Positions of the Dispensing Power And when that was done I publickly Challenged them for giving me no Relief from my duress and barbarous Usage They had the Grace to tell me that my Motion was to go abroad to Counsel which I knew to be Impossible as well as they being in Execution I said that my Motion I was suâ—e was Right being drawn up by my own Hand and several Gentlemen at the Bar generously attested that my Counsel who was then not in Court had Moved right But I will say no more of those Judges for considering the great number of Brave and Honest Men which they have Hanged in their Time when it comes to their own Turn they will but Prophane a Gallows Out of this long and impertinent Story I put this short Case It was certainly Lawful for me to submit to this Usage when I could not help it but I had deserved to die the Death of a Dog and had betrayed the Rights of an English-Man if I had entred into Engagements to abide by it I will give him a third Instance At the Parliament at Oxford in 65 when they made the Five Mile Act there was the same Enslaving Project on foot as there was afterwards in Seventy odd to Swear to the Government in Church and State without Alteration The Wise Lord Treasurer Southampton was against it and said that though he liked Episcopacy yet he would not be Sworn to it because he might hereafter be of another Opinion And perhaps he had been further off from that Oath if he had lived till now The Remainder of this third Paragraph follows in these words And as it appears that there lies no just Objection to the swearing Obedience so there arises none from â— of his Subjects I am sure he cannot tell what Fee As if the King were Landlord of all England 4 thly He makes a King in Fact to be Lord of the Fee as if English-men did not know their True Landlord from Iohn a Green 5 thly He would have People swear an Obedience according to Law in opposition to a Blind and Absolute Obedience though they are still to retain their Passive Obedience which is certainly Blind and Absolute Obedience or else there is no such thing in the World I shall slightly touch upon each of these in their Order First of all he out-runs the Constable in taking for granted an Oath of Obedience where he has neither proved bare Obedience much less a Promise of Obedience onwards to be due for which I refer my self to what passed on the former part of the Paragraph It is true indeed what a Right Reverend Preacher said That Possession is Eleven Points of the Law But where is the Twelfth We want the Point of Right without which the Eleven Points of Law are like the Verdict of Eleven Jury-men for receiving of which King Alfred heretofore hanged one of his Judges Secondly He here gives us a Notion of Allegiance by the halves for he says It is in its Original Signification nothing but the Service due to the Chief Lord of the Fee What nothing more Yes it was always likewise the Duty which the Liege-Lord owed to his Liege-man Allegiance and Fealty were always Reciprocal And therefore he need not say so sparingly p. 24. that an Original Contract was implied in it for it was an Express Contract Allegiance was always a Mutual Bond and a Duty that was promised interchangeably It was so when Canutus and the English swore Fealty to one another at Southampton Brompton p. 903. l. 57. It was a true Bargain upon Articles treated of and agreed upon before hand Ut me teneat says the Liege-man in his Oath sicut deservire volo totum mihi compleat quod in nostrâ praelocutione fuit quando suus deveni ejus elegi voluntatem Thirdly He makes the King Lord of the Fee to intitle him to our Oath of Allegiance It is nothing so for the People of England do not hold of the King what Holy Church does I know not they may be his Vassals for ought I know I am sure I am none Our Allegiance stands upon truer and surer Grounds The King of England is Invested with the Regal Office of Governing a Free-born People This High Office and Dominion was given him by Law and all his Powers which are very Great and give him an Opportunity of doing a world of Good are all stated by Law for else how should we know they are his and they are butted and bounded by Law or else they might be pretended to be Infinite We find it thus in the first Constitution of this Monarchy in the beginning of the Mirror and thus the Office of the King stands delineated in the 17 th Chapter of Edward the Confessor's Laws where by the by we find that King Iames Forfeited and ceased to be a King Our King has the most Glorious Crown this Day in Christendom for it has not that dark Side of Impotency which by some is falsly called the Power of doing Wrong This Crown at the time of his Coronation he used to be Adjured not to meddle with unless he would observe his Coronation Oath bonâ Fide sine malo Ingenio It is a Righteous Oath and wonderfully for the Benefit of this