Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	henry_n	john_n	son_n	19,667	5	5.2650	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96861	Anglo-tyrannus, or the idea of a Norman monarch, represented in the paralell reignes of Henrie the Third and Charles kings of England, wherein the whole management of affairs under the Norman kings is manifested, together with the real ground, and rise of all those former, and these latter contestations between the princes, and people of this nation, upon the score of prerogative and liberty. And the impious, abusive, and delusive practises are in short discovered, by which the English have been bobbed of their freedome, and the Norman tyrannie founded and continued over them. / By G.W. of Lincolnes Inne.	Walker, George, of Lincoln's Inn.	1650 (1650)	Wing W340; Thomason E619_1; ESTC R203987	46,665	64

hath been verified in us who though we have been set up to the chinne in freedom and have had liberty bobbing at our lips yet never could we get a drop to squench our thirsts or a snap to stay our stomacks this being added to our sufferings to want in the midst of seeming abundance and as the vulgar have it to starve in a Cooks shop a trick those Lords we term absolute were never ingenuous enough to torment their slaves with Were there then no more but this we might well command those Roman and Turkish Tyrants with a Cede Majoribus to give place to ours How much of a punie did thy wish savour dull Caligula that all Rome had but one neck that thou mightest smite it off at a blow How short of art doth thy rage fall unskillfull Sultan with a Bowstring or Scymiter to snach life from an offending slave Behold and blush you who weare the title of Master Tyrants at the Norman exactnesse which hath thought it beneath a Princes anger to give sudden death a quick riddance and not worth the name of slavery unlesse he can make his vassals feel the lingring effects of his Tyranny it was not enough for us to be slaves unless we knew it lest otherwise not desiring freedom we should not have been so sensible of their power we must with Erasmus be hung between Heaven and Hell that we might see our losse as well as feel it but yet this was not enough something must be added to make their Tyranny most exquisite for we could not enjoy this condition unlesse we paid soundly for it how many Battles have been fought for a piece of Parchment to instruct us but with our miseries and how many millions granted to our Kings but to play the Hocus-pocusses and cheat us to our faces Happy and thrice happy may England call the condition of Turke Russe or Moor who depending only upon their Tyrants wils know no Law but their Commands a head now and then paies the shot there when two and twenty of the chiefest Lords heads must off at once here besides thousands of Gentlemen and Commons butchered for but acting according to those Lawes which their King and his predecessors had an hundred times sworn to grant and maintain inviolable as but to instance in the Raign of Edw. 2. omitting the innumerable carcasses of Englands noblest Sonnes which have bin so often forced to rampire in parchment liberty from the fury of other Tyrant and as their last wills to deliver a few writen Charters to their sons who were also to fight and pay for them as they did and be as much the better then too as they were For to sum up all these our so dear liberties were of no other use than to drein our purses as well as veins that when Englands generous bloud seemed encreased too to tamely suffer Norman Lords to trample on her upon this pretence it might be let out or when her Kings wanted mony they might by these lures draw subsidies to their fists and so hang them by till the next occasion but I humbly conceive that if our Ancestors had taken that course a Naturall once did when he was chosen to judg between a Cook and a Country-man and as their Kings fed them with a sight of Liberty supplied them againe with chinking of money have executed justice without respect of persons they had in all probability diverted those plagues which the crying sins of oppression and murder have brought down from Heaven upon this Nation But let us descend from Generalls and view but the Raign of Henry the third the very Idea of Tyranny and exact copie after which all other Kings have writ especially the last and we shall not only behold the map of our Ancestors miserie and folly but also perceive our own happinesse and Gods mercie in not suffering us to be deluded and baffeled as they were In the midst of the civill flames kindled between Tyranny and liberty King Iohn expiring his sonne Henry the third a child of nine years of age by the power of William Marshall Earl of Pembrook and the consent of most of the Barons ascends the Throne and here we may observe the unadvised lenitie of the English Lords who not considering what was bred in the bone would not easily out in the flesh so easily accepted of the Sonne though the Father had plaid the Tyrant and Traitor to the height giving the Crown to the Pope he would be a slave himself rather than they should not trampling upon the people yea detesting the whole