Realm and not the Realm for the King And I can shew a hundred places in Antiquity where the Body of this Nation is called a Republick as for instance where Bracton says Laws are made communi reipublicae sponsione tho I confess in relation to a King it oftner goes by the prouder name of Realm But this Constitution of State and Regal Government which is the Constitution of England cannot be so well understood by any other one Book as by my Lord Chancellour Fortescue's which was a Book writ for the Nonce and to instruct the Prince into what sort of Government he was like to succeed As directly opposite to this Government he has painted the French Government Fortescue p. 79. made up of Men at Arms and Edicts The Prince in the conclusion of it P. 130. does not doubt but this Discourse of the Chancellor's will be profitable to the Kings of England which hereafter shall be and I am satisfied that no wise King after he has read that little Book would change Governments with the Grand Seignior And as the Prince has recommended the usefulness of this Discourse to all future Kings so I heartily recommend it to the careful perusal of all Englishmen who having seen a Succession of bad Reigns think there is somewhat in the Mill and that the English Form of Government is amiss whereas the Fault lies only in the Male administration or if there should happen to be any flaw or defect in any of the occasional Laws it may easily and ought to be rectified every Parliament that sits down as the Book says P. 129. I never heard of any that disliked the English Government but some of the Princes Progenitours Kings of England who thinking themselves shackled and manacled by the English Laws endeavoured to throw off this State Yoke P. 78. Moliti sunt hoc jugum politicum abjicere that they might rule or rather rage over their Subjects in Regal wise only not considering that to govern the People by the Laws of the State is not a Yoke but Liberty and the greatest Security not only to the Subject but to the King himself and in great measure ridds him of Care But the same Author p. 88. tells us the Success of his Attempt Qui sic politicum regimen abjicere satagerunt these Progenitours of the Prince who thus endeavoured with might and main to be rid of this State Government not only could not compass that larger Power which they grasp'd at but risqu'd both themselves and their Kingdom As we our selves have likewise seen in the late K. Iames. Or on the other side perhaps it is disliked by some who have seen no other effects of it but what have proceeded from the Scotch King-Craft which is worse than no Government at all and have imputed those Corruptions and Disorders to the English Frame of Government or at least think that it has no Remedy provided against them and so have fallen into the waking Dreams of Oceana's and I know not what for want of understanding the True of the English Government But I can assure these Persons that upon further search they will find it quite otherwise and that the English Frame of Government cannot be mended and the old Land-marks better plac'd than we could have laid them with our own hands and withal that all new Projects come a Thousand Years too late For England has been so long conformed to its own Laws and its Laws to it that we are all of a piece and both in point of Gratitude to our Ancestors who have spent their Lives to transmit them to us and out of love to Posterity to convey them a thing more valuable than their Lives we cannot think much at any time to venture our own I am clearly of Sir Rob. Phillips's mind in the Parliament 4 to Caroli Nothing so endangers us with his Majesty as that Opinion that we are Antimonarchically affected whereas such is and ever hath been our Loyalty if we were to chuse a Government we should Chuse this Monarchy of England above all Governments in the World Which we lately have Actually done when no body could Claim it for they could only Claim under a Forfeited Title and at a time when too much occasion had been given to the whole Nation to be out of conceit with Kings As for the remaining part of the Pope's Trash it is not worth answering That the Barons reduced K. John to those streights that what they dared to ask he dared not to deny For they asked him nothing but their Own which he ought not to have denied them nor have put them to the trouble of coming so hardly by it Nor was the Granting of Magna Charta a foul and dishonourable Composition but Just and Honourable and therefore Honourable because it was Just. As for the Compulsion there was in it a man that must be made to be honest cannot complain of that himself nor any body for him In this whole Affair the Pope's Apostolical Authority went farther than his Arguments It is the lasting Honour of Magna Charta and the Barons that they