we seriously did consider the mighty Advantages of an Hereditary Monarchy beyond an Elective we should find it reasonable that though the Laws had not yet the King should endeavour to make ours such much less ought he to alter that most happy Constitution by excluding his Brother For let Men say what they please the same Power that can put by One may All and so change the Best of Government for the Worst or None at all Besides His Majesty cannot but find it his own Interest to stick to the D. when he reflects that there is in all things especially in State-Affairs a Balance necessary by an equal Libration to keep things in a right Order and prevent Confusion and Ruine Where Men are there will be Ambition this creates Parties and Factions these must be kept divided and asunder by their Jars and Disagreement and by so poising them that the less like the smaller Fry of Fishes be not swallowed by the greater the safety of the Prince and State is preserv'd If the Prince be once prevail'd upon to joyn with the One to the suppression of the Other he has resigned his Power and exposed himself to the Mercy of the Conqueror This he likewise does if he gives way to several little Factions to embody into one of greater strength than the rest though assisted with that of his own Particular For here we must suppose three strong Parties one of the Prince and two of the People To keep this Balance in the best posture and to secure the Peace of the Commonwealth by the Kings reigning void of Fear or Jealousie on the score of Factions or his Successor 't is necessary in politie to find or make the next Heir the Object of the Peoples hatred and keep the Factions from combining because however they may chance to be weary of the King either through the inconstancy of their Humours studious of Change and Variety though for the worse or through the ill Conduct of Ministers or the Misfortunes of Publick Affairs when they find a Person whom they hate like to succeed they will be for continuance of the old or else being jealous of one another will not attempt his removal This then being so great an advantage prudent Kings cannot be supposed to neglect it by suffering the immediate Heir to be run down and thereby giving way to the People to dethrone the present Possessor and set up the next in course after To this Wisdom in Henry the Third gain'd by his own and Fathers Misfortunes we owe our present Constitution of Parliament This King perceiving the Lords Power in whom with himself the Supreme Legislative Right then consisted grown formidable the Commons being their Livery-men and Dependents erected these into a Lower House to counterpoise the weight of the other that he joyning with either as Occasion of State required might balance the other and so keep things in an equal and steddy Libration And if his Successors had been as sollicitous to maintain as he was to institute this good Order and Politie the Eternity of this Commonwealth would not at this day have been a Question And as this was our Home-Interest and that of holding the Scales even between France and Spain our Foreign so it plainly appears that not to exclude the Duke is not onely his Majesties particular Interest but also that of the Three Kingdoms Not to insist that the Parliament is not compleatly the Peoples Representative but granting it is they cannot be supposed to enjoy a greater Power than those they represent who because such are the greater and therefore must be concluded explicitly or implicitly to limit the Commissions of these their Trustees and that Consinement Reason will tell us must be within the Bounds of our ancient Rights and Privileges consequently these are not to be invaded without the consent of every individual Person or at least of the major part truly poll'd and computed The present Electors not making a sixth part of the Nation cannot in reason bind the rest contrary to their Interest much less can the Majority of those chosen by them oblige the others to conform to whatever they enact when they find the Statutes more prejudicial than advantageous the End of Government being the Good of the Community i. e. of the major part not of any artificial or fictitious Majority of a Quorum as in the House of Commons of 512 to reckon 40 the greater Number Now if such an Act should be obtain'd the Consequence if the D. survive the King whose Life God long continue must needs be War and Misery Folly and Repentance Our Histories are full of Tragical Events upon such Occasions One of them wrought so great a Depopulation that in sixty miles riding between York and Durham for nine years together there was neither Ground tilled nor House left standing Harold justling young Edgar Atheling out of the Throne produced a Civil War and the Norman Conquest I wish excluding the D. may not enslave us to the French Dominion which may be of greater evil than the cutting of as many of our own Peoples Throats as died in the Yorkist and Lancastrian Quarrel upwards of 200000 of the Commons besides several Kings and Princes and Nobles