Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	king_n	law_n	lord_n	4,135	5	3.8427	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64086	A Brief enquiry into the ancient constitution and government of England as well in respect of the administration, as succession thereof ... / by a true lover of his country.	Tyrrell, James, 1642-1718.	1695 (1695)	Wing T3584; ESTC R21382	45,948	120

grounds and this hath been the course of all Parliaments that have been called immediately after any great and general Resistance or Revolution made upon the Accounts abovementioned This I could prove to you from several Instances in divers Kings Reigns since the Conquest were it worth my pains but still in all those Cases the first opposition hath been from the great Body of the Clergy Nobility and People together as you may particularly read in the Reign of King Iohn not long before the great Council at Runney Mead. F. But pray Sir can you also justify those Lords and Gentlemen who took up Arms and declared for the Prince of Orange and also those Lords together with the Officers and Soldiers who deserted the King and went into the Prince's Army Pray Sir did you look upon the Government to be then actually dissolved when they went in to him and that the King by the breach of the Original Contract was then no longer King I. I do not say so for though those Violations if obstinately persisted in without amendment were enough to create such a Dissolution and consequently a Forfeiture of the Crown as they wrought at the last yet the Government can never be dissolved so long as there remain any hopes that the King will amend those Violations he has made in a Free Parliament for the obtaining of which as it was the chief cause of his Highness's coming over so was it also of those Lords Gentlemen and Officers going in to him or declaring for him and this I think they may very well justify both in Honour and Conscience And though there be no express Law for it yet it is no more than what the Nobility Gentry and People of other Kingdoms as well as this have many times done before in former Ages when their Kings being misled and deluded by evil Councellors or Ministers of State have made the like Breaches upon their Liberties And though I confess such taking up of Arms have not always met with the desired Success yet for the most part they have and then such wicked Judges and Councellors have not failed to be punished and those Lords Gentlemen and others who so nobly and stoutly stood up for the Rights and Liberties of the Nation have been also pardoned by Act of Parliament and that with the King 's own consent when those wicked men were once removed but the King himselff was never touched till by his own wilful and obstinate persisting in such violent courses he let the Nation see that he was wholely irreclaimable and obstinately bent to destroy our Liberties and set up Arbitrary Government and Tyranny in this Kingdom as I could shew you from several Instances in the Reigns of King Iohn Henry III. Edward I. and Richard II. if it were necessary to give you a particular History of all those Transactions so that I suppose a twofold Right of Resistance in the People the one warranted by the Laws and Constitution of the Government which may well consist with our Loyalty to the King and to the intent only to obtain a Free Parliament to redress Grievances and punish those evil Councellors who have been the chief Ministers and Designers of Arbitrary Power as in the Case of King Iames before his departure the other Natural when the Government by the King 's wilful and obstinate refusal to redress such Grievances by ceasing to govern us according to Law he thereby also ceases to be King and then the Commonwealth or Civil Society being without a Head to execute Common Justice was absolutely dissolved F. What then is meant by these words in the late Vote and Declaration of the Convention viz. That King James having withdrawn himself out of the Kingdom hath abdicated the Government Do you believe that the King 's bare delertion of the Kingdom when he declared he could not help it should be looked upon as in Abdication of the Government methinks that seems somewhat hard to conceive I. To deal freely with you I never understood the word Abdicate in that Sense but only according to all the precedent Clauses in this Vote viz. That the King by endeavouring to break the Original Contract between the King and his People and by the Advice of Iesuits and wicked Persons having violated the Fundamental Laws and having withdrawn himself out of this Kingdom hath abdicated the Government Where you may observe that the word Abdicated relates to all the Clauses aforegoing as well as to his deserting the Kingdom or else they would have been wholely in vain so that the meaning of this word in this place is no more than that King Iames by violating the Original Contract abovementioned and by endeavouring to subvert the Fundamental Constitution and by refusing to restore it to its former Condition all which was expressed by his withdrawing himself out of the Kingdom hath abdicated the Government that is by refusing to govern us according to that Law by which he held the Crown he hath implicitly renounced his Title to it as when for example a Tenant for Life aliens in Fee though he take back from the Grantee a Lease for Life or Years yet he thereby forfeits his Estate and the Tenant in Reversion may enter and the reason is because he parts with that Estate which he held by Law and will hold by another Title which the Law doth not allow for abdicare in the Latin Tongue signifies no more than to renounce or disclaim as I could shew you from divers Phrases in that Language were you a Scholar good enough to understand them and this may be done by divers other means besides express words For if Kingship be a Trust for the preservation of the Rights and Liberties of the People than such Actings contrary to that Trust as plainly strike at the very Fundamentals of the Constutution are not only a breach of that Trust but a tacite Renunciation of it also which I prove thus the doing of any Act that is utterly inconsistent with the Being and End of the thing for which it is ordained is as true a Renouncing or Abdication of that thing as if it were made in express words as I have now proved in the Case of Tenant for Life F. I confess this is more than ever I heard before but pray What do you think was the reason that the Convention made use of this Hard word Abdicate which I confess to us Country Fellows seem'd as bad as Heathen Greek when they might as well have made use of plain Expressions such as Renounce or Forfeit which you have now made use of I. I will tell you Neighbour my Opinion of this Matter and if I am out you must pardon me because those Wise men in the Convention who had the Wording of this Vote were afraid that those plainer words you mention would have been of too hard digestion to a great part of the Country Gentlemen who had been bred up with different Principles and

