his chiefe Councellors villaines and men of low birth as Iohn de Lude Iohn Balua Oliver Devill whose name for odiousnesse he changed into Daman with others whom he promoted to great honours and places VVhereupon the Lords murmured and were so discontented that the Duke of Brittaine and others withdrew them from the king and refused to come unto his presence when he sent for them raising a great power And when no peace could be mediated between the king and them they met in a plaine battell at Chartres where many were slaine on both sides but the king lost the field After which an accord was made betweene them but the king continued his old courses delighting more in the company of lewd irreverent persons to eate and drink with them and to heare them talke of ribaldry and vicious fables then to accompany his Lords which might have won him much honour going liker a Serving man then a Prince and being a great oppressor of his subjects to maintaine Hiprodigality for lack of money he was driven of necessitie to aske a preste of the citizens of Paris who after many excuses which might not be allowed they lastly denyed the kings pleasure VVherewithall he being grievously discontented removed divers from their offices and put many of the richest and head men of the citie to death upon surmised causes without proofs of justice For which causes and many other oppressions the Lords against assembled their people intending to subdue the king and to set his brother in his place or to cause him otherwise to rule the Commonwealth To which end all the Lords met at a Towne called Stampes where they continued their Councell fifteene dayes and then marched to Paris sending four severall letters unto the citie one to the Bishops and spirituall men the second to the Consulls and headmen the third to the Vniversitie the fourth to the Commonalty signifying That neither they nor any of their company were come thither as enemies to the Citie or to warre against it or the Commonwealth of the Land but for the increase and augmentation thereof to the uttermost of their powers VVhereupon these foure parties sent certaine Orators for them to the Lords who after long communication with them had returned to the citie with this report First the Lords would that the inhabitants of the City should consider the conditions of the King which yearly oppressed his Subjects with taxes and other grievous servages Secondly how he despised the noble bloud of his Realme and drew to him villaines and men of no reputation by whose counsell onely all the Common-weale of the Land was guided and ruled Thirdly how hee ruled his Subjects by force and will without administration of justice and himself in all Counsels and Parliaments is Iudge of all causes and calleth himselfe Counsels and Parliaments more for this singular weale then for the Common-weale of his Realme Fourthly how he enhaunsed men of low birth to great honours and caused Noblemen to be obedient unto them intending to bring the said ignoble men to be equall with the Princes of the Land Fifthly how the Lawes be delayed and bolstered by such as stand in his favour wherethrough at this day Law is will and will is Law and no man almost in any surety of life or goods insomuch that daily many have been banished and put to death for unlawfull causes and also to any Noble-man at this day no power or roome of honour belongeth so that to the wild Beasts in the Forrests appertaineth more Liberty and surety then to the more party of the Kings subjects Sixthly The great taxes and summes of money which daily be levied of the Commons be not spent in the Kings honourable needs and for the Commonweale of the Realme but are spent vainly and riotously and bribed out of the Kings Coffers for which enormities and misgovernance with many other the said Lords were come thither in defensible wayes for the safeguard of their owne persons as to the head and principall City of the Realme for to have aide and Counsell to reforme the foresaid evills not intending any harme to the Kings person or yet to remove him from his regality or Kingly Majestie but to induce and advertize him to that which should be for his honour and the weale of his Realme and to live in wealth and honour as his Noble Progenitors lived before him For which causes and considerations the said Lords as the Kings true Subjects and friends to the Commonwealth of the Land and of that City desired to enter there to refresh them and their people and to pay truly for all things they should take without doing harme or violence to any person All which requests and matters of the Lords shewed to the Inhabitants of the City by fauour of some friends they there had it was with the more partie well accepted and though convenient they should be received into the Citie but by meanes of the Earle of Davoise it was respited till they had further knowledge of the Kings pleasure who comming out of Normandie into Paris after diuers Skirmishes the King and Lords fell to a Treaty of peace whereupon Commissioners on both sides assembled and communed together by sundry times two dayes In which season new strength of Souldiers came to the King out of Normands The Treatie hanging long and a longer Truce being proclaimed the souldiers fell to robbing and other unlawfull acts and at last through obstinacy on both parties all offers were refused and the day of the Truces expiration approached without hope of accord whereupon provisions for warre were made on both sides Then begun grudges and murmures betweene the kings souldiers and the citizens of Paris and shortly after newes came to the king that the Castle and Citie of Roan was yeelded up to the Duke of Burbon VVhereupon the King considering what great advantage the Lords had of him both by strength and favour of the Commons which daily drew unto them by sundry companies in avoiding of more danger concluded a peace which being proclaimed thorowout all France the King and Lords met to whom the King shewed great semblance of kindenesse specially to his brother Charles Duke of Normandy therein appeared great dissimulation Lewes being of such conditions That what he might not overcome with strength he would win with dissimulation and treachery Not long after the King warred upon Charles his brother the Duke of Burgundy and Brittaine and a Treaty of peace being propounded betweene them Charles answered That if a perfect concord should be established betweene the King and him it should be authorized by the whole consent and counsell of the Barons of the Realme VVith which the King being content at Turon in the moneth of April and tenth yeare of his reigne assembled a counsell of his Lords spirtuall and temporall in the which the demands of Charles and offers of the king were shewed And after the said Councell had at length reasoned the said
Counties of Nottingham Derby Yorke were to goe to Newcastle upon Tine at the Countries charges and then to receive the Kings wages and those of Westmerland Cumberland and Lancashire to marth to Carlile at the Counties charges and then to receive the Kings wages and that the Commanders great men and all the host when they assembled should lie and travell in the Land of Scotland and not in the Marches of England Num. 36. 37. A fit and trusty Clerke is appointed to pay the Souldiers wages by the advise and survey of the Lords Percy and Nevill and Merchants are ordered to returne moneys for the exploit and to furnish the King of Scotland with moneys sufficient to maintaine twenty men at Armes Num. 38. Because Mr. Richard Talbot had discharged himselfe of the government of Barwicke the Lords in Parliament earnestly intreated Sir Walter Creake to take upon him the custody of Barwicke and to certifie the Lords within a short time how many men at Armes and Archers would suffice to guard it and whether he would accept of the charge or not and if not they would provide another Num. 39. A Commission is granted to Master Thomas Wake and others to muster the Horse and Foot arrayed for this expedition in Yorkeshire and the other Counties and to conduct them towards Newcastle Num. 46. It is accorded and assented that Writs shall be made to the arrayers of the Men of Armes Hoblers and Archers in the County of Oxford for the guarding of the Sea for the Prior and Canons of Burnacester to surcease their demand which they made to the said Prior and Canons to finde a man at Armes and two Archers to make such a guard at Portsmouth and also for the payment of certaine moneys for this cause untill they have other command from the King by reason that the Prelates and other great men in the Parliament are informed that all the possessions of their house will hardly suffice for their sustenance and that they cannot finde such charge without very great oppression of them and their house Loe here in these two Parliaments the Rols whereof I have recited more largely because rare and memorable all businesses concerning the Warres Militia and Array both by Land and Sea were particularly consulted of ordered and determined in and by the Parliament onely in a farre more ample manner then this present Parliament at first petitioned desired they should have been ordered and setled now In the Parliament rolls 14 E. 3. Num. 19. Certaine men are appointed to guard the Islands and Sea-coasts against the enemies Num. 42. The Lord Mowbray is appointed keeper of the Town of Barwicke Num. 53. 54. 55. c. Commissions of Array in severall Counties are made by Parliament to the Earle of Angoyes and others for defence of the Kingdome In the Parliament of 50 E. 3. Num. 15. A Commission is granted in Parliament to the Lord Percy and others to appoint able persons for defence of the Marches of the East-riding In the Parliament Roll of 1 R. 2. Num. 51. Because that the Lands of Gascoigne Ireland the Seigniory of Artoyes and the Marches of Scotland are in perill to be lost through default of good Officers the Commons petition that it would please the Lords to ordaine good and sufficient ministers which may be sent to governe in the same Lands in the most hasty manner that may be by reason of the great need that requires it And that all the chiefe guardians of the Ports and Castles upon the Sea as Dover Bannburgh Carlile and other Marches may be put in the forme aforesaid And that these Guardians of the Castles and keyes of the Realme may be sufficient men who may forfeit their inheritance if any mischiefe shall happen by reason of them which God forbid And that in all other sufficient persons of your Leiges be placed who may forfeit in the same manner for the salvation of the Realme To which the King answers The King willeth it and will doe that which shall belong to him by the advise of the Lords of His continuall Councell In 2 R. 2. Rot. Parliament Num. 37. the Admiralty is disposed of by the Parliament and Num. 39. a Schedule of Orders for the defence of the North sea is confirmed by the Parliament In the Parliament of 7 8 H. 4. Num. 26. The Parliament gave power to the Merchants to name two meet persons to be Admirals to guard the Seas In the Parliament rolls of 2 R. 2. pars 2. Num. 37. The Commons supplicate how the enemies of France with great Armies and many Vessels of warre have been continually and yet are in the Northerne parts and namely about the coasts of Scarburrough which Towne is dangerously seated upon the Sea open to the assaults of the said enemies and that the people of the said Towne had within two yeeres last past paid above one thousand pound ransome to the said enemies and yet were destroyed and carried prisoners into Boloigne and other places where they were yet kept prisoners and that the Towne was upon the point to be burned and destroyed and all the coast about it in short time if hasty remedy were not provided That therefore it would please the King and his most sage Councell considering the great dammages and perils the said Towne and coasts about it had sustained and were yet apparently like to sustaine to ordaine and assigne certaine Vessels of warre upon the said coasts to guard them against the malice and power of the said enemies and that during the warres for saving of the said Towne and the Kings Castle there situate and all the Country about it The Answer is This matter is in part touched by the Merchants of the said coast which are at this Parliament and by their advise and others who are to passe their Merchandize in these Marches by Sea remedy hath beene ordained in such sort as the Earle of Northumberland and the Major of London who were assigned in Parliament to treat of this businesse know more fully to declare In the Parliament of 6 R. 2. pars 2. Num. 11. The Bishop of Norwich offered before the King and Lords that if the King would grant him the quindisme and disme of the Laity and Clergy and the 6 pound and 2 shillings on the Tonne of Wine lately granted to the King for the safeguard of the Sea that he would within 20 daies after the receipt of the last payment transport into France 3000 Archers well armed and mounted for the ayd of Gaunt and would defray all the charges of shipping them And that if he might have the attendance of the West-Admirall he would finde on the Sea for the safeguard of it betweene this and Michaelmas next ten great ships and ten Barges armed in which besides Marriners necessary he would finde at least 500 fighting men for the said terme In the Parliament of 15 R. 3. Num. 15. It is to be remembred that the Commons
Kingdom which if they contemned to do thy would with force of Arms and Banners disslayed MARCH AGAINST THEM AS PUBLIKE ENEMIES SUBVERT THEIR CASTLES BURN THEIR HOUSES AND EDIFICES AND NOT CEASE TO DESTROY THEIR PONDS PARKES AND ORCHARDS Whereupon all the Lords Knights and People dâ—serting the King who had scarce seven Knights in all left with him confederated themselves to the Barons in the Common Cause wherein to be a Neuter was to be an enemy and no member of the politicke body in which all were equally engaged Whereupon the King thus deserted by all condescended speedily to their demands and confirmed the great Charter much against his will A very apt President for these times which would make the people more unanimous faithfull and couragious for the Common Cause if but imitated in the commination onely though never put into actuall execution he being unworthy once to enjoy any priviledge of a free-born Subject in the Kingdom who will not joyn with the Parliament and Kingdom to defend his Libertie and the Kingdoms priviledges in which he hath as great a common share as those who stand pay and fight most for them It is a good Cause of disfranchising any man out of any Citie Corporation or Company and to deprive him of the Priviledges of them if he refuse to contribute towards the common support defence or maintenance of them or joyn in open hostilitie contributions or suites against them There is the same and greater reason of the generall Citie and Corporation of the whole Realm to which we are all most engaged and therefore those who refuse to contribute towards the defence and preservation of it if able or by their persons purses intelligence or counsell give any assistance to the common enemy against it deserve to be disfranchised out of it to have no priviledge or protection by it and to be proceeded against as utter enemies to it Christs rule being here most true He that is not with me is against me and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad The Common-wealth of which we are members hath by way of originall contract for mutuall assistance and defence seconded by the late Protestation and Covenant a greater interest in our Persons and Estates then we our selves or the King and if we refuse to ayd the republike of which we are members in times of common danger with our Persons Abilities Goods or assist the common enemy with either of them we thereby betray our trust and fidelitie violate our Covenants to the Republike and expose our bodies to restraint our estates to consiscation for this most unnaturall treachery and sordid nigguardlinesse as well as for Treason Fellony or other more petty injuries against the State or humane societie made capitall by the Laws most justly for the publike service of the State which hath a generall Soveraign Interest in them in all times of need paramount our private Rights which must alwayes submit to the publike and lose all our formerly enjoyed Priviledges either of Laws Liberties or free-born Subjects if we refuse to defend or endeavour to betray them as the Laws and common practise of all Nations evidence In the Barons warres against King John Henry the third and Edward the second in defence of their Liberties and Laws they seised upon the Castles Forts and Revenues of the Crown and upon the Moneyes and Goods of the Priors aliens and malignant Poictovines which they imployed in the Kingdoms service Eodem tempore Castellanus de Dovera Richardus de Gray vir fidelis strenuus qui ex parte Baronum ibidem constituebatur omnes transeuntes transituros diligenter considerabat cuncta prudâ—nter perscrutando invenit NON MODICUM THESAURUM paratum dictis Pictaviensibus clanculo deferendum qui TOTUS CAPTUS EST IN CASTRO RESERUANDUS Similiter Londini apud novum Templum THESAURUS MAXIMUS de cujus quantitate audientes mirabantur quem reposureunt Pictavienses memorati licet contradicentes reniterenter Hospitelarii CAPTUS est AD ARBITRIUM REGIS ET BARONUM IN UTILES REGNI USUS UTILITER EXPONENDUS writes Rishanger the continuer of Matthew Paris a good President for the present times After which the Barons banished all the Poictovine Malignants who miscounselled and adhered to the King out of England Anno 1260 who Anno 1261. were all baâ—ished out of London and other Cities and Forts An. 1234. The Earl Marshall having routed John of Monmouth his forces which assisted King Henry the third against the Barons in Wales he wasted all the said Johns Villages and Edifices and all things that were his with sword and fire and so of a rich man made him poor and indigent In the very Christmas holy-dayes there was a grievous warre kindled against the King and his evill Counsellors For Richard Suard conjoyning other Exiles to him entred the Lands of Richard Earl of Cornwall the Kings brother lying not farre from Behull and burned them together with the Houses and the Corne the Oxen in the Ox-stalls the Horses in the Stables the Sheep in the Sheep-cots they likewise burned Segrave the native soyl of Stephen Justiciar of England with very sumptuous Houses Oxen and Corne and likewise brought away many horses of great price returning thence with spoils and other things They likewise burned down a certain village of the Bishop of Winchesters not farre from thence and took away the spoils with other things there found But the foresaid Warriers had constituted this laudable generall rule among themselves that they would do no harme to any one nor hurt any one BUT THE WICKED COUNSELLERS OF THE KING by whom they were banished and those things that were theirs they burnt with fire extirpating their Woods Orchards and such like by the very Roots This they did then de facto de Jure I dare not approve it though in Cases of Attaint and Felony the very Common Law to terrifie others gives sentence against perjured Juries Traytors and Felons in some Cases that their houses shall be raced to the ground their Woods Parkes Orchards Ponds cut down and destroyed their Meadowes and Pastures plowed up and defaced though not so great Enemies to the State as evill Counsellors Anno 1264. the forty eight yeers of Henry the third his raign The King keeping his Christmas with the Queen Richard King of Romans and many others at London Simon Montford the Captain of the Barons at the same time preyed upon the Goods of these who adheared to the King and especially those of the Queens retinue brought by her into England whom they called Aliens Among others some of the Barons forces took Peter a Burgundian Bishop of Hereford in his Cathedrall Church and led him prisoner to the Castle of Ordeley and divided his treasure between themselves and took divers others of the Kings partie prisoners Who thereupon fearing least he should be besieged in the Tower by the Barons army by
power to pardon any Delinquâ—rts against the Nation or Countrey All which considered prove the whole State Kingdom and Councels among the Spanish Gothes to be about their kings who were lyable to their restraints excommunications Laws Censures Depositions for their male-administrations vicious lives and not successive but elected by them Pâ—lagius the first king of Oviedo was elected king and that kingdom erected by the generall consent of the people oppressed by the Moors about the year 618. during whose reign there were severall Vice-royes of the Moors in Spain as Alcazazin and Alhatan and others His sonne king Fasila was slain by a Bear which he pursued in the mountains I doubt his Subjects would have resisted him as well as the Bear had he made war upon them Froila the fourth king of Ovedo treacherously slew his own brother Vtmaran a gallant Knight generally beloved out of jealousie lest he should usurpe the Crown in revenge of whose death he was soon after slain by his own brother Aurelius Anno 767. who succeeded Froila in the Realm notwithstanding he leâ—t a son called D Alphonso the chaste but the hatred that the Noblemen did bear unto his father was the cause of his rejection being then also very young whereby it appears that the right of succession was not in those dayes practised in Spain Sâ—llâ— his brother-in-Law succeeded him after whose death by generall consent the kingdom was given to Alphonso Ramir the tenth king of Oviedo did that which all other Princes abhor for he received his son to be companion with him in his kingdom and caused his brother Garcia to reign with him so as there were now two kings and Courts in Oviedo both agreeing well together Anno 894 Froila dying without issue because his children were too young to reign the Nobles conferred the Kingdom on Alphonso the fourth who after five years turned Monke Ramir the third twentieth king of Leon abandoning himself to a voluptuous life contemned all good counsell so as the Earls and Noblemen of Gallicia seeing his folly and discontented with his vices scorned him and would no more acknowledge him to be their king electing Bermund for their Soveraigne and intituled him king of Gallicia which title he enjoyed ten years About which time the Moors in Spain which had one king reigning at Cordova after the death of king Mahomet made so many petty kings as there was scarce any good town in Spain but had a particular King which made strict alliances among themselves for the preservation of their estates Anno â—07â— Garcia king in Gallicia growing a tyrant spoiled and ill intreated his Subiects governing himself after the appetite or a base woman who put the Nobilitie and Gentry in favour or disgrace with the king as she pleased so as in the end growing insupportable certain Knights slew her in the kings presence His brother Sancho taking advantage of the peoples hatred entred his Realm with a great Army who thereupon being deserted generally by his people fled to the Moors for ayd and fell to spoil his own Countrey after which he was defeated taken prisoner and so kept in the Castle of Lune with a good Guard till his death I read in Iohn Mariana that in the Councill of Florence under Pope Victor the second Anno 1055. Hildebrand a Cardinall Deacon Embassadour to Henry the second Emperour of Germany complained in the Councill against Ferdinand king of Spain in the Emperors Name That against the Custom of his Ancestors and prescript of Laws he did with incredible arrogancy and levity hold himself exempt from the power of the Roman Empire which iniury himselfe could gladly suffer if there were no other losse but of his own honour But since the estate of Christendom could not well subsist and the Popes Authority would likewise be impaired unlesse all Christian kingdoms were united and knit together under one temporall head the Emperour whom they should obey they ought to suppresse the springing temerity in the Wombe lest by their neglect spreading it self into other Provinces animated with the sweet and oft-times deceitfull name of libertie the sacred Majestie of the Empire and Popedom should be reduced to an empty title wherefore he desired them to interdict all Spain and excommuniate the King which if they did he would be assistant to the Churches honour and Republiks safety then indangered But if they refused it out of fear he would not be wanting to the honour of the Empire would certainly look to himself in private The Pope after some deliberation approved this motion as just thereupon sends Legats to Ferdinand in his own and the Councils name to satisfie the Emperors demands forthwith under pain of present excommunication The King doubtfull and fearfull whether to obey or not summons a generall Assembly of the Estates of the Realme The Clergy and religious sort of men perswaded submission for fear of the Popes excommunication the fearfuller sort concurring with them by reason of the Emperours power and their own weaknesse and distraction and the Kings desires of peace inclined most to their opinion But some heroick spirits thought that a most grievous yoke should thereby be laid on the liberty of Spain which being once admitted on their necks they should hardly shake off again that it was better to die fighting then that the Republike should be involved in so great a mischief and indignitie Rodoricus Diacius a noble Spanyards opinion then absent from the assembly being required by the king and it answered That this was no matter of Counsell that what was gotten with Arms was to be defended with Arms that it seemed most unjust that the fruit of others valour should return to those who in their lost condition had not communicated in the labour and danger which recovered it that it was better to die valiantly than to lose the liberty gained by their Ancestors to become a mocking-stock to a barbarous and cruell nation who contemned all men but themselves whose ears were proud whose speeches contumelious whose accesse difficult riotings new cruelty inhumane Shall we who have yet hardly escaped the servitude of Moors undergo a new bondage prepared from the Christians They will deride both us and ours Doth the whole world as farre as Christianity extends it selfe obey the German Emperours Shall all the grace power honour riches gained by ours and our Ancestors blood give place to the Germans Shall they leave dangers repulses iudgemen want to us Shall Germany again lay on us the yoke of the Roman Empire which our Ancestors have shaken off Shall we be a vulgar people without grace without Empire without authority obnoxious to those to whom if we had vigorous mindes if we were men we might be a terrour But it is difficult to resist the Emperous endeavours not to obey the Roman Pontifs commands verily it a basnesse of spirit for an uncertain fear of war to involve the Commonwealth in most
people whereto the Nobilitie as well as the rest should contribute imposing 5. Maravidis of gold for every person but it took no effect for all the Gentlemen of Castile being discontented that he sought to infringe their Liberties fell to armes and being led by the Earle Don Pedro de Lara they were resolved to resist this tax and defend their Liberties with the hazzard of their liveâ— Whereupon Alphonso changed his opinion and let them understand that from thenceforth he would maintain their immunities and that whatsoever he had then propounded was not to continue but only to supply the present necessity of affaires which he would seek to furnish by some other meanes For the great resolution which Don Pedro de Lara shewed in this action the Nobility of Castile did grant to him and his successours a solemn breakfast in testimony of his good endeavour in a businesse of so great consequence and thereby the Lords of Lara have the first voyce for the Nobility in the Court of Castile z An. 1204. King Alphonso the Noble called a Parliament of the Lords Prelates and Deputies of the Townes of his Realm at Toledo to advise and assist him in his warrs against the Moores where they concluded to crave ayd from all Christian Princes and a Crossado from the Pope against the Moores and made divers Lawes to restrain the supersluities of the Realm in feasts apparell and other things Iames the 8. King of Arragon being young at the time of his Fathers death it was thereupon after ordained in the assemblies of the Estates of Mencon and Lirida that Don Sancho Earl of Roussilon should govern the Realm during the Kings minority but they gave him limitation The Kings person they recommended to Frier William of Moncedon Mr. of the Templers After which An. 1220. this yong kings Vncles seeking to wrest the Realme from him instead of governing it by the fidelity of the Estates and their authority his interest was preserved and three Governours with a superintendent of his Provinces were appointed by them and to prevent the continuall practises of the Earles of Roussillon and Fernand the kings Uncles the states and justice of Arragon declared the King of full age when he was but ten yeeres old and caused the Earle of Roussillon to quit the Regencie the authority of the justice of Arragon being then great for the defence of the publike liberty An. 1214. Alphonso the Noble king of Castile dying his sonne Henry being but 11. yeer old the Prelates Nobles and Commons assembled at Burgon having declared him king and taken the oath made Queen Eleonora his Mother Governesse of his Person and Realms after whose death the custody of him was committed to the hands of the Lords of Lara This king afterwards playing with other yong children of Noble Houses at Palenca in the Bishops Palace one of them cast a tyle from the top of a Tower which falling on the covering of an house beat down another tyle which fell on the young kings head wherewith he was so grievously hurt that hee dyed the eleventh day after An. 1217. yet this his casuall death for ought I finde was neither reputed Felony nor Treason in the child that was the cause of it After whose death Fernand the 3. was proclaimed and made King by the States of Castile to prevent the pretentions of the French after which his Mother Queen Berenguela in the presence of the Estates renouncing all her right to the Crown resigned it up to her sonne Fernand About this time the Moores in Spain rejected the Miraluminis of Africk and created them severall Kings and Kingdomes in Spain being never more united under one Crown after this division which they thought it lawfull for them to make An. 1228. the Estates of Arragon assembling at Barcelona they consenting and requiring it according to the custome of the Arragonians and Cattelans these Estates having authority to make Warre and Peace and Leagues a warre was resolved against the King of the Moores and Majorkins Anno 1231. the Realm of Navarre being very ill governed by reason their King Sancho retired to his chamber did not speak with any man but his Houshold servants and would not heare of any publike affaires thereupon the State began to think of electing a Regent to govern the Realm during his retirednesse to prevent which Sancho made an unjust accord with the king of Navarre and confederated with Iames King of Arragon by the assents of the states of the Realm to leave his Kingdome to him if he survived him yet after his death Thibault Earle of Champaigne was by the states of Navarre elected and proclaimed King And anno 1236. The Estates of Arragon and Cateloigne assembled at Moncon for the continuance of the warre with the Moores and conquest of Valentia without whom it was not lawfull for the King to undertake any matter of importance For maintenance of this warre a custome called Marebetine and an exaction of impost for cattell was by the Estates imposed on the People it was likewise decreed that all peeces of Gold and silver coyned should be of one goodnesse and weight to the observation of which Edict for coynes all were bound to sweare that were above 18. yeers of age Anno 1236. Iames King of Arragon revealing to his Confessor the Bishop of Girone that before his marriage with Queen Yolant he had passed a matrimonial promise to Theresa of Bidame she sued him thereupon before the Pope who gave sentence against her for want of sufficient witnesse notwithstanding his Confessors testimony The King hereupon grew so angry with the Bishop for revealing his secrets that sending for him to his chamber he caused his tongue to be cut out For which out-rage committed on the Bishop though faulty the Pope in the Councell of Lions complained and in the end interdicted all the Realme of Arragon and excommunicated the king Hereupon to take off this interdiction and excommunication the king sent the Bishop of Valentia with his excuse and humiliation to the Pope wherewith he being somewhat pacified sent two Legates into Arragon who having assembled a Synod of Bishops at Lerida they caused the King to come thither and to confesse his fault upon his knees before these fathers with great submission and teares who gave him absolution upon condition he should cause the Monastery of Boneface to be built and endowed with an hundred and forty pounds of silver of annuall rent endow an Hospitall for the poore with foure hundred pounds silver per annum and give a Prebendary in the great Church of Girone for the maintenance of a Masse-priest About which time the Moors in Spain erected many new Kings and Kingdoms by mutuall consent and Mahumad Aben Alamar for his valour was by the Inhabitants of Mariona elected and made first King of Granado Anno 1243. all was in combustion in Portugall by the negligence and basenesse of their king Don Sancho
