Selected quad for the lemma: war_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
war_n	great_a	king_n	scot_n	2,247	5	9.2324	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93064	The dignity of kingship asserted: in answer to Mr. Milton's Ready and easie way to establish a free Common-wealth. Proving that kingship is both in it self, and in reference to these nations, farre the most excellent government, and the returning to our former loyalty, or obedience thereto is the only way under God to restore and settle these three once flourishing, now languishing, broken, & almost ruined nations. / By G.S. a lover of loyalty. Humbly dedicated, and presented to his most Excellent Majety Charles the Second, of England; Scotland, France and Ireland, true hereditary king.	G. S., Lover of loyalty.; Searle, George, attributed name.; Sheldon, Gilbert, 1598-1677, attributed name.; Starkey, George, 1627-1665, attributed name.	1660 (1660)	Wing S3069; Thomason E1915_2; ESTC R210007	99,181	247

our present shackles and to declaim against our formerly enjoyed most happy Government of KINGSHIP And as this fag end of the English House of Commons was inconsiderable in number so was neither their quality likely to argue an excellency in what they set up beyond what we before were governed by for first the two hou●●s after the end of the warre had frequently treated with the King and also had upon a late yea their last treaty determined and concluded that his Majestys answers were so farre satisfactory as to proceed upon the settlement of the Nation This last treaty was occasioned by the Petition of the Citizens of LONDON the remonstrance of severall Ministers the addresses of many Counties with severall thousand subscriptions in concurrence with that Petition of the Londoners To this the sad distractions by a long bloudy warre did seeme not only to agree but also to inforce Well the two Houses being petitioned and addressed to remonstrances made and sent them Reason inviting Religion binding the necessity of the Nations calling for it petitions pressing in a word no other safe discreet honest way appearing treat with the King God so orders his heart that they receive if not plenary satisfaction yet so much as they vote his Majesties answers a ground on which to proceed to the settlement of the Nation The RVMP by help of the mutinous Army dismember four parts of five of their Fellow-members and unhouse all the Peers then Vote against this Vote as a breach of Trust in the Voters not considering they were the major part of the House but presupposing themselves the better part that had thus out-witted and by Force secluded the other greater But if so it is strange that the number of the RVMPERS was so long a making up and so small at last Good God! what a condition was this Nation come to that of so many who were Representors of the People so few should have the justice and magnanimity to perform such an action or approve it afterwards if it were indeed just and Magnanimous as Mr. Milton would have it The whole House of Peers although excluded by an after Vote yet they spontaneously adjourned rather than to have a hand in so base and so barbarous an Action Against which the godly Divines undauntedly protested the conscientious Citizens and Countrey-people joyntly dissented by Petitions the Scotch Nation equally concerned with the English declared and thereupon Preclaimed and Crowned their Hereditary King by Succession CHARLES the Second whom God preserve The Irish Nation not the Rebels disowned so irreligious Treason and take up Arms Where then is the Justice of abolishing Kingship The Peers have an Interest in the King to whom many of them are allyed and Kinsmen and whom he in Honour vouchsafed to call Couzins he is the Fountain of their Honour and they therefore an House of Parliament by Priviledge and Prerogative Yet they are of us our Lords and our Kinsmen by Estate and ability far above us yet bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh What Justice was there in Discarding them Mr. Milton and cheating them of the thing fought for when in their custody and possession after they had born a considerable burden of mannaging the Warre Put all the Cost together and they bore their full share and therefore of due Justice ought to have had a Voyce in disposing of his Majesty after the Warre who had reduced him to that Condition by Warre But alas The Scots had expressely declared that they would have the King to be Treated with with Freedome and Honour and the Nobles with the Commons had Resolved his Majesties Answers to be satisfactory so far as to proceed upon them to settlement of the Nation What Justice then can be pretended that one part of six if so much of the House of Commons should destroy the KING and abolish Kingship Will you say the Army would have it so Then it was so far from being just and magnanimous as it was neither but contrary to both What more unjust then for a few to carry on a bloudy Treason with perjury not only in contradiction to but exclusion of four times the number of their Fellows and the whole House of Peers equal in Power to them and their Fellows put together at least so far equal as that