Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	france_n	king_n	peace_n	17,768	5	6.6909	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63966	A new martyrology, or, The bloody assizes now exactly methodizing in one volume comprehending a compleat history of the lives, actions, trials, sufferings, dying speeches, letters, and prayers of all those eminent Protestants who fell in the west of England and elsewhere from the year 1678 ... : with an alphabetical table ... / written by Thomas Pitts.	Tutchin, John, 1661?-1707.	1693 (1693)	Wing T3380; ESTC R23782	258,533	487

could be in some years tho' the writer of them had intended it which did not appear But they being only the present crude and private thoughts of a man for the exercise of his own understanding in his studies and never shewed to any or applied to any particular case could not fall under the Statute of 25 Ed. 3. which takes cognizance of no such matter and could not by construction be brought under it such matters being thereby reserved to the Parliament as is declared in the Proviso which he desired might be read but was refused Several important points of Law did hereupon emerge upon which your Petitioner knowing his own weakness did desire that Council might be heard or they might be referr'd to be found specially But all was over rul'd by the violence of the Lord Chief Justice and your Petitioner so frequently interrupted that the whole method of his Defence was broken and he not suffer'd to say the tenth part of what he could have alledged in his defence So the Jury was hurried into a Verdict they did not understand Now for as much as no man that is oppressed in England can have relief unless it be from your Majesty your Petitioner humbly prays that the Premises considered your Majesty would be pleased to admit him into your presence and if he doth not shew that 't is for your Majesties Interest and Honour to preserve him from the said oppression he will not complain tho' he be left to be destroy'd An Abstract of the Paper delivered to the Sheriffs on the Scaffold on Tower-Hill December 7. 1683. by Algernoon Sidney Esquire before his Execution FIRST having excused his not speaking as well because it was an Age that made Truth pass for Treason for the proof of which he instances his Trial and Condemnation and that the Ears of some present were too tender to hear it as because of the Rigour of the Season and his infirmities c. then after a short reflection upon the little said against him by other Witnesses and the little value that was to be put on the Lord Howard's testimony whom he charges with an infamous life and many palpable perjuries and to have been byassed only by the promise of pardon c. and makes even tho' he had been liable to no exceptions to have been but a single Witness He proceeds to answer the charge against him from the writings found in his Closet by the Kings Officers which were pretended but not Lawfully evidenced to be his and pretends to prove that had they been his they contained no condemnable matter but principles more safe both to Princes and People too than the pretended high-flown plea for Absolute Monarchy composed by Filmer against which they seemed to be levelled and which he says all intelligent men thought were founded on wicked Principles and such as were destructive both to Magistrates and People too Which he attempts to make out after this manner First says he if Filmer might publish to the World That Men were born under a necessary indispensable subjection to an Absolute King who could be restrained by no Oath c. whether he came to it by Creation Inheritance c. nay o● even by Usurpation why might he not publish his opinion to the contrary without the breach of any known Law which opinion he professes consisted in the following particulars 1. That God had left Nations at the liberty of Modelling their own Governments 2. That Magistrates were instituted for Nations and not Econtra 3. That the Right and Power of Magistrates was fixed by the standing Laws of each Country 4. That those Laws sworn to on both sides were the matter of a contract between the Magistrate and People and could not be broken without the danger of dissolving the whole Government 5. The Vsurpation could give no Right and that Kings had no greater Enemies than those who asserted that or were for stretching their Power beyond its Limits 6. That such Vsurpations commonly effecting the slaughter of the Reigning Person c. the worst of crimes was thereby most gloriously rewarded 7. That such Doctrines are more proper to stir up men to destroy Princes than all the passions that ever yet swayed the worst of them and that no Prince could be safe if his Murderers may hope such rewards and that few men would be so gentle as to spare the best Kings if by their destruction a wild Vsurper could become Gods Anointed whi●● he says was the scope of that whole Treatise and asserts to be the Doctrine of the best Authors of all Nations Times and Religions and of the Scripture and so owned by the best and wisest Princes and particularly by Lewis 14 th of France in his Declaration against Spain Anno 1667. and by King James of England in his Speech to the Parliament 1603. and adds that if the writer had been mistaken he should have been fairly refuted but that no man was ever otherwise punished for such matters or any such things referred to a Jury c. That the Book was never