Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n
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A40459
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The French intrigues discovered with the methods and arts to retrench the potency of France by land and sea and to confine that monarch within his antient dominions and territories : humbly submitted to the consideration of the princes and states of Europe, especially of England / written in a letter from a person of quality abroad to his corrsepondent here.
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Person of quality abroad.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing F2185; ESTC R9404
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35,025
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34
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Treaties can be reckoned which the French Ministers have not violated Have they not broken the famous Pyrenean Treaty confirmed by Oaths and Sacraments and contrary to a solemn Renunciation and the double Tyes of Bloud and Marriage Before a Breach complained of or a War declared they invaded the Territories of an Infant King Have they not by Addresses and Cunning by Bribes and Rewards endeavoured to corrupt most of the Ministers of State in Europe How well they have kept the Articles of Peace concluded at Westphalia and Nimmeguen the Emperour King of Spain and Princes of Germany can tell you And can you prudently hope that the future Practices of the Most Christian King will be more just than his former He that hath broken thorow so many Obligations Alliances and Treaties will he not do so again Be assured Sir you cannot anchor any faith or confidence in the Alliance or Friendship of France for France is a floating Island and no Terra firma It 's prudence to keep an Enemy at the Swords point and not to suffer him to come within you The Spanish Dominions are the Fountain from whence you draw a great part of your Traffick and by consequence your Riches The Netherlands are the Out works of England if they are taken you are weak and dismantled And let me tell you Sir the day of the Ruine of Flanders is the eve of the Subversion of England If the Vnited Provinces should be brought under the subjection of France it would be a thing of that dreadful consequence that the very thoughts of it must needs raise the bloud of all true English men They are so scituated that several of the greatest Rivers in Europe not onely run thorow their Country but disembogue into the Ocean within their Precincts If the French make themselves Masters of the Rivers as it 's their designe and endeavour will they not in a short time bring all the Havens and all the Inhabitants bordering upon the Sea under the same subjection The Sea-ports without the Rivers and the Rivers without the Sea-ports being altogether useless if they be reduced under the Obedience of the French their Country will be the Nursery of his Sea-men and in all other respects the support of his Naval strength If they must be Slaves will it not be some satisfaction to them to lend a helping hand to bring their Neighbours and in truth all Europe into the same condition with themselves The conquering of the Vnited Provinces is not onely a fair step but it 's the best part of the way to the Universal Monarchy They being conquered the Spanish Netherlands will of course fall into their hands being the Key which opens the door to the Throne of that Monarchy And if you do not act vigorously with the rest of the Confederates the Most Catholick King will be enforced to take new Measures and break with you I need not use many words to make all England sensible of the sad consequence of a Spanish War 1. The seizure of all your Merchants Estates amounting in the whole to a vast sum 2. The loss of your Trade with them which of all others is the most beneficial to England and without which your Woollen draperies must lie upon your hands and half of your Weavers and Spinners c. go a begging 3. The interruption of your Levant and Plantation-trade which cannot in case of a Breach be secured by ordinary Convoys With what encouragement or safety can your Traders venture abroad when the Seas come to be infested with Ostenders Biscainers Majorcans and Minorcans Did not those very men without any help take above 1500 Ships from you in the late Spanish War when Spain was at the lowest and fought alone against England and France I could offer many other reasons but I am unwilling to be troublesome When the French King suffered the Duke of Alenson his Brother to take upon him the Title of Duke of Brabant and defence of those Countries he sent an Embassadour into Spain to excuse his Brother's going thither and signifie unto the Spanish King that which was done was done without his privity or consent The Spanish King was highly displeased with the Message and answered the Embassadour That he had rather have the French King his professed Enemy than a dissembling Friend And whether England ought not to have the same Sentiments I pray consider The French have no kindness for England but an inlaid and hereditary Malice against them When Lewis of France sent an Army into England to the assistance of the Barons there against King John their Soveraign Prince he vowed utterly to extinguish the English Nation whom he held vile unjust perfidious and never to be trusted as it was declared with much compunction by Viscount Melun a French Gentleman lying at the point of death And I can easily believe that the same Rancor doth yet run in the veins of the French I pray Sir who contrived and encouraged the Distempers of the Scots against King Charles the First was it not France And the Peace at Rippon Anno 1639. being concluded between the two Nations but much against their will did not France stir them up to break that Peace and to make a second attempt by their Arms on England Which they durst never have done if they had not received countenance and encouragement from France By their Emissaries they formed a Rebellion in England and underhand supported it and his Majesties Forces being defeated and broken France look'd on till that great King was sacrificed to the Tyranny of his worst Enemies His now most Sacred Majesty England being hang'd all with Blacks and the best of his Subjects weeping over the Kingdoms funeral for the safety of his person retired into France where he might have expected protection from so near a Relation and comfort as a distressed Prince but found none for by virtue of an execrable Treaty made with the then Usurper he was forced to forsake that Kingdom or else would have been resigned up to Cromwel For the chief Article of that Alliance was That his Majesty the Dukes of York and Gloucester with all their Relations and Friends should be expelled out of and no more admitted into the Kingdom of France If the French King had had the least trillo or touch of Honour in him he would never have yielded to such a Condition as to banish out of his Kingdom those who came to him for succour and relief in the utmost extremity that ever Princes were put to and they his nearest Relations being his Sisters Children And what could be more unbecoming so great a Prince than to make a League Offensive with him who had murdered their Father and expelled them out of their Dominions What was this but the owning of that Murder and aggravating their Oppressions instead of relieving of them Such practices as these amongst private Christians would be abominable and much more amongst any Kings not stiled the Most Christian
