know of it is from W. Malmesbury who making mention of him adds Lib. 2. pag. 25. Qui post occisionem Haroldi à quibusdam in Regem electus est vario lusu Fortunae rotatus NUNC penè decrepitum diem ignobilis Ruri agit In the same place he says that David his Sister Margaret's Son was King of Scotland which was not before the Year 1124. So that he lived at least to the Age of Seventy if we allow him to be Twelve at the Death of Harold when he was thought unfit to Reign for want of years And yet in all the Reigns of these Three Kings William the First and Second and Henry the First there was no Oath of Abjuration no Renouncing to the Rightful Title of Edgar Atheling Each of these Princes receiv'd the Oath of Fealty and Allegiance from their Subjects and looked no farther after the Exclusion of Edgar than that Oath did naturally carry them which is far enough in all Conscience when honest People take it 1087. When William the Conqueror died he left the Duchy of Normandy to his eldest Son Robert Mezeray is mistaken when he makes the Father yield up the Duchy to the Son 1077 when he was reconciled to him upon his mounting him again upon his Horse when he had ignorantly met and overthrown him and England to his second Son William Rufus and to Henry his third Son a mighty Summ of Money with a Prophetical Presage That he would One Day come to greater Matters Rufus was then with his Father and before his Funeral Exequies were performed to secure himself the better of his appointed Succession slipt over into England and got himself Crowned King by Lanfranc Archbishop of Canterbury but he was hardly warm in his Seat before a great and deep Conspiracy was form'd against him in behalf of his elder Brother Robert contriv'd and carried on especially by Odo Bishop of Baieux and Earl of Kent his Uncle Geofrey Bishop of Constance and other great Lords intending to deliver up the King and Kingdom into the Hands of Robert This so startled and amazed Rufus that he thereupon calls all the English Men together and lays before them the Danger he was in promising the Redress of many present Grievances and ample Privileges to them and theirs upon their Assistance which they consented to give and accordingly by their Help he pursued and utterly defeated his Enemies and became thereby enabled to forget his fair Promises Robert in vain attempted to invade England being repulsed with great loss by the King's Ships and Seamen and William in his Turn made over for Normandy to do as much as Robert had design'd but by the Mediation of Great Men on both sides the Brothers came to an Agreement that such and such Places should be delivered to each the other and that whichsoever of the Brothers died first without Children the other should succeed him in all his Estates And to these Covenants twelve of the most considerable Men on each side were very solemnly sworn This was done 1090 and in 1094 the Brothers disagreed again and all the Fault was laid upon the King who again prepar'd for Normandy where each of them did a great deal of Mischief to each other till very luckily the Pope engag'd Duke Robert to take upon him the Croisade who being easily persuaded thereto as one who was always a light and giddy-headed Prince he sent to the King to acquaint him with his Purpose to conclude a Peace and to borrow Money for that Expedition engaging his Dukedom for it to which the King assented readily and carried him the Money himself and took possession of his Pledge the Money came to six thousand six hundred sixty six pound of Silver And Robert behaved himself very honourably abroad where he continued till the death of King William 1100. In all these Quarrels and Conspiracies occasioned by D. Robert and his Partisans Rufus desired nor had no other Security of his Subjects than the Oath of Fealty and Allegiance which obliged them to be true to him without excluding or abjuring Robert and yet I take it Robert was a very formidable Competitor and that such an Oath was as necessary then as it ever was to this day Well this unfortunate Robert was again put by the Crown as well by his Absence as by the cunning Management of his younger Brother Henry who got so well into the good graces of the Lords and Bishops that he was crowned King before Duke Robert could return to make his Claim But see the Inconstancy of English-men Henry had made large Promises of amending all things that were amiss in the former Reigns and confirming the Liberties of the Church and a great many other good things and thereupon was received by all the Nobility and Clergy with gâ—eat Expressions ofJoy and Satisfaction and crowned by Maurice Bishop of London for Anselm had been driven away by W. Rufus But before they could have time to see whether King Henry would be as good as his Word they generally engaged in a Conspiracy to call in Robert and deliver up the Government to him some of the King's Ships went over to Robert and a great Conflux of People there was gathered