Justice of thy Fathers He answeres I will and by Gods Assistance promise that I will doe and performe it by all meanâ—s After this kneeling on his knees the Arch-bishop holding the New Testament open and the Burgrave reading the words first the king takes this Oath in the Bohemian tongue We sweare to God the mother of God and all Saints upon this holy Gospell that we will and ought to keepe immovably to the Barons Knights and Nobles also to those of Prague and the other Cities and to all the Commonalty of the Realme of Bohemia the Institutions Lawes Priviledges Exemptions Liberties and Rights and also the ancient good and laudable customes of the Realme and not to alienate or morgage any thing from the same Kingdome of Bohemia but rather to our power to augment and enlarge it and to doe all things which may be good and honourable to that Kingdome So helpe me God touching the booke with two of the fingers of his right hand and all Saints The Kings of Navarre take the like Oath How this Realme hath beene altered from a Principality to a Dukedome and from it againe to a Kingdome having sometimes Kings sometimes Dukes both elected by the free choyse of the Estates to whom they were inferiour in Soveraigne power accountable for their mis-government and removeable from their Throne you may read in the marginall Authors Not to mention the Bohemians deposition of Libussa a Noble Virago who governed them for a season reputing it a dishonour to the Nation to be ruled by a woman and electing Przemysâ—â—s for their Prince their deposition and banishment of Prince Borzinegius because he became a Christian and renounced their Pagan Religion though they afterwards twice restored him Of Boleslaus Rufus of Borzinogius the 2. thrice deposed banished by the Nobles and people or Sobeâ—slaus and other Princes Wladislaus first King of Bohemia in his old age by the assent of the Estates associated his sonne Frederick Anno 1173 with him in the Regality Henry King of Bohemia using the Councell of the Germans rather then the Bohemians and looking more after his owne private gaine then the Kingdomes was deposed in a generall Assembly of the Estates Anno 1310. and the sonne of the Emperour Henry the 7 th chosen King upon this condition if he would marry the youngest daughter of King Winceslaus King Wenceslaus the drunken for his drunkennesse negligence and cruelty was twice imprisoned and severely handled by his Nobles and upon promise of amendment restored to his liberty and dignity in his and Sigismond his successors raigns Zizca and the Taborites in defence of their Religion against the Popish party who most unjustly against their promise and safe conduct caused John Hus and Jerome of Prague to be put to death waged great warres and obtained many victories against the King and Emperour and gained free liberty of professing their religion publickely much against the Popes good will which liberty they have ever since maintained by the sword both against the Popish Emperours and Kings by meanes of which civill wars the kingdome suffered some Interregnums During the Minority of king â—c Ladislaus Anno 1439. this kingdome was governed by two Presidents appointed by the Estates Anno 1611. the Emperour Rodulph being willing to settle the kingdome of Bohemia on his Brother Matthias in an assembly of the States of Bohemia called for that purpose the Estates thereupon drew many Articles which Matthias was to sweare to before his Coronation with 49. Articles of complaints and grievances for which they craved redresse and the inhabitants of Prague required the confirmation of 8. Articles which concerned the private Government of their City All which the Emperour and Matthias were constrained to Grant and sweare to before they would admit Matthias to be their King who had nothing in a manner but the Title some of the flowers of the liberty of the Crowne being parted with by his assenting to these Articles Anno 1617. Matthias resigning the Crowne of Bohemia and renouncing his right thereunto recommended Ferdinand Arch. Duke of Austria to them or his successour The States would not admit him king but upon Conditions the which if he should infringe The States should not be bound to yeeld him Obedience Moreover it was added That he should confirm to the States before his Coronation to maintaine all the Priviledges Charters Immunities Municipall Rights Constitutions and Customes of the Realme and people as the Emperour and his predecessors had done by his Oath and Charter in Writing All which assented to he was proclaimed and crowned king Soone after the Arch-bishop of Prague causing some of the Protestant Churches to be ruined and those who complained of it to be put in prison and plotting the extirpation of the Protestant Religion through the Iesuites instigation contrary to their Liberties and the Provinciall constitution hereupon the Protestant States of Bohemia assembled at Prague fortified the Towne binding the three Townes of Prague to them by an Oath entred into a solemne League promising to fight against the Common enemies of God the King and Religion and in that cause to live and dye to which end they levyed a great Army banishing the Jesuites out of Bohemia as the Authors of all the miseries which had hapned in that Realme and many other Realmes and States of Christendome and inciting murderers to kill Kings who would not live after their manner and medling with affaires of State and who had drawne the whole Country into the hands of certaine perfidious Catholickes by whose practises the Country was in danger of ruine For which causes they banished them for ever out of the Realme of Bohemia enjoyning them to depart within 8 dayes never to returne After this the Protestants hearing that the Emperour and Popish party raised Forces against them possessed themselves of many Townes and places within the Realme and raised two Armies All the Protestant Princes and States of Germany Morauia and Silesia except the Elector of Saxony assisted them with men money or Councell publishing a Declaration to justifie their action being for the Common cause of Religion theâ— endangered The Prince of Orange and States of the united Provinces promised them assistance of men and money other Protestant Princes and the Protestant States of Lower Austria did the like The Protestant Armies after this had many victorious incounters with the Imperialists and Popish Forces and took many Towns King Ferdinand in the meane time being newly chosen Emperour the States of Bohemia being assembled together at Prague which the Deputies of the incorporated Provinces Anno. 1619. Concluded and protested by Oath never to acknowledge Ferdinard for their King who had violated his first Covenants resolving to proceede to a new Election and on the 26. of August Elected Fredericke the Prince Electer Palatine of Reine to be their King who accepted the dignity was afterward Crowned king accordingly After which the States of Bohemia
not daring to goe abroad to suppressâ— bâ—ing generally hated was at last strangled by his own fellowers in the night in his own House Ethedius the 2. being a stupid man and of a duller wit then was suitable to the government of so fierce a people the Nobles hereupon assembling together oâ—t of their respect to the family of Fergusius would not wholy deprive him of the name of a King though he were slothfull being guilty of no crime but assigned Him governours to execute Justice in every County at last he was slain in a tumult of his familiars King Athirco his sonne degenerating from his former vertues and growing extreamely covetous angry luxurious sloathfull and leaving the company of all good men was not ashamed to goe openly in the sight of the people playing upon a Flute and rejoycing more to be a Fiâ—ler then a Prince whereby he became very odious to the people at last ravishing the daughters of Nathalocus a Noble man and then whipping and prostituting them to his lewd companions lusts thereupon the Nobles rising up in Armes against him when he had in vain endeavoured to defend himself by force being generally deserted by his own people who hated him for his wickednesse he murthered himself and his brother Donus was enforced to flie with his little ones to the Picts to save his life Nathalicke succeeded in his Realme governing it ill by indigent ordinary persons who would attempt any wickednesse and treacherously strangling divers of the Nobility who were opposites to him in the prison to which he committed them to establish his Kingdome thereupon their friends with others being more enraged against him raised an Army to suppresse him which whiles he endeavoured to resist he was slain by one of his own servants or as some say by a Sorceresse with whom he consulted to know his end King Findocke being treacherously slain through the conspiracy of Carantius his second brother Donald his third brother was elected King Donald of the Isles usurping the Realme by violence so farre oppressed the people by ill officers and discords raised amongst them that he durst seldome stirre abroad he never laughed but when he heard of the discord and slaughter of his Nobles for which he was at last surprised and slaine by Crathilinthus who was unanimously elected King and slew all thâ—s tyrants children After the death of Fircormarch there were great divisions and warres for the Crowne between Romach and Angusian two brethren Romach at last conquering his brother and chasing him into Ireland gained the Crown rather by force then love of the people which to preserve he shewed himselfe very cruell to the adverse party reduced capitall causes to his owne arbitrement and putting many to death strucke a generall feare in all good men Upon this he grew so generally odious to all estates that they conspired against and suppressed him before he could collect his Forces and cutting off his head carried it about 〈◊〉 Poll as a joyfull spectacle to the people Constantine the first of Scotland as soone as he obtained the Crowne loosed the reines to all Vices he was cruell and covetous towards his Nobles kept company with men of the basest Ranke gave himselfe onely to the rapes of maides matrons and immoderate feasts having fidlers Stage-players and ministers of all sorts of pleasures almost about him with which vices the Nobles of Scotland being offended admonished him of his duty But he proudly contemning them wished them to looke after other matters saying he had councell enough from others and that they should lay aside their false hope that they could reclaime the King by their Councell On the contrary he was of so poore a dejected Spirit towards his enemies that he not onely granted them peace but remitted them injuries and restored them Castles as soone as they demanded them Which caused the Picts and Scots to consult together to depose him by force of Armes from which Douglasse disswaded them for the present by reason of their forraigne wars with the Britans and Saxons In the end he was slaine for ravishing a Noblemans daughter in the 15. yeare of his Raigne King Goran was slaine by the people for favouring Towers chiefe Inquisitor or judge of capitall causes who much oppressed the people his children being young Hugonius succeeded to the Crown and afterwards his brothers Congalus and Kumatel after whom Ardan the sonne of King Goran reigned Ferquhard the 52. King of Scots a craftie man desiring to turne the Kingdome into a tyrannie nourished great divisions among the Nobles but they discovering his malice privily enter into an accord among themselves and calling a Parliament sommoned him thereunto who refusing to appeare keeping within his Castle they thereupon tooke it by force and brought him to judgement against his will where many and grievous crimes among others his cruelty and negligence in the affaires of the Common-wealth the Pelagian Heresie with contempt of Baptisme and the other Sacraments were objected against him of none whereof he being able sufficiently to purge himselfe was cast into prison where out of shame and sorrow he slew himselfe Ferquhard the second a man polluted with all kinde of wickednesse an unsatiable desirer of wine and money inhumanely cruell towards men and impious towards God when he had every where vexed others with cruelty and rapines at last turned his fury against his owne slaying his owne wife and ravishing his owne daughters for which wickednesses he was excommunicated but the Nobles willing to assemble together to punish him were diswaded by holy Bishop Colman who told the King openly that some Devine judgement would shortly seize upon him which fell out accordingly for falling into a Feaver and not abstaining from his intemperance he was eaten up of lice Maldwin 55. King of Scotland was strangled by his Queen for suspition of Adultery with an Harlot for which fact she her selfe was burned 4 dayes after Amberkelethus a vicious wicked king was slain by one of his own men with an arrow in the night when he was marching against the Picts whereupon lest the Army should be dissolved or left without a Generall Eugenius the 7 th was presently chosen King in the Tents who making peace with the Picts his wife being slaine in his bed by two conspirators who sought his life the king being suspected of this murther was thereupon imprisoned but before his triall set at liberty by the apprehension of the Murtherers King Eugenius the 8 th rushing into all Vices and neither regarding the admonitions of his Nobles or Clergie was for his filthy lusts covetousnesse and cruelty slaine in the assembly of his Lords by their generall consent and his companions in wickednesse and villany hanged which was a gratefull spectacle to the people Fergusius the third succeeded him both in his Crowne and Vices he was a foule drunken glutton and so outragiously given to Harlots that he neglected his owne wife and brought her to such poverty
and violences which his poore subjects had endured to the comfort and ease of them which had endured them and to the example of others yet notwithstanding the King although that he made shew by words that what had hapned displeased him and was against his will and that he had an intent to punish the heads and authors and to provide for the quiet of the Countrey with all clemency as it behoved a mercifull Prince hath not onely neglected to punish the said Heads and Authors but contrariwise as it appeareth all was with his consent and former resolution of the councell of Spain as certain letters of his intercepted soon after do plainly shew by the which it was written unto Rhoda and to the other Captains authors of all the mischiefe That the King did not blame that action but did allow thereof and commend it promising to recompence them especially the said Rhoda as having done him a singular service The which at his return into Spaine and to all other ministers of the oppressions that were used in these Countries he did shew by effect At the same time the King thinking the better to blinde the eyes of his subjects sent into these Countries for Governour Generall Don Iohn of Austria his base brother as being of his blood who making shew unto the Estates that he did allow of the Pacification of Gant promised to send away the Spanyards to punish the authors of all insolencies and disorders which had hapned in the Countrey and to take an order for the generall peace and the restoring of their ancient liberties sought to divide the Estates and to subdue one Countrey after another By the permission and providence of God who is an enemy to all oppression he was discovered by the intercepting of certain letters where he was commanded by the King to govern himself in these Countries according to the Instructions that should be given him by Rhoda and to cover this practice the King had forbidden Don Iohn to speake with him commanding him to carry himselfe unto the chiefe Noblemen with all mildenesse and courtesie to winne their loves untill that by their assistance and meanes he might reduce Holland and Zeeland and afterwards work his will of the other Provinces Whereupon Don Iohn notwithstanding that he had solmnly sworn in the presence of all the Estates of the Countrey to observe the said Pacification of Gant yet contrary thereunto he sought by meanes of their Colonels whom he had already at his devotion and great promises to winne the Germane souldiers who were then in Garrison and had the guard of the chiefe Townes and Forts of the Countrey whereof by that meanes he made himselfe master holding himselfe assured of those places they held and so by that meanes to force them that would not joyne with him to make warre against the Prince of Orange and them of Holland and Zeeland and so to raise a more boody and intestine warre than had been before But as all things that are treated cunningly and with dissimulation cannot be long kept secret Don Iohns practises being discovered before hee could effect what he had designed hee could not bring his conceptions and enterprises to the end that he pretended Yet he revived a new warre the which continues unto this day in stead of rest and an assured peace whereof hee did so much vaunt at his coming Which reasons have given us great occasion to forsake the King of Spain and to seeke some other mighty and mercifull Prince to helpe to defend these Countries and to take them into his protection and the rather for that these Countries have endured such oppressions received such wrongs and have been forsaken and abandoned by their Prince for the space of twenty years and more duduring the which the Inhabitants have beene intreated not as subjects but as enemies their naturall Prince and Lord seeking to ruine them by armes Moreover after the death of Don Iohn having sent the Baron of Selles who under colour propounding some meanes of an accord declared sufficiently That the king would not avow the Pacification made a Gant which Don Iohn notwithstanding had sworne to maintaine setting downe more hard conditions Yet for that we would discharge our selves of our duties wee have not omitted to make humble suite by writing imploying moreover the favour of the greatest Princes of Christendome seeking by all meanes without intermission to reconcile our selves unto the King having also of late kept our deputies long at Cologne hoping there by the intercession of his imperiall Majestie and some Princes Electors to have obtained an assured peace with some moderate tolleration of Religion the which doth chiefly concerne God and mens consciences as the estate of the affairs of the Countrey did then require But in the end we found it by experience that nothing was to be obtained from the King by the Conference at Cologne and that it was practised and did onely serve to disunite and divide the Provinces that they might with the more facility vanquish and subdue first one and then another and execute upon them their first designes The which hath since plainly appeared by a certain proscription which the King hath caused to be published whereby we and all the Inhabitants of the united Provinces and Officers that hold their partie are proclaimed Rebels and to have forfeited lives and goods Promising moreover a great summe of money to him that should murther the said Prince and all to make the poore Inhabitants odious to hinder their Navigation and Traffique and to bring them into extreme despaire So as despairing of all meanes of reconciliation and destitute of all other succours and ayde we have according to the Law of nature for the defence of us and other Inhabitants the Rights priviledges ancient customes and libertie of the Countrey and the lives and honours of us our wives children and posterity to the end they fall not into the slavery of the Spanyards leaving upon just cause the King of Spaine beene forced to seeke out some other meanes such as for the greater safety and preservation of our Rights Priviledges and liberties we have thought most fit and convenient We therefore give all men to understand That having duely considered all these things and being prest by extreme necessitie We have by a generall resolution and consent declared and doe declare by these presents the King of Spaine ipso jure to be fallen from the Seigniory Principalitie jurisdiction and inheritance of these Countries And that we are resolved never to acknowledge him any more in any matter concerning the Prince jurisdictions or demeanes of these Netherlands nor to use hereafter neither yet to suffer any other to use his Name as Soveraigne Lord thereof According to the which we declare all Officers private Noblemen Vassels and other inhabitants of these Countries of what condition or qualitie soever to be from henceforth discharged of the Oath which they have made in any manner whatsoever
said in full Parliament that if a treaty of peace or truce should be entertained betweene their Lord the King and his adversary of France that they thought it expedient and necessary if it should please the King that Mounseur de Guyen because he is the most sufficient person of the realme shall goe to the same Treaty And the King said that he liked it well if it pleased the said Lord de Guyen and thereupon Mounseur de Guyen said that he would with a very good will travell and doe any thing which might turne to the honour and profit of the King and of his realme In the Parliament of the 14 H. 6. Num. 10. The Kings grant of the custody of the Town and Castle of Calice the Towne of Risbanke the Castles of Hamures Marke Oye Stangate Bavelingham and of the Castle and Dominion of Guynes in Picardy to be made to Humfrey Duke of Glocester his unkle in the presence of the Lords spirituall and temporall then being in the present Parliament was on the 29 day of October read before them which being understood and mature deliberation taken thereupon the severall reasons of the said Lord being heard it was at last by their assent and consent agreed and ordered that the said Duke should have the custody of the said Towne Castles and premises to the end of nine yeeres then next ensuing which Charter was subscribed by all the Lords there present In the Parliament of 31 H. 6. Num. 41. pro custodia Maris it was enacted For as much as the King considering that as well divers His Clergy men of this his realm inhabiting nigh the coast of the Sea and others His Subjects using the Trade of Merchandises have been oftentimes grievously imprisoned distressed put to great sufferances and ransomes and their Ships Vessels and Merchandises of great value taken upon the Sea by his enemies and also Merchant strangers being under his leageance amity safegard or safe conduct upon the Sea have been robbed and spoyled against the forme and contents of such truces and safe conducts signed His Highnesse willing and intending sufficiently to provide for the remedy of such inconveniences and to eschew and avoyd all such robberies and dispoylers HATH BY THE ADVICE AND ASSENT OF THE LORDS SPIRITUALL AND TEMPORALL in his high Court of Parliament assembled desired certaine great Lords of this realme that is to say Richard Earle of Salisbury John Earle of Shrewsbury John Earle of Worcester James Earle of Wiltshire and Iohn Lord Sturton with great Navies of Ships and people defensible in great number purveyed of abiliments of warre to intend with all diligence to their possibility the safeguard and keeping of the Sea For which cause the subsidies of Tonnage and Poundage granted to the King for his naturall life this Parliament that they might be applied to such uses and intent as they be granted the King BY THE ADVICE AND ASSENT OF THE LORDS SPIRITUALL AND TEMPORALL AND COMMONS IN THIS PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED AND BY AUTHORITY OF THE SAME were granted to the said Earles and Lord Sturton and the survivers of them for three whole yeeres with power for them to appoint Collectors to receive and collect them in every Port without rendering any account so as they kept the covenants and endentures made between the King and them for the safegard of the Seas with a proviso that this Act during the three yeeres should not be prejudiciall to the custome of the Towne or Castle of Calice or Rishbanke for the payment of the wages and arreares of the Souldiers there And over that if the goods of any of the Kings liege-people or any of his friends be found in any Vessell of the Kings enemies without any safe conduct that then the said Earles and the Lord Sturton shall take and depart it among them and their retinue without any impeachment according to the Statute thereupon made In the Parliament of 33 H. 6. Num. 27. the said Lords were discharged of the custody of the Sea by the Parliament in these words For as much as the Earles of Salisbury Shrewsbury and Worcester and the Lord Sturton besought the Kings Highnesse in this present Parliament that it might like his Highnes and Excellency of his Noble grace to have them clearely discharged of the keeping of the Sea the King therefore and for other causes moving his Highnesse BY THE ADVICE OF THE LORDS SPIRITUALL AND TEMPORALL IN THE SAID PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED the 30 day of Iuly the 23 day of the same Parliament admitted their desire and would that the said Earles and Lord Sturton or any other THAT HAD THE KEEPING OF THE SEA BY AN ACT MADE IN THE LAST PARLIAMENT begun and holden at Redding and ended at Westminster be from the 30 day of July fully discharged of the keeping of the same and that IT SHOULD BE ENACTED OF RECORD In the Parliament of 39 H. 6. Num. 32. The King BY THE ADVICE OF THE LORDS SPIRITUALL AND TEMPORALL AND COMMONS IN THIS PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED AND BY AUTHORITY THEREOF ordained and established that his dearest cosin Richard Duke of Yorke rightfull heire to the Countries of England and France and of the Lordship and Land of Ireland have and take upon him the power and labour to ride into the parts of England and Wales where great rebellions murders riots spoylings executions and oppressions be used committed and attempted to represse subdue and appease them And also to resist the enemies of France and Scotland within the realme And further granted ordained and established by the said advice and authority that every Sheriffe with the power and might of his Sheriwicke and every Major Bailiffe Officer Minister and Subject of the said realme of England and of Wales shall attend upon his said cousin for the said intent as the case shall require and to the same intent be ready at the command of his said cousin and the same obey and performe in like case as they ought to doe at his commandement after the course of the Lawes of England and in Wales after the customes there c. And to cite no more presidents in so cleare a case in the Parliament of 21 Iacobi ch 33. The Temporalty having granted three intire Subsidies and three Fifteenes and tenths to King James towards the maintenance of the warres that might then suddenly insue upon the breach with Spaine and more particularly for the defence of the realme of England the securing of Ireland the assurance of the states of the united Provinces with the Kings friends and allies and for the setting forth of the Navy-royall did by that Act for the better disbursing of the said ayd and mannaging that warre according to the Parliaments true intention by that very Act wherein they gave the Subsidies did especially appoint eight Aldermen and other persons of London Treasurers to receive and issue the said moneys and appointed ten Lords and Knights particularly named in the Act to be of the Kings
Councell for the warre by whose warrant under five of their hands at least all the moneys they granted were to be issued and exported for and towards the uses expressed in the Act to such person or persons as the said Councell of warre should direct and that both those Treasurers and this Councell of warre and all other persons trusted with the receiving issuing bestowing and imploying of those moneys or any part thereof their heires executors and administrators should be answerable and accomptable for their doings and proceedings therein to the Commons in Parliament when they shall be thereunto required by Warrant under the hand of the Speaker of the House of Commons for the time being and thereby they and every of them according to their severall places and imployments shall give a true and ready declaration and account of their severall respective dealings doings and proceeding therein and that the said Commons in Parliament shall have power by this Act to heare and determine the said account and all things thereto appertaining And withall they in this Act prescribe a speciall oath to the Treasurers Not to issue out any moneys without the Warrant of the Councell of war under their hands And another oath to the Councell of warre To make no Warrant for any moneys issued which are given by this Act but for some of those ends which are expressed therein and that to the best of their meanes they should imploy the said moneys accordingly and that freely without requiring any reward or allowance whatsoever Which presidents with others forementioned made His Majesty return this Answer to the Petition of the Lords and Commons touching the Articles delivered February 2. 1641. For the securing you from all dangers or jealousies of any His Majesty will be content to put in all the places both of FORTS and MILITIA in the severall Counties such persons as both Houses of Parliament shall either approve or recommend unto Him so that you declare before unto His Majesty the names of the persons whom you approve or recommend unlesse such persons shall be named against whom He shall have just and unquestionable exception And thus much by way of supplement touching the Militia Concerning the Parliaments interest and right in electing and removing the Officers of the realme and the Kings meniall servants I shall onely adde these Precedents to the forementioned In the Parliament rolls 4 E. 3. Num. 1. Foure Bishops foure Earles and foure Barons were assigned to the King without whose consent or of foure of them no great businesse was to be transacted 14 E. 3. Num. 36. in the Parliament rolls The Parliament agreeth that the Duke of Cornwall be Custos of England during the Kings absence in the warres of France In the Parliament rolls of 1 R. 2. Num. 18. 19. The Commons requested first that it would please the King to ordaine and nominate to them now in this present Parliament some sufficient persons of divers estates to be continually resident of his counsell for the affaires of the King and of the realme and to have the Officers of the King of such persons who best knew and would and might most diligently travell for the redresse of the foresaid mischiefes and the good government and salvation of the realme so that the Commons may be clearely ascertained of the names of those Counsellors which shall be disbursers and orders of that which they shall grant for the warres and thereby to have greater encouragement to doe to our Lord the King that which they have in charge concerning him as if aforesaid Also that it would please them to ordaine and nominate in this Parliament the persons which shall be about or have the custody of the person of our Lord the King himselfe who is of such tender age and that those persons shall be of the most vertuous honestest and sufficientest of the Realm so that our said Lord who is a person sacred and anointed be nobly governed and brought up in good vertues and manners to the pleasure of God whereby all the Realme may be secured and amended and that it be likewise ordained that our Lord the King and his house be governed with good moderation and defray his expences onely out of the revenues of the Realme and other rights and seigniories of his Crowne And that all that which shall be granted to our Lord the King in maintenance of his wars shall be applied and expended in the warres and no part thereof otherwise in aid and discharge of his said commonaltie In the Parliament of 11. Richard 2. Num. 23. The Commons pray That no person of what state or condition he be should meddle with any manner of governance about the person of our Lord the King nor with the businesses of the Realm nor yet to councell our Lord the King but those Lords which are assigned and ordained in this present Parliament if it be not by ordinance of the continuall Councell and by assent of our Lord the King upon grievous paine And the same Lords which shall bee about the person of our Lord the King and of his Councell shall cause to remove all the persons which they think fit to remove in the houshold of our Lord the King without shewing favour to any and to put others in their places whom they shall think sufficient and vertuous And that the said Lords of the Councell be charged to keep and sustain the estate of our Lord the King in ' its regalty and to doe and use that which may turne to the honour and profit of our Lord the King and of his Realme to their power according to the form of the Oath contained in a Schedule made in this present Parliament annexed hereunto to the intent that it may be notoriously known thorowout all the Realme that good and sufficient Councell is about the person of our Lord the King to the comfort of all his Commons and firme assurance and establishment of the Realme aforesaid the which Oath was made in forme ensuing You shall swear That you will not assent nor yet suffer as much as in you lieth That any Judgement Statute or Ordinance made or given in this present Parliament be any way annulled reversed or repealed in any time to come and moreover That you shall keep the good Laws and usages of the Realme afore these times made and used and shall firmely keep and cause to be kept good peace quiet and tranquillity in the Realme according to your power without disturbing them in any manner So helpe me God and his Saints The Answer As to the first point of this Article the King wils it And as to the second point If there be any Lord of the Councell or other Lord of the Realme which will informe the King That he hath any person about him not sufficient nor honest he wils that it being proved he shall be outed and removed and another sufficient by his advice put in his place In
