Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	henry_n	king_n	lewis_n	4,519	5	10.9213	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A37313	The debate at large, between the House of Lords and House of Commons, at the free conference, held in the Painted Chamber, in the session of the convention, anno 1688 relating to the word, abdicated and the vacancy of the throne in the Common's vote.	England and Wales. Parliament. House of Lords.; England and Wales. Parliament. House of Commons.	1695 (1695)	Wing D506; ESTC R14958	49,640	162

changing of the Monarchy from an Hereditary to an Elective E. of N m. After this long Debate pray let us endeavour to come as near as we can to an Agreement We have proposed some Questions about which my Lords desired to be satisfied You Gentlemen have not been pleased to give an Answer to them and we have no great Hopes of getting one from you as this Debate seems to be managed On your part you have declared That you do acknowledge the Monarchy is Hereditary and Successive in the Right Line then I cannot see how such an Acknowledgment consists with the Reasons you give for your Vacancy for I cannot imagine how a Kingdom can be an Hereditary Kingdom and that King who hath Children now in being at the time of his forsaking the Government can have the Throne Vacant both of him and his Children The Course of Inheritance as to the Crown of England is by our Law a great deal better provided for and runs stronger in the right Line of Birth than of any other Inheritance No Attainder of the Heir of the Crown will bar the Succession to the Throne as it doth the Descent to any common person The very Descent by Order of Birth will take away any such Defect And so was the Opinion of the great Lawyers of England in the Case of Henry the seventh Then cannot I apprehend how any Act of the Father's can bar the Right of the Child I do not mean that an Act of Parliament cannot do it I never said so nor thought so but I say no Act of the Father's alone can do it since even the Act of the Son which may endanger an Attainder in him cannot do it so careful is the Law of the Royal Line of Succession This is declar'd by many Acts of Parliament and very fully and particularly by that Statute 25 Henry the Eighth Cap. 22 entituled An Act concerning the King's Succession where the Succession of the Crown is limited to the King's Issue-Male first then Female and the Heirs of their Bodies one after another by course of Inheritance according to their Ages as the Crown of England hath been accustomed and ought to go in such Cases If then the King hath done any thing to divest himself of his own Right it doth not follow thence that That shall exclude the Right of his Issue and then the Throne is not Vacant as long as there are any such Issue for no Act of the Father can Vacant for himself and Children Therefore if you mean no more than but the divesting his own Right I desired you would declare so And then suppose the Right gone as to him yet if it descend to his Lineal Successor it is not Vacant And I told you One Reason my Lord 's did stand upon against agreeing to the Vacancy was Because they thought your Vote might extend a great deal further than the King 's own Person But your all owning it to be a Lineal Inheritance and this Vacancy methinks do not by any means consist You declare you never meant to alter the Constitution then you must preserve the Succession in its ancient course So I did hear a worthy Gentleman conclude it to be your Intention to do But by what methods can it be done in this Case by us I desire to be satisfied in a few things about this very matter I desire first to know Whether the Lords and Commons have Power by themselves to make a binding Act or Law And then I desire to know Whether according to our ancient Legal Constitution every King of England by being seated on the Throne and possessed of the Crown is not thereby King to him and his Heirs And without an Act of Parliament which we alone cannot make I know not what Determination we can make of his Estate It has been urged indeed That we have in Effect already agreed to what is contain'd in this Vote by Voting That it is inconsistent with our Religion and Laws to have a Popish Prince to Rule over us But I would fain know Whether they that urge this think that the Crown of Spain is Legally and Actually excluded from the Succession by this Vote No Man sure will undertake to tell me That Vote of either House or both Houses together can Alter the Law in this or any other point But because I am very desirous that this Vote should have its Effect I desire that every thing of this Nature should be done in the antient usual Method by Act of Parliament GOD forbid that since we are happily deliver'd from the Fears of Popery and Arbitrary Power we should assume any such Power to our selves What Advantage should we then give to those who would quarrel with our Settlement for the Illegality of it Would not this which we thus endeavour to crush break forth into a Viper For that Record of 1. Henry the Fourth I acknowledge the words of the Royal Seat being Vacant are us'd But since you your selves tell us of it That Henry the Fourth did claim by Inheritance from his Grandfather that methinks may come up to what I would have the declared sence of both Houses upon this Question to wit The Throne might be Vacant of Richard the Second but not so Vacant but the claim of the immediate Successor was to take place and not be excluded but entirely preserved And Richard the Second seems to have had the same Opinion by delivering over his Signet to them Our Laws know no Inter regnum but upon the Death of the Predecessor the next Heir is in uno eodem instanti It was so Resolv'd even in Richard the Second's own Case for at his Grandfather's Death it was a Question Whether King Richard the Second or the Eldest Son of his Grandfather then living should succeed and it was Resolved That he ought to have it because of his Right of Inheritance which is the more remarkable because of the contest And when Richard the Third usurped his Crown to make his Claim good to the Right of Inheritance he Bastardized his own Nephews And so it was in all the Instances of the Breaches that were made upon the Line of Succession which were some Seven but all illegal for such was the Force of the Laws that the Usurpers would not take the Crown upon them unless they had some specious pretence of an Hereditary Title to it That which I would have Avoided by all means is the Mischievous Consequences that I fear will ensue upon this Vacancy of the Throne to wit the utter Overthrow of the whole Costitution of our Government For if it be so and the Lords and Commons only remain as parts of it Will not this make the King one of the Three Estates Then is he the Head of the Commonwealth all united in one Body under him And if the Head be taken away and the Throne Vacant by what Laws or Constitutions is it that we retain Lords and Commons For they are

to the Crown that consideration will be next and how to come at them I conceive we are in the same Capacity as our Predecessors were to provide for all Exigencies as shall emerge and for the supplying all Defects in the Government It is true by the Acts of Queen Elizabeth and King James first we have the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance that are to be and have been taken by all Persons But my Lords there is an old Oath of Fidelity that useth to be required in Leets and that by the ancient Law of England every man ought to take that is Sixteen Years of Age and this was as much obliging to the King his Heirs and Successors as any of those later Oaths are for they seem only to be made to exclude foreign Authorities and not to infer any new Obedience or Subjection therefore I am only saying we are in as natural a capacity as any of our Predecessors were to provide for a Remedy in such Exigencies as this I do not intend to trouble your Lordships any farther than the words of the Vote lead me If the Throne were Full what do we do here nay how came we hither I would fain know whether all that is mention'd in one of our Reasons of the Administration being committed to the Prince and those other Acts do not all imply at least that we are in such a Case as wherein the Throne is Vacant otherwise if it had been full I appeal to any one whether we could have assembled or acted in any other Name or by an other Authority than his that filled it Then do not all these things declare that there is a Vacancy My Lords I have done having said this That it is a subsequent consideration how the Throne shall be Filled and all the Particulars that relate to it remain entire after this Resolution taken But I think we are at present to go no further No Man I hope thinks there is a just Ground for any Apprehension of an Intention to change the Government I am sure there is no Ground for any such Apprehension So that we have all the reason in the World still to insist That your Lordships should agree with us that the Throne is Vacant or we shall not be able to move one step further towards a settlement Sir T L e. My Lords So much has been said in this matter already that very little is to be added But give me leave to say unto your Lordships That those Amendments your Lordships have made to the Commons Vote are not agreeing with your other Votes nor any of the Acts done since the Abdication Had it been in the common ordinary case of a Vacancy by the King's Death your Lordships in December last would sure have let us know as much But it is plain you were sensible we were without a Government by your desiring the Prince to take the Administration and to issue out his Letters from this Convention But my Lords I would ask this Question whether upon the original Contract there were not a power preserved in the Nation to provide for its self in such Exigencies That contract was to settle the Constitution as to the Legislature which a noble Lord in the beginning spoke of so we take it to be And it is true that it is a part of the Contract the making of the Laws and that those Laws should oblige all sides when made but yet so as not to exclude this original constitution in all Governments that commence by compact that there should be a Power in the States to make provision in all times and upon all occasions for extraordinary Cases and Necessities such as ours now is I say nothing now as to the Hereditary Succession our Government has been always taken to be Hereditary and so declared when there has been occasion to make provision otherwise than in the direct Line But our matter is singly upon a Point of Fact Whether the Throne be Vacant as the Commons say it is by the Abdication of King James the Second This present Vacancy is nearest to that of Richard the Second of any that we meet with in our Records and the Phrase being there used we insist upon it as very proper And when that is agreed unto the House will no doubt declare their Minds in another Consequential Question that shall arise in a Proper way But this is all we can speak to now Sir G T y. To discourse Whether the Crown of England would by this means become Elective is altogether unnecessary and I think your Lordships have given no Reasons that are sufficient to make the Objection out neither any Answers to the Commons Reasons for their Vote It seems to me an odd way of Reasoning first to mistake the meaning and then give Reasons against that mistaken meaning The Question is only here Whether we can make good this Proposition That the Throne is Vacant by the Abdication of tht late King I confess 't is a melancholy thing to discourse of the Miscarriages of Governments but 't is much more afflictive to talk of unhinging all the Monarchy by a breach upon the direct Line of the Succession as if the Crown of England did actually descend to Lewis the Fourteenth it would not be in the power of the States of this Kingdom to divolve it upon another Head A Noble Lord put an Instance of two Men in one Room one of whom was really such a one But though a stander by could not directly tell which was he yet it could not be said by him that such a one was not there But if you please I will put this Case Suppose there were two Men in one Room that no one alive could tell which was which as suppose this to be the Case of the two Children of Edward the Fourth that they had been kept close Prisoner by their Uncle Richard the Third so long that there were no living Witnesses able to tell which was the eldest of the two that would occasion a difficulty much what as intricate as ours here One of them must be Eldest but by reason of the uncertainty must not an Election be made of them And could any thing else do but an Election But I say the proper single Question here is Whether we have well said and well affirmed upon the Premises that are mentioned in the former part of the Vote that he was Abdicated and that the Throne is thereby Vacant Your Lordships in part agree for you say He has Deserted the Government then you say He is not in it And it is as much as to say He has left the Kingdom destitute of a Government Now if there be any sence in which our Proposition is true will you deny the whole Proposition because it may be taken in a sence that is dubious and uncertain as to the Consequences You cannot say the Throne is Full if then there be a Doubt with you to be sure it is not like