Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	king_n	people_n	see_v	6,159	5	3.7814	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49199	Elegant apothegms in the speech of Lewis IV King of France to his revolted subjects		1685 (1685)	Wing L3095; ESTC R8669	3,806	4

Elegant Apothegms In the SPEECH of Lewis IV. King of France To His Revolted SUBJECTS BEfore I shall receive your Oath of Fidelity which I may justly demand and You may justly take I let you know you have re-call'd this Prince who during his Exile had nothing else to do but to Rule and Reign And hereby I shall enforce you to believe that You shall not make a Royal Throne a Passage into my Fathers Prison and after you have presented me with a Crown to dare once to think of Chains and Irons I know well that this Discourse will surprise You and that You did not believe when you presented me with a Scepter that I should not rather have receiv'd it with Thanks than Reprehensions But this Act is extraordinary in its Commencement Progress and Constitution And it 's Just that all Circumstances should be proportionable Let it then suffice you only to know that if they be Ignorant in that Point Subjects are to pay their Obedience yet I am not ignorant to what degree Sovereigns may extend their Clemency notwithstanding there is difference betwixt them Subjects have no limits for the first but Sovereigns have for the latter The People are oblig'd to the Princes Will both by their Birth and Laws They owe them their Goods their Lives and Liberties Their Prince owes them nothing but Justice which can hardly Pardon Traytors If these Truths and Maxims had been equally understood and follow'd by the late King my Sovereign and You his People Affairs had not been in so sad a condition the State had not been reduc'd to such Confusion the Provinces had not been Canoniz'd Germany had not been so full of Faction Italy had not been so divided all the Cities of the Kingdom had not had so many Kings as they had new Governours You had not been guitly of the Crime of Treason in elevating an Vsurper to the Throne his Tomb might have been bedeck'd with my Tears his Hearse cover'd with Trophies and not with Chains And in short You might have been Happy and Innocent But as His Clemency and Your Rebellion were the sole Cause of all those Evils so Your Obedience and my Justice are the only Means to make Reparation Consider a little I pray you that You fail not back into the same Estate wherein you were You have violated all sort of Rights in the Person of your King Yon have rais'd a War against Him Assaulted him and afterwards Poison'd him You have abused the Confidence he had in You and deliver'd him Prisoner with as great Treason as Injustice Insolency as Cruelty Insolency which was never offer'd to the Person of an ordinary Herald Thus you have impudently abus'd your KING during a Treaty of Peace led him from Prison to Prison for Five Years together You have forc'd him to despise his Crown and transfer'd it to another Hands than mine To conclude You have put Him to Death and you have reduc'd Me to a strict Necessity to shew my Misery beyond Sea and seek my Safety by my Flight It hath happend that sometimes Grandees of a Kingdom have Interposed Themselves against a Tyrany and destroy'd it But it was never seen that They Themselves advanc'd a Tyrant to the Throne as You have done In these kind of Crimes the Abetter may be said to be more Criminal than He who receiv'd all the Fruit For if every one of You had aspir'd to set the Crown upon his own Head You had been more excusable than to snatch it from your Lawful Prince and place it upon the Head of a Vsurper But You may say to Me the Prince that boret it was not able to support it To that I shall Answer as I had the Honour to be his Son and Subject it belongs not to Me to determine what He could or what He could not Seeing He was my Father I ought not to presume to be His Judge and He my King I ought not to be so Impudent to Censure much less Condemn His Actions He being not oblig'd to give an account to any but God alone The same Respect I have for his Memory You ought to have for his Person He was Your King as well as Mine Seeing then that KINGS are call'd Fathers of the People their Subjects are oblig'd to have for Them a True Resentment of Respect which their very Birth may infuse into them Besides Sovereigns are the true Images of God that splendour of their Puissance is a Beam of their Power when you see the Comets appear the Sun Eclips'd the Thunder-bolts fall on Innocent Heads we see the Floods drown whole Towns by their Innundations the Sea passing its Bounds swallowing whole Provinces in the bottom of the Deep devour them up Yea when you see Earth-quakes make Kingdoms Tremble Then it is permitted to the People to Murmure Do you not discern the contrary in these occurrences they re-double their Vows and Prayers and that they are never more obedient to God than at such a time as if God had forsaken the Providence of the Universe And when it shall so happen that Heaven gives you a Prince for punishment of your Sins under whose Reign Policy and Prudence are not well observ'd during whose Government Foreign and