Canterbury cannot be sent unto to certifie because it was made Beyond-sea the Foreign Catholick Bishop cannot be sent unto to certifie because he is out of the Jurisdiction And besides by Acts of Parliament all Foreign Certificates and all other Foreign Acts of Jurisdiction from the Bishop of Rome or any other Foreign Bishop ought not to be admitted here besides no Foreign Witness can either be Summon'd to appear here or to be examin'd there So as to the Fact of Ceremonies were they never so many at the Marriage they are impossible to be brought to an equal Tryal or Probation here and the Ceremony that 't was in a Church consecrated by a Bishop for as Coke says no House can be a Church without such Consecration which is impossible to be Sworn by any Witness For none but God can make place or time Holy and not a Bishop there remains therefore nothing which ought or can as to the Fact of Marriage be proved here but the Substance of Marriage which is Cohabitation Conjugal Society Chastity and Children which are Notorious and need no Foreign Witnesses Then as to to the Law of the Ceremonies the Protestant Ceremonies of Marriage are by the Law in a Catholick Country Heresie and forbidden The Catholick Ceremonies are forbidden here These Ceremonies therefore in a Foreign Marriage can neither be judged here by the Law of the Catholick Country because it concerns Inheritance which lyes in England nor by the Law of England because the Fact was done in a Foreign County it ought therefore only to be judged by the Moral Law of God which judgeth according to Substance and not Ceremonies and is the Universal Law of all Nations and Countries 2. It were impertinent to prove Ceremonies before a Parliament because the same being a Court of Equity ought to judge according to Trust and Intention of Marriage though the Witness of Ceremonies are Dead and Writings lost or burnt whereby any verbal Promise or Ceremonial form of Words cannot be proved 3. God forbid the Representative of the People in Parliament whom they have intrusted with all they have in Matters of such infinite weight should be so Ludicrous as to cast away the safety of the King's Person to Extinguish his Lineal Blood to Destroy the Religion Liberty Propriety and Lives of all his Protestant Subjects in the Three Kingdoms on such Toys as that there are no Witnesses to be got to prove Ceremonies of Verba de Praesenti or With my Body I thee worship or to Swear that the Ring was Gold and not Brass or that it was put on the fourth Finger and not on the fifth or not on the Tumb but on the Finger 4. It is impertinent to prove Ceremonies in a Court of Equity especially in the Supreme Court of Equity which a Parliament is who ought to judge Right Secundum aequum Bonum without any regard to Ceremonies as to make Estates good without Livery of Seisin Attornment Inrolement Fine Common Recovery or the like so likewise ought they to judge without any regard of the Ceremonies and Formalities of Pleadings according to the Truth and Merits of the Cause yea they ought not only to judge without but contrary to all Ceremonies and Formalities if they find them Estopples to Truth and Bars to Equity yea contrary to the Law it self if they find it Summum Jus. 5. In this very point of Legitimation the High Court of Parliament ought to judge according to Truth and Equity though contrary to all Ecclesiastical Laws and contrary to all Episcopal Certificates as appears by Coke expresly Part 4. fol. 36. where he saith The Parliament may Bastard a Child that is by Law Legitimate viz. Begotten by an Adulterer the Husband being within the four Sees as Rot. Parl. 5. Et 6 E. 6. in the Marquess of Winchester's Case and may Legitimate one that is by Law Illegitimate and born before Marriage that is without the Ceremonies of Marriage And this may be done Absolutely or with Exception of which later way take one Example for many John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster had by Katharine Swinford who was not Married with the Ceremony of a Priest and a Temple four Children Slander'd in those Popish Times with the Name of Illegitimate viz. Henry John Thomas and Joan and because they were Born at Beaufort in France they were vulgarly called Henry de Beaufort c. After at a Parliament holden 20 R. 2. The King by Act of Parliament in the form of a Charter doth Legitimate these three Sons and Joan the Daughter with an Exception which is Excepta dignitate Regali which shews that the King and Parliament may when they please Legitimate according to the Moral Law of God and not only without but contrary to Ceremonies And though they shall not yet is the Legitimation by the Law of God above that of all Humane Laws And though a Right thereby Dormit aliquando yet Moritur nunquam as appears in Henry the Seventh who long after derived his Title from John de Beaufort Duke of Somerset the second Son of John of Gaunt by Katharine Swinford who was only Married according to the Moral Law of God and without the Ceremonies of a Priest and a Temple notwithstanding the Exception in the Act R. 2. Excepta dignitate Regali for what that Act denied him a later Act gave him and before he Married with the Lady Elizabeth the Daughter of Edward the Fourth and Heir of the House of York the Crown was by Act of Parliament intailed to Henry the Seventh and the Heirs of his Body and indeed all Settlements of the Crown by Act of Parliament both in the House of York and Lancaster are in themselves Legitimations without any naming the word where there hath been any Scruples concerning the same and though there have been none are the surest and most undisputable Titles of Successors and of the greatest Advantage to the Possessors which is visible in the Examples of the Kings of England and Scotland the greatest part of whom have made use of Acts of Parliament though their Titles have been unquestionable Upon the whole it seems not possible for any Title of Succession to be more clear both in Divinity Law and Equity than the present except by Act of Parliament wherein the Person is particularly named which is only wanting to make known to others what the same is already in it self And to declare by a particular Act what is already declared by this General Act of E. 3. And all other the General Laws of God and the Land before mention'd WILL. LAWRENCE THE CONTENTS OF The Third BOOK CAP. I. THe words of the Statute 25 E. 3. cap. 2. De Proditionibus as in the Original French Page 1. The Statute of Kenneth 3. and Malcolm Mackenneth 2. concerning the Succession to the Crown of Scotland as related by Buchanan Page 2. Objections against these Statutes made chiefly by Buchanan himself and the Policy of them in
Page 118. CAP. II. WHether necessary in the present juncture of Affairs for the King and Parliament to declare a Protestant Successor to the Three Kingdoms Page 121. Objections against it Answer'd Obj. 1. Declaring a Protestant Successor by the King and Parliament makes a Kingdom Elective and not Hereditary ibid. Obj. 2. Acts of Precedent Parliaments cannot bind Subsequent from repeal Page 122. Obj. 3. Acts of Parliament cannot bind the Power of the Sword from cutting off those Acts by Conquest Page 123. Obj. 4. Declaring a Successor by Act of Parliament incites him to be disobedient and rebellious ibid. Obj. 5. The Ottoman Emperors never declare a Successor Page 124. Obj. 6. Queen Elizabeth refused to Declare a Successor Page 127. Reasons for declaring a Protestant Successor by the King and Parliament with the Great Dangers insue the neglect Page 132. 1. Danger to the Conscience of the Prince ibid. 2. Danger by the incertainty of the Laws of Succession of the Crown Page 133. 3. Danger of the Arbitrary disposing of the Crown by Rome or Canterbury Page 134. 4. Danger of the Predominancy of Papal and Episcopal Laws of Marriage Filiation and Succession above the Moral Law of God and the Laws of the Land ibid. 5. Danger to the King's Person his Lineal Heirs and House Page 135. 6. Danger of Lineal and Collateral Heirs to destroy one another ibid. 7. Danger if the King 's Eldest Son should happen to die before his Father leaving his Heir and younger Children in Minority ibid. 8. Danger of a Successor without Assent of the People Page 137. 9. Danger of a Papist Successor Page 138. A Papist Successor more dangerous to Papists themselves than a Protestant Successor ibid. A Papist Successor or Male utterly Destructive to Protestants and a Female doubly Destructive Page 160. 10. Danger in regard of Foreign Princes Page 182. 11. Danger of exposing Succession to Counterfeit Wills and Testaments Page 190. 12. Danger of incouraging Vsurpers Page 191. 13. Danger in doubtful Titles of Interregnums Page 192. 14. Danger of Cantonizing the Kingdoms ibid. 15. Danger of Exposing the Succession of the Kingdoms to Sale Page 193. 16. Danger of Exposing the Succession of the Kingdoms to Conquest Page 197. LIB III. CHAP. I. The words of the Statute 25 E. 3. cap. 2. De Proditionibus as in the Original French AUxint pur ceo que divers Opinions ont estre eins ceax heurs quel Case doit estre dit Treason et en quel nemy le Roy a le request des Seigniors et Commons ad fait declarisment que ensuist cestassavoire quant home fait compasser ou imaginer la Mort nostre Seignior le Roy Madame sa compaigne ou de lour fits Eigne et Heir The words as Translated by Pulton and Coke into English WHereas divers Opinions have been before this time in what case Treason shall be said and in what not the King at the request of the Lords and Commons hath made a Declaration in the manner as hereafter followeth That is to say When a man doth Compass or Imagine the Death of our Lord the King of our Lady his Queen or of their Eldest Son and Heir The Statutes of Kenneth the Third and Malcolm Mackenneth the Second as related by Buchanan Lib. 6. Rer. Scot. p. 191 196. Adjectae sunt Aliae leges ut quemadmodum Regi maximus natu filius in regnum Succederit ita filio ante Patrem defuncto nepos avo subrogaretur Englished There were other Lawes also added That as the Eldest Son of the King should succeed to him in his Kingdom So if such Son dyed before the Father the Nephew should succeed in his stead to his Grandfather Another Law of Scotland mention'd by Skene Reg. Majest Lib. 2. cap. 33. De Nepote ex Primogenito filio Nepos ex filio Primogenito mortuo jure representationis succedit Avo suo filium postnatum Avi id est Avunculum suum excludit Englished The Eldest Son being dead before the Father the Nephew by the Eldest Son shall in right of Representation Succeed to his Grandfather and exclude any Younger Son of his Grandfather that is to say his Uncle This Law of Scotland was taken out of Glanvil Lib. 7. c. 3. which shews it is the unquestionable Law of England as well as of Scotland and likewise out of the Civil Law L. 3. C. de suis legit Haered l. Posthumorum 13. H. de Injust Testamento c. 33. ex l. 1. § 6. H. de Haered Skene saith further That of this Question between the Son of the Eldest Son and the Uncle Franciscus Vinius Treats at large Lib. 3. Decisionum Decis 501. and he allcadgeth Alciat Cons 101. Bartol in l. post fratres C. 1. de legit haered Bald. Salyc Doctores in l. si viva Mater C. de Bon. Pater The Statute made 10 H. 7. in a Parliament of Ireland called Poyning's Law The words of which are these It is Enacted That all Statutes late made within the Realm of England concerning or belonging to the Common or Publick Weal of the same from henceforth be deemed Good and Effectual in the Law and ever that be accepted used and executed within this Land of Ireland in all Points and at all times requisite according to the Tenor and Effect of the same Coke saith 4 Part 351. That Hil. 10. Jac. Regis it was resolved by the Two Chief Justices and Chief Baron that this word late in the beginning of this Act had the sense of before so that this Act extended to Magna Charta and to all Acts of Parliament made in England before this Act of 10 H. 7. And by the same Reason extends to the Statute of 25 E. 3. cap. 2. De Proditionibus on which this Discourse is founded from whence will be after proved these Conclusions Conclusion 1. This being granted That if the Eldest Son had happen'd to Die in the Life of his Father the Eldest Son of the Prince who died should have Succeeded Jure Representationis of his own Father as Heir Lineal to his Grandfather and excluded the Grandfather's Younger Son who is his Uncle à fortiori must it be granted that if both Grandfather and Father die the Eldest Son who is the Grandchild Surviving he ought to exclude his Uncle for he now comes in Jure proprio which is a greater Right than Jure representationis and if the less Right exclude the Uncle much more must the greater Conclusion 2. When the Right of the Crown shall actual descend from the King in Possession on the Eldest Son in Possession who is the next Lineal Heir of his Blood then is the Son Actually King both De Facto and De Jure as was his Father who died in Possession of the Kingdoms And therefore all the forementioned Acts of Parliament and Common Laws of England Scotland and Ireland and the Imperial Laws with them unanimously declare It will be
Exercise of the same for the Publick safety 1 In regard the Entail being made to the Eldest Son by Act of Parliament the same declares that what is given by Act of Parliament may be taken by Act of Parliament and that every former Act inacted may by a latter Act be repealed according to the known Rule Vnumquodque dissolvitur eodem modo quo conflatum est Secondly according to the General Examples of Acts of Parliament amongst which nothing is more common than for later Acts to change the Entails of the Crown made by former Acts. Thirdly This Power of Parliaments is expresly declared by Act of Parl. 13 El. 1. still in force by which it is enacted that to affirm that the Laws and Statutes do not bind the Right of the Crown and the Descent Limitation Inheritance and Governance thereof is High Treason Fourthly All the Reason alledged of the Antient Custom of New Election of the Successor on every Descent is only lest the Eldest Son should happen to be an Infant or otherwise unfit for Government that the Parliament might choose the fittest which here is satisfied in the Eldest Son who is above all exception known to be the fittest who can be chosen Fifthly though this reserve of Power remain naturally in Parliaments to repeal and change former Acts concerning Succession by new Acts when there is just and necessary cause yet it is necessary likewise there should be a praevious Act to mark out the Heir in whose name the Parliament shall be called to declare the Succession or Guardianship if he happen to be an Infant And what if after a King happens to die there happen a Rebellion or Invasion which makes it impossible to assemble a Parliament will it not be a great safety to the People that a standing Act of Parliament hath before hand appointed the Successor to take care of the Kingdoms till he can call a Parliament to give their assistance therein There is nothing therefore can be justly excepted against these two Acts of Parliament of England and Scotland for ascertaining by Law the Eldest Son to be Heir to the Crown The excellency of the two said Acts of Parliament of England and Scotland which ascertain the Succession of the Crown to the Kings Eldest Son But it were a great unthankfulness to the Providence of God to undervalue such Laws whereby all Accidents are obviated Questions and Doubts resolved and Objections answered by so few words as two Lines in each and the Peace of Succession preserved in Great Britain for so many hundred years which in other Empires and Kingdoms cannot be effected without those horrid Murders of Younger Brothers by Elder or Elder Brothers by Younger of lineal Heirs by collateral or collateral Heirs by lineal of Sons by Fathers or of Fathers by Sons whereby Civil Wars Devastations and Ruines of Kingdoms have ensued and that the want of such Statutes or the Breach of them have been causes of these Evils and Enjoyment of them hath been the Cure will I hope appear in the Objections and Answers following Objections first against the not being of the Kings Eldest Son within these Statutes answered Object Obj. 1. That the Lady his Mother was not a Queen therefore the Kings Eldest Son is not within the Statute Answ Statute false translated in the word Queen Answ To this the answer is easie and clear that the word Madame sa Compaigne are falsly translated our Lady his Queen and ought to have been translated our Lady his Companion which is proved by the Reasons following 1. Because 't is manifest sa Compaigne signifies not the word Queen in specie but any Lady Companion in general 2. Because it is manifest the makers of this Act of Parliament intended not to restrain their several meaning onely to a Queen for they knew Royne was French for Queen as well as Roy for King and if they had intended so could have more certainly and easily said Compas le mort nostre Seignior le Roy sa Royne than Madame sa Compaigne 3. Because at the time of making this Statute the famous Black Prince being the Eldest Son to Edward III. was married to Joan Daughter to Edmund Earl of Kent and had Issue by her Richard of Bourdeaux after King of England and none doubts but it was the intention of the King Edward III. who passionately affected his Grandchild Richard that in case the Princes Wife should happen to die in his life time whereby she should not have been a Queen but that notwithstanding if the Black Prince had happened to have survived him which he did not and been King his Eldest Son Richard should have benefit of this Statute 4. It would have been made doubtful by the Bishops who usurped then the Papal Supremacy over Princes of giving or refusing to give them Coronation when they pleased whether the Kings Wife should be titled Queen if the Bishop refused her Coronation Ralph of Canterbury refuseth to Crown Adeliza Queen unless he should first discrown the King as Ralph Archbishop of Canterbury did to Adeliza the second Wife of H. I. unless the Kings would suffer him to pull off the Crown first from the Kings head and new Crown him in acknowledgment that the Supremacy of the Coronation Office belonged to Ralph the Archbishop Bak. Hist 43. Touching which Office of Coronation of Kings and Queens that it belongs to Parliaments and not to Bishops and that David himself was both crowned and anointed by his Parliament and not by the Priest is shewn lib. 2. cap. 1. p. 169 c. 5. The Law of Saxons and Scots that no Wife of a King should be called Queen Because the Title of Queen was then under Envy and doubtful whether not against the antient Law both of England and Scotland the same not appearing to have been repealed by any Act of Parliament Bak. Hist fol. 6. saith a Law was made by the West Saxons that no Wife of a King should be called a Queen fol. 8. that it was so rigorously observed that when Ethelwolph had married Judith the Beautiful Daughter of the Emperour Charles the Bald in honour of whom in his own Court he ever placed her in a Chair of State with all other Majestical Complements of a Queen contrary to the Law of the West Saxons made to avoid the great Expence of Treasure incident to great Titles and Ceremonies and against other inconveniences and so much displeased his Lords thereby that they were ready to have Deposed him but were prevented by his death not long after Buchanan Rev. Scot. 407. takes notice of this Law and says Saxones lege caverunt ne ulla deinceps Regis Vxor Regina vocaretur aut in sede honoris in publico Regi assideret And 406. mentions the like Law in Scotland Quas Reginas alii suo quisque sermone nos Regum uxores appellamus nec altioris fastigii nomen ullum in iis agnoscimus