their Nay was a bar to any thing the others would have enacted or repealed What more sordidly cowardly then for fifty or threescore Commoners who with their Fellowes and the Lords had mannaged Seaven years War against the King and all his Forces now in complyance with a few Army Officers to betray their Trusts their Fellow-members the Priviledges of Parliament and all that is sacred honourable to murder their King break all their Oaths and Vowes only to satisfie the Exorbitant Lust of some few aspiring Army Grandees who all of them were their Servants Raised Armed Commissionated Impowered and Payd by them for other ends then to be commanded by them to act things contrary both to their Oaths and Consciences Could they who but few years before had ingaged England in a bloudy quarrel and called in the Scots to their assistance and all to defend as they pretended the Priviledges of Parliament when their lawfull KING their sworn Soveraign demanded but five of their Members to a Legal tryall upon a Just Charge which he proffered against them suffer their Servants who received their pay and had been sworn to their Obedience to secure imprison and detain forty at a time of their Fellow-members and after exclude and drive away nigh two hundred more How then did they adjourn and continue to sit in a Committee in London till that pretended and in comparison of this not imaginable Force was removed And now can they keep their seats and continue sitting Then they resolved into a Committee now they remain as an House nor remain only but act nor act alone but prescribe Qualifications to such as shall be readmitted to sit by which it is apparent that they were not compelled by force of the Soldiery to what they did although that had convinced them of pusillanimous Cowardise in stead of Magnanimity but they complotted with contrived and invented what the Rebellious Soldiery acted among whom all were not alike to be taxed for the then Generall now the Lord Fairfax was so far from contriving or countenancing that he was unsatisfied with those proceedings against his Majesty which was indeed as after appeared evidently the sole Plot of OLIVER the Copper-nosed Saint and some other Schismatical Army Officers together with a few treacherous perjur'd Commoners who forcibly secluding most of their number and the House of Lords willingly adjourning till this bloudy Tragedy might be over unlesse by God prevented and so Disavowing the Murder had the Honour to be infamous by themselves an stained with Sacred Royall Blood I grant you Mr. Milton that these Patriots as you style them did this but while they did not

own what they acted but would seem to lye under the Armyes Force when indeed they and the Rebellious part of the Army mutually complotted and contrived the whole businesse as it was after acted where was their Magnanimity If the Action was good and just and honourable why would they seem unwillingly compelled to it Why did they so oft send to the Army and demand the readmission of their Members since they did not desire nor intend it why did they pretend to desire it Was that a part of their valour and Magnanimity To pretend a fear and affrightment from unarmed Petitioning London Apprentices who seized not a person of them nor offered the least violence no nor yet menacing words not daring to oppose the insulting Soldiery if they really disliked their Actions nor yet having confidence enough to own their Actions if they did as since it appeared undenyably approve of what they did who but Mr. Milton would style this a Magnanimous Action If Perjury Treachery breach of Vowes Murther Vsurpation Oppression and Sacriledge be the demonstrations of a just action if to be chosen for the good of the Counties Cities or Burroughs choosing in a joynt not divided way with not without the House of Peers to consult with the KING not to depose and murther him and yet to do contrary to all for which they were Elected If to be returned by Indentures to advise with the King about matters of great concernment to be sworn at admission into the House to be true to the King his Heirs c. to maintain him and all his just Priviledges and to confirm this Oath by several after Oaths and Covenants and Protestations and yet to butcher the same King make Warre against and proclaim Traytor his Son expell him out of one of his Hereditary Kingdomes and wherein he was Crowned make it Treason to relieve him in Exile yea Malignity to pray for him publiquely If to make an Invasive Warre on Scotland for Crowning a King to whom and which they were bound by Oath without their consent who had murthered the Father not only without but contrary to theirs and contrary to their own re-iterated Oaths and Duty If I say all these and ten times as many the like Actions which all concur to and center in the abolishing of Kingship be just then next to the Devil the Rumpers shall have my Voyce to applaud their Justice And as for their Magnanimity let them commend it who know not or will not believe how perfidiously they wrought with their own stipendiary Servants to rebell against those from whom they derived their power and by whom payd It was the major part of the Commons and the Peers