In the inward choir of the chapel are hung up sixteen coats-of-arms, swords, and banners; among which are those of Charles V. and Rodolphus II., Emperors; of Philip of Spain; Henry III. of France; Frederic II. of Denmark, &c.; of Casimir, Count Palatine of the Rhine; and other Christian princes who have been chosen into this Order.
In the back choir, or additional chapel, are shown preparations made by Cardinal Wolsey, who was afterwards capitally punished,[68]for his own tomb; consisting of eight large brazen columns placed round it, and nearer the tomb four others in the shape of candlesticks; the tomb itself is of white and black marble; all which are reserved, according to report, for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth; the expenses already made for that purpose are estimated at upwards of £60,000. In the same chapel is the surcoat[69]of Edward III., and the tomb of Edward Fynes, Earl of Lincoln, Baron Clinton and Say, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, and formerly Lord High Admiral of England.
The second court of Windsor Castle stands upon higher ground, and is enclosed with walls of great strength, and beautified with fine buildings and a tower; it was an ancient castle, of which old annals speak in this manner: King Edward,A.D.1359, began a new building in that part of the Castle of Windsor where he was born; for which reason he took care it should be decorated with larger and finer edifices than the rest. In this part were kept prisoners John, King of France, and David, King of Scots, over whom Edward triumphed at one and the same time: it was by their advice, struck with the advantage of its situation, and with the sums paid for their ransom, that by degrees this castle stretched to such magnificence, as to appear no longer a fortress, but a town of proper extent, and inexpugnable to any human force. This particular part of the castle was built at the sole expense of the King of Scotland, except one tower, which, from its having been erected by the Bishop of Winchester, Prelate of the Order, is called Winchester Tower;[70]there are a hundred steps to it, so ingeniously contrived that horses can easily ascend them; it is a hundred and fifty paces in circuit; within it are preserved all manner of arms necessary for the defence of the place.
The third court is much the largest of any, built at the expense of the captive King of France; as it stands higher, so it greatly excels the two former in splendour and elegance; it has one hundred and forty-eight paces in length, and ninety-seven in breadth; in the middle of it is a fountain of very clear water, brought under ground, at an excessive expense, from the distance of four miles. Towards the east are magnificent apartments destined for the royal household; towards the west is a tennis-court for the amusement of the Court; on the north side are the royal apartments, consisting of magnificent chambers, halls, and bathing-rooms,[71]and a private chapel, the roof of which is embellished with golden roses andfleurs-de-lis: in this, too, is that very large banqueting-room, seventy-eight paces long, and thirty wide, in which the Knights of the Garter annually celebrate the memory of their tutelar saint, St. George, with a solemn and most pompous service.
From hence runs a walk of incredible beauty, three hundred and eighty paces in length, set round on every side with supporters of wood, which sustain a balcony, from whence the nobility and persons of distinction can take the pleasure of seeing hunting and hawking in a lawn of sufficient space; for the fields and meadows, clad with variety of plants and flowers, swell gradually into hills of perpetual verdure quite up to the castle, and at bottom stretch out in an extended plain, that strikes the beholders with delight.
Besides what has been already mentioned, there are worthy of notice here two bathing-rooms, ceiled and wainscoted with looking-glass; the chamber in which Henry VI. was born; Queen Elizabeth’s bedchamber, where is a table of red marble with white streaks; a gallery everywhere ornamented with emblems and figures; a chamber in which are the royal beds of Henry VII. and his Queen, of Edward VI., of Henry VIII., and of Anne Boleyn, all of them eleven feet square, and covered with quilts shining with gold and silver; Queen Elizabeth’s bed, with curious coverings of embroidery, but not quite so long or large as the others; a piece of tapestry, in which is represented Clovis, King of France, with an angel presenting to him thefleurs-de-listo be borne in his arms; for before his time the Kings of France bore three toads in their shield, instead of which they afterwards placed threefleurs-de-lison a blue field; this antique tapestry is said to have been taken from a King of France, while the English were masters there. We were shown here, among other things, the horn of a unicorn, of above eight spans and a half in length, valued at above £10,000; the bird of paradise, three spans long, three fingers broad, having a blue bill of the length of half an inch, the upper part of its head yellow, the nether part of a . . . colour;[73]a little lower from either side of its throat stick out some reddish feathers, as well as from its back and the rest of its body; its wings, of a yellow colour, are twice as long as the bird itself; from its back grow out lengthways two fibres or nerves, bigger at their ends, but like a pretty strong thread, of a leaden colour, inclining to black, with which, as it has not feet, it is said to fasten itself to trees when it wants to rest; a cushion most curiously wrought by Queen Elizabeth’s own hands.
In the precincts of Windsor, on the other side the Thames, both whose banks are joined by a bridge of wood, is Eton, a well-built College, and famous school for polite letters, founded by Henry VI.; where, besides a master, eight fellows and chanters, sixty boys are maintained gratis. They are taught grammar, and remain in the school till, upon trial made of their genius and progress in study, they are sent to the University of Cambridge.
As we were returning to our inn, we happened to meet some country peoplecelebrating their harvest home; their last load of corn they crown with flowers, having besides an image richly dressed, by which, perhaps, they would signify Ceres; this they keep moving about, while men and women, men and maid servants, riding through the streets in the cart, shout as loud as they can till they arrive at the barn. The farmers here do not bind up their corn in sheaves, as they do with us, but directly as they have reaped or mowed it, put it into carts, and convey it into their barns.
We went through the town of Staines.
Hampton Court, a Royal Palace, magnificently built with brick by Cardinal Wolsey in ostentation of his wealth, where he enclosed five very ample courts, consisting of noble edifices in very beautiful work. Over the gate in the second area is the Queen’s device, a golden Rose, with this motto, “Dieu et mon Droit:” on the inward side of this gate are the effigies of the twelve Roman Emperors in plaster. The chief area is paved with square stone; in its centre is a fountain that throws up water, covered with a gilt crown, on the top of which is a statue of Justice, supported by columns of black and white marble. The chapel of this palace is most splendid, in which the Queen’s closet is quite transparent, having its window of crystal. We were led into two chambers, called the presence, or chambers of audience, which shone with tapestry of gold and silver and silk of different colours: under the canopy of state are these words embroidered in pearl, “Vivat Henricus Octavus.” Here is besides a small chapel richly hung with tapestry, where the Queen performs her devotions. In her bedchamber the bed was covered with very costly coverlids of silk: at no great distance from this room we were shown a bed, the tester of which was worked by Anne Boleyn, and presented by her to her husband Henry VIII. All the other rooms, being very numerous, are adorned with tapestry of gold, silver, and velvet, in some of which were woven history pieces; in others, Turkish and American dresses, all extremely natural.
