Selected quad for the lemma: power_n
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A78646
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His Majesties answer to the XIX propositions of both Houses of Parliament
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England and Wales. Sovereign (1625-1649 : Charles I); Charles I, King of England, 1600-1649.
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1642
(1642)
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Wing C2123; ESTC R25986
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17,539
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16
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means to remove all those suits and differences But we call God to witnesse that as for Our Subjects sake these Rights are vested in Us so for their sakes as well as for Our own We are resolved not to quit them nor to subvert though in a Parliamentary way the ancient equall happy well-poised and never-enough commended Constitution of the Government of this Kingdom nor to make Our Self of a King of England a Duke of Venice and this of a Kingdom a Republike There being three kindes of Government amongst men Absolute Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy and all these having their particular conveniencies and inconveniencies The experience and wisdom of your Ancestors hath so moulded this out of a mixture of these as to give to this Kingdom as far as humane Prudence can provide the conveniencies of all three without the inconveniencies of any one as long as the Balance hangs even between the three Estates and they run joyntly on in their proper Chanell begetting Verdure and Fertility in the Meadows on both sides and the overflowing of either on either side raise no Deluge or Inundation The ill of absolute Monarchy is Tyranny The ill of Aristocracy is Faction and Division The ills of Democracy are Tumults Violence and Licenciousnesse The good of Monarchy is the uniting a Nation under one Head to resist Invasion from abroad and Insurrection at home The good of Aristocracy is the Conjunction of Counsell in the ablest Persons of a State for the Publike benefit The good of Democracy is Liberty and the Courage and Industry which Liberty begets In this Kingdom the Laws are joyntly made by a King by a House of Peers and by a House of Commons chosen by the People all having free Votes and particular Priviledges The Government according to these Laws is trusted to the King Power of Treaties of War and Peace of making Peers of chusing Officers and Councellours for State Judges for Law Commanders for Forts and Castles giving Commissions for raising men to make War abroad or to prevent or provide against Invasions or Insurrections at home benefit of Confiscations power of pardoning and some more of the like kinde are placed in the King And this kinde of regulated Monarchy having this power to preserve that Authority without which it would be disabled to preserve the Laws in their Force and the Subjects in their Liberties and Proprieties is intended to draw to him such a Respect and Relation from the great Ones as may hinder the ills of Division and Faction and such a Fear and Reverence from the People as may hinder Tumults Violence and Licenciousnesse Again that the Prince may not make use of this high and perpetuall Power to the hurt of those for whose good He hath it and make use of the name of Publike Necessity for the gain of his private Favourites and Followers to the detriment of His People the House of Commons an excellent Conserver of Liberty but never intended for any share in Government or the chusing of them that should Govern is solely intrusted with the first Propositions concerning the Leavies of Moneys which is the sinews as well of Peace as War and the impeaching of those who for their own ends though countenanced by any Surreptitiously gotten command of the King have violated that Law which he is bound when he knows it to protect and to the protection of which they were bound to advise Him at least not to serve Him in the contrary And the Lords being trusted with a Judicatorie power are an excellent Screen and Bank between the Prince and people to assist each against any Incroachments of the other and by just judgements to preserve that Law which ought to be the Rule of every one of the three For the better enabling them in this beyond the examples of any of Our Ancestors We were willingly contented to oblige Our Self both to call a Parliament every three yeers and not to dissolve it in fifty dayes and for the present Exigent the better to raise Money and avoid the pressure no lesse grievous to Us then them Our People must have fuffered by a longer continuance of so vast a Charge as two great Armies and for their greater certainty of having sufficient time to remedy the inconveniencies arisen during so long an absence of Parliaments and for the punishment of the Causers and Ministers of them We yeelded up Our Right of dissolving this Parliament expecting an extraordinary moderation from it in gratitude for so unexampled a Grace and little looking that any Malignant Party should have been encouraged or enabled to have perswaded them first to countenance the Injusticies and Indignities We have endured and then by a new way of Satisfaction for what was taken from Us to demand of Vs at once to confirm what was so taken and to give up almost all the rest Since therefore the Power Legally placed in both Houses is more then sufficient to prevent and restrain the power of Tyranny and without the power which is now asked from Us We shall not be able to discharge that Trust which is the end of Monarchy since this would be a totall Subversion of the Fundamentall Laws and that excellent Constitution of this Kingdom which hath made this Nation so many yeers both Famous and happy to a great degree of Envie since to the power of Punishing which is already in your hands according to Law if the power of Preferring be added We shall have nothing left for Vs but to look on since the incroaching of one of these Estates upon the power of the other is unhappy in the effects both to them and all the rest since this power of at most a joynt Government in Vs with Our Councellors or rather Our Guardians will return Vs to the worst kinde of Minority and make Vs despicable both at home and abroad and beget eternall Factions and Dissentions as destructive to publike Happinesse as War both in the chosen and the Houses that chuse them and the people who chuse the Chusers since so new a power will undoubtedly intoxicate persons who were not born to it and beget not onely Divisions among them as equals but in them contempt of Vs as become an equall to them and Insolence and Injustice towards Our people as now so much their inferiours which will be the more grievous unto them as suffering from those who were so lately of a neerer degree to themselves and being to have redresse onely from those that placed them and fearing they may be inclined to preserve what they have made both out of kindenesse and policie since all great changes are extreamly inconvenient and almost infallibly beget yet greater Changes which beget yet greater Inconveniencies Since as great an one in the Church must follow this of the Kingdom Since the second Estate would in all probability follow the Fate of the first and by some of the same turbulent spirits Jealousies would be soon raised against them
