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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	bear_v	great_a	king_n	1,542	5	3.5361	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89890	A plea for the King, and kingdome; by way of answer to the late remonstrance of the Army, presented to the House of Commons on Monday Novemb. 20. Proving, that it tends to subvert the lawes, and fundamentall constitutions of this kingdom, and demolish the very foundations of government in generall.	Nedham, Marchamont, 1620-1678.	1648 (1648)	Wing N402; Thomason E474_2; ESTC R202961	27,530	32

A PLEA for THE KING AND KINGDOME By way of Answer to the late Remonstrance of the Army Presented to the House of Commons on Monday Novemb. 20. Proving that it tends to subvert the Lawes and fundamentall Constitutions of this Kingdom and demolish the very Foundations of Government in generall Seneca Prosperum ac faelix Scelus virtus vocatur Ius est in Armis Merc. Prag Now prosp'rous mischief makes it good Against both LAVV and REASON Not to spill ROYALL-LOYALL Blood But to be Conquer'd's TREASON Printed in the Yeere 1648. To the Commons assembled in Parliament Gentlemen SInce the Abettors of this Remonstrance have had the confidence to addresse themselves and prescribe Rules to you in such peremptory language give me leave under your favour and connivence to publish an Answer thereunto by Pen since for ought I see you dare not give it your selves by word of mouth because if you should declare a sense contrary to theirs as in honor and conscience you must they have as good as told you in plain termes that they will make your House too hot to hold you I observe their Remonstrance is founded upon these principles that their own Faction whom alone they call the well-affected and the honest men excluding all others are the People Secondly that their Interest is the only Interest of the People Thirdly that the Safety of the People is to be respected before any Kings or Governers or Governments whatsoever Lastly that themselves are the only competent Judges of the Peoples Safety and so by consequence may drive on their Designe against all Powers and Forms of Government and Law whatsoever upon pretence of that old Aphorisme Salus Populi suprema Lex the safety of the People is the soveraigne Law which hath been the fruitfull mother of Rebellions in all ages to serve the corrupt ends of ambitious persons who usually fisht in troubled waters to attain those ends which they could not hope for in a setled State of Commonweales and Kingdoms And such now it is apparent to all the world were some of you in the beginning of this Parliament from whose plea and practices this upstart Faction have learned to rebell against your selves upon the very same principles and pretences that you first bandied against his Maiesty I need not repeat here how they have terrified and quell'd you from time to time as often as you durst but offer to speak your consciences in the behalf of the Publike against their corrupt and private Interest But all that is past is nothing to what they have presented to you now wherwith they have affronted you to your very faces in this Remonstrance Do they not challenge you as inconstant to your own Votes and Resolutions perfidious to that trust reposed in you and such as will not or know not which way to settle the just Rights and Liberties of the People And therefore they undertake to new-mold the fundamentall Constitutions of the Kingdom and conjure you to comply with them and renounce your King or any Agreement with him and settlement by him or otherwise they say they shall be constrained to set a period to your Authority and provide themselves of another Parliament which shall be elected of persons of their humor and so establish themselves in a kind of legall Tyrannie by the Law of their own wills and the Sword It is high time Sirs then to look about you and vindicate the Lawes of the Land the Priviledges and Freedom of Parliament and the just Rights of the People thus impiously invaded Acquit your selves like men and if you must perish it will be your glory and Crowne in the midst of calamity that you suffer in defence of the Liberties of your Country Proceed to an happy Accommodation with his Majesty He hath granted more than ever the world supposed you would have demanded then let not those Differences which he by his Concessions hath brought into so narrow a Compasse hinder a Peace any longer but meet him now at length with an honorable Complyance and leave the successe to God who will scatter those that delight in War and to this end how small soever the meanes be at present yet ere long you shall have the hearts hands and Purses of Thousands to assist you I am not ignorant that your Debates and Resolutions are extremely stagger'd by a pack of Sectaries which have crept into the House to that purpose by undue elections and that you feare if you should declare against the designe of this Remonstrance they should take this occasion to purge you out of the House and make use of the same way of unjust elections to put others in your Places But howsoever put it to the venture and do your duty As for me I should reckon it the greatest glory I could be born unto to be accounted worthy to suffer in so noble a Cause and since they are arrived to this height of Impiety to tread all Authority under foot as well yours as the King s do you but agree with his Majesty upon just and equall Termes then whatever I have been heretofore I shall list my selfe henceforth For King and Parliament Mercurius Pragmaticus Novem. 27. 1648. A Plea for the King and Kingdom by way of Answer to the late Remonstrance of the Army THe Contexture of this tedious Remonstrance is much like that of the new Government which they aime at having neither forme nor fashion in it and is so replenished with confused Repetitions that it brings more trouble to recollect the scattered Fancies into some orderly Frame than to blast them with a Confutation No lesse than 60. Pages are spent in a Preamble before they come to the things intended and all to win the world quorum magn apars capitur Ambagibus with a world of smooth Pretences the vanity whereof I shall indeavour to demonstrate in a few sheetes which they have wrap't up in so many that when the Monster appeares without disguise it may become abominable in the eyes of all good men In the first place they insinuate their tender Regard to the Priviledges and freedom of Parliament in not interposing in their Councells and determinations c. For the falshood of this I shall give you two Instances of famous or rather in famous memory The first is taken out of their Remonstrance dated June 23. 1647. at S. Albans wherein they threatned to march up against the Parliament in case the 11. Members were not suspended the House by a short certain day and their desires not granted The second may be collected out of the prodigious carriage of the Army and their Creatures in the Houses when the Ordinance was debated for nulling and making void all things whatsoever done in the absence of the two Renegado Speakers when they ran to the Army This Ordinance was set forward by the Army-party and had been debated five or six severall times and still rejected in the Negative yet they brought it in play

expresse termes to the maintenance of them and these undoubtedly are the true Foundations of the publique Jnterest and the Supporters also of the Kings person and Authority By the Lawes of the Land the King is the only Soveraign and supreame and above the reach of all penall statutes which make it high Treason for any to attempt the least force upon his person Therefore to make such a construction of the Covenant upon pretence of any Clause in it that shall clash with the Lawes of the Land the maintenance whereof is one of the primary ends of it is absurd and rediculous And therfore as long as by the fundamentall Lawes and Constitutions of the Kingdom the King is exempt from all Criminall proceedings against him by his Subiects certainly all men that have taken the Covenant are absolutely and undeniably bound by it to defend his Maiestie from such horrid and treasonable intents and practises to the dammage of his person and destruction of Kingly power Moreover the Scotish nation who were the first Founders of the Covenant and both Houses of Parliament have published in severall Declarations and all their Priests in the Pulpits that the intent of the Covenant in respect of his Maiestie was only that His Throne should be established in righteousnesse and though they made use of that Clause thereby to suspend him from the Exercise of regall power till satisfaction given to the desires of the Parliament of both Kingdomes yet it was never in their thoughts to strain it so farr as that in case he stood out against their desires they would proceed in a Criminall way against their Lord and Soveraigne And therefore it is cleare against these Anarchists both from the primary civill end of the Covenant and the practise of its Founders that it obligeth all those which have taken it to defend the Person of the King 's most Excellent Maiesty according to the Fundamentall Lawes and Constitutions of the Kingdom against all treasonous illegall and arbitrary Proceedings by way of Criminall Accusation Now we are come at length to the Conclusion of this tedidious Remonstrance which consists of severall Propositions grounded upon the frivolous premises already confuted They are of two sorts In the first they propound such things as they pretend are for the satisfaction of publique Iustice In the second such as are for the setling or rather un-setling of the Kingdom In order to justice first they propound That the person of the King may be speedily brought to Iustice If I should cite the innumerable Testimonies of Antiquity and our Modern writters against this prodigious principle I might swell into a volumne it is contrary to the very law of nature reason the constitutions of all Kingdomes and the whole tenor of the Scriptures Impunity being an inseparable adiunct of Kings as they are Supreme in their Kingdomes For if there can be no true kingdome where the King is not invested in the Supremacy As King he is Iudge of Iudges and subiect to the judgement of none other but God himself For it is contrary to nature that the Superior should be judged by the Inferior but the people take them collective are Inferior