Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	king_n	land_n	scotland_n	4,504	5	8.4214	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88171	A defensive declaration of Lieut. Col. John Lilburn, against the unjust sentence of his banishment, by the late Parliament of England; directed in an epistle from his house in Bridges in Flanders, May 14. 1653. (Dutch or new still, or the 4 of may 1653. English or old stile) to his Excellency the Lord General Cromwell, and the rest of the officers of his Army, commonly sitting in White-hall in councel, managing the present affairs of England, &c. Unto which is annexed, an additional appendix directed from the said Leut. Col. John Lilburn, to his Excellency and his officers, occasioned by his present imprisonment in Newgate; and some groundless scandals, for being an agent of the present King, cast upon him by some great persons at White-hall, upon the delivery of his third address (to the councel of State, by his wife and several other of his friends) dated from his captivity in Newgate the 20 of June 1653.	Lilburne, John, 1614?-1657.	1653 (1653)	Wing L2098; Thomason E702_2; ESTC R202747	17,494	20

will not undertake to be Judge in the case your self in the second place although Sir Arthur be a great man and a Parliament-man besides and also a great Military Officer under you and none of those for whom I am ingaged against him in any of those capacities or qualifications yet to shew and fully hold out to your honor our own honest just and peaceable intentions I say in the second place on the behalfe of my said friends in reference to the said Colliery I offer this that if your Lordship please to ingage Sir Arthur Haslerig to make a finall and fair end of it without too much heat and contest that if he please to chuse two Parliament men or two Officers of the Army out of those of either sort which he leaves we will chuse two more and bind our selves finally in the said bonds of twenty thousand pounds to stand and abide their finall Judgment in the case and therein absolutely to acquiesce provided that in regard they being an even number there might be two and two in opinion opposite to each other that therefore in such things as they shall not fully agree in his Lordship should be finall Umpire which profer his honor highly commended for so much ingenuity that he was highly taken with it and promised effectually to speak to Sir Arthur about it which yet produced no other healing effect in the least but my banishment Which being upon such hard and cruell terms as is before truly expressed and my life beyond the Seas in a constant and perpetuall hazzard and danger and that principally by Mr. Scots means Sir Arthur Haslerig 's indeared and bosome friend who by his large pentioned Agents and particularly by that notorious convicted perjured rogue Capt. Wendy Oxford whom I have too much cause confidently to believe he got set in the Pillory and banished out of design to go over with me and put him in the more disguise the more securely to get me murdered in our travells together who I am able to prove hath ever since been in a constant pentioned correspondency with the said M. Scot and the said Oxfords wife or whore as she is commonly reputed hath constantly and commonly once a moneth past and repast betwixt the said Oxford and Mr. Scot on purpose to plot and contrive as I have too apparent cause to judge my murder ruine and destruction the said perjured rogue Oxford having constantly and apparently ever since my banishment made it his work in Holland first by discourses and printed papers with his name to them to make the people of Holland believe my banishment was but a counterfeit a jugling and dissembling fictious thing out of design that so I might be the more serviceable to the General or my brother Traytors at Westminster as in his printed books he calls me and them that so the people in Holland might beat my brains out as a rogue and one of the Generalls or Parliaments chief Spies 2. By his discourses and printed papers he hath constantly made it his work to incense the whole Body of the Kings Party beyond the Seas against me constantly averring that I have been the only principall man that imbroyled the three Nations in war that murdered the King and altered the Government into a Commonwealth and have destroyed the King his Queen and Posterity with the Nobility and Gentry by means of which my life hath been in a constant and perpetuall danger to be taken from me especially by the rasher and madder sort of the Kings Party To counterbalance these two destructive evills and mischiefes against me and my life I have had no other way under God to preserve my life but these two wayes First by discourses and print beyond the Seas to make it evident and apparent to the people there that my banishment was a reall thing and no fiction in the least and that I was so far from being a Spy for the Generall that I had grounded cause to look upon him as the capitallest Adversary I had in the whole world because as my information told me before I left England that by one of his own Favorites who was then constantly at his elbow that notwithstanding all the fore-recited fair out-side carriage my banishment was divers daies before it was declared by Parliament agreed on by the Generall himselfe and a cabal of Parliament-men in the Generalls own private Chamber And secondly an information before my wife by some that sate in the House and heard and diligently observed the whole carriage of