people or who after he had got into the Throne obtained the submissions of the People The same reason admits an Alien born though he be estranged from us by his Birth Est in Juvencis est in equis patrum vertus Though what I have said in this matter is so obvious that no considering man can escape these thoughts yet I cannot think it impertinent to add it here to clear what I have laid down in the precedent Sheets as an undoubted truth and evident in it self That the Succession to the Crown is the peoples Right But there is nothing I perceive to be allowed clear and evident when we live in an Age wherein Fools and most ignorant persons will undertake by the Liberty of the Press to print and publish to the world their crude thoughts and with great assurance offer their uncouth Opinions with astonishing presumption Besides to the reasonableness of this Doctrine it is agreeable to the Illustrious Grotius De Jure Belli Pacis Lib. 2. cap. 7. And nothing follows from his collected Law-cases about the different Rules of Succession of the Crown from private Fees but that he is a very young Lawyer or an old senseless Jobber of Law-Cases But I hope that all men that read him will with resentment think themselves used with scorn when they see what frivolous Fellows attempt upon them to deceive them and will be fully convinced that the Bill is reasonable just and fit since they have nothing better to object against it The last endeavour of the Epistoler is to remove the Authority of Parliaments and the Act made in the Thirteenth of Queen Elizabeth The words of which are printed at the close of the Papers against the man of Great and Weighty Considerations Our case is not in its reasons unparallel to those that introduced that Law and occasioned the making of that Declaration but whatever was the particular Reason the Declaration of that Parliament in that Act is general and therefore it is an Authority not to be impeached to prove that there is such a power to alter the Succession of the Crown for great Ends and weighty Reasons and just Causes Besides that such a power is lodged in the Parliament is clearly proved by us from the nature of Government in the foregoing Sheets As also that such a power will not be abused by using it in this Bill of Exclusion of which I hope no body upon the reading of them will retain any longer any manner of doubt But I cannot before I have done but take notice of his little Artifice in that he doth suggest that by the Act of Parliament of the Thirteenth of Queen Elizabeth cap 1. the Title of the Family of Stuarts is excluded when it is evident by the words of the Act that the Disability there enacted is only personal And his story of Monsieur the Duke of Anjou designing then to marry the Queen is a false and malicious insinuation to hurt the memory of that excellent Princess And consequently that King James and his Race had and have notwithstanding the validity of that Act a good Title to the Crown And that the validity of that Act may be maintained without derogation and injury to his Majesties sacred Title whom God long preserve A short Historical Collection touching the SUCCESSION of the CROWN WHether the History of the Succession of the Crown will allow so good and clear an Hereditary Right Jure humano as we have yielded in the precedent discourse the Reader will best judge by the short Historical Collection touching the Succession hereto subjoyned In the Heptarchy there was no fit Hereditary Right one King tripping up the heels of another as he had power till one got all After that Alfred bastard-Bastard-son to Oswin Adelstane bastard-Bastard-son of Edward the Elder Edmund Surnamed the Martyr Bastard-son to King Edgar Harold Surnamed Harefoot Bastard-son to Canute wore the Imperial Crown of England But a Law was made under the Saxon Monarchy De Oodinatione Regum directing the Election of Kings and prohibiting Bastards to be chosen Edward the Confessor was no King Jure Haereditario but the right was most indisputable at first in Edward Son of Edmond Ironside Father to Edgar Etheling his Nephew during his life and after his decease in that Edgar who was Nephew also to the Confessor William the First called the Conquerour was a Bastard and had no right but from his Sword and the Peoples Suhmissions and their Electing him William Rufus was elected against the right of his Elder Brother Robert then living Henry the First was made King favenle Clero Populo his Brother Robert still living whose Eyes were after put out at Cardiss-Castle in Wales King Stephen was elected a Clero Populo and confirmed by the Pope and Maud Daughter of Henry the First excluded Henry the Second came in by consent yet he had no Hereditary right for his Mother Maud the Empress Daughter and Heir to Henry the First was then living King John had an elder Brother Jeoffery Earl of Brittany who had Issue Arthur and Elianor which ought to have succeeded before him but he Arthur his Eldest Brother's Son living was elected a Clero Populo and being divorced from his Wife by his new Queen had Henry the Third Henry the Third was confirmed and setled in the Kingdom by the general Election of the people Elianor Daughter to Jeoffery the elder Brother still living Roger Mortimer Earl of March Son of Edmund by Philippa