and grant the Kings of England have been all Elected all almost from that Union of the Heptarchy in the Saxon to that of our three Kingdoms in the Scot and sure no Soul living can conclude with them in afairer Concession than in granting the very Postulate they require yet since they then in the End of K. James tho but so lately had settled the Succession and made it Hereditary can with men of Common sense the Presidents of its having been formerly Elective prevail for an utter Subversion of such a Settlement Popery was once in England by Law Establish't and must it therefore again be Establish't by Law Certainly all succeeding Reformation must null and abolish that from which they Reform and a Repealing Act will hardly be made Declaratory of the very Statute it Repeals if these be but their best Arguments the same you see will reason us back into the very Religion of Rome we have seen several Rebellions and some even of late to have lain the Land in Blood and can such sad Sufferance be made to Prescribe for our Misery warrant some such as Bloody to succeed but since all this suppos'd suggestion must vanish like to soft Air since the Succession has been settled for so many several ages to rake every musty Record only for a sad Review of some Time of Confusion is certainly but an Impious Industry to Confound the work of the very God of Order We may as well be discontented at the Frame of his World he so well digested and plead for Prescription the Primitive Chaos CHAP. II. Remarks upon Plato Redivivus THE best Animadversion that I can make on his whole first days Discourse is that it wants none that it's Impertinence has superseded reproof and the fulsome flattering Dialogue as unsit for a serious Answer as a Farce for a Refutation out of a Sermon The great acquaintance these pretending Platonicks would be thought to have with that Sect of Philosophers did not oblige them to be so morosely reserv'd as to know none other and they may remember an Ephesian Sophy I believe as Learned too in his Politicks that was never so much tickl'd as when he saw the dull Animal mumbling of the cross-grain'd unpalatable Thistle the disputing against the Laws of the Land and the Light of Reason they 'l find as uneasie as absurd and the latter as Impious and Profane and which deserves to be assimulated to a more serious sort of Obstinacy that of so many Sauls kicking against the Pricks but the Pleasant and Ridiculous Disputants put in for another pretty Quality of that insensible Brute the length of their sordid and stupid Flattery outdoes their Original Beast and the sad Sophister would force one Smile more to see three of the same sort of Creatures for a whole day clawing one another Certainly whatever they fancy the Dialogues of Plato whatever the Favourers of his Principles can suggest surely they were never fill'd with such Fustian But that good old Philosopher did as plainly cloath his Disputes as well as himself in an honest homely Drugget of Athens Tho I confess they tell us of his rich Bed and his affectation of State which a Soul so sublime could not but Contemn while these Sectaries are such refin'd Academicks so much polish't with Travel and the breeding of the Times That all the Fops of France the Dons of Spain his Adulano of Italy seem melted down into one Mass of Impertinence they can't pass by the thin Apartments of a Page without a Congee Bon-Grace and a formal Salutation upon one anothers Excellencies the Doctor claws the Patient with his Lenitives Frications Emollients of Praise and Adulation and the Patient who in the literal sence must be said to suffer with such a Doctor if not in Body Natural I am sure in the Politick as in Cordial Affection and Common Civility he is obliged returns him the reputation of his Book De Corde for the tickling the very Auricula's of his Heart for Praise must certainly be Pleasant for an Aesculapius that sets up for a Matchiavel confutes Solomon and the Bible as he says for saying the Heart is unsearchable tho but Vid. Argument to the Book an Ordinary Divine without the Criticks Tremellius or a Munster would say that in the Text there is nothing meant but the mind But Cor hominis must not be Inscrutabile now only because the Doctor has handl'd its fibres and thus this Triumvirate of Fulsomness and Faction treat one another with their Fustian and Foppery through the whole piece I seldom care to lard our English with the least scrap of Latin but because 't is the property of such pedantick Scriblers who still most affect what is most ridiculous Foppery and Folly I 'll only give them an Argument out of the Mathematicks fora Demonstration of their agreeable Faction and Foolishness and for his Cor hominis as it relates to this Doctors Pharmacentria let him take one of Euclid's Postulates that has a greater reference to their mighty Three In English thus and if they will have Lattin Quae conveniunt uno Tertio conveniunt inter sâ— 'tis in the Margin Those that agree in one Third must needs agree among themselves The Venetian
Secondly I 'll shew that this their confounded principle of perfect Confusion is not only against the Fundamental Law of the Land but against the sense of every Law that ever was made in it Every preamble of an Act and that of every Proviso there runs with A Be it Enacted by the Kings most Excellent Majesty It is no Stat. if the King assent not 12. H. 7. 20. H. 8. by and with the CONSENT of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons in the present Parliament Assembled And then let any sober person Judge where lies the Soveraignty would it be suffer'd to be thus exprest were they not satisfy'd they were not all Soveraigns or if they were ought it not according to this Rebel and Republican run We the King Lords and Commons Enact but I 'll let him know how and what the Libertine would again have that Enacting part of an Act of Parliament to be tho the Politick Knave fear'd it was too soon yet to declare plainly for an Usurpation viz. Be it Enacted and ordained An Act. March 1657. Vid. Act of Oblivion 51 by his Highness the Lord Protector Or the Parliament of England having had good Experience of the Affection of the people to this present Government by their ready Assistance in the defence there of against Charles Stewart Son of the Late Tyrant and his Forces invading this Nation do Enact c. That our Kings in the time of the Saxons Danes and some part of the Normans had more absolute Power over their Subjects than some of their Successors since himself can't deny the Charter of Liberties being made but in the Reign of Henry the Third and when the People had less of Priviledges the Kings must be supposed to have had more of Praerogative therefore we shall examine only what and where the Supremacy is at present and where the Laws of the Land not the Will of the Prince do place it In the Parliament that was held at York in Edward the Seconds time The Rebellious Barons that 15. Ed. 2. had violently extorted what Concessions they pleas'd from the Crown in His like those in the three foregoing Reigns when they seal'd almost each Confirmation of their Charter in Blood were all censured and condemn'd and the encroaching Ordinances they made in those Times all repeal'd Because says the Statute The Kings Royal Power Great Stat. Roll. 26. H. 3. to Ed. 3. 1. Ric. 3. Exact Abridg fol. 112. was restrain'd against the Greatness of his Seigniory Royal contrary to the State of the Crown and that by Subjects Provisions over the Power Royal of the Ancestors of our Lord the King Troubles and Wars came upon the Realm I look upon this as an absolute Acknowledgment of a Royal Power which is sure the same with his Soveraign sufficiently distinguisht here from the Parliaments or the Peoples co-ordinate Supremacy for those condemn'd Ordinances were lookt upon as Usurpations upon the Kings Supremacy which they call the Power Royal of his Ancestors and not as our Author would have too of the Sovereign power of Lords and Commons At the Convention of the three Estates first of Richard the Third where 1. R. 3. the Parliament call themselves so themselves expound also what is meant by it And say it is the Lords Spiritual Temporal and Commons of this Land assembled in present Parliament so that we have here the whole three States besides the King owning themselves such without assuming to themselves a Soveraign power recognizing the Right of Richard and acknowledging him the Sovereign And tho I shall for ever condemn as well as all Ages will their allowing his Usurpation a Right which was an absolute wrong yet this is an undeniable Argument that then they did not make their King Co-ordinate with themselves made themselves declared themselves three States without him and acknowledged their King the Sovereign and Supream That Act that punisht appeals to Rome with a premunire in Henry the Eighâ—h's time gives this Reason why 24. H. 8. none should be made to the Pope nor out of the Kingdom because the King alone was only the supream head in it It tells us expressly That England is an Empire that the King the Supream Head has the Dignity and Royal Estate of the Emperial Crown unto whom a body Politick divided into Terms and Names of Spirituality and Temporality been bounden owe next to God humble Obedience c. Who has furnisht him with Plenary Entire Power Preheminence Authority Prerogative and Jurisdiction Here his Body Politick is devided into Spiritual and Temporal here he is called the supreme Head and here I think is a full Recognition of his sole Sovereignty And 't is strange that what a Parliament did in Opposition to Popery should be so zealously contradicted by such Sycophants that pretend so much to oppose it In the next place he tells us of an error he lay under that he thought our Commonalty had not formally assembled in Parliament before Henry the Thirds time but of that now is fully Page 103. convinc'd by the Labours of some learned Lawyers whom he names and lets them know too how much they are obliged to him for the Honor But I suppose he reads but one sort of Books and that such as suit with his Humor and Sedition and of that Nature he can meet with Variety for I dare avow that within the space of six years all that ever was or can be said against the best of Governnent our own all that was or ever will be rak't up for justifying a Rebellion and restoring a Republick from falsifyed Roll and Record from perverted History and Matter of Fact by Pens virulent and Factious with all the Art and Industry and whatever thought could invent for its Ruine and Destruction has been Printed and Publisht such an Universal Conspiration of Men of several Faculties each assisting with what was his Excellency his Talent in Treason which seemed to be the Task-Master of the Town and Monopolizer of Trades But our Politician might return to his old Opinion again did he but consult other Authors I believe as learned Antiquarians I am sure more Loyal Subjects who can shew him that the Saxons Councils call'd the Witena Gemotes had in them no Commons That the Conqueror call'd none of them to his great Councils none in those of his two Sons that succeeded nor none in any of the Parliaments down to Henry the Third my Lord Coke tells us of the Coke first Institutes Lib. 2d C. 10. T. Burgage Names this Parliament had before the Conquest as Sinoth Michel or Witena Gemote which he says implyed the Great Court or Meeting of the King and all his Wise Men And also sometimes of the King with his Council of his Bishops Nobles and the Wisest of the People and unless from the wisest of the People and all his Wise Men they can make up an House of Commons I am sure
Liege Lord I am sure this was making over their Faith to a Foreigner and many may think it as much to bee condemned as that of their King his Crown to a Saracen especially when that by some Historians is doubted but their falsehood's confirmed by all Then was our England like to have been truly France which they now but so vainly Fear In the next place he is pleased to grant the Militia to be in his Majesty's Power But 't is only until such a sort of Rebels have strength enough to take it out for he tells us the Militia being Page 116. given but for an Execution of the Law if it be mis-imployed by him to subvert it 't is a Violation of the Trust and making that power unlawful in the Execution And that which shall violate this Trust has he reduced to three of the most Villanous Instances that the most Excrable Rebel could invent or the most bloody Miscreant conceive the Murder of three Kings by their Barbarous and Rebellious Subjects And in all three their strength and Militia were first taken away and then their Lives first he tels us Edward the second forfeited his Executive Power of the Militia In misapplying his revenue to Courtiers and Ibid. Sycopkants Richard the Second for preferring Worthless People to the greatest places And Charles the First in the Case of Ship Money can now the most virulent Democraticks hug such a piece without Horrour at its Inhumanity or the vilest of the Faction preserve it from the Flames can those popular Parliamentarians and the most mutinous of all our murmering Members of whom my self have known some that could Countenance this very Book can they here defend insinuated Treason when Stanley Stanley's Case H. 7. dyed for a more Innocent Innuendo but if Faction has forc't from their Souls the poor remains of Reason will Humane Nature permit such precedents to prevail that terminated in the miserable Murder of as many Monarchs 'T is remarkable and 't is what I remember these very Papers were Publish'd near about one of their late Sessions wherein they were nibbling again at the Milittia and could so merciless a Miscreant be put in the pocket of a Member of Parliament much less then into his Heart and drop from his unadvised Lips can those that come to give their consent for the making Laws be thus Ignorant of those that are already made has not the Military power for above this 500 years been absolutely in the Crown and almost by their Parliament it self declared so in every Reign was it ever taken out but when they took away the Life of their King too was ever his Head protected from Violence when this the Guard of his Crown was gone or can any Hand long sway the Scepter when it wants the Protection of the Sword 1st Edward 3d. Chap 3. The King 1 Edward 3. 1 C. 3. willeth that no man be charged to Arm himself otherwise than he was wont in the time of his Progenitors Kings of England In H. 7. declared by Stat. All 2 Hen. 7. Subjects of the Realm bound to assist the King in his Wars Queen Mary 4. 5. Mary and all her Progenitors acknowledged to have the Power to appoint Commissioners This Commission was in force Rot par 5. H. 4. n. 24. repealed by this 4. and 5. of P. M. but this repealing Stat. is again repealed Jacob. 1. and so of force in this King now as well as when they deny'd it to his Father 2. Ed. 6. 2. C. 2d Cook 2. Inst 30. Car. 2. C. 6. to Muster her Subjects and array as many as they shall think fit The Subjects holding by Serjeantry heretofore all along to serve their Sovereigns in War in the Realm and a particular Act obliging them to go within or without with their King He and only He has the ordering of all the Forts and Holds Ports and Havens of the Kingdom confirmed to this very King and Cook tells us no Subject can build any Fortress Desensible Cook Litt. p. 5. And since some of our late Members of the lower House were so tickled with this Authors soothing them with the Kings Executive Power of War forfeitable I 'll tell them of an Act expressly made in some Sense against their Assuming it and for another Reason too because some mutinous Heads would argue to my Knowledge for their Members comming armed to the Parliament at Oxford and which was actually done too by Colledge and his Crew It was made in Edward the First 's time 7. Ed. 1. and expressly declares that in all Parliaments Treatises and other Assemblies every Man should come without Force and Armour and of this the King acquainted the Justices of the Bench and moreover that the Parliament at Westminster had declared that to us belonged straightly to defend Force of Armour and all other Force against our Peace at all times when it shall please us and the Judges were ordered to get it read in the Court and enroll'd And now can it with common Reason or Sense be suggested that the letting Favourites have some of the Treasures of the Kingdom or Courtiers as he calls it the Revenue or the preferring of such Persons as they shall think Worthless and Wicked which with such Villains as himself are commonly the most deserving that this shall be a sufficient violating as he terms it of a Kings Trust to the forfeiture of his Power of putting the Laws in Execution with which the common consent of almost all the Laws and all Ages have invested their King as an absolute Inherent singular Right of the Crown Certainly such an Opinion is as extravagant as Treasonable and could enter into the Head of nothing but a Madman the Heart of none but a Traytor Next we meet with another Assertion as false as Hell and then its clear contrary nothing but the God of Heaven is more True He tells us after having hardly allowed His Majesty a Negative Voice at least as such an Insignificant one as not to be made use of That Plat. Pag. 124. 't is certain nothing but denials of Parliamentary requests produced the Baron's Wars and our last dismal Combustions when I 'll demonstrate to him as plain as a Proposition in Euclid that nothing but their too gracious and unhappy Concessions to their perfidious and ungrateful Subjects made those mighty Monarchs miscarry read but any of our Histories tho pen'd by the most prejudiced and those that ware at best but moderately Popular of our first Civil Wars The Barons Daniel that speaks most commonly as much as the Peoples Daniel 53. H. 3d. Case will bear tells us his thoughts of those unhappy Dissentions that neither side got but Misery and Vexation We see that notwithstanding as often as their Charter and Liberties were confirm'd notwithstanding all the Concessions of those two yielding Monarchs still more was demanded The Charter in Henry K. John Henry 3. the
