Selected quad for the lemma: land_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
land_n	english_a	king_n	lord_n	1,488	5	3.5153	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96861	Anglo-tyrannus, or the idea of a Norman monarch, represented in the paralell reignes of Henrie the Third and Charles kings of England, wherein the whole management of affairs under the Norman kings is manifested, together with the real ground, and rise of all those former, and these latter contestations between the princes, and people of this nation, upon the score of prerogative and liberty. And the impious, abusive, and delusive practises are in short discovered, by which the English have been bobbed of their freedome, and the Norman tyrannie founded and continued over them. / By G.W. of Lincolnes Inne.	Walker, George, of Lincoln's Inn.	1650 (1650)	Wing W340; Thomason E619_1; ESTC R203987	46,665	64

if he kicked too hard he might be thrown out of the Saddle he seems openly to surcease and promises never to send any more Legats into England and underhand effects his will by other Ministers termed Clerks who had the same power though a different title the former being too eminent for his clandestine transactions which the King furthers him in all he can so cordiall was the reconcilement which shewes it was not effected by fear And to give them their due both play'd their parts very dexterously if the term may be proper for a sinister practice The Pope ranting as high in the Counsel as the King vapoured in the Parlament saying It is fit that we make an end with the Emperour that we may crush these petty Kings for the Dragon once appeased or destroyed these lesser Snakes will soon be trodden down But had he thought Henry one in earnest he would not so soon have received him into his bosome Peter of Savoy before made Earl of Richmond comes over again it may seem the King by his pretended forwardnes against the Pope had got some money bringing with him young wenches out of Provence which were married to Noblemen who were the Kings wards as to the Earls of Lincoln Kent c. and to be sure Peter lost nothing by such bargains though the Nobility were abused in a barbarous and tyrannicall manner Comes again the Countesse of Provence who lost nothing by the voyage though she had delivered Provence and sixteen Castles as a dowry with her Daughter married to Charls the French Kings Brother unto the French contrary to equity the Queen of England being the eldest Daughter and Covenant too having promised it to the King and received for five years 4000 marks annuall pension in consideration of the pact so fatally infatuated was this King that he cared not how he lavished out upon such cheats what he scrued and wrung from his Subjects And besides Thomas of Savoy titular Earl of Flanders who came over with her three of the Kings half-Brothers are sent for over to be provided of Estates in England which it seems he intended to divide between his own and his Wives beggarly kindred truly by this Kings actions a man would guesse he thought he had been set up onely to impoverish his Subjects and enrich Aliens and as he so almost every King plaid their prizes the only difference being that strangers were not alwayes the objects of their profusenesse yet King James imitated him in every circumstance who gave away so fast unto Scots the English Lands and they to relieve their penury fell'd the woods so lustily that for ought could be guessed Trees would have been as thin here as in Scotland had not the Lords by money hyred his jester Green to give a stop to his Carriere they themselvs not daring to give check to the Magisteriall Scot in his vanity by making a Coat with Trees and Birds on them and telling him questioning and wondering at the humor That if the Woods were fell'd so fast by his Countrey men a little longer Birds must perch upon Fools Coats for no Trees would be left them to sit upon Thus also was the Lord Cobham and Sir Walter Rawleys estates conferr'd on favourites and they made Traytors that Court Hang-bies might be made Lords and Gentlemen and to say the truth in this point all or most of our Monarchs have so behaved themselves as if with the Countrey fellow at Doctors Commons they thought England was dead detestable had made them her executioners and they were come to the Crown to diminish her goods But to return where we left Henry was so lavish and his Guests so unwilling to seem unmannerly and refuse his kindnesse that his baggs were now become as empty as his barrels were before A Parliament therefore is summoned at London and money demanded but they put him in minde of his Guests and besides sharply reprehended Him For his breach of promise in requiring another aid having vowed and declared upon his last supplie never more to injure the state in that kinde for his violent taking up of provisions for diet wax silkes robes but especially wine contrary to the will of the owners whereby Merchants will withdraw their Commodities and all Trade and Commerce utterly ceases to the detriment and infamy of this Kingdome That his Judges were sent in Circuit under pretence of justice to fleece the people That Passeleave had wrung from the Borderers on Forests vast sums of money they wonder therefore he should now demand relief from the impoverished Commons They advise him to pull from his favourits inriched with the Treasure of the Kingdom to support his prodigality sith his needlesse expences amounted to above 800000 l. since he began his destructive Raign postquam Regni caepit esse dilapidator thus plainly durst our generous Ancestors tell a Tyrant his own to his teeth Then they reprove Him For keeping vacant in his hands Bishopricks and Abbeys contrary to the Liberties of the Church and his Oath taken at his Coronation Which it seems was judged more than a Ceremony in those dayes though in ours the contrary hath so falsly and impudently been asserted Lastly they generally complain for that the chief Iusticia