indeed be in any Monarchy any Authority but what is derived from the Monarch in opposition to the pernicious Doctrine of Coordinacy daily by the Ringleaders of the Faction dispersed amongst the People and endeavored to be justified by the Author of Plato Redivivus and T. H. the former of which speaking of the late Parliamentary Rebellion saith This is certain that whereever two Coordinate Powers do differ and there be no Power on earth to reconcile them otherwise nor Umpire they will de facto fall together by the ears And the latter not only tells us in express terms that the Parliament derive their Power and Authority from the same Original the King derives His but by affirming that there are Treasons of State other than those that are declared by the Statutes and such as the King cannot pardon would prostitute the Lives of all his fellow Subjects to the Arbitrary Power of any prevailing Faction which may at any time happen to be in the two Houses of Parliament or perhaps in the House of Commons alone the onely part if we will believe the Author of Plato Redivivus which is now left intire of the old Constitution And because the Heads of the Faction that they might leave no Stone unturn'd which might be made use of for the battering down of this Hereditary Monarchy have essayed to subvert it by impeaching the Descent of the Crown in the Right Line I have treated upon the of late much controverted Point of the Succession which I have demonstrated to be unalterable by any Statute or Act of Parliament whatever and as such to have been acknowledged by all our Ancient Parliaments that were neither over-awed by Force nor seduced by Faction Having thus with what Brevity I could handled these foregoing matters I conclude this Part with a short account of the present Monarch of Great Britain Our Soveraign Lord the KING now Reigning whom GOD long preserve to the Consolation and Happiness of this Island of his Queen and the Princes of his Royal Blood And because the ill-willers to the Peace of this our Israel have raised in the minds of the unthinking Vulgar terrible Fears and Apprehensions of his Royal Highness whom the readilier to stir up against him the Animosity of the people they have audaciously loaded with all the Calumnies and Scandals which the Malice of Men or Devils could invent I have endeavoured by a true tho imperfect Representation of his Gests and Character to remove that Prejudice which these horrid and malicious Falsities may have created against him in the Spirits of the unwary If these my Endeavors shall prove useful for the reducing of any of my deluded Countrymen to that natural Obedience which we owe to our Soveraign I shall repute my self abundantly satisfied for my pains and shall be encouraged to compleat the rest of my designed Work THE TABLE A ABsoluteness of Paternal Jurisdiction 57 Act of Parliament in Scotland declaring the unalterableness of the Succession 241 Adam Monarch of the Universe 53 Adraste a Goddess of the Britains 27 Agricola Governour of Britain 103 Air of Great Britain 9 St. Albanus Protomartyr of Britain 131 Ambrosius King of the Britains 154 St. Amphibalus Martyred 132 Arbitrary Power necessary in all Governments 58 St. Aristobulus in Britain 119 Armor and Weapons of the ancient Britains 48 Arms of King Lucius 178 of King Vortigern ibid. of King Aurelius Ambrosius ibid. of Vter Pendragon ibid. of King Arthur ibid. of Cadwalladar ibid. of the King of Great Britain since the Union of England and Scotland 179 of the present Queen of Great Britain 268 Attire of the ancient Britains 42 B BAngor a Seminary of Learning 129 Baptism of the King 248 Bardiacus a Garment of the ancient Britains 43 Bards 28 Beauty of the British Women 41 Belerus a God of the Britains 27 Belisama a Goddess of the Britains ibid. Bill of Exclusion 236 Birth of the King 247 of the Queen 266 Boadicea Queen of the Iceni in Britain 101 Brachae a Garment of the ancient Britains 43 Britain quitted by the Romans 143 British Bishops at the Councel of Arles 139 at the Councel of Nice 142 British Monarchy restored by King James 156 Buildings of the ancient Britains 48 C CAligula's Attempt against Britain 93 Cassibelan 87 Chariots of the ancient Britains 49 CHARLES the Ist King of Great Britain murdered by his Phanatical Subjects 170 Children of King CHARLES the Ist 269 Christianity first brought into Britain 117 restored by Constantin 135 Cimbri first Inhabitants of Britain 20 Claudius Drusus the Emperor in Britain 98 Climate of Great Britain 3 Coming of the King into Scotland 251 Commodities of Great Britain 12 Community of Women amongst the ancient Britains 37 Computation of time by the ancient Britains 51 Conquest of Britain by the Romans 94 Constantius Chlorus the Emperor in Britain 133 Conversion of King Lucius to Christianity 123 Cornage 111 Coronotion of the King 260 Covinus 49 Court of the King when Prince of Wales 248 Cure of the Kings-Evil 219 D DEparture of the King out of England 250 Descent of King James from Cadwalladar 158 Diet of the ancient Britains 41 Dimensions of Great Britain 3 Discovery of Britain by the Romans 77 Disorder of popular Government exemplified in the Roman Democracy 69 Distinction of Monarchy into Despotical and Paternal groundless 57 Divinity of the King 212 Division of Britain 2 of Great Britain 5 Dominions of Princes anciently small 64 of the King of Great Britain 180 Druids 29 E EDucation of the King 249 End of Government 67 Episcopal Sees in Britain 125 Escape of the King from Worcester 252 Essedum 50 Excellency of Monarchy 67 Excommunication used by the ancient Britains 38 Extent of Britain taken in the largest Sense 1 F FRontinus Governour of Britain 103 G GAlgacus General of the Britains 108 Gauls in Britain 20 Gaunacum a Garment of the ancient Britains 43 Genealogy of the King 245 of the Queen 263 Giants in Britain 32 Gods of the ancient Britains 26 Government 52 of Britain always Monarchical 73 Government of Britain under the Romans 112 Civil as ordered by Constantin 113 Military 114 after the Romans Depature 144 present of Great Britain 172 Greeks in Britain 21 H HArdiness of the ancient Britains 37 Hesus a God of the Britains 26 Hues a God of the Britains ibid. I St. JAmes the Apostle in Britain 118 JESUS CHRIST the Saviour of the World born 116 Inhabitants of Great Britain 19 Invasion of Britain by the Romans 84 Jointure of the Queen 267 St. Joseph of Arimathea in Britain 120 Julius Caesar in Britain 77 Jurisdiction of the Druids 30 K KIng sole Legislator 204 supreme Landlord of all Lands within His Dominions 206 King supreme Administrator of Justice 209 has the sole Power of the Sword 211 L LAnguage of the ancient Britains 39 Laws of the ancient Britains 23 Limited Monarchy 62 M MAnners of the ancient Britains 35 Manner of Fighting used by the
perhaps against his Consent chose themselves a Leader against their Enemies as it was not justifiable nor yet approved by all the Britains many of which took not well this advancing of the Son against the good Liking of the Father so was it fatal to Vortimer himself who having six years enjoyed this Dignity lost both that and his Life being poysoned by the Procurement of Rowena After his Death Ambrosius returned again into Britain in France Hengist and his Saxons who under Pretence of a Treaty of Peace had slain three hundred of the British Nobility and by detaining Vortigern Prisoner had extorted from him the Counties of Essex Sussex Surrey Norfolk and Suffolk for his Ransom growing daily more and more powerful whilst Vortigern lurkt ingloriously in his Castle Generâ— amidst the inaccessible Mountains of the Countrey now called Cambria or Wales and the middle Provinces of the Realm left without any Defender being exposed to the fury of the Enemy the Britains deserted by their King were forced to seek one abroad They directed therefore Messengers into Little Britain to Ambrosius and his Brother Vter Pendragon beseeching them with all speed to quit that Country and repair into their own to the end that expelling both the Saxons and their hated King Vortigern they might receive the Crown of Britain The Princes upon this Invitation returned attended with Ships and armed Souldiers and being arrived here had a great Battel with Hengist wherein tho the Britains were worsted yet the Saxons received such Loss that they both gladly continued quiet The Fury of the Saxons thus allayed Ambrosius marched into Wales where setting fire to the Castle of King Vortigern he consumed both him and his to Ashes After whose Death by Consent of the Nobles he assumed the Crown Anno CHRISTI 481. In the Year of our Lord 496. Pascentius the Son of Vortigern with an Army of Germans came against Ambrosius by whom being discomfited he fled into Scotland Whence about five years after returning with an Army and understanding that Ambrosius lay sick he hired a certain Saxon named Copa who feigning himself to be a British Monk and a Physician poysoned the King Pascentius in the mean time and all his Captaines being slain by Vter Pendragon who in the head of the Kings Forces marched out against him The Line of Vortigern being thus extinct and Ambrosius now dead the Realm was without any Competitor governed by Vter Pendragon under whom and his Successors the Britains had continual Struglings with the Saxons by whom being at last outed of the best part of their Country they retired beyond the River Severn and in those parts fortified themselves a Period being put to the British Kingdom in the Year of our Lord 688. about two hundred seventy eight years after that Honorius had by Letters of Discharge quitted the Britains of the Roman Jurisdiction two hundred and fifty from the Reestablishing of the British Monarchy by the Election of King Vortigern two hundred thirty nine after the first Arrival of Hengist and his Saxon Auxiliaries and in the third Year of Cadwalladar who was the last that was dignified with the Title of King of Britain his Successors being stiled Kings and Princes of Wales CHAP. IX Of the Restauration of the British Monarchy by King James His Descent from Cadwalladar The British Monarchy restored by King James THe conquering Saxons having possest themselves of all the Southern parts of the Isle except what lies beyond the Severn and the mountainous Countrey of Cornwall whither they had forced the Britains to retire gave to the Countrey held by themselves first the Name of East Saxony beyond Sea and afterwards that of England That Part of the Island which was still enjoyed by the Britains they called Wales the Inhabitants Walsh or Welsh-men and their chief Governours Kings and Princes of Wales Hereby was the Name of Britain banished as it were the Island for above nine hundred years till such time as the Line of Henry the VIII th whose three Children Reigning successively died Issueless being extinct the Crown of England by indubitable Hereditary Right fell to James the VI th King of Scotland whose Great Grandmother was Margaret eldest Daughter to Henry the VII th King of England This famous Monarch as is manifest by his Genealogy hereunto annext lineally descending from Cadwalladar the last King of the Britains not only restored the British Line to the Throne but the Name of Britain also to the Island causing himself immediately upon his Coming to this Crown to be stiled King of Great Britain The KINGS And Princes of WALES Descent of King James fom Cadwalladar from whom is Lineally descended the Royal Family of the STVARTS now actually swaying the Scepter of GREAT BRITAIN CADWALLADAR King of Britain driven by the Saxons to forsake his Native Country sojourned with his Kinsman Alan King of Little Britain in France whence designing again for Britain he was by an Angel admonished in a Vision to go to Rome where he ended his dayes Anno Domini 688. With him died the British Monarchy Edwal Ywrch left by his Father at his Departure for Rome in Little Britain with his Cosen Alan who sent his Son Ivor with a Navy into Britain where he was the first King of Wales 1. Roderick Molwynoc who in the Year 720. succeeded his Cosen Ivor the Son of Alan in the Kingdom of Wales 2. Fermael who died without Issue in the Year 763. RODERICK MOLWYNOC King of Wales had Issue 1. Conan Tindaethwy King of Wales Esylht Queen of Wales married to a Nobleman named Mervyn Vrych descended in the right Line from Belinus Brother of Brennus King of Britain His Mother was Nest Daughter to Cadelh Prince of Powys whose Father was Brochwel Yscithroc Prince of Powys that in the Year 617. fought against the Saxons at Bangor 1. Roderick Mawr King of Wales who by his Wife Engharad Daughter to Meyrick Prince of Cardigan had a numerous Issue He divided Wales into three Talaiths or Kingdoms Giving to Anarawd his Eldest Son to whom the other two were Tributaries Gwyneth or Northwales to Cadelh his second Son Dehevbarth or Southwales to Mervyn his third Son Mathraval or Powys 1. Anarawd King of Northwales and Soveraign of all Wales died in the year 913. leaving behind him two Sons 1. Edwal Voel King of Northwales and Sovereign of all Wales who had a numerous Issue 2. Elise slain with his Brother King Edwal Voel in the year 940. Conan who died without Issue Trawst a Daughter married to a Nobleman named Sitsylht 2. Cadelh King of Southwales and after the Death of his Brother Mervyn of Powys from whom descended the Kings and Princes of Southwales 3. Mervyn King of Powys who being slain in the year 900. was succeeded by his Brother Cadelh King of Southwales 2. Gwyriad who together with his Brother King Roderick was slain in the Year 877. 2. Howel who rebeling against his Brother was by him overcome
and forced to fly into the Isle of Man where he died Anno. 819. TRAWST the Daughter of Elise by her Husband Sitsylht had Issue Lhewelyn who married Angharad the Daughter and Heir of Meredyth King of Southwales This Lhewelyn in the Year 1015. raised a great Power against Aedan the Son of Blegored who had usurped the Kingdom of Northwales whom with his four Sons having slain he took to himself the Name and Authority of King of Wales 1. Gruffyth who in the year 1037. having slain in battle Jago King of Northwales assumed the Kingdom to himself A Daughter not named married to Fleance Son of Bancho a Scotch Nobleman cruelly murthered by Mackbeth King of Scotland whose Fury Fleance escaping fled into Wales where being kindly received by King Gruffyth he privately married his Daughter whereat the King who by his Daughters being with Child had found out the Marriage was so highly offended that he caused Fleance to be kild and his Daughter imprisoned who was soon after delivered of a Son which was named Walter who going into Scotland grew into such Favor with King Malcolm the IIId that he was by him made Lord High Steward of Scotland receiving the Kings Revenues of the whole Realm by the faithful Discharge of which Office he merited for for himself and Posterity the Surname of Stuart 2. Rees slain at a place called Bulendune in the year 1053. 2. Conan slain with his Brother Lhewelyn in the year 1021. This was the Rise and Original of the Royal Family of the Stuarts which has now for above three hundred years been in possession of the Crown of Scotland and about fourscore the sole Monarchs of Great Britain But tho this Descent be of the Younger House as coming from Elise second Son of Anarawd the first King of Northwales yet that his present Majesty of Great Britain is by Right of Primogeniture the next and undoubted Heir to Cadwalladar will manifestly appear by the following Table representing The Progeny Of Cadwalladar continued from Edwal Voel the eldest Son of Anarawd to our present Dread Soveraign King CHARLES the IId now swaying the Scepter of Great Britain EDWAL VOEL King of Northwales and Sovereign of all Wales eldest Son of Anarawd first King of Northwales and Grandson of Roderick Mawr King of Wales had Issue 1. Meyric who was deprived of his Inheritance first by his Cosen Howel Dha the eldest Son of Cadelh first King of Southwales afterwards by his own Brethren Jevaf and Jago In the year 973. he had his Eyes put out by his Nephew Howel the Son of Jevaf and soon after died in Prison leaving behinde him two Sons 2. Jevaf who with his Brother Jago after the Death of Howel Dha usurped the Kingdom of Northwales being the Right of their eldest Brother Meyric About the year 967. he was Imprisoned by his Brother Jago and in the year 973. set at liberty by his Son Howel who chased Jago out of the Land and took the Kingdom to himself 3. Jago who together with his Brother Jevaf in the year 948. after the Death of Howel Dha usurped the Kingdom of Northwales which of right belonged to their elder Brother Meyric MEYRIC the Son of Edwal Voel had Issue 1. Jonaval who in the year 985. was slain by Cadwalhon the Son of Jevaf and left no Issue 2. Edwal who in the year 992. recovered his Grandfathers Inheritance and after six years was slain by Swayn King of Denmark Jago who being under Age at his Fathers Death was deprived of his Inheritance by Aedan the Son of Blegored slain in the year 1015. by Lhewelyn the Son of Sitsylht who being in the year 1021. kild by Howel and Meredyth the Sons of Edwyn Jago recovered his Kingdom but was in the year 1037. slain by Gruffyth the Son of Lhewelyn Conan who being by Gruffyth ap Lhewelyn driven out of his Inheritance fled into Ireland where he married the Daugher of Alfred King of Develyn Gruffyth who in the year 1078. bringing a great Army of Irishmen and Scots into Wales and joyning with Rees ap Theodor the Heir of Southwales recovered his Grandfathers Kingdom He is the last to whom the Welâ—… Historians give the Name of King GRVFFYTH Son of Conan had Issue Owen Gwyneth Prince of north-Northwales and Soveraign of all VVales He died in the year 1169. leaving behind him a numerous Issue 1. Jorwerth Drwyndwn deprived of Inheritance by his younger Brother David Lhewelyn Prince of north-Northwales and Soveraign of all VVales for his Heroick Acts surnamed the Great who in the year 1237. being weakned by a Palsy and vexed with the Rebellion of his Base Son Gruffyth sent Ambassadours to Henry the IIId King of England submitting himself to his Protection condescending to hold his Principality of him and promising upon all Occasions to assist him to the uttermost of his Power He died in the year 1240. 2. David who usurping the Right of his eldest Brother succeeded his Father in the Principality which he held till the year 1194. when he lost it to his Nephew Lhewelyn the right Heir LHEWELYN the Son of Jorwerth by his Wife Jone Daughter to John King of England had Issue David Soveraign Prince of VVales who submitted himself and his Principality to his Uncle Henry the IIId King of England doing him Homage and Fealty for the same He died in the year 1246. without Issue Gladys Dhu a Daughter married to Ralph Lord Mortimer of Wigmor by whom she had Issue Roger Mortimer Lord of VVigmor who ought to have succeeded his Uncle David in the Principality of VVales but the VVelsh Nobility out of their Aversion to the English not regarding his Right did their Homage to Lhewelyn and Owen Goch Sons of Gruffyth Bastard-brother to the last Prince who divided the Principality between them till that Lhewelyn in the year 1254. having taken his Brother Owen Prisoner in battel enjoyed alone the whole Principality But in the year l282 Lhewelyn being slain by one Adam Francton an Englishman all VVales was by Edward the Ist brought in Subjection to the Crown of England and has so continued ever since The Eldest Son of Roger Mortimer by his Wife Maud Daughter of VVilliam de Bruse Lord of Brecknock was Edmund Mortimer Lord of VVigmor EDMVND MORTIMER Lord of VVigmor had Issue Roger Mortimer Lord of VVigmor who married Jone Daughter and Heir of Sir Peter Genivil was created Earl of March by King Edward the IIId and afterwards attainted Edmund Mortimer Lord of VVigmor married Elianor Widow of VVilliam de Bohun Earl of Northampton one of the Daughters and Heirs of Bartholomew Badelsmer Lord of Leeds in Kent Roger Mortimer Lord of VVigmor restored by King Edward the IIId to the Earldom of March and all his Grandfathers Inheritance Honors and Possessions the Attainder being repealed Edmund Mortimer Earl of March and Lord of VVigmor married Philippa Daughter and sole Heir of Leonell Duke of Clarence in whose Right he was Earl of Vlster He died