the Parliament of 5. Henry 4. Num. 16. Upon certain prayers and requests made before by the Commons divers times touching the removing of divers persons as well aliens and others by reason of divers destructions by them moved and for certaine Articles appointed by the Lords upon the charges given to them by our Lord the King in Parliament and by the said Lords it was specially accorded That four persons to wit the Kings Confessor the Abbot of Dâ—ne Master Richard Derham and Crosseby of the Chamber shall be quite ousted and voided out of the Kings house whereupon the ninth of February the said Confessor Master Richard and Crosseby came before the King and Lords in Parliament and there the King in excusing the said four persons said openly that he knew not by them any cause or occasion in speciall for which they ought to bee removed from his houshold notwithstanding our said Lord the King well considered that what the said Lords and Commons shhall do or ordaine was for the good of him and of his Realme and therefore he would conforme himselfe to their intentions and did well agree to the said Ordinance which charged the said Confessor Master Richard and Crosseby to avoid his said Court and like charge should have beene given to the said Abbot had he been present And our Lord the King said further That he would doe the like with any other which was about his royall Person if he was in hatred or indignation with his people And Numb 37. To the end that good and just government and remedy may bee made of divers complaints grievances and mischiefs shewed to our Lord the King in this Parliament our Lord the King to the honour of God and upon the great instances and requests to him divers times made in this Parliament by the Commons of his Realm for the ease and comfort of all his Realme hath ordained certain Lords and others underwritten to be of his great and continuall Councell to wit the Archbishop of Canterbury the Bishop of Lincolne Chancellour of England the Bishops of Rochester Winchester Bath and Bangor the Duke of Yorke the Earles of Som merset and Westmerland the Lord Roos Treasurer of England the Keeper of the Great Seale the Lord Berkley the Lord Willoughby the Lord Furnevall the Lord Lovell Mounsier Pierce Courtney Master Hugh Waterton Master Iohn Cheyne Master Arnald Savage Iohn Northbury Iohn Doreward Iohn Cawson In the Parliament of 7. 8. Henry 4. Numb 31. The 22. day of May the Commons came before the King and his Lords in Parliament and then Iohn Tibetot their Speaker reheased how they had prayed the King in the beginning of the Parliament and after to increase the number of his Councell for the better government of the Realme and prayed the King to put it in execution and further rehearsed how that the Archbishop of Canterbury had reported to them That the King would be counselled by the most sage Lords of the Realme the which ought to have the survey of all that which shall be done for the good government of this Realme which thing the King agreed to doe and rehearsed with his own mouth That it was his entire will And thereupon a Bill made by the King himselfe by his own will was delivered containing the names of the Lords which shall be of his Councell the tenour of which Bill ensueth It is to bee remembred that our Lord the King considering the great labours occupations and diligence which he ought necessarily to imploy about the good government of his Realme and other his possessions as well on this side the Sea as beyond it First of all for the preservation of our Lord the King and of his Crowne and that the revenues of the same may be the better collected to his profit and increase as much as a man may justly doe to the end that he may the better sustaine his honourable estate And secondly for the confirmation of the Lawes and Statutes of the Realme to the end that equall right may be done to every one as well poor as rich Our Lord the King of his proper and good will desirous to be supported in the foresaid causes because that he cannot attend thereunto in proper person so much as he would for the great love and good affiance which he hath among others in the most revered Fathers in God the Archbishop of Canterbury the Bishops of Winchester and Excester the Duke of Yorke the Earle of Somerset the Lord Roos the Lord Burnet the Lord Lovell the Lord Willoughbie the Chancellour Treasurer and Keeper of the privie Seale the Steward and Chamberlaine Master Hugh Waterton Master Iohn Cheyney and Master Arnald Savage hath chosen and charged them to be of his counsell praying and commanding them that in all the foresaid causes they will put to their intire diligences for the profit of our said Lord the King and likewise for the confirmation of the Laws and Statutes aforesaid In the Parliament of 2. Henry 6. num 15. After divers speciall requests of the Commons of the Realme being in the present Parliament made to my Lord of Glocester Commissary of the King and to other Lords Spirituall and Temporall there for to have notice and conusance of the persons assigned and elected to be of the Kings Councell to their great ease and consolation By advice and assent of all the Lords Spirituall and Temporall aforesaid were elected and named certaine persons as well spirituall and temporall to be Councellours assistant to the governance of the Realm whose names here ensue The Duke of Glocester the Archbishop of Canterbury the Bishops of London Winchester Norwich Worcester the Chancellour Treasurer and Keeper of the privie Seale the Duke of Excester the Earle of March the Earle of Warwick the Earle Marshall the Earle of Northumberland the Earle of Westmerland the Lord Cromwell the Lord Fitz-Hugh the Lord Bourchier the Lord Scroop Master Walter Hungerford Master John Tiptoff Thomas Chaucer William Allington In the Parliament of 29. Henry 6. num 16. Vpon the Petition of the Commons against divers Lords Bishops Knights Esquires and others to the number of 29. who mis-behaved themselves about the royall Person of the King and in other places by whose only meanes it was suggested the Kings possessions had been greatly diminished his Laws not executed the peace of the Realm not observed to the great hurt and trouble of the liege people of the Realm and likely subversion of the same of which misbehaviour universall noise and clamour was openly received thorowout all the Realme upon the same persons specified in the Petition all of them except the Lords and some few others without further evidence against them were by the King now removed from his presence and Court for a whole yeeres space within which time any man that could and would object against any of them should be patiently heard and intended to These few fresh Presidents added to the precedent
they will maintain to the utter impoverishing and ruining of the Country yea they have burned sacked plundered many whole Towns Cities Counties and spoiled thousands of all they have contrary to their very Promises Articles Agreements which they never faithfully observe to any in the least degree and all this to ruine the Kingdom People Parliament and Religion yet they justifie these their actions and the Parliament People must not controule nor deem them Traytors to their Country for it And may not the Parliament then more justly impose a moderate in-destructive necessary taxe without the King for the Kingdoms Religions and Peoples defence and preservations against their barbarous Taxes Plunderings and Devastations then the King or his Commanders Souldiers play such Rex and use such barbarous oppressions without yea against the Parliaments Votes and consents Let them therefore first cease their own most detestable unnaturall inhumane practises and extortions of this nature and condemn themselves or else for ever clear the Parliament from this unjust Aspersion The last Objection against the Parliament is That they have Illegally imprisoned restrained plundered some Malignants and removed them from their habitations against Magna Charta the Fundamentall Laws forenamed and the Liberty of the Subject contrary to all Presidents in former Ages To which I answer First That the Objectors and Kings party are farre more guilty of this crime then the Parliament or their Partisans and therefore have no reason to object it unlesse themselves were more innocent then they are Secondly For the Parliaments imprisoning of men pretended to be against Magna Charta I answer first That the Parliament is not with in that or any other Law against imprisonments as I have formerly cleered Therefore is not obliged by it nor can offend against it Secondly That it hath power to imprison restrain the greatest Members of their own Houses though priviledged men exmept from all other arrests and publike persons representing those that sent them thither Therefore much more may they imprison or restrain any other private persons notwithstanding Magna Charta And the Parliament being the supreamest Judicaturo paramount all other Courts their commitments can not be Legally questioned determined nor their prisoners released by Habcas Corpus in or by any other inferior Court or Judicature whatsoever 3. The Parliament hath power to make new Laws for the temporall and perpetuall imprisonment of men in mischievous cases where they could not be imprisoned by the Common Law or any other Act before or since Magna Charta and so against the seeming letter of that Law w ch extends not to the Parliament and what persons they may restrain imprison by a new enacted Law though not restrainable before by Magna Charta or the Common Law without breach of either they may whiles they sit in case of publike danger restrain imprison by their own Authoritie without or before a new Law enacted In how many new Cases by new Statutes made since Magna Charta the Subjects may be lawfully imprisoned both by Judges Justices Majors Constable and Inferiour Courts or Officers whereas they could not be imprisoned by them by the Common Law before these Acts without breach of Magna Charta and violating the Subjects Liberties you may read in the Table of Rastals Abridgements of Statutes and in Ashes Tables Title Imprisonment and False-Imprisonment Yea by the Statutes of 23. H. 8. cap. 1. 31. H. 8. cap. 13. 33. H. 8. cap. 12. 5. Eliz. cap. 14. 1. and 2. Phil. Mary cap. 3. 5. and 6. E. 6. cap. 1. 1. Eliz. cap. 2. with other Acts perpetuall imprisonment during life is inflicted in some cases for which no imprisonment at all could be prescribed before these Acts and for crimes for which the parties were not formerly punishable yet for the publike weale peace safety and prevention of private mischiefs even against the Letter as it were of the great Charter the Parliament hath quite taken away all liberty the benefit of the Common Law and of Magna Charta it self from parties convicted of such offences during their naturall lives and if they bring an Habeas Corpus in such cases pretending their perpetuall imprisonment and these latter Laws to be against Magna Charta they shall notwithstanding be remanded and remain prisoners all their dayes because the Parliament is above all Laws Statutes yea Magna Charta and may deprive any Delinquents of the benefit of them yea alter or repeal them for the common good so farre as they see just cause Though neither the King nor his Counsell nor Judges nor any Inferiour Officers or Courts of Justice have any such transcendent power but the Parliament alone to which all men are parties really present and allowing all they do and what all assent to decree for the common good and safetie must be submitted to by all particular persons though never so mischievous to them this being a Fundamentall Rule even in Law it self That the Law will rather suffer a private mischief then a generall inconvenience Seeing then the Parliament to prevent publike uproars sedition treachery in or against the Kingdom Cities Houses or Counties where factious persons live hath thought meet to restrain the most seditious Malignants especially these about London and Westminster where they sit and to commit them to safe custody till they receive some good assurance of their peaceable behaviour they must patiently suffer their private restraints for the common safety tranquility till the danger be past or themselves reformed who if they reform not their own malignity not the Parliaments cautelous severity themselves must be blamed since they detain themselves prisoners only by not conforming when as the Parliament desires rather to release then restrain them if they would be regular and so they must blame themselves alone not clamour against the Houses All Leprous persons by the Leviticall and Common Law were to be sequestred and shut up from others least they should infect them and so all persons visited with the Plague by late Statute Laws may be shut up without breach of Magna Charta Why then not Malignant seditious ill affected persons who infect others in these times of Commotion and Civill Warres as well as Leapers and Plague sick persons removed into Pest-houses for fear of spreading the Infection upon the self-same grounds by the Houses Authority The Parliament by an Ordinance Act or Sentence hath Power to banish men out of the Kingdom in some cases which no other Court nor the King himself can lawfully dâ— as was expresly reâ—olved in Parliament upon the making of the Sâ—atute of 35. Eliz. cap. 1. as is evident by the case of Thomas of Weyland An. 19. E. 1 Of Pâ—irce Gavaston and the two Spencers in King Haward the second his raign Of the Lord Maltravâ—rs in Edward the third his raign Of Bâ—lknap and divers over Judges in the 10 and 11 yâ—ers of Richard 2. his
Townes What power the Princes Electors and German states had and yet have in electing rejecting deposing restraining their Emperours in calling Diets and making Lawes you may read more largely in Munster and Grimston By all which and other particulars which for brevity I shall omit it is most evident that the Supream Soveraigne Authority of the Roman State both under their ancient Kings and Emperours and of the Greeke and German Empires resided not in the Kings and Emperours themselves but in their Senates Diets People States who prescribed them conditionall Oaths at their Coronations and to whom they were still accountable for their actions and misgovernment This Iohn Bodin a famous learned French Lawyer of great experience in State affaires surpassing all who writ before him of Republikes plainly affirmes in these words The Roman Emperours were at first nothing else but Princes of the Common weale that is to say the cheife and principallmen the SOVERAIGNTY neverthelesse still RESTING IN THE PEOPLE AND SENATE the Emperour having the Soveraigne authority only in fact not in right the State being but a very Principality wherein THE PEOPLE HAD THE SOVERAIGNTY So the German Empire at this day is nothing else but an Aristocraticall Principality wherein the Emperour is head and chiefe the POWER and majesty of the Empire BELONGING VNTO THE STATES THEREOF who thrust out of the Government Adolphus the Emperour in the yeare 1296 and also after him Wenceslaus in the yeare 1400 and that BY WAY OF IVSTICE AS HAVING IVRISDICTION AND POWER OVER THEM And so properly ancient Romans said Imperium in Magistratibus Auctoritatem in Senatu Potestatem in Plebe Maiestatem in Populo Command to be in the Magistrates Authority in the Senate Power in the Maeniall People and Majesty in the People in Generall The Senate in Rome did consult the people command for Livy oft times saith Senatus decrevit populus iussit the Senate hath decreed and the People commanded Which he there more largely prosecutes as you may read at leysure To all which Bishop Bilson himself doth fully assent affirming that Germany is a free state that the Emperour holds the Empire by election and that but on condition which he takes an oath to performe And if he violate their liberties or his oath they may not only lawfully resist him by force of armes but repell and depose him as a tyrant and set another in his place by the right and freedome of their Countrey And Cassanaus holds that the people may take away the very name of the Emperour at this day degrade him and resume his royall power This then being an unquestionable verity disproves that palpable common mistake of Dr. Ferne with other ignorant Court Doctors and Royalists who would make the world and Kings beleeve that the Roman Emperours were of greater power and authority than the Senate people the highest powers upon earth to which all persons yea the Senate and people collectively considered ought to submit and that it was unlawfull either for the Senate or people forcibly to resist Caligula Claudius Nero and other their wickedest and most tyrannicall Emperours much lesse to depose take armes against or call them to a strict just account for their Tyranny Oppression or Misgovernment it being directly contrary to Pauls Doctrine Rom. 13. 1 to 6. Let every soule be subject to the higher powers c. which false groundlesse principle is the sole foundation upon which all their late Sermons Books and rayling Discourses against this Parliaments proceedings and taking up of defensive armes are built when as in truth the Senate people were the highest powers to whoÌ„ the Roman Emperours themselves were to be obedient in all iust requests commands under paine of damnation and subiect to the Senates sword of â—ustice in case of disobedience misgovernment as all the premises evidence yea it likewise manifestly evidenceth that whole States Parliaments are the highest power and above their Kings who are subject to theÌ„ since the Roman and Greek Senates and people heretofore the very German States at this day are the highest power and above their Emperours though ever reputed of greater power Soveraignty and dignity than any Kings and the greatest Monarchs in the world and that therfore Kings even by Pauls Doctrine Rom. 13. ought to be subiect to the higher power and Iurisdiction of their Parliaments the Laws and Statutes of their Realmes and to be accountable to them if not subiect to their censures as some affirme in exorbitant cases of misgovernment which concern the Kingdomes and peoples safety If Kings iniuriously take away the lands goods or imprison the persons of any particular subjects the Law gives every one a particular remedy against them by way of Action or Petition of Right If then every private subiect may have redresse much more the whole Kingdome in and by Parliaments only not in inferiour Courts against their Soveraigns which oppresse them who being subiect unto the Lawes of God and their Realmes which have no respect of persons may as many affirme be questioned and iudged by them in their Parliaments as well as other princes great officers of State and Magistrates who in scripture are called Gods the higher powers and said to be â—rdained to rule judge by and for God as well as Kings and Emperours It is branded as a spice of Antichristian pride in Popes and their Parasites to deem themselves so High above other men that they are accountable to none but God for their wicked actions though many Popes in former and later times have been questioned consured imprisoned and deposed both by Emperours Kings and Councels for their intollerable misdemeanors And is it not the very selfe same crime in Kings in Emperours and their flatterers to hold this Popish erronious opinion that they are in no case responsible to their whole Kingdomes or Parliaments for their grossest exorbitances Our Popish Prelates and Clergy generally heretofore and some of our Protestant Bishops and Divines of late times from St. Ambrose his practise have held that kings for murthers rapes and great crying offences may be Lawfully excommunicated and censured by the spirituall Law and sword as sundry Emperours and Kings have been then why not likewise by the temporall when their Parliaments and whole Kingdoms see just cause the case of hundreds of Emperours and Kings in former times as the Histories of all Nations and ages prove abundantly beyond all contradiction I shall here instance in some few Kings censures subject to the Roman State and Empire with whom I shall conclude this discourse touching the Roman Monarchs Deioratus King of Galatia under the Romans Iurisdiction and one of their allies was accused of Treason and condemned to lose both his head and estate for certaine offences against C. Caesar and the Roman State as appeares by Tullies Oration to Caesar in his behalfe
Agis and Pausanias Agis the last of the Lacedemonean kings as Plutarch records being apprehended and condemned by the Ephori without an Indictment and then hanged in a halter Finally Aristotle himself and Xenophon informe us that the Kingdom of the Lacedemonians flourished very long yea longer then any other forme of Government because their Kings power was but small and their Kings never desired greater things then the Lawes would beare by which they had received their Kingdome in the beginning for in the beginning that Kingdome was divided between two joynt Kings After which Theopompus left it more moderated to his successours and constituted the Magistracie of the Ephori who had power even to depose and execute their kings if they offended and rose not up out of their seates unto them to retain that moderation By which meanes he verily weakned the power of the Kingdome but yet certainely setled it more lasting and stable whence Theopompus gave this answer to his complaining and upbraiding wife whether he was not ashamed to leave the Kingdoms lesse to his Children then he had received it from his Father No truly saith he for by this means I leave it more stable and lasting A Speech well worthy the consideration of the very greatest hereditary kings These Lacedemonian kings whose honours writes Xenophon were not much better then those of private men Etenim neque Regibus animos 〈◊〉 Tyrannicos voluit Lycurgus neque civibus eorum potestatem invisam reddere tooke an Oath every month to governe the Kingdome according to the Lawes enacted I finde that the Cumaeans had a Magistrate whom they called Phylactus whose office was to come into the full Senate and hold the Kings hands who stood in judgement before them untill by the Senators decree their reward or punishment was appointed By which it is apparent that the Cumaean Senate was above their kings and did usually arraigne and punish them iudicially if they saw cause as they rose up in Armes against Aristodomus their king who tyrannized over them by Zenocrita her instigation slew him and so recovered their Liberties The ancient Carthaginians had two kings whom they stiled Suffites who were but annuall removed every yeares Yea the Ibersans and Parthians had two joynt kings in ancient times the one to judge the other to governe the people In Meroe where they elected their kings by their beauty stregth or wealth their Priests had the chiefe power who had so great authority that sometimes like the Pope and his Nuncioes they would send a Messenger and command the king to be put to death and make another in his steed Which custome was after abolished by one of the kings who violently assaulted and slew all the Priests and in Meroe if the king offended after the Priests power was abolished they inflicted no corporall punishment on him but all withdrew themselves from him and avoided his company till he was killed with griefe and consumption The Indians will not permit their king to sleep in the day time and if he be drunken at any time if any woman of whom he hath a guard kill him whiles he is drunke she is so farre from being guilty of Treason that for a reward she shall be married to his Successour much like the ancient publike institution of the Selavonians recorded by Saxo Grammaticus that the assassinate of evill Kings should succeed them in their kingdomes a thing frequently practised in many kingdomes and Empires though very ill enacted in any The Sabaeans confined their Kings to their Palaces and used to stone them if they went forth of their bounds The Mosseriaes whose kings were elective used to punish them when they offended by keeping them fasting a whole dayes space Among some of the Indians if the king dyes having male children of his owne or cosen-germans or brothers children they shall not succeed him in the kingdome but his sister sonne if there be any if not then his next alliance and that ex gentis instituto by the institution of the Nation the reason is because their Priests used to defloure the Queene whose issue is held to be illegitimate In Thraciae the people elect a king who is well qualified mercifull grave for his age and one who hath no children For no Father though never so well qualified is admitted to raigne and if he fortune to have issue while he reignes he is deprived and so kept lest the kingdome should become hereditary Yea though the king be never so just yet they will not that he should have the whole power but appoint him 40. Governours lest hee alone should judge in capitall causes And if he be convicted of any offence be is punished with death yet not by laying violent hands on him but by publike consent all food is kept from him so as at last he perisheth with famine The Taprobani had this custome that no man who had any children should be chosen king lest he should claime the kingdome as hereditary and make it so The Athenians Ionians Milesians Marchomanni Quadi Persians Sicilians Corinthians Parthians Meroes Gordii Medes Paphii Cathians Aetheopians Sydonians Germans Swedes Danes and other Nations had severall Customes Lawes Rules over-tedious to recite by which they elected and inaugurated their kings of which you may read in Alexander ab Alexandro Strabo Boemus Peter Martyr Purchas and others and different degrees of power and government derived from their kingdomes and people the soveraigne Authority still residing in them to prescribe both Laws and limits to their kings and call them to publike account for their grosse offences and misgovernment The ancient Aethiopiant elected the most fanatique Priest for their king whom though they adored and honoured for a God yet Vitam agere STATVTAM LEGIBVS DEBET iuxta patrios mores he ought to live such a life as the Laws appointed him according to the manners of the Countey neither ought he to reward or punish any man himselfe though chiefe parts of Royalty The old German kings had no free nor infinite but a restrained and bounded power by the Lawes Diodorus Siculus writes that the first Egyptian Kings lived not like other Monarchs to rule all things according to their wills Nullis obnoxii censuris as ob noxious to no censures but all things not only their publike actions but even the regiment of their daily life were conformed to the rule of the Lawes as he there manifests in sundry particulars both in respect of their attendants dispatches devotions recreations moderate spare dyet and the like neither was it lawfull for them to judge nor doe any thing nor punish any man out of petulancy or anger or any other unjust cause contrary to what the established Lawes required concerning every of them Whiles they observed these things customarily it was so farre that they tooke it ill
or were offended in minde that on the contrary they thought they lived a most blessed life For other men rashly giuing indulgence to the affections of nature acted many things accompanied with losses and dangers yea some men ofttimes although they foreknew they should sinne did notwithstanding perpetrate evill things being led away with love or hatred or some other perturbation of minde but they imbracing the rule of life approved by the most prudent men resolved not to erre from their duty in the least degree Whiles Kings used this Iustice towards their Subjects they had their Subjects bound unto them in greater benevolence and love then their very kindred For not only the Colledge of Priests but the whole Nation of the Aegyptians and likewise every one of them were not so carefull of their wives and children and private goods as of the safety of their Kings Wherefore they preserved the estate of the Republike intire for a long time under the mentioned kings spending their life in greatest felicity as long as this constitution of Lawes flourished And when these kings dyed all the Aegyptians generally mourned for them in an extraordinary manner divers wayes made solemne Orations in their praise buried them with great pompe and solemnity and erected Pyramides to their eternall honour all which funerall pompous solemnities many ill kings wanted after their deaths ob plebis refragationem because the people gain-sayed it who together with the Priests and Senates who were ever present with the kings to assist counsell and direct them were superiour to their kings since they could thus decree or deny them these funerall honours which made many of their following kings to addict themselves to just actions too for feare of contumelious handling and sempiternall ignominy after their decease So this Author To which I shall adde Xenophons definition of a Kingdome and Tyranny A kingdome is an Empire over men by their free assents according to the Lawes of the City And a Tyranny is an unlawfull Empire over men against their wills which depends upon the will of the Prince And this observation of Polybius That Kings in ancient times did give themselves wholly to doe that which was honest and just and to suppresse the contrary the very beginning of all true kingdomes and the end for which kings were first instituted by the people Whiles they thus demeaned themselves they were subject to no envy because they differed not much from others neither in apparell nor in meat and drinke but observed a conversation of life conformable to other men and lived perpetually like to others But afterwards when those who obtained the principality of succession and the prerogative of their blood had those things already provided which made them able to secure themselves and to support their state following their lusts by reason of their abundance they then thought it belonged to Princes to be better clad then subjects to exceed them in costlinesse and variety of meats and to use venery with whom they pleased Hence envy and offence was begotten and implacable hatred and anger kindled and a kingdome by this meanes changed into a Tyranny Hence men most generous and magnanimous bold spirits unable to beare such affronts and insolences of Princes seditiously conspire against them and the people having got such Captaines to make resistance joyne with them for the foresaid causes that the Princes may be repressed And thus the forme of a Kingdome and Monarchy is utterly taken away by the roots and the beginning of an Aristocracy again laid the people refusing to set any more a King over them yet not daring to commit the Republike to many fearing as yet the iujustice of Superiours and therefore most esteeme equality and liberty So that the Soveraigne power of setling of changing the Kingdome and forme of government resides principally in the people who as hee there largely proves by the Lacedemonian and Roman state ought to enjoy the Supreame authority and to be above their Kings as it seems the Aegyptian did who deposed and expelled Evergetes their King for his cruelty and after him their King Ptolomaeus Auletes setting up Cleopatra his eldest child in his Threne and as the Romane Senate did who had power to dispose of the common Treasury and revenue one of the greatest points of Soveraignty to appoint Lieutenants and Governours of Provinces to grant Triumphes to dispose of Religion for which cause Fertullian saith that never any God was received in Rome without the decree of the Senate and to receive answer and dismisse the Ambassadours of Kings and Nations which none else did but the Senate whose Soveraigne power was such that Tiberius the Emperour in the beginning of his Reigne called the Senators assembled altogether in the Senate Indulgentissimos DOMINOS his most loving LORDS and moved the Senate to divide the Empire not to commit it all to one man as we read in Tacitus though they were his Subjects and inferiours when divided and severally considered And such Soveraigne power had the Panaetolium or generall assembly of Parliament among the Aetolians who received and answered all Embassadours determined all affaires of warre and peace it being provided by the Lawes of the Aetolians that nothing should be intreated of concerning peace or war but in their Panaetolium or Pelaicon Councell as Livy and Bodin record But to leave these ancient and come neerer our present neighbor Kings and Kingdomes of greatest eminencie and power which may parallell our owne The Kings of France to whom Caessanaeus in his Catalogus Gloriae mundi gives precedency before all others and to the Emperour himselfe while but elect before his Coronation have in ancient times been inferiour to their Kingdomes Parliaments and subject to their censures even to deposition if not more though some cry them up for absoluts Monarchs and make them little better then Tyrants now Iohn Bodin a learned French Lawyer and Statesman writes That in ancient times the Kings of the Cities of the Gaules were subject to their States whom Caesar for this cause oftentimes calleth Reguli little Kings being themselves subjects and justifiable to the Nobility who had all the Soveraignty causing them even to be put to death if they had so deserved And that is it for which Amphiorix the Captaine Generall whom they called the King of the Lingeois said Our commands are such as that the people hath no lesse power over us then we over the people Wherein he shewed evidently that he was no soveraigne Prince howbeit that it was not possible for him to have equall power with the people as we have before shewed Wherefore these sort of Princes if they polluted with wickednesse and villany cannot be chastised by the Authority and severity of the Magistrate but shall abuse their wealth and power unto the hurt and destruction of good men IT ALWAYES HATH AND SHALL BE LAWFVLL not for strangers onely but
