Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	french_a	great_a	king_n	16,597	5	4.3459	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89878	The excellencie of a free-state: or, The right constitution of a common-wealth. Wherein all objections are answered, and the best way to secure the peoples liberties, discovered: with some errors of government, and rules of policie. Published by a well-wisher to posterity.	Nedham, Marchamont, 1620-1678.	1656 (1656)	Wing N388; Thomason E1676_1; ESTC R202969	87,103	253

with Freedome return to their Affairs For the truth is so long as Rome acted by the pure Principles of a Free-State it used no Arms to defend itself but such as we call sufficient men such as for the most part were men of Estate Masters of Families that took Arms only upon occasion pro Aris Focis for their Wives their Children and their Countrey In those days there was no difference in order between the Citizen the Husbandman and the Souldier for he that was a Citizen or Villager yesterday became a Souldier the next if the Publick Liberty required it and that being secured by repelling of Invaders both Forreign and Domestick immediatly the Souldier became Citizen again so that the first and best brave Roman Generals and Souldiers came from the Plough and returned thither when the Work was over This was the usual course even before they had gained their Tribunes and Assemblies that is in the Infancy of the Senate immediatly after the Expulsion of their Kings for then even in the Senatick Assembly there were some Sparks of Liberty in being and they took this course to maintain it The Tarquins being driven out but having a Party left still within that attempted to make several Invasions with confidence to carry all before them and yet in the Intervalls we find not any form of souldiery only the Militia was lodged and exercised in the hands of that Party which was firm to the Interest of Freedom who upon all occasions drew forth at a Nod of the Senate with little charge to the Publick and so rescued themselves out of the Clawes of Kingly Tyranny Nor do we find in after times that they p●rmitted a Deposition of the Arms of the Common-wealth in any other way till that their Empire increasing necessity constrained them to erect a continued stipendary Souldiery abroad in forreign parts either for the holding or winning of Provinces Then Luxury increasing with Dominion the strict Rule and Discipline of Freedome was soon quitted Forces were kept up at home but what the consequences were stories will tell you as well as in the Provinces abroad The Ambition of Cinna the horid Tyranny of Sylla the insolence of Marius and the self-ends of divers other Leaders both before and after them filled all Italy with Tragdeies and the World with wonder so that in the end the People seeing what misery they had brought on themselves by keeping their Armies within the bowels of Italy passed a Law to prevent it and to employ them abroad or at a convenient distance the Law was That if any General marched over the River of Rubicon he should be declared a publike Enemy And in the passage of that River this following Inscription was erected to put the men of Arms in mind of their duty Imperator sive miles sive Tyrannus armatus quisquis sistito vexillum armaque deponito nec citra hunc Amnem trajicitio General or Souldier or Tyrant in Arms whosoever thou be stand quit thy Standard and lay aside thy Arms or else cross not this River For this cause it was that when Caesar had presumed once to march over this River he conceived himself so far ingaged that there was no Retreat no Game next but have at all advanceth to Rome it self into a possession of the Empire By this means it was the Common-wealth having lost its Arms lost it self too the Power being reduced both effectually and formally into the hands of a single Person and his Dependants who ever after kept the Armes out of the hands of the People Then followed the erecting of a Praetorian Band instead of a Publick Militia he being followed here in by Augustus and the rest of his Successors imitated of latter-times by the Grand Seignor by Cosmus the first great Duke of Tuscany by the Muscovi●e the Russian the Tartar and the French who by that means are all Absolute and it was strongly endeavored here too in England by the late King who first attempted it by a Design of introducing Forreigners viz. the German Horse and afterwards by corrupting of the Natives as when he laboured the Army in the North in their return to rifle the Parliament neglected Train-Bands and at length flew out him●elf into open Arms against the Nation So that you see the way of Freedome hath bin to lodge the Arms of a Common-Weal● in the hands of that part of the People which are firm to its Establishment Seve●●hly that Children should be educated and instructed in the Principles of Freedom Aristotle speaks plainly to this purpose saying That the institution of Youth should be accommodated to that Form of Government under which they live forasmuch as it makes exceedingly for preservation of the present Government whatsoever it be The Reason of it appe●●s in this because all the Tinctures and Impression that men receive in their Youth they retain in the full Age though never so bad unless they happen which is very rare to quell the corrupt Principles of Education by an Excellency of Reason and sound Judgment And for confirmation of this we might cite the various Testimonies of Plutarch Isocrates with many more both Philosophers Orators and