historical and political thought in the seventeenth - RePub - Erasmus ...

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Chapter 5. Times of trouble. Taking a stand
even rebellions could follow, but the essential nature of England’s polity never
changed, nor was it ever called into question. The civil wars of the 1640s, however,
had resulted in ‘a great conversion and change’. That is, it had produced
a new English polity without a monarchical element. 194
In what can be called the second part of the Metamorphosis Anglorum the
same argument is brought forward, now, however, by material gathered from
works that were written in immediate response to the events in England in
the 1640s. This material contains the introduction and the first chapter of Salmasius’s
Defensio regia (Royal Defence, 1649), Lex terrae (Law of the Land, 1648)
of David Jenkins (1582-1663), and some 65 pages of the History of Independency
(1648) of Clement Walker (c.1599-1651). 195 From albeit different angles,
all three men defend the English monarchy and denounce a parliamentarian
regime without a king as illegal. England, Salmasius claimed, had been a
monarchy since the very beginning. Now that the king was executed that ‘old
government of the kingdom, that was commonly ruled by one’ was changed
‘into another, held by many tyrants, against all human law and divine law,
against the laws of the kingdom, against the loyalty of her oath, and against
the solemn agreement of that compact, that was initiated between the two
kingdoms’. 196 Jenkins maintained that ‘the King is King by an inhaerent birth-
desperate need of money. Boxhorn, Metamorphosis Anglorum, p. 291. The Parliament at Berwick was a
Scottish one, held after the surrender of John I Balliol (1249-c.1313), the king of Scotland, at Montrose
(1296). Richard Oram, The King and Queens of Scotland (Tempus Publishing; Stroud, 2006), pp. 112-15.
194 Boxhorn, Metamorphosis Anglorum, p. 304. ‘Inter haec Angliae, Scotiae, Hiberniaeque Rex Carolus
I. regnorumque Proceres, subditique, in contraria scissi studia, maximi terroris motibus bellisque
domi inter se committuntur. Ex quibus, capto tandem rege, & securi ab Anglis publice percusso, regiaque
omni sobole regio nomine ac jure exuta, magna conversio rerum ac mutatio facta est.’
195 Boxhorn ends where Walker is talking about the instalment of the ‘three committee-men’ who
will have ‘power to Imprison and Sequester all such as actually adhere to any that shall raise or endeavour
to raise Tumults and Insurrections; or shall speak or publish anything reproachful to the Parliament,
or their proceedings.’ These men could ‘judge and execute according to their discretion, without Law,
or so much as a formality thereof.’ Boxhorn reckoned this to be the end of English liberty: ‘Vale Anglica
Libertas.’ Clement Walker, Relations and Observations, Historicall and Politick, upon the Parliament, begun
Anno Dom. 1640. : Divided into II. Bookes: 1. The Mystery of the Two Iunto’s, Presbyterian and Independent.
2. The History of Independency, &c.: Together with an Appendix, Touching the Proceedings of the Independent
Faction in Scotland (?; London?, 1648), pp. 90-91, and Boxhorn, Metamorphosis Anglorum, p. 466.
In the Metamorphosis Anglorum Boxhorn also uses the Apophthegmata of Charles I. They were published
in 1649 attached to William Dugard’s version of the Eikon Basilike. Later, there followed three separate
editions. See Eikon Basilike: The Portraiture of His Sacred Majesty in His Solitudes and Sufferings. Edited by
Philip A. Knachel (Cornell University Press; New York, 1966), pp. 15-16. In 1650 there appeared a Latin
edition of the Apophthegmata in The Hague, published by the royalist printer Samuel Brown. Apophthegmata
aurea regia Carolina: ex libro Eikon Basilike collecta.
196 Salmasius, Defensio regia, p. 32, and Boxhorn, Metamorphosis Anglorum, p. 333. ‘Isti sunt qui regem
judicarunt, qui condemnarunt inauditum, qui securi percusserunt, qui regimen regni antiquum ab uno
temperari solitum in alium qui à pluribus tyrannis teneatur mutare praesumpserunt, contra jus, contra
fas, contra leges Regni, contra sacramenti sui fidem, contra solennem conventionis pactionem quae inter
duo regna inita fuerat …’ Salmasius was, of course, a staunch defender of the royal prerogative and of
monarchical rule. However, compared to chapters six and seven of the Defensio regia, the introduction
and the first chapter of the work are less ‘absolutistic’ in tone. See Claude Salmasius, Defensio Regia: