more clearly appeare to be true by the practise oft proved in the same book we never read that ever the Prophets perswaded the people to rebell against the Prince how wicked soever hee was When Samuel by Gods command pronounced to the same King Saul 1 Sam. 15. that his Kingdom was rent from him and given to another which in effect was a degrading of him yet his next action following that was peaceably to turn home and with floods of tears to pray to God to have some compassion upon him And David notwithstanding he was inaugurate in that same degraded Kings room not only when he was cruelly persecuted for no offence but good service done unto him would not presume having him in his power skantly but with great reverence to touch the garment of the annoynted of the Lord and in his words blessed him 1 Sam 2.4 1 Sam â— but likewise when one came to him vanting himself untruly to have slain Saul he without forme of proces or tryall of his guilt caused only for guiltinesse of his tongue put him to sodain death And although there was never a more monstruous persecutor and tyrant than Achab was yet all the rebellion that Elias ever raised against him was to fly to the wildernesse where for fault of sustentation hee was fed with the Corbies And I think no man wil doubt but Samuel David and Elias had as great power to perswad the people if they had liked to have imployed their credit to uprores and rebellions against these wicked Kings as any of our seditious preachers in these dayes of whatsoever Religion either in this Countrey or in France had that busied themselves most to stir up rebellion under cloak of Religion This far the only love of verity I protest without hatred at their persons have moved me to be somewhat satyrique And if any will leane to the extraordinary examples of degrading or killing of Kings in the Scriptures therby to cloake the peoples rebellion as by the deed of Jehu and such like extraordinaries I answer besides that they want the like warrant that they had if extraordinary examples of the Scripture shal be drawn in dayly practise murder under traist as in the persons of Ahud and Iael theft as in the persons of the Israelites comming out of Aegipt lying to their parents to the hurt of their brother as in the person of Iacob shall all be counted as lawfull and allowable vertues as rebellion against Princes And to conclude the practise through the whole Scripture proveth the peoples obedience given to that sentence in the Law of God Thou shalt not raile upon the Iudges neither speak evell of the Ruler of thy people To end then the ground of my proposition taken out of the Scripture let two speciall and notable examples one under the law another under the Euangel Ie 27. conclude this part of my alled geance Vnder the law Ieremy threatneth the people of God with utter destruction for rebellion to Nabuchadnezzar the King of Babel who althogh he was an Idolatrous persecutor a forrain King a Tyrant usurper of their liberties yet in respect they had once received acknowledged him for their King Ier. 29. he not only commandeth them to obey him out even to pray for his prosperity adjoyning the reason to it because in his prosperity stood their peace And under the Euangell that King whom Paul bids the Romaines Obey and serve for conscience sake Ie. 13. was Nero that bloudy Tyrant an infamy to his age and a monster to the world being also an Idolatrous perâ—â—cutor as the K. of Babel was If then Idolatry defection froÌ„ God tyranny over their people persecutioÌ„ of the Saints for their professioÌ„ sake hindred not the spirit of God to command his people under all highest paine to give them all due and hearty obedience for conscience sake giving to Caesar that which was Caesars and to God that which was Gods as Christ saith and that this practise throughout the booke of God agreeth with this law which he made in the erection of that Monarchie as is at length before deduced what shamelesse presumption is it to any Christian people now a dayes to claime to that unlawfull liberty which God refused to his own peculiar and chosen people Shortly then to take up in two or three sentences grounded upon all these arguments out of the Law of God the duty and alleageance of the people to their lawfull King their obedience I say ought to bee to him as to Gods Lievtenant in earth obeying his commands in all things except directly against God as the commands of Gods Minister acknowledging him a Judge set by God over them having power to judge them but to be judged onely by God whom to only he must give count of his judgment fearing him as then Judge loving him as their Father praying for him as their Protector for his continuance he be good for his amendment if he be wicked following and obeying his lawfull commands eschewing and flying his fury in his unlawfull without tesistance but by sons and eares to God according to that Sentence used in the Primitive Church in the time of the persecution Preces Lachrymae sunt arma Ecclesiae Now as for the describing the alleageance that the heges owe to their Native King out of the fundamentall and Civill Law especially of this Country as I promitted the ground must first be set down of the first manner of establishing the Laws and forme of government among us that the ground being first right layd we may thereafter build rightly thereupon Although it be true according to the affirmation of those that pride themselves to be the scourges of Tyrants that in the first beginning of Kings rising among Gentiles in the time of the first age divers common-wealths and societies of men choosed out one among themselves who for his vertues and valour being more eminent then the rest was chosen out by them