others that have treated of this particular touching the Education of Children as it relates either to Domestick or Civil Government But we shall take it for granted without more ado supposing none will deny of what effect it is in all the Concernments of Mankind either in Conversation or in Action The necessity of this Point appears from hence as well as the Reason That if care be nor taken to temper the Youth of a Common-Wealth with Princip●es and Humours suitable to that Form no sure settlement or peace can ever be expected for Schools Academies with al● other Seed-plots and Seminaries of Youth will otherwise be but so many Nurseries of Rebellion publike Enemies and unnatural Monsters that will tear the bowels of their Mother-Countrey And this Neglect if it follow an alteration of Government after a Civil War is so much the more dangerous because as long as Youngsters are nuzled up in the old Ways and Rudiments by the old ill-affected Paedagogues there will ever be a hankering after the Old Government which must ever be in a fair probability of return when new Generations shall be catechised into old Tenets and Affections contrary to the Establishment of a Free-State That being taken for the declared Interest of this Nation Therefore the consequence of such Neglect is clearly this That the Enmity will be immortal a Sett●ement impossible there must be a perpetual Disposition to Civil-War in stead of Civil Society Upon this account it was that in Plutarch and Isocrates we find so many good Testimonies of the great care that was had amongst all the Free-States of Greece in this particular which tyed up their Paedagogues and Teachers to certain Rules and selected certain Authors to be read onely as Classical for the Institution of their Youth And that it was

length they have been their own executioners and ruined one another And had it been only the destruction of themselves the matter were not considerable but the people having by this means been torn with Civill dissentions and the miseries of War by being drawn into Parties according to their severall humors and affections the usuall event ever was that in the end they have been seized as the prey of some single Tyrant An example of this there was in the State of Athens under the Government of those thirty men who usurped the power into their own hands and were afterwards called the thirty Tyrants for their odious behaviour for Xenophon tells us that they drew the determinations of all things into their own Closets but seemed to manage them calculis suffragiis Plebis by the Votes of the people which they had brought to their own devotion in the Assembly to countenance their proceedings And their custom was if any sort of men complained and murmured at their doings or appeared for the Publique immediately to snap them off by the losse of life or fortune under a pretence of being seditions and turbulent fellows against the peace of their Tyranny These Juncto-men had not been many moneths in possession but they began to quarrel with one another and the reason why the game went not on against one another was because the people took it out of their hands and diverted the course of their spleen against each other into a care of mutuall defence they being assaulted on every side by popular arme and clamors for the recovery of liberty So you see the event of these thirty mens combination was no lesse then a civill War and it ended in their banishment But as great a mischief followed for a new Junto of ten men got into their places whose Government proving little lesse odious than the 〈◊〉 gave an occasion to new changes which never left shifting till at last they fell into a single Tyranny And the wilder sort of people having by a sad experience felt the fruits of their own error in following the lusts and parties of particular powerful persons grew wise and combining with the honester sort they all as one man set their shoulders to the work and restored the primitive Majesty and Authority of their supreme Assemblies Herodotus in his second Book tells us that Monarchy being abolished in Egypt after the death of King Setho and a Declaration published for the freedom of the people immediately the Administration of all Affaires was ingross't in the hands of twelve Grandees who having made themselves secure against the people in a few years fell to quarrelling with one another as the manner is about their share in the Government This drew the people into severall parties and so a civill Warre ensued wherein Psummeticus one of the twelve having slain all his Partners left the people in the lurch and instead of a free State seated himself in the possession of a single Tyranny But of all old instances the most famous are the two Triumvirates that were in Rome The first was that of Pomp●y Caesar and Crassus who having drawn the affairs of the Empire and the whole World into their own particular hands acting and determining all in a private ● unto of their own without the advice or consent of the Senate and people unless it were now and then to make stalking horses of them for the more clearly conveyance of some unpleasing design These men having made an agreement among themselves that nothing should be done in the Common-wealth but what pleased their own humor it was not long ere the spirit of Ambition set them flying at the faces of one another and drew the whole World upon the Stage to act that bloody Tragedy whose Ca●astrophe was the death of Pompey and the Dominion of Caesar The second Trimuvirate