Great People and when he has done this he has a Legal Right as well as a Conscionable to the Oaths of all his People For if his Subjects will not swear to Him let us give the King his Oath again It is true Sworn or Unsworn both Prince and People are upon the Terms of the Government which is a Stable thing and not like Cannon to be new Cast only to put the present Prince's Arms upon it But still I say for the Prince to be Sworn and the People not is like a Marriage on One side as if the other Party were to be at a loose end and left to discretion I am clearly for the old Law of Swearing every one above Sixteen at the Court-Leet and not suffering any one that sets foot upon English Ground to be Unsworn above Nuarante jours which is the Ancient Common Law And he that will not take the Oath ought to be treated as an Outlaw for he ought not to live under a Government who refuses to give it the Customary and Legal Caution If they dote upon King Iames's unextinguishable Right they would do better to be at St. Germains than here for if I had a Rightful injured Prince abroad my Sense of Allegiance would prompt me to follow him to the World's End Fourthly He makes a King in Fact to be Lord of the Fee We have been too long haunted with this word Fact and therefore I will try to lay the Goblin Either a King is a Rightful King or he is not if he be write him down so but never call him Fact that is Wrongful King Usurper Pretender Tyrant in Title Idol Counterfeit King No King For he that pretends to
a Power and Office which is by Law and which the Law does not give him has it not Every Inch of a King's Power is Legal and he must come Legally by it Lex enim facit Regem and again Per quam factus est Rex as our Common Law speaks by the Mouth oâ— old Bracton He that is not let into the Government by Law has nothing to do with it he is a private Person as you or I may be St. Iohn 10. 1. He that entreth not by the Door into the Sheepfold but climbeth up some other way Why what of him He is in Possession he is a Shepherd de Facto he takes upon him as if he were the true Shepherd But what says our Saviour the same is a Thief and a Robber If I were a Bishop of King William's making I would never for my own sake call my Founder a King de Facto For Leo the Eighth who was a Pope de Facto and gave Orders and did all other Apostolical things made Bishops and Clerks only de Facto for they were afterwards forced to sign their own Nullity in these words Pater meus nichil sibi habuit nichil michi dedit For indeed of Nichil comes Nichil Radulphus de Diceto ad Annum 968. p. 457. Suppose any Man by forcible entry gets Possession of the Mannor-house Is he thereupon Lord of the Mannor or has he a Right to the Rents of the Tenants It intitles him to nothing that I know of but to be followed by a Writ of Ejectment For the Right and the Estate are for ever Inseparable For though the Right Owner be not in the Estate yet the Estate is always in Him Fifthly He would have People swear an Obedience according to Law in opposition to a Blind and Absolute Obedience though they are still to retain their Passive Obedience which is certainly Blind and Absolute Obedience or else there is no such thing in the World He has p. 20. l. 15. entred a Salvo for the Highest Principles of Passive Obedience for he argues from those Principles and shews how the Oath shall not hurt them I will discourse further of that Matter when I come to it and I will prove that those Highest Principles of Passive Obedience are his own And that there is not ranker Passive Obedience nor more grown up to Seed than that which stands Unretracted in his own Books In the mean time how can he take into his Mouth such honest words as Obedience according to Law For his Passive Obedience is all the sorts of Blind and Absolute Obedience that can enter into the Heart of Man to conceive It is Blind and must neither see nor examine and it is Dumb that must not dispute and that openeth not its Mouth And it has râ—signed it self till the Day of Judgment at which the Welchman who feared Hanging desired to be tried but all Plaintiffs desire a shorter Day In a word it is Obedience without Reserve it is bottomless and endless For it is all the Absolute Obedience in the World in the second Instance I mean not in the performance of the first bare Command but as that Command is inforced with a Penalty For Example Suppose I lived under the Great Turk and he for Will and Pleasure commanded me to break my Neck down a Precipice and I on the other side out of a natural tenderness for Life desired to be excused why there is the biggest Command in Europe Asia or Africa lost But if Passive Obedience come in the Black Box I must give up my willing Neck to the Bowstring and there it is broke without resistance and the thing is done And suppose this be practised upon 6666 Men then you have a