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	leave_v	scotland_n	2,554	5	8.3618	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A79847	A letter from a true and lawfull member of Parliament, and one faithfully engaged with it, from the beginning of the war to the end. To one of the lords of his highness councell, upon occasion of the last declaration, shewing the reasons of their proceedings for securing the peace of the Commonwealth, published on the 31th of October 1655.	Clarendon, Edward Hyde, Earl of, 1609-1674.	1656 (1656)	Wing C4424; Thomason E884_2; ESTC R207305	35,184	70

in that Court and who dare no more look a Monarch in the face than they dare justify what they have done at the day of Judgment there is not one man in credit with you nor of command in any of your Armies by Sea or Land nay whom you have not eminently affronted disobliged and and oppressed except he hath such a relation of blood as may render him unsuspected And can you think these men friends to your present Government and consequently can they but thinke themselves involved in this Declaration and designed to maintain those additionall forces which are or must be raised to defend you from those of whom you see reason that the people should be afraid Your next Government was entirely by the Armie which as if it had not fought to suppresse all exorbitancy of power but to possess it self of it and was now sufficiently qualified to do all that others had or would have done before laid Taxes and impositions upon the Kingdom repeated over all the ill things which had been complained of before in most intolerable and insupportable degrees and improved the confusion to that height that there was no shadow or formality of Justice left and that dist●action in Gods worship that there were more Religions than Regiments and all practised with equall licence and animosity against each other when on the suddain the Generall of the Army if he can be called a Generall whose Commission was determined by the determination of that Body that granted it the Parliament takes upon him to assemble another number of people every man chosen by himself and that Councell of Officers of the Army who were constituted by himself and making their appearance before him called them a Parliament called himself their servant and besought them to repaire those breaches and ruines of the Commonwealth which their wisedom could only do most of them being men of no parts no experience no quality no interest in the Kingdom serving only to render the venerable name of Parliament ridiculous by their frivolous and impertinent consultations without doing any sober act in order to the healing the wounds of the Commonwealth as their Predecessors had made it odious by taking upon them so unlimited a power to vex and grieve and devour their Brethren And when these had brought themselves into a sufficient reproach and disestimation of the people and yet could not be enough united amongst themselves to serve the Generalls turn part of them went to him confessed themselves too weak to sustain the great burthen he had laid upon their shoulders and desired him to take the power again which he he had so graciously conferred on them and that he would take upon himself the ordering and repairing the Commonwealth which they had not wisedom to do The other part that had a better opinion of their own abilities and believed they might find some proper remedies for the publique grievances were according to the late method turned out of doors by the Souldiers that they might no more continue those unprofitable Consultations And so by these few Bankrupts repaying the small money he had lent them the Generall takes Livery and Seisin of the whole Treasure of the Kingdom and thinks this a sufficient delegation of the power and interest of the Nation into his hands of which he makes use within few dayes after and with a suddain and unexpected solemnitie the Lord Major of London the Judges and the Keepers of the great Seal being summoned to attend without knowing any part of the busines upon the advice and by the consent of half a score of his friends who were like to look that he should receive no hurt He degrades himself from the Office of Generall and unlimited power thereof as he sayes and is contented under the stile of Protector of the three Kingdomes of England Scotland and Ireland to be restrained within the limits he had prepared for himself laid aside his Excellency to be his Highness and contented himself with all the Crown Lands which were left unsold and a limited power as he called it extending farther than ever King pretended to and this was the rise and progresse of your present Government to which you expect such an obedience as must produce a reall change of all our Principles and interest and if we are but thought to have evill intentions towards this Government we must be at the charge of the Armies raised to secure it That which disposed the mindes of the people to abstaine from a present Protestation against this Government besides the Agony of the late confusions and the astonishment upon the new wonderfull alteration was that it was but temporary and that limited to a very short time A free Parliament was to be called within so many moneths which was entirely to consider and settle the Government of the Kingdom to remove all those obstructions which hinder the Peace and happiness of the Nation and to restore it to that tranquillity and quiet it had been so long deprived of And the Protector was sworn to a due observation of all those Articles which he had himself prescribed for his own rules and bounds and therefore the more hope that he would be contented