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A82029 The debates in deposing kings; and the royal succession of Great Britain 1688 (1688) Wing D510; ESTC R225317 6,694 4

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THE DEBATES IN Deposing Kings And of the ROYAL SUCCESSION OF GREAT BRITAIN The Succession to the Crown of Great Brittain THE Monarch of Great Brittain has Right to the Imperial Crown of this Island by Inheritance according to the Laws of GOD and Nature and the fundamental Constitutions of the Realms of England and Scotland which both agree in this That upon the Death of the King the next of the Kindred though born out of the Dominions of Great Brittain or born of Parents not Subjects of Great Britain is immediately King before any Proclamation Coronation Publication or Consent of Peers or People The Rule of Inheritance given by GOD himself to the People of Israel is this If a man die and have no Son then he shall cause his Inheritance to pass unto his Daughter And if he have no Daughter then ye shall give his Inheritance unto his Brethren Agreeably to which Rule the Crown of Great Britain descends as an inalinable Heritage from the Father to the Eldest Son and his Heirs for want of Sons to the Eldest Daughter and her Heirs for want of Daughters to the Brother and his Heirs and for want of Brethren to the Sister and her Heirs And so unalterable is this Course of Descent that no Act no Crime no Attainder of Treason can bar the next of Blood from being King in the instant of Time his Predecessor does not so much die as by a State Metempsychosis transmit his Life his Breath or his Soul into the Nostrils the Body of his Successor For Hereditary Monarchy being as it has been clearly demonstrated an immediate Ordinance of GOD founded in the Prime Laws of Nature and the Laws of GOD and Nature being as all Christians acknowledge absolutely immutable it is a Madness to think that any Act of Parliaments can change this unchangeable Law or with the least Color of Justice alter the Right of Succession This was well known to all our antient Parliaments that were neither over-awed by any prevailing Faction seduced by designing Intreagues nor yet vainly flattered themselves with an Omnipotent Power to create and annihilate Kings In one of which the States of the Realm unanimously answered King Edward the IIId asking their Advice in matters relating to the Crown That they could not consent to any thing in Parliament that tended to the Disherison of the King and his Heirs or the Crown whereunto they were sworn From whence Sir Edward Cook concludes That it is a Law and Custom of Parliament that no King can alien the Crown from the right Heir though by consent of the Lords and Commons And elsewhere affirming King John's Resignation of the Crown to the Pope to have been utterly void he alledges this Reason Because the Royal Dignity is an Inherent inseparable to the Royal Blood of the King descendable to the next of Blood to the King and cannot be transferd to another And although by the Treasons and Conspiracies of ambitious disloyal and designing Persons the Crown has now and then been transferred from one Family to another yet does it appear in Story that since the time of the Norman Conquest the right Heir was never yet kept out beyond the second Descent And to the Honour of the English Parliaments we can aver that never any Usurper though armed with Power laid claim to the Crown in Parliament but by pretending to be of the Right Line nor did ever the Parliament allow of such Pretence if false but awed by Fear and a vast Army And whenever the Terror of such armed violence being removed the true Heir was enabled to claim his Right the Parliament notwithstanding all such pretended Acts readily submitted themselves to their legitimate Prince as being bound thereunto by the Laws of GOD and Nature Thus although Henry Duke of Lancaster backt by an Army of fourty or fifty thousand men under Pretence of a feigned Title from Edmund Crouchback forced his Nature Soveraign King Richard the IId first to resign and afterwards to be deposed from his Crown which waving his former pretended Title he caused to be entailed upon himself his four Sons and the Heirs of their Bodies by Act of Parliament whereby he thought to have secured it to his Posterity for ever Yet notwithstanding these cautious Provisions seconded by the Valor and prodigious Success of that noble Prince Henry the Vth. when in the year 1460. this Entail was alledged against Richard Duke of York laying claim in Parliament to the Crowns of England and F●ance as being the next Heir to Lionel Duke of Clarence elder Brother to John of Gaunt of whom the House of Lanchaster was descended the Duke of York unanswerably replied That if King Henry the IVth might have obtained the said Crowns of England and France by Title of Inheritance Discent or Succession he neither needed nor would have desired or made them to be granted too him in such wise as they be by that Act Which said he taketh no place neither is of any force or effect against him that is right Inheritor of the said Crowns as accordeth with the Laws of GOD and all Natural Laws Which Answer of the Duke of York and his Claim to the Crown was by the same Parliament expresly recognized and declared to be Good True Just Lawful and Sufficient And when in the same year Edward Earl of March eldest Son to the said Duke of York upon the death of his Father took possession of the Crown by the Name of King Edward the IVth his Title was in full Parliament by all acknowledged in these words Knowing also certainly and without doubt and ambiguity that by GOD's Law and the Law of Nature He viz. the said King Edward and none other is and ought to be true Rightwise and Natural Liege and Soveraign Lord And that he was in right from the Death of the said Noble and Famous Prince his Father very just King of the same Realm of England And so little Respect was given to the aforementioned Act of Entail that it was not so much as repealed being esteemed from the very beginning null and void in it self Nor indeed were any Acts of Henry the IVth Vth. or VIth stiled Kings in Deed and not of Right deemed to be in force but such as were expresly confirmed by Edward the IVth in the same manner King Charles the IId confirmed the judicial Proceedings of the late Usurpation As little Success had that Monster of Nature Richard Duke of Glocester who being by the Interest of several factious Lords chosen Protector to his Nephew the young K●●g Edward the Vth. and having by that means gotten into his hands the Military Force of the Nation pretending that the Children of his Brother King Edward the IVth were illegitimate laid claim to the Crown which he not only entailed by Act of Parliament upon himself and his Issue but the better to secure it in his Line caused the Innocent young King and his only Brother the Duke of
