assembled the Elders of Israel and all the rulers of the Tribes and the heads of the families of the children of Israel to Jerusalem And here too not a word of the People and yet Sir Edw. Coke calls them both Parliaments and so no doubt but they were somewhat like it or otherwise so many succeeding Centuries had never took pattern from them Not to run so far from home What was our Saxon Witenage mote Micel Synods Micel Gemotes or Great Councils but so many Assemblies of the Wise men concerning whom it is not to be presumed but that they were of the first rate the lump of the People as I so lately toucht it being for many Ages before and after not bred to Letters and consequently more apt for Blows than Arguments and readier to cut the knot in two with their Swords than unty it with their Tongues and in all the Saxon Annals we find the principal or chief Wites or Wise men of the Nation the Assembly of Gods Servants the Clergy then so called Aldermen or Earls Great men Chiefest men Noblemen the constituent parts of those great Councils but no Commons to be found or any that represented them Neither does Sir Edw. Coke in any Authority of his before the latter years of Henry 3. prove any where that the Commons at that time were any such part of those Parliaments for if they had there is no question but he would have nam'd them also as he doth those others that made up those Parliaments Rex Eldredus convocavit Magnates Episcopos Proceres Optimates ad tractandum de publicis negotiis regni King Eldred saith he call'd together his Earls Bishops Barons and Chief men but not a word again of the Commonalty And with this agrees the learned Mr. Selden where we have several other instances to the same purpose but not one word in any of them touching the Commons And as the Saxon Great men were only present in their Great Councils so were only the Norman Barons and their Great men in those of the Conqueror for we often meet Arch-Bishops Bishops Earls Barons but no where find the least mention of the Commons neither is it to be believ'd that his new acquest would yet suffer him to trust a People he had so lately conquer'd or that he made to himself other measures than what he took from his Sword And as to William Rufus his time we find it the same for in the sixth year of his Reign there was a Great Council held at Winchester and in the seventh another at Rockingham and in the tenth De statu regni acturus Episcopos Abbates quosque regni Proceres in unum praecepti sui sanctione egit Being to order some Affairs of the Realm he commanded together the Bishops Abbats and all the Nobility of the Kingdom and yet all this while not a word of the Commons In like manner albeit in the first of Henry 1. Clerus Angliae Populus universus c. the Clergy and all the People were Summon'd to Westminster yet here the word Populus is used as contradistinct to the Clergy to which it is opposed and denotes not any distinct State or Order among Secular men or Laicks but an Order and Estate of men distinct from the Ecclesiasticks or Clergy these two words of Clerus and Populus being the two general States or Orders into which all mankind is divided And so he cites it as quoted by Sir Will. Dugdale touching the Coronation of King Egbert Veniunt Wintoniam Clerus Populus The Clergy and People came to Winchester To which also Mr. Selden gives a great light when of the same Council he saith Ad commune concilium Baronum meorum is mentioned in it Or what means that other of the third of the same King wherein they are call'd Primates utriusque ordinis The Chiefs of both Orders i. e. of the Clergy viz. the Lords Spiritual and of Laity viz. the Nobles who are also called Principes Regni The Chief or Head men of the Kingdom of which also we have several instances in that beloved Physician 's ingenuious learned Answer to Mr. Petit. Neither does it appear that the Great Councils in King Stephen's time consisted of any other than the Clergy and the Nobility there being not the least mention of the Milites or Liberi homines Knights or Free-men or that they acted in them But from these Usurpations we come to Hen. 2. who Robert Duke of Normandy being dead came in upon a rightful Title from his Grand-father Henry 1. and yet the Great Council at Clarendon which was the 10th of his Reign consisted only of Arch-Bishops Bishops Abbats Priors Earls and Chief men of the Kingdom and albeit Mr. Selden as himself from Hoveden says That Clerus and Populus Regni the Clergy and People of the Land were then Assembled it appears not that any other Estate was meant by the word Populus than the Lay Nobles For at the great Council of Northampton which was the following year Rex Statuens celebrare solenne Concilium omnes qui tenebant de Rege in Capite mandari fecit The King having resolv'd to hold a Great Council he Summon'd thither all those that held of him