Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	duke_n	earl_n	lord_n	24,417	5	4.9161	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96861	Anglo-tyrannus, or the idea of a Norman monarch, represented in the paralell reignes of Henrie the Third and Charles kings of England, wherein the whole management of affairs under the Norman kings is manifested, together with the real ground, and rise of all those former, and these latter contestations between the princes, and people of this nation, upon the score of prerogative and liberty. And the impious, abusive, and delusive practises are in short discovered, by which the English have been bobbed of their freedome, and the Norman tyrannie founded and continued over them. / By G.W. of Lincolnes Inne.	Walker, George, of Lincoln's Inn.	1650 (1650)	Wing W340; Thomason E619_1; ESTC R203987	46,665	64

Walker To the Reader HE must rise betimes saith the proverb who will please all which may cease our wonder that the Common-wealth is so displeasant to some which hath gotten up so late yet better late than never But though some dotarts square all by antiquity supposing none so wise which are not so old and guesse at the understanding by the gray hairs which in truth are rather a badge of imperfection and the declension of nature and which came into the world at the back doore being a part of that fatall offspring begot between the Serpents craft and our first Parents disobedience I speak not this in scorn of age which I honour when found in the way of righteousnesse and truth nor in deniall of its advantage over youth by experience but to oppose that errour spred amongst many that all wisdome deceased with their Grandsires and they are onely to travell in their tracks an opinion more agreeable to a pack horse than a man endued with a rationall soul which is not to lie idle and which indeed the word of God and universall experience which even make fools wise contradicts the one infallibly declaring that in the latter dayes the Spirit of Truth shall more abundantly be poured forth into earthen vessels the other visibly informing us of the daily advantages we have above our ancestors to attain Knowledge for admit they were such G●y ants in understanding yet we poore dwarfes being upon their shoulders may see further than they but I say though some doe thus yet the sons of reason measure by another standard as knowing that if worth should be prised by antiquity the rotten would becom of more value than the ripe to such therefore do I present this Discourse who judge by reason not passion which so often makes the Crow seem white the Bells to tink as the fools do think and in confidence Reader that thy ingenuity is such that no byas of interest will wheel thee narrow and thy capacity able to draw thee from running wide of reason the only mark men in civil games should bowl at I have taken the pains to present thee with a map of Englands condition under her Monarchs wherein thou mayst view how justly Magna Charta is cast in our Governours teeths to beget a belief of their being more tyrannous than our Kings were admit it be not observed in every tittle now what are we the worse when some fresher and more apposite remedy is applyed to heal us let us consider that it was constituted under another Government and so cannot square to the present and that the makers of it were but men nay and such as had not that roome to act in as we have and so could not foresee or at best provide for all that now providence hath wrought amongst us but I shall not detain thee with a long Preface from the Book wherein an ingenuous and rationall spirit will discern that if our present Governours had been bound up to former rules we could never have attained that estate which now by Gods mercy and their prudence we enjoy and may so still if our own perversnesse hinder us not Truly that Fahle in Pliny of certain monstrous people in Africk which had one foot and that so big that they covered and shaded with it their whole body may be a perfect embleme of our Kingly Government which being at first instituted for a firm basis and prop to the body politick what by the fatall sloath and stupidity of the people and the industrious craft and activity of Monarchs was turned topsie turvie and had got so between heaven and us that it wholly deprived us of that free light and happinesse which God and nature held forth unto us and thus in stead of a support was become a burden under the weight of which the whole groaned nay was almost pressed to death but thou being a member and sound canst not but be as sensible of this as I and for dead slesh and rotten limbs corrosives and cuttings are onely proper it will be weaknesse in me therefore to doubt of the plaudit to the Common wealth so farewell till we meet in the book Anglo-Tyrannus Or the Idea of a Norman MONARCH c. FAtall and Bloody have Crowns and Scepters been in generall to all Nations in particular to this in England and that not only in regard of the strife between competitours who in pnrple gore deeply dyed their regall roabs and by the slaughtered carcasses of their Rivals and partakers ascended the Imperiall throne but in respect of the iterated contests between Prerogative and Liberty the Kings aiming at uncontrolable absolutenes the people claming their Native Freedome The verity of this assertion we may see deeply imprinted in bloody Characters throughout the whole series of English history yea so deeply that it may even create an envy in us of the Turkish happinesse and beget a wish after their bondage who though they go for absolute slaves yet cannot shew such dire effects of tyranny as we and our ancestors have felt and groaned under That policy of State impious