Daughter and Heir of Lionel Duke Clarence a younger Son of Edward the Third was in the Parliament 9 R. 2. declared Heir Apparent of the Crown which could not be but by force of an Act of Parliament Henry the Fourth came to the Crown by way of Election and in his time viz. in the eighth year of his Reign was the first Act of Parliament made for Entailing the Crown with Remainders By vertue of which his Son Henry the Fifth became King and after him Henry the Sixth In Henry the Sixth his time Richard Duke of York claimed the Crown and an Act of Parliament was made 39 H. 6. that Henry the Sixth should enjoy the Crown for his life and the said Duke and his Heirs after him After which King Henry raises an Army by the assistance of the Queen and Prince and at Wakefield in Battle kills the Duke for which 1 Edw. 4. they were all by Act of Parliament attainted of Treason and one principal reason thereof was for that the Duke being declared Heir to the Crown after Henry by Act of Parliament they had kill'd him which Act of Attainder was 1 H. 7. repealed and the Blood of the King Queen and Prince restored in terms of disgrace and detestation of so barbarous an Attainder Rot. Palr Anno 1 H. 7. Edward the Fourth succeeds upon the death of H. 6. by vertue of an Act of Parliament made in the time of H. 6. for entailing the Crown as Son
that may happen in humane affairs and so they must be intended and so interpreted The several limitations of the descent of the Crown must be made by the people in conferring the Royal Dignity and Power which is more or less in several Kingdoms And the descent of the Crown in particular cases is governed according to the presumed will of the People and the presumption of the Peoples will is made by measuring and considering what is most expedient to the publick good whereas private Estates are directed in their descent according to the presumed will of the Decedents And this is the reason tha◠the descent of the Crown is governed by other rules than private Estates Onely one Daughter and not all as in private Estates shall succeed to the Crown because the strength of the Kingdom is preserved when continued united and the peace and concord of the people better established A son of the second venter shall inherit which is not allowed in private Estates because a son of the second venter is equally of the bloud of the great Ancestor upon whom the Crown was first conferred by the people or after he had got into the Throne obtain'd their Submissions and may equally participate of his virtues If the Royal Family be extinct it belongs to the people to make a new King under what limitations they please or to make none for the Polity is not destroyed if there be no King created and consequently in case of this cesser or discontinuance of the Regnum there may be Treason committed against the people By all which it is evident that the Succession to the Crown is the peoples right And though the Succession to the Crown is Hereditary because the people so appointed it would have it so or consented to have it so yet in a particular case for the saving the Nation the whole Line and Monarchy it self it may be altered by the unlimited power of the Legislative Authority We have been more just to the Royal Succession than the wonderful Sir Robert Filmer for his Hypotheses will not allow at all of Hereditary rightful Succession For he establishing the right of the universal Empire of the World in Adams right Heir since this Illuminato hath enlightned the world in this secret no Successor can according to his Doctrine derive any hereditary right from his Predecessor His title can be only his own possession for no man can claim by descent the Usurpation of his Father but he that is not conscious to the wrong and is bonae fidei possessor under the presumed right and title of his Father I would be understood to speak as the matter can be considered in a free reason not under the prejudice of any positive municipal Law for to such Laws the right of Crowns as the renowned Knight will have it are not submitted So that here in this matter their Knight fails them and can give them no help Their other friend the great Leviathan-maker is so far from establishing an Hereditary Succession that he leaves Kings to be rightfully assaulted deposed and destroyed by any person that can who stands in danger of being destroyed by the King though justly condemned to death Leviathan Part 2. cap. 21. Those saith he that have committed a capital Crime for which they expect death have the liberty to defend themselves by Arms as well as the Innocent But I mention him onely to render him detestable for I take his Books to be the dehonestamenta humani generis But I desire them to regard the sence of all Mankinde in the words of Isiodorus Pelusiota 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This governed the Judicious and Learned Dr. Falkner for when he had carried Christian Loyalty as high as he could to the honour of our Religion and the benefit of the world for which we are all extreamly beholden to him he concludes thus in his excellent Book called Christian Loyalty viz That if any Prince undertakes to alienate his Kingdom or to give it up into the hands of another Soveraign Power or that really acts the