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
and teach such a Doctor as you That the word Tyrant for all your concern is barely to have some understanding of words may be applied to one who is neither a Traytor nor a Murtherer But the Laws of England do not make it Treason in the King to stir up Sedition against himself or the people Nor do they say That the Parliament can be guilty of Treason by deposing a bad King nor that any Parliament ever was so tho they have often done it but our Laws plainly and clearly declare that a King may violate diminish nay and wholly lose his Royalty For that expression in the Law of St. Edward of losing the name of a King signifies neither more nor less than being deprived of the Kingly Office and Dignity which befel Chilperic King of France whose example for illustration-sake is taken notice of in the Law it self There is not a Lawyer amongst us that can deny but that the highest Treason may be committed against the Kingdom as well as against the King I appeal to Glanvile himself whom you cite If any man attempt to put the King to death or raise Sedition in the Realm it is High Treason So that attempt of some Papists to blow up the Parliament-House and the Lords and Commons there with Gunpowder was by King James himself and both Houses of Parliament declared to be High Treason not against the King only but against the Parliament and the whole Kingdom 'T would be to no purpose to quote more of our Statutes to prove so clear a Truth which yet I could easily do For the thing it self is ridiculous and absurd to imagine That High Treason may be committed against the King and not against the people for whose good nay and by whose leave as I may say the King is what he is So that you babble over so many Statutes of ours to no purpose you toil and wallow in our Ancient Law-Books to no purpose for the Laws themselves stand or fall by Authority of Parliament who always had power to confirm or repeal them and the Parliament is the sole Judge of what is Rebellion what High Treason Iaesa Majestas and what not Majesty never was vested to that degree in the Person of the King as not to be more conspicuous and more August in Parliament as I have often shown But who can endure to hear such a senseless Fellow such a French Mountebank as you declare what our Laws are And you English Fugitives so many Bishops Doctors Lawyers who pretend that all Learning and Ingenuous Literature is fled out of England with your selves was there not one of you that could defend the King's Cause and your own and that in good Latin too to be submitted to the judgment of other Nations but that this brain-sick beggarly Frenchman must be hired to undertake the Defence of a poor indigent King surrounded with so many Infant-Priests and Doctors This very thing I assure you will be a great imputation to you amongst Foreigners and you will be thought deservedly to have lost that Cause that you were so far from being able to defend by Force of Arms as that you cannot so much as write in behalf of it But now I come to you again good-man goose-cap who scribble so finely if at least you are come to your self again for I find you here towards the latter end of your Book in a deep sleep and dreaming of some voluntary Death or other that 's nothing to the purpose Then you deny that 't is possible for a King in his right wits to embroil his people in Seditions to betray his own Forces to be slaughtered by Enemies and raise Factions against himself All which things having been done by many Kings and particularly by Charles the late King of England you will no longer doubt I hope especially being addicted to Stoicism but that all Tyrants as well as profligate Villains are downright mad Hear what Horace says Whoever through a senseless Stupidity or any other cause whatsoever hath his Understanding so blinded as not to discern truth the Stoicks account of him as of a mad-man And such are whole Nations such are Kings and Princes such are all Man kind except those very few that are Wise So that if you would clear King Charles from the Imputation of acting like a Mad-man you must first vindicate his integrity and show that he never acted like an ill man But a King you say cannot commit Treason against his own Subjects and Vassals In the first place since we are as free as any People under Heaven we will not be impos'd upon by any Barbarous Custom of any other Nation whatsoever In the second place Suppose we had been the King's Vassals that Relation would not have obliged us to endure a Tyrant to Reign and Lord it over us All Subjection to Magistrates as our own Laws declare is circumscribed and confined within the bounds of Honesty and the Publick Good Read Leg. Hen. 1. Cap. 55. The Obligation betwixt a Lord and his Tenants is mutual and remains so long as the Lord protects his Tenant this all our Lawyers tells us but if the Lord be too severe and cruel to his Tenant and do him some heinous Injury The whole Relation betwixt them and whatever Obligation the Tenant is under by having done Homage to his Lord is utterly dissolv'd and extinguish'd These are the very words of Bracton and Fleta So that in some Case the Law it self warrants even a Slave or a Vassal to oppose his Lord and allows the Slave to kill him if he vanquish him in Battle If a City or a whole Nation may not lawfully take the Course with a Tyrant the Condition of Freemen will be worse than that of Slaves Then you go about to excuse King Charles's shedding of Innocent Blood partly by Murders committed by other Kings and partly by some Instances of Men put to Death by them lawfully For the matter of the Irish Massacre you refer the Reader to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and I refer you to Eiconoclastes The Town of Rochel being taken and the Towns-men betray'd assistance shown but not afforded them you will not have laid at Charlos's door nor have I any thing to say whether he was faulty in that business or not he did mischief enough at home we need not enquire into what Misdemeanors he was guilty of abroad But you in the mean time would make all the Protestant Churches that have at any time defended themselves by force of Arms against Princes who were profess'd Enemies of their Religion to have been guilty of Rebellion Let them consider how much it concerns them for the maintaining their Ecclesiastical Discipline and asserting their own Integrity not to pass by so great an Indignity offered them by a Person bred up by and amongst themselves That which troubles us most is that the English likewise were betray'd in that Expedition He who had design'd long ago to convert
your Bones well-thrash'd with a Fool 's staff for thinking to stir up Kings and Princes to War by such Childish Arguments Then you cry aloud to all Nations who I know full well will never heed what you say You call upon that Wretched and Barbarous Crew of Irish Rebels too to assert the King's Party Which one thing is sufficient evidence how much you are both a Fool and a Knave and how you out-do almost all Mankind in Villany Impudence and Madness who scruple not to implore the Loyalty and Aid of an execrable People devoted to the Slaughter whom the King himself always abhorr'd or so pretended to have any thing to do with by reason of the guilt of so much innocent Blood which they had contracted And that very perfidiousness and Cruelty which he endeavoured as much as he could to conceal and to clear himself from any suspition of you the most villanous of Mortals as fearing neither God nor Man voluntarily and openly take upon your self Go on then undertake the Kings Defence at the Encouragement and by the Assistance of the Irish You take care and so you might well lest any should imagine that you were about to bereave Cicero or Demosthenes of the praise due to their Eloquence by telling us before hand that you conceive you ought not to speak like an Orator 'T is wisely said of a Fool you conceive you ought not to do what is not in your Power to do and who that knows any thing of you ever expects any thing like an Orator from you Who neither uses nor is able to publish any thing that 's Elaborate Distinct or has so much as Sense in it but like a second Crispin or that little Grecian Tzetzes so you do but write a great deal take no pains to write well nor could write any thing well though you took never so much pains This Cause shall be argued say you in the hearing and as it were before the Tribunal of all Mankind That 's what we like so well that we could now wish we had a discreet and intelligent Adversary and not such a hair-brain'd Blunderbuss as you to deal with You conclude very Tragically like Ajax in his Raving I will proclaim to Heaven and Earth the Injustice the Villany the Perfidiousness and Cruelty of these Men and will deliver them over convicted to all Posterity O Flowers that such a witless senseless Bawler one that was born but to spoil or transcribe good Authors should think himself able to writ any thing of his own that will reach Posterity Whom together with his frivolous Scribles the very next Age will bury in Oblivion unless this Defence of the King perhaps may be beholden to the Answer I give to it for being looked into now and then And I would entreat the Illustrious States of Holland to take off their Prohibition and suffer the Book to be publickly sold For when I have detected the Vanity Ignorance and Falshood that it is full of the farther it spreads the more effectually it will be supprest Now let us hear how he Convicts us A DEFENCE OF THE People of England CHAP. I. I Persuade my self Salmasius that you being a vain flashy man are not a little proud of being the King of Great Britain's Defender who himself was stil'd the Defender of the Faith For my part I think you deserve your titles both alike for the King defended the Faith and you have defended him so that betwixt you you have spoil'd both your Causes which I shall make appear throughout the whole ensuing Discourse and particularly in this very Chapter You told us in the 12th Page of your Preface that so good and so just a cause ought not to be embelisht with any flourishes of Rhetorick that the King needed no other defence than by a bare Narrative of his Story and yet in your first Chapter in which you had promised us that bare Narrative you neither tell the Story aright nor do you abstain from making use of all the skill you have in Rhetorick to set it off So that if we must take your own judgment we must believe the King's Cause to be neither good nor just But by the way I would advise you not to have so good an opinion of your self for no body else has so of you as to imagin that you are able to speak well upon any subject who can neither play the part of an Orator nor an Historian nor express your self in a stile that would not be ridiculous even in a Lawyer but like a Mountebank's Jugler with big swelling words in your Preface you rais'd our expectation as if some mighty matter were to ensue in which your design was not so much to introduce a true Narrative of the King's Story as to make your own empty intended flourished go off the better For being now about to give us an account of the matter of fact you find your self encompassed and affrighted with so many Mâ—nstâ—rs of Novelty that y' are at a loss what to say first what next and what last of all I le tell ye what the matter is with you In the first place you find your self affrighted and astonish'd at your own monstrous Lies and then you find that empty head of yours not encompass'd but carried round with so many trifles and fooleries that you not only now do not but never did know what was â—it to â—e spoken and in what method Among the mâ—…y 〈◊〉 that you find in expressing the â—â—inousness of so 〈◊〉 a piece of impiety this one offers iâ— self you say which 〈◊〉 â—…y 〈◊〉 and must often be repeated to wit that the Sâ—◠〈◊〉 self never bâ—hâ—ld a more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But by your good leave Sir the Sun has beheld many things that blind Bernard never saw But we are content you should mention the Sun over and over And it will be a piece of Prudence in you so to do For though our wickedness does not require it the coldness of the 〈◊〉 that you are making does The original of Kings you say is as ancient as that of the Sun May the Gods and Goddesses Damasippus bless thee with an everlasting Solstice that thou maist always be warm thou that canst not stir a foot without the Sun Perhaps you would avoid the imputation of being called a Doctor Umbraticus But alas you are in perfect darkness that make no difference betwixt a Paternal power and a Regal and that when you had called Kings Fathers of their Country could fancy that with that Metaphor you had persuaded us that whatever is applicable to a Father is so to a King Alas there 's a great difference betwixt them Our Fathers begot us Our King made not us but we him Nature has given Fathers to us all but we our selves appointed our own King So that the people is not for the King but the King for them We bear with a Father though he be harsh and severe and so we do with
