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A56350 The speech or declaration of John Pym, Esquire after the recapitulation or summing up of the charge of high-treason, against Thomas, Earl of Strafford, 12 April, 1641. Pym, John, 1584-1643. 1641 (1641) Wing P4293; ESTC R16945 10,372 31

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Honour Profit and Greatnesse and yet these are the gildings and paintings that are put upon such counsels These are for your Honour for your service whereas in truth they are contrary to both But if I shall take off this varnish I hope they shall then appeare in their owne native deformity and therefore I desire to consider them by these Rules It cannot be for the Honour of a King that his sacred Authority should be used in the practise of injustice and oppression that his Name should be applyed to patronize such horrid crimes as have beene represented in Evidence against the Earle of Strafford and yet how frequently how presumptuously his Commands his Letters have been vouched throughout the course of this Defence your Lordships have heard When the Iudges doe justice it is the Kings justice and this is for his honour because he is the Fountaine of justice but when they doe injustice the offence is their owne But those Officers and Ministers of the King who are most officious in the exercise of this Arbitrarie power they doe it commonly for their advantage and when they are questioned for it then they fly to the Kings interest to his Direction And truly my Lords this is a very unequall distribution for the King that the dishonour of evill courses should be cast upon him and they to have the advantage The prejudice which it brings to him in regard of his profit is no lesse apparent It deprives him of the most beneficiall and most certaine Revenue of his Crowne that is the voluntary aids and supplies of his people his other Revenues consisting of goodly Demeanes and great Manors have by Grants been alienated from the Crowne and are now exceedingly diminished and impaired But this Revenue it cannot be sold it cannot be burdned with any Pensions or Annuities but comes intirely to the Crowne It is now almost fifteene years since his Majesty had any assistance from his people and these illegall wayes of supplying the King were never prest with more violence and art then they have been in this time and yet I may upon very good grounds affirm that in the last fifteene years of Queen Elizabeth she received more by the Bounty and Affection of her Subjects then hath come to His Majesties Coffers by all the inordinate and rigorous courses which have beene taken And as those Supplies were more beneficiall in the Receipt of them so were they like in the use and imployment of them Another way of prejudice to his Majesties profit is this Such Arbitrary courses exhaust the people and disable them when there shall be occasion to give such plentifull supplies as otherwise they would doe I shall need no other proofe of this then the Irish Government under my L. of Strafford where the wealth of the Kingdome is so consumed by those horrible exactions and burdens that it is thought the Subsidies lately granted will amount to little more then halfe the proportion of the last Subsidies The two former wayes are hurtfull to the Kings profit in that respect which they call Lucrum Cessans by diminishing his receipts But there is a third fuller of mischiefe and it is in that respect which they call Damnum emergens by increasing his Disbursements Such irregular and exorbitant attempts upon the Libertie of the people are apt to produce such miserable distractions and distempers as will put the King and Kingdome to such vast expences and losses in a short time as will not be recovered in many yeares Wee need not goe farre to seeke a proofe of this these two last yeares will be a sufficient evidence within which time I assure my selfe it may be proved that more Treasure hath beene wasted more losse sustained by his Majesty and his Subjects then was spent by Queene Elizabeth in all the War of Tyrone and in those many brave Attempts against the King of Spaine and the royall assistance which she gave to France and the Low-Countries during all her Reigne As for Greatnesse this Arbitrary power is apt to hinder and impaire it not onely at home but abroad A Kingdome is a society of men conjoyned under one Government for the common good The world is a society of Kingdomes and States The Kings greatnesse consists not onely in his Dominion over his Subjects at home but in the influence which he hath upon States abroad That he should be great even among Kings and by his wisdome and authority so to incline and dispose the affaires of other States and Nations and those great events which fall out in the world as shall be for the good of Mankind and for the peculiar advantage of his owne people This is the most glorious and magnificent greatness to be able to relieve distressed Princes to support his owne friends and Allies to prevent the ambitious designes of other Kings and how much this Kingdome hath been impaired in this kinde by the late mischievous counsels your Lordships best know who at a neerer distance and with a more cleare sight doe apprehend these publique and great affaires then I can doe Yet thus much I dare boldly say that if his Maiestie had not with great wisdome and goodness forsaken that way wherein the Earle of Strafford had put him we should within a short time have been brought into that miserable condition as to have been uselesse to our friends contemptible to our enemies and uncapable of undertaking any great designe either at home or abroad A fourth Consideration is That this Arbitrary and Tyrannicall Power which the E. of Strafford did exercise in his own person and to which he did advise his Majesty is inconsistent with the Peace the Wealth the Prosperity of a Nation It is destructive to Justice the Mother of Peace to Industry the spring of Wealth to Valour which is the active vertue whereby the prosperity of a Nation can onely be procured confirmed and inlarged It is not only apt to take away Peace and so intangle the Nation with Warres but doth corrupt Peace and puts such a malignity into it as produceth the Effects of warre We need seek no other proofe of this but the E. of Straffords Government where the Irish both Nobility and others had as little security of their Persons or Estates in this peaceable time as if the Kingdome had been under the rage and fury of warre And as for Industrie and Valour who will take pains for that which when he hath gotten is not his own Or who fight for that wherein he hath no other interest but such as is subject to the will of another The Ancient encouragement to men that were to defend their Countries was this That they were to hazard their Persons pro Aris Focis for their Religion and for their Houses But by this Arbitrary way which was practised in Ireland and counselled here no man had any certainty either of Religion or of his House or any thing else to be his own But besides this