in Capite i. e. in Chief Now to hold in Chief of the King is to hold of him immediately and merely as King and of his Crown as of a Seigneury in Gross and in Chief above all other Seigneuries and not as of or by means of some Honor Castle or Mannor belonging to the Crown And in the preceding leaf Mr. Selden says Tenere de Rege in Capite habere possessiones sicut Baroniam are Synonimies and to hold in Chief and to have their Possessions as Baronies was to have the right of sitting in Councils with the rest of the Barons concerning which it does not yet appear that the Commonalty at that time had any From thence and during the Reign of King Richard the First and until the 15th of K. John we find it the same only at that time the King being at Rochel in France commits the custody of England to the Bishop of Winchester then Chief Justice and writes to his Barons Knights and to all his Feudataries or Vassals thro England That he had received the Popes Letters touching the release of the Interdict under which the Kingdom then lay and of which I toucht before which he had sent to the said Bishop and therefore requires them as of whose kindness and fidelity he had full confidence that according to what the said Bishop should then say unto them they would effectually give their advice and aid as in like manner he writes to several other Cities and Burroughs thereby earnestly requiring them that according to what the said Bishop shall give them to understand that they effectually apply themselves to give him a supply towards the relaxation
A DISCOURSE OF Monarchy More particularly of the IMPERIAL CROWNS OF England Scotland and Ireland According to the Ancient Common and Statute-Laws of the same With a Close from the whole As it relates to the Succession of his ROYAL HIGHNESS JAMES Duke of York DEUT. 4.32 Interroga de diebus antiquis qui fuerunt ante te ex die quo creavit Dominus hominem super terram c. LONDON Printed by M. C. for Jos. Hindmarsh Bookseller to his Royal Highness at the Black Bull in Cornhil 1684. To the most Honorable JAMES Duke of ORMOND c. Lord Lieutenant of Ireland May it please your Grace IT was a saying of the late Earl of Ossory Lord Deputy of Ireland your Son at what time he deliver'd up the Sword of that Kingdom to the Lord Lieutenant Berkeley Action is the life of Government Common experience tells us Usefulness is the end of Action and without which like a Glass-eye to a Body a man rather takes up a room than becomes any way serviceable The sense of this put me on those thoughts I herewith present your Grace and unto whom more fitly than to a Person in the defence of which few men sate longer at Helm or suffer'd more You that hung not up your Shield of Faith in the Temple of Despair and never seem'd more worthy of the great place you now fill than when farthest from it Nor am I in the so doing without some prospect of advantage to my self in as much as if the censuring Age shall handle me roughly on this account under your great Patronage I shall fight in the Shade And now my Lord I was just breaking off when it came into my head that I had in some of our late pieces found Sir Edward Coke often quoted especially to the defence of those Notions which had better slept in their forgotten Embers and therefore I thought it not altogether forein to the matter that I us'd the words of S. Peter 2 Pet. 3.16 touching S. Paul's Epistles In which saith he are some things hard to be understood which they that be unlearned and unstable wrest as also they do the other Scriptures to their own destruction I have purposely made use of him in many places as an high Assertor of Monarchy and Prerogative Those that find him otherwise Habeant secum serventque Or let him lie indifferent my Argument depends not singly on him which I humbly took leave to advert and am May it please your Grace Your most Obedient Obliged humble Servant John Wilson THE CONTENTS Sect. I. THat Monarchy or the Supreme Dominion of one person was primarily intended by God when he created the World That it is founded in nature As consonant to the Divine Government And of Divine Institution Acknowledg'd by Heathens as well as Christians 1 Sect. II. That Adam held it by Divine right Cain a Monarch By the Kingdoms of the most ancient Gentiles not God's but Monarchs were denoted That the origiginal of Power came not from the People by way of Pact or Contract The unreasonableness and ill consequence of the contrary Noah and his Sons Kings A Family an exemplary Monarchy in which the Pater-familias had power of life and death by the right of Primogeniture Examples of the exercise of it in Judah Abraham Jephthah Brutus Vpon the increase of Families they still continued under one head Esau. The four grand Monarchies Ancients and Moderns universally receiv'd it as precedent to all other Governments 12 Sect. III. That all Governments