Selected quad for the lemma: act_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
act_n	king_n	law_n	prerogative_n	3,673	5	10.4433	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A90635	The divine catastrophe of the kingly family of the house of Stuarts or, a short history of the rise, reign, and ruine thereof. Wherein the most secret and chamber-abominations of the two last kings are discovered, divine justice in King Charles his overthrow vindicated, and the Parliaments proceedings against him clearly justified, by Sir Edward Peyton, knight and baronet, a diligent observer of those times.	Peyton, Edward, Sir, 1588?-1657.	1652 (1652)	Wing P1952; Thomason E1291_1; ESTC R208989	41,016	159

never have had Parliaments after then they would have been like Deer put in a toyle and would have proved in the second degree after us slaves of which slavery they were principal authors Open your eyes yee Cavaliers and see what nooze you had prepared for your own necks when it had been too late to get your heads out after the conquest and Parliament ruined Look into France when the Parliament Estates were destroyed they were no better then slaves How many of the Nobility suffered as Montmorancy Count of Soysons Bouillon and others and the people generally so miserable as they can hardly live For Bills of Grace I see no authority for it a Prerogative intended only by the power of kings for people when they chuse one to rule over them would justly be dealt with and not harshly when obedient for then the Soveraigne ought to be loving to them and a father to them But when the king takes his sword to fight with his subjects they ought to defend themselves especially the Parliament which is the highest appeal for any wrong offered by the king Therefore it was that our common Law allowed every one a plea upon a Writ justifying any against the Crown for taking away of real and personal estate Also if Magna Charta forbids any free man to he imprisoned and allows him an Habeas Corpus much more life may be preserved and defended by the sword for upon an Indictment of man slaughter in se defendendo it is a good plea to save his life in his defence although he kill the other If any one defend his estate against the king much more life may be defended by a Parliamentary power which is of a higher nature if every subject then the Parliament which represents the whole body may raise an army if the people be willing to undergo it on purpose to defend their lives All Warrants of peace and good behaviour were made in the kings name so then if the king raise an army to murther his subjects he hath lost to be a defender of them and hath suspended or rather lost his Perogative of Soveraignty for every subject may kill one another when there is no power to restraine them and the king cannot defend when he raiseth a power to kill them The King had two capacities one as a King another as proprietor of Lands Honors and Seigniories when he lost his first capacity the Parliament which is the representative in right of the people might justly assume the supream authority to themselves to defend those the king would murther for the people first granted or suffered kings to have authority over them for their good but when the King abuseth it he ceases to be any longer their King but becomes a cruel Tyrant and then he may be justly tryed in his second capacity as a Subject and lose his life forfeit lands and goods by the Parliament the supreme Judges And therefore it was that Richard the third before Henry the seventh conquered him was held a lawful king and Henry the seventh attaint as a Rebel by Parliament but after the Conquest Henry the seventh his Attainder was reversed and Richard the third affirmed to be a Tyrant This declares positively that Parliaments have onely power to ratifie and annul kings and no other For else by power any one may be a Soveraigne without the Parliaments approbation but never any ascended the Throne that was not confirmed by Parliament not only in way of Ceremony but essentially and really performed by an Act to allow and ratifie the present King or else he could not lawfully govern Besides the King takes an oath at his Coronation to maintaine all the priviledges of the people but when he brings them to oppression and Tyranny he is perjured and loseth the title of a father and protector of his people and is in the capacity of an enemy to the Commonwealth Many examples are in the world that Kings when they became Tyrants have been deposed and killed as in Muscovy among the Turkes Babylonians Persians Greeks and Romanr and he who is an enemy to the Commonwealth deserveth to die by all Laws Humane and Divine Kings have augmented their prerogatives and so by intrusion have tyrannized over the Subject for they have in the interim of Parliaments had prerogatives to pardon Manslaughter and such as are expressed in the Acts of Parliament and by their greatness they incroached their power for Kings could not take away the life of any Subject but by Indictment and Arraignment and that by a Jury of twelve men who must finde the Delinquent guilty or not guilty not in Parliaments but in the interim of them wherefore King Charles his coming with an armed power to take out the five members was a high breach of priviledge and for declaring he would break the neck of Parliaments he deserved to be dethroned this was to destroy the right of his Subjects so that they should have no