it be said of all the Kings and Queens which succeeded concerning whom any Question of Legitimation was raised as for Example John of Gaunt the fourth Son of Edward the Third because he was a great favourer of the Wicklenites who were in those days most Zealous Protestants was so hated by the Bishops to whom the Doctrine of Wickliff was then terrible that the then Bishop of Winchester John of Gaunt for favouring Protestants falsly slandred by the Bishop of Winchester to be Illegitimate Confessor to his Mother Queen Phillippa falsly slander'd him to make him Illegitimate That he was the Son of a Flemming and not of King Edward though his Mother Queen Phillippa was the most virtuous Wife of a King that was then in the World and to Illegitimate his Posterity by the Lady Katherine Swinford who was a virtuous Lady and not Prohibited by the Law of God to be Married But yet never was Married to him by the Ceremony of a Priest or Temple and by whom he had Issue John Duke of Somerset Thomas Duke of Exceter Henry Bishop of Winchester and Cardinal and Joan a Daughter which Daughter and all her Brethren were sirnamed Beaufort from Beaufort a Castle which he had in France where they were all Born and in regard thereof bare the Portcullis of a Castle for the Cognizance of the Family and these four Children though they were Legitimated by Act of Parliament in the Twentieth year of King Richard the Second and made capable of all Dignities yet by Episcopal Power there was inserted Excepta dignitate Regali which did as much as lay in an Exception so much Illegitimate them to the Crown that Coke says Part 4. fol. 37. Henry the 7th dâ—riveth â—imselâ— from Katherine Swinford 〈◊〉 Maâ—…d by a Priest in a Temple The best Title of Henry the Seventh who derived himself from John de Beaufort Duke of Somerset Son of John of Gaunt by the Lady Katherine Swinford was by Elizabeth his Wife eldest Daughter of Edward the Fourth which Episcopal Opinion of his would not have been taken for Law if he had lived in the time of H. 7. himself who notwithstanding this Episcopal Illegitimation assumed the Title of the House of Lancâ—ster as Legitimate by the Law of God Both York and Lancaster derive the Lines from Persons slander'd to be Illegitimate by Laws of Men but made Legitimate by the Law of God and descending from a Lady not Prohibited to have been Married to John of Gaunt by the Law of God In like manner the Lady Elizabeth eldest Daughter to King Edward the Fourth by the Lady Elizabeth Gray from the House of York claims was declared Illegitimate by Richard the Third because as was allâ—adged E. 4. was praecontracted to the Lady Lucy which Lady Elizabeth was her sâ—lf likewise first promised in Marriage to the Daulphin of France before she was Married to H. 7. yet was she Legitimate and her Issue Legitimate by the Law of God and succeeded United to the House of Lancaster to the Kingdom according to the same Law The same hath been before mentioned of the Lady Elizabeth More her Children by Robert the Second King of Scotland were Born before any Ceremonial Marriage of a Priest in a Temple yet were they all Legitimate by the Moral Law of God Edward the Sixth Illigitimated by Papal Laws but Legitimated by the Law of God the eldest succeeded to the Crown In like manner King Edward the Sixth was declared Illegitimate by the Pope and the pretended Ecclesiastical Laws but he was Legitimate by the Moral Law of God and succeeded to the Crown accordingly Lastly Queen Elizabeth was not only declared Illegitimate by the Pope but by the Acts of Parliament of her own Father H. 8. which is above any Declaration or Proclamation of a Privy Council Queen Elizabeth Illegitimated by Papal Laws and Act of Parliament but Legitimated by the Law of God yet no true Protestant doubts but she was Legitimate by Moral Law of God which is above all Laws and happily succeeded to the Crown according to the Law of God to the Comfort of all Protestants From which Examples and Reasons appears the truth of the Thesis before laid down 1. That the Legitimation and Succession of Kings eldest Sons born of Women not Prohibited by the Moral Law of God was never questioned by any Laws except that of Popes and Bishops 2. That Legitimate and lawful Heirs may be Born of unlawful Marriages 3. That the Moral Law of God hath always been and still is the greatest Security of Legitimation and Succession to the Crown of Great Britain and ought to be prefer'd above all Ceremonial Laws of Men. 4. Next to the Moral Law of God the greatest Humane Security of Legitimation and Succession to the Crown is either a general Act of Parliament as this is constituting and ascertaining the Heir by a General or Special Distinction or Description or when any doubt or danger ariseth by Act of Parliament Declaratory of the Particular Successor or Name That 't is High Treason by this Statute for any Subject to slander the King 's eldest Son with Illegitimacy Though Papal and Episcopal Canons have made their ordinary work to Illegitimate the most Sacred Persons of Protestant Princes who disdain to buy their Mercenary Dispensations Faculties Licences and Pardons of Popes or Bishops and particularly the most Pious King Edward the Sixth and Queen Elizabeth And as is said Jude 8. Defile the flesh despise Dominions speak evil of Dignities yet let them know there is this Statute above all their Canons and Synods will punish their wickedness if they presume to Illegitimate any King of England or his eldest Son it seems on these Reasons 1. Because this compasseth the Death of the King himself his Father for who destroys the Kings Armies or Fleets which should defend him compasses his Death but Non legiones non classes aeque firma imperii Munimenta ac numeros Liberorum Not Legions nor Fleets equally defend a Kingdom as Children And above all Children the eldest Son All which is more authentically expressed by a great King and Souldier Psa 127.3 Lo Children are an heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward as arrows are in the hand of a mighty man so are the Children of the youth happy is the man who hath his quiver full of them they shall not be ashamed but they shall speak with the Enemies in the Gate And likewise as to the eldest Son the Scripture it self magnifies him as an high defence to the Father as Jacob expresseth of his Gen. 49.3 My first-born my might and the beginning of my strength the excellency of Dignity and the excellency of Power And who hath Vindicated His Majestie 's Honour and Safety in Wars abroad and against Popish Plots Assassinations Pistols Poniards and Poisons at home with such Fidelity Affection Zeal Constancy Vigillancy and Valour as his eldest Son And
great Slander Peril and Disherison of such Children which untrue slanderous report of Holy Matrimony doth not only redound to the high dishonour of Almighty God but also to the King's Majesties dishonour and the High Court of Parliament and the Learned Clergy of this Realm who have determined the same to be most lawful by the Law of God in their Convocation as well by the Common consent as by the Subscription of their Hands and that most of all is to be lamented through such uncomely Railings of Matrimony and slanderous Reproaches of the Clergy the Word of God is not heard with Reverence followed with Diligence the Godly proceeding of the King's Majesty not received with due Obedience c. Banns required to the Marriage of the Clergy Provided always That this Act nor any thing therein contained shall extend to give Liberty to any Person to Marry without Asking in the Church or without Ceremonies according to the Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments nor shall make any such Matrimony already made or hereafter to be made good which are Prohibited by the Law of God for any other cause The Protestant Clergy by these Acts thought themselves as secure as they do now But Queen Mary immediatly on King Edward's Death repealed this Law and made all the Married Clergy their Wives and Children Rogues Whores and Bastards From whence may be observed 1. That a Marriage and Legitimation which is lawful by the Law of God may be wickedly Slandered by Papists and by Papal and Episcopal Laws to be unlawful 2. It hath been already shewn that the Marriages of the Lady Mothers of King Edward the Sixth and of Queen Elizabeth and of the King 's eldest Son and the Legitimation of Children were and are lawful by the Moral Law of God but the same have been Slandered and still are by the virulent Tongues of Papists 3. That these wicked Slanders of the Legitimation of the King 's eldest Son do produce not only the same evil Effects which the Statute declares to insue from the Slander of the Legitimation of the Sons of the Clergy but greater and more dangerous 4. That the final Cause why the Papists and their Laws Slander the Legitimation of the King 's eldest Son and of all the Sons of the Protestant Clergy is the same which is because they would seize on their Inheritance or Estate and divide the Spoil amongst the Papists 5. It is well known that the Inheritances and Estates of the Descendents of the Protestant Spirituallity and Clergy in which Body are included all Spiritual Persons Doctors of the Civil Law exercising Spiritual Jurisdiction Church-men Ministers all persons within Orders are great and numerous through the Three Kingdoms who will all Suffer if a relapse to Popery 6. That their Wives and their Descendents which have Married have been obnoxious ever since the Time of Reformation the first to Consiscation of their Dowers Jointures and Thirds The other to Illegitimation and thereon Confiscation of their Inheritances Lands and Goods The Law which forbid the Clergy to Marry was made by Pope Nicholas the First to wicked intents which have been before already shewn the Clergy and their Wives and Children are likewise left obnoxious to the same by the Proviso mentioned which requires Banns to make lawful the Marriage of the Clergy but they usually have none but are Married by Licences which makes them likewise obnoxious to the very Letter of the Act which if there should happen a Papist Successor he may take advantage thereof without a Repeal or Repeal the Act and so take advantage either way which he will Let not the Protestant Clergy therefore nor the Bishops be deceived or vainly flatter themselves that they can compound or lay the Obligation of an Oath or an Act of Parliament on a Papist Successor if any happen to be nor think he will lose so infinite heaps of Treasures as this point of the Marriage of the Clergy and the Illegitimation of their Descendents will by Confiscations of all the Jointures Dowers Thirds of all the Archbishops Bishops and inferiour Clergies Wives and of the Successions of their Posterities in the Three Kingdoms will bring into his Treasury Therefore certainly if a Papist Successor happen there will be no living for a Married Clergy-man in England it will be Heresie sufficient to Burn him if he is Married and a cause sufficient will be his Estate and for Provision his Wife must expect none unless like the Indian Wife she Burn with him in hope to find it in another World Queen Mary Illegitimated and Destroyed all the Wives and Children of the Protestant Clergy notwithstanding they were Legitimated by Act of Parliament They need look no further for an Example than of Queen Mary who was a Papist Successor to the Protestant Act of King Edward her Brother who though he confirmed the Marriages of the Clergy and the Legitimation of their Children by two Acts of Parliament left in their highest Vigour and Power and though she had solemnly promised the Protestants without whose help she had not probably come to the Throne that they should injoy Liberty of Conscience yet as soon as ever she obtained the Kingdom she repealed her Brothers two Acts and made Whores of the Wives and Bastards of the Children of all the Protestant Clergy Married Burnt them and Confiscated their Estates And that Pious Martyr Archbishop Cranmer who was Married was Cruelly Burnt amongst the rest 7. There is no way to preserve the Marriages and Legitimations of the Protestant Clergy their Wives and Children from the destruction of a Papist Successor but to have Protection from a Protestant Successor of the Crown and to cast off this Papal Doctrine of Ceremonial Marriage and to teach the truth of Marriage according to the Moral Law of God which is the true Jus Coronae as hath been already shewn and makes the eldest Son of a Protestant King and himself a Protestant to be of the same Interest with the Sons of a Protestant Clergy and to ingage him by God's help to be his Instrument to defend them and the Protestant Religion Liberty and Propriety to the Glory of God and Comfort of the People Can therefore any of the Protestant Clergy be so imprudent as in their Doctrine to destroy the Holy Just True Ancient Eternal and Immutable Moral Law of God of Marriage and Legitimation to bring in the Unclean Adulterous Spurious Illegitimate Injust Lying Upstart new-fangled Ceremonial Laws of Priapusses and Popes and not understand they thereby Slander their own Mothers and Wives to be Whores their Daughters to be Bastards themselves and all their Sons to be Sons of Whores and Bastards Can they be so inconsiderate as to imagine that any Slander they shall raise against the Marriages of the Lady Mothers of Queen Elizabeth King Edward or the King 's eldest Son or the Legitimations of Queen Elizabeth her self King Edward or
the King 's eldest Son or against the Jus Coronae and this Act of Parliament of 25 E. 3. Cap. 2. De Productionibus as not to understand the same Slanders Militate against the Marriages and Legitimations of themselves their own Mothers Wives and Children or not to know what pretence or Power they put into the hands of Popes and Bishops to disinherit and dispose of the Successors and Succession of the Crown they give them a greater Power to disinherit and dispose at will of their own Inheritances Wives and Children and by forsaking the Moral Law of God of Marriages and Legitimations and Idozing the Ceremonial Laws Papal or Episcopal drive themselves into this inevitable Dilemma either to fall into the hands of a Papist Successor who will assuredly destroy all Married Priests and Ecclesiasticks their Wives and Children and Successors and make a prey of all they have or to fall into hands of Justice as the fruits of Folly and Treason in slandering the right of a Protestant Successor Of the Insolent Absurdity of Popish Laws disinheriting the Lawful Sons of Kings by the Law of God and Inheriting the Bastards of Popes by the Law of the Devil The Scripture saith Galat. 4.7 If a Son then an Heir that is to say to the Father who begot him and not to a Fictitious Father But the Popish Law or what is above it the Practique saith Let none be an Heir of a Marriage not Contracted by a Priest in a Temple except a Bastard of a Pope in which the Law of New Rome follows that of old Pagan Rome which prohibited some kind of Women to the Subjects but gave Authority to Caesar to lye with what Women he would And the like to the Romish false Prophet is imitated by the false Prophet Mahomet who in his Alchoran prohibited divers Women to the people but counterfeits God speaking to himself and saying But as for thee O Prophet thou may'st Lye with what Women thou wilt But in this the Pope goes beyond Mahomet for the one Illegitimates no Children nor disinherits them but the other all of Women not Churched except his own So Pope Paul the Fifth is related to have gotten out of his Leaden Bulls in a small time Twenty hundred Thousand Scutes of Gold with all which he bought Lands for his Bastards and Pope Sextus the Fifth being himself the Son of a Swineheard created his Bastard a Cardinal and gave him Ten Thousand Crowns per Annum Revenue and besides Left at his Death Ten Millions of Treasure Another Pope gave his Bastard the Kingdom of Sicily and divers Principalities of Italy and a vast heap of Treasure Pope Alexander the Sixth intended likewise to have given his Bastard Son Caesar Borgia a Kingdom whom though the veriest Villain in the World Matchiavel in his Treatise De Principe proposeth as the only Example for Kings to imitate And by Probability a Kingdom he had obtained had he not and his Father by the just Judgment of God been Poisoned by the same invenomed Wine at a Banquet which they had prepared for others All Italy is already over-stocked and the Principallities thereof and of other Catholick Countries in time likely to be the Inheritances of none but of the Bastards of Popes and their Descendents Male or Female under the Name of Nephews and Neices and by the Matches of Papal Descendents into Protestant Dominions the like Evil may be justly feared if not prevented and what is worse a perpetuating thereby of their Superstition from Generation to Generation The Scripture likewise saith Heb. 13.4 Marriage is honourable in all and the bed undefiled but Whoremongers and Adulterers God shall Judge But the Popish Law saith no Marriages are Honourable made by the Law of God unless made by the Papal Laws nor the Children nor Chastity nor the Bed undefiled nor the Sons though of Kings descending from the same according to the Foundation of all Honour the Immaculate Law of God But the Bastards of Popes such is the Impudence of the Whore of Babylon to Prohibit Honour to all except her self and her Brats And as to these Pope Eugenius the Second Usurped the Authority when he pleased to create them Kings Dukes Earls and Knights and hath plagued and incumbred the World with fictitious Titles of Honour but he vouchsafes the lawful Sons of Kings no better Title than Base Sons except they receive from him the mark of the Beast This is not strange that Swineheard Popes and their Trulls should not only not disinherit nor degrade their own Blood but extol the same above the Imperial But 't is strange that any Christian Emperors and Princes should have ever been so Pope or Priest-Ridden or so far have suffer'd them to have set their foot on their Necks as to Kick from their Heads the Crowns and Honours of them and their Sons for the Bastards of Popes to inherit and to disinherit their own for which not only his Holiness himself derides them but they become a Derision to Jews Turks and all the World besides none of them being so foolish to admit the Doctrine of Devils of Prohibiting Marriages not Prohibited by God amongst them or Illegitimating the Children of such Marriages Lastly It is already proved That Carnal Knowledge Chastity and Childbirth makes a Marriage Lawful Holy and Indissoluble by the Law of God between all persons not prohibited And it is notorious That Popes have kept openly their Whores and their Bastards and Rule what they call their Holy Church by them So did Theodora the Impudent Concubine of the Duke of Tuscany rule all Rome and gave her Daughter Marozia as wicked a Queen as her Mother to be Concubine to Pope Sergius the Third of whom he begot him who was afterwards his Bastard Pope John the Twelfth the Mother Marozia poisoned Pope Leo 6. and Pope Stephen 7. And got her Bastard Boy to be Pope John the Twelfth Pope John the Thirteenth was deposed in Council Anno 961 for abusing his Father's Concubines for Gelding some Men and putting out the Eyes of others for Drinking a health to the Devil c. Pope Clement the Fifth was a Common Fornicator and it is Notorious That all Popes are Panders-General of all the Stews and Houses of Fornication in Rome and fill their Treasuries with the hires of Whores And are these fit Fellows to make Marriages Holy or to make Laws to overthrow God's Holy Ordinance and dispose thereby of the Succession of Protestant Kingdoms LIB III. CHAP. II. Whether Necessary in the present Juncture of Affairs for the King and Parliament to declare a Protestant Successor to the Three Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland TO prepare which Question for the Consideration of Supream Authority it will be necessary first to recite the Objections which are made for the Negative And then the Reasons which are brought for the Affirmative Object 1. Declaring a Successor by the King and Parliament makes the Kingdom Elective and not Hereditary
