King has taken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oath the Archbishop stepping to 〈◊〉 side of the Stage erected for that purpose asks the people four several times in these words Do you consent to have this man to be your King Just as if he spoke to them in the Roman Stile Vultis Jubetis hunc Regnare Is it your pleasure do you appoint this man to Reign Which would be needless if the Kingdom were by the Law hereditary But with Kings Usurpation passes very frequently for Law and Right You go about to ground Charles's Right to the Crown who was so often conquered himself upon the Right of Conquest William surnamed the Conqueror â—orsooth subdued us But they who are not strangers to our History know full well that the Strength of the English Nation was not so broken in that one Fight at Hastings but that they might easily have renewed the War But they chose rather to accept of a King than to be under a Conqueror and a Tyrant They swear therefore to William to be his Liege-men and he swears to them at the Altar to carry to them as a good King ought to do in all respects When he broke his word and the English betook themselves again to their Arms being diffident of his strength he renewed his Oath upon the Holy Evangelists to observe the Ancient Laws of England And therefore if after that he miserably oppressed the English as you say he did he did it not by Right of Conquest but by Right of Perjury Besides it is certain that many ages ago the Conquerors and Conquered coalesced into one and the same people So that that Right of Conquest if any such ever were must needs have been antiquated long ago His own words at his death which I give you out of a French Manuscript written at Cane put all out of doubt I appoint no man says he to inherit the Kingdom of England By which words both his pretended Right of Conquest and the Hereditary Right were disclaim'd at his death and buried together with him I see now that you have gotten a place at Court as I foretold you would you are made the King's Chief Treasurer and Steward of his Court-Craft And what follows you seem to write ex Officio as by virtue of your Office Magnificent Sir If any preceding Kings being thereunto compelled by Factions of Great Men or Seditions amongst the Common People have receded in some measure from their Right that cannot prejudice the Successor but that he is at liberty to resume it You say well if therefore at any time our Ancestors have through neglect lost any thing that was their Right why should that prejudice us their Posterity If they would promise for themselves to become Slaves they could make no such promise for us who shall always retain the same Right of delivering our selves out of Slavery that they had of enslaving themselves to any whomsoever You wonder how it comes to pass that a King of Great Britain must now-adays be looked upon as one of the Magistrates of the Kingdom only whereas in all other Kingly Governments in Christendom Kings are invested with a Free and Absolute Authority For the Scots I remit you to Buchanan For France your own Native Countrey to which you seem to be a stranger to Hottoman's Franco Gallia and Girardus a French Historian for the rest to other Authors of whom none that I know of were Independents Out of whom you might have learned a quite other lesson concerning the Right of Kings than what you teach Not being able to prove that a Tyrannical Power belongs to the Kings of England by Right of Conquest you try now to do it by Right of Perjury Kings profess themselves to Reign By the Grace of God What if they had professed themselves to be gods I believe if they had you might easily have been brought to become one of their Priests So the Archbishops of Canterbury pretended to Archbishop it by Divine Providence Are you such a fool as to deny the Pope's being a King in the Church that you may make the King greater than a Pope in the State But in the Statutes of the Realm the King is called our Lord. You are become of a sudden a wonderful Nomenclator of our Statutes But you know not that many are called Lords and Masters who are not really so You know not how unreasonable a thing it is to judge of Truth and Right by Titles of Honour not to say of Flattery Make the same Inference if you will from the Parliament's being called the King's Parliament for it is called the King's Bridle too or a Bridle to the King and therefore the King is no more Lord or Master of his Parliament than a Horse is of his Bridle But why not the King's Parliament since the King summons them I 'le tell you why because the Consuls used to indict a Meeting of the Senate yet were they not Lords over that Council When the King therefore summons or calls together a Parliament he does it by vertue and in discharge of that Office which he has received from the people that he may advise with them about the weighty affairs of the Kingdom not his own particular Affairs Or when at any time the