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 TIGHT IVJNE >F KINGS TO 
 G ^ERN RONG! 
 
 DetucateH to tlje g>olp alliance 
 
 21 
 
 7t 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 POLITICAL HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT. 
 
 Hie dvU will not have me danm'd, lest the ml that is in me should set hell on fire." 
 
 SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 POINTED FOR WILLIAM HONE, 
 45, LUDGATE-HILL. 
 
 1821. . 
 
 Eighteenpence.
 
 
 
 
 Printed by W. Hooei 
 45, Ludgate-Hitl, London.
 
 Stack 
 Annex, 
 
 -5 
 
 BetitcatioiL 
 
 TO 
 
 THE VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE 
 
 MEMBERS OF 
 
 THE HOLY ALLIANCE. 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUR HoLINESSES, 
 
 WHEN a gang of desperate ruffians disguise 
 themselves, and take the road armed, it is a sure sign 
 of robbery and murder ; and it becomes the duty of 
 an honest man to raise a hue and cry, and describe 
 the villains. 
 
 With that view, I dedicate to you this little book ; 
 in the hope, that some who understand the dead lan- 
 guage of Despotism, may be induced to translate 
 it into the living tongues of the good people of 
 the Continent. 
 
 I pray God to take your ROYALTY into his imme- 
 diate keeping. 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF THE POLITICAL HOUSE 
 THAT JACK BUILT. 
 
 . 
 
 '080
 
 O ! DULNESS, if thy sons can learn one thing, 
 
 Teach but that one, sufficient for a King ; 
 
 That which thy Priests, and thine alone, maintain, 
 
 Which, as IT dies, or lives, THEY fall, or reign : 
 
 May ye, O Cam and Isis, preach it long, 
 
 THE RIGHT DIVINE OF KINGS TO GOVERN WRONG !' 
 
 112! / ** OPE ' 
 
 It was a maxim of the constitntion of this country that the 
 King could do no wrong. He had high authority for stating that 
 the King could not commit Folly, much less Crime* . 
 
 Report of a BISHOP'S Speech. 
 
 If a King can do no wrong, why was King James II. banished ? 
 and if a King can do wrong, why the plague are we constant- 
 ly affirming that he cannot ? Either way we should stand self- 
 condemned, and if we are not set down as a nation of scoun- 
 drels', we mast think ourselves pretty easy under the appellation 
 
 of fool*. . . SWIFT. ' 
 
 _ , 
 
 We love 
 
 The King, who loves the law, respects his bounds, 
 
 And reigns content within them : him we serve 
 
 Freely and with delight, who leaves 113 free : 
 
 But recollecting still that he is man, 
 
 We bust him not too far. KING though he be, 
 
 And King in England too, lie may be weak. 
 
 And vain enough to be ambitious still; 
 
 May exercise amiss his proper pow'rs, 
 
 Or covet more than freemen choose to grant: : 
 
 Beyond that mark is TREASON. 
 
 v COWPER. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 The Drawings are by Mr. GEORGE CRUIKSHANK.
 
 " Perish those poets, and be bnsh'd the song, 
 Which with this nonsense charm'd the world so long, 
 That he who does no right, can do no wrong." 
 
 DE FOE. 
 
 To condemn nonsense, especially in high places, isf 
 proper : there are ancient precedents for it. 
 
 A thousand years before Christ, Nathan, a priest 
 in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, knew that 
 David the Lord's anointed, had not only worked folly 
 in Israel, by committing adultery with a beautiful wo- 
 man, but had committed crime, by causing her hus- 
 band to be put to death. The honest priest charged 
 both the folly and the crime upon the king ! He went 
 up to his majesty with this Address : " Thou art the 
 man!" He prosecuted him at the bar of his own 
 conscience, convicted him, and passed sentence upon 
 him " The sword shall not depart from thine house /" 
 
 Three thousand years after this, a priest, sent into 
 an English House of Lords by the nomination of 
 the king, affirms there, that " he had ' high authority' 
 for stating, that the king could not commit 'folly, 
 
 much less crime!" 
 
 B
 
 ( 6 ) 
 
 What a scene ! A priest of the Church of Eng- 
 land, who promised, before he received the Holy 
 Ghost,* to lay aside the study of the world and 
 the flesh, who received the Holy Ghost upon that 
 condition, who had a Bible put into his hands to 
 preach truth from, and who with the Holy Ghost 
 in him, took the sacrament as the most solemn of 
 all oaths, to perform what he had promised this 
 Priest, who again received the Holy Ghost for 
 the office and work of a Bishop, and again took the 
 oath of the sacrament this Bishop, regardless of 
 his sacramental oath, puzzles himself behind the 
 Treasury bench with the quillets of the English law, 
 and forgets Nathan ! this Right Reverend Father 
 in God, by divine permission, studies the ' Pleas of 
 the Crown,' tallcs of ' high authority,' and forgets the 
 authority of his Bible ! bends, like \\isfolding-crook, 
 in the presence of the king of England, and forgets 
 Him whose kingdom is not of this world ! stands, 
 as stiff as his staff, at London blinks Jerusalem, 
 squints towards archiepiscopal Canterbury and in- 
 culcates Passive obedience and Non-resistance ! 
 
 The Doctrine of Divine Right, or ' the King can 
 do no wrong' is the evil genius of Liberty, the vital 
 spaik of Legitimate right, the very soul of Des- 
 potism. It demands the prostitution of moral principle, 
 
 * Priests of the Church of England ' receive the Holy Ghost' 
 at the command of the bishop on their ordination. They re- 
 ceive it again when made Bishops. 
 
 See the Form of Ordination.
 
 ( 7 ) 
 
 sophisticates scripture, and converts the peace and 
 good will of Christianity into envy, hatred, malice, 
 and all uncbaritableness. What it can do, may be 
 known by what it has done. Take a hero a ruffian 
 who has ravaged and desolated every fair region he 
 could penetrate a brutal ferocious wretch, of gi- 
 gantic form, and cruel feature, ignorant of every thing 
 but crime ; his sword serrated by hacking the bones 
 of the brave defenders of their country, with halters 
 for the necks of the peaceful at his girdle : toss him 
 an iron sceptre surmounted by the emblems of death 
 and folly ; give him the world to crush beneath his 
 feet; and tell me in what age Priestcraft, standing 
 upon the divine right of tithes, would refuse to throw 
 the ermine of royalty over the monster's shoulders, 
 anoint him as from the Lord, and light him up 
 to the world as an image of the Divinity ! 
 
 According to the law of England, the king can do 
 no wrong. Mr. Justice Blackstone says, that " the 
 Prerogative of the Crown extends not to do any in- 
 jury; it is created for the benefit of the people; 
 and, therefore, cannot be exerted to their prejudice."* 
 
 Now, if the prerogative of the crown was created 
 for the benefit of the people, is it not plain, that, 
 should it cease to be exerted for their benefit, it would 
 be useless ; and that, should it be extended to do them 
 injury, it would be oppression. Will the Bishop say, 
 that oppression is no wrong, or that if oppression 
 should come from the royal prerogative, oppression is 
 
 * Commentaries, vol. i. p. 245.
 
 right ? If he does say this, I ask him, how long, after t 
 oppression should be exercised through the preroga- 
 tive by virtually irresponsible ministers and be de- 
 clared no wrong, he supposes that a king of England 
 could sit on the throne, or the bishops who maintain 
 the doctrine, sit either at its right hand in the Lords, 
 or any where else f I tell this bishop, that though 
 the law may not suppose it possible for a king of 
 England to do wrong, because it intends him to do 
 right, yet if he should do, and continue to do, op- 
 pressive wrong, not -all the bishops of England, nor 
 all the bayonets of all the mercenaries of Europe, 
 could keep that king upon the throne of an oppressed 
 people against their united will. 
 
 A king of England is not king in his own right, 
 or by hereditary right. The nation is not a patri- 
 mony. He is not king by his own power; but in 
 right of, and by the power of the law. He is not 
 king above the law ; but by, or under, the law. 
 All the authority that he has, is given to him by 
 law ; and he can only rule according to law : for 
 were he to rule against the law, he would be king 
 against the law, and depose himself. The law is the 
 Sovereign, or paramount authority ; hence, a king of 
 England is a subject ; and in this respect, be and 
 all the people are upon a level before the law they 
 are all his fellow-subjects; though, as chief magis- 
 trate, he is the first subject of the law. 
 
 A king of England who regards the happiness of 
 the people, and his own safety, would not wish to be
 
 ( 9 ) 
 
 stronger than the law founded on the public will, 
 makes him. More strength would be unnecessary to 
 his welfare, and hurtful to theirs. All power over others, 
 from the watch-box to the throne, tends to injure 
 the understanding, and corrupt the heart. A good 
 King would not desire unlimited power ; a bad one 
 would abuse it. He would become mad ; and drive 
 the people mad. A despot is a demon. Artillery 
 and fetters with the royal robe flung over them a 
 cannon ball capped with the royal crown animated 
 by the royal will crushing, burning, and butchering 
 liberty, property, and human life personify the power 
 of an unlimited King. 
 
 The ensuing satire shows the folly and danger of 
 such power. It is a partial revival of the Jure 
 Divino, written by DAN i EL DE FOE in 1706. After 
 the lapse of a century, nearly the same reason exists 
 for the publication as the author adduced on its first 
 appearance. It had never appeared, he says, " had 
 not the world seemed to be going mad a se- 
 cond time with the error of passive obedience and 
 non-resistance." It is not precisely so now : the 
 people have not gone mad, but a bishop has, who 
 may bite his brethren ; and there is a slavish party of 
 High Church zealots and pulpit casuists in the coun- 
 try who virtually support the doctrine although if 
 they attempt reducing it to practice, they may dig a 
 pit beneath the throne, and engulph the dynasty. To 
 expose this destructive doctrine, and disentangle the 
 threads so artfully twisted into snares for the unwary
 
 by priestcraft, De Foe composed his Satire. He 
 was the ablest politician of his day, an energetic 
 writer, and, better than all, an honest man; but 
 not much of a poet. The Jure Divino is defective 
 in arrangement and versification. It is likewise disfi- 
 gured by injudicious repetition ; a large portion is de- 
 voted to the politics of the time, and it is otherwise 
 unfit for ^publication entire ; but it abounds with 
 energetic thoughts, forcible touches, and happy il- 
 lustrations. The present is an attempt to separate 
 the gold from the dross. The selection is carefully 
 made ; from the parts rejected the best passages are 
 preserved, the rhyme and metre are somewhat bet- 
 tered, the extracts are improved and transposed, and 
 many additions of my own are introduced. The 
 production scornfully rejects the slavish folly, sense- 
 less jargon, and venal hypocrisy, which pretend that 
 power is from God and not from the People. It 
 defies those who draw upon scripture in support of 
 Divine Right to show that scripture lays down any 
 rules of political government, or enjoins any political 
 duties ; or that it does not leave the people to deter- 
 mine by their own reason what government and what 
 governors are best for themselves. It is a forcible 
 and argumentative satire against the nonsense from 
 hole-and-corner and lawn-sleeve men ; and presents 
 a series of peculiarly strong and quotable lines, to en- 
 graft on the common sense of the free-minded, honest, 
 and open-hearted of my countrymen. If it aids them 
 in the occasional illustration and emphatic expression
 
 of their opinions, the pains I have taken will be re- 
 warded. 
 
