By the invitation of EQG chads
>no hooves<War of all against all edition<Gunpowder Treason DayKing James VI & I movie:https://www.bitchute.com/video/PPRUFSGdI22n/Ebenezer Gay
>Light is an Emblem of Authority. It is the Firstborn of Things visible: Hath the Pre-eminence among them, or Predominancy over them:
>Rulers are the light of a People, and as when the Sun shineth brightly, there is a pleasant Day over the face of the Earth, so when they shine with Wisdom, Justice, Meekness and the like, and shed abroad the reviving Rays and benign Influences of good Government, there is a cheerful Day of Prosperity enjoyed; truly their Light is sweet.
>The Law of Gratitude obligeth People continually to pray for their Rulers. They that exercise Authority upon Men are called Benefactors, Luk. 22.25. and if Magistrates duly exercise the Power they have over others, they highly merit this Title from them, for they do a great deal of Good. They are stiled Gods, not only in respect of their Dignity, but because they resemble him in their extensive Beneficence. They are the Pillars of the Common-Wealth, the main Supporters of it, without which the Fabrick would unavoidably sink.— They are the Shields of the Earth, defending a People from their Enemies. They are the Shepherds of Israel, that with tenderness and Compassion feed the People according to the Integrity of their Hearts, and guide them according to the Skilfulness of their Hands. To them under God People are indebted for the Protection of their Lives and Liberties, Names and Estates, for the Preservation of good Order and happy Peace, for the Security and Comfort they have in all their Enjoyments. Rulers are God's Ministers for good to a People, attending continually on this very thing. Rom. 12.— They are vigilant and solicitous for the temporal Interest and spiritual Benefit of their People: studious in contriving, and industrious in prosecuting Measures for the advantage of the Publick. They take much Care and Pains to dispense Judgment, to en|courage Virtue, and suppress Vice. Such Rulers are call'd Lam. 4.20. the Breath of a People's Nostrils, and under their Shadow they enjoy Safety, eat the Fruits of their Labour, "possess the Comforts and Conveniences of Life, with security from Rapine, from Contention, from Solicitude, from continual fears of Wrong and Outrage."
>It is true, that unjust and oppressive Rulers do a great deal of Mischief. Prov: 28.15. As a roaring Lion, and a ranging Bear, so is a wicked Ruler over the poor People. In|stead of feeding them as a Shepherd, he terrifies and devours them, like a roaring Lion and hungry Bear. Yet if Rulers are bad, People receive some Good from their Government, at least in comparison of the Mischiefs they would suffer from Anarchy, or a total want of Government.
>Magistrates are God's Representatives upon Earth, they bear his Character, and shine with some Rays of his Majesty; and ought therefore to be highly respected according to the dignity of their Station. Much Honour is put upon them by God, and much should be paid unto them by Men. They are the Heads of the Tribes, and more honourable than their Brethren. They are the Protectors of the civil and religious Liberties of a People, the Conservators of the publick Peace, and Revengers to execute Wrath upon those that disturb it; and should be esteemed greatly, and had in Reputation for their Work sake. They are the Fathers of their Country, and the fifth Commandment obligeth us to honour them * When Joseph was made Ruler over all the Land of Egypt, they cried before him, Abrech, tender Father, (which our Translators render, Bow the Knee, Gen. 41.43.) It is the Duty of People to express their Satisfaction in, and Thankfulness for, the wise, just and beneficial Administrations of their Rulers: and commend the Skill and Faithfulness which they discover in the management of arduous and important Affairs.
>People should not easily conceive Prejudices, nor utter Complaints against those in Authority. It is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the Ruler of thy People, Act. 23.5. It may be as commonly from Ignorance, as ill-Will, that Men speak evil of Dignities: They are wont to accuse, arraign and censure those Proceedings, which they are incompetent Judges of, not having Capacity or Opportunity to know the Reasons thereof. There are Arcana Imperii, the Mysteries of State, which every one cannot penetrate into. People should be willing to believe, that ordinarily their Rulers are able to discern more and farther than they, having greater Advantages therefor. They should be cautious lest they speak evil of those things which they understand not; and not presume that they know the way better than their Leaders.
>People should take to themselves their share of the blame of the Mis-Conduct and Mal-Administration of the Government over them, and not impute it all to their Rulers. Much of the Fault is their own. Their Sins incense God's righteous Displeasure, so that he withholds or withdraws his Spirit and Presence from their Rulers, and then thro' the prevalence of Temptations, the Influence of bad Counsel, and the power of their own Lusts and Passions, they are misled into those Courses, which are destructive to the Weal and Tranquillity of a People
>And certainly much Praise is due unto good Rulers from an obliged People: It is a just Debt they owe to their Protectors and Benefactors. The prudent and tender Fathers of a Country should be acknowledged and blessed
>That our KING is a nursing Father, and our QUEEN a nursing Mother, who have express'd their tender Care of, and Concern for us, their poor but dutiful Children, in these distant parts of their Dominion.
<King Lear / Pre-eminence, Majesty
>Let it be so; thy truth, then, be thy dower:
>For, by the sacred radiance of the sun,
>The mysteries of Hecate, and the night;
>By all the operation of the orbs
>From whom we do exist, and cease to be;
>Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
>Propinquity and property of blood,
…
>I do invest you jointly with my power,
>[and] Pre eminence, and all the large effects
>That troop with Majesty. Ourself, by monthly course,
>With reservation of an hundred knights,
>By you to be sustain'd, shall our abode
>Make with you by due turns. Only we still retain
>The name, and all the additions to a king;
>The sway, revenue, execution of the rest,
>Beloved sons, be yours: which to confirm,
>This coronet part betwixt you.
Cesare Cuttica (from History of Absolutism):
>Moresoever, the king was considered as 'lex animata' – the breath which regulated the legislative life of the kingdom, and without whose intervention the body politic could not survive. Thus, potestas absoluta corresponded to various functions the monarch possessed: suspending, pardoning, mitigating, and facing unforeseen circumstances. It was a form of 'discretionary power' which shaped the concept of royal prerogative… Although it is often claimed that the degree of absoluteness of a king's power expended on the extent to which the law of nature was thought to legislate, this does not mean that he was held to be limited. In fact, absolutists of that kind described here, regarded monarchs as capable of restricting the domain of political life that the law of nature could regulate. Consequently, not only the laws, but also customs were were the outcome of the supreme decision of the lex loquens king, who was depicted as the creator of the nation's ethos… Another historical trait of absolutism was the tension between the personalization of kingship – whereby the sovereign was depicted as the individual who was superior because of his qualities and, therefore, one who had to be obeyed and adored; and the process of abstraction of kingship where he was associated with the purity of and public presence of the State. (Keohane, 1980)
Thomas Hobbes: Civil Sovereign is the Head, Source, Root, & Sun
>The Civil Sovereign in every Common-wealth, is the Head, the Source, the Root, and the Sun, from which all Jurisdiction is derived. And therefore, the Jurisdiction of Bishops, is derived from the Civil Sovereign.
Thomas Hobbes: Sovereign Power, Generalissimo
>For the power by which the people are to be defended consists in their armies, and the strength of an army in the union of their strength under one command; which command the sovereign instituted, therefore has, because the command of the militia, without other institution, makes him that has it sovereign. And therefore, whosoever is made general of an army, he that has the sovereign power is always generalissimo.
<Dante Alighieri De Monarchia
>Justice is the strongest with the Monarch. For the best structure of the world, it is necessary for Monarchy or Empire to exist.
>Therefore it is better that the human race should be ruled by one than by more, and that the one should be the Monarch, who is a unique Prince. And if it is better, it is more acceptable to God, since God always wills what is better. And inasmuch as between two things, that which is better will likewise best, between this rule by "one" and this rule by "more", rule by "one" is acceptable to God not only in comparative but in the superlative degree. Wherefore the human race is ordered for the best when ruled by One sovereign.
>In regard to the will, it must first be noted that the worst enemy of Justice is cupidity… When cupidity is removed altogether, nothing remains inimical to Justice… Cupidity is impossible when there is nothing to be desired, for passions cease to exist with the destruction of their objects. Since his jurisdiction is bounded only by the ocean, there is nothing for a Monarch to desire… So we conclude that among the mortals the purest subject for the indwelling of Justice is the Monarch.
>Moreover, to extent however small that cupidity clouds the mental attitude towards Justice, charity or right love clarifies and brightens it. In whomever, therefore, right love can be present to the highest degree, in him can Justice find the most effective place. Such is the Monarch, in whose person Justice is or may be most effective… That right love should indwell in the Monarch more than in all men besides itself thus: Everything loved is the more loved the nearer it is to him who loves; men are nearer to the Monarch than other princes; therefore they ought to be most loved by him.
>The Monarch is capable of the highest degree of judgment and Justice, and is therefore perfectly qualified, or especially well qualified to rule. Those two qualities are most befitting a maker and executor of the law.
>Therefore it is established that every good thing is good because it subsists in unity. As concord is a good thing itself, it must subsist in some unity as its proper root, and this proper root must appear if we consider the nature or meaning of concord. Now concord is the uniform movement of many wills; and unity of will, which we mean by uniform movement, is the root of concord, or rather concord itself. For just as we should call many clods concordant because all descend toward the centre, and many flames concordant because they ascend together to the circumference, as if they did this voluntarily, so we call many men concordant because they move together by their volition to one end formally present in their wills… All concord depends upon unity in wills; mankind is at its best in concord of a certain king. For just as one man at his best in body and spirit is a concord of a certain kind, and as a household, a city, and a kingdom is likewise a concord, so it is with mankind in its totality. Therefore the human race for its best disposition is dependent on unity in wills. But this state of concord is impossible unless one will dominates and guides all others into unity.
>With this in mind we may understand that this freedom, or basic principle of our freedom, is, as I said, the greatest gift bestowed by God upon human nature, for through it we attain to joy here as men, and to blessedness there as gods. If this is so, who will not admit that mankind is best ordered when able to use this principle most effectively? But the race is most free under a Monarch. Wherefore let us know that the Philosopher holds in his book, concerning simple Being, that whatever exists for ts own sake and not for the sake of another is free. For whatever exists for the sake of another is conditioned by that other, as a road by its terminus. Only if a Monarch rules can the human race exist for its own sake.
>If we consider the individual man, we shall see that this applies to him, for, when all his faculties are ordered for his happiness, the intellectual faculty itself is regulator and ruler of all others: in no way else can man attain to happiness. If we consider the household, whose end is to teach its members to live rightly, there is need for one called the pater-familias, or for some one holding his place, to direct and govern according to the Philosopher when he says, "Every household is ruled by its eldest."
>Likewise, every son acts well and for the best when, as far as his individual nature permits, he follows in the footprints of a perfect father. As "Man and the sun generate man," according to the second book of Natural Learning, the human race is the son of heaven, which is absolutely perfect in all its works. Therefore mankind acts for the best when it follows in the footprints of heaven, as far as its distinctive nature permits. Now, human reason apprehends most clearly through philosophy that the entire heaven in all its parts, its movements, and its motors, s controlled by a single motion, the primum moble, and by a single mover, God; then, if our syllogism is correct, the human race is best ordered when n all its movements and motors is controlled by One prince as by one mover, by one law as by one motion. On this account it is manifestly essential for the well-being of the world that there should exist a Monarchy of unified Principality, which men call the Empire. This truth Boethius sighed for in the words, "O race of men how blessed, dd the love which rules the heavens rule like your minds!"
>Monarchy is therefore indispensible to the world, and this truth the Philosopher saw when he said, "Things have no desire to be wrongly ordered; inasmuch as a multitude of Princedoms is wrong, – let there be One Prince."
To the most Potent, and Puissant Monarch Charles the II King of Great Britain, &c.
The epistle dedicatory.
Dread Sovereign,
God hath given us a Sight, the Sight of your Self. How many aking eyes where there once to see you? how many ravished eyes may there be now to behold you? Every one could not present such a sight; no, He in Heaven. Hath restored you to your Father's Throne to be looked upon as a glorious Spectacle. We saw for many years nothing but the horrid faces of strange Rulers, and now we have your Face of true Majesty to bless our eyes with.
OH that we had good eyes in our heads to discern the difference of Objects; what a change this, that whereas we saw nothing but Usurpers in their Barbarousness, Our does do now see a King in his Beauty? Your absence was the Bane, Your precense is the Beauty of the Nation. To apply all this Beauty to yourself, perhaps would be judged flattery, therefore I have endeavoured to show your three kingdoms, that there is a derivative Beauty in you, namely that your Majesty is our Beauty. For how is a Nation obscured if it has not a King in it? and how is it illustrated, if it hath a King reigning in Royal Splendour and Imperial dignity? I wish that there be no ill Judges of Beauty in the Land, and that there be none which are ready to strike at the face of Beauty. It doth grieve me, that when you have brought delight to the eyes of Millions, and put peace into all hands, yet there should be left amongst us some glaring eyes, and menancing hands… What need those King-vexers and Gad-flyes of Monarchs plot treasons, and kindle diffentions, when we have Incendiaries, and State-troublers of our own?
…Oh inexorable, oh incorrigible King-haters? Men have been mad, and some distempers we have lately found, but surely this frenzy will not always last. Let them look your Majesty through, and what occasion can they find in your of disgust, distaste, or so much as discontent? So far as I can perceive your Majesty doth but seek your Native Right, the established Religion, the fundamental Laws, the Honour of the HIghest, the freedom of the meanest, the welfare of the Nation, the Peace of the Kingdom, and they may see as well as I that your graces are conspicuous, your qualifications eminent, your carriage affable, your Government mild, your counsels prudent, your actions Heroical, your life spotless, and your conscience sincere, except therefore they would have an Angel to reign over them, where can they have in flesh and blood a more desired man? what heart can have a rancorous thought against such a King? No, I hope to see all your Enemies blush at their causeless anger, and senseless spight; yea to fall down at your Royal Feet, and repent that they have been so inconsiderate, and weep that they have been so unkind. Bear but with their former failings, & pardon that which is past (as what cannot that Royal Heart of Yours that is the living spring of clemency wash out of your remembrance? and methink your Majesty should have felt the last of animosities, and triumphs; people will not always kick against the pricks, and run upon the spears point of divine laws, but do that which God hath obliged them to, even honour your Person, acknowledge your Authority, submit to your Edicts, admire your Perfections, and be knit to you in the adamantine chains of Fidelity and Loyalty, that this wasted Country may once against become a flourishing Nation, and the Kingdom of Triumphs. Thus in all Humility prostrating myself at your Majesties Royal Feet, and Praying for your long LIfe, your increase of Princely Honours, your lasting Peace, and everlasting Bliss, submissively I take leave, and rest.