most solemn Oath And by so doing he not only extinguish'd his Right of Conquest if he ever had any over us but subjected himself to be judged according to the Tenor of this very Law And his Son Henry swore to the observance of King Edward's Laws and of this amongst the rest and upon these only terms it was that he was chosen King whilst his Elder Brother Robert was alive The same Oath was taken by all succeeding Kings before they were Crowned Hence our Ancient and Famous Lawyer Bracton in his first Book Chap. 8. There is no King in the case says he where Will rules 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Law does not take place And in his Third Book Chap. 9. A King is a King so long as he Rules well he becomes a Tyrant when he oppresses the People committed to his Charge And in the same Chapter The King ought to use the Power of Law and Right as God's Minister and Vice-gerent the Power of wrong is the Devils and not Gods when the King turns aside to do Injustice he is the Minister of the Devil The very same words almost another Ancient Lawyer has who was the Author of the Book called Fleta both of them remembred that truly Royal Law of King Edward that Fundamental Maxim in our Law which I have formerly mentioned by which nothing is to be accounted a Law that is contrary to the Laws of God or of Reason no more than a Tyrant can be said to be a King or a Minister of the Devil a Minister of God Since therefore the Law is chiefly right Reason if we are bound to obey a King and a Minister of God by the very same Reason and the very same Law we ought to resist a Tyrant and a Minister of the Devil And because Controversies arise oftner about Names than Things the same Authors tell us that a King of England tho he have not lost the Name of a King yet is as liable to be judged and ought so to be as any of the Common People Bracton Book 1. Chap. 8. Fleta Book 1. Chap. 17. No Man ought to be greater than the King in the Administration of Justice but he himself ought to be as little as the least in receiving Justice si peccat if he offend Others read it si petat Since our Kings therefore are liable to be judged whether by the Name of Tyrants or of Kings it must not be difficult to assign their Legal Judges Nor will it be amiss to consult the same Authors upon that point Bracton Book 1. Chap. 16. Fleta Book 1. Chap. 17. The King has his Superiors in the Government The Law by which he is made King and his Court to wit the Earls and the Barons Comites Earls are as much as to say Companions and he that has a Companion has a Master and therefore if the King will be without a Bridle that is not govern by Law they ought to bridle him That the Commons are comprehended in the word Barons has been shown already nay and in the Books of our Ancient Laws they are frequently said to have been called Peers of Parliament and especially in the Modus tenendi c. There shall be chosen says that Book out of all the Peers of the Realm Five and twenty Persons of whom five shall be Knight five Citizens and five Burgâ—ssâ—s and two Knights of a County have a greater Vote in granting and rejecting than the greatest Earl in England And it is but reasonable they should for they Vote for a whole County c. the Earls for themselves only And who can but perceive that those Patent Earls whom you call Earls made by Writ since we have now none that hold their Earldoms by Tenure are very unfit Persons to try the King who conferr'd their Honours upon them Since therefore by our Law as appears by that old Book call'd The Mirror the King has his Peers who in Parliament have Cognizance of wrongs done by the King to any of his People and since it is notoriously known that the meanest Man in the Kingdom may even in inferior Courts have the benefit of the Law against the King himself in Case of any Injury or Wrong sustained how much more Consonant to Justice how much more necessary is it that in case the King oppress all his People there should be such as have Authority not only to restrain him and keep him within Bounds but to Judge and Punish him For that Government must needs be very ill and most ridiculously constituted in which remedy is provided in case of little Injuries done by the Prince to private Persons and no Remedy no Redress for greater no care taken for the safety of the whole no Provision made to the contrary but that the King may without any Law ruin all his Subjects when at the same time he cannot by Law so much as hurt any one of them And since I have shown that it is neither good manners nor expedient that the Lords should be the Kings Judges it follows that the Power of Judicature in that case does wholly and by very good Right belong to the Commons who are both Peers of the Realm and Barons and have the Power and Authority of all the People committed to them For since as we find it expresly in our written Law which I have already cited the Commons together with the King make a good Parliament without either Lords or Bishops because before either Lords or Bishops had a being Kings held Parliaments with their Commons only by the very same reason the Commons apart must have the Sovereign Power without the King and a Power of Judging the King himself because before there ever was a King they in the Name of the whole Body of the Nation held Councils and Parliaments had the Power of Judicature made Laws and made the Kings themselves not to Lord it over the People but to Administer their publick Affairs Whom if the King instead of so doing shall endeavour to injure and oppress our Law pronounces him from time forward not so much as to retain the Name of a King to be no such thing as a King and if he be no King what need we trouble our selves to find out Peers for him For being then by all good Men adjudged to be a Tyrant there are none but who are Peers good enough for him and proper enough to pronounce Sentence of Death upon him judicially These things being so I think I have sufficiently proved what I undertook by many Authorities and written Laws to wit that since the Commons have Authority by very good Right to try the King and since they have actually tried him and put him to Death for the mischief he had done both in Church and State and without all hope of amendment they have done nothing therein but what was just and regular for the Interest of the State in discharging of their Trust becoming their Dignity and according to the Laws of
A DEFENCE OF THE People of ENGLAND BY JOHN MILTON In ANSWER to Salmasius's Defence of the King Printed in the Year 1692. TO THE ENGLISH READER THE Author of this Book is sufficiently known and so is the Book it self both at Home and Abroad to the Curious and Inquisitive but never having been rendred into English many whose Veneration for the Author would induce them to read any thing of his and who could not máster it in the Language in which he wrote it were deprived of the pleasure of perusing it and of the Information they might justly expect from it To gratifie them it is that this Translation long since made is now published for the person who took the pains to Translate it did it partly for his own private entertainment and partly to gratifie one or two of his Friends without any design of makâ—… it publick and is since deceased And the Publisher thinks it necessary to advertise the Reader some few things concerning it As First That the Author does with a great Freedom of Language and Strength of Reason detect the Fallacy of all the Cobweb Arguments made use of by the Flatterers of Princes to prove their Power to be derived immediately from God and to be superior to that of the Law whether deduced from Scripture Reason or Authority Secondly That whereas some things are inserted that contain Personal Reflections upon the late King Charles the First and pains taken to justifie all the Proceedings of the Parliament from first to last which may sound harsh in some of our ears the Reader ought to consider the time when these things were written and the occasion of the Author ' s Undertaking this Defence which were such as put him under a necessity of Vindicating whatever his Masters had done The Translator has not gelt him nor was the Publisher willing to do it especially since the Book has for many years been so publick tho in another Language And the great Use which it yields for the most part ought not to be lost because some things are here and there interspersed which the â—…blisher could wish there had been no occasion for Thirdly That some Passages here and there may seem obscure because the Author presupposeth his Readers to have read Salmasius to some or other of whose Authorities and Reasons such Passages relate Fourthly That where Salmasius ' s words are inserted they are for the most part if not always in Italick Tho the Coherence of the Discourse would sufficiently disclose to one that reads with care when Salmasius speaks and when the Author Fifthly That if the Author may seem to lay aside even rules of Decency in treating his Adversary whom indeed he ridicules and exposes with a great deal of Smartness Freedom and Contempt it must be considered That the Author wrote on the behalf and in Defence of the Powers then in being and in answer to a privaâ—e person who had loaded them with all Reproaches imaginable and who could not possibly give worse language to the meanest the most contemptible and the most unworthy person upon earth than he does in his Defensio Regia to men that had then the Government of one of the most Potent Nations in Christendom Sixthly That the Translator has kept perhaps too close to his Copy and not taken that liberty which is allowed to a Translation especially in the angry and peevish parts of it But it 's hoped the Faithfulness of the Translation may in some measure recompence for that and it is very well known to those that knew him that he neither could nor did pretend to lash so well in English as the Author could in Latin Lastly That some of the Author's Sarcasmes depending upon the sound and ambiguity of Latin words do as they needs must lose their Beauty and Elegance in a Translation THE AUTHOR'S Preface ALTHO I fear lest if in defending the People of England I should be as copious in Words and empty of Matter as most Men think Salmasius has been in his Defence of the King I might seem to deserve justly to be accounted a verbose and silly Defender yet since no Man thinks himself obliged to make so much haste tho in the handling but of any ordinary Subject as not to premise some Introduction at least according as the weight of his Subject requires if I take the same course in handling well-nigh the greatest Subject that ever was without being too tedious in it I am in hopes of attaining two things which indeed I earnestly desire The one not to be at all wanting as far as in me lies to this most Noble Cause and most worthy to be recorded to all future Ages The other That I shall appear to have avoided my self that frivolousness of Matter and redundancy of Words which I find fault with in my Antagonist For I am about to discourse of Matters neither inconsiderable nor common but how a most Potent King after he had trampled upon the Laws of the Nation and given a shock to its Religion and was ruling at his own Will and Pleasure was at last subdu'd in the Field by his own Subjects who had undergone a long Slavery under him how afterwards he was cast into Prison and when he gave no ground either by Words or Actions to hope better things of him he was finally by the Supreme Council of the Kingdom condemned to dye and beheaded before the very Gates of the Palace I shall likewise relate which will much conduce to the easing mens minds of a great Superstition by what Right especially according to our Law this Judgment was given and all these Matters transacted and shall easily defend my Valiant and Worthy Countrymen and who have extremely well deserved of all Subjects and Nations in the World from the most wicked Calumities both of Domestick and Foreign Railers and especially from the Reproaches of this most vain and empty Sophister who sets up for a Captain and Ringleader to all the rest For what King 's Majesty sitting upon an Exalted Throne ever shone so brightly as that of the People of England then did when shaking off that old Superstition which had prevailed a long time they gave Judgment upon the King himself or rather upon an Enemy who had been their King caught as it were in a Net by his own Laws who alone of all Mortals challenged to himself impunity by a Divine Right and scrupled not to inflict the same punishment upon him himself being guilty which he would have inflicted upon any other But why do I mention these things as performed by the People which almost open their Voice themselves and testify the Presence of God throughout Who as often as it seems good to his Infinite Wisdom uses to throw down proud and unruly Kings exalting themselves above the Condition of Humane Nature and utterly to exâ—irpate them and all their Family By his manifest Impulse being set on work to recover our almost lost Liberty following