 There is another reason for publishing this satire, 
 besides the revival of Priestcraft. Its twinbrother is 
 alive. Kingcraft rears up its terrific mass, muffled 
 in the mantle of Legitimacy ; its head cowled and 
 crowned, and dripping with the holy oil of Divine 
 Right ; its eyes glaring deadly hate to human happi- 
 ness ; its lips demanding worship for itself. Denoun- 
 cing dreadful curses against the free, and yelling forth 
 threatenings and slaughter, it stamps with its hoof, 
 and coils together its frightful force to fall on young 
 Liberty and squelch it. Its red right-arm is bared 
 for the butchery of the brave who love Freedom 
 and dare contend for it. It has prepared its chains 
 and dug its dungeons, erected its scaffolds, and shar- 
 pened its axes for the wise and excellent of the earth ; 
 and its bloody banners are unfurled in insolent antici- 
 pation of unholy triumph ! 
 
 Still monarchs dream 
 
 Of universal empire growing up 
 From universal ruin! Blast the design, 
 Great God of Hosts, nor let thy creatures fall, 
 Uupitied victims at ambition's shrine ! 
 
 So prayed the Bishop of London, (Porteus not 
 Howley) and so fervently prays, 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF THE POLITICAL HOUSE 
 THAT JACK BUILT.
 
 THE SPIRIT 
 OF DESPOTISM. 
 
 The above Rare and Extraordinary Book was privately 
 printed in 1795, without the name of either printer or 
 bookseller, and so effectually suppressed, that there are 
 only two copies of it besides my own in existence. 
 
 Its real value consists in exhibiting an entire and 
 luminous view of the causes and consequences of Des- 
 potic Power. Its enthusiastic and glowing love of 
 Liberty is unexcelled by any work written since; and 
 for clearness, richness, and beauty of style, it is superior 
 to every production of the Press within the same period. 
 Alt that the author touches, he turns into gold. I 
 regret to say that most probably I shall never be at 
 liberty to disclose his name. 
 
 Naturally desirous that such a work should be perused 
 by all England, I have reprinted it, verbatim, from my 
 own copy; and, although containing as much in quan- 
 tity as a volume of Gibbon's History of Rome, it is 
 sold for Eighteen-pence, 
 
 WILLIAM HONE. 
 
 *** The French, instantly perceiving the transcendent merit 
 of the SPIRIT OF DESPOTISM, and its high importance at this 
 crisis, have translated it into their language, and it is now read 
 throughout France with the greatest avidity. I in treat some 
 good Neapolitan to be the beuefactor of his Countrymen in like 
 manner. It should be in the hands of the free, and these who 
 desire to be free, in all nations: Austria, for instance.
 
 THE RIGHT DIVINE OF KINGS 
 TO GOVERN WRONG. 
 
 , :. , 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 [J : r >: ! 9 J<xvl ;'fll Ji:.;;.i 
 
 Thus Kings were first invented, and thus Kings 
 Were burnish'd into heroes, and became 
 The arbiters of this terraqueous swamp ; 
 Storks among frogs that have but croak'd and died ! 
 
 COWPER. 
 
 i ;ns eijjsu . 
 
 Original Power The ancient Gods Tyrant-kings The 
 Apotheosis of James II. in the Chapel Royal Charles 
 II. Paternal Government God prescribed no Rules of 
 Government Origin of Kings Saul. 
 
 ARISE, O Satire ! tune thy useful song, 
 
 Silence grows criminal, when crimes grow strong ; 
 
 Of meaner vice, and villains, sing no more, 
 
 But Monsters crown'd, and Crime enrobed with Power ! 
 
 At vice's high IMPERIAL throne begin, 
 
 Relate the ancient prodigies of sin j 
 
 With pregnant phrase, and strong impartial verse, 
 
 The crimes 6f men, and crimes of Kings rehearse ! 
 
 What though thy labour shall to us be vain, 
 And the World's bondage must its time remain ;
 
 14 THE RIGHT DIVINE OF KINGS 
 
 Let willing slaves in" golden fetters lie, 
 
 There's none can save the men who will to die. 
 
 Yet some there are that would not tamely bow, 
 
 Who fain would break their chains, if they knew how ; 
 
 And these, from thy inspired lines, may see, 
 
 How they choose bondage when they may go free. 
 
 He that can levy War with all mankind, 
 Retard the day-spring of the human mind ; 
 Buy Justice, sell Oppression, bribe the Law, 
 Exalt the Fool, and keep the Wise in awe ; 
 With pious Peter,* cant of heaven's commands, 
 Pray with his lips, and murder with his hands j 
 Insult the wretched, trample on the poor, 
 And mock the miseries mankind endure j 
 Can ravage countries, property devour, 
 And trample Law beneath the feet of Power ; 
 Scorn the restraint of oaths and promised Right,t 
 And ravel compacts in the people's sight; 
 
 * Peter the Cruel, King of Castile. He married the daugh- 
 ter of a Duke of Bourbon, whom he divorced, in order to renew 
 his connexion with a former mistress. His excesses occasioned 
 the people to dethrone him. He affected piety, and to govern 
 by divine right ! 
 
 t Despots seldom keep engagements. The People of Prussia have 
 &' promised right' from their king of some years standing. After 
 the Battle of Waterloo, he promised them a Cunstitutiim but be- 
 came a member of the Holy Alliance. In 1814, this king, with an- 
 other of the fraternity, the Emperor of Russia, was entertained 
 at an expense of 20,0382. 7s. 10d. in Guildhall London, by 
 the Corporation in Common Council assembled, who also pre 
 sented addresses of congratulation to the worthies, on their 
 having contributed, by encaging Napoleon, to restore what 
 the addresses called, " the LEGITIMATE dynasties." The result
 
 TO GOVERN WRONG. 15 
 
 Tltat thing's a TYRANT ! and that People Foots, 
 Who basely bend to be that Tyrant's tools ! 
 
 Examine then the early course of things, 
 And search the ancient roll of Tyrant Kings, 
 When the first man usurp'd upon his kind, 
 Assumed exotick right, assuming reigned ; 
 Supreme in wickedness, more wicked grew ; 
 First forced a homage, then decreed it due. 
 
 Trace the first Tyrants to their fancied thrones, 
 Placed in that heaven that all their crimes disowns : 
 If in the Royal lists some monsters reign'd, 
 Abhorr'd l>y heaven, and hated by mankind, 
 By lust and blood exalted to a throne, 
 For all the exquisites of Tyrant known, 
 The meaner name of monarch they despise, 
 Alive, usurp the throne, and dead, the skies ; 
 Above the clouds th' incarnate devil stands, 
 And nations worship with polluted hands ! 
 
 Old Saturn, Bacchus, and high-thundering Jove, 
 And all the rabble of the Gods above, 
 Whose names for their immortal crimes are fear'd, 
 Monarchs and Tyrant-princes first appear'd ; 
 
 is, that the legitimate Emperor of Russia backs the crusade on 
 the People of Naples ; and the legitimate king of Prussia is as 
 little inclined to let the Prussians have a Constitution, as the 
 Corporation of London find it convenient to .return the 14,000i. 
 of the Bridge-House money which they borrowed towards pay- 
 ing for the feast. The 'company they kept,' and the money they 
 owe in consequence, must be a satisfactory, because the only 
 apology from the metropolis of the most free country in Europe, 
 to the Neapolitans, for not assisting them in defending their na- 
 tional Independence, and their new-born Liberty, against the 
 combined attack of "the LEGITIMATE dynasties,"
 
 16 THE RIGHT DIVINE OF KINGS 
 
 By rapes and blood the path to greatness stain'd, 
 By rapes and blood the glittering station gain'd; 
 Succeeding knaves succeeding Gods became, 
 And sin aspired to an immortal name ! 
 
 The mighty wretches dwell among the stars, 
 And vice in virtue's glorious robes appears ; 
 And Poets celebrate their praises there, 
 As Indians worship Devils that they fear! 
 
 Yet let us look around the world awhile, 
 And find a Patron-God for Albion's Isle ; 
 Has she so many Tyrants borne in vain ? 
 Has she no Star in the celestial train? 
 Heaven knows, the difficulty only lies, 
 In who's the fittest monster for the skies ! 
 Satire, reflect with care, due caution give, 
 
 Some are dead, beware of those that live. 
 
 If thou too near the present age begin, 
 Truth will be crime, and courage will be sin ! 
 
 Look back two ages, see where shines on high 
 Great JAMES, the modern Bacchus of the sky ; 
 But give him time before his ghost appear, 
 Lest his uneasy fame bewray his fear : 
 Alive, the patron of the tim'rous race, 
 Fear in his head, and frenzy in his face ; 
 His constellation, were it felt beneath, 
 Would make men strive to die for fear of death ! 
 His exaltation with his crimes begin, 
 See how we worship in his House of Sin, 
 Aloft we view the Bacchanalian King ; 
 Below the sacred anthems daily sing; 
 His vast excess the pencil's art displays, 
 And triumphs in the clouds above our praise :
 
 TO GOVEEN WRONG. 17 
 
 What can, with equal force, devotion move, 
 We pray below, and He's debauch'd above !* 
 
 Look lower down the galaxy and see, 
 In yon crown'd Goat another Deity ; 
 His orgied reel and lecherous leer outvie 
 The old Priapian glory of the sky ; 
 His furious lusts the other Gods deface 
 And spread his viler image through the place ; 
 On obscene altars blaze unholy fires 
 To him, the God of all unchaste desires !f 
 
 * The Banqnetling House at Whitehall is now the Chapel 
 Royal, where sermons are preached and Divine service is sung by 
 the choir of the king's household. On the floor, are the pews for 
 the congregation, the pulpits of the clergy, the altar with the 
 sacramental vessels, and the other arrangements for sacred wor- 
 ship. On the ceiling, the apotheosis of King James the First, 
 painted by Rubens, represents the king in different situations 
 crowned with the triumphs of drunkenness. 
 
 James the First held the highest notions concerning Divine 
 Right. He had a mighty desire to be a great tyrant, but was 
 merely a great driveller. He said on a certain occasion that 
 " there is an implicit tie among KINGS, which obligeth them, though 
 there be no other interest or particular engagement, to stick to, and 
 RIGHT ONE ANOTHER, vpon an insurrection of subjects." How- 
 BM,'s Letters, B. 1. $. 2. Letter iii. 
 
 This obligation among kings to right one another, flows from 
 their ' Right Divine to govern wrong !' The implicit tie to suffo- 
 cate liberty, wherever it appears, is co-eval with tyranny 
 but it was neve r openly avowed until the present concert of kings. 
 The Holy-Alliance is Despotism skewing itself, 
 
 t It was for tkis king, Charles II., that the phrase, " our RE- 
 LIGIOUS king," was invented by the Bishops. 
 
 If such Vicegerents are by Heaven appointed, 
 The Devil himself may be the Lord's anointed ! 
 
 De Foe.
 
 18 THE RIGHT DIVINE OF KINGS 
 
 We turn disgusted from the contemplation 
 
 Nor seek more royal samples of our nation j 
 
 But leave Posterity to find the place 
 
 Of other heroes, of another race. 
 
 Europe, thy thrones have many a name in store, 
 
 As bright in guilt as any crown'd before ; 
 
 Who, turn'd to Gods, shall shine in Poets' rhymes, 
 
 And faithful Hist'ry shall record their crimes. 
 The first Paternal ruler of mankind 
 
 That e'er by primogenial title reign'd, 
 
 In dignity of government was high 
 
 But all his kingdom was his family. 
 
 His subjects were his household and his wife ; 
 
 His power to regulate their way of life ; 
 His sway extended not beyond his gate ; 
 That was the limit of his regal state ; 
 And every son might from his rule divide, 
 Be King himself, and by himself preside ; 
 And when he died, the government went on 
 In natural succession to his son. 
 
 Next Families of mutual love and unity 
 Together join'd for friendship and community; 
 Form'd Laws, and then the natural order was 
 To trust some man to execute the Laws. 
 Hence him they best could trust, they trusted chose ; 
 And thus a Nation and a chief arose, 
 Both constituted by a mutual trust ; 
 The people honest and the ruler just.* 
 
 'Tis plain, when man came from his Maker's hand, 
 He left him free, and at his own command \ 
 
 * No hereditary king ever reigned in the world, but to govern 
 by laws and constitutions which were established before he came 
 to be king. Coke's Detection, vol. i. p. 13.
 