In the hall are these curiosities:
A very clear looking-glass, ornamented with columns and little images of alabaster; a portrait of Edward VI., brother to Queen Elizabeth; the true portrait of Lucretia; a picture of the battle of Pavia; the history of Christ’s passion, carved in mother-of-pearl; the portraits of Mary Queen of Scots, who was beheaded, and her daughter;[76]the picture of Ferdinand, Prince of Spain, and of Philip his son; that of Henry VIII.—under it was placed the Bible curiously written upon parchment; an artificial sphere; several musical instruments; in the tapestry are represented negroes riding upon elephants. The bed in which Edward VI. is said to have been born, and where his mother Jane Seymour died in child-bed. In one chamber were several excessively rich tapestries, which are hung up when the Queen gives audience to foreign ambassadors; there were numbers of cushions ornamented with gold and silver; many counterpanes and coverlids of beds lined with ermine: in short, all the walls of the palace shine with gold and silver. Here is besides a certain cabinet called Paradise, where besides that everything glitters so with silver, gold, and jewels, as to dazzle one’s eyes, there is a musical instrument made all of glass, except the strings. Afterwards we were led into the gardens, which are most pleasant; here we saw rosemary so planted and nailed to the walls as to cover them entirely, which is a method exceeding common in England.
Kingston, a market town.
Nonesuch, a royal retreat, in a place formerly called Cuddington, a very healthful situation, chosen by King Henry VIII. for his pleasure and retirement, and built by him with an excess of magnificence and elegance, even to ostentation: one would imagine everything that architecture can perform to have been employed in this one work. There are everywhere so many statues that seem to breathe so many miracles of consummate art, so many casts that rival even the perfection of Roman antiquity, that it may well claim and justify its name of Nonesuch, being without an equal; or as the post sung—
“This, which no equal has in art or fame,Britons deservedly doNonesuchname.”
“This, which no equal has in art or fame,Britons deservedly doNonesuchname.”
The palace itself is so encompassed with parks full of deer, delicious gardens, groves ornamented with trellis-work, cabinets of verdure, and walks so embrowned by trees, that it seems to be a place pitched upon by Pleasure herself, to dwell in along with Health.
In the pleasure and artificial gardens are many columns and pyramids of marble, two fountains that spout water one round the other like a pyramid, upon which are perched small birds that stream water out of their bills. In the Grove of Diana is a very agreeable fountain, with Actæon turned into a stag, as he was sprinkled by the goddess and her nymphs, with inscriptions.
There is besides another pyramid of marble full of concealed pipes, which spurt upon all who come within their reach.
Returned from hence to London.
Britain, consisting of the two kingdoms of England and Scotland, is the largest island in the world, encompassed by the ocean, the German and French seas. The largest and southern part of it is England, so named from the Angli, who quitting the little territory yet called Angel in the kingdom of Denmark, took possession here. It is governed by its own King, who owns no superior but God. It is divided into thirty-nine counties, to which thirteen in Wales were added by Henry VIII., the first who distributed that principality into counties; over each of these, in times of danger, a lord lieutenant, nominated by the King, presides with an unlimited power. Every year some gentleman, an inhabitant of the place, is appointed sheriff; his office is to collect the public moneys, to raise fines, or to make seizures, and account for it to the Treasury; to attend upon the judges, and put their sentence in execution; to empanel the jury, who sit upon facts, and return their verdict to the judges (who in England are only such of the law, and not of the fact); to convey the condemned to execution, and to dertermine in lesser causes, for the greater are tried by the judges, formerly called travelling judges of assize; these go their circuits through the counties twice every year to hear causes, and pronounce sentence upon prisoners.
As to ecclesiastical jurisdiction, after the Popes had assigned a church and parish to every priest, Honorius, Archbishop of Canterbury, about the year 636, began to divide England in the same manner into parishes: as it has two Provinces, so it has two Archbishops: the one of Canterbury, Primate and Metropolitan of all England; the other of York: subject to these are twenty-five bishops, viz., twenty-two to Canterbury, the remaining three to York.
The soil is fruitful, and abounds with cattle, which inclines the inhabitants rather to feeding than ploughing, so that near a third part of the land is left uncultivated for grazing. The climate is most temperate at all times, and the air never heavy, consequently maladies are scarcer, and less physic is used there than anywhere else. There are but few rivers; though the soil is productive, it bears no wine; but that want is supplied from abroad by the best kinds, as of Orleans, Gascon, Rhenish, and Spanish. The general drink is beer, which is prepared from barley, and is excellently well tasted, but strong, and what soon fuddles. There are many hills without one tree, or any spring, which produce a very short and tender grass, and supply plenty of food to sheep; upon these wander numerous flocks, extremely white, and whether from the temperature of the air, or goodness of the earth, bearing softer and finer fleeces than those of any other country: this is the true Golden Fleece, in which consist the chief riches of the inhabitants, great sums of money being brought into the island by merchants, chiefly for that article of trade. The dogs here are particularly good. It has mines of gold, silver, and tin (of which all manner of table utensils are made, in brightness equal to silver, and used all over Europe), of lead, and of iron, but not much of the latter. The horses are small but swift. Glasshouses are in plenty here.
The English are serious, like the Germans; lovers of show, liking to be followed wherever they go by whole troops of servants, who wear their masters’ arms in silver, fastened to their left arms, a ridicule they deservedly lie under. They excel in dancing and music, for they are active and lively, though of a thicker make than the French; they cut their hair close on the middle of the head, letting it grow on either side; they are good sailors, and better pirates, cunning, treacherous and thievish; above three hundred are said to be hanged annually at London; beheading with them is less infamous than hanging; they give the wall as the place of honour; hawking is the general sport of the gentry; they are more polite in eating than the French, devouring less bread, but more meat, which they roast in perfection; they put a great deal of sugar in their drink; their beds are covered with tapestry, even those of farmers; they are often molested with the scurvy, said to have first crept into England with the Norman Conquest; their houses are commonly of two storeys, except in London, where they are of three and four, though but seldom of four; they are built of wood, those of the richer sort with bricks; their roofs are low, and, where the owner has money, covered with lead.
They are powerful in the field, successful against their enemies, impatient of anything like slavery; vastly fond of great noises that fill the ear, such as the firing of cannon, drums, and the ringing of bells, so that it is common for a number of them, that have got a glass in their heads, to go up into the belfry, and ring the bells for hours together for the sake of exercise. If they see a foreigner very well made, or particularly handsome, they will say, “It is a pity he is not an Englishman!”
Thomas Howard, †[84]Duke of Norfolk, hereditary Marshal of England: the duchy is extinct for rebellion, the last duke being beheaded.
Grey, † Duke of Suffolk, attainted under Queen Mary.
Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel in his mother’s right, and of Surrey by his father, son of the abovementioned Duke of Norfolk, he himself condemned for high treason, and his titles forfeited.
Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford, hereditary Chamberlain of England.
Percy, Earl of Northumberland, descended from the Dukes of Brabant.