Nation as his grief because Corne was so cheap when he thought he had wasted al may make out But Gods time was not come and he was pleased to set their example to guide posterity from splitting on that Rock I mean such of them who when they have eyes will make use of them But to say the truth they were Lords whom Kings knew so well to cajole or at worst set so together by the ears that they could command them into their traps at list let but one have that Earldome the other this Lordship and their turns were served others may shift for themselves if they can besides it was none of their interest to stub up Tyranny by the roots for then down had gon their branches too for they knew that when that tree was feld the Rooks nest must to ground with it but we may be silent in this and give experience leave to speak for us And yet let us but look a litttle further than the gilded and embroydered superficies and we shall perceive that these Lordlings estate was but even by so much more free and happy than the Commons by how much that King of Cypresses condition was bettered when his Iron shackles and chains were converted into silver fetters they enjoyed a little more gaudie servitude and to speak to the capacity of our Countryman were as the Fore-horses in the teame which though they weare the Feather and have the Bels about their eares yet must draw themselves as well as those that follow nay and if they did seem unwilling to lead they were sure to be lash'd by the Royall Carters till the bloud came and have their gay trappings to boot pul'd over their eares and this the wise and generous of them knew and often endeavoured to remedy but were still prevented by the envy and jealousie one of another which was created and cast in among them by their Kings as partly will appeare in the following story Henry being thus Crowned at Glocester and many great Barons daily resorting to his party moved both by the proud carriage of the Frenchmen and the confession of the Viscount Melun That Lewis had taken an Oath and all his Lords to destroy the English Nobility raiseth a great Army defeateth at Lincolne his enemies and forceth Lewis to condescend to an accord depart the Land and abjure his claim to the Crown which for two

height of his jollity he was defeated at Lews such was the wages of Pride and Rage And thus the Sunne setting at Leicester went down at Naseby upon Charls whose successe kept time with his presumption and cruelty And now Henry is pitched down at Lewes where the Barons petitioning for their liberties and desiring Peace are answered by his proclaming them Rebells and Traitors and sending his own his Brothers and Sons Letters of defiance unto them But this was too hot to hold for the Lords perceiving what they must trust to notwithstanding the great numbers of the Enemy the Banished Poictovins being returned with great forces for his aide bravely resolve to give him battel and as gallantly perform their resolutions for fighting like men for their Liberties they gain the day and take Him his Brother and his Sonne with many English and Scotch Lords prisoners This victory was received with such universall joy that when news came of the Queens having a great Army of strangers ready to set sale for England such multitudes appeared on Barham Down to resist them that it could hardly have been thought that so many men were in the Land and at this appearance of the English the forreiners vanish and are disperst being terrified to hear the English were so unanimous in the defence of their Country and its freedome Oh were we but thus united now within our selves we need never fear the combination of forreiners But these noble souls being more valiant than wary more pitifull than just upon a few feigned shews of amendment and fawning promises of not entrenching upon their liberties receive the Snake into their bosomes which will reward their kindnesse with their ruine assoon as he is able For in the Parliament assembled at London the cry of blood and oppression being stopt and smothered up Henry again is seated on the Throne upon that poore and Thread-bare satisfaction of himself and his sonne taking their Oaths to confirm the Charters and Statutes before at Oxford and those now newly made sure Mercury was ascendent at Henries nativity so potent were his starres in deluding those who had been so oft mock'd and beguil'd before when in reason we might suppose his former frequent violations and reiterated perjuries should have taught them what trust was to be given to a Kings oath in whose eye Tyrranny was so beautifull that he never dallied to make market both of soul and body so he might but purchase his desired Paramour These oaths being past in order to the performance after the royall mode the Earl of Glocester is tampred with to leave the Barons and by the artifice of those masters in the art of Division who in all times knew how to work upon the covetous ambitious and envious humours of great men drawn to desert the cause of liberty and of this we our selves have had a sad and fatall experience how many great ones were cajold by Charles at Newcastle Hol●bie and the Islle of Wight even to