to be limited by them It cannot be denied that the Kingdom chose many worthy persons of fortune interest and experience as their Deputies to provide for the publique security who entred upon a free disquisition of the state the Kingdom was in according to the very Method prescribed by the Instrument of Government and to enquire by what means and title so vaste and transcendent a power was gotten into the hands of one man so contrary to what had been before determined many men professing that if after so much blood spilt and calamities undergone by the people to free them from Monarchique Government it should be now found most agreeable to the Nature and temper of the Nation to return to the same forme of subjection there could be little doubt it would be much better to restore it to the Royall Person to whom by the line of succession the unquestionable Right was derived and whose being possessed of it would in a moment restore the whole Nation to a full and entire Peace from whose unblemished youth and gratious disposition as much of happiness might be expected as had been enjoyed in any former Kings Raign than by continuing it in the hands of an Usurper who had violated so many Oaths and Protestations already and had ascended to this pitch only by the most bare-faced breach of severall trusts that ever Christian or Gentleman was guilty of to expose the Kingdom to a warre that could have no end but in the ruine and desolation of it These grave necessary and important debates were no sooner entred into than in contempt of all Privileges of Parliament which will not allow matters in debate to be taken notice of the Protector like a King Nam impune quaelibet facere id

power how exerorbitant soever that we thought only related to them You know the wise answer given to him that asked what City he believed to be best governed Solon said That City where such as receive no wrong do as earnestly defend others to whom wrong is offered as if the wrong and injury had been offered to themselves And that Generall was worthily extolled qui aliquid esse crederet in hostem nefas Our too little circumspection and tenderness of that hath brought the Case to be our own If the Royall party will change their interest that is keepe their old Monarchicall Principles and apply them to the support of your interest they shall be received entertained and preferred by you you have manifested it enough to them by trusting none more than those who have done so They are onely in danger of whom you are afraid in respect of their conversation of their intentions towards the present Government and of their interest not to submit to that Government which you say is established and they believe or know to be but usurped And we shall the better finde who they are and make some discoverie of the number of them and consequently of the danger that is threatned from them if we take a short view of the Government by what degrees and by what Authority it is imposed upon us and how far the severall interests of those who have at least equally with your selves opposed the common Enemy are secured and provided for and we shall thereby the more easily judge how far we are obliged in conscience or discretion to submit to it of whom you are most like to be afraid and so who are most probably in the end to be charged with the maintenance of those forces which you will finde necessarie to secure that Government and your feares that it will not be secure What is become of the Parliament and the Parliament partie that first undertook that war and pursued it till they were without an eneny is too melancholick a question to expect an answer to You cannot take it ill that I say this is not the Government we then undertook and engaged to preserve and defend and you will give me leave to observe that there is not one officer in all your Armies that in the beginning of that warre was above the degree of a Captaine so far are you from being the People who bore the heat of the day or who deprived the enemy of of their armes Nor is there one person amongst you who had then interest or reputation enough to engage ten men in the quarrell nor is one of those who had in any credit now with you or trusted in any part of your Government So that you may reasonably conclude that as they cannot hold themselves obliged to submit to it so much lesse engaged to support it and consequently amongst that number of which you have reason to be afraid After you had by bringing your Army to London and imprisoning the major part of the Commons and dissolving the House of Peeres extinguished Kingly Government erected your selves into a Commonwealth and insteed of one set up as many Kings as you had left members of your Parliament all who were uncontrolable and above the reach of Justice and exercised what kinde of Power and Tyrannie they pleased upon their fellow subjects The people were universally engaged to maintain and defend that Government of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England All Princes and forraigne States taught to make their addresses to it Warre and Peace declared by it The Keepers of the Great Seal of England the Judges and Ministers of Justice appointed in the same manner and the whole Administration of Justice throughout the Kingdome was in the name of the Keepers of the Liberty of England The Army professed it self entirely at the obedience of the Parliament and absolutely to be disposed by it and well it might do so there being so many Officers of the Army Members of Parliament that they had reason to believe all Commands would be suitable to their own desires if they desired no more than what they hitherto professed the support of that