Destruction or the Vniversal Calamity of his people Grotius thinks that in his utmost extremity the use of a Defence as a last refuge ultimo necessitatis presidio is not to be condemned provided the care of the Common Good be preserved And if this be true saith he it must be upon this ground that such attempts of ruining do ipso facto include a disclaiming the governing of these persons as Subjects and consequently of being their Prince or King What unreasonableness is there then in shutting the Door upon him and making it fast against him by an Act of State who hath excluded himself by his principles and designs For the truth of the fact I shall onely refer you to his Secretary Coleman his Letters wherein he saith That his Masters interest and the King of France his interest is one and the same and their design their glorious design the same viz the extirpating the Northern Heresie How far the King of France hath complied with the design the cruel Persecution and Exiles of his Protestant Subjects who at the time of that Letter were under the security and protection of the Laws of that Kingdom and the Faith of that Crown do declare to the world And by what secret influences I know not he is made so great his Conquests so easie and expedite that he is like to do the work himself here in England too and go away with all the Glory But if the work must lie upon our hands let no man think with himself that Popery is not to be introduced here because the numbers of Papists are few for that will not render the design impracticable but the execution of it more cruel and barbarous a whole Nation upon the matter must be corrupted from the Faith of the true Religion or destroy'd One single arm of an ordinary strength not resisted may assassinate a whole Nation Let no man betray his Country and Religion by pretending the example of the patience and sufferance of the Primitive Christians for our rule The Reformed Religion hath acquired a civil right and the protection of Laws if we ought not to lose our Lives Liberties and Estates but where forfeited by Law we ought much rather not to lose them for the profession of the best Religion which by Law is made the publick National Religion And it is strange that some men of the same Religion in profession can think that notwithstanding it makes no matter what is done to men if they be Religious but if they be not so the least publick injuries and injustice threatned or done them may be resisted vindicated remedied and by right defended by old Laws or new ones to be made for that purpose The Christian Religion was publish'd when the whole world was Pagan and therefore it was submitted to such usage as the Governments would give it But when the Christian Faith had by miracles of
will slander himself and belie the Devil For observe he saith they use Fanatical Logick and Antichristian Logick The true Fanaticks being impatient of the restraints of Reason and to be confined to sober sense call Logick and Reasoning by that which they would seem most to hate Antichristian The true Antichristians and Papists being impatient of the light reproof and discovery of Reason call sound Reason Fanaticism But our Writer is so vengeancely angry with reasoning that with the same breath he calls Logick for the sake of reason Antichristian and Fanatical too and renders himself suspected of being an Antichristian Fanatick And yet any one may see that it is not the thing it self that he is thus angry with but the name of Logick that he thus exposeth for what it is he knows not he seems to think it comes by Inspiration and that there are two sorts of Logick one good but he is not acquainted for all that appears to us with the Spirit from whence that is derived and another bad which he says is inspired by the Spirit of Belial whereas most certainly there is no such Devil amongst all the Orders of the Apostate Angels Sons of Belial I have heard of indeed that did evil without profit without design for evils sake but these are such men as need no Tempter for they will be wicked without a Tempter according to the fatal propensions of their vitious Natures and are not to be managed by the Devil himself And to this sort of men doth our Pamphleteer seem somewhat to approach for that he is an unaccountable Transgressor No reason can be given of him why he should with so much seeming earnestness concern himself to perswade the People to abandon to an utter neglect those things that of all others are of most value to them their Religion Government Lives Liberties and Estates To perswade a whole Nation to lay violent hands upon themselves to cut their own Throats to burn themselves alive and their Houses and to destroy themselves their Wives and Children Bodies and Souls too for Conscience-sake That there can be a Subject not subject to Laws and that offences that cannot be rated because their mischiefs are infinite for that very reason must not be punished and he would have us reckon it a sin of the most heinous nature to punish the Offender with a diminution only in his power to do those evils which are most notoriously by him designed and will be effected by means of his own making and causing if he himself should relent and refuse to execute them If in this Age of License immodesty could entitle