Latin Idiom sometimes applies the word Princeps to subordinate supremacy as well as to those that are sole Supream But even the Authority that he cites for this silly Suggestion and others P. Virgil himself is sufficiently secluded from being Authentick by Sir Henry In 's Epistle to Queen Eliz. Savill The next Factious Insinuation that follows is that John De Gaunt this Edward the Thirds fourth Son but the Eldest surviving disputed the Succession But this as a Learned and Loyal Author observes so far from Truth that he was at the latter end of his Fathers Life made Lieutenant of the Realm and Protector of it during Richard his Minority certainly had his Competition come in Question they would have been but dangerous Trusts and against the Laws of all Nations and our own for the Civil takes sufficient Care for the removing of all suspected Tutors and our Common ordained upon Instit Lib. 1. Tit. 26. de suspectis Tutoribus Cokes 1 Insti sect 108. Daniel p. 217. the Lord 's loosing his ward for disparagement that the wardship of the Heir should never go to the nearest of kin but to the next to whom the Inheritance cannot descend Daniel says King Edward purposely to prevent the disorder and mischiefs that attend the disordering Succession setled the same in Parliament on Richard lest John of Lancaster should supplant him as Earl John had done his Nephew Arthur and this disingenuous Creature perverts the fear of Supplantation into a dispute of the Succession and Stow tells us of nothing but his being made Prince of Wales on his Brothers Death But this Uncle proved a better Keeper of the King in his Protectorate than this John or Richard the Third had but the Poor Princes Subjects kept their Faith too and not given our perjured Author another Instance for the renouncing his Allegiance and a second president for the deposing of his King And here since this Historian has already cited two or three Popish Archbishops for the Countenancing of his Puritanism and the Doctrine of Bellarmin for the Counterpart of Buchanan conspiring in a perfect Harmony for the Deposition of their Kings and their Murder I 'le tell him of another Canterbury too that blew the Trumpet to the dethroning of the next King and the sacrificing of his Sovereign upon that Altar of his Lips For the first thing that the first Usurper attempted that aspiring Prince when he landed was the causing of Arundel then the Metropolitan to preach down King Richard the Prelate had ready a Bull procured from Rome promising Remission of Sins to all those that should aid the said Henry and after their death to be placed in Paradice which preaching as our Author says moved many to cleave to the Duke Stow p. 320. but this Popish Puritan knows our Bishops and Divines since the Reformation have taught him better Doctrine and he licks up the very Poyson of his deadly Foes only to spit the venom in the Face of the Government But with what face can he tell us of a Parliament here drawing up a Form of Resignation which was just as much a Parliament as their late Major part of Members that were to be obey'd in their Association An Invader Usurper and a banisht Subject takes upon him in the name of his Sovereing to Summon it and so did our late Rebels fight and fire at his Majesty but still with his own good Leave and Authority this Convok't that Parliament as Cromwel secluded his with an Army at his heels only those had secured their King in the Tower these in the Isie of Wight and shall these their Journals of Rebellion make up a Book of Presidents Is such a fellow fit to breath under a mild Government that calls for Blood where there is so much Mercy that Recommends to your reading an Impeachment of his King and refers you to the Charge and Articles that were drawn up for his Deposition as a worthy Subject and well deserving to be read Brief History page 7. Why did he not tells us too as well deserving to be imitated Jan. 20 48. The Sollicitor Cook presented the Charge against CHARLES STEWART Engrost ordered that it be returned to him to be exhibited Preposterous Lump of Law and It is a Maxim in Law Rexest Principium Caput Finis Parliamenti Logick revers'd that prints himself the Contradiction to common Equity and Reason can such a Body Politick justly convene it self only to Rebel against its head and to take away that Breath from whence it needs must have its being and can those Laws be made to Vid. Bracton Lib. 1. C. 2. Leges Anglicanae Regum Authoritate jubent conspire his Death from whom themselves acknowledge they receive their Life But as to the matter of Fact it self you shall see what Sence some of the Times had of it The King of France 22. E. 3. 6. Resolved the King makes Laws by the Assent of Lords and Commons was so sensible of this Injurious Proceeding that it ran him into a fit of Frenzy Richard being related to him by the Marriage of his Daughter he acquaints his Lords with his Resolution of Revenge and they shew'd themselves as ready to take it too but were prevented here in England by their taking away his Life which made them desist not able to serve him after his Death This is but an Evidence how the Villany was resented abroad and you may find they were as much upbraided with it at home and that to their very face when a Parliament was sitting and their Usurper on the Throne by the Loyal Prelate of Carlisle whose Memory may it live as long as Loyalty can flourish or our Annals last so solid and unanswerable were the Suggestions so significant the Sense of this pious Soul that it silenc'd all the Senate that Vide Baker and Trussel agree in the same of the Bishops Speech was sitting and nothing but the prospect of some private or publick Favor and Preferment hindred their Conviction their King was cool enough in prosecuting of his bold Truths being scarce warm in his own Government yet at last upon Debate and Consultation they confin'd the bold Bishop for a while for the Liberty that he took and could only condemn his bold Indiscretion for shewing them so much the badness of their Cause Hollinshed tells us this poor Prince was most unthankfully us'd of his Subjects In no Kings days were the Commons in greater Wealth or the Nobility more 3d. Vol. Chron. f. 5â—8 cherisht how near some of our pamper'd Jesuruns that are fatten'd to rebel confirm the danger of too much Luxury and ease the present fears from their experienced Attempts can best attest But the fatality that befel that unhappy Prince affords us the best politicks for the prevention of the like Fate And now for his Henry the Fourth he is forc't to falsifie for his depending on the Parliaments choice when in