Your Majesties Devoted Subject in all unstained and inviolable loyalty.
Tho. Reeve.
First, for the opening of the Cabinet, or the clear manifestation, Thine eyes shall see. God's Cabinet bad been shut, but he would unlock it, people had lived in the dark, and though they might hope for much, yet for the present they discerned nothing, but this black sky should no always last, there should come a time of light and sight, though thy eyes do not see, yet thine eyes shall see. Thine eyes shall see. From hence observe, that the sweetness of a blessing is in the actual fruition of the same, not to have it is promised, but presented, not hoped for, but enjoyed.
Better is the sight of the eyes, then the wandering of the desire. Eccles. 6. 9. The wandering of the desires is pain, and grief, but the seeing with the eyes is contentment, therefore David praised God that he set one upon his Throne, his eyes seeing it. 1 Kings 1. 48. And God did comfort up his dear people, that their eyes should see, that God would be magnified from the border of Israel.
This does show first that God is the God of sights, the thing that is hid he can bring forth to light. Job 28.11. He can show wonders in the Heavens, and the Earth. Joel 2.28. Yea so delight our ears, and affect our eyes, that we shall stand in a kind of amazement, and say, Who has heard such a thing? and who has seen such things. – How great are his signs? how mighty are his wonders? Dan. 4. 3. Oh then we that are all rare things, and strange sights, why do we not cleave close to God? Is there any which can so dazzle our eyes? Is not he the God of objects? yes, he is great, Wonder-worker. He has given so much to the eye, that the eye cannot comprehend it. If we would be Spectatours of bright things, then we should never separate ourselves from him who does make every thing to shine with radiant beams, no, we should enjoy God, as the eye does the light. If we provoke the eyes of his glory, he will vex our eyes with sad sights, but if we do that which is acceptable in his eyes, he will do that, which shall be delectable to our eyes.
This does show us that we may depend upon God for wonders, the eyes of all things look upon thee, and they may, for he is the God of the eyes, and has the curious, and marvellous sights for them. The pictures with orient colours do hang in his gallery, the exquisite, polished, elaborate master-pieces are to be seen in his Providence. He is all hand. God in his one existency has anticipation of all things which can be shown. He does include the perfection of every being in himself. For other things it may be said that, Every thing is good by his own proper and particular good, but God has goodness in him not by way of limitation, determination, order, species, or measure; but by indivision, eminency, and excess, he being the Abstract of all the concrete excellencies in the world, for he is not hoc, aut hoc, sed omnia, this, or that, but all things. The living, and powerful thing of an unlimited virtue. There is in God the admirable beauty of the whole universe, therefore those things which come from him are not only good, but very good. God then can show us better things, and greater things, and brighter things, then ever we yet beheld. If potent man (as thou thinkest) can make thee see strange things, what can the Omnipotent God? As if it there were not in the whole world tongues loud enough to sing our God's praises, or eyes bright enough to see the admiration which shine in his works.
Rely upon this God then, and expect Wonders from him; when they eyeballs have asked to behold any thing that is comfortable, and nothing thou could discern, though thy eyes were ready to fall out. Deut. 28. 65. yet then he may tell thee that happy sights are at hand, yea say unto thee, Thine eyes shall see.
This does show that God is to have the honour of all rich blessings…. Oh then we are apt to turn our eyes the wrong way, even to fix them upon man, rather then God! For man we see, and think that by him we only see, that none presents objects to our eyes, but this Inferiour Deity…. God is the Founder, and Fosterer. What then? shall men be worshipped? no. Incense does belong to God, it is the good will of him that dwelt in the bulb. Deut. 33. 16. which does make every thing prosperous to us. Set aside God's assistance; what can the feeble arm of man do? no, he has wrought all our works for us. In thine hand is pwoer and strength, and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all. 1 Chron. 29.12. Can we see any thing of ourselves, till God hold a blessing to our eyes? – Aaway then with the crys, and ingeminated praises that are given to men, let not these be so much as spoken of, till God has had the first song, the new song, and his song of degrees; praise not man at all, till ye have praised God in the Highest; no, let God have his Hymns before Man has his Panegyricks; And thus indeed, when God has had his worship, man may have his honour – we must remember to give the prime and principal reverence, veneration, and adoration to God, because man cannot show us a sight, nor bring to our view (of himself) the least thing, which can delight and affect the eye-sight, no, it is God only, that does say, and can say, Thine eyes shall see.
Oh therefore let us enamel our blessings, and as we have reigning mercies amongst us, so let us set a Crown upon the head of them. Let here be the new creatures, the children of light, the lively stones, the seed of the blessed, the trees of righteousness, the people that are partakers of the divine nature, that have a lot amongst them which are sanctified, that are brought from men, men that this world is not worthy of, yea let the whole Land be turned into a Kingdom of Priests. We ought to do this for our very sights' sake, our Objects do require us to be such Ornaments, and our mercies such Mirrours. What should be seen in us, when so much is seen by us? We see that which did not see, we see that, which we were once afraid we should never have seen; though we be now in fruition, and our eyes do see, yet let us remember how remote this happiness was, at what a distance the Object was placed from us, we had it but in expectation, or our greatest propinquity to it was in a promise, the sight reserved for the future, Thine eyes shall see.
Part 2. The King.
I have done with the opening of the Cabinet, I now come to take out the Gem. Seeing there is a sight I would fain see what it is; Is it the best of the Nation? then I wipe mine eyes to look upon him. Has he been hid in a cloud? then it will be pleasure to see him, when God does present him. Has he not for many years been seen, and is now the seeing time come? Then I can no longer withhold mine eyes from him, no I passionately desire to see the King. Thine eyes shall see the King. The King. From hence observe, that A King is the perfection of all earthly Objects. Of all desirable and delectable Sights that this world can afford, a King is the splendour of them. Thine eyes shall see the King.
He is publici decoris lampas, the lamp of public brightness; Caelitum egregius labor, the Master-piece of the divine Artisan; Excubitor communis salutis, The Watch-man, or Sentinel of the common safety; magnum regni columen, the great pillar of the Kingdom, the heavenly dew to water a Nation; Caput quod ab alto providet, The head which from above does provide for multitudes; Oculus innatus corpori, The eye set in the head to look for the general good; Peritus Gubernator, The skillful Mariner which does preserve the whole bark from perishing; Paxillus reipublica, The stay, or supporter, upon which hang the weight of a whole Commonwealth; Ignis qui urit, & lucemprabet, The fire which does burn up all the wicked, and does give light to all the Godly. Yea, the Ancients knowing the high benefit of such a Supreme Governour know not how to bestow Elegies, and Encomiasticks enough upon him; And does not Scripture conur with these, and set out a King with as great lustre? yes, I have said ye are Gods, Ps. 82.6. As if a King were, the Mdeal, wherein Gods own Image is represented, Alter Deus in terris, another God upon earth. For (methink) I see in a King a semblance of God's infinite being, his quickening spirit, his out-stretched arm, and his glorious Majesty. He is not the Divinity, but a Synopsis of the Divinity, a God exemplified, or effigiated. Why are Kings to promised to Abraham, Kings shall come out of they loins, and so prophesized of by Jacob, Judah shall have a Scepter, and so passionately desired by the people, Give us a King, and so confirmed by God Almighty, by an Institution, an Oath, and by the holy oil, yea, why is God himself the great King, the King of glory, and the King of KIngs, if there were any thing upon earth more eminent then a King? As it is the greatest curse upon earth to want a King; For many days shall pass in Israel without a King. Hos. 3.4. and because we feared not the Lord, therefore we have no King. Hos. 10. 3. So it is the greatest blessing to have a King, for the shout of a King is amongst them. Num. 23.21. And the Lord has given you a King 1. Sam. 12.13. And, Why dost thou cry out? Is there not a King in thee? Micah 4.9. as if a King were there, all were all. When I read of so much reverence, & awful Subjection enjoined to Kings, that we must Submit to them for the Lord's sake, and not resist them for fear of damnation, that we must not provoke them to wrath, not stand in an evil thing against them, not curse them in our bed-chambers; how do I think that Kings are pricelessly tendered by God Almighty, and that they are his chief Favourites! yea, wherefore does he command so many prayers and supplications to be made for them, and that with a especially, as if he would have the lips of a whole Nation to sacrifice for their safety and welfare, if Kings were not the principal persons, which God had under his protection and tutelage? Well then if either God's love, or his laws, his titles, or his privileges, his mission, or commission, his consecration, or conservation, his impress, or his Image, his watchful providence, or his ireful vengeance concerning Kings be to be regarded, we cannot imagine any persons more conspicuous or precious, excellent or eminent than Kings. No, man's eyes cannot see no more exquisite, and magnificent Creature upon earth then a King, for Thine eyes shall see the King.
This does show that the want of a King is the inlet of all infelicity. For how can that Land be happy, where the eyes do not see a KIng? no, then servants ride on horseback. 10. Eccles. 7. The people shall be oppressed every one of another, and every one of his neighbor, the children shall presume against the ancient, and the vile against the honourable. Is. 3.5. For when the Kings are fallen, Hos. 7.7. All welfare fall with them, then presently they are mixt with strange worships, strangers devour their strength, & gray hairs are here and there upon them. Hos. 7.8.9. Yea, when Princes are hanged up by the hand, then the young are taken to grind, and the children fall under the wood, the Elders cease from the gate, and the young men from their songs, the joy of their heart is gone, and their dance is turned into mourning. – nay God does not sooner remove the Crown, but the Kingdom is no more the same it was, then presently God overturn, overturn, overturn. Ezech. 21.26.27. When the true Shepherd is removed, then there is nothing to be seen in the Nation, but the instruments of a foolish Shepherd, of such a Shepherd, which will not look for the thing that is lost, nor feel the tender Lambs, nor heal that which is hurt, nor feed that which standeth up, but he shall eat the flesh of the fat, and tear their claws in pieces. Zach. 11. 15. 16. Take away such a Shepherd, and the poor flock goes to woeful desolation, for Arise oh Sword upon my Shepherd, and upon the man that is my fellow, that is, God's immediate Vicegerent, and what then? And the sheep are scattered, and God turn his hand upon the little ones, And in all the Land saith the Lord two parts therein shall be cut off, and die. Zach. 13.7.8. So that where a King is wanting, what but disorder, distraction, devastation, and desolation is to be expected? And have not we had experience of it? Yes, so soon as a King was gone, how did every one wear the Crown, and sit in the Chair of State? Peasants were Princes, and Mechanicks Monarchs, never such a spawn of new Lords, nor a litter of upstart Rulrers seen, paradoxes were principles… Delinquents Estates, and allegiance was conspiracy. Were there ever so many fundamental Laws overthrown, so many families ruined, so many millions spent, so many bowels torn out in five hundred years within this Realm, as there were in this short space of King-routing? Alas consciences, estates, privileges, speeches, looks, affections, labours, laws, lives, were all subject to the will of the insulting Conquerour… so our subjecting a King was the Original of all miseries of the Nation. In those days when there was no King in Israel, every man did that, which was good in his own eyes. Judg. 17.6. – Oh dismal Reign! oh miserable Realm without a King! will ye ever engage again to be ruled without a King, or House of Lords? will ye ever be ready to take an oath of Abjuration again against a Single Person? Then be ye for my part single, and singular, desperate, and willful Bondmen. For it is to make the whole Nation a slave to be destitute of a King, the presence of a King being the preservation of a Kingdom, for Thine eyes shall see the King.
This does serve to exhort us to be cheerful Seers. For have ye got a King again to look upon?
It is a sight that the eyes of a whole Nation might behold with admiration. Do ye not bless your eyes then, that ye are seeing that, which ye have so long seeking for? Do ye not know what ye could not see, what ye would have seen, what ye do see? Does the delight of a Kingdom grieve you? Does the desire of your eyes offend you? Have ye not what can be seen? can ye see a better? If thine eye then offend thee pluck it out, pluck out that evil out of thine eye. The eye is the light of the body. Have as clear an eye, as can be to see so bright an Object. Is there a diseased eye here? oh cure the malady. Are there any moles here? away with such Blinkards; are there any Bats here? away with such unlucky birds; Did the sight of Ostriches offend you, and shall not the sight of a Phoenix please you? Every man is delighted when he does see the light, and what is a King, but the Light of our eyes? The eye does receive the beams of the Sun in a spiritual manner, & so do ye the sight of a King, that glorious Sun.
Oh that we have opportunity to commemorate these things, that we have the happiness with our eyes freely to see them! was it a joyful thing once to hear of a King, and shall it not be much more joyful to see a King? yes, the sense of sight is much more perfect than that of hearing. If your eyes then should not take pleasure in that which was once so comfortable to your ears, your eyes are wonderfully distant from your ears, as Thales said.
Oh then that all the hearts of the Kingdom should not spring with joy, that all the feet of the Kingdom should not leap with Triumph, that all the eyes of the Kingdom should not gaze with pleasure to see such a solacing, satisfying, triumphant Object presented to the sight! Ye have not now a King living, or honoured beyond Sea, or counted worthy of a Crown by very strangers which conversed with him, but the faces of his own people are blessed with the sight of him; he is come towards you, he is come near you, he is come home to you. And what went ye out to see? nay, what is brought into your Throne to see? Can there be a more bright, amiable, delectable, splendid, illustrious, supereminent, matchless, majestical sight for the eyes of a whole Realm to look upon then a King? no, Thine eyes shall see the King.
