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	scotland_n	2,696	5	8.4241	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30478	A vindication of the authority, constitution, and laws of the church and state of Scotland in four conferences, wherein the answer to the dialogues betwixt the Conformist and Non-conformist is examined / by Gilbert Burnet ...	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1673 (1673)	Wing B5938; ESTC R32528	166,631	359

Glasgow But before they went to it a written citation of the Bishops was ordered to be read through all the Churches of Scotland wherein they were cha●ged as guilty of all the crimes imaginable which as an Agape after the Lords Supper was first read after a Communion at Edinburgh and upon it orders were sent every where for bringing in the privatest of their escapes And you may judge how consonant this was to that Royal Law of charity which covers a multitude of sins nor was the Kings Authority any whit regarded all this while Was ever greater contempt put on the largest offers of grace and favor And when at Glasgow His Majesty offered by his Commissioner to consent to the limiting of Bishops nothing would satisfie their zeal without condemning the order as unlawful and abjured But when many illegalities of the constitution and procedure of that Assembly were discovered their partiality appeared for being both Judg and Party they justified all their own disorders Upon which His Majesties Commissioner was forced to discharge their further sitting or procedure under pain of Treason but withal published His Majesties Royal intentions to them for satisfying all their legal desires and securing their fears But their stomachs were too great to yield obedience and so they sate still pretending their authority was from CHRIST and condemned Episcopacy excommunicated the Bishops with a great many other illegal and unjustifiable Acts. And when His Majesty came with an Army to do himself right by the Sword GOD had put in his hands they took the start of him and seised on his Castles and on the houses and persons of his good Subjects and went in a great body against him Now in this His Majesty had the Law clearly of his side For Episcopacy stood established by Act of Parliament And if this was a cause of Religion or a defence of it much less such as deserved all that bloud and confusion which it drew on let all the World judg It is true His Majesty was willing to settle things and receive them again into his grace and upon the matter granted all their desires but they were unsatisfiable upon which they again armed But of this I shall not recount the particulars because I hope to see a clear and unbyassed narration of these things ere long Only one Villany I will not conceal at the pacification at Berwick seven Articles of Treaty were signed But the Covenanters got a paper among them which passed for the conditions of the agreement though neither signed by his Majesty nor attested by Secretary or Clerk and this being every where spread his Majesty challenged it as a Forgery and all the English Lords who were of the Treaty having declared upon Oath that no such paper was agreed on it was burnt at London by the hand of the Hangman as a scandalous paper But this was from the Pulpits in Scotland represented as a violation of the Treaty and that the Articles of it were burnt These and such were the Arts the men of that time used to inflame that blessed King 's native Subjects against him But all these were small matters to the following invasion of England An. 1643. For his Majesty did An. 1641. come to Scotland and give them full satisfaction to all even their most unreasonable demands which he consented to pass into Acts of Parliaments But upon his return into England the woful rupture betwixt him and the two Houses following was our Church-party satisfied with the trouble they occasioned him No they were not for they did all they could to cherish and foment the Houses in their insolent Demands chiefly about Religion and were as forward in pressing England's uniformity with Scotland as they were formerly in condemning the design of bringing Scotland to an uniformity with England I shall not engage further in the differences betwixt the King and the two Houses than to shew that His Majesty had the Law clearly of his side since he not only consented to the redress of all grievances for which the least color of Law was alledged but had also yielded to larger concessions for securing the fears of his Subjects than had been granted by all the Kings of England since the Conquest Yet their demands were unsatisfiable without His Majesty had consented to the abolishing of Episcopacy and discharge of the Liturgy which neither his Conscience nor the Laws of England allowed of so that the following War cannot be said to have gone on the principles of defending Religion since His Majesty was invading no part of the established Religion And thus you see that the War in England was for advancing a pretence of Religion And for Scotlands part in it no Sophistry will prove it defensive for His Majesty had setled all matters to their hearts desire and by many frequent and solemn protestations declared his resolutions of observing inviolably that agreement neither did he so much as require their assistance in that just defence of his Authority and the Laws invaded by the two Houses though in the explication of the Covenant An. 1039. it was agreed to and sworn That they should in quiet manner or in Arms defend His Majesties Authority within or without the Kingdom as they should be required by His Majesty or any having his Authority But all the King desired was that Scotland might lie neutral in the quarrel enjoying their happy tranquillity yet this was not enough for your Churches zeal but they remonstrated that Prelacy was the great Mountain stood in the way of Reformation which must be removed and they sent their Commissioners to the King with these desires which His Majesty answered by a Writing yet extant under his own Royal hand shewing That the present settlement of the Church of England was so rooted in the Law that he could not consent to a change till a new form were agreed to and presented to him to which these at Westminster had no mind but he offered all ease to tender Consciences and to call a Synod to judg of these differences to which he was willing to call some Divines from Scotland for bearing their opinions and reasons At that time Petitions came in from several Presbyteries in Scotland to the Conservators of the Peace inciting them to own the Parliaments quarrel upon which many of the Nobility and others signed a Cross Petition which had no other design but the diverting these Lords from interrupting the Peace of Scotland by medling in the English quarrel upon which Thunders were given out against these Petitioners both from the Pulpits and the Remonstrances of the Commission of the General Assembly and they led Processes against all who subscribed it But His Majesty still desired a neutrality from Scotland and tho highly provoked by them yet continued to bear with more than humane patience the affronts were put on his Authority Yet for animating the people of Scotland into the designed War the Leaders of that Party did every where