to him when he landed at Portsmouth but before they came to try their Fortune in the Field of Battel an Accord was made between them by the mediation of some principal Men of both sides by which it was agreed upon that Robert should continue Duke of Normandy and Henry King of England paying his Brother yearly three thousand Marks that all Adherents to Robert should be clear'd and enjoy their Estates and that whichsoever of the two died Childless first the other should succeed in both the Kingdom and the Dutchy with some other Particulars which were all of them sworn to as before by twelve Great Men on each side This Agreement was made in 1101 and in a few years came to nothing for after many Depredations and Reprisals Skirmishes and taking and retaking of Towns in Normandy the fatal Battel was fought in 1106 where Robert was taken Prisoner and never after obtained his Liberty but having his Eyes put out a piece of Cruelty much in use in those days he lived and died at Cardiff a miserable Captive in the Year 1134 and was buried at Gloucester An unhappy Prince from the beginning to the End if we except two or three Years spent to his Honor in the Holy-Land But I have nothing to do with any thing relating to him but to remark that notwithstanding the great and continual Disturbance and Alarms he gave both William II and Henry yet neither of them took an Oath of Abjuration from the Nation and it is the more remarkable in Henry because that Robert had a Son called William a brave and noble Youth and a Prince of great Hopes and like enough to prove a strong Competitor to Henry's Children He was afterwards greatly favoured by the French King and married
Hearts were with John he made his Peace with him upon the vile unworthy Terms of forsaking Arthur But this was not what John wanted which was his Dègradation and Removal to which the following Passage ministred occasion Geofry Archbishop of York was forbid for some cause or other by K. Richard to enter England in three Years space but he unmindful of the King's Command and some say of his own Oath resolved to take the opportunity of the King's Absence and enter on his Bishoprick which attempting to do at Dover he was watched by the Chancellor's Spies and taken from the Altar of a Church whither he fled for refuge and dragged from thence and carried and committed to the Constable of Dover Castle This made a great Noise you may be sure in those days and opened the Mouths of the Clergy with whose Cries Earl John fell in immediately tho no great Friend to Church-men who are even with him in most of their Histories and wrote to the Chancellor to set the Archbishop at Liberty who refusing to do it he raised a considerable Army and drove his Enemy to great Straits and at last suffered him to transport himself out of the Land having first in the Presence and with the Consent of many Bishops Judges and Great-men and the Citizens of London decreed that he was not fit to bear any Rule or live any longer in the Kingdom When this good Company was got together Earl John resolved they should not part without a Tast of his Intentions and therefore the same day both he and the Archbishop of Roan who was put into the Chancellor's place as one of the Administrators of the Kingdom and others of the King's Justices granted to the Citizens of London habere communam suam and again in the same Year John and the Archbishop of Roan with almost all the Bishops Earls and Barons swore they would most firmly and inviolably as long as it should please the King observe and keep communam illam The Glossary to the X. Scriptores interprets Communam by Association and Confederation as if it were that these Lords and great Folks took the Citizens of London into Council with them and made them join with them in passing their Decree and Sentence on the Chancellor They did indeed do so but this is not enough methinks I have the Authority of a most excellent skilled Person both in these and all other Learned Matters whatsoever that Communa signifies in the place Privileges and Immunities and by the Sense I believe we should all of us construe it so For by the Passage with its Circumstances it appears that there was a Combination of Lords and Bishops and the Citizens of London in favour of John against any other Successor And the Citizens of London on their part swore Faithful Service took the Oath of Fidelity to King Richard and his Heirs and engaged that if he died without Issue they would receive John for their Lord and King And thereupon sware Fidelity to him against all Men saving their Oath to Richard Radulph de Diceto and Joh. Bromton make no mention of these Londoners Swearing but Roger Hoveden does in his Annals pag. 702. who lived and wrote in King John's Days and to him I refer you if you please This makes me inclinable to interpret Communam by something that the Citizens of London liked because they seemed to do a very bold and an unjust thing in lieu of it They took an Oath