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	pope_n	16,586	5	6.9376	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59386	Rights of the kingdom, or, Customs of our ancestors touching the duty, power, election, or succession of our Kings and Parliaments, our true liberty, due allegiance, three estates, their legislative power, original, judicial, and executive, with the militia freely discussed through the British, Saxon, Norman laws and histories, with an occasional discourse of great changes yet expected in the world.	Sadler, John, 1615-1674.	1682 (1682)	Wing S279; ESTC R11835	136,787	326

In the Conquest about Investitures K. Henry the first wrote to the Pope that he could not diminish the usual Rights and Dignities of the Crown or Kingdom and that if he should be so Abject as to attempt it his Parliament would not permit it Optimates mei totius Angliae Populus id nullo modo pateretur In the great Moot of Scotlands dependance upon England Edward the First confessed as much to another Pope to whom also the Parliament both Lords and Commons wrote that they they were all obliged by Oath to maintain the Just Rights Liberties Laws and Customs of the Kingdom where we may see their Oath of Allegiance to the Kingdom that nothing should be acted against Them In exheraeditionem Iuris Coronae Regie Dignitatis ac subversionem status ejusdem Regni nec non praejudicium Libertatum Consuetudinum Legum Paternarum These are on the Rolls and printed on the Statute of Merton and in Walsinghams Edward 1. and the Surveigh of Normandy And from other Records of the same King we learn that when the Pope demanded the Grants of K. Iohn he answered That he could not do it without consent of his Parliament Sine Praelatis Proceribus Regni being tyed by his Coronation Oath to keep all the Laws and Rights of the Kingdom Illibati and to do nothing that might touch the Crown without their Consent Which may be added to that before in St. Edwards Laws of the Kings Oath to do all things Ritè per Concilium Procerum Regni When the King of France demanded Homage of K. Edw. the Third he desired Respite till he had the Advice of his Great Council as we may read in Froizard because he could not act without them in such great Affairs And when the Pope demanded Homage of the same King he referred it to Parliament who adjudged and declared that K. Iohns Grants to the Pope were unjust illegal and against his Coronation Oath being done without his Parliaments Assent or Counsel And yet K. Iohn's Charter to the Pope in Matth. Paris doth pretend it done Communi Concilio Baronum And about Stephen Langton the same K. Iohn did write to the Pope that he could not depart from the Liberties of his Crown but would or should defend them to his Death And hence began the Great Excommunication which begot a Confiscation of the Church Revenues hinc ille Lachrymae which could not be stopped till the Crown did stoop to Pandulph which might have excused the poor Hermit Peter from being so cruelly dragged from Corf● Castle to Warham But when the same King felt his Arms loose he laid about him so that all believed he meant to strike In that Meen the Arch-bishop told him It was against his Oath to raise or make War without the Consent of his Great Court Si absque Iudicio Curiae suae Contra quempiam Bellum moveret to be added to the Militia But the fire was already kindled and the Smoak or Flame brake out at Nottingham I must not touch the Barons Wars except I had leisure to discourse and discuss them freely Only as we found our Great Charters made up of old Laws and Customs so I might now also clear it more that it was not a new Fetter on the King to have some Supervisors set about him for to order all his Actions who by his Coronation Oath was tied to do nothing touching the Kingdom but with Advice and Consent of the Great Council per Concilium per Iudicium Procerum Regni That it was so also among the Britains to all observed before I might add the Old Scottish Custom of choosing Twelve Peers in Parliament to be the Kings Tutors as we may call them for by them the King must be wholly governed Quorum Concilio Rex Regnum gubernare debebat as we may read it in Walsinghams Edward 1. besides their own Chronicles that I say nothing of the Twelve Brittish Peers of which Cambden in Siluribus We need not much wonder at the Writs in K. Iohn's Time requiring all Men of all Conditions to oblige themselves by Oath to maintain the Great Charter and to compel the King thereunto Et quod ipsum Regem pro posse suo per Captionem Castrorum suorum distringerent gravarent ad praefata Omnia Exequenda when as this very Clause was in his Charter Et illi Barones cum Communa totius Terrae distringent gravabat nos modis Omnibus quibus