In the early thirteenth century, the jurist Azo noted “quilibet rex hodie videtur eandem potestatem habere in terra sua quam imperator, ergo potuit facere quod sibi placet” (“today it seems that each king has the same power in his land as the emperor; therefore he can act as it pleases him”). Azo recognizes that questions of jurisdiction, sovereignty, and kingship are intertwined. In fact, he combines two influential maxims here. The first, rex in regno suo est imperator regni sui, was at the heart of the last chapter. The second maxim suggests something of the focus of the current chapter: “quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem” (“what pleased the prince has the force of law”). In this chapter, then, we move from supranational conflicts of jurisdiction to the specific sovereignty of the king in relation to his own laws. In the process, we also turn from Book 2 of the Confessio Amantis to Book 7.

In Book 7, Gower's political theory centers on one legal crux: the relation between the separate authority of king and law. More specifically, the problem concerns the validity of two seemingly conflicting legal ideas, once again conveniently expressed in maxim form. On the one hand, we have the notion that the law makes the king - in Bracton's words, “facit enim lex quod ipse sit rex” (“for the law makes that he himself is king” 2:306). On the other hand, Gower also tells us that the king is “legibus solutus,” or above the law.