Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	act_n	king_n	power_n	3,247	5	5.0875	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54688	Ligeancia lugens, or, Loyaltie lamenting the many great mischiefs and inconveniences which will fatally and inevitably follow the taking away of the royal pourveyances and tenures in capite and by knight-service, which being ancient and long before the conquest were not then, or are now, any slavery, publick or general grievence with some expedients humbly offered for the prevention thereof / by Fabian Philipps.	Philipps, Fabian, 1601-1690.	1661 (1661)	Wing P2010; ESTC R7943	37,109	71

Kings hospitality which the surplusage of his Tables plenty in his Kitchings and Cellars and every where else to be found in all the places and offices of his Court did not only cause an admiration to strangers but yield a comfort and relief to many sorts of neighbor-inhabitants streets and villages adjacent and a great support of the poor who in the Raign of King Henry the Third were besides the dayly crumms fragments and reliques of his houshold provision not infrequently fed and Treated by that King who as our publique Records can tell us did several times send out Warrants and Writs to provide Victuals ad alendos pauperes in Westminster-Hall for as many poor as it could containe being a better kinde of expence then those vaine unnecessary and costly Treatments which our young Gallants and some Tradesmen do now too often make their Gentlewomen and Mistresses in Hide Park and Spring Garden to shew them how little at present they value money and how much they may want it hereafter And at the same time can think every publique duty to be a grievance and every little too much which they contribute to their Prince Who if Pourveyances shall be taken away will not be able to hinder or keep off those many inconveniencies which will obstruct his House keeping Hospitality nor those many hardships disgraces and ruines which will fall upon many of his Servants and Attendants who like the Priests in the desolation of the Temple bewailing the former glory and present necessities of their Masters Court and house may weep between the Gate and the more retired places thereof and wish that a Queen of Sheba as shee that came once out of the South to see King Solomon may never come to view their Princes Court the manner of his Servants sitting at their Tables and eating of their meat the attendance of his Ministers and their apparrell Take away not only the honor but the publique benefits and feudall Rights of the Tenures in Capite by Knight-Service and per Baroniam which are justly and highly esteemed in all Kingdoms and Principalities which are so happy as to live under Monarchy the best of Governments and deprive our selves of those nerves and sinews which fix and consolidate the fidelity peace and welfare of Monarchies and the best part also of those feudal Laws wherein are contained many of the Laws and Rights of Kingdoms Marquisates Earldoms Baronies and their dependencies Tenures in libero communi Soccagio per fidelitatem tantùm pro omnibus servitiis in free and common Socage by Fealty only for all services so universally extended as to make all the English Tenures to be in that condition will be dangerous rather then profitable to the King and people whose good and safety consists in a due obedience of the people to their Prince and not in that which may invite and incourage Sedition and Rebellion is fitter to be trusted to a Kingdom of Angells which was once not without a Lucifer a pretender to great Light his rebelling partie then to a people many of whom being not fully cured of a disobedience more then ordinarily acted to the ruine of their King and his three Kingdoms are now in a full career of all manner of vice and wickedness running over all the Laws of God and man and wholly given up to their pride and Luxury and an interest and care to maintain them They that could then mis-interpret Scripture abuse the plain and genuine sense and meaning of all our Laws clearly exprest and fully to be understood and make an ill use of a not to be as they thought dissolved Parliament rebell and fight against their King multiply Grievances under colour of remedying them destroy him and endeavour to do the like to his Children and Successors and all the loyal Nobility and Gentry which according to their Allegiance and Tenures of their Lands made hast to his Standard and Defence will now think they have gotten better Fig-leaves either to cover any thing they shall attempt against their King and Soveraign or for abiding with Gilead beyond Jordan and not coming to help or assist him in regard that for all manner of services they are only to do him Fealty which they may disguise according to their several humors and interests Will unhinge the Government and take away the Tyes and Obligations which were betwixt the King and his Subjects the Nobility and better part of the people and the more common and inferior sort of them untie their bonds of Obedience and let them loose to a liberty of ruining and undoing themselvs by not obeying their Soveraign which is not to be hazarded upon the hopes of Tenures in Corde when the impression and remembrance of Benefits are as frail and little immortal as Gratitudes or the love and kindness of many friends or children which hardly survives dayes or moneths or a few years and at the most do not outlive the first Receivers but do most