1. Touching the Crowne or royall Diadem of England , there is none , whether Presbyterian , Independent , Protestant , or others now in action , but confesse that it descends by a right hereditary Line , ( though through divers Races , and some of them Conquerours ) upon the Head of CHARLES the first now Regnant : 't is His owne by inherent birthright and nature , by Gods law , and the Law of the Land , and these Parliament-men at their first sitting did agnize subjection unto Him accordingly , and recognize Him for their Soveraigne liege Lord : Nay , the Roman Catholick denies not this , for though there were Bulls sent to dispense with the English Subjects for their allegiance to Queen Elizabeth , yet the Pope did this against Her as he took Her for a Heretique , not an Usurpresse , though he knew well enough that She had been declared Illegitimate by the Act of an English Parliament .

This Imperiall Crowne of England is adorned and deck'd with many faire Flowers , which are called , royall Prerogatives ; and they are of such a transcendent nature , that they are unforfeitable , individuall , and untransferable to any other : The KING can only summon and dissolve Parliaments : The KING can onely Pardon ( for when He is Crowned , He is sworn to rule in mercy as well as in justice : ) The KING can onely Coyn Money , and enhance or decry the value of it : The power of electing Officers of State , of Justices of Peace , and Assise is in the KING ; He can only grant soveraign Commissions : The KING can only wage War , and make Out-landish Leagues : The KING may make all the Courts of justice ambulatory with His Person , as they were used of old ; 't is true , the Court of Common Pleas must be sedentary in some certain place for such a time ; but that expired , 't is removeable at His pleasure : The KING can only employ Ambassadours and Treat with forain States , &c. These , with other royal Prerogatives which I shall touch hereafter , are those rare and wholsome flowers wherewith the Crowne of England is embellished , nor can they stick anywhere else but in the Crowne , and all confesse the Crowne is as much the KING's , as any private man's Cap is his own .

The second regall Instrument is the Scepter , which may be called an inseparable companion , or a necessary appendix to the Crowne ; this invests the KING with the sole Authority of making Lawes , for before His confirmation all results and determinations of Parliament are but Bills or {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} , they are but abortive things , and meer Embryos ; nay , they have no life at all in them till the KING puts breath and vigour into them : and the antient custome was for the KING to touch them with His Scepter , then they are Lawes , and have a virtue in them to impose an obligation of universall obedience upon all sorts of people , It being an undeniable maxime , That nothing can be generally binding without the King's royall assent , nor doth the Law of England take notice of any thing without it : This being done , they are ever after stil'd the King's Lawes , and the Judges are said to deliver the King's judgments , which agrees with the holy Text , The King by judgment shall stablish the Land : nay , the Law presumes the King to be alwaies the sole Judge Paramount , and Lord chief Justice of England , for he whom He pleaseth to depute for His chiefest Justice , is but stil'd Lord chief Justice of the King's Bench , not Lord chief Justice of England , which title is peculiar to the KING Himself , and observable it is , that whereas He grants Commissions and Parents to the Lord Chancellour ( who is no other then Keeper of His Conscience ) and to all other Judges , He names the Chief Justice of His own Bench by a short Writ only containing two or three lines : Now , though the King be liable to the Law , and is contented to be within their verge , because they are chiefly His owne productions , yet He is still their Protector , Moderator , and Soveraigne , which attributes are incommunicable to any other conjunctly or separately .

Thus the KING with His Scepter , and by the mature advice of His two Houses of Parl. which are His highest Councel & Court , hath the sole power of making Laws ; other Courts of judicature doe but expound them and distribute them by His appointment , they have but Juris dati dictionem or declarationem , and herein , I meane for the Exposition of the Lawes the twelve Judges are to be believed before the whole Kingdom besides . They are as the Areopagites in Athens , the chief Presidents in France and Spaine in an extraordinary Junta , as the Cape-Syndiques in the Rota's of Rome , and the Republique of Venice whose judgments in point of interpreting Lawes are incontroulable , and preferred before the opinion of the whole Senate whence they received their being ; and who hath still power to repeal them , though not to expound them . In France they have a Law-maxime , Arrest donné en Robbe rouge est irrevocable , which is , a Scarlet Sentence is irrevocable , meaning when all the Judges are met in their Robes , and the Client against whom the Cause goes , may chafe and chomp upon the bit , and say what he will for the space of 24 howers against his Judges , but if ever after he traduces them , he is punishable : It is no otherwise here where every ignorant peevish Client , every puny Barister , specially if he become a Member of the House will be ready to arraign and vie knowledge with all the reverend Judges in the Land , whose judgement in points of Law shold be only tripodicall and sterling : so that he may be truly call'd a just King , and to rule according to Law , who rules according to the opinion of his Judges ; therfore , under favor , I do not see how his Majestie for his part could be call'd injust when he leavied the Ship-money , considering he had the judges for it .