poterunt scilicet per Captionem Castrorum terrarum possessionum aliis modis quibus potuerint donec fuit emendatum secundum Arbitrium eorum Which may be added to that before of our Allegiance or Oath of Fealty to the King with the Kingdom and of the Kings Oath to be guided by the Judgment of his Great Court. Nay as if K. Iohn's Salva persona N. Reginae N. Liberorum N. had been too loose in K. Henry's Charter it was expressed thus Licet Omnibus de Regno N. contra Nos insurgere Nay and to do all things quae gravamen nostrum respiciant ac si nobis in Nullo tenerentur These times seem not to attend our Grand Maxim of State The King can do no wrong or at least they understood it not as some late Courtiers would perswade us Yet it is true he can do nothing but by Law and what he may by Law can do no wrong And if he do against the Law his Personal Acts Commands or Writing do oblige no more than if they were a Childs And the Books call him an Infant in Law though his Politick Capacity be not in Nonage as the Parliament declared in Edward the Sixth which is not to exempt him from Errors or to excuse his Crimes but to shew that he must be guided by his Council and that his own Personal Grants or Commands cannot hurt any more than an Infants which may be reclaimed and recalled by the Council of the Kingdom So the Mirror saith The King cannot grant a Franchise to prejudice his Crown or others because he holds his Right and Dignities but as an Infant Cap. 4. Sect. 22. If I should say The Commons in Parliament are and were the Kingdoms Peers as well as the Lords I might vouch an Old Authority as good as the Ancient Modus of Parliament which doth often call the Commons Peers of Parliament as well as the Lords So debent Auxilia Peti pleno Parliamento in scripto cuilibet graduum Parium Parliamenti oportet quod omnes Pares Parliamenti consentiant duo milites pro Comitatu majorem vocem habent in Concedendo contradicendo quam Major Comes Angliae c. So in doubtful Cases of Peace and War disputetur per Pares Parliamenti and if need be Twenty five shall be chosen de omnibus paribus Regni which are so specified Two Bishops Three Proctors Two Earls Three Barons Five Knights Five Citizens and Five Burgesses And again Omnes Pares

suites for them but not to sit as Judges For as the Commentator addeth they could not depute or make Attornies in a place and act judicial I will not I cannot say the Commons of England cannot choose or constitute their Judges but this I say or believe their delegates ought to be exceeding Curious I had almost said exceeding Scrupulous in making Judges and in bounding them to law and Justice both in way as well as End I must again repeat it That it may not seem enough to settle Judges just and wise and good Nor only to provide that they may do what is just I speak of end but men are men and ought in cases of such consequence to have their Way their Rule and Square by which they must proceed to be prescribed in their Patents or Commissions that they may do justly too as well as what is just To me it seemeth to be reason or the law of nature unto men that the Supreme Court should so limit all inferiours that it may not be left at large to their list or pleasure to condemn or sentence without Hearing Accusation Witness or without such Process and Tryal as shall be clear and plain and so prescribed in the Patent or Commission If it be not so done and expressed I know not what appeal can be but from the Court before Judgment For what appeal what writ of Error or what Plea can a man frame upon their Judgment who have no Rule no way of process prescribed and so cannot Err Transgress or Exceed their commission no not if they should without all accusation proof or witnesses condemn one to be sliced and fryed with exquisite tortures They are Judges but unlimited in way of Process infinite and purely Arbitrary No they are Men and so they must be Rational and Iust which was presupposed by them that gave so vast power They may be Iust indeed and so they should but yet no thanks for this to their Commission if it do not bound and limit out their way and manner of Process as it doth their work and Object or their End which was the wont of English Parliaments who were Just and wise themselves that they did see or fear it might be possible for their Committees to be most Unjust and Arbitrary if they were not most exactly limited Of all Commissions none were more curiously drawn and Pointed out by our Ancestors than those of especial Oyer and Terminer because the cases were not only heinous so they ought to be but such as for some extr ordinary cause emergent seemed to be as it were Extra Iudicial and such as could not stay and abide the usual process of the settled Courts of