Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	great_a	know_v	speak_v	4,061	5	4.0748	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88428	The vindication of an injured lady written by the Lady Francesca Maria Lucretia Plunkett, one of the ladies of the privy chamber of the queen-mother of England.	Loftus, Dudley, 1619-1695.	1667 (1667)	Wing L2829A; ESTC R43695	14,965	30

THE VINDICATION OF AN Injured Lady Written by the Lady FRANCESCA MARIA LUCRETIA PLUNKETT One of the LADIES of the Privy Chamber To the QUEEN-MOTHER of England LONDON THough I shall never take delight in being reckoned amongst the Gaste papiers or Scriblers of this Age yet I am at this time enforced by a more then ordinary necessity for the defence of my innocency to make use of a known Right that Custome the practice of time hath allowed even from the date of Learning which is by a modest Answer in writing to confute the calumnies and petulant reproaches of envious Adversaries Ad exempla igitur rev●camus majorum vobis asserimus Consuetudinem Upon which ground I shall proceed to my Vindication by the Readers favour without any apprehension of fear to be taxed with a proud or self conceited singularity hoping it will not be accounted a reasonless imitation in me if I follow the example of many prudent and vertuous Ladies in a moderate defence void of passion and uncharitableness and that my Adversaries are not so incorrigible but that they may be amended with the lenitives of sober language without the help of more operative Remedies for having once cleared my self to the world I shall not so much seek their punishment as reformation and shall take less pleasure in striking them with a rod of Palms then in affording them undeserved gentleness for I shall alwayes approve of that noble Italian's judgement who saith La forza di chi vince è Cosa human ma laclemenza di chipardona è Cosa divina Though my Adversaries be of the sharpest and most clamorous sex and are like the Placentine Advocates Qui adeo ut dicitur subtili pollent ingenio ut judicibus ipsis facile tenebras offundant I would pass them by with that regardless neglect which usually stifles their contumely were not the too facil credulity of some heavy-headed persons who are apt prodigally to throw away their belief on weak suggestions greater then their subtilty but it being in this respect a necessary duty and for that no duty is more stringent to a person of innocency and generous sentiments then the defence of reputation for Qui famam negligit dicitur crudelis saith the Canonist And St. Paul the Apostle saith Expedit mihi magis mori quàm ut gloriam meam quis evacuct For these reasons premised I am resolved to clear my self beyond their opposition and the doubts of all others in the world to such as in the perusal hereof will make use of their judgement and reason and in my progress I shall not let loose the reins of reason at passions importunity though I am provoked above imagination by those women to resent their injuries done unto me at the highest rate which are greater then any others I finde within the Registry of my observation remembrance or reading to have been placed on a Lady of quality by any persons of worthy state or condition and therefore might have almost legitimated impatience But to make my entrance into this undertaking the more perspicuous I shall premise as a proper adalantado a few considerations worthy as I humbly conceive to be taken notice of First I have not heard that any one man whosoever nor any woman that is acquainted with me hath spoken any one word to my prejudice Secondly Those women who have opened their black mouths or shewed their bad teeth against me are onely those few who are noted for their meeting oftentimes at certain places to none of the best purposes as I conceive and such as either would hold up the repute of their lessined vertues or decayed beauties by crying them down in others as if they could restore irreparables in themselves by endeavouring to deprive others of them Thirdly As they do not pretend to have so much acquaintance with me as thereby to observe any thing of my deportment to justifie the character they have given of me so have they not to this day named any one person to be their informer against me Fourthly Of the many things uttered by them to my disgrace there is not any one so much as in one instance of example verified Fifthly Those women who know me not like Sorcerers who cast a mist upon the brightest morning darkly and falsly insinuate against me in doubtful terms those things which they dare not express or declare against me for ●ub aequivocationibus latens Calumnia lae●it tutissime Sixthly There is nothing that they have uttered against me in the particulars hereafter mentioned but have and will be refuted by the irrefragable testimony of those persons of credit who know me and will speak plainly without the allay of interest and with great reason in my vindication using no other arguments then such as are drawn from the chief inducements of belief Seventhly Those Ladies are not so learned nor so wise nor so noted for speaking truth as that their assertions can pretend to the dignity of Axioms Eighthly No Magistrate or Person of Honour hath given any shadow of justication or afforded the least colour of allowance to their proceedings against me but on the contrary have wondered thereat not without distast and detestation These Observations premised I am now ready to encounter my furious Adversaries in the very front of opposition with purpose to refell every of their considerable Objections whereof if any shall happen to be unanswered I desire it may be attribu●ed rather to the weakness of my memory then their strength As for some of their lesser Objections I shall omit to mention them here either out of compassion to their simplicity or of contempt of their weaknesses These Ladies in the first place with intent to justifie the rest of their succeeding injuries and to give credit to what ill reports may easily be believed on that account have publickly reported me to be a Stage-player but without any colour of proof I have read that when no proof is offered of an Objection then a simple Denial is Solution enough Yet for Answer hereunto I say that were I a Stage-player or so great a Player at Dice as some of those Ladies are or an entertainer of such as use that game I could not wonder that they should be thereby animated with hopes of impunity to endeavour prejudice to my reputation by never so notorious falshoods for I have observed within the view I have taken of the Civil Law whereunto as also unto the most eminent Professors thereof and particularly to one above the rest I do and shall alwayes bear a great respect that Aleatorum susceptoribus injuria damnumque datur impune But forasmuch as I am not so Theatrical as some of those Ladies are who frequently spend the time in the Play-house which the affairs of their houshould or the exercise of Devotion might have more reasonably and more profitably imployed elsewhere and that they fail in the very art of injuring me lawfully nor did I ever in