Thebaean Legion compleat And Oh! What a Fervour would such a Story leave upon some Mens Minds What a Heavenly thing Slavery and Suffering is to some Men But then it is always other People's suffering and not their own which so wonderfully Edifies them For my part I always hated Passive Obedience both for my self and every body else and yet a great deal of it has fallen to my share so that I am the better able to write against it having had occasion to study the Point and having known the thing by Experience As my Lord Montaign will allow no Man to be a competent Physician nor able to Cure any one Disease which he has not laboured under himself I say then that Passive Obedience is the Upshot of the most Blind and Absolute Obedience in the World For an Infinite Obedience resolves it self only into this either to do the thing or to do worse either to Fulfil the Tyrant's Will and Pleasure or to Suffer it Now when we are come to Suffering and Passiveness this is the last Office that can be done to a Tyrant And if this be the Duty of the People of England they live under the last Degree of Tyranny It is vain to talk of Laws which secure to us our Lives Liberties and Estates when Passive Obedience comes into play for the Property we have in these things which makes them all our Own is swallowed up by Irresistibility and all the ridiculous Ownership we have is the ridiculous English word Mine-take-it which all the Children in England know is equivalent to Your's-take-it For if a Thing be not mine to keep it is none of Mine but it is Uncontroulably His who can take it away without Controul A Prince needs not an Antecedent Title to that which is His for sending for His Title commences in sending for it And Caesar has an undoubted Right to All things if no Body has a Right to say him nay The Ghostly Doctrine of Passive Obedience superinduced upon our Civil Rights is like the Saving or Reserve of the King 's Sovereign Power wherewith the Court and Bishops would have clogg'd the Petition of Right 4 o Caroli which would have frustrated the whole Act and supplanted every Branch of those Fundamental and Inherent Liberties which are there Claimed and Confirmed The Wise Conferences full of Law and Learning which passed upon that Occasion are worth every body 's Reading either in the Ephemeris Parliamentaria or even as they lie in Mr. Rushworth's Collections For whenever Sovereign Power and Irresistibility exert themselves we are gone And if we are bound in Conscience to submit to Commands Illegal there is an end of all Law These Men do very Wickedly and Prophanely not to say Blasphemously to Christen their Bowstring Obedience and to call it the Doctrine of the Cross thereby Abusing the Adorable Mystery of our Salvation and turning it into a State-Engine of Tyranny and Slavery For it is not the Doctrine of the Cross in any wise unless it be in some such wretched meaning as this That no Free Nation can live under it What is done according to Law every Body must abide by because every Body's Consent is involved in the making of every English Law and then
it is no more than Common Honesty to stand to one's own Act and Deed But in the way of the Passive Doctrine to prostitute the Lives Liberties and Estates of the People of England to the Will of the Prince is Treason against the Realm and Higher Treason than the Highâ—Treason against the Prince For as Fortesâ—ue and the rest of the Lawyers â—ay the King was made for the Kingdom and not the Kingdom for the King And as Treason against the Realm is such as the King cannot pardon so it is such as an Actual King by Succession is capable of being guilty of as appears by several Acts of Parliament which I can shew to any Dabbler in our Government that understands it not He clenches his third Paragraph with a Fourth which follows in these words This is either true or all these who live upon a Continent and that are subject to the Conquests and Invasions of their Neighbours must be misâ—rable For though our Happy Scituation has exempted us for a whole Age from falling under any such Difficulties yet this is a Case that falls often out in all different States which are on the same Continent for if Subjects owe their natural Prince such an Obstinate Allegiance that neither Desertion nor Conqueâ—t can dissolve it then in what a miserable Condition must they be when they fall under the Power of their Enemy that never thinks himself secure of them but treats them still as Enemies till they swear Allegiance to him Now all the true Maxims of Government being such that they must tend to the Preservation and not to the Ruin of Mankind it is certain that all those are false which tend to the inevitable Destruction of Cities and Societies and therefore this of an indiffeasable Allegiance must be reckoned among these since the fatal Consequences that must attend upon it are