Third's was no sooner several times confirmed in one year but in the next presently they fell upon his Justiciary Hugo de Burg and he must be removed Vid. Stow page 183. or they threaten to do it with the Sword Then the poor Prince complies and sends him to the Tower Next the Bishop of Winchester is as great a grievance as the Chief Justice was before for bringing in the Pictavians and unless all those are put from him they tell him plainly they 'll depose him from his Kingdom and create a new The Bishop is sent away and those Pictavians expelled but still were there more grievances and assoon as one was removed be sure another would be found out and the true perfect Occasion of those Intestine Broils was rather the Concession of King Henry in his Youth they having been used with so much Complyance in his Minority that being emboldened afterward with Age he grew too much a Soveraign to be overaw'd or overreach't by his Subjects and they having been accustom'd not to be oppos'd in their encroachments on the Crown which they had been long Habituated to he being Crown'd an Infant and they having the fresh Precedent before them with what arrogance they us'd his Father John upon any the least denyal betook themselves to the Sword for this you 'l find if Occurrences of those Times be but Impartially examin'd and for his Second Instance of our late Kings time his abominable Falsehood so far from Truth that not only Narrative and Record but the very Memory of man can give him the Lye did he not grant them these very Villains insolent demand Parliaments at last without Intermission was there not a Triennial one first Insolently demanded and as Graciously consented to was not that as ungratefully thought insufficient and nothing could satisfy till unhappily settl'd during the pleasure of the two Houses an Act of Concession which the poor Unfortunate Prince could himself call as indeed it was unparallel'd by any of his Predecessors nothing but their Ingratitude 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 could equal so much goodness and only for bettering of theirs the Wretches resolv'd his own affairs should be the worse what punishment would the Law have found for such Monsters of Ingratitude that punisht once all Common Offenders in it with Death were not his Gracious Answers at last to the Propositions so full of Concession that some of the Cannibals that thirsted for his Blood could Vote it a Ground for the House to proceed upon for Peace Lastly had he Vid. Jout 5. Decemb. 1648. not granted to his Inveterate Foes whose Necks were forfeited to the Gibbet the Heads of some of his best Friends till he had none left to dispose of but his own and that at the last must be brought to the Block And can such an impudent Daemon the very spawn of the Father of Lyes thus confidently now declare that obstinacy Denyal in the late King was his Ruin but his misery and misfortune has unhappily left tho for us happy could a Nation be said so under such a loss such Politicks written in his Blood that all those of such Rebels and Republicans can never undermine In the next place the State Empirick comes upon the Stage and that only to vilify our Court of Chancery which with all Persons that can but distinguish Equity from the Rigour of the Law must be had in Estimation the greatest Objection his utmost Malice can asperse it with is only That it may be Corrupted and so may the best of things whose Corruption is the worst There may be Roguery in Clerks he thinks in entering Rules and so their may be Plat. pag. 130. more Dangerous Knaves among Doctors that can prescribe a dose of Sublimate for Mercurius dulcis and such Which has been done too as one of thir own Authors tells us Bartholin in 's Centurie Hist Chancery the Grand Court of Equity Conscience moderating the common Law Vid. Crompton Jurisdiction a Villany in his Art is sure more fatal then the worst that can occur in their faculty that at the worst can but bereave you and that long first of your Estate This Ruffian in a Moment robs you of your Life and I should chuse to live a little in the World tho a Beggar than be sent out like a Rat. The Ridiculousness of his Objections can't be answer'd but with such Merry ones as I make But to let him know I can defend the Constitution of the Court in Good Earnest so far is it from Obstructing his right by the Common-Law as he Ignorantly Objects that it 's a Rule Commonly never to relieve him here when he can have his Remedy there but always in Justice and Equity renders him that right which the Rigour of the rest many times forecludes him off where the Common can't Compel a man to an agreement this will enforce it Recoveries of Legacies Performance of Wills otherwise Irrevocable and not to be Compel'd shall be obtain'd here It enforces the Husband to give the Wife Alimony and perhaps the Doctor dislikes it for that and certainly this must be a greater Solaecism For more of this Courts power practise see Totthl Cariâ—s Reports than he can suggest in contradiction to the Court that a Court of meer Equity to moderate the Rigour of the Common Law should Injure their Petition of Right or Invade the Liberty of Magna Charta But that which is more Ridiculous The Chancellor hath two Powers one absolute the other ordinary by the first he is not â—y'd as inferior Judges or limited to the Letter of the Law Vid. Stâ—â—for Praerog Cap. 20. fol. 65. and False is his Foolish fear of Injustice from such a single Judge sitting in the Judicatory and his Impudent assertion that never any Country in the World had such away of Judging For the first should we not consider the prudence and Integrity of that Honourable Person that presides in it at present whose Equitable determinations were sufficient to supersede and silence such a silly suggestion it is morally impossible there to meet with Injustice where nothing is decreed but upon a Fair and Full Examination of Witnesses and the Judges hearing what can be alleaged by Counsel on both sides All the Panick fear that Alarms him is that the Prince for such is the Malice of a Republican that nothing can be thought Wicked enough for a King may put in a Person that may Act against Right and Reason carried away by Passion and Prejudice and at best but a Tool for the State If the possibility of such vain suggestions shall prevail for an Extirpation of an Officer of Justice Co-aeval if Polidore Virg. makes the Chancellor only Coaeual with the Conqueror but mistakes in that too as well as others Mr. Dugdale shews us they were long before in 's Orig. And so my Lord Coke also in his 4 Iust not before the Conquest and still Recorded
3. fol. 14. upon the suffrages of such a senate whom all our Laws declare has it self no other being but what it owes to the Breath of that Sovereign over whom they would so Preposterously Superintend as to set a Council can they think that even the Spartan Ephori would have ever been Constituted had their Kings by as strong Presidents of the Laws of their Land been allow'd the Liberty of Ad moderandum Regum Libidinem Calvin's 2. edit Strasburg 1539. Chusing their own advisers or would Calvin himself have recommonded them and the Roman Tribunes the Demarchi the Decemviral at Athens had he been assured that their Decrees and Edicts had all along placed it in the power of their Prince to be advised by whom he pleased and this Rebellious Project we now are examining I am sure would prove a greater Scourge and curb to our own Kings than ever the Romans or Athenians had for the management of theirs we must turn about even the very Text and invert our Prayers to the Almighty when a Parliament shall come to Counsel his Counsellors and teach his Senators Wisdom when it shall be in the Subjects power to set himself at his Soveraigns Table you may swear he 'll be first served too and that with his own Carving and therefore were they not forc't to rase Rolls and Records for the making such a Reformation in the State Reason it self is sufficiently the Faction's Foe and as much on the side of those that are the Kings Friends For let any sober Person but consider whether the greatest Confusion Disorder and Disturbance in the State would not be the Consequence of this very distracted Opinion do we not already too much experiment the disquiet of a divided Kingdom to be most dangerous when but a tumultuous part of a Parliament too much Predominates this Gentleman 's Quarantia Plat. page 241. or if you please the Kingdoms four General Councils are to be named in Parliament and then what would be the result of it but that his Majesty must be managed by a standing House of Commons or at best some Committee of Lords they need not then Labour for the Triennial Act of the late King confirmed 16. Car. 1. 16. Car. 2. by the too gracious Concession of this His Councils once their own Creatures would have too much Veneration for their kind Creators to diswade their King from a speedy Summons of a Senate tho assured secured of its being sufficiently Seditious they would soon supersede as superfluous one of the very Articles of such a Counsellors * 4. Inst p. 54. Oath where he swears to keep Secret the Kings Counsel for by such a Constitution they would be obliged to make a Report from the Council-Board to some Chair-man of a Committee a better Expedient I confess than an order for ‖ Parl. 25. Car. 1. just so took upon them to search the Signet Office and that of the Secretary whereof the King as justly complain'd Vid. Keeper Coventry Speech to the Commons Sr. Stephen's bringing in the Books And indeed none of the Kings Services should be then called Secret they would be soon Printed with their Votes and hardly be favoured with some of their own Affairs of Importance to be referred for the more private Hearing to a Committee of Secrecy the good advise his Majesty might expect from such Councils might be much like those of late from his Petitioners And he again told to be the mightiest Monarch by condescending to be the most puny Prince My Lord Cook tells us Ibid. p. 57. those Councils are there best proposed for the Kingdom when so that it can't be guess'd which way the King is enclined for fear I suppose of a servile Complyance but here the knowledge of his Inclination would be the most dangerous to the King which to be sure would be opposed and only because known the good the King would receive from such Counsellors might be put in his Eyes and the Protection the Nation could receive from such a King must be but in good Wishes and are we come to deny our Soveraign at last what every Subject can Consult his own Friends But tho this bold Gentleman as arrogantly tells us that this Privy Council is no part of the Government his imagined one he must mean a Common-wealth I 'll tell him more modestly and Plat. page 232. with better Authority than a Dixit only of a Platonick Dogmatist that he might as well have told us too what indeed are such a Republicans real thoughts that the King Himself is no part of it and shew him both from Law and Reason that they have a great share in it to◠And that the Laws great Oracle tells us too who is so far from letting them have no part in the Government that he tells us they have a very great part even Cook 4. c. 2 Inst Stanford 72. F Senators sunt partes corporis Regis in the very King That they are incorporated to the King himself His true Treasurers and the most profitable Instruments of the State And without doubt this great part they had always in Publick administrations made them of old so much esteem'd that in all Rolls and Acts of State they were mention'd with so much reverence and respect certainly had they been no constitution allow'd of by the Fundamental Laws of our Land they would never have been transmitted to posterity with such veneration to their Memories and that too through every Reign and all the Records of Time let them have but the benefit and priviledge of a Common Burrough and let their President an Office as old as King John's Time and that Holl. fol. 169. Matt. Paris 205. by Letters pattents but have as fair play as one of their Port-Reevs prescription would incorporate them into the Government as well as entitle those to their Franchises 'T is an absolute Contradiction to Imagin that Rolls then the Rot. Par. 3. H. 6. n. 3. very Parliaments Acts or Opinions in Transcript should have recorded them so Honourably for their Publick Administration were they not allow'd by the people so much as to be Ministers for the Publick good and such Honour was given them too by our Ancestors such Semblance of Soveraignty to their Persons that their Houses had in some sense the self-same privilege of the very Coke 4. Inst p. 53. Inas c. 46. Kings Palace and Verge wherein if a blow was given it was punisht with a Fine the loss of a good Summ of Money as in the other of a Hand And is it not at present Treason to destroy them and can Absurdity it self imagin that the Laws which are made always by those that Govern would make such provisions for those that were no part of the Government And lastly to prove this proposition of our Republican but a Rebels Plot and a fair progress towards a Rebellion I 'll shew this presumptious projector
Cook 4. Inst C. 2. Evil Counselling of their King invented very cunningly this popular Opinion to preserve themselves and please the Rabble they had so much enraged And could after so many Centuries after so long a series of time the Principles even of their execrated Enemies by themselves too be put into practice and what is worse still shall the sad effects that succeeded the practising it so lately encourage our Seditious Libellers for its Reimpression if this most Rebellious Nonsense must re-obtain all their declaratory Statute the determin'd Treasons of their good King †25. Ed. 3. Edward may pass for a pretty piece of Impertinence they may do as once they truly did they may Fight Shoot at Imprison Butcher the Natural Body the Person of their Soveraign and tell us the Laws designed them only for Traytors when they could destroy him in his politick The same Laws make it Treason to compass his Queens Death or Eldest Sons and must it be meant of their Monarchs being Married in his politick Capacity as well as murdered or of his Heirs that shall be born by pure political Conception they might e'n set up their Common-wealth then if these were to be the Successors to the Crown But yet with the same sort of silly Sophistry that they would separate the Kings natural Capacity from his political did the same Seditious Rebels as I remember make their own personal Relation to a politick Body Inseparable Rebellious Lumps of Contradiction shall not your Soveraigns sacred Person be preserved by that Power and Authority derived even from the Almighty and whose very Text tells us touch not mine Anointed and yet could your selves plead it as a Bar to Treason because perpetrated under a political Denomination and a Relation only to that Lower House of Commons that was then only an incorporated Body of Rebels and Regicides and this was told us by that Miscreant * Vid. Tryal of the Regicides page 50. Harrison the most profligate the vilest the most virulent of all the Faction concerned in that bloody Villany the MVRDER OF A KING the silly Sot had it infused by his Councel as Senseless as Seditious That it was an Act of the Parliament of England and so no particular Members questionable for what was done by the Body I confess the good excluded Members and the bubbl'd Presbyterian Senate would not allow it for a Parliamentaty Process and why because themselves did not sit in it and truly upon that unexpected and most blessed Revolution might â—hugg themselves and shrink up in a silent Joy that they were kept out And I cannot but smile to see * Vid. Ibid pag. 52. two or three sit upon the Bench and upbraiding the Prisoner for pulling them out of the Parliament and making themselves none †This was pleaded too by Carew p. 76. Treasonable words sworn against Scot. spoken in Parliament he pleads Priviledges of the House for speaking Treason tho 't is expressly declared not pleadable no not so much as for the breach of the Peace 17. Ed. 4. Rot. Parliament N. 39. Persons whom Policy had only placed there when the poor Prince was forc't to compound with a party for a Crown forc'd to prefer those that had â—dethroned his Father before only the better to settle himself in it and to compass more easily the punishment of those that murdered him after Persons and a great one too that I could name that have serv'd him as ungratefully since and been as deservedly rejected Persons that had his late Majesty's Arms been but as Victorious as his Cause was good had been as much liable to the Laws and their Crimes as Capital for fighting him in the Field with an Ordinance of the House as those that brought him to the Scaffold and Butchered him on the Block from the time that their Tumults forc'd him to fly from their Houses they were no more a Parliament than those were afterward that pulled them out and it lookt a little loathsome to see some sit a simpering and saying all Acts must be past by the King who themselves once had helpt Tryal of the Regicides pag. 52â— to pass many without and they could no more justify themselves had it been but their turn to be brought to Justice by their Memberships political Referrences to the two Houses then the Criminal at the Bar by his Relation to the Rump I have their own Authority for it their very * Answer of the Commons to the Scots Com. that the King had forfeited the executing the Duties of his Place and therefore could not be left to go where he pleased Anno. 1646. Imprint Lond. p. 20. Houses Act that they declared designed and actually made their King a Prisoner For they told the perfidious Scot that his denying their Propositions and what were those but Expedients to destroy Him had debar'd him of his Liberty and that they verifyed too when they had got their poor purchase at Holdenby in a usage of their Prince with a restraint that would have been Cruelty to a Peasant and which even his very Murderers enlarged when their Joyce took him from his Jaylers And I am sure 't is provided that to Imprison him till He assent to Proposals shall be * Parliam Roll. Num. 7. Lex Consuâ—tudo Parl. 25. Ed. 3. El. 1 Jac. High-Treason by particular Act as well as to Murder him is made so by the 25. And whatever the Mildness of ‖ H. postsc p. 89. Mr. Hunt the Moderator of Rebellion would have this Mystery of Iniquity would not have it so much as remembered it was these his own darling Daemagogues whom he defends and adores and that even for †Ibid p. 11. Restorers who script him in his politick Capacity anticipated his Murder and then left his naked Person to be persued by the * Salmasiuâ— has the same sort of simile page 3â—3 defensio Regia Wolves that worried it they had turned their House into a Shambles and that of Slaughter and were the Butchers the less Bloody that only bound Him and left to their Boys the cutting of his Throat yet this Barbarity must be defended this extenuated by them and the help of their Hunts and such Advocates the guilt not to devolve to each Individual Member because an Act of an Aggregated House But base Caitiffs to use even the very * Hunt page 94. Lawyers own Language your selves know that a politick Body may be guilty of a most political Treason and tho the †21. Ed. 4. 13 14. and noted Calvin's Case Laws tell us it has no Life or Soul and so can't suffer yet it s constituent Members may lose both be Hang'd and Damn'd in their proper Persons and that for committing it too against such another political Constitution It would otherwise be a fine Plea for Corporators that have been many times Defendants in the Case when their King has been Plaintiff And
Distemper when some of the Seditious Souls had but gotten the Government of a single City and that but under a Soveraign their Supream and sure 't is an Argument unanswerable that those Salesmen of his Prerogative would assoon Barter your Properties See the sad experienced result of all the Democracies since their first Institution what was left the poor Lacedaemonians upon putting in Execution that popular Project their * So also in Syracuse Petalism or Impoverisht Athens her self upon such another Order of her Ostracism why both were beggar'd of their Nobility the Scum the Scoundrels of the Town turn'd the Mighty Massinello's of the State The Tod-Pole Train the product of those beggarly Elements Mud and Water Lorded it even over all the Land And those Rulers naturally retaining in this Medley this Mixture of Sway the Native Principles of that Abject Matter from whence they came still as mean as the one and restless as the other could never reduce them to composed States till they had recalled the good Governours they had Banisht before ‖ Vid Mercur polit June 17. 1652. you know all this is too true and your selves too vile Caitiffs have owned it in Prints Lastly Let your Lords too be allowed for once your only as well as it is your beloved Government Let Aristocracy for once obtain for the best and Banish your Monarch set up that Idol and fall down to the Gods of your own Hands that good Government must still be of many still of as much divided Interest there would still be many then to mind the making their own Hay in the fair Sun-shine whereas should your Prince perjure himself for the minding only his private concern and neglecting the publick good which he must do if ever he is Crown'd where an Oath is administred for his very disavowing it yet still here would be pursued but the Interest of a single Person there of so many When the rash and unadvised Romans had upon that bandied Argument the Dissoluteness of their Tarquin the popular president of the Party for the Banishing of all Kings as if the Practice of a Rebellious Rome against a single dissolute Prince and that so long since could with the same Reason prevail at present for an extirpating the Government even under the best of Princes yet this very precipitous Act of Rage and Rashness was afterward even by the relenting Romans as much repented of and their Error best understood in their following Misfortunes and of which they were soon sensible too soon saw it in their subsequent sufferings for the first Frame of Government they constituted after this Expulsion was the * Rosin Ant. Rom. L. 7. C. 9. Consular and one would think that being but of two of the cheefest among them that it might have lasted as indeed the best sort of Aristocracy coming within an Ace of a Monarch a Duumvirate yet even from those they suffered more than from the first Constitution they had abolisht their more immoderate power broke the Laws more †Consulum immoderata poteitas oâ—nes metuâ— Legum excussit Liv. Lib. a. immoderately than the Lustful Licentious and Lewd Monarch they made to fly with his Fugitive Government We shall in some other place consider the restless Revolutions they ran through from their turning out this Monarchy till they tumbled into it again This serves only to let us see that publick Administrations even in the hands but of two of the best of the People are not always the best managed What pray better can be expected when the Optimacy is made up of so many more And where then into what form to whom shall we run for the best maintaining of this popular Darling this dangerous Violation that has been clamoured for rebelled and fought for the Peoples RIGHT but to that Soveraignty which our very Laws say can do no wrong to a Monarchy where Mechanicks can never meddle with Affairs of State to make them truckle to their own or the Nobility so powerful as to be all Soveraigns and under what Prince can we better acquiesce for this enjoyment than the present that has so often declared for its Protection And shall the Speech of some Noble Peer be better assurance promise more than the word of a King All Subjects under him have either Riches or Honor for their private Aim to make them act more partially for the publick and which the Laws presume therefore they may injure and have therefore made the greatest punishable But him exempted from all * He can't so much as be a disscisor 4. El. 2. 4. 6. The King has no Peer in the Land and so cannot be Judged 3. Ed. 3. 19. Statutes that are Penal And these sort of Arguments I can assure them their King himself has used to prove the publick Interest his own and that he alone of all the Kingdom can be presumed most impartially concerned for the good of the publick A Reason worthy of so good a King and which the worst the most Seditious Subjects cannot Answer Did not the Parliament in Richard the Third's Time give even that Vsurper an Arbitrary Power greater than any they can dread now from their most Lawful Soveraign Did not * Vid. Exact Abridgment fol. 713. they declare him their Lawful King by Inheritance tho they knew they made him Inherit against all Law Did not they declare it to be grounded upon the Laws of God and Nature and the Customs of the Realm whereas we now can oppose this Divine Right from the panick fear of making our true Legal King too powerful and the Succession of a Right Heir must be questioned by our Parliaments now when their Predecessors declared it unalterable even in a wrong Did †Vid. ibid 717. they not to him but an Usurper a Tyrant own themselves Three Estates without including himself and say that by them is meant the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons and shall the Press be pestered under our undoubted Soveraign and the mildest Prince to make him Co-ordinate with the People Did they not make particular Provision in * 1. R. C. 15. Parliament for the Preservation of His Person that was the very Merderer and Destroyer of His Subjects And shall our ungrateful ones Associate for the Destruction of the mildest Monarch whose greatest Care is their Protection Was this Monster ever questioned or censured for the Murder of several of His Subjects as well as the more Barbarous Butchery the spilling almost of his own Blood in his Nephews and must our most gracious one stand the mark of Malice and Reproach and that only for desending that of his Brothers who Reigned more Arbitrary and managed all Affairs more Monstrously than this very Monster of Mankind And must a Parliament be now the Manager of the mildest Monarch and think him dangerous if not governed by themselves The two Succeeding * H. 7. H. 8. Henries had their Power as much
