Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	council_n	lord_n	privy_a	4,231	5	10.1951	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52446	A narrative of some passages in or relating to the Long Parliament by a person of honor.	North, Dudley North, Baron, 1602-1677.	1670 (1670)	Wing N1285; ESTC R5860	28,316	114

both parties were employed in raising of forces The Earl of Essex being made Captain-General for the King and Parliament as the stile of the War was then with full power to nominate Officers and I can affirm that the Army was raised with great difficulty there being immediately upon grant of that Commission the greatest solitude at Westminster that I had seen whereof I my self taking notice before a Member who was designed to a principal command in the Army as a thing of small encouragement he made this answer That he thought the people of England were mad being so blind to the discerning of their own interest but the Parliaments business was more and more facilitated every day there being a Committy erected of Lords and Commons called the Committy of Safety in the nature of a Privy Council and Money or Plate coming in freely upon the propositions for contribution in London beyond any mans expectation But that which most advanced the Levies was a Liberty declared for Apprentices to forsake their Masters service at this time without loss of freedom and the nomination of Collonels Members of both Houses being persons eminent for popularity so as the Army consisted very much of boys at the first but there being great scarcity of experienced Commanders the General thought it necessary to accept the service of divers Scottish-men whom the assurance of good pay had invited to offer themselves being not only able persons for Command but also better hardened in the way of Military opposition to the Royal power than our English Now there passed every day Acts of hostility for the King appearing in person before Hull and entrance being denied raised a battery against the Town and laid a kind of siege to it On the other side the Parliaments forces seized every day upon such places as they found necessary in the way of advantage for War so as Mars began to exercise his power in several parts of the Kingdom even to bloud by wrestlings between the respective Partisans when they met as also by the siege of Warwick-Castle by the Earl of Northampton who soon after lost his life in the Kings service and the Parliament it self then seemed to have assumed a new nature according to the businesses there agitated which were only relating to the War After several skirmishes between parties the Armies came to face one another at Edgehill in the year 1642 whereupon ensued a battel and notice being given at Westminster we were in continual expectation of the issue and the House being set in an afternoon there came a Messenger who brought word that the Parliaments Army was so worsted as he his self saw the Earl of Essex's Cannon seized upon by the Kings forces This gave so great a terror as the Speaker Lentall addressed himself to some of us and used these terms Gentlemen you shall do well to send to his Majesty betimes to ask conditions lest by delaying you come too late to effect your security Such a terror did the present apprehension strike into him and many others but it was not long before an express Messenger came from the General himself signifying that he was Master of the field and had been once possest of the Royal Standard This gave fresh courage yet the intelligence brought by the first person was true for the Parliaments left wing had been routed and their Cannon possessed but for want of discipline the prevailers applied themselves to plunder the baggage and so the other part of his Majesties Army was born down and the Earl of Essex remained possessed of the field or Champ de bataigle as the French call it but with his Forces so broken as the Kings Army having done their business in forcing a passage pursued their design and marched forwards which Essex in his Letters termed a flight and said that for want of horse he could not prosecute his victory without a fresh supply from London And thus the victory is pretended to on both sides and not without a fair colour Not long after this the King having refreshed his army at Oxford marched with it towards London yet could not do this with such expedition but that General Essex was gotten thither before him and the Citizens of London were so fearful of being plundered as they came out unanimously for defence and so his Majesty thought good to retreat to Oxford which gave a period to action for that year Somewhat before the late encounter near Brainford the house of Commons ordered me to go into the Countrey for which I served where I found all full of terror the common people generally apprehending that the Cavaliers as the Royallists were then called were coming to plunder them This fear was artificially put into them as I could easily perceive for the Countrey was full of strange fictions of their inhumane carriage in other countreys and being at my usual Mansion we had scarcely any rest no not in the night for Messengers giving the allarm and the manner was to bring a paper of intelligence without any subscription and this must be taken for truth without any farther proof These allarms generated strange wild and indigested propositions such as were not to be hearkned unto by any person of Judgment and experience yet they were some way tending to the great design of raising the terror to a height and putting arms into the hands of Schismatical people under the name of Voluntiers and by those means to form a new power to be disposed of upon occasion in any part of the Kingdome without the limits of their own Counties as it came to pass afterwards when Majors General were established But since the Kings forces did not really make any approach towards us and since I had not accepted of any Command to oblige my stay in the Countrey I made my return to London and applyed my self to my constant course of attending in Parliament where I found the state of business somewhat altered for General Essex began now to appear to the private Caballists somewhat wresty so as they found it necessary to raise new forces to be commanded less immediately by him Upon this there was a kind of army put under command of Sir William Waller and Sir Arthur Hasellrigg whose actions were afterwards as much cryed up as the Generals were cryed down And then there were also Ordinances of Parliament which kind of law grew now in fashion framed and past for constituting associations whereof the Eastern was chief and much promoted by Cromwel who founded his greatness there though for the present he was commanded by the Lord Grey of Warke chosen Major General of that association and placed in that Command as a person less active and more to be wrought upon than he afterward proved to be which made Essex who had yet power sufficient to crush him cause him after about a years service in that Command to be summon'd to his attendance in the Lords house with a substitution of the