and set up in that roome to maintaine the weakest in their right to throw downe oppressours and to foster and continue the society among men which could not otherwise but by vertue of that unity be well done yet these examples are nothing pertinent to us because our kingdom and diverse other Monarchies are not in that case but had their beginning in a far contrary fashion For as our Chronicles beare witnesse this and especially our part of it being scantly inhabited but by very few and they as barbarous and scant of civility as number there comes our King Fergus with a great number with him out of Ireland which was long inhabited before us and making himselfe master of the Country by his own friendship and force as well of the Ireland-men that came with him as of the Country-men that willingly fell to him he made himselfe King and Lord as well of the whole lands as of the whole inhabitants within the same Thereafter
THE TRVE LAVV OF FREE MONARCHY OR THE RECIPROCALL and mutuall duty betvvixt a free KING and His natural Subjects By a well affected subject of the Kingdome of SCOTLAND LONDON Printed and are to be sold by T. P. in Queens-head-Alley in Pater noster-row 1642. An Advertisement to the Reader ACcept I pray you my deare Countrey-men as thankfully this Pamphlet that I offer unto you as lovingly it is written for your weale I would be loath both to be faschious and fectlesse And therefore if it be not sententious at least it is short It may be ye misse many thing that ye look for in it But for excuse thereof consider rightly that I only lay down herein the true grounds to teach you the right way without wasting time upon refuting the adversaries And yet I trust if ye will take narrow tent ye shall find most of their great guns payed home again either with contrary conclusions or tacite objections suppose in a dairned forme and indirectly For my intention is to instruct and not irritat if I may eschew it The profit I would wish you to make of it is as wel so to frame all your actions according to these grounds as may confirme you in the course of honest and obedient subjects to your King in all times comming as also when ye shall fall in purpose with any that shall praise or excuse the by-past rebellions that break forth either in this Countrey or in any other ye shall herewith be armed against their Siren songs laying their particular examples to the square of these grounds Whereby ye shall soundly keep the course of righteous Iudgement discerning wisely of every action only according to the quality thereof and not according to your prejudged conceits of the committers So shall ye by reaping profit to your selves turne my paine into pleasure But least the whole Pamphlet run out at the gaping mouth of this Preface if it were any more enlarged I end with committing you to God and me to your charitable censures C. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The true Law of free Monarchies Or the reciprocke and mutuall duty betwixt a free King and his naturall Subjects AS there is not a thing so necessary to be known by the people of any Land next the knowledge of their God as the right knowledge of their alleageance according to the forme of Government established among them especially in a Monarchy which forme of Government as resembling the Divinity approcheth nearest to perfection as all the learned and wise men from the beginning have agreed upon Vnity being the perfection of all things So hath the ignorance and which is worse the seduced opinion of the multitude blinded by them who think themselves able to teach and instruct the ignorants procured the wrack and and overthrow of sundry flourishing Common-wealths and heaped heavy calamities threatning utter destruction upon others And the smiling successe that unlawfull rebellions have oftentimes had against Princes in ages past such hath been the misery and iniquity of the time hath by way of practise strengthned many in their error albeit there cannot be a more deceivable argument then to judge by the justnesse of the cause by the event thereof as hereafter shall be proved more at length And among others no Common-wealth that ever hath been since the beginning hath had greater need of the true knowledge of this ground then this our so long disordered and distracted Common-wealth hath the misknowledge hereof being the only spring from whence have flowed so many endlesse calamities miseries and confusions as is better felt by many than the cause thereof well known and deeply considered The natural zeale therfore that I beare to this my native Country with the great pity I have to see the so-long disturbance therof for lack of the true knowledg of this ground as I have said before hath compelled me at last to break silence to discharge my conscience to you my deare Countrymen herein that knowing the ground from whence these your many endles troubles have proceeded as well as ye have already too-long tasted the bitter fruits thereof ye may by knowledge and eschewing of the cause escape and divert the lamentable effects that ever necessarily follow thereupon I have chosen then only to set down in this short Treatise the true grounds of the mutuall duty and allegeance betwixt a free and absolute Monarche and his people not to trouble your patience with answering the contrary propositions which some hath not been ashamed to set down in writ to the poysoning of infinite number of simple soules and their own perpetuall and well deserved infamy For by answering them I could not have eschewed whiles to pick and bite well saltly their persons which would rather have bred contentiousnesse among the readers as they had liked or misliked then sound instruction of the truth Which