Government which not onely every person who had the least trust share or benefit in it had sworn to defend but whosoever sued for favour or Justice from it were bound to subscribe to In this manner all things were ordered Ireland reduced to perfect obedience and our enemies there to perfect slavery Scotland as your own Poet sayes was preferred by Conquest to serve us So that we were not only without any visible Enemy and so sufficiently revenged of our friends that they could be of use to none but our selves The Parliament now thought it high time that they who were in truth the Conquerors the People at whose charge alone the warre had been carried on should receive some benefit from their Conquests That when they had no enemy at all they need not have so great an Army and therefore they betook themselves to councels of good husbandry and to thinke of preferring them who had taken so much paines in their service to ease and plenty to give those Estates to them which they had taken from others and by these gratuities to disband some part of their Army But that was a Jurisdiction you never intended they should exercise you were well enough contented that they should have the Soveraigne power to raise money for the payment of the Armies but when they presumed to speak of disbanding those Armies you wisely remembred how insecure you should be without those forces which had raised you to the height you were at you remembred how many former orders you had disobeyed how you had triumphed over the long Robe and the Priviledges of Parliament and albeit Acts of Prdon and Oblivion had been passed for your Indemnity you concluded if the Government should once fall into those peaceable hands they would find ways enough to avoid the observance of any promises they had been cōpelled to make against their wills and hereupon for the good of the people you resolved to take the Government into your own hands and according to the advice given by the Servants of the King of Syria Take the Kings away every man out of his place and put Captains in their roomes You brought armed men into the house of Parliament forced the Members with many opprobrious speeches to leave their places locked up the doors that there might be no more resort thither and appointed a select number of the Officers of the Army to provide for all that King or Parliament used to do and here was an end of your Commonwealth which Government all were so solemnly engaged to defend nor is there any person who adheres to the Principles of a Commonwealth in any trust or esteeme with you Nay it is very observable and notorious that of all that select number which helped you to be free from Monarchy by sitting

extreamly zealous for and jealous of their liberty that they onely acknowledged one God to be Lord and Master of all things and had rather themselves with their dearest children and kinsfolk endure the most greivous and bitter torments that could be imagined than call any mortal man their Lord And this is the antientest Record I think can be produced for those Friends of yours who have lifted you up to the height you are now at though it is plain your selves are retired enough from those inconvenient scruples Be what other Nation you will how far you are from being the English Nation or that part of it which is tender of and like to advance its Interests must appear in the further examination of the Principles of your Declaration Since you would have it believed that no part of the English Nation can be concerned in or hurt by this destroying Act but onely the Royal Party you should so clearly have set down the guilt of those you punish and the rules by which you punish that no innocent man could have thought himself involved in the one or in the reach of the other it had been to be wished that since you take upon you to execute Justice and Judgement for the Nation you had according to the good old Custome alwayes observed in those Judicatories plainly set out the known Laws of the Land by which such and such Actions are declared to be Crimes and by which those Crimes are to be punished in that degree it being no more in the Judges power to exceed the punishment prescribed than to declare that to be a Crime which no Law hath declared to be so whereas without quoting one judged Case in Law or citing one Statute for your ground or mentioning one precedent to justifie your manner of proceeding you wrap up your discourse in Metaphysical notions and conclude by deductions from the Law and Light of Nature and from the dictates of Reason a Reason so abstracted from practice and so difficult to be understood that we may well apprehend that we shall hereafter be concluded guilty and condemned before we are accused or able to accuse our selves and therefore it is not out of kindness to them that we now endeavour to state the true Case of the Royal Party the Crime they are charged with in this Declaration the Judgement that is inflicted upon them and the Grounds of that Judgement that we may from thence be able to conclude how far we are from their case and consequently how secure we are from being liable to their punishments The Case then of the Royal Party is this After a War waged for some years between the King and the Parliament after several great Successes on the Parliaments side the Kings Armies and Garrisons are reduced to those streights that they thought fit to make Conditions They do not confess that they owe their admission to compound for their Estates or the moderation that was used in it to that excess of good nature you reproach them with in your Declaration But they say it was upon a full Contract between the Parliament and them and upon Articles