Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
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A29601
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Britanniæ speculum, or, A short view of the ancient and modern state of Great Britain, and the adjacent isles, and of all other the dominions and territories, now in the actual possession of His present Sacred Majesty King Charles II the first part, treating of Britain in general.
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1683
(1683)
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Wing B4819; ESTC R9195
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107,131
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325
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Vlpian for a Rule of the Civil Law Princeps Legibus solutus est The Prince is not bound by the Laws Agreeable whereunto is what is said in the Laws of England Potestas Principis non est inclusa Legibus The Power of the Prince is not included in the Laws Hence no doubt it was that Mr. Grivel in the Thirty first year of Queen Elizabeth said in Parliament That he wished not the making of many Laws since the more we make the less Liberty we have our selves Her Majesty not being bound by them Yet is not this so to be understood that Kings have hereby a right to do Injury but that it is Right for them to go unpunished by their People if they do it The King cannot be impleaded for any Crime No Action lieth against his Person For the Writ goeth forth in his Name and he cannot arrest himself If he should which God forbid violently seizâ— upon the Estate of any Subject having no Title by Law so to do the only Remedy is by Petitioning him to amend his Fault which if he shall refuse to do it will be Punishment sufficient for him to expect that GOD who has given him his Prerogative of being above all Laws for the good only of them that are under the Laws and for the Defence of his Peoples Liberties will severely avenge the Cause of oppressed Loyal Subjects But altho whatever the King shall do he is not questionable for it by his Subjects yet there are divers things which he cannot do Salvo Jure Salvo Juramento Salva Conscientia sua For by an Oath taken at his Coronation the King obliges himself and indeed without any Oath he is by the Law of Nature and Christianity as are all other Christian Kings obliged to procure the Safety and Welfare of his People to protect and defend them against their Enemies to maintain and preserve them in their Properties just Rights and Liberties to administer upright Justice with Discretion and Mercy and in order thereunto to consent to the enacting of good Laws and repealing of Bad. Thus the King can do nothing unjustly nor can he divest himself or his Successors of any part of his Regal Power Prerogative and Authority inherent in the Crown and necessary for the Government and Protection of his People Two things there are especially which having somewhat of Odium in them the King doth not usually do without the Consent of his Parliament that is make new Laws and impose new Taxes the one whereof seems and does but seem to infringe the Peoples Liberties and the other to entrench upon their Properties To take away therefore all Occasions of Disaffection to the Anointed of the Lord stiled in Holy Scripture the Breath of our Nostrils and the Light of our Eyes the Wisdom of our former Princes his Majesties Royal Ancestors has contrived that for both these there should Petitions first be made by the People to the King Tho these and divers other Prerogatives do rightfully belong unto and are enjoyed by the Monarch of Great Britain yet doth he ordinarily govern his people by the known Laws and Customs of his Kingdoms making use of his Royal Prerogative for the Benefit not Damage of his Subjects in some rare and extraordinary Cases only Hereunto may be added a singular and Miraculous Priviledge enjoyed by the Kings of Great Britain quatenus Kings conferred first by the Divine Benignity upon that Blessed King of England St. Edward the Confessor and ever since continued to his Successors which is by the Imposition of their Sacred Hands to drive away and cure that stubborn Disease called the Struma or Scrofula and by us commonly from this supernatural manner of its Cure the Kings Evil. Upon certain dayes almost every Week during the cold Seasons his Majesty graciously permits all that are afflicted with that Disease having been first carefully viewed and allowed by his Chirurgeons to be brought into his Royal Presence Where an appointed Form of Divine Service consisting of some short Prayers pertinent to the Occasion and two Portions of Holy Scripture taken out of the Gospel being read the King at the pronouncing of these Words They shall lay their hands upon the Sick and they shall recover gently draws both his Hands over the Sore of the sick person the same words being repeated at every Touch. And at these Words This was the true Light which enlightneth every Man that cometh into this World he putteth about the Neck of each Sick person a piece of Gold called from the Impression an Angel being in value about eleven Shillings Sterling This evident Cure is by many malignant Nonconformists those true Sons of Belial daily despising and speaking evil of Dignities ascribed to the Strength of Fancy and exalted Imagination but little do they reflect upon how many tender Infants no way capable of such Transports this stupendious Cure is effectually performed Respect In consideration of these and many other transcendent Excellencies to no Prince or other Potentate in Christendom is done more Honour Reverence or Respect than to the Monarch of Great Britain All his Subjects at their first Addresses kneel unto him At Table he is served on the knee All persons the Prince or other Heir apparent not excepted are bare-headed in his Presence In the Presence Chamber tho the King be not there all men are not only uncovered but do or ought to do Reverence to the Chair of State The Kings only Testimony of any thing done in his presence is of as high a Nature and Credit as any Record And in all Writs sent forth for the Dispatch of Justice hee useth no other Witness but himself viz. Teste meipso As the King of Great Britain is thus reverenced and respected at home so is he no less honored and esteemed abroad For if he be regarded solely as King of England we shall find that the Emperor was accounted Filius major Ecclesiae the King of France Filius minor and the King of England Filius adoptivus That in General Councels the King of France took place on the Emperors Right Hand the King of England on his Left the King of Scots having Precedency next before Castile And that tho since the time of the Emperor Charles the Vth. the Kings of Spain have challenged the Precedency of all Christian Princes which nevertheless they have within this twenty years yielded to France yet in the time of our King Henry the VIIth Pope Julius gave it to the English before the Spaniard But if looking upon him as succeeding to the ancient British Kings whose true and undoubted Heir he is by Lineal and unquestionable Descent we shall consider the Antiquity of his Predecessors either as Kings Reigning here above a thousand years before the coming in of the Romans His Majesty now regnant being from the first British Kings the hundred thirty nineth Monarch or as Christians this Island having not only shewn to the World the first Christian King