that alwayes acted empowered ordered and disposed of all things which how magnanimously the Rump could usurp to themselves we have seen having an Army at hand to back them but so cowardly they were that they durst not own themselves to have a hand in any of these Transactions but like a Puppet-player drew the Curtain of a rebellious mutinous Souldiery before the eys of the spectators though quicker sights easily at first perceived the juggle 'T wil now not be unseasonable to consider the experience which the worthy Patriots the restorers of us to Liberty had of Kingship which is no more then what themselves expressed in their Resolvs and Votes as is at large related by learned Mr Walker in his History of Independency and the same is here laid down by Mr M●lton their Champion for the ground of this their abolishing the same They had found it by long experience burdensome expensive uselesse and dangerous so also they judged the House of Peers unnecessary c. Concerning this I have spoken already and yet I must repeat the same arguments although not the same words since that maxime in oratory holds ever true Nunquam nimis dicitur quod non satis intelligitur Let us consider things then and if we want not memory we shall not want instances enough to convince as well the Rump as this their Champion that this their old discovery was but a new forgery and an expresly sinning against the light of their Conscience would any that had read the Speakers Speech to the KING made on the fifth of November 1640 at the first convention of this Parliament beleive that he then had found Kingship or Kingly Government such as the Rump since declare to the world their experience thereof nevertheless the same William Lenthal though he then protested his Judgment that the welfare of these Nations under God depended on his Majesty and his Royall issue and acknowledged with pretended gratefulnesse how under him and his Father this Kingdome had flourished yet eight years after behold and stand in admiration the same man with a perjurd tongue and double mind sits Speaker to the Rump and they pretend their long experience not only of the burthen and uselesness but the danger of Kingly Government Of Sir Henry Mildmay and both the Vanes Cornelius Holland and severall others this I may say and wrong neither them nor the truth That if ever Servants had a good Master and he in requital false wicked servants they and their murdered Master may be cited as ful and clear Examples And yet these will needs be Saints in opposition to the Apostle Paul who saith that perhaps for a good Master some servant may dare to dye never supposing or imagining there should be such desperately treacherous Servants to circumvent and Murther their Master As for the burthensomnesse of Monarchy which I presume we are to interpret concerning our own Government by Kings and more particularly of that excellently accomplished and first english royall Martyr King CHARLES How expensive I pray you how burdensome was he Could he or any other KING before him rayse monys without a Parliament As for his Family expense did ever any man before you taxe him with profusenesse Did he or could he make warre without the advise of those Nobles who were of his Privy Counsell Nay on the other hand was not his Father so farre given to peace and peace-making that he gave for his Motto Beati Pacifici and reckoned it his honor to be accounted one of that number Was not the imputation laid upon him by those who make it their business to bark at Majesty and to speak evill of dominion that he was a Coward and one who would rather choose to buy a dishonourable peace then to make and manage an honourable Warre was not he by the invitation of his allyes the Bohemian Protestants as well as those of Rochell the instigation of his Peers the addresses and incouragement of all his loving Subjects stirred up to a Warre in defence of both the Bohemians and Rochellians In prosecution of which was not his treasure exhausted and a Warre left from the Father to the Sonne to the pursuing whereof Conscience Religion and reputation bound him and yet how slack were the Parliaments for his supply

by setling the Nition into a Free Common-wealth for the attaining speedily firmly establishing and best ordering of which you give your judgement and that in some things Paradoxall but as you conceive the most necessary and best expedient to procure much good to and preventing much mischief in and managing affairs most wisely and experiencedly for the good of the Common-wealth And that is that the Grand Council of the Nation should sit perpetually of which you shew the good and conveniency on the one hand and the dammage and inconvenience of the contrary on the other hand which you illustrate by instances confirm by reasons and shew some Stumbling-blocks you would have avoyded in following your advice and Rules to be observed namely not to harbour any such fond conceit in our Republique as is the Duke in the Venetian or the Prince of Orange and House of Nassan in the Netherlandish Common-wealths Thus in order you come again to compare a Republique so contrived with Monarchy to admire the one and decry the other by shewing the