by Machiavell which maintaineth his subjects in division and partialitie and which seekes to sley all them which love the commonweale and which desire a good reformation a good policie in the commonweale There are also other tokens and markes whereby to know a tyrant as them which wee have before alledged out of doctor Bartolus and them also which hystoriographers have marked to have been in Tarquin the proud For they say when he changed his just and royall domination Dioni Halic lib. 4. into a tyrannicall government he became a contemner and a despiser of al his subjects as well the meane people as the nobilitie and Patritians he brought a confusion and a corruption into justice he tooke a greater number of waiting servants into his guard than his predecessors had he tooke away the authoritie from the assembly of the Senate which it alwaies before had moreover hee dispatched criminall and civile causes after his fancie and not according to right hee cruelly punished such as complained of that change of estate as conspirators against him he caused many great and notable persons to die secretly without any forme of justice hee imposed tributes upon the people against the auncient forme and regalitie to the impoverishing and oppression of some more than of others hee had also spies to discover what was said of him and afterward punished rigorously such as had blamed either him or his government These be the colours wherewith the hystories do paint Tarquin when of a king he became a tyrant and these are ordinarily the colours and liverie of all tyrants banners whereby they may be knowne It seemeth that Tarquin forgot nothing of all that a tyrant could doe but that he slew not Brutus which was a fault in the art of tyrannie as learnedly Machiavell noteth it which fell to bee his ruin But the cause hereof was that Brutus in the court counterfeted the foole wherby Tarquin had no suspition of him For none but wise men and good people are suspect and greevous to tyrants but as for counterfeting fooles unthrifts flatterers bauds murderers inventors of imposts and such like dregs and vermine of the people they are best welcome into tyrants courts yet even amongst them are not tyrants alwaies without danger for amongst such fooles sometimes happeneth a Brutus who at last will plat out their ends so that ever their lives hangs by a small thred as Denis the tyrant sayth But the example of Hieronimus another tyrant of Sicilie is to this purpose well to be noted This Hieronimus was the sonne of a good and wise king called Hiero whom also they well called tyrant because he came not to that estate by a legitimate title although he exercised it sincerely and in good justice who when he died left this Hieronimus his sonne very young and under age For the government therefore of him and of his affaires he gave him fifteene tutors and amongst them Andronodorus and Zoilus his sonnes in law and one Thraso which he charged to maintaine the countrey of Sicilie in peace as he himselfe had done by the space of fiftie yeares of his raigne but especially that they should maintaine the treatie and confederation which he had all the length of his time duly observed with the Romanes The said tutors promised to performe his request and to change nothing in the estate but altogether to follow his footsteps Straight after Hiero was dead Andronodorus being angry because of so many tutors caused the king who was then but 15 yeares old to be proclaimed of sufficient age to bee dismissed of tutors and so dispatched himselfe as well as others of that dutifull care they ought to have had of their king and countrey After he got to himselfe alone the government of the kingdome and to make himselfe to bee feared under the kings authoritie hee tooke to him a great number of waiters for his guard and to weare purple garments and a diademe upon his head and to goe in a coach drawne with white horses altogether after the manner of Denis the tyrant and contrary to the use of Hieronimus yet was not this the worst for besides all this Adronodorus caused the yong king his brother in law to bee instructed in pride and arrogancie to contemne every man to give audience to no man to bee quarelous and to take advantage at words of hard accesse given to all new fashions of effeminacie and riotousnesse and to bee unmeasurable cruell thirstie after bloud After Andronodorus had thus framed to his minde this yong king a conspiration was made against him unto which Andronodorus was consenting to dispatch and sley him but it was discovered but yet executed which A conjuration discovered yet executed was strange For one Theodorus was accused and confessed himselfe to bee one of the conspiracie but being tortured and racked to confesse his complices and parteners in that conspiracie knowing he must needs die and by that meanes desiring to be revenged of that yong tyrant he accused the most faithfull and trustiest servants of the king This young tyrant rash inconsiderat straight put to death his friends and principal servants by the counsell of Andronodorus who desired nothing more because they hindered his deseignes This execution performed incontinent this yong tyrant was massacred and slain upon a straight way by the conspirators themselves which before had made the conjuration the execution whereof was the more easie by the discoverie thereof because as is said the tyrants most faithfull friends and servants were slaine Soone after the tyrants death Andronodorus obtained the fortresse of Siracuse a towne of Sicilie but the tumults and stirres which he raised in the countrey as he thought for his owne profit fell out so contrarie to his expectation that finally he his wife and all their race and the race of Hieronimus were extermined as well such as were innocent as they that were culpable And so doth it ordinarily happen to all young princes which by corruption are degenerated into tyrants So fals it out also to all them which are corrupters of princes to draw them into habits of all wickednesse Lastly here would not bee omitted altogether this wickednesse of Machiavell who confounding good and evill together yeeldeth the title of Vertuous unto a tyrant Is not this as much as to call darkenesse full lightsome and bright vice good and honourable and ignorance learned But it pleaseth this wicked man thus to say to plucke out of the hearts of men all hatred horror and indignation which they might have against tyrannie and to cause princes to esteeme tyrannie good honorable and desirable 16. Maxime A Prince may as well be hated for his vertue as for his vice THe emperour Pertinax saith Machiavell vvas elected emperor Cap. 19. Of the prince against the vvils of his men of vvarre vvhich before had customably lived licentiously in all vices and dissolutenesse under the emperour Commodus his predecessor
called with these gracious names Subsidies Subventitions Aydes Grants not with these tearmes Tailles Imposts Tributes Impositions which were tearmes more hard and odious Examples appeare of the first cause when the generall Estates assembled at Paris after the death of king Charles le Sage to provide for the government as well of king Charles the sixt being under Annal. upon An 1380 and Fross li 2. cap. 58. 60. age as of the kingdome which government they gave unto three of the kings uncles namely to the Duke of Berry Languedoc to the Duke of Bourgoigne Picardie and Normandie and to the Duke de Aniou the remainder of all the realme and the rule of the young kings person was committed to the said Dukes of Berry and Bourgoigne So was there ordained during the said kings life another ordinance In like manner the generall Estates were held at Tours after the decease of king Lewis the eleventh to purvey for the government of king Charles the eighth under Annal. upon An. 148. and Coâ—â—n â—ib 1. ca. 109. age and of the kingdome And by the same Estates was established a Counsell of twelve persons good men and of good calling to dispatch the affaires of the kingdome yet in the kings name and under his authoritie And the rule of the young kings person was committed unto Madame de Beavien his sister When king Charles the sixt le bien aime was come to the age of one and twentie yeares his uncles were discharged from the government of the kingdome by the Froiss lib 1. cap. 134. lib. 4. cap. 44. advise and deliberation of the kings great Counsell But this good prince by an accident of sicknesse fell a certaine time after into a frenzie which sometimes bereaved him of his sences insomuch that the Estates assembled at Paris gave the government of the kingdome during the kings indisposition to his two uncles the dukes of Berrie and Burgoigne The yeare 1356. that king Iohn was taken prisoner nie Poictres at the journey of Annal. upon An. 1356 and Fross li. 1. cap. 170. 171. Maupertins with his sonne Philip after Duke of Burgoigne and that they were led into England there remained in France three of the said king Iohns children namely Charles Dauphin and duke of Normandie Lewis duke de Aniou and Iohn duke of Berrie There was a question about the providing for the government of the kingdome because of the kings captiuitie but none of them would enterprise the mannaging thereof of himselfe insomuch that the generall Estates were assembled at Paris whereby were elected thirtie six persons some say fiftie to governe the affaires of the kingdome with Monsieur le Dauphin who at the beginning called himselfe the Lieutenant of the king his father but afterward he named himselfe Regent The yeare 1409. during the raigne of Charles the sixt king of France were held Monstrelet lib. 1. ca. 59. the generall Estates at Paris for the reformation of abuses in the kingdome And there it was ordained that all accountants for the kings revenues and rents should make their accounts By the meanes of which reformation great summes of money were recovered upon the same accountants and there were also made some good lawes and ordinances In other conventions of Estates the money and coine hath been reformed from weake and light unto thicke and of good waight and goodnesse Also of late at the generall Estates held at Orleans were made manie goodly ordinances for the good and comfort of the poore people reformation of justice and for the cutting off of manie abuses which were committed in plaies at Cardes and Dise in superfluitie of apparell and in matter of benefices But commonly commeth such euill hap that all good things which are introducted and ordained vpon good reason and to a good end incontinent vanish away and wicked examples are alwaies drawne into consequence As for the last cause for which we haue said the generall Estates in old time were called namely for the graunt of Helps Subsidies ther are manie examples in our Histories As in the time of king Iohn wherein the Estates accorded great subventions Froiss lib. 1. cap. 155. Annal. upon An 1354 58. 59. or subsidies to make warre against the English men which then held a great part of the kingdome And after he was taken prisoner and led into England the said Estates agreed to give vnto Monsieur le Dauphin his soune great summes of money to pay for the said kings raunsome and for Philip his sonne being also a prisoner And well to be marked it is that our histories doe witnesse that all the people of France generally were meruailously anguished grieved with the prisonment captivitie which they saw their king suffer but especially the people of the countrey of Languedoc For the Estates of the said countrey ordained that if the king were not delivered within a yeare that every one both men and women should lay by all coloured garments such also as were jagged and cut and such as were enriched with gold silver or other strange and costly fashion Likewise to make cease all stage-plaies morrisdauncings piping yea and plaies pastimes and daunces in signe and token of their mourning and lamentation for their princes captivitie A thing whereby appeared the great and cordiall affection of this people towards their king As truely the Frenchmen have alwaies been of great love and affection towards their kings unlesse they were altogither tyrants But to make an end of this point Certaine it is that before king Charles the seventh called le Victorieux no Subsidies were imposed without assembling the generall Estates And that our kings used thus to do was not because they had power by an absolute authoritie to impose tallages and subsidies without calling the Estates but it is to the end they may be better obeyed with a voluntarie and unconstrained obedience and to shunne all uprores and rebellions which often happen upon that occasion And truly the French people have alwaies been so good and obedient unto their kings that they never refused him any thing if there were but any appearance of reason to demand it Yea often the Estates have granted their king more than he would demand or durst looke for as is seene by that which our histories write of the Estates held for Subsidies But because Aydes and Subsidies were customably granted for the making of De Com. lib. 5. cap. 18. warres M. Philip de Comin saith That kings should also communicat and consult with their Estates whether the causes of such warres be just and reasonable and that the Prince cannot nor ought not otherwise to enterprise a warre For it is reason that they which defray the charges and expenses should know something But yet he passeth further and saith There is no Prince in the world which hath power to lay one pennie upon his subjects without their grant and consent unlesse he will use tyrannie and
