duty to your Majesty, and in trust to that house of Parliament, and in consent to the matter itself, and in conformity to mine own travels and beginnings, not to neglect any pains that may tend to the furtherance of so excellent a work. Wherein I will endeavour that that which I shall set down be nihil minus quam verba. For length and ornament of speech are to be used for persuasion of multitudes, and not for information of kings; especially such a king as is the only instance that ever I knew to make a man of Plato's opinion, that all knowledge is but remembrance; and that the mind of man knoweth all things, and demandeth only to have her own notions excited and awaked. Which your Majesty's rare and indeed singular gift and faculty of swift apprehension, and infinite expansion or multiplication of another man's knowledge by your own, as I have often observed, so I did extremely admire in Goodwin's cause; being a matter full of secrets and mysteries of our laws, merely new unto you, and quite out of the path of your education, reading, and conference: wherein, nevertheless, upon a spark of light given, your Majesty took in so dexterously and profoundly, as if you had been indeed anima legis, not only in execution, but in understanding: the remembrance whereof, as it will never be out of my mind, so it will always be a warning to me to seek rather to excite your judgment briefly, than to inform it tediously; and if in a matter of that nature, how much more in this, wherein your princely cogitations have wrought themselves, and been conversant; and wherein the principal light proceeded from yourself.

And therefore my purpose is only to break this matter of the Union into certain short articles and questions; and to make a certain kind of anatomy or analysis of the parts and members thereof. Not that I am of opinion that all the questions which I now shall open were fit to be in the consultation of the Commissioners propounded. For I hold nothing so great an enemy to good resolution as the making of too many questions; specially in assemblies which consist of many. For Princes, for avoiding of distraction, must take many things by way of admittance; and if questions must be made of them, rather to suffer them to arise from others, than to grace them and authorise them as propounded from themselves. But unto your Majesty's private consideration, to whom it may better sort with me rather to speak as a remembrancer than as a counsellor, I have thought

good to lay before you all the branches, lineaments, and degrees of this Union; that upon the view and consideration of them and their circumstances, your Majesty may the more clearly discern and more readily call to mind which of them is to be embraced, and which to be rejected; and of those which are to be accepted, which of them is presently to be proceeded in, and which to be put over to further time; and again, which of them shall require authority of Parliament, and which are fitter to be effected by your Majesty's royal power and prerogative, or by other policies or means; and lastly, which of them is liker to pass with difficulty and contradiction, and which with more facility and smoothness. First, therefore, to begin with that question, that I suppose will be out of question.

Statutes Whether it be not meet, that the statutes which were made concerning Scotland touching Scotland or the Scottish nation while the kingdoms and the stood severed, be repealed?

Scottish nation.

It is true, there is a diversity in these; for some of these laws consider Scotland as an enemy country; other laws consider it as a foreign country only as for example, the law of Rich. II. anno 7°. which prohibiteth all armour or victual to be carried to Scotland; and the law of 7° of K. Henry VII. that enacteth all the Scottish men to depart the realm within a time prefixed; both these laws, and some others, respect Scotland as a country of hostility: but the law of 22° of Edward IV. that endueth Barwick with the liberty of a Staple, where all Scottish merchandises should resort that should be uttered for England, and likewise all English merchandises that should be uttered for Scotland; this law beholdeth Scotland only as a foreign nation; and not so much neither; for there have been erected Staples in towns of England for some commodities, with an exclusion and restriction of other parts of England.

But this is a matter of the least difficulty; your Majesty shall have a calendar made of the laws, and a brief of the effect; and so you may judge of them: and the like or reciproque is to be done by Scotland for such laws as they have concerning England and the English nation.

Laws, cus- The second question is, what laws, customs, commissions, toms, com- officers, garrisons, and the like, are to be put down, discontinued, officers of or taken away, upon the borders of both realms.

missions,

these: Res.

To this point, because I am not acquainted with the the borders orders of the Marches, I can say the less.

or mar

ches.