Charles Nevill, † Earl of Westmoreland, banished into Holland, and deprived of his fortunes and dignities for rebellion.
Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury.
Grey, Earl of Kent, has but a small estate.
Stanley, Earl of Derby, and King of Man.
Manners, Earl of Rutland.
Somerset, Earl of Worcester, descended from a bastard of the Somerset family, which itself is of the royal family of the Plantagenets.
Clifford, Earl of Cumberland.
Ratcliff, Earl of Sussex.
Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon, of the line of York, by the mother’s side.
Bourchier, Earl of Bath.
Ambrose Sutton, † alias Dudley, Earl of Warwick, died a few years since, childless.
Wriothesly, Earl of Southampton.
Russell, Earl of Bedford.
Herbert, Earl of Pembroke.
Edward Seymour, † Earl of Hertford, son of the Duke of Somerset, who was beheaded in the reign of Edward VI.
Robert Sutton, † or Dudley, Earl of Leicester, brother of the Earl of Warwick, died a few years ago.
Robert d’Evereux, Earl of Essex, and of Ewe in Normandy, created hereditary Marshal of England in 1598.
Charles Howard, of the Norfolk family, created Earl of Nottingham, 1597, Lord High Admiral of England, and Privy Counsellor.
Fynes, Earl of Lincoln.
Brown, Viscount Montacute.
Howard, of the Norfolk family, Viscount Bindon.
Nevill, Baron Abergavenny; this barony is controverted.
Touchet, Baron Audley.
Zouch, Baron Zouch.
Peregrine Bertie, Baron Willoughby of Eresby and Brooke, Governor of Berwick.
Berkley, Baron Berkley, of the ancient family of the Kings of Denmark.
Parker, Baron Morley.
Dacre, † Baron Dacre of Gyllesland: this barony is vacant.
Dacre, † Baron Dacre of the South: he died four years since, and the barony devolved to his daughter.
Brook, Baron Cobham, Warden of the Cinque Ports.
Stafford, Baron Stafford, reduced to want; he is heir to the family of the Dukes of Buckingham, who were hereditary Constables of England.
Gray, Baron Gray of Wilton.
Scroop, Baron Scroop of Boulton.
Sutton, Baron Dudley.
Stourton, Baron Stourton.
Nevill, † Baron Latimer, died some years since without heirs male; the title controverted.
Lumley, Baron Lumley.
Blunt, Baron Montjoy.
Ogle, Baron Ogle.
Darcy, Baron Darcy.
Parker, Baron Montegle, son and heir of Baron Morley; he has this barony in right of his mother, of the family of Stanley.
Sandys, Baron Sandys.
Vaux, Baron Vaux.
Windsor, Baron Windsor.
Wentworth, Baron Wentworth.
Borough, Baron Borough, reduced to want.
Baron Mordaunt. Baron Eure.
Baron Rich. Baron Sheffield.
Baron North, Privy Counsellor, and Treasurer of the Household.
Baron Hunsdon, Privy Counsellor, and Lord Chamberlain.
Sackville, Baron Buckhurst, Privy Counsellor.
Thomas Cecil, Baron Burleigh, son of the Treasurer.
Cecil, Lord Roos, grandson of the Treasurer, yet a child: he holds the barony in right of his mother, daughter to the Earl of Rutland.
Howard † of Maltravers, son of the Earl of Arundel, not yet restored in blood.
Baron Cheyny. †
Baron Cromwell. Baron Wharton.
Baron Willoughby of Parham.
Baron Pagett, † in exile, attainted.
Baron Chandois. Baron St. John.
Baron Delaware: his ancestors took the King of France prisoner.
Baron Compton, has squandered almost all his substance.
Baron Norris.
Thomas Howard, second son of the Duke of Norfolk, Baron Audley of Saffronwalden, in his mother’s right.
William, † third son of the Duke of Norfolk, is neither a baron, nor yet restored in blood.
Thus far of noble families.
We set out from London in a boat, and fell down the river, leaving Greenwich, which we have spoken of before, on the right hand.
Barking, a town in sight on the left.
Gravesend, a small town, famous for the convenience of its port; the largest Dutch ships usually call here. As we were to proceed farther from hence by water, we took our last leave here of the noble Bohemian David Strziela, and his tutor Tobias Salander, our constant fellow-travellers through France and England, they designing to return home through Holland, we on a second tour into France; but it pleased Heaven to put a stop to their design, for the worthy Strziela was seized with a diarrhoea a few days before our departure, and, as we afterwards learned by letters from Salander, died in a few days of a violent fever in London.
Queenborough: we left the castle on our right; a little farther we saw the fishing of oysters out of the sea, which are nowhere in greater plenty or perfection; witness Ortelius in his Epitome, &c.
Whitstable; here we went ashore.
Canterbury; we came to it on foot; this is the seat of the Archbishop, Primate of all England, a very ancient town, and, without doubt, of note in the time of the Romans.
Here are two monasteries almost contiguous, namely of Christ and St. Augustine, both of them once filled with Benedictine Monks: the former was afterwards dedicated to St. Thomas a Becket, the name of Christ being obliterated; it stands almost in the middle of the town, and with so much majesty lifts itself, and its two towers, to a stupendous height, that, as Erasmus says, it strikes even those who only see it at a distance with awe.
In the choir, which is shut up with iron rails, are the following monuments:—
King Henry IV., with his wife Joan of Navarre, of white marble.
Nicholas Wootton, Privy Counsellor to Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, Kings and Queens of England.
Of Prince Edward, Duke of Aquitaine and Cornwall, and Earl of Chester.
Reginald Pole, with this inscription:
“The remains of Reginald Pole, Cardinal and Archbishop of Canterbury.”
“The remains of Reginald Pole, Cardinal and Archbishop of Canterbury.”
Cardinal Chatillon.
We were then shown the chair in which the bishops are placed when they are installed. In the vestibule of the church, on the south side, stand the statues of three men armed, cut in stone, who slew Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, made a saint for this martyrdom; their names are adjoined—
Tusci,Fusci,Berri.[91]
Tusci,Fusci,Berri.[91]
Being tired with walking, we refreshed ourselves here with a mouthful of bread and some ale, and immediately mounted post-horses, and arrived about two or three o’clock in the morning at Dover. In our way to it, which was rough and dangerous enough, the following accident happened to us: our guide, or postillion, a youth, was before with two of our company, about the distance of a musketshot; we, by not following quick enough, had lost sight of our friends; we came afterwards to where the road divided; on the right it was down-hill and marshy, on the left was a small hill: whilst we stopped here in doubt, and consulted which of the roads we should take, we saw all on a sudden on our right hand some horsemen, their stature, dress, and horses exactly resembling those of our friends; glad of having found them again, we determined to set on after them; but it happened, through God’s mercy, that though we called to them, they did not answer us, but kept on down the marshy road at such a rate, that their horses’ feet struck fire at every stretch, which made us, with reason, begin to suspect they were thieves, having had warning of such; or rather, that they were nocturnal spectres, who, as we were afterwards told, are frequently seen in those places: there were likewise a great many Jack-a-lanterns, so that we were quite seized with horror and amazement! But, fortunately for us, our guide soon after sounded his horn, and we, following the noise, turned down the left-hand road, and arrived safe to our companions; who, when we had asked them if they had not seen the horsemen who had gone by us, answered, not a soul. Our opinions, according to custom, were various upon this matter; but whatever the thing was, we were, without doubt, in imminent danger, from which that we escaped, the glory is to be ascribed to God alone.