the great danger of our Cause nay the very House was not free as those Tuesday nights votes may and the Fridayes had informed us with a witnesse had not Providence wrought miraculously for us for it can be made out by good witnesse that there was a resolution to have dissolved the Parliament and proclamed the Army Traitors had they all met But Gold was too drossie to make Glocesters towring soul stoop and his free spirit could not be shackled with silver fetters some other Lure must be used to bring him down and now Leicester was mounted to so high a pitch in the peoples favour that Glocesters weaker wings could not reach him which whilest with an aspiring eye he gazes after his sight was so dazzled with the others motion us gave check to his pursute of the game The crafty Prince marking his advantage so works upon the weaknesse of this young Lord that by it he effects what he could not do by his own force thus Diamonds are cut by their own dust and the Champion of Englands liberty must be the man can ruine it accursed be that sorceresse envy so fatall then to Englands freedome so mischievous lately to the same whose menacing power had it not been stopp'd by the new modell had totally routed the Parliaments whole force so many Divisions of them being charged through and through and needs must that Army become a Chaos wherein Commanders consist of jarring Principles Glocester now being come to his fist away flies Edward to the Lord Mortimer notwithstanding his assurance given not to depart the Court that fable of the wise men of Gotams hedging in the cuckow hits many of our ancestors home who with oaths and promises went about to keep in their Kings when one of the Norman brood could flie over such a fence with the very shell upon his head and as the first part of that storie may be applyed to us so the second is not altogether insignificant for our Kings whom we shal alwayes find together with such as sing after them in one tune crying out disloyall dissoyall as if they could say as well as do nothing else yet a Christian may conceive such a found should make them tremble by bringing the sinnes of their fathers and their own iniquities into their remembrance did they but believe there were a God who will measure the same measure out unto them which they have meted to others and will visit the sinnes of the fathers upon the children Glocester and Edward having done the Prologue the Tragedy begins wherein the Scenes were so well laid that every actor was ready to enter and each had his part so well by heart that it is plain they had been long conning their lessons for no sooner were these two gone but the Earles Warren Pembroke with a whole shoale of Poictovins and other strangers come to land in Wales which with the scattered reliques of the battell at Lewes gathered from all parts embody in great numbers before the Lords who stood faithfull were aware of them yet they prepare for them as fast as they can but their fortune was now in the wane their pity and credulity had brought them into the snare and their lives must go for suffering him to escape whom God had delivered into their hands for to condemne the innocent and absolve the guilty are equally abominable in the sight of heaven and our ancestors to their cost have made experience of the truth of the Proverb Save a thief from the Gallows and he shall be the first will cut your throat First the Armies meet at Killingworth where the Lord Simon Montford sonne to the Earl of Leicester is defeated this bad newes meeting Leicester in Wales hastens him to repair the breach made in their fortunes and he meets the enemy near Evesham where in a bloody field fighting most valiantly he loses life and victory both and with him many more of the most noble English fall a victime to perjured

Walker To the Reader HE must rise betimes saith the proverb who will please all which may cease our wonder that the Common-wealth is so displeasant to some which hath gotten up so late yet better late than never But though some dotarts square all by antiquity supposing none so wise which are not so old and guesse at the understanding by the gray hairs which in truth are rather a badge of imperfection and the declension of nature and which came into the world at the back doore being a part of that fatall offspring begot between the Serpents craft and our first Parents disobedience I speak not this in scorn of age which I honour when found in the way of righteousnesse and truth nor in deniall of its advantage over youth by experience but to oppose that errour spred amongst many that all wisdome deceased with their Grandsires and they are onely to travell in their tracks an opinion more agreeable to a pack horse than a man endued with a rationall soul which is not to lie idle and which indeed the word of God and universall experience which even make fools wise contradicts the one infallibly declaring that in the latter dayes the Spirit of Truth shall more abundantly be poured forth into earthen vessels the other visibly informing us of the daily advantages we have above our ancestors to attain Knowledge for admit they were such G●y ants in understanding