sad effect and consequence of such flattering falsities But now having clearely evidenced it that our King is no absolute Monarch and so hath no power over the lives liberties or estates of his Subjects more then the law alloweth You shall now heare severall reasons given in my Author totally to oppose this opinion of absolute Monarchy which with the favour of the curteous Reader are no way answered by the contra-disputant and for my part I thinke that absolute Monarchy is much like Sir Tho. Mores Eutopiae no where to be found And first you shall heare how one of their owne inveighes against this opinion Sayes he Those things that are done by this clause of supreame power not by way of iustice but because it so pleased the Prince and no man could say to him Cur it a facis why doe you so It is no other then violence which sayes he by a more honest title is called the supreame power Pag. 15. I must acknowledge it ever was and shall be my opinion that though Princes are stiled Gods here on earth yet their power is so qualified that they ought not to live according to their own will but the rule of reason and religion and if they passe these let flatterers qualifie their actions as they can more sound and honest judgements wil say that they are but violence tyranny Againe saies the same Author Pag. 16. Your great Governors Counsellors lay snares every where in the way that is to catch and intrap their Prince Your Divines they erre and make their Prince doe the like And your Lawyers they faune and flatter and all perswade their Prince that all things are lawfull for him and that be hath free and absolute power to doe what he list And is not this the very dialect of these times Hath not Bristow Digby and Cottington and such like perfideous Counsellors seduced his Majestie from his Parliament and perswaded him that it is lawfull for him to take up Armes against them and to state himselfe if possibly he may in an absolute Monarchy Doe not your Divines preach prerogative in stead of Divinity and by consequence detrude the Subjects liberty And now I could wish that our great Lawyers could puill their necks out of the halter the coller I should say But it is sad newes that the Ship-mony is againe revived The King must be sole Judge I and that in his owne case too when the Kingdome is indangered and so by this slight might dive into his Subjects purses when and as often as he himselfe pleased Now pray what doth the negative voyce in Parliament so stiffely defended by our Lawyres of Oxford differ from this if the King shal be sole Judge of the necessity or conveniency of any Lawes presented unto him by his people doe but support this ground of the Kings being Judge in his owne case down goes all the fundamentalls of our Lawe presently No way more exact or absolute to bring in Quod Principi placet c. and to obtrude the liberty of the Subject But that you may see how farre this absolute power is laboured for at this day they have derived this very principle from this unreasonable Law of liberty as I shall make it appeare hereafter But now let us reason the point and heare what is objected against this absolute power of Princes Sais one all Dominion or Soveraignetie is for the publique profit of the Citisent or Subiects not of those that raigne or rule Pag. 16. To this Albericus saies that it is a false foundation in those principalities or dominions that are got by force and not totally true in those who are induced or brought in by the people For he saies that due honour was given to the vertues of those Princes that were chosen For my part I never read or heard Albericus Pag. 16. that a Prince who hath gained a Kingdome by Conquest is disobliged from the rule of Reason and Religion The Scripture doth no where warrant that I know of any Prince whatsoever to be a Tyrant which I am sure he must needs bee that seekes his owne not his peoples good This is but just that due honour should be given to the vertues of those Princes that are elected but such as reverence them so far as to attribute an absolutenesse of power unto them and give them liberty to do what they list doe dishonour God in ascribing that power that was never given debase their Prince by making him to degenerate from true Soveraignety into Tyranny Though Aristotle by way of Dirision faith Pag. 16. that wee make our Princes like Physitians whose rule or power is for the sake of those only who are their Patients My opinion is that Princes cannot be more properly compared or assimulated then unto Physitians the one is the Physitian for the body naturall the other for the body politique A Prince ought to purge out all ill humours that is ill members out of the Common wealth hee ought to tender the lives and happinesse of his people as much as a Physitian the life and good of his Patient Nay as a Physitian ought to have an eye more to the good and safety of his Patient then his owne benefit so ought this great Physition of the Common wealth The Princes happinesse is involved in the good of his people therefore they doe but teach him how to ruine himself that instruct him to undoe his people But Albericus reasons further by way of admittance what sais he if all Dominion or Power were ordained for the onely benefit of Subiects Ergo plenitudo potestatis non est is there not therefore a plenitude of power Sir wee doe not denie but that Princes have full power and authority to governe their people but we doe and shall ever deny that they have an absolute power to Tyrannize over them But he saies further that it is for the benefit and profit of Subiects ' that a Prince should have