before a cruel, or a silly, legitimate prince, and of many other irre gularities; yet no such things are to be found in our histories, since the time of William the First, whose reign is the great epoch, from whence we do compute our kings. Let us, therefore, go on more particularly to observe, what has been done since that time, and we shall see, whether they, who wonder so much, have any reason to do so. William the Conqueror was himself illegitimate, and yet succeeded his father in the duchy of Normandy, and therefore had no reason to set any great value upon that sort of title, which is derived from a right of blood. And it seems he did not much regard it; for, passing by Robert his eldest son, he gave the crown, by his last will, to William Rufus, his younger son, disposing, only with regard to his own inclinations, the crown which himself had gained. But his son was too wise to rely upon this disposition, as a suffi cient title; and therefore had recourse to a more sure one; for, call. ing the nobles and wise men of the kingdom, he acquainted them, in full council, with his father's will, and desired their consent to it; who, after a long consultation, did at last unanimously agree to make him their king, and thereupon he was crowned by Lanfranck, Arch-bishop of Canterbury. I cannot but observe one thing farther, that though some men make use of the absolute victory, which the Conqueror had made, and affirm, that thereby the English were wholly broken, and all the old laws and customs of the realm were destroyed; yet it is plain that, at this time, the English interest was so great, that it kept the crown upon William Rufus's head, in spight of all that the Normans could do in behalf of Robert, though they universally joined with him. For, the king calling together the English, and opening to them the treason of the Normans, and promising them a compleat restitution of their ancient laws, they stood firm to him, and soon put an end to all the attempts of his brother, and his Norman accomplices. Upon the death of William Rufus, Robert had a fair pretence to renew his claim to the crown; but that prince had discovered too much of the cruelty of his disposition, of his aversion to the English nation, and of his proneness to revenge; so that, by the full consent and counsel of the whole body of the realm, assembled at Winchester, he was finally rejected, and they did concur to elect the Conqueror's third son Henry for their king (as Mat. of Westminster expresses it.) Nor did they do this but upon terms; for both the clergy and laity said, that, if he would restore them their ancient liberties, and confirm them by his charter, and abrogate some severe laws which his father had made, they would consent to make him king. And this prudent and learned king was not ashamed or unwilling to own this title; for he does at large recite it in his charter, whereby he confirms their liberties, Sciatis me misericordia Dei, & communi concilio baronum Regni Angliæ, ejusdem regni regem coronatum esse, &c. i. e. Know ye that I am crowned King of England by God's mercy, and the general council of the barons of the said kingdom. Henry the First, you see, had reason to believe and own the power of the kingdom, in setting the crown upon what head they pleased; and therefore he desired to secure it that way to his pos terity. To that end, in the thirteenth year of his reign, he summoned a council, and procured all the great and powerful men of the kingdom to swear, that his son William should succeed him; but afterwards this son of his was unfortunately drowned, and the king died, leaving no other issue but Maud his daughter, who had been married to the Emperor, and afterward to Geoffrey Plantagenet, Earl of Anjou. No dispute can be made, but that she had all the right which proximity of blood could give; yet Stephen, Earl of Boloign, who was the son of Adela, one of the Conqueror's daughters, and whose elder brother Theobald, Earl of Blois, was then living, stepped in before her; and, by representing to them the inconvenience of a feminine government, and promising them to consent to such good and gentle laws, as they should devise, prevailed with the estates of the realm to elect him king. And in this charter, which he made soon after, he owns this title, beginning it thus, Ego Stephanus Dei gratia, assensu cleri & populi in regem Angliæ electus, &c. * And the pope, in his charter of confirmation, sent to him in the first year of his reign, tells him, that he was, communi voto & unanimi assensu tam procerum quam etiam populi, in regem electus †, and then he adds, That, since so universal an assent could not be directed but by the divine grace, he therefore allows his title, and confirms him in the kingdom. It is true, that afterwards Maud the empress, together with her son Henry, having, after some years, gained many to their side, gave him great disturbance; till at last Stephen, having lost his eldest son Eustace (in whom he placed his hopes, and used all means, whilst he lived, to have got him declared his successor, but without success), came to an agreement with the empress and her son; and the parliament (who alone could give a sanction to such agreement) was assembled at Winchester to confirm it; and then Stephen pub. lickly adopts Henry for his son, and with their full consent declares him his heir; and, with the same consent, Henry gives Stephen the name of father, and agrees that he should continue to be king, dur ing his life, and they all swore, that, if Henry survived, he should, without opposition, obtain the crown; and Stephen, by his charter, which is set down at large in Brompton, publishes this agreement, Brompt. 