and dy'd and rul'd and stunk agen Rebellion for a little moment shines But seldom with a brave applause declines 'T is only Truth and Loyalty can give Restoratives to make a Dead man live T. F. REPENTANCE FOR THE MURTHER OF Charles the Martyr AND The Restauration of Charles the II. is the only Balm to cure Englands Distractions 'T Is true our Nostrils lost their Breath What then ' Cause we sinn'd once shall 's ne're be good agen We murther'd Charles for which Infernal Kings With worse than Aegypt's Plagues have scourg'd our sins The Martyrs Goodnesse Angels cann't rehearse The Rebels baseness Devils cann't expresse Who in their Lower House have acted more Than Belzebub in Hell or th' Earth before And did not Charles the Son yet shine I 'de say That God of Nature and the World decay But God is God and Satan's Fraud we see Charles is our King and Rebels Rebels be Then since we ken a Traytor from a Saint Let 's be for God our King and Bel recant Hee 'l dry our Eyes and cure those Wounds which we Receiv'd i'â—h ' dark groping for Liberty For Liberty which kept us all in Fetters Slaves to the Rump and to the Rumps Abetters Who Freedom and Religion up cry'd When Freedom and Religion they destroy'd Who killed us with Plaisters and brought Hell For Paradice So Eve by th' Serpent fell Then if the death o' th' King caus'd all our woe The life o' th' King had sav'd us all men know Behold him in his Son whose splendid light Shall heal the darknesse of his Fathers night 'T is madnesse to use Candles in the day What need a Parl'ament when Charles le Roy Stands at the door and to us fain would bring Freedom and Laws instead of Rape and Sin The glory of a King is to command But Subjects shame to sit when he doth stand God save the King C. B. Never forget Reader That the Presbyters in their Almighty scotified nullified Solemn League and Covenant with their hands lifted up to the Most high God do swear That they will preserve and defend the Kings Majesty his Person and Authority And that they have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his Majesties just Power and Greatnesse Yet they do also there swear that they will extirpate Episcopacy although so to do is contrary to the Kings Will Laws Command Safety Greatnesse and Authority As if his Majesty had no just Power but what their Faction vouchsafed and pleased to think fit On the late MIRACVLOVS REVOLVTIONS IN ENGLAND c. THree Kingdoms like one Ship a long time lay Black tempest-proof upon a troubled Sea Bandy'd from wave to wave from rock to sand A prey to Pyrats from a forein Land Expos'd to all the injuries of Fate All the Reproaches of a Bedlam-State The brave Sayles torn the Main-mast cut in sunder Destruction from above and ruine under Once the base rout of Saylors try'd to steer The giddy Vessel but thence could appear Nothing but mad Confusion Then came One He sate at Helm and his Dominion Frightned the blustring Billows for a while And made their Fury counterfeit a smile Then for a time the Bottom seem'd to play I' th' wonted Chanel and the beaten way Yet floated still The Rabble snatch't again It's mannagement but all alas in vain No Anchor fixt no wished shâ—ar appears No Haven after these distracted years But when the lawfull Pilot shall direct Our wav'ring Course and Heav'n shall Him protect The Storms shall laugh the Windes rejoyce thereat And then our Ark shall find an Ararat T. F. THE HISTORY of PHAETON Being only a Flourish or Praeludium to the sulsequent more solid discourse Wherein implicitly the temerarious appetite of Subjects to their dread Soveraigns Crown is refuted and condemned The gracious Concessions unparalleled goodness and fatherly indulgence of our late King to his over-bold Subjects manifested and the sad effects of usurpation laid open with the Traytors Epitaph Phoebus representing the King and Phaeton the hare-brained people Eloquar an Sileam timor hoc pudor impedit illud Shall I speak or hold my Peace How shall we sing the Lords song in a strange Land And how shall I hold that which is not to be found WHen rash Phaeton being mounted on the soaring wings of arrogance and presumption attempted the Kingly Government of his royal Fathers Chariot fit for none but such powerful and well-instructed Monarch as himâ—lf For Ovid. lib. 2. Non est tua tuta voluntas Magna petis Phaeton quae non viribus istis Munera conveniunt nec tam puerilibus annis Sors tua mortalis non est mortale quod optas Plus etiam quam quod superis contingere fas est Nescius affectas placeat sibi quisque licebit Non tamen ignifero quisquam consistere in axe Me valet excepto Vusti quoque Rector Olympi Qui fera terribili jaculatur fulmina dextra Non agit hos curros Et quid Jove majus habetur Thy wish is naught What 's so desir'd by thee Can neither with thy strength nor youth agree Too great intentions set thy thoughts on fire Thou mortal dost no mortal thing desire Through ignorance affecting more than they Dare undertake who in Olympus sway Though each himself approve except me none Is able to supply my burning Throne Not that dread Thunderer who rules above Can drive these wheels and who more great than Jove Thou seekest after that which humane power neither can nor ought for to atchieve Thou art ignorant of my power and too much presuming on thine own I am no Officer of trust deputed by the common rout but hold my jurisdiction from above It is not for Mortals to aspire and foolishly to covet such sacred things There iâ— none but I capable of this dignity It is I that aâ— the anointed and crowned King by caelestial decree and therefore am not to be dethroned by terrestial innovation At tu funesti ne sim tibi muneris auctor Nate cave dum resque sinit tua corrige vota Then lest my bounty which would save should kill Beware and whilest thou maist reform thy will Be wise my Son in time and lest thou prove a felo de se banish from thy thoughts this desperate and fond appetite of thine to take my princely reigns of Government into thine unadvised hands Non honor est paenam Phaeton pro munere poscis It is not honour but disgrace and thy utter ruin which thou so greedily huntest after Scilicet ut nostro genitum te sanguine credas Pignora certa petis do pignora certa timendo Et patrio pater esse metu probor aspice vultus Ecce meos utinamque oculos in pectore posses Inserere patrias intus deprendere curas Denique quicquid habet dives circumspiee mundus Deque tot ac tantis caeli terraeque marisque Posce bonis aliquid nullam patiere repulsam Deprecor hoc unum quod vero
of his hands and take it into their own But this was not all the Sea was dryed up and the fields were scorcht the Harvests were burnt and the Mountains perished with heat the Moon was amazed and the Clouds shone like Comets Parva tamen queror magnae pereunt cum maenibâ— urbes Cumque suis totas populis incendia gentes In cinerem vertunt But this was nothing Cities with their Towrs Realms with their people funeral fire Devours All the Kingdoms in the world did shake And all the Kings doubted of their regal title They feared that themselves should be destroyed and their Crowns with their lives pulled to the ground And doubtless had not Divine providence stopped this wild-fire more Kingdoms than were had been demolished For this fire did intend to make Kings and the common people all in one condition neither was the King to have any praerogative above his subjects but all had like to have been consumed in one and the same sire Great Cities with their walls and whole Nations with their people were turned into Ashes Circumspice utrinque Fumat uterque polus quos si violaverit ignis Atria vestra ruent Behold the Poles above At either end do fume And should they burn Thy habitation would to ruine turn O Almighty this usurpation would have taken away thy power For the Kings which thou did'st set to rule over the people had well nigh been all consumed And thy anointed which thou hast prohibited any thing to touch were by this unwieldy and unlawfull Government almost destroyed The flames begun to lick the Heavens and both Poles did take fire so that all things were hastening into their antient Chaos Alma tamen tellus ut erat circundata ponto Inter aquas pelagi contractosque undique fontes Qui se condiderant in opacae viscera matris Sustulit omniferos collo tenus arida vultus Opposuitque manum fronti magnoque tremore Omnia concutiens paulum subsedit infra Quam solet esse fuit sacraque ita voce profatur Si plaoet hoc meruique quid O tua fulmina cessant Summe Deum liceat periturae viribus ignis Igne perire tuo clademque autore levare Yet foodfull Tellus with the Ocean bound Amidst the Seas and Fountains now unfound Self hid within the womb where they were bred Neck-high advanceth her all-bearing head Her parched fore-head shadow'd with her hand And shaking shook what ever on her stand Wherewith a little shrunk into her brest Her sacred tongue her sorrows thus exprest If such thy will and I deserve the same Thou chief of Gods Why sleeps thy vengefull flame Be 't by thy fire If I in fire must fry The Author lessens the Calamity At length Our Mother Earth being a fellow sufferer in this hot persecution lifteth up her parched head out of the waters gathered together for her defence and holding her hands as a Fan before her face Thus powreth forth her dolefull grief O God of Gods If this be thy pleasure and my deserts Why sleep thy thunderbolts If I must perish by fire Let thy fire be my Executioner And so credit my death Thee O Jove being the Author Dixerat haec tellus neque enim tolerare vaporem Vlterius potuit nec dicere plura suumque Retulit os in se This said her voyce her parched tongue forsooke No longer could she smothering vapours brooke But down into herself with drew her head Near to th' infernal Caverns of the dead When shee had done prayers she shrunk in her venerable head for heat would not permit her to use Complements Which Oration no sooner came to Great Jupiters ear but he presently sends relief At Pater omnipotens superos testatus ipsum Qui dederat Currus Consiliumque vocat tenuit mora nulla vocatos The Almighty calleth a Parliament Summons â—n both Lords and Commons to the Counsel For â—lthough none can deny but that the Omnipotent hath an absolute power without the consent of â—he Inferiour Gods his subjects both to abrogate â—ld and institute new Laws yet such is his Royal indulgence that he will do neither without their consent Yet search the Catalogue of Antiquity and you will never finde a President that his Lords or Commons did ever dispute his authority much less assume his power and pluck the Regal Diadem from off their Soveraigns head It is his goodness which makes them capable of a Consent his Statutes are binding without it But to return Jupiter determins the death of Phaeton and dasheth him out of the Chariot with a violent thunderbolt and re-establisheth Royal Phoebus in his Throne Intonat dextra libratum fulmen ab aure Misit in aurigam pariterque animaque rotisque Exuit saevis compescuit ignibus ignes Et Phaeton rutilos flamma populante capillos Volvitur in praeceps He thunders and with hands that cannot erre Hurls lightning at the audatious Charioter Him strook he from his seat breath from his brest Both at one blow and flames with flames supprest And soul-less Phaeton with blazing hair Shot headlong through a long descent of air Now have you seen both the ascention of Phaetoâ— into the Chariot and his descention out of it Mâ— prayers shall be that I may never rise so high tâ— fall so low But the greatest Tyants in the world have oftentimes the greatest pompe of the world at their funeral to compleat their earthly happiness Therefore Reader take his Epitaph and consider whether it is not better to live a faithfull subject then dye a bold adventurous Traytor Hic situs est Phaeton Currus auriga paterni Quem si non tenuit magnis tamen excidit ausis Here lies Phaeton who though he could not guide His Fathers steeds in high attempts he dyed The Entrance of the AUTHOR who complaining of the times wherein the good are ejected and the wicked kill and take possession sheweth that those who unjustly against law are driven out of their own Country are not banished But that those who are unjust acting against right and deserve banishment by law are banisht though they continue upon their native soil With an Antidote out of venerable Petrack for all aswell Kings as other men who are illegally expelled from their Country THus ended Phaeton and consequently the History with him from whose ruins I will take my Exordium And Exemplo monstrante viam imitating my Mother Earth in her persecution shalâ— first lift up my head and hands to the God oâ— Gods and begin with a short Ejaculation though in King Davids words yet the same in effect with hers Summe Deum liceat periturae viribus ignis Igne perire tuc clademque autore levare Be 't by thy fire if I in fire must fry The Author lessens the calamity Let me fall into the hands of the Lord for very great are his mercies but let me not fall into the hands of man O happy David O happy Prayer O happy Success
That no Arms are to be borne in London or Westminster in the time of Parliament Lest the proceedings in that high Court pro bono publico should thereby be hindred or disturbed For it is more congruous for Red-coats with their Pikes Muskets Swords and other ammunition to keep a Den of Theeves than to keep the Members of so honourable a Court. 3 Jnst 160. 4 Jnst 14. 18. When an Act of Parliament is against Common right or reason as that Debtors should not pay their debts c. or repugnant or impossible to be performed the Common Law shall controle it and adjudge it to be voyd And such is an Act for a perpetual Parliament or to kill the King Dier 313. li. 8.118 Doctor Bonhams case 19. The premisses being rightly and duely considered if any person be so impudent insolent and arrogant as to deny the King his Negative voyce in Parliament They may aswell deny him his life and take upon them to frame a new Law and Commonwealth to themselves Shall the Commons have a Negative voyce who are most of them Tradesmen and not educated in the Law but in Mechanick handy-crafts And shall not the King have this priviledge who is assisted by the advice of the Judges his Counsel at Law Sollicitor Atturney Masters of Chancery and Counsel of State consisting of some great Prelates and other great Personages versed in State affairs 20. The Parliament is actually dissolved by the demise of the King For the Individuum Carolus Rex being gone from whence they derived their power consequently their authority is gone likewise For cessante statu primitivo câ—ssat derivativus And Derivativa potestas non potest esse major primitivo The Division of Governments Monarchy is the most natural and Divine The King hath no equal in his Kingdome Soveraignty can not be divided beâ—ween the King and the People Neither can the People either jointly or singlely have the supreme power where the Government is Monarchical The tenets of our new Statesmen yet old Knaves confuted as damnable Parliaments have no power but from the King neither did ever any Parliament unless our late Rebels ever claim any power but what came from the King But all Parliaments ever since they had their being by the very Statutes which the King made with their consent have acknowledged the supreme power to be in the King and have sworn it with sacred oaths So did that Parliâ—mâ—nt which murthered their King swear that the only supreme power and Soveraignty was in the King next to God and that there was no power on earth above his which being true I would fain know what power they had not only to remove their King from his evil Counsellers which they did in removing him from themselves but also from the Land of the living Quos Deus sed c. HAving dissolved the Parliament and set foot on the ground of the Politician let us travel a little further and take a survey of the main Triangle upon which the art of Government consists viz. 1. Monarchy 2 Aristocracy 3. Democracy or popular estate which degenerate into 1. Tyranny 2. Oligarchy 3. Ochlocracy or Commonwealth And first of Monarchy For a principalioribus seu dignioribus est inchoandum The most excellent must have precedency Monarchy which we may call a Kingdome is where the absolute Soveraignty lyeth in the power of one only Prince for so much the word Monarchy of it self importeth who ruleth either according to the rule of Law and equity or contrary Which form of Government doth as far transcend and excel all others as the glorious Sun doth the pale-fâ—ced Moon or the Moon the lesser Stars It is the Embleme of the Almighty For behold the blessed Trinity where there are three persons but one God There is an Arch-angel The Angels adore but one Lord and Soveraign Take a view of the heavenly Orb where you shall see the caelestial creatures give place to the Kingly Sun The Moon ruleth Queen regent amongst the Stars Behold the Eagle the King of the Birds of the air The Lyon the King of the beasts on the earth And the Whale the King of fishes in the sea Fire hath the majestick preheminence above the other Elements among granes the wheat among drinks the wine among spices the baulm among metals the gold The Devills themselves will not be so disorderly as not to have a King for Satan is their Prince and chiefest Leader The Members of the Natural body are subjects to the Head their Soveraign and the same Congruity and Harmony is there in the Politique body of Monarchy And such is the stately preheminence of this Government that the Monarch can admit of no Peer in his Kingdome no more than the Sun can of an other Sun in the Firmament Si duo soles velint essâ— periculum ne incendio omnia perdantur Serinus If two be equal in power in a Commonwealth it is Aristocracy or rather Duarchy and not Monarchy For one of them hath not Soveraignty over the other For Par in parem non habet potestatem he only is a Soveraign who commandeth all others and can himâ—elf by none be commanded Then no less foolish than wicked and detestable is their opinion who confess their Government to be Monarchical yet would have Duo summa imperia and hold that the Universe of the people are of equal if not higher power than their Monarch and may call him in question for his actions and prosecute him even unto death if they please who make their dreadfull Soveraign a Jack a Lâ—nt a Minister of trust at the best to be turned out of his Office at their pleasure when God and all the World knows that by the Law of God as I shewed before and shall more fully shew hereafter the Law of Nations the Law of Nature and the Law of England both Common and Statute They ought not to touch him though in truth he were so wicked as they would have and pretend him to be No they ought not so much as to think an evil thought of him Quod summum est vnum est Soveraignty is a thing indivisible and cannot at one and the same time be divided between the King and his Subjects If the Soveraignty be in the people then is the Government either Popular or Aristocratical and not Monarchical To mix the estate of a Monarchy with Democratical or Aristocratical estate each having a share of the Soveraignty is altogether impossible For if every one of the three estate or but two of them hath power to make Laws who should be the Subjects to obey them or who could give the Law being himself constramed to receive of them unto whom he himself gave it Then might the King make the acting of his people against him treason and the people make the acting of their King against them treason which would bring all to Anarchical confusion And although our age had produced such a Monster
into an act of joyning with them to take the Regal Diadem from off their pious Soveraigns head place it on their own fanatick Coxcombs and so become our good Lords Masters of all that we have for never was king illegally dethroned but a hundred Tyrants came in his room Regem quidem apparet eos sustulisse sed nec minus manifestum est Regnum sibi retinuisse dum quod sub uno erat in plures diviserunt triginta ac septem socios tyrannidis adscivere qui imperium secum tenerent gravique intollerando servitio cives suos premerent nam sub specie libertatis tyrannidem saevissimam velle eos exercere vel caecis clarum est saith Sal. But caveat emptor let them take heed they do not purchase their vain glory at too dear a rate their counterfeit dissembling may find a real Hell Nec est diuturna possâ—ssio in quam gladio inducimur this world will not last alwaies Let them assure themselves the people did never give nor ought for to take the power of their King Non tribuamus dandi Regni potestatem nisi Deo vero Let us not attribute the power of disposing of kingdoms to any but to the true God saith St. Austin de Civit. Dei li. 5. c. 21. Nemo enim ante infelicissimam hanc nostram tempestatem non fassus est Principem populo dominari Principi vero Deum For no man before these most unhappy times of ours did ever deny but that the King ought to govern the people and the King to be governed by none but God saith Barclay Had I not known that our Regicides have voted the Lords prayer as well as kings useless for uno absurdo dato mille sequuntur over Shooes over Boots I should have wondred with what face they could conclude their Prayers to the Almighty saying For thine is the kingdom the power and the glory for ever Amen yet claim the same power to themselves for if theirs be the kingdom the power and the glory if they have power to make and unmake kings when they please then what or where is Gods power Surely if their Doctrine be true then our Saviours is false and he did ill to teach us to pray and command us to say Thine is the kingdom the power and the glory for ever and ever But let God he true and every man a Lyar. Our Saviour is the Truth and the Light and if these men had been inlightned by our Saviours doctrin the darkness of these errors would never have so damnably blinded them who make God a Parenthâ—sis thinking themselves perfect and compleat without him and profess that the king whose â—oodness like their wickedness is incomparable is but a Brat of their own begetting and that they like God may take him away as occasion shall serve These Antimonians who pick out places of Scripture only to destroy Scripture that they may be Canonical in all things and do nothing without the Bible say that the people make the King and that they are so taught out of Gods word For 1 Sam. 11.15 All the people went to Gilgal and there they made Saul King before the Lord in Gilgal which say they is an invincible proof that the people made Saul their King and not God and so consequently all Kings are made by the people but if these men will tie themselves up so strictly to the letter of the Scripture because it makes for their purpose as they suppose that they will not hearken to the true meaning and interpretation let their own weapons kill them for 1 Sam. 12.1 Samuel said unto all Israel Behold I have harkned unto your voice in all that ye said unto me and have made a King over you This verse saith that Samuel made the King which is the very next verse to theirs which saith that the people made the King so that litterally one of these verses must needs speak falsly for if the people made the King then Samuel did not but if Samuel made the king then the people did not so that this Dilemma must needs confute our new Doctors But let Scripture interpret Scripture and the interpretation will tell you that God only made the king For though the people say We will set a king over us Deuter. 17.14 Yet they must in any wise set him king over them whom the Lord their God shall chuse The Lord must who only can give their king Soveraign power he must make and give the king The people have only power to receive and set him over them 1 Sam. 10.1 Samuel took a vyal of Oil and poured it on his head But the Lord anointed him King he is the Lords anointed not Samuels For why Is it not because the Lord hath anointed thee to be Captain over his Inheritance Saith Samuel Paul may plant and Apollo may water but God only giveth the encrease God is Master of the Substance and only giveth regal power Samuel c. and the people are but masters of the Ceremony and the Coronation of Kings is only a Declaration to the people that God hath given them a King Outward Vnctions and Solemnities used at coronations are but only Ceremonies which confer no power to the King For it was his from the Lord. 1 Ki. 2.15 The Elders of Judah and Israel chose David to be their King and anointed him over them 2 Sam. 5.3 But they did not give him power or right unto his kingdom For saith God 1 Sam. 16.3 I will shew thee what thou shalt do and thou shalt anoint unto me him whom I name unto thee The people make the King not by giving him Soveraign power for that feather doth not grow in their wing but by receiving him and approving that which God hath done For the Lord the King of all the Earth ruleth in the Kingdom of Men and giveth it to whomsoever he will Psal 4.7 Dan. 4.25 Old Horace more a Divine than most of these new Sectaries the incendiaries of all mischief could teach them this truth Regum timendorum in proprios greges Reges in ipsos imperium êst Jovis Clari Gigantaeo triumpho Cuncta supercilio moventis Fear'd Kings command on their own ground The King commanding Kings is Jove Whose arm the Gyants did confound Whose awfull brow doth all things move Which Sentence lest it should seem too light and savour too much of Poetical assentation Let our Antichristians for those who by their practise though not which their mouths deny Christs Doctrine deserve no better name hearken unto the Words of our Saviour if they will vouchsafe to debase themselves so much and behold what Doctrine he preached to Pilate which is the more remarkable because it was his last John 19.11 Iesus answered Thou couldest have no power at all against me except it were given thee from above For Cujus jussu homines nascuntur illius jussu reges constituuntur He who made men made Kings That Kings
who was it that murthered the King Was it the people Every man knoweth that it was neither the people nor the Parliament But a Company of Jesuitical treacherous Rebels and damnable Usurpers Who flaming the people in the mouth with a tale that the supreme power was in the people made use of this power themselves against the wills of the people as an Engine to perform and bring to passe all their wicked and horrible designs But say they we are the peoples Representatives chosen by the people and so what we do they do Catch a Knave without a Knaves answer and he will give you leave to hang him I must confesse if this were true they might have somewhat the more colour though not the more honesty for what they do But this is as false as themselves For the people chose them to sit in Parliament and act according to the Kings Writ as part of the Kings Parliament according to the Laws of the Realm But since the Parliament is destroyed for what Parliament can there be without a King and House of Lords such a headlesse Monster was never seen untill of late Consequently their power which they derived from the people is gone also Neither are the Commons in Parliament the representative body of the whole Kingdom or people For they do not represent the King who is the head nor the Lords who are the nobler and higher part of the body of the Realm the Commons only represent the Inferior and lower sort of the people but if they did as they do not represent the whole body yet did not the people ever give them any power to cut off their Kings head For the Lords voted it unlawful all the honest Commons forsook the House and the people were all displeased except a few of their own hatching up and every one else murmured against it The Nobility mourned The Gentry were amazed The Common people wept and men women and Children did cry The Heavens cloathed themselves in black And the Sun hid his face The Lion King of Beasts died at the â—ight of his royal blood And the wild foules came wondering to see this execrable fact on the Scaffold And if the Thundering and Lightening of the Almighty be a true sign of Gods Angry Deity Then even from this we may conclude that these Regicides took too much upon them and very much provoked his wrath For Diespiter Igni coruseo nubila dividens Plerumque per purum tonantes Egit equos volucremque currum The Heavens roared with thunder which made the earth shake and the darts of fiery lightening threatened the ruines of both And who can think upon this worse than Gunpowder-Treason plot for then was but intended that which now is put in Execution viz. The murther of our gracious King and the subversion of all Laws and Religion with him and not justly expect all the Plagues of Aegypt and the punishment of Sodom and Gomorah to fall upon him and the whole people For Hor. Hoc fonte derivata clades In patriam populumque fluxit From the death of the King as from a fountain did flow the slaughter of the Nobility and people with the ruine of the Glory and freedom of the English Nation Tantae molis erat perversam condere gentem Such and so great villanies were perpetrated to raise this generation of Vipers Yet forsooth they will tell you that the supreme power and Soveraignty is in the people and that they act under them O grand Delusion Did the people turn out the long Parliament Did the people set up Oliver Protector Did the people turn out Dick his son Did the people foist up again the Rump of the long Parliamene Or did they hunt them out again Did the people sanctifie the Committee of Safety over them Or did they hunt in the Rump again Or have they made all the Revolutions and Choppings and Changings amongst us No neither the people nor their Representatives But the Devil his Representatives have been the cause of all our subversions For as the people have not so neither did the twentieth part of them ever challenge or claim the supreme power But have alwaies acknowledged the Soveraignty to be only in their King and only Soveraign only under God Reader take notice that in many places of this Book by the word Parliament is meant those Traytors the House of Commons who have unjustly usurped the name of Parliament For by the known Laws of the Land there can be no Parliament without the King Therefore let every one of the Regicides repent and pray to God to open his eyes and that the scales of blindnesse may fall from them that he may see his duty which is so evidently written in the Scripture and all other pious Writers which is to fear God and to honour his King which is acceptable in the sight of the Lord. And so I shut up my discourse with these verses which I would have the Reader get without book for his Edification Astra Deo nil majus habent nil Caesare terrae Sic Caesar terras ut Deus astra regit Imperium regis Caesar Deus astra gubernat Caesar honore suo dignus amore Deus Dignus amore Deus dignus quoque Caesar honore est Alter enim terras alter astra regit Cum Deus in coelis Caesar regâ—t omnia terris Censum Caesaribus Solvile vôta Deo A Tyrant without a Title set out in all his Colours and proved by the Laws both of God and man by the sentence of all honest and wise men by the vote of Antiquity and several Examples That it is most lawfull and glorious for any man either publique or private to fall upon Tyrants and kill them without Examination according to the usual forms of Judicature Where the consent of the people after Vsurpation makes an Vsurpers Title good and where not That the assent of the people cannot ratify any Government without him so long as their King liveth though banished but all their acting is Illegal How Tyrants pretend the safety of the people only for their own safe-guard and how they delude the people with specious names for their Magna Latrocinia their great villanies and robberies The Devil was a Rebel so are they and like Satan they have their power only by permission with an incitement to all men to execute them for these are not the Dignities we should obey LEt us now take our Swords in our hands and arme our selves to incounter with this Tyrant sine Titulo a Tyrant without a Title That bird of prey that beast of the game Orbis flagellum that scourge of the world that Devourer of Mankind Fulmen belli that Thunderbolt of war that Maule of the earth Poliâ—rcletes that destroyer of Cities that Hangman that Murtherer that great Robber whose might is his only right whose multitude of thieves makes him formidable builds himself up with honest mens blood feared by all men and fears
