Selected quad for the lemma: country_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
country_n	england_n	king_n	normandy_n	1,568	5	11.0951	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57453	An introduction to a breviary of the history of England with the reign of King William the I, entitled the Conqueror / written by Sr. Walter Raleigh, Kt. ...	Raleigh, Walter, Sir, 1552?-1618.; Daniel, Samuel, 1562-1619.; Van Hove, Frederick Hendrick.	1693 (1693)	Wing R169; ESTC R8443	18,952	88

to prepare the Way for the great After-work intended And having done much Mischeif on the Coast of Kent Harold with strong Navy forced him to draw towards the North parts where seeking to Land he was repulsed by the Earls Morcar and Edwin and forced to look Aid of the Scots and after of the King of Norway whom he induced to invade this Kingdom with great store of Men and Shipping These landing at Tinmouth and discomfiting their first Encounterers marched into the heart of England without Resistance But being come near to Stamford King Harold with a mighty army met them and after long Fight with the Loss of much Bloud and his best Men he finished that Action with the Death of Tosty and the King of Norway § 10. But from hence was he called with his wearied and broken Forces to a more fatal Business in the South For now William Duke of Normandy pretending a Right to the Crown of England both by the Testament of the late King Edward and also by Parentage upon the Advantage of the Time and the Disfurnishment of those parts Landed at Hastings Near to which Place was Fought that bloudy Battle wherein Harold Valianty Fighting amidst his Enemies Ended his Life and Reign which was scarce of one Year and the English with the loss of 20000. Men and the Flower of the Kingdom became the miserable Prey of the Normans § 11. But how so great a State as this could be with one Blow subdued by so small a Province in such sort as it could never after come to make any general Head against the Conqueror may seem strange and considerable But the Circumstances with the Disposition of that Time as may be Collected from the Writers that lived near it may somewhat though not altogether satisfy us in that point For they say the People of the Kingdom were by their being secure from their Foreign Enemies the Danes and their long Peace which had held in a manner from the Death of Edmon Ironside the space of fifty Years grown neglective of Arms and generally debauched with Luxury and Idlenesse The Clergy licentious and only Literaturâ tumultuariâ contenti Scholae non vitae discebant saith Malmesbury the Nobility given to Gluttony Venery and Oppression the Common sort to Drunkenness and all Disorder And they say that in the last Action of Harold at Stamford the bravest Men perished And himself growing insolent after the Victory retaining the Spoils without Distribution to the Souldiers made them discontent and unruly Or peradventure being not inured to be Commanded by Martial Discipline they were of themselves unmanageable and that coming to the Battle of Hastings with many mercenary Men and a discontented Army there was not that Valour and Resolution shewed as was meet in so important an Occasion Besides the Normans had a peculiar Militia or Fight with Bowes and Arrowes wherein they were Excellently practised and the English unacquainted with that Weapon were altogether unprovided for the Defence And thus they excuse the shame of our Nation THE REIGN OF WILLIAM the I. Anno I. § 12. BY these Advantages William the base Son of Robert Duke of Normandie having gotten the Victory in the Battle near Hastings Marched without any opposition towards London Where the Earls Edwin and Morcar Brothers of eminent Dignity and Respect in the Kingdom laboured with all their Power in solliciting the People for the Conservation of the State And to have Established Edgar Etheling next of the Royal Issue in the Soveraignty whereunto the rest of the Nobility had likewise consented had they not seen the Bishops averse or wavering And all Men generally transported with Fear or corrupted with new Hopes runing from themselves and their endanger'd Country and striving who should be first to entertain the present Fortune sought to preoccupate each other For streight upon his Approach to London the Gates was set all open the Archbishop of Canterbury Stigand with other Bishops the Nobility Magistrates and People all rendred themselves and their Obedience unto him and he returning plausible Promises of his future Goverment was within a short Time after Crowned at Westminster by Aldred Archbishop of York for that Stigand was not held Canonically Invested in that See and yet was thought to have been a principal Adherent to this Enterprise § 13. Here according to the accustomed Form in his Coronation the Bishops and Barons of the Realm took their Oath to be his true and Loyal Subjects and he reciprocally being required thereunto by the Archbishop of York made his personal Oath before the Altar of Saint Peter to defend the holy Church of God and the Rectors of the same to govern the universal people subject unto him justly with care to establish equal Laws for the preservation of Justice and upright Judgment to be used amongst them and taking Hostages for his more Security and Order for the Defence and Government of his Kingdome § 14. At the opening of the Spring then next following he returns into Normandy so to settle his Affairs there as they might not distract him from his Business in England which required his whole powers And to leave all sure behind him he committed the Rule of the Kingdom in his Absence to Odo Bishop of Bayeux his half-Brother by the Mothersside and to his cozen Fitz-Osborn whom he had made Earl of Hereford taking with him the chiefest Men Natives of the State who were likeliest to be Heads to a Revolt as the Arch-Bishop Stigand lately discontented Edgar Atheling a Titular Edwin and Morcar with many other Bishops and Noblemen In his Absence which was all that whole Summer nothing was here attempted against him but only that Edric surnamed the Forrester in the County of Hereford called in the Kings of the Welch to his Aid and Forraged onely the remote Boders of that Country The rest of the Kingdome stood quiet expecting what would become of that new World wherein as yet they found no great Alteration their Lawes and Liberties remaining still the same they did and might hope by this Accession of a new Province the State of England would be inlarged in Dominion abroad and not impaired in profit at home by reason the Nation was but small and being a plentifull and not over-peopled Country they were not likely to impester them § 15. The King now grown to this power soon settled his Estate in Normandy which in his Youth he had alwayes found turbulent within and overhardly neighboured abroad and secured him of that side of the World wherein he was much advantaged by the Time For Philip the first then King of France was a Child who otherwise would never have suffered the Normans being so stubborn and little affectionate to that Crown to have grown to such Greatness and besides was under the Curature of Baudovin Earl of Flanders his Uncle by the Mother whose Daughter King William of England had to wife which Alliance indeed gave him the greatest Means to

