Series 1 > Loyall dissuasive

THE LOYALL DISSUASIVE
them, but if any will take upon him to fly in the face of all our
authors and contradict this with a bold assertion, let any such
assign us who else were the peers if the Chiefs were not; not
the Thanes for they were subservient to the Chiefs as is
Sufficiently proved in the following discourse; and to say that
during all that tract of tyme in which we had neither Earl
nor Lord there were no Nobility, no honorable person in the
kingdome, were absurd and ridiculous, without precedent or
example in any kingdome or country that is not a downright
anarchic, upon the face of God’s earth. It being therefore most
reasonable to believe that we had always Peers, and no less
clear and evident by our histories that for so many ages the
chieffs were these Peers, they must be still so, who have done
nothing to forfault it, and consequently the general titles and
compellations given to other peers to which they have no
particular or peculiar right by patent are no less competent to
the Chieffs.
• We had Earles and Lords same ages as we had Dukes or
Marquises, and as the creation of these did not make void the
peerage of the Earles, etc., no more did the creation of Earles
and Lords take away the nobility and peerage of the Chieffs.
And it seems to me very remarkable also that to this day
amongst our neighbours of France, where the rules of honor
and heraldry are better understood and more strictly observed
than anywhere else in Christendom, they make no Distinction
between the peers and gentry, they are all equally noble, tho’
not equally great, a plain argument that there was a peerage
and nobility in France before these lofty titles were introduced
amongst them, and if so, to be sure also amongst us who made
it bur business to ape the French in all things. But this is
not peculiar either to them or us, but common to all our
European nations, as may be seen to any that reads their
severall histories. And if we consult the sacred Scriptures, the
best and truest of all histories, we shall find there that during
the whole legall dispensation the children of Israel, tho’ they
had neither Duke nor Earle, etc., hade their nobles whom they
called the Princes of Israel, who were the heads of their several
tribes, and no other than our ChiefFs.
Thus far have I endeavoured to anticipate what I thought