of surrender on their part of those places of strength which remained then in their possession the which together with their acquiescence from further opposing us we of the Parliaments party they say then thought a valuable consideration for any Concessions we then made to them and that they had the Publick Faith of the Parliament for the punctual and exact performance of the Articles on our part That by our thus treating with them and their compounding with us we raised a vast sum of money for the support of our Armies without which we had been in many streights and if they had not totally declined any further thoughts of opposing us amongst so many discontents which then raged in the Parliament the Army and amongst the Scots it is not probable that we should have carried all before us with so little resistance as we did so that the advantage we got by their Compounding was not small or inconsiderable That we were so far from requiring them to change their Principles other than their no further assisting the King in a War against the Parliament the which himself at the same time declined and betook himself to Treaties that there was a special provision in all Articles against any such pressure That we of the Parliaments party were so far from urging them to wave their Allegiance to the King that we professed the same with them in all our Professions Declarations and Protestations and that the Crime we accused them of and obliged them to compound for was for their offences against the King and Parliament and therefore the Pardon drawn by order of Parliament was granted to them in the Kings name and passed under the Great Seal of England so that they were and are by that according to the Fundamental Laws of England which are the onely security every Subject hath for the enjoying his property and his liberty free and absolved from all manner of Offences committed before the Grant of that Pardon and by it put into as full a possession of their Estates and all the Rights of a Subject of England as they before enjoyed and if they have committed no offence since that time against the Laws of the Land they are and ought to be accounted in the same condition with us and not in any degree to be troubled for more than what they have done since And this is in truth the state of the Royal Party without strengthening it by any consideration of the Act of Grace and Oblivion which was afterwards granted to them Whether those Articles have been so punctually performed as you say whether that Court which was purposely erected to do them Justice in that particular was erected soon enough and before they were broken with intollerable oppression or whether that Court hath since executed Justice so effectually on their behalf as you declare I leave to themselves to make manifest being in truth as I said before no otherwise concerned for them than as the equal administration of Justice to all sorts of people is and must be the foundation of peace and happiness to any Commonwealth according to the Ordinance of God himself He that ruleth over men must be just ruling in the fear of God Where there is not exact and precise Justice there can be no fear of God pretend what you will and you cannot but have heard that very many learned and pious men have attributed the ill success which the Christians received in the several attempts which have been made with so vast a consumpsion of men and treasure in the Holy Land to that perfidious breach of faith made by the Christians after the first taking of Jerusalem in the year 1098. when after Mercy proclaimed to all that would lay down Arms it was concluded necessary for their defence upon the rumour or apprehension of

the approach of a new Enemy and the number of the Captives being very great to put all the Turks to the Sword which was performed accordingly without favour to age or sex three dayes after their promise made to the infinite reproach of Christian Religion though as my Author sayes some slew them with the same zeal that Saul slew the Gibeonites and thought it unfit that those goats should live in the sheeps pasture But the noble Tancred was highly displeased at it and knew that Christianity abhorred any such violation of Contract and expected the miserable success that attended it And it may be that unjust proceeding might be one of the reasons that moved our Robert of Normandy to refuse that Crown which was then offered him and afterwards conferred on Godfrey of Bulloigne We have set down the state and security they were in by that Agreement and Pardon let us in the next place examin how they become Reprobate fallen from that state of Grace and what the Crimes are which you now object to them Before you opening the Design you prepare us to be content with very slender Evidence by telling us that Conspirators are a sly and secret generation of men whose walks are ever in the dark and the measure of all their feet cannot be exactly taken and compared Truly if they walk so much in the dark that they cannot be found out to be tryed they ought not to be found out to be executed yet in the very Preliminaries to the Conspiracy you charge them with matters as evident and manifestable in their nature as any part of a Conspiracy can be That persons were sent from hence to Charles Stuart with Letters of Credit and a considerable sum of money That a select number of persons were chosen by the name of a Sealed Knot who were to reside about London and to keep and maintain correspondence with those of their party beyond Sea both which are particulars if true as easy to be made appear to be as levying of War or any other act of outrage You have Ordinances severe enough against those