have a natural tendency to Monarchy Their several Forms and Rotations Of Aristocracy Democracy Tyranny to be rather wisht than either Examples of Athens and Rome the first Consulate Their Tribunes several Seditions Marius and Sylla Crassus Caesar Pompey The two latter divide Caesar complemented to Rome by the Senate The Triumvirate their Proscriptions and breach No peace till Monarchy restor'd under Augustus The sense of those times touching this matter 34 Sect. IV. That the Kingdom of the Jews was a Supreme Sovereign Monarchy in which their Kings had the absolute Power of Peace and War and were Supreme in Ecclesiasticis And an Answer to that Objection That God gave them a King in his wrath 62 Sect. V. What is here intended by a Supreme Monarchy The marks of Sovereignty as the Power of making Laws and exemption from any coactive obedience to them The Power of Peace and War c. That the Kingdoms of England c. are Supreme Imperial Monarchies Those two marks of Sovereignty and seven others prov'd to be no other than what has ever been the undoubted Right of the Kings of England The Kings Sovereignty by the Common Law The like from the Statute Law Power in Ecclesiasticks And that they have justly used those Titles of King and Emperor and that from ancient times and before the Conquest 67 Sect. VI. That the King is none of the Three Estates in which two preliminary Objections are examin'd by Reason and answered by the manner of the Three Estates applying to him What the Three Estates are To presume him one of them were to make him but a Co-ordinate Power The King cannot be said to Summon or Supplicate himself How will the Three Estates be made out before the Commons came in With a short Series during the Saxons to the latter end of Henry III. in all which time they are not so much as nam'd as any constituent part of a Parliament And the time when probably they first came in to be as they are at this day one of the three Estates That the Lords Temporal were never doubted but to be an Estate Four reasons offer'd that the Lords Spiritual are one other Estate distinct from the Lords Temporal and one Act of Parliament in point With other Authorities to prove the Assertion 181 Sect. VII Admitting what has been before offer'd wherein has our present King merited less than any of his Royal Ancestors with a short recapitulation of Affairs as they had been and were at his Majesties most happy Restauration and that he wanted not the means of a just Resentment had he design'd any 181 Sect. VIII That notwithstanding the hard Law of the Kingdom the Jews paid their Kings an entire Obedience Two Objections answered The like other Nations to their Kings A third Objection answered The Precept of Obedience is without restriction Examples upon it Nor is Idolatry any ground to resist much less things indifferent The example from our Saviour in Instituting his last Supper Least of all is injury with the practice of Holy men of old in like cases And that if any ground were to be admitted that would never be wanting 189 Sect. IX The Arts of the late times in working the People from this Obedience It was to be done piece-meal The Kings Necessities answered with Complaints Plots discovered Fears and Jealousies promoted Religion cants its part Leading men some to make it Law others Gospel The examples of Corah c.
of Peace and War and this appears within the very letter of their demands viz. That he might judg them which is the power of Peace and go out before them and fight their Battels which is the power of War And what Authority he had in matters of the Church may be seen in this That Solomon of himself thrust out Abiathar the High-Priest and appointed Zadok in his room And that even the Horns of the Altar were no Sanctuary against him in case of Treason may be also seen in Adonijah and Joab and yet we cannot so much as gather that God was offended with him for his so doing or that his person was the less acceptable to him by reason of those matters To which if it be objected That God gave them a King in his anger I answer Moses having foretold the Israelites that when they came into the Land they would be asking a King charges them to set him over them whom God should choose which shews That a popular Election was utterly forbidden them yet they weary of such Judges as had succeeded Moses and whom God had raised to rule them as Kings demand a King like all the Nations i. e. of a more absolute power than those Judges had and therefore not staying Gods time but taking upon them to be their own Carvers he is said to have given them a King in his wrath in that they had not rejected Samuel but himself who had appointed Samuel In acknowledgment of which and as sensible of their error they ever after accepted their Kings by Succession unless only when their Prophets had anointed and ordained another by Gods special