held Hesdin Surely it is a strange thing and very deplorable that there should be any such men in the world which durst maintaine with reasons so horrible a crime farre from all common sence and all reason and humanitie as is a massacre done and executed practisedly without any forme of justice Is not this to call things with contrarie names that is to call injustice by the name of justice crueltie by the name of clemencie night by the name of light evill by the name of good and the devill by the name of an Angell Is not this to praise that which is to be despised and detested to follow that which is to be fled to love that which is to be hated to bring into a confusion the distinction of good and of evill and to overthrow the order which God and nature have established in the distinction of good and evill things But after I have shewed that crueltie cannot bee but pernicious and cause of a princes ruine whatsoever Machiavell saith to the contrarie it will not be to any evill purpose now to shew That kindnesse clemencie and goodnesse are the true means to establish a princes estate in firmitie assurance But because we shall handle hereafter another Maxime where it shall bee more proper to discourse this matter wee will reserve the speaking therof to that place 9. Maxime It is better for a Prince to be feared than loved MEn saith our Florentine doe love as it please them and do feare as it pleaseth the prince Therefore the prince if hee bee vvise ought to found himselfe and to leane that vvay vvhich dependeth upon himselfe and not that vvay vvhich dependeth upon another If the prince can have both together to bee feared and loved that is the best but it being a very difficult thing for to embrace both it is more assured to be feared than to be beloved THis Maxime is a saying or proverbe which our elders have attributed to tyrants Oderint dum metuant that is Let them hate so be it they feare Caius Caligula usurped this auncient proverbe as Suetonius saith and put it in practice during all the time of his raign Sucto in Caligula cap. 30 and he ended as commonly such princes doe end which will rather bee feared than loved as in another place wee have said The emperour Tiberius would needs something mitigate this proverbe not allowing to make himselfe feared and yet disdained not hatred For he was wont to say as by the way of a proverbe or device Oderint dum probent that is Let them hate so they allow But it seemes he made an evill match in coupling hatred with approbation for that which a man hateth hee dooth not willingly allow and that which a man alloweth hee hateth not also Moreover all such sayings and proverbes Let them hate so they feare and Let them hate so they allow are but tyrants devices and our forefathers have so esteemed them and tyrants have alwayes practised them As Nero when he perceived that by his cruelties he was feared and redoubted he bragged that none of them which had been emperours before him had any understanding how to command neither knew they the power they had to make themselves be obeyed But that power was well made knowne to himselfe for men made him well to feele That power evill exercised acquireth hatred to him that exerciseth it and hatred ruine and destruction So happened it to Caligula so to Tiberius and so will it alwayes fall unto them which seeke to bee feared rather with hatred than with love As for that which Machiavell sayth That the prince is feared as he will and as it pleaseth him If this were true all should goe well for him for hee would alwayes be so feared as none should oppose themselves against his desseignes and commandements but that every one should come under the yoke and obey him purely and simply But experience shewes us the contrarie and makes us see and know That a prince cannot long be obeyed if that which he commandeth bee disagreeable and found unjust of him that should obey insomuch as at the first occasion that presenteth it selfe they unyoke themselves and their obedience endureth no longer than force and necessitie endureth And because no force nor necessitie can actually endure long time because no violent thing naturally lasteth therefore it followeth that disagreeable commandements cannot long be observed and that obedience founded upon feare is incontinent broken For the equitie justice of a commandement is the sinew thereof And as the bodie cannot move without sinewes unles only for a leape like a stone so a commaundement which for want of equitie displeaseth Equitie is the sinew of the commādement the obeyers shall never be well put in action and practised unlesse it bee for a small time and at the beginning And as for that which Machiavell saith That it is very hard for a prince to bee feared and loved together it is cleane contrarie For there is nothing more easie for A prince may well be seated and loved together a prince than to obtaine them both as reason sheweth it Because it is certaine that a prince which maintaines his subjects in good peace keepeth them from oppressions causing all them to bee punished which would oppresse them and which will maintaine their liberties and punish the breakers of them and who will observe a good pollicie in his countrey that therein there may be a free assured commerce without imposition of tributes or burdens and he that shall cause good justice to be ministred to every one it is certaine that such a prince shall be greatly beloved of his subjects yea and feared thus When men understand that the prince ministreth good justice in every place without support favour or corruption leaving not punishable faults unpunished and is not prodigall in graunting favours and pardons unlesse they have a good foundation upon reason and equitie certaine it is that hee shall be redoubted and feared not only in his own countrey but in strange countries also For example hereof are all the ancient and good emperours as Augustus Traian Adrian Antonine and others which were together feared beloved and reverenced I could here alleadge almost all our auncestor kings of France which with good justice were not onely redoubted of their subjects but also of all their neighbours yea that good reputation of justice in them was a cause that often strange princes have submitted their contentions to the judgment of the Court of Paris in France as we reade in histories And because they caused to be ministred good justice think you they were the more hated no not of the wickeder sort which are forced by their consciences to love and admire the good and vertue although their lives bee contrarie And how should they not be beloved of their subjects beeing good kings as they were seeing Frenchmen are of that nature that they can never hate their
Scipio said That it was a great shame that every man esteemed that the citie of Rome governesse of the whole world was as it were hid under the shaddow of Scipio as though he alone should and ought to have all the honour and credit of the whole commonwealth and to hold it covered under his shaddow Scipio replied nothing to this accusation neither knew he indeed what to replie unlesse hee had said that there was no reason his vertue should hurt him but knowing well that his citizens could not abide him he banished himselfe from Rome and withdrew himselfe to Liternum into a rurall house which hee had there where he finished his dayes Breefely then it may bee said that men are sometimes made suspected but especially to the common sort of either base or no vertue because of their great and iminent vertues but yet neither hated nor despised But in a prince this ought to have no place for the more vertuous that men bee Excellent vertues ought not to be suspected of a prince the more they ought to love and honour them and to serve themselves with them for in so doing the vertues of such good and vertuous servants are imputed unto the prince himselfe as we have before shewed neither can a prince ever draw any great services from men of small vertue for good services are the effects of vertue And as no man out of a bush or bramble can get good peares or other pleasant fruits because such kind of plants have not that kind of vertue in them to produce such kind of fruits in like sort a prince cannot looke for gallant and good services from vicious men of base vertue A prince also can have no just occasion to hold for suspected men of great vertue for many reasons first because such persons have in greater recommendation the integritie of their fame and honour than men have which are of meane fortune or as they say of a base hand and therefore will not easily attempt any filthie or wicked thing which may turne to their dishonor Secondly because seeing themselves beloved honoured and recompenced for their good services by their prince their love and desire well to serve him will more and more encrease and so prove a meanes directly contrary to all evill enterprises Thirdly because men of excellent vertue are alwaies of generous and great courages minds but it is a thing altogether repugnant to all generositie to commit wicked enterprises against a good prince yea and a worke of faint-hearted villaines Finally in the time wherein wee are principalities and kingdomes being bestowed either by hereditarie succession or by the election of certaine nobles and not by an election tumultuarie and violent of corrupted persons they should be very madde to aspire to his place or to enterprise any evill against him to deprive themselves of that good they alreadie enjoy without all likelyhood to attaine unto better And if with al this a vertuous man have any feare of God he will enterprise no evill against his prince even for this only cause that God willeth and commandeth that we obey our prince and that we honour him above all things in the world so that he which disobeyeth him disobeyeth God and who despiseth him despiseth God also And hereunto more than to any other reason ought all such as account themselves Christians to have especiall regard to deliver faithfull voluntarie obedience seeing God commands it to their lawfull prince And as for that which Machiavell sayth That the emperour Pertinax was hated Capitol in Peâ—â—in Herod lib. 6. of his men of warre for his vertue is very false for although in all other things hee was a notable good and vertuous prince yet was he much and sore spotted with that filthie vice of covetousnesse and illiberalitie which hereafter Machiavel teacheth to be a notable vertue for a prince insomuch as being come to that high degree of a Romane emperour yet commonly dealt he in the traffique of merchandize for the inordinate desire of gaine and as soone as he was created emperour yea and even by his people of warre yet was hee so farre from being bountifull in recompensing them that he cut off from his souldiers certaine pensions which the emperour Traian his predecessor had given them for their nourishment maintenance This covetousnesse was the cause he was despised of them and slaine And as for Alexander Severus it was also the covetousnesse of Mammaea his mother which was the cause that the people of warre hated them yea and slew them both together as Herodian witnesseth who lived at that time And therefore the examples of Pertinax and of Alexander are by Machiavell to no purpose alledged to shew that princes are hated for their vertues yet although it were true that such souldiers as slew Pertinax were people hating vertue as also they which slew Alexander Severus which had gathered all corruption of vices under his predecessor Heliogabalus it followeth not that of such examples we must make a rule and Maxime For theeves and murderers doe hate justice and magistracie yet followeth it not that a prince is not alwaies more loved than hated by doing good justice Breefely such examples are exceptions and defailances of the rule which notwithstanding doe not cease to remaine alwaies true and certaine no more nor no lesse as philosophers say that that rule is certaine and true That the Summer is hoter than Winter although there be some daies in Winter more hot than there be other some daies in Summer 17. Maxime A Prince ought alwayes to nourish some enemie against himselfe to this end that when he hath oppressed him hee may bee accounted the more mightie and terrible PRinces saith our Florentine make themselves great wheÌ„ they Cap. 19. Of the prince overcome vvaightie and difficult things vvhich hinder their deseignes Therefore a good and vvise prince vvith a certaine ingenious care vvill nourish some enemie against himselfe to the end that happening to oppresse him his riches and greatnesse may the better encrease For such an enemie shall serve him as a sufficient matter to encrease his greatnesse and as a ladder to ascend the higher BEhold a Maxime of the same note as the former hereunto tending That a prince doe alwayes seeke meanes to make himselfe to Tyrants want not enemies be feared rather than loved But a prince which observeth the doctrine of Machiavell needs take no great care to seeke meanes to nourish an enemie against himselfe for there will bee ynow and more than one would both within and without his countrey yea in his owne house But to say that he can oppresse them all to make himselfe feared and redoubted that is no assured thing but rather contrarie he may assure himselfe that in the end either one or other will oppresse and ruinate himselfe When Milicus Cornel. Tacit. Annal. 15. had discovered to Nero a great conjuration practised against him hee performed
