laws? Could he not deny justice to any particular | being, and (than which nothing is more common in our person, and could he to all his people? Could he not do it in inferiour courts, and could he in the supreme court of all? Or, can any king be so arrogant as to pretend to know what is just and profitable better than the whole body of the people? Especially, since "he is created and chosen for this very end and purpose, to do justice to all," as Bracton says, lib, iii. c. 9, that is, to do justice according to such laws as the people agree upon. Hence is what we find in our records, 7 H. IV. Rott. Parl. num. 59, the king has no prerogative, that derogates from justice and equity. And formerly when kings have refused to confirm acts of parliament, to wit, Magna Charta and some others, our ancestors have brought them to it by force of arms. And yet our lawyers never were of opinion, that those laws were less valid, or less binding, since the king was forced to assent to no more than what he ought in justice to have assented to voluntarily, and without constraint. Whilst you go about to prove that kings of other nations have been as much under the power of their senates or councils, as our kings were, you do not argue us into slavery, but them into liberty. In which you do but that over again, that you have from the very beginning of your discourse, and which some silly Leguleians now and then do, to argue unawares against their own clients. But you say, "We confess that the king, wherever he be, yet is supposed still to be present in his parliament by virtue of his power; insomuch, that whatever is transacted there, is supposed to be done by the king himself:" and then as if you had got some pretty bribe or small morsel, and tickled with the remembrance of your purse of gold, we take," say you, " what they give us ;" and take a halter then, for I am sure you deserve it. But we do not give it for granted, which is the thing you thought would follow from thence," that therefore that court acts only by virtue of a delegated power from the king." For when we say, that the regal power, be it what it will, cannot be absent from the parliament, do we thereby acknowledge that power to be supreme? Does not the king's authority seem rather to be transferred to the parliament, and, as being the lesser of the two, to be comprised in the greater? Certainly, if the parliament may rescind the king's acts whether he will or no, and revoke privileges granted by him, to whomsoever they be granted: if they may set bounds to his prerogative, as they see cause; if they may regulate his yearly revenue, and the expenses of his court, his retinue, and generally all the concerns of his household; if they may remove his most intimate friends and counsellors, and, as it were, pluck them out of his bosom, and bring them to condign punishment; finally, if any subject may by law appeal from the king to the parliament, (all which things, that they may lawfully be done, and have been frequently practised, both our histories and records, and the most eminent of our lawyers, assure us,) I suppose no man in his right wits will deny the authority of the parliament to be superiour to that of the king. For even in an interregnum the authority of the parliament is in

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histories) they have often made a free choice of a successor, without any regard to an hereditary descent. In short, the parliament is the supreme council of the nation, constituted and appointed by a most free people, and armed with ample power and authority, for this end and purpose; viz. to consult together upon the most weighty affairs of the kingdom; the king was created to put their laws in execution. Which thing after the parliament themselves had declared in a public edict, (for such is the justice of their proceedings, that of their own accord they have been willing to give an account of their actions to other nations,) is it not prodigious, that such a pitiful fellow as you are, a man of no authority, of no credit, of no figure in the world, a mere Burgundian slave, should have the impudence to accuse the parliament of England, asserting by a public instrument their own and their country's right, "of a detestable and horrid imposture?" Your country may be ashamed, you rascal, to have brought forth a little inconsiderable fellow of such profligate impudence. But perhaps you have somewhat to tell us, that may be for our good: go on, we will hear you. "What laws," say you, "can a parliament enact, in which the bishops are not present ?" Did you then, you madman, expel the order of bishops out of the church, to introduce them into the state? O wicked wretch! who ought to be delivered over to Satan, whom the church ought to forbid her communion, as being a hypocrite, and an atheist, and no civil society of men to acknowledge as a member, being a public enemy, and a plague-sore to the common liberty of mankind; who, where the gospel fails you, endeavour to prove out of Aristotle, Halicarnassus, and then from some popish authorities of the most corrupt ages, that the king of England is the head of the church of England, to the end that you may, as far as in you lies, bring in the bishops again, his intimates and table-companions, grown so of late, to rob and tyrannize in the church of God, whom God himself has deposed and degraded, whose very order you had heretofore asserted in print that it ought to be rooted out of the world, as destructive of and pernicious to the christian religion. What apostate did ever so shamefully and wickedly desert as this man has done, I do not say his own, which indeed never was any, but the christian doctrine which he bad formerly asserted? "The bishops being put down, who under the king, and by his permission, held plea of ecclesiastical causes, upon whom," say you, "will that jurisdiction devolve?" O villain! have some regard at least to your own conscience; remember before it be too late, if at least this admonition of mine come not too late, remember that this mocking the Holy Spirit of God is an inexpiable crime, and will not be left unpunished. Stop at last, and set bounds to your fury, lest the wrath of God lay hold upon you suddenly, for endeavouring to deliver the flock of God, his anointed ones that are not to be touched, to enemies and cruel tyrants, to be crushed and trampled on again, from whom himself by a high and stretched-out arm had so lately delivered them; and from whom you yourself maintained, that

