King—Well, Sir.
Lord President—If this must be re-enforced, or any thing of this nature, your Answer must be the the same; and they will proceed to Sentence, if you have nothing more to say.
King—Sir, I have nothing more to say, but I shall desire, that this may be entered what I have said.
Lord President—The Court then, Sir, hath something else to say to you; which, although I know it will be very unacceptable, yet notwithstanding they are willing, and are resolved to discharge their duty. Sir, You speak very well of a precious thing, which you call Peace; and it had been much to be wished that God had put it into your heart, that you had as effectually and really endeavoured and studied the Peace of the kingdom, as now in words you seem to pretend; but, as you were told the other day, actions must expound intentions; yet actions have been clean contrary. And truly, Sir, it doth appear plainly enough to them, that you have gone upon very erroneous principles: The kingdom hath felt it to their smart; and it will be no case to you to think of it; for, Sir, you have held yourself, and let fall such language, as if you had been no way subject to the Law, or that the law had not been your superior. Sir, the Court is very sensible of it, and I hope so are all the understanding people of England, that the law is your superior; that you ought to have ruled according to the law; you ought to have so. Sir, I know very well your pretence hath been that you have done so; but, Sir, the difference hath been who shall be the expositors of this law: Sir, whether you and your party, out of courts of justice, shall take upon them to expound law, or the courts of justice, who are the expounders? Nay, the Sovereign and the High Court of Justice, the Parliament of England, that are not only the highest expounders, but the sole makers of the law? Sir, for you to set yourself with your single judgment, and those that adhere unto you, to set yourself against the highest Court of Justice, that is not law. Sir, as the Law is your Superior, so truly, Sir, there is something that is superior to the Law, and that is indeed the Parent or Author of the Law, and that is the people of England: for, Sir, as they are those that at the first (as other countries have done) did chuse to themselves this form of government even for Justice sake, that justice might be administered, that peace might be preserved; so, Sir, they gave laws to their governors, according to which they should govern; and if those laws should have proved inconvenient or prejudicial to the public, they had a power in them, and reserved to themselves, to alter as they shall see cause. Sir, it is very true what some of your side have said, 'Rex non habet parem in regno,' say they: This Court will say the same, while King, that you have not your peer in some sense, for you are major singulis; but they will aver again that you are minor universis. And the same Author tells you that, 'non debet esse major eo in regno suo in exhibitione juris, minimus autem esse debet in judicio suscipiendo' [Bract., De Leg., lib. i. c. viii.]
This we know to be law, Rex habet superiorem, Deum et legem, etiam et curiam; so says the same author. And truly, Sir, he makes bold to go a little further, Debent ei ponere frænum: they ought to bridle him. And, Sir, we know very well the stories of old: those wars that were called the Barons' War, when the nobility of the land did stand out for the Liberty and Property of the Subject, and would not suffer the kings, that did invade, to play the tyrants freer, but called them to account for it; we know that truth, that they did frænum ponere. But, sir, if they do forbear to do their duty now, and are not so mindful of their own honour and the kingdom's good as the Barons of England of old were, certainly the Commons of England will not be unmindful of what is for their preservation, and for their safety; Justitiæ fruendi causa reges constituti sunt. This we learn: The end of having kings, or any other governors, it is for the enjoying of justice; that is the end. Now, Sir, if so be the king will go contrary to that end, or any other governor will go contrary to the end of his government; Sir, he must understand that he is but an officer in trust, and he ought to discharge that trust; and they are to take order for the animadversion and punishment of such an offending governor.
This is not law of yesterday, Sir (since the time of the division betwixt you and your people), but it is law of old. And we know very well the Authors and the Authorities that do tell us what the law was in that point upon the Election of Kings upon the Oath that they took unto their people: And if they did not observe it, there were those things called Parliaments; the Parliaments were they that were to adjudge (the very Words of the Author) the plaints and wrongs done of the king and the queen, or their children; such wrongs especially, when the people could have no where else any Remedy. Sir, that hath been the people of England's case: they could not have their Remedy elsewhere but in parliament.
Sir, Parliaments were ordained for that purpose, to redress the Grievances of the people; that was their main end. And truly, Sir, if so be that the kings of England had been rightly mindful of themselves, they were never more in majesty and state than in the Parliament: But how forgetful some have been, Stories have told us, we have a miserable, a lamentable, a sad experience of it. Sir, by the old laws of England, I speak these things the rather to you, because you were pleased to let fall the other day, You thought you had as much knowledge in the Law as most gentlemen in England: it is very well, Sir. And truly, Sir, it is very fit for the gentlemen of England to understand that Law under which they must live, and by which they must be governed. And then, Sir, the Scripture says, 'They that know their master's will and do it not' what follows? The Law is your master, the acts of parliament.
The Parliaments were to be kept antiently, we find in our old Author, twice in the year, that the Subject upon any occasion might have a ready Remedy and Redress for his Grievance. Afterwards, by several acts of parliament in the days of your predecessor Edward the third, they should have been once a year. Sir, what the Intermission of parliaments hath been in your time, it is very well known, and the sad consequences of it; and what in the interim instead of these Parliaments hath been by you by an high and arbitrary hand introduced upon the People, that likewise hath been too well known and felt. But when God by his Providence had so far brought it about, that you could no longer decline the calling of a Parliament, Sir, yet it will appear what your ends were against the antient and your native kingdom of Scotland: the Parliament of England not serving your ends against them, you were pleased to dissolve it. Another great necessity occasioned the calling of this parliament; and what your Designs, and Plots, and Endeavours all along have been, for the crushing and confounding of this Parliament, hath been very notorious to the whole kingdom. And truly, Sir, in that you did strike at all; that had been a sure way to have brought about That that this Charge lays upon you, your intention to subvert the Fundamental Laws of the Land; for the great bulwark of the Liberties of the People is the Parliament of England; and to subvert and root up that, which your aim hath been to do, certainly at one blow you had confounded the Liberties and the Property of England.
Truly, Sir, it makes me to call to mind; I cannot forbear to express it; for, Sir, we must deal plainly with you, according to the merits of your cause; so is our Commission; it makes me to call to mind (these proceedings of yours) That that we read of a great Roman Emperor, by the way let us call him a great Roman tyrant, Caligula, that wished that the people of Rome had had but one neck, that at one blow he might cut it off. And your proceedings have been somewhat like to this; for the body of the people of England hath been (and where else) represented but in the Parliament; and could you but have confounded that, you had at one blow cut off the neck of England. But God hath reserved better things for us, and hath pleased for to confound your designs, and to break your forces, and to bring your person into custody, that you might be responsible to justice.
Sir, we know very well that it is a question much on your side press'd, By what Precedent we shall proceed? Truly, Sir, for Precedents, I shall not upon these occasions institute any long discourse; but it is no new thing to cite precedents almost of all nations, where the people (where the power hath been in their hands) have made bold to call their Kings to account; and where the change of government hath been upon occasion of the Tyranny and Misgovernment of those that have been placed over them, I will not spend time to mention either France, or Spain, or the Empire, or other countries; volumes may be written of it. But truly, Sir, that of the kingdom of Arragon, I shall think some of us have thought upon it, where they have the justice of Arragon, that is, a man, tanquam in medio positus, betwixt the King of Spain and the people of the country; that if wrong be done by the King, he that is king of Arragon, the justice, hath power to reform the wrong; and he is acknowledged to be the king's superior, and is the grand preserver of their privileges, and hath prosecuted kings upon their miscarriages.