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
A56345	The true portraiture of the kings of England, drawn from their titles, successions, raigns and ends, or, A short and exact historical description of every king, with the right they have had to the crown, and the manner of their wearing of it, especially from William the Conqueror wherein is demonstrated that there hath been no direct succession in the line to create an hereditary right, for six or seven hundred years : faithfully collected out of our best histories, and humbly presented to the Parliament of England / by an impartial friend to justice and truth.	Parker, Henry, 1604-1652.	1650 (1650)	Wing P429; ESTC R33010	38,712	46

end her raign with this Character That she was the best Queen that ever England had and the glory of her Sexe to all Ages The English Line is now ended we must go into Scotland to seek for a King because a daughter of Henry the seventh was married to James the fourth King of Scotland but I will not question his title King James the sixth of Scotland and first of England succeeded on the English Throne A Prince that had many advantages to set up Prerogative which he improved he was too timorous to act but most subtile in Councel and designs and no King did more insensibly and closely undermine the Liberties of England then himself he gave us cause to remember from whence he came but his peaceable raign was the rail to his design and did choak suspition we were brought by him very nigh Rome and Spain and yet knew it not he had an inveterate hatred against Puritans as he had a fear of Papists and made more of Bishops then ordinary by remembrance of the Scots Presbytery He had as much of Royalty in his Eye as any Prince could have but had not so much courage to prosecute it the Puritan alwayes lay in his Spleen the Papist on his Lungs that he durst not that he could not breath so clearely and strongly against them but the Bishops lay in his heart I will not rip up his personal failings after his death he was the most profane King for oaths and blasphemies that England had besides c. He now grows old and was judged only fit to lay the Plot but not to execute it the design being now ripe and his person and life the only obstacle and Remora to the next Instrument he is conveyed away suddenly into another world as his son Henry was because thought unsuteable to the Plot it being too long to waite untill Nature and Distemper had done the deed We are now come to our last Charls who is like to end both that race and its tyranny the perfect Idea of all the rest and the most zealous prosecutor of the designs of all his ancestors who if Divine Providence had not miraculously prevented had accomplished the utmost of their intentions and for ever darkned the glory of the English Sun so much I must say of him that he got more wisedom by action then could possibly be expected by his nature experience that teacheth fools made him wise he endeavoured to act what others designed he dissembled as long as he could and used all parties to the utmost But his zeal and hardiness brought him to his death He needed no physick for his body had he remembred his soul But what need I mention him he is the last of English Monarchs and the most absolute monument of Monarchy and example of tyranny and injustice that ever was known in England he would have been what other Kings are and endeavoured to attain what others would be he lived an enemy to the Common-wealth and died a martyr to Prerogative Thus you have seen a faithfull representation of the Norman race under which we have groaned for about six hundred years the first Title made onely by the Invasion and Conquest of a Stranger and Bastard continued by usurpation and tyranny that take away but two or three persons out of the list and yet these bad enough if we consider all things and all this while England neither had a right heir or good King to govern it and yet by delusion and deceit we must be bound to maintain that Title as Sacred and Divine which in the beginning was extorted and usurping as if gray hairs could adde reverence to injustice England hath now an advantage more then all its Ancestors of freeing it self from this successive slavery and interrupting that bloody line and after an apprentiship to bondage for so many hundred yeers Providence hath given us our own choice If we take it we are made if not the old judgement of God lies on us for our stupidity and blindness For my part as I do not give much to that Monkish Prophecy from Henry the Seventh times Mars Puer Alecto Virgo Vulpes Leo Nullus yet I wonder how the Devil could foresee so far off and must needs say that it hath yet been literally fulfilled both in the Characters of the persons and the issue yet I must so far give way to the power of divine actings on my faith as to think that either we shall never have a King more or else we shall have one sent of God in wrath as the Israelites had seeing we are not contented that way which God hath from Heaven led us to As for the Title of this Prince who would fain be accounted the right heir Let us but remember from whence he had it and how it s now tainted