Justice Yet of these also did our Fathers take most especial care that they might be Iust in Way as well as End and that they might not be too High in Iustice for it seems that they had also learned an usual saying of the Antients Summum jus est injuria So that in divers of the Saxons Laws we find High Iustice Summum Ius to be as much forbidden as Injustice And I should tremble at it as an ill Omen to hear Authority commanded the the Kings Bench or any other Court should be now Stiled the Bench of High-Iustice For in Iustice the higher men goe up the worse or so at least it was esteemed by our Ancestors Their constant limitation was in every such Commission Thus and thus you shall proceed but still according to the Laws and Customs of England Secundum Legem Consuetudinem Angliae and no otherwise that is as Fortescu will say you shall be pittiful in Iustice and more merciful then all the world besides this Kingdom And if such a limitation were not expressed this was enough to prove the Commission Unjust and Illegal which is so well known to all Lawyers that I need not cite N. B. or the Register Commissions or Scrogs's case in Dyer or so many elder cases in Edward the 3 d. Henry the 4 th and almost all Kings Reigns Nay in King Iames among the great debates of Uniting Scotland to England when it was driven up so close that instead of Secundum Legem Consuetudinem Angliae it might be Secundum Legem Consuetudinem Brittanniae It was resolved by all Judges that there could not be that little change but of one word that doth so limit such Commissions but by consent of Parliament of both Kingdoms And in divers Parliaments of Ed. 1. Ed. 3. Hen. 4 th there were many Statutes made to limit all Commissions of Oyer and Terminer as that they must never be granted but before and to some of the Iudges of the Benches or of the Grand Eyre Nor those to be named by Parties but by the Court And with this usual Restriction according to the known clause of the Statute of Westminster the 2 d. in the Reign of Edward the 1 st But the Printed Statute must be compared with the Roll and with the 2 d of Ed. the 3 d. for else there may be in this as in other Printed Acts a great mistake by leaving out or changing one particle for that Clause except it be for heinous offence hath such influence into all the words before that by the known Common Law a Supersedeas doth lye to such Commissions quia non enormis Transgressio as the Register may teach us And although by Law there may be granted a Commission of Association with a Writ of Admittance of others to the Iudges assigned for Oyer and Terminer yet in all those Commissions and Writs the Rule must be prescribed quod ad Iustitiam pertinet and that also according to the Law and Custom of the Kingdom which is so much the Law of Nature that I need not wonder at the great Judg who in all his Institutes and so many Reports maketh those words absolutely necessary to the work of a Lawful Commission And for more prevention or Redress of injustice and Arbitrary Process were our Ancestors so punctual in requiring Records of all Proceedings in the Courts of Justice which is so agreable to Reason and the Law of Nature That the whole Parliament of England as I humbly conceive cannot it self proceed in matters of highest concernment but by Record Much less can it Licence other Courts to be without or above Record in such Affairs It is so well known to be the custom of the Kingdom that I shall not need to shew it in the Statute of York in Edw. 2d and many others in affirmance of the great Charter nisi per Legem Terrae But by the Law of the Land And in Edw. 3d. it was in full Parliament declared to be the Law of the Land that none should be put to answer but upon presentment before Iustices or matter of Record And the 2d of Westminster is very punctual in requiring Records for all legal exceptions as well as other matters and provideth that in case an Exception should not

Henry the first the Descent of divers Nations of Europe from the Trojans in Huntingdon and Hoveden But it may be considered what this State and Parliament hath oft owned of Brute and the Trojan Story not only in the grand Moot of the Dependance of Scotland on England ever since King Brute which beside all Records in the Exchequer is at large in Walsinghams Edward the first and the Survey of Normandy as also in the Laws of the Confessor cap. 35. To which I might add the Trojan Reliques Statues Tablets and Pictures in all the Brittish Danish Saxon English Wars found here in Cornwall Wales and other Parts besides our Troy Novant or new Troy the old Trojan Roman name of this Famous City of the Troinovantes in the Roman Writers Trinobantes now London since the time of Lud's building a Gate and