THE instruments OF A KING: OR, A SHORT discourse OF 

The sword.  
The sceptre.  
The crown.    
Satis habet Rex ad poenam,  
Quod Deum expectet Ultorem.  
'Tis punishment enough for th' King,  
That God will Him to judgement bring.  
LONDON. Printed in the year, 1648.   

The Author's Apology.  
I Am no Lawyer otherwise than what nature hath made me, so every man, as he is born the child of Reason, is a Lawyer, and a logician also who was the first kind of Lawyer: This discursive faculty of Reason comes with us into the world accompanied with certain general notions and principles to distinguish Right from Wrong, and falsehood from Truth: But touching this following Discourse, because it relates something to Law, the author would not have adventured to have exposed it to the world, if, besides those common innate notions of Reason, and some private Notes of his own, he had not informed & ascertained his judgement by conference with some professed Lawyers, and those the Eminentest in the Land, touching the truth of what it Treats of; therefore he dares humbly aver that it contains nothing but what is consonant to the fundamental and fixed Constitutions, to the known clear laws of this kingdom.  
J. ●.   

THE INSTRUMENTS OF A KING.  
IN a Successive hereditary kingdom, as ENGLAND is known and acknowledged to be by all Parties now in opposition, There are 3 things which are inalienable from the Person of the KING: they are, 

1. The crown.  
2. The sceptre.  
3. The Sword.    
The one, He is to carry on His Head, the other in His Hand, and the third at His Side; and they may be termed all three the ensigns or peculiar instruments of a KING: by the first, He reigns, by the second He makes laws, by the third He maintains them: and the two first are but babbles without the last.  
1. Touching the crown or royal Diadem of England, there is none, whether Presbyterian, Independent, Protestant, or others now in action, but confess that it descends by a right hereditary Line, (though through divers Races, and some of them conquerors) upon the Head of CHARLES the first now Regnant: 'tis His own by inherent birthright and nature, by God's law, and the Law of the Land, and these Parliament-men at their first sitting did agnize subjection unto Him accordingly, and recognize Him for their sovereign liege Lord: Nay, the Roman Catholic denies not this, for though there were Bulls sent to dispense with the English Subjects for their allegiance to Queen Elizabeth, yet the Pope did this against Her as he took Her for a heretic, not an Usurpresse, though he knew well enough that She had been declared Illegitimate by the Act of an English Parliament.  
This imperial crown of England is adorned and decked with many fair Flowers, which are called, royal Prerogatives; and they are of such a transcendent nature, that they are unforfeitable, individual, and untransferable to any other: The KING can only summon and dissolve Parliaments: The KING can only Pardon (for when He is Crowned, He is sworn to rule in mercy as well as in justice:) The KING can only coin Money, and enhance or decry the value of it: The power of electing Officers of State, of Justices of Peace, and assize is in the KING; He can only grant sovereign Commissions: The KING can only wage War, and make outlandish Leagues: The KING may make all the Courts of justice ambulatory with His Person, as they were used of old; 'tis true, the Court of Common Pleas must be sedentary in some certain place for such a time; but that expired, 'tis removable at His pleasure: The KING can only employ ambassadors and Treat with foreign States, &c. These, with other royal Prerogatives which I shall touch hereafter, are those rare and wholesome flowers wherewith the crown of England is embellished, nor can they stick anywhere else but in the crown, and all confess the crown is as much the KING's, as any private man's Cap is his own.  
The second regal Instrument is the sceptre, which may be called an inseparable companion, or a necessary appendix to the crown; this invests the KING with the sole Authority of making laws, for before His confirmation all results and determinations of Parliament are but Bills or {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, they are but abortive things, and mere Embryos; nay, they have no life at all in them till the KING puts breath and vigour into them: and the ancient custom was for the KING to touch them with His sceptre, than they are laws, and have a virtue in them to impose an obligation of universal obedience upon all sorts of people, It being an undeniable maxim, That nothing can be generally binding without the King's royal assent, nor doth the Law of England take notice of any thing without it: This being done, they are ever after styled the King's laws, and the Judges are said to deliver the King's judgements, which agrees with the holy Text, The King by judgement shall stablish the Land: nay, the Law presumes the King to be always the sole Judge Paramount, and Lord chief Justice of England, for he whom He pleaseth to depute for His chiefest Justice, is but styled Lord chief Justice of the King's Bench, not Lord chief Justice of England, which title is peculiar to the KING Himself, and observable it is, that whereas He grants Commissions and Parents to the Lord chancellor (who is no other than Keeper of His Conscience) and to all other Judges, He names the Chief Justice of His own Bench by a short Writ only containing two or three lines: Now, though the King be liable to the Law, and is contented to be within their verge, because they are chiefly His own productions, yet He is still their Protector, Moderator, and sovereign, which attributes are incommunicable to any other conjunctly or separately.  