all private Subjects should submit and acquiesce in their final Judgments since they are all virtually Represented in such Assemblies as the Representative Body of the whole People or Nation Therefore if the Convention of the Estates of England have for divers weighty Reasons thought fit to declare their present Majesties Lawful King and Queen and to place them on the Throne as then vacant by King Iames's Abdication I think all the Subjects of this Kingdom are bound to bear true Allegiance to them and to confirm it by the Oath appointed for that end whenever they shall be lawfully required thereunto F. Well Sir but is not this to alter one part of the Original Contract which those that are against the present Settlement suppose to be the Right of Hereditary Succession to the Crown and that in a right Line So that if the supposed Prince of Wales be lawful Heir to King Iames to place any body else therein seems to render the Crown for the future not Successive but Elective for if it may be bestowed now according to the humor of the present Convention it may be done so again the next Succession and so the right Heirs put by from time to time for the same or some like Reason as now I. That does not at all follow for if you will allow that the Throne was vacant by the Abdication of King Iames and that her present Majesty Queen Mary is lawful Heir if the pretended Prince of Wales were away I will prove to you that the late Convention and present Parliament have done all they could or were obliged to do in this juncture in placing Their present Majesties on the Throne and Recognizing their Title without taking any notice of this pretended Prince of whose Birth whether true or false I shall not now say any thing one way or other nor shall trouble my self to inquire into the Validity of those Suspitions that may render his Birth doubtful to the generality of the Nation And therefore in the first place I desire you only to take Notice that this Child was carried away by his Mother when he was scarce yet six Months Old 2dly That the Midwife and all the chief Witnesses who could Swear any thing concerning the Queen's being really with Child and brought to Bed of him were likewise conveyed at the same time into France F. I grant it but what do you infer from hence I. Why only these two Conclusions 1st That neither the Convention nor Parliament are Obliged to take Notice of the Rights of any Person tho' Heir to the Crown that is out of the Dominions of England if he be no necessary part or Member of Parliament if neither himself nor any Body for him will put in his Claim to the Crown upon the Demise of the King either by Death or Abdication as in the Case now before us there being then a Claim made in the late Convention by his Highness the Prince of Orange on the behalf of his Consort the Princess as Heir apparent to the Crown The Convention were not obliged to look any farther after this supposed Prince or to know what was become of him whether he was Drowned or taken at Sea by Pyrates or he being Dead another put in his place or carried by his Mother into France Since any of these might have happen'd for ought they knew no body appearing to put in any Claim for him or to desire that his Cause might first be heard before he was Excluded 2dly That if such Claim had been made by any body for him yet the Convention could by no means be obliged to do more than lay in their Power or to hear or examine the Validity of this Child's Birth unless the Midwife Nurses and others who were privy to all the Transactions concerning it were likewise present and sent back to give their Testimonies in this Case for if the Convention had proceeded to examine this matter without sufficient evidence they could only have heard it ex parie on but one side and so might have sat long enough before they could have come to any true decision in this matter whilst in the mean time the whole Nation for want of a King were in danger of utter Ruin and Confusion F. But pray Sir why could not the Parliament have sent over Summons to those Witnesses which they say are no further off than France to come and give Testimony in this great Cause before they had proceeded to have declared the Prince and Princess of Orange King and Queen I. There may be several good Reasons given for it First Because this Child being carried into the Dominions of a Prince who is a declared Enemy of our Religion and Civil Interest of the English Nation he would never have consented to his being sent over to be viewed by those that the Convention should appoint for that purpose without which Inspection the Nation could never have been morally assured that this was the same Child that was carried away since every one knows that Infants of that Age are not easily distinguisht one from another but by those that have been about them from the very time of their Birth Secondly Because his Reputed Parents counting themselves already injured by the Convention in declaring that the King had abdicated the Government and that the Throne was thereby become vacant would never have obeyed any Summons the Convention should have sent over because they looked upon them not to have any Authority at all as not being summon'd nor sitting by vertue of that King's Writs Thirdly Admitting that the French King would have permitted this supposed Prince to have been sent back and that King Iames and his Queen would have obeyed this Summons yet was it not for the safety of the Nation to stay for or rely upon it since before this Question could have been decided great part of this Year had slipt away and we being left without a King to head us nor any Parliament Sitting able to raise Money which cannot be legally done without the King's Authority in Parliament the French King might whilst we were thus quarrelling amongst our selves about a Successor to the Crown have sent over King Iames with a great Fleet and an Army of old Soldiers and so have placed him again in the Throne more Absolute than ever he was before since besides that Legal Right of Succession which I grant he once had he might also have set up a new Right by Conquest over this Kingdom So that all things being seriously considered since the safety of the People ought to be the Supream Law as ever hath been agreed as an undoubted Principle by all wise Nations I think we have done all that could well be done in this Case nor have broken the Hereditary Succession in declaring King William and Queen Mary to be our Lawful King and Queen since if she were Lawful Queen they might also declare him to be King and make it Treason to