when it is made apparent that these mistakes are made serviceable to the Popish Plot and the means which the Popish party prosecute to compass and bring about the ruine of our Church But that nothing may be wanting that lies in my poor power for pulling their Foot out of the Snare I shall more distinctly consider them First I shall desire them to consider what our Government is and where the true knowledge of it is to be found And where can it be found but in our Statute-Books the Commentaries of our Law the Histories of our Government and of the Kingdom Search them if you be at leisure if you are not consult those that have read them and whose business and employment it is to understand them and you cannot fail to be informed That the King hath no power to make Laws that both Houses of Parliament must joyn with the King in making a Law It can with no more reason be concluded that the King hath the Legislative Power because his Assent makes the Bills in Parliament Laws than it can because the third Unit added to two makes a Triad that the other two do not go to the making of that number When a matter 's moved from the King in Parliament to pass into a Law the Commons consent last The Letters Patents of Ed. 3. for making the Eldest Son of a King in Succession Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwal Sir E. Cook 8. R. was confirmed as they must have been otherwise they would have been void by the House of Commons And yet we will not say that the House of Commons can make a Prince of Wales or Duke of Cornwal And yet upon no better reason than this some men will talk as if they believed themselves that the Legislative power is in the King when no King of England yet ever pretended to it but by their process of Law have punished such officious and mischievous Knaves They also will tell you that the Laws are the measures of our Allegiance and the Kings Prerogative and declare the terms of Obedience and Government That a Legislative authority is necessary to every Government and therefore we ought not to want it and therefore Parliaments in which our Government hath placed the making of Laws cannot be long discontinued nor their Conventions rendred illusory and in vain which is all one as to want them That to Govern by Laws implieth that great fundamental Law that new Laws shall be made upon new emergencies and for avoiding unsufferable mischiefs to the State By the Statutes of 4 Ed. 3. c. 14. 36 Ed. 3. c. 10. it is provided that Parliaments be holden once every year The Statute of this King required a Parliament every three years which being an affirmatory Law doth not derogate from those of Ed the 3. But if the King doth not call a Parliament once in a year he neglects these Laws and if he delays calling a Parliament three years he neglects the other Law of his own time too And for that he is by the Law intrusted with the calling of Parliaments he is at liberty to call them within the times appointed And that Laws ought to be made for Redress of mischiefs that may ensue appears by the Statute of provisors 25 E. 3 cap. 23. In which we have these words Whereupon the Commons have prayed our said Soveraign Lord the King that sith the right of the Crown of England and the Law of the said Realm is such that upon the mischiefs Dammage which happeneth to this Realm be ought and is bound of the Accord of his said People in his Parliament thereof to make Remedy and Law in avoiding the mischief and damage which thereof cometh which that King agreed to by his Royal Assent thereto given I dare be bold to say that never any Bill in Parliament was lost and wanted the Royal Assent that was promoted by the general desires of the people If Popery therefore which is the greatest mischief that ever threatned this Kingdom can be kept out by a Law we ought to have such a Law and nothing can hinder such a Law to be past for that purpose but want of an universal desire to have it I desire these Gentlemen to consider how they will answer it to our Saviour at the last day if they suffer his true Religion and the professors of it to be destroyed and persecuted when nothing but their desires of a thing lawful to be had and of right due was requisite to prevent it Their sufferings will be just and righteous from God if their sin occasioneth it and very uncomfortable to themselves The extent of the Legislative Authority is nowhere to be understood but by our Acts of Parliament in which it hath been exercised and used and by such Acts that declare the extent of its power By the 13 Eliz. cap. 1. it is made Treason during that Queens Life and forfeiture of Goods and Chattels afterwards To hold maintain affirm that the Queen by the Authority of the Parliament of England is not able to make Laws and Statutes of sufficient force and validity to limit and bind the Crown of this Realm and the descent limitation inheritance and Government thereof And this authority was exercised by Entailing the Crown in Parliament in the times of Richard the 2d Henry the 4th Henry the 6th Edward the 4th Richard the 3d Henry the 7th thrice in the time of Henry 8th and upon the Marriage of Queen Mary to King Philip of Spain both the Crowns of England and Spain were Entailed whereby it was provided that of the several Children to be begotten