any man to be a son of Belial our Writer of Considerations might fairly pretend to it who is immodest for impudence sake which spends it self in waste and cannot effect any thing but the exposing it self In saying this I should think my self very severe but that he hath published his own shame and if I would it is not in my power to cover it But he hath not shewed the worst of himself yet he attempts further upon the Understanding of the People he will have us believe that we owe Allegiance to the Presumptive Heir that we have as many Kings as Princes of the Bloud and that a Son hath a right to his Fathers Estate before he is dead For the probable Successor can have no more right to the effect of the Oath of Allegiance than the eldest Son to receive the Profits of his Fathers Estate without his leave in his Fathers Life-time If this Gentleman's Father had had any Land he would have understood the difference between his right to the Land after his Father's Death and his hopes and possibility onely to have it during his Father's Life The word Heir is joyned with Successor in the Oath of Allegiance to signifie that it means Heirs in the proper sence which is such that succeed to the Inheritance and not such as are in expectancy or possibility of having the Inheritance who are improperly and equivocally so called And tho' the thing is so plain that every man as well as the Lawyers agree what is said yet my Lord Cook for saying the same is called by this Gentleman Silly and Ridiculous Fallacious and Impertinent The Lawyers tell me that it is a Rule in the Law Non est hoeres viventis that is No man can have an Heir while he lives and they likeways say of all the Reguloe Juris There is not one of greater extent and rule than this that it hath governed Ten thousand Cases near upon in the Common Law and they withal assure me that notwithstanding this man amongst other civil terms calls the Lord Cook Fallacious they firmly believe if a Fee had been offered to him of the value of his Estate which is about 200000 l. he would not have signed an Opinion with a Videtur to the contrary but he is resolved that all Mankind shall be mistaken and he will call their reasonings in this matter what he pleaseth New Machiavillian Logick a word that dishonestly he took up on purpose to expose the Bill to the Vulgar imagining in his profound Consideration that some of the Multitude will upon the hearing of Machiavillian fall thereupon into an unwitting dislike of the Bill Nay he will conclude an Heir Apparent to be an Heir because he could not be Heir Apparent unless he were an Heir when the word Apparent and the word Presumptive more especially joyned to Heir is a term of Abatement or Negative and distinguisheth him from being a real Heir and speaks him no Heir but onely one in a near possibility of being so But says he it is a manifest contradiction for one to be Heir Apparent and not to be Heir as it is to be a Learned man and no man Prius est esse quam esse tale I wish we had his Name that we may mark the most absurd reasonings by it for the everlasting Honour of this Pretender to Reasoning and Discourse We all know that the word Heir is a Name to design a Person under such a relation and respect and imports nothing of entity and we may use our own abstract Terms properly or improperly and without any correspondent reality to an equivocal sense But he adds Profaneness to his Levity and as if the Holy Scriptures were writ to so trifling a design as to be an Oracular Dictionary and Infallible Nomenclature he tells us how the word Heir is used in Scripture when the holy Writers formed their Language by the vulgar Idiomes amongst the People of the Jews and never intended to write Law-Cases much less to declare the Common Law of England or imagined that their stile should be produced to expound our Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy But now thou vain Considerer wilt thou hence conclude that the Duke of York is Heir and Successor That we now owe him Faith and Allegiance That he is already in the Throne and that this Bill though it
by Parliament ought not to direct the Right of the Crown of England Or that our said Severaign Lady the Queens Majesty that now is with and by the Authority of the Parliament of England is not able to make Laws and Statutes of sufficient Force and Validity to limit and bind the Crown of this Realm and the Discent Limitation Inheritance and Government thereof Or that this present Statute or any part thereof or any other Statute to be made by the Authority of the Parliament of England with the Royal Assent of our said Soveraign Lady the Queen for limiting of the Crown or any Statute for Recognizing the Right of the said Crown and Realm to be Iustly and Lawfully in the most Royal Person of our said Soveraign Lady the Queen is not are not or shall not or ought not to be for ever of good and sufficient Force and Validity to Binde Limit Restrain and Govern all Persons their Rights and Titles that in any wise may or might claim any Interest or Possibility in or to the Crown of England in Possession Remainder Inheritance Succession or otherwise howsoever And all other Persons whatsoever every such person so holding affirming or maintaining during the life of the Queens â—…elly