distrust of any thing that was designed against him; and who, holding his hat in one hand, and with the other the lappet of his cloak, which he had wrapt under his left arm, was in no condition of defence. In this posture he advanced towards the old closet, saluting very civilly, as his custom was those gentlemen who made show of attending him out of respect, as far as the door. And as in lifting up the hangings, with the help of one of them, he stooped to enter, he was suddenly seized by the arms, and by the legs; and at the same instant struck into the body before, with five or six poniards, and from behind, into the nape of the neck, and the throat, which hindered him from speaking one single word of all that he is made to say, or so much as drawing out his sword. All that he could do, was to drag along his murderers, with the last and strongest effort that he could make, struggling and striving till he fell down at the bedsfeet, where some while after, with a deep groan, he yielded up his breath.

The cardinal of Guise, and archbishop of Lyons, who were in the council hall, rising up at the noise, with intention of running to his aid. were made prisoners by the marshals D'Aumont and de Retz; at the same time, the cardinal of Bourbon was also seized in the castle, together with Anne d'Este Duchess of Nemours, and mother of the Guises, and the Prince of Joinville, the Dukes of Elbeuf, and Nemours, Brissac, and Boisdauphin, with many other lords, who were confidents of the Duke, and Pericard his secretary. And in the meantime the grand prevost of the king's house went with his archers to the chamber of the third estate, in the town-house, and there arrested the president Neuilly, the prevost of merchants, the sheriff's Compan

and Cotte-Blanch, who were deputies for Paris, and some other notorious Leaguers.

This being done, the king himself brought the news of it to the queen mother; telling her that now he was a real king, since he had cut off the Duke of Guise. At which that princess being much surprised and moved, asking him if he had made provision against future accidents, he answered her in an angry kind of tone, much differing from his accustomed manner of speaking to her, that she might set her heart at rest, for he had taken order for what might happen, and so went out surlily to go to mass; yet before he went, he sent particularly to cardinal Gondi, and to the cardinal Legat Morosini, and informed them both of what had passed, with his reasons to justify his proceedings.

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THAT government, generally considered, is of divine authority, will admit of no dispute; for whoever will seriously consider, that no man has naturally a right over his own life, so as to murder himself, will find, by consequence, that he has no right to take away another's life; and that no pact betwixt man and man. or of corporations and individuals, or of sovereigns and subjects, can intitle them to this right; so that no offender can lawfully, and without sin, be punished, unless that power be derived from God. It is He who has commissioned magistrates, and authorised them to prevent future crimes, by punishing offenders, and to redress the injured by distributive justice; subjects therefore are accountable to superiors, and the superior to Him alone. For, the sovereign being once invested with lawful authority, the subject has irrevocably given up his power, and the de

pendance of a monarch is alone on God. A king, at his coronation, swears to govern his subjects by the laws of the land, and to maintain the several orders of men under him, in their lawful privileges; and those orders swear allegiance and fidelity to him, but with this distinction, that the failure of the people is punishable by the king, that of the king is only punishable by the King of kings. The people then are not judges of good or ill administration in their king; for it is inconsistent with the nature of sovereignty that they should be so; and if at some times they suffer, through the irregularities of a bad prince, they enjoy more often the benefits and advantages of a good one, as God in his providence shall dispose, either for their blessing or their punishment. The advantages and disadvantages of such subjection, are supposed to have been first considered, and upon this balance they have given up their power without a capacity of resumption; so that it is in vain for a commonwealth party to plead, that men, for example, now in being, cannot bind their posterity, or give up their power; for if subjects can swear only for themselves, when the father dies the subjection ends, and the son, who has not sworn, can be no traitor or offender, either to the king or to the laws. And at this rate, a long-lived prince may outlive his sovereignty, and be no longer lawfully a king; but in the mean time, it is evident, that the son enjoys the benefit of the laws and government, which is an implicit acknowledgment of subjection. It is endless to run through all the extravagancies of these men, and it is enough for us that we are settled under a lawful government of a most gracious prince; that our monarchy is hereditary; that it is naturally poised by our municipal laws, with equal benefit of prince and people;

that he governs, as he has promised, by explicit laws; and what the laws are silent in, I think I may conclude to be part of his prerogative; for what the king has not granted away, is inherent in him. The point of succession has sufficiently been discussed, both as to the right of it, and to the interest of the people: one main argument of the other side is, how often it has been removed from the right line? as in the case of King Stephen, and of Henry the Fourth, and his descendants of the house of Lancaster. But it is easy to answer them, that matter of fact, and matter of right, are different considerations: both those kings were but usurpers in effect, and the providence of God restored the posterities of those who were dispossessed. By the same argument, they might as well justify the rebellion and murder of the late king; for there was not only a prince inhumanly put to death, but a government overturned; and first an arbitrary commonwealth, then two usurpers set up against the lawful sovereign; but, to our happiness, the same providence has miraculously restored the right heir, and, to their confusion, as miraculously preserved him. In this present history, to go no further, we see Henry the Third, by a decree of the Sorbonne, divested, what in them lay, of his imperial rights; a parliament of Paris, such another as our first Long Parliament, confirming their decree; a pope authorising all this by his excommunication; and an Holy League and Covenant prosecuting this deposition by arms: yet an untimely death only hindered him from reseating himself in glory on the throne, after he was in manifest possession of the victory. * We see also

* He was assassinated, by Jaques Clement, on the 2d August, 1589, when he had besieged Paris with every prospect of success.