Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
england_n john_n king_n time_n 9,801 5 3.7758 3 true
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A29484 A brief survey (historical and political) of the life and reign of Henry the III, King of England dedicated to His Most Sacred Majesty. Cotton, Robert, Sir, 1571-1631. 1680 (1680) Wing B4650; ESTC R18954 16,080 30

There are 2 snippets containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

A BRIEF SURVEY HISTORICAL and POLITICAL OF THE Life and Reign OF Henry the III. KING OF ENGLAND Dedicated to his most Sacred MAJESTY LONDON Printed for James Vade at the Cock and Sugar Loaf near St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-street 1680. SACRO-SANCTAE MAJESTATI CAROLI SECUNDI DEI GRATIA MAGNAE BRITANNIAE FRANCIAE ET HIBERNIAE REGIS FIDEI PROPUGNATORIS CHRISTIANAE PACIS PERPETUAE INSTAURATORIS PUBLICAE AUCTORIS AUGUSTI SECURITATIS ET NATI BRITANNICI AD AETERNITATEM NOMINIS ET IMPERII QUAM HUMILLIME D. D. CONSECRATURQUE HOC OPUSCULUM A BRIEF SURVEY OF THE LIFE and REIGN OF Henry the III etc. OPpress'd with the insupportable Calamities of Civil Arms and affrighted at the sodain fall of a Licentious Sovereign who was reported to have been Poyson'd by a Monk all men stood at gaze expecting Peace the Event of their long Desires and Benefit as the Issue of their new Hopes Experience telling us that in every Shift of Princes there are very few either so Mean or so Inopinionative as not to please themselves with some probable Object of Preferment To content all October 19. 1216. a Child ascends the Throne Mild and Gracious but Easie of Nature whose Innocency and natural Goodness protected him throughout the various Perils of his Father's Reign Happy was he in his Uncle William Earl of Pembroke the Guide of his Infancy and no less fortunate for thirty years after whilst Hubert de Burgh Earl of Kent that Fast Servant of King John's against the French both in Normandy and England together with Bygot Earl of Norfolk and others of like Gravity and Abilities had the management of Affairs Publick Distempers were then very few and such only as are incident to all States the Commons greedy and tenacious of Liberty and the Nobility of Rule One violent Storm 't is true was rais'd by some old constant Followers of his Father as Foulk de Brent who though a Forreigner yet held at one time the Earldoms of Nottingham Oxford Bedford and Buckingham Brian de Lisle and some others These being men of turbulent Spirits and that could only Thrive by the Wars were very ill at ease in those days of Sloth as they term'd that Calm of King Henry's Government Beside that the Justice of Peaceable Times urg'd from them to the lawful owners such Lands and Castles as the fury of War had unjustly given them Now perceiving by the Uprightness of the King that Power of Protection should not be made a wrong-doer they broke forth into such a Rebellion as ended not but with their Lives declaring that those their Swords which had set the Crown upon their Sovereign's Head when neither Law nor Majesty could should now secure those Acquests to their Masters when Majesty or Law would not Thus we see how dangerous are too great Benefits of Subjects to their Princes as rendring the Mind incapable of any other sense than that of Merit This Blast being over the Government felt no other affliction than the Common and Invidious Malevolence to Authority Good and Great Men may preserve themselves from Guilt but not from Envy being still shot at by the Aspiring of those that look upon themselves as less in Employment than they are in Desert These Vapours however did ever vanish without much trouble so long as the Helm was steered by Temperate Spirits and the King squar'd his Actions by the Rule of Good Counsel and not of Young Passionate or single Advice Thirty years being now past and gone and none of the old Guides of the Kings Youth left alive but de Burgh a man in whom nothing of Worth was wanting save Moderation his length of days gave him the advantage of Sole Power his Ambition furnishing Desire and Art to keep out others This drew upon him the implacable malice of a great many which was yet further augmented by the fresh Honours and Offices that the King was then pleas'd to confer upon him Time had now wrought a Revolution as in it self so in the Hearts of the People who had forgotten the late Sufferings of their Fathers and labour'd under the surfeit of a long Peace which having probably let in some Abuses the Commons to whom the Present seems ever worst take the Alarm fall to commending the past Ages they never remembred and condemning the Present though equally ignorant of the Disease of it and of the Remedy With these idle and usual Humours struck in some of the young Nobility that were warm and over weening though altogether as unskilful as the rest these fall to sullying the Wisdom and Integrity of the Court-Officers by magnifying each casual mishap into a Crime and exposing every Blemish in Government and then having their Heads fill'd with certain Ideas and Phantastick Forms of Commonwealths they flatter themselves that they are able to mold any State according to these general Rules which in particular Application do still appear to be but idle and gross Absurdities Being thus puft up in Opinion of their own worth they begin to cast about how to get into Employment a thing they had long desired and now do sue for and probable it is that the farthest of their Aim as yet was to be quiet Instruments in serving the Crown had they then been look'd upon as fit and well deserving But the King having been tutor'd into a just veneration for the Counsels of the Aged States-Men and reflecting that such Green Heads were fitter for disordering than setling Affairs either deny'd or delay'd their Requests for Princes will ever chuse their Ministers Equal to not above their Business Creatures that are only theirs out of meer Election otherwise without Friends or Power Amongst this unequal Medly there were of the Nobility the Earls of Pembroke Glocester and Hertford darlings of the Rabble some of them upon the score of their Fathers Merits whose memories were held Sacred as pretended Pillars of Publick Liberty and opposers of encroaching Monarchy Of the Gentry were Fitz-Geoffrey Bardolph Grisley and Fitz-John Spirits of as much Arrogance and A●●imony as Camp Court Country the places from whence they were Elected could afford any These were for attempting by open Force what the other sought to effect by Artifice but yet they were all of them equally Impatient to behold their Ends thus frustrated and that so long as the King followed the Advice of the Earl of Kent there would be no hopes of obtaining their desires Wherefore they became frequent in their Consults and Cabals day and night and at last Sommery and Spencer two that were far in Opinion with the rest as being Gentlemen of Forreign Education and b● qualifi'd than was usual for men of those times gave it as their Advice that the surest way to remove de Burgh that great and good Obstacle out of the way of their Advancement would be to pry narrowly into his Actions and side with his Opposite Peter Bishop of Winchester an ill man but in favour with the King backing the
draw their Hopes of Preferment from measures of Fidelity and Service Thus at last he learn'd that Reward and Reprehension discreetly temper'd do Ballance Government and that it much importeth a Prince to keep that Hand steady and equal that holds the Scale In the next place he appli'd himself to the correcting of his own natural Infirmities Wisely judging that though the Princes Manners are only a mute Law yet have they more of Life and Vigour in them than those of Letters So that though he might now and then touch upon the skirts of Vice yet was he ever after cautious of entering the Circle And whereas the Crimes and Enormities of the great Men of his Court were at this this time become so extravagantly numerous that they were drawn into Example and Imitation He purg'd this likewise with singular exactitude of Judgment and Severity knowing full well that it was it that gave life to the Moderation or Intemperance of the Commonwealth He reduc'd the Expences of his House to the just Rule of his proper Revenue and was often heard to say that his former excessive squanderings had torn open an Issue of his Subjects Blood The Fury and Insolence of the Soldiery now become Licentious by means of the Civil Wars he spent and corrected by forreign Expeditions which he was the rather induc'd to do upon finding that the peaceable only bore the Burthen of all the late Calamities and that the other were never satisfi'd but in the miseries of the Innocent being as ready as ever if they should find no Enemies abroad to seek out some at Home Neither did he forget to examine or redress by strict Commission the Rigour and Corruption of his Judicial Officers as apprehending that the sense of their Severity would raise a murmur of his own Cruelty He fill'd up the seats of Judgment and Councel with men of Noble Extraction For such do with less offence attract generous Spirits to respect and Veneration He no longer measureth their Abilities by Favour or private Recommendation as before but by publick Vogue For though every man in particular may deceive and be deceived yet is not possible for one man to deceive all or all one And the better to set off his own Capacity and to discover to the World what part he intended hereafter to bear in all deliberate Expeditions he sits himself in Councel daily disposing Affairs of most weight in his own Person for Councellers be they never so wise or worthy are only Accessaries yet not Principals in the support of the Government their business is Subjection not Fellowship in debates of moment and they must be allow'd a Privilege to advise but not authority to resolve For as a particular Soul is essentially requisite to the Life of a Prince so is a supreme and unaccountable Power of like necessity Without the one he cannot be truly a Man and without the other he can never be securely a Prince It doth also disturb both the Minister and the People to be forc'd to pay obedience to one that is Incompetent of his own Greatness and unworthy of his Royal Fortunes This wonderful Change in the General State which so far dispair'd erewhile of recovering her former Liberty that she sought for nothing but the easiest kind of Servitude brought over the People again with admiration to the Kings Devotion and their own Duty So that whoever designes to lay a Foundation of Greatness upon popular Love must be careful of securing to them Ease and Justice because they are ever prone to measure the band of their Obedience by the benefit that they daily receive Now this Calm attended ever after this Kings Age and Hearse and he liv'd to train up his Successor and make him a Participant of his own Experience and Authority His hard Education wean'd him from those Intemperances which makes Men Inferiour to Beasts and prompted him to affect Glory and Virtue which gave him a Superiority over Men. Insomuch that all the Actions of his Future Reign were Exact Rules of Discipline and Policy and worthy the Imitation of his best of Successors who as he was the first of his Name Edward after the Conquest so was he also the first that thoroughly reform'd the Abuses crept into the Law and settled the Commonwealth justly meriting the Title of Englands Justinian delivering the Nation out of the Thraldom of the Peers and by all his Actions afterward approving himself capable himself of Governing not this Single Realm only but the whole World Thus by the Injustice of our Enemies more than by our own Discretions do we many times become both Wise and Fortunate FINIS