property in estate real or personal nor life for while the Parliament sate he ought not to question any and afterwards he could not take away the life and estate of any without a Jury but it would be questioned the next Parliament as many Presidents in the Rolls of Parliament sheweth A Parliament is a free place where every one ought to speak their mind freely for the good of their Country Now it was the fashion of King James and King Charles when anyspoke for the good of the people to corrupt them with preferment and make them Royalists who were afore for the Commonwealth preferment drawing them opposite to the Commonwealth as Sir Henry Yelverton Sir John Savill Sergeant Glanvile Sir Robert Heath my Lord of Strafford and Master Noye but Master Noye shewed afore his death a great remorse for it to some of his intimate friends It was greatness so bewitched them and increased the kings power to wit by preferment and honors insomuch as Sir Edward Hoby a factious Gentleman at a Committee in the Parliament chosen to punish some boyes that abused old Master Jordans Gloves certaine boyes being proved to be the authors of that Roguery the Committee debated what School-masters should correct them whether Westminster or Pauls Sir Edward Hoby I say told the Comittee he had found out one would lash on both sides meaning Master Yelverton Sir Henry being newly chosen Sollicitor-General for the king to signe Bils of Grace which was only in Parliament to be done when Lotds and Commons had signed them afore but out of Parliaments the kings had no such right It s true kings might in interim of Parliament upon an invasion raise an Army and impose monys upon many of the Subjects but this was authorized by Parliament and if he did amiss it was questioned the next Parliament This shewes plainly that the Parliament had the power not the Royalty It is true kings had a power to call Parliaments so have the Beadles in the Universities power of

opinion disavowed by all Orthodox Divines And many other false opinions were maintained in that age as that Solomon was damned an Amanuenses of the Scripture The second example is the Lord Riches Lady named Penelope who was divorced to make way for the Lo. Montjoy's lust Earl of Devonshire What shall I say more Did not king Iames his minions and favorites rule the kingdom in the person of the king who were five in number since his approach upon English ground to wit Sir George Humes Earl of Dunbar Sir Philip Herbert after Earl of Montgomery and Pembrook Sir Iames Hayes Earl of Carlile and Sir Robert Car Earl of Sommerset who defiled his hands in Overbury's death that wicked divorce ushering the murther This Sommerset being elected of the Council furnished his Library onely with twenty Play-books and wanton Romances and had no other in his Study A Lord very like to give wise counsel This Lord with his Lady were questioned for the murther and the Lieutenant of the Tower Sir George Elloways was hanged but for concealing of it king Iames being willing with this accusation to make passage for another favorite which was Sir George Villiers after Duke of Buckingham who by his greatness vitiated many gentile and noble virgins in birth though vitious for yeelding to his lust whose greatness opened the door to allure them more To please this favorite King Iames gave way for the Duke to entice others to his will Two examples I will recite first the King entertained Sir Iohn Crafts and his Daughter a beautiful lass at Newmarket to sit at the Table with the King This he did then to procure Buckingham the easier to vitiate her Secondly Mrs Dorothy Gamay being a rare creature King Iames carried Buckingham to Gulford to have his will on that Beauty but Sir Nicholas Bacon's Sons conveyed her out of a window into a private chamber over the leads and so disappointed the Duke of his wicked purpose In which cleanly conveyance the Author had a hand with the Knights Sons Truly that day a sober man was hard to be seen in King Prince and Nobles Moreover it was an art King Iames used for these favourites to be skreens to decline the hatred of his People when complained of in Parliament and when questioned they were spunges to be squeezed to to fill his Coffers One story I wil relate more remarkable then the rest the king very timerous of death from the contrivings of Pope and Spaine wrote a Letter to the Pope that he would tolerate Popery when he brought affaires to his bent in Great Britaine The Letter discovered by a lucky chance to the seven yeers Parliament and complained of in the Remonstrance to the king he made the Scotish Secretary own this act and affirm it was his and not the kings promising him to take him off at last with advancement but contrary it occasioned the Secretaries ruine Here by the way I must play the Cook to lard three several occurrences not impertinent to the matter in hand The first was that Secretary Winnode took a bribe of 20000 pound to redeliver the four Cautionary Townes in Holland to the Dutch which we now may see might have curbed the States from prejudicing England Another was king Iames his weakness to give way to Gundamore to take away Sir Walter Rawliegh's life who might have vexed Philip the second of Spaine A third was to sell Iron Ordnance discover the art of their Carriages which all the world was ignorant of This last favourite George Duke of Buckingham advanced to such power with his Mother rewarded the king with poyson by a poysoning