Chapter 8

KING--Since that I see that you will not hear anything of debate concerning that which I confess I thought most material for the Peace of the Kingdom, and for the Liberty of the Subject, I shall wave it; I shall speak nothing to it, but only I must tell you, that this many a day all things have been taken away from me, but that, that I call more dear to me than my life, which is my conscience and my honour: and if I had respect to my life more than the Peace of the Kingdom, the Liberty of the Subject, certainly I should have made a particular Defence for myself; for by that at leastwise I might have delayed an ugly Sentence, which I believe will pass upon me. Therefore certainly, Sir, as a man that hath some understanding, some knowledge of the world, if that my true zeal to my country had not overborne the care that I have of my own preservation, I should have gone another way to work than that I have done. Now, Sir, I conceive, that an hasty Sentence once passed, may sooner be repented than recalled; and truly, the self-same desire that I have for the Peace of the Kingdom, and the Liberty of the subject more than my own particular, does make me now at last desire, that having something for to say that concerns both, I desire before Sentence be given, that I may be heard in the Painted Chamber before the Lords and Commons. This delay cannot be prejudicial to you, whatsoever I say; if that I say no reason, those that hear me must be judges: I cannot be judge of that, which I have: if it be reason, and really for the welfare of the kingdom, and the liberty of the subject, I am sure on't, very well it is worth the hearing; therefore I do conjure you, as you love that which you pretend, I hope it is real, the Liberty of the Subject, the Peace of the kingdom, that you will grant me the hearing, before any Sentence be past. I only desire this, that you will take this into your consideration, it may be you have not heard of it before-hand; if you will, I'll retire, and you may think of it; but if I cannot get this liberty I do here protest, that so fair shews of Liberty and Peace are pure shews, and not otherwise, since you will not hear your king.

LORD PRESIDENT--Sir, you have now spoken.

KING--Yes, Sir.

LORD PRESIDENT--And this that you have said is a further declining of the Jurisdiction of this Court, which was the thing wherein you were limited before.

KING--Pray excuse me, Sir, for my interruption, because you mistake me; it is not a declining of it, you do judge me before you hear me speak; I say it will not, I do not decline it, though I cannot acknowledge the Jurisdiction of the Court; yet, Sir, in this give me leave to say, I would do it, though I do not by this acknowledge it, I do protest it is not the declining of it, since I say, if that I do say any thing, but that which is for the Peace of the Kingdom, and the Liberty of the Subject, then the shame is mine. Now I desire that you will take this into your consideration; if you will, I'll withdraw.

LORD PRESIDENT--Sir, this is not altogether new that you have moved unto us, not altogether new to us, though it is the first time in person you have offered it to the Court. Sir, you say you do not decline the Jurisdiction of the Court.

KING--Not in this that I have said.

LORD PRESIDENT--I understand you well, Sir; but nevertheless, that which you have offered seems to be contrary to that saying of yours; for the Court are ready to give a Sentence; It is not as you say, That they will not hear your king; for they have been ready to hear you, they have patiently waited your pleasure for three Courts together, to hear what you would say to the People's Charge against you, to which you have not vouchsafed to give any Answer at all. Sir, this tends to a further delay; truly, Sir, such delays as these, neither may the kingdom nor justice well bear; you have had three several days to have offered in this kind what you would have pleased. This Court is founded upon that Authority of the Commons of England in whom rests the supreme jurisdiction; that which you now tender is to have another jurisdiction, and a co-ordinate jurisdiction. I know very well you express yourself, Sir, that notwithstanding that you would offer to the Lords and Commons in the Painted Chamber, yet nevertheless you would proceed on here, I did hear you say so. But, Sir, that you would offer there, whatever it is, it must needs be in delay of the Justice here; so as if this Court be resolved, and prepared for the Sentence, this that you offer they are not bound in justice to grant; But, Sir, according to what you seem to desire, and because you shall know the further pleasure of the Court upon that which you have moved, the Court will withdraw for a time.

KING--Shall I withdraw?

LORD PRESIDENT--Sir, you shall know the pleasure of the Court presently.

The Court withdraws for half an hour into the Court of Wards.

SERJEANT-AT-ARMS--The Court gives command, that the Prisoner be withdrawn; and they give order for his return again.

The Court withdraws for half an hour and returns.

LORD PRESIDENT--Serjeant-at-Arms, send for your Prisoner.

Sir, you were pleased to make a motion here to the Court to offer a desire of yours, touching the propounding of somewhat to the Lords in the Painted Chamber, for the peace of the kingdom; Sir, you did, in effect, receive an Answer before the Court adjourned; truly, Sir, their withdrawing, and adjournment was _pro forma tantum_: for it did not seem to them that there was any difficulty in the thing; they have considered of what you have moved, and have considered of their own Authority, which is founded, as hath been often said, upon the supreme Authority of the Commons of England assembled in parliament: the Court acts according to their Commission. Sir, the return I have to you from the Court, is this: That they have been too much delayed by you already, and this that you now offer hath occasioned some little further delay; and they are Judges appointed by the highest Judges; and Judges are no more to delay, than they are to deny Justice: they are good words in the great old Charter of England; _Nulli negabimus, nulli vendemus, nulli differemus Justitiam._ There must be no delay; but the truth is, Sir, and so every man here observes it, that you have much delayed them in your Contempt and Default, for which they might long since have proceeded to Judgment against you; and notwithstanding what you have offered, they are resolved to proceed to Punishment, and to Judgment, and that is their unanimous Resolution.

KING--Sir, I know it is in vain for me to dispute, I am no sceptic for to deny the Power that you have; I know that you have Power enough: Sir, I confess, I think it would have been for the kingdom's peace, if you would have taken the pains for to have shewn the lawfulness of your Power; for this Delay that I have desired, I confess it is a delay, but it is a delay very important for the Peace of the Kingdom; for it is not my person that I look on alone, it is the kingdom's welfare, and the kingdom's peace; it is an old Sentence, That we should think long, before we resolve of great matters. Therefore, Sir, I do say again, that I do put at your doors all the inconveniency of an hasty Sentence. I confess I have been here now, I think, this week; this day eight days was the day I came here first, but a little Delay of a day or two further may give Peace; whereas an hasty Judgment may bring on that trouble and perpetual inconveniency to the kingdom, that the child that is unborn may repent it; and therefore again, out of the duty I owe to God, and to my country, I do desire that I may be heard by the Lords and Commons in the Painted Chamber, or any other chamber that you will appoint me.

LORD PRESIDENT--Sir, you have been already answered to what you even now moved, being the same you moved before, since the Resolution and the Judgment of the Court in it; and the Court now requires to know whether you have any more to say for yourself than you have said, before they proceed to Sentence?

KING--I say this, Sir, That if you will hear me, if you will give but this Delay, I doubt not but I shall give some satisfaction to you all here, and to my People after that; and therefore I do require you, as you will answer it at the dreadful Day of Judgment, that you will consider it once again.

LORD PRESIDENT--Sir, I have received direction from the Court.

KING--Well, Sir.

LORD PRESIDENT--If this must be re-enforced, or any thing of this nature, your Answer must be the same; and they will proceed to Sentence, if you have nothing more to say.

KING--Sir, I have nothing more to say, but I shall desire, that this may be entered what I have said.

LORD PRESIDENT--The Court then, Sir, hath something else to say to you; which, although I know it will be very unacceptable, yet notwithstanding they are willing, and are resolved to discharge their duty. Sir, You speak very well of a precious thing, which you call Peace; and it had been much to be wished that God had put it into your heart, that you had as effectually and really endeavoured and studied the Peace of the kingdom, as now in words you seem to pretend; but, as you were told the other day, actions must expound intentions; yet actions have been clean contrary. And truly, Sir, it doth appear plainly enough to them, that you have gone upon very erroneous principles: The kingdom hath felt it to their smart; and it will be no case to you to think of it; for, Sir, you have held yourself, and let fall such language, as if you had been no way subject to the Law, or that the law had not been your superior. Sir, the Court is very sensible of it, and I hope so are all the understanding people of England, that the law is your superior; that you ought to have ruled according to the law; you ought to have so. Sir, I know very well your pretence hath been that you have done so; but, Sir, the difference hath been who shall be the expositors of this law: Sir, whether you and your party, out of courts of justice, shall take upon them to expound law, or the courts of justice, who are the expounders? Nay, the Sovereign and the High Court of Justice, the Parliament of England, that are not only the highest expounders, but the sole makers of the law? Sir, for you to set yourself with your single judgment, and those that adhere unto you, to set yourself against the highest Court of Justice, that is not law. Sir, as the Law is your Superior, so truly, Sir, there is something that is superior to the Law, and that is indeed the Parent or Author of the Law, and that is the people of England: for, Sir, as they are those that at the first (as other countries have done) did chuse to themselves this form of government even for Justice sake, that justice might be administered, that peace might be preserved; so, Sir, they gave laws to their governors, according to which they should govern; and if those laws should have proved inconvenient or prejudicial to the public, they had a power in them, and reserved to themselves, to alter as they shall see cause. Sir, it is very true what some of your side have said, '_Rex non habet parem in regno_,' say they: This Court will say the same, while King, that you have not your peer in some sense, for you are _major singulis_; but they will aver again that you are _minor universis_. And the same Author tells you that, '_non debet esse major eo in regno suo in exhibitione juris, minimus autem esse debet in judicio suscipiendo_' [Bract., De Leg., lib. I. c. viii.]

