Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	edward_n	john_n	richard_n	2,631	5	8.3591	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A08939	The case of shipmony briefly discoursed, according to the grounds of law, policie, and conscience and most humbly presented to the censure and correction of the High Court of Parliament, Nov. 3. 1640.	Parker, Henry, 1604-1652.	1640 (1640)	STC 19216; ESTC S114002	21,342	52

that of all kinds of government Monarchicall is the worst when the Scepter is wielded by an unjust and unskillfull Prince though it be the best when such Princes as are not seduceable a thing most rate reigne it will be great discretion in us not to desert our right in those Lawes which regulate and confine Monarchie meerly out of Law-presumption if we must presume well of our Princes to what purpose are Lawes made and if Lawes are frustrate and absurd where in doe we differ in condition from the most abject of all bond-slaves There is no Tyranny more abhorred than that which hath a controlling power over all Law and knowes no bounds but its owne will if this be not the utmost of Tyranny the Turks are not more servile than we are and if this be Tyranny this invention of ship-money makes us as servile as the Turks We must of necessity admit that our Princes are not to be mis-led and then our Lawes are needlesse or that they may be misse-led and then our Lawes are uselesse For if they will listen to ill councell they may bee mooved to pretend danger causlesly and by this pretence defeate all our lawes and liberties and those being defeated what doth the English holde but at the Kings meere discretion wherein doth the excell the Captives condition if wee shall examine why the Mahometan slaues are more miserably treated then the Germans or why the French Pesants are so beggerly wretched and bestially used more then the Hollanders or why the people of Millaine Naples Sicily are more oppressed trampled upon and inthralled then the Natives of Spayne there is no other reason will appeare but that they are subject to more immoderate power and have lesse benefit of law to releeve them In nature there is no reason why the meanest wretches should not enjoy freedome and demand justice in as ample measure as those whom law hath provided for or why Lords which are above law should bee more cruell then those which are more conditionate yet wee see it is a fatal kind of necessity onely incident to immoderate power that it must bee immoderately used and certainly this was well knowne to our incestors or else they would not have purchased their charters of freedome with so great an expence of blood as they did and have endured so much so many yeeres rather then to bee betrayd to immoderate power and prerogative let us therefore not bee too carelesse of that which they were so jealous of but let us look narrowly into the true consequence of this ship-scot whatsoever the face of it appeare to bee It is vaine to stop twenty leakes in a ship and then to leave one open or to make lawes for the restraynt of loyalty all other wayes that it may not overflow the estates of the comminalty at pleasure and yet to leave one great breach for its irruption All our Kings hitherto have beene so circumscribed by law that they could not command the goods of their subjects at pleasure without common consent but now if the King be but perswaded to pretend danger hee is uncontroleable Master of all wee have one datum est intelligi shal make our English Statutes like the politicke hedge of Go●e●ham and no better I doe not say that this King will falsifie it is enough that wee all and all that wee have are at his discretion if hee will falsifie though vast power bee not abused yet it is a great mischiefe that it may and therefore vast power it selfe is justly odious for divers reasons First because it may fall into the hands of ill disposed Princes such as were K. Iohn Henry the third Edward the second Richard the second These all in their times made England miserable and certainely had their power beene more unconsineable they had made it more miserable The alterations of times doe not depend upon the alteration of the people but of Princes when Princes are good it fares wel with the people when bad ill Princes often vary but the people is alwaies the same in all ages an● capable of smal or no variations If Princes would endure to heare this trueth it would bee profitable for them for flatterers alwaies rayse jealousies against the people but the trueth is the people as the sea have no turbulent motion of their owne if Princes like the windes doe not raise them into rage Secondly vast power if it finde not bad Princes it often makes Princes bad It hath often charged Princes as it did Nero from good to bad from bad to worse but Vespasian is the onely noted man which by the Empire was in melius mutatus daily experience teaches this Dangelt in England within 20. yeares increased unto a four-fold proportion Subsidies were in former times seldome granted and few at a time now Parliaments are helde by some to be of no other use then to grant them The Fox in Esop observed that of all the Beasts which had gone to visite the Lyon few of their foot-steps were to be seene retrorsum they were all printed adversum And we find at this day that it is farre more easie for a King to gaine undue things from the people then it is for the people to re-gaine its due from a King This King hath larger Dominions and hath raigned yet fewer years and enjoyed qu●●ter times then Queene Elizabeth And yet his taxations hath beene farre greater and his Exploits lesse honourable and the yet people is still helde in more jealousie To deny Shippe-mony which sweeps all is ●eld and accounted a rejection of naturall Allegiance I speake not this to render odious the Kings blessed government God forbid I hold him one of the mildest and most gracious of our Kings And I instance in him the rather that we may see what a bewitching thing flattery is when it touches uppon this string of unlimitable power if this ambition and desire of vast power were not the most naturall and forcible of all sinnes Angels in Heaven and man in Paradize had not falne by it but since it is Princes themselves ought to be the more cautious and cautilous of it Thirdly vast power if it neither find nor make bad Princes yet it makes the good governement of good Princes the lesse pleasing and the lesse effectuall for the common and publicke good And therefore it is a rule both in Law and Policy and Nature Non recurrendum est ad extraordinaria in jis quae fieri possunt perordinaria All extraordinary aides are horrid to the people but most especially such as the Ship-scot is whereby all liberty is over-throwne and all Law subjected unto the Kings meer discretion Queene Elizabeth in eighty eight was victorious without this Taxation and I am fully perswaded she was therefore Victorious the rather because she used it not Her Arte was to account her subjects hearts as her unfailing Exchequer and to purchase them by doing legall just things and this Arte never failed nor