to their Monarch for that cannot bee called a Monarchy which admits either of a Superior or an equall And therefore the People cannot exercise any power or Iurisdiction over their Soveraigne forasmuch as it proceeds from himself and cannot subsist one moment without him he being as it were the Fountain of Authority As say all our statute and Law-Books S. Peter bids us Submit to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake whether it be to the King as supreme or unto Governours as those that are sent by him As free and not using your liberty for a Cloake of maliciousnesse but feare God Honour the King A text which plainly shewes that the people should not stretch their liberty to the preiudice of the royall authority Thou shalt not speak ill of the Governour of the people much lesse destroy him Give the people liberty once of iudgeing their King and all things are presently out of Order considering the ignorance the audacity the levity and inconstancie of the vulgar For by this meanes it falles out oftentimes that those Princes which diserve best are worst handled as histories do witnesse concerning Coriolanus Camillus Themistocles Phocian and divets others both antient and modern Scinditur incertum studia in contraria vulgus For such is the nature of the multitude that they are greedy still after Novelties and great admirers of them till they have a little experience and then they would willingly change again being led with vaine hopes of advantage upon every Innovation And therefore if Princes were under the correction of their Subjects both good and bad would suffer alike Such was the insolence of the Lacedemonian Ephori toward their Kings that they would call them to accompt for every Trifle and punished King Archidamus for no other cause but because he took a little woman to wife and it was usuall among the Goths in Spain to murther their Kings as oft as they distasted them Moreover should all Kings of this Nation remain lyable to question by the people as our Remonstrants require in time to come they must ever be subject to Slanders and Snares because then every ambitious popular person would be ready to pick holes in their Coates to bring them into disfavour of the People and so that would be sufficient cause of condemnation Admit these things once and who sees not how all things would run to confusion and how great mischiefes such a dissolute and licentious Liberty would bring upon Kings and Kingdomes But it happens also most often in these Cases That not all the People nor the major part do consent to the condemning of their King but some few perhaps that have gotten the power into the hands of their Faction These to set off their Actions cry up their own Interest for the Interest of the Common-wealth and so under pretence of the publick Good prosecute their private ends to the ruine of the Prince and condemne him as an Enemy to the People Quis furor ô populus quae tanta licentia Ferri An example of this we have among our neighbours in Henry the Third of France against whom some few Cities revolted at first which were headed by some small number of the Nobility afterwards more and more till at length the Rebels grew formidable and though they were but a contemptible part in comparison of the rest yet they assumed the Reputation of the whole pretended the publique Good declared against their King as a Tyrant to defend the Rights and Liberties of the People and at length proceeded so high as to give Sentence against Him and renounce the Allegiance to Him give publick Command that none should dare to acknowledge Him their King The Parallel to this was the Conspiracy occasioned by the Bastard Murray against that unfortunate

Lady Mary Queen of Scots our Kings Grandmother so likewise is his own case at present being at the mercy of a mercilesse petty Faction that have usurped the power of the Kingdome into the power of their hands cry up their own corrupt Interest to be the Interest of the Kingdome Themselves to be the People and so by a new kind of Logick conclude him to be the publique Enemy of the People and a Tyrant because they have no way to establish their own Tyranny but by destroying His Person under pretence of Justice and cashiere Kingly Government to introduce a new Forme of their owne wherein themselves will be Princes In order whereunto it is and not out of any consideration of equity for in this there can be none that they would bring His Majesty to publique Execution because they well know this one stroke would give the fatall Blow to Monarchy For it would take away the very life of Majesty which consists in the Impunity or exemption from penall Statutes Subject a King once to be judged and condemned by the People upon any pretence whatsoever then it followes presently that the power is declared in their Hands and so the Kingly Government is defunct and changed ipso facto to a popular And therefore it is apparent that the Army by Remonstrating against their King and demanding Him thus to Justice intend no lesse then the ruine of Monarchy and the rearing up of a kind of a military-democraticall Forme of Government which by abolishing our old Lawes and leaving none but that of the Sword must needs be