designation Nor do we find any one in Holy Writ chosen King by the Children of Israel but Abimelech the Bastard of Gideon and Creature of the People who also came in by Conspiracy and Murder And as it seems probable Jeroboam who made Israel to sin for they had sent to him at that time a discontented Fugitive in Egypt and he headed them in a complaint of Grievances to Rehoboam which occasion'd the revolt of the ten Tribes both which yet reigned as wickedly as they entred unjustly and perish'd miserably SECTION V. What is here intended by a Supreme Monarchy The marks of Sovereignty as the Power of making Laws and exemption from any coactive obedience to them The Power of Peace and War c. That the Kingdoms of England c. are Supreme Imperial Monarchies Those two marks of Sovereignty and seven others prov'd to be no other than what has ever been the undoubted Right of the Kings of England The Kings Sovereignty by the Common Law The like from the Statute Law Power in Ecclesiasticks And that they have justly used those Titles of King and Emperor and that from ancient times and before the Conquest I Have now brought my Discourse whither I first design'd it and therefore to avoid confusion which ever attends the being too general I shall first shew my Reader what I mean by a Supreme Imperial Monarch at this day and in the next place prove the Kings of England c. are such And lastly that however the Emperors of the West and East have so much striven about that great Title of Emperor or Basileus that yet the Kings of England as Supreme within their Dominions have also and justly from ancient Ages used it as no less proper to their own independent greatness As to the first The Regal Estate and Dignity of a King is of two sorts The one Imperial and Supreme as England France Spain c. who owing no service to the Majesty of another is his own Master and hath an absolute Power in himself no way subject to the controul of another and of such a one speaks Martial Qui Rex est Regem Maxime non habeat The other an Homager or Feudatary to another King as his Superior Lord such as that of Navar and Portugal of old to Castile Granada and Leon to Aragon Lombardy Sicily Naples and Bohemia to the Empire six parts of the Saxon Heptarchy who acknowledged the seventh Anglorum Rex primus and such was Aella King of Sussex the Kings of Man and others of whom I shall have occasion to speak hereafter hereafter The first of these is what I intend and will be the better made out if we cast our eyes a little on the marks of Sovereignty and then consider wherein they differ from our own Laws And amongst others we find these 1. The Power of making Laws and so what our English Translation calls Judah my Law-giver is in the vulgar Latin Juda Rex meus Judah my King This power being one of the principal ends of Regal Authority and was in Kings by the Law of Nature long before Municipal Laws had any Being the people at that time being govern'd by a natural equity which by the Law of Nature all were bound to observe And so the Poet Remo cum fratre Quirinus Jura dabat populo The like of King Priam Jura vocatis More dabat populis And of Augustus Legesque tulit justissimus Auctor So Cicero speaking of Julius Caesar as a Law-giver saith thus Caesar si ab eo quaereretur quid egisset in Toga Leges se respondisset multas praeclaras tulisse Though many yet received Laws at the will of their Prince and thus Barbaris pro legibus semper imperia fuerunt which word barbarous at that time carry'd no disgrace with it but was apply'd to them that spoke a strange Language And so the Hebrews called the Egyptians of all other Nations the most civiliz'd and learned for that they us'd the Egyptian Tongue and not the Hebrew as we have it in the Psalmist When Israel came out of Egypt and the house of Jacob de gente barbaro from a people of strange language And as they gave Laws to others so were they loosed from the force of them themselves i. e. from all coactive Obedience or Obligation to any written or positive Law Thus M. Antony when press'd by his Cleopatra to call Herod in question answer'd It was not fitting a King should give an account of what he did in his Government it being in effect to be no King at all And to the same purpose Pliny Ereptum principi illud in principatu beatissimum quod non cogitur Another mark of Sovereignty is the power of Peace and War and which as Bodin says was never doubted to be in a King In like manner to create and appoint Magistrates especially such as are not under the command of others The power of the last appeal To confer Honors To pardon Offenders To appoint the Value Weight and Stamp of his own Coin and make Forein Coin currant by Proclamation To receive Liege Homage of an inferior King And bear those Titles of Sacred and Majesty only proper to Sovereign Princes apart from all others of