deny it positively because the Nation should know he could answer Filmer The whole we can't animadvert on because thought perhaps too dangerous to be publisht but what was taken at the Bar and delivered on the Scaffold was too much the Truth of a Republican too much Treason to be divulged and what can never be too much discountenanced and refuted And here you have the chain of a parcel of rebellious Libellers linkt in an orderly Combination for the shackling of us into Slavery and the binding our Kings and Nobles again with Fetters and Iron I shall begin with the first factious Fellow in the Front and that 's the Historian CHAP. I. Historical Remarks on the brief History of Succession I Don't Design here a particular answer to each Paragraph of his Historical Discourse which probably has been as much falsify'd as any thing the contrary of which could be verify'd on Record and perhaps cramb'd with as many lyes as ever could be Corrected with truth it would be a presumption and impertinence to pretend The Worthy Dr. Bradys to answer that which has been already done by some unanswerable Pens the Knowledg of whose Persons and Worth would deter me from such an And the Learned Author of the Great Point of Succession undertaking as well as the satisfaction of their Papers supersedes it mine shall be but a few sober remarks subsequent to their solid Confutation And truly in the first place all Historians agree that our English History was uncertain before the coming of the Romans and without doubt we had reason to want the Tradition of it when needs we must when we had nothing of Learning or Knowledg to deliver it down unless we would imagin the silly simple Souls could have left us their own Skins for a Chronicle and transmitted the painted Constitution of their Government in the Colours and Hieroglyphicks of their Bodys But since that Author owns and that from the good Authority he quotes that the Nature of it was uncertain but that they Strabo Tacitus Caes Com. were subject to many Princes and States which last Expression I fancy was his own to make it favour more of a Republick which I am confident they were then as Ignorant of as we truly now of Tyranny and Oppression which I gather partly from the Constitutions of all Nations at this time truly Barbarous Since both the East and West of the uncivilized World confirms the warrantable Hypothesis the most probable Conjecture which is all at this present governed by its petty Monarchs and puny Princes tho' some greater Empires too than any of ours in Europe no small Argument for the Divine Right of Monarchy by its being so generally embraced only by the light of Nature whose Creation was whose Subsistence is the sole Care of Divinity it self And besides Dr. Heylin tells us that at the entrance of the Romans the Isle was divided into several Nations governed by its several Kings and particular Princes The Druids as may be gathered out of Caesars Commentaries had in those Ignorant days all the Learning and the Law But too little alass to let us know whether their Princes were absolute So also Caesar Bell. Gall. Lib. 6. Monarchs or limited Hereditary or Elective though 't is to be suspected they were both unconfined in their power as well as succeeded by their blood those poor Embryo's of Knowledg the very primitive Priests of Barbarous Heathens that in their highest felicity were no happier than the first asserters of the Gospel under Misery and Persecution their reverend Hermitages but the Woods the Dens and Caves of the Earth were far sure from disputing the right of Sovereignty when only capacitated to obey far from transmitting to us the frame of their Monarchy unless they had known the Egyptian learning of writing on the Barks of Trees and made their Libraries of the Groves in which they dwelt The Princes and Monarchs of their Times were wont to frequent those pious places for Worship and Adoration and had a Veneration too without doubt for those reverend Bards that sacrificed but were far I believe from subjecting their Regal Authority to that Divinely Pagan tho' then the sacred Jurisdiction tho' 't is reported that upon Caesar's invading them the very power of Life and Death and the Punishment for all manner of offences was in their sacred Breast and such as would not stand to their award were forbidden their Sacrifices which Interdiction then was the same I believe in effect with the modern power of our Church to Excommunicate but besides another reason and the best too why we have nothing delivered from those sacred Oracles of Religion and Law why the History of those times is still uncertain and was never transmitted is because they were expressly forbidden to transfer any thing to Posterity or to commit it to Books and Letters tho somewhat of that sort of Communicating must be supposed by that Inhibition to have been Imparted to them from the Egyptians Greeks Romans those Eastern Climes through which Learning and Letters had their first Progress But whether their Ignorance or such a prohibition were the Causes why nothing descends to us of the Government of our old Britains 't is granted by all and by this Author himself that it was Monarchical that Kings Reigned here ab origine if not Jure-divino Though I look on their Antiquity no small Argument of their Divine Right and for the probability of their Haereditary Succession which I insinuated above can I confess since we are so much in the dark be only guessed by the light of Reason and that I shall make to warrant the Conclusion from the present Practise and Constitution of all barbarous Nations where the next of blood still mounts the Throne unless interrupted by Rebellion and that 's but the best Argument of our Author for the Power of his Parliaments and if only for this certain Reason we have more Authority to conclude it was then Haereditary then he only from the uncertainty of the Story has to conclude it otherwise In the next place I see no reason why his Sentiments should determine other Peoples thoughts and why we should not think that the following Heptarchy of the Saxons tho they had their seven Kings yet still might agree in one rule of Succession nay tho their Laws were so different too as he would insinuate which is not absolutely necessary to suspect neither for they being all one Nation and then but just called from their home by our British King Vortiger for his assistance may probably be supposed to have retained for the Main the general Rules and Laws of their own Countrey tho when divided into those seven Kingdoms they might also make a sort of private by-Laws according to the different Emergences of particular affairs that occurred in their several Governments Can he prove that the Succession of the Saxons in their own Countrey was not Hereditary when they inhabited
from this Authority they can have no proof and from Wise Men can be gathered nothing but such as were Noble or chief of the Realm for the meaner sort and that which we now call the Commonality were then far enough from having any great share of Learning or common Understanding and then besides these Wisest of the People were only such whom the King should think Wise and admit to his Council far from being sent by their Borroughs as elected Senators King Alfred had his Parliament and a great one was held by King Athelstan at Grately ' which only tells us there were Assembled some Bishops Noble-Men and the Wise-Men whom the King called which implies no more then those he had a mind should come But the Antiquity of a Parliament or that of an House of Commons is not so much the thing these Factious Roll and Record Mongers contend for 't is its Superiority Supremacy and there endeavours to make them antient is but in order to the making their Power Exorbitant and not to be controul'd by that of their King whom in the next place this Re-publican can scarce allow the power of calling them at his Pleasure and dissolving them when he pleases But so great is the Power of Truth and the Goodness of the Cause he Opposes that he is forc't to contradict himself to defend his Paradoxes For he tells us the King is obliged with an hear-say Law which his learned in the Faculty and Faction can't find out yet Page 111. to call Parliaments as often as need should be that is they think fit And also not to dissolve them till all their Petitions were answered that is till they are willing to be gone But then will I defie the Gentleman to shew me the difference between this their desired Parliament and a Perpetual sitting do not these industrious Endeavours for such a perpetuity of them plainly tell us 't is that 's the only thing they want and that they are taught experimentally that that alone run the three Kingdoms into absolute Rebellion and ruined the best of Kings and can as certainly compass the Destruction of the present But I 'll tell the lump of Contradiction first the words of our greatest Lawyer and then his own Cooke says none 4. Insti 27. 2. 1. Inst Sect. 164. can begin continue or dissolve a Parliament but by the Kings Authority Himself says that which is undoubtedly the Plato Red. page 105. Kings Right is to call and dissolve Parliaments 'T is impertinent to labour to contradict that which he here so plainly confutes himself the Statesman being so big with his Treasonable Notions so full of his Faction that his Memory fails him makes him forget his own Maxims and makes his subsequent Pages wrangle with the Concessions of those that went before His next Observation is a perfect Comment upon his Text that had in it implicit Treason before he tells us in Justification of the Barons Wars which all our Historians represent as a perfect Page 107. Rebellion That the Peers were fain to use their Power and can he tell me by what Law Subjects are impowred to Rebel He calls it arming of their Vassals for the defence of the Government That Bill by which they would have associated of late that I confess had it past into Act would have made Rebellion Statutable And they themselves must indeed have had the Sovereign power when they had gotten their Sovereign to suffer himself to be sworn out of his Supremacy they might well have armed their Vassals then when they had got his Majesties leave to commence Rebels and Traytors for the Protection of his Person and the Preservation of his Crown and Dignity But these humble Boons were no more than that Bill must have begged and these kind Concessions no more than was expected from the Grant of a King so Gracious a Petition that might well have been answered like that of Bathsheba's by bidding them ask the Kingdom also The Barons standing in open defiance Ibid. page 108. to the Laws tho they stood up too so much for them He calls the Peers keeping their Greatness and this is the Sovereign Power the Rebel would have them again set up for to be great in their Arms as well as Quality and demand with the Sword again the Prerogative of their Kings and the grant of the Regalia which in their preposterous Appellations was abused with the pretence of priviledge and right and which the force of the Field can soon make of the greatest Usurpation and wrong But in the very next Page 't is 109. expounded clearly what has may and must be done in such Conjunctions that is to your Arms. He tells us after they had obtained the framing of their Charters and I think they were as much as the most condescending Monarchs could grant or the most mutinous malecontents require Then arose another grievance unseen and unprovided for This was the Intermission of Parliaments which could not be called but by the Prince and he not doing it they ceast for some years to be Assembled if this had not been speedily remedied The provoking Rebel for certainly he is as much so that Animates a Rebellion as he that is actually engaged in it and is by Law so declared tells us the Barons must have put on their Armour again and 25. Ed. 3. Plat. pag. 109. the brisk Assertors of their Rights not have acquiesc'd in this Omission that ruined the Foundations of the Government After all the kind Concessions of the Prince the putting him upon that which was the taking away of the very remains of Royalty puts me in mind of one of our late Expressions of a popular Representative that could declare in open Assembly as attested by some of the very Members of it that tho this their Bill of Exclusion were past which was more we see than the most mildest Monarch could grant or even our House of Peers sure the better part of our Nation could in Modesty require yet still there was more work to be done and a Reformation to be made in the Church as well as the State The Patriot was prepared to lanch out in such kind of Extravagancies and told the truth of the Plot before his time had not calmer Heads interposed and cool'd his hot one into common Sense Several of the Speeches spoken in Parliament for which its Publisher deserves to be Pillor'd if not Authentick and True and brought before them on his Knees at least for his Presumption if they are it being here as Criminal to Print Truths at all times without an Imprimatur as 't is to tell it without leave even in several of those Speeches Publisht in that Paper I reflected on in the beginning where the Pedantick Author has exposed me in the Tail of his History that lookt like the Narrative of a Rump History of the Association Printed by Janeway there are as bold Expressions of
