Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A38465
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The English-man's allegiance, or, Our indispensable duty by nature, by oaths, and by law, to our lawfull king
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1691
(1691)
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Wing E3099; ESTC R11149
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12,757
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11
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I go on further to let the Reader fully understand who and what the said Stephen was He was it seems Nephew to the former King and if we credit some Historians a kind of Son in Law also He had a Feud in France and upon that account was called Earl or Prince of Bologne a little Inconsiderable thing in an out Province of that Kingdom which as to its Yearly value was even Inferiour to Sheffield and several other Mannors in our Nation Nay if I mistake not He had been for some time Commander in chief of the Armies of the Earls of Flanders who were then the most considerable of any in the whole Low Countrys This Stephen who well knew it seems how to forswear and break an Oath for advantage having now as I said Usurp'd the Throne and many Enormities being found to be sure in the preceding Reign no body more pertly asserts His Right than the Paultry Bishop of Salisbury one as all our Writers have it that was wholly obscure of himself and beholden altogether to Fortune and good hitts one false and Treacherous by Nature and which made it beyond Cure that thought it Wit to be so one that had formerly received much Countenance and Favour from the late King and one also that more than once swore the forementioned Oath which again particularly oblig'd him to a true and steady Allegiance to his Prince and Lawful Successour and yet now ran counter to it as well by distinctions and insinuating discourses as by the shameful and overt Act. Yet not to make the Devil uglier than he is tho it be the new mode to Blacken even Angels of Light This precious Divine notwithstanding his several Idle Sophisms had more sense than to bolt out the least Argument in favour of a Conquest And to speak truth how was it possible for a Man that had any regard to himself to pretend to so silly a thing seeing Stephen had never fought for the Crown nor ever directly or indirectly stood upon any Right of Force but took and received the Government upon the sole conscientious invitation and Agreement of our Great Men. Besides since petty Principalities or Royalties the former Gifts of Emperours and Kings to deserving Men are Estates that may be bought by any mean Banker and we know 't is frequently done to this very day in Germany and elsewhere therefore the Civil Law or Law of Nations look upon these Toparchs tho Absolute enough among their Vassals with another sort of Eye and place them in another Class than they do those who are truly stiled Soveraign Princes so that if these should chance Sculkingly to Invade the other they might if taken be Legally prosecuted and punished as Pilferers and the like Lastly Stephen being as I said before a Servant and Subject for a General that receives Wages is as much so as any common Souldier had he by War and Battle brought England under his Power yet this Acquist must have been as all Civilians tell us his Masters not his own But perchance I excuse our worthy Bishop too much for 't was not it may be truth that hindered him from insisting on the ridiculous Title of Conquest but common Prudence as reasonably apprehending that a Doctrine that takes away all Freedome and Property from every Englishman might well deserve some remarkable censure in Parliament and Parliaments in former daies were by fitts as hot as those that lately ruined poor Sibthorp and Manwaring for a Tenet not half so foolish not half so dangerous nor half so scandalous as this For were this truly so every Gallant that gets in a Factious time the Crown and perchance Monsieur Blood among the rest especially if some Men want an argument will presently forsooth claim the almighty Title And let me again tell my Reader that not only all we possess belongs really to a Conquerour but should he pass an Act or two in favour of the Subject who knows the Equitable Plea of having been deceived in his Grant may not come into his thoughts and then Arma Tenenti c. the Lord have mercy upon us all Cursed therefore be the wretch that dares call any Man Conquerour of England But still a great Patriot a Man of God is exempted and far out of the reach of this wish tho in his Arcadia or Pastoral he stands highly upon a Conquest for every one that can Read his A B C knows that besides his usual Tropes and Figures he has a pretty way of his own and therefore only means I 'll engage that the Victory of the most potent William was over our Hearts and not our Lands and Purses To proceed If then the Advancing of Stephen were a horrid Perjury and truly the Remarks of Baker are not I see always impertinent for he tells us That many as well of these Bishops as the other Lords came afterward for this grand Villany to an ill End or at least to many Calamities before their End I say if this were a horrid Perjury how black and unexcusable must the Breach Now be when our Religion is so pure when the Oath is so Declaratory against any Evasion or double Meaning when the Statute-Law a Law not so well known to our Ancestors has in express Terms taken away all pretences for Rebellion and lastly when We have so often and upon so many accounts openly in the presence of God and Man disown'd all power in Pope or Devil of hurting as well the Rights as the Person of our Lawful Soveraign Now seeing there 's neither If nor And in this Oath and seeing the Oath it self was purposely made as I said to Remember us of and to stir and keep us up to our Duty in times of Troubles and Affliction for Kings want no Body's Duty but then it cannot be but pleasant and the Arguments also are much to be heeded to hear a man upon the Successes of a Rebellion or the like gravely to Phâ—losophize and positively to Assert That we are absolv'd from our Oath Nor is it less agreeable when we ask the Reason Why to have this excellent one palm'd upon us because forsooth the King cannot Protect us to which I answer Then we ought to Protect him For I am sure this was the Imposers meaning at the giving of the Oath as hoping thereby to prevent the being deserted his subjects Tho the Devil be God's Ape and therefore some Usurpers have some times imposed their Oaths also yet Ours here in England have seldom or never done it in general For we read not of any thus required by the aforesaid Stephen by Hen. 4 or by Rich. 3. nay honest Cromwell like Gallio cared for none of those things And certainly they were all in the Right and far Wiser than to think that those whom their former Oaths could not keep true to their respective Lawful Kings would be obliged now to Them by any tie of that nature They know too that it makes out of pity as