Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/231

Rh assert that a proximity of blood gives a divine right, as some of their ministers (who ought to be more wise or honest) have lately advanced in this very case to the title of Spain; do they not, by allowing a French succession, make their own kings usurpers? Or, if the salique law be divine, is it not of universal obligation, and consequently of force to exclude France from inheriting by daughters? Or, lastly, if that law be of human institution, may it not be enacted in any state, with whatever extent or limitarion the legislature shall think fit? for the notion of an unchangeable human law, is an absurdity in government, to be believed only by ignorance, and supported by power. Hence it follows, that the children of the late queen of France, although she had renounced, were as legally excluded from succeeding to Spain, as if the salique law had been fundamental in that kingdom; since that exclusion was established by every power in Spain which could possibly give a sanction to any law there; and therefore the duke of Anjou's title is wholly founded upon the bequest of his predecessor (which has great authority in that monarchy, as it formerly had in ours) upon the confirmation of the cortes, and the general consent of the people.

It is certain, the faith of princes is so frequently subservient to their ambition, that renunciations have little validity, otherwise than from the powers and parties whose interest it is to support them. But this renunciation, which the queen has exacted from the French king and his grandson, I take to be armed with all the essential circumstances that can fortify such an act: for, as it is necessary for the security of every prince in Europe, that those two great doms