of Fidelity to One who was neither Heir by God's nor by the Laws of the Land nor yet by Designation and Appointment of the King then living who was very angry at these Proceedings and spoke very hard Words of his Brother John and there is great Reason to believe these strange Doings as well as the Departure of his Enemy King Philip of France hastened his Return the sooner into England But in his Return he was unfortunately taken Prisoner by the Duke of Austria and delivered into the Emperor's Hands and there continued Sixteen or Eighteen Months This Opportunity his Brother John laid hold on and by the instigation of the French King opened his Purposes and sought the Crown sometimes giving out the King was dead and sometimes that the Emperor resolved never to let him go And some Historians tell us that the King of France and John made mighty Offers to the Emperor either to detain him or deliver him up into their Hands which he had much ado to resist But the Nobility opposed him constantly and kept their Faith inviolable to their King to their great Praise and however careless and injurious they had been with respect to Arthur's Right of Succession yet they were very bold and faithful to their present King in Possession insomuch that instead of delivering up the Kingdom and swearing Allegiance to him as he demanded they very vigorously besieged him and his in Windsor-Castle and forc'd him to surrender that and other Holds and fly the Kingdom which he did and betook himself to his old Friend the King of France to whom he became Liege-man and did Homage for Normandy which yet would not submit to John but declared it self for its old Master whom they hoped to see at home again and safe in a short time And so they did for Richard came and landed at Sandwich in Kent and was joyfully receiv'd of all his Subjects throughout the Kingdom excepting some few Places which held out for John which in a little time were reduc'd and taken into Mercy by the King who by the Advice of the Bishops was again Crown'd with great Pomp at Winchester This is a long History you will think tho I have greatly shortened it but whereto does it serve Why some have confounded these Two Attempts of John and made but One of them and some have only mentioned his Attempt during his Brother's Imprisonment which yet you see was a Second Undertaking in pursuance of the First which made way as he imagined for it The Use I make of it is this to shew you that John by this first Treasonable Attempt of causing People to swear Fidelity to him against the King's Will and without his Knowledge and when he was not so much as Presumptive Heir must make him justly liable both to the King's Anger and to the Punishment of the Laws of the Land but that his second Attempt upon the Crown made him undoubtedly a Traitor and not to be endur'd either by King or Subject I know not how a Subject can become more dangerous and to be suspected than by having once been sworn into the Succession without his Prince's Knowledge and Good Will and having afterwards demanded openly the Crown altho his King was then alive And sure his succeeding so well as he did the first time and his attempting it the second time must make him a dangerous Competitor to the King and fit to be excluded by an Oath of Abjuration But nothing of this was thought upon Richard
after the Reduction of the Castles that held out in John's Favour summoned a Parliament at Nottingham such as the Parliament was then on the Thirtieth of March 1194. Trigesima Die mensis Martii feria quarta Ricardus Rex Angliae celebravit primum Concilii sui diem apud Nottingham as R. Hoveden pag. 737. where were present Elianor the King's Mother the two Archbishops David the King of Scotland's Brother the Bishops and the Barons And on the Day following the King demanded Justice should be done him on his Brother John who against his Oath of Allegiance had seised on his Castles destroyed his Countries both at home and abroad and Leagued against him with the King of France his Enemy And it was adjudged that Earl John should be cited to appear within Forty Days and stand to the Law and that if he did not Judicaverunt Comitem Johannem demeruisse regnum saith Hoveden Ipsum Fratrem suum Rex exhaeredavit Annal. Waverl An. 1194. Omne jus pristinum honorem impensum solenni judicio Procerum suorum abjudicavit saith J. Brompton from W. Hemingford whom he constantly Copies and Cites by the Name of Walter de Giseburn pag. 1278. lin 19. Judicio Procerum omni honore privavit saith H. Knighton l. 2. pag. 2408. But the Annales De Margan put out by the most excellently Learned Dr. Gale in 1691 go to my thinking a great way farther than all the rest The Passage is somewhat long but remarkable enough to make you amends for the Patience of Reading it Thus then in the Year M C XC IX After Richard's Death John his Brother in the Octaves of Easter having entred upon the Dukedom of Normandy coming over into England was Crowned King on Ascension-Day at Westminster May 27. against the Judgment and Decree of the Archbishops Bishops Earls and Barons and all the rest of the Great Men of England which they had passed at Nottingham in the Presence of King Richard his Brother where for the Treason he had acted against the King and Kingdom in Confederacy with the King of France he was disinherited and depriv'd abjudicatus which I cannot construe better not only of all the Lands he had in England but also of all Honors which he might hope for or expect to have from the Crown of England It was also decreed that he should be summoned to appear in such a space of time within the King's Courts to answer and defend himself if he could upon the War and Treason aforesaid Raised and Committed whilst his Brother was abroad and detain'd in Germany but he came not himself nor sent any other to answer for him Upon which Three Earls his Peers were sent to the Court of France there to convict him of the same Treason but neither did he make his appearance there or answer for himself And yet against this Judgment and Decree he is Crowned King William de Breuse together with his Faction pressing instantly for his Coronation In which Coronation all that were concerned offended grievously as well because John had no Right to the Kingdom Arthur his elder Brother's Son being then alive as also that if he had been Heir of the Kingdom yet by and for the above repeated Treason he had been deprived and difinherited This is a famous Passage and makes very much for a Bill of Exclusion at least if I mistake not and there was so much in it that when the Pope's Legat was dissuading the King of France from sending his Son Lewis into England as the Barons and Great Men had by express Messengers desir'd him to do and told him England then was S. Peter's Patrimony by the Resignation of King John the King of France told him that England never was John's to give as well because no King can give away his Kingdom without their Consent as also because he had forfeited all Right to the Crown if Right he had had by his Treasons against Richard of which he stood Convict and had had Sentence passed upon him as a Traitor by Hugh de Pudsey Bishop of Durham Thus Matth. Westm. tho Matth. Paris represents it a little otherwise But tho the King and Parliament proceeded to an Act of Exclusion yet they put no one upon abjuring John by Name They thought it enough to secure the present King by an Oath of Allegiance and to put by John from succeeding him but no one ever was constrain'd to swear he never should nor ought to be King They hurt John as much as they could by freeing the Subject from swearing to him but they intended not to hurt the Subjects by compelling them to swear against him Methinks there is great deal of Difference betwixt these two Points and that 's the Use I would have you make of this long Story which I will conclude when I have added That tho John afterwards did actually succeed his Brother Richard tho Arthur had been declared Successor to Richard tho it was the Opinion of all the World both abroad and at home that Arthur was the undoubted Heir of the Crown tho many Nobles sided with him tho he claim'd the Crown himself openly and gave John abundance of Trouble and alarm'd him daily yet did John never attempt to get him abjured by the Nation nor to secure himself any other way than by the common Oath of Allegiance He afterwards caught him and in all likelyhood ordered him to be made away privately but that was nothing to the People of England He died 't is thought about 1203 but his Sister Ellinor commonly called The Damosel of Britanny lived till after 1240. Tho she undoubtedly was the Heiress of the Crown if the Nation had regarded the Lineal and immediate Succession as much in those as in these latter Days which it is manifest they did not The long and troublesome Reign of Henry the Third the Times of Edward the First and Second afford me nothing to my present purpose They had no Rivals or Competitors to fear nor consequently any occasion of securing themselves by any Oath of Abjuration When Edward the Third was Crowned King upon the Deposition of his Father tho Edmond of Kent and others attempted to deliver him from his Imprisonment and re-instate him again yet the young King sought not his Safety and Establishment by any Oath of Abjuration of his Father It was enough that the several Estates of the Kingdom had by Deputies appointed for the purpose solemnly renounced their Allegiance to him and chosen his Son to Reign in his stead and taken the usual Oath of Allegiance to him this was then esteemed sufficient Security for the young King without concerning the whole Kingdom in an Oath of Abjuration And this was the Case of Henry the Fourth when Richard the Second was deposed the Crown was entail'd by Parliament on him and his Sons but there was no Abjuring Richard by an Oath to be taken by the Subjects The Estates of the Realm Deposed him very solemnly