divided the Land of France betweene them so that either of them should under the King Rule and Governe such proportion as then there was to them appointed Charlemayne soone after renounced his Government and turned Monke and Pipin as onely Ruler tooke upon him the charge of the whole Realme Pipin then considering in his minde in what danger and trouble before him his Father and he now had ruled the Land and that the King to whom belonged all the charge kept his Palaces and followed all his delights and pleasures without taking any paine for reformation of the same sent an ambassage to Pope Zachary asking his advice in point of conscience Whether it were more necessary or wealfull for the Realme of France that he should be admitted for King that did nothing but apply his minde to all bodily pleasures without care and charge takeâ— upon him for the guarding of the Land and the People of the same or he that tooke upon him all the charge and paine in defence of the Land and keeping of the people in the due subjection To this the Pope answered and wrote back to Pipin that he was best worthy and most profitable for the Realme to be admitted for King that ruled well the Commonalty by justice and prudence and the enemies thereof defended and subdued by his policie and manhood Aventine relates his answer more largely in these words I finde saith Zachary in the Story of Divine Scripture that the people fell away from their wretchlesse and lascivious king that despised the counsell of the wise men of the Realme and created a sufficient man one of themselves King God himselfe allowing their doings All Power and Rule belongs to God Princes are his Ministers in their Kingdomes And Rulers are therefore chosen for the people that they should follow the will of God the chiefe Ruler in all thing and not do what they list He is a true King that guideth the people committed to his charge according to the Prescript and Line of Gods Law all that he hath as power glory riches favour and dignitie HE RECEIVETH OF THE PEOPLE and the people MAY WHEN THE CAVSE REQVIRETH FORSAKE THEIR KING It is therefore LAVFVLL for the Franks and Germanes refusing this unkindly Monster Childericke to chuse some such as shall be able in warre and peace by his wisdome to protect and keep in safetie their Wives Children Parents Goods and Lives Which answer of the Pope recited and approved in our owne King Edward the Confessors Lawes and Childerickes deposition likewise Chap. 17. being declared to the Lords Barons and Commons of the Realme whom this Pope likewise wholly absolved from their allegiance to Childericke soone after they of one assent and minde proceeded and deposed and put downe their King and Governour Childericke being a Sott a foole a beast and one unfit to governe and closed him in a Monastery after he had reigned ten yeares in the Kings room by name onely which done they unanimously elected and crowned Pipin for their King By meanes whereof the Royall Line of Moroveus after 17 discents ended and the Crown was translated to Pipins blood Which act in point of policie is determined lawfull by Polybius who Writes That the reason why some Kingdomes became hereditary was onely this because their first Kings being vertuous and worthy men they were perswaded their Children would prove like them but if at any time they degenerat and prove otherwise and the posteritie of the first Kings displease the subjects they thenceforth make the Kingdome elective chusing Kings not according to their strength of body and mindes attempting great things but according to the difference of their will and reason manifested by their actions And by Aristotle who informes us That in Kingdomes confirmed in succession of blood this is to be numbred among the causes of their ruine that the Kingdomes descend to many contemptible and slothfull persons who although they obtaine no tyrannicall but Royall dignitie yet they live lustfully and proudly and so the Kingdome easily falls to ground and becomes a tyrannie the people being unwilling that such should rule over them and so either wholly alter the forme of government or make choice of a fitter King for the necessary preservation of the State yea this election in point of Police and Divinity too is justified and proved lawfull by Buchanan in his Book de Iure Regni apud Scotos by Iohn Mariana de Rege Regis Instit l. 1. c. 3 5. by Pope Zachary in his forceited Epistle by King Edward the Confessor in his Laws c. 17. by a generall Councell of all the Peers and Prelates of France Convocato enim Principum et Senatorum Concilio de COMMVNI SENSV ET VOLVNTATE OMNIVN Childericum solo nomine Regem à regni fastigio deponunt c. ac OMNIBVS GAVDENTIBVS ET VOLENTIBVS Pipinum super Francos REGNARE FACIVNT writes Antoninus and in a word our Bishop Bilson himselfe an Anti-Puritane and great Royalist affirmes That if the King be a naturall foole distracted and altogether unable to governe as Childericke was any Realme by publicke consent and advice may choose another to govern them of which more before Pipin deceasing Charlemain and Charles the great his sons reigned joyntly over the Frenchmen by their â—oyous admittance Having now two Kings instead of one Lewes sirnamed the godly sonne of Charles the great a pious yet unfortunate Prince by meanes of his sonne Lothair was first imprisoned and then by a Councell and Parliament held at Compaygne by authority of the spirituall and temporall Lords and of that Parliament discharged of all rule and dominion as well of the Empire as of the Realme of France after that shorne a Monke and thrust into the Monastery of Saint Marke where he was strictly guarded and when some of the Nobles and people afterwards desired Lothair to release and restore him to his former dignity he answered them That the deposing of him was done by the whole Authority of the Land wherefore if he should be againe restored it must be by the same Authority and not by him onely After which by the Lords assents hee was restored Lewes and Charles after Lewes Balbus their fathers death were joynt Kings of France and being very young by a Parliament held at Meaux Lewes the Emperour their Vncle was declared to be more apt to rule the Kingdome of France then these Infants or Barnard their Guardian and these Children held by some illegitimate Whereupon by the greater number of voyces an Ambassadour was sent to the Emperour to come and take upon him the Rule of middle France which he comming to doe his Nephewes friends compounded with him and then caused these Infants to be crowned and proclaimed Kings Charles the simple at his Fathers death Anno 895. being too yong to take upon him the charge of the Realme the Lords of France
misleading the Commonalty of the City said That albeit the King by his Prerogative might at his pleasure and for his advantage make his monies when he would and so to suffer them to be currant thorow his Realme yet for the weale and ease of his Subjects considering their manifold and late charges he was content that at this season this new money should be spared and that the 3. estates should be againe assembled and that they should deprive all such persons then bearing Offices as they should thinke prejudiciall to the Realme and â—ver that to ordaine such Money as might be beneficiall for the Land Of all which Grants the Provost to the intent that he might of authority shew them unto the Commonalty of the Citie desired a writing The which the Duke to appease the people though it were much contrary to his minde and his pleasure granted unto his request The thirtieth day of Ianuary ensuing the Duke at the request of the said Provost sent certaine Officers to the houses of Simon de Burg and others accused of misgoverning of the Realme whose houses the said Officers seized and made Inventories of their goods That done the Duke sent out Commissions and assembled the Three Estates againe at Paris the 15. day of February Where in the parliament chamber in the presence of the Duke Estates and divers Nobles Robert Coke Bishop of Laon by command of the Duke made a long Oration of the misguiding the King and the Land by meanes of evill Officers as well by changing of money as other many unlawfull Excises and Taxes to the great impoverishment of the Commonalty of the Realme and to the singular enriching and advancement of the said Officers Wherefore the Three Estates prayed that all such Officers may be removed from their Offices and other that shall be thought more beneficiall for the King and his Realme to be admitted Of which Officers the Archbishop of Roan then newly made Cardinall was noted for one and other to the number of 21. whereof some were right neere to the Duke After which Oration Sir Iohn de Pigquine in the name of the Three Estates offered That the Three Estates should finde to the King 30000. men for an whole yeare so as all things might after that day be ordered as the Bishop had before devised All which Articles were unto them by the Duke granted and incontinuently all such Officers as they before had named were clearly avoided and other such as by the said 3. Estates were thought most necessary were put and chosen to their roomes except that some of the old as Masters of Accounts and some of the Presidents and Masters of the Requests were holden in for a time to shew unto the new how they should order and guide their said Offices And the 26 of March was a new money proclaimed thorow Paris such as the said 3. Estates had newly devised The King informed of this sends the Archbishop of Sennes and two Earles from Burdeaux where he was prisoner with a Proclamation which they caused to be proclaimed in Paris the 6. of April That the people should not pay such Subsidies as the 3. Estates had ordained for the waging of the 30000. men aforesaid or for the Kings fine and also that the 3. Estates after that day should no more assemble for any causes or matter before touched till they had farther knowledge of the Kings pleasure For which Proclamation the Citizens of Paris much blamed the said Bishop and Earles who purchased it who as soone as this Proclamation was made for feare of the people fled from Paris Vpon this Proclamation the Commons waxed so mad that they left their occupations drew them to Conventicles and Companies and used many unfitting words of the King and his Counsell Whereupon to avoid inconvenience the Duke commanded a Watch to be kept in the City day and night and certaine Gates of the City to bee kept shut Vpon the 9. day of April another Proclamation was made all contrary to that other By vertue whereof it was charged that the fore-said Subsidies should bee levyed and also that the 3. Estates should re-assemble at Paris the 5. day after Easter and there to proceed upon all such matters as were before by them begar When the Estates meet againe there grew a difference between them and the Duke about the subsidies for the finding of 30000. men the summe assessed for that purpose being too small by much the Clergy and Lords then refusing to pay any more then they were first sessed unto By meanes of which difference the assembly of State was dissolved Whereupon strait command was given by the Duke to the Provost of Paris and others who bare principall sway within the City and were great stricklers and doers in the Assemblies of the 3. Estates so that much of the businesse was ruled by them and their meanes that they should cease their Authority and not to deale any more with the rule of the Realme but onely with the good rule and government of the City of Paris That done the Duke rode about to divers good Townes making request to them for ayde and to have this new money currant among them But he sped little of his purpose Then shortly after he assembled at Paris certaine person of 20. or 30. Townes next adjoyning with whom he held a Counsell for sundry dayes who in the end shewed him that they might bring nothing to effect without the assembling the 3. states besought him that they might be eft-soon assembled trusting that they would then satisfie his minde Upon which the Duke sent forth Commissions charging the said 3. Estates to appeare before him at Paris the next Wednesday after All-Saints day which they did where the Duke condiscending to their former Articles he gave the King of Navarre and the 3. Estates full content who promised that they would demeane themselves to his Father and him as true and dutifull Subjects and advising him to take upon him the Government of the Realme they created him Regent of France during his fathers imprisonment After this hee assembled the Estates and chiefe Burgesses of Cities at Paris and acquainted them with the King of Englands large demands for his fathers inlargement which were so displeasing to all the company that they answered The said Treatie was neither honourable nor profitable And rather then the King should binde him and his land to such inconveniences they would prepare to make sharpe Warre against England whereupon they granted to finde divers thousands of men at Arms at their owne costs for certain moneths to relieve the King And at another Parliament assembled when Iohn was dead and Charles came to the Crowne they granted an excise of every 4 penny of all things bought and sold for the maintenance of his warres the spiritualty granted him a disme and the Lords and Gentlemen were stinted at a certaine And in the eleventh yeare of his reigne he assembled his
made by the Court of Parliament declared and did declare the Queen his Mother Regent in France and to have the care of bringing up his Person and the Government of the affairs of his Kingdome during his minoritie commanding the Edict to be enrolled and published in all the Bayliweeks Senescaushes and other jurisdictions depending upon the said Court of Parliament and in all other Parliaments of the Realme so that the Queene Mother was setled in the Regency by the Parliament and whole State of France After which Pasquier Counsellor and Master of Requests writ her a large Letter touching the Government of the State wherein he informed her That she must not forbear to assemble the Estates for the reason that some would suggest unto her that they will be some blemish to her greatnesse it is quite contrary The Estates having confirmed it by publike authoritie will settle it fully Commonly the Estates assemble to provide for the present and future complaints of the generall of this Monarchy and to reduce things to their ancient course the people being the foundation whereon this Realm is built and the which being ruined it is impossible it should subsist take away these new Edicts Impositions and Subsidies it is better to gratifie a people than to intreat them roughly Above all things beware that you follow not your own opinion alone in managing the affaires of the Realme Hereupon four and fifty Edicts and Commissions were revoked wherewith the Subjects had been oppressed When the King was to be Crowned the Prelates made this request to him at the Altar before his Coronation We pray and require that you would grant unto every one of us and the Churches whereof we have the charge the Canonicall priviledges good lawes and justice and that you will defend us as a king ought all his Bishops and their Churches Whereunto the king answered I promise to preserve you in your Canonicall priviledges as also your Churches and that I WILL GIVE YOV in the future GOOD LAWS and do you Iustice and will defend you by the help of God according to my power as a king in his Realm OVGHT TO DO IN RIGHT AND REASON to his Bishops and their Churches After which having been acknowledged their lawfull Prince BY A GENERALL CONSENT OF ALL THE ORDERS the Cardinall of Ioyeuse presented unto him the Oath of the Kingdome the sacred Bond of the fundamentall Lawes of the State the which he took publikely in these words with invocation of the Name of God having his hand upon the Gospell which he kissed with great reverence I promise in the Name of Iesus Christ these things to the Christians subject unto me First I will endeavour that the Christian people shall live peaceably within the Church of God Moreover I will provide that in all vocations theft and all iniquitie shall cease Besides I will command that in all judgements equitie and mercy shall take place to the end that God who is gentle and mercifull may have mercy both on you and me Furthermore I will seek by all means in good saith to chase out of my Iurisdiction and the Lands of my subjection all Hereticks denounced by the Church promising by Oath to observe all that hath been said So help me God and this holy Evangell After this Bellarmines Book of the Popes power in temporall causes Becanus and Scoppius Books Marianaes Book de Rege Regis instatutione Suarez his Book with others which taught That the Pope was above Kings in temporall things and that it was lawfull for private subjects by the Popes authoritie to murther kings that were Heretikes and that the murthers of Henry the third and fourth by Chastle and Ravillac were lawfull and commendable were prohibited and condemned to be burnt by Edicts of Parliament Anno 1611. the Reformed Churches of France at their generall Assembly at Samure by the Kings permission made a generall Vnion which they did swear to keep inviolably for the good quiet and advancement of the said Churches the service of the King and Queen Regent and preservation of the Estate and appointed six Deputies therein for the dispatch of all their affaires Anno 1614. the Prince of Conde with divers other Princes Dukes Peer Noblemen and Officers of the Crowne retinued from the Court in discontent and meeting at Meziers writ severall Letters to the Queen Parliament and others complaining therein of divers grievances and disorders in the government which they desired might be redressed by summoning a generall Assembly of the three Estates to be free and safe to be held within three moneths at the furthest protesting that they desired nothing but peace and the good of the Realme that they would not attempt any thing to the contrary unlesse by the rash resolution of their enemies who covered themselves with the Cloke of State under the Queene Regents authority they should be provoked to repell the injuries done unto the King and State BY A NATVRALL IVST AND NECESSARY DEFENCE After which with much adoe Articles of Peace were concluded on at Saint Manehold between the King Queen Regent and these Nobles wherein it was among other things accorded That the generall Estates of the Realme should be assembled at Sens by the four and 20. day of August in which the Deputies of the three Estates may with all libertie propound what soever they shall think in their consciences to be for the good of the Realme and case of the subject that thereby the King with the advice of the Princes Estates might make some good Laws and Ordinances to contain every man in his dutie to fortifie the Lawes and Edicts made for the preservation of the publike tranquilitie and to reforme the disorders which may give just occasion of complaint and discontent to his good subjects That the Kings Mariage with Spaine formerly concluded on should be respited and not proceeded in during his minority that all Garisons put into any places of the Realme by reason of the present motions should be discharged that Letters Patents be directed to all Courts of Parliament to be verefied by which his Majestie shall declare that the said Princes Nobles and others of what quality and condition soever which have followed and assisted them in these alterations had no bad intentions against his service with all clauses necessary for their safeties and discharges that they may not be called in question hereafter and that they shall be restored to their Offices Estates and Dignities to enjoy them as they had formerly done And in like manner his Majestie shall write to all Princes Estates and Common-wealths allied to the Crowne and men of qualitie shall be sent expresly to them to let them understand what he had found concerning the innocency and good intention of the said Princes Officers and Nobles After which the three Estates were published Deputies elected and the King by his Councel and Parliament of Paris was declared of full age
be supprest by such a conspiracie Vpon this the king and Q. Mother through advise of these ill Counsellors raise an Army declare these Princes and Nobles Rebels and Traitors if they submit not by a day whereupon they Arm raise Forces in their own the publikes defence and being at Noyon concluded That as their Armes were levyed for the maintenance of the Crown so they should be maintained by it to the which end they seized on the kings Rents and Revenues in sundry places Mean while the Protestants being assembled in a generall Synod at Grenoble Marsh Desdiguires makes an Oration to them to disswade them from opposing the mariage with Spain wherein he hath this memorable passage to justifie the lawfulnesse of a necessary defensive war for the preservation of Religion and Liberties We have leisure to see the storme come and to prepare for our own preservation Finally having continued constant in our Duties if they seek to deprive us of our Religion and to take that from us wherein our libertie and safetie depends purchased by the blood of our Fathers and our own and granted unto us by that great King Henry the fourth the restorer of France we shall enter into this comerce full of justice and true zeale finde againe in our breasts the courage and vertue of our Ancestors We shall be supported IN OVR JVST DEFENCE by all good Frenchmen assisted by all Princes and Estates which love the true Religion or the good of this State and in a word we shall be favoured of the blessings of God whereof we have hitherto had good experience in our Arms and which will be to the glory of his Name and the spirituall advancement of our Churches After which the Duke of Rhoan and Protestants in defence of their Religion and Liberties joyn with the Princes and Nobles At last both sides came to Articles of agreement made at Luudun Anno 1616. whereof these were a parcell That the grievances of the generall State should be speedily answered That Soveraign Courts should be preserved in their authority and the Remonstrances of the Parliament and Peers considered of That such as had been put from their Offices should be restored That all moneys they had taken out of the kings Revenues should be discharged All Edicts of pacification granted to them of the Reformed Religion observed The prince of Conde and all those of either Religion who had assisted him in this war held for the Kings good and loyall subjects all illegall Imposts removed and all prisoners taken on either side set at liberty Anno 1617. the King and Queene Mother seizing upon the Prince of Conde his person and sending him to the Bastile upon false pretences of disloyaltie and treason caused new insurrections warres and tumults and the Princes hereupon meeting at Soyssons resolved to make open war to seize on the Kings Revenues and to fortifie those Towns and Castles which they held in their Government which they executed and withall set forth a Remonstrance of their grievances unto the king complaining especially against the Marshall of Ancre and his Wife with their adheronts who were the causes of all their miseries who having drawn unto himselfe the whole administration of the Realme made himselfe master of the Kings Councels Armies and Forts thereby supprest the lawfull libertie and Remonstrances of the Parliament caused the chief Officers to be imprisoned and was the cause of the violence done to the Prince of â—onde first Prince of the Blood To the end therefore that they might not be reproached to have been so little affected to his Majestie so ungratefull to their Countrey and so unfaithfull to themselves and their posterity as to hold their peace seeing the prodigious favour and power of this stranger they beseech his Majestie to provide by convenient means for the disorders of the Estate and to cause the Treaty of Loudun to be observed and to call unto his Councels the Princes of the Blood with other Princes Dukes Peers ancient Officers of the Crowne and Councellors of State whom the deceased King had imployed during his reigne Withall they publish a solemne Declaration and Protestation for the restoring of the Kings authority and preservation of the Realme against the conspiracie and tyrannie of the Marshall of Ancre and his adherents Who finding no safetie in the settling of justice resolved to make triall of his power by violating the publike faith thereby to plunge the Realme into new combustions conspiring to destroy the princes of the blood of Peers and chiefe Officers of the Crowne and to oppresse them altogether with the State who might be an obstacle to his ambitious designes To which end he raised false accusations against them as if they meant to attempt the Kings and Queen Mothers persons and caused the King to go in person to his Court of Parliament to publish a Declaration whereby they were declared guilty of Treason though at last being better informed he declared them to be his good Subjects and caused De Ancre to be suddenly slain in the Louure and his Wife to be legally condemned and executed Vpon which the new Councellors and Officers advanced by him were removed the old restored the Princes reconciled to the King and by him declared for his good and loyall subjects Vpon which followed a generall assembly of the Estates wherein divers grievances were propounded and some redressed the King therein craving their advice for the setling and ordering of his Privie Councell Anno 1620. there happen differences between the King and Queen Mother who fortified Towns and raised an Army against the king at last they came to an agreement and were reconciled The two following years were spent in bloody civill warres betweene the King and those of the Religion who avowed their defensive warres lawfull which at last concluded in peace that lasted not long but brake out into new flames of war by reason of the great Cardinall Richelieu who of late years proved the greatest Tyrant and Oppressour that France ever bred reducing both Nobles Gentlemen and Peasants into absolute slavery and vassallage to make the King an absolute Monarch of France and himselfe both Pope and Monarch of the world But he lately dying by the of Divine Iustice of filthy Vicers and Diseases and the King since being some say poysoned by the Iesuites who murthered his two immediate Predecessors wise men conjecture the French will now at last revive and regain their ancient just hereditary freedom rights Liberties and cast of that insupportable yoke of bondage under which they have been oppressed for sundry years and almost brought to utter desolation I have the longer insisted on these Histories of the Kings and Kingdom of Frances which clearly demonstrate the Realm Parliament and three Estates of France to be the Soveraigne Power in that Kingdom in some sort paramount their kings them selves who are no absolute Monarchs nor exempted from the Laws jurisdiction restraints censures
their consents who shall be the next Heir to avoid questions and commotions about the Title to the Crown That where the Right of the Crown is in controversie the whole Kingdom and State ought to decide the right and settle it where they see best cause That if the right Heir in Hereditary Kingdoms yea in Spain be an Ideot Infant Woman or a person unmeet or not so fit to Governâ— as others of the blood he may be lawfully put from the Crown and another of their Race lawfully substituted King in his place by the whole State especially when the good or safetie of the Commonwealth requires it because the safety of the people is the supremost Law and what they by common consent have Enacted onely for the publike safetie they may without any obstacle alter when things require it by like common consent especially because the hereditary Rights of reigning are for the most part made rather by the dissimulation of the People not daring to resist the will of former Princes then by their certain will and the free consent of all the Estates That he which is thus settled by consent of all the Estates hath a just Title against the next Heir of the Blood and his Issue who are put by the Crown else divers Kings and Princes now reigning in Spain elswhere should be usurpers and want good Titles to their crownes they or their Ancestorâ— being not the next right heires of the Royall Stock for all which particulars he gives sundry instances in the Kingdomes of Spaine as in Berengaria Blanch the Mother of Lewes of France Ferdinand Sancho the younger sonne of Alfonso Henry the Bastard Iohn King of Portugall Fardinand and Iohn the 2. of Aragon c. concluding That if the King degenerate into a Tirant by subverting Religion Lawes Liberties oppressing murthering or deflowring his subjects the whole Kingdome may not onely question admonish and reprehend him but in case he prove incorrigible after admonition deprive him and substitute another in his place which saith he hath been done more then once in Spain Thus King Peter was publikely rejected for his cruelty to his subjects and Henry his Brother though of an unclean Mother obtained the Crowne so Henry his Nephewes Nephew for his slothfulnesse and evill manners was deposed by the Nobles suffrages and Alphanso his Brother though but a yong child proclaimed King After his death Elizabeth Henry his sister had the chiefe government of the Realme leaving Henry And for a conclusion he addes That such a Tyrannicall King continuing incorrigible after publike admonitions of the whole State if there be no hopes of amendment may not onely be deposed but put to death and murthered by the whole State or any particular persons by their appointment yea without it a note somewhat above Ela if he be declared a publike enemy by the whole state and in case the whole states cannot publikely assemble by reason of such a Princes knowne notorious tyranny he writes That then in such a case it is lawfull for any private man to murther him to free the Countrey and Kingdome from destruction Adding that it is a wholsome meditation for Princes to be perswaded that if they oppresse the Common-wealth if they become intoller able thorow vices and filthinesse that they live in such a condition that they may not onely be slaine of right but with laud and glory Peradventure this feare â—â—â—retard some Princes that they give not themselves wholly to be corrupted with vices flatterers and cast bridles upon their fury That which is the chiefe let the Prince bee perswaded that the authority of the whole Common-wealth is greater then his being but one neither let him beleeve the worst of men affirming the contrary for to gratifie him which is very pernicious All these positions of Mariana however other Kings and Kingdomes may relish them especially the last touching private Subjects which few can approve the Parliaments of France doing publike execution on this Book as they had just cause for extolling and justifying the barbaroâ—s murther of their King Henry the 3. by James Clement a Dominican Frier l. 1. c. 6. p. 51. to 57. and justifying the Guises Rebellion are yet authorized as Catholike and Orthodox by the most Catholike King of Spaine and the Emperour of Germany in whose Kingdomes they passe for currant coyne the most dangerous of them being seconded not onely by Hieronymus Blanca in his Aragonensium Rerum Commentariis Iohannis Pistorius Hispaniae Illustratae c. and other Spanish Historians collected by him but likewise by Alvarius Pelagius Cardinall Tolet Capistranus Dominicus Bannes Franciscus Victoria Simancha Patensis Gregory de Valentia Suarez the Doctors of Salamancha Becanus Bellarmine with other Spanish Iesuites Writers who most heretically affirme That even the Pope alone either with or without a Councell for heresie as they deem it and obstinacy against the See of Rome may excommunicate censure depose kill or murther any Christian Princes depose them from their thrones dispose of their Crownes to others at their pleasures absolve their subjects wholly from their allegeance and give subjects power to rise up in armes against and murther them by open force or secret treachery which Bishop Bilson truly affirmes to be farre more dangerous and derogatory to Princes then to attribute such a power not to any particular persons but to their own whole Kingdomes and Parliaments onely who being many in number of the same Nation and Religion with and having many dependances on and many engagements by oath duty favours benefits to their Princes lesse malice against them judging onely according to the fundamentall Lawes of the Realme and former presidents of their Ancestors and aiming at nothing but their Kingdomes safety are like to be more just indifferent Iudges of their Princes action when questioned then the Pope a meer enemy and forraigner who proceeds by no other authority but what he hath unjustly usurped from Kings and by no other rules but his owne will pride malice honour or profit I have thus given you an account of the Kings of Spaines subordination to their whole kingdomes and Lawes in point of Thesis and positive Doctorine approved by themselves professed by their eminentest Writers I shall now proceed to Historicall examples to confirme it in point of practise Ordogno the 14. king of Castile summoned 4. Earles of Castile to appeare before him who refused to goe to the warres against the Saracens promising them safe conduct not withstanding he commanded them to be apprehended imprisoned and slain for which bloody Treachery those of Castile rebelled against him rejecting his government and providing for the safety of them and theirs Duos Milites non de potentioribus sed de prudentioribus eligerunt quos Iudices statuerunt c. They elected two prudent Knights of their owne to be their Magistrates and Iudges to governe them to manage their warres and administer justice to them the one
