Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	body_n	king_n	time_n	1,806	5	3.4333	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A92926	A letter from an ejected Member of the House of Commons, to Sir Jo: Evelyn: shewing, the constitution of that councell, and the influence it hath had on the present times, with a judgement of future events.	Skutt, George.; Evelyn, John, Sir, 1591-1664.	1648 (1648)	Wing S26; Thomason E463_18; ESTC R203469	15,283	28

we can expect grapes from thornes And whatsoever the pretences of some be 't is notoriously known that those who are esteemed stars of the first magnitude in your Faction by whose influence you act and move have openly declared their Antipathy to all Treaties and tenacious resolutions to have the right of all controverted interests ended by the Sword because they very well know the dissolution their principles bring with them upon the present state of England and the novelty upon the whole world will render them hopelesse of an establishment by deliberation and Counsell And if the worst should come to passe the successe of your designes I mean which God forbid I doubt whether any acquisitions could give rest to the turbulent activity of some of your minds or whether there be any Kings under the Sun whose means are answerable to some of your desires But to me it would seem a great wonder did not the consideration of the fraile state and continuall fluctuation of all sublunary things hinder from whence I see the present state of the war quite altered from the principles of the first undertakings because the worser sort of men perhaps by the variable succession of time and accidents are grown worse then they intended to be That about five years since the Committee appointed to manage the Treaty at Oxford in March 1642. should be tied up to Treat onely with the KING when He was free and had many Noblemen and Privy Counsellours about Him to have employed in that businesse And at this time when He is a Prisoner and denied the accesse of His Servants and Friends it should be held so piamlous and perilous and undertaking to Treat with Him alone when there is no body else to doe it for Him If the thing were unreasonable or disadvantageous to you yet many wonder you should run into a worse hazard by chusing of two evils much the greater in displeasing one whole Kingdome and probably the much greater part of another in which you yet presume to sit and rule like Tyrants thereby preparing the hearts of others to use you just as you were using them so long as you had power to doe it For all men are now grown full of hope that the Hornes of your strength and power are much shorter and as you grow lesse able to offend so much the more will your majesticall offers of mercy and indemnity be contemned and derided That Indemnity you sent to the County of Essex shewed the weak and shallow state of your Authority For after a few Gentlemen had raised the County into Armes against you you held forth your golden Scepter of Indemnity which the Gentlemen for themselves accepted of but not being able to lay down the Armes they had raised went home to live in Peace leaving the Country to fight it out with the Parliament which they have done to some purpose whereby you are gull'd of your mercy and your honour both at once To the incomparable merit of that gallant old Peere the Earle of NORWICH who went out of SUSSEX into KENT to embarque himselfe amongst Strangers in the cause of Loyalty where he assum'd the conduct of a businesse as full of hazards as the Sea is full of waves and when the successe of that undertaking fail'd put over into another County at the Isle of Dogs where he was received by a currish generation of men making such effectuall opposition with the advantages they had that Sir William Compton was forced to article for the Souldiers that at such a place within a miles march they should all surrender their Armes whither being come and finding their condition desperate they resolutely refused to part with their Armes and in case they were denied would force a passage which having effected the march'd to Bow Bridge where they plac'd a Guard while their painfull old Generall sent to Chelmsford and next day rode thither himself alone to understand the result of the Rendevouz there who by the example of their newly arrived neighbours and friends past so many hazards to come to them and the encouragement of their gallant Country-man S r Charls Lucas resolved to joyn Bodies and so march'd to Colchester So that if Kent have not done the work alone yet it hath given fire to the train which is like to run through all England and hath begun a work will end in the greatest happinesse this Kingdome could ever expect viz. To unsettle this Parliamentary Army which is to settle Religion Laws and Liberties And in spight of all your confidence in the arme of flesh you will find your glory is setting and the fortune of your Armes changing the Lord Fairfax being about to lose together with his 50001. per annum all the honour Sir Thomas Fairfax won and the Predictions of your own Saint Mr Saltmarsh to be fulfilling upon you who before he died declared his revelations of your approaching ruine And therefore as Lot said to his Sons-in-Law so say I to you Up and get you out of this place for the Lord will destroy this City Gen. 19.14 Your condition seeming to me very desperate for as you have ordered the matter what confederate States have you abroad to help you and receive you as once you had of the Scots in the like necessity Or if you had what Ships have you to carry you thither Are you not in a pound and will not every Petty Constable be helping to catch you when you run away your very faces will