Selected quad for the lemma: act_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
act_n	law_n	parliament_n	repeal_v	2,928	5	12.0628	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38407	Englands monarch, or, A conviction and refutation by the common law, of those false principles and insinuating flatteries of Albericus delivered by way of disputation, and after published, and dedicated to our dread soveraigne King James, in which he laboureth to prove by the civill law, our prince to be an absolute monarch and to have a free and arbitrary power over the lives and estates of his people : together with a generall confutation (and that grounded upon certaine principles taken by some of their owne profession) of all absolute monarchy.		1644 (1644)	Wing E2997; ESTC R10980	14,794	18

Kings that is the supreame Princes who are free from the Law which is saith he of an absolute power and this is not subject either to the rules of necessity or publique Law Then he saies that there is potestas extraordinaria libera an extraordinary and free power which he saies in England wee doe signifie by the name Regiae Praerogativae of the Royall Prerogative And further he sayes That the interpreters of their Law doe commonly write that there is a double power in a Prince the one ordinary bound by the Law the other extraordinary free from the Law and hee saies that they define that to be the absolute power by which hee may take away another mans right though it be great and that without a cause too Is this that extraordinary power which we by the Law of England call the Royall Prerogative I wonder at the madnesse and the ignorance of the Author that should publish a thing so absolutely contrary to the knowne Lawes of the Realme but I will refute him by our Law and not by rayling though he deserves no better First that our King according to their own definition is not one of these supreame Princes or absolute Monarches nothing more pregnant or plainely demonstrable in our Law For hee is under the Law and so saies Bracton and Fleta two of our ancientest Law Bookes in severall places commonly knowne so that I neede not to cite them But Bracton goes further Bracton de acquirendo rerum Domino fol. 34. that not onely habet legem superiorem the Law is above him but also curiam suam viz. Comites Barones c. which can bee understood of no other then the Parliament that that likewise is above him why then if both Law Parliament be above him he can be no absolute Monarch according to themselves But further by the Lawes and constitutions of this Kingdome the Legislative power doth not reside in the King alone for he cannot create a Law or destroy or disanull any Law by his Patent or Proclamation but in the three estates joyntly together assembled in one body in Parliament and therefore to maintaine our Prince to be an obsolute Monarch is utterly to oppose and overthrow the fundamentalls of our Lawe But how satte this is laboured at this day I leave it to the consciences of al honest men to judge for if the King might have power to discontinue Parliaments as long as he pleaseth or being called to have a negative Voyce to all their reasonable demands will not this bee a compendious way to bring all the Legislative power into his owne hands But then he sais that by this extraordinary or absolute power which he would have our Prince to have He may take away any mans right be it never so great For he sayes Page 13. That the Prince by his Empire possesses all things that he hath an imperiall and universall dominion though the particular and private be in the proprietor Which in plainer English is to tell you that the King hath an interest and power over every mans particular property which is as absolutely false as can be imagined and stands as much in opposition to our Law as one contrary can to another for what then would become of our Petition of Right Or how could we say that we had right to any thing when the King at his owne pleasure might dispossesse us of all this were a ready way to inslave us and to make us hould by that base tenure of Villeinage I do not denie but that the Common wealth hath an interest paramount the property of every private man but this is not left to the sole disposition of our Prince but the Parliament who may dispose of the generall interest for the good of the Common wealth and in such case we our selves are the free dispensers of our owne for t is not more their power then our owne consents that binds us But thankes be to God that every man by our Law let Court Parasites say what they will hath as absolute a right in that hee enjoyes as his Prince claimes in his Crowne nay I may be bold to affirme without prejudice to the royall interest that he hath a greater for that the King is seised or possessed in the right of his Crowne onely the people in their owne right What one principle more aumenticke in our law then this that the King cannot take away any mans property without his owne consent and how is this consent to be purchased why no otherwise then by Act of Parliament with whom the generall property which is above every mans particular interest is intrusted And therefore those that will have the King to be an absolute Monarch over his people must instruct him how to repeale Magna charta and all the other Lawes made in confirmation of it and the Subjects liberty before they can court them into slavery But here it will be objected that the lawes of this Realme doe avow and maintaine our King to be an absolute Monarch very just and with this difference wee shall allow him to be so that is as to all forraine power authority or jurisdiction what soever he is an obsolute Emperor within these his dominions in plainer language he is no dependent or tributary Prince but is as he is acknowledged to be by the statute of 24. H. 8. ca. 12 Furnished with plenary whole and intire power preeminence authority prerogative and jurisdistion c. So that no forraine Prince or Potentate whatsoever can challenge or excercise the least authority in these Kingdomes but this doth no way conclude our Prince to be an absolute Monarch in the excercise of his jurisdiction over his people T is true that my Lord Coke sayes our King is an absolute King but how not over his people and that is cleared by the case that he puts which is this Artold King of Manne sued to King H. 3. to come into England c. upon which my Lord Coke observes Lib. 7. fo 21. that seeing that Artold King of Manne sued for a licence in this case to our King it proveth him an absolute King which is evident as to any forraine power or authority whatsoever but not to his own Subjects For as to them he hath but a qualified limitted power confined to the rules of law the customs of his Kingdome These things pondered on I stand amazed at thy brasen confidence Albericus that durst affirme our King to be an absolute Monarch and canst prove it no better then by the daubing principles of the Civill Law what else is this but to argue a case at Common Law upon the notions and grounds of the Civil which were an absurdity next to madnesse But I stand most astonished when I consider that our Prince must be made the Patron of such dangerous absurde principles This is that that hath so much advanced Prerogative and depressed Liberty And these times are become the