finished c. nor ever seen by them whom he was charged to have endeavoured by it to draw into a Conspiracy That nothing in it was particularly or maliciously appplied to Time Place or Person but distorted to such a sense by Innuendo's as the Discourses of the expulsion of Tarquin c. and particularly of the Translation made of the Crown of France from one Race to another had been applied by the then Lawyer 's Innuendo's to the then King of England never considering adds he that if such Acts of State be not allowed good no Prince in the World has any title to his Crown and having by a short reflection shewn the ridiculousness of deriving absolute Monarchy from Patriarchal Power he appeals to all the World whether it would not be more advantagious to all Kings to own the derivation of their Power to the consent of willing Nations than to have no better title than force c. which may be over-powered But notwithstanding the Innocence and Loyalty of that Doctrine he says He was told he must die or the Plot must die and complains that in order to the destroying the best Protestants of England the Bench was fill'd with such as had been blemishes to the Bar and instances how against La● they had advised with the King's Council about bringing him to Death suffer'd a Jury to be pack'd by the King's Sollicitors and the Vnder-Sheriff admitted Jury-men no Free-holders received Evidence not valid refus'd him a Copy of his Indictment or to suffer the Act of the 46 th of Ed. 3. to be read that allows it had over-ruled the most important Points of Law without hearing and assumed to themselves a Power to make Constructions of Treason tho' against Law Sense and Reason which the Stat. of the 25 th of Ed. 3. by which they pretended to Try Him was reserved only to the ●arliament and so praying God to forgive

them and to avert the Evils that threatned the Nation to sanctifie those Sufferings to him and tho' he fell a Sacrifice to Idols not to suffer Idolatry to be established in this Land c. He concludes with a Thanksgiving that God had singled him out to be a Witness of his Truth and for that Good Old Cause in which from his Youth he had been engag'd c. His Epitaph ALgernon Sydney fills this Tomb An Atheist by declaiming Rome A Rebel bold by striving still To keep the Laws above the Will And hindring those would pull them down To leave no Limits to a Crown Crimes damn'd by Church and Government Oh whither must his Soul be sent Of Heaven it must needs despair If that the Pope be Turn-key there And Hellcan ne're it entertain For there ●s all Tyrannick Reign And Purgatory's such a pretence As ne're deceiv'd a man of sense Where goes it then where 't ought to go Where Pope and Devil have nought to do His Character THere 's no need of any more than reading his Trial and Speech to know him as well as if he stood before us That he was a Person of extraordinary Sense and very close thinking which he had the happiness of being able to express in words as manly and apposite as the Sense included under ' em He was owner of as much Vertue and Religion as Sense and Reason tho' his Piety lay as far from Enthusiasm as any mans He fear'd nothing but God and lov'd nothing on Earth like his Country and the just Liberties and Laws thereof whose Constitutions he had deeply and successfully inquired into To sum up all He had Piety enough for a Saint Courage enough for a General or a Martyr Sense enough for a Privy-Counsellor and Soul enough for a King and in a word if ever any he was a perfect English man Mr. James Holloway MR. Holloway was by Trade a Merchant but his greatest dealing lay in Linnen Manufacture which as appears from his Papers he had brought to such a heighth here in England as had it met with suitable encouragement would as he made it appear have imployed 80000 poor People and 40000 Acres of Land and be 200000 Pounds a year advantage to the Publick Revenues of the Kingdom The Return of the Habeas Corpus Writ calls him Late of London Merchant though he lived mostly at Bristol He seems to be a Person of Sense Courage and Vivacity of Spirit and a Man of Business All we can have of him is from that publick Print call'd his Narrative concerning which it must be remembred as before that we have no very firm Authority to assure us all therein contained was his own writing and perhaps it might be thought convenient he should die for fear he might contradict some things published in his Name But on the other side where he contradicts the other Witnesses his Evidence is strong since be sure that was not the Interest of the Managers to invent of their own accords tho' some Truth they might utter tho' displeasing to gain credit to the rest Taking things however as we find 'em 't will be convenient for method's sake to take notice first of the Proceedings against him then of some pretty plain footsteps of practice upon him and shuffling dealing in his Case and lastly of several things considerable in his Narrative He was accused for the Plot as one who was acquainted with West Rumsey and the rest and having been really present at their Meetings and Discourses on that Subject absconded when the publick News concerning the Discovery came into the Country tho' this as he tells the King more for fear that if he was taken up his Creditors would never let him come out of Gaol than any thing else After some time he got to Sea in a little Vessel went over to France and so to the West-Indies