Nation it self shewed afterward against that Apostolical Order he told the People plainly they must Murder all the Bishops And in his canting Phraseology * Vid. Leighton's Sions Plea Printed 1636. Smite them under the fifth Rib. 'T is true the Government of Church and State stood yet so strong upon its Basis tho shaken with an undermining Plot that it dared to punish such an Execrable Villain with the Pillory and sentenced he was in the Star-Chamber to be stigmatised cropt and slit and tho the Parliament had not openly declared themselves against this good Government of the Church yet they had shown such Symptoms of their Disaffection to it that this Impudent Libeller could presume to make them his Patrons and present them with his Plea And I ha'n't found in all their Journal any Order for so much as the censuring him for such a piece of Presumption To exclude the Bishops from Voting in their Assembly the Confederates of Scotland drew up a Libel against them one in the Literal Sense full of Scandal and Reproaches But the denying them there their Rights in Parliament was soon seconded with the Robbing them of all too they had in the Church whom they had excluded they soon Excommunicated and then abolisht utterly the sacred Order so did also within two years after the good Parliament of England begin with the Prelacy too Pennington with his packt Petition of Prentices presented to them their Abhorrence of that Hierarchy the cunning and counterfeit Commons that House of Hypocrisie seemed a little dissatisfyed with an Alteration of the Church Government it self that is they did not care to pluck it up presently Root and Branch but fell upon another Argument somewhat more plausible tho to the Zealots less pleasing but what in truth was but Introductory to the same thing they more deliberately designed that they might proceed somewhat like Senators soberly to Sedition and that was about the Synod and Convocation Canons and Constitutions Ecclesiastical which they soon resolved to be against the Fundamental Laws of the Land But these Lay-Members were only mighty loth the Clergy should here have their Representatives as well as the Laick they must otherwise have seen that such a Resolution would upbraid them to their Faces with a Lye for this their Court of Convocation was as much founded upon Law and more too perhaps than even that of the Commons themselves who with their inconsistent Votes with Contradiction it self condemned it Exclude the Clergy and the very Foundations of your House must fall Did not former times allow you Representatives that every one might have an Hand in the Composition of that which he had an Obligation to obey Banish the Bishops your Assembly and tell me by what Proxies the Church shall be represented and what shall tye her to the Observation of those Laws to whose Constitution she gives no consent For a Thousand Years before they had a being there were such * Beda tells us Augustine the Monk called one of the Britain Bishops An. Dom. 686. King Ina's a Convocation of Cletgy An. Dom. 727. of the Saxons Synods Assembled never called but by the King 's Writ and they have no other Authority for their own Sitting and might as well have Voted that their own Assembly as indeed it was afterward was ‖ The very Words of their Vote against the Cannons Vid. Journal against the Fundamental Laws of the Realm Prerogative of the King Property of the Subject Right of Parliament and did tend to Faction and Sedition And tho those Canons and Constitutions were streightned and limited in Henry the †Register F. N. B. 4. Inst p. 322. c. 71. Eight's Time and it was provided that none for the future that had not the Royal Assent should be put in Execution yet such Reverence and Respect had the Parliament of those Times which I think was made up of a better sort of Reformers than what past their suffrages for the setting aside this Synod that not withstanding that Limitation they put in an express Proviso * Vid. 25. H. 8. for their Antiquity See Bracton l. 3. f. 123. Hol 303. 6 H. 3. Rot. p. 18. Ed. 3. that such Canons as were made before that Act so long as they did not contradict Law should be still in force after and this was at a time too when they were so far from being the Bigots of Rome that they were reforming from Her and acknowledged their Kings Supremacy even in ‖ 26 H. 8. c. 8. several of those Convocations tho whatever Religion they were of Common Reason cannot make it a Crime the countenancing of the Churches Right but these Violators of her Priviledges soon discovered their Design upon her Patrimony too for in the same Session and that soon after they that thus set aside the Churches Synod sent up an Impeachment of Treason against its Metropolitan and that by the Hands of a mighty famous Member whom his Majesty could have made appear and within a year after did demand as a greater Criminal too one who if I mistake not liv'd so long and so lately to prosecute the Bishops once more in their †His Discourse of Peerage London 1679. which Hunt himself could oppose Peerage as well as Persons But having gone so far what they had scribbl'd down before with their Libels they soon damn'd with a Vote And in the same Year past that Bill that their Spiritual Lordships should have no suffrages in the Senate of Lords And when they were come to this once to deprive them of their prescrib'd Privileges and their Legal Rights to send twelve of them to the Tower only because they would not tamely forego the very Church's Birth-right but entered a * they sent Glyn upon the resentment the Lords had taken against it too to accuse them of no less than High-treason for which they were committed for four months Vid. Bak p. 515. An. 1641. Protestation only against the betraying of their Trust you might think their Order it self tho never so Primitive never so much Apostolical was not like to be long liv'd for in the very next Year tho it was the good Kings giving one when Star-Chamber was abolisht the High-Commission put down Ship-Money relinquisht with six or seven several Acts besides for disclaiming Priviledges still his Seditious Subjects 1642. According ly done in the next year Ordinance 12 of June Vid. Scob. Col. p. 42. had so little Sense of his Goodness that even in that very season of Grace a †Bill was brought in for Abolishing this sacred Order Root and Branch 't is true 't was then husht up in the House the provident Patriots understood how to time it better they had not yet come to covenanting and concluded with the Kirk but as soon as they had framed their Holy League ‖ Mildmay's Oath taken 15. of June 43. Scob. Col. page 42. in Imitation of the Scots solemn one which they
for five hundred years before the Conquest and for above two hundred after Bishops and Abbots made up the best part of those petty Parliaments and that so long before these Contenders for their excludeing them their suffrages ever sate in that Assembly as part of the Senate And that antient piece that tells us of the ‖ Modus tenend Parl. manner of holding Parliaments tells us too that such Ecclesiasticks were always summoned Seditious Souls let those that are to take Care of them too have the same Subjects Liberty you so much Labour for Let Bishops be allowed their Birth-Right as well as your Lay-Lord-ships too your †Vid. Magna Charta the 1st thing in the first Chap. Articuli cleri Vid. Cook Com. on both 2. Inst Magna Charta was made for the Loyal Bishops as well as the Rebellious Barons and that expressly declares the Church shall enjoy all her Rights inviolate and tells us as plainly one of them was to sit in Parliament your selves know a discontented * Stratford Arch-bishop Ed. 3. Canterbury and I hope you 'll side with him because he was so claim'd for four hundred years agon his Privilege of Peerage in Opposition to His Prince petitioned for his Right and protested against the wrong for fifteen hundred years for so long our Monarchs can be Chronicl'd can in every Reign the Clergies being concerned in Parliament be proved upon Record and may they with the Monarchy last that with its Christianity commenc'd They seemed always to sympathize in their very sufferings never to cease but by consent and Bishops were never excluded from their Votes but when their King himself had never a voice The Sixth pernicious Principle they propose is for Marriages Alliances Treatises for War and Peace to be put in the power of the two Houses And shall the meanest Subjects be Mightier than their Soveraign Not allow'd the Marrying his Issue when where and to whom he pleases That the Parliament has presumed to intermeddle with this undoubted Prerogative of the Soveraign since the Birth-Right of the poorest Subject can no more be denyed then that the two Houses have also actually Rebell'd too but they never pretended to make Matches for their Monarch but when they were as ready to make War too There was somewhat of that Mutinous Ferment got among the Members in the latter end of King * James's his Reign who tho they mightily 19. Jacob. 1621. soothed their Soveraign with some Inconsiderable subsidies for the recovery of the Palatinate so small that notwithstanding the Preparation for War the poor Prince was forc'd to pursue Peace and to tell the Men at Westminster so much too that he intended to compass the Palatinate with an Allyance with Spain which he was not like to obtain from the smallness of their Subsidy and Aid But tho the Commons did not care much for the maintaining the War they were as much startled with this seeming tendance to Peace they knew their Prince poor and therefore thought that the time to show the Subject bold and so began the Puritan Party to represent in a Remonstrance Popery Power Prerogative and their Averseness forsooth to the Spanish-Match The pious Prince tho none of the boldest to resist an invading People yet took the Courage to tell them they took too much upon themselves very warmly forbad them farther to meddle with his Government ‖ Dudgdale's short View 21. and deep Affairs of State and particularly with the Match of his Son with the Daughter of Spain And this account they 'll surely Credit since it comes from an * Rusworth Col. p. 40. Author a partial and popular Advocate for this power of Parliament And did not the Commons intermeddling with an other Spanish Match of Queen Mary's send their Memberships into the Country to mind their own Business and were presently Dissolv'd for meddling so much with their Soveraign's And this I hope will be as †Burnet's Abridgm 236. Authentick since it comes from an Author that has had the Thanks of the House But this Disposal of the Kings of his own Children and the Marrying them to what Princes he pleases has such an absolute Relation to the making Leagues and Allyances that the Laws which have declared the latter to be solely in the Soveraign are as Declaratory that the other is so too and this power of the Prince of making War and Peace Leagues and Allyances is so settled in him by the Laws of the Land that till they are subverted it can never be taken out In Henry the Fifth's Time a Prince under whose Courage and Conduct the Nation I think was as Flourishing at Home as it was formidable Abroad A Prince that kept a good Sway over his Subjects and wanted nothing to the making him a good Monarch but a better Title though his Expensive War in France cost his People a great deal of Money as well as Blood yet they were far from being animated into an Invading this part of Prerogative but declared as appears by the Law of his Time that to their King belonged only to make Leagues with Foreign Princes and so fully does this Fundamental Law of the Land place this power in the Prince that it absolutely excludes all the Pretences of the People for it tells us ‖ 2. H. 5. c. 6. expressly that if all the Subjects of England should break ‖ 22. Edw. 4. Fitz. Jurisd a League made with a Foreign Prince if without the King's Consent it shall still hold and not be broken And must the Laws of our own as well as those of all Nations be subverted for the setting up a Supremacy of the People which both declare is absolutely in the King The Seventh Proposal about the Militia is the most Impudent because it has been the most confuted of any by Reason and baffled above all parts of the Prerogative Establisht by Law History tells us ever since Chronicle can Compute and that is for almost Fifteen Hundred Years that the Power of the Sword was ever in him that sway'd the Scepter and Statute tells us even the very First * Magna Charta that was ever reckoned among Acts of Parliament That if the King lead or send his Subject to do him Service in his Wars that he shall be freed from such other Services as Castle-guard and the like so that you see that extorted Instrument the result of a REBELLION reserved this piece of Prerogative of the Soveraigns Sole Right That the Members of the two Houses should have the Management of the Militia was undertaken to be proved too by that Plague of the Press Pryn himself who proceeds upon his own false Principle and Premises which he beggs and then may well draw from them a Conclusion of an absolute Lye for he takes it for granted that by the Kingdoms Suffrages they made their King and then he could not as he says have this * Pryn's Parliam
of the Duke of Mayne that had imposed on them a Council of State too the Tyrannous Assembly conven'd by Conspiraors was confusedly Dissolv'd in as much Distraction and Disorder And the recovered Nation return'd to their Lawful Lord. And did not our own late lamentable Distraction Commence in the Reign of King James and put all in Combustion in Charles the First did not Rebellion in Car. 1. they first practise upon his Necessities to which themselves had reduced him and then remonstrated against such Acts as were the very effect of his Necessity encumber'd with a War or rather betrayed into a breach they would not suffer the * Vid. even Rushw Coll. p. 40. Father to make Peace and then denyed the Son the supplies of War A Parliament is summoned too here and that serves him just as the two preceding Ones did their Soveraign with Remonstrances of Oppressions For this the petition of Right was granted them as Gracious an Act as that of the great Charter but nothing could serve unless like that too 't was sealed in Blood and for that they began by Degrees to be so Tumultuous till this Prince was forc'd to fly his Capital City and that also as in the others prov'd the Head to the Rebellion that succeeded upon their ‖ Exact Coll. p. 123. 21. Mart. Petition the War was first began And Hotham sent to surprize Hull as in the two former were Verdun and Dover and now was all in Arms and Blood which ended at last too in that of their King The Scots called in here as in the former the French and Spaniard the People enslaved by those that set up for their Protectors The Council of State set up here as well as in France and the ruin'd Realms never at rest till they had returned to that Soveraignty from which they revolted It is sad even to see the least thing * Plot in Carol 2d now that looks like a prelude to such a sort of Tragedy The clamors of Sedition still the same Parliaments that are Assembled to redress them ‖ Vid. com Remonstrances 79. 80. Remonstrating against Grievances they never yet felt Subjects †Proceeding Old-Bayly Associating against their Prince for his Preservation the draught the Scheam and abstract of the Baron's Combination The French League the Scotch Covenant so far from an Abhorrence of either as to pitch upon a Compound of all three Designs discovered and detected for the seising of strong Holds the * Rouse's Tryal Tower instead of an Hull and the ‖ Sydney's Tryal Scot invited once more to pass the Tweed for a better booty The Treason of such Practices is never the less because the Providence was so great as to prevent its Execution Had that not interposed the Parallel Lines I am sure would have led us on further but all their draught beyond it must have been Blood A Comparison between the Demands of our English Barons and the Desires of the French Leaguers from whence they have copyed as Counterparts The Propositions of our Parliament and the Proposals of Plato English Barons French Leaguers 1. That the King hath wronged the publick State by taking into his private Election the Justice Chancellor and Treasurer and require that they be chosen by the common Council of the Realm Parl. Tent. 22. H. 3. 1. That the Disposals of Places of Office and Trust in the Kingdom be in the Leaguers vid. Henry the 3d. of France's Answer to their Manifesto who told them 't was against the Prerogative of all his Predecessors 2. That it be ordained that 24 of the most grave and discreet Peers be chosen by the Parliament as Conservators of the Kingdom Baker pag. 8. Ann. D. 1238. Regn. H. 3. 22. 2. That the number of their Kings Council should be limited to 24. D'avila pag. 341. our Propositions were not to exceed 25. or under 15. 3. That those Conservators be sworn of his Majesties Council and all Strangers removed from it 3. The City of Paris set up a Council of 16. of themselves whil'st their Kings was to admit Persons whom they should chuse 4. That two Justices of the Kings-Bench two Barons of the Exchequer and one Justice for the Jews be likewise chosen by the Parliament ibid. 4. These sixteen so managed the Judges of their King upon a Presumption of their favoring their Soveraign that they got three of them strangl'd without process 5. They brought with them Consciences full of Error and Schism against the Laws and the Canons false Prophets fomenting Heresies against the Vicars of Christ Mat. West pag. 332. 5. That there should be a Reformation in the Church and no Hugonots favored 6. They would not have this Henry the 3d's Daughter marryed to Alexander King of the Scots and for a long time would give him no aid which at last with much ado they did 6. That his Allyance and Truce with the King of Navar was against the Interest of his Subjects 7. At Lewes they took upon them so much of the Militia that they made their Prince a Prisoner 7. That the strength of Provence be put in the hands of the Duke D'Aumarle or such others as they should nominate 8. The 24. to dispose of the King's Castles and no Peace till all the Forts and Castles be delivered to the keeping of the Barons 8. Leaguers seiz'd upon the King's City Castles and strong Holds D'avila pag. 328. 9. His Councellors elected by the Parliament allowed him such a pitance for his Houshold that they starv'd him out of his Palace M. Par. 807. 9. That the Kingdom could not be safe so long as the King was environed with Non confiding Persons 10. They chose their own Peers called the Peeres Douze 10. That they might have the Disposal of all Honor vid. their King's Answer to their Manifesto This Parliament of those Rebellious Barons my Lord Cook that had as much Veneration as any Man for that Honorable Assembly called the * Parl. Insanum Cook 's Insti part 3. p. 2. mad Parliament the reverse of that of Edward the 3d. which he calls the ‖ 50. Ed. 3. 4. Inst p. 2. good one And I am sure the Propositions of that in 41 would have made the Learned Lawyer had he lived to see them proposed pronounced that Senate as distracted too as that Oxford one of Henry the 3d 's but it may suffice that special †12. Car. 2. Cap. 12. Act since supposed them in their Witts in declaring them what was worse TRAITORS CHAP. III. Remarks upon Mr. Hunt 's Postscript THIS Disingenuous Author with his Hypocritical Apology for the Church of England has just done her as much Mischief as that of Bishop Jewels sincere one did her Good That pious Prelate with his unanswerable Arguments had defended her against all the powers of the Pope and this with his Argument which he Answers himself has made her all Popish Never did an Hypocrite