shall be adjudged a High Traitor and sufâ—…r and forfeit as in Cases of High Treason is acâ—ustomed and every Person so holding affirming or maintaining after the Decease of our said Soveraign â—ady shall forfeit all his Goods and Chattels AN ANSWER TO A BOOK Published 1679. Intituled A LETTER FROM A GENTLEMAN of Quality In the COUNTRY to his Friend c. Relating to the Point of SUCCESSION to the CROWN c. BY several accidents the former sheets have stopt in the Press from a few days afteâ— the Great and Weighty Consideration were published and being now ready to comâ— forth we have a Gentleman of Quality as hâ— calls himself undertaking from Scripture Law History and Reason to shew how improbable 〈◊〉 not impossible it is to bar the next Heir in thâ— right Line from the Succession in a Letter to his â—onoured Friend A. B. And now after so long a time of consideration one should think the many men of great Parts â—nd Learning that are dependents on the Duke â—pirited with zeal and ambition should have offered all that they have to say against the Bill â—or excluding his Royal Highness And this â—eing as may be reasonably concluded the last endeavours of the most learned and best parted men of that Interest This Letter for that reason onely but not for any thing of moment that â—t offers deserves to be considered We will not follow him from Paragraph to Paragraph since the greatest part of it is vain and empty pedantick bombast and putid affectation I shall onely draw you up short Summaries of his several Reasons and give them all the advantages they can challenge and improve them by just and natural Inferences And that I think will be enough of confutation and a sufficient countercharm against his deceiving the People He first lays down for a Ground That the Succession to the Crown of England is inseparable annexed to Proximity and nextness of Bloud by the Laws of God and Nature And all Statute-Laws contrary to the Laws of God and Nature are ipso facto null and void That it is contrary to the Laws of God he proves by the Law of God given by Moses to the Jews in the 7th of Numbers that directs how the Succession of Lands should be amongst the Jews and whatsoever Statute-Laws are contrary to those Laws are null and void he saith The consequence of this Argument is this That the Laws given by God to the Jews are Laws to all Mankind That our common-Law and Statute-Law is against the Law of God and null and void because not agreeable to the Law of Moses That the eldest Son is not to take by Descent the whole inheritance but a double portion onely and that the Crown must be disposed of in Descents accordingly That not the first Son only and one Daughter but all the Daughters of a King if never so many must succeed together to the Crown That no Father can sell his Patrimony for that was the Jewish Law and established in that Chapter he quotes He proves it to be a Law of God further for that God saith to Cain of Abel That his desires shall be subject and thou shalt rule over him The consequence of this is that because Cain could not kill Abel notwithstaning he was to have the Primacy That Abel much more could not kill Cain his Elder Brother And further he proves that to be a Law of God because God maketh choice of the first-born to be Sanctified and Consecrated to himself And therefore it most certainly follows with this Gentlemen that he which is not the first-born must be so too I wish his Royal Highness the second born the Consecration of a Priest which the Text means notwithstanding the Text doth not allow it him so that he will not pretend to the Consecration of a King which is clearly out of the meaning of the Text. He says Consonant hereunto are the Suffrages of the Doctors of the Civil and Imperial Law The Consequence of this is first That he is not bound to be coherent to himself for he was before proving the Law of God to be That the Succession of the Crown is inseparably annxed to proximity of bloud and now he tells us of some Opinions of Fathers and Doctors that are consonant thereunto when they do not at all relate in their Opinions to what he had produced out of Moses his Law Secondly it follows that he is impertinently troublesome to his Reader by telling him of the Opinions of great names in this matter that the Eldest Son by ordinary right is to have his Fathers Estate in some Countries or that the Crown doth so ordinarily descend where the Succession is hereditary he should have spared them for another time when he shall say something that all mankind doth not agree in Thirdly That he is a man of little reading otherwise he would have been insufferably impertinent by 10000 quotations in this matter Fourthly That he is no Civilian for that in this place he calls the Soveraignity a Fee when all men agree that a Crown is of that fort of Inheritancs which they call Allodiums that are held 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This would have made a swinging Argument for his Jure Divino if he had thought of it but we will give it them gratis He tells us the Duke of York is in the same condition as the Eldest Son of the King Reigining though his Brother be King That the second Son of a King Regent when the first is dead living his Father is within the 25. of E. 3. that makes it Treason to compass the death of the King 's Eldest Son and that such Second Son is Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwal The