his Majesty before he was crowned King But it was clearly resolved by all the Judges of England that presently by the descent his Majesty was compleatly and absolutely King without any essential ceremony or act to be done Ex post facto and that Coronation was but a royal ornament and outward solemniation of the descent And this evidently appeareth by infinite Presidents and book cases where such execrable opinions have been no sooner hatched than destroyed and if the Judges of our age had been so honest as to have cropped in the bud such like opinions broached by the Rebells Charls the first had still been our King and we a flourishing and happy Kingdom Although the King of England hath two Capacities the one by Nature the other by Policy yet ligeance is due to the King in his natural capacity and his natural and politick body make but one indivisible body Plo. 213. The Oath of Alligeance is made to the natural person of the King so is the Oath of Supremacy and all Inditements of Treason when any do intend or compasse mort◠et destructionem Domini Regis the death and destruction of the Lord our King which must needs be understood of his natural body for his politick body is immortal and not subject to death the Inditement concludeth contra ligeantiae suae debitum ergo the ligeance is due to the natural body vid. Fitt Justice of Peace 53. Plo. Com. 384. in the Earl of Leicesters case It is true that the King in genere dyeth not but no question in individuo he dyeth as for example Charls the first dyed yet the King is not dead because Charls the second whom God preserve is still alive For by the Laws of England there can be no interregnum within the same lib. 7.11 And to affirm as the Traytors now do that the Kings power is separable from his person is high Treason by the Law of the Land hear the Oracle of the Law tell you so lib. 7.11 In the Reign saith he of Edward the second the Spencers the Father and the Son to cover the Treason hatched in their hearts invented this damnable and damned opinion that Homage and Oath of Ligeance was more by reason of the Kings Crown that is of his politick capacity than by reason of the person of the King upon which opinion they inferred execrable and detestable consequents 1. If the King do not demean himself by reason in the right of his Crown his Lieges are bound by Oath to remove the King 2. Seeing that the King could not be reformed by Sute of Law that ought to be done by aspertee that is by force 3. That his Lieges be bound to Govern in aid of him and in default of him All which were condemned by two Parliaments one in the Reign of E. 2. called exilium Hugonis le Spencer and the other in Anno 1 E. 3. cap. 1. If the opinions of the Spencers were so wicked and detestable what then are the actions of the Rebells of our age who have put in practice what was but intended by the Spencers and that they might reform the King according to their minds cut off his head because he was a headhigher than they O Monstrous Reformers Did I not know that the Euthusiasts of our times do by their diabolical interpretations subvert even the Holy word of the Almighty making themselves absolute Kings over the Scripture to do what they please with it though they will not permit their King to have Soveraignty over themselves his Vassals And like the raging torrent of the foaming flouds which running down the lofty Hills demolisheth and carrieth away all opposites in its roaring Streams or as the violent fury of a Masterless headstrong multitude who hew down Kings as well as Royal Subjects in their tempestuous fury so these men set upon the Bible and stretch every Text of Scripture to their own meaning although there is as great a distance between their meaning and the Scripture as there was betwixt the Glutton in Hell and Lazarus in Abrahams Bosom in Heaven else should I wonder how they could seem to make the very Letter of the Law speak against the very Letter and like the Philosophers stone which turneth all things into Gold so the tongues of these men turn the sense of all the Lawbooks into their golden meaning and cite those books as authorities on their sides which are so contrary and opposite against them as if they had been purposely prepared to encounter and confute them For where is the Kings Soveraignty more fully demonstrated and evidenced than in Reverend Bracton and what book so much abūsed as his For lib. 2. cap. 24. speaking of Liberties and who had power to give them Quis saith he who hath power he answereth that the King hath For Sciendum quòd ipse dominus Rex qui ordinariam habet jurtsdictionem et dignitatem et potestatem super omnes qui in regno suo sunt habet enim omnia jura in manu sua quae ad coronam et laicalem pertinent potestatem materialem gladium qui pertinet ad regni gubernaculum habet etiam justitiam et judicium quae sunt jurisdictiones ut ex jurisdictione suae sicut dei minister vicarius tribuat unicuique quod suum fuerit Habet enim ea quae sunt pacis ut populus sibi traditus in pace sileat quiescat ne quis alterum verberet vulneret vel male tractet ne quis alienam rem per vim roberiam auferat vel asportet ne quis hominem Mahemiet vel occidat Habet enim coercionem ut delinquentes puniat coerceat Item habet in potestate sua leges constitutiones assisas in regno suo provisas et approbatas et juratas ipse in propria persona observet et subditis suis faciat observari nihil enim prodest jura condere nisi sit qui jura tueatur Habet igitur Rex hujusmodi jura five jurisdictiones in manu sua And again in the same Chapter ea quae jurisdictionis funt pacis ea quae sunt justitiae paci annexae ad nullum pertinent nisi ad coronam dignitatem regiam nec a Corona separari poterunt cum faciant ipsam Coronam The sum of which in English is this the King hath supreme power in all civil causes the Law floweth solely from him he is super omnes above all men in his Kingdom all jurisdictions are in him The material Sword of right belongs to him and whatsoever conduces to peace that the people committed to his charge may live peaceably and quietly The power of holding Assizes is derived from him and of punishing Delinquents for it would be in vain to Enact Laws if there was not some body enabled to protect us by defending them c. And the same Author saith lib. 2. ca. 9. Potentia vero omnes sibi subitos praecellere parem autem habere
non debet nec multo fortiùs superiorem and a little after in the same Chapter Exercere Rex debet potestatem juris sicùt dei vicarius in terra et minister quia ea potestas solius Dei est The King doth excell all his Subjects in power He hath no Equal much lesse a Superiour because his power is from God only he is Gods Vicar Therefore not the Peoples And again li. 1. ca. 8. Item in temporalibus sunt Imperatores Reges et Principes in hiis quae pertinent ad regnum et sub eis Duces Comites Barones magnates sive Vavasores et Milites et etiam liberi et villani et diversae Potestates sub rege constitutae And a little after sunt etiam sub Rege liberi homines et servi ejus Potestati Subjecti Et omnis quidem sub eo et ipse sub nullo nisi tantum sub Deo Parem autem non habet in regno suo quia sic amitteret praeceptum cum par in partem non habeat imperium Item nec multo fortius superiorem nec potentiorem habere debet quia sic esset inferior sibi subjectis et inferiores pares esse non possunt potentioribus ipse autem Rex non debet esse sub Homine sed sub Deo et sub Lege quia Lex facit Regem Dukes Earls Baronets Knights the Worthies of the Land Free-Men and Villains all are under the King and the King under none but God He hath no Peer in his Realm because then he would lose his command for amongst Equals there can be no Empire therefore much lesse hath he any Superiour or more powerfull than himself because then he would be inferiour to his Subjects and Inferiours as the Subjects are cannot be equal with the more powerfull as the King is But the King ought not to be under man but under God and the Law because the Law makes him King But what if the King should swerve from the Rules of the Law destroy his Subjects and their Estates without a cause May the Subjects take up arms against their Soveraign and compell him by force to do that which they cannot perswade him to by fair meams No saith Bracton li. 1. ca. 8. Si autem ab eo petatur cum breve non currat contra ipsum locus erit supplicationi quòd factum suum corrigat et emendet quod quidem si non fecerit satis sufficit ei ad paenam quod dominum expectet ultorem Nemo quidem de factis suis praesumat disputare multo fortius contra factum suum-venire No Enditement of high Treason c. lieth against the King our only remedy is to Petition his sacred Majesty but if he will not hearken to our just and reasonrble requests satis sufficit Nay his punishment is more than enough for he must render an account one day to him who judgeth righteously who will give us all a hearing the Beggar as well as the King But let not men in the mean time presume to question the deeds of the King much lesse Rebel against him and undoe by force what the King shall do though not according to right And that you may know that Bracton fully meant that the Subjects ought not to rise against the King though he acted unjustly He repeats his mind in other places li. 5. Tract 3. de defaltis cap. 3.3 where he puts the case that if the King should do injury and will not suffer the Law but his will to take place Quo casu cum dominus Rex super hoc fuerit interpellatus in eadem perstiterit voluntate quod velit tenentem esse defensum injuria cum teneatur justitiam totis viribus defensare ex tunc erit injuria ipsius domini Regis nec poterit ei necessitatem aliquis imponere quòd iâ—laâ— corrigat et emendet nisi velit cum superiorem non habeat nisi deum et satis erit illi pro paena quòd deum expectat ultorem If the King who is bound to administer justice to his utmost power being Petitioned will not recall and amend the wrong he did he injures his Subjects but no body can force him to do right because he hath the Supreme power he hath no Superiour but God and it is punishment enough for him to expect that God to whom vengeance only belongeth will take vengeance on him To every point which I have cited out of Bracton doth Fleta unanimously agree What man then so impudently wicked What hand so wilfully audacious what pen can there be so repugnant and contradictory to all truth as to affirm and publish to the world that Bracton writeth and is so to be understood viz. That the people have the Soverainty over the King and may call him in question for his actions so punish him for his offences O Traytor to the King and Sycophant of Bracton Mr. Willian Prynne of Lincolns-Inne is the man who with his Hand and Pen I cannot say Heart hath promulged this false Doctrine to the World in his Book called The Soveraign Power of Parliaments and Kingdoms Wherein according to Mr. Sandersons expression in his History of King Charls the 1st fo 117. Prynne pretends to overthrow all Scripture proofs against killing Kings and Princes For my part I bear not the least grudge or animosity to the mans person But his book is such a rapsody of nonsense a bundle of Rebellion and Treason a Pamplet so Seditious Pernicious Sophistical Jesuitical Trayterous and Scurrulous that I want Mr. Prynnes Epithites to give his own book its deserved Odium Wherein as Mr. Fuller in his Church History lib. 11. fol. 152. well observeth he delighteth more to be numerous with many than ponderous with select quotations which maketh his Books to swell with the losse of tentimes of the Reader sometimes of the Printer and his pen generally querulous hath more of the Plantiff than of the Defendant therein I mention Mr. Prynne and his book here only to put him in mind of the wrong which he hath done both to our Soveraign the King and the whole Kingdom He being the greatest if not the only Champion who rook upon him to vindicate and applaud those treacherous damnable and rebellious proceedings and unchristian inhumane and unnatural Warr against the King of that Monster called the Long Parliament whom now he laboureth as much to vilifye as he did then to promote O Trayterous Offspring which killeth his Mother only because she will not give him suck If he repent why doth he not write a book of retractations If he looketh upon his book intituled The lawfulnesse of the Parliaments necessary defensive War both in point of Law and Conscience I am sure he will have cause enough to repent of his writing if he hath any Law or Conscience in him And he hath no way better to redeem his credit than by a publique Confession God may pardon him and the King may pardon him if
is never good which turneth again and the good Christian will suffer himself to be broken in a thousand pieces before he will turn again with resistance against his persecuting King for why He knoweth that though he suffer here on Earth yet God will glorifie him in Heaven though he be contemned by the King yet he shall be exalted by God and though he dye by the Kings unlawfull command yet his comfort is that his dead body shall arise by the eternal Decree of the Almighty and so the good will always receive praise of the Power Neither are the Rulers a terrour to him because he always aboundeth with good works Hor. Integer vitae scelerisque purus Non eget Mauri Jaculis nequè arcuâ— Nec Venenatis gravida sagitis Fusce Pharetra Who lives upright and pure of heart Oh Fuscus neither needs the Dart Nor Bow nor Quiver fraught with store Of Shafts envenom'd by the Moor. Innocence is the only buckler which protecteth a loyal Subject from the terrour of his Soveraign But Traytors who have rebelled against their king deserved death by the known Laws of the Land These men must preach up Mr. Prynnes Doctrine to cover their malice hold the truth in unrighteousnesse and when with offensive Arms contrary to all Law and Religion and against their allegiance and oaths they set upon the Kings sacred Majesty and with an innumerous multitude of unhallowed Rebels they fight against and strive to murther their dread Soveraign in the open Air They must have the impudence with Mr. Prynne to excuse themselves may think it a glorious Apology To averr confidently that it was never the meaning of St. Paul nor the Holy Ghost to inhibit Subjects to take up defensive Arms against Kings themselves And thus they invoke St. Paul himself and the Holy Ghost to patronize their wicked Treasons and unparallel'd Rebellions and belch out Blasphemy to defend their injustice and themselves from the justice of their injured Soveraign The Apostles did not only teach us with their Doctrine that resistance of the power was unlawful but also suffered themselves to be wickedly massacred and murthered before they would resist an unjust power Nay all the primitive Christians which Mr. Prynne confesseth although they were many in number and sufficiently able to defend themselves against their Persecutors by force and Arms yet did refuse to do it yielding themselves up to any tortures punishments deaths without the least resistance of the power either in word or deed Nay our Saviour himself acknowledged that Pilate had power given him from above to Crucifie him as you may read in St. Iohn 19.10 Then saith Pilate unto him Speakest thou not unto me knowest thou not that I have power to Crucifie thee and have power to release thee Jesus answered Thou couldest have no power at all against me except it were given thee from above Therefore he which delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin Yet Mr. Prynne with his confident averrment for he cannot bring one word of Scripture for what he saith goeth about to maintain the defensive Warr as he calls it of the Subjects against their Soveraign Lord the King lawfull both in point of Law and Conscience Tantumnè potest suadere malorum Religio Could his Religion do this His surely and only his for it is against the foundation of Christian Religion and Mr. Prynne must publish a new Gospel or else rectifie the Bible at the Presbyterian Oracle before his King-killing books will be Canonical He bringeth his arguments from the time that never was nor ever will be for saith he 2d pâ—rt of his Soveraign power of Parliaments fo 82 83. Kingdoms were before Kings ergo the King hath no absolute negative voyce c. I alwayes thought that Kings were before Kingdoms they being correlativa and doubtlesse if Fathers were before Sons and Masters before Servants then Mr. Prynne speaks nonsense but for his Apology you must understand that he means Countryes and people were before Kings but I think that is false too for the first man Adam was a King and Mr. Prynne cannot shew any time before England was governed by Kings And the word Kingdom in the Reports of our book cases and in Acts of Parliaments also is oftentimes taken for the King himself as you may read in Calvins case lib. 7.12 Therefore since by the Laws of the Land there can be no Parliament without the King that the word Kingdom is often used for the King himself who can deny the truth of the Title of Mr. Prynnes book which saith That the Parliament and Kingdom are the Soveraign power But latet anguis in herba Open the leaves of his book and you will see the mystery of iniquity clouted together If the King saith Mr. Prynne dye without heir then the people might make what lawes they should think fit Ergo the Members at this day have power without the King to make Lawes and are the most absolute supreme power and law-giver not the King If the Sky fall we may perhaps catch Larks but it doth not therefore follow that we may catch Larks presently Mr. Prynne knoweth that it is a Maxim in Law that the King never dyeth But admit the King should dye without heir and that then the people had power to make Lawes yet grosse it were to conclude that the members of the two Houses might so do because they are dissolved and are extinct when the King dyeth Therefore with more reason as a Royalist observes the King might argue thus All the lands in England are holden mediatly or immediately of the King and if the owners dye without heir by the lawes of the Realm their lands escheat to the Crown and so become at the Kings disposal But every man may dye without heir Ergo All the lands in England at this present are the proper inheritance of the King No Lawyer can deny Major or Minor yet the Conclusion thereupon is absurd The Court of Parliament saith Mr. Prynne hath power to avoid the Kings Charters c. made against law Ergo it hath the Soveraign power and is above the King and why not Ergo the Court of Chancery or any other of the Courts of Law at Westminster have the soveraign power and are above the King for they have power to nullifie and avoid the Kings Charters c. made against Law But I am sick of Mr. Prynnes impertinence and nonsense if any one be desirous to drink more of it I referre him to the Ocean his Book I will only give you a taste of the abuses which Mr. Prynne hath cast on Venerable Bracton and how Mr. Prynne endeavoureth to make Bracton speak Mr. Prynne's own sense against Bracton's own sense expresse words and meaning And since Mr. Prynne can make the Gospel and Holy Ghost speak what he pleaseth no wonder if he hath the Law-books at his beck Bracton saith as you have already heard That the King
hath no Peer in his Kingdome for so he should lose his Empire since Peers or Equals have no command over one another much more then ought he not to have a superiour or mightier for so he should be inferiour to those who are subject to him and inferiours cannot be equal to superiours Now saith Mr. Prynne according to the old Jesuitical distinction The meaning of Bracton is That the King is above every one of his subjects and hath no Peer nor superiour if they be taken particularly and distributively as single men but if we take them collectively in Parliament as they are one body and represent the whole Kingdome then the Subjects are above the King and may yea ought to restrain and question his actions his Male-administrations if their be just cause By which meaning of Bracton as he calleth it but in truth only his own Mr. Prynne would prove the Parliament to have the Soveraign power over the King and Kingdome Truly I think the very recital of what Bracton hath written and what Mr. Prynne writeth is Bracton's meaning is enough to convince and make appear even to the blind that Mr. Prynne is worse than a false Commentator and an absurd deceiver But howsoever I will examine them and let the world judge how they agree The King hath no Peer in his Kingdome saith Bracton But the Parliament and people the Kings Subjects are in his Kingdome Ergo neither the Parliament nor people collectively or distributively are the Kings Peer or equal But why hath the King no Peer in his Kingdome Because then he should lose his Empire So he should if the Parliament was his Peer and Bracton did never intend that the King should lose his Empire for he saith the King ought by no meanes to have a superiour or mightier Mr. Prynne saith he ought by all meanes to have the Parliament his superiour and mightier But wherefore ought not the King to have a Superiour because saith Bracton so he should be inferiour to those who are subject to him The Parliament and People confess themselves to be the Kings Subjects yet Mr. Prynn would have them to be the Kings Superiour Expressly against Bractons words and meaning and a meer nonsensical Contradiction And the reason why Mr. Prynne saith Bracton did only mean that any single man was not the Kings Superiour or Equal not the Parliament is because Bracton saith Rex non habet parem nec Superiorem in regno suo seing Parem and Superiorem in the singular number I pray what Latine would Mr. Prynne have Bracton speak could he have expressed himself better and too Mr. Prynne pretendeth the Parliament to be only the Kings Superiour not Superiours Therefore doth not the singular number fully answer Mr. Prynne in all points but Mr. Prynne may hear Bracton confute him in the plural number too if he please as I have already shewed saying Rex habet potestatem et jurisdictionem super omnes qui in regno suo sunt and again Potentia vero omnes fibi subditos praecellet Where is Mr. Prynns almighty Parliament now Bracton telleth him if they be in the Kings Dominions that the King hath power over and above them and Mr. Prynne must find out some Utopia for them in the air to inhabit before he can prove either by Law or Gospel that the Parliament is above of hath Soveraign power over the King Ipse autem Rex non debet esse sub homine sed sub Deo et sub Lege quia Lex facit Regem saith Bracton but the King himself ought to be under the Parliament saith Mr. Prynne and why not under the women for if Mr. Prynne will say that the Parliament is not comprehended in the word Homine so likewise may he say that neither are women Bracton saith that the King ought to be under none but God and unless Mr. Prynne can make his Parliament a God Almighty he can never make out that the King is under it For according to Bractons Doctrine the King is under none but God Omnis quidem sub rege et ipse sub nullo nisi tantum sub Deo Which is sufficient testimony that the King is under no mortal man or men yet he is sub Lege under the Law because the Law maketh the King Ergo saith Mr. Prynne The Parliament maketh the King and Governeth him with the Laws which the Parliament first made O Grand Imposture Can any man but Mr. Prynne forge such a consequence Rex solutus a Legibus quò ad vim coactivam subditus est legibus quo ad vim directivam propria voluntate The King indeed is under the Law because he will be ruled by the Law but if he will not no man hath power to compel or punish him according to the opinion of Thomas Aquinas The King is free from the Coercive power of the Law but he may be subject to its directive power yet according to his own will and inclination that is God can only compell and command him but the Law and his Courts may direct and advise him Every honest man is bound to perform and fulfill his word and the King is so much under and subject to the Laws which he maketh that he will perform and fulfill them but if not Dominum expectet ultorem which is the only punishment for Kings And satis sufficit that is enough too according to Reverend Bracton But that the Parliament therfore maketh the King and may question his actions according to Mr. Prynns Sophistry is a meer non sequitur The Law indeed maketh the King for he hath a legal Title to his Crown he is made our King by the Law of God and the Law of the Kingdom which cannot be without a King but that the Law of the Parliament or that the Law by the Parliament made the King is such a Chimaera that is no where to be found but in Mr. Prynnes unsetled brain For the King of England was made a long time before Parliaments were invented or thought on The King indeed first made Parliaments and gave them their being who now have unmade their King and took away his living O ungrateful Servants who rob their Master O ungracious Children who murther their Father which begot them So much for Mr. Prynne and his pestilent book the prodigious offspring of a revengeful head whom I would not have mentioned but to vindicate the truth for which I will both live and dye One thing Reader I recommend to thee worthy of the observation of all Christians and as a just judgement of the Almighty God Psal 33.10 who bringeth the Counsel of the Heathen to nought and maketh the devices of the people of none effect Which is that Mr. Prynne who was the only Champion to fight against the truth with his pen as the Rebels did with their Swords to maintain and applaud the long Parliament in their Treason and Rebellion against their Soveraign was afterwards ill intreated by his
own stipendaries and cast out of the pack as an unprofitable Member He incouraged the Souldiers to fight against the King dedicated his Volumes to their chief Commanders loaded them with high Commendations and incomparable praises and made them believe that they could do God no better service than to go on vigorously in their Rebellion So that it may be truly said that his paper pellets did more harm than the roaring Guns or cutting Swords He laboured night and day to glorifie and vindicate the Parliament in their wicked proceedings at home and as his books will manifest he spared many hours from his natural rest to promote the unnatural Warrs abroad Yet now nec invideo he prosecuteth them with reproaches as much as he did then with praises himself being become hatefull to them all verifying the Proverb of Solomon cap. 24.24 He that saith unto the wicked thou art righteous him shall the people curse Nations shall abhorre him Therefore I once more advise him as a friend to write a book of Retractations The Lord be merciful unto us the men of our times would make one believe that there never was a King in the World Nay they would seem to make the Kings so highly esteemed of by God all the Prophets and Apostles in Scripture but meer white walls the empty shadows of the people and the Bible but a bundle of Fables as if God never took no more notice of a King than of an ordinary Porter How Judas sirnamed the Long Parliament betrayed and murthered Charles the first The best of all Kings and contrary to all Law and Religion and the common interest of the people Banish Charles the 2d our only lawful King and Governour The mystery of their iniquity laid open and that they are the greatest and most wicked Tyrants that ever dwelt upon the face of the Earth and the Child which is unborn will rue the day of their untimely birth Of what persons a Parliament consisteth No Parliament without the King The Original institution of Parliaments and that the House of Commons which now make themselves Kings over King and people were but as of yesterday have no legal power but what is derived from the King and never were intrusted with any power from the people much lesse with the Soveraignty which they now Tyrannically usurpe The Kings Soveraignty over Parliament and people copiously proved King Charles his Title to the Crown of England To him only belongeth the Militia the power of chusing Judges Privy Counsellors and other great Officers c. He is head in Ecclesiastical causes and our sole Legislator Our Ancestors alwayes found and accounted Monarchy to be the best of Governments and most profitable for us yet these 40 or 50. Tyrants contrary to all Antiquity and common sense and feeling sit and vote Monarchy dangerous and burthensome That all persons put to death since the murther of Charles the Martyr by the power of our new States-men have been murthered and their Judges Murtherers and so it will continue until they receive their power and authority from Charles the 2d and that we shall never enjoy peace or plenty until our King be restored to his Kingdoms which a pack of Tyrants and Traytors not the People keep from him How the Law abhorreth to offer violence to the King and how these Rebels transgresse all Laws both of God and Man to uphold themselves in their unparallel'd Villanies A History which commandeth the serious contemplation of our age and worthy of the observation of all the people in the World and of all future Generations not that they might imitate but detest and loath these Perfidious and Rebellious transactions Perlege deinde scies HAving sufficiently prov'd out of our Law books that by the Common Law of the Realm the King hath the Soveraign power over Parliament and People and ought not to be questioned for his actions by any of his Subjects taken either distributively or collectively in one intire body because he hath no Superiour on Earth but God Almighty Let us now take a brief view of the Statutes and Acts of Parliament which have from Age to Age confirmed what I have said as an undoubted inviolable and indisputable truth And since there are those amongst us who talk much of a power in the Parliament as they call the two Houses which they pretend to be above and Superiour to the King Let us examine what this high and mighty Creature is whence and when it had its original what is its true natural and legal power and of what persons it doth consist The Kings high Court of Parliament consisteth of the Kings Majesty sitting there as in his Royal politick capacity and of the three Estates of the Realm viz. 1 Of the Lords spiritual Arch-Bishops and Bishops being in number 24 who sit there by succession in respect of their Counties or Baronies parcell of their Bishopricks which they hold also in their politick capacity 2. The Lords temporal Dukes Marquesses Earls Viscounts and Barons who sit there by reason of their Dignities which they hold by descent or creation being in number 106. And every one of these when the King vouchsafeth to hold a Parliament hath a Writ of Summons The third Estate is the Commons of the Realm which are divided into three parts viz. into Knights of Shires or Counties Citizens out of Cities and Burgesses out of Borroughs All which the King commandeth his Sheriffs to cause to come to his Parliament being respectively Elected by the Shires or Counties Cities and Burroughs and in number 493. It is called Parliament because every Member of the Court should sincerely and discreetly Parler la ment for the general good of the Common-wealth This Court of Parliament is the most high and absolute the supremest and most antient in the Realm it Maketh Enlargeth Diminisheth Abrogateth Repealeth and Reviveth Laws Statutes Acts and Ordinances concerning matters Ecclesiastical Capital Criminal Common Civil Martial Maritine c. to be short so transcendent is the power and jurisdiction of the Parliament as it cannot be confined either for Causes or Persons within any bounds Of this Court it is truly said Si antiquitatem spectes est vetustissima si dignitatem est honoratissima si jurisdictionem est capacissima Yet notwithstanding this Almighty power as I may say of the Parliament do but cut off the Kings head or any ways take away the King and it is nothing Then a petty Court of Pypowders hath more power and jurisdiction than that The King is the Soul of the Parliament and without him it is but Putre Cadaver a stinking Carcasse for as my Lord Coke observeth of this Court the King is Caput principium et finis And it is a baser and more odious part then the Rump of a Parliament which wanteth all these and as in a natural body when all the Sinews being joyned in the head do joyn their forces together for the strengthening of the body
the due course of Law smote the Shepherd and so the sheep of the Protestant flock were all scattered abroad Bradshaw indeed that Pontius Pilate pressed the King very earnestly and by subtil and crafty inventions thought to have wrought upon the King to have submitted to their summa injuria their Arbitrary High Court of Injustice and pleaded So that his Example might have been urged as an irrefragable precedent against the lives and liberties of the whole Kingdome and that after ages might cite King Charles his case as an authority to kill Kings But the King foreseeing their delusive and abominable intentions rather than he would betray the lives and liberty of his free born subjects to the Arbitrary Lusts of these Tyrants told them of the great wickednesse they were about and shewed to his people how these Traitours endeavoured to inslave the whole Realm and so patiently suffered himself to be murdered dying a most true Martyr both for our Lawes and Religion but for plea he said nothing So Bradshaw more wicked than Pilate for instead of washing his hands he impudently bathed them in his Masters innocent blood gave the sentence of their wicked wills against him and delivered him over to the blood-thirsty to be crucified who spit upon him threw Tobacco pipes at him mocked him cryed out Away with him away with him Crucifie him Crucifie him cut off his Head with their wicked Engines and then cast lots for his Garments and Estate giving each Souldier a part But instead of writing over his head This is Charles the King of the Jews his true Title or rather the King of the Devils they writ over his head Exit Tyrannus Regum ultimus anno libertatis Angliae restitutae primo although in truth the best of Kings then went out and the greatest Tyranny under the Heavens then entred into our England comming far short of the Jews in all that is good but exceeding them in all wickednesse treachery perfidiousness and villany Now all this impious Council sought false witnesse against the King to put him to death but found none Therefore that they might do nothing without wickedness but proceed in all their Actions contrary almost to the very colour of Justice and make themselves the greatest and most illegal Tyrants that ever the world heard of they made themselves both Judges Jury Witness Party and Accuser in their own quarrel against the King For whereas by the Laws of the Land our gracious King alwayes made the Judges of the Land Arbitrators between his Subjects and himself in all cases from the lowest offence and trespass to the highest offence Crimen laesae Majestatis High Treason This Amalekite the House of Commons made part of themselves the Judges of the King who had committed the greatest Treason against the King and by the Laws of the Land deserved rather to hang at Tyburn than sit in the Chair of Justice likewise they made the Souldiers his Judges who professed themselves to be the Kings inveterate Enemies by their Remonstrances and Speeches and that they desired nothing more than his Blood and Life fought against him with their Guns and Swords Yet forsooth of this Hotchpotch of Traytors was their high Court of Justice made up Most of them being Collonels of the Army and other Souldiers who fought against him abroad and others Parliament men who conspired his ruine at home By the Laws of the Land it is a just exception to any Jury man who is to try the basest or poorest Felon and a legal challenge for which he must be withdrawn That he is a professed Enemy and Prosecutor who seeks his life and therefore no lawful nor indifferent tryer of him for it yet these bloody Butchers who professed themselves to be the Kings greatest Enemies and Prosecutors seeking after nothing so eagerly as the Kings life were both the Judges and Jury-men too to try the King Perjured O. Cromwell who then intended and afterwards effected to have the supreme power over these three Kingdoms was one of the Tryers to judge whether the King or himself with the rest of his brethren in iniquity deserved death and whether the King and his Royal Progeny ought not to be distroyed and Oliver and his stinking stock take possession O unparraleld lump of impiousness Aliquis non debet esse Judex in propria causà It is a Maxim in Law that no man ought to be Judge in his own cause Yet these villains made themselves the only Judge whether they committed Treason against the King or the King against them Nemo tenetur prodere seipsum No man is bound to accuse himself and it would have been a wonder indeed if these Rebels should have spoke the truth and said that they had committed high Treason against the King Therefore for fear the Law should punish them according to their deserts they thought good to prevent that mischief punish the King as they pleased according to their lusts And that they might make themselves the greatest Tyrants and the people the basest Slaves in the world they took upon them the Governing power which by Law only belongeth to the King 2. The Legislative power which likewise belongeth to the King with the concurrence of the upper and Lower House And 3. The Judicative power which belongeth to the Judges who are known Expositors and Dispencers of Law and Justice in all Causes brought before them So that these Trayterous Tyrants by their boundless and arbitrary wills put us to death when they please for what cause they please and take away our Estates when they see occasion And yet they have the impudence to tell us and many the sottishness to believe that the Parliament having the Supreme power doth all these villanies by Law O Abominable How these Tyrants mock the people with the name of a Parliament the Parliament consisteth of the King the head and about 600 of his Subjects and there were not above 50 or 60 of the Parliament who caused the King to be murthered and ruined his people yet these Schismaticks call themselves a Parliament and so having nothing good but their name Tyrannize over us They may as well say that the parings of the nailes of the toes are the whole man and have the power of all the other members as say that they are the Parliament or have any lawfull power they being nothing but the dregs and lees of the inferiour House from whom we must never expect any thing pleasing to any honest mans palate If the Parliament had power to depose the King yet what power can these few Gaol-Birds have who are scarce the tenth part of the Parliament and no Representatives of the People but only of their own Devilish ambitions By what authority do these Ignes fatui abolish Kingship and the House of Lords as dangedangerous and useless which all our Ancestors have found most profitable and glorious for our Kingdom These Currs have several times been kicked out of