Chancellor Treasurer c. were not made by the Common-Councell of the Kingdom according as they were in the time of his magnificent predecessors as as it was fit and expedient but such advanced as followed his will in whatsoever tended to his gaine and sought promotion not for the good of the Kingdom but their own profit Here we may obsetve that it was no new doctrin which our Parliament in the beginning taught us but that it was practised as well as thought fit so to be by our Ancestors though the Royall Pen-men in their Declarations boldly and publickly avowed the contrary With this reprehension the King was netled as his speech the next Session makes out for though he promised amendment they would not beleeve him and therefore prorogued the Parliament till Midsummer that they might see whether he would be as good as his word We must know Kings were not grown so impudent and daring then as to dissolve Parliaamens at their own pleasures But he mended like sour Ale in Summer his heat it seems increasing with the Seasons and in the next Session with an Imperious and Magisteriall brow thus expostulates with them Would you curb the King your Lord at your uncivill pleasure and impose a servile condition on him will you deny unto him what everyone of you as you list may doe it is lawfull for every one of you to use what Counsell and every Master of a Family to prefer to any office in his house whom he pleases and displace again when he list and will you rashly deny your Lord the King to do the like Whereas servants ought not to judge their Master and Subjects their Prince or hold them to their cond●tions

Provision every one refusing to lend him or the King a groat so great credit had their perfidie got them Many being clapt up in prison who would not be perjured the Lords and others whose consciences were more tender both of their Oath and Liberties than to believe the Pope or trust the King assemble together in arms for defence of themselves and their liberties and first they send to the King humbly beseeching him to remember his many Oathes and promises but when that would not availe them they advance towards London where the King lay in the Tower waiting the gathering of his forces and the comming over of strangers which he expected and now the Bishops who as they were seldom in any good so would be sure to be cheif in every bad action make such a stir to prevent bloudshed forsooth of which their tendernesse hath alwaies been well enough knowne that the controversy must be referred to the French King to decide much honour got England and much liberty was like to get by such an Arbitratour while she is forced to creep to forraigners to know whether they will please to let her enjoy liberty or no after 47 years oppression under Henry besides what his good Father and Grandsiers had loaded her with But the Lords being perswaded that their Liberties and Rights depended not upon the will of any one Man refused to stand to the partiall award of the French in the English Tyrants behalfe Thus concluded this business as all others commonly did which Bishops had a foot in●● with a mischief to the Common-wealth the King gaining by it not only time for raising but a seeming justice for his using of Forces to compell the Lords to stand to the sentence by which their liberties were adjudged from them No doubt those wise and generous Barons not only disliked but disdained such an Vmpire as being sensible of the advantages Henry of the dishonour their Countrey and of the discommodity their cause would reap by him but that those Fathers in evill under the angelical shape of peace-makers necessitated them to accept of him to avoid the obloquy of being Incendiaries the involvers of their Country in a miserable civill war Let the English High Priests then to their eternall infamy carry a frontlet engraven with Mischeif to England on their foreheads who were the fatall instruments of enforcing their Country to submit her liberty to a forraigne Tyrants decision whose corrupt interest lay in adding fewell to the flames which consumed the Noblest Fabricks the uprightest and firmest pillars in the English Nation Yet that Henry might make a little better market for himselfe he Summons a Parliament at Westminster where whilst openly nothing but redressing grievances composing differences exclaiming against jealousies raised to scandalise the King good man as if he intended to leavy War against his people by factious spirits proceeds from Henry he underhand prepares for War endeavouring to divide the Barons and strengthen himself by all the plots and clandestine tricks he could at last having by sprinkling Court holy-water and promising fifty pound Lands per annum to such as would desert the Lords party drawn divers to revolt unto him he secretly withdraws from Westminster to Windsor and from thence to Oxford so on traversing the Country to patch up and peece together an Army And here we may see it was no new thing which was acted by his late successor who in al his actions made it appeare that he was a right chip of the old block Now pretences of the Barons insolencies against the King and oppressions of the Subjects Declarations of his being forced to take up arms for defence of the just Lawes and Liberties of the people and his own safety with protestations of his good intentions and divers other such knacks are every where on the wing as we have had flying up and down at the tayss of the Royall paper Kites of our times The Lords being thus left in the lurch are not wanting in preparing for defence being unanimously backt by the citizens of London who have hitherto had the honour of bravely standing for Liberty yet first they send to the King putting him in mind of his oathes and promises and desiring him to observe the great Charter and Oxford Statutes but the Drums and Trumpets make such musick in his ears that Henry will heare no talk of any Law but what his will and Sword shall give and for their good