Note 252 — Chapter III
Reading edition
Questions were put to civilians by the queen's order in 1570, concerning the extent of Lesley, Bishop of Ross's privilege, as Mary's ambassador. Murden Papers, p. 18; Somers Tracts, i. 186. They answered, first, that an ambassador that raises rebellion against the prince to whom he is sent, by the law of nations, and the civil law of the Romans, has forfeited the privileges of an ambassador, and is liable to punishment: secondly, that if a prince be lawfully deposed from his public authority, and another substituted in his stead, the agent of such a prince cannot challenge the privileges of an ambassador; since none but absolute princes, and such as enjoy a royal prerogative, can constitute ambassadors. These questions are so far curious, that they show the jus gentium to have been already reckoned in matter of science, in which a particular class of lawyers was conversant.