Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	great_a	head_n	king_n	3,696	5	3.5984	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45954	The intrigues of the Court of Rome for these seven or eight years past written originally by a French gentleman who lived with a publick character several years at that court ; now rendered into English.	J. M. D.	1679 (1679)	Wing I278; ESTC R27441	78,507	199

stomach as the Spaniards say Por digerir los boccones grandes to digest great pieces In effect if we impartially consider either that he hath let slip so many fair opportunities of signalizing himself or that he has brought upon himself so many unlucky hits without thinking on them we may easily judge that he hath been as indifferent for the one as improvident against the others Let us see then both the chief opportunities of renoun which he hath failed to embrace and the occasions of disquiet and perplexity into which he hath thrown himself that we may make good a truth which will justifie a great many without doing wrong to his conduct We must lay down for a ground then the state of the affairs of Europe at the beginning of that Pontificat to wit France and Spain at peace together the enterprises of the Turk against Poland and the preparations of France against Holland What projects might Cardinal Altieri have had in that conjuncture or rather what might he not have undertaken if the matter was to assist Poland against the Turk what means were wanting to him Peace being between the Crowns of France and Spain or if that peace seemed overcast by some clouds of jealousies and fears there was no difficulty to confirm a serenity in all the climats of Christendom before these clouds gathered more and grew thicker and before they broke out in thunder and lightning in many places of the world as since they have done What advances did he make for the assistance of Poland what Legations for the union of Christian Princes what Negotiations to make them turn their Arms against the Common Enemy he made no other step than the raising of vast sums of Money of the Benefices of Italy whereof he very slowly sent to the Republick of Poland Fifty thousand Crowns A Cardinal of great virtue scandalized at the lukewarmness of Altieri sent him a considerable sum of his own Money to awaken him and to excite him to make some brisk attempt in favour of a Kingdom exposed as a prey to Infidels but that secret reproof of backwardness made no great impression on him Caminitz was already carried by the Turks before the Poles were in any condition to make head against them and to compleat their misfortunes King Michael being dead the Kingdom was divided about the election of a successor to the Crown Cardinal Altieri bestirred himself a little but at the instigation of the house of Austria and to the end he might back the designs of the Spaniards who were for Prince Charles of Lorrain his succeeding to the Crown in hopes of making him marry the Queen Dowager of Poland Sister to the Emperor He caused great offers to be made of Money and assistance that he might overcome the difficulty which the Poles might make by reason of the lowness of Prince Charles as to fortune who depended in a great measure on the Court of Vienna and who was not like to have means of supporting the Crown under the pressing Circumstances i● lay under Monsieur Bonvizi the Nuncio was the life of his designes in Poland as he had formerly been at Cologne that Prelate who has been always reputed to have a great Heart and small Head was as succesless in the one place as he had been in the other there was but little regard had for the Packt-Offices of Rome the Nuncio's proposition was laid aside and John Sobieski was chose a King a man capable to maintain the Crown both by his consummated prudence and Heroick courage So that the whole Intrigue was useless and served only to disgrace the Holy See in the person of Altieri to beget an aversion in several Princes concerned in that Declaration and to expose his Ministry to the compassion of his friends and to the derision and hatred of his adversaries In truth if we should enlarge in our reflexions upon that Conduct his measures would seem very obscure what obliged him in an affair of that consequence to transgress the bounds of Neutrality which renders the Pope alike venerable to all parties which makes him Umpire amongst all Christian Princes and which places him in the midst of Sovereigns as the Sun is among the Planets to give impartially his light to all the celestial bodies according as they draw near or are at distance from him for the different participation thereof Or if he had a mind to leave that neutrality to gain a Crowned Head why did he not assure himself well first of the success of his enterprize it is true if it had succeeded it would have been of great advantage to him but he had but few instances of free people that have ever been willing to accept of a King from the hands of Popes If they have sometimes given Kings to the kingdom of Naples they had the Sovereign Dominion but he had less reason to promise himself that from the Republick of Poland which professes a liberty so nice that it will not so much as accept of Cardinals of that Nation from Rome because that Dignity puts them on a dependence on forreign Princes Insomuch that they who otherwise know the humor of Cardinal Altieri not to be very undertaking and that he is more ready to Ward than make a Pass could find no other cause of that procedure but an excessive compliance with the Spaniards wherein he may have this comfort that he is not the only Minister or Kinsman of a Pope who hath been out of his measures in following too implicitely the counsels of the Spaniards After the election of the King of Poland one may imagine that that Prince had but little obligation to the Court of Rome and especially to Cardinal Altieri so that it was rationally to be believed that this Nephew in good policie yea even in civility and decorum would take all ways to procure the good Will of a Sovereign who had some reason not to be well satisfied with him because his Faction was against him in the Diet His Majesty of Poland gave him a fair opportunity for this by naming the Bishop of Marseilles to a Cardinalship who would not be perswaded that there should immediately be dispatched a Gentleman of his Holiness's or Cardinal Altier's Chamber to carry a Cardinals Hat to the King of Poland or be disposed of by him as he thought best that by such a courteous carriage he might gain the favours of so generous a Prince and so useful as the King of Poland is in a State where there are different opinions about matters of Religion But Cardinal Altieri's eyes are still shut he cannot but listen to the Spaniards they make him believe that the election of General Sobieski to be King of Poland cannot subsist that it was not formal that confusion and precipitancy hath more concurred to it than mature deliberation that it will meet with opposition that those of Lithuania have not given their consent thereto that that Prince is married and that