This serves to exhort all to make a King Royal. And how Royal? but in being yourselves Loyal? How is he a King without Royalty? and how are ye Subjects without Loyalty? The Hebrews have a Proverb; that a man should fly out of that Kingdom, where a King is not obeyed. And doubtless no Nation shakes with a Quag-mire, or tossed with an Earthquake is more dangerous to stand upon. Rebellions are the burning fevers of Realms, the Deluges of States, the Eclipses of Nations, the hurricanes of Kingdoms. Rebellion is as the sin of Witchcraft. Sam. 15.23. For then all the Magicians are at work, and using all the inventions of their black Art. Traitours upon earth are but the disciples of Judas, or the State-students of Achitophel, or the Spirits that learn their aspiring Art of Lucifer. Goodly pedagogues that they are trained under, if I would have an Academy of Hell set up, I would have Traitours there commence, and become Graduates.
Oh then that men live under a King fomenting sedition, engendering Treason, yea that count it is a part of their Divinity to cast firebrands, and fire Beacons, and strike up drums, and display colours, and shoot off warning-pieces against their Sovereigns, that if they have not a plyable King according to their own mind, they will fight him into their bent, this is Pole-axe-religion, Gunpowder-Divinity.
…Therefore if there be a King, then amongst you give him the reverence and right of his Name, that is, be ye Loyal to him… Monarchy is that Government, which ye ought to be espoused to. Look therefore where ye should look, and see whom ye should see, and that is a King; See him to be a King, and see him, as a King; for that duty is that which must complete the delight of my Text, Thine eyes shall see the King.
For a King is in a Commonwealth like a heart in the body, the root in the tree, the Spring in the stream, the Eagle in the sky, the Sun in the firmament, & these pink-eyed people look upon a KIng not only with disdain, but defiance; They like not the honey of Government, nor the Bee that should afford it them. To such a King is an heart-gripe, an eye-sore, yea they look upon their fawns, and satyrs, – What need have we of a King? what does a King amongst us? They have cried themselves so long to be the free-born people of England, that they would not only be free in respect of liberty, but free in respect of Sovereignty. Oh this same Monarchy (say they) is the great bondage of the world! …Till they renounce their opinions, I do renounce them, and cannot think but all their fair words do but prepare, and fore-run (what in they lie) a foul day. They make themselves instantly secure, if they plead, they would have us abjure all Kingly Government to be lawful, if they will but abjure that as an excrable opinion, and give real assurances For they are the pests of States, and prodigees of Nations, they approve of no Government, they reject all Kings. And can there be greater Monsters in human society, then such swords-men against authority, and Headsmen to Kings? no, these are the worst eyes that can be in the head of a Nation, because the best eyes do delight in the presence of a King, and count it an happiness to see a King, for Thine eyes shall see the King.
Part 3. In his Beauty.
Now let us come to the lustre of the Gem, the Beauty of the King, Thine eyes shall see the King in his Beauty. From hence observe, that the glorious King is the King shining in the splendour of his Royalties; not only when an excellent title, but excellent Majesty is added to him. Dan. 4. 36. not only when the Land is the Land of his inheritance, but the Land of his Dominion. 2 Chron. 8. 6. not only when he has the chief place amongst men, but when he has the chief power amongst men, when he does rule over men. 2. Sam. 23.3. It is not the Crown, but the Crown-right, which does make a King, otherwise Kingship is but nobilis servitus, a noble kind of servitude. Nihil beatum sine libertate. Nothing can be called blessed without liberty. Magnificence without just power is but a golden chain. When the title is with one, and the command with others, this is rather to look like a King, then to live as a King. Therefore was it said of Vespasian, that when news was brought him concerning the accidents which had happened to Vitellius, that a certain Majesty arose in his countenance, which was never seen before, which did foretell, that ere long he should be Emperour. The Majesty of a King then is the true Inauguration of a King, for what is Majesty, but Major potestas, the greater power? Deprive a King then of his Royal power, and men had as good pluck the Crown from his Head, this is truly Crimen lese Majestatis, that though men never touch the King's Person, yet they touch his Majesty, and this haughtiness of itself is High Treason.
If I be a Father where is my honour? So if there be a King, where is his Royalty?
Those things, which do immediately pertain to a King should have an inherent dignity in them, yea, it is not fitting reliquias Regis jacere inhonoratas, that the very Reliques of a King should remain without honour… So any thing which tends to the diminution of a King's honour is reprehensible, and criminal. Cicero pleading for Deiotarus a King, says, The name of a King was ever holy in this City. So that is the best City and Country, where the name of a King is most Sacred, & the person of a King most reverenced.
He that does take away from a King his prepotency and Supremacy had as good steal the Crown Jewels.
Let a Prince show himself affable to the people, but let him not suffer himself to be condemned. For if he has lost his dignity, he is a King, but without Royalty. An arrogant Courtier, or an insolent Statesman that is too bold with the King's power is next to a Rebel, which does fight against him with an armed hand. A wise counsel is requisite for a King, but counsel had need have in it two grains of modesty to one of direction. If it troubled David so much that he had cut off the lap of Saul's garment, then how may it trouble them which cut off half the Robe of Majesty, Auctoritas Principis nata est ex metu & admiratione. The authority of a Prince is begotten of fear, and admiration. When a King then has lost his dread and reverence he is but a painted Sun. The vulgar is apt to grow insolent, but this audaciousness is to be repressed. Therefore Aristotle would not have too much honours given to Subjects, lest they should hold themselves Compeers with their Prince. It is ever perillous for the name of any private man to be equalled, or preferred before the Prince. Majesty in a Prince is as it were the soul of the Kingdom. What safe sailing is there where the Mariners do not obey the Ship-Master? Contempt is as great a seedsman of rebellion as hatred, for the one is begotten of ambition
Petrus Crinitus has a notable discourse, that when Anacharsis came to Athens, and saw the Princes but only giving counsel for things to be done, & the people decreeing all, he cried out, Oh Commonwealth is a short time coming to ruin, where the Princes propound things, and the people determine them!
So if a Prince be not Superiour in command it is to take in pieces the joints of a Throne, and to bring down a King that should order all to the wills of Inferiours. Let as much honour as can be given to faithful Counsel, but still let the Prerogative be inviolable. It is good advise, if well listened to, which is given in the 8. of Eccles. 2. I advertise thee to take heed to the King's Commandment, and that in respect of the Oath of God, because God has precepted, and swore a whole Kingdom to the Commandment of a King. For wherefore is he a King, if he should stand by to see his Commands vilified, and neglected? would a matter of the anvile, or the awle, or the frippery wares be thus used? Let every one then have his right, honour to whom honour belongeth, Royalty to whom Royalty belongeth. If a King does want his just authority he is but an appellative King. For what is it to see a King wear Robes, fit in a Throne, hold a Scepter, if he does want his Sovereignty? this is but to see a King in his Bravery, and not a King in his Beauty. In beauty there must be no skarre, so in the Government no restraint of just authority. He is never a complete King, till there be an unshaken liberty in governing. A Lion wheresoever he be, he is a Lion; so a King wheresoever he be he must be reigning. The King must give the word to the whole Nation, all must incline to follow him. Judg. 9.3. They must be at his bidding. 1 Sam.2.2.14. At his word they must go out, and at his word they must come in. Num. 27.21. They must move forward, & backward, as he does give the charge. A resplendent King is he which is Imperial, which is powerful in having his Mandates observed, This is a King in his beauty. Thine eyes shall see the King in his Beauty.
This does show that a right King is a rare Beauty. For can the eye of a man behold a more choice Object upon earth, then a lawful and righteous King? no, when the righteous are in authority the people rejoice, Prov. 29:2. For such an one is the Minister of God for good. Rom.13.4. When a King does reign in justice, the Princes rule in judgment, that man shall be an hiding place from the wind, and a refuge from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, and as the shadow of a rock in a weary Land, the eyes of the Seeing shall not be shut, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken, the heart of the foolish shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stutterers shall speak distinctly. That in such a King's days judgment shall dwell in the desert, and justice shall remain in the fruitful field, the work of justice shall be peace, even the work of justice, and quietness, and assurance for ever, yea the people shall dwell in the tabernacle of peace and in sure dwellings, and safe resting places.
Now these words though they be spoken mystically of Christ, yet literally they are meant of any good King; for a good King how beneficial is he? A king by judgment maintains his Country. Pro. 29.4. For he knows that he is therefore constituted King, that he might do equity, and righteousness 1. Kings. 10.9. and therefore is a Copy of the Law put into his hand, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, and keep all the words of the Law, and the Ordinances. Deut. 17. 19. Such a King will be like David, who fed Jacob his people and Israel his inheritance, with a faithful and true heart, and ruled them prudently with all his power. Ps. 78. 72. 73.
A good King does chiefly look to have his Throne established by righteousness. Prov. 25.5. and that his people under him may lead a peaceable, and a quiet life in all godliness, and honesty. Tim. 2.2. This is a good King, and indeed his worth, and value is scarcely known; A good King is like a good Spring, a good mine, a good corner-stone, a good Magazine, a good Angel, which made Aristotle to say, that it were better for a City to be governed by the best man, than by the best law, because his life is a Law, and there need no other precept, but his precedent. He is the rare Painter which makes his whole Kingdom a picture drawn out with Orient Colours. He is so transformed into God, that (as ludovicus Carssus wished his on) the people may see the immortal Judge sitting in him. Which made Paulus Jovius to say that Kings had distinct eyes from other men, because they look out with their Princely eyes minding only the general benefit. Such a Prince does remedy the errours of former Governments, as Micerinus did the high enormities of Cheops, and Chephren which reigned before him in Egypt. – In such an ones Government people leave groaning, and there are nothing but laeta & fausta, pleasant and delightful things to be seen, as it was said of Sitalces; or all grievances being removed, the Nation lives without fear, or perplexity, as it was said of the reign of Alcimus. That wise Governour does make it his principal art to restore the ancient glory of a Nation, as Justinian the Great did, or like that famous Tiberius the second, he has no other Princely ambition in his breast, but none of his precedessours might exceed him in piety or felicity. That Prince is so honoured by the people, that like another L. Piso because he had done all things for the welfare of the Nation he shall be surnamed Frugi, the Profitable, yea, there are prayers made by the whole Land, that such an one may not die childless, lest such a renowned family should perish (as it is said of Ariston the King of Lacedemonia) and if God send an heir, for the Father's virtues they are willing to have the child's name called Demarathus, the people's Darling; and well may it be so, for a good King does take his Crown out of God's hand, and does wear it for his honour; his heart is in Heaven, and his eye upon the Church; he does first seek for the purity of religion, and is careful that sacrifices without blemish be brought to the Altar; he does look to conquer rather with his bended knees, then his armed hand; he does prefer a penitent before a Peer, and a just liver before a high-borne Grandee; he does desire to have his Priests undefiled, and his Judges uncorrupt; he does want no Majesty, and yet does abound in humanity; his speech is gentle, and his hand is soft; he is passionate against incorrigible sinners, and yet compassionate to remorseful enemies; he grieves at intemperance, and hates blasphemy; he likes neither the laughing Projectour, nor the weeping Sectary; he would have his Sanctuary without indevotion, and his treasury without injury; his watchful conscience is the Squire of his body, and his deprecatory petitions his best Life-guard; his innocent life is his ingraven Image, and his pious examples his richest Medals; he does shine like a Sun himself, and does wish to have none but bright Stars about him; next to his own pure heart he does endeavour to have a pure Court; he does stand upon his own prerogative, but catch at none of his people's liberties; he had rather gild a Kingdom, then his Exchequer; his Crown-land does satisfy him better then breaking an Inclosure; he can see a Vineyard out of his Palace-Window without proclaiming himself Owner of it by an Ahabs evidence; he would have the liberal Arts to flourish, and make (if it were possible) every Mechanic a Lord of a Manour; he gives all furtherances for free Trade, and quick Merchandise; he does commiserate the wants of the poor, and he would have the rich to build them Alms-houses; he is wise, and not vain-glorious, valiant, and yet would never fight, sober, and yet no water-drinker, liberal, and yet not profess; he is often at his Chapel, and oft at his Council-Tables; he has a listening ear to just petitions, but not to pragmatical motions; his heart is set upon nothing more then repairing decayed places, and erecting Monuments; he would leave behind him a glorious Church, and a settled Kingdom; he does govern for God upon earth, that he may Reign with God in Heaven. Now is not the presence of such a King an Heavenly present? has the rich hand of God a dearer pledge of favour to bestow upon his bosom friends? are all the splendid spectacles of a Kingdom like to the face of such a Prince? no, doubtless he does surpass them all as far as light does excell darkness; oh then how may all his Subjects have delight under his shadow, and clap their hands together that they live to see such happy days, his name may be pleasure, his Reign Triumph, for when their eyes see such a King, they see a King in his Beauty. Thine eyes shall see the King in his Beauty.