was erected after the fatall stab given to Caesar in the Senate between Octavius afterwards Emperor by the name of Augustus Lopidus and Antony these having drawn all Affairs into their own hands and shared the World between them presently fell abandying against one another Augustus picking a quarrell with Lepidus gave him a lift out of his Authority and confined him to a close imprisonment in the City This being done first he had the more hope and opportunity next for the outing of Anthony he picks a quarrel with him too begins a new civill Warre wherein Rome and a great part of the World was engaged to serve his ambition and things being brought to the decision of a Battell and the ruine of Anthony he afterwards seated and secured himself in the injoyment of a single Tyranny Omitting many other instances here in England it is worthy observation that in the great contest between Henry the third and the Barons about the liberties of themselves and the people the King being forced at length to yield the Lords instead of freeing the Nation indeed ingrossed all power into their own hands under the name of the Twenty-foure Conservators of the Kingdom and behaved themselves like totidem Tyranny so many Tyrants acting all in their own Names and in 〈◊〉 of their own wholly neglecting or else over-ruling Parliaments But then not agreeing among themselves there were three or four of them defeated the other twenty and drew the intire management of Affairs into their own hands viz. the Earles of Leicester Gloucester Hereford and Spencer yet it continued so not long for Leicester getting all into his own power fell at enmity with Gloucester and was defeated by him At length Leicester putting his Fortune to a Battel was slain and the King thereupon getting all power back again took advantage of that opportunity for the greatning of himself and Prerogative And so you see All that the people got by the effusion of their bloud and loss of their peace was That instead of one Tyrant they had Twenty Four and then Four and after them a single Usurper which was Monfort Earl of Leicester and he being gone they were forced to serve their old Tyrant Henry the Third again who by this means became the more secure and firm in his Tyranny wherein if they had dealt like men of honour and made the Nation as free as they pretended not ingrossing all into their own private hands but instating the liberty of England Paramount above the regall prerogative in a due and constant course of successive Parliaments without which liberty is but a meere name and shadow then all the succeeding inconveniences had been surely prevented the bloody bickering afterwards might have been avoided their own persons and honors preserved Kings either cashiered or regulated as they ought to have been and the whole Nation freed from those after-gripes and pa●gs inflicted by that Henry and his corrupt Line of successors The World affords many instances of this kinde but these are sufficient to manifest the fatall consequences that have happened in permitting publick 〈◊〉 and interests to be ingrossed

The EXCELLENCIE OF A Free-State OR The Right CONSTITUTION OF A Common-wealth WHEREIN All Objections are answered and the best way to secure the Peoples LIBERTIES discovered WITH Some Errors of Government AND Rules of Policie Published by a Well-wisher to Posterity London Printed for Thomas Brewster at the three Bibles neer the West-end of Pauls 1656. To the Reader TAking notice of late with what impudence and the more is the pity confidence the Enemies of this Commonwealth in their publick Writings and Discourses labour to undermine the dear-bought Liberties and Freedoms of the People in their declared Interest of a Free-State I thought it high time by counter-working them to crush the Cockatrice in the Egg that so it might never grow to be a Bird of prey in order thereto I have published this following Discourse to the World that so the Eyes of the People being opened they may see whether those high and ranting Discourses of personal Prerogative and unbounded Monarchy especially * Inspections One lately published by Mr. Howel that struts abroad with a brazen Face or a due and orderly succession of the Supreme Authority in the hands of the Peoples Representatives will best secure the Liberties and Freedoms of the People from the Incroachments and Usurpations of Tyranny and answer the true Ends of the late Wars This Treatise is not intended for a particular Answer to Mr. Howel's said Book but yet may obviate that part thereof which he calls Some Reflexes upon Government for his main design is not so much though that be part to asperse the long Parliament and so through their sides to wound all their Friends and Adherents as to lay a Foundation for absolute Tyranny upon an unbounded Monarchy and in order thereunto he advises his Highness to lay aside Parliaments or at best to make them Cyphers and to govern the Nation Vi Armis not ●ut of any Honour or respect he bears to his Person but to bring the old Interest and Family into more credit and esteem with the People His Principles and Precedents they are purely his own for I am confident that the most considerate part of those that did engage for the late King are so far from owning his Tenets that they would rather lay aside the Family and Interest of the Stuarts and declare for a Free-State than indure to be yoked and enslaved by such an absolute Tyranny as he pleads for My reason is this because most of the Nobility and Gentry of this Nation have fair