this power I marry Sir witnesse the great utility Pag. 16. that accrues to the Subject at this day by the exercise of the like power That their lives and estates should be at the sole will beck and command of their Soveraigne this is for the benefit of the Subject Pray give me leave to put you a plaine case in Law A. gives land to B. in trust and for the onely use of C. B. breakes the trust and disposes of the Land at his owne pleasure resolve me this question is not this for the benefit of C Such and only such benefit accrues to the Subject by giving of an absolute power to the Prince But so much for this argument The next position that is discussed Page 17. is that absolutenesse of power is only in God and is not communicable to any other To this Albericus answers that this doth not make the Prince equall to God Page 17. for neverthelesse he is under God and
ENGLANDS MONARCH OR A CONVICTION AND refutation by the Common law of those false Principles and insinuating flatteries of Albericus delivered by way of Disputation and after published and dedicated to our dread Soveraigne King JAMES in which he laboureth to prove by the Civill Law our Prince to be an absolute Monarch and to have a free and Arbitrary power over the lives and Estates of his people TOGETHER WITH A GENErall confutation and that grounded vpon certaine Principles taken by some of their owne profession of all absolute Monarchy LONDON Printed by Thomas Paine Anno Dom. 1644. To the Reader THis worke after so much labour and expence of time by others in the like subiect may now be thought vaine and superstitious scarce deserving the vacant houres of a mans time much lesse those oppertunities which necessary occasions and imployments call for But Reader let not this make you vilipend or undervalue his endeavour who doth here present you with such a peece of Sophistry that hapily you never read nor heard off and that is Albericus published in latine the great propugnor of our King to be an absolute Monarch which he would mainetaine too by the Civell Law and who but our good King JAMES must be made the Patron of these absurde Principles Give me but your patience I will not acomagere tread in others steps the Author hath lead me into a large field of novelty where if you please to solace your selfe but a while you shall finde it more apt to informe your iudgement then confirme your memory which if made good unto you let him have your favourable censure who ever was and will be a faithfull servant to his Country ENGLANDS MONARCH HAving by accident met with a Book full of the fallacies of these times and yet dedicated to our late Soveraigne King Iames and for ought I can be informed passed over in silence without the least reproofe I thought it my duty out of that faith and loyaltie that I owe to my King and Countrey to publish its principles to the world and by the way as I goe to give a particular answer to every one of them The Authors name is Albericus what Country man I know not but his name as also his principles seeme to speake him a stranger by birth and a Civilian by his profession His Book is intituled Three Regall disputations Regales Disputationes tres And the first is Of the absolute power of the King Depotestate Regis absolutae And this is the taske that I have at this time imposed upon my selfe to debate and refute the absurditie of this principle being a Tenet utterly repugnant and absolutely destructive to the Lawes of England and the Liberties of the Subject I am not ignorant that the greatest part of the unhappie hereticall principles of this Booke are at this day defended by force of Armes by such as would be called Royalists or if you will the Kings friends while in the meane time they sell their Birthright and inheritance for a poore messe of Pottage and become Actors in this sad Tragedie of the ruine of their King and Countrey But to begin with the Author who in the very first position of his Booke were it Orthodox in this Kingdom would quite confound all our Lawes and Liberties That which pleaseth the Prince saith he hath the force of a Law Quod Principi placvit Legis habet vigorem pag. 5. I this is that which your Prelaticall flatterers Parasiticall Courtiers perswade his Majesty and this peece of poyson they have suckt out of such unworthy underminers of their own Liberty as my Author is And this he saies to be Page 5. a regall Law brought in by his Empire for that the people have conferred upon him all their rule and power That is the people have given power to their Prince to bee a Tyrant and tread them under feet at liberty a principle so void of reason that it carries not the least colour or probabality with it but of this hereafter But this position Quod Principi placuit c. That which pleaseth the Prince hath the force of a Law He saith is to to be understood of the Romane Emperour Page 5 6 7. for his excellency above others as also for other reasons that he renders If this bee so Albericus what have we that are English Subjects live under a Municipall Law to doe with that or why diddest thou dedicate this unsound and unwarrantable peece of flattery to our King couldest thou imagine so learned and so wise a Prince would be wrought upon to subvert the Lawes and enslave his Subjects who can make as good a Title by the Law to their liberty as the King to his Crowne But Albericus well knew that the best Princes might be corrupted and that ambition may captivate the Crowne as well as the Peasant I even in those dayes our Liberties were invaded by the infusion of such false Maximes as these are And to this houre we groane under that heavie