given by Bracton and Britton and Fortescue's foolish Etimology There must be a Prerogative somewhere in all Places There is a Prerogative in Kings by the Law of Nations and the Use of it is to shew Mercy to reward Virtue 'T is the Law that punisheth not Kings and because there is no written Equity in Criminal or Capital Matters therefore the Seat of Mercy is placed by the Fountain of Justice This is no doubt properly and truly to be God's Vicegerent Thus with us Potest Rex ei lege suâ Dignitatis Spelman Gloss Praerogativa Regis Condonare si velit Mortem promeritam Spoken of Edward the Confessor Though there is a sort of Equity by the Letter of our Law in the Case of Manslaughter making an allowance for the Passions of Men and the King's Pardon of Murder hath been question'd it looks like a Dispensing with the Positive Law of God It is certain he can't change the Punishment There are several Prerogatives and Flowers of the Crown some of Use some for Ornament but founded also upon Reason The King hath all Mines of Gold and Silver Treasure Trove Escheats of all Cities May take his Creditors into Protection till he be satisfied with Preference May take Body Lands and Goods of Debtor c. because the King's Treasure is supposed to be for the publick Benefit May make any Foreign Coin lawful Money of England by Proclamation for Exigencies may require it The King may dig in the Subjects House not Mansion-House or Barn for Salt-petre being for the Defence of the Nation Kings only can have Parks and Chaces and not Subjects without his License So Swans in Royal Rivers because they are stately Creatures and Royal Game and become the Honour of a King The King shall be said to be Founder though another join in the Foundation c. because 't is for his Honour The King shall have Ward though the Lands were held of him by Posteriority because the King's Title shall be preferr'd and not put in Competition with the Subject So he shall not be Tenant in common i. e. He shall have all because a Subject ought not to be equal with him in any thing There are also several other Franchises which by the Policy of our Law belong to the Crown And we say in our Law That the King's Prerogative is part of the Law of England and comprehended within the same We say also That the King hath no Prerogative but that which the Law of the Land allows him And 't is certain he is restrained in several respects by our Law as in a Politick Capacity Letting pass those Distinctions and Cant in Coke's 7th Rep. Calvin's Case of the King's Prerogative As he hath Advantages so he hath his Disadvantages also at least Kings or others for them are apt to call them so Thus he can't by Testament dispose of the Jewels of the Crown 't is doubted whether he may legally pawn them though it be said he may give them by his Letters-Patents 't is against the Honour of the Crown The Law is so jealous of the King's Honour that it hath preferr'd it before his Profit He hath no Prerogative against Magna Charta cannot take or prejudice the Inheritance of any Can 't send any man out of the Realm against his Will because he hath the Command of the Service of the Subjects only for Defence of the Realm Can 't lay any new Impost on Merchandises Can take none but usual and Ancient Aids and Taxes Can 't dispense with Statutes made for Publick Good or against Nusances or Mala in se Can do no Wrong Can 't alter the Law Common or Ecclesiastical Nor Statute-Law or Custom of the Realm by Proclamation or otherwise Nor create any Offence thereby which was not an Offence before Can 't grant a Corporation any new Jurisdiction to proceed by Civil Law because it may deprive Subjects hereby of Privilege of Trial. The King can't put off the Offices of Justice of a King is not suppos'd to be ill-affected but deceiv'd and impos'd upon and abus'd Eadem presumitur mens Regis quae est juris c. But the late Sticklers for Arbitrary Power have found out a Plea for the Absoluteness of Kings which as they think carries some Face of an Objection against the fettering their Prerogative Say they At this rate a King can never exert himself as he ought to do any Glorious Action or as King James the II d phras'd it to Carry the Reputation of a Kingdom high in the World He cannot extend his Conquests c. No matter whether he can or not Neither can he oppress his Subjects It is sufficient for Kings especially for a King of Great Britain to be on the Defensive by Land neither do I believe any of our Kings ever got any thing by extending their Dominions 'T is no Argument to us in our Situation if the matter were so But this Notion is a Mistake For never did any King do extraordinary Feats where he made War and carried it on against the Inclinations or without the Consent of his People The Fights with the Dutch at Sea in the Reign of King Charles the II d is a sufficient Instance of this Nature We fought against the Grain and without an Enemy as Sir William Temple observes Nor shall we find in History that any King hath continued his enlarged Bounds where he carried on Imposts and Taxes by Violence at Home to the Impoverishing of his People Let the End of this present French King be observ'd who seems to stand an Exception at present but he stands a very ticklish one Besides the true Interest and Advantage of our Island lies