his Common-Counsell they are but only Ministerial Servants and by the Writ it is clear that they are no part of the great Counsel of the Kingdom they are but the grand Inquest and general Inquisitors of the Realm to find out the grievances of the people and Petition to the King for redress the Burgesses and Citizens to present the defects in their Trade and the Knights of the Shires the burthens and Sores of their Counties they ought not nor are not admitted into the House before they have sworn that the Kings Majesty is the only and supreme Governour over all persons in all causes This oath did every Member of the long Parliament take before they set foot into the House of Charls the Martyr whom they afterwards murthered and took possession themselves of all that he or his royal progeny had or should have let the world judge how faithfully these Keepers kept their Oathes and Covenants Now forsooth none must come into the House but those who first swear that the King who is is not but that they who are not are the only supreme Governours over all persons in all causes And will these oaths be kept 'T is perjury to keep them Thus they joyn hand in hand and oath to oath but it is but to do wickedness for like King Davids Rebels they make a Covenant against their King and would murther him as they did his Father if they could catch him but nulla pax malis the wicked cannot hold together long though they unite their forces into one intire body yet it is but like Samsons Foxes by the tailes only to set the world on fire When the Commons have taken the oath of Supremacy and met together in a body collective in the house they have not so much power as a Steward in his Leet or a Sheriff in his Tourn for they cannot minister an oath imprison any body but themselves nor try any offence whatsoever much less try their King and assume the Legislative power At a conference the Commons are always uncovered and stand when the Lords sit surely these are no marks of Soveraignity They indeed chuse their Speaker but after their choice the King may refuse him at his pleasure and make them chuse another and Lenthal himself as all other Speakers do did when he was presented to the King disable himself as a person unworthy to speak before the King yet now he is styled the Father of our Country How the world is turned up-side down These Parliamentiers heretofore were wont to be arrested by any common Person and lyable to all Sutes and punishments as other men untill the King graciously passed an Act for their indemnity 4 H. 8. ea 8. So that they are nothing but what the King made them nor have nothing but by his grant and all that the King did make them appeareth by the Writ which is to do and consent to such things as the King with his Common-Counsell should ordain Then stay Reader and behold stand still with thy head and hands lift up to the heavens and admire with what impudence and oppression tyranny and usurpation the long Parliamentiers are fraught with who never had any other legal power than by the Kings Writ and have lost that by the Kings death yet tyrannize over three kingdoms calling themselves the Representatives of the whole Kingdom and that they were intrusted by the People with the Supreme and Legislative power which God and all the world knoweth is as false as the Almighty is true For first they do not represent the King the head nor the Peers who are the higher and nobler part of the kingdom therefore they are not the Representatives of the whole kingdom neither were they ever entrusted by the People with the Supreme and Legislative power Nay the people did never confer any power on them at all for by their Election the people did but design the person all the power the Commons have proceeded from the King which is contained in the Writ by which they were called As Free-holders worth forty shillings a year and free-men of Cities and Borroughs would make very unfit Electors of Supreme Magistrates so never did they they cannot make any Election of their Commons untill the King commandeth and giveth them power they have no power so to do of their own much less to authorize supreme Legislators The King giveth liberty to Towns and Cities to make choice of Burgesses which had no such power before the Kings grant so that all the power which the Commons have floweth from the King not a drop of it from the people Therefore if the Commons exceed their commission to wit the power given them by the Kings Writ it is illegal and their actings void in Law and since the power given them by the Writ is extinguished by the Kings death the Long Parliament is by Law dissolved and all the power which they take upon them since is usurped illegal and Tyrannical and contrary to the Lawes both of God and man And to make their Tyranny the greatest under the Heavens they protest to the world that the Representatives of the people ought to have the Legislative power yet they give Lawes as they call them to Scotland and Ireland not having so much as one Member from both Kingdomes in their representative body nor the eighth part of the Representatives chosen by the Counties Cities and Burroughs in England So that no Tyrants since the Creation of the world did ever equallize these either in cruelty or absurdity wickednesse or foolishnesse yet forsooth in 1649 they made an Act that it should be High Treason for any one to affirm the present Government to be Tyrannical Usurped or Unlawfull or that these Commons are not the supreme Authority of the Nation So thieves may murther the Father and take away the inheritance from his Children and then make a Law that it shall be high Treason for any one to call them thieves or usurpers or to say they had not the supreme Authority Thus they defend Tyranny with Tyranny and one sin with another Unumquodque conservatur eodem modo quo fit Things impiously got must be impiously kept They got their authority by blood and by blood it must be kept they juggled themselves by lyes into the supreme self-created authority and we must lye and say they are the supreme authority only because they do otherwise we shall be executed for high Treason against this infamous conventicle So that of necessity we must displease God if we please them and live no longer than we sin for they have made it a capital offence to speak truth I must confesse most men amongst us are frighted with this scarr-Crow not only to lye and affirm the long called Parliament to be the legal supreme authority but also with St. Peter forswear and deny their persecuted Lord and Master the King accounting no weather ill so they be by their warm fire
but it was fifty or sixty rotten tainted Members of the lower House small in number but great in transgression So may the Tayl nay a piece of the Tayl destroy the whole body and reign sole Lord Paramount Oh what multitudes of impieties can the wicked accomplish in an instant Seneca Nullum ad nocendum tempus angustum est malis In no longer space than betwixt the Father and the Son did these Horse-Leaches subvert our fundamental Government destroy King and Kingdom Parliament and People and all our Laws and Religion so that the question is not whether the Parliament be above the King but whether a little company of great Traytors and Usurpers the Dregs and Lees of all Tyranny be above both King and Parliament For the Parliament as you see by the joyfull recognition made to King James c. enacted and most humbly acknowledged the King to be above both Parliament and People and the Crown to be hereditary to the King and his Royal Progeny but these men and only these who by violence make themselves above both King and Parliament defending their persons from the Justice of the Law with Armed Red-Coats and the greatness of their villanies These are they who deny it though the Laws of the Realm and all Histories and all Kingdoms teach them otherwise God calleth himself a King in several places of the Scripture to note and signifie his Soveraignity which surely he would not do was the King the Peoples vassal or under Officer as the Bedlam franticks of our age feign Thou art my King O God saith David Command delâ—verance for Jacob. The King and the Power to command are Individua He is a Clout no King which cannot command And who should be under his command What The People taken particularly and distributively as single men and not collectively as the whole Kingdom according to the fanatick opinion of our Lunaticks Why is he not then called King of single men If he be King of a Kingdom then all the People jointly or severally in his Kingdom are under his command and if under his command then he only hath power to give them Laws be they in one collective body as in Parliament at the Kings house or simple bodies at their private dwellings Le Roy fait les leix avec le Consent du Seigneurs et Communs et non pas les Seigneuns et Communs avec le consent du Roy is the voice of the Common Law The King makes Laws in Parliament with the consent of the Lords and Commons and not the Lords and Commons with the consent of the King Virg. 7 Eneid Hoc Priami gestamen erat cum jura vocatis More daret Populis And 5 Eneid Gaudet regno Trojanus Arestes Indicitque forum patribus dat jura vocatis The Lords and Commons have power only to propound and advise it is only the Kings Le roy le veult which makes the Law their propositions and advice signifie nothing if the King saith Le Roy se avisera They have not power to grant him any subsidies untill the King saith Le Roy remercieses loyaulx et ainsi le veult Therefore much less the Soveraignity It would be strange if the assembling of the Subjects together should make them Masters over the King who gave them power to assemble and hath power to turn them home again when he pleaseth Legum ac edictorum probatio aut publicatio quae in curia vel Senatu fieri solet non arguit imperii majestatem in Senatu vel curia inesse saith Bodin de Rep. li. 1. ca. 8. The publishing and approbation of Laws and Edicts which is made ordinarily in the Court of Parliament proves not the Majesty of the State to be in the said Court or Parliament It is the Kings Scepter which giveth force to the Law and we have no Law but what is his Will The King surely would never call his Subjects to bind him with Laws against his will much lesse to take his Dominion from him and make himself a Vassal and Officer to his two Houses or either of them who were not capable themselves of any Office without his Gift and Licence The Kings of England have called many Parliaments yet the Government hath alwayes continued Monarchical and the King not under but above the people inferior only to God even Forein Polititians will tell you so Let famous Bodin who tanketh our Kings amongst the absolute Monarchs speak for all lib. 1. cap. 8. Habere quidem Ordines Anglorum authoritatem quandam jura vero Majestatis imperji summam in unius Principis arbitrio versari The States saith he of England have a kind of authority but all the rights of Soveraignty and command in chief are at the will and pleasure of the Prince alone Learned Cambden in his Britannia fo 163. teacheth us As touching the division of our Common wealth it consisteth of a King or Monarch Noblemen or Gentry Citizens freeborn whow we call Yeomen and Artisans or Handicrafts-men The King whom our Ancestors the English Saxons called Coning and Gining in which name is implyed a signification both of power and skill and we name contractly King hath Soveraign power and absolute command among us neither holdeth he his Empire in Vassalage nor receiveth his investure or enstalling of another ne yet acknowledgeth any superiour but God alone Now if Reason and the Judgement of our Ancestors would satisfie our frenzy upstarts what greater authority would they have But that they are troubled with so many visions and false revelations of their own I would commend to them a true vision in the Reign of Edward the Confessor viz. One being very inquisitive and musing what should become of the Crown and Kingdom after King Edwards death the blood Royal being almost extinguished he had a strange vision and heard a voyce which forbade him to be inquisitive of such matters resounding in his ears The Kingdom of England belongeth to God himself who will provide it a King at his pleasure But now forsooth it belongeth to the people and they will provide it a King at their pleasure It is the people now which make the King if so why ever had we any Kingdoms why were they not called Peopledoms The Kings of England with them of France Jerusalem Naples and afterwards Scotland were antiently the only anointed Kings of Christendom And as the Kings in Scripture as Asia Jehoshaphat Hezechiah c. so the Kings of England have alwayes had the supremacy in Ecclesiastical causes Reges sacro oleo uncti sunt capaces spiritualis jurisdictionis 33 Ed. 3. Rex est persona mixta cum Sacerdote habet ecclesiasticam et spiritualem jurisdictionem 10 H. 7.18 And although Kings ought not to be Ministers of the Chutch so as to dispense the word and Sacraments For No man taketh this honour unto himself but he that is called of God as was Aaron Hebrews 5.4 Yet since they
appoinâ— him Captains over thousands and Captains oveâ— fifties So 11 Sam. 12.29 David gathered aâ— the people together and went to Rabbath and foughâ— against it and took it But why do I cite David Had not all the Kings in the Scripture nay havâ— not all the Kings in the world the chief poweâ— over their Militia Surely nothing is more certain otherwise what difference would there be between the King and Subject Militarem autem prudentiam ante omnia necessariam Ego Principi assero adeo ut sine ea vix Princeps Quomodo enim aliter se tueatuâ— sua ac suos saith Justus Lipsius No Militia no King For how can he defend himself and Kingdome without it The Puppy dogs would master the Lyon were it not for his pawes the cowardly Owles would conquer the Eagle if he had no talons and the King would be a laughing stock both at home and abroad were it not for the sword which God not the people hath girded to his side The King beareth not the sword in vain saith St. Paul Rom. 13.4 But surely he would bear it in vain had he not power of himself to draw it or sheath it but when the people pleased he would be but a poor revenger to execute Gods wrath had the people as our Novists feign not he the sole disposing of the Militia Unges eum ducem 1 Sam. 9.16 Thou shalt annoint him to be captain over my people Which shewes the Kings right to the Militia being Captain over his people Unum est Regi inexpugnabile munimentum amor civium I must confesse the Citizens and Peoples love is the best fortresse and bulwork for Kings but Charity growes cold Loyal love and Citizens are not alwayes companions whole Cities nay whole Countries may prove perfidious to their King and whilst the King dischargeth the office of a loving father his people may turn Traytors and rebell against his goodnesse Therefore it is good walking with a horse in ones hand and ever safest for Princes even in the greatest peace to have a well-disciplin'd Militia in a readinesse for the affection of the people like the wind is never constant In Rege qui recte regit necessaria sunt duo haec arma videlicet leges quibus utrumque tempus bellorum pacis recte possit gubernari utrumque enim istorum alterius indiget auxilio quo tam res militaris possit esse in tuto quà m ipsae leges usu armorum praesidio possint esse servatae Si autem arma defecerinâ— contra hostes rebelles indomitos sic erit regnum indefensum si autem leges sic exterminabitur justitia nec erit qui justum faciat judicium The Law and Arms are so necessary and requisite in a King that without both he can have neither for how could he execute and maintain his lawes withouâ— arms and how could he levy war without lawes to direct and guide his Arms He could neither proclaim war nor make leagues or peace without them The King is Custos totius Regni and by law ought to defend and save hiâ— Realm But surely he would bâ— but a poor keeper if the peoplâ— had power to keep his weapon from him at their pleasure Custodes libertatis Angliae The Keepers of our liberty could not keep it from us without the force of the Militia and how should the King maintain his Realm in peace and defend our lives liberties and estates from the forein and domestick Tyranny of Traytors and Rebels had he not the sole power and strength of Arms The Subjects of England are bound by their liegeance to go with the King c. in his wars as well within his Realms as without as appeareth by the Statute of 2 Ed. 6. cap. 11. and by a Statute made 11 H. 7. c. 1. The Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament declare it to be the duty and allegiance of the Subjects of England not only to serve their Prince and Soveraign Lord for the time being in warres but to enter and abide in service in battel and that both in defence of the King and land against every rebellion power and might reared against him But wherefore should I make my self ridiculous in attempting to prove that which no age hath denied It hath been the Custome of all Kingdoms the practice of all times and the Common Law of the Realm of England ever since it was a Realm that the power of the Militia did alwayes belong unto the King nay it is proper to him quarto modo he hath an inherent and inalienable right to it Which right hath been declared and affirmed by many Acts of Parliament in all succession of ages which in a case so clear need not to be recited It belongs to the King only to make leagues with forein Princes 2 H. 5. ca. And as it is resolved in our Law Books if all the people of England should break the league made with a foâ—eâ—n Prince without the Kings consent yet the league holds and is not broken Nay so farr are the People or House of Lords or Commons from having the power of the Militia that as you may read the expresse words 3 Inst pa. 9. If any levy Warr to expulse strangers to deliver men out of Prisons to remove Counsellors or against any Statute or to any other end pretending Reformation of their own heads without Warrant it is high Treason For no Subject can levy Warr within the Realm without Authority from the King for to him it only belongeth O then admire at the impiousnesse and impudence of the long called Parliament who murthered their King for committing Treason against them whereas by the Laws of the Land they were the only Traytors against him So may the offender punish the offended for the offence which he himself committed and so may the Prisoner condemn and execute the Judge for the Crime whereof himself is only guilty The only reason why they demanded the Militia of the King and said that it only belonged to them was not because the King ought not to have it for they well knew that by the Law of all Ages it did only belong to him and not to them But how then could they carry on and accomplish their wicked design of Murthering him if they still let his Sword hang by his side Therefore they first laid hold on that and wrested the Militia out of his hands arguing that it did not belong to the King but to them So Murtherers may say that the Sword of him whom they intend to murther doth not belong to the owner but to them to the end they may with the more ease and safeguard perpetrate their wickedness And that they might have a shadow to hide all their filthynesse They first got several Counties to Petition for the Militia which they afterwards took by violence nay they themselves did first Petition the King for it So sturdy Beggars first beg
for an Almes and by and by knock their Benefactor on the head and make themselves Masters of what they before entreated for And indeed the most part of their Villanies did commence with Petitions for in driving on their wicked designs they alwayes got the Rascal rable of the People to heap in Petitions for what they themselves set them upon as if these Godly Villains did nothing but what they were driven to through commiseration of the people when God knows they did nothing but what was for the satisfaction of their own wicked Lusts and Ambition For when the Souldiers and other baser sort of the people cryed out for Justice and Privilege of the Parliament Even then was the Injustice of these Rebels most promoted and the Parliament did not then only lose its privileges but its very life and being Thus Barbers may cut off the Head when they pretend to trim the Hair and so may Physicians destroy and kill the Body when they pretend to apply Medicines For as now it appeareth even to the blind their pious pretences were but a Colour for their wicked intentions to destroy both King and Parliament and root up all our Laws and Religion when they seemed to act most to preserve them Now since the power of Warr only belongeth unto the King it must of necessity follow that the King hath power to levy Taxes and impose Subsidies on his people to maintain the Warr otherwise it would be in vain to think of waging Warr for all Souldiers must have Vectigalia Food Apparel and Arms and where should the King have this but in his own Kingdom To be short it is a duty laid upon the Consciences of all Subjects to supply their King with all necessaries both in time of Warr and Peace And a thing commanded both by our Saviour and his Apostles Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesars And 13 Rom. Render therefore to all their due Tribute to whom Tribute is due Custom to whom Custom Fear to whom Fear Honour to whom Honour But our Antipodes subverting all Scripture render to no man their dues and that they may act contrary to the very words and meaning of every Text They do not render Tribute Custom Fear and Honour to the King to whom it is only due but forsooth to themselves to whom it is not due So may the Servant murther his Master and take all his Revenues and Honour as due only to himself He which argueth that the King hath not right to chuse his Privy Counsellors Great Officers and Judges c. will likewise say that the Master hath not right to chuse his Servants it being the practice of all Kingdoms as well as of England and due to him by the Law of Nature Thou shalt provide out of the People able Men saith Jethro to Moses when the 70. grand Senators of Israel the Great Sanhedrim of the Jews were to be chosen By which you see the great Officers c. are to be chosen out of and not by the people but by the King So Pharoah not the people made Joseph Ruler over all the Land of Aegypt and Nebuchadnezzar and not his people made Daniel Ruler over the whole Province of Babylon And since our Lawyers are so forward to take Commissions and be made Judges by every power which getteth uppermost be it right or wrong Let me tell them that it is an undoubted truth that every person who hath been since the murther of Charls the Martyr or shall hereafter without the authority of Charls the second be condemned and executed for any Crime whether guilty or not guilty in the Kings Bench or at the Assizes or elsewhere is murthered and all the Judgments acts and proceedings of those nominal Judges or Commissioners are void as things done Coram non judice So that it consequently followeth that these lawless Judges are principals in every murther so committed Vengeance only belongeth unto God Deu. 32.35 The King is the Minister of God a Reuenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil Therfore whosoever prosecuteth in the Kings Courts against the life of any man as in an Appeal c. or sueth for recompence for any wrong done unto him he doth not take vengeance but God who executeth his wrath by his Minister the King But if any private man or the whole people take upon them to make themselves their own Carvers taking what recompence they think fit either against the King or any of their fellow Subjects in this case they make themselves their own Revengers and rob God of his rights for vengeance belongeth to him not to them Therefore if any man though in a way of publick Justice take upon him to condemn and execute any man without authority and power from the King he is a Murtherer and malicious Revenger upon whom the vengeance of God whom he endeavoureth to cheat and rob will fall Oh then admire and bewail the Infandous Murthers and Murtherers of our age wherein the good are destroyed for performing their duty towards God and their King and the wicked flowrish only because they are sinfull for whosoever will not be a Rebel must not be a Common-wealths-man amongst these new Republicans Yet forsooth they have such a form of Godlinesse amongst them that whosoever doth not approve of their wickednesse but speaketh of their actions according to their deserts they call such men the ungodly and flatter themselves saying the Saints of all ages have been spoken evil of by the wicked holy David nay our Saviour and his Disciples were reviled by the Reprobate therfore no wonder if the Malignant Cavaleers do reproach and vilifie our piousness and brotherly love and charity one towards the other So Belzebub may call them impious who do not account him the only good Angell How these men would be esteemed most Religious even when they commit Sacrilege and seem righteous even in the very act of wickednesse They murther many and take away the Estates of all Royalists yet if the Royalists whom they have thus spoyled tell them according to Gods Commandments that they ought not to be swift to shed blood nor covet their neighbours goods these Saints presently tell them that they have not the Spirit of Godliness in them but that they are the abusers of Gods word and his Children as if Gods Spirit gave them authority to act wickedly and that none but they were the children of God who had got their wealth by murther rapine and sacrilege O Monstrous If you call their ill gotten Government Tyranny or Usurpation they number you amongst those filthy Dreamers who speak evil of Dignities and will noâ— submit to lawfull authority Yet these Antipodes could revile their Soveraign the King with multitudes of scurrilous Pamplets cut off his head and banish his Royal Progeny taking away their Lands and the Estates of thousands more yet they would make one believe that they never spoke evil of Dignities nor ever resisted lawfull
in stead of proving a Keeper to the Trayterous Keepers he hath approved himself a glorious Dâ—â—ender of our Liberties for which Trophies of honour shall be erected to his eternal renown neither will our King spare heaping of rewards upon his so memorable merits at his return to his own house which the General hath swept for him and turned out them who made it aden of thieves On Tuesday the 21. day of February 1659. a day which deserveth more solemnization than Gunpowder Treason day for then we were delivered from those who only intended to destroy King and Parliament but now we are delivered from those who actually did destroy both King and Parliament and so consequently the whole Kingdome General Monk our famous Patron conducted the secluded Members to the House of Commons where according to their former agreement with the General they voted themselves in a short time to be dissolved and a free Parliament to be elected Now I hope no man will presume to conceive the General so insipid as to think there can be a free Parliament without the King and House of Lords No it is ridiculous to think so for a free Parliament without the King would be but like salt which hath lost his favour thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be troden under foot of men Mat. 5.13 It would be but a Rump fatned and grow bigger For we are all sick of the Kings Evil therefore nothing but the touch of his Sacred Majesties hands can cure us And I may with confidence and truth affirm that every one of that infinite number of people which so much rejoyced at the destruction of the Rump and at the voice of a free Parliament would mourn and cry at their sitting if they do not bring with them the good tidings of restoring their King the hopes whereof only made them rejoyce And indeed they would have more cause to bewail a free Parliaments sitting without the King than the sitting of the Rump for this we may be sure of that the King will come in either by fair means or by soul if by soul that is by war then the war will be greater with a free Parliament and so consequently more grievous to the people than with the Rump because a free Parliament will have greater force and power to levy a war than the Rump and so the combustible matter being more the flame will be the higher But it is Atheism to think that a free Parliament will withstand the King therefore I will not taint my Paper with such detestable words I let fall a blot of ink upon Mr. Prynne's Soverain Power of Parliaments and Kingdomes a Book which I am sure deserves a greater blurre But Mr. Prynne hath since repaired his credit and got the applause of the people by writing for the King and against the Rump and other sectaries Therefore to give him his deserts there is no man in the Nation hath so much merited as himself in pulling down the many Tyrannies over us since the murther of Charles the Martyr He hath been our Champion whose pen hath fought against the scriblings and actings of the Traytors and Rebels for which I shall ever love and honour him and without doubt our Gracious King will sufficiently reward him if he continueth constant in his loyalty which God grant he may And although the Presbyterian held the head of Charles the Martyr to the block by his hair whilst the Independent cut it off yet now I hope the many evils which we have sustained by that royal fall for which he shewed the first play will teach the rigid Presbyter moderation and make him confesse notwithstanding his violent Covenant against that Apostolical constitution of Bishops that Episcopacy is the best form of Church Government and the only way to extirpate and keep down those infinite number of s31y'sects and factions which have taken root and budded since Episcopacy was rooted up and blasted No Bishop No King was the Symbole of our Solomon King James who I think was as wise and as much a Christian as any of our Lay-Elders therefore in vain do the Presbytery think of enjoying Monarchy unlesse they first resolve to lay aside all their schismatical Tenets and stick to Episcopacy For as the same King sayes A Scottish Presbitery and Monarchy agree as God and the Devil Our Soveraign Charls the Martyr in his sacred writings hath so clearly approved and vindicated Episcopacy from the false aspersions of the Presbiterian faction and also laid open the absurdities of Presbitery so fully that it would be arrogance in me to say any thing after him and not only ignorance but impudence in any man to look upon his writings and still remain a Presbiterian Therefore O Heavenly Father asswage the pride and open the Eyes of these rigid Zelots that in seeing they may see and in hearing they may hear and understand and not professe themselves wiser than our Saviour that great Bishop and his Apostles which were Bishops and appointed successive Bishops as you may read in the Epistles of St Paul to Timothy and Titus c. And the Government of Bishops hath been the universal and constant practice of the Church so that as Charls the Martyr writeth ever since the first age for 1500 years not one example can be produced of any setled Church wherein were many Ministers and Congregations which had not some Bishop above them under whose Jurisdiction and Government they were Therefore let not the aspiring currish Presbiterian who would pull down a Bishop in every Diocesse but set up a Pope in every Parish no longer spet venom against the Reverend Bishops And truly I think their grounds are so slender against Episcopacy that if the King would but make them Bishops they would then be as violent for Episcopacy as they are now against it Therefore rest content Presbiter for though not thy deserts yet State Policy may in time make thee a Bishop The Antipodes indeed viz. the Long called Parliament who acted all things contrary to all Law and Religion voted that Bishops should never more vote as Peers in Parliament But why was it not because the Religious Bishops should not withstand their Irreligious and Blasphemous proceedings in Murthering the King Destroying the Church and all our Laws and Religion with them Surely no man can deny but that was the only reason Que enim est respublica ubi Ecclesiastici primum non habeant locum in Comitiis publicis de salute Reipub Deliberationibus For which is that Commonwealth where the Ecclesiastical persons had not the first place in all meetings and publique consultations about the Welfare of the Commonwealth Surely none but the Utopian Commonwealth of these Rebels For it is the practice of all Nations nay the Rebels themselves who voted it unlawful for Bishops and other grave Prelates of the Church to meddle the least in Civil Affairs could approve it in their new