This does reprove the blind rage of a Conspiratour in opposing such a King, he does strike at the Beauty of the Land. For is there a King in his Beauty? then why do such an one endeavour to pluck away from the eyes of a Nation the most glorious sight that can be beheld? What would such people have? when will they be contented? wherein shall they find satisfaction? is there any thing upon earth, which can keep them long quiet? for except they would have their own wills, be Lords of all Titles, Procuratours for all general affairs, Dictatours to rule all by themselves, hold the helm of States in their hands, order God's Providence, hold no Crown fit to be worn, but that which their well-guiding hands shall set on, be Supreme, and Kings themselves, can they desire to be more happy? Do they contest with God, because he has made a people so blessed? may not God say to them, as he does in the Gospel? Is thine eye evil, because mine is good? For if they had not evil eyes, and evil heads, and evil hearts, and evil hands, they would never thus quarrel with God's will, and wisdom, and goodness. What? are they weary of a Banquet? does a calm offend them? is Sunshine grievous to them? is a gem troublesome to enjoy? is a King in his Beauty vexatious to them to see? alas poor sick eyes, and litigious, refractory spirits, it is pity that ye were not all Secretaries of State, and that God did not send his Decrees to you to have your pregnant approbation. But this is man's turbulent, murmuring nature, that the best things are diverse times the greatest grievances, and that they which cannot govern themselves must be continually querulous against Rulers. Ye take too much upon you said Corah and his complices. Num 16.3. Why hast served us thus? said the men of Ephraim to Gideon, and they chode with him sharply. Judges 8.1. How shall he save us? and they despised him, and brought him no presents. 1 Sam. 10.27. See thy masters are good and righteous, but there is no man deputed of the King to hear thee, oh that I were made a Judge in the Land, that every man which hath any matter, or controversy might come to me, and I might do him Justice, said Absalon of David's Government, 2. Sam. 15.3,4. So that there is no Government, or Governour will please many men…
So we have a generation of men still amongst us that are apt to asperse the most meriting Prince, and not only to stretch out their slanderous tongues, but their barbarous hands to pull him down; what savage wars have we had in this Nation waged in a blind rage, and not only till the Land has been sprinkled with the blood of her Natives, but the Scaffold dyed with the Blood of a most Innocent King? and this King-killing will be a Trade, if God from Heaven do not strike an horrour, and dread of such an impious act into their hearts. Oh ye wild Furies then consider what ye have done, consider what ye are about to do; Christians ye are not, are ye men? what ye live in a Country, to appall a Country? to trouble her peace? waste her treasure? to deprive her of the light of her eyes? what is a family without a Master? what is a KIngdom without a King? Repent then for what ye have done, and do not think that a pardon is easily gotten; an Act of Idemnity may save your necks, but it must be an high expiatory Act that must save your souls; if David wept so bitterly for the murder of one Uriah, ye had need to have David's penitential tears, and his penitential Psalm for the thousands that ye have slain, and especially for the murder of that one King that was worth ten thousand of us. Ye have immodest cheeks if they have no shame, ye have flinty hearts if they have no remorse, as stupidly as ye pass over such a guilt, it is well if eighteen years repentance, nay a strict penance of your whole lives can procure you a reconciliation in Heaven; there is a great difference between a dispensation of your partial Prophets, and justification at the white Throne of the Judge of quick and dead. What then? have ye still dry eyes? and will ye shed no tears? yes, springs must gush out of the rocks, hearts of adamant might cleave asunder. Ahab might go softly, and Judas out of horror of conscience might cry out I have sinned in betraying Innocent Blood. If ye have not Ahab's consternations, and Judas's crys, ye will have fights, and stings, and yells enough in Hell. There is yet a means of atonement, an opportunity of healing, if ye be not of the number of them, which have hearts that cannot repent. Rom. 2.5. try what Suppliants, and penitents ye can be, ye had need go water every Camp, where ye have fought your bloody Battles, and to moisten the ground of that Scaffold where that execrable murder was committed with showers of salt water. And if ye can work out your peace raise not another war in your consciences, if ye can be made whole sin no more. Your swords are sheathed, draw them not again; ye are sent home quietly, hang not out a new flag of defiance. What have ye to do to be Statesmen? follow your callings, and look to take the enormities out of your own lives, what are ye to meddle with errours of Government? no, leave politics to others, neither ye, nor your great Masters have any thing to do with a King's actions, except it be by way of humble advise. For, Where the word of a King is there is power, and who shall say to him, what dost thou? Eccles. 8.3. What have Subjects then to descant upon a King's Government, as if they were his Supervisours, and Guardians? The Laws of God allow no such authority, and it is but a State inchantment to say that the fundamental Laws of this Kingdom have empowered any to call a King to a violent account. He has only God for his Judge, and all people under him as Liege-men. Beware therefore of those pulling groans, oh here is a sick State, come along with us to administer physick, if the King will not frame up such a Goernment as we desire, we will teach him how to rule by the edge of our swords. These are not Physicians, but cut-throats… For if a King may not be provoked to wrath, he may not be so far provoked as to fight for his life; if he may not be spoken evil of, or cursed, his maladies are not to be remedied by cutting off his head. This is rather to be Executioners, then State-Doctors; I never yet read, that there could be a Lictor, or a Speculator, or a Carnifex for a King.
Let the greatest Subjects then busy themselves in preparing Laws for the Commonwealth, and not in prescribing rules to a King; in remedying the grievances of the Country, and not in avenging grievances, which may be suspected by a King; in binding the people to obedience, and not bringing a King to account; For they are but Subjects, and they cannot add to themselves one cubit above their stature. If ye comply with such politicians, ye do but please a company of seditious persons, and incense the Nation in general, for ye cannot do a greater injury to your Country, nor offer a greater indignity, and violence to true Patriots, then to disturb the peace of the Land, and to strike at a King. For the King's safety is the Kingdom's Triumph, The Nation hath no greater joy then to see the King in his Beauty. Thine eyes shall see the King in his Beauty.
Sixthly, this serves to exhort all good Subjects not to disfigure the face of Majesty, for if the Beauty of a King be the brightest thing, that a Nation's eyes can be fixed upon, then what a dark Kingdom is there when a King does not shine out in Royal Splendour? If every one would have his right, that the Cottager, and Commoner would not lose his Country tenure, nor the man of noble blood, and honourable family would not lose his peerage, then why should not the King have his Jura regalia, his Crown-rights? I confess the Propriety of the Subject, and plead for it, but I find likewise, and am an Advocate, that there may be Hammelech Melech, The Right of a King, 1 Sam. 8.11. It is a Right of great antiquity, no fundamental Law can vie Seniority with it; no, multorum festorum Jovis glandes comedit, it does derive the pedigree a Nannaso, there are antiquiores dipthera to be brought for it, indeed it is as ancient as the Institution, now the word do naturally signify Right, & it is but Metaphorically translated Manner, as Buxtorsius, and Pagnine declare, if it be a Right then it must continue, as long as the original Hebrew hold. The Text will not perish, nor the Title. It is the King's Right, but it is God's Designation, and Charter for the Crown. I do not say the King should have all, I know to the contrary, but I say that the King should have his own, none ought to say to the contrary, espeically, when it is Jus divinum, a Gods-right. The King's Right being settled upon Scripture it is firmer, then if it were bottomed upon the best State-grounds. Some say, that this is only meant, when God does give a King in his wrath, but I say then that they are in wrath, for there is a great distance of time between Samuel, and Hosee, and between Saul, and Jeroboam. Kingdoms may have their particular Constitutions in accidental things which do belong to a King, but not in the essence of a King, especially not against the essence of a divine Institution. Let all the jest reverence that may be given to human Laws, but still let Scripture be Sacred, and inviolable, or else what have we left that is stable, & infallible? The handmaid must not rule the Lady, or let the star outshine the Sun, all the Sages of a Land must not be wiser, then the Oracles of God.
Well then, what is the Beauty of a King? what but his power? Take a King without power, and what is he, but a Ghost without life, a mere Phantasm, and Apparition? How can he do any thing that is Kingly, either in settling Religion, protecting the Church, administering Justice, making leagues, drawing his people to Humiliation for their sins, in maintaining the liberties of his people at home, or propulsing the violence, and affronts of Adversaries abroad? no, he must sit by with tears in his eyes, and deplore all exorbitances, and sad accidents, but not be able to remedy them; he has a sympathy, but he has no Sovereignty; he has a will, but he has no power; he has a face but he has no Beauty in it. A King's authority then is the true Majesty of a King, till he can command like a King, he does but personate a King. Oh then that the policy of many men is but to design against the power, that their chiefest drift is not in honouring and obeying a King, but in restraining and regulating a King, that when their purses are empty, then they fill them by a Crown-quarrel; that when their high parts are not considered, then they will be observed to be Master-wits in seeking to master authority; and to silence such a Mutiner, a Challenger by many a good King must be preferred, when many a loyal Champion of as good endowments and better worth must stand upon low ground, and this popular Eare-wig creep to his desired height. But away with these new dogmatizing principles of State-magick, whereby Kings are conjured into politicians Circles, or confined to their august limits. This may be a Science, but I am sure it is none of the liberal Sciences. It is a pitiful thing, when a King come to be tutoured under such Pedagogues, he is then rather a Disciple, a pupil then a KIng, for he must do nothing, but what is prescribed him, nor order any thing but according to commensurations. And this is rather Geometry, then Monarchy, or to make a Mathematical, rather then a Majestical King. Let the people have their birth-rights, Liberties, Privileges, but let no liberty eat up Royalty, nor birth-right, Crown-right, nor privilege Prerogative, for then the judgment in Egypt is fallen upon the Land, that the lean kin have eaten up the fat, and what then but a famine to be expected? The people may be amiable, but the King has no Beauty, or the soul of the King's power is defunct, and by a Pythagorean transmigration is past into the body of the people. And how will Natives then disregard such a King? and how will Foreigners insult over him? he shall be able to act nothing neither at home, nor abroad. The thick smoke in the form of a cloud which was raised by one of burning of beans might more terrify Charles the fifth, and Francis the first at Villafrank, they thinking that a Navy of the Turks had been coming, and the very dead statute of Alexander at the Temple of Apollo at Delphos might make Cassander sooner tremble then the presence of a King will beget awe or reverence in such a Nation. But some will say that Kings ought to have Counsellers, and he must be guided by them. Ought, and must are high words. It is convenient I confess that Kings should have Counsellers, for in the multitude of Counsellers there is health (Salomon the wise was not without them) but then these Counsellers must not be Compellers, the KIng must be the Head of the Counsel, a King must not be subjected to their excentrical humours (if any such things should happen) or to their self-willed, and self-ended aims, for these should then be rather projectours then Counsellours, or Dictatours; all the Beauty should then be in the Counsellours then as ye will, but still let the King haev the liberty of election, to accept, or reject what in his Princely wisdom he thinks fitting, for constraining advice belongs rather to headstrong, surely Subjects, then to true Counsellours. A king no doubts may as well refute ill counsel, as ill meat, ill weather, ill lodging. Bad company is dangerous, and so likewise a bad counsel. Is a King bound to walk in the dark? to take receipts of all Empiricks? to fail without all winds? to go out of the way, if his guides mislead him? No, it were better to run back to the middle of the way, then to run wrong. That Counsel may be followed there must be Sancta penetralia justitiae, the holy inwards of justice. How is a KIng at liberty if his judgment be not free? his captived person were something like to his captived reason. The King is not tied by the rules of common justice to follow their Counsel, whom he does admit to Counsel, no ordinary Client is limited to this. How is it the King's honour to search out a thing. Prov. 25.2. If the King's heart must ly in their mens breasts? why do David say, Give thy judgements to the King. Ps. 72. 1 1. If all the judgements of a Land lay in Counsellours lips, or the King has no commands of himself, but deputatuib? No good King will refuse Counsel, no wise King will yoke himself to a Counsel. The King might then make himself a slave, the Church a vassal, and the Kingdom a Bondman. Then the Land has lost her Liberty, and he himself may lose his Crown. For though noble Counsellours disdain to give any Counsel but according to honour and conscience, yet there are a company of pragmatical Sages, that will be Balaams, Jonadabs, old Achitorphels, or young Reboboams Consellours. If the KIng then be necessitated to the wits, or will of all the Counsellours, where is his Sceptor, and Broad Seal? Let there be then Majesty in Kings, moderation in Counsellours; Sovereignty in Kings, Sobriety in Counsellours; dominion in KIngs, devoir in Counsellours.
For if the King be to sit in the Throne, and he is the Law-giver of the Nation, and people be to seek the King's face, and to listen to the Divine sentence that is to come out of his lips, is he be to sit as chief, and to dwell like a King in an Army, if he be to sent forth the Decrees, and Nations to be to bow down before him, if young men ought to hie themselves from him, and old men ought to arise, and stand up, if the voices of Princes ought to be strayed in his presence, and after his words they ought not to reply, if all the Land ought to wait for him as for the rain, and to open their mouths for him as for the latter rain, then surely the best Counsel, the great Counsel of a Kingdom is not circumscriptive to a King. No, good Counsellours know better fealty, & bad Counsellours ought to be leave off this exilency. Let Magna Charta then be preserved, and the petition of Right have all the right that is in it, but let the Maxima Charta, and the prescriptionof King's Right be thought on with them, and above them; for it is the Elder Brother, and of the Blood Royal, and ought to wear the Crown before all others. If then the honour of God, or the fear of his Laws, the Image of God in a King's forehead, or the Scepter of God in his Hand, a King's Royal Ornaments, or a King's Royal Office, the advancement of Religion, or the protection of the innocent, the obedience of Subjects at home, or the dread of Foreigners abroad, the duty that ye require from your children, or the reverence that ye expect from Inferiours, the peace of the Kingdom, or the prosperity of the Kingdom carry any authority with you, let the last word be spoken, that may tend to the disparagement of the King's dignity, and the last arrow be shot that may be levelled with the diminution of his power, let us fill his Coffers with Gold, and his heart with confidence, let us end all enmity in unanimity, & change all fierceness into fidelity, let us fight no more against Kings, but fold out arms in subjection, let us all fall at the King's feet, and vow never against to strike at his head, let us join no more battles, but join hands, weep that we have been such enemies, and smile that we are become such friends; let us rejoice that we have gotten at home the Father of our Country, & be glad that we are coming home to our Mother Church; let it comfort us that the King has brought Bishops along with him to restore us to our first Faith, and Judges to settle us in our old inheritances; oh let it delight us that we are come to our wits, and begin to remember that we are Countrymen, and that the malignity of the Church-fever is spent, and that we begin to look upon each other as Fellow-Professours. Let us say we will go together to the King's Court, and go together to the King's Chapel, that we will join together in allegiance, and join the same King. All this is for the King's honour, and if we will have a King let us grudge him no honour. Let it be our ambition to strive, that we may be the most devoted people to a King, to be the Nation of Loyalty, the Island that will set up a magnificent King, that no Subjects upon earth shall pay such Homage to a Sovereign, as the English… and grandize the King! For to make the King great, it is to make ourselves happy, and honourable, for there is no greater delight and dignity to a Country then to have a King exalted, the blessing and Beauty of a Kingdom is to see a King in his Beauty, for Thine eyes shall see the King in his Beauty.