were run down by a Pope and a General Council which were the first that established Transubstantiation Lateran sub Innocent 3. and the deposing of Kings for Heresy either their own or even that of their Subjects if they suffered them in their Dominions in which case the Pope was to absolve their Subjects from their Allegiance to set up a Crusado against them and to dispose of their Kingdoms to Catholick Free-booters This was a powerful transforming Metamorphosing Council but they that could turn a bit of Bread into a God might more easily turn better Christians than themselves into Saracens I take the Decrees of that General Council to be a standing Declaration of War yea a Holy War against all Protestant Princes and States to the end of the World whereby all Papists are the publick and declared Enemies of that part of Mankind whom they have been pleased to call Hereticks for it is the established Doctrine of their Church Having disprov'd Laud's first Charge against M. Charta That it had an obscure Birth as if it had been base born illegitimate or upstart I proceed to the second That it was foster'd by an Ill Nurse In answer to which it would be sufficient to say that it was fostered by a Succession of Kings and above thirty Parliaments and if that be an ill Nurse let all the World find a better But I shall be somewhat more particular and shew what great care was taken of it in After Ages In Edw. 1. time after it had been continued three times ordered to be twice a year read in Churches was sealed with the Bishops and Barons Seals as well as the King 's own and sworn to by the Barons and others * Knyghton Col. 2523. Et ad ejus observationem consilium sinum auxilium fidele praestabunt in perpetuum
like themselves For they require the Legat to restore the Council of the whole Realm which he had irreverently ejected out of the Realm the Bishops of Winchester London and Chichester Men of great Counsel and Prudence for want of whom the Nation sunk They require him to admonish the King to remove Aliens from his Council by whom the Land is held in Captivity That their Lands may be restored them without Redemption at 7 years purchase which was lately allowed them at Coventry That the Provisions of Oxford be kept That Hostages be delivered them into the Isle of Ely and they to hold that place peaceably for five years while they shall see how the King performs his Promises And after this they reckon up several Grievances as the Collation of Benefices upon Strangers which are for the Livelihood and Maintenance of Natives only c. All which they admonish the Legat to see amended Dan. p. 183. Thus they treat says Daniel not like Men whom their Fortunes had laid upon the Ground but as if they had been still standing so much wrought either the opinion of their Cause or the hope of their Party But this Stubbornness so exasperates the King as the next year following he prepares a mighty Army besets the Isle so that he shuts them up and Prince Edward with Bridges made on Boats enters the same to whom some of them yielded themselves and the rest were dispersed by Flight He needed not to have been at such a loss for a Reason of these mens resolute Behaviour much less to have miscall'd it if he had heeded the 4 th Article of their Answer to the Legat which he has translated to loss To the fourth they say P. 1003. That their first Oath was for the profit of the Realm and the whole Church and all the Prelats of the Kingdom have past the Sentence of Excommunication against all that contravene it and being still of the same mind they are ready prepared to die for the said Oath Wherefore they require the Legat to recal his Sentence of Excommunication otherwise they appeal to the Apostolick See and even to a General Council or if need were to the Soveraign Iudg of all Now they that had this sense of their Duty and of the publick Good tho they were lost Men in the eye of the World could not chuse but stand upon their Terms neither could they abate one jot of a righteous Cause which was all they had left to support them And that was enough for he that is in the right is always Superiour to him that is in the wrong The Parliament at Winchester seems to have sat in hot Blood but that King 's succeeding Parliaments were far from suffering him to be absolute and arbitrary tho there was never a Rebel amongst them For the Parliament at Bury gave nothing but very smart Denials to his and the Legat's scurvy Petitions P. 1002. Petitiones pessimas as they call'd them which were contained in eight Articles The first was That the Prelates and Rectors of Churches should grant him the Tenths for three years to come and for the year last past so much as they gave the Barons for guarding the Sea against Strangers Answ. To this they gave answer That the War began by unjust Covetise