other inferior Officers as so many Crystal Pipes he conveyeth to his People We will saith Edward the I st in his Book of Laws written at his appointment by John Briton Bishop of Hereford that our own Jurisdiction be above all Jurisdictions in our Realm so that in all manner of Felonies Trespasses Contracts and all other Actions Personal or Real We have Power to render or cause to be rendred such Judgments as do appertain without other Process whereever we know the right Truth as Judges All Jurisdiction say the Scotch Laws stands and consists in the Kings person by reason of his Royal Authority and Crown and is competent to no Subject but flows and proceeds from the King having Supreme Jurisdiction and is given and committed by him to his Subjects as he pleases The King then is the sole Supreme Judge all other Judges being his Deputies to whom whatsoever Power is by him committed yet is the last Appeal alwayes to be made to himself who may therefore as his Predecessors formerly have done sit in any Court and take Cognizance of any Cause but in Treasons Felonies c. the King being Plaintif sits not personally in Judgment but doth perform it by his Delegates From the King of Great Britain who being the only Supreme Head is furnished with Plenary Power and Jurisdiction to render Justice to every Member within his Dominions there lies no Appeal in Ecclesiastical Causes to the Bishop of Rome whose Authority ever since the Reformation has been here wholly abrogated nor in Civil Matters to the Emperor who for above twelve hundred years has not had the least Shadow of Pretence to any Jurisdiction within this Island nor in either to the people who both in themselves and by their Representatives in Parliament as well Conjunctim as Divisim are his Subjects and ow Obedience to his Commands To Legislation and Judicature which are solely and supremely in the King is necessary the Power of the Sword without which all other Power is nothing for forcing Obedience to the Laws and Judgments given both in Criminal and Civil Causes This having in virtue of their Soveraignty been alwayes indisputably enjoyed by the Monarchs of this Nation till the time of the late Rebellion was since his Majesties Restauration by a Parliament as truly zealous for the happiness of their King and Country as ever this Nation saw in proper and express Terms declared to be the Right of the King only without either of his Houses of Parliament the contrary Position thereunto asserted by the rebellious Members of the Parliament of 1640. having been the chief Means of overturning our Government and bringing Confusion and Misery upon this flourishing Kingdom Divinity So great was the Veneration shewn to the ancient Christian Emperors by their Subjects that they gave them tho imperfectly only and Analogically the Titles of Your Everlastingness Your Divinity and the like belonging essentially and perfectly to GOD alone Who to shew the great Power by him given to Soveraign Princes and to beget in the Hearts of their People an higher Esteem and more reverend Awfulness of them which failing all Confusion Impiety and Calamity break in upon a Nation is himself pleased as is manifest in Holy Writ to bestow upon them the Title of Gods as being his Vicegerents and representing his Majesty and Power upon Earth Nay so excessive was the Respect of the good Christians of those times that they were wont to swear by the Majesty of their Emperor as Joseph sometimes did by the Life of Pharaoh And this Custom seems to be justified by Vegetus a learned Writer of that Age being practiced only to create in the Subjects a greater Reverence for these Earthly Deities In like manner the Laws and Constitutions of this Monarchy attribute to the King whom they regard as GOD upon Earth divers Excellencies which belong properly to none but GOD. Thus as GOD is perfect so the Law will have no Imperfection found in the King No Negligence no Folly no Infamy or Corruption of Blood all former Attainders tho even made by Act of Parliament being ipso facto purged by the Accession of the Crown To the King is attributed Infallibility and Justice in the Abstract The King cannot erre The King can do no wrong To the King is likewise ascribed a Kind of Immortality The King never dies as being a Corporation in himself that lives for ever For all Interregna being unknown in these Kingdoms the same Moment that one King dies the next Heir is fully and absolutely King without any Coronation Ceremony or Act to be done The King is also in some sort said to be Omnipresent He is in a manner every where in all his Courts of Justice in all his Palaces Therefore it is that all his Subjects stand bare in the Presence Chamber wheresoever the Chair of State is placed tho the King be many Miles distance from thence He hath also a kind of Universal Influence over all his Dominions His Fatherly Care is extended to preserve feed instruct and defend the whole Commonweal His War His Peace His Courts of Justice and all His Acts of Soveraignty tend only to preserve and distribute to every person within his Territories their particular Rights and Priviledges By his Power of creating to the highest Dignity and annihilating the same at pleasure and much more by his Prerogative of pardoning those whom the Law has condemned he is invested with a kind of Omnipotency whereby he can restore to life those that are dead in Law And this Power of pardoning condemned