but it vvas because hee knevv not in a neede to be altogether vvicked Heereupon I conclude That men leave to leese great fortunes and occasions vvhich happen unto them because they knew not how in a neede to be altogether wicked THis Maxime is a true end and scope whereunto Machiavell would leade a prince and all such as follow his doctrine namely to Machiavell teacheth a soveraigne wickednes be altogether wicked in all perfection of wickednesse The degrees to come to this so high and soveraigne wickednesse have for the most part beene alreadie declared For Machiavell hath shewed That crueltie perfidie impietie subtiltie or deceit covetousnesse and other like which are the degrees whereby men mount the top of all wickednesse are very fit and meete for a prince and that hee ought to bee decored and adorned with them But now complaines hee that men although they bee otherwise full of vices yet they cannot use them so dexteriouslie and handsomely as that they may mount to the highest greatest and soveraignest wickednesse and that it is a great fault and brings unto them great domages in their affaires I pray you can there bee found amongst the Scithians Arabians or any other barbarous nation which live without law or policie a more detestable and infamous doctrine than heere is taught in Machiavells schoole May not any man see that hee buildeth by his precepts a true tyrannie yea that hee useth the like method to teach his soveraigne wickednesse that philosophers doe to teach the soveraigne good For as Aristotle Plato Cicero and others which dealt in writing of the soveraigne good first shewed the vertues and good manners whereby they must ascend thereunto as by degrees so this stinking doctor Machiavell useth the same manner teaching a prince all kinds of evill and wickednesse which may leade to the highest degree and top of all vices and of all evill But I will not long stay in refuting this Maxime for I thinke I have before so well beaten downe those degrees whereby hee would have princes ascend to that height of all wickednesse that hee that followeth the way which wee have shewed shall not neede to feare mounting thither but rather not doubt the contrary Wee have also made appeare by reasons and notable examples That they which give themselves to the vices of perfidie impiety cruelty other vices which Machiavell teacheth come ordinarily to evill ends so far is it off to be domageable That a man cannot bee perfectly wicked as most impudently hee affirmeth And as for the example of Pagolo which hee alledgeth it is a strange thing how this gallant should not attaine to the full top of all wickednesse since they of his nation have commonly their spirits so prompt and quicke to all evill and corruption But it is credible he was some luskish and faint hearted fellow which wanting no good will to slay the Pope onely wanted courage to enterprise and performe it But some may say that Pagolo feared to doe well if hee had slaine the Pope Iulius and therefore hee would not doe it because hee would not doe good but onely apply himselfe to evill and vâ—ee as Machiavell teacheth And indeede if hee had slaine this Pope hee had done great good to all Christendome of that time for he lighted and stirred up warres amongst Christian princes and delighted in nothing so much as to sow trouble every where yea hee vaunted that hee would doe more with S. Pauls sword than all his predecessors had done with S. Peters keies Pagolo then who had sworne to the doctrine of Machiavell as is to bee presumed would not bee the cause of so great good as by slaying that monster to doe so much good to Christendome But Machiavell found hee did evill that hee slew not the Pope and speakes thereof as a man passionate for there was never man a greater enemie to the Pope than Machiavell I therefore doe greatlie mervaile how Papists can esteeme of Machiavell But indeede they which esteeme so much of him are not papists though they say they are but are a people which in their hearts make no care either of God or of the divell nor of the Pope nor of the popedome no nor of any religion but are very Atheists full of impietie like their master yet indeed they goe well to Masse there is good policie in it for therein they make to appeare that they have so well profited in their Machiaveline philosophie that they are come to the perfection that their master taught them in this Maxime 29. Maxime Hee that hath alwaies carried the countenance of a good man and would become wicked to obtaine his desire ought to colour his change with some apparent reason WHen a man desires to change from one qualitie to another saith Discourse lib. 1. cap. 42. our Florentine as when hee will become wicked for some cause having alwaies before carried the countenance of a good man hee must doe it discreetly and before seeke occasions by providing himselfe in the meane while nevv friends to leane upon in the place of the ancient vvhich abandon him And heerein a great fault was committed by Appius Claudius who was one of the ten soveraigne potentates of Rome for hee having alwaies shewed himselfe a lover of the people humane kind communicative of easie accesse a good iusticier going after about to usurpe the soveraigne domination of Rome he too sodainely changed his qualities into other cleane contrary turning his roabe as it had beene from vvhite to blacke which vvas the cause that the vvorld incontinent discovered his hipocrisie and pourpensed mallice and pointed at him vvith their fingers So could hee not attaine his desseines and purposes vvhich hee might have had if fairely by little and little hee had changed alwaies seeking some apparent occasions to become cruell fierce rigorous unsociable and to have provided himselfe friends of like qualities to maintaine him as is said THis Maxime is like that of Renardizing and fox like deceit wherof wee have before spoken For this is a precept how of a good man to become wicked and yet the world should not perceive it And saith Machiavell hee must not bee so grosse as at the first arivall to change from good to evill as from white to blacke because this change may be perceived of the world but he must proceede unto it by a cautell and subtiltie seeking palliations and coulours to hide his change and to give apparent reason thereof As if a man will become cruell he must cover his cruelties with some appearance of Iustice if he will become rapinous and a catchpoll hee must cover his rapines with some appearance of necessitie and publike utilitie Thus doth he change himselfe by little and little and so from good shal he become wicked and none perceive it And it is good to bee noted the comparison which Machiavell makes of the chaunge and varietie of manners by the chaunce of colours For
there is no more comparison to be made betwixt their speeehes and our sermons than to compare a calfe to an asse Moreover if wee should come to a disputation to speake Latin were these Curates to be compared unto us the least novices in our covents shall alwaies say a lesson more sufficiently than these Curates if they will but learne it Finally all this lent passed in sermons and contersermons of the said Mendicants and Curats all which of the one part and the other sought to winne the peoples favour and devotion to enjoy the fruits revenewes of Cures After the Lent was passed they came to justice for the Mendicants pursued the reception and enrowling of their bulls entreating the court of Paris to admit and allow them whereupon the said Curates of Paris formed an opposition As the parties proceeded in their causes they respectively alledged by intendits replies duplications triplications the reasons and meanes touched before and farre more reasons which touched the quicke But the evill luck was for the Mendicants for upon the point of their good hope to obtaine the cause on their side Pope Alexander died Then the Curates beganne to oppose against them that the said bulls had no force nor vigour in them unlesse they were confirmed by Pope Iohn the foure and twentie of that name successor of the said Alexander The Mendicants much grieved heereat sought to obtaine a confirmation but could not For the Curates got before them insomuch as the poore Mendicants seeing themselves out of hope to obtaine the reception and enrowling of their said bulls resolved to leave the pursute thereof and the Iacobines first left the cause and the others consequently So that the Curates were maintained diffinitively in the possession and enjoyance of their cures and of the revenewes depending thereunto and the Mendicants were maintained in their possession and season of their beggery with expresse inhibitions accorded by the consent of the said Curates not to trouble nor molest them in any sort and each to beare his part of the law charges These Mendicants seeing themselves fixed fastened to their Povertie more than ever tooke it with the best patience they could possibly for so were they forced to do Yet notwithstanding some particulars amongst them which were the most angry had most credit did so much as they obtained for them provisions and reservations from the Pope of certaine cures and other benefices with dispensation to hould and possesse them notwithstanding their vow of Povertie The abovesaid Curates of France fearing the consequence made their complaints to king Charles the sixt then raigning The king by the advice of his Counsell made an ordinance in the yeere 1413 wherein hee much praiseth the rules of the Mendicants founders in that by them it is ordained that they ought to live in Povertie and Mendicitie without having any thing in common or in particular saying that such an ordinance is both salutarie and good And that Povertie is so annexed to the Monachall profession of Mendicants that the Pope himselfe cannot separate them which considered hee forbiddeth expreslie that none shall have regard to the said provisions obtained by any Mendicants upon cures or other benefices and if any bee in possession that hee bee taken out and they which are not yet received that none should receive them in And commanded all baylifes stewards and other officers of the realme not to suffer so pernitious yea so superstitious a thing to have place but rigorously to punish such as stand against this ordinance notwithstanding all bulls provisions and dispensations of the people to the contrarie So that by this the kings ordinance the Mendicants were more strongly tyed to the possession and enjoyance of their Povertie and beggerie as well in generall as particular this happened at the pursute of the said Curates their adversaries But yet a strange case it is that the passions and hatred of men should bee such as they have no end The said Mendicants were so farre from contentment at this ordinance that they bare great mallice to all Curates yea the one beheld the others with an evill eye and could not hould themselves from reciprocall detractions and evill speaches and from blazing on another in pulpits taxing the abuses and heresies one of another and describing one anothers marchandize When Pope Sixtus the fourth came to his papacie in the yeere 1472 the Mendicants became very proude because hee was a fryer minor and waxed insolent and audatious against Curates assuring