 TO GOVERN WRONG. 19 
 
 Gave him the light of nature to direct, 
 And reason,* nature's errors to inspect ; 
 No rules of Government were e'er set down, 
 Nature was furnish'd to direct her own ; 
 The high unerring light of Providence, 
 Left that to latent cause and consequence. 
 
 Society to regulation tends, 
 As naturally as means pursue their ends ; 
 The wit of man could never yet invent, 
 A way of life without a government ; 
 And government has always been begun, 
 In those who, to be govern'd, gave the crown. 
 He that would other schemes of rule contrive 
 And search for powers the people could not give, 
 Must seek a spring which can those powers convey, 
 And seek a People too that will obey. 
 
 At length paternal rule was less complete, 
 And as mankind increas'd became unfit ; 
 The petty Lords grow quarrelsome and proud, 
 And plunge their little governments in blood. 
 
 * Reason is the image of God stamped upon man at his birth, 
 the understanding breathed into him with the breath of life, 
 and in the participation of which alone he is raised above 
 the brute creation, and his own physical nature ! Reason is the 
 queen of the moral world, the soul of the universe, the lamp of 
 human life, the pillar of society, the foundation of law, the bea- 
 con of nations, the golden chain let down from heaven, which 
 links all animated and all intelligent natures in one common 
 system and, in the vain strife between fanatic innovation and 
 fanatic prejudice, we are exhorted to dethrone this queen of the 
 world, to blot out this light of the mind, to deface this fair co- 
 lumn, to break in pieces this golden chain \Hnzlitfs PolUital 
 p. 57.
 
 20 THE BIGHT DIVINE OF KINGS 
 
 The factious rivals on pretence of right, 
 
 Urge on the people to contend and fight ; 
 
 Invaded weakness to brute force submits, 
 
 Oppression rages, honesty retreats, 
 
 Justice gives way to power, and power prevails, 
 
 And universal slavery entails. 
 
 Thus broils arose, and thus the ends of life 
 
 Are miss'd in Wars and undecided strife ! 
 
 Scotland, till late, exemplified the plan, 
 In many a feud, jn many a Highland clan. 
 The Chief with whoop and whistling trumpet shrill, 
 Summons his slaves from ev'ry neighb'ringhill; 
 Tells them, his foeman's bull hasstol'n his cow, 
 And dire revenge th' obedient vassals vow ; 
 With mighty targe, and basket-hiked knife, 
 Battle and blood decide the petty strife ; 
 The namelings fight, because the lord commands, 
 And wild confusion rules th' ungovern'd lands ! 
 
 The hunter-tribes, at first, wild beasts pursued, 
 And then to chase mankind they left the wood ; 
 Became Banditti, Capiaina, Chieftains, Kings, 
 And Tyrants, by the natural course of things ! 
 
 As he that ravaged most could rule the best, 
 So he grown King that first subdued the rest, 
 By fraud and force his guilty power maintains, 
 Wheedles mankind to please themselves with chains, 
 With selfish Kingcraft calls it RIGHT DIVINE,* 
 
 And subtle Priestcraft sanctifies his line. 
 
 1 
 
 * PRIESTCRAFT n. s. [priest and crq/i.] Religious frauds; 
 management of wicked priests to gain power. Johnson. 
 KINGCRAFT n. a. [king and era/*.] Royal frauds ; 
 
 management of wicked kings to gain power. 
 
 The
 
 TO GOVERN WRONG. 21 
 
 "Kings are as Gods." Indeed ! why then they must 
 Like God be sacred, but like God bejttst. 
 If in a King a vicious lust prevails, 
 The people see it, and the Godship fails. * 
 
 The greatest curses any age have known 
 Have issued from the temple, or the throne ; 
 Extent of ill from kings at first begins, 
 But priests must aid, and consecrate their sins. 
 The tortured subject might be heard complain, 
 When sinking under a new weight of chain, 
 Or more rebellious, might perhaps repine, 
 When tax'd to dow'r a titled concubine, 
 But the priest christens all a Right Divine! 
 
 Hor. JValpole's Epistle from Florence. 
 
 * The time has been when rulers have actually claimed the title 
 of God's vicegerents, and have been literally worshipped as gods 
 by the servile crew of courtiers ; men gradually bowed down by 
 despotism from the erect port of native dignity, and driven, by 
 fear, to croucli under the most degrading of all superstition, the 
 political idolatry of a base fellow-creature. After all the lan- 
 guage of court adulation, the praises of poets and orators, the 
 statues and monuments Greeted to their fame, the malignant 
 consequences of their actions prove them to have been no 
 other than conspirators against the improvement and happi- 
 ness of the human race. What were their means of conduct- 
 ing their governments, of exercising this office of Heaven's 
 vicegerents ? Crafty, dishonest arts, oppression, extortion, and, 
 above all, fire and sword. They dared to ape the thunder and 
 lightning of Heaven, and, assisted by the machinations of the 
 grand adversary of man, rendered their imitative contrivances 
 for destruction more terrible and deadly than the original. Their 
 imperial robe derived its deep crimson colour from human blood ; 
 and the gold and diamonds of their diadems were accumulated 
 treasures wrung from the famished bowels of the poor, born only 
 D
 
 22 THE RIGHT DIVINE OF KINGS 
 
 Talks he of* sacred' then, the man's a fool ; 
 His high pretence a joke and ridicule ; 
 Abandon'd to his crimes he soon will find 
 Himself abandon'd too, by all mankind ; 
 With th' Assyrian Monarch turn'd to grass, 
 As much a Tyrant, and as much an ass ! 
 
 to toil for otkers, to be robbed, to be wounded, to be trodden 
 under foot, and forgotten in an early grave. How few, in com- 
 parison, have reached the age of three score and ten, and yet, in 
 the midst of youth and health, their days have been full of labour 
 and sorrow. Heaven's vicegerents seldom bestowed a thought 
 upon them, except when it was necessary either to inveigle or 
 to force them to take the sword and march to slaughter. Where 
 God caused the sun to shine gaily, and scattered plenty over the 
 land, his vicegerents diffused famine and solitude. The valley, 
 which laughed with corn, they watered with the tear of artificial 
 hunger and distress; the plain that was bright with verdure, and 
 gay with flowerets, they dyed red with gore. They operated on 
 the world as the blast of an east wind, as a pestilence, as a deluge, 
 as a conflagration. It is an incontrovertible axiom, that all who 
 are born into the world, have a right to be as Inppy in it as the un- 
 avoidable evils of nature, and their own disordered passions will 
 allow. The grand object of all good government, of all govern- 
 ment that is not an usurpation, must be to promote this happi- 
 ness, to assist every individual in its attainment and security. 
 A government chiefly anxious about the emoluments of office, 
 chiefly employed in augmenting its own power, and aggrandizing; 
 its obsequious instruments, while it neglects the comfort and 
 safety of individuals in middle or low life, is despotic and a nui- 
 sance. It is founded on folly as well as wickedness, and, like the 
 freaks of insanity, deals mischief and misery around, without be- 
 ing able to ascertain or limit its extent and duration. If it should 
 not be punished as criminal, let it be coerced as dangerous. 
 
 Spirit of Despotism, p. 90.
 
 TO GOVERN WRONG. 
 
 Externals take from Majesty, the rest 
 
 Is but a thing at which we laugh a jest ! 
 
 Let us to Scripture History appeal, 
 And see what truths its ancient rolls reveal : 
 That great authority which Tyrants boast, 
 As most confirming, will confound them most ! 
 
 When Israel with unheard of murmurs first, 
 PrayM to indulgent Heaven they might be curst, 
 Rejected God, scorn'd his Almighty rule, 
 And made themselves their children's ridicule, 
 A standing banter, future ages' jest, 
 As damn'd to slavery at their own request 
 With what just arguments did Samuel plead, 
 Give them the Tyrant's character to read; 
 Explain the lust of an ungovern'd man, 
 Show them the danger, preach to them in vain ; 
 Tell them the wretched things they'd quickly find, 
 Within the pleasing name of King combined ; 
 Deign with their 'wilder'd crowds t' expostulate, 
 And open all the dangers of their fate ! 
 Yet they sought ruin with unwearied pains, 
 And begg'd for fetters, slavery, and chains ! 
 
 But, it's replied, heaven heard its suppliant's prayer, 
 Itself chose out the King, and plac'd him there ; 
 Disown' d the People's right, and fix'd their choice 
 In providence, and not the people's voice ; 
 From whence the claim of right by regal line, 
 Made Israel's Kings be Kings by Right Divine. 
 
 Yes, Saul was King by God's immediate hand 
 But 'twas in judgment to afflict the land ! 
 In granting He corrected the request, 
 A king He gave them, but withheld the rest ;
 
 S4 THE RIGHT DIVINE OF KINGS 
 
 Gave all that they pretended to require, 
 
 But in the gift he punish'd the desire ; 
 
 He gave a. plague, the very selfsame thing 
 
 They ask'd, when they petition'd for a King ! 
 
 For 'tis remarkable when Samuel saw, 
 
 They'd have a King in spite of sense or law, 
 
 He told the consequences to the land, 
 
 And all the mischiefs that the Word contain'd; 
 
 Told them, that Kings were instruments design'd, 
 
 Not to improve, but to correct mankind! 
 
 Told them the Tyrant would insult their peace, 
 
 And plunder them of all their happiness ! 
 
 Told them, that Kings were but exalted thieves, 
 
 Would rob men first, and then would make them slaves ! 
 
 Then drew the picture of a monster crown'd, 
 
 Ask'd them, if such a villain could be found,* 
 
 Whether they'd like him, and their tribute bring? 
 
 They answer, YES : let such a man be King ! 
 
 And is a Tyrant King your early choice ? 
 " Be KINGS your plague .'" said the Eternal's voice j 
 
 * It is remarkable, that a king scarcely ever exercised tyran- 
 nical power over the people, but it was mingled with ungoverned 
 vice in himself. Men of virtue and moderation seldom, if ever, 
 turn tyrants. Despotic rule gives the reins to lust, and makes 
 the errors of government, and the crimes of life, mix together. 
 It is the high road to cruelty and brutalizing selfishness. A king 
 of France took out his watch when he guessed that the axe was 
 cutting off the head of his favorite, and said, ' My dear friend 
 must make a sad figure just now !' A hill in Richmond Park is 
 still shewn as remarkable for having been the station from whence 
 Henry VIII. eagerly looked out for the ascent of a rocket at 
 London, announcing to the impatient tyrant the precise moment 
 when one of his wives was suffering death on the scaffold !
 
 TO GOVERN WRONG. 25 
 
 And with this mighty curse he gave the crown, 
 And Saul, to Israel's terror, mounts the throne ! 
 Now, Muse, the parallel with caution bring, 
 On what condition was this man their King ? 
 Tho' Heaven declar'd him, heaven itself set down 
 The sacred Postulata of the crown ; 
 Samuel examin'd first the high record, 
 Then dedicates the substance to the Lord. 
 This is the coronation-oath, the bond, 
 The steps on which the throne and kingdom stand ; 
 For which, by future Kings unjustly broke, 
 God, and the People, mighty vengeance took !* 
 
 * Samuel told the people the MANNER of the kingdom, and 
 wrote it in a book and laid it up before the Lord. (1 Samuel, 
 x. 25.) It is plain, the word manner signifies the constitution of 
 the government, or the conditions on which Saul was to be king, 
 namely, according to justice and law ; and this is meant in 
 frequent expressions, by going in and out before them, referring 
 to justice being executed in the gates, and peace and war ; the 
 king was to lead them in one, and direct in the other. This 
 manner of the kingdom was told to all the people, and that 
 implied, that the consent of the people was requisite to make 
 him king, without which, though Samuel had anointed him, he 
 was not owned by the Israelites, but went about his private 
 affairs till after the victory over the Ammonites. Then the 
 manner of toe kingdom was written in a book a token of it 
 being a compact between Saul and the people; and Samuel's 
 laying it up before the Lord, is equivalent to an oath recorded 
 on both sides ; for it was there as a witness between the king 
 and the people, and served both as their oath of allegiance, and 
 his oath of government. All this being done, what followed? 
 Ail the people went to Gilgal, and there THEY (mark the word) 
 made Saul king. (1 SAMUEL , i . 15.)
 
