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
A56345	The true portraiture of the kings of England, drawn from their titles, successions, raigns and ends, or, A short and exact historical description of every king, with the right they have had to the crown, and the manner of their wearing of it, especially from William the Conqueror wherein is demonstrated that there hath been no direct succession in the line to create an hereditary right, for six or seven hundred years : faithfully collected out of our best histories, and humbly presented to the Parliament of England / by an impartial friend to justice and truth.	Parker, Henry, 1604-1652.	1650 (1650)	Wing P429; ESTC R33010	38,712	46

much opened veines for more to follow and now the beam of power being turned regality weighs down all But by degrees through the continuation of his ill government whereby he daily lost the peoples hearts the Lords get an Army and take the King prisoner and by generall consent in Parliament deposed him as a tyrant and elected his son Edward the third to succeed and his son was crowned before his eyes Thus ended his raign but not his life Poor England which had laboured so long and successively under so many tyrants and had contested so long with Royalty for their dearly purchased liberties might now hopefully expect at least a dawning of Reformation especially when they had got so much power as to depose Authority and began as it were on a new account and the truth is affairs were now promising and distempers seemed to wear away with the former Governor yet the condition of the Kingdom had but a new face on it and grievances were rather not aggravated or multiplied then any whit removed and oppressions may be rather said to be changed from one shoulder to another then abolished Prince Edward who succeeded who was crowned in his fathers life had observance enough to remember his fate and was much warned by it both to prevent and suppress insurrections knowing by experience the full state of the controversie and therefore began his Government very fairely and with much applause onely to prevent factions and sidings he privately caused his father the deposed King to be cruelly murdered and so sate more securely though with more guilt upon the Throne his raign was fifty years odd months the longest next Hen. the third he spent most of his time in the wars of France to regain his titile to that Crown which the poor Subject felt in their estate and families and it was a happiness say some that he was so much abroad for when ever he came home as he wanted money to supply his expences so the people got ground to urge their Priviledges Magna Charta was at least twelve times ratified in this Kings Raign and so often broken yet because he goes under the name of the best Prince that raigned so long and so well let the Reader take but an Instance or two concerning his engagements to perform the grand Charter This King in the first Parliament made the fifteenth year of his raign had granted the enacting of divers wholsom and seasonable Laws which he willed and ingaged unto for him and his heirs that they should be firmly kept and remain inviolable for ever for the ratification of Magna Charta and other good Laws formerly enacted and that all the Officers of State as Chancellor Treasurer Barons of the Exchequer Judges c. should at that present in Parliament and for ever after take a solemn oath before their admission to their Offices to keep and maintain the point of the great Charter and the Charter of the Forrest c. But no sooner was the Parliament dissolved but the very same year he publikely revoked these Statutes pretending that they were contrary to the Laws and Customs of the Realm and to his Prerogative and Rights Royal c. wherefore we are willing saith he providently to revoke these things we have so improvidently done because saith he marke the dissimulation of Princes even in Parliaments We never really consented to the making of such Statutes but as then it behoved Vs We dissembled in the Premises by Protestations of revocation if indeed they should proceed to secure the dangers which by denying the same we feared to come with many more such passages and yet this King is the Phoenix of our more antient Monarchs but the Reader may still learn what the best of our Princes have been and what weak assurances any ingagements from them are where power is wanting from them and advantages present to them Another instance of his actings we may take up from the successe of his first siege of Tourney in France having laid on heavy and excessive taxes to maintain that war and the people seeing no fruits of all promises for executing the Articles of Magna Charta they refuse to pay any more without more faithfull performance of his Vows and solemn engagements to them whereby he wanting mony was fain to quit the place and return for England full of revengefull thoughts and in much fury breaths out destruction to all the refusers But the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury told him publikely but plainly that he had oftentimes as well as his Father offered manifest violences to the Liberties of the English Nation comprehended