the News of it came to Madrid did in verbo Sacerdotis and upon all that is most sacred protest and vow to the Queen That his Master intended nothing less than what was reported of him and would not break with the King of Spain or invade his Dominions as long as he was under age These Circumstances are more surprizing than the Breach it self But the March of the French Army and the Hostility they committed agreeing so little with their Vows and Promises and the same being complained of they answered It was no Breach and that they onely came fairly and in a friendly manner to take possession of what belonged to them This War or as the French term it a Friendly possessing of their own ended by a Treaty at Aix after which contrary to the faith of that Treaty they first dismantled the strong places and holds of the County of Burgundy carried away all Munition out of the Country and notwithstanding the same Treaty at Aix they exacted great Contributions from the Dutchies of Limburg and Luxemburg and laid a new Claim to some Towns as important as any of those granted to them by the Peace and confiscated the Estates of the Subjects of the King of Spain that would not forswear their Allegiance If these Infractions and many more are not sufficient to awaken England and all Europe I know not what will Since the Treaty at Nimmeguen such have been the actings of the French Ministers such Contraventions thereof such horrid Injustice hath been committed and executed upon the Subjects of his Catholick Majesty in the Spanish Netherlands and else where notwithstanding the great Territories granted to the Most Christian King by that fatal and destructive Peace which all Europe may have time enough to repent and lament that no King in the world can in justice own or give any countenance thereunto Certainly there men act as if great sins would merit Heaven by an Antiperistasis Thus they have dealt with Spain Let us see how other Princes have fared with them We 'll begin with the Duke of Lorrain who by the Pyrenean Treaty was to be restored to his Dutchie of Lorrain with all the places and Towns which he had possessed in the Bishopricks of Metz Toul and Verdun but contrary to the Treaty the French King refused to restore it and to this day doth detain it and ordered one of his Generals to seize his person and to bring him either dead or alive as it 's the usual practice of all Usurpers to destroy those they have dispossessed and injured and it was very near being effected A new way of dealing with a Soveraign Prince not yet known in these parts of the world and which gives some hopes to Europe of seeing ere long the West governed by Bashaws as well as the East None but an Universal Monarch can pretend to a Right of displacing Princes and disposing both of their Lives and Territories And therefore nothing could deserve a higher Resentment nor a more vigorous Opposition from all the Kings and Princes of Europe The Kingdom of Poland comes next which hath lain a bleeding ever since they had a French Queen and which is at this instant in imminent danger of being conquered by the Turks through the means of the French Cabal who have called into the Kingdom the Enemy of the Christian name meerly because they could not have a King either of French Bloud or of French Interest The Duke of Newburg was not better used whom they caused to engage the greatest part of his Estate almost beyond redemption in hopes of the Polish Crown which they had promised to raise him to by the help of a strong Party they had made in that Kingdom Yet underhand contrary both to their Treaties as well with the Elector of Brandenburg as with himself and to their reiterated Promises and Vows both by word of mouth and in writing they did by their Creatures and Agents oppose the said Duke's pretension and endeavoured with all industry to have the Prince of Conde preferred before all other Competitors Nothing certainly can be a greater instance of the perfidiousness and treachery of the French Ministers and how little faith or credit is to be given to any of their Promises or Vows If there were no other instance thereof this alone were sufficient to alarm the World to be careful and advised how they put any trust in them The Emperour hath as little reason to thank them for at the very time when the Most Christian King sent his Forces to joyn with his Army against the Turks they began to settle a Correspondence with the Counts Serini Franchipani Nadasty and Toffenback from whence that so-well-known Conspiracy hath since broken out as it hath been made apparent by the Depositions and Confessions of some of the Accomplices who had been instrumental in carrying both Money and Letters from the French Ministers at Vienna All the Confusions Distempers and Wars in Hungary have been raised and continued by the Practices and Intrigues of France And they have given disturbance to all Germany by their private Treaties and Correspondencies with several Princes contrary to the Treaty at Munster To which may be added That one of the greatest Motives of bringing the Turks into Poland was the Marriage of the Empress's Sister with their King Yet it must be owned that the French seem to have repented their pernicious Intrigues and caballing in that Kingdom For when they saw the Emperour preparing in earnest to assist the Dutch in the late Wars they made against them to work him from that designe and to engage him if it had been possible not to concern himself or take part in the Quarrel they very fairly offered him to put into his hands and deliver him all the original Letters they had from their Creatures and Friends in Poland to the end both his Imperial Majesty and the King of Poland his Brother might take what course they thought fit with those Rebels A fair warning to all those that prefer French Money before their Loyalty and the true Interest of their Country Nay I doubt the Swedes their good friends have not always been pleased with them and they cannot to this day forget that about eighteen years since having made a Treaty with the French whereby they were to receive by way of gratuity or pension sixteen hundred thousand Crowns the French upon second thoughts finding their Treaty with Sweden of little use to them refused to ratifie it and sent their Monsieur de Trelon who without more words told them in short That the King his Master declared it to be void A sine Court-stile for one Prince to use to another I and a short Majestick way of rescinding all Treaties These are stupendious passages and will be no more credited by Posterity than we do what is said of King Arthur's round Table It 's needless to tell you how they have observed their Treaties with Holland for all Europe