28. Where he was no sooner arrived but he heard that his Son was again Revolted Treated the Normans ill and renounced his Father's Soveraignty over that Province which caused his little Stay in England for that time but only to prepare for his Return into Normandy Whither passing he was by Tempest driven on the Coast of Spain and there is said to have Fought in Battle against the Sarasnis Afterwards arriving at Bourdeaux his Son Robert came and submitted himself the second time whom now he took with him into England to frame him to a better Obedience by imploying him here for a Season and then sent him back again with his Youngest Son Harry whom he more trusted into Normandy where he held himself quiet a while and gave his Father some small Breathing time to dispose of the Affairs of this Kingdom § 29. But it was not long e're new Occasions of greater Troubles grew up which took by this means The two Princes Robert and Henry went to Visit and salute the King of France at Couflans where being seasted certain Days upon an After-dinner Henry wan so much at Chess of Louis the King 's eldest Son that he grew so far into Choler as he called him the Son of a Bastard and threw the Chess in his Face Henry takes up the Chess-board and strook Louis with that Force as he drew Bloud and had killed him had it not been for his Brother Robert who came in in the mean time and interposed himself whereupon they suddainely took Horse and with much a do saved themselves at Pontoise from the King's People that pursued them § 30. This Quarrel arising upon the intermeeting of these Princes which is a thing that seldom breeds good Bloud amongst them reinkindled a Heat of more Rancor in the Fathers and set a mighty Fire between the two Kingdoms which made the first War the English and French had together whereupon followed many others For presently the King of France complots again with Robert enters into Normandy and takes the City of Vernon The King of England invades France subdues the Countrey on Xaintoign and Poitou and returns to Roan Where the third time his Son Robert is reconciled unto him which much disappointeth and vexeth the King of France Who hereupon Summons the King of England to come and do him Homage for the Kingdom of England Which he refused to do saying that he held it of none but of God and his Sword But yet offering to do him Homage for the Dutchy of Normandy it would not satisfie the King of France who was willing to make any Occasion the Motive to set upon him And again he invaded his Territories but which more loss than Profit In the End they conclude a little unperfect Peace together which held no longer than King William had recovered a Sickness whereinto by Reason of his Years Travel and Fatness he was lately fallen At which Time the King of France then Young and Lusty jesting at his great Belly whereof he said he lay in at Roan so irritated him as being recovered he gathered all his Forces entred into France in the Chiefest Time of their Fruits and came even before Paris spoiling and burning all in his way Where with Heat and Toil he fell into a Relapse returned to Roan and there made an End of his Wars and Life after he had held this Kingdom twenty years and ten Months § 31. Now concerning his Government in Peace and the Course he held in Establishing the Kingdom thus gotten first he examines the English Laws which were then composed of Merchenlage Danelage and Westfaxlage Whereof some he abrogated and some allowed adding other of Normandy especially such as made for the Preservation of the Peace which most imported him to look unto And these Laws thus reformed he caused to be all Translated and and Written into the Norman Tongue hereby to draw the People of the Kingdom to learn that Language for their own Need that the two Nations might the better grow together and become one seeing a difference of Speech would continue a difference of Affections Wherein he attained not his Desire nor ever was it in the Power of any Conquerour so to do without the universal Extirpation of the Land-bred People Who being so far in number as they were above the Invaders both carry the main of the Language and also in few Years make them to become theirs that subdued them But yet upon these Laws thus Established by so prudent a Prince this free and Fierce Nation was so well held in Peace and Obedience as his Successors with some Abatement of Rigour and Prerogative have ever since continued a most Glorious Soveraignty over the same § 32. And for that he would be well and certainly supplied with Treasure which his great Wars and Entertainments required he took a most provident Course for reforming the Fisque or Exchequer and the ordering and raising of his Revenues Endeavouring to make and know the utmost of his Estate And therefore he imployed a most discreet Choice of Men to survey the whole Kingdom and to take the Particulars of his own and every Man's Ability the quantity and nature of Lands and Possessions with the Discriptions Bounds and Divisions of Shires and Hundreds within the same And this was drawn into one Book and brought into his AErarium the Exchequer so called of the Table whereat the Officers sate before termed the Talce and the same intitled Doomesday-Book Liber Iudiciarius saith Gervasius the Judgement Book that was to decide all Doubts concerning these Particulars § 33. All the Forrests and Chases throughout the Kingdom he took into his proper Possession and exempted them from being under any other Law than his own Pleasure to serve as Penetralia Regnum the withdrawing Chambers of Kings to recreate them after their serious Labours in the State where none might presume to have to do and where all Punishments and Pardons of Delinquents were to be Disposed by himself absolutely and the former Customes abrogated And to make his Command the more he encreased the Number of them in all parts of the Land and on the South-Coast dispeopled the Country for above thirty Miles space making of old inhabited Possessions a new Forrest Inflicting great Punishments for Hunting his Dear whereby he much advanced his Revenue which was the greatest Act of Concussion and Tiranny he committed in his Government And the same Course held almost every King near the Conquest For Henry the first proceeded with such Violence as to make a Law that if any Man killed the Kings Deer in his own Woods he should forfeit his Woods to the King But King Stephen having need of the Peoples Favour repealed that Law And in the End this Grievance amongst others after much Bloodshed in the Kingdom was allayed by the Charter of Forrests granted by Henry III. For other Possessions he permitted those which held them before his Coming to continue them quietly in