This we know to be law, _Rex habet superiorem, Deum et legem, etiam et curiam_; so says the same author. And truly, Sir, he makes bold to go a little further, _Debent ei ponere fraenum_: they ought to bridle him. And, Sir, we know very well the stories of old: those wars that were called the Barons' War, when the nobility of the land did stand out for the Liberty and Property of the Subject, and would not suffer the kings, that did invade, to play the tyrants freer, but called them to account for it; we know that truth, that they did _fraenum ponere_. But, sir, if they do forbear to do their duty now, and are not so mindful of their own honour and the kingdom's good as the Barons of England of old were, certainly the Commons of England will not be unmindful of what is for their preservation, and for their safety; _Justitiae fruendi causa reges constituti sunt_. This we learn: The end of having kings, or any other governors, it is for the enjoying of justice; that is the end. Now, Sir, if so be the king will go contrary to that end, or any other governor will go contrary to the end of his government; Sir, he must understand that he is but an officer in trust, and he ought to discharge that trust; and they are to take order for the animadversion and punishment of such an offending governor.

This is not law of yesterday, Sir (since the time of the division betwixt you and your people), but it is law of old. And we know very well the Authors and the Authorities that do tell us what the law was in that point upon the Election of Kings upon the Oath that they took unto their people: And if they did not observe it, there were those things called Parliaments; the Parliaments were they that were to adjudge (the very Words of the Author) the plaints and wrongs done of the king and the queen, or their children; such wrongs especially, when the people could have no where else any Remedy. Sir, that hath been the people of England's case: they could not have their Remedy elsewhere but in parliament.

Sir, Parliaments were ordained for that purpose, to redress the Grievances of the people; that was their main end. And truly, Sir, if so be that the kings of England had been rightly mindful of themselves, they were never more in majesty and state than in the Parliament: But how forgetful some have been, Stories have told us, we have a miserable, a lamentable, a sad experience of it. Sir, by the old laws of England, I speak these things the rather to you, because you were pleased to let fall the other day, You thought you had as much knowledge in the Law as most gentlemen in England: it is very well, Sir. And truly, Sir, it is very fit for the gentlemen of England to understand that Law under which they must live, and by which they must be governed. And then, Sir, the Scripture says, 'They that know their master's will and do it not' what follows? The Law is your master, the acts of parliament.

The Parliaments were to be kept antiently, we find in our old Author, twice in the year, that the Subject upon any occasion might have a ready Remedy and Redress for his Grievance. Afterwards, by several acts of parliament in the days of your predecessor Edward the third, they should have been once a year. Sir, what the Intermission of parliaments hath been in your time, it is very well known, and the sad consequences of it; and what in the interim instead of these Parliaments hath been by you by an high and arbitrary hand introduced upon the People, that likewise hath been too well known and felt. But when God by his Providence had so far brought it about, that you could no longer decline the calling of a Parliament, Sir, yet it will appear what your ends were against the antient and your native kingdom of Scotland: the Parliament of England not serving your ends against them, you were pleased to dissolve it. Another great necessity occasioned the calling of this parliament; and what your Designs, and Plots, and Endeavours all along have been, for the crushing and confounding of this Parliament, hath been very notorious to the whole kingdom. And truly, Sir, in that you did strike at all; that had been a sure way to have brought about That that this Charge lays upon you, your intention to subvert the Fundamental Laws of the Land; for the great bulwark of the Liberties of the People is the Parliament of England; and to subvert and root up that, which your aim hath been to do, certainly at one blow you had confounded the Liberties and the Property of England.

Truly, Sir, it makes me to call to mind; I cannot forbear to express it; for, Sir, we must deal plainly with you, according to the merits of your cause; so is our Commission; it makes me to call to mind (these proceedings of yours) That that we read of a great Roman Emperor, by the way let us call him a great Roman tyrant, Caligula, that wished that the people of Rome had had but one neck, that at one blow he might cut it off. And your proceedings have been somewhat like to this; for the body of the people of England hath been (and where else) represented but in the Parliament; and could you but have confounded that, you had at one blow cut off the neck of England. But God hath reserved better things for us, and hath pleased for to confound your designs, and to break your forces, and to bring your person into custody, that you might be responsible to justice.