at Cork in Ireland Anno 1381. EDMVND MORTIMER Earl of March had Issue Roger Mortimer Earl of March and Vlster Lord of Wigmor Trym Clare and Connaght who married Elianor Eldest Daughter and one of the Heirs of Thomas Holland Earl of Kent 1. Roger Mortimer died without Issue 2. Edmund Mortimer died without Issue 3. Anne Mortimer married to Richard Plantagenet Earl of Cambridge by whom she had Issue Richard Plantagenet Duke of York Earl of Cambridge March and Vlster Edward the IVth King of England and France and Lord of Ireland 1. Edward the Vth. King of England and France and Lord of Ireland murthered in the Tower left no Issue 2. Richard Plantagenet Duke of York murthered with his Brother King Edward left no Issue 3. Elizabeth eldest Daughter to Edward the IVth married to Henry the VIIth King of England and France and Lord of Ireland ELIZABETH eldest Daughter to King Edward the IVth by her Husband King Henry the VIIth had Issue 1. Arthur Prince of VVales died before his Father and left no Issue 2 Henry the VIIIth King of England France and Ireland Defender of the Faith 1. Edward the VIth King of England France and Ireladd died without Issue 2. Mary Q. of England France and Ireland died without Issue 3. Elizabeth Queen of England France and Ireland died without Issue 3. Margaret eldest Daughter to Henry the VIIth married to James the IVth King of Scotland by whom she had Issue James the Vth. King of Scotland Mary Queen of Scotland who was by her Subjects infected with Calvinism of which it is truly observed that it never entred into any Country but by Rebellion expelled her Kingdom and forced to fly for shelter into England where so implacable is Presbyterian Malice they never left persecuting her till they had brought her after eighteen years Imprisonment to end her dayes upon a Scaffold By her Husband Henry Lord Darnley Son to Mathew Stuart Earl of Lenox she had Issue James the VIth King of Scotland who after the Decease of Elizabeth Queen of England as next Heir enjoyed the Crown of this Realm whereof he was no sooner possest but he reassumed the Title of Great Britain 1. Henry Prince of Wales died before his Father and left no Issue 2. CHARLES the Ist King of Great Britain France and Ireland Defender of the Faith a Prince of incomparable Vertues and Endowments who was on the 30th of January 1648. barbarously and inhumanly murthered before the Gates of his own Royal Palace by a traitorous Crew of villanous Phanaticks so secure in their own Thoughts of having thereby extirpated Monarchy out of this Island that they insolently set up on the Royal Exchange in the place where his Statue which they maliciously decollated had been erected amongst those of his Predecessors this Inscription Exit Tyrannus Regum ultimus 1. CHARLES the IId by the Grace of God King of Great Britain France and Ireland Defender of the Faith now reigning Whō GOD long preserve 2. The Illustrious Prince James Duke of York and Albany 3. Mary Mother to the present Prince of Orange 4. Henrietta Mother to the present Queen of Spain 3. Elizaheth married to Frederick Prince Palatine of the Rhine by whom she had a numerous Issue CHAP. X. Of the present Government of Great Britain in general OF Monarchies some are Hereditary the Crown descending either only to the Heirs Male as has long been practiced in France or to the next of Blood without Distinction of Sex as in Great Britain and Spain Others are Elective where upon the Death of every Prince another is chosen to succeed without any respect to the Heirs of the Predecessor as is used in Poland Of Hereditary Monarchies some are dependent holden of earthly Potentates to whom the Princes are obliged to do Homage for the same as is the Kingdom of Naples holden at this day of the Pope by the King of Spain Others are independent whose Princes acknowledge no Superior upon Earth but hold only of GOD and by their Sword Of this latter sort is the Empire of Great Britain being an Hereditary Monarchy consisting of two Provinces or Kingdoms governed by one Supreme Absolute Independent Undeposable and Unaccountable Head according to the known Laws and Customs of each Kingdom It is a Free Monarchy challenging above many other Europaean Kingdoms an Exemption from all Subjection to the Emperor or Laws of the Empi to which as the Northern Part of the Island or Kingdom of Scotland was never subject so the Southern part since called the Kingdom of England being abandoned by the Romans who had by force obtained the Dominion thereof the Right of Government by all manner of Laws reverted to the ancient Inhabitants to the last of whose Kings viz. Cadwalladar our present Sovereign is as appears by the precedent Genealogy by Lineal and Legitimate Descent the true and unquestionable Heir And as it is exempt from all forreign Jurisdiction and Dominion so likewise is it free from all Interregnum and many other Domestick Mischiefs whereunto Elective Kingdoms are ordinarily subject It is a Monarchy wherein the Grace and Bounty of its Princes rendring the subordinate Concurrence of the three Estates necessary to the making and repealing of all Statutes or Acts of Parliament in either Realm have afforded so much to the Industry Liberty and Happiness of the Subject and made the Yoak of Government so easy and its Burden so light that were it not for those malevolent and Fanatical Spirits which by sowing Jealousies amongst the People and raising Animosities in their Minds against their Prince endeavor to deprive us of the benefit of our Parliaments by rendring their Meetings unpracticable our Condition might well be envied by all other Nations of the Universe CHAP. XI Of the Monarch of Great Britain and therein of his Name Title Arms Dominions and Strength Of his Person Office Prerogative Soveraignty Divinity and Respect TO the Monarch of Great Britain is given in English which is the Language most generally spoken through his whole Dominions the Name King which hath its Original from the Saxon Word Koning and intimateth that Power and Knowledge wherewith every Soveraign should especially be invested The Modern Title used by the Monarch in all Treaties with forreign Princes and in all publick Affairs relating to his whole Dominions and stamped upon his Coin is By the Grace of GOD King of Great Britain France and Ireland Defender of the Faith but in all Writs and other publick Instruments referring to the particular Concerns of either Kingdom of England or Scotland the two Kingdoms are distinctly named that Kingdom having the Precedency in such Instrument which is therein particularly concerned To the King alone belongs Dei Gratiâ taken simply and in the strictest sense as holding his Regal Dignity by the Favour of none but GOD the Archbishops and Bishops to whom that Title is also sometimes given must understand Dei Gratiâ Regis For tho their Character and
King or Queen who actually Reigns the Subjects of that Kingdom are bound by Law Duty and Allegiance to obey the next immediate and lawful Heir either Male or Female upon whom the Right and Administration of Government is immediately devolved And that no Difference in Religion nor no Law nor Act of Parliament made or to be made can alter or divert the Right of Succession and Lineal Descent of the Crown to the nearest and lawful Heir according to the Degrees aforesaid nor can stop or hinder them in the full free and actual Administration of the Government according to the Laws of the Kingdom but obliged also His Majesty for the preservation of the Peace and Tranquillity of that Kingdom with Advice and Consent of the said Estates of Parliament to declare That it is High Treason in any of the Subjects of that Kingdom by Writing Speaking or any other manner of way to endeavor the Alteration Suspension or Diversion of the said Right of Succession or the debarring the next lawful Successor from the immediate actual full and free Administration of the Government Nor is it to be doubted but that the Commons of England who now begin to grow sensible of those Precipices of Ruine whereinto they were ready to tumble through the Contrivances of of those malicious Incendiaries that by terrifying the People with panick Fears of Popery and Arbitrary Power endeavoured to kindle a Fire of Rebellion in this Nation will whenever it shall please His Majesty to call a Parliament shew themselves no less Zealous than the Scots have done to assist and defend according to their Oaths the Kings Rights and Priviledges the chiefest whereof upon which all the rest depend as on a Corner Stone is the unalterable Hereditariness of the Monarchy and thereby defeat the Designes of those cursed Achitophels who labor by involving us in Confusion to establish their beloved Democracy the very worst of Tyrannies CHAP. XIII Of the present Monarch of Great Britain His Name Surname Genealogy Birth Baptism Court Education Departure out of England Coming into Scotland Escape from Worcester Restauration Coronation and Marriage Name THe now-reigning Monarch of Great Britain is CHARLES the Second of that Name His Name of Baptism in Latine written Carolus in English CHARLES in the German Language Karle is contracted from Car-eal which is it self an Abbreviation of the old Teutonick Gar-edel and signifies All or wholly Noble Not improperly then was this Name given to this Prince whose Subjects may justly glory in the Enjoyment of that Happiness for which Salomon pronounces a Land blessed that their King is the Son of Nobles Surname Tho Surnames are neither used by Soveraign Princes nor necessary to them as they are to other inferior persons whose Surnames preserve the Memory of their Relations and Families yet as Bourbon and Austria which were but the Possessions of their Progenitors are now generally esteemed the Surnames of the Present French and Spanish Royal Familyes So Stuart or Steward the Abbreviation of the Saxon Word Stedeward signifying the same as Locumtenens in Latin and Lievtenant in French which was originally but the Name of Office to Walter Son of Fleance by the Daughter of Gruffyth ap Lhewelyn King of Northwales and Progenitor to Robert the IId King of Scotland from whom our present King is descended who was by King Malcolm Canmore created Grand Seneschal or High Steward of Scotland has by Prescription of Time and long Vulgar Error so far prevailed as to be accounted the Surname of the now-Royal Family of Great Britain and of many other Families descended from him Nor is this Name unfit for any King as being in his Kingdom the Steward Lieutenant or Vicegerent of Almighty GOD. Our Soveraign Lord the King Genealogy now reigning does for Royal Extraction and long Line of just Descent excell all the Monarchs of the Christian if not of the whole World being lineally and lawfully descended from and by Right of Primogeniture next Heir unto the British Saxon Norman and Scotish Kings and Princes of this Island his Grandfather King James who by along Descent of Royal Ancestors was was derived from Malcolm Canmor King of the Scots and the Lady Margaret his Wife Sister and Sole Heir of Edgar Atheling the last surviving Prince of the English Saxons joyning the Saxon and Scotish Titles to the British and Norman already united in the Person and Posterity of Edward the IVth King of England He is from the first British Kings the hundred thirty ninth from the Scotish in a continued succession for almost two thousand years the hundred and ninth from the Saxon the forty sixth since the Norman Conquest the twenty sixth from the Uniting of the Royal Families of York and Lancaster the eighth and since the Union of England and Scotland the third sole Monarch He is the first that was born Prince or Heir apparent of Great Britain and hath in his possession larger Domininions than any of his Royal Ancestors His Father was Charles the Martyr and his Mother the Princess Henrietta Maria Daughter to Henry the Great Sister to Lewis the XIIIth and Aunt to the present Lewis the XIVth most Christian Kings a Lady who needeth no other Character than what is found in the seventh Chapter of that unimitable Book compiled by him that best knew her From these two Royal Stocks he hath in his Veins some of all the Royal Blood of Europe concentred This most Excellent Prince was born on the twenty ninth of May 1630. at the Royal Palace of St. James's Birth near Westminster over which there was the same day at noon by thousands seen a Star impending and soon after the Sun suffered an Eclipse which was by some even at that time regarded as a sad Omen that the Power of this Prince should for a while be eclipsed and that some Subject signified by the Star should have more than ordinary Splendor Baptism On the twenty seventh of June following he was baptized by Dr. William Laud then Bishop of London afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury who was in the year of our Lord 1644. by a pretended Ordinance of the rebellious long Parliament barbarously murthered for his Fidelity to his Soveraign His God-fathers were his two Uncles the most Christian King Lewis the XIIIth and Frederick Prince Elector Palatine of the Rhine then called King of Bohemia represented by the Duke of Richmond and Marquess of Hamilton his Godmother being his Grandmother Maria de Medicis then Queen-Mother of France whose Substitute was the Dutchess of Richmond He had for his Governess Mary Countess of Dorset Wife to Edward Earl of Dorset In May 1638. he received the Order of Knighthood Court being immediately after made Knight of the Garter and installed at Windsor About which time he was by Order not Creation first called Prince of Wales having all the Revenews of that Principality with divers others Lands annexed and the Earldom of Chester granted unto
Young 4. CATHARINE Dyed almost as soon as Born 5. HENRIETTA Born at Exeter on the sixteenth of June 1644. and at the surrendry of that Town brought to St. James's whence she was afterwards by her Governess the Lady Dalkeith conveyed into France to the Queen her Mother by whom she was Educated in the Roman Religion About the Age of Sixteen Years she came with the Queen-Mother into England whence after six Months stay returning into France she was Married to Philip Duke of Anjou only Brother to the present French King by whom she had Issue two Daughters the Elder whereof is Queen of Spain the Younger being deceased She was a Princess of incomparable Beauty and Gallantry of Spirit and Dyed suddenly at Paris in June 1670. being Six and Twenty Years of Age. Of the Duke of York HIS present Majesty of Great Britain having no Issue by his Queen and having by his Royal Declaration which he has caused to be Registred in Chancery and which not any good Subject nor indeed not any rational Man can choose but believe solemnly protested That he was never Married to any other Woman The first Prince of the Blood and Apparent or according to the new-coyn'd Distinction Presumptive Heir of the Crown is His Royal Highness JAMES Duke of York and Albany Earl of Vlster Knight of the most noble Order of the Garter third Son of CHARLES the Ist and and sole surviving Brother of our sacred Soveraign CHARLES the IId He was Born at Somerset-House in the Strand on the fourteenth of October 1633. was immediately at the Court-Gates proclaimed Duke of York On the four twentieth of the same Month he was Baptized having for God-fathers the King of Denmark represented by the Earl of Arundel and the Duke of Orleans by Prince Harcourt and for God-mother the Queen of Bohemia whose Substitute was the Dutchess of Buckingham He was in his Infancy committed to the Government of the Lady Hatton but when he grew up had for Governor Henry Lord Jermin now Earl of Saint Albans and for Preceptor Dr Broughton of Brazen-Nose Colledge in Oxford In February 1641. He was by the King his Father sent for from London to Greenwich that he might accompany him thence to York Having been by special Command called Duke of York from his Birth he was on the seven twentieth of January 1643. having the Year before received the Order of the Garter so Created by Letters Patents at Oxford but without the Solemnities usual in such Cases the Iniquity of those Times not admitting thereof After the Surrendry of Oxford to the Rebels in the Year 1646. His Royal Highness was conveyed thence to London and at St. Jameses committed with his Brother the Duke of Glocester and his Sisters the Princesses Elizabeth and Henrietta to the Tuition Care of the Earl of Northumberland and his Lady Here he continued unto the three and twentieth of April 1648. when having with Colonel Bampfield sent over purposely on that Design by the Queen his Mother contrived an escape after he had received the usual Visit of his Guardian the Earl of Northumberland he lingred out the remainder of the Evening that he might avoid the suspicion of his Attendants in the Chamber of his Brother the Duke of Glocester and at a fit Opportunity retiring into the Garden by the help of a Key which he had borrowed of the Gardiner he quickly got to the place where he was expected by the Colonel by whom being disguised in the Habit of a Girle he was conveyed to Dort whence he went immediately to his Sister the Princess of Orange and thence soon after to his Royal Mother then at Paris Thence he came to the Prince of Wales his Brother then endeavouring with part of the Navy which had submitted to him to rescue his Royal Father out of the Traitorous hands of the villanous Rebels by whom he was kept Prisoner in the Isle of Wight But that Design being disappointed his Royal Highness returned to the Court of France where he continued till he was about twenty Years of Age when going into the Campagne he performed under that great Commander the Mareschal de Turenne such eminent Services for the French King against the Spanish Forces in the Netherlands that before the Age of one twenty he was made Lieutenant-General of the whole Army and was by Turenne himself then lying desperately Sick recommended to his most Christian Majesty for the fittest person he could nominate to be General of his Army as being so Noble Valorous and fortunate a Commander that his Affairs could not in all humane probability but prove Successful under his Conduct Notwithstanding which upon a Treaty between the French King and the English Usurper Cromwel he was in the Year 1655. tho not without some Complements and Apologies for his Dismission advertized to depart with all his Retinue out of the French Dominions by a prefixed time Which he accordingly did having been first visited by the Mareschal de Turenne and divers other French Grandees as also by the Duke of Modena then in France about some important Affairs His Royal Highness then having taken His leave of the King and Court of France and being attended by the Earl of St. Albans and several other English Lords took His Journey towards Bruges in Flanders the Residence at that time of the King His Brother who having upon foresight of the Event of the Treaty prudently withdrawn himself out of France was by Don John of Austria Governour of the Low-Countries for the King of Spain solemnly invited into those parts The Duke in his way touchd at Bruxels where he was magnificently entertained by Don John to whom he proffered his service in the wars against the French King then leagued with the English Rebels against Spain Which being with many thanks accepted his Magnanimity and Dexterity in Martial Affairs wan him so much esteem that a little before his Majesties happy return he was offered in the Name of the Spanish King the high Dignity of Admiral of Castile In the year 1660 He returned with the King his Brother into England of which being Lord High Admiral and in the year 1665 in the War against the United Nether-Lands commanding in Person the whole Royal Navy he with unmatchable Valor and extraordinary Hazard of his Princely Person which was besprinkled with the Blood of those that fell by his side obtained after a sharp dispute on the Seas between England and Holland a signal Victory over the whole Dutch Fleet sinking many of their ships blowing up their Admiral Opdam and by sacking of Scheveling making Amsterdam it self to tremble For which great services so sensible was the Parliament how much the English Nation was indebted to him that as a small acknowledgment of his Merit and a grateful testimony of their Affections they made him a Present of an hundred thousand pounds In September 1666 the City of London labouring under a terrible Fire whether
MARIA born the fifteenth of August 1682. and Baptized the day following by Dr. Henry Compton Lord Bishop of London her Godfather being the Duke of Ormond and her Godmothers the Countesses of Arundel and Clarendon Though the ambitious and designing Adversaries of His Royal Highness imploy their utmost Artifice to cloud and conceal from the eyes of the People his many admirable endowments and Princely qualities yet cannot they with any color of Truth deny him to be a most Glorious and Honourable Prince not only of a most high Spirit and invincible Courage but also a Commander of great experience both at Land and Sea where he has not only several times exposed his Life for the safety and honour of this Nation but also where-ever he appeared carried victory along with him which in his absence was not found He is of a quick apprehension and sound judgment sedulous and diligent in Business wary in Counsel speedy in execution and in his resolutions constant and inflexible He is a kind Brother a dutiful Subject an obliging Husband a tender Father a firm Friend and an excellent Master In his Word and Promises strictly Faithful and in payment of his Debts punctually just He is brave and generous liberal but not profuse manages his own fortune discreetly and yet keeps the best Court and Equipage of any Subject in Christendom He is affable and courteous to all and however the inveterate malice of his restless and factious Enemies may have possessd some credulous Persons to the contrary of no persecuting or vindicative Spirit nor hath any thing in his whole Conduct to be excepted against much less dreaded He is in a word what the French call un honneste homme A Person endowed with all the good Qualities that make a man truly valuable and seems born to retrieve the sinking glory of the English Nation Of the Prince of Orange AFter the Duke of York his Issue the next Heir to the Crown of Great Britain is William Frederick Henry of Nassaw Prince of Orange and Stadtholder of the united Provinces only Issue of the Princess Royal Mary Eldest Daughter of our late martyred Soveraign King Charles the I st and Wedded on the second of May 1641. to William of Nassaw only Son of Henry Prince of Orange then Commander in chief of all the Forces of the States General both by Land and Sea He was born at the Hague on the fourteenth of November 1650 being nine days after his Fathers decease He had for his Godfathers the Lords States General of Holland Zealand and the Cities of Delft Leyden and Amsterdam and for Godmothers the Queen of Bohemia and the old Princess of Orange His Governess was the English Lady Stanhope then Wife to the Heer Van Hemvliet Being eight years of Age he was sent to the University at Leyden On the fourth of November 1677. being then near Seven and Twenty years of Age he espoused the Lady Mary eldest Daughter to His Royal Highness James Duke of York His Revenue is about threescore Thousand Pounds Sterling per Annum besides Military advantages enjoyed by his Father and Ancestors amounting to about thirty thousand Pounds Sterling per Annum more He is a Prince of great valour and courage in whom the High and Princely Qualities of his Ancestors have always appeared and a great Lover of Souldiers Of the Queen of Spain THe next Heir after the forementioned to the Imperial Crown of Great Britain is Her most Serene Majesty the present Queen Consort of Spain Daughter of the Princess Henrietta youngest Sister to His present Sacred Majesty of Great Britain by the most illustrous Prince Philip now Duke of Orleans only Brother to the most Christian King Lewis the XIVth now reigning She was born in the year 1663. and was in December 1679 Married to Charles the IId King of Spain Of the Prince Elector Palatine THere being left alive no more of the Off-spring of King Charles the I st the next Heirs to the Imperial Crown of these Realms are the Issue and Descendents of Elizabeth late Queen of Bohemia only Sister to the said King who was on the fourteenth of February 1612 married to Frederick the Vth. Prince Elector Palatine of the Rhine afterwards stiled King of Bohemia Of these the first is Charles the present Prince Elector Palatine of the Rhine commonly called the Palsgrave from the High-Dutch Psaltzgraffe Palatii Comes Grandson to the said Queen by her eldest Son Charles Lodowick Prince Elector Palatine of the Rhine lately deceased His Mother was the Lady Charlotte Daughter to William the Vth. Landgrave of Hesse and to Elizabeth Emilia of Hanaw He was born on the one and thirtieth of March 1651. and has lately married the Sister of Christiern the Vth. present King of Denmark This Prince hath a Sister named Louise born in May 1652 and now married to the Duke of Orleans only Brother to the present French King Of Prince Rupert NExt unto the Prince Elector Palatine and his Sister is the illustrious Prince Rupert Duke of Bavaria and Cumberland Count Palatine of the Rhine Earl of Holderness and Knight of the most noble Order of the Garter born at Prague on the seventeenth of December 1619 not long before that very unfortunate Battel there fought whereby not only all Bohemia was lost but the Palatine Family was for almost thirty years outed of all their possessions in Germany till that in the year 1648 by the Famous Treaty at Munster Charles Lodowick eldest Brother to this Prince had the Lower Palatinate restored to him for which he was constrained to quit all his right to the Vpper Palatinate and to accept of an eighth Electorship at a juncture of time when his Uncle Charles the I st King of Great Britain had he not been embroiled at home by an horrid Rebellion had been the most considerable of all other at this Treaty and the Prince Elector his Nephew would have had the greatest advantages there Prince Rupert at the age of thirteen years marched with the then Prince of Orange to the Siege of Rhineberg At the Age of eighteen he commanded a Regiment of Horse in the German Wars and being at the Battel of Lemgou in the year 1638 taken by the Imperialists under the command of Count Hatzfield he continued a Prisoner above three years About the beginning of September 1642 he came into England with his Brother Prince Maurice to offer his service to the King his Uncle against a factious Party of the two Houses then rebelling against him and being within a fortnight after his arrival put in command over a small Party of those Forces which the King had at that time gathered together marched with them into divers parts of Warwickshire Nottinghamshire Leicestershire Worcestershire and Cheshire his Forces still increasing as he marched Being about the middle of October following made General of the Horse to the King he soon after fought and defeated Colonel Sandys neer Worcester on the
