Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	duke_n	earl_n	robert_n	3,702	5	9.0805	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36497	A discourse written by Sir George Downing, the King of Great Britain's envoy extraordinary to the states of the United Provinces vindicating his royal master from the insolencies of a scandalous libel, printed under the title of (An extract out of the register of the States General of the United Provinces, upon the memorial of Sir George Downing, envoy, &c.), and delivered by the agent De Hyde for such to several publick ministers : whereas no such resolution was ever communicated to the said envoy, nor any answer returned at all by their lordships to the said memorial : whereunto is added a relation of some former and later proceedings of the Hollanders / by a meaner hand.	Downing, George, Sir, 1623?-1684.	1672 (1672)	Wing D2108; ESTC R34994	50,712	177

years an ordinary practice which we have endeavoured in vain to reform by the ways of Justice and Treaties the World I think will now be satisfied that we have reason to look about us And no wise man will doubt that it is high time to put our selves in this Equipage on the Seas and not to suffer the Stage of Action to be taken from Us for want of Our appearance So you see the general ground upon which our Counsels stand In particular you may take notice and publish as cause requires That His Majesty by this Fleet intendeth not a rupture with any Prince or State nor to infringe any point of His Treaties but resolveth to continue and maintain that happy Peace wherewith God hath blessed His Kingdom and to which all His Actions and Negotiations have hitherto tended as by your own Instructions you may fully understand But withal considering that Peace must be maintained by the Arm of Power which only keeps down Warr by keeping up Dominion His Majesty thus provoked finds it necessary even for His own defence and safety to reassume and keep his ancient and undoubted Right in the Dominion of these Seas and to suffer no other Prince or State to encroach upon Him thereby assuming to themselves or their Admirals any Soveraign Command but to force them to perform due homage to His Admirals and Ships and to pay them acknowledgments as in former times they did He will also set open and protect the free Trade of his Subjects and Allies and give them such safe Conduct and Convoy as they shall reasonably require He will suffer no other Fleets or Men of Warr to keep any Guard upon these Seas or there to offer violence or take Prizes or Booties or to give interruption to any lawful intercourse In a word His Majesty is resolved as to do no wrong so to do Justice both to His Subjects and Friends within the limits of His Seas And this is the Real and Royal Design of this Fleet. Whitehall April 16. 1635. Your assured Friend and Servant JOHN COOK Nay farthermore you may see the Dominion of His Majesty in His Brittish Seas clearly represented asserted and fully proved by that Propriety of Title and Soveraignty of Power which the Duke of Venice exerciseth on the Adriatick Sea if you will consult Mr. Howel in his Commonwealth of Venice which by the manner of Prescription the Consent of Histories and even by the Confession of their Adversaries themselves is almost the same with his Majesties of Great Britain But his Majesty hath one Title more above all theirs which is the Title of Successive Inheritance confirmed as well by the Law of Nature as of Nations and is so much the more considerable in regard of the infinite advantages of the Profits of it as the Brittish Ocean in its latitude and circumference exceedeth the small boundaries of the Gulph of Venice Yet so it is that the Indulgence of the Kings of England to their Neighbouring-Nations especially to the Hollanders by giving them too much liberty hath encouraged them to assume a liberty to themselves and what at the first was but a License they improve into a Custom and make that Custom their Authority insomuch that some of the most busie of them have openly declar'd against the King's Propriety on the Brittish Seas Amongst these is one Hugo Grotius a Gentleman of great Ingenuity but in this particular so inclined to obey the importunities and serve the interests of his Countrey-men that he disobliged himself of the Dutch and moreover to speak the truth of his Conscience it self for if you look into his Sylvae upon the first Inauguration of King James he is pleased to express himself in these words Tria Sceptra Profundi in Magnum cojere Ducem which is that the Rights of the English Scottish and Irish Seas are united under one Scepter neither is he satisfied with this bare profession Sume animos a Rege tuo quis det jura Mari Take courage from the King who giveth Laws unto the Seas In the same Book in the contemplation of so great a Power he concludeth Finis hic est qui fine caret c. This is an End beyond an End a bound that knoweth no bound which even the Winds and the Waves must submit unto But with what Ingratitude have the Dutch answered the many Royal Favours which the Kings of England have almost perpetually conferred on them If there be no Monster greater than Ingratitude what Monsters are these men who of late are so far from acknowledging their thankfulness that like Vipers they would feed upon and consume those bowels which did afford them life and spirit We may observe that in their lowest condition which is most suitable to the name of their abode called the Low-Countreys they petitioned to the Majesty of the Queen of England whose Royal Heart and Hand being always open to those that were Distressed especially those that were her Neighbours upon the account of Religion she sent them Threescore thousand pound in the year 1572 and presently after there followed Four Regiments of Foot and after them the Warr encreasing there were sent over Col. North Col. Cotton Col. Candish and Col. Norris with other Persons of Quality who for the Honour of the English Nation made in that Warr excellent Demonstrations of their Valour and redeem'd the Dutch from the Power of those who otherwise would have brought them to a better understanding of their duties At the last the Prince of Orange being slain presently after the death of the Duke of Alanson Brother to Henry the Third of France the Queen of England sent over to them Robert Duke of Leicester with great provision both of Men and Money accompanied with divers of the Nobility and Gentry of good account and although the said Earl not long afterwards returned into England and the affairs of the Hollander were doubtful till the fatal battel at Newport yet Queen Elizabeth of ever blessed memory out of her unspeakable goodness to the Distressed and to those that suffered for Religion did as long as she lived assist the Hollanders both with Men and Moneys she gave them hope in despair gave them strength when weak and with the charity of Her Princely Hand did support them when fallen And although the Hollanders do ungratefully alledg That it was a benefit great enough for the English to assist them in Reason of State because by so doing they kept out a War from their own Countrey It is most certain that at that time the English had no cause to fear a War at all but only for their Cause and for the taking their parts for it was for their Cause that the English in the year 1571 had seized upon the sum of Six hundred thousand Ducats on the West of England being the Money designed from Spain to the Duke d'Alva for the advancement of the Spanish Interests in the Netherlands And although the Hollanders do