and inhumane enough of destroying the younger Brothers of the Ottoman line though decried by us and all who write Christians yet compared with our Monarches politick arts and actings may seem to have been founded on the advice of their own and mankinds better genius to prevent the efusion of blood and deliver millions from the shambles there a few males of his own Family fall a victime to their Tyrant when whole Hecatombs can scarse appease the thirsty ambition of an English pretender ther one house suffers here none escapes as but to instance in one contest between Henry the sixth and Edward the fourth wherein was fought ten bloody battles besides all lesser scirmishes thousands of Lords Gentlemen and Commons slaine and one halfe of the Nation destroyed to set up a King to trample upon the other for in that quarrell between the Houses of Lancaster and Yorke fell 80998. persons 2. Kings 1. Prince 10. Dukes 2. Marquesses 21. Earls 2. Viscounts 27. Lords 1. Prior 1. Iudge 1 39. Knights 441. Esquiers this hath been the happiness and peace which a successive and hereditary Monarchy hath afforded England For our liberty we can indeed shew many of our Kings large and good deeds but few or none of their actions their hands alwaies having been too hard for their Seals Parchments and Charters we purchased of them with the price of Millions both in Blood and Treasure but let us but pass by their promises and view their performances and we may set aside Turkie and term England the slave and this appears in our Chronicles where though in the Theorie and System the English Government hath been limited and bounded by good and distinguishing lawes yet in the exercise and practic part of every Kings raign we shall find it deserve as bad a name as others who are called most absolute The Poets fable of Tantalus

hath been verified in us who though we have been set up to the chinne in freedom and have had liberty bobbing at our lips yet never could we get a drop to squench our thirsts or a snap to stay our stomacks this being added to our sufferings to want in the midst of seeming abundance and as the vulgar have it to starve in a Cooks shop a trick those Lords we term absolute were never ingenuous enough to torment their slaves with Were there then no more but this we might well command those Roman and Turkish Tyrants with a Cede Majoribus to give place to ours How much of a punie did thy wish savour dull Caligula that all Rome had but one neck that thou mightest smite it off at a blow How short of art doth thy rage fall unskillfull Sultan with a Bowstring or Scymiter to snach life from an offending slave Behold and blush you who weare the title of Master Tyrants at the Norman exactnesse which hath thought it beneath a Princes anger to give sudden death a quick riddance and not worth the name of slavery unlesse he can make his vassals feel the lingring effects of his Tyranny it was not enough for us to be slaves unless we knew it lest otherwise not desiring freedom we should not have been so sensible of their power we must with Erasmus be hung between Heaven and Hell that we might see our losse as well as feel it but yet this was not enough something must be added to make their Tyranny most exquisite for we could not enjoy this condition unlesse we paid soundly for it how many Battles have been fought for a piece of Parchment to instruct us but with our miseries and how many millions granted to our Kings but to play the Hocus-pocusses and cheat us to our faces Happy and thrice happy may England call the condition of Turke Russe or Moor who depending only upon their Tyrants wils know no Law but their Commands a head now and then paies the shot there when two and twenty of the chiefest Lords heads must off at once here besides thousands of Gentlemen and Commons butchered for but acting according to those Lawes which their King and his predecessors had an hundred times sworn to grant and maintain inviolable as but to instance in the Raign of Edw. 2. omitting the innumerable carcasses of Englands noblest Sonnes which have bin so often forced to rampire in parchment liberty from the fury of other Tyrant and as their last wills to deliver a few writen Charters to their sons who were also to fight and pay for them as they did and be as much the better then too as they were For to sum up all these our so dear liberties were of no other use than to drein our purses as well as veins that when Englands generous bloud seemed encreased too to tamely suffer Norman Lords to trample on her upon this pretence it might be let out or when her Kings wanted mony they might by these lures draw subsidies to their fists and so hang them by till the next occasion but I humbly conceive that if our Ancestors had taken that course a Naturall once did when he was chosen to judg between a Cook and a Country-man and as their Kings fed them with a sight of Liberty supplied them againe with chinking of money have executed justice without respect of persons they had in all probability diverted those plagues which the crying sins of oppression and murder have brought down from Heaven upon this Nation But let us descend from Generalls and view but the Raign of Henry the third the very Idea of Tyranny and exact copie after which all other Kings have writ especially the last and we shall not only behold the map of our Ancestors miserie and folly but also perceive our own happinesse and Gods mercie in not suffering us to be deluded and baffeled as they were In the midst of the civill flames kindled between Tyranny and liberty King Iohn expiring his sonne Henry the third a child of nine years of age by the power of William Marshall Earl of Pembrook and the consent of most of the