themselves that the Pope would support them in all things The Curates then not beeing able to suffer the detractions skoulding and insolences of these Mendicants complained to the Pope who could doe no lesse than seeke to accord them For this effect hee deputed foure Cardinals that is the Cardinall of Hostia of Praeneste and of S. Peter ad Vincula and of S. Sixtus to heare the differences of the said Curates and Mendicants and in quietest manner to compound them The Cardinalls heard the parties in their alligations and did so much with them as they submitted themselves to their finall judgement After this to set a firme Cap. 2. De Treâ—ga pace in exâ—ra Articles of peace betwixt the Curats and the Mendicants and finall peace betwixt the said parties they pronounced for them an amiable sentence which was authorised by the Pope in Anno 1478 and containeth the Articles following That Curates from thence forward should no more say that the Mendicants were authors of heresies seeing that the Faith hath beene greatlie brought to light by them And likewise the Mendicants shall preach no more that parishoners are not bound to heare the parochiall Masse of their Curate on Sundaies and solemne feasts seeing that by the Cannons they are thereunto restrained and obliged Item that neither the one nor the other shall any more sollicit persons to chuse a sepulchre in their churches but shall leave it at the free election of every man Item that the said Mendicants shall preach no more that the parishioners are not bound to confesse themselves to their owne Curates at the least at Easter since that by right they are bound thereunto and that every good parishioner ought to make his Easter with his owne Curate without any thing derogating by that article from the priveledge which Mendicants have to heare confessions and to enjoyne pennance to confessed and repentants Item that the Mendicants in their actions of preaching of saying Mattins and ringing their Bells doe not enterprise upon the houres that Curates say their service unlesse it bee by the consent of the parties Item that the Mendicants shall no more turne away persons and parishioners from their parish Masses neither shall Curates take away the devotion of parishioners from the Mendicants but rather aide and succour them Behold in summe the articles of this peace and arbitrarie sentence betwixt the Mendicants and Curates which the Pope Sixtus greatly approved and
Office of Censor which was an Office very meete for him because he delighted more to blame and reprehend the vices of men than praise their vertues In the pursute of this Office of Censor hee had many competitors which also demanded this estate not so much for the desire they had to have it For they did well forsee that if Cato were Censor hee would practise a rigorous Censorship and that he would disgrade many Officers and Magistrates as this lay in the Censors power which were far from good And this which feared them most was that Cato himselfe as hee sued for that Office said openly that if hee were chosen Censor hee would bring to their tryall an heape of vitious corrupted Magistrates and would reforme offices by redusing them into the first forme and disgrading inculpable and unworthie officers and that they which opposed themselves to the pursute heereof did it for no other cause but because they feared the touch Bâ—iefely hee did so much that not onely hee was elected Censor but also gave him for a companion in his Censorship Lucius Valertus whom he demanded because he was like humorous as himselfe These two being Censors they failed not to remove many out of their places for they cassiered many Senators and Magistrates yea such as were of great houses and nobilitie They caused their houses to bee demolished and overthrowen which had builded on publike ground They caused divers ponds and lakes to be paved which were full of mudde and durt and to repurge all the gutters sinkes and jakes of the citie They greatly heightened and raised the farmes of the commonwealth hands which before had beene held at a low price by persons which by complots and intelligences had let them out farre dearer Briefely they administred a very lowable and profitable Censorship whereupon Cato was surnamed Censorius Would to God wee had at this day such men and that princes would employ them for the commonwealth stands in great need so to bee purged of so many evills and corruptions as doe infect and ruinate it King Charlemaine and S. Lewis may in this place serve for examples to all kings Annales upon Anno 809. and 2253. and princes For we reade That these two good kings true lovers of good Iustice performing the Office of good Censors sent often in their time commissiaries and enquestors through all provinces to bee informed against the abuses of Magistrates and such as they found in fault and did not well observe all edicts and ordinances they were rigorously punished Insomuch as during their raignes Iustice was exceeding well administred to the great help and comfort of the people The prince ought also in his election of Magistrates to advise himselfe well to chuse officers which in judgement will have no respect of persons For the Magistrate ought to yeeld right egally to the poore as the rich according to the merit of the cause and not after the desert of persons From the beginning of the Romane commonwealth they had either none or few lawes written to end contentions differences amongst them but Iudges ought to haâ—e no acception of persons they were ended as seemed good to Magistrates which alwaies gave a coulour to their sentences by certaine decrees and judgements which they said had ben before given in like cases By this palliation and deceit saying that they had been so before judged they administred Iustice after their owne fantasies yea in such sort as they almost Dion Halic lib. 10. alwaies carried away the gaining of the cause for Magistrates which were at their command supported and favoured them The meanest sort of people perceiving that under coulour of former judgements they were abused and so that they almost alwaies lost their causes against the great men of the citie many beganne to quarrell and complaine Insomuch as that the Tribunes publikely proposed that it was necessarie there were ten potentates elected in the place of two Consuls to administer the commonwealth and write lawes ordinances wherby from thence forward the differences and law controversies might bee decided and not after the fantasies and former judgements of Iudges Magistrates The great men after their custome opposed themselves against this Heereupon there arose a great stirre and sedition within the towne of Rome which neither the Consuls nor Senate could any Good Iustice cause of peace evill cause of Sedition way appease But at the new creation of Consuls it happened that Lucius Quintius who dwelt in the fields in a little husbandry hee had was elected Consul and sent for to his village where they found him at his ploughes taile ploughing his finall possessions This good person was honourably brought as soveraigne Magistrate into the towne as soone as hee was arrived hee beganne to exercise his estate and to administer justice to every man as well poore as rich without respect or exception of persons He in a little time dispatched all ould causes which had long hanged in suspence by the meanes of prorogations which rich men made and behaved himselfe so discreet and just in the handling of all causes as he was generally esteemed a good and equall judge Hee abode all day in the pallace to heare and dispatch causes and hee gave audience to every man very patiently and benignely and used speedie and good Iustice to one and others indifferently having no regard to persons but to the merits and to the Iustice of the cause then in the question onely By this meanes Quintius brought to passe that not onely the great men were no more suspected judges to the meanest but also Iustice was so agreeable and plausible to the people that the sedition ceased and all the people were appeased so that none demanded any more to have new lawes whereby to judge causes but every man greatly contented himselfe to have for a law so good and equall a judge and Magistrate And surely there is nothing in the world which sooner ceaseth seditions and stirres nor that better maintaineth publike peace and tranquilitie than a good Iustice administred by good and equall Magistrates But on the contrary a wicked Iustice is often cause of uproares insurrections and civile warres as poore France can say at this day The example of both these cases appeared certaine yeeres after Quintius was Dion Halic lib. 10. 11. out of his magistracie for they which succeeded him had not that grace nor dexteritie well to administer Iustice insomuch as the Tribunes tooke up againe their determination to create ten Potentates to write lawes and ordinances after which men might bee judged in all causes And indeede the Senate as it were constrained accorded to this creation there were chosenten Potentates which with great deliberation composed the lawes of the twelve Tables which were found very good and equall and not onely they proposed and made in publike places the said lawes and engraved them in Tables of brasse but which more is
the Senat yet had they no power over the whole body of the Senat for they might well punish with death one Senator but they had no superioritie over the body of the Senat. So the body of the Senat and the body of the People were as it were alike and equall And as much authoritie had the lawes of the Senat which they called Senatus consulta as the lawes of the People which they called Plebiscita And therefore the emperours which by the Law Roiall succeeded in the place of the People only for the Senat did never despoile themselves of their authoritie to invest the emperour therewith had never power to decay the Senat neyther durst they ever enterprise it although some had a will thereunto as Nero Caligula and their like But as for the good emperours besides that they had no power to abolish the Senat they never had any desire thereof but maintained and conserved it and governed themselves by it and by it were they better obeied For we need not doubt but a people will more willingly obey a Law or Decree which shall have been sifted and examined in a great wise and notable an assembly such as was the Senate and will like it better and rather judge the Law to be founded upon reason and equitie than when it onely passeth through the braine of one sole man or of some small number Therefore the Emperour Alexander Severus never made Lamp in Alexand. law nor edict but he had on his Counsell twentie great and excellent Lawyers and fiftie other great excellent persons wise and well experienced And yet to the end that they might give their opinions more assuredly he first made them understand the matter upon which they must give their advise and after give time to consider thereof that their opinions might bee better digested resolved Therfore also the Emperour Theodosius ordained that no law should be availeable unlesse it were first L. humanum C. de Leg. concluded and determined with good and assured resolution of all the princes Consistorie and afterward received and approved by the Senat of Rome For saith he we know well that the ordinance of good Lawes and Edicts concluded with good Counsell and deliberation is the establishment of the assurednesse and glory of our Empire Therefore was it also that that great and wise Emperour Augustus Caesar did so communicate all the affaires of his Commonwealth with the Romane Senate Dion in August that as Dion saith he made a sweet and pleasant mingled harmonie of the Monarchicall estate with the estate of the Commonwealth And he not onely contented not himselfe to conferre with the Senate all affaires of importance and to take their advise but yet he would that the Senate should give him every yeare twentie Counsellors to be nigh him of his privie Councell in which Counsell he had alwaies many men very wise courteous and very modest such as the Lawyer Trebatius and that good and prudent Agrippa his sonne in law with that so learned and good a piller of learned men Mecoenas Therefore also Tiberius the Emperour the successor of Augustus although he was a Prince more abundant in vices than in vertues not daring wholly to stray out of his predecessors traces that good Augustus made nor ordained any thing of weight without the Counsell and advise of the Senate For this cause also breefely all the good Emperors as Vespatian Titus Traian Adrian the Antonines and others like communicated alwaies with the Senate upon all the great affaires of the Commonwealth and they bore themselves not like maisters but like Presidents of the Senat also they did not attribute unto themselves any title of honour nor enterprised to make any triumphs but such as was decreed and ordained by the Senate And by the contrarie the Emperours which were of no account such as Caligula Nero Comodus Bassianus Maximinus Heliogabalus and other like hated extreamely the Senate esteeming of it as their pedegoge and corrector and have caused many Senators to die thinking the more easily to command as they would having no controulers to withstand their wicked actions But the end was alwayes this that such as despised and would have annihilated the Senate have ever had an unluckie end and reigned not long time but have all been massacred and slaine young and have left unto their posteritie an infamie and most wicked memorie of them Herein is shewed a continuall successe of the just judgements of God against them which despised wise Counsell and contrary a felicitie and divine prosperitie in other Emperours which governed themselves by the good Counsell of the Senate and of the wise men of their privie Counsell For they raigned and held the Empire happily replenished with all goods honour and glorie and their subjects under them enjoyed good handling and good repose and tranquilitie And we need not doubt that such felicitie comming to good Princes the evill haps unto wicked Princes doe not proceed from God for as the wise man saith Good Counsell commeth from God and he that despiseth the gift of God Prov. 18. Eccle. 