yet we poore dwarfes being upon their shoulders may see further than they but I say though some doe thus yet the sons of reason measure by another standard as knowing that if worth should be prised by antiquity the rotten would becom of more value than the ripe to such therefore do I present this Discourse who judge by reason not passion which so often makes the Crow seem white the Bells to tink as the fools do think and in confidence Reader that thy ingenuity is such that no byas of interest will wheel thee narrow and thy capacity able to draw thee from running wide of reason the only mark men in civil games should bowl at I have taken the pains to present thee with a map of Englands condition under her Monarchs wherein thou mayst view how justly Magna Charta is cast in our Governours teeths to beget a belief of their being more tyrannous than our Kings were admit it be not observed in every tittle now what are we the worse when some fresher and more apposite remedy is applyed to heal us let us consider that it was constituted under another Government and so cannot square to the present and that the makers of it were but men nay and such as had not that roome to act in as we have and so could not foresee or at best provide for all that now providence hath wrought amongst us but I shall not detain thee with a long Preface from the Book wherein an ingenuous and rationall spirit will discern that if our present Governours had been bound up to former rules we could never have attained that estate which now by Gods mercy and their prudence we enjoy and may so still if our own perversnesse hinder us not Truly that Fahle in Pliny of certain monstrous people in Africk which had one foot and that so big that they covered and shaded with it their whole body may be a perfect embleme of our Kingly Government which being at first instituted for a firm basis and prop to the body politick what by the fatall sloath and stupidity of the people and the industrious craft and activity of Monarchs was turned topsie turvie and had got so between heaven and us that it wholly deprived us of that free light and happinesse which God and nature held forth unto us and thus in stead of a support was become a burden under the weight of which the whole groaned nay was almost pressed to death but thou being a member and sound canst not but be as sensible of this as I and for dead slesh and rotten limbs corrosives and cuttings are onely proper it will be weaknesse in me therefore to doubt of the plaudit to the Common wealth so farewell till we meet in the book Anglo-Tyrannus Or the Idea of a Norman MONARCH c. FAtall and Bloody have Crowns and Scepters been in generall to all Nations in particular to this in England and that not only in regard of the strife between competitours who in pnrple gore deeply dyed their regall roabs and by the slaughtered carcasses of their Rivals and partakers ascended the Imperiall throne but in respect of the iterated contests between Prerogative and Liberty the Kings aiming at uncontrolable absolutenes the people claming their Native Freedome The verity of this assertion we may see deeply imprinted in bloody Characters throughout the whole series of English history yea so deeply that it may even create an envy in us of the Turkish happinesse and beget a wish after their bondage who though they go for absolute slaves yet cannot shew such dire effects of tyranny as we and our ancestors have felt and groaned under That policy of State impious and inhumane enough of destroying the younger Brothers of the Ottoman line though decried by us and all who write Christians yet compared with our Monarches politick arts and actings may seem to have been founded on the advice of their own and mankinds better genius to prevent the efusion of blood and deliver millions from the shambles there a few males of his own Family fall a victime to their Tyrant when whole Hecatombs can scarse appease the thirsty ambition of an English pretender ther one house suffers here none escapes as but to instance in one contest between Henry the sixth and Edward the fourth wherein was fought ten bloody battles besides all lesser scirmishes thousands of Lords Gentlemen and Commons slaine and one halfe of the Nation destroyed to set up a King to trample upon the other for in that quarrell between the Houses of Lancaster and Yorke fell 80998. persons 2. Kings 1. Prince 10. Dukes 2. Marquesses 21. Earls 2. Viscounts 27. Lords 1. Prior 1. Iudge 1 39. Knights 441. Esquiers this hath been the happiness and peace which a successive and hereditary Monarchy hath afforded England For our liberty we can indeed shew many of our Kings large and good deeds but few or none of their actions their hands alwaies having been too hard for their Seals Parchments and Charters we purchased of them with the price of Millions both in Blood and Treasure but let us but pass by their promises and view their performances and we may set aside Turkie and term England the slave and this appears in our Chronicles where though in the Theorie and System the English Government hath been limited and bounded by good and distinguishing lawes yet in the exercise and practic part of every Kings raign we shall find it deserve as bad a name as others who are called most absolute The Poets fable of Tantalus