Herein falleth that question, whether that the tenants. who hold their tenant rights in a greater freedom and exemption in consideration of their service upon the borders, and that the countries themselves which are in the same respect discharged of subsidies and taxes, should not now be brought to be in one degree with other tenants and countries; nam cessante causa, tollitur effectus. Wherein, in my opinion, some time would be given; quia adhuc eorum messis in herba est: but some present ordinance would be made to take effect at a future time; considering it is one of the greatest points and marks of the division of the kingdoms. And because reason doth dictate that where the principal solution of continuity was, there the healing and consolidating plaister should be chiefly applied; there would be some further device for the utter and perpetual confounding of those imaginary bounds, (as your Majesty termeth them) : and therefore it would be considered, whether it were not convenient to plant and erect at Carlisle or Barwick some counsel or court of justice, the jurisdiction whereof might extend part into England and part into Scotland; with a commission not to proceed precisely or merely according to the laws and customs either of England or Scotland, but mixtly, according to instructions by your Majesty to be set down, after the imitation and precedent of the Counsel of the Marches here in England erected, upon the union of Wales. The third question is that which many will make a great ques- Further tion of, though perhaps your Majesty will make no question of sides the it; and that is, whether your Majesty should not make a stop or removing stand here, and not to proceed to any further union; contenting venient yourself with the two former articles or points.

union be

of incon

and dis

senting

For it will be said, that we are now well (thanks be to God laws and and your Majesty), and the state of neither kingdom is to usages. be repented of; and that it is true which Hippocrates saith, that Sana corpora difficile medicationes ferunt; it is better to make alterations in sick bodies than in sound. The consideration of which point will rest upon these two branches : what inconveniences will ensue with time, if the realms 1 To om. in R.

Points

wherein

stand al

ready united.

stand, as they are, divided, which are yet not found nor sprung up. For it may be the sweetness of your Majesty's first entrance, and the great benefit that both nations have felt thereby, hath covered many inconveniences, which nevertheless, be your Majesty's government never so gracious and politic, continuance of time and the accidents of time may breed and discover, if the kingdoms stand divided.

The second branch is; allow no manifest or important peril or inconvenience should ensue of the continuing of the kingdoms divided; yet on the other side, whether that upon the further uniting of them there he not like to follow that addition and increase of wealth and reputation, as is worthy your Majesty's virtues and fortune to be the author and founder of, for the advancement and exaltation of your Majesty's royal posterity in time to come.

But admitting that your Majesty should proceed to this more the nations perfect and entire union; wherein your Majesty may say, Majus opus moveo; to enter into the parts and degrees thereof, I think fit first to set down, as in a brief table, in what points the nations stand now at this present time already united, and in what points yet still severed and divided; that your Majesty may the better see what is done, and what is to be done; and how that which is to be done is to be inferred upon that which is done.

Sovereignty, line

Royal.

The points wherein the nations stand already united are:
In sovereignty.

In the relative thereof, which is subjection.

In religion.

In continent.

In language.

And now lastly, by the peace by your Majesty concluded with Spain, in leagues and confederacies: for now both nations have the same friends and the same enemies. Yet notwithstanding there is none of the six points, wherein the union is perfect and consummate; but every of them hath some scruple or rather grain of separation inwrapped and included in them.

For the Sovereignty, the union is absolute in your Majesty and your generation; but if it should so be (which God of his infinite mercy defend) that your issue should fail, then the descent of both realms doth resort to the several lines of the several bloods royal.

dience.

turaliza

For Subjection, I take the law of England to be clear, Subjec(what the law of Scotland is I know not), that all Scottish- tion, obemen, from the very instant of your Majesty's reign begun, are become denizens; and the post-nati are naturalized sub- Alien, najects of England for the time forwards: for by our laws tion. none can be an Alien but he that is of another allegiance than our sovereign lord the King's: for there be but two sorts of Aliens, whereof we find mention in our law, an Alien Ami, and an Alien Enemy; whereof the former is a subject of a state in amity with the King, and the latter a subject of a state in hostility; but whether he be one or other, it is an essential difference unto the definition of an Alien, if1 he be not of the King's allegiance; as we see it evidently in the precedent of Ireland, who since they were subjects to the crown of England, have ever been inheritable and capable as natural subjects; and yet not by any statute or act of Parliament, but merely by the common law, and the reason thereof. So as there is no doubt that every subject of Scotland was and is in like plight and degree, since your Majesty's coming in, as if your Majesty had granted particularly your letters of denization or naturalization to every of them; and the post-nati wholly natural. But then on the other side, for the time backwards, and for those that were ante-nati, the blood is not by law naturalized, so as they cannot take it by descent from their ancestors, without act of Parliament: and therefore in this point there is a defect in the union of subjection.

For matter of Religion, the union is perfect in points of Religion, church godoctrine; but in matter of discipline and government it is vernment. imperfect.

borders.

For the Continent, it is true there are no natural boun- Continent, daries of mountains, or seas, or navigable rivers; but yet there are badges and memorials of borders; of which point I have spoken before.

dialect.

For the Language, it is true the nations are unius labii, and Language, and have not the first curse of disunion, which was confusion of tongues, whereby one understood not another. But yet the dialect is differing, and it remaineth a kind of mark of distinction. But for that, tempori permittendum, it is to be

1 that: MS.