pretend to so much Candor and Sincerity that had so little Shadow for such a Pretention His Falshoods look'd as if he designed and thought he could have imposed upon the Government and his God and in spight of Providence to have secured himself from the Justice of that which was established and at the same time made sure of the favor of those that were for undermining it The one was to be blinded with his being Author of the Bishop's Right The other imposed upon with his Penning the Postscript But however he deceives himself the Almighty will still make good his own Word That he won't be mock'd He has denounced express Judgment against a double Heart and the Nation now deserv'd Justice To such a Sycophant With what Face can such a Rumper tell us in the tayl of his Postscript that no Passion or prejudice perverts him against the State of the Kingdom when all know that it 's being thus established not only lost him a place in the Law but disappointed him of being an Irish Judge and thus the virulency of his Pen betrays the truth of His Passion which he would Apologize against with a lye and that it can rise as high as any Furies for as deep a resentment of an esteemed Injury when the Government all the while was far from doing him any wrong But if it should meet with him now I dare swear would do him Right And this is altogether Reasonable the World should know that the best of our Rebellious Male-contents tho' they strive to palliate their Passions and Prejudices against their Governors with a show of being impartial and indifferent that 't is but a meer shadow to could the Fire that Glows within while truly still implacable impatient and impossible to be govern'd and that those that pretend but with Moderation to discommend many things in our Monarchy have nothing in them but the meer Malice and Spirit of Republicans And this will appear from his very first Paragraph that provokes my Pen He lets us know that the Church of England is like to fall into that of Rome * by the unpresidented folly of some of her Sons Fall by a Divine Fate as pag. 8. 9. he makes his Holyness to say for her folly That is as he must mean by Consequence for maintaining a Divine Right For to this purpose says he Sir Robert Filmer's Books were reprinted and others for the same And truly I am so far of this Gentleman's Opinion that the good man the Pope may very likely call it a very foolish thing and laugh at the Doctrine of any Kings Divinity that endeavors to set himself above all Kings so that unkind even to himself and his Friends the Dissenters he unawares ties them up together with the Tenents of the most turbulent Jesuits of the Romish Religion and endeavors with the self same Arguments and Objections to set up the popular Supremacy that those Politicians do the Papal But first only let me beg a postulate or two from him that pretends to be a Christian which an Infidel or Heathen won't deny much less then one that has the Bible for an asserting its belief viz. 1. That power in general without appropriating it to any particular Government is somewhat that is Divine not barely as it is exercised by some Humane Beings below but as it is communicated to such from their God above that is all so and hath it as one of his Attributes any of which is Infinite and adaequate to the Divinity it self 2. That this power is actually communicated to some Being here below for their better Government and Subsistence no Humane Beings but such as desire to live like Beasts can well deny 3. That this part of God's Attribute so communicated to Man from his * Gen. 1. Verse 18. own Mouth Dominion imparted cannot cease to be Divine notwithstanding such a Communication though to a Creature Humane all that understand the least part of Divinity will assert and without any supernatural Illumination even from this natural simile of the Sun's Light can easily comprehend which tho' it dart its rays through almost an Infinite Darkness yet wheresoever they are extended still remain Light neither is his own by the Kindness of such a Communication the less So that taking it for granted which must be that a power of Government is communicated to us here below by the God that Governs this and all above and this so communicated remains still Divine where-ever it is lodged the Question is reduced only to this Whether it appertains to a Multitude as many or a Sovereign Sole whether with their St. †1 Pet. 2. 13. Peter 't is seated in the Ordinance of Man or the Powers with * Rom. C. 13. 2. St. Paul are ordained of God That this Divine Power and Right is ‖ 'T is probable the consent of the people at our Coronations began first to be used when our Kings came to the Crown by bad Titles as K. Steph. H. 4. R. 3d. and so superfluous when a Successor has one so good the People can be only concern'd in their own Usurpers they put up a good Author tells us Heylin's History Edw. 6. that he was declared their King by the Bishop without the form of asking consent Vide also Mills of Cant. his Catalogue of Honour from thence Heylin has it in Kings he has superseded my Labour to prove by letting us know 't is the Opinion of most of our Orthodox Divines and their Sentiments are sufficient to determine the point especially in Matters to be prov'd from the Bible whose best Explanation one would think must be found amongst those whose Profession it is to expound unless you would imagine the Bishops the better Readers upon the Statute Hunt and his Casuists the most Conversant among the Critiques That this power Divine is plac'd in the People I 'll shew is the Opinion both of some violent Jesuits and the most virulent Phanaticks and their Seditious conspiring in the same sense the most powerful persuasive with me that their Sentiments are Erroneous their Positions a Lye Bellarmine * Bellarmine de Laicis l. 3. C. 6. tells us God has made all Men by Nature equal and therefore the Power is given to the People †Buch. de Jure Regni p. 11. Buchanan tells us That they have the Power and from them their Kings derive their Right ‖ Doleman l. 1. C. 3. Parsons proves Kings have been Lawfully chastised by their Subjects * Knox Hist 372. 343. Knox says Princes for just Causes may lawfully be deposed or bridled by the Nobility * Suarez defen Fid. Cath. l. 3. C. 3. Suarez shows the Power of Deposing a King to be in the Pope or the Common-wealth ‖ Calvin's preface to Instit 2d Edit And Calvin seems for the suppressing the rage of unruly Kings as well as the Ephori did those of Lacaedaemon â€
