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	parliament_n	void_a	3,949	5	9.2539	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66129	The declaration of His Highnes William Henry, by the grace of God Prince of Orange, &c. of the reasons inducing him, to appear in armes in the kingdome of England, for preserving of the Protestant religion, and for restoring the lawes and liberties of England, Scotland and Ireland Here unto are added the letters of the aforesaid his illustrious Highnesse to the sea and land forces of England, together with the prayer for the present expedition.; Declaration of his Highness William Henry, by the grace of God, Prince of Orange, &c. of the reasons inducing him to appear in arms for preserving of the Protestant religion and for restoring the laws and liberties of England, Scotland and Ireland.	William III, King of England, 1650-1702.; William III, King of England, 1650-1702. Declaration of His Highness William Henry by the grace of God Prince of Orange, &c. of the reasons inducing him to appear in arms for preserving of the Protestant religion, and for restoring the laws and liberties of the ancient kingdom of Scotland. aut; Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.; Fagel, Gaspar, 1634-1688, attributed name.	1688 (1688)	Wing W2328C; ESTC R221019	18,386	19

advantages might be given to them to bring about their Designes and that both in the Election of the Members of Parliament and afterwards in the Parliament it selfe For they see well that if all Protestants could enter into a mutuall Good Understanding one with another and concurre together in the Preserving of their Religion it would not be possible for them to compasse their wicked ends They have also required all Persons in the severall Counties of England that either were in any Imployment or were in any considerable Esteem to declare before hand that they would concurre in the Repeal of the Test and Penall Lawes and that they would give their voices in the Elections to Parliament only for such as would concurre in it Such as would not thus preingage themselves were turned out of all Imployments and others who entred into those engagements were put in their places many of them being Papists And contrary to the Charters and Priviledges of those Burroughs that have a right to send Burgesses to Parliament they have ordered such Regulations to be made as they thought fit and necessary for assuring themselves of all the Members that are to be chosen by those Corporations and by this means they hope to avoid that Punishment which they have deserved tho it is apparent that all Acts made by Popish Magistrates are null and void of themselves So that no Parliament can be Lawfull for which the Elections and Returns are made by Popish Sheriffs and Majors of Towns and therefore as long as the Authority and Magistracy is in such hands it is not possible to have any Lawfull Parliament And tho according to the Constitution of the English Government and Immemoriall Custome all Elections of Parliament men ought to be made with an entire Liberty without any sort of force or the requiring the Electors to choose such Persons as shall be named to them and the Persons thus freely elected ought to give their Opinions freely upon all Matters that are brought before them having the good of the Nation ever before their eyes and following in all things the dictates of their Conscience yet now the People of England can not expect a remedy from a free Parliament Legally called and chosen but they may perhaps see one called in which all Elections will be carried by Fraud or Force and which will be composed of such Persons of whom those Evill Councellours hold themselves well assured in which all things will be carried on according to their Direction and Interest without any regard to the Good or Happines of the Nation Which may appear evidently from this that the same Persons tried the Members of the last Parliament to gain them to consent to the Repeal of the Test and Penal Lawes and procured that Parliament to be dissolved when they found that they could not neither by promises nor threatnings prevail with the Members to Comply with their wicked Designs But to crown all there are great and violent Presumptions inducing us to beleeve that those Evill Councellours in order to the carrying on of their ill designes and to the gaining to themselves the more time for the Effecting of them for the encouraging of their Complices and for the discouraging of all Good Subjects have published that the Queen hath brought forth a Son tho there have appeared both during the Queens pretended Bignes and in the manner in which the Birth was managed so many just and visible grounds of suspicion that not only Wee our selves but all the good Subjects of those Kingdomes doe vehemently suspect that the pretended Prince of Wales was not born by the Queen And it is notoriously known to all the world that many both doubted of the Queens Bignes and of the Birth of the Child and yet there was not any one thing