declared to give his consent to it But it seems upon some oversight or error it was not actually done And in the First of * 1. Jacob. King James when they recogniz'd his Right they petition him to put his own Acknowledgement too without which it would not be compleat and perfect from which I shall infer upon the First here was an Act past upon the King 's declaring he would give his consent had there been nothing else but his bare Assent required that declaring that he would might have been taken for granted and his not opposing it afterward sufficient not to have rendered it all null and void and the great Imprimaturs the other two Houses had given it with their Legislative have might in some Sense made it somewhat Obligatory But here 't is absolutely declared void as wanting the very Sanction that makes it a Law or any thing besides waste Paper Mr. ‖ Postscr pag. 4◠Hunt tells us we would not say an House of Commons can make a Prince of Wales because the Prince of Wales was once confirmed by an House of Commons And I 'll tell Mr. Hunt just such another Tale The King cannot make his Coin without Metal and Allay but does therefore the Metal and Allay make the Kings Coin 't is his Royal Stamp 't is his own Impression that makes the Money Currant as well as the Laws From that of King James we may justly conclude That if here as they 1. Jacob. say there were nothing required but barely the Kings consent to the making it Law that might well in such an extraordinary Case as this be thought unnecessary to be demanded since the King that came so far for asserting his Right could not but in Reason be supposed very willingly to consent to any Recognition of it But they knew it might be an Acknowledgement of his Subjects without his Assent But never an Act of Parliament without such a Soveraign Sanction In short 't is the Privilege of all our three States Lords Spiritual Temporal and Commons 't is their Birth-right and that of every Subject to have a Concurrence in the making all Laws and why should I be thought to Love my Native Right less than Mr. Hunt yet still this Peoples concurrence need not to be Co-ordinate with their Kings or their Kings but a bare Concurrence with the People 'T is a Solecism to sober Sence to say Subjects can be Co-ordinate with him to whom they are Subjected and as absurd when they would salve it with saying As such a Senate they are not Subordinate when even for that their politick Existence they depend upon the breath of their Soveraign 'T is Remarkable to see and observe how Providence has defeated not only all their Attempts upon the Government but even their most Malicious Suggestions What pains did he take to Postscript pag. 55. turn over his Annals of Scotland and pick perhaps out of his Hector Boethius an Author that lived at his University when he writ far from the place where the Records were kept as a Learned and Ingenuous Author of that Nation observes which were the only things that could inform an Historian well in the Descent of the Crown or from the prejudic'd Writings of Buchanan whom none but one so partial as himself such an Enemy to our own Government as that was to the Scots would have consulted in any thing that related to the Crown and that only to make his Soveraign descended from a Bastard He might from that * Buch. jure Reg. p. 52. 62. Author have told us too The Scotish Kings have all their Power from the People and therefore the People's above the King that the Multitude have the same power over Kings that they have over the Multitude who can depose him and if he won't submit to their Charge they can raise War against him or any private Person kill him But how has Time and Truth convinced the World that his Assertion is plain lye and I am sure without it his Inferrence had been false the King 's Learn'd Advocate there has shewn from Records That Robert the First King of the Stewarts there was married to this Elizabeth Mure that she was his first Wife that from a copy of an Act of Parliament held at Scoon the Succession was recognised to the Sons he had in his first Marriage which were the same Hunt has made first Spurious and then would not allow them Legitimized by the second Marriage because the first intervened contrary to the Canon of the Church that then obtained and the Opinion of †Hottom de Concub. L. cum quis C. 16. de natur Lib. all Civilians at present and as he might have found it in the very Codes of Justinian With what Face can he now behold his own Impostures or turn over a Leaf of his Seditious falshood without trembling The most adequate punishment I believe would be to confine him to read his own Works Blushes and Shame If he be not proof against both must torment him more in the review than he rack'd his tortured thought in the Penning it the sham of the Black-Box may as well be credited by the next Age as this has done that of the Black-Plaister when such Hunts shall Write their History of King Charles his Court after the same rate that Welden has that of King James when they shall not only contend at the same time to make Bastards of those that are Legitimate but Legitimate those that are truly Bastards and the one all against Record Charter Statutes Ancient the other against the many Modern and Express Declarations of their present King This piece of this Seditious and Discontented Lawyer these now unquestionable Falshoods will be rever'd by the next age as a Revelation if not sufficiently exploded in this and I know that Welden is hugg'd at present by the Faction as an Oracle of Truth only for giving of his God the Lye and reputed as an Author sacred only for Libelling of his Soveraign that was truly so and representing that Providence as a * Vid Welden's Court ad finem Plague to his Royal Progeny that has signaliz'd it self in nothing more than in Miracles for its Preservation Most of the rest of his sublimated Sedition is spent in exposing the Divine Right of Kings the Right of their Succession and in truth of the Bible and its Author the Almighty he begins to confute ‖ Postscr l. p. 63. St. Paul with that bandied Argumentation out of St. Peter that Kings are the Ordinance of Man and with that very Text on the Front does that Devilish piece de jure Magistratuum in one of its Editions begin So Mr. Hunt enters upon the Stage of his Argumentation with a perverted Text as well as one a reputed Papist that was Ficleney a supposed Romish Priest tho he railed against Pope and Mass which might be pretended and affected Puritanism supposed to be set a
King by this Clause is obliged to pass all Bills that shall be brought why truly then he Swears with an implicite Faith to Repeal all the Laws if the People please for the bare possibility in such a sort of Argumentation may be supposed and we as well imagine for my Lord Coke tells us we have had ‖ Vid. 3. Inst his Parliamentum insanum Mad Parliaments such a Senate may prefer Bills for the Repealing all the Old Laws as well as for the passing any single New and I am sure 't is no more than what has actually been done in * Car. 1. An. Parl. 41. one since that Learned Lawyer lived even to the Subversion of ‖ Vid. their 19. propositions all the Statutes of the Land so that this positive Oath in their sense may Labour under an implicite contradiction for while he swears in the latter Clause to confirm all the Bills they shall bring It may be extended to cancel all Custom and Common-Law he is in the former sworn to defend Mr. Hunt's General Desire of the People may be for the Repealing the 35th of Edward as well as that of Elizabeth and leave no Law in the Land to punish Treason as well as Recusants only that they may commit it with impunity for one of those Bills has †Regn. Car. 1. Car. 2. twice been brought into the House and both may be to save their Bacon And should the King with their Elegerit be obliged especially so mild an one with an anticipated Mercy to Pardon Villains for the cutting of his Throat and leave no Law to punish perhaps a Rumbold or the Russians at the Rye certainly were his Right not in the least Divine this would contradict all Sense and Reason Suppose Richard the Second took this Oath as well as the rest of his Successors since and afterwards the general desire of his Parliament we all know was that he would depose himself Senseless Sots was that King sworn too even in his Coronation to confirm his own Deposition In short must not this senseless Suggestion put upon the Royal Authority the greatest absurdity against all Sense and Reason must it not make him swear to confirm those Laws that have not so much as BEING and that before he knows whether they will be good or bad Is it not Resolved and that upon Record in the King's Exchequer where the Words run with some Signification That the King keep the Laws and Customes which the Lords and Commons HAVE chosen c But grant them their own Sense that is Silliness That Oath these Malignants of our Monarchy object was made first for an * 1. H. 4. absolute Usurper that came to the Crown by the Suffrages of such a Seditious Senate not much Inferior in Villainy to the late long Parliament that labored so much in this business of the Legislative or rather less Villains only in deposing a King whom the latter Murdered and why a Lawful King should be bound by that Oath did the Laws oblige him to take it which was first offered to an Vsurper I cannot apprehend That aspiring Prince swore too in his Coronation that he held his Crown by the Sole Consent of the People shall our present Soveraign do the same whom the * 1. Jacob. Statutes acknowledge to hold from none but God But do not in that very Oath the Words they so much labor in confute them also in my poor Reason beyond reply is not Leges the Word Laws expresly used that it is Laws that the King swears to Confirm Corroborate Maintain and Protect And were the Commons ever allowed or presumed without a Rebellion to Elect LAWS There is not the least of a Bill mentioned in that Oath and sure they 'll offer to elect no more and in Gods Name let them chuse to send up as many of those as they please And sure then these Leges here must relate to those that are really so and have had the Royal Sanction already so that they must be reduced to this Dilemna If they 'll apply their Vulgus elegerit to the Lower House 't is certain they can make no Laws if to that of the Lords 't is as certain they can't be called Vulgus Lastly Laborious Drudges of Sedition let but these Laws ye long to subvert while you 'd seem to defend decide betwixt you and your King Is it not established by * 2. H. 5. 1. Jacob. 1. 1. Car. 1. c. 7. Statute it self that the King hath absolute power to Dissent to any Bill though agreed upon by both Houses But yet in spight of all this Reason and Law they tell us that the King cannot deny to pass any Bills for the publick good and which perhaps never can a good King for his Refusal of his Royal Sanction determines their Goodness and they cease to be necessary when the King thinks there is no need of them for if upon this their presumptive Goodness and the Prince as it is his undoubted Prerogative to do denying his Assent the People should presume they could with their Legislative because their King is refractory as they would call it pass some Bills into Law from their Assurance of their being good that power wou'd enable them to make bad ones too and allow their two Houses to Judge when to make but one Law they are as good Judges to make one thousand or as many as they please and no end of such a distracted Usurpation and that we saw when they began with that Ordinance for the Militia which was the first thing they presumed to make Law from their Kings as their Seditious absurd Phraseology would word it Refractory refusing i. e. that courageously maintaining his just Right when they had thus once broke the Damm no wonder if the deluge of an absolute Rebellion overwhelmed for upon the same ground the Lords might have Excluded both King and Commons for not concurring with them in what Bills and Acts they thought good and the Commons as * Vid. Hist Independeny pag. 115. 17. March 48. Scob. Coll. pâ—g 7 8. indeed they did both King and Lords for being obstinate to such BILLS as themselves had offered But yet notwithstanding the Kings Refractoriness as our Republican Phrases it is now trumpt up again for the warranting the Peoples assuming as they would have it a sort of necessitated Power and that of calling themselves to Parliament for this the * Postscr page 8. Lawyer in his Postscript Labors with his Innuendo's For this ‖ Plat. page 109. Plato tells us the Barons did well to put on their Armour that it is an Omission that ruins the very Foundations of Government and Hunt will not have them so much as discontinued for it renders such Conventions illusory Seditious Sycophants Your selves know this power of their Discontinuance and Dissolution is the best security the Crown has for its support Was it not miserably rent and torn from the Head
the fourth of this Edward was made more for this King's Satisfaction than the desires of the People and that from the sequel you 'll see they were not then clamoring for frequency of Parliaments when they were to pay for it too and have their Treasure exhausted with their Blood in frequent Wars He had drawn the Scots upon his back who in the War like their Old Parents the Picts were always ready to invade us at home when ever we attempted any thing abroad He had before him France in the Front to whom he was ready to give Battle And he perhaps presuming his Subjects might be loth to be convened for subsidies so often as such Exigencies must require might prudently get them to oblige him for such an Annual Convention which they must the better bear with when the result of their own Act and none of the stretch of his Prerogative 'T is true the 36. of his Reign is more expressive of the Reasons for which they should be called i. e. for the redressing of Mischiefs and Grievances but 't is evident that piece of popularity was more for the tickling their Hearts and then they might be soon brought to turn out their Purses and those he wanted then too tho in peace having begun to beautifie and enlarge his Castle of Windsor his best Delight as well as the place of his Birth And his soothed Subjects seconded it with such singular kindness that about that time such a three years subsidy was granted as they resolved should be no president for the * 36. Ed. 3. cap. 11. time to come and these Suggestions I submit to the light of any others Reason for the Politicks of that Old State can't be expected to be clear in History since even in Matters of Fact in many things 't is dark And such sort of Suggestions seem to sound and salve the Case much better than that forced Solution upon the very Letter of the Law their if need be or if there be Occasion For I am satisfied the Design of those Statutes was to determine their King tho' I doubt of their Force and that those Conditional Expressions must be Relative to their Antecedent Words more or oftner and so must be meant only of their being called inclusively more frequently within the Term. To leave now this learned Lunatick this distemper'd Body of Law and consider him under another Denomination that of a Divine and zealously discussing with a Rage unbecoming the calmness he professes as well as the Character of such a Profession the Damnable Doctrine as he would plainly prove it of the King 's Divine Right for he makes it the most * page 60 69 70 86 87 88 89. Mischievous Opinion the most Schismatical the Destroyer of every Man 's Right the Betrayer of the Government Monstrous Extravagant Papal Opinion Treacherous Impious Sacrilegious Destructive of Peace Pregnant with Wars produced our own Civil one and what is worse Plague and Famine and a Crucifying of Christ afresh A Black charge indeed for a poor Criminal that at first sight seems so White and Innocent He should have made it a Trojan Horse too for once for he has made the Belly of it big enough to hold an Army of Men or a Legion of Devils If this be the Judges manner of Trying his King 's Right he would have made a worse Chief Justice for deciding the Subjects I have heard of some Sycophants that have prov'd Wolves in Sheeps cloathing but here the Cautionary Text is turned inside out too and somewhat of the Lamb drest all in the grisly Garment of the Wolf And 't is like they had their Dogs ready to worry it too before they would discover the cheat I am sure if they won't allow this Doctrine to be Religious 't is so far from being Romish that it is utterly inconsistent with their Religion for the Doctrine of their Church attributes all the Divinity that it can to the Pope that presides in it makes him not only Infallible but supream over Kings and Princes and sure they may allow that those Romanists are as much concerned for the Popes Supremacy as Mr. Hunt for the Peoples for His Holiness has the help of Saint Peter to prove his Divine Right from his Succession to his Person and See tho he can't from His * His 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pet. 2. 13. Text. When whatever they would gather from that Apostle the Lawyers Popelings have nothing left to shew for theirs unless the very Charter and Grant of their King yet tho this Doctrine be as far from Rome as they think the Romanist from Heaven tho their Writers with Hunts own Brutish Rage have run it down tho it be so directly destructive of the Papal power still has this preposterous piece of paradox made it Popish and treated it almost in the same Language the †Fox Vol. 3. p. 515. zealous Prelate did their Romish Church and ‖ Vid. Dissenters sayings all the dangerous Dissenters do our own Wolves Thieves Enemies of Christ Brood of Antichrist Babylonish Beast Devilish Drab sink of Sodom Seat of Satan It is a pretty way of Confutation indeed in the very beginning of an Argument to beg the Question He takes it for granted from the Text of Saint Peter that Kings are but an Ordinance of man and then stoutly concludes that it is impossible that any that is of Man's appointment can ever be of God's Ordination to be presumptively baffled recommend me to such a Disputant And with that supposititious Triumph does as some think a Jesuit's Book de Jure Magistratuum enter the List full of Victory even before the Battle and this perverted Text in one of his Editions is turned into the Laurel and Lemma to Crown the forehead of that Impudent piece This is made the Goliah of those Philistins who not with their bulk alone but with the very Letter of the Bible and the Book of Life can defie the Living God for such a Construction upon Saint Peter by common sense can never be put for place this power of Ordaining Kings once in the Power of SVBJECTS and all the World can never hinder THEM from being too the SVPREAM POWER Was not this very Text actually turn'd up for the Supream Authority of the Parliament of England and was that too meant by St. Peter when in the very next Line he calls the King Supream Seditious Dolts do not make the Bible contradict it self tho your Books do does not this very Text take almost an expressive care to prevent even with providence such a silly construction and give a signal Signification where this Supremacy resides viz. in the King But to give these well read Rebels rope enough and let them stretch their Treasonable Positions as they ought their Necks I 'll plead for them and in that which can be their only Reply viz. That this Supremacy must be understood only to be in these Kings after they are