I now take the Sword in hand , which is the third Instrument of a King , ( and which this short discours chiefly points at ) it is aswell as the two first , incommunicable and inalienable from his Person ; nothing concernes his honor more both at home and abroad ; the Crown and the Scepter are but unweildy and impotent naked indefensible things without it . There 's none so simple as to think there's meant hereby an ordinary single sword , such as ev'ry one carrieth by his side , or som imaginary thing or chymera of a sword ; No , 't is the polemical publique sword of the whole Kingdom , 't is an aggregative compound sword , and 't is moulded of bell-metall ; for 't is made up of all the ammunition and armes small and great , of all the military strengths both by Land and Sea , of all the Forts , Castles and tenable places within and round about the whole I le : The Kings of England have had this sword by vertue of their royall signory from all times , the Laws have girded it to their sides , they have employed it for repelling all forren force , for revenging all forren wrongs or affronts , for quelling all intestine tumults , and for protecting the weal of the whole body politike at home : The peeple were never capable of this sword , the fundamentall constitutions of this Kingdom deny it them ; 't is all one to put the sword in a mad mans hand , as in the peeples ; or for them to have a disposing power in whose hands it shall be . Such was the case once of the French sword , in that notorious insurrection call'd to this day La Jaqueris de Beauvoisin , when the Pesants and Mechanics had a design to wrest it out of the Kings hand , and to depresse all the Peers & Gentry of the Kingdom ; & the busines had gone very far , had not the Prelats stuck close to the Nobility ; But afterwards poor hare-brain'd things they desire the King upon bended knees to take it againe ; Such popular puffs have blowen often in Poland , Naples and other places , where while they sought and fought for liberty by retrenching the regall power , they fool'd themselfs into a slavery unawares , and found the rule right , that excess of freedom turns to thraldom , and ushers in all confusions . If one shold go back to the nonage of the world , when Governers and Rulers began first , one will find the peeple desir'd to live under Kings for their own advantage , that they might be restrain'd from wild exorbitant liberty , and kept in unity ; Now unity is as requisit for the welbeing of all naturall things , as entity is for their being , and 't is a receiv'd maxim in policy , that nothing preserves Unity more exactly then Royall Government : besides 't is known to be the noblest sort of sway ; In so much that by the Law of Nations , if Subjects of equall degrees , and under differing Princes shold meet , the Subjects of a King shold take predency of those under any Republique , and those of a successif Kingdom , of those that are under an Electif .

But to take up the Sword again . I say that the Sword of public power & authoritie is fit only to hang at the Kings side , & so indeed shold the great Seal hang only at his girdle , because 't is the Key of the Kingdom : which makes me think of what I read of Charlemain , how he had the imperiall Seal emboss'd alwaies upon the pommell of his sword , and his reason was , that he was ready to maintain whatsoever he signed , and sealed .

The Civilians , who are not in all points so great friends to Monarchy as the Common Law of England is , say , there are six lura Regalia , six Regall Rights , viz. 1. Potestas Iudicatoria , 2. Potestas vitae & necis , 3. Armamenta , 4. Bona adespota , 5. Census , 6. Monetarum valor : to wit , Power of Judicature , power of life and death , all kind of arming , masterlesse goods , Sessements , and the value of money .

Among these Regalias , we find that Arming , which in effect is nought else but the Kings Sword , is among the chiefest ; and 't is as proper and peculiar to his person , as either Crown or Scepter . By these two he drawes a loose voluntary love and opinion onely from his Subjects , but by the Sword he drawes reverence and awe , which are the chiefest ingredients of allegiance , it being a maxime , That the best mixture of government is made of feare and love . With this sword he conferrs honor , he dubbs Knights , he creates magistrats , the Lord Deputy of Ireland , the Lord Mayor of London with all other Corporations have their swords from him , and when he entreth any place corporat , we know the first thing that is presented him is the Sword : With this Sword he shields and preserves all his peeple that ev'ry one may sit quietly under his own Vine , sleep securely in his own House , and enjoy sweetly the fruits of his labours .