they ought to be delivered, I know not whether for | open parliament," that having confidence in the pru

ing to put any thing into the king's power, rather than | it,) but only of a hundred pieces of gold, in a purse their arms, and the garrisons of their towns; conceiv- wrought with beads. Take that reward of thine iniing that to be neither better nor worse, than betraying quity, Balaam, which thou hast loved, and enjoy it. their liberty to the fury and exorbitancy of their princes. You go on to play the fool; "the setting up of a Of which there are so very many instances in our his- standard is a prerogative that belongs to the king only." tories, and those so generally known, that it would be How so? Why because Virgil tells us in his Eneis, superfluous to mention any of them here. But "the" that Turnus set up a standard on the top of the tower king owes protection to his subjects; and how can he protect them, unless he have men and arms at command ?" But, say I, he had all this for the good of the kingdom, as has been said, not for the destruction of his people, and the ruin of the kingdom: which in King Henry the IIId's time, one Leonard, a learned man in those days, in an assembly of bishops, told Rustandus, the pope's nuncio and the king's procurator, in these words; "All churches are the pope's, as all temporal things are said to be the king's, for defence and protection, not his in propriety and ownership, as we say; they are his to defend, not to destroy." The aforementioned law of St. Edward is to the same purpose; and what does this import more than a trust? Does this look like absolute power? Such a kind of power a commander of an army always has, that is, a delegated power; and both at home and abroad he is never yet the less able to defend the people that choose him. Our parliaments would anciently have contended with our kings about their liberty and the laws of St. Edward, to very little purpose; and it would have been an unequal match betwixt the kings and them, if they had been of opinion, that the power of the sword belonged to them alone: for how unjust laws soever their kings would have imposed upon them, their charter, though never so great, would have been a weak defence against force. But say you, "What would the parliament be the better for the militia, since without the king's assent they cannot raise the least farthing from the people towards the maintaining it ?" Take you no thought for that: for in the first place you go upon a false supposition, "that parliaments cannot impose taxes without the king's assent," upon the people that send them, and whose concerns they undertake. In the next place, you, that are so officious an inquirer into other men's matters, cannot but have heard, that the people of their own accord, by bringing in their plate to be melted down, raised a great sum of money towards the carrying on of this war against the king. Then you mention the largeness of our king's revenue: you mention over and over again five hundred and forty thousands: that "those of our kings that have been eminent for their bounty and liberality have used to give large boons out of their own patrimony." This you were glad to hear; it was by this charm, that those traitors to their country allured you, as Balaam the prophet was enticed of old, to curse the people of God, and exclaim against the judicial dispensations of his providence. You fool! what was that unjust and violent king the better for such abundance of wealth? What are you the better for it? Who have been no partaker of any part of it, that I can hear of, (how great hopes soever you may have conceived of being vastly enriched by