and Heir to the Duke of York Edward the Fifth succeeded by vertue of the same Act of Entail Richard the Third having got the Crown he was confirmed King by Act of Parliament which likewise Entail'd the Crown which was done upon two reasons pretended First for that by reason of a precontract of Edward the Fourth Edward the Fifth his eldest Son and all his other Children were declared Bastards Secondly for that the Son of the Duke of Clarence second Brother to Edward the Fourth had no right because the Duke was attainted of Treason by a Parliament of Edward the Fourth The Act of Parliament for Bastardizing the Children of Edward the Fourth was in force until repealed in the time of Henry the Seventh after his Marriage with Elizabeth the Daughter of Edward the Fourth Henry the Seventh comes in by no legal Title First because Edw. 4th his Daughter was then living Secondly his own Mother was then living In his first Parliament the Crown was Entail'd upon him and the Heirs of his body And observable it is that after the death of Elizabeth his Queen Daughter and Heir to Ed. 4th there is no notice taken of any right which was pretended to by Hen. 8. during his Fathir's life as being Son and Heir of his Mother who had the legal Right to the Crown by an ordinary right of Succession Henry the Eighth Succeeded who did as all his Laws speak derive his Title to the Crown by the Fathers side and not by the Mothers In his Reign the Crown was Entail'd thrice by Act of Parliament Confirm'd by the general Oaths both of the Spiritualty and the Lasty and it was made High Treason to refuse such Oaths and several Attainders were in his time by particular Acts of parliament of several persons who opposed such limitations of the Crown and the authority of the Laws that made them But the great Law of the three was made in the 35th year of his Reign Cap. 1. whereby power was given him to give and dispose by his Letters Patents or by Will the Imperial Crown of the Realm to remain and come after his death for want of lawful Heirs of Prince Edward the Lady Mary and the Lady Elizabeth to such person or persons in remainder or reversion as should please his Highness In which Act there was a Clause that made it high Treason to speak or write against that Act or to go about to annul or repeal it Besides there is another Proviso in that Act That if the Lady Mary should not keep such conditions which the King should declare by his Letters Patents or last Will the Imperial Crown should come to the Lady Elizabeth And if the Lady Elizabeth should not observe the same then the Crown was to go to such person as the King by his Letters Patents or last Will should limit and appoint By virtue of which limitation in the Act of Parliament afore-mentioned Edward the Sixth succeeded to the Crown and after him Queen Mary in whose Reign in an Act of Parliament for Conformation of the Articles of Marriage between her and Philip of Spain the Crown was again Entail'd but she dying without Issue the Lady Elizabeth became Queen who had been declared a Bastard as well as her Sister Mary in the life of their Father and therefore succeeded to the Crown by force of the Entail made in the 35 H. 8. Cap. 1. Pursuant to these Presidents in fact in the 13. year of the Reign of Q. Eliz. an Act of Parliament was made declaratory of the power of Parliament in the limitation of the Succession which made it highly penal to deny the Authority of an Act of Parliament for the limitation of the Crown Several persons in her time were proceeded against upon that Act and had the Judgement of Traytor and as Traitors executed for being contrary to that Law This Queen dying King James succeeded who was as the Statute of Recognition made in Parliament the first year of his Reign declares lineally rightfully descended of the most excellent Lady Margaret eldest Daughter of the most renowned Henry the 7th and the high and Noble Princess Queen Elizabeth his Wife eldest Daughter of King Edward the 4th the said Lady Margaret being eldest Sister of King Henry the 8th Father of the High and mighty Princes of famous memory Elizabeth late Queen of England It is further observable that upon the Marriage of Queen Mary to King Philip of Spain both the Crowns of Emgland and Spain were entailed whereby it was provided that of the several Children to be begotten upon the Queen one was to have the Crown of England another Spain another the Low Countries The Articles of Marriage to this purpose were confirmed by Act of Parliament and the Pope's Bull. And by that Act of Parliament for confirming the Articles of Marriage Philip was created King and did exercise Soveraign Authority and particularly in making Laws together with the Queen the Stile of the Soveraign Assent to Bills in Parliament in their time being Le Roy la Roigne les veulent And likewise for that it was agreed by the States of both Kingdomes and the Low Countries it is therefore probable that it was the Universal opinion of the great men of that Age That Kings and Soveraign Princes by and with the consent of their States had a power to alter and bind the Succession of the Crown FINIS