Provision every one refusing to lend him or the King a groat so great credit had their perfidie got them Many being clapt up in prison who would not be perjured the Lords and others whose consciences were more tender both of their Oath and Liberties than to believe the Pope or trust the King assemble together in arms for defence of themselves and their liberties and first they send to the King humbly beseeching him to remember his many Oathes and promises but when that would not availe them they advance towards London where the King lay in the Tower waiting the gathering of his forces and the comming over of strangers which he expected and now the Bishops who as they were seldom in any good so would be sure to be cheif in every bad action make such a stir to prevent bloudshed forsooth of which their tendernesse hath alwaies been well enough knowne that the controversy must be referred to the French King to decide much honour got England and much liberty was like to get by such an Arbitratour while she is forced to creep to forraigners to know whether they will please to let her enjoy liberty or no after 47 years oppression under Henry besides what his good Father and Grandsiers had loaded her with But the Lords being perswaded that their Liberties and Rights depended not upon the will of any one Man refused to stand to the partiall award of the French in the English Tyrants behalfe Thus concluded this business as all others commonly did which Bishops had a foot in●● with a mischief to the Common-wealth the King gaining by it not only time for raising but a seeming justice for his using of Forces to compell the Lords to stand to the sentence by which their liberties were adjudged from them No doubt those wise and generous Barons not only disliked but disdained such an Vmpire as being sensible of the advantages Henry of the dishonour their Countrey and of the discommodity their cause would reap by him but that those Fathers in evill under the angelical shape of peace-makers necessitated them to accept of him to avoid the obloquy of being Incendiaries the involvers of their Country in a miserable civill war Let the English High Priests then to their eternall infamy carry a frontlet engraven with Mischeif to England on their foreheads who were the fatall instruments of enforcing their Country to submit her liberty to a forraigne Tyrants decision whose corrupt interest lay in adding fewell to the flames which consumed the Noblest Fabricks the uprightest and firmest pillars in the English Nation Yet that Henry might make a little better market for himselfe he Summons a Parliament at Westminster where whilst openly nothing but redressing grievances composing differences exclaiming against jealousies raised to scandalise the King good man as if he intended to leavy War against his people by factious spirits proceeds from Henry he underhand prepares for War endeavouring to divide the Barons and strengthen himself by all the plots and clandestine tricks he could at last having by sprinkling Court holy-water and promising fifty pound Lands per annum to such as would desert the Lords party drawn divers to revolt unto him he secretly withdraws from Westminster to Windsor and from thence to Oxford so on traversing the Country to patch up and peece together an Army And here we may see it was no new thing which was acted by his late successor who in al his actions made it appeare that he was a right chip of the old block Now pretences of the Barons insolencies against the King and oppressions of the Subjects Declarations of his being forced to take up arms for defence of the just Lawes and Liberties of the people and his own safety with protestations of his good intentions and divers other such knacks are every where on the wing as we have had flying up and down at the tayss of the Royall paper Kites of our times The Lords being thus left in the lurch are not wanting in preparing for defence being unanimously backt by the citizens of London who have hitherto had the honour of bravely standing for Liberty yet first they send to the King putting him in mind of his oathes and promises and desiring him to observe the great Charter and Oxford Statutes but the Drums and Trumpets make such musick in his ears that Henry will heare no talk of any Law but what his will and Sword shall give and for their good Counsell returnes them as tokens of his love the title of Rebels and Traytors which he as frankly bestows on their persons as he doth their Lands on his followers By these course Complements the Lords perceiving which way the game was like to go leave off putting their confidence in the King and trust their cause to God and their good Swords then choosing the Earls of Leicester and Glocester for their Generalls whose hands no manacle of alliance could lock from defending their Countries Liberties though the first had married the Sister the second the Neece of the King they take the Feild may Towns are taken by each party and many skirmishes