at Laurentum, for an ensign of war." And do not you
know, Grammarian, that every general of an army
does the same thing? But, says Aristotle,
"The king
must always be provided of a military power, that he
may be able to defend the laws; and therefore the king
must be stronger than the whole body of the people."
This man makes consequences just as Ocnus does ropes
in hell; which are of no use but to be eaten by asses.
For a number of soldiers given to the king by the
people, is one thing, and the sole power of the militia
is quite another thing; the latter, Aristotle does not
allow that kings ought to be masters of, and that in
this very place which you have quoted; "He ought,"
says he," to have so many armed men about him, as
to make him stronger than any one man,
than many
men got together; but he must not be stronger than all
the people." Polit. lib. 3, cap. 4. Else instead of pro-
tecting them, it would be in his power to subject both
people and laws to himself. For this is the difference
betwixt a king and a tyrant: a king, by consent of
the senate and people, has about him so many armed
men, as to enable him to resist enemies, and suppress
seditions. A tyrant, against the will both of senate
and people, gets as great a number as he can, either of
enemies, or profligate subjects, to side with him against
the senate and the people. The parliament therefore
allowed the king, as they did whatever he had besides,
the setting up of a standard; not to wage war against
his own people, but to defend them against such as
the parliament should declare enemies to the state:
if he acted otherwise, himself was to be accounted an
enemy; since according to the very law of St. Edward,
or according to a more sacred law than that, the law
of nature itself, he lost the name of a king, and was
no longer such. Whence Cicero in his Philip. "He
forfeits his command in the army, and interest in his
government, that employs them against the state."
Neither could the king compel those that held of him
by knight-service, to serve him in any other war,
than such as was made by consent of parliament;
which is evident by many statutes. So for customs
and other subsidies for the maintenance of the navy,
the king could not exact them without an act of parlia-
ment; as was resolved about twelve years ago, by the
ablest of our lawyers, when the king's authority was
at the height. And long before them, Fortescue, an
eminent lawyer, and chancellor to King Henry the
sixth, "The king of England," says he,
can neither
alter the laws, nor exact subsidies without the people's
consent." Nor can any testimonies be brought from an-
tiquity, to prove the kingdom of England to have been
merely regal. "The king," says Bracton, “ has a ju-
risdiction over all his subjects;" that is, in his courts
of justice, where justice is administered in the king's

66

"All are

CHAP. X.

SINCE this whole controversy, whether concerning the right of kings in general, or that of the king of England in particular, is rendered difficult and intri

name indeed, but according to our own laws.
subject to the king;" that is, every particular man is;
and so Bracton explains himself in the places that I have
cited. What follows is but turning the same stone over
and over again, (at which sport I believe you are able
to tire Sisiphus himself,) and is sufficiently answered by
what has been said already. For the rest, if our parlia-cate, rather by the obstinacy of parties, than by the
ments have sometimes complimented good kings with
submissive expressions, though neither savouring of flat-
tery nor slavery, those are not to be accounted due to
tyrants, nor ought to prejudice the people's right: good
manners and civility do not infringe liberty. Where-
as you cite out of Sir Edward Coke and others," that
the kingdom of England is an absolute kingdom;" |
that is said with respect to any foreign prince, or
the emperor: because as Camden says, "It is not
under the patronage of the emperor:" but both of them
affirm, that the government of England resides not in
king alone, but in a body politic. Whence Fortescue, |
in his book de Laud. Leg. Ang. cap. 9, “ The king of
England," says he, "governs his people, not by a
merely regal, but a political power; for the English
are governed by laws of their own making." Foreign
authors were not ignorant of this: hence Philip de
Comines, a grave author, in the Fifth Book of his Com-
mentaries, "Of all the kingdoms of the earth," says
he, "that I have any knowledge of, there is none in my
opinion where the government is more moderate, where
the king has less power of hurting his people, than in
England." Finally, "It is ridiculous," say you," for
them to affirm that kingdoms were ancienter than kings;
which is as much as if they should say, that there was
light before the sun was created." But with your good
leave, Sir, we do not say that kingdoms, but that the
people, were before kings. In the mean time, who can
be more ridiculous than you, who deny there was light
before the sun had a being? You pretend to a curiosity
in other men's matters, and have forgot the very first
things that were taught you." You wonder how they
that have seen the king sit upon his throne, at a session
of parliament, (sub aureo et serico Cœlo, under a golden
and silken heaven,) under a canopy of state, should so
much as make a question, whether the majesty resided
in him, or in the parliament ?" They are certainly
hard of belief, whom so lucid an argument, coming
down from heaven, cannot convince. Which golden|
heaven, you, like a stoic, have so devoutly and se-
riously gazed upon, that you seem to have forgot what
kind of heaven Moses and Aristotle describe to us; for
you deny, that there was any light in Moses's heaven
before the sun; and in Aristotle's you make three tem-
perate zones. How many zones you observed in that
golden and silken heaven of the king's, I know not;
but I know you got one zone (a purse) well tempered
with a hundred golden stars by your astronomy.