changing this Cities Name But for leaving out the Name of Troy some were so much offended that it came to a great Contest and Quarrel couched in Verse from others by the old Gildas and translated by the Famous Nennius of Bangor escaping that bloody Massacre Who hath also left us an old History yet to be seen in MS. collected as himself saith from the Brittish and Scottish Records and from the old Roman Annals which were then found relating the Pedigree of Brute or Britto some will have him Brotos and some Brutus from Aeneas to Rome and his bringing some Trojan Reliques hither by the way of Gaul where he also saith he built the City of Turons or Tours much as Monmouth and others have the Story though I could never find it in Homer or any of the Ancients by them cited for Turons Yet I find the same Nennius confessing that the Brittish Annals had another descent of their Brute or Britto from Japhet obtaining Europe for his Portion with the Brittish Isles of which Noahs Will in Eusebius or other old Fragments came alone from whence the Almans and Francks besides our Britto Father to the Brittains whose Genealogy through twenty Descents to Noah and Adam he saith he had from the Tradition of those who lived here in Primis Britanniae Temporibus So that if we may not believe Taliessin the British Bard of Trojans coming hither with their Brute yet we may peruse his Scholar or the Merlin that foretold the Name of Brute should come again upon this Island whether in the Scottish Union or in the Welsh returning to their Lost Dominions I dispute not nor how this Island came so like to Somothrace so near a Kin to Troy in Rites of Worship or in other Customs as of old some did observe especially in those concerning Ceres or Proserpina so famous here that in the old Argonauts the Brittish Isles are stiled the Court or Palace of Ceres and yet this might be for other Reasons But although I cannot deny some Trojan customs among us yet I know not why I should grant that Trojan Succession to the Crown which so many do assert when as themselves do yield the same Trojans to be Brittans and those Brittans of whom we spake before And besides the Brittish Gavelkinde and all before themselves do also relate their own Brute parting his Kingdom among his three Sons and again the Crown parted between the two Sons of Madan two of Gorbodio two of Molmutius two of Lud so near a Kin to him that Caesar found Elected King by Common-Council And I must believe those who assert the Trojan Crown to go by Succession yet I know not why I may not also believe so many good or better Writers of the Trojan Common-Council or Parliament and their Power in Peace and War with all things else that might concern the King or Kingdom which great Council did consist of Princes or Nobles and Elders of the People Of which Trojan Parliament we read in Apuleius Socrates Daemon and in Homer Virgil Dictys and most ancient Dares who lived also in our Britain if good Bale deceive us not which yet is not so certain as that he was Translated or Paraphrased in Latin Verse by Ioseph of Exon or Iscan our Countrey-Man as many of his Verses speak although that Elegant Poem be ascribed to Cornelius Nepos as by him Dedicated to Salust in the times of the great Commerce between Rome and Britain which produced so many famous Brittish Romans beside Constantine Helen and the modest Claudia of whom St. Paul speaketh and Martial in several places maketh her a British Woman I will not insist upon their Election of Emperors or Generals by a kind of Lot in Dictys nor will I deny but the Trojans were severe enough to all Traitors whose dead Bodies also were denyed Burial if we may believe all from the Illiads but the Odysses may also afford us the very same Punishment for Tyrants whom they hated as much as the Grecians Nor will the Patrons of Succession or Prerogative find more encouragement among the Grecians than among the Trojans though I cannot deny but they do rightly observe many Grecian Customs among the Britains nor will I deny to our Ancestors both Greek Philosophers and Greek Schools besides Bladud's at Stamford and other Places I could easily believe these Islands to be known to the Grecians long before the Romans of whom Lucretius is the first that I yet know speaking of Britain but it was described by Polibius though our great Herald seem to forget it who might learn it from the Carthaginians trading hither and by Eratosthenes Dicaearcus Pithaeas and Artemidorus if I be not deceived from Strabo that I say nothing of the old Argonauts ascribed to Orpheus naming Ireland and describing Britain or of the Book of the World in Aristotles Works where Albion and Ferne are Brittish Isles mentioned also in Dyonisius and very famous for their