passe wherein sometimes the one party sometimes the other get the better at length divers Scotch Lords and others with great forces being joyned to the King he marches against Northampton where he heard Peter Montford was assembling forces for the Barons the Town was very resolutely defended untill by the Treachery of some Monks within say some by the subtilty of the Kings Forces say others who advancing close under the Wall undermined it whilst the Captains within parlying with the King on the other side a breach was made so large that forty Horse might enter a brest by which Henry gained it by assault This Town being taken ran the same fortune Leicester lately did for Henry drunk with successe and rage like a violent Torrent swept all before him killing burning and spoiling where ever his Army came but here so unmanly was the cruelty of the Tyrant that he would have hanged all the Oxford Schollers a band of which were in the Town for their valour shewed in the brave resistance of his forces had not some of his Counsellers perswaded him from so doing for feare the only curb to an ignoble soule of exasperating their freinds against him by his cruelty many of the Schollers being young Gentlemen of good quality Here by the way we may observe the miserable effects of bad Governours in the Vniversities by whom such degeneratenesse was wrought in our youth that none in our times were found more desperate engagers against the cause of Liberty than young Schollers who heretofore were the most resolute Champions for it Let us therefore make no sinister constructions when we see our Governours diligent in purging the fountaines if we desire to have the streams run cleere But Northampton put a period to Henries fortune for although he caused the Barous to raise their siedge from Rochester yet in the

some of his late successors in defraying only the charges laid out for guilded clouts besides what must be given to set the little Dagons in their places againe and appease their and their Priests fury Thus Glocester received the reward of his base deserting Leicester being forced by his kind Master to find sureties for his good behaviour And now this Earl being brought under the yoak Henry turns against those Barons who stood out and were possest of the Isle of Elie. These he first attempts by the Legat his forlorne Hope and reserve too it seems who is beaten back with this repulse That unles the Statutes of Oxford might be observed and Hostages delivered that they might peaceably enjoy the Island untill they should perceive how the King would performe his promises they were resolved to stand it out and with the venture of their bodies seek to preserve their Souls upon which lay most sacred and solemne ties So great an incouragement was the opinion of their cause that it made them stand upright and undaunted after all these storms and so great a distrust had Henries perfidie created that his subjects durst not let him come within their swords point without Hostage given to keep him to his word and indeed this Tyrants gaine by their violations that none dare believe them but will rather fight it out to the last as expecting revengefull and treacherous usage from them This Answer to the Legat so netled Henry that he could not choose but wince and well it might for his galled conscience could not endure the mention of keeping an Oath which was a tacit exprobration of him no more than his tyrannicall humour could of the Oxford Articles which carried in them a sound of Liberty a thing he supposed he had by the sword ript out of English breasts And no doubt but it must be thought great incivility in these Barons to dare to believe their eyes before royall perjuries and great saucinesse in them to make or pretend to make more conscience of Oathes then their King for what was this other than to endeavour to appear more religious more honest more true and more just than their sacred Soveraigne Away with such precise and puritannicall fellowes there can never be a good world so long as such are suffered to goe unpunished into the High Commission Court with these Sectaries that the Legat may hamper them bring these seditious fellowes before the King and the Honorable privy Councell that they may receive the reward of their presumptuous questioning the legality of obeying King and Cardinall right or wrong nay what is more they are not contented to be slaves as others are let them be tryed for Traitours and Rebells for they have taken up Arms against the King and talke of defending their Liberties by the Sword Thus rang the peale among the flattering Courtiers and the like verdict hath been past upon us by the Royall jury men who in all things have followed these their foremen Here we may perceive then through the veile of pretended Protestantisme and Conscience the rrue rise of the Royalists assertions for the Parasiticall Papist hath done the like to whom the reformed Religion was unknown or abhorred flattery being the motive not Conscience the desire to cologue with a Tyrant not the fear of displeasing God And upon these worthy considerations Henry and his faction decree ruine to these Barons and the