another way To maintain the Sovereignty of the Seas to promote Trade and Traffick c. And to this purpose the King hath the highest Prerogative in this Element He may press Men for this Service which he cannot for any Foreign Expedition by Land He hath Customs Tunnage and Poundage c. Yet not these without Consent in Parliament and some of our Kings have made but a scurvy Experiment in attempting to take them without it Whence then doth come this Title to Arbitrary Absolute Power It must be the Child of Conquest or some other Paramount Inherent Right And to this purpose it is objected That by our Laws we acknowledge several Rights and Privileges of the Subject to be Concessions from Kings and we yield the Lands to be holden immediately or mediately of the Crown c. This is pretended to sound in Conquest rather than Compact or to be founded on the Patriarchal Right And Sir Robert Filmer especially is pleasant upon Sir Edward Coke for this He says If the first Kings were chosen by the People as many think they were then surely our Forefathers were a very bountiful if not prodigal People to give all the Lands of the whole Kingdom to their Kings with liberty to them to keep what they pleas'd and to
respect to Richard II. or the Earl of Marsh who had the Undoubted Right as being of the Eldest House without any Title unless what he had from the People or as Stow says was Ordained King more by Force than lawful Succession or Election so he held it in continued Trouble and Confusion saving only the last Year And 't is said he was well pleased that there were always Troubles that there might be no Calm or Interval for Reflection He was so jealous of his Crown that in his Sickness he would have it laid by him upon his Bolster for fear some body should Dispossess him of it as he had Richard the II d and his Son as readily took it up for fear of some other Interposition Though he had not leisure for Politicks yet he made a very useful Observation fit to be thought on by Kings viz. That of Englishmen so long as they have Wealth so long shalt thou have Obeysance but when they are Poor they are always ready to make Insurrection at every motion Here we have also a great Example of a King's Son submitting to the Laws and of a King protecting and countenancing a Judge in a due Execution of them and also of a Judge with a steady Gravity and Resolution puting the Ancient Laws of the Realm in Execution without Favour or Partiality HENRY V. THE Reign of this King was wholly taken up with the Wars in France and here may be seen what an English Prince can do when he himself is Brave and Generous and stands well in the Opinion of his Subjects they paid him Homage before he was Crown'd and voluntarily granted him a Subsidy without asking and he on the other hand ask'd but few By which it appears as Sir Richard Baker observes what great matters a moderate Prince may do and yet not grieve his Subjects with Taxations Under this King who was of English true Honour the Honour of the Nation was at the highest Character for in a Councel holden at Constance it was Decreed That England should have the Title of the English Nation and should be accounted one of the Five Principal Nations in Rank before Spain which often before had been moved but never till then Granted HENRY VI. I Know not what to say to the Reign of this unfortunate King only that it is an instance of the Impertinence of Fortune and of the Unsteadiness of Human Affairs although Philip de Comines says he was a very Silly Man and almost an Innocent yet this silly Innocence seems to be what we call Simplicity in the modest acceptation of the word and the Effect rather of Choice or Observation than Defect 'T is true he had a sort of Passive Understanding but he had Judgment enough to distinguish Good and Bad between Virtue and Vice Success and Misfortune to resent these as a Man but overlook them as a Christian and what Sir Francis Bacon reports of him upon the account of his being to be Canonized That the Pope who was jealous of his Honour and of the Dignity of the See of Rome knowing that Henry the VIth was reputed in the World abroad but for a Simple Man was afraid it would but diminish the Estimation of that kind of Honour if there were not a distance kept between Innocents and Saints seems to be brought in rather for the sake of the Jingle or Jest than Truth His greatest symptom of Weakness was suffering a Wife to be imposed upon him and then being ever after imposed upon by that Wife but I doubt this may have been the condition of some Wise Men and the Earl of Suffolk plaid the fool in the Match not the King any otherwise than by taking the Advice of a single Person without and contrary to the Counsel of his Other Peers c. And what have Wiser Kings done beset with a Favourite or a Wife Whereas he had both which shews that 't is not so much a King 's personal and private Wisdom as That of the General Council of a Nation is to be relied on The Ill-advised Tragedy of the Duke of Glocester made Room and open'd way for That of the King 's by letting in the Duke of York's pretensions to the Crown and soon ended in the Death of the Duke of Suffolk himself So unsafe is it for any Favourite how Great soever to presume on his Own strength against the Interest and Policy of the Commonwealth The Other