without number The Duke cannot be supposed to want Sticklers both at home and from abroad few will believe the Act lawful in its own nature nor the King's Consent free or themselves not bound by Oath to his Assistance Scotland and Ireland will rejoyce at another Civil War in England in hopes to free themselves from the Inconveniences of being Provinces Those who have least to lose are the usual Gainers by Rebellion There are sown between these Nations Seeds of Discontent and there will not be wanting those who will improve them I have heard from knowing Persons there are no less than Fifty thousand Irish Soldiers now living that have been trained up in the French and other Forreign Service and I believe there cannot be fewer of the Scottish People These all with many of our own Countreymen will quickly credit the Lawyers that tell us No Act no Crime no Attainder of Treason can bar the next of Blood from being King in the instant of time his Predccessor does not so much die as transmit his Life his Breath or his Soul by a State-Metempsychosis into the Nostrils the Body of his Successor Edward the Fourth Henry the Seventh Queen Mary Queen Elizabeth and King James enjoy'd the Crown though all excluded by Acts of Parliament if they ought to have the name that were the Effects of Force Strong hand and an usurping Tyrannick Power These Statutes were by all Judges of England accounted void in themselves and therefore never had the honour of Repeals nor were they brought into Plea by Sir Walter Rawleigh one of the greatest Wits of that Age though he urged a very trivial one The King 's not being Crown'd a Ceremony of Pomp and State not of Use or Necessity as
some be now here that were not then present her Majesties present Charge and express Command is That no Bill touching the said Matter of State or Reformation in Causes Ecclesiastical be exhibited And upon my Allegiance saith the Speaker I am charged if any such Bill be exhibited not to read it I have been credibly informed That the Queen sent a Messenger or Serjeant at Arms into the House of Commons and took out Mr. Morrice and committed him to Prison Within few days after I find Mr. Wroth moved in the House That they might be humble Suitors to her Majesty that she would be pleas'd to set at liberty those Members of the House that were restrained which was accordingly done And answer was sent them by her Privy-Council That her Majesty had committed them for Causes best known to her self and to press her Highness with this Suit would but hinder them whose good they sought That the House must not call the Queen to an account for what she doth of her Royal Authority That the Causes for which they are restrained may be high and dangerous That her Majesty liketh no such Questions neither doth it become the House to search into Matters of that nature In 39 Eliz. the Commons were told Their Privilege was Yea and No And that her Majesties pleasure was That if the Speaker perceived any idle Heads which would not stick to hazard their own Estates but meddle with reforming the Church and transforming the Commonweal by exhibiting Bills to that purpose the Speaker should not receive them till they were view'd and consider'd by those who are fitter to consider of such things and can better judge of them And at the end of this Parliament the Queen rejected Forty eight Bills which had passed both Houses All these Passages are expresly to be found in the Records and Registries of the Council-Table and are quoted by Sir Robert Filmer in his Free holders Grand Inquest p. 77 c. and by Mr. Howel sometimes Clerk of the Council in his Philanglus p. 57 c. and several others By which it appears That this grand Privilege of Parliament Liberty of Speech which at present makes so great a Noise in the World was not in this good Queens Reign half so considerable as People now would fain persuade us It was of no great antiquity in her days but a Favour first begged in King Henry the Eighth's Reign by Sir Thomas Moore then Speaker of the House of Commons who prayed the King in the behalf of the House That if in Communication and Reasoning any man should speak more largely than of duty he ought to do that all such Offences should be pardoned and this to be entred upon Record which was accordingly granted by the King And the same Favour was allowed by Queen Elizabeth in the beginning of her Reign to Thomas Gargrave then Speaker since whose time this Privilege was always humbly desired by the Speakers for themselves and the whole House of Commons and favourably granted by their Sovereign Yet this Privilege extended onely to rash unadvised ignorant or negligent Escapes and Slips in Speech which People are subject to let fall in the heat of their Debates not to wilful Reflections much less to treasonable Speeches against the King and Government as sufficiently appears not onely by the aforesaid Proceedings in Queen Elizabeth's time but also by the Transactions of her Father's Reign where we find that Richard Strood and his Complices were not thought sufficiently