Answ 'T is acknowledged if the Declaration were to be by the Parliament Sole without the King it might possible make a Kingdom Elective but where by Law the King hath a Negative and the Declaration is not made without his Consent it is otherwise for it is sufficient to make a Kingdom Hereditary if the Law make it descendible to the King's Heirs in Case it be not otherwise by the King himself and Parliament actually disposed of which is seldom done and in Cases of Necessity But yet are they not disabled of the Power to do it when they think necessary as a private Inheritance doth not therefore cease to be Hereditary because the Owner hath Power to Give Sell Alien or otherwise dispose of it 't is sufficient if by Law it descend to his own Heirs unless he Actually happen according to Law to dispose of it from them Obj. 2. Declarations by Act of Parliament are in vain Because Acts of Precedent Parliaments cannot bind the Power of a subsequent Parliament which is shewn by divers Examples Cok. 4 Part. fol. 42. And Grotius speaks to the same intent That Kings Predecessors cannot bind Kings Successors Est autem causa Successionis non subjecta Regi nunc regnanti quod inde apparet quod Rex nunc regnans nulla lege obligare potest Successorem Successio enim Imperii non est de Jure Imperii ac proinde mansit in statn naturali quo nulla erat Jurisdictio Grot. de Jure Bell. Pacis lib. 2. cap. 7. p. 171. That a cause of Succession is not subject to the King now Reigning appears from this that a King now Reigning can by no Law bind his Successor for the Succession to Empire is not of the Right of Empire But the same remains in the state of Nature wherein there was no Jurisdiction Answ Though a King and Parliament present by declaring a Successor cannot bind a Parliament future but they may again Repeal or Abrogate such present Act of Declaration yet doth it not follow that the present Act of Declaration is vain and of no use For first Then by the same Reason it might be said that Magna Charta and the Petition of Right And all the Acts of Parliament we have are vain and of no use because future Parliaments have Power to repeal them notwithstanding which it is manifest such an Act of Declaration would be of great Use and Benefit Secondly An Act though repealable is not vain because such an Act cannot pass without the Major number of Votes which will be an Incouragement to the major number to continue their indeavour to preserve And a Discouragement to the minor part in another Parliament to attempt to repeal Thirdly Because succeeding Parliaments have a Reverence to preceding and though they have Power to repeal yet do they not use to repeal to the utmost of their Power nor can a former Act be repealed but by another Parliament which if a Protestant Successor is Declared must be called by him and he hath then a sufficient Legal Power to Exclude so far Papists from Elections of Members of Parliament as probably they will have no Power to repeal former Protestant Acts. Fourthly Subsequent Parliaments cannot repeal the Act of a Precedent quoad praeterita for which reason the whole People will act with far greater Courage both in Peace and War in Execution of whatsoever they have a standing Act of Parliament to protect them than where there is none Fifthly Such an Act doth leave the Successor and his Parliament in a Posture and Possession of Arms Lawfully to defend his own Right and the Protestant Religion both against Secret Massacres and Open Rebellions and Invasions by Papists Object 3. Acts of Parliament cannot bind the Power of the Sword or Armies in the Field Answ Though they canot bind such as are Actually Convented without raising other Armies against them Prevents though it binds not the Power of the Sword yet they may take ways both to prevent their Convention and to raise other Armies against them if Convenient and the Success must be left to God Object 4. That a Successor Declared Declaring incites not a Lineal but a Collateral Heir to Rebel and not an eldest Son but a younger wrongfully present before him may prove Rebellious or Disobedient Answ This Objection is made 28 H. 8. cap. 7. But it makes no Danger of it except only in Case it should happen to be of a Collateral Heir when the King should have no Lineal Heir of his Body Concerning which Collateral Heir only and not his Lineal These are the words of the Statute by way of Petition from the Parliament to the King And if your Grace afore it may be certainly known whether ye shall have Heirs or no should suddenly name or declare any Person or Persons to succeed after your Decease and for lack of Heirs of your Body lawfully begotten into the Royal Estate of the Imperial Crown of this Realm then it is to be doubted that such Persons that should be named might happen to take great heart and Courage and by Presumption fall into inobedience and Rebellion by Occasion of which Premisses great Divisions and Dissentions may be and is very likely to Arise and Spring in this Realm to the great Peril and Destruction of us Your Majesties most humble and obedient Subjects and of all our Posterities Whereby it appears This Statute is only afraid of Declaring Collateral Heirs If there should be no Lineal Heir of the Body or they should fail In like manner Queen Elizabeth having no Lineal Heir of her Body was afraid to declare the Collateral But she declared the Natural Heirs of her Body should Succeed as appears 13 Eliz. 1. which are the next Lineal and not Collateral Heirs And the Example of Christian Princes in like manner hath been never to Scruple the Natural affection of their own Natural eldest Sons to declare them Successor after their Death for that gives them no Greater present Power than they had before The Heir as is said Gal. 4.1 Differeth nothing from a Servant So Edward the Third did not doubt to Declare his Eldest Son the Famous Black Prince his Successor by the General name of his Eldest Son in this Statute nor likewise by making him Prince of Wales to declare him by name his Heir Apparent and Successor nor did he ever the less Trust him with the Command of great Armies in France with whom he was Victorious yet did the Son so declared never presume to any higher Title than Prince of Wales nor Motto than Ich Dien I serve as if he studied how to testifie his Obedience to God and his Father and to shew that the Heir differeth nothing from a Servant In like manner did the Old Roman Emperors declare their Eldest Sons Caesars and Principes Juventis The Modern Emperors theirs Kings of the Romans The Kings of England theirs Princes of Wales The Kings of Scotland
of her own Body but while there was a possibility she might she Declared by 13 Eliz. 1. They should be her Successor and Enacts a Penalty of High Treason against those who should affirm the contrary 3. That Queen Elizabeth doth not think it fit that her Legitimation should be Judged by Popish Laws as she could expect no other would endeavour to be done if she permitted a Contest between her and a Papist What Shall a Virgin Queen be Judged by Laws which as is already shewn came from the Priests of Priapus and Venus Shall a Protestant Queen be Judged and Shot to Death by the Cannons and Constitutions of the Strumpets Theodora Marozia and the Whore of Babylon No she was Judged Legitimate by the Holy Moral Law of God and the Protestant Religion to be Successor to her Natural Father and though he forsook her God took her up and by his assistance the Gates of Hell were not able to prevail against the truth of the same And let any Papist now if he can shew any Reason or Scripture why he should with foul mouth asperse the Legitimation of King Edward the Sixth or Queen Elizabeth or the Kings Eldest Son or why the latter ought not to be Successor as well as was the former and Print the same with his Name subscribed And no question there are Protestants enough will answer him Yea The Interest of a Prince Legitimate by the Moral Law of God and the Protestant Religion to maintain both against Popish Ceremony and Superstition let him prove if he can That 't is not only the Greatest Honour to a Protestant Prince himself but a great Mercy and Providence of God to a Protestant People to offer them such a Prince whom he hath made Legitimate by his own Holy Law and the Protestant Religion and permitted him to be Declared Illegitimate by the Papist unholy Law and Superstition and thereby laid on him the highest Obligation of his own Interest to maintain the Holy Moral Law of God and Protestant Religion against the Popish Ceremonial Laws and Superstition and far worse it had been for the Protestants if Queen Elizabeth had not been made Illegitimate by the Papists then that she was To Conclude a full answer hath been therefore already given the Objection That Queen Elizabeth never refused to Declare a Protestant and Lieal Successor but only such as were either Papist or Collateral Obj. 7. A Protestant Successor will not be equal to Papists who are not only a Considerable but a great and potent Party of the People of the Three Kingdoms Answ This is fully answered already before Lib. 2. p. 401 402 403 c. where it is shewn to be the Interest of the Protestant Religion to abolish all Laws of Recusancy equally which are Penal to the Consciences either of Protestants or Papists except as to Mass Idols and Popish Priests This is likewise answered in the following Reasons wherein it is shewn That not only Protestants but Papists themselves except Popish Priests may hope for greater Security and Happiness from a Protestant Successor than they ever had or 't is possible for them to have from Papist Predecessors or Successors to which I therefore desire to refer Reasons for Declaring a Protestant Successor by the King and Parliament HAving answered all Objections against Declaring of a Protestant Successor I shall now only add some few Reasons for the same arising from the Great and manifold Dangers caused by the Neglect 1. Danger to the Conscience of a Prince 1. The first Danger is to the Conscience of a Prince when he shall give Account to God of the Neglect of so great a Duty to him and so great a Trust reposed in him by the People as to which There is none doubts but every private Father is by his Duty to God bound while it shall please God to lend him Life and Health and before Death with a sudden Arrest hurry him hence to give an account of his Stewardship to make Provision according to his Power for the leaving his Family in Peace after his Decease much more it is the Duty of all Princes who ought to be the Publick Father of their Countries who have so great Account to Give not only for their own Families but for Nations and Kingdoms and all the Wars Murders Massacres and Devastations which by their default shall happen after their Death To provide while God gives them Life and Health for prevention of such Calamities amongst their People and for the Peace of Succession in the Government over them And in the Statute of 35 H. 8. cap. 1. This great Trust Reposed in the King by the People is exprest a Chief Consideration of Declaring a Successor and setling the Succession of the Crown by King and Parliament in these words in the Preamble of the Act viz. Forasmuch as our most Dread Soveraign Lord the King upon good and just Grounds and Causes Intendeth by God's Grace to make a Voyage Royal in his most Royal Person into the Realm of France against his ancient Enemy the French King his Highness most Prudently and Wisely Considering and Calling to his Remembrance how this Realm standeth at this present time in the Case of Succession and poising and weighing further in himself the great Trust and Confidence that his Loving Subjects have had and have in him c. And to the Intent his Majestie 's Disposition and Mind therein should be openly Declared and manifestly known and Notified as well to the Lords Spiritual and Temporal as to all other his Loving and Obedient Subjects of this Realm to the Intent of their Assent and Consent might appear to Concur with thus far as followeth of his Majestie 's Declaration in the behalf and thereupon makes Provision for the Succession of the Crown in the same Act. In like manner it is provided by the Law of Persia as saith Herod Lib. 7. That whensoever the King goeth to War abroad he ought first to Declare his Successor that he may leave Peace at home 2. Danger by the incertainty of the Laws of Succession of the Crown 2. The Danger caused by Incertainty of the Laws of Succession of the Crown and that this is a Great Danger and necessary to be Remedied by a Declaration by King and Parliament appears likewise by the Preamble of the Statute of 25 H. 8. cap. 22. in these words viz. Wherefore we your said most humble and Obedient Subjects in this present Parliament Assembled calling to our Remembrance the great Divisions which in time passed have been in this Realm by reason of several Titles pretended to the Imperial Crown of the same which sometime and for the most part insued by Reason of Ambiguity and Doubts then not so perfectly Declared but that men might upon froward intents expound them to every man's sinister Appetite and Affection after their Sons Contrary to the Right Legalty of the Succession and Posterity of the Lawful Kings and
is not always necessary he should be his first begotten Son for the Second after the Death of the first begotten without Issue is Fitz-Eigne with the Statute Et sic de caeteris which doth implicitly seem to affirm That till the Issue of the Eldest Son fails the second Son shall not Succeed by this Statute which implicitly prefers the Nephews in Successions before the Uncle but he shewing no Authority therein but his own and that only implicit and not Express and the Common Law and Customs of the Crown being very incertain obscure and as often broken as kept when not Confirmed by Act of Parliament And King Edward himself the Wife Author of this Act when the Black Prince Died and left his Eldest Son Richard of Bindeax who was after R. 2. Doubting of the certainty of the Law in the Point did as the wisest way procure Richard to be Declared Successor by Act of Parliament in his Life-time to secure him against his Uncles Tâ—â—â—aw of Eâ—… not clear in point of Succession of the Crown between Nephew and Uncle where the Father dies before the Grandfather The certainty of the Law of England therefore may be not without Cause doubted in this Point of Succession between Nephew and Uncle and Danger there may be lest the incertainty of the same give the same Pretences to create Civil Wars here as it doth in other Countries unless prevented by an Act of Parliament as in Scotland Vt filio ante patrem Defuncto Nepos Avo Subrogaretur 8. Danger without Assent of the People Danger if the Successor assume the Crown without the Assent of the People by their Representative in Parliament the Right of a Successor is not here Disputed nor the Law whether he is King before Coronation or not until Contract with his Parliament and Coronation received from them Highest a Successor can say is only as Paul saith 1 Cor. 10.23 All things are lawful for me but all things are not expedient All things are lawful for me but all things edifie not Though the manner whereby a Successor ascends the Throne may be lawful yet may it not be Expedient neither may it Edifie the Throne H. 8. was a King of great Courage and Wisdom and doubted not the Right of him and his Posterity to the Crown Yea though he had more than any other King Power granted him by Act of Parliament himself to Declare his own Successor either by his Letters Patents or last Will yet he shewed therein his great Wisdom and Moderation and would not do it without Assent of his Subjects as appears in the already mentioned Statute 35 H. 8. cap. 1. in these words viz. And albeit that the King 's most Excellent Majesty for default of such Heirs as are Inheritable by the said Act might by the Authority of the said Act give and dispose the said Imperial Crown and other the Premisses by his Letters Patents under his Great Seal or by his Last Will in Writing Signed with his most gracious Hand to any Person or Persons of such Estate therein as should please his Highness to Limit and Appoint Yet to the Intent that his Majestie 's Disposition and Mind therein should be openly Declared and Manifestly known and notified as well to the Lords Spiritual and Temporal as to all other his Loving and Obedient Subjects of this his Realm to the intent that their ASSENT and CONSENT might appear to Concur with thus far as followeth of his Majestie 's Declaration in this behalf For so Wise a King well know that let the Right of a Successor be what it will yet if he lose the Love of his People which cannot be obtained without their Assent and Consent he loseth the Chief Defence under God of that and all other Right he hath if therefore a Successor is Declared by Act of Parliament so great a Danger is avoided of not having the Assent and Consent of his Subjects seeing such an Act of Parliament cannot be without the Assent and Consent of the major part of the People included in the plurality of Votes of their Representative 9. Danger of assuming the Crown by a Papist The next great Danger is The assuming of the Crown by Force by a Papist Successor if not prevented by a Declaration of a Protestant Successor by the King and Parliament That a Papist Successor is most Dangerous to all Lay-Papists themselves and that they may Live far more Happy under a Protestant than one of their own Religion A Distinction ought to be made between Lay-Papists and Papist Priests Both Religion Justice and Mercy ingage all those who are affected with the least of any of them to put a great difference betwixt the Deceived and Deceivers and betwixt the Blind and those who mislead them to fall into the Ditch A Distinction is therefore necessary to be made by all Protestants between the Lay Papist and the Papist Priest Mercy is to be shewn the one and Justice the other And if this just Course had been used from the Beginning of the Reformation that no Penal Statute had been made against the Lay-Papists but only against the Papist Priests The Protestant cannot be secure unless the Lay Papist be likewise secure from Penal Laws against Conscience No Bishop Bencroft under pretence of maintaining the Dominicans against the Jesuits and Regulars against Seculars had been able to maintain Legions of both in Secret to Destroy the Protestants in their own Land nor under the blind name of Recusants to turn the edge of all the Penal Laws pretending to be made against Papists to cut off the Protestants And the Sacrament of the Paschal Lamb to be a Destruction to the Israelites and a Passover to the Egyptians those Penal Laws being pursued with the highest Rigour against the Protestants but came not near the Papists Dwellings or if they did they took more easie Pardons from the Exchequer than from the Pope So if the late Act concerning Oaths and Sacraments had been Restrained only to Papists Protestants had not suffered in so high a Degree as now they do But I pass from what is past to what is future to shew what Mischiefs the Papists themselves are to expect from a Papist Successor and what benefit from a Protestant 1. The first Mischiefs they will meet with in a Papist Successor is a most miserable one take what Covenant what Vow what Promise what Oath they can from him yea an Hundred Oaths his Conscience cannot be bound with any of them and the Catholicks themselves shall take as little hold of his Catholick Faith as the most of those whom they think or call Hereticks As for Example William the Conqueror was a Papist and is mentioned Dan. Hist 36. to get Assistance of the King of France who was then young in his Design for England William the Conqueror a Papist King forswore himself to Papist Subjects promised if he obtained the Kingdom to hold it