1037. In all this transaction, certainly there was no consideration had of any other right, but that which universal consent conferred; for, if Stephen's heir had any pretence, he had a son then living, whose name was William, and who, by the same agreement, was to have I Stephen, by the grace of God, the consent of the clergy and people, chosen King of England. &c. Chosen king by the common voice and unanimous consent both of the nobles and people. all the possessions, which his father enjoyed before he was made king. If the heir of Henry the First had any title, that was vested in Maud the empress, who was then also living; so that neither of the parties had any other colour of right to the crown, than what the consent of the people gave them. According to this parliamentary agreement and limitation, Stephen enjoyed the crown peaceably during his life, and, after his death, Henry the Second came to it as peaceably; but he remembered by what title, and therefore was desirous to secure it to his son in the same manner, though he took a very dangerous and unusual way to do it. For, summoning a parliament to meet at London, he procures his son Henry to be declared king, together with himself, by their consent; and thereupon he was crowned by the Archbishop of York, and fealty sworn to him by all. This was the occasion of civil wars between them, for the father meant hereby only to have secured the succession to him, and the son was impatient of having only the bare title of a king, all along pretending to an equal authority; as doth sufficiently appear by what he writes to the prior and convent of Canterbury, where he takes notice, that his father did attempt some invasions upon them, which he ought not to have done without his consent: Qui, ratione regiæ unctionis, regnum, & totius regni curam suscepimus*; and therefore he appealed to the people in that behalf. Nay, the father himself paid the respect to his son's dignity, that, when he at last subdued him and his rebellious brothers, he would not suffer him to do him homage with his other sons (though he offered it.) But, Henry the son dying in the life-time of his father, Richard was then his eldest son surviving, and consequently had all the right which a next heir could claim. But the wise and wary king had not confidence enough to rely upon this (now so much talked of) sacred right; but, though he had already suffered so much from disobedient sons, was glad to get the succession confirmed to him in his life-time. And, the truth is, there was reason enough that he should do so; for he had all his children by Eleanor, the daughter of William, Duke of Guienne, who was before the wife of Lewis the Seventh, King of France, who was still living, and she only divorced causa adulterii, which being not a divorce à vinculo matrimonii, she could not, either by the canon law universally received, or the laws of England, lawfully marry with any other hus band. After his father's death, Richard came to London, to which place all the clergy and laity were summoned; and, after he had been solemnly and duly elected by the whole clergy and laity (they are the very words of the historian) and taken the usual oaths, he was crowned. And, when he undertook the holy war, he declared Arthur, son of his next brother Geoffrey, the Duke of Bretagne, next heir to the crown. Richard dying without issue, this Arthur ought to have succeeded, Who have received the kingdom, and the care of the whole kingdom, by reason of the royal unction, and his sister Eleanor also had a title before her uncle; but John the younger brother, without regarding this divine right of his nephew, applies himself to the people for a more sure, though but a human title, who, being summoned together, elected him king. And Hubert, the then Archbishop of Canterbury, did at his coronation preach a doctrine, which would have sounded very strangely to the convocation in 1640, (viz.) No one could make any title to the crown, nisi ab universitate regni unanimiter electus. And that he, who was most worthy, ought to be preferred. But (as he goes on) if any one of the race of the deceased king was more deserving than others, as John the brother of the deceased king was, the people ought the more readily to elect him than a stranger to the royal blood. This was all the title King John pretended, and this was then sufficient to put by his nephew. And, in his charters, he does more than once own, that he owed his crown to the election and favour of his subjects. But when King John gave over to dissemble his nature, and went about to change his religion (for he made offers of that sort to the King