Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n
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A52753
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Christianissimus Christianandus, or, Reason for the reduction of France to a more Christian state in Europ[e]
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Nedham, Marchamont, 1620-1678.
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1678
(1678)
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Wing N383; ESTC R14468
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47,167
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81
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Christianissimus Christianandus OR REASON FOR THE REDUCTION OF FRANCE To a More Christian State IN EUROP Odimus Accipitrem quia semper vivit in Armis LONDON Printed by Henry Hills and are to be sold by Jonathan Edwin at the Three Roses in Ludgate-street 1678. Christianissimus Christianandus OR Reason for the Reduction of FRANCE to a more Christian State in EUROP Section I. Being an INTRODVCTION CErtainly 't is high time to think of making the Ministers of France better Christians when 't is apparent they have taken up the Principle of the Common Enemy of Christendom and make his Maximes the Rules and the Measure of their Proceedings Absolute Power at Home and Vniversal Empire abroad is their Aim as well as the Turks and seeing that by their Actions all the Duties of Christianity are laid in the dirt it were hard to determine under which of the Two Christendom would obtain Fairest Quarter after an absolute Conquest For though France be Owner of the better Faith yet the other keep Faith better because all Travellers tell us the Turk counts it Religion to keep Word and Promise But it seems France may do any thing Regnande causâ as we shall shew by and by when we come to tell how little value is made of Promises Obligations Alliances and the Sacraments In these things they exceed the Grand Seignior but in matter and extent of absolute Dominion they are his Rivals and aspiring to forestal him in his design upon Europ to become sole Masters of a Western as he is of the Eastern Empire And why not Why should not Louis the 14th have it now as his Predecessor Charlemain had it heretofore His great Ministers and Officers both Civil and Military say They have ample Territories and very populous and a most numerous Nobility and Gentry as much Courage as their Ancestors together with the advantage of being trained up either to Actions of War or Warlike Exercises also the Situation of their Country and the Opportunity they have by it to invade their Neighbours upon all Occasions the Fruitfulness and Riches of the Soil the prodigious quantity of all sorts of Commodities Manufactures and other wayes with which they supply neighbouring Countries And lastly the vast Revenues of their Kings who governing of late without check or controul at home are thereby the more able to oppress other States or Princes They boast how Charles the Eighth frighted all other Potentates by the surprising Conquest of the Kingdom of Naples How they contended with the Austrian Family when it had been rais'd on a suddain to a wondrous Grandeur by the accession of innumerable Provinces united in the person of Charles the Fifth and that their King Francis the First had like to have carried from him the Imperial Crown having to that end engaged several of the Electors but they forget to tell us that when he had miss'd it then to be revenged on the Emperor and the other Christian Princes he was the first that taught the French Kings the most Christian trick of making Leagues with the Turks for so did he with the Great Solyman the Magnificent as you may read in my Lord Herbert's History of our Henry the Eighth and God prosper'd him accordingly for though he had several times the Turks assistance to carry on his Reverigeful Designs to the hazard of all Christendom yet at last he was forc't to yield to the victorious Arms of that Emperor Charles who took him Prisoner and made him buy his Peace at an extraordinary Rate But yet his Son Henry the Second had better success and would have extended his Dominions very far had he not been prevented by a suddain unfortunate Death as did also his Successor Henry the Third Then came on his Successor Henry the Fourth and of him they boast that he subdued Monsters of Factions at home and afterwards revived that Monstrous Design of grasping all abroad that having made good his Title to the Crown by the Success of his Arms he bent all his thoughts upon a Project vast in the extent of it as extraordinary in the Nature of it intending no less than to cast Europ into a new Model and reduce all the Kingdoms and Common-wealths that were in his time to a certain number and to bring them into such bounds as he should think fit to prescribe to them but to reserve to himself a Portion so considerable as to have enabled him or at least his Successors to grow up into that state of Universal Monarch which had been first imagined by his Predecessor Francis To this effect he had made choice of his Generals and other great Officers furnished his Arcenals with mighty Stores of Arms and collected prodigious Sums of Money into his Treasury and then all came to nothing by a suddain unexpected stroke which was given him by the Hand of Ravalliac After him his Son Lewis the 13th Father of the present King though by reason of some Domestick broyls and Civil Wars he was not at leisure to carry on the Project of his Predecessors by employing that way the great Armory and Wealth which his Father had provided yet still he had an Eye towards it and Cardinal Richelieu with the rest of his Ministers finding that the House of Austria was very near bringing all Germany under their subjection and after the Battle of Prague stood fair to carry away Vniversal Empire the Darling of France they hasten'd with what speed they could to put an end to Civil Dissentions and having got quiet at Home they being then courted by diverse Princes for Assistance and Protection against the Austrian Family were glad of the Opportunity reckoning that under a shew of assisting weak Princes they might at length take occasion to share with them in their Principalities and by that means vastly increase their own Power And so they did subdue new Provinces and considerable Towns in Spain Italy Germany and the Low-Countreys which at last made the Princes as jealous almost of him as they had been before of the Austrian So that to prevent farther mischief they were content to sit down with their losses rather than trust their French Alliances any longer Which occasioned that great Treaty held at Munster which ended in a general Peace An. 1648. Now before I proceed give me leave by the way to make use of what is past in these few Observations viz. First That had not France had a marvellous Wit Courage and Fortune it could never have born its Head above water in the midst of so many Waves and Tempests of Discord and Rebellion as were rais'd during the Reigns of those Kings and yet continue still in a Condition after all to maintain it self and bid fair also against its Austrian Rival for the Mastery of a General Dominion Secondly That in all Ages as soon as their Intestine troubles have been over they have still out of a restless warlike Humour endeavour'd to incroach upon their Neighbours and for