I protest to him that is the searcher of all hearts is the only mark that I shoot at herein First then I will set down the true grounds whereupon I am to build out of the Scriptures since Monarchy is the true pattern of Divinity as I have already said next from the fundamentall Laws of our own Kingdome which nearest must concerne us thirdly from the Law of nature by divers similitudes drawn out of the same and will conclude sinne by answering the most waighty and appearing incommodities that can be objected The Princes duty to his subjects is so clearly set down in many places of the Scriptures and so openly confessed by all the good Princes according to their oath in their Coronation as not needing to belong therein I shall as shortly as I can run through it Kings are called Gods by the Propheticall King David Psal 82.6 because they sit upon God his throne in the earth and have the count of their administration to give unto him Their office is To minister justice and judgement to the people as the same David saith Psal 101. 2 King 18. 2 Chro 29. 2 Kin 22. 23.2.34 35. Psal 72 1 King 3. Rom. 13. 1 Sam. 8. Ier 29. To advance the good and punish the evill as he likewise saith To establish good laws to his people and procure obedience to the same as divers good Kings of Judah did To procure the peace of the people as the same David saith To decide all controversies that can arise among them as Salomon did To be the Minister of God for the weale of them that do well and as the Minister of God to take vengeance upon them that do evill as S. Paul saith And finally As a good Pastor to go out and in before his people as is said in the first of Samuel That through the Princes prosperity the peoples peace may be procured as Jeremy saith And therefore in the Coronation of our own Kings as well as of every Christian Monarch they give their oath first to maintain the Religion presently professed within their Countrey
his own nature and not through any default in God whō they that think so would make as a step-father to his people inmaking wilfully a choyce of the unmeetest for governing them since the election of that King lay absolutly and immediatly in Gods hand But by the cōtrary it is plain and evident that this speech of Samuel to the people was to prepare their hearts before the hand to the due obedience of that King which God was to give unto them and therfore opened up unto them what might be the intollerable qualities that might fall in some of their Kings thereby preparing them to patience not to resist to Gods ordinance but as he would have said Since God hath granted your importunate sute in giving you a King as ye have else committed an error in shaking off Gods yoke and over-hasty seeking of a King so beware ye fall not into the next in casting off also rashly that yoke which God at your earnest sute hath laid upon you how hard that ever it seem to be For as ye could not have obtained one without the permission and ordinance of God so may ye no more fro he be once set over you shake him off without the same warrant And therfore in time arme your selves with patience and humility since he that hath the only power to make him hath the only power to unmake him and ye only to obey bearing with these straits that I now fore-shew you as with the finger of God which lyeth not in you to take off And will ye consider the very words of the Text in order as they are set down it shall plainly declare the obedience that the people owe to their King in all respects First God commanded Samuel to do two things the one to grant the people their sute in giving them a King the other to forwarn them what some Kings wil do unto them that they may not thereafter in their grudging murmuring say when they shall feele the snares here forespoken We would never have had a King of God in case when we craved him he had let us know how we would have been used by him as now we find but over late And this is meant by these words Now therefore kearken unto their voyce howbeit yet testifie unto them and shew them the manner of the King that shall rule over them And next Samuel in execution of this commandement of God he likewiss doth two things First he declares unto them what points of Iustice and equity their King will break in his behaviour unto them And next he putteth them out of hope that weary as they will they shall not have leave to shake of that yoke which God through their importunity hath laid upon them The points of Equity that the King shall breake unto them are expressed in these words 11 He will take your sons and appoint them to his Charets and to be his hosemen and some shall run before his Charet 12 Also he will make them his Captaines over thousands and Captaines over fifties and to eare his ground and to reape his harvest and to make instruments of war and the things that serve for his Charets 13 He will also take your daughters and make them Apothecaries and Cookes and Bakers The points of Iustice that he shall break unto thē are expressed in these words 14 He will take your Fields and your Vineyardes and your best Olive-trees and give them to his servants 15 And he will take the tenth of your seed and of your Vineyards and give it to his Eunnches and to his servants And also the tenth of your sheep As if he would say The best and noblest of your bloud shall be compelled in lavish and servile offices to serve him And not content of his own patrimony wil make up a rent to his own use out of your best lands vineyards orchards store of cattell So as inverting the law of nature and office of a King your persons and the persons of your posterity together with your lands and all that ye possesse shall serve his private use and inordinate