in that grand Charter and if he expected Subsidies from the people he must more carefully maintain their priviledges so justly due But the King vexed with such language both storms against the Arch-Bishop and as much as possibly he then could sought the ruine of all that had made any refusall of payment of these taxes although he had not in any manner performed his own promises Yet I will end his raign because he hath a name of a good King though as Speed saith by the Generall vote of Historians he committed many foul errors in his government with a good act he did at the fiftieth yeer of his age which he kept as his Jubilee he called a Parliament and there freely heard the grievances of the people and redressed many especially a Petition of the Commons against the doublings of Lawyers he caused the pleas which were before in French to be made in English a necessary Law saith Speed if it had been as carefully observed especially if he had ordered saith he that the same should not have been written in French That the Subject might understand the Law by which he holds what he hath and is to know what he doth But all this is not for nothing for as he imparted grace unto his people saith the same Auther for so all acts of Justice are termed wh●n granted by Kings so he took a care to replenish his own purse by it that the poor Commons obtain not any thing which they pay not too dearly for Here ends the Life of the best reputed Prince and yet you see wherein his excellency lay the best happiness the people had in his raign was that they had more engagements for their liberties with more cost and the remembrances and sense of the goodness of them more fresh and sweet by the often repetition of them but for execution or addition to them they were as far to seek as in former times And if it do possibly happen that in one Kings raign either through the goodness of his nature or rather want of advantages there be an intermission of oppressions for that is the utmost to be expected yet the next King will be sure to make it up and if they give the people a little breath it s but that they may sow for the next to reap or as they do with men on

the name of a King being an Infant and his reign may wel be called an Inter-regnum for ere he came to know what government was he was cruelly murthered with his Infant Brother by his Uncle Rich. Duke of Glocester who reigned both for him and afterwards for himself by the name of Richard the Third a bloody and cruel man rather a monster then a Prince his name stincks in the English dialect the shortness of his reign was the happiness of the people for after three yeers usurpation he was slain in the field by the Earl of Richmond who by his valour more then his Title got the Crown by the name of Henry the Seventh this was the best act that was done by him in easing the Kingdom of such a viper In his reign who is the first root of our Kings since the people had more hopes then benefits and were rejoyced and made happy more by expectations then enjoyments of any reall priviledge or liberty For though he took all the ways to secure his title by his marriage with the Lady Elizabeth daughter to Edward the Fourth yet many stratagems were laid to disturbe his peace which put him on acts of policy and diligence which he excellently demonstrated to free and extricate himself out of dangers and designs many sad divisions were stil in the Kingdom all men were not pleased either with his title or government and that they might but disturbe him or hazard his Crown they made Stage Kings drest up pretty lads in Princely robes and carried them up and down the Kingdom as puppets for the people to gaze one and admire all this while King Henry had not time to advance his prerogative while he was but securing his Title but after he had done that and now began to look on himself as free from either forraign or home competitors and the coast of State seeming cleer from all thickning weather he thinks of redeeming what he had lost by factions and imployes his wit for bringing down the height of the English Nation and plucking down their courage and was especially saith one jealous over his Nobility as remembring how himself was set up and how much more did this humor encrease in him after he had conflicted with such idols and counterfeits as Lambert Simnel Perkin Warbeck the strangeness of which dangers made him think nothing safe and thinking that the riches of the English occasioned their rebellions he took a course to empty their Coffers into his and the plot whereby he meant to effect it was by taking the advantage of the breach of penal Laws which he both found and made for that purpose his Instruments which for this work were pickt and qualified sufficiently were Sir Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley men learned in the Law and of desperate and subtle heads and forward in executing the Kings commands these two attended by troops of base Informers Promoters Catchpoles Cheaters Knights of the Post c. went up and down the Kingdom cruelly polled and taxed all sorts of people and prosecute in every Shire the most deserving and generous men that the Kingdom in a little time was