runs all in the sole Wil of the King Charter it self their Act of Liberty they so much Labour in that not the meanest Subject can be Try'd or Judg'd unless it be by his Peers Equals much less so mighty a Monarch that has none and a Fortiori then with lesser Reason by those that are his own Subjects so far from being his Peers or Equals that they are together his Inferiors which has made me think many times these preposterous Asserters of so much Nonsense these Seditious Defenders of those Liberties they never understood did apprehend by the word Pares in the Law not the common Acceptation of it in the Latin but only the abused Application of it of our own English only to our House of Lords And conclude the King might be Judg'd by those we commonly call PEERS because they sit in that Honorable House and at the same to be Judg'd according to Magna Charta that all Judgements be per pares But does not each Dunce and every Dolt understand that the very Letter of the Law looks after this only that every Person be tryed at the least by those that are of his own Condition and that in the Legal Acceptation of the Word every Commoner of the Lower House nay every one of their Electors is as much a Peer as the greatest Person of the House of Lords In short they must put some such silly Seditious Exposition upon the plainest Letter when they pretend to Judge their King or else from the very Law of their own Liberty they labor in allow that their King has no Judges In that Act against Appeals that was enacted in the time of Henry the 8th 24. H. 8. c. 12. the very Parliament upon whom the People and even these Republicans so much depend tells us even in the very Letter of that Law That it is Manifest from Authentick History and Chronicle That the Realm of England is an Empire That its Crown is an Imperial one That therefore their King is furnish'd by the goodness of Almighty God with an intire Power and Prerogative to render and yield Justice to all manner of Folk in all Causes and Contentions This by solemn Act is declared of their King this Excludes the People from Judging of themselves much more their Soveraigns This the Resolution of a popular Parliament they would make even the Supream and this by them resolved even in Opposition to that Popery these Panick Fools so much and so vainly fear Do not the Books the best Declarations of the Law let us understand that which they against the Resolutions of all the Law it self would so foolishly maintain that it was resolved in Edward the 4th's time That the King cannot be said to do any wrong and then surely can't be Judg'd by his very People for doing it when impossible to be done and was not this the Sense of †Vid. 1. Ed. 5. fol. 2. all the Judges and Serjeants of the time to whose Opinion it was submitted was it not upon the same Reason a Resolution of Si Le Roy moy disseisit pur ceo que Le Roy en le ley ne poit moy disseisir il né serrá appell disseisor mes jeo sue mis a petition à Roy. 4. Ed. 4. 25. 13. the Law in Edward the 4th's time that because the Soveraign could not be said to injure any Subject therefore the Law never looks upon him as a disseisor a disposesser of any Man 's Right and all the remedy it will allow you is only Plaint and Petition Does not my Lord Coke himself that in several places is none of the greatest Assertor of the Right of the Soveraign fairly tell us * Coke Comon West 1. 2. Inst p. 158. least it should be vainly fear'd they should reflect upon the King 's own Misgovernment all the fault should rest upon the Officers and Ministers of his Justice Does it not appear from the ‖ Stat. to pursue suggestious 37. E. 3. c. 18. 38. Ed. 3. c. 9. Statutes of Edward the third that notwithstanding the strict Provision of the Charter for the Tryal by Peers that the King was still look'd upon as a Judge with his Council and Officers to receive Plaints and decide Suggestions and tho that and the subsequent of the next year provide against false ones yet it confirms still the power of the King to hear and determine them whether false or true Have they not heretofore answered touching Freehold even before their King and Council and a Parliament Parl. Glocester 2. Ric. 2. only Petition'd their Soveraign with all Submission that the Subject might not be summon'd for the future by a Chancery Writ or Privy Seal to such an Appearance but this they 'll say was the result of the Soveraigns Usurpations upon the Laws of the Land of a King Richard the 2d That did deserve to be deposed Brief History of Succession p. 7. as well as the Articles of his Depositions to be read †Plato Rediviv p. 116. 234. a King that forfeited the executive Power of his Militia for prefering worthless People and was himself of little worth or as the most Licentious and Lewdest Libel of a longer date has it †a King that found Fuel for his Lust in all Lewd and uncivil Courses Now tho March Needham Merc. Polit n. 65. Sept 4. 1651. we have the Authority of the best of our Historians for the good Qualities of this Excellent tho but an unhappy Prince and who could never have fell so unfortunately had his Subjects served him more faithfully tho Mr. Hollinshed Hollinshed 3d. Vol. Chron. F. 508. N. 50. tells us never any Prince was more unthankfully used never Commons in greater wealth never Nobles more cherish'd or the Church less wrong'd and as Mr. How has it in Beauty Bounty How 's Annals p. 277. and Liberality he surpassed all his Predecessors and Baker the best among our Moderns says there were aparent in him a great many good Inclinations that he was only abused in his Youth but if he had been Guilty afterward in his riper Age of some proceedings these Republicans had reason to reproach I am sure he was Innocent of those foolish Innuendo's those false and frivolous Accusations for which they rejected him viz. for unworthiness and insufficiency Vid. Trussel in vit R. 2. when he never appear'd in all his Reign more worthy of the Government than at the very time they deposed him for being unworthy to Govern But whatever were the vices of that Prince with which our virulent Antimonarchists would blast and blemish his Memory yet we see from the President that is cited the Sense of his Subjects Parl. Glocest did not then savor so much of Sedition as insolently to demand it for their Privilege and Birth-right which without doubt they might have pretended to call so as much as any of those the Commons have since several times so