 26 THE RIGHT DIVINE OF KINGS 
 
 Then mark the needful steps to make him King, 
 How sacred ends, concurring means must bring ; 
 Not Samuel's ointment, not the mighty lot, 
 Could make him King, nor force bis title out. 
 The people like not his mechanic race, 
 They see no greatness in his youthful face : 
 
 " Is this the monarch shall our foes destroy, 
 Does heaven design to rule us by a boy ?" 
 The flouting Rabbies cry ! " We scorn to own, 
 A man that has no merit for a crown. 
 Our King must lead the glorious tribes to fight, 
 And chase the thousands of the Ammonite ; 
 His pers'nal valour must our triumphs bring, 
 'Tis such a man we want, and such a King." 
 
 Away they go, reject his government, 
 Not Heav'n's high choice could force their due consent ! 
 Samuel submits, adjourns the strong debate, 
 Suspends the King he offered to create ; 
 Owns their dislike's a high material thing, 
 That their CONSENT alone could make him King ! 
 
 Why did not God displeasure then express, 
 Resent the slight, and punish their excess ; 
 Extort obedience by express command, 
 And crown his choice by his immediate hand ; 
 Destroy the Rebels with his blasting breath, 
 And punish early treason with their death ; 
 With mighty thunders his new King proclaim, 
 And force the trembling tribes to do the same ? 
 
 Because He knew it was the course of things, 
 And Nature's law, that men should choose their Kings ;
 
 TO GOVERN WRONG. 27 
 
 He knew the early dictate was his own, 
 That reason acted from himself alone.* 
 
 " Tis just," says the Almighty Power, " and sense," 
 (For actions are the words of Providence ; 
 The mouth of consequences speaks aloud, 
 And Nature's language is the voice of God :) 
 " 'Tis just," says he, " the people should be shown, 
 The man that wears it, can deserve the crown, 
 i.lerit will make my choice appear so just, 
 They'll own him fit for the intended trust ; 
 Confirm by reason my exalted choice, 
 And make him King by all the people's voice. 
 Let Ammon's troops my people's tents invade, 
 And Israel's trembling sons, to fear betray'd, 
 
 * It is alledged, that the vulgar are not capable of judging 
 concerning principles of government ; I answer, they are then 
 not capable of being guilty of transgression; for where there is a 
 want of capacity of judgment, there can be no sin. This is a 
 dangerous argument, my Lords, and exposes government to the 
 violence of every one who can overturn it with impunity. You 
 have no defence against any person in this case who is resolute, 
 except superior strength ; for the gallows will not frighten a man 
 who is not conscious of guilt, if he has any degree of natural 
 fortitude. Try to persuade the vulgar that there is any case in 
 which they cannot sin, and yon will soon perceive what opera- 
 tion it will have upon them. But when yon tell them they are 
 not judges of your manoeuvres of state, they will soon tell you 
 that they cannot transgress what they do not understand : and 
 that you require of them more than the Deity requires of them, 
 or even supposes; for he requires no duty without first allowing 
 men to judge of his laws, and makes no laws beyond the reach 
 of their understandings. 
 
 Sermons to Asses, (Ministers of State,) p. 57.
 
 28 THE RIGHT DIVINE OF KINGS, &C. 
 
 Fly from th' advancing legions in the fright, 
 Till Jabesh' walls embrace the Ammonite ; 
 I'll spirit Saul, and arm his soul for war, 
 The boy they scorn, shall in the field appear; 
 I'll teach the inexperienced youth to fight, 
 And flesh him with the slaughter'd Ammonite. 
 The general suffrage then he'll justly have 
 To rule the people he knows how to save ; 
 Their willing voices all the tribes will bring, 
 And make my chosen hero be their King." 
 
 He speaks, and all the high events obey, 
 The mighty voice of Nature leads the way ; 
 The troops of Ammon Israel's tents invade, 
 His mighty fighting sons, to fear betray'd, 
 Fly from th' advancing squadrons in the fright, 
 'Till Jabesh' walls embrace the Ammonite. 
 Saul rouzes j God had arm'd his soul for war ; 
 The boy they scornM does in the field appear ; 
 His personal merit now bespeaks the throne, 
 He beats the enemy, and wears his crown. 
 
 The willing tribes their purchased suffrage bring, 
 Their universal voice proclaims him King. 
 As if Heaven's call had been before in vain, 
 Saul from this proper minute, dates his reign. 
 The text is plain, and proper to the thing, 
 Not GOD but all THE PEOPLE made him King r 
 
 END OF BOOK I.
 
 THE RIGHT DIVINE OF KINGS 
 TO GOVERN WRONG. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 THE KING is ours 
 
 T' administer, to guard, t' adorn the State, 
 But not to warp or change it. 
 Mark now the difference, ye that boast your lore 
 Of kings, between your Loyalty and ours. 
 Our love is principle, and has its root 
 In reason ; is judicious, manly, free : 
 Yours, a blind instinct, crouches to the rod, 
 And licks the foot, that treads it in the dust. 
 
 Tfte Duty of Resistance to Tyrants Law Custom 
 Packed Juries The Custom of Kings to tyrannize 
 The Custom of the People to dethrone them instanced in 
 James II. Rehoboam Royalty a trust. 
 
 WERE I permitted to inspect the rolls, 
 Th' eternal archives, hid beyond the poles ; 
 The cause of causes could I but survey, 
 And see how consequences there obey: 
 This should be first of all that I'd enquire. 
 And this to know, the bounds of my desire 
 Why Justice reels beneath the blows of might, 
 And Usurpation sets her foot on right ; 
 Why fame bestows her ill-deserv'd applause, 
 When outrage triumphs over nature's laws ; 
 

 
 30 THE RIGHT DIVINE OF KINGS 
 
 Why heaven permits the worst of men to rule, 
 And binds the wise man to obey the fool ;* 
 
 * It is difficult to avoid laughing at the extreme ignorance of 
 crowned heads themselves, in despotic countries, when one con- 
 trasts it with the importance they assume, and the pomp and 
 splendour with which they transfer their royal persons from 
 place to place. The sight is truly ludicrous. Are these the 
 men, occupied, as they usually are, in the meanest trifles and the 
 most degrading pleasures, who tell us that the government-over 
 which they preside, is a perfect system, and that the wisest phi- 
 losopher knows not how to govern mankind; that is, to consult 
 their happiness and security, so well as themselves, neglected 
 as they have been in youth, and corrupted in manhood by pan- 
 ders to their vices, and flatterers of their foibles, their pride, 
 and their ambition ? There is reason to believe that many kings 
 in despotic kingdoms, have been worse educated, and possess less abi- 
 lities, than a common charity-boy, trained in a parish school to 
 read and write. Spirit of Despotism. 
 
 An Anecdote, containing the thoughts of a Despot is a 
 treat. It appears from the Emperor of Austria heading the 
 Holy Alliance against Naples with our money in his pockets, 
 as well as from a letter dated Laybach, 28th January, 1821, 
 that his Majesty has the horrors. The letter states, that when 
 the Professors of the Lyceum at Laybach were presented to 
 him, he made this nervous speech : 
 
 " Gentlemen The students of Carniola have always deserved 
 praise, (from which their progress in useful knowledge may be in- 
 ferred). Endeavour to preserve for them this good character, 
 (modern Bceotians). Remain ever faithful to what is ancient, 
 (Tyranny) ; for what is ancient is good, (he means for himself) ; 
 and our ancestors (his Ancestors) ever found it so. Why should 
 it not be the same to ns? (TJie throne-men). People (tyrant- 
 haters) are occupied elsewhere (at Naples) with new notions 
 (principles of liberty), that I (heigh Oh!) cannot approve, (can- 
 not help) ; and never shall approve, (Royal till death). From 
 such notions (political truth) preserve yourselves, (God pre-
 
 TO GOVERN WRONG. 31 
 
 Why its own thunder does not strike the crown, 
 And from the stools of pow'r thrust Tyrants down ; 
 Why it pursues the murd'rer's meaner crime, 
 But leaves exalted criminals to time ? 
 
 Kings spurn at limitations, laws, and rules, 
 And rob mankind because mankind are fools; 
 Wheedled to act against their common sense, 
 To jumble tyranny with providence ; 
 
 serve the Emperor); attach yourselves to nothing but what is 
 positive, (Despotism). I do not want learned men (the students 
 at Copenhagen on the king's birth-day, January 2nd, 1821, shouted 
 " Vivat Rex ;" the soldiers, not understanding Loyalty in Latin, 
 and, supposing the students uttered seditious cries, dispersed them 
 with their sabres and killed four: ergo Steel is stronger than La- 
 tin). 1 want only loyal and good subjects, (implicitly obedient 
 slaves) ; and it is your part to (become drill strjeunts, and) form 
 them (into line). He who serves (implicitly obeys), will in- 
 struct, (that is keep the students stupid) according to my orders ; 
 and whoever feels himself incapable of that, (non-instruction,) 
 and embraces novel ideas, (knowledge,) had better depart or I 
 shall myself remove him, (by putting something into his head !). 
 This is a fine and perfect specimen of legitimate mind ; and 
 here is another : At the Museum of Bologna the Professors of 
 the University shewed this same Emperor one of Sir Humphrey 
 Davy's safety lamps, and informed him that the Englishman 
 its inventor, had, by his numerous discoveries, produced a revo- 
 lution in science. At the word revolution the countenance of the 
 Emperor changed ; he rumped the attendant, and said, the King 
 of England would no doubt feel the consequences of his conde- 
 scension to his unruly subjects ; but, as to himself, he should 
 take proper care not to suffer any of his subjects to make revo- 
 lutions! "IVhat is ancient is good." Stick to that, Despots! Your 
 ancestors, 'an please your Majesties, groped without safety lamps 
 I pray that you may, till you be no more.
 
 32 
 
 To hope from God what God expects from them, 
 For what they ought to do, look up to Him ; 
 Leave unperform'd the duties which they know, 
 And lift up hands they should employ below ! 
 
 Christians must no more miracles expect, 
 The men that will be slaves, He'll not protect ; 
 God never will our base petitions hear, 
 Till our endeavours supersede our prayer ; 
 Not always then; but nation's may be sure, 
 The willing bondage ever shall endure. 
 They that would have His power to be their friend, 
 Must, with what power they have, their right defend.* 
 
 The laws of God, God makes us understand, 
 The laws of Nature never countermand. 
 Nature prescribes, for 'tis prescrib'd to sense, 
 Her first of laws to man is self-defence. 
 This then is Law to man, from God on- high, 
 Resisting live or unresisting die ! 
 He always works by means, and means he'll bless, 
 With approbation, often with success. 
 
 Nor prayers nor tears will revolutions make, 
 Tyrants pull down, or irksome bondage break ; 
 'Tis our own business ; and He lets us know, 
 What is our business, he expects we'll do. 
 
