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	war_n	17,303	5	6.8100	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41193	Whether the Parliament be not in law dissolved by the death of the Princess of Orange? and how the subjects ought, and are to behave themselves in relation to those papers emitted since by the stile and title of Acts : with a brief account of the government of England : in a letter to a country gentleman, as an answer to his second question.	Ferguson, Robert, d. 1714.	1695 (1695)	Wing F765; ESTC R7434	52,609	60

Existence of the present pretended Parliament upon other Reasons and Grounds than those of Illegalities in the manner of Election of Members and in their Actings when assembled we might also upon those Motives strangely shake the legal Being of it And to name but one which lately fell out since the Death of the late Princess in this Assembly which persevereth to call it self by that Name namely That when a Question was started by the Earl of Nottingham in the House of Lords whether since the Demise of Mary this was a Parliament or not How it was replied by the Earl of P. That it was not a Question fit to be mentioned and less fit to be debated Which besides it importing in it a debarring a Liberty of Speech without which a Parliament cannot be a legal Parliament because not a free Parliament It likewise imported in it That though this Parliament was in Law dissolved yet it must still sit and no Man be allowed to question the Lawfulness of its doing so because of Reasons of State And so the whole Constitution and all the Laws of England must be sacrificed to the Lunatick and Disloyal Bigottry of keeping King James out of his Dominions and from reascending his Throne For that is the whole Paraphrase of the Text of the Necessity of its continuing to sit in order to raise Money for carrying on a vigorous War against France But it being dissolved by the Death of the late Princess before any Bills had passed for the granting of Money it will argue great Sottishness as well as Tameness in the People of England if this Government be not disappointed in that end of their keeping it on foot For those Papers which are published under the Stile of Acts do oblige no Man in duty to pay nor can they authorise any Officer in case of Refusal to distrein They in St. Stephen's Chapel have no more legal Power to dispose of the Property of the Subjects than the Committee of Officers have who sit in the Guard-house by Whitehall And all those Acts of Assesments which they have emitted are but so many Denunciations of War against the People and proclaiming them obnoxious to arbitrary Executions upon their Estates real and personal Such who are so pusillanimous as to chuse to be robbed may submit to it but as no Warrants can legitimate the doing of it so all Men who have Courage to resist they have the Authority of all the Laws of England for the doing of it And as they have no Right of sitting as a legal Court so they cannot be said to take away Mens Goods by any better Name than that of a Company of Banditi nor do People use to be so silly as to part with any Thing to such but when they are too strong to be withstood And I think it was never yet known That Five hundred were powerful enough to rob and plunder above Five millions of Persons What a Noise a few Years ago did the Erection of a Court of Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes beget in the Nation and how strenuously was it improved for the driving the King from his Throne and Kingdom And do we now sit silent under a Company of Men erecting themselves into a Court of Legislation to vote away near the Moiety of every Man's Estate whether he be Laick or Ecclestastick Shall we who were so busy scandalously to Censure and traiterously to endeavour to redress the few and little Miscarriages of our ancient and legal Government suffer with a sottish Tameness those far more and vastly greater of an usurped unlawful and tyrannous one This hath not been the Practice of any People or Age till of ours and of us That of Tacitus being at all times heretofore an infallible Maxim namely That Novae aulae mala aeque gravia sed non aeque excusata a new Government doth not offend with that Connivance and Safety that an ancient might And it is now as much become our Interest to call home the King to relieve us as it is our Duty to restore him to his Right And as it was at no time unlawful to fly to force for rescuing our selves from the Power of an Usurper so it is now become necessary when meliorem in bello causam quam in pace habemus Our Condition will be better in a War than it is in Peace as Tacitus expresseth it And the Establishment of this Man into a King being done by an usurpation of Power which all the Laws of England precluded the Conventionists from that common Saying obtains That de facto factum potest de facto tolli What hath its Existence meerly by Fact may by Fact be lawfully overthrown And as we may be sure That the Prince of Orange who hath so abominably cheated and wronged us already cannot but detest and hate us for the future that of the same Author being unchangeably true viz. Proprium humani ingenii est odisse quem laseris It is the Nature of Man to hate those whom he hath injured I will therefore bespeak my Country-men as Boadicea did the Ancient Brittains If they will not resolve cadere aut vincere either to perish or to vindicate their Liberties that then viverent servirent let them chuse to Live and be Slaves Only let me add for their Encouragement to assert their Laws and Rights That the Prince of Orange's Affairs in England do magis fama quam vi stare are upheld rather by that Opinion which Men conceived of him before they had an Opportunity to know him than by any Power Strength Interest or new Reputation he has to support himself or them Nay I will say That he is sunk into that Contempt as well as Impotency that all the Power he hath left is only to do hurt but that he hath neither Power nor Authority to do good or to hinder evil So that what Tacitus says of Otho is verified of William Othoni nondum auctoritas inerat ad prohibendum scelus jubere poterat That he may encourage and command Mischief but he is in no Capacity to discountenance and prevent it The very Mob whom by fictitious Lyes and Falshoods of a few Irish being every where burning Houses and cutting Throats he decoyed and enflamed into an insolent and brutal Rage against their Rightful King and who became the Ladder unto and the great Pillars of his Throne having now understood how they were cheated in that and in all Things else they have not only forsook but are justly enraged against him Nor are they only ready to do the same towards him that they did towards the King but they are fully prepared to treat him as the Rabble did Vitellius of whom Tacitus says Vulgus eadem pravitate insectabatur mortuum qua foveret viventem they are as forward to curse and tear him in Pieces as they were formerly to huzza and idolize him Yea even such as do most flatter him do it only in order to deceive and

