Selected quad for the lemma: power_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
power_n	king_n	parliament_n	sovereign_a	5,223	5	9.3738	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A86626	The instruments of a king: or, A short discourse of the svvord. The scepter. The crowne. ...	Howell, James, 1594?-1666.; Howell, James, 1594?-1666.	1648 (1648)	Wing H3083; Thomason E464_7; ESTC R5326	6,719	15

THE INSTRVMENTS OF A KING OR A SHORT DISCOVRSE OF The SVVORD The SCEPTER The CROWNE Satis habet Rex ad poenam Quod Deum expectet Ultorem 'T is punishment enough for th' King That God will Him to judgment bring LONDON Printed in the Yeare 1648. The Author's Apology I Am no Lawyer otherwise then what nature hath made me so every man as he is born the child of Reason is a Lawyer and a Logitian also who was the first kind of Lawyer This discoursive faculty of Reason comes with us into the world accompanied with certaine generall notions and principles to distinguish Right from Wrong and Falshood from Truth But touching this following Discourse because it relates something to Law the Authour would not have adventured to have exposed it to the world if besides those common innate notions of Reason and some private Notes of his owne he had not inform'd ascertain'd his judgment by conference with some professed Lawyers and those the Eminentest in the Land touching the truth of what it Treats of therefore he dares humbly aver that it containes nothing but what is consonant to the fundamentall and fixed Constitutions to the knowne clear Lawes of this Kingdome J. ● THE INSTRUMENTS OF A KING IN a Successive hereditary Kingdome as ENGLAND is known and acknowledged to be by all Parties now in opposition There are 3 things which are inalienable from the Person of the KING they are 1. The Crowne 2. The Scepter 3. The Sword The one He is to carry on His Head the other in His Hand and the third at His Side and they may be tearmed all three the ensignes or peculiar instruments of a KING by the first He Reignes by the second He makes Lawes by the third He maintaines them and the two first are but bables without the last 1. Touching the Crowne or royall Diadem of England there is none whether Presbyterian Independent Protestant or others now in action but confesse that it descends by a right hereditary Line though through divers Races and some of them Conquerours upon the Head of CHARLES the first now Regnant 't is His owne by inherent birthright and nature by Gods law and the Law of the Land and these Parliament-men at their first sitting did agnize subjection unto Him accordingly and recognize Him for their Soveraigne liege Lord Nay the Roman Catholick denies not this for though there were Bulls sent to dispense with the English Subjects for their allegiance to Queen Elizabeth yet the Pope did this against Her as he took Her for a Heretique not an Usurpresse though he knew well enough that She had been declared Illegitimate by the Act of an English Parliament This Imperiall Crowne of England is adorned and deck'd with many faire Flowers which are called royall Prerogatives and they are of such a transcendent nature that they are unforfeitable individuall and untransferable to any other The KING can only summon and dissolve Parliaments The KING can onely Pardon for when He is Crowned He is sworn to rule in mercy as well as in justice The KING can onely Coyn Money and enhance or decry the value of it The power of electing Officers of State of Justices of Peace and Assise is in the KING He can only grant soveraign Commissions The KING can only wage War and make Out-landish Leagues The KING may make all the Courts of justice ambulatory with His Person as they were used of old 't is true the Court of Common Pleas must be sedentary in some certain place for such a time but that expired 't is removeable at His pleasure The KING can only employ Ambassadours and Treat with forain States c. These with other royal Prerogatives which I shall touch hereafter are those rare and wholsome flowers wherewith the Crowne of England is embellished nor can they stick anywhere else but in the Crowne and all confesse the Crowne is as much the KING's as any private man's Cap is his own The second regall Instrument is the Scepter which may be called an inseparable companion or a necessary appendix to the Crowne this invests the KING with the sole Authority of making Lawes for before His confirmation all results and determinations of Parliament are but Bills or {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} they are but abortive things and meer Embryos nay they have no life at all in them till the KING puts breath and vigour into them and the antient custome was for the KING to touch them with His Scepter then they are Lawes and have a virtue in them to impose an obligation of universall obedience upon all sorts of people It being an undeniable maxime That nothing can be generally binding without the King's royall assent nor doth the Law of England take notice of any thing without it This being done they are ever after stil'd the King's Lawes and the Judges are said to deliver the King's judgments which agrees with the holy Text The King by judgment shall stablish the Land nay the Law presumes the King to be alwaies the sole Judge Paramount and Lord chief Justice of England for he whom He pleaseth to depute for His chiefest Justice is but stil'd Lord chief Justice of the King's Bench not Lord chief Justice of England which title is peculiar to the KING Himself and observable it is that whereas He grants Commissions and Parents to the Lord Chancellour who is no other then Keeper of His Conscience and to all other Judges He names the Chief Justice of His own Bench by a short Writ only containing two or three lines Now though the King be liable to the Law and is contented to be within their verge because they are chiefly His owne productions yet He is still their Protector Moderator and Soveraigne which attributes are incommunicable to any other conjunctly or separately Thus the KING with His Scepter and by the mature advice of His two Houses of Parl. which are His highest Councel Court hath the sole power of making Laws other Courts of judicature doe but expound them and distribute them by His appointment they have but Juris dati dictionem or declarationem and herein I meane for the Exposition of the Lawes the twelve Judges are to be believed before the whole Kingdom besides They are as the Areopagites in Athens the chief Presidents in France and Spaine in an extraordinary Junta as the Cape-Syndiques in the Rota's of Rome and the Republique of Venice whose judgments in point of interpreting Lawes are incontroulable and preferred before the opinion of the whole Senate whence they received their being and who hath still power to repeal them though not to expound them In France they have a Law-maxime Arrest donné en Robbe rouge est irrevocable which is a Scarlet Sentence is irrevocable meaning when all the Judges are met in their Robes and the Client against whom the Cause goes may chafe and chomp upon the bit and say what he will for the space

