Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A29601
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Britanniæ speculum, or, A short view of the ancient and modern state of Great Britain, and the adjacent isles, and of all other the dominions and territories, now in the actual possession of His present Sacred Majesty King Charles II the first part, treating of Britain in general.
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1683
(1683)
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Wing B4819; ESTC R9195
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107,131
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325
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other inferior Officers as so many Crystal Pipes he conveyeth to his People We will saith Edward the I st in his Book of Laws written at his appointment by John Briton Bishop of Hereford that our own Jurisdiction be above all Jurisdictions in our Realm so that in all manner of Felonies Trespasses Contracts and all other Actions Personal or Real We have Power to render or cause to be rendred such Judgments as do appertain without other Process whereever we know the right Truth as Judges All Jurisdiction say the Scotch Laws stands and consists in the Kings person by reason of his Royal Authority and Crown and is competent to no Subject but flows and proceeds from the King having Supreme Jurisdiction and is given and committed by him to his Subjects as he pleases The King then is the sole Supreme Judge all other Judges being his Deputies to whom whatsoever Power is by him committed yet is the last Appeal alwayes to be made to himself who may therefore as his Predecessors formerly have done sit in any Court and take Cognizance of any Cause but in Treasons Felonies c. the King being Plaintif sits not personally in Judgment but doth perform it by his Delegates From the King of Great Britain who being the only Supreme Head is furnished with Plenary Power and Jurisdiction to render Justice to every Member within his Dominions there lies no Appeal in Ecclesiastical Causes to the Bishop of Rome whose Authority ever since the Reformation has been here wholly abrogated nor in Civil Matters to the Emperor who for above twelve hundred years has not had the least Shadow of Pretence to any Jurisdiction within this Island nor in either to the people who both in themselves and by their Representatives in Parliament as well Conjunctim as Divisim are his Subjects and ow Obedience to his Commands To Legislation and Judicature which are solely and supremely in the King is necessary the Power of the Sword without which all other Power is nothing for forcing Obedience to the Laws and Judgments given both in Criminal and Civil Causes This having in virtue of their Soveraignty been alwayes indisputably enjoyed by the Monarchs of this Nation till the time of the late Rebellion was since his Majesties Restauration by a Parliament as truly zealous for the happiness of their King and Country as ever this Nation saw in proper and express Terms declared to be the Right of the King only without either of his Houses of Parliament the contrary Position thereunto asserted by the rebellious Members of the Parliament of 1640. having been the chief Means of overturning our Government and bringing Confusion and Misery upon this flourishing Kingdom Divinity So great was the Veneration shewn to the ancient Christian Emperors by their Subjects that they gave them tho imperfectly only and Analogically the Titles of Your Everlastingness Your Divinity and the like belonging essentially and perfectly to GOD alone Who to shew the great Power by him given to Soveraign Princes and to beget in the Hearts of their People an higher Esteem and more reverend Awfulness of them which failing all Confusion Impiety and Calamity break in upon a Nation is himself pleased as is manifest in Holy Writ to bestow upon them the Title of Gods as being his Vicegerents and representing his Majesty and Power upon Earth Nay so excessive was the Respect of the good Christians of those times that they were wont to swear by the Majesty of their Emperor as Joseph sometimes did by the Life of Pharaoh And this Custom seems to be justified by Vegetus a learned Writer of that Age being practiced only to create in the Subjects a greater Reverence for these Earthly Deities In like manner the Laws and Constitutions of this Monarchy attribute to the King whom they regard as GOD upon Earth divers Excellencies which belong properly to none but GOD. Thus as GOD is perfect so the Law will have no Imperfection found in the King No Negligence no Folly no Infamy or Corruption of Blood all former Attainders tho even made by Act of Parliament being ipso facto purged by the Accession of the Crown To the King