evident and this is the Opinion in which all who have considered this matter either as Lawyers or Casuists do agree This is shifting the Scene for he knows that we are a World by our selves and have nothing to do with the Continent It is a Londlopeing Argument and till we are in the Condition of the Flanderkin Towns he need not urge us with their Practice and Example And he is wholly out of the way in every word he utters For we are not Deserted or Forsaken nor Conquered or Subdued nor under the Power of an Enemy nor treated as Enemies and cudgelled into an Oath of Allegiance nor ever will be If I were hired to write against the Oath of Allegiance I would use such Arguments as this is Are we in the Case of those that are Slaves under the Spaniard and Slaves under the French that often change their Master but never their Condition that are Prize and Retaken and Prize still Let him answer me to that If not why must our Vertue be taught us by their Necessity God help thâ—m my Soul pities their Case and I should not readily know what to do in it because I never considered it And perhaps it is like one of those wherein our Saviour forbids Forecast and would have no Man Premeditate but promises help at a dead Lift Dabitur in illâ Horâ But in all his Travels could he find no Copy for us to write after nor no Body to match us with but a Conquered People What then is become of our Thanksgiving Deliverance which God and Man have been told of If after all we are to be in the Condition of a Conquered People it is a Deliverance downstairs and our last State is worse than the First For we were not Conquered in King Iames's Time though we were in election to be so and though his Westminster-hall Red-coats had made a fair Progress in it And therefore I am sure neither King nor Parliament have reason to thank him for the Choice of this Argument When all is done as I said beâ—ore all Arguments that come from abroad are Foreign to Us. We live under Municipal Laws and Local Statutes and By-Laws that are Peculiar to this Empire And therefore if he had offered us the tenth part of an Argument fetch'd out of the Bowels of our own Laws we would have hearkn'd to him but as for his Stories from abroad he may even if he pleases carry them home again But I love to talk with his Maxims as I do the sight of an Ass who looks like Wisdom and Gravity and is not For Allegiance Defined by Convenience is much like Religion Defined by maintaining a Coach and Six However let us have his own words over again For if Subjects owe their Natural Prince such an Obstinate Allegiance that neither Desertion nor Conquest can dissolve it then in what a miserable Condition must they be when they fall under the Power of their Enemy that never thinks himself secure of them but treats them still as Enemies till they swear Allegiance to him Now I can tell him that Allegiance is so Obstinate a thing that neither Desertion nor Conquest nor any thing in the World but what is intrinsecal to it that is Breach of Covenant or Consent of both Parties can Dissolve it It is a Moral Duty and Heaven and Earth may pass away before Allegiance can pass away As for Desertion we must first know what it is before we can know whether it will affect our Allegiance A Souldier's Deserting and running away from his Colours we know but what is this Deserting a Crown or a Kingdom A Resignation Renunciation Cession accepted by the People is valid and they are words currant in our Law and the Prince being thereby Deposed Allegiance ceases But as for Desertion we must enquire further about it Did the King Desert Willingly or Unwillingly Did not his People Desert him first If so then for shame never say that King Iames Deserted but say that he was Deserted Well now we are coming to the Merits of the Cause Had the People Reason to forsake King Iames or no had he Forfeited had he broke his Allegiance first was He the Aggressor Yes He had made our Allegiance to him Impossible For we were by the Constitution Sworn Brethren Conjurati Fratres ad Defensionem Regis Regni and he had brought things to that pass that we must either part with our King or our Realm The keeping our Allegiance to King Iames's Person would have Perjured us for we owed a Higher Duty to our Country and Laws to which he was sworn as well as we But instead of the double Duty which lay upon him of observare observari facere of Keeping the Laws and Causing them to be kept he abridged our Common Law and Statutes into five Positions of a Dispensing Power After which I would never look upon a Statute-Book more but kept the Copy of that Compendious Law always in my Pocket to see whether it would outlast the Paper which fell in pieces at the Prince's coming Now an Allegiance to the Destruction