 Tyrants sometimes in Revolutions fall, 
 Though their destruction's not design'd at all ; 
 So hasty show'rs, when they from heav'n flow down, 
 Are sent to fructify, and not to drown ; 
 
 * GOD punishes bad kings and oppressors, as he does the rest of 
 mankind through his instruments, THE PEOPLE. It is the only 
 way by which he has ever made an example of tyrants as a 
 terror to others.
 
 TO GOVERN WRONG. 33 
 
 And, in the torrent, if a drunkard sink, 
 'Tis not the flood that drowns him, but the drink ; 
 Yet who would say, because a sinner's slain, 
 For fear of drowning, we must have no rain. 
 
 It's doubtful who live most unnatural lives, 
 The subject that his liberty survives, 
 Or kings that trample law and freedom down, 
 And make free justice truckle to the crown. 
 
 LAW is the master-spring of government 
 The only Right Divine that heaven has sent,* 
 
 * The tyrant Henry VIII., by making himself the head of the 
 Church, clearly begat the Right Divine. The King could give 
 bishoprics, and the Bishops could give opinions. " Your Ma- 
 jesty is the breath of our nostrils," said Bishop Neil to James I,, 
 and speaking of himself and brethren as to worldly advantages, 
 he certainly spoke the truth. Before the Kings of England were 
 heads of the Church we heard little of divine right, and some- 
 times the Church itself was seen on the side of freedom ; since 
 that time, never. The doctrine in England, that the King can 
 do no wrong, supposes the positive responsibility of his Minis- 
 ters. But, that it is a dangerous licence of language, is wit- 
 nessed in a Right Reverend exposition of this kingly privi- 
 lege in regard to Adultery. The Bishop leaped from political to 
 moral delinquency, with a casuistry worthy an admirer of the 
 royal power of translation. The Abbe de Choisy, a Priest of 
 the same scliool.as the British Father in God, though not of the 
 same church, dedicated an edition of Thomas a Kemp is, on the 
 ' Imitation of Christ' to Madame de Maintenon, a courtesan and 
 mistress to Louis XIV., prefixing this motto : " Hear oh ! daugh- 
 ter, and consider, and incline thine ear ; forget also thine own 
 people, and thy father's house ; so shall the King greatly desire thy 
 " Psa. xlv. 10,11. 
 
 The Court's a golden bnt a fatal circle, 
 Upon whose magic skirts a thousand devils
 
 34 THE RIGHT DIVINE OF KINGS 
 
 It forms the order of the world below, 
 And all our blessings from that order flow. 
 Law is the life-blood of the social state ; 
 Subordinate to law is magistrate j 
 To set the magistrate above the law, 
 Would all to error and confusion draw, 
 He's not a king that's not prescribed by laws 
 King's, the effect, but government's the cause. 
 
 Of all authority for Right Divine, 
 Custom's the worst, for every royal line. 
 
 The still-born Ignorance of antiquity, 
 Quirk' d into life to cozen freemen by, 
 Lawyers call Custom ; and, for custom, draw 
 On custom still, to still call custom, Law ! 
 So ' rules' the Bench, and so the maxim takes, 
 The fault one age commits, no age forsakes ! 
 
 Begot by fools, maintain'd by knaves and fools, 
 Improved by craft in error's public schools ; 
 With shifting face, with loose and stammering tongue, 
 The juggling fraud has plagued the world too long ; 
 Modern encroachments on our freedom makes, 
 And backs it with our fathers' old mistakes : 
 As if our rev'rence, to their virtues due, 
 Should recommend their crimes and follies too ! 
 
 This vapour Custom, this mere wand'ring cloud 
 Puffs the crown'd wretch, and helps to make him proud. 
 Persuades him to believe it must be true, 
 Homage to Law, becomes the Tyrant's due ! 
 
 In crystal forms, sit tempting innocence, 
 Arid beckon early virtue from its centre. 
 
 Anon, quoted by Dr. Watts. 

 
 TO GOVERN WRONG. 35 
 
 Thus Priestcraft preaches, and thus Lawyers draw 
 An after age, to call a custom Law I 
 
 And yet this boasted, ever-quoted thing, 
 Fails in the point fails to support the king : 
 For though by custom, kings have learn'd to ride 
 A few vile minions, to support their pride, 
 The people always have opposed the cheat, 
 It never was their custom to submit ; 
 The Practice of the people made the name, 
 For practices and customs are the same ; 
 And custom this one mighty truth will tell, 
 When kings grow tyrants, nations will rebel. 
 The people may, for custom gives assent, 
 Dethrone the man, to save the Government ! 
 
 If any say the practice is not so, 
 Let them to England for examples go. 
 England the Right Divine of kings profess'd* 
 And all the marks of slavery caress'd ; 
 Long courted chains, but 'twas in court disguise, 
 And holy fraud conceal'd the sacred lies 
 The CHURCH the mountebank, the KING the jest, 
 The wheedled monarch, and the wheedling priest > 
 James proved the patient, crouching, loyal tribe, 
 But let his /ate their loyalty describe ! 
 
 * Sir Robert Filmer, the great champion of Divine Right 
 having defended it in print, Algernon Sidney drew out a system 
 of original power, and government according to the laws of God, 
 nature, and reason. Before it was finished, the friends of Divine 
 Right seized the manuscript, and finding Sidney's arguments un- 
 answerable, they laid aside the work, and fell upon the man ; 
 so they cut oft' his head, merely because they could not an- 
 swer his book.
 
 36 THE RIGHT DIVINE OF KINGS 
 
 With life-and-fortune, churchmen back'd the crown,* 
 In crushing all men's freedom but their own. 
 Then, under colour or pretence of law, 
 Villains their victims to the shambles draw, 
 Where sat the scoundrel Chief in ermined pride, 
 And a pack'd jury in the box beside. 
 The farce commences justice heaves a groan 
 The case is clear a verdict for the Crown ! 
 When noble RUSSELL and brave SIDNEY fell, 
 JUDGES themselves rung out LAW'S funeral knell ! 
 
 * A Courtier's loyalty is charmingly pictured in the portrait of 
 Bubb Doddlngton, drawn by himself in his celebrated Diary. 
 He was by trade a Boroughmonger, and his stock consisted of six 
 Members in the House of Commons, which he jobbed about and 
 sold to the best bidder. At the close of his bargain and sale of 
 the whole in a lump to the Duke of Newcastle for the king's ser- 
 vice, there is a finish which renders the painting a fine and match- 
 less Cabinet specimen. Bubb, who had been in disgrace at court 
 for selling them elsewhere, said to the duke, " I knew I had 
 given no just cause of offence, but that I could not justify it with Hi s 
 MAJESTY; that it was ENOUGH that HE (the king) WAS VIS- 
 PLEASED, to make me think that / WAS IN THE WRONG, and to 
 beg Him to forget it : I would not even be IN THE RIGHT against 
 HIM !" The duke was delighted with this loyal and dutiful sub- 
 mission. Bubb says, " He took me up in his arms, and KISSED ME 
 TWICE !" and Bubb was rewarded for laying his six members of 
 the honorable house at the foot of the throne with the price he 
 stipulated for namely, the treasurership of the navy, and a peer- 
 age ! The story was beautifully and most impressively related by 
 the excellent-hearted and inflexible JOHN HUNT, in his noble 
 and successful defence, on the trial of an ex offieio information for 
 words in the Examiner charged not as false, but as libellous on 
 the Honorable House. 

 
 TO GOVERN WRONG. 37 
 
 Yet when their own destruction they foresaw, 
 The passive knaves cried Liberty and Law ! 
 Took from their best of Kings his Right Divine, 
 And abrogated fealty to the line ; 
 They made a precedent, dropp'd T from TREASON, 
 And found the best of words behind it REASON ! 
 
 The crown's a symbol, that the people meant, 
 To mark their choice, or form of government j * 
 The crown is theirs, and this has been their plan, 
 To make the office sacred, not the man : 
 Hence, if a tyrant on the throne appears, 
 The place is vacant, and the crown is theirs. 
 
 David, the patient tribes too much opprest, 
 Vex'd them with tribute, and deny'd them rest ; 
 Harass'd the land with imposts and alarms, 
 Taxing and fighting money ! and to arms ! 
 
 His son, however wise, disturbed their peace, 
 With taxes for his sumptuous palaces ; 
 
 * All Majesty is derived from Law founded on right reason. A 
 strength beyond that is mere force. The Magistrate formerly 
 had no Majesty but while, engaged in magisterial duties. His 
 real dignity consisting in his legal authority. 
 
 When the ancient parliaments of France met according to the 
 constitution annually, the king went to meet the members seated 
 in a waggon drawn by oxen, which a waggoner drove with his 
 goad to the parliament house ; but he was in no state until he 
 was seated there, robed and crowned, and sceptred. And, in- 
 deed, in that place only, where the great affairs of the Com- 
 monwealth are transacted, can it be said, that Real Majesty 
 does truly and properly reside ; and not where the king plays, 
 or dances, or prattles with his women, when the vulgar are 
 always styling him, your Majesty. 
 
 Hotoman's Franco-gattia, p. 73.
 
 38 THE RIGHT DIVINE OF KINGS 
 
 His love of women and his garish state, 
 
 His love of pomp and show, and looking great ; 
 
 His building projects, and his vast designs, 
 
 Too vast for all the gold of Ophir's mines, 
 
 The people's hearts dismay'd, their feelings pain'd, 
 
 Their love unsettled, and their treasures drain'd.* 
 
 By two such vig'rous monarchs long opprest, 
 The next that came they loyally addrest ; 
 Implored his gracious majesty would please 
 To tax them less, and let them live in peace. 
 The son of Solomon with anger hears 
 The people dare to offer him their pray'rs, 
 Spurns their Address, his rage no bounds restrain, 
 And thus he gives his answer with disdain : 
 
 " I bear from Heaven the ensigns of my sway, 
 My business is to rule, and your's obey : 
 Therefore your scandalous Address withdraw, 
 'Tis my command, and my command's your law : 
 Sedition grows from seeds of discontent, 
 And faction always snarls at government : 
 But since my throne from God alone I hold, 
 To Him alone my councils I unfold ; 
 My resolutions he has made your laws, 
 You are to know my actions, He the cause ! 
 
 * Solomon could have but two occasions for money ; one for 
 bis costly buildings, the other for his numerous women, for he 
 never had any wars. To the expense of his buildings the 
 kings of other countries contributed largely ; so that it must 
 have been his excesses in women, and other luxurious indul- 
 gences, that caused him to oppress the people with heavy bur- 
 dens of taxes.
 
 TO GOVERN WRONG. 39 
 
 Wherefore I stoop, to let you understand, 
 
 I double all the taxes of the land. 
 
 And if your discontents and feuds remain, 
 
 PETITION and I'll double them again ! 
 
 The mild correction which my Father gave, 
 
 Has spoil'd the people he design'd to save ; 
 
 You murmur'd then, but had you thus been used> 
 
 .You'd ne'er his easy clemency abused !" 
 
 The injured people, treated with disdain, 
 Found their Petitions and Addresses vain ! 
 Long had they made submissions to the crown, 
 And long the love of Liberty had known ; 
 The kings they ask'd of God had let them see, 
 What God himself foretold of tyranny. 
 The father had exhausted all their stores, 
 With costly houses, and more costly whores ; 
 But doubly robb'd by his encroaching son, 
 They rather chose to die, than be undone ; 
 And, thus resolving, by a single stroke, 
 Ten tribes revolted, and their bondage broke ! 
 
 The tyrant, in his sceptred bloated pride, 
 Believing God and blood upon his side ; 
 To the high altar in a rage repairs, 
 And rather tells his tale, than makes his prayers : * 
 
 " Behold !" says he, " the slaves, o'er whom I reign, 
 Have made the pow'r I had from Thee in vain j 
 From thy diviner rule they separate, 
 And make large schisms both in Church and State ; 
 My just intentions are, with all my force, 
 To check rebellion in its earliest course ; 
 
 * The author has taken a poetical licence here. For scripture 
 docs not say that Rehoboam prayed to the Lord.
 
