Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	law_n	time_n	write_v	3,058	5	5.6338	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85750	A treatise of the antiquity of the commonwealth of the Battavers, which is now the Hollanders first written in Latin by Hugo Grotius, advocat fiscall of Holland, Zealand, and Westfriesland, &c. And afterwards translated into the Netherlandish Dutch, and perused by the author himselfe. And now again translated out of both the Latin and Dutch, into English, by Tho. Woods, Gent.; De antiquitate Reipublicae Batavicae. English.	Grotius, Hugo, 1583-1645.; Woods, Thomas.; Cross, Thomas, fl. 1632-1682, engraver.	1649 (1649)	Wing G2127; Thomason E1303_2; ESTC R202252	40,326	171

with their Enemies the People of Norway and that now the Enemy was more furious in regard that our Battavers had lately embraced the Christian Religion held a publick Consultation Resolution as may well be imagined how that they not would content themselvs with certaine retreats which they had long used against the violence of their Enemies but also how they might deliver their native Country both for the present and future time from such unwelcome Guests whereunto the mutable and temporary command of the Generals was not sufficient they thought it good after the example of their fore-fathers who had Kings yet their liberty not infringed to ordaine a Prince over the whole body of the Common-Wealth which they intituled not with the Title of King as being such a one as was not employed any otherwayes then in the chiefest and absolute Authority but entituled him by that accustomed and usuall name or Title of Gravii that is Judge or Earl yet with this difference that he was not called Earl with an addition of any Quarter thereunto but simply as being Judge himselfe over the other Judges Vnto this command out of all question he was chosen that was the very principall both for Nobility and power amongst all other Princes This was Dederick who in the old Records was called the Freise Now that these Battavers which dwelt upon the Sea-side were called Freises we have shewed already and the same is manifestly proved with the afore-said place of Schaffnaburgensis Iohn Vander Does the Father Seigneor of Noortwick a man as exceedingly well known amongst his own people by reason of his Nobility as also to all others by reason of his Learning manifestly sheweth in his books wherewith hee hath perpetually obliged his Native Countrey by an everlasting benefit unto him out of Regino an old Writer that this Dederick had a Brother whose name was Walgar and that this Walgars and Dedericks Father was one Gerloffe whom Regino a very faithful French Historiographer affirmeth to have been an Earl of the Frieses Dederick was then before an Earl and an Earls sonne but Earl of some one certain Quarter and not of the whole Nation which honour is bestowed upon him principally through the favour and good affection as may bee well supposed of the Lords and the People of the Towns And also because that in the Maps of Vtrecht there is mention of a Region or Quarter called Holland so peradventure it is likely to be true that this same Region was the Earldom of Dederick and his Predecessors And that thereafter the whole body of the Common-wealth being concredited unto him grew into a Community of the same name to this end that those Freises which dwelt upon this side of the River Flie should properly be called the great Freises only to make a difference between those Freises which dwelt on the other side of the Flie yet neverthelesse that part which is next unto the Flie even to this present day is called West Freisland the which with Holland maketh a Common-wealth Vnto this is very conform that which the States of Holland alledged in that famous Controversie which was disputed upon by them and the Brabanders before the Emperour Charles the Fifth Prince of the Netherlands where the Brabanders affirmed that the Emperor Charls the Fourth had granted them a certain Priviledge that they out of their own Countrey might not be sued at the Law maintaining therewithall that it was not lawfull for the Hollanders to proceed against the Brabanders by manner of Arrest after the Hollanders manner Whereupon the States of Holland shewed to the contrary That that Priviledge did not concern them in regard that they and their Earles from all Antiquity had the Soveraignty all manner of Juridisction without giving any manner of acknowledgement unto any other And that since the time that Dederick the First recovered the Land of Holland from the Barbarous Nations the which was then subject under the power of no King that the same Earls of Holland at all times ever had the like Authority in their own Earldoms as the Emperours of Germany or of Italy had in their Empire without being bound or beholden to any by manner of Leen that is either Free forme or Coppy-hold The which may be gathered even from that succession that the women had in the Earldom And also from hence That the Earls have set out great parts of the Earldom as the Lordships of Foirne Arckel and Putten and others and that even to hereditary Free-farme or Coppy-hold without the Consent of any other Forraign Power Although that the Ordinances of the Germane Empire with what generall Title soever they might be written or Registred were never so much as once published in Holland neither were they in any one point obedient thereunto the which they also proved with a very memorable late Example for whereas the Germanes had ordained very many Lawes for the obtaining of succession without testament even to the derogation of all customes to the contrary yet neverthelesse the Heritages in Holland were never assigned by no other Law then by their owne customes to that very day that also the affaires neither of the Earles nor of the States were never sentenced by the Germaine Senators The which being thus alledged and proved by the Hollanders the Declaration followed that that priviledge which was given unto the Brabanders was of no force in Holland Besides this Philip of Leyden writing a Book of the Governement at what time as the first William of Byeren governed Holland and dedicated the same Book unto his Prince he then professing the Law in France saith often in the same Book That the Earle of Holland is Emperour in his Earledome Wee know that the Germane Emperours and also the Francks as it is before reported out of Procopius usually pretended that not onely the Earles of Holland and other Princes but even the Kings themselves were their Vassals the which although it were granted unto them yet in that respect the Hollanders were neverthelesse free In such like manner as Proculus an ancient Lawyer proveth very well The particulars which are defended by others doe not therefore lose their freedome because they are not of equall worth with their protectors And in like manner the freedome of the people is not diminished because in their Covenant there is contained that they with all courtefie should respect the Soveraignty of another from whence also the name of free Leenen that is as Free Copy-holders hath its Originall But neverthelesse this same Covenant of free Leen or after what sort or manner the same might or could be termed the Earles never consented unto as easily may be understood by that which before hath been said as also out of the History of the Warres with the first Earles and namely Dederick the fourth for the maintenance of their reputation and worthinesse undertook with good successe against the Emperours And put the case that any of those Earles