and lawful for the King alone to command money and assistance of his subjects to subdue the Rebels and oppose a forein Navy who are coming to destroy and swallow up both King and people Surely none but a mad-man will deny but that it is most lawful just and the only safety of the people and their estates Indeed as it is the best way for a thief to binde the honest man he doth intend to robb so it is the safest and best way for that Parliament who do intend to murther the King and take away all that he hath to binde the King as fast as they can to take away his Negative voice and all his just praerogatives to make all his legal power whereby he might withstand their violence illegal Nay it is their best way to tye the King up from his meat to make him stand for a Cypher a meer nothing that so they being the predominant figures may chop off his head or do what they list with him as did the long Parliament who from trespass to high Treason against God and the King have omitted no offence undone But their soundest Doctrine will prove but Apochrypha to all honest Parliaments I do confesse that except it be in cases of necessity the King can lay no tallage upon the people without their consent in Parliament and so not shipmoney which in truth is condemned by the Statutes of 25 E. 1 34 E. 1. de Tallagio non concedendo Dangelit Englishty because the King hath restrained his power by his Statutes But if the King could not tax the people with shipmony and other impositions in extraoâ—dinary cases of necessity aa when a forein Enemy doth suddenly invade the Land being invited in by a prevalent faction in a refractory Parliament who would ruine themselves and the whole Kingdom so that they might ruine their King and fulfill their wicked wills who will not grant shipmoney or any thing else to the King lest he should be provided to oppose them and defend himself and the people in safety I say that if in this and such like cases the King may not lawfully lay tallages on the people and command their assistance I had rather be a slave than a King and should account my self the Vassal of the people not their King But in truth the King cannot denude himself of this power nor by any Statute or Law tye himself from it For it is inseparable from the Crown Et quod sceptro inhaeret non potest tolli nisi sublato sceptro And therefore cannot be taken from the King unless the Crown with it which rule the long Parliament have truly verifyed For when they had taken away his chiefest praerogative they could not forbear but presently took off his Crown from his head and then his head from his shoulders Sic transit gloria mundi (e) Aposiopesis est * Omnibus esse Lupos licet in regione Lupoporum Gal. 2.18 If I build again the things which I destroyed I make my self a transgressour * The strifes and divisions now amongst the Rebels do further the Kings Restauration to his own of which they robbed him Vid. Epist 2 part of Soveraign power Inde illis potestas unde spiritus Tertul Apol. pa. 6.5 Co. Lit. 1.12 l. 7.20 4 Inst 1. 1 Inst 110 Bodin de Rep. l. c. 8. Camden in Britan. descript Mat. 26.34 Luke 22 3 4 5 6. Ovem in fronte vulpem in corde gerentes The Nobles which were faithfull to the King they called Evil Counsellers Witness their Oath of Supremacy Dangerous and useless only to their villany Witnesse all their actions Bodin li. 2. ca. 5. King Charles his title had been good to the Crown of England though he had borrowed no part of this Claim from the Conquerour See reverend Heylin's life of King Charles Co. Lit. 1. Who then ought to have the Militia but the King Co. Lit. 108. Co. Lit. 64. Mr. Howels Philanglus â— Inst 25. Summum jus summa injuria Decl. of the Treaty p. 15. 4 Inst 9. Yet forsooth these the Lowest set up the Highest Court viz. The high Court of Justice So Servants may set up a high Court to try and condemn their Mastets Asperius nihil est humili cum suâ—git in altum 4 Inst 11. 5 Eli. ca 1. 4 Inst 8. 4 Inst 2. They are dead Members who do not Davis Irish Rep. so 90. Jer. 6.16 Psal 10.16 29.10.47.2.7.44 4. Cambdens Remains See 2 Chro. 15 17 29 30 31. Isa 49.23 Teste Anglia Bract. fo 1. Justin Institutes Fleta Davis Irish Reports fo 58. Fitz. n. 6.113.233 Calvins case so 7. 19 E. 4.46.22 E. 4. 25 E. 3.2 Leges Auredi ca. 4. Co. Lib. 4.124 See 3 Inst pag. 4. and 6. The People declare for a free Parliament but these Rebels only for themselves Read his incomparable heavenly Book which will make thee weep for our loss but rejoice and admire at his piety Luk. 11.18 See their charge against him Vulgarly called the Secluded Members So he which playeth at Knave out of doors getteth the Knave to beat all the rest of the Cards Our Soveraign Charls must be no King because pious but Oliver must be a King because a Rebel Oh the mystery of their iniquiâ—yâ— Though the Kings Nobility might not yet Cromwels might be a House of Peers Tristius haud illis monstrum nec saevior ulla Pestis ira Deum Slyâ—iis sese extulit undis What pretty names these State Thieys have for their Robberies and Tyranny viz. The titular Parliament Alas not for so good a use I commend you to the History of Independency 11th of February 1659. Cressa ne careat pulchra dies aota Brave for thieves if they might qualifie their Judges But I think they can scarce pick out men enough in England to fill up the House who will admit of their wicked Qualifications To be short saith Comines in mine opinion of all the Seigneuries in the world that I know the Realm of England is the Countrey where the Commonwealth is best governed the people least oppressed and the fewest buildings and houses destroyed in Civil war and alwayes the lot of misfortune falleth upon them that be the Authors of the war Magnae discordia pereunt concordiavalent You may guesse with what a countenance the Rump looked upon them Episcopacy was a bulwork against Popery and other factions Therfore the Papists and the Factions did batter down that to make way for their Sects which they call liberty of conscience (a) Rex (b) O Cromwel (c) Ironice [a] The King O. Cromwel c. Ironice
Astraea Redeunt Saturnia regna progenies caelo Demittitur alto Bishops the Coâ—on prâ—â—ier Booke â—ewarded Sectaries reiected SALMASIUS HIS BUCKLER OR A Royal Apology FOR King CHARLES the MARTYR Dedicated to CHARLES the Second King of Great Brittain Salus Populi Salus Regis LONDON Printed for H.B. and are to be sold in Westminster-hall and at the Royal Exchange 1662. The Epistle to the Reader THere have been so many Wolves in sheeps-cloathing and so many Innocents by the reviling tongues of their Enemies robbing them of their good names as well as of their good estates made Malignants in this our worse than iron age that I know not what Epithite to give thee If thou art an Honest man Rara avis in terris I invoke thee to be my Patron If thou art not Noli me tangere But since St. Austin once perhaps as zealous a Reprobate as thy self was converted by looking on the Bible by chance I will not prohibit thee from eating of this fruit Though I believe to think that thy view of my Book will work the like conversion on thee is to have a better opinion of thee and the Book than both will deserve For though an Angel should come from heaven or a man arise from the dead yet could he not perswade our hot-headed Zealots but that they did God good service even when they rebell against his own Ordinance transgress his Commandements murther their Father the KING and pollute their once flourishing Mother the CHURCH Before this prodigious off-spring like Vipers destroyed the Mother by their birth The Jews indeed murthered the Lord of life because they did not know him and therefore thought it was pleasing to God But wo be to them who did not only with Ham see their Fathers nakedness and reproach him but commit Paricide see his heart naked and call the multitude to laugh at it En quo discordia Cives produxit miseros O the miserable effects of seditious men Who shall now cure the Kings evil Or who shall cure the evil of the People O purblind City how long will you enslave yourselves to ravenous woolves who by their often changing of their feigned Governments do but change the thief and still your Store-houses must be the Magazine to furnish them with plunder You must never look to enjoy your lives estates or Gods blessing with the fruition of your Wives and Children before your lawfull King and Soveraign CHARLS the II. unjustly banished by Rebells be restored to his Crown and Kingdom For what Comfort can any honest or conscientious man take in any thing so long as he seeth his own native Prince like King David driven from his own natural inheritance by the unjust force of a multitude of Traytors both to God and their King Who Judas-like acknowledging his Master with a kiss so they swore with their mouthes that King CHARLS the I. was their only lawfull King and Soveraign and had the Supreme power over them all and then delivered him to the Sword-men who came out with Clubbs and Staves against their Soveraign as against a Thief and as the Jews did the Lord our Saviour whom they did not acknowledge to be their King otherwise they would not have done it These men murthered their dread Soveraign whom they all acknowledged and vowed to be their only King Excelling the Jewes only in wickednesse Therefore since by the Laws of the Land there can be no Parliament without the King what difference is there between a Protector and one of their Parliaments but only number For their Protectors are but the head thieves and their Parliaments but a headless multitude of thieves For so long as the Royal Progenie of CHARLS the I. which God long preserve remain alive all other our Governours besides them will be but Rebells Traytors and Tyrants let them call themselves a Free State or by what names they please continue until the worlds end Therfore rouze up Citizens and take courage How long will you be the common Hackney to be ridden by every one that will stride you How long shall your Sanctuary be made a Stable and Den for Thieves Shall your Streets blush with the blood of Prophets and with the blood of your Citâ—zens and will not you change your colour where is the reverend Doctor Hewyt that Glory of your City that Glory of all Christians that Glory of the whole World whose fame shall out-live the Sun and his renown shine longer and brighter than the Moon or the lesser Stars Caesar the Usurper was wont to say Si violandum est jus regnandi causa esse violandum That if it is lawfull to forswear one self for any Cause the Cause of gaining a Kingdom is the most lawfull But there are those amongst us who have turned the Supposition into a Proposition and confidently by their practice affirm that it is lawfull to forswear one self for any thing and most sacred to be forsworn if by the perjury a Kingdom may be gained But I will not touch the Soars which lye raw before every mans eyes only this will I say which every one knoweth to be true that no Kingdom in the World was so happy both for peace and plenty law and religion and all other good things as our Kingdom of England was whilest due obedience was lawfully paid to our Soveraign Lord the King but now the King being murthered and all goodness with him no Nation under the Sun is more miserable and so it will continue untill King Charles the second be restored to his Crown The Sword of Gods word ought only to fight for Religion the Iron sword of Rebels did never establish Christian Religion nor ever will set up Christs Kingdom especially if it be unsheathed against Kings by their Subjects And to satisfie all Objections whatsoever against my writing I answer Si natura negat facit indignatio versum It was not to shew my self to the world for as in Tempests so in our daies he is best who is seen least abroad But it was to shew and prefer the Truth which hath been laid asleep by the Charmes of our Sins For to this end was I born and for this cause came I into the world that I should bear witnes to the truth every one that is of the Truth will hear the voice of the truth when I saw the many revolutions turnings of men like Weathercocks being presented almost every day with new strange and various shapes and forms of Government it caused me more diligently to search after the true reason of our changings which I found to be our Sins and the absence of our King also which was the best kind of Government which I found to be Monarchy and that all trayterous Tyrants sine titulo might most lawfully be killed by any privat hand but Kings only by God Truth often getteth hatred and it is the doom of serious books to be hooted at by those who have nothing
politick in which he may purchase to him and his heirs Kings of England or to him and his Successors Yet both bodies make but one indivisible body Plowden 213.233.242 li. 7.12 6. Justice The King can do no wrong Therefore cannot be a disseisor He is all Justice Veritas Justitia saith Bracton circa solium ejus They are the two Supporters that do uphold his Crown he is Medicus regni Pater patriae sponsus Regni qui per annulum is espoused to his Realm at his Coronation he is Gods Lieutenant and is not able to do an unjust thing 4 Ed. 4.25 5 Ed. 4.29 Potentia injuriae est impotentia naturae His Ministers may offend and therefore are to be punished if the Laws are violated but not he 7. Truth The King shall never be estopped Judgement finall in a writ of right shall not conclude him 18 E. 3.38 20 E. 3. Fitz. Droit 15. 8. Omniscience When the King licenceth expresly to aliente an Abbot c. which is in Mortmain he needs not make any Non obstante of the Statutes of Mortmain For it is apparent to be granted in Mortmain And the King is the head of the Law and therefore shall not be intended misconusant of the Law For Praesumitur Rex habere omnia jura in scrinio pectoris sui 1 Jnst 99. And therefore ought to have a Negative voice in Parliament For he is the fountain of justice from whence the Law floweth 8. The Opinion of the two Spencers in Ed. 2. Who held that the oath of allegiance was more by reason of the Kings Crown that is his politick capacity than by reason of his person Is a most detestable excreable damnable and damned invention 7 Rep. fo 11. Calvins case 9. High Treason can be committed against none but the King neither is any thing high Treason but what is declared so to be by the Statute 25 Ed. 3. c. 21. To leavy war against the King to compass or imagine his death or the death of his Queen or of his eldest Son to counterfeit his Money or his great Seal to imprison the King untill he agree to certain demands to leavy war to alter Religion or the Law to remove Counsellours by arms or the King from his Counsellours be they evil or good by arms to seize the Kings Forts Ports Magazine of war to depose the King or to adhere to any State within or without the Kingdome but the Kings Majesty is high Treason For which the Offendor should have judgement First to be drawn to the Gallows 2. There to be hanged by the neck and cut down alive 3. His Intralls to be taken out of his belly And he being alive to be burnt before him 4. That his head should be cut off 5. That his body should be cut in four parts and 6. That his head and his quarters should be put where the Lord the King pleaseth 10. Treason doth ever produce fatal destruction to the Offender either in body or soul sometimes in both and he never attains to his desired end 3 Par. Jnst pag. 36. Peruse over all Books Records and Histories and you shall finde a Principle in Law a Rule in Reason and a tryal in experience that Treason doth ever produce fatal and final destruction to the Offender and never attains to the desired end two incidents inseparable thereunto and therefore let all men abandon it as the Poysonons bait of the Devil and follow the precept in holy Scripture Serve God Honour the King and have no company with the seditions 11. That Kings have been deposed by their Subjects is no argument or ground that we may depose ours A facto ad jus non valet argumentum Because Children have murdered their own fathers is no warrant for us to murder ours Judas betrayed his Soveraign yet should not we follow his example unless we strive for his reward There was never King deposed but in tumultuous and mad times and by might not by right 12. The King is Principium caput finis Parliamenti the begining head and end of a Parliament The body makes not the head nor that which is posterior that which is prior Kings were before Parliaments There were not in England any formed bodyes called the two Houses of Parliament untill above 200. years after the Norman Conquest 13. The King of England is armed with diverse Counsels one whereof is called Commune consilium the Common counsel and that is the Court of Parliament and so it is legally called in writs and judicial proceedings Commune Consilium Regni Angliae Consilium non est praeceptum Consiliarii non sunt praeceptores It is not the office or duty of a Counseller to command and make precepts but only to advise 14. The King is the fountain of justice and the life of the Law The two Houses frame the body the King giveth the soul for without him it is but a dead carcase And Si componere magnis Parva mihi fas est If I may compare small things with great As in a bond though one find paper and another write it yet if the obligor do not seal and deliver it it is nugatory and no obligation So if the King assent not to an act of the two Houses it is void and no Statute It is the royal Scepter which gives it the force of a Law Witnesse the whole Academy of the Law perspicua vera noâ— sunt probanda It would be foolish to light the Sun with Candles 15. Originally The King did make new Laws and abrogate old without the assâ—nt of any known body oâ— assembly of his Subjects But afterwards by his gracious goodnesse perceiving that his people could best know their own soars and so consequently apply the most convenient remedy he vouchsafed so much to restrain his power that he would no make any Law concerning them without their assent For at the first Populus nullis legibus tenebatu sed arbitria regum pro legibus erant Which truth iâ— so clear that it shines almost in every History The oldest and best stile of an act of Parliament is Be it enacted by the Kings Majesty with the assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons c. which proves where the virtual power is 16. The Commons have no Authority but by the Writ of Summons That Writ gives them no power to make new Lawes but onely to do and consent to such things which shall happen to be ordained by Common Counsel there in Parliament which are the words of the writ and all their Jurisdiction At a Conference the Commons are alwayes uncovered and stand bare when the Lords sit with their hats on which shews that they are not Colleagues in Judgement with the Lords Every Member of the House of Commons takes the oath of allegiance and supremacy before his admission in the House and should keep it too 17. It is Lex consuetudo Parliamenti The Law and Custome of a Parliament
as to take upon them a power to depose and powr out the sacred blood of their lawfull Soveraign Yet is there no such power in rerum natura It is the off-pring of the Devil The cloak Sanctuary and refuge of Treason Rebellion and Tyranny to blinde the people taking advantage of their ignorance and lead them hood-winckt into everlasting destruction unless the God of mercy prevent not With this new upstart Doctrine have our Apochryphal Dogmatists in England led the rascal rabble of the people about like a Dog in a string buzzing in their ears that the Monarchy of England is composed of three kinds of Commonwealths and that the Parliament hath the form of an Aristocracy the three estates of a Democracy and the King to represent the state of a Monarchy which is an opinion not only false absurd fond foolish and impossible but also worthy of the most severe punishment For it is high treason to make the Subject equal with the King in authority and power or to joyn them as Companions in the Soveraignty For the power of a Soveraign Prince is nothing diminished by his Parliament but rather much more thereby manifested The Majesty of a Prince consists in the obedience of his Subjects and where is the obedience of the Subjects more manifested then in his Parliament where the Lords and Commons the Nobility and Comminalty and all his Subjects from the highest Cedar to the lowest Shrub with bended knees and bare heads do cast down themselves at his feet and do homage and reverence unto his Majesty Humbly offering unto him their requests which he at his pleasure receiveth or admiteth So that it plainly appeareth that if the Parliament be not extravagant and leap over the bounds limited by the laws of God and our Realm of England the majesty and authority of our Soveraign is not decreased by the assembly of Parliament but rather augmented and increased For the Peers cannot assume Aristocracy nor the Commons Democracy without violation of their Oaths with which they are tyed in obedience to their Soveraign as well as with the Laws Indeed our Prince doth distribute places of command Magistracy and preferments to all his Subjects indifferently and so the Government is in a manner tempered with Democracy But yet notwithstanding the State doth continue a pure and simple Monarchy because all authority floweth and is derived from the King and the Soveraignty doth still continue in him as the fountain from whence those streams of power run and the Parliament is so far from sharing in this Soveraignty that the whole current of our acts of Parliament acknowledge the King to be the only Soveraign stiling him Our Soveraign Lord the King And the Parliament 25 H. 8. saith This your Graces Realm recognizing no superior under God but your Grace c. And the Parliament 16 Rich. 2.5 affirmeth the Crown of England to have been so free at all times that it hath been in no earthly subjection but immediately to God in all things touching the Regality of the said Crown and to none other And without doubt these Parliaments and many others had as much might and right though not so much Knavery as our Anabaptists and Puritans and other Sectaries have now who pretend that the Government originally proceedeth and habitually resideth in the people but is cumulatively and communicatively derived from them unto the King and therefore the people not denuding themselves of their first interest but still retaining the same in the collective body that is to say in themselves suppletive if the King in their Judgement be defective in the administration or neglect the performance of his duty may question their King for his misgovernment dethrone him if they see cause and resuming the Collated power into their own hands again may transfer it to any other whom they please These men would make themselves extraordinary wise or else our Ancestors extraordinary fools for surely if there had been such a power residing in the people as these men blab of it would have been preached up before these new-lights ever saw the light some busie-head like themselves would have awakened it and not let it sleep so long But it is impossible and a meer foppery to think that such a power should be for suppose that the people had at first Elected their Governour and gave him Soveraignty over them could they with justice and equity dethrone him again Surely no. For sive electione sive postulatione vel successione vel belli jure princeps fiat Principi tamen facto Divinitus potestas adest Let the King be made by election lot succession or conquest yet being he is a King he hath Divine power And therefore they have no power to take away that which God hath given The Conceit of a mixed Monarchy that the supreme power may be equally distributed into two or three sorts of Governours is meerly vain and frivolous because the supreme power being but one must be placed in one sort of Governors either only in Monarchy or only in Aristocracy or only in Democracy Our Parliaments of England never until now claimed either Aristocracy or Democracy Therefore as hitherto it hath been granted so the Government must of necessity still be Monarchical And the gracious Concessions of our Soveraign not to make Laws without a Parliament do not make the Parliament sharer or his equal in the Soveraignty because as I shewed before the Parliament hath no power but what is derived from the King His limitation of his Prerogative doth no way diminish his Supremacy God himself who is most absolute may notwithstanding limit himself and his power as he doth when he promises and sweareth that he will not fail David and that the unrepentant Rebels should never enter into his rest so a man that yieldeth himself to be bound hath his strength restrained but not lessened neither is any of it transferred to them who bound him So our Soveraign doth limit his power in some points of his administration and yet this limitation neither transferreth any power of Soveraignty unto the Parliament nor denyeth the Monarchy to be absolute nor admitteth of any resistance against him Monarchy is either Lordly or Royal. Adam proved to be the first King and made by God in Paradise not by the people All Kings are made by God The Son hath more right and it is more pleasing to God for him to murther his Father the Wife her Husband and the Servant his Master than it is for the people to kill their King Though in truth he be wicked The Kings institution and authority declared by Divine and Humane Writers The Horrible Labyrinth of sins which Regicides plunge into with their guilt The most famous Nations in the World have and do live under Monarchy Englands glory and love to Kings in times past and her Apostacy in times present Pater familias were petite Kings and how little Kingdoms grew great Kingdoms The Kings power is
instructions so he that denyeth this truth ought with the oratory of the sword and not of the mouth to be perswaded into his due obedience For it is an uncontrolable Maxim that he doth not honour and serve God as he should who doth not honour and serve his King as he ought God will not own him to be his subject who will not be a subject to his Soveraign the Lords anointed Therefore since by the Law of God for nothing is more frequently commanded in the Scripture and our Kings are of like institution with those Kings in Scripture and ought to have the same honour and obedience by the Law of Nature by the Law of Nations by the Common and Statute Law of England we are commanded to honour our King Let no man be so much an Enemy to God to Religion to his Country to the Church to the Law and to his own soul as to Rebel against his Legal Soveraign For he that doth it transgresseth against the ten Commandements of the Law the new Commandement of the Gospel he committeth the seaven deadly sins the four crying sins the three most detestable sins to the soul of man viz. Prophaness Impudency and Sacrilege In a word he committeth all sins is the Embleme of the Devil and unless he repent he will have his Lot with Belzebub the great Rebel and Traytor against Heaven If punishment cannot compel them me thinks the beauty of Monarchy might allure men to love it Surely there is no generous spirit who doth not for the most renowned and famous Nations in the World have lived under Monarchical Government as the Scythians Ethiopians Indians Assyrians Medes Egyptians Bactrians Armenians Macedonians Jews and Romans first and last and at this day the French Spaniards Polonians Danes Muscovites Tartars Turks Abissines Moors Agiamesques Zagathinians Cathaians yea and the Salvage people lately discovered in the West-Indies as being guided thereto by the rules of nature and rip up Antiquity and search Histories both antient and modern and thou shalt never finde our Realm of England so much an Enemy to virtue as to hate Royal Government until these latter and worst of dayes wherein it is accounted a sin to be noble and vertuous Nay so much did our Nation love Kings in former times that we had seaven of them in England at one and the same time viz. 1. The King of Kent 2. Of the South-Saxons 3. Of the West-Saxons 4. Of the East-Saxons 5. Of Northumberland 6. Of Mercia 7. Of the East-Angels which ruled and shined like the seaven Stars each absolutely reigning in his Country not under the subjection of other until at length by the Law of Conquest one became Monarch over all ruling like the Sun and acknowledging none on Earth his Superior so much that it is amongst us a common adage viz. The King holdeth of none but of God But it seems God hath now granted away the Seigniory to the House of Commons and the King must hold of them But from hence ariseth a point in Law whether they are absolutely and legally seized of the Seigniory without attornment of the tenant In my simple opinion the Seigniory doth not pass before attornment but I leave it as a quaere to the House of Commons who are best able to resolve it because they have all the Law in their own hands Non nostrum inter vos tantas componere lites From what hath been said it is apparent that Adam was the first King on Earth and that Kingdoms have been ever since Adam haereditary for a family which was before Commonwealth is nothing else but a small Kingdom and a great Kingdom is nothing else but a great family for the Pater familias were petite Kings and had royal power and potestatem vitae necis even over their own Children as Abraham and others But when the family increased and the numerous off-pring of their first parent multiplied built Villages Towns and Cities and so became a great people so long as their first parent lived their love and duty towards him would not permit them unnaturally to strive with him for the superiority but to acknowledge and obey him as their Soveraign and lawfull King from whence they had their being And this is the reason that Kings are called Patres Patriae Fathers of their Country Sal. 1. Inde enim origo regum regiique regiminis petenda est Haec cum primo homine cum solo novo cepit quoniam primum parentem numerosus ex eo descendens natorum qui ex â—is nati sunt populus pro rege habuit observavit ut primum sui generis auctorem So much for Monarchy the best of all Governments No man can serve two Masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other ye cannot serve God and Mammon Math. 6.24 If any Anti-Royalist think himself wiser than our Saviour and that he can serve two Masters and love them both let him hate Monarchy and set up his two headed Master and let experience the mistris of fools correct him as it hath many already But since our age is given to nothing but vain imaginations there be some who do Imagine and will object that Adam was no King because he is not stiled so in Scripture I answer though this frivolous objection doth not deserve an answer that neither do you find Adam stiled in Scripture my Father or thy Father yet Adam was the Father of all flesh Si res apparet Cur de nomine certas He that hath the supreme power is a King But Adam had the supreme power Ergo Adam was a King Rex cometh from Regere to rule and Adam was sole Lord Ruler and King and so continued untill he died Adam was created by God the Monarch of the World before he had any subjects And by right of Nature it was due to Adam to govern his posterity even before his subjects were born So that though not in act yet in habit Adam was a king from his creation Neither could Eve nor her Children ever limit Adams power It was God that gave the power therefore no Mortals could ever diminish or increase it For Quid Jove majus habetur They must be above all that which is called godlinesse who go about to put asunder that which the Almighty hath joyned together This Paternal power continued Monarchical to the Floud and after the Floud to the Confusion of Babel at which time God scattered the people abroad from thence upon the face of the whole earth as you may read Gen. 10 11. Yet they went out by Colonies of whole families over which the prime Fathers had the Soveraignty and were kings deriving their Fatherly and Regal power from Noah whose Sons or Grand-children they were all And although I think there are but few Kings in the world who can prove their title to their Crown hereditary ever since Noahs
But be they good or bad the people must not resist them because as Samuel sheweth the manner of kings is to do what they will Principi summum rerum arbitrium Dii dederunt subditis obsequii gloria relicta est To Princes God hath given the highest power to Subjects only is left the glory of obedience saith Tacitus which indeed is the greatest glory can be conferred on them if they had but hearts to receive it for what is more glorious in Subjects than obedience to God and their King Super imperatorem non est nisi solus Deus qui fert imperatorem The King hath no superior but only God saith Optatus Bishop of Milivis Generale pactum est societatis humanae obedire Regibus It is a Natural a General a Universal Compact Covenant of humane society to obey their Kings saith St. Austin li. 3. Confess cap. 8. But since optimus Legum interpres praxis practice is the best interpreter of the Law Look into the Scriptures and learn what our Ancestors have done before us I am confident you cannot find in all the Scripture where God appointed any people to be the chusers of their Kings but rather to accept of them and submit themselves to them whom the Lord had chosen and placed over them Nusquam invenio Regem aliquem Judaeorum populi suffragiis creatum quin si primus ille erat qui designaretur a Deo vel a prophetae ex Dei jussu vel sorte vel alia ratione quam Deus indicasset I never find any Jewish King made by the suffrages of the people but whom God did first by some means appoint saith Piueda de rebus Solo. li. 1. c. 2. neither did the Children of Israel chuse any unlesse Abimelech the Bastard son of Gedeon and as some say Jeroboam who made Israel to sin and of the evil successe of their reigns the Scripture will give you an account Would not the people have established Adonijah in King Davids throne crying out before him 1 Kings 1.25 God save the King Adonijah But God whose property it is only to make Kings rejecteth Adonijah and maketh Solomon to rule in his Fathers stead although Adonijah his title was by birthright aswell as by the consent of the people For 1 Kings 2.15 saith he to Bathsheba the mother of Solomon Thou knowest that the Kingdom was mine and that all Israel set their faces on me that I should reign howbeit the Kingdom is turned about and is become my Brothers For it was his from the Lord. In this verse you may see the title of Adonijah and the title of Solomon to their Fathers Crown Adonijah claimed it by birthright and the power of the people But Solomon claimed it from the Lord. It is no marvel that Adonijah put in his title for the Crown for God hath appointed the right of primogeniture by which the Patriarchs and all the rest of the posterity of Adam injoyed their royalty The elder is to rule over the younger by the Law of Nature Suppose Adonijah to be more wicked than Solomon yet doth not that take away his Birthright For God saith to Cain though he was never so wicked an Hypocrite unto thee shall be the desire of thy Brother and thou shalt rule over him though Abel was never so Godly and sincere a server of God which made Jacob so earnest to purchase his Brothers Birthright Gen. 25.31 And Jacob said sell me this day thy Birthright But Adanijah his Title was not only by birthright but also the people would have made him King and if those people had had as much power as the people of England pretend to have Adonijah would have wanted no other title than their power for the people of England are not afraid to say like Gods By us Kings reign we throw down Kings set them up again there is no power but what comes from us they provide themselves Kings they have spoken once yea twice have I heard this that Power belongeth unto them and that their Kings are only Derivatives from them O monstrum horrendum ingens cui lumen ademptum Did ever the world produce such blind prodigious Monsters Was ever God and Christ robbed so much of their Power Honour and Majesty as by these Vipers Adonijah no sooner saw his Brothers Title but he released his own and quitted the Crown wo be to them who usurp the Crown and have no Title of their own The Title of King Solomon was from the Lord he only set the regal Diadem on his head the people stood by as Ciphers Solus verus Deus dat regna terrena bonis malis saith St. Austin de Civit. Dei li. 4. cap. 33. It is God alone who disposeth of Crowns he crowned Adam a King in Paradice before his fall and before the rise of our Mâ—so-Monarchical Statists and therefore Monarchy is no Creature of the peoples which makes them confess and believe the Devils do the same that Monarchy is the best of all Governments which perhaps is the reason that they would so fain have it to be a Bird of their own hatching But me thinks their Tenets prove the contrary for if all Supreme power were originally in the people and derived from them to the King then without doubt Democracy were the best of all Governments for that form of Government which cometh nearest to its Original is the best But Democracy cometh nearest to its Original therefore Democracy is the best for the nearer the Fountain the purer the stream But change the Supposition into a true Proposition and then the Conclusion will be found as thus All Supreme Power is originally derived from God That Government which cometh nearest to its Original is the best But Monarchy cometh nearest to its Original therefore Monarchy is of all Governments the best And that Monarchy is the best form of all Governments is the conclusion of all Politicians Omnes vero palmam dant regno all give the palm to Monarchy Praestantiam autem Monarchiae non ex vetustate cum Lipsio nec ex naturae ductu cum Hieron ad Rastic Mona probo sed ex commoditatibus quibus caeteras species antestat I do not only prove Monarchy to be the most excellent because it is most antient and most natural but also because it is most profitable saith Henningus Arnisaeus As it is the most beautifull so it is the most profitable government Therefore none but mad men will dart forth the weapons of their Tongues and Hands against Monarchy or else those who would be Commonwealths-men only for their own private ends or else those men who will not have a kingdom unless it be their own and Reges abominantur nisi ipsi sint think kings abominable unless they may be kings themselves And these men think they may the easier attain to kingship by preaching this new Doctrine with the Iesuits that the kings power is derived from the people and so fool the ignorant multitude