Justice Freedome Plenty and Peace of the one and the difficulties uncertainties and impossibilities of the like injoyments under the other You proceed then more particularly to compare them together in their allowing or disallowing spiritual freedome or Christian liberty and herein also you give the priority to a Common-wealth concerning the promoting of which you adde some thoughts of your own concluding it an absolutely necessary thing for the obtaining or continuing Civil peace and will allow no Government so inclinable to favour and protect it as that of a Free Common-wealth but on the other hand you shew the unlikelihood that Kingship should ever give way to it as you instance in Queen Elizabeths not induring Calvinisme or the Presbyterian Reformation should be so much as proposed to her during all her Reign lest it should diminish Regall Authority Between which Queen of happy memory and our most pious Prince you make a short but scurvy scurrilous comparison impudently affirming him to be bad Principled from his Cradle trained up and governed by Popish and Spanish Councils and on such depending hitherto for subsistence From spirituall you come to Civil Freedome which consists in the Civil Rights and advancement of every person according to his merit and for the attaining of this end also you conclude a Common wealth far to excell in opposition to Kingship And for the reaping the larger benefit in this kind you propose an expedite way in your opinion By having Legall Jurisdiction without Appeal in each County providing also for such Controversies which shall happen between men of severall Counties that they may repair to the Capital City to conclude which head having vomited forth much of your filth against monarchy you close your discourse with a Patheticall Peroration to the People in which you do briefly hint and seem to wipe away what Objections may be made against a Free Common-wealth and so draw to this Conclusion That if we do return back to Kingship on that score that Jewes would have returned into Egypt for the sake of Onyons Garlick and Flesh-pots trading to wit which by our casting off Kingship hath been decayed our condition is unsound and rotten and that we are in the Road-way of all Nationall Judgements and Calamities You seem at last to fear the successe of what you have written only hope the best that though these lines should move most men no more then stones or stocks yet they may out of some of these stones raise up Children to Liberty That what you have spoken is the Language of the Good old Cause intended for the Conviction of Backsliders and if possible to give a stay or stop to our ruinous proceedings and to the general defection as you conceive of the abused and misguided multitude This Sir is a short or summary Epitomy of what I understand by reading your discourse but how far wide it comes from Truth and Reason I doubt not but before I end to make manifest and shall shew your intended Modell to be unpracticable by us if ever we expect peace and settlem●nt in these at present distracted Nations Your first stating of the Case is brief and might pass for current among such who are and have been strangers to the transactions of this Nation or whose memories are so short as not to be able to recollect how matters have been carryed on by and from the beginning of this Parliament but to others the fallacy may appear at the first reading Was it the Parliament of England that abolished Kingship and Kingly Government Where were the Lords Did they concurre in that action Certainly no for they by the same power and Authority if that can be called Authority which wants Justice to support it were abolished likewise about the same time and by the same Engagement afterwards that excluded Kingship cut off from having any share in Government And if they concurred not in that Act how can any man without impudence affirm that it was the Parliament of England that abolished Kingship Or can the Parliament of England consist without a House of Lords It is most evident that at the first sitting of this Parliament it consisted of both Lords and Commons who yet made no Parliament without him with whom they were to parly or consult and that was the King But it is not my task to discourse as a Lawyer but as an Orator intending to inquire into the truth and Reason of things and not to determine how the Case stands in point of Law Though Lords had been uselesse and unnecessary to sit as a House and assist in Government yet they were absolutely of use to the making of an English Parliament or else shew me any Parliament that ever was in England without them You confesse that the Parliament of England was assisted by a great number of faithfull Adherers to them in the defense of Religion and Civil Liberties and were not they as well the Peers as the Commons By what Power were Armies first raised Commissions granted and Moneys levyed but in the name of both Houses If the first making of Warre which judicious and conscientious men judge Rebellion but I shall wave that Enquiry nor hereafter meddle with it were for the defence of Religion c. the Lords as an House can claim as great a share in the glory of it as the House of Commons Yea if to have the honour of first kindling the fire deserve prayse One Peer with Five Commoners must share together Was not the case of Kimbolton once accounted of as high merit as that of Hoslerig and his fellow-partners And the Priviledges of Parliament equally pretended to be concerned in the defending of them all Or if the management of the Warre deserve commendation which you call the assistance of the Faithfull did not the Lords personally act as highly and adventure as far as any Commoner Or did not the faithfullest for I observe you use