three and twentieth of the same moneth routed the Rebels Horse at Edg-Hill and on the second of February following took Cirencester and therein eleven hundred Prisoners and three thousand Arms. On the fourteenth of April 1643. he recovered Litchfield taken the March before by the Rebels on the eighteenth of June he routed Sheffield and Hambden in Chalgrove-Field being the very place where Hambden who soon after died of his wounds there received first executed the Parliaments Commission for the Militia against the Kings Authority on the twenty seventh of July he took the City of Bristol he was on the twenty-fourth of January following created Earl of Holdernesse and Duke of Cumberland the Male-Line of the Cliffords being extinct in Henry the Last Earl and on the two and twentieth of March he raised the siege at Newark having got a compleat victory over Sr. John Meldrum who lay before it with eight thousand men On the twenty-seventh of May 1644 he forced Rigby commander for the Rebels to depart from before Latham House wherein that magnanimous and incomparable Lady Charlotte Countess of Derby had been eighteen weeks closely besieged and the next day stormed and took the town of Bolton on the third of July having relieved York wherein the then Marquess afterwards Duke of Newcastle had been nine weeks besieged by three Armies under the command of Manchester Fairfax and Lesley he fought the great Battel of Marston-Moor wherein though at first he had much the better yet by a wonderful and unexpected Fatality the fortune of the day turned and the Rebels obtained the victory On the twenty-second of April 1645 he defeated Massey at Lidbury on the seventh of May fetcht off the King from Oxford which Fairfax was about to besiege and on the one and thirtieth of the same moneth took Leicester by assault In the year 1646 the Forces of the King his Uncle at Land being totally defeated he transported himself after the surrendry of Oxford into France and was afterwards made Admiral of such Ships of War as submitted to His present Sacred Majesty then Prince of Wales to whom after divers disasters at Sea and wonderful preservations having been blockt up the most part of one Summer in the Port of Kingsaâ—e by Popham and another in â—hat of Lisbon by Blake and having lâ—… his Brother the valiant Prince Mauâ—… about the Caribbe Islands by an Hurricane he returned to Paris in the latter end of the year 1652 where now almost the whole Royal Family of Great Britain were met together Departing thence with his Majesty in the year 1654 he went into Germany where partly at the Imperial Court of Vienna and partly at Heidelbergh the chief Seat of his Brother the Prince Elector Palatine he passed his time in Princely Studies and Exercises till his Majesties happy Restauration after which returning into England he was in the year 1662 made a privy Councellor and in 1666 being joyned Admiral with the late Duke of Albemarl first attackt the whole Dutch Squadron in so bold and resolute a manner that he soon put them to flight He enjoys a pension from his Majestie of four thousand pounds Sterling per Annum and the Constableship of Windsor Castle Of the rest of the Issue of Elizabeth late Queen of Bohemia AFter Prince Rupert the next Heirs to the Crown of Great Britain are three French Ladies Daughters to Prince Edward lately deceased a younger Son of the Queen of Bohemia Of these the eldest is married to the Duke d' Enguien eldest Son to the Prince of Conde and the second to John Frederick Duke of Brunswick and Lunenburgh at Hanover The Princess Dowager Mother of these three Ladies is Sister to the late Queen of Poland and Coheir to the last Duke of Nevers in France These three Ladies have amongst them a Revenue of above twelve thousand pounds Sterling per Annum Last of all is the Princess Sophia youngest Daughter to the Queen of Bohemia whose eldest Sisters are deceased unmarried She was born at the Hague on the thirtieth of October 1630 and was in 1658 married to Ernest Auguste Duke of Brunswick and Lunenburgh Bishop of Osnaburgh by whom she hath three Sons and a Daughter She is said to be one of the best Address and most accomplisht Ladies in Europe FINIS Books Printed for and to be Sold by Christopher Hussey at the Flower-de-Luce in Little-Britain A Sure Guide to the Practical Surveyor in two Parts The First Shewing how to Plot all manner of Grounds whether small Inclosures Champain-Ground Wood-Lands Mountains and Dales by the Semi-circle Plain Table and Chain As also How to find the Area or Content thereof with the manner of Protracting Reducing and Dividing the same and also how to inclose a Mannor lying in a common Field with the drawing of a Perfect Draught or Map there-of and how to deck and beautifie the same And likewise how to convey Water from any Spring-Head to any appointed place The second Shewing how to take the Ground-Plot of any City or Corporation As also the Mensuration of Roads High-ways and Rivers with the manner of making a MAP of any County or Kingdom The like never before extant By John Holwell Philomath The Glorious Lover A Divine Poem upon the Adorable Mystery of Sinners Redemption By B. K. Author of War with the Devil Psalm 45.1 My Heart is inditing a good matter The History of the Court of the King of China Out of French The young Anglers companion Containing the whole Art of neat and clean Angling Wherein is taught the readiest way to take all Sorts of FISH from the Pike to the Minnow together with their proper Baits Haunts and time of Fishing for them whether in Mere Pond or River As also The Method of Fishing in Hackney-River and the names of all the best Stands there with the manner of making all sorts of good Tackle fit for any Water whatsoever The like never before in Print By WILLIAM GILBERT Gent.
BRITANNIAE SPECULUM OR A Short View OF THE Ancient and Modern State OF Great Britain And the adjacent Isles and of all other the Dominions and Territories now in the actual possession of His present Sacred MAJESTY King CHARLES II. Treating of Britain in General LONDON Printed by Thomas Milbourn for Christopher Hussey at the Flower-de-Luce in Little Britain M.CD.LXXXIII THE PREFACE THis little Treatise is but the first Part of an intended larger Work the Design whereof as appears in the Title-Page is to exhibit as in a Mirror a view of the ancient and modern State not only of this our Island of GREAT BRITAIN but also of Ireland and all other His MAJESTIES Dominions and Territories not by writing a continued Chronicle or History of all the Kings or Princes reigning successively in them but only by giving an Account of such signal Mutations as made any considerable Change in the Administration of the Government either in Church or State In this part which treats of Britain in general after a short Description of the Island and a brief Account of the ancient Inhabitants thereof from whom not only our present Cambro-Britains but those also of Armorica or little Britain in France are descended is inserted a Discourse which tho it may seem a Digression is neither long nor impertinent touching the Original and Excellency of Monarchical Government to which and none other this our Island has been so fortunate as to have been Subjected from its very first being inhabited to this very Day Hereunto I was forced by the audacious Scribles of certain profligate Wretches who that they may the easilier instigate the Vulgar to a contempt of the Sacred Authority of their Prince and thereby make way for the overturning of this famous Monarchy and the introducing of Popular Tyranny in its place endeavour to debase Monarchy it self affirming the most High and Sacred Order of Kings which is the Ordinance of GOD himself founded in the prime Laws of Nature and clearly established by express Texts both of the Old and New Testaments to be a meer human Creature taking its Original from the Consent of the People by whom Soveraignty is conveyed unto Kings in trust only and by Communication and consequently that the People may whensoever they please resume this Power and call their Trustees to an account These are the pernicious Maxims which so lately intoxicated the three Kingdoms and are now again for the like purpose taken up by our present Republicans and daily disperst by the scurrilous Pamphleteers of these times one of which who insolently presumes to dedicate his treasonable Libels to a most Noble and Loyal Peer falls foul upon the Learned Sr. Robert Filmer for deriving the Regal Authority from the paternal instituted by GOD himself tho this verity be not only expresly delivered in the Holy Scriptures which declare that the first Government in the World was Monarchical in the Father of all Flesh but was by the very glimmerings of Natural Reason discovered by Aristotle who speaking of the Original of Monarchy saith The first Society made of many Houses is a Village which seems most agreeable to nature as being a Colony of Families which some call Foster-brethren or Children and Childrens Children Therefore at first Cities were and now also Nations are Governed by Kings because such came together as were under Kingly Government For the eldest in every House is King and so for Kindred sake it is in Colonies that is in more Families which are descended from the same House whence Homer saith Every man gives Laws to his Wives and Children Hence it is by all ancient Writers acknowledged that the first Commonweals were governed by Monarchs nor indeed was there any other Government known in the World for above three thousand years till some ambitious Fellows among the giddy Grecians a People alwayes delighted in Novelties rebelled against their Soveraigns and usurped their Authority as was lately here done by the Rump-Parliament and is now again aimed at by the Factors for the Good-Old-Cause The better to excite my fellow Subjects to a dutiful Submission to our common Father the King I have reminded them that all those Rights and Priviledges to the Preservation whereof tho neither infringed nor in danger of being so the popular Demagogues pretend to call them forth when their real design is utterly to destroy and take away both the Regal Prerogative and the Peoples Liberties are originally the Concessions of their Princes and therefore that as it is the height of Ingratitude to employ the Favours of their Soveraign to the disturbance of his Government so it is an excess of Folly to think to secure their Liberties by the pulling down or weakning that Authority which as it first gave them so is alone capable to protect and maintain them This tho it may seem strange to those that have their Heads filled with the Chimerical Conceits of the natural Freedom and Equality of Mankind and the first founding of Government by the Multitude upon such Terms and Conditions as to their Wisdoms seemed fit is yet clearly manifest from the Histories and Records of all Ages and Nations and particularly of this Kingdom of England of which it was well observed by the late Lord Keeper Bridgman then Lord chief Baron at the Tryal of the Regicides It is true we have as great Liberties as any People have in Christendom in the World but let us own them where they are due We have them by the Concessions of our Princes Our Princes have granted them and the King now He in them hath granted them likewise After this Account of the Original and Excellency of Monarchy to which Government alone I briefly shew that this Island has been alwayes subjected I proceed to the Conquest thereof by the Romans and thence to such other Mutations as hapned therein unto the time of Cadwalladar who in the Year 689 quitting his Kingdom of which the Saxons had gotten the best part a Period was put to the British Monarchy the very Name of King of Britain not being so much as heard of till the happy Vnion of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland by the Succession of His Majesties Grandfather King James of famous Memory to the Crown of England whose Genealogy from Cadwalladar I have here set down clearly demonstrating his present Sacred Majesty to be the true and undoubted Heir of the said British King as he is also of the Saxon Norman and Scotish Kings and consequently to have a clearer Right to this Monarchy than any private man can pretend to his Estate After this Relation of such Mutations as concern Britain in general I give a general Account of the present Government of this Island And here according to my Duty and the Oath of Supremacy which declaring the King to be the only Supreme Governour admits neither Equal nor Superior I assert the Soveraignty of our Lord the King and shew that there is not in our nor can
ancient Britains 49 St. Marcellus in Britain 122 Marriage of the King 262 of the Queen 266 Mary Queen of Scotland expelled her Kingdom by Presbyterian Rebels 169 Missletoe 34 Mixed Monarchy 63 Monarchy 52 Money of the ancient Britains 46 Monks according to the Rule of St. Mark the Evangelist 129 N NAme of Britain 2 of the Monarch of Great Britain 175 of the present King 244 of the Queen 263 Nations erected at the Confusion of Tongues Seventy two 55 Nimrod 64 Noah divided the Earth amongst his Sons 54 O OFfice of the King of Great Britain 193 Ogmius a God of the Britains 28 Onvana a Goddess of the Britains 27 Prince of Orange 286 Original of Monarchy 52 of the Family of the Stuarts 162 Ostorius Scapula Governor of Britain 99 P PAinting of the ancient Britains 44 St. Paul the Apostle in Britain 119 Peace enjoyed by no People without Monarchy 68 Period of the British Kingdom 155 Persecution of the Christians in Britain 130 Person of the King 188 St. Peter the Apostle in Britain 118 St. Peters Cornhil built 128 Petilius Crealis Governor of Britain 103 Petronius Turpilianus Governour of Britain ibid. Phoenicians in Britain 21 Picts 22 Picts and Scots annoy the Britains 144 A Plautius sent into Britain 94 Portion of the Queen 267 Prerogatives of the King 193 Priests of the ancient Britains 28 Prince Elector Palatine 288 Proclamations 196 Progeny of Cadwalladar continued to his present Majesty 163 Punishments of the ancient Britains 38 R REcords of the antient Britains 40 Recreation of the antient Britains 45 Religion of the antient Britains 25 Respect of the King 220 Restauration of the King 256 Right of Government descends to the eldest Son 54 Rights and Priviledges of the People originally the Concessions of Princes 61 Romans in Britain 28 Prince Rupert 289 S SAcrifices of the ancient Britains 32 Saxons 23 hired by the Britains against the Picts and Scots 150 Scots 23 Simplicity of the ancient Britains 36 Shipping of the ancient Britains 46 Soil of Great Britain 10 Soveraignty of the King 203 Queen of Spain 287 Stature of the ancient Britains 40 Strength of the Monarch of Great Britain 181 Succession to the Crown of Great Britain 224 Suetonius Governour of Britain 101 Suetonius a Britain first Planter of Christianity amongst the Helvetians 118 Surname of the King 244 Swiftness of the ancient Britains 41 T TAramis a God of the Britains 26 St. Timotheus Son of Pudens in Britain 122 Title of the King 175 Traffick of the ancient Britains 45 Trinobantes revolt to Caesar 90 Tutates a God of the Britains 26 V VAlor of the ancient Britains 36 Vortigern chosen King of the Britains 146 hires the Saxons 150 Vortimer chosen an Associate to his Father Vortigern in the Kingdom 151 poysoned by the procurement of Rowena 152 Vter Pendragon King of Britain 154 W WAles subjected to the Crown of England 166 Westminster Church built 129 Wicker Image 32 Winchester Church built 129 Y Duke of YOrk 272 His Wives and Children 283 ERRATA PAg. 18. in the Margin read Gascoign then p. 31. lin 18. dele the p. 32. l. 2. r. so to do p. 33. l. 27. r. and Bushes p. 74. l. 12. r. contradicting p. 81. l. 5. r. unlookt-for Accident p. 89. l. 13. r. retired p. 122. l. 21. r. Praxedes p. 131. l. 17. r. Cassock p. 135. l. 17. r. particularly p. 161. l. 18. for not named r. named Nest p. 165. l. 6. r. His inheritance p. 172. l. penult r. hereditary p. 173. l. 9. r. Empire p. 179 l. 20. r. Droit p. 188. l. 18. r. manners p. 199. l. 11. r. Commonweal p. 216. l. 15. r. thirty fifth p 251. in the Marg. r. Scotland p. 266. l. 13. r. her Mother p. 292. l. 28. r. fatality OF BRITAIN In General CHAP. I. Of Britain in the largest Sense BRITAIN in the general and more comprehensive signification contains all those Islands both great and small Extent which lye about Albion or Britain properly so called Ex adverso hujus saith Ptolomey speaking of France Britannia Insula Albion ipsi nomen fuit cum Britanniae omnes vocarentur The whole Dominion of which Islands is at present united under the Command of the King of Great Britain Division They are distinguished into the Greater and Lesser The Greater are Great Britain and Ireland The Lesser are 1 The Orcades 2 The Hebrides 3 Man 4 Anglesey 5 The Islands of the Severn Sea 6 The Sorlinges or Isles of Scilly 7 Wight 8 Thanet 9 Sunderland 10 Holy Island CHAP. II. Of the Name of Britain of its Climate Dimensions Division Air Soil and Commodities Name GREAT BRITAIN or Britain properly so called without comparison the best and most flourishing Island of the whole World is said to have been first named Samothea from Samothes supposed to have reigned here Anno Mundi 1910. It was afterwards called Albion either from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Happy or ab albis rupibus from its White Cliffs or more probably from King Albion By degrees the Name Britain was appropriated to this Island the rest having their particular Names It was called Britain either from two British Words Pryd and Cain signifying Beauty and White or from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Metals or from the British Word Brith Painted the Greeks adding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Region or from the Phoenician Word Barat-Anac A Land of Tynne in which sense the British Islands were by the Greeks called Cassiterides or from King Brutus reigning here as is alledged Anno Mundi 2855. It is situated from fifty Degrees six Minutes in the sixteenth Parallel and eighth Climate to sixty Degrees thirty Minutes in the twenty sixth Parallel and thirteenth Climate Climate Lying thus under the eighth ninth tenth eleventh twelfth and thirteenth Climates Insomuch that the longest Day in the most Northern parts is eighteen Hours and three quarters and the shortest Day in the most Southern neer eight Hours long It is in Length from the Lyzard-Point Southward in Cornwal to the Straithy-head in the North of Scotland Dimensions six hundred twenty four Miles in Breadth from the Lands-end in Cornwal in the West to Dover in the East two hundred and eighty the whole compass thereof allowing for the Turnings and Windings of the Shores is eighteen hundred thirty six Miles thus reckoned From Dunsby-Heate to the Lands-end eight hundred and twelve from the Lands-end to the Foreland of Kent three hundred and twenty from the Foreland of Kent to Dunsby-Heate seven hundred and four It is the greatest Island of the whole World except Java Borneo Sumatra Madagascar and Groenland and was therefore by the Antients to whom these were unknown called The other World It is bounded on the East with the German Ocean dividing it from Belgium Germany and Denmark on the West with St. Georges Chanel separating it from Ireland on the Northwest with the Vergivian or Western Ocean of which the Antients