Nor doth the point of this sword reach only to ev'ry corner of his own dominions , but it extends beyond the seas to gard his Subjects from oppression , and denial of justice , as well as to vindicate the publike wrongs , make good the interests of his Crown , and to assist his confederates ; This is the sword that Edward the third tied the Flower deluces unto ( which stick still unto it , ) when having sent to France to demand that Crown by maternall right , the Counsell there sent him word that the Crown of France was not tied to a d●staff , to which scoffing answer he replied that then he wold tie it to his sword , and he was as good as his word . Nor is this publike sword concredited or intrusted by the peeple in a fiduciary conditionall way to the King , but it is properly and peculiarly belonging unto him , as an inseparable concomitant , perpetuall Usher and attendant to his Crowne . The King , we know , useth to maintain all garrisons upon his own charge , not the peeples ; he fortifies upon his own charge , not the peeples : And though I will not averr , that the King may impresse any of his Subjects , unlesse it be upon an actuall invasion by Sea , or a sudden irruption into his Kingdom by Land , as the Scots have often don , yet at any time the King may raise Volunteers , and those who have received his money , the Law makes it felony , if they forsake his service .

Thus we see there 's nothing that conduceth more to the glory , and indeed the very essence of a King then the Sword , which is the Armes and military strength of his Kingdome ; wherfore under favor , there cannot be a greater point of dishonor to a King then to be disarmed , then to have his Sword taken from him , or dispos'd of and intrusted to any but those whom he shall appoint ; for as à minori ad majus the Argument often holds , if a privat Gentleman chance to be disarm'd upon a quarrell , 't is held the utmost of disgraces , much greater and more public is the dishonor that falls upon a King , if after some traverses of difference 'twixt him and his Subjects , they shold offer to disarme him , or demand his sword of him : when the Eagle parted with his talons , and the Lion with his teeth and ongles , the Apolog tells us how contemptible afterwards the one grew to be among Birds , the other among Beasts . For a King to part with the Sword politic is to render himself such a ridiculous King , as that logg of wood was which Jupiter let down among the froggs for their King at the importunity of their croaking ; 't is to make him a King of clouts , or as the Spaniard hath it , Rey de Havas , a Bean-King , such as we use to choose in sport at Twelf-night .

But my hopes are , that the two present Houses of Parlement ( for now they may be call'd so , because they begin to parley with their King , ) wil be more tender of the honor of their Soverain Liege Lord , which , together with all his Rights and Dignities , by severall solemn Oaths , and by their own binding instruments of Protestation and Covenant , ( not yet revok'd ) they are sworn to maintain , and that they will demand nothing of him which may savour of Aspertè or force , but what may hold water hereafter : But now , touching the Militia or Sword of the Kingdom , I think , under favor , the King cannot transfer it to any other ; for that were to desert the protection of his people , which is point-blank against his Coronation Oath and his Office : What forren Prince or State will send either Ambassador , Resident or Agent to him , when they understand his Sword is taken from him ? What reformed forren Church wil acknowledg Him Defender of the Faith , when they hear of this ? Nay , they who wish England no good will , will go neer to paint him out , as not long since another King was , with a fair velvet Scabbard , a specious golden hilt and chape , but the blade within was of wood . I hope that they who sway now , will make better use of their successes : Many of them know 't is as difficult a thing to use a victory well , as to get one ; there is as much prudence requir'd in the one , as prowesse in the other ; they wil be wiser sure then turn it to the dishonor of their King : it being a certaine rule , that the glory of a Nation all the world over depends upon the glory of their King , and if he be any way obscur'd , the whole Kingdom is under an eclipse .

I have observed , that among other characters of gallantry , which forren Writers appropriat to the English Nation , one is , that they use to be most zealous to preserve the Honor of their King ; I trust that they who are now upp will return to the steps of their Progenitors , both in this particular and divers other ; that their successes may serve to sweeten and moderat things , and suppresse the popular Sword which still rages ; And it had been heartily wished that a suspension of Arms had preceded this Treaty , which useth to be the ordinary fore-runner , and a necessarie antecedent to all Treaties ; for while acts of hostility continue , som ill favour'd newes may intervene which may imbitter and disturb all : nor can it be expected that the proceedings will goe on with that candor and confidence , while the old rancor is still in action ; 't is impossible a sore shold heale till the inflamation be taken away ; To cast water into a wound instead of oyle is not the way to cure it : or to cast oyle upon a fire instead of water is not the way to quench it ; poor England hath had a consuming fire within her bowells many yeeres , she is also mortally wounded in all her members , that she is still in a high Fever , which hath made her rave and speak idle a long time ; and 't is like to turn to a Hectic if not timely prevented . I p●ay God she may have no occasion to make use of the same complaint as Alexander the great made when he was expiring his last , Perii turba Medicorum : too many Physitians have undon me .

To conclude in a word , there is but one only way , under favor , to put a period to all these fearfull confusions ; it is , to put the great Master-wheele in order , and in its due place again , and then all the inferior wheels will move regularly ; let the King be restor'd , and ev'ry one will com to his own , all interests will be satisfied , all things quickly rectified ; till this be done , 't is as absurd to attempt the setling of peace , as if one shold go about to set a Watch by the gnomon of an horizontall Diall when the Sun is in a cloud .