Barons ascends the Throne and here we may observe the unadvised lenitie of the English Lords who not considering what was bred in the bone would not easily out in the flesh so easily accepted of the Sonne though the Father had plaid the Tyrant and Traitor to the height giving the Crown to the Pope he would be a slave himself rather than they should not trampling upon the people yea detesting the whole Nation as his grief because Corne was so cheap when he thought he had wasted al may make out But Gods time was not come and he was pleased to set their example to guide posterity from splitting on that Rock I mean such of them who when they have eyes will make use of them But to say the truth they were Lords whom Kings knew so well to cajole or at worst set so together by the ears that they could command them into their traps at list let but one have that Earldome the other this Lordship and their turns were served others may shift for themselves if they can besides it was none of their interest to stub up Tyranny by the roots for then down had gon their branches too for they knew that when that tree was feld the Rooks nest must to ground with it but we may be silent in this and give experience leave to speak for us And yet let us but look a litttle further than the gilded and embroydered superficies and we shall perceive that these Lordlings estate was but even by so much more free and happy than the Commons by how much that King of Cypresses condition was bettered when his Iron shackles and chains were converted into silver fetters they enjoyed a little more gaudie servitude and to speak to the capacity of our Countryman were as the Fore-horses in the teame which though they weare the Feather and have the Bels about their eares yet must draw themselves as well as those that follow nay and if they did seem unwilling to lead they were sure to be lash'd by the Royall Carters till the bloud came and have their gay trappings to boot pul'd over their eares and this the wise and generous of them knew and often endeavoured to remedy but were still prevented by the envy and jealousie one of another which was created and cast in among them by their Kings as partly will appeare in the following story Henry being thus Crowned at Glocester and many great Barons daily resorting to his party moved both by the proud carriage of the Frenchmen and the confession of the Viscount Melun That Lewis had taken an Oath and all his Lords to destroy the English Nobility raiseth a great Army defeateth at Lincolne his enemies and forceth Lewis to condescend to an accord depart the Land and abjure his claim to the Crown which for two

The Lords netled with this Prelats peremptorinesse which the King bore him out in depart with more indignation vowing to spend their Lives in this cause concerning their liberties so much hereupon the K. sends for whole Legions of Poictovins then summons them to appear in the Parl. called on purpose to intrap them but they were so wise as to avoid the snare so resolute as to send him word That unles he would mend his manners by the common Counsel of the kingdom they would expell both him and his evil Councellors the Land But all this avayled them not for upon their refusall to repair to him at Glocester the King without the judgment of his Court or their Peers causes them to be proclamed Out-Laws seizes upon all their Lands which he divides among his Poictovins the Panisaries that guarded and boulstered out this Grand Sultan and his Visier Basha Winchester in their tyrannies and directs out Writs to attach their Bodie But now give me leave a little to digresse and shew how our bloud-hounds have run counter on the same foile have acted the most of this scene in our dayes For thus though our King wanted not so great a stock of strangers to set up with there being so many base spirited Englishmen which would be instrumentall in enslaving their Countrey a thing our noble and generous Ancestors abhorred to do yet German horse were to have bin brought over to help to improve the Trade and lye for factourage of Tyranny in every County Thus the Earl of Straffora tels the King he had an Army in Ireland which might be brought over to bring England under the yoak a Counsel which cost the Giver his Head Thus were Swedes Danes French Scots Irish and Dutch sent for over and invited by the King to help him Thus the Members were illegally proceeded against the Lords summoned to York and the Parliament commanded to Oxford and all that refused handled without mittens their Estates being conferred on those who would engage for Tyranny and themselves proclamed Traytors and Rebels indeed these things considered it was no marvell God was so often called to witnesse that Tyranny was not intended and impiety used to create credulity God mocked that men might be abused sith no reason could be given to gain our belief and make us give our own eyes the lye The Lords though much weakned by the revolt of some of themselves the King having won the Earl of Cornwall and Winchester with a thousand marks bought the Earls of Chester and Lincoln to his party repair into Wales at that time very sensible of their oppression and the Earl of Kent to cry quittance with the K. and make amends for his former faults breaks prison and joyns with them hereupon the K. in person marches against them but he is beaten and forced to retreat with dishonor to Glocester his Foraigners also being again sent against them runne the same chance their Generall and thousands of them being slain on the place being frustrated therefore in his design of force the King employes a Fryer to cajole the Earl of Pembroke General of the Forces raised by the Barons but all the flatteries promises