commonly within a few dayes if not hours after wax faint and languish and though they did at the first really mean and intend the thankfulness they promised can as quickly as the Scots did by the late Kings extraordinary favours and concessions even to the giving away almost all that hee had in Scotland or as some of their Brethren in England did in their undertakings to make him a glorious King forget what they promised or should do and having got power into their hands be most rigid and severe in the exercise and imployment of it and their liberties against those which granted them Make the head of our English Body Politique not to be as a head in the body natural strongly fixed and resting upon those many Bones Joints Arteries Muscles and Veins which in that line of Communication do serve and attend the motions and directions of the head and principall part for the well being of the whole body but to be set in such an unfixed unsafe and unusuall order as it shall neither be able to protect it self or those who depend upon it and have no other ligaments but Fealtie and the too often broken oaths of Allegiance Supremacy which can never attain to those great Obligations of Homage and Service of Warr which being annexed to the Land it self had besides the Bond of Loyaltie another also of Gratitude attending upon it and as a threefold cord not easily to be broken must of necessity farr surmount that so small a one as Fealtie which being little more then our modern ill used dayly Complements will prove such a small something as when Interest Profit Humors or Factions shall either altogether or apart stand in the way of them or any of them will be made to be little more then nothing Mutilate and lame our Ancient best regulated and unparalleled Monarchy and make it to be as paralitick on the right side and wanting the natural and right use of its right Arm and Legg

8. suppose it to be a good provision for his Daughter Elizabeth Clifford to devise to her by his last Will and Testament one thousand pounds if shee married an Earle which in those dayes were men of no small revenues or an Earles sonne and heire 1000 marks if a Baron and 800 marks if a Knight and that Henry Lord Clifford his sonne did in the 12th or 13th year of the raign of Queen Eliz. give by his Will but 2000 l. to his Daughter if shee married an Earl or an Earls son and heir 2000 marks if a Baron or his son and heire apparent and 800 marks if shee married a Knight and that 1500 or 2000 or 3000 l. is now but an ordinary Portion to be given in marriage to rich yeomens sonnes or the smaller sort of Gentry or Silkmen Mercers or Drapers and a great deale too litle for those kind of Haggard Hawks for there be some though not so many as should be which live soberly and chastly and are helpers to preserve and increase not spend their husbands estates aswell as their owne Portions who fly Steeple high and cannot by any law or perswasion of Scripture Reason Shame or feare of Poverty Imprisonment and ruine of their husbands children and their sighs sorrows be brought to stoop or give way to any lower pitch but are more destructive to a husband who against his will and for that little quiet and content which he can get must permit it then the mischances of a Rot of Sheep Piracies or Shipwracks the sea breaking in upon their Landes ruine of Sequestrations or Suretyship and if they might have their wills are able to Bankrupt and exhaust the King of Spain and all his West-Indies When too many of the young women will not like or love the men unless they be as vain and expensive as themselvs and the men to please the women be fashionable must run a vie with them who shall soonest spend all they have or can by any sinfull courses compass a support or maintenance for it And the fathers most commonly so much indebted before they marry their eldest sons as they must have their marriage Portions to marry their Daughters and for 2 or 3000 l. Portion make his Daughter in law a Joynture of 4 or 500 l. per Annum to free her from the trouble of over-loveing her husband when as shee shall be after his death so well provided to get another When two or three servants wages amount to as much as six heretofore and a great deale more per Annum then would have made a good Gentlemans younger sonne an Annuity when great Assessments beleaguer them on one side and their own vices and prodigalities and all manner of costly sins and vanities now so universally practised on the other side Tradesmen use false weights and measures and more then formerly tricks and mysteries of Trade adulterating their work and commodities and raiseing the prices to three times more then heretofore and by the prodigality and carelesness of not a few of the Gentry creep into their estates and get too great a footing in it by furnishing them with vanities and the country men and Farmers to maintain their growing pride and excesse making all the haste they can to imitate them do heighten the rates of all that they sell and when the foundations of our Little World which was wont to be the best of the Greater are broken up and most part of the people eccentrick and running into excess and disorder when the Apprentices and Servants will do all they can to live like Gentlemen the Mechanicks like Merchants the Gentry as high as the Nobility the Maids will be apparelled like their Mistresses the Mistresses as farr beyond their estates as their wits Vintners Woodmongers wives Poulterers