among the Caribbe-Islands where much of his Concerns lay But writing to his Factor at Nevis he was by him treacherously betray'd and seiz'd by the Order of Sir William Stapleton and thence brought Prisoner to England where after Examination and a Confession of at least all he knew having been Outlawed in his Absence on an Indictment of Treason he was on the 21th of April 1684. brought to the Kings Bench to shew cause why Execution should not be awarded against him as is usual in that case He opposed nothing against it only saying If an ingenuous Confession of Truth could merit the King's Pardon he hoped he had done it The Attorney being call'd for order'd the Indictment to be read and gave him the offer of a Trial waving the Outlawry which he refused and threw himself on the King's Mercy On which Execution was awarded tho' the Attorney who had not so much Law even as Jeffreys was for having Judgment first pass against him which is never done in such cases according to which he was executed at Tyburn the 30th of April It seem'd strange to all men that a Man of so much Spirit as Mr. Holloway appear'd to be should so tamely die without making any manner of Defence when that Liberty was granted him It seemed as strange or yet stranger that any Protestant should have any thing ●hat look'd like Mercy or Favour from the Persons then at the Helm That they should be so gracious to him as 't is there call'd to admit him to a Trial which look'd so generously and was so cry'd up the Attorney calling it A Mercy and a Grace and the Lord Chief Justice saying He 'd assure him 't was a great Mercy and that it was exceeding well Now all this Blind or Mystery will be easily unriddled by two or three Lines which Holloway speaks just after My Lord says he I cannot undertake to defend my self for I have confessed before His Majesty that I am guilty of many things in that Indictment Which was immediately made use of as 't was design'd Good Mr. Justice Withens crying out full mouth'd I hope every body here will take notice of his open Confession when he might try it if he would Surely none but will believe this Conspiracy now after what this man has owned So there 's an end of all t●e Mercy A Man who had before confessed in order to be hang'd had gracious Liberty given him to confess it again in Publick because they knew he had precluded all manner of Defence before and this publick Action would both get 'em the repute of Clemency and confirm the belief of the Plot. Now that there had been practice used with him and promises of pardon if he 'd take this method and own himself guilty without Pleading is more than probable both from other practices of the same nature used towards Greater Men and from some Expressions of his which look exceeding fair that way Thus in his Paper left behind him I had he says some other Reasons why I did not plead which at present I conceal as also why I

condemned me are pleased to call such Preachings Rendezvouses of Rebellion yet I must say this of them they were so far from being reputed such in my Eyes that if ever Christ had a People or Party wherein his Soul took pleasure I am bold to say these Meetings were a great part of them the Shining and Glory of God was eminently seen amongst these Meetings the convincing Power and Authority of our Lord went out with his Servants in those blasphemously nick-nam'd Conventicles This I say without Reflection upon any I have a word to say farther that God is calling Persons to Repentance and to do their first Work O that Scotland were a mourning Land and that Reformation were our Practice according as we are sworn in the Covenant Again that Christians of Grace and Experience would study more streightness and stability in this day when so many are turning to the right hand and many to the left he that endureth to the end shall be saved he has appointed the Kingdom for such as continue with him in his Temptations Next if ever you expect to h●ve the Form of the House shewed you in all the Laws thereof goings out thereof and comings in thereof then think it no shame to take shame to you for all that has been done sitting down on this side Jordan is like to be our Bane Oh! when shall we get up and run after him till he bring us into the promised Land let us up and after him with all our heart and never rest till he return I recommend my Wife and young one to the care and faithfulness of the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob the God that has fed me to this day and who is the God of my Salvation their God and my God their Father and my Father I am also hopeful that Christians Friends and Relations will not be unmindful of them when I am gone Lastly I do further bear my Testimony to the Cross of Christ and bless him that ever he counted me worthy to appear for him in such a lot as this Glory to him that ever I heard tell of him and that ever he fell upon such a method of dealing with me as this and therefore let none that loves Christ and his Righteous Cause be offended in me And as I have lived in the Faith of thi● that the three Kingdoms are married Lands so I die in the Faith of it that there will be a Resurrection of his Name Word Cause and of all his Interest therein tho' I dare not determine the time when nor the manner how but leave all these things to the infinitely wise God who has done and will do all things well Oh that he would return to this Land again to