Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	call_v	king_n	kingdom_n	2,557	5	5.7928	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35020	The general history of the Quakers containing the lives, tenents, sufferings, tryals, speeches and letters of the most eminent Quakers, both men and women : from the first rise of that sect down to this present time / being written originally in Latin by Gerard Croese ; to which is added a letter writ by George Keith ...	Croese, Gerardus, 1642-1710.; Keith, George, 1639?-1716.	1696 (1696)	Wing C6965; ESTC R31312	344,579	528

themselves call the Oath of Allegiance After the Discovery of the Gun-powder Treason formed by the Papists against King James the First and all the Royal Family and all the Peers of the Realm such a Law was made by the said King James and his Parliament to wit That for the restraining of such Papists who had much rather that the Pope should be Supream Lord of the Kingdom than the King and were easily induced to Offer such mad and abominable Sacrifices as these that are not to be named and that they might be known from other Men that as God should help him every one should Acknowledge Profess Testifie and Swear that the Pope had no Power to Depose the King or to stir up his Subjects to Rebel against him and that the same would perform all due Obedience and Fidelity towards the King and withstand all Plots and Contrivances against the Regal Authority There was moreover an Oath long since in use to this King's Predecessors called the Oath of Supremacy first begun by King Henry VIII whereby every one did Swear That the King alone was Supream Governour of this Kingdom in all things and causes whatsoever as well in Spiritual and Ecclesiastical as in Civil These Oaths from the beginning of this New Revolution being put to the Quakers by the Royallists they proposed to them when they were taken to Swear to these words positively that they might try how they stood affected towards the King But seeing they refused to Swear at all as holding it an unlawful Act and not that only of the Abjuration of the Pope and their Affection towards the King and that in the mean time they were always ready in clear and distinct words truly to Affirm in the Presence of God that they were such Persons as did abominate and loath the Pope and that Church and the Power of those Men and their Tenets as also their Pride and Treachery against Kings and that the King could fear no Danger and Inconveniency so little from any sort of Men as from them nor desire more Love Obedience and Good-will from any as towards their Lawful King and that they were ready if they proved false herein to undergo such Punishments as they who have violated their Oath after they have sworn in direct words yet this Oath was always objected against them as an inexplicable Snare wherewith to ensnare whom they were minded to catch for whether they did altogether refuse this Oath or with this same Exception that they might give their Opinion concerning it or the thing it self and spoke of their willingness to Promise Solemnly to be Faithful and did not refuse to Subscribe the same with their hands they were presently looked upon as Men either unfaithful or wavering or treacherous in their Obedience to the King and to be deprived of all the Protection and Favour that the King could give them And as a Superaddition to the rest when they to whom Tythes of the Fruits of the Earth and the like were allotted for their Labours and especially the Farmers of these Tythes were very sharp upon them for their Returns and Profits and the Quakers denyed that they ought to pay them they were very severely and hardly used every where Moreover when they were shut up in Prisons had little or no Relief from without those that served them used them for the most part as they pleased neither was there any thing whereby they might defend themselves Of which things as there are very memorable Instances and almost without Number I shall give one only Specimen of every sort and that briefly At Sherborn in Dorsetshire there were Thirty Quakers got together into an House for to Worship God in an innocent harmless manner who as if they had been a knot of Men come together for to Drink Revel Rebel and Conspire against the Government were haled out by the Townsmen Officers and School-Master of the place followed with many Swords and Clubs and entertained with Curses and Blows were carried before the Magistrate who blamed sentenced and condemned them as vile Persons bent upon Rioting and while they were met together did only contrive and rashly machinate Innovations and this they did without any Proof Judgment and Defence the Quakers at the same time however crying out that there was not one Person that could make any such thing good against them or that they met upon such an Account and urging the King's Promise in vain that while they were only met together to Celebrate their Worship to God that none should suffer any Injury because of his Religion Some of the Quakers were shut up in Dorchester Gaol from the sight of all Men and even from the common Light others of them meeting the Danger make their Appearance at the next Quarter Assizes where when nothing that had been urged against them could by any means be proved but that these Men did now appear before the Court with their Hats on this was now objected as a Crime unto them and looked upon as a certain diminution of the King's Majesty and so they were fined for their Punishment to pay great Sums of Money which when they did not forthwith pay they were all adjudged by the Court to be shut up in the same Prison of Dorchester upon Condition they should not be released from thence till such time as they had paid the said Sum. In the Town of Shrewsbury which is the head Town and finest in that County when the Quakers were at their Meeting several Soldiers break open the Doors and rush into the House and take away and hurry into Prison One and Twenty of them The Judges when they did not and could not Accuse them of having done any Villany or Wrong require them to take the Oath of Allegiance which when they refused to do the same as it were condemning themselves by this their silence as if they had been guilty of Treason they are forced to remain shut up in the same Prison Edward Noell a Country-man of Kent had taken from him of his Flock to the value of an Hundred Pounds for the Tythes of Twenty Pounds for which he had not paid the Money and when he according to his Country Rhetorick and Truth had made a noise about it and sufficiently stung the Ears and Hearts of the Tythes-men and Magistrates he was commanded away to Prison and there kept a Year and an half One Thomas Goodrey at a place in Oxfordshire called Chadlington and a Man of a good Nature and Disposition having travelled through many Parts of the Kingdom turns in to see his Friend Benjamin Staples This Man the very next Night after he came was together with his Landlord carryed away and led before the Justices they tender to them the Oath of Allegiance which when they refused to take so as that there was no way left for them to make any Defence they are led away and committed to the Common Gaol of Oxford and were shut up