 40 THE RIGHT P1V1NB OF KINGS 
 
 Revenge th' affronts of my insulted throne, 
 
 And save thy injured honour, and rr\y own ; 
 
 And as thy counsels did nay fathers bless, 
 
 He claims thy help, who does their crown possess \" 
 
 Listen ye kings, ye people all rejoice, 
 And hear the answer of th' Almighty voice : 
 Tremble, ye tyrants, read the high commands, 
 In sacred writ the sacred sentence stands ! 
 
 " Stir not afoot ! thy new-rais'd troops disband !" 
 Says THE ETERNAL ; " it is my command ! 
 I raised thy fathers to the Hebrew throne, 
 I set it up, but you yourselves pull down ! 
 For when to them I Israel's sceptre gave, 
 'Twas not my chosen people to enslave. 
 My first command no such commission brings, 
 / made no tyrants, though / made you kings ; 
 But you my people vilely have opprest, 
 And misapplied the powers which you possest. 
 'Tis Nature's laws the people now direct, 
 When Nature speaks, I never contradict. 
 Draw not the sword, thy brethren to destroy, 
 The liberty they have, they may enjoy ; 
 I ever purposed, and I yet intend, 
 That what they may enjoy, they may defend ; 
 They have deserted from a misused throne, 
 " The things from ME" the crime is all thy own !"* 
 
 * When tlie ten tribes revolted from Rehoboam, and chose Je- 
 roboam king, there is no doubt they limited him by law ; for many 
 years afterwards king Ahab, one of his successors, admiring a 
 herb-garden near to his own palace, applied to the owner, Na- 
 both, and offered him either a vineyard for it, or the worth of it 
 in money; but Naboth would neither exchange nor sell it, and
 
 TO GOVERN WRONG. 41 
 
 If kings no more be flatter'd and deceived, 
 Nor shun too late, the knaves they have believed ; 
 If as ' trustees for uses' they agree 
 To act by limited authority ; 
 Subordination will its order keep, 
 Ambition die, and all rebellion sleep. 
 The weeping nations shall begin to laugh, 
 The subjects easy, and the rulers safe. 
 Plenty and peace embrace just government, 
 The king be pleased, the people be content. 
 
 If any king is hoodwinked to believe, 
 People will blind obedience to him give ; 
 Let him pause long, before he dares to try, 
 They all by practice give their words the lie !* 
 
 Aliah returned home so vexed, that lie went to bed and would 
 not eat any thing. Naboth having thus displeased the king, the 
 courtiers got up a charge of Blasphemy and Sedition against him 
 by means of false witnesses hired on purpose ; he was found 
 guilty and executed, and Ahab got possession of the garden, pro- 
 bably as a forfeiture to the crown. It is clear, therefore, that 
 Ahab's power was restrained by law, for it was not until Nabot 
 was murdered under the forms of law, that the king could get the 
 poor man's property. Another thing is very remarkable: as 
 soon as the murder was completed, and the king had got the 
 garden, there was an honest Father in God, who, instead of say- 
 ing ' the king could do no wrong,' went to his majesty, charged 
 him with the crime, and denounced his downfall, which happen- 
 ed accordingly, through his listening to flattering ecclesiastics, 
 and hjs fondness for military affairs. If the Bishop of London 
 should desire to preach on this story, he is informed that he may 
 find it in the Bible, 1 Kings, xxi. 
 
 * FLATTERY is a fine picklock of tender ears ; especially of 
 those whom fortun hath borne high upon their wings, that submit
 
 42 THE BIGHT DIVINE OF KINGS, &C. 
 
 Art may by mighty dams keep out the tide, 
 Check the strong current, and its streams divide ; 
 Pen up the rising waters, and deny 
 The easy waves to glide in silence by : 
 But if the river is restrain'd too long, 
 It swells in silence to resent the wrong; 
 With fearful force breaks opposition down, 
 And claims its native freedom for its own. 
 So Tyranny may govern for a time, 
 Till Nature drowns the tyrants with their crime ! 
 
 their dignity and authority to it, by a soothing of themselves. For, 
 indeed, men could never be taken in that abundance with the 
 springes of others' flattery, if they began not there ; if they did 
 but remember how much more profitable the bitterness of truth 
 were than all the honey distilling from a whorish voice, which is 
 not praise but poison. But now it is come to that extreme of 
 folly, or rather madness, with some, that he that flatters them mo- 
 destly, or sparingly, is thought to malign them. 
 
 Ben Jonson. 
 
 The ears of kings are so tingled with a continual uniform ap- 
 probation, that they have scarce any knowledge of true praise. 
 Have they to do with the greatest fool of all their subjects 
 they have no way to take advantage of him : by the flatterer 
 saying, " It is because he is my king," he thinks he has said 
 enough to imply that lie therefore suffered himself to be over- 
 come. This quality stifles and confuses the other true and es- 
 sential qualities which are sunk deep in the kingship. 
 
 Montaigne. 
 
 END OF BOOK II.
 
 THE RIGHT DIVINE OF KINGS 
 TO GOVERN WRONG, 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 Nations would do well 
 
 T extort their truncheons from the puny bands 
 Of HEROES, whose infirm and baby minds 
 Are gratified with mischief; and who spoil, 
 Because men suffer it, their TOY The World, 
 
 Tyrants deposed to preserve the Throne In Europe In 
 England before the Conquest ~By each other since. No 
 right line any where Difference between Tyrants and 
 Kings Government instituted by the People for their 
 own good Tyrants treat men as cattle to be slaughtered 
 God decrees their fall Ordains Revolutions by the 
 People. 
 
 SEARCH we the long records of ages past, 
 Look back as far as antient rolls will last ; 
 Beyond what oldest history relates, 
 While kings had people, people magistrates ; 
 Nations, e'er since there has been king or crown, 
 Have pull'd down tyrants to preserve the throne. 
 The laws of nature then, as still they do, 
 Taught them, their rights and safety to pursue ; 
 That if a king, who should protect, destroys, 
 He forfeits all the sanction he enjoys.
 
 44 THE RIGHT DIVINE OF KINGS 
 
 There's not a nation ever own'd a crown, 
 
 But if their kings opprest them, pull'd them down ; 
 
 Concurring Providence has been content, 
 
 And always blest the action in th' event. 
 
 He that, invested with the robes of power, 
 Thinks 'tis his right the people to devour, 
 Will always find some stubborn men remain, 
 That have so little wit, they won't be slain ; 
 Who always turn again when they're opprest, 
 And basely spoil the gay tyrannic jest ; 
 Tell kings of Nature, Laws of God, and Right, 
 Take up their arms, and with their tyrants fight. 
 
 When passive thousands fall beneath the sword, 
 And freely die at the imperial word, 
 A stern, unyielding, self-defending few, 
 While they resist, will ravel all the clew ; 
 Will all the engines of oppression awe, 
 And trample pow'r beneath the feet of law. 
 'Tis always natural for men opprest, 
 Whene'er occasion offers to resist ; 
 They're traitors else to truth and common sense, 
 And rebels to the laws of Providence ; 
 Tis not enough to say, they may they must ; 
 The strong necessity declares it just;* 
 'Tis Heav'n's supreme command to man, and they 
 Are always blest who that command obey. 
 
 * If it be asked, Who shall be judge ? it is plain that God 
 lias made Nature judge. If a king make a law, destructive of 
 human society and the general good, may it not be resisted 
 and opposed? " No !" exclaim a junta of holy men, " it is from 
 GOD ! " What is Blasphemy ?
 
 TO GOVERN WRONG. 45 
 
 So Franqe deposed the Merovingian line, 
 And banish'd Childrick * lost the right divine ; 
 So Holy League their sacred Henry t slew, 
 And call'd a counsel to erect a new ; 
 For right divine must still to justice bow, 
 And people first the right to rule bestow : 
 So Spain to arbitrary kings inured, 
 Yet arbitrary FavilaJ abjured ; 
 Denmark four kings deposed, and Poland seven, 
 Swedeland but one-and-twenty, Spain eleven : 
 Russia, Demetrius banish'd from the throne, 
 And Portugal pull'd young Alphonsus down ; 
 
 * Cliilderic I. the son of Merovius, for his lasciviousness, was 
 banished by the great men, ami one Egidius, a Gaul, set up in 
 his stead. Chlldeiic II. was banished and deposed by his sub- 
 jects, and king Pepin reigned in his stead ; and so ended the 
 Merovingian family. 
 
 t The League deposed Henry III. and declared him a tyrant, 
 a murderer, and incapable to reign, and held frequent counsels 
 with the pope's legate and the Spaniards about settling the 
 crown, and several proposals were made of settling it, sometimes 
 on the infanta of Spain, at other times on the cardinal of Bourbon, 
 the duke de Main, and others. 
 
 f Favila, a cruel tyrant, was deposed by the Castilians, who 
 chose judges to administer the government, till they appointed 
 another. 
 
 Besides the banishment of Demetrius, the History of Russia 
 furnishes a sickening catalogue of the butchery of her despots by 
 each other. During the debate in the House of Lords on the 19th 
 of February, 1821, Lord Holland, observing on the Crusade of the 
 Holy Alliance of Despots against Naples, said, " That objections 
 to the freedom of political constitutions came but ungracefully 
 from the reigning Emperor of Russia, who ascended a throne 
 reeking with the blood of his own father ; and as this member
 
 46 THE RIGHT DIVINE OF KINGS 
 
 Each nation that deserves the name of state, 
 Has set up laws above the magistrate ; 
 Hence, when a self-advancing wretch acquires 
 A lawless rule, his government expires. 
 
 Explore the past, the steps of monarchs tread, 
 And view the sacred titles of the dead ; 
 Look to the early kings of Britain's isle, 
 For Jus Divinum in our native style. 
 
 Conquest, or compacts, form the rights of kings, 
 And both are human, both unsettled things ; 
 Both subject to contingencies of fate, 
 And so the godship of them proves a cheat. 
 The crowns and thrones the greatest monarchs hare, 
 Were either stolen, or the people gave. 
 What claim had colonel Cnute,* or captain Suene ? 
 What right the roving Saxon, pirate Dane ? 
 Hengisl, or Horsa, Woden's blood defied, 
 And on their sword, not right divine, relied. 
 The Norman Bastard, how divine fas call ! 
 And where's his heav'nly high original ? 
 
 These naked nations, long a helpless prey, 
 To foreign and domestic tyranny ; 
 
 of that holy league, owed his crown to the murder of his father, 
 it brought to his recollection, that since the time of the Czar 
 Peter I. no sovereign had ascended the throne of Russia with- 
 out its being stained with the blood of his immediate prede- 
 cessor, or some other member of bis own family." 
 
 * The leaders of the invading Saxons and Danes were mere 
 thieves and robbers, pretending to no right but that of the sword, 
 Hengist and Horsa were Saxon leaders, who after conquering 
 Kent, made themselves kings. Woden is famed to be the first 
 great leader of the Goths into Europe, and all their kings af- 
 fected to be thought of his predatory blood.
 
 TO GOVERN WRONG. 4? 
 
 Their infant strength unfit to guard their name 
 Was left exposed to ev'ry robber's claim, 
 An open prey to pirates, and the isle, 
 To wild invaders, grew an early spoil. 
 