Criminals is of such Benefit to the Lives and Estates of the People that without it many would be exposed to die unjustly The King alone in his own Dominions can say with GOD whose Representative he is Vengeance is Mine For all Punishments proceed from him in some of his Courts of Justice it not being lawful for any Subject to avenge himself The King alone is Judge in his own Cause tho he delivers his Judgment by the Mouth of his Judges But in nothing doth the King more resemble the eternal Deity than in the Plenitude of his Power to do what he pleases without being opposed resisted or questioned by his Subjects Nemo quidem saith Bracton de factis ejus praesumat disputare multo minus contra factum ejus ire Let none presume to search into his deeds much less to oppose them Nor is this a Priviledge belonging only to the King of Great Britain but a Prerogative inherent in every Soveraign Prince by vertue of his Soveraignty Where the word of a King is there is Power and who may say unto him what dost thou saith the Spirit of God by the mouth of the Royal Prophet Salomon For Kingly Power being by the Law of God hath no inferior Law to limit it The Emperor saith Saint Augustine is not Subject to Laws who hath Power to make other Laws Accordingly it is delivered by the great Lawyer
BRITANNIAE SPECULUM OR A Short View OF THE Ancient and Modern State OF Great Britain And the adjacent Isles and of all other the Dominions and Territories now in the actual possession of His present Sacred MAJESTY King CHARLES II. Treating of Britain in General LONDON Printed by Thomas Milbourn for Christopher Hussey at the Flower-de-Luce in Little Britain M.CD.LXXXIII THE PREFACE THis little Treatise is but the first Part of an intended larger Work the Design whereof as appears in the Title-Page is to exhibit as in a Mirror a view of the ancient and modern State not only of this our Island of GREAT BRITAIN but also of Ireland and all other His MAJESTIES Dominions and Territories not by writing a continued Chronicle or History of all the Kings or Princes reigning successively in them but only by giving an Account of such signal Mutations as made any considerable Change in the Administration of the Government either in Church or State In this part which treats of Britain in general after a short Description of the Island and a brief Account of the ancient Inhabitants thereof from whom not only our present Cambro-Britains but those also of Armorica or little Britain in France are descended is inserted a Discourse which tho it may seem a Digression is neither long nor impertinent touching the Original and Excellency of Monarchical Government to which and none other this our Island has been so fortunate as to have been Subjected from its very first being inhabited to this very Day Hereunto I was forced by the audacious Scribles of certain profligate Wretches who that they may the easilier instigate the Vulgar to a contempt of the Sacred Authority of their Prince and thereby make way for the overturning of this famous Monarchy and the introducing of Popular Tyranny in its place endeavour to debase Monarchy it self affirming the most High and Sacred Order of Kings which is the Ordinance of GOD himself founded in the prime Laws of Nature and clearly established by express Texts both of the Old and New Testaments to be a meer human Creature taking its Original from the Consent of the People by whom Soveraignty is conveyed unto Kings in trust only and by Communication and consequently that the People may whensoever they please resume this Power and call their Trustees to an account These are the pernicious Maxims which so lately intoxicated the three Kingdoms and are now again for the like purpose taken up by our present Republicans and daily disperst by the scurrilous Pamphleteers of these times one of which who insolently presumes to dedicate his treasonable Libels to a most Noble and Loyal Peer falls foul upon the Learned Sr. Robert Filmer for deriving the Regal Authority from the paternal instituted by GOD himself tho this verity be not only expresly delivered in the Holy Scriptures which declare that the first Government in the World was Monarchical in the Father of all Flesh but was by the very glimmerings of Natural Reason discovered by Aristotle who speaking of the Original of Monarchy saith The first Society made of many Houses is a Village which seems most agreeable to nature as being a Colony of Families which some call Foster-brethren or Children and Childrens Children Therefore at first Cities were and now also Nations are Governed by Kings because such came together as were under Kingly Government For the eldest in every House is King and so for Kindred sake it is in Colonies that is in more Families which are descended from the same House whence Homer saith Every man gives Laws to his Wives and Children Hence it is by all ancient Writers acknowledged that the first Commonweals were governed by Monarchs nor indeed was there any other Government known in the World for above three thousand years till some ambitious Fellows among the giddy Grecians a People alwayes delighted in Novelties rebelled against their Soveraigns and usurped their Authority as was lately here done by the Rump-Parliament and is now again aimed at by the Factors for the good-old-Good-Old-Cause The better to excite my fellow Subjects to a dutiful Submission to our common Father the King I have reminded