is attributed Infallibility and Justice in the Abstract The King cannot erre The King can do no wrong To the King is likewise ascribed a Kind of Immortality The King never dies as being a Corporation in himself that lives for ever For all Interregna being unknown in these Kingdoms the same Moment that one King dies the next Heir is fully and absolutely King without any Coronation Ceremony or Act to be done The King is also in some sort said to be Omnipresent He is in a manner every where in all his Courts of Justice in all his Palaces Therefore it is that all his Subjects stand bare in the Presence Chamber wheresoever the Chair of State is placed tho the King be many Miles distance from thence He hath also a kind of Universal Influence over all his Dominions His Fatherly Care is extended to preserve feed instruct and defend the whole Commonweal His War His Peace His Courts of Justice and all His Acts of Soveraignty tend only to preserve and distribute to every person within his Territories their particular Rights and Priviledges By his Power of creating to the highest Dignity and annihilating the same at pleasure and much more by his Prerogative of pardoning those whom the Law has condemned he is invested with a kind of Omnipotency whereby he can restore to life those that are dead in Law And this Power of pardoning condemned Criminals is of such Benefit to the Lives and Estates of the People that without it many would be exposed to die unjustly The King alone in his own Dominions can say with GOD whose Representative he is Vengeance is Mine For all Punishments proceed from him in some of his Courts of Justice it not being lawful for any Subject to avenge himself The King alone is Judge in his own Cause tho he delivers his Judgment by the Mouth of his Judges But in nothing doth the King more resemble the eternal Deity than in the Plenitude of his Power to do what he pleases without being opposed resisted or questioned by his Subjects Nemo quidem saith Bracton de factis ejus praesumat disputare multo minus contra factum ejus ire Let none presume to search into his deeds much less to oppose them Nor is this a Priviledge belonging only to the King of Great Britain but a Prerogative inherent in every Soveraign Prince by vertue of his Soveraignty Where the word of a King is there is Power and who may say unto him what dost thou saith the Spirit of God by the mouth of the Royal Prophet Salomon For Kingly Power being by the Law of God hath no inferior Law to limit it The Emperor saith Saint Augustine is not Subject to Laws who hath Power to make other Laws Accordingly it is delivered by the great Lawyer
conjectured to be about Coway Stakes neer Oatlands where Cassibelan having caused the Bank to be set with sharp Stakes and the Ford knockt full of them covered with Water had drawn up his men in great numbers to oppose the Passage of the Romans who having notice of this Stratagem by their Captives with greater Circumspection entred the River first the Horse then the Foot wading up to the Neck in Water so resolutely and so fast that the Britains having bestowed a few Darts upon them retiâ—… into Woods and secret Coverts where lining with their Horse and Chariots the Roads through which Caesar was to pass and driving the Inhabitants and their Cattel into places of security within the Woods with continual and unexpected Sallies upon the Roman Horse cutting off some and terrifying others they compel'd them so close together that they could not fetch in Prey or Booty without ill success The Affairs of Caesar who had nothing left in his way but empty Fields and Houses had now but a bad Aspect his Army whose Horse durst not stir out of the Protection of their Foot being almost starved when a Dissention arising among the Britains brought them joyful News of a Supply The Trinobantes one of the most potent States amongst the Britains out of an old Grudge against Cassibelan who had slain their King Immanuentius and forced his Son Mandubratius called also Androgoriâ—… and Androgius to secure his Life bâ— Flight into Gallia sent Ambassadour to Caesar imploring his Protectionâ— promising Obedience to the Roman State and desiring Mandubratius who was then with Caesar to be sent to take Possession of his Fathers Crown Caesar granted their Request having first demanded fourty Hostages and Provisions for his Army which they sent in and had their Confines protected from the Souldier By their Example did several otheâ— States also submit themselves from whom Caesar having learnt that Cassibelians chief Seat supposed to be Verulam near the now St. Albans was not far off fenc't about with Woods and Marshes and full of Men and Cattel went thither assaulted it in two Places and after some Dispute forced the Britains to fly out at a Postern Gate