Closing the Sea - Map of China: Decoding the Secrets of a Vanished Cartographer - page 23

tohave read the treatise; indeed heprobably read it inbothits Scottish andEnglish
editions.HemusthaveknownthatJamesupheldthedivinerightofkings.Hemust
also have realised that, if The Historie of Tithes came to the king's attention, this
would not be good. On the other hand, he probably never anticipated that the king
himself would become one of the topic's readers.
Selden'sdefencebeforethekingwastheclassichistorian'splea.Hewassimply
reporting what the historical sources told him, in order to correct erroneous views
thathadnobasisinfactorlaw.'EveryingenuousChristianwouldbegladtoknow'
what he had found, or so he assumed. If erroneous views were left uncorrected,
they would eventually undermine the true legal status of ecclesiastical tithes and
leave the Church without revenue. He saw it as his duty to set matters straight. His
purposewasnottoimpoverishtheChurchbuttosettheologicalargumentasideand
place tithes on a firm, because entirely legal, foundation. 'I doubted not at all', he
explained to James, 'but that it would have been acceptable to the clergy, to whose
disputations and determinations I resolved wholly to leave the point of divine right
of tythes.' His intention, he insisted, was to 'keep myself wholly to the historical
part'.
Itwasn'tthatsimple,andSeldenknewit.Thefactthathepublishedhisstudyin
English instead of Latin is a clear indication that he expected the topic to be read
beyond narrow academic circles - and that he expected controversy. His challenge
to his contemporaries was to understand that the law was an entirely human set of
rules. As he put it later, 'Every law is a contract between the king and the people.'
The king might legislate on behalf of the Church and thereby require tithes to be
paid, but the Church could not legislate on its own behalf, nor could it expect God
to. 'There is no such thing as spiritual jurisdiction', he declared. 'All is civil; the
church's is the same with the lord mayor's.' Selden did not dispute the legal right
of the Church to collect tithes, only its claim that this was the Church's by divine
right.
Unfortunatelyforthoseofuswhowouldliketoeavesdropontheirconversation
four centuries later, there is no record of what exactly passed between the two men
during the two private audiences in which they met to discuss tithes. According
to Selden, he stuck to his views as nicely as possible. He was appropriately sorry
that the bishops were distressed by his evidence that God did not give them the
right to tax the people, but he implied that it was the bishops' problem, not his. He
was just trying to correct mistaken assumptions. Fortunately for Selden, James got
drawn into the discussion and lost interest in whatever was upsetting his bishops.