Affairs of this Reign seem transacted upon a stage of Fortune or Fate rather than Prudence or Policy trod between a Headstrong People Ambitious Nobles and a Queen too apt to Rule and a King too easy and apt to Suffer If we may learn any thing from this Reign 't is only this That Virtue and Goodness without Policy and Justice nor Policy without Virtue and Resolution can Establish a Throne But after all Fate it self seems to weigh down the Scale his Father's Prophecy is said was not to be avoided which I leave in the Words of Howard's Defensative against the Poyson of supposed Prophesies viz. What Prophet could have picked out of Mars and Saturn the manifold Mishaps which befel the Prince of Blessed Memory King Henry the VIth sometimes Sleeping in a Port of Honour sometimes Floating in the Surges of Mishap sometimes Possessing Foreign Crowns sometimes Spoiled and Deprived of his Own sometimes a Prince sometimes a Prisoner sometimes in plight to give Succour to the Miserable sometimes a Fugitive amongst the Desperate Habington in his History of Edward the IVth says That this poor King in so many Turns and Vicissitudes never met with one fully to his Advantage And Cambden says He was Four times taken Prisoner and in the End Despoiled both of his Kingdom and Life EDWARD IV. THE first Twelve Years of this King's Reign if I may so call it who came to the Kingdom as Biondi says not by Power or Justice but by the People's Inclination were passed in a ferment of Blood and the better part of his Two and twenty if I may so say were taken up in Wars and Executions not so much occasioned by Henry the VIth as by the Earl of Warwick so dangerous a thing it is to put an Affront upon a powerful Subject But especially King Edward shewed a very weak part in this Management who came to the Crown chiefly by the Earl of Warwick's Interest and with a confessed Election of his People when he had Married a Subject of no great Parentage or Interest to disoblige such a Subject Dishonourably who had so great a Stroke and made such a Figure in the Nation But all Rules of Policy they say must submit to Love therefore to pass that Oversight for which there is an Excuse made Certainly the Confidence and Trust afterwards by him repos'd in the Duke of Glocester was a manifest Infatuation not to be supported with any pretence of common Consideration or colour of Reason And though Philip de Comines says he was the
Temper by a gentle Remove without any Blood without Imprisoning any Person and without inflicting almost any Suffering or Penalty till the Seditious Practices of the Popish Party had provoked the Arm of Justice till the Pope had given away her Kingdom of Ireland as a Heretick and Parsons and Campian Two of his Emissaries had Deposed her at Home in their Doctrines And after all Campian Sherwin and Briant did not suffer as Popish Priests but were Prosecuted on the 25th of Edward the III d for Plotting Destruction of the Queen and Ruin of the Kingdom for Adhering to the Pope the Queen's Enemy and coming into England to Raise Forces against the State And 't was only for these Exorbitances of the Papists that new and strict Laws were Enacted against them in the following Parliaments in the 23d 27 29 35th Years of her Reign Before that there was only the Penalty of Twelvepence a Sunday for Absence from Church and some other necessary provisions concerning the Supremacy Administration of the Sacrament and Form of Common-Prayer which also were very tenderly put in Execution and for above Twenty Years no Body suffered Death for Religion nor till long after the Pope and King of Spain had conspired her Ruin and Gregory the XIIIth held secret Consultations to Invade at once both England and Ireland and longer after that Bloody Massacre of Paris which was a design to Cut off the Protestants as it was Termed or at least to give them a deep Wound and the terrible Slaughters of Protestants through all the Cities of France and the War afterwards declared against the Protestants in the time of Charles the IXth not to reflect on the Chambres Ardentes before against Protestants in Henry the IId's time and after the Attempt which the Duke of Alva on the behalf of the Queen of Scots and the just suspicious she might entertain on her account who was then accounted the great Patroness and only hopes of the Papists and all the other Stratagems and visible Designs of that Party And the second Execution of any Person was in her Twenty fifth Year and upon a just necessity of Self-preservation upon the rash and extravagant Proceedings of Somervill and Others Besides when the Queen was informed even of these Severities as they are call'd tender ones in comparison she grew offended with the Commissioners for Popish Causes Reproved them for their Severity although they declared and protested they Questioned no Man for his Religion but only for dangerous Attempts against her Majesty and the State and the Queen forbad them afterwards to use Tortures as she did the Judges other Punishments And not long after that when Seventy Priests were taken and some of them Condemned and the rest in danger of the Law she only shipp'd them away out of England A Merciful piece of Justice So Merciful she was that it gave her Enemies such Encouragement as her Life was never safe as may appear