Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
justice_n	good_a	king_n	people_n	3,603	5	4.8197	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56345	The true portraiture of the kings of England, drawn from their titles, successions, raigns and ends, or, A short and exact historical description of every king, with the right they have had to the crown, and the manner of their wearing of it, especially from William the Conqueror wherein is demonstrated that there hath been no direct succession in the line to create an hereditary right, for six or seven hundred years : faithfully collected out of our best histories, and humbly presented to the Parliament of England / by an impartial friend to justice and truth.	Parker, Henry, 1604-1652.	1650 (1650)	Wing P429; ESTC R33010	38,712	46

end of government hath been inverted and subverted upon all occasions and that which was made for the good of the whole hath been so contracted and circumscribed in one person that the great and soveraign use and end of it by practise and custom hath been rather to set up the pomp and state of one man and his Family then to promote or propagate the profit and happiness of the Universe and whereas of right to its constitution It should have a free Election as its originall and common good for its end and just and equall Laws for its rule it hath had usurpation for its Principle and tyranny and bondage for its medium and end As to this day we may see in the greatest part of the world where all the liberties of millions of men of all sorts of conditions and ranks are buryed in the glory and splendor of one Family through which narrow channels all honor and justice all Law and reason are to run up and down the world And whereas the goodness and beauty of government consists in the harmonious temperature of power and obedience of authority and liberty it hath been quite otherwise inverted by practise and made apparent to lie in the Majestie and greatness of the Monarch and the absolute subjection and servitude of the people and the excellency and sweetness of it rather to be seen in the presence-Chamber and the magnificence and grandeur of the Court then in the Courts of Justice and the rich and flourishing estate of the Kingdom nothing being accounted more politicall and glorious then to have the Prince high and the Subjects beggars and yet this Ceremoniall way of Government hath took most place in the world and got almost divine adoration and hath thrust out all other forms of Government equally sacred with it self and most proportionable to the nature and benefits of societies and the Fee-simple of all the liberties of the people which are as their bloud and spirits in their veins sold to maintain its State Besides many causes and grounds of this degeneration whereby so much misery hath overflowed the Nations of the world I find two which at present are principally to be mentioned the first is the neglect of a right sence and the often inculcating the originall and end of government and the next a lineal succession or continuation of government by a natural and supposed heirship For want of the first neither the people know their own rights or how to maintain them or the Governour his use and end nor how to keep himself within the just bounds and limits of his creation for what between the stupidity and ignorance of the people in not knowing their primitive priviledges that they are the originall and end of vernment and the pride and ambition of men when once they have got power forget both how they came by it and to what end they are distinguished from other men government comes both to be usurped and tyrannicall Did the people but know that their choice and election is the foundation of just authority that none can rule over them but whom they appoint they would not then be drawn into controversies and debates whether it be treason in them to cast off a bad Governour who have the only power of choosing a good one and on the other side if Kings and Princes for to reduce all to them who have been most guilty of the abuse of government had but the continuall sence of the root from whence they sprung and the duties annexed to their Offices they could not look on themselves as rulers but tyrants when they acted for their own private Prerogative in distinction from and contrarie to the liberties and freedoms of the people but these considerations have been by time and prescription worn out of the mind and memories of both partly through continual insinuations of Court Maxims and the spirit of bondage in the people and by force and usurpation in the Magistrate whereby it hath gone a long while for currant that the people have no power nor the Prince no account to give but to God from whom they challenge an immediate title as if Kings and Princes all their names and successions were let down from Heaven in the same sheet that the beasts were in Peters vision and had not their root in the earth as all other Magistrates besides We have had much ado of late but to beat off from these Royal notions both by pens and swords and yet still they have too strong a hold in most mens hearts though to their own undoing Whereas all men are equally born free and naturaliz'd into all the priviledges of freedom and just liberty no man can obtain a speciall power over any but either ex pacto aut scelere either by willing agreement and consent which is the right and just way of title and most naturall or by conquest and usurpation which is most exotick and unjust for the original of Kingly power in the Scripture we all know it came in as an effect of the wantonness and discontents of the Israelites against that speciall way of government God himself had set over them And view the Character God gives to them of that government and not a blessing he gives them with it for its rise among the heathens and nations which knew not God among whom that government most prevail'd it was certainly first good and grounded on the exorbitancies and excess of other Magistrates and a high opinion of the justice and vertue of some particluar persons as Cicero lib. offic. 2. excellently expresseth it Mihi quidem non apud Medos solum ut ait Herodotus sed etiam apud majores nostros servandae justiciae causa videntur olim bene morati Reges constituti nam cum premeretur initio multitudo ab iis qui majores opes habebant ad unum aliquem confugiebant virtute praestantem As if taking it for granted that among all nations that Preservation and execution of justice with injoyning of vertue was the first ground of the constitution of Kings But they having got by their own goodness chief power and authority use that favour they had gained from their own deserts to advance their own family and having got in the affections of the people through the sence of their own present worth what by power and force and what by policy and craft got the same power entailed on their heirs and so by custom have made succession the onely right or at least the most just to Crowns and Scepters A principle which hath more hindred the advance of Government and run it on more hazards and mischiefs then any other where by a fatall Custom people must be irreparably content with what they can finde and reducing all to a blinde Fate Fortune be he good or prove bad talis qualis give up both their own Wills and Liberties to such a succession not only by a natural necessity but a divine