Counsell returnes them as tokens of his love the title of Rebels and Traytors which he as frankly bestows on their persons as he doth their Lands on his followers By these course Complements the Lords perceiving which way the game was like to go leave off putting their confidence in the King and trust their cause to God and their good Swords then choosing the Earls of Leicester and Glocester for their Generalls whose hands no manacle of alliance could lock from defending their Countries Liberties though the first had married the Sister the second the Neece of the King they take the Feild may Towns are taken by each party and many skirmishes passe wherein sometimes the one party sometimes the other get the better at length divers Scotch Lords and others with great forces being joyned to the King he marches against Northampton where he heard Peter Montford was assembling forces for the Barons the Town was very resolutely defended untill by the Treachery of some Monks within say some by the subtilty of the Kings Forces say others who advancing close under the Wall undermined it whilst the Captains within parlying with the King on the other side a breach was made so large that forty Horse might enter a brest by which Henry gained it by assault This Town being taken ran the same fortune Leicester lately did for Henry drunk with successe and rage like a violent Torrent swept all before him killing burning and spoiling where ever his Army came but here so unmanly was the cruelty of the Tyrant that he would have hanged all the Oxford Schollers a band of which were in the Town for their valour shewed in the brave resistance of his forces had not some of his Counsellers perswaded him from so doing for feare the only curb to an ignoble soule of exasperating their freinds against him by his cruelty many of the Schollers being young Gentlemen of good quality Here by the way we may observe the miserable effects of bad Governours in the Vniversities by whom such degeneratenesse was wrought in our youth that none in our times were found more desperate engagers against the cause of Liberty than young Schollers who heretofore were the most resolute Champions for it Let us therefore make no sinister constructions when we see our Governours diligent in purging the fountaines if we desire to have the streams run cleere But Northampton put a period to Henries fortune for although he caused the Barous to raise their siedge from Rochester yet in the

hath been verified in us who though we have been set up to the chinne in freedom and have had liberty bobbing at our lips yet never could we get a drop to squench our thirsts or a snap to stay our stomacks this being added to our sufferings to want in the midst of seeming abundance and as the vulgar have it to starve in a Cooks shop a trick those Lords we term absolute were never ingenuous enough to torment their slaves with Were there then no more but this we might well command those Roman and Turkish Tyrants with a Cede Majoribus to give place to ours How much of a punie did thy wish savour dull Caligula that all Rome had but one neck that thou mightest smite it off at a blow How short of art doth thy rage fall unskillfull Sultan with a Bowstring or Scymiter to snach life from an offending slave Behold and blush you who weare the title of Master Tyrants at the Norman exactnesse which hath thought it beneath a Princes anger to give sudden death a quick riddance and not worth the name of slavery unlesse he can make his vassals feel the lingring effects of his Tyranny it was not enough for us to be slaves unless we knew it lest otherwise not desiring freedom we should not have been so sensible of their power we must with Erasmus be hung between Heaven and Hell that we might see our losse as well as feel it but yet this was not enough something must be added to make their Tyranny most exquisite for we could not enjoy this condition unlesse we paid soundly for it how many Battles have been fought for a piece of Parchment to instruct us but with our miseries and how many millions granted to our Kings but to play the Hocus-pocusses and cheat us to our faces Happy and thrice happy may England call the condition of Turke Russe or Moor who depending only upon their Tyrants wils know no Law but their Commands a head now and then paies the shot there when two and twenty of the chiefest Lords heads must off at once here besides thousands of Gentlemen and Commons butchered for but acting according to those Lawes which their King and his predecessors had an hundred times sworn to grant and maintain inviolable as but to instance in the Raign of Edw. 2. omitting the innumerable carcasses of Englands noblest Sonnes which have bin so often forced to rampire in parchment liberty from the fury of other Tyrant and as their last wills to deliver a few writen Charters to their sons who were also to fight and pay for them as they did and be as much the better then too as they were For to sum up all these our so dear liberties were of no other use than to drein our purses as well as veins that when Englands generous bloud seemed encreased too to tamely suffer Norman Lords to trample on her upon this pretence it might be let out or when her Kings wanted mony they might by these lures draw subsidies to their fists and so hang them by till the next occasion but I humbly conceive that if our Ancestors had taken that course a Naturall once did when he was chosen to judg between a Cook and a Country-man and as their Kings fed them with a sight of Liberty supplied them againe with chinking of money have executed justice without respect of persons they had in all probability diverted those plagues which the crying sins of oppression and murder have brought down from Heaven upon this Nation But let us descend from Generalls and view but the Raign of Henry the third the very Idea of Tyranny and exact copie after which all other Kings have writ especially the last and we shall not only behold