fate of Liberty was unable to resist their vowes for Prine Edward with a great Army quickly forces them out of their strengths in that Isle whose courage was greater than their force and their resolutions more numerous than their party thus were the last glimmerings of Freedom extinguished and the whole Land envolved in darknesse the English being left to grope in a blind obedience after the will of their Tyrannicall Master Henry by treacherie having thus triumphed over liberty He convenes a Parliament at Marlborough where in a flourish he confirms the great Charter either on purpose to make their teeth water or to quiet the grumblings on foot against his Tyranny by this act of grace which was likely to be kept now the Bugbears of prerogative those resolute Lords and Gentlemen were destroyed Now twentieths fifteenths or what ever he would demand are readily granted and glad he would be so contented and all things go as well as Henry can wish who promises to be a good Lord to them so long as they shall continue humble vassals contented slaves unto him no mumbling or talking must be of Oxford Acts which it was high treason but to think on so wise the world was now grown over those former mad Parliaments And thus after he had at least twenty times confirmed and as often violated those just decrees notwithstanding all the solemnities both civill morall and ecclesiasticall used in the acts of ratification and after all the hard strivings and wrastlings between tyranny and liberty with such bad successe to the people whose foolish credulity and sinfull pitty undid them in the seven and fiftyeth yeare of his raign Henry and Magna Charta slept together his Sonne Edward succeeding him in his Tyranny to which he was Heire as to the Crowne for he made an higher improvement of his royalty and got the domination of this State in so high and eminent manner that as one saith he seemed to be the first Conquerout after the Conquerour his little finger was heaviour than his Fathers loynes laying insupportable taxes on both Clergy and Laity even unto the halfe of their Estates the Barons and people not daring to quitch or move for removall of grievances untill at last needing a vast Summe to maintaine his Wars he Summoned a Parliament wherein he was pleased to confirme the Charters to stop their mouthes and open their purses and this he often did when his occasions urged him to it which like all other royall promisers he performed by leasure Never was Royalty more Majestick and glorious than in this Kings Raign and the people lesse able to oppose but I shall conclude his Character with what DANIEL saith of him he was more for the greatnesse of the Kingdom than the quiet of it for having been nurst up in slaughter he as it were thirsted after bloud so that never any King before or since except our last Charls shed and caused so much to be spilt in the age following within this Isle of Britaine But all that we shall observe from his Raigne is this that as it was said of the Emperour Frederick He was a good Emperour but a bad Man so the most warlike politick and temperate Princes have been the greatest Tyrants and oppressors of the people the vicious and debauched by their lewd lives and unmartiall natures giving the people more advantage and better opportunity to regain and revive the claim of their liberties which the other by oraft force and a kind of respect created by their morality kept them from needs then

must that trust of powr be dangerous to the Nation which lighting upon the most able person proves most destructive to the peoples just and native freedome Thus having briefly represented the most signall and materiall passages throughout this tedious and long reigne of Henry the third in this short Discourse where as in a perspective the Reader may not onely descry actions farre distant in time and near hand as done in our dayes but also take an exact view of the whole mannagement of affairs under the Norman Monarchie together with the real ground and rise of all those former and these latter contestations between the Kings and people of this Nation upon the score of Prerogative and liberty I shall forbear to swell into a volumne by raising unnecessary observations which I shall leave as I have done the paralell where it was plain to every eye to be spun out by each Readers fancie being assured that the most shuttleheaded adorer of our Monarchy must blush in affirming that a fine piece which it appears hath been wrought of such course threds and will onely in short set before you those Tyrannicall abusive and delusive practises by which our ancestors have been bobbed of their Freedome and the Norman Tyranny founded and continued over them William the Norman sirnamed the Bastard taking the opportunity of the Divisions among the English invades the Land and overthrows Harolds weakned much in a fight with the invading Norwegians where though he got the victory he lost the bodies of many and the hearts of most of his Souldiers by his partiall dividing of the Spoil Harold slain and William victorious he is received and crowned King by consent of the English upon taking his oath to maintain