Caesari Render to Caesar that which is Caesars saith our Saviour Quot verba tot argumenta His words should be to us commands his actions our instructions and his obedience should be our pattern shall the Lord of life submit himself unto the King and shall not we shall he give Caesar his due and shall not we shall he suffer himself to be murthered by the King and shall we murder the King This is the Popes Doctrine to take away the lives of Princes and â—re not we his true Disciples when we put his words in practice His Disciples did I say nay we scorn that for every man now is a Pope and exerciseth the fame authority But let us forsake the Pope and learn the obedience of true subjects from the subjects of Ioshua chap. 1.16 18. And they answered Joshua saying All that thou commandest us we will do and whithersoever thou sendest us we will go Whosoever he be that doth rebel against thy Commandments and will not hearken unto thy words in all that thou commandest him He shall be put to death only be strong and of a good courage Behold here the Kings Soveraignty to command the Subjects duty to obey and the punishment of a Rebel is death If the King hath not the supreme power how can he command If the subjects are not his inferours why should they obey If the people have a power co-ordinate and equal with the King then must there be duo summa imperia two supreme powers which the Philosophers tell us cannot be Nam quod summum est unum est Soveraignty cannot be divided diverse supreme powers are no more compatible in on State than two sunns are in the firmament Omnisque potestas Impatiens consortis erit Non bene cum sociis regna Venusque manent Kings and Lovers admit of no Rivals Soveraignty being an individual must be in one sort of Governours either in one man as in Monarchy or else in one specifical kinde of men as the optimates as it is in Aristocracy or in the people as in Democracy saith Aristotle Necesse est aut unum esse penes quem summum sit imperium aut paucos aut multos But the Government of England is Monarchy and therefore the people have no supreme power It would be a monstrous body if the inferior members were equal in power or could command the head But suppose there should be such an Vtopia as our Novelists feign where the prople might call their King in question for his actions when they thought he offended we should then have a new King every new moon or oftner and would any man be so mad as to be their King For my part I think he had betrer be hanged for what beast is more Salvage and uncertain than the headlesse blind multitude Virgil. Scinditur incertum studia in contraria Vulgus Discord is the only Ensign of a multitude and sooner will the Stars gather into one body than a multitude unite themselves into one mind Quot homines tot sententiae and would not a man have a rare place of it to be servant to all these beares The Cynical Puritan would hang him if he was not in all things so pure a Saint as himself and the Independent would pende him if he did not solely depend on him as on God almighty the rigid Presbyterian would bend his knotty brows at him if he was not as obedient to him as a water Spaniel and the dreadfull Anabaptist would hang both Puritan Independent Presbyterian and King and all if they would not be Baptized according to his sacred tenet the Quaker would make him quake and Theaurau John would crack his crown unlesse he did esteem them as the greatest part of Christs kingdom And can any wise man think that this kingdom thus divided can stand A man cannot serve two Masters saith our Savior but that he will love the one and hate the other and Jove himself cannot please this many headed monster Therefore if the almighty God had not put the bridle of Government into the peoples mouths and the reigns into the hands of their Superior like the unruly horses of Phaeton or the masterlesse winds of Eolus let loose they would have torn the world asunder and brought all things with themselves into Confusion Tanta est discordia Fratrum So great is the discord even of Brethren No King can be so well accomplished as to please all men neither indeed is it a sign of an honest man to be so flexible as to please every one Populo placere non potest cui placet virtus the just love him whom the wicked hate and the wicked love him whom the just hate what King so pious just religious and mild as Moses the meekest of all men and what greater treason was ever hatched and plotted against any man than him Korah Dathan and Abiram with two hundred and fifty Princes of the Congregation lead the people to Sedition and then to Rebellion telling Moses to his face he took too much upon him and had not God Vindicated the sacred Soveraignty which he had placed in Moses even Moses himself had become a prey to the blood-thirsty and Rebellious appetite of these Traytors For it came to passe that the ground clave asunder that was under them and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up and their Houses and all the men that appertained unto Korah and all their goods they and all that appertained to them went down alive into the pit and the earth clozed upon them and they perished from among the Congregation and all Israel that were round about them fled at the cry of them for they said lâ—st the earth swallow us up also And there came out a fire from the Lord and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense as you may read in Numbers 16. A fearful example one would think enough to deterre the hearts of all Traytors from rebellion This was the first rebellion we read of in the Scripture and how God approved of it doth appear by the exemplary punishment These Traytors did but only murmur and rebel with their tongues yet see how God rewarded them then what punishment is reserved for them who do not only murmur and rebel with their reviling tongues more sharp than a two edged sword but also murder the Lords anointed and powr out his sacred bloud like water upon the ground Doubtless they have just cause to fear that although they flourish here like the green grass yet at the day of Judgement Hell it self will open it's mouth and swallow them up both bodies and souls into everlasting fire and damnation where there shall be nothing but weeping and wailing and guashing of teeth Lento gradu ad vindictam sui divina procedit ira tarditatem supplicii gravitate compensat The longer the blow is a fetching the heavier it will be when it falleth Divine vengeance cometh though with a slow yet
with a sure foot Though King David was a man after Gods own heart yet could he not please the people for Absolom his own Son made a conspiracy against him and forced him to flye for his life But mark the end of this Traytor though the earth did not open her mouth and swallow him up yet the very Trees took vengeance and caught him up by the head so that he hung between heaven and earth as unworthy to go to heaven or to live upon the earth 11 Sam. 18.9 Then how dare these Pulpit Hunters blaspheme God and prophane his Word and Sanctuary so much as to preach that Rebellion is obedience nay a necessary duty commanded of God and a great means to carry on the work of Salvation inciting the people to cry out for justice accounting all things injustice unless that they have their wicked ends So Absolom did steal the hearts of the people who had controversies telling them that there was no man deputed of the King to hear them 11 Sam. 15.4 And Absolom said moreover O that I were made judge in the Land that every man which hath any sute or cause might come unto me and I would do them Justice A true Lecture of a Traytor for you shall never find Traytors without Law and Justice on their sides to colour their actions The King hath not deputed a man say they to distribute Justice He is popishly given and would bring into the Kingdome the popish Religion He infringeth your Charters breaketh the Laws and destroyeth your Rights and Liberties But O that we were made Judges in the Land how equally and impartially would we give justice to all men we would not take away your Charters nor encroach upon your Liberties The preservation of the Law and Religion is the only cause for which we take up arms But when with their charms and sorcery they have intoxicated the people got the hilt of the sword into their own hands and a power to do what they list then down goeth both Law and Religion and the King too like Jonas must be thrown down from the stern of Government to appease the tempest of the multitude And then and not untill then like the head of a Snail or a Tortoise out of it's shell not seen before doth appear their own cause and indeed the only cause for which they took up arms which is their own private interest and the destruction of the whole Kingdome with their own bodies and souls hereafter Hor. Suis ipsa Roma viribus ruit And Englands own Sword destroyeth poor England But let Traytors pretend what they will yet this is a Principle whose original is the Bible confirmed by our Saviour and the Apostles by all the Fathers of the Church and by all Christian people by all reason and Religion That Kings have the Supreme power over their people and consequently the people no power to resist them either to save their Laws Religion or for what other pretence soever For Rex si supra populum optimatesve agnoscat proprie non est Rex He cannot be a King which hath not the supreme authority and Soveraignty Divisum imperium cum Jove Caesar habet It is God and the King to whom Soveraignty belongeth the people are their Vassals and not sharers in so high a dignity Our Saviour alone was both God and Man and it is a thing impossible for the people to be both king and Subject too at one time But why should I seek stars to light the noon day or press that with arguments to be true to them who with their oaths have confirmed it for a truth swearing I William Lenthal do utterly testify and declare in my conscience that the Kings Highness is the only Supreme Governour of this Realm and all other his Highness Dominions and Countries aswell in all spiritual or Ecclesiastical things or Causes as Temporal And that no forein Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority Pre-eminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spâ—ritual within this Realm And therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all forein Jurisdiction Powers Superiorities and Authorities and do promise that from henceforth I shall bear faith and true allegiance to the Kings Highnesse his heirs and lawfull Successors and to my power shall assist and defend all Jurisdictions Privileges Pre-eminences and authorities granted or belonging to the Kings Highnesse his heirs and Successors or united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of the Realm So help me God and by the Contents of this Book What greater exemplification confirmation or demonstration of the kings Soveraignty can there be than this Sacred Oath of Supremacy For this is the thing which the Lord hath commanded saith Moses Num. 30.1 2. If a man Vow a Vow unto the Lord or swear an Oath to binde his soul with a bond he shall not break his word he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth And is there any English-man so impudently wicked and prophane as presumptuously to break Gods Commandement break his own vows and impiously turn perjured Traytor vix ipse tantum vix adhuc credo malum scarce I even I who have seen it with my own eyes can yet hardly believe so great a villany can be perpetrated Haec facere Jason potuit Could the betrothed do this Heu pietas Heu prisca fides Alas the antient piety Alas the fidelity of old time Debuit ferro obvium Offerre pectus I would have dyed first Quid non mortalia pectora cogis Auri sacra fames What doth not gold more sacred to them than their oathes compel mortals to atchieve Vid. 1. Eli. cap. 1. That the Kings power is above the Law is demonstrated by reason and proved by authority In the beginning were no Laws but the Kings will and pleasure Adams absolute power The King can do no wrong It is better and more profitable that one King than many Tyrants do what they lift with us The King hath no Judge but God That place in learned Bracton which Bradshaw and others used as an authority to kill the King explained and their damnable opinion and false Commentary upon him confuted The King is bound to observe Gods Law yet absolute King That God not the people instituteth kings and that the House of Commons which is but the tail of the Parliament nor any whole Parliament can have power over the king or disinherit him HAving made it evidently manifest that the King hath the supreme power and Soveraignty over the people I will now ascend a step higher and make it as manifest that he hath the supreme power and Soveraignty over the Laws as well as over the people Quidvis facere id est regem esse saith Salustius To do what one will is to be a King Cui quod libet licet Qui legibus solutus est Qui leges dat non accipit proiude qui omnes judicat a nemine
neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the Sea Therefore he who getteth a kingdom by the breach of Gods Commandements hath no cause to bragg of his gettings For what will it profit a man to lose his own soul and to gain the whole world Let every one be subject unto the higher powers For there is no power but of God The powers that be are ordained of God Whosoever therefore resisteth the power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive damnation saith St. Paul Rom. 13.1 Behold here the duty of a Subject and the reward of a Rebel There is no power hut of God saith the Text Therefore he that resisteth the King resisteth the Ordinance of God for which he shall receive damnation What then if an unjust King robb us of all we have ravish our wives before our eyes dash out our Childrens brains against the wall set up Idolls and command us to worship them May we not resist him Nonne oportet Deo magis obedire quam hominibus Ought we not to obey God rather than man I answer That ye ought to obey God rather than man Yet may you not with violence resist your King We must not do evil that good might come thereon God hath in many places commanded us to obey and pray even for the worst of Kings Yet you cannot finde so much as a spark of warranty for any subject either Magistrate or private man to rise against his Soveraign in the whole Bible or to call him to an account for any of his actions God hath reserved that to himself as his own peculiar prerogative Magistratus de privatis Principes de Magistratibus Deum de Principibus judicare saith M. Aurelius Magistrates are to judge private men Kings are to judge Magistrates but none are to judge Kings but God The only means which subjects have to reform Kingdoms is that which the Apostle prescribeth 1 Tim. 2.1 Let prayers saith he and supplications be made for Kings and all that are in authority that we may lead a Godly life Prayers must be the only weapons of Subjects against their Kings Let them look into their own breasts and reform their own hearts which many times are the only causes of a Judgement on the Nation Let them amend their own lives and with fervent supplications implore him who hath the Kings heart in his hand and turneth it whithersoever he will to reform the King according to his desire Christiani hominis esse patienter ferre potius quicquid injuriarum ac molestiarum infertur quam ut adigi se sinat ad peccandum contra Deum It is the part of a Christian rather to suffer patiently what injury or persecution soever is laid upon him than to offend God saith Stephanus Szegedinus Interea tamen non esse illicitum si quis vim injustam vel avertere vel fugere vel aliquousque mitigare possit modo id fiat rationibus haud illicitis Quod si id fieri non potest Cavebit Christianus ne illatam vim contrariâ violentiâ retundere conetur sed tolerabit potius omnia nec de vindicando se cogitanit sed vindictam jâ—sto Judici permittet saith the same Author Yet it is not unlawfull if a man can to avert an unlawfull violence to flie from it or otherwise mitigate it so he doth not doe it by unlawful means But if he cannot do it by lawful means a Christian will take heed and not endeavour to repell an unjust violence offered with an unjust force No he will rather suffer all things first neither will he so much as think of revenge but will leave that to God the just Judge to whom vengeance belongeth O vocem verè Christianam O speech most worthy of a Christian If Herod be wroth and send forth and slay all the Children that are in Bethlehem and in all the coasâ—s thereof so that there be lamentation and weeping and great mourning Rachel weeping for her children and will not be comforted because they are not yet will he flie into Egypt with our Saviour and stay there until Herod be dead rather than he will rebell against his Soveraign resist Gods Ordinance so damn his own soul If Saul send messengers to bring him up to him in the bed that he may slay him or pursue him with 3000. chosen men of Israel yet will not he put forth his hand against his Soveraign for he is the Lords anointed Nay if it be in his power and he is counseled to kill him yet with holy David he will cry out The Lord forbid that I should doe this thing unto my master the Lords anointed to stretch forth my hand against him seeing he is the anointed of the Lord. His heart will smite him if he cut off his skirts but he will suffer all things before he will cut off his Kings head for who can do that and be guiltless If the King persecute him in this City he will flie into another Hee hath learned of his Master to be subject to his Soveraign not only for wrath but also for conscience sake He is good and the rulers are not a terror to him The evil and wicked will murder their Soveraign for fear his justice should reward them with death according to their deserts But he will not like those filthy dreamers speak evil of dignities and despise Dominion his tears are his arms and patience his revenger Levius fit patientia Quicquid corrigi est nefas Though it be unlawfull for him to gather Soldiers with force arms to correct and take his Soveraign from his evil Counsellors yet patience shall both assist and give him the victory St. Ambrose and he are alwaies in one time saying I have not learned to resist but I can grieve and weep and sigh and against the weapons of the Soldiers and the Gothes my tears and my prayers are my weapons otherwise neither ought I neither can I resist If the King saith God do so and more also to me if the head of this follow shall stand on him this day and likewise send a Messenger to cut it off yet with Elisha he will only shut the door against him and offer no other violence though it lie in his power If a multitude come out with swords and staves against him lay hold on him and lead him away to the Rulers who condemn him and deliver him to the wicked soldiers to be crucified yet in imitation of his Lord and Master he will say nothing rather than revile them though they spit upon him he will meekly wipe it off If they crown him with thorns hee will patiently suffer it If they give him Vinegar mingled with gall to drink hee will tast it If they crucifie him he will voluntarily spread forth his humble hands to be nailed on the Crosse and will not resist the higher Powers for the Lords sake If they saw him in pieces he will
nisi qui se pronunciavit esse justitiam If any of us offend the King thou mayest correct us but if thou shalt exceed who shall correct thee we may speak unto thee and if thou wilt thou mayest hear us But if thou wilt not none can condemn thee but he who is Justice it self Therefore every one should endeavour to be that true obedient described by St. Bernard Verus Obediens non attendit quale sit quod praecipitur hoc solo contentus quia praecipitur He that is truly obedient regardeth not what is commanded being content only with this that it is commanded We should be as diligent to obey and preserve our King as the apple our eye and take asmuch delight in him as we do in the light for he is worth ten thousand of us Therefore the Israelites would not let David their King adventure himself in the war against his rebellious Son and their reason was Thou art worth ten thousand of us so in the war against the Philistines They swear Thou shalt no more go out with us because they esteemed him as the light of the Kingdom and say 2 Sam. 18.31 That thou quench not the light of Israel if he should miscarry they accounted themselves to be but in darkeness And if we were true Israelites indeed in whom there was no guile we should have the same estimation of our dread Soveraign nulli pietate secundus who is a second David But suppose he was as he is not a Tyrant were it not better for us to serve one hard yet honourable Master than a hundred domineering yet base â—red Tyrants Si pereo manibus hominum periisse juâ—abit If we must be killed and made slaves of let the King who is our superiour do it and not our servants who have no greater pedigree than anâ—ient servants and no other cause of their promotion than their wickedness Praestat timere unum â—uam multos It is better to fear one than many Better one woolf than many to put our lives in continual hazard It is a Maxime in Law that the King shall have the estates and protection of their persons who are non compos mentis Ideots c. May not the King then justly and with good title by this rule challenge both our estates and our persons Surely he may for if we were not worse than mad men and fools we should never expel a gracious and merciful Soveraign and subject our selves to a company of the Lord knows what A monster without head or tayl more wonderful than Chimaera they would and they would not they themselves cannot tell what to make of themselves neither can any man tell where to have them like empty clouds and foggy mists they are blown about with every winde But it is to be feared that the Devil will catch them at the long run who now drink bloud like sponges and only know how to be wicked oppressing both Law and Religion Did the King demand Ship-mony as by the Law in extraordinary cases he might and was he condemned and vilifyed as unjust and a breaker of the peoples liberty What are they then who against all Law and Equity take away all that we have only to satisfy their own ambitions Atheistical appetites and to maintain themselves in their most wicked devillish and incomparable villanies Did the King demand five treacherous Members of the Parliament whom the Law would have condemned guilty of high Treason And was he adjudged an Enemy to Parliaments and an Infringer of their freedoms What are they then to be adjudged who do what they list hang or draw our Members and persons and play with Parliaments as Children do with Rattles or as Butchers their slaughtering axes throw them away when they have done with them and dismount and thrust out that * what do you call it * Quondam Parl. which first gave them their being O viperous brood who destroy that viper which ingendred them But since by the Law of the Land Mad men shall not be punished for committing of Felony or Murther Lest we being mad-men and fools as I have said before should murther our King and think to excuse our selves by pleading non compos mentis Let me tell you that though one that is not of his right mind shall not be punished if he commit Felony Murther petite Treason c. Yet if he kill or offer to kill the King it is high Treason and he shall suffer punishment as other Traytors ought to do let Cook the Oracle of the Law give the reason li. 4. fo 124. Car le Roy Est Caput salus Reipublicae a Capite bona valetudo transit in omnes pur cest cause lour persons sont cy sacred que nul doit a eux offer violence mes il est Reus criminis laesae Majestatis pereat unus ne pereant omnes For the King is the head saith he health of the Commonwealth upon whom the safety of all doth depend and for this cause the Kings person is so sacred that no man can offer violence to the King but he is guilty of high Treason for which he shall die For it is better that one perish than all And since it lyeth in my way this will I speak for the credit of the Common laws of our Realm That though the Law of God the Civil Law and all other Laws do as it were strive to excel each other in maintaining and defending the Prerogative of Kings yet doth not our Common Law which is founded on the Law of God come behind any of them For I should want words to expresse and Paper to contain the many privileges and just immunities which the Law giveth its Soveraign the King and if the Judges had been as just to execute the Law as Dunn the Hangman is The head and feet had still injoyed their proper Functions and there would as there ought still have been a difference betwixt the Servant and the Master the Subject and the Soveraign But silent leges inter arma our law-books like broken Vessels are laid aside and our Laws like Cobwebs are not taken notice of except it be to wipe sweep them away that the Corruption of one thing is the perfection of another is a rule in Philosophy And do not the Sophistical Philosophers of our times prove and approve this rule by practice who perfect themselves by the ruine of the Laws The Sword is their pruning-hook by which they lop others to make themselves grow the better they bait all their designs with Liberty and Rellgion and so catch the people into Hell when they think to go to Heaven The principal end of Government is the advancement of Godâ— honour but these men make the safety of the people the sole and only end of Government only that they might murther their King the Shepheard make a prey of the sheep his subjects and so feed the cruel appetite of themselves the
But these men with their practice most wickedly affirm it King Henry the 7 â— h and many Burgesses and Knights of the Counties being first attainted by Act of Parliament of high Treason against Richard the 3d. The question was in H. the 7 ths Parliament How this Act of Attainder should be reversed and made void It was resolved by all the Judges That those Knights and Burgesses which were attainted should not sit in the House when the Act of Attainder was to â—e reversed But when that Act was reversed then they might come again and sit in Parliament But as for the King it was unanimously agreed and resolved by all the said Judges that ipso facto when he took upon him to be King that he was a person able and discharged of the Attainder for said they the King hath power in himself to enable himself without a Parliament And an Act for the reversal of the Attainder is not at all necessary See 1 H. 7.4 Com. 238. Parliament B. 37. and 105. In which case you may see the power of a King of a King that was attainted of the greatest offence viz. High Treason Here likewise you may view the power of a Parliament of a Parliament who had asmuch right to dethrone their King as ever the long Parliament or any other had Here likewise you may hear the voyce of the Law of the Common law not since repealed by any subsequent Statute But as it was then so it ought to be now the Resolution of all the Judges in England That the King hath power to take pardon and ought not to crave pardon of the people for his offences The Crown once gained taketh away all defect is the Sentence of the Law and an Adage amongst all honest Lawyers If the people had the Supreme power why was not the Attainder of the King in this precedent case reversed by Act of Parliament as were the Attainders of the other Members If the King be but an Officer of trust deputed by the people and receiveth his power from them Why was not the King in this case freed from his offence by the people What would they entrust a person attainted of so great an offence as high Treason with the highest place in the Common-wealth And yet not permit others guilty and attainted of the same offence not so much as to fit and Act as Members of the Parliament without they were first purged of their offence It doth not stand with reason that the highest Offender should exercise the highest office And doubtless if the people had had power the Parliament would have cleared King H. the 7th from his crime before he should have Officiated his Office of Kingship But that Parliament well knew that the feet were not higher than the head and that the Inferiour Members could not impose Laws on the King their Soveraign They knew with Bracton that the King Parem non habet in Regno suo had not in his Kingdom any single man or the people his equal Therefore since it is the Law of the land Magna Charta 29. That no mâ—n shall be judged but by his Peers and being the King hath no Peer or Peers in his Dominions They resolved not to judge their King nor to commit so great a vanity as to reverse the Attainder For can a King be attainted or can the people who have no authority but what they have from him have authority to correct and revise their King O foolish imagination Horac Caelo tonantem credidimus Jovem Regnare praesens Divus habebitur Augustus adjectis Britaunis Imperio Jove governs Heaven with his Nod King Charles he is the earthly God Great Britain being his lawfull Inheritance Our King Augustus high and mighty Solus Princeps qui est Monarcha Imperator in Regno suo Davis Irish Rep. fo 60. Our only Prince who is both Monarch and Emperor in his kingdom hath only authority and the only right to govern the Britains who though long since have been accounted Rigidi hospitibus feri rigid and cruel to strangers yet that they should ever so much degenerate as to be rigid and cruel to their own natural King and kill their natural Soveraign is such a wonder and murther that never entred into the thoughts of former ages and will be a bugbear and scar-crow to all succeeding generations for by robbing their King of his Crown and Life they have robbed the Turk of his cruelty Judas of his treachery and all the Devils of their malicious wickedness For the Turks cruelty Judas his perfidious treachery and the Devils malicious villanies do all conjoyn to make up and center in an English Rebel one of those beasts who like the Enemies of King David Psal 102.8 Have sworn together against their King are mad upon him and revile him all the day long Yet that they may seem religious even when they commit Sacrilege they like the Devil when he tempted our Saviour taking him up into an exceeding high mountain and shewing him all the kingdoms in the world and the glory of them saying unto him All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me Mat. 4.9 will promise fairly and as if they were resolved diametrically to oppose St. Peters Doctrin who commands them 1 Pet. 2.16 Not to use liberty for a cloak of maliciousness they use the liberty of the people as a Wolf doth the Lambs skin to destroy poor Lambs as the only cloak and cover for all their malicious wicked prodigious and damnable actions For if you ask them for what cause did they murder the King Their answer is for the liberty of the people For what cause do they make themselves Governours and Lords and Masters over all that we have For the liberty of the people For what cause do they subvert the Laws expell and throw down the orderly and holy Clergie and all Religion with them For the liberty of the people For what cause do they enslave the whole Nation For the liberty of the people Nay these men are so well furnished with godly pretences and wicked intentions that even whilst they cut the peoples throats they make them believe they give them a blessing And as the man who swore that the Coat of the true owner was another mans only because he might have the use of it himself So these men have the impudence to swear though not without perjury that the Supreme power is in the people only because they might throw down our royal Government with all goodnesse with it and use that Supreme power themselves which they protest is in the people O delusive Mountebanks Was there ever such a jugling deceit acted by any Jugglers or Quacksalvers in the world Surely there was not And did not every one nay they themselves very well know the truth of what I have said I might easily make it clear and evident even to the blind with multitudes of Examples For