were it never so just the Treason of the Father hath cut off the Son and how unwise an act besides all other considerations will it be for England to set up the Son to propagate both his Fathers design and death We may prophecy soon what a Governor he is like to be which hath both suck't in his Fathers principles and his Mothers milk who hath been bred up under the wings of Popery and Episcopacy and doubtless suckt both brests one who was engaged from the beginning in the last war against this Parliament who hath the same Counsellors his Father had to remember him both of the design and the best wayes of effecting it one who hath never yet given any testimony of hopefullness to this Nation who was in Armes when a Subject against the Libertyes which England and Scotland spilt much blood for to maintain one who hath both his Fathers and his own scores to cleer and is fain to make use of all Medium's though never so contrary attended with all the crew of Malignants of three Nations who is so relatively and personally engaged that both old and new reckonings are expected to be payd only by him To his Father He is endebted for His Crown and bound to pay His Debts both Ecclesiastical and Civil which will amount to no small summe To the Papists He is engaged for their old affections and hopes of new besides the obligation of duty to his Mother and freeing her from her Monastry and Hermitage To the Prince of Orange he owes more then his ransom besides the States courtesies to Ireland he is in more arrears then his Kingdom of Scotland will be able to pay and to Scotland for his entertainment and enstalment more then England for present or in many years can repay without a morgage or community of lands and liberties besides what he owes England for helping his Father to make the Parliament spend so many millions of treasure besides blood which would have weighed down all expences besides and helping as a prime Agent the utter destruction of England all which must be reckoned for with much seriousness and if men have so

their liberties and freedoms in a customary usurpation of succession and lose their Common-wealth for the personall glory of a young Pretender especially when they have fought against the Father and cut him off as a Tyrant endeavour to set up the Son to follow on both the first cause and revenge meerly because he was supposed to be proceeded of his polluted loyns this blindness will be our misery and endear us to a more perfect and more tyrannicall slavery then ever yet England felt But to go on the Reader hath seen what a line we have had in England and how pure a title our Kings have had to their Crowns Le ts now but have patience to view their actings successively and yet shortly and we shall better guess of their right by their raigns for though one would think that they should endeavour to make good a bad title by a good raign yet it hath been far otherwise every man having made his right by force maintained it by tyranny and when they have gotten power never remembered how or to what end they attained it if we look back again and make a new and strict survey of their severall actings in their Government and go over every Kings head since Willam the Conqueror we shall not much mistake if we pass by Turkie Russia the Moors and yet call Englands Kings Tyrants and their Subjects Slaves and however in the theory and System it have been limited and bounded by good and distinguishing Laws yet in the exercise and practique part almost of every Kings Raign we shall find it deserve as bad a name as others who are called most absolute for the Laws and Priviledges which this poor Nation hath enjoyed as they have been but complementally granted for the most part and with much design so they have ever upon any occasion proved but weak and low hedges against the Spring-tides and Land floods of the Prerogative of the Prince which hath always gained more on the priviledges of the people then ever the Sea by all its washing and beatings of its boysterous and unmerciful waves hath gained on the Land for if at any time the poor Commons through much strugling and a good and present necessitous mood of the Prince have got off any present oppressions and forced out the promise for enacting of any good and seasonable Laws yet either the next advantage or at least the next successor hath been sure either to silence or diannul it and incroached upon it and never was Priviledge or good Law enacted or gained to the people but by hard pressure of the Subject and with a predominant ingredient of the Kings advantage and still rather out of courtesie then right We shall finde also that England for three or four hundred years together some lucida intervalla excepted hath been a stage of blood and the astonishment of all Nations in civil wars and that meerly either for the clearing of the title to the Crown which yet at last was onely made lawfull by the prevailing power and as soon made illegall when another side got the better or else by the Subject and Barons taking up arms to defend themselves and make Rampiers if possible against the inundation of Prerogative and rather preserving then obtaining