Conquest Dissolve Allegiance when it is plainly the Agreement of the Parties themselves which sets them Free from one another But the last part of this Paragraph is Oracle and therefore we ought to hear it with great Attention Now all the true Maxims of Government being such that they must tend to the Preservation and not to the Ruin of Mankind it is certain that all those are false which tend to the inevitable Destruction of Cities and Societies and therefore this of an indiffeasable Allegiance must be reckoned among these since the fatal Consequences that must attend upon it are evident and this is the Opinion in which all who have considered this Matter either as Lawyers or Casuists do agree I have ever had a great aversion to all Maxims of Government true or false for there always lies lurking this Deceit in Generals and Universals that though they be True for the most part yet they are conceived in Terms large enough to be falsly applied and then they become False and are Usually the Tools that Dishonest Men go to work with And I never saw a Man deal in Transcendental Politicks which are over our Heads and avoid coming down to Particulars and to the Point but with a Purpose to Deceive This of mine is likewise General Talk and therefore I must come to Instances Salus Populi Suprema Lex esto Let the Safety of the People take place of all Laws was the old Roman Law and a celebrated Maxim of State ever since But because in Monarchies the Interest of a Prince drowns that of inferiour People and the Life of my Lord the King is worth ten Thousand of Theirs I have seen this Maxim by no less a Casuist than Bishop Sanderson made free of the Court in such a manner as has made a Ricketty Head and the Destruction of a great part of the People would still have been Salus Populi Though I expected no better fâ—om such a Casuist who makes Six in the Hundred Sabbath-breaking and every one that takes lawful Interest for his Money to be guilty of the Breach of all the Ten Commandments and particularly of the Fourth because his Plough goes on Sundays Necessity has no Law is another Maxim but it is pity there is not Law for it for it has always been on the Court Side and never on the Countrey 's though one would think the Maxim lay equally betwixt them both but the truth of it is they either are or should be all one In the beginning of King Charles the First 's Reign it was loudly complained of in Parliament that Necessity was an Armed Man and an Evil Counsellor and indeed it had done much Mischief then but not so much as the L. C. J. Bank's Maxim did afterwards That there was a Rule of Law and a Rule of Government and the Rule of Law must knock under and give way to the Rule of Government Yes it was that Rule of Mis-Rule that Confounded these Nations and was the Death of many Hundred Thousands of brave Mâ—n who were not so easily rear'd And in the late King Iames's time Necessity return'd again and cancelled all our Laws and was the chief Ingredient in the Dispensing Power Yet after all I must acknowledg that a real and not pretended Necessity is Superiour to all Law For Unforeseen Cases may happen and such as admit of no delay wherein the Lawgivers themselves would have made their Laws quite otherwise though this can seldom be where there are to be Anniversary Parliaments and Parliaments always within call But then all Men must act very honestly in such Cases and so as to acquit themselves to their Countrey for to them they must Answer it who are competent Judges of so plain a thing as Necessity is For I believe the refined Statesmen themselves cannot but say that Common People have Common Sense Whereas to say that the King is sole Judge of Necessity as our false Judges did in the last Reign is to bring us back to Richard the Second's Maxim That the Law of England was in his Breast and in his Mouth Another Maxim which was to have Converted my Lord Russell and to have saved his Soul in the Letter which in a new way was brought by the Sender was this That in Case our Religion and Rights were Invaded it was unlawful to defend them Because the Government and Peace of Humane Society could not well subsist upon these Terms I have been assailed with this Maxim and it has been quoted upon me several times even in this Reign and therefore I shall answer it I ever took it for granted that Government ceases and is lost when all the Ends of Government are Destroyed as they plainly are where the Religion and Rights of a Kingdom are Invaded for the more surety and security of which Rights Men at the first entred into Society I speak the Language of Fortesâ—ue Who then in this Case is the Friend to Government and would have it live He that Invades or He that stops such Destructive Invasion Again who is it that breaks the Peace of Humane Society He that Invades all that Mankind have or they that are only willing to Defend their own I in my Simplicity thought that the breach of the Peace had been with the Trespasser And I