upon the Queen one was to have the Crown of England another Spain another the Low-Countries The Articles of Marriage to this purpose were confirmed by Act of Parliament Those that are truly Loyal to our present Soveraign have reason to recognize with high satisfaction that such a power of altering and limiting the descent of the Crown is duly lodged in the King and States of the Realm For under the Authority of an Act of Parliament of the Kingdom of Scotland we derive our selves to the happiness of his Government and He his Title to the Crown of Scotland which drew to him the Imperial Crown of England For Robert Stewart first King of Scotland of that Family lived in concubinate with Elizabeth Mure and by her had three Sons John Robert and Alexander afterwards he Married Eufame Daughter to the Earl of Ross and after was Crowned King of Scotland He had by her Walter Earl of Athol and David Earl of Straherne When Eufame his wife died he Married Elizabeth Mure. After that by one Act of Parliament he made his natural Children first Noble that is to say John Earl of Carrick Robert Earl of Menteith and Alexander Earl of Buchquhane And shortly after by another Parliament he limited the Crown in Tail Successively to John Robert and Alexander his Children by Elizabeth Mure
and Heir to the Duke of York Edward the Fifth succeeded by vertue of the same Act of Entail Richard the Third having got the Crown he was confirmed King by Act of Parliament which likewise Entail'd the Crown which was done upon two reasons pretended First for that by reason of a precontract of Edward the Fourth Edward the Fifth his eldest Son and all his other Children were declared Bastards Secondly for that the Son of the Duke of Clarence second Brother to Edward the Fourth had no right because the Duke was attainted of Treason by a Parliament of Edward the Fourth The Act of Parliament for Bastardizing the Children of Edward the Fourth was in force until repealed in the time of Henry the Seventh after his Marriage with Elizabeth the Daughter of Edward the Fourth Henry the Seventh comes in by no legal Title First because Edw. 4th his Daughter was then living Secondly his own Mother was then living In his first Parliament the Crown was Entail'd upon him and the Heirs of his body And observable it is that after the death of Elizabeth his Queen Daughter and Heir to Ed. 4th there is no notice taken of any right which was pretended to by Hen. 8. during his Fathir's life as being Son and Heir of his Mother who had the legal Right to the Crown by an ordinary right of Succession Henry the Eighth Succeeded who did as all his Laws speak derive his Title to the Crown by the Fathers side and not by the Mothers In his Reign the Crown was Entail'd thrice by Act of Parliament Confirm'd by the general Oaths both of the Spiritualty and the Lasty and it was made High Treason to refuse such Oaths and several Attainders were in his time by particular Acts of parliament of several persons who opposed such limitations of the Crown and the authority of the Laws that made them But the great Law of the three was made in the 35th year of his Reign Cap. 1. whereby power was given him to give and dispose by his Letters Patents or by Will the Imperial Crown of the Realm to remain and come after his death for want of lawful Heirs of Prince Edward the Lady Mary and the Lady Elizabeth to such person or persons in remainder or reversion as should please his Highness In which Act there was a Clause that made it high Treason to speak or write against that Act or to go about to annul or repeal it Besides there is another Proviso in that Act That if the Lady Mary should not keep such conditions which the King should declare by his Letters Patents or last Will the Imperial Crown should come to the Lady Elizabeth And if the Lady Elizabeth should not observe the same then the Crown was to go to such person as the King by his Letters Patents or last Will should limit and appoint By virtue of which limitation in the Act of Parliament afore-mentioned Edward the Sixth succeeded to the Crown and after him Queen Mary in whose Reign in an Act of Parliament for Conformation of the Articles of Marriage between her and Philip of Spain the Crown was again Entail'd but she dying without Issue the Lady Elizabeth became Queen who had been declared a Bastard as well as her Sister Mary in the life of their Father and therefore succeeded to the Crown by force of the Entail made in the 35 H. 8. Cap. 1. Pursuant to these Presidents in fact in the 13. year of the Reign of Q. Eliz. an Act of Parliament was made declaratory of the power of Parliament in the limitation of the Succession which made it highly penal to deny the Authority of an Act of Parliament for the limitation of the Crown Several persons in her time were proceeded against upon that Act and had the Judgement of Traytor and as Traitors executed for being contrary to that Law This Queen dying King James succeeded who was as the Statute of Recognition made in Parliament the first year of his Reign declares lineally rightfully descended of the most excellent Lady Margaret eldest Daughter of the most renowned Henry the 7th and the high and Noble Princess Queen Elizabeth his Wife eldest Daughter of King Edward the 4th the said Lady