Dover, situated among cliffs (standing where the port itself was originally, as may be gathered from anchors and parts of vessels dug up there), is more famous for the convenience of its port, which indeed is now much decayed, and its passage to France, than for either its elegance or populousness: this passage, the most used and the shortest, is of thirty miles, which, with a favourable wind, may be run over in five or six hours’ time, as we ourselves experienced; some reckon it only eighteen to Calais, and to Boulogne sixteen English miles, which, as Ortelius says in his “Theatrum,” are longer than the Italian.
Here was a church dedicated to St. Martin by Victred, King of Kent, and a house belonging to the Knights Templars; of either there are now no remains. It is the seat of a suffragan to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, when the Archbishop is employed upon business of more consequence, manages the ordinary affairs, but does not interfere with the archiepiscopal jurisdiction. Upon a hill, or rather rock, which on its right side is almost everywhere a precipice, a very extensive castle rises to a surprising height, in size like a little city, extremely well fortified, and thick-set with towers, and seems to threaten the sea beneath. Matthew Paris calls it the door and key of England; the ordinary people have taken into their heads that it was built by Julius Cæsar; it is likely it might by the Romans, from those British bricks in the chapel which they made use of in their foundations. See Camden’s “Britannia.”
After we had dined, we took leave of England.
Or,Observations on the late Queen Elizabeth,her Times,and Favourites.Written bySir Robert Naunton,Master of the Court of Wards.A.D.1641.
To take her in the original, she was the daughter of King Henry VIII. by Anne Boleyn, the second of six wives which he had, and one of the maids of honour to the divorced Queen, Katharine of Austria (or, as the now styled, Infanta of Spain), and from thence taken to the royal bed.
That she was of a most noble and royal extract by her father will not fall into question, for on that side was disembogued into her veins, by a confluency of blood, the very abstract of all the greatest houses in Christendom: and remarkable it is, considering that violent desertion of the Royal House of the Britons by the intrusion of the Saxons, and afterwards by the conquest of the Normans, that, through vicissitude of times, and after a discontinuance almost of a thousand years, the sceptre should fall again and be brought back into the old regal line and true current of the British blood, in the person of her renowned grandfather, King Henry VII., together with whatsoever the German, Norman, Burgundian, Castilian, and French achievements, with their intermarriages, which eight hundred years had acquired, could add of glory thereunto.
By her mother she was of no sovereign descent, yet noble and very ancient in the family of Boleyn; though some erroneously brand them with a citizen’s rise or original, which was yet but of a second brother, who (as it was divine in the greatness and lustre to come to his house) was sent into the city to acquire wealth,ad ædificandam antiquam domum, unto whose achievements (for he was Lord Mayor of London) fell in, as it is averred, both the blood and inheritance of the eldest brother for want of issue males, by which accumulation the house within few descents mounted,in culmen honoris, and was suddenly dilated in the best families of England and Ireland: as Howard, Ormond, Sackville, and others.
Having thus touched, and now leaving her stirp, I come to her person, and how she came to the crown by the decease of her brother and sister.
Under Edward VI. she was his, and one of the darlings of Fortune, for, besides the consideration of blood, there was between these two princes a concurrency and sympathy of their natures and affections, together with the celestial bond (confirmative religion), which made them one; for the King never called her by any other appellation but his sweetest and dearest sister, and was scarce his own man, she being absent; which was not so between him and the Lady Mary.
Under her sister[99]she found her condition much altered; for it was resolved, and her destiny had decreed it, for to set her apprentice in the school of affliction, and to draw her through that ordeal-fire of trial, the better to mould and fashion her to rule and sovereignty: which finished, Fortune calling to mind that the time of her servitude was expired, gave up her indentures, and therewith delivered into her custody a sceptre as the reward of her patience; which was about the twenty-sixth of her age: a time in which, as for her internals grown ripe, and seasoned by adversity, in the exercise of her virtue; for, it seems, Fortune meant no more but to show her a piece of variety and changeableness of her nature, but to conduct her to her destiny,i.e., felicity.
She was of person tall, of hair and complexion fair, and therewith well favoured, but high-nosed; of limbs and features neat; and, which added to the lustre of these external graces, of a stately and majestic comportment, participating in this more of her father than of her mother, who was of an inferior alloy, plausible, or, as the French hath it, moredebonaireand affable: virtues which might well suit with majesty, and which, descending as hereditary to the daughter, did render her of a sweeter temper, and endeared her more to the love and liking of the people, who gave her the name and fame of a most gracious and popular princess.
The atrocity of the father’s nature was rebated in her by the mother’s sweeter inclinations; for (to take, and that no more than the character out of his own mouth)He never spared man in his anger,nor woman in his lust.
If we search farther into her intellectuals and abilities, the wheel-course of her government deciphers them to the admiration of posterity; for it was full of magnanimity, tempered with justice, piety, and pity, and, to speak truth, noted but with one act of stain, or taint, all her deprivations, either of life or liberty, being legal and necessitated. She was learned, her sex and time considered, beyond common belief; for letters about this time, or somewhat before, did but begin to be of esteem and in fashion, the former ages being overcast with the mists and fogs of the Roman[101]ignorance; and it was the maxim that over-ruled the foregoing times, thatIgnorance was the mother of Devotion. Her wars were a long time more in the auxiliary part, and assistance of foreign princes and states, than by invasion of any; till common policy advised it, for a safer way, to strike first abroad, than at home to expect the war, in all which she was ever felicitous and victorious.
The change and alteration of religion upon the instant of her accession to the crown (the smoke and fire of her sister’s martyrdoms scarcely quenched) was none of her least remarkable actions; but the support and establishment thereof, with the means of her own subsistence amidst so powerful enemies abroad, and those many domestic practices, were, methinks, works of inspiration, and of no human providence, which, on her sister’s departure, she most religiously acknowledged—ascribing the glory of her deliverance to God above; for she being then at Hatfield, and under a guard, and the Parliament sitting at the self-same time, at the news of the Queen’s death, and her own proclamation by the general consent of the House and the public sufferance of the people, falling on her knees, after a good time of respiration, she uttered this verse of the Psalm:
“A Domino factum est istud, et est mirabile in oculis nostris.”[102]
“A Domino factum est istud, et est mirabile in oculis nostris.”[102]
And this we find to this day on the stamp of her gold, with this on her silver:
“Posui Deum adjutorem meum.”[103]
“Posui Deum adjutorem meum.”[103]
Her ministers and instruments of State, such as wereparticipes curarum, or bore a great part of the burthen, weremany, and thosememorable; but they were onlyfavourites, and notminions; such as acted more byherprincely rules and judgments, than by theirownwills and appetites; for we saw no Gaveston, Vere, or Spencer, to have swayed alone, during forty-four years, which was a well-settled and advised maxim; for it valued her the more, it awed the most secure, it took best with the people, and it staved off all emulations, which are apt to rise and vent in obloquious acrimony even against the prince, where there isone onlyadmitted into high administrations.