be their Kings Judges that they can not absolutely Judge of the mere Right of a meum and tuum among themselves Several other Instances both the Books Rolls abound with that Evidence our Kings the only Judges of the Law in all Causes and over all Persons for in the 13th year of the same †13. R. 2. Richard the Second the Commons Petition'd again the King that his Council might not make any Ordinance against the Common Law and the King Graciously granted them but with a salvo to the Regalities of the Crown and the right of his Ancestors The Court of Star Chamber which the worst of times Abolish'd and my Lord Coke makes almost the †It is the most Honorable Court the Parliam excepted that is in the Christian World of Honorable Proceeding just Jurisdiction A Court that kept all England in quiet Coke 4 Inst p. 65. and so it did till abolish'd by the Tumults of a Parliam best of Courts had heretofore Cognizance of property and detèrmin'd a Controversie touching Lands contain'd in the Covenants of a Joynture as appears in the Case of the Audleys Rot. Claus 41. Edward the 3d. There the King heard too a Cause against one Sir Hugh Hastings for with-holding part of the Living of the poor of St. Leonard in York as is Evident from the Roll. 8. Edward 4. p. 3. And tho the Proceedings of this Court were so much decryed by those that clamor'd so long for its Suppression till they left no Court of Justice in the Land unless it were that of Blood and Rebellion their High one tho the King in his giving year was so gracious that he made the very Standard An. 1641. page and rule of his Concessions to be the very request of his People and gratified them in an Abolition of this Court establish'd by the Common-Law ‖ Coke 4. Inst C. 5. and confirm'd afterward per †3. H. 7. c. 1. Act of Parliament yet ‖ Cambden Britt 130. Cambden our Historian as well as our Coke our Lawyer could commend it for the most Honorable as well as the most Ancient of all our Judicatories and if they 'll have the Reason Why it treated of Matters so high as the Resolution even of Common-Law and the Statute it may be told them in the weighty Words of their own Oracle Because the King in Judgement of Law as in the rest also was Coke 4. Inst p. 65. 63. ne dignitas hujus Curiae vilesceret always in that Court and that therefore it did not meddle with Matters of ordinary Moment least the dignity of it should be debased and made contemptible and tho by the gracious consent or rather an extorted Act of Grace the late King was forc'd to forego it yet the Proceedings of some Cases there may serve to show what a power our Kings had and ought to have in all manner of distributive Justice Several other Citations I could here set down to prove the Subjection of the very Common-Law to the Soveraign Power as Henry the Sixth superseding a Criminal Process and staying an Arraignment Verney's Case 34. H. 6. Rot. 37. for Felony Henry the Seventh's that debar'd the Beckets by decree from pursuing their suit for Lands because the merits of the Cause had been heard by the King his Predecessor and also by himself before but these will abundantly suffice to satisfy any sober Person that does not set himself against all assertors of his Soveraigns Supremacy And then if Custom and Common Usage which Plowden in his Commentaries is pleased to call the Common-Law lies in many Cases Subject to the Resolution of the Supream Soveraign no doubt but the Statute the result of his own ‖ 'T is that which gives them Life as I have shown before and makes them any thing besides waste Paper And the Judicious Hooker in his politicks seems to be of the same opinion when he says Laws take their force not from those that devise them but from the power that gives them the strength of Laws Sanction must of necessity submit and acknowledge a subjection to the same Power and that I think we have sufficiently prov'd already upon several occasions both from the Letter of the Laws themselves and our little light of Reason both from Arguments and †The seven Kingdoms of the Saxons had all their Laws made by their 7. several Soveraigns of which confuss'd number the Confessor cull'd out the best and call'd them after his own name St. Edward so did also the other Saxon and Danes Kings their own after theirs as you see in Lambert's Book of Laws Laws that have evidenc'd their own Resolutions to be reserv'd to the King and that we had Kings long before the Commons Commenc'd Conven'd or Concur'd in their assent to such Laws 'T is prodigiously strange to me that these mighty Maintainers of the Peoples Legislative and their Judicial Power eeven over their own Soveraigns cannot be guided by those very Laws they would have to govern their Kings thus you shall see a Needham a Nevil or a Sidney amongst our selves in all their Laborious Libels that the drudges of Sedition who seem to verify the Sacred Text in drawing Sin it self with a Cart-Rope in all that they tugg toil and labour in you seldom see that they cite you so much as a single Statute on their side or if they do only such an one as is either Impertinently apply'd or as Industriously perverted And in the same sort does the Seditious Scot Buchanan and the rest of the Books of their discontented Demagogues that ‖ Omne malum ab aquilone Northern Mischief that threaten'd us always with a Proverbial Omen till averted of late by the Loyalty of their latter Parliaments that have aton'd even for the last age and the perfidiousness and Faction of the former those all in their Libels hardly Name you so much as one single Law of their Nation to countenance the Popular Paradox the pleasing Principle of the Peoples Supremacy which the poor Souls when prescrib'd by those Mountebanks of the State must take too like a Common Pill only because 't is gilded with the pleasant Insinuations of Natural Freedom Free-State Subjection of the Soveraign Power of the People and all the dangerous Delusions that lead them directly to the designs of these devilish Republicans i. e. a damnable Rebelion whereas would they but submit their Senses to the Sanctions of the Laws of their several Lands their Libels they would find to be best baffl'd by the Statute Books as well as their Authors to be punisht by them for their Publication 'T is strange that should not obtain in this Controversy which prevails in all polemical disputes that is some certain Maxims and Aphorisms Postulates and Theorems not to be disputed these determin our Reason even in Philosophy and the Mathematicks and why should not the Laws then in Politicks too and where