Thus the KING with His sceptre, and by the mature advice of His two Houses of Parl. which are His highest council & Court, hath the sole power of making Laws; other Courts of judicature do but expound them and distribute them by His appointment, they have but Juris dati dictionem or declarationem, and herein, I mean for the Exposition of the laws the twelve Judges are to be believed before the whole Kingdom besides. They are as the Areopagites in Athens, the chief precedents in France and Spain in an extraordinary Junta, as the Cape-Syndiques in the Rota's of Rome, and the republic of Venice whose judgements in point of interpreting laws are incontroulable, and preferred before the opinion of the whole Senate whence they received their being; and who hath still power to repeal them, though not to expound them. In France they have a law-maxim, Arrest donné en Robbe rouge est irrevocable, which is, a Scarlet Sentence is irrevocable, meaning when all the Judges are met in their Robes, and the Client against whom the Cause goes, may chafe and chomp upon the bit, and say what he will for the space of 24 hours against his Judges, but if ever after he traduces them, he is punishable: It is no otherwise here where every ignorant peevish Client, every puny Barister, specially if he become a Member of the House will be ready to arraign and vie knowledge with all the reverend Judges in the Land, whose judgement in points of Law should be only tripodicall and sterling: so that he may be truly called a just King, and to rule according to Law, who rules according to the opinion of his Judges; therefore, under favour, I do not see how his majesty for his part could be called injust when he levied the Ship-money, considering he had the judges for it.  
I now take the Sword in hand, which is the third Instrument of a King, (and which this short discourse chiefly points at) it is as well as the two first, incommunicable and inalienable from his Person; nothing concerns his honour more both at home and abroad; the Crown and the sceptre are but unwieldy and impotent naked indefensible things without it. There's none so simple as to think there's meant hereby an ordinary single sword, such as every one carrieth by his side, or some imaginary thing or chimaera of a sword; No, 'tis the polemical public sword of the whole Kingdom, 'tis an aggregative compound sword, and 'tis moulded of bell-metal; for 'tis made up of all the ammunition and arms small and great, of all the military strengths both by Land and Sea, of all the Forts, Castles and tenable places within and round about the whole I'll: The Kings of England have had this sword by virtue of their royal signory from all times, the Laws have girded it to their sides, they have employed it for repelling all foreign force, for revenging all foreign wrongs or affronts, for quelling all intestine tumults, and for protecting the weal of the whole body politic at home: The people were never capable of this sword, the fundamental constitutions of this Kingdom deny it them; 'tis all one to put the sword in a mad man's hand, as in the peeples; or for them to have a disposing power in whose hands it shall be. Such was the case once of the French sword, in that notorious insurrection called to this day La Jaqueris de Beauvoisin, when the peasants and Mechanics had a design to wrest it out of the King's hand, and to depress all the Peers & Gentry of the Kingdom; & the business had gone very far, had not the prelates stuck close to the Nobility; But afterwards poor harebrained things they desire the King upon bended knees to take it again; Such popular puffs have blown often in Poland, Naples and other places, where while they sought and fought for liberty by retrenching the regal power, they fooled themselves into a slavery unawares, and found the rule right, that excess of freedom turns to thraldom, and ushers in all confusions. If one should go back to the nonage of the world, when governors and Rulers began first, one will find the people desired to live under Kings for their own advantage, that they might be restrained from wild exorbitant liberty, and kept in unity; Now unity is as requisite for the well-being of all natural things, as entity is for their being, and 'tis a received maxim in policy, that nothing preserves Unity more exactly then royal Government: besides 'tis known to be the noblest sort of sway; In so much that by the Law of Nations, if Subjects of equal degrees, and under differing Princes should meet, the Subjects of a King should take predency of those under any republic, and those of a successif Kingdom, of those that are under an elective.  
But to take up the Sword again. I say that the Sword of public power & authority is fit only to hang at the King's side, & so indeed should the great Seal hang only at his girdle, because 'tis the Key of the Kingdom: which makes me think of what I read of Charlemagne, how he had the imperial Seal embossed always upon the pommel of his sword, and his reason was, that he was ready to maintain whatsoever he signed, and sealed.  
The Civilians, who are not in all points so great friends to Monarchy as the Common Law of England is, say, there are six lura Regalia, six regal Rights, viz. 1. Potestas judicatoria, 2. Potestas vitae & necis, 3. Armamenta, 4. Bona adespota, 5. Census, 6. Monetarum valour: to wit, Power of Judicature, power of life and death, all kind of arming, masterless goods, Sessements, and the value of money.  
Among these Regalias, we find that Arming, which in effect is nought else but the King's Sword, is among the chiefest; and 'tis as proper and peculiar to his person, as either Crown or sceptre. By these two he draws a loose voluntary love and opinion only from his Subjects, but by the Sword he draws reverence and awe, which are the chiefest ingredients of allegiance, it being a maxim, That the best mixture of government is made of fear and love. With this sword he conferrs honour, he dubbs Knights, he creates magistrates, the Lord Deputy of Ireland, the Lord Mayor of London with all other Corporations have their swords from him, and when he entreth any place corporat, we know the first thing that is presented him is the Sword: With this Sword he shields and preserves all his people that every one may sit quietly under his own Vine, sleep securely in his own House, and enjoy sweetly the fruits of his labours.  
