Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	great_a	king_n	kingdom_n	4,596	5	5.5955	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

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

would defend them herein with fidelity and courage against all opposition Teach them not by neglecting your own and the Kingdomes safety in which their own is involved to think themselves betrayed and left hereafter to the rage and malice of an irreconcileable Enemy whom they have subdued for your sake and therefore are likely to find his future government of them insupportable and fuller of revenge than Justice lest despaire teach them to seek their safety by some other meanes than by adhering to you who will not stick to your selves And how destructive such a Resolution in them will be to you all I tremble to think and leave you to judge Upon the concluding of Oliver the Question was immediately put and not a man daring to mutter it was concluded that no further Applications should be made unto the King The other 3. Votes followed of course as depending thereupon Now the grand difficulty was to make them passe with the Lords they having very hotly debated against them insomuch that there were ten Lords to ten But to turne the Scales at the very instant a Regiment of Foot and another of Horse came to garrison White-Hall and the Newes which frighted their Lordships to a quick condescention So that now I leave the world to judge the falshood of the Remonstrance in this particular it being cleare that that the Houses were acted beyond their free Judgement and by Impulsion from the Army in passing the Votes of Non-Addresse unto his Majesty And the truth is they have acknowledged among themselves That they rule by Power only and that the House is no longer theirs than they over-awe them which is the very reason why they appear now upon the very Close of the Treaty with this high-flowne Remonstrance To the second whereas the Remonstrance sayes that before the passing those 4. Votes the people were full of discontents and distempers but after they were passed the Kingdom was in a hopefull posture of settlement I answer That though the people generally distasted the Proceedings of the Grandees upon the Imprisonment of their King yet they were not so inraged as to rush into Arms till the passing these 4. Votes which were so far from promoting a settlement that they inflamed the minds of the whole Commonalty with Revenge and suspicion what Form of Government the Grandees intended to erect now they had laid by the King and every mans mind presaged a new War which indeed the Independent Grandees were willing to have to colour their keeping up this Army and raising money to maintain them It is moreover That the whole Kingdom was so far out of charity with the Grandees for those four Votes that every man even among the moderate well-affected as they call them did detest the proceedings insomuch that none would second them by Petition or otherwise though they proceeded almost so far as to compel them Witness the Designe of Prideaux to ingage the whole County of Sommerset but could prevail no further then with a few Sectaries of the Town of Taunton to thank the House for those Votes by a Petition which was seconded through the inoustry of Serjeant Wilde as he rode the Circuit by the subscription of a packt grand Jury for the County Colonel Puresoy was at the same work in Warwickshire and Sir Arthur Haslerig about Newcastle but all with as small success as Sir Harry Mildmay had in the County of Essex For the people instead of countenancing the four Votes began every where openly to protest against them and to turn their Petitions into a contrary strain for recalling the Votes and appointing a Personal Treaty with His Majesty the rejecting of which Petitions murthering some of the Petitioners as the Surrey men and discountenancing the rest was the true cause of all the late Insurrections So that it appears evident against the sence of the Remonstrance That the four Votes rather unsettled the Kingdom then brought it into a hopeful posture of settlement To the third Falshood of the Romonstrance That when the Houses recalled the four Votes their judgment was not with due Freedom I answer That when the face of affairs changed so that the Army could no longer over-aw the House then having liberty to Vote with Freedom and according to their Consciences they immediatly recalled the Votes of Non-Address upon the Petitions of the City of London and other Counties about which were debated in the Houses freely being then released from that terror wherein they were held formerly by the Army as appears when they were first passed by the Lords and communicated by them unto the Commons on Wednesday the 16 of August where they received a full and free Concurrence with very little contradiction Thus the falshood of these three Particulars being cleared all the superstructures of Discourse upon them in this fi●st part of the Remonstrance must fall to nothing Having caluminated the just and honorable proceedings of the Houses in recalling the Votes of Non-Addresse and yielding to a Personal Treaty with His Majesty in the next place they insinuate the great evil or danger of seeking to the King by Treaty and of an Agreement or Accommodation with him including his impunity and restitution to his Freedom Revenue and Dignity and all under pretence that sufficient provision is not made thereby for the publike Interest Herein they tacitly condemne the Propositions of both Houses as if in them they had not been carefull of the good and welfare of the People and propou●d another way of their own as the only meanes to preserve the publike Interest of the Nation which they say consists in these Principall Heads 1. That for all matters of supreme Trust or concernment to the Safety of the whole there be a supreme Councell or Parliament 2. That the power of making and repealing Lawes and the finall power of Judgment in all things without further Appeal many rest in that Councell or Representative Body of the People and that it may not be in the will of the King or any other particular Persons to oppose or make void their determinations These things they set down as the Epitome of the publike Interest and the true Subject of the Contest betwixt the King and Parliament But that a Supreme Councell so quallified is no part of the publike Interest in this Kingdom I shall make cleare when I come to handle those particulars which they propound in the winding up of the Remonstrance Nor hath it been the Subject of the Contest betwixt King and Parliament and therefore they cannot ground any just accusation or charge upon them against the King as they indeavour here to doe For the first Contest betwixt the King and Parliament was about the possession of the Militia which they claimed to have in their hands for a time under pretence of danger c. Yet never proceeded so far as to question the Kings negative voice in Parliament but acknowledged in severall Declarations that their Ordinances