 The Romans ravaged long our wealthy coast, 
 And long our plains fed Ctesar's numerous host. 
 What birthright raised that rav'nous leader's name ? 
 His sword, and not his fam'ly, form'd his claim. 
 Where'er the Roman eagles spread their wings, 
 They conquer'd nations, and they pull'd down kings ; 
 Caesar in triumph o'er the whole presided, 
 And right of conquest half the world divided. 
 For Liberty our sires in arms appear'd, 
 And in its sacred name with courage warr'd ; 
 Made the invaders buy their conquest dear, 
 And legions of their bones lie buried here.* 
 
 When these their work of slaughter had fulfill'd, 
 And seas of British blood bedew'd the field ; 
 Shoals of Barbarian Goths, worse thieves than they, 
 From Caledonian Friths, and frozen Tay, 
 O'erspread the fruitful, now abandon'd plains, 
 And led the captured victims in their chains: 
 The weaken'd natives, helpless and distrest, 
 Doom'd to be plundered, ravish'd, and oppress'd, 
 Employ new thieves from the rude Northern. coast, 
 To rob them of the little not yet lost. 
 
 * The hillocks or barrows still remaining in most parts of Eng- 
 land were the graves of the soldiers. There are four very large 
 ones near Stevenage in Hertfordshire, close to the road. The 
 plains in Wiltshire and Dorsetshire are full of these monuments 
 of the valorous achievements of the Britons iu defence of their 
 liberty.
 
 48 THE RIGHT DIVINE OF KINGS 
 
 The work once done, the workmen, to be paid, 
 
 Only demand themselves, and all they had ! 
 
 In dreadful strife their freedom to maintain, 
 
 They fought with fury, but they fought in vain ; 
 
 Yet, like Antaeus, every time they fell, 
 
 Their veins with rage and indignation swell ; 
 
 Not for continued losses they despair, 
 
 But for still fiercer battle they prepare ; 
 
 Again their blood the Saxon chariots stains, 
 
 And heaps of heroes strew th' ensanguin'd plains; 
 
 Thus, though they leave the world, they keep the field, 
 
 And thus their lives, but not their freedom yield. 
 
 Three hundred years of bloody contest past, 
 Plunder'd at first, and dispossest at last, 
 The few remains, with freedom still inspired, 
 To Western mountains, to resist retired ; 
 Their dear abandon'd country thence they view, 
 And thence their thirst of Liberty renew j . 
 Offers of peaceful bondage they defy, 
 What's peace to man without his liberty ?* 
 
 * The Britons fought one hundred and sixty-three pitched bat- 
 tles. They might well be said to be conquered, for in these pro- 
 digious struggles for their liberty they were nearly all slain. 
 They fought as long as there were any men to be raised ; but 
 the Saxons swarming continually over from vastly populous coun- 
 tries, the few Britons that remained, took sanctuary in the wes- 
 tern mountains of Wales, and from the crags and cliffs, poor and 
 distrest as they were, they made constant inroads and excursions 
 upon the Saxons; the Saxon Annals are filled with accounts of 
 the renewed warfare. Even the English histories frequently 
 mention the incursions of the Welsh, till, at last, united lo 
 England, they seem to be incorporated with the natives of their 
 ancieut soil.
 
 To GOVERN WRONG. 49 
 
 The conquer'd nation fell a dear bought prey, 
 And Britain's island, Saxon Lords obey : 
 The shouting troops their victories proclaim, 
 And load their chiefs with royalty and fame : 
 The garland of their triumphs was their crown, 
 Mob set them up, and rabble pull'd them down ! 
 Fighting was all the merit they could bring, 
 The bloodiest wretch appear'd the bravest King ! 
 Nor did his kingship any longer last, 
 Than till by some more powerful rogue displaced. 
 
 In spoil and blood was fix'd the right divine, 
 And thus commenced the royal Saxon line : 
 That sword that vanquished innocence in fight, 
 The sword that crush'd the banish'd Britons' right, 
 At pleasure subdivides the British crown, 
 And forms eight soldier kingdoms out of one. 
 From these we strive to date our royal line, 
 And these must help us to a right divine ; 
 From actions buried in eternal night, 
 Priestcraft is brought, to fix the fancied right ; 
 Priestcraft that, always on the strongest side, 
 Contrives, tho' kings should walk, that priests shall ride. 
 
 One master thief his fellows dispossest, 
 And gave, once more, the weeping nation rest ; 
 For Egbert,* English monarchy began, 
 By his Almighty-sword the Sacred man ! 
 Yet who was Egbert ? Search his ancient breed ; 
 What sacred ancestors did he succeed? 
 
 * Egbert came over originally from France, and was not the 
 successor of any prince of (he West Saxon kingdom, nor of any 
 kingdom.
 
 50 THE RIGHT DIVINE OF KINGS 
 
 What mighty princes form'd his royal line, 
 And handed down to him the right divine ? 
 A high-Dutch trooper, sent abroad to fight, 
 Whose trade was blood, and in his arm his right : 
 A supernumerary Holsteineer,* 
 For want of room at home, sent out to war ; 
 A mere Swiss f mercenary, who for bread, 
 Was born on purpose to be knock'd in head j 
 A Saxon soldier was his high descent, 
 Murder his business, plunder his intent ; 
 The poor unvalued, despicable thing, 
 A thief by nation, and by fate a king ! 
 
 To-day the monarch glories in his crown, 
 A soldier thief to-morrow knocks him down, 
 And calls the fancied right divine his own ! 
 In the next age that ' rightful* Lord's forgot, 
 And rampant treason triumphs on the spot: 
 Success gives title, makes possession just, 
 For if the fates obey, the subjects must. 
 
 We should be last of all that should pretend, 
 The long descent of princes to defend ; 
 Since, if hereditary right's the claim, 
 The English line has forty times been lame ; 
 Of all the nations in the world, there's none 
 Have less of true succession in their crown. 
 
 Britannia now, with men of blood opprest, 
 And all her race of tyrants lately ceased ; 
 
 * The Saxons that came over were from Jutland, Holstein, &c. 
 The poor countries the Saxons lived in, being unable to support 
 the vast numbers of the people they produced, they sought sub- 
 sistence and habitations in fruitful and plentiful lands. 
 
 f A Swiss, alludes to their being mercenaries.
 
 TO GOVERN WRONG. 51 
 
 111 fate prevailing, seeks at foreign shores, 
 And for worse monsters, ignorantly implores. 
 The right divine was so despised a thing, 
 The crown went out a begging for a king 
 Of foreign breed, of unrelated race, 
 Whore in his scutcheon, tyrant in his face ; 
 Of spurious birth, and intermingled blood, 
 Who nor our laws nor language understood. 
 
 William the early summons soon obeys, 
 Ambition fills his sails, his fleets the seas ; 
 By cruel hopes, and fatal valour sped, 
 The foreign legions Britain's shores overspread : 
 The sword decides the claim, the laud's the prey, 
 Fated the conquering tyrant to obey. 
 Harold by usurpation gain'd the crown,* 
 And ditto usurpation pull'd him down. 
 
 Nothing but patience then could Britain claim, 
 Oppress'd by suffering, suff'ring made her tame r 
 She saw the tyrant William quit the throne, 
 And hoped for better usage from his son ; 
 But change of tyrants gave her small relief, 
 She lost the lion, and receiv'd the thief. 
 Rufus, his father's ill got treasure seized, 
 The greedy sons of mother-church appeased ; 
 Bought up rebellion with the cash he stole, 
 Secured the Clergy, and seduced the whole. 
 So brib'ry first with robbery combined 
 To ride before, and treason rode behind. 
 
 * Harold seized upon the crown by force. He had no claim 
 to it, by blood or inheritance, being the son of Earl Goodwin.
 
 
 
 
 52 THE RIGHT DIVINE OF KINGS 
 
 Ambition, and the lust of rule prevail'd, 
 And Robert's right, on Rufus' head entail'd.* 
 Beau-Clerk next grasp'd his elder brother's crown, 
 And, by his sword, maintain'd it was his own : 
 The secondf Henry fights, and fighting treats, 
 To own the prince's title he defeats ; 
 Consents to mean conclusions of .the war, 
 
 ' : - L 
 
 And stoops to be a base usurper's heir ; 
 Accepts the ignominious grant, and shows 
 His right's as bad as Stephen's that bestows : 
 The royal tricksters thus divide the prey, 
 And helpless crowds the jugglers' swords obey.i 
 Then Jphn, another branch of Henry's line, j^Wf 
 Jumps on the throne, in spite of Right Divine, 
 Turn we to mighty Edward's deathless name; 
 Or to his son's, whose conquests were the same; 
 t That mighty hero of right royal race, 
 His father still. alive, usurp'd his place.jj 
 
 . . , - ; , 
 
 * They were^both usurpers, for the true righ.t of, descent >^aj 
 in Edgar Atheling, of the race of Edmund Ironside. 
 
 t Henry II. was obliged to compromise the dispute with Ws 
 
 competitor Stephen ; a prudeut agreement, but in defiance of 
 
 . , , "!':...- 
 
 hereditary right. 
 
 t As at 'the death of Henry I. the maiii line of Normarttly 
 ended, so the succession lias ever since proved so brittle, that it 
 never held to the third heir in a right descent without being put 
 by, or receiving some alteration by usurpation, or extinction of 
 the male blood. Churchill's Divi Britannia,, p. 207. 
 
 5 King John was the youngest son of Henry II., who bad 
 his eldest line deposed. Henry was the son of a usurpef,"1t 
 usurper himself, and the murderer of his own brother's son. 
 
 |j 'Edtfar'd lit. reigned, 1 his'Tattier, Edward II. behrg a pi; 
 ohfer, and was afterwards murdered.
 
 TO GOVERN WRONG. ^3 
 
 As Edward on his parent's murder stood, 
 So Richard's tyrant reign was closed in blood : 
 Deposed and murder'd, Edward's father lies; 
 Deposed and murder'd thus the grandson* dies. 
 Lancastrian Henry from bis feeble head, 
 The bauble wrench'd, and wore it in his stead ; 
 Three of his name by due succession reign. 
 And York demands the right of line in vain. 
 Thro' seas of slaughter, for this carnaged crown 
 Edward, not weti t, but waded to the throne ;f 
 Three times deposed, three times restored by force, 
 Priest-ridden Henry's title \ yields of course. 
 
 Short lived the right the conquering king enjoy'd 
 Treason and crime his new-crown'd race destroy'cl ; 
 As if the crimson hand of Power pursued 
 The very crown, and fated it to blood, 
 Richard by lust of government allured, 
 By double murders, next that crown procured ; 
 For silent records trumpel-tongued proclaim 
 The jails and graves of princes are the same. 
 At Bosworth field, the crookback was dethroned ; 
 Slain in the fight, and then the victor own'd ! 
 
 Richard H. t 'Edward IV. * Henry VI. 
 f Richard III. was succeeded by Henry VII. who had clearly 
 BO claim to the crown from blood. After him k still devolved 
 with irregularity, although under the Tudors, the doctrine of 
 hereditary right was as vaguely maintained as before. Thus, a 
 Parliament granted to Henry VIH . the power of regulating the 
 accession by wilt, and it was by pretending to exercise a similar 
 power under an alleged will of Edward VI. that the unprincipled 
 Northumberland sought the establishment of Lady Jane Grey. 
 Elizabeth, on the same ground, was importuned to appoint a suc- 
 cessor, at intervals, during the last twenty years of her reign ; 
 H
 
 54 THE RIGHT DIVINE OF KINGS 
 
 So men of blood, incited by its taste, 
 By lust of rule urged on, laid England waste ; 
 Oppression then upon oppression grew, 
 One royal wretch another overthrew ; 
 They made a football of the People's crown, 
 And brother-tyrant brother-king pull'd down , 
 Succeeding robberies revenged the past, 
 And every age of crime outdid the last. 
 