such Arbitrary courses have an ill operation upon the courage of a Nation by embasing the hearts of the people A servile condition doth for the most part beget in men a slavish temper and disposition Those that live so much under the Whip and the Pillory and such servile Engines as were frequently used by the E. of Strafford they may have the dregges of valour sullennesse stubbornnesse which may make them prone to Mutinies and discontents but those Noble and gallant affections which put men on brave Designes and Attempts for the preservation or inlargement of a Kingdome they are hardly capable of Shall it be Treason to embase the Kings Coyne though but a piece of twelve-pence or sixe-pence and must it not needs be the effect of a greater Treason to embase the spirits of his Subjects and to set a stamp and Character of servitude upon them whereby they shall be disabled to doe any thing for the service of the King or Common-wealth The fift Consideration is this That the exercise of this Arbitrary Government in times of sudden danger by the invasion of an enemy will disable his Majesty to preserve himselfe and his Subjects from that danger This is the onely pretence by which the E. of Strafford and such other mischievous Counsellors would induce his Majesty to make use of it and if it be unfit for such an occasion I know nothing that can be alledged in maintenance of it When warre threatens a Kingdome by the comming of a forrain Enemy it is no time then to discontent the people to make them weary of the present Government and more inclinable to a Change The supplies which are to come in this way will be unready uncertain there can be no assurance of them no dependence upon them either for time or proportion And if some money be gotten in such a way the Distractions Divisions Distempers which this course is apt to produce will be more prejudiciall to the publique safety then the supply can be advantagious to it and of this we have had sufficient experience the last Summer The sixt That this crime of subverting the Laws and introducing an Arbitrary and Tyrannicall Government is contrary to the Pact and Covenant betwixt the King and his people That which was spoken of before was the legall union of Allegeance and Protection this is a personall union by mutuall agreement and stipulation confirmed by oath on both sides The King and his people are obliged to one another in the nearest relations He is a Father and a childe is called in Law Pars Patris Hee is the Husband of the Common-wealth they have the same interests they are inseparable in their condition be it good or evill He is the Head they are the Body there is such an incorporation as cannot be dissolved without the destruction of both When Iustice Thorpe in Edw. the thirds time was by the Parliament condemned to death for Bribery the reason of that Judgement is given because he had broken the Kings Oath not that he had broken his own oath but that he had broken the Kings oath that solemne and great obligation which is the security of the whole Kingdome If for a Judge to take a small summe in a private cause was adjudged Capitall how much greater was this offence whereby the E. of Strafford hath broken the Kings Oath in the whole course of his Government in Ireland to the prejudice of so many of his Majesties Subjects in their Lives Liberties and Estates and to the danger of all the rest The Doctrine of the Papists Fides non est servanda cum Haereticis is an abominable Doctrine yet that other Tenet more peculiar to the Iesuites is more pernicious whereby Subjects are discharged from their Oath of Allegeance to their Prince whensoever the Pope pleaseth This may be added to make the third no lesse mischievous and destructive to humane society then either of the rest That the King is not bound by that Oath which he hath taken to observe the Laws of the Kingdome but may when he sees cause lay Taxes and burdens upon them without their consent contrary to the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdome This hath been preached and published by divers And this is that which hath been practised in Ireland by the E. of Strafford in his Government there and indeavoured to be brought into England by his Counsell here The seventh is this It is an offence that is contrary to the end of Government The end of Government was to prevent oppressions to limit and restrain the excessive power and violence of great men to open the passages of Iustice with indifferency towards all This Arbitrary power is apt to induce and incourage all kind of insolencies Another end of Government is to preserve men in their estates to secure them in their Lives and Liberties but if this Designe had taken effect and could have been setled in England as it was practised in Ireland no man would have had more certainty in his own then power would have allowed him But these two have been spoken of before there are two behind more important which have not yet been touched It is the end of Government that vertue should be cherisht vice supprest but where this Arbitrary and unlimited power is set up a way is open not onely for the security but for the advancement and incouragement of evill Such men as are aptest for the execution and maintenance of this Power are onely capable of preferment and others who will not be instruments of any unjust commands who make a conscience to doe nothing against the Laws of the Kingdome and Liberties of the Subject are not onely not passable for imployment but subject to much jealousie and danger It is the end of Government that all accidents and events all Counsels and Designes should be improved to the publique good But this Arbitrary Power is apt to dispose all to the maintenance of it self The wisdome of the Councell-Table the Authority of the Courts of Justice the industry of all the Officers of the Crown have been most carefully exercised in this the Learning of our Divines the Iurisdiction of our Bishops have been moulded and disposed to the same effect which though it were begun before the E. of Straffords Imployment yet it hath beene exceedingly furthered and advanced by him Under this colour and pretence of maintaining the Kings Power and Prerogative many dangerous practises against the peace and safety of this Kingdome have been undertaken and promoted The increase of Popery and the favours and incouragement of Papists have been and still are a great grievance and danger to the Kingdome The Innovations in matters of Religion the usurpations of the Clergie the manifold burdens and taxations upon the people have been a great cause of our present distempers and disorders and yet those who have been chiefe Furtherers and Actors of such Mischiefes have had their Credit and Authority from this That they