is no longer yours but the King 's indeed who bought it at the price of a hundred Jacobusses a great Sum for a poor King to disburse I know very well what I say and 't is well enough known who brought the Gold and the Purse wrought with Beads We know who saw you reach out greedy fists under pretence of embracing the King's Chaplain who brought the Present but indeed to embrace the Present it self and by accepting it to exhaust almost all the King's Treasury But now the man comes himself the Door creaks the Actor comes upon the Stage In silence now and with attention wait That yee may learn what th' Eunuch has to prate Terent. For whatever the matter 's with him he blusters more than ordinary A horrible message had lately struck our Ears but our minds more with a heinous wound concerning a Parricide committed in England in the Person of a King by a wicked Conspiracy of Sacrilegious men Indeed that horrible Message must either have had a much longer Sword than that which Peter drew or those Ears must have been of a wonderful length that it could wound at such a distance for it could not so much as in the least offend any Ears but those of an Ass For what harm is it to you that are Foreigners are any of you hurt by it if we amongst our selves put our own Enemies our own Traytors to death be they Commoners Noble men or Kings Do you Salmasius let alone what does not concern you for I have a horrible Message to bring of you too which I 'm mistaken if it strike not a more heinous wound into the Ears of all Grammarians and Criticks provided they have any Learning and Delicacy in them To wit your crowding so many Barbarous Expressions together in one period in the person of Aristarchus a Grammarian and that so great a Critick as you hired at the King's charge to write a Defence of the King his Father should not only set so fulsome a Preface before it much like those Lamentable Ditties that used to be sung at Funerals and which can move compassion in none but a Cox-comb but in the very first sentence should provoke your Readers to laughter with so many Barbarisms all at once Persona Regir you cry Where do you find any such Latin Or are you telling us some tale or other of a Perkin Warchick who taking upon him the Person of a King has forsooth committed some horrible Parricide in England Which expression though dropping carelesly from your Pen has more truth in it than you are aware of For a Tyrant is but like a King upon a tage a man in a Vizor and acting the part of a Kâ—ng in a Play he is not really a King But as for thesâ— Gallicisms that are so frequent in your Book I wâ—…t lash you for them my self for I am not at leisure but shall deliver you over to your fellow Grammarians to be laught to scorn and whipt by them What follows is much more heinous that what was decreed by our Supreme Magistrates to be done to the King should be said by you to have been done by a wicked Conspiracy of Sacrilegious persons Have you the impudence you Rogue to talk at this rate of the Acts and Decrees of the chief Magistrates of a Nation that lately was a most Potent Kingdom and is now a more Potent Commonwealth Whose proceedings no Ring ever took upon him by word of mouth or otherwise to vilifie and set at nought The Illustrious States of Holland therefore the Genuine Off spring of those Deliverers of their Country have deservedly by their Edict condemn'd to utter darkness this Defence of Tyrants so pernicious to the Liberty of all Nations the Author of which every free State ought to forbid their Country or to banish out of it and that State particularly that feeds with a Stipend so ungrateful and so savage an Enemy to their Commonwealth whose very Fundamentals and the causes of their becoming a free State this Fellow endeavours to undermine as well as ours and at one and the same time to subvert both and loads with Calumnies the most worthy Asserters of Liberty there under our Names Consider with your selves ye most Illustrious States of the United Netherlands who it was that put this Asserter of Kingly Power upon setting Pen to Paper who it was that but lately began to play Rex in your Country what Counsels were taken what endeavours used and what disturbances ensued thereupon in Holland and to what pass things might have been brought by this time how Slavery and a new Master were ready prepar'd for you and how near expiring that Liberty of yours asserted and vindicated by so many years War and Toil would have been e're now if it had not taken breath again by the timely death of a certain rash young Gentleman But our Author begins to strut again and to feign wonderful Tragedies Whomsoever this dreadful news reacht to wit the news of Salmasius his Parricidial Barbarisms all of a sudden as if they had been struck with lightning their hair stood an end and their tongues clove to the roof of their mouth Which let Natural Philosophers take notice of for this secret in nature was never discovered before that lightning makes mens hair stand an end But who knows not that little effeminate minds are apt to be amaz'd at the news of any extiaordinary great Action and that then they show themselves to be what they really were before no better than so many Stocks Some could not refrain from tears some little Women at Court I suppose or if there be any more effeminate than they of whose number Salmasius himself being one is by a new Metamorphosis become a Fountain near akin to his Name Salmacis and with his counterfeit flood of tears prepared over night endeavours to emasculate generous minds I advise therefore and wish them to have a care Infamis ne quem malè fortibus undis Salmacis Enervet Ne si vir cum venerit exeat indè Semivir tactis subitò mollescat in undis Abstain as Manhood you esteem From Salmacis pernicious Stream If but one moment there you stay Too dear you 'l for your Bathing pay Depart nor Man nor Woman but a Sight Disgracing both a loath'd Hermaphrodite They that had more courage which yet the expresses in miserable bald Latin as if he could not so much as speak of men of courage and Magnanimity in proper words were set on fire with indignation to that degree that they could hardly contain themselves Those furious Hectors we value not of a rush We have been accustomed to rout such Bullies in the Field with a true sober courage a courage becoming men that can contain themselves and are in their right Wits There were none that did not curse the Authors of so Horrible a Villany But yet you say their tongues clove to the roof of their mouths and if you mean this
of our Fugitives only I wish they had clove there to this day for we know very well that there 's nothing more common with them than to have their mouths full of Curses and Imprecations which indeed all good men abominate but withal despise As for others it 's hardly credible that when they heard the news of our having inflicted a Capital Punishment upon the King there should any be found especially in a Free State so naturally adapted to Slavory as either to speak ill of us or so much as to censure what we had done Nay 't is highly probable that all good men applauded us and gave God thanks for so illustrious so exalted a piece of Justice and for a caution so very useful to other Princes In the mean time as for those fierce those steel hearted men that you say take on for and bewall so pitifully the lamentable and wonderful death of I know not who them I say together with their tinkling Advocate the dullest that ever appeared since the Name of a King was born and known in the world we shall e'en let whine on till they cry their eyes out But in the mean time what School-boy what little insignificant Monk could not have made a more elegant Speech for the King and in better Latin than this Royal Advocate has done But it would be folly in me to make such particular Animadversions upon his Childishness and Frenzies throughout his Book as I do here upon a few in the beginning of it which yet I would be willing enough to do for we hear that he is swollen with Pride and Conceit to the utmost degree imaginable if the ill-put-together and immethodical bulk of his book did not protect him He was resolved to take a course like the Soldier in Terence to save his Bacon and it was very cunning in him to stuff his Book with so much Childishness and so many silly whimsies that it might nauseate the smartest man in the world to death to take notice of 'em all Only I thought it might not be amiss to give a specimen of him in the Preface and to let the serious Reader have a taste of him at first that he might guess by the first dish that 's serv'd up how noble an Entertainment the rest are like to make and that he may imagine within himself what an infinite number of Fooleries and Impertinencies must heeds be heaped up together in the body of the Book when they stand so thick in the very Entrance into it where of all other places they ought to have been shunned His tittle-tattle that follows and his Sermons fit for nothing but to be worm eaten I can easily pass by as for any thing in them relating to us we doubt not in the least but that what has been written and published by Authority of Parliament will have far greater weight with all wise and sober men than the Calumnies and Lies of one single impudent little Fellow who being hired by our Fugitives their Countrey 's Enemies has scrap'd together and not scrupled to publish in Print whatever little Story any one of them that employed him put into his head And that all men may plainly see how little conscience he makes of setting down any thing right or wrong good or bad I desire no other Witness than Salmasius himself In his book entituled Apparatus contra Primatum Papae he says There are most weighty Reasons why the Church ought to lay aside Episcopacy and return to the Apostolical Institution of Presbyters That a far greater â—ischief has been introduced into the Church by Eâ—…copacy than the Schisms themselves were which were before apprehended That the Plague which Episcopacy introduced depressed the whole body of the Church under a miserable Tyranny Nay had put a yoke even upon the necks of Kings and Princes That it would be more beneficial to the Church if the whole Hierarchy it self were extirpated than if the Pope only who is the Head of it were laid aside page 160. That it would be very much for the good of the Church if Episcocy were taken away together with the Papacy That if Episcopacy were once taken down the Papacy would fall of it self as being founded upon it page 171. He says he can show very good reasons why Episcopacy ought to be put down in those Kingdoms that have renounced the Pope's Supremacy but that he can see no reason for retaining it there That a Reformation is not entire that is defective in this point That no reason can be alledged no probable cause assigned why the Supremacy of the Pope being once disowned Episcopacy should notwithstanding be retained page 197. Tho he had wroâ—e all this and a great deal more to this effect but four years ago he is now become so vain and so impudent withal as to accuse the Parliament of England for not only turning the Bishops out of the House of Lords but for abolishing Episcopacy it self Nay he persuades us to receive Episcopacy and defends it by the very same Reasons and Arguments which with a great deal of earnestness he had confuted himself in that former Book to wit That Bishops were necessary and ought to have been retained to prevent the springing up of a Thousand pernicious Sects and Heresies Crafty Turn-coat Are you not asham'd to shift hands thus in things that are Sacred and I had almost said to betray the Church whose most solemn Institutions you seem to have asserted and vindicated with so much noise that when it should seem for your interest to change sides you might undo and subvert all again with the more disgrace and infamy to your self It 's notoriously known That when both Houses of Parliament being extremely desirous to Reform the Church of England by the pattern of other Reformed Churches had resolved to abolish Episcopacy the King first interposed and afterwards waged War against them chiefly for that very cause which proved fatal to him Go now and â—oast of your having Defended the King who that you might the better defend him do now openly betray and impugn the Cause of the Church whose Defence you your self had formerly undertaken and whose severest Censures ought to be inflicted upon you As for the present form of our Government since such a Foreign insignificant Professor as you having laid aside your Boxes and Desks stufft with nothing but Trifles which you might have spent your time better in putting into order will needs turn busie-body and be troublesome in other mens matters I shall return you this answer or rather not to you but to them that are wiser than your self viz. That the Form of it is such as our present distractions will admit of not such as were to be wish'd but such as the obstinate Divisions that are amongst us will bear What State soever is pestered with Factions and defends it self by Force of Arms is very just in having regard to those only that are found and untainted and
Partner in the Soveraign Power because he molested the Eastern Christians by which act of his he declared thus much at least That one Magistrate might punish another for he for his Subjects take punished â—icinius who to all intents was as abso 〈◊〉 in the Empire as himself and did not leave the vengeance to God alone Licinius might have done the same to Constantine if there had been the like occasion So then if the matter be not wholly reserved to Gods own Tribunal but that men have something to do in the case why did not the Parliament of England stand in the same relation to King Charles that Constantine did to Licinius The Soldiers made Constantine what he was But our Laws have made our Parliaments equal nay superior to our Kings The Inhabitants of Constantinople resisted Constantius an Arrian Emperour by force of Arms as long as they were able they opposed Hermogenes whom he had sent with a Military power to depose Paul an Orthodox Bishop the house whither he had betaken himself for security they fired about his ears and at last killed him right out Constans threatned to make War upon his Brother Constantius unless he would restore Paul and Athanasius to their Bishopricks You see those holy Fathers when their Bishopricks were in danger were not ashamed to stir up their Prince's own Brother to make War upon him Not long after the Christian Soldiers who then made whom they would Emperors put to death Constans the Son of Constantinus because he behaved himself dissolutely and proudly in the Government and Translated the Empire to Magnentius Nay those very persons that saluted Julian by the name of Emperour against Constantius his will who was actually in possession of the Empire for Julian was not then an Apostate but a vertuous and valiant person are they not amongst the number of those Primitive Christians whose Example you propose to us for our imitation which action of theirs when Constantius by his Letters to the people very sharply and earnestly forbad which Letters were openly read to them they all cried out unanimously That themselves had but done what the Provincial Magistrates the Army and the Authority of the Commonwealth had decreed The same persons declared War against Constantius and contributed as much as in them lay to deprive him both of his Government and his Life How did the Inhabitants of Antioch behave themselves who were none of the worst sort of Christians I 'le warrant you they prayed for Julian after he became an Apostate whom they used to rail at in his own presence and scoffing at his long Beard bid him make Ropes of it Upon the news of whose death they gave publick Thanksgivings