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before declared.

Which thing, tho' it be coloured per Jus Regale, yet it is tyranny: for St. Thomas saith, when a king ruleth his realm only to his own profit, and not to the good of his subjects, he is a tyrant.

King Harauld reigned upon the Jews, Dominio Regali; yet when he sclough the children of Israel, he was in that a tyrant, tho' the laws sayen, quod principi placuit, legis habet rigorem. Wherefore Achab, which reigned upon the children of Israel, by like laws, and desired to have had Naboth, his subject's vineyard, would not by that law take it from him, but proffered him the value thereof. For these words said by the prophet, prædic eis jus regis, be not else to say but, prædic eis potestatem regis. Wherefore, as often as a king doth any thing again the law of God, or again the law of nature, he doth wrong, notwithstanding the said law declared by the prophet. And it is so, that the law of nature woll in this case, that the king should do to his subjects, as he would be done to himself, if he were a subject; which may not be, that he would be almost destroyed, as be the commons of France. Wherefore, albeit that the French king's revenues be by such means much greater than be the revenues which the king our sovereign lord hath of us, yet they be not goodly taken, and the might of his realm is near de

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stroyed thereby. By which consideration I would not, that the king's revenues of this realm were made great by any such means; and yet of necessity they must be greater than they be at this day. And truly, it is very necessary, they be alway great; and that the king have abundantly, wherewith his estate may be honorably kept for right many causes; of which some shall now hereafter be remembered.

There is a MS. of this work in the Cotton Library, in the title of which it is said to be addressed to Henry VI. but there can be little question, from various passages contained in it, that it was written by the author, with a view to ingratiate himself with Edward IV. The Lancastrian party having failed of success on their return from the continent, as already noticed, Fortescue thought it expedient to make some specious apology for his attachment to that party; and actually wrote another book, with the express purpose of attempting a reconciliation with the victorious Edward IV. This work, though never published, had been seen by Selden, as he informs us in the preface to his edition of the De Laudibus, &c. It is for the honour of Sir John Fortescue, however, that notwithstanding the various changes in

his own fortune, and that of the bloody factions which then vexed this kingdom, that he never abandoned his old constitutional principles. A second edition of the work, from which the reader has been presented with an extract, was published in 1719, 8vo.

Many, if not all of the MS. remains of sir John Fortescue, are still extant in libraries. The following titles will serve to shew us still more completely, what were the subjects which chiefly occupied his speculations and his pen : 1. Opusculum de Naturâ Legis Naturæ, et de ejus Censurâ in Successione Regnorum supremorum. 2. Defensio Juris Domus Lancastriæ. 3. Genealogy of the House of Lancaster. 4. Of the Title of the House of York. 5. Genealogia Regum Scotia. 6. A Dialogue between Understanding and Faith. 7. A Prayer-book, which savours much of the times we live in.

Mr. Fortescue Aland, the editor of "The Differences between an Absolute and Limited Monarchy," speaks of his illustrious predecessor, in his preface to that work, in the following handsome manner : "All good men, (says he,) and lovers of the English constitution, speak of him with honour, and that he still lives in the opinions of all true Englishmen, in

as high esteem and reputation, as any judge that ever sat in Westminster Hall. He was a man acquainted with all sorts of learning, besides his knowledge in the law, in which he was exceeded by none; as will appear by the many judgments he gave, when on the bench, in the year-book of Henry VI. His character, in history, is that of pious, loyal, and learned; and he had the honour to be called the chief counsellor of the king. He was a great courtier, and yet a great lover of his country."

The works of Fortescue, contain many facts relative to some of the darkest periods of our history, together with various notices, interesting to the antiquarian. There can be no doubt, therefore, that several of his MSS. which are still extant, may be printed with advantage,

FENN'S LETTERS.

THESE original letters, (as we are informed in the title-page,) were written during the reigns of Henry VI. Edward IV. and Richard III. by various persons of rank or consequence; and contain many curious anecdotes relative to that turbulent and bloody, but hitherto dark period of our history. They were published in 1787; and are all duplicates for in order to prevent any repulsive effect to the reader, from their antique appearance, the original letter, in all the peculiarities of the ancient orthography, is given on one page, and on the opposite, is the same letter, in the modern spelling, except only such words as are now become obsolete. Agreeably to my plan, I shall extract only the modernized copy.

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