Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	high_a	lord_n	privy_a	2,935	5	10.5102	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A25536	An Answer to a paper entituled A brief account of the designs of the papists against the Earl of Shaftsbury, occasioned by his commitment, July 2, 1681.		1681 (1681)	Wing A3328; ESTC R16435	6,181	4

AN ANSWER To a PAPER Entituled A Brief Account of the Designs of the PAPISTS against the Earl of Shaftsbury occasioned by his Commitment July 2. 1681. I Will not pretend to enter into the matter of Fact for which the Noble Peer stands Accused and Committed but leave the merits of his Cause and the disquisition of his Guilt or Innocence together with the validity of the Evidence to those Noble Persons who are to be his Judges whose Honor Wisdom and Integrity without doubt will not fail to do both him and themselves Justice upon his Trial and I think it had been no more than becomes all good Subjects patiently to attend the issue of that affair and not as the Author of this Paper who pretends a service and particular friendship to his Lordship by Printing a lame Apology to bring his Actions upon the stage and expose them to a more curious Examination than possibly they would otherwise have fallen under Nor can I imagine to what purpose the Vindicator should endeavour to render his Lordships Fame and Interest so popular as if the safety of the Nation our Laws Liberties and Religion were to have the same fate and period with his Lordships breath that he is to be esteemed the main pillar of the English Security and that the happiness of the Nation is chained to his good or ill Destiny unless he had a secret design to do his Lordship a mischief by making him so infinitely popular as thereby to become dangerous and suspected since it has been an old observation collected from the Histories of all places and ages That few Subjects who have courted Popularity have been Innocent and fewer Fortunate and which is above all dispute the sacred story informs us that when Absalom made his warm Applications to the People and thereby stole their hearts it was the Prologue to an unnatural Rebellion against his Royal Father and drew upon him the hard destiny of an untimely death and a monument of Infamy which will last to all Eternity And indeed the Vindicator is fallen upon very unhappy mediums to effect his Design for certainly any mans Reputation must be ill rescued from pretended injuries where the reparation is to be carved out by Letters of Reprisal against the Government and sure he must be very much lost for Topicks to make any person appear innocent who is obliged to make use of such as render his Majesty and the Government Criminal And had he been master of second thoughts or consequences he would certainly never have attempted to make his Lordships Reputation look white by blackening his Sovereign and leaving the Honor of his Lordship upon this issue That he cannot be esteemed Innocent but the King must appear ingrateful and unjust and which as the Affairs of the Nation now stand his affirming that this commitment is an effect of the Designs which the Papists have had against the Earl of Shaftsbury is neither better nor worse but an arraignment of the King and Council as accessories to the horrid Popish Plot and by the most ridiculous contradiction to bring the King and Government into a Conspiracy against themselves that so the Earl of Shaftsbury may appear innocent Surely If his Lordship be the person as he says page 1. The whole tenor and universal conduct of whose life have spoken him not only a person of the greatest Abilities and Wisdom but of the highest Loyalty to his Majesty and warmest Zeal for his Service that any these three Kingdoms have produced in this age he will with great Indignation resent the Abuse put upon him by this forward Apologist and his warm zeal for his Majesties Service cannot be so soon frozen as to endure such warm reflections to be for his sake thrown upon his Prince as can proceed from none but such Subjects as have sued out a perpetual divorce between themselves and their Loyalty and even the common decencies of good Breeding since nothing worse than Ingratitude can be charged upon the meanest Subject Ingratum si dixeris and how much heavier is the scandal when 't is levell'd at one of the greatest Monarchs in the Universe Nor is it with less advantage to his Lordship that the unthinking Vindicator takes such pains to give the world an Inventory of his Lordships great Merits and That there is not a Nobleman or Gentleman within the Kings Dominions to whose influence his Majesty doth more owe his peaceable and happy Restauration For besides that by notoriety of Fact it is apparently false and that no person can eclipse the glory of the Illustrious Duke of Albemarle so unquestionably allowed the happy Instrument under Providence of that wondrous event If the Vindicator had meant honestly and fairly to his Majesty he ought to have acquainted the world that no Nobleman or Gentleman within the Kings Dominions has drank larger draughts of Royal Bounty than his Lordship that from an Estate of 3000 l. or thereabouts per ann he is advanced to above treble the Annual Revenue besides ready money that from the condition of a private Gentleman he has by his Majesty been raised to the honor of an Earldom and a Peer of the Realm of England that he was loaded with the honors of Privy Counsellor and Lord Chancellor of England a place next in Honor and Power to the Throne and sure these were as high Rewards as a Subject of the greatest merit can pretend to unless he would ask the Kingdom also And the envious concealment of these uncommon Favours and marks of Royal Bounty looks as if the Vindicator had some very evil intentions to his Lordships Fame and to make him suspected of Ingratitude towards his Prince rather than that the King should have been ingrateful to him which all the world knows to the contrary But certainly the Apologist must be one of the most spiteful persons in the world to his Lordships Fame for whoever pretends to vindicate the Reputation of any person with what is evidently false must be designing to defame it at the highest rate for nothing but a deficiency of Truth can be supposed to tempt any person to flie to Falshood nor would any person make use of it but with an intention to be detected and it was either very malicious or improper to tell the world That the King can never forget the many great and memorable services which this Gentleman did him when few had either Courage Loyalty or Prudence to render them useful to his Interest For besides the ingrateful reflection of Cowards Fools and Traitors thrown upon the indefinite number of his Majesties Friends what can this be but to refresh the memories of the whole Nation with things much to the disadvantage of his Lordships Reputation and he will have much to do to lay the Devil of Curiosity which he has hereby conjured up or to persuade the world to believe that when Sir Anthony Ashly Cooper was in the beginning of the late times in actual Hostility