Mines of Tin or Lead whence the name of Cassiterides of which Herodotus and others of the Ancients What was the Grecian Genius towards their Kings doth not only appear in their Supercilious Ephori Eye-brows or the Left eye of Greece but in the Right Eye or Athens of which much might be spoken from all the Greek Historians besides their Laws or Politicks of Plato and his Schollars long before the Attick Laws Collected by Petitus that I say nothing of Aristophanes or any of their Poets But how much our Ancestors owed to the Grecians I do not find expressed by any most of our Plays much of our Works and somewhat of our Laws seemeth to be Grecian The Genius of a State is seen in Plays some think rather than in Work they are Passions and as Lovers Pulses which do shew the Soul much quicker than do Words or Actions and the Greek Scenes were Passions or Sufferings of Princes rather than their Actions and a Tyrants blood was thought the Richest and fattest Sacrifice to please the People and appease their Gods but Interludes must be Corrected much and then they may both Moralize and Methodize the best Historians and may be

their limitations by our Laws their Title by Succession or Election at the Common Law If Bracton or if Fleta may be Judges of this Question they will tell us that in their times our King was Elective Non a Regnando dicitur sed a Bene Regendo ad hoc Electus est And again ad haec autem Creatus Rex Electus ut Iustitiam faciat Universis Not only Created but Elected it is where they treat of Iudges and of Iurisdiction And of our Saxon Ancestors the Mirror is very plain that they did Elect or chuse their King from among themselves Eslierent de eux un Roy à reigner sir eux and being Elected they did so and so Limit him by Oath and Laws In this we might appeal to Tacitus of our Ancestors For theirs who did both Elect and Bound their Kings and Generals Reges ex Nobilitate Duces ex Virtute sumunt and of their King he saith the Power was so bounded that he could not call it Free Nec infinita aut libera Potestas and that in Conciliis Their Kings Authority was in perswasion rather than Command Suadendi potius quam jubendi potestate Caesar seemeth to conceive they had no King or fixed Common Governour in time of Peace but for War saith he they Choose out Generals qui Bello praesint ut vitae necisque habeant Potestatem In our Brittish Ancestors he found a King but by Election of a great Common-Council by whose consent he observeth that Cassivelane was chosen King and General against his Landing Summa Imperii Bellique administrandi communi Concilio permissa est Cassivellauno and again Nostro adventu permoti Britanni hunc toti bello imperioque praefecerant That the Brittans agreed much with the Gauls in their Customs I do not deny but I know not why this should make the Gauls to be the Elder Brothers as some teach us because our Britain is an Island Yet it may be much disputed if not proved that it once was joyned to Gaul or France in one Continent for which we might produce some of the old Poets and others before Twine and Verstegan However it is clear enough from Caesar and Pliny that the Gauls were much moulded by the Brittish Druids although they seemed more Polite in Iuvenal's time and afterwards being more Frank they afforded a Christian Queen to Ethelbert and the Model of a great School to Sigesbert which yet must not wrong Alcuinus who from hence moulded the University of Paris if we may Believe all that write of Charlemaign And if we add Strabo to those cited before we shall find they Chose both Generals and all great Magistrates When they had a King the Crown passed by Election and was so limited that Ambiotrix one of their Kings acknowledged Ut non minus in se Iuris Multitudo quàm ipse in Multitudinem So in Caesar. Their Common-Council much consisted of Equites and such perhaps our Knights of Shires Electi de plebe and Druydes their Clergy who did over-rule them all by their Banns and Sacred Oak Misleto as if it had grown in Dodona's Grove Their grand Corporation was dissolved by Roman Edicts in Gaul by Claudius as Seneca Suetonius but in Rome by Tiberius if not Augustus in Pliny but Vopiscus keepeth a Druydess to presage the Empire to Dioclesian when he had killed the Boar and Ammianus may afford them in Rome in Iulian or Constantius But in Scotland or Ireland they remained longer if we may believe their Annals of Columbanus and of William the Irish Abbot But in Dioclesian's time Amphibalus the famous Brittan fled from Rome to his Friend St. Alban who dyed for him in his Cloaths it is said but we find him Condemned by Law and styled Lord of Verulam Prince of Knights and Steward of Brittain in his Shrine and Iacob de Voragine ' Ere long we find him made