and threats of that crafty instrument could not shake the constancy of that Noble Lord who gallantly told him That he feared no danger nor would ever yeeld to the Kings will which was guided by no reason that he should give an evill example to relinquish the justice of his Cause to obey that will which wrought all injustire whereby it might appeare he loved worldly possessions more than Right and Honour Thus the promise of restauration of his former estate with the addition of great Lands in Herefordshire nothing prevailed with him in whose heroik Mind Honour and his Conntryes good were Commanders in chief No way therefore now being left but that the King tryes what may be done by Treachery and takes a truce with them in the mean while seizing all those great possessions which were left the Earl in Ireland by his famous Ancestor the Earl Strongbow that thereby he might draw the Earl over thither this design takes effect and the Earl endeavouring to regain his livelihood lost his life circumvented by treachery Thus noblest souls are soonest intrapt who measuring others their own thoughts are the least suspicious but his death wrought such effects as caused the King to disown the businesse and lay the load upon his Counsellors shoulders In a Parl. at Westminst. the King being plainly told his own the Bishops threatning to proceed by Ecclesiasticall censure both against him and his Counsellors and seeing no way to subsist and get his ends but by temporizing consents to them calls home the Lords removes the strangers and brings his new officers to account now the storm fals so violently that Winchester with his Bastard are forced for shelter to take Sanctuary untill by large Fines the King was appeased who to get money was very ready to doe any thing Escuage is granted toward the marriage of his Sister whom he bestowed on the Emperour with 30000 marks for a Dowry besides an Imperiall Crown and other Ornaments to a great value The King marries Elianor Daughter to the Earl of Provence a match which beside the distance of the place was infinitely disadvantagious having no Dowry getting a poor kindred which must needs draw means from this kingdome A Parliament also is assembled at London which the King would have held in the Tower but that the Lords refused to come in which Sheriffs were removed for corruption and the new ones sworn to take no bribes Now the King endeavours to change his officers and to take the Seale from the Chancellor the Bishop of Chichester who refuses to deliver it which he had by the Common Councell of the kingdom without assent of the same and having carryed himself unblamably in his office is much favoured by the people Also he receives some old cast officers into favour such was his levity and irresolution moved with any Engine to doe and undo and all out of time and order wherein he ever loses ground and goes about by the Popes Authority to revoke his former Grants which addes to the already conceived displeasure of the people In another Parliament or the same adjourned the King demands relief and upon promise to confirm the Charters and not seek to infringe them upon any pretence as want of the Popes confirmation c. a thirtieth part of all moveables is granted yet upon condition that it should be gathered by four Knights in every shire and laid up in Abbies or Castles that if the King performed not his promise it might be returned that he should leave the Counsell of Aliens and use only that of his Naturall Subjects Which being done and to make shew on his part some old Counsellors suddenly removed and others chosen which were sworn to give him good and faithfull advice yet I hope he

their riots and oppressions insomuch that it was the generall exclamation Our Inheritance is given to Aliens and our houses to strangers but we shall perceive the oppressions then on foot if we consider but what was told the King by divers to his face The Countesse of Arundell being harshly denyed by the King about a Ward detained from her in regard of a smal parcell of Land held in capite which drew away all the rest thus spake My Lord why turn you away your face from Iustice that we can obtein no right in your Court you are constituted in the midst betwixt God andus but neither govern your selfe nor us discreetly as you ought you shamefully vex both the Church and Nobles of the Kingdom by all means you can To which the King floutingly answered saying Lady Countesse have the Lords made you a Charter and sent you to be their Prolocutrix She replyes No Sir They have not made any Charter to me but the Charter which your Father and you made and swore so often to observe and so often extorted from your Subjects their money for the same you unworthily transgresse as a manifest breaker of your faith where are the Liberties of England so often written so often granted so often bought I though a Woman and with me all your naturall and faithfull people appeal against you to the Tribunall of that high Iudge above and Heaven and Earth shall be our witnesse that you have most unjustly dealt with us and Lord God of revenge avenge us Behold a generous and knowing Lady it was the sufferings of her Country not her self of which we find no mention extorted this true and resolute complaint from her Vpon the ruines of Henries fame hath Isabell raised an eternall trophie of her Vertue which shall stand conspicuous in English History so long as any memory of England remains Thus the Master of the Hospitallers tels the King saying he would revoke those Charters and Liberties inconsiderately granted by him and his Predecessors and for it alleging the Popes practice who many times chashiered his Grants So long as you observe Iustice you may be a