Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	henry_n	king_n	son_n	33,152	5	6.0091	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39783	A discourse of government with relation to militia's	Fletcher, Andrew, 1655-1716.	1698 (1698)	Wing F1295; ESTC R6686	23,004	68

speaking of the same Affair says That the foresaid States could not be induced to maintain Mercenary Forces being sensible of the Difficulties into which the Commonalty of France had brought themselves by the like Concession that Princes might increase their Forces at pleasure and sometimes even when they had obtained Money pay them ill to the vexation and destruction of the poor People and likewise that Kings and Princes not contented with their antient Patrimony were always ready under this pretext to break in upon the Properties of all Men and to raise what Money they pleased That nevertheless they gave him a hundred and twenty thousand Crowns yearly which he soon increased to five hundred thousand But that Burgundy which was the antient Dominion of that Family retained its antient Liberty and could by no means be obliged to pay any part of this new Tax 'T is true Philip de Commines subjoins to the forecited passage that be believes standing Forces may be well employed under a wise King or Prince but that if he be not so or leaves his Children young the use that he or their Governours make of them is not always profitable either for the King or his Subjects If this Addition be his own and not rather an Insertion added by the President of the Parliament of Paris who published and as the foresaid Francis de Beaucaire says he was credibly informed corrupted his Memoirs yet Experience shews him to be mistaken For the Example of his Master Lewis the 11th whom upon many occasions he calls a Wise Prince and those of most Princes under whom standing Forces were first allow'd demonstrates that they are more dangerous under a wise Prince than any other And Reason tells us that if they are the only proper Instruments to introduce Arbitrary Power as shall be made plain a cunning and able Prince who by the World is called a Wise one is more capable of using them to that end than a weak Prince or Governors during a Minority and that a wise Prince having once procured them to be established they will maintain themselves under any I am not ignorant that before this Change Subsidies were often given by Diets States and Parliaments and some raised by the Edicts of Princes for maintaining Wars but these were small and no way sufficient to subsist such numerous Armies as those of the Barons Militia There were likewise Mercenary Troops sometimes entertained by Princes who aimed at Arbitrary Power and by some Common-wealths in time of War for their own defence but these were only Strangers or in very small numbers and held no proportion with those vast Armies of Mercenaries which this change has fix'd upon Europe to her affliction and ruin What I have said hitherto has been always with regard to one or other and often to most Countries in Europe What follows will have a more particular regard to Britain where tho the Power of the Barons be ceased yet no mercenary Troops are yet established The Reason of which is that England had before this great Alteration lost all her Conquests in France the Town of Calais only excepted and that also was taken by the French before the Change was thorowly made So that the Kings of England had no Pretence to keep up Standing Forces either to defend Conquests abroad or to garison a Frontier towards France since the Sea was now become the only Frontier between those two Countries Neither could the Frontier towards Scotland afford any colour to those Princes for raising such Forces since the Kings of Scotland had none and that Scotland was not able to give Money for the subsisting any considerable number 'T is true the Example of France with which Country Scotland had constant correspondence and some French Counsellors about Mary of Guise Queen Dowager and Regent of Scotland induced her to propose a Tax for the subsisting of Mercenary Soldiers to be employed for the defence of the Frontier of Scotland and to ease as was pretended the Barons of that trouble But in that honourable and wise Remonstrance which was made by 300 of the lesser Barons as much dissatisfied with the Lords who by their silence betrayed the publick Liberty as with the Regent her self she was told That their Forefathers had defended themselves and their Fortunes against the English when that Nation was much more powerful than they were at that time and had made frequent incursions into their Country That they themselves had not so far degenerated from their Ancestors to refuse when occasion requir'd to hazard their Lives and Fortunes in the Service of their Country That as to the hiring of Mercenary Soldiers it was a thing of great danger to put the Liberty of Scotland into the hands of Men who are of no Fortunes nor have any hopes but in the publick Calamity who for Money would attempt any thing whose excessive Avarice opportunity would inflame to a desire of all manner of Innovations and whose Faith would follow the Wheel of Fortune That tho these Men should be more mindful of the Duty they owe to their Country than of their own particular Interest was it to be supposed that Mercenaries would sight more bravely for the defence of other Mens Fortunes than the Possessors would do for themselves or their own or that a little Money should excite their ignoble Minds to a higher pitch of Honour than that with which the Barons are inspired when they fight for the preservation of their Fortunes Wives and Children Religion and Liberty That most Men did suspect and apprehend that this new way of making War might be not only useless but dangerous to the Nation since the English if they should imitate the Example might without any great trouble to their People raise far greater Sums for the maintenance of Mercenary Soldiers than Scotland could and by this means not only spoil and lay open the Frontier but penetrate into the Bowels of the Kingdom And that it was in the Militia of the Barons their Ancestors had plac'd their chief Trust for the defence of themselves against a greater Power By these powerful Reasons being made sensible of her Error the Queen desisted from her Demands Her Daughter Queen Mary who as the great Historian says look'd upon the moderate Government of a limited Kingdom to be disgraceful to Monarchs and upon the slavery of the People as the freedom of Kings resolved to have Guards about her Person but could not fall upon a way to compass them for she could find no Pretext unless it were the empty show of Magnificence which belongs to a Court and the Example of Foreign Princes for the former Kings had always trusted themselves to the Faith of the Barons At length upon a false and ridiculous pretence of an Intention in a certain Nobleman to seize her Person she assumed them but they were soon abolished Nor had her Son King James any other Guards whilst he was King of Scotland only than forty Gentlemen And that King declares in the Act of Parliament by which they are established that he will not burden his People by any Tax or Imposition for their Maintenance Henry the Seventh King of England seems

