Price and Priestley infinuate our ancestors have been conftantly kept in. Bracton, who was a judge under Henry III. proves, that this was not the spirit of the government of his days; nor does the great charter of our liberties, which is the firft written formal act of parliament tranfmitted to us from our ancestors, bespeak any such spirit, wish, or intention, that then actuated the reprefentatives of the nation. A very constitutional writer of the prefent century goes further, by denying almoft the poffibility of the charge. As the worst evils of fociety flow from short- fighted or perverted judgments, the constitution (with a policy peculiar to itfelf) encourages every method of popular instruction. Freedom of debate in parliament tends to clear and lay open the grounds of public proceedings; and the liberty of the prefs is as naturally fitted to the support of a good government, as to the ruin of a bad one. Measures, which carry with them a fallacious appearance of lenity, are expofed by this mean; and thofe, which carry with them the form of severity, but have the subftance of strength and fafety, are fet in their juft light, for the approbation of the people."

P. 4.

Yorke's Confiderations on the Law of Forfeiture,

Our conftitu

tion formed to

inftrua

The king's fuperiority in the

ftate.

I feel therefore the confoling force of con-
ftitutional fanction, even in my humble ef-
forts to disclose and explain the true fenfe,
fpirit, and principles of it to my country-

men.

Under the evident attention to the difference between the mediate and immediate appointment of power by God, Bracton fays of the king in lis political capacity; *"Every body is under him, and he is under nobody, unlefs it be under God. He has no equal in the realm, because he would then lofe his command, fince amongst equals there can be no one fuperior. But much more ought he not to have any one fuperior to, or more powerful than himself, for fo would he become inferior to his own fubjećts, and thofe who are inferior cannot be equal to fych, as are more powerful than themfelves. The king therefore ought not to be subject to

* Bract. c. 8. "Omnis quidem fub eo, et ipfe sub nullo, nifi tantum fub Deo. Parem autem non habet in regno fuo, quia fic amitteret præceptum, cûm par in parem non habeat imperium. Item nec multò fortius fuperiorem, nec potentiorem habere debet, quia fic effet inferior fibi fubjectis, & inferiores pares effe non poffunt potentioribus. Ipfe autem rex, non debet effe sub homine, fed fub Deo et fub lege, quia lex facit regem; attribuat igitur rex legi, quod lex attribuit ei, videlicet, dominationem & poteftatem; non eft enim rex, ubi do. minatur voluntas & non lex,"

any man, but only under God and the law, because the law makes the king. Let the king therefore give to the law, what the law gives to the king, that is, authority and power; for there can be no king, where arbitrary will rules and not the law."

It is not poffible to lay down and account for the first principles of our constitution more diftinctly, than this confiderate and unbiaffed author does; he firft establishes the authority of Almighty God, who enjoins jure divino fubordination to magiftracy; then the actual appointment of the people by his permiffion; and lastly the efficient fovereignty of the king by virtue of the appointment of the people. He uses the collective word lex for the legislative body, which evidently is the representative body of the nation; and he gives his reason, why the king is fub Deo and fub lege, becaufe lex (that is the legislative body, or the people) facit regem. It is clear, that he here speaks of the fecondary cause, lex, otherwise he must have faid, ipfe fub nullo nifi tantùm fub Deo, quia Deus facit regem. And although in four different places he calls the king Dei vicarius, the vicar, or lieutenant, or vicegerent of Almighty God; yet he fo fully explains the meaning of this term or expreffion, that the most wilful obstinacy X 4 alone

How the king is God's vicar upon earth.

alone can mifconceive or mifreprefent it. "Therefore the king must exercise his legal power, like the vicegerent or minifter of God upon earth, for fuch power only is of God; the power of committing injury is the power of the devil, and not of God; and the king will become the minifter either of God or of the devil, according to whofefoever works he fhall have done. Therefore whilft he acts justly and by law, he is the vicegerent of the eternal king, but he is the minifter of Satan, whilst he declines to injury. For he is called a king (or ruler) from ruling according to law, and not from actually reigning; for he is really a king, whilft he acts according to law, but he becomes a tyrant from the moment he oppreffes the people committed to him by violent arbitrary power." He continues to urge the neceffity of the king's governing by law upon the ftrength of the old reafon of his owing his crown to the law,

*Bract. cap. 9. f. 107. "Exercere igitur debet rex poteftatem juris, ficut Dei vicarius & minifter in terrâ, quia illa poteftas folius Dei eft; poteftas autem injuriæ, diaboli eft non Dei ; & cujus horum operum fecerit rex, ejus minifter erit, cujus opera fecerit. Igitur dum facit juftitiam, vicarius eft regis æterni; minister autem diaboli, dum declinet ad injuriam. Dicitur enim rex a benè regendo, & non a regnando; quia rex eft, dum benè regit, tyrannus dum populum fibi creditum violentâ opprimit dominatione."

or

or rather to the legislative act of the community, facit enim lex quod ipfe fit rex.

tations of our king's power

Near two centuries after this, the learned Chancellor Fortescue, adopting the old adage, Ars non habet inimicum nifi ignorantem, “ The only enemy to an art, is he who knows it not," endeavoured to enlighten his royal pupil by the instructions, which he gave him, and the world in general by the publication of them; amongst them we read the very fame conftitutional doctrine of the limited prerogative or power, and the legal duties of the king of England. "A king of The true limi England cannot at his pleasure make any alterations in the laws of the land; for the nature of his government is not only regal, but political. Had it been merely regal, he would have a power to make what innovations and alterations he pleased in the laws of the kingdom, impofe tallages and other hardships upon the people, whether they would or no without their confent, which fort of government the civil laws point out, when they declare, quod principi placuit, legis habet vigorem; but it is much otherwise with a king, whofe government is political, because he can neither make any alteration or

Fort. de Laud. Leg. Ang. c. ix.

change