him and holding his Court apart from the King In the eighth year of his Age being taken from the Charge of his Women Education he had for Governor William then Earl afterward Marquess and lately Duke of Newcastle and after him Thomas late Earl of Berkshire and for Tutor or Preceptor Dr. Brian Duppa then Dean of Christ-Church in Oxford soon after Bishop of Chichester after that of Salisbury and lately of Winchester In October 1642. the two Houses having out of their superabundant Loyalty and great Zeal for the preservation of their Soveraign raised an Army to divest him of his Soveraignty he was with his Father at the Battel of Edge-Hill and not long after was at Oxford committed to the Care of William Marquess of Hertford whom after his own happy Restauration he restored to the Dignity and Precedency of Duke of Somerset In the fifteenth year of his Age he was sent by his Father into the West of England to perfect an Association begun there in the end of the foregoing Summer And not long after there was a Marriage proposed between him and the Infanta Joanna eldest Daughter to the King of Portugal since deceased Departure out of England The year following Barnstable being taken and Exeter besieged by the Rebels he withdrew from Devonshire into Cornwall from whence he passed into the Isle of Scilly and thence to the Queen his Mother being at St. Germains near Paris In the year 1648. a Considerable part of the Royal Navy encouraged thereto by Captain Batten formerly Vice-Admiral to the Earl of Warwick being put into his Power he endeavored to rescue the King his Father out of the impious hands of his rebellious Subjects But failing of Success he was forced to retire to his Sister at the Hague where not many Months after upon the sad News of the barbarous Murther of his Royal Father he was first saluted King soon after proclaimed in Scotland and most Towns of Ireland being yet under nineteen years of Age. In the latter end of the year 1649. he received being then in Jersey Coming into England a Message from the Committee of Estates of Scotland brought by Mr. George Windram of Liberton and the March following met the Scotch Commissioners at Breda in Holland and about the beginning of June 1650. being invited by a solemn Message from the Estates of that Kingdom he took Shipping at Scheveling and having escaped the danger both of a sudden Storm that cast him upon certain Danish Islands and of a Fleet of English Vessels sent out under Popham to intercept his passage arrived at the Spey in the North of Scotland from whence all along his way to Edenborough he was entertained with the general Joy of the People several of the Towns by which he passed making him considerable Presents On the fifteenth of July he was again solemnly proclaimed King at Edenborough Cross and was the first of January following crowned at Scoon the accustomed place for Coronation of the Kings of Scotland Escape from Worcester Being invaded by an Army from England he was forced to quit that Kingdom and try his Fortune in this which he entred the sixth of August 1651. and on the twenty second of the same Month came to Worcester where on the third of September was fought that fatal Battel in which tho his Majesty acted with such marvellous Gallantry and Conduct that he wan applause from his very Enemies yet he unfortunately lost the Day and his whole Army himself not without a Providence unparalleld in History escaping the Hands of his blood-thirsty Enemies who not only by publick Act promised a Sum of Money to those that should discover him but likewise threatned the Penalty of High Treason to any that should conceal him For being in the very Heart England and a thousand pounds set upon his head he was forced to wander about in disguise for six Weeks and to appear in many Places and Companies before he could find a fit opportunity of Transportation During which time tho he were seen and known to many person divers whereof were excessively indigent and therefore liable to be tempted by the proposed Reward divers of the Female Sex and so not only most unapt to retain a Secret but also very subject to be terrified by the threatned Penalty and divers besides all this of the Roman Religion which alone the very Principles thereof having been alwayes clamored against as reputed to teach nothing but Treachery and Disloyalty to Princes and the Lawfulness of breaking Faith with Hereticks might have made his Majesty afraid to trust them yet was he still most miraculously preserved and at length by one Tetershal since a Captain in his Majesties Navy whose Wife suspecting the Business was so far from disencouraging him that she said She cared not if she and her little ones begged their Bread so the King were in safety transported from Bright-hemstead neer Shoram in Sussex to Feccam neer Hauvre de Grace in Normandy whence he posted directly to Rouen and having thence dispatched Letters to the French Court he was met the Queen his Mother the Duke of Orleans and many Persons of Quality and by them conducted to Paris where with his Royal Brothers and divers of the British Nobility Clergy and Gentry he was for some years received and treated as King of Great Britain There by his Excellent Wisdom and Address mediating with the Prince of Conde and the Duke of Lorrain then in the Head of two great Armies against the French King he quenched the newly-kindled Fire of an universal Rebellion raised against him and was a Means of restoring Cardinal Mazarine who had for fear of the Princes of the Blood withdrawn himself to Colen to his former Authority and Greatness In the year 1654. His Majesty understanding that upon a Treaty of Peace between the French King and Oliver Cromwel then stiling himself Protector of the Commonwealth of England Scotland and Ireland one of the chiefest Articles insisted upon by the Usurper was the excluding of him with his Relations and Followers out of France to prevent a ceremonious Expulsion voluntarily departed thence into Germany making his first place of Residence at the Spaw whence after a few Moneths he went to Colen where was discovered the Correspondence between Thurloe Cromwels Secretary and Manning one of the Kings Secretaries Clerks who for giving weekly Intelligence to the Usurper of the Transactions in his Majesties Court was deservedly shot to death After the Rupture between Cromwel and the King of Spain he was by Don John of Austria who being Governor of the Low-Countryes for his Catholick Majesty sent the Count of Fuensaldagne to offer him in the name of the Spanish King all possible Service and Assistance invited into Flanders where making his Residence for the most part at Bruges he continued till a little before Sir George Booths Rising in Cheshire when he removed privately from Bruxels to Calais whence having notice