Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	henry_n	king_n	marry_v	5,109	5	9.3955	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64086	A Brief enquiry into the ancient constitution and government of England as well in respect of the administration, as succession thereof ... / by a true lover of his country.	Tyrrell, James, 1642-1718.	1695 (1695)	Wing T3584; ESTC R21382	45,948	120

not as well suppose a like tacite consent in the Princess of Denmark's not making any Opposition or Protestation against this Act whereby the Crown was settled upon his Majesty during his Life but rather agreeing to it for I have heard that several of her Servants in both Houses did declare that the Princess did not design that her future Right should be any hindrance to the present Settlement Pray therefore tell me why may not King William hold the Crown after the Death of the Queen if she should happen first to die without any Usurpation as well as King Henry the Seventh held it after the Death of his Queen notwithstanding his two Sons Prince Arthur and Henry both lived to be Married before their Father Died and Henry the Eighth was then in his nineteenth or twentieth Year of his Age old enough of conscience to govern himself F. I confess these things were altogether unknown to me before as they are I believe to most of my condition and I give your Worship many thanks for your kind Information But pray Sir resolve me one Question more and I have done Do you think a Man may Lawfully take the new Oath of Allegiance to Their present Majesties notwithstanding King Iames is still alive and do you think I could justifie it in Law should I be called to an account for it if he should again by some unexpected means or other obtain the Throne I. Well Neighbour to satisfie you as to the first of your questions I answer thus I doubt not but you may Lawfully take this Oath since the Parliament have done no more in thus setling the Crown than what many former Parliaments have done before in like Cases whose Proceedings have been still looked upon as good and held unquestioned unto this day as appears by the President of Henry the VIIth I now gave you and upon which Declarations of Parliament who are the only proper Judges who have most Right to the Crown in case of any dispute about it the People of this Kingdom have still thought themselves sufficiently obliged to take such Oaths of Fidelity and Allegiance as the Government thought fit to frame and require of them according to Law But I confess the latter of your questions is somewhat harder to be answered because it depends upon a matter that is farther remote since we cannot tell whether if ever at all King Iames should re-obtain the Throne by what means it may happen for if it should be by the Force either of the Irish or French Nations I doubt not but we should be all made mere Slaves and Vassals without any Law or setled Property but his own Will But if it should be by any Agreement or Composition with him upon his Engagement to Govern according to Law the● le● me tell you Not only your self but every other Subject that takes this Oath will have a good Plea in Law for taking it by the Statute of the 11th of Henry the VIIth whereby it is expresly Enacted That every Subject by the duty of his Allegiance is bound to Serve and Assist his Prince and Sovereign Lord at all seasons when need shall require and then follows an Act of Indemnity for all those that shall personally serve the King for the time being in his Wars Which were altogether unreasonable if Allegiance had not been due before to such a King as their Sovereign Lord mentioned in the Preamble and if Allegiance were due to him then certainly an Oath may lawfully be taken to observe it since it is no more than what the Law hath ever required from Subjects to such a King not only by this Statute but at Common Law too as appears by my Lord Cookes Comment on the Statute of Edward the IIId where he asserts not only from the Authority of this Statute but also from the old Year-Books that a King de Facto or for the time being is our Lord the King intended in that Statute and that the other who hath a Right and is out of Possession is not within this Act. So that you see according to this Act of Henry the VIIth as also by the Judgment of the best Lawyers of England whatever Person is once solemnly Crowned King of England and hath been so Recognized by Authority of Pariiament as Their Present Majesties have now been are and ever have been esteemed Lawful and Rightful Kings or Queens though they had no Hereditary Right of Succession as next of Blood as I have proved to you from the instance of King Henry the 4th and 7th and could do also by the Examples of Queen Mary or Queen Elizabeth take which you please since they could not both of them succeed as the Legitimate Daughters and Heirs of King Henry the Eighth So that it is plain one or other of these Queens had no better than a Parliamentary Title to the Crown Therefore upon the whole matter whether Their present Majesties are Heirs to the Crown by Lineal Descent is not the Question but whether by the Law of England they are not to all intents and purposes Lawful and Rightful King and Queen so that an Oath of Allegiance may be lawfully taken to them and all men obliged to serve them in all their Wars and other Affairs even against King Iames himself since we cannot serve Two Masters that is owe Allegiance to Two Kings at once F. I cannot deny but what you say seems not only very reasonable but also according to Law but I heard the Squire and the Parson we but now mentioned positively assert That the King and Parliament had no Power to alter the Succession to thē Crown though they would and that therefore this Statute of Henry the Seventh you now mentioned which indemnifies all those that take up Arms in defence of the King for the time being is void First Because made by an Usurper who had no Right to make such a Law in prejudice of the true King or the next Heirs of the Crown but also because as they said it was but a Temporary Act and was to last no longer than during his life and lastly because this Statute hath never been allowed or held for good in any cases of Assisting Usurpers since that time for the Duke of Northumberland was Arraigned and Executed for Treason in the time of Queen Mary because he had Assisted and Taken up Arms on behalf of the Lady Iane Gray who was Proclaimed Queen and Reign'd as such for about a Fortnight and yet tho the Duke Pleaded afterwards that he had Acted nothing but by Order of the Queen and Council for the time being yet this Plea was over-ruled by the Peers who were his Judges and he was Executed notwithstanding Lastly they said That this Statute was implicitly or by consequence Repealed by those Statutes of Queen Elizabeth and King Iemes which appoint the Oaths of Allegiance to be only taken to the King his Heirs and lawful Successors besides a Statute of