either in time of necessity or for some certaine consideration were brought thereunto who depending upon the Emperours have desired their protection which so happening without the consent of the States the same could neither prejudice the priviledge of the Common-wealth nor yet of the succeeding Princes In every respect we are certainly assured that neither those Earles of the house of Burgundy nor yet those Earles of the house of Austria the memory whereof is yet unfallible that they never in respect of Holland have done any homage unto the Emperours And that Holland never was subject neither to the Lawes nor Customes of the Emperour nor of the Empire which is the very principall point of all and that the Germanes themselves doe confesse from whence it is manifest that the principall Soveraignty over the Hollanders hath been among themselves and never depended upon any forraigne Authority It remaineth now that we consider the other that is what priviledge and authority the Princes had in the Common-wealth and what was the Authority of the States the which we should very particularly know if in case those Lawes were to bee found which concerning the Authority were given unto Dederick But besides that which formerly hath beene spoken that by the Germans books aswell of publike as of particular matters but very lately began to be registred so is also the memory of all those times excepting only of some certaine Warres and of some other matters which do not concerne this purpose utterly lost Yet even before these times there was not given so great a power as there was authority unto the Kings of the Battavers the which even in our fathers dayes hath been registred up by forraigne Writers That the command of the Princes of these Lands was as well limited with Lawes as it was moderated by the resolution of the States from whence we may assuredly collect that the Government of the time which was betwixt them both hath been the very same Government as was received from our Ancestors and left againe unto posterity Neither is it lightly to be credited that those worthy Cities and the Inhabitants that were so noble and so mighty as we have shewn to have been in those former times did fall from that equality of power whereunto they were accustomed unto such a sodaine unequality And on the contrary part it is manifest that afterwards when as the magnificence of the Earles by the adjoyning of other Principalities thereunto greatly increased and especially in the House of Bourgondy and of Austria that then the freedom or liberty rather decreased then increased These were then the principall Lawes of the Governement viz. That no Countesse should marry unto any man but with the consent and good liking of the States That none of the Officers as of the Counsell and Rent-masters and Pretorship should be confer'd upon no other but unto those that were born within the Land That the States shall have liberty to assemble upon the affaires of the Land and State and that as often as it shal please them without need to have consent of the Earle for that end That no new Tolls might be imposed neither any man freed from those that formerly were ordained but by consent of the States That the Prince should undertake no warre neither defensive nor offensive otherwise then by the consent of the States That the Princes should in all their writings use the Dutch Language That the Coine should be altered and appointed by the Prince according as the States find it convenient That the Prince might not make away any part of his Principality That the States may not bee warned to assemble upon any convocation out of the Provinces That when as the Prince shall have need of any impositions or collections that he himselfe personally and not by the mediation of his Lieutenant shall make intercession unto the States without exacting any thing otherwise then by a willing and voluntary free consent That he exercise and administer Justice and Law by the hands of ordinary Justices That the ancient Lawes and customes being holy should be inviolably observed and if the Prince should ordaine any thing contrary the reunto that no man is bound to observe the same These Lawes having been long maintained by meer custome were afterwards registred into Articles and subsigned by the Princes from time to time to this end that the natures of the same Princes might not be infected by the evill incitatations of flattering Courtiers unto the hope of an unlawfull domination And at the last in regard that the States made complaint of their grievances that most of the fundamentall points of the ancient Government were overthrowne by innovations even then was there a collection made of all these aforesaid Lawes and so by some others before but chiefly by Mary Countesse of Bourgondy they were sealed up for an everlasting memory And although the Hollanders now in the succession of the Earledome followed the order of lineall discent yet neverthelesse to the end they might shew that the command and authority did not proceed from a fatherly inheritance but from the consents of the people that is of the States therefore they never esteemed any for their Prince before that they had bound themselves by an oath unto the States to maintaine the Lawes and Customes of the Land the which being thus performed they promised againe to him fidelity and obedience in whatsoever the Lawes should command them Wherefore in regard that those Lawes being conditions and precontracts are connexed unto the Authority then hereby is manifest that those Princes had no power of themselves to loose or to dispence themselves from the aforesaid Lawes as it hath been very much discoursed and concluded upon by those that have written much of Government From whence it followeth that since the chiefe Power or Soveraignty cannot be in such a one as is bound unto any Civill Lawes or institutions like as most of the Northerne Princes be that even also the Earle of Holland being bound unto so many Lawes hath not had the right of the Soveraign power onely in himselfe All that which we now have declared from the words of the Laws or from other Covenants or Contracts even all them and divers other points of no lesse consequence are all approved by very old examples For whereas Arnoulffe the third of the Princes had two sonnes the eldest who was called Sifrid and of some Sicco for some certaine fault was denied the command and the Principality by the consent of the States was conferred upon the yonger whose name was Dederick Dederick the fourth dying without issue although there were as yet no example of a brotherly succession the States proclaimed Florence the brother of the deceased to be Prince The Wardship of Dederick the fift of that name whose yeares being yet unfit for government the States conferred upon his Mother the Lady Geertright and also married her unto Robert the sonne of an Earle of Flanders