the person so that though the thing may be of necessity to be done as for the purpose the setling of the Militia yet that doth not necessitare the person of an absolute Prince to doe it What pure contradictions are these first that Princes have Supreame and absolute power to do what they list and yet that they ought to do nothing but what is just and right That they are above the Law and yet by the law of honesty they are bound to observe and keepe it I thinke it is almost impossible to reconcile these differences or to make Albericus agree with himselfe For my part I shall not sticke to defend that Princes by the law of necessity are bound to submit to the Law as well as their people For I am sure that the divine precept doth as strongly oblige the greatest Monarch as the meanest begger and that requires that justice be done to all men and that every man which exempts not Princes should doe that which hee commands others to doe Now it is but consonant to the rule of justice and good government that Princes should be necessitated to observe the Law as well as their people for if the King shall have power to make his will his law what justice or setled governement can be exspected Then this beeing an act of justice to observe the Law by that generall precept of the word of God that justice be done to all men Princes are as strongly obliged to it as the people Againe if the Divine rule requireth that every man doe that which he commandeth to be done by another why then no Prince can excuse himselfe of the necessity of subjection to that Law which he requireth should be kept and observed by his Subjects I am certaine it is the very letter of the Word and a principall part of justice that every man should doe as he would be done by and I am confident no Prince if hee would state himselfe in the place of his Subject could hold it just or equali that it should lie in the brest of his Soveraigne to vassalize him at pleasure Now a man ought not to doe that or to conceive it just to be done to another which he would condemne as unjust being done to himselfe I never complied with that distinction of some Divines who say the Prince to be subject to the directive but not to the coactive or compulsive power of the law for though they may be exempt from the penall yet not from the coercive power and without controversie whatsoever God requires of that man may exact the just and due performance And as I have said the word of God doth rather binde over Princes by the law of necessity to the observance of the Law then any way give them freedome from it or power against it Besides you shall heare how some of their own argue frustra sint Leges positae nostro principi nisi sit qui ipsum in leges cogat that is it is in vaine to tie our Prince to the Lawes except there should be somebody to compell him to the observation of them And saies another why are not the lawes also abrogated with which the Prince is said to be bound if it can never be that hee may be compelled to keepe and observe them Every Law carries with it a coactive necessity of observance and as good no Law as no power to exact the performance of the Law But heare what a third of their owne sayes The Lawes are the conventions or covenants betwixt the Prince and his people it is the nature of obligations to enforce the unwilling the bond and obligation being mutuall t is but just and equall that Kings should be necessitated to observe the law as well as their people To conclude this give but Kings freedome from the coercive power of the Law you make the Law as vaine and idle as their covenants and obligations The last argument that I shall touch is this that if the people were bound by their owne Lawes so should the Prince if the people conferre their power upon him To this it is said that this power collated by the people to the Prince is interpreted of the people of Magistrates and of the Lawes themselves that is he hath power over all these then it is said can hee who hath the Lawes in his power be in the power of the lawes or can he that hath the power of the Lawes be detayned by the power of the Lawes For my part Albericus I count it a flat absurdity for any man to maintaine that the people conferred a grater power or exemption upon their Prince then they themselves had or exercised for though they did transferre all the Legislative power to the Prince yet it must be clogged with the same qualifications and conditions that they themselves had it Neither can it be imagined by sounder judgements that people who had such experience of an ample liberty would give an absolute power to their Prince and thereby subject themselves to the bond of slavery That the people did grant to their Prince a power of making Lawes doth not allow him an exemption or freedome from them Besides as the alterations of Governement in any state are dangerous and therefore not to be attempted without mature consideration so it hath beene alwaies the care and vigelancy of all States whatsoever upon their innovation or alteration of Governement to reduce themselves to a better not a worse condition and can we then conceive that the Nations upon the first election of Princes could be so stuped as to submit themselves to absolute Monarchy live under the lawless power of Tyranny and so avoiding one extreame to fal into another much worse then the former For my selfe I must needes acknowledge that it is a thing so opposite and disconsonant to the rule of reason and that freedome that all men naturally covet that I shall as soone renounce the fundamentalls of my faith as beleeve it But the long continuance of the Monarchicall governement which indeede is the most absolute of all others if it do not exceede the sweet mixtute of legall moderation the corruption of Princes and the fawning principles of Court Parasites these are they which by degrees have insinuated these absurd and false positions and adulterated the originall constitution of so pure and happie a Dominion Thus much against absolute Monarchy in generall And now after all let us who are English Subjects live under the golden mean of mixt qualified Monarchy the most blest dominiō in the world if not corrupted through the ambition of Princes or the base seducement of evill Counsellors blesse God for his goodnesse who hath not only dispensed and bestowed an equall portion of his bounty upon us but hath also made us absolute proprietors of what we enjoy so that our lives liberties and estates doe not depend upon not are subiect to the sole breath or arbitrary will of our Soveraigne And I shall conclude all with a small variation of that old verse Non est Lex Regi sed Rex obnoxia Legi The lawe's not subiect to the greatest King But doth his will into subiection bring FINIS