majorque premebat Te Furor extremum Zephyri Cornubia Limen Here lodgd of Old A Race of Titans impious and bold Their Bodies with raw Hides they clad allaid With Blood their Thirst of hollow Trees they made Their Cups their Beds were Mosse Bushes Dens Their Houses were their Chambers craggy Pens Their Hunger Prey Rape did their Lust supply The Sport of slaughtring men did please their Eye Force gat them Rule Fury them Courage gave Rage Arms a Battle Death a Grove a Grave These Monsters dwelt on Hills and did molest Each Quarter of the Land but most the West Thou Frighted Cornwall never having Rest The Druids officiated only in Groves of Oak planting for that purpose very many up and down the whole Island for they highly venerated this Tree and more especially the Missletoe growing thereon without a Branch whereof they performed no Sacrifice and which being found on a Tree was esteemed a sure Sign that the GOD whom they were then about to serve had made choise of it This was by them gathered with many Superstitious Ceremonies and great Devotion 1. They observed that at the time of gathering it the Moon was to be neither more nor less than six dayes old 2. Having prepared their Sacrifices under the Tree they brought thither two young Bullocks milk-white whose Horns were then and not before bound up 3. The Priest cloathed in white climbed the Tree and with a golden Bill cut down the Missletoe which was received below in a Souldiers white Cassock 4. They blessed the Gift mumbling over many Orisons The Missletoe thus gathered was reputed a Soveraign Antidote against Poyson and Barrenness Caesar at his coming into Britain Manners found it Inhabited by two sorts of People The more inland parts by such as esteemed themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or to have had their Original out of the very Soil they lived in quos natos in Insula ipsa memoria proditum dicunt as he has it The Maritime parts being possest by such as resorted thither from Gaul and Belgium for the sake either of Traffick or Conquest The want of observing this Distinction is the Cause of the seeming Contradictions that are found in such Writers as discourse of the Manners and Customs of the ancient Britains Those on the Sea-coasts were more civilized had Houses Orchards Gardens tilled and manured their Grounds and agreed very much in manners with the Gauls but the Inlanders for want of Converse and living in a perpetual State of War were more rude and barbarous symbolizing with the Germans from whom they are thought to have had their Original The Britains are generally represented by most Authors to be of a kind and gentle Disposition not having the Craft and Subtilty of other Nations but a fair-conditioned People of a plain and upright Dealing That they were valorous none can doubt who considers with what difficulty notwithstanding the many Divisions and Quarrels amongst their own petty Princes they were subjected to the Romans how serviceable they were to them afterwards in their Wars how vigorously tho then very few their Land having been dispeopled by the Romans they withstood the numerous Forces of the Saxons whom their own Invitation first gave footing amongst them and when over-powered by them they were forced to retire into the more Western Parts of this Island how stoutly they maintained their Liberties against the English Kings both of the Saxon and Norman Race and how by a voluntary Submission rather than Force they were brought under Subjection to the Crown of England Since which time they have been out-gone by none in Loyalty and Fidelity to their Prince The Inlanders had all things amongst them in common and would not admit of any Propriety insomuch that ten or twelve of them promiscuously made use of the same Women Brethren with Brethren and Parents with their own Children the Issue which was bred up by a common Stock being more particularly reputed his who had the first Enjoyment of the Mothers Virgin Embraces They inured themselves to all Hardship being able to undergo any Cold Hunger and Labor whatever so that they would stick themselves in Boggs up to their very Heads continuing there many dayes together without any Sustenance The Britains were generally very much addicted to Magick as are their Descendents the Welsh even to this very day Punishments It was the Custom of the antient Britains that when any great man died his Relations made Enquiry if there were Suspicion amongst his Wives concerning his Death who if they were found guilty were punished with Fire and other Torments From whence Sir Edward Cook derives the Law of England at this day for burning those Women who kill their Husbands Thieves and Murderers were reserved by them to be offered in Sacrifice to the Gods and so were Captives taken in their Wars The greatest Punishment not capital amongst them was Excommunication which was issued out by the Druids not only against private but also against publick persons Those upon whom this Censure was inflicted were accounted impious and profane uncapable of any Honorable Office and excluded the Benefit of the Law none daring to approach them or converse in talk with them tho at a distance for fear of being infected by them The old Language of the Britains Language who have been above all other Nations curious to preserve it entire without any mixture was the same setting aside some small Variations that is spoken at this day not only by the Britains of England but also by those of Armorica in France Which altho it has in it many Phoenician and more Greek Words yet the Idiom of it as to the main appears to be Teutonick and the Words which they received either by Trading with the former Nations or the Invasion of the Gauls seem much to be modelled to that Dialect Besides this generall Language of the Country the Greek or at least a Dialect thereof was preserved entire amongst the Druids who not only therein concealed the Mysteries of their Religion which they committed not to Writing but delivered down by a Traditionary Conveyance to those only who admitted themselves of that Order and underwent the Severities of a long and tedious Discipline But their Records also were preserved in the Greek Tongue and Characters which unintelligible by the Vulgar none could have Recourse unto but Persons of Repute and Learning Nor were they permitted to take any thing away in Writing but by Memory only the Trust of keeping these things being reposed in some persons who for their singular Fidelity Integrity and Learning were chosen for that purpose Stature The antient Britains were of Stature taller than the Gauls whose Expression concerning them to Caesar was that other Nations seemed as Nothing in their Eyes their Hair not so yellow nor their Bodies so compact knit and firm having but bad Feet to support them but the other Lineaments of their Body were well made and their Features
to make use of that Arbitrary Power whereof tho in the exercise of it he may restrain himself yet he can never be divested to secure himself and people from the Contrivances of malicious and ill-designing Persons Those therefore that argue for Limited or Mixed Monarchies do in effect only plead for Anarchy and Confusion For either these Limits must be such Laws and Bounds as the Monarch has set himself to Govern by to the Observance whereof tho he may by Promise so far engage himself that he cannot as has been said ordinarily transgress them without the Sin of Injustice yet this Promise of his which is but an After-act of Grace not dissolving that absolute Subjection which preceded it his Power if he will sinfully put it forth to act is no less Arbitrary than it was before the making of the Promise Or if you will imagin these Bounds of the Monarchs Power to be ab externo and not from the free Determination of his own Will then the Subject as they say not being legally bound to subjection in case the Prince commands beyond the Law if there arise a Dispute between the Monarch and the meanest of his Subjects about the Legality or Illegality of his Commands either the Monarch himself must be Judge and then farewel Limitation or else the whole people or some part of them and then farewel Monarchy or else there must be no Judge at all and then farewell Government So likewise in that which they call a mixed Monarchy or a Government composed of Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy either the Soveraign Power must be Originally in the Monarch and derivatively only in the others and then farewel the Mixture or else it must tho acknowledged to be an indivisible Beam of Divine Perfection be originally shared amongst them all and then farewel the Monarchy So also in this Mixture as they call it of Power if a Difference arise between the Prince and the States there being according to their Principles no Authoritative judge to determin it the Government is dissolved and every man left at liberty to side with that Part which in his Reason and Judgment stands most for publick Good more than which the Wit of Man cannot say for Anarchy The unlimited Jurisdiction of Kings is so strongly asserted in Scripture that it occasioned one who writ in justification of the late Rebellion to affirm That to make a King by the Standard of GOD's Word is to make the Subjects Slaves for Conscience sake Than which I know not whether any thing can be said more impious The Paternal Empire as it was in it self hereditary so was it as other Goods are alienable by Patent and seizable by an Usurper Thus amongst the first Fathers of Families dispersed by the Confusion of Babel was Nimrod who being no doubt by good Right Lord or King over his own Family and not contented therewith did against Right enlarge his Empire by violently seizing on the Rights of other Fathers of Families and laid the Foundation of the first of those great Kingdoms which for the vast Extent of their Dominions were called the four Monarchies of the World Yet this Power he got by Usurpation and not by any Election of or Faction with the People or Multitude The Dominions indeed of Princes anciently were but small consisting generally but of Cities apiece with the adjacent Teritories Thus in a little Corner of Asia nine Kings met at once in Battle In the small Circuit of the Land of Canaan Joshuah destroyed one and thirty Kings Adonibezek made seventy Kings whose Thumbs and Toes he had cut off to feed under his Table Two and thirty Kings came to Benhadad King of Syria and seventy Kings of Greece went to the Wars of Troy But in process of Time partly by Conquest partly by Lineal Succession and partly by the Cession of many little Princes these Petty Kingdoms were united and greater Monarchies erected Whence tho Kings are not now the Natural Parents of their Subjects yet they all either are or are to be reputed the next Heirs to those Progenitors who were at first the Natural Parents of the whole people and as such succeed to the Exercise of Soveraign Jurisdiction not only over their own Children but over their Brethren and all that were subject to their Fathers As long as the first Fathers lived they were properly called Patriarchs but when the Fatherhood it self was extinct and the Right only descended to the next Heir they were more significantly styled Kings and Princes If through Negligence the Knowledge of the true Heir to any Kingdom be lost for the Right it self never can yet does not the Supremacy devolve to the multitude who never yet had right to Rule or choose their Rulers but to the Princes and independent Heads of Families and because the Dependency of ancient Families is frequently obscure and worn out of Knowledge to such persons as the Wisdom of the precedent Monarchs thought fit to adopt for Heads of Families and Princes of Provinces These and none but these have it such Case alone Power to consent in uniting or conferring their Fatherly Right of Soveraign Authority oâ— whom they please Nor does the person thus elected hold his Power as a Donative from the People but from GOD from whom alone he receives his Royal Charter of Universal Father tho testified by the Ministry of the Heads of the People And altho I do not say that all popular Governments are so far unlawful as to oblige them things being as they are to subject themselves to Monarchy yet this I must aver as a most undoubted Truth that no other Government but Monarchy had ever any lawful Original there never having been any Nation which was not for many years governed by Kings untill Wantonness Ambition or Faction of the People made them attempt new wayes of Regiment which Mutations alwayes proved bloody and miserable to their Authors and happy in nothing but the short time of their Duration The Excellency of Monarchy is not only manifest by the Divineness of its Originall Excellency but also by the singular Advantages it has over any other Form of Government The chief End of Government is that the People may according to the Apostle Lead a quiet and peaceable Life in all Godliness and Honesty Consequently whereunto we find that in all Monarchies both before the Law of Moses under it and ever since whether Grecian or Barbarian Jewish or Pagan Christian or Turkish a singular Care has been taken for Religion the Priests whereof have been alwayes had in such Respect and Veneration as to have an eminent Share in the Administration of the Government But in all popular States their main Devotion being exercised only in opposing and suppressing Monarchy their next is to exclude the Clergy from medling with Government wherein the Vnited Netherlands and Venice of which it is commonly said that the one hath all Religions and the other none do at this day
agree As for Peace it is well known that no people ever enjoyed it without Monarchy The Lacedaemonians preserved themselves by warring and when they had gotten the Empire were presently undone for they could not live at rest knowing no better Exercise than that of War And whereas the main Preservatives of Peace are the Durability and Order of the Government if we examine the most flourishing Democracy that ever was in the World viz. that of Rome we shall find that the Duration thereof from the expulsion of Tarquin to Julius Caesar was but four hundred and eighty years whereas both the Assyrian Monarchy lasted without interruption at least twelve hundred and the Empire of the East fourteen hundred ninety five And from Order they were so far that during these four hundred and eighty years there was not any setled Form of Government in Rome for having once lost the Natural Power of Kings they could not find whereon to rest They first chose out of the Senators annual Consuls who had during the short Time of their Government full Regal Power About sixteen years after the first Creation of Consuls the Commons by Sedition prevailed and chose among themselves Tribunes of the People to preserve their Liberty About fourty years after they left Tribunes and Consuls and chose ten Men to make them Laws These after three years they displaced and set up Tribunes and Consuls again Not long after they demanded that one of the Consuls might be chosen out of the Commonalty which after a Dispute of threescore and eighteen years they carried by the stubbornness of the Tribunes who for five years together hindring the Election of the greater Magistrates forced the Nobles to yeild to their Request lest an Anarchy should destroy them all Sometimes they chose Dictators who were Temporary Kings sometimes Military Tribunes with Consulary Power One while the Senate made Laws another while the People In fine such and so frequent were their Alterations in Government that the best Historians are not able to find any perfect Form of Regiment in so much Confusion And if the Government of Rome may be said to have been for some time popular yet it was so to the City of Rome alone all the rest of the Dominions being shared into Provinces over which their Proconsuls Propraetors and Legates exercised Regal Authority so impossible it is to govern a Kingdom much more many Kingdoms by the whole or greatest part of the People And tho Rome in the time of her Popularity bred many admired Commanders several of which were but very ill requited by the People by whose Conduct she gained such Victories abroad as amazed the World yet even then did the Tragical Slaughter of her Citizens at home deserve Commiseration from her vanquished Enemies Nor were all of them able to support her in times of danger but in her greatest Troubles she was forced to create a Dictator whose Authority was absolute and unappealable testifying thereby that the last Refuge in Perils of State is to have recourse to Regal Authority And whatever may be pretended to be the Inconveniences of Monarchy yet cannot it be denied but that they are all outweighed by the Sedition which necessarily attends Popularity There not having been a quarter of the Blood shed in Rome by the Cruelty of all her Tyrannical Emperors as was by Seditions in the last hundred years of her glorious Common-wealth when the Blood was suckt up in the Market-places with Spunges the Current of the River Tyber stopt with the slaughtered Bodies of Citizens and the Common Privies stuffed full of them For the Cruelty of Tyrants rarely extends any farther than to some particular persons that offend them so that a King can never be so notoriously vitious but he will generally favour Justice and maintain Order except in the particulars where he is swayed by his inordinate Passion For the Multitude of People and the abundance of their Riches whose Bodies do him service in War and whose Goods supply his present Wants being the only Strength and Glory of every Prince Natural Love to himself if not Affection to his People will make him desirous to preserve the Lives and protect the Goods of his Subjects which as it cannot be done without Justice so if it be not done the Princes Loss is thereby the greatest But in a popular State every man knowing that the Publick Good does not depend wholly upon his Care they all mind chiefly their private Benefit none taking the Publick to be his own Business whence it follows that every man as it is said of Israel when they had no King does that which is right in his own Eyes And this is the Original of that unnatural State of War which some are pleased to miscal the Natural Liberty of Mankind where every man pretending a Right to every thing there is none that can have the least Security of any thing he enjoyes nor yet of his very Life since he may be deprived thereof by any one that shall prove stronger than hinself The Island of Great Britain has alwayes had that happiness Britain alwayes Governed by Monarchs as never to be subject to any other Government but the Monarchical Not that the whole Island was always under the Command of one Monarch which as some say it never was till since the Uniting of the Crowns of England and Scotland by King James there being at Caesars Arrival here no fewer than four Kings found in Kent alone But that these were so many Soveraign Princes reigning absolutely over their own small Dominions who at the Invasion of the Romans joyned together in a Confederacy for their mutual Defence of which they made by common Consent Cassibelan their Head The Words of Caesar are Summa imperii bellique administrandi communi consilio permissa est Cassivellauno from whence some would infer that the Britains had no King in time of Peace but that Cassibelan was by Consent of a great Common Councel chosen King and General against his Landing Contracting herein Caesar himself who not only affirms that there were four Kings within the County of Kent whose Names he likewise gives us but also describes Cassibelans Territory to have been bounded by the River Thames which divided it from the Maritime Provinces and to have extended eighty Miles from the Sea telling us withal that whereas before his Arrival Cassibelan was in continual Wars with the Neighbouring States the British Princes in this common danger of forreign Invasion united in a defensive League and unanimously chose him for their Leader Nor was Britain brought under the Power of the Romans till that the Popular State of Rome being after manifold Alterations ruined by its own Strength Civil Contentions had at last resetled the Government into a Monarchy And altho the Invasions of Forreigners the ill Conduct of our Kings the Ambition of the Princes of the Blood the Faction of the Nobility and the Sedition of the Vulgar have
sometimes caused Disturbance in the State yet never was there any Attempt to abolish Monarchical Government in this Island till such time as a certain hot-headed Frenchman having invented a new fangled Ecclesiastical Government agreeing said King James with Monarchy as GOD with the Devil which by animating the People to Rebellion against and Expulsion of their Lawful Prince he introduced into Geneva his Fanatical Disciples here in Great Britain laboring to establish their Diana of the Presbyterian Discipline and combining with certain Gentlemen who by reading the Books of such ancient Historians as living under Popular States decried Regal Authority by the Name of Tyranny and extolled the Popular by the Name of Liberty tho never any Tyrant was half so cruel as a Popular State had imbibed Democratical Principles raised a formidable Rebellion against the Father of his present Sacred Majesty who being by the Presbyterians outed of all his Regal Prerogatives made a private man and a Prisoner and charged with the Guilt of all the Blood shed in the Rebellion was by their younger Brethren the Independents consequently thereunto under a pretended Form of Justice barbarously beheaded on a Scaffold erected for that purpose before the Gates of his own Royal Palace Giving occasion to that no less true than witty Saying That the Independents murthered Charles Stuart but the Presbyterians killed the King But tho after this horrid Murther of the best of Kings all the Artâ— that the Malice of Men or Devilâ— could imagin was made use of tâ— change this Kingdom into a Common-Wealth yet so naturally are the People of this Island inclined to submiâ— to nothing but Monarchy that theâ— could find no settlement having in thâ— space of twelve years tried no fewer than five several sorts of Regiment till the universal Genius of the Isle by mighty tho invisible Influence concurred to recall their exil'd Soveraign and reestablish their ancient Government CHAP. V. Of the Discovery Invasion and Conquest of Britain by the Romans ABout the Year of the World 3913 Discovery and fifty three years before the Birth of CHRIST the Britains having notice that Julius Caesar the Roman General in Gallia displeased with them for having assisted the rebellious Gauls intended to invade their Country and fearing the Consequence of his Ambition and usual Success to avert his Design sent Ambassadours to him with promise of Hostages and Obedience to the Roman Empire These after Audience given he sent back promising them fair and exhorting them to continue firm in these Resolutions and with them his Confident Comius on whom he had bestowed the Kingdom of Arras to signifie to them his Intentions of coming speedily over in person giving him private Instructions to manage his Interest secretly with the Princes and States of Britain and to gain a Roman Party in the Island Gaesar in the mean time having sent Caius Volusenus to spy out the Coasts drew down his Forces into the Countrey of the Morini about Bulloign from whence was the shortest Passage into Britain Here he commands a general Rendezvouz of all his Naval Forces summoning from all parts his Shipping Volusenus after five dayes Sail being returned with such small Discoveries as not daring to land for fear of the Britains he had been able to make from abord his Ship Caesar who had with him two Legions ordirily amounting to five and twenty thousand Foot and four thousand five hundred Horse of Romans and their Allies having embarkt the Foot in eighty Ships of Burthen besides the Gallies distributed amongst the Commanders and commanding the Horse whom he sent eight Miles upward to another Haven where eighteen Ships appointed for them lay wind-bound to follow him with speed about the third Watch of the Night with a good Gale set off for Britain In sight whereof coming by Ten in the Morning and finding that Place which was a narrow Bay close environed with Hills upon every one whereof he beheld Multitudes of armed men no way commodious for Landing having called a Councel of War to whom he imparted the Discoveries made by Volusenus and gave necessary Orders his whole Fleet being now come up about three in the Afternoon he weighed Anchor and with a favourable Wind and Tide removed eight Miles thence to a plain and open Shore commonly supposed to be about Deal in Kent The Britains who watched his Motions sending their Horse and Chariots before their Infantry speeding after undauntedly assaulted the Romans under their very Ships and gave them so smart a Welcome that Caesar himself tho endeavoring by all means to excuse it could not yet deny but that the resolute Opposition of the Britains made his Souldiers forget their wonted Valour By the help nevertheless of his Gallies which as more apt for Motion he commanded to row up against the open side of the Enemy the unusual strangeness whereof together with the Ratling of their Oars and the fierce Battery of the Engines set up in them made the amazed Britains stand a little at a Bay and by the great Courage of the Standard-bearer of the tenth Legion who seeing that the Romans fearing the Depth of the Sea or more probably the Readvancement of the Enemy durst not quit their Ships having first invocated the Gods leapt over board and with his Eagle advanced marched boldly against the Britains the Foot were with much difficulty disembarkt and the wearied Islanders after a sharp dispute forced to retire whom Caesar for want of his Horse that were yet kept back by the wind was not able to pursue The Britains finding themselves over-mastered had now made their Peace sent in some Hostages and promised more and several of their Princes had submitted themselves and States to Caesar lying encamped as 't is thought upon Barham-Down when an unlookt-for Accident put them uppon new Counsels For the eighteen Ships which had been left behind to transport the Roman Horse being four dayes after Caesars Arrival come within sight of the Camp were by a sudden Tempest dispersed and that Night most of them lost Their Gallies also which had been haled ashore being the same Night covered with a Spring-tide and their Ships that lay off at Anchor sorely shattered This the British Princes perceiving and from the Compass of their Camp which without Baggage was the smaller guessing at the Number of the Roman Forces consulted together and secretly one by one withdrawing from the Camp resolved to stop all Provisions and to protract the Business unto Winter judging that if they could now destroy their Enemies or intercept their Return none would ever after dare to invade them Caesar from his own Condition and the Britains neglecting to send their Hostages suspecting what was like to happen got up what Corn he could and with Materials fetcht from the Continent and the Remains of such Ships as were quite spoiled repaired the rest so that by the indefatigable Industry of his Souldiers all of them but twelve were in a short time made