protected by this Privilege for their free Speech in the House unless their Pardon were expresly confirmed by the King in Parliament to which purpose there is a printed Statute enacted in King Henry the Eighth's time And in Queen Mary's days Plowden was Fin'd in the King's Bench for Words spoken by him in Parliament against the Queen's Dignity See Filmer ubi supra Mr. Fowlis Hist of the Plots Conspiracies of the Pretended Saints in it This was well known to our British Solomon King James who finding the House of Commons encroaching too far upon the Prerogative sent the ensuing Letter from Newmarket to Sir Thomas Richardson their Speaker Mr. Speaker We have heard to our grief That our distance from the Parliament caused by our indisposition of Health hath emboldned some fiery and popular Spirits of the Lower House to debate Matters above their Capacity to our Dishonour and breach of Prerogative Royal. These are therefore to command you to make known to them That none hereafter shall presume to medle with any thing concerning our Government or Matters of State with our Sons Match with the Daughter of Spain nor to touch the Honour of that King or any other our Friends or Confederates nor with any Mans Particulars which have their due Motion in our ordinary Courts of Justice And whereas they have sent a Message to Sir Edwin Sandis to know the Reasons of his late Restraint you shall resolve them It was not for any Misdemeanour of his in Parliament But to put them out of doubt of any Question hereafter of that nature We think our self very free and able to punish any Mans Misdemeanours in Parliament as well sitting there as after which we mean not to spare hereafter upon any Occasion of any Mans. And if they have touch'd any Point which We have here forbidden in any Petition of theirs which is to be sent to Vs tell them except they reform it We will not daign the Hearing or Answering Newmarket Decemb. 3. 1621. Sanderson's History of King James pag. 510. And likewise in the same Parliament when the House of Commons much insisted upon their Privileges calling them their ancient and undoubted Inheritance this wise Prince in a second Letter to the Speaker plainly and truly told them That most Privileges of Parliament grew from Precedents which shews rather a Toleration than an Inheritance therefore he could not allow of the Style calling it their ancient and undoubted Right and Inheritance but could rather have wished that they had said their Privileges were derived from the Grace and Permission of his Ancestors and him And thereupon he concludes He cannot with patience endure his Subjects to use such Antimonarchical Words concerning their Liberties except they had subjoyned That they were granted unto them by the Grace and Favour of his Predecessors Yet he promiseth to be careful of whatsoever Privileges they enjoyed by long Custom and uncontrolled and lawful Precedents Sanderson's Hist p. 519. 520. Now add to this That if the King should be drawn to consent to the Bill of Exclusion after his several Declarations to the contrary he cannot but be concluded under a Constraint which alone makes the Act void in it self it being absolutely necessary that the Commons Lords and the Kings Consent should be free from all Restraint and Terrour and we know that Acts of Parliament in 15 Edw. 3. and 10 Ric 2. were repealed meerly because the King's Consent was forced Moreover if
appears not onely in that it could be of no use to him but that several Kings have exercised a full Regal Authority enacted Laws c. before their Coronations And since this Inauguration is but a Formality let it be well weigh'd That unless the Monarchy be made purely Elective and that part of the Common Law and the several Statutes that have declared it Hereditary be repealed in express Words and the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy changed and the Successor mentioned by Name the Act against the Duke falls to the ground of it self in the moment in which he happens to out-live the King for thereby becoming our lawful Sovereign none can fight against or oppose his Right to the Crown without Perjury and Rebellion we having sworn to defend against all Pretenders whatsoever Forreign or Domestick the King's Majesty his Heirs and Successors and all Rights Privileges and Preheminences to them belonging and annâ—xed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm And is not the Descent of the Crown upon the next of Blood one of these Rights c. acknowledged by the Common Law and in the Statutes 1 M. Eliz. Jac. The Maxim in our Laws The King never dies confirming as much And was not the Duke then at the taking of these Oaths the next Heir And what Power on Earth can absolve from the Obligation of Promissory Oaths without the Parties own Consent to whom the Promise is made Let us not rail against the Pope for deposing Princes and absolving Subjects from their Allegiance and yet allow the Parliament the same Authority The Bill against the Duke is not onely of an extraordinary but of two natures one