by the Case of Dr Parry till there was a necessity for an Association to provide for the Queen's safety which was first Voluntary by a Number of her Subjects the Earl of Leicester being foremost thence after of all Ranks and Conditions bound mutually thereunto to each other by their Oaths and Subscriptions to Prosecute all those to the very Death that should Attempt any thing against the Queen which the Year following was in a Parliamentary manner Enacted into a formal Law Notwithstanding which another dangerous Conspiracy of one Savage set on foot by Babington and Others to take away her Life as being Excommunicated was discovered and about Fourteen were justly Executed for Treason Upon which last Treason hung the Fate of the Queen of Scots the Justice whereof has been so much Controverted and Debated Rules of Policy and Self-preservation must cashier all Principles of good Nature or Honour Yet however Execution was not done upon her till the French Ambassador and others were again discovered to take off the Queen by way of prevention And the Circumstances suggested to the Queen at least of the Spanish Navy being come to Milford Haven the Scots into England and that the Duke of Guise was Landed at Sussex c. may extenuate if not excuse the Severity of her Execution with any but Papists and the manner of doing it at last shews it was Extorted from her upon inevitable Considerations and Symptoms of a relucting necessity Her often Countermanding it demonstrates it was not an Act of her Inclination and at last perhaps as far as it appears it was obtained of her by Surprise and without her Authorising Hand to the finishing Stroke If there were any thing in it of Barbarity 't was the denying her a Catholick Priest or Confessor and the Manner of her Execution Which yet is no more than Papists deny Protestants on all occasions and I know not why we should not vouch the dying Honour of our Religion as they do of theirs But enough has been said of this Tragedy on all Hands only it may be fit to Remark That even the French Historians give a more favourable Account of it than our own and particularly Mezeray is softer in his Expressions than Baker The first says The Indiscretion of her Friends was no less the Cause of her Misfortune than the Wickedness of her Enemies as the First sought with violent passion after some plausible pretence to Ruin her the Other furnished them with divers by contriving every Hour some odd Design and even Conspiracies against Queen Elizabeth so that they made her Perish by their over-much Care and Endeavours to Save her The Later gives a slim trimming Account which was worse Although 't is true the taking off the Queen of Scots did not break the Neck of the Popish Designs for who can restrain the Malice of Jesuits for Men must have some ingredient of Modesty to be convinc'd and silenc'd and kept within the bounds of natural Virtue yet it stopp'd their Hands for some time And when afterwards they began again upon the Example and Encouragement of the Holy League in France of which the Duke of Guise was Head and in virtue of which they had taken off their own King Henry the III d by the Hands of James Clement a Monk though Guise himself was first Assassinated and they had taken new heart upon the King of Spain's Founding a Seminary of English at Validolid and new Plots were contrived against the Queen It put them somewhat out of the way and they were at a loss where to find a Successor to the Crown for their purpose when Lopez and Patrick Cullen c. were to have Killed the Queen And they were forc'd to hunt after far-fetch'd Titles in the Infanta of Spain and farther for the Earl of Essex at Home the Son of the Queen of Scots being a Protestant and even at last they made but little of it The Queen remained in Peace and Safety and their Pretender Essex was himself Executed for Treason The
this or nothing This and those which Mezeray reports to have preceded the Death of Henry the IVth of France particularly that Ticket which a Priest found upon an Altar at Montargis giving notice that the King would be Assassinated his Horoscopes which determined the Year of his Life and even the Queen 's own Dream that the King was Stabbing with a Knife to pass by all others relating to this and other Occasions must import this at least to use Mezeray's own Words who I believe was no more Superstitious this way than my self That there is a Sovereign Power which Disposes of Futurity since it so certainly Knows and Foretels it But this Subject is not my Part. Nevertheless in truth there appears to have been some extraordinary Conjunctions of the Planets or something more Extraordinary which gave that extravagant Turn to Powers here below not only in Europe but other remote parts of the World and put sublunary Motions in such a Ferment about these Times as was evident in the Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland Spain Germany France Portugal and Naples and the Hurly-burlies and Revolutions there and in several other Parts but also between the Tartars and Chineses and in the Empire of the Great Mogul between Cha-gehan and his Four Sons especially Aureng-zeb the Story whereof is Famous and you may Read it at large in Tavernier Which Aureng-zeb Sir William Temple calls a Fanatick and compares to Cromwell as