And in another of the same Kings it is called The most Royal Estate of your Imperial Crown of this Realm and the same word Imperial made use of ten other times in the same Statute to the same purpose And with this agrees the Statute of Ireland where in express words also the Kings of England are entituled Kings and Emperors of the Realm of England and of the Land of Ireland and that too five years before the Title of Lord of Ireland was altered into King And by the Act that so alter'd it it is called The Majesty and State of a King Imperial And so in the first of Qu. Eliz. English in which the Oath of Supremacy was enacted the Crown of this Realm is three times called Imperial And in the third Chapter of the same year as often And in the 5th of the same Queen that requires all Ecclesiasticks Graduates in any University or Common-Laws Officers of Court Attorneys every Member of Parliament under the degree of a Baron to take the said Oath of Supremacy before he enter the House or such Election to be deemed void calls it The Dignity of the Imperial Crown And the Act of Recognition of King James uses the same expression of Imperial four times And upon a like ground of mere Supremacy was that Act of Scotland before the Union of the Crowns wherein 't is said Our Sovereign Lord his full Jurisdiction and free Empire within this Realm Scotland And the late Oath or Test prescribed to be taken by all persons in Publick Trust in that Kingdom declares the Kings Majesty the only Supreme Governor of that Realm over all persons as well Ecclesiastical as Civil And the Act of acknowledging and asserting the right of Succession in that Kingdom calls it the Imperial Crown of Scotland In all which matters I have been the more particular that I might the better evince my Reader that this Independent Sovereignty and Supremacy of the Kings of England c. has not been the opinion of any one time but the general consent of all and that our Kings hold their Crowns in chief from God and owe no precarious acknowledgments to the courtesie of the People Nor is the Kings Immediate Personal Originary Inherent Power which he executes or may execute Authoritate Regiâ Supremâ Ecclesiastica as King and Sovereign Governor of the Church of England to be less consider'd it being one of those flowers which make up his Crown and preserve it in verdure And here I question not but it will be granted that the King is the Supreme Patron of all the Arch-Bishopricks and Bishopricks of England as being all founded by the Kings of England to hold Christi Baroniam excepting that of Soder in the Isle of Man which was instituted by Pope Gregory the Fourth and may perhaps be the reason why the Bishop thereof hath neither Place nor Voice in the Parliament of England and so were at first donative Per traditionem annuli baculi Pastoralis by the delivery of a Ring and the Pastoral Staff or Crosier And the Bishop of Rome persuading Henry the First to make them Elective by their Chapters refused it But King John by his Charter recognising the Custom and Right of the Crown in former times by the common consent of his Barons granted that they should be eligible as least doubting he had so far lockt up himself as that he might not be receiv'd to disapprove or allow for before that I find That when he had given a Conge d' eslier to the Monks of Canterbury to Elect an Arch-Bishop and Pope Innocent the Third notwithstanding the Kings desires of promoting the Bishop of Norwich to it whom also they had Elected had under a Curse commanded them to choose Stephen Langton with which for fear of Excommunicacation they comply'd the King banishes the Monks as Traytors and writes to the Pope that he had subverted the Liberties of his Crown by which it appears that he lookt upon himself as the Supreme Governor of the Church of England and that no Arch-Bishop or Bishop could be put upon him without his consent and what advantage the Kingdom got by this Usurpation may be gather'd from the effects when after a more than six years Jurisdiction the King Depos'd and a free Crown put in Vassalage it only open'd a way to those future Broils between him and his Barons which lasted all his time and wanted no fuel to feed 'em till towards the latter end of his Son men began to stand at gaze and as infatuated or startled at they knew not what thought it more safety to look on than lend a hand to master it nor had they fully resolv'd what to do until the Pope having demanded Homage of Edw. 3. and the Arrears of one thousand Marks per ann for the Kingdoms of England and Ireland which had been also demanded in the 3 of Edw. 1. and in case of non-performance threatned to make out Process against the King and Kingdom then at last the scales fell from their eyes and as men got out of a dream they began to consider what they had startled at and as an argument of their recovered Senses the Lords