The principal note of her reign will be, that she ruled much by faction and parties, which she herself both made, upheld, and weakened, as her own great judgment advised; for I do dissent from the common and received opinion, that my Lord of Leicester wasabsoluteandalonein hergrace; and, though I come somewhat short of the knowledge of these times, yet, that I may not err or shoot at random, I know it from assured intelligence that it was not so; for proof whereof, amongst many (that could present), I will both relate a story, and therein a known truth, and it was thus: Bowyer, the Gentleman of the Black Rod, being charged by her express command to look precisely to all admissions in the Privy Chamber, one day stayed a very gay captain (and a follower of my Lord of Leicester) from entrance, for that he was neither well known, nor a sworn servant of the Queen; at which repulse, the gentleman (bearing high on my lord’s favour) told him that he might, perchance, procure him a discharge. Leicester coming to the contestation, said publicly, which was none of his wonted speeches, that he was a knave, and should not long continue in his office; and so turning about to go to the Queen, Bowyer, who was a bold gentleman and well-beloved, stepped before him, and fell at Her Majesty’s feet, relates the story, and humbly craves Her Grace’s pleasure, and in such a manner as if he had demanded whether my Lord of Leicester was King, or Her Majesty Queen: whereunto she replied (with her wonted oath,God’s-death) “My lord, I have wished you well, but my favour is not so locked up for you that others shall not participate thereof; for I have many servants unto whom I have, and will, at my pleasure, bequeath my favour, and likewise resume the same; and if you think to rule here, I will take a course to see you forthcoming;[105]I will have here but onemistress, and nomaster; and look that no ill happen to him, lest it be severely required at your hands:” which so quailed my Lord of Leicester, that his faint humility was, long after, one of his best virtues.
Moreover, the Earl of Sussex, then Lord Chamberlain, was his professed antagonist to his dying day; and for my Lord Hunsdown, and Sir Thomas Sackville, after Lord Treasurer, who were all contemporaries, he was wont to say of them, that they were of the tribe of Dan, and wereNoli me tangere, implying that they were not to be contested with, for they were, indeed, of the Queen’s nigh kindred.
From whence, and in many more instances, I conclude that she was absolute and sovereign mistress of her graces, and that all those to whom she distributed her favours were never more than tenants-at-will, and stood on no better terms than her princely pleasure, and their good behaviour.
And this also I present as a known observation, that she was, though very capable of counsel, absolute enough in her own resolution; which was ever apparent even to her last, and in that of her still aversion to grant Tyrone[106]the least drop of her mercy, though earnestly and frequently advised thereunto, yea, wrought only by her whole Council of State, with very many reasons; and, as the state of her kingdom then stood, I may speak it with assurance, necessitated arguments.
If we look into her inclination, as it was disposed to magnificence or frugality, we shall find in them many notable considerations; for all her dispensations were so poised as though Discretion and Justice had both decreed to stand at the beam, and see them weighed out in due proportion, the maturity of her paces and judgments meeting in a concurrence; and that in such an age that seldom lapseth to excess.
To consider them apart, we have not many precedents of herliberality, nor any large donatives toparticularmen, my Lord of Essex’s book ofparksexcepted, which was a princely gift; and some more of a lesser size to my Lord of Leicester, Hatton, and others.
Her rewards chiefly consisted in grants and leases of offices, and places of judicature; but for ready money, and in great sums, she was very sparing; which, we may partly conceive, was a virtue rather drawn out of necessity than her nature; for she had many layings-out, and as her wars were lasting, so their charge increased to the last period. And I am of opinion with Sir Walter Raleigh, that those many brave men of her times, and of the militia, tasted little more of her bounty than in her grace and good word with their due entertainment; for she ever paid her soldiers well, which was the honour of her times, and more than her great adversary of Spain could perform; so that when we come to the consideration of herfrugality, the observation will be little more than that herbountyand it were so woven together, that the one was[108]stained by an honourable way of sparing.
The Irish action we may call a malady, and a consumption of her times, for it accompanied her to her end; and it was of so profuse and vast an expense, that it drew near unto a distemperature of State, and of passion in herself; for, towards her last, she grew somewhat hard to please, her armies being accustomed to prosperity, and the Irish prosecution not answering her expectation, and her wonted success; for it was a good while an unthrifty and inauspicious war, which did much disturb and mislead her judgment; and the more for that it was a precedent taken out of her own pattern.
For as the Queen, by way of division, had, at her coming to the crown, supported the revolted States of Holland, so did the King of Spain turn the trick upon herself, towards her going out, by cherishing the Irish rebellion; where it falls into consideration, what the state of this kingdom and the crown revenues were then able to endure and embrace.
If we look into the establishments of those times with the best of the Irish army, counting the defeat of Blackwater, with all the precedent expenses, as it stood from my Lord of Essex’s undertaking of the surrender of Kingsale, and the General Mountjoy, and somewhat after, we shall find the horse and foot troops were, for three or four years together, much about twenty thousand, besides the naval charge, which was a dependant of the same war; in that the Queen was then forced to keep in continual pay a strong fleet at sea to attend the Spanish coasts and parts, both to alarm the Spaniards, and to intercept the forces designed for the Irish assistance; so that the charge of that war alone did cost the Queen three hundred thousand pounds per annum at least, which was not the moiety of her other disbursements and expenses; which, without the public aids, the state of the royal receipts could not have much longer endured; which, out of her own frequent letters and complaints to the Deputy Mountjoy for cashiering of that list as soon as he could, might be collected, for the Queen was then driven into a strait.
We are naturally prone to applaud the times behind us, and to vilify the present; for the concurrent of her fame carries it to this day, how loyally and victoriously she lived and died, without the grudge and grievance of her people; yet the truth may appear without detraction from the honour of so great a princess. It is manifest she left more debts unpaid, taken upon credit of her privy-seals, than her progenitors did, or could have taken up, that were a hundred years before her; which was no inferior piece of State, to lay the burthen on that house[110]which was best able to bear it at a dead lift, when neither her receipts could yield her relief at the pinch, nor the urgency of her affairs endure the delays of Parliamentary assistance. And for such aids it is likewise apparent that she received more, and that with the love of her people, than any two of her predecessors that took most; which was a fortune strained out of the subjects, through the plausibility of her comportment, and (as I would say, without offence) the prodigal distribution of her grace to all sorts of subjects; for I believe no prince living, that was so tender of honour, and so exactly stood for the preservation of sovereignty, was so great a courtier of the people, yea, of the Commons, and that stooped and declined low in presenting her person to the public view, as she passed in her progress and perambulations, and in her ejaculations of her prayers on the people.