to antidate our Ruine and beggery to spend all one year or two before our new found Patriots of never before heard of Liberty squeeze all out of us and get all from us Have not the Keepers of our Liberties like theevish Promethews dealt with our Liberties as he did with Pandoras Box Let fly among us only plagues and miseries and now they keep all close when there is left only hope and scarcely that in the bottome Where is there any reality of Liberty in any of our injoyments either civil or religious and yet that Oh that is pretended as a sufficient reward and price of our last bloud and expended Treasure In our Courts what unsettlement and upon every change what turning out of office whoever would not comply with the horrible villanous practises by which each interest supplanted another Look backward to the first gaining of this Nominal Freedome and you shall find many Judges discarded Sergeunts at Law layd aside Counsellours their Gownes stript over their eares Attorneys turned from the Barre Sollicitours and other attendants on the Law made uncapable of either publique imployment or preferment in a word all Officers of the Law in Civil as wel as Common courts of Judicature put out of place and by consequence cut off from all means of lively-hood upon no other ground then because their Consciences would not permit them so farre to sleight their duty of allegiance to which they were likewise engaged by a sacred and indispensable Oath as to take another league and covenant a vow and a protestation in their judgments Crosse to the former here was Liberty if ever with a plague and vengeance I doubt not but this with other things hath been the cause of the many Judgments since that poured forth and still continued upon this perjured Nation How was the Solemn League and Covenant obtruded upon all men that had any thing to be plundered of And what Liberty had they in case of refusal except we will account turning out of place of either honor or profit the Imprisonment of mens persons for a long time with barbarous cruelty during their imprisonment the violent taking away their estates by Sequestrators to be libertie No man could be permitted to crosse the Seas in almost any capacity whether of Merchant or Factor or passenger unlesse he would first swallow this potion Where then I would gladly be enformed lay our Liberty Unlesse we will confess and that God knowes and we have all felt it is the truth with Cicero Nomina rerum perdidimus jamque licentia militaris libertas appellatur We have left the true names of things since now the Souldiers petulancy is calthe Peoples Liberty And if we had such cause to complain of the beginning of these our distracted calamities when you seem to give the Army this Character that they were undeceived and in their own power with what reason may we lament and bewail the following times and changes which have been ever since And yet the peoples liberty hath been the thing cryed up Continually What think you Sir of the Engagement what agreement hath it with the Covenant And yet that must be taken or no judge must continue in office no Army Officer in Command no Minister must preach nor School-master teach School nay nor any man have the benefit of the Land either as Plaintiff or defendant And call you this Liberty Mr. Milton I confesse the tameness of our English Nation beyond any former either Antient or modern president gave the Rump liberty of perpetrating and persisting in never before heard of Villanies with as much impunity as impiety but accursed be that Liberty from the Lord which will only give a company of Villaines liberty to be as much Bloudy perjurd murderers and unjust oppressive Robbers as they please but abridge all other of former means of living unlesse they will assent to and approve of these actions or else appear so The end of all this is impoverishment of the Nation losse of Trade decay of Ingenious Arts and manufactures the ecclipsing of our former credit esteeme and reputation in the eys of our neighbouring Nations That we may truly say of England Our glory long since is departed from us How did the Rump first by secret complyance and complots animate the aspiring Commanders in the Army and then betray all their Counsel to them So that the Great Counsell of England the Glory of our Nation the foundation and fountain of our Laws having first made warre with their KING and those who stuck to him constant and faithfull were soon divided among themselves and the greater part thereof at last betrayed and turned out of doors by a small number of their own fellows who with a mutinous Army to back them assume the Supream