Spiritual by themselves the Lords Temporal by themselves and the Commons by themselves unanimously resolv'd and declar'd That the King could not put Himself his Realm or his People in subjection without their Assent and albeit it might it is as saith Sir Edw. Coke Contra Legem consuetudinem Parliamenti contrary to the order and custom of Parliament because it is a disherison of the King and his Crown after which to avoid all further dispute the manner and order of Election of Arch-Bishops and Bishops and all things relating thereunto is setled by Statute viz. 1. Negatively That no one thereafter be Presented Nominated or Commended to the Sea of Rome for the Dignity or Office of any Arch-Bishop or Bishop within this Realm or any other the Kings Dominions 2 Affirmatively That at every avoidance of any Arch-Bishoprick or Bishoprick as before the King our Sovereign Lord his Heirs and Successors may grant to the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral Churches where the Sea of such Arch-bishoprick or Bishoprick shall happen to be void a License under the Great Seal as of old time hath been accustomed to proceed to Election of an Arch-Bishop or Bishop of the Sea so being void with a Letter missive containing the name of the person which they shall Elect or Choose by virtue of which they elect the said person c. or in case of refusal incur the Penalties of a Premunire So that upon the whole the Election in effect is but a matter of form it is the Kings meer Grant which placeth and the Bishops Consecration which maketh a Bishop Neither do the Kings of this Land use herein any other than such
Prerogatives as Forein Nations have been accustomed unto Or otherwise what made Pope Boniface solicit the Emperor Honorius to take order that the Bishops of Rome might be created without ambitious seeking of the Place A needless Petition if so be the Emperor had no right in placing of Bishops there Of which there are several other instances in a piece of Mr. Hookers touching the Kings Power in the advancement of Bishops In short if before that Act of Hen. 8. a Bishop in England had been made a Cardinal the Bishoprick became void but the King should have nam'd the Succsseor because the Bishoprick is of his Patronage And as to the Arch-Bishops and Bishops in Ireland the respective Chapters of ancient time upon every avoidance sued to the King in England to go to the Election of another and upon certificate of such Election made and the Royal Assent obtain'd a Writ issued out of the Chancery here to the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland or the Lieutenant rehearsing the whole matter and commanding him to take fealty of the Bishop and restore him to his Temporalties But now the course is that such Writs are made in Ireland in the name of the King who nominates the Arch Bishops and Bishops there as he doth in England and then the Chapter choose him whom the King names to them and thereupon the Writs are made of course Nor were the Kings of England even in those times excluded but still acknowledg'd to have Power of Dispensation and other Ecclesiastical Acts. And therefore as he first gave Bishopricks and Abbeys and afterward granted the Election to Deans and Chapters and Covents so likewise might he grant Dispensation to a Bishop Elect to retain any of his Dignities or Benefices in Commendam and to take two Benefices and to a Bastard to be a Priest And where the Statute 25 H. 8. c. 21. says That all Dispensations c. shall be granted in manner and form following and not otherwise yet the King is not thereby restrain'd but his Power remains full and perfect as before and he may still grant them as King for all acts of Justice and Grace flow from him and on this account also he can pardon any Ecclesiastical Offence as Heresie for example is a cause merely Spiritual or Ecclesiastical and yet the King may pardon one convict of Heresie And as the King may dispense or pardon so also does that Supreme Power enable him to several other things relating to Church-matters which pertain not to another He may found a Church Hospital or Free Chappel Donative and whether he specially exempt the same from ordinary Jurisdiction or not his Chancellor and not the Ordinary shall visit it and he may by his Charter license a Subject to found such a Church or Chappel and to ordain that it shall be Donative and not Presentable and to be visited by the Founder and not by the Ordinary And thus began Donatives in England whereof Common Persons were Patrons So he shall visit Cathedral Churches by Commissioners Sede vacante Archiepiscopalii He may also revoke before Induction by presenting another for the Church is not full against the King till Induction And therefore if a Bishop Collates and before Induction dies by which means the Temporalties come into the Kings hands the King shall present to the