of him as he did his Dutchy of Normandy and do him Homage for it which would add a great Honour to that Crown Then was he be-before-hand with Pope Alexander to make Religion give Reputation to his Pretended Right he promised likewise to hold it of the Apostolick See if he prevailed in his Enterprize whereupon the Pope sent him a Banner of the Church with an Agnus of Gold and one of the hairs of Saint Peter And he likewise by great Promises got his own Brother Odo Bishop of Baieux to furnish him with Forty Ships for his Expedition After William had with great difficulty got the Battel at Hastings wherein King Herold happen'd to be kill'd with an Arrow in his Eye some of his Nobility with all their Power strove to establish Edgar Atheling the next of the Royal Issue in his Right to the Crown but the false Bishops rather bent to let in a Foreign Enemy being fool'd by him with fair Promises than to assist the Native Prince and by their Example drew in the Nobility to trust to his Personal Oath made at his Coronation before the Altar of St. Peter to defend the Holy Church that was the Papist Church and the Rectors and to Govern the Universal People according to the Laws but this Oath and his Promises were as weak to bind him as the single hair of St. Peter he had got from the Pope for as soon as he had Establish'd himself he was not such a Fool to do Homage for England to the French King nor to hold the same of the Apostolick See nor to defend the Bishops and Abbots in their fat Bishopricks and Abbies but as Cambden saith He made such clear work with them that he did not leave one English Ecclesiastick whom he thrust not out of his place and fill'd their Rooms with Erench Sr. Johns And for the English Nobility he drove some to fly to Scotland some to Norway some to Hungary and any other Places where they could be received till in the end he had totally destroyed them and filled their Places with French Contes and to shew himself no partial Dealer with those who would trust his word he spared not his own Brother Odo the Bishop of Baieux but notwithstanding the Forty Ships with which he had Supplied him on promise of better dealing he seized and Confiscated all his Treasure which he had which was very great and hoarded up with an Intention to have bought the Papacy And it is no wonder if mali Corvi malum ovum And he practised the same deceit against themselves and their false Religion had taught him towards others for let a Papist Prince swear never so many Oaths to Papists of his own Religion and break them all the same Religion fits him with Popes enough at his Elbow to Confess and Absolve him instantly or if he doubts his Trencher-Popes cannot do it he can have for Money his Unholiness himself to Absolve him from any Oath Covenant or League with any other Papist Prince whether of Peace or War and how many Examples are there of the same And more easily can he do it with his own Subjects as Dan. Hist fol. 143. King John a Papist King forswore himself to Papist Subjects being Absolved from his Oath by the Pope King John for the Glory of God and Emendation of the Kingdom in Parliament makes Articles of Agreement between him and the Barons wherein are Confirmed all the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom and Mutual Oaths taken on both sides by the King and Barons in Solemn manner for the Observation of the same Articles The King likewise sends his Letters Patents to all Sheriffs of the Kingdom to cause all Men of what degree soever within their several Shires to Swear to observe the Laws and Liberties thus granted by his Charter There we see a Papist King agrees with Papist Subjects on Oath in the highest manner and both the King and Barons and the whole Body of the People of what degree soever are solemnly Sworn before God And the Laws and Liberties are likewise Confirmed by Act of Parliament But the next News in the History we hear of is He hath some Papist evil Councellors who tell him he was now a King without a Kingdom a Lord without a Dominion and a Subject to his Subjects whereon this Papist King sends to the Pope and by Bribery he Absolves the King from his Oath Nullifies the Act of Parliament and Excommunicates the Lords Now therefore let it be shewn how these Papist Lords being laid in the Pickle of Excommunication and not having Personam standi in Judicio could have done to have bound the Conscience of their Papist King to have performed to them his Contract Covenant League and Oath or let it be no wonder if Protestants are very fearful to have a Successor of such a Religion or if they think that these Lords had not been more happy if they had had a Protestant King or of any Religion which would have bound his Conscience to have kept his Word and much more his Oath to his Subjects The Papist Lords grown Desperate of Right from their English Papist King run into the other Extreme and will Trust themselves to the Oath of a Foreign Papist King seeing their own would not keep his they send therefore over-Sea and go in great haft to Louys the French Kings Son to Sollicit him to take upon him the Crown of England who is their tres humble Serviteur and as ready to Swear to them as they to him A French Oath pretended surer than an English and to make wise to them that a French Oath was surer than an English over therefore he comes to England in Person with as great a Fleet and Army as the Power of France could make on so likely hopes of a Conquest incouraged by so great a Power of the English Barons who call'd them in and joyned with them and being Landed in Kent in May the Lords bring him to London where he takes his Solemn Oath to Restore their Laws and Liberties and recover their right for them King John who had first forsworn himself was notwithstanding in the Field with another Army against King Louys but fell into a Feaver and Died or as some say was poisoned On his Death many of the English Lords hoping to find more Truth in the Son than in the Father returned from Louys to their Native King and suddenly Crowned Henry the Third the eldest Son of King John being then but Nine years old in a great Parliament Assembled at Gloucester 28 Octob. by which Parliament his Tutelage by Reason of his Minority was Committed to the Great Marshal William Earl of Pembrook a Man Eminent both in Courage and Council And it is likewise to be noted That this Henry was begotten by King John of Isabel the Daughter and Heir of Aymer Earl of Angloulesm who was before the Marriage pre-contracted to Hugh le Brun Earl of March
Successor do He would first seize upon all the Protestant Treasuries and Treasure then on all the Protestant Armories Arms and Magazines on all the Protestant Forts Cittadels and Castles on the Protestant Navy and Land Militia It is wonderful what mighty strength of Foot and Horse Q. Mary kept for the Train in all the Counties of England and Wales to Oppress the Protestants ten times more than what the Protestants now keep to defend themselves against Papists as appears 4 5. P. M. Cap. 2. in Rastall's Statutes The incredible Provision for Arms by Papists in Queen Maries time where it is Enacted That every Person having 400 l. per annum or above and under the value of a 1000 Marks shall have find keep sustein and maintain two Horses or one Horse and one Gelding able for Demy-Lances with sufficient Furniture of Harness Steel Saddles and Weapons for the same and 4 Geldings able for Light-Horsemen with sufficient Harness and Weapons for the same and also 20 Corslets furnished and 20 Almain Rivets furnished and one Stede of Almain Rivets 20 Coats of Plate Corslets or Brigandines furnished 20 Pikes 15 long Bows 15 Sheefs of Arrows 15 Steel Caps or Skulls 6 Harquebusses and 6 Morians or Sallets So the Children of this World are in their Generation wiser than the Children of Light Q. Mary a Papist Successor to K. Edward a Protestant provided it seems the proportion of above ten to one more Arms to destroy Protestants than her Protestant Successors have to defend them for there is now but one Horse appointed for 500 l. per annum whereas Q. Mary sets six Horses on 400 l. per annum besides that Mass of Foot Arms appointed in the same Statute And though 400 l. per annum might be in those times according to the intrinsick value of Silver more than 500 l. now yet the proportion of Horse and Foot layd on 400 l. Land then If the Protestant yeild or lose Possession of Treasure or Arms or Offices to the Papists 't is not to be recovered again without a Miracle seems ten times more than now It is further to be Considered That by God's Mercy the Protestant is as yet Possessor of the Treasure Militia and all Publick Offices and the Protestants are by the same Mercy increased and multiplied and grown far more numerous in Great Britain and the same Mercy hath likewise given them Victories against Papists The Protestants have by God's Providence a Protestant King the Rightful Possessor of the Crown whom God grant long to live And hopes of a Protestant Successor the next Lineal right Heir of his Blood according to the Moral Law of God and the Law of the Land and the Protestant Religion And what is likewise a singular Mercy of God derived from a Marriage by the Moral Law of God and contrary and as is hoped inconsistent with the Ceremonial Law of Marriage and Succession Papal or Episcopal and therefore of a contrary Interest to them To yield therefore the right of the Law of God to the Law of Man the right of a Lineal Heir to a Collateral to yield the Possession of a great Number to a lesser Number of a greater power to a lesser power of a victorious Religion to a vanquished of a protestant Successor to a papist Successor were not only against all Piety but Prudence and all Laws either of Right or Possession 9. The Danger of seizing Offices by the Papist or his Trustees in name of Protestants 9. How great a plunge will it put the Protestants to who is now in possession of all publick Offices if through neglect of barring his door of Possession by an Act of Parliament declaring a Protestant Successor a papist Successor seeing the door left open for him should slip in and after he hath Treasure and Arms should likewise seize on the Power of publick Offices For then may he make Sheriffs of Counties Papists Mayors of Cities and Towns Papists He would make all the Military Officers by Land and Sea Papists Then may he cause to be chosen the greatest part of Burgesses and Knights of Shires Papists He may make Bishops Papists all Preachers Papists Lords of Parliaments Papists He may make Judges on the Woolsacks Papists for if the Successor be a Papist as the Supream Officer is so will all Inferior Officers be Papists He may then repeal all former Acts of Parliament made against Papists vacate all Oaths taken against Papists The Inquisition Office of Spiritual Courts and Excommunicato Capiendoes is ready prepared for him and he can as easily restore the Haeretico Comburendo Office again Did not so weak an Instrument as a Woman even Q. Mary her self do all this and more when once she became a Papist Successor to a Protestant King though he had confirmed the Protestant Religion as much as possible by Acts of Parliament How much more is a Masculine Papist Successor then to be feared whose Designs and Accomplishments are of higher and easier Atchievements than any Feminine When he sees all this done and the Abomination of Desolation stand in the Holy place what will then become of the miserable Protestant when by his own Supine Negligence he sees himself dispossessed of Treasure Arms Laws and all these publick Offices and Officers which should under God have protected him and the Judgment of God come upon him for his casting away all those Lawful means vouchsafed him of prevention of so great a Judgment Praestat therefore Cautela quam Medela it were a presumptuous tempting of God for the Protestant to deliver the possession of all his Treasure Arms and Offices to a Papist Successor when God hath given him Lawful means to prevent the same for when all these things are once delivered into the hands of a Papist Successor though God should by a Miracle send again a Protestant Successor how difficult and dangerous a matter it it would be to get again the power out of the Papist possession appears by the Example of Queen Elizabeth her self For when it pleased God to give her the Kingdom the Alteration of Religion Q. Eliz. her self not able to restore the Protestant Religion by more than six Voices after the Papists had got Possession Queen Eliz. not able to remove what did Protestants more harm than Images from Papist to Protestant in Parliament was carried by no greater plurality than only of six Voices and the Protestant party though with a Protestant Queen in the Head of them was able at that time to Enact no more against Popery than only two points viz. The Abolishing of the Mass and the Establishing the Liturgy in the English Tongue After Images were likewise removed out of Churches and broken or burnt Bak. Hist 350. But the High places of the Inquisition in Spiritual Courts The Excommunication Capiendo's and Haeretico Cumburendo's The Romish Altars and Ceremonies which did Protestants more harm than Images she was not able to move the
Sons of Zerujah were too hard for her so it was an easie matter for Queen Mary who was a Papist Successor to lose Callice to the French The Possession of Callice once lost could not be again recovered which was done by King Philip's drawing out the Strength of the English Garrison Souldiers in his Wars against other Towns and the neglect of the Queens Council to send Recruits until too late though they had notice of a Seige intended against them The Town of Callice which was first taken by Edward the Third after Eleven Months Siege was esteemed of so high Import that on a Treaty of Marriage by King Edward between his Nephew Richard of Burdeaux and Mary a Daughter of Charles the French King Charles made an offer to King Edward to leave him Fourteen hundred Towns and Three thousand Fortresses in Aquitain upon Condition he would render Callice and all that he held in Picardy But before any thing could be concluded King Edward died And the Lord de Cordes a French Lord would commonly say He would be content to lye in Hell seven years so that Callice were in the French Possession Bak. Hist 240. But it seems since they got it in possession some of them would be content to lie in Hell for ever if Perjury will lay them there so long For there being Anno Dom. 1559. in the First year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth a Treaty of Peace between her and the French King and Commissioners of both sides to that end appointed and the Commissioners meeting accordingly the Chief point in difference was the Restitution of Callice for which the English Commissioners by the Queens Appointment offered to remit Two Millions of Crowns that by just Accompt were due from France to England At last on much Altercation it was Concluded and Agreed Perjury in the French King in not restoring Callice That Callice should remain in possession of the French for the term of Eight years and those Expired it should be delivered unto the English upon the forfeiture of Five hundred thousand Crowns for which Hostages were given But all this notwithstanding though the Conditions were Sealed and Sworn to and though Hostages were assigned to remain in England till one or other were performed yet all was frustrate and came to nothing Bak. Hist 351. So little Faith is there in the Oath of a Papist Prince And the same Danger will be in the delivering the possessions of Garrisons Forts in England to Papists or Papist Successor though on Conditions Sworn to by them the same difficulty yea impossibility for a Protestant Successor to recover again the Possession of Treasure Arms Offices Religion Liberty Propriety as it is of Life it self when once left to a papist Successor though he take an Oath to preserve all these By which and all former Examples appears That a papist Successor if he happen to be is of great Danger and Mischief to all Lay-papists themselves but totally and inevitably Destructive to all Protestants See other Examples of Perjury by Popes Bishops and Papist Princes before Lib. 2. p. 377. Of the Destruction double to Protestants if the Crown happen to fall to a Papist Successor Female and not prevented as before Destruction double to Protestants in a Papist Successor Female It is before spoken of the Destruction inevitable must follow to Protestants if a Male Papist Successor happen But if a Female happen it must be doubly Destructive for she will Marry a Foreign Papist Prince so the Protestants will be left naked and exposed to the rage and Cruelties both of a Papist and a Foreign Sword Hath not God given us already warning fresh in Memory in the late Examples of Queen Mary of England and Queen Mary of Scotland one of whom Married King Philip of Spain the other was sold by Cardinal Beton and Married to the French Dauphin And did not God even by Miracle though we most unthankfully so soon forget it Catch this Island as a Brand kindled at both ends out of the Fire Protestants barr'd of Succession to Papists by Salique Laws yet are not Papists barr'd to succeed to Protestants and hath he in vain given Sense and Reason and Strength to the Dull Protestants so far to tempt him and provoke his Judgment as to cast it thither again while the busie Papist hath barr'd all his Doors of Succession with his Laws against Hereticks and his Salique Laws to exclude alike both Female and Male Protestants 10. The next Danger is If no Successor should be Declared by the King and Parliament in regard of Foreign Princes 10. Danger of Foreign Princes That Danger is likewise very well expressed in the Statute 25 H. 8. Cap. 22. To have been the cause of great Bloodshed in this Realm and to be one of the Causes why the King desired to declare his Successor by Act of Parliament as appears in these words viz. And sometimes other Foreign Princes and Potentates of sundry Degrees minding rather Dissentions and Discord ot continue in this Realm to the utter Desolation thereof than Charity Equity and Vnity have many times supported wrong Titles whereby they might more easily and facily aspire to the Superiority of the same The continuance and sufferance whereof deeply considered and pondered were too Dangerous and Perillous to be suffered within this Realm any longer and too much contrary to the Vnity Peace and Tranquility of the same being greatly Reproachable and Dishonourable to the whole Realm The not Declaring Edgar Atheling Successor by Act of Parliament in the Life of Edward the Confessor William the Conqueror let in by not Declaring Edgar Atheling Successor let in the Foreign pretence of William the Conqueror which if it had been done 't is probable that never any Norman Invador had dared to have set his foot on English Ground So 't is probable the King of Spain had never been able to have seized on the Crown of Portugal had not the Superstitious Portuguese inslaved their Blood Royal to be Judged by the Papal and Episcopal Laws of Marriage and Succession contrary to the Moral Law of God whereby they left it in the Power of Popes or Bishops if the Spaniard or any other Papist Prince would give or promise them Money to Legitimate or Illegitimate whom they would and sell the Succession to the Kingdom at what rate they pleased Philip the Second of Spain seized the Crown of Portugal by the not Declaring Don Antonio Successor for as appears in that Judicious Author though Anonymus who writes The interest of Princes p. 95. The Case was this Henry the Third Son of Emanuel being according to the Papal Law Heir to the Crown of Portugal was accordingly Crowned Anno Dom. 1578. And being an Old Man without Children sensible of the Disputes would arise after his Death about the Succession erected a Judicature to hear and Determine the several Claims pretending to the same Of
can only be understood where there is a Necessity and no Remedy But where God is pleased to offer a just King and a just Parliament to Judge equally there is no Necessity of using any unjust means though to obtain Right 3. If a Prince buy not with ready Money or Donatives given in Possession but oblige himself in future Promises if he obtain the Kingdom the Mercenaries are so many who will expect to be promised and their Nature so unsatiable That no Prince can be so rich who is to obtain nor can any Kingdom be so rich when it is obtained as to be able to satisfie a small part of them and who fail of their Expectation turn Enemies As Rich. 3. promised the Duke of Buckingham if he obtained the Kingdom very great Rewards but after he was King failed to perform the same the Duke of Buckingham became his Mortal Enemy and King Richard paid his Promises by cutting him off for Treason when he had first ruined Richard by laying the Plot for Henry the Seventh 4. If the Kingdoms are left exposed to Sale a Papist Successor will be richer than a Protestant and so carry it by Money though not by Right Impoverisheth the Prince 5. It impoverisheth and weakens the Prince and his Posterity So the German Emperors have impoverished and weakened themselves by giving away so many Royalties to 7 Electors to buy them in Elections That the Electors are greater than they The Mischiefs as to the People are Mischiefs of buying Crowns to the Subject 1. The Sale of the Successions of the Three Kingdoms and buying of them Destroys all Religion and Justice among the People for your Kingdom-Sellers usually receive a great share of their Money out of the Power they Contract to have of the Sale of all Publick Offices of Gain both Ecclesiastical and Temporal If therefore Bishops and other Ecclesiastical Persons buy their Offices they will neither Form nor Preach any Divinity but for Gain If Temporal Judges or other Judicial or Ministerial Officers buy their Offices those who buy will sell and take Bribes and none shall have Justice unless he buys In Turky all the great Officers buy their Places of the Grand Seignior whereby they run themselves into great Debts which they rake out again of the poor People by all manner of Rapine and Oppression And though the fame is of the Great Turk's great Severity on the Bribery of Judges yet no Courts in the World are more corrupt for that Vice than they For what colour can the Emperor have to punish those Thieves to whom he himself is accessary by selling their Licences to Rob at so dear a rate as he usually puts them to buy and will afterward take the whole spoil if it grow to any bulk 2. The Exchequer will be ingaged under unsupportable Debts and charged with Pensions to a Multitude of Pretended Claimants of Promises which will totally exhaust the Publick Treasure load the People with insupportable Burdens and Taxes and destroy all the Military Defence of the Kingdoms by Sea and Land for want of Pay 3. Kingdom-Sellers will usually have Commissions to take all Penalties on the Penal Statutes to Dispense and Pardon Offences against those Statutes and to Pardon or make Composition for the Penalties which Penal Statutes concerning both Religion Justice Trade Military Affairs and the whole