made Feasts and gave other publick Demonstrations of Joy do you think they used when he was alive to pray for the continuance of his life and health Nay is it not reported that a Christian Soldier in his own Army was the Author of his Death Sozomen a Writer of the Ecclesiastical History does not deny it but commends him that did it if the fact were so For it is no wonder says he that some of his own Soldiers might think within himself that not only the Greeks but all Mankind hitherto had agreed that it was a commendable action to kill a Tyrant and that they deserve all mens praise who are willing to die themselves to procure the liberty of all others so that that Soldier ought not rashly to be condemned who in the cause of God and of Religion was so zealous and valiant These are the words of Sozomen a good and Religious man of that age by which we may easily apprehend what the general opinion of pious men in those days was upon this point Ambrose himself being commanded by the Emperour Valentinian the Younger to depart from Milan refused to obey him but defended himself and the Palace by force of Arms against the Emperour's Officers and took upon him contrary to his own Doctrine to resist the higher powers There was a great sedition raised at Constantinople against the Emperour Areadius more than once by reason of Chrysostom's Exile Hitherto I have shewn how the Primitive Christians behaved themselves towards Tyrants how not only the Christian Soldiers and the people but the Fathers of the Church themselves have both made War upon them and opposed them with force and all this before St. Austin's time for you your self are pleased to go down no lower and therefore I make no mention of Valentinian the Son of Placidia who was slain by Maximus a Senator for committing Adultery with his Wife nor do I mention Avitus the Emperour whom because he disbanded the Soldiers and betook himself wholly to a luxurious life the Roman Senate immediately deposed because these things came to pass some years after St. Austin's death But all this I give you Suppose I had not mentioned the practice of the Primitive Christians suppose they never had stirred in opposition to Tyrants suppose they had accounted it unlawful so do I will make it appear that they were not such persons as that we ought to â—ely upon their Authority or can safely follow their Example Long before Constantine's time the generality of Christians had lost much of the Primitive Sanctity and integity both of their Doctrine and Manners Afterwards when he had vastly enriched the Church they began to fall in love with Honour and Civil Power and then the Christian Religion went to wrack First Luxury and Sloth and then a great drove of Herches and Immoralities broke loose among them and these begot Envy Hatred and Discord which abounded every where At last they that were linked together into one Brotherhood by that holy band of Religion were as much at variance and strife amongst themselves as the most bitter Enemies in the world could be No reverence for no consideration of their duty was left amongst them the Soldiers and Commanders of the Army as oft as they pleased themselves created new Emperors and sometimes killed good ones as well as bad I need not mention such as Verannio Alaximus Eugenius whom the Soldiers all on a sudden advanced and made them Emperors nor Gratian an excellent Prince nor Valentinian the younger who was none of the worst and yet were put to death by them It is true these things were acted by the Soldiers and Soldiers in the field but those Soldiers were Christians and lived in that Age which you call Evangelical and whose example you propose to us for our imitation Now you shall hear how the Clergy managed themselves Pastors and Bishops and sometimes those very Fathers whom we admire and extol to so high a degree every one of whom was a Leader of their several Flocks those very men I say fought for their Bishopricks as Tyrants did for their Soveraignty sometimes throughout the City sometimes in the very Churches sometimes at the Altar Clergy-men and Lay-men fought promiscuously they slew one another and great
the Law of Nature to oppress their Subjects and go unpunished because as circumstances may fall out it may sometimes be a less mischief to bear with them than to remove them Remember what your self once wrote concerning Bishops against a Jesuit you were then of another opinion than you are now I have quoted your words formerly you there affirm that seditious Civil dissentions and discords of the Nobles and Common people against and amongst one another are much more tolerable and less mischievous than certain misery and destruction under the Government of a single person that plays the Tyrant And you said very true For you had not then run mad you had not then been bribed with Charles his Jacobusses You had not got the King's-Evil I should tell you perhaps if I did not know you that you might be ashamed thus to prevaricate But you can sooner burst than blush who have cast off all shame for a little profit Did you not remember that the Commonwealth of the people of Rome flourished and became glorious when they had banished their Kings Could you possibly forget that of the Low-Countries which after it had shook off the yoke of the King of Spain after long and tedious Wars but Crown'd with success obtained its Liberty and feeds such a pitiful Grammarian as your self with a Pension not that their youth might be so infatuated by your Sophistry as to chuse rather to return to their former Slavery than inherit the Glorious Liberty which their Ancestors purchased for them May those pernicious principles of yours be banished with your self into the most remote and barbarous corners of the World And last of all the Commonwealth of England might have afforded you an example in which Charles who had been their King after he had been taken captive in War and was found incurable was put to death But they have defaced and impoverished the Island with Civil broils and discords which under its Kings was happy and swam in Luxury Yea when it was almost buried in Luxury and Voluptuousness and the more inured thereto that it might be enthralled the more easily when its Laws were abolished and its Religion agreed to be sold they delivered it from Slavery You are like him that published Simplicius in the same Volume with Epictetus a very grave Stoick Who call an Island happy because it swims in Luxury I 'm sure no such Doctrine ever came out of Zeno's School But why should not you who would give Kings a power of doing what they list have liberty your self to broach what new Philosophy you please Now begin again to act your part There never was in any King's Reign so much blood spilt so many Families ruined All this is to be imputed to Charles not to us who first raised an Army of Irishmen against us who by his own Warrant Authorized the Irish Nation to conspire against the English who by their means slew Two hundred Thousand of his English Subjects in the Province of Uâ—… besides what Numbers were sâ—ain in other parts of that Kingdom who sollicited two Armies towards the destruction of the Parliament of England and the City of London and did many other actions of Hostility before the Parliament and people had Listed one Soldier for the preservation and defence of the Government What Principles what Law what Religion ever taught men rather to consult their ease to save their money their blood nay their lives themselves than to oppose an enemy with force for I make no difference betwixt a Foreign Enemy and another since both are equally dangerous and destructive to the good of the whole Nation The People of Israel saw very well that they could not possibly punish the Benjamites forSpanâ— Murthering the Levite's Wife without the loss of many Men's lives And did that induce them to sit still Was that accounted a sufficient Argument why they should abstain from War from a very Bloody Civil War Did they therefore suffer the Death of one poor Woman to be unrevenged Certainly if Nature teacheth us rather to endure the Government of a King though he be never so bad than to endanger the lives of a great many Men in the recovery of our Liberty it must teach us likewise not only to endure a Kingly Government which is the only one that you argue ought to be submitted to but an Aristocracy and a Democracy Nay and sometimes it will persuade us to submit to a Multitude of Highway-men and to Slaves that Mutiny Fulvius and Rupilius if your Principles had been received in their days must not have engaged in the Servile War as their Writers call it after the Praetorian Armies were Slain Crassus must not have Marched against Spartacus after the Rebels had destroyed one Roman Army and spoil'd their Tents Nor must â—â—mpâ—y have undertaken the Piratick War But the State of Rome must have pursued the dictates of Nature and must have submitted to their own Slaves or to the Pyrates rather than run the hazard of losing some Mens lives You do not prove at all that Nature has imprinted any such notion as this of yours on the minds of Men And yet you cannot forbear boding us ill luck and denouncing the Wrath of God against us which may Heaven divert and inflict it upon your self and all such Prognosticators as you who have punished as he deserved one that had the name of our King but was in Fact our implacable Enemy and we have made Atonement for the Death of so many of our Countreymen as our Civil Wars have occasion'd by shedding his Blood that was the Author and Cause of them Then you tell us that a Kingly Government appears to be more according to the Laws of Nature because more Nations both in our days and of old have submitted to that Form of Government than ever did to any other I answer If that be so it was neither the effect of any Dictate of the Law of Nature nor was it in Obedience to any Command from God God would not suffer his own People to be under a King he consented at last but unwillingly what Nature and right Reason dictates we are not to gather from the practice of most Nations but of the wisest and most prudent The Grecians the Romans the Italians and Carthagenians with many other have of their own accord out of choice preferr'd a Commonwealth to a Kingly Government and these Nations that I have named are better instances than all the rest Hence Sulpitius Severus says That the very Name of a King was always very odious among freeborn People But these things concern not our present purpose nor many other Impertinences that follow over and over again I 'll make haste to prove that by Examples which I have proved already by Reason viz. That it is very agreeable to the Law of Nature that Tyrants should be punished and that all Nations by the instinct of Nature have punished them which will expose your Impudence and
his own Court What you mean by the Members of the Court I would gladly know You enumerate the Calamities that the Romans underwent by changing their Kingdom into a Commowealth In which I have already shown how grosly you give your self the lye What was it you said when you wrote against the Jesuit You demonstrated That in an Aristocracy or a popular State there câ—uld but he Seditiâ—â—s and Tumults whereas under a Tyrant nothing was to be lâ—ked for but certain Ruin and Destruction And dare you now say you vain corrupt Mortal That thâ—se Seditions were Punishments inflicted upon them fâ—r Banâ—shing their Kings to wit because King Charles gave you a hundred Jacobussâ—s afterward Therefore the Romans shall be punished for Banishing their Kings But they that kill'd Julius Caesar did not prosper afterwards I confess if I would have had any Tyrant spared it should have been him For altho he introduced a Monarchical Government into a 〈◊〉 State by force of Arms yet perhaps himself deserved a Kingdom best and yet I conceive that none of those that killed him can be said to have been punished for so doing any more than Caius Anthonius 〈…〉 's Colleague for destroying Cataline who when he was afterward condemn'd for other Crimes says Cicero in his Oration Pro Flacco Cataline's Sepulchâ—… was adâ—rn'd with Flowers For they that fa voured Cataline then rejoyced They gave out then that what Cataline did was just to encrease the Peoples hatred against those that had cut him off These are Artifices which wicked Men make use of to deter the best of Men from punishing Tyrants and slagitious Persons I might as easily say the quite contrary and instance in them that have killed Tyrants and prospered afterwards if any certain inference might be drawn in such â—…ases from the Events of things You object further That the English did not put their Hereditary King to Death in like manner as Tyrants use to be slain but as Robbers and Traytors are executed In the first place I do not nor can any wise Man understand what a Crowns being Hereditary should contribute to a King's Crimes being unpunishable What you ascribe to the Barbarous Cruelty of the English proceeded rather for their Clemency and Moderation and as such deserves Commendation who tho the beinâ— a Tyrant is a Crime that comprehends all sorts of Enormities such as Robberies Treasons and Rebellions against the whole Nation yet were contented to inflict no greater punishment upon him for being so than they used of course to do upon any Common Highway-man or ordinary Traytor You hope some such Men as Harmodius and Thrasibulus will rise up amongst us and make Expiation for the King's Death by shedding thâ—ir Blood that were the Authors of it But you will run â—…d with despair and be detested by all good Men and put an end to that wretched Life of yours by hâ—nging your self before you see Men like Hâ—…dius avenging the Blood of a Tyrant upon such 〈◊〉 hâ—ve done no other than what they did themselves That you will come to such an end is most proâ—â—ble nor can any other be expected of so great a Rogue but the other thing is an utter impossibility You mention thirty Tyrants that rebelled in Callienus's