and is not yet over the Isle of Ely being not then reduced and it were necessary to let alone such very bad Petitions as these and to treat of the Peace of the Realm and to convert his Parliament to the profit of Church and Kingdom not to the Extortion of Pence especially when the Land is so far destroyed by the War that it will be a long time if ever before it recover The seventh is in the Pope's behalf for the speedy preaching up of a Crusado throughout all England Answ. To this they made answer That the People of the Land is in a great part destroyed by the War and if they should now engage in a Crusado few or none would be left for the Defence of their Country whereby it is manifest that the Legate would have the natural Progeny of the Land into Banishment that Strangers might the more easily conquer the Land Art 8. Also it was said That the Prelates were bound to agree to all these Petitions nolens volens because of their late Oath at Coventry where they swore they would aid our Lord the King all manner of ways they could possibly Answ. To this they made Answer That when they took that Oath they did not understand by it any other Aid but Ghostly and wholsom Advice A very trim Answer And all the rest are much after the same fashion And to conclude this whole Reign at his last Parliament at Marleburgh M. Charta was confirmed in all its Points Thus have I brought down the History of M. Charta to he end of Henry the 3 d wherein you have a short but punctual Account of that Affair and the true face of things For I have told the Story with the same Air the Writer himself does and have been so faithful in the Relation as to keep close to his very Phrase whereby in several places it is the worse English tho the better History As for the Writer himself he was the most able and sufficient and the most competent that could be writing upon the Spot and having all the Advantages which added to his own Diligence could give him true Information For he was Historiographer Royal to King Henry III. and invited by him to the Familiarity of dining and being in frequent conference with him and was directed by him to record several Matters and to set them down in indelible Characters which I believe his will prove And as to his Integrity no Man can suspect him unless it be for being partial on the Court side as being in their pay But his Writings shew that he was above that mean Consideration and though he gives the King a Cast of his Office where he can and relates things to his advantage yet he has likewise done right to the Barons and was a faster Friend to Truth than to either of them And accordingly in King Edward I's claim to a Superiority over the Kingdom of Scotland this very Writing is brought as authentick History concerning what passed at York 35 H. 3. and is cited by the name of the Chronicle of St. Albans In one thing he excels which is owing to the Largeness and Freedom of his converse with Persons of the first Quality that he not only records barely what was done but what every body said upon all occasions which as Baronius says it is makes it a golden Book For Mens Speeches give us great light into the meaning of their Actions which is the very inside of History In this History of Magna Charta the History of the Barons Wars was necessarily involved so that in writing one I must write both for as you see they were wholly undertaken for recovering
vel ineptâ contumacia aut contemptu seu proterva voluntate singulari se alienaverit a populo suo nec voluerit per Jura Regni Statuta laudabiles Ordinationes gubernari regulari ex tunc licitum est eis ipsum Regem de regali solio abrogare c. by an antient Statute they had power to depose a King that would not behave himself as he ought nor be ruled by the Laws of the Realm And they instance in this deposing of Edw. 2. but withal as a late and modern thing in respect of the Antiquity of that Statute Such an irrefragable Testimony and Declaration of a Parliament so long since concerning what was ordained in the eldest Ages long before plainly shews the English Constitution and is a full Confutation of the late K. Iames's Memorial at Reswick And this Power seems to be well known to K. Iohn's Barons who when there is occasion talk familiarly of Creating a new King and afterwards were forc'd to do it tho now they only sought their Charter and did not attempt to take from him his Kingdom which the Pope indeed says but it was not true So far have I cleared them from Presumption as Vassals now as Knights It is true their Tenure was to assist the King against the Enemies of the Realm but how if he turn'd so himself Unjust Oppression which is the Pope's own Supposition is no friendly part Must they then aid him against the Realm and be the Instruments of his unjust Oppression upon themselves Their