And, truly, though much may be written in praise of her providence and good husbandry, in that she could, upon all good occasions, abate her magnanimity, and therewith comply with the Parliament, and so always come off both with honour and profit; yet must we ascribe some part of the commendation to the wisdom of the times, and the choice of Parliament-men; for I said[112a]not that they were at any time given to any violent or pertinacious dispute, the elections being made of grave and discreet persons, not factious and ambitious of fame; such as came not to the House with a malevolent spirit of contention, but with a preparation to consult on the public good, and rather to comply than to contest with Majesty: neither dare I find[112b]that the House was weakened and pestered through the admission of too manyyoung heads, as it hath been oflattertimes; which remembers me of the Recorder Martin’s speech about the truth of our late Sovereign Lord King James,[112c]when there were accounts taken offortygentlemen not abovetwenty, and some not exceedingsixteenyears of age; which made him to say, “that it was the ancient custom for old men to make laws for young ones, but there he saw the case altered, and there were children in the great council of the kingdom, which came to invade and invert nature, and to enact laws to govern their fathers.” Such[113a]were in the House always,[113b]and took the common cause into consideration; and they say the Queen had many times just cause, and need enough, to use their assistance: neither do I remember that the House did ever capitulate, or prefer their private to the public and the Queen’s necessities, but waited their times, and, in the first place, gave their supply, and according to the exigence of her affairs; yet failed not at the last to attain what they desired, so that the Queen and her Parliaments had ever the good fortune to depart in love, and on reciprocal terms, which are considerations that have not been so exactly observed in ourlastassemblies. And I would to God they had been; for, considering the great debts left on the King,[113c]and to what incumbrances the House itself had then drawn him, His Majesty was not well used, though I lay not the blame on the whole suffrage of the House, where he had many good friends; for I dare avouch it, had the House been freed of half a dozen popular and discontented persons (such as, with the fellow that burnt the temple of Ephesus, would be talked of, though for doing mischief), I am confident the King had obtained that which, in reason, and at his first occasion, he ought to have received freely, and without condition. But pardon this digression, which is here remembered, not in the way of aggravation, but in true zeal of the public good, and presentedin caveatof future times: for I am not ignorant how the genius and spirit of the kingdom now moves to make His Majesty amends on any occasion; and how desirous the subject is to expiate that offence at any rate, may it please His Majesty to make a trial of his subjects’ affections; and at what price they value now his goodness and magnanimity.
But to our purpose: the Queen was not to learn that, as the strength of the kingdom consisted in the multitude of her subjects, so the security of her person consisted and rested in the love and fidelity of her people, which she politically affected (as it hath been thought) somewhat beneath the height of her natural spirit and magnanimity.
Moreover, it will be a true note of her providence, that she would always listen to her profit: for she would not refuse the information of meanest personages, which proposed improvement; and had learned the philosophy of (hoc agere) to look unto her own work: of which there is a notable example of one Carmarthen, an under officer of the Custom House, who, observing his time, presented her with a paper, showing how she was abused in the under-renting of the Customs, and therewith humbly desired Her Majesty to conceal him, for that it did concern two or three of her great counsellors,[115]whom Customer Smith had bribed with two thousand pounds a man, so to lose the Queen twenty thousand pounds per annum; which being made known to the Lords, they gave strict order that Carmarthen should not have access to the back-stairs; but, at last, Her Majesty smelling the craft, and missing Carmarthen, she sent for him back, and encouraged him to stand to his information; which the poor man did so handsomely that, within the space of ten years, he was brought to double his rent, or leave the Custom to new farmers. So that we may take this also in consideration, that there were of the Queen’s Council which were not in the catalogue of saints.
Now, as we have taken a view of some particular motives of her times, her nature, and necessities, it is not without the text to give a short touch of thehelpsandadvantagesof her reign, which werenotwithout[116]paroles; for she had neither husband, brother, sister, nor children to provide for, who, as they are dependants on the Crown, so do they necessarily draw livelihood from thence, and oftentimes exhaust and draw deep, especially when there is an ample fraternity royal, and of the princes of the blood, as it was in the time of Edward III. and Henry IV. For when the Crown cannot, the public ought to give honourable allowance; for they are the honour and hopes of the kingdom; and the public, which enjoys them, hath the like interest with the father which begat them; and our common law, which is the inheritance of the kingdom, did ever of old provide aids for theprimogenitus[117a]and the eldest daughter; for that the multiplicity of courts, and the great charges which necessarily follow a king, a queen, a prince, and royal issue, was a thing which was notin rerum natura[117b]during the space of forty-four years,[117c]but worn out of memory, and without the consideration of the present times, insomuch as the aids given to the late and Right Noble Prince Henry, and to his sister, the Lady Elizabeth, which were at first generally received as impositions for knighthood, though an ancient law, fell also into the imputation of a tax of nobility, for that it lay long covered in the embers of division between the Houses of York and Lancaster, and forgotten or connived at by the succeeding princes: so that the strangeness of the observation, and the difference of those latter reigns, is that the Queen took up muchbeyondthe power of law, which fell not into the murmur of people; and her successors took nothing but by warrant of the law, which nevertheless was received,through disuse, to be injurious to the liberty of the kingdom.
Now before I come to any mention of her favourites, for hitherto I have delivered but some oblivious passages, thereby to prepare and smooth a way for the rest that follows:
It is necessary that I touch on the religiousness of the other’s reign, I mean the body of her sister’s[118]Council of State, which she retained entirely, neither removing nor discontenting any, although she knew them averse to her religion, and, in her sister’s time, perverse to her person, and privy to all her troubles and imprisonments.
A prudence which was incompatible to her sister’s nature, for she both dissipated and presented the major part of her brother’s Council; but this will be of certain, that how compliable and obsequious soever she found them, yet for a good space she made little use of their counsels, more than in the ordinary course of the Board, for she had a dormant table in her own privy breast; yet she kept them together and in their places, without any sudden change; so that we may say of them that they were then of the Court, not of the Council; for whilst sheamazed[119]them by a kind of promissive disputation concerning the points controverted by both Churches, she did set down her own gests, without their privity, and made all their progressions, gradations; but for that the tenents of her secrets, with the intents of her establishments, were pitched before it was known where the Court would sit down.