any additions of liberties and yet they were commonly defeated at last for if for the present by some eminent advantage they got a little ground they soon lost it again by royal stratagems and were either forced or complemented into their old miseries with a worse remembrance of former actings But to enter into the particulars of this sad Story All men know or may the tyrannical domination of that first William who behaved himself as a Conqueror indeed and a most perfect tyrant since whom we have never had an English man but one who hath been naturalized by the succession of his Conquest as King of England he presently changed most of our Laws especially those wherein the English liberties were most transparent and preserved and made new Laws and those which he left writ them all in French disweaponed all the Natives sent the children of the best and most faithful of the Nobility into Normandy as Hostages and the most gallant of the English were transported by him into France to serve his wars that he might extinguish their Families he advanced his Normans into all places of the Nation and kept them as a guard over the English brought in the cruel Forrest Laws and dispeopled for thirty miles together in Hampshire pulling down many Towns and Villages with Churches Chappels and Gentlemens Houses making it a Forrest for wilde beasts which is ever since named the New Forrest but was the old ensign of our misery and slavery he laid on innumerable taxes and made Laws royal very severe and in an unknown Language that the English offending might forfeit their states and lands to him which they often did through ignorance But alas what need I mention these who ever reads but our Histories and the most favorable and fawning Royalist will see more then now can be expressed and yet here is the first fruits of our Kings and of their righteous title whose succession hath been as much in tyranny after him as in title and yet we must by a sacred obligation be bound to maintain with our blood and lives the branches of this rotten root notwithstanding all the providential and divine opportunities of casting off that miserable yoak which our forefathers so sadly groaned under and would have triumphed in the pouring out their blood which they shed freely but to little purpose but to have foreseen their childrens children might have but the hopes of attaining to But although William the first made sure his Conquest to his own person yet by his tyranny he gave ground of designs and hopes of recovery after his death therefore the people who but murmured and mourned in secret formerly consider now their condition and that Robert the right heir was wanting and his second son endeavored to be set up begin to capitulate and repeat their former grievances and to stand upon their terms with the next Successors But William Rufus who longed for the Crown and saw what advantage he had by his brothers absence through the mediation of Lanke-Frank the Arch-bishop of Canterbury a man for his vertue and learning in great esteem with the people got himself to be accepted and crowned King with exclusion of his elder brother by fair promises and engagements to repeal his fathers Laws and of promoting the liberties of the English any probability being then taking to the poor people But no sooner had he got the Crown fastned on his head and defeated his brother in battle but he forgat all his own promises follows directly his fathers steps grows excessive covetous lays on intolerable taxes and merciless exactions returns their longings and hopes after their just libertie into a sad bondage and slavery The poor people having thus

his losses with a thorough subjection of their persons and suppression of their liberties I need relate no more of this King nor make observations the Reader will be amazed at the repetition he at least 20 times gave his promise for the confirmation execution of these just decrees contained in Magna Charta and as many times was perjured notwithstanding all the solemnities both Civil Moral and Ecclesiastical used in the acts of ratification this may learn us how to trust the most positive Engagements of Princes which cross their own interest and what to think of that word and promise they call Royall this King reigned fifty six years the longest of any King of England But we have had too much of the story of him as he had too long a time to rule considering his temper and design It s well if we can be wary for the future and be more cautious then to trust the most promising and insinuating Princes with our liberties and priviledges which can be no longer expected to be preserved by them then they may serve as footstools to advance them in the Throne of absolute Majesty But no more of this King never were there more hard strivings and wrestlings between tyranny and liberty with such bad success to the people I onely conclude his raign with the exhortation of the Psalmist Psal. 146. 