Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	edward_n	king_n	normandy_n	2,635	5	11.0549	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46946	A confutation of a late pamphlet intituled, A letter ballancing the necessity of keeping a land-force in time of peace, with the dangers that may follow on it	Johnson, Samuel, 1649-1703.	1698 (1698)	Wing J825; ESTC R24417	24,726	39

might justly make the Realm so very cautious about the next King the Confessor's Norman Retinue which for all their care laid the Foundation of the Norman Invasion For as soon as Duke William heard both at once of the Death of Edward and the Coronation of Harold he assembles the States of Normandy and lays before them his Pretensions to England and sollicites their assistance to recover it shewing them apparent probability of success by infallible Intelligence he had from the State his strong Party therein with the debility and distraction of the People Daniel p. 34. These were Friend-Indians got into the Bowels of the Realm who thus betrayed it to a foreign Invasion In short the Wisdom of the Nation in former Ages by which we subsist at this Day was against the admitting of any Aliens into the Kingdom unless it were Merchants-Strangers for the sake of Commerce and they too were restrained in these two Points besides divers others not to take a House nor stay above 40 days as we find by the London Petition reciting the ancient Usages and the Act made upon it 50 E. 3. Tener hostiel de fair leur demeure outre 40 jours la ou en temps passe nul estranges Marchants nul des cestes points solint user But this is a Subject that deserves a just discourse because the very great care our Ancestors took and the weighty Reasons upon which they proceeded in this Affair cannot be fully seen at a glance nor be truly represented in a few words by the by The empairing of the Natives the discovering the Secrets of the Realm to our Enemies abroad the ill Offices they always did at Court witness the Count of St. Paul's advice to R. 2. which put him upon all the outragious Tyranny of the latter part of his Reign their being the constant Implements of Arbitrary Princes when they could not confide in their own Subjects that is when they would not serve them in their arbitrary Designs nor be made the Instruments of enslaving their native Country these were some of the most obvious and most frequently avowed Reasons against the admission of Strangers or suffering them to be here But then there were others which lay much deeper at the very bottom of the Constitution For every Hundred in a County being subdivided into Decennaries or Tythings and these consisting of Men that were all bound for one another and were mutual Pledges for the good behaviour of each other and every Master of a House answerable for his whole Family it was impossible there should be any room left in England either for Strangers or Vagabonds And this was the Perfection of the English Constitution both in the Saxon and Norman Times which rendered it the most united Nation under Heaven and they were all of them in strictness of Speech conjurati fratres in defensionem regis regni and as much sworn Brothers as if they had been one Mothers Children Now in such a Constitution it was impossible for a Stranger to thrust in his Nose for where could nine Men together be found to answer for Monsieur Whatchum who had neither Friends by Father's side nor Mother's side to be his Hostages with whom they must converse by an Interpreter of whom they could have no hold nor security having no knowledg and who might go and leave his Pledges in the lurch as lightly as he came And therefore the Strangers and Aliens that were so often evacuated could not have made their abode here if they had not crept in as Inmates into great Cities or at Court or in the Church and there it was they swarmed and lived upon the spoils of the Nation Our most judicious Antiquaries cannot mention these Decennaries or associated Neighbourhoods without bewailing the decay of that part of our Constitution as if the Nation had thereby lost all its compacted Strength and were become like a great Wall of loose Stones without Morter and only a multitude of Individuals I am sorry too but do not think the loss of them so fatal For whether the English Temper and Inclination led them to these Guilds and Fraternities or whether the living so long under them produced that Temper or both I am sure it runs in a blood and all Englishmen still retain a reservedness and shyness towards Strangers and cannot be suddainly acquainted they also will engage very far for one another and they take an injury done to another as done to themselves These fruits and advantages of the Decennaries still remain as if they were yet standing And tho the English have now Squabbles and Differences amongst themselves so they had then and a Headborough to compose ●hem yet a common Cause and a common Enemy always reconciles and unites them and as loose as the Stones may seem to be let but an Invasion come and that will find Morter This was the old English Conduct heretofore towards Foreigners but the modern Policy is for the direct contrary a general Naturalization Whenever I hear that word I cannot forbear thinking What is old England now to be planted and peopled Or are we to begin a new Commonwealth with an Asylum in Romulus's way The Nation never yet wanted People to keep the Plough going notwithstanding the great encrease of Tillage and we have more hands for Manufactures than we can find in Employment Our Merchants and Retailers are innumerable and most of our Professions are overstock'd And this glut of Men continues tho one would have expected that the vast Colonies we have sent into America should long since have drained us We have shoals of Seamen to maintain our Dominion there and to enlarge Commerce and tho England be an open Country yet it is so well man'd that it scorns all other Fortifications What then do we want Strangers for unless it be to make a dearth of Provision which is always a greater Tax upon our own People than a Capitation and more unequally laid or else to beat out our own substantial Manufactures with Outlandish frippery and foreign Knacks I have heard indeed that it will raise the price of Land but is the Nation going to sell However raising the price of it will make it only so much the worse for an English Purchaser Others would have a General Naturalization for the sake of the French Refugees who being shut out of their own Country for being Protestants ought by all means to be encouraged to make this their home I think all the World endeavours to make earnings of that poor People and to serve their own little ends upon them Their own Monarch gained several Points by expelling them out of France for thereby he shewed the plenitude of Arbitrary Power which will have all its Slaves believe as they are bidden as well as they do every thing else and can at pleasure make out casts of vast numbers of Natives who had as much right to stay in their own Country as any of those whom they left