Neither do I find that any of her sister’s Council of State were either repugnant to her religion, or opposed her doings; Englefeild, Master of the Wards, excepted, who withdrew himself from the Board, and shortly after out of her dominions; so pliable and obedient they were to change with the times and their prince; and of them will fall a relation of recreation. Paulet, Marquis of Winchester, and Lord Treasurer, had served then four princes, in as various and changeable times and seasons, that I may well say no time nor age hath yielded the like precedent. This man, being noted to grow high in her favour (as his place and experience required), was questioned by an intimate friend of his, how he had stood up for thirty years together, amidst the change and ruins of so many Chancellors and great personages. “Why,” quoth the marquis, “Ortus sum e salice,non ex quercu,”i.e., “I am made of pliable willow, not of the stubborn oak.” And, truly, it seems the old man had taught them all, especially William, Earl of Pembroke, for they two were always of the King’s religion, and always zealous professors: of these it is said that being both younger brothers, yet of noble houses, they spent what was left them, and came on trust to the Court, where, upon the bare stock of their wits, they began to traffic for themselves, and prospered so well that they got, spent, and left more than any subjects from the Norman Conquest to their own times; whereupon it hath been prettily spoken that they lived in a time of dissolution.
To conclude, then, of all the former reign, it is said that those two lived and died chiefly in her grace and favour: by the letter written upon his son’s marriage with the Lady Catherine Grey, he had like utterly to have lost himself; but at the instant of consummation, as apprehending the unsafety and danger of intermarriage with the blood royal, he fell at the Queen’s feet, where he both acknowledged his presumption, and projected the cause and the divorce together: so quick he was at his work, that in the time of repudiation of the said Lady Grey, he clapped up a marriage for his son, the Lord Herbert, with Mary Sidney, daughter to Sir Henry Sidney, then Lord Deputy of Ireland, the blow falling on Edward, the late Earl of Hertford, who, to his cost, took up the divorced lady, of whom the Lord Beauchamp was born, and William, now Earl of Hertford, is descended.
I come now to present them to her own election, which were either admitted to her secrets of State, or taken into her grace and favour; of whom, in order, I crave leave to give unto posterity a cautious description, with a short character or draught of the persons themselves (for, without offence to others, I would be true to myself), their memories and merits, distinguishing those ofMilitiæ[122a]from theTogati;[122b]and of both these she had as many, and those as able ministers, as had any of her progenitors.
It will be out of doubt that my Lord of Leicester was one of the first whom she made Master of the Horse; he was the youngest son then living of the Duke of Northumberland, beheadedprimo Mariæ,[122c]and his father was that Dudley which our histories couple with Empson, and both be much infamed for the caterpillars of the commonwealth during the reign of Henry VII., who, being of a noble extract, was executed the first year of Henry VIII., but not thereby so extinct but that he left a plentiful estate, and such a son who, as the vulgar speaks it, would live without a teat. For, out of the ashes of his father’s infamy, he rose to be a duke, and as high as subjection could permit or sovereignty endure. And though he could not find out any appellation to assume the crown in his own person, yet he projected, and very nearly effected it, for his son Gilbert, by intermarriage with the Lady Jane Grey, and so, by that way, to bring it into his loins. Observations which, though they lie beyond us, and seem impertinent to the text, yet are they not much extravagant, for they must lead us and show us how the after-passages were brought about, with the dependences on the line of a collateral workmanship; and surely it may amaze a well-settled judgment to look back into these times and to consider how the duke could attain to such a pitch of greatness, his father dying in ignominy, and at the gallows, his estate confiscated for pilling and polling the people.
But, when we better think upon it, we find that he was given up but as a sacrifice to please the people, not for any offence committed against the person of the King; so that upon the matter he was a martyr of the prerogative, and the King in honour could do no less than give back to his son the privilege of his blood, with the acquiring of his father’s profession, for he was a lawyer, and of the King’s Council at Law, before he came to beex interioribus consiliis,[124a]where, besides the licking of his own fingers, he got the King a mass of riches, and that not with hazard, but with the loss of his life and fame, for the King’s father’s sake.
Certain it is that his son was left rich in purse and brain, which are good foundations, and fuel to ambition; and, it may be supposed, he was on all occasions well heard of the King as a person of mark and compassion in his eye, but I find not that he did put up for advancement during Henry VIII.’s time, although a vast aspirer and a provident stayer.
It seems he thought the King’s reign was much given to the falling-sickness, but espying his time fitting, and the sovereignty in the hands of a pupil prince, he then thought he might as well put up, for it was the best; for having the possession of blood, and of purse, with a head-piece of a vast extent, he soon got to honour, and no sooner there but he began to side it with the best, even with the Protector,[124b]and, in conclusion, got his and his brother’s heads; still aspiring till he expired in the loss of his own, so that posterity may, by reading of the father and grandfather, make judgment of the son; for we shall find that this Robert, whose original we have now traced the better to present him, was inheritor to the genius and craft of his father, and Ambrose of the estate, of whom hereafter we shall make some short mention.
We took him now as he was admitted into the Court and the Queen’s favours, and here he was not to seek to play his part well and dexterously; but his play was chiefly at the fore-game, not that he was a learner at the latter, but he loved not the after-wit, for the report is (and I think not unjustly) that he was seldom behind-hand with his gamesters, and that they always went with the loss.
He was a very goodly person, tall, and singularly well-featured, and all his youth well-favoured, of a sweet aspect, but high-foreheaded, which (as I should take it) was of no discommendation; but towards his latter, and which with old men was but a middle age, he grew high-coloured, so that the Queen had much of her father, for, expecting some of her kindred, and some few that had handsome wits in crooked bodies, she always took personage in the way of election, for the people hath it to this day,King Henry loved a man.
Being thus in her grace, she called to mind the sufferings ofhisancestors, both in her father’s and sister’s reigns, and restored his and his brother’s blood, creating Ambrose, the elder, Earl of Warwick, and himself Earl of Leicester; and, as he wasex primitis, or,of her first choice, so he rested not there, but long enjoyed her favour, and therewith what he listed, till time and emulation, the companions of greatness, resolved of his period, and to colour him at his setting in a cloud (at Conebury) not by so violent a death, or by the fatal sentence of a judicature, as that of his father and grandfather was, but, as is supposed, by that poison which he had prepared for others, wherein they report him a rare artist. I am not bound to give credit to all vulgar relations, or the libels of his time, which are commonly forced and falsified suitable to the words and honours[126]of men in passion and discontent; but what blinds me to think him no good man, amongst other things of known truth, is that of my Lord of Essex’s[127a]death in Ireland and the marriage of his lady, which I forbear to press in regard he is long since dead, and others are living whom it may concern.
To take him in the observation of his letters and writings, which should best set him off, for such as have fallen into my hands, I never yet saw a style or phrase more seemingly religious and fuller of the strains of devotion; and, were they not sincere, I doubt much of his well-being,[127b]and, I fear, he was too well seen in the aphorisms and principles of Nicholas the Florentine, and in the reaches[127c]of Cesare Borgia.
