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	succeed_v	2,762	5	9.6470	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

end her raign with this Character That she was the best Queen that ever England had and the glory of her Sexe to all Ages The English Line is now ended we must go into Scotland to seek for a King because a daughter of Henry the seventh was married to James the fourth King of Scotland but I will not question his title King James the sixth of Scotland and first of England succeeded on the English Throne A Prince that had many advantages to set up Prerogative which he improved he was too timorous to act but most subtile in Councel and designs and no King did more insensibly and closely undermine the Liberties of England then himself he gave us cause to remember from whence he came but his peaceable raign was the rail to his design and did choak suspition we were brought by him very nigh Rome and Spain and yet knew it not he had an inveterate hatred against Puritans as he had a fear of Papists and made more of Bishops then ordinary by remembrance of the Scots Presbytery He had as much of Royalty in his Eye as any Prince could have but had not so much courage to prosecute it the Puritan alwayes lay in his Spleen the Papist on his Lungs that he durst not that he could not breath so clearely and strongly against them but the Bishops lay in his heart I will not rip up his personal failings after his death he was the most profane King for oaths and blasphemies that England had besides c. He now grows old and was judged only fit to lay the Plot but not to execute it the design being now ripe and his person and life the only obstacle and Remora to the next Instrument he is conveyed away suddenly into another world as his son Henry was because thought unsuteable to the Plot it being too long to waite untill Nature and Distemper had done the deed We are now come to our last Charls who is like to end both that race and its tyranny the perfect Idea of all the rest and the most zealous prosecutor of the designs of all his ancestors who if Divine Providence had not miraculously prevented had accomplished the utmost of their intentions and for ever darkned the glory of the English Sun so much I must say of him that he got more wisedom by action then could possibly be expected by his nature experience that teacheth fools made him wise he endeavoured to act what others designed he dissembled as long as he could and used all parties to the utmost But his zeal and hardiness brought him to his death He needed no physick for his body had he remembred his soul But what need I mention him he is the last of English Monarchs and the most absolute monument of Monarchy and example of tyranny and injustice that ever was known in England he would have been what other Kings are and endeavoured to attain what others would be he lived an enemy to the Common-wealth and died a martyr to Prerogative Thus you have seen a faithfull representation of the Norman race under which we have groaned for about six hundred years the first Title made onely by the Invasion and Conquest of a Stranger and Bastard continued by usurpation and tyranny that take away but two or three persons out of the list and yet these bad enough if we consider all things and all this while England neither had a right heir or good King to govern it and yet by delusion and deceit we must be bound to maintain that Title as Sacred and Divine which in the beginning was extorted and usurping as if gray hairs could adde reverence to injustice England hath now an advantage more then all its Ancestors of freeing it self from this successive slavery and interrupting that bloody line and after an apprentiship to bondage for so many hundred yeers Providence hath given us our own choice If we take it we are made if not the old judgement of God lies on us for our stupidity and blindness For my part as I do not give much to that Monkish Prophecy from Henry the Seventh times Mars Puer Alecto Virgo Vulpes Leo Nullus yet I wonder how the Devil could foresee so far off and must needs say that it hath yet been literally fulfilled both in the Characters of the persons and the issue yet I must so far give way to the power of divine actings on my faith as to think that either we shall never have a King more or else we shall have one sent of God in wrath as the Israelites had seeing we are not contented that way which God hath from Heaven led us to As for the Title of this Prince who would fain be accounted the right heir Let us but remember from whence he had it and how it s now tainted were it never so just the Treason of the Father hath cut off the Son and how unwise an act besides all other considerations will it be for England to set up the Son to propagate both his Fathers design and death We may prophecy soon what a Governor he is like to be which hath both suck't in his Fathers principles and his Mothers milk who hath been bred up under the wings of Popery and Episcopacy and doubtless suckt both brests one who was engaged from the beginning in the last war against this Parliament who hath the same Counsellors his Father had to remember him both of the design and the best wayes of effecting it one who hath never yet given any testimony of hopefullness to this Nation who was in Armes when a Subject against the Libertyes which England and Scotland spilt much blood for to maintain one who hath both his Fathers and his own scores to cleer and is fain to make use of all Medium's though never so contrary attended with all the crew of Malignants of three Nations who is so relatively and personally engaged that both old and new reckonings are expected to be payd only by him To his Father He is endebted for His Crown and bound to pay His Debts both Ecclesiastical and Civil which will amount to no small summe To the Papists He is engaged for their old affections and hopes of new besides the obligation of duty to his Mother and freeing her from her Monastry and Hermitage To the Prince of Orange he owes more then his ransom besides the States courtesies to Ireland he is in more arrears then his Kingdom of Scotland will be able to pay and to Scotland for his entertainment and enstalment more then England for present or in many years can repay without a morgage or community of lands and liberties besides what he owes England for helping his Father to make the Parliament spend so many millions of treasure besides blood which would have weighed down all expences besides and helping as a prime Agent the utter destruction of England all which must be reckoned for with much seriousness and if men have so