destroyed because some Persons can maintain another no more than the Systeme of Plolomy was presently False only because Copernicus had invented his for True for the bare contradiction and Clashing of positions convinces no more than the giving the Lye but when it is prov'd upon them in one that even from their own Principles and Premisses they cannot draw the very Conclusion they design as it was since in the other that from their own Hypothesis they could not solve all the Phrases and Phaenomenons themselves would make to appear then certainly they must allow that themselves are in the wrong tho they will not Confess their Foes in the Right And now having at lenght examin'd their Original Power of People let us a little consider how long and from whence our Kings have had their Original If we must make words only instead of an Argument and cavil about an Idiom in Speech as sâ—me of their critical Contenders about this Origen of Kings have very vainly and as Foolishly quarrel'd at then we must consult our Dictionaries and the Dutch Tongue for without doubt till the Saxons settled here they had some other appellation and were only from them call'd Konyngâ— and since Kings but if we consider the Nature of the Government it is that which from the Greeks we call Monarchy which from its own Etymology best signifies and expresses the Sense that it bears which is the Governing part and the Supream power plac'd in the sole hands of some single Person and then the Queston will be only this how long that has obtain'd in the World by whom first instituted and in whom it first commenc'd For the first 't is undeniable that its Original was with that of the World and God himself gave it by the Name of * 1. Cen. v. 28. Dominion to his Adam he had Created which in express Terms was given him first over all the Living Creatures and then over thâ— product of his own Loins his Wife anâ— 4. Gen. v. 7. after that as if Providence did desigâ— to prevent the dispute about the Precedency of Primogeniture it gave in express words a Superiority to Cain that the younger should be in some sense his Subject that to him should be his deâ—â—re and that he should Rule over him from whence it was assoon Communicated to the Several Heads of the Families that were the product of their Loins and so succeeded in a sort of subordinate Government according to the Antiquity of the Tribe or Family That this was then such Authority as we now call Kingly is both nonsense to assert and as great a Folly for any to require that we should maintain for they may as well quarrel with us when we say there were Kings of Israel and Judah and yet cannot prove that there Courts and Revenues were as Stately and Great as now they are in England and France 't is enough if the Government of those Primitive times was but Analogous to what we call Kingly now And now that we have brought it both to a right of Primogeniture and a Paternal Right from whence will result the Divine we 'll consider what it is Mr. Sidney and his Advocates can say against it and see if there be any such absurdities in it as they more Seditiously then with any Sense and Reason suggest first for the right of Primogeniture that themselves will allow but 't is only because not able to contradict and besides as they imagin it makes for them and their Cause for by that course of descent they think our Asserters of a Divine right are oblig'd to deduce their Pedigree of their Kings form the Creation of the World in a right Line and therefore Mr. ‖ Vid. Paper at Execut Sidney says that such a supposition makes no King to have a Title to his Crown but what can deduce his Pedigree from the Eldest Son of Noah But for that absurdity which is truly their own by supposing it ours when it can't be truly deduced from the Doctrine and defence of a Divine Right we shall answer anon when we come to treat of the Paternal That Primogeniture had the Preheminence in the very Worlds Infancy if we do but believe the word of God which tells us that himself told Cain he should Rule over his younger Brother we cannot doubt of the truth of it besides Abraham's being a Prince and having a Precedence to his Brother Lot is also there recorded and Esau ‖ 25. Gen. v. 34. selling of his Birth-right Condemn'd as a Contempt of that preheminence to which God and Nature had prefer'd him and which himself only disposed of when he presum'd he was upon the point to dye and for his disregard of this Priviledge was he punisht too in the prevention of the * C. 27. Blessing and which is perhaps the only Instance in Sacred writ where a Lineal Discent and the Succession was interrupted and this too only occasion'd by his own Act. ‖ And we are expressly told the first born must not be disinherited no not for Private Affection Deu. 21. v. 15. If a man have two Wives the one hated the other lov'd and the first born be of her that was hated he may not make the Son of the belov'd first born before the Son of the hated that is indeed the first born but must give him a double Portion because the beginning of his strenght and the Right of the first-born is his vers 15 16 17. And that God himself did appropiate this precedency to the first-born may be gathered out of all the History of the Old Testament the only account that is extant and from which Authors gather all the Authentick Relation of the two first Epooches and most Memorable Periods or Intervals of time viz. That from the †First Period contain'd An. 1656. 2d 1518. SecunduÌ„ Intervallum a Varrone Mythicum appellatur Creation to the Flood and from the Flood to the first Olympiad i. e. to Ann. Mund. 3174. for the profane History of those times is accounted Fabulous and by Historians call'd so and from those Sacred Oracles it will appear that all their Kings of * So Jehoram succeeded his Father Jehoshaphat tho he had several younger brothers Chro. 21. v. 2. And after him Ahaziah his young Son because says the text all the Elder were slain Ibid. Chap. 22. v. 1. Which implies that they had succeeded if alive by Birth and Primogeniture Israel and Judah succeeded according to this Right of Primogeniture or where that fail'd by ‖ Numb 27. v. 9. Proximity of Blood And as the Almighty Countenanc'd such a Succession So does Nature it self which among Heathens was distinguisht from the Deity and may be so amongst Christians too if they consider it as the Work and Order of the Divine will for if she shall decide it she presumes the Eldest in years to be always the wisest too and 't is not Nature but a