to have perceived sooner and understood better the Alteration before-mentioned than any Prince of his time and obtained several Laws to favour and facilitate it But his Successors were altogether improper to second him For Henry the Eighth was an unthinking Prince The Reigns of Edward the Sixth and Queen Mary were short and Queen Elizabeth loved her People too well to attempt it King James who succeeded her was a stranger in England and of no Interest abroad King Charles I. did indeed endeavour to make himself Absolute tho somewhat preposterously for he attempted to seize the Purse before he was Master of the Sword But very wise Men have been of Opinion that if he had been possessed of as numerous Guards as those which were afterwards raised and constantly kept up by King Charles the Second he might easily have succeeded in his Enterprize For we see that in those Struggles which the Country Party had with King Charles the Second and in those Endeavours they used to bring about that Revolution which was afterwards compassed by a Foreign Power the chief and insuperable Difficulty they met with was from those Guards And tho King James the Second had provoked these Nations to the last degree and made his own Game as hard as possible not only by invading our Civil Liberties but likewise by endeavouring to change the Established Religion for another which the People abhorred whereby he lost their Affections and even those of a great part of his Army Yet notwithstanding all this mismanagement Britain stood in need of a Foreign Force to save it and how dangerous a Remedy that is the Histories of all Ages can witness 'T is true this Circumstance was favourable that a Prince who had married the next Heir to these Kingdoms was at the Head of our Deliverance yet did it engage us in a long and expensive War And now that we are much impoverished and England by means of her former Riches and present Poverty fallen into all the Corruptions which those great Enemies of Vertue Want and Excess of Riches can produce that there are such numbers of Mercenary Forces on foot at home and abroad that the greatest part of the Officers have no other way to subsist that they are commanded by a wise and active King who has at his Disposal the formidable Land and Sea Forces of a Neighbouring Nation the great Rival of our Trade A King who by Blood Relation other particular Ties and common Interest has the House of Austria most of the Princes of Germany and Potentates of the North for his Friends and Allies who can whatever Interest he join with do what he thinks fit in Europe I say if a Mercenary Standing Army be kept up the first of that kind except those of the Vsarper Cromwel and the late King James that Britain has seen for thirteen hundred Years I desire to know where the Security of the British Liberties lies unless in the good Will and Pleasure of the King I desire to know what real Security can be had against Standing Armies of Mercenaries backed by the Corruption of both Nations the Tendency of the way of Living the Genius of the Age and the Example of the World Having shown the difference between the past and present Government of Britain how precarious our Liberties are and how from having the best security for them we are in hazard of having none at all 't is to be hoped that those who are for a Standing Army and losing no occasion of advancing and extending the Prerogative from a mistaken Opinion that they establish the antient Government of these Nations will see what sort of Patriots they are But we are told that only Standing Mercenary Forces can defend Britain from the perpetual Standing Armies of France However frivolous this Assertion be as indeed no good Argument can be brought to support it either from Reason or Experience as shall be proved hereafter yet allowing it to be good what Security can the Nations have that these Standing Forces shall not at some time or other be made use of to suppress the Liberties of the People tho not in this King's time to whom we owe their Preservation For I hope there is no Man so weak to think that keeping up the Army for a year or for any longer time than the Parliaments of both Nations shall have engaged the publick Faith to make good all Deficiencies of Funds granted for their Maintenance is not the keeping them up for ever 'T is a pitiful shift in the Vndertakers for a Standing Army to say We are not for a Standing Army We are only for an Army from year to year or till the Militia be made useful For Britain cannot be in any hazard from France at least till that Kingdom so much exhausted by War and Persecution shall have a breathing space to recover Before that time our Militias will be in order and in the mean time the Fleet. Besides no Prince ever surrendred so great Countries and so many strong Places I shall not say in order to make a new War but as these Men will have it to continue the same The French King is old and diseased and was never willing to hazard much by any bold Attempt If he or the Dauphin upon his Decease may be suspected of any farther Design it must be upon the Spanish Monarchy in case of the death of that King And if it be objected that we shall stand in need of an Army in such a Conjuncture I answer that our Part in that or in any other foreign War will be best managed by Sea as shall be shown hereafter Let us then see if Mercenary Armies be not exactly calculated to enslave a Nation Which I think may be easily proved if we consider that such Troops are generally composed of Men who make a Trade of War and having little or no Patrimony or spent what they once had enter into that Employment in hopes of its Continuance during Life not at all thinking how to make themselves capable of any other By which means heavy and perpetual Taxes must be entail'd for ever upon the People for their Subsistence and since all their Relations stand engaged to support their Interest let all Men judg if this will not prove a very united and formidable Party in a Nation But the Vndertakers must pardon me if I tell them that no well-constituted Government ever suffered any such Men in it whose Interest leads them to imbroil the State in War and are a useless and insupportable Burden in time of Peace Venice or Holland are neither of them examples to prove the contrary for had not their situation been different from that of other Countries their Liberty had not continued to this time