them that all those Rights and Priviledges to the Preservation whereof tho neither infringed nor in danger of being so the popular Demagogues pretend to call them forth when their real design is utterly to destroy and take away both the Regal Prerogative and the Peoples Liberties are originally the Concessions of their Princes and therefore that as it is the height of Ingratitude to employ the Favours of their Soveraign to the disturbance of his Government so it is an excess of Folly to think to secure their Liberties by the pulling down or weakning that Authority which as it first gave them so is alone capable to protect and maintain them This tho it may seem strange to those that have their Heads filled with the Chimerical Conceits of the natural Freedom and Equality of Mankind and the first founding of Government by the Multitude upon such Terms and Conditions as to their Wisdoms seemed fit is yet clearly manifest from the Histories and Records of all Ages and Nations and particularly of this Kingdom of England of which it was well observed by the late Lord Keeper Bridgman then Lord chief Baron at the Tryal of the Regicides It is true we have as great Liberties as any People have in Christendom in the World but let us own them where they are due We have them by the Concessions of our Princes Our Princes have granted them and the King now He in them hath granted them likewise After this Account of the Original and Excellency of Monarchy to which Government alone I briefly shew that this Island has been alwayes subjected I proceed to the Conquest thereof by the Romans and thence to such other Mutations as hapned therein unto the time of Cadwalladar who in the Year 689 quitting his Kingdom of which the Saxons had gotten the best part a Period was put to the British Monarchy the very Name of King of Britain not being so much as heard of till the happy Vnion of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland by the Succession of His Majesties Grandfather King James of famous Memory to the Crown of England whose Genealogy from Cadwalladar I have here set down clearly demonstrating his present Sacred Majesty to be the true and undoubted Heir of the said British King as he is also of the Saxon Norman and Scotish Kings and consequently to have a clearer Right to this Monarchy than any private man can pretend to his Estate After this Relation of such Mutations as concern Britain in general I give a general Account of the present Government of this Island And here according to my Duty and the Oath of Supremacy which declaring the King to be the only Supreme Governour admits neither Equal nor Superior I assert the Soveraignty of our Lord the King and shew that there is not in our nor can
had of Proclamations appears by these Words of a Statute made in the one and thirtieth year of King Henry the VIIIth Forasmuch as the King by the Advice of his Councel hath set forth Proclamations which obstinate Persons have contemned not considering what a King by his Royal Power may do Considering that sudden Causes and Occasions fortune many times which do require speedy Remedies and thaâ— by abiding for a Parliament in the mean time might happen great prejudice to ensue to the Realm And weighing also that his Majesty which by the Kingly and Regal Power given him by GOD may do many things in such Cases should not be driven to extend the Liberties and Supremity of his Regal Power and Dignity by wilfulness of froward Subjects It is therefore thought fit that the King with the Advice of his Honorable Councel should set forth Proclamations for the good of the People and Defence of his Royal Dignity as necessity shall require The King only can give Patents in case of Losses by Fire or otherwise to receive the charitable Benevolences of the People without which none may ask it publickly The King by his Prerogative is Vltimus Haeres Regni and the Receptacle of all Estates when no Heir appears For this cause all Estates for want of Heirs or by Forfeiture escheat to the King All Spiritual Benefices for want of Presentation by the Bishop are lapsed at last to the King All Money Gold Silver Plate or Bullion found and the Owners thereof not known belong to the King and so do all Wayfs Strays Wrecks not granted away by him or any of his Predecessors All Wast Ground or Land recovered from the Sea all Land of Aliens dying before Naturalization all things the property whereof is not known and all Gold or Silver Mines in whose Ground soever they are found belong to the King In the Church the Kings Prerogative is very great He only hath the Patronage of all Bishopricks None can be elected Bishop but whom he hath first nominated None can be consecrated or take possession of the Revenues of any Bishoprick without his special Writ or Assent He is the Nursing-Father of the Church and hath Power to call a National or Provincial Synod and with the Advice and Consent thereof to make Canons Orders Ordinances and Constitutions relating to the Government and Polity of the Church wherein as it was affirmed by Christopher Wray Speaker of the House of Commons in the thirteenth year of Queen Elizabeth the Princes Power is absolute The King has Power upon Causes only known to himself to dispence by Non Obstantes with General Laws made in Parliament and with the Penalties for transgressing them where such Penalty is appropriated to himself alone to mitigate the Rigor of the Laws where