done to satisfy them or to put an end to their Doubts And since our Dearest and most Entirely Beloved Consort the Princesse and likewise Wee our selves have so great an Interest in this Matter and such a Right as all the world knows to the Succession to the Crown since also the English did in the year 1672. when the States Generall of the United Provinces were Invaded in a most injust warre use their uttermost Endeavours to put an end to that Warre and that in opposition to those who were then in the Government and by their so doing they run the hasard of losing both the favour of the Court and their Imployments And since the English Nation has ever testified a most particular Affection and Esteem both to pur Dearest Consort the Princesse and to Our selves WEE cannot excuse our selves from espousing their Interests in a matter of such high Consequence and from contributing all that lies in us for the maintaining both of the Protestant Religion and of the Lawes and Liberties of those Kingdomes and for the Securing to them the continual Enjoyment of all their just Rights To the doing of which Wee are most earnestly solicited by a great many Lords both Spirituall and Temporall and by many Gentlemen and other subjects of all Ranks THEREFORE it is that Wee have thought fit to goe over to England and to carry over with us a force sufficient by the blessing of God to defend us from the violence of those Evill Councellours AND WEE being desirous that our Intentions in this may be rightly understood have for this end prepared this Declaration in which as wee have hitherto given a true Account of the Reasons inducing us to it So Wee now think fit to DECLARE that this our Expedition is intended for no other Designe but to have a free and lawfull Parliament assembled as soon as is possible and that in order to this all the late Charters by which the Elections of Burgesses are limited contrary to the ancient custome shall be considered as null and of no force and likewise all Magistrates who have been Injustly turned out shall forthwith resume their former Imployments as well as all the Borroughs of England shall return again to their ancient Prescriptions and Charters and more particularly that the ancient Charter of the Great and famous City of London shall again be in Force and that the Writts for the Members of Parliament shall be addressed to the Proper Officers according to Law and Custome That also none be suffered to choose or to be chosen Members of Parliament but such as are qualified by Law And that the Members of Parliament being thus lawfully chosen they shall meet and sit in Full Freedome That so the Two Houses may concurre in the preparing of such Lawes as they upon full and free debate shall Judge necessary and convenient both for the confirming and executing the Law concerning the Test and such other Lawes as are necessary for the security and Maintenance of the Protestant Religion as likewise for making such Lawes as may establish a good aggréement between the Church of England and all Protestant Dissenters as also for the covering

DECLARATION OF HIS HIGHNES WILLIAM HENRY By the Grace of God PRINCE OF ORANGE c. Of the reasons inducing him To Appear in Armes for Preserving of the Protestant Religion and for Restoring the Lawes and Liberties of the ancient Kingdome of Scotland IT is both certain and evident to all men that the publike Peace and Happines of any State or Kingdome can not be preserved where the Lawes Liberties and Customes established by the lawfull authority in it are openly transgressed and annulled more especially where the alteration of Religion is endeavoured and that a Religion which is contrary to Law is endeavoured to be introduced upon which those who are most immediatly concerned in it are indispensably bound to endeavour to preserve and maintain the established Lawes Liberties and Customes and above all the Religion and worship of God that is established among them and to take such an effectuall care that the Inhabitants of the said State or Kingdome may neither be deprived of their Religion nor of their Civill Rights VVhich is so much the more necessary because the Greatnes and Security both of Kings Royall families and of all such as are in Authority as well as the happines of their Subjects and People depend in a most especiall manner upon the exact observation and maintenance of these their Lawes Liberties and Customes Upon these grounds it is that Wee cannot any longer forbear to Declare that to our great regret Wee see that those Councellours who have now the chiefe credit with the King have overturned the Religion Lawes and Liberties of those Realmes and subjected them in all things relating to their Consciences Liberties and Properties to Arbitrary Government and that not only by secret and indirect waies but in an open and undisguised manner And indeed the lamentable effects of an Arbitrary Power and of Evill Counsells are so Manifest in the deplorable State of the Kingdome of Scotland that both our reason and conscience doe