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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	great_a	king_n	people_n	5,231	5	4.6713	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41183	A letter to a person of honour, concerning the kings disavovving the having been married to the D. of M's mother	Ferguson, Robert, d. 1714.	1680 (1680)	Wing F750; ESTC R13882	16,478	24

free so in plain English the generality of the People and those of the best sense hold themselves no wise affected or prescribed unto by these Declarations For we who knew the tenour of them when they lay concealed in the Councel Books and yet thought our selves at liberty to believe as our Judgments conducted us are not likely to have our mindes altered by the bare Printing of them But how far the Conscience of the king is concern'd or defiled I leave to those of the Theologick Faculty to resolve only I judge that the same Casuistical Divinity whereby they salved the Conscience and vindicated the honor of the king in case the of the Covenant and with all discharged him from the Obligation which it was supposed to have put upon him may whensoever he thinks meet stand him in good stead and affoord him the same relief in the case of the late Declarations Eightly There is one thing further that must not be omitted because it gives us amazement and yet affords us pleasant diversion namely the motive they have brought his Majesty to alledge for his making and publishing this Declaration I confess I could not read it without surprise and wonderful emotion And I dare say when you think seriously of it you will find pitty stir in your heart to your abused Prince and your bood swell in your Veins through indignation at some about him For after the care they have suffered him to take for preserving our Religion Lives and Liberties from the designs of the Papists by dissolving two Parliaments and so often Proroguing a third they bring him now to publish this Declaration to relieve the minds of his loving Subjects from their fears and to prevent the ill consequences which a belief of his having been Married to the D. of M's Mother may have in future times upon the Peace of these kingdoms A most proper way to extinguish our fears by doing all that he can to subject us hereafter to one who is the professed Enemy of our established Religion and Legal Government But that your Lordship may the better comprehend how highly we are obliged to his majesty for his love and tenderness to his People in all that they judge dear and valluable by designing so hopeful a Successor over them I shall recount some of those many particulars from which we esteem our selves capable of judging what a gracious and desirable Prince this dear and beloved Brother is like to prove 1. He is a Gentleman that hath renounced the Religion wherein he was not only educated and which these Nations profess but which he had consigned unto him sealed with the Blood of his father and entailed upon him and the whole Line by no less then his Grandfathers Curse in case any of old Jame's off-spring should depart from it 2. He hath made it his business to seduce his Majesties Subjects to the papal Faith and to enslave them to a forraign Jurisdiction And by his addresses solicitations and preferments wherewith he is able to reward such mercinary soules as are ready to make sale of their Religion he hath made more converts to the Church of Rome than all the English Missionaries have been able to do 3. Through the power which he hath obtained over the King he hath procured the chiefest places of strength in the Nation and some of the greatest Trusts as well Civil and Religious as Military to be conferred upon known Papists and sworn enemies to the Protestant Cause and English Liberties 4. He hath been the principal promoter of Arbitrary Government and of making the Kings interest both distinct from and opposite to that of his People And this he hath done in pursuance of Papal advice and in subserviency to the Romish interest For where the Monarch is absolute and the Lives and Fortunes of whole Nations are enslaved to the will and pleasur● of one person the meer wheedling of a lustfull weak or inconsiderate Prince will go a great length in the gaining vast multitudes to adore the Triple Crown And for such as shall prov● stubborn and refractory it is but meritoriously to kill them and then convert their Lands to the use of the holy Sea 5. It was this darling and beloved One that Authorised th● burning of London and not only made his own palace a Sanctuary to the Villan's who were suspected as instruments of that dreadful conflagration but rescu'd and discharged diverse who were apprehended in the very Fact And this he did partly in revenge for as much as London had been both the Magazine of Strenth and Treasure during the War with the late King and partly to gratify his Popish friends by destroying the bulwark of the Protestant Religion and the chief Receptacle of the Hereticks 6. It was this presumptive Heir that all along obliged his Majesty to neglect the concerning himselfe in favour of the Protestants abroad and did so order it through his power over the King that never any forrain Alliance was made but what was abused to the betraying of them And here let me call over a story and perhaps a more Tragical one and accompainied with baser Treach●ry then any History is able to acquaint you with One Monseiur Rohux a French Gentleman coming into England to treat with the King concerning an Alliance between his Majesty and Forrain Protestants meerly for the preservation of their Religion and having acquainted the Duke of York with his errand after he had in a private conference or two transacted with the King about i● This Royal Prince out of his wonted kindness to the Protestants and the reformed religion caused Rouveny Lieger Ambassador from France at this Court to stand behind the hangings at St James while he made this innocent Gentleman discourse over the whole business Upon which Mons. Rouveny being ob●iged to acquant his master with it Mons. Rohux who upon some ●ntimation that the Duke had betrayed him had withdrawn ●ence to Switzerland was there seized by a party of French Horse and brought to the Bastile whence after some times imprisonement he was carried to the place of Excution and broken ●pon the Wheel 7. It was through the Duke of Yorks means that both the first ●nd second Wars were commenced against the Dutch and that ●n order not only to weaken the Protestants by their mutual de●troying of each other but in hope to have turned the victorious Arms of the King upon the Hereticks at home and the patrons of English liberty 8. It was this zealous Prince for the honour and safety of Brittain that adviced the breaking the Tripple-League which was the wisest conjunction and most for the glory of the Kings Reign and the preservation of his Dominions that ever he entered into And this he did not only to gratify France whose Pensioner as well as whose confederate he hath been but to leave the Protestants here naked to the attempts of the papists For he knew that while that League continued firm