further alledg in their own excuse That they were so grateful as that they offered unto the Queen of England the Soveraignty of the Netherlands which she would not accept and therefore none of their fault that She obtained it not It is in reason truly answered That the Queen of England well knowing that she was in danger to draw a perpetual War on her Self and her Successors by the accepting such a Gift to which She had no right did wisely refuse their Liberality and yet for all that She continued to aid them without that chargeable obligation The Hollanders do further alledg That the Queen of England had the Cautionary Towns of the Brill and Flushing with other places delivered into her hands It is true She had so and thereby only enjoyed the benefit of being at the greater expence of Men and Money But pray take notice that most certain it is That the Hollander had no sooner made a Truce with the King of Spain and the Arch-Duke Albertus but he began presently to set the English at naught and take the Bridle out of their hands whereupon immediately ensued the bringing of English Clothes died and dressed into Holland and the adjoining Provinces without ever making the King of England or his Ambassador Leiger at the Hague acquainted therewith And to make amends for this their sawcy and insolent affront in a more high and peremptory way they demeaned themselves to King James himself For whereas the Duke of Lennox as Admiral of Scotland had by order from the Majesty of King James in the year 1616 sent one Mr. Brown to demand of the Hollanders then fishing on the Coasts of Scotland a certain ancient Duty called Size Herring they began to contest with him about it and after a long disputation they paid it as in former times it had been accustomed but not without some affronting terms That it was the last time it should be paid And it is most certain that the same Gentleman coming the year following with the same Authority and Commandment with one only Ship of His Majesty 's to demand the Duty aforesaid but by them he was denied it who as plainly as peremptorily told him That they were commanded by the States of Holland to pay it no more to the King of England Of which he took witness according to his Order from His Majesty This taking of witness did so startle them that without any more ado they pretended an Order to arrest him and so they carried him into Holland where a while he was detain'd Nay a little while after such was their insufferable abuse that when Mr. Archibald Ranthim a Scotch Gentleman and residing at Stockholm in Sweden where he sollicited for some sums of money due to the English Merchants at the same time in the same City was one Vandyke lying there as an Agent for the States of Holland who said unto some principal persons of the Swedes That they need not be so hasty in paying any moneys to the subjects of the King of England or to give them any high respect because the said Kings Promises were not to be believed nor his threatnings to be feared For which vile and insolent speeches being afterwards challenged by Mr. Ranthim he had no better excuse than to say He was drunk when he spake those words And by this means his excuse of playing the Beast did excuse him from playing the Man Now from these insolent Affronts by words let us proceed and come to what they have done by deeds more than what I have already declared in my preceding Discourse where in the first place we may observe their rude demeanour to out English Nation in the Northern Seas on the Coasts of Greenland and those parts about the fishing for Whales and the Commodity of Trayn-oyl where violently they have offered unpardonable abuses in an hostile manner driving the English away to their great loss and prejudice Their pride of heart was so high that it would not give their Reason leave to apprehend That Fishing at Sea is free for every man where it is not upon the Coast of any Countrey unto which the Dominion of the Sea belongeth by ancient Prerogative And yet all this is but inconsiderable in regard of their usage of our English in the East Indies where in open Hostility they have as fiercely set upon them as if they had been most mortal Enemies having in several Encounters slain many of our Men and sunk sundry of our Ships and when they had taken our men Prisoners they would use them in the sight of the Indians in such a contemptible and disdainful manner as if it at their own home and all places else the English in respect of them were but a sordid and slavish Nation and the Hollanders were either their Superiors and might use them at their own pleasure or the English were so spiritless or so unpowerful that they durst not be revenged but quietly must put up all the Affronts and Injuries which they received at their hands And as for the commodious and profitable Trade which the English have had in Muscovy for above these fourscore years and some other Countreys that lye upon the East and North which the Hollanders have now gotten quite out of their hands to the great grief and prejudice of several Merchants in London What shall we say seeing not long since they have been acting the same again with our English Merchants in Turkey And it is a practice so usual with them to spoil the Trade of other Nations that when they cannot find any occasion to do it they will show a nature so wretchedly barbarous that they will not stick to spoil one another And yet all this proceedeth out of an ignoble and sordid spirit for let them arrive to what wealth they will they can never be the Masters of a Noble and Generous Disposition Had it not been for their Neighbouring Nation of the English they had never arrived to the liberty of a free State yet so ingrateful have they been that they have endeavoured to forget all the Obligations of Humanity and have digged into the very bowels of those who did preserve them So many Examples of this nature may be instanced that I am forced to omit them for want of room The Perfidiousness and Ingratitude of the Hollanders to the English may be traced all along ever since they shook off their obedience to the King of Spain even unto this present time But we will pass from their Hypocrisie and Cruelty practised abroad and look on their actions at home How almost but the other day did they labour to impose upon His Majesty and Sir George Downing his Envoy Extraordinary by delivering Papers to many publick Ministers of State at the Hague as if his Majesty and his Envoy had been pre-possessed with them when they had not the least notice of any such thing How have they seemed to be most desirous of Peace when at the same