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land_n hold_v king_n tenure_n 3,330 5 12.6135 5 true
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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A67700 A discourse of government as examined by reason, Scripture, and law of the land, or, True weights and measures between soveraignty and liberty written in the year 1678 by Sir Philip Warwick. Warwick, Philip, Sir, 1609-1683. 1694 (1694) Wing W991; ESTC R27062 96,486 228

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in a Politick body be the Government Monarchical or Aristocratical c. are but as single men in respect of the Head or Soveraign power for even these in respect of him or them are to be reputed even in their Politick Body but as single or private men so can no more resist the soveraign person or persons than a private man This I believe to be Apostolick doctrine And this the Recognitions made to our own Kings in Acts of Parliament warrant us to say Now a Prince that is thus secured in his Temporals by his own Church or by the Christian faith in relation to this doctrine had need give some very good account of the advantage he makes in his Spirituals by removing from this communion but I am assured his loss is equal in both Government examined by the Law of the Land IF this be the nature of Government in general and of Soveraign Persons What the law of England requires about subjection to whom Government is intrusted let us in the next place examine how the Laws of this our own Nation determine the cases We all know that our Government is a mixt Monarchy and yet by all Foreigners as Bodin Grotius and others is reputed an absolute Monarchy for limitations which transfer not the power unto any other but require only the consent of some other divest it not of the title of Monarchy or of the Kings being an absolute tho' not an arbitrary Monarch as hath been endeavoured to be proved in the foregoing sheets Our Laws say then that Axioms of Law All Persons are under the King and the King under none or omnis sub Rege ipse sub nullo He hath no Peer in his Kingdom nor any Superior but God or Satis ei erit quod Dominum habet ultorem then no Judge over him Allegiance sworn to him not only by single men but by the three Estates Allegiance is to be sworn to him and homage paid not only by every single person through the Kingdom but by every single member of his two Houses of Parliament for not one of them can sit there before he hath taken the oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and he that reads either of these oaths needs not seek where the Soveraignty is lodged And tho' these oaths were formed principally to disclaim Papal jurisdiction yet that abated they are but the old Legal oath of obedience Nay the three States of Subjects in the Kingdom viz. Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons as a politick body make the same recognition See the recognitions made to the ancient Kings even the Saxons and those to Edward 4. Henry 7. and Henry 8. Q. Elisabeth and especially to King James Great say they to him in an Act of Parliament are our blessings by uniting the two ancient Kingdoms or rather the two Imperial crowns c. and upon the knees of our hearts we agnize our most constant faith obedience and loyalty to your Majesty and your Royal Progeny And in this high Court of Parliament where all the whole body of the Realm and every particular member thereof either in person or by representation upon their own elections are by the laws of this Realm deemed to be personally present Sir Edward Coke observes by the laws of King Alfred as well as by those of the Conqueror the ancient Kings who were Saxons had all the lands of England in demeasnes Inst fol. 58. and the Barons and Lords of Mannors were by the Conqueror enfeoft with all which the King held not but they held it for defence of the Realm under the King and consequently they were to support it in time of danger This evidenced the Conqueror had seized the whole land by way of conquest So as the King was the grand Lord or Lord paramount and the Nobility and Gentry but the mean Lords and all the rest held in vassalage under the King or them Freeholders came in by the Nobilities ill husbandry and by their selling part of their land and enfranchizing of it But still the land was held by some tenure which obliged the Owner Lord or Commoner more or less as in Capite or free Soccage after the conquest for the defence of the land for indeed that is the ground-work of all society For every man is naturally bound with his All to defend the body Politick and the constitution of the Government tho' the quotum and the manner of the raising it had the Subjects consent that it might be the more equally laid and the more cheerfully paid and the more orderly levied and as an evidence the Government was not despotical but the people free and yet thus under subjection The limitations of the Kings prerogative The raising of money or taxes is one of those particulars wherein our Monarch is limited for he cannot raise money upon the Subject but by his Commons and with the consent of the Lords or by concurrence of them both yet the Commons can raise no money but to give unto the King or as the King accepts it for such a use Which is conviction enough that all the taxes of the long Parliament were illegal and their power an usurpation Many other instances there are of the Kings single Supremacy but without mentioning more for all are embowell'd in these few we will conclude with Sir H. Spelmans assertion in his Glossarium Omnis Regni justitia solius Regis est In the next place The Monarchy absolute in Parliament we will consider him in a Parliament and here his prerogative is unlimited or he is in his Zenith or he is entirely Soveraign for here the purse and the sword are joyned together Here or with consent of his Lords and Commons he makes what laws he finds necessary for publick weal which are the two great cases wherein Monarchical prerogative is limited for lives and liberties are secured to Subjects by the Common and Statute Laws of the Realm for we are a free People or we know the Law we walk by And yet in Parliament in matters wherein the publick safety is concerned or the Princes Person a new Law may declare that a treason which before that new law was not so But complication of Acts which were known before and acknowledged of an inferior species to treason before the making such a law cannot be made treason by that law tho' the person for them may suffer as a Traytor The great Act of Treason says nothing should be accounted treason which was not therein particularly named yet all this caution was to exclude inferior Courts from so denominating it but not the King in Parliament Indeed here prerogative is unlimited because here whatever is determined may justly be supposed well weighed and so provided as it may not entrench upon liberty in general tho' for example sake it fall severe on an individual Person But if a Prince be here importuned nay violated or his Houses advices be prest upon him by