daughters must have Pearl Neck-laces of great prizes and all ranks and degrees of people would as if they had been chosen Kings Queens on Twelfth nights make it their business to be in their expences Kings and Queens all the year after do not only consume and waste the estates of very many of our Gentry and disable them to pay as formerly their necessary Aids Contributions and Oblations to their Prince for the safety of themselves and their Countries but carry them and all that follow their example beyond an Asiatica luxus that forreign luxury of Asia which as Juvenal saith incubuit victumque ulciscitur orbem Conquered and undid the conquering Rome and Mistress of the word the abuse of peace and plenty which the Lydians by the policy of Cyrus did ruine and subdue themselvs withall that height of pride and plenty which in Germany did help to procure their after wofull warrs and desolations And making us to be almost as mad in our Luxuries as the ridiculous Sybarites will suddenly if Gods mercy and good Laws prevent not make poor England which for Twenty yeares last past hath been kicked tost and torn like a Foot-ball by the pocketing and plundering Reformers and their ungodly Warrs to be a Burden to it self and not able to support the Excesses and pride of the people of it but trembling at the apprehension of Gods long deferred Judgments for the punishment of it groan under the burden of those sins which do every day more and more hasten and draw them down upon us And may perswade us when it is too late that the saving in these last Twenty yeares Eighteen hundred thousand pounds which would have been paid to King Charls the First and his Majesty that now is by reason of Wardships and Tenures in Capite and by Knight-Service with many other great summs of money due to them out of their Royal Revenues amounting to as much or a great deal more which the King in his largely extended Act of Oblivion is now pleased to remit and pardon will not by a Tenth part make the people of England savers for what was lost and expended in the Warrs by ruines and plundrings besides very near Forty millions of sterling money spent in publick Taxes and Assessments to purchase an unhappy Rebellion and the sad effects and consequences of it So that our Complaints of Tenures in Capite and Knight-Service are from a Non causa by imagining that to be a cause which was not for our supposed grievances are but like those of hurt and wounded men by their own follies and distempers which cannot endure the softest hand or most gentle touch of a Friend Tenterden Steeple was not the cause of Goodwin Sands nor of Shipwracks at Sea but the rage of the Windes Seas and the Waves and Billows cuffing each other Nor is our ever welcome Youth and lamented when it is lost the cause of Gouts Palsies Dropsies Hectick Fevers Consumptions and many times a worser Disease which the Intemperances of young people with no little charge in the purchase of them have hired to be their attendants But they are our more then ordinary

Principal Flower of the Crown which being not used to be made-up or grow out of Grievances Cannot be disparaged by those clamours and crys which have more then needed been made concerning the Earl of Downes concealed Wardship and the inconveniences arising thereby which did not the tenth part of that prejudice to his Revenue and Estate which his prodigality and other Extravagancies afterwards brought upon it and might how soever have been prevented if his mother in law or any other of his friends upon the several Requests of the Master of the Court of Wards and the Officers of that Court would have petitioned and compounded for his Wardship and not have made those many Traverses and Denyals in those many Suits of Law and pursuits which were afterwards made to compell them to it Nor will that or any other which are pretended grievances be ever equal or come up to those farr exceeding real and certain grievances which too many of the Fathers in law of England into whose hands and custody most of the Wardships or Guardianships are endeavored to be more then formerly put will if those Tenures shall be taken away bring upon fatherless children and will in a short time do more harm to the childrens Estates of the first husband then ever yet happened by Wardships to the King and mesne Lords Which the case of one that twelve years ago had the Revenue of an Infant amounting unto above 700l. per Annum charged with no more then 1000 l. debt and a great personal Estate committed to his Trust hath to this day paid none or a very small part of it but keeps the Rents and profits allowing a small exhibition to the Infant to his own advantage Of another that hath sold and wasted Woods and Timber of a Minors to the value of Ten Thousand pounds sterling And many more sad deplorable Experiments which abundantly induce to believe as well as lament them are not to be found in those well-ordered easie way of the Grants and Dispositions of Wardships which happened by Tenures in Capite by Knight-Service Which may appear to be the better established upon greater grounds of Law right Reason Justice and Equity when as many of the Lords of Manors and Copy-hold Estates who do now enjoy by those Tenures many Rights Seignories and commands with view of Frank-pledge Deodands Felons Goods Wrecks Goods of Out-lawed persons and retorna Brevium granted and imparted to their Ancestors by the bounty and favor of his Majesties Royal