a Bishop in the Holy Isle and there he did Succeed the Brittish Druyds and his Scholars were enow with their Blood and Carkasses to make the name of Litchfield But the turning of Druyds into our Bishops in Lucius's time is no more certain I think than that those were the Flamins or Arch Flamins of whom we hear so much of late but of old few or none relate it but only Monmouth The Name of Flamin came to Brittain from the Grecians or the Romans who had Druyds from the Brittans where they were most Sacred Priests at first but three but when every God and Godded Man or Daemon had his Flamin they became extreamly innumerable Yet the first three still kept their Distance Place and Seniority from whence the Phrase of Arch-Flamin which yet I dare not assert to have been in Brittain or to be so much as known in the time of Lucius or the name of Archbishop But of this Sir Henry Spelman of Lucius's Epistles in Gratian and Mr. Patrick Young on Clements Epistle to the Corinthians But Fenestella with his Names of Bishop Arch-Bishop Cardinal Patriarch Metropolitan c. is now come out with another Title of a later Age than he that lived in Tiberius But to return to our Brittish Druyds moulding the State and yet they would not speak of State but in or by a Common-Council as was touched before in the Militia and among these the same Caesar will tell us that there was a chief or President but chosen by Deserts and not by a blind way of Succession Si sint Pares plures suffragio adlegitur nonnunquam etiam armis de principatu contendunt Nor is it probable the Brittans should be great Patrons of Monarchical Succession which could hardly well consist with their Gavelkind which is not only in Kent but in divers other Places of England and in Wales from the Brittans as we may learn from Parliament in 27 Hen. 8. and in K. Edwards Statute of Wales with Littletons Parceners And his Commentator makes it one mark of the ancient Brittans and from them also to Ireland and from the Brittish Gavelkind do all the Children yet among us part their Fathers Arms of which also the great Judge on Littletons Villenage But on the Parceners he deriveth the Crowns descent to the Eldest from the Trojans to the Brittans so indeed do many others with Monmouth and Basingstock Yet our Best Herald the Learned Cambden will deride the Story of the Trojans coming hither but his many Arguments to prove the first Inhabitants to be a Kin to the Gauls do no more convince me that the Trojans might not come hither afterwards than that the Normans did not come because the Saxons were before them I repeat nothing from Gyraldus Cambrensis Matthew Paris Hoveden Huntingdon or others who derided Monmouth till they were convinced by some Brittish Writers which themselves found besides all the Greek and Latin Authors cited by Virunnius Leland Sir John Price and divers others that I say nothing of the Scottish Chronicles or of the Learned man that shewed King

which was some Repetition of his Coronation Oath Some affirm that he refused to be Crowned by Canterbury but Neubrigensis telleth us that he sought it of him Tyranni nomen exhorrescens legitimi Principis personam induere gestiens but Canterbury denied to lay on his hands Viro Cruento alieni Iuris insavori Then he complyed with York and bound himself Sacris Sacramentis pro Conservanda Republica c. It might also be added that if K. Edward might dispose the Crown as his own Fee yet by the Common-Law or Statute of Calcuth he could not dispose it to a Bastard as K. William is expresly called in the Letters sent to the Pope from the Parliament of Lincoln in Eward the first besides his own Charters and of attempts to Legitimate him that so he might succeed by Common-law See the Comments on Merton in the second Part of Institutes and of the Laws of Norway before But in the Old Book of Caen we may find K. William on his death Bed wishing that his Son might be King of England which he professed he neither found or left as Inheritance Neminem Anglici Regni Constituo Haeredem non enim Tantum Decus Haereditario Iure possedi That K. William the second K. Henry the first and K. Stephen came to the Crown by Election without Right of Succession is so much agreed by all that it were vain to prove it Their Elections and their Oaths are every where among the Monks and good Historians So also of Henry the second and Rich. the first But in K. Iohn's Coronation we are brought beyond dispute in full Parliament of Archshops Earls Barons and all others which were to be present the Arch-bishop stood in the midst and said Audite universi noverit Discretio vestra c. It is well known to you All that no Man hath Right of Succession to this Crown except that by unanimous consent of the Kingdom with