Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	history_n	king_n	write_v	3,141	5	6.1669	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50542	Jus regium, or, The just, and solid foundations of monarchy in general, and more especially of the monarchy of Scotland : maintain'd against Buchannan, Naphthali, Dolman, Milton, &c. / by Sir George Mackenzie ...	Mackenzie, George, Sir, 1636-1691.; Mackenzie, George, Sir, 1636-1691. That the lawful successor cannot be debarr'd from succeeding to the crown.	1684 (1684)	Wing M162; ESTC R39087	83,008	208

overjoyed as men are when they are free'd from the Gallies in which they had been Treated as Slaves And whereas these Republicans pretend that the King is but a Phisician this shews that they design to have no King for any man may lawfully change his Phisician and Buchannans laying so much weight on this Argument makes me suspect much his honesty for no man can have so mean an opinion of his Sense And his comparing the Monarch to a Tutor is very extravagant for no man is sworn to have such a mans Heirs for Tutors but though he were a Tutor no man can remove his Tutor at pleasure as they say the People may remove their King Nor is a Tutor to be laid aside but by an Action before a Superior Judge wherein he is to be proved to have Malversed and therefore since there is no Superior Judge except God and that the People are not his Superiors it clearly follows that the People cannot lay aside their King A Tutor has not an inherent Right of Property as a King hath to the Government of the Nation and to the Imperial Crown thereof only I joyne so far with Buchannan in these Rhetorical expressions that I really think the Multitude is alwayes so mad that they need a King to be their Physitian and of so weak a Judgement like Mi. nors that they need him for a Tutor and without his assistance and protection every hypocritical Bigot and ambitious Usurper would cheat them at his pleasure and make them not only a Prey but a Tool in their own Slavery Nor is there any force in that Argument the King was made for the People and not the People for the King and therefore the People are Nobler than the King and ought to be preferred to Him For to this it is answered that 1. The question here is not who is more preferable but who is the Superiour And though one good Christian be preferable to a thousand who are not so yet their Interest in the Common-wealth is not preferable the wiser part is still preferable to the greater part and yet the greater will over-rule the wiser A Shepherd is ordained for the Flock and yet it cannot be concluded that a Flock of Brutes is to be preferred to any Reasonable Creature 2. The Kings Interest and the Peoples are inseparable in the Construction of Law which presumes that what the King does He does for the People and there is none above the King that can Judge Him if He does otherwise 3. Whether the Kings Power be derived from God or from the People Yet if it be derived from God it is preferable because of Gods Ordinance Or if from the People it is preferable because they by Electing Him King have consented that it should be so and they having Trusted Him with the publick Interest the publick Interest is still preferable I know that Buchannan and others value themselves much upon the Instance of the Bruce and Baliol in which the people did Declare that they preferred the Bruce because the Baliol had enslaved the Kingdom to the English And it is generally urged that all Lawyers are clear that if a King Alienat His Kingdom His people may Disclaim Him But my answers are That if a King will Alienat His Kingdom the Subjects are free in that case not by their power to reassume their first Liberty but because the King will not continue King and they are free by His Deed but not by their own Right 2. Even in that case Lawyers do irritat and annul the Deed but dissolve not the Contraveeners Right And as to that particular Instance it is well known that King Robert the First or the Bruce as we call him was desirous that the Parliament should threaten to choose another if He submitted His Interest to the Popes Decision who pretended then to be the Supream Judge over all Kings And Iohn Major as many other Popish Writers were still enemies to the Supremacy of Kings upon that account But though the Bruce to please the people should have shunned to quarrel what they did in such a Juncture yet that could not wrong the Monarchy nor His Successors as shall be proved Having thus cleared that the Kings power is not derived from the people even though they had Elected Him and that He is an absolute King both by our Laws and the Nature of our Monarchy and that all this is most consistent with right Reason I come now to draw some Conclusions from these Principles The first Conclusion shall be that our Parliaments are not co-ordinat with our Kings in the Legislative Power but that the Legislative and Architectonick Power of making Laws as Lawyers term it does Solly reside in the King the Estates of Parliament only consenting which will furder appear by these Reasons 1. It cannot be