common sense they would not have scrued up every light and temerary suspition to the height of a violent presumption nor would they have thought that their own bare reports were to be believed on the credit of their proper Test without farther enquiry and examination they would not have concluded because I was civil to a Person of merit and civility that therefore I had submitted to unchaste embraces as if every civil friend must needs be a partner in sin or that because that Person commended the liberality of Nature and Art in bestowing on me many gifts and endowments which they wanted that therefore I was destitute of modesty and He guilty of a sinful Converse with me I give but a touch of this matter here because I have refetted it to the more secure and prudent management of my Council who will prosecute it with effect in the Archbishop's Consistory who may easily make it appear that they ought to be chastized with the sharpest Rods of Ecclesiastical Discipline for injured reputation in re gravi requires a reparation as publick as the injury is notorious In the m●an time it is well known to those who converse with me that though I be young and in the verdure of my Age I am none of those who sport themselves in the green ways of fading Pleasures but exercise my self painfully and with no small asperities in those studies which may facilitate my progress to the chief of my aims which is the Kingdom of Heaven and I have alwayes preferred the Garland of a Marital Chastity before all glittering favours which can possibly flow from the glorious circle of the brightest Imperial Diadem on Earth nay I had rather enjoy that virtue then to be crown'd with the Royal State and Imperial Command of all the Kingdoms upon Earth Nay farther I had rather were it not for the Conjugal state of life whereunto I am bound by the Ordinance of God withdraw my self into the recess of a Religious Retirement then converse with any man whosoever he be nay I had rather live chastly and innocently in the lowest and darkest dungeon of a melancholy retirement then I would consent to the least proposal of any immodest desire Lastly I had rather die a speedy death then to continue or prolong life with any disgrace which may spread it self with a diffusive stain to the least disparagement of those Illustrious Families from which I have descended or whereunto I have the Honour to be related for which reasons and for my own Vindication I have directed a legal proceeding against them for the clearing of my Reputation which though most tender will bear a Tryal before so indifferent and learned a Iudge as is the Archbishop or his Chancellour Some things I know are so tender in their own nature as if they be once fullied they are hardly capable of washing as for example Garden Envi●● which as Avicenna saith loseth its virtue in washing and therefore he saith in the words of his Latine Translation Interdictum est ab ablutione ejus lege medicina But though the Reputation of a Lady be tender in its self and requires many nice rules and instructions for its Vindication I shall with very much confidence rely on the Iudges and Advocates for the management of my Defence and the clearing of my Reputation which will neither shrink nor lose its virtue in the washing But to return from whence I have a little digressed I must needs say That if I had been guilty of some of those enormities above-mentioned it was no argument of their prudence to urge them publickly against me for if their memories had been so officious to them as to retain a representation of what they have done themselves and whereof they are guilty they would wisely have spared me for at least some of their own sakes much less doth it become them whose roofs are covered with brittle Glass to throw stones at the more solid covering of their Neighbours houses for such is the prudent Advertisement of a Spanish Proverb El que biene teiados de vidro no tire piedra● al de tu vezino Again They have not carried themselves after the manner of Christian Charity towards me nor according to the duty of their own Conscience for that would have required that they should first have spoken to me with a desire to have received satisfaction before they had published any thing against me at least without proof to my prejudice Secondly They have been uncharitable to themselves in that they have by their course of proceedings against me caught others a facil way and method of injuring themselves for as Ordinata Charitas incipit à seipsa so doth uncharitableness many times end in it self and these Ladies may be assured that as Tyrus had not long rejoyced at the misery of Ierusalem when the same misery came upon her self So this injury which they have done to me if it be not punish't in them it will as well by example as merit bring on them the like affliction which hitherto I have so sadly born hereof I know they will become sensible hereafter though their Conscience be now sealed up with slumber and obduration when the eye of their reason now dimm'd with foggy mists rising from their tumultuous and fiery passions shall behold my cleared innocency cloathed with the brightness of a greater glory foe true metal will prove the brighter for rubbing then will they wish that they had been checkt by the reins of a sober and religions restraint so as to have kept within the bounds of Truth and that they had followed a less passionate and more reasonable course against me for without peradventure when they shall be returned to their more settled thoughts they will be of another mind and heartily desire that they had never endeavoured out of undeserved malice either to mu●fle up the face of Truth in the obscurity of a black Bag or to fit things to their malicious desires and destructive designs by turning truth into lies as hitherto they have done wish a too bare-faced confidence having cast off from their front the comely veil of due modesty for such hath been their carriage hitherto towards me that if I should have represented in my actions and deportment the absolute portra●cture of Aristotle's moral ●●●tues or should I have lived in as strict a regularity as a Carthusian or could my course of life and conversation have entituled me to a Rubrick in the Kalendar or justified the painting of me with rayes yet they would have figured no better thoughts of me then they ought to have of themselves they would have censured me as extremely vitious for deflexion from and dissimilitude to virtue are the fiercest censurers of the virtuous and will draw all their actions into the worst interpretations It hath been said I know not how truly of the Belgick Inquisitours that they did confess when they met with any of the Ancients speaking otherwise