 Look on once more the tangled line survey, 
 By which kings claim to bind men to obey. 
 In the right, line they say their title lies: 
 But if its twisted ? then the title dies. 
 Look at it! knotted, spliced in every place ! 
 Closely survey the intersected race 
 So full of violations, such a brood 
 Of false successions, spurious births, and blood ; 
 Such perjuries^ such frauds, to mount a throne, 
 That Kin^s miiHit blush their ancestors to own ! 
 
 and finally, named the King of Scotland in her last moments. 
 These are strange incidents for the advocates of Divine Right! 
 The fact is, this wretched theory was never formally advocated 
 until the days of James I. ; and it may be considered to be One 
 of the precious fruits of that settled connexion between Church 
 and State, of which the Despot, Henry VIII., laid the foun- 
 dation. Yet no Despot ever. supported himself steadily on an 
 English throne; and what is there to prove, that such men ever 
 can? Look at King Richard II., he was a finished gentle- 
 man, possessed some taste for literature, and shewed himself as 
 fond of finery as need be; but he waged war with the common 
 sense of the realm and the rights of the people, and finally, by 
 entrusting his power to weak, inefficient, and corrupt ministers, 
 roused the anger of a distressed and overtaxed community. 
 MORAL They were beheaded, and he was dethroned.
 
 -tO GOVERN WRONG. 55 
 
 Oh ! but Possession SUPERSF.PES the Line ! ; i- 
 Indeed ! then king, as king, has Right Divine ; 
 And, coy Succession fled from majesty, ! 
 Makes Usurpation as divine as he ; :u ,' 
 De Facto is de Jure, and a throne, 
 To every dog that steals it is his bone ! 
 
 Hence tyrants and from these infected springs, 
 Flows the -best title of the Best of Kings .'* 
 
 * THE BEST ofr KINGS (Court slang) the King for the time 
 being. Many a king has been the worst man of his age, but 
 no king was ever the best. In 1683, the very year of Charles 
 the Second's reign, in which Lord William Russel and Algernon 
 Sydney were murdered under the forms of law, by packed juries, 
 and the king's passive obedient judges when the throne floated 
 in blood, and the king's manners were notoriously and disgust- 
 ingly sensual and dissolute in that year, J. Shurley, M, A. in his 
 4 Ecclesiastical History Epitomised,' gives Charles the title of 
 " the best of kings !" calls his life and reign virtuous! and prays that 
 his days may be as the days of Heaven ! This loyal author calls 
 himself, The Christian reader's " BELOVED Brother in CHRIST! ' 
 
 Of the same king, Charles II., Horace Walpole (Lord Orford) 
 gives this character in his Epistle from Florence : (Dodsley's 
 Collection, vol. iii. p. 92.) 
 
 ' ; i.: ::'* ; . tr ! IftJ-tt *fO 
 
 Fortune, or fair, or frowning, on his soul \:t iij yti*;} 
 
 Could stamp no virtue, and no vice eontroul! 
 
 Honour or morals, gratitude or truth, . . .. 
 
 Nor taught bis ripen'd age, nor knew his youth ! .-\ .->, 
 
 The care of nations left to whores or chance, .:..-, ; 
 
 I'limd'rer of Britain, pensioner of France ; 
 
 Free to buffoons, to ministers denied, 
 
 He lived an atheist, and a bigot died! .# -, :. I - *r<M- 
 
 .:. 'trJ'i'fXZVll 
 
 All kings have parasites and praise ; the Press records their , 
 actions ; and Posterity gives their characters.
 
 56 
 
 Ri^ftt of Succession, or what other claim 
 Of right to rule, by whatsoever name 
 Or title call'd, by whomsoever urged, 
 Is in the people's right of choosing merged. 
 The right's the People's, and the People's choice 
 Binds kings in duty to obey their voice ; 
 The Public Will, the ONLY Right Divine, 
 Sanctions the office, or divides the line ; 
 Topples the crown from off the tyrant's head. 
 And puts a king to govern in his stead. 
 
 Tyrant and king are vastly different things 
 We're robb'd by tyrants, but obey'd by kings ! 
 If it be aftk'd, how the distinction's known, 
 Oppression marks him out the nations groan, 
 The broken laws, the cries of injur'd blood, 
 Are languages by all men understood !* 
 
 * Tyrants lose all respect for humanity, in proportion as they are 
 sunk, beneath it; taught to believe themselves of a different spe- 
 cies, they really become so; lose their participation with their 
 kind; and, in mimicking the God, dwindle into the brute ! Blind 
 with prejudices as a mole, stung with truth as with scorpions, 
 sore all over with wounded pride like a boil, their minds a heap 
 of morbid proud flesh and bloated humours, a disease and gan- 
 grene in the state, instead of its life-blood and vital principle 
 foreign despots claim mankind as their property. They regard 
 men crawling on the face of the earth as we 'do insects that cross 
 our path, and survey the common drama of human life as a fan- 
 toccini exhibition got up for their amusement. It is the over- 
 weening, aggravated, intolerable sense of swelling pride and un- 
 governable self-will that so often drives them mad ; as it is their 
 blind fatuity and insensibility to all beyond themselves, that, 
 transmitted through successive generations, and confirmed by 
 regal intermarriages, in time makes them idiots. 
 
 HmHtt's Political Essays, p. 341.
 
 . 
 
 TO GOVERN WRONG. 57 
 
 , . 
 
 Just laws and liberty make patriot kings ; 
 
 _ J ' -f.. , ,? ' ' -::'} . 
 
 Tyrants and tyranny are self-made things.* 
 
 7*< r ..-' ';..: ;.- ... -.jP;.j ; -, **}.,. nD 
 
 * Though a Despot be transformed into a limited- king, he is in 
 heart and purpo.se still a despot. He feels duress ; lie is not at 
 liberty to oppress at his pleasure ; and he awaits an opportunity 
 to exercise ' the Right Divine of Kings to govern wrong ;' for he 
 holds the doctriae that " oaths are not to be kept with subjects." 
 la the reign of Richard II. the Duke of Norfolk apprised the 
 Duke of Hereford, that the King purposed their destruction : 
 
 Hereford. God forbid! He has sworn by ST. EDWARD, to 
 be a good Lord to me and the others. 
 
 Norfolk. So has he often sworn to me by Goo's BODY : 
 but I do not trust him the more for THAT / , , >,; 
 
 Every restored despot has become an unblushing and shame- 
 less perjurer ; , where is there in history an instance to the con- 
 trary ?Once a DESPOT, and always a DESPOT. 
 
 ALFRED the Great is the only King in our annals who being 
 guilty of misgovcrnmeii t, and seeing its evils had the high courage 
 to acknowledge his crime by amendment. At the commence- 
 ment of his reign he seemed to consider his exalted dignity as an 
 emancipation from restraint, and to have found leisure, even 
 amidst his struggles with the Danes, to indulge the impetuosity of 
 his passions. His immorality and despotism provoked the censure 
 of the virtuous ; he was haughty to his subjects, neglected the ad- 
 ministration of justice, and treated with contempt the complaints 
 of the indigent and oppressed. In the eighth year of his reign 
 he was driven from the throne by the Danes. Narrowly escaping 
 death and enduring many hardships, adversity brought reflec- 
 tion. According to the piety of the age, instead of tracing 
 events to their political sources, he referred them immediately 
 to the providence of God , and considered bis misfortunes as the 
 instrument with which Divine Justice punished his past enormi- 
 ties. By his prudence and valour he regained the throne, and 
 drew up a code of laws by which he ordained the government 
 should be administered. Magistrates trembled at his stern im- 
 partiality arid inflexibility. HS executed forty-four judge* in
 
 58 THE RIGHT DIVINE OF KINGS 
 
 As government was ever understood 
 To be a measure for the people's good ; 
 So when perverted to a wrong intent, 
 It's stark oppression, not a government. 
 
 one year for their informal and iniquitous proceedings. Hence 
 their survivors and successors were careful to acquire a compe- 
 tent degree of knowledge, and their decisions became accordant 
 to the law. Discovering that the only real foundation of national 
 happiness is in the enlightenment of the people, he instructed 
 them himself by his writings, endowed establishments for the pro- 
 motion of Education, and became the guardian and benefactor of 
 his country.* His virtues were the fruit of early instruction. 
 When he was a child, his mother, Osburga, awakened in him a 
 passion for learning and knowledge. Holding in her hand a 
 Saxon poem, elegantly written and beautifully illuminated, she 
 offered it as a reward to the first of her children whose profici- 
 ency should enable him to read it to her. The emulation of Al- 
 fred was excited: he ran to his master, applied to the task with 
 diligence, performed it to the satisfaction of the queen, and re- 
 ceived the prize of his industry. His mind thus opened by this 
 excellent woman, she dropped in the seeds of knowledge ; by 
 careful culture they grew into wisdom, and Alfred is one of the 
 mast illustrious instances of the endless blessings conferred upon man 
 by EDUCATION. 
 
 From the bunks of the strong hold of Corfe Castle, in Dorset- 
 shire, near Wareham, formerly a station of the Danish barbarians, 
 one of their successors making good his lodgment in a nameless 
 House denies the justice of UNIVERSAL EDUCATION, forgetful, 
 perhaps, that the benighted savages, his predecessors, were finally 
 expelled by Alfred ; that it was the triumph of Knowledge and Li- 
 berty over Ignorance and Selfish power ; and that ALFRED, disdain- 
 ing to use the advantage which Education gave him over the rest of 
 the people, otherwise than for their welfare, incessantly laboured to dis- 
 pense its benefits to ALL. 
 
 * Lingard's History of England, vol. i. c. 4.
 
 TO GOVERN WRONG. 59 
 
 Bleat are the days, and wing'd with joy they fly, 
 When kings protect the people's liberty j 
 When settled peace in stated order reigns, 
 And, nor the nation, nor the king complains ; 
 
 If kings may ravish, plunder, and destroy, 
 Oppress the world, and all its wealth enjoy j 
 May harass nations, with their breath may kill, 
 And limit liberty by royal will ; 
 Then was the world for ignorance design'd, 
 And God gave kings to blast the human mind ; 
 And Kings but general farmers of the land ; 
 And men their stock for slaughter at command ; 
 Mere beasts of draught, to crouch and be opprest, 
 Whom God, the mighty landlord, form'd in jest. 
 
 Yet who believes that Heaven in vain creates, 
 And gives up what it loves to what it hates ; 
 That man's great Maker call'd him into birth, 
 To be destroy'd by tyrant-fiends on earth ; 
 That nations are but footstools to a throne, 
 And millions born to be the slaves of one ? 
 
 Priestcraft ! search Scripture, shew me God's decree, 
 That crime shall rule by his authority. 
 Kingcraft ! search Scripture too, and from it prove 
 Thy right to ravage from the God of Love.* 
 : , 
 
 f Priestcraft aud Kingcraft are partners in the same firm. They 
 tracfe together. KINGS and conquerors make laws, parcel out 
 UK fis, and erect churches and palaces for the priests and dignitaries 
 .f religion. In return, PRIESTS nnoint kings with holy oil, hedge 
 heiAi round with inviolability, spread over them the mysterious 
 sanctity ol religion, and, with very little ceremony, make over 
 the whole species as slaves to these Gods upon earth by virtue of 
 DIVINE RIGHT! 
 
 HaslWs Political Essays, p. 303.
 
 60 THE RIGHT DIVINE OF KINGS, &C. 
 
 No ! HE has issued no such foul command, 
 But dooms down Despots by the People's band ; 
 Marks tyrants out for fall in every age, 
 Directs the justice of the people's rage ; 
 And hurling vengeance on all royal crimes, 
 Ordains the REVOLUTIONS of {he times ! 
 
 A thing of no bowels 
 
 from the crown to the toe, topfull 
 
 Of direst cruelty. His Realm a slanghtei -house 
 
 The swords of soldiers are liis teeth 
 
 Iron for NAPLts, liid with English giU. 
 
 SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 fumed by W.llone, Ludgat* Hill, London.
 
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