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308 COXE’S TRAVELS IN DENMARK.
human laws, and fhall acknowledge, in all ecclefiaftical and civil affairs, no higher
pewer than God alone. The King fhall enjoy the right of making and interpreting the
laws,of abrogating, adding to, and difpenfing with them. He may alfo annul all the
Jaws which either he or his predeceflors fhall have made, excepting this royal law,
which mutt remain irrevocable, and be confidered as the fundamental law of the ftate.
He has the power of declaring war, making peace, impofing taxes, and levying contri-
butions of all forts, &c. &c.
Then follow the regulations for the order of fucceffion, the regency in cafe of mino-
rity, for the majority of the King, for the maintenance of the royal family ; and, after
enumerating all the poflible prerogatives of regal uncircumfcribed authority, as if fuffi-
cient had not yet been laid down, it is added in the twenty-fixth article: ‘* All that we
have hitherto faid of power and eminence, and fovereignty, and if there is any thing fur-
ther which has not been exprefsly fpecified, {hall all be comprifed in the following words:
‘The King of Denmark and Norway fhall be the hereditary monarch, and endued with
the higheft authority, infomuch that all that can be faid and written to the advantage
of achriftian, hereditary, and abfolute King, fhall be extended under the moft favour-
able interpretation, to the hereditary King or Queen of Denmark and Norway,” &c.
dc. *
On reviewing the principal circumftances which led to this revolution, we cannot but
remark, that the nobles were the victims of their own imprudence and obftinacy. Had
they yielded in due time, they might have fecured many of their privileges; but not
complying until their concurrence was {carcely neceflary, they could not command any
compenfation for what they could not retain, and furrendered with the moft evident
reluctance. The deputies of the clergy and of the towns were hurried away by their
refentment again{t that order, whofe tyranny they had long experienced, and whofe fu-
ture afcendancy they dreaded; and they were fo warmly animated by their admiration
of the King, that they thought no facrifice too great which could affure him of their
confidence, and teftify their gratitude. Strange infatuation! that they fhould difcover
no means of humbling their oppreflors, and fecuring their own immunities, without the
eflablifhment of an abfolute government! Might they not have loofened the King’s
fhackles without tearing them off? The referve of the legiflative power, and right of
taxation in the three eftates, would fufficiently have fecured the freedom of the people,
as well againit the encroachments of the crown, as again{t the infolence of a proud no-
bility. But the voice of reafon is feldom heard amid the tumult of public animofities and
the uproar of faction.
** Thus this great affair,’’ concludes Lord Molefworth, “ was finifhed; and the
kingdom of Denmark, in four days’ time, changed from an eftate little differing from
ariltocracy, to as abfolute a monarchy as any is at prefent in the world.”” But thefe ex-
preflions have been confidered as too ftrong by feveral of the native hiftorians; and an
i¢nglifh author f, who wrote againft his account of Denmark by defire of the Danifh
minifter, has contradicted his conclufion; becaufe Frederic III. did not abufe his power,
and becaufe he confirmed the privileges of the different orders. But furely when the
fovereign, according to the expreffions of the royal law, is declared ‘ independent
upon earth, acknowledging no higher power than God; when he has an unlimited
* The reader will find an abridged extrac of the feveral articles in Molefworth, p. 186; anda French
tranflation in Lettres fur le Dannemarc, p. 118; which tranflation is alfo inferted in Mallet’s Hilt. de
Dannemarc, vol. til. p 475.
} King’s Animadverfions on a pretended Account of Denmark, in whigh the author animadverts upon
feveral mifreprefentations of Lord Molefworth.
authority
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