water and a plaister made of the Oyle of Toads This Duke from a private Gentleman with an annuity of thirty pound a yeer for life was raised to such a mount of glory and power to be Master of Horse Master of the Wards Liveries Admiral of England and Lord Warden of the Cinq-ports A Lord tall of stature amiable countenance who like a ravenous kyte ingrossed all into his hands to inrich and advance his kindred and to place and displace whom he listed so that this Lord was grown so potent his Master stood in awe of him in such sort that when the king was sick of the Gout he would remove him from place to place at pleasure against the kings will who to work his ends wrought into favour with the rifing Phebus king Charles The king prying into this way of his Successor set a bold Courtier Doctor Turner a float to bring the Earl of Bristol then out to launch into favou but the Duke complying with Turner perceived the plot against him wrought by a countermine by Charles the chief Engineer but the Dukes drift was after king Iames his death to make himself king of Ireland and therefore he was stiled Prince of Typeraria an appendix to that Throne This made the Duke swell like a Toad to such a monstrous proportion of greatness in vast thoughts as muitiplying to an ocean from the rivers of pride power and ambition he sate as a Gyant on the shoulders of king Iames and drowned his power limiting no bounds to his overflowing will whose vertue and good nature being corrupted by so wicked a life turned love into hatred obedience into rule for after he had dispatched the Duke of Richmond Marquess Hamilton the Earl of Southampton and his son by poyson as by Doctor Eglestons relation plainly appeared to the Parliament whom he caused to be killed in forr●ine parts for discovering the villany Thus filled with venome of greatness he made no bones to send his Master packing to another world as appeared plainly in Parliament by the witness of divers Physitians especially Doctor Ramsey in full hearing at a Committee Wherefore for this other crimes he was impeached in the beginning of King Charles his Government and though King Charles was bound to prosecute King Iames and the other Lords death committed contrary to all the laws of God and Nations yet King Charles to save the Duke dissolved the Parliament and never after had the truth tryed to clear himself from confederacy or the Duke from so hainous a scandal Now let all the world judge of Charles his carriage whether he were not guilty of conniving at so foul a sin though not of the death so that covering his Lyon-like disposition with appearance of a Lamb he proved like Nero the Tyrant that in the Parliament of the Petition of right shewing himself in his lively colours for displaying the Banner of Tyranny he put an end to the meeting imprisoned divers members so that Sir Iohn Elliot dyed and the rest remained in durance because they had been faithful to their Countrey and to add to cruelty he sent Sergeant Glanvile Sir Peter Hayman and Colonel Purify into forraine parts to consume their fortunes and hazard their lives calling not a Parliament long after By this time Sycophants so inlarged the Monarchy without bounds

not give so bad an example to support his Son-in-law against the Emperour Whereas the Laws of the Empire were If the Emperour did unjustly the seven Electors might depose him for certainly the joyning of Bohemia with the Count Palatine of Rhine might have been a chief prop to support the Protestant party which by Denmarks fault and King Iames his wilfulness the Emperour got the Mastery of though after God raised Gustavus Adolchus King of Sweden to turn the scales to the united Princes side yet in conclusion the Swedes have sought more their owne interest then Gods Behold if we examine Queen Mary she cannot cleare her reputation with Harry Jermine for if king Charles had not been so blinded it had been discovered long ago and she punished or divorced but the king being guilty of the same crime winked at it which made him purblind and count it a venial sin as the Papists terms them but swallowed the mortal yet urged by an Earl much with him if he would not believe the unsutable behaviour between the Queen and Jermine if he would go into her Chamber he might be satisfied and behold Jermine sitting upon the bed with the Queen so the King and the Lord went in and found her and Jermine in that posture The King presently more ashamed of the act then blaming her departed without speaking a word yet for all this the queen was very jealous of the King insomuch as he loving a very great Lady now alive whom he had for a mistress to the intent he might have more freedome with her sent her Lord into the Low-countries in the mean while daily courts her at Oxford in her husbands and the queens absence but the Lord returning the King diverted his affectionate thoughts to another marryed Lady of whom the queen was jealous at her return from France so that on a time this Lady being in queen Maries presence and dressed a la mode the queen viewing her round told the Lady she would be a better Mistris for a king then a wife for a knight The Lady replyed Madam I had rather be Mistris to a King then any mans wife in the world For which answer she was constrained to absent her self from Court a long time Now as all men and their affaires are subject to mutation by a heavenly providence punishing sinners for sin the wheel turns greatness from top