my banishment told me that the Generall upon that Tuesday that I was called to the Bar to hear their sentence read to me being the very day that my honest and faithfull Citizen friends delivered their Petition to the Parliament against the injustice of their own banishing Votes appeared openly in the House as the grand and principall man that caused me to be banished in all which regards and considerations I was then of opinion and yet am not fully altered that I had just cause to write and speak as evill of the Generall as my tongue or pen could invent and I confesse I did it and do appeal to all unbyassed men amongst your selves what lesse the godliest meekest and moderatest amongst you would have done all circumstances considered had you been in my most desperate and sad condition daily and hourly incompassed round with the plotted and contrived designs of murder and death by the pentioned Agents of the Secretary of State Mr. Scot who was great in favour even with the Generalls Excellency himself The second main thing that I had under God in reason honestly or policy to preserve my life was in all the just and honest ways I could to fall into a friendly familiarity with the rationallest and principallest of the Kings Party that lived in the parts where I lived and accordingly I did and was very familiar with the Lord Percy the Lord Hopton the Lord Culp●pper the Bishop of London Derry a wise and shrewd blunt man and the Duke of Buckingh●m with all of whom or the highest ranting Cavalier I met with upon all occasions of discourse whatsoever I alwayes maintained my own principalls that at the first I ingaged with in the Parliaments quarrel against the late King viz. unlimited Regall Prerogative and Parliaments unknown unfathomable priviledges and with whom or any other of the Kings Party either directly or indirectly I never in the least I speak it as in the presence of the Lord God Almighty that knows the secretest thoughts of the hears of the sons of men in all my daies from the beginning of the war to this hour entered into the least contract agreement oath or confederacy to be his Agent or to advance his ends or interests and am as totally ignorant as a young child of the particulars of any present designs of his negotiated in England Scotland or Ireland and never in all my daies held any Counsells with them or any of them for the mannaging of the Kings designs against the interest and welfare of the Land of

my Nativity and in all my actions and carriages beyond the Seas in my cruell banishment I have been to the utmost of my power understanding ability as constant as studious and industrious a reall well-wisher to the prosperity of the people of England in generall as ever I was in my life and I appeal to a late published Letter of mine to Col Henry Martin as a part of my justification in this averment And as for George Lord Duke of Buckingham with whom I was the most conversant I was again and again importuned by the said Captain Wendy Oxford thereunto our first meeting or seeing one anothers faces being at the said Captain Wendy Oxfords Chamber in Amsterdam where we all three dined together and the Duke and my self had a very large and private discourse about his own particular individuall businesse he craving my best advise how he might the most rationall expeditious and honorable way he could make his peace in England and returne thither to breath in the Ayre of the Land of his Nativity which ne avowed he loved above all places in the world and was ready and willing to do any thing that the present power in England could require of a man that had either a grain of honor or honesty in him and to give them any security to the utmost of his power for his future quiet and peaceable living under their Government for the accomplishment of which end I gave him many reasons to believe that his onely way was to make a sure and firm friend to his Excellency the Lord General Cromwel in order unto which I advised him to deale with Captain Wendy Oxford who was a Mercenary fellow and whom I gave him abundance of reasons to believe was very great with Mr. Thomas Scot Secretary of State who I confidently then averred to him was extraordinary great with his Excellency the Lord Generall Cromwel and accordingly the said Duke of Buckingham followed my advise and large instructions in that particular and entered into a contract with the said Oxford to obtain his passe who to my certain knowledge negotiated it both by Letter to his said wife or commonly reputed Whore with Mr. Scot for divers weeks and moneths together and the said Mr. Scot sent over to the said Oxford a Passe at the said Oxfords earnest desire to come from Holland to England to speak with him the said Mr. Scot about the said business which Pass as I was told by a Merchant that in Oxfords hand see it the said Oxford was possessor of but it being accidentally seen in Oxfords hands by some Cavaliers who were drinking hard and ranting it with the said Oxford he judged it his safety and policy immediately to tear and burn it and immediately to fall a cursing and swearing at the Parliament and Army and to call them Rogues Traytors and Villains and to with all the plagues of Heaven and earth to fall upon them for their destruction and damnation And which said Oxford received several sums of money of the said Duke of Buckingham to negotiate his business with the said Mr. Sco● to procure his Pass to come into England and as I have been credibly informed from Col. Leighton then belonging to the Duke of Buckingham and then fully privy to all the said negotiations the said Oxford with Mr. Scot brought his desired Pass to that perfection that if he the said Duke would truly declare all the discourse he had with me at Amsterdam he should have his Pass but the Duke having at our very first meeting ingaged his word and honour to me that his and my discourse together should not be divulged without my consent and according to my instructions refused to tell Mr. Scot the same and so failed of his then obtaining his Pass and thereupon sent his friend Col. Leighton with a Letter and full instructions immediately to his Excellency the Lord General Cromwel to procure his extraordinary much desired Pass and the said Col. Leighton had with his Excellency and the then counsel of State many debates about it as the said Col. fully and particularly at his coming into Flanders told me at Ostend and Bridges the place of my then habitation and this business and the debating from time to time of the honest and just ways and means how to procure the said desired Pass for the said Duke was the true and reall ground of the Duke of Buckinghams and my many converses together ever since our first knowledge each of other unto whom I must most truly and faithfully say this That I do as immediately and instrumently owe my life and being to him as ever David ought his to Jonathan his powerful influence among the desperate Cavaliers being such as that instrumentally under God he principally preserved my life from those many complotted designes that the said Oxford had cunningly laid by their hands to get me murdered and of whom and in his real commendations whether it be gain or loss unto me I am in gratitude compelled to say this That during the time of my banishment I was more really obliged and beholden to him the said Duke of Buckingham for those extraordinary benefits and favours I have received from him then I am to my Father my Brother and all the Kindred and friends I have in the three Nations in England Scotland and Ireland and in whom I have by long experience found so much reason sobriety civility honour and conscience that as to his owne particular if ever it should lye in my power to do him any personal service without detriment to my native country which I am confident he would never desire of me I judge my self bound and obliged in conscience and gratitude to travel in his errand a thousand and a thousand miles upon my feet and if he wanted security and mine might any waies be advantagious unto him in case he should ever live to injoy that which he to me scores of times passionately hath declared to be esteemed by him so great a happiness once again to be admitted to breath in English aire I durst be bound body for body for his punctual and faithful performance of any solemn ingagement he should make for his future and peaceable quiet and obedient living under the present power of England Most noble Lord and honored Gentlemen I am the more bold to be thus large in these particulars with you because being compelled by my own necessities Sir Arthur Haselridge having actually seized all my land and the apparent hazard of death Oxford having in his third or last printed book declared he hath two more to come speedily out against me in which he sufficiently threatens to make it too hot for me to hide my head in any hole in Europe And my wives most urgent importunity grounded as she said to me upon some incouragement she apprehended

from his excellency the Lord Generall Cromwell I say being necessitated and incouraged by the foresaid declared premises to return into England and to cast my life at your feet and favour by reason of the unconscionable letter of an unjust injurious and many waies void Act of Parliament in it selfe And in the sincerity of my soul since my compelled returne have made to his Excellency and the honorable Councell of State upon 14 16 and 20 of June present three humble rationall submissive and moderate petitions unto all or any of which I can yet obtaine no other answer but my commitment to Newgate in order to a triall for my life upon the said illegall and unjust Act of Parliament and serverall averments from Major Generall Desborough and Major Generall Harrison unto divers of my Friends as severall of them inform me that the Councel of State hath letters and papers under my own hand of my ingagement to the present King of Scots to come over to be his Agent and to imbroile the Nation again in blood and that all the Duke of Buckingham's familiarity and mine hath been only in order thereunto with divers other things of the like mischievous nature and that which is worse some of my said Friends that were down at White-hall with my last Petition aver to me that Major Generall Harrison with much incensed bitterness should aver to them that there was no credit to be given to any of my averments to the contrary of what he said against me because he had found me so false that he could not trust any thing I said and others of my Friends aver to me that they have been certainly informed that Major Generall Harrison in open Parliament since the debate of my banishment was afoot avowed in the open House that I was a most false perjured fellow in all which consideration and forasmuch as the wisest of men in Scripture aver to this purpose that a good name is much more precious then much sweet oil and more to be valued then much fine gold and to me is much more dearer then my life in all which consideration I say I am compelled in all humility to take my life at this present time visibly into my hand and humbly to declare unto you that being lately prest upon those very things by one supposed very powerfull with his excellency about my ingaging with the King of Scots and having solemnly declared to him I never was guilty of any the least ingagement with him or any of his party to promote his Regall interest against the wel are of the present declared Common-wealth of England and being desired and prest by him I solemnly swore it upon the Bible and am ready with the last drop of my heart-blood to make it good against any man in the whole world being confident that no man having but one grain of common honesty hath any ground in the least to swear such a thing against me as confederacy with the present King or any for him to be his present agent in England nor dare do it unless it be some of Mr. Scots most deboist Cavaliers or other wicked Agents and Pensioners that he constantly imployes to set and lay traps and gins to betray and destroy men as in some cases I can punctually prove he hath already done even to the taking away the very lives of some the generality of which for a Whore or a Glass of Wine makes no conscience at all with most bitter oathes to dam themselves to the pit of hell he having already to one of them profered to settle upon him and his heirs for ever 200 l. land of inheritance by the year to swear against me at Guild-hall to take away my life there as the party himself hath confessed to me and hath also in effect done the same to a Col. that within this very few dayes tells me that at law upon his oath he will be ready to justifie it And as for my information of Major General Harrisons averment against me in the open House of being perjured my condition at persent with all the sobriety I can compels me to say no more to him but this That I very well know Sir Arthur Haselridge at the Parliaments Committee where Primates business was examined indeavored by false Oaths and no otherwise to prove such a thing against me and old and honest Master George Gray but could not nor did in the least legally or effectually do it although we fully proved there his principallest witness or witnesses to be fully perjured or forsworn one or more of them having sworn in effect That old-Master George Gray and my Uncle George Lilburne had robbed by Committee force Master Wray Sir Arthurs Champion of his deeds and evidences divers yeers ago and yet Master Breaton confessed at the then Bar and that upon his Oath as I remember that not many weeks before that he had the said Master Wrays Deeds and evidences in his possession and perused them And as to my being perjured I do hereby provoke Major General Harison with all the earnestness in the world to prefer a Bill of indictment in any Court of Law in England to convict me of that notorious crime and I will readily and willingly answer him or else if he please to aver before two or three of my friends the same thing that so at the Bar of Justice they may be my witnesses I shall not be long if I live to seek my legal remedy against him for scandalizing me knowing in my own conscience my self so innocent of any the least thing like perjury that I dare with confidence and deliberation spit in the face of the stoutest single man in England that dare to my face solemnly aver such a thing but being my most earnest desire is with good words hearty unfe●gned ingagements of living peaceably and quietly without the least disturbance to the present government rather then by high language in the least if it be posfable to provoke though I hartily thanke and bless God for it it is no more dreadful to me at present to dy then to go sleep I therefore intreat your Lordship and honours as you are men of honour and conscence suffer not my good name behind my back to be rent and torn in peeces with notorious lyes and falshoods but what you in any kind lay to my charge about the King of Scots speedily send me a true copy of it and without the least demurer to the jurisdiction of the place from whence it comes I will speedily and freely return you a particular answer to every head of it Or else 2. Be pleased to prevaile with Major General Desborough his Excellencies brother in law and one I believe for his wisdome and parts he very much confides in and one I have in times past been most intimately familiar with and never had any particular grand disgust with in my life that I can remember to vouchsafe to come and spend a few hours time with me and I am confident I shall face to face give him full rational and just satisfaction in every particular that he is able to object against me that so if it be possible a quiet and peaceable composure may be made of your present distaste against me there being nothing I seriously profess it from my very heart that his Excellency in Reason and Justice can desire at my hands but he shall absolutely command it So humbly craving your pardon for my tediousness herein and my transgression if you judge it any for my printing hereof being so much for the perservation of my own life reputation and safety compelled thereto being already beyond the Seas in several Nations and Languages constrained for the preservation of my life in my banishment to print the first part of it being my first address to you So I humbly take leave to subscribe my self My Lord and Noble Gentlmen Yours to serve you if you please John Lilburne From my captivity in Newgate this 22. of June 1653. FINIS