certain dangers many things are effected by triall which seemed difficult to slothfull men I know not what stupidity hath seized on many whom neither glory moves nor the infamy of the wretchednesse thinking it great liberty enough if they be freed from scourges I suppose the Popes ears will not be so averse to our affairs that he will not be moved with our most just prayers and the equity of the cause Let some now be sent who may boldly defend the cause of our liberty before him and teach him that the Germans demand unjust things Mine opinion is that the liberty gained by our Ancestors is to be defended with arms against the attempts of all men and with this my sword I will maintain THAT THEY ARE MOST WICKED TRAITORS TO THEIR COVNTREY who out of a simulation of a fond Religion or shew of preposterous caution shall give contrary advice neither shall resolve that servitude is to be repudiated with greater care by us then domination is affected by them So farre forth as every one shall addict himself to the liberty of his Countrey so far shall I be a friend unto him or a deadly enemy This opinion of Roderic prevailed in pursuit whereof they raise an army of ten thousand men whereof he was made Generall they send Ambassadours to the Pope and Councill whereof Roderic was chief and upon a full hearing of the cause before Rupert Cardinall of Saint Sabria the Popes Legat at Tholouse judgement was pronounced for the liberty of Spain and it was decreed That the German Emperors should from thenceforth have no power nor jurisdiction over the Kings of Spain which was afterwards confirmed by the customes of the people the consent of other Nations the publike resolution and judgement of Lawyers as Iacobus Valdesius in his Book de dignitate Regum Hispaniae printed 1602. Cap. 18. proves at large The Generall History of Spain records that the Councill of Florence resolved that seeing the Kings of Spain had defended and conquered their Realms by Arms without any ayd from the Emperours they were free and exempt from all subjection and acknowledgement to the Emperors whereof we may read the Glosse upon the Chapter Adrianus Pâ—pa distinct 63. The like priviledge have the Kings of France the State of Venice the Kings of England and some others Which clearly demonstrates the Soveraign power of Kingdoms and Nations even over their Kings and Princes and that they may justly defend themselves and Elect other Princes when they are deserted or destroyed by them Anno 1083. Sacho Ramires king of Aragon to supply the charges of his wars against the Moors was sometimes forced to use the revenues of his Clergy his Treasure being not able to furnish so great a charge but the Bishops of his Countrey who affected nothing more but to enrich their own Order and State opposed themselves against him and afflicted him in such sort as putting him in a vain fear that he was damned for this cause They made him do Penance in the Church of Roda before Saint Vincents Altar in the presence and at the pnrsuite of Raymund Dolmare Bishop of that place the Bishop of Jarca and others and to confesse publikely that he had grieâ—ously offended Thus these good Fathers publikely insulted over their Soveraigne Anno 1091. king Alphonso granted this priviledge among other to Toledo That the City of Toledo might never be alienated from the Crown nor given upon any Title whatsoever to man woman or child Anno 1076. Sancho King of Navarre was slain in battell by his brother Raymond thinking to reigne after him but the Navarroyes expelled him out of their confines disdaining that he should raigne over them who had embrued his hands in his kingly brothers blood and sending to Sancho Ramires 4. king of Aragon called him to raigne over them because their slain kings sonnes were too young to raigne and protect them from their enemies by which meanes the kingdomes of Arragon and Navarre were united Veracha Queen of Castile a most lascivious open Adultresse by her unchast life so faâ—re provoked her husband Alphonso that he was divorced from her made warre against her and confined her After which she still continuing in her lewdnesse the Nobility and States of Castile and Leon revolt from her take armes against her depose her from the Crowne and elect and crown her sonne Alphonso the 8. king An. 1122. allowing her onely a pension to support her life Alphonso King of Arragon by his last Will and Testament most solemnly ratified for the expiation of his sins gave divers crown Lands Tenements Revenues and Legacies to Religious houses and persons An. 1132. but being prejudiciall to the Crown his Will after his death was held void and not put in execution he being slain by the Moores An. 1134. the States of Arragon elected one Peter Tares for their King who growing exceeding proud of his new dignity began to despise the Nobles and abrogate the Lawes and customes of the Country And the Nobles being assembled at a general Assembly of the States going to visit him he comanded his Porter to shut them out saying that Mounsieur was busie about matters of great importance but they understood afterwards that the great affairs causing him to exclude his friends were his Barbar was trimming him which so incensed the Nobles and great men that the next day they held their generall Assembly of the Estates without the King where they first of all decreed to depose their new king because being â—n honour he had no understanding of himselfe and because they found he would grow more proud and insolent afterwards whereupon expelling Peter the Estates assembling at Boria elected Ramier a Monke brother to king Alphonso for their King who was much deriued of his Nobles for his Monkish simplicity and at last turned Monk againe But those of Navarre thinking a Monk to be better acquainted with the matters of a Monastery then how to govern a Kingdome and being jealous that the Arragonoys by chusing a King of the blood Royall of Arragon would by this meanes aspire to the chief places of honour and favour in Court it was concluded that the Estates of Navarre should assemble at Pampelone where they chose Garcia Remires their King of Navarre and so the Realmes of Arragon and Navarre which had been united 58. yeers were seperated in these two Kings The Kingdomes of Spain being often before and since this time united and divided as the people and Realmes assented or dissented thereunto Not to mention the troubles of Castile by reason of the nonage of their king Alphonso the fourth of whose custody and tuition the assembly of the Estates disposed or how some Knights of Castile slew a Iew with whom this king was so enamoured that he forgot his new Spouse and almost lost his sences Anno 1179. king Alphonso assembled the Estates of Castile at Burgon to leavie a Taxe upon the
in sundry Declarations justified their rejection of Ferdinand their Election of Frederick and his Title to be just and lawfull with their preceedent and subsequent warres in defence of Religion Yea Fredericke himselfe by sundry Declarations maintained his own Title and the lawfulnes of these wars which passages and proceedings being yet fresh in memory and at large related by Grimston in his Imperiall History I shall forbear to mention them By this briefe account you may easily discerne the Soveraigne power of the Realm and States of Bohemia over their kings and Princes most of the great Offices of which Realme are hereditary and not disposable by the King but States who Elect their Kings themselves and their greatest Officers too Poland For the Kings and Kingdome of Poland Martinus Chromerus in his Polonia lib. 2. De Republica et Magistratibus Poloniae informes us that the Princes and Dukes of Poland before it was advanced unto a Kingdome and the Kings of it ever since it became a Realme were alwaies elected by the chiefest Nobles and States unanimous suffrages That after the Kings of Poland became Christians their power began to bee more restrained then it was at first the Clergy being wholly exempt from their royall Iurisdiction That the King cannot judge of the life or fame of a knight unlesse in some speciall cases without it be in the assembly of the Estates with the Senate nor yet publickly make Warre or Peace with any nor impose Taxes or Tributes or new Customes nor alienate any of the goods of the Realme nor yet doe or decree any greater thing pertaining to the Common-wealth without the Senate or Parliaments assent Neither can hee make new Lawes nor publickly command money in an extraordinary manner nor coine money nor nominate a Successor not with the Senate without the consent of the Nobility whether of Knights or Gentlemens Order By or out of whom all publicke Magistrates and Senators almost are chosen so as now the summe or chiefest power of the Republicke is residing in them So that the Kingdome and Republicke of the Polonians doth not much differ in reason from that of the Lacedâ—monians in ancient times and of the Venetians now An Oath is exacted of the new King when he is crowned to this effect That he shall raigne according to the Lawes and institutes of his Predecessors and will safely conserve to every order and man his right priviledge and benefit confirmed by former Kings nor will he diminish any of the borders or goods of the Realme but will according to his power recover those that are lost from others After all which the Senate sweare fealty to him c. The Revenues Tributes and Customes of the King are all reduced to a certainty the Nobles Clergie are exempted from Taxes The king by the Lawes of King Alexander is prohibited to alien to any one the Lands of the Crowne No new Lawes can be made nor old ones repealed but by the king Senate and Nobles assembled in Parliament And because there is wont to be in highest power a slippery and ready degree to Tyrannie certaine Senators and Councellours are adjoyned to the King who may direct his Councells and Actions to the safety of the Common-wealth and his judgments according to the Rule of justice and equitie and with their wholsome monitions and Councells may as there shall be occasion as it were with certaine living Lawes both informe his minde and moderate his power This Royall Senate much greater now then in times past consists of a certaine number of men which wee call the Senators or Councellours of the REALME who are not admitted to the Councell without an Oath and this Office is perpetuall during life having certaine Honours and Magistracies thereto annexed partly Ecclesiasticall partly Civill It consists of 96. persons in all some of them Bishops others Palatines Knights Castellanes and other Officers of the Realme The Chancellor of the Realme may signe many things without the Kings Privitie and may deny to seale those things which are contrary to Law though the king command them Most of the great Officers and Magistrates are chosen in Parliament and cannot be displaced but in Parliament and that for some great offence Their Parliaments or Generall Assemblies of the States are held much like ours once every yeare at least and some times every fift or sixth moneth if there be occasion and then they are kept constantly at one place to wit at Petricow or Warsavia in the midst of the Kingdome unlesse it be upon some extraordinary just occasion and then the king by advice of this Councel may sommon the Parliament at another place It is provided by a Law within these 20. yeares That it shall not be lawfull to the King to make a warre without the assent of his Parliament and Great Councell and that the Nobles as oft as there is occasion shall at their owne costs without wages defend the borders of the Realme yet not without the King unlesse it be during the Interregnum but they may not be compelled to goe out of the Realme to any Forraigne warre without wages the Souldiers wages are reduced to a certainety and asseased by publicke consent in Parliament which Orders all Military and Civill Affaires So Cromerus For their carriage towards their ill Kings I shall give you onely a short account Miesco their second King being unfit to governe a man given wholly to his belly ease sleepe pleasure and governed by his Queene thereupon most of his subjects revolted from him and he dying the Polonians at first for many yeares refused to chuse Cazimirus his Son King least he should follow his fathers step till at last after a long Interregnum when he had turned Monke they elected him King Boleslaus his sonne a man of a dissolute life given to lust and the pâ—st of the Realme was excommunicated by the Bishop of Cracow for his wickednes for which cause he slew him Whereupon the Pope deprived him and Poland of the Crowne and absolved his Subjects from their obedience to him who expelled and forced him to flee out of the Realme into Hungary where he became mad and died Myâ—zlaus the 10. King of Poland exercising tyranny every where upon his people by reason of his power and allies was deposed by his subjects and Cazâ—miâ—us elected King in his stead He was three or foure times deposed â—nd put by the Crowne Boleslaus who succeeded Henry was deprived of the Monarchy Henry was surprised and most strictly imprisoned Boleslaus was slaine by his Nobles and Vladislaus Locktect elected King in his stead ravishing virgins Matrons and not reforming things according to promise the Nobles hereupon assembling together An 1300. abrogated his election as pernicious and chose Wenceslaus King of Bohemia King in his place And not to recite more ancient histories of such like nature King Henry the third of Poland was elected and sworne King upon conditions which he
king then he was no king before they had made him as many Divines most sottishly averre against the very letter of the Text and Iosephus who writes That it pleased the Assembly of the Israelites there held that HEE SHOULD RECEIVE THE KINGDOM BY THE PEOPLES CONSENT And Ieroboam and ALL THE CONGREGATION OF ISRAEL came and spake unto Rehoboam saying Thy Father made our yoake grievous now therefore make thou the grievous service of thy Father and his heavy yoake which he put upon us lighter AND WE WILL SERVE THEE because naturally subjects delight in mild Kings who will somwhat descend from their altitudes saith Iosephus This was the condition they propounded to him before they would accept him for their king and upon this condition only would they admit him to reigne over them therefore doubtlesse the disposall of the Crown and limitation of the kings royall power resided in all the congregation who had authority to prescribe their kings what equall and just conditions they pleased And he said unto them depart yet for three dayes then come again to me and the people departed Hereupon Rehoboam consulted with the old men that stood before Solomon his Father while he lived and said how doe you advise that I may answer this people And they spake unto him saying If thou wilt be A SERVANT unto this people this day and wilt SERVE THEM and answer them and speak good words to them THEN THEY WILL BE THY SERVANTS FOR EVER But he forsooke the Counsell of the old men which they had given him and consulted with the young men that were grown up with him and which stood before him and following their ill advise when Ieroboam and all the People came to Rehoboam the third day as he had appointed the King answered the people roughly and forsaking the old mens Counsell he spake unto them after the Counsell of the young men saying My Father made your yoake heavy and I will adde to your yoake my Father chastised you with whips but I will chastise you with scorpions Wherefore the King HEARKNED NOT UNTO THE PEOPLE for the cause was from the Lord c. SO WHEN ALL ISRAEL SAW THAT THE KING HEARKNED NOT VNTO THEME the People answered the King through indignation with one voyce writes Iosephus saying What portion have we in David NEITHER HAVE WEE INHERITANC IN THE SONNE OF IESSE that is we have not intailed our Subjection nor the inheritance of this our Realme to David and his seed for ever but are still free to elect what King we please to thy Tents O Israel Now see to thine House David so Israel departed to their Tent. But as for the children of Israel which dwelt in the Cities of Judah Rehoboam reigned over them the Tribes of Iudah and Beniamin CHOOSING HIM THEIR KING BY THEIR COMMON SVFFRAGES writes Iosephus Then King Rehoboam sent Adoram who was over the Tribute to excuse saith Iosephus the petulancy of his young tongue and to appease the mindes of the enraged vulgar And all Israel stoned him with stones that he dyed therefore King Rehoboam imagining truly that himselfe was stoned in his servant and fearing lest the once conceived hatred should be poured out on his own head tremblingly getting up into his chariot as hastily as he could made speed to flee to Ierusalem So Israel fell away from the house of David unto this day And it came to passe when ALL ISRAEL heard that Ieroboam was come again that they sent and called him unto the Congregation AND MADE HIM KING OVER ALL ISRAEL c. it being so preordained by God 1 King 12. 26. to 41. Loe here the whole Congregation or Parliament of Israel if I may so stile it had full and free power to reiect Rehoboam from the Crown for refusing to subscribe to their conditions to elect Ieroboam for their lawfull King and erect a new Kingdome of their owne divided ever after from that of Iudah which action I shall prove anon to be lawfull warranted by Gods owne divine authority and no sinne nor rebellion at all in the People who never admitted Rehoboam for or submitted to him as their lawfull Soveraigne So Iehu having slain King Ioram Ahabs eldest sonne sent a Letter to Samaria where his other 70. sonnes were brought up to the Rulers and Elders there wishing them to look out THE BEST AND MEETEST of their Masters sonnes and set him on his Fathers throne and fight for their Masters house But they being exceedingly afraid said two Kings could not stand before him how then shall wâ— stand and sent word to Iehu We are thy servants and will doe all that thou shalt bid us WE WILL NOT MAKE ANY KING A clear evidence that the kingdom was then elective and that they had power to choose the meetest man not eldest brother for their king After this Zimri slaying Baasha king of usrael and usurping the Crown the people then encamped about Gibbethon hearing of it that Zimri had conspired and also slain the King Wherefore ALL ISRAEL MADE OMRI Captain of the Host king over Israel that day in the Campe who burnt Zimri in his Palace then were the People divided into two parts halfe of the People followed Tibni to make him king and halfe followed Omri But the people that followed Omri prevailed against the people that followed Tibni so Tibni dyed and Omri Reigned being made king onely by the peoples free election without any divine designation So Ioash the sonne of Ahaziah when Athaliah had usurped the Crowne and kingdome of Iudah neer seven yeers space was MADE KING anointed and crowned by Iehoiadah the High Priest the Captaines of hundreds and ALL THE PEOPLE OF THE LAND who rejoyced at it when he was but 7. yeeres old and Athaliah was apprehended deposed and murthered by them as an Vsurpresse So Amaziah King of Iudah being slain by a Conspiracie at Lachish ALL THE PEOPLE OF IVDAH tooke Vzziah who was but 16. yeers old and MADE HIM KING instead of his Father Vzziah king of Iudah being smitten with Leprosie unto the day of his death dwelt in a severall house Iotham his son in the mean time by common consent was over this house judging the people of the Land Ammon king of Iudah being slain by his own servants the people of the Land slew all them that had conspired against Ammon And THE PEOPLE OF THE LAND MADE Iosiah his sonne King in his stead And after Iosiah his death the PEOPLE OF THE LAND took Iehoabaz the sonne of Iosiah and MADE HIM KING in his Fathers stead in Ierusalem From all which sacred Texts and Presidents as likewise from Hosea 8. 4. THEY HAVE SET VP KINGS But not by mee THEY HAVE MADE PRINCES and I knew it not it is most apparant that the kings of Israel and Iudah were usually elected by and derived their Royall authority from the people who made them kings and received not their
kingdomes and Crowns immediatly from God himself by a divine right which may be further conmed by the 1. Macab 9. 28. 29. 30. After the death of Iudas Maccabeus all Iudas his friends came unto Ionathan his brother and said unto him since thy brother Iudas dyed we have none like to him to goe forth against our enemies Now therefore WEE HAVE CHOSEN THEE this day TO BE OVR PRINCE and Captain in his stead that thou maist fight our battells Vpon this Ionathan took the Government on him at that time After Ionathans death the People said unto Simon his brother with a lowd voyce 1 Mac. 13. 8. 9. Thou shalt be our Leader instead of Iudas and Ionathan thy brother fight thou our battels and whatsoever thou commandest us wee will doe And the Iewes and Priests were well pleased that Simon should be their Governour Captain and High Priest and Simon accepted thereof 1 Mac. 14. 41. to 49 Hence Carolus Sigonius de Repub. Hebraeorum l. 7. c. 3. writes That the kings of the Israelites were created by the Suffrages of the People that the Kingdome of Israel was translated to divers Families for their idolatry that although the kingdome of Iudah were in some sort hereditary yet it was confirmed by the Suffrages of the People which he proves by the example of Rehoboam and others and that they obtained the Royall dignity not onely by inheritance but likewise by the Suffrages of the People as every one may clearly know who shall but consider the Histories of their kings Which plainly refutes the wild impudent false assertion of the Author of An Appeale to thy Conscience newly published p. 13. where thus he writes Observable it is that thorowout the whole Scriptures we read not of Any King I doubt hee never read the Scriptures else he could not be so grossely mistaken THAT WAS CHOSEN BY THE VOYCE OF THE PEOPLE Nor of an Aristocracy that is where the Nobles govern nor of a Democracy that is where the people govern And therefore let them consider how they can answer it at the last day who shall endeavour to change an hereditary kingdome into an elective or any other forme of Government whatsoever that the people doe properly and absolutely make a king is false c. But had this illiterate ignoramus seriously perused the precedent or subsequent Texts here cited with the best Commentators on them or read over advisedly Iosh 22. Iudges 17. 6. c. 18. 1. c. 19. 1. c. 21. throughout with the Books of Ezra Nehemiah Judges Esther Maccabees the four Euangelists touching Christs arraignment and death Acts 4. 5. 22. 23. 24. and 25 chapters or consulted with Josephus Philo Paul Eber Godwin Cunaeus Sigonius BertraÌ„ or any others who have written of the Jewish Antiquities of Republike he could not have had the impudency to have published such grosse untruths and should have found not onely divers kings in Scripture created by the voyce of the people but an hereditary kingdom oft changed into an elective yea into an Aristocraticall and no Royall government and an Aristocracie and Democracy to even among the Jews themselves whose government before their kings was meerly Aristocraticall as Iosephus Antiqu. Jud. l. 4. c. 8. Carolus Sigonius de Repub. Hebr. l. 1. c. 5. Cunaeus Schickardus Bertram Paul Eber and all others that I have seen except this Animal irrationale risibile punctually determine they having no kings of their own before Saul nor any after Zedekiah Therefore I shall spend no more waste paper to refute this palpable errour so confidently asserted by parisiticall Court Doctors who make no conscience of writing any though the grossest untruths which may advance the absolute Soveraign Arbitrary tyrannicall government of kings to oppresse and inslave the people Thirdly that the Kings of Iudah and Israel were no absolute Soveraign Princes but took their Crown with and upon such Divine conditions for breach whereof they and their posterities were oft times by Gods command just judgement and speeiall approbation deposed disinherited destroyed and the Crown translated to other families This is evident by direct Scriptures Deuter. â—7 14. to the end Thou shalt in any wise set him King over thee whom the Lord thy God shalt chuse one from among thy Brethren shalt thou set King over thee thou maist not set a stranger over thee which is not thy Brother Here is an expresse limitation and condition in respect of the person of the King the conditions in regard of his royall administration follow which are partly Negative partly positive But he shall not multiplie Horses to himself nor cause the the people to return to Egypt c. Neither shall he multiply wives to himself that his heart turn not away neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold And it shall be when he fitteth on the throne of his Kingdome that he shall write him a Copie of this Law in a Book out of that which is before the Priests the Levites and it shall be with him and he shall read therein all the dayes of his life that he may learn to fear the Lord his God to keep all the words of this Law and these Statutes to do them That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren and that he turn not aside from the Commandment to the right hand or to the left to the end that he may prolong his dayes in his Kingdom he and his children in the midst of Israel Here all the kings of the Israelites when their kingdoms should be erected are strictly bound by God himself to negative and positive conditions upon performance whereof they and their children should prolong their dayes in the kingdom and perpetuate their thrones in the midst of Israel and upon breach whereof they and their posterity should lose both their lives and kingdom to as the last clause insinuates and the subsequent Texts in direct terms averre But what if the king should violate these conditions might the people lawfully resist him Iosephus in his paraphrase on this very text which I shall cite at large resolves they might Truely the government of the best men or Aristocraticall government is best and to live in a Republike thus administred nor is there cause why you should desire any other kinde of goverment but it is best that contenting yur selves with this you continue within the power of your Laws and of your selves But if the desire of a king shall possesse you let there be none unlesse he be of your stock and blood and one to whom justice with other vertues are cordiall He whosoever he shall be let him attribute more to the lawes and unto God than to his own wisedome AND LET HIM DO NOTHING WITHOUT THE HIGH PRIESTS AND SENATES ADVICE neither may he nourish many wives nor possesse very much money and many Horses with the plenty of which things he may easily become a contemner of the laws and if he shall addict
will give one Tribe to thy Sonne for my servant Davids sake and for Jerusalems sake which I have chosen In pursuance whereof the Prophet Ahijah rending Ieroboams garment into 12 peeces said to Ieroboam Take thee ten peeces for thus saith the Lord the God of Israel Behold I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon and will give ten Tribes to thee BECAVSE THAT THEY HAVE FORSAKEN ME and have worshipped the Goddesse of the Zidonians c. AND HAVE NOT WALKED IN MY WAYES to doe that which is right in mine eyes to keep my Statuts and my judgements as did David his Father howbeit I will not take the whole Kingdome out of his hands but I will make him Prince all the dayes of his life for David my servants sake whom I chose because he kept my Commandements and my Statutes But I will take the Kingdome out of his sonnes hand and give it unto thee even ten tribes And unto his sonne will I give one tribe that David my servant may have a light alway before me in Ierusalem the City which I have chosen to put my name there And I will take thee and thou shalt reigne according to all that thy soule desireth and shalt be King over Israel But what without any limitation or condition at all think you No such matter And it shall be IF THOV WILT HEARKEN VNTO ALL THAT I COMMAND THEE and wilt walk in my wayes and doe that is right in my sight to keep my Statutes and my Commandements as David my servant did that I will be with thee and build thee a sure house as I built for David and will give Israel to thee And I will for this afflict the seed of David but not for ever Loe here both Kingdomes of Iudah and Israel are given and entailed on David Solomon and Ieroboam onely upon condition of good behaviour which not performed they shall be rent from either And was this only a vain idle condition as some deem the Covenants and Coronation oathes of Kings to God and their Kingdoms Surely no for we read experimentall verifications of them in King Rehoboam Who answering all the people and Ieroboam when they came to Sechem to make him King roughly according to the Counsell of the young men and threatning to adde to their yoake instead of making it lighter and hearkning not unto the people FOR THE CAVSE WAS FROM THE LORD that he might perform his saying which he spake by Abijah the Shilomite unto Ieroboam the sonne of Nebat thereupon when all Israel saw that the King hearkned not unto them the people answered the king saying What portion have we in David neither have we inheritance in the son of â—esse to your tents O Israel now see to thine own house David so Israel departed to their tents stoned Adoram who was over the tribute whom Rehoboam sent to appease them Whereupon Rehoboam made speed to get him into his Chariot to flee to Ierusalem So all Israel fell away from the house of David to this day and calling Ieroboam unto the congregation made him King over all Israel there was none that followed the house of David but the tribe of Iudah onely Vpon this revolt when Rehoboam was come to Ierusalem he assembled all the House of Iudah with the tribe of Benjamin an hundred and fourescore thousand chosen men which were Warriers to fight against the house of Israel to bring the Kingdome again to Rehoboam the sonne of Solomon But the Word of God came unto Shemaiah the man of God saying speake unto Rehoboam the sonne of Solomon King of Iudah and unto all the house of Iudah and Benjamin and to the remnant of the people saying Thus saith the Lord Yee shall not goe up nor fight against your brethren the children of Israel return every man to his house For this thing is done by mee They hearkned therefore unto the Word of the Lord and returned to depart according to the Word of the Lord. Behold here an experimentall for feiture of a kingdome and translation of the major part of it to another family for Solomons idolatry executed by the peple through Gods appointment which being fore-threatned in the generall by God himselfe to David and by David to Solomon in case he transgressed predicted by way of menace to Solomon and Ieroboam by God himselfe and his Prophets after Solomons transgression executed by the people by Gods speciall direction and approbation and thus owned and justified by God in the peoples behalfe after the execution when Rehoboam would have made war against them for this revolt must certainly be acknowledged not only a iust and warrantable action in respect of God himselfe but likewise of the people unlesse we will make God himselfe the Author and approver of rebellion By all which it is apparant that Solomon and Rehoboam held their Crownes onely upon condition from God the breach whereof might and did forfeit them to the people in some measure And so did Ieroboam too hold the kingdome of Israel newly erected by the people after this revolt upon the conditions of obedience already mentioned which being violated by his setting up 2 calves in Dan and Bethel out of an unwarrantable policy to keep the people from returning to Rehoboam if they went up to Ierusalem to worship this thing became sin to the house of Ieroboam even to cut it off and destroy it from off the face of the earth 1 King 13. 34. For Ieroboam committing idolatry with the Calves Ahijah the Prophet sent him this sharp message by his wife 1 K. 14. 7 8 9 10 11. Go tell Jeroboam Thus saith the Lord God of Israel for as much as I exalted thee from among the people and made thee prince over my people Israel and rent the Kingdom away from the house of David and gave it thee yet thou hast not been as my servant David who kept my Commandements and who followed me with all his heart to do that onely which was right in mine eyes but hast done evill above all that were before thee for thou hast gone and made thee other gods and molten images to provoke me to anger and hast cast me behinde thy backe Therefore behold I will bring evill upon the house of Ieroboam and will cut off from Ieroboam him that pisseth against the wall and him that is shut up and left in Israel and will take away the remnant of the house of Ieroboam as a man taketh away dung till it be gone Him that dieth of Ieroboam in the the Citie shall the dogs eat and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the ayre eat for the Lord hath spoken it Moreover the Lord shall raise him up a King â—ver Israel who shall cut off the house of Ieroboam in that day Neither was this an unexcuted commination for Ieroboam dying and Nadah his sonne succeding him both in his kingdom and idolatriâ—s wherewith
