Legislative power, but the execution of Law hath been left
in their Kings, who were (no more than what all Kings
should be) meere elective officers in Trust for that end, by
which means Poland keeps its Liberty to this time in a good
measure, though they begin to lose it every day by letting in
French Interests and humors among them. As for Bohemia,
it is quite lost there already, the Emperor having by force of
Arms turned both the Powers into the Channel of his own
will and Prerogative. But this is more than ever he hath been
able to doe at home; for, though he be the first in dignity among
Christian Princes, yet so limited and restrained, that
he cannot by law so much as wage warr, nor make Levies of
men or money, but by consent of the German diet or Parliament;
so that the Power of Lawmaking being lodged here,
and the Execution left in the Emperor, whilst these Powers
run in two distinct Channels, those Countries may make a
shift to retain their Freedom. But if ever he turn the Courf
of one of them into his Cabinet at Vienna (as he often hath
attempted) and so both of them into one, then there will be
an end indeed of the Libertyes of Germany.
France likewise was once as free as any Nation under heaven,
though the King of late hath done all, and been all in all.
Till the time of Lewis the eleventh, he was no more but an
Officer of State, regulated by Law, to see the Laws put in execution;
and the Legislative power, that rested in the Assembly
of the 3. Estates; but Lewis, by snatching both these powers
into the single hands of himself and his successors, rook't
them of their Liberty; which they may now recover again, if
they have but so much manhood as to reduce the two Powers
into their antient, or into better Channels.
This patern of Lewis was followed close by the late Tyrant
in England; who by our antient Laws was the same here that
Lewis ought to have been in France, an officer in Trust to see
to the execution of the Laws, but by aiming at the same ends
which Lewis attained, and straining by the ruin of Parliaments
to reduce the Legislative power, as well as the Executive
into his own hands, he instead of an absolute Tyranny,