Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
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A82029
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The debates in deposing kings; and the royal succession of Great Britain
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1688
(1688)
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Wing D510; ESTC R225317
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6,694
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4
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York to be barbarously murthered in the Tower yet did he within three years lose both his Crown and Life to Henry Earl of Richmond on whom and his Heirs it was again by Act of Parliament entailed which yet would little have availed him or his Posterity had he not prudently according to his promise by which several of the Nobility were induced to assist him married Elizabeth eldest Daughter of King Edward the IVth and immediate Heiress of the Crown whereby happily turning his Usurpation into a lawful Soveraignty he secure himself in the Throne But that his Issue by any other Lady could not have had better Success against the Princely House of York than Adonijah had against Salomon may more than probably be presumed if we shall consider what Fate attended the many mad Acts made by Henry the VIIIth about the Succession This haughty Prince whose capricious Humor none of his Parliaments durst gainsay having after above twenty years Cohabition divorced his Queen a chast and vertuous Lady did in the twenty fifth year of his Reign disinherit by Act of Parliament the Lady Mary his Daughter by her settling the Crown by special Words for want of Issue Male on his Issue Female by the Lady Anne Bullen To the observation of which Act the whole Nation was obliged by an Oath imposed the year following the Refusal of which Oath was adjudged Misprision of Treason And yet in the twenty eighth year of his Reign he bastardized and made illegitimate to all intents and purposes as he had done formerly the Issue of Queen Katherine the Issue betwixt him and the Lady Anne Bullen barring them to claim challenge or demand any Inheritance as Lawful Heir or heirs to him by Lineal Descent making it Treason for any one notwithstanding their former Oath by Words Writing Printing or any other exterior Act directly or indirectly to call any of the Children born under the unlawful Marriages of Katherine and Anne Bullen legitimate and enacting that case he had no Issue by Jane his then Queen he might dispose of the Crown to whatsoever person or persons he pleased the whole Nation being bound to the observance of this Law by the Sanctimony of an Oath the refusal whereof was made High Treason After all this in the thirty fifth year of his Reign he by another Act entailed the Crown on himself Prince Edward and the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth without repealing the former Acts or taking the least notice of their being so signally bastardized and for default of Heirs of their Bodies on such person or persons as he should nominate by his Letters Patents under his Great Seal or by his last Will in writing signed by his most Gracious Hand the whole Nation being again sworn to observe his pleasure herein Consequently whereunto he by such his last Will and Testament solemnly bequeathed the Crown upon failure of his own Issue to the House of Suffolk and his Act of Parliament lay the Issue of his Elder Sister means from the Throne as much in him and his Act of Parliament lay the Issue of his Elder Sister whose Royal Blood he affirmed the cold Air of Scotland to have frozen up in the North. Yet when after the Death of his Three Children reigning successively these disinheriting Statutes the last whereof was confirmed by Act of Parliament in the first year of Queen Elizabeth in whose thirteenth year there passed also an Act That it should be Treason during her Life and a Praemunire afterwards to assert that the Imperial Crown of England could not be disposed of by Act of Parliament came to the Test they had not the Honor to be repealed but were held null and void from the beginning as being notoriously repugnant to the Laws of GOD and Nature and the common Customs and Constitutions of the Realm And the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons assembled in Parliament notwithstanding all these unrepealed Acts having confest the Inestimable and unspeakable Blessings accrewing from the Vnion of England and Scotland under one Imperial Crown in the Person of King James lineally rightfully and lawfully descended of the most Excellent Lady Margaret Eldest Daughter of the most renowned King Henry the VIIth and the high and noble Princess Queen Elizabeth his Wife eldest Daughter of King Edward the IVth proceeded to the Recognition of his Title in these Words We being bounden thereunto both by the Laws of GOD and Man do recognize and acknowledge that immediately upon the Dissolution and Decease of Elizabeth late Queen of England the Imperial Crown of the Realm of England and all the Kingdoms Dominions and Rights belonging to the same did by inherent Birthright and lawful and undoubted Succession descend and come to your most Excellent Majesty as being lineally justly and lawfully next and sole Heir of the Blood Royal of this Realm And that by the Goodness of GOD Almighty and lawful Right of Descent Your Majesty is under one Imperial Crown of the Realms and Kingdoms of England Scotland France and Ireland the most potent and mighty King. And thereunto we most humbly and faithfully do submit and oblige our selves our Heirs and our Posterities for ever And some years after it was by all the Judges of England expresly resolved in Calvins Case That King James his title to the Crown was founded upon the Laws of Nature viz. by inherent Birthright and Descent from the Blood Royal of this Realm All Acts of Parliament then for excluding from the Throne the next Heir of the Blood Royal on whom the Crown descends by the Laws of God and Nature by inherent Birthright and undoubted Succession being ipso facto null and void it is not to be wondred that his present Sacred Majesty so constantly declared that he would never consent to alter the Descent of the Crown in the right Line as not being willing by shewing his People a Method of disposing the Succession to shake at the same time the Title of his own Possession Since it is evident that the Heir apparent or next of Blood hath the same Right to enjoy the Crown after his Predecessors Death as the Actual Possessor hath to it during his Life But well fare the noble Lords of England who with a Nolumus Leges Angliae mutari rejected that abominable Bill which though it would if passed an Act have been of no greater Force or Validity than the Wild Ordinances of the Rebellious Parliament of 1640. yet might it as they were be made use of to induce the deluded Multitude to hazard their Souls Bodies and Estates by a damnable Opposition of their Lawful Soveraign and to raise up a Contest in this Nation not unlike to the old Yorkish and Lancastrian Quarrel the Thoughts whereof every good Man must certainly dread when he shall seriously consider how that War lasted about sixty years and cost the Kingdom its whole Treasure and the Lives of above two hundred thousand of the Commons besides several Kings and