nature of the thing itself; I hope they that prefer truth
before the interest of a faction, will be satisfied with
what I have alleged out of the law of God, the laws
of nations, and the municipal laws of my own country,
that a king of England may be brought to trial, and
put to death. As for those whose minds are either
blinded with superstition, or so dazzled with the splen-
dour and grandeur of a court, that magnanimity and
true liberty do not appear so glorious to them, as they
are in themselves, it will be in vain to contend with
them, either by reason and arguments, or examples.
But you, Salmasius, seem very absurd, as in every
other part of your book, so particularly in this, who
though you rail perpetually at the Independents, and
revile them with all the terms of reproach imaginable,
yet assert to the highest degree that can be the independ-
ency of a king, whom you defend; and will not allow
him to 66
owe his sovereignty to the people, but to his
descent." And whereas in the beginning of your book
you complained, that he was "put to plead for his life,"
here you complain" that he perished without being
heard to speak for himself." But if you have a mind
to look into the history of his trial, which is very faith-
fully published in French, it may be you will be of an-
other opinion. Whereas he had liberty given him for
some days together, to say what he could for himself,
he made use of it not to clear himself of the crimes
laid to his charge, but to disprove the authority of his
judges, and the judicature that he was called before.
And whenever a criminal is either mute, or says no-
thing to the purpose, there is no injustice in condemn-
ing him without hearing him, if his crimes are noto-
rious, and publicly known. If you say, that Charles
died as he lived, I agree with you: if you say, that he
died piously, holily, and at ease, you may remember
that his grandmother Mary, Queen of Scots, an infa-
mous woman, died on a scaffold with as much outward
appearance of piety, sanctity, and constancy, as he did.
And lest you should ascribe too much to that presence
of mind, which some common malefactors have so great
a measure of at their death; many times despair, and
a hardened heart, puts on as it were a vizor of courage;
and stupidity, a shew of quiet and tranquillity of mind:
sometimes the worst of men desire to appear good, un-
daunted, innocent, and now and then religious, not
only in their life, but at their death; and in suffering
death for their villanies, use to act the last part of their
hypocrisy and cheats, with all the shew imaginable;
and like bad poets or stageplayers, are very ambitious
at being clapped at the end of the play.
"Now," you

Purpurea intexti tollant aulaa Britanni.