Actually done it were de Facto void besides if the Subject was freed in that Case it would be the result of the Soveraigns Act. they must suppose him at the same time as simple as themselves that suggest it and could they give us but a single Instance or force upon us any President all they would get by it is this That as their supposition was without sense so their Application would be nothing to the purpose for such a matter of Fact of their Kings would make him de Facto none at all I know they can tell us of one of our ‖ That alienation of King John was suppos'd to have been an Act of State and it has been adjudg'd particularly by particular Parliaments That even a Statute for that purpose made would be of no force It was resolv'd so â—n Scotland too own that lies under that Imputation of making over his to the Moor And of others that in the time of the Popes Supremacy resign'd themselves with submission to the Holy See for the first the most Authentick Historians not so much as mention it and were it truly matter of Fact that King had really no thing to resign for the Republicans of those times were the good Barons that Rebel'd and had seated themselves in a sort of Aristocracy before in short if it were solemnly done it would look like the Act of a Lunatick if not at all as is much more likely their Historians Labour in a lye and for the other we never had a Soveraign that Submitted the Power of his Temporal Government of the state to the Pope's See but only as it related to the Spiritual Administration of the Affairs of the Church and the Religion of the Times These sort of Suppositions have so much Nonsense in them especially when apply'd to Human Creatures and more then when to Monarchs that have commonly from Birth and Education more Sense than common Mortals that there is not so much as a Natural Brute but will use what he can manage as his own with all imaginable Care and Discretion How tender and fond are the most stupid Animals how do they most affectionately express that paternal Love for the Preservation of their little Young how abundantly do they Evidence that Natural * Posts C. p. 113. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with which Mr. Hunt gives us such a deal of impertinent disturbance and why cannot the King of a Country whom the Civil and Imperial Sanctions represent as the ‖ Princeps Pater patriae est D. 1. 4. 1. Atrocius est Patriae parentem quam suum occi dere Cicero in Philip 2d Father of it too be supposed to retain as much a paternal Care for its Conservation we do not find even in that their Free-State of Nature or that Common-wealth of Wars the Republick of unruly Beasts where there is the least Relation or resemblance tho perhaps they have power and opportunity that they delight to devour and destroy and much less do they covet the ruin of that from which they can reap somewhat of Advantage by its Preservation why then should we fancy Human beings and the best of Mankind Monarchs themselves whom th' Almighty has made * I 've said yee are Gods Psalms Gods too to be guilty of so much Madness and Inhumanity Where do we find the worst of Fools designedly to destroy their Patrimony though many times through Ignorance they may waste them and that tho there were no Laws to terrifie them from turning Bankrupts or punishing them for Beggers when they have embezell'd their Substance Away then Malicious Miscreants with such sordid Insinuation such silly Suggestions against your own Soveraigns which your selves no more believe them likely to be guilty of than that they would set Fiâ—e to all their Palaces and Sacrifice themselves and Successors in the Flames But to Return to our Argument they 'll tell us perhaps What signify the Sanctions of the Imperial Laws and the Constitutions of an Absolute Empire to a Common-wealth or a Council of three States that are Co-ordinate or at most but a Monarchy Limded and mixt and where whatever power the Supream Magistrate has must have been first Confer'd upon him by the People where the Parliaments have a great part of the Legislative and their Soveraign in some sense but a Precarious Prerogative what signifies the Authority of a Britton or a Bracton whose very works by this time are superannuated who wrote perhaps when we had no Parliaments at all at least ∥ none such as now * Hunt allows that himself posts p. 95. Constituted I won't insist upon in answer to all this to show the Excellency of the Civil Institutions that obtain o're all Nations that are but Civiliz'd I wont prove to them because already done That we don't Consist of three States Co-ordinate in the Legislative or that our Monarchy is Absolute and not mixt as I shortly may But yet I 'll observe to them here †Postquam populus Romanus Lege Regiâ in principem omne suum Imperium potestatem solum Contulit ex illâ non sub diti sed etiam Magistratus ipsi subâ—iciuntur Zouch Elem. p. 101. That the Romans themselves tho by what they call'd their Royal Law they look't upon the power of the Prince to be conferr'd upon them by the people yet after it was once so transferr'd they apprehended all their right of Judging and Punishing was past too And for their vilifying these Antient Authors and Sages of Law who did they Favour these Demagoges would be with them of great Authority and as mightyly searcht into and sifted Should I grant them they were utterly obsolete and fit only for Hat-cases and Close-stools that they both writ before the Commons came in play for their further satisfaction I 'll cite the same from latter Laws not two hundred years old and that our selves will say was since their Burgesses began And therefore to please if possible these Implacable Republicans I 'll demonstrate what I 've undertaken to defend from the several Modern Declarations of our Law For in * Edward the 3d. Edward the Third's it was resolv'd that the King could not be Judged And why because he has no Peer in his Land and 't is provided by the very first Sanctions of our Establisht Laws by the great ‖ Magn. Chart. cap. 29. No Freeman will we Imprison or Condemn but by Lawful Judgment of his Peers Per parium juorum Legale Judicium And my Lord Coke tells us they are to be understood of Peers of the Realm only when a Peer is to be try'd Comment upon the very words 2. Inst which he more fully explains in 's Comment on the 14. Chap. of Char. where he says pares is by his Peers or Equals for as the Nobles are understood by that word to be all equal so are all the Commons too ib. p. 29. Where note the form of this very Charter
clamored for with Tumult and Insurrection and was indeed more to be condemn'd than any of those Miscarriages the Seditious and Trayterous Assembly that deposed the same Prince did ever His deposers within the 25 of Ed. Coke Treason Object for if their Free-hold can't be call'd their Birth-Right then there 's hardly any thing of Right to which they can be born And yet we see that the King and his Council had heretofore Cognizance even of that as it appears from the Commons Petitioning him against it and his Answer which was That tho he would remand them to the Tryal of their Right by the Law and not require them there to answer peremptorily yet he did reserve the power at the suit of the Party to Judge it where by Reason of Maintenance or the like the Common Law could not have its Course then we may conclude that the judicial power was absolutely in the King and this was also at a time when this Richard the 2d was but a Minor no more than thirteen years old and so this his Answer without doubt by the Advice of the wisest of his Council and the most learned of the Land And for this reason notwithstanding it is provided by that Chapter of the Great * Mag. Chart. 9. H. 3. c. 29. Cap. 14. Charter none shall be Diseised of his Freehold but by Lawful Judgment of his Peers tho the Right was tryed before that sort of Statute by common Law as my Lord ‖ 2 Inst pag. 49. Coke observ's upon it by the verdict of 12 Peers or equal men yet still I look upon the King to remain sole Judge in every Case whether Civil or Criminal for these Peers are never allow'd to try any more than bare matter of Fact and the Soveraign always presides in his Justices to decide matter of Equity and Law And those †The writ of Conviction was the same with an Attaint and that was by Common Law too Coke 2. Inst p. 130. Vid. 3. Inst p. 222. 1. Inst pag. 294. 13. and tho this Judgment is given by no stat yet there are several Stat. that inflict penalty and that even in trespass where damages but 40. sh 5. E. 3. Chap. 7. Vid. also 28. E. 3. c. 8. 3 ◠E. 3. c. 4. 13. R. 2. and several other Stat. in H. 4 5 6 7 8th times about it very Laws to which he gives Life too and whose Ambiguities he resolves themselves also sufficiently terrifie the Jurors from pretending to give their own Resolutions by making them liable to the severe Judgment of an Attaint if their Verdict be found false i. e. to have their Goods Chattels Lands and Tenements forfeited their Wives and Children turn'd from their home and their Houses Levell'd and their Trees pluckt up by the Roots and their Pastures turn'd up with the Plough and their Bodies Imprison'd A sort of severity sufficient one would think to frighten the Subject from assuming to himself to decide the judicial part of the Laws and for this Reason in all dubious Cases for fear of their bringing in a verdict False they only find the Fact specially and leave the determination of it to the King in the Judges that represent him And as this was resolved for Legal even from the Common Usage and Custom of the Land confirm'd as you see by several Acts of Parliament so was it maintain'd also by those very Villains that had subverted the Government it self and violated all the Fundamental Laws of all the Land for when Lilburn a Levelling and discontented Officer a Lieutenant of Oliver's Army was put upon his * Vid. Lilburn's Tryal 24. Oct. 1649. Printed the 28. of November 1649. Page 3. Tryal for Treason only for Scribling against the Usurpation for which he had fought and as he boasted to the Bench to the very butt end of his Musket against his Majesty at the Battel of Brainford and the mutinous wretch only Troubled and Disgusted because he had not a greater share in that Usurp'd Power for which he had hazarded his Life and Fortune when he came to be pinch'd too with that Commission of High Court of Justice himself had help'd up for the Murdering of his Soveraign and his best of Subjects no Plea would serve him but this popular one which the Lieutenant laboured in most mightily that his Jury were by the Law the Judges of that Law as well as Fact and those that sate on the Bench only Pronouncers Ib. p. 121. of the Sentence and truly considering they were as much Traytors by Law as the Prisoner at the Bar he was so far in the Right that his Jury were as much Judges as those Commissioners that sate at the Bench yet even that Court only of Commission'd Traytors and Authoriz'd Rebels thought good to over-rule him in that point and Iermin one of the Justices just as Senseless in his Expression of it as Unjust and Seditious in the Usurpation of such a Seat in Judicature when no King to Commission him In an uncouth and clumsie Phrase calls his Opinion of the Juries being Judges of Law A Damnable Ibid. pag. 122 113. Blasphemous Heresie never heard in the Nation before and says 'T is enough to destroy all the Law of the Land and that the Judges have interpreted it ever since there was Laws in England and That contradicts directly out of their own Mouth the Doctrine of William Pryn of his Parliaments Right to it Keeble another of the Common-wealth-Commissioners told him 'T was as gross an error as possible any Man could be guilty off and so all the Judges even of a power absolutely Usurp'd and wherein they profest so much the Peoples Privilege over-rul'd the Prisoner in his popular Plea 'T is true Littleton as Lilburn observ'd to them in one of his Sections says Littleton Sect. 308. That an inquest as they may give their Verdict at large and special so if they 'll take upon them the knowledge of the Law they may also give it general But the Comment of Coke their own Oracle upon the place confirms the Suggestion I have made of Resolving it into the King's Judges For he says 't is dangerous to pretend to it because if they mistake it they run in danger of this Coke Com. ibid. Attaint and tho the fam'd Attorney General of those times with his little Law was so senseless as to allow it to Lilburn in the beginning of his Tryal tho at another at Reading in that time of Rebellion Prideaux Liburn's Tryal page 17. Ibid. page 123 they made the Jury to be covered in the Court upon that account yet you see those even then the Justices of the Land tho but mere Ministers of a most unjust Usurpation would not let it pass for Law And the Refutation of this false Position is so far pertinent to our present purpose as it relates to prove the Peoples being so far from being qualified to
Murmering since there has been none alter'd or destroy'd but what has been by Inquiry of the Kings Quo Warranto or their own Act of Resignation yet sure if the Common Law did not favour the King in this Case Common Equity would since those Priveleges were but the very Grant of his own Ancestors But if we must consider nothing but Mr. Sidney's Original Power and Right and all that lodg'd in his good People of England it may be their Birth-right too to Rebel they may and must Murder their Monarch and that by their own Maxims when they think him not fit to Govern or Live I have heard it often said that the Members in Parliament represent the people and for that Reason are call'd their Representatives but if this Original Power which is delegated to them upon such a Representation must Subject their Soveraign as Mr. S. will have it to â—hese his Judges of the particular Cases â—rising upon such a Subjection then â—hey must e'en represent their King too and every Session of Parliament that he Summons is but an unhappy Solemnity whom himself Assemblies for his own deposition if such positions should obtain 't is those that indeed would make the Monarch fearful of Parliaments and not those idle Suggestions of Mr. ‖ posts p. 92. Hunt that the Weekly Pamphlets were endeavouring to make him forego them and it was this very opinion that promoted the last War which he would not have so much as mention'd Lastly if this Original Power of the People be delegated to their Representatives this People that did so Communicate it can at their pleasure * Quia qui mandatam Jurisdictionem suscepit proprium nil habet sed ejus qui mandavit Jurisdictione utitur Zouch Elem. pars 5. § 4. recall it â—nd exercise it themselves for that is esâ—ential to the Nature of a Communicated Power for upon supposition of the peoples having such a Power it would be of the same Nature that their Kings is for Power of Supremacy wherever it be lodg'd is still the same and you see that the Power which the King has is often Commission'd to the Judges in his several Courts of Justice and yet I cannot see how his Majesty by Virtue of such a ‖ Quamvis more majorum Jurisdictio transfertur meruÌ„ Imperium quod Lege datur non transit D. 1. 21. 1. Commissionating of his Servants does Exclude himself from the Administration of those Laws that he has only allow'd others to Administer or from a recalling of that power to himself which he has only delegated to another for 't is a certain Maxim in reason that whatsoever Supream does empower others with his Authority does still retain more than he does impart tho I know 't is a Resolution in our * Coke 4. Inst c. 7. p. 71. Law Books that if any one would render himself to the Judgment of the King it would be of none effect because say they all his power Judicial is Committed to others and yet even they themselves will allow in many Cases their lies an Appeal to the King But what ever was the Sense of my Lord Coke in this point who has none of the fewest Faults and failings tho hiâ— Voluminous Tracts are the greatest easâ— and Ornament of the Law his resolution here is not so agreeable to Commoâ— Equity and Reason therefore I say it reason it must follow That Mr. Sid. people having but delegated their Power to the Parliament still retain a power of concurring with preventing or revoking of that power they have given but in charge to their Representatives and if so then they can call them to an Account for the ill exercise of that power they have intrusted them with set up some High Court of Justice again for upon this very principle the last was erected not only for the Tryal of their King but for hanging up every Representative that has abus'd them as they are always ready to think in the excercise of that Original power with which he was by his Electors intrusted these sad Consequences which necessarily flow from this lewd Maxim would make their house of Commons very thin and they would find but few Candidates so ready to spend their Fortunes in Boâ—ough Beer only for the Representing of â—hose that might hang them when they came home upon the least misrepresentation of their proceedings and these sad suggestions of the sorrowful Case of such precarious representatives are infallible Consequences from the very words of our Republican even in those very Arguments that he uses for the subjection Tryal p. 23. of his King for if his King as â— man must be Subject to the Judgment oâ— his People that make him a King sure he cannot be so Impudently Immodesâ— but he must allow his Members of Parliament that are much more made bâ— them by Continual Election and the very breath of their Mouth to be as mucâ— accountable to their Makers for if â—â— should recur in this Case as he has no other refuge to the Peoples having excluded themselves from this Originaâ— Power once in themselves by conferring it on their Representatives theâ— farewel to the very Foundation of thaâ— Babel they would Build and Establish then they fall even in the fate â—â— their aspiring Fore-fathers fall by the confusion of their own Tongues anâ— like the rearers of that proud Pile thaâ— would have reacht at Heaven and the Almighty as these at his Anointed anâ— the Crown For certainly by the same Reason that they cannot Judge and Punish thosâ— whom they have Commission'd to represent them because they have delegateâ— and transferr'd to them their Originâ—â— power by the same Argument and that a fortiori have they excluded â—hemselves from their natural Power of â—eing Judges of their King because they â—ave conferr'd upon him the SVPREAM Neither can they help themselves here with their Imaginary and imply'd Conditions upon which Mr. Sidney says our Soveraign must be supposed to have first accepted his Crown For there never was any Representatives yet elected but as many Conditions and Obligations â—re implyed and supposed and by the same Reason must be required and exacted such as the serving their Electors faithfully the representing of their just grievances the promoting the Interest and profit of the place they serve for and if Mr. Sidneys good People must be Judges of the Violation of any of these Trusts as they must by the Maxims of their own making then the Representatives and the poor Parliament fare as bad and fall in the common fate of their King into the fearful Sentence of Mr. Sidney's own Words That Performance will be exacted and revenge taken by those they have betrayed And for to show them that my Conclusions are grounded upon matter of Fact as well as Sense and Reason and not like their lewd Arguments upon nothing but some Factious Notions and Seditious Opinions I desire them to consider whether they