who send money to Charles Stuart or those who correspond with them produce the persons make good the Charge and we shall not thinke our selves in danger by your sentence upon them but if you will infer that because he is not starved abroad he is supported from hence and that all who do not wish you your hearts desire conspire to promote his interest we must not consent to such consequences in which we are no lesse involved than they You speake of one Fitz-James who went from hence to the late Kings eldest son then at Paris to promote some designe of Assassination of particular persons of a Conjunction between him and John Gerard of Major Henshaws going to Paris concerning the same designe and that Charles Stuart refused to see him but relyed on Gerard and Fitz-James to whom he gave precise directions that they should not make their attempt till all his friends were ready in England Then you say there was one Boswell and also one Pierce and severall other persons imployed at other times for those Assassinations and had laid the place and manner of execution and the meanes whereby to attempt it All the particulars whereof you say would be too large to set down as it would the severall gratious Providences of God in the disappointing of them Truly if this short Recollection of such important particulars be only to put you in minde in your devotions to acknowledge to that Providence those signall deliverances you may be as reserved in the discovery as you please but if you desire to engage us in the belief that such attempts have been reall and in a detestation of the Abettors of them you ought to enlarge your selves in the relation and to publish such evidence as may satisfy the world that your deliverances have been more than from your owne imaginations What the other persons are you mention I meet with no body that knows and for Fitz-James I hear all those of the Royall party who upon the publishing this Declaration have occasion enough to speake of him say that they alwayes looked upon him as a Spy of yours and not of their party and you may remember when you and I were once walking in James's Parke and he passing by I asked you who he was you told me that you hoped by the meanes of that Gentleman that Dunkirke would be shortly put into your hands it being then in the hands of the French and that he was newly returned from thence with some assurance to that purpose how he came so soone after to be so dangerous an Enemy to you and so much trusted by your enemies I cannot imagine and had need to be made manifest by some authentique testimony You proceede in hudling up another Designe of working upon discontented humors which are observed to be stirring in the Nation upon pretences of liberty and the Rights of the free-borne people of England which were supposed to be infringed by keeping up an Army and by enforcing taxes from them and by not calling free equall Representatives chosen by all the people and then you accuse John Wildeman and some others of the like Principles whom you do not name as fitting Instruments for managing that part of crying for liberty And these you say were to carry on a designe which should in outward appearance be different from the other although in truth it came from the same root and was directed to the same end And you say John Wildeman had brought his part to such maturity that he wanted very little but the open declaring himself in armes having in effect finished his declaration which was to be published upon that occasion and the time you say did fully answer the Rising designed by the Royall party which fell out but a few dayes after When you say there was another Insurrection that was to keep company with this and that part of your Army in Scotland should have mutined surprized their Generals thrown off their Officers and marched up to London under the command of Major Generall Overton Whereas you forget that no longer ago than in page 15t● of your Declaration you say it was the principall business of those who were sent with letters of credit and a considerable summe of money to assure Charles Stuart that the reason why the Nobility and Gentry and bulke of the Kingdom of England which they said were Episcopall and of his former party did not rise with him upon his late March from Scotland was because he was believed to have gone upon grounds disagreeable both to their affections and interests and also to the good of the Nation and inconsistent with the ancient Constitutions both of Church and State but that if he would return to his former Principles to wit To cast himself totally upon his old party they would venture both their lives and fortunes for his recovery

And in page 27. after the affaires grew apace into a ripenes and some were of opinion that they should take in some persons who had been for the Parliament you say It was denyed upon this reason that seeing they had no need of them as their affaires then stood it would be prejudiciall to his Majesties service and their common interest to take in persons whom they should afterwards be troubled to be rid of How comes it then to passe that this severe Royall party without regard to their principles on a suddaine should incorporate it self with John Wildeman and Major Generall Overton who in their severall Stations have most advanced that interest which is most destructive to theirs and who have never been suspected for inclination to Episcopacy and your selves tell us after you have amused us with the discourse of John Wildeman and Major Generall Overton that those that were to be made use of to bring the designe to pass were the Revellers who did not as you hope intend to serve the interest of Charles