betray you being complexionall Traytors and Rebels by elementall constitution for who can look upon Corbet Gourdon Say Scot Armyne Cromwell Rainsborough Heyman Ireton Holland Westrowe Boys Vane's Father and Son Morley Weaver Martin that rapsody of all villany and legislative Priapus who was sent for from fortifying of Reading without impeachment of High Treason because though he be not for the Parliament in all things yet if he be against the King in all things he is an instrument par negotiis Wentworth Hill Bond Ashe Rous Hoyle Pury Strickland Blakeston Walsingham Allen Harvy Walton Skippon Ven Livesey Luke's Father and Son Vassell Love Prideaux and the rest of the Saturnine crew and not presently see strange apparitions in their very Phisnomy of Churches overthrown Towns flaming Houses plundring Widowes crying out for their Husbands and Children and Orphans for their Moneys I must tell you Sir your very face though it be one of the best in the company looks strangely when you come abroad amongst honest men Some believe God hath suffered this defection amongst you to produce some great good to this Kingdome For this state being to suffer a totall abolition of the Government Ecclesiasticall so long exercised in it and to admit the erection of another with many alterations and qualifications in matters Civill upon which depended the good estate and happinesse of great numbers of men and families besides the questions in Divinity set on foot and maintained plausibly by very learned and pious Doctors and Preachers would probably have had no rest so long as all those persons whose dependances and relations were also great should remain unsatisfied either in interest or conscience Which work how to effect it seemed impossible in the eyes of man and therefore Almighty God by raising up a third sort of people teaching principles and doctrines destructive of all the politique forms maintained by the other two hath begot an union betwixt the Royalist and Presbyterian and engaged the Scots upon such good and acceptable offices to the King and His loyall Subjects that whereas all the world expected with hopes a great contest betwixt the two Nations about setling of their Church discipline in England it is now like to be received aequo grato animo and all matters candidly carried to a lasting good understanding between both Nations which God of his good mercy grant That at last we may see an end of this devouring Faction whereof you are the Head and is directed by your Councels and maintained over us by your commands and authority whose ends are without end and vary according to the liberty they take of thinking A company of men that agree in one only resolution of undoing of King and Kingdome and are made up of as many different opinions among themselves as must certainly ruine them when they have ruin'd every body else Such as God hath suffered to get together that being now known and cast out of the Common-wealth the Kingdome may hereafter be secure and the Government flourish In order to which we see every day strange beginnings which in a short time will evidence I hope to the setled world That as Saul travelling long and far with little successe seeking Asses found a Kingdome So you to invert the Simile having seven long years given chace to a King and lifted up your selves in the high confidence and assurance you had of obtaining a Kingdome found at last you were your selves but Asses And so I rest Sir Not of the House of Commons I thanke God and therefore the more likely to be Your faithful and humble Servant G. S. Aug. 16. 1648. FINIS

A LETTER FROM AN EJECTED MEMBER OF THE HOUSE of COMMONS TO Sir JO EVELYN SHEWING The Constitution of that Councell and the Influence it hath had on the present Times with a judgement of future Events Printed in the yeare 1648. A LETTER TO Sir JOHN EVELYN from an ejected MEMBER of the Commons House Sir I Am sorry I am not in a capacity of returning one civility for another being bound up by the unfortunate aspect of my Nativity to receive benefits rather then to give Only I can say I have committed your obligations to a faithfull memory and a gratefull heart who will at all times discharge their Offices I am sure in paying you all just and due respects But for your last discourse wherein you endeavoured to have me accept the proceedings of the House of Commons for my Ejection and acknowledge the right of my successors place I desire to be excused till I am convinced by the Reason of Arguments and not fortune of the Times I must confesse I doe not envie him his cushion nor the State Dignity Degree of Membership which if I mistake not begins to want something both of the intrinsique and extrinsique value And if my Arithmetick be good the Houses had no sooner disordered their whole Number but they have ever since beene busied in Fractions But I need not read Lectures to the wise you remember as well as I and are a witnesse to all the truth I know or can speak How the things of this present age were begun with most exorbitant Opinion and Pride carryed on with proportionable Injustice and Oppression and are like to end with equall Shame and Folly to the first Attempters With what an aire of popularity was every man lifted up at the very first meeting Flattering himself in the honour of being a publique Champion for the almost captiv'd liberty and interest of England and of being a Member of that Parliament which the People who measure all things not by what is fit and just but by what themselves desire already had in adoration So that these men that could not govern themselves by their particular vertue no sooner came to live in the hot aire of vulgar acclamations but they grew half mad An absolute