burthen my little finger shall bee heavier then my Fathers Loynes And though we live under a Municipall Law which utterly denies and condemnes these flattering positions of the Civilians as absolutely destructive to that freedom wee were borne under yet my Author doth affirme that all interpeters that is of the Civill Law without any difficulty do attribute this power to all supreame Princes Page 7. Now hence he raises a question who those supreame Princes are Page 7 8 9. And the some of his definition of the supreame Princes may be reduced shortly to this They are supreame Princes who neither have nor acknowledge any one above them but God and to him onely are bound to render an account who are free from all Law whose willis a sufficien treason whose reason is as an absolute law And he saies this is no barbarous Law but the Romane Law If so Albericus why doe such Sycophants vent their poyson here in England Sir God be thanked wee have a Law of our owne whose fundamentalls crye downe this definition as paradoxicall to sence and reason whose light is so great that it neede not borrow of others to adde to its perfection But here wee may see that the same Doctrine is preached to our King at this day that was to his predecessor what else meant the long discountinance of Parliaments the onely assurance we have of the continuance of our Lawes and Liberties I and what meanes the taking up of Armes too against them But yet to come nearer to this definition of the Civilians of an absolute Prince what meanes that frequent expression of His Majestie in His Declarations that he is responsible to God alone for his actions I am certaine this is Lex Romana the Romane Law But when hee had shewne what is not this supreame power and who are not these supreame Princes he saith Page 10. That our King is amongst the other
Kings that is the supreame Princes who are free from the Law which is saith he of an absolute power and this is not subject either to the rules of necessity or publique Law Then he saies that there is potestas extraordinaria libera an extraordinary and free power which he saies in England wee doe signifie by the name Regiae Praerogativae of the Royall Prerogative And further he sayes That the interpreters of their Law doe commonly write that there is a double power in a Prince the one ordinary bound by the Law the other extraordinary free from the Law and hee saies that they define that to be the absolute power by which hee may take away another mans right though it be great and that without a cause too Is this that extraordinary power which we by the Law of England call the Royall Prerogative I wonder at the madnesse and the ignorance of the Author that should publish a thing so absolutely contrary to the knowne Lawes of the Realme but I will refute him by our Law and not by rayling though he deserves no better First that our King according to their own definition is not one of these supreame Princes or absolute Monarches nothing more pregnant or plainely demonstrable in our Law For hee is under the Law and so saies Bracton and Fleta two of our ancientest Law Bookes in severall places commonly knowne so that I neede not to cite them But Bracton goes further Bracton de acquirendo rerum Domino fol. 34. that not onely habet legem superiorem the Law is above him but also curiam suam viz. Comites Barones c. which can bee understood of no other then the Parliament that that likewise is above him why then if both Law Parliament be above him he can be no absolute Monarch according to themselves But further by the Lawes and constitutions of this Kingdome the Legislative power doth not reside in the King alone for he cannot create a Law or destroy or disanull any Law by his Patent or Proclamation but in the three estates joyntly together assembled in one body in Parliament and therefore to maintaine our Prince to be an obsolute Monarch is utterly to oppose and overthrow the fundamentalls of our Lawe But how satte this is laboured at this day I leave it to the consciences of al honest men to judge for if the King might have power to discontinue Parliaments as long as he pleaseth or being called to have a negative Voyce to all their reasonable demands will not this bee a compendious way to bring all the Legislative power into his owne hands But then he sais that by this extraordinary or absolute power which he would have our Prince to have He may take away any mans right be it never so great For he sayes Page 13. That the Prince by his Empire possesses all things that he hath an imperiall and universall dominion though the particular and private be in the proprietor Which in plainer English is to tell you that the King hath an interest and power over every mans particular property which is as absolutely false as can be imagined and stands as much in opposition to our Law as one contrary can to another for what then would become of our Petition of Right Or how could we say that we had right to any thing when the King at his owne pleasure might dispossesse us of all this were a ready way to inslave us and to make us hould by that base tenure of Villeinage I do not denie but that the Common wealth hath an interest paramount the property of every private man but this is not left to the sole disposition of our Prince but the Parliament who may dispose of the generall interest for the good of the Common wealth and in such case we our selves are the free dispensers of our owne for t is not more their power then our owne consents that binds us But thankes be to God that every man by our Law let Court Parasites say what they will hath as