Policy of the Kingdom will be totally subverted by Money by such said Kingdom-Sellers It Exposes the Kingdom to Conquest 16. Danger of exposing this Kingdom to Conquest For if a Successor is not declared by King and Parliament a Multitude of Competitors may arise and having no Judge of greater Power than themselves do try their right by Battel and Civil Wars wherein he who Joyns will declare himself a Conqueror from which these two Mischiefs will arise 1. There cannot be a free Parliament for the Sword will awe and over-power the Elections both of Burgesses and Knights and when they come to sit the greatest part of the Members will be Military Officers The Conqueror will grant no Law except for Money and the Army will have a Negative Vote on the Parliament 2. All the Nation especially the Rich and Noble which happen to be of the side that is Vanquished whether right or wrong will be either Fined or Confiscated and many of their lives taken by their own Brethren of the same Religion and Nation and therefore it most concerns the Nobles and not the Poor to prevent Civil War as is visible in all the Victories obtained between the Houses of York and Lancaster wherein both Princes and Nobles destroyed one another and set up their Heads upon Poles by turns And it was the usual saying of Edward the Fourth in all the Battels he fought Kill the Nobles but save the People Some further Examples of declaring Successors by Parliament Some further Examples of declaring Successors follow besides what before mentioned To this purpose of declaring a Successor by Parliament Grot. de Jur. Bel. Pac. 111. says Sic Euphaes Rex Messeniis permisit dispicere quem ex Regali Aepitidarum genere Regnaret Et de Xerxis Artabarzanis Controversia Populus Cognovit Et 179 sive in conventu ordinum ut factum in Anglia Scotia teste Cambdeno sive per Delegatos ad id Negotium ut factum in Aragonia teste Mariana lib. 20. So King Euphaes permitted the Messenians to consider who ought to Reign of the Royal race of Epitidae And the People of Persia had Conusans of the Controversie between Xerxes and Artabarzanes Or the same is determined in Parliament as Cambden testifies is done in England and Scotland or by Delegates of the People as Mariana testifies lib. 20. was done in Aragon So King Edward the Third the Wise Author of this great Statute whereon this Discourse hath proceeded to prevent Civil Wars on any doubt arising on Succession to the Crown not only declared his eldest Son by this Statute but likewise he happening to Die in his Father's Life-time caused to prevent all farther Scruples his Grandchild Richard of Bourdeaux to be declared Successor by Act of Parliament Moses Declares a Successor Moses being told that he should die Numb 27.15 desireth God to declare a Successor And Moses spake unto the Lord saying Let the Lord the God of the spirits of all flesh set a Man over the Congregation which may go out before them and which may go in before them and which may send them out and which may bring them in That the Congregation of the Lord be not as sheep which have no shepheard And the Lord said unto Moses Take thee Joshua the Son of Nun a Man in whom is the Spirit and lay thine hand upon him and set him before Eleazer the Priest and before all the Congregation and give him a Charge in their sight and thou shalt put some of thine Honour upon him that all the Congregation of the Children of
not only then High Treason to Compass the Death Exile or Disinheriting of the King 's Eldest Son but whatsoever else is High Treason against a King will be the same against him Objections chiefly by Buchanan against these Statutes and the Policy of them making Kingdoms Hereditary to the Eldest Sons Answered Object Who is best able to defend a Kingdom should have it Object 1. Salus Populi is above all Statutes and the Power of Kings and Parliaments themselves and above all Acts of Parliament Statutes therefore which Repeal the Ancient Fundamental Laws which were in Great Britain of Election by Parliament and in Ireland by the Custom of Tanistry of Succession of the Brother before the Son such Statutes ought themselves to be repealed and not to repeal those which are better and it being most necessary pro salute Populi that he who is best able to defend a Kingdom against Enemies Foreign and Native and hath learnt the same by Age and Experience should succeed which the Brother being more able and fit to do than the Son ought according to those Ancient and Necessary Customes to succeed before the Son which Custome as to Scotland is recited by Buchaman Mos majorum qui è propinquis Regum defunctorum non proximos sed maximè idoneos eligerent modo à Fergusio primo Scotorum Rege essent oriundi The Custom of Scotland was That the Parliament chose out of the Kindred of the King deceased not the next but the fittest so as they were such as were descendents from Fergusius the first King of the Scots and on this Custome Kenneth the Third who was the Brother of King Duffus was by Election of the Parliamem of Scotland preferred before Milcolumbus the Son of Duffus though a Youth of great hopes which Kenneth began his Reign Anno Dom. 970 and proved a most Valiant and Wife Prince and repell'd a Mighty Invasion of the Danes whom he overthrew in a Battel with a great Slaughter of them but the same Kenneth afterwards inflamed with Ambition Covetousness and Cruelty secretly poysoned Milcolumbus the then Prince of Scotland being the said Son of his Brother Duffus deccased and with great dissimulation counterseiting even Tears and great Grief for him Convened a Parliament at Scone whom partly by Terror and partly by Deceit he got to Abrogate the Law of Succession of Brothers before Sons which had made him King and been the Sanctuary of Publique Safety and Enacted a Law of Succession for his own private and not the Publique Interest clean contrary viz. That the Kingdom should be from that time Hereditary in this manner That his own Eldest Son should be Prince of Scotland That when any King dyed his Eldest Son should next succeed to the Crown and if the Eldest dyed living his Father the Nephew should succeed instead of his Son who dyed And other Constitutions as appears Buchanan rer Scotl. 190 191. Who saith further Kenneth making the Kingdome of Scotland Hereditary tormented in Conscience Ita Rex per scelus posteris uti putabat regno stabilito animum tamen suum confirmare non pot uit c. The King saith he having by so great a Wickedness established his Kingdom as he thought to his Posterity he could not Establish his Mind for although he courted all sorts of Men with the highest shew of Love and Courtesie and so managed the Affairs of the Kingdom that there was nothing wanting which shewed him not a good King Yet his Mind perpetually disquieted with the conscience of his wicked fact suffered him not to have any solid or sincere joy but the thoughts of his foul Crime rushing into his memory vexed him by Day and by Night most horrible Dreams disturbed his rest at length whether truly as some affirm or whether his troubled thoughts made him so fancy what oftentimes happens to Guilty persons a voice came from Heaven by which he seemed in his sleep to be warned Doest thou think the Murder of Milcolumbus an Innocent Person committed by thee most wickedly in Secret is hid from me or that I will any longer suffer it to pass without punishment For already there are Plots laid by Treason which thou shalt not escape to take away thy Life neither shalt thou as thou thinkest leave thy Kingdom Stable or Secure but full of Tumults and Tempests to thy Posterity With which fearful Dream the King being terrified Early in the Morning he flyes to the Bishops and Monks and declares to them the Confusion of his Mind and Anguish of his Conscience for his Crime but they gave him no true Remedy from the Doctrine of Christ for they had already degenerated from the Piety and Learning of the Ancient Professors But advised those many absurdities Long since invented by wicked Persons for their own gains and rashly believed of the Unlearned and Overcredulous That he should inrich with Gifts the Holy Places and Temples and should visit the Sepulchres of the Saints kiss their Reliques redeem his Sins by Masses and Alms and should have a greater Honour and Reverence for the Monks and Priests than he had formerly us'd to have Neither did he omit any of these Explations which he believed would help him But he was notwithstanding after by appointment of Fenella a Lady formerly Injured by him and an Ambuscada of Horse laid for him taken and killed as Buchanan p. 192. after the death of Kenneth and this Intayl of the Crown to his Issue by the Murder of his Brother's Son It appears Buchan rer Scotl. lib. 6. p. 192 193. That Constantinus the Son of Caten called Calvus Constantine Calvus procures the Law of Kenneth to be repealed began to dispute much against the Injustice of this Law to which they were circumvented by fear to assent and thus he begins Quid enim Stultius quam rem unam omnium maximam à prudentium censura Suffragiis ad Arbitrium fortunae revocare c. What saith he is more foolish than to take away a matter of the greatest concern from the Votes of Wise Men in Parliament and to cast it on the Wheel of Fortune and that these should bind themselves to be ruled by a Child who hath the chance to be born and who is ruled by some petty Woman and drive away most Valiant Men from assistance in the Government What if the Children of Kings should have any infirmity of Body or Mind whereby they are utterly disabled to perform necessary Acts of Empire what if Children should have possessed the Kingdom in such time when we fought with the Romans Britons Picts English and Danes not for the Kingdom but for Life or what can be said more Mad than what God threatens to the Contumacious that Children should reign over them as the highest Calamity we should enact as a Law on our selves and the greatest Threats of the Divine Prophets we should either contemn or run headlong into it of our own accord Neither is there any
ubi Rex pervenerit ipsi sibi curatores Eligere posset That the King being under the Age of Fourteen Years Election should be made of a Guardian of great Estate and Wisdom who should be his Regent in the mean while and Administer his Affairs in the King's Name till he arrived at the Age of Fourteen and when he came to that Age he himself might choose his own Guardians Which Election of a Guardian must be intended to be by Parliament for it appears by the words That the Infant or Minor King must not nor is able to choose himself till he come to the Age of Fourteen And it is contrary to Reason that any other should be his own Judge to choose himself to have to himself to his own use the Custody of the Person of the King Dangerous to Commit the Guardianship of a Minor prince to the next Major in whom all his Subjects have an Interest And it would be very Dangerous to the Infant if he who is next Successor to the Crown should get the Custody of the Heir into his hands There is no Third Power can be therefore above Exception who ought to choose the Guardian of an Infant King but the Parliament And accordingly we find it to be the constant Practice of that Kingdom as appears Buchanan Lib. 19. p. 687. when it is said Sed cum homines usu rerum Edocti Perspicerint vix fieri posse ut in tanta fortunae inconstantia non aliquando in pueros aut alioqui Regno ineundo Impares haeredes jus summi Magistratus inciderit c. But when taught by Experience men saw that it could not be but in so great inconstancy of Fortune but the Right of the Supreme Magistracy might fall amongst Children or other Heirs unfit to Govern a Kingdom they Ordained That in the mean time one should be Elected Regent who Excell'd the rest in Estate and Counsel Guardians chosen by Parliament the only Security of Kings in Minority and our Ancestors following this way for the space of Six hundred Years have transmitted thereby the Kingdom safe to Posterity So Robert Bruce being dead Thomas Randolph Earl of Murray and Donald Earl of Mar Andrew Murray John Randolph Robert Stuart succeeded singly and sometimes more number are by Parliament chosen into that place So James II. being a child Alexander Leviston being of no Kin nor of the chief Rank of Nobility but only a Knight and of more repute for Prudence then Antient Descent was elected to be his Guardian Neither can there be alledged any want of persons of the Royal Stock to have been the cause of such choice for there was at that time John Kennedy chief of his Family and King James his Nephew by his Sister there were his Uncles James Kennedy Archbishop of St. Andrews Primate of the whole Kingdom in all kind of Vertue and his Brother born of the Kings Aunt Douglass Earl of Angus was not remote from the Kings Blood Archibald Earl of Douglas in Power almost equal to the King and superiour to any of the rest yet did none of these complain of any Injustice in the Parliament for making another choice and not long after four Guardians were given to James III. not taken for the Kindred but chosen by Parliament It was but of late that John Duke of Albin was sent for by the Nobility out of France to moderate the Affairs of Scotland James I. being then a child and was confirmed by a publick Act of Parliament Neither was it done because he was next of Kin for he had an Elder Brother called Alexander But James I. being absent Robert his Uncle ruled the Kingdom And with what Right Was he taken for nearness of Blood No he was chosen by the People Nor so neither How then was he created When Robert III. was so sick in body and mind that he was not able to discharge his Office he made his Brother Robert his Vice-Roy and commended his Children to him So his Brother starved to death David his Eldest Son and sought how to destroy likewise James his Younger had he not escaped by slight But he being now placed in possession of his Tyranny and his Brother dead with grief without Parliament or assent of the People he kept it and by force left it to his Son Mordach c. Buchanan proceeds p. 688. Quid enim minus justum esse poterat quam aetatem innoxiam atque infirmam ejus fidei committere qui pupilli sibi crediti mortem semper expectat optat What can be more injust then to commit the innocent and weak Age to one who always hopes for or wishes the death of the Pupil intrusted in his hands And after he saith Laodice the Queen of the Cappadoceans is related to have killed every one of her children as in order they arrived at fourteen years of age to gain thereby a little more time to reign If a Mother will destroy her Children to get the use of a little time what shall we think will their old Enemies dare yea will they not dare to do inflamed with the Brands of Covetousness to cruelty against a Child hindering their hopes of a perpetual Kingdom If this Example seems old and obscure or far-fetch'd I will add more clear and nearer home For who is so ignorant of things so lately acted as he knows not Galeacius Sfortia though at mans Estate though married and the Son in Law of a Potent King to be killed by Lodowick his Uncle Or to whom are the Calamities unknown which ensued that cruel Parricide the most beautiful Region of Italy brought almost to a Devastation the Sfortian Family The not abolishing Episcopal Laws which pretend to Illegitimate whom they please the sense of the Murder of Edward V. and his Brother so fruitful of valiant men destroyed Barbarians let into the most pleasant Country watered by Po. Against whose Rapine nothing was safe against whose Cruelty nothing was secure Who hath been born in the soil of Great Britain and hath not heard of the cruel Murder by Richard III. King of England of the Sons of his Brother Edward IV A great cause of the murder likewise of these Princes was that Papal and Episcopal Laws were not abolished which pretend to illegitimate whom they please Answ 5 Making a Kingdom hereditary to the eldest Son weakens not the Power of Parliaments And 5. as to the Reason against these Statutes which maketh the Crown hereditary to the eldest Son that the same enervate the strength of Parliaments and without a Contract made by every Prince with a Parliament no Government can be just in regard if he receives not the Kingdom by Contract he assumes it by Conquest which over a Free Nation is unjust To which is answered First that these Acts of Parliament of England and Scotland which entail the Crown to the Eldest Son do no way weaken but confirm and establish the Power of Parliaments and
Emperors of this Realm whereby hath insued great Effusion and Destruction of man's Blood as well of a great number of the Nobles as of other Subjects and especially Inheritors in the same and the greatest occasion thereof hath been because no perfect and substantial Provision in Law hath been made within this Realm of it self when Doubts and Questions have been moved and proponed of the Certainty and Legalty of the Succession and Posterity of the Crown By which Statute appears the Judgment of the King and Parliament to be That the great incertainty of the Law in points of Succession of the Crown was one great Cause of the great Mischiefs of effusion of Blood both of Nobles and Commons which insued thereby and the fittest Remedy to be the Declaration of the Successor incertain by the King and Parliament which is accordingly therefore done in the same Statute And it likewise appears that the same Doubt in Law was raised then as to Succession which is now Whether the King's Marriage and Issue by the Mother of Queen Elizabeth was Lawful and Legitimate which is Declared by this Act of Parliament that it was And H. there is first intendency there to Declared a Legitimation of the same Marriage with Queen Ann the said Mother of Queen Elizabeth And that all the Issue had and procreate or to be had procreate without saying Lawfully between the King and Queen Ann shall be his Lawful Children and be Inheritable to the Crown Then is the Crown Declared to be to the King for Life and the Remainder to be to the first Son of his Highness of his said Lawful Wife Queen Ann begotten and to the Heirs of the Body of the said first Son Lawfully begotten and for default of such Issue with divers Remainders over and make it High Treason to slander the King's Marriage in prejudice of the Heirs of the same 3. Danger of Arbitrary disposing the Crown by Rome or Canterbury 3. The other great Danger from the incertainty of the Laws of Succession besides effusion of Blood which is the Arbitrary disposing by Episcopal Sees whether of Rome or Canterbury though only Rome named unless a Successor is Declared by the King and Parliament is likewise mentioned in the said Statute 25 H. 8. cap. 22. in these words viz. By Reason whereof the Bishop of Rome and See Apostolick Contrary to the great and inviolable Grants of Jurisdictions by God immediately to Emperors Kings and Princes in Succession to their Heirs hath Presumed in time past to invest who should please them to Inherit in other mens Kingdoms and Dominions which thing we your most humble Subjects both Spiritual and Temporal do most Abhor and Detest 4. Danger of Predominancy of Papal and Episcopal Laws of Marrlage above the Moral Law of God 4. One great Cause of the incertainty of the Laws of Succession of the Crown is That Papal and Episcopal Ceremonial Laws of Marriage Filiation and Succession are tollerated in the Three Kingdoms to Usurp a Predomination not only over the Law of the Land but the Moral Law of God It is therefore necessary to avoid the Danger mention'd to proceed from the incertainty caused by Papal and Episcopal Laws That a Declaration by King and Parliament be Who shall be Successor in Particular and by Name which clears all Doubts and is the highest Security under God on which any Crown or Succession to it can depend 5. Danger to the King's Person Line and House 5. The not Declaring a Successor is Dangerous to the Person of the King and his House of which we need not look on any other Example than Alexander the Great of whom Justin Lib. 15. relates That he being desired to Declare a Successor though he had a Son called Hercules and though his Wife Roxana were Great with Child yet would he Declare neither but Will'd That he who was most worthy should Succeed which was the same in effect as if he had Will'd they should after his Death destroy one another with Civil Wars and his own House amongst them for so they did And Cassander one of his mean and not Chief Officers destroyed his Mother Olympias and all his Kindred Such was the Fate of so great a Monarch who while alive thought the World too little yet was he himself Poison'd and when Dead nor he nor his Mother nor his Children nor any of his Kindred retained any Spot but their Graves being all destroyed with him of which there appears no second Cause but his Neglect to Declare his Son Hercules his Successor who might have been a Preservative to him according to Tacitus Pravas aliorum spes cohiberi si Successor non in incerto The wicked hopes of Plots against the Possessor are Checkt if the Successor is not incertain 6. Danger of Lineal and Collateral Heirs to destroy one another 6. The Danger of the Lineal and Collateral Heirs destroying one another doth cause all those Murthers Poisoning Strangling Burning out the Eyes or perpetual Imprisonments of the Blood Royal of the Turkish Persian Aethiopian and other Eastern Kings and Emperors but that they have no Parliaments Elected by the people to Declare their Successor and to Protect the Liberty Propriety and Lives of their younger Children by standing Laws but on the Death of the old Emperor the Election or rather Sale of the Empire to the New is left to the Lawless will of the Priest or Soldier 7. The Danger if the King 's Eldest Son should die and leave Children in Minority of Guardians in Majority of Contention for the Crown between Nephews and Uncles This Danger is not so great in Scotland as in England for there as hath been already said as Buchanan mentions their Ancient Act of Parliament Enacts Vt quemadmodum Regi maximus Natu filius in Regnum Succederet ita filio ante Patrem Defuncto Nepos avo subrogaretur That as the Eldest Son of the King should Succeed to him in the Kingdom so the Son being Dead before his Father the Nephew should Succeed in his stead to his Grandfather It hath been already before shewn how dangerous Guardians Uncles are to Nephews in Minority and if in Majority all Histories witness under how great incertainty the Law is in most Nations to determin the Question which ought to be preferred the Uncle or Nephew in Succession to a Kingdom that is to say in such Kingdoms who have no Parliaments Elected by the People to establish the manner of Succession And how great Wars and Devastations have been made between Nephews and Uncles on the incertainty of the Law of the Country in that point And though in Succession to Common Inheritances in England the Nephew is by Custom preferred Jure Representationis to the Uncle and though my Lord Coke likewise in his Exposition on the said Statute of 25. E 3. cap. 2. Coke 3. Part. fol. 8. saith to be the Fitz-Eigne the Eldest Son of the King within that Statute it