Estates of their own free without any dependence upon the Crown and they would be as unwilling to render up their Estates and Posterities in the paw of the Lion as the Commoners themselves His Precedents are as false as his Principles are bad for proof hereof take one and that a main one for all he saith That until the Reign of Henry the first the Commons of England were not called to the Parliament at all or had so much as a Consent in the making of Laws To prove that this is false there is extant an old Latine Copy speaking of a Parliament in the Reign of King Ethelred which telleth us that in it were Universi Anglorum Optimates Ethelredi Regis Edicto convocata Plebis multitudine collectae Regis Edicto A Writ of Summons for all the Lords and for choice of the Commons a full and clear Parliament My Author saith The proofs of Parliaments in Canute's time are so many and so full that they tire us altogether His remarkable Letter from Rome recorded by the Monk of Malmsbury runs thus To the Arch-Bishops Bishops c. Primatibus toti Genti Anglorum tam Nobilibus quam Plebeis Hoveden is full in this also Cujus Edmundi post mortem Rex Canutus omnes Episcopos Duces nec non Principes cunctosque Optimates Gentis Angliae Lundoniae congregrari jussit Howel saith William the Conqueror first brought the word Parlament A clear summons of Parliament and the very name of Parliament is found saith my Author in his time in the old Book of Edmunds-Bury Rex Canutus Anno Regni 5. cunctos Regni sui Praelatos Proceresque ac Magnates and suum convocans Parliamentum And that it was a full Parliament we may believe from the persons we finde there at the Charter to that Monastery confirmed by Hardicanute but granted by Canute insuo Publico Parliamento praesistentibus personaliter in eodem Archi-Episcopis Episcopis Suffraganeis Ducibus Comitibus Abbatibus cum quam plurimis gregariis Militibus Knights of shires it seems cum Populi multitudine copiosa other Commons also Omnibus tum eodem Parliamento personaliter existentibus Edward the Confessor refers the repairing Mr. Howel would have his Highness lay a Sesment for the repairing of Pauls without consent of Parliament of Westminster to the Parliament at length cum totius Regni Electione they are his own words he sets upon the decayed Minster But they that would know more of the Customs and Constitutions of this Nation let them repair to those large Volumes that are so frequent in print upon that Subject especially that excellent Piece The Rights of the Kingdom This may suffice to prove that the Commons were called to Parliament long before Henry the first I believe none will be offended with this following Discourse but those that are Enemies to publick welfare let such be offended still it is not for their sakes that I publish this exsuing Treatise but for your sakes that have been noble Patriots fellow-Souldiers and Sufferers for the Liberties and Freedoms of your Country that Posterity in after-ages may have something to say and shew to if God shall permit any suceeding Tyrants wherefore their Fathers sacrificed their lives and all that was dear to them It was not to destroy Magistracy but to regulate it nor to confound Propriety but to inlarge it that the Prince as well as the People might be governed by Law that Justice might be impartially distributed without respect of persons that England might become a quiet Habitation for the Lion and the Lamb to lie down and f●ed together and that none might make the people afraid it was for these things they fought and died and that not as private persons neither but by the publick command and conduct of the Supreme Power of the Nation viz. the peoples Representatives in Parliament and nothing will satisfie far all the Blood and Treasure that hath been spilt and spent make England a glorious Commonwealth and stop the mouths of all gainsayers but a due and orderly succession of the Supreme Authority in the hands of the Peoples Representatives An INTRODUCTION TO THE Following Discourse WHen the Senators of R●me in their publike Decrees and Orations began to comply with and court the People calling them Lords of the world how easie a matter was it then for Gracchus to perswade them to un-Lord the Senate In like manner when Athens was

Right under the Will of another and is no less than Tyranny which seating it self in an unlimited uncontrollable Prerogative over others without their Consent becomes the very bane of propriety and however disquieted or in what Form soever it appears is indeed the very Interest of Monarchy Now that a Free-State or successive Government of the People c. is the onely preservative of Propriety appears by Instances all the World over yet we shall cite but a few Under Monarchs we shall finde ever That the Subjects had nothing that they could call their own neither Lives nor Fortunes nor Wives nor any thing else that the Monarch pleased to command because the poor people knew no remedy against the levelling Will of an unbounded Soveraignity as may be seen in the Records of all Nations that have stoop'd under that wretched Form whereof we have also very sad Examples in France and other Kingdoms at this very day where the People have nothing of Propriety but all depends upon the Royal Pleasure as it did of late ●ere in England Moreover it is very observable That in Kingdoms where the People have enjoyed any thing of Liberty and Propriety they have been such Kingdoms onely where the frame of Government hath been so well tempered as that the best share of it