absolute a right in that hee enjoyes as his Prince claimes in his Crowne nay I may be bold to affirme without prejudice to the royall interest that he hath a greater for that the King is seised or possessed in the right of his Crowne onely the people in their owne right What one principle more aumenticke in our law then this that the King cannot take away any mans property without his owne consent and how is this consent to be purchased why no otherwise then by Act of Parliament with whom the generall property which is above every mans particular interest is intrusted And therefore those that will have the King to be an absolute Monarch over his people must instruct him how to repeale Magna charta and all the other Lawes made in confirmation of it and the Subjects liberty before they can court them into slavery But here it will be objected that the lawes of this Realme doe avow and maintaine our King to be an absolute Monarch very just and with this difference wee shall allow him to be so that is as to all forraine power authority or jurisdiction what soever he is an obsolute Emperor within these his dominions in plainer language he is no dependent or tributary Prince but is as he is acknowledged to be by the statute of 24. H. 8. ca. 12 Furnished with plenary whole and intire power preeminence authority prerogative and jurisdistion c. So that no forraine Prince or Potentate whatsoever can challenge or excercise the least authority in these Kingdomes but this doth no way conclude our Prince to be an absolute Monarch in the excercise of his jurisdiction over his people T is true that my Lord Coke sayes our King is an absolute King but how not over his people and that is cleared by the case that he puts which is this Artold King of Manne sued to King H. 3. to come into England c. upon which my Lord Coke observes Lib. 7. fo 21. that seeing that Artold King of Manne sued for a licence in this case to our King it proveth him an absolute King which is evident as to any forraine power or authority whatsoever but not to his own Subjects For as to them he hath but a qualified limitted power confined to the rules of law the customs of his Kingdome These things pondered on I stand amazed at thy brasen confidence Albericus that durst affirme our King to be an absolute Monarch and canst prove it no better then by the daubing principles of the Civill Law what else is this but to argue a case at Common Law upon the notions and grounds of the Civil which were an absurdity next to madnesse But I stand most astonished when I consider that our Prince must be made the Patron of such dangerous absurde principles This is that that hath so much advanced Prerogative and depressed Liberty And these times are become the
is bound by the Lawes of God God saies he is simply absolute not bound to any Law but the Prince onely absolute to some respects for though he be above the Civill Law yet he is under the Law of God of Nature and of Nations We will allow this absolute power that you speake of if you canevince us out of holy Writ to which Princes as well as people owe subjection that ever such power was communicated to any just Prince that he might dispose of the lives and estates of his Subjects at his owne will and pleasure what is this but Tyrranny and if God who only hath absolute power over his people did sometimes in his wrath for the sinnes of his people put a Tyrannicall King over them yet this is no warrant for others to be so God who is the only proprietor and free dispenser of all things and giveth what he pleaseth and to whom and when he pleaseth what he out of his bounty doth bestow upon his meanest servant he doth invest him in as pure and absolute a right as he doth the greatest Prince in his Monarchy and therefore it lies not in the power of his Prince to dispossesse him of it We have a most exact and perfect discription of a Tyrant in the word of God 1 Sam. 8. where when the people of Israel not contented with that Governement that God had appointed over them asked a King of Samuell God in his anger and as a judgement upon the people for their sin gave them a King to rule over them but such a one who according to the discription of Samuell would make his will his Law for saies Samuell to the people This will be the manner of the King that shall reigne over you he will take your sonnes and appoint them for himselfe for his Charets c. And he will appoint him Captaines over thousands c. And he will take your daughters to be confectioners c. And hee will take your fields and your vineyards and give them to his servants And he will take your servants and cattle and put them to worke c. Here you have a compleate delineation of a Tyrant For marke Samuell tells the people what he will doe not what he ought to doe thus and thus he will doe saith he and he will render no better reason for what he doth stat pro ratione voluntas his will is reason sufficient to deprive you of your substance and to inslave you and your postetity for ever This was the judgement of God and therefore not to be drawne in example or made a president for others And therefore let every unjust Prince take heede that whilest hee is made the Rod and scourge of God for his peoples sinnes hee himselfe be not at the last throwne into the fire But now you shall heare the duty of a good Prince set forth in Deut. 17 He shall not multiply horses to himselfe c. Neither shall he multiply wives nor silver and gold He shall write him a coppie of this Law in a Booke c. And it shall be with him and hee shall reade therein all the dayes of his life that hee may learne to feare the Lord