3. O put not your confidence in Princes surely men of high degree are a lye King Henry is by this time layd in his grave and one would think Magna Charta buried with him His Son Edward who was his right-hand in his wars against the Barons and the principal Agent in their ruine succeeds him in the throne and instead of lessening goes on and makes an higher improvement of that royalty which his Father left him having in his own person got the victory over the Peoples Libertyes in his Fathers time and having wonne or worne out the greatest of those which opposed and being long experienced in the world so secured and advanced the Prerogative that as one sayth he seemed to be the first conqueror after the Conqueror that got the domination of this State in so absolute and eminent a manner as by his government appears He layd unsupportable Taxes both on the Clergy and Laity even unto Fiveteens and halfs of their Estates As for Tenths that was comparatively accounted easy the Barons and People for a long time durst not move for removal of greivances untill that the King being always in wars in France Flanders Wales and Scotland and so needed continually vast sums of mony called a Parliament wherein he demanded a great treasure of mony from the People that he might give them somewhat in lieu of their expences confirmed the two great Charters on the Petition of the Barons and People and so stopped their mouths and this he did as often as he had extraordinary occasions for mony But like all other royall promises they were performed by leasure Never was Royalty more Majestick and glorious then in this Kings raign and the people less able to oppose he was always so watchful and eager to enlarge his own power I shall end his raign also with what Daniel that impartiall and witty Historian saith of him He was more for the greatness of the Kingdom then the quiet of it and never King before or since except our last Charls shed so much Christian bloud within this Isle of Britain and was the cause of more in that following and not one grain of benefit procured unto the people by all their expences on him which was but to make themselves more perfect slayes The next King was Edward the Second his Son who though more vicious then the Father yet not more tyrannicall he gave more advantage to the people thorough his lewd life and unmartiall nature to seek the confirmation and establishment of Magna Charta and other good Laws which were utterly supprest and darkened in his Fathers reign This Prince gave himself over to all wicked courses and surrendred his Judgement and the management of all affairs of State unto evill and corrupt Counsellors especially to one Peirce Gaveston who had both his ear and heart unto whom he was so much endeared that he ventured the loss of Kingdom and all the hearts of his Subjects for his company and preservation and though the Barons had by often Petitions and earnest sollicitations prevailed with the King to banish him yet he soon after sent for him home and laid him more nigh his bosom then before on this the Barons raise an army against the King and send him word that unless he would observe the late Articles which they had formerly by much ado got him to sign in Parliament and put from him Pierce Gaveston they would rise in Arms against him as a perjured Prince the King whom they found was apt to be terrified yeilds again to his banishment with this clause that if he were found again within the Kingdom he should be condemned to death as an enemy of the State All places were now dangerous to Gaveston both Ireland where he formerly was protected France also too hot for him in this extremity finding no security anywhere else he again adventures on England and puts himself once again into the Kings bosom a Sanctuary which he thought would not be polluted with blood and there he is received with as great joy as ever man could be the Lords with more violence prosecute their suite to the King for delivering up or removing him once more but to no purpose they therefore set forwards with an Army say siege to the Castle wherein Gaveston was took him and notwithstanding the Kings earnest sollicitation for his life they condemned him to the block and took off his head this obstacle being removed out of the way the Lords having now the better end of the staff make advantages of it for demanding the confirmation and execution of all those Articles formerly granted threatning the King that if he would not consent to it they would force him by a strong hand with this message they had their swords also drawn and march towards London A Parliament is called where the King after a submission by the Lords to him for that act done against Gaveston contrary to his consent and will grants the Articles and pardon to them But the King goes on his old way adheres to wicked counsel waving the grave advice of his Parliament and is ruled by the two Spencers who acted with mighty strain of injustice which caused the Lords again to take up arms and stand for their Liberties but are through the revolt of some and the treachery of others overthrown at Burton upon Trent and two and twenty Noblemen the greatest Peers in the Realm executed in several places for nothing but opposing his evil Counsellors this was the first blood of Nobility that ever was shed in this manner in England since William the first which being so