more beggard then by most of the former Civil wars and all this done by the Kings speciall command and countenance that we may see what was the reason he began not sooner to play Rex want of opportunity and fear of loosing his Crown while he was advancing it but the latter end of his raign was too soon and too long for such actings This King ends his raign with the greatest acts of tyranny he made himself a rich King by beggaring his Subjects after he had freed his own person out of danger he imploys all his wits to enslave the English the fruits both of his title and tyranny we have felt ever sence in these that followed him His son Henry the eighth of that name succeeds him in his first beginnings he seemed to be tenderly affected to the Common-wealth and redressed many grievances especially those which were laid on by his father and executed by Empson and Dudley doing Justice on them for their cruelty and oppression But those affections were too good and too violent to last long the sound of Drums and Trumpets soon quasht them and many encroachments grew on the peoples Liberties many tempestuous storms and controversies there were in this Kings raign but they were more Ecclesiastical then Civil and so more dangerous and strong In a word he was accounted a better Souldier then a Governor and more fit for a General then a King to govern by just and equal Laws the best act he did was the discovery of the wickedness of the Clergy and casting off the Popes Supremacy which yet he took to himself and annexed it to his own Crown as the most of his raign was ful of controversies and tempests so all affairs were managed in a ranting and turbulent maner not with that gravity soberness as becomes civil and prudentiall transactions he was very lascivious and delighted much in variety and changes of Laws as wives he oftentimes much pleased himself to be in the company and was over-familiar with swaggering and loose fellows and the people ever and anon found the power of his Prerogative at home as his enemies did of his Sword abroad Edward the sixth his onely son succeeds him a Prince that was too good to live long the Phoenix of English Kings had he had time to prosecute his intentions and mature his genius but the Sun in him did shine too bright in the morning God gave England onely the representation of a good King but would not in judgement let us be blest long with him Religion began to revive Liberty to bud forth the people to peep out of their graves of slavery and bondage and to have their blood fresh and blushing in their cheeks but all is presently blasted by his death and the people who have seldom more then hopes for their comforts are now fainting for fear England is benighted and hung with black Queen Mary that Alecto and fury of women succeeds and now both souls and bodies of the people are enslaved and nothing but bone fires made of the flesh and bones of the best Christians But it s too much to name her in the English tongue Queen Elizabeth succeedes her who being prepared for the Crown by suffering came in a most seasonable time both for her self and the people who were made fuel for the flames of her sisters devotion And now England begins to flourish again and to recover its strength many inlargements were granted both to the consciences and estates of the people yet if we speak impartially we were kept further off Rome then royalty yet doubtless she may be Chronicled for the best Princess and her raign the most even and best mannaged with more fruits to the people then any of the former Kings especially if we consider how long she governed this Nation I

their liberties and freedoms in a customary usurpation of succession and lose their Common-wealth for the personall glory of a young Pretender especially when they have fought against the Father and cut him off as a Tyrant endeavour to set up the Son to follow on both the first cause and revenge meerly because he was supposed to be proceeded of his polluted loyns this blindness will be our misery and endear us to a more perfect and more tyrannicall slavery then ever yet England felt But to go on the Reader hath seen what a line we have had in England and how pure a title our Kings have had to their Crowns Le ts now but have patience to view their actings successively and yet shortly and we shall better guess of their right by their raigns for though one would think that they should endeavour to make good a bad title by a good raign yet it hath been far otherwise every man having made his right by force maintained it by tyranny and when they have gotten power never remembered how or to what end they attained it if we look back again and make a new and strict survey of their severall actings in their Government and go over every Kings head since Willam the Conqueror we shall not much mistake if we pass by Turkie Russia the Moors and yet call Englands Kings Tyrants and their Subjects Slaves and however in the theory and System it have been limited and bounded by good and distinguishing Laws yet in the exercise and practique part almost of every Kings Raign we shall find it deserve as bad a name as others who are called most absolute for the Laws and