his God to keepe all the words of this Law and these statutes to doe them Now marke what followes all That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren c. For my part I do not find here that the Kings will is a Law or that he hath power to open shut the purses of his Subjects at his pleasure A just Prince must not multiply silver gold why then doubtlesse he must not doe it upon the ruines of his Subjects Hee must keepe this law and I am sure this Law doth not make him lawlesse or justifie Tyranny And lastly his heart must not bee lifted up above his brethren that is he must not so exalt his owne power as to depresse and destroy his people Another Argument is this that the people did transferre this power to the King that by it they might be more commodiously governed Page 24. but this is not that supreame power sic volo sic jubeo but an ordinary power directed by law To this Albericus answers with his distinction before taken that there is an ordinary and an extraordinary power in the Prince and he saies that the people sometimes by this extraordinary power which is the supreame and absolute power may be governed more commodiously for he saies That people of indomitable and rigid spirits are better governed by this extraordinary then an ordinary power and those Subjects are to be governed by an Iron Rod that will not yeeld to the ferula Certainly Albericus when he wrote this booke thought he had been tutering of children I confesse that I have often read and heard that the government by Monarchy is much to be preferred and set before Oligarchy Democracy or Aristocracy‑ but I never heard that tyranny might be more apt commodious then a just and lawfull governement neither did I ever read of any people of so savedge and barbarous a nature who would not rather stoope to a just and legall then an unjust and tyrannicall dominion No question it is most commodious both for King and people that the one should have a certain positive rule by which he might governe and the other by which he might obey And that Prince who governs his people by the rule of justice shall find more faithfull and loyall Subjects then he that swayes them by the Scepter of an extraordinary and tyrannicall power But heare what Albericus doth determin to be tyranny That sayes he Pag. 25. is tyrannous which in a tyrant is wonted and ordinary in aiust Prince extraordinary and casuall To take away famous and excellent men to expell or drive away those that are wise to exterminate studies to have and countenance such about him as are envious private calumniators and accusers of others to follow delight in bloody warres these others of that kind he saies to be tyrannous How Albericus are these tyrannous I thought the supreame power had beene unlimitted why so it is for he saies that even these very actions which imediatly before he styles tyrannous Possunt aliquandoetiam esse justa may sometimes be just May tyrannous actions be just what a diametricall contradiction is this he may as well call darkenesse light or light darkenesse good evill or evill good In vaine doth he labour to make this good by strange and tyrannous actions as he would have them which are done by Princes for the good of the common wealth neither is this malum necessariun a necessary evill as he calls it for whatsoever is simply tyranous cannot be said to be just and whatsoever is done and in truth is so for the common good cannot beare the infamous scandall of tyrannous But this saying of Albericus savours more of Machavilians Politiques then of just and legall governement Pag. 27.
That this absolute power of which he treats and which be confesses to be at will must be taken ta the will of a good man A very good distinction why then belike a prince that is an unjust and corrupt man cannot use this supreame and arbitrary power O yes for immediatly after he doth affirme the Prince to be this good man As if it were an absolute and uncontrollable consequence that every Prince must be a good man Whereas the Scripture holds out cleare testimony of the wickednesse corruption of Princes Ezek. 45.9 Job 34.30 Amos 4.1 And such was the tyranny of the Princes of Jerusalem that in Zeph. 3.3 they are called roaring Lyons Observe but his way of reasoning Every Prince that is a good man hath this arbytrary power But every Prince is a good man Therefore every Prince hath this arbitrary power The falsest Sillogisme and the most pure implicite contradiction that ever was For the Major propositiō clearely implies that every Prince is not good the Minor concludes every one to be good But here you may see the sencelesse daubing Sophistry of these men who are resolved to put a good glosse upon the foulest actions and rather then their Prince shall not be what they would have him they will most boldly affirme to be that which he is not But woe be to you that call good evill or evill good I shall say no more but this Happy England were greatnesse and goodnesse inseperable concomitants But he steps a little neater to us and saies Though the Prince hath a plenitude of power Pag. yet the ought to use this iustly otherwise it will be a plenitude of stormes and tempests And he further sates That this clause of the fullnesse of power is under stood of a good and laudable power not a power to ill or iniury What strange and unparallel'd contradictions are these How can this stand with the former positions that the King may doe what he list that his will is a sufficient reason and his reason a positive law if the King may be said to doe that which is unjust ill or injurious The doing of ill or injury are not