study to poison the people with damnable jealousies of the King's inclination to Popery of his accession to the Massacre of Ireland and of his designs to subvert by force the late agreement with Scotland if his Armies were blessed with success in England It were an endless work to tell all the ways were used for rooting these wicked jealousies in the peoples hearts neither were all His Majesties protestations able to overcome them yet in end when His Majesty finding what their inclinations were did refuse to admit the Commissioners from Scotland to mediate betwixt himself and the Houses they returned home and immediately upon that contrary to all the Laws of Scotland a great meeting of Counsellors Conservators and Commissioners for the publick burdens ordained a Convention of Estates to be summoned which was never before done without the King's command except in the minority of the Kings neither did they so much as wait for the King's pleasure but only signified their resolution to him and desired His Commands against the day prefixed Here was an invasion of the King's Prerogative which deserved a high Censure yet so far did His Majesty's clemency and love to his native Kingdom lead him that he dispensed with this transgression and allowed their sitting in a Convention provided they meddled not in the business of England nor raised an Army in order to it But notwithstanding this they voted themselves a free Convention and not restricted to the bounds prescribed in the King's Letter which they refused to registrate And after this they leagued with England But having spoke my self out of breath I quit the giving account of what follows to Basilius Basil. I have observed one defect in your Narration for which I will be very favorable to you beca●se I ●ntend to be guilty of that ●ame fault my self which is that you have spoken nothing of the National Covenant and I mean to say as little of the L●ague And I am apt to gues● that your silence was designed upon the same grounds that mine is for indeed I can satisfie my self with nothing I can say upon the League except I told all I know of the Arts and manner of its contrivance And truly I cannot prevail upon my self at present for the saying of that Therefore I will draw a vail over it and say nothing till I see further reason for a more full discovery and then I am afraid Isotimus shall confess it was not prudently done to h●ve extorted it from me But to quit this and pu●sue the Narration Philarcheus hath devolved on me I shall tell you how Commissioners c●me from England to treat for an Army from Scotland for their assistance in the War they were then engaged in against the King Upon which all Articles being agreed to and a League ●wo●n an Army was sent into England which turned the seales that did then hang in an even ballance to the King's ruin And truly my invention cannot reach an argument or color for proving these to have been defensive Arms they being the effect of a combination with the Subjects of England against our common King B●t shall I next tell you what followed after the fatal revolution of things in England upon his Majesties trusting himself to the Scots Army I am sure I should ●ill your minds with horror For though His Majesty offered Concessions justly to be wondered at he having been willing to quit the Militia for divers years and to set up Presbytery for three years and that in the mean while there should be a free Synod in order to a final settlement with other great diminutions of Royal Authority which shew how willing he was at his own c●st to have redeemed the peace of his Kingdoms only he added that his Conscience could not allow him to take the Covenant nor authorize it by Law nor consent to the abolition of Episcopacy or the Liturgy protesting that how soon he could do these things with a good Conscience he should yield to all the desires of his Subjects in the mean while he intreated for a personal Treaty in order to mutual satisfaction Yet with how much fury did that Party press the setling of the Government without him the di●owning his interest and the abandoning of his Person to his Enemies tho at that very time the designs of the Sectarian Party against both Monar●hy and His Majesties Person were breaking out and had been made known to them by those who understood them well What followed upon this I wish my silence could bury from the knowledg of all the World But al●s it is too well known what infamy these Men brought upon themselves and their Count●y which in the Opinion of the World was generally held guilty of that which was the Crime of the prevailing Party whom the Leaders over-awed and influenced But after that when His Majesty was made Prisoner when he was carried up and down by the Army when the Army forced both the Houses and the City of London when the Treaties of Scotland were violated in all their Articles when the Propositions agreed on by both Kingdoms were laid aside and the four Bills set in their place wherein the Covenant was not mentioned when upon His Majesties refusing of these he was made Prisoner and the Vote of Non-addresses passed against him then did the Loyalty of the Scots Nation begin again to revive and what through the sense of duty what through the remorse of their former actings eve●y one was forward to real resentments of these unworthy indignities put both on their King and Country but when the Parliament of Scotland had voted the Country to be put in a posture of War for the defence of their S●vereign then where should I end if I told all the seditious Papers Preachings and Discourses of some of the Clergy who contradicted and countermanded the Parliament to a height of unparalelled boldness even after all their desires which they gave in a large Remonstrance were granted But did that satisfie No they then took refuge in their common Sanctuary of jealousies and fears They threatned all who obeyed the commands of the Parliament not only with their Church-censures but with damnation They did every where incite the people to rise in Arms against the Parliaments Forces and at a Communion at Matchlin they did so work upon the Vulgar that they prevailed to get them draw up in a Body promising them great assistance both from GOD and men They kept a correspondence with the Sectarian Army and continued by many Letters to press their speedy march unto Scotland and after the Scots Army marched unto England and was by the wise judgment of GOD defeated then did many of the Ministers with all the vehemence imaginable infl●me the people to Rebellion and got them to rise and the● marched before their Parishes like Captains They also called for the help of the Sectarian Army to them And thus did they stand to the Covenant in maintaining the