avoidance for the same reason In short He is the Supreme Ordinary and on that account may take the resignation of a Spiritual Dignity Neither did the Abbots and Priors in Edward the Fourths time think him less when they stile him Supremus Dominus noster Edwardus 4. Rex which agrees with the Laws before the Conquest in which the King is called Vicarius summi Regis The Vicar of the highest King And albeit Ecclesiastical Councils consisting of Church-men did frame the Laws whereby the Church Affairs were ordered in Ancient times yet no Canon no not of any Council had the force of Law in the Church unless it were ratifi'd and confirmed by the Emperor being Christian In like manner our Convocations that assemble not of themselves but by the Kings Writ must have both Licence to make new Canons and the Royal Assent to allow them before they can be put in Execution and this by the Common Law for before the Statute 25 H. 8. c. 19. A Disme i. e. the Tenths of all Spiritual Livings in ancient times paid to the Pope granted by them did not bind the Clergy before the Royal Assent In a word the King may make orders for the Government of the Clergy without Parliament and deprive the Disobedient And the Act for suppressing Seditious Conventicles has a saving to his Majesties Supremacy in Ecclesiastical Affairs And so I hope I have clear'd this point That the Kingdom of England c. is a Sovereign Imperial Monarchy of which the King is the only Supreme Governor as well in all Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Things or Causes as Temporal It remains now that I shew That however the Emperors of the West and East have so much striven about that great Title of Emperor or Basileus that yet the Kings of England as Supreme within their Dominions have also justly used it and that from ancient Ages as no less proper to their own independent greatness And here amongst many others we have Edgar frequently in his Charters stiling himself Albionis Anglorum Basileus King of Britain and the English And in one of his to Oswald Bishop of Worcester in the year 964. and of his Reign the sixth Ego Edgarus Anglorum Basileus omniumque Regum Insularum Oceanique Britanniam circumjacentis cunctarumque Nationum quae infra eam includuntur Imperator Dominus c. I Edgar King of the English and of all the Kings of the Isles and the Ocean lying round Britain i. e. England Scotland and Wales and of all the People therein Emperor and Supreme Lord for the word in this place bears no less as I have shewn it before in the Word Lord of Ireland Wherein it is observable that as long since as it is that yet the King of England or Britain was Lord and Emperor of the British Sea which agrees with that of one of his Successors Canutus when sitting in a Chair by the South Shore he used these words to the Sea Tumeae ditionis es terra in qua sedeo mea est Thou art of my Dominion or Empire and the Land whereon I sit is mine as taking it clearly that he was the Supreme Lord and Emperor of both whence also it is affirm'd by Belknap one of the Justices of the Kings Bench 5 R. 2. That the Sea is of the King Ligeance as of the Crown of England So that Edward his Son in a Charter to the Abbey of Ramsey Ego Edwardus totius Albionis Dei moderante gubernatione Basileus I Edward by the Guidance or
when Pope Innocent the Third had against the declar'd will of King John caused Stephen Langton to be Elected Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and after that confirm'd him and wrote to the King to receive him the King returns that he the Pope had subverted the Liberties of his Crown and that therefore he would prohibit all People going to Rome and from making appeals thither which confirms my former instance and that this Power was always in the King however for a time it might have happen'd to be neglected for otherwise it had been a vain thing in him to have expell'd the Monks of Canterbury as Traytors which he actually did or to have imagin'd that a Bigotted Seditious Clergy as at that time they were and to be headed by that Arch-Bishop at least no friend to the King if not his Enemy should be frighten'd with an empty Bug bear touching a matter whereof he had no cognisance had he not been satisfi'd it was in his Power to do it as well as his Father before him had done it And having thus occasionally nam'd him let me with all submission offer this to the memory of that unfortunate Prince that his designs in order to the freeing the Crown from Forein usurpation were mighty and that he came short in what Henry the Eighth afterwards effected was not that he was less able but his times worse for considering the unsettled condition of those times and at what disadvantages he came in what wonder if he were oppress'd by a Faction when deserted by his Subjects who otherwise had never suffer'd him to have made that Crown to the defence