King as soon as you violate the same you shall leave to be a King A Truth more Sacred than his Majesty could be and not to be violated for the sake of millions of Tyrants But above all for wonder is that of the Fryars Minors who returned a load of Freeze he sent them with this Message that he ought not to give alms of what he had Rent from the poor Indeed obedience is better than sacrifice but had this conscience been used by all the Romish Clergy their bellies had been leaner though their souls might have got by it their temporalities lesse though their spirituality more and this act deserves an Euge to these though it create an Apage to others rises in judgment condemning those great Clergy men who have been lesse than these Minors in Conscience and Honesty At last the King having a mind to have another bout beyond Sea summons a Parliament at London and now there is no doubt but he would be so gracious as to grant them what they could desire O what a blessed thing is want of money and how bountifull are Kings when they are quite beggared they will pull down Star-chambers High-Commission courts Monopolies suffer Favourites to be called to account for Treasons and vilanies they set them a work to do when they can do no other can neither will nor chose and will grant trienniall Parliaments and passe Acts that a Parliament shall sit so long as it will and which it might have done without their leave when all the devices and power they can make are not able to hinder it well though that proverb says Necessity hath no law yet with reverence to it's antiquity I must contrarily affirm that had it not been for necessity England had never had good law made nor kept neither ever should so long as the Norman yoake was in fashion This Gaffer Necessity at the first word obtains what all the Lords Prelats Parliaments so long demanded in vain Henry so the Parliament will but relieve him will ratifie and confirm their Liberties they do it granting him a tenth of the Clergy for three years and Escuage three marks of every Knights Fee of the Laity for one year towards his journey into the Holy Land indeed Gascoigne which how holy soever Henry accounted it he could never yet bring any reliques out of it though he had carried many a Crosse into it and he accordingly ratifies those often-confirmed Charters in the most solemn and ceremoniall manner that the Religion of that time and the wisdom of the State could then devise to do For the Parliament having so often found by experience that no civill promise or verball profession would hold in these Norman Lords raptur'd by Prerogative and devoted to perjury to maintain tyranny take now a more Ecclesiasticall and divine way of Obligation swearing to Excommunicate all who should be found infringers of the Charters And the King with all the great Nobility all the Prelats in their Vestments with burning Candles in their hands assemble in the great Hall at Westminster to receive that dreadfull sentence The King having received a Candle gives it to a Prelat saying it becoms not me being no Preist to hold this my heart shall be a greater testimony and withall lays his hand spred upon his Brest the whole time the sentence was pronounced which was Authoritate Dei Omnipotentis c. which done he causes the Charter of King Iohn his Father to be read likewise openly in the end having thrown away their Candles which lay smoaking on the ground they cryed out So let them which incurre this sentence be extinct and stinke in Hell and the King with a loud voice said As God me help I will as I am a Man a Christian a Knight a King Crowned and Annointed inviolably observe all these things Never were Lawes saith that witty Historian amongst men except those holy Commandements on the Mount established with more Majesty of Ceremony to make them reverend and respected than these were they wanted but Thunder and Lightning from Heaven which likewise if prayers could have effected they would have had to make the sentence gastly and hideous to the infringers thereof Yet no sooner was this Parliament dissolved by a sacred and most solemne conclusion but the King presently studies to infringe all and with a part of the money he then got purchasing an absolution of the Pope returnes to his former oppressive courses with more violence and hardnesse and for ought we know our late King had the like to help him over all those styles for Master Prynne tells us there was an English Lieger in Rome and our own eyes that there were Nuntio's here at home to continue a correspondence between the Pope and his Royall Favorite Thus what the King does the Pope undoes

Provision every one refusing to lend him or the King a groat so great credit had their perfidie got them Many being clapt up in prison who would not be perjured the Lords and others whose consciences were more tender both of their Oath and Liberties than to believe the Pope or trust the King assemble together in arms for defence of themselves and their liberties and first they send to the King humbly beseeching him to remember his many Oathes and promises but when that would not availe them they advance towards London where the King lay in the Tower waiting the gathering of his forces and the comming over of strangers which he expected and now the Bishops who as they were seldom in any good so would be sure to be cheif in every bad action make such a stir to prevent bloudshed forsooth of which their tendernesse hath alwaies been well enough knowne that the controversy must be referred to the French King to decide much honour got England and much liberty was like to get by such an Arbitratour while she is forced to creep to forraigners to know whether they will please to let her enjoy