take it for a curse or do things worse Some would have children those that have them mone or wish them gone What is it then to have or have no wife But single thraldome or a double strife Our own affections still at home to please is a disease To crosse the sea to any forein soil perils and toil Wars with their noise affright us when they ceasâ— we are worse in peace What then remains but that we still should cry Not to be born or being born to die The King of Englands Soveraignty proved and approved by the Common Law to be above both Parliament and people inferiour to none on earth but God Almighty and that neither the people of England nor any other his Subjects either distributively or collectively in one intire body ought to call the King in question for his actions though they be never so wicked The sweet harmony and concordance of the Law of God and the Law of the Realm in maintaining the Royal Prerogative of our Soveraign manifested The Kings Coronation is onely a Ceremony no part of his Title How the Changeling Statesmen of our times who will not endure that the King should have Soveraignty over them his vassals make themselves absolute Kings over the Scripture and Law books and make the Law and the Gospel speak in what sense their wicked wills and lusts vouchsafe Resistance of the power unlawfull The Subjects duty to their Soveraign Their Reward and remedy if they be punished wrongfully Reverend Bracton cleared from Mr. Pryns false aspersions Mr. Pryns Character his Book entitled the Soverâ—ign Power of Parliaments and Kingdomes arraigned convicted and condemned and his confident averment therein That it was not Saint Pauls nor the Holy Ghosts meaning to inhibit defensive wars of the Subjects against their King proved to be Apocriphal and that Saint Paul like an honest man spoke what he meant when he said Let every soul be subject to the higher powers though Mr. Pryn would have his words and his meaning two things How Mr. Pryn worshipped the long Parliament heretofore as a Sacred Deity when it acted wickedly and now despiseth it as idolatry and an Advertisement to him to write a book of Retractations To go about to prove that the King of England c. hath the Supreme power over the Parliament and people deserveth as much derision as to go about to prove that the Sun shineth at noon day or that the heavens are above the earth yet since there are those amongst us who like the Sodomites grope for light in the clearest day and have the iâ—pudence to publish for truth that which their conscience telleth them is false I will give you a tast of our Lord the Kings Soveraignty which lieth dispersed and scattered about in our Law books Jus Câ—ronae The Law of the Crown is the principal part of the Laws of this Realm Co. Lit. 11.b. 15. b 344. a 25 E. 3 cap. 1. Register inter jura Regia 61 c. For since the Common Law of the Land is common usage expressed in our books of Law and judicial Records Co. Lit. 344 a. Plowden 195. Finch 77a. The Government of this Kingdome by a Royal Soveraign is become a Fundamental Law being as antient as history it self and used from the time whereof the memory of antiquity is not to the contrary And since that the ligeance faith obedience of the Subject is due unto the King by the Law of nature Co. l. 6. fol. 12. as well before as after the municipal and Judicial Laws were made our Law-books like faithfull Subjects being the Magazine of law from their Alpha to Omega could preach no other Doctrine than Allegeance faith and due obedience to their Soveraign the King whom they all confesse and testifie to be the Supreme lord and head of the Common-wealth immediately under God above all persons in all causes Finch in French fol. 20. in English 81. Co. lib. 2.15 Le Roy est caput salus Reipublicae à capite bona valetudo tranfit in omnes lib. 4.124 the King is the fountain of Justice tranquillity and repose Plowden 242. Therefore Nil desperandum Rege duce Auspice Rege Nothing can come amisse to us the King being our guide and Soveraign Reges sacro aleo uncti spiritualis jurisdictionis sunt capaces Kings being the Lords Anointed are nursing Fathers to our Church The King of England est Monarcha Imperator in Regno suo Davis Irish reports fol. 60. the Almighty hath said that they are gods and our common laws of England being founded on the laws of God do likewise attribute to them a shadow of the Divine excellencies viz. VVingates Maxim fol. 301. 1 Divine perfection 2 Infinitenesse 3. Majesty 4 Soveraignty 5. perpetuity 6. Justice 7. Truth 8 Omniscienc Of which I have already treated Nay as God is a King in Heaven so the King is stiled a God upon Earth Finch 81. He is the Head Father Physician and husband of the Common-wealth He is Gods Lieutenant Deputy Vicegerent receiving his Commission from God not from the people These are the titles which the Common Laws of England give to the King A Divine sentence is in the lips of the King his mouth transgresseth not in judgement Prov. 16.10 saith Gods word Therefore the Law receiveth it for a Maxim That the King can do no wrong Co. Lit. f. 19. He is Rex gratia Dei non populi King by the grace of God not of the people The most high ruleth in the Kingdom of men and giveth it to whomsoever he will Dan. 4.17 Therfore all the Lands and Tenements in England in the hands of Subjects are holden mediately or immediately of the King but the King is Tenant to none but God 8 H. 7 12. Co. Lit. 1. For Praedium Domini Regis est Directum Dominium cujus nullus author est nisi Deus Only God is the author and Donor of the Kings Dominions Therefore the possessions of the King are called sacra Patrimonia Dominica Coronae Regis The King is the Lords anointed 1 Sam. 10.1 Therefore the Law giveth reverence to his Person and maketh him supreme in Ecclesiastical causes The villain of a Lord in the presence of the King cannot be seized because the presence of the King is a protection to the villain for that time 27 ass Pla. 49. Is it fit to say to a King thou art wicked and to Princes ye are ungodly Job 34.18 Therefore no Civil much lesse Criminal action lyeth against the King if he doth unjustly the only remedie against the King is by petition and supplication for who shall command the King Stamford Praer fol. 5. Bracton fol. 5. Flera fol. 17. Finch 13. The Prerogative which the Common-law giveth the King is so large as Sir Henry Finch saith that you shall find that to be law almost in every case of the King that is law in no case of the Subject Finch fol. 85.
restored to his own and sit Judge amongst us It was King Charles the first who granted that the burthen of excise should not be laid on the shoulders of his Subjects but the Rebels with their intollerable and monstrous Excises new found impositions and other unspeakable grievances have beggered the Subjects and undone the whole Kingdome both in their Estates and Reputation To be short whatsoever they voted unlawfull for the King to do they have done that and ten thousand times worse so that though we want not bodies to feel the miseries which they have brought upon us yet we want tongues to expresse the wofulnesse of our Condition and the incomparable wickedness of these Traytors And what greater pretence have they had for their actions than to say that the King was not the Supreme Governour over his Subjects A contradiction in it self but we will proceed further to manifest their error Sir Thomas Smith in his common-wealth of England saith cap. 9. By old and antient Histories that I have read I do not understand that our Nation hath used any other general Authority in this Realm neither Aristocratical nor Democratical out only the royal Kingly Majesty who held of God to himself by his Sword his People Crown acknowledging no Prince on Earth his Superiour and so it is kept holden at this day which truth is sufficiently warranted in our Law-Books The state of our Kingdome saith Sir Edward Cook li. 4. Ep. ad lectorem is Monarchical from the beginning by right of inheritance hath been successive which is the most absolute and perfect form of Government excluding Interregnum and with it infinite inconveniences the Maxim of the common Law being Regem Angliae nunquam mori That the King of England never dyeth then doubtlesse the Rebels could not by Law mortifie both the natural and politique capacity of the King And in Calvins case li. 7. The weightiest case that ever was argued in any Court than which case according to my Lord Cokes observation never any case was adjudged with greater concordance and lesse variety of opinions and that which never fell out in any doubtfull case no one opinion in all our books is against that judgment In this case it was resolved amongst other things Fo. 4. c. 1. That the People of England c. were the Subjects of the King viz. their Soveraign liege Lord King James 2. That Ligeance or obedience of the Subject to the Soveraign is due by the Law of Nature 3. That this Law of Nature is part of the Laws of England 4. That the Law of Nature was before any judicial or municipal Law in the world 5. That the Law of Nature is immutable and cannot be changed From which resolutions we may conclude that the Subjects of the King of England unlesse they like God Almighty could alter the Law of Nature They could not alter their obedience and subjection to their Soveraign Lord King Charles For if by the Law of Nature obedience from them was due to the natural body as I shall further prove of King Charles and if the Law of Nature is immutable as most certainly it is Bracton lib. 1 ca. 5. D. Stu. ca. 5. 6. then could not they have any cause whatsoever as altering their Religion banishing or killing of them a sufficient ground for them to take up arms against him and put him to death For by this they go about to change the Law of Nature which is impossible for mortals to do But say some by the Law of Nature we may defend our selves and therefore leavy war against the King for our own defence I answer that by the Law of Nature we are bound to defend our selves yet must we use no unlawfull means for our defence for the Subjects to levy war against their Soveraign is forbidden both by the Laws of God and Nature Therefore vain and foolish is that excuse as well as all others which the Rebels make use of to defend their Rebellion Ligeance is a true and faithfull obedience of the Subject due to his Soveraign It is an obligation upon all Subjects to take part with their Liege Lord against all men living to aid and assist him with their bodies and minds with their advice and power not toft li up their arms against him nor to support in any way those who oppose him This ligeance and obedience is an incident inseparable to every Subject of England and in our Law-books and many Acts of Parliament as in 34 H. 8. cap. 1. 35 H. 8. cap. 3 c. The King is called the liege Lord of his Subjects and the people his liege subjects Every Subject of England taketh the Oath of ligeance which is only due unto the King yet doth not the ligeance of the Subject to the King begin at the taking of this Oath at the Leet For as it was resolved in Calvins Case so soon as the Subject is born he oweth by birth-right ligeance and obedience to his Soveraign Lord the King Because ligeance faith and obedience of the Subject to the Soveraign was by the Law of Nature written with the Finger of God in the Heart of Man before any municipal or judicial Laws were made 1. For that Moses was the first Reporter or writer of Law in the World yet government and subjection was long before Moses 2. For that it had been in vain to have prescribed laws to any but to such as ought obedience faith and ligeance before in respect whereof they were bound to obey and observe them Frustra enim feruntur leges nisi subditis obedientibus You may read likewise in Calvins Case That the King of England hath his title to the Crown by inherent birth-right by descent from the blood royal from God Nature and the Law and therefore not by way of trust from the two Houses of Parliament or from the People Neither is his Coronation any part of his Title but only an ornament and solemniation of the royal descent For it was then resolved that the title of King James was by dessent and that by Queen Elizabeths death the Crown and Kingdom of England descended to his Majesty and he was fully and absolutely thereby King without any essential ceremony or act to be done Ex post facto So in the first year of the same Kings reign before his Majesties Coronation Watson and Clarke seminary Priests and others were of opinion that his Majesty was no compleat and absolute King before his Coronation but that Coronation did adde perfection to the descent and therefore observe saith my Lord Cook their damnable and damned consequent that they by strength and power might before his Coronation take him and his royal Issue into their possession keep him prisoner in the Tower remove such Counsellors and great Officers as pleased them and constitute others in their places c. and that these and others of like nature could not be treason against
which is not subject too but resisteth the power shall receive damnation but whosoever with defensive arms resisteth the King is not subject to but doth resist the power Therehe which with defensive arms resisteth the King shall receive damnation The Major no man can deny the Minor is inviolable and the Conclusion is perfect and sound There be those indeed who do confidently averr and have written a book too that there were men before Adam but I could never see any Scripture but their own interpretations and meanings to warrant their averments And untill Mr. Pryn can produce Texts of Scripture to warrant and maintain his confident averment he must excuse me if I still hold St. Paules Doctrine Canonical and his averment meer Apocripha For suppose the King subverteth both Law and Religion yet doth not that take away his supreme power he is still a King and Gods ordinance Saul was a King though an impious sinner and there have been wicked Kings as well as wicked Subjects to do evil saith one is no power but impotency therefore if the King command me to murther my self my Father to destroy my Country or to do any other wicked act I will not do it but obey God not him because it is his corruption not any power he hath from whence his commandment proceedeth and therefore I am not obliged to obey him because I must be a Subject to his power not to his sins yet if he should run after me with a naked Sword to kill me my Father my Mother ruine my Country Laws and Religion Yet would not I with defensive arms lift up my hands against him to resist hurt and destroy him because he is still my King and hath still that supreme power which God placed in him although he doth not then execute it and therefore if I should with defensive Arms lift up my hands to resist hurt and destroy him I should with defensive Arms lift up my hands to resist hurt and destroy the Ordinance of God and so receive damnation for my reward Not to perform the Kings command is a resistance although we suffer death Therefore if it be the Kings power and not his wicked will which commandeth me to do an evil thing if I did not perform his evil commandment I should resist his power and so be lyable to damnation although I patiently and meekly suffered death But doubtlesse the Kings power cannot command me to do any evil but it must proceed from his sinfull will for God is not the Author of any unrighteousnesse and there is no power but what God is the Author of therefore according to venerable Bede the Apostle doth not say Non est cupiditas nisi a Deo est enim mala cupiditas quae non est a deo nocendi autem voluntas potest esse a suo quoque animo pravo That there is no concupiscence but what is of God for there is an evil concupiscence which is not from God and the evil will of sinning proceedeth from our own depraved mindes therefore if the King command me to do an evil thing I ought to obey God not his wicked will but rather than to lift up my hands against him though in my defence I ought cheerfully and meekly to suffer a thousand deaths for by dying unjustly here I shall live eternally in Heaven and since the Glory of a Christian is the Crosse by suffering and dying a Martyr I shall obtain everlasting Glory and by my thus doing well I shall get praise even of the Power which the Kings wicked will made use of to destroy me but defence against the power of a King is offence therefore if with defensive arms I should fight against him I should resist Gods Ordinance and so receive damnation for by Gods Ordinance the King hath the power over all and his Actions ought not to be questioned or resisted by any but the Almighty But for my part I hold clearly that when the King executeth Tyranny taketh away the Lives or Estates of his Subjects unjustly that he doth it not only by reason of his wicked will according to the precedent distinction but by force and virtue of his power which God hath given him and that this is the power which St. Paul commandeth us to be subject unto which if we resist we shall receive damnation and that for several reasons It is most certain that there is no power but of God the powers that be are ordained of God for by him were all things created that are in Heaven and that are in Earth visible and invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers all things were created by him and for him Col. 1.16 Which expressions in the Abstract do expresse existents in the Concrete from whence it followeth that bad Kings have their power from God and are Gods Ordinance as well as good And it is manifest in Scripture that wicked Kings are often sent for the punishment of a Nation as in Hosea 13.11 I gave them a King in my wrath and took him away in mine anger And God commandeth us to pray for and be subject not only to the good but also to the bad Kings I exhort you that Prayers and Supplications and Thanksgiving be made for all men for Kings and such as are in Authority 1 Tim. 2.1 Thus Abraham prayed for King Abimeleck Gen. 20.17 And Jacob blessed the King of Aegypt Gen. 47.10 Yet the Kings of those times were Infidels and most notoriously wicked No man is ignorant that Nebuchadnezzar who destroyed Jerusalem was a great spoyler and oppressor yet the Lord tells us by Ezekiel that he had given unto him the Land of Aegypt for the good service he had done in laying it waste on his Commandement And Daniel said unto him thus Dan. 2.37 Thou O King art a King of Kings for the God of Heaven hath given thee a Kingdom Power and Strength and Glory and wheresoever the Children of men dwell the Beasts of the Field and the Fowls of Heaven hath he given into thy hand and hath made thee Ruler over them all Again to Belshazzar his Son Dan. 5.18 The most high God gave unto Nebuchadnezzar thy Father a Kingdom and Majesty and Glory and Honour and for the Majesty that he gave him all people Nations and Languages trembled and feared before him And again Jer. 27.6 I have made the Earth saith the Lord the Man and the Beast that are upon the ground by my great power and by my outstretched Arm and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me And now have I given all these Lands into the Hands of Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon my Servant and the Beasts of the Field have I given him also to serve him and all Nations shall serve him and his Son and his Sons Son untill the very time of his Land come And it shall come to passe that the Nation and Kingdom which will not serve the same Nebcchadnezzar
there is Ultimum Potentiae so in the politick body when the King and the Lords Spititual and temporal Knights Citizens and Burgesses are all by the Kings command assembled and joyned together under the head the King in consultation for the Common good of the whole Realm there is Ultimum Sapientiae But it was never known in any age that the Members without the head had either power or wisdom and it would be prodigious if our age should produce such a Monster No man can tell the contrary but that our Realm of England hath been Governed by Kings ever since the Creation of the World clear it is by all Historians that ever since we heard of any Government in England it hath been a Royal State and although our Governours have been often changed yet our Government was never turned out of the regal road it is as easy to pull the Sun out of the Firmament and make the Stars to rule the day as it is to abolish Monarchy and establish Aristocracy or Democracy in our Kingdom For that which is bred in the bone will never out of the flesh As Monarchy is the most divine and most natural kind of Government so it is most natural to and esteemed most divine by all true born English men For such is the Courage and so great is the Loftiness of English Spirits that they disdain to be ruled by any but by his sacred Majesty our Soveraign Lord the King For as it was long before King William the Conquerour so did our Government continue still without interruption a Royal Monarchy until the chief Priests and the Scribes and the Elders as they call them of the People to wit Presbiterians Independents Anabaptists Jesuits c. assembled together and consulted that they might take Charles the first whose undeserved sufferings have made him immortal on Earth as well as in Heaven by subtilty and kill him But they said let us not kill him suddenly and openly lest there be an uproar among the people night time is the only day for wickedness The Gunpowder Treason was hatched in darknesse and these Godly Villains thought that the best way to catch their prey was to beat on the dark side of the hedge They cut the Throat of Religion when they seemed to lay a plaister and they murthered their Soveraign when they swore they intended nothing but to make him a Glorious King Then entred Satan into Judas surnamed the House of Commons being one of the two Houses of Parliament And these Judasses went their way and communed with the chief Priests and Captains how they might betray him unto them And they were glad and covenanted to give them mony who then promised and sought opportunity to betray him unto them in the absence of the multitude And since the innocent Birds are oftentimes easier catcht with silent and gentle snares than roaring Guns at first these Judasses thought to betray their Master with kisses courting his Majesty with high-flying Complements of Obedience and that they might make him believe them to be what indeed they were not they made many Oathes Protestations Vows and Covenants that they were his Graces most dutyful Subjects and desired to live no longer than to do his Majesty service But it seems they did but play the Fox speak fair only to get their prey for by these sophistical insinuations they charmed his Majesty and wrested from him divers marks of his Soveraignty they were intrusted with the Navy obteined a Triennial Parliament were acquitted of Ship-mony and other impositions and at length made themselves perpetual for his Majesty passed an Act not to Dissolve them without their consent So that they now wanted nothing but his Majesties life which to obtain they procured by their wickedness the Earl of Strafford's head to be cut off and many other Nobles which stood in their way which props being removed they thought they might with more ease pull down the Soveraignty of the King that these Negroes might make themselves compleat Devils they got the head of the Earl of Strafford others cutoff for committing Treason against the King whose head they afterwards intended to cut off for committing treason against them O incomparable villany What they made a capital offence in others they esteemed more than a Cardinal virtue in themselves It was High Treason in others to think to do the King any harm but it was a high piece of Godlinesse in them to cut off his head The Earl of Strafford must dye as a Traitour because they said he intended to levy warre against the Kings will But these Saints raised Armies to fight against his Majesties own person Levied warre against the King and Kingdome murthered the King and destroyed the whole Realm Yet forsooth they must be canonized as the only true servants of Jesus Christ and all those who speak against them they kill and massacre as if they had committed Treason and Blasphemy against the Almighty Nay the great offence against the Holy Ghost they esteem more pardonable than the least against them And as it now plainly appeareth to the world all their oaths vowes and protestations of obedience to the King and performing of their duty towards him were but preparations for their great wickednesse of murthering the King For as the Gunner when he laboureth to kill the innocent bird walketh gently and treadeth softly holding down his gun as if it was the least of his thoughts to shoot when he mindeth nothing more or as the greedy Huntsman stealeth upon the Hare or Deer looking another way untill he is gotten close by and then letteth out his bloudy hounds to take and kill his prey So these Vipers more wise than Serpents only to do mischief did steal upon the King and undermined him by cutting off his Nobles whom they knew would be true and trusty servants to him and then when they thought they had him within their reach They let fly their doggs the bloudy souldiers for this Judas the House of Commons then having received a band of men and officers from the chief Priests and Pharisees John 18.3 who first set them on work came forth with a great multitude with swords and staves Matth. 26.47 48. to take and kill their Soveraign Now they that betrayed him gave the souldiers a sign saying Whomsoever we have sworn to be the only supreme Governour in all causes and over all persons That same is he hold him fast In that same time said the King to the Multitude Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me I sate daily with you in the Parliament House making many good lawes and ye laid no hold on me But all this was done that their wickednesse might be fulfilled John 18.12 Then the band and the Captain and the Officers of these Jews took the King and led him away to their Council and contrary to all legal proceedings and
odious woman when she is married and an Hand-maiâ— that is Heir to her Mistresse Is not our Englanâ— disquieted with all these Oh who can bear it yet these Tyrants rejoce at it Delight is not seemly for a Fool much lesse for a Servant to have ruâ— over Princes Pro. 19.10 Yet these Slaves tryumph over their Prince and scoff at his Miseries And as the Jews in a deriding manner said of oâ— Saviour This is Jesus King of the Jews So thesâ— Jews scoffingly call their Soveraign Lord The King of Scots yet keep his Kingdom from him jeeâ—ing him out of his Estate O Heavens As perpetually afterwards so allwayes before the Conquerour the legislative power did continue in the King tanquam in proprio subjecto as in the true and proper subject of that power and the Kings Edicts were the only positive Laws of the Realm and indeed who can be a King without this power for what difference is there between the King and Subject but that the one gives the Laws the other receiveth them And most clear it is by all Historians that the Common Council of our antient Kings were composed only of Prelates and Peers the Commons were not admitted to any Communication in affairs of State Camden in his Britannia telleth us that in the times of the Saxon Kings and in after Ages the Common Council of the Land was Praesentia Regis Praelatorum Procerumque collectorum The presence of the King with the Prelates and Peers Ingulphus who dyed before 1109 saith Rex Eldredus Convocavit Magnates Episcopos Proceres Optimates ad tractandum de publicis negotiis Regni He did not call the Commons So Edward the Confessor that great Legislâ—tor made all his Laws without the consent of the Commons Now when the Norman Conqueror one of the Praedecessors of Charles the Martyr came in who had a triple title to this Kingdome to wit by Donation Conquest and by the Consent of the people for as it is well known when Edward the Confessor lived in Normandy he gave this Kingdom after his decease to William Duke of Normandy as he was his kinsman near of bloud so that the Conquerour was heir of the Crown to the Confessor by adoption Which title if it was invalid you must know he was a Conquerour and no man will deny that Conquest maketh a legal title Jure Belli But suppose both those titles were as they were not invalid yet by the Law of Nations the Consent of the people maketh an inviolable title even to an Usurper in continuance of time if they have no other lawfull King much more to a lawfull Soveraign And his people our Ancestors ever since the Conquest for the space of about six hundred yeares have all done allegiance to and unanimously resolved that the Conquerour and his Successors were our only true Kings Liege Lords and Soveraigns having the supreme power over us and never did the people claim power to depose the King until those Monsters at Westminster under pretence of such a power murthered Charles the first and against all Law Justice and Equity and against thâ— wills of the people make themselves masters of our lives and fortunes and of all that we have taking them away when they please It would make a man cry and it would make a man laugh to see what fools these fellowes make of us Royal Government by Kings hath been used here time out of mind and approved by all our Ancestors to be the best of Governments and most natural and profitable for us yet these few stinking Members at Westminster made an Act March 17. 1648. contrary even to their own Oaths and Protestations to abolish the Kingly Government as unnecessary I use their own words burthensome and dangerous to the people as if this small company consisting of fifty or sixty at the most of the Scum and tail of the people were wiser and knew what was better for us than all our Ancestors both noble and ignoble in all ages But what was their reason to abolish Kingship To make each of themselves Kings nay Tyrannical Kings over us So may the slave say that the government of his Lord over him is unnecessary burthensome and dangerous and therefore he will murther his Lord and make himself Maâ—ter changeing the name and execute the office worse So may High-way men take away the true owners purse and tell him it was unnecessary for him to keep it or by the same law may thieves murther and rob the Master of his house and then vote the Master burthensome and dangerous to his family Yet notwithstanding while these Tyrants destroy our fundamental Government Lawes Religion Freedoms and Liberties making of us absolute slaves villains only to satiate their lust and pleasure yet even then they stile themselves The Keepers of the Liberty of England by Authority of Parliament Close and trusty keepers of our liberty indeed for we can come at none of it they keep it from us not for us so Wolves may call themselves keepers of the Lambs which they have caught or by the same law may a Cut-purse be called the keeper of the purse and be said to have the same care of it for they are heepers of our liberty only to keep themselves For by what authority was this Individuam vagum the Keepers erected By what authority why they will tell you by authority of Parliament Cunning Curres How they take the people with this word Parliament when God knows they themselves were all the Parliament by whose authority the thing called Keepers I know not what they be for I never yet heard them named were invented So may Adulterers vote themselves keepers of Chastity or so may I murther a man against his will and then call my self keeper of his life by his authority For they destroyed the Parliament when they destroyed the King and there hath been no Parliament since Vide 1 H. 4. Rot. Parl. n. 1.14 li. 4. Coke 4 Inst p. 46. and 4 C. 4. f. 440. Therefore they most falsly call themselves a Parliament Neither are they the Representatives of the people as I shewed before but a company of Ungracious Tyrants acting against the wills of the people Yet forsooth they tell us that the people have the supreme power and that they act for the people being their Representatives Just as if I should take away all that another man hath against his will and then tell him that he hath the supreme power over his goods and that I took them away by his authority and power or as if I should take away his money without his leave and tell him that I am his Representative So these Foxes cozen the people with nonsensical cheats and in all things are Representatives of the Devil not of the People for they all well know and some of them have declared so that if the people might chuse their Representatives those Representatives would restore the King to his
own again which these most unjustly keep from him We cannot serve God and Mammon both at one time Good and evil cannot stand both together If the King come in and rule these men must fall If we serve the King as we ought we cannot serve these at all If God re-establisheth his Anointed Lucifer must call down his Children wickednesse must be abolished when righteousnesse takes place therefore the Gaolers of the Liberty of England must down when Charles the Second our only lawfull Soveraign is restored to his Crown and Kingdome Which they very well know therefore they would fain keep as long as they can their Empire which cost them their Souls and Reputation But let us return to our King When the Conquerour came in He got by right of Conquest all the Land of the Realm into his own hands the whole Kingdom was his direct and proper inheritance in demeasn so that no man can at this day make any greater title than from the Conquest to any Lands in England for the King being owner and sole Lord of the whole Land and the People therein did as he lawfully might dispose of the Land and people according to his will and pleasure he gave out of his hands what Lands he pleased to what persons he pleased and reserved what tenures and services he pleased So that in the Law of England we have not properly Allodium that is any Subjects Land that is not holden We all hold our Lands mediately or immediately of the Crown neither have we any right to our Lands any longer than we are faithfull and loyal to the King who first gave us them upon that condition for by the Laws of the Realm if we take up arms against the King imagine his death or commit any other offence which is high Treason we forfeit our estates to the King so that they return from whence they were first derived the greatest and highest title or property which a Subject hath to his Lands is Quod talisseisitus fuit in dominico suo ut de feodo Now though this word Feodum doth as Littleton teacheth legally signify inheritance and so Feodum Simplex signifieth a lawfull or pure inheritance yet it is apparently manifest that Feodum is a derived right and doth import with it a trust to be performed which trust broken forfeiteth the Estate to the King who only hath as Camden observeth Directum imperium cujus nullus est Author nisi Deus For all the Lands within this Realm were originally derived from the Crown and therefore the King is Soveraign Lord or Lord Paramount either mediate or immediate of all and every parcel of Land within the Realm 18 E. 3.35.44 E. 3.5 48 E 3.9.8 H. 7.12 Therefore though in other places he which findeth a piece of Land that no other possesseth or hath title unto entreth into it gaineth a property by his entry yet in England property to Land cannot be gained any such way for the Subject can have no property but what was first by the Kings grant therefore those Lands are still appropriated to the Crown which the King did not give away to his Subjects as if Land be left by the Sea this Land belongeth to the King and not to him that hath the Lands next adjoyning or to any other but the King Caelum Caeli Domino terram autem dedit filiis hominum All the whole Heavens are the Lords the Earth hath he given to the Children of men for which he only reserved their service as an acknowledgement of his bounteous liberality so the whole Kingdom is the Kings but the Land therein he hath given to his Children the people for which he only reserved their allegiance and service as a remembrance and recognition of his Royal bounty in which reservation the King as my Lord Bacon writeth had four institutions exceeding politick and suitable to the State of a Conquerour First Seeing his people to be part Normans and part Saxons the Normans he brought with him the Saxons he found here he bent himself to conjoyn them by Mariages in Amity and for that purpose ordains that if those of his Nobles Knights and Gentlemen to whom he gave great rewards of lands should dye leaving their Heir within Age a Male within 21 and a Female within 14 years and unmaryed then the King should have the bestowing of such Heirs in Mariage in such a Family and to such persons as he should think meet which interest of Mariage went still imployed and doth at this day in every Tenure called Knights service The Second was to the end that his people should be still conserved in Warlik exercises and able for his defence when therefore he gave any good portion of Lands that might make the party of Abilities or strength he withall reserved this service That that party and his Heirs having such lands should keep a Horse of service continually and serve upon him himself when the King went to Warrs or else having impediment to excuse his own person should find another to serve in his place which service of Horse and Man is a part of that Tenure called Knights service at this day But if the Tenant himself be an Infant the King is to hold this land himself untill he come to full Age finding him Meat Drink Apparel and other necessaries and finding a Horse and a Man with the overplus to serve in the Warrs as the Tenant himself should do if he were at full Age. But if this Inheritance descend upon a Woman that cannot serve by her Sex then the King is not to have the Lands she being 14. years of Age because she is then able to have an Husband that may do the service in person The Third institution that upon every gift of Land the King reserved a Vow and an Oath to bind the party to his Faith and Loyalty that Vow was called Homage the Oath of Fealty Homage is to be done kneeling holding his hands between the knees of the Lord saying in the French tongue I become your Man of Life and Limb and of earthly honour Fealty is to take an Oath upon a Book that he will be a faithful Tenant to the King and do his service and pay his Rents according to his Tenure The Fourth institution was that for Recognizance of the Kings bounty by every Heir succeeding his Ancestor in those Knight service lands the King should have Prâ—mer seisin of the lands which is one years profit of the lands and untill this be paid the King is to have possession of the land and then to restore it to the Heir which continueth at this day in use and is the very cause of suing livery and that as well where the Heir hath been in ward as otherwise Many other Tenures with services did the Conquerour institute as Grand Serjeanty Petit Serjeanty Tenure in Burgage Soccage Escuage c. which being holden of the King are called Tenures in capite which