Parliament debated of the King 's own Affairs if any could properly be called his own they were always the last things they did and it was in their choice when to debate of them and whether at all or no and depended not upon the King's Pleasure And they whom it concerns to know this know very well That Parliaments anciently whether summoned or not might by Law meet twice a Year But the Laws are called too The King's Laws These are flattering ascriptions a King of England can of himself make no Law For he was not constituted to make Laws but to see those Laws kept which the People made And you your self here confess That Parliaments Meet to make Laws Wherefore the Law is also called the Law of the Land and the Peoples Law Whence King Ethelstane in the Preface to his Laws speaking to all the People I have granted you every thing says he by your own Law And in the form of the Oath which the Kings of England used to take before they were made Kings The People stipulate with them thus Will you grant those Just Laws which the People shall chuse The King Answers I will And you are infinitely mistaken in saying That When there is no Parliament sitting the King Governs the whole state of the Kingdom to all intents and purposes by a Regal Power For he can determine nothing of any moment with respect to either Peace or War nor can he put any stop to the Proceedings of the Courts of Justice And the Judges therefore Swear That they will do nothing Judicially but according to Law tho the King by Word or Mâ—…te or Letters under his own Seal should command the contrary Hence it is that the King is often
that may save in all thy cities and thy judges of whom thou saidest give me a king and princes I gave thâ—â— a king in mine anger and took him 〈…〉 my wrath And Gidem that warlike Judg that was greater than a King I will not rule over you says he 〈…〉 shall my son rule over you the Lord shall rule over you Judges Chap the 8th Intimating thereby that it is not fit for a man but for God only to exercise Dominion over men And hence Josephus in his Book against Aâ—… an Egyptian Grammarian and a â—oulmouth'd fellow like you calls the Commonwealth of the Hebrews a Theocracy because the principality was in God only In Isaiah Chap. 26. v. 13. The people in their repentance complain that it had been mischievous to them that other Lords besides God himself had had Dominion over them All which places prove clearly that God gave the Israelites a King in his anger but now who can forbear laughing at the use you make of Abimelech's story Of whom it is said when he was kill'd partly by a woman that hurl'd a piece of a Mill-stone upon him and partly by his own Armour-Bearer that God rendred the wickedness of Abimelech This History say you proves strongly that God only is the Judge and Avenger of Kings Yea if this Argument holds he is the only Judge and Punisher of Tyrants Villanous Rascals and Bastards whoever can get into the Saddle whether by right or by wrong has thereby obtain'd a Soveraign Kingly right over the people is out of all danger of punishment all inferior Magistrates must lay down their Arms at his feet the people must not dare to mutter But what if some great notorious robber had perished in War as Abimelech did would any man infer from thence That God only is the Judge and Punisher of High-way men Or what if Abimelech had been condemn'd by the Law and died by an Executioner's hand would not God then have rendred his wickedness You never read that the Judges of the Children of Israel were ever proceeded against according to Law And yet you confess That where the Government is an Aristocracy the Prince if there be any may and ought to be call'd in question if he break the Laws This in your 47th Page And why may not a Tyrant as well be proceeded against in a Kingly Government Why because God rendred the wickedness of Abimelech So did the Women and so did his own Armour-bearer over both which he pretended to a right of Soveraignty And what if the Magistrates had rendred his wickedness Do not they bear the Sword for that very purpose for the punishment of Malefactors Having done with his powerful argument from the History of Abimelech's death he bâ—takes himself as his custom is to Slanders and Calumnies nothing but dirt and filth comes from him but for those things that he promis'd to make appear he hath not prov'd any one of them either from the Scriptures or from the Writings of the Rabbins He alledges no reason why Kings should be above all Laws and they only of all mortal men exempt from punishment if they deserve it He falls foul upon those very Authors and Authorities that he makes use of and by his own Discourse demonstrates the truth of the opinion that he argues against And perceiving that he is like to do but little good with his arguments he endeavours to bring an odium upon us by loading us with slanderous accusations as having put to death the most Vertuous innocent Prince that