absolutely Tyrannicall over our Estates Lives and Liberties This is the true drift of their first Proposition Give ear and regard O ye Commons of England lest under a specious pretence for the Liberty of the People which Cromwell himself once called a meer Chimaera and a thing not to be contended for ye be drawne into Parricide and perpetuall Slavery Nor doe they rage only against the Person of the King but in the second Proposition they endeavour to shake off His Posterity and therefore they propound these harsh Conditions concerning the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York either to yeild themselves up to their mercy at a certaine day to acquit themselves of their Capitall Delinquency as they call it or else to be at their discretion whether they shall follow their Royall Father to the Shambles These are fine Conditions for the two Princes to be summoned in upon are they not But knowing these wil never be accepted this Summons is but pretended to blear the eyes of the People and insinuate their Guilt if they refuse to appear that so they may exclude the next Heires of the Crown the more plausibly in order still to their designe of changing the Government And therefore it is likewise that in this Proposition they demand the Revenue of the Crown may continue still in Hucksters hands and the Pomp of it be suspended to make amends they say for publique Debts which are all in the Pockets of their Faction and repaire the losses of the People but indeed to be shared among them and their Creatures who usurpe the name and reputation of the PEOPLE all which whosoever seriously considers will see these things are but preparatory to the cashiering of Kingly Government In Order to this designe still it is also That in the third and fourth-Propositions they demand the bringing of His Majesties Principall Friends to the Block not reckoning themselves safe as long as their Heads are on their shoulders And for the rest that have served Him though they claw with them in pressing that moderate Fines may be set upon them for Delinquency yet they deprive them of their native Birth-rights so long as shall seeme good unto these new Conquerors and so they shall be no more but in the condition of Slaves to this insolent Faction all over the Kingdome And thus you see what is the designe and like to be the Issue of their pretended publique Justice Next they proceed to propound towards the Settlement of the Kingdome both in relation to the Parliamentary and Kingly power in time to come First as the Parliamentary they demand That some reasonable and certaine period may be set to this Parliament by which time that Supreme Trust in them may return unto the People That is themselves and their Faction for They only will be the People But the People of England may do well to consider that the King being outed of all Power there is no visible Authority left at present but that in the two Houses who are now the only Bulwarks against military Tyranny and the dissolving them before the King be re-invested will leave us all in the power of the Army and then as that Leveller Major White said at Putney in the Generall Councell for he knew it was designed then and could not chuse but utter it there will be no visible Authority left in the Kingdome but the power of the Sword which will introduce a new Parliament of its own Creatures as appeares by what followes wherein they exclude all from the power of Election or being elected that are not of their Faction And so farewell the Government and glory of our Nation For proof of this observe next what they propound concerning the Sucession of future Parliaments First that none shall be capable of electing or being elected that have ingaged against the publique Interest nor any that oppose them in this Agreement Secondly that Elections may be so distributed as to render the House of Commons as near as may be a Representative of the whole People and that the certainty of the Peoples meeting to Elect may be provided for So farewell the ancient Legall way of Electing by the Kings Writ or Summons it being inherent in the Prerogative of all Kings to call and dissolve the Supreme Assemblies If this course also be taken to give all men voices in Electing then it will seldome happen that they wil ever agree which will be the cause of innumerable Riots and Confusions at every Election Thirdly That it be declared that the Representatives of the People by them Elected shall have the Supreme Trust and Power as to making of Lawes So farewell the Negative Voice of the King and Nobility and with it the Ancient and Legall Constitutions of Parliament Lastly They propound that our Kings in time to come may be Elective and upon their Coronation disclaime any Negative Voice to the determinations of the said Representatives and subscription to this Agreement And so instead of Kings they would set up meere Scare-crowes of Royaltie But alas this is to amuse the People with the name of King when as they intend no such matter for an Elective Kingship without a Negative Voice is none at all it being a received Maxim among all Polititians That there is a necessity the Supreme Power should reside in the hands of one or of few or of many