do to raise a question about our affairs, to which you | of his, by which he desired a deceitful truce, and that are so much a stranger? And what reward induced he might treat with them at London; that they could you to it? But we know enough of that, and who satis- not admit him into that city, till he had made satisfacfied your curiosity in these matters of ours; even those tion to the state for the civil war that he had raised in fugitives, and traitors to their country, that could easily the three kingdoms, and for the deaths of so many of hire such a vain fellow as you, to speak ill of us. Then his subjects slain by his order; and till he had agreed an account in writing of the state of our affairs was to a true and firm peace upon such terms as the parliaput into your hands by some hairbrained, half protes- ments of both kingdoms had offered him so often tant, half papist chaplain or other, or by some sneak- | already, and should offer him again. He on the other ing courtier, and you were put to translate it into Latin; hand either refused to hear, or by ambiguous answers out of that you took these narratives, which, if you eluded, their just and equal proposals, though most please, we will examine a little: "Not the hundred humbly presented to him seven times over. The parthousandth part of the people consented to this sentence liament at last, after so many years' patience, lest the of condemnation." What were the rest of the people then, king should overturn the state by his wiles and delays, that suffered so great a thing to be transacted against when in prison, which he could not subdue in the field, their will? Were they stocks and stones, were they and lest the vanquished enemy, pleased with our divimere trunks of men only, or such images of Britains, as sions, should recover himself, and triumph unexpectedly Virgil describes to have been wrought in tapestry? over his conquerors, vote that for the future they would have no regard to him, that they would send him no more proposals, nor receive any from him: after which vote, there were found even some members of parliament, who out of the hatred they bore that invincible army, whose glory they envied, and which they would have had disbanded, and sent home with disgrace, after they had deserved so well of their nation, and out of a servile compliance with some seditious ministers, finding their opportunity, when many, whom they knew to be otherwise minded than themselves, having been sent by the house itself to suppress the presbyterians, who began already to be turbulent, were absent in the several counties, with a strange levity, not to say perfidiousness, vote that that inveterate enemy of the state, who had nothing of a king but the name, without giving any satisfaction or security, should be brought back to London, and restored to his dignity and government, as if he had deserved well of the nation by what he had done. So that they preferred the king before their religion, their liberty, and that very celebrated covenant of theirs. What did they do in the mean time, who were sound themselves, and saw such pernicious councils on foot? Ought they therefore to have been wanting to the nation, and not provide for its safety, because the infection had spread itself even in their own house? But, who secluded those ill-affected members? "The English army," you say: so that it was not an army of foreigners, but of most valiant, and faithful, honest natives, whose officers for the most part were members of parliament; and whom those good secluded members would have secluded their country, and banished into Ireland; while in the mean time the Scots, whose alliance began to be doubtful, had very considerable forces in four of our northern counties, and kept garrisons in the best towns of those parts, and had the king himself in custody; whilst they likewise encouraged the tumultuating of those of their own faction, who did more than threaten the parliament, both in city and country, and through whose means not only a civil, but a war with Scotland too shortly after brake out. If it has been always counted praise-worthy in private men to assist the state, and promote the public good, whether by advice or action; our army sure

And Britains interwove held up the purple hangings. For you describe no true Britains, but painted ones, or rather needle-wrought men instead of them. Since therefore it is a thing so incredible, that a warlike nation should be subdued by so few, and those of the dregs of the people, (which is the first thing that occurs in your narrative,) that appears in the very nature of the thing itself to be most false. "The bishops were turned out of the house of lords by the parliament itself." The more deplorable is your madness, (for are not you yet sensible that you rave?) to complain of their being turned out of the parliament, whom you yourself in a large book endeavour to prove ought to be turned out of the church. "One of the states of parliament, to wit, the house of lords, consisting of dukes, earls, and viscounts, was removed." And deservedly were they removed; for they were not deputed to sit there by any town or county, but represented themselves only; they had no right over the people, but (as if they had been ordained for that very purpose) used frequently to oppose their rights and liberties. They were created by the king, they were his companions, his servants, and, as it were, shadows of him. He being removed, it was necessary they should be reduced to the same level with the body of the people, from amongst whom they took their rise. "One part of the parliament, and that the worst of all, ought not to have assumed that power of judging and condemning the king." But I have told you already, that the house of commons was not only the chief part of our parliament, while we had kings, but was a perfect and entire parliament of itself, without the temporal lords, much more without the bishops. But," the whole house of commons themselves were not admitted to have to do with the trial of the king" To wit, that part of them was not admitted, that openly revolted to him in their minds and counsels; whom, though they styled him their king, yet they had so often acted against as an enemy. The parliament of England, and the deputies sent from the parliament of Scotland, on the 13th of January, 1645, wrote to the king, in answer to a letter