institution How the world came to be so blinded as thus to give away their Rights and Liberties and morgage their understandings and freedom as bankrupts do their lands is not to be determined but by supposal of a judgement of God and an over-reach of power and force or by an Ignis fatuus of Policie and subtilty For this naturall and hereditary succession which is now adored as the grand title if truly considered is nothing else but a continuation of conquest or a surprisall by the good nature of the people when they have been either low and in fear and taking advantage of their high esteem of some eminent person who hath been more then ordinary instrumentall to them have got the people to convey the same honor to their posterity after them the peoples consent being thus ravished from them It s made a law both civil and divine to after generations but the world is now or should be grown wise Let us consider the nature and use of this succession both in general and particular especially as it hath been acted in England Among all the Catalogue of vanities which Solomon reckons up in his sacred retractations there is none he puts such a character on as for a man to spend his time and strength in getting of riches and knows not who shall succeed him in the injoyment of the profit and good of his labour or whether he may be a wise man or a fool But what a misery and worse then vanity is this that the supream power of Government in the right execution of which all the concernments of millions of men are interested should be intailed on one man though never so deserving in his own person and the heirs of his body be he good or bad a wise man or very nigh a fool and so all their happiness depend on hap and hazard from generation to generation It cannot be rationally or spiritually supposed that any man should be born a Magistrate or Governor especially not successively when the best men and most choise spirits who have had the highest eminencies of vertue and best improvement of education and natural genius are hardly fit for so great a work If Kings have such a vis formativa in their loyns as to beget Kings in the likeness of their Office as children in the image of their natures it must be necessarily supposed that they must generate all these royall qualifications together with them and by the same naturall necessity transfer all their princely endowments to them also Whereas I had almost affirmed it and I hope no man can account it either Heresie or Treason that God himself cannot intail on any particular line of mankinde the power and authority of Government out of his wisdom and love to their happiness without he meant to do it in judgement and to plague the world and not give them sutable and successive qualifications also fit for that emploiment It being Gods use according to his wisdom and righteousness neither ordinarily nor extraordinarily to call out persons to any place but he anoints them with proportionable gifts to it And yet the poor people whom God hath naturally made free and to make use of their own understandings and affections for their own good are by this succession bound up from the improvement either of soul or body fain to be content with what they can get for present and to shift it out from age to age with the loss of all opportunities of choice only with what corrupt nature brings them forth which oftentimes travels sorely in pain with the curse of the Fathers who begat these Governors Hence also it comes to pass that oftentimes children are made Kings and though they are uncapable at present for the actuall exercise of that office yet are proclaimed as having the right and title and all things acted in their name and the whole Commonwealth it may be of many Nations must wait for his capacity with fear and hope which capacity is also at best to be judged by his years rather then fitness or qualification for so high a trust and in the mean while the Kingdom must be governed by some Favorites of the last King or some next kinsman to this and while the King is thus in pupillage we may well ask who governs the Kingdom And yet oftentimes it hath faln out that their Government hath been better ordered in their nonage by others then in their own by themselves as appears especially in the raign of Henry the third and Henry the sixth Kings of England the first being but nine years old when his father died the latter but nine moneths who while they were yong and under the protection of certain wise and sober men the Laws were administred uprightly and with much Justice but when they themselves came to the years of Kingship and Prerogative so Royalled that both Laws Liberties were soon altered and abolished as anon the Reader shall have a more exact account And how sad is it that when Government may be advanced as well if not better by others in their minority without their presence or influence the world must be at such vast charges for a title and to maintain it ere they can use it and which is worst that when they come to exercise it themselves should make their title the ground of their Tyranny But if it so happen for its a meer chance that the next heir prove somewhat more then ordinary capable yet what the next may prove who knows If he be an Infant as it many times falls out then there must be patient and hopefull waitings to see what he will be when grown up untill that there can be no further progress made in the alteration or reformation of affairs though of never so great and present concernment and when he comes to these years which Custom pronounceth him capable how unreasonable is it that nothing can hinder or exclude him from his Authority but that he is incapable of being beg'd for a fool It being enough if he can koow his own name and be able to write himself Rex though he knows little what belongs to the Office or relation of a King If he be one of riper years and stature on which this Su●●●ssion falls then must all the observation of his nature and the ominous and more then Astrological aspects of his constitution and education be forgotten and although silenced in his pretended title and a full complyance looked after though opprest with never so many fears and secret wishes of a more hopefull Governour yea and though he hath been never so active against the liberties of the people when but a Prince and given demonstrations what a Governor they may expect yet his succession must be his qualification and indemnity and his Title his vertue On this ground also it comes to pass that oftentimes women come to hold the rains of government and to steer at the Helm as wel as