appetit And as unto the next point which is his forewarning them that weary as they will they shall not have leave to shake off the yoake which God through their importunity hath layd upon them it is expressed in these words 18 And yet shall cry out at that day because of your King whom yee have chosen you and the Lord will not heare you at that day As he would say When ye shall find these things in proof that now I sorewarn you of although you shall grudg and murmure yet it shall not be lawfull to you to cast it off in respect it is not only the ordinance of God bur also your selves have chosen him unto you thereby renouncing for ever all priiviledges by your willing consent out of your hands wherby in any time hereafter ye would claim and call back unto your selves again that power which God shal not permit you to do And for further taking away of al excuse and retraction of this their contract after their consent to underly this yoake with all the burthens that he hath declared unto them he craves their answer consent to his proposition which appeareth by their answer as it is expressed in these words 19 Nay but there shall be a King over us 20 And we also will be like all other nations and our King shall judge us and go out before us and fight our battels As if they would have said All your speechs and hard conditions shall not skar us but we will take the good and evill of it upon us and we will be content to bear whatsoever but then it shall please our King to lay upon us as well as other nations do And for the good we will get of him in fighting our battels we wil more patiently beare any burthen that shall please him to lay on us Now then since the erection of this Kingdom and Monarchy among the Iews and the law thereof may and ought to be a patern to all Christian and well founded Monarchies as being founded by God himself who by his Oracle and out of his owne mouth gave the law thereof what liberty can broyling spirits and rebellious minds claim justly to against any Christian Monarchy since they can claime to no greater liberty on their part nor the people of God might have done no greater tyranny was ever executed by any Prince or Tyrant whom they can object nor was here fore-warned to the people of God and yet all rebellion countermanded unto thē if tyrannizing over mens persons sons daughters and servants redacting noble houses and men and women of noble bloud to slavish and servile offices and extortion and spoile of their lands and goods to the Princes own private use and commodity and of his courteours and servants may be called a tyranny And that this proposition grounded upon the Scripture may the
confesse that a King at his coronation or at the entry to his Kingdome willingly promiseth to his people to discharge honorably and truely the office given him by God over them But presuming that thereafter hee breake his promise unto them never so inexcusable the question is who should be judge of the breake giving unto them this contract were made unto them never so sicker according to their alleageance I think no man that hath but the smallest entrance in the civill Law will doubt that of all law either civill or municipall of any nation a contract cannot be thought broken by the one party and so the other likewise to be freed therefro except that first a lawful tryall cognition be had by the ordinary Iudge of the breakers thereof Else every man may be both party and judge in his own cause which is absurd once to be thought Now in this contract I say betwixt the King and his people God is doubtlesse the only Iudge both because to him only the King must make count of his administration as is oft said before as likewise by the oath in the Coronation God is made judge and revenger of the breakers For in his presence as only judge of oaths all oaths ought to be made Then since God is the onely judge betwixt the two parties contractors the cognition and revenge must only appertaine to him It followes therefore of necessity that God must first give sentence upon the King that breaketh before the people can think themselves freed of their oath What justice then is it that the party shall be both judge and party usurping upon himselfe the office of God may by this argument easily appare And shall it lye in the hands of headlesse multitude when they please to weary off subjection to cast off the yoke of government that God hath said upon them to judge and punish him by whom they should be judged and punished and in that case wherein by their violence they kithe themselves to be most passionate parties to use the office of an ungracious Iudge or Arbiter Nay to speake truly of that case as it stands betwixt the King and his people none of them ought to judge of the others breake For considering rightly the two parties at the time of their mutuall promise the King is the one party and the whole people in one body are the other party And therefore since it is certaine that a King in case so it should fall out that his people in one body had rebelled against him the should not in that case as thinking himselfe free of his promise and oath become an utter enemy and practice the wreak of his whole people and native Country although he ought justly to punish the principall authors and bellowes of that universall rebellion how much lesse then ought the people that are alwayes subject unto him and naked of al authority on their part presse to judge and overthrow him otherwise the people as the one party contracters shal no sooner challenge the King as breaker but he as soone shall judge them as breakers so as the victors making the tyners the traitours as our proverb is the party shall aye become both judge and party in his owne