of his dead Father but his Oath to his Loving Subjects which was his Ruine for his entertainment of French Councels endammaged his English Subjects and his nearest French Relation Isabel his own Queen Persidiously by the help of her Brother the French King raised a Rebellion here of his own Subjects against him which caused him to be Deposed from his Kingdom and shortly after to be Murdered in an hideous manner in Barckly Castle So here are four Kings Great Grandfathor Grandfather Father and Son all Papists all Confirming and Breaking Magna Charta and their Oaths and their Subjects to whom they have broken them have been all Papists Magna Charta no less than Thirty times Sworn or confirmed and forsworn or broken by Papist Kings to Papist Subjects and the same Papist Religion gives no Mutual obligation of an Oath though to Men of the same Religion Yea this Magna Charta of Liberties hath been Thirty times Confirmed by King and Parliament while the Papist Religion lasted which shews the Oath hath been more than Thirty times broken by some or other of their Papist Princes for otherwise it would not need so many new Confirmations and Oaths In the Protestant Religion it is held That once forsworn ever-forlorn In the Papist it appears he is not so thought though Thirty times forsworn but he may still swear and forswear and begin again anew as many times as he will were it not therefore more secure for the Papist himself to Covenant with a Protestant Successor who dares not break his Oath lying under so great a Penalty of Conscience than with a Papist who makes Perjury not to be Penal and whose Religion it self teaches the wicked Doctrine of Lysander that Children ought to be deceived with Promises and Men with Oaths for what Commerce or Humane Society can there be had with those who will keep neither whether they be Kings or Subjects or of what Degree or Religion soever they be 2. Seeing a Papist Successor can be obliged by no Contract or Oath Only two ways of Succession Contract or Conquest therefore he cannot Succeed by Contract And if he Succeed not by Contract then he will Succeed by Conquest for there are but two ways of Succession either by Contract or by Conquest And if he Succeed therefore by Conquest such Power he will say 't is Diis aequa Potestas Deus est Imperator in Coelis and Imperator est Deus in Terris Jure Divino is above all Humane Laws he will therefore be Lawless and no Law shall be but his Will But a Protestant Successor claims only to the Rule according to Laws agreed and assented to by the Subjects themselves by their Representative in Parliament Can any Sober Papist deny it is not better to have his equal Laws than as a Slave to be destroyed at Pleasure by a cruel unjust and lawless Will as they are generally by their Princes in all Catholick Countries Further Examples of the Perfidiousness of Papist Princes to Papist Subjects Henry the Fourth a Papist King forswore himself to papist Subjects HEnry the Fourth was a Papist and a Violent Enemy against the Wicklenite Protestants yet perfidious to his own Papists too as appears Truss Hist fo 73. there are Articles made against him and the first of them is That when he return'd from his Exilement he made Faith only to Challenge and Recover his Inheritance and his Wives and not to intermeddle with the King nor with his Crown by reason of which Oath divers Loyal and good Subjects to King Richard resorted unto him not having any Treasonable intent but after when he saw his Powers so much increased that he might do what he pleased he wickedly brake his Oath and without any Right or colour like Right procured himself to be made and Crowned King Another Article was That no Justice could be expected from his hand because that contrary to the Oath he had taken when he was Crowned he had by Letters sent into sundry Shires thereby procured certain Burgesses of the Parliament Knights of the Shire to be Chosen whom he knew would not fail to serve his turn as occasion should be offered Here we see is a Papist King and Papist Subjects and he takes an Oath to them concerning the greatest Liberty the Subjects can enjoy which is the free Election of their Representative in Parliament yet this Papist King breaks this very Oath not only to his Papist Subjects but to that very party who were of his own party and Crowned him Richard Duke of York a papist Subject forswore himself to Henry the Sixth a papist King Henry the Sixth and Richard Duke of York were both Papists and the Duke of York took his Oath of Allegiance to King Henry After taking King Henry Prisoner He Calleth a Parliament in the King's Name by which Parliament terrified by the Duke's Sword it was agreed and Enacted That Henry during his Life should retain the Name and Honour of a King and that the Duke of York should be proclaimed Heir Apparent to the Crown and Protector to the King's Person his Land Dominions and Countrey And that if at any time King Henry's Friends Allies Favourites in his behalf should attempt the Disanulling this Act that then the Duke should have present possession of the Crown No sooner was the Parliament Dissolved but the Duke by vertue of his Protectorship esteeming himself a King in Office and Power though not in Name dispatcheth Letters to the Queen the Duke of Somerset Exceter and other Nobility who were then in Scotland with all speed to repair to his presence at London they knowing their own Security lay only in keeping out of his Power marched towards him but Guarded with an Army of Eighteen thousand Men and met him at Wakefield who had there but a small Army of Five thousand to oppose them on whose Valour notwithstanding the Duke relying and though advised by his Council to forbear Fight till his Son the Earl of March could bring up his Forces to joyn with him yet the Pride of his former Victoriâ—s make him deaf to good Advice and therefore rashly joyned 〈◊〉 whereby he hasten'd his own Destiny and was Slain on the place with Three thousand of his Men after which Overthrow of the Father his Son the Earl of March and his Confederates having overthrown the Queens Army at the Battel of Mortimor's Cross and fought the Battel of St. Albans and the Earl of Warwick's Forces joyned with him is proclaimed King but before he could be Crowned he was forced to Fight again with another Army which King Henry had raised in the North which Battel continued doubtful with eager Resolution on both Sides the space of Ten hours whereby there were above Six and thirty thousand Men Slain Bak. Hist 203. But in the end the Day fell to Edward and the King flying to Barwick and her Son to France Edward is Crowned King but after Disobliging
have been saved but the cruel Executioner threw it in again to be Burnt with the Mother Double deaths Here we see the Romish Bull with his two-horned Miter gores with double Deaths Mr. Wischard with Burning and Strangling Sir John Oldcastle Lord Cobham with Hanging in Chains and Burning Mrs. Anne Askew with Racking worse than Death and Burning And this poor Woman great with Child to be Burnt once her self and a second time in her Child The Cruel Massacres of Protestants of Merindoll How miserably have our Neighbours the French Protestants suffered from Cruelty of their Bishops Inciting the Temporal Sword against them in the Massacre of Merindoll Anno 1545. the Instrument being Minier the President of the Council of Aix for having Condemned this poor People of Heresie He Mustered a small Army and set Fire to their Villages They of Merindoll to avoid the Flame with their Wives and Children fled into Woods but were there Butchered or sent to the Galleys One Boy they took and placed him to a Tree and shot him to Death with Calivers 25 who had hid themselves in a Cave were some Stifled some Burned Of Chabriers In Chabriers they so Inhumanely dealt with the young Wives and Maids that most of them died-immediately after the Men and Women they put to the Sword 800 Men were Murdered in a Cave and 40 Women put together in an old Barn and Burned Heylin Geogr. 79. Anno 1655. Emanuel Duke of Savoy caused many Cruel Massacres and Out-rages to be Committed by his Souldiers on his Protestant Subjects in the Valleys of Piedmont Of Piedmont for which there were Days of Humiliation kept in England and Collections of Money made for their Relief Bak. Hist 644. And can the Horrid and Perfidious Massacres in the late Civil Wars in Ireland be so soon forgot wherein as estimated no less than Two hundred thousand English Protestants Of Ireland Men and Women and Children were destroyed who lived with the Irish not suspecting the Plots of the Popish Priests under the Trust and Faith of a Peace made with them which was most Treasonably by them broken Of the Parisian Massacre with the horrid Perjury of the French King The most Horrid and Hellish Parisian Massacre of an Hundred thousand of his Protestant Subjects Committed by that Popish and Perjured French King Charles the Ninth Anno Dom. 1572. is already mentioned and the Inhumane barbarousness of the same before Lib. 2. Ch. 1. p. 242 243 244. He Swore and Damned himself and Swore over and over again he would Inviolably keep the League and Peace he had made with his Protestant Subjects but when he had got them thereby to be secure and Trust themselves in his hands Let any see who will but take the pains to read the forementioned History of that Massacre how he used them for trusting of him Let any Papist Prince or Claimant to be a Papist Successor shew by which of his Gods he will Swear No Papist Successor can Swear deeper which Charles the Ninth did not Swear and Forswear himself by That he will give Liberty of Conscience to his Protestant Subjects And let such Protestant Subjects as are willing to have an Hundred thousand of them their Wives and Children Butcher'd with Inhumane and Barbarous Tortures while on trust of his Oath they put themselves into his Power give Faith to Perjury but let them Pardon their weaker Brethren if they are afraid to bear them Company Let Papist Priests transformed into Protestant Angels of Light Preach up blind Obedience and implicit Faith to Perjury But let them Excuse those sheep of their Flock who know the voice of the true Shepheard if they hear a true Protestant Pastor in another Fold Let the true Protestant Pastor hear likewise what is said Ezckiel 32.2 When I bring the Sword upon a Land if the People of the Land take a man of their Coast and set him for their watchman If when he seeth the Sword coming upon the Land he blow the Trumpet and warn the People Then whosoever heareth the sound of the Trumpet and takes not warning if the Sword come and take him away his blood shall be upon his own head He heard the sound of the Trumpet and took not warning his blood shall be upon him but he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul But if the watchman see the Sword come and blow not the Trumpet and the people be not warned if the Sword come and take away a person from among them he is taken away in iniquity but his blood will I require at the watchman's hands And do the true Protestant Pashor's Sheep Protestant Ministers to give the People warning against Papist Successors or their Blood will be required at their hands if it should happen the Sword of a Papist Successor should be coming on the Land to act over again in Great Britain all the Murders of Protestants by the two Maries all the Fires and Tortures on such Pious Martyrs as have been in Italy Spain France Germany England and Scotland All the Massacres of Merindol Chabriers Ireland Piedmont and Paris Do they think if they should not awake nor blow the Trumpets nor give the People warning of the Imminent Dangers appearing of the Discoveries of their Secret Plots shewn by God himself and of the Dangers and Destructions ensue thereby that the blood of so many Thousand Innocents shall not be required at the hand of the Watchmen Will this be to follow the Precept of Christ Matth. 10.16 Behold I send you forth as sheep in the middest of wolves be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves Is this to be wise as Serpents to suffer the old Romish Serpent to thrust in his head in a Papist Successor will he not quickly get in his Body will this be to follow the Precept of Christ Matth. 4.7 Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God To cast down all Protestants from the Pinacles of the Temple into the fiery furnaces of Popish Priests the incidents necessary of a Papist Successor and without warrant to expect God will shew Miracles to deliver them thence is not this most presumptuous wickedness and a tempting of God when God shews lawful means by Declaring a Protestant Successor by Act of Parliament to prevent any Papist Successor whatsoever with all the Train of Appurtenances of Popish Priests and fiery Furnaces at their Tails Let it be considered what these Popish Priests will probably most do as long as they have hopes to advance a Papist Successor to bring in them and all their Instruments of Superstition and Engines of Cruelty with them Have not their Plots and Practices already discovered what they have intended To Pistol Poison or Stab the Protestant King and his Protestant Eldest Son To make way for a Papist Successor A Papist Successor will seize on all the Protestant Treasure Arms Fleets Forts c. And what would a Papist
was written indeed by Parsons Doleman's bitter Adversary Cardinal Allen and Francis Englefield the Scope of which book was to exclude from Succession all Persons whatsoever and how near soever unless they were Roman Catholicks contending farther for the Right of the Infanta of Spain as being descended from Constance Daughter of William the Conqueror Foreign Papist Princes will declare a Successor for the Protestants if they shall not declare one for themselves Protestant Princes Marrying foreign Papists shall lose their own Kingdoms but not gain theirs from Eleanor Eldest Daughter to Henry the Second Married to Alphonse the Ninth King of Castile from Beatrix Daughter to King Henry the Third so if the Protestants will not take the pains to declare a Successor for themselves 't is plain the Foreign Papist Princes will declare one for them to the purpose and first they declare for Religion he ought not to be a Protestant but a Catholick Then for Blood he ought not to be a Brittish but a Foreign Blood And in all Countries the Pope's Laws shall be a Salique Law to exclude Protestant Blood from Catholick Dominions and to intitle Catholick Blood to Protestant Dominions so as if Protestant Princes Marry with Catholicks they must play all against nothing Most Excellent Nonsence in the Papist Law of Successions 11. Danger of Counterfeit Wills and Testaments It exposes Succession to Counterfeit Wills and Testaments Though the Law is sufficiently clear That Kingdoms which are Publick Offices of Trust are not devisable by last Will and Testament as private Inheritances are yet because the Papist Power of the Sword may pretend to any thing unless the Protestant Subjects have an Act of Parliament declaring a Protestant Successor as a Sheild under God to defend themselves against it the same will be necessary to prevent even this Danger likewise For what Monarch or Emperor is so great as when sickness hath arrested and bound him with the fatal Cords of his Death-Bed where every Woman every Priest every Doctor are his Gaolers can promise himself Liberty to make a free Will Yea that he shall not have less than a private Subject when his Keepers shall make use of his own Publick Name and Authority against himself to exclude from him those faithful Friends who will force their way through to relieve a private Person from those Furies of his Bed which Torment him Or how can he promise himself though he make his Will in his perfect Health that as soon as he is dead it shall not be destroyed For did not H. 8. use all the Caution possible to secure his Will after his Death Had he not an Act of Parliament which gave him Power to Nominate Successors by his Will and made it High Treason for any to prejudice the Titles of the Persons so Nominated Did he not solemnly inrole it in Chancery yet when before the Death of Queen Elizabeth an inquisition was made after the Will of H. 8. to see whom he had Nominated to succeed The Will of H. 8. stoln off the file where inroled in case she should happen to dye without Issue they found the same to be taken by Bribe or Stoln off the Cursitors File by some who intended to advance their own Title for there were Sixteen Titles then on foot Osborn Tit. Queen Eliz. 99. Plotina the Empress Wife of the Emperor Trajan who was with him at his Decease Adrian got the Empire by a Counterfeit Will. in regard she had a great favour for young Adrian Plotted with him to help him to the Empire and to that end feigned that Trajan had adopted him for his Son and shewed a Counterfeit Instrument or Writing to â—â—at Effect which matter was so cunningly handled that it took such effect as she desired And the Army presently swore Obedience to Adrian notwithstanding he was absent at Antioch in Syria where he was left General who being advertised thereof and the Legions whereof he was General consenting thereto he presently wrote to the Senate intreating to be Confirmed in the Empire And when the Senate had received his Letter and understood what had passed his Request was easily granted for there was no denyal by old Men to young Men when once they had given so great a share of the Sword as they had not reteined a greater in their own hands wherewith to recall the same when they thought good William the Conqueror pretended a Will and Promise and thereby excluded Edgar Atheling the right Heir William the Conqueror likewise pretended a Will and a Promise of the Kingdom of England from Edward the Confessor which though Edward notwithstanding his Holiness had no Authority or any thing to do to give away from the Right Heir Edgar Atheling nor to enslave the Land to a Foreigner yet it s known how ill effect these Pretences had and the same might have been prevented if Edgar had been declared Successor by Act of Parliament in the life-time of Edward It incourages Usurpers For the ascertaining the Heir by Supreme Authority 12. Danger of Incouraging Usurpers wherein both the Assent both of the King and People is included takes away and the not ascertaining feeds Pretenders and their Parties with hopes So Tacitus lib. 3. Annal. Sic Cohibere pravos aliorum spes rebatur by declaring a Successor in certain he thought the wicked hopes of others were Checkt and in another place Plena Caesarum Domus Juvenis filius Nepotes adulti moram cupitis Sejani adferebant his House full of Caesars his Son in Strength of Youth his Nephews grown up deterred the Ambition of Sejanus And the best remedy King David used against Adonijah Proclaiming himself was to Proclaim Solomon In Titles Doubtful 13. Danger it leaves an Interregnum The infinite mischiefs of Interregnums either on doubtful Titles of Successions or on doubtful Powers or Elections appearing in Histories are too many to be here recited and lest some should be so far deceived as to believe there can be no Interregnum by the Law of England he is desired not to place his Faith in the Fictions of Lawyers That the King never dyes and there is no Interregnum lest if by not declaring a Successor in his Life-time whom God grant long to live the contrary Effects appear when it will be too late to provide a Remedy It Cantons Kingdoms 14. Danger of Cantonizing Kingdoms For so writes Justin of Alexander the Great Alexander rogatus quem Haeredem faceret Imperii respondit dignissimum qua voce veluti Bellicum inter Amicos cecinisset aut malum discordia immisisset ita omnes in aemulationem consurgunt ambitione vulgi tacitum favorem Militum Alexander being asked whom he would make Successor to his Empire answered The most Worthy By which as though amongst his own Friends he had sounded a Charge to Battel one against another or had thrown the Apple of Discord amongst them so did they rise together in