of Morocco); when he had discovered himself not to be that worthy man which the people supposed him to have been; they remembered from whence he derived his title, and proceeded, upon the same reason that they had chosen him, to make a new election, choosing Lewis, son of Philip, King of France, who was next heir to the crown, in the right of Blanch his wife, niece to King John, and daughter to his sister Eleanor, both the children of Geoffrey Duke of Bretagne, being dead before that time. When King Philip heard of their choice, he consented to send his son, being the rather induced thereto by this reason: That, John's blood being corrupted by an attainder of treason in the life-time of his brother Richard, he was uncapable of taking the crown by de scent, and unworthy of taking it any other way. Lewis, coming to London, was there elected and constituted king, swearing to preserve the people's laws, and they swearing allegiance to him. But he soon forgot his coronation-oath, and attempted seve ral ways to introduce an arbitrary government, before he was well established in his throne; which the English as soon resented: And, King John happening to die very opportunely, the Earl Marshal call ing together the great men of the kingdom, and placing Henry the Third, then an infant, in the midst of them, persuaded them to make him king, who was altogether innocent of his father's faults. The Earl of Gloucester said this was contrary to their oath to Lewis: To which the marshal replied, That Lewis, by breaking his oath, had absolved them from theirs; and that he despised the English, to set up the French; and that he would be the destruction of the realm. With those reasons the whole assembly, being convinced, cried out unanimously, Fiat rext; and, accordingly, they crowned King Henry the Third, and soon after compelled Lewis to renounce all pretences to the crown. • Unless he be chosen unanimously by the representatives of the whole nation. Henry the Third dying, after a long and troublesome reign, his son Edward the First, a prince of great hopes, and whose life answered the highest expectations, succeeded; but, whether he was the eldest son of his father, remains a doubt in history: The house of Lancaster, who derived themselves from his brother Edmund, pretending always that Edmund was the elder, and Edward the younger brother, and that Edmund was put by the crown by common consent, for his deformity. After the death of Edward the First, his son Edward the Second succeeded; but, he degenerating from so great a father, the people grew weary of his irregular and arbitrary government. And a par liament being by him summoned at Westminster, as all our writers say, or as Polydore Virgil ‡ words it, principes convocato concilio pervenerunt Londini (which I observe, only that we may know what Polydore means when he makes use of the expression of principes in concilio congregati ;) they presently entered into a consideration of the miserable state of the nation; and a paper being publickly read, containing many instances of the king's misgovernment, all which he had confessed; they concluded he was unworthy to reign any longer, and that he ought to be deposed; and sent to him to let him know their resolution, and to require him to renounce his crown and royal dignity, otherwise they would proceed as they thought good. And they appointed commissioners to go to him in their names. The Bishop of Ely for the bishops, the Earl of Warren for the earls, Sir Henry Piercy for the barons, and Sir William Frussel for the commons, to resign their homage up to him; which Frussel pronounced in all their names, and formally deprived him of all royal power; the form of which is particularly set down by Knyghton. The king read this sad sentence with extraordinary grief, and many complaints of those evil counsellors, who had se duced him; but, in the midst of his sorrow, he gave them thanks that they elected his son to reign after him. Thus was that glorious Prince Edward the Third elected king in his father's life-time: Et huic electioni universus populus consensit.|| Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, who preached the coronation-sermon, took this for his text, Vox populi vox dei. By this we may see, that all his predecessors were not of Archbishop Laud's mind, but thought there was a divine right somewhere else than where he placed it. Upon the death of Edward the Black Prince, there was some dispute whether John of Gaunt, the eldest surviving son of Edward the Third, should succeed jure propinquitatis, or Richard the son of the Black Prince; whereupon Edward the Third procured the parlia. ment to confirm the succession to Richard the Second. And after. wards, when Edward the Third died, Polydore Virgil says,** Principes regni habito concilio apud Westm. (you know what Polydore Hen. de Knyght. f. 2472, c. 16. 1. 2. + Tho. Walsing. in Vit. Ed. 2. f. 126. Froissart 1. vol. c. 14. Fructus Temporum, Par. 7. f. 107. Hen. de Kught. 1. 3. c. 15. f. 2549. And all the people consented to this election. Jure hæreditario ac etiam voto communi singulorum, H. Knyght, 1. 5. f. 2630. Rot. Parl Pol. Virg. 1. 5. 1 H. 4. |