another Wall of Stone twelve foot high and eight broad traversing the Island in a direct Line from East to West where Severus had walled before between certain Cities placed as Frontiers to keep off the Enemy and along the South Shore from whence Hostility was also feared they erected Towers at certain distances for safety of the Coast This done having instructed the Britains in the Art of War leaving them Patterns of their Arms and Weapons and exhorting them manfully to resist the Invaders of their Countrey they took their last Farewel never purposing to return The Romans being finally departed and their Resolution of not returning known the Scots and Picts more confidently than ever issuing out of their Holes seized upon all the North part of the Island even as far as the Wall which not fearing to be dispossest they as natural Inhabitants planted and manured Not content herewith they assaulted the Garrison on the Wall whence with their Hooks and Engines pulling down some they put the rest to flight themselves taking possession of the Frontier Cities and having with such ease broken into the Province pursued the Britains into the Inland Countreys bringing destruction still along with them The better to withstand the frequent Inroads of these cruel Enemies the Princes after the example of their Ancestors in the dayes of Julius Caesar resolved to choose a General Captain of the whole Nation and to establish the Kingdom in his Line For this high Dignity there were two considerable Competitors Aurelius Ambrosius descended of a noble Roman Family and as it is supposed Son of Constantin who in the dayes of Honorius pretended to the Roman Empire and Vortigern Prince of the Damnonii or as some write Consul of the Gevissei Inhabitants of the South-Western parts about Cornwal or south-South-Wales Which Principality it seems he had governed well enough to be esteemed not unworthy to be preferred above his formerly Fellow-Princes Ambrosius therefore with his Brother Vter Pendragon retiring into lesser Britain in Gaul quitted both his Pretence and Country to Vortigern who the Choice thus falling on him was in the Year 438 anointed King For that in those ancient times of British Government the solemn Ceremony of anointing their Kings was in use in this Island is clear from the Testimony of Gildas Vortigern thus advanced to the Throne governed a while his Principality with Moderation In the eighth year of his Reign the Picts who after their miraculous Discomfiture by St. Germanus had for the most part kept within their own Territories now breaking in afresh miserably wasted all those Provinces of Britain which had formerly been subject to the Romans and this Invasion they continued the year following with such violence that after much Bloodshed and horrible Devastation of the Countrey the Britains having no other Refuge wrote to Aetius then President of Gallia this short but lamentable Epistle recorded by Gildas To Aetius the third time Consul the Groans of the Britains The Barbarians drive us to the Sea the Sea beats us back upon the Barbarians Between these two we are exposed either to be slain with the Sword or drowned and to avoid both we find no Remedy But in vain were these Supplications the Romans who could scarce secure the heart of their Empire infested with the Huns and Vandals not being able to afford them any assistance Many therefore of the Britains seeing themselves thus rejected wearied with flying from place to place and spent with the terrible Famin which had long afflicted them yielded themselves Slaves to their Savage Enemies but others more resolute taught by their Miseries to seek aid from Heaven retired to inaccessible Mountains and Caves whence with Courage and Success they often assaulted these ravenous Spoilers recovering from them their Booty and driving them back to their own Quarters These hostil Invasions therefore a while ceasing the Britains set themselves to cultivate their Ground which with scarce credible Plenty abundantly recompenced their Labors No sooner were their Enemies departed and their pinching Hunger allaid but their Piety likewise vanished in the room whereof succeeded excessive Luxury accompanied with all sorts of Vices infecting not the Laity only but the Clergy also who ought to have been Guides to others And altho GOD sought to reclaim them by his Scourge of Pestilence by which such Multitudes perished that the Living were not sufficient to bury the Dead yet were they with this Severity nothing at all amended but like Solomons Fool tho scourged yet they felt it not GODs Patience therefore being spent towards a People which grew worse both by Prosperity and Adversity he so far infatuated their Counsels that they themselves invited from a remote Country Enemies far more savage and barbarous than either the Picts or Scots The Northern Spoilers whom fear of the Contagion had kept within their own Borders the Infection now beginning to cease readvanced into the Inland Countrey against whose Incursions the better to provide King Vortigern summoned a general Councel where by common Advice it was resolved that Ambassadors should be sent into Germany to hire the Saxons to their assistance an Army of which in the year 449 landing in Britain under the Conduct of Hengist and Horsa the Britains by their Help overcoming their Enemies who were come as far as Stamford in Lincolnshire gave them great Possesions in that part of the same County now called Lindsey where they built Thong-Castle King Vortigern falling in love with Rowena Daughter to Hengist divorced his Queen a vertuous Lady by whom he had three Sons named Vortimer Catigern and Pascentius to make his Bed vacant for this Pagan whom he bought of her Father with the Kingdom of Kent who soon after taking advantage at the Discontent of the Britains for this Act of their King pickt a Quarrel and making a League with the Picts laid wast the Countrey The Saxons Power increasing by the coming over of fresh Supplies the British Laity first and afterwards the Clergy represented their Danger to the King whom either not believing or not regarding their Complaints they in the sixteenth year of his Reign deserted and followed his Son Vortimer choosing him as some say for their General or as others for an Associate to his Father in the Kingdom under whose Conduct they had many Conflicts with the Saxons and that with various Success in one of which the Vant-guard being led by Aurelius Ambrosius newly come out of Little Britain to assist Prince Vortimer the main Body by Vortimer himself and the Rere by his Brother Catigern Catigern was slain and buried at Alestrew now called Aylesford in Kent where a Monument erected for him is at this day corruptly called Keith-Coty-House This Proceeding of the Britains tho the more excuseable in that they did not presume to depose their King which yet Parker in his Antiquities of the British Church not only affirms they did but like a true Calvinist commends them for so doing but only without or
Spiritual Function be from GOD alone yet their Baronies Dignity and Interest in the State and even that external Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction which they exercise and that legally in their own Names within his Majesties Dominions are from the Grace and Bounty of the Prince Defender of the Faith was as appears by a Charter of King Richard the IId to the University of Oxford anciently given to the Kings of England and therefore not so much conferred upon as confirmed unto King Henry the VIIIth by Pope Leo the Xth. for a Book written against Luther in Defence of some Points of the Roman Faith and since the ejection of that Religion continued in the Crown by Act of Parliament The Title of Grace since appropriated to Archbishops and Dukes was first given to the King about the Time of Henry the IVth as about the Time of Edward the IVth that of High and Mighty Prince since also given to Dukes To Henry the VIIIth was given first Highness since the Stile of all the Princes of the Blood then Majesty and now Most Excellent and Sacred Majesty The King of Great Britain in his publick Instruments and Letters uses as his Predecessors have ever done since the Time of King John Nos We in the Plural Number but before his Time Kings used the Singular Which Custom is still practiced in the Ends of Writs and Patents Teste meipso The Word Syr answering to the Latine Dominus and supposedly the same with Cyr an Abbreviation of the Greek Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which prefixt before the Christian Name is given only to Baronets Knights of the Bath and Knights Batchelors is the ordinary Appellation used in speaking to all persons of the better Rank from the King to the Gentleman tho in France the Word Syr or Syre is reserved only for the King as is with us Great Syr. Arms. Arms are Ensigns of Honor born in a Shield for Distinction of Families and descending as Hereditary to Posterity yet not generally fixt unless in the Kings of Europe in Great Britain or France till after the Time of the Holy War about four hundred years ago Our first Christian King and the first Christian King of the whole World Lucius bare Argent a Crosse Gules in the first Quarter a Crosse Patee Azure After the Desertion of this Island by the Romans King Vortigern bare Gules a Crosse Or. Aurelius Ambrosius bare Gules a Griffin Sergreant Or. Vter Pendragon bare Or two Dragons endorsed Vert crowned Gules King Arthur bare Vert a Crosse Argent on the first Quarter Our Lady with her Son in her Arms. Cadwalladar the last King of the Britains bare Azure a Crosse Patee on three parts and fitched on the fourth Or. The Soveraign Ensigns Armorial of the King of Great Britain since the Uniting of the two Crowns of England and Scotland are as followeth In the first place Azure three Flower-de-Lys Or for the Regal Arms of France quartered with the Imperial Ensigns of England which are Gules three Lyons Passant Guardant in pale Or in the second place Or within a double Tressure counter-flowered de Lys a Lyon Rampant Gules for the Royal Arms of Scotland In the third place Azure an Irish Harp Or stringed Argent for the Royal Ensigns of Ireland All within the Garter the chief Ensign of that most Honorable Order above the same an Helmet answerable to his Majesties Soveraign Jurisdiction upon the same a rich Mantle of Cloth of Gold doubled Ermin adorned with an Imperial Crown and surmounted for a Crest by a Lion Passant Gardant Crowned with the like Upon a Compartment placed underneath in the Table whereof is his Majesties Royal Motto Dieu mon Droet stand the Supporters being a Lion Rampant Gardant Or Crowned as the former and an Vnicorn Argent Gorged with a Crown having thereto a Chain affixt passing between his Fore-legs and reflext over his Back Or. The Arms of France are placed first because France is the greater Kingdom and also for that those Arms from their first Bearing have alwayes been the Ensign of a Kingdom whereas the Arms of England were originally of Dukedoms having been brought to England from Normandy and Aquitain by William the Conqueror and Henry the IId and probably likewise that the French might be thereby more easily induced to acknowledge the English Title The Motto Dieu mon Droit GOD and my Right first given by King Richard the Ist to intimate that he held not his Empire of any but of GOD alone was afterwards taken up by Edward the IIId when he first laid Claim to the Crown of France Dominions The Dominions of the King of Great Britain are at this day in possession the Islands of Great Britain and Ireland containing three Kingdoms of large Extent with all the other Isles lying in the British Sea being above four hundred in all great and small some whereof are very considerable together with all the adjacent Seas even to the Shores of the Neighboring Nations As a Mark whereof all Ships of Forreigners have anciently demanded leave to fish and pass in these Seas and do at this day lower their Topsails to all the Kings Ships of War And therefore Children born upon those Seas as it sometimes happens are esteemed natural born Subjects to the King of Great Britain and therefore need no Naturalization as do those that are born out of his Dominions He hath likewise in possession the Isles of Jersey Guernsey Alderney and Sark being Parcel of the ancient Dutchy of Normandy besides the profitable Plantations of New England Virginia Barbados Jamaica Maryland Bermudos Carolina New-York and other places in America with some in the East Indies and upon the Coast of Africa The Strength of the Monarch of Strength Great Britain since the Union of the two Kingdoms has never yet been fully tried the Parliaments of the two last Kings infected with the pestilential Principles of Presbyterianism and Democratism having upon all occasions proved refractory to their Designs and rather catching at all Opportunities of diminishing the Royal Prerogative and augmenting the falsly so called Liberty of the People being to speak truly only a Priviledge to Tyrannize more uncontrollably over their Fellow-Subjects than any wayes endeavoring to support and maintain the Grandeur and Glory of the King and Kingdom insomuch that there was invented a most unnatural Distinction of Subjects into Royalists and Patriots as if any man could shew himself a Lover of his Country by braving and opposing the Father of it whereas the Relation between King and Kingdom is so great that their Wel-being is reciprocal And tho for some time after his Majesties Return the Parliaments of all his three Kingdoms seemed to vy which of them should most readily comply with their Soveraigns Desires and Designs yet the Fanatical and Antimonarchical Faction who ever since his Majesties happy Restauration have been secretly blowing the Coals of Rebellion and by their sly and false
Insinuations have continually labored to disquiet the Minds of the People with pretended Fears of Popery and ungrounded Jealousies of I know not what Arbitrary Power have so far of late prevailed that the Loyalty of many unthinking persons has been strangely staggered and their Spirits so exasperated that several of the English Commonalty have by the Artifices of these Seditious Boutefeus been brought to such a forgetfulness of the Duty which by all Divine and Humane Laws they ow unto their Prince that some Parliaments have of late seemed perfect States of War wherein a prevalent Faction in the House of Commons instead of readily affording their Assistance to their Soveraign for the strengthning and supporting of his Government against Forreign and Domestick Enemies have under Pretence of securing the Priviledges and Liberty of the People been tugging and contending to ravish away the Regal Prerogatives from the Crown and by importuning his Majesty contrary to his often-declared Resolutions of never consenting to so great an Injustice to alter the Succession of the Crown from its lineal and legal Descent to subvert this ancient and hereditary Monarchy by ruining its firmest Foundation But the Intrigues of the Faction having been laid open by his Majesties Gracious Declaration of the Reasons inducing him to dissolve the two last Parliaments and by the seasonable Publication of that Horrid Association a Copy whereof was produced at the late Proceedings against the Earl of Shaftsbury in whose Closet it was proved to have been found the Mists which these Religious Juglers for the better concealing their damnable Designs had cast before the Eyes of the People are so far dissipated that whenever his Majesty shall in his Princely Wisdom think fit to call another Parliament it may well be hoped that the People from whose Eyes the Scales which have so long blinded them begin now to drop off will choose themselves such Representatives as in their Testimonies of Loyalty and Submission to their Soveraign will eagerly strive to outgo the very best of their Predecessors such as will by their unanimous Acknowledgment of the unalterableness of the Succession as has been lately done in Scotland assert the Sacredness of the British Monarchy by their Care to put a Stop to the Debauchery of the Press whose prolifick Womb daily teeming with new Monsters fills every Corner of the Nation with Seditious Pamphlets will take away those continual Incentives to Rebellion by undeceiving the deluded Vulgar will free us from that Charm under which we have now almost these four years lain as it were bewitched and by readily complying with all his Majesties just and honorable Desires and Designes will enable him to vindicate his own and the Nations Honor against all external Oppositions or internal Rebellions And then it will not be easy to comprehend what great things his Majesty so Loyally assisted may attempt and effect especially if we shall but consider how the mighty Power of the King of England before the Conjunction of Scotland and total Subjection of Ireland both which were usually at enmity with him has been notoriously known to the World and sufficiently felt by our Neighbor-Nations The Island of Great Britain is by a present learned Writer to whose Collections I am not a little indebted not unfitly said to resemble a great Garrison-Town not only fenced with strong Works her Port-Towns and environed with a vast and deep Ditch the Sea but guarded with excellent Outworks the strongest and best built Ships of War in the World and so abundantly furnished within with Men and Horses with Victuals and Ammunition with Cloaths and Money that if all the Potentates of Europe should which GOD forbid conspire against it they could hardly distress it Insomuch that we may well be permitted to affirm that as her own Natural Commodities are sufficient to maintain her so nothing but her own unnatural Seditions is capable to destroy her Thus admirable is the Defensive Strength of the Monarch of Great Britain nor can his Offensive Puissance but be formidable to the World when it shall be considered that being Master of the Sea as if he be not wanting to himself or his Subjects to him he must be he may in some sort be said to be Master of every Countrey bordering thereupon and is at liberty where when and upon what Terms he pleaseth to begin or end a War for the carrying on of which he is well able whenever he shall think fit so to do to raise of Englishmen besides Auxiliaries of valiant Scots and Irish two hundred thousand Foot and fifty thousand Horse so many having been computed during the late Rebellion to have been in Arms on both sides and that without any considerable miss of them in any City Town or Village whose natural Agility of Body Patience Hardiness and Resolution is so great and their fear of Death so little that scarce any Nation of the World upon equal Terms and Number has ever been able to stand before them either at Sea or Land For the transporting of an Army his Majesty hath at command neer two hundred Ships of War and can hire as many or more stout English Merchant Ships not much inferior to Ships of War all which he can soon Man with the best Sea Souldiers if not the best Mariners in the World And for the maintaining so vast a Fleet sufficient Money may for a competent Time be raised by a Moderate Land-Tax and for a long time by an easy Excise to be laid only upon such Commodities as naturally tend to the occasioning of Pride Idleness Luxury Wantonness and the Corruption of good Mannâ—râ—s Person That the Persons of Monarchs have in all Ages of the World been esteemed sacred and as such received a more than ordinary Respect and Veneration from their Subjects is so manifest from the concurrent Practice of ancient and present Times that it cannot with any shew of Truth be contradicted The Patriarchs of the old World were not only Kings but Priests having in themselves all Fulness of Jurisdiction and taking no less Care for the instructing of those whom GOD had subjected to them in the manner of performing their Adorations to their Creator than in teaching them the Laws and Institutes of a Civil Life And tho the Almighty was pleased amongst his own peculiar People the Israelites after their Departure out of the Land of Aegypt to separate the Spiritual and Temporal Functions entailing the Priesthood upon Aaron and his Posterity into whose Office it was not lawful for their Kings themselves to intrude yet were they in all Civil matters subject to the Kings Authority who was as were also the Priests anointed with Oyl to intimate the Sacredness of his Person When the Kings and Princes of the World began to submit their Crowns and Scepters to the Cross of our Redeemer and instead of Persecutors to become Protectors of the Church this sacred Ceremony of Anointing was again restored and Monarchs thereby admonished
