Eikon Basilike: The Pourtracture of His Sacred Majestie, in His Solitudes and SufferingsCharles I, King of England
Religion
Eikon Basilike: The Pourtracture of His Sacred Majestie, in His Solitudes and Sufferings
Charles I, King of England
Charles I, King of England, 1600-1649 -- Early works to 1800; Great Britain -- History -- Civil War, 1642-1649
When you have done justice to God, your own soul and his Church, in
the profession and preservation both of truth and unitie in Religion.
The next main hinge on which your prosperitie will depend, and move,
is, That of civil Justice, wherein the setled Laws of these Kingdoms,
to which you are rightly heir, are the most excellent rules you
can govern by; which by an admirable temperament give very much to
Subjects industry, libertie, and happiness; and yet reserve enough
to the Majestie and Prerogative of any King, who owns his people
as Subjects, not as slaves; whose subjection, as it preserves their
propertie, peace, and safetie; so it will never diminish your Rights,
nor their ingenuous Liberties; which consists in the enjoyment of
the fruits of their industry, and the benefit of those Laws to which
themselves have consented.
Never charge your Head with such a Crown, as shall by its heaviness
oppress the whole body, the weakness of whose parts cannot return
any thing of strength, honor, or safety, to the Head, but a necessary
debilitation and ruine.
Your Prerogative is best shewed, and exercised in remitting, rather
then exacting the rigor of the Laws, there being nothing worse, then
legal tyrannie.
In these two points, the preservation of established Religion and
Laws, I may (without vanity) turn the reproach of my sufferings, as to
the worlds censure, into the honor of a kinde of Martyrdom, as to the
testimony of my own Conscience. The troublers of my Kingdoms having
nothing else to object against me but this, That I prefer Religion,
and Laws established, before those alterations they propounded.
And so indeed I do, and ever shall, till I am convinced by better
Arguments, then what hitherto have been chiefly used towards me,
Tumults, Armies, and Prisons.
I cannot yet learn that lesson, nor I hope ever will you, That it is
safe for a King to gratifie any Faction with the perturbation of the
Laws, in which is wrapt up the publike Interest, and the good of the
communitie.
How God will deal with me, as to the removal of these pressures, and
indignities, which his justice by the very unjust hands of some of my
Subjects, hath been pleased to lay upon me, I cannot tell: nor am I
much solicitous what wrong I suffer from men, while I retain in my
soul, what I believe is right before God.
I have offered all for Reformation and Safety, that in Reason, Honor
and Conscience, I can; reserving onely what I cannot consent unto,
without an irreparable injury to my own soul, the Church, and
my people, and to you also; as the next and undoubted Heir of my
Kingdoms.
To which, if the divine Providence, to whom no difficulties are
insuperable, shall in his due time after my decease bring you, as I
hope he will: My Counsel and Charge to you, is, That you seriously
consider the former real or objected miscarriages, which might
occasion my troubles, that you may avoyd them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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