denyed but we had Kings long ere we had Parliaments we never having had any Parliaments till King Kenneth the 3 ds time according to the Computation of the severest Re-publicans themselves for till then we Read only of the Proceres Regni or the Nobility or Chiefs of Clanes and Heads of Families who assembled upon all occasions to give the King advice and therefore our Parliaments cannot pretend that they were designed as a Co-ordinate power with the King whilst he did what was right much less to be his Judge when he did what was wrong 2. That our Kings made Laws of old without any consent and that these were acquiesced in by the people is clear not only from our Histories which do tell us that such Kings made such Laws without speaking any thing of either Nobility People or Parliament but even from our old Books of Statutes wherein there is no mention made of the consent of either the Nobility or Parliament The Laws at that time beginning simply The Kings Statutes as in all the Statutes of King William King Alexander 2 d. and in the Statutes of King Malcolm Canmore King David the first and King David the 2 d. where there is not so much as mention made of the Nobility or the Parliament in the very beginning of the Statutes and that at other times the Nobility were only called and that only the Nobility did sit is very clear from the Inscriptions of these Parliaments such as in the Parl. K. Alexander 2 d. which bears to have been made with the common consent of the Nobility cum communi consensu Comitum suorum without speaking of any other State Nor do I find a word of Burgesses till the Parliament of K. Robert the 3 d. in 1400. and even according to this late Constitution it is undenyable that the Parliament have not even an equal power with the King much less a power above him 3. How can that Judicature have a Co-ordinat power with the King when no man can sit in it but by a priviledge from the King but so it is that all that are Members of Parliament sit there by a

we have the Father owning the said Robert the 3 d. to be his eldest Son and Heir both in Charters and Acts of Parliamnets which are the most solemn of all Deeds 2. Quando pater instituit aliquem tanquam filium suum which holds in this Case where the Father institutes and leaves him Heir and the Parliament swears Allegiance to him as the Heir Mascard de prob vol 2. conclus 799. And in dubious Cases the Father's naming such a man as a Son presumes him to be a lawful Son nominatio parentis inducit filiationem in dubio l. ex facto § si quis Rogatus ff ad trebell 3. Even Fame and the common opinion of the People do in favours of these that are in Possession and in ancient Cases prove filiationem legitimationem Mascard conclus 792. but much more where the Fame and common Opinion is adminiculated by other Arguments fulgos consil 128. Panorm in cap. transmiss qui filii sunt ligittimi 4. When Writs are produc'd calling a man a Son the Law concludes him to be a lawful Son Mascard vol. 2. conclus 800. num 15. all which can be easily subsum'd in our Case In which Robert the 3 d. is nam'd not only Son but Heir and Allegiance sworn to him even in the lifetime of the second Wife and her Relations sitting in Parliament and all this acquiesc'd in for many hundreds of years and the Competitors punish'd as Traitors by the unanimous consent of all the Parliament I know that Buchanan does most bitterly inveigh against those Laws made by King Kenneth the 3 d as Laws whereby the ancient Right of Succession was innovated and whereby the Government was settled upon Children who were neither able to consult with the People nor to defend them and whereby those had the Government of the Nation conferr'd upon them who were not capable to govern themselves To which my answer is That in this Buchanan's Malice contradicts his History for his own History tells us that the Scots swore Allegiance to Fergus and his Posterity and consequently Fergus's Son ought by Law to have succeeded and not his Brother for his Brother was none of his Posterity and therefore those Laws made by K. Kenneth did but renew the old Law and the innovation introduc'd in favours of the Uncles was a subversion of the fundamental Law to which they had sworn 2. That the old Law was not abrogated but was in Being by vertue of the first Oath appears very clear by Buchanan himself who confesses that upon the death of Durstus a wicked Prince it was debated whether his Son should not succeed juxta sacramentum Fergusio prestitum veteremque esse morem servandum which acknowledgeth that the Succession was even in these days established by Law by Oath and by Custom and after the death of Fergus the 2 d his Son Eugenius though a Minor was crown'd and his Uncle Graemus allow'd to be his Tutor And Buchanan also brings in Bishop Kennedy lib. 12. praising this Law as made by Kenneth a most wise and glorious Prince with advice of all his Estates of Parliament and which rather confirms as he says the old Law than introduces a new one so far did Buchanan's rage against Queen Mary prevail with him to praise and rail at the same individual