Priviledges which this poor Nation hath enjoyed as they have been but complementally granted for the most part and with much design so they have ever upon any occasion proved but weak and low hedges against the Spring-tides and Land floods of the Prerogative of the Prince which hath always gained more on the priviledges of the people then ever the Sea by all its washing and beatings of its boysterous and unmerciful waves hath gained on the Land for if at any time the poor Commons through much strugling and a good and present necessitous mood of the Prince have got off any present oppressions and forced out the promise for enacting of any good and seasonable Laws yet either the next advantage or at least the next successor hath been sure either to silence or diannul it and incroached upon it and never was Priviledge or good Law enacted or gained to the people but by hard pressure of the Subject and with a predominant ingredient of the Kings advantage and still rather out of courtesie then right We shall finde also that England for three or four hundred years together some lucida intervalla excepted hath been a stage of blood and the astonishment of all Nations in civil wars and that meerly either for the clearing of the title to the Crown which yet at last was onely made lawfull by the prevailing power and as soon made illegall when another side got the better or else by the Subject and Barons taking up arms to defend themselves and make Rampiers if possible against the inundation of Prerogative and rather preserving then obtaining any additions of liberties and yet they were commonly defeated at last for if for the present by some eminent advantage they got a little ground they soon lost it again by royal stratagems and were either forced or complemented into their old miseries with a worse remembrance of former actings But to enter into the particulars of this sad Story All men know or may the tyrannical domination of that first William who behaved himself as a Conqueror indeed and a most perfect tyrant since whom we have never had an English man but one who hath been naturalized by the succession of his Conquest as King of England he presently changed most of our Laws especially those wherein the English liberties were most transparent and preserved and made new Laws and those which he left writ them all in French disweaponed all the Natives sent the children of the best and most faithful of the Nobility into Normandy as Hostages and the most gallant of the English were transported by him into France to serve his wars that he might extinguish their Families he advanced his Normans into all places of the Nation and kept them as a guard over the English brought in the cruel Forrest Laws and dispeopled for thirty miles together in Hampshire pulling down many Towns and Villages with Churches Chappels and Gentlemens Houses making it a Forrest for wilde beasts which is ever since named the New Forrest but was the old ensign of our misery and slavery he laid on innumerable taxes and made Laws royal very severe and in an unknown Language that the English offending might forfeit their states and lands to him which they often did through ignorance But alas what need I mention these who ever reads but our Histories and the most favorable and fawning Royalist will see more then now can be expressed and yet here is the first fruits of our Kings and of their righteous title whose succession hath been as much in tyranny after him as in title and yet we must by a sacred obligation be bound to maintain with our blood and lives the branches of this rotten root notwithstanding all the providential and divine opportunities of casting off that miserable yoak which our forefathers so sadly groaned under and would have triumphed in the pouring out their blood which they shed freely but to little purpose but to have foreseen their childrens children might have but the hopes of attaining to But although William the first made sure his Conquest to his own person yet by his tyranny he gave ground of designs and hopes of recovery after his death therefore the people who but murmured and mourned in secret formerly consider now their condition and that Robert the right heir was wanting and his second son endeavored to be set up begin to capitulate and repeat their former grievances and to stand upon their terms with the next Successors But William Rufus who longed for the Crown and saw what advantage he had by his brothers absence through the mediation of Lanke-Frank the Arch-bishop of Canterbury a man for his vertue and learning in great esteem with the people got himself to be accepted and crowned King with exclusion of his elder brother by fair promises and engagements to repeal his fathers Laws and of promoting the liberties of the English any probability being then taking to the poor people But no sooner had he got the Crown fastned on his head and defeated his brother in battle but he forgat all his own promises follows directly his fathers steps grows excessive covetous lays on intolerable taxes and merciless exactions returns their longings and hopes after their just libertie into a sad bondage and slavery The poor people having thus