Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	earl_n	lord_n	thomas_n	14,341	5	8.6315	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A80275	A compendious narration of the most examplar life of the right honourable and most virtuous Lady Mary, late Countess of Shrewsbury Faithfully collected out of the writings of a most learned and worthy person who attended her many years: by a gentleman, who by reason of his long acquaintance and much conversation with her can testifie the truth of all that is here related.	Gentleman.	1677 (1677)	Wing C5608A; ESTC R224366	18,927	64

A Compendious NARRATION OF THE Most Examplar LIFE OF THE Right Honourable and Most Virtuous Lady Mary Late Countess of Shrewsbury Faithfully Collected out of the Writings of a most Learned and Worthy Person who attended her many Years By a Gentleman who by reason of his long acquaintance and much conversation with her can testifie the truth of all that is here related Printed in the Year 1677. Her Birth and younger years IT was in the year of our Lord 1599. on the 4th of October that this our Island and particularly the City of Westminster was honoured by the birth of this Lady truly Noble by all Titles It was in the house of her great Uncle by the half-bloud Sr. Thomas Parry Chancellor of the Dutchy that she first began her course of mortality which she so holily past over and it fell out to be in a room which had been formerly a Chappel dedicated to God in honour of the most blessed Virgin Mary his Mother and on the Feast of the glorious Patriark St. Francis a proper time and place for the birth of a person so much addicted to passe her time in the house of God and so true an Imitatresse of the vertues of that great Queen of Heaven and that humble Saint And as this happy creature whose life I am now exposing to publick view was far from giving trouble to others throughout the whole course of her life so also did she give none to my Lady her mother in her very birth who though she had suffered hard labours of all the rest of her children and of some of them dangerous yet in bringing her into the world seemed as it were exempt by particular dispensation from that common curse layd by God upon the whole sex Her descent was very Noble on all sides her father was Sir Francis Fortescu of Salden Knight of the Honourable Order of the Bath a Gentleman of a very ancient knightly Family he being an heir of Sr. John Fortescu of the Privy Council to Queen Elizabeth and King James and descended lineally through a race of noble Auncestors many of whom had served their Princes in eminent charges both Military and Civil and were allyed by their marriages to several of the Nobility in the 15th generation from Sr. Richard Fortescu Knight who came into England with the Norman conquest Her Mother the Lady Grace Fortescu as eminent for her virtue as her birth was of the most illustrious Family of the Mannors Earls of Rutland and Lord Roos she being grandchild to Thomas Niece unto Henry and Aunt to John all Earls of that place To this advantage of bloud God had added that of so amiable and sweet a disposition and of so solid and lively wit and judgment that she was grateful to all persons and very capable of any knowledge which her sex is wont to possess this she made appear in her perfect and easy learning even of those ornamental qualities which took up the least of her thoughts and in which according to the fashion of other Ladies of condition in those times she was in her younger years brought up Though after her being married out of her great modesty and almost continual application of her self to employments of a higher strain she never but in just and unavoidable occasions spent any time in things of that nature But it is not my business here to play the Herald and to blazon her extraction or to dwell upon those inferiour transitory advantages of flesh and bloud my aym is to paint out the ornaments of her minde and to shew how near she was allied by her vertues to those Princes of heaven the constant attendants on the Throne of God Of those great virtues which were so eminently practised by her in her riper age she gave many auspicious prognosticks even from her infancy her love thereof and inclination to all actions of piety growing up in her with her years and even preventing them No child could be more exactly dutiful to her parents in compliance with whom she applyed her self with that zealous diligence and success to the gaining of a perfect knowledge and understanding of all the mysteries and articles of her faith and duties of a Christian as also of the grounds of all the Ceremonies used in the Holy Church that she was capable in her very childhood of declaring and explaining them to others and even then gave so great a testimony of so unusual a maturity of judgement both in her comportment and all her actions that she was thought fit and actually had leave of judicious and learned Ghostly Fathers to receive the most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar before she was yet arrived to ten years of age And finally she grew to that degree of Christian perfection even before she could write young woman that she had an ardent desire to give over the world as soon in a manner as she was entred into it and dedicate her self to God by imbracing a religious life for love of him But her parents neither giving way rashly to those desires of hers nor daring expresly to oppose them in regard of their great piety caused the case to be consulted with Learned Religious men And upon the casting up of all circumstances wherein her delicacy of constitution and continyency in point of health had a great part they advised her to satisfy her self with leading a virtuous life in the way of a secular calling whereupon she knowing that obedience in some cases is better then sacrifice and weighing this truth in her wise heart that no body since he is a party is fit to be a Judge in his own ways applied her self to walk as perfectly as she could in that state to which her parents both spiritual and temporal advised her And in consequence to these counsels and advise she was bestowed by her friends in Marriage at the age of 16. upon that Noble Person John Tallbot then Esquire and afterwards Earl of Shrewsbury Nephew and Heyr to that most Saintlike and Learned Lord George Earl of Shrewsbury who resolving to live wholly to God even in the world as to all mens admiration he did disposed his Nephew in Marriage to this Lady and setled his whole Estate upon them and theirs And in that condition she lived most happily and holily as will hereafter appear above nineteen years The manner how she daily and constantly spent her whole time after she was married WHen once this Lady was setled in the state of Marriage she did so order and frame the course of her life that living here upon earth her conversation might be truly said to be in heaven Of this not only all her days but even hours and moments were convincing testimonies As soon as she rose in the morning which was Winter and Summer at an early hour before she thought of her dresse the first and chief business of worldly Ladies or spent any the least time in that or any employment or discourse