Selected quad for the lemma: country_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
country_n	air_n	call_v	situation_n	1,745	5	11.6093	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61579	Origines Britannicæ, or, The antiquities of the British churches with a preface concerning some pretended antiquities relating to Britain : in vindication of the Bishop of St. Asaph / by Ed. Stillingfleet ...	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1685 (1685)	Wing S5615; ESTC R20016	367,487	459

some Domestick Fear that was the Occasion of Vortigern 's sending for the Saxons as well as that of their common Enemies i. e. he was very apprehensive of a sudden Rising of the Roman Party yet left in the Island and of Ambrosius But he leaves it wholly in the dark who this Ambrosius was and what Cause Vortigern had to be afraid of him Gildas speaks of Ambrosius Aurelianus as of a modest Man and as almost the onely person of the Roman Nation then surviving whose Parents were killed enjoying the Purple and whose Posterity was living in Gildas his time but much degenerated from the Vertues of their Ancestours This is the onely Passage which gives us any light into this matter which is repeated by Bede who more plainly saith That his Parents had Royal Authority and were killed Who these Parents of his were we are left onely to conjecture The British History would clear the matter if it deserved Credit for there we reade That Aurelius Ambrosius was one of the younger Sons of Constantine King of Britain who was forced to fly from Vortigern after the Murther of their Brother Constans by his contrivance But we know that Constantine and his Sons Constans and Julian were killed abroad and it is not probable the Romans would have permitted any one of his Sons to have remained here or if they did this Ambrosius must have been of Ripe years for Government long before this time For Constantine's Life was taken away when Theodosius was IV. Consul as Idatius and Marcellinus agree Anno Dom. 411. So that Ambrosius could not be very young when Vortigern took the Government in whose fourth year they say The Saxons were called in But there is another Passage in Gildas which helps to explain this For he saith That after they found themselves deserted by the Romans they set up Kings of their own and soon after put them down again and made choice of worse in their room This setting up of Kings he expresses by their being anointed whether that Custome were then used or not it is plain that he supposes that the Britains in that Confusion they were in took upon them without regard to their Duty to place and displace them But that he takes anointing in a metaphorical Sense appears by what follows That the Anointers were those who destroy'd them Among these in all probability was the Father of Ambrosius and the rather because it is said he was of Roman Descent For the Britains thought none then able to defend them that had not a Roman Spirit in him At this time the Britains were left to their full Liberty by the Roman Empire which as Bede reckons had the Dominion here for 470 years And then there was no Line remaining to succeed in the Government nor so much as to determine their choice which made them so easily to make and unmake their Kings who lost their Purple and their Lives together This must needs breed infinite Confusions among them and every one who came to be King lived in perpetual fear of being served as others had been before him And the natural consequence of this Jealousie of their own Subjects was looking out for Assistence from abroad which I doubt not was one great Reason of Vortigern's sending for the Saxons hoping to secure himself by their means against his own People although it proved at last the Ruine both of himself and his People But this Jealousie could not but increase upon them while there was a Person descended from a former King and of Roman Parentage in being So that Nennius seems to have hit upon one of the main Reasons which sway'd Vortigern to send for the Saxons Some have gon about to defend Vortigern so far as to say That he took the most prudent course he could for the benefit and security of his Subjects by placing the Saxons upon the Picts Wall and upon the Kentish Shores which were thought fit to be secured by the Romans But against whom Was it not against these very Saxons And is it the best way to secure the Flock to set the Wolves to watch them If they had the Command of those Shores could not they let in what Numbers they pleased of their own People to strengthen themselves against the Britains And was this for the Peoples Security What Success had there been in that Age in letting in the Barbarous Nations upon the several parts of the Roman Empire And what could be expected in such a Condition as the Britains were in otherwise than what did happen when a fierce ungovernable military People were called in to defend a Nation so long kept under and wholly almost unacquainted with the exercise of Brutish Valour and unexperienced in the Arts of War Especially when the Air Situation Fruitfulness and all sorts of Conveniencies were so much above those of the Countrey which they came from So that Gildas seems to have a great deal of Reason when he attributes this Act of Vortigern's with a respect to the Nation to mere Sottishness and Infatuation Witikindus tells a formal Story of a Speech made by the British Ambassadours to the Saxons wherein they magnifie the Saxons courage and lament their own Miseries and in short tell them If they would come and help them their Land and themselves would be at their Service for they knew none more worthy to command them since the Romans had left them But neither Bede nor Ethelwerd although both Saxons mention the least Promise of Submission And it is apparent by their Quarrel with the Britains afterwards that they came as Mercenary Souldiers upon promise of Pay For Gildas saith The first Pretence of Quarrelling was for greater allowance which he calls their Epimenia and Bede Annonae Which shews upon what Terms they came And Witikindus himself makes no other Pretence for their Rising against the Britains but that the Countrey pleased them and they found they were able to subdue the Inhabitants For after Hengist and his Company had tasted the Sweetness of it they never left Wheedling that weak and vitious King as all describe him with fair Promises and necessity of more Succours to secure himself and to defend his Countrey till they had by degrees got over Strength enough to bid defiance to the Britains At first they seem'd very zealous and hearty against their common Enemies and did great Service in beating the Picts and Scots insomuch that Buchanan confesses they were driven beyond Adrian 's Wall And some think their King Eugenius was then killed Fordon saith They went into Albany and brought away great booty from thence and confesses that he found in a certain History that he was killed South of Humber by the Britains and the English And it is easie to imagine how insolent such a Barbarous People would grow upon their Success when they knew the Britains durst not oppose them Bede saith That they entred into a secret League with the