Selected quad for the lemma: prince_n
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A48000
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A letter from a gentleman in the country to his correspondent in the city, concerning the coronation medal, distributed April 11, 1689
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Gentleman in the country.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing L1392; ESTC R21863
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3,190
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2
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A LETTER from a Gentleman in the Country to his Correspondent in the City concerning the Coronation Medal distributed April 11. 1689. SIR YOU have obliged me very much by the account you gave me of the Coronation But I have had some Remarques from another hand concerning the Truth of which I suspend my Judgment till you inform me better I shall give you the Relation in the very words as I received it There was one thing which much afflicted all true English-men because it is believed it never hapened since William the Conqueror's time which was that a King and Queen of England should make their Procession at the Coronation through a treble Rank of Armed Horse and Foot all Foreigners It grieved us all to see that for want of some Interpreters betwixt them and the Multitude which usually press upon such Occasions an infinite of the poor English even well wishers to the new King and Queen were not only rudely treated with sterne Countenances and Dutch Curses but continually pushed back with the Eut-ends of the Soldiers Musquets or the Serjeans Halbards and sometimes received broken Heads or as dangerous Bruises if they did but endeavour to get nearer I saw my self many Persons knocked and pushed upon the Breast with the Troopers Pistols and pricked with their Swords for endeavouring to couch under the Horses heads and when any one offered to get nearer through the Ranks of Horsemen where they found Protection at former Coronations by their own Country-men these rude Strangers were sure to check their Horses and make them Curvete or turn round which could not be without the hazard of breaking their Legs or Bruising those that were in the way I need not mention the Tossing and Pushing Men and Women from Place to Place and Draging them through the Kennels more like Slaves nay Doggs then Christians which made many Spectators Sigh and pitty the Condition of several Hundreds whom they saw so used Whilst others were not afraid to say what most I believe thought that this was but the beginning and a light matter in comparison of what the whole Body of the English Nation who are not now it seems to be Confided in must suffer under these new Lord-Danes before the King can be so settled in his Throne that he may safely dismiss his Foreign Force nay some they say had their Skulls broken and dy'd in the Crowd though this is endeavoured to be stifled Neither do you mention the unlucky Qualm my Correspondent tells me the King had nor the Duke of Norfolk's fall from his Horse when he Ushered in the Champion which were something Ominous The Gold Medal you sent me the true meaning of which you desire me to explain gave me and some Friends of mine no small Diversion And to deal plainly with you I think the Contriver of it hath done their Majesties little Service I need not tell you that the custom of Stamping Medals upon whose Reverses the Inaugurations Victories or great Acheivements of Princes or Generals were represented either expresly or by some Emblem is as old as the first Coynage of Money by the Grecians and Romans Nor that in the last Century and this they have been Improved and many Ingenious Devices invented suitable to the Noble Enterprises which were by those means to be perpetuated and are to be found in the Repositories of Princes or published by Luchins and others on that subject Insomuch that we find even John of Leyden after he had gotten entire possession of Munster and filled it with his Crew of Anabaptists notwithstanding his pretended Sanctity and Mortification Coyned several Medals which were indeed very Ominous to him for this Mushrum King sprung from Holland continued not above six Months before he was hung up in an Iron-Cage with some of his Complices upon the top of a Tower in Munster I might give you various Instances of Auspicious and Inaugural Medals but that I intend this only as a Letter Therefore I shall proceed to the present Medal which of what nature it will be time alone must shew yet I foresee it will give great occasion to the Maligners of our new Crowned King and Queen to pass their malicious Censures on it One of my Friends viewing the two Faces of the King and Queen said That such Conjunctions in Medals had oftentimes proved Unfortunate for he had not long since by him the Medal made for the two Dewitts which much resembled this if the Head Attire had not been different whose inhuman Buchery by the Mobilee of Amsterdam gave the very first rise to the then blooming Prince of Orange's Greatness And all the World says he knows that King Phillip and Queen Mary of England and King Henry and Queen Mary of Scotland whose Faces and Names were joyned in their Coyns and Medals were not very Fortunate But I told him since the Parliament had joyned them in the Sovereignty they could not be dis-joyned in their Coyn and I doubted not but their Fortunes would be alike good or bad When I received the Reverse I was heated into an Indignation that any person should be so indiscreet as to choose an Emblem upon such an occasion so subject to mis-interpretation as this would be For as Julius Caesar said to his Wife Calphurnia That it was not enough that she should be Innocent but that she ought to be so cautious in all her actions that she should be free even from Suspicion so ought it to be with Emblems and Medals they ought to signifie and express so clearly the Worth and Greatness of those Princes Actions which they Represent that no sinister Interpretations might be made of them And this Indignation was increased by the Reflection which a Gentleman made who first look'd upon the Reverse with me This Gentleman seeing a Chariot but not understanding the Latine Inscription and having heard the Town talk of Tullia who instigated her Husband Tarquinius to kill her Father Servius Tullius King of the Romans that he might succeed him in the Throne and as Livy says Caused her Chariot to be driven over his mangled Body cried out Is this Tullia 's Chariot This I say shock'd me and rais'd my anger against the Contriver who had chosen so ill an Emblem which upon so superficial a view brought such an odious History into Mens minds Another by-stander seeing the Figure represented Phaeton whom the Poets feign to have obtained leave of his Father Phoebus to guide his Chariot for one day and who by his want of skill to govern the Fiery Horses had like to have set the World on Fire had not Jupiter struck him dead with a Thunder-bolt Exclaimed against the Emblem as full of ill Omens and said That the People knowing that this King and Queen had not by Permission but by Violence Ascended their Fathers Throne would look upon this as his Chariot which they drive and interpreted Jupiter's Thunder-bolt as a Sign of some Judgment of God impending over our Gracious Prince for this which he called An unnatural Vsurpation This made my Cheeks and Ears to burn and I told them they were both extreamly wide of the Inventors meaning For by Phaeton he meant King James who by Mis-government had endangered the Destruction of this Kingdom and that God having Compassion on his Church and People had struck Him from His Regal Seat. But another Gentleman then present said That although he verily believed that was the Contrivers meaning yet there were so many Exceptions to the congruity of that Fable with the Cicumstances of King James's Reign that he might as well have offered the War of the Gyants against Jupiter as this to represent the Inaugural Glory of our King and Queen which ought to have been the only Subject to be considered He said that Phaeton could never represent King James since the Throne or Chariot belonged solely to Him as Hereditary Lawful King neither could it be said that He had asked any ones leave to Guide it But that all Men knew an Vsurper was the Moral of Phaeton in the Fable and an Vsurper in his Fathers Reign Moreover said he If King JAMES must be Phaeton then King William must be Jupiter that struck Him out of His Chariot or Phoebus that re-assumed it after he had been Thunder-struck and how disagreeable this was to the whole Scope of the Fable was obvious to every School-boy that read Ovid's Metamorphosis Nay he further affirmed That this Emblem seems to Presage King JAMES's Returning to His Throne again and if so it would be congruous in almost all its Curcumstances I must confess Sir I could not heartily contradict this Gentleman but wish'd the Author had either consulted Books or Men for a more significant and unexceptionable Emblem But since he has been so Unfortunate if not Malicious if you know the Person advise him to get himself included in the Act of Indempnity it being a Crime equal to the Counterfeiting the King's Coyn to contrive a Coronation Emblem that gives such occasion of Censure and Reflection to the Male-contents and Maligners of King William our present Phoebus from whom we expect a Wonderful Deliverance Sir I am Yours April the 16th 1689.