Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	heir_n	power_n	successor_n	3,459	5	9.2559	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A80505	A copy of a letter written to an officer of the Army by a true Commonwealths-man, and no courtier, concerning the right and settlement of our present government and governors.	True Commonwealths-man.	1656 (1656)	Wing C6173A; Thomason E870_5; ESTC R202910	31,378	45

so mainly necessary there are say they many causes to wit the fresh fear which invaded all men when very lately her health was indangered the opportunity of the times when the Estates of the Realm were now assembled who would maturely deliberate of so weighty matters the terror which she should strike into her adversaries and the immortal joy wherewith she would replenish all her Subjects They commend the Examples of her Ancestors which in such cases have prudently provided for the security of their Posterity condemning that speech of Pyrrhus who said He would leave the Kingdom to him which had the sharpest sword Moreover they propound how great a storm of calamities would hang over England if she should put off her mortality designing no certain Successor That seditious and Civil Wars would break forth wherein the Victory it self were most miserable That Religion would be abolished Justice smothered the Laws trodden under feet When there should be no certain Prince which is the soul of the Law and that the Kingdom would fall as a prey to Foreiners And other calamities of that sort they reckon up and exaggerate wherein all men would be included if she should die without issue Out of the sacred Scriptures also they modestly join hereunto precepts counsels and examples At which time also the Lower House were more vehement in their expressions to the same purpose These things have been the more largely collected and set down that we might see the difference between Parliaments then and since For they were so far from usurping authority to themselves to alter the succession of the Prince in possession which had Heirs under colour of their power of Election during the life of the Prince that they claimed not a right to constitute an Heir or Successor unto him that had Children of his own Even as in the time of Henry the Eight they had at his motion setled the Crown sometimes upon the issue by one wife and sometimes upon another and at last left it to such as he should give it by his last Will and Testament These Parliaments of Q Elizabeth consisting then of Papists chiefly might more justly then now have suspected an aversness from the Religion professed or established fol. 16. especially in Fundamentals But on the other hand says my Author she was much troubled at the impatience of some Ministers of the Word who chose rather to forerun then expect Laws and began to sow abroad the Doctrine of the Gospel more freely first in private houses then in Churches and the people greedy of novelty began to flock unto them in great numbers It might have been objected that she was a Woman and so unfit to be acknowledged Head of the Church which authority had been in the time of her Father setled upon the Imperial Crown of this Realm A thing scoffed at as well by them which seemed more strictly zealous as by the Papists themselves And they might also and with more right have insisted upon an Act of Parliament whereby she stood disabled from the Government and that as one declared illegitimate and whose Mother had been condemned and executed for Adultery Even by an Act of a Parliament consisting of King Lords and Commons and not made by a piece of a piece of a Parliament only Camb. Annal. fol. 18. Whereupon says my Author some seditious persons afterward took occasion thereby to attempt dangerous matters against her as being not lawful Queen albeit the English Laws have long since pronounced that the Crown once worne quite taketh away all defects whatsoever And as this unrepealing of that Act and this Maxim of the Law was then imputed to Bacons wisdome on whom as an Oracle of the Law the Queen wholly relied in such matters so for further satisfaction of mens mindes concerning the undoubted obedience which is due to the Possessor in questions of like kinde I shall set down the determination of him who by Lawyers themselves is accompted an Oracle of the Law since namely my Lord Cook who in the 3. part of his Institutes f. 6 7. in the Title of Treason expounding the words of Nre Seignior le Roy says that by le Roy is to be understood a King regnant and not of one that hath but the name of a King And then also he alleadges the instance of Q. Mary on whom as having indeed the soveraign power the word le Roy was appropriate although she were a woman and her Husband at the same time stiled King of England Afterwards he quotes in the margent the Statute of 11 Henry 7. enacting That none shall be condemned for any thing done in obedience to the present King or Soveraign for so the words of the Statute are King or Soveraign He further saith This Act is to be understood of a King in possession of the Crown and Kingdom For if there be a King regnant in possession although he be Rex de facto non de jure yet is he Seignior le Roy within the purview of this Statute and the other that hath right and is out of possession is not within this Act. Nay if Treason be committed against a King de facto non de jure after the King de jure cometh to the Crown he shall punish the Treason done to the King de facto and a Pardon granted by a King de jure that is not also de facto is void By all which it will appear that the Law directs our fidelity to Nre Seignior our Soveraign Lord not confining it to the stile and title of le Roy or King to whom it is only due as being actually Nre Roy our Soveraign Lord the King And indeed it would have seemed strange if what by the Law is due to inferior powers as Lords of Manors or the like should have been denied to the chief For in that case the exception of a Disseisor against the right Heir is not available to abate any Service or Acknowledgment which ought to come from a Tenant or Homager Having thus Sir as shortly as I could cleered my way of some most material doubts I shall now crave your patience to peruse the following Letter beseeching God to direct and bless you in the setling of the peace and good of these Nations Which is the daily prayer of SIR Your most affectionate Friend and Servant SIR YOu may please to remember that upon some late discourses which passed between us concerning some things relating to the present establishment in our Government and of that question of Hereditary or Elective succession I did then trouble you with the relation of my opinion therein and give you such reasons and arguments as did then occur for the establishment of both And which might serve by way of answer to those ordinary objections made to the contrary which in malicious Pamphlets or otherwise were vulgarly spread abroad both to disaffect the people and to breed a distaste and jealousie both in