particular as I have already said And it is here likewise to bee noted that the duty and allegeance which the people sweareth to their Prince is not only bound to themselves but likewise to their lawfull heires and posterity the lineall succession of Crowns being begun among the people of God and happily continued in diverse Christian common wealths So as no objection either of heresie or whatsoever private statute or Law may free the people from their oath given to their King and his succession established by the old fundamentall Lawes of the kingdom For as he is their heritable Over-lord and so by birth not by any right in the coronation commeth to his Crowne it is a like unlawfull the crowne ever standing full to displace him that succeedeth thereto as to eject the former For at the very moment of the expiring of the King raigning the nearest and lawfull heire entreth in his place And so to refuse him or intrude another is not to hold out uncomming in but to expell and put out their righteous King And I trust at this time whole France acknowledgeth the superstitious rebellion of the liguers who upon pretence of heresie by force of armes held so long out to the great desolation of their whole Country their native and righteous King from possessing of his own crown and naturall kingdom Not that by all this former discourse of mine Apology for Kings I meane that whatsoever errours and intollerable abhominations a Soveraigne Prince commit he ought to escape all punishment as if thereby the world were only ordained for Kings and they without controlement to turne it upside down at their pleasure But by the contrary by remitting them to God who is their only ordinary Iudge I remit them to the forest and sharpest schoole Master that can be devised for them For the further a King is preferred by God above all other rankes and degrees of men and the higher that his feate is above theirs the greater is his obligation to his maker And therefore in case hee forget himselfe his unthankfulnesse being in the same measure of height the sadder and sharper will his correction be and according to the greatnesse of the height he is in the waight of his sale will recompence the same For the further that any person is obliged to God his offence becom and growes so much the greates then it would bee in any other Ioves thunder-claps light oftner and sorer upon the high stately Oakes then on the low and supple willow trees And the highest bench is sliddriest to sit upon Neither is it ever heard that any King forgets himselfe towards God or in his vocation but God with the greatnes of the plague revengeth the greatnesse of his ingratitude Neither think I by the force argument of this my discourse so to perswade the people that none will hereafter be raised up and rebell against wicked Princes But remitting to the justice and providence of God to stirre up such scourges as pleaseth him for unishment of wicked Kings who made the very vermine and filthy dust of the earth to bridle the insolency of proud Pharaoh my only purpose and it tention in this treatise is to perswade as far as lyeth in me by these sure and infallible grounds all such good Christian Readers as beare not only the naked name of a Christian but kith the fruits thereof in their daily forme of life to keepe their hearts and hands free from such monstrous and unnaturall rebellions whensoever the wickednes of a Prince shall procures the same at Gods hands that when it shall please God to cast such such scourges of Princes and instruments of his fury in the fire ye may stand up with cleane hands and unspotted consciences having proved your selves in all your actions true christians toward God and dutifull subjects towards your King having remitted the judgment and punishment of all his wrongs to him whom to only of right it appertaineth But craving at God and hoping that God shall continue his blessing with us in not sending such fearefull desolation I heartily wish our Kings behaviour so to be and continue among us as our God in earth and loving Father indued with such properties as I described a King in the first part of this Treatise And that ye my deare Country men and charitable readers may presse by all meanes to procure the prosperity and welfare of your King that as he must on the one part thinke a I his earthly felicity and happinesse grounded upon your weale caring more for himselfe for your sake then for his own thinking himselfe only ordained for your weale such holy and happy emulation may arise betwixt him and you as his care for your quietnesse and your care for his honour and preservation may in all your actions daily strive together that the Land may thinke themselves blessed with such a King and the King may thinke Himselfe most happie in ruling over so loving and obedient Sukjects FINIS
naturall zeale and duty they owe to their own native Country to put their hard to work for freeing their common-wealth from such a pest Whereunto I give two answers First it is a sure Axiom in Theologie that evill should not be done that good may come of it The wickednesse therefore of the King can never make them that are ordained to be judged by him to become his Judges And if it be not lawfull to a private man to revenge his private injury upon his private adversary since God hath only given the sword to the Magistrate how much lesse is it lawful to the people or any part of them who all are but private men the authority being alwayes with the Magistrate as I have already proved to take upon them the use of the sword whom to it belongs not against the publike Magistrate whom to only it belongeth Next in place of relieving the Common-wealth out of distresse which is their only excuse and