the name of a King being an Infant and his reign may wel be called an Inter-regnum for ere he came to know what government was he was cruelly murthered with his Infant Brother by his Uncle Rich. Duke of Glocester who reigned both for him and afterwards for himself by the name of Richard the Third a bloody and cruel man rather a monster then a Prince his name stincks in the English dialect the shortness of his reign was the happiness of the people for after three yeers usurpation he was slain in the field by the Earl of Richmond who by his valour more then his Title got the Crown by the name of Henry the Seventh this was the best act that was done by him in easing the Kingdom of such a viper In his reign who is the first root of our Kings since the people had more hopes then benefits and were rejoyced and made happy more by expectations then enjoyments of any reall priviledge or liberty For though he took all the ways to secure his title by his marriage with the Lady Elizabeth daughter to Edward the Fourth yet many stratagems were laid to disturbe his peace which put him on acts of policy and diligence which he excellently demonstrated to free and extricate himself out of dangers and designs many sad divisions were stil in the Kingdom all men were not pleased either with his title or government and that they might but disturbe him or hazard his Crown they made Stage Kings drest up pretty lads in Princely robes and carried them up and down the Kingdom as puppets for the people to gaze one and admire all this while King Henry had not time to advance his prerogative while he was but securing his Title but after he had done that and now began to look on himself as free from either forraign or home competitors and the coast of State seeming cleer from all thickning weather he thinks of redeeming what he had lost by factions and imployes his wit for bringing down the height of the English Nation and plucking down their courage and was especially saith one jealous over his Nobility as remembring how himself was set up and how much more did this humor encrease in him after he had conflicted with such idols and counterfeits as Lambert Simnel Perkin Warbeck the strangeness of which dangers made him think nothing safe and thinking that the riches of the English occasioned their rebellions he took a course to empty their Coffers into his and the plot whereby he meant to effect it was by taking the advantage of the breach of penal Laws which he both found and made for that purpose his Instruments which for this work were pickt and qualified sufficiently were Sir Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley men learned in the Law and of desperate and subtle heads and forward in executing the Kings commands these two attended by troops of base Informers Promoters Catchpoles Cheaters Knights of the Post c. went up and down the Kingdom cruelly polled and taxed all sorts of people and prosecute in every Shire the most deserving and generous men that the Kingdom in a little time was more beggard then by most of the former Civil wars and all this done by the Kings speciall command and countenance that we may see what was the reason he began not sooner to play Rex want of opportunity and fear of loosing his Crown while he was advancing it but the latter end of his raign was too soon and too long for such actings This King ends his raign with the greatest acts of tyranny he made himself a rich King by beggaring his Subjects after he had freed his own person out of danger he imploys all his wits to enslave the English the fruits both of his title and tyranny we have felt ever sence in these that followed him His son Henry the eighth of that name succeeds him in his first beginnings he seemed to be tenderly affected to the Common-wealth and redressed many grievances especially those which were laid on by his father and executed by Empson and Dudley doing Justice on them for their cruelty and oppression But those affections were too good and too violent to last long the sound of Drums and Trumpets soon quasht them and many encroachments grew on the peoples Liberties many tempestuous storms and controversies there were in this Kings raign but they were more Ecclesiastical then Civil and so more dangerous and strong In a word he was accounted a better Souldier then a Governor and more fit for a General then a King to govern by just and equal Laws the best act he did was the discovery of the wickedness of the Clergy and casting off the Popes Supremacy which yet he took to himself and annexed it to his own Crown as the most of his raign was ful of controversies and tempests so all affairs were managed in a ranting and turbulent maner not with that gravity soberness as becomes civil and prudentiall transactions he was very lascivious and delighted much in variety and changes of Laws as wives he oftentimes much pleased himself to be in the company and was over-familiar with swaggering and loose fellows and the people ever and anon found the power of his Prerogative at home as his enemies did of his Sword abroad Edward the sixth his onely son succeeds him a Prince that was too good to live long the Phoenix of English Kings had he had time to prosecute his intentions and mature his genius but the Sun in him did shine too bright in the morning God gave England onely the representation of a good King but would not in judgement let us be blest long with him Religion began to revive Liberty to bud forth the people to peep out of their graves of slavery and bondage and to have their blood fresh and blushing in their cheeks but all is presently blasted by his death and the people who have seldom more then hopes for their comforts are now fainting for fear England is benighted and hung with black Queen Mary that Alecto and fury of women succeeds and now both souls and bodies of the people are enslaved and nothing but bone fires made of the flesh and bones of the best Christians But it s too much to name her in the English tongue Queen Elizabeth succeedes her who being prepared for the Crown by suffering came in a most seasonable time both for her self and the people who were made fuel for the flames of her sisters devotion And now England begins to flourish again and to recover its strength many inlargements were granted both to the consciences and estates of the people yet if we speak impartially we were kept further off Rome then royalty yet doubtless she may be Chronicled for the best Princess and her raign the most even and best mannaged with more fruits to the people then any of the former Kings especially if we consider how long she governed this Nation I