the ancient Lawes and liberties of the Nation And now being as the thought settled in the Throne he begins to play Rex in English the Tyrant spoiling the English of their estates which they were forced to purchase again of him who neverthelesse reteined a propriety in them and would have all held of himself as Landlord thus came in the slavish Tenures and the English amongst whom were no bondmen before both Nobility and Commons were made subject to the intollerable servitude of the Norman The English thus exasperated take up arms to regain their liberty and that so unanimously under the conduct of Edgar Etheling then tearmed Englands Darling and Edwin and Morchar Earls of Mercia and Northumberland that the tyrant not daring to fight them assayes to pacifie them by large promises of addressing their grievances and restoring their liberties and by the help of some Clergy men he so prevails that meeting at Berkhamsted an accord is made William taking his personall oath upon the Reliques of the Church of Saint Alhans and the holy Evangelists from thenceforth to observe inviolably the ancient Lawes especially those of Saint Edward whom the Norman wickednesse had sainted among the people so transcendent was tyranny already grown The English deceived by these specious shews lay down their arms and repair to their homes and now William having obtained his end takes his advantage and sets upon them disperst and never dreaming of any assault imprisoning killing banishing all he could lay hands on and forcing the rest to fly into Scotland overthrowing their ancient Lawes and introducing others in a strange language appropriating the old Forests and making new ones by depopulating the Countrey and pulling down Churches Abbies and Houses for thirty miles together and yet prohibiting the people the liberty of hunting upon great penalties the ancicient priviledge and delight of the English thus by treachery and perjury cheating the English of their liberties whom by force he could not bring under his yoke he laid the foundation upon which his Successours have erected the stately trophies of Tyranny amongst us But the English being of a generous and free nature were so impatient of the yoke that upon all opportunities they did endeavour to break it whereupon our Kings were forced still to make use of other props to uphold their tottering edifice which perjury alone was too rotten to sustain and by the Pope Prelates and Lords working upon the credulous superstitious and unstable vulgar did even to admiration shore up their Babel to the confusion of liberty 1. The Pope was the chief Hobgob in in those dark times that scared the people out of their wits for through the superstitious ignorance of men he had usurped the power of God this Iugler with the counterfeit thunder of his Excommunications and curses which his Bulls upon all occasions bellowed forth against the assertors of Liberty and with the pretended omnipotency of his dispensations with the oathes of the Tyrant so amazed the people that he not onely domineered himself but like the Lord Paramount for great Fines let the Land out to be harrowed and the inhabitants to be handled like villains and slaves to his Royall and well beloved sonnes indeed he was a dear father to most of them our immediate Landlords 2. The proud Prelates the Imps of that great Diabolo of Rome were many of them strangers and all of them the Creatures of the Popes and Kings who would choose none but such as were fit for their designs by their good wills and with their ill wills could out any that should thwart them and so either regarded not our sufferings or were bound to augment them to please their Patrons as well as to pamper themselves who being Diocesan Monarchs were no foes to Arbitrary power that themselves might tyrannize ad libitum over their Sees And no doubt but Kings were so crafty as to perswade them No King no Bishop heretofore to heighten their zeal to the Royall cause as Prelats of late have stiffened them with No Bishop no King in obstinacy for Prelacy yet these later have been Prophets against their wils at their fall who in their jollity had little or no will to be Preachers and were so effectuall in their doctrine that they confirmed their calling to be jure divino though Scripture was never so clear against it in the Royall conscience to whom a Crown and Scepter must appear most sacred And now the Father and Sonnes the Pope and Prelates profit requiring it what could there be imagined but that it must be stamp'd with a divine right alas it was easie with them to take sacred from an Oath and confer it upon the perjured Violater they had their holy oyle sent from Heaven by an Angel to Thomas Becket that Metropolitan Saint and Martyr of Canterbury with which Kings were anointed and divers other holy devices to make them sacred not to be touched by prophane Civill Lawes or questioned by any but men in holy orders who being ghostly Fathers might lash curse depose and devote to the Knife Sword c. notwithstanding Sacred and Majesty and holy Vnction and all the rest Emperours or Kings if stubborn or encroaching upon the usurpations of Holy Church For you