A LETTER to a Person of Honour concerning the Kings disavowing the having been Married to the D. of M's Mother My Lord AS you cannot but have seen his Majesties Declaration wherein he Renounceth the having been Married to the D. of M's Mother so I believe you will not be displeased to have an account of the sence of the Thinking men about the Town concerning it And this without either disguising or concealing what is publickly discoursed I shall as becomes your Lordships servant address my self to give you And in the first place They say it is no surprize to them that seeing the D. of Y. hath gotten the Ascendant of the King he should hector him into or at least extort from him the foresaid Declaration For can any imagine that he who for some time renounced his own Wife and had provided Persons to swear a familiarity with her which made her unworthy of being Dutchess of York should scruple to importune the King to do as much by Mrs. Walters tho it were never so demonstrable that he was married unto her The course he practised himself he may without any breach of Charity be thought ready to prescribe to others And it may be he thinks it will be some extenuation of what he did himself if people can be brought to believe that it is a Disease natural to the Family and which runs in a Blood Now we all know not only with what Asseve●ations the D. disclaimed his Marriage with Mrs. Hide but with what reflexions upon her Chastity he did it And yet the Proofs of the said Marriage were so evident that he was necessitate at last to acknowledge it and to own her for his Wife after he had by himself and many others Proclaimed her for no better than a Common Whore And I 'm sure it left this Impression upon most Persons That his Faith to Men was not very far to be relied on seeing he made so slight of that Faith which he had plighted i● an Ordinance of God to a harmless Lady Secondly Most men do observe this difference between the Kings Renouncing Mrs. Waters and the Dukes Disclaiming Mrs. Hide That what the Duke did was an Act of Inclination and Choice whereas it is apparent that what the King hath done is the result of Dread and Fear For to use his Majesties own expression not long ago He was harassed out of his Life by the importunity of his Brother as He added He could rather chuse to Die than Live so uneasily as he did while he withstood their daily Sollicitations in this matter And as nothing made the Duke honest to Mrs. Hide but the interposition of his Majesties Authority from a sense of the Justness of the Ladies Complaint so they believe the King is only Injurious through the Influence of others and that when rescued out of ill Hands and left to himself he will return to be Just. For though his Majesty be a Prince of that clearness of Understanding that they cannot baffle him by false Reasonings yet he hath so much of James's timidness that they can huffe and over-awe him to things most opposite to his Judgment as well as cross to his Interest And let me upon this occasion remind your Lordship of a Story of a Scots Nobleman to my Lord Burleigh upon that wise Statesman's desiring a Character of King James long before he ascended the English Throne If your Lordship saith the blunt Scotsman know a Jack-a-napes you cannot but understand that if I have him in my hands I can make him bite you whereas if you get him into your hands you may make him bite me Thirdly The whole Town is apprehensive that the King through endeavouring by this Act to secure himself in the Grace at least forbearance of the Duke and Popish Party will find in the Issue that instead thereof he hath left himself naked and exposed to their wrath and malice Nor is there any thing more probable than that what the King calls and intends only for a Declaration to serve his present Occasions they will transform into his Last Will and Testament to accomodate theirs If Queen Elizabeth when tempted to declare Her Successor declind it with this saying That such an Act would be the digging 〈◊〉 Grave before She were dead have we not great Cause to apprehend that the King having by this Act digg'd his own Grave his Brother or the Jesuites under whose Government he is will find hands to bring and put him into 't least through delay something should intervene that would fill it up again 'T is a pitty that none would call to his Majesties Memory that saying of Tacitus Suspectus semper invisusque Dominanti qui proximus destinatur Which by varying a little from the Latine I will English thus That he ought to be always suspected and carefully watched against by the Ruler who most ardently hopes and thinks himself in likelyhood to succeed him Statesmen in old Times reckoned it for a Maxime in Polliticks that Ne mentio fieret Haeredis vivo adhuc Principe That while the Prince liveth there ought not to be so much as a mentioning of any whose right it was to come after For as subtile Tiberius upbraided Macro that he forsook the setting Sun to worship the rising so King Charles may have in time if he have not already cause to object the same to some about him That crafty Emperor knew more of the Art of self-preservation than Crowned Heads in our dayes seem to do For tho he had adopted Germanicus at the Command of Augustus of whom he received the Empire yet having a Son of his own namely Drusus He would never declare in favour of either so long as they lived but Judged his own Safety to consist in leaving it doubtful whose Title to the Universal Monarchy was best However say most of his Majesties Subjects tho we have not been able to prevent the King from this unwary Act by which he hath stak't his Life to the pleasure of his Enemies yet we will be kinder to him than he hath been to himself and contribute all we can to his Security and that is by letting the World know That we 'll Revenge his Death by sacrificing the whole Popish party upon his Grave in case he should come to an untimely End Fourthly This Declaration would be received with less hesitation in the minds of People if Kings and Princes were not made of the same mould with other men and lyable to the like failures and moral Prevarications that the rest of the Sons of Adam are And therefore observing how common it is for Persons upon a lower ground to renounce their Wives and most sacredly disclaim their Marriages they conceive it is not impossible but that these who move in higher spheres may upon strong Temptations do the like Yea our own History furnisheth us with an Instance of a great King and one who swaied the English Scepter who is transmitted to us