Margaret being eldest Sister of King Henry the 8th Father of the High and mighty Princes of famous memory Elizabeth late Queen of England It is further observable that upon the Marriage of Queen Mary to King Philip of Spain both the Crowns of Emgland and Spain were entailed whereby it was provided that of the several Children to be begotten upon the Queen one was to have the Crown of England another Spain another the Low Countries The Articles of Marriage to this purpose were confirmed by Act of Parliament and the Pope's Bull. And by that Act of Parliament for confirming the Articles of Marriage Philip was created King and did exercise Soveraign Authority and particularly in making Laws together with the Queen the Stile of the Soveraign Assent to Bills in Parliament in their time being Le Roy la Roigne les veulent And likewise for that it was agreed by the States of both Kingdomes and the Low Countries it is therefore probable that it was the Universal opinion of the great men of that Age That Kings and Soveraign Princes by and with the consent of their States had a power to alter and bind the Succession of the Crown FINIS
patience declared it self to be of Heaven and of a divine Original according to the Prophesies on that behalf it took possession of the Empire Crowns and Scepters became submitted to the Cross The Christians acquired a civil right of Protection and Immunity which they ought not they cannot relinquish and abandon no more than they can destroy themselves or suffer Violence and Cruelty to destroy the Innocent Such as thus perish shall never wear a Martyrs Crown but perish in the next world for perishing in this This will be interpretatively Crucifying Christ afresh after he is received up into Glory i. e. after his Religion is exalted into Dignity and Honour and civil Authority If the Senate of Rome had been Christians they would never have given up the Government to a Pagan Augustus with a power to him and his Successors to make Laws for extirpating the Christian Faith What is said of the Christian Religion and Paganism holds between the Reformed Religion and Popery If any man is so vain as to say that an unalterable course of Succession to the Crown is established amongst us by Divine Right I say he is a man fitted to believe Transubstantiation and the infallibility of the Pope he is deeply lapsed into Fanaticism he dreams when he is awake and his Dreams are Dreams of phrensie There are some things so false that they cannot be disproved as some things are so evidently true that they cannot be proved This Proposition hath no colour to ground it self upon no medium to prove it no argument for it which is to be answered nor is there any thing more absurd than it self to reduce it to But if any shall adde that this Doctrine is the Doctrine of the Reformation and adventure to tell the people so they are the most impudent falsaries that ever any Age produced when there is scarce a Child but hath heard what was done said and maintained by the Clergie of England in the Case of Mary Queen of Scots a Popish Successor in the earliest time of our Reformation here in England Our Age is blessed with a Clergie renownedly Learned and Prudent By the Providence of God and the Piety of our Ancestors they possess good though not to be envyed Revenues and Honours It is scarce possible they should have many among them that can countenance a proposition so wickedly impious and sacrilegious That we cannot have new Laws for the preservation of our Religion but must lose the old at the pleasure of a Popish Successor against not their own interest and the Rights of the Church but against the Rights and Liberty of Religion it self For she is capable of Franchises and Immunities which ought above all things to be most zealously asserted and defended by her Ministers Can they themselves with their own hands ever pull down her Hedg and destroy her Defensatives and expose her helpless to the rage of her implacable Enemies and suspend all the Legal security she hath for her preservation upon the Life of our present King whom God long preserve If Kings be admitted to have a power to make Laws one Proclamation may establish the Popish Religion amongst us which the Papal Bulls so long as that See continues will never be able to effect Next to Religion her self the Revenues of the Church challenge their faithful care for they are at best but Usu-fructuary Trustees of her Endowments for the Succession which they will wretchedly betray to an Arbitrary Successor if they do not repress such Opinions that pretend to change the Government into an absolute jure Divinity Monarchy which will leave nothing jure divino but it self and the Popedom Kings for their so doing have the authority of Sir Robert Filmer who affirms in his Treatise called the Power of Kings Fol. 1. That the Laws Ordinances Letters Patents Priviledges and Grants of Princes have no force but during their Life if they be not ratified by the express consent or at least by the sufferance of the Prince following who had a knowledge thereof This is but the necessary consequence and result from the Doctrine of the absolute power of a Prince for in such Government the Concessions of a Predecessor can no more oblige the Successor than he can Govern when he is