Progenitors who did not think it to be a grievance to have Abby or religious Lands which were freely given or cheaply granted to them held in Capite and by Knight-Service though there were at the same time a Tenth of the then true yearly value reserved would not upon the pretence and clamours of some Copy-holders concerning Fines incertain and the rigours and high demands put upon them by some Lords of Manors who have 5 or 600 Copy-holders in some Manors belonging unto them and can ask 13 s. 4 d. per Acre for some Lands and 10 s. per Acre for others to permit them to take their Estates hereafter at a reasonable Fine certain and whether poor or rich indebted or not indebted and charged with children or not will seise their Herriots and take as much as they can get upon the admissions of the Heir or the out cries against the many costly and vexatious Suits which have tired Westminster-Hall and some Parliaments concerning Fines incertain be well contented That their power of rating and taking Fines should be restrained or that they should be ordered upon the admittances of their Copy-hold Tenants by Act of Parliament to permit their Tenants without such Fines as they usually take to surrender and alien two parts in three for the advancement of their Wives payment of debts or preferment of Children as the Kings of England and mesne Lords have limited themselves or should be tyed upon the death of every Tenant and admission of his Heir as King James was pleased to limit him and his Heirs and Successors That upon consideration of Circumstances which may happen in assessing Fines either by reason of the broken Estate of the deceased want of provision for his wife his great charge of children unprovided for infirmity or tenderness of the Heir incertainty of the Title or greatness of Incumberances upon the Lands there shall be as those or any other the bike Considerations shall offer themselvs used that good discretion and conscience which shall be fit in mitigating or abating Fines or Rents to the relief of such necessities Or to release and quit all their Royalties in their Manors nor would think it a good bargain to have no Compensation or Recompence at all for them or no more then after the rate of what might Communibus Annis one year with another be made of them or that they could with justice and equity lay the burdens and payments of the Copy-holders upon the Free-holders and Cotagers Which if they do not now take to be reasonable in their own cases may certainly give every man to understand how little reason there will be to take away the dependencies and benefits by Tenures in Capite and Knight-Service holden of the King and mesne Lords Or to abridge the King of that harmeless power never before denyed to any of his Ancestors to create Tenures in Capite and by Knight service or in grand Serjeanty for the defence and honour of the Kingdom upon new Grants of Lands or Favours especially when ●s His Majesty that now is did by His Declaration of the thirtieth of November last concerning the establishing and quieting the Government in the Kingdom of Ireland which hath been since very much liked and approved by the Parliament of that Nation insert a Saving of the Tenures of the Mesne Lords and ordained Tenures in Capite and by Knight-Service upon the Lands which shall be set out to the Souldiery for their Arrears Or that Tenures in Capite not by Knight-Service with all petit Serjeanties which as Sir Edward Coke saith is a Tenure as of the Crown that is as he is King and the Profits and Reservations upon them which if well gathered would make some addition to the Royal Revenue should by the pattern of Olivers so called Act of Parliament be taken away when there are no Wardships incident thereunto and that aid to make the Kings eldest Son a Knight or marry his eldest Daughter should be taken away in the Capite and Knight-Service Tenures and left to remain in the former Socage Tenures or how little it will be for the good of the people if the intended Act of Parliament shall order the Tenures in Capite by Socage to pay double their former quit Rents or other Rents or Incidents belonging thereunto or to pay for a Relief double their petit Serjeanties or other Duties reserved When as Tenures in Capite and by Knight-Service

in Capite and by Knight-Service hath since caused the King to pay three times or more then formerly he did as 12d per pound for Butter where it was before but three pence twelve shillings a hundred for Eggs where it was before but three shillings and eighteen pence a mile for a Cart to carry his goods or provision when it was before but two pence a mile in Summer and six pence in winter twelve pounds for a Beef or an Oxe which before was willingly and without any oppression of the Counties served in at fifty shillings Render the One hundred and fifty thousand pounds per Annum of Excise money for the intended recompence for the profit and honour of his Tenures Court of Wards and Pourveyance to be no more if it could clearly come up to that summ then Thirty seven thousand and five hundred pounds but if with allowances and charges in the collecting and arrears and bad payments or otherwise it should amount as it is likely to no more then One hundred thousand pounds per Annum the clear of that to the King three parts in four of his prizes enhaunced being deducted is like to be but Twenty and five thousand pounds per Annum Which when the Excise wherein the King himself shall