_Aylmer’s Sentiments respecting the English Constitution._――The view which Aylmer has given of the English constitution is very different from that which Mr Hume has laboured to establish, by dwelling upon some arbitrary measures of the house of Tudor. As his work is seldom consulted, I may be excused for inserting a few extracts from it on this subject. It will be seen that he carefully distinguishes between the principles of the constitution, and those proceedings which were at variance with them. “But if this be utterly taken from them [women] in this place, what maketh it against their government in a politike weale, where neither the woman nor the man ruleth (if there be no tyrants), but the laws. For, as Plato saith, _Illi civitati paratum est exitium ubi magistratus legibus imperat, et non leges magistratui_: That city is at the pit’s brinke, wherein the magistrate ruleth the lawes, and not the lawes the magistrate.” And a little afterwards: “Well; a woman may not reigne in Englande. Better in Englande, than any where, as it shall wel appere to him that, with out affection, will consider the kind of regimen. Whyle I confer ours with other (as it is in itselfe, and not mained by usurpacion), I can find none either so good or {434} so indifferent. The regemente of Englande is not a mere monarchie, as some for lacke of consideracion thinke, nor a mere oligarchie nor democratie, but a rule mixed of all these, wherein ech one of these have or should have like authoritie. The image whereof, and not the image, but the thinge in dede, is to be sene in the parliament hous, wherein you shall find these 3 estats; the king or quene which representeth the monarche, the noblemen which be the aristocratie, and the burgesses and knights the democratcie.――If the parliament use their privileges, the king can ordain nothing without them: If he do, it is his fault in usurping it, and their fault in permitting it. Wherefore, in my judgment, those that in king Henry the VIII.’s daies would not grant him that his proclamations should have the force of a statute, were good fathers of the countrie, and worthy commendacion in defending their liberty. Wold God that that court of late daies had feared no more the farceness of a woman, than they did the displeasure of such a man. Then should they not have stouped, contrary to their othes and alledgeaunce to the crowne, against the privilege of that house, upon their marye bones to receive the devil’s blessenge brought unto them by Satan’s apostle, the cardinal. God forgeve him for the doing, and them for obeying! But to what purpose is all this? To declare that it is not in England so daungerous a matter to have a woman ruler, as men take it to be.――If, on thother part, the regement were such as all hanged upon the king’s or quene’s wil, and not upon the lawes written; if she might decre and make lawes alone, without her senate; if she judged offences according to her