dead and the Successor must be absolute in his time as the Predecessors were in theirs But in vain is the Net spread in the sight of any Bird this deceit is of so gross a thread that it cannot pass with the common people much less upon our Clergy But I will not dissemble what may be the true reason of the seduction of some young good-natured Gentlemen of the Clergy It is thus they perswade themselves that if these principles and opinions of the Vnlimited Power of Kings had been received the late Wars had been prevented Not rightly considering that if such opinions had never been broached or Universally rejected that War could never have ensued and we should together with peace have enjoyed our ancient Government which our Ancestors transmitted to us without that miserable inter-regnum I would not be perversely understood by any man as if I went about to justify our late War This is all I say that every Government once established will continue for ever if all the parts of it would unalterably consent to preserve it to which their natural Allegiance doth oblige them And never any Prince endeavored to change the Government but where part of the people were first willing or content to have it so Those false flatterers that go about to remove the boundaries of power and change the Government are the greatest enemies to the quiet and happy Reigns of Kings and the peace and prosperity of Kingdoms And if they do adventure to call their fellow-Subjects by any opprobrious names of disloyalty because they will not joyn with them in such change they are as absurdly impious and insolent as any Prince or State would be who should challenge another as free and absolute as himself for his Tributary and Vassal and traduce him for a troubler of the World because he would not Compose the Quarrel thus injuriously sought with the surrender of his Crown and Dignity I desire these Gentlemen to consider that the happiness of a Nation is best supported with Truth and Justice This new Doctrine is not true and whosoever entertains a belief of it is not onely barely mistaken but will be led by the mistake into the most mischievous impious and sacrilegious injustice and treachery It is very agreeable to a good man to embrace a proposition with an easie belief that offers the least seeming probability of a security against the miseries of War by all means to be avoided But this Doctrine of the Divinity of Kings is most dangerous to the Peace of Kingdoms for it is pregnant with Wars Besides that it will give bad Princes which sometime hereafter may be Born into the World for such there have been now and then power to
become Zealots He is a Prince that can deliberate and consider and will conclude that it is better for him to betake himself to a Monastery now before he hath filled the Land with Blood and Slaughter and all the mischiefs that the hellish Plot designs upon us than to take Sanctuary in one hereafter loaded with the melancholy considerations of a lost design and intolerable guilt if he himself should chance to survive and not perish ingloriously in the enterprize never to be gathered to his Fathers and shut out of the Sepulchres of Kings He is a great lover of his Brother as he ought in gratitude to be who lets him live and in his good opinion too after he had departed from his Allegiance and become a Member of another Hostile Polity and Regimen and after in consequence thereof the King's Life is brought in conspicuous danger Besides that it was natural and necessary that attempts upon the Life of the King should ensue upon his publick declaration of himself to be a Papist And we cannot without thinking too meanly of him think him without a foresight thereof there remains therefore no way for him to avoid the guilt of his Brother's Murder we tremble at the probability of it than by renouncing the Crown The King cannot in probability die before him except he falls to the Interest of that Religion which his Highness doth profess So that the Duke will relinquish nothing by the consenting to the Bill but the hopes to succeed upon his Brother's Murder but he would not the one so virtuous we will think him to obtain the other Admit him to be King he must be a King without Subjects for he must be a Slave to one part of the people to destroy the other these may not be the other will not be his Subjects To be an open Enemy is more Princely than to submit to the sordid methods of Falshood and Treachery than to betray us and deceive us in the confidence we justly should have in him if he should succeed to the Crown by a legal appointment He hath already departed from the Government which is Treason in a common person but we will give it in him an honester name and call him onely an Enemy to our State and Religion and his departure to be an overt declaration of Hostility let him therefore be consistent with himself purchase the Government by Conquest by the assistance of the Arms of France his Popish Adherents and home-bred Traitors But let him not assume the Crown by Title and Succession under obligations to govern by Law and to preserve us in our Religion which is our Legal Right and more precious to us than any thing else the Law entitles us unto Let him not add falshood to his mistaken and cruel zeal and do all the