Civil Wars devour all with cruel ravages it belongs not then to You to Condemn your Sovereign For is he Feeble then you ought to sustain him Is He Unfortunate then you ought to bemoan him Is he Wicked then you ought to look upon him as a Scourge sent from Heaven and to wait with Patience for a Remedy from that Hand which hath caused your Evil For when a Prince Commands his Army and gives Battle if it so happens that the Soldiers perform not their Duty that the Squadron yield the main Body be broken and in the end after he hath done Miracles in his Person He be yet constrain'd to Retreat from his Enemies is it not the Prince that suffers the Disgrace and is reputed Vanquish'd and bears the Infamy of the Day notwithstanding by his own particular Actions he hath merited to be a Conquerour Seeing it thus why will ye not bear with the Misfortunes of your Prince as well as They do with Yours Or to come something nearer to the quick why do you not regulate these Disorders by your more exact Obedience The Prince alone is obvious in a Battle to the Infamy Cowardise Misfortunes of his whole Army and You are Thousands who are oblig'd to strengthen the Authority of your King Believe me if all Subjects would be Loyal no Kingdom could be Miserable And if all Princes thought on Severity more than Clemencie there would not be so many Subjects Rebels Moreover if it were permitted to the capritious People to take and give Crowns when they fancied a Change I conceive there is not a Shepherd but he might hope to be a King and not a King but reduc'd to a Shepherd so unruly are floating Judgments But to speak the truth to

you these things ought not to pass We are Your Masters and You ought not to become Ours It is not that I am ignorant that God disposes of Crowns and Scepters as he pleases and gives them to whom he lists I tell you in general that Kings ought not to lose their Crowns but with their Lives and that nothing can Dispense Subjects from the Loyalty they owe to their Sovereigns not any pretence to Authorize a Rebellion If Sacred Persons may not enjoy their particular Priviledges they shall be expos'd to more miseries than all sorts of Men their very Guards will appear to them as so many Enemies their Thrones a Direful Precipice rather than a place of Honour A King of this kind is no better than an Illustrious Slave when he shall have as many Masters as Subjects This Disorder will quickly cause a Second For when the Nobility of a Kingdom fail in their Duty to their Prince Vassals and Tenants will forfeit their Fealty to Them and then Rebellion is communicated from the Grandees to the Commons and so descending from one sort to another till Universal Confusion devours all Every one will Command and no person Obey and so every one proves a Slave to his own Ambition This in effect is the most sad condition a Kingdom can fall into For my own part when I consider my self to be the Son of a King Successor of so many Kings and yet notwithstanding that I immediately succeed not my Father This Idea imprints in Me a strange Confusion as towards You and extreme Grief as towards my self when I reflect how the same Subjects who Inchain'd CHARLES in Fetters plac'd LEWIS on the Throne The Malice which they bore to the Father may it not easily fall upon the Son And may not They fear that the Son will Revenge the Outrages against the Father Yet some may say present Loyalty will blot out the Memory of their Antient Diss-service This is certain in the exact Rule no Noble Action ought to pass without its Recompence Yet it 's as really true that no Crime ought to escape its Punishment You have call'd Me to the Throne it 's true but if you had not You had been as Criminal against Lewis as Charles Your Wives and Children are not exempt from these Crimes seeing without doubt they made Vows for their Parents offending and Prayers against their Prince Whereas then I cannot punish you all but that I must entertain you It rests at my choice whether I would become a King without Subjects or to Pardon You out of pure Grace It may be during your Lives ye may Repent you of your Antient Crimes and become as Faithful as you were Disobedient Think not then that by taking an Oath of Fidelity that I am thereby engag'd not to do what becomes a King No I come to a Throne where if I should be a Slave I had rather be obscur'd in a Prison as my Father was than not to Reign as a Sovereign Those People with whom Loyalty is Elective forbear not to make their Kings Absolute because they could have no pretence of Justice to do otherwise Judge then if those who hold their Crowns from Heaven ought to acknowledge their Subjects for their Masters I find it far better to be a Glorious Subject than a King dis-obey'd Deceive not your selves the Value and Providence of a Prince are not sufficient of themselves to make a Kingdom happy The Subjects ought to contribute their proportions the Nobles to offer their Loyal Obedience the People to follow their good Example See what your Prince hath said to You in Lieu of Punishing hath Pardon'd Instead of Fighting with You prepares to Defend You Instead of Your Enemy is Your Conservator Printed by N. T. in the Year of our Lord MDCLXXXV