of 24 howers against his Judges but if ever after he traduces them he is punishable It is no otherwise here where every ignorant peevish Client every puny Barister specially if he become a Member of the House will be ready to arraign and vie knowledge with all the reverend Judges in the Land whose judgement in points of Law shold be only tripodicall and sterling so that he may be truly call'd a just King and to rule according to Law who rules according to the opinion of his Judges therfore under favor I do not see how his Majestie for his part could be call'd injust when he leavied the Ship-money considering he had the judges for it I now take the Sword in hand which is the third Instrument of a King and which this short discours chiefly points at it is aswell as the two first incommunicable and inalienable from his Person nothing concernes his honor more both at home and abroad the Crown and the Scepter are but unweildy and impotent naked indefensible things without it There 's none so simple as to think there's meant hereby an ordinary single sword such as ev'ry one carrieth by his side or som imaginary thing or chymera of a sword No 't is the polemical publique sword of the whole Kingdom 't is an aggregative compound sword and 't is moulded of bell-metall for 't is made up of all the ammunition and armes small and great of all the military strengths both by Land and Sea of all the Forts Castles and tenable places within and round about the whole I le The Kings of England have had this sword by vertue of their royall signory from all times the Laws have girded it to their sides they have employed it for repelling all forren force for revenging all forren wrongs or affronts for quelling all intestine tumults and for protecting the weal of the whole body politike at home The peeple were never capable of this sword the fundamentall constitutions of this Kingdom deny it them 't is all one to put the sword in a mad mans hand as in the peeples or for them to have a disposing power in whose hands it shall be Such was the case once of the French sword in that notorious insurrection call'd to this day La Jaqueris de Beauvoisin when the Pesants and Mechanics had a design to wrest it out of the Kings hand and to depresse all the Peers Gentry of the Kingdom the busines had gone very far had not the Prelats stuck close to the Nobility But afterwards poor hare-brain'd things they desire the King upon bended knees to take it againe Such popular puffs have blowen often in Poland Naples and other places where while they sought and fought for liberty by retrenching the regall power they fool'd themselfs into a slavery unawares and found the rule right that excess of freedom turns to thraldom and ushers in all confusions If one shold go back to the nonage of the world when Governers and Rulers began first one will find the peeple desir'd to live under Kings for their own advantage that they might be restrain'd from wild exorbitant liberty and kept in unity Now unity is as requisit for the welbeing of all naturall things as entity is for their being and 't is a receiv'd maxim in policy that nothing preserves Unity more exactly then Royall Government besides 't is known to be the noblest sort of sway In so much that by the Law of Nations if Subjects of equall degrees and under differing Princes shold meet the Subjects of a King shold take predency of those under any Republique and those of a successif Kingdom of those that are under an Electif But to take up the Sword again I say that the Sword of public power authoritie is fit only to hang at the Kings side so indeed shold the great Seal hang only at his girdle because 't is the Key of the Kingdom which makes me think of what I read of Charlemain how he had the imperiall Seal emboss'd alwaies upon the pommell of his sword and his reason was that he was ready to maintain whatsoever he signed and sealed The Civilians who are not in all points so great friends to Monarchy as the Common Law of England is say there are six lura Regalia six Regall Rights viz. 1. Potestas Iudicatoria 2. Potestas vitae necis 3. Armamenta 4. Bona adespota 5. Census 6. Monetarum valor to wit Power of Judicature power of life and death all kind of arming masterlesse goods Sessements and the value of money Among these Regalias we find that Arming which in effect is nought else but the Kings Sword is among the chiefest and 't is as proper and peculiar to his person as either Crown or Scepter By these two he drawes a loose voluntary love and opinion onely from his Subjects but by the Sword he drawes reverence and awe which are the chiefest ingredients of allegiance it being a maxime That the best mixture of government is made of feare and love With this sword he conferrs honor he dubbs Knights he creates magistrats the Lord Deputy of Ireland the Lord Mayor of London with all other Corporations have their swords from him and when he entreth any place corporat we know the first thing that is presented him is the Sword With this Sword he shields and preserves all his peeple that ev'ry one may sit quietly under his own Vine sleep securely in his own House and enjoy sweetly the fruits of his labours Nor doth the point of this sword reach only to ev'ry corner of his own dominions but it extends beyond the seas to gard his Subjects from oppression and denial of justice as well as to vindicate the publike wrongs make good the interests of his Crown and to assist his confederates This is the sword that Edward the third tied the Flower deluces unto which stick still unto it when having sent to France to demand that Crown by maternall right the Counsell there sent him word that the Crown of France was not tied to a d●staff to which scoffing answer he replied that then he wold tie it to his sword and he was as good as his word Nor is this publike sword concredited or intrusted by the peeple in a fiduciary conditionall way to the King but it is properly and peculiarly belonging unto him as an inseparable concomitant perpetuall Usher and attendant to his Crowne The King we know useth to maintain all garrisons upon his own charge not the peeples he fortifies upon his own charge not the peeples And though I will not averr that the King may impresse any of his Subjects unlesse it be upon an actuall invasion by Sea or a sudden irruption into his Kingdom by Land as the Scots have often don yet at any time the King may raise Volunteers and those who have received his money the Law makes it felony if they forsake his service Thus we see there 's