conspire against him as well as the Parliament could do in the case of Prince Philip of Spain who was declared King joyntly with Queen Mary tho' he had no other Right but by Act of Parliament So that if the late Convention have declared That the Administration of the Government should remain solely in King William during his Life this was only to put it out of all dispute that none might at all doubt in whom the Supream Power lay since it will not admit of any Division F. All this seems reasonable enough but pray how comes it to pass that King William is to enjoy the Crown not only during the Queens Life but his own also this I heard Squire High-Church and the Parson I last mentioned cry out upon not only as a horrid Breach of the Hereditary Succession but also as a great wrong to the Princess of Denmark and her Heirs were the supposed Prince of Wales now dead since it is directly contrary to the Act of Recognition of King Iames I. whereby the Parliament do not only declare him to be lawful and lineal Heir of the Crown as descended from the Eldest Daughter of King Edward IV. But also they do thereby engage themselves and their Posterity to yield Obedience to King Iames and his Right Heirs I. Pray satisfie those Gentlemen when you meet them that if they once will grant that the late King Iames could Abdicate the Crown without his own express consent and that declaring this supposed Prince to be King was altogether unpracticable and unsafe for the Nation as I have already proved I think they need not be concerned whether his present Majesty enjoys the Crown for Life or not as long as it is for the Peace and Safety of the Nation that it should be so since it was for those ends alone that King Iames was set aside and the supposed Prince past by without so much as Enquiring into his legitimacy If the Convention had lawful Authority to decide the greater points they had certainly after they became a Parliament much more Authority to decide and settle the less material parts of this Controversie viz. The settlement of the Crown after the Queens decease since it is no more than what all former Parliaments have done in like cases Thus Henry the IV. and Henry the VII were formally declared nay the latter recognized for lawful Kings by Authority of Parliament notwithstanding the lineal Heirs by blood were then alive and in being and not only so but before ever Henry the VII married with the Princess Elizabeth Daughter to King Edward the IV. the Crown was settled upon him and the Heirs of his Body by an Act which you may find in Print in our Statute-Books Tho' he had no Right at all by Succession since his Mother the Countess of Richmond from whom all the Right he could pretend to the Crown was derived was then alive nor had made any Cession of it to him So that if this be true which I am able to prove that an Hereditary Succession in a right Line was never any Fundamental Law of this Kingdom And Secondly That after the Crown came to be Claimed by an Hereditary Right which was no older than Edward the Ist's time the Parliament have often taken upon them to break in upon this Hereditary Succession whenever the safety and necessity of the Kingdom required it And Thirdly That all those Kings who have thus succeeded without this lineal Right of Succession have been not only during their own Reigns owned for true and Legal Kings Attainders of Treason holding good against all Persons that conspired against them but also after their Reigns were ended for we see all such Acts of Parliament made under them stand good at this day unless it were those that were Repealed by subsequent Parliaments and can there then be any Question made but that the present Parliament have as much Power to settle the Crown upon his present Majesty for Life as they had to settle it upon King Henry the IV. or Henry the VII and the Heirs of their Bodies since those Princes could not deserve more from the Nation in freeing it from the Tyranny of the two Richards the II. and III. than his present Majesty hath done by freeing us from the Arbitrary Power of King Iames. And let me tell you farther that the Gentlemen you mention were mistaken in their Repetition of that Act of Recognition of King Iames the Ist's Title for though it is true they acknowledged him for undoubted lineal Heir of the Crown yet they do no where in that Act tie or oblige themselves and their Posterity to him and his right Heirs by that Act of Parliament but only in general that they promise Obedience and Loyalty to that King and his Royal Progeny and sure none will deny Their present Majesties to be the true Progeny of King Iames the Ist. F. I grant this seems very reasonable but those Gentlemen I now mentioned also said that Henry the IV. was in the Reign of King Edward the IV. declared an Usurper by Act of Parliament and as for Henry the Seventh he had either a Title from the House of Lancaster by the tacite concession of his Mother or else from that of York by the like tacite concession of the Princess Elizabeth his Wife or else if there were no such concession he was an Usurper till he had Married the said Princess she being Heiress of the Crown Pray what say you Sir to this I. Pray tell those Gentlemen from me that they are quite out in their Suppositions for if an Act of Parliament of Edward the Fourth be of sufficient Authority to prove Henry the Fourth an Usurper I can give you another Act of Parliament though not Printed which reverses the Attainder of King Henry the Sixth Margaret his Queen and Prince Edward their Son wherein it is expresly declared that King Henry the Sixth was contrary to all Allegiance and due order attainted of High Treason in the first Year of King Edward the Fourth wherefore it is by the Advice and Assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal Assembled in Parliament Enacted That all Acts of Attainder Forfeiture and Disablement made in the said Parliament against the said Blessed Prince King Henry are made void Annulled and Repealed So that if the Attainder of Henry the Sixth was against all due Order and Allegiance then certainly the said King must have been a Lawful King and not an Usurper at the time of his Death and if he were not so then certainly the like must be affirmed of Henry the Fourth from whom he was descended and under whom he claimed And as for Henry the Seventh there was no formal Cession of their Right ever given by the Countess his Mother or the Princess his Wife either before or after his coming to the Crown And as for a tacite and implied Cession expressed by saying nothing against it pray tell me why we may