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	prerogative_n	1,605	5	10.3114	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30726	The true case of John Butler, B.D., a minister of the true Church of England in answer to the libel of Martha his sometimes wife : treating of a marriage dissolved and made null by desertion and of a lawful concubinage in a case of necessity, wherein lawful marriage conveniently or possibly cannot be obtained.	J. B. (John Butler)	1697 (1697)	Wing B6276; ESTC R20976	33,278	45

affected and voluntary absence from him for a whole year and half together and by continual and causeless quarrels against him that it was a causeless contrived malitious and obstinate Desertion made against him propagated and encouraged by her rebellious children And now besides all these things it is now above eleven years since her Desertion first begun and yet in all this time she hath made no complaint Moreover this Respondent hath several times offered her to refer all maters in Difference with her and offering to be concluded by reverend and holy Fathers in God the Bishops and particularly by the late Bishop of Bath and Wells unto whom she was contented to refer her self and yet afterwards would not stand to it nor to any other Bishop until at this time knowing this Respondent to be utterly destitute of maintenance she sued out Process in this Honourable Court verily thinking to destroy this Respondent and to tread on him in his distress And this notwithstanding he has been hetherto so kind to her as to allow her maintenance all these years of his free good will without any condition until of late by meanes of false friends and mishaps of fortune he wanted daily bread for his own relief and could not allow her for want of wherewithall And now having answered her scandalous Charge this Respondent is ready to proceed to the mater of Fact And farther saith that the said Mary Tomkins together with this Respondent and other Company did go over into Holland upon a very lawful and good Account having a license of Absence from his Dioe●●san but not as an Adulterer or Fornicator or Incontinent or for fear of any Discovery as this Complainant malitiously insinuateth For this Respondent had a Cure at Delft in Holland and lived there publickly being imployed to Preach untò the English and Scots in a publick Church in Delft for most of the time he tarryed there and held correspondence with Alban this Complainants Son all the time who from time to time sent Letters and gave an account of his rents and had a continual course of Letters from this Respondent And there was no such thing as living incontinently with any woman much lefs with the said Mary Tomkins And the said Mary Tomkins had no Bastard Child born there nither can any such thing be proved nor was there any fame of any such thing or any repute of a Bastard Child born there But true it is that the said Mary Tomkins living there in Delft in good Repucation was delivered of a Daughter who was Baptised and Named Mary born on the 26th Day of June 1688. about nine years since And of this child this Respondent does confess he is as he verily believes the true Father And he humbly conceives it is a lawful anda well born 〈◊〉 For that being deserted of this Complainant his pretended Wife above two full years before this child was born It was lawful for him to joyn himself unto another woman as by all the Testimonies aforesaid it does appear And what ever child he had at this time was no wrong to her who had utterly forsaken his bed And this child being but newly Conceived at his coming away out of England there could be no such thing as she malitiously in her Libel suggests that it was taken notice of that the said Mary Tomkins was with child Now true it is that this Respondent was not married to the said Mary Tomkins according to the customs of the Church of England for reasons as aforesaid And whereas many will be apt slanderously to charge this Respondent as one keeping a Concubine or living in Concubinage with an unlawful woman This Respondent humbly answers that in a sense he is lawfully married to the said Mary Tomkins and that his Children by her are lawfully born children and no bastards Of a lawful Concubinage in a Case of Necessity wherein lawful Marriage conveniently or possibly cannot be obtained ANd to this purpose he humbly conceives himself concerned to make it appear according to Gods Holy Word and the English customs and good Law of this Land there is a sort of most lawful and necessary Concubinage that in many cases cannot possibly be avoid This first Wife this Complainant called Martha Butler being never lawfully married to him this Respondent could not be his lawfully married wife and yet both of us having done our true endeavours to be lawful man and wife it was no fault of ours that we were not so for as the time then reigned few were or could be lawfully married But we were in a fair way to be lawfully married and had been so had not the mistake of the Minister marrying and unhappy accidents prevented us Wherefore having done what we could do who shall blame us that we lived almost forty years together in Concubinage and were never truly married Until by the Act of Indemnity at the coming in of King Charles the II. our marriage and a thousand more unlawful marriages were all made good in Law as if they had been the most regular marriages all of them that ever were made by a Minister in holy Orders according to all the rites and ceremonies required by the Laws and customs of the Land Now all these thousands of marriages which were made by the Directory and by Justices and by Quakers and many by taking one anothers words were all of them but meer Concubinages and no more but as if man and woman had gon to bed together and begot children without any Ceremony at all For our law calls all Bastards that are born out of marriage and all Directory and Justice marriages were as much illegal as those wihtout any ceremony at all and were all equally fellows in Concubinage until the said Act of Indemnity set all strait and made all good Now by the said Act of Indemnity of the XIIth of King Charles the II. it is expressed that any the Subjects of the said King or the heirs or Executors of any of them shall not be sued vexed or inquieted by or in behalf of the Kings Majesty his Heirs or Successors in their bodies goods lands or tenements for any manner of mater cause contempt misdeameaners c. Or any other thing suffered done or committed before the said 24th of June 1660 against his late Majesty or that now is his Crown Dignity Prerogative Laws or Statutes any Statute Statutes Laws customes or Usuages heretofore had made or used to the contrary in any wise not withstanding And that all the said Subjects c. may plead this Act for their free pardon Now setting aside Laws and Statues of this Realm according to holy writ there is no more ceremony requird but consent on both parts before Witness sufficient and beding together according to Exod. 12 26. without any presence nessarily required of either Magistrate or Priest And tho every one Man was to marry but one woman who was to be Lady or