the map of our Ancestors miserie and folly but also perceive our own happinesse and Gods mercie in not suffering us to be deluded and baffeled as they were In the midst of the civill flames kindled between Tyranny and liberty King Iohn expiring his sonne Henry the third a child of nine years of age by the power of William Marshall Earl of Pembrook and the consent of most of the Barons ascends the Throne and here we may observe the unadvised lenitie of the English Lords who not considering what was bred in the bone would not easily out in the flesh so easily accepted of the Sonne though the Father had plaid the Tyrant and Traitor to the height giving the Crown to the Pope he would be a slave himself rather than they should not trampling upon the people yea detesting the whole Nation as his grief because Corne was so cheap when he thought he had wasted al may make out But Gods time was not come and he was pleased to set their example to guide posterity from splitting on that Rock I mean such of them who when they have eyes will make use of them But to say the truth they were Lords whom Kings knew so well to cajole or at worst set so together by the ears that they could command them into their traps at list let but one have that Earldome the other this Lordship and their turns were served others may shift for themselves if they can besides it was none of their interest to stub up Tyranny by the roots for then down had gon their branches too for they knew that when that tree was feld the Rooks nest must to ground with it but we may be silent in this and give experience leave to speak for us And yet let us but look a litttle further than the gilded and embroydered superficies and we shall perceive that these Lordlings estate was but even by so much more free and happy than the Commons by how much that King of Cypresses condition was bettered when his Iron shackles and chains were converted into silver fetters they enjoyed a little more gaudie servitude and to speak to the capacity of our Countryman were as the Fore-horses in the teame which though they weare the Feather and have the Bels about their eares yet must draw themselves as well as those that follow nay and if they did seem unwilling to lead they were sure to be lash'd by the Royall Carters till the bloud came and have their gay trappings to boot pul'd over their eares and this the wise and generous of them knew and often endeavoured to remedy but were still prevented by the envy and jealousie one of another which was created and cast in among them by their Kings as partly will appeare in the following story Henry being thus Crowned at Glocester and many great Barons daily resorting to his party moved both by the proud carriage of the Frenchmen and the confession of the Viscount Melun That Lewis had taken an Oath and all his Lords to destroy the English Nobility raiseth a great Army defeateth at Lincolne his enemies and forceth Lewis to condescend to an accord depart the Land and abjure his claim to the Crown which for two

their riots and oppressions insomuch that it was the generall exclamation Our Inheritance is given to Aliens and our houses to strangers but we shall perceive the oppressions then on foot if we consider but what was told the King by divers to his face The Countesse of Arundell being harshly denyed by the King about a Ward detained from her in regard of a smal parcell of Land held in capite which drew away all the rest thus spake My Lord why turn you away your face from Iustice that we can obtein no right in your Court you are constituted in the midst betwixt God andus but neither govern your selfe nor us discreetly as you ought you shamefully vex both the Church and Nobles of the Kingdom by all means you can To which the King floutingly answered saying Lady Countesse have the Lords made you a Charter and sent you to be their Prolocutrix She replyes No Sir They have not made any Charter to me but the Charter which your Father and you made and swore so often to observe and so often extorted from your Subjects their money for the same you unworthily transgresse as a manifest breaker of your faith where are the Liberties of England so often written so often granted so often bought I though a Woman and with me all your naturall and faithfull people appeal against you to the Tribunall of that high Iudge above and Heaven and Earth shall be our witnesse that you have most unjustly dealt with us and Lord God of revenge avenge us Behold a generous and knowing Lady it was the sufferings of her Country not her self of which we find no mention extorted this true and resolute complaint from her Vpon the ruines of Henries fame hath Isabell raised an eternall trophie of her Vertue which shall stand conspicuous in English History so long as any memory of England remains Thus the Master of the Hospitallers tels the King saying he would revoke those Charters and Liberties inconsiderately granted by him and his Predecessors and for it alleging the Popes practice who many times chashiered his Grants So long as you observe Iustice you may be a King as soon as you violate the same you shall leave to be a King A Truth more Sacred than his Majesty could be and not to be violated for the sake of millions of Tyrants But above all for wonder is that of the Fryars Minors who returned a load of Freeze he sent them with this Message that he ought not to give alms of what he had Rent from the poor Indeed obedience is better than sacrifice but had this conscience been used by all the Romish Clergy their bellies had been leaner though their souls might have got by it their temporalities lesse though their spirituality more and this act deserves an Euge to these though it create an Apage to others rises in judgment condemning those great Clergy men who have been lesse than these Minors in Conscience and Honesty At last the King having a mind to have another bout beyond Sea summons a Parliament at London and now there is no doubt but he