You began, Mr. Somers, with great fears and apprehensions; or you thought fit to counterfeit them, at least. You suspected the matter was too mysterious for common understandings to penetrate, and too much involved in the darkness of ancient times to be brought into open day-light. Let me hear your free thoughts on the evidence I have here produced to you. And yet it is a small part only of that which might be produced, of that I am sure which yourself could easily have produced, and perhaps expected from me.
But I content myself with these obvious truths, “That the liberty of the subject appears, and of itself naturally arose, from the very nature of the FEUDAL, which is properly (at least if we look no further back than the Conquest) the English constitution; that the current of liberty has been gradually widening, as well as purifying, in proportion as it descended from its source; that charters and laws have removed every scruple that might arise about the reciprocal rights and privileges of prince and people; that the sense of that liberty which the nation enjoyed under their admirable constitution was so quick, that every the least attempt to deprive them of it gave an alarm; and their attachment to it so strong and constant, that no artifice, no intrigue, no perversion of law and gospel, could induce them to part with it: that, in particular, they have guarded this precious deposite of legal and constitutional liberty with such care, that, while the heedless reception of a foreign law, concurring with other circumstances, hath riveted the yoke of slavery on the other nations of Europe, this of England could never be cajoled nor driven into any terms of accommodation with it; but, as Nat. Bacon[154] said truly, That the triple crown could never well solder with the English, so neither could the imperial; and that, in a word, the English LAW hath always been preserved inviolate from the impure mixtures of the canon and Cæsarean laws, as the sole defence and bulwark of our civil liberties.”
These are the plain truths, which I have here delivered to you, and on which I could be content to rest this great cause; I mean, if it had not already received its formal, and, I would hope, final determination, in another way. For no pretences will surely prevail hereafter with a happy people to renounce that liberty, which so rightfully belonged to them at all times, and hath now so solemnly been confirmed to them by the great transactions of these days. I willingly omit therefore, as superfluous, what in a worse cause might have been thought of no small weight, the express testimony of our ablest lawyers to the freedom of our constitution. I do not mean only the Cokes and Seldens of our time (though in point of authority what names can be greater than theirs?); but those of older and therefore more reverend estimation, such as Glanvil, Bracton, the author of Fleta, Thornton, and Fortescue[155]: men the most esteemed and learned in their several ages; who constantly and uniformly speak of the English, as a mixed and limited form of government, and even go so far as to seek its origin, where indeed the origin of all governments must be sought, in the free will and consent of the people.
All this I might have displayed at large; and to others perhaps, especially if the cause had required such management, all this I should have displayed. But, independently of the judgments of particular men, which prejudice might take occasion to object to, I hold it sufficient to have proved from surer grounds, from the very form and make of our political fabric, and the most unquestioned, because the most public, monuments of former times, “That the English constitution is assuredly and indisputably free[156].”
BP. BURNET.
You will read, Sir John, in our attention to this discourse, the effect it has had upon us. The zeal, with which you have pleaded the cause of liberty, makes me almost imagine I see you again in the warmth and spirit of your younger years, when you first made head against the encroachments of civil tyranny. The same cause has not only recalled to your memory the old topics of defence, but restores your former vigour in the management of them. So that, for myself, I must freely own, your vindication of our common liberties is, at least, the most plausible and consistent that I have ever met with.
MR. SOMERS.
And yet, if one was critically disposed, there are still, perhaps, some things that might deserve a further explanation.—But enough has been said by you, Sir John, to shew us where the truth lies: and, indeed, from such plain and convincing topics, that, whatever fears my love of liberty might suggest, they are much abated at least, if not entirely removed, by your arguments.
BP. BURNET.
Mr. Somers, I perceive, is not easily cured of his scruples and apprehensions. But for my own part, Sir John, I can think but of one objection of weight that can be opposed to your conclusion. It is, “That, notwithstanding the clear evidence you have produced, both for the free nature of the English constitution, and the general sense of the English nation concerning it, yet, in fact, the government was very despotic under the Tudor, and still more perhaps under the first princes of the Stuart, line. How could this happen, may it be asked, on your plan, which supposes the popular interest to have been kept up in constant vigour, or rather to have been always gaining, insensibly indeed, but necessarily, on the power of the crown? Will not the argument then from historical evidence be turned against you, whilst it may be said that your theory, however plausible, is contradicted by so recent and so well-attested a part of our history? And, in particular, will not the partisans[157] of the late king and his family have to allege in their behalf, that their notions of the prerogative were but such as they succeeded to with the crown; and, whatever may be pretended from researches into remoter times, that they endeavoured only to maintain the monarchy on the footing on which it had stood for many successions, and on which it then stood when the administration fell into their hands? If this point were effectually cleared, I see nothing that could be further desired to a full and complete vindication of English liberty.”