that as their Persons were sacred and Spiritual so it was no less a part of their Duty to take care of the external Regulation and peace of the Church than of the Civil Government of their States Yet were there antiently none anointed but the two Emperors of the East and West the Kings of France England Sicily and Hierusalem amongst whom the Monarch of Great Britain may lay as ancient a Claim to this Holy Unction as any other Prince of Europe the very first Kings of this Island after it was freed from the Jurisdiction of the Romans having been anointed By reason of which Unction it was in the Reign of Edward the IIId declared that the Kings of England were capable of Spiritual Jurisdiction Of this Sacred Person of the King of his Life and Safety so singular a Care is taken that the Laws of both the Realms whereinto this Island is divided do herein agree that it is High Treason only to imagin or intend the Death of the King And because likewise by imagining or conspiring the Death of the Kings Councellors or Great Officers of his Houshold the Death of the Sovereign may ensue and is usually aimed at all such Conspiracies tho never taking effect are punished with Death tho in all other Capital Cases no man is put to Death unless the Act follow the Intent Nay in so high an esteem is the Kings Person had that to offend against those Persons and Things whereby he is represented as to kill some of the Crown Officers or any of the Kings Judges executing their Office to counterfeit the Kings Seals or his Moneys is made High Treason because by all these his Sacred Person is represented And so horrid is this Crime of High Treason that besides the Loss of Life and Honour the Criminal forfeits all his Estate Real and Personal his Wife loses her Dower his Children their Nobility and all their Right of Inheritance to him or any other Ancestor and are to be ranked amongst the Peasantry and Ignoble till the King shall please to restore them For so heinous is this Offence that the Law can hardly endure to see the Posterity of the Offender survive him And rather than Treason against the Kings Person shall go unpunished the Innocent shall in some cases suffer for if an Ideot or Lunatick who having no Will cannot possibly be said to offend shall during his Ideocy or Lunacy kill or go about to kill the King he shall be punished as a Traytor tho not being Compos mentis he can neither commit Felony Petit Treason or any other sort of High Treason So tender a Regard is moreover had of this most precious Person of the King that no Physick ought to be administred to him but what his Physicians prepare with their own Hands and not by the Hands of any Apothecary nor are they to use the Assistance of any Chirurgeons but such as are sworn Chirurgeons to his Person This Person of the King in his Natural as well as Politick Capacity is every Subject to defend with his own Life and Limbs For the King being Father of his Country it should seem a pleasant thing to every Loyal-hearted Subject to lose Life or Limb in defending him from Conspiracies Rebellions or Invasions or assisting him in the Execution of his Laws The Office of the Monarch of Great Britain and indeed of every Christian Prince Office was by the Holy Roman Bishop St. Eleutherius described to our first Christian King Lucius Which Description recorded in the Laws of St. Edward the Confessor King of England is as followeth A King being the Minister and Delegate of the Supreme King is appointed by GOD for this end that He govern this Earthly Kingdom and People of our Lord and above all that he govern and venerate his Church defending it from all who would injure it That he root out of it and utterly destroy all Evil-Doers For the better enabling themselves to discharge this great and weighty Office to the just and upright Performance whereof every King at his Coronation obliges himself by solemn Oath Prerogatives the Monarchs of Great Britain have reserved as inherent in their Crown certain extraordinary Powers Preeminences and Priviledges commonly called Royal Prerogatives some of the most remarkable whereof in which as being necessary for the Preservation of the Government and the Safety and Interest of the People the Laws of both Kingdoms agree do here follow The King solely and alone has by his Royal Prerogative without any Act of Parliament the absolute Power of declaring War making Peace sending and receiving Ambassadours entring into and concluding Leagues and Treaties with any Forreign Prince or State He has the sole Disposing and Ordering of the Militia by Sea and Land raising Forces Garrisoning and Fortifying Places setting out Ships of War and Pressing Men if need require He alone disposes of all Magazins Ammunition Castles Fortresses Ports and Havens and has the laying out and employing as he pleases of all Publick Monies or the Revenues of the Crown and Kingdom He appoints the Metal Weight Purity and Value of Money and may by his Proclamation make any Forreign Coin to be lawful and Current Money within his Dominions By his Royal Prerogative he may of his meer Will and Pleasure convoke adjourn prorogue remove and dissolve Parliaments and may to any Act passed by them give or refuse without rendring any Reason his Royal Assent without which a Bill is but a meer Cadaver a lifeless and inanimate Lump He may at his pleasure increase the number of the Members of Parliament by creating new Barons and bestowing Priviledges upon other Towns to send Burgesses to Parliament Yea he may call to Parliament by Writ any one whether Alien or Native whom he in his Princely Wisdom shall think fit and may refuse to send his Writ to some others that have sat in former Parliaments His Majesty alone hath the Choice and Nomination of all Magistrates Councellors and Officers of State of all Bishops and other high Dignities in the Church of all Commanders and other Officers at Sea and Land the bestowing of all Honors of the higher and lower Nobility the Power of determining Rewards for Services and Punishments for Misdemeanors He may by his Letters Patents erect new Counties Bishopricks Universities Cities Burroughs Hospitals Schools Fairs Markets Courts of Justice Forrests Chases and Free-Warrens He hath by his Prerogative Power to enfranchise an Alien and thereby to enable him to purchase Houses and Lands and to bear some Offices He hath Power to grant Letters of Mart or Reprisal Safe Conducts c. No Proclamation can be made but by the King Between which and a Statute as the Difference originally was not great the King making the latter by the Common Councel of the Kingdom whereas in the former he had but the Advice of his great Councel of the Peers or of his Privy Councel only So what Judgment Parliaments have formerly
had of Proclamations appears by these Words of a Statute made in the one and thirtieth year of King Henry the VIIIth Forasmuch as the King by the Advice of his Councel hath set forth Proclamations which obstinate Persons have contemned not considering what a King by his Royal Power may do Considering that sudden Causes and Occasions fortune many times which do require speedy Remedies and thaâ— by abiding for a Parliament in the mean time might happen great prejudice to ensue to the Realm And weighing also that his Majesty which by the Kingly and Regal Power given him by GOD may do many things in such Cases should not be driven to extend the Liberties and Supremity of his Regal Power and Dignity by wilfulness of froward Subjects It is therefore thought fit that the King with the Advice of his Honorable Councel should set forth Proclamations for the good of the People and Defence of his Royal Dignity as necessity shall require The King only can give Patents in case of Losses by Fire or otherwise to receive the charitable Benevolences of the People without which none may ask it publickly The King by his Prerogative is Vltimus Haeres Regni and the Receptacle of all Estates when no Heir appears For this cause all Estates for want of Heirs or by Forfeiture escheat to the King All Spiritual Benefices for want of Presentation by the Bishop are lapsed at last to the King All Money Gold Silver Plate or Bullion found and the Owners thereof not known belong to the King and so do all Wayfs Strays Wrecks not granted away by him or any of his Predecessors All Wast Ground or Land recovered from the Sea all Land of Aliens dying before Naturalization all things the property whereof is not known and all Gold or Silver Mines in whose Ground soever they are found belong to the King In the Church the Kings Prerogative is very great He only hath the Patronage of all Bishopricks None can be elected Bishop but whom he hath first nominated None can be consecrated or take possession of the Revenues of any Bishoprick without his special Writ or Assent He is the Nursing-Father of the Church and hath Power to call a National or Provincial Synod and with the Advice and Consent thereof to make Canons Orders Ordinances and Constitutions relating to the Government and Polity of the Church wherein as it was affirmed by Christopher Wray Speaker of the House of Commons in the thirteenth year of Queen Elizabeth the Princes Power is absolute The King has Power upon Causes only known to himself to dispence by Non Obstantes with General Laws made in Parliament and with the Penalties for transgressing them where such Penalty is appropriated to himself alone to mitigate the Rigor of the Laws where Equity and Conscience require Moderation to alter or suspend any particular Law that he judges hurtfull to the Commonwealth to pardon a Man legally condemned to grant special Priviledges to particular Persons Colledges and Corporations and if any Doubt arises concerning such Priviledges he only has Right to interpret them To him and the Judges constituted by him does it belong to interpret all Statutes and to determin and pass Sentence in Cases not defined by Law These are some Branches of that Jus Coronae of that Regal Prerogative of the name whereof however some persons are afraid yet may they assure themselves that the Case of Subjects would be desperately miserable without it since the Kings just Rights are the best Preserver of the Peoples Liberties being an impregnable Bulwark against all popular Invasions and illegal Powers Nor have there ever been found any greater Oppressors of the People than those who under pretence of asserting their Liberties have endeavored to lessen the Royal Authority Thus in the great Contest between Henry the IIId King of England and the Barons about the pretended Liberties of themselves and the People the King being forced at length to yield the Lords instead of that glorious Freedom which they promised the Nation ingrossed all Power into their own Hands under the Name of the twenty four Conservators of the Kingdom behaving themselves like so many Tyrants acting all in their own Names and in Juntoes of their own wholly neglecting or else over-ruling Parliaments But then not agreeing among themselves four of them viz. the Earls of Leicester Glocester Hereford and Spencer defeated the other twenty and drew the entire Management of Affairs into their own hands Yet it continued so not long Leicester getting all into his own Power who being slain in Battle the King recovered his Authority and the People their true Liberty Many of these Prerogatives those especially that concern Justice and Peace are so essential to Royalty that they cannot be separated from it but by the destruction of the Monarchy it self Not without reason therefore did the Estates of England assembled in Parliament in the Reign of King Edward the IIId declare that they could not tho the King himself should desire it assent to any thing which tended to the Disherison of the King and his Crown whereunto they were sworn The King therefore as he is by his Office Debitor Justitiae obliged to administer Justice to his People so is he in Conscience bound to maintain the Rights of the Crown in possession and to endeavour the recovery of those whereof it has been dispossest And how dismal the Effects have been whenever any King neglecting the religious observance of this part of his Duty has been prevailed upon to give way to the lessening of his Royal Prerogative we have a sad Example in his Majesties Father of Blessed Memory who parting tho but only Pro illa vice with his absolute Power of dissolving Parliaments and giving it to the two Houses they never ceased farther incroaching upon his Prerogatives till he himself was barbarously murthered the Government wholly subverted and all the Liberties of the People trampled under foot To him therefore that shall seriously consider the many fatal Mischiefs and Inconveniences which necessarily follow the Diminution of the Kings Prerogative it will seem no Paradox to affirm that it is the Subjects great Interest to be far more sollicitous that the King maintain and uphold his own Prerogative and Preeminence than their Rights and Liberties which as they had no other Original but the Grace and Bounty of the Prince so must they of necessity perish when he is no longer able to protect them It is not thefore to be wondred that a right Apprehension of such pernicious Consequences made his Sacred Majesty refuse his Royal Assent to a Bill presented him for the raising of the Militia tho it was if passed into an Act to have continued in force but six Weeks Because the Tendency of the Bill being to put out of his Possession the Posse Regni or absolute command over the Forces of the Realm he could not answer unto GOD by whom alone he is intrusted with his Regal Power
for the Safety and Well-Government of his Subjects the abandoning tho for so short a time the Protection and Defence of the People committed to his Charge Whatever things are proper unto Supreme Majesty Scepters and Crowns Soveraignty the Purple Robe the Globe or Golden Ball and Holy Unction have as long appertained to the British Monarch as to any other Prince in Europe The Antiquity of anointing Kings in Britain has been already shewn out of Gildas and as for the other four they are by Leland a famous Antiquary ascribed unto King Arthur who began his Reign in the Year of our Lord 506. Which was as soon as they were ordinarily in use with the Roman Emperors The King of Great Britain is an absolute and unaccountable Monarch a Free Prince of Soveraign Power not holding his Kingdom in Vassallage nor receiving his Instalment or Investiture from another Nor does he acknowledge Superiority to any but to GOD alone He is not only the Supreme but sole Legislator within his Dominions The Power of making Laws whatever some Antimonarchists pretend to the contrary rests solely in him And altho the Gracious Condescension of our Kings has been such as to render the subordinate Concurrence of the Estates of each Realm a Condition requisite to the making of new or abrogating of old Laws within the respective Kingdoms yet are they not thereby admitted to any Share in the Soveraignty their Power being wholly derivative from the King who is Caput Principium Finis Parliamentorum the three Estates when assembled in Parliament being as much his Subjects as every particular Man of them is when the Meeting is dissolved All Bills passed by them are but so much dead matter till quickned by his Royal Fiat which alone gives Life and Form to all their Proceedings Nor is it ex debito Justitiae but of his Special Grace that he passes such Acts as are presented to him Thus Henry the IIId begins his Magna Charta with Know ye that WE of our meer and free Will have given these Liberties Thus we hear King Edward the Ist saying The King of his special Grace for Redress of the Grievances of His People sustained by his Wars and for the Amendment of their Estate and to the intent that they may be the more ready to do him Service the more willing to assist and aid him in time of need Grants 28. E. 1. c. 1. And altho of later times Laws are said to be made by Authority of Parliament yet if we look into our antient Statutes we shall find the meaning to be that The King Ordains the Lords advise and the Commons consent Those then are much mistaken who affirm the Parliament to be at the least as Essential a Part of the Government as the Prince Which if it were true whenever the Parliament is dissolved the Government would be so too But this with the Pernicious Maxim of Coordinacy or sharing the Soveraign Power between King Lords and Commons with other treasonable and Antimonarchical Doctrines daily dispersed amongst the People and with the utmost of his Art industriously asserted by the Author of a late seditious Book entituled Plato Redivivus together with his audacious Proposals aiming to take all the Flowers out of the Imperial Diadem of the British Monarch are most fitly to be answered in Westminster-Hall as tending no less to the subversion of our Government which being purely Monarchical may be without the two Houses whereas they cannot be without the King than those traitorous Designs for which Coleman and his Accomplices paid their forfeited Lives to the Justice of the Laws The King of Great Britain is Lord Paramount supreme Landlord of all the Lands within his Dominions all landed men being mediately or immediately his Tenants by some Tenure or other By the Laws and Ordinances of ancient Kings saith Sir Edward Cook in the first part of his Institutes and especially of King Alfred it appeareth that the first Kings of this Realm had all the Lands of England in Demesne and the great Manors and Royalties they reserved to themselves and of the Remnant they for the Defence of the Realm enfeoffed the Barons of the Realm with such Jurisdiction as the Court Baron now hath The King as it is evident by the Rolls of the Chancellery in Scotland which contain their eldest and fundamental Laws is Dominus omnium bonorum and Dominus directus totius Dominii the whole Subjects being but his Vassals and from him holding all their Lands as their Over-lord Thus none but the King hath Allodium and Directum Dominium the sole and independent Property in any Land Upon this Ground no doubt it was that Serjeant Heal in the three and fortieth year of Queen Elizabeth said in Parliament He marvelled the House stood either at the granting of a Subsidy or time of Payment when all we have is her Majesties and She may lawfully at her pleasure take it from us and that She had as much Right to all our Lands and Goods as to any Revenue of the Crown And he said he could prove it by Precedents in the time of Henry the IIId King John and King Stephen And upon the same Ground was it resolved by the Judges in the beginning of the Reign of King James when there was a purpose to have taken away Tenures by Act of Parliament That such a Statute had been void because the Tenures were for the Defence of the King and Kingdom And altho since that the Tenures which gave a Dependency upon the Crown and were the greatest Safety to the King and People have been taken away and thereby a great Blow given to Monarchy yet let those who have the Fee the Jus perpetuum and the Vtile Dominium have a care lest by following the mischievous Advice of Plato Redivivus and abusing the Grace and Bounty of the Prince by endeavoring to draw the Soveraignty to themselves they necessitate not their King for the Preservation of himself and People to have Recourse to his Prerogative which is a Preheminence in Cases of Necessity above and before the Law of Property or Inheritance For the Prevention whereof it is to be wished that either by an Act of Resumption of the ancient Demesns of the Crown which was a sacred Patrimony and by Law unalienable or by such other way as the Wisdom of the Nation shall think fit a Royal Support adaequate to the Charges of the Crown be made for the King to defend his Kingdom and protect his People so that he may not be reduced to the Infelicity of having a precarious Revenue out of the Peoples Purse and to be beholden to a Parliament for his Bread in time of Peace which is no good Condition for a Monarchy As the Legislative Power is solely in the King so he alone has the Soveraign Power in the Administration of Justice and Execution of the Law He is the Fountain of all Justice which by his Judges and
