Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	according_a	law_n	parliament_n	2,488	5	6.5410	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64092	Patriarcha non monarcha The patriarch unmonarch'd : being observations on a late treatise and divers other miscellanies, published under the name of Sir Robert Filmer, Baronet : in which the falseness of those opinions that would make monarchy Jure divino are laid open, and the true principles of government and property (especially in our kingdom) asserted / by a lover of truth and of his country.	Tyrrell, James, 1642-1718.	1681 (1681)	Wing T3591; ESTC R12162	177,016	266

or Record the Prince in being hath onely a Right from Possession and can never create himself a Title by the continuation of his own Injustice or command any of his Subjects to fight against this true Heir since they are to obey this Vsurper p. 72. or his Heirs onely in such things as tend to their own preservation and not to the destruction of the true Governour By which Principle the Author at once renders the Titles of all the Crowns in Europe disputable and all Allegiance uncertain and questionable by their Subjects as I shall shew in several instances as I shall prove from Histories of unquestionable credit I shall begin with our own Country England If therefore as the Author will have it p. 69. the Usurper is onely then to be taken for the true Heir when the knowledge of the right Heir is lost by all the Subjects it will follow that all the Kings and Queens that reigned in England until the coming in of K. James were Usurpers for the Right of Succession to the Crown of England could not be obtained by Conquest alone And I suppose this Authour does not allow it to be bequeathable by Will as long as the right Heir was in being and could be known from authentick Histories and Traditions Now the Right of the Crown by Descent belonging after the death of Edward the Confessor to Edgar Atheling his Cousen he dying without Issue the Right fell to Mawd his Sister who married Malcolm III Buchanan de Rebus Scoticus lib. 7. King of Scotland and though her Daughter Mawd was married to Henry the first King of England from whom all our Kings are descended yet the Right was not in her but in Edgar King of Scotland her Brother from whom all the Kings of Scotland to King James were descended It is true the Kings of Scotland were too wise ever to set up this Title because they knew the Norman Race were quietly possessed of the Throne and had been admitted and confirmed for lawful Kings by many great Councils or Assemblies of the Clergy Nobility and People yet did not this absolve the People who might very well retain the traditional knowledge of this right Heir For divine Right never dies nor can be lost or taken away or barr'd by Prescription So that all Laws which were made to confirm the Crown either to Henry I. or any of his Descendants were absolutely void and unlawful by our Authors principles and so likewise all Wars made against the King of Scotland in person were absolutely sinful and unlawful since according to this Authors principle the command of an Usurper is not to be obeyed in any thing tending to the destruction of the person of the true Governour So by the same Principle all Laws made in France about the Succession of the Crown are absolutely void and it would be a mortal sin in the French Nation to resist any King of England of this Line if he should make War in person upon the French King then in being since according to the ancient Laws of Descent in that Kingdom he is true Heir of the Crown of France Nor can the French here plead ignorance since there is scarce a Peasant there but knows our King stiles himself King of France and quarters the Arms of that Kingdom and so ought to understand the justness of his Title So likewise in Spain Mariana de Rebus Hisp lib. 13 cap. 7. all the Kings of Castile are likewise by this Rule Usurpers since the time of Sancho III who succeeded to the Crown after the death of Alphonso V his Father who had bequeathed it to Alphonso and Ferdinand de la Cerda his Grandsons by Ferdinand his eldest Son who died before him Yet notwithstanding this Testament and their Right as representing their Father the elder Brother Sancho their Uncle was admitted as King by the Estates of Castile and his Descendants hold that Kingdom by no better Right to this day Nor is this a thing stale or forgotten for the Dukes of Medina Coeli on whom by Marriage of the Heiress of the House de la Cerda the right descends do constantly put in their Claim upon the death of every King of Spain and the answer is The place is full Nor can those of this Author's opinion plead possession or the several Laws that have been made to confirm the Crown to the first Usurpers and their Descendants for it will be replied out of this Author p. 70. That the right Heir having the Fatherly Power in him and so having his Authority from God no inferiour Power can make any Law of Prescription against him and Nullum tempus ocurrit Regi And this were to make the Crown elective and disposable according to the Will of the Estates or People I shall now return to the Author's distinction and shew that his distinguishing the Laws or Commands of Usurpers into indifferent or not indifferent signifies nothing for suppose that an Usurper as several have been in England and other Kingdoms either dares not or thinks it not for his interest to alter the form of the Government but is contented for his own safety to govern upon the same Terms his Predecessors did and so will not raise any Money or make new Laws without the consent of the Estates whom he summons for that purpose Now they must either obey his Writs of Summons or they must not if they do not obey them he will perhaps be encouraged to take their Goods by force perhaps by a standing Army which he may have ready in pay and then say it is long of their own stubbornness who would not give it him freely when they might have done it and they shall likewise be without these good Laws the Author supposes he may make but if they meet he will not let them sit unless they first by some Oath or Recognition acknowledge his Title to be good and own him as their lawful Prince Now what shall they do in this case they must either lose their Liberties and alter the form of the Government or acknowledge him to the prejudice of their lawful Prince But if the Laws are once made and they appear evidently for the good of the Commonwealth they then are no longer indifferent since all private Interests are to give place to the publick Good of the Commonwealth since in the instance before given of the Father of a Family 's being driven out of doors by a Robber no doubt but every Member of the Family ought to obey this Rogue in case the house should be on fire or ready to fall and he would take upon him to give orders for the quenching or securing it from falling for they did this not to own his Authority but from the obligation they owe to their Father or Master who would have done the same had he been at home So to obey Laws made by an Usurper that tend to the apparent benefit of the Commonwealth is not