Authority of England into their own hands and declare and act accordingly cashiering the house of Peers cutting off their KING disabling his posterity and to secure themselves in this unparelleld treason and rebellious innovation form an Engagement to be true to the Common wealth as it was then Established without a KING and House of LORDS This and these like actions and declarations you call just generous and magnanimous and such as gave hopes of a glorious rising Common wealth this you call our happily fought for and succesfully attained Liberty but I with more truth and reason know and shall justifie these actions to be rebellious perfidious and treacherous the declarations to be but heraulds for infamous perjury and discovered men made impudent by victorious successe who with faces of brass blushed not at what the Sunne could not but blush who declare their sinnes like Sodom and think Villanies because prosperous are heroick actions and noble performances What palpable prevarication is it Sir for you to give this for the happy End of the many and bloody battels and skirmishes which were fought between the two Armies of the King and Parliament Was the warre begun on such a design or wit●●hat pretence If not when came it to be the cause Mr Prynne in his historicall relation of things as they were acted in his vindication of the secluded Members cites their own votes consultations resolvs and messages to from the chief Officers of the Army and by all makes it apparent that the House of Commons were so farr from making that to be the mark shot at in their contest with the King that many daies were Elapsed before they could make up the Quorum of a House of Commons nor was the number of Rumpers to the very last greater then to argue our folly and misery and to aggravate their impudent imperiousnesse in curbing a Nation formerly so famous for valour so long a time and of our shame this is none of the least part that now hopes of our deliverance through Gods great mercy is appearing one should have so much confidence as to appear in publique and to court us not only to keep on but be in love with

preservative of that Common-wealth under God and given it so long a life But yet the Duke of that Seigniory doth not differ so much from a King whose being limited to a double voyce as things are carryed signifies as little to abridge him of Kingly Authority as the Nominal electiveness of the Emperour of Germany is a reall barre to the Austrian family Yet let the Venetian Policy thus farre speak for the excellency of King-ship That one Kingdome of Candia which is in their jurisdiction is the present irreconsileable bone between them and the Turks the one having gained the most of the Island all in a manner and having built Mosques there and made places of buryall is prohibited by his religion to yeild up the same by any treaty or for any Composition the Venetians on the contrary having no Kingdome belonging to their Jurisdiction but that will take no price to sell away the title although the defending of it costs them annually an hundred times its value whereas if they would quit it they might have both peace and a considerable price for it yet refuse it obstinately of so great esteem do they account the title of a Kingdome And to speak truth the Venetian Government is suited to their territoryes they grew up with it and were no sooner considerable but had such about them who watched all opportunityes of swallowing them up that if they were convinced of a better way of Government yet was it impossible for them to change a new Policy being like a new Garment though never so much better then the old yet will be a good while before it will fit so well and be so easy so that if they should endeavour a change could they use the Celerity of Angels in shifting out of one form into another before they could suit themselves to it or it to themselves they and their Government would be griped and wrested out of their hands and they made a prey if not to their cruell and barbarous yet at least to their ambitious Neighbours As for Hollanders if they be a Common-wealth none of the least causes is because they are fit to make nothing else being never but a limb of Monarchy yet as farr as they are capable of it have a Prince of Orange who differs little really from a King only he may be said to be Rex belluarum he hath a company of malapert swinish unruly Subjects whose revenue to which he is by the peace restored lyes part in the King of Spain his former Leige Lords territories some under the Emperor some under the French But among them and out of those Provinces only that rebelled from the King of Spain should a King live and expect his Revenue he would be a ridiculous King of boorish subjects They indeed might be rich but the King a beggerly Prince They must be then what they are perforce as a block of wood is best imployed to make Beetles to cleave other wood withall if it be so knotty that it will serve for nothing else or at least nothing better What a good Common-wealth think you Holland to be A Hotch potch of many Independent Jurisdictions joyning forces together upon necessity to keep them from being punished for their Rebellion