You must remember I am the King of England. When you are a king you can’t go executing people as the fancy takes you. A king is the head of his people, and he must stand as an example to them, and do as they wish.

The king is a public person, the needs of the realm are his crown. Reigning is not an amusement but a task. A bad king is he who enjoys his State, a good one he who serves it.

It is the duty of a king to enforce, if he can, those royal laws which have become proverbial owing to their principles of justice and mercy. But if owing to change of time and circumstances he is unable to enforce the laws of the ancients (i.e. ancient Muslim rulers), he should, with the counsel of wise men… frame laws suited to his time and circumstances and proceed to enforce them. Much reflection is necessary in order that laws, suited to his reign, are properly framed.

The very essence of civil liberty certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws whenever he receives an injury. One of the first duties of government is to afford that protection. In Great Britain, the King himself is sued in the respectful form of a petition, and he never fails to comply with the judgment of his court. In the third volume of his Commentaries, page 23, Blackstone states two cases in which a remedy is afforded by mere operation of law. "In all other cases," he says, "it is a general and indisputable rule that where there is a legal right, there is also a legal remedy by suit or action at law whenever that right is invaded." And afterwards, page 109 of the same volume, he says, "I am next to consider such injuries as are cognizable by the Courts of common law. And herein I shall for the present only remark that all possible injuries whatsoever that did not fall within the exclusive cognizance of either the ecclesiastical, military, or maritime tribunals are, for that very reason, within the cognizance of the common law courts of justice, for it is a settled and invariable principle in the laws of England that every right, when withheld, must have a remedy, and every injury its proper redress." The Government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right.

The divine right of Kings, is, like the divine right of Constables, the law of the land, or even actual and quiet possession of their office, a right, ratified we humbly presume by the divine approbation, so long as obedience to their authority appears to be necessary, or conducive to the common welfare. Princes are ordained of God by virtue only of that general decree, by which he assents, and adds the sanction of his will, to every law of society, which promotes his own purpose, the communication of human happiness.

That the king can do no wrong, is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution.

God gives not kings the style of gods in vain, For on His Throne His sceptre do they sway; And as their subjects ought them to obey,
So kings should fear and serve their God again.
If then ye would enjoy a happy reign, Observe the statutes of your Heavenly King, And from His Law make all your laws to spring,
Since His lieutenant here ye should remain: Reward the just; be steadfast, true, and plain; Repress the proud, maintaining aye the right; Walk always so as ever in His sight,
Who guards the godly, plaguing the profane, And so ye shall in princely virtues shine, Resembling right your mighty king divine.

[I]f they mean by these Lovers of Commonwealth Principles, Men passionately devoted to the Publick Good, and to the common Service of their Country, who believe that Kings were instituted for the good of the People, and Government ordained for the sake of those that are to be governed, and therefore complain or grieve when it is used to contrary ends, every wise and honest Man will be proud to be ranked in that number.

The prejudice of Englishmen, in favour of their own government by king, lords and commons, arises as much or more from national pride than reason. Individuals are undoubtedly safer in England than in some other countries, but the will of the king is as much the law of the land in Britain as in France, with this difference, that instead of proceeding directly from his mouth, it is handed to the people under the more formidable shape of an act of parliament. For the fate of Charles the first, hath only made kings more subtle — not more just.

To protect those least able to protect themselves. That much, at least, has not changed. That was ever the sole purpose and duty of kingship. Since the beginning of time it has not changed.

A just king must be the first to observe those laws that he has himself prescribed.

1)It is better that ten guilty escape than one innocent suffer.

2)That the king can do no wrong is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution.

3)Men was formed for society, and is neither capable of living alone, nor has the courage to do it.

4)The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual's private rights.

Shepherds of the flock should . . . seek the good of their flock, and every ruler the good of the people subject to him.

Ritson: "That same power, one may answer, which authorises kings to take where it can be worst spared, and give it where it is least wanted. Our hero, in this respect, was a knight-errant; and wanted no other commission than that of justice, whose cause he militated."