would be so gracious as to grant them what they could desire O what a blessed thing is want of money and how bountifull are Kings when they are quite beggared they will pull down Star-chambers High-Commission courts Monopolies suffer Favourites to be called to account for Treasons and vilanies they set them a work to do when they can do no other can neither will nor chose and will grant trienniall Parliaments and passe Acts that a Parliament shall sit so long as it will and which it might have done without their leave when all the devices and power they can make are not able to hinder it well though that proverb says Necessity hath no law yet with reverence to it's antiquity I must contrarily affirm that had it not been for necessity England had never had good law made nor kept neither ever should so long as the Norman yoake was in fashion This Gaffer Necessity at the first word obtains what all the Lords Prelats Parliaments so long demanded in vain Henry so the Parliament will but relieve him will ratifie and confirm their Liberties they do it granting him a tenth of the Clergy for three years and Escuage three marks of every Knights Fee of the Laity for one year towards his journey into the Holy Land indeed Gascoigne which how holy soever Henry accounted it he could never yet bring any reliques out of it though he had carried many a Crosse into it and he accordingly ratifies those often-confirmed Charters in the most solemn and ceremoniall manner that the Religion of that time and the wisdom of the State could then devise to do For the Parliament having so often found by experience that no civill promise or verball profession would hold in these Norman Lords raptur'd by Prerogative and devoted to perjury to maintain tyranny take now a more Ecclesiasticall and divine way of Obligation swearing to Excommunicate all who should be found infringers of the Charters And the King with all the great Nobility all the Prelats in their Vestments with burning Candles in their hands assemble in the great Hall at Westminster to receive that dreadfull sentence The King having received a Candle gives it to a Prelat saying it becoms not me being no Preist to hold this my heart shall be a greater testimony and withall lays his hand spred upon his Brest the whole time the sentence was pronounced which was Authoritate Dei Omnipotentis c. which done he causes the Charter of King Iohn his Father to be read likewise openly in the end having thrown away their Candles which lay smoaking on the ground they cryed out So let them which incurre this sentence be extinct and stinke in Hell and the King with a loud voice said As God me help I will as I am a Man a Christian a Knight a King Crowned and Annointed inviolably observe all these things Never were Lawes saith that witty Historian amongst men except those holy Commandements on the Mount established with more Majesty of Ceremony to make them reverend and respected than these were they wanted but Thunder and Lightning from Heaven which likewise if prayers could have effected they would have had to make the sentence gastly and hideous to the infringers thereof Yet no sooner was this Parliament dissolved by a sacred and most solemne conclusion but the King presently studies to infringe all and with a part of the money he then got purchasing an absolution of the Pope returnes to his former oppressive courses with more violence and hardnesse and for ought we know our late King had the like to help him over all those styles for Master Prynne tells us there was an English Lieger in Rome and our own eyes that there were Nuntio's here at home to continue a correspondence between the Pope and his Royall Favorite Thus what the King does the Pope undoes

for money so cursed a thirst after Gold was in both It is no wonder therefore some of Henry's late successors were hying so fast to Rome who being troubled with the same disease stood in need of the same Mountebanke and no doubt but Venus hath obtained Armour of proof of Vulcan for her wandring AEneas so that the King of Scots is well provided against the Covenants pearcing him to the heart by the care of his Mother and art of his holy Father But to returne to Henry whom we see the greatest security that could be given and that under the greatest penalty an Oath could not hold who would therefore suppose that he or any Kings of such metall should ever be believed againe by any who write themselves men Creatures in whose composition are many ounces of reason when the only Chaine upon earth besides Love to tye the Conciences of men and humane society together which should it not hold all the frame of Government must fall asunder and men like Beasts be left to force that whosoever is the stronger may destroy the other hath been so often and suddainly broken by the Norman tyrants in whom this perjury ran in a bloud almost to a miracle or who could think Master Prynne who in print takes notice of their frequent violations would ever be drawn by corrupt interest to have his Countries Liberties sent to Sea to seek their fortunes in so rotten a Bottome These Deeds being done succeeds one so monstrous that we must almost run half way to Credulity to be able to meet it for this perjured Prince was not ashamed to send his Brother over to summon the Estates and demand of them the Wounds yet fresh and bleeding made by his impieties another Subsidy but the Parlament denied him to the great exasperation of the Tyrant yet the Earl of Cornwall forced the Iews to pay a great Summ that he might not return empty handed to his Brother who staid untill he had consumed all that ever he could get in this Iourney which with the other two made before cost him seven and twenty hundred thousand pounds more than all his Lands there were They to be sold were worth besides thirty thousand Marks with Lands Rents Wards Horses and Iewels to an inestimable price thrown away upon his half-brothers After all this he returns and the first that felt their