colour they shall heape double distresse and desolation upon it and so their rebellion shall procure the contrary effects that they pretend it for For a King cannot be imagined to be so unruly and tyrannous but the common-wealth will be kept in better order notwithstanding thereof by him then it can be by his way-taking For first all sudden mutations are perilous in common-wealths hope being thereby given to all bare men to set up themselves and flie with other mens feathers the reines being loosed to all the insolencies that disordered people can commit by hope of impanity because of the loosenesse of all things And next it is certaine that a King can never be so monstrously vicious but hee will generally favour justice and maintaine some order except in the particulars wherein his inordinate lusts and passions carry him away where by the contrary no King being nothing is unlawfull to none And so the old opinion of the Philosophers proves true that better it is to live in a Common-wealth where nothing is lawfull then where all things are lawfull to all men the Common-wealth at that time resembling an un-daunted young horse that hath casten his ride For as the divine Poet Du Bartas saith Better it were to suffer some disorder in the estate and some spots in the Common wealth then in pretending to reforme utterly to over thâ—ow the Republike The second objection they ground upon the curse that hangs over the common wealth where a wicked King raigneth And say they there cannot be more acceptable deed in the sight of God nor more dutifull to their common-weale than to free the Country of such a curse and vindicate to them their liberty which is naturall to all creatures to crave Whereunto for answer I grant indeed that a wicked K. is sent by God for a curse to his people and a plague for their sins But that it is lawfull to them to shake off that curse at their owne hand which God hath laid on them that I deny and may so doe justly Will any deny that the King of Babel was a curse to the people of God as was plainely fore spoken and threatned unto them in the prophecy of their Captivity And what was Nero to the Christian Church in his time And yet Ieremy and Paul as ye have else heard commanded them not only to obey them but heartily to pray for their welfare It is certaine then as I have already by the Law of God sufficiently proved that pattence earnest prayers to God and amendment of their lives are the onely lawfull meanes to move God to relieve them of that heavie curse As for vindicating to themselves their owne â—iberty what lawfull power have they to revoke to themselves again those priviledges which by their own consent before were so fully put out of their hands For if a Prince cannot justly bring back again to himselfe the Priviledges once bestowed by him or his predecessors upon any state or ranck of his subjects how much lesse may the subjects reive out of the Princes hand that superiority which he and his Predecessors have so long brooked over them But the unhappy uniquity of the time which hath oftentimes given over good successe to their treasonable attempts furnisheth them the ground of their third objection For say they the fortunate successe that God hath so oft given to such enterprises prooveth plainly by the practice that God favoured the justnesse of their quarrell To the which I answer that it is true indeed that all the successe of battels as well as other worldly things lyeth only in Gods hand And therfore it is that in the Scripture he takes to himselfe the God of Hosts But upon that generall to conclude that he ever gives victory to the just quarrell would prove the Philistims and diverse other neighbour enemies of the people of GOD to have oftimes had the just quarrell against the people of GOD in respect of the many Victories they obtained against them And by that same argument they had just quarrell against the Aâ—â—ke of God For they wan it in the field and kept it long prisoner in the Country As likewise by all good writers as well Theologues as other the Dâ—â—lls and singular combates are disallowed which are only made upon pretence that God will kith thereby the justice of the quarrell For we must consider that the innocent party is not innocent before God And therefore God will make oft times them that have the wrong side revenge justly his quarrell and when he hath done cast his scourge on the fire as hee oftentimes did to his owne people stirring up and strengthening their enemies while they were humbled in his sight and then delivered them in their hands So God as the great Iudge may iustly punish his deputy and for his rebellion against him stir up his rebels to meete him with the like And when it is done the part of the instrument is no better than the divels part is in tempting and torturing such as God committeth to him as his hangman to do Therefore as I said in the beginning it is oft times a very deceiveable argument to iudge of the cause by the event And the last objection is grounded upon the mutuall paction and adstipulation as they call it betwixt the King and his people at the time of his Coronation For there say they there is a mutuall paction and contract bound up and sworne betwixt the King and the people Whereupon it followeth that if the one part of the contract or the Indent be broken upon the Kings side the people are no longer bound to keepe their part of it but are thereby freed of their oath For say they a contract betwixt two parties of all law frees the one party if the other breake unto him As to this contract alledged made at the coronation of a King although I deny any such contract to be made then especially containing such a clause irritant as they alledge yet I