Duty and Service was to the Realm in chief to him it was subaltern And therefore knowing their Duty better than the Pope did they all left K. Iohn all but seven before he could consent to the Parliament at Running-Mead For it is plain the Pope would have had them Passive-Obedience Knights and a Contradiction to their very Order whereby for certain they had forfeited their Spurs Yea but the Barons were Iudges and Executors in their own Cause And who can help it if they were made so in the first Institution and from the very Foundation of this Government As soon as the Saxons had chosen from among themselves one King this the Mirror says expresly was the Jurisdiction of the King's Companions For tho the King had no Peer yet if he wronged any of his People it was not fit that he that was Party should be likewise Judg nor for the same reason any of his Commissioners and therefore these Companions were by their place to right the Subject in Parliament Mirror p. 9. Et tout soit que le Roye ne devoit aver nul Peere en la terre pur ceo nequidant que le Roy de son tort s il pecha vers ascun d son people ne nul de ses Commissaires poit eÌ„ Iudge Partee couvient per droit que le Roy ust Compaignions pur oyer terminer aux Parliaments trestouts les breves plaints de torts de le Roy de la Roigne de lour Infans de eux especialment de que torts len ne poit aver autrement common droit The same is more largely set down by the Lord Chief Justice Bracton and therefore I will transcribe it in his own words Lib. 2. cap. 16. f. 34. Rex autem habet superiorem Deum s. Item Legem per quam factus est Rex Item Curiam suam videlicet Comites Barones quia Comites dicuntur quasi Socii Regis qui habet Socium habet Magistrum ideo si Rex fuerit sine fraeno i. sine Lege debent ei fraenum ponere nisi ipsimet fuerint cum Rege sine fraeno tunc clamabunt subditi dicent Domine Iesu Christe in chamo fraeno maxillas eorum constringe ad quos Dominus vocabo sâ—per eos gentem robustam longinquam ignotam cujus linguam ignorabunt quae destruet eos evellet radices eorum de terrâ a talibus judicabuntur quia subditos noluerunt justè judicare in fine ligatis manibus pedibus eorum mittet eos in caminum ignis tenebras exteriores ubi erit fletus stridor dentium He says the King has these above him God also the Law which makes him a King also his Parliament namely the Earls and Barons who ought to bridle a lawless King c. In this large Passage you plainly see that what the Barons did was so far from being the absurd and presumptuous Usurpation of making themselves Judges and Executors in their own Cause that it was their bounden Duty It was not only lawful for them to restrain and bridle a lawless King but it was incumbent upon them under the greatest Penalties and neither lawful nor safe for them to let it alone So that here the Barons were hard besett the Pope delivers them up to Satan for what they did and they had exposed themselves to the Vengeance of God and going to Hell if they had not done it But they chose to do their Duty to God and their distressed Country and to venture the causeless Curse from Rome I might multiply Quotations out of Fleta and others to the same purpose but what I have set down is sufficient and therefore I shall rather take this occasion to admire the Wisdom of the English Constitution which seems to be built for perpetuity For how can a Government fail which has such lasting Principles within it and a several respective Remedy lodged in the very bowels of it The King has a known Power of causing all his Subjects to keep the Law that is an effectual Remedy against Lawlesness and Anarchy and the Parliament has a Power if need be to hold the King to the observation of the Laws and that is a preservative against Tyranny This is the Palladium of our Government which cannot be stoln as theirs was from Troy for the Keepers of it are too many to be kill'd because every English man has an interest in it for which reason neither can it be bought and sold so as to make a Title and a man of a moderate Understanding may easily undertake that it shall never be preacht away from us And hereby England is rendred the noblest Commonwealth and Kingdom in the World I name Common-wealth first because K. Iames the first in one of his Speeches to the Parliament says he is the Great Servant of the Common-wealth From hence I infer that this was a Commonwealth before he was the Great Servant of it Great and little is not the dispute for it is for the Honour and Interest of so glorious a State to have a Prince as Great as they can make him As to compare great things with small it is for the honour of the City to have a magnificent Lord Mayor And K. Iames told us no news in naming his Office for this is the Country as Fortescue's whole Book shews us where the King is appointed for the