good Lord was come again were the Londoners and the Iews who paid soundly for his Welcome The Londoners presenting him with an hundred pounds were returned without Thanks or Money for he was not altogether so unmannerly as to deny to receive it then being perswaded Plate would be better welcome they send him a fair Vessell worth two hundred pounds this had some Thanks but yet would not serve the turn For the Pope having bestowed the Kingdom of Sicil on the Kings younger Son which the Earl of Cornwall wisely refused knowing the Pope was never so liberall of any thing which was his own the King to gain this makes all the mony he can get out of his Coffers and Exchequer or borrow of his Brother or scrape from the Iews or extort by the rapine of his Iustices itinerants which he gives to the Pope to maintain his Wars against Conrade King of Sicil you see there was a right Owner of what the Pope was so liberal and yet all this would not do for the Pope writes for more who was loath to be a Niggard of anothers Purse upon this Henry sends him Letters Obligatory signed with his Seal with Blanks left to put in what Summs he would or could get of the Merchants of Italy desiring him to stick upon no interest all which was so effectually performed that he was put in Debt no lesser Summ than three hundred thousand Marks and yet no Sicil was got Vpon this a Parlament is summoned and of them money required which though they promised to grant upon condition he would swear without all cavillation to observe the Charters and let the Chief Iusticiar Chancellour and Treasurer be elected by the common Councel of the Realm would not be hearkned to for though he cared not a fig for his Oath yet it seems those Officers might have restrained him from disposing of his Cash at list and not suffer his Holinesse to have a Penny whereby he might have wanted his Dispensation or else the humor of Tyranny was so high that all his penury was not able to check it for one moment The King thus being left unprovided the Bishop of Hereford Agent for the Prelates at Rome like a trusty Steward findes a shift to help him for getting certain Authentick Seals from them upon pretence of dispatching some businesse for them by Licence of the Pope and King he sets them to writings of such Summs of Money taken up of Italian Merchants for their Vse and so makes them pay the Kings scores He seizes also the Liberties of the City of London into his hands upon the pretence of their letting a Prisoner escape making them fine three thousand Marks to himself and six hundred to his Brother he requires of the Iews upon pain of hanging a Tallage of eight thousand Marks and thus having fleeced them he set them to farm to his Brother who upon Pawns lent him a huge masse of Money then the City Liberties are seized again but upon payment of four hundred Marks restored And to add to all one Ruscand a Legat from the Pope comes and demands the Tenth of England Scotland and Ireland to the use of the King and Pope preaching the Crosse against the King of Sicil but the Clergy protesing rather to lose their Lives and Livings than yield thus to the will of the Pope and King who they said were as the Shepherd and the Wolf combined to macerate the Flock were ordered to some tune for the Legat suspended excommunicated them and the King if they submitted not in forty days spoiled them of all their Goods as forfeited All men by Proclamation that could dispend fifteen pound per annum were commanded to come in and receive the Order of Knighthood or else pay their Fines as was before done in the 37. year and every sheriffe was fined 5 marks for not distreyning on all whom the Proclamation reached this trick was shown in our dayes lest any oppression should scape unexercised A Parliament was held wherein the Prelats and Clergy offered him upon condition the Charters might be observed 52000 marks but it satisfied him not for he demanded the Tenths for 3. years without deduction of expences and the first fruits for the same time Another was called to London wherein upon the Kings pressing Them for releife to pay his depts He is plainly told They will not yeeld to pay him any thing and if unadvisedly he without their consents and counsells bought the Kingdom of Sicill and had been deceived he should impute it to his own imbecility and have been instructed by

height of his jollity he was defeated at Lews such was the wages of Pride and Rage And thus the Sunne setting at Leicester went down at Naseby upon Charls whose successe kept time with his presumption and cruelty And now Henry is pitched down at Lewes where the Barons petitioning for their liberties and desiring Peace are answered by his proclaming them Rebells and Traitors and sending his own his Brothers and Sons Letters of defiance unto them But this was too hot to hold for the Lords perceiving what they must trust to notwithstanding the great numbers of the Enemy the Banished Poictovins being returned with great forces for his aide bravely resolve to give him battel and as gallantly perform their resolutions for fighting like men for their Liberties they gain the day and take Him his Brother and his Sonne with many English and Scotch Lords prisoners This victory was received with such universall joy that when news came of the Queens having a great Army of strangers ready to set sale for England such multitudes appeared on Barham Down to resist them that it could hardly have been thought that so many men were in the Land and at this appearance of the English the forreiners vanish and are disperst being terrified to hear the English were so unanimous in the defence of their Country and its freedome Oh were we but thus united now within our selves we need never fear the combination of forreiners But these noble souls being more valiant than wary more pitifull than just upon a few feigned shews of amendment and fawning promises of not entrenching upon their liberties receive the Snake into their bosomes which