COXE’s TRAVELS IN DENMARK.

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human laws, and fhall acknowledge, in all ecclefiaftical and civil affairs, no higherpower than God alone. The King {hall enjoy the right of making and interpreting the-laws, of abrogating, adding to, and difpenfing with them. He may alfo annul all thelaws which either he or his predeceffors fliall have made, excepting this royal law,which muff remain irrevocable, and be confidered as the fundamental law of the date.He has the power of declaring war, making peace, impofing taxes,, and levying contri-butions of all forts, &c. See.

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, afterenumerating all the poffible 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 wehave hitherto faid of power and eminence, and fovereignty, and if there is any thing fur-ther which has not been exprefsly fpecified, fhall all be comprifed in the following words;The King of Denmark and Norway fhall be the hereditary monarch,, and endued withthe higheft authority, infomuch that all that can be faid and written to the advantageof a chriftian, hereditary, and abfolute King, fhall be extended under the molt favour-able interpretation, to the hereditary King or Queen of Denmark and Norway, ” See.&c. *

On reviewing the principal circumftances which led to this revolution, we cannot butremark, that the nobles wore the victims of their own imprudence and obftinacy. Hadthey yielded in due time, they might have fecured many of their privileges j but netcomplying until their concurrence was fcarcely neceffary, they could not command anycompenfation for what they could not retain, and furrendered with the moll evidentreluctance. The deputies of the clergy and of the towns were hurried away by theirrefentment againft that order, whofe tyranny they had long experienced, andwhofe fu-ture afcendancy they dreaded; and they were fo warmly animated by their admirationof the King, that they thought no facrifice too great which could affure him of theirconfidence, and teftify their gratitude. Strange infatuation! that they ffiould difeoverno means of humbling their oppreffors, and fecuring their own immunities, without theellabliffiment of an abfolute government! Might they not have Ioofened the King'sfhackles without tearing them off? The referve of the legiflative power, and right oftaxation in the three ellates, would fufficiently have fecured the freedom of the people,as well againft the encroachments of the crown, as againft the infolence of a proud no-bility. But the voice of reafon is feldom heard amid the tumult of public animoftties andthe uproar of faCtion.

“ Thus this great affair,” concludes Lord Molefworth, “ was finiffied; and thekingdom of Denmark , in four days’ time, changed from an eftate little differing, fromariftocracy, to as abfolute a monarchy as any is at prefent in the world.” But thefe ex-preffions have been confidered as too ftrong by feveral of the native hiftorians y. and anEnglifh author f, who wrote againft his account of Denmark by defire of the Daiiilhminifter, 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 thefovereign, according to the expreffions of the royal law, is declared “ independentupon earth, acknowledging no higher power than God ; when he has an unlimited

* The reader will find an abridged extract of. the feveral articles in Molefworth, p. 186; and a French tranfiation in Lettres fur le Dannemarc, p. 118; which tranflation is alfo inferred, in. Mallet’s Hill, de.Dannemarc, vol, iii. p 475.

f King’s Animadverfions on a pretended Account of Denmark , in which the author animadverts uponfeveral mifreprefentations of Lord Molefworth.

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