Nor doth the point of this sword reach only to every corner of his own dominions, but it extends beyond the seas to guard his Subjects from oppression, and denial of justice, as well as to vindicate the public wrongs, make good the interests of his Crown, and to assist his confederates; This is the sword that Edward the third tied the Flower deluces unto (which stick still unto it,) when having sent to France to demand that Crown by maternal right, the counsel there sent him word that the Crown of France was not tied to a d●staff, to which scoffing answer he replied that then he would tie it to his sword, and he was as good as his word. Nor is this public sword concredited or entrusted by the people in a fiduciary conditional way to the King, but it is properly and peculiarly belonging unto him, as an inseparable concomitant, perpetual Usher and attendant to his crown. The King, we know, useth to maintain all garrisons upon his own charge, not the peeples; he fortifies upon his own charge, not the peeples: And though I will not aver, that the King may impress any of his Subjects, unless it be upon an actual invasion by Sea, or a sudden irruption into his Kingdom by Land, as the Scots have often done, yet at any time the King may raise Volunteers, and those who have received his money, the Law makes it felony, if they forsake his service.  
Thus we see there's nothing that conduceth more to the glory, and indeed the very essence of a King than the Sword, which is the arms and military strength of his kingdom; wherefore under favour, there cannot be a greater point of dishonour to a King then to be disarmed, then to have his Sword taken from him, or disposed of and entrusted to any but those whom he shall appoint; for as à minori ad majus the Argument often holds, if a private Gentleman chance to be disarmed upon a quarrel, 'tis held the utmost of disgraces, much greater and more public is the dishonour that falls upon a King, if after some traverses of difference twixt him and his Subjects, they should offer to disarm him, or demand his sword of him: when the Eagle parted with his talons, and the Lion with his teeth and ongles, the Apolog tells us how contemptible afterwards the one grew to be among Birds, the other among Beasts. For a King to part with the Sword politic is to render himself such a ridiculous King, as that log of wood was which Jupiter let down among the frogs for their King at the importunity of their croaking; 'tis to make him a King of clouts, or as the Spaniard hath it, Rey de Havas, a Bean-King, such as we use to choose in sport at twelfth-night.  
But my hopes are, that the two present Houses of parliament (for now they may be called so, because they begin to parley with their King,) will be more tender of the honour of their sovereign Liege Lord, which, together with all his Rights and Dignities, by several solemn Oaths, and by their own binding instruments of Protestation and Covenant, (not yet revoked) they are sworn to maintain, and that they will demand nothing of him which may savour of Aspertè or force, but what may hold water hereafter: But now, touching the Militia or Sword of the Kingdom, I think, under favour, the King cannot transfer it to any other; for that were to desert the protection of his people, which is point-blank against his Coronation Oath and his Office: What foreign Prince or State will send either Ambassador, Resident or Agent to him, when they understand his Sword is taken from him? What reformed foreign Church will acknowledge Him Defender of the Faith, when they hear of this? Nay, they who wish England no good will, will go near to paint him out, as not long since another King was, with a fair velvet Scabbard, a specious golden hilt and chape, but the blade within was of wood. I hope that they who sway now, will make better use of their successes: Many of them know 'tis as difficult a thing to use a victory well, as to get one; there is as much prudence required in the one, as prowess in the other; they will be wiser sure than turn it to the dishonour of their King: it being a certain rule, that the glory of a Nation all the world over depends upon the glory of their King, and if he be any way obscured, the whole Kingdom is under an eclipse.  
I have observed, that among other characters of gallantry, which foreign Writers appropriate to the English Nation, one is, that they use to be most zealous to preserve the honour of their King; I trust that they who are now up will return to the steps of their Progenitors, both in this particular and divers other; that their successes may serve to sweeten and moderate things, and suppress the popular Sword which still rages; And it had been heartily wished that a suspension of Arms had preceded this Treaty, which useth to be the ordinary forerunner, and a necessary antecedent to all Treaties; for while acts of hostility continue, some ill favoured news may intervene which may embitter and disturb all: nor can it be expected that the proceedings will go on with that candour and confidence, while the old rancour is still in action; 'tis impossible a sore should heal till the inflammation be taken away; To cast water into a wound instead of oil is not the way to cure it: or to cast oil upon a fire instead of water is not the way to quench it; poor England hath had a consuming fire within her bowels many years, she is also mortally wounded in all her members, that she is still in a high Fever, which hath made her rave and speak idle a long time; and 'tis like to turn to a Hectic if not timely prevented. I p●ay God she may have no occasion to make use of the same complaint as Alexander the great made when he was expiring his last, Perii turba Medicorum: too many physicians have undone me.  
To conclude in a word, there is but one only way, under favour, to put a period to all these fearful confusions; it is, to put the great master-wheel in order, and in its due place again, and then all the inferior wheels will move regularly; let the King be restored, and every one will come to his own, all interests will be satisfied, all things quickly rectified; till this be done, 'tis as absurd to attempt the settling of peace, as if one should go about to set a Watch by the gnomon of an horizontal dial when the Sun is in a cloud.  dolour Capitis est Caput Doloris. 
Jam. Howell. 16. Septemb. 1648.