Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	ambassador_n	france_n	king_n	7,641	5	4.2834	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38820	Discourses on the present state of the Protestant princes of Europe exhorting them to an union and league amongst themselves against all opposite interest, from the great endeavours of the court of France and Rome to influence all Roman Catholick princes, against the Protestant states and religion, and the advantage that our divisions give to their party : wherein the general scope of this horrid Popish Plot is laid down, and presented to publick view / by Edmund Everard ...	Everard, Edmund.	1679 (1679)	Wing E3528; ESTC R176794	41,879	50

in the Business of the Reduction of Rochelle the Consequences whereof have been the cause of most considerable Conversions of Estate Wars and Disorders of Europe which we have seen since that time CArdinal of Richelieu who without doubt was the greatest Person and Minister of State that France hath of many years produced or which it may be it shall have hereafter for a long time was he who first laid the Axe to the foot and roots of the Imperial Family of Austria and having in an admirable manner pierced into the knowledge of that wherein the true Interest of France might consist to raise the glory of its Kings to the highest degree of all greatness he knew also to adhere only to essential Maxims whence so glorious a Work ought to be commenced And this is so true that we may positively conclude as a most certain thing that whatever Mazarin hath executed since and whatever Messieurs Le Tellier Colbert Louvois and de Pompone have since performed in our days for the Grandeur and exaltation of their Monarch are no other than the fruits of the Heroick Labours of that great Minister and the Execution of the Memoires and secret Instructions of his Ministery it being certain that so far as they have not departed therefrom their Glory and Success have been inseperably united to the greater part of their Expeditions and so far as they have departed from them their Enterprises have many times been attended with loss of Glory to their Master these are things which we observe sometimes by the way whilst we confine our selves to the pursuit of our Observations and Remarks upon some Errors of Estate in the Ministry of France but our design at present is to begin to observe for our private satisfaction that Point alone for the Reduction of Rochelle a Capital quid pro quo of Estate of the most part of the Potentates of Europe who might have hindered it if they on that occasion had known their true Interest and the excellent Conduct of that great Minister at the same time And first of all we will apply our selves only to observe what is but too well known I mean the misadventures which have successively fallen out in Europe to the prejudice of the most powerful Estates therein by this Reduction only and those greater which are ready to befall them if some part of them redress it not The Siege of Rochelle being settled about it the Town was but weakly relieved by the English so that we may affirm that their last expedition which seemed to be set out for that purpose after the death of Buckingham was rather a succour of show and appearance than reality if it might not be said rather that the good King then could not do all he would for their Relief Holland blind to their enemies own true Interest upon this occasion lent their Maritime Forces to advance this Reduction Spain who ought more than any other Potentate to have known and apprehended the consequences thereof thought it better to give credence to its pretended Council of Conscience then to great Spinola who having personally visited Rochelle in the conjunctures of the Siege and perceived the Infallibility of its Reduction unless speedily relieved for it was he that gave that advice to the Cardinal to shut it out from the Sea the Infallible means of its Reduction and repented thereof too late he prophesied punctually at the Council at Madrid all the misadventures which befel them and followed upon this Reduction to the prejudice of the greatness of the Austrian Family All the Roman Catholick Party of France made it so strong a Point of Religion to contribute what lay in them to this Reduction that we may say of them as sometimes the deceased and very wise Marshal of Bassompiere They were great fools who gave themselves no repose until by the sacrifice of their goods blood and lives they had effected it Let us now examine apart in a few words that which consequently did happen upon this Error of Estate to the Imperial House of Austria to Holland and France it self I speak of State Affairs and also by the consequences thereof to the greater part of the rest of Europe For England we need only take a small tast of the Travels and Addresses of the late Monsieur President de Thou Embassadour of France in England to understand that upon the King of England's failing to succour Rochelle was the foundation whereon that insinuation was advanced into the spirits of the People of that Kingdom that his late Majesty of Great Britain had in secret by the perswasion of Henrietta de Bourbon his Wife embraced the Roman Religion and that his designs tended to nothing more then to procure the destruction of the Protestant Religion in England as well as in France if it could possibly be done which supposition though doubtlesly false against that pious and learned Prince yet it was ocasioned by that unhappy slackness of supplies for the relief of Rochelle we may say that it was upon this foundation that France by the means of the said Lord Thou gave life to the universal revolt of all England and to that unfortunate Catastrophe which all Europe have beheld with horrour and astonishment and this is the very truth that the departed Monsieur de Thou who was not a Person that would speak untruth did affirm before his death to several of his Confidents of which some are yet alive that he protested that he died with sore regret that he had intermedled with that unfortunate Affair As for the most Illustrious Family of Austria in examining what hath befallen it on these two Heads since that fatal Reddition First with respect to the Imperialists the King of Denmark the Elector of Saxony the Elector Palatine of the Rhine the Princes of Transylvania and all their Confederates being humbled or destroyed we may truly say it was in a condition to do what it could reasonably desire in Germany but by the Consequence of that Reduction France was in condition to send its Aids abroad and to make Alliances and having in consequence thereof subscribed to the Swedish League it is easie to see what after the Great Gustavus did set foot in the Empire did happen through the whole extent thereof to the prejudice of this Illustrious House till the Peace of Munster and Osnaburg The eight Electorate Brisac and Philipsburg with all the Conquests of the Swede in the Empire and the enfeebling the Body of the German Church for the Recompences made to the Elector of Brandenburg and Prince of Meckleburg are the living Monuments of the failures on that side For Spain we may say that till the Reduction of Rochelle it was not always triumphant but it had thitherto supported the weight of its greatness with glory and was in an Estate to make all them to fear it who did not love it till then Flanders Italy and Germany beheld a numerous Armies on their side the

