A History of Political Thought in the 16th Century by J. W. Allen

Author:J. W. Allen [Allen, J. W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Politics, Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781135026936
Google: uXkUePiRFxQC
Goodreads: 18182325
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1928-09-20T00:00:00+00:00

§ 4. DOLEMAN: AND HAYWARD AND CRAIG

It is a fact that Hayward and Craig agreed far more with their adversary, Doleman, than they did with King James. ‘Doleman’, or Robert Parsons, like Hooker, laid down2 that it was man's natural sociability, added to his feebleness in isolation, that had driven him to create and to accept authority. The institution of government arose inevitably and being from nature is from God. So far he was in fairly exact agreement with Craig and Hayward. But he asserted that no particular form of government was specially of divine institution. ‘These particular forms are left unto every nation and country to choose that form of government which they shall like best and think most meet for the natures and conditions of their people.’1 Here, verbally at least, he parts company with them: for they wished to have it both ways. Monarchy, Doleman declared, has been proved by experience to be the best form of government; but the powers of the monarch should always be limited by law, as in fact they are in England. England is a ‘mixed’ monarchy. In this, in spite of his talk about the institution of monarchy by God, Craig agreed with Doleman.

What has to be kept in mind, Doleman argued, is that Kings exist at all, solely for the welfare of their subjects. That being so, if a King do not respect the laws of his monarchy or observe the implied conditions on which his authority is held, he may lawfully be deprived of his crown, ‘upon just and urgent causes and by public authority of the whole body’.2 It is merely absurd to say that authority having been delegated to a King, the people can have no right to take it from him. A commonwealth exists ‘for justice and order’: and no delegation of authority can rationally be conceived except as having strict reference to those ends: The assertion that a King may always do as he wills and that the very property of his subjects really belongs to him, ‘overthroweth the whole nature of a commonwealth itself’.3 If a Prince, he concluded, do not govern religiously, equitably and lawfully, not only may he be deposed but evidently for the salvation of the commonwealth, he ought to be.4 The same principles apply to the heir to a crown. Laws of succession vary from country to country; and that fact alone proves that all laws of succession are of merely human origin. No mere law of succession, therefore, can give to anyone an absolute right to succeed. Religion being the most important of all considerations, the lack of religion in an heir at law is the best possible ground for excluding him from succession. For ‘no reason or law, religion or wisdom in the world can admit such persons to the government of a commonwealth by whom no good but destruction may be expected to the same’.5

There is far less difference between the views of Doleman and those of Craig or of Hayward than either of the latter were willing to admit.

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