An Hereditary King, an Orthodox King, a Complete King, what can the eye of the Nation look upon with more satisfaction? no, Our eyes do see a King in his Beauty; we do see him so in his personal Beauty, and God forbid but we should give him all the National Beauty that may be Confess his right, and give him his right, welcome him home with melody, and bestow Majesty upon him; make him as great, as he does desire to make us mighty; we were never happy before he came, we are unhappy, if we know not how happy we are since his coming, he has redeemed us out of errour, out of bondage, out of despair. O Redeeming King! Let us not serve him now as the Israelites served Moses, who were ever groaning till they had a Deliverer, and ever murmuring after they had a Deliverer. No, let our joy in him be answerable to the comforts be has brought along with him; and our peerless esteem of him be answerable to his priceless worth; Consider his devout Heart, and his divine Lips, what zeal he does bear to the truth, and what hatred he does carry to an Oath, how he has preserved his Religion… consider his chaste eye, and his sober palate; how he is fragrant with almsdeeds, and is humble in prosperity; how he has forgiven his enemies, and is daily preferring his Friends; how the whole Lan does not ceed him in Candour, nor the whole earth in valour; consider what he has done for your consciences, what for your liberties, what for your Laws, what for learning, what for a flourishing trade, and what for a settled peace; consider if he be not the prime man that could have comforted you, if he be not the only man which could have made you happy, and will ye open your eyes, and not open your lips? give him your acclamations, and not give him your affections? shall Englishmen have the best King, and be the worst Subjects? be the most fervent Desirers of a King, and the ficklest Reverencers of a King? what still squint-eyed, rank-breathed, half-hearted? still Censurers, Malcontents, Mutiners? Send for the Senacherib then again, if Hezekiah do not please you. Oh the variable, and unstable spirits of men! what Scepticks are we in politics? what Critics in Government? we do but desire to enjoy a Blessing, and then complaint of wants; we do but desire to see a King, and then spy faults; we are glutted with a taste and heavy-eyed with a sight; take a gust and shut up our lips; stare a little, and then turn away our eyes; please our fancies, and affect no longer; delight ourselves with a gaze and then disdain. But oh beloved were we sick for a King, and are any now weary of him? no, very Esau me think should fall upon the neck of such a Jacob, & weep at the meeting; very Shimeis mouth should leave foaming, and he should fall down at the feet of such a David, and ask pardon when he sees him returning; the most heart-brent enemies that ever the King had methink should give over all their spleen and rancour, and admire his clemency and magnify his graces. If these should hold their peace the stones should speak, so if these will not prize such a King, very Infidels would honour him. Oh therefore let every Subject in the Realm know their own King, their lawful King, and give him cordial respect, faithful obedience, and an eminency of affection. Let Noble-men love him, for as he is the Fountain of their honours, so he has restored their honours to them; let Clergy-men love him, for he is a Sanctuary to the Sanctuary; let Judges love him, for he has put life into the Laws, and given them a resurrection; …let all the Land love him, for there is not a corner of the Nation, but he has filled it with joy, and resplenished it with blessings. Well let us all gather together, and weep for joy, that after so many dismal sights, we have eyes in our heads to see this one sight, this reviving, ravishing sight, even to see the King in his Beauty. Thine eyes shall see the King in his Beauty.
And as we have seen the sight, so let us not lose the fight, that after we have seen the King in his Beauty, we should see a King in Blood; no, if the Laws of God, and the Mercy of the King not quench Fire-brands, but there should happen to be new flames, new wars, let all faithful Subjects be dismembered rather than one Member of his Sacred Person should be wounded, and let every loyal Hand in the three Nations be cut off, rather then the traitorous hand should touch his Royal Head. For if we should be deprived again of the King in his Beauty, the Beauty of the Land is gone, and misery of the Land will renew, we shall have old plundering, and rifling, and sequestering, and imprisoning, and braining, and gibbetting again; if the King suffer, let us not think to escape scot-free; if the King die, let us not think to live long after him, no, let us resolve of a general Massacre, and a Funeral of the whole Nation. Now the King and Kingdom may be secure, let us make sure of him that is the Keeper of Israel, oh how safe might we be under his everlasting Arms! He would be the shield of our help, and the sword of our excellencies. Oh therefore let us not provoke the eyes of his glory, and he will watch for our defence, let us not break his Laws, & not a bone of us shall be broken, let us weep out our former corruptions with tears, and show ourselves to be alive from the dead by our regenerate faces; let every Royalist turn the greatest Penitent and truest Saint; as we account ourselves the most Orthodox Professours, so let us declare it by our mortified lives, and pure consciences; So may we defy all the enemies in the Nation, for in despite of all their fury and maugre all their malice, Jerusalem shall be a quiet habitation, a Tabernacle that cannot be removed, her stakes shall not be taken away, but we shall here long see a King in his Beauty, and hereafter see a King in his Glory, which that we may do, the Lord grant for his mercies sake, Amen.
Finis.
Jean Bodin / Dictators are Sufficient Proof that Monarchy is necessary for the preservation of society
>And what power soever they have by virtue of their places, yet Popular and Aristocratical commonweales, finding themselves embarked in any dangerous war, either against the enemy, or among themselves, or in difficulty to proceed criminally against some mighty citizen, or to give order for the plague, or to create magistrates, or to do any other thing of great consequence, did usually create a Dictator, as a sovereign Monarch: knowing well that a Monarchy was the anchor whereunto of necessity they must have recourse.
>The impunity of vices, and the contempt of magistrates in a Popular estate, does sufficiently show that Monarchs are necessary for the preservation of the society of mankind, seeing that the Romans who for the error of one Prince, had all kings in hatred, made a Dictator for the conduct of all their great affairs.
>So did the Lacedemonians in their extremities create a magistrate with power like unto the Dictator, whom they called Harmoste: and the Thessaliens, him whom they called Archus: as in the like case the Mityleniens their great Aezimnere; to whom the great Providador of the Venetians may be in some sort compared: finding by experience that an absolute power united in one person, is more eminent and of greater effect.
<Louis XV speech
>It is only in my person where the sovereign power resides, whose proper character is the spirit of advice, justice and reason; it is to me that my courtiers owe their existence and their authority; the fullness of their authority, which they exercise only in my name, always resides in me and can never be turned against me; To me alone belongs the legislative power without dependency and without division; it is by my authority that the officers of my Court proceed not to the formation, but to the registration, publication and execution of the law […]; public order emanates from me, and the rights and interests of the Nation, of which a separate body from the Monarch is usually made, are necessarily united to mine and rest only in my hands.
<Louis XIV Quotes
We must guard nothing more jealously than the pre-eminence that embellishes our post.
>There is no doubt that we must guard nothing more jealously than the pre-eminence that embellishes our post. Everything that indicates it or preserves it must be infinitely precious to us.
>It is a possession for which we are accountable to the public and to our successors. We cannot dispose of it as we see fit, and we can have no doubt that it is among the rights of the crown that cannot be legally alienated.
>Those who imagine that claims of this kind are only questions of ceremony are sadly mistaken. There is nothing in this matter that is unimportant or inconsequential.
>As important as it is for the public to be governed only by a single person, it is just as important for the one who performs this function to be raised so far above the others that no one else may be confused or compared to him.
…
<Each profession contributes in its own way to sustaining the monarchy, and each has its own functions which the others undoubtedly have a great deal of difficulty in doing without. The peasant by his work furnishes nourishment to this whole great body, the artisan by his craft provides everything for the convenience of the public, and the merchant by his cares assembles from a thousand different places all the useful and pleasant products of the world in order to furnish them to each individual whenever he needs them; the financier by collecting the public money helps to support the state, the judges by enforcing the law maintain security among men. And the clergy by instructing the people in religion acquire the blessings of Heaven and preserve peace in earth
>This is why, far from scorning any of these conditions or raising one at the expense of others, we must take care to make them all, if possible, exactly what they should be. We must be firmly convinced that we have no interest in favoring one at the expense of the others.
>So that the only way to reign in all hearts at once is to be the incorruptible judge and common father of all.
Louis XIV: The Sovereign & Esteem
>The Sovereign must do everything to preserve or even to increase everyone's esteem for him.
>>723215Why arent you spamming this in /pol/? Plenty of monarchist retards there.
It stole them rubbles boiii It stole them rubbles
Aristotle
>"The rule of a father over his children is royal, for he rules by virtue both of love and of the respect due to age, exercising a kind of royal power. And therefore Homer has appropriately called Zeus –father of Gods and men – because he is the king of them all. For a king is the natural superior of his subjects, but he should be of the same kin or kind with them, and such is the relation of elder and younger, of father and son."
Aristotle: Gods have a king
>Wherefore men say that the Gods have a king, because they themselves either are or were in ancient times under the rule of a king. For they imagine, not only the forms of the Gods, but their ways of life to be like their own.
Isocrates on Monarchy:
>Thus it is clear that monarchy is the most efficient form of government. It is said even the gods are under the kingship of Zeus; even if this were untrue, yet the fact that we imagine that the gods are under a monarchy is an admission that we consider it the best form of government.
>In oligarchies and democracies, the rulers have private interests, further they only meet occasionally and opportunities for action are missed; monarchs are continually occupied in the public interest. Again, the former are jealous and wish to exalt themselves at the expense of their predecessors and successors, the latter seek the goo will of all. But the greatest difference is that monarchs treat public affairs as their own concern, other rulers transact them as if they were other people's business, and they choose their advisors accordingly.
>Those who hold office for one year only have to retire before they have mastered their duties; a monarch has the advantage of continuous experience. Again, he knows that he has to superintend everything; the oligarchic and democratic ruler has colleagues, and much remains undone because each thinks the other is doing it.
>Pattern after the character of kings, and follow closely their ways. For you will thus be thought to approve them and emulate them, and as a result you will have greater esteem in the eyes of the multitude and a surer hold on the favor of royalty. Obey the laws which have been laid down by kings, but consider their manner of life your highest law. For just as one who is a citizen in a democracy must pay court to the multitude, so also one who lives under a monarchy should revere the king.
>In war too a monarch has great advantages. He can raise troops without attracting attention and surprise his foes, and he can win them over by persuasion or coercion. The success of monarchies in war can be illustrated from the Persian Empire and from the rule of Dionysius of Syracuse. Even the Spartans and Cathaginians prefer a monarchy in time of war, and Athens has always been more successful under one than under many generals.
>Thus monarchy is the pleasantest, justest, and mildest form of government; it is also more efficient in deliberation and action. Those who hold office for one year only have to refire before they have mastered their duties; a monarch has the advantage of continuous experience. Again, he knows he has to superintend everything; the oligarchic and democratic ruler has colleagues, and much remains undone because each thinks the other is doing it.
>Envy not the rich but the righteous. Virtue is superior to vice not only in reputation but in real worth. Do not be jealous of those whom I favour, but emulate their deeds. be loyal not merely in word but in deed. Do not do to others what you would not wish to suffer yourself. Do not practice what you yourself condemn. Let my word be law to you. In short, behave towards me as you would have your inferiors behave towards you.
>So much must suffice to prove the superiority of monarchy, a subject which might be discussed at far greater length. It remains for me to point out that I have an indisputable right to rule as the direct descendant of Teucer, the original colonizer of Salamis, and as son of Evagoras, who drove out the Phoenicians and re-established the family on the throne.
Plato on Monarchy for Life
>We also have a monarchy which is held for life, and is said by all mankind, and not only by ourselves, to be the most ancient of all monarchies.
Merneptah's Speech
>Hear ye the command of your lord; I give–as ye shall do, saying: I am the ruler who shepherds you; I spend my time searching out–as a father who preserves alive his children
Egyptian Teachings of a Man for his Son (Praise extracts):
>Praise the King, may you love him, as a worker. He makes radiant by the giving of his powers. He is greater than a million men for the one he has favored. He is the shield for the one who makes him content… Praise the King, adore the King. That is the post before god. Spread his powers, rejoicing when he has decreed and devising plans for what he has desired… He is the bodily health of the nameless. He exercises his body for him. He is the right arm of the man whose arms are weak.
Egyptian Loyalist Teaching
>He is the sun in whose leadership people live
>Whoever is under his light will be great in wealth
>He gives sustenance to his followers
>He feeds the man who sticks to his path
>the man he favors will be a lord of offerings
>the man he rejects will be a pauper
>He is Khuum for every body
Court Eulogy to Ramses II:
>They were upon their bellies, wallowing upon the earth before his majesty, saying: "We come to thee, lord of heaven, lord of earth, Re, life of the whole earth, lord of duration, of fruitful revolution, Atum for the people, lord of destiny, creator of Renenet, Khnum who fashioned the people, giver of breath into the nostrils of all, making all the gods live, pillar of heaven, support of earth, adjusting the Two Lands, lord of food, plentiful in grain, in whose footsteps is the harvest goddess, maker of the great, fashioner of the lowly, whose word produces food, the lord vigilant when all men sleep, whose might defends Egypt, valiant in foreign lands, who returns when he has triumphed, whose sword protects the Egyptians, beloved of truth, in which he lives by his laws, defender of the Two Lands, rich in years, great in victory, the fear of whom expels foreign lands, our king, our lord, our Sun, by the words of whose mouth Atum lives. Loe, we are now before thy majesty, that thou mayest decree to us the life that thou givest, Pharaoh, breath of life, who makes all men live when he has shone on them.
Cassius Dio, Roman history, Book XLIV (44):
>Democracy, indeed, has a fair-appearing name and conveys the impression of bringing equal rights to all through equal laws, but its results are seen not to agree at all with its title. Monarchy, on the contrary, has an unpleasant sound, but is a most practical form of government to live under. For it is easier to find a single excellent man than many of them, and if even this seems to some a difficult feat, it is quite inevitable that the other alternative should be acknowledged impossible; for it does not belong to the majority of men to acquire virtue. And again, even though a base man should obtain supreme power, yet he is preferable to the masses of like character, as the history of the Greeks and barbarians and of the Romans themselves prove. For successes have always been greater and more frequent in the case of both cities and individuals under kings than under popular rule, and disasters do not happen so frequently under monarchies as under mob-rule. Indeed, if ever there has been a prosperous democracy, it has in any case been at its best for only a brief period, so long, that is, as the people had neither the numbers nor the strength sufficient to cause insolence to spring up among them as the result of good fortune or jealousy as the result of ambition. But for a city, not only so large in itself, but also ruling the finest and greatest part of the known world, holding sway over men of many and diverse natures, possessing many men of great wealth, occupied with every imaginable pursuit, enjoying every imaginable fortune, both individually and collectively,–for such a city, I say, to practice moderation under democracy is impossible, and still more is it impossible for the people, unless moderation prevails, to be harmonious. Therefore, if Marcus Brutus and Gaius Cassius had only reflected upon these things, they would never have killed the city's head and protector nor have made themselves the cause of countless ills both to themselves and to all the rest of mankind then living.
Xenophon Cyropaedia
>The father of Cyrus, so runs the story, was Cambyses, a king of the Persians, and one of the Perseidae, who look to Perseus as the founder of their race
The education of youth
>It is true that he was brought up according to the laws and customs of the Persians, and of these laws it must be noted that while they aim, as laws elsewhere, at the common weal, their guiding principle is far other than that which most nations follow.
>Most states permit their citizens to bring up their own children at their own discretion, and allow the grown men to regulate their own lives at their own will, and then they lay down certain prohibitions, for example, not to pick and steal, not to break into another man's house, not to strike a man unjustly, not to commit adultery, not to disobey the magistrate, and so forth; and on the transgressor they impose a penalty. (3) But the Persian laws try, as it were, to steal a march on time, to make their citizens from the beginning incapable of setting their hearts on any wickedness or shameful conduct whatsoever. And this is how they set about their object.
Friend & Enemy distinction: careful not to teach children dangerous things
>Yes, my son, it is said that in the time of our forefathers there was once a teacher of the boys who, it seems, used to teach them justice in the very way that you propose; to lie and not to lie, to cheat and not to cheat, to slander and not to slander, to take and not to take unfair advantage. And he drew the line between what one should do to one's friends and what to one's enemies. And what is more, he used to teach this: that it was right to even deceive friends even, provided it were for a good end, and to steal the possessions of a friend for a good purpose.
>And in teaching these lessons he had also to train the boys to practise them upon one another, just as also in wrestling, the Greeks, they say, teach deception and train the boys to be able to practise it upon one another. When, therefore, some had in this way become expert both in deceiving successfully and in taking unfair advantage and perhaps also not inexpert in avarice, the did not refrain from trying to take an unfair advantage even of their friends.
>In consequence of that, therefore, an ordnance was passed which obtains even unto this day, simply to teach out boys, just as we teach our servants in their relations towards us, to tell the truth and not to deceive and not to take unfair advantage; and if they should act contrary to this law, the law requires their punishment, in order that, inured to such habits, they may become more refined members of society.
>But when they came to be as old as you are now, then it seemed to be safe to teach them that also which is lawful towards enemies; for it does not seem likely that you would break away and fun into savages after you had been brought up together in mutual respect. In the same way we do not discuss sexual matters in the presence of very young boys, lest in case lax discipline should give a free rein to their passions the young might indulge them to excess.
The importance of obedience
>What city could be at rest, lawful, and orderly? What household could be safe? What ship sail home to her haven? And we, to what do we owe our triumph, if not to our obedience? We obeyed; we were ready to follow the call by night and day; we marched behind our leader, ranks that nothing could resist; we left nothing half-done of all we were told to do. If obedience is the one path to win the highest good, remember it is also the one way to preserve it.
>Let us listen to the words of Cyrus. Let us gather round the public buildings and train ourselves, so that we may keep our hold on all we care for, and offer ourselves to Cyrus for his noble ends. Of one thing we may be sure: Cyrus will never put us to any service which can make for his own good and not for ours. Our needs are the same as his [Cyrus], and our foes the same.
>Drovers may certainly be called the rulers of their cattle and horse-breeders the rulers of their studs—all herdsmen, in short, may reasonably be considered the governors of the animals they guard. If, then, we were to believe the evidence of our senses, was it not obvious that flocks and herds were more ready to obey their keepers than men their rulers? Watch the cattle wending their way wherever their herdsmen guide them, see them grazing in the pastures where they are sent and abstaining from forbidden grounds, the fruit of their own bodies they yield to their master to use as he thinks best; nor have we ever seen one flock among them all combining against their guardian, either to disobey him or to refuse him the absolute control of their produce. On the contrary, they are more apt to show hostility against other animals than against the owner who derives advantage from them.
<But with man the rule is converse; men unite against none so readily as against those whom they see attempting to rule over them. (3) As long, therefore, as we followed these reflexions, we could not but conclude that man is by nature fitted to govern all creatures, except his fellow-man.
>But when we came to realise the character of Cyrus the Persian, we were led to a change of mind: here is a man, we said, who won for himself obedience from thousands of his fellows, from cities and tribes innumerable: we must ask ourselves whether the government of men is after all an impossible or even a difficult task, provided one set about it in the right way. Cyrus, we know, found the readiest obedience in his subjects, though some of them dwelt at a distance which it would take days and months to traverse, and among them were men who had never set eyes on him, and for the matter of that could never hope to do so, and yet they were willing to obey him. Cyrus did indeed eclipse all other monarchs, before or since, and I include not only those who have inherited their power, but those who have won empire by their own exertions.
>It is obvious that among this congeries of nations few, if any, could have spoken the same language as himself, or understood one another, but none the less Cyrus was able so to penetrate that vast extent of country by the sheer terror of his personality that the inhabitants were prostrate before him: not one of them dared lift hand against him. And yet he was able, at the same time, to inspire them all with so deep a desire to please him and win his favour that all they asked was to be guided by his judgment and his alone.
Xenophon / A good ruler differs not from a good father
>Gentlemen, this is not the first time I have had occasion to observe that a good ruler differs in no respect from a good father. Even as a father takes thought that blessings may never fail his children, so Cyrus would commend to us the ways by which we can preserve our happiness.
A ruler's charm
>But we seem to learn also that Cyrus thought it necessary for the ruler not only to surpass his subjects by his own native worth, but also to charm them through deception and artifice.
>At any rate he adopted the Median dress, and persuaded his comrades to do likewise; he thought it concealed any bodily defect, enhancing the beauty and stature of the wearer. The shoe, for instance, was so devised that a sole could be added without notice, and the man would seem taller than he really was. So also Cyrus encouraged the use of ointments to make the eyes more brilliant and pigments to make the skin look fairer. And he trained his courtiers never to spit or blow the nose in public or turn aside to stare at anything; they were to keep the stately air of persons whom nothing can surprise. These were all means to one end; to make it impossible for the subjects to despise their rulers.
Taming of men
>Thus he moulded the men he considered worthy of command by his own example, by the training he gave them, and by the dignity of his own leadership. But the treatment of those he prepared for slavery was widely different. Not one of them would he incite to any noble toil, he would not even let them carry arms, and he was careful that they should never lack food or drink in any manly sort.
>When the beaters drove the wild creatures into the plain he would allow food to be brought for the servants, but not for the free men; on a march he would lead the slaves to the water-springs as he led the beasts of burden. Or when it was the hour of breakfast he would wait himself till they had taken a snatch of food and stayed their wolfish hunger; and the end of it was they called him their father even as the nobles did, because he cared for them, but the object of his care was to keep them slaves for ever.
>Thus he secured the safety of the Persian empire. He himself, he felt sure, ran no danger from the massages of the conquered people; he saw they had no courage, no unity, and no discipline, and, moreover, not one of them could ever come near him, day or night.
>But there were others whom he knew to be true warriors, who carried arms, and who held by one another, commanders of horse and foot, many of them men of spirit, confident, as he could plainly see, of their own power to rule, men who were in close touch with his own guards, and many of them in constant intercourse with himself; as indeed was essential if he was to make any use of them at all. It was from them that danger was to be feared; and that in a thousand ways. How was he to guard against it?
<He rejected the idea of disarming them; he thought this unjust, and that it would lead to the dissolution of the empire. To refuse them admission into his presence, to show them his distrust, would be, he considered, a declaration of war.
>But there was one method, he felt, worth all the rest, an honourable method and one that would secure his safety absolutely; to win their friendship if he could, and make them more devoted to himself than to each other. I will now endeavour to set forth the methods, so far as I conceive them, by which he gained their love.
>In the first place he never lost an opportunity of showing kindliness wherever he could, convinced that just as it is not easy to love those who hate us, so it is scarcely possible to feel enmity for those who love us and wish us well.
>So long as he had lacked the power to confer benefits by wealth, all he could do then was to show his personal care for his comrades and his soldiers, to labour in their behalf, manifest his joy in their good fortune and his sympathy in their sorrows, and try to win them in that way. But when the time came for the gifts of wealth, he realised that of all the kindnesses between man and man none come with a more natural grace than the gifts of meat and drink.
>Accordingly he arranged that his table should be spread every day for many guests in exactly the same way as for himself; and all that was set before him, after he and his guests had dined, he would send out to his absent friends, in token of affection and remembrance. He would include those who had won his approval by their work on guard, or in attendance on himself, or in any other service, letting them see that no desire to please him could ever escape his eyes.
>He would show the same honour to any servant he wished to praise; and he had all the food for them placed at his own board, believing this would win their fidelity, as it would a dog's.
>Or, if he wished some friend of his to be courted by the people, he would single him out for such gifts; even to this day the world will pay court to those who have dishes sent them from the Great King's table, thinking they must be in high favour at the palace and can get things done for others. But no doubt there was another reason for the pleasure in such gifts, and that was the sheer delicious taste of the royal meats.
<Nor should that surprise us; for if we remember to what a pitch of perfection the other crafts are brought in great communities, we ought to expect the royal dishes to be wonders of finished art.
Royal excellence in great servants
>Necessarily the man who spends all his time and trouble on the smallest task will do that task the best.
>But when there is work enough for one man to boil the pot, and another to roast the meat, and a third to stew the fish, and a fourth to fry it, while some one else must bake the bread, and not all of it either, for the loaves must be of different kinds, and it will be quite enough if the baker can serve up one kind to perfection—it is obvious, I think, that in this way a far higher standard of excellence will be attained in every branch of the work.
Royal gifts
>Thus it is easy to see how Cyrus could outdo all competitors in the grace of hospitality, and I will now explain how he came to triumph in all other services.
>Far as he excelled mankind in the scale of his revenues, he excelled them even more in the grandeur of his gifts. It was Cyrus who set the fashion; and we are familiar to this day with the open-handedness of Oriental kings.
>There is no one, indeed, in all the world whose friends are seen to be as wealthy as the friends of the Persian monarch: no one adorns his followers in such splendour of rich attire, no gifts are so well known as his, the bracelets, and the necklaces, and the chargers with the golden bridles. For in that country no one can have such treasures unless the king has given them.
>And of whom but the Great King could it be said that through the splendour of his presents he could steal the hearts of men and turn them to himself, away from brothers, fathers, sons?
The King's Eyes & The King's Ears
>Indeed, we are led to think that the offices called "the king's eyes" and "the king's ears" came into being through this system of gifts and honours.
>Cyrus' munificence toward all who told him what it was well for him to know set countless people listening with all their ears and watching with all their eyes for news that might be of service to him. Thus there sprang up a host of "king's eyes" and "king's ears," as they were called, known and reputed to be such.
>But it is a mistake to suppose that the king has one chosen "eye." It is little that one man can see or one man hear, and to hand over the office to one single person would be to bid all others go to sleep. Moreover, his subjects would feel they must be on their guard before the man they knew was "the king's eye." The contrary is the case; the king will listen to any man who asserts that he has heard or seen anything that needs attention.
<The King has a thousand eyes and a thousand ears
>Hence the saying that the king has a thousand eyes and a thousand ears; and hence the fear of uttering anything against his interest since "he is sure to hear," or doing anything that might injure him "since he may be there to see." So far, therefore, from venturing to breathe a syllable against Cyrus, every man felt that he was under the eye and within the hearing of a king who was always present. For this universal feeling towards him I can give no other reason than his resolve to be a benefactor on a most mighty scale.
Royal Shepherd
>Indeed, a saying of his is handed down comparing a good king to a good shepherd—the shepherd must manage his flock by giving them all they need, and the king must satisfy the needs of his cities and his subjects if he is to manage them. We need not wonder, then, that with such opinions his ambition was to excel mankind in courtesy and care.
Royal Physician
>Moreover, he observed that the majority of mankind, if they live in good health for long, will only lay by such stores and requisites as may be used by a healthy man, and hardly care at all to have appliances at hand in case of sickness. But Cyrus was at the pains to provide these; he encouraged the ablest physicians of the day by his liberal payments, and if ever they recommended an instrument or a drug or a special kind of food or drink, he never failed to procure it and have it stored in the palace.
>And whenever any one fell sick among those who had peculiar claims on his attentions, he would visit them and bring them all they needed, and he showed especial gratitude to the doctors if they cured their patients by the help of his own stores.
>These measures, and others like them, he adopted to win the first place in the hearts of those whose friendship he desired.
Rewards & Badges
>The day before it he summoned the officers of state, the Persians and the others, and gave them all the splendid Median dress. This was the first time the Persians wore it, and as they received the robes he said that he wished to drive in his chariot to the sacred precincts and offer sacrifice with them.
>With that Cyrus gave the most splendid robes to his chief notables, and then he brought out others, for he had stores of Median garments, purple and scarlet and crimson and glowing red, and gave a share to each of his generals and said to them, "Adorn your friends, as I have adorned you." (4) Then one of them asked him, "And you, O Cyrus, when will you adorn yourself?" But he answered, "–Is it not adornment enough for me to have adorned you? If I can but do good to my friends, I shall look glorious enough, whatever robe I wear."