Invocation on the Holy Ghost he be Elected from his own Deserts Lectus secundum Morum Eminantiam praeelectus c. But if any of the last Kings Race be more worthy and better than others his Election is more proper or more Reasonable Pronius promptius in Electionem ejus est consentiendum As it now is in Earl John here present Nor was any one found that could dissent or oppose what was so spoken for they all knew it was not without much Reason and good Warrant from their Laws and Customs Scïentes quod sine Causa hoc non sic definiverat For which Matthew Paris or Wendover may be compared with Hoveden Westminster and others of those Times Which seemeth most rightly to state the nature of Succession as it was in this Kingdom So that all did amount but to this That if a King had such Children so qualified and so Educated that they were above others in Vertue Wisdom and true worth or at least Caeteres Pares they were the most likely Candidates for the Crown But as we found before among the Iews in the strictest Succession where the Crown was especially tied to the House of David yet their great Sanhedrin had alwayes the Power and Right to determine of the Claims Interests Deserts and Vertues of Heirs or all Pretenders So if here we allow not such a Legal power of Judging of Claims or Titles to be placed somewhere or other our Ancestors did leave the Crown at a more blind uncertainty than in all other things they were accustomed from the Law of Nature and Right Reason I might add the Formal of Coronation joyned to the Irish Modus of Parliament under the Great Seal of Henry the Fourth where we read Electio à Plebe ad Regem ut consecretur Postquam ad Idem iterum Consenserit and again Electum interroget Metropolitanus c. How our Allegiance was of Old tied to the Kings Person not to his Heirs nor to his Person but together with the Kingdom and the Laws and Rights thereof hath been observed already Much I might add of latter times Nay that very Statute of Henry the Seventh which of late was pressed for the King and his Militia or taking Arms with him as Allegiance required doth expresly declare our Allegiance to be to the Kingdom with the King and that by such Allegiance men are tied to serve the King for defence of him and the Land And for the Kings Heirs I find them not in our Allegiance Yet the Statutes of Edw. 2. are punctual in expressing the Kings Prerogative or Rights of the Crown but where is provision for his Heirs In Eward the Third the Iudges Oaths were made and stand among the Statutes as enacted by Parliament although I do not find it so upon the Rolls And there is a Clause against Consent to the Kings Damage or Disherison So also it is in the Oaths of divers in the Courts of Justice as of Masters of Chnacery with the Kings Serjeants or Councel at Law and others but not so by Parliament See the third Part of Institutes Cap. 101. Yet our Old Allegiance did forbid Disherison or Damage but with Limitation as we shewed before The late Oaths of Allegiance in King Iames and of Supremacy in Q. Elizabeth taken by Parliament-men and divers others are to the Kings Person and his Heirs and Successors with particular Relation to defence of the Crown and Dignities thereof Which is Remarkable and that which may seem to excuse some in not assenting to others which are not so obliged and yet it is thought by some that the main or onely meaning of those Oaths was against Rome or forreign Enemies For which also a Declaration in the Queens Injunctions may be considered But in all Cases of real Scruple I cannot censure any that in a quiet humble manner seeking Peace and Truth followeth his Conscience till it is rightly informed In the Quarrels of York and Lancaster there was an Act in Henry the Fourth to entail the Crown upon the Kings Issue of which four are there named But in Henry the Eighth the Parliament declared the Succession to the Crown not yet settled or cleared enough and then it was entailed again and for lack Heirs Male upon Elizabeth But this again repealed in Mary and again in Elizabeth and Iames. How much or how little these annulled the Common-law I must submit to others lest upon debate I should be forced to yield it might be possible for future Parliaments to reduce Succession to Election as justly as some late Parliaments did turn the Common-law of Election into such or such a Succession which can only stand by Statute if it be true as all tell us that there was no entailed Inheritance but by Statute-law since the Second of Westminster of which before How little Power Kings had over their Crown or Kingdom without consent of Parliament besides all that is said already might be further cleared from the acknowledgments of Kings Themselves below the time of the Conquest