Equity and Conscience require Moderation to alter or suspend any particular Law that he judges hurtfull to the Commonwealth to pardon a Man legally condemned to grant special Priviledges to particular Persons Colledges and Corporations and if any Doubt arises concerning such Priviledges he only has Right to interpret them To him and the Judges constituted by him does it belong to interpret all Statutes and to determin and pass Sentence in Cases not defined by Law These are some Branches of that Jus Coronae of that Regal Prerogative of the name whereof however some persons are afraid yet may they assure themselves that the Case of Subjects would be desperately miserable without it since the Kings just Rights are the best Preserver of the Peoples Liberties being an impregnable Bulwark against all popular Invasions and illegal Powers Nor have there ever been found any greater Oppressors of the People than those who under pretence of asserting their Liberties have endeavored to lessen the Royal Authority Thus in the great Contest between Henry the IIId King of England and the Barons about the pretended Liberties of themselves and the People the King being forced at length to yield the Lords instead of that glorious Freedom which they promised the Nation ingrossed all Power into their own Hands under the Name of the twenty four Conservators of the Kingdom behaving themselves like so many Tyrants acting all in their own Names and in Juntoes of their own wholly neglecting or else over-ruling Parliaments But then not agreeing among themselves four of them viz. the Earls of Leicester Glocester Hereford and Spencer defeated the other twenty and drew the entire Management of Affairs into their own hands Yet it continued so not long Leicester getting all into his own Power who being slain in Battle the King recovered his Authority and the People their true Liberty Many of these Prerogatives those especially that concern Justice and Peace are so essential to Royalty that they cannot be separated from it but by the destruction of the Monarchy it self Not without reason therefore did the Estates of England assembled in Parliament in the Reign of King Edward the IIId declare that they could not tho the King himself should desire it assent to any thing which tended to the Disherison of the King and his Crown whereunto they were sworn The King therefore as he is by his Office Debitor Justitiae obliged to administer Justice to his People so is he in Conscience bound to maintain the Rights of the Crown in possession and to endeavour the recovery of those whereof it has been dispossest And how dismal the Effects have been whenever any King neglecting the religious observance of this part of his Duty has been prevailed upon to give way to the lessening of his Royal Prerogative we have a sad Example in his Majesties Father of Blessed Memory who parting tho but only Pro illa vice with his absolute Power of dissolving Parliaments and giving it to the two Houses they never ceased farther incroaching upon his Prerogatives till he himself was barbarously murthered the Government wholly subverted and all the Liberties of the People trampled under foot To him therefore that shall seriously consider the many fatal Mischiefs and Inconveniences which necessarily follow the Diminution of the Kings Prerogative it will seem no Paradox to affirm that it is the Subjects great Interest to be far more sollicitous that the King maintain and uphold his own Prerogative and Preeminence than their Rights and Liberties which as they had no other Original but the Grace and Bounty of the Prince so must they of necessity perish when he is no longer able to protect them It is not thefore to be wondred that a right Apprehension of such pernicious Consequences made his Sacred Majesty refuse his Royal Assent to a Bill presented him for the raising of the Militia tho it was if passed into an Act to have continued in force but six Weeks Because the Tendency of the Bill being to put out of his Possession the Posse Regni or absolute command over the Forces of the Realm he could not answer unto GOD by whom alone he is intrusted with his Regal Power
Vlpian for a Rule of the Civil Law Princeps Legibus solutus est The Prince is not bound by the Laws Agreeable whereunto is what is said in the Laws of England Potestas Principis non est inclusa Legibus The Power of the Prince is not included in the Laws Hence no doubt it was that Mr. Grivel in the Thirty first year of Queen Elizabeth said in Parliament That he wished not the making of many Laws since the more we make the less Liberty we have our selves Her Majesty not being bound by them Yet is not this so to be understood that Kings have hereby a right to do Injury but that it is Right for them to go unpunished by their People if they do it The King cannot be impleaded for any Crime No Action lieth against his Person For the Writ goeth forth in his Name and he cannot arrest himself If he should which God forbid violently seizâ— upon the Estate of any Subject having no Title by Law so to do the only Remedy is by Petitioning him to amend his Fault which if he shall refuse to do it will be Punishment sufficient for him to expect that GOD who has given him his Prerogative of being above all Laws for the good only of them that are under the Laws and for the Defence of his Peoples Liberties will severely avenge the Cause of oppressed Loyal Subjects But altho