other inferior Officers as so many Crystal Pipes he conveyeth to his People We will saith Edward the I st in his Book of Laws written at his appointment by John Briton Bishop of Hereford that our own Jurisdiction be above all Jurisdictions in our Realm so that in all manner of Felonies Trespasses Contracts and all other Actions Personal or Real We have Power to render or cause to be rendred such Judgments as do appertain without other Process whereever we know the right Truth as Judges All Jurisdiction say the Scotch Laws stands and consists in the Kings person by reason of his Royal Authority and Crown and is competent to no Subject but flows and proceeds from the King having Supreme Jurisdiction and is given and committed by him to his Subjects as he pleases The King then is the sole Supreme Judge all other Judges being his Deputies to whom whatsoever Power is by him committed yet is the last Appeal alwayes to be made to himself who may therefore as his Predecessors formerly have done sit in any Court and take Cognizance of any Cause but in Treasons Felonies c. the King being Plaintif sits not personally in Judgment but doth perform it by his Delegates From the King of Great Britain who being the only Supreme Head is furnished with Plenary Power and Jurisdiction to render Justice to every Member within his Dominions there lies no Appeal in Ecclesiastical Causes to the Bishop of Rome whose Authority ever since the Reformation has been here wholly abrogated nor in Civil Matters to the Emperor who for above twelve hundred years has not had the least Shadow of Pretence to any Jurisdiction within this Island nor in either to the people who both in themselves and by their Representatives in Parliament as well Conjunctim as Divisim are his Subjects and ow Obedience to his Commands To Legislation and Judicature which are solely and supremely in the King is necessary the Power of the Sword without which all other Power is nothing for forcing Obedience to the Laws and Judgments given both in Criminal and Civil Causes This having in virtue of their Soveraignty been alwayes indisputably enjoyed by the Monarchs of this Nation till the time of the late Rebellion was since his Majesties Restauration by a Parliament as truly zealous for the happiness of their King and Country as ever this Nation saw in proper and express Terms declared to be the Right of the King only without either of his Houses of Parliament the contrary Position thereunto asserted by the rebellious Members of the Parliament of 1640. having been the chief Means of overturning our Government and bringing Confusion and Misery upon this flourishing Kingdom Divinity So great was the Veneration shewn to the ancient Christian Emperors by their Subjects that they gave them tho imperfectly only and Analogically the Titles of Your Everlastingness Your Divinity and the like belonging essentially and perfectly to GOD alone Who to shew the great Power by him given to Soveraign Princes and to beget in the Hearts of their People an higher Esteem and more reverend Awfulness of them which failing all Confusion Impiety and Calamity break in upon a Nation is himself pleased as is manifest in Holy Writ to bestow upon them the Title of Gods as being his Vicegerents and representing his Majesty and Power upon Earth Nay so excessive was the Respect of the good Christians of those times that they were wont to swear by the Majesty of their Emperor as Joseph sometimes did by the Life of Pharaoh And this Custom seems to be justified by Vegetus a learned Writer of that Age being practiced only to create in the Subjects a greater Reverence for these Earthly Deities In like manner the Laws and Constitutions of this Monarchy attribute to the King whom they regard as GOD upon Earth divers Excellencies which belong properly to none but GOD. Thus as GOD is perfect so the Law will have no Imperfection found in the King No Negligence no Folly no Infamy or Corruption of Blood all former Attainders tho even made by Act of Parliament being ipso facto purged by the Accession of the Crown To the King is attributed Infallibility and Justice in the Abstract The King cannot erre The King can do no wrong To the King is likewise ascribed a Kind of Immortality The King never dies as being a Corporation in himself that lives for ever For all Interregna being unknown in these Kingdoms the same Moment that one King dies the next Heir is fully and absolutely King without any Coronation Ceremony or Act to be done The King is also in some sort said to be Omnipresent He is in a manner every where in all his Courts of Justice in all his Palaces Therefore it is that all his Subjects stand bare in the Presence Chamber wheresoever the Chair of State is placed tho the King be many Miles distance from thence He hath also a kind of Universal Influence over all his Dominions His Fatherly Care is extended to preserve feed instruct and defend the whole Commonweal His War His Peace His Courts of Justice and all His Acts of Soveraignty tend only to preserve and distribute to every person within his Territories their particular Rights and Priviledges By his Power of creating to the highest Dignity and annihilating the same at pleasure and much more by his Prerogative of pardoning those whom the Law has condemned he is invested with a kind of Omnipotency whereby he can restore to life those that are dead in Law And this Power of pardoning condemned Criminals is of such Benefit to the Lives and Estates of the People that without it many would be exposed to die unjustly The King alone in his own Dominions can say with GOD whose Representative he is Vengeance is Mine For all Punishments proceed from him in some of his Courts of Justice it not being lawful for any Subject to avenge himself The King alone is Judge in his own Cause tho he delivers his Judgment by the Mouth of his Judges But in nothing doth the King more resemble the eternal Deity than in the Plenitude of his Power to do what he pleases without being opposed resisted or questioned by his Subjects Nemo quidem saith Bracton de factis ejus praesumat disputare multo minus contra factum ejus ire Let none presume to search into his deeds much less to oppose them Nor is this a Priviledge belonging only to the King of Great Britain but a Prerogative inherent in every Soveraign Prince by vertue of his Soveraignty Where the word of a King is there is Power and who may say unto him what dost thou saith the Spirit of God by the mouth of the Royal Prophet Salomon For Kingly Power being by the Law of God hath no inferior Law to limit it The Emperor saith Saint Augustine is not Subject to Laws who hath Power to make other Laws Accordingly it is delivered by the great Lawyer
Vlpian for a Rule of the Civil Law Princeps Legibus solutus est The Prince is not bound by the Laws Agreeable whereunto is what is said in the Laws of England Potestas Principis non est inclusa Legibus The Power of the Prince is not included in the Laws Hence no doubt it was that Mr. Grivel in the Thirty first year of Queen Elizabeth said in Parliament That he wished not the making of many Laws since the more we make the less Liberty we have our selves Her Majesty not being bound by them Yet is not this so to be understood that Kings have hereby a right to do Injury but that it is Right for them to go unpunished by their People if they do it The King cannot be impleaded for any Crime No Action lieth against his Person For the Writ goeth forth in his Name and he cannot arrest himself If he should which God forbid violently seizâ— upon the Estate of any Subject having no Title by Law so to do the only Remedy is by Petitioning him to amend his Fault which if he shall refuse to do it will be Punishment sufficient for him to expect that GOD who has given him his Prerogative of being above all Laws for the good only of them that are under the Laws and for the Defence of his Peoples Liberties will severely avenge the Cause of oppressed Loyal Subjects But altho whatever the King shall do he is not questionable for it by his Subjects yet there are divers things which he cannot do Salvo Jure Salvo Juramento Salva Conscientia sua For by an Oath taken at his Coronation the King obliges himself and indeed without any Oath he is by the Law of Nature and Christianity as are all other Christian Kings obliged to procure the Safety and Welfare of his People to protect and defend them against their Enemies to maintain and preserve them in their Properties just Rights and Liberties to administer upright Justice with Discretion and Mercy and in order thereunto to consent to the enacting of good Laws and repealing of Bad. Thus the King can do nothing unjustly nor can he divest himself or his Successors of any part of his Regal Power Prerogative and Authority inherent in the Crown and necessary for the Government and Protection of his People Two things there are especially which having somewhat of Odium in them the King doth not usually do without the Consent of his Parliament that is make new Laws and impose new Taxes the one whereof seems and does but seem to infringe the Peoples Liberties and the other to entrench upon their Properties To take away therefore all Occasions of Disaffection to the Anointed of the Lord stiled in Holy Scripture the Breath of our Nostrils and the Light of our Eyes the Wisdom of our former Princes his Majesties Royal Ancestors has contrived that for both these there should Petitions first be made by the People to the King Tho these and divers other Prerogatives do rightfully belong unto and are enjoyed by the Monarch of Great Britain yet doth he ordinarily govern his people by the known Laws and Customs of his Kingdoms making use of his Royal Prerogative for the Benefit not Damage of his Subjects in some rare and extraordinary Cases only Hereunto may be added a singular and Miraculous Priviledge enjoyed by the Kings of Great Britain quatenus Kings conferred first by the Divine Benignity upon that Blessed King of England St. Edward the Confessor and ever since continued to his Successors which is by the Imposition of their Sacred Hands to drive away and cure that stubborn Disease called the Struma or Scrofula and by us commonly from this supernatural manner of its Cure the Kings Evil. Upon certain dayes almost every Week during the cold Seasons his Majesty graciously permits all that are afflicted with that Disease having been first carefully viewed and allowed by his Chirurgeons to be brought into his Royal Presence Where an appointed Form of Divine Service consisting of some short Prayers pertinent to the Occasion and two Portions of Holy Scripture taken out of the Gospel being read the King at the pronouncing of these Words They shall lay their hands upon the Sick and they shall recover gently draws both his Hands over the Sore of the sick person the same words being repeated at every Touch. And at these Words This was the true Light which enlightneth every Man that cometh into this World he putteth about the Neck of each Sick person a piece of Gold called from the Impression an Angel being in value about eleven Shillings Sterling This evident Cure is by many malignant Nonconformists those true Sons of Belial daily despising and speaking evil of Dignities ascribed to the Strength of Fancy and exalted Imagination but little do they reflect upon how many tender Infants no way capable of such Transports this stupendious Cure is effectually performed Respect In consideration of these and many other transcendent Excellencies to no Prince or other Potentate in Christendom is done more Honour Reverence or Respect than to the Monarch of Great Britain All his Subjects at their first Addresses kneel unto him At Table he is served on the knee All persons the Prince or other Heir apparent not excepted are bare-headed in his Presence In the Presence Chamber tho the King be not there all men are not only uncovered but do or ought to do Reverence to the Chair of State The Kings only Testimony of any thing done in his presence is of as high a Nature and Credit as any Record And in all Writs sent forth for the Dispatch of Justice hee useth no other Witness but himself viz. Teste meipso As the King of Great Britain is thus reverenced and respected at home so is he no less honored and esteemed abroad For if he be regarded solely as King of England we shall find that the Emperor was accounted Filius major Ecclesiae the King of France Filius minor and the King of England Filius adoptivus That in General Councels the King of France took place on the Emperors Right Hand the King of England on his Left the King of Scots having Precedency next before Castile And that tho since the time of the Emperor Charles the Vth. the Kings of Spain have challenged the Precedency of all Christian Princes which nevertheless they have within this twenty years yielded to France yet in the time of our King Henry the VIIth Pope Julius gave it to the English before the Spaniard But if looking upon him as succeeding to the ancient British Kings whose true and undoubted Heir he is by Lineal and unquestionable Descent we shall consider the Antiquity of his Predecessors either as Kings Reigning here above a thousand years before the coming in of the Romans His Majesty now regnant being from the first British Kings the hundred thirty nineth Monarch or as Christians this Island having not only shewn to the World the first Christian King
King And thereunto we most humbly and faithfully do submit and oblige our selves our Heirs and our Posterities for ever And some years after it was by all the Judges of England expresly resolved in Calvins Case That King James his Title to the Crown was founded upon the Laws of Nature viz. by inherent Birth-right and Descent from the Blood-Royal of this Realm All Acts of Parliament then for excluding from the throne the next Heir of the Blood Royal on whom the Crown descends by the Laws of God and Nature by inherent Birthright and undoubted Succession being ipso facto null and void it is not to be wondred that his present Sacred Majesty so constantly declared that he would never consent to alter the Descent of the Crown in the right Line as not being willing by shewing his People a Method of disposing the Succession to shake at the same time the Title of his own Possession Since it is evident that the Heir apparent or next of Blood hath the same Right to enjoy the Crown after his Predecessors Death as the Actual Possessor hath to it during his Life and consequently that the People have no more Right to disinherit the one than to depose the other Nor can any man be blamed for apprehending that some such thing might be aimed at by the first Projectors of the Bill for excluding his Royal Highness from the Succession if it shall be considered that the chief Sticklers for that Bill insisted on the Deposition of Edward the IId contrived by a leacherous Queen and disloyal Parliament and that of Richard the IId who was for pretended Misgovernment removed from the Throne by a Parliament over-awed by an Army of fourty or fifty thousand men and Henry the IVth substituted in his stead that during the Heat of these debates the Answer to the Great and Weighty Considerations wherein besides many other treasonable Passages the Author has these express words I hope there are very few in this Nation that do not think it in the Power of the People to depose a Prince who really undertakes to alienate his Kingdom or give it up into the hands of another Soveraign Power or really acts the Destruction or general Calamity of his People was publickly sold before the very Doors of Parliament and that the same House of Commons which was with so much eagerness hurried on to the passing of that Bill was also prevailed upon to importune his Majesty in behalf of the publisher of that pernicious Appeal from the Country to the City which by affirming that No Government but Monarchy can in England ever support or favor Popery endeavors not only to destroy the King but even Kingship it self But well fare the noble Lords of England who with a Nolumus Leges Angliae mutari rejected that abominable Bill which tho it would if passed into an Act have been of no greater Force or Validity than the Wild Ordinances of the Rebellious Parliament of 1640. yet might it as they were be made use of to induce the deluded Multitude to hazard their Souls Bodies and Estates by a damnable Opposition of their Lawful Soveraign and to raise up a Contest in this Nation not unlike to the old Yorkish and Lancastrian Quarrel the Thoughts whereof every good man must certainly dread when he shall seriously consider how that War lasted about sixty years and cost the Kingdom its whole Treasure and the Lives of above two hundred thousand of the Commons besides several Kings and Princes and Nobles without number So sensible was the renowned Queen Elizabeth of those fatal Consequences which necessarily attend so unjust an Act as that of altering the Succession that altho for Reasons obvious enough and needless here to be mentioned she yeilded to pass an Act whereby it was made Treason to say that she and her Parliament could not dispose of the Crown yet could she never be brought to give her Consent to the actual disposing thereof tho the next Heir then alive was not only a Papist but her own Rival to the Throne Nay she was so averse to any such Act that as Camden tells us She never heard any thing more unwillingly than that the Title of Succession should be called into question And therefore she sent Mr. Thornton Reader of Law in Lincolns-Inn to the Tower because in his Reading he called in question the Queen of Scots Title to the Crown And when the Lord Keeper Bacon was accused by the Earl of Leicester for having intermedled against the Queen of Scots Right to the Succession and for being privy to a Book wherein Hales went about to derive the Title of the Crown of England in case the Queen should die without Issue to the House of Suffolk Hales was therefore committed to the Tower and Bacon tho denying it was not without great difficulty restored to favor So likewise when in the eighth year of her Reign Bell Mounson and a great Number of the House of Commons thought it their Right as Representatives of the whole Kingdom whereof they do not in reality represent the sixth part to decide settle the Succession the Queen by a Prince-like Speech in the Parliament-House speedily suppressed their Insolence In like manner when in the thirty fifth year of her Reign Mr. Peter Wentworth and Sir Henry Bromley delivered a Petition to the Lord Keeper desiring the Lords of the Upper House to be Suppliants with them of the Lower to Her Majesty for entailing the Succession of the Crown for which they had a Bill ready drawn the Queen highly displeased hereat charged her Councel to call the Parties before them Whereupon Sir Thomas Henage sending for them commanded them to forbear the Parliament and not to go out of their several Lodgings They were after called before the Lord Treasurer Lord Buckhurst and Sir Thomas Henage by whom Wentworth was committed to the Tower Sir Henry Bromley and other Members of the House of Commons to whom he had imparted the matter being sent to the Fleet. So careful was this prudent Queen to keep the People from presuming to intermeddle with the Succession The same Consideration that the Altering or Diverting the Succession in an hereditary Monarchy where the Kings deriving their Royal Power from GOD Almighty alone do succeed lineally to the Crown according to the known Degrees of Proximity in Blood cannot be attempted without involving the Subjects in Perjury and Rebellion and exposing of them to all the Fatal and Dreadful Consequences of a Civil War not only caused the Estates of Scotland in their very last Sessions of Parliament from an hearty and sincere Sence of their Duty to recognize acknowledge and declare That the Right to the Imperial Crown of that Realm is by the Inherent Right and the Nature of the Monarchy as well as by the Fundamental and unalterable Laws of the Realm transmitted and devolved by a Lineal Succession according to the Proximity of Blood And that upon the Death of the
him and holding his Court apart from the King In the eighth year of his Age being taken from the Charge of his Women Education he had for Governor William then Earl afterward Marquess and lately Duke of Newcastle and after him Thomas late Earl of Berkshire and for Tutor or Preceptor Dr. Brian Duppa then Dean of Christ-Church in Oxford soon after Bishop of Chichester after that of Salisbury and lately of Winchester In October 1642. the two Houses having out of their superabundant Loyalty and great Zeal for the preservation of their Soveraign raised an Army to divest him of his Soveraignty he was with his Father at the Battel of Edge-Hill and not long after was at Oxford committed to the Care of William Marquess of Hertford whom after his own happy Restauration he restored to the Dignity and Precedency of Duke of Somerset In the fifteenth year of his Age he was sent by his Father into the West of England to perfect an Association begun there in the end of the foregoing Summer And not long after there was a Marriage proposed between him and the Infanta Joanna eldest Daughter to the King of Portugal since deceased Departure out of England The year following Barnstable being taken and Exeter besieged by the Rebels he withdrew from Devonshire into Cornwall from whence he passed into the Isle of Scilly and thence to the Queen his Mother being at St. Germains near Paris In the year 1648. a Considerable part of the Royal Navy encouraged thereto by Captain Batten formerly Vice-Admiral to the Earl of Warwick being put into his Power he endeavored to rescue the King his Father out of the impious hands of his rebellious Subjects But failing of Success he was forced to retire to his Sister at the Hague where not many Months after upon the sad News of the barbarous Murther of his Royal Father he was first saluted King soon after proclaimed in Scotland and most Towns of Ireland being yet under nineteen years of Age. In the latter end of the year 1649. he received being then in Jersey Coming into England a Message from the Committee of Estates of Scotland brought by Mr. George Windram of Liberton and the March following met the Scotch Commissioners at Breda in Holland and about the beginning of June 1650. being invited by a solemn Message from the Estates of that Kingdom he took Shipping at Scheveling and having escaped the danger both of a sudden Storm that cast him upon certain Danish Islands and of a Fleet of English Vessels sent out under Popham to intercept his passage arrived at the Spey in the North of Scotland from whence all along his way to Edenborough he was entertained with the general Joy of the People several of the Towns by which he passed making him considerable Presents On the fifteenth of July he was again solemnly proclaimed King at Edenborough Cross and was the first of January following crowned at Scoon the accustomed place for Coronation of the Kings of Scotland Escape from Worcester Being invaded by an Army from England he was forced to quit that Kingdom and try his Fortune in this which he entred the sixth of August 1651. and on the twenty second of the same Month came to Worcester where on the third of September was fought that fatal Battel in which tho his Majesty acted with such marvellous Gallantry and Conduct that he wan applause from his very Enemies yet he unfortunately lost the Day and his whole Army himself not without a Providence unparalleld in History escaping the Hands of his blood-thirsty Enemies who not only by publick Act promised a Sum of Money to those that should discover him but likewise threatned the Penalty of High Treason to any that should conceal him For being in the very Heart England and a thousand pounds set upon his head he was forced to wander about in disguise for six Weeks and to appear in many Places and Companies before he could find a fit opportunity of Transportation During which time tho he were seen and known to many person divers whereof were excessively indigent and therefore liable to be tempted by the proposed Reward divers of the Female Sex and so not only most unapt to retain a Secret but also very subject to be terrified by the threatned Penalty and divers besides all this of the Roman Religion which alone the very Principles thereof having been alwayes clamored against as reputed to teach nothing but Treachery and Disloyalty to Princes and the Lawfulness of breaking Faith with Hereticks might have made his Majesty afraid to trust them yet was he still most miraculously preserved and at length by one Tetershal since a Captain in his Majesties Navy whose Wife suspecting the Business was so far from disencouraging him that she said She cared not if she and her little ones begged their Bread so the King were in safety transported from Bright-hemstead neer Shoram in Sussex to Feccam neer Hauvre de Grace in Normandy whence he posted directly to Rouen and having thence dispatched Letters to the French Court he was met the Queen his Mother the Duke of Orleans and many Persons of Quality and by them conducted to Paris where with his Royal Brothers and divers of the British Nobility Clergy and Gentry he was for some years received and treated as King of Great Britain There by his Excellent Wisdom and Address mediating with the Prince of Conde and the Duke of Lorrain then in the Head of two great Armies against the French King he quenched the newly-kindled Fire of an universal Rebellion raised against him and was a Means of restoring Cardinal Mazarine who had for fear of the Princes of the Blood withdrawn himself to Colen to his former Authority and Greatness In the year 1654. His Majesty understanding that upon a Treaty of Peace between the French King and Oliver Cromwel then stiling himself Protector of the Commonwealth of England Scotland and Ireland one of the chiefest Articles insisted upon by the Usurper was the excluding of him with his Relations and Followers out of France to prevent a ceremonious Expulsion voluntarily departed thence into Germany making his first place of Residence at the Spaw whence after a few Moneths he went to Colen where was discovered the Correspondence between Thurloe Cromwels Secretary and Manning one of the Kings Secretaries Clerks who for giving weekly Intelligence to the Usurper of the Transactions in his Majesties Court was deservedly shot to death After the Rupture between Cromwel and the King of Spain he was by Don John of Austria who being Governor of the Low-Countryes for his Catholick Majesty sent the Count of Fuensaldagne to offer him in the name of the Spanish King all possible Service and Assistance invited into Flanders where making his Residence for the most part at Bruges he continued till a little before Sir George Booths Rising in Cheshire when he removed privately from Bruxels to Calais whence having notice