mischiefs the Plot designs while he pretends to Govern Let him openly assault us Miscreants subdue us Infidels that already stand Cursed and Excommunicated whom he hath Warrant enough from his Religion to destroy with an utter destruction He is an excellent Son of King Charles the First of blessed Memory who died a Martyr for the Government of Church and State and lost his Life as well as his Government when he could not preserve it any longer by his Sword And do you think that James his Son who carries the Royal Name of his Grandfather though the first of England yet the Sixth of that Name in Scotland will suffer the Government to be altered and to be a King and no King It is more just for him to chuse an Exclusion from the Succession than to suffer the Government to be changed we must therefore suppose him to be willing rather to consent to the Bill and renounce the Succession conformably to the recent example of his never-to-be-forgotten Father than to consent to or be bound by any Act of Parliament that shall alter the Government They are not his Friends nor agreeable to him that would spoil the Government more valuable in his esteem as well as his Father's than a personal Reign That would make him a King in mockery That conspire against the Government it self which he will not he ought not to sustain and endure as long as there is any Iron and Steel in the hands or Blood in the Veins of Loyal Roman Catholicks He is an equal Prince and will not take it so much to Heart that he sees the People of his Nativity not stupid Sots but that they can be sensible of the dangers that he urgeth them with and provide apt remedies against the evils which threaten us But if these Reasons will not obtain his express Consent to that Law for his Exclusion they will be allowed Inducements sufficient enough to pass it and conclude his Assent for the nature of a Law is to be first reasonable and to make those willing that should be consenting to it as reasonable and fit but are not and to render them obedient and submitted For this is one of the greatest benefits of Government that they that cannot or will not chuse what is best for themselves the Laws will chuse for them with regard to the Publick Good For the better clearing the matter of the Constitutions of this Realm in relation to the Succession I thought it necessary to add the substance of an Act of Parliament yet in force made 13 Elizabethae 13 Elizebthae Cap. 1. An Act whereby certain Offences are made Treason FOrasmuch as it is of some doubted whether the Laws and Statutes of this Realm remaining at this present in force are vallable and sufficient enough for the surety and preservation of the Queens most Royal Person in whom consisteth all the happiness and comfort of the whole State and Subjects of the Realm Which thing all Faithful Loving and Dutiful Subjects ought and will with all careful study and zeal cnosider foresee and provide for By the neglecting and passing over whereof with winking Eyes thâ—…e might happen to grow the subversion and ruine of the quiet and most Happy State and present Government of this Realm which God defend Therefore c. to Declare c. during her Maiesties life that the Right of the Crown was in any other Person should be Treason And such Person that should during her Maiesties Life Vsurp the Crown or the Royal Stile Title or Dignity of the Crown or Realm of England c. they and every of them so offending shall be utterly disabled during their natural Lives onely to have or enjoy the Crown or Realm of England or the Style Title or Dignity thereof at any time in Succession Inheritance or otherwise after the Decease of our said Sovereign Lady the Queen as if such Person were dead any Law Custom Pretence or matter whatsoever to the contrary notwithstanding After which these words follow And be it further Enacted That if any Person shall in any wise hold and affirm or maintain That the Common Laws of this Realm not altered
by Parliament ought not to direct the Right of the Crown of England Or that our said Severaign Lady the Queens Majesty that now is with and by the Authority of the Parliament of England is not able to make Laws and Statutes of sufficient Force and Validity to limit and bind the Crown of this Realm and the Discent Limitation Inheritance and Government thereof Or that this present Statute or any part thereof or any other Statute to be made by the Authority of the Parliament of England with the Royal Assent of our said Soveraign Lady the Queen for limiting of the Crown or any Statute for Recognizing the Right of the said Crown and Realm to be Iustly and Lawfully in the most Royal Person of our said Soveraign Lady the Queen is not are not or shall not or ought not to be for ever of good and sufficient Force and Validity to Binde Limit Restrain and Govern all Persons their Rights and Titles that in any wise may or might claim any Interest or Possibility in or to the Crown of England in Possession Remainder Inheritance Succession or otherwise howsoever And all other Persons whatsoever every such person so holding affirming or maintaining during the life of the Queens â—…elly shall be adjudged a High Traitor and sufâ—…r and forfeit as in Cases of High Treason is acâ—ustomed and every Person so holding affirming or