Therefore we muft reduce all to this point, whether this will not make the kingdom elective; for if you do once make it elective, I do not say that you are always bound to go to election, but it is enough to make it so, if by that precedent there be a breach in the hereditary fucceffion; for I would be bold

to say, that you cannot make a stronger tie to observe that kind of fucceffion, than what lieth upon you to preferve it in this cafe. If you are under an obligation to it, it is part of the conftitution. I defire any one to tell me what stronger obligation there can be, and that, I fay, is reafon enough for my lords to disagree to it, it bringing in the danger of a breach upon the conftitution. Next, Gentlemen, I would know of you, if the throne be vacant, whether we be obliged to fill it? If we be, we must fill it either by our old laws, or by the humour of thofe that are to chufe: if we fill it

by our own old laws, they declare it is an hereditary kingdom, and we are to take the next to whom the fucceffion would belong; and then there would be no need of standing upon a vacancy. If we are to fill it according to the humour of the times, and of those that are to make the choice, that diverts the course of inheritance, puts it into another line, and I cannot fee by what authority we can do it, or change our ancient conftitution, without committing the fame fault we have laid upon the king."

The earl of R―r. "When King Charles the 2d died, I would fain know, whether, in our law, the throne was vacant. No, fure; the next heir was immediately in the throne; and fo it is in all hereditary fucceffive governments. Indeed, in Poland, when the king dies, there is a vacancy; because there the law knows no certain fucceffor; fo that the difference is plain,

that

that wherever the monarchy is hereditary, upon the ceafing of him in poffeffion, the throne is not vacant; where it is elective, it is vacant."

The earl of C—n. "In the case of Henry the 4th, it is plain, King Richard the 2d abfolutely refigned, renounced, or abdicated, in writing, under his own hand. What is done then? After that, the parliament being then fitting, they did not think it fufficient to go upon, because that writing might be the effect of fear, and fo not voluntary; thereupon they proceed to a formal depofition upon articles, and then comes in the claim of Henry the 4th. After all this, was not this an election? He indeed faith, that he was the next heir, and claimed it by defcent from Henry the 3d, yet he that was really the next heir, did not appear, which was the earl of March; fo that Henry the 4th claimed it as his indubitable

right, being the next heir that then appeared. But, Gentlemen, I pray confider what followed upon it; all the kings that were thus taken in, (we fay, elected, but the election was not of God's approbation), fcarce paffed any one year in any of their reigns, without being disturbed in the poffeffion. Yet, I fay, he himself did not care to owe the crown to the election, but claimed it as his right: And it was a plausible pretence, and kept him and his fon (though not without interruption) upon the throne. But, in the time of his grandfon, Henry the 6th, there was an utter overthrow of all his titles and poffeffion too. For, if you look into the parliament-roll, 1 Edw. 4. the proceedings against King Richard the 2d, as well as the reft of the acts during the ufurpation, (as that record rightly calls it), are nulled, repealed, revoked, reversed, and all the words imaginable used

and

and put in to fet those proceedings aside as illegal, unjuft, and unrighteous. And pray what was treafon? That act deduceth down the pedigree of the royal line from Henry the 3d to Richard the 2d, who died without iffue, and then Henry the 4th (faith the act) ufurped; but that the earl of March, upon the death of Richard the 2d, and, consequently, Edward the 4th from him, was undoubted king by confcience, by nature, by custom, and by law. And, after all this, (I pray confider it well) the right line is restored, and the ufurpation condemned and repealed."

The earl of P-e. "We ought to put things in a legal method; and, in order to do it, I would have the legal fucceffor declared and proclaimed, and then the parliament fummoned in the prince's name, and the whole matter fettled there. An act made by a king de facto, is void as to the king

de