Calenture had seized on the head of the Body politique which made them believe they could do no businesse but by precipices The Speaker was so giddy with his vertiginous Office that after a whole day spent in hearing and doing publique Affaires he could seldome give account you know of what was said or done Which I suppose proceeded from the various qualifications and tempers of the Members whereof some were wise men but seemed not so being superseded with acute prejudices and passions Some seemed so and were not seeking Fame rather then deserving it Others neither were nor seemed so and yet had publique Faculty to use their incorrigible confidence of troubling the House when they pleased And though no man came to the Parliament but whom the Writ supposed both wise and valiant yet that was to be understood favourably for it appeared at last that passions and feares had taken away the reputation of both 'T is certain that these humours quite overthrew the State Rule and Order of a wise Councell Doe you not remember how the Mornings were used to be passed away in long-winded declamations brought thither elaborately compos'd and read out of a hat perhaps or behind a friend And for the second Scene How about Noone for so the match was made came some Petition from a County City Corporation Mystery or Occupation and made humble desires to have the same things done which the Speech-makers had all the morning been debating of Which also did not a little set forth the speculative prospect and high wisdome of the said Members in publique Affaires And it may be after all this the same Members receive Letters of their own procuring from their Country City or Burrough to give the thankes of their Trustees to them and to acknowledge their unwearied paines for the publique service So that by this time the Gentlemen swelling with opinion above the bounds of all shame or fear sent all their Orations to be Printed whence came forth at any one time eight Speeches of Sir John Wray and soon after nine Speeches more of Sir John Wray all penn'd without wit and understanding and they must needs be so for the Knight had none and where there is nothing to be had the King loses his right spoken without intelligible pronunciation and accent and heard without attention and yet sent abroad to busie the people with popular theames and feed them with expectations of great effects Whereas the wiser sort of men thought it a great dishonour to Parliaments that these and other Speeches should ever have been discovered to the world to give Strangers other Nations occasion to think what opinion they were to have of the great Assembly of Wise men in England You must needs agree with me that this liberty of Speech-making was Remora if not the overthrow of all Parliamentary results and made us many times more like persons conveened in a Cock-pit then a Councell which caused a high resentment in some temperate old Members Among whom quoth one striking his hand on his brest in our sight and hearing I have been of all Parliaments since Duodecimo Jac. and never saw such doings Another cries out that he had seen all the Parliaments of King Charles and that of Oxford where they were called Hornets after they had been adjourned from Westminster where they were but waspes all which were nothing to this For whether it were the intemperate desire of fame or private opinion of parties which often deceives men and never more then at this time or temporall interests or irregular zeal or engagement in Faction and Designe certain it is that all concurred to use a liberty could be denyed to none of them and they that held themselves before almost undone for want of liberty were now about to be undone with too much The truth is much talking is troublesome in all companies and in Councells dangerous where all matters are to be handled with gravity and weight But you remember well enough that our long debates which sometimes held from morning till night and then almost from night till morning agen looked little better then great brawles and when the people supposed their Gallant wise Members were very busie and took great paines to sit up late anights making them good Lawes they were then altogether by the ears perhaps and drawing Swords about the Candles 'T is as observable how matters are not much mended and that publique Affaires move still by the like wild and preposterous consultations For as when the rest of the people lived in full peace they were only then fighting and quarrelling in the House of Commons so now when the Kingdome was put into open Warre and different parties were every where acting

Tragedies on each other when like wise patriots they should be quenching the flames of publique discord they are spending their time like young novices in Religion and getting by heart a Catechisme which they have newly received from their reversed Tutor the Synod But popularity that bewitches all natures not mightily supported with virtue and wisdome soon taught wise men that there was no stop to be given to this careere of Speech-making unlesse the King should dissolve the Parliament which as the King had not done formerly without great temptation so now to prevent it the temptation being greater then ever you know the arts were used with all the desired successe that could be And notwithstanding His Majesties great alscrity in so important a matter to consent to the perpetuity of this Parliament yet this security was so far from working off the clamour of the Members that it raised the key higher and from generall discourses they descended every day more and more to particulars Happy was he that found out a Subject would tickle the attention of the Houses and could set it