time And what if it fall out that one Tyrant happens to oppose another must therefore all they that resist Tyrants be accounted such themselves You cannot persuade Men into such a belief you Slave of a Knight nor your Author Trebellius Pollio the most inconsiderable of all Historians that have writ If any of the Emperors were declared Enemies by the Senate you say it was done by Faction but could not have been by Law You put us in mind what it was that made Emperours at first It was Faction and Violence and to speak plainer it was the Madness of Anthony that made Generals at first Rebel against the Senate and the People of Rome there was no Law no Right for their so doing Galba you say was punished for his Insurection against Nero. Tell us likewise how â—â—spasian was punished for taking up Arms against Vitellius There was as much difference you say betwixt Charles and Nero as betwixt those English â—…chers and the Roman Senators of thâ—â— Age. Desâ—icâ—ble Villain by whom it is Scandalous to be commended and a Praise to be Evil spoken of But a few Periods before discoursing of this very thing you said That the Roman Senate under the Emperors was in effect but an Assembly of Slaves in Robes And here you say That very Senate was an Assembly of Kings which if it be allowed then are Kings according to your own Opinion but Slaves with Robes on Kings are blessed that have such a Fellow as you to write in their praise than whom no Man is more a Rascal no Beast more void of Sense unless this one thing may be said to be peculiar to you that none ever brayed so learnedly You make the Parliament of England more like to Nero than to the Roman Senate This itch of yours of making silly Similitudes enforces me to rectify you whether I will or no And I will let you see how like King Charles was to Nero. Nero you say commanded his own Mother to be run through with a Sword But Charles murdered both his Prince and his Father and that by Poyson For to omit other evidences he that would not suffer a Duke that was accused for it to come to his Tryal must needs have been guilty of it himself Nero slew many thousands of Christians but Charles slew many more There were those says Suetonius that praised Nero after he was dead that long'd to have had him again That hung Garlands of Flowers upon his Sepulchre and gave out that they would never prosper that had been his Enemies And some there are transported with the like Phrensy that wish for King Charles again and extol him to the highest degree imaginable of whom you a Knight of the Halter are a Ringleader The English Soldiers more Savage than their own Mastiffs erectâ—d a new and unheard-of Court of Justice Observe this ingenious Symbol or adage of Salmasius which he has now repeated six times over More Savage than their own Mastiffs Take notice Orators and School-Masters pluck if you are wise this Elegant Flower which Salmasius is so very fond of Commit this Flourish of a Man that is so much a Master of words to your Desks for safe Custody lest it be lost Has your rage made you forget words to that degree that like a Cuckcow you must needs say the same thing over and over again What strange thing has befallen you The Poet tells us That Spleen and Rage turn'd Hecuba into a Dog and it has turn'd you the Lord of St. Lupus into a Cuckow Now you come out with fresh Contradictions You had said before page 113. That Princes were not bound by any Laws neither Câ—ercive nor Directory that they were bound by no Law
the first of which inconveniences would thwart with your Dictionary and the latter overthrow your Politicks To these I have given such an answer as shows That tho our own Safety and Liberty were the principal things I aimed the preservation of yet withal I had some consideration of salving your Dictionary and your Politicks Now say you I will prove by other arguments That a King cannot be judged by his own Subjects of which Arguments this shall be the greatest and most convincing That a King has no Peer in his Kingdom What can a King have no Peer in his Kingdom What then is the meaning of those Twelve Ancient Peers of the Kings of France Are they Fables and Trifles Are they called so in vain and in mock only Have a care how you affront those Principal men of that Kingdom Who if they are not the King's Peers as they are called I am afraid your Dictionary which is the only thing you are concerned for will be found more faulty in France than in England But go to let 's hear your demonstration that a King has no Peer in his own Kingdom Because say you the people of Rome when they had banish'd their King appointed not one but two Consuls and the reason was That if one of them should transgress the Laws his Collegue might be a check to him There could hardly have been devised any thing more silly How came it to pass then that but one of the Cousuls had the bundles of Rods carried before him and not both if two were appointed that each might have a Power over the other And what if both had conspired against the Commonwealth Would not the Case then be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 same that it would have been if one Con 〈◊〉 had been appointed without a Colleague 〈◊〉 we know very well that both Consuls and all 〈◊〉 Magistrates were bound to obey the Senate â—…ever the Senate and the People saw that the Interest of the Commonwealth so required We have a famous instance of that in the Decemviri who tho they were invested with the Power of Consuls and were the chief Magistrates yet the Authority of the Senate reduced them all tho they struggled to retain their Government Nay we read that some Consuls before they were out of office have been declared enemies and Arms been taken up against them for in those days no man looked upon him as a Consul who acted as an Enemy So War was waged against Antony tho a Consul by Authority of the Senate in which being worsted he would have been put to death but that Octavius affecting the Empire sided with him to subvert the Commonwealth Now whereas you say That it is a property peculiar to Kingly Majesty that the power resides in a single person that 's but a loose expression like the rest of what you say and is contradicted by your self a little after For the Hebrew Judges you say ruled as long as they lived and there was but one of them at a time The Scripture also calls them Kings and yet they more accountable to the great Councel Thus we see That an itch of Vain-glory in being thought to have said all that can be said makes you hardly say any thing but contradictions Then I ask what kind of Government that was in the Roman Empire when sometimes Two sometimes Three Emperors reign'd all at once Do you reckon them to have been Emperors that is Kings or was it an Aristocracy or a Triumvirate Or will you deny that the Roman Empire under Antoninus and Verus under Dioclesian and Maximian under Constantine and Licinius was still but one entire Empire If these Princes were not Kings your Three forms of Government will hardly hold if they were then it is not an essential Property of a Kingly Government to reside in a single person If one of these offend say you then may the other refer the matter to the Senate or the People where he may be accused and condemned And does not the Senate and the People then judg when the matter is so referred to them So that if you will give any credit to your self there needs not one Collegue to judg another Such a miserable Advocate as you if you were not so wretched a fellow as you are would deserve compassion you lye every way so open to blows that if one were minded for sports-sake to make a Pass at any part of you he could hardly miss let him aim where he would 'T is ridiculous say you to imagine That a King will ever appoint Judges to condemn himself But I can tell you of an Emperor that was no ridiculous person but an Excellent Prince and that was Trajan who when he delivered a Dagger to a certain Roman Magistrate as the custom was that being the badge of his Office frequently thus admonished him Take this Sword and use it for me if I do as I ought if otherwise against me for Miscarriages in the Supreme Magistrate are less excusable This Dion and Aurelius Victor say of him You see here that a worthy Emperor appointed one to judge himself tho he did not make him his equal Tiberius perhaps might have said as much out of Vanity and Hypocrisie but 't is almost a crime to imagine that so good and virtuous a Prince as Trajan did not really speak as he thought and according to what he apprehended right and just How much more reasonable was it that tho he were superior to the Senate in power and might if he would have refused to yield them any obedience yet he actually did obey them as by vertue of his office he ought to do and acknowledged 〈◊〉 Right in the Government to be superior to his 〈◊〉 For so Pliny tells us in his Panegyrick The Senate both desired and commanded you to be Consul a fourth time you may know by the Obedience you pay them that this is no word of Flattery but of Power And a little after This is the design you aim at to restore our lost Liberty And Trajan was not of that mind alone the Senate thought so too and were of opinion That their Authority was indeed Supreme For they that could Command their Emperor might Judge him So the Emperor Marcus Aurelius when Cassius Governor of Syria endeavoured to get the Empire from him referred himself either to the Senate or the people of Rome and declared himself ready to lay down the Government if they would have it so Now how should a man determine of the Right of Kings better and more truly than out of the very mouths of the best of Kings Indeed every good King accounts either the Senate or the People not only equal but superior to himself by the Law of Nature But a Tyrant being by nature inferior to all men every one that is stronger than he ought to be accounted not only his equal but superior For as heretofore nature taught men from Force and Violence to betake themselves to Laws so
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
themselves of the Ignoranceâ— and Infirmity of Humane Nature they have conveyed this Doctrine down to Posterity as the foundation of all Laws which likewise all our Lawyers admit That if any Law or Custom be contrary to the Law of God of Nature or of Reason â—â—ought to be looked upon as null and void Whence it follows that tho it were possible for you to discover any Statute or other publick Sanction which ascribed to the King a Tyrannical Power since that would be repugnant to the Will of God to Nature and to right Reason you may learn from that general and primary Law of ours which I have just now quoted that it will be null and void But you will never be able to find that any such Right of Kings has the least Foundation in our Law Since it is plain therefore that the Power of Judicature was originally in the People themselves and that the People never did by any Royal Law part with it to the King for the Kings of England neither use to judge any Man nor can by the Law do it otherwise than according to Laws settled and agreed to Fleta Book 1. Cap. 17. It follows that this Power remains yet whole and entire in the People themselves For that it was either never committed to the House of Peers or if it were that it may lawfully be taken from them again you your self will not deny But It is in the King's Power you say to make a Village into a Burrough and that into a City and consequently the King does in effect create those that constitute the Commons House of Parliament But I say that even Towns and Burroughs are more Ancient than Kings and that the People is the People tho they should live in the open Fields And now we are extreamly well pleased with your Anglicisms COUNTY COURT THE TURNE HUNDREDA you have quickly learnt to count your hundred Jacobusses in English Quis expedirit Salmasio suam HUNDREDAM Picamque docuit verba nostra conari Magister artis venter Jacobaei Centum exulantis viscera marsupii Regis Quod si dolâ—si spes refulserit nummi Ipse Antichristi modò qui Primatum Papae Minatus uno est dissipare sufflatu Cantabit ultrò Cardmalitium melos Who taught Salmasius that French chatt'ring Pye To aim at English and HUNDRED A cry The starving Rascal flusht with just a Hundred English Jacobusses HUNDRED A blunder'd An out-law'd King 's last stock A hundred more Would make him Pimp for th' Anchristian Whore And in Rome ' s praise employ his poyson'd Breath Who threatn'd once to stink the Pope to death The next thing you do is to trouble us with a long Discourse of the Earls and the Barons to show that the King made them all which we readily grant and for that reason they were most commonly at the King's beck and therefore we have done well to take care that for the future they shall not be Judges of a free People You affirm That the Power of calling Parliaments as often as he pleases and of dissolving them when he pleases has belonged to the King time out of mind Whether such a vile mercenary Foreigner as you who transcribe what some Fugitives dictate to you or the express Letter of our own Laws are more to be credited in this matter we shall enquire hereafter But say you there is another argument and an invincible one to prove the Power of the Kings of England Superior to that of the Parliament the King's Power is perpetual and of course whereby he administers the Government singly without the Parliament that of the Parliament is extraordinary or out of course and limited to particulars only nor can they Enact any thing so as to be binding in Law without the King Where does the great force of this argument lye in the words of course and perpetual Why many inferior Magistrates have an ordinary and perpetual power those whom we call Justices of Peace Have they therefore the Supreme Power and I have said already that the King's Power is committed to him to take care by interposing his Authority that nothing be done contrary to Law and that he may see to the due observation of our Laws