will reward their kindnesse with their ruine assoon as he is able For in the Parliament assembled at London the cry of blood and oppression being stopt and smothered up Henry again is seated on the Throne upon that poore and Thread-bare satisfaction of himself and his sonne taking their Oaths to confirm the Charters and Statutes before at Oxford and those now newly made sure Mercury was ascendent at Henries nativity so potent were his starres in deluding those who had been so oft mock'd and beguil'd before when in reason we might suppose his former frequent violations and reiterated perjuries should have taught them what trust was to be given to a Kings oath in whose eye Tyrranny was so beautifull that he never dallied to make market both of soul and body so he might but purchase his desired Paramour These oaths being past in order to the performance after the royall mode the Earl of Glocester is tampred with to leave the Barons and by the artifice of those masters in the art of Division who in all times knew how to work upon the covetous ambitious and envious humours of great men drawn to desert the cause of liberty and of this we our selves have had a sad and fatall experience how many great ones were cajold by Charles at Newcastle Hol●bie and the Islle of Wight even to the great danger of our Cause nay the very House was not free as those Tuesday nights votes may and the Fridayes had informed us with a witnesse had not Providence wrought miraculously for us for it can be made out by good witnesse that there was a resolution to have dissolved the Parliament and proclamed the Army Traitors had they all met But Gold was too drossie to make Glocesters towring soul stoop and his free spirit could not be shackled with silver fetters some other Lure must be used to bring him down and now Leicester was mounted to so high a pitch in the peoples favour that Glocesters weaker wings could not reach him which whilest with an aspiring eye he gazes after his sight was so dazzled with the others motion us gave check to his pursute of the game The crafty Prince marking his advantage so works upon the weaknesse of this young Lord that by it he effects what he could not do by his own force thus Diamonds are cut by their own dust and the Champion of Englands liberty must be the man can ruine it accursed be that sorceresse envy so fatall then to Englands freedome so mischievous lately to the same whose menacing power had it not been stopp'd by the new modell had totally routed the Parliaments whole force so many Divisions of them being charged through and through and needs must that Army become a Chaos wherein Commanders consist of jarring Principles Glocester now being come to his fist away flies Edward to the Lord Mortimer notwithstanding his assurance given not to depart the Court that fable of the wise men of Gotams hedging in the cuckow hits many of our ancestors home who with oaths and promises went about to keep in their Kings when one of the Norman brood could flie over such a fence with the very shell upon his head and as the first part of that storie may be applyed to us so the second is not altogether insignificant for our Kings whom we shal alwayes find together with such as sing after them in one tune crying out disloyall dissoyall as if they could say as well as do nothing else yet a Christian may conceive such a found should make them tremble by bringing the sinnes of their fathers and their own iniquities into their remembrance did they but believe there were a God who will measure the same measure out unto them which they have meted to others and will visit the sinnes of the fathers upon the children Glocester and Edward having done the Prologue the Tragedy begins wherein the Scenes were so well laid that every actor was ready to enter and each had his part so well by heart that it is plain they had been long conning their lessons for no sooner were these two gone but the Earles Warren Pembroke with a whole shoale of Poictovins and other strangers come to land in Wales which with the scattered reliques of the battell at Lewes gathered from all parts embody in great numbers before the Lords who stood faithfull were aware of them yet they prepare for them as fast as they can but their fortune was now in the wane their pity and credulity had brought them into the snare and their lives must go for suffering him to escape whom God had delivered into their hands for to condemne the innocent and absolve the guilty are equally abominable in the sight of heaven and our ancestors to their cost have made experience of the truth of the Proverb Save a thief from the Gallows and he shall be the first will cut your throat First the Armies meet at Killingworth where the Lord Simon Montford sonne to the Earl of Leicester is defeated this bad newes meeting Leicester in Wales hastens him to repair the breach made in their fortunes and he meets the enemy near Evesham where in a bloody field fighting most valiantly he loses life and victory both and with him many more of the most noble English fall a victime to perjured