And hereto I have only touched him in his courtships. I conclude him in his lance;[127d]he was sent Governor by the Queen to the revolted States of Holland, where we read not of his wonders, for they say he had more of Mercury than he had of Mars, and that his device might have been, without prejudice to the great Cæsar,Veni,vidi,redivi.
His[128]co-rival was Thomas Radcliffe, Earl of Sussex, who in his constellation was his direct opposite, for indeed he was one of the Queen’s martialists, and did her very good service in Ireland, at her first accession, till she recalled him to the Court, whom she made Lord Chamberlain; but he played not his game with that cunning and dexterity as the Earl of Leicester did, who was much the fairer courtier, though Sussex was thought much the honester man, and far the better soldier, but he lay too open on his guard; he was a godly gentleman, and of a brave and noble nature, true and constant to his friends and servants; he was also of a very ancient and noble lineage, honoured through many descents, through the title of Fitzwalters. Moreover, there was such an antipathy in his nature to that of Leicester, that, being together in Court, and both in high employments, they grew to a direct frowardness, and were in continual opposition, the one setting the watch, the other the guard, each on the other’s actions and motions; for my Lord of Sussex was of so great spirit, which, backed with the Queen’s special favour and support,[129]by a great and ancient inheritance, could not brook the other’s empire, insomuch as the Queen upon sundry occasions had somewhat to do to appease and atone them, until death parted the competition, and left the place to Leicester, who was not long alone without his rival in grace and command; and, to conclude this favourite, it is confidently affirmed that, lying in his last sickness, he gave thiscaveatto his friends:—
“I am now passing into another world, and I must leave you to your fortunes and the Queen’s grace and goodness; but beware of gipsy” (meaning Leicester), “for he will be too hard for you all; you know not the beast so well as I do.”
I come now to the next, which was Secretary William Cecil, for on the death of the old Marquis of Winchester he came up in his room: a person of a most subtle and active spirit.
He stood not by the way of constellation, but was wholly attentive to the service of his mistress, and his dexterity, experience, and merit therein challenged a room in the Queen’s favour which eclipsed the other’s over-seeming greatness, and made it appear that there were others steered and stood at the helm besides himself, and more stars in the firmament of grace than Ursa Major.
He was born, as they say, in Lincolnshire, but, as some aver upon knowledge, of a younger brother of the Cecils of Hertfordshire, a family of my own knowledge, though now private, yet of no mean antiquity, who, being exposed, and sent to the City, as poor gentlemen used to do their sons, became to be a rich man on London Bridge, and purchased[130a]in Lincolnshire, where this man was born.
He was sent to Cambridge, and then to the Inns of Court, and so came to serve the Duke of Somerset in the time of his Protectorship[130b]as Secretary, and having a pregnancy to high inclinations, he came by degrees to a higher conversation with the chiefest affairs of State and Councils; but, on the fall of the duke, he stood some years in umbrage and without employment, till the State found they needed his abilities; and although we find not that he was taken into any place during Mary’s reign, unless (as some say) towards the last, yet the Council several times made use of him, and in the Queen’s[131a]entrance he was admitted Secretary of State; afterwards he was made Master of the Court of Wards, then Lord Treasurer, for he was a person of most excellent abilities; and, indeed, the Queen began to need and seek out men of both guards, and so I conclude to rank this[131b]great instrument amongst theTogati, for he had not to do with the sword, more than as the great paymaster and contriver of the war which shortly followed, wherein he accomplished much, through his theoretical knowledge at home and his intelligence abroad, by unlocking of the counsels of the Queen’s enemies.
We must now take it, and that of truth, into observation that, until the tenth of her reign, the times were calm and serene, though sometimes overcast, as the most glorious sun-rising is subject to shadowings and droppings, for the clouds of Spain, and the vapours of the Holy League, began to disperse and threaten her felicity. Moreover, she was then to provide for some intestine strangers, which began to gather in the heart of her kingdom, all which had relation and correspondency, each one to the other, to dethrone her and to disturb the public tranquillity, and therewithal, as a principal mark, the Established religion, for the name of Recusant then began first to be known to the world; until then the Catholics were no more than Church-Papists,[132]but now, commanded by the Pope’s express Catholic Church, their mother, they separate themselves; so it seems the Pope had then his aims to take a true number of his children; but the Queen had the greater advantage, for she likewise took tale of her opposite subjects, their strength and how many they were, that had given their names to Baal, who[133]then by the hands of some of his proselytes fixed his bulls on the gates of St. Paul’s, which discharged her subjects of all fidelity and received faith, and so, under the veil of the next successor, to replant the Catholic religion. So that the Queen had then a new task and work in hand that might well awake her best providence, and required a muster of new arms, as well as courtships and counsels, for the time then began to grow quick and active, fitter for stronger motions than them of the carpet and measure; and it will be a true note of her magnanimity that she loved a soldier, and had a propensity in her nature to regard and always to grace them, which the Court, taking it into their consideration, took it as an inviting to win honour, together with Her Majesty’s favour, by exposing themselves to the wars, especially when the Queen and the affairs of the kingdom stood in some necessity of the soldiers, for we have many instances of the sallies of the nobility and gentry; yea, and of the Court and her privy favourites, that had any touch or tincture of Mars in their inclinations, to steal away without licence and the Queen’s privity, which had like to cost some of them dear, so predominant were their thoughts and hopes of honour grown in them, as we may truly observe in the exposition of Sir Philip Sidney, my Lord of Essex and Mountjoy, and divers others, whose absence, and the manner of their eruptions, was very distasteful unto her, whereof I can hereunto add a true and no impertinent story, and that of the last: Mountjoy, who, having twice or thrice stole away into Brittany, where, under Sit John Norris, he had then a company, without the Queen’s leave and privity, she sent a message unto him with a strict charge to the general to see him sent home.
When he came into the Queen’s presence, she fell into a kind railing, demanding of him how he durst go over without her leave. “Serve me so,” quoth she, “once more, and I will lay you fast enough for running; you will never leave till you are knocked on the head, as that inconsiderate fellow Sidney was; you shall go when I send. In the meantime, see that you lodge in the Court” (which was then at Whitehall), “where you may follow your book, read, and discourse of the wars.” But to our purpose. It fell out happily to those, and, as I may say, to these times, that the Queen during the calm time of her reign was not idle, nor rocked asleep with security, for she had been very provident in the reparation and augmentation of her shipping and ammunition, and I know not whether by a foresight of policy, or any instinct, it came about, or whether it was an act of her compassion, but it is most certain she sent no small troops to the revolted States of Holland, before she had received any affront from the King of Spain, that might deserve to tend to a breach of hostility, which the Papists maintain to this day was the provocation to the after-wars; but, omitting what might be said to this point, these Netherland wars were the Queen’s seminaries or nursery of very many brave soldiers, and so likewise were the civil wars of France, whither she sent five several armies.