not to top his own upon us and consequently that the King has no Power out of his Courts nay all the ordinary power is rather the proples who determine all Controversies themselves by Juries of Twelve Men. And hence it is that when a Malefactor is asked at his Arraignment How will you be tried he answers always according to Law and Custom by God and my Country not by God and the King or the King's Deputy But the authority of the Parliament which indeed and in truth is the Supreme power of the people committed to that Senate if it may be called Extraordinary it must be by reason of its Eminence and Superiority else it is known they are called Ordines and therefore cannot properly be said to be extra ordinem out of order and if not actually as they say yet vertually they have a perpetual power and authority over all Courts and ordinary Magistrates and that without the King And now it seems our barbarous terms grate upon your Critical ears forsooth whereas if I had leisure or that it were worth my while I could reckon up so many Barbarisms of yours in this one Book as if you were to be chastiz'd for them as you deserve all the School-boys Ferulers in Christendom would be broken upon you nor would you receive so many Pieces of Gold as that wretched Poet did of old but a great many more Boxes o' th' ear You say 'T is a Prodigy more monstrous than all the most absurd Opinions in the world put together that the Bedlams should make a distinction betwixt the King's Power and his Person I will not quote what every Author has said upon this subject but if by the words Personam Regis you mean what we call in English the Person of the King Chrysostome who was no Bedlam might have caught you that it is no absurd thing to make a distinction betwixt that and his power for that Father explains the Apostles command of being subject to the Higher Powers to be meant of the thing the Power it self and not of the Persons of the Magistrates And why may not I say that a King who acts any thing contrary to Law acts so far forth as a private person or a Tyrant and not in the capacity of a King invested with a Legal Authority If you do not know that there may be in one and the same man more Persons or Capacities than one and that those Capacities may in thought and conception be severed from the man himself you are altogether ignorant both of Latin and Common sense But this you say to absolve Kings from all sin and guilt and that you may make us believe that you are gotten into the Chair voâ—r self which you have pull'd the Pope
out of The King you say is supposed not capable of committing any crime because no punishment is consequential upon any crime of his Whoever therefore is not punisht offends not it is not the theft but the punishment that makes the thief Salmasius the Grammarian commits no Soloecisms now because he is from under the Ferular when you have overthrown the Pope let these for God's sake be the Canons of your Pontificate or at least your Indulgences whether you shall chuse to be called the High Priest St. â—yranny or of St. Slavery I pass by the Reproachful language which towards the latter end of the Chapter you give the State of the Commonwealth and the Church of England 't is common to such as you are you contemptible Varlet to rail at those things most that are most praise-worthy But that I may not seem to have asserted any thing rashly concerning the Right of the Kings of England or rather concerning the Peoples Right with respect to their Princes I will now alledg out of our ancient Histories a few things indeed of many but such as will make it evident that the English lately tried their King according to the setled Laws of the Realm and the Customs of their Ancestors After the Romans quitted this Island the Britains for about forty years were sui Juris and without any Kings at all Of whom those they first set up some they put to death And for that Gildas reprehends them not as you do for killing their Kings but for killing them uncondemned and to use his own words Non pro veri examinatione without inquiring into the matter of fact Vortigerne was for his Incestuous Marriage with his own Daughter condemn'd as Nennius informs us the most ancient of all our Historians next to Gildas by St. German and a General Council of the Britains and his Son Vortimer set up in his stead This came to pass not long after St. Augustine's death which is enough to discover how â—utilous you are to say as you have done that it was a Pope and Zachary by name who first held the lawfulness of judging Kings About the year of our Lord 600 Morcantius who then Reign'd in Wales was by Oudeceus Bishop of Landaff condemn'd to Exile for the Murther of his Uncle though he got the Sentence off by bestowing some Lands upon the Church Come we now to the Saxons whose Laws we have and therefore I shall quote none of their Presidents Remember that the Saxons were of a German Extract who neither invested their Kings with any absolute unlimited power and consulted in a Body of the more weighty affairs of Government whence we may perceive that in the time of our Saxon Ancestors Parliaments the name it self only excepted had the Supreme Authority The name they gave them was Councils of Wise-men and this in the Reign of Ethelbert of whom Bede says That he made Laws in imitation of the Roman Laws cum concilio sapientum by the advice or in a Council of his Wise-men So Edwyn King of Northumberland and Ina King of the VVest-Saxons having consulted with their VVise-men and the Elders of the people made new Laws Other Laws K. Alfred made by the advice in like manner of his Wise-men and he says himself That it was by the consent of them all that they were commanded to be observed From these and many other like places it is as clear as the Sun that chosen Men even from amongst the Common People were Members of the Supreme Councils unless we must believe that no Men are wise but the Nobility We have likewise a very Ancient Book called the Mirror of Justices in which we are told That the Saxons when they first subdued the Brittains and chose themselves Kings required an Oath of them to submit to the Judgment of the Law as much as any of their Subjects Cap. 1. Sect. 2. In the same place 't is said that it is but just that the King have his Peers in Parliament to take Cognizance of wrongs done by the King or the Queen and that there was a Law made in King Alored's time that Parliaments should be holden twice a year at London or oftner if need were Which Law when through neglect it grew into disuse was revived by two Statutes in King Edward the Third's time And in another ancient Manuscript called Modus tenendi Parliamenta we read thus If the King dissolve the Parliament before they have dispatcht the business for which the Council was summon'd he is guilty of Perjury and shall be reputed to have broken his Coronation Oath For how can he be said to grant those good Laws which the people chuse as he is sworn to do if he hinders the People from chusing them either by summoning Parliaments seldomer or by dissolving them sooner than the Publick Affairs require or admit And that Oath which the Kings of England take at their Coronation has always been looked upon by our Lawyers as a most sacred Law And what remedy can be found to obviate the great Dangers of the whole State which is the very end of summoning Parliaments if that Great and August Assembly may be dissolved at the pleasure many times of a silly head-strong King To absent himself from them is certainly less than to dissolve them and yet by our Laws as that Modus lays them down the King neither can nor ought to absent himself from his Parliament unless he be really indisposed in Health nor then neither till twelve of the Peers have been with him to inspect his Body and give the Parliament an account of his Indisposition Is this like the Carriage of Servants to a Master On the other hand the House of Commons without whom there can be no Parliament held tho summoned by the King may withdraw and having made a Secession expostulate with the King concerning Male-administration as the same Book has it But which is the greatest thing of all amongst the Laws of King Edward commonly called the Confessor there is one very excellent relating to the Kingly Office which Office if the King do not discharge as he ought Then says the Law He shall not retain so much as the Name of a King And lest these words should not be sufficiently understood the Example of Chilperic King of France is subjoyn'd whom the People for that Cause deposed And that by this Law a wicked King is liable to Punishment that Sword of King Edward called Curtana denotes to us which the Earl of Chester used to carry in the Solemn Procession at a Coronation A token says Mathew Paris that he has Authority by Law to punish the King if he will not do his Duty and the Sword is hardly ever made use of but in Capital Punishments This same Law together with other Laws of that good King Edward did William the Conqueror ratifie in the Fourth Year of his Reign and in a very full Council held at Verulam confirm'd it with a
own and their Countries Right of a detestable and â—â—rrid Imposture Your Country may be aâ—…amed you Rascall to have brought forth a little inconsiderable fellow of such profligate impudence But perhaps you have somewhat to tell us that may be for our good Go on we 'l hear you VVhat Laws say you can a Parliament Enact in which the Bishops are 〈◊〉 present Did you then ye madman expell the Order of Bishops out of the Church to introduce them into the State O wicked wretch who ought to be delivered over to Satan whom the Church ought to forbid her Communion as being a Hypocrite and an Atheist and no Civil Society of men to acknowledg as a member being a publick enemy and a Plague-sore to the common liberty of Mankind who where the Gospel fails you endeavour to prove out of Aristetle Halicarnassaeus and then from some Popish Authorities of the most corrupt ages that the King of England is the head of the Church of England to the end that you may as far as in you lies bring in the Bishops again his Intimates and Table-Companions grown so of late to rob and Tyrannize in the Church of God whom God himself hath deposed and degraded whose very Order you had heretofore asserted in Print that it ought to be rooted out of the world as destructive of and pernicious to the Christian Religion What Apostate did ever so shamefully and wickedly desert as this man has done I do not say his own which indeed never was any but the Christian Doctrine which he had formerly asserted The Bishops being put down who under the King and by his permission held Plea of Ecclesiastical Causes upon whom say you will that Jurisdiction devolve O Villain have some regard at least to your own Conscience Remember before it be too late if at least this admonition of mine come not too late remember that this mocking the Holy Spirit of God is an inexpiable crime and will not be left unpunisht Stop at last and set bounds to your fury lest the wrath of God lay hold upon you suddenly for endeavouring to deliver the flock of God his Anointed ones that are not to be touched to Enemies and cruel Tyrants to be crusht and trampled on again from whom himself by a high and stretched out arm had so lately delivered them and from whom you your self maintained that they ought to be delivered I know not whether for any good of theirs or in order to the hardning of your own heart and to further your own damnation If the Bishops have no right to Lord it over the Church certainly much less have Kings whatever the Laws of men may be to the contrary For they that know any thing of the Gospel know thus much that the Government of the Church is altogether Divine and Spiritual and no Civil Constitution Whereas you say That in Secular Affairs the Kings of England have always had the Sovereign Power Our Laws do abundantly declare that to be false Our Courts of Justice are erected and suppressed not by the King's Authority but that of the Parliament and yet in any of them the meanest Subject might go to Law with the Ring nor is it a rare thing for the Judges to give Judgment against him which if the King should endeavour to obstruct by any Prohibition Mandate or Letters the Judges were bound by Law and by their Oaths not to obey him but to reject such Inhibitions as null and void in Law the King could not imprison any man or seize his Estate as forfeited he could not punish any man not summoned to appear in Court where not the King but the ordinary Judges gave Sentence which they frequently did as I have said against the King Hence our Bractan lib. 3. cap. 9. The Regal Power says he is according to Law he has no power to do any wrong nor can the King do any thing but what the Law warrants Those Lawyers that you have consulted men that have lately fled their Countrey may tell you another tale and acquaint you with some Statutes not very Ancient neither but made in King Edward 4th's King Henry 6th's and King Edward 6th's days but they did not consider That what power soever those Statutes gave the King was conferred upon him by Authority of Parliament so that he was beholding to them for it and the same power that conferr'd it might at pleasure resume it How comes it to pass that so acute a disputant as you should suffer your self to be imposed upon to that degree as to make use of that very Argument to prove the King's Power to be Absolute and Supreme than which nothing proves more clearly That it is subordinate to that of the Parliament Our Records of the greatest Authority with us declare That our Kings owe all their Power not to any Right of Inheritance of Conquest or Succession but to the people So in the Parliament Rolls of King Hen. 4. numb 108. we read That the Kingly Office and Power was granted by the Commons to King Henry the 4th and before him to his Predecessor King Richard the 2d just as Kings use to grant Commissioners places and Lieutenantships to their Deputies by Edicts and Patents Thus the House of Commons ordered expresly to be entred upon record That they had granted to King Richard to use the same good Liberty that the Kings of England before him had used Which because that King abused to the subversion of the Laws and contrary to his Oath at his Coronation the same persons that granted him that power took it back again and deposed him The same men as appears by the same Record declared in open Parliament That having confidence in the Prudence and Moderation of King Henry the 4th they will and enact That he enjoy the same Royal Authority that his Ancestors enjoyed Which if it had been any other than in the nature of a Trust as this was either those Houses of Parliament were foolish and vain to give what was none of their own or those Kings that were willing to receive as from them what was already theirs were too injurious both to themselves and their Posterity neither of which is likely A third part of the Regal Power say you is conversant about the Mâ—litia this the Kings of England have used to order and govern without Fellow or Competitor This is as false as all the rest that you have taken upon the credit of Fugitives For in the first place both our own Histories and those of Foreigners that have been any whit exact in the relation of our Affairs declare That the making of Peace and War always did belong to the Parliament And the Laws of St. Edward which our Kings were bound to swear that they would maintain make this appear beyond all exception in the Chapter De Heretochus viz. That there were certain Officers appointed in every Province and County throughout the Kingdom that were called Heretochs in Latin