if all such strains of Empire were Enthusiastical like that of the Great Turk But to return to take my leave of King Charles Morally speaking I think the Queen was the Chief Occasion of all those Misfortunes which attended Him and the Nation for there is no reason the Welfare of a Kingdom should hang at a King's Codpiece The King 's Marrying a Papist gave the suspicion of Popery and the suspicion brought in Popery in Earnest CHARLES II. AS to the first Twelve Years of the Nominal Reign of this King 't was such a Farce of Policy and Government that it Libels the Chronicle and I believe he had been sooner in his Throne if he had never made a Step to help himself by the Disturbance of those who usurp'd his Place I wish for his Honour in the beginning he had not intermedled with the Action of Montross during the Treaty with the Scots it reflected some Aspersion upon his Sincerity and he only sacrificed one Friend's Life and the Reputation of others and thereby prejudiced his own Interest for the present But I know that Business hath also another Face and therefore I pass by that and some other Occurrences to proceed to his own Administration after he was Crowned in England Which I shall touch but very slightly neither as slightly as he did the Interests of the Nation the History of these Times being fresh in every one's Memory I am very much at a loss considering the different Opinions of him and his Inconsistency with himself with what Character to introduce this King to his Government If he was a Protestant when he came over to Us as all his fine Declarations c. import surely the Devil ow'd Us a shame pardon the Expression that we should blunder on a Popish Match again at first dash Here was a loose given to the Papist and Fanatick to play their Old Game over again and he put himself under a necessity of Suspition with his People once more For let a Prince make what Gracious Speeches he pleases his Actions will be always more significant and speak plainer than his Declarations Hence this Dilemma became entailed either he doth answer the Expectations of the Papists or not If he doth and gives them any Assurances c. his own People are upon his Skirts If not then he is attack'd by the Indefatigable Plots and Attempts of the Jesuits and that Party In the mean time in what a blessed Condition of Settlement is a Nation It can never be at quiet I shall not pretend to dive into the Mysteries of one Plot or t'other let them stand on their own Bottom in the validity of the Records No doubt there always hath been a Popish Plot of one sort or other more or less as our Kings have given them a helping hand ever since the Reformation and I believe ever will be so long at least as our Kings manage Affairs as they did for the Four last Reigns And for ought I know too there may have been a Fanatick Plot ever since Calvin's time and will continue as long as Kingly Government and Church-Hierarchy are in fashion Neither shall I trouble my self to enquire which Plot was the Agressor which Plaintiff which Defendant which the Original and which the Counter-plot But between them both this King had reduced himself to a pretty Condition of Trouble if any thing could be so to him by his Trimming a Quality which was scouted in the Subject For in the Popish Plot he was to be taken off for not being a Papist or at least for not coming up to their Expectations of him and by the Fanatick Plot he was to be Blunderbuss'd and destroy'd for being a Papist and favouring their Designs too much But to determine the precedence of these Plots I think the Popish Plot first appeared upon the Stage against him and it is thought attended him at his Exit though he died of their own Persuasion I mean the Popish was the first Plot of Quality for I take no notice of such little Things as the Extravagant Matter of Venner or that in the North which was but a Fag-end of that in Ireland and scarce then setled nor of any thing of that nature which happen'd before the Year 1670. I do not find any Plot of Consequence till after the Acts of Parliament against Dissenters not taking notice of the Act of Vniformity or that against Quakers but not till after that against Dissenting Preachers in Corporations that against Conventicles which came after the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience and as far as I can see without any great provocation which Acts as they themselves speak were grounded chiefly on Surmise and Suspition Thus was he fain to shuffle on sometimes in the form of Persecution against Dissenters sometimes in that of Toleration and Indulgence to them and their Tender Consciences so that Religion grew a meer State-Weather Cock as Circumstances happen'd and turn'd as Court Cabals mov'd now one way now another Whereas if he had come over a True Church-of-England Man as he pretended to profess himself he might have reduced the Church easily enough to some degree of Uniformity and modell'd the Civil Government and Ecclesiastical State to a good Temper having the Military Power in his own hands by the Militia Acts. But I suppose that was not his Business And he discover'd the same Unsteadiness in Civil Matters shifting Ministers and Officers Proroguing and Dissolving Parliaments without apparent Reasons and 't is said for very bad Ones sometimes and at