37. certaine it is that in the end he shall be well chastised Our kings of France of old used the same course that these good Emperors did For they often convocated the three Estates of the kingdome to have their advise and Counsell in affaires of great consequence which touched the interest of the Commonwealth And it is seene by our Hystories that the generall assembly of the Estates was commonly done for three causes One when there was a question In old time the general Estates wer held for three causes to provide for the kingdome a Governour or Regent as when kings were young or had not the use of their understandings by some accident or were captives or prisoners For in these cases the three Estates assembled to obtaine a Governour for the Realme Againe when there was cause to reforme the kingdome to correct the abuses of Officers and Magistrates and to bring things unto their ancient and first institution and integritie For kings caused the Estates to assemble because that many being assembled from all parts of the kingdome they might better be informed of all abuses and evill behaviours committed therein and might also better worke the means to remedie them because commonly There is no better Physician than he that knoweth well the disease and the causes therof The third cause why there was made an assembly of the Estates was when there was a necessary cause to lay a Tribute or Impost upon the people For then in a full assembly some shewed to them which were there which represented all the people the necessitie of the kings and the kingdomes affaires who graciously and courteously entreated the people to aid and helpe the king but with so much money as they themselves thought to be sufficient and necessarie And for this cause that which the Estates accorded to the king was
would please you to have pitie and compassion upon them They are your naturall subjects and they and their ancestors have ever been under the obedience of your majestie and your auncestors Alas Sir what greater evill hap can there come unto us than to be now cut off and alienated from the kingdome and from the Crowne of France They are borne and have been nourished in the French nation They are of manners condition and language naturall Frenchmen What a strange and deplorable miserie should it now be to them to bend themselves under the yoke and obedience of the English a strange nation altogether different from us in manners conditions and language shall not this be unto them a cruell and slavish servitude now to become subjects unto them which of long time have not ceased to vex this poore kingdome with warre For if upon some divine punishment and for our sinnes the poore town of Rochell must needs be violently plucked and seperated from France as the daughter from the mothers dug to submit it selfe unto the sad servitude of a stranger yet that evill should be farre more tollerable to serve and yeeld to the yoke of any other nation than to that which so long time hath been a bloudie enemie of Fraunce and hath shed so much of our bloud Wherefore most humbly we beseech you Sir said they with teares that you will not deliver us into the hands of the English your enemies and ours If in any thing we have offended your Majestie for which you will now leave and abandon us we crie you mercie with joined hands and pray you in the name of God and of our Lord Iesus Christ that it would please you to have mercie and compassion upon us and to retaine us alwaies under your obedience as we and our auncestors have alwayes been We are not ignorant Sir that your Majestie having been prisoner in England hath been constrained to accord with them to their great advantage and that we are comprehended in the number of the Townes and Countries that must be delivered but yet we have some hope that we may be taken from that number by silver and for that purpose your poore town of Rochell offereth contribution to yoâ—r Majestie all that it hath in her power and besides we offer to pay with a good heart hereafter for our Subsidies and taillies halfe the revenue and gaines of all our goods Have pitie then Sir upon your poore Towne which comes to retire her selfe under your protection in most humble and affection at obedience as a poore desolate and lost creature to his Father his King and his naturall Lord and Soveraigne We obtest and beseech you most deare Sir in the name of God and of all his Saints that you will not abandon and forsake us but that it would please your clemencie and kindnesse to retaine for your subjects most humble them which cannot live but in al vexation languishment and bitternesse of heart unlesse we be your subjects The king having heard the piteous supplication of these poor Rochellois mourned and pitied them greatly but he made them answere That there was no remedie that which he had accorded must needs be executed This answere being reported at Rochell it is impossible to speake what lamentations there were through all the Towne this newes was so hard that they which were born nourished French should be no more French but become English Finally they being pressed constrained by the kings Commissaries to open the Towne-gates to the English Well said the most notable townsmen seeing we are forced to bow under the yoke and that it pleaseth the king our soveraigne lord that we should obey the English we will with our lips but our hearts shall remaine alwaies French After that the English had been peaceable possessors of Rochell and all the other countries abovenamed king Edward invested his eldest sonne the prince of Wales in that government a valiant and very humble Prince towards greater than himselfe but haughtie and proud towards his inferiors who came and held his traine and court at Bourdeaux where having dwelt certaine yeares he would needs have imposed upon the countrey a yearely tribute of money upon every fire But to withstand this new impost and tribute the Lords Barons and Counties of those countries but especiall the Countie d' Armignac de Perigourd de Albret de Commenges and many others all which went to Paris to offer in their appeales against the Prince of Wales Arriving there they dealt with king Charles le Sage for king Iohn was then dead about their appeale who answered them That by the peace of Britaine which he himselfe had sworne the dead king his father for him and his successors to the Crowne had acquited and renounced all the soveraignetie of the said countries and that he could not with a good conscience breake the peace with the English and that it greeved him much that with good reason he could not accord their appeale The said Counties and Barons contrarily shewed him by lively reasons That it is not in the kings power to release acquite the soveraigne power and authoritie of his subjects and countries without the consent of the Prelats Barons Cities and good Townes of those Countries and that was never seene nor practised in France and that if they had been called to the treatie of Britaine they would never have consented unto that acquittance of soveraigntie And therefore humbly praied his Majestie to receive their appellation and to send an huisher to adjorne in case of appeale the Prince of Wales to appeare at Paris at the Court of Fraunce to the end to quash and revoke the said new ordinance for the said tribute Finally the king Charles was nothing offended to heare them so speake of a kings power much unlike our Machiavelistes at this day which call them culpable of treason which speake of Estates neither replied unto them that the power of a soveraigne Prince ought not to be limited neither that they spoke evill to revoke into doubt that which his dead father had done but contrary rejoycing at that limitation referred the cause to the debating and resolution of the wise men of his Counsell And after he was resolved that it was true which they said he accorded unto these Counties and Barons their demaund and sent to adjorne in case of appeale to the Court of Paris the Prince of Wales which done the said Counties and Barons easily revolted from the English obedience so did Rochell get all Englishmen out of their towne and castle This done the duke of Berry the kings brother would have entred there but for that time with good words they refused him the entrie thereinto saying they would send unto the king certain Delegates to obtaine some priviledges and therefore desired of the duke a safe-conduct which he willingly granted and having the same they sent twelve chosen for that purpose amongst their Burgesses which finding the king
as saith very eligantly the Poet Horace A Supreame power devoid of Counsell good Fals of it selfe as though it never stood Carm. lib. 1. Ode 4. A Temperat power by God exalted is The Intemperat his hatred doth not misse 2. Maxime The Prince to shun and not to be circumvented of Flatterers ought to forbid Chap. 23 of the Prince his friends and Counsellors that they speake not to him nor to counsell him any thing but only of those things whereof he freely begins to speake or asketh their advise THe meanes to shun Flatterers which doe nothing els but make lies and report leasings pleasing Princes eares saith Machiavell is that he make knowne that he takes no pleasure in hearing of lies but that it is more agreeable unto his nature that men should freely speake the truth But because the Prince should too much debase his Maiestie to yeeld an eare to every one that will utter a truth unto him it is then requisite that he take a third way Therefore saith hee it shall bee good that the Prince hold alwaies nigh him some certaine number of vertuous people vvhich may have libertie freely to tell him truth upon all such things vvhereof he demands advise and not of any other things Forbidding and inhibiting them to speake to him of any thing but of that vvhere of he himselfe hath begun the talke After having understood their opinions he ought to deliberat vvith himselfe and chuse the Counsell that he shall find best MAchiavell making a countenance by this Maxime to counsell a Prince not to serve himselfe with flatterers teacheth him the very meanes wholly to be governed by them For there is none more truly a flatterer nor more dangerous than he that seeth before his eyes a thousand abuses and knoweth that his Princes affaires goe evill and yet either will not or dare not open his mouth to let him know them because herein lieth the principall dutie of a good and faithfull Counsellor to his Prince to declare unto him the abuses committed by his subjects be they Officers or privat persons that with good Counsell he may provide therefore The Prince knows not what is donâ— but by the mouth of his people And to attend whilest the Prince himselfe begin the matter first to his Counsell that should be in vaine for he cannot propose that which he knoweth not and it is a notorious and plaine thing that the Prince who is alwaies shut up in an house or within a troupe of his people seeth not nor knoweth how things passe but that which men make them see and know This was the cause wherefore Dioclesian complained so much of the flatterers of his Court which keeping close the truth of things fed him with smoke and so by that meanes made him commit many great faults in the administration of the empire But because that hystorie is worthy