CHAPTER XX THE REIGN OF JAMES I. 148. Coronation Oath of James I. Tanner MSS. The following oath should be compared with that taken by Edward II., four centuries earlier (No. 89). In that space of four centuries, with all the tremendous changes in ecclesiastical organization, the coronation oaths of the sovereigns of England altered but little; yet in comparing those instanced, we find sufficient difference to indicate that the king had taken the place which the Pope once held, and that the Church of the State was no longer the child of Rome. Archbishop. Sir, will you grant and keep and by your oath confirm to your people of England the laws and customs to them granted by the kings of England your lawful and religious predecessors; and namely the laws, customs and franchises granted to clergy and to the people by the glorious king, St. Edward, your predecessor, according and conformable to the laws of God and true profession of the gospel established in this kingdom, and agreeing to the prerogatives of the kings thereof and to the ancient customs of this realm? King. I grant and promise to keep them. A. Will you keep peace and agreement entirely, according to your power, both to God, the holy church, the clergy and the people? K. I will keep it. A. Will you to your power cause law, justice and discretion in mercy and truth to be executed in all your judgments? K. I will. A. Sir, will you grant to hold and keep the laws and rightful customs which the commonalty of your kingdom have, and to defend and uphold them to the honour of God, so much as in you lieth? K. I grant and promise so to do. Sequitur admonitio episcoporum, etc. Our lord and king, we beseech you to grant and preserve unto us and every one of us and the churches committed to our charge all canonical privileges and due law and justice, and that you would protect and defend us as every good king in his kingdom ought to be a protector and defender of the bishops and churches under their government. K. With a willing and devout heart I promise and grant that I will preserve and maintain to you and every of you and the churches committed to your charge all canonical privileges and due law and justice, and that I will be your protector and defender to my power by the assistance of God, as every good king in his kingdom ought to protect and defend the bishops and churches under their government. (Statutes and Constitutional Documents, Prothero, Oxford, 1894, p. 391.) 149. The Crown above the Courts James I. The cause of the ruin of the Stuart dynasty may be read in the political works of the first English king of that house. In the mind of James I. the doctrine of the divine right of kings and of the absolute power of the sovereign were firmly fixed. These theories were expressed by the acts as well as the words of the first Stuart. In the speech which he made in the Star Chamber on June 20, 1601, the subordination of the judicial power to that of the Crown is stated clearly and positively. ... I am next to come to the limits wherein you are to bound yourselves, which likewise are three. First, encroach not upon the prerogative of the crown: if there falls out a question that concerns my prerogative or mystery of state, deal not with it, till you consult with the king or his council, or both; for they are transcendent matters and must not be deliberately carried out with over-rash wilfulness.... That which concerns the mystery of the king's power is not lawful to be disputed; for that is to wade into the weakness of princes, and to take away the mystical reverence that belongs unto them that sit on the throne of God. Secondly, that you keep yourselves within your own. benches, not to invade other jurisdictions, which is unfit and an unlawful thing. Keep you therefore all in your own bounds, and for my part, I desire you to give me no more right, in my private prerogative, than you give any subject, and therein I will be acquiescent: as for the absolute prerog ative of the crown, that is no subject for the tongue of a lawyer, nor is lawful to be disputed. It is atheism and blasphemy to dispute what God can do: good Christians content themselves with his will revealed in his word, so it is presumption and high contempt in a subject to dispute what a king can do, or say that a king cannot do this or that; but rest in that which is the king's revealed will in his law. (Works of James I., Lond., 1616, p. 556.) 150. The King is above the Law James I. James I. from the first day of his reign disclaimed the power of Parliament to control the will of the sovereign. He claimed the power to make, amend or alter laws as well as the right to abrogate them. The dispensing and suspending power was affirmed in its most arbitrary form. The following selection aptly illustrates the Stuart theory of the royal prerogative. According to these fundamental laws already alleged, we daily see that in the parliament (which is nothing else but the head court of the king and his vassals) the laws are but craved by his subjects, and only made by him at their rogation and with their advice: for albeit the king make daily statutes and ordinances, enjoining such pains thereto as he thinks meet, without any advice of parliament or estates, yet it lies in the power of no parliament to make any kind of law or statute, without his sceptre be to it, for giving it the force of a law... And as ye see it manifest that the king is over-lord of the whole land, so is he master over every person that inhabiteth the same, having power over the life and death of every one of them: for although a just prince will not take the life of any of his subjects without a clear law, yet the same laws whereby he taketh them are made by himself or his predecessors; and so the power flows always from himself; as by daily experience we see good and just princes will from time to time make new laws and statutes, adjoining the penalties to the breakers thereof, which before the law was made had been no crime to the subject to have committed... And where he sees the law doubtsome or rigorous, he may interpret or mitigate the same, lest otherwise summum jus be summa injuria: and therefore general laws made publicly in parliament may upon known respects to the king by his authority be mitigated and suspended upon causes only known to him. As likewise, although I have said a good king will frame |