against and abjuring their lawfull King that so they may mutually secure indemnifye and keep harmless each other among whom are to be found some few relicts of Antient Nobility which appear among and have relation to the rest as here and there a great Plum in a Niggards Plum pudding where not only the provinces are independent each on other but every Village is a distinct and I may say Supream jurisdiction of it self Only the King of Spain like a great Wolf hath dared them as a Hawk over a hedg dares the small birds and they herd together to oppose him as a herd of swine will runne together to oppose a Wolf with their young in the midst making a ring to defend themselves Some joynt Rules of Confederacie the united Provinces as they are called have made among themselves but indeed they are but as so many severall flowers pickt and made up into a Nosegay which have no tye one to another but a string about all thus they were at first united for fear of a string or halter and to this day they continue friendly to one another and to the whole world upon the same account so farre as they either get by them or cannot be without them And for the Switzers by degrees rent from neighbouring Monarchies who but he that is a Switzer born and so would not defile his own nest can commend or speak a word in commendation of their Policy so farre from being desireable that it is scarce tolerable As for the Genevah Common-wealth the constant fear they live in makes their politicall estate undesireable yet are they not altogether independent nor safe but under the wing of that Prince whom they chose for their Protector And if the Protector be more honourable then the protected then the Monarchys of France must needs be preferred before the Neithe landish Republique the protection of whom was offred to England and accepted by France The Switzers also have their Protector and so the Hamburgers the Genoeses and in a word not any without protection formally granted on one hand and accepted by the other that bears the face of a Common-wealth And the Protectour and Patron is still a Monarch and therefore of the two Monarchy is the more Noble and absolute Government Such a Common-wealth Mr. Milton as Holland is I suppose you could wish and would help to make England but there is among them something that you do not so well like and approve of that is the house of Nassau or Orange family Certainly what honour or preheminence that family hath we may say as old Tobit said to his Sonne concerning the Angells having half of what was brought back from their Journey considering the many and good services he had done It is due to him So may we say and the Dutch when time was acknowledged so much of this Princes Grand-Father he deserved all they did or could bestow on him or his posterity By his valour prowesse friends and Estate at first they rebelled prosperously and by the same afterwards they were defended from punishment of this their Rebellion safe and kept secure to save whose legally forfeited lives and fortunes if reduced he hazarded and spent his own fortunes and lost his own life while these merits of the Grand-Father were fresh in memory and the Sonne surviving the Father might be and was usefull and serviceable in the same kind what honour then too great what accounted too dear for the house of Orange though since they have with sufficient ingratitude forgot the merits of the Father Grand-father and great Grand-father and would deal with the Issue of this their deliverer as the unthankfull Sechemites did with the posterity of Jerubbaal This revolt of the

Hollanders I call it rebellion as being its proper name since it was a totall defection from and taking armes against and making warre upon their undoubted Soveraign T is true and I yeild that they had provoking Cause but whether upon this provocation and that very great they did not show much of Man in the management of this revolt I dispute not only give it the proper name of Rebellion which in all cases is not absolutely sinfull though it never will loose that its proper and unalterable denomination as the Killing of a man in never so just defence yet leaves the fact manslaughter But to return to their policy they are according to their own name by which they call themselves so farre from being a Common-wealth that in the plurall number they stile themselves the Hoghen Maghen estates of the Low-Countries one juridically not depending upon the other They were auntiently so many Lorships or in their own Language Gravescapes which being no way subordinated to or depending upon each other agreed together only in a mutuall relation of Subjection and equally owed allegiance to the King of Spain Whose minister in those parts the Duke of Alva by unparelled and scarce before heard of Tyranny and barbarous Cruelty especially labouring and endeavouring to impose upon their Consciences and to bring up amongst them the bloudy inquisition that monstrous engine of inhumanity exercised chiefly upon the score of Religion they were compelled to take up armes and rebell against their Leige King which was prosecuted on both hands with that violence that the breach was made irreparable and so they for