the marking I will recite it at length The Emperor Dioclesian was borne in a little village of a base and obscure race Pompo Laetus in Diocl. Vopis in Aureliano at Salon in Esclavonia yet in his youth and naturally he was so ambitious and covetous of honour that from a young souldier he aspired still more higher that he became a Captaine and from a Captaine to be a Colonell and from a Colonell to be a Lieutenant generall and cheefe of the armie and finally came to that great dignitie to be the Romane Emperour When he was come to the soveraign degree of all honours yet was his unsatiable ambition and covetousnesse of glorie unsatisfied for being Emperor he would needs be worshipped as a God and made his feet be kissed on which he ware golden shoes covered with pearles and precious stones after the manner of the kings of Persia But who would have thought that he would have given over the emperiall dignitie and so many honours as were done him yet in truth he did forsake all this and despoiled himselfe of his Empire which he resigned to Constantius Chlorus and Galerius and retired unto his house at Salon in Sclavonia where he lived yet more than ten yeares a privat man taking his pastime in gardening and rurall workes and never repented him whilest he was a privat man that he had despoiled himselfe of the Empire But if this be so strange a thing that a man so ambitious and that so well loved the honours of this world to rid himself of so great a dignitie did become as I may say a Gardiner and a Labourer of the earth yet more admirable is the cause wherfore he did this For it was for no other cause but for the hatred and evill will that he conceived against the flatterers of his Court which a thousand waies abused him whereunto he could not well give remedie he was so besieged betwixt their hands This hath been written by many Hystoriographers yea by Flavius Vopiscus who placeth flatterers amongst the principall causes of Princes corruptions And because this place likes me well I will translate it A man may aske sayth he What is it that maketh Princes so wicked corrupt First their great libertie and abundance of all things they have Secondly their wicked friends their detestable attendants their covetous Eunuchs their foolish and uncivile courtiers and too plaine ignorance of the affaires of their Common-wealth I have heard my father tell this that the Emperour Dioclesian returning unto a private life was wont to say that there is nothing harder than to know well how to play the Emperour Foure or five saith he will assemble and make a plot together to deceive the Emperour after they will say all with one voice what they will have him to doe The Emperour who is enclosed in his house cannot know the truth of things as they passe but by necessitie is constrained to understand nothing but what pleaseth them to tell him and make him understand so doe they cause him to give offices to men by themselves in post which merit them not at all and makes him cast out such as best deserve them for the good of the Commonwealth What shuld be said more to make short saith Dioclesian A good wise and vertuous Prince is bought and sold by such people Behold the very words of Vopiscus who evidently sheweth that Dioclesian was discontented to be Emperour because he was governed maugre his beard as they say by flattering Courtiers which caused him to abuse his estate But I leave you to thinke if this were not a straunge thing to see Dioclesian change his emperiall estate with a rusticke life for the displeasure he tooke at his flattering Courtiers for by the contrarie we commonly see that Princes rather please themselves marvellously to see flatterers and they cannot goe three paces but they have them at their tailes and more willingly doe they give their eares unto them than to good people which will tell them the truth of affaires that import their Estate And he that will tell
gave them all great summes of money for Severus had left great treasure and made them sweare they would be faithfull unto him So that when after they knew the deed done and found themselves all gained and corrupted with silver they obeyed him without contradiction as to one sole emperour And what came of all this Bassianus not ignorant that the Senate of Rome would find this murder very strange that he had committed of his brother desired that great lawyer Papinian who was his kinsman and had beene as the Chancellor or great maister under the Emperour Severus that he would goe to the Senate and make his excuses by an Oration well set out That he had done well to slay his brother and that he had reason and occasion to doe it Papinian who was a good man answered him That it was not so easie to excuse a parricide as it was to commit it Bassianus greeved at this refusall caused one of his attendants straight to cut off his head After this willing to shew to the Senate and to the people that he greeved because he had slaine his brother and that they might see it was done by evill counsell he caused also his Marmoset Laetus his head to be cut off who had counselled him to doe that murder he caused also to die all them which helped him in that businesse which were culpable thereof saying that they were cause thereof This notwithstanding to the end Geta his friends should enterprise nothing against him he made die as many as he could catch of them So that under that title of being a friend servant or favourer of Geta his brother he made die many great and noble persons yea he slew all such as caried themselves betwixt them two as neuter and reconciliators I pray you what was the cause of all this great and horrible butcherie was it not the mortall enmitie which these Marmosets had sowne betwixt the brethren In the time of the Emperour Commodus there happened a like thing and because Dion Lamprid. in Commod Herod lib. 1. the hystorie is memorable I would rehearse it a little at length Marcus Antonius the Emperour was surnamed the Philosopher because he was a prince wise and studious and a lover of good letters In his time there were great plentie of wise and learned men because commonly saith Herodian men doe imitate their prince and give themselves to such things as the Prince loveth There was alwaies about him a great number of good and learned people for his privie Counsell which hee called his faithfull friends as the king of Fraunce also at this day dooth call his privie Counsellors in his pattents This good emperour being in Hungarie at the warre with Commodus his sonne fell into a disease whereof he died But before his death hee caused his Counsell to assemble and to recommend his sonne unto them made a little remonstrance worthy of such a Prince in this manner I doubt not my good friends that you are not anguished and sorrowfull to see me of this disposition For humanitie causeth that easily wee have compassion of mens adversities but especially when we see them with our eyes But yet in my regard there is a more speciall reason for I doubt not but you beare mee alike good will to that which I have ever borne you But now is the time for me to thanke you that you have alwayes been unto me good and faithfull Friends and Counsellors And I pray you also not to forget the honour and amitie which I have borne you You see my son which you your selves have nourished who now entreth into the flower of his youth who as he that entreth into an high sea had need of good Patrones and Governours least by ignorance and evill conduction hee stray from the right way and so come into perill I pray you then my friends whereas he had no more fathers but one in me be you many fathers unto him that he may be alwaies made better by your good counsels For truly neither the force of silver and treasures nor the multitude of guarders can maintaine a prince and make him be obeyed unlesse the subjects which owe obedience doe beare him good affection and benevolence And assuredly they onely raigne long and assuredly which ingrave and instill in their subjects hearts not a feare by crueltie but a love by bountie For they ought not to bee any thing suspected to a prince in that they doe or suffer which are drawne to obedience by their owne will and not by constrained servitude And subjects will never refuse obedience unlesse they bee handled by violence and contumelie Very true it is That it cannot bee but hard for a soveraigne prince who is at his full libertie moderately to guide and bridle his affections But if you alwayes admonish him to doe well and to remember the words which hee heareth now of me that am his father I hope you shall find him a good prince towards you and all others And in thus doing you shall manifestly shew That you alwayes have mee in remembrance by which onely meanes you may make mee immortall Vpon this speech his heart and his word failed with languishment and then all his Counsellors which were there begun to weepe lament yea some could not containe from crying for great sadnesse and bitternesse of heart that they had to see so good a prince faile After his death Commodus his sonne and successor in the empire governed himselfe some little time by the good people and auncient Counsellors of his father but this continued not long for there were straight Marmosets which found subtill meanes and entries to get into him which when they saw their time begun to say unto him What meane you to tarie in this base and barraine countrey of Hungarie better it were for you to bee at Rome to have all the pleasures in the world you have no cause to beleeve these tutors which your father left you you are no child to bee governed by tutors Commodus who was a faire young prince and one that desired nothing but his pleasures and who yet had no great resolution although his father had taken great paines to instruct him wel begun to let himself to be led with Marmosets which never spoke anything unto him but of merry and pleasant things So made he a shamefull and dishonorable peace with the Barbarians against whom his father had commenced warre and retired to Rome being there he begun to become cruell especially against the good and auncient counsellors of his fathers which hee caused almost all to die at the instigation of his Marmosets which reported unto him that they bore him no good will that they blamed his actions and controuled his pleasures He caused also many Senatours to die which his reporters for the same reason disgraced Amongst other Marmosets he had one called Perennis which persuaded him to care for nothing to take his pleasures and to
lib. 15. cap. 9. li. 16. cap. 3 4 13. lib. 17. and Idumia for the favour of Marcus Antonine a Romane capitaine and by decree of the Romane Senate he espoused a noble Ladie who was of the kings race of that countrie called Mariamme by whom he had two children Alexander and Aristobulus but Herodes had a sister called Salome who was a very Tisiphone and served for nothing but to kindle and light fires in the kings court by false reports which she invented and this infernall furie did so much as she perswaded the king her brother that Mariamme sought to poison him by his cup-bearer and brought out certaine false witnesses to proue it so that the king beleeved it and put to death his wife one of the fairest princes of the world and of whose death there was after infinit griefes and repentances But as one sinne draweth after it another Salome fearing that those two aforesaid children would feele afterward the outragious death of their mother she machinated and resolved in hir spirit that they must also dye So began she straight to forge false reports false tokens and false accusations insomuch as she perswaded Herodes the father that these two children Alexander and Aristobulus spake alreadie of revenging the death of their mother and by the same meanes to vsurpe the kingdome Herodes suffering himselfe to be persuaded by the calumniations and slaunders of his sister Salomē tooke his iourney to Rome having his two children with him where he accused them to have fought his death before Augustus Caesar he began to descipher his accusatorie oration and to deduct set out the means whereby he pretended that his two children should go about his death When it came to their turne to speake for their defence they began to weepe and lament Caesar knew well thereby that the poore children were full of innocencie So he exhorted them from thence forward to carry themselues in such sort towards their father that not only they should not doe against him any thing vnworthy or greevous but also should doe so much as to bring themselves farre from all suspition He exhorted also Herodes to use his sonnes well and to keepe them in his favor Then fell the children on their knees before their father with great effusion of teares crying him mercy by which