forth pathetically Doe you not remember how Cromwell speaking for Layton out of the Gallery dropt teares downe with his words and did not Lilburne Burton Prin and Bastwick find the like passionate Orators and yet what effect did their glorious enlargements produce but to let the world see the turbulent spirit of these men was habituall and not imputed and justifie the proceedings of the late governours against them And that 't was no wonder they fell out with the King His Privy Councell and the Bishops when now being all at liberty they could not agree among themselves For Prin was become a State-Presbyter and Bastwick an Ecclesiasticall Burton an Independent and Lylburne a Leveller and all of them acording to the interest of their severall causes did not only write and raile at one another and at severall Members of the Houses and the Army but at the whole Army and Parliament it self It was strange to see the cheapnesse of your Jurisdiction and what a facile ear was given to all Accusations and Calumnies as if the Parliament had been called only to hear Informations or receive Intelligences I passe by the Triumph was made over many great Personages in their loud Impeachments of High Treason the great labour was had to prove them Some of which were sold afterwards for money and others to this day lie by the walls unregarded and forgotten And those that did perish by their Accusations suffered more I doubt to satisfie the pride and greatnesse of the Accusers then the merit of their Accusations And when the wits and understandings of men failed their revenge malice bore up the undertaking for when the whole House was gravell'd knew not how to proceed in the Tryall of the Earl of Strafford M. Pym you know was fain to call up that stupendious Oracle of all Learning SELDEN the Great to help the infirmities of the Members and declare to the forme of proceeding what had been the practice of former Ages in the like Impeachments The matter rested in the hearts of the Accusers and needed no assistances As appeared sufficiently upon the closing up the evidence at the Bar by M. Glyn who ranging all his matter to the best order and advantage he could to charge the Prisoner seconded with a reserve of his own aggravations made such a tedious unsatisfactory impertinent clamour that of those Lords who should have heard him some fell asleep others lay along tired all found out some diversion for their tormented thoughts representing to them the fatality of that great Peer's life before them which they could not save because they saw the Commons would not You must needs remember upon all occasions how nice tender they were ever of their Orders and Priviledges holding them superiour to all Laws and Rules whatsoever It was a State sacriledge to invade either of them Whence it came to passe that their own and their servants persons were free from all Legall processe in all causes and Courts And one Benson a Yorkshire man thought the vertue of Member-ship so great that he extended it to protect fourscore persons none of his servants at one time for which also he received 20s a piece and I beleeve the first example that ever was of protecting a Rape by Priviledge of Parliament was in the person of that godly and faithfull Member to the Cause whom they called Prince Griffith I know there hath been something done of late to remit protections and humble the power of Parliaments which signifies no more but this that in a time when peoples mindes were in a tumultuary discrasie ready to break the reines of Government and some temper was fit to be administred nothing was thought more popular nor apt to court the People into their Obedience then to offer them to lay down this Spell of Priviledge which while they were about them no creditor could do them hurt What opinion the House of Commons had of the Lords was seen every day for it appeared all along they were made servile to the designes of the Commons And in truth it were too much trouble to put you in minde how often and how tamely they have suffered themselves to be baffled out of as much right and reason as would have served for noble advantages to have raised their lost honours to their Ancient greatnesse and splendour And in case as of late it hath happened that Petitions and Addresses were made to the Houses which exactly suited not with the sence and successe of their present designes Doe but observe what the different receptions of them were with how much more secret State and Dignity the answers were delivered from the Lower House who when they dare will be sure to reprehend and when they dare not their answers shall be made up of such supercilious sentences as shall signifie nothing or some cold opinion of the action and leave the Petitioners rather to study out their own duty then expect redresse 'T is an athletick labour to put you in minde of every thing But you may suppose that when so many were got together that could think themselves any thing that there was no Power nor Jurisdiction nor Rule but they were that it was no hard matter for them to make a transition from the power to the execution and fall to acting any thing Hence it came to passe that Treason against the King and Sacriledge against the Church were become popular Topicks The first was upheld under the pretences of restoring the Crown to a stability of Greatnesse and Soveraignty and the other covered with the title of Reformation But these appearing at last with their disguises off discovered only the power of some active subtle Members working out different designes through the borrowed resemblances of Justice and vertue You need not be remembred with what notorious partiality and favour those Causes were received which