Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	bishop_n	earl_n	william_n	2,622	5	7.6726	4	false

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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

the same maner and took none but from such as after his Possession of the Crown Rebelled against him or were slain in the Wars § 34. He imposed no new Taxations on the State and used those he found very moderately As Danegelt being a Tax raised by the former Kings of two Shillings upon every Hilde-Land to maintain the Wars against the Danes he would not have it made an Annual payment but only taken upon urgent Occasion And it was seldom gathered in his Time or his Successors Scutagium or Escuage which was also then an Imposition of Mony upon every Knight's Fee afterwards only imployed for the Service in Scotland was never Levied but in Like Occasions for Stipends and Donatives to Souldiers § 35. Only one Exaction he he was forced to raise to cure a Mischief which arose by his Means In the begining of this Reign the Rancor of the English towards the New-come Normans was such as finding them single in Woods and remote Places they secretly murthered them and the Deed doers for any the severest Courses taken could never be discovered Whereupon it was ordained that the Hundred wherein a Norman was found slain and the Murther not taken should be condemned to pay the King some thirty-six pounds and some twenty eight pounds according to the Quantity of the Hundred And this was done to the End the Punishment being generally inflicted it might particularly deter them and hasten the Discovery of the Malefactor by whom so many must otherwise be interessed This Mulct and the seizing into his Hands the Church Treasure before-noted though both were done by the especial commanding Warrant of Necessity were much taken to heart in the Kingdom both by the Clergy and Common People § 36. And yet otherwise was he to both very gratious and beneficial For upon petition made unto him he relieved the Oppression of such as were Tenants at will of their Lords which were a very great Number and began after this manner All those who were discovered to have had a Hand in any Rebellion and were pardoned only to injoy the Benefit of Life having all their Lively-hood taken from them became Vassails unto those Lords to whom the Possessions were given of all such Lands as were forfeited by Attainders And if by their diligent Service they could attain any Portion of Ground they held it but only so long as it pleased their Lords without having any Estate for themselves or their Children and were oftentimes miserably cast out upon the sudden contrary to Promise upon any small Displeasure Whereupon it was ordained that whatsoever they had obtained of their Lords by any obsequious Service or agreed for upon any Lawful Pact they should hold by an inviolable Law during their own Lives § 37. And for the Clergy other than in this one Act he maintained all their Immunities and Priviledges and they grew very much under him But this it seems was the Cause that made them so much disfigure his Worthiness and leave his Memory in so black Colours to Posterity as they did in delineating his Tyranny Rigor and Oppression when the Nature and Necessary Disposition of his Affairs do much excuse him therein and shew that he was a Prince of a most active Virtue whose Abilities of Nature were equal to his Undertakings of Fortune as preordained for so great a Work And though he might have some Advantage of the Time wherein we often see Men prevail more by the Imbecilities of others than their own Worth Yet let those Times be well examined his Strength and Eminency if we take his just Measure where of an exceeding Proportion Neither wanted he those Encounters and Concurrences of sufficient able Princes his Neighbours to put him to the Trial thereof having on one side the French to grapple withal on the other the Dane far mightier in People and Shipping than himself strongly sided in the Kingdom as greedy to recover their former Footing here as ever and as well or better prepared § 38. But this name of Conquest which ever imports Violience and Misery is of so harsh a found and so odious in nature as a people subdued seldom gives the Conquerour his due tho' never so worthy And especially to a Stranger whom only time must naturalize and let in by degrees into their Liking and good Opinion Wherein also this King was greatly advantaged by reason of his twenty years Government which had much impaired the Memory of former Customs in the younger sort and well inured the elder to the present Usances and Form of State Whereby the Rule was made more easy to his Sons who tho' they were far inferiour to him in Worth were a little better beloved then he and the rather for that they were content somewhat to unwrest the Sovereignty from the Height whereunto he had strained it which brought the State to a better proportion of Harmony § 39. Of those who were the especial Men of Employment in his Reign time has shut us out from the knowledge of many it being in the Fortune of Kings to have the Names and Memory of their Counsellors like Rivers in the Ocean Buried in their Glory Yet these we find principally mentioned in Stories First William Fitz-Osborne Earl of Hereford the especial Mover and Counsellor of this Voiage of England reported also to have furnished forty Ships at his own Charge for the Enterprise Odo Bishop of Bayeux and Earl of Kent sometimes his Viceroy in England and seems also to have managed the Finances but of such excessive Avarice that he gathered so much Treasure as he went about to buy the Papacy and attempting to go to Rome about the same the King staid him at Home in a fair Prison and excused the matter upon Exclamation made in this sort that he only Imprisoned the Earl of Kent not the Bishop of Bayeux Beside he had Lanfranc a Man of universal Learning and an excellent Lawyer Born in Lumbardy who peradventure might introduce something of the Constitutions of that Province to the making up our Laws which in many things seem to participate with theirs And no doubt he had many others else For being of a strong Constitution of Judgment he could not but be strongly furnished in that kind seeing ever weak Princes have weak Sides and our most renowed Kings have been best underset with Counsel and happily served with the ablest Officers § 40. He had a fair issue by Maud his Wife Four Sons and Five Daughters To Robert his Eldest Son he left the Dutchy of Normandy to William the Kingdom of England and to Henry his Treasure with an Annual Pension of 8000. pounds to be paid him by his two Brothers Richard that was his Second Son Died in his Youth of a surfeit taken by Hunting in the New Forrest and began the fatal Misfortune that followed of that place by the Death of King William the Second there slain with an Arrow and of Richard the Son of Robert Duke of

