Selected quad for the lemma: parliament_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
parliament_n	assent_n	king_n	royal_a	3,228	5	8.0365	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30775	The plagiary exposed, or, An old answer to a newly revived calumny against the memory of King Charles I being a reply to a book intitled King Charles's case, formerly written by John Cook of Grays Inn, Barrister, and since copied out under the title of Collonel Ludlow's letter / written by Mr. Butler, the author of Hudibras.	Butler, Samuel, 1612-1680.	1691 (1691)	Wing B6327; ESTC R2421	17,467	26

Men to this Sentence I cannot imagine for 't is most certain by your own confession that he never imployed the Sword but against those who first fought to deprive him of it and by that very Act declared they did not trust him and consequently absolved him both from the obligation that he had to protect them and the possibility too for no Man can defend another longer than he defends himself so that if you will have your Sentence to be just you must confess it to be non-sence for you must not only prove that those who fought against him were the People that trusted him not those who fought for him but the lesser or less considerable part of the People the People as you have the confidence to call your honourable Clients being not the twentieth Part of the very Rabble which if you can do you are much wiser than Solomon for it is easier to divide a Child into two parts than to make one of those two parts a whole Child and if you have the trick on 't you shall be next allowed to prove that take four out of six there remains six Nor is there more Justice or reason in the Sentence than in the course you take to up-hold it for while you deny the old Maxim of Law That the King can do no wrong you maintain a new one much worse that he may suffer any and having limited his Power to act only according to Law expose him to suffer not only without but against Law Truly it is hard measure but rather than fail of your purpose you will make as bold with Scriptures as you have done with Reason if it stand in your way as you do when you interpret that place of the Apostles where no Law is there is no Transgression to mean where there is neither Law of God nor Nature nor positive Law I wonder where that is certainly you had better undertake to find out a Plantation for Archimedes his Engins to move the Earth than but fansie where that can be which you must do before you can make this Scripture to be understood to your purpose and I cannot but smile to think how hard a task that will be for such a strong fancy as yours that cannot conceive what your self affirm for when you deny it possible to suppose two Supream Powers in one Nation you forget that you had acknowledged much more before for you confess the King to be Supreme when you say very elegantly he made Head against the Parliament who acknowledged him to be the Head thereof and yet you say the Parliament is the Supreme Authority of the Nation Thus you affirm that really to be which you think is impossible to imagine But such lucky contradictons of your self as well as sence are as familiar with you as railing for besides the many before mentioned and your common incongruities of Speech as far from construction as the purpose there are others which for your encouragement ought not to be omitted and when you would prove the King the most abominable Tyrant that ever People suffered under yet you say he was beloved of some and feared abroad His Judges you compared to the Saints sitting in Judgment at the last day and yet by your own Doctrine they are more like Bears and Wolves in sitting by a Commission of force their High Court is a Royal Palace of the Principles of Freedom and yet till the People voluntarily submit to a Government which they never did to the authority of that they were but Slaves The Parliament you say petitioned the King as good Subjects and yet immediately after you make them his Lords and himself Servant so they give him the Honour of his own Royal Assent and yet they often petitioned him for it His Tryal you call most impartial and yet cannot deny all his Judges to be Parties and his profest Enemies But you hit prety right well when you say he caused more Protestant Blood to be shed than ever was spilt either by Rome Heathen or Antichristian for grant that partly to be true and confess as much Protestant Blood as ever was spilt by the Heathen Romans unless they could kill Protestants eight hundred Years before there were any in the World which eloquent piece of Non-sence we must impute to your ignorance in Chronology or confusion of Notions which you please Nor are those Riddles of Contradiction only in your Words but in the whole course of your Proceedings for you never do the King any right but where you do him the greatest wrong and are there only rational where you are most inhuman as in your additional Accusations since his Death for there you undertake to prove some thing and give your Reasons such as they are to make it appear which were fair Play if you do not take an advantage too unreasonable to argue with the Dead But your other Impeachments consist only of Generals prove nothing or Intentions which can neither be proved or your own forc'd Constructions of Actions or what might have been Actions but never were all which you only aggravate with Impertinency and foul Language but never undertake to prove and if we should grant all you would say and suppose you said it in sence or order it would serve you to no purpose unless you have by Proof or Argument applied it to him which you never went about to do But if this were the worst you might be born with as a thing more becoming the Contempt than the anger of Men but who can preserve any Patience that does but think upon that prodigy of your Injustice as well as Inhumanity to accuse the King after his Death for what you were ashamed to charge him with alive your self for what you say concerning the Death of King Iames you will become the Storm of your own Party for they never used it further than they found it of advantage to some Design they had in hand as when they would move the King to grant their Propositions they made it serve for an Argument to him if he would sign he should be still their gracious King if not he killed his Father But when they found he would not be convinced with such Logick they laid it utterly aside for without doubt they had not lost an advantage so useful as they might have made it in the Charge had they not known it would have cost them more Impudence to maintain than they should need to use in proceeding without it but let us consider your Students Might with which you first say you are satisfied and yet after have it as a Riddle First he was observed to hate the Duke but instantly upon the Death of King Iames took him into his special Grace and Favour of which you conceive this Art must be the cause Believe me your Conjecture is contrary to all Experience and the common manner of Princes who use to love the Treason but hate the Traitor and if he had