most affect to Chuse Sir Walter Raleigh as Learned an Head-piece perhaps of the last Age as any that he hath left behind him in this a Person rather prejudic'd against Monarchy than bigotted for it no such Court-Favourite as the * Mercpolit Mercury makes of Salmasius A Dirty Dissolute Parasite of Kings and Pander of Tyranny this Learned ‖ History of the world cap. 9. §. 2. Historian lets us know That the first the most ancient the most general and most approved Government is that of one Ruling by just Laws call'd Monarchy and whatever wits our more modern Commonwealths-men pretend to be this Gentleman that was more sage than the wisest of them does not make paternal Right such a ridiculous thing as they would represent it but tells us that in the beginning the Fathers of Nations were then the Kings and the Eldest of Families the Princes and of such an Excellency is its Form that it is the clear result of unprejudic'd Reason and most agreeable to the sense and security of Mankind For as the natural Intellect it self by which I mean bare humane understanding when in the infancy of the World people were guided more by their own Fancies and the Paternal Power which then was all the Regal from the tenderness it might be suppos'd to have towards those that were their natural issues as well as their civil subjects had indulg'd vice and been less rigorous in Executing impartial Justice on Offenders whereby people were left more at Liberty I say Nature then and Necessity it self made them find the Inconvenience even of too much Toleration and made even the most foolish fellows apprehend as well as the wise that the Condition of reasonable men would be more miserable than that of brute beasts that an Inundation of Anarchy and Confusion would overwhelm them more than the first Flood Did they not by a general Consent submit to Government and obey those that were set over them to Govern For they found that when they were most mighty to oppress others might in time grow more so and do them as much mischief And those that were equal in their strength found themselves equally dangerous and mischievous one to another and that the most unbounded Licenciousness prov'd always to some or other the most miserable Bondage and Slavery And this natural Reason inclin'd them too to acquiesce under those Monarchical Forms that were then the Government of the Times and which the Israelites themselves desired in a more special manner tho' they were forwarn'd of its Absoluteness and told by Samuel that it would be Tyranny it self for the same necessity convenience reason and natural instinct that persuaded them to submit to Government in General did also suggest to them the Excellency of Monarchy in Particular For as by want of all Government their reason told them they could not long possess any right and that Liberty being only a License to do what they list and so left nothing to be wrong So the same reason suggested that these their Rights were best defended and soonest decided by some single Person that was Supreme than when a Multitude had the Supremacy for in that there being so many suffrages as there are men accordingly there might be so many several interests and factions which must both hinder any sudden determination as well as make the sentence liable to more partiality and injustice when it is determin'd This made the Senate of Rome so tedious always in its determinations and the people as uneasie and unsatisfied in their Decrees Their Praetores Quaesitores Judices Quaestionum selecti some of them having under them no * less than an hundred Sigon de Jud. l. 2. c. 4. de Jure Rom. lib. 2. c. 18. Commissioners might be said to confound Causes instead of determining them Their Agrarian Laws that were made for the Division of their Fields most of them having been given by Romulus and the rest of their Kings resolv'd their rights to them with Justice and satisfaction to the people while their Kings Reign'd that gave them and were the sole Judges of their own Laws But when they were confounded into a Commonwealth and the Senate set themselves to decide the divisions of their Commons and their Fields what Seditions Confusions and Unsettlement did they create So that the Reasonable presumption there is of a more Equitable and speedy distribution of Justice from a single Sovereign because suppos'd to be less prejudic'd and less unable to be prevail'd upon by favour or affection may very well be thought to have recommended at first a Monarchical Form afford us now asmuch reason for the retaining it In the next place A King being a perpetual Heir to the Crown insomuch that the Politick Laws suppose him never to dye and when in a natural sense he does the Crown still descends to his immediate Successor This will make him endeavour to preserve the Rights of it inviolate and perpetuate the same Prerogative to his Posterity Whereas the people in all their popular Sway administer only for years or at most for Life and what should hinder them then from defrauding that Publick whose Administration they must either soon quit or at last leave to those to whom they no way relate I allow in most such Communities there is commonly special provisions made by their Laws that an abusing that power with which they are intrusted or a robbing the Common-wealth of part of its Revenue shall be punish'd with some grievous Fine or perhaps made Capital for which the Romans had their several rules and regulations for their Magistrates and men in Office But there being so many ways to be injurious to the Publick that can so easily by those that administer its affairs be kept private and conceal'd it must certainly be concluded that those that have an Hereditary Power of Publick Administration as all Kings and they alone have that their Interest obliges them to preserve its rights inviolate from an unwillingness that nature it self will implant in them to injure their own Sons Successors and Posterity Whereas the same Interest which certainly is the most powerful Promoter either of good or evil will incite Senators in a Commonwealth more industriously more seriously to endeavour to serve themselves It is the most prodigious piece of Paradox to see some of our Seditious Republicans to rail at Ministers of State and Mr. Sidney of all Men had the least reason to have reflected for his Sufferings upon those that sate on the Bench with the rest of the Rabble of his Democraticks who of late in these tumultuous times have talkt of nothing less than the punishing of those that held the Sword of Justice threatned them with the Fates of Tresilians Vid. Baker pag. 146. Rich. II. Fulthorps Belknaps with the Gallows Fines and Imprisonments whereas these two were only punisht in the Reign of a King wherein they actually rebell'd and deposed their