Sir Walter Raleigh's HISTORY of the Reigne of William the First The true Effigies of is HON ble S r. Walter Rawlegh Knight F. H. Van. Hove sculp An Introduction to a BREVIARY OF THE History of England With the REIGN OF King Williamthe I. Entitled the CONQUEROR Written by Sr. Walter Raleigh Kt. And Dedicated to the then Earl of Salisbury LONDON Printed for Sam. Keble at the Great-Turks-Head in Fleet-street And Dan. Brown at the Black-Swan and Bible without Temple-Bar 1693. THE PREFACE OF THE PUBLISHER THIS Life of William the Conqueror Writ by Sir Walter Raleigh was found in the Library of a Person of High Quality Whosoever hath been conversant in the Works of that accomplisht Knight and a little acquainted with his great Genius and Spirit and his manly and unaffected Stile will make no doubt but what here is presented unto the World was his genuine Issue For the Comprehensive and Penetrating thoughts the lively imagination and the mature and exact Iudgment of Sir Walter Raleigh do all manifestly appear in this small Treatise It may be matter of some wonder that a Work filled with such a number of judicious Reflections upon the Nature of Government in General and so many Wise Observations relating to the particular State of our own Country should have been thus long condemn'd to obscurity had not an ill fate attended the learned Compositions as well as the brave Actions of this renowned Gentleman But by what unhappy Accident soever it hath been hitherto confined to Privacy it was thought it would be an injury to the publique any longer to conceal a just and true Account of the Reign of William the First wherein so many remarkable matters and great Revolutions happened and to which the Writers of Government and Policy in our Nation have very frequent recourse Since the Transactions of that Time unto which they so commonly appeal are here related with that faithfullness brevity and clearness that become an Exact Historian IMPRIMATUR December 31 1692 EDM. BOHUN A BREVIARY OF THE History of ENGLAND Beginning at the REIGN of WILLIAM the I. Entitled the Conquerour The Introduction § 1. I Intend by the Help of God and your furtherance Right Noble Earl of Salisbury to write a Brief History of England from William I. entitled the Conqueror to the End of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth of perpetual Memory A Work difficult as well for the Antiquity as the Lateliness of things done the one bereaving our Knowledge of the certain Counsels held in the managing of Businesses so long past the other not allowing our Understanding the inward and particular Motives of such Actions as are so near us Yet according to my Collections out of those antient Remains that are left unto the World and the Conferences Acts and Instruments of latter Times I will deliver the Succession and course of our Affairs insomuch as shall be fit for the publick Understanding without passion or partiality endeavouring to be of no other side then of Truth as it shall appear to my Apprehension § 2. And though I had a Desire to have deduced this History from the Beginniug of our first Kings as they are delivered in their Catologue yet finding their Actions uncertainly delivered and the Beginning of all eminent States to be as uncertain as the Heads of great Rivers and that idle Antiquity discovering no Apparent Way beyond their Times have ever delighted to point Men out into imaginary Tracts of Fictions and monstrous Originalls I did put off that Desire with this Consideration that this space of five hundred years which the Government of twenty Kings and two Soveraign Queens was more than enough for my and Ability weighing withal that it is but our Curiosity to look further back into the Times past than we can well discern and wherof we can neither have Proof nor Profit Besides it seemeth that God in his Providence hath bounded our Searches within the Compass of a few Ages as if the same were sufficient both for Example and Instruction in the Government of Men For had we the particular Occurrents of all Nations and all Ages it might more stuff but not better our Understanding We shall find the same Correspondencies to hold in the Actions of Men Vertues and Vices the same though rising and falling according to the Worth or Weakness of Governors the Causes of the Ruins and Changes of Commonwealths to be alike and the Train of Affairs carried by the Precedent in a Course of Succession under like Figures § 3. But yet for that this Chain of Affairs hath a link of Dependency to the former Times it shall not be amiss briefly to repeat the three Mutations in the State foregoing this last Conquest since the Time that Letters and Christianity were here received which left more certain Knowledge of Things done though not in that sort as we can assuredly learn either the Form of the Brittish Government under their Kings or by what Rule they held together whether their Petty Princes whereof they had many were subject to one Monarch or all Soveraign alike whether any parties did Cantonize or were free Estates or Common-wealths as peradventute they might be as well as the Gaules with whom they were one in Language or the Germans antient Precedents of like Liberties For no doubt the same Necessity that is the Mother of Society and Contriver of Mens Defences and Safeties finds out like Forms of Government in like times upon like Occasions But insomuch as is delivered in these uncertain Antiquities we find this Isle was never or never long subject to one entire Monarch but ruled by divers Kings § 4. And so Caesar found it and thereby found the easier Means to subdue it which was the first Dissolution of the State after it had remained under the Government of the Brittons as say our Stories one thousand and sixty years from Brutus to Cassibalan And yet the State then seem'd by this Conquest to lose little besides their Savage Liberty being reduced to a Civil Subjection For the Vanquisher sought not to extirpate the Nation but to maintain and improve it And under this Government it remained almost five hundred years until the Division of the Roman Empire in the time of Theodosius when it became neglected and recovered again the State of a Kingdome under Princes partly Brittish and partly Romans which by reason of continual Tumults and Mutinies seemed never to have held any calm or flourishing Government worthy the observing and in the end Vortigern an Earl of the Guisses abusing the Weakness of Constantius supplanted him and obtained the Kingdome which the better to keep against Aurelius and Pendragon the Sons of Constantius and also to oppose against the Invasion of the Picts and Scots he called in the Saxons to his Aid § 5. Who entring this Land under the Conduct of Hengist and Horsus gave the occasion of the second and indeed the most absolute Dissolution of the State For