Subject but also between the several Subjects to one another for 't is a consent upon Condition among themselves that this Man transfers his Power to some single Soveraign because the rest have does or design to do it so that the Person upon whom the Supremacy is confer'd is secured upon a double Obligation both of that which is made among them all to themselves and that which to him is made by them all and therefore that Opinion of Mr. Sidney of the Power of the People being delegated to some particular Persons the Major part of which can act for the whole Kingdom is even unreasonable according to the Notion of their own Hypothesis For while he supposes it a Natural Liberty and Original Power that the People have at the same time he lays down a Position that destroys it For 't is Unnatural and against Nature if they consider it that the major part should determine it against the Minor and be taken for the consent and Approbation of the whole when it is to be turned by a single suffrage and one casting voice And this carrying it by a Majority is against the Nature of their Original Liberty for we see that even in all Seditious Assemblies and tumultuary Meetings every Man would have every thing carried his own way but the being concluded by the Major part has always been the result of some civil Institution in the Government that thought it reasonable things should be so carried for an avoiding of Confusion and Disorder so our Representatives in Parliament are chosen by the Majority of their Electors and they pass their Bills when elected by pluralities of Voices but this proceeds from President Regulation Institution Custom and Law and yet we see thâ—t mâ—ny times notwithstanding these râ—câ—iv'd Rules and tacit Agreements to which all have submitted they are loth in their Elections to stand to their own accord in such Cases and that those that have lost the day or the Causâ— by some few voices are restless tumultuary and their natural Liberty that is iâ—herent in every individual so prevalenâ— that what they have lost by Law they endeavour to compass by force or fraud and from that has proceeded those Rioâ—ous forcible Decisions of some of our Elections those clan destine and fraudulent ones of others from that proceeded in our late Confusions even in Parliamentary Vide perfect Diurnal Affairs The Remonstrances of the Army Excluded Members the Impeachment and Imprisonment of the Eleven Members Prides Purge The Peoples Agreement Abolishing of Lords House and at last Olivers Dissolution Hist of Independency for the Independant Faction prevailing in force would by no means be concluded by Law the Presbyterian suffrages were all along the most numerous in the Senate and by all their Presidents in Parliament must have carried every Vote by the Majority This the Independant that fill'd not above the third part of the House found to their grievance saw themselves still out-voted â—â— Law and so betook themselves to their â—â—med Suffrages and their Legislative â—â—ords Now tho the plurality of Voices tho against their Natural Power of the People for they don't like it even in Parliaments now since things are not carried all to their liking may be allowed to determine the Debates in a great Senate conven'd by the Soveraign Power yet it cannot be imagined that the Majority here too shall carry it for an abolishing that very power that called them unless we can imagin the Supream Power had summoned them on purpose to be deposed and that this politick BODY was Assembled as once they were too sadly in the natural Sence to cut off its own HEAD the Writ that summons Deliberaâ—â—ri de arduis Regni â— Inst C. 1. Parl. them in our Parliament is in order to deliberate about the difficult Affairs of the Kingdom and it would be a difficult Bussness indeed should it be by a casting voice extended to a debate whither they had a King And from these Reasonings and Suggestions which I submit to Men of more Sense and Reason I dare to draw this Conclusion that even from their own Principles Their Contract with their King or as Sidney says The Condition upon which he receives the Crown he can not possibly be punish'd or depos'd because 't is almost impossible that every one of his Subjects should concur in such an Act and the Major part must by no means determine it by their own Maxims of Natural Liberty even in affairs of lesser Moment 2. Because 't is no Consequence that because they have confer'd the Supremacy upon some single Person that therefore they may reassume it too tho it were forfeitable even on Condition which I 've shown the Romans themselves never pretended to tho their own †De jure Magistrat Quest 6. Democraticks tell us their very Lex Regia was Conditional and ‖ Dig. 50. 12. 2. D. 50. 12. 1. their Laws which by all Nations are allowed the most equal resolve it that tho with them bare promises if made to private Persons were were not Obligatory yet when offer'd to the publick they oblige and that in a Monarchy is always the King and what then must it be when there 's Oath made Faith pawn'd and fealty sworn And those Laws resolve it too as reason must that when the Supream Power was confer'd on the Prince all Magistracy was Zouch El. p. 101. past over too and in that lies all Judicial Power and who then shall Judge of those Conditions that forfeit a Crown but him that wares it and then they 'll be but little the better for the Controversie when a King cannot be deposed unless like a Richard the Second by his own consent I have taken this Course as the best way for the Confutation of such Principles not that I can really grant them the Concessions I have made for I could assoon believe Mr. S. dy'd a Loyal Subject as be satisfy'd with the positions he has lain down but I therefore grant them their own Hypothesis that they may confute themselves that they may see their own Babel of Anarchy will not be built upon the very Basis and Foundation of those Foolish positions they maintain that the work never was or will be carried on far without terminating as that of their Fore-fathers in Confusion and by that they mean perhaps a Common-wealth and have I hope in some Measure manifested that even by their own wicked assertion of the Peoples Divine Natural and Original power they cannot really pretend to any Right of Judging Punishing or deposing their King what force can do we have both felt and fearfully to our Terror seen but in all Arguments of this Nature the Question is of the Reason and Right and not of any Fact that may be justify'd by wrong and the refuting them from their own Maxims must be more effectually convincing then the maintaining of ours for one opinion in Politicks is not absolutely
Northumberland and Durham and prey upon those Counties they had promised to protect while the Parliament at London will not give their King leave or the Citizens lend a penny for opposing those that came to pull him out of his Throne At the Treaty of Rippon they quarrel with their King for calling them Rebels that had invaded his Realm the Commissioners of the Scots conspire with the English who then fall upon Impeaching his Privy Counsellers and the unfortunate Strafford suffers first because so ready to Impeach some of them and they make that Treason in a Subject against the King which was heard known and commanded by the Soveraign Then follows Lawd a Loyal Learned Prelate and that only for defending his Church from Faction and Folly As they posted the Straffordians and repair'd in Tumults to their King for the Head of that Minister of State so Pennington with his pack of Aprentices petition'd against the Bishops and the Pillars of the Church Then Starchamber must down High Commission be abolisht Forest bounds limited yet all too little to please when the Irish Rebellion followed to which the Scots had led the Dance no Moneys to be levied in England for suppressing it till the King had disclaim'd his power of Pressing Soulders and so disarm'd himself that is he was not to fight for his defence till they had disabl'd him for Victory They quarrel with him because he would not divide among them the Lands of the Irish before they were quell'd and subdued at the same time they had quite incapacitated him to Conquer and Subdue them Then Acts must be past for Annual Triennial and at last perpetual Parliaments And whereas the Law says The King never Dies they made themselves all Dictators more Immortal They were summon'd in November and by the time that they had sate to May they had made of a Mighty Monarch a meer precarious Prince And in August following supposing he had sufficiently oblig'd the most Seditious Subjects which I think he might Imagine when he had made himself no King he sets out for Scotland to satisfie them as much there while the Senate of Sedition that he left to sit behind him resolv'd it self into a sort of Committee of Conspiracy and that of almost the whole House made a Cabal among themselves to to cast off the Monarchy which the Knaves foresaw could not be done but by the Sword and therefore cunningly agreed to second one another for the putting the Kingdom into a posture of Defence against those dangers abroad which they themseves should think fit to feign and fancy at home To carry on their Plot against the Bishops they put in all probability that lewd Leighton upon writing of his Plea which was Bring out those Enemies and slay them before him to smite those Hazaels under the fifth Rib For which in the Starchamber he was Fin'd and Imprison'd but for his Sufferings and the Dedication of his Book to the Commons they Vote him Ten thousand pound Upon the Kings return from his Northern Expedition which was to procure Peace only with a shew of War they having had a competent time for Combination and Plot were arriv'd to that exalted Impudence that notwithstanding he was received with Acclamations from all the common People of the Kingdom the People whom they were bound to represent the welcome from his Parliament was to present him with Remonstrances and Petitions which against his very express order they Printed and Publisht of such sort of Grievances that sufficiently declared they were griev'd at nothing more than his being their King They put upon his Account the thirty thousand pounds they had pay'd the Scots for Invading England that is they gave them the Moneys for Fighting of their King and then would have had the King paid his own Subjects for having against him so bravely Fought They should for once too have made him responsible and his Majesty their Debtor for the two hundred thousand pounds they paid the same Fellows at Newark to be gone whom with their thirty thousand pounds they had invited in before They should have made the King pay for his own purchase and answerable for the Price the Parliament had set upon his Head This seem'd such an unconscionable sort of Impudence that their hearts must needs have been Brass and seer'd as well as their Foreheads in offering it An Impudence that none but such an Assembly were capable of Impudence the Diana of these Beasts of Ephesus the Goddess of all such designing Democraticks * Aude aliquid brevibus Gyaris carcere dignum si vis esse aliquid Juvenal Satyr that to be somewhat in the true sense of the Satyrist must defie a Dungeon These their Petitions they seconded with Tumult and Insurection sent the Justices of Peace to the Tower only for endeavouring to suppress these Forerunners of a Civil War when they had taken the Liberty to Impeach some of the King 's best Subjects for Traytors yet deny'd their Soveraign to demand their Members that had committed High Treason About the twenty eighth of January 1641 they humbly desire the Soveraignty and their Petition that BEGUN Most Gracious Soveraign ENDED only in this Make us your Lords for they 1st demand the Tower of London 2ly All other Forts 3ly The Militia and they should have put in the Crown too The stupid Sots had not the sense to consider or else the resolv'd blindness that they would not see that those that have the power of the Army must be no longer Subjects but the Supream power The King you may be sure was not very willing to make himself none and might well deny the deposing of himself tho' he after consented even to this for a time but what he would not grant with an Act they seiz'd with an Ordinance and though they took the Militia which was none of theirs by Force and Arms yet Voted against their King's Commission of Array that was settled upon him by Law they force him to fly to the Field and then Vote it a Deserting the Parliament they necessitate him to set up his Standard at Nottingham and then call it a Levying War they Impeach nine Lords for following their King and yet had so much nonsense as to call them Delinquents which the * Vid. Com. Lit. 1 Inst p. 26. B. For adherency to the Kings Enemy without the Realm the Delinquent to be attainted of High Treason Law says none are but what adhere to his Enemies they send out their General fight their King and after various events of War force him to fly to the perjur'd Scot to whom they had paid an hundred thousand pounds to come in and were glad to give two to get out and for that they got the King into the bargain An Act of the Scot that was compounded of all the sublimated Vices that the Register of Sins or Catalogue of Villanies can afford feigned Religion forc'd Hypocrisie Falshood Folly
Covetousness Cowardize Perjury and Treason for upon his refusal to Sign their Proposals they tell him the defence of his Person in the Covenant must be understood only as it relates to the safety of the Kingdom and upon the English profering them the Moneys they wou'd prettily perswade him that the promise their Army made him for his preservation could not be kept because the Souldiers and the Army were different things and the Army might promise what the Souldiers might refuse and were unwilling to perform But this purchase of their double Perjury was punisht with as much perfidiousness their Army got into their hands for nothing the poor Prince the Parliament thought they paid for too dear And as that Seditious Senate fought their Soveraign in the Name of King and Parliament so now the Souldiers of Fairfax set themselves to fight the Senate for the sake forsooth of the Parliament and Army Good God! Just Heavens that could visit such Vipers such Villains in the same villany they committed and make such Seditious Hypocrites suffer by as much Treason and Hypocrisie Their Agitators menace the King with Death and Deposition they make him their Prisoner move in the House their non-addresses make it Treason to confer with their King set up an Ordinance for his Tryal and there Sentence that against which Treason could only be committed as a Traytor to the State And here then With what face can the Faction justify such a Barbarous Rebellion or accuse their King for the beginning of the War Yet such a sort of Seditious Democraticks does our Land afford * Vid. Tryal p. 26. Sidney says Such a general revolt of the Subjects cannot be call'd a Rebellion And †Plato Redivivus p. 167. Plato Our Parliament never did as they pretended make War upon the King Till such persuasions are rooted up out of their Rebellious hearts as well as they are in them no Prince under the Heavens can protect himself from such resolute Rebels as will destroy all Subjection in the World and make the blackest Treason our own Civil War but a prudential act of State and even of Loyalty it self the * Ibid. rescuing the King only out of those Mens hands that led him from his Parliament But do not they tell us even by his own concession in one of their Votes That it was the King that was seduc'd and must it not be the King too that they would reduce and by what means why therefore they say they take up Arms and did they design to command their Bullets and Ball not to meddle with the King that was only seduc'd but only to take off the evill Counsellors that were his Seducers I confess could they have promis'd his Majesty so much he might have took them for good Gunners but must still have believ'd them bad Subjects that would have put it to the venture But with this Gentleman it seems it was a sort of proclaimed War of the King 's to take that * Ibid. unfortunate resolution of seizing the five Members Most Factious Fool did the King rebell against his Subjects only when he came to seize actual Rebels whom himself desired only to be Try'd for Treason and that of the deepest dye for inviting in a Forreign Foe the Scots must not the Parliament without the King be the Supream power if the King can be said to Rebel against the Parliament but this Republican that expresly makes them * Ibid. 168. Co-ordinate may as well call them Supream for these Gentlemen paid off the King for his unfortunate resolution and declare that his coming to their House was High Treason And well might the King shift for himself when they had made his Majesty reside in the House of Commons Prethee for thy senses sake who levy'd War first those that seiz'd upon the King's Forts Magazines Towns Ships and Revenues levy'd Soldiers or the King that had nothing of Military left him but the power and not a single Company of Horse or Foot that he had rais'd It was the twentieth of October 1641. they brought the Trainbands into the Palace Yard to protect themselves thousand that is to terrify their King It was the eighth of January 1641. that forty thousand of the Inhabitants of London put themselves in Arms to fight fifteen hundred of the King's Horse that were to come and surprize the City the one were actually Arm'd the other never came or design'd to come They rigg out the Navy on March the 2d the King's Militia is seiz'd and new Lieutenants set by their Ordinance the fifth of March 1641. and on the twenty third of April they deny'd him entrance into his own Garrison at Hull the tenth of May the Citizens are Mustering twelve thousand Men in Finsbury Fields the King does not summon his Yorkshire Gentlemen till the twelfth of May did not grant out his Commission of Array till the twentieth of June when they had sent out their Orders and Proposals for Men and Horse Money and Arms the tenth did not set up his Standard at Nottingham till after the twelfth of August when their Parliament had rais'd their Army the seventh of July And this Vote of their King 's being seduc'd by wicked Counsel from which this Sediious Daemagogue would infer the King clared to them War before was made on the twentieth of May which was after they had seiz'd his Forts and Militia his Shipping and Navy and Muster'd their Citizens in the Field And a Month before the King sent out his Commissions of Array and above two Months before his Standard was set up That this is exactly truth Consult even the Exact Collection And whether this Seditious assertion be not a Devilish lye but your own Breast And as they begun this War of Weapons in their House so they did that of Words too and invading the Prerogative before the least breach of Priviledge One * Vid. Baker p. 435. A. D. 1625. Turner a Physician under a pretence of reflecting on Buckingham abuses the best of Kings Cook amongst other Invectives says openly It was better to dye by a Forreign Foe than be destroyed at home These were but preludes to the Liberty the licentious Villains took afterward when Martin declared to the House * So Plâ—t Râ—â— p. â—17 That the King's Office was forfitable when †Vid. The Royal and the Royalist's Pâ—â—a printed A. D. 1617. Sir Hâ—nry Ludlow said to the same effect That his Majesty was not worthy to be King of England And Prideaux was at last come to make his Speech there for Abandoning Monarchy it was so early too that they were so forward to Usurp upon the Crown that even in this Year 1625. they offer'd to search the King's Signet Office and examin'd the Letters of his Secretary of State all this was offer'd at in the very first Parliament that he summon'd all of which the King complain'd to them of by * Vid. Lord Keeper's Speech to
all into Blood And both together as false as Hell and can be the Doctrine of none but what 's the Author of all Sedition the Devil These were the Plots which they practis'd upon that poor Prince whose Sincerity was always such that he could not suspect in Nature such a sort of designing Villains nor humane Wit well imagine such ingrateful Monsters that for their King 's continual Concessions to better the Conditions of his Subjects should still Plot upon him to render his own the worse Here we saw what all these Positions Principles Practises all their Preaching Praying Printing did tend to and terminate in the People enslav'd the Monarch murder'd the Government undermin'd But as these Maxims of our Democratick's were destructive to our Monarchy and produc'd as you have seen those Plots and Conspiracies that subverted it so shall we see by subsequent Events and be inform'd from as much Matter of Fact what I have heretofore insinuated only from the force of Reason that the same Principles after they had set up their Commonwealth made them Plot too upon one another When the Parliament had imprison'd their King whom they bought for a Slave confin'd him with a merciless Cruelty at Holdenby-house then a Castle and Garrison and by that Act made him no more a Monarch but a Prisoner of War themselves no more his Subjects but his Masters and Sovereigns the Parliament having had so far the End of their Plot upon the King now the Army take their Turn to Plot upon the Parliament who when they had made their Monarch accountable to their Memberships might as well sure expect by their Servants to be call'd to account The Parliament when they had wrested the Sword out of the King's Hand knew themselves the Supream Power and were as certain they could as soon send him packing with his Supream Right The Soldiers now are sensible that the Members of the Army have that Sword in their Hand which the Parliament took out of the King 's and see no reason why they may not make themselves the Supream Parliament for this their Original Right of the People over the Magistrate will always I warrant you be appropriated to that part of it that has an Actual Power and that they found for Cromwel conspires with his Adjutators who like provok'd Beasts begin to be warm'd into a perception of their own Strength which even when a Horse comes to know to be sure he 'll throw his Rider For this he fools his Fellow-Senators with a Suggestion of his readiness to suppress any Soldiers Insurrection at the same time that he set them on to rise The Parliament had plotted by Subscription and Petitioning to advance their Power upon the King their humble Servants the Soldiers now subscribe petition that the Parliament would be pleas'd to submit to their Power send to the Good Houses at Westminster the * Histor Independ p. 27. Representation of their Army that they forsooth were the Delinquents now and that they be speedily purg'd of such Members as for Delinquency were not to sit there They make eleven of them Traytors †Ibid. impeach them of High-Treason to the Army when both Impeachers and Impeach'd had forfeited their Heads to the King They had Counterplotted this with an * Ibid. Ordinance of the House for the Disbanding the Army but the Army found they had a more fearful Ordnance for them in the Field they had under their Command the Militia of the Camp and so resolve to command that too of the City The Contrivance for this is first Fairfax his Remonstrance to which the Commons †Ibid. p. 40. submit but for that the Apprentices that had served them before against their King come now in as * Ibid. tumultuous a manner and frightn'd them into a Flight to the Army that so their City might retain its Militia The Westminster-men that stay'd plot against the Men at Windsor that were fled call in the Members that their Army had impeach'd for this the †Ibid. p. 44 45 46 47 48. Soldiers sign an Engagement send a Remonstrance and themselves as soon conspire to follow march toward the City draw up at Hownslow-heath send their General with a Party to make a new Parliament or patch up the old To prevent the Personal Treaty with the King they drew up their Agreement of the PEOPLE resolv'd on their Votes of Non-addressing which recall'd they again re-extorted rejected the Lords for refusing to Judge their King whom having dispatcht there remain'd the Rump that is the remnant of the Commons the Creatures or rather Created Council of an Army and all the late flourishing Democracy of the long Parliament and the two Houses turn'd into a perfect Oligarchy of Officers And all what those Devils had possest themselves of by Treason before torn from their hands by a Legion of worse with as much Treachery and Plot. And one would think that all Plotting that all conspiring should have been over now but you shall see that the same principles that prevail'd upon the Rebels to ruin the Monarchy and run it into a Republick that promoted the Army to destroy the then Democracy and so set up their own Oligarchy did also incite a single Usurper among those few to set up for himself and turn it into true Tyranny Their own positions first plac'd the Supremacy in the Parliament because the two States were greater than the King that made but one The Army places the supremacy in their Sword because it was greater in the Field than the two States in the House and then comes Cromwel and setl'd the supremacy on himself because the sole Commander of all the Army his success at Dunbar and the routing of the Scot did so much his business that there could remain but little opposition of a Rump and a Man that is made by a weaker power but once a General can soon make himself by his own strength the Generalissimo he had formerly been so prevalent as to procure Petitions Addresses Remonstrances for the establishment of that patch'd piece of Parliament and all our Metaphysicks will allow that what can create can as soon annihilate he found his Omnipotency in this point he knew he had set them up against all Right and therefore had the more to run them down without Wrong and that as he did design so he effected too It was indeed a Parliament of Soldiers and he serv'd them like a General only by signifying to them to Disband and they not daring to deny determin their sitting to be on the fifth of November following But he not willing to tarry so long a Servant to those he could command to obey those that would not so soon Disband he comes and Cashiers by April 1653. and with his Lambert and Harrison sends packing that everlasting Parliament And now here is the result of their principles in a second Plot upon themselves and a new model of Government for