nature herein I believe it is necessary for their content by way of prelude thereto unanimously and in a publick way to demand a Session of the States General of France to effect the establishment of the Common Liberty which will be unanimously embraced by the three Orders of that Estate and in the consequent explication of the means of Security for its maintenance it will not be absolutely impossible to attain our purpose of the second part of my Proposal Now all the Confederate States with the House of Austria and that Illustrious House are more than positively concluded of this point in this present Conjuncture not to hearken to any Peace but in doing what heretofore the Kings of England and Dukes of Burgundy practised in common with the Kings of France and States General of his Realm for this Imperial House and all its Allies have more than sufficiently proved by what succeeded upon the Pirenean Peace that no security can be re-established by any Treaties made with the present Ministers of that Realm by the most solemn Oaths and straitest ties of Consanguinity which were not strong enough to hinder the violation of that Peace there is therefore a necessity to reduce him thereto in the manner aforesaid and no other way which will infallibly draw after it such consequences as will be wholly for the advantage of the said Confederation and the Protestant Party in France These Propositions are too advantagious to the House of Austria for them to reject them and it is certain that if all the aforesaid States act in Combination and with a perfect Union to procure all these benefits they will be able fully to attain them and bring all France perhaps into a mutiny to make their Monarch consent thereto But as it would not be just that the Protestant States should act in the foresaid Union to bring about all these benefits for the Illustrious House of Austria and all the People of France and forget themselves but that at the same time they should procure for those of their Body all the advantages that so favourable a Conjunction could procure I am bold to say that all those States by the Principles of their Faith of their Interests and of their Glory should bring them to an Unanimous Resolution to labour in this Conjuncture two things in favour of the Electoral House Palatine of the Rhine with a pure and truly politick respect unto the said Confederation and other particular Managements The first is to procure to this Illustrious House a Justice that speaks sufficiently for it self it being certain that the same Reasons which caused it to lose part of its Establishments ought to cause a Restitution thereof to be made unto it in this Conjuncture and if the League of the Protestant States were solidly made and they would act with necessary vigour they would without doubt be in an Estate to do all things that were just and reasonable in this point The second is not to neglect by pressing Instances to urge his Palatine Highness Prince Robert to a suitable Marriage which might give hopes of Successors to this Illustrious House least by an unpardonable neglect the Estates and Electoral Dignity may fall into the hands of a Prince of the Roman Communion And these are two Capital Points whereunto all the said Protestant States as well they who have openly armed themselves as those who have been content to supply their several Quota's to the Arms of the Circles as being all naturally interessed in the Cause ought to apply themselves as to a point which capitally concerns them all and whose consequents if not prevented must needs be fatal to the whole But as there is no Rule so general that admits of no exception it may be gathered from all that I have written above that notwithstanding my Scruples against Confederations made with Princes of the Roman Communion I am far from blaming those Protestant States who in this last Conjuncture embraced the Interests of the House of Austria I am perswaded they could not dispense therewith without betraying their true Interest it being certain that since the Providence of God hath suffered the Houses of Austria and Bourbon to ascend in Europe its necessary that all the Protestant States should since then be Confederated and should put themselves into a condition to ballance these two that whensoever the one should invade the Estates of the other his Corrival he might not be able to subdue all the rest to his blind obedience and as it is manifest that France at the present is the unjust Aggressor and by the principles of a devouring ambition alone without any Right but that of his own Honour or bienseance would raise to himself the Title of the Conquerour by invading the Soveraign Dominions of his Neighbours the Empire Austria Holland and Lorrain it may be truly said that all the Protestant Princes who have listed themselves with the opposite Parties by all the Rules of a judicious and strict Policy have ranged themselves without contradiction in the Line of their true Interests First of all it ought to be considered that in the Modern Irruptions which the Arms of France made into Holland four years since by the manner whereby France attempted it and management precedent to it or which followed on the Enterprize the Monarch of this Nation hath plainly taken off his Mask and made us visibly to know that he ought to be considered in this Conjuncture not only in the same Character of Conquerours of former Ages towards all Estates who had the unhappiness to have Dominions adjacent to their Frontiers but that he ought also formally to be look'd on as the declared Protector of the Tyrannick Designs of the Papacy and so the premeditated and positive Enemy and Destroyer if the matter had been possible for him of all the States and People whose Faith is naturally opposite to that Tyranny The second thing is that the Imperial House of Austria forced by the threats of its utter ruine having in this occasion now Leagued and Confederated its politick Interests with the greater part of the Protestant States of Europe to oppose it self by a joint endeavour and force to the ambitious Designs of France it is for the Honour of all these States to cause this Imperial House in this Conjuncture to acknowledge that Justice Reason and Equity hath been the Base the solid and unmoveable Foundation whereon they have laid all their motions and that it is also in the Protestant that all the oppressed Powers of Christendom may find the Bulwark of their Security For Considerations of this force serve to confirm the respects of Interests and Glory which establish the Justice of these motions of all the Protestant States in favour of the House of Austria in a solid manner and these motions are so much more glorious for these Princes and they may draw from thence so much the more happy Events because the Houses of Austria and