ever reign'd VVas King Solomon says he better than King Charles the First I confess some have ventur'd to compare his Father King James with Solomon nay to make King James the better Gentleman of the 〈◊〉 Solomon was David's Son David had been Sauâ—… â—…n but king James was the Son of the End of Darly who as â—uchanan tells us because Dâ—… the Musitian get into the Queen's Bed-Chamber at an unseasonable time kill'd him a little after he could not get to him then because he had Bolted the Door on the inside So that King James being the Son of an Earâ— was the better Gentleman and was frequently called a second Solomon though it is not very certain that himself was not the Son of David the Musitian too But how could it ever come into your head to make a comparison betwixt King Câ—ries and Solomon For that very King Charles whom you praise thus to the sky that very man's obâ—…acy and covetousness and cruelty his hard usage of all good and honest men the Wars that he rais'd the Spoilings and Plunderings and Conflagrations that he occasioned and the death of innumerable of his Subjects that he was the cause of does his Son Charles at this very time whilest I 'm a writing confess and bewail in the Stool of Repentance in Scotland and renounces there that Kingly right that you assert but since you delight in Parallels let 's compare King Charles and King Solomon together a little Solomon began his reign with the death of his Brother who had justly deserved it King Charles began his with his Father's Funeral I do not say with his Murder and yet all the marks and tokens of Poyson that may be appeared in his dead body but the suspition lighted upon the Duke of Buckingham only whom the 〈◊〉 notwithstanding cleared to the Parliament though he had killed the King and his Father and not only soâ— but he dissolved the Parliament lest the matter should be enquired into Solomon oppressed the people with heavy Taxes but he spent that â—…upon the Temple of God and in raising other publick Buildings King Charles spent his in Extravag 〈◊〉 Solomon was enticed to Idolatry by many Wives This man by one Solomon though he were seduced himself we read not that he seduced others but King Charles seduced and enticed others not only by large and ample rewards to corrupt the Church but by his Edicts and Ecclesiastical Constitutions he compelled them to set up Altars which all Protestants abhor and to bow down to Crucifixes painted over them on the Wall But yet for all this Solomon was not condemned to die Nor does it follow because he was not that therefore he ought not to have been Perhaps there were many Circumstances that made it then not expedient But not long after the people both by words and actions made appear what they took to be their right when Ten Tribes of Twelve revolted from his Son and if he had not saved himself by flight it is very likely they would have stoned him notwithstanding his Threats and big swelling words CHAP. III. HAving proved sufficiently that the Kings of the Jews were subject to the same Laws that the people were That there are no exceptions made in Scripture That 't is a most false assertion grounded upon no reason nor warranted by any Authority to say That Kings may do what they list with Impunity That God has exempted them
Government Sir Thomas Smith a Country-man of ours in Edward the Sixth's days a good Lawyer and a Statesman one whom you your self will not call a Parricide in the beginning of a Book which he wrote of the Common-wealth of England asserts the same thing and not of our Government only but of almost all others in the world and that out of Aristotle and he says it is not possible that any Government should otherwise subsist But as if you thought it a crime to say any thing and not unsay it again you repeat your former thread-bare Contradictions You say There neither is nor ever was any Nation that did not understand by the very name of a King a person whose authority is inferior to God alone and who is accountable to no other And yet a little after you confess that the name of a King was formerly given to such Powers and Magistrates as had not a full and absolute right of themselves but had a dependance upon the people as the Suffetes among the Carthaginians the Hebrew Judges the Kings of the Lacedemonians and of Arragon Are you not very consistent with your self Then you reckon up five several sorts of Monarchies out of Aristotle in one of which only that Right obtain'd which you say is common to all Kings Concerning which I have said already more than once that neither doth Aristotle give an instance of any such Monarchy nor was there ever any such in being the other four he clearly demonstrates that they were bounded by Establisht Laws and the King's Power subject to those Laws The first of which four was that of the Lacedemonians which in his opinion did of all others best deserve the name of a Kingdom The second was such as obtain'd among Barbarians