Sir, we know very well that it is a question much on your side press'd, By what Precedent we shall proceed? Truly, Sir, for Precedents, I shall not upon these occasions institute any long discourse; but it is no new thing to cite precedents almost of all nations, where the people (where the power hath been in their hands) have made bold to call their Kings to account; and where the change of government hath been upon occasion of the Tyranny and Misgovernment of those that have been placed over them, I will not spend time to mention either France, or Spain, or the Empire, or other countries; volumes may be written of it. But truly, Sir, that of the kingdom of Arragon, I shall think some of us have thought upon it, where they have the justice of Arragon, that is, a man, _tanquam in medio positus_, betwixt the King of Spain and the people of the country; that if wrong be done by the King, he that is king of Arragon, the justice, hath power to reform the wrong; and he is acknowledged to be the king's superior, and is the grand preserver of their privileges, and hath prosecuted kings upon their miscarriages.

Sir, what the Tribunes of Rome were heretofore, and what the Ephori were to the Lacedemonian State, we know that is the Parliament of England to the English state; and though Rome seemed to lose its liberty when once the Emperors were; yet you shall find some famous acts of justice even done by the Senate of Rome; that great Tyrant of his time, Nero, condemned and judged by the Senate. But truly, Sir, to you I should not need to mention these foreign examples and stories: If you look but over Tweed, we find enough in your native kingdom of Scotland. If we look to your first King Fergus, that your Stories make mention of, he was an elective king; he died, and left two sons, both in their minority; the kingdom made choice of their uncle, his brother, to govern in the minority. Afterwards the elder brother, giving small hope to the people that he would rule or govern well, seeking to supplant that good uncle of his that governed them justly, they set the elder aside, and took to the younger. Sir, if I should come to what your Stories make mention of, you know very well you are the hundred and ninth king of Scotland; for not to mention so many kings as that kingdom, according to their power and privileges, have made bold to deal withal, some to banish, and some to imprison, and some to put to death, it would be too long: and as one of your own authors says, it would be too long to recite the manifold examples that your own stories make mention of. _Reges_, etc. (say they) we do create: we created kings at first: _Leges_, etc., we imposed laws upon them. And as they are chosen by the suffrages of the People at the first, so upon just occasion, by the same suffrages they may be taken down again. And we will be bold to say, that no kingdom hath yielded more plentiful experience than that your native kingdom of Scotland hath done concerning the Deposition and the Punishment of their offending and transgressing kings.

It is not far to go for an example: near you--Your grandmother set aside, and your Father, an infant, crowned. And the State did it here in England; here hath not been a want of some examples. They have made bold (the Parliament and the People of England) to call their Kings to account; there are frequent examples of it in the Saxons' time, the time before the Conquest. Since the Conquest there want not some Precedents neither; King Edward the Second, King Richard the Second, were dealt with so by the Parliament, as they were deposed and deprived. And truly, Sir, whoever shall look into their Stories, they shall not find the Articles that are charged upon them to come near to that height and capitalness of Crimes that are laid to your Charge; nothing near.

Sir, you were pleased to say, the other day, wherein they dissent; and I did not contradict it. But take all together, Sir; If you were as the Charge speaks, and no otherwise, admitted king of England; but for that you were pleased then to alledge, how that for almost a thousand years these things have been, Stories will tell you, if you go no higher than the time of the Conquest; if you do come down since the Conquest, you are the twenty-fourth king from William called the Conqueror, you shall find one half of them to come merely from the state, and not merely upon the point of descent. It were easy to be instanced to you; but time must not be lost that way. And truly, Sir, what a grave and learned Judge said in his time, and well known to you, and is since printed for posterity, That although there was such a thing as a descent many times, yet the kings of England ever held the greatest assurance of their Titles when it was declared by Parliament. And, Sir, your Oath, the manner of your Coronation, doth shew plainly, that the kings of England, although it is true, by the law the next person in blood is designed: yet if there were just cause to refuse him, the people of England might do it. For there is a Contract and a bargain made between the King and his people, and your Oath is taken; and certainly, Sir, the bond is reciprocal; for as you are the Liege Lord, so they Liege Subjects. And we know very well, that hath been so much spoken of, _Ligeantia est duplex_. This we know, now, the one tie, the one bond, is the Bond of Protection that is due from the sovereign; the other is the Bond of Subjection that is due from the Subject. Sir, if this bond be once broken, farewell sovereignty! _Subjectio trahit_, etc.