Page:The English Reports v77 1907.pdf/417

2. Whosoever are born under one natural ligeance and obedience due by the law of nature to one sovereign are natural-born subjects: but Calvin was born under one natural ligeance and obedience, due by the law of nature to one sovereign; ergo, he is a natural-born subject.

[25 a] 3. Whosoever is born within the King's power or protection, is no alien: but Calvin was born under the King's power and protection; ergo he is no alien.

4. Every stranger born must at his birth be either amicus or inimicus: but Calvin at his birth could neither be amicus nor inimicus; ergo he is no stranger born. Inimicus he cannot be, because he is subditus: for that cause also he cannot be amicus; neither now can Scotia be said to be solum amici, as hath been said.

5. Whatsoever is due by the law or constitution of man, may be altered: but natural ligeance or obedience of the subject to the sovereign cannot be altered; ergo natural ligeance or obedience to the sovereign is not due by the law or constitution of man. Again, whatsoever is due by the law of nature, cannot be altered: but ligeance and obedience of the subject to the sovereign is due by the law of nature; ergo it cannot be altered. It hath been proved before, that ligeance or obedience of the inferior to the superior, of the subject to the sovereign, was due by the law of nature many thousand years before any law of man was made; which ligeance or obedience (being the only mark to distinguish a subject from an alien) could not be altered; therefore it remaineth still due by the law of nature. For leges naturæ perfectissimæ sunt et immutabiles, humani vero juris conditio semper in infinitum decurrit, et nihil est in eo quod perpetuo stare possit. Leges humanæ nascuntur, vivunt, moriuntur.

Lastly, whosoever at his birth cannot be an alien to the King of England, cannot be an alien to any of his subjects of England: but the plaintiff at his birth could be no alien to the King of England; ergo the plaintiff cannot be an alien to any of the subjects of England. The major and minor both be propositiones perspicue veræ. For as to the major it is to be observed, that whosoever is an alien born, is so accounted in law, in respect of the King: and that appeareth first, by the pleading so often before remembered, that he must be extra ligeantiam Regis, without any mention making of the subject. 2. When an alien born purchaseth any lands, the King only shall have them, though they be holden of a subject, in which case the subject loseth his seigniory. And as it is said in our books an alien may purchase ad proficuum Regis; but the act of law giveth the alien nothing: and therefore if a woman alien marrieth a subject, she shall not be endowed,^{[N 1]} neither shall an alien be tenant by the curtesy. Vide 3 H. 6. 55 a. 4 H. 3. 179. 3. The subject shall plead that the defendant is an [25 b] alien born, for the benefit of the King, that he upon office found may seize; and 2. that the tenant may yield to the King the land, and not to the alien, because the King hath best right thereunto. 4. Leagues between our sovereign and others are the only means to make aliens friends, et fœdera percutere, to make leagues, only and wholly pertaineth to the King. 5. Wars do make aliens enemies, and bellum indicere belongeth only and wholly to the King, and not to the subject, as appeareth in 19 Ed. 4. 4. fol. 6 b. 6. The King only without the subject may make not only letters of safe conduct, but letters patent of denization, to whom, and how many he will, and enable them at his pleasure to sue any of his subjects in any action whatsoever real or personal, which the King could not do without the subject, if the subject had any interest given unto him by the law in any thing concerning an alien born. Nay, the law is more precise herein than in a number of other cases to of higher nature: for the King cannot grant to any other to make of strangers born, denizens; it is by the law itself so inseparably and individually annexed to his Royal person (as the book is in 20 H. 7. fol. 8). For the law esteemeth it a point of high prerogative, jus majestatis, et inter insignia summæ potestatis to make aliens born subjects of the realm, and capable of the lands and inheritances of England in such sort as any natural born subject is. And therefore by the statute of 27 H. 8. c. 24. many of the most ancient prerogatives and Royal flowers of the Crown, as authority to pardon treason, murther, manslaughter, and felony, power to make justices in eyre, Justices of Assise, justices of peace, and gaol delivery, and such like, having been severed and divided