maintaining after the Decease of our said Soveraign â—ady shall forfeit all his Goods and Chattels AN ANSWER TO A BOOK Published 1679. Intituled A LETTER FROM A GENTLEMAN of Quality In the COUNTRY to his Friend c. Relating to the Point of SUCCESSION to the CROWN c. BY several accidents the former sheets have stopt in the Press from a few days afteâ— the Great and Weighty Consideration were published and being now ready to comâ— forth we have a Gentleman of Quality as hâ— calls himself undertaking from Scripture Law History and Reason to shew how improbable 〈◊〉 not impossible it is to bar the next Heir in thâ— right Line from the Succession in a Letter to his â—onoured Friend A. B. And now after so long a time of consideration one should think the many men of great Parts â—nd Learning that are dependents on the Duke â—pirited with zeal and ambition should have offered all that they have to say against the Bill â—or excluding his Royal Highness And this â—eing as may be reasonably concluded the last endeavours of the most learned and best parted men of that Interest This Letter for that reason onely but not for any thing of moment that â—t offers deserves to be considered We will not follow him from Paragraph to Paragraph since the greatest part of it is vain and empty pedantick bombast and putid affectation I shall onely draw you up short Summaries of his several Reasons and give them all the advantages they can challenge and improve them by just and natural Inferences And that I think will be enough of confutation and a sufficient countercharm against his deceiving the People He first lays down for a Ground That the Succession to the Crown of England is inseparable annexed to Proximity and nextness of Bloud by the Laws of God and Nature And all Statute-Laws contrary to the Laws of God and Nature are ipso facto null and void That it is contrary to the Laws of God he proves by the Law of God given by Moses to the Jews in the 7th of Numbers that directs how the Succession of Lands should be amongst the Jews and whatsoever Statute-Laws are contrary to those Laws are null and void he saith The consequence of this Argument is this That the Laws given by God to the Jews are Laws to all Mankind That our common-Law and Statute-Law is against the Law of God and null and void because not agreeable to the Law of Moses That the eldest Son is not to take by Descent the whole inheritance but a double portion onely and that the Crown must be disposed of in Descents accordingly That not the first Son only and one Daughter but all the Daughters of a King if never so many must succeed together to the Crown That no Father can sell his Patrimony for that was the Jewish Law and established in that Chapter he quotes He proves it to be a Law of God further for that God saith to Cain of Abel That his desires shall be subject and thou shalt rule over him The consequence of this is that because Cain could not kill Abel notwithstaning he was to have the Primacy That Abel much more could not kill Cain his Elder Brother And further he proves that to be a Law of God because God maketh choice of the first-born to be Sanctified and Consecrated to himself And therefore it most certainly follows with this Gentlemen that he which is not the first-born must be so too I wish his Royal Highness the second born the Consecration of a Priest which the Text means notwithstanding the Text doth not allow it him so that he will not pretend to the Consecration of a King which is clearly out of the meaning of the Text. He says Consonant hereunto are the Suffrages of the Doctors of the Civil and Imperial Law The Consequence of this is first That he is not bound to be coherent to himself for he was before proving the Law of God to be That the Succession of the Crown is inseparably annxed to proximity of bloud and now he tells us of some Opinions of Fathers and Doctors that are consonant thereunto when they do not at all relate in their Opinions to what he had produced out of Moses his Law Secondly it follows that he is impertinently troublesome to his Reader by telling him of the Opinions of great names in this matter that the Eldest Son by ordinary right is to have his Fathers Estate in some Countries or that the Crown doth so ordinarily descend where the Succession is hereditary he should have spared them for another time when he shall say something that all mankind doth not agree in Thirdly That he is a man of little reading otherwise he would have been insufferably impertinent by 10000 quotations in this matter Fourthly That he is no Civilian for that in this place he calls the Soveraignity a Fee when all men agree that a Crown is of that fort of Inheritancs which they call Allodiums that are held 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This would have made a swinging Argument for his Jure Divino if he had thought of it but we will give it them gratis He tells us the Duke of York is in the same condition as the Eldest Son of the King Reigining though his Brother be King That the second Son of a King Regent when the first is dead living his Father is within the 25. of E. 3. that makes it Treason to compass the death of the King 's Eldest Son and that such Second Son is Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwal The