Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	great_a	king_n	nobility_n	2,707	5	9.0009	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44188	A letter to Monsieur Van. B---- de M---- at Amsterdam, written anno 1676	Holles, Denzil Holles, Baron, 1599-1680.; Beuningen, Koenraad van, 1622-1693.	1676 (1676)	Wing H2462; ESTC R803	7,531	8

overthrow the Common Doctrine in the Politicks that Money is the Sinews of War which he says is not true I think it is true as to England as well as in the Roman Common-wealth but in Holland where you have a small Territory and your Foundation is Trade Money and Industry which produceth no Martial Genius in the Natives nor permits leasure and where your Armies consist of Mercenaries which will ever be found much weaker than the Native Militia there Money may be the Sinews of War The Union of England and Scotland is a mighty Accession of strength to England for besides that Scotland was always a dangerous Back-door to England that mischief is not only removed but such a Member added as by reason of Vicinity naturally compounds one entire Body of a great Kingdom and this strength would better have appeared if it had at any time since the Union fallen under a Prince of a Martial Genius as in time to come it will fall under a Vigorous Administration But to make what I said to you above more clear that the Government of England is weak I will a little discourse of the Nature of it England then is a Government Compounded and mixt of the three Principal kinds of Government A King who is a Sovereign qualified and limited Prince and the three Estates who are the Lords Spiritual and Temporal compounding the Aristocratical part of the Government and the Commons in Parliament with an Absolute delegated power making the Democratical part the Legislative Authority is in the King and the three Estates the power of leavying Money in the Commons and the Executive power in the King but to be administred by Ministers sworn and qualified which is the Reason of those two grand Maximes in the Law of England first that the King of England is always a Minor and secondly that he can do no wrong Now the Foundation this Government was first built and stood upon was the Ballance of Lands and England being a Kingdome of Territory not of Trade it always was and ever will be true that the Ballance of Lands is the Ballance of Government and this Maxim of the Ballance is to the Politicks what the Compass is to Navigators the Circulation of Blood to Physitians Guns to an Army and Printing to Learning The Proportion this Ballance held in the Government was formerly in the King Church and Nobility above two Thirds and in the whole People not one Third So that if we divide the times of this Government into two General parts as it naturally divides it self from the Norman Conquest to the time of Henry the 7 th and from Henry the 7 th to the present time then I say in the first part of it the Strength of the Government lay in the middle or Aristocratical part as it ought to do for a King must be supported either by a Nobility or an Army and by this means the two extreams which are the King and People of which extreams a Government can never be compounded to live long were secured by the middle for the Nobility not only supported the Throne but shadowed the People from the Tyranny of the Princes And to give you a clear evidence of the truth of this both that the strength of the Government was in the Aristocratical part and that they kept the Ballance between the King and the People I need only observe that all the Civil Wars that we ever had in England in those times were ever made against the Princes by the Nobility for their encroachments upon the People and they always prevailed against them But Henry the 7 th who was a dark and suspicious Prince and an entertainer of fortune by the day rather than of any great fore-sight as my Lord Bacon observes of him observing upon his coming to the Crown how great an over-Ballance the Nobility had been to the Prince made way by Laws and other means for the Nobility to make alienations of their Lands and so in seeking to cure one mischief he procured a far greater which though it did not shew it self presently yet in short time after it began to shake the Foundations of the Throne And from this time the Lands began to come into the hands of the People and the times that followed served well to increase this beginning for Henry the 8 th dissolving Abbies and Monasteries all those Lands which were very great came by degrees into the hands of the People so that the greatest part of the Lands of the Antient Nobility and great part of the Lands of the Church were in the hands of the People who now held above two thirds of the whole Lands of England And rherefore this consequence will be clear that the strength of the Government is now in the Democratical part and to confirm this to you by example There hath been one Civil War in England since Henry the Seventh who made that War the Barons No the People made it then it is clear not anly that the People are the strongest part but that they are able to make War with the King Nobility and Church also if there should be another Civil War in England it would not only be by the People but whosoever be the beginners of it the People will prevail as far as human Reason can foresee But now least you should think the compliance of this Parliament with the King a contradiction to what hath been said I will discourse it to you before we go farther touching them This Parliament was chosen in the year 1661 and came in with a change of Government now in all changes of Government there is a violent concussion of the whole Body and the People always pass from one extream to another without being able to stay in the middle England therefore was then in a sick distempered condition now it hath recovered its just Temper and is restored to Health as strong Bodies will work out the Poyson they take by degrees Now this Parliament represented the humors and distempers of the times wherein they were chosen and consequently their Actions were violent and they did many things afterward to be repented of and no doubt had they done what they have done to a designing and Parsimonious Prince he might have taken the advantage of their Hearts to have undone England for what with that great Revenue and all those most mighty Aids they have given him he might have made so great a Bank and annexed so great a Revenue of Lands to the Crown that he might have maintained an Army over-ballanced the Nobility and have Reigned without Parliaments and so have brought England into the same condition with France but these times are over and not like to return I am without all doubt therefore that the profuseness and inadvertency of the King hath saved England from falling into destruction under this Parliament And as this Parliament represented the sickly times in which they were chosen when the Pople of England were

A Letter to Monsieur Van. B de M at Amsterdam written Anno. 1676. Dear Sir THe great Conclusion Solomon made from all those wise Reflections of his upon things under the Sun is fear God and keep his Commandments for this is the whole of Man his whole business and his whole Excellency and therefore you and I shall always agree that our first and great Duty is the Love and Service of our great Lord and the second is like unto it the Love and Service of our Country but as the circumstances of our times are these things can hardly be separated or distinguished but are included one in the other so that he which serves his Country must needs at the same time serve God Now the present Mischiefs that are upon our Country do not as to their second Causes arise meerly out of the common spring of boundless and restless ambition but an implacable malice to the Protestant Interest hath had a principal hand in the Effects Europe is now groaning under and indeed the danger is common to us both and doth not less threaten England then Holland though more remotely For the French King in growing to so great a Naval strength may be reasonably apprehended to have his Eye upon England when he shall have subjugated the Spanish Netherlands which it may be he meant when he said upon some occasion that hereafter he would bring his Men to a place where there were neither Gates nor Bars success makes Men bold as well against God as their Enemies and the Spirits of the Greatest and Wisest Men are not always so guarded but that in their Gayeties their future Intentions drop out of their Mouthes and Wicked Men do not only express their Natures in their Wicked sayings by which Men may take warning of them but they live after their Deaths in those sayings But I will at this time discourse to you a little more particularly There are but two very strong Kingdoms in Europe France and England and the Reason of their strength is that they are great in Territories and of one piece and compacted in respect of which Europe may be considered in three Parts France England and the Princes and States confederated against France which being a strength made up of many pieces and different Interests will always be found too weak to be opposed against the Uniform Force of one great Kingdom for which reason the League will come naturally so dissolve it self and fall in pieces unless England cast the Ballance whose Interest it is so to do and that roundly for Neutrality in this Case is both foolish and dangerous as being against all Reason of State and in such case he that obligeth none disobligeth all and the Conqueror will be sure to pursue his revenge against the Rival Prince I know there are three Characters in Hystory ascribed to the French the first was given to the Gauls their Predecessors by Iulius Caesar that in the beginning of a Fight they were more than Men and afterward less then Women and however it be true the present French inherit the same Genius yet by discipline which hath a wonderful force in all things we see they have brought even their Infantry for the most part to Fight well so that by their Actions they have justly acquired the Reputation of a very War like Nation The second Character is that they are a People Light Inconstant and Faithless 3. That they are of an aspiring Genius which is so much the more dangerous to Europe as the object they have ●●●t upon is great and that is no less than to Erect an Universal Monarchy in Europe a thing that can never be brought to pass yet for all the Observation we make of other Men we dayly commit the same Errors to this we may add that the Course of the present French King is full of Rapid Violence and high Ambition and Ambition will make Men wade through a World of Blood in the pursuit of vain ends yet this I must say that if two or three such Kings should immediatly succeed one another in France they would in Reason swallow Europe if at the same time one weak and Insufficient Prince should succeed another in England but the Ballance of the World is kept up not only by strong Nations joyning with the weaker against stronger than they but by an Interchangeable distribution in succession of strong and weak Princes in the same Kingdome through the promiscuous dispensation of Divine Providence which is irresistable for he must leave all his Work to the Man that shall be after him and who knows whether he shall be a Wise Man or a Fool what a Wise Man gets a Fool looses Now on the other side our Country-men who are of a middle Genius between the French and your Country-men are as warlike as any but grave plain and honest I know that our Country-men will be always ready to say that England is now as strong as ever it was and that we have always been an overmatch to France we have made Two Conquests of France one in the time of Edward the 3d. and another in the time of H. the 5 th but I answer the strength of a Kingdom is either Proper or Comparative Proper respecting their selves or Comparative respecting their Neighbors Now if it should be granted which is not true that England is now as strong as in former times yet if France which is true be three times as strong as they were formerly than England must needs be three times weaker Comparatively England being so far from holding proportion to France in its growth that is is much weaker now than it was 20 Years ago And this among other things may shew you the weakness of our Councils in sitting still while the French make themselves Masters of the Spanish Netherlands and then as to its proper strength we must come to distinguish for he that does not distinguish well can never Judge well I say then the People are strong but the Government is weak from whence this Consequence may be drawn that a People may be weak under one form of Administration and strong under another to prove which there will need no other Instance then the Regiment of these three last Kings and that of the Parliament interposed in the middle of them but this will more clearly appear to you when we come to discourse of the Government it self There is no Kingdome in Story that I remember in and about which so much Blood hath been shed as England except Sicily and the manner of the English hath always been to Fight in small Armies without regarding the Number of their Enemies who were sometimes as in the first Conquest of France abovenamed above six to one and yet the English have not oftner been brought to contend against Forreign Force then they have carried away the Victory if not in every Battle yet in the Issue of the War Therefore when Matchiavil labors to