liberty or no after 47 years oppression under Henry besides what his good Father and Grandsiers had loaded her with But the Lords being perswaded that their Liberties and Rights depended not upon the will of any one Man refused to stand to the partiall award of the French in the English Tyrants behalfe Thus concluded this business as all others commonly did which Bishops had a foot in●● with a mischief to the Common-wealth the King gaining by it not only time for raising but a seeming justice for his using of Forces to compell the Lords to stand to the sentence by which their liberties were adjudged from them No doubt those wise and generous Barons not only disliked but disdained such an Vmpire as being sensible of the advantages Henry of the dishonour their Countrey and of the discommodity their cause would reap by him but that those Fathers in evill under the angelical shape of peace-makers necessitated them to accept of him to avoid the obloquy of being Incendiaries the involvers of their Country in a miserable civill war Let the English High Priests then to their eternall infamy carry a frontlet engraven with Mischeif to England on their foreheads who were the fatall instruments of enforcing their Country to submit her liberty to a forraigne Tyrants decision whose corrupt interest lay in adding fewell to the flames which consumed the Noblest Fabricks the uprightest and firmest pillars in the English Nation Yet that Henry might make a little better market for himselfe he Summons a Parliament at Westminster where whilst openly nothing but redressing grievances composing differences exclaiming against jealousies raised to scandalise the King good man as if he intended to leavy War against his people by factious spirits proceeds from Henry he underhand prepares for War endeavouring to divide the Barons and strengthen himself by all the plots and clandestine tricks he could at last having by sprinkling Court holy-water and promising fifty pound Lands per annum to such as would desert the Lords party drawn divers to revolt unto him he secretly withdraws from Westminster to Windsor and from thence to Oxford so on traversing the Country to patch up and peece together an Army And here we may see it was no new thing which was acted by his late successor who in al his actions made it appeare that he was a right chip of the old block Now pretences of the Barons insolencies against the King and oppressions of the Subjects Declarations of his being forced to take up arms for defence of the just Lawes and Liberties of the people and his own safety with protestations of his good intentions and divers other such knacks are every where on the wing as we have had flying up and down at the tayss of the Royall paper Kites of our times The Lords being thus left in the lurch are not wanting in preparing for defence being unanimously backt by the citizens of London who have hitherto had the honour of bravely standing for Liberty yet first they send to the King putting him in mind of his oathes and promises and desiring him to observe the great Charter and Oxford Statutes but the Drums and Trumpets make such musick in his ears that Henry will heare no talk of any Law but what his will and Sword shall give and for their good Counsell returnes them as tokens of his love the title of Rebels and Traytors which he as frankly bestows on their persons as he doth their Lands on his followers By these course Complements the Lords perceiving which way the game was like to go leave off putting their confidence in the King and trust their cause to God and their good Swords then choosing the Earls of Leicester and Glocester for their Generalls whose hands no manacle of alliance could lock from defending their Countries Liberties though the first had married the Sister the second the Neece of the King they take the Feild may Towns are taken by each party and many skirmishes passe wherein sometimes the one party sometimes the other get the better at length divers Scotch Lords and others with great forces being joyned to the King he marches against Northampton where he heard Peter Montford was assembling forces for the Barons the Town was very resolutely defended untill by the Treachery of some Monks within say some by the subtilty of the Kings Forces say others who advancing close under the Wall undermined it whilst the Captains within parlying with the King on the other side a breach was made so large that forty Horse might enter a brest by which Henry gained it by assault This Town being taken ran the same fortune Leicester lately did for Henry drunk with successe and rage like a violent Torrent swept all before him killing burning and spoiling where ever his Army came but here so unmanly was the cruelty of the Tyrant that he would have hanged all the Oxford Schollers a band of which were in the Town for their valour shewed in the brave resistance of his forces had not some of his Counsellers perswaded him from so doing for feare the only curb to an ignoble soule of exasperating their freinds against him by his cruelty many of the Schollers being young Gentlemen of good quality Here by the way we may observe the miserable effects of bad Governours in the Vniversities by whom such degeneratenesse was wrought in our youth that none in our times were found more desperate engagers against the cause of Liberty than young Schollers who heretofore were the most resolute Champions for it Let us therefore make no sinister constructions when we see our Governours diligent in purging the fountaines if we desire to have the streams run cleere But Northampton put a period to Henries fortune for although he caused the Barous to raise their siedge from Rochester yet in the