must that trust of powr be dangerous to the Nation which lighting upon the most able person proves most destructive to the peoples just and native freedome Thus having briefly represented the most signall and materiall passages throughout this tedious and long reigne of Henry the third in this short Discourse where as in a perspective the Reader may not onely descry actions farre distant in time and near hand as done in our dayes but also take an exact view of the whole mannagement of affairs under the Norman Monarchie together with the real ground and rise of all those former and these latter contestations between the Kings and people of this Nation upon the score of Prerogative and liberty I shall forbear to swell into a volumne by raising unnecessary observations which I shall leave as I have done the paralell where it was plain to every eye to be spun out by each Readers fancie being assured that the most shuttleheaded adorer of our Monarchy must blush in affirming that a fine piece which it appears hath been wrought of such course threds and will onely in short set before you those Tyrannicall abusive and delusive practises by which our ancestors have been bobbed of their Freedome and the Norman Tyranny founded and continued over them William the Norman sirnamed the Bastard taking the opportunity of the Divisions among the English invades the Land and overthrows Harolds weakned much in a fight with the invading Norwegians where though he got the victory he lost the bodies of many and the hearts of most of his Souldiers by his partiall dividing of the Spoil Harold slain and William victorious he is received and crowned King by consent of the English upon taking his oath to maintain the ancient Lawes and liberties of the Nation And now being as the thought settled in the Throne he begins to play Rex in English the Tyrant spoiling the English of their estates which they were forced to purchase again of him who neverthelesse reteined a propriety in them and would have all held of himself as Landlord thus came in the slavish Tenures and the English amongst whom were no bondmen before both Nobility and Commons were made subject to the intollerable servitude of the Norman The English thus exasperated take up arms to regain their liberty and that so unanimously under the conduct of Edgar Etheling then tearmed Englands Darling and Edwin and Morchar Earls of Mercia and Northumberland that the tyrant not daring to fight them assayes to pacifie them by large promises of addressing their grievances and restoring their liberties and by the help of some Clergy men he so prevails that meeting at Berkhamsted an accord is made William taking his personall oath upon the Reliques of the Church of Saint Alhans and the holy Evangelists from thenceforth to observe inviolably the ancient Lawes especially those of Saint Edward whom the Norman wickednesse had sainted among the people so transcendent was tyranny already grown The English deceived by these specious shews lay down their arms and repair to their homes and now William having obtained his end takes his advantage and sets upon them disperst and never dreaming of any assault imprisoning killing banishing all he could lay hands on and forcing the rest to fly into Scotland overthrowing their ancient Lawes and introducing others in a strange language appropriating the old Forests and making new ones by depopulating the Countrey and pulling down Churches Abbies and Houses for thirty miles together and yet prohibiting the people the liberty of hunting upon great penalties the ancicient priviledge and delight of the English thus by treachery and perjury cheating the English of their liberties whom by force he could not bring under his yoke he laid the foundation upon which his Successours have erected the stately trophies of Tyranny amongst us But the English being of a generous and free nature were so impatient of the yoke that upon all opportunities they did endeavour to break it whereupon our Kings were forced still to make use of other props to uphold their tottering edifice which perjury alone was too rotten to sustain and by the Pope Prelates and Lords working upon the credulous superstitious and unstable vulgar did even to admiration shore up their Babel to the confusion of liberty 1. The Pope was the chief Hobgob in in those dark times that scared the people out of their wits for through the superstitious ignorance of men he had usurped the power of God this Iugler with the counterfeit thunder of his Excommunications and curses which his Bulls upon all occasions bellowed forth against the assertors of Liberty and with the pretended omnipotency of his dispensations with the oathes of the Tyrant so amazed the people that he not onely domineered himself but like the Lord Paramount for great Fines let the Land out to be harrowed and the inhabitants to be handled like villains and slaves to his Royall and well beloved sonnes indeed he was a dear father to most of them our immediate Landlords 2. The proud Prelates the Imps of that great Diabolo of Rome were many of them strangers and all of them the Creatures of the Popes and Kings who would choose none but such as were fit for their designs by their good wills and with their ill wills could out any that should thwart them and so either regarded not our sufferings or were bound to augment them to please their Patrons as well as to pamper themselves who being Diocesan Monarchs were no foes to Arbitrary power that themselves might tyrannize ad libitum over their Sees And no doubt but Kings were so crafty as to perswade them No King no Bishop heretofore to heighten their zeal to the Royall cause as Prelats of late have stiffened them with No Bishop no King in obstinacy for Prelacy yet these later have been Prophets against their wils at their fall who in their jollity had little or no will to be Preachers and were so effectuall in their doctrine that they confirmed their calling to be jure divino though Scripture was never so clear against it in the Royall conscience to whom a Crown and Scepter must appear most sacred And now the Father and Sonnes the Pope and Prelates profit requiring it what could there be imagined but that it must be stamp'd with a divine right alas it was easie with them to take sacred from an Oath and confer it upon the perjured Violater they had their holy oyle sent from Heaven by an Angel to Thomas Becket that Metropolitan Saint and Martyr of Canterbury with which Kings were anointed and divers other holy devices to make them sacred not to be touched by prophane Civill Lawes or questioned by any but men in holy orders who being ghostly Fathers might lash curse depose and devote to the Knife Sword c. notwithstanding Sacred and Majesty and holy Vnction and all the rest Emperours or Kings if stubborn or encroaching upon the usurpations of Holy Church For you