themselves for the whole Nation in generall and every of them in particular frequently enter into solemn Vowes and Covenants with God to serve the Lord to be and conttnue his people to seek the Lord God fo their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul that whosoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel should be put to death whether small or great whether Man or Woman not the King or Queen excepted and they sware unto the Lord with a loud voice and with shouting and with trumpets and with Cornets and all rejoyced at the Oath for they had sworn with all their hearts Witnesse the Covenant made by Ioshua and all the people To serve the Lord by Samuel Saul and all the people at Sauls Coronation and by king Asa and all his people To seek the Lord c. who in pursuance thereof removed his mother Maacha from being Queen because she had made an idol in a Grove and cut down her idol and stampt it and burnt it at the brook Kidron 2 Chron. 15. 16. of King David Solomon and all the people at Solomons Coronation between King Iehoash Iehoiada and all the Congregation at his inauguration that they should be the Lords people in pursuance whereof all the people went to the house of Baal and brake it down and brake his altars and images in pieces and slew Mattan the Priest of Baal before the altars between Hezekiah and all his subjects and God between Iosiah and all that were present in Ierusalem and Benjamin and Gad who made a covenant before the Lord to walk after the Lord and to keep his Commandments and his Testimonies and his Statutes with all their heart and with all their soul to perform the words of the Covenant formerly written in the Book of the Covenant that was found in the house of the Lord in execution whereof Iosiah tooke away all the abominations out of all the Countrey that pertained to the children of Israel and made all that were present in Israel to serve the Lord their God and not to depart from following the Lord God of their Fathers all his dayes Together with the like solemne publike Covenants made by Ezra Nehemiah and all the People unto God which Covenant the Princes Levites Priests and all the people sealed and entred into a Curse and into an Oath to walk in Gods Law and to observe and doe all the Commandments â—udgements and Statutes of the Lord c. And that God himself expresly commanded them That if any Prophet or Dreamer of dreams or thy Brother or son of thy Mother or thy daughter or the wife of thy bosom or thy friend which is as thine own soul should secretly intice them to commit idolatry or serve other gods they should neither consent nor hearken to nor pitty nor spare nor conceal him but shalt surely kill him thy hand shall be first upon him to put him to death and after the hand of all the people and thou shalt stone him with stones that he die onely for this secret inticement to idolatry And all Israel shall hear and fear and do no more such wickednesse as this is And if they should hear that the inhabitants of any City were seduced to serve other gods then they must diligently search and inquire after it and if it be truth and the thing certain that such abomination was wrought among them then they shall surely smite the inhabitants of that City with the edge of the sword destroying it utterly and all that is therein and the cattell thereof with the edge of the sword and gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the street thereof and burn the City with all the spoile thereof every whit for the Lord their God and it shall be an heap for ever and shall not be built again In pursuance whereof the ten tribes and a half assembled to warre against the Reubenites Gâ—dites and half Tribe of Manasseh for their supposed idolatrous Altar and all the children of Israel assembled together as one man and made warre against the men of Gibeah and the Benjamites for not punishing the grosse Rape of the Levites Concubine destroying the City utterly and the Tribe of Benjamin too welnigh And upon this ground the City of Libnah revolted from under the hand of Iehoram the idolatrous King of Iudah Because he had forsaken the Lord God of his Fathers And as some learned men conceive the people made a Conspiracie against King Amaziah in Ierusalem and he fled to Lachish but they sent after him to Lachish and slew him there not privately but openly as acted by publike authoritie consent and medicated deliberation not out of any private hatred but for his impietie whereby he violated the chiefest part of his Oath and Covenant whereupon we read not of any complaint or inquisition or proceedings or punishment inflicted on those that slew him after his death either by the people or his children as there was upon those who slew King Ammon but being slain they brought him back on horses and he was buried at Ierusalem with his Fathers in the Citie of David out of reverence to his royall dignity and family And All the Peâ—ple of Iudah took Azariah and made him King in stead of his father Amaziah which plainly shewes that what was formerly done by the greater part of the States at Ierusalem was afterwards confirmed by common consent as done upon a just cause and executed by command of those who might lawfully doe it Whence they conclude That the Orders or States of the People of Israel had right to chuse what King they would themselves out of the family of David and being elected afterward to correct and punish him as there was cause that they were obliged by this Covenant made to God both to reprehend resist oppose yea depose if not put to death their King for his open incorrigible idolatries and sins by common consent as their king was obliged to punish and put them to death for their idolatries and crimes their kings being included within their Covenants and Gods inhibition of idolatry under pain of capitaâ— punishments extending to Kings as well as others if not more then to any because their examples were most pernicious and they were as far forth bound by their joynt Covenants made to God with their Kings to hinder their Kings from and to proceed against them for their idolatries as their kings were to impedite and punish them for their breach of Covenant and because God himself did punish them for their Kings idolatries as is evedent by Ier. 15. 1 to 6. and the History of the Kings and Chronicles every where which God would not in justice have done had not the people both just right and power to resist hinder censure punish depose their Kings by publike consent of the State and people for their idolatries and breach of Covenant as
Zuinglius Stephanus Iunius Brutus the author of the Treatise De Iure Magistratus in Subditos with others prove at large and Master Calvin yea Bishop Bilson himself assents to Such a Soveraign power had the whole State and Congregation of Israel and Iudah over their kings themselves whose estates in their Crownes and Kingdoms by Gods own institution was not absolute but onely conditionall and subject unto forfeiture upon breach of these Covenants and Conditions by which they did injoy them Fourthly The Kings of Iudah and Israel were no absolute Soveraign Princes paramount their whole Kingdoms the generall Congregation of the people Senate or Sanhedrin but inferiour to them in power and not onely counselled but over-ruled usually by them in matters of publike concernment This is evident not onely by Iosh 22. 11. to 34. and Iudges 20. and 21. where the whole Congregation of Israel as the Soveraign power in the dayes of Ioshua and the Iudges assembled about the great causes of the Reubenites Gadites and halfe the Tribe of Manasseh concerning their Alter and of the Gibeonites and Benjamites concluding both matters of publike war and peace But likewise by the peoples rescuing Ionathan out of the hands and power of King Saul his father that he died not though Saul had twice vowed that he should be put to death 1 Sam. 14. 38. to 36. And the people said unto Saul Shall Ionathan die who hath wrought this great salvation in Israel God forbid as the Lord liveth there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground for he hath wrought with God this day So the people rescued Ionathan that he died not By the 1 Chron. 13. 1. to 7. where thus we reade And David consulted with the Captains of thousands and hundreds and with every Leader and David said unto all the Congregation of Israel If it seeme good unto you and that it be of the Lord our God let us send abroad unto our brethren every where that are left in all the land of Israel and with them also to the Priests and Levites which are in their Cities and Suburbs that they may gather themselves unto us and let us bring again the Ark of our God to us for we enquired not at it in the dayes of Saul And all the Congregation said that they would do so For the thing was right in the eyes of all the people And David went up and all Israel to Baalah to bring up thence the Arke of God the Lord. Compared with the 1 Samuel 18. 2 3 4. where when David sent out the people to battell against Absalon under three Commaunders the King said unto the people I will surely goe forth with you my selfe also But the people answered Thou shalt not go forth for if we flee away they will not care for us neither if halfe of us die will they care for us but now thou art worth ten thousand of us therefore now is better that thou succour us out of the Citie And the king said unto them Whatsoever seemeth you good that I will doe and thereupon stayed behinde in the City as they advised him So he likewise followed Ioabs advice to go forth and sit in the gate and speak comfortably to the People after his mourning for Absalons death else not one of the People would have tarried with him that night 2 Samuel 19. 1. to 20. and by this means All the people came before him though they had formerly fled every man to his tent and he so engaged them to him That all the people were at strife thorowout all the Tribes of Israel to bring the King back again to Gilgal whence Absalon had chased him Adde to this the 1 Kings 12. 1. to 25. and 2 Chron. c. 10. and 11. where we finde that after Solomons death All Israel came to Sechem to make Rehoboam King and all the Congregation of Israel spake unto Rehoboam saying Thy father made our yoak grievous now therefore make thou the grievous service of thy Father and his heavy yoak which he put upon us lighter and we will serve thee And he said unto them Depart ye for three dayes and then come again and the people departed In the mean time he consulted first with the old men after that with the young men about him what answer he should return who giving contrary advice Ieroboam and all the people coming to him again the third day the King answered the people roughly after the counsell of the young men saying My Father made your yoke heavy and I will adde to your yoke My Father chastised you with whips but I will chastise you with scorpions So when all the people saw that the King hearkned not to them the people answered the King saying What portion have we in David neither have we inheritance in the son of Iesse to your tents ô Israel now see to thine own house David So Israel departed to their Tents and fell away from the house of David unto this day And all Israel called Ieroboam unto the Congregation and made him King over all Israel And the Text expresly addes this memorable observation Wherefore the King hearkned not unto the people for the cause was from the Lord that he might perform his saying which the Lord spake by Abijah the Shilonite to Ieroboam the son of Nebat Where we see the Kings not hearkning to the people and congregation of Israel in their just request and giving them an harsh answer was a sufficient ground and occasion for them to cast off his government and elect another King to reign over them and that with Divine approbation from God himself Such was the whole peoples and congregations Soveraigne power over their Kings We reade in the 1 Kings 20. 1. to 10. that when Benhadad king of Syria gathered a great Host and sent to Ahab king Israel to resign up all his silver gold Wives Children and pleasant things into the hand of his servants Then the king of Israel called all the Elders of the Land and said Heark I pray you and see how this man seeketh mischief for he sent unto me for my Wives and for my Children for my silver and for my gold and I denyed him not And all the Elders and all the people said unto him Hearken not unto him nor consent Wherefore he said unto the messengers of Benhadad tell my Lord the King all that thou didst send for to thy servant at first I will do but this thing I may not do Where the Elders and people both advise and over-rule the King in this matter of great importance both to the Kingdom and King who returned no answer to this publike case without the congregations publike advise So Hezekiah king of Iudah sent to all Israel and Iudah and wrote Letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh that they should come to the house of the Lord at Ierusalem to keep the Passeover unto the Lord God
own wisdome And to doe nothing without the advice of the High-Priest and Senate and that if he multiplyed horses and mony more then was fitting They might resâ—st him lest he became more potent then was expedient for their affaires Hence Petrus Cunaeus de Repub. Hebr. l. 1. c. 12. p. 101. 102. writes thus of the Sanhedrin or Parliament among the Iewes Thus the Prophets who grievously offended were no where else punishable but in this Assembly which Quod summae potestatis est as it is an Argument of The Supremest power did both constitute the King ac de Bello gerendo deque hostibus profligandis de proferendo Imperio delâ—berabaâ—t Sed quoniam haec ejusmodi erant in quibus salus omnium summae Reipublicae vertebatur Consultatum de his plerumque cum populo est indictae enim Comitiae sunt in quibus solis populus partem aliquam caperet regendae reipublicae c. De Rege igiâ—ur deque Bello ut dixi decreta facta interdum Populi auctore sunt Caetera omnia Senatores Sanhedrin Per se expedivere So that the Sanhedrin and Congregation of the people were the highest Soveraigne power and principall determiners of publike matters concerning warre and peace by Cunaeus his resolution Who debating this weighty controversie What the Scepter of Iudah was prophesied of Gen. 49. 10. and what and whose the Majesty of the Empire was determines thus I suppose the Scepter to be nothing else but the Majesty of the Empire or Government to wit that Quae ipsi Reipublicae assidet which belongs to the Republike it selfe Wherefore whos 's the Republike is the Scepter ought to be said theirs Now the Hebrew Republike from Moses his time till the Kingdome of Rehoboam was not of the Iewes or tribe of Iudah but of the twelve Tribes from whence it followes that even the Scepter for all those times was of all the Israelites Now of this Scepter which was long common to all the twelve Tribes the divine Patriarke spake not in that most famous Oracle for he looked at latter yeares and future ages when as the Tribe of Iudah the people being divided into contrary parts began to have its Republike apart from the Israelites which God approved and loved and would have to be called Iewish from the Tribe of Iudah alone untill hee to wit Christ should be given to the assemblies of men to whom not onely the Empire of the Iewes but Gentiles also was destinated And verily this Majesty of the Scepter from the time it once began to be of the Iewes we say continued to be theirs although the state of the Commonweale was sometimes changed and the soveraignty of the Empire was sometimes in the Elders and High Priests sometimes in the Kings and Princes They doe too foolishly who here dance in a narrow compasse and suppose that the honour of this name appertaines not but to Kings For what people soever useth its owne Republike and its Lawes Is recte Gloriari de Imperio deque sceptro potest it may rightly boast of Its Empire and Scepter It is recorded that at Ierusalem even at that time when not the Princes but the Elders governed the people in the midst of the great Councell which they called the Sanhedrin there hung a Scepter which thing verily was a certain Ensign of its Majesty which Marcus Tullius in a particular Oration saith Esse magnitudinem quandam Populi in ejus potestate ac jure retinendo quae vertitur in imperio atque omnis populi dignitate Not Kings not Princes but Consuls and the Senate managed the Roman Common-wealth whence this Law of Truce was given to the Aetolians which Livy reports That they should conserve The Majesty of the People of Rome without mal-engin And the very same thing was commanded all free People who by any league but not equall would come into the friendship of the Romanes as Proculus the Lawyer witnesseth in l. 7. F. de Captiu Post reversis Neither think we it materiall to our purpose of what Nation or Tribe they were who moderated and ruled the Iewish affaires for although the Hasmonaean Lâ—vites held their Kingdome for many yeeres yet the Republike was of the Iewish people That most wise Master Seneca said to Nero Caesar That the Republike was not the Princes or of the Prince But the Prince the Republikes Neither verily was the opinion of Vlpian the Lawyer otherwise for he at last â—aith that That is Treason which is committed against the Roman People or against their safety l. 1. s 1. F. ad Legem Iul. Majest Now Vlpian lived in those times when the people had neither command nor suffrages left them but the Emperours held the Empire and Principality and yet he who is wont most accurately to define all things saith That Majesty is of the People From all which it is apparant that not onely in the Roman Empire and other Kingdomes but even among the Iewes themselves the Majesty and Soveraign Power and Scepter resided not in the Kings but in the whole State and People Hence Will. Schickardus in his Ius Regium Hebraeorum Argent 1625. p. 7. determinesthus The state of the Iewish Kingdome was not Monarchicall as our Court Doctors falsely dream but mixt with an Aristocrcie for the King without the assent of the Sanhedrin Could determine nothing in great causes They constituted not a King but in it c. attributing the Soveraignest power to the Congregation and Sanhedrin who had power to create elect and in some cases to resist and depose their Kings Hence Huldericus Zuinglius writes expresly That the Kings of the Iewes and others when they dealt perfidiously contrary to the Law of God and the rule of Christ might be lawfully deposed by the People This the example of Saul manifestly teacheth whom God rejected notwithstanding he had first elected him King Yea whiles wicked Princes and Kings were not removed all the people were punished of God as is evident by Ier. 15. 1. to 6. where they were punished with four judgements and plagues for Manassehs sinnes In summe if the Iewes had not permitted their King to be so wicked without punishment they â—ad not beene so grievously punished by God By what means he is to be removed from his Office is easily to conjecture thou maist not slay him nor raise any war or tumult to do it but the thing is to be attempted by other means because God hath called us in peace 1 Cor. 7. If the King be created by common suffrages he may again be deprived by common Votes unlesse they will be punished with him but if he be chosen by the election and consent of a few Princes the people may signifie to them the flagitious life of the King and may tell them that it is by no means to be endured that so they may remove him who have inaugurated him Here now is the difficulty for those that do this the Tyrant
will proceed against them according to his lust and slay whom he pleaseth but it is a glorious thing to die for justice and the truth of God and it is better to die for the defence of justice then afterwards to be slain with the wicked by assenting to injustice or by dissembling Those who cannot endure this let them indure a lustfull and insolent Tyrant expecting extream punishment together with him yet the hand of the Lord is stretched out still and threatneth a stroke But when with the consent and suffrage of the whole or certainly of the better part of the multitude a Tyrant is removed Deo fit auspice it is done by God approbation If the Children of Israel had thus deposed Manasseh they had not been so grievously punished with him So Zuinglius Hence Stephanus Iunius Brutus in his Vindiciae contra Tyrannos in answer to Machiavels Princeps a most accursed mischievous Treatise and justification of the Protestant defensive wars in France to preserve their Religion and Liberties Anno 1589. determines positively That as all the people are Superiour to the King so are those Officers of State and Parliaments who represent them Superiour to Kings collectively considered though every of them apart be inferiour to them In the Kingdom of Israel which by the judgement of all Polititians was best instituted by God there was this order The King had not onely private Officers who looked to his family but the Kingdom likewise had 71 Elders and Captains elected out of all the Tribes who had the care of the Commonweale both in time of peace and war and likewise their Magistrates in every Town who defended their severall Cities at the others did the whole kingdom These when ever they were to deliberate of greatest affairs assembled together neither could any thing be determined without their advice which much concerned the commonwealth Therefore David called these all together when he desired to in vest Solomon in the Kingdom when he desired the policy restored by him should be examined and approved when the Ark was to be reduced c. And because they represented all the people all the people are then said to have assembled together Finally the same rescued Ionathan condemned to death by Sauls sentence from whence it appears that an appeale lay from the King to the people But from the time the Kingdome was divided through the pride of Rehoboam the Synedrin of Ierusalem consisting of 71 men seems to be of that authoritie that they might judge the King in their assembly as well as the King judge them when they were apart The Captain of the House of Iudah was President over this assembly that is some chief man chosen out of the Tribe of Iudah as even the chief man for the City Ierusalem was chosen out of the Tribe of Benjamin This will be made more evident by examples Ieremie being sent by God to denounce the overthrow of the City Ierusalem is for this first condemned by the Priests and Prophets that is by the Ecclesiasticall judgement or Senate after this by all the People that is by the ordinary Iudges of the Citie to wit by the Captains of thousands and hundreds at last by the Princes of Iudah that is by the 71 men sitting in the new Porch of the Temple his cause being made known he is acquitted Now they in that very judgement expresly condemn King Iehoiakim who a little before had most cruelly slain the Prophet Uriah threatning like things Also we reade elsewhere that King Zedekiah did so much reverence the Authoritie of this Sanhedrin that he durst not free the Prophet Jeremie thrust by these 71 men into a filthy prison but likewise 〈◊〉 dared to translate him into the Court of the Prison from thence yea when they perswaded him to consent to Jeremiah his death he answered that he was in their hands and that he could not contradict them in any thing Yea he fearing lest they should enquire into the conference which he privately had with Ieremie as if he were about to render an account of the things which he had spoken forgeth a lie Therefore in this Kingdom the States or Officers of the Kingdom were above the King I say in this Kingdome which was instituted and ordaintd not by Plato or Aristotle but by God himself the Author of all order and the chiefe institutor of all Monarchy Such were the seven Magi in the Persian Empire the Ephori in the Spartan Kingdom and the publike Ministers in the Egyptian Kingdome assigned and associated to the King by the People to that onely end that He should not commit any thing against the Lawes Thus and much more this Author together with Con. Superantius Vasco who published this Treatise to all pious and faithfull Princes of the Republike giving large Encomiums of its worth as also the Author of the Treatise De Iure Magistratus in Subditos p. 253 254 255 256. 268 to 275. whose words for brevity I pretermit Bp. Bilson in his forecited passages and Hugo Grotius De Iure Belli pacis l. 1 c 3. sect 20. p. 63 64. where he confesseth That if the King of the Israelites offended against the Lawes written concerning the Office of a King he was to be scourged for it and that the Sanhedrin had a power above their king in some cases Finally the Kings of Israel and Iudah were not superior to nor exempted from the Lawes but inferiour to and obliged by them as well as Subjects This is evident not onely by the premises but by sundry impregnable Texts As Deut. 17. 18. 19. 20. where God himselfe in the very description of the office and duty of their King prescribes this in direct termes as a part of his duty And it shall be when He sitteth on the Throne of this Kingdome that he shall write him a Copy of This Law in a Booke out of that before the Priestic and Levites And it shall be with Him and He shall read therein All the dayes of his life that he may learn to feare the Lord his God To keep all the words of the Law and these Statutes to doe them that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren and that He turn not aside from the Commandement to the right hand or to the left seconded by Iosh 7. 8. This Booke of the Law shall not depart out of thy mouth but thou shalt meditate therein day and night that thou maist observe to doe according to all that is written therein turne not to it from the right hand or to the left for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous and then thou shalt have good successe Hence it was that as soon as ever Saul was elected and made King by Samuel and the people he being the first of their Kings Samuel told the people the manner of the Kingdom and wrote it in a Booke and laid it up before the Lord which Booke
Lord will not hear you in that day Verse 17 18. Certainly the people neither would nor ought to crie to god against the proceedings of a just upright King but onely of a Tyrant and Oppressour therefore this Text must needs be meant of such a one who should be a scourge and punishment to them as Tyrants are not a blessing as good Kings alwayes be Fifthly consult we with all Polititians whatsoever this description suites onely with a Tyrant not with any lawfull King and that it is meant of such a one we have the testimony of Iosephus the generall concurring suffrage of all Commentators and Expositors one the place see Lyra Hugo de Sancto Victore Carthusian Angelomus Lexoviensis Calvin Brentius Bugenhagius Beda Bertorius Martin Borrhaeus Peter Martyr Zanchius Piscator Serrarius Strigelius Doctor Willet Deodate the English Bibles notes with others and of sundry who descant on this Text in other writings by name of M. Iohn Calvin Instit l. 4. c. 20. sect 26. Bishop Ponet his Politicall Government p. 44. Iunius Brutus Vindiciae contra Tyrannos qu. 3. p. 121. 122. 134. 135. 153. 154. 155. 159. De Iure Magistratus in Subditos p 270. 271. Bucholceri Chronichon p. 208. Petrus Cunaeus de Repub. Hebraeor l. 1. c. 14. Bertrami Politia Iudâ—ic p. 53. Shickardus jus Regium Iudae p. 64. Albericus Gentilis de jure Belli l. 3. c. 15. p. 613. Hugo Grotius de jure Belli Pacis l. 1. c. 3. Adnotata p. 72. Governado Christiano p. 87. Georgius Bucanus de jure Regni apud Scotos p. 44. Dole-man p. 68 70. Haenon disp polit p 432. Weemse 2 Vol 2. Part. p. 14. Hotomani Franco Gallia c. 10. Amesius de Casibus Conscienciae p. 306. and to name no more in so plain a case of Doctor Ferne himself in his Resolving of Conscience sect 2. p. 10. where hee writes That Samuel here tels the people how they should be oppressed under Kings yet all that violence and injustice done unto them is no cause of resistance c. This Text then being cleerly meant of their Kings Oppression violence injustice against Law right and a clear description of a Tyrant not a King I may safely conclude from all the premises that even among the Israelites and Iews themselves their Kings were subject to the Lawes and that the whole Congregation Kingdom Senate Sanhedrin not their Kings were the Supreme Soveraign power and Paramount their Kings themselves whom they did thus freely elect constitute and might in some cases justly censure resist depose if not put to death by common consent for notorious grosse Idolatries and publike multiplied crimes as the forecited authors averre All which considered eternally refutes subverts confounds the erronious false Positions and Paradoxes which Doctor Ferne Griffith Williams Bishop of Ossery the Authour of The necessitie of Subjection with other late ignorant Pamphletters have broached to the contrary without either ground or presidents to warrant what they affirm touching the absolute Soveraignty Monarchy irresistibilitie incorrigibility of the Kings of Iudah and Israel by their whole States Congregations Kingdoms generall assents and utterly takes away those sandy fabulous foundations upon which their impertinent Pamphlets against the Soveraign Power of Parliaments Kingdoms and the illegality of Subjects taking up defensive Arms against Tyrannicall Princes bent to subvert Religion Laws Liberties the Republike are founded which must now needs vanish into nothing before this Catholike irrefragable clear-shining verity abundantly ratifyed by innumerable presidents in all eminent Kingdoms States Nations that either have been in any former ages or are yet extant in the world which must and will infinitely over-sway swallow up the inconsiderable contrary opinions of some few privadoes who either out of flattery hopes of getting or keeping undemerited preferments fear of displeasing greatnesse or inconsiderates following of other reputed learned mens mistakes without due examination of their erronious Tenents have engaged themselves in a Polemicall blinde Combate against these infragable transparent Verities whose defence I have here made good against all their misprisions and bootlesse assaults Having now Historically ran over the most eminent Empires Kingdoms of ancient and present times in a kinde of confused method their copious vastnesse and varietie being so boundlesse and my time to collect them so small that I could hardly marshall them into any comely distinct Regiments or reduce them to the particular Heads debated in the premises I shall therefore for a conclusion deduce these distinct Conclusions from them to which the substance of all the recited Histories may be aptly reduced and are in truth abundantly confirmed by them beyond all contradiction annexing some new punctuall Authorities of note to ratifie and confirme them First it is undeniably evident from all the premises That all Monarchies Empires Kingdoms Emperours Kings Princes in the world were originally created instituted ordained continued limited and received all their jurisdiction power Authoritie both from by and for the people whose Creatures Ministers Servants they are and ought to be If we survey all the severall Lawfull Monarchies Empires Principalities Emperours and Kings that either have been or yet are extant in the world we finde all sacred and prophane Histories concurre in this that they had their originall erections creations from by and for the People Yea we read the very times when the most Monarchies of note were instituted the Names of those on whom the first Monarchies were conferred by the peoples free election onely yet extant on record in most Histories and withall expresse relations of many different kinds of Kingdoms Kings in respect of succession continuance Power jurisdiction scarce any two kingdoms or their Kings being alike in all things in regard of Prerogatives jurisdictions all Histories Polititians concurring resolving with Peter that Kings are humane Creatures or Ordinances instituted diversified thus by men and the people alone out of Gods generall or speciall providence not one of them all being immediately or directly ordained by God as the onely efficient cause without the free concurrence consent and institution of the people This truth is not onely ratified by Lex Regia whereby the Roman Emperours were created yea invested with all their power registred by Iustus Eccardus de Lege Regia Marius Salamonius de Principatu l. 6. formerly transcribed by Plato Aristotle Xenophon Berosus Polybius Cicero Livy Iustin Plinie Strabo Plutarch Dionysius Hallicarnassaeus Diodorus Siculus Pausanias Solinus Alexander ab Alexandro Hermannus Schedell Herodotus Boëmus Pomponius Mela forecited and generally by all Historians Chronologers Antiquaries Lawyers Politians whatsoever but directly averred and proved by Franciscus Hotomanus a famous Lawyer in his Franco-Gallia c. 1. 6. 10 13. the Author of De Iure Magistratus insubditos Quaest 5. p. 239. 240 c. Thomas Garzonius Emporij Emporiorum Pars 1. Discursus 1. de Dom. p. 13. Vasquius Controvers Illustrium 12. n. 133. 59. n. 8. 61. n.