expresses a present Punishment Exile which as a Subject did the Crime deserve it none will deny may be inflicted the other refers to the future and is at present no Punishment nor can be hereafter for if he out-live his Brother his being King in that moment puts upon him a new Person a Politick Capacity over which not before in being no former Authority could have power nor any after because himself is become Supreme and as such by our own and the Laws of God subject to no Earthly Tribunal Bracton and all our old honest Lawyers tell us with one consent The King can do no wrong i. e. can be accountable to his Subjects for none of his Actions Nemo quidem de factis ejus praesumat disputare multo minus contra factum ejus ire Locus erit supplicationi quod factum suum corrigat emendet quod quidem si non fecerit sufficit ei ad poenam quod dominum Deum expectet ultorem Now he that says The Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy reach no further than to the King in being says not amiss if he takes the King in his Publick Capacity for in that he never dies But if he means no more than the Person of the now reigning Monarch he cancels with his Death the Obligation of those Oaths and makes Rebellion against the Successor no Crime against Conscience though it may be otherwise against Prudence This is to elude the Oath and rob it of the energy designed For 't is plain by the Words Heirs and Successors that the Takers Obligation continues during their own Lives let the Persons of never so many Princes be alter'd and as certain that in an Hereditary Monarchy the Duty is owing to the next of Blood And that a Parliament or any Power may dispence or absolve from the Obligations especially of Promissory Oaths between Party and Party without mutual consent is a Doctrine inconsistent with the nature of Promises where the Promiser gives the other a Right and makes himself his Debtor with the Rules of Christianity of Humane Society and all Governments 'T is no less dangerous to assert That Promissory Oaths or Oaths de futuro are not Obligatory Such a Principle cancels all the Duties and Bonds of Obedience between Prince and Subject of which therefore not onely the Divines and my Lords the Bishops but the State is to be very tender and careful Upon this Foundation 't is evident that if the Duke outlives his Brother and the Monarchy of England as it is be Hereditary and Coronation but Formality we become upon the death of the one the Subjects of the other And though there may be some that will not think of this Truth or notwithstanding will not mind it yet I am assur'd all that are truly Christians and all that are of the Church of England and wise will lay it to heart for Christianity teaches be the Prince of any or no Religion we must be obedient and submit our selves not onely for wrath but also for conscience sake In the late Times of Usurpation they were so sensible of this that they made the People Covenant against the King and renounce their former by after Oaths yet they durst not depend on that Artifice without the assistance of an Army Thus then we see the Duke cannot want a Party in England whose Strength must over-power any other when to it is united that of Scotland and Ireland And here let none be mistaken as if Scotland were govern'd or influenc'd by Presbyterian Domine's the Nobility there do wholly sway and hate refin'd Presbytery and a Plebeian Commonwealth Neither will the Scots be more forward to assist the Duke than the Irish in hopes they may thereby find an opportunity to extirpate the English and regain their ancient Possessions free themselves from any Dependence or at least change their present from that of England to France which on many scores seems to be the true Interest of that Kingdom politickly consider'd either as Popish or Protestant without respect to Religion 'T is a ready In-let to France who will not be wanting to assist the Duke in this Quarrel the onely way he can hope by gaining England on his side to win the Universal Dominion Now to resist the Duke an Army must be maintain'd the General of that Army may turn Papist or Tyrant or both and either way we may be enslav'd by the Duke if he gains the Victory or if he loses it by our own General Thus we may by shunning one Rock split upon another The Romans designing to free themselves from the seeming Tyranny of Julius Caesar who studied by Clemency and Obligations upon every body to secure himself as must needs be his R. H's Interest as it is his Temper and Inclination made way for the real and perpetual one in the Persons of Augustus Tiberius and their Successors And the Graecians repining against their lawful Emperors and deeming their just and wholesom Commands tyrannical and oppressive were so refractory and so obstinate that through spite to their Sovereign they would contribute nothing towards the necessary Defence of the Empire when invaded by the Turk until at last through the just Judgment of the Almighty a fitting Punishment for their Folly they became a Prey to that Tyrant and to this