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	year_n	23,738	5	5.6713	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45914	An Enquiry, or, A discourse between a yeoman of Kent and a knight of a shire upon the prorogation of the Parliament to the second of May 1693		1693 (1693)	Wing I220; ESTC R11876	18,751	14

An ENQUIRY or a Discourse between a Yeoman of Kent and a Knight of a Shire upon the Prorogation of the Parliament to the second of May 1693. Yeoman SIR your humble Servant I am happy to meet you at this Friend's House where I did not expect you Pray Sir is the News true that the King hath prorogued the Parliament to day Knight 'T is very true we are prorogued to the second of May next Yeom Were all your Bills passed that were agreed on by both Houses Kt. I wish I could tell you they were Yeom I hope Sir the King hath not refused any Publick Bills Kt. Which are those you call Publick Yeom Truly Sir those two wherein the Country reckoned themselves most concern'd are That for securing the Foundations of the Civil Government by such a constant Succession of new chosen Parliaments that their Deputies by their long continuance in that Trust may not be in danger to be corrupted by Offices or private Interests and That for preserving our Property in our Lands and Mines against the Pretences of a Royal Prerogative to take away our Mines and Oar tho wt have spent most of our Estates to discover the Mines in our Lands Kt. I am sorry to tell you that those are the two only Bills to which his Majesty would not assent Yeom Are those Bills then to be utterly lost after that both Houses have spent so much Time and Care to compose them May they not be offered to the King again as soon as the Parliament meets Kt. You seem not to know the Force of a Prorogation of Parliament which as our Lawyers have of late resolved makes void all Bills of that Session not enacted and all other Matters depending as if they had never been These are no more to be accounted Bills of Parliament but if any thing contained in either of them be desired to be hereafter enacted it must begin anew as if it had never been before either House of Parliament Yeom Sir if all the Care and Pains of our Deputies in Parliament may be thus neglected or blown away with one Breath what Hopes have we then from the Consultations of Parliament of the promised and long-expected Settlement of Liberty and Property Kt. I know no Remedy until the King shall please to cause a new Session of Parliament Yeom And is such a Session to be absolutely at the King's Will whether it shall be six Months hence or a Year or seven Years Kt. You know it was so designed and in part practised in the late Reigns and the Judges then were so corrupted that they declared notwithstanding the Laws for Annual Parliaments Vid. The minutes of the Judges Opinions in the King's-Bench upon the Arguments about bailing the Earl of Danby out of the Tower That the holding of Parliaments depended entirely upon the King's Pleasure But 't is most manifest besides the positive Laws for Yearly Parliaments that † Inter Laeges Edgari cap. 5. by the ancient Constitution of our Government they did meet of course at least twice every Year Afterwards in the Reigns of the Saxon Kings it was made a perpetual Law that a Parliament should be holden every Year once at London and the same Law was incorporated into the Laws of Edward the Confessor and from thence all the successive Kings of England to this day have been sworn to the Observance of it I must confess to you nothing prevailed with me more to concur with our King in his Pretentions to restore our Parliaments and the Laws to their due Authority than my own Knowledg that the late Civil Wars in this Kingdom and the Subversion of our Religion Laws and Liberties were principally occasioned by the Powers usurped in several late Reigns to refuse the calling of successive Parliaments and to continue the same Parliament for many Years to form them into a Compliance with their Designs of Despotick Power When I read the solemn and repeated Assurances his Majesty gave us That his Design in coming into England was to remove from the Administration of the Government those evil Ministers that had promoted the Murders and Treasons committed in attempting to set up an Arbitrary Power over the People and their Parliaments And also heard him desire the Parliament to make such an effectual Provision for their Fundamental Laws and Liberties that they might never hereafter be in danger to be again invaded I thought the Ancient Legal Course of annually chosen Parliaments would have been immediately restored and the strongest Fence made for that Constitution that the Wisdom of the Kingdom could have invented but I must tell you to my Sorrow that we are left as much to the King's Will for a Session of Parliament as evil Ministers in the late Reigns design'd we should be Yeom If this be our case it is no wonder that Mens Minds are so unquiet we are in daily imminent hazard of Confusion whilst the Government remains wholly unsettled in its Fundamentals It seems to be apparent that after the Expence of twenty Millions besides the vast Effusion of Blood we are no more secured against the Slavery we fear'd by subverting our Constitution than we were before the Convention of the People for a Settlement when King James had just abdicated the Kingdom Kt. You take it rightly If no Bill should pass to secure the certain Legal Succession of Parliaments and we should connive at the Usurpations made by the late Kings therein and seemingly approve the Turkish Doctrine of the then Judges That the holding and continuance of Parliaments depended absolutely upon the Wills of our Kings then the Supream Power vested by the Constitution in Parliaments to maintain the Laws and Statutes and preserve Justice and good Government must be acknowledged not to be the Kingdom 's Right but to arise from the Gracious Will and Pleasure of their Kings and the People must not dare to claim Liberty and Property as their due If this Point of our Constitution should remain thus unsettled and an ill King succeed his present Majesty then the free Counsels of the whole Kingdom for its Defence and Welfare appointed by our Laws to be in Parliament may by the pretence of his Prerogative be utterly rejected and despised and his Flatterers and Designers to make him absolute Master of our Laws Liberties and Lives may be exempted by him from the danger of Punishment certain Justice being to be done upon such Offenders only upon the Peoples Complaints and Impeachment of them in Parliament If the due Succession of Parliaments be not established so as the Kings cannot by any Artifices avoid their meeting an ill King may in effect authorize whom he pleases to subvert and destroy our Religion Laws and Liberties by renewing Pardons of all such Crimes as often as they can commit them I am sorry to say it but our present case is such that all the Security we have for our Religion our Laws our Liberties our Lives depends