Law and it is observable that it is very dangerous to recede once from fundamental Laws for Buchanan makes not only the Succession Elective but he makes no difference betwixt lawful Children and Bastards and excludes not only Minors during the Uncles life but Women for ever 3. In all Nations where the Monarchy is Hereditary Minors succeed and so this innovation of causing the next Male succeed for all his Life was contrary to the nature of the Monarchy and to the Customs of all Nations and God in Scripture gives us many instances of it Ioas succeeded when he was seven years of Age Iosiah when he was eight Manasseh in twelve and Azariah in sixteen and yet in those days God is said to have chosen the King for it is said in Deut. Thou shalt set over thee the King whom I have chosen and consequently the choice of Minors cannot be ill since God Almighty us'd to make such a choice I know that Eccles. 10.16 says Woe unto the land when thy King is a child but the Criticks interpret this of a King that is childish puer intellectu moribus or because Factions arise by the opposition to his Regents and this inconveniency did more necessarily attend the allowing a Regent King during Life for both the Subjects and the true Heir rais'd Factions in that Case whereas the Subjects only are factious in the other and yet even they are no more factious for that short time than they are always in Common-wealths 4. The reason why the Minor King was to have one to supply his Nonage ceasing with his Majority it was unreasonable that the Remedy should have lasted beyond the Disease and the worst effect that could have been occasion'd by the Infant King's Minority was that the Kingdom should have been during that time govern'd by joynt advice of Parliament Councils and Officers of State which in Buchanan's opinion in other places of his History and Book De Jure Regni is so excellent a Model that he decrys Monarchy as much inferior to it 5. It was most inconvenient to accustom any private Family to live in the quality of a King 6. It could not but occasion many Murders and much Faction for the true Heir could not live peaceably under this Eclipse and Exclusion nor could the Uncle live without making a Party to secure his pleasant Usurpation 7. As these Divisions and Factions were the natural and necessary Effects that were to be expected from this irregular Succession so it is very observable that from King Fergus to King Kenneth the 3 d we had 79. Kings amongst whom almost the half were the most impious tyranical or lazie Kings that ever we had according to Buchanan's character of them so happy and wise a thing is this so much magnified Election of a Successor by the People and their Representatives to supply the defects of the lawful Heir whereas from King Kenneth the 3 d to King CHARLES the 2 d. inclusivè we have had 31. Kings 26. of whom have succeeded by a due lineal Right and have prov'd vertuous Princes greater by their Merit than their Birth as if God had design'd to let us see that though most of them succeeded whilst they were very young yet that he can choose a fitter Successor than Parliaments can do whereas the other 5. Kings who came to the Crown against that Law of Kenneth the 3 d viz. Constantine the bald Grimus Mackbeath Donal Bain and Duncan the 2 d were all persons who deserved very ill to be preferred to the true Heir and who as they came to the Crown against Law so govern'd without it And it is very strange

and may rise in Arms against them if the Monarch hinder them to Reform 4. That the People or their Representatives may seclude the Lineal Successor and raise to the Throne any of the Royal Family who doth best deserve the Royal Dignity These being all matters of Right the plain and easie way which I resolve to take for refuting them so as the learned and unlearned may be equally convinced shall be first by giving a true account of what is our present positive Law 2. By demonstrating that as our present positive Law is inconsistent with these Principles so these our positive Laws are excellently well founded upon the very nature of Monarchy and that those Principles are inconsistent with all Monarchy And the third Class of my Arguments shall be from the Principles of common Reason Equity and Government abstracting both from the positiveness of our Law and the nature of our Monarchy And in the last place I shall answer the Arguments of those Authors As to the first I conceive that a Treatise De Iure Regni apud Scotos should have clear'd to us what was the power of Monarchs by Law and particularly what was the positive Law of Scotland as to this point for if these points be clear by our positive Law there is no further place for debate since it is absolutely necessary for Mankind especially in matters of Government that they at last acquiesce in something that is fix'd and certain and therefore it is very well observed by Lawyers and States-men that before Laws be made men ought to reason but after they are made they ought to obey which makes me admire how Buchannan and the other Authors that I have named should have adventur'd