hath been retained in the Peoples Hands and by how much the greater influence the People have had therein so much the more sure and certain they have been in the enjoyment of their Propriety To pass by many other Instances consider how firm the Aragonians were in their Liberties and Properties so long as they held their hold over their Kings in their supreme Assemblies and no sooner had Philip the second deprived them of their share in the Government but themselves and their properties became a prey and have been ever since to the Will and Pleasure of their Kings The like also may be said of Erance where as long as the Peoples Interest bore sway in their supreme Assemblies they could call their Lives and Fortunes their own and no longer for all that have succeeded since Lewis the eleventh followed his levelling pattern so far that in short time they destroyed the Peoples Property and became the greatest Levellers in Christendom We were almost at the same pass here in England for as long as the Peoples Interest was preserved by frequent and successive Parliaments so long we were in some measure secure of our Properties but as Kings began to worm the People out of their share in Government by discontinuing of Parliaments So they carried on their levelling design to the destroying of our Properties and had by this means brought it so high that the Oracles of the Law and Gospel spake it out with a good levelling Grace That all was the King's and that we had nothing we might call our own Thus you see how much Levelling and little of Propriety the people h●●e had certain under Monarchs and if any at all by what means and upon what terms they have had it Nor hath it been thus onely under Kings but we finde the People have ever had as little of Property secure under all other Forms of standing Powers which have produced as errant Levellers in this particular as any of the Monarchies In the Free-State of Athens as long as the People kept free indeed in an enjoyment of their successive Assemblies so long they were secure in their Properties and no longer For to say nothing of their Kings whose History is very obscure we finde after they were laid side they erected another Form of standing Power in a single Person called a Governour for Life who was also accountable for misdemeanours but yet a Tryal being made of nine of them the People saw so little security by them that they pitch'd upon another standing Form of Decimal Government and being oppress'd by them too they were cashier'd The like miseries they tasted under the standing power of Thirty which were a sort of Levellers more rank than all the rest who put to death banish●d pill'd and poll'd whom they pleased without Cause or Exception so that the poor people having been tormented under all the Forms of standing Power were in the end forced as their last remedy to take Sanctuary under the Form of a Free State in their successive Assemblies And though it may be objected That afterwards they fell into many divisions and miseries even in that Form yet whoever observes the Story shall finde it was not the fault of the Government but of themselves in swerving from the Rules of a Free-State by permitting the continuance of Power in particular hands who having an opportunity thereby to create Parties of their own among the People did for their own ends inveigle ingage and intangle them in popular Tumults and Divisions This was the true Reason of their Miscarriages And if ever any Government of the People did miscarry it was upon that account Thus also the Lacedemonians after they had for some yeers tryed the Government of one King then of two Kings at once of two distinct Families afterwards came in the Ephori as Supervisers of their Kings after I say they had tryed themselves through all the Forms of a standing Power and found them all to be Levellers of the Peoples Interest and Property then necessity taught them to seek shelter in a Free-State under which they lived happily till by a forementioned Error of the Athenians they were drawn into Parties by powerful Persons and so made the Instruments of Division among themselves for the bringing of new Levellers into play such as were Manchanidas and Nabis who succeeded each other in a Tyranny In old Rome after the standing Form of Kings was extinct and a new one established the people found as little of safety and property as ever for the standing Senate and the Decemviri proved as great Levellers as Kings so that they were forced to settle the Government of the People by a due and orderly succession of their supreme Assemblies Then they began again to recover their propertie in having somewhat they might call their own and they happily enjoyed it till as by the same Error of the Lacedemonians and Athenians swerving from the Rules of a Free-State lengthning of power in particular hands they were drawn and divided into Parties to serve the lusts of such powerful men as by craft became their Leaders so that by this means through their own default they were deprived of their Liberty long before the dayes of Imperial Tytanny Thus Cinna Sylla Marins and the rest of that succeeding Gang down to Caesar used the Peoples favour to obtain a continuation of power in their own hands and then having sadled the people with a new standing Form of their own they immediately rooted up the Peoples Liberty and Property by Arbitrary Sentences of death Proscriptions Fines and Confiscations which strain of levelling more intolerable than the former was maintained by the same