to bottome of which I have given you a notable Lantskip in the fraile condition of the Imperiall family of the Stuarts who raised to a glittering glory by the succession of many kings are now tumbled from the mount of ambition and highest authority over three kingdomes at last reduced not to be Lord of a visible molehill whose heat of fiery pride hath consumed into ashes of ruine their felicity Let us mark the shipwrack of those who will not vaile the sailes of Tyranny and oppression they shall not avoid a tempest of Gods anger for precipitation In this revolution God had a special hand who when he determined to bring this family to destruction accomplisheth it not only by poor and weak means but by his mightiest thunderbolts of vengeance This truth manifesteth it self perspicuously in this Tragical History who have made the flourishing condition of three kingdoms stumble by advancing and giving ear to corrupt instruments of State placed at the helm who wept not for our common calamity but in the tears of inferiours and therefore I demonstrate that never shall justice be so well done as by Parliamentary proceedings to settle this Commonwealth upon a pious basis where they proceed in justice to banish oppression that property may fall into the right channel and holy men advanced and rewarded and wicked punished to the end that the people may be lulled asleep in the cradle of ease and tranquillity so shall love of Governors be in such estimation as body and purse may be at command for fear poysons a Nation with distrust and hatred the first makes firme and stable the foundation of any State the last brings it by insensible steps to fal and moulder away like a crazie building Provided alwayes until the State have a perfect cure there may be armed Chirurgeons to cut off the gangren'd part which might putrifie the head resembled to wise Counsellors who will preserve the whole body so they endeavour that taxes be moderated as the temper of the pulse and health shall appear And therefore I beseech you give me leave to turn my pen out of the Road with a counsel from my heart not impertinent to my dear countrymen to profit by the storm past reduced by Gods providence to a calme to make a pious use of his great miraculous deliverance I being a man can speak by experience who hath been most justly worryed by the hand of the Almighty for sins therefore let them consider that The chidings of a friend are better than the kiss of an enemy a proverb of Solomon which if we shall confide in we may be stiled children converted to good if not may be accounted despisers of the rod which maxime I illustrate the truth of by the Grecian Alcibiades by how much his banishment was more cruel by the Athenian Ostracisme by so much more his qualities and worth were esteemed The skill of the Mariner is not at all observed in a calme but in a Tempest the wise Ulysses had perished if he had not been in danger of ruine pleasures blunt and strangle piety when adversity moulds the will and humors to a by as of fearing God inclines us to know our selves and understand the end of Creation and birth to the glory of God and good of our Country we are not born for our selves Our eyes are closed with delights open in chastisements in the one sin draws more punishment in the other we see clearly our aberrations as spots in a glass We are here on a Theatre for every one to play his part the tragical seems more difficult by hatred envy and jealousie the slaves of Reason yet in truth are banished in troubles when God loves the afflicted better who as a Soveraigne resembleth the Ocean which receives that it gives to the end the revenging justice of heaven turn not wrath against them but the Divel enemy of repose inchants us in Luxury when affliction imitates nature by degrees from a little to more and from more proceeds to a humane perfection in piety I heartily desire you take this advice above a humane the command of God Be subject to the higher powers for they are of God Wherefore I beseech you respect those set at the Helme whom God hath made instruments of our happiness for naturally we are hooded and cannot see that God hath done miraculous works look not upon them as men but as Gods instruments to execute his will brought out of the shop of his Almighty work-house to accomplish his determination and are not to be laid aside till by Gods appointment they

Parliament to ruine the people the remainder in the house were the Representative to adjourn the Parliament from day to day for otherwise it had been sine die and ipso facto dissolved the Parliament then had the whole Nation remained slaves and vassals for ever at the kings mercy And therefore it was most to subdue and put king Charles to death as a mortal enemy who laboured to destroy the Common-wealth with all his power for if a member who hath an inclusive right ought to have sentence of death much more a king who hath an impositive care from God ought to have sentence of death for kings now are not the anointed of God as David was but by the Scripture every Saint is annointed which by the Popish Clergy was usurped to them and after by their policy attributed fasely to kings to maintaine their Hierarchy Whrefore we may justly argue that the Author of spirits had a long time continued patient in suffering three several families to be Superintendents over three kingdoms five hundred yeers when he raised the several houses to the Throne to make an essay