in England or Scotland makes the Children either of Papist or Protestant born of Marriages not prohibited by the Law of God Illegitimate Therefore all Children born of Marriages not prohibited by the Law of God are Legitimate by the Law of the Land for though some Penal Laws have been by Pontifical pretences procured which have presumed too far to prohibit contrary to the Divine Ordinance Marriages and Meats not prohibited by the Law of God yet none but the Pope and Council of Trent who in their Luciferian Pride pretend to power above God's Law ever transgress'd so far in these Kingdoms as by such penal Laws to null or make void such Marriages or to Illegitimate their Children or though they imposed penalties on the Parents to impose any on the Children as may appear by the Statutes 3 Jac. 5. for England prohibiting Popish Recusants to Marry otherwise than by a Minister lawfully authorized in some open Church or Chappel according to the Orders of the Church of England And the Act Car. 1. Par. 2. Sess 2. Act 8. fol. 88. for Scotland prohibiting any to Marry in another Kingdom without the Banns first proclaimed in Scotland And that the Omission of Ceremonies contrary to a penal Law neither Nulls the Marriage nor Illegitimates the Issue Vid. proved before Lib. 1. p. 110 111. 7. Frustra probatur quod probatum non relevat It were time mispent to prove Ceremonies which when they are proved prove nothing to the Matters in question which are a lawful Lady Companion as intended by this Statute and an eldest Son by her of the Blood of King Charles the Second the rightful present Possessor of the Three Kingdoms and of the Blood and of his two special Predecessors King Edward the Third of England and King Fergusius of Scotland as to which Probation of the Ceremonies of a Marriage proves nothing of the Truth or Lawfulness of the Marriage for many Ladies have been Married with all the Ceremonies the Priest could lay on them yet have their Marriages been utterly unlawful and prohibited by the Law of God nor do they prove the Truth or Lawfulness of the Lineal Blood derived from the Possessors or Predecessors As for Example The Kings of Sparta were to be of no other Blood but of the race of Hercules these were Married with all the Ceremonies accustomed in that Kingdom yet did not those Ceremonies preserve the Chastity of the Queen from being so over-familiar with Alcibiades her Husband 's ingrateful Guest and whom he had hospitably entertain'd when fled from his own Country of Athens but he having got her with Child boasted when he was gone from thence that he had left Heirs of his Blood to the Kingdom of Lacedaemon So Henry of Spain Anno Dom. 1459. having Married his Queen with all the Ceremonies accustomed in that Kingdom but being unable himself perswaded her to be got with Child by Bertrand of Guttua Joan thus gotten is proclaimed Heir but refused by the people Bertrand is made Earl of Ledesma and Duke of Alburquerk Sp. Hist Canutus the Dane Married here in England Algine who was Barren she to oblige the love of her Husband feigned her self with Child and packt one that was Suppositions on her Husband King Canutus was very joyful of his supposed Son and called his Name Sweno and after gave him the Kingdom of Norway Philip the Second of Spain was Ceremoniously Married to Queen Mary for whose being with Child as was supposed a Day of Publick Thanksgiving was kept and the Bells rang with Joy through all England but as is said King Philip was Jealous of the like Issue with Canutus what had the proof of the Ceremonies of Marriage been to the purpose to prove Adulterous Children to be of the race of Hercules or Henry or such as had been Suppositions of the Danish or Spanish Races 8. It were a Dishonour to the Holy Protestant Religion and the Professors thereof to be able to Establish the Lawfulness and Validity of their Marriages on no more Sacred Principles than Ceremonies of so unclean an Original as Popes Common Prostitutes Magicians Aruspices Astrologers Southsayers Priests of Priapus and Venus Pagan Gods and Goddesses and Daemons themselves as is already proved Lib. 1. p. 43 44.51 52. Then as to Witnesses It were an unnecessary Tempting of God to cast what is not the cause of a single person but of all the Protestants in the Three Kingdoms on the hazard of such Witnesses as the Probation of Ceremonies Thirty years since and in a Foreign Catholick Country will require for it is certain the Bishops and Magistrates of that Countrey are Papists and therefore no equal Witnesses may be had thence but such as may think it is Meritorious to overthrow the Protestants right or wrong and the same Danger is of Witnesses at home obnoxious to as great Temptations of Papists here whose Religion is not to keep Faith with Hereticks as they call Protestants whereby they may as is commonly practised be corrupted with Money either in a counterfeit manner to offer their Testimonies and when they have Sworn to Recant and Reprobate themselves whereby the Truth shall be betrayed or a greater Number of false Witnesses be Suborned to Swear against the Truth then may be got to Swear for it whereby the Truth shall be destroyed or such Judges may be as will hear no Witnesses but such as are right for the turn whereby the Truth will be suppressed of which Popish practices too much hath appeared fresh before our Eyes in the Examination of the late Horrid Plot. Therefore no Prudence to give them opportunity to do the like or worse by joyning Issue with them on the Impertinent point of Ceremonies of Marriage wherein only they are able to corrupt Witnesses But it is more secure to stand on the points of Substance of Marriage according to the Law of God which are these viz. Cohabitation Conjugal Society Chastity Children and acknowledgment of them by the Father to be his of which God's Providence hath provided so many Witnesses as will be in vain for them to Suborn or Corrupt false Witnesses to the contrary Besides if Witnesses may be had yet alive after Thirty years time yet they may Die or be Poison'd or otherwise made away when known before they come to Hearing or so terrified that they will not dare to testifie the Truth why then shall all be put in danger by Ceremony when Substance Places all in Security and it were an injust thing Three Kingdoms should be hazarded on the Lives of two or three Witnesses To speak at last in reference to the Judges and Court by whom this Marriage ought to be judged which ought to be only by the King and Parliament both as to the Fact and the Law for as to both the same as alleadged being made beyond Sea in a Foreign Catholick Country not under the Jurisdiction of the King and Parliament nor where his Writ runneth The Archbishop of
World for he that began it could not end it but it lasted almost Three Hundred Years and was never throughly abolished till it pleased God to Unite the Discordant Blood of the Three Kingdoms in King James Which Discords had never happened amongst these Ten Competitors had not the Ancient Law of Electing by Parliaments the fittest of the Blood-Royal whereby generally Brothers were Elected before Sons been abolished A very Imprudent way therefore is it to design for Publique Peace what Experience shews to have the greatest cause of perpetual Wars for so long a time as 300 years together The like Civil Wars in England followed between York and Lancaster from Generation to Generation and this Statute of Treason prevented not the same The Civil Wars between York and Lancaster not prevented by the Statute making the Eldest Son Heir Another Imprudence Buchanan mentions p. 201. Vt Reges videlicet constituamus quibus alij Rectores praeficiendi in eorum potestatem universum tradamus populum qui ipsi sui potestatem non habent qui aegre Regibus usu rerum peritis prudentia praestantibus parent poscimus ut qualibuscunque Regum umbris pareant That we should constitute Kings to govern who must have others set over them to govern themselves and that we should deliver the whole People into their Power who have not power over themselves and that we should require of such who will hardly obey the best Kings and most Excellent in Experience and Wisdom to obey any shadows of Kings shall be set over them Imprudence of attempts by such Acts to perpetuate a Name or Race Of a third Imprudence and Infortunateness incident in this to Princes themselves he sayes Quod autem privatunt ex hac Lege petunt Reges Emolumentum ut generis et nominis perpetuitatem inde sibi promittunt id quam sit vanum et fallax c. That the private profit which Kings seek out of this Law being the Perpetuity of their Race and Name is very vain and deceitful not only in manifold ancient Examples but Nature it self may teach them if they will consider with how many Laws and Rewards the Romans endeavoured to perpetuate the Famous Names of their Families of whom there remains now not the least sign in the whole World conquered by them And deservedly I think this happens to them who contend to give Eternity which neither themselves have nor can have to a thing in its nature so flying and frail and every moment obnoxious to all Casuality as cannot be capable of Stability And attempt the same by such a way as is most contrary to their design for what is less faithful to Diuturnity then Tyranny but to the same this new Law prepares the way and a Tyrant is the universal mark of the hate of Mankind for whom it is impossible to stand long and when he falls he draws the Ruine of his whole Family with him This Endeavour of Foolish Men the Deity seems to me many times to break with a Contemptuous stroak and sometimes as a Competitor with him in Power to expose it to publique derision And I know not whether there can be any more fit or manifest Example of the Divine Pleasure than in him whom we now mention Malcolm the Author of the Law of Succession of Eldest Sons dyed without a Son For Milcolumbus who so much Laboured to confirm by Parliament a Law Enacted by his Father by force for the Succession of the Sons of Kings in their Fathers room left no Issue Male behind him And as to his two Daughters one of them called Beatrice he matched to a Noble-man call'd Crinus a Thane of the Western Isles and a Chief of the other Thanes whom that Age call'd an Athan. The other call'd Doaca he match'd to the Thane of Angus by whom was begot Macbeth of whom I shall speak further in his proper place and indeed do we not find in all Ages the greatest Races sooner destroyed than the meaner And if any have escaped the Tempest of Time they have not been the Lofty Cedars but the humble shrubs Where are now all the Races of Gyants of the Old World Where are now the Races of the Egyptian Gods who in the reputed forms of Men reigned on the Earth Where is the Race of Nimrod the Founder of the Assyrian Of Arbaces the Founder of the Median Of Cyrus the Founder of the Persian Empire The Crown endureth not to every Generation Is not the saying of Solomon true Prov. 27.24 Riches are not for ever and doth the Crown endure to every Generation 2. This new Law of intayling to Sons though it may preserve the Counterfeit name yet destroys the true Fame of the Father which is call'd Children of the same Name destroy the Name of the Father Isa 56.5 a Name better then of Sons and Daughters As there were so many Pharaohs that the Chronologists are by the Ears and cannot agree which was the Pharaoh when Abraham went into Egypt which was the Pharaoh Entertained Joseph which was the Pharaoh commanded the Male Children to be destroyed And which was the Pharaoh was drowned in the Sea The like of the Dariusses and of the Herods though they were but few and many others Many other Names and Races whereby there can be no Encouragement of Fame to Vertuous Actions for Publique good nor Discouragement to Vitious by Infamy who are causes of Publique Evils whereas on the contrary as is well observed by Sir Francis Bacon Actions of the highest Fame and of greatest Merit to the Publique have been done by the unmarried and Childless Men yea we find this Vanity of Intayling the Father's Name so much slighted by the great Nestorian Church in Persia that if after Marriage a Male-Child were born Father lost his Name to his Son in Persia the Father lost his own Name and was called by the Name of his Eldest Son as if the Father's name was Moses and the Son's name Joseph the Father was no more called Moses but Aben-Joseph that is the Father of Joseph Heylin 660. And we find though Darius destroyed Belshazzar the Son of the Conquering Nebuchadnezzer and Cassander the Children and Mother of the Great Alexander and Augustus destroyed Caesarian the Son of the Renowned Julius Caesar whereby the Race of every one of these Conquerours became Extinguished soon after their death yet we hear the Names of the Fathers resound to this Day more gloriously from the single Trumpet of Fame than they could have done from the weak Cryes of Infants in a Numerous Off-spring had they left a Posterity 3. It is said against this Law of Intayling to Sons That though the Royal Lines are not alwaies so suddenly Extinguished as in the Last Examples Yet the Periods of them and their Heirs Male and of Races and Kingdoms themselves are fatal and as some Polititians observe terminate most with about the Term of about 500 Years many
which was to them a Just and Necessary Right though it had been so long delay'd and was a Restitutio Naturalium and no less yea rather a more necessary Right though it hath been longer delayed were an Act of Legitimation of the Children of all Protestant Parents born between June 14. 1641. and March 24. 1660 who at the time of their begetting were not prohibited by the Moral Law of God to Contract Marriage would be Restitutio Natalium Restitutio Natalium as necessary to the Relief of the Children of such as suffered for his Majesty in his Dominions as Restitutio Naturalium to such as were born beyond Sea And be a great Relief to the Children of such Parents as Suffered for his Majestie in his Dominions and are far more in number than such Children as happened to be born beyond Sea there having been so many whose Necessities Disabled them to transport themselves from the Danger at home yet could not avoid it by staying here but living in fear of the power of the Sword Dared neither to Marry by the Common Prayer-Book because prohibited nor by the Ordinances of Parliament because by such Publication of themselves they had been Exposed to have been seised on by their Enemies So it seems either such Act of Legitimation or the former Act of Confirmation of Marriages will be Just and Necessary for the Suffering-Party not yet Relieved 5. If Bishops acknowledg in deed what they alledge in words Not necessary for a King to be Marryed by a Priest or Common-Prayer Book Supremacy in Causes Ecclesiastical in the King then must they acknowledg Supremacy of Marriage to be in him because they alledg Marriage to be a Cause Ecclesiastical and they themselves De facto Exercise the supremacy of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in it and if they give him Supremacy of Jurisdiction of Marriage in general They much more give Supremacy of Jurisdiction of his own Marriage in particular for majus continet minus Et cui licet quod majus est non aequum est quod minus non Licere If therefore a King of England hath Supream Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of his own Marriage and neither Pope nor Bishop can null or invalidate any Mariage of the King his Predecessors to Depose him from his Throne nor any Marriage of his own to Dis-inherit his Lineal Heir from the Succession Jus Coronae in the King relating to Marriage and Succession as shall be after further shewn is different from that of Subjects and as is by the Bishops themselves affirmed Canon 2. The same Supremacy belongs to the King which belonged to the godly Kings of the Jewes who could thereby marry themselves without Priest or Bishop The matter therefore must come to this Push If the Bishop acknowledg the King hath Supreme Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of his own Marriage and no longer under a Guardian of the Spiritualities then must he acknowledg he may Exercise the Acts of such Supremacy for frustra est illa potentia quae nunquam reducitur in actum And if he will acknowledg the King to be Supreme Ordinary as all the Common Law-Books do then must he acknowledg he may Exercise all Acts of a Supreme Ordinary But if he will not acknowledg him to have Ecclesiastical Supremacy and to be Supreme Ordinary and to have the same Supremacy the godly Kings of the Jewes had of their own Marriages Then must the Bishop shew a sign of his Mission from God to Exercise Supremacy and to be Supreme Ordinary over Marriages of Kings which neither Pope nor Bishop nor Priest ever could or can do Now all the height of Ecclesiastical Supremacy of Marriage whereof human Power is Capable A. King may dispence with Malum Probibitum in his own Marriage but not with Malum in S◠is to Dispence with Malum Prohibitum but not with Malum in se Malum Prohibitum is that which is Prohibited only by some positive Law of Man Malum in se is that which is Prohibited by the Moral Law of God As Prohibitions of Marriage without Banns Licence Ceremony Common Prayer-Book Priest or Temple these make only Mala Prohibita Because Prohibited only by the Positive Laws of Men and not by the Moral Law of God and Vnumquodque Dissolvitu◠eodem modo quo conflatum est All Lawes made of Marriage by men may be again dispenced changed repealed and abrogated by men who have the Supremacy of Marriage But Adultery Fornication Desertion of Virgins after Deslouring Divorce of a Wife without cause Abdication of a Natural Child without Crime charging a Child on a wrong Father charging adulterous or false Children on the Husband of a Woman Married by a Priest in a Temple c. These are Mala in se Because prohibited by the Moral Law of God which is Eternal and Immutable and cannot therefore be dispenced with or confirmed but all Lawes Customs Canons and Acts of Parliament Dispencing or Confirming any of these are void A King therefore who hath Supremacy Ecclesiastical may Dispence with all Mala prohibita if there were any in his own Marriage He may Self-Marry himself A King being Supreme Ordinary may Marry himself without Ceremonies by the Law of the Land as the Kings of Israel and Judah did without a Priest Banns Lycence Book of Cannons Common Prayer-Book Temple or any Ceremony And being Supreme Ordinary as the Kings of Israel and Judah were needs not the Bishops Certificate but may Certifie his own Marriage according to the Moral Law of God And this is clear and unanswerable by any who doth not deny the Supremacy Ecclesiastical 6. As Supremacy in the Person of the King inables him to Dispence with and Confirm his own Marriage in manner before said So à fortiore the Supremacy of this Statute made by the Supreme Legislative Power both of the King and Parliament united can clear the Marriage therein intended from all the Mala Prohibita laid on it for no Mala Prohibita could be laid on it but by some former Common-Law Custom Canon or Statute-Law But this Statute hath Supremacy of all those for Leges Posteriores Priores contrarias abrogant Latter Laws abrogate all former which are contrary So all contrary Laws which were before of Marriage Filiation Heirship Succession and Certificates of Bishops contrary to the intention of this Statute for the Safety of the Lady his Companion and their Eldest Son and Heir are by the same Intention abolished 7. As this Statute had Power to Enact what it Intended So is it manifest This Statute intended not that Marrlage or Filiation should be tryed by Certificate of the Bishop that it never intended to restrain the Companion Royal to be one Married by the Mass-Book or Book of Canons or their Eldest Son and Heir to be only one so made by the Certificate of a Bishop for Edward the Third who was the Author of this Statute was one of the most Wise Valiant Kings at that time