now pay a Taxe or Excise for his Beer and Ale and other Assessments shall every day more and more make dear the Markets and that the people shall to make themselves more then savers stretch the price of their Commodities and make an addition to the former years rates and demands for all sorts of victuals and provision of livelihood or that the King or His Pourveyors shall over and above that be for want of ready money enforced to pay a treble or more interest for buying upon Time or days of payment will also within the compass of seven years vanish into a Cypher And if the Excise for the burden and grievance thereof should also be taken away the King having no provision made in the Act for taking away his Tenures in Capite and by Knight-Service and of his Pourveyance ●or the intended recompence of that part of the Excise therein mentioned to resort back again in such a case to the former profit of his Tenures and ease of Pourveyance Will then not only have given away those two great Flowers of His Crown for nothing but be as much a looser in what he shall over and above pay for his houshold provision Cart taking and other necessaries as hee shall pay a greater rate then his former pourveyances came unto which in 200000 l. per ann which may well be conjectured to be the least which will be expended in that kinde will considering three parts in four of the prizes enhanced amount to no less a detriment then one hundred seventy five thousand pounds per Annum besides what must be added to that loss for what shall be paid more then formerly for Timber and materials for the Navy and repair of the Kings Houses Castles and Forts and by the peoples every year more and more raising their priaees upon him And then the bargain or exchange betwixt the King and the people for the Tenures in Capite and by Knight-Service and his Pourveyances besides the giving away so great a part of his Prerogative and Soveraignty will arrive to no more then this The King shall remit the yearly revenue of Eighty eight thousand seventy pounds per Annum defalcations for exhibitions and allowances for Fees Dyet and other necessaries and charges first deducted which was made by the Court of Wards in the year 1640 besides Thirteen thousand two hundred eighty eight pounds profit for those kinde of Tenures which in that year was collected and brought into the Exchequer which will make a Total of One hundred one thousand three hundred fifty eight pounds per Annum Or if but Eighty one thousand two hundred eighty eight pounds all charges cleared and deducted as it came unto in Anno 1637. which was 13º Car. primi both which was easily paid by the Nobility Gentry and richest and most able part of the people for or in respect of their Lands holden in Capite which were never purchased but frankly given for their Service Homage and incidents thereunto apperteining And release the ease and benefit of his Pourveyances which did not in all the Fifty two Counties of England and Wales by the estimate of what was allowed towards it in Kent being thereby charged only with Twelve hundred pounds per Annum or thereabouts put the people of England to above Forty thousand pounds per Annum charges which totalled and summed up together with the profits of the Tenures in Capite in An. 1640. being 16º Car. will make One hundred forty one thousand three hundred pounds or One hundred and twenty thousand two hundred eighty eight pounds all necessary charges satisfied as it was in 13º Car. primi Shall give away that One hundred forty one thousand three hundred pounds or One hundred and twenty thousand two hundred and eighty pounds per Annum and loose One hundred and fifty thousand pounds per Annum in the buying of his Houshold provisions besides what more shall be put upon him by a further enhaunce of prizes for to gaine One hundred thousand pounds for that moyety of the Excise of Ale and Beer to be paid out of the sighes dayly complaints and lamentations of the poorest sort of the subjects and the discontents and mournings of nineteen parts in twenty of all the people who by the payment of that Excise will be made to bear the burdens of others to acquit less then a twentieth part of them of those no ruining payments not often happening to be charged upon them by reason of those kinde of Tenures or for nothing if that Excise should be taken away Prejudice the King in his Honor which Saul when he entreated Samuel not to dishonor him before the people understood to be of some concernment and his Estate in not affording his Pourveyors a pre-emption in the buying provision for his Royal Family Tables and Attendants which all the Acts of Parliament made concerning the Regulating of Pourveyances never denyed The Princes of Germany are allowed in their smaller Dominions the Caterers of every Nobleman frequenting the Markets the servants of every Lord of a Mannor in England do enjoy and the common civilities of mankinde and but ordinary respect of inferiors to their superiors do easily perswade Will not agree or keep company with that honor and reverence which by the Laws of God and Nature Nations and right reason will be due and ought to be paid to a King and Father of his Country nor with the gratitude of those who often enough come with their Buckets to the Well or Fountains or his mercy or are not seldom craving and obtaining favors of him to refuse him those small Retorns or Acknowledgments for his bounties nor prudence to shew him the way to be