thought likewise that by the Law of England I might justify the beating of any Man that would take away my Goods and that in so doing I should not break the Peace neither would the Law impute it to me but to the Invader These were my former Thoughts but we must now learn a new Lesson For it seems the way to preserve Government is to see it Destroyed and to let Tyranny alone and to suffer Invasion to go on for otherwise though the Peace be already broken to pieces you disturb the Peace But if it were not lawful to advance Paradoxes and Contradictions to Common Sense how could Men shew their Learning or wherein would they differ from other Men As for this Maxim it is exactly calculated for the use of a Perverted Government or of an Insolent Hedg-Constable that beats a quiet and orderly Person for the Conservation of the Peace and knocks him down to bid him stand But to come closer to the Point Is not the Invasion of the Religion and Rights of a People the highest Tyranny that can be conceived And how then came the English Divinity to be such a Pimp to Tyranny and to be so deeply concerned for the Subsistence and Continuance of it without molestation as to Damn all Men who would not undergo a severe Repentance for being of another Opinion and to urge them to Recant their English Principles upon the very Scaâ—fold Though I think that to be a much more Proper place for retractingâ— Destructive Errors than Deliverance-Truths But I can tell all the World how this came to pass for one Day teaches and certifies another and things are cleared up in time which were
Battery more I remember my Lord Russel was mightily pleased with the Courage of the Citizens at that time and particularly of Alderman Cornish who slighted these Preparations against them by saying they might indeed do some Dammage to some of their Chimneys I need not mention the Intended Cittadel of Chelsey-College to straiten the City on that Side nor their greatest Cittadel of Westminster-Hall where they had perverted all Law and plainly put a stop to it by dismissing a Grand Jury before their time At the Notorious Case of Fitz Harris my Lord was present for which Serjeant Pemberton can give the best Reasons because he reserved them at that time and no doubt they are improved by this and brought up a Fashion which we do not find in the Year-Books for Judges to give no Reasons for their Judgments As to the Case of the City Charter it was so very plain that I desired Sir George Treby now Lord Chief Justice who was to argue for it to use only this short Argument to carry Magna Charta in one Hand and a Penknife in the other and to desire the Court to cut out the Chapter of Magna Charta where the Rights of the City of London and the other Vills and Burghs and Cinque-Ports are confirmed and when their hand was in to make but one Business of it and to cut out all the rest I am sure the City of London will give me leave to say that they and their Chamber which was the best Fund in England was at that time broke and when it will be repaired I know not but they may easily know whom to sue for Dilapidations and in what High Court that ought to be done And the ready way is to Extend the Estates of all those that treacherously destroyed that City and made it the finest Village in Europe and saluted the King King of London as if he had not been compleat King of it till it was Ruin'd I need not mention their Standing Guards in time of Peace of which the Parliament-men used to say There go our Masters and so they had reason after Sir Iohn Coventry's usage and which all the great Lawyers of England declared to be Illegal from the first and such a Force upon the Nation as the Law abhors The Lord Chief Justice Vaughan had the Honesty and Courage to tell my late Lord Macclesfield so though he then Commanded and was at the Head of them My Lord very honourably remembered this as an Instance of that Great Man's Integrity And who that ever had the Honour of knowing the last Great Man can ever forget His But the Guards became more Formidable afterwards when an Undertaker offered with a Thousand of their Horse of which they had always more to go and conquer the City of London in a contemptuous manner and when with their Detachements and filling up again with new Men they could at any time Form an Army They had likewise their Nursery of Tangier within call and when they saw their time it came over Ever since the last Sentence that passed upon me I am somewhat out of conceit with the Name of Guards For having made as Honest an Address to the Army as the World can shew any thing and being run down for it as a High Misdemeanour I took my Exceptions to the Information amongst other things that there was no averrment of any Army in it and I said there could be no such thing because it was Contrary to the Law of England Whereupon both the Attorney General Sawyer