hapned not to be agreeable not onely to the Judgement but to the passion interest or humor of the present major part of either House Not to speak now of the great factions animosities and divisions which this power would introduce in both Houses between both Houses and in the severall Countries for the choice of persons to be sent to that place where that power was and between the persons that were so chosen Neither is this strange Potion prescribed to Us onely for once for the cure of a present pressing desperate disease but for a dyet to Us and Our Posterity It is demanded That Our Councellors all Chief Officers both of Law State Commanders of Forts castles and all Peers hereafter made as to voting without which how little is the rest be approved of that is chosen by them from time to time and rather then it should ever be left to the Crown to whom it onely doth and shall belong if any place fall void in the intermission of Parliament the major part of the approved Councell is to approve them Neither is it onely demanded that We should quit the Power and Right Our Predecessors have had of appointing Persons in these places but for Councellors We are to be restrained as well in the number as in the persons and a power must be annext to these places which their Predecessors had not And indeed if this power were past to them it were not fit We should be trusted to choose those who were to be trusted as much as We. It is demanded That such matters as concern the publique and are proper for the high Court of Parliament which is Our great and Supream Councell may be debated resolved and transacted onely in Parliament and not elswhere and such as presume to do any thing to the contrary shall be reserved to the Censure and Iudgement of the Parliament and such other matters of State as are proper for Our Privy Councell shall be debated and concluded by such of Our Nobility though indeed if being made by Us they may not Vote without the Consent of both Houses We are rather to call them your Nobility and others as shall be from time to time chosen for that place by approbation of both Houses of Parliament and that no publike Act concerning the affairs of the Kingdom which are proper for Our Privie Councell may be esteemed of any validity as proceeding from the Royall Authority unlesse it be done by the Advice and Consent of the major part of Our Councell attested under their hands Which Demands are of that Nature that to grant them were in effect at once to depose both Our Self and Our Posteritie These being past We may be waited on bare-headed We may have Our hand kist The Style of Majestie continued to Us And the Kings Authoritie declared by both Houses of Parliament may be still the Style of your Commands We may have Swords and Maces carried before Us and please Our Self with the sight of a Crown and Scepter and yet even these Twigs would not long flourish when the Stock upon which they grew were dead but as to true and reall Power We should remain but the outside but the Picture but the signe of a King Wâ— were ever willing that Our Parliament should debate resolve transact such matters as are proper for them as far as they are proper for them And We heartily wish that they would be as carefull not to extend their Debates and Resolutions beyond what is proper to them that multitudes of things punishable and causes determinable by the Ordinary Judicatures may not be entertained in Parliament and so cause a long chargeable fruitlesse attendance of Our People and by Degrees draw to you as well all the causes as all the faults of Westminster-Hall and divert your proper businesse That the course of Law be no wayes diverted much lesse disturbed as was actually done by the stop of the Proceedings against a Riot in Southwark by Order of the House of Commons in a time so riotous and tumultuous as much increased the danger of Popular insolencies by such a countenance of Riots and discountenance of Law That you descend not to the leasure of recommending Lecturers to Churches nor ascend to the Legislative power by commanding the Law not having yet commanded it that they whom you recommend be received although neither the Parson nor Bishop do approve of them And that the Refusers according to the course so much formerly complained of to have been used at the Councell Table be not sent for to attend to shew cause At least that you would consider conveniencie if not Law and recommend none but who are well known to you to be Orthodox Learned and Moderate or at least such as have taken Orders and are not notorious depravers of the Book of Common Prayer A care which appeareth by the Discourses Sermons and persons of some recommended by you not to have been hitherto taken and it highly concerns both you in duty and the Common-wealth in the consequences that it should have been taken That neither one estate transact what is proper for two nor two what is proper for three and consequently that contrary to Our declared will Our Forts may not be seized Our Arms may not be removed Our Moneys may not be stopt Our legall Directions may not be countermanded by you nor We desired to countermand them Our Self nor such entrances made upon a reall War against Us upon pretence of an imaginary War against you and a Chimaera of necessity So far do you passe beyond your limits whilest you seem by your Demand to be strangely straitned within them At least We could have wisht you would have expressed what matters you meant as fit to be transacted onely in Parliament and what you meant by onely in Parliament You have of late been perswaded by the new doctrines of some few to think that proper for your debates which hath not used to be at all debated within those Wals but been trusted wholly with Our Predecessors and Us and to transact those things which without the Regall Authority since there were Kings of this Kingdom were never transacted It therefore concerns Us the more that you speak out and that both We and Our People may either know the bottom of your Demands or know them to be bottomlesse What concerns more the Publike and is more indeed proper for the high Court of Parliament then the making of Laws which not onely ought there to be transacted but can be transacted no where else but then you must admit Us to be a part of the Parliament you must not as the sense is of this part of this Demand if it have any deny the freedom of Our Answer when We have as much right to reject what We think unreasonable as you have to propose what you think convenient or necessary nor is it possible Our Answers either to Bils or any other Propositions should be