quod injuriam suam corrigat emendet cum superiorem non habeat nisi Deum satis erit ei ad paenam quod Dominum expectet ultorem None can correct the King in that he hath no Superior but God and that will be sufficient Punishment that he expect the Lord for his Avenger Indeed the Constitution both instructs Princes for what end we pitched upon this Species and Kind of Regal Government and directs them to rule for the Safety Interest and Prosperity of their Subjects but there is no Original Contract nor Stipulatory Agreement by which it is provided That if Princes do not as they should they do either forfeit their Sovereign Authority or that we may lawfully rebel against and dethrone them Nor do any Presidents or Examples of that kind as those of deposing Edward the Second and Richard the Second shew that it was lawful or a Thing that either the Constitution or subsequent Laws did authorise and countenance but they only declared what a provoked People will sometimes do though it be never so much against their Allegiance and Duty to their King and most highly offensive to God However vivendum est legibus non exemplis we are to live according to the Laws and not according to a few occasional ill Practices and Examples And via facti is not always via juris Nor will the Repetition of evil Things change the Nature of them and render them Justifiable For as Civilians say Multitudo criminum peccantium non parit crimini patrocinium What can be more inconsistent with the Legality of the Abdication than the King 's being vested by the Constitution with such Incidents to Government as lie in a direct Contradiction to our being allowed either a legal or moral Capacity of doing it namely That no act of Parliament can barr the King of his Regality and thereupon that the Allegiance and Fealty of his Subjects to him are indefeasable and that they can neither be lawfully withheld nor transferred from him That the Power and Right of Peace and War are wholy solely and unalienably in the King and that all the Subjects of England cannot make and denounce War Indicere bellum without him as Coke tells us in his 7 Rep. 25. Nor need we go farther for understanding the Nature of our Institution in this matter and for knowing what was involv'd and implied in it relative to the particular before us than to those many Statutes that are Declarative and Explanatory of the meaning of it As that 13 Car. 2. act 6. wherein it is enacted That the Sole Supreme Government Command and Disposition of the Militia and all Forces by Sea and Land c. is and by the Laws of England ever was the undoubted Right of the Kings and Queens of England And that both or either Houses of Parliament cannot nor ought not to pretend to the same nor can or lawfully may raise or levy any War offensive or defensive against his Majesty his Heirs and lawful Successors And that other Act 13 Car. 2. wherein it is ordained That whosoever shall hold that both Houses of Parliament or either House of Parliament have or hath a Legislative Power without the King shall incur the danger and penalty of a Premunire according to the Statute of the 16 Rich. 2. And that other of the same Year of Car. 2. Which made it Treason during his Life to compass imagine invent devise or intend to deprive and depose him from the Stile Honour or Kingly Name of the Imperial Crown of this Realm The President whereof we had 23 Eliz. namely That whosoever shall wish or desire the Death or Deprivation of the Queen that every such Offence shall be adjudged Felony To which I would only subjoyn that known Statute which makes it Treason to take up Arms against the King upon any Pretence whatsoever And to shew the Impudence that always attendeth Disloyalty notwithstanding all that these Parliaments have perpetrated they have suffered all these Laws to remain still unrepealed to remain Monuments of their Treasonable Guilt and to abide Warnings to all Kings that shall come after how little Safe they are under the Fence Covering and Protection of Laws when they have false and treacherous Men to deal with And that which heightens the Crime and enhaunceth the Guilt of those Parliaments is that they have usurped and exerted a Power inconsistent with and subversive of the Constitution in the abdicating and driving away a Prince who was the least chargeable with Miscarriages and Excesses in his Government of any that ever fat upon the Throne For as his greatest pretended Faults were rather Mistakes he was led into by others than Injuries he chose to do of himself so most of them proceeded from an excess of Love to his People and from an Ardour of making them happier than they were willing to be and not from Disaffection to them or a Design to render them miserable Nor did those flight Grievances of which his People so clamourously complained flow from his being a bad King but from the having bad and treacherous Friends about him For though no Prince did ever by Condescention Bounty and Confidence deserve to have had better Ministers and Friends yet with respect to too many about him few Princes ever less had them So that what Tacitus says of one may with a great deal of Truth be applied to his Majesty though not so much to his Dishonour as to the Infamy of those whom he employed and trusted namely That Amicos meruit magis quam habuit He was worthy of faithful Friends rather than had them I would not be thought to intend what I have said of all that had the Honour to be esteemed his Friends Ministers and Servants it being only designed to affect a few of them but they were such as had frequentest and nearest Access to him and greatest Interest in and Influence upon his Councils whom he trusted too much to be well served by them and put himself too much in their Power to have them remain Faithful For that of Tacitus will always hold true Nec unquam satis fida potentia ubi nimia est In a word never did a People run head-long into Rebellion and War upon so few and small Faults in Government and so easy to have been borne with or obviated in modest and legal ways So that had the means which we fled unto for Relief been Lawful whereas they were Criminal and Treasonable in the highest degree yet it was the height of Folly and Madness to use them upon such flight Occasions where the Remedy hath been a Thousand times worse than ever the Disease could have been Common Prudence had we renounced Loyalty should have taught us That Force is never to be practised where Laws and humble Applications would have served and that violent means should not have been used where gentle would have done Non utendum Imperio says Tacitus and I will add