and the Court of King's-Bench said that the Camp at Hownslow-Heath was not an Army but only the King's Guards I replied that I thought they were too far off for Guards and too great a Number To which the Lord Chief Justice Herbert answered that the King wanted a Greater Number to Defend him from my Papers At which I could only smile to see a Rag or two of the Press made a Pretence to keep up a Great Army But as I intimated before Guards shall be an Army and an Army shall be Guards when such Men think fit Aristotle in his Politicks is very severe upon Guards and says That it is the Mark of a King 's turning Tyrant if he require a Guard and says further that if a King demand a Guard to defend him against his People his People ought to demand a Guard to defend them against him And it is very plain that the Additional Guards of Horse and Foot in the two last Reigns for there were never any before but the Band of Pensioners and the Band of Archers now Yeomen who were the Antient Establishment for the Preservation of the King's Person were not intended for the King's Preservation for that was done to their hand but to awe the Nation to animate Judges in false Judgments and to back Officers in illegal Proceedings for where the Law would not hold out in the way of a Legal Writ it was as well supplied by an Arbitrary Command and two or three Files of Musketteers I will name but one thing more which was Occasioned by the Bill of Exclusion That Bill was carried Nemine Contradicente several times in the House of Commons but when it came in the Westminster Parliament to be carried up by my Lord Russell to the House of Lords it was so ill received there â—hat the Bishops were for throwing it out to rights However after a Reading and after a Debate which lasted till about Midnight it was thrown out That Learned Nobleman the Great Earl of Essex was pleased to tell me what Arguments he insisted upon in that Debate The first was that the Regality of England was an Office concerning which the 17 th Chapter of King Edward the Confessor's Laws is wholly spent and it is so Declared to be in Many Acts of Parliament as low as Queen Mary's Time and that a Woman as well as a Man might be invested with the Regal Office Hereupon he said that a Person Unqualified as all the World knew the Duke of York was could not be admitted to that Office Upon discourse about this I remember his Lordship was pleased to take down Lambert's Saxon Laws and shew me several Particulars in that 17 th Chapter which I had forgot His second Argument was to prove that if the Duke of York had Unqualified himself for that High Office as he plainly had for the meanest Office in England then the Parliament had undoubtedly Power to foreclose him and set aside his Remainder in the Crown because they had Power to do more This he said was the known Law of England and agreed upon by the Lord Chancellor More and Richard Rich then Sollicitor General and afterwardsâ— Lord Rich as a First established Principle upon which they argued about the Supremacy It stands thus in the Record as we have it p. 421. of the Lord Herbert's History The Sollicitor Demanded if it were enacted by Parliament that Richard Rich should be King and
Parliament without which he had no more Right to them than the Prince of Wales now has In the mean time the Pulpits were the Ensurers of the King's Word and said it was like the Laws of the Mâ—des and Persians which Altered not And as for the Customs they Preached that he had a Natural Right to them for they had gotten the true Art of spelling all the Oppressions and Devildoms in the World out of the pregnant word King though it is impossible to fetch any more Power out of that word than just what the People of England have put into it What I write is in the Memory of Man It is true in Sweden the word King now of late signifies infinite Power in Denmark since the Force put upon the Senate it is Proclamation-Law in King Ioseph's Kingdom of Hungary it is doing of Justice in general or according to his young Discretion in France it is Will and Pleasure because it is and it is the Mouth-watering General Excise Standing Armies Levying Money All things This makes him a Powerful and a Formidable Enemy but it would be more formidable to have those Outlandish things come hither though it were to make another as Powerful Monarch here as the late Licensed Book of the State of England would fain have it I take it to be a Licensed Book because it was Published in the Gazetâ—e But I tell that Author it is impossible to have here in England such a brave thing as the French King is till we be first made such sorry things as the French Subjects are I have not forgot where I digressed and I say that by Experience Popish Tyranny is so far better than Protestant that Pâ—ople are more aware of it and sooner rid their hands of it We saw this so