Stuart What the merit of those two persons hath been towards the Commonwealth is enough known to all lovers of their Countrey nor can their reputation be blasted by such obscure insinuations It is now many moneths since they have been in your hands under a very strict restraint and if you could prove any thing against them of adhering to the Royall party and promoting that interest you would have used the same expedition in proceeding against them as you have done against those at Salisbury and Exeter and therefore we have reason to conclude that their being so honestly concerned for the Liberty and Rights of the Free-born people of England their supposing it to be infringed by keeping up an Army and by enforcing Taxes from them and by not calling a free and equall Representative chosen by all the people is their Crime and Guilt and if you cast in all those who are of the same opinion with them into the Royall party and think to make them odious under that imputation you will indeed make a party strong enough to vindicate a very Royall quarrel● and interest The cleer matter of fact which seemes to have some manifestation is this That some persons have been particularly trusted in this Kingdom by Charles Stuart to dispose the people to a generall rising to provide money to buy Armes and Munition and if they could to surprize some Sea town That he himself was so pleased to hear how carefull and solicitous they were for him that though out of the tendernes he had for his friends he had deferr'd to call upon them till he could give them encouragement from abroad yet since that came on so lowly he would no longer restrain their affections but if they were able to make any handsome appearance in any one place he would be sure himself with them and sent them word that he would to that purpose keep himself within a reasonable distance and this letter was writ in July 1654. neer eight moneths before appearance of trouble After this to make good his promise he removed himself from Cologne into Zealand on purpose to attend the rising and the Lord Wilmot Wagstaff and Oneile came over actually to conduct and lead the design and agreed to make their attempt upon the twelve of March 1654. An Insurrection accordingly was made in the West and had in all probability encreased if it had not been seasonably suppressed That in Yorkshire separated as soone or before they came together and so in all other places and thus by the goodness of God that bloody design was prevented yet you say some who run away from their Rendezvous did it with a resolution to take a better opportunity when the Government in confidence of the present successe shall be secure and lesse aware of them and they are at this day at worke upon other designes both here and in Scotland to begin new troubles and rebellions amongst us And this is the Charge of what they have done Let us now see the inferences that are drawn from hence and the judgement that is given thereupon and it will be then easily discerned whether we who are not accused of the guilt for you say the designe was generall and levelled against all those who had upon any account whatsoever adhered to and owned this Cause are not by those inferences to be made lyable to the same judgement when ever you conclude it convenient to your affaires that we undergo it You inferre from your own Narration the truth whereof I have nothing to do to question that their pretended King who was ready to embarque for England would never have put himself in the eye and face of the world if those who shewed themselves in armes were to have no other seconds but what appeared and you say it cannot be imagined that the Lord Wilmot and Wagstaf and others would have run so great hazards upon so weak grounds Or that those Gentlemen who did actually rise could suppose that the Army would be so easily over-run and therefore you conclude that what was done by them proceeded from the consent of the whole party and upon this assumption you adjudge their libertyes and their fortunes to be at your mercy and that all the pardons and Acts of Indempnity which have been passed on their behalf are void and rather aggravations of their guilt than security against any other judgement you will hereafter passe against or upon them Is it possible that you can satisfy your own Consciences with this kinde of argumentations or can you believe your Army strong enough to impose this Tax upon mens understanding tha● they shall think your proceeding consistent with Justice or agreeable to reason It had been more suitable to your Greatnes and more ●●spect to the Nation to have shut up Westminster-hall that old Conservatory of our Liberties and to cause over the Gates thereof and in the front of your Commissions to be engraven in letters of Steel that short Adage of the Poet Pro foedere proque Justitia est Ensis Than to imagine that you could compose their minds with this Declaration Can you think it a good Argument that the whole party intended to rise and so ground enough to judge them because their pretended King the Lord Wilmot and some others believed they would and do you not rather think their not rising when if they had they might have given us all trouble an argument that they never intended it You say that the first of the three things which were chiefly designed by them in this business was To prepare and engage every individuall man of their own party who had either been in the former Warrs or had been a friend unto them or was likely by reason of his alliance breeding or discontents to engage therein who being engaged were to bring all their Tenants and those who depended upon them and also to lay designes for the possessing of