Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

Touching the government of this nation, it hath anciently been monarchical, in the frame and constitution of it; but yet it never was a pure monarchy, for a pure monarchy is a clear tyranny. But it was a political monarchy, or monarchy governed by laws, taking in thereto all the goods, and avoiding all the ills, both of aristocracy and democracy; and so I may truly say, that look upon the frame and constitution of it alone, and, as it were, upon the theoretical and contemplative part of it; and, supposing it possible that the practice would answer the theory, no man can deny, but that it was a frame of most excellent order and beauty. For, first, it had a king, the chief officer, one single person; and therefore, avoiding the proud factions and contentions, usually happening in aristocracy, as likewise, the disordered confusions, common in single democracy; but yet a king bounded and compassed with laws above him, being the rules already made and given him to rule by; and, with a necessity of concurrence and compliance, with Lords and Commons below him, for future legislative power and authority, and so avoiding the danger of tyranny usually incident to monarchies, which commonly makes the monarch’s will the law, and so establishing the government upon this foundation, voluntas lex imperatoris esto.

But, alas! when I have showed you the frame and constitution of the late government, I have showed you all the beauty of it; for, when you come to examine the practical part, you shall find nothing less than excellency or perfection in it. Look into your own stories, and you shall always find the King and great Lords, comites suos, as they were called, encroaching upon the People’s liberties and rights, and encroaching to themselves superlative prerogatives and dominion over them. On the other side you shall find again the People struggling to preserve themselves and their own interests, labouring still to avoid the miseries, and to free themselves from the mischiefs of their sufferings.

Comment

Comment

Sounds rather like Milton’s Tenure of kings and magistrates (Milton 1650).

Via Jonathan Healey.

Something to say? Get in touch

Original

Touching the government of this nation, it hath anciently been monarchical, in the frame and constitution of it; but yet it never was a pure monarchy, for a pure monarchy is a clear tyranny. But it was a political monarchy, or monarchy governed by laws, taking in thereto all the goods, and avoiding all the ills, both of aristocracy and democracy; and so I may truly say, that look upon the frame and constitution of it alone, and, as it were, upon the theoretical and contemplative part of it; and, supposing it possible that the practice would answer the theory, no man can deny, but that it was a frame of most excellent order and beauty. For, first, it had a king, the chief officer, one single person; and therefore, avoiding the proud factions and contentions, usually happening in aristocracy, as likewise, the disordered confusions, common in single democracy; but yet a king bounded and compassed with laws above him, being the rules already made and given him to rule by; and, with a necessity of concurrence and compliance, with Lords and Commons below him, for future legislative power and authority, and so avoiding the danger of tyranny usually incident to monarchies, which commonly makes the monarch’s will the law, and so establishing the government upon this foundation, voluntas lex imperatoris esto.

But, alas! when I have showed you the frame and constitution of the late government, I have showed you all the beauty of it; for, when you come to examine the practical part, you shall find nothing less than excellency or perfection in it. Look into your own stories, and you shall always find the king and great lords, comites suos, as they were called, encroaching upon the people’s liberties and rights, and encroaching to themselves superlative prerogatives and dominion over them. On the other side you shall find again the people struggling to preserve themselves and their own interests, labouring still to avoid the miseries, and to free themselves from the mischiefs of their sufferings.

348 words.

Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• Absolute monarchy (1) ·
• Assizes (24) ·
• Charles I (1600-49) (23), King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1625 until his execution in 1649 ·
• Democracy (2) ·
• Divine right of kings (1) ·
• English Civil War (1642-1651) (27), a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians ("Roundheads") and Royalists ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of religious freedom ·
• Execution of Charles I (1) ·
• Grand jury (2) ·
• High Court of Justice for the trial of Charles I (1) ·
• Monarchy (1) ·
• Northern Circuit (5) ·
• Parliament of England (9) ·
• Republic (1) ·
• Rule of law (1) ·
• Rump Parliament (2) ·
• The Harleian Miscellany (1) ·
• Thorpe, Francis (1) ·
• Treason (4) ·
• Tyrant (1) ·
• 📌York (164) ·

All tags.

Similar

• 30 January 1650: Alderman Hoyle of York hangs himself at Westminster on the first anniversary of Charles I’s execution, inspiring John Cleveland to verse
• 20 March 1840: A judge finds that Charles Brown (52) feigned deafness to try to evade the gallows for sexually assaulting young Frederick Haselm at Hull
• 21 October 1555: Wool middlemen are once more permitted at Halifax to avoid the destruction of the local economy
• 2 August 1680: William Dolben, perhaps reluctantly, condemns Thomas Thwing to death at York for his part, without co-conspirators, in a fictitious conspiracy – the Popish Plot
• 23 April 1642: Having promised parliament to safeguard for it Hull’s crucial arsenal, John Hotham tells it how today he shut the gates of Hull to Charles I
• 10 November 1653: Thomas Baynes (allegedly) compares Parliament’s sequestrators to an agricultural pest
• 13 July 1626: Charles I gives the borough of Leeds its first municipal charter, reflecting York’s loss of industry, protecting its textiles, and reducing the power of most burgesses
• 15 September 1679: The election at York for the Exclusion Bill Parliament is dissolved to more convenient locations
• 10 January 1675: George Aislabie, profiteering registrar of the York ecclesiastical court and assiduous duellist, challenges the wrong man
• 25 January 1328: Edward III (15) marries his cousin Philippa (13) of Hainaut (Belgium) at York Minster, in order to save England from the Scots, the French and the English