been so politick a Tyrant as you would describe him he would never believe his Life safe nor his Kingdom his own while any Man lived much less his Enemy whom such a King would never trust of whose gift and secresie he held them both nor is it likely that he who would not spare the Life of his Father to gain a Kingdom should spare the Life of his Enemy to secure it As for his dissolving the Parliament I believe not only all Wise Men but all that ever heard of this will acquit him whether he did it to avoid the Dukes Impeachment you cannot prove but if you could you must consider that in such cases Princes may as well protect their Favourites from Injury as Justice since no innocence can serve them if they lie as open to the question as they do to the envy of Men. But for the better satisfaction of those you appeal to I shall add this It is most certain that this Humour of Innovation began to stir in the first Parliament of this King and grew to an Itch in the Commons at the alteration of Government to which end they first resolved to pull down the chief Instrument thereof the Duke of Buckingham But having then no Scotch Army nor Act of Continuance to assure their sitting all the Wit of Malice could never invent a more politick Course than to impeach him and put this Article true or false into his Charge for thus they were not only sure of the affections of the People who out of the common Fate of Favourites generally hated the Duke and are always pleased with the ruin of their Superiors but secured from the King's interposition whom they believed by this means bound up from protecting the Duke though he knew his innocency lest the envy and fancy of all should fall upon himself but the King who understood their meaning and knew this was but in order to their further attempts which always begin with such Sacrifices suddenly dissolved the Parliament and by his Wisdom and Policy kept that Calamity sixteen Years after from the People which the very same Courses and Fate of these unhappy Times have since brought upon them But you have taken more pains to prove him guilty since his Death of the Rebellion in Ireland although with as little Reason or Ingenuity only you deal fairly in the beginning and tell us what Judgment and Conscience we are to expect from you when you say as a ground for all your Proofs If you meet a Man running down Stairs with a bloody Sword in his Hand and find a Man stabbed in the Chamber though you did not see this Man run into the Body by that Man which you met yet if you were of the Jury you durst not but find him Guilty of the Murther I hope not before you know whether the Man killed were sent by the King to fetch the Man you met for then you may say it must be in his own Defence Truly you are a subtil Enquirer but let us hear some of the clear Proofs First he durst never deny it absolutely besides the notorious falshood of that it is most senceless to imagine that he who had wickedness enough to commit so horrid an Act should have the innocent modesty not to deny it when he durst not own it He sent Thanks to Muskerry and Plunket by Ormond which you are confident his height of Spirit would never have done if he had not been as guilty as themselves and may not Ormond that carried the Thanks be by the same reason as well proved guilty as the King What 's next If he had not been guilty he would have made a thousand Declarations and have sent to all Princes in the World for assistance against such Hell-Hounds and Blood-Hounds c. That was impossible to be done without sending to the Pope and then you would have proved it clearly indeed But the Copy of his Commission to the Irish Rebels is in the Hands of the Parliament 'T is most certain they never believed it themselves else it had not been omitted in the Charge But now for an Argument to the Purpose After the Irish were proclaimed Traitors and Rebels by the King their General Council made an Oath to bear true and faithful Allegiance to King Charles and by all means to maintain his Royal Prerogative against the Puritans in the Parliament of England which they would never have done unless he had commanded or consented to the Rebellion But observe then what will follow After the two Houses at Westminster were proclaimed Rebels and Traitors by the King They made a solemn Covenant to defend his Royal Person Rights and Dignities against all Opposers whatsoever and therefore by the same reason he did command or consent to the War raised by the Parliament against himself But did they not say they had his Commission and call themselves the King and Queens Armies But then you forgot who they were that said so Hell-Hounds and Blood-Hounds Feinds and Firebrands and Bloody Devils not to be named without Fire and Brimstone do you think such are not to be believed especially when they speak for their own advantage rather than the People of God the faithful of the Land at Westminster who likewise when they raised Forces said they did it for the King and Parliament Can any Man in his Wits deny but the King is to be believed before either of these And yet you cannot be perswaded but his offer to go in Person to suppress the Rebellion was a design to return at the Head of twenty or thirty thousand Rebels to have destroyed this Nation that 's very strange but first how shall we believe what you say before to shew your breeding never was Boar so unwillingly brought to the stake as he was to declare against the Rebels if he offered to adventure his person to suppress them when you have made this agree in sense let us know how you can suppose the same person the wisest King in Christendom and yet so foolish to study his own destruction for who could suffer so much in the ruin of this Nation as himself For his hindring the Earl of Leicester's going into Ireland he had much more reason to do so than the Parliament had to hinder him and therefore you may as well conclude them guilty as him of the Rebellion That he sold or exchang'd for Arms and Ammunition the Cloath and Provisions sent by the Parliament to the Protestants in Ireland you must either accuse the Parliament which seiz'd upon his Arms first and used them against him as prove them above the Law of Nature which I believe you had rather do that commands every Man to defend himself But the Rebels in Ireland gave Letters of mark for taking the Parliaments Ships but freed the Kings as their very good friends I see you are not such a Wizard at Designs as you pretend to be for if this be the deepest reach of your