things compatible to absolute Monarchy give me leave a little to reason the case out of Albericus himselfe Those that have not power to doe what they list have no absolute power But Kings cannot doe what they list Therefore Kings have no absolute power But here the Minor preposition will be denied that Kings may doe what they list To this I answer with Albericus that Kings cannot doe wrong or injury therefore Kings cannot doe what they list And hence the consequence is very evident that Kings have no absolute power But he doth yet approach nearer to us in denying the opinion of some of their owne formerly delivered for he saies Pag. 27. That the Prince by this plenitude or absolutenes of power cannot deprive his Subiects of their dominions or properties sine causa iusta without just cause tendered Why now Albericus secundumte according to your owne argument if Kings cannot take away their Subjects properties but are bound to regulate their actions according to the rule of justice How can Kings be said to have an absolute power Why yes you shall heare how for he doth afterwards if what he saies would hold make good whatsoever he hath delivered or indeed can deliver in the defence of this tyrannicall absolute Monarchy For he saies That of the iustnesse of this cause this absolute Prince is the sole Judge and Arbitor Now you know upon what foundation that principle of the Shipmony was built that the King only ought to be Judge of the imminent danger then pretended This is that which was taught by evill Councellors one whereof with whom the dominion of Ireland was intrusted was wont to say that he had the law lockt up in scrinio pectoris in the closset of his owne brest which expressed in plainer language speakes clearely this that his will was a law But he that then thought to have advanced his Soveraigne by consequence himselfe above law hath sence undergone his just demerit and the law still lives in spite of its enemies But who would have thought that our grave fathers and sage determiners the lex loquens or walking Libraries of our law should have beene so perfidious to their own principles as to borrow grounds of the Civill law to make up a judgement so distructive to the Common And that that was so give me leave to reason the case a little I will make it evident For first they themselves say that to bee the only discrimen or true difference betwixtabsolute if any such thing there be and quallified or limitted Monarchy For say they the first doth judge de causis of causes and the latter ex legibus by the lawes So that give but the King leave to be judge in his owne case you presently mount him into absolute monarchy if this were law the King might take away any mans estate upon just cause I and whether it were just or no he would doe it for he himselfe should be judge of the cause and then it would not be difficult to determine on whose side the judgement should be given T is an undoubted Maxime that no man can be acompetent judge in his owne case and it is all one to give the King libetty to take away his Subiects rights uniustly as to say he cannot doe it but upon iust ground and yet to leave that to his sole sudgement and determination Might not the King in that case as often as he himselfe pleased have exhausted his Subiects treasure upon pretence of an imminent danger and if he be sole Judge of the necessity who could oppose it But you see the absurdity and ill consequence of this principle and therefore so I shall leave it But then speaking how farre the law should be obligatory to the Prince Page 2.8 he takes these distinctions saies he There is Lex honestatis the law of honesty and Lex necessitatis the law of necessity The law of honesty that binds the King that is the King in point of honesty may if he will observe the law if he will not he may make his will his law The law of necessity that bindes the Subiect so that will he nill he he must submit and give obedience to it Others he saies say That there is the law of honesty and the law of the precept and he saies the one doth not lesse oblige then the other yet there is this difference that the law of honesty depends onely upon the will of the prince what an absurdity is this to say that the one doth as strongly bind as the other and yet that the one must observe the law and the other is at his liberty whether he will or no. Others he saies say That there is necessitas rei the necessity of the thing necessitas personae the necessity of
the person so that though the thing may be of necessity to be done as for the purpose the setling of the Militia yet that doth not necessitare the person of an absolute Prince to doe it What pure contradictions are these first that Princes have Supreame and absolute power to do what they list and yet that they ought to do nothing but what is just and right That they are above the Law and yet by the law of honesty they are bound to observe and keepe it I thinke it is almost impossible to reconcile these differences or to make Albericus agree with himselfe For my part I shall not sticke to defend that Princes by the law of necessity are bound to submit to the Law as well as their people For I am sure that the divine precept doth as strongly oblige the greatest Monarch as the meanest begger and that requires that justice be done to all men and that every man which exempts not Princes should doe that which hee commands others to doe Now it is but consonant to the rule of justice and good government that Princes should be necessitated to observe the Law as well as their people for if the King shall have power to make his will his