upon a Debate in Law not being themselves Lawyers and should have written Books upon that Subject without citing one Law Civil or Municipal pro or con Nor is their Veracity more to be esteemed than their Learning for it 's undenyable that Buchannan wrot this Book De Iure Regni to perswade Scotland to raise his Patron though a Bastard to the Crown and the Authors of Lex Rex Ius Populi Vindicatum and others were known to have written those Libels from picque against the Government because they justly suffered under it I know that to this it may be answered That these Statutes are but late and were not extant in Buchanans time and consequently Buchanan cannot be Redargu'd by them 2. That these Statutes have been obtain'd from Parliaments by the too great influence of their Monarchs and the too great Pusillanimity of Parliaments who could not resign the Rights and Priviledges of the People since they have no Warrand from them for that effect To the first of which I answer that my Task is not to form an Accusation against Buchanan but against his Principles and to demonstrat that these Principles are not our Law but are inconsistent with it and it is ridiculous to think that any such Laws should have been made before these Treasonable Principles were once hatched and maintained for Errors must appear before they be condemned and by the same Argument it may be as well urged that Arius Nestorius c. were not Hereticks because those Acts of General Councils which condemned their Heresies were not extant when they first defended those opinions and that our King had not the power of making Peace and War till the Year 1661 But 2 dly For clearing this Point it is fit to know that our Parliaments never give Prerogatives to our Kings but only declare what have been their Prerogatives and particularly in these Statutes that I shall Cite the Parliament doth not Confer any New Right upon the King but only acknowledge what was Originally his Right and Prerogative from the beginning and therefore the Parliament being the only Judges who could decide whether Buchannans Principles were solid and what was Ius Regni apud Scctor These Statutes having decided those points contraverted by him there can be hereafter no place for Debate and particularly as to Buchannan his Book De jure Regni apud Scotos it is expresly condemn'd as Slanderous and containing several offensive Matters by the 134 Act Parl. 8. Ia. 6. in Anno 1584. which was the first Parliament that ever sat after his Book was printed To the 2 d I answer that it being controverted what is the Kings Power there can be no stronger Decision of that Controversie in Favours of the King than the acknowledgment of all Parties Interested and it is strange and unsufferable to hear such as appeal to Parliaments cry out against their Power their Justice and Decisions and why should we oppress our Kings and raise Civil Wars whereby we endanger so much our selves to procure powers to Parliaments if Parliaments be such ridiculous things as we cannot trust when they are empowered by us and if there be any force in this answer of Buchannans there can be none in any of our Laws for that strikes at the Root of all our Laws and as I have produced a Tract of reiterated Laws for many Years so where were there ever such free unlimited Parliaments in any Nation as these whose Laws I have Cited 2 dly Whatever might be said if a positive Contract betwixt the King and People were produced clearing what were the just Limits of the Monarchy and bounding it by clear Articles mutually agreed upon yet it is very absurd and extravagant to think that when the Debate is what is the King of Scotlands just Power and Right and from whom he Derives it that the Laws and repeated Acknowledgements of the whole Representatives of the People assembled in the Supream Court of the Nation having no open force upon it but enacted at several times in many several Parliaments under the gentlest peaceablest and wisest Kings that ever they had should not be better believed than the Testimonies of three or four byass'd and disoblig'd Pedants who understood neither our Laws nor Statutes and who can bring no clear fundamental Law nor produce no Contract nor Paction restricting the King or bounding his Government 3 dly That which adds a great deal of Authority to this Debate and these Statutes is that as this is clear by our positive Law so it is necessarly inferred from the nature of our Monarchy and is very advantagious for the Subjects of this Kingdom which I shall clear in the second and third Arguments that I shall bring against these Treasonable Principles nor can they be seconded by any solid Reason as I shall make appear in answering the Arguments of those Authors I know that Nephthaly the Author of Ius populi and our late Fanatical Pamphlets alleadge that our Parliaments since 1661 are null and unlawful because many who have Right to sit as Members or to Elect Members were secluded by the Declaration or Test But my answer is First That these were excluded by Acts of Parliament which were past in Parliaments prior to their exclusion