The importance of love and praise
>Praise, Pheraulas saw, will reap counter-praise, kindness will stir kindness in return, and goodwill goodwill; those whom men know to love them they cannot hate.
Cyrus
>And you, Cambyses, you know of yourself without words from me, that your kingdom is not guarded by this golden sceptre, but by faithful friends; their loyalty is your true staff, a sceptre which shall not fail. But never think that loyal hearts grow up by nature as the grass grows in the field… No, every leader must win his own followers for himself, and the way to win them is not by violence but by loving-kindness.
Epilogue
>Of all the powers in Asia, the kingdom of Cyrus showed itself to be the greatest and most glorious. On the east it was bounded by the Red Sea, on the north by the Euxine, on the west by Cyprus and Egypt, and on the south by Ethiopia. And yet the whole of this enormous empire was governed by the mind and will of a single man, Cyrus: his subjects he cared for and cherished as a father might care for his children, and they who came beneath his rule reverenced him like a father.
Cyrus / To the eldest born son
>Sons of mine, I love you both alike, but I choose the elder-born, the one whose experience of life is the greater, to be the leader in council and the guide in action.
Xenophon Cyropaedia
>“When the interests of mankind are at stake, they will obey with joy the man whom they believe to be wiser than themselves… You may see how the sick man will beg the doctor to tell him what he ought to do, how a whole ship's company will listen to the pilot, how travellers will cling to one who knows the way better, as they believe, than they do themselves. 'You would have me understand', said Cyrus, 'that the best way to secure obedience is to be thought wiser than those we rule?' 'Yes', said Cambyses, 'that is my belief.'
>“None quicker, my lad, than this: wherever you wish to seem wise, be wise.”
>“Well, my son, it is plain that where learning is the road to wisdom, learn you must, as you learn your battalion-drill, but when it comes to matters which are not to be learnt by mortal men, nor foreseen by mortal minds, there you can only become wiser than others by communicating with the gods through the art of divination. But, always, whenever you know that a thing ought to be done, see that it is done, and done with care; for care, not carelessness, is the mark of the wise man.
Jean Bodin
>As for the right of coining money, it is of the same nature as law, and only he who has the power to make law can regulate the coinage. That is readily evident from the Greek, Latin, and French terms, for the word nummus [in Latin] is from the Greek word nomos, and [the French] loi (law) is at the root of aloi (alloy), the first letter of which is dropped by those who speak precisely. Indeed, after law itself, there is nothing of greater consequence than the title, value, and measure of coins, as we have shown in a separate treatise, and in every well-ordered state, it is the sovereign prince alone who has this power.
Thomas Hobbes
>And the Right of Distribution of Them – The Distribution of the Materials of this Nourishment, is the constitution of Mine, and Thine, and His, that is to say, in one word Propriety; and belongs in all kinds of Commonwealth to the Sovereign power…. And this they well knew of old, who called that Nomos, (that is to say, Distribution,) which we call Law; and defined Justice, by distributing to every man his own.
>All Estates of Land Proceed Originally – From the Arbitrary Distribution of the Sovereign – In this Distribution, the First Law, is for Division of the Land itself: wherein the Sovereign assigns to every man a portion, according as he, and not according to any Subject, or any number of them, shall judge agreeable to Equity, and the Common Good. The Children of Israel, were a Commonwealth in the Wilderness, but wanted the commodities of the Earth, till they were masters of the Land of Promise, which afterward was divided amongst them, not by their own discretion, but by the discretion of Eleazar the Priest, and Joshua their General: Who when there were twelve Tribes, making them thirteen by subdivision of the Tribe of Joseph; made nevertheless but twelve portions of the Land… And though a People coming into possession of a land by war, do not always exterminate the ancient Inhabitants, (as did the Jews) but leave to many, or most, or all of them their Estates; yet it is manifest they hold them afterwards, as of the Victors distribution; as of the people of England held all theirs of William the Conquerour.
From Robert Filmer citing Edward Coke:
<The first Kings of this Realm had all the Lands
>That the first Kings of this Realm had all the Lands of England in Demean [or Domain / Dominion].
Dante Alighieri
>And I urge you not only to rise up to meet him, but to stand in reverent awe before his presence, ye who drink of his streams, and sail upon his seas; ye who tread the sands of the shores and the summits of the mountains that are his; ye who enjoy all public rights and possess all private property by the bond of his law, and no otherwise. Be ye not like the ignorant, deceiving your own selves, after the manner of them that dream, and say in their hearts, We have no Lord.
King James VI & I
>It is evident by the rolles of our Chancellery (which contain our eldest and fundamental Laws) that the King is Dominus omnium bonorum [Lord of all goods], and Dominus directus totius Dominii [Direct lord of the whole dominion (that is, property)], the whole subjects being but his vassals, and from him holding all their lands as their overlord.
From An Appeal to Caesar
wherein gold & silver is proved to be the King Majesty's royal commodity
by Thomas Violet
>The Gold and Silver of the Nation, either Foreign coin, or Ingot, or the current Coin of the Kingdom, is the Soul of the Militia, and so all wise men know it, that those that command the Gold and Silver of the Kingdom, either Coin, or Bullion, to have it free at their disposal, to be Judges of the conveniency and inconveniency, or to hinder, or to give leave to transport Gold and Silver at their pleasure, is the great Wheel of the State, a most Royal Prerogative inherent in Your Majesty, Your Heirs and Successors, (and none other whomsoever, but by Your Majesty's License, and cannot be parted with to any Persons, but by Your Majesty most especial Grant;) your Majesty, and your Privy Councel being by the Law the only proper Judges
Alexander Hamilton
>"Were there any room to doubt, that the sole right of the territories in America was vested in the crown, a convincing argument might be drawn from the principle of English tenure… By means of the feudal system, the King became, and still continues to be, in a legal sense, the original proprietor, or lord paramount, of all the lands in England.*—Agreeable to this rule, he must have been the original proprietor of all the lands in America, and was, therefore, authorized to dispose of them in what manner he thought proper."
Jean Bodin continued
<Of course each man was ruler of his family and had the right of life and death not only over the slaves but also over his wives and children, as Caesar himself testified. Justinian, in addition to many others, erred in alleging, in the chapter on a father's power, that no people had so much power over their sons as the Romans had, for it is evident from Aristotle and the Mosaic Law that the custom is also common to the Persians and the Hebrews. The ancients understood that such was the love of the parents toward their sons that even if they wished very much to abuse their power, they could not. Moreover, nothing was a more potent cause of virtue and reverence in children toward their parents than this patriarchal power.
<Therefore, when they say that they are masters of the laws and of all things, they resemble those kings whom Aristotle calls lords, who, like fathers of families, protect the state as if it were their own property. It is not contrary to nature or to the law of nations that the prince should be master of all things and of laws in the state, only he must duly defend the empire with his arms and his child with his blood, since the father of a family by the law of nations is owner not only of the goods won by him but also of those won by his servants, as well as of his servants
<Even more base is the fact that Jason when interpreting in the presence of King Louis XII a chapter of law well explained by Azo, affirmed recklessly that all things are the property of the prince. This interpretation violates not only the customs and laws of this kingdom but also all the edicts and advices of all the emperors and jurisconsults. All civil actions would be impossible if no one were owner of anything. "To the Kings," said Seneca, "power over all things belongs; to individual citizens, property." And a little later he added, "While under the best king the king holds all within his authority, at the same time the individual men hold possessions as private property." All things in the state belong to Caesar by right of authority, but property is acquired by inheritance
…
Jean Bodin on the Kings of Persia – earth & waters – medes, lordly monarchy
>And therefore the kings of Persia denouncing war, demanded the earth & waters to show that they were absolute Lords of all that was in the land & sea contained. Xenophon in Cyropedia writes, that it is a good & commendable thing among the Medes, that the prince should be lord & owner of all things.
…
Thomas Hobbes - For it ought to obey him by whom it is preserved
>For it ought to obey him by whom it is preserved, because the preservation of life being the end for which one man becomes subject to another, every man is supposed to promise obedience to him in whose power it is to save or destroy him.
Repost:
The need for arbiters & force:
This is evident that Hobbes makes the distribution of property based solely upon the arbitrary division of the Sovereign:
>The Children of Israel, were a Commonwealth in the Wilderness; but wanted the commodities of the Earth… which was divided amongst them, not by their own discretion, but by the discretion of Eleazar the Priest, & Joshua their General… which division was therefore Arbitrary.
…
The Sword of Commonwealth, & appeal to an Arbiter / unilateral authority, is more sound than Aristotle's concord of hosts / the laws their mutual convention, the State a partnership of clans…
An arbitrary power & land being cut and portioned off by the Sword of Commonwealth – rather the mutual concord of hosts – sounds ugly, whereas the concord of hosts conventionally giving the laws by their concordant power… sounds sweet & friendly.
The problem ultimately with the concordant view (& I've come to see as a flaw of Democracy) is the utter incapacity of these hosts & political parties to actually agree, the decision-making must ultimately be arbitary: for example, there are pan-Europeans who also appeal to this idea of a concordant Europe, but imagine bringing together the most hardline European nationalists, the Nordicists vs the Latins vs pan-Slavics – how should they agree? it's impossible, it must be arbitrary if ever.
If you took /leftypol/ & /pol/ together, there'd be much less a concord: this further shows that a concord of hosts is indecisive & cannot find an equilibrium w/o an arbiter.
So I've come to agree with Hobbes that having a concord of hosts without a sovereign to define the boundaries of the land is an impossible feat and like a state of war of all against all, proving the necessity of the Sword of Commonwealth to at once define these boundaries, or else perish into confusion & anarchy.
It shows the necessity of the Sword of Commonwealth, & dare I say, force, in having civil order of any kind.
The idea of agreement of an independent partnership of clans / factions, their love of virtue & concordance sounds nice, imo fails.
This appeal to an arbitrary power or unilateral authority, & the necessity of force (because of the inadequacy of a concord of hosts / parties / factions to agree, or for painters to share a vision on one canvas, or for borders to be drawn by sweet concord rather than the sword) tends to be the alternative view.
It sounds ugly and tyrannical, but it is tenfold more practical and what politics comes down to.
That is the idea being ridiculed in this comic – pic related – one of the reasons Hobbes belives the Sovereign must arbitrarily divide the land and distribute justice and further deny the subjects an absolute right to it is because, again, the rejection of that concord of hosts, but also because Hobbes doesn't think two people vying over and sharing the property would be content, that an arbiter has to settle it between the parties and thereby that arbiter limits them.
–
In Existential Comics, where the philosophers are left to rebuild civilization – and Hobbes says
>There is no sovereign! There are no rules. Nothing is stopping us from a war of all against all
Where Peter Kropotkin says,
<Chill out, we don't need a Sovereign at all, why don't we all just cooperate?
And Hobbes retorts,
>How can we cooperate without the King threatening to kill us!? It's impossible! It can't be done!
…
Hobbes disbelieves it strongly & each teaching I listed is to make it clear the necessity of an arbiter / sovereign & that a concord of hosts & independent partnership of clans is unworkable.
Hobbes distrusts the capacity for the multitude to have peace, to divide private property, to be judges, to have a priesthood – amongst themselves as a concord of hosts.
…
All the doctrines people find odious in Hobbes, like the war of all against all, warning against private judgement of good & evil / erroneous conscience, & denial of absolute private property for the subjects – is also tied to this rejection of Aristotle's concord of hosts / partnership of independent clans united by virtue.
…
It comes down to what unifies people socially–be it justice, love, virtue, or fear–and lately I think the view of Machiavelli and Hobbes about fear unifying people is more practical, because people can't really agree on what exact laws they concord on, partially because of the disc0rd and inconsistency of their own conventions and factionalism, but also like Machiavelli points out that love is not long lasting and people are capricious… so I think the Moderns have it over the Classics on this topic–that in spite of all the lessions of Xenophon's Cyropaedia, Aristotle's Politics, and Plato's Republic, the first about the importance of love, the 2nd about virtue, and the 3rd justice/laws–Machiavelli and Hobbes have a point with fear having more utility in unifying people–whether that is fear of an enemy or fear of each other or the dire need for security and life preservation–it has less discretion/in-fighting and compels people of every faction to join together, and even in Plato's Laws I'd guess there is also established the need for an arbiter as well (in spite of all that about a good physician and being a slave's doctor, I think Hobbes has it that before there is unity of any kind, it is better to default to an arbiter, and if nobody to agree on an arbiter then let them be compelled to find one by fear or let the arbiter come to them).
I'm not altogether sure I would say people are totally motivated by self-interest/life preservation, but I agree with Hobbes that people aren't born apt for political society (which Hobbes states against Aristotle) – at least, if anything, people aren't born ready for royal monarchy – instead they have to be reared and educated consistently – like Xenophon says, don't think loyal followers grow like grass in the field.
I think that is another theme in Plato: as if all people above the age of ten should be expelled to bring up a new generation / new regime.
When it comes to resistance theory, and in particular Aquinas, another factor Hobbes has over them is that while they anticipate people will revolt when there is injustice – I think what Hobbes has over Aquinas here is that civilization is not a free gift of the human spirit, or a political animal, and that people are naturally inclined to stick together for the benefit of their body-politic – rather, ruling the people is like ruling wolves, who are ready to pounce and bite at any instance, unjustly or justly, they'll pounce if you stick your neck out and give them the opportunity… and among the reasons they don't revolt is because there is an influx of doggy treats holds off discontent and fear for their livelihood if they do–but this view, that people are predisposed to revolt, basically unravels pulls the rug from underneath resistance theory by changing the perspective, as Hobbes says, that the tongue of a man is like a trumpet of war, and this pessimistic tone that civilization is fragile and can fracture at any moment puts more stress on security and stability in spite of this.