prompt us to an abhorrence of them For when wee consider the sad condition that Nation though always affectionate to the Royall Family and governed for many Ages by Laws made by the authority of their Kings and of the Estates of Parliament and by Common customes is reduced to by endeavours that have been used to change the constitution of the Monarchy regulate by Laws into a Despotick or Arbitrary Power which doth evidently appear not only by the actings of Evill Councellours in power but by the deliberate and expresse publick Declarations bearing that the King is an Absolute Monarch to whom obedience ought to be given in all things without reserve thereby to make way to introduce what Religion they please without so much as the necessity of the consent of the Nation by their Estates in Parliament Whilest wee consider and ponder these things as wee cannot but be touched with a tender sense of those miseries so the giving such a remedy to them as may be proper and may answer the expectation of all good men and true Protestants is the great thing which wee propose to our selves in this undertaking the Equity where of will be justified to the world if what hath been acted at the instigation of those Evill Councellours be further impartially weighed It is well known that the Laws Priviledges and Rights of the Kingdome have been overturned to the great prejudice of King and people whilest thus all foundation of confidence and trust is removed And it is no less known what have been the Arbitrary procedures of an encroaching Privy Councell for although by the Laws enacted by the authority of King and Parliament it is expressly prohibited that the Popish Religion should be professed or Seminary Priests suffered within the Kingdom or that the children of any Noblemen or Gentlemen should be sent abroad to be educated in Popish Colledges yet have these Evill Councellours ordered or suffered young Noblemen to be taken from their relations and to be sent abroad to be instructed in Jesuites Colledges and have likewayes caused Schools to be erected under the conduct of Popish Priests and that in the Capitall City of the Kingdom In an open contempt also of the known Laws of the Kingdom Papists are put into places of Highest Trust both Civil and Military and entrusted with all the Forts and Magazins The rights and Priviledges of the Royall Burrows the Third Estate of Parliament having as many Deputies in it as all the Shires in the Kingdom are taken away and they hindred in the free election of their Magistrats and Town-Councells to the manifest violation of their Charters established by Law and Immemoriall possession And all this is done by meer Arbitrary power without any Citation Triall or Sentence And whereas no Nation whatsoever can subsist without the administration of good and impartiall Justice upon which mens Lives aud Liberties their Honours and Estates depend yet those Evill Councellours have subjected these to an Arbitrary and Despotick power having turned out Judges who by Law ought to continue during their Life or their good behaviour becase they would not conform themselves to their Intentions and put others in their Places who they believe would be more complyant and that without any regard to their abilities by which it evidently appears that those Evill Councellours design to render themselves the Absolute Masters of the Lives Honours and Estates of the subjects without being restrained by any rule or Law. By the inflence of the same Evill Counsellours hath a most exorbitant power been exercised in imposing Bonds and Oaths upon whole Shires without any Law or Act of Parliament in permitting Free quarters to the souldiers although they had a sufficient Establisment for their pay whereby the Kingdom was doubly burdened without any redres in imprisoning Gentlemen without any so much as alledged Reason for ceing many to accuse and witness against themselves imposing arbitrary fines frighting and harassing many parts of the Countrey with Intercommoning and Justice-Aires making some incurre forfeiture of life fortune for the most generall and harmless converse even with their nearest relations outlawed And thus bringing a consternation upon a great part of the Kingdom which when Outlawries and Intercommonings went out against multitudes upon the slenderest pretexts was involved so universally in that danger that those Councellours themselves were so obnoxious as to find it necessary to have Pardons and Indemnities whilest the poor people were left to mercy impowering Officers and Souldiers to Act upon the subjects living in quiet and full peace the greatest Barbarities in destroying them by hanging shooting and drouwning them without any forme of Law or respect to Age or Sexe not giving some of them time to pray to God for mercy And this for no other reason but because they would not answer or satisfy them in such questions as they proposed to them without any warrant of Law and against the Common Interest of Mankind which frees all men from being obliged to discover their