is as much to say as Tenures de persona Regis because the head is the principal part of the body and the King is the head of the body of the Commonwealth Which Tenures brought many profits and commodities to the Crown which would be too tedious here to particularize and are a clear testimony of the Kings Soveraignty For no man can alien those lands which he holdeth in Capite without the Kings Licence if they doe the King is to have a fine for the contempt and may seise the land and retain it untill the fine be paid By example and in imitation of the King For Regis ad exemplum totus componitur orbis Did the Nobles and Gentry of this Nation to whom the King had given large portions of land grant out parcells of their land to their Servants and under-Tenants reserving such services and appointing such like Tenures as the King did to them as Homage Fealty c. whereof you may read plentifully in Littletons Tenures But their Tenants in doing Homage and Fealty to them did alwayes except the Faith which they did owe unto the King As in their making Homage appeareth viz. I become your man from this day forward of Life and Limb and of earthly worship and unto you shall be true and faithful and bear you faith for the Tenements I claim to hold of you saving the Faith that I owe unto our Soveraign Lord the King Though they Swore to become the men of and be true and faithfull to their Lords yet not so but that they still were the men of and ever would be true and faithful to the King their Soveraign who was Lord over their Lords and over the whole Realm Omnis homo debet fidem Domino suo de vita membris suis terreno honore observatione consilii sui per honestum utile salva fide Deo Terrae Principi Lib. Rub. cap. 55. We can oblige our selves to no men so deeply as to take away our allegiance and fidelity towards the King We must be for God and the King in all things all our actings and undertakings should tend to their Glory which would prove our greatest good and comfort Homagium Ligeum is only due unto the King the Law prohibiteth us to do Homage to any without making mention of this Homage due unto the Lord our King therefore we must not be opposite to or armed against him but both our lives and members must be ready for his defence because he is Soveraign Lord over all Co. Lit. 65. As the Conquerour did make all his Subjects Feudaries to him so likewise did he change our Lawes and Customes at his pleasure and brought in his own Country fashions which is the Common use of Conquerours He caused all Lawes to be written in his language and made what Lawes he thought meet Quod Principi placuerit legis habet vigorem whatsoever the King willed was the only law His fiat was as binding as an Act of Parliament and what he voted no man no not the whole Kingdome had power to dispute There was no question then made but that the King ought to have the Militia neither did any one think of much lesse deny him a Negative voice The Commons then thought it an high honour to look upon the Kings Majesty a farre off To sit and rule their families at home was all the Jurisdiction which they had or claimed They had not power to condemn one of their servants to death much lesse their Soveraign Lord the King from whom they then and we now have our being The King had not then made them so much as the Lower House nor ever did admit them to his Counsel The Lords their Masters were only deemed worâ—hy of this dignity for why Tractent fabrilâ—a fabri Let the Shepheard keep his sheep and the Hogheard keep his hogs and not meddle with the tuning of musical Instruments Though the Plow-man can drive and guide his horses well yet he would make an ill Pilot to steer a ship The Blacksmith may have skill to make a horse-shooe but he would rather marre than make a watch The Commons may make good Subjects but experience teacheth us they will rather destroy both King and Kingdome than reform or rectifie either Therefore the Kings of England did never admit the Commoners into their Counsels much lesse intrust them with the Legislative poâ—er For it is a Meridian truth that as before so from the Conquest until a great part of the Reign of Henry the third in whose dayes as some hold the writ for election of Knights was first framed the Barons and Prelâ—tes only made the Parliament or Common Council of the Realm whom the King convoked by his Royal Summons when he pleased Neither did the Council so convened consist of any certain number but of what number and of what persons the King vouchsafed Nay clear it is by the Lawes made in the Reign of Edward the first which was above two hundred yeares after the conquest that there was no certain persons or formed body whose consent was requisite to joyn with the King in making an act of Parliament but when the King conceived it fit to make a Law he called such persons as he thought most proper to be consulted with Indeed at the Coronation of Henry the first all the People of England were called by the King and Laws were then made but it was per Commune Concilium Baronum And that King and his Successours did not usually call the Commons but made Laws with the advice of which of their Subjects they pleased and as Sir Walter Rawleigh and others write the Commons with their Magna Charta had but bastard births being begotten by Usurpers and fostered by Rebellion for King Henry the first did but usurp the Kingdom and therefore to secure himself the better against Robert his eldest brother he Courted the Commons and granted them that Great Charter with Charta de foresta which King John confirmed upon the same grounds for he was also an Usurper Arthur Duke of Brittain being the undoubted heir of the Crown so the House of Commons and these Great Charters had their original from such that were Kings de facto not de jure But it maters not which of the Kings first instituted the House of Commons certain it is that long after the Conquerour its name was not so much as heard of in England but as it is apparent one of his Successours did form them and grant not to make Laws without their consent and by a Statute made 7 H. 4. the Writ of Summons now used was formed and by an other Act made 1 H. 5. direction is given who shall be chosen that is to say For Knights of the Shires Persons resiant in the County and for Cities and Boroughs Citizens and Burgesses dwelling there and Free-men of the same Cities and Boroughs and no other So that now by the
or Precinct to be holden there only and remove the Courts at Westminster to what place he pleaseth and adjourn the Terms as he sees cause this is book-Law 6. H. 7.9.6 Eli. Dier 226. But I pray what Law set up the new slaughter-house in England viz. the high Court of Justice Doubtlesse it was not the Kings Law and if not his Law it was no Law for England never heard of any other but the Kings Laws You have already heard that the King was before Parliaments that the King first instituted Parliaments not Parliaments the King that the House of Commons is but as it were of yesterday and that both Houses are nothing else but what the King made them Let us now see what the King did make them with what power this Idol the House of Commons is invested since they have nothing else to shew for what they are than the Kings Writ that being their Basis and only legal authority Take a view of the Writ The King to the Vicount or Sheriff Greeting WHereas by the advice and assent of our Counsell for certain arduous and urgent affairs concerning us the State and defence of our Kingdom of England and the Anglican Church We have ordained a certain Parliament of ours to be held at our City _____ the _____ day of _____ next ensuing and there to have conference and to treat with the Prelats Great-Men and Peers of our said Kingdom We command and strictly enjoyn you that making Proclamation at the next County Court after the receit of this our Writ to be holden the day and place aforesaid you cause two Knights girt with Swords the most fit and discreet of the County aforesaid and of every City of that County two Citizens of every Borough two Burgesses of the discreeter and most sufficient to be freely and indifferently chosen by them who shall be present at such Proclamation according to the Tenor of the Statute in that case made and provided and the names of the said Knights Cittizens and Burgesses so chosen to be inserted in certain Indentures to be then made between you and those that shall be present at such Election whether the parties so elected be present or absent and shall makâ— them to come at the said day and place so that the said Knights for themselves and for the County aforesaid and the Citizens and the Burgesses for themselves and the Cominalty of the said Cities and Burroughs may have severally from them full and sufficient power to do and to consent to those things which then by the favour of God shall there happen to be ordained by the Common Counsel of our said Kingdom concerning the businesse aforesaid So that the businesse may not by any means remain undone for want of such power or by reason of the improvident election of the aforesaid Knights Citizens and Burgesses But we will not in any case that you or any other Sheriff of our said Kingdome shall be eâ—ected And at the day and place aforesaid the said Election being made in a full County Court you shall certifie without delay to us in our Chancery under your Seal and the Seals of them which shall be present at that Election sending back unto us the other part of the Indenture aforesaid affiled to these presents together with the Writ Witnesse our self at Westminster This Writ is the foundation of the Parliament upon which the whole fabrick of their power and proceedings is grounded It is that which setteth up a Parliament Man and is the only Commission which distinguisheth him from another man for without that every man in the Kingdom hath equal right and authority to sit and vote in Parliament Now by Law no man ought to exceed his Commission Therefore if the Lords or Commons act beyond the bounds of their power limited in this Writ their only Commission they are transgressors and incur the punishment of Malefactors The Writ telleth you that both Houses are but as it were the production of the Privy Council for though the King ordaineth the Parliament yet it is by the advice and assent of his Council why then may not the Kings privy Council being prius tempore lay claim to the Soveraignty as well as his Common Council surely both have like right The Lords are only enabled by their call tâ— Conferr and Treat and that not without but with the King It is their Counsel to advise not their power to authorize which the King requireth For why had not the King ordained a certain Parliament to be and there to â—ave Conference and to treat with them they â—ad not come to give him Counsel and as they â—annot come but when the King commands them â—o neither can they chuse but come when the King â—oth command except the King excuse them â—nd being come they are but as Judge Jenkinsâ—ith â—ith Consiliarii non Praeceptores Counsellors â—or Commanders for to Counsel is not to Comâ—and They are only to advise not to controul â—r compel the King The Parliament is ordained â—y the â—ing as appeareth by the Writ only for â—ertain arduous and urgent affairs 1. Touching â—he King 2. The State of the Kingdom â— The defence of the Kingdom 4. The â—tate of the Church And 5. The â—efence of the same Church Though it â—e arduous yet not urgent occasion to destroy â—ingship To condemn the King to death and â—unishment is not touching the King but a Maleâ—ctor To kill the King is to destroy the kingdom â—ot to defend it and his death is the death of â—e Church and Religion O how have the Long â—arliament swarved from the true ends for â—hich Parliaments were ordained Indeed the Lords not as the upper House of â—arliament but as a distinct Court of the Kings Baâ—ns have power to reform erroneous judgeâ—ents given in the Kings Bench But there is first Petition of Right made to the King and his anâ—wer to it viz. Fiat Justitia The Court of Parliament is only the House of Lords where the King sitteth and they are his common-Counsel it belongs to them to receive all Petitions to advise his Majesty with their Counsel and to consent to what Laws the King shall make by their advice Not to speak of the qualities of the persons of the House of Commons being most of them to wit Citizens and Burgesses Tradesmen brought up in their Shops not in any University or Academy of Law and Learning and as fit to Govern and make Laws God wot as Cows are to dance The rest of them being Knights of Shires chosen commonly rather for their Mony than their Wit having greater wealth than head-pieces I pass from their education to the authority which the King vouchsafed to bestow upon them which is only what is contained in the Writ viz. facere consentire to do consent but to what Not unto such things which they shall ordain but unto such things which are ordained by the King and
sides and esteeming all men indiscreet who publickly own their King and therby incurr the displeasure of these domineering Tyrants But for my part I had rather be a Servant to God and my King than a Master amongst the unrighteous I am a Member of the body of the Common-wealth and therefore cannot see my head the King cut off without crying Lord have mercy upon us It is the duty of all his Subjects both with pens and hands to help their King out of the mire into which these Rebels have cast him not only the law of God but the law of the land injoyneth us thereto And I cannot see our Laws and Religion rooted up without groans and sighs It is no time to be silent when the fabrick wherein our whole treasure and happines consisteth is set on fire Neither can silence or innocence protect one from the unjust violence of these Wolves Sleeping or waking we are alwayes their prey Some of us they murther for our Estates some for their pleasure but all according to their wicked wills not law Therefore God knows whether I may be the next who must come to their pot Howsoever I had rather be taken doing God my King and my Country service than in a drowsie Lethargy I commit my Soul and Body to the protection of the Almighty who dorh not let a sparrow fall to the ground without his divine providence therefore will not let me fall into the power of their lust without his permission The King fell and why should not I The Lords will be done who when he hath corrected his Children will burn the rod. They can destroy only my Body him only will I fear who can destroy both Body and Soul Give Cerberus a sop cryes some men and speak fairly to the Monster now in power But it is but to go into Hell Therefore I will neither flatter nor dissemble with them Not to speak of the Modesty of the House of Commons in former Ages scarce adventuring to doe what they might for fear they should arrogate too much As in 21 Ed. 3. When their advice was required concerning the prosecution of a Warr with France They answered That their humble desire of the King was that he would be advised therein by the Lords being of more experience than themselves in such affairs The like president of their Modesty may you find in the 6 R. 2. and in the 3 E. 3. They disclaimed to have Cognisance of such matters as the Guarding of the Seas and Marches of the Kingdom We may conclude that unlesse it be the property of the Servant to command and the Master to obey or of the Souldiers to march before their Captain that the King hath the supreme power and is the sole Legislator not the House of Commons For the King representeth God the Commons only the ignoble People As for both Houses joyntly together they are no Court at all therefore can have no thoughts of having the Legislative power And as the two Houses have no power but what the King bestoweth on them so neither have they any title of honour and dignity but by the Kings gift For as all the lands in England and all power and authority is derived from the Crown So by the laws of England all the degrees of Nobilitie and Honour are derived from the King the Fountain of Honour and Majesty it self 4. Inst 363. What then have the two Houses joyntly or the House of Commons singly the Soveraign power because they have none but what the King giveth them Have they the Majesty because they have no honour or dignity but by the Kings gift Surely this is all the reason The King made the Lords not the Lords the King a Peasant to day may be a Lord to morrow if the King pleaseth and is the Pesant therefore the Kings master surely no it is the King who createth Barons and so maketh them capable to sit in the House of Peers but they are made but Peers not Kings nay they are but Peers of the Realm not of the King They are under not above the King For sunt alii Potentes sub Rege qui dicuntur Barones hoc est robur belli saith Bracton l. 1. c. 8. Though they are Potentes yet they are sub rege As for the House of Commons they are so far from being our keepers or the masters of our King and kingdom that there is not a Noble man amongst them They receive their being from the breath of the Kings Writ and having their being in a collective body they are but the Lower House whose name importeth subjection But if the Commons when they sit in the House have the Soveraign power where was it before their Sessions and where is it when they are dissolved What doth it hang in the Clouds and drop on them when they sit and dissolve like the Snow with the VVinter when the King dissolveth them Soveraignty is permanent and always continueth waking The House of Commons are and they are not according to the Kings pleasure he assembles and dissolves them at his will And what doth the Soveraign power sleep or die during their interregnum one would think it belonged to the King because he never dieth O ridiculous Commons I am weary of their absurdity in claiming the Soveraignty But as once it was demanded of an Oraaor speaking very much in the commendation of Hercules Quis vituperavit So it may be demanded of me treating of the Kings Soveraignty who hath brought arguments against it Truly for my part I never saw any reasonable argument against it many cavils but no reasons Evasions are the best proofs used by the Anti-Royalists And when they shift a Question with forein matter or a forein meaning They think they have not only made a good answer but also proved the point in question to be on their side As when our Books say Every man in the kingdom is under the King but the King is under none but God They answer the meaning of the book is That every single man in the kingdom is under the King but not the whole people collectively for they are above the King Just as if the Book should say every man in the world is under the Heavens but the Heavens are under none but God And they should answer to evade it The meaning of the Book is That every single man is under the Heavens but not the whole body of the people for they are above the Heavens O miserable invention such absurdities are most of their Arguments Therefore we may conclude that since Club-Law set them above reason it must be Club-Law which must pull them down Let the Sword argue them out of the Kings possessions which they have gotten by Rebellion and it will be easie then to convince them that Rebellion against the King is unlawful Had the King had no Revenues he had still injoyed his Crown It is the profit which maketh King-killing honest
And it is the sweetnesse of the Bishops Lands which makes the Office of a Bishop so bitter and odious to our new States-men The Law would have them ejected from their ill gotten Fortune and Estates therefore they persecute the Law as their utter Enemy And say that they will have it no more coached in the City of London but carted in the Country amongst the Swains But they must likewise send the City with it into the Country otherwise the Body will dye when the Soul departeth and the City will perish when the Law and its Retinue bid it farewell As Histories both forein and domestique antient and modern and the whole Accademy of the Common Law so it is apparent by many Records and Judgements in Parliament And both the Lords and Commons in divers Acts of Parliament through many successions of Ages have declared that the King of England is Monarcha Imperator in regno suo a Monarch and Emperour in his Realm above all the people in his kingdom and inferiour to none on Earth but only the Almighty holding his Crown and Royal dignity immediately of God and of none else By the Statute of 28 H. 8. ca. 2. enacted in Ireland it is declared that the Kings of England are Lawful Kings and Emperours of the said Realm of England and of this Land of Ireland So by the Act of 16 R. 2. ca. 5. It is declared That the Crown of England hath been so free at all times that it hath been in no earthly subjection but immediately subject to God in all things touching the Regality of the same Crown and to none other And what is the House of Commons a God if they are but men the Crown is not subject to them for the Statute telleth you it is in no Earthly subjection But perhaps they are Devils neither will that serve their turn for as it appeareth by the Act The Crown is immediately subject to God and to none other So by the Statute of 24 H. 8. cap. 12. it is declared Where by divers sundry old authentick Histories and Chronicles it is manifestly declared and expressed That this Realm of England is an Empire and so hath been accepted in the World Governed by one Supreme Head and King having the Dignity and Royal Estate of the imperial Crown of the same unto whom a body politick compact of all sorts and degrees of people divided in terms and by names of Spiritualty and Temporalty been bounden and ought to bear next God a natural and humble obedience he being also institute and furnished by the goodnesse and sufferance of Almighty God with plenary whole and entire power pre-eminence authority prerogative and Jurisdiction to render and yield justice and final determination to all manner of Folk and Subjects within his Realm and in aâ— causes matters and debates whatsoever Behold here and consider the Judgement of the whole people both Lords and Commons Who can contradict what they said None but the Antipodes of our Age who contradict all Truth Justice Law and Honesty I heard it affirmed that they were about to explode out of the new Testament the 13th Chapter of the Romans and other Texts in Scripture which commanded subjection to Kings Truly I believe they did not want knavery but only conveniency to effect it If the Bible had had but one Head off it had went as sure as the Kings In the Statute of 1 Eli. cap. 1. and in several other Acts of Parliamenâ— the Crown of England is called an Imperial Crown and the Parliament the Kings hâ—gh Court And that you may see that the Murtherers of Charls the Martyr pretended to want water when they were in the Sea read the Act of Parliament 1 Ia. cap. 1. wherein the Lords and Commons made this joyfull Recognition viz. Albeit We your Majesties loyal and faithfull Subjects of all Estates and Degrees with all possible and publick joy and acclamation by open proclamations within few hours after the decease of our late Soveraign Queen we declared with one full voice of tongue and heart your Majesty to be our only lawfull and rightfull Liege-Lord and Soveraign yet as we cannot do it too often or enough so it cannot be more fit than in this high Court of Parliament where the whole Kingdom in person or by Representatives is present upon the knees of our hearts to agnize our most constant faith obedience and loyalty to your Majesty and your Royal Progeny humbly beseeching it may be as a memorial to all Posterity recorded in Parliament and enacted by the same that we being bounden thereunto by the Laws of God and Man do recognize and acknowledg that immediately upon the death of Queen Elizabeth the imperial Crown of this Realm did by inherent birth-right and lawfull and undoubted succession descend and come to your Majesty and that by lawfull right and descent under one imperial Crown your Majesty is of England Scotland France and Ireland the most potent and mighty King and thereunto we most humbly and faithfully submit and oblige our selves our heirs and posterities for ever untill the last drop of our bloods be spent and beseech your Majesty to accept the same as the first fruits of our loyalty to your Majesty and Royal Progeny and Posterity for ever Which if your Majesty will adorn with your royal assent without which it neither can be compleat and perfect nor remain to all Posterity we shall adde this to the rest of your Majesties inestimable benefits But now Tiber runs backwards and the Moon giveth light unto the Sun the Servant ruleth the Master and the Peasant is mightier and greater than the King Nay in stead of walking on our feet as our fore-Fathers did we walk upon our heads and as for the old paths where is the good way we will not walk therein Our Ancestors have attested the Kings Soveraignity with their lives and sacred oaths but we attest the contrary so that if we of this age are not our Ancestors of all ages past were ignorant perjured fools Our Fathers as you see in the fore-going Statute did humbly submit and oblige themselves and us their heirs and Posterity to be constant and faithfull in subjection to the King and his Royal Progeny But we undutyfull to our Parents as well as Rebellious to our King oblige our selves and bind our souls with many sacred oaths to expell him from his Crown rob him of his Revenews and extirpate his Royal Progeny being constant and faithfull to nothing but our own lusts and ambition They would spend their bloods to maintain and defend the King but we spend both our bloods and Estates to offend and destroy him They esteemed their Act void and imperfect without the Royal assent But we esteem and vote the Royal assent void imperfect and uselesse But wherefore do I say we Lay the saddle on the right horse It was neither Lords nor Commons Parliament nor people who perpetrated all these villanies
are called of God to be Kings as his Vicegerents they have power to look to and have a care of the Church that the word be preached and the Sacraments administred by fit persons and in a right manner else how should Kings be Nursing Fathers to the Church had they not a Fatherly power over it Therefore many Acts of Parliament in several Kings Reigns and the whole Current of Law Books resolve and affirm the King to be head and have Supreme Jurisdiction in Ecclesiastical causes In the first year of Edward the sixth a Statute was made That all Authority and Jurisdiction both Spiritual and Temporal is derived from the King So in the Reign of Edward the Confessor was this Law ca. 17. The King who is the Vicar of the highest King is ordained to this end that he should Govern and Rule the Kingdom and People of the Land and above all things the Holy Church and that he defend the same from wrong doers and destroy and root out workers of mischief But since Reverend Coke in the fifth part of his Reports De jure Regis Ecclesiastico hath with luculent examples and impregnable lawes made it so clear that no man can gainsay it that the King ought and the Kings of England ever since before the Conquest until the Reign of Queen Elizabeth at which time he writ have had the supreme power and jurisdiction in all Spiritual and Ecclesiastical causes I referre you to his Book only reciting part of his conclusion viz. Thus hath it appeared as well by the antient Common Lawes of this Realm by the Resolutions and Judgments of the Judges and Sages of the Lawes of England in all succession of ages as by authority of many Acts of Parliament antient and of later times that the Kingdome of England is an absolute Monarchy and that the King is the only supreme Governour as well over Ecclesiastical persons and in Ecclesiastical causes as temporal within this Realm And in another places fo 8. he saith And therefore by the antient Lawes of this Realm this Kingdome of England is an absolute Empire and Monarchy consisting of one head which is the King and of a body politick compact and compounded of many and almost infinite several and yet well agreeing Members All which the law divideth into two several parts that is to say the Clergy and the Laity both of them next and immediately under God subject and obedient to the head Also the Kingly head of this politick body is instituted and furnished with plenary and intire power prerogative and jurisdiction to render justice and right to every part and member of this body of what estate degree or calling soever in all causes Ecclesiastical or Temporal otherwise he should not be a head of the whole body Now he that looketh upon these Authorities and yet saith that the King is not above both Parliament and people nor hath soveraign power over them will likewise look upon the sun in the Heavens and yet say that it is not above but below the earth and when he is in the midst of the sea say that there are no waters in the world If then the King hath the supreme power over Parliament and people as most certainly he hath how then could the Parliament or people much lesse sixty of them question or judge their King For no man can deny but that the greater power ought to correct and judge the lesser not the lesser the greater How could they did I say Why vi armis by violence and injury not by law So may I go and murther the King of Spain or the King of France and then tell them that their people have the supreme power over them The case is all one only these Rebels murthered their natural Father and King to whom nature and the Lawes of God and man had made them subjects but I should murther a forein King whom I ought not to touch he being the Lords annointed It is easie to prove the Soveraignty of the Kings of England by their Stiles unlesse our anti-monarchical Statists will say they nick named themselves Their several stiles since the Conquest you may see in the first part of my Lord Coke's Institutes Fo. 27. Therefore I will not trouble you with a recital of them as for the styles before the Conquest take one for all which you may find in the Preface of Co. li. 4. and in Davis his Irish reports Fo. 60. In a Charter made by Edgar one of the Saxon Monarchs of England before the Danish Kings viz. Altitonantis dei largiflua clementia qui est Rex Regum dominus dominantium Ego Edgarus Anglorum Basileus omniumque rerum Insularum Oceani quae Britanniam circumjacent cunctarumque Nationum quae infra eam includuntuâ— Imperator et dominus Gratias ago ipsi Deo omnipotenti Regi meo qui meum imperium sic ampliavit exaltavit super Regum patrum meorum Qui licet Monarchiam totius Angliae adepti sunt a tempore Athelstani qui primus Regum Anglorum omnes Nationes quae Britanniam incolunt sibi armis subegit nullus tamen eorum ultra fines imperium suum dilatare agressus est mihi tamen concessit propitia Divinitas cum Anglorum imperio omnia regna Insularum Oceani cum suis ferocissimis regibus usque Norvegiam maximamque partem Hiberniae cum sua nobilissima Civitate de Dublina Anglorum regno subjugare quos etiam omnes meis imperiis colla subdare dei favente gratia coegi By which you may observe the first Conquest of Ireland and that the Kings of England are Emperours and Monarchs in their Kingdom constituted only by God the King of Kings and Lord of Lords not by the people And so did many other Kings of England stile themselves as for example Etheldredus totius Albionis Dei Providentia Imperator and Edredus Magnae Britanniae Monarcha c. But that our preposterous Commonwealths men might make themselves most ridiculous as well as impious in all things they would argue the King out of his Militia and have him to be their Defender yet they would take away his sword from him O Childish foppery What a Warriour without arms a General without souldiers why not aâ— well a Speaker without a mouth such Drollerâ— was never heard of in the world until the Infatuation of these infandous Republicans hatcht it Nay but there shall be a King over us cryed the Israelites that we also might be like all the Nations and that our King may judge us and go out before us and fight our battels 1 Sam. 8.19 Anâ— what should he fight without the Militia should the King be over the people judge them and go out before them to battel yet ought the people tâ— have power to array arm and muster the souldierâ— at their pleasure ought they to appoint whaâ— Officers and Commanders they thought fit surely no For he will saith Samuel verse 12.