repair our Breaches and take away our Back-sliding and appear for his Work Oh that he were pacified towards us Oh that he would pass by Scotland once again and make our time a time of Love Come Lord Jesus come quickly Himself hasten it in his own time and way The Lord is my light and life my joy my song and my salvation the God of his chosen be my Mercy this day and the inriching comforts of the holy Ghost keep up and carry me fair through to the Glory of his Grace the Edification of his People and my own eternal Advantage Amen Sic Subscrib JOHN KID August 14 th 1679. Tolbooth Ante horam Septimam ☞ Thus Reader having given thee a faithful Account of the Behaviour and Dying Speeches of the most Eminent Persons who suffered in Scotland I shall return again for London where the last Person of Quality that suffered was the Duke of Monmouth whose Expedition and sufferings c. you have in the following Pages JAMES Duke of Monmouth THe last Person with whom we shall conclude this mournful Tragedy and the greatest in it is the late James D. of Monmouth one indeed who if he had been a little less might have been at this time one of the greatest men both in England and the World By reason of some passages in his Life not so defensible 't was thought at first better to draw a veil before that unfortunate Prince and say nothing at all of him But what allowances are made for Custom and Education God only knows I remember a shrewd Answer given to an Objection of this Nature Where said one shou'd he learn any better But however where there has been any time to think soberly of past actions or none of that nature reiterated Charity is oblig'd to judge favourably And besides the good West-Country-men wou'd be very angry if they shou'd not find their Master that they lov'd so well and suffer'd so much for among the rest of these noble Hero's None can deny but he was a great General a Man of Courage and Conduct and great Personal Valour having signaliz'd himself both at Mons and Maestricht so as to gain an high and just reputation He was all along true and firm to the Protestant Interest in and out of Parliament tho abhorring any base way of promoting it as well as his Friend my L. Russel This intended as a Character rather or very short Compendium than any History of his Life He was all along the Peoples Darling whose hearts were entirely his by his Courtesie and Affability as other Persons lo●● 'em by their sourness and haughty pride After Russel's death he went into Flanders whence had he prosecuted his D●sign and gone as 't is said he intended into the Emperour's Service how many Lawrels might he have won and how many more would now have been growing for him But his Fate was otherwise he came over into England an exact account of whose Enterprize another place of this Book presents you as 't was compiled by one present in all that action After the defeat of his Army at Sedgemoor he fled with my L Gray who was first taken and he himself a little after brought up to London and on his Attainder in Parliament beheaded on Tower Hill 'T is said a certain brave old Officer who then came over with him and since with the Prince offer'd with a small of party of Horse to have ventur'd thro' all the Guards and took him off the Scaffold But they cou'd not be got together his time was come Providence had design'd other things that our deliverance should be more just an● peaceable and wonderful and that the glory thereof shou'd be reserved for their Sacred Majesties King William and Queen Mary Whom God grant long to Reign The thing I shall in the next place do that I may leave out nothing material relating to the Western Affair is to insert the late Duke of Monmouth's Declaration as it was taken from a Copy printed in Holland the Year 1685. The Declaration of James Duke of Monmouth and the Noblemen Gentlemen and others now in Arms for the Defence and Vindication of the Protestant Religion and the Laws Rights and Priviledges of England AS Government

was Originally instituted by God and this or that Form of it chosen and submitted to by Men for the Peace Happiness and Security of the Govern'd and not for the private Interest and personal Greatness of those that Rule So That Government hath always been esteemed the best where the Supream Magistrates have been invested with all the Power and Prerogatives that might capacitate them not only to preserve the People from Violence and Oppression but to promote their Prosperity And yet where nothing was to belong to them by the Rules of the Constitution that might enable them to injure and oppress them And it hath been the Glory of England above most other Nations that the Prince had all intrusted with him that was necessary either for the advancing the Wellfare of the People or for his own Protection in the discharge of his Office And withall stood so limited and restrained by the Fundamental Terms of the Constitution that without a Violation of his own Oath as well as the rules and measures of the Government he could do them no hurt or exercise any act of Authority but through the administration of such hands as stood obnoxious to be punished in case they transgressed So that according to the Primitive Frame of the Government the Prerogatives of the Crown and the Priviledges of the Subject are so far from justling one another that the Rights reserved unto the People tended to render the King Honourable and Great and the