THE DEBATES IN Deposing Kings And of the ROYAL SUCCESSION OF GREAT BRITAIN The Succession to the Crown of Great Brittain THE Monarch of Great Brittain has Right to the Imperial Crown of this Island by Inheritance according to the Laws of GOD and Nature and the fundamental Constitutions of the Realms of England and Scotland which both agree in this That upon the Death of the King the next of the Kindred though born out of the Dominions of Great Brittain or born of Parents not Subjects of Great Britain is immediately King before any Proclamation Coronation Publication or Consent of Peers or People The Rule of Inheritance given by GOD himself to the People of Israel is this If a man die and have no Son then he shall cause his Inheritance to pass unto his Daughter And if he have no Daughter then ye shall give his Inheritance unto his Brethren Agreeably to which Rule the Crown of Great Britain descends as an inalinable Heritage from the Father to the Eldest Son and his Heirs for want of Sons to the Eldest Daughter and her Heirs for want of Daughters to the Brother and his Heirs and for want of Brethren to the Sister and her Heirs And so unalterable is this Course of Descent that no Act no Crime no Attainder of Treason can bar the next of Blood from being King in the instant of Time his Predecessor does not so much die as by a State Metempsychosis transmit his Life his Breath or his Soul into the Nostrils the Body of his Successor For Hereditary Monarchy being as it has been clearly demonstrated an immediate Ordinance of GOD founded in the Prime Laws of Nature and the Laws of GOD and Nature being as all Christians acknowledge absolutely immutable it is a Madness to think that any Act of Parliaments can change this unchangeable Law or with the least Color of Justice alter the Right of Succession This was well known to all our antient Parliaments that were neither over-awed by any prevailing Faction seduced by designing Intreagues nor yet vainly flattered themselves with an Omnipotent Power to create and annihilate Kings In one of which the States of the Realm unanimously answered King Edward the IIId asking their Advice in matters relating to the Crown That they could not consent to any thing in Parliament that tended to the Disherison of the King and his Heirs or the Crown whereunto they were sworn From whence Sir Edward Cook concludes That it is a Law and Custom of Parliament that no King can alien the Crown from the right Heir though by consent of the Lords and Commons And elsewhere affirming King John's Resignation of the Crown to the Pope to have been utterly void he alledges this Reason Because the Royal Dignity is an Inherent inseparable to the Royal Blood of the King descendable to the next of Blood to the King and cannot be transferd to another And although by the Treasons and Conspiracies of ambitious disloyal and designing Persons the Crown has now and then been transferred from one Family to another yet does it appear in Story that since the time of the Norman Conquest the right Heir was never yet kept out beyond the second Descent And to the Honour of the English Parliaments we can aver that never any Usurper though armed with Power laid claim to the Crown in Parliament but by pretending to be of the Right Line nor did ever the Parliament allow of such Pretence if false but awed by Fear and a vast Army And whenever the Terror of such armed violence being removed the true Heir was enabled to claim his Right the Parliament notwithstanding all such pretended Acts readily submitted themselves to their legitimate Prince as being bound thereunto by the Laws of GOD and Nature Thus although Henry Duke of Lancaster backt by an Army of fourty or fifty thousand men under Pretence of a feigned Title from Edmund Crouchback forced his Nature Soveraign King Richard the IId first to resign and afterwards to be deposed from his Crown which waving his former pretended Title he caused to be entailed upon himself his four Sons and the Heirs of their Bodies by Act of Parliament whereby he thought to have secured it to his Posterity for ever Yet notwithstanding these cautious Provisions seconded by the Valor and prodigious Success of that noble Prince Henry the Vth. when in the year 1460. this Entail was alledged against Richard Duke of York laying claim in Parliament to the Crowns of England and Fâance as being the next Heir to Lionel Duke of Clarence elder Brother to John of Gaunt of whom the House of Lanchaster was descended the Duke of York unanswerably replied That if King Henry the IVth might have obtained the said Crowns of England and France by Title of Inheritance Discent or Succession he neither needed nor would have desired or made them to be granted too him in such wise as they be by that Act Which said he taketh no place neither is of any force or effect against him that is right Inheritor of the said Crowns as accordeth with the Laws of GOD and all Natural Laws Which Answer of the Duke of York and his Claim to the Crown was by the same Parliament expresly recognized and declared to be Good True Just Lawful and Sufficient And when in the same year Edward Earl of March eldest Son to the said Duke of York upon the death of his Father took possession of the Crown by the Name of King Edward the IVth his Title was in full Parliament by all acknowledged in these words Knowing also certainly and without doubt and ambiguity that by GOD's Law and the Law of Nature He viz. the said King Edward and none other is and ought to be true Rightwise and Natural Liege and Soveraign Lord And that he was in right from the Death of the said Noble and Famous Prince his Father very just King of the same Realm of England And so little Respect was given to the aforementioned Act of Entail that it was not so much as repealed being esteemed from the very beginning null and void in it self Nor indeed were any Acts of Henry the IVth Vth. or VIth stiled Kings in Deed and not of Right deemed to be in force but such as were expresly confirmed by Edward the IVth in the same manner King Charles the IId confirmed the judicial Proceedings of the late Usurpation As little Success had that Monster of Nature Richard Duke of Glocester who being by the Interest of several factious Lords chosen Protector to his Nephew the young Kââg Edward the Vth. and having by that means gotten into his hands the Military Force of the Nation pretending that the Children of his Brother King Edward the IVth were illegitimate laid claim to the Crown which he not only entailed by Act of Parliament upon himself and his Issue but the better to secure it in his Line caused the Innocent young King and his only Brother the Duke of