wasted their Substance in Drinking Gaming and Brothel-Houses and among Thieves and Cut-Throats as if they were their Associates or alike infected with them and so being in those places enforced to Labour very hard and thereby sustain their Lives which when they endeavoured to do some of them at length being in that manner opprest with many Miseries and Calamities were freed therefrom by Death This was done in London Worcester and in other places Some of them in other places whom either the Circumstances of Life or the Clamour of many Persons did more especially expose to Envy were seized and taken out of their Beds at Midnight and carryed into Prison by reason of which Practices and seeing there was no likelihood of any end of these things the Quakers did again Present an Humble Petition to the King and did therein set forth in what Trouble and under what great Calamities they all lived and proved that from the King's Restauration to this time there were Four Thousand and Five Hundred of them imprisoned and that Fifty Six were dead through the Hardships and Difficulties they underwent But as to what effect this Petition had it will appear from hence that he who wrote it obtained from the King for his Reward a place where those Persons were imprisoned concerning whom he made his Complaint in that same Petition so that that very thing was looked upon as a Crime in that they deplored and deprecated their own Miseries But at length after that the King had found nothing by Deeds or Witnesses whereby it did appear that the Quakers were desicient in their Loyalty towards him or that they had done any thing whereby he might gather that the Crime of Rebellion was not far from their Disposition and Manners and that also the Accusation and Clamour of the People as being the most easie and lightest things vanished of their own accord and that Time had allayed the Envy of the People towards them in respect to their ways the King suffered this sting of Severity to be removed from his Heart and seeing that hitherto he had been forgetful of his Promise made to this People he now calls it to mind and so orders his Officers and other Magistrates that they should no further vex these People and set those that were imprisoned at Liberty notwithstanding which Command such was the Severity and Hardness of some of these Magistrates that though they did not reject the King's Authority openly yet they did indeed fulfil it either not in earnest or but slowly Which thing even the Gaolers in some places did not stick to maintain when they offered that they were willing to loose and free the Prisoners at last if so be they would lay down Money either of themselves or others for them to be delivered from their Imprisonment the which when they affirmed they would never do and that they would choose rather to rot there and perish and held stoutly to it and seeing that indeed some of them were so harrassed with dangerous Diseases contracted from the stench of the place that they died thereof and that the Cries and Lamentations of these Men did reach the Court and even the King's Ears while they were treated in this manner the King at length Commands all of them to be set at Liberty without any Money and Terms whatsoever In this Persecution of the Year Sixty Two the Quakers recount several Examples of their severe Usage and great Constancy of these Men. I shall only mention two Richard Payton at Duley in Worcestershire was thrown into Prison because he would not take the Oath of Allegiance all his Goods were confiscated and he himself so long to remain in that place as the King pleased Thomas Stourdey of Moorhouse a Gentleman of Cumberland was brought before a Magistrate and the Oath of Allegiance put to him which he refusing to take but at the same time affirming that he was otherwise one of them who without Swearing would obey the King more than many that had swore to him was condemned by John Lowther a Man in Authority in that County to have all his Goods confiscated and himself to perpetual Imprisonment who being thus shut up not as the rest that were afterwards set at Liberty by the King's Favour but detained till the Year Eighty Four about the end of the same ended his Miseries by Death in the same place Moreover these Men do more especially in this Year commomorate the Death of two of their chiefest Leaders who departed this Life at London as upon the score of Religion so as being a very glorious and happy Departure and Guides to Heaven and to God One of them was Hubberthorn who we have said a little before was in esteem with the King and so received into his Favour that even in him the welfare of all his Friends might seem to be safe and secured from all Molestation and Trouble this Man resided in London and on a certain day having got the People together he began to Preach which when the Lord Mayor came to know whose Name there is no need to mention the Quakers know it well enough he sent with as much immoderation of Power as he had extensiveness of Authority to fetch Hubberthorn away from that Assembly and so was brought before him who when the Man would not put off his Hat before him according to the usage of the Quakers in that regard he used him as if he had been the greatest Villain and seditious Fellow and taken openly in the greatest Wickedness beat him with his own hands haled him by the hair of the Head and threw him upon the Ground and after that Commands him to be put into Prison among Rogues and Malefactors in which place Hubberthorn obtained that Favour that a Criminal desires most of the Attorney that his Cause might be transferred to another Court and seeing there was no Cognizance taken of the Man's Religion they now bent all their Accusations against his Morosity Irreverence and Contempt of the Magistrate and required he might be severly punished for the same Hubberthorn after he had lain in this sad and doleful place two Months falls very sick and weak and in a short time after died leaving this Memorial of himself with his Friends That he had born whatever befel him with an even Mind and always ready to maintain his Religion and chose rather to die for the same than to live The other was Burroughs who also in the City of London stood firm to his Religion and died for it in Prison and whom the Quakers were wont to esteem as the Apostle of the Londoners Of him they say when a little before he had resided at Bristol that upon his departure from thence towards London he took his leave of his Friends with these words as a Presage of his approaching Destiny That now he was directing his Course for London that he might there together with his Brethren suffer for the sake of the Gospel