TL;DR:
That is a point Hobbes has–that there needn't be an Aquinas looming over people's shoulders, telling them when to revolt–people are already predisposed to revolt & regardless of justly or unjustly.
Louis XIV story with Nicholas Fouquet:
>The King always wants to be the richest man & he never likes anyone wealthier than himself
<Louis XIV on reforming finance (part one):
Removing the superintendant
>It was then that I believed I should give serious attention to the re-establishment of the finances, and the first thing I deemed necessary was to remove the principal officials responsible for the disorder from their positions. For ever since I had assumed the care of my affairs, I had every day discovered new evidence of their squandering, and particularly by the superintendant. The sight of vast establishments of this man and of his insolent acquisitions could not but convince me of his wild ambition, and the general distress of my entire people constantly urged my justice against him.
>But what compounded his guilt toward me was that, far from profiting from the kindness I have shown him by retaining him in my councils, it gave him renewed hope of deceiving me, and that far from being the wiser for it, he merely tried to be more skillful at it. but whatever artifice he might employ, I was not long in recognizing his bad faith, for he could not refrain from continuing his extravagant expenses, fortifying strongholds, decorating palaces, forming conspiracies, and purchasing important offices for his friends at my expense, in the hope of soon becoming the sovereign arbiter of the State.
>Although this behavior was assuredly most criminal, I had initially intended only to exclude him from affairs, but having subsequently considered that with his restless disposition he would not endure this change of fortune without trying something new, I thought it best to arrest him. I postponed, nevertheless, the execution of this plan, and this plan distressed me greatly, for not merely did I see that he was in the meanwhile employing new subterfuges to steal from me, but what disturbed me more was that in order to appear more influential, he made a point of asking me for private audiences, and that in order not to arouse his suspicions, I was compelled to grant them and to submit to his useless discussions, while I know all about his disloyalty.
>You can imagine that I was at an age when it required a great deal of self-control for me to act with such restraint. But, on the one hand, I saw that the removal of the superintendant was necessarily connected with transferring the farmed taxes, and on the other hand, I knew that it being summer, this was the worst season of the year for making such innovations, aside from wanting above all to have a fund of four millions on hand for whatever needs might arise. Thus I resolved to wait for autumn to execute this plan.
>But having gone to Nantes toward the end of the month of August for the meeting of the Estates of Brittany and getting a closer look from there at the ambitious enterprises of this minster, I could not refrain from having him arrested at that very place on September 5. All France, as convinced as I was of the misconduct of the superintendant, acclaimed this action and praised particularly the secrecy with which I ha kept a decision of this nature for three or four months, primarily in regard to a man who had such private access to me, who was in contact with all those who were around me, who was receiving information from within and from outside the State, and whose own conscience should have given him ample warning that he ha everything to fear.
>But what I believed I had on this occasion that was most worthy of being observed and most advantageous to my people was to abolish the office of superintendant, or rather to assume it myself.
>Perhaps in considering the difficulty of this undertaking, you will one day be astonished, as all France has been, that I have undertaken this labor at an age when it is usual to love only pleasure. But I shall tell you frankly that although this work was unpleasant, I felt less repugnance for it than another might have, because I have always considered the satisfaction of doing one's duty as the sweetest pleasure in the world. I have even often wondered how it could be that love for work a quality so necessary to sovereigns should yet be one that is so rarely found in them.
>Most princes, because they have a great many servants and subjects, do not feel obliged to go to any trouble and do not consider that, if they have an infinite number of people working under their orders, there are infinitely more who rely on their conduct and that it takes a great deal of watching and a great deal of work merely to insure that those who act do only what they should and that those who rely tolerate only what they must. All these different conditions that compose the world are united to each other only by an exchange of reciprocal obligations. The deferences and the respects that we receive from our subjects are not a free gift from them but payment for the justice and the protection that they expect to receive from us. Just as they must honor us, we must protect and defend them, and our debts toward them are even more binding than theirs to us, for indeed, if one of them lacks the skill or the willingness to execute our orders, a thousand others come in a crowd to fill his post, whereas the position of a sovereign can be properly filled only by the sovereign himself.
Of all the functions of Sovereignty, the one that a prince must guard most jealously is the handling of the finances
>But to be more specific, it must be added to this that of all the functions of sovereignty, the one that a prince must guard most jealously is the handling of the finances. It is the most delicate of all because it is the one that is most capable of seducing the one who performs it, and which makes it easiest for him to spread corruption.
>The prince alone should have the sovereign direction over it because he alone has no fortune to establish but that of the State, no acquisition to make except for the Monarchy, no authority to strengthen other than that of the laws, no debts to pay besides the public ones, no friends to enrich save his people.
…
>And indeed, what would be more ruinous for the provinces or more shameful for their king than to raise a man who has his own private objectives and affairs, who claims the right to dispose of everything without rendering any account and to fill his coffers and those of his creatures constantly with the most liquid public funds? Can a prince be more foolish than to favor private individuals who use his authority in order to become rich at his own expense and whose squandering, although it gains him nothing, ruins both his affairs and his reputation? And putting it more piously, can he fail to consider that these great sums which compose the exorbitant and monstrous wealth of a small number of financiers always come from the sweat, the tears, and the blood of the wretched, whose defense is committed to his care?
>The maxims I am teaching you today, my son, have not been taught to me by anyone, because they had never occurred to my predecessors. But now that your advantage in being instructed in them at such an early age will come back to haunt you if you don't profit from it.
>Aside from the councils of finances and the boards that had always been held, I decided, in order to acquit myself more responsibly of the superintendancy, to establish a new council, which I named Royal Council. I composed it of Marshal de Villeroi, of two Councillors of State, D'Aligre and De Seve, and of an Intendant of Finances, who was Colbert, and it is in this council that I have been working ever since to disentangle the terrible confusion that had been introduced into my affairs.
>This was assuredly no minor undertaking, and those who have seen the point at which things were and who sees the precision to which I have no reduced them are astonished, with reason, that I was able to penetrate in so short a time into an obscurity that so many able superintendants had never yet clarified. But what must put a stop to this surprise is the natural difference between the interest of the prince and that of the superintendant. For these private individuals, approaching their position with no greater care than to preserve their own liberty to dispose of everything as they see fit, often put much more of their skill into obscuring this matter than into clarifying it, whereas a king, who is its legitimate lord, puts as much order and precision as he can into everything, aside from the fact that I was personally often relieved in this work by Colbert, whom I entrusted with examining things that required too much discussion and into which I would not have had the time to go.
>The manner in which the collections and the expenditures had been made was something incredible. My revenues were no longer handled by my treasurers but by the clerks of the superintendant who combined them haphazardly with his private expenses. Money was disbursed when, how, and as they pleased, and one looked afterwards at leisure for false expenses, orders for cash, and canceled notes to consume these sums. The continual exhaustion of the public treasury and the perpertual avidity for more money made for the easy awarding of exorbitant commissions to those who offered to advance it. The wild disposition of Fouquet had always made him prefer useless expenses to necessary ones, so that the most liquid funds having been consumed in gratituities distributed to his friends, in buildings constructed for his pleasure, or in other things of a similar nature, it was necessary, at the slightest need of the State, to have recourse to alienations that could only be negotiated at a pittance because of the extreme necessity. By these means the State had become so impoverished that notwithstanding the immense tailles that were levied, the treasury netted no more than twenty-one million per year, which had itself been spent for two years in advance, aside from my having been made liable for seventy millions in notes issued for the profit of various individuals.
(Pic related: Louis XIV against financial harpies)
<Part 2
>The thing that I was most eager to correct about this general abuse was the use of orders for cash, because these had assuredly contributed more than anything else to the squandering of my money; for in this way one gave freely to whomever one wanted, without shame and without any fear of discovery. To avoid this confusion in the future, I resolved to draw up and to record personally all the orders I would sign, so that no expenditure has since been possible without my knowing the reason.
>I also wanted to recontract my farmed taxes, which had not been brought to their just value, and in order to avoid the frauds that were so common on these occasions – whether through the corruption of the judges who awarded them or through the secret compacts between the bidders – I was present at the bidding personally; and this first effort of mine increased my revenues by three millions, aside from making the value of the contracts payable monthly, which then gave me enough to provide for the most pressing expenses and enabled me to save the State a loss of fifteen millions a year in interest on loans.
>As for the contracts for the direct taxes, I reduced the commission from five sols to only fifteen deniers per livre, a diminution that amounted to such a large sum for the entire kingdom that it permitted me, in my great exhaustion, to lower the taille by four millions.
<I was astonished myself that in such a short time and by such entirely just means I should have been able to procure so much profit for the public. But what might cause still greater astonishment in that those who dealt with me on these terms made almost as great and much more solid a gain than those who had dealt previously, because the respect of my subjects for me then and my care in protecting my servants in all their requests made them find as much facility in their collections than as there had previously been chicanery and obstruction.
>I resolved, a short time later, to reduce from three quarters to two the payments on the salary increases that the officials had acquired at the pittance and that had greatly diminished the value of my farmed taxes. But I have already explained the justice and the facility of this reduction to you now in passing as one of the good effects of the economy that was so necessary to my state.
>But my last decision of that year concerning the finances was the establishment of the Chamber of Justice, in which I had two principal motives: the first, that it was not possible, in the state to which things were reduced, to diminish the ordinary taxes sufficiently and to relieve the poverty of the people promptly enough without making those who had grown wealthy at the expense of the State contribute heavily to its expenses; and the second, that for this chamber to examine the contracts that had been made was the only means to facilitate the settling of my debts. For they had been raised to such prodigious sums that I could not have paid them all without ruining most of my subjects, nor cancel them arbitrarily without running the risk of committing an injustice, aside from not wanting to return to the abuse that had been practiced in the redemption of treasury notes, by which means influential people were paid sooner or later for sums that were not due them while the real creditors would have drawn only a small portion of their due. This is why I believe that I should liquidate exactly what I owed and what was owed to me in order to pay the one and to be paid the other, but because these discussions were delicate and because most of those concerned ha a great deal of influence and a good many relatives in the ordinary courts of justice, I was obliged to form a special one out of the most disinterested men in all the others.
>I have no doubt that from reading all these details you will get the impression that the effort required for all these sorts of things was not very pleasant in itself, and that this great number of ordinances, contracts, declarations, registers, and accounts that it was necessary not merely to see and to sign but to conceive and to resolve, was not too satisfying a matter to a mind capable of other things, and I will grant you this.
<But if you consider the great advantages that I have drawn from it later, the relief that I have granted to my subjects each year, of how many debts I have disengaged the State, how many alienated taxes I have repurchased, with what punctuality I have paid all legitimate burdens, and the number of poor workers I have supported by employing them on my buildings, how many gratuities I have given to people of merit, how I have furthered public works, what aid in men and in money I have furnished my allies, how greatly I have increased the number of my ships, what strongholds I have purchased, with what vigor I have taken possession of my rights when they were challenged, without ever having been reduce to the unfortunate necessity of burening my subjects with any extraordinary tax, you would certainly find then that the labors by which I have reached this position must have appeared very pleasant to me, since they have borne so much fruit for my subjects.
<For indeed, my son, we must consider the good of our subjects far more than our own. They are almost a part of ourselves, since we are the head of a body and they are its members. It is only for their own advantage that we must give them laws, and our power over them must only be used by us in order to work more effectively for their happiness. It is wonderful to deserve from them the name of a father and sovereign, and if one belongs to us by right of birth, the other must be the sweetest object of our ambition. I am well aware that such a wonderful title is not obtained without a great deal of effort, but in praiseworthy undertakings one must not be stopped by the idea of difficulty. Work only dismays weak souls, and when a plan is advantageous and just, it is weakness not to execute it. Laziness in those of our rank is just as opposed to the greatness of courage as timidity, and there is no doubt that a monarch responsible for watching over the public interest deserves more blame in fleeing from a useful burden than in stopping in the face of imminent danger; for indeed, the fear of danger can almost always be tinge by a feeling of prudence, whereas the fear of work can never be considered as anything but an inexcusable weakness.
Louis XIV's close management of finances
>In working at the reorganization of the finances, I had already acceded, as I have told you, to signing personally all orders issued for the slightest expenses of the State. I found that this was not enough, an I was willing to go to the trouble of marking in my own hand, in a little book that I could always see, on one side, the funds that I was to receive each month, on the other, all the sums paid by my orders during that month.
<It may be, my son, that among the great number of courtiers who will surround you, some, attached to their pleasures and glorying in their ignorance of their own affairs, will someday portray this care to you as far beneath royalty. They will tell you, perhaps, that the kings our predecessors have never done such a thing and that even their prime ministers would have believed they were lowering themselves if they had not relied for these details on the superintendant and he, in turn, on the treasurer or on some lowly and obscure clerk. But those who speak this way have never considered that in the world, the greatest affairs are hardly ever concluded without the smallest, and that what would be baseness if a prince were acting through mere love of money becomes loftiness and superiority if its ultimate object is the welfare of his subjects, the execution of an infinite number of great plans, his own splendor, and his own magnificence, of which this attention to details is the most secure basis.
>Imagine, my son, what an entirely different thing it is for a king, whose plans must be varied, more extensive, and more hiden than those of any private individual, of such a nature indeed that there is sometimes hardly a single person in the world to whom he can entrust them all in their entirety. There are, however, none of these plans in which the finances do not enter somewhere. This is not saying enough. There are none of these plans that do not entirely and essentially depend on them, for what is great and wonderful when the state of our finances allows it becomes fantastic and ridiculous when it doe snot. Think then, I beg of you, how a king could govern and not be governed if his ignorance of these financial details subjects his best and most noble thoughts to the caprice of the prime minister, or of the superintendant, or of the treasurer, or of that obscure and unknown clerk, whom he would be obliged to consult like so many oracles, so that he could not undertake anything without obtaining their advice and their consent.
>But there are, you will be told, loyal and wise people who, without penetrating into your plans, will not mislead you about these financial details. I wish, my son, that these qualities were as common as they are rare.
Unique IPs: 4