Pardon'd and the rest Executed In December was detected another Plot and Conspiracy carrying on One William Hill one of the Accomplices or a pretender to be so discovers it A Plot they had of confounding the Rogues as they call'd it at Whitehall imparted to him by one Baker one of Oliver's Yeomen of the Guard upon presumption that he would side with them who brings him acquainted with the rest of the Conspirators their Design was with four or five hundred Men to surprize the Castle of Windsor Riggs one of the Conspirators told him of the Arms lodg'd in Crutchet Friers that five hundred had been dispers'd that they design'd a desperate assault on Whitehall Vid. Wil. Hill Narrative prefixt to their Tryal to deliver them from the Tyranny of that Outlandish Dog for so they call'd the King That Ludlow was to be their General that all other Officers were agreed on that the Tower was to be betrayed to them Letters dispersed to amuse the People with a Massacre from the Papists one of which on the Tryal of the Conspirators was produced in the Court they told him they determin'd to rid themselves of King Queen Dukes Bishops all should go one way as they call'd it and the Insurrection was to be on the Lord Mayor's Night Upon this Discovery one Tongue and five more were Arraigned of which one Phillips and Hind confest the Fact on their knees at the Bar were pardoned the other four Convicted Condemned and Executed In March 1663. a Plot was Discovered in the North of England the principal Contrivers of it being imparted to the King were secured from proceeding further And in 1666. when the King returned from Windsor to Oxford the Pestilence being abated tho' the Plague product of their Pestilential principles remained as raging Another Conspiracy of discontented Officers is detected for Conspiring the Death of the King Plotting the surprisal of the Tower Firing the City They had two Councils sitting one in London to issue out all Orders upon the place and another in Holland that assisted them with Instructions the third of September was sworn to be the day of Design for which eight several Persons were Sentenc'd and suffer'd Death In the same Year the Rebellion broke out in Scotland at Pentland Hills where the Covenanters fought the King's Forces and were defeated In 1675. the late Lord Shaftsbury a Person eminent even in the late Combustions and the Civil War a person that was but just before preferr'd by his Prince notwithstanding the many Services he did to the Rebels and an actual being in Arms for the Parliament But he thinking himself too little obliged by the Crown that had never deserv'd the least obligation Plots for the Dissolution of that Parliament that as it had settl'd so preserv'd the very frame of the Government from being dissolv'd and because he could not compass it from the King contrives that it should pass currant that it was Dissolv'd of course because Prorogu'd for fifteen Monhs contrary to the Acts of King Ed. the Third that required one to assemble once at least in twelve The Duke of Bucks is made to move it in the House seconded by Shaftsbury Salesbury and Wharton and for that all four sent to the Tower but however had dispers'd the Design so far that the Stalls were all cover'd with Papers and Pamphlets to prove them Dissolv'd which had it been then effected had only reduc'd us to those Confusions that the unhappy Dissolution in four years after did unfortunately bring about In March 1679. the same Incendiary the Beautefeu of both Kingdoms contrives a most silly canting ridiculous Speech and said to be spoken by Shaftsbury in the House of Lords the * Vid. The whole in an Impartial Account of the Proceedings in the Parliament at London 1679. substance of it being a declaiming against the Sufferings of Scotland many Copies of which were as Seditiously sent thither so animated and incensed the zealous Scots that they soon after set upon the Bishop of St. Andrews batbarously Murder'd him and our Seditious Senate the Lower House seconding that Lord's Speech with a Remonstrance against Lauderdale they soon resolv'd for open Rebellion and that they begin at Ragland in Scotland where they come and Proclaim the Covenant burn Acts of Parliament attack'd Glascow but the result of that was that by Bothwel Bridg the Rebels were deseated all running away upon the playing of the King's Cannon in a perfect Rout and Confusion At the Sitting of the late Parliament March 1681. at Oxford there was some intimation given the King of a Plot and Design to have seiz'd his late Majesty and kept him confin'd till by that he had been made complyant to pass the Bill of Exclusion his Majesty was so far satisfied of it that he Dissolv'd them as suddenly and so frustrated the Design This was proved afterward upon Oath at a special Commission of Oyer and Terminer at the Tryal of * Vid. Coll. Tryal p 1. 9. Stephen Colledg the Joyner at Oxford who was sworn to have imparted it to the Evidence and that he rid down for that purpose thither Arm'd for which and several other Treasonable contrivances he was Arraign'd upon full Evidence Convicted Condemned and accordingly there suffer'd That Plot being prevented at Oxford by the Providence of God and the Kings the Faction still pursu'd the Conspiracy for which many Consults were held at the late Lord Shaftsbury's House which upon suspicion was searcht and himself upon Information and Evidence to the King and Council was seiz'd the result of which was they found a Paper in his own Closet Intituled An †Vid. Proceedings at the Old-Baily 24. Novem 1681. Association the Plot and Design of which was that since they could not Exclude the next Heir of the Crown by Bill and an Act of Parliament they would get Subscriptions to do it among themselves that is set their Hands and Seals to a Rebellion for the concluding Clause was absolute Treason and oblig'd them to Swear Obedience to their Fellow-Subjects and that they would Obey the Major part of Members after the dissolution of the Parliament for this he was Indicted as also for designing to compel the King to pass the Bill at Oxford for conferring with Booth Hains Smith and other of the Evidences in Treasonable Consults for saying The King ought to be Deposed and that he would never desist till he had brought England to a Common-wealth All agreeable to the very Principles he profest to the Practises and Designs he had before Engag'd in and the Discoveries of his Treasons that have follow'd since but the Grand Inquest being pact by Papilion a Partial Sheriff and compos'd of Jurors as much prejudic'd the Bill of Indictment was brought in Ignoramus an apparent Rebel acquitted and carried off in Triumph with the Shouts and Shoulders of the Rabble In July 1683. was Discover'd the bottom of all these Preliminary Plots and Conspiracies in
even from their own Cook himself and 1. Inst §. 164. p. 110. Magn. Chart. Chart. Forrest Stat. of Ireland made H. 3. the 1. Laws we had from their very words seem all made by the sole power of the King No Commons mentioned in Stat. Merton 20. H. 3. only discreet men mention'd in Stat. of Marlbrigd 52. H. 3. But all the Commonalty is said summon'd in the praeamb to Stat. West 1. 3. E. 1. In Stat. Bigamy 4. Ed. 1. Stat. Mortemain 7. E. 1. Art sup Chart. 28. E. 1. Stat Escheat 29. E. 3. not summon'd 34. E. no Law to be made without Kt. and Burg. their Commons whom this Author would have now so great as to Govern his King far from having the least concern in publick Administrations there being in all Historical Accounts of those Antient times no mention of them in those very Conventions whereas Nobles Bishops and Abbots are expresly nam'd The greatest Colour they have for ' its Conjecture is only from the word Wites or wise-men which Constituted their Witena and the Prefaces or preambles to all their Laws imply that they were with the assistance of the Wise-men made by their King but can any person of sence and Impartial conceive this Term the more applicable to the Common sort of People and meer Laymen than to the Nobles the Bishops the Lords and then as we may well believe the most Learned of the Land their Literature sure was then but little and then I am sure that of the meaner Layity must be less certainly the word Wites will import no more than an Expressive Character of those Qualifications such Nobles were suppos'd to have that are still expressly said to be summon'd and to say that by Wise-men were Vid. also Dr. B. Answer to P. pag. 10. But still left to the King how many of those he wou'd call And per Stat. 7. H. 4. the writ was first fram'd directing a to be chosen for each County Burrough still understood the Commons such an Emphatical denomination could not be so well resented by their Lordships since it would seem in some sence to Exclude them from being so but as a Learned and Labourious Answer of this popular point has observ'd and what will nearly make it Vnanswerable that in thir Laws when the Senate was generally signified and the whole Constitution 〈◊〉 self then Wise-men or Wites expressed â—â— but where any sort of the Constituent Members are Particulariz'd there you 'll find nothing but Nobles nam'd so that such an Assembly and that all of the Nobility depending upon the choice and Election of the Prince was not much more than our present Privy Council But then they were able to make Laws and these now but Orders and Proclamations and Parliaments then were so far from Usurping upon their King that they were in a Literal sence but his own Counsellors But were it granted what the Faction so furiously contend for that Commoners Of Antient time both Houses sate together first sever'd 2. H. 4. 4. Inst p. 2. were understood by the word Wisemen they were still far from Constituting such a Senate as that wherein they now sit only some few sitting joyntly with the Nobility call'd there by their Soveraigns sole Summons and Choice and this is granted by one of their most Virulent Advocates when he tells us Hunts postscr p. 95. the Dr. has only found out what no Historian is unacquainted with that our Parliaments were not always such as now Constituted if so why then all this Labor for the proving them such why so much of the Comâ—â—ns Antiquity Asserted why must theâ—â—ess be pester'd with three or four Volums for the purpose Laborious Drudges of Sedition 't is not Jani Anglorum c. Argument Anti Norman there Antiquity you so much contend for and so little able to defend the pains to prove them Antient is only in order to make them more Exorbitant M. P. must Print their Rights and that at a time when they were even ready to Rebel and with a superfluous piece of Sedition tell them of their Power when all good People thought they Miscel Parl. Usurpt too much Hunt must Harangue upon their Integrity to their Prince and State when some have since suffered been proved Principal Actors for the Destruction of both These like the Roman Velites were fain to Skirmish in the Front and entertain the good Government their Foe with a little light Charge of the Commons power and priviledge faithfulness and sincerity 't is a Plato they permit to bring up the Body to the Battle and assail it with the Subjects supremacy and making the Commons a standing Council for the management of Affairs of State and the better Government of their King poor prejudic'd Souls that to please a party contradict themselves give all History the Lye and then constrain themselves to believe they tell a Truth you say Postscript ut sup Parliaments were not always so powerful as now and won't you be satisfyed then they had once less power All our Chronicles tell us our Kings of old never allowed such Priviledges to the People and cannot this People be contented even with an Usurpation upon their Kings And as it will from those Authors cited before plainly appear that the old Britains the Saxons and Danish Princes were far more absolute than of late our succeeding Sovereigns so was the Conqueror the Norman too for several Successions Consult Alfredus that lived A Priest of Beverley in his time and writ down to it or Gulielm Pictaviens that writ a Treatise of his Life who tho an absolute Prince by Conquest and Arms yet themselves will allow that he governed by Laws and that our English ones too yet those very Laws were then of such a Latitude that they allowed him what his Parliament of Lords would never have allowed had he been obliged to consult them he singly ordeined what of late has been so loudly clamoured for that Vid. Baker no Prelates should have any Jurisdiction in Temporals and disarmed all the common People in general throughout the whole Kingdom the first themselves tho such Sollicitors and Petitioners for the compassing it would not now allow his Majesty alone to exclude from their Votes tho for their own Satisfaction without an Act of Parliament and for the latter they 'll hardly allow tho granted by the Law and tho it be only disarming and securing some Seditious Souls that disturb the Peace William the Second layd his own Taxes on the People a sufferance no Subject Vid. Eadmerus a Monk who writ the Life of William 2d lived in his Time can sustein now but with his own consent and Permission he could forbid his People by Proclamation not to go out of the Kingdom not to be done now but with a ne Exeat a Writ and Process at Law confirmed as all others are by Act of Parliament Henry the First had as
great a power and prerogative and exercised it too punishments Vid. Baker p. 34. vir William 2d before his time which were Mutilation of Members he made pecuniary provisions for his House which were paid in kind he made to be turned into Money an Alteration of Custom and Law not now to be compast but by particular Act Baker makes him first to have So also Florence of Worst instituted the form of an High Court of Parliament and tells us that before only the Nobles and Prelates were called to consult about Affairs of State But he called the Commons too as Burgesses elected by themselves but this can't be gathered from Eadmerus the much better Autority who in the Titles and the Stile of near Nine or Ten Councils of his time not so much as mentions them King Stephen what he wanted and was forc't to spare in Taxations which were not then granted by the suffrages of the Common People tho they commonly bear the greatest burden of it tho he did not according to the Power he was then invested with raise great Sums upon his Subjects and the greatest Reason because he could not the Continual Wars having impoverisht them as well as their Prince and it has the proverbial Authority of necessitated Truth That even where it is not to be got the King himself must foregoe his Right yet this mighty Monarch's power was such that Confiscations supplyed what he could not Tax and as our Historian tells us Baker p. 49. upon light Suggestions not so much as just Suspicions he would seize upon their Goods and as I remember the Bishop of Salisbury's Case in his time confirms But tho the Menace of the threatning King the Text be turned now into the clear Reverse and our Kings Loyns no heavier then the very Finger of some of his Predecessors still we can The wordâ— of a Priâ—â—t lately tryed and convicted of High Treason find those that can preach him down for a Rehoboam or some Son of Nebat that makes Israel to Sin Henry the Second resum'd by his own Act all the Crown Lands that had been sold or given from it by his Predecessors and this without being questioned for it much less deposed or murdered whereas when our Charles the First attempted only to resume the Lands of Religious Houses that by special act of the Parliament in Scotland had been settled on the Crown but by Usurpation were shared among the Lords when 't was only to prevent their Scandalous defrauding of the poor Priest and the very box of the poor to keep them from an Imperious and even a cruel Lording it over the poor Peasant in a miserable Vassallage beyond that of our antiquated Villains and when he endeavoured all this only by the very Law of all the Land by an Act of Renovation Legal Process and a Commission for the just surrendring Superiorities and Tyths so unjustly detain'd from the Crown but our modern Occupants of the Kirks Revenue had far less Reverence for the State chose much rather to Rebel against their Prince for being as they would Phrase it Arbitrary than part with the least power over their poor Peasants which themselves exercised even with Tyranny This was the very beginning of the first Tumults in that Factious Kingdom and 't is too much to tell you in what they ended Richard the First had a trick I am sure would not be born with now he pretends very cunningly to have lost his Signet and puts out a Proclamation that whoever would enjoy what he had under the former must come and have it confirmed by the new and so furnisht himself with a fine fund he could fairly sell and pawn his Lands for the Jerusalem Journey and as fouly upon his return resume them without pay And all this the good peaceable Subject could then brook without breaking into Rebellion and a bloody War and as they had just then none of their Great Charter that made afterward their Kings the less so neither had they such Rebellious Barons that could not be contented even with being too Great as they were then far from having granted so gracious a Petition as that of Right so neither 3 Car. 1. you see so ready to Rebel and that only because they could not put upon their Prince the deepest Indignities the greatest wrong And these warrantable proceedings of our Princes whose power in all probability was unconfin'd before the Subjects Charter of Priviledges was confirm'd must needs be boundless when there were yet no Laws to Limit them yet these two Presidents were as impertinently applyed by the Common Hackney Goose quils whose Pens were put upon by the Parliament to scribble Panegyricks upon a Common-wealth to prove 1648. 49. 51. Mercur Polit. n. 64. 65. all our Kings a Catalogue of Tyrants tho the Presidents they brought from those times were clear Nonsense in the Application and no News to tell us or reproach to them that those Princes were Arbitrary when they had yet given no grant to restrain their Will Here I hope is sufficient Testimony and that too much to Demonstrate that our Kings of old by long Prescription were so far from being guided and governed by a Parliament as our Factious Innovator would have them now that in truth they never had any such Constitution and the People then insisted so little on their own Priviledges that they could not tell what they were and the Princes Prerogative so great that even their property could hardly be called their own But these being but Presidents before their Charters were granted or the Commons came in play tho these preceding Kings might deviate from the common Custom of the Realm in many that some may call irregular Administrations yet the Customs of the Vid. Lex Terrae Kingdom relating to the Royal Government in all those Reigns were never questioned much less altered they never told their Kinge then as this piece of Sedition does now that their Nobles were to manage their Affairs of State as well as he would have even a Council of Commons We come to consider now whether An. Reg. 17 John from the granting them Charters which was done in the next Reign that of King John when the long tugged for Liberties were first allowed or from the Constitution of admitting the Commons to consult which by the greatest Advocates can't be made out handsomely before this Kings time or his Son and Successors who might well be necessitated to Consult the meaner sorts when all the great were in Arms and wisely flatter their Commons into peace when the Lords had rebelled in an open War tho' still good Authorities will Vid Dr. B. Introduct p. 72. 105. c. not allow them to be called in either of their Reigns not so much as to be mentioned in any of their Councils and p. 149. The King calls Parl. per advisam entum Concilii Vid. Bract. Parl. 4. Inst p. 4. and