which was lasting because regulated by Laws and because the people willingly submitted to it whereas by the same Author's opinion in his third Book what King so ever retains the Soveraignty against the people's will is no longer to be accounted a King but a downright Tyrant all which is true likewise of his third sort of Kings which he calls Aesymnete who were chosen by the people and most commonly for a certain time only and for some particular purposes such as the Roman Dictators were The fourth sort he makes of such as reigned in the Heroical days upon whom for their extraordinary merits the people of their own accord conferr'd the Government but yet bounded by Laws nor could these retain the Soveraignty against the will of the people nor do these four sorts of Kingly Governments differ he says from Tyranny in any thing else but only in that these Governments are with the good liking of the people and That against their will The fifth sort of Kingly Government which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or absolute Monarchy in which the Supreme Power resides in the King's person which you pretend to be the right of all Kings is utterly condemn'd by the Philosopher as neither for the good of Mankind nor consonant to Justice or Nature unless some people should be content to live under such a Government and withal confer it upon such as excel all others in vertue These things any man may read in the third Book of his Politicks But you I believe that once in your life you might appear witty and florid pleased your self with making a comparison betwixt these five sorts of Kingly Government and the five Zones of the World betwixt the two extremes of Kingly power there are three more temperate Species interposed as there lie three Zones betwixt the Torrid and the Frigid Pretty Rogue what ingenious comparisons he always makes us May you be for ever banished whither you your self condemn an absolute Kingdom to be to wit to the frigid Zone which when you are there will be doubly cold to what it was before In the mean while we shall expect that new fashioned sphere which you describe from you our modern Archimedes in which there shall be two extreme Zones one Torrid and the other Frigid and three temperate ones lying betwixt The Kings of the Lacedaemonians you say might lawfully be Imprisoned but it was not lawful to put them to Death Why not Because the Ministers of Justice and some Foreign Soldiers being surprised at the Novelty of the thing thought it not lawful to lead Agis to his Execution though condem'd to die And the people of Lacedemon were displeased at his death not because condemn'd to die though a King but because he was a good man and popular and had been circumvented by a faction of the great ones Says Plutarch Agis was the first King that was put to death by the Ephori in which words he does not pretend to tell us what lawfully might be done but what actually was done For to imagin that such as may lawfully accuse a King and imprison him may not also lawfully put him to death is a childish conceit At last you betake your self to give an account of the Right of English Kings There never was you say but one King in England This you say because you had said before that unless a King be sole in the Government we cannot be a King Which if it be true some of them who I had thought had been Kings of England were not really so for to omit many of our Saxon Kings who had 〈◊〉 their Sons or their Brothers Partners with them in the Government it is known that King Henry the Second of the Norman Race reign'd together with his Son Let them show say you a President of any Kingdom under the Government of a single person who has not an absolute power though in some Kingdoms more remiss in others more intense Do you show any Power that 's absolute and yet remiss you Ass is not that power that 's absolute the Supreme Power of all How can it then be both supreme and remiss Whatsoever Kings you shall acknowledg to be invested with a remiss or a less power those I will easily make appear to have no absolute power and consequently to be inferior to a People free by nature who is both its own Law given and can make the Regal Power more or less intense or remiss that is greater or less Whether the whole Island of Britain was anciently Governed by Kings or no is uncertain It 's most likely that the form of their Government changed according to the Exigencies of the times Whence Tacitus says The Britains anciently were under Kings now the great man amongst them divide them into Parties and Factions When the Romans left them they were about forty years without Kings they were not always therefore under a Kingly Government as you say they were but when they were so that the Kingdom was Hereditary I positively deny which that it was not is evident both from the Series of their Kings and their way of Creating them for the consent of the people is asked in express words When the