of Portugal Her Name Catharina Name originally Greek signifies a Woman of excelling Purity and Chastity She had for Father John the IVth Genealogy King of Portugal and is lineally descended from John of Gaunt King of Castile and Leon Duke of Lancaster and fourth Son to Edward the IIId King of England as here appeareth John of Gaunt besides several other Children had a Daughter named Philippa married to John the Ist tenth King of Portugal by whom she had Issue Edward the eleventh King of Portugal Alphonso the Vth. twelfth King of Portugal Emanuel second Son who Succeeded his Elder Brother John the IId dying Issueless and was the fourteenth King of Portugal Edward Infante sixth Son Catharina married to John Duke of Braganza and after the Death of her Uncle Henry the seventeenth King of Portugal true Heir to the Crown from which she was barred by the Arms of Philip the IId King of Spain Duke of Braganza John Duke of Braganza who in the year 1640. recovered his Inheritance and reigned over Portugal by the Name of John the IVth The Infanta Donna Catharina Queen Consort of Great Britain Her Majesties Mother was Donna Lucia Daughter of Don Gusman el Bueno a Spaniard Duke of Medina Sidonia lineally descended from Ferdinando de la Cerde and his Wife Blanche Daughter to St. Lewis King of France who relinquished to her his Right and Title to Spain derived to him by his Mother Blanche eldest Daughter and Heir of the Spanish King Alphonso She was a Lady of that admired Magnanimity and Prudence that the King her Husband trusted so much of the Reins of Government to her masculine and politick Spirit as occasioned a jesting Spaniard to say That it was not the Portugal Force but the Spanish Policy which kept that Kingdom from the Catholick King The Queen of Great Britain is the only Sister of Don Alphonso the VIth the two and twentieth King of Portugal born in the year 1642 and hath one Brother more named Don Pedro born 1648 and now called Prince Regent of Portugal Birth She was born the fourteenth of November 1638 at Villa Vicosa in Portugal her Father who tho right Heir to the Crown of Portugal was then only Duke of Braganza being the most potent Subject in Europe for a third part of Portugal was even at that time holden of him in vassallage Marriage Having been most carefully and piously educated by Mother she was at the Age of two and twenty desired in marriage by Charles the IId King of Great Britain And the Marriage not long after concluded by the Negotiation of Sir Richard Fanshaw Ambassador of his Majesty of Great Britain in the Court of Portugal and of Francesco de Melo Conde de Ponte Marquis de Sande Extraordinary Ambassador from the King of Portugal being solemnized at Lisbon on the twenty third of April 1662. being the Festival of St. George Patron both of England and Portugal she embarkt for England and was by his Excellency Edward Earl of Sandwich Vice-Admiral of England safely conducted by a Squadron of Ships to Portsmouth where being met by the King she was remarried to him From Portsmouth she was by his Majesty brought to Hampton-Court where she continued till the three and twentieth of August following when coming up thence by Water she was with great Pomp and Magnificence received at Chelsey by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London who waited on her thence by Water to Whitehal The Portion Portion brought by her Majesty was eight hundred Millions of Reas or two Millions of Crusadoes amounting to about three hundred thousand Pounds Sterling the City of Tangier on the Coast of Africk and the Isle of Bombaim nere Goa in the East-Indies together with a Priviledg that any Subjects of the King of Great Britain may trade freely in the East and West-India Plantations belonging to the Portugueses Her Jointure Jointure agreed upon by the Articles of Marriage is thirty thousand Pounds Sterling per Annum to which the King as a Testimony of his great Affection to her has added ten thousand Pounds per Annum more Arms. Her Arms as Daughter of Portugal are Argent five Scutcheons Azure Cross-wise each Scutcheon charged with five Besants Argent Salterwise with a Point Sable The Border Gules charged with seven Castles Or. This Coat was first worn by Don Alphonso the first King of Portugal as well in memory of a signal Victory obtained by him over five Kings of the Moores as in honour of the five Wounds of our blessed Lord and Saviour who just before the Battle appeared crucified unto him a voice being heard as once to Constantin the Great In hoc Signo vinces before which time the Portugal Arms were Argent a Crosse Azure Her Majesty is a Personage endowed with rare Perfections both of Mind and Body a Lady of transcendent Piety Modesty and Charity and many other eminent Vertues CHAP. XV. Of the present Princes and Princesses of the Royal Blood of Great Britain THe Glorious Martyr CHARLES the Ist King of Great Britain had by his Queen Henrietta Maria Daughter to the most Christian King Henry the IVth four Sons and five Daughters His Sons were 1. CHARLES-JAMES born at Greenwich on the thirteenth of May 1629. baptized immediately by Dr. Web one of his Majesties Chaplains then in attendance and afterwards a Bishop in Ireland lived not above two hours 2. CHARLES our present Soveraign whom GOD long preserve 3. JAMES now Duke of York and Albany 4. HENRY born at Oatlands on the twentieth of July 1640. declared by his Royal Father Duke of Glocester but not so Created till the thirteenth of May 1659. He lived till above Twenty and dyed unmarried the thirteenth of September 1660. almost four Months after His Majesties happy Restauration bereaving thereby these Nations of those fair Hopes which had been generally conceived from his Noble and Princely Endowments His Daughters were 1. MARY born the fourth of November 1631. married on the second of May 1641. to Count William of Nassau Eldest Son to Henry Prince of Orange to whom she was the February following conveyed by her Mother into Holland The Prince her Husband dyed in the beginning of November 1650. leaving her Great with child soon after whose Death she was delivered of a Son being the present Prince of Orange Coming into England to see her Brother whom the Divine Bounty had miraculously restored to his Throne she here ended her dayes the twenty-fourth of December 1660. being little above nine and twenty Years of Age. Her Loss was exceedingly bewailed by All who had the honour to know her as being a Lady of universal Goodness and Charity 2. ELIZABETH born on the eight and twentieth of December 1635. a Princess of incomparable Virtues and Abilities Dyed the eighth of September 1650 at Carisbrook in the Isle of Wight of Grief for the Murther of her Father 3. ANNE Born the seventeenth of March 1636. Dyed very
received Hostages he commanded his Navy to sail round Britain whilst himself with slow Marches that he might aw the new-conquered Nations by his Delay in passing placed his Men in their Winter Quarters His Fleet having prosperously and speedily compast the Isle put in at the Port Trutulensis now Richborough neer Sandwich from whence it first set out Agricola envied by the Emperour Domitian in the fourth year of whose Reign Anno CHRISTI 86. this Victory was gotten was soon after recalled leaving his Province to his Successor quiet and secure The Roman Province in Britain extended thus by Agricola as far as Glota Bodotria or the Friths of Dunbritton and Edenborough was by the Emperour Hadrian following the Advice of Augustus and Tiberius to gird the Empire within moderate Bounds reduced to a narrower Compass For he giving the Northern Nations no longer now called Britains but henceforth first Caledonians afterward Picts Scots more Room to Inhabit quitted the colder and more barren Soils reserving only the most delicate Part of the Island which to hinder the Caledonian Boars from breaking in and rooting it up he inclosed like a precious Garden-Plot with a mighty Wall of fourscore Miles in length from the Bay of Itun or Solway-Frith on the Irish Sea to Tinmouth on the German Ocean Which Wall decayed by the Injuries of Time and the Incursions of the Enemy was reedified by the Emperor Septimius Severus who fortified it with a deep Trench and many Turrets erected at such convenient Distances that the Sound of a Trumpet tho against the Wind might be heard from one to another In the same Wall also is said to have been artificially set a Brazen Trunk which running from Tower to Tower served upon the Invasion of the Enemy to give speedy and secret Intelligence But this Wall now lying along and no Pipe remaining many Tenants at this day hold Farms of the King in Cornage whereby they are obliged by winding of an Horn to give Notice to their Neighbours of the Enemies Approach Agricola having thus conquered all the Southern Part of this Island abrogated most of the antient Rites and Customes of the Britains in the Room whereof the Roman Laws Usages and Learning began here to Flourish Their humble Cottages he changed into fair Houses and stately Palaces superb Porticoes and sumptuous Baths Their Diet was now more curious and their Apparel more magnificent Their cumbersome Chariots were turned into the Coaches and delicate Litters of Rome and for the Convenience of Travel Roads and Causies began to be made through the whole Island and paved with Stone CHAP. VI. How Britain was governed under the Romans BRITAIN not being annexed to the Roman Empire till after the Division of Provinces made by Augustus had this Priviledge above other Nations that it was never subject to any Consular or Proconsular Deputy after the manner of other Provinces but was alwayes esteemed to be Praesidialis or under the immediate Protection of the Emperor held by his Garrisons and governed by Lieutenants sent and recalled at his sole Will and Pleasure The Britains had also even within the Roman Pale for a time Kings of their own the last of which was Lucius surnamed Lever-maur who flourished in the time of the Emperour Commodus Antoninus This tho it carried with it a certain shew of Liberty was yet only the usual Method of the Roman State first practiced in the Time of their Democratick Government when their Insolence was such as to make Kings the Instruments of their Ambition whom they first drew up with Plumes of Majesty and seemed even to adore but when their Turns were once served with as great Contempt and Ingratitude according to the constant Humor of Commonwealths they trampled upon them For the governing of Britain one Legat was thought sufficient till the Emperor Septimius Severus finding by experience that it was a Province too great and powerful to be trusted in the hands of one Man first divided it into two Governments committing the North part thereof to Virius Lupus and the South to Heraclytus From the Time of Constantin the Great there were no more Propraetors or Lieutenants in Britain For he having ordained four Prefects of the Praetorium viz. of the East of Illyricum of Italy and of Gaul and two Leaders or Commanders of the Forces the one of the Foot the other of the Horse in the West whom they termed Praesentales ordered the Government of Britain in this manner For Civil Government there ruled over Britain the Prefect of the Praetorium in Gaul whose Vice-gerent was the Vicar General of Britain honored with the Title Spectabilis and having under him according to the number of the Provinces two Consular Deputies and three Presidents who had the hearing of Civil and Criminal Causes For Military Affairs there ruled the Leader or Commander of the Foot in the West under whom were the Count of Britain the Count of the Saxon Coast along Britain and the Duke of Britain every one of which was likewise stiled Spectabilis The Count of Britain seemeth to have ruled the Inland parts of the Island having with him seven Companies of Foot and nine Troops of Horse The Count of the Saxon Coast along Britain who defended the Maritime parts against the Saxons and is by Ammianus called Comes tractûs Maritimi had for Defence of the Sea-coasts seven Companies of Foot two Guidons of Horse the second Legion and one Cohort The Duke of Britain who defended the Frontiers against the Barbarians had the Command of thirty eight Garrison-Forts wherein fourteen thousand Foot and nine hundred Horse kept their Stations so that in those dayes according to the Computation of Pancirolus Britain maintained about nineteen thousand two hundred Foot and seventeen hundred Horse in ordinary Besides these the Comes sacrarum largitionum who managed the Emperors Finances had under him in Britain the Rationalis or Auditor of the Sums or Revenues of Britain the Provost of the Augustian Treasures in Britain and the Procurator of the Gynegium in Britain where the Cloaths of the Emperor and his Souldiers were woven The Comes rerum Privatarum had also his Rational of private State in Britain to say nothing of other inferior Officers CHAP. VII Of the first introducing of Christianity into Britain The Conversion of King Lucius The Persecution under Dioclesian The Establishment of the Christian Faith by Constantin AS the rude and barbarous Manners of the Britains gave place to the Roman Civility so the Bloody Cruelties of their Idolatrous Superstitions were abrogated by the Introduction of Christian Religion for the admittance whereof a Passage was opened by means of the Correspondence between Britain and the rest of the Roman Empire It was in the Year of the World 3966. the two and fortieth of the Emperour Augustus fifty three Years after the first Arrival of Julius Caesar in Britain and the third Year of the British King Cunobelyn the whole World then enjoying a generall Peace
that the Prince of Peace our ever-blessed Lord and Saviour JESUS CHRIST the only eternal Son of GOD was miraculously born of a pure Virgin in Bethlehem the City of David This our glorious Redeemer having for the space of three and thirty years led a Life no less poor and painful than holy and exemplary offered himself upon a Cross to his eternal Father for to expiate the Sins of Mankind in the eighteenth year of the Emperour Tiberius who having received an Account of the Death of this Saint of Saints as also of his great Vertue and stupendious Miracles from Pilat then Governor of Judea published it in the Senat by whom he would have had CHRIST admitted into the number of the Roman Gods but they displeased that Pilat wrote only to the Emperour and not to them would by no means consent thereunto The Emperour however forbidding upon pain of Death all persons to persecute the Disciples of JESUS Christianity brought into Britain the glorious Gospel preacht by his Apostles upon whom the better to enable them thereunto he had fifty dayes after his Resurrection conferred the Gift of speaking unknown Languages by the Descending of the Holy Ghost did even in the Dayes of this same Tiberius so far extend it self as to spread its bright Beams upon this remote and frozen Island of Britain St. James In the Year of CHRIST 41. being the third of Caligula the holy Apostle St. James returning out of Spain visited amongst other Countreys this our Island and here preached the Gospel the effects whereof were so prevalent that many stiff-necked Britains submitted themselves to the easy Yoke of our Redeemer Amongst these there is recorded one Suetonius born of noble Parentage who being converted to the Christian Faith here in Britain undertook a Voyage to Rome that he might be more perfectly instructed by St. Peter by whom being baptized and named Beatus he was after sufficient Instruction employed in the Apostolical Office of teaching others and became the first Planter of Christianity amongst the Helvetians St. Peter The great hope of happy Success is supposed chiefly to have induced St. Peter when the Jews were banished Rome by the Fmperor Claudius in whose second year he came thither to repair into Britain where he continued a long time converting several Nations and erecting many Churches till warned by Angels after he had constituted and ordained Bishops Priests and Deacons he returned to Rome and was there soon after crowned with Martyrdom A tedious impatience to see the horrible Actions of Nero forced St. Paul also to quit Rome St. Paul and disperse the precious Seed of the Gospel even as far as Britain This is expresly testified by Venantius Fortunatus who in his Poem upon the Life of St. Martin speaking of St. Paul saith Transit Oceanum vel quâ facit Insula Portum Quasque Britannus habet Terras atque ultima Thule With St. Peter or St. Paul St. Aristobulus one of whose Disciples he was is St. Aristobulus supposed to have come into Britain where being made a Bishop he preached the Gospel of CHRIST and having constituted Churches and Ordained Priests and Deacons here happily ended his Life St. Joseph of Arimathea About the latter End of Nero's Reign and before the blessed Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul were consummated by a glorious Martyrdom Suetonius Paulinus being Roman Lieutenant in Britain St. Joseph of Arimathea sent hither as some say by St. Peter or as others by St. Philip the Apostle with eleven Companions entring into this Island addressed himself to the British King Arviragus who not only gave them permission freely to convert his Subjects but extended also his Liberality to them affording them a place of Retreat in an Island called at that time Avalon or the Isle of Apples afterwards by the Britains Iniswytrin or the Glassy Island by the Saxons in the same sense Glastney and by the Latins Glasconia Here the Holy Men made it their first Work to build for the Worship of the only true GOD a Temple or Church which they dedicated to the Memory of the Holy Mother of GOD and perpetual Virgin Mary the Walls whereof were on all sides made of Rods watled or interwoven In this the Fervor and Piety of our primitive Christians was so great that it was deservedly called the Mother of Saints The Memory of this Building was preserved by an Inscription cut in Brass and heretofore fastned to a Pillar in Glastenbury Church which being rehearsed by Bishop Godwyn Sir Henry Spelman caused to be entirely transcribed and put into his Collection of British and English Councels To this their Solitude did St. Joseph and his Companions frequently repair both to repose themseves after their Labors and by undistracted Prayers to renew their Courage and Patience in their Apostolical Employment laying thus the Foundation and giving Example both of Active and Contemplative Life Here did St. Joseph after neer twenty years painful Labors change this mortal Life for an immortal one in the Year of our Lord 82. With him are said to have been buried two Silver Vessels which he had brought along with him filled with the precious Blood of our Saviour JESUS CHRIST The Faith thus planted by these Holy Apostles daily here encreasing the British Christians are said in the Year of our Lord 100. to have sent an Ambassadour to St. Clement then Bishop of Rome desiring him to communicate to them the Rites and Order of celebrating Divine Service About the latter end of Trajans Reign the Roman Bishop St. Evaristus sending a Message to the Britains exhorted them to the Christian Faith The verities whereof the better to propagate his Successor St. Alexander sent hither certain Apostolical Preachers amongst whom are thought to have been St. Marcellus afterwards Bishop of Triers and St. Timotheus Son of Pudens a Roman Senator and Brother to the Holy Virgins St. Praxedes and St. Pudentiana whose Mother is by many supposed to have been the Famous British Lady St. Claudia These gathered into a Flock the Remainders of those who had been converted by St. Joseph of Arimathea and his Companions confirming them in the same Faith which thus watered spread so far that Anno Domini 141. there are said to have been Baptized in Granta since called Cambridge nine Doctors and Scholars About the Year of the Lord 181. the British King Lucius Conversion of King Lucius who had hitherto been kept by its Poverty and want of Worldly Splendor from embracing the Christian Religion to a Liking whereof an Account of the constant Perseverance of the Christians at Rome amidst their great and horrible Persecutions had induced him being now by the Emperors Lieutenants Pertinax and Trebellius informed of the Favor shewn to the Professors of Christianity by the Emperor Marcus Aurelius who having obtained a famous Victory by the Christians Prayers set forth an Edict in their behalf as also of the Increase of their Number