against whose more dangerous Sedition there was lately made special Provision by a particular ‖ Act for Regulating Corporations where they particularly swear they abhor the Trayterous Proposition of raising Arms by His Majesties Authority against His Person Oath Lastly to conclude the Confutation of this sad silly sort of Sophistry this Seditious Nonsense 't is shrowdly to be suspected that from the same sort of Sophisters fallacious Inferences was first insinuated that prejudicial Opinion I call it so because it looks like a Doctrine of some concerned party That Societies were not punishable in the next World for the Villanies they had committed in this That is the Members were not to suffer there for what they had acted in Relation to such a BODY here this Religious Absurdity has been Publisht by some Seditious Pens from the Press I wish I could say not imposed upon Loyal ones too both from that and the Pulpit for Errors especially when coloured with the bait of Interest tho first hatcht by the Brooders of all bad Principles till well examined may delude the very best I know it may be returned with some seeming Reason that Crimes committed here as a Member of a body politick can't well in Justice be laid to the Charge of any particular Person hereafter for upon the dissolution of the natural one the Relation to such a Community ceasing the Guilt and Crime contracted should dye too But the Judge of Heaven has declared he won't be mockt tho they thought those of the Land might How contentedly would some of the Regicides have given up the Ghost could they have pleaded to the Almighty their Innocence of the Royal Blood from the shedding it in Parliament But tho National Sins may require reasonably the sufferings of a Nation and no more than what for this very Sin our own has since suffered therefore to suggest the single Individual the singular Sinner shall escape with Impunity hereafter because not punisht here or that because several of them suffered here for that Martyrs Blood and the Treasons of an Vniversal Body seem'd to be punisht in as general Conflagration that therefore the Criminals have superseded their sufferings in Hell and may now dare Heaven for my part seems an Opinion as ridiculous as the Popish Purgatory and their being saved by a fantastick Fire 'T is almost an Irreligious excuse for all manner of Crimes and Immoralities the Constitutions Circumstances of Men being so various that I dare avow scarce any Villany but may be committed by Communities or the Politick Relation of the private Person to some publick Society In short such Law and such Divinity would make the worst of Rebels that is incorporated ones fear Hell no more than they would the Hangman and baffle the Devil as well as the Gibbet And I may well here so warmly condemn these sort of damnable Doctrines when they were so hotly maintained by the rankest of our Rebels and Republicans and this very Daemon this Devil of Sedition can only countenance his Rebellious Positions with the making use of His Majesties Authority for the Ratification of his Proposals that is the Destruction of his own Person For 't is a great Truth I wish I could not say an experimented one that the granting them these Regalia would not only be an Act to bereave him of his Crown and Dignity but would pass his very Person into the Donative a yielding up of his last Breath the making himself his own Executioner as well as a Betrayer of his Trust This Project is only the pernicious Principle improved the late Rebels falsely assumed His Authority for the Fighting against His Person but the prevailing upon him for these Destructive Grants would make Him truly Fight against Himself In all the Reigns of the three following Henries their Soveraign's Supremacy was still asserted and that over Parliaments too tho one of them was but an Usurper on the Crown and then I am sure as great an one upon their Privileges and tho themselves had placed the First in the Throne themselves also acknowledged * 1 H. 4. the Regality of the Crown of England to be Subject to none but God To the ‖ 2 H. 5. Cap. 6. Second they acknowledged that to Him only belonged the Management of Foreign Affairs with Foreign Princes To the †32. H. 6. 13. Plowden 334. Third that he could constitute County Palatines and grant any Regal Rights per Letters Patents And these were Matters and Affairs themselves then declared they could not pretend to tho this Gentleman would now have them or their Counsel manage all In Edward the Fourth and the Fifth's time 't was always received Law then made and should I hope hold still that State Affairs were to be manag'd by the Prince for it was then allowed for * 22. Ed. 4. Law That if all the Common People of England should break a League by agreement with any Foreign Nation it shall still be reputed firm and unviolated if without his consent And in his very ‖ 1 Edw. 5. fol. 2. Sons that Succeeded resolved by all the Judges and Serjeants that he was the only Person in the Kingdom that could do no wrong which sufficiently declares him above all them that could and then who so fit for all absolute Power in all publick Administrations than whom the very Law presumes always to do Right and whom Reason tells us must be most impartially concerned for the publick good having no dependance upon any Superiors from whom an Apprehension of Fear or hopes of Favour might prevail upon to degenerate into that servile and sordid Complyance to prefer his own private Interest before the publick good Whatever Presumption the Law had of it then I am sure they have a Prince that justifies the Supposition now and then the most ungrateful Paradox and against Sense it self for our Seditious Souls to suggest and insinuate his Real Intentions for their Good to be nothing but Design and Plot upon them for Ill. An ORDER of Council with such Sycophants is turned into a trick of Court And their Kings Proclamations are obeyed only because they cannot conveniently resist as if the whole Board was packt only to please a designing Prince But base Villains your selves know that his aims have ever been for the publick Peace and Prosperity even at the same time your dangerous disorders have made it almost inconsistant with his own safety and security You see your Soveraign Sit and Act in a Sphere and that only He where Favour cannot charm or Fear frown into Compliance And who can be supposed then besides him less prejudic'd or more concerned for your good Would you have your Gentlemen of the Shop and Yard take their Measures of the State too We have experimented already that those made the very Government a Trade also and by those your very Properties and Lives too would be bought and sold we too lately saw some Symptoms of that state
Parliament shall Exclude It would prove but a senseless Solaecism in Common Speech and must sure be of more dangerous consequence in a Sacred Oath But I remember these same sort of Disputants in another * Vid. Association Case managed the Reverse of the Rule after the same manner They tell us Popery cannot be kept out under a Successor Popish because not long since Queen Mary prov'd it so Their first Irrational Argumentation from a proposition and that even in a Solemn Vow clearly Vniversal would except our Obligation to some Particulars and the latter absur'd Inference from a Particular Instance draws a conclusion Vniversal sure men of unprejudiced Reason would not infer against all the Rules of it it must be nothing but Passion and prejudice that can prevail upon their Sense and Soul when they dispute against the very dictates of both And as Irrational are his Inferences upon our Old Oath of Allegiance when by the Statute we have had since establisht a new he cites us for a refutation of Passive Obedience but a part of the poor ‖ Julian p. 11. younglings Oath to be taken in a Court Leet and because 't is there said by the Minor and Sworn only I 'll be Obedient to the King's Laws Precepts and proceedings from the same And what then Therefore that Doctrine alters our faith of Allegiance and gives it new Measures of Obedience So that the Consequence must be this That if we do but perform that Obedience to the Kings precepts and to processes out of a Court Leet we are all very good Subjects and that 's sufficient and truly a Little of Loyalty and less Sense with such Gentlemen may suffice for certainly for any Consequence that can be drawn from this clause of the Minors Oath against his Doctrine of the Bowstring and the Doctors Obedience he might as well have told us too that the * Wilkinson of Court Leâ—t 4th Ediâ— p. 298. Tithing-man is there sworn to be Attendant on the Constable and the Ale-Taster make Oath He will sarve the King's Majesty and the Lord of the Leet in the Tasting of Good Ale and Beer But he might have been so fair here too as to have let us known what follows even in this Oath too of the Youngling and I Swear that I 'll be a true Liegeman and true Faith and Truth bear to Our Soveraign that now is and his Highness Heirs and Lawful Successors Kings or Queens of this Realm c. Assoon as any Treason shall come to my knowledge I shall make the same to be known to the King's Highness his Heirs and Successors And even the first part of this very Clause he is pleased at last to recite in another * Jul. p. 20 21. page where he thinks it makes for his Sophisticated Sense because as I suppose after the Word Successors follows Kings and Queens of this Realm But because God only knows as he says who shall come to be so is it therefore no breach of our Oath to his Majesties Heirs to barr any one for ever from being King God knows too who will live to Succeed him and may we therefore without Perjury Associate to secure his Destruction Swear to expel and destroy him because he is but a possible Successor All these things may be done and justified but so has too the Deepest Treason and a Damn'd Rebellion let but any Impartial Soul consider the Sense of that Supremacy that Allegiance he Swears to his present Soveraign and he 'll find all along he makes at the same time an Actual Promise an Imply'd Faith to those too that are Possible Heirs and even PROBABLE ones according to the Ordinary descent of the Crown by Birth and Blood without any of the least Relation or Reference to any Extraordinary Settlement of Parliament Interruption or Exclusion and tho in strict propriety of Speech a man cannot be said to be an Heir to him that is Living and in possession of that to which he is to be an Heir after his Death yet I humbly conceive a man may be an Actual Heir to a Right tho he be but a possible one to the Possession and 't is that unalterable Right to the Crown we Swear to defend Inherent in the Blood of those that as yet have but a Possibility to the wearing it The Common Recoveries now too Commonly suffer'd to be really just sure supposes some Actual Heir and one to have some Right tho he is living to whom he is to make himself so for if there be no such Heir then also this feigned Recovery must be just against no Body if they will allow such an Heir to be then there must be also of one that 's living And I look upon the Crowns Customary descent stronger than any Tail His case of Excise is just such another Jul. p. 20. Tale of a Tub and only tells us that tho 't is granted to the King and his Heirs the possible Successor can't put in at present for a Penny a pretty piece of Impertinence and well apply'd and were this all they would have Excluded his Highness from I believe they might have got his Vote to the Bill and so we say too that he could not have put in then for the Crown but if he would have consulted the Sense and meaning of those Legislators that past that very Act it would soon appear to him that what they designed for the Revenue of the Royal Heirs in General must as well be design'd for 's R. H. in Particular if ever he came to be an Actual Heir and so he might as well have told us that had his Parliament excluded the D. from being Heir to the Crown they had shut him out too from the Hopes of the Revenues that belong'd to it and in my Conscience those that had pay'd him off with such a Bill would never have pay'd him a Penny Excise The last Remark I shall make upon this their * Non est Haeres Viventis Maxim in the Law and this that our Florishing Divine celebrates so much for making those Heirs mentioned in our Oath to be meant only of such as Actually succeed at our Soveraigns death because they will have it according to their Exposition that he can have none while he Lives is only by way of Civil interrogatory what they think is meant by the word Heir in that * 25. Ed. 3. cap. 2. Act that Declares it High-Treason to compass the Death of the Kings Eldest Son and HEIR for if their formidable thundering Aphorism must be play'd so furiously upon us we 'l for once force their own Engine upon our Foes If the King has no Heir while he is Living why is it made here Treason to destroy him if Heir must be here meant of him only that will be so Hereafter then that whole word Heir is impertinent for it would be Treason without it for he would be then de Facto King if Heir
Relates to Eldest Son then even the Statute too understands it so as an Heir Possible for an Eldest Son is no more at the most and then we see that even in an Act of Parliament the word Heir shall refer to one that only may probably or Possibly be so in Futuro as well as to those that are de Facto such and so agrees with the very common acceptation Afortiori then we may even with the Consent of our Reverend Reader the Divine Lawyer Jul. pag. 20. admit of the Vulgar acceptation of the word when administred to us in an Oath so Solemn and Sacred if it does not relate to the Eldest but only to an Heir in general that may Actually Succeed then they must bring which to be sure they won't allow a Collateral as well as a Lineal Heir within the very Letter of the Law And whether they will allow him so or no for any thing they can say to the contrary a Collateral Heir may be within the Statute tho not exprest in the very Letter of the Law I don't doubt but that the same Intention they had of preserving the King's Eldest Son and Heir the same had those Legislators for the preservation of the next Heir of the Crown whether Lineal or Collateral and where their Intention may be presumed the same there the Remedy without doubt was design'd the same too and that Intention of all Law-makers must be only gathered from the parity of Reason for the making such a Law Now if there be the same Reason for the securing the Person of any Collateral Heir as well as the Kings Eldest Son and Heir as doubtless there is for the perpetuating the Succession of the Monarchy then we have Reason to believe too that such an Heir was also intended especially if we consider that but just before this Statute of the 25th * Vid. Britton Coke cap. Treason it was held That Killing any of the Kings Children was Treason all of them having a possibility of being Heirs Apparent and supplying the Crown with a Succession 'T is true ther 's nothing expressive of a Collateral Heir in the Letter of the Law so neither is there anything exprest of a Second Son or a Third when they should be come Eldest yet all these are allowed to be intended too and if Eldest shall extend to any that shall afterward become so I don't see why the word Heir which I am sure is there more extensive might not without much stretching refer to any that may become the first Heir Admitting it otherways they must admit that this Law in this point is mighty Superfluous the very thing which it always endeavours to avoi'd for if the Prince must be only understood why then that word would have exprest it better or else Eldest Son alone as well and since Heir is superadded and a Rule in Law that each Letter of it must have it's full Emphasis in Explication I cannot apprehend but the word Heir there must signifie somewhat more than Eldest Son There is no Provision made for the Queen Regent in that Statute Consort being only named yet the resolution has been That she is within that Statute as well as the King and that for the Parity of Reason And for my Life I could never apprehend the little Lords Sophistry of a Brother or Collateral Heir being but a Presumptive Shaftsbury one it look't like a piece of State Metaphysicks to distinguish his Highness out of his Title with a Diminution and that in order for Excluding him from the Crown Time always best resolves the Sense of such States-men whose Politicks are best understood from the Measures they take and who seem many times Fools in the dark till they disclose themselves to be the greatest Villains When I saw him settled for Excluding the Crown 's Heir we soon saw the meaning of Presumptive which before seem'd in so great a Man a little nonsense But I can tell them of one-sense more it might have had That is the Duke was but his Presumptive Heir because he presumed he should Destroy him Some men of the Law would laugh at such Sophisters of the Faction And truly they even at themselves should they maintain the Youngest Son in Burrough English was no Heir Apparent who can be dispossest by latter Birth as well as a Brother or Collateral but it was the want of his Lordships Law that made him abound with so much Sophistry and so little Sense For my Lord ‖ 3. Ins l. 1. p. 9. Coke lets us know that a Collateral Heir is as much an Apparent one as the Eldest Son but only this says he is not within the Statute Tho as * My Lord Hales Pleas of the Crown 1st Edit great a Judge and as good was not so Dogmatical in this point who as he had Reason so he left room too for doubt tho the Quaere in his first Edition has been very industriously omitted in the second I have been the longer upon this to let the Divine see that he may be much out in his Law and that tho he would have Excluded the late Collateral Heir from his Oath of Allegiance his preservation might have been brought in within the †25. Ed. 3. Statute of Treason and the Doctor if he pleas'd might be Hanged for him as well as Perjur'd 'T is pretty pleasant to me to Observe how men of these sort of principles can prevaricate for the Promoting of their own Cause and the Divinest of them all run to the Devil with a Lye in their Mouth at the same time they in their Conscience believe the contrary to be true No Soul Living but will believe this Libeller when so near Ally'd to the Gentleman of the Law we so lately left would entertain assoon the Damnable Doctrin of a Muggletonian as dispense with the belief of a Divine Right since his Associate in their Hotch-potch of Scrible Hunt has rendered it altogether as Devilish yet what that Lawyer won't allow this * Vid Jul. pag. 19. Body of Divinity is forced at last to prove viz. That even the Roman Emperors Reigned with a Right Divine and that all their Empire was Hereditary and this he is seriously bound to maintain too as the only Basis and foundation for his Rebellious Book so that these prevaricating Jugglers with a turn of an hand can make the two several Extreams serve for the same purpose when it will make for their Cause they shall make those Crowns Hereditary whom all Authors and all the World acknowledge Elective let it but cross the Interest of the Faction the same pens shall prove you a most Elective Monarchy from one absolutely Hereditary The Roman Empire was certainly from Caesar their first to this Julian himself and even the very last of their Emperors uncertain in it's Succession sometimes a Right Heir would interpose or an adopted one but still either set up by the Souldiers or