Prerogatives setled on the Prince were in order to the Subjects Protection and Safety But all humane things being Subject to perversion as well as decay it hath been the fate of the English Government to be often changed and wrested from what it was in the first settlement and institution And we are particularly compelled to say that all the boundaries of the Government have of late been broken and nothing left unattempted for turning our limited Monarchy into an absolute Tyranny For such hath been the transaction of Affairs within this Nation for several years last past that though the Protestant Religion and Liberties of the People were fenced and hedged about by as many Laws as the Wisdom of man could devise for their Preservation against Popery and Arbitrary Power our Religion hath been all along countermined by Popish Counsels and our Priviledges ravished from us by Fraud and Violence And more especially the whole Course and Series of the Life of the D. of Y. hath been but been one continued Conspiracy against the Reformed Religion and the Rights of the Nation For whosoever considers his contriving the Burning of London his instigating a Confederacy with France and a War with Holland his fomenting the Popish Plot and encouraging the Murther of Sir Ed. Godfrey to stifle it his charging Treason against Protestants and suborning Witnesses to swear the Patriots of our Religion and Liberties out of their Lives his hireing execrable Villains to Assassinate the late Earl of Essex and causing those others to be clandestinely cut off in hopes to conceal it his adviseing and procuring the Prorogation and Dissolution of Parliaments in order to prevent their looking into his Crimes and that he might escape the justice of the Nation Such can imagine nothing so black and horrid in it self or so ruinous and destructive to Religion and the Kingdom which we may not expect from him The very Tyrannies which he hath exercised since he snatched the Crown from his Brothers head do leave none under a possibility of flattering themselves with hopes of safety either in their Consciences Persons or Estates For in in defiance of all the Laws and Statutes of the Realm made for the security of the Reformed Protestant Religion he not only began his Reign with a bare-faced avowing himself of the Romish Religion but hath called in multitudes of Priests and Jesuits for whom the Law makes it Treason to come into this Kingdom and hath impowered them to exercise their Idolatries And besides his being daily present at the Worship of the Mass hath pubickly assisted at the greatest fopperies of their Superstition Neither hath he been more tender in trampling upon the Laws which concern our Properties seeing in two Proclamations whereof the one requires the Collecting of the Customs and the other the continuing that part of the Excise which was to ●xpire with the late Kings Death he hath violently and against all the Law of the Land broken in upon our Estates Neither is it any extenuation of his Tyranny that he is countenanced in it by an extrajudicial Opinion of seven or eight suborned and forsworn Judges but rather declaring the greatness and extent of the Conspiracy against our Rights and that there is no means feft for our relief but by Force of Arms For advancing those to the Bench that were the scandal of the Bar and Constituting those very Men to declare the Laws who were Accused and Branded in Parliament for Perverting them we are precluded all hopes of Justice in Westminster Hall And through packing together by False Returns new Illegal Charters and other corrupt means he doth at once deprive us of all expectations of Succour where our Ancestors were wont to find it and hopes to render that which ought to be the Peoples Fence against Tyranny and the Conservator of their Liberties the means of subverting all our Laws and of establishing of his Arbitrariness and confirming our thraldom So that unless we could be contented to see the Reformed Protestant Religion and such as profess it extirpated Popish Superstition and Idolatry established the Laws of the Land trampled under foot the Liberties and Rights of of the English People Subverted and all that is Sacred and Civil or of regard amongst men of Vertue or Piety Violated and unless we could be willing to be Slaves as well as Papists and forget the example of our noble and generous Ancestors who conveyed our Priviledges to us at the expence of their Blood and Treasure and withall be unmindful of our duty to God our Country and Posterity deaf to the Cries and Groans of our oppressed Friends and be satisfied not only to see them and our selves Imprisoned Robbed and Murthered but the Protestant Interest throughout the whole World betrayed to France and Rome We are bound as Men and Christians and that in discharge of our duty to God and our Country and for the satisfaction of the Protestant Nations round about us to betake our selves to Arms. Which we take Heaven and Earth to witness we should not hav● done had not the malice of our Enemies deprive● us of all other means of redress and were not the Miseries that we already feel and those which do further threaten us worse than the Calamities of War And it is not for any personal Injuries or private Discontents nor in pursuance of any corrupt Interest that we take our Swords into our hands but for vindicating our Religion Laws and Rights and rescuing our Country from Ruin