of their behaviour to bring up the people in the fear of God whose time was long spent in Idolatry and after reduced to a prophanness and then to a peece and little part of a reformed way and not to a total partly serving Baal and partly God which caused Gods arrows at last to flie abroad and shot the last Prince with a mortal blow for it is manifest a king could not make a war with his Parliament till it were ended and the king passed an Act not to end it till all the three Estates were agreed and when it ended all he could do should be to indict them by a Jury to finde them guilty but by making a War he leaves them at liberty to defend themselves so that what he did amiss should be complained of in the next Parliament after In the war the kings purpose could not be to make them obedient which is too harsh a way for in so doing he becomes their enemy and then they are out of his protection Or if the subjects war with the king and he oppose they are not subjects A king is not a king when he makes a war against his subjects but he is a Tyrant and they are not Rebels no more then when a king treateth with his subiects are they not subjects by such a war he ratifieth them to have a right and power to contest with him as the fifteen Provinces were made by the king of Spaine in a Negotiation a free State much more the reason holds in a war How many times did the Parliament court the king yea humbly petition him and treated with him by Commissioners to do divers things most necessary for the good of the then kingdom and he remained obdurate If he were so obstinate when he was under the power of the Parliament as in the Isle of Wight how averse would he be or rather domineer over and ruine them when they were in his clutches As if a Partridge being neer to a Faulcon intangled with his varvels might peck and tach her yet would not she yeeld to smal a bird what could the Faulcon do when he had her trussed surely plume on her and at last wring off her head How many times have the people in this Nation assumed the power to themselves for kings over-flowing the rules of moderation as in the times of Henry the third Edward the second Richard the second Henry the sixth and after upon good behaviour they resigned the keyes of Soveraignity to the intrusted keepers as namely in choosing the supream Officers which of right be longed to the Parliament and a long time since by intrusion kept in the hands of the Diadem but in a Parliamentary orbe wherein when the great Officers were fixed they kept their course from Retrogradation by their Aromatical influence upon the good of the people but after they were at the devotion of the chief by that derivation they wronged the people and augmented the power of invassalage as who in name of the Upper insulted over the Inferiour that all the English world was conformed to an incompatible subjection and submission too unjustly imposed Therefore it was impossible that Charles which had his hands in the blood of hundred thousands by his instruments should after that carriage be free from Cruelty Indignation and Injustice no more then a Leper can be made pure or a Blackamore white or a Leopard clear from spots Therefore I will justly conclude the cup of Gods vengeance was filled to the blim for king Charles his family to drink the dregs Now if the war of France and Germany were just especially the last when the Emperour transgressed the laws of the Empire to make the united Princes to raise an Host to defend themselves and rectifie what was amiss by ingrafting another Cion in the Empire which continued too long in one house of Austria much more just is that of the Parliament which hath Legislative power and authority to draw Acts for the good of the Subject to which the king is alwayes injoyned not to end the Assembly till he had signed such Acts and reformed all abuses complained of If the king should retire from the great Counsel and not signe Bils of Right twelve of the Lords and twenty four of the others were to repaire to him to know the cause of his absence and urge the king to signe such bils and remove grievances If he did not sign nor come in the space of fourty days they ought to chuse a Protector And if he did persist in his absence they might justly depose him as appears in the book of the manner and fashion of holding Parliaments And this was the reason of the former kings removal If a master of a Family who hath wife children servants stock and cattel in a madness should go away from his house and bring a force to destroy his family kill his children take away his cattel off his own ground and burn his house he were a mad man and fitter for Bridewell then to be a master of a family as likewise a Protector who ought to protect his people if he would destroy them because they would have a pious and vertuous government he is to be accounted a destroyer no protector But some will say The king had a number of his subjects and the better part But they were such as supported a Power would take away the property of their real personal and vital estates which the King might do if he conquered if there were not Parliaments a check on the Soveraigne to protect inferiours such kingly power would grow to such a height as no moderation might be 'twixt Mercy and Tyranny I have often heard the Cavaliers say They meant not to take away Parliaments knowing they were for their good and benefit But if the King had prevailed by their means they should