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I beg Leave to say something to what this Noble Lord has last spoke unto: When I call this Point of the Vacancy of the Throne a Conclusion, I did not mean altogether to exclude Abdication from being a Conclusion from the Parti∣culars enumerated before; for indeed it is the nature of a double Conclusion; One from the particular Facts mentio∣ned, That thereby King James has Ab∣dicated the Government.
The Other, from the Abdication, That thereby the Throne is Vacant: By the instanced Acts, he hath Abdicated the Government; and by his Abdicating the Government, the Throne is vacant. As to the rest of that which his Lordship is pleased to say, I perceive he does (as he must) agree to me, That a King may Renounce by Acts as well as Words, or Writings.
But then, I would add, and agree with his Lordship also, That God forbid every Violation of the Law, or Deviation from it, should be reckon'd an Abdication of the Government. I desire to deliver my self from the Imputation of any such absurd Conceit.
When a King breaks the Law in some few particular Instances, it may be sufficient to take an Account of it from those evil Ministers that were in∣strumental in it, why such a thing was done, which was against Laws? Why
such a Law was not Executed by them, whose Duty it was to see it put in Execution? You may, in ordinary Ca∣ses of breaking the Law, have Reme∣dy in the ordinary Courts and course of Justice.
But sure! He does not take this to be such a Case, or these to be ordina∣ry Violations of the Law; and there∣fore in the extraordinary Cases, the ex∣traordinary Remedy's to be recurred unto; for the King having a limited Authority, by which he was obliged to keep the Laws made, as to the exe∣cutive part of the Government, and to observe the Constitution for making such New Laws as the People should find necessary, and present him for his Con∣sent; when he doth Violate, not a par∣ticular Law, but all the Fundamentals; nor Injure a particular Person in Reli∣gion, Liberty, or Property, but falls upon the whole Constitution it self, what doth all this speak?
He therein saith, I will no more keep
within my limited Authority, nor hold my Kingly Office upon such Terms.
This Title I had by the Original Con∣tract between King and People; I Re∣nounce that, and will assume another Ti∣tle to my self; that is, such a Title, as by which I may Act as if there were no such Law to Circumscribe my Authority.
Where shall any Man come to have Redress in such a Case as this, when the Malefactor comes to be Party, un∣to whom all Applications for Relief and Redress from Injuries should be made, and so he himself shall be a Judge of his own Breaches of Law. This most apparently was the Case as to the Quo Warranto's, which was a plain Design to subvert the Constitution in the very Foundation of the Legislature.
It is because the King hath thus vio∣lated the Constitution, by which the Law stands, as the Rule both of the King's Government, and the Peoples O∣bedience, that we say, He hath Abdicated
and Renounced the Government; for all other particular Breaches of the Law, the Subject may have Remedy in the ordina∣ry Courts of Justice, or the extraordi∣nary Court of Parliamentary Proceed∣ings: But were such an Attempt as this is, made on the Essence of the Constitu∣tion, it is not We that have brought our selves into this state of Nature, but Those who have reduced our legal well-establish'd Frame of Government into such a slate of Confusion, as we are now seeking a Redress unto.