authority O pious Rebels So far are our Laws of England from allowing Subjects to take up arms against the King or to condemn execute him that it is high treason for any one or all of his Subjects but to imagine the Kings death which the wisdom and Religion of our Realm hath from age to age so much hated and abhorred that an offender therin by the Laws of the Land shall be hanged and cut down alive his bowels shall be cut off and burned in his sight his head shall be severed from his body his quarters shall be divided asunder and disposed at the Kings pleasure and made food for the birds of the air or the beasts of the Field and his wife and children shall be thrust out of his house and livings his seed and blood shall be corrupted his Lands and goods shall be confiscated and as by the Statute of 29 H. 6.1 It is ordained of the Traytor John Cade hee shall be called a false Traytor for ever But the Traytors against Charls the Martyr have prevented this punishment most due to them by the greatnesse of their villanies Yet though they are got out of the reach of Justice and trample our Laws and King under their feet let them remember that God is above Earth and will give them their reward if not in this world yet in the world to come The aforesaid Statute of 25 Ed. 3. as you may read in Pulton de pace Regis Regni fo 108. doth confirm it to be high treason for any person to compasse or imagine the death of our Soveraign Lord the King the Queen c. by which words it doth approve what a great regard and reverend respect the Common Law hath alwayes had to the person of the King which it hath endeavoured religiously and carefully to preserve as a thing consecrated by Almighty God and by him ordained to be the head health and wealth of the Kingdom and therefore it hath ingrafted a deep and settled fear in the hearts of all sorts of Subjects to offer violence or force unto it under the pain of High Treason insomuch as if he that â—s Non Compos Mentis do kill or attempt to kill the King it shall be adjudged in him High Treason though if he do commit petit Treason homicide or larceny it shall not be imputed unto him as Felony for that he knew not what he did neither had he malice prepensed not a felonious intent And this law doth not only restrain all persons from laying violent hands upon the person of the King but also by prevention it doth inhibit them so much as to compasse or imagine or to devise or think in their hearts to cut off by violent or untimely death the life of the King Queen c. for the only compassing or imagination without bringing it to effect is High Treason because that compassing and imagination doth proceed from false and traiterous hearts and out of cruel bloudy and murdering minds Thus you see with what reverence our Lawes do adore his sacred Majesty our King detesting nothing more than the violence or dammage offered to him yet forsooth the Rebels affirm they killed the King by the Common Law and why by the Common Law what because the Commons made it surely that is all the reason for there is no law under the Heavens which warranteth Subjects to kill their King but all lawes both humane and divine command the contrary Many are the publick oaths as you may read in Mr. Prynne's Concordia discors protestations leagues covenants which all English Subjects especially Judges Justices Sheriffs Mayors Ministers Lawyers Graduates Members of the House of Commons and all publick officers whatsoever by the Lawes and Statutes of the land have formerly taken to their lawful hereditary Kings their heirs and successors to bind their souls and consciences to bear constant faith allegiance obedience and dutiful subjection to them and to defend their Persons Crowns and just royal Prerogatives with their lives members and fortunes against all attempts conspiracies and innovations whatsoever But since all those sacred oaths have been trayterously violated and broken by the Rebels against Charles the Martyr I will only present you with the effect of the Oath of Allegiance which every one is to take when he is of the age of twelve years and this oath was instituted in the time of King Calvin's Case fo 7. Co. Lit. fo 68.172 You shall swear that from this day forward you shall be true and faithful to our Soverain Lord King Charles and his heirs and truth and faith shall bear of life and member and terrene honour and you shall neither know nor hear of any ill or dammage intended unto him that you shall not defend So help you Almighty God The substance and effect of this oath as it is resolved and proved in Calvin's case is due to the King by the law of Nature and is called Ligeantia naturalis being an incident inseparable to every Subject for so soon as he is born he oweth by birth-right ligeance and obedience to his Soveraign and therefore the King is called in his Statutes our natural liege Lord and his people natural liege Subjects But Ligeantia legalis is so called because the Municipal Laws of this Realm have prescribed the order and form of it None can deny but that obedience is due from the Son to the Father by the Law of Nature yet may the Municipal Laws of the Realm prescribe formality and order to it not diminishing the substance So likewise may they to the Allegiance due by nature to the King Thus have you seen how the English Trayterous Rebells contrary to all the Laws of God the Law of Nature the Law of Nations the Laws of our Realm and against the foundation of Christian Religion have by an unheard of example most wickedly murthered as a common Thief and vile vassal of the people condemned their gracious King whose name from the very beginning of the world hath ever been esteemed amongst all Nations great and holy whom the Prophets and Apostles nay our Saviour himself and all the Primitive Christians both with their lives death examples and Doctrine have taught and commanded us to reverence and pray for and to be subject to not violently to resist him though he violently persecute us whom God himself in his old and new Testament hath declared to be constituted by him and reign by him not by the People and particularly whom our fore-Fathers of this Realm of England have always accounted sacred and ever found by experience Kingly Government to be most glorious and profitable for them yet these forty or fifty Tyrannical Rebels contrary even to common sense and feeling upholding themselves by Force and Arms Treason and Usurpation do sit and Vote Kingship dangerous and burthensom to the good people of this Common-wealth when in the mean time out Merchants turn Bankrupts our Tradesmen break Food groweth
dear Trade dyeth thousands of Families are ready to starve Millions of men are ruined and undone the whole Realm groaneth under the burthen of excessive Taxes and Wars and rumors of Wars continually plague our Kingdom which hath lost its glory both abroad and at home and become a meer laughing-stock to all Nations and all this misery ariseth from the Tyranny of these Rebels who unjustly banish our lawfull haereditary King Charls the second and take possession of his three Kingdoms making themselves absolute Tyrannical Kings over us and so I believe they intend to make their Heirs for being accustomed to lye they declare in their Declarations that the People shall be governed by their Representatives in Parliament Yet their actions contradicting their words they will not suffer the People to chuse their Representatives or come into the House but they tell us that they will chuse men of fit qualities So one Thief chuseth another Similis simili gaudet We may be sure never to have an honest man amongst them if they have the chusing So that we may conclude that unlesse we arise and destroy these self-seekiâ—g self-created Tyrants and restore our gracious King to his Crown both we and our heirs shall be Slaves to the worlds end for no legal Government can be established without the King I have sufficiently proved that it is unlawfull for Subjects to rebel against evil Kings How much more then is it unlawfull to rebel against a pious and mercifull Soveraign which addeth to the bulk of the sins of our English Rebels For the whole world knoweth that Charls the Martyr whom they so trayterously murthered was the best of Kings and meekest of men He was Charls le bon Charls le grand good in his greatnesse and great in his goodnesse Some have said that a good King cannot be a good Christian but it is proved manifestly false in him for to the admiration of the whole Earth he was the best of Christians and no less to be admired as a good King So that his misfortune in his Government did not proceed from his deficiency in the art of Governing but from the excesse of the Rebels sins who transcended all Traytors since the creation of the world in sin and treachery as far as Hell is distant from the Earth Wherefore we may most truly say that he was murthered only because he was good For every Kingdom divided against it self is brought to desolation if Satan also be divided against himself how shall his Kingdom stand Therfore if the King had been evil these evil Traytors would never have cast him out but seeing he was a pious and Religious King and so an evil Member to their evil Common-wealth They all united their hearts and hands to cut him off and lay to his charge all the Treasons Murthers Rapines Burnings Spoils Desolations Damage and Mischief to this Nation which they themselves committed So Thieves and Murtherers may spoil burn and make desolate all places and Massacre and kill many Noble and trusty Servants to the end they might take their Master and kill him and then having taken him lay all to his charge and execute him as the only Author of all those villanies which they themselves acted and occasioned O heavens Could the Almighty suffer this Why not The Lord made all things for himself yea even the wicked for the day of evil Pro. 16.4 As for our rising Sun Charls the second though hitherto obscured by the foggy mists of Treason and Rebellion in his own Kingdoms yet do the rayes of his sacred Majesty shine throughout the world beside and his renown ecchoeth in every part of the Earth to the admiration of forein Kingdoms and to the envy hatred of the Rebels in his own Yet cannot their malice but marvel at the virtues and patience of their King whom they so much wrong And it grieves them to see that royal progeny whose ruine they so greedily hunt after flourish with such glorious splendour amongst the Kings and Princes of the Earth growing in favour both with God and Man Whilst they odious to all but themselves by their Tyranny and Rebellion incurr the displeasure both of Heaven and Earth and become a Ridiculous Rump The object of the scorn and derision both of Old and Young Rich and Poor And had not these infatuated Rebels brasen faces to deny what their own Conscience telleth them is true They would presently declare that the only way to settle our distractions and restore our Nation to its pristin happinesse and glory were to call in the King and re-establish him in his own which they unjustly pocket from him For so long as there is one of the race of the Stewarts which God long preserve and any forein King or People remain alive we must never look for peace or plenty but as publick Thieves alwayes live in a posture of Warr and ever expect forein Nations to come in and swallow us up Who account it as indeed it is the greatest piece of Justice under the Sun to revenge with our bloods and utter destruction the bloody Murther of Charls the first and the unnatural Banishment of Charls the second our only lawful Soveraign Therefore let all English Spirits who have not washed their hands in the Innocent blood of Charls the Martyr joyn their prayers to God and their Forces to one another and lance this Ulcer and cut off this proud flesh whose growth destroyeth our King Laws and Religion Behold the Duke of York wiâ—l be your leader whose very name striketh terror to the greatest men of Warr and our Rebels tremble to think of his Martial atchievements It is he who will be our Champion to hunt out these treacherous Foxes who Rebel against his King and Brother and then make our Nation dreadful to the Pope and other forein Invaders Therefore let us not dream like Goats whilst we have this Lyon to be our Captain but follow him and destroy these Wolves who make us their continual prey keeping us in Slavery under a false pretence of Liberty and let us obey our King and Father Charls the second who will blesse us with the blessings of Jacob and weed out of our Church and State those Jesuits and Popish Blasphemors who now under the colour of a free State are working and contriving the ruine both of our Laws and Religion And then we shall prosper into a Kingdom Ezekiel 86.13 and once more be a glorious people under so glorious a King which God Almighty speedily grant for the glory of his Holy Name and for the welfare and happinesse of all Christian people Every one knoweth that in 1648. after the long tempest of a horrid VVarr and Rebellion raised by the Refractory and Treacherous House of Commons under a pretence of removing evil Counsellours from the King but in truth only to promote their own private Interests and factious designs The Currish Army who had for a long
time hunted the distressed King and his Royal party pretending to be set on only by their Master Rebels the Commons but it seems they had a game to play of their own which on the sixth of December 1648. they begun to shew And therefore when the Trayterous Commons had obtained what they could ask or desire of their Soveraign then their Prisoner at the Isle of Wight being such Concessions which never any King before him granted nor Subjects ever demanded So that shame compelled them to vote them satisfactory Then the bloody Souldiers thinking themselves lost if the King and Parliament should find a peace went up to the House of Commons and by force kept out and imprisoned those who voted the Kings Concessions satisfactory which the militant Saints pleased to call purging of the House so that body is purged which hath poyson left in it and nutriment taken out of it by the purge yet this purge would not do the Lords must be turned out too and only 40. or fifty packt Members of the House of Commons who had sworn to be as very if not worse Knaves than the wicked Souldiers would have them to be were only left in the House who presently took upon them what power their own lusts could desire or the over-ruling Sword help them to Murthered the King and the chiefest of the Royal Party and yet to colour their Tyranny caâ—led themselves a Parliament by which name blowing up King Lords Spiritual and Temporal and all our Lawes and Religion with them they still Domineer and Rule over us yet not so but that the Army Rule them as the Wind doth a weather-cock turning them which way and how they please sometimes up and sometimes down and no doubt but that shortly they will be cast down for altogether for the wicked shall not last but vanish as a shadow Blessed art thou O Lord when thy King is the Son of Nobles Eccles 10.17 But alas Servants have ruled over us and there is none that doth deliver us out of their hands Lamen 5.8 The Crown is fallen from our head Wo unto us that we have sinned Verse 16. For now they shall say we have no King because we feared not the Lord What then should a King do unto us Hosea 10.3 ENGLANDS CONFUSION OR A True Relation of the topsy turvy Governments in mutable England since the Reign of Charls the Martyr The Tyranny of the Rump further manifested And that we shall never have any setled State untill Charls the second whose right it is injoy the Crown Though frantick Fortune in a merriment hath set the Heels above the Head and gave the Scepter unto the Shrubs who being proud of their new got honour have jarred one against the other during the Interregnum Yet Charls the second shall put a period to this Tragedy and settle our vexed Government which hath changed oftner in twelve years than all the Governments in the whole world besides Oh the heavy Judgment when Subjects take upon them to correct their King AS a distracted Ship whose Pilate the rageâ—ng violence of a tempestuous storm hath cast down headlong from the stern staggereth too and fro amongst the unquiet waves of the rough Ocean somtimes clashing against the proud surly Rocks and somtimes reeling up and down the smoother waters now threatening present Shipwrack and Destruction by â—nd by promising â— seeming safety and secure arrival yet never setled fast nor absolutely tending to the quiet and desired Haven So the vexed Government of frantick England ever since the furious madnesse of a few turbulent Spirits beheaded our King and Kingdom threw down Charls the Martyr our only lawfull Governour from the stern of Government and took it into their unskilfull and unlawfull hands it hath been tossed up and down somtimes falling amongst the lawless Souldiers as a Lamb amongst Wolves or as a glass upon stones and somtimes happening amongst Tyrants calling themselves a Parliament who are so much worse than the Souldiers by how much wickednesse covered with a colour of Justice is worse and more dangerous than naked villanies Yet in all our Revolutions although many gaps have been laid open that way hath not the Government steered its course directly to Charls the second it s only proper right and quiet Haven to which until it come we must never expect to have the Ship of our Common-wealth so secure but that Tempests and Storms will still molest and trouble if not totally ruine it Though it stand so fast one day that it seemeth impossible for humane strength to remove it yet the next day it moultereth away to nothing I vouch every mans experience to warrant this truth And were not our blind Sodomites intoxicated with Senselesse as well as Lawlesse Counsels They would never gape after preferment nor hope for continuance in their imaginary Commonwealth where the greatest one hour is made least the next and they themselves swallow up each the other never having rest or peace no not in their own House And can this divided Monster which is the cause of all our divisions cloze up our divisions and settle our Nation in peace and happinesse 'T is madnesse to think it So fire may quench fire and the Devil who was the first Author of wickedness put an end to all wickedness Examine the condition of the times since the Reign of Charls the first and you may see what times we shall have until the Reign of Charls the second Tyranny and Usurpation Beggery and Slavery Warrs and Murthers Subversion of our Laws and Religions changing the Riders but we must alwayes be the Asses Hunger and Famine Guns and Swords Drums and Trumpets Robberies and Thieveries Fornication and Adultery Brick without Straw Taxes although no bread These must be the voices which will alwayes sound in our Ears untill we cast off this old man of Sin viz. The Long called Parliament and submit as we ought to Charls the second our only lawfull King VVe may read of many Kings who have been suddainly killed by the rash violence of an indiscreet multitude who in the heat of Blood do that which they repent of all their life after mad Fury being the only cause of their unjust Actings But to commit sin with reason and piety to kill their King with discretion formally and solemnly is such a premeditated Murther that the Sun never saw until these Sons of perdition brought it to light For a long time before the fact they machinated and plotted the Kings death and contrived how they might with the best colour and shew of Justice effect it At length as if their Votes were more authentique than all Srcipture they passed amongst others this Vote Die Jovis Jan. 4. 1648. viz. That the People under God were the original of all just power This was the foundation upon which the superstructure of all their murthers and villanies which they call just Judgments were built which granted it consequently followeth that all
the power which they then and now exercise over these three Kingdoms is unjust and Tyrannical because not derived from the People There are no Representatives amongst them for Scotland nor Ireland nor the greatest part of England neither did they ever receive any power at all from the People of either England Scotland or Ireland and now all the People publiquely declare against them as the greatest Usurpers and Tyrants in the world yet contrary to all the Peoples wills they sit and Rule and will admit of no Member of the Peoples chusing to come amongst them unless they first qualifie and fit him for their own purpose therefore it plainly appeareth that this Vote that the People had the supreme power under God was but a meer juggle to gull the people and to bring their wicked designs to passe So that as A whip for the Horse or a bridle for the Asse have the People made of this quondam Parliament a rod for their fools-backs Pro. 26.3 The King being murthered by these Tyrants and all our Laws and Religion totally subverted a time wherin every one did what was right in his own eys Oliver Cromwel who for his excellency in wickedness and villanies was made General of the long called Parliaments unjust Forces the twentieth of April 1653. entred the House attended with some of the chief Commanders of his Army and delivering his reasons to them in a Speech why he came to put a period to their siting as judging it a thing much conducing to the publick wellfare of the Nation dissolved them And why might not he turn out them by force who by force had already turned out the King Lords and all the Commons besides themselves Surely if he had taken and hanged them all it would have been a glorious Act pleasing to God and the whole people and a Cordial to heal the miseries of our long-distressed Nation But his ambition was to make himself Great not to give relief and take away the Tyranny therfore he summoned a certain select number of his own creatures to appear at Westminster on the fourth of July next which he called a Parliament and none could deny but that they had the Soveraign power because Cromwel said so yet not so but that he made them resign up their power to him and make him the Lord protect us Lord Protector not a King because a King might do nothing but by Law but the Protector did nothing but according to his will and pleasure yet in this were we happy that in his reign one Tyrant Lorded it over us but in the long Parliaments many It is worth the observation that notwithstanding a Parliament had newly abrogated the very name and being of a King as dangerous and burthensom to the Common-wealth yet a Parliament summoned by Cromwel in July 1656. to meet on the 17 of September Petitioned and made many humble addresses to Cromwel that he would take Kingship upon him and be anointed King which old Nolls mouth watered at yet because some things did not fall out according to his expectation he declined it and refused to be what he eagerly though not openly persued Cromwel likewise created a House of Lords which was called the other House but the high aspiring thoughts of this turbulent Scorpion were at length blown down and extinguished by a high and mighty wondrous and unparalleld wind which out raunted Old Nol and whirried his black Soul down ad inferos So that after this storm we had a Calm and as the Sheep are at quiet ease when the bloody Woolf forsakes them so the People did rejoice and solace their hearts when this Tyrant made his Exit yet no sooner were we rid of this crafty Knave the Father but we were troubled with a simple Fool his Son Richard his eldest Son was proclamed by the new Courtiers and Army-Officers Lord Protector of England Scotland and Ireland and so tumble down Dick thought to have risen and Reigned in his Fathers room But a Fools bolt is soon shot Richard was quickly up quickly down No sooner had he called a Parliament but the Souldiers who feared that his Parliament should be honest and disband them as the only instruments to execute all Villanies went to the Mushroom Protector and by dnresse made him dissolve the Parliament and divest himself of all his Power and Authority And in this respect it is better to be a Knave than a Fool For crafty Noll kept the rude Souldiers in due obedience But simple Dick let them be his Masters whereas he might easily have made them and the whole people have been his Servants to this day When Richard was dismounted the Souldiers could not well tell where to hang the Government to secure them in their Rebellion and Roguery At last they pitcht upon the old rotten Rump viz. the fagg end of a worn-out perjured Parliament who had formerly dissolved themselves witnesse the Entry in their own Journal Book April 20.1653 although they pretend to be interrupted by Cromwells force So these Knaves the worst of Tyrants cemented together again like a Snakes tail and for colour called themselves the Revivers of the Good Old Cause and were as busie as if they had had another King and 3. Kingdoms to destroy So these infamous wicked Traytors returned to their wickedness as a Dog to his vomit to the great grief and grievance of all sorts of People in the Land who groaned and murmâ—red as if they were entering into a far worse than Egyptian bondage and Slavery under these task-masters To say that the people not they had the Soveraign power was now high Treason although they themselves had voted so formerly and to talk of a Free Parliament the antient birthright of the people as they themselves likewise formerly affirmed was now made a greater offence than Crimen lae sae Majestatis These Custodes filled all the Prisons in the Kingdom with those persons who desited a Free Parliament and in that respect they may be called The Keepers of our Liberty as Gaolers do Thieves in Chains or as the Cage doth Birds in grates For they keep us so much from our Free Liberty to do well that they will not so much as give us leave to speak or think well But there is no peace with the wicked when these Tyrants had beaten down Sir George Booth and other Assertors of a Free Parliament and made themselves as secure as Force and Violence could make them One Lambert a Chip of the old Block newly made General of their Forces displaced the Rump and with his Souldiers inhibited their usuped sitting which made the whole people not only rejoyce inwardly but break out in open laughter for joy But nullum commodum sine incommodo there is no pleasure without a displeasure No sooner did the Rump leave riding of us but up gets the Committee of Safety into the Saddle who made account that they were so absolutely our Masters as