ever cast off and solemnly abjured his authority So that now Zealand Gelderland Vtrecht Mastrecht c. are distinct Jurisdictions by themselves and independing as to Holland Yea the very great Townes of each province Juridically depend not on any other but are absolute among and within themselves and the States although they convene together it is not in the form of our English Parliament or Grand Counsell but only to advise each with other to consider and consult and thereupon to perswade yet have not the least power to Compell So that all the other provinces together cannot give one Law to Zealand or to Gelderland but the Lords of each Province may do what they will further then they can be wonne by perswasion they cannot be commanded by the rest though altogether agreeing The same may be said of Amsterdam Roterdam the Hague or any other Town whose own Lords or Heirs are Autocraticall or invested with full power of themselves nor own they any Commanding or Prohibiting or any way Coercive Power above or without themselves their own Wals bounding not only their Towns but including Supream jurisdiction from which lyes no appeal Such a passe you would have England brought to your Country is much beholding to you Sir for your goodwill I suppose you expect no posterity to leave behind you that might curse the Fathers invention should it take effect You contrive very readily to have each County to have Law and education for youth among themselves and each chief Town if not so named before dignified with the Title of a City that we may not come so farre for Law and Justice only you are troubled at Controversies which may happen between two of distinct Counties and these you would have decided at the Metropolis I suppose you intend London But because it was alwaies accounted as easy to found a New City as to form and establish a New Government it may be you have designed another Metropolis in your Windmill brain But be it as it will why may not the plaintiffe sue still in the County where the defendant lives unlesse he can by accident find him or by some device get him into and arrest him in the County in which himself dwels and what need in such case any Metropolis at all And so what needs a Grand Counsell but only Conventions to advise and Consult but what matter of enacting Lawes when every County may be within it self Supream Certainly Mr. Milton you were very inconsiderate when you wrote that ready and easy way of establishing a Free Commo●-wealth I shal not here urge the unpracticableness of these your fanatique State-whymsis but aske you presupposing them as you say easy and ready just now to be put in practise Cui bono In what shall we be bettred there by and t is like you may answer me Peruse my advice and there you will find the benefits thereof There I find you give us hopes that if we can but either Cantonize England as the Switzers or imitate the Hollanders or the Venetian avoyding the Duke of the one or the Prince of the other We shall first be free in Civill and religious things and Secondly we shall have our minds made Governours our Spirits enobled our Courages advanced and be made Valourous whereas otherwise we shall be curbed of our Liberty and have spirits sutable to our Condition base and degenerate Perhaps Sir you write experimentally While you held your obligation to your Wife which as your learned doctrine of divorce testifies was an insufferable yoak of which you could say with the Apostle Peter concerning the Law It was a Yoak which neither you nor your fore-fathers could bear During this vassalage I may imagine you likewise to be so poor spirited as to fear an Oath and to be inslaved to your Allegiance and so farre to reverence Authority as not to dare to bark at the highest thereof to wit Majesty But since you grew so wise as to throw aside your Wife because your waspish spirit could not agree with her qualities and your Crooked phantasy could not be brought to take delight in her you then grew so free that as for your religion you could take the Christian Liberty to turn a Libertine at large or in plain termes an Atheist and as for your Allegiance you found your self so free set from it that you could without remorse discharge your filth at and vomit forth your poyson against majesty then you grew so valourous that you could swear allegiance and take the oath of Soveraignty the Covenant also or Solemn League with the Vow and Protestation the Engagement also without boggling or starting and reserve Courage enough for twenty severall nay Contradictory Oaths if reformed Authority in plain tearms rebellious Vsurpers require it and hope of profit or danger of losse invite to and back it Truly Sir you are in my judgment a valiant man grown who durst not only adventure against the most learned Salmatius but had the impudent confidence to snarle and bark at the most ponderous Judicious and Matchlesse piece his Majesties ROYALL MEDITATIONS intituled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But Sir upon a serious yea a slight enquiry we shall finde no such qualities among either the Hollanders or the Switzers as to make us in love with them but we may truly say There is no King there therefore