meanes they were reconciled unto their father But after the returne of Herodes and his children this furie Salome not contented with this reconciliation which Caesar had made began to lay new ambushes by false reports that she made to Herodes wherein she mixed some truth to give the better taste Herodes who was very credulous in such matters made Augustus understand that his children had againe conspired his death Augustus answered him That if his children had done against him the thing which merited punishment that he should chastice them as he thought good and that he himselfe gave him power and permission so to do The abovesaid Herodes joyful to have received this power being led with an irreconcileable rage by the meanes of Salome caused the two poore children Alexander and Aristobulus to be strangled Salome ayded her selfe in all this businesse with one other sonne of Herodes borne of another woman called Antipater God would that Herode should discover that the accusations against his two dead children were but slaunders and that Antipater who had aided to forge them had himselfe conspired to poison his father Whereupon he caused him to be called before Guintius Varius the governor of Syria for the emperour The cause being long pleaded and debated Antipater could not purge himselfe of the sayings and proofs against him and did no other thing but make great exclamations nothing appertaining to the matter holding on that God knew all unto whom he recommended his innocencie Varus seeing that he could not wel justifie himselfe wished Herodes to imprison him and so he did Certaine dayes after Herodes fell sicke which comming to the notice of Antipater in prison he rejoyced greatly Herodes advertised that Antipater wished his death and rejoyced at his sicknesse sent one of his guard into prison to slay him which he did Five daies after Herodes died like a mad man for the evill haps he had in his children and this rage lighted a fire in his entrailes which rotted him by little and little wherupon engendred worms which eat him alive with horrible languishments before his death And who was the cause that Herodes thus contaminated his hands and all his house with the bloud of his owne children Even that most wicked reporter Salome who devised false accusations and slaunders which she blew in the king her brothers eares Besides those kind of flatterers whereof we have spoken above which are janglers Coūsellors flatterers and Marmosets there is yet a third kind which under the name and title of principall Counsellors and under the pretext and colour of conducting the affaires by good counsel they abuse the princes authoritie who are greatly to be feared To shun the mischeefe that may come therupon there is nothing better than to follow the precept of Comines namely That the king have many Counsellors and that hee Comines lib. 1. cap. 27. lib. 2. cap. 44. never commit the conducting of his affaires to one alone and that he hold as nigh as he can well his Counsellors equall For if hee commit much more to one than to another he wil be master and the others dare not reason against him freely or els knowing his inclination dare not contradict him Therefore in a criminall cause handled before the Senate of Rome against a gentlewoman of a great house called Lepida accused of treason the emperour Tiberius although he were very rude in Cornel. Tacitus annal lib. 3. li. 5. such cases would not suffer his adoptive sonne Drusus to reason first least sayth Tacitus thereby had been laied and imposed a necessitie for others to have consented unto his opinion And in another cause of like matter where Granius Marcellus was accused in a certaine place to have set his owne image above the emperors When the cause came to handling Piso whose opinion the Emperour desired first began thus to say And you Sir in what place will you reason for if you reason last I feare that by imprudencie I shall not dissent from you For that cause Tiberius declared that he would not reason at all indeed the accuser was absolved although the Emperour had shewed a countenance to be angry against him as he heard the accusation rehearsed And there is no doubt but that the counsell of one alone is Counsell of one alone dangerous perillous to the prince because naturally men are divers waies passionate and that which shall be governed by one alone is often by passion guided Also the indisposition of mens persons causeth that every one hath not alwaies his head well made as they say nor are wise at all seasons and
and other vices For as for good and naturall Frenchmen they will never advaunce them because they are strangers vnto them and by consequent suspected not to bee faithfull enough unto them following the said Maxime Where is now then the generositie of our ancient Frenchmen who made themselves redoubted amongst strange nations Where are now our auncestors vertues who have caused the Levant to tremble have sent out their reputation into Asia and hath repulsed and driven back the Gothes and Sarracens out of France Spaine and Italie For it seemeth that at this day the Frenchmen hold no more any thing of their ancestors valour seeing they suffer in comparison to them so few strangers to dominiere so imperiously over them and so to debase themselves and to carry on their backes such insupportable burdens and to suffer themselves to be driven from the Charges and Estates of the common-wealth Truly this is farre from making us to be redoubted and obeyed in strange countries when strangers constreine us to obey them and to take the yoke in our owne countrie This is to doe cleane contrarie to our auncestors who subjected strangers unto them when contrarie we subject our owne selves to strangers The Frenchmen were wont to be reputed franke liberall far from all servitude but now our stupiditie carelesnesse cowardize do make us servants slaves to the most dastardly cowardly nation of Christendome Our ancestors have vanquished and subjugated in battaile by armes great Italian armies but we suffer our selves to be over come by a small number of Italians armed with a rock a spindle and a pen and inckhorne Shall we alwayes be thus bewitched see we not that by secret and and unknowne meanes they overthrow and cause to die by treasons poysonings injustice now one now another of the greatest that they looke to no other marke but to ruinate the nobilitie and all men of valour in France which are suspected to favour the common-weale or disfavour them Be sleepie no longer for it is time to awake and to thinke what we have to doe and not to attend till from the particular ruine now of one house then of another we see all France vpon the earth It is alreadie but too much established and we have but too long attended to provide for our affairs and to oppose our selves against the deseignes and machinations of these strangers all which are discovered and knowne to such as will not shut their eyes Let us then stir up in our selves the generositie and vertue of our valiant great grandfathers and shew that we are come from the race of those good noble Frenchmen our auncestors which in old time past have brought under their subjection so many strange nations and which so many times have vanquished the Italian race which would make us now serve Let us not leave off for a sort of degenerate Frenchmen adherents to the pernitious purposes of that race to maintaine and conserve the honors and reputation of loyaltie integritie and valiancie of our French nation which these bastardlie Italians have contaminated and foiled by their cruelties massacres and perfidies Wee want nothing but courage to effect all this for these Messiers would not stand one whit if they knew once that it were in good earnest and with good accord that the Frenchmen would send them to excercise their tyrannies in their owne countrey and force them to make account of such as they have committed in Fraunce Here endeth the first Part entreating of such Counsell as a Prince should use THE SECOND PART TREAting of the Religion which a Prince ought to hold ¶ The Praeface AFter having before discoursed largely enough What Counsell a prince should have and take it will not be to any evill purpose to handle What Religion he ought to hold and cause to bee observed in his dominions For it is the first and principall thing wherein he ought to employ his Counsell namely That the true and pure Religion of God be knowne and being knowne that it bee observed by him and all his subiects Machiavell in this case as a very Atheist and contemner of God giveth another document to a prince for he would That a prince should not care whether the Religion that he holdeth be true or false but sayth That he ought to support and favour such falsities as are found therein And hee comes even to this point as an abhominable and wicked blasphemer that he preferreth the Religion of the Paynims before the Christian and yet his booke is not condemned as hereticall by our Sorbonists But before we enter to confute his detestable Maximes I will in manner of a Preface demonstrat in few words the true resolution that a prince ought to have in this matter I presuppose then by a certaine Maxime That the prince ought to hold the Christian Religion as it is seene by all antiquitie simplicitie and excellencie of doctrine For in the first place none can deny but it is more ancient thā any other of all the Religions Antiquitie of Christian Religion that ever were because it takes his foundation upon the bookes of Moses and the promises of God of Christ and Messias contained in them bookes which were made to our first Fathers from the beginning of the world But there is no author Greeke or Latine which was not long after Moses and it is a thing confessed and held amongst all learned men That Moses writ his bookes many hundred years before Homer Berosus Hesiodus Manethon Metasthenes and others like which many men hold for the most auncient Writers Moreover when Moses describeth unto us the generation of Noe and sheweth us that his children have bene as the first stem and root of divers nations of the world in token and signe thereof these nations hold yet at this present the names of such children doth not this shew plainly and truly that Moses begun at the worlds beginning Of Madens came the Medians of Ianus the Ionians of Iobel the Iberians of Riphat the Riphaeans of Tigran the Tigranians of Tharsis the Tharsians of Cithin the Cyprians of Canaan the Cananites of Sidon the Sidonians of Elam the Elamites of Assur the Assyrians of Lud the Lydians and others all these were the children nephews or arrere-nephews of Noe from whence the said nations have taken their names it followeth therefore that they were the first stocks and roots of them Againe if we looke to the ceremonies that in times past the Paynims used in their sacrifices men shall easily know that they are but apish imitations of such sacrifices as were ordained of God which are described by Moses For the sacrifice of Iphigenia which the Graecians made in Aulide to prosper them in the war they enterprised against Troy what other thing is it than an imitation of Iepthe his sacrifice who made a vow of a sacrifice to prosper him in the war he enterprised which sacrifice fell after by the divine