and leave the Plunder of the Town to the Enemy by whom many of them were cut off in their Flight Yet did not Cassibelan desert himself but sending into Kent directed Cingetorix Carvilius Taximagulus and Segonax four Kings reigning in those Countryes who still kept faithful to the Union to raise what Forces they could and assault the Camp where the Roman Shipping was entrencht but these Kentish Souldiers being raw and unskild not able to endure one Sally were totally routed and Cingetorix made Prisonor Cassibelan informed of this Defeat and seeing the treacherous Defection of so many States for the Preservation of himself and Country by the Mediation of Comius of Arras sent Ambassadours to Caesar who having enjoyned him not to Molest Mandubratius and the Trinobantes setled the Annual Tribute to be paid by the Britains to Rome and received Hostages with a great number of Captives put off to Sea having at twice embarkt his whole Army Returning to Rome he offered to Venus Genitrix the Patroness of his Family a Corslet of British Pearles as a Testimony of his Glorious Enterprize Julius Caesar having now taken his last Farewell of Britain the Romans hindred partly by Civil Dissensions and partly by other more urgent Affairs had not the least Thoughts of making any farther Attempt against it for twenty Years together when Octavius Augustus now setled in the possession of the Roman Empire having advanced as far as Gallia in order to the reducing of Britain was diverted by a Revolt in Pannonia as he was seven Years after by the unsetledness of Gallia and the coming of the British Ambassadours thither to him and the Year following by new Commotions arising in Spain Being so often crost in his Designs upon Britain he no more bent his thoughts that way being satisfied with the Respects paid him by the British Princes who courted his Friendship with Gifts offered in the Capitol and other obsequious Addresses The like amicable Correspondence they held also with his Successor Tiberius whom more highly to oblige they courteously entertained and sent home the Souldiers of Germanicus cast by Tempest on their Shore Caligula indeed to whose Protection Adminius Son of Cunobelyn banished by his Father had betaken himself making semblance to invade Britain brought down all his Army to the Belgick Shore where being informed that the Britains having levyed the Strength of their Nation stood ready to oppose his Landing if he should make any attempt upon them he commanded his Souldiers whom he supposed to have Lyncean Eyes to take a full view of the British Forces and having encouraged them not to fear their great Numbers with unmatchable Valor rowed a Stones cast or two from the Shore where resolutely defying the Britains he caused the Engines of Battery to be set up the Trumpets to sound a Charge and the Souldiers to fall on but no Enemy appearing he ordered them to plunder the Ocean of its Shells and therewith fill their Helmets and Laps and that the Memory of so Heroick an Enterprize might not be lost he erected in the same place an high Tower wherein Lights were set to direct Mariners in their Courses by Night the Ruins whereof sometimes seen at Low-Water on the Coast of Holland are to this day by the Inhabitants ealled Briten-huis Conquest The Britains for well-near an hundred Years after the departure of Julius Caesar had been governed by their own Princes unmolested by the Romans to whom after the first breaking out of the Civil War they paid not any Tribute except such easy Customs as were levied on the Commodities wherewith they traded into Gallia when intestin Divisions among themselves making way for a Roman Conquest Claudius Drusus now the third time Consul instigated by the perswasions of Bericus of whom there is no farther knowledge and other Fugitives whom the Britains demanding he had refused to deliver up and they for that cause had denied farther Amity with Rome resolved upon an Invasion of Britain sending Orders to Aulus Plautius the Praetor to transport thither the Legions lying in Gallia who complaining that they must now be put to make War beyond the Worlds end were at last with much difficulty prevailed upon and from three several Ports set sail for Britain but meeting with cross Winds were driven back and disheartned till in the Night a Meteor darting Flames from the East and directing as they fancied their Course for this Island they again put to Sea and landed without opposition the Britains who had heard of their Unwillingness having neglected to provide against them and now retiring into the Woods where they intended to wear them out with Delayes as their Predecessors had formerly done Caesar The British Armies were commanded by two young Sons of the deceased Cunobelyn who keeping their Forces separate were