law what justice or setled governement can be exspected Then this beeing an act of justice to observe the Law by that generall precept of the word of God that justice be done to all men Princes are as strongly obliged to it as the people Againe if the Divine rule requireth that every man doe that which he commandeth to be done by another why then no Prince can excuse himselfe of the necessity of subjection to that Law which he requireth should be kept and observed by his Subjects I am certaine it is the very letter of the Word and a principall part of justice that every man should doe as he would be done by and I am confident no Prince if hee would state himselfe in the place of his Subject could hold it just or equali that it should lie in the brest of his Soveraigne to vassalize him at pleasure Now a man ought not to doe that or to conceive it just to be done to another which he would condemne as unjust being done to himselfe I never complied with that distinction of some Divines who say the Prince to be subject to the directive but not to the coactive or compulsive power of the law for though they may be exempt from the penall yet not from the coercive power and without controversie whatsoever God requires of that man may exact the just and due performance And as I have said the word of God doth rather binde over Princes by the law of necessity to the observance of the Law then any way give them freedome from it or power against it Besides you shall heare how some of their own argue frustra sint Leges positae nostro principi nisi sit qui ipsum in leges cogat that is it is in vaine to tie our Prince to the Lawes except there should be somebody to compell him to the observation of them And saies another why are not the lawes also abrogated with which the Prince is said to be bound if it can never be that hee may be compelled to keepe and observe them Every Law carries with it a coactive necessity of observance and as good no Law as no power to exact the performance of the Law But heare what a third of their owne sayes The Lawes are the conventions or covenants betwixt the Prince and his people it is the nature of obligations to enforce the unwilling the bond and obligation being mutuall t is but just and equall that Kings should be necessitated to observe the law as well as their people To conclude this give but Kings freedome from the coercive power of the Law you make the Law as vaine and idle as their covenants and obligations The last argument that I shall touch is this that if the people were bound by their owne Lawes so should the Prince if the people conferre their power upon him To this it is said that this power collated by the people to the Prince is interpreted of the people of Magistrates and of the Lawes themselves that is he hath power over all these then it is said can hee who hath the Lawes in his power be in the power of the lawes or can he that hath the power of the Lawes be detayned by the power of the Lawes For my part Albericus I count it a flat absurdity for any man to maintaine that the people conferred a grater power or exemption upon their Prince then they themselves had or exercised for though they did transferre all the Legislative power to the Prince yet it must be clogged with the same qualifications and conditions that they themselves had it Neither can it be imagined by sounder judgements that people who had such experience of an ample liberty would give an absolute power to their Prince and thereby subject themselves to the bond of slavery That the people did grant to their Prince a power of making Lawes doth not allow him an exemption or freedome from them Besides as the alterations of Governement in any state are dangerous and therefore not to be attempted without mature consideration so it hath beene alwaies the care and vigelancy of all States whatsoever upon their innovation or alteration of Governement to reduce themselves to a better not a worse condition and can we then conceive that the Nations upon the first election of Princes could be so stuped as to submit themselves to absolute Monarchy live under the lawless power of Tyranny and so avoiding one extreame to fal into another much worse then the former For my selfe I must needes acknowledge that it is a thing so opposite and disconsonant to the rule of reason and that freedome that all men naturally covet that I shall as soone renounce the fundamentalls of my faith as beleeve it But the long continuance of the Monarchicall governement which indeede is the most absolute of all others if it do not exceede the sweet mixtute of legall moderation the corruption of Princes and the fawning principles of Court Parasites these are they which by degrees have insinuated these absurd and false positions and adulterated the originall constitution of so pure and happie a Dominion Thus much against absolute Monarchy in generall And now after all let us who are English Subjects live under the golden mean of mixt qualified Monarchy the most blest dominiō in the world if not corrupted through the ambition of Princes or the base seducement of evill Counsellors blesse God for his goodnesse who hath not only dispensed and bestowed an equall portion of his bounty upon us but hath also made us absolute proprietors of what we enjoy so that our lives liberties and estates doe not depend upon not are subiect to the sole breath or arbitrary will of our Soveraigne And I shall conclude all with a small variation of that old verse Non est Lex Regi sed Rex obnoxia Legi The lawe's not subiect to the greatest King But doth his will into subiection bring FINIS