Faction in Parliament which very much alarm'd the King and his Court insomuch that he conceived it was high time to rip open this Evil by discovering seizing and accusing some of the aforementioned Heads of the Faction viz. a Lord and Five Members of the House of Commons The Articles of the Charge against them were in number Seven One of which was That They had traiterously invited and encouraged a Foreign Power to Invade his Majesties Kingdom of England Which was so true that he desired a Tryal of them but their Party in the House not daring to permit it to be put to Proof they shock'd the King in the Business and so the Affair of the COVENANT and the other Effects of that Invitation ran the more roundly on to a ripeness and final Dispatch in Scotland by the time that the Sun in its course brought on the year 1643. And then came on a Second Invasion of England flourishing their Colours with this Rebellious Motto FOR THE CROWN AND COVENANT OF BOTH KINGDOMS And thus you see how far we were beholden to France for all the Miseries of the ensuing Wars and the numerous Brood of Factions which issued thence in England Scotland and Ireland Of the certain Truth whereof we might have had undeniable Evidence upon the Tryal of those whom the King had then charged with Treason if the Temper of that time would have permitted a fair prosecution however it was I remember sufficiently talk't of in those days and I have now by me a Book in the French Tongue which was printed 24 Years ago by Adrian Vlac at the Hague in Holland in the third part whereof are eight Chapters and over the second Chapter is this Title Le Cardinal de Richelieu la cause des Desordres arrivez en Angleterre That is to say Cardinal Richelieu the cause of the Disorders befallen England Which he brought in as I told you by the way of Scotland to the ruin of our Peace the Royal Family the Church and the whole State and Government of our Kingdom But this tampering with and corrupting other Prince's Subjects is an old Game that the French Ministers have ever been playing all over Europ Let it be remember'd how the same Richelieu wrought the Revolt of Portugal from the Spaniard and the Rebellion in Catalonia and carry'd on the Wars in both those Countries to bring down the Power of Spain how he tamper'd also with the Swede under Gustavus Adolphus to invade the Empire and then with the Emperour's General Wallestein to betray the Imperial Army by whose suddain death the French King lost the great opportunity to work himself into a possession of the Imperial Throne How Cardinal Mazarin after him carried on the Popular Commotions raised by Masaniello in the Kingdom of Naples by sending thither the Duke of Guise to be their Head to the almost wresting of that Kingdom out of the Hand of the Spaniard and then also how he lurch't that Duke and deserted him Moreover how the last Year the French Intrigues so far prevailed in Spain as to turn the Queen-Mother out of her Regency drive out her Favourites such as she thought most fit and firm for the young King's Safety to put him into other Hands and turn all things in that Court topsie-turvy that being agitated and held in play by their own divisions at Home they might be less able to have regard to the preservation of the Flemings or to the carrying on a Joynt-war with the Hollanders How they have been the common Enemies of every State destroying the Peace of Government every where sowing of Factions in all Princely Courts their Councils or among such of the Subjects as are factious or else they jumble one Prince against another by turns as they did the Prince Elector Palatine against the Elector of Mentz starting up an occasion of Quarrel betwixt them one while to take part with the Elector Palatine against Mentz another while with Mentz against the Prince whose Country they miserably harassed and wasted It cannot be forgotten what they lately did to corrupt the Emperor's Council by means of his own Favourite Prince Lobcowitz whom they bought for Mony to betray his Master's Counsels and Affairs besides their Intrigue in the same manner with the Prince of Furstenberg and his Brother Also what they did in the Vnited Provinces to incommode his Highness the Prince of Orange by bolstering up the De Wits and their Louvenstein Republican party against the Princely What they have done to clog the Emperor by fostering a Rebellion against him in Hungary and how great charge they are at to sever the power of the Duke of Bavaria and of the Duke of Hanover from the common Interest of the Empire in this War How they have diverse times indangered all Christendom by confederating with the Grand Seignior to disturb both Hungary and Poland for which cause as My Lord Herbert writes in his History the Pope had like to have given away the Title Most Christian from their French King Francis the First to bestow it upon our Henry the Eighth before he had been dubb'd by his Holiness with that of Defensor Fidei What Artifices have been used by them to settle and nourish perpetual Faction among the Polish Nobility whereby other great Opportunities have diverse times been given the Turk to fall upon them In a word their common practice hath been to give the World all manner of disturbance and so to render themselves in its Opinion the common Enemies of its Peace a publick Pest among States and Princes in every Country they either find combustible stuff or else make it and then set fire to it they are at a mighty charge to find Fodder for the various Animals of Faction in all Places By this means Divide Impera makes way for them and thus they conquer more than by their Arms they inflame Countries thus as well as burn them as they did Alsatia that having enough to do to quench fires at Home they may have neither leisure nor power to hinder French Projects abroad Questionless then since we in England have seen and do see our Neighbours Houses fired one after another 't is high time to look to our own and secure our selves and all Europ from such Boutefeus and the sad Effects of their Impious Courses SECTION IV. That as the French have dealt falsly with us and all other Princes in the point of Peace There is no Security to be had for any one Party but by a Joynt War HIs Majesty of England having hitherto on his part preserved a fair Respect and Amity towards France passing by the many Indignities and Injuries done to himself and his Nation in hope his Patience might by fair means have prevail'd with the French King at length to do reason to us and the rest of his Neighbours and that to that end his Majesty might have perswaded him to have forborn a further prosecution of the War in