plainly in Powis-house that nothing more can be writ upon the Subject A Massâ—house devoted to Destruction was saved by the Inscription of my Lord Delamere's Name that it was provided for his Lodging But a Protestant Inscription will never save a Mass-house a second time I might descant upon his Calling in Providence to decide a Title which is to employ the Majesty of Heaven in Undersheriffry and the Woes he lays upon Non-swearers and their Fighting against God if they happen to be in the Wrong as I will swear they are But I will keep my Word because as I said he seems to recal his first Paragraph in his Second which begins in these following words But all this may look like a Pathetical aggravating the Matter unless it should appear to be well supported I go therefore in the next place to set before you those Reasons that seem convincing to me even though there were no more to be said for the present Settlement but that we have a Throne filled and a King and Queen in Possession From henceâ—orth therefore Rhetorick apart we must expect nothing but Reasons and convincing Reasons I shall take the pains of examining them one by one and find out if I can their Power of Conviction which I am afraid is like an Estate left in Diego's Will The First Reason which seems Convincing to him and sufficient for the Purpose is that we have a Throne filled and a King and Queen in Possession A Throne filled I think it is for it never yet held more than one Person at a time unless it were widened once in a Thousand Years by the Consent of the People I believe that a King and Queen in Possession at once or a King and Queen de Facto Together in Opposition to de Iure which the Scotch Parliament justly called a Villanous Distinction would have frighted even Coke himself the first Author that I know of that affected Distinction and much more would have frighted old Littleton out of whose Mouth there never came any thing else but Ung Dieu Ung Roy. We know a King alone comes from Heaven or a Queen alone comes from Heaven and either of them Fills a Iure-Divino Throne But to talk of Two in Possession together without first naming the true Cause of it which was the Good-will of the People who were perfectly free to have had either or neither or both is to talk of an utter Impossibility For here all their Schemes fail them all their Texts fail them and they cannot shew any such Pattern in the Mount Besides Possession even of a single Person is the worst Title in the World it is the Claim of a Disseysor an Intruder an Usurper and of Oliver who told the Fifth-Monarchy Man that he only kept Possession of the Throne till King Iesus came and then he was ready to Resign it to him The Pastoral seems to be aware of this and therefore immediately these words follow in the same Paragraph The bringing the State of the Question so low may seem at first view not to be of so much Advantage to Their Majesties Title but since I intend to carry the Matter further before I leave it I hope it may be no incongruous Method to begin at that which will take in the greatest Numbers since there is no Dispute in this that they are actually in Possession of the Throne that they protect us and that we by living under their Protection and enjoying the Benefit of it are therefore bound to make some Returns to them for it In my Life I never met with such a short-winded Author for he is perpetually sucking in his Breath and what he advances in the beginning of a Paragraph is presently recalled A Throne filled and a King and Queen in Possession was in his very last Period a Convincing Argument for this Settlement yea though nothing more were to be said for it whereby it was made such a self-sufficient Convincing Argument as rendred all others superfluous and needless And yet now in this Period he Blemishes his own convincing and self-sufficient Argument as if it might lower and disparage their Majesties Title and plainly confesses it to be purely Drag-net as that which will take in the greatest Numbers One Convincing Argument is as much as one Thousand and as the King has but one Plain Title which is the Gift of the People so there is but one plain Proof of it which is the Instrument of Conveyance of the Crown by both Houses which the King accepting of Confirmed the Thing For that is very true the King might have chose whether he would be King or no he could not be made so against his Will nor can any Man be forced to take a Trust. But after all this had passed in the Face of the Sun and been transacted by the Greatest Authority upon Earth I mean the English Community which as King Charles the First says Moulded this Government and made it what it is and consequently both at first erected the Office of a King and always disposed of the Crown as they found Cause and never did it upon more valuable Considerations than in their last just Choice I say