made and wars decréed But ordinarily the councellers of the Realm of Poland the Chancellor of the Polish Repub. c. although the King in the mean time hath his own Chamberlains Stewards Ministers Domesticks But he who will dispute among the Polonians whether the King or the whole people of the Kingdom represented by the Estates of the Realm be greater doth just like him who should dispute at Venice whether the Duke or the Republike were the superior But what shal we say of those kingdomes which are wont to be carried by succession Verily the thing is no otherwise there The Realm of France which not long since was preferred before the rest both for the excellency of Laws and Orders was thus constituted in times past and although those who hold that place do not sufficiently discharge their duty yet they are not thereby the lesse obliged to do it The king verily hath his great Master or Arch-Steward his Chamberlains Hunters Guard Butlers and the rest whose Offices heretofore did so depend on the King that he dying themselves seemed also to die in their Office so that even yet after the end of the mourning royall the great Master or Arch-Steward is wont to pronounce certain conceived words wherewith he dismisseth the royall family and bids every one provide for himself Yet notwithstanding the Kingdom of France hath its Officers the master of the Palace who afterwards was stiled the Earl of the Stable the Marshals Admirall Chancellour or great Referendary Secretaries Treasurers and Officers who verily heretofore WERE NOT CREATED BUT IN THE GREAT PUBLIKE COVNCELL of the three Orders of the Clergie Nobilitie and people but since the standing Parliament was ordained at Paris they are not thought setled in their Offices before they be received and approved by the Senate of Paris neither can they be casheer'd without their consent and authority Now all these first plight their faith TO THE KINGDOM that is to all the people after that to the King as the Guardian thereof which is perspicuous even from the very form of the Oath But especially the Earl of the Stable when he is girded by the King with the Liliated sword as appears by the words which he pronounceth is girded to that purpose THAT HE MAY DEFEND AND PROTECT THE REPVBLIKE Moreover the Realm of France hath its Peers as Consuls of the King or its Senators as the Fathers of the Republike every of them denominated from the severall Provinces of the Kingdome to whom the King being to bee crowned is wont to plight his faith as to the whole Kingdome from whence it appeares THAT THEY ARE SVPERIOR TO THE KING These again likewise swear that they will defend not the King BVT THE ROYALL CROWN that they will assist THE REPVBLIKE with their councell and that for this end they will be present in the sacred Councell of the Prince in time of Peace or Warre as manifestly appears out of the formulary of the Peership Therefore by the Law of Lombardy in giving sentences they did not onely sit with the Lord of the Fee as Peers but likewise heard the Causes ofttimes between the Superiour Lord and his Vassall We likewise see these Senators of France to have ofttimes judged between the King and Subjects so that when Charles the 6. would have pronounced sentence against the Duke of Britain they withstood him and said THAT THE JVDGEMENT WAS NOT THE KINGS BVT PEERS FROM WHOSE AVTHORITY HE COVLD DEROGATE NOTHING Hence even at this day the Parliament at Paris which is called the Court of Peers or Senators is in some sort constituted a Iudge between the King and People yea between the King and every private man and is bound as with an obligation to right every one against the King Procurers if he invades any thing against Law Besides if the King determines any thing or makes any Edict at home if he make any compact with neighbour Princes if any Warre be to be waged if any Peace be to be made as of late with Charles the fifth The Parliament ought to approve and bée Authour of it and all things which appertain to the Common-wealth ought to be registred among its acts which verily are not ratified untill they shall be approved by it Now that the Senators might not fear the King heretofore none could be preferred into that Order but such who were nominated by the Senate neither could they Lawfully be removed but by its Authority for a lawfull cause Finally even the Kings Letters unlesse they be subscribed by the Kings Secretary and rescripts unlesse they be signed by the Chancellour who hath a power of cancelling have no authority There are likewise Dukes Marquesses Earles Vicounts Barons Castellanes also in Cities Maiors Deputies Consuls in Sindeches Auditors and the like to whom some particular Region or City are severally commended that they may defend the People so farre forth as their jurisdiction extendeth although some of these dignities at this day are reputed Hereditary And besides this yearly heretofore at leastwise as often as necessity required there was held an Assembly of the three Estates wherein all the Countries and Cities of any note did send their Deputies namely Commons Nobles Ecclesiasticks in each of them apart where they publikely determined of those things which appertained to the Republike Now such was evermorethe authority of this Assembly that not only those things which were therein accorded were reputed sacred and holy whether Peace were to be concluded or War to be waged or the Guardianship of the Realm to be committed to any one or a Tax to be imposed was there concluded but even Kings themselves for their luxury slothfulnes or tyrannie were thrust into Monasteries by their authority even all their Ofsprings deprived of the succession of the Kingdom no otherwise then at first when as they were called to the kingdom by the peoples authority verily those whō consent had advanced dissent did pull down again those whom imitation of paternall vertues had as it were called into that inheritance a degenerate and ungratefull minde as it had made then uncapable and unworthy so it did make them to be disinherited From whence verily it appears that succession truly was tolerated to avoid competition succession an interregnum and other incommodities of Election but truely when greater damages would follow where Tyranny should invade the Kingdom where a Tyrant the Throne of a King the lawfull Assembly of the people Perpetually reserved to themselves an Authority of expelling a Tyrant or slothfull King and of deducing him to his Kindred and of substituting a good King in his place Verily peradventure the French received this from the Gauls Caesar in the fifth Book of the Gallic War being the Author For Ambiorix King of the Eburoni confessed that all that time the Empires of the Kings of Gallia were such that the people duely assembled had no lesse authoritie over the King
then the King over the people which also appears in Vercingetorix who pleaded his cause before an assembly of the people In the Kingdoms of Spain especially in Valentia and Catteloigne of the Arragonians it is even thus for the Soveraignty of the Realme is in the Justice of Aragon as they call it therefore the great men who represent the people fear not to tell the King in direct terms both in his very Coronation it self and likewise every third year in the generall assembly of their Estates Tantum valemus nos quantum vos We are as powerfull as you but the Justice of Aragon is above us both who rules more than you Yea oftentimes what things the King hath asked what he hath injoyn'd the Iustice hath prohibited nay he never dares to impose any tribute without the authority of that Assembly In the Realms of England and Scotland the Supreme power is in the Parliament usually wont to be held almost every year Now they call a Parliament the Assembly of the Estates of the Realme where the Bishops Earls Barons Deputies of the Cities and Counties by common suffrage determine of the Republikes affairs whose authority is so sacred that what things soever it shall once establish it is unlawfull or a wicked act for the king to abrogate Likewise all the Officers of the Realme are wont to receive their Offices from that Assembly and those who ordinarily assist the King or Quéen in Councell In brief other Christian Kingdoms as Hungary Bohemia Denmarke Sweden and the rest have all their Officers of the Realm or Consuls of the Royall Empire who by their own Authority have sometimes used even to depose their Kings themselves as Histories teach or fresh memory sufficiently manifests Neither is there verily any cause that we should think the Royall Authority to be thereby deminished or that Kings should hereby suffer as it were a diminution of their heads Truly we deem not God the lesse potent for this because he cannot sin by himself nor his Empire more restrained because it cannot be ruined nor grow worse therefore not a King if that he who may offend by himself be sustained or kept from sinning by anothers help or if peradventure he had lost any Empire by his own negligence or fault that he may retain by anothers prudence What do you think any man lesse healthy because Phisitians sit round about him who dehort him from intemperance who interdict him the eating of hurtfull meats who likewise oft-times purge him against his will and resisting Or whether doest thou think those Phisitians who take care of his health or flatterers who obtrude the most unwholsome things to be more his friends Therefore this distinction is altogether necessary to be adhibited Some are friends of the King others of Caesar those are friends of Caesar who serve Caesar those friends of the King or Emperour who serve the Kingdom For since any one is called a King for the Kingdoms sake and the Kingdom consists in the people but the Kingdom being lost or decayed the King must altogether cease to be a King or at least be lesse a King those verily who shall study the profit of the Kingdom are truly the Kings friends those who neglect or subvert the profit of the Realm are truly his Enemies and as thou canst by no means separate the Kingdom from the people nor the King from the Kingdom so neither the friends of the King from the friends of the Kingdom or people yea verily as those who truely love Caesar would rather have him to be a King then a private man nor can they have him a King without a Kingdom in good sooth those shall be the Kingdoms friends who are Caesars and those who would seem to be more the friends of Caesar then of the Kingdom or people are truly to be reputed Flatterers and most pernicious enemies But and if they bee truely friends is it not manifest that the King will become more powerfull and stable as Theopompus said of the Ephori when instituted by how much those shall be more and more powerfull to whom the profit of the people or Realm shall be commanded and committed But perchance thou wilt say You tell me of the Senators Peers and Officers of the Realm but I on the contrary see nothing but Ghosts and as it were ancient Cote-Arms in Tragedies but I scarce any where discern any foot-steps of ancient libertie and authoritie Finally you may see most men every where to look to their own affairs to flatter kings to cheat the people scarce any where maist thou finde one who takes pity of the mascerated people much lesse who will give help to the miserable but if there be any who are truely of that minde or thought to be so they are judged Rebels or Traitors they are banished and they are compelled to begge even their very food What the thing is thus It seems almost alwayes and in every place the audacitie of Kings or partly the prevarication partly the slothfulnesse of the Nobility hath been such that kings may seem to have usurped that licentiousnesse wherewith most of them at this day seem to wax insolent by a long prescription of time but the people may seem to have determined their Authority or to have lost it by not using it For so it happens for the most part that no man takes care for that which all are bound to take care of that which is committed to all no man thinks it is commended to him Yet notwithstanding against the people neither this prescription nor prevarication doth any thing It is a vulgar saying that no prescription can hurt the king or Exchequer much lesse all the people who are potenter then the King and for whose sake the Prince hath this priviledge for why else is the Prince only the administrator of the Exchequer but for the people the true proprietors as shal be after proved Furthermore is not this a known truth that no violence no not in the longest lasting servitude can be prescribed against liberty But and if thou objectest that Kings were constituted by the people who perchance lived above five hundred yeer since not by the people extant at this day I answer that although kings doe die the people in the mean time as neither any other Universitie never dyeth for as flowing waters make a perpetuall river so also the vicissitude of birth and death an immortall people Therefore as the Rheine Seine Tyber is now the same as it was above a thousand years agoe so likewise the Germane French Roman people are the same unlesse Colonies shall have casually intervened neither can their right be any wayes changed either by the flux of water or change of individuals Besides if they attribute the Kingdom received not to their people but to their Father he to his Grandfather and so upwards could he transfer more right to another then himself first had But and if he
could not as it is certain he could not is it not manifest whatsoever he shall arrogate to himself besides that he cannot any more usurp it then any theef But on the contrary the people have a right of perpetuall eviction Therefore that the Nobles have been for a long space oppressed in any Kingdom can no way prejudice the people but rather as the servant should not be heard who in that he hath a very long time detained his Lord captive should boast that he was not onely a Free-man but would likewise arrogate to himself a power of life and death over his Lord nor yet a Theefe who because he hath robbed 30. yeers or is the sonne of a Theefe should think himselfe to be without fault yea rather by how much the longer he hath been such a one the more severely should he be punished So likewise a Prince is not to be heard or endured who because he hath succeeded to a Tyrant or hath for a long time used the people like a bondslave from whom he hath received his kingdome or hath offered violence to the Nobles should think that what ever â—e lusted should be lawfull to him and ought to be granted of right Neither doe yeers substract any thing from the peoples right but adde to the injury of the King But what if the Nobles themselves have colluded with the King what if in betraying the cause they have betrayed the people as it were bound into the hands of a Tyrant shall the authority of the people by this prevarication or treason seem to be plainly transferred upon the King whether I say by this fact is any thing taken away from the liberty of the people or adjoyned to the licentiousnesse of the Prince You will say they may impute it to themselves who made choise of such men of perfidious faith But yet these are as patrons to patronize the publike profit and the peoples safety and liberty Therfore as when an Advocate shall make a compact with the adversary of his Client concerning the value of the suit as they speake if he had betrayed his cause he should not hurt him at all so this conspiracie of the Nobles as it were made to the dammage and destruction of the people cannot verily detract any thing from their right but even they themselves shall fall into the penalty of the Law which is promulged against prevaricators and the Law permits the people to chuse another patron and to prosecute their right againe For if the Roman people condemned their Emperors to punishment who at the Caudine Gallowes had dishonourably contracted with the enemies although by compulsion and reduced to greatest straits and judged that they were no wayes obliged by that paction shall not the people be much lesse bound to suffer that yoke which not by force but willingly not for feare of death but out of desire of gain hath been thus treacherously put upon them Or if those who ought to shake it off shall impose it or those who might doe it shall tolerate it He hath many other pertinent passages to the same effect which brevity enjoynes me to omit those that please may read them at their leisure in the Author himselfe whose opinion is fortified by Alphonsus Menesius his poems annexed to his Treatise Thirdly it is abundantly manifest from all the premises That Kings and Emperours alwayes have been are and ought to be subject to the Lawes and Customes of their Kingdomes not above them to violate breake or alter them at their pleasures they being obliged by their very Coronation Oathes in all ages and Kingdomes inviolably to observe them This verily is confessed by K. Iames by our K. Charls himself in his late Declarations to al his Subjects resolved by Bracton Fleta Fortescue our Common and Statute Laws forecited by the Year Book of 19. H. 6. 63. a. where Fray saith That the Parliament is the highest Court which the King hath and the Law is the highest inheritance which the King hath for by the Law he himselfe and all his Subjects are ruled and if the Law were not there could be no King nor inheritance This is proued by Stephen Gardiner Bp. of Winchester in his Letter to the Lord Protector where he writes That when he was Embassadour in the Emperours Court he was faine there and with the Emperours Embassadour to defend and maintaine by Commandment in a case of Jewels That the Kings of this Realme were not above the Order of their Laws and therefore the Jeweller although he had the kings Bill signed yet it would not be allowed in the Kings Court because it was not obtained according to the Law and generally granted by all our own English Writers is copiously asserted and professedly averred by Aristotle Polit. l. 3. c. 11. 13. Marius Salomonius de Principatii in sixe speciall Books to this purpose by Justus Eccardus de Lege Regia Thomas Garzonius Emporii Emporiorum Pars 1. Discursus 1. de Dominiis sect 6. p. 9 10. Joannis Carnotensis Episc lib. 4. Policrat c. 1. Bochellus Decreta Eccles Gal. l. 5. Tit. 1. Cap. 6. 15 16. Haenon Disput Polit. p. 428. to 442. Fenestella de Magistratu p. 149. Ioannis Mariana de Rege Regis Instit l. 1. c 9. an excellent discourse to this purpose Petrus Rebuffus Praefat. ad Rubr. de Collationibus p. 583 584. Sebastianus Foxius de Rege c. part 1. p. 108 109 part 2. 192 c. Buckanon de Iure Regni apud Scotos passim Iunius Brutus Vindiciae contra Tyrannos quaest 3. p. 116. to 139. an accurate discouse to this effect Grimalius de Optimo Senatore p. 33. 201 205. Vasquius contr Illustr 16. n. 15. 19. 21. 17. n. 1. â—3 20. n. 3. 44. n. 3. 73. n. 12. 13 15. 72. n. 7. and elswhere De Iure Magistratus in subditos passim Polanus in Ezech. p. 824. 854. Pareus in Rom. 13. p. 138. Francis Hotomani Franco Gallia c. 6. to the end of Cap. 20. Sparsim Governado Christiano p. 108. Cunaeus de Republ. Hebr. l. 1. c. 1. 14. Schickardus Ius Regium Hebrae p. 54. Hugo Grotius de Iure Belli l. 1. c. 4. f. 7. l. 2. c. 14. and elsewhere thorowout his second Book with infinite others of all sorts This all good Emperours and Kings in all ages have professed as these Authors prove Thus the good Emperour Trajan practised and professed That the Prince was not above the Laws Hence Apollonius Thyanaeus writing to the Emperor Domitian saith These things have I spoken concerning Lawes which if thou shalt not think to reignover thee then thy self shalt not reign Hence Autiochus the third King of Asia is commended that he writ to all the Cities of his Kingdom if there should be any thing in his Letters he should write which should seem contrary to the Laws they should not obey them And Anastatius the Emperour
called Pretorian Consular Royall should be rendred safe from theeves plain and easie which charge even now lieth upon the kings Attorny that the publike Bridges should be repaired as appears out of the Constitution of Lewes the godly twelve over Seyne that Ships should be ready at hand to transport men over Rivers c. There were no Tributes of Saltpits yea most of them were in the Dominion of private men because what things nature did voluntarily give they thought ought no more to be sold then Light Ayre water And whereas a certain King named Lycurgus had begun to impose a Tax on Salt pits as if nature would not suffer her liberality to be restrained they are said to have been presently dried up although at this day If we beleeve Palphur or Armilot Whatever good or faire thing can be got Out of the Whole Sea in each Realme it flowes Some custome to the Kings Exchequer owes He who first instituted this custome at Rome was Livius Censor whence he obtained the surname of Salinator which he did for the most present necessity of the Commonwealth For that very cause truly King Philip obtained it onely for five yeares whose continuation what commotions it hath produced every man knoweth Finally that tributes were instituted to pay Souldiers wages in warres appeares even from this that to make a Province stipendary or tributary is the selfe-same thing indeed Thus Solomon imposed Tributes to fortifie Cities and to furnish a publike Armory which because they were finished the people under Rehoboam desired to be eased thereof Yea the Turkes themselves call the Tribute of Princes The sacred blood of the People which profusely to spend or to convert to any other use but to defend the people is a cursed act Therefore what things soever a King acquires in warres in every Nation because he gaines it by the common treasure he acquires it to the people not to himselfe as a factor doth to his Master Moreover if perchance he gaine any thing by marriage which I say is pure and simply his wives he is thought to acquire it to the Kingdome because he was presumed to marry that wife not as he is Philip or Charles but as he is King On the contrary as Queenes have part of those things which their husbands not yet coopted into the Kingdome have gained during the marriage so plainly they have no part of those things they get after they have obtained the Kingdome because they are reputed gained to the publike Treasures not to the private meanes of the King which was judged in the Realme of France between Philip Valoyes and Ioan of Burgundy his wife Now lest the monies should be extorted to some other use the Emperour sweares that he will impose no customes nor enjoyne no taxes but by the Authority of a publike Assembly The Kings of Poland Hungary Denmarke England doe the like out of the Lawes of Edward the first The French Kings heretofore demanded Tributes in the Assemblies of the three Estates Hence also is that Law of Philip Valoyes That impositions should not be imposed but upon great and urgent necessity and that by the consent of the Three Estates Moreover in times past those taxes were laid up in Castles throughout every Diocesse and delivered to selected men they even now call them Elected to be kept by whose hand the Soldiers enrolled in every Town should receive their wages which was also usually done in other Countries as in the Belgick At this day at least whatsoever things are commanded are not confirmed unlesse the Parliament consent Now there are some Provinces which are not bound by covenant but by the consent of the Estates as Languedoc Britain Province Dolphenie and some others and in the Netherlands clearly all Finally lest the Eschequer swelling like the spleen whereby all the other Members do pine away should draw all things to it self every where a due proportion is allotted to the Eschequer Since therefore at last it appeares that the tributes customes demesall that which they call demesnes under which names Portages Imposts Exposts Royalties wrecks forfeitures and such like are comprehended which are ordinarily or extraordinary given to Kings were conferred on them for the benefit of the people and supportation of the kingdome and so verily that if these nerves should be cut in sunder the people would fall to decay these foundation being under-mined the Kingdome must needs fall to the ground it truely followes that he who to the prejudice of the people burthens the people who reaps a gain out of the publike losse and so cuts their throat with their own sword is not a King but a Tyrant contrarily that a true King as he is a survey or of the publike affaires so likewise an Administrator of the publike riches but not a proprietary Lord who can no more alienate or dissipate the Royall Demesnes then the kingdome it selfe but if he shall demene himselfe otherwise verily as it is behoovefull to the Republike that every one should use his own proper goods well much more is it beneficiall for the Commonweal that every one should use the publike estate well And therefore if a Lord who prodigally spends his Estate is by publike authority deduced to the Wardship of his kinsmen and Family and compelled to abstaine from his possessions then truly much more justly the Gardian of the Republike who converts the publike Administration of all wealth into the publike destruction or utterly subverts it may justly be spoiled by those whom it concernes and to whom it belongeth out of Office unlesse he desists upon admonition Now that a King in all lawfull Empires is not a proprietary Lord of the Royall patrimony is easie to be manifested That we may not have recourse to those most ancient ages whose Image we have in the person of Ephron king of the Hittites who durst not verily sell his field to Abraham without the peoples consent that very law is at this day used in all Empires The Emperour of Germany before he is Crowned sacredly swears That he will alienate distract or morgage nothing of those things which appertain to the Empire and the patrimony of the Empire but if he recovers or acquires any thing by the publike Forces that it shall come to the Empire not to himself Therefore when Charles the fourth that Wenceslaus his sonne might be designed Emperor had promised an 100000 Crowns to every one of the Electors and because he had no ready monies had obliged to them by way of pawne to this end the Imperiall Customs Tributes Townes Proprieties and Rights there arose a most sharp dispute about it and the most judged the morgage to be void which verily had not availed unlesse that morgage had been gainfull to those very men who ought to defend the Empire and principally to oppose that morgage Yea therefore Wenceslaus himself was compelled as incapable to deprive himself of the Empire because
he had suffered the Royall Rights especially the Dukedome of Millain to be taken from him In the Polish kingdom there is an ancient Law of not alienating the Lands of the Kingdom of Poland renewed An. M.CCCLXV by king Lewes There is the same Law in the Realm of Hungary where we reade that Andrew king of Poland about the year M. CCXXI was accused before Pope Honorius the third that neglecting his Oath he had alienated the Crown Lands The like in England in the Law of K. Edward An. M.CCXCVIII Likewise in Spain by the Constitution made under Alphonso renewed again MDLX in the Assembly at Toledo which Lawes verily were enacted when as custome for a long time before had obtained the force of a Law But verily in the kingdome of France wherein as in the pattern of the rest I shall longer insist this Law was ever sacrosanct It is the most ancientest Law of the Realme I say the Law born with the Kingdom it self Of not alienating the Crown or demesne Lands renewed in the year M D 66. although it be ill observed Two cases onely are excepted Panage or Apennage aliments to be exhibited to his children or brethren yet so as the clintelary right be alwayes retained again if warlike necessitie require it yet with a pact of reddition Yet in the interim both of them were heretofore reputed void unlesse the Assembly of the three Estates had commanded it but at this day since a standing Parliament was erected it is likewise void unlesse the Parliament of Paris which is the Senate of Peers and the Chamber of publike accounts shall approve it and the Presidents of the Eschequer also by the Edict of Charles the 6 and 9. And this is so farre forth true that if the ancient Kings of France would endow any Church although that cause then seemed most favourable they were bound to obtain the consent of the Nobles as king Childebert may be for an example who without the consent of the French and Normans durst not endow the Monastery of S. Vincents in Paris as neither Clodoveus the second and the rest Moreover they cannot release the Royalties or the right of nominating Prelates to any Church but if any have done it as Lewes the eleventh in favour of the Church of Sennes and Philip the fourth of Augiers Philip Augustus of Naverne the Parliament hath pronounced it void The king of France when he is to be Crowned at Rheimes sweares to this law which if he shall violate it avails as much as if he contracted concerning the Turkish or Persian Empire Hence the Constitutions or as they callit the Statutes of Philip the sixt John the 2 d Charles the fift sixt eight of resuming those things which were alienated by their Ancestors of which resumptions there are many instances cited by Hugo Grotius de Jure Belli Pacis l. 2. c. 14. n. 12. 13. Adnotata Ibid. Hence in the Assembly of the three Estates at Towres An. 1323. 1360. 1374. 1401. 1483. in which Charles the eight was present many Towns of the alienation of Lewes the eleventh his Father which he had by his own Authoritie given to Tancred Castellan who demerited well of him were taken from his Heirs which even in the last assembly of the three Estates held at Orange was again decreed Thus concerning publike Lands But that it may the more evidently appeare that the kingdome is preferred before the king that he cannot by his private Authoritie diminish the Majestie which he hath received from the people nor exempt any one from his Empire nor grant the right of the Soveraign Dominion in any part of the Realm Charles the great once endeavoured to subject the Realm of France to the German Empire but the French vehemently withstood it a certain Vascon Prince making the Oration The matter had proceeded to Arms if Charles had proceeded further Likewise when some part of the Realm of France was delivered to the English the supreme right was almost perpetually excepted but if Force extorted it at any time as in the Brittish League wherein king Iohn released his Soveraign Right in Gascoigne and Poytiers the king neither kept his Contract neither could or ought he more to keep it then a Captain Tutor or Guardian as then he was who that he might redeem himselfe would oblige the goods of his Pupils By the same Law the Parliament of Paris rescinded the agreement of the Flusheners wherein Charles of Burgundy extorted Ambian and the neighbour Cities from the king and in our time the agreement of of Madrit between Francis the first a Captive and Charles the fift the Emperour concerning the Dukedome of Burgundy was held void and the Donation of Charles the sixt of the kingdom of France by reason of death conferred on Henry king of England may be one apt argument of his extreme madnesse if others be wanting But that I may omit other things which might be said to this purpose by what right at last can a king give or sell his kingdom or any part thereof seeing they consist in the people not in the walls now there is no sale of free men when as Land-Lords cannot so much as constrain their free Tenants that they should settle their Houshold in any other place then where they please especially seeing they are not servants but Brethren neither onely are all kings Brethren but even all within the Royall Dominion ought to be so called But whether if the king be not the proprietorie of the Realme may he not at least be called the usufructuary or receiver of the profits of the Crown Lands Truely not so much as an usufructuary A usufructuary can Pawn his lands but we have proved that kings cānot morgage the Patrimony of the Crown A fructuary can dispose or give the profits at his pleasure contrarily the great gifts of the king are judged void His unnecessary expences are rescinded his superfluous cut off what ever he shall convert into any other but the Publike use he is thought to have violently usurped Neither verily is he lesse obliged by the Cincian Law then any private Citizen among the Romanes especially in France where no gifts are of force without the consent of the Auditors of the Accounts Hence the ordinary Annotations of the Chamber under prodigall kings This Donation is too great and therefore let it be revoked Now this Chamber solemnly swears that whatsoever rescript they shall at any time receive from the king that they will admit nothing which may be hurtfull to the kingdom and Commonweale Finally the Law cares not how a Fructuary useth and enjoyeth his profits contrarily the Law prescribes the king in what manner and unto what use he ought to put them Therefore the ancient kings of France were bound to divide the Rents into four parts one part was spent in sustaining the Ministers of the Church and the poor another upon
one of us may breake or fall from it by dissimulation secret intelligence or in any sort whatsoever And that for the preservation of our holy Catholike and Romish Faith and the accomplishment of the Pacification as also for the expulsion of Spaniards and their adherents with all due obedience to his Majesty for the good and quiet of our Countrey and the maintenance of our Priviledges rights Freedomes Statutes Customes and antient uses For the effecting whereof we will use all meanes possible imploying both Money Men Counsell and goods yea and our lives if it were necessary And that none of us may in private give any counsell advice or consent nor have any secret conference with them that are not of this Union nor yet reveale unto them in any sort what hath or shall be treated of in this Assembly or resolved but shall wholly conforme himselfe according to our generall and common resolution And in case that any Province Estate Countrey Towne Castle or House were besieged assaulted invaded or opprest in any sort whatsoever yea if any of us or any others having indeavoured himselfe for his Countrey and the just defence thereof against the Spaniards or for other causes depending thereon as well in generall as particular should be sought after imprisoned ransomed molested or disquieted in his person and goods honour and estate or otherwise we promise to give him assistance by all the said meanes yea and to procure the liberty of them that shall be imprisoned either by force or otherwayes upon paine to be degraded of their Nobility Name Armes and Honour and to be held perjured disloyall and enemies to our Countrey before God and men and to incurre the note of Infamy and cowardise for ever And for the strengthening of this our holy Union of Association we have signed these presents the tenth of January 1577. Underneath were the signatures of the Deputies of every Province Prelates Noblemen and Commissioners for Townes and underneath them was written the agreation of the Councell of State as followeth The Deputies of the generall Estates here under-written having required them of the Councell of State committed by his Majesty for the government of the Netherlands to consent unto and allow of that which is contained in the Union above written The Councell in regard of the said request and the reasons therein contained have as much as in them lay allowed and doe allow by these presents the said Union according to the forme and tenor Made at Brussels in the State-house in the Assembly of the said States the tenth of January 1577. And underneath was written By the commandement of the Lords of the Councell of State Signed Berrii If any shall here object that Kings are of divine institution whence Dei gratia By the grace of God is peculiarly annexed to their Titles and not communicated unto Subjects Therefore though they prove never so flagitious or tyrannicall they may in no wise be forcibly resisted or questioned by their Nobles and Parliaments for their crimes I answer briefely because I have elswhere largely dissipated this objection First that Kings are no more of divine institution then any other inferiour Magistrates Officers or Princes whatsoever as the Scriptures abundantly evidence But all other inferiour Magistrates Officers and Princes whatsoever are resistible questionable censurable and deposible for their tyranny wickednesse and misgovernment by the Parliaments censure as I have proved notwithstanding their divine institution therefore such degenerating Kings too as well as they in such cases Secondly all Ministers of the Gospel are as much if not farre more Jure divinâ— and by Gods owne ordination as Kings are a truth undeniable But they for their offences and misdemeanors contrary to their function may be both forcibly resisted censured deprived degraded yea and executed notwithstanding their divine right and institution as the Canons of most Councels the practise of all ages yea the expresse letter of the 26. Article of the Church of England with all our Episcopall Canons and Canonists attest Therefore tyrannicall degenerating Kings may be so too by the selfe-same reason in some cases Thirdly this Title of Dei gratia in publike Writs anciently hath beene and yet is common to Bishops Prelates inferiour Magistrates and Subjects as well as to Kings as sundry precedents in our Law bookes Matthew Paris Salon with others attest and Mr. John Selden in his Titles of Honour part 1. chap. 7. Sect. 2. p. 123. professedly proves at large to whom I shall referre you But these both lawfully may be and alwayes have beene forcibly resisted questioned convented deprived censured for their tyranny and misdemeanors notwithstanding this their stile of Dei gratia or pretence of divine institution yea we know that Bishops have beene lately thrust out of many Churches notwithstanding their long pretended Ius Divinum to support their Hierarchy and Iohn Gerson a Papist hath writ a particular Treatise De Auferibilitate Papae notwithstanding the Popes pretended Divine Title to his Monarchy which may be now and one day shall be totally abolished Therefore tyrannicall degenerous Kings may be justly resisted censured deprived as well as they and royalties changed into other governments by the peoples and kingdomes common consents if they see just cause If any secondly object That Kings are annoynted at their Coronation Therefore their persons are sacred irresistible unquestionable unpunishable for any tyrannicall or exorbitant actions whatsoever I briefly answer first that every Christians Baptisme being a Sacrament of Christs owne institution at least his spirituall unction and sanctification as I have formerly proved makes a person as sacred yea more holy then Kings annoynting being no Sacrament can or doth of it selfe make the person of any King whatsoever A truth which no Christian can without blasphemy deny But Baptisme and the inward unction of the spirit of grace and sanctification exempts no Christians from resistance censure punishments of all sorts in case they commit any exorbitant or capitall crimes as experience tels us Therefore Kings Coronation annoyntings cannot doe it Secondly Priests anciently were and at this day too in the Roman Church are annoynted as well as Kings and so are children and sicke persons that I say not Altars Bels c. with Chrisme and extreame Vnction But these Unctions conferre no such immunity to Priests children sicke men others c. Therefore neither can this annoynting doe it to Kings especially now being no divine institution Thirdly The annoynting of Kings is not common to all Christian Kings many of them especially in former times having beene crowned without any annoynting at all but peculiar to Emperours and to the Kings of Ierusalem France England and Sicily the foure annoynted Kings onely as Albericus Restaurus Castaldus Antonius Corsetus Azorius Cassanaeus and sundry others affirme out of the old Roman Provinciall though some other Kings have now and then beene