Princes and Nobles without number So sensible was the renowned Queen Elizabeth of those fatal Consequences which necessarily attend so unjust an Act as that of altering the Succession that although for Reasons obvious enough and needless here to be mentioned she yielded to pass an Act whereby it was made Treason to say that she and her Parliament could not dispose of the Crown yet could she never be brought to give her Consent to the actual disposing thereof though the next Heir then alive was not only a Papist but her own Rival to the Throne Nay she was so averse to any such Act that as Camden tells us She never heard any thing more unwillingly than that the Title of Succession should be called into question And therefore she sent Mr. Thornton Reader of Law in Lincolns-Inn to the Tower because in his Reading he called in question the Queen of Scots Title to the Crown And when the Lord Keeper Bacon was accused by the Earl of Leicester for having intermedled against the Queen of Scots Right to the Succession and for being privy to a Book wherein Hales went ahout to derive the Title of the Crown of England in case the Queen should die without Issue to the House of Suffolk Hales was therefore committed to the Tower and Bacon though denying it was not without great difficulty restored to favour So likewise when in the eighth year of her Reign Bell Mounson and a great Number of the House of Commons thought it their Right as Representatives of the whole Kingdom whereof they do not in reality represent the sixth part to decide and settle the Succession the Queen by a Prince-like Speech in the Parliament-House speedily suppressed their insolence In like manner when in the thirty fifth year of her Reign Mr. Peter Wentworth and Sir Henry Bromley delivered a Petition to the Lord Keeper desiring the Lords of the Upper House to be Suppliants with them of the Lower to Her Majesty for entailing the Succession of the Crown for which they had a Bill ready drawn the Queen highly displeased hereat charged her Councel to call the Parties before them Whereupon Sir Thomas Henage sending for them commanded them to forbear the Parliament and not to go out of their several Lodgings They were after called before the Lord Trease●er Lord Buckhurst Sir Thomas Henage by whom Wentworth was committed to the Tower Sir Henry Bromley and other Members of the House of Commons to whom he had imparted the matter being sent ●o the Fleet. So careful was this prudent Queen to keep the People from presuming to intermeddle with the Succession The same Consideration that the Altering or Diverting the Succession in an hereditary Monarchy where the Kings deriving their Royal Power from GOD Almighty alone do succeed lineally to the Crown according to the known Degrees of Proximity in Blood cannot be attempted without involving the Subjects in Purjury and Rebellion and exposing of them to all the Fatal and Dreadful Consequences ●f a Civil War not only caused the Estates of Scotland from an hearty and sincere Sense of their Duty to recognize acknowledge and declare That the Right to the Imperial Crown of that Realm is by the Inherent Right and the Nature of the Monarchy as well as by the Fundamental and unalterable Laws of the Realm transmitted and devolved by a Lineal Succession according to the Proximity of Blood And that upon the Death of the King or Queen who actually Reigns the Subjects of that Kingdom are bound by Law Duty and Allegiance to obey the next immediate and lawful Heir either Male or Female upon whom the Right and Administration of Government is immediately devolved And that no Difference in Religion nor no Law nor Act of Parliament made or to be made can alter or divert the Right of Succession and Lineal Descent of the Crown to the nearest and lawful Heir according to the Degrees aforesaid nor can stop or hinder them in the full free and actual Administration of the Government according to the Laws of the Kingdom but are obliged for the preservation of the Peace and Tranquillity of that Kingdom with Advice and Consent of the said Estates of Parliament to declare That it is High Treason in any of the Subjects of that Kingdom by Writing Speaking or any other manner of way to endeavour the Alteration Suspension or Diversion of the said Right of Succession or the debarring the next lawful Successor from the immediate actual full and free Administration of the Government Nor is it to be doubted but that the Commons of England who now begin to grow sensible of those Precipices of Ruine whereinto they were ready to tumble through the Contrivances of those malicious Incendiaries that by terrifying the People with panick Fears and Arbitrary Power endeavoured to kindle a Fire of Rebellion in this Nation will whenever it shall please their Majesty to call a Parliament shew themselves no less Zealous than the Scots to assist and defend according to their Oaths the Rights and Priviledges the chiefest whereof upon which all the rest depend as on a Corner Stone is the unalterable Hereditariness of the Monarchy and thereby defeat the Designes of those cursed Achithophels who labour by involving us in Confusion to establish their beloved Democracy the very worst of Tyrannies FINIS LONDON Printed for H.I. 1688.