Caesar Bourgia and Agathocles And that Italie delights in nothing so much as novelties and the Italians surpasse other nations in force agilitie of bodie and spirit True it is saith he that vvhen it commeth to battailes they vvill never appeare but men must lay the fault thereof upon the cowardise and little heart of their captaines because they that have knowledge vvill not willingly obey and every man presumeth to know much He sheweth moreover That the magnificent Lawrence had good occasion to enterprise the taking of Italie to deliver it from the slavish servitude wherein it is and that enterprise should be founded upon good iustice because that vvarre cannot faile to be esteemed iust vvhich is necessarie and all armes are good and reasonable when men have no hope otherwhere but by them THis Maxime of Machiavell is a true meanes to sow both civile strange warres all over the world For if princes had this persuasion that it were lawfull for them to assaile any other prince under the pretext and shew that hee handled not well his subjects princes should never want occasions to warre one against another And therefore to say that the magnificent Laurence de Medicis had just occasion to get Italie to deliver it from the evill handling of the potentates thereof which there dominiered and ruled this in no sort could bee called a just cause of warr but it rather may be called an evill against an evill and tyrannie against tyrannie because they de Medicis cannot say that they have any right or title unto Italie But if wee consider what tyrannie is as the elders have spoken thereof we shall find that not onely men in old time called such princes tyrants which handled evill and rudely their subjects as Caligula Nero Commodus other like but also such as handled well and kindlie their subjects when without title they usurped domination upon them as Iulius Cesar Hieron of Siracuse the governours which the Lacedaemonians set over Athens and other like And therefore a prince which hath no title over a countrey cannot lawfully invade it to get dominion there but by tyrannie whatsoever good intent he surmise or have to use the inhabitants friendly when he hath conquered it yet he may well aide another prince having lawfull title to oppose against a tyrannie because that is a common dutie whereby all good princes are obliged to help all such as by title and legitimate cause doe oppose themselves to resist a tyrannie But if a prince goe about to usurpe another countrie after the counsell of Macbiavell without lawfull title under a vaile to deliver that countrey from tyrannie this cannot bee well and justlie done unles a man will say that one tyrant may justlie expulse an other tyrant The Romanes have many times by example shewed this to bee true and never Titus Liviuâ— lib. 7. Dec. 1 would they deale in warre against any man without just title The Samnites which were a mightie people made one warre against the Campani neighbours unto the Romanes which sent to Rome to demand succours They shewed that they were the None may move warre without just title and cause Romanes neighbours and that it well became the Romane generositie and vertue to succour their neighbours seeing also that by marriages there were infinit alliances betwixt the Romanes and the Campanians and the Romanes might alwaies draw great commodities and profits from Campania which was a fertill and plentifull countrie But they could never obtaine other thing at the Romane Senates hand for these allegations but that the Senate sent embassadours to the Samnites to pray them to cease making warre upon the Campanians the Romanes neighbours Then the Campanians deputies said Well my masters seeing you will not now defend us against an unjust tyrannous invasion yet at the least defend that which is your owne for wee yeeld and give our selves to you yea us and all that is ours Then the Senate taking title and foundation of this dedition enterprised the defence of the Campanians which otherwise without title they would never have enterprised And truely the saying of the emperour Martian is very memorable and deserveth good observation That a prince ought never to move warre whilest hee could Pomp. Laetus in Martian maintaine peace as if he would say That Armes ought not to bee employed by a prince but in the defence of his countrey and not to assaile another And indeed a man had need looke about him more than once before hee moove warre and well consider and examine if therein there bee just cause or no for warres are easie to commence as M. Comines sayth but very uneasie to appease and finish And upon this we reade That in the Senate of Rome there was once a very notable disputation betweene Cato one esteemed the wisest of Rome and Scipio Nasica who was reputed the best man of Rome The matter was this After the first Punicke warre the Romanes made peace with the Carthaginians by which peace was accorded That the Carthaginians might not rig any ship of warre nor moove warre against the Romanes or their allies It came to passe a certaine time after this peace that the Carthaginians gathered together many ships which being reported at Rome and the matter propounded in counsell in the Senate Cato and many others reasoned That warre should be made upon the Carthaginians because they had gone from the treatie of peace and that warre might justly be offered unto them as breakers of peace But Scipio Nasica was of a contrarie opinion That there was yet no sufficient cause to make warre for although the Carthaginians had gone against the peace and violated their faith and promise yet the Romanes received no offence or damage as yet and therefore he was of advice That the Carthaginians should bee summoned to lay downe their armes and untackle their ships and observe peace even in the articles which they had broken The pluralitie of voices were of Nasica his opinion and accordingly men were sent to Carthage to summon them to obtemperate and obey the treatie of peace and to repaire contraventions They would doe nothing therein but prepared themselves more to set upon Massinissa their allie and friend Then this comming to counsell in the Senate all agreed That then there was just cause to move warre against the Carthaginians seeing they had alreadie begun to practise the same against Massinissa their allie and friend but there also were diverse opinions whether they should altogether ruinate from the top to the bottome the towne of Carthage after they had taken it or to let it still remaine a towne Cato was of opinion totally to ruinate and destroy it because it could not be kept in any fidelitie but would breake her faith and promise at the first occasion that offered it selfe Nasica was of a contrarie advice saying It was good that Rome had alwayes an enemie upon whom to make warre that the Romane people might
ordinarily vvhen corrupted nations frequent amongst others for they infect them vvith evill manners And therefore it is that the Almaigne nation remaines so entire and constant in his manners because the Almaignes vvere never curious to trafficke vvith their neighbours nor to dwell in other countries nor to receive strangers into their countrey but alwayes have contented themselves vvith their owne goods nouriture manners and fashion of apparrell insomuch as shunning the frequentation of Spaniards French and Italians vvhich are the three nations of the vvorld most vicious they have not yet learned their customes and corruptions I Have not here set downe this Maxime to say it is not very true For besides the examples we reade in hystories we know it by experience and sight of eye seeing wee see at this day all Fraunce fashioned after the manners conditions and vices of strangers that governe it and have the principall charges and Estates and not onely many Frenchmen are such beasts to conforme themselves to strangers complections but also to gaggle their language and doe disdaine the French tongue as a thing too common and vulgar But if wee well consider this manner of vengeance taught by Machiavell in this Maxime we shall find it is a most detestable doctrine as well for them which practise it as for them against whom it is practised The example even of Capua which Machiavell alledgeth prooveth it For the Capuans in receiving into their towne Annibals armie corrupted Tit. Livius lib. 3. Dec. 3. rupted and infected the souldiers of Anniball with all excesse and effeminate wantonnesse also by the same meanes they procured their owne ruine and entire destruction which soone after happened unto them The Persian lords which with their manners corrupted king Alexander the Great did nothing to their owne advauntage Plu. in Alex. For Alexander becomming vicious they got the evill will of the Macedonians which tooke displeasure to see their king corrupted and finally after the death of Alexander which came unto him by his dissolutenesse learned of the Persians these lords had part of the evill lucke whereof they were cause And generally we may see that the corrupters of princes and people take part alwayes in the evill whereof they are cause as in other places we have shewed by many examples of flatterers which have corrupted their princes We Frenchmen may yeeld good witnesse of what account the Italian and Neapolitane nation is by the frequentation wee had with them in the voyage which was made to Naples in the time of king Charles the eight for from thence brought they this disease which at this day is now called the French poxe and that we have ever since kept but yet so as the Italians and Neopolitanes are not exempt therefrom but both the one and the other have part of that corruption Breefely we ought to detest and hate this wicked doctrine of Machiavell and reject all vengeance and follow S. Paules lesson who commands us to converse with good people and of good manners because the conversation of the wicked not onely corrupteth good manners but also soweth those that are wicked And as for that which Machiavell saith of the Almaignes wee know and see the frequentation of the Almaignes in France and yet till this present we have not seene that they have yet gathered corruption of manners And whereas he sets downe the French nation amongst such as are most corrupted we cannot denie it but we may well say That the doctrine of Machiavell the frequentation of them of his nation are cause of the greatest and most detestable corruption which is at this day in Fraunce For of whome have the Frenchmen learned and knowne atheisme sodomie trecherie crueltie usurie and such other like vices but of Machiavell and of them of his nation So that they may brag that they are well revenged of the warres which our auncestors have made in Italie 6. Maxime It is folly to thinke that with princes and great lords new pleasures will cause them to forget old offences CAEsar Borgia saith Machiavel during the life of Pope Alexander Cap. 7. Of Princes Discourse lib. 3. cap. 4. the sixt his father usurped the domination of Romania which is a land belonging to the Church and vvas called duke de Valentinois In making those usurpations in favour of the Pope his father he offended many Cardinals and amongst others the Cardinall of Saint Peter ad vincula yet after he consented that hee should bee elected Pope after the death of Alexander his father vvhereof hee soone repented For this new Pope called Iulius the eleventh straight be took himselfe to armes to recover that vvhich Borgia had usurped although he had favoured him in his election vvhich hee should never have done nor suffered any election of a Pope vvhich vvas his enemie For saith he new pleasures never makes men forget old iniuries and offences and therefore Borgia which in all other things had governed vvell committed a foule fault in the creation of Iulius and himselfe delivered the mean of his finall destruction The same fault cōmitted Servius Tullius king of the Romanes in giving his two daughters in marriage to two Tarquins vvhich quarrelled for the crowne and vvhich thought that Tullius vvould usurpe it upon them For not only this alliance extinguished the envie and rancour vvhich they had to Servius but that which is more it caused one of the daughters to enterprise to sley her owne father IF seemeth that this which Machiavell telleth of Borgia boweth something from the truth of the hystorie For Sabellicus writeth That during the election of Pope Iulius the eleventh Borgia was shut up in the Popes tower to be safe and guarded by his enemies So there was no likelyhood that a man brought into such an extremitie as to hide himselfe and be shut up in prison for the great multitude of enemies which hee had procured should have such great credit in the Popes election But suppose it was true that Borgia helped Pope Iulius to the Popedome and that Pope Iulius was unthankfull for that benefit for the remembrance that he had of the old and ancient injuries that Borgia had sometimes done him what followes hereof That all great lords will alwayes doe the like will some Machiavelist answer and that therefore they ought not to bee trusted Is not here a goodly doctrine for a prince Breefely it is Machiavels mind to teach a prince to trust in no lord which hee hath once offended and againe that none which hath made a fault or offended him shall any more trust him whatsoever reconciliation peace concord amitie pleasure and good offices may happen since the offence Here behold a most wicked and detestable doctrine to say That an offence ought to take so deepe root in the heart of the offended that by no pleasures services or other meanes it can be rased out But Machiavell seemeth something excusable to maintaine this Maxime for according to
Theseus Vlisses Castor Pollux Aeneas Achilles and almost all great persons which the Grecians place amongst their gods of him learned these vertues whereby they have obtained immortall praise and the reputation to be gods Hee saith also that Chiron was not in the time of Achilles but long time before but because the prince Achilles was instructed and nourished in his discipline vertue and manner of life men say he was Achilles his instructor True it is that the Poets have called him a Centaure because he tooke great pleasure in riding of horses and in hunting which are exercises well beseeming a prince But although he