Edward Coke Quotes

But the king should not be under any man, only under God and the law, for the law makes the king. Let the king therefore attribute to the law what the law attributes to him, namely lordship and power, for there is no king where will rules and not the law.

The king ought not to be under any man, but under God and under the law, for the law makes the king. Rex non debet esse sub homine sed sub Deo et lege, quia lex facit regem.

Kings and rulers stand in the place of God on earth, and it is through them, as secondary causes, that God exercises governance over the world.

Let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarcy, that in America the law is King. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.

... in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.

The authority of a king is the keystone which closeth up the arch of order and government

The person of the king is sacred and secure from everything. Doing nothing of himself, he shall be answerable for nothing to the nation. He shall not be autocrat but father and chief of the nation, and as such the present law and constitution deems and declares him to be.

A people may let a king fall and still remain a people, but if a king let his people slip from him, he is no longer a king.

The king must sometimes govern by acts of state as well as acts of law.

Political power, considered in general, not descending in particular to monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy, comes directly from God alone.

All empire is no more than power in trust.

Kings are for nations in swaddling clothes.

All kings that are not tyrants, or perjured, will be glad to bound themselves within the limits of their laws.

It is atheism and blasphemy to dispute what God can do; so it is presumption and contempt to dispute what a king can do, or say that a king cannot do this or that.

[There] are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings.

O kings, exercise your power then boldly, for it is divine and salutary for human kind, but exercise it with humility. You are endowed with it from without. At bottom it leaves you feeble, it leaves you mortal, it leaves you sinners, and charges you before God with a very heavy account.

It is certain that, so soon as the people submit to a king, really such, they have no longer the supreme power.

In republics the executive must be strongest because everything conspires against it, while in monarchies the legislature must be strongest, because everything conspires in favour of the monarch

… let them who cry up the divine right of Kings consider, that the only form of government which had a proper claim to a divine establishment was so far from including the idea of a King, that it was a high crime for Israel to ask to be in this respect like other nations.

He that is for a government of laws is for the government of God. And he that is for a government of man is for government of a beast.

If we carefully consider what our constitution is, we will conclude that it is, in fact, a limited monarchy.

But where, says some, is the King of America? I'll tell you. Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain.

The king is as much bound by his oath not to infringe the legal rights of the people, as the people are bound to yield subjection to him. From whence it follows that as soon as the prince sets himself above the law, he loses the king in the tyrant. He does, to all intents and purposes, un-king himself.

Even respectable characters speak of a monarchical form of government without horror.

Never had Parliament or the crown, or both together, operated in actuality as theory indicated sovereign powers should.