whatever the King shall do he is not questionable for it by his Subjects yet there are divers things which he cannot do Salvo Jure Salvo Juramento Salva Conscientia sua For by an Oath taken at his Coronation the King obliges himself and indeed without any Oath he is by the Law of Nature and Christianity as are all other Christian Kings obliged to procure the Safety and Welfare of his People to protect and defend them against their Enemies to maintain and preserve them in their Properties just Rights and Liberties to administer upright Justice with Discretion and Mercy and in order thereunto to consent to the enacting of good Laws and repealing of Bad. Thus the King can do nothing unjustly nor can he divest himself or his Successors of any part of his Regal Power Prerogative and Authority inherent in the Crown and necessary for the Government and Protection of his People Two things there are especially which having somewhat of Odium in them the King doth not usually do without the Consent of his Parliament that is make new Laws and impose new Taxes the one whereof seems and does but seem to infringe the Peoples Liberties and the other to entrench upon their Properties To take away therefore all Occasions of Disaffection to the Anointed of the Lord stiled in Holy Scripture the Breath of our Nostrils and the Light of our Eyes the Wisdom of our former Princes his Majesties Royal Ancestors has contrived that for both these there should Petitions first be made by the People to the King Tho these and divers other Prerogatives do rightfully belong unto and are enjoyed by the Monarch of Great Britain yet doth he ordinarily govern his people by the known Laws and Customs of his Kingdoms making use of his Royal Prerogative for the Benefit not Damage of his Subjects in some rare and extraordinary Cases only Hereunto may be added a singular and Miraculous Priviledge enjoyed by the Kings of Great Britain quatenus Kings conferred first by the Divine Benignity upon that Blessed King of England St. Edward the Confessor and ever since continued to his Successors which is by the Imposition of their Sacred Hands to drive away and cure that stubborn Disease called the Struma or Scrofula and by us commonly from this supernatural manner of its Cure the Kings Evil. Upon certain dayes almost every Week during the cold Seasons his Majesty graciously permits all that are afflicted with that Disease having been first carefully viewed and allowed by his Chirurgeons to be brought into his Royal Presence Where an appointed Form of Divine Service consisting of some short Prayers pertinent to the Occasion and two Portions of Holy Scripture taken out of the Gospel being read the King at the pronouncing of these Words They shall lay their hands upon the Sick and they shall recover gently draws both his Hands over the Sore of the sick person the same words being repeated at every Touch. And at these Words This was the true Light which enlightneth every Man that cometh into this World he putteth about the Neck of each Sick person a piece of Gold called from the Impression an Angel being in value about eleven Shillings Sterling This evident Cure is by many malignant Nonconformists those true Sons of Belial daily despising and speaking evil of Dignities ascribed to the Strength of Fancy and exalted Imagination but little do they reflect upon how many tender Infants no way capable of such Transports this stupendious Cure is effectually performed Respect In consideration of these and many other transcendent Excellencies to no Prince or other Potentate in Christendom is done more Honour Reverence or Respect than to the Monarch of Great Britain All his Subjects at their first Addresses kneel unto him At Table he is served on the knee All persons the Prince or other Heir apparent not excepted are bare-headed in his Presence In the Presence Chamber tho the King be not there all men are not only uncovered but do or ought to do Reverence to the Chair of State The Kings only Testimony of any thing done in his presence is of as high a Nature and Credit as any Record And in all Writs sent forth for the Dispatch of Justice hee useth no other Witness but himself viz. Teste meipso As the King of Great Britain is thus reverenced and respected at home so is he no less honored and esteemed abroad For if he be regarded solely as King of England we shall find that the Emperor was accounted Filius major Ecclesiae the King of France Filius minor and the King of England Filius adoptivus That in General Councels the King of France took place on the Emperors Right Hand the King of England on his Left the King of Scots having Precedency next before Castile And that tho since the time of the Emperor Charles the Vth. the Kings of Spain have challenged the Precedency of all Christian Princes which nevertheless they have within this twenty years yielded to France yet in the time of our King Henry the VIIth Pope Julius gave it to the English before the Spaniard But if looking upon him as succeeding to the ancient British Kings whose true and undoubted Heir he is by Lineal and unquestionable Descent we shall consider the Antiquity of his Predecessors either as Kings Reigning here above a thousand years before the coming in of the Romans His Majesty now regnant being from the first British Kings the hundred thirty nineth Monarch or as Christians this Island having not only shewn to the World the first Christian King