Will both of Senate and People gets as great a number as he can either of Enemies or profligate Subjects to side with him against the Senate and the People The Parliament therefore allowed the King as they did whatever he had besides the setting up of a Standard not to wage War against his own people but to defend them against such as the Parliament should declare Enemies to the State If he acted otherwise himself was to be accounted an Enemy since according to the very Law of St. Edward or according to a more sacred Law than that the Law of Nature it self he lost the name of a King and was no longer such Whence Cicero in his Philip. He forfeits his Command in the Army and Interest in the Government that employs them against the State Neither could the King compel those that held of him by Knight-Service to serve him in any other War than such as was made by consent of Parliament which is evident by many Statutes So for Customs and other Subsidies for the maintenance of the Navy the King could not exact them without an Act of Parliament as was resolved about twelve years ago by the ablest of our Lawyers when the King's Authority was at the height And long before them Fortescue an Eminent Lawyer and Chancellor to King Henry the 6th The King of England says he can neither alter the Laws nor exact Subsidies without the people's consent nor can any Testimonies be brought from Antiquity to prove the Kingdom of England to have been merely Regal The King says Bracton has a Jurisdiction over all his Subjects that is in his Courts of Justice where Justice is administred in the King's name indeed but according to our own Laws All are subject to the King that is every particular man is and so Bracton explains himself in the places that I have cited What follows is but turning the same stone over and over again at which sport I believe you are able to tire Sisiphus himself and is sufficiently answered by what has been said already For the rest if our Parliaments have sometimes complimented good Kings with submissive expressions tho neither favouring of Flattery nor Slavery those are not to be accounted due to Tyrants nor ought to prejudice the peoples Right good manners and civility do not infringe Liberty Whereas you cite out of Sir Edw. Coke and others That the Kingdom of England is an Absolute Kingdom that is said with respect to any Foreign Prince or the Emperor because as Cambden says It is not under the Patronage of the Emperor but both of them affirm that the Government of England resides not in the King alone but in a Body Politick Whence Fortescue in his Book de laud. leg Angl. cap. 9. The King of England says he governs his people not by a merely Regal but a Political power for the English are govern'd by Laws of their own making Foreign Authors were not ignorant of this Hence Philip de Comines a Grave Author in the Fifth Book of his Commentaries Of all the Kingdoms of the earth says he that I have any knowledge of there is none in my opinion where the Government is more moderate where the King has less power of hurting his people than in England Finally 'T is ridiculous say you for them to affirm that Kingdoms were ancienter than Kings which is as much as if they should say that there was Light before the Sun was created But with your good leave Sir we do not say that Kingdoms but that the people were before Kings In the mean time who can be more ridiculous than you who deny there was Light before the Sun had a being You pretend to a curiosity in other mens matters and have forgot the very first things that were taught you You wonder how they that have seen the King upon his Throne at a Session of Parliament sub aureo serico Coelo under a golden and silken Heaven under a Canopy of State should so much as make a question whether the Majesty resided in him or in the Parliament They are certainly hard of belief whom so lucid an Argument coming down from Heaven cannot convince Which Golden Heaven you like a Stoick have so devoutly and seriously gaz'd upon that you seem to have forgot what kind of Heaven Moses and Aristotle describe to us for you deny that there was any Light in Moses his Heaven before the Sun and in Aristotle's you make three temperate Zones How many Zones you observed in that Golden and Silken Heaven of the King 's I know not but I know you got one Zone a Purse well tempered with a Hundred Golden Stars by your Astronomy CHAP. X. SInce this whole Controversie whether concerning the Right of Kings in general or that of the King of England in particular is rendred difficult and intricate rather by the obstinacy of parties than by the nature of the thing it self I hope they that prefer Truth before the Interest of a Faction will be satisfied with what I have alledged out of the Law of God the Law of Nations and the Municipal Laws of my own Countrey That a King of England may be brought to Tryal and put to Death As for those whose minds are either blinded with Superstition or so dazeled with the Splendor and Grandure of a Court that Magnanimity and true Liberty do not appear so glorious to them as they are in themselves it will be in vain to contend with them either by Reason and Arguments or Examples But you Salmasius seem very absurd as in every other part of your Book so particularly in this who tho you â—ail perpetually at the Independents and revile them with all the terms of Reproach imaginable yet assert to the highest degree that can be the Independâ—ncy of the King whom you defend and will not allow him to owe his Soveraignty to the people but to his Descent And whereas in the beginning of your Book you complain'd that he was put to plead for his Life here yâ—u complain That he perish'd without being heard to spâ—… for himself But if you have a mind to look into the History of his Trial which is very faithfully publish'd in French it may be you 'l be of another opinion Whereas he had liberty given him for some day together to say what he could for himself he made use of it not to clear himself of the Crimes 〈◊〉 to his Charge but to disprove the Authority oâ— his Judges and the Judicature that he was called before And whenever a Criminal is either mute or says nothing to the purpose there is no Injustice in condemning him without hearing him if his Crimes are notorious and publickly known If you say that Charles dyed as he lived I agree with you If you say that he died piously holily and at ease you may remember that his Grandmother Mary Queen of Scots and infamous Woman dyed on a Scaffold with as much outward appearance of
Piety Sanctity and Constancy as he did and lest you should ascribe too much to that presence of mind which some common Malefactors have so great a measure of at their death many times despair and a hardned heart puts on as it were a Vizor of Courage and Stupidity of Quiet and Tranquility of mind Sometimes the worst of men desire to appear good undaunted innocent and now and then Religious not only in their life but at their death and in suffering death for their villanies use to act the last part of their hypocrisie and cheats with all the show imaginable and like bad Poets or Stage-players are very Ambitious of being clapp'd at the end of the Play Now you say you are come to enquire who they chiesly were that gave Sentence against the King Whereas it ought first to be enquired into how you a Foreigner and a French Vagabond came to have any thing to do to raise a question about our Affairs to which you are so much a stranger And what Reward induced you to it But we know enough of that and who satisfied your curiosity in these matters of ours even those Fugitives and Traytors to their Countrey that could easily hire such a vain Fellow as you to speak ill of us Then an account in writing of the state of our affairs was put into your hands by some hair-brain'd half-Protestant half-Papist Chaplain or other or by some sneaking Courtier and you were put to Translate it into Latin out of that you took these Narratives which if you please we 'll examine a little Not the hundred thousandth part of the people consented to this sentence of Condemnation What were the rest of the people then that suffered so great a thing to be transacted against their will Were they stocks and stones were they mere Trunks of men only or 〈◊〉 Images of Britans as Virgil describes to have been â—…ught in â—…ry Purpurea intexti tollunt aulea Britanni And Brittains interwove held up the Purple hangings For you describe no true Britains but Painted ones or rather Needle-wrought Men instead of them Since therefore it is a thing so incredible that a warlike Nation should be subdued by so few and those of the dregs of the People which is the first thing that occurs in your Narrative that appears in the very Nature of the thing it self to be most false The Bishops were turn'd out of the House of Lords by the Parliament it self The more deplorable is your Madness for are you not yet sensible that you Rave to complain of their being turn'd out of the Parliament whom you your self in a large Book endeavour to prove that they ought to be turn'd out of the Church One of the States of Parliament to wit the House of Lords consisting of Dukes Earls and Viscounts was removed And deservedly were they removed for they were not deputed to sit there by any Town or County but represented themselves only they had no Right over the People but as if they had been ordained for that very purpose used frequently to oppose their Rights and Liberties They were created by the King they were his Companions his Servants and as it were Shadows of him He being removed it was necessary they should be reduced to the same Level with the Body of the People from amongst whom they took their rise One part of the Parliament and that the worst of all ought not to have assum'd that Power of judging and condemning the King But I have told you already that the House of Commons was not only the chief part of our Parliament while we had Kings but was a perfect and entire Parliament of it self without the Temporal Lords much more without the Bishops But The whole House of Commons themselves were not admitted to have to do with the Tryal of the King To wit that part of them was not admitted that openly revolted to him in their Minds and Councels whom tho they stil'd him their King yet they had so often acted against as an Enemy The Parliament of England and the Deputies sent from the Parliament of Scotland on the 13th of January 1645. wrote to the King in Answer to a Letter of his by which he desired a deceitful Truce and that he might Treat with them at London that they could not admit him into that City till he had made Satisfaction to the State for the Civil War that he had raised in the three Kingdoms and for the Deaths of so many of his Subjects slain by his Order and till he had agreed to a true and firm Peace upon such Terms as the Parliaments of both Kingdoms had offered him so often already and should offer him again He on the other hand either refused to hear or by ambiguous Answers eluded their just and equal Proposals tho most humbly presented to him seven times over The Parliament at last after so many years patience lest the King should over-turn the State by his Wiles and Delays when in Prison which he could not subdue in the Field and lest the vanquish'd Enemy pleased with our Divisions should recover himself and triumph unexpectedly over his Conquerors vote that for the future they would have no regard to him that they would send him no more Proposals nor receive any from him After which vote there were found even some Members of Parliament who out of the hatred they bore that invincible Army whose Glory they envied and which they would have had disbanded and sent home with disgrace after they had deserved so well of their Nation and out of a servile Compliance with some Seditious Ministers finding their opportunity when many whom they knew to be otherwise minded than themselves having been sent by the House it self to suppress the Presbyterians who began already to be Turbulent were absent in the several Counties with a strange Levity not to say perfidiousness Vote that that inveterate Enemy of the State who had nothing of a King but the Name without giving any Satisfaction or Security should be brought back to London and restored to his Dignity and Government as if he had deserved well of the Nation by what he had done So that they preferr'd the King before their Religion their Liberty and that very celebrated Covenant of theirs What did they do in the mean time who were sound themselves and saw such pernicious Councils on foot Ought they therefore to have been wanting to the Nation and not provide for its safety because the Infection had spread it self even in their own House But who secluded those ill affected Members The English Army you say so that it was not an Army of Foreigners but of most Valiant and Faithful Honest Natives whose Officers for the most part were Members of Parliament and whom those good secluded Members would have secluded their Country and banished into Ireland while in the mean time the Scots whose Alliance begin to be doubtful had very considerable Forces in four of