the Republick will have a Lord that may marry the Queen Dowager of Poland that the Poles are still doubtful whether that election will stand good that they are divided among themselves and that they may every minute change their resolution these were the amusements whereof the Spaniards made use in general to disswade Cardinal Altieri from complying with the new King of Poland and as to the particular of the nomination of the Bishop of Marseilles they insinuate to him that France endeavours to get into the possession of having Cardinals at their devotion by the nomination of forreign Crowns that he is obliged in interest to oppose such an abuse that the Pope ought to observe an equality betwixt Spain and France that the Catholick King will have ground of being offended if by such ways French Cardinals be daily made at Rome that Poland may be satisfied that the promotion of Cardinal Bonzi has been suffered to pass without obstruction that if the Bishop of Marseilles be made Cardinal Spain will pretend to the same Compensation as in the promotion of the Bishop of Laon that is that they must likewise have a Cardinal that nevertheless to satisfie the King of Poland and not to reject his proposal he might willingly accept the nomination for any other person his Majesty pleased excepting a Frenchman Cardinal Altieri easily embraced the Spaniards Counsel he had a great inclination for them and though the Bishop of Marseilles in his journey into Italy whither the King had sent him to endeavor an accommodation betwixt the great Duchess of Tuscany and the great Duke her Husband made a progress to Rome and by his good qualities left favourable impressions for his fortune nevertheless he had the ill luck to have been named by a King for whom the Spaniards had no liking in a time when the Nephew Regnant was in very bad correspondence with the Ministers of France and in a conjuncture when Cardinal Vrsini Protector of Poland was not in too much credit at the Palace because he had engaged in the Intrigues of the Marriage of the Princess Cesarini Altieri then took the course the Spaniards had proposed to him he wrote a Letter to the King of Poland sending therewith a Brief to his Holiness in which having accepted of his nomination he prayed him to afford his Holiness the means of giving him content as it was his purpose and desire to do without mentioning the cause that opposed the fulfilling of his demands as to the Bishop of Marseilles to these Letters he added private Instructions to the Nuncio that he should acquaint the King that the Jealousie of the Spaniards was an impediment to the promotion of the Bishop of Marseilles that his Majesty would oblige his Holiness if he would cast his eyes upon some Neutral Person with whom all parties might be satisfied that that condescention would still engage his Holiness to use endeavors for the ease of the Kingdom of Poland from the pressures under which it lay The King was very ill pleased at the way how the Court of Rome used him it seemed strange to him how these men who set alwayes to work to advance another to the Crown should have still the Countenance to refuse him a Hat at the instigation of those who were jealous of his greatness that they had the baseness to barter and truck with him by selfish propositions below the greatness of his mind as well as the dignity of the Apostolick See that they should take the liberty to contradict the choice he had made of one who was very dear unto him upon many considerations and who ought to be more so to the Court of Rome by his merit and virtue He reremained constant in the Nomination of the Bishop of Marseilles and Altieri to this present has forborn as much as he could to give him that reasonable satisfaction by protracting the promotion of Crowns There has been nothing conspicuous in all this conduct of Altieri with Poland but a passion to content the Spaniards or at least a desire not to displease them and though that has some colour in the eyes of those who endeavour to excuse him saying It is impossible for a Popes Nephew to preserve the favour of all parties that it is sufficient to adhere to the chief branches of the Tree and to keep himself in good intelligence with Spain who have more means of offending and less facility to forget and pardon yet more quaint Politicians could have given a counsel whereby Altieri might have had the advantage of contenting his Majesty of Poland without offending the Spaniards and that is to have perswaded the Pope to have prevented the demand of the King of Poland upon his assumption to the Crown by offering him a Hat to be disposed of in favours of whom he pleased the Spaniards would have had nothing to say against that engagement and then if the King of Poland had named the Bishop of Marseilles their mouthes would have been stopped by telling them that the Pope could not excuse himself from fulfilling what he had absolutely promised not foreseeing that his Majesty of Poland would nominate the Bishop of Marseilles But at Rome they want not skill to find out biasses when they have a mind to do things with good grace nor excuses neither when they have any reluctancy and as to what is said touching the difficulty that the Nephew of a Pope meets with in giving content to all parties I could make appear that there is nothing more easie for an impartial and unprejudiced Nephew whereof we have fresh instances in the Pontificat of Clement the Ninth and in the conduct of his Relations We shall leave it to the World to Judge of the whole piece by this Pattern and to time to discover the bad texture of it that we may proceed to make reflexions on some other occasions wherein that Cardinal Nephew might have made appear his zeal and wisdom and by illustrious actions have raised the glory of his Unckles Papacy and the honour of his own Ministery There was no man but knew what great preparations the French King made for a War against the Hollanders that he might endeavour to reduce that Republick to their natural duty of acknowledging that in part it holds of his Crown both the ground of its liberty and the establishment of its fortune It is likewise known that with the same hand the King would restore the liberty of the Catholick Religion in a Countrey where it is had in horrour In fine the effects of this was shortly seen by a great many Churches reconsecrated both in the Towns and Countrey of four Provinces conquered within the space of a few weeks All Catholicks triumphed at the progress of the most Christian Kings Arms and many gave publick thanks to Heaven for the success What is it Cardinal Altieri will not do to give marks of his Joy and Acknowledgments What honour will accrue to his Ministery and