teach and confirme And for this cause the Lords Electors of the sacred Roman Empire the ardent petitions of the holy Church Princes Nobles Cities Provinces and Subjects of the sacred Empire intreating desiring a prudent Moderator have long agone very often and seriously together with us admonished the most illustrious Prince Lord Wenceslaus King of Bohemia both by their owne and their friends labour and finally by letters and have diligently set before his eyes privately and publikely his unbeseeming and detestable manners and actions in governing as also the defects incommodities and discords of the said Church and Christian world likewise the most grievous avulsions and diminutions of the members of the sacred Empire hurtfully done and permitted to be done against the dignity of his name to wit that he hath not promoted peace in the Church although the great necessity of the Christian world as likewise his office of Advocate and Defendor of the Church earnestly required it and he hath also beene frequently desired required and admonished to doe it he notwithstanding perniciously mutilated the Empire and permitted it to be maimed in some members In the number whereof are Millain and the Province of Lombardy which were of the right of the same Roman Empire most ample emoluments returning thence to the Empire in which Dominion the Millainer like a Minister enjoyed it as a part of the Roman Empire when as He contrary to that which became his sublimity and dignity receiving money created a Duke of Millain and an Earle of Papia Moreover he hath alienated divers Cities and Lands belonging to the Empire as well in Germany as in Italy some whereof had returned to the same having little consideration that he ought to retaine them with the sacred Empire Moreover he hath sold for money to his friends very many naked and unwritten Parchments ratified notwithstanding with the Seale of his Majesty wherein it was lawfull both for them and others into whose hands these Parchments came to write what things they pleased under the royall Seale Out of which thing for the hurtfull diminution and dissipation of the rights and emoluments of the sacred Roman Empire great complaints are risen up Moreover he never had any care of the controversies and warres which alas for griefe have miserably afflicted and ruined Germany and other lands of the sacred Empire Hence spoylings burnings and robberies have sprung up with such lamentable encreases even at this day that none neither Clarks nor Laicks neither hasbandmen nor Merchants neither men nor women whether by land or sea may converse in safety Temples Monasteries and religious houses which the sacred Empire ought with its hand to assist and defend are exposed to rapines and burnings and reduced to destruction Things are gone to this passe that every one might have handled and may even now handle another at his pleasure against the reason of right and equity without any feare of the sacred and long despised Imperiall authority so as even the place of conventing any one where the defence and patronage of right may be undertaken in the name of the Empire is altogether unknowne Finally which is horrible and dreadfull to be spoken both with his owne hand and the hand of other wicked instruments he hath with him he hath put to death drowned in the waters burned in the fire miserably and cruelly destroyed the reverend Bishops of holy things Priests and spirituall Pastors likewise many other men of honest note against the rule of right otherwise then became the King of Romans Which mentioned things verily and many other grievous wickednesses and dammages are so divulged and openly knowne that they can be no wayes excused or concealed Therefore we as we have fore-written have frequently very earnestly beseeched admonished and required him that renouncing this unbeseeming kind of life he would take the study and labour to himselfe whereby he might recover to the holy Church oft-times imploring his aide as King of Romans and her Advocate peace and tranquillity and to the sacred Empire its prestine honours Dominions and finally its emoluments to the assistance and consolation of the Christian world grievously debilitated and oppressed in this regard Now albeit we have most clearely explicated to the foresaid Lord Wenceâ—â—aus and exhibited to him in writing these and other more grievous defects concerning him as King of Romans and the Empire yet having heard his answers and having reiterated our serious exhortations moreover having communicated the businesse to the sacred Roman Sea we have never as yet found him to have amended his manners as became a King of Romans namely to recover peace to the Church principally necessary to the Christian world also to the sacred Empire its dignities lands and Dominions a thing which is most notoriously knowne throughout all the Provinces of the Empire Therefore because we could no longer neither conceale nor endure the remembred and many other defects touching the sacred Church and Empire with grievous losse and mourning by reason of the instant petitions of the persons aforesaid but especially by reason of the Oath wherewith we are obliged to the same as the next superiour members of the sacred Empire therefore as of bounden duty we were to advise and endeavour how the sacred Empire might be more rightly and wholesomly provided for by whose madde and negligent administration those inconveniences have crept in to the safegard and consolation of the Christian world And verily as He in obeying us had performed an acceptable thing so we have sufficiently and seriously called and cited him so as wee have signified to him that unlesse he should be present at the place and day appointed it would come to passe that both in respect of the petitions exhibited to us as likewise in respect of our Oath we should be compelled to take and enter into such counsels whereby the sacred Empire might be better setled most clearely attesting it in our letters For this purpose we appeared at the place and time prescribed together with our Coelectors sufficiently summoned also with the other Princes and of the sacred Empire expecting from day to day whether the foresaid Lord Wenceslaus would appeare to apply a remedy to the foresaid diseases and from thenceforth more rightly to consult about the affaires of the sacred Empire But he neither vouchsafed to appeare nor yet to send any one to us in the name of a Proctor Wherefore when as by reason of so many pregnant and pernicious defects we had admonished and reproved him very often in private and in friendly manner but after that when we could doe no good before the Princes and Nobles and Cities of the Empire in divers Assemblies not without great and grievous expences yet without any fruit therefore we referred all the fore-mentioned things to the sacred Roman Sea But when as neither then he no whit regarded all those things we could conjecture nothing else from thence but that he had laid downe the care
to procure his pardon which because it was the first president of this kinde made his advocate say tamen it a inusitatum est Regem capitis reum esse ut ante hoc tempus non sit auditum yet long before that Zedechiah King of Iudah rebelling against the King of Babylon was brought prisoner to the King of Babylon to Riblah where hee gave judgement upon him slew both his sonnes and Princes before his eyes and then put out his own eyes bound him with fetters of brasse and carried him prisoner to Babylon where hee died 2 Kings 25. 1. to 8. Ier. 52. 1. to 12. And after Detoratus Antigonus King of the Iewes being taken prisoner by Antonius for moving sedition against the Roman State was beheaded with an axe at Antioch without any legall triall to prevent further seditions which never befell any King before that time writes Alexander ab Alexandro And Agrippa not long after put Bogus King of the Mores to death for siding with Antonius Of later times I read that Ludovicus Pius the Emperour taking Bernard his Nephew King of Italy prisoner for rebelling and denying his superiority over him carried him into France to determine what should be done with him according to Iustice for this his offence where though a King hee was condemned to death and executed as some or at least cast into prison and had his eyes put out as others write So Charles of France taking Conradine King of Sicily prisoner publikely arraigned and condemned him of high Treason and cut off his head Anno 1208. Yea our owne King Iohn being a Feudatary to the King of France was by Philip the French king in a full Parliament there during his absence in England arraigned condemned to death and deposed from his Crown by the sentence of his Peeres for murthering his Nephew Arthur then a Subject of France with his owne hands So Iohn Bailiol king of Scotland renouncing his homage for that Crowne to king Edward the first was for this offence compelled to resigne his Crown with all his right to the kingdome of Scotland to King Edward the first and sent Prisoner to the Tower of London and Mary Queene of Scots within many mens memories after long debate in Parliament was condemned and beheaded at Fothringhom Castle Febr. 8. An. 1587. for laying claime to the Crowne of England and other particulars mentioned in our Historians And thus much for the Roman Grecian German Emperours kings and kingdomes I shall now give you a briefe Survey of what Greeke Authors write concerning Kings and Kingdoms and of the power the kinds of ancient Kings and Kingdomes in Greece and other places That great Father of Learning and policie Aristotle Tutor to the greatest Emperour Alexander the Great whose Authority is irrefragable in our Schooles resolves That true Kingdoms were erected at first and conferred on the worthiest men by the free voluntary joynt consent of the people and founded confirmed by the customes and Lawes of each country which Polibius also affirmes That there are 4 severall sorts of Kings some of greater some of lesser Authority and continuance then others some elective some successive some during life some Annuall all of them receiving their distinct jurisdictions Formes Limitations and different Royalties from the peoples primitive or subsequent institutions and consents For all men being equall by the Law of nature can have no dominion nor Supercrity one over another but by their own voluntary consents That the Lawes not the Kings Princes or Magistrates be they one or more or never so good ought to be the sole Lords or Rulers of the Common-wealth and that Princes and Governours ought to governe by the Lawes who cannot command what the Lawes doe not command That those who command that the Law should rule command that God and the Lawes should rule but he that commands a man to be a Prince he commands that both a man and beast should be Princes for covetousnesse and the lust of the minde is a certaine beast which poverts both Magistrates and the very best men but the Law is a constant and quiet Minde and Reason voyd of all motions of lusts and desires That the power of the greatest things and greatest power ought DE IVRE of right to be in all the people because their wisdomes resolutions and revenues considered altogether are greater and more considerable then those of a few wise or honest men placed in the highest offices of Magistracie who are but a small particle of the State in respect of all the people That the people ought to be of more power then the King or greatest Magistrates to prevent their Tyranny and Oppression and that a King ought to governe by his Lawes and not to doe any thing against them according to his lust wherefore he ought to have so much power and force wherewith he may protect the authority of the Lawes yea he must necessarily have forces and power yet so much onely as thereby he may be able to curbe every particular man or many also yet not so great power but that a populo autem universo idem REX ILLE IPSE COERCERI POTEST the very King himselfe may yet BE CVRBED by all the people such Guards verily the Ancients gave to their Kings when they would set any Tyrant or Governour over the City And when Dionysius required Guards a certaine Syracusan perswaded them to curbe such Guards to which Polybius also suffragates According to these Rules of Aristotle I read in Dionysius Halicarnassaeus and Polybius that in the Lacedemonian Common-wealth the Kings had not the chiefe Dominion so as they might doe what they pleased sed summa totius Reipub. administratio penes Senatum erat but the chiefe Government of the whole Commonweale was in the Senate from whence the Romanes tooke their patterne Alexander ab Alexandro Boemus and Xenophon write That the Lacedemonians sometimes elected a King out of the Family of the Heraclidae or of Agis but more often two joynt Kings of equall Authority out of the stock of Proclus and Aemisthenes who yet had not the chiefe Command as Kings Quia juris omnis publici potestas penes Senatum erat because the power of all publike law or rule was in the Senate the better to keep their Kings from attempting and usurping a Tyranny they being Kings rather in name then Dominion and like the Athaean two Annuall Praetors whence Aristotle makes them the lowest ranke of Kings Iohn Bodin informes us That in the Lacedemonian Aristocracie the Soveraignty remained in the State wherein were two Kings without any Soveraignty at all being indeed nothing else but Captains and Generals for the managing of their Warres and for that cause were by the other Magistrates of the State sometimes for their faults condemned to pay their fine as was Agesilaus and sometimes to death also as was
and terms of the Oath And not being able to agree of themselves both parties submitted to the judgement of king Philip Augustus and of his Court of Parliament furnished with Peeres So that by order given at Melum in Iuly 1204. the form of the said Oath was prescribed and registred in the Parliament Register at request of the said parties and sent unto Otho to render it to the said Pope Innocent who sent this assurance and Certificate to the said Parliament for Registring it being performed Innocentius Episcopus servus servorum Dei charissimo filio nostro Philippo Francorum Regi charissimo salutem Apostolicam benedictionem absque dubitatione noveritis quod secundum formam a vobis Curiae Regni vestri paribus praescriptam habetur apud nos jusjurandum charissimi Filii nostri Othonis Romanorum Regis illustris aurea Bulla munitum nobis Ecclesiae praestitum Ego Otho Romanorum Rex semper Augustus tibi Domino meo Innocentio Papae Ecclesiae Romanae spondeo polliceor juro quod omnes possessiones honores jura Romanae Ecclesiae proposse meo bona fide protegam ipsam ad eas retinendas bona fide juvabo Quas autem nondum recuperavit adjutor ero ad recuperandum recuperatarum secundum posse meum ero fine fraude defensor quaecunque and manus meas devenient sine difficultate restituere procurabo Ad hanc autem pertinent tota terra quae est de Radicafano usque ad Ceperanum Exarcatus Ravennae Pentapolis Marchiae Ducatus Spoletanus terra Conitissae Mathildis Comitatus Bricenorij cum alijs adjacentibus terris expressis in multis privilegijs Imperatorum à tempore LVDOVICI PII FRANCORVM ET ROMANORVM IMPERATORIS CHRISTIANISSIMI Has omnes pro posse meo restituam quietè dimittam cum omne jurisdictione districtu honore suo Veruntamen cum adrecipiendam Coronam Imperij vel pro necessitatibus Ecclesiae Romanae ab Apostolica sede vocatus accessero demandato summi Pontificis ab illis terris praestationes accipiam Praetereâ— adjutor ero ad retinendum defendendum Ecclesiae Romanae REGMVM SICILIAE Tibi etiam Domino meo Innocentio Papae Successoribus tuis omnem obedientiam honorificentiam exhibeo quam devoti Catholiâ—â— Imperatores consueverunt Sedi Apostolicae exhibere Stabo etiam ad consilium arbitrium tuum de bonis consuetudinibus populo Romano servandis exhibendis de negotio Tusciae Lombardiae Et si propter negotium meum Romanam Ecclesiam oportuerit inâ—urrere guerram subeniam ei sicut necessitas postulaverit in expensis Omnia vero praedicta tam juramento quam scripto firmaho cum Imperâ—â— Coronam adeptus fuero Actum Aquis-Grant Anno Incarnationis Dominicae Millessimo Ducentessimo Quinto mense Marcij Regni nostri septimo William Rishanger Monk in the Abbey of Saint Albane in England continuer or the History of Matthew Parts observeth under the year 1263. that the king of England Henry the third and the Barons of England who made warreupon him committed their whole difference and quarrell to be judged by the Parliament of France Vt pax reformaretur inter Regem Angliae Barones ventum est adistud ut Rex proceres se submitterent ordinationi Parliamenti Regis Francâ—ae in the time of Saint Lewis in praemissis provisionibus Oxoniae Nec non pro depraedationibus damnis utrobique illatis Igitur in crastino S. Vincentij congregato Ambianis populo pene innumerabili Rex Franciae Ludovicus coram Episcopis Comitibus alijsque Francorum proceribus solemniter dixit sententiam pro Rege Angliae contra Barones statutis Oxoniae provisionibus ordinationibus ac obligationibus penitus annullatis Hoc excepto quod antiquae Chartae Joannis Regis Angliae universitati concessae per illam sententiam in nullo intendebat penitus derogare In this Parliament at Amiens were present the King of England Henry the third Queen Elenor his wife Boniface Archbishop of Canterbury Peter Bishop of Hereford and Iohn Maunsell and on the Barons of Englands side a very great number of choice elected Lords who the same year repasted back into England after the Parliament as the same Monk speaketh Thus Favino in the behalfe of the French Parliaments concerning whose power and priviledges you may read much more in him and others But to returne to the former History The Queen Mother was much discontented with this Remonstrance of the Parliament pretending that they had an intent to call her Regency in question which all had commended that they could not speak of the Government of the affaires of the Realm without touching her c. Whereupon she commanded the Chancellour to give them this answer in the kings name That France was a Monarchy wherein the king alone commanded helding his Realm Soveraignly from God That he had Lawes and Ordinances by which to governe them for the which he was not to give an account to any man That it did not belong unto the Parliament to controll his Government That they neither could nor ought to complain of the Queens Regenâ—â— which had been so happy That the Queen was not to give an account of her Regency but to God onely That no man could prescribe unto the King what Councellers he should entertain c. with many other such bigge words After which there was a Decree made in the Councell of State against the Decree and Remonstrance in Parliament disanulling and revoking them as void and forbidding the Parliament hereafter to meddle with affairs of State The Court of Parliament in generall complained much of this Decree the kings learned Councell refuse to carry or cause it to be read in Parliament because it would cause an alteration of the good affections and devotions of the Kings good subjects and the dis-union of the greatest companies of the Realme who administer justice which makes kings to Reigne After which this controversie was compremised and the Decree of the Councell against the Parliament suspended and not enrolled Soon after the prince of Conde with divers others seeing all things disordered at Court and little or no reformation of their former grievances desert Paris expressesse their grievances in sundry letters and Articles of complaint wherein they complain of the want of freedom and redresse of their grievances presented in the last assembly of the three Estates of the Decree and proceedings against the Iurisdiction Remonstrance and proceedings of the Parliament of Paris Of suffering some Councellors of State to usurpe all the power of the Kingdom to pervert the Lawes and change all things as they list with sundry other particulars In these they intreat and exhort all men of what condition or quality soever that call themselves Frenchmen to assist and ayde them in SO IVST A CAVSE conjuring all Princes and forraign Estates to do the like and not to suffer such good and loyall subjects to
26. Ioannis Mariana Hist. l. 10 c. 16. l. 27. c. 11 l. 35. c 16. Albericus Gentilis de Iure Belli l. 3. c. 15. Cuiacius c 33. de Iure Iurando Decius Cons 564. 689. Cephalus Concil 618. Alciatus l. 3. de v. s l. 15. C. de pact Baldus Proaem Digest and by Iunius Brutus Vindicia contra Tyrannos qu. 3. p. 136. to 256. who handles this question professedly Whether that the King be the proprietory Lord of the publike Royall Patrimany of his Kingdom or the Vsufractuary of it determining cleerly that he is not I shall transcribe the most of his Dicourse This Head we must handle a little more accurately This is first to be observed that the Patrimony of the Exchequer is one thing of the Prince another thing I say the things of the Emperour King Prince are one thing the things of Antonine Henry Philip another The things of the King are those which he as king possesseth the things of Antonine those which he hath as Antonine and those verily he received from the people the other from his Parents This distinction is frequent in the Civill Law wherein the patrimonie of the Empire is said to be one thing of Caesar another the Exchequer of Caesar one thing the Treasury of the Republike another the Treasurer of Caesar one person of the Emperiall Exchequer another the Courts of sacred donations others from those of private things so that he who as Emperour is preferred before a private man in a pledge may sometimes be placed after him as Antonine Likewise in the German Empire things of Marimilian of Austria are one kinde of things of Maximilian the Emperour another the Treasurers of the Empire others and of himself other from them Likewise by another Law the hereditary possession of Princes are different from those which are annexed to the dignities of the Electorship Yea even among the Turks the Patrimoniall Grounds or Gardens of Selymus are one thing the fiscall Ground another and those verily are spent on the Princes Table these onely in sustentation of the Empire Yet there are Kingdoms as the French English and the like wherein Kings have no private Patrimonie but onely the Republike received from the people in which therefore this distinction is not used Now as for the private goods of Princes if there be any there is no doubt but they are the proprietors of them no otherwise then private Citizens and by the civill Law they may sell and divide them at their pleasure But verily of the Exchequer Kingdom Royall Patrimony which is usually called Demesnes they can with no reason be called the proprietory Lords For what whether because one hath made thee a Shepheard for his Flocks sake hath he delivered it thee to fley divide doe with it and strike it at thy pleasure whether because the people have constituted thee a Captain or Judge of some Citie or County have they given thee power of alienating selling destroying that Citie or County And surely there is made an alienation of the people together with the Region or Countie have they therefore given thee authority of severing prostituting enslaving them to whom thou wilt Furthermore is the Royall dignitie a possession or rather a function If a function what community hath it with a propriety If a possession whether not at least such an one that the same people by whom it is delivered may perpetually retain the propriety to it self Finally if the patrimonie of the Eschequer or demaines of the Republike be truely called a Dower and truely such a Dower by whose alienation or delapidation both the Republike it self and Kingdom and king himself finally perisheth by what law at last shall it be lawfull to alienate this Dower Therefore let Wenceslaus the Emperour be infatuated let Charles the sixth king of France be distracted and give or sell the kingdom or a part thereof to the English let Malchom king of Scotland prodigally spend the Crown land and royall Treasure what will follow Those who have chosen a king against the invasions of Forraigners by the folly or madnesse of the king shall be made the servants of Forraigners those who by this means would severally desire to secure their Estates shall all of them together be exposed to a prey those things which every one shall take from himself or from his pupils as in Scotland that he mightendow the Commonwealth some Bawd shall riotously consume But if as we have already often said kings be created for the peoples use what use at all shall there be if not onely the use but even the abuse be granted To whose good are so many evils to whose benefit so many losses so many perils If I say whiles I desire to look after my liberty or safetie I make my selfe a slave I expose my selfe to the lust of one man I put my self into Fetters and Stocks Therefore we see this Law as it is infused by nature so likewise it is approved by use almost among all Nations that it is not lawfull for the king to diminish the Commonwealth at his pleasure and he who doth contrary is censured to play not the king but Tyrant Certainly where kings were created there was a necessity to give them some Revenues by which they might both support their Royall State but most principally sustain the Royall burthens for so both honesty and profit seemed to require It pertained to the Royall Office to see Judges placed every where who should not take gifts and who should not prostitute the Law to sale Moreover to provide a force ready at hand which should assist the Law when ever there should be need to preserve the wayes safe Commerce safe c. but if warre were feared to sortifie Cities with a Garrison to inviron them with a Trench against enemies to maintain an Army to furnish Armories Now this is a know proverb that peace cannot consist without warre nor war without souldiers nor souldiers without wages nor wages without tribute Therefore to sustaine the burthens of Peace the demesne was instituted which among the Lawyers is called Canon to defray the charges of warre tribute yet so as if some more heavy charge should accrue an extraordinary ayde given by Parliament should supply the end of all which verily is the good of the Commonwealth so as he that converts it to his private use is plainly unworthy the name of a king For a Prince saith Paul is the Minister of God for the peoples good and Tributes and Customes are paid to him that he may continually attend thereto And truely heretofore almost all Customs of the Romanes seem to have had this Originall that the precious Merchandize used to be brought out of India Arabia Aethiopia might be secured against piraticall invasions for which cause a Navie was furnished of which kinde was the tribute of the Red-sea Pedatica Navigia Portoria and the rest that the publike wayes which were therefore
Alva his departure caused a fleet of ships to be armed in Spaine to bring him hither and another in Zeeland to goe and meet him as the bruite was to the great charge of the Countrey the better to abuse his poore subjects and to draw them more easily into his snares notwithstanding the said Duke of Alva presently after his arrivall although he were a stranger and not any way of the blood Royall gave it out that hee had a Commission from the King of Governour Generall of the Countrey the which was quite contrary to the priviledges and antient Customes thereof and discovering his designes plainly he suddenly put garrisons into the chiefe Townes and Forts of the Countrey and then he built Citadels in the richest and strongest Townes to keep them in subjection And by commandement from the King as they said he friendly called unto him as well by letters or otherwise the chiefe Noblemen of the Countrey pretending that he had need of their councell and assistance for the service of the King and the good of the Countrey who having given credit to letters were come unto him whom contrary to the priviledges hee caused to bee carried prisoners out of Brabant where they had been apprehended causing their processe to bee informed before him and his Councell although they were no competent Iudges and before any due proofes were made and the Noblemen that were accused fully heard in their defences they were condemned to have committed Rebellion causing them to be publikely and ignomiously put to death Others who for that they were better acquainted with the Spaniards dissembling were retired and kept out of the Countrey were declared Rebels and guilty of high treason and to have forfeited bodies and goods All which was done to the end the poor inhabitants should not aide themselves in the just defence of their liberty against the oppression of the Spaniards and their forces by the help and assistance of these Noblemen and Princes Besides an infinite of Gentlemen and rich bourgers whereof some he hath put to death others he had chased away and forfeited their goods oppressing the rest of the good inhabitants as well by the insolence of the souldiers as by other outrages in their wives children and goods as also by divers exactions and taxes forcing them to contribute for the building of new Citadels and fortifications of townes which hee made to oppresse them and also to pay the hundreth and twintieth peny for the payment of souldiers wherof some were brought by him and others newly levied to employ them against their Countreymen and themselves who with the hazard of their lives sought to defend the liberties of their Countrey to the end that the subjects being thus impoverished there should be no meanes to frustrate his designes for the better effecting of the instructions which had been given in Spain which was to use the Countrey as new conquered To which end in some places and chiefe Townes he changed their forme of government and of justice and erected new Consuls after the Spanish manner directly contrary to to the priviledges of the Countrey And in the end thinking himselfe free from all feare he sought to bring in by force a certaine imposition of the tenth peny upon all marchandise and handi-works to the absolute ruine of the Commons whose good and prosperity consists chiefly in traffique and handi-works notwithstanding many admonitions and perswasions made to the contrary as well by every one of the Provinces in particular as by all in generall The which he had effected by force if it had not beene that soon after by the means of the Prince of Orange and a good number of Gentlemen and others borne in these Countries banished by the Duke of Alua following the party of the said Prince and being for most part in service and other inhabitants affected to the libertie of their Countrey the Provinces of Holland and Zeeland had not revolted and put themselves under the Princes protection Against which two Provinces the Duke hath since during his Government and after him the great Commander of Castile sent in his place by the King not to moderate any thing of his Predecessors Tyrannie but to pursue it more covertly and cunningly than he had done force those said Provinces who by their Garrisons and Citadels were made subject to the Spanish Yoke to imploy their persons and meanes to helpe to subdue them yet no wayes easing the said Provinces but intreating them like enemies suffering the Spanyards under the colour of a mutinie in view of the said Commander to enter by force into the Town of Antuerpe and there to continue six weeks living at discretion at the poore Bourgers charge sorcing them moreover to be freed from their insolencies to furnish foure hundred thousand florins to pay the said Spanyards which done the said Souldiers growing more bold through the sufferance of their Commanders presumed to take Armes against the Countrey seeking first to surprize Brussels and in the place of the ancient and ordinary seate of Princes to make it a nest and den of theeves The which not succeeding according to their designe they tooke A lost by force and soone after forced the Towne of Maestricht And since being violently entred into Antuerpe they spoyled it sacked it and wasted it with fire and sword in such sort as the most barbarous and cruell enemies could not have done more to the unspeakable losse not onely of the poore inhabitants but in a manner of all the Nations of the world who had their Merchandise debts and money there And although the said Spanyards by a Decree of the Councell of Estate to whom the King by the death of the great Commander had conferred the generall Government of the Countrey were in the presence of Ieronimo de Rhoda proclaimed enemies to the Countrey yet the said Rhoda of his owne private authority or as it is to bee presumed by vertue of some secret instruction which he had from Spaine took upon him to be the head of the said Spanyards and their adherents so as without respect of the Councell of Estate he usurped the kings Name and Authority counterfeited his Seale and carried himself as a Governour and the Kings Lieutenant in the Countries The which moved the Estates at the same instant to agree with the Prince of Orange and the Estates of Holland and Zeeland which accord was allowed by the Councell of State as lawfull Governours that they might joyntly with their common forces make warre against the Spanyards Omitting not as good subjects but by divers humble petitions to beseech the King to have regard unto the troubles oppressions and insolencies which had hapned and were like to follow and that hee would bee pleased with all convenient speed possible to command the Spanyards to depart out of the Countrey and especially those which had been the cause of the sacke and ruine of the chiefe Towns of the Countrey and other innumerable insolences