Argument not only against Reason but your Self as you do it at the first sally for after your fit of saving as over you bestow much pains to prove it one of the Fundamentals of Law That the King is not above the Law but the Law above the King and this you deraign as you call it so far that at length you say the King hath not by Law so much Power as a Justice of Peace to commit any Man to prison which you would never have done if you had considered from whom the Justice derives his Power or in whose Name his Warrants run else you may as well say a Man may give that which he hath not or prove the Moon hath more Light than the Sun because he cannot shine by night as the Moon doth But you needed not have strained so hard for this will serve you to no purpose but to prove that which was never denied by the King himself for if you had not a much worse Memory than Men of your Condition should have you could not so soon have forgotten that immediately after the reading of that Charge the King demanded of your High Court by what Law they could sit to judge Him as offering to submit if they could produce any but then silence or interruption were thought the best ways of confessing there was no such thing And when he undertook to shew them both Law and Reason too why they could not do it The Righteous President told him plainly he must have neither Law nor Reason which was certainly as you have it very finely the most comprehensive impartial and glorious Piece of Justice that ever was played on the Theater of England for what could any Court do more than rather condemn it self than injure Truth But you had better have left this whole Business of the Law out of your Appeal to all Rational Men who can make no use of it but against your self for if the Law be above the King much more is it above the Subject And if it be so heinous a Crime in a King to endeavor to set himself above Law it is much more heinous for Subjects to set themselves above King and Law both Thus like right Mountebanks you are fain to wound and poison your selves to cheat others who cannot but wonder at the confidence of your imposture that are not ashamed to magnifie the Power of the Law while you violate it and confess you set your selves really above the Law to condemn the King for but intending it And indeed Intentions and Designs are the most considerable part both of your Accusations and Proofs some of which you are fain to fetch a great way off as far as his Coronation Oath which you next say He or the Archbishops by his order emasculated and left out very material Words which the People shall choose which is most false for these Words were not left out but rendred with more sence which the Commonalty have and if you consider what they relate to Customs you will find you cannot without open injury interpret elegerit in the Latin Oath shall choose not hath chosen for if you will have consuetudines quas vulgas elegrit to mean Customs which are to be not only use which must be often repeated before it become a Custom but choice which necessarily preceeds use But suppose it were as you would have it I cannot see with what reason you can presume it to be a design to subvert the Laws since you know he had sworn to defend them before in the first Article of the Oath from which I wonder how you can suppose that so wise a Prince as you acknowledge him to be could be so irrational to believe himself absolute by this omission But you are not without further contradiction yet for if he were so prefidious a Violater of Oaths as you would have the World believe what reason had he to be so conscientious of taking them certainly he hath little cause to be nice what Oaths he takes that hath no regard what Oaths he breaks Nor can I possibly understand your other construction of his refusal to take the Oath as his Predecessors had done which you will have a design to refuse his assent to such good Laws rather than bad Ones as the Parliament should tender for besides the absurd conceipts that he must still like the bad better than the good if you consider what you say afterwards the charitable sence will appear by your own Words to be truest for you confess he gave his assent to any bad one else you had not been fain for want of such to accuse him of a few good ones as you do there which of these is most profitable let every rational Christian judge Your next Argument to prove the King's design to destroy the Law is thus ordered Those Knights that were by an old Statute to attend at the King's Coronation being promised by his Proclamation in regard of the Infection then spread through the Kingdom a Dispensation for their absence were after found at the Council Table no doubt by the procurement of some of your own Tribe where they pleading the Proclamation for their Indemnity were answered That the Law of the Land was above any Proclamation Your Conclusion is therefore The King had a design to subvert the Laws sure there is no Man in his Wits but would conclude the contrary such Arguments as these are much like the Ropes that Oaenus twisted only for Asses to devour But if this should fail you know you were provided for another not less substantial and that is his alteration of the Judges Commissions who heretofore had their Places granted to them during their Good Behaviour but he made them but during Pleasure of this you make a sad Business of a very evil imaginary Consequence but if you had considered before what you say presently after that the King and not the Judges is to be accountable for the injustice and oppression of the Government c. you would have found it very just that he should use his Pleasure in their dismission as well as choice For Men of your Profession that have lived long enough to be Judges are not such Puisnes in cunning to play their feats of Iniquity above-board and if they may sit still they can be proved to have misbehaved themselves the Prince that is to give account for all may sooner know he is abused than know how to help himself All the inconveniency which you can fansie possible to ensue it is only to such bad Judges as buy their Places of whose Condition and Loss you are very sensible as if they had too hard a Bargain of Injustice and believe they may have reason enough to give unjust Judgment rather than lose their Places and their Money too if they shall receive such intimation from the King But you forgot you self when you put this in your Appeal to all Rational Men for they will tell you this