in the World And his Predecessors had been fresh in Memory too much turmoyl'd with the Bishop of Rome and their own Bishops and John Stratford Arch-Bishop of Canterbury sent himself though in the Head of a Victorious Army in France an Insolent Letter wherein he charged him with Violation of the Rights of the Church and Magna Charta and many other Matters and threatned to Excommunicate all his Officers Too great Affronts for so Great a Prince not to become sensible how dangerous It would be to suffer Bishops to have to do with the Marriages Filiations and Successions of Kings and thereby to put power into their hands to Depose and Dis-inherit his Successors when they pleased and William Whickham Bishop of Winchester who was Confessor to his Queen Philippa and ingratiated himself by Alice Peirce the King's Concubine An incredible Lie by a Bishop concerning John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster Tinsell's Hist 78. for Money shewed after how ready they should be to Act such Feats for Alice Pierce against Sons of first Wives for out of hatred to the Famous John of Gaunt King Edward's Fourth Son for no other cause but because he was a great Favourer of Wickliff's Doctrine the Proto-Protestant of England spread a false fame on him That the Queen Philippa one of the most Vertuous Wives that ever was had confess'd to him at her Death That he was not the King's Son but that she to please the King the more who desired Sons above Daughters she being Delivered of a Daughter caused her Daughter to be secretly conveyed away and this John the Son of a Flemish Priest to be brought and put to Nurse instead of her for the King's Son A most Incredible Lie but such a one as shews what Certificates Kings Sons may happen to have from Bishops for being Favourers of the Protestant Religion It is not therefore to be imagined that it was intended by this Statute in those times the Bishops and their Mass-Books and Certificates should have any thing to do with the Lady Companion of the King or their Eldest Son The King likewise then knew that by the then Laws of the Land A King is Supreme Ordinary of his own Marriage he had in himself the Right of Ecclesiastical Supremacy and that he was the Supreme Ordinary of his own Marriage and did never therefore intend to give away his own Prerogative to Pope or Bishop who being Supreme Ordinary could Self-Marry himself and without the Bishop Certifie his own Marriage 8. Books of Canons Common Prayer-Books Banns Lycenses Priests Temples and all other Ceremonies without which Marriage is forbidden being only Mala Prohibita and the Scripture prohibits the Prohibitions themselves of these Mala Prohibita to Marriage and calls such Prohibitions the Doctrine of Devils which is already proved Lib. 1. p. 52. What is Borum in se by the Law of God cannot be made Malum in se by the. Law of Man 9. Marriage without the Common Prayer-Book and Priest being only Malum Prohibitum by the Law of Man and the same Marriage being Bonum in se by the Moral Law of God Malum Prohibitum by the Law of Man cannot make that Malum in se which is Bonum in se by the Law of God As it was Bonum in se for Daniel to pray to God though Darius Dan. 6.7 by his Decree made it Malum Prohibitum to pray within Thirty Dayes except to the King or if he had said Except by the Book of Common-Prayer or Book of Canons it had been all one And under a great Penalty of being cast into the Den of Lyons yet notwithstanding this had not nor could make it Malum in se in Daniel to pray to God without the King Common Prayer-book or Book of Canons within the Thirty Daies prohibited much Less had it been a Malum in se for Darius himself who had the Supremacy notwithstanding this Ecclesiastical Law of his own whereby he Prohibited prayer or if he had prohibited Marriage to his Subjects to have Prayed or Marryed himself in the Manner himself and not the Law of God had Prohibited 10. Priests use to Self-Sacrament themselves though they have not Supremacy without any other Priest What hinders therefore why they may not Self-Marry themselves A Priest may self marry himself seeing Popery it self could never pretend to Raise Marriage to a higher Pitch then a Sacrament 11. If Priests may Self-Marry themselves there is no Reason why Lay-men should not be allowed the same Liberty of Conscience to Self-Marry themselves without a Priest A Lay-man may self-marry himself As a King who is Supreme Ordinary may Marry himself without Ceremonies by the Law of the Land So the Subject may marry himself by the Law of God which is above the Law of the Land 12. Qui potest majus potest minus And that Act which doth perfect Marriage is greater than any Act which doth only prepare or inchoat and leave it imperfect Now it is not denyed by the Popish Casuists and Schoolmen and the Civilians and Canonists themselves But carnal knowledg only perfects Marriage if therefore a Lay-Man may self-Ly with his Woman which perfects Marriage without a Common-Prayer Book or Book of Canons after the Priest hath first had her before him by his Bell Book and Candle why may not the poor Lay-man save all his Money and Selfe Ring the Bell Selfe take the Book Selfe light the Candle or Torch Selfe contract himselfe per verba de praesenti And then Selfe lye with a Woman or do it first without acting all this impertinent Pageantry and Running Round about Church unless they would bring in again the old Pagan way for the Priest likewise to Do the Act of Perfection of Marriage The Kings of Israel and Judab The Ottoman Emperours and Subjects Self-Marry themselves without a Priest as the Indian Priests and too many of the Popish Priests do Ly with the Woman first before the Husband 13. It is very well known that the Ottoman Emperours and Subjects of their Mighty Dominions self-Marry themselves according to the Moral Law of God without Priest Temple Bell Book or Candle yet to the shame of such as call themselves by the name of Christians may it be said Their Marriages are more Chast their Filiation and Successions more Certain and no such Adulteries Fornications Stewes Brothel-houses and Poxes and Plagues and other Mischiefs thereby as those who use all these and all the Luxuriancy of Papal and Episcopal Ceremonies besides in their Marriages And of the Mischiefs came to Solyman the Magnificent by being seduced by Roxalana to break the Custome of Emperours to Selfmarry themselves to Marry her by a Priest appears at large Lib. 2. p. 245. c. Object 3 Not HIS Companion Object 3. The Third Objection is That though the Lady Mother was a Companion to the King Yet she was not HIS Companion which is the Article of Propriety
doth he not then who compasseth his Death compass the Death of the King himself And doth not he who slanders him to be Illegitimate compass his Death 2. Because this exposeth Majesty and the eldest Son likewise to contempt by depriving both of the hopes of a Lincal Successor And this is complained of by no less a Prince than Alexander the Great who chargeth his Army as related in Curtius p. 6. Orbitas mea quod sine Liberis sum spernitur my being childless causeth your contempt of me which want of Children inheritable put him in the same condition of being despised as was he who said Isa 56.3 I am a dry Tree And the want of a Son capable to succeed him was the Ruine of so great a Monarch his Mother House and Empire his Enemies Poisoning him in the flower of his Age securely as knowing he could leave no Son of himself to revenge his Death 3. Because who affirms the eldest Son Illegitimate doth it to the intention to seize on his Inheritance and who intend to seize on his Inheritance will compass his Death as Matth. 21.38 They said amongst themselves This is the heir come let us kill him and let us seize on his Inheritance And they caught him and cast him out of the vineyard and slew him A Comparison of the Popish Slanders of Illegitimation against Queen Elizabeth and the King 's eldest Son Queen Elizabeth was not only declared and proclaimed Illegitimate by the Pope's Divinity but the Popish Party so far misinformed her own Father H. 8. in Matters of Law and over-wrought on the King as they compell'd him by weariness to rest on Implicit Faith in them and to declare his own Daughter Illegitimate an Error which not only he but many other Princes have been the more easily drawn into in regard by the Subtlety of Ecclesiastical and Temporal Lawyers the Laws of Marriage Filiation Aliment and Succession and the Comments on them have been increased to so huge heaps and confused Volumes and so many Writers of contrary Religions and contrary Jurisdictions have had their Power and Profit concerned in them as is impossible for Princes who have so many Affairs of State to look after besides to Read them over as long as they live and such faithful Protestant Subjects as have indeavoured humbly to represent the truth as to the Law of God and of the Land have been by the same Popish Party not only intercepted and Prohibited to Write or Publish any thing against but so much as to dispute the Romish as well as Turkish Alcoran of their Laws One great Example of which appears in these two great Descendents of the Blood Royal the Famous and Pious Queen Elizabeth and the Valiant and Virtuous eldest Son of the King To go on therefore in their Comparison of Suffering wrongfully 1. It may be observed that Queen Elizabeth was a Protestant and so is the Kings eldest Son a Protestant 2. Her Prosecutors were Papists so are the Prosecutors of the King 's eldest Son Papists 3. Papists laid Plots to Assassinate and Poison Queen Elizabeth so have Papists laid Plots to Assassinate and Poison the King 's eldest Son 4. The final Cause why Papists would have destroyed Queen Elizabeth was to seize on her Inheritance so the final Cause why Papists would destroy the King's eldest Son is to seize on his Inheritance 5. Queen Elizabeth was Innocent so is the King 's eldest Son Innocent 6. Queen Elizabeth was deprived of the help of a Mother by her Death so is the King 's eldest Son deprived of the help of a Mother by her Death 7. Queen Elizabeth was deprived of the help of a Father by the unjust Prosecution of Papists as appears 28 H. 8. cap. 7. by which Act she is declared Illegitimate to all intents and purposes and utterly foreclosed excluded and barred to Claim Challenge or Demand any Inheritance as lawful Heir to the King her Father And it is further Enacted That it shall be High Treason so much as to call the said Lady Elizabeth Legitimate yea the Act of Parliament is so furious against the poor Innocent Lady as if they desired to Destroy and Damn the Conscience of all good Protestants at once with hers and her They Enact further That it shall be High Treason to believe Oh miserable Thought it self is made High Treason the Marriage of the Lady Ann with the King her Father to be good lawful or not void Let it be left to Supreme Authority to consider how far the Papists have endeavour'd to proceed in the same Nature against the King's eldest Son 8. Queen Elizabeth might say as David saith Psal 27.10 When my Father and my Mother forsake me then the Lord will take me up So may the King 's eldest Son say the same 9. Queen Elizabeth notwithstanding all this was Legitimate and lawful Heir of Blood by the Moral Law of God and the Protestant Religion and so is Recognized and acknowledged by Parliament 1 Eliz. cap. 3. and accordingly God gave her the happy Succession to the Kingdom So the King 's eldest Son by the Moral Law of God and the Protestant Religion is Legitimate and the next Lineal and Lawful Heres Sanguinis Heir of Blood for Jus Sanguinis is the Law of God and Nature and Jura Sanguinis as hath already been said Nullo Jure Civili divini possunt 10. It was the Interest of Queen Elizabeth when she obtained the Lawful Power to Maintain and Defend the Moral Law of God and the Protestant Religion So will it be the Interest of the King 's eldest Son to use what lawful Power God gives him to Maintain and Defend the Moral Law of God and the Protestant Religion against Popish Ceremonial Laws and Superstitious Religions A Comparison of the Popish Slanders of Illegitimation against King Edward the Sixth Queen Elizabeth and the King 's eldest Son And the Sons and Daughters of the whole Protestant Clergy This Slander against the Sons and Daughters of the Clergy could not have been raised without another Slander first raised against the Marriages of the Mothers Both which are taken notice of by the Statute 5. 6. E. 6. cap. 12. which Statute making first a recital of the Stat. 2. 3. E. 6.21 of Repeal of all Laws of Man against the Marriage of the Clergy proceeds in these words viz. Yet since the making of the said Act divers evil-disposed Persons taking occasion of certain words and Sentences in the said Act comprized have and do untruly and very Slanderously report of Priests Matrimony saying That the same Statute is but a Permission of Priests Matrimony as Usury and other unlawful things be now permitted for the eschewing of greater inconvenience and Evils so that thereby the lawful Matrimony of Priests in the opinion of many and the Children Procreate and Born in such lawful Matrimony rather be of the greater number of the King's Subjects accounted as Bastards than Lawfully Born to the
making the Crown Hereditary to the Eldest Son answered ibid. Objections against the being of the King 's Eldest Son within the Statute of 25 E. 3. cap. 2. De Proditionibus Page 20. Obj. 1. That the Lady Mother was not a Queen ibid. Answ 1. The Statute is false Translated by the Lawyers and the Scripture false Translated by the Bishops in the word Queen ibid. Answ 2. Proved that the Lady Mother was Madam sa Compaign according to the Moral Law of God which is all and more than is required to be proved by the Statute ibid. Obj. 2. No Marriage according to the Mass-Book in the time of E. 3. nor by the Modern Common Prayer-Book or Book of Canons Page 23. Answ 1. No Marriage by any Book required by the Statute but only a Lady Companion according to the Moral Law of God Page 24. Answ 2. Marriage by the Common Prayer-Book not Necessary in a time of War when both Books of Common Prayer and of Canons were Prohibited and Abolished by the Power of the Sword ibid. Answ 3. The Legitimation of Children by the Law of God and of the Land ought not to be question'd after the Death of either Parent where not Judicially question'd and sentenced in their life-time Vid. Praeface Page 25. Answ 4. Not Necessary for a King who is Supreme Ordinary to Marry by the Common Prayer Book or Book of Canons Page 26. Answ 5. A King who is Supreme Ordinary may dispence with his own Canons and with any thing that is only Malum Prohibitum in his own Marriage but not with what is Malum in se by the Moral Law of God Page 28. Obj. 3. The Lady Mother was not HIS Companion which is the Article of Propriety required by the Statute Page 32. Answ She was HIS and he had the sole Propriety according to the Law of God and the Land Page 33. Obj. 4. There was no Marriage according to the Law of God Page 34. Answ 1. Certain Preparatory Considerations are laid down before the contrary is proved to this Negative By what Law and what Judges shall be judged what is the Law of God by which is after proved here was a Marriage according to the Law of God ib. Answ 2. Of the damnable Effects have followed by the Popish Prohibitions and Nulling of all Marriage not made by a Priest in a Temple Page 35. What is not Marriage by the Moral Law of God Page 39. What is not Matrimony by the Moral Law of God ibid. Answ 3. The Statute requires neither a King De Jure nor a Lady Companion De Jure nor a Son De Jure but only De Facto yet are they all here both De Jure and De Facto Page 40. Dangerous to leave the Succession of a Kingdom on so incertain a word as Lawful yet here both the King the Lady Companion and the Son are all Lawful ibid. Answ 4. A Lawful Successor may be of an unlawful Marriage Page 41. Obj. 5. The Lady Mother was not a Wife according to the Scripture Page 42. Answ 1. The Objection is false and it is after proved she was a Wife according to the Scripture ibid. Answ 2. The Statute requires no Wife according to Scripture but only a lawful Companion yet was she both a Wife and a lawful Wife according to Scripture as will hereafter be proved Page 43. Answ 3. The Bishops have falsly Translated the Scripture in all words relating to Marriage ibid. Of certain Differences between a Wife of the Bishop's making and a Wife of God's making Page 46. Obj. 6. There is no Bishop's Certificate to testifie the Marriage and Filiation Page 48. Answ The Statute requires no Certificate of either ibid. The Forms of Bishops Certificates Page 49. Their Original came from the Priests of Priapus Page 50. Of the Damnable Mischiefs insue from Tryal of Marriage and Filiation by Bishops Certificates ibid. The Certificates of Bishops inconsistent with the Right of Primogeniture Page 58. Of the General Custom of Nations of Successions to Kingdoms by Primogeniture and of the Mischiefs and Civil Wars commonly follow the disinheriting of the Eldest Son Page 62. What is Marriage and what Matrimony de Facto Page 66. What is Marriage De Jure according to the Law of God and of the Nations Page 67. Of the three Lawful Marriages amongst the Romans 1 Usu 2 Confarreatione 3 Coemptione Page 68. Of the three Lawful Marriages amongst the Hebrews 1 Copulatione 2 Coemptione 3 Instrumentis ibid. That Carnal knowledge Chastity and Childbirth between a Man and a Woman not prohibited by the Moral Law to Marry makes a Marriage Lawful Holy and Indissoluble without Banns Licence Priest Temple or any other Ceremony whatsoever Page 71. That the Marriage Coemptione Confarreatione or Instrumentis was not intended by Christ but only the Marriage Copulatione Page 86. An Epithalamium on the Marriage of Nature intended by Christ without a Priest or Temple Page 88. Obj. 7. The King 's Eldest Son is not the Heir intended by the Statute Page 90. Answ Proved he is the Heir both in the Letter and Intention of the Statute ibid. That to compass the Exile or Disinheriting of the King 's Eldest Son is High Treason Page 94. Obj. 8. By the Custom of Nations the Succession goes not to the Eldest Son born when the Father is only a Prince but to a younger Son born when he is a King ibid. Answ This Statute was made to prevent incertainty of this and other Customs and prevent all Cavils and Contentions about Succession by ascertaining the same to the Eldest Son Page 95. Obj. 9. The King 's Eldest Son is not yet declared Prince of Wales or of the Scots ibid. Answ The Statute requires no such thing Page 97. Obj. 10. Illegitimacy deprives of the benefit of the Statute ibid. Answ This Statute declares every Eldest Son of a King Legitimate and Heir to the Crown ibid. The Eldest Son of a King of Great Britain is Legitimate by his Birth-right per Jus Coronae ibid. Examples of the same Jus Coronae in other Nations Page 100. Examples of the same Jus Coronae in the Eldest Sons and Daughters of the Kings of England and Scotland who have thereby succeeded as Heirs to their Fathers Kingdoms on Marriages according to the Moral Law of God without the Ceremonies of a Priest or a Temple Page 102 103. That 't is High Treason for any Subject to slander the King 's Eldest Son with Illegitimacy Page 111. A Comparison of the Popish slanders of Illegitimacy against Queen Elizabeth and the King 's Eldest Son Page 112. A Comparison of the Popish slanders of Illegitimacy against King Edward the Sixth Queen Elizabeth the King 's Eldest Son and the Sons and Daughters of the whole Protestant Clergy Page 114. Of the insolent absurdity of Popish Laws Disinheriting the Lawful Sons of Kings according to the Law of God and inheriting the Bastards of Popes by the Law of the Devil