_L._ The King may do so, if he please: and Sir Edward Coke tells you how he altered particular judgments in case of felony, and showeth that judgment being given upon a lord in Parliament, that he should be hanged, he was nevertheless beheaded; and that another lord had the like judgment for another felony, and was not hanged but beheaded: and withal he shows you the inconveniency of such proceeding, because, saith he, if hanging might be altered to beheading, by the same reason it might be altered to burning, stoning to death, &c. _P._ Perhaps there might be inconveniency in it; but it is more than I see, or he shows, nor did there happen any inconveniency from the execution he citeth: besides he granteth, that death, being _ultimum supplicium_, is a satisfaction to the law. But what is all this to the purpose, when it belongeth not to consider such inconveniences of government but to the King and Parliament? Or who, from the authority of a deputed judge, can derive a power to censure the actions of a King that hath deputed him? _L._ For the death of a man by misfortune, there is, he saith, no express judgment, nor for killing a man in one’s own defence; but he saith, that the law hath in both cases given judgment that he, that so killeth a man, shall forfeit all his goods and chattels, debts and duties. _P._ If we consider what Sir Edward Coke saith (1 _Inst._ _sec._ 745), at the word _felony_, these judgments are very favourable; for there he saith, that killing a man by _chance medley_, or _se defendendo_, is _felony_. His words are: “wherefore by the law at this day, under the word _felony_ in commissions, &c. is included petite treason, murder, homicide, burning of houses, burglary, robbery, rape, &c. _chance-medley_, and _se defendendo_.” But if we consider only the intent of him that killeth a man by misfortune or in his own defence, the same judgments will be thought both cruel and sinful judgments. And how they can be _felony_, at this day cannot be understood, unless there be a statute to make them so. For the statute of 25 _Hen. III_, _c._ 25, the words whereof, “murder from henceforth shall not be judged before our justices, where it is found misfortune only, but it shall take place in such as are slain by felony, and not otherwise,” make it manifest, if they be felonies, they must also be murders, unless they have been made felonies by some later statute. _L._ There is no such later statute, nor is it to say in commission; nor can a commission, or anything but another statute, make a thing felony that was not so before.