likewise in Denmark the Author himself cannot deny but that Kingdom is limited for he could not before the late war with Sweden either make War or Peace raise mony or make laws without the consent of his Senate who were a constant representative of all the Nobility But for the Election of a new King or for the making of new Laws the whole body of the Nobility and Clergy were to be present and consent As for Scotland the Government of it hath alwayes so much resembled England that it being now the same Prince I shall not say more of it but that it hath alwayes been a limited if not a mixt Government In Sweden the Kings power is much the same only the Commons have representatives in the assembly of Estates which they had not in Poland and Denmark But in Denmark and Sweden the Kings until of Late that they became Hereditary were never received or owned as Lawful until they were Crown'd and had Sworn to observe and maintaine the Laws of the Kingdom and priviledges of the Nobility and People But the Authour thinks he hath gotten a great advantage because he finds that in Poland and Denmark the Commons have no representatives in the Assembly of Estates and that therefore in some limited Monarchies the whole Community in its underived Majesty do not ever convene to Justice Which signifie little for these that are now the Nobility may be Heirs to those that once had the whole propriety of the Country in their hands when these Kingdoms were erected and so tho the body of the People encreased yet the ancient Nobility never admitted them into a share of the Government As in Venice without doubt all the Ancient Planters of those Islands had Votes in the Government and it was then popular though it is now restrained to the ancient Families or those new ones they now admit and is much such an other cavil as that in England Before the reduceing the Nobiles Minores to two Knights of the Shire the Commons had no Votes in the great Council or Parliament which opinion see confuted in Mr. Petyt's Treatise of the ancient Rights of the Commons of England and in the learned Treatise call'd Jani Anglorum facies nova And this appears more plainly in Denmark where every Lord of a Mannor or Territory is a Nobleman and hath a Vote in the Diet or Assembly of the Estates or else it might have begun as in Poland which is but an Association of so many petty Princes for mutual defence under an Elective Head who when they entred into this Confederac reserved to themselves the power they had before over their Subjects and Vassals which how absolute that was any man may find that understands the Sclavonians Genius in so much that from the absolute Subjection of that People to their Lords we have the Word SLAVE to this day But the Author himself confesses the Kingdom of Poland to be limited but it is only by the Nobility who are for all this forced to please the King and to second his will to avoid discord which is very true and is requisite in all limited Governments that the King Nobility and People should agree and as it is their duty to comply with his desires as much as may be without giving up their liberties lives and fortunes absolutely to his disposal So it is his to answer his Peoples desires in all things which are for their benefit Not that I praise the Form of Government in Poland since of all those that own the name of King I am so far of the Authors mind as to think it most liable to Civil Dissentions But before I dismiss this Subject I must take notice of a mistake in the last Page of this Authors present Treatise which is that the People or Community in all these three Realms are as absolute Vassals as any in the world which is not true unless it be affirmed of the Vilains Or Vassals of the Nobility which is granted are more absolute Vilains than ours were in England but as for the free born See Pontanus Hist Dan. soterus de Stat. Suecia or ordinary Free-holders in Denmark and Sweden and for the Merchants and Artificers dwelling in Townes and Cities they have all their distinct priviledges and are free both their Persons and Fortunes and cannot be oppressed by the Nobility nor taxed but by the Dyet or Assembly of Estates but perhaps the Authors Friends may now cavil and say that these are no Monarchies at all because a Monarchy is the Government of one alone in which neither Nobility nor People have any share to which I shall say no more then that these People call their Governments Monarchies as participating more of that then any other forme and they are owned to be true Kings all the world over and if the Gentlemen of the Authours opinion will quarrel about words my business is not to dispute from Grammar but reason so that these Kingdoms may be called Monarchies as they are in Europe but if these Gentlemen think it not fit to call them so let them consider how much all this Authors discourse will concerne our Government in England or elsewhere in Europe Having now taken a short view of the Ancient Governments of most of the Moderne Kingdoms that have been erected since the ruin of the Roman Empire we will conclude with the Government of our own Countrey and inquire whether ever it were an absolute despotick Monarchy or no. As for the Original of the Saxon Government it is evident out of Tacitus and other Authours that the Ancient Germans from whom our Saxon Ancestors descended and of which Nation they were a part never knew what belonged to an absolute despotick power in their Princes And after the Saxons coming in and the Heptarchy having been erected in this Island the Ancient form of Government was not altered as I shall prove by and by therefore though the Monkish Writers of those times have been short and obscure in that which is most material in a History viz. the form of their Government and manner of succession to the Crown amongst them stuffing up their books with unnecessary stories of miracles and foundations of Churches and Abbeys Yet so much is to be pickt out of them that the Government of the West-Saxons which was that on which our Monarchy is grafted was not despotical but limited by Laws that the King could not seise mens lands or goods without Process that he could not make Laws without the consent of his Wittena Gemote or Great Counsel Nor take away mens lives without a Legal trial by their Peers See Mr. Petyt 's Preface to his foremention'd Treatise and that this Government hath never been altered but confirmed by their Successors both of the Danish and Norman Race as appears by their Charters and confirmations and many confirmations of Magna Charta and other Statutes as there is no man that is but moderately vers'd in the