scorn to have Charles compared with so cruel a Tyrant as Nero he resembled him extremely much For Nero likewise often threatned to take away the Senate Besides he bore extreme hard upon the Consciences of good men and compelled them to the use of Ceremonies and Superstitious Worship borrowed from Popery and by him re-introduced into the Church They that would not conform were imprisoned or Banisht He made War upon the Scots twice for no other cause than that By all these actions he has surely deserved the name of a Tyrant once over at least Now I 'le tell you why the word Traytor was put into his Indictment When he assured his Parliament by Promises by Proclamations by Imprecations that he had no design against the State at that very time did he List Papists in Ireland he sent a private Embassie to the King of Denmark to beg assistance from him of Arms Horses and Men expresly against the Parliament and was endeavouring to raise an Army first in England and then in Scotland To the English he promised the Plunder of the City of London to the Scots that the four Northern Counties should be added to Scotland if they would but help him to get rid of the Parliament by what means soever These Projects not succeeding he sent over one Dillon a Traytor into Ireland with private Instructions to the Natives to fall suddenly upon all the English that inhabited there These are the most remarkable instances of his Treasons not taken up upon hear-say and idle reports but discovered by Letters under his own Hand and Seal And finally I suppose no man will deny that he was a Murderer by whose order the Irish took Arms and put to death with most exquisite Torments above a hundred thousand English who lived peaceably by them and without any apprehension of danger and who raised so great a Civil War in the other two Kingdoms Add to all this that at the Treaty in the Isle of Wight the King openly took upon himself the guilt of the War and clear'd the Parliament in the Confession he made there which is publickly known Thus you have in short why King Charles was adjudged a Tyrant a Traytor and a Murderer But say you why was he not declared so before neither in that Solemn League and Covenant nor afterwards when he was delivered to them either by the Presbyterians or the Independents but on the other hand was receiv'd as a King ought to be with all reverence This very thing is sufficient to persuade any rational man that the Parliament entred not into any Councils of quite deposing the King but as their last refuge after they had suffered and undergone all that possibly they could and had attempted all other ways and means You alone endeavour maliciously to lay that to their charge which to all good men cannot but evidence their great Patience Moderation and perhaps a too long forbearing with the King's Pride and Arrogance But in the month of August before the King suffered the House of Commons which then bore the only sway and was governed by the Independants wrote Letters to the Scots in which they acquainted them that they never intended to alter the form of Government that had obtain'd so long in England under King Lords and Commons You may see from henâ—e how little reason there is to ascribe the deposing of the King to the principles of the Independents They that never used to dissemble and conceal their Tenents even then when they had the sole management of affairs profess That they never intended to alter the Government But if afterwards a thing came into their minds which at first they intended not why might they not take such a course tho before not intended as appear'd most advisable and most for the Nation 's Interest Especially when they found that the King could not possibly be intreated or induced to assent to those just demands that they had made from time to time and which were always the same from first to last He persisted in those perverse sentiments with respect to Religion and his own Right which he had all along espoused and which were so destructive to us not in the least altered from the man that he was when in Peace and War he did us all so much mischief If he assented to any thing he gave no obscure hints that he did it against his will and that whenever he should come into power again he would look upon such his Assent as null and void The same thing his Son declared by writing under his hand when in those days he ran away with part of the Fleet and so did the King himself by Letters to some of his own Party in London In the mean time against the avowed sense of the Parliament he struck up a private Peace with the Irish the most barbarous Enemies imaginable to England upon base dishonourable terms but whenever he invited the English to Treaties of Peace at those very times with all the power he had and interest he could make he was preparing for War In this case what should they do who were intrusted with the care of the Government Ought they to have betrayed the safety of us all to our most bitter Adversary Or would you have had them leâ—â— us to undergo the Calamities of another Seven years War not to say worse God put a better mind into them of preferring pursuant to that very solemn League and Covenant their Religion and Liberties before those thoughts they once had of not rejecting the King for they had not gone so far as to vote it all which they saw at last tho indeed later than they might have done could not possibly subsist as long as the King continued King The Parliament ought and must of necessity be entirely free and at liberty to provide for the good of the Nation as occasion requires nor ought they so to be wedded to their first Sentiments as to scruple the altering their minds for their own or the Nation 's good if God put an opportunity into their hands of procuring it But the Scots were of 〈…〉 opinion for they in a Letter to Charles the King's Son call his Father a most Sacred Prince and the putting him to death a most execrable Villany Do not you talk of the Scots whom you know not we know them well enough and know the time when they called that same King a most â—…rable person a Murtherer and Traytor and the putting a Tyrant to Death a most sacred action Then you pick holes in the King's Charge as not being properly penn'd and you ask why we needed to call him a Traytor and a Murtherer after we had stiled him a Tyrant since the word Tyrant includes all the Crimes that may be And then you explain to us grammatically and critically what a Tyrant is Away with those Trisles you Pedagogue which that one definition of Aristotle's that has lately beeen cited will utterly confound
the Government of England into a Tyranny thought he could not bring it to pass till the Flower and Strength of the Military Power of the Nation were cut off Another of his Crimes was the causing some words to be struck out of the usual Coronation-oath before he himself would take it Unworthy and abominable Action The Act was wicked in it self what shall be said of him that undertakes to justifie it For by the Eternal God what greater breach of Faith and Violation of all Laws can possibly be imagin'd What ought to been more sacred to him next to the Holy Sacraments themselves than that Oath Which of the two do you think the more flagitious Person him that offends against the Law or him that endeavours to make the Law equally guilty with himself Or rather him who subverts the Law it self that he may not seem to offend against it For thus that King violated that Oath which he ought most religiously to have sworn to but that he might not seem openly and publickly to violate it he craftily adulterated and corrupted it and least he himself should be accounted perjur'd he turn'd the very Oath into a Perjury What other could be expected then that his Reign would be full of Injustice Craft and Misfortune who began it with so detestable an Injury to his People And who durst pervert and adulterate that Law which he thought the only Obstacle that stood in his way and hindred him from perverting all the rest of the Laws But that Oath thus you justify him lays no other Obligation upon Kings then the Laws themselves do and Kings pretend that they will be bound and limited by Laws tho indeed they are altogether from under the Power of Laws Is it not prodigious that a Man should dare to express himself so sacrilegiously and so senselesly as to assert that am Oath sacredly sworn upon the Holy Evangelists mary be dispensed with and set aside as a little insignifi cant thing without any Cause whatsoever Charles himself refutes you you Prodigy of Impiety Who thinking that Oath no light matter chose rather by a Subterfuge to avoid the force of it or by a Fallacy to elude it than openly to violate it and would rather falsifie and corrupt the Oath then manifestly forswear himself after he had taken it But The King indeed swears to his People as the People do to him but the People swear Fidelity to the King not the King to them Pretty Invention Does not he that promises and binds himself by an Oath to do any thing to or for another oblige his Fidelity to them that require the Oath of him Of a truth every King swâ—ears Fidelity and Service and Obedience to the People with respect to the performance of whatever he promiseth upon Oath to do Then you run back to William the Conqueror who was forced more than once to swear to perform not what he himself would bâ—…t what the People and the great Men of the Realm requir'd of him If many Kings are Crown'd without the usual Solemnity and Reign without taking any Oath the same thing may be said of the People a great many of whom never took the Oath of Allegiance If the King by not taking an Oath be at Liberty the People are so too And that part of the People that has sworn swore not to the King only but to the Realm and the Laws by which the King came to his Crown and no otherwise to the King than whâ—…st he should act according to those Laws that the Common People that is the House of Commons should chuse quas Vulgus elegerit For it were folly to alter the Phrase of our Law and turn it into more genuine Latin This Clause Quas Vulgus elegerit Which the Commons shall abuse Charles before he was Crown'd procured to be razed out But say you without the King's assent the People can chuse no Laws and for this you cite two Statutes viz. Anno 37 H. 6. Cap. 15. and 13 Edw. 4. Cap. 8. but those two Statutes are so far from appearing in our Statute-books that in the years you mention neither of those Kings enacted any Laws at all Go now and complain That those Fugitives who pretended to furnish you with matter out of our Statutes imposed upon you in it and let other People in the mean time stand astonish'd at your Impudence and Vanity who are not asham'd to pretend to be throughly vers'd in such Books as it is so evident you have never look'd into nor so much as seen And that Clause in the Coronation-Oath which such a brazen-fac'd Brawler as you call fictitious The King's Friends you say your self acknowledge that it may possibly be extant in some Ancient Copies but that it grew into disuse because it had no convenient signification But for that very reason did our Ancestors insert it in the Oath that the Oath might have such a signification as would not be for a Tyrant's conveniency If it had really grown into disuse which yet is most false there was the greater need of reviving it but even that would have been to no purpose according to your Doctrine For that Custom of taking an Oath as Kings now-adays generally use it is no more you say then a bare Ceremony And yet the King when the Bishops were to be put down pretended that he could not do it by reason of that Oath And consequently that reverend and sacred Oath as it serves for the Kings turn or not must be solemn and binding or an empty Ceremony Which I earnestly entreat my Country-men to take notice of and to consider what manner of a King they are like to have if he ever 〈◊〉 back For it would never have entred into the thoughts of this Rascally-foreign Grammarian to write a Discourse of the Rights of the Crown of England unless both Charles Stuart now in Banishment and tainted with his Fathers Principles and those Prosâ—igate Tutors that he has along with him had induâ—uiously to suggested him what they would have writ They dictated to him That the whole Parliament were liable to be proceded against as Traitors because they declar'd without the Kings Assent all them to be Traitors who had taken up Arms against the Parliament of England and that the Parliaments were but the King's Vassals That the Oath which our Kings take at their Coronations is but a Ceremony And why not that a Vassal too So that no reverence of Laws no sacredness of an Oath will be sufficient to protect your Lives and Fortunes either from the Exorbitance of a furious or the Revenge of an exasperated Prince who has been so instructed from his Cradle as to think Laws Religion nay and Oaths themselves ought to be subject to his Will and Pleasure How much better is it and more becoming your selves if you desire Riches Liberty Peace and Empire to obtain them assuredly by your own Virtue Industry Prudence and Valour than to long after