of which they had all sworn tributary which many years afterward when the Arrears of that Tribute were demanded was too late tho effectually enough declar'd in Parliament he could not do nor they consent to the doing it But to proceed When after this the Sea of Rome would be yet intermedling it was by all the States of Parliament severally examin'd and answering each State one by one personally for it self unanimously Declar'd That the Pope's awarding any Processes or Sentences of Excommunication c. against any Bishops or other Spiritual Persons for executing Judgments given in the Kings Courts was clearly in derogation of the Kings Crown and Regality used and approved of the time of all his Progenitors and which they would maintain as they were bound by their Liegance and thereupon Enacted That the purchasing any Bulls from Rome or elsewhere shall be a Premunire In which it is observable That as the Judges before that time were for the most part Church-men the Laity being not yet come up to Letters or where they were Rari nantes in gurgite vasto The Lords Temporal and the Commons of this Parliament were all Romanists and of what Persuasion the Lords Spiritual and their Assistants the then Judges were I leave to every man the question at that time being not matter of Religion but right of Superiority not the Church but Court of Rome And so Sir E. Cooke speaking of the first Article of the Statute of 25 H. 8. concerning the Prohibition of Appeals to Rome saith it is but declaratory of the ancient Law of this Realm And in another place The same Authority that the Pope ever exercised in this Kingdom by Usurpation was always in the King de jure With which also agrees the Lord Chief Justice Hobart That whatsoever the Pope did in this Kingdom even then when he was in his greatest height and strength was of no better force in right and justice than at the first when he was but simple Bishop of Rome which was coram non Judice and so Jus non habenti tuto non paretur 5. The Power of conferring Honors on which account he may also enable a man to assign his Surname Arms and Barony to another For as by the Laws of England all Lands within the same were originally derived from the Crown and holden of the King either mediately or immediately as Lord Paramount so also by the same Laws were all degrees of Nobility and Honor derived from the King as the Fountain of Honor. So H. 6. granted to H. Beuchamp Ut esset primus praecipuus Comes Angliae and that he should use the Title of Henricus Praecomes totius Angl c. ibid. 361. First Earl of all England c. And to the name Count or Earl which was the most ancient name of Dignity among the Saxons Edw. 3. Ang. Greg. 11. created the Title of Duke as distinct from that of Earl for in elder times they were oft synonimous with us and created his eldest Son the Black Prince then Earl of Chester into the Title of Duke of Cornwal which he created into a Dutchy and about the 18th of his Reign the most noble Order of the Garter And in the 9th of R. 2. Robert de Vere Earl of Oxford was created Marquess of Dublin And H. 6. the 18th of his Reign created John Lord Beaumont Viscount Beaumont of which Titles we find no mention in the Magna Charta 9. H. 3. for they were not at that time in being And to this yet further the Kings of England have and may at this day create a County-Palatine which none but the Emperor or a Supreme Monarch may do for whoever is owner thereof hath in that County Jura Regalia as fully as the King in Palatio Par curis solo diademate dispar So Hugh Lupus Nephew of King William the Conqueror was by him created Earl of Chester and the County given him Tenendum sibi haeredibus ita libere ad gladium sicut ipse Rex tenebat Angliam ad Coronam by which general words he had Jura Regalia within the said County and consequently a County-Palatine without express words and by force thereof he created eight Cheshire Barons So not long after his time was the County-Palatine of Durham raised And in the 10th of H. 1. the Royal Franchise of Ely In the 13th of Edw. 3. the County-Palatine of Pembroke And in the 50th year of his Reign the County of Lancaster was by him erected into a County-Palatine and by him given to his fourth Son John of Gaunt then Duke of Lancaster for life to which if any one shall say that it was De assensu praelatorum procerum Sir Edw. Coke answers for me That the King may make a County-Palatine by his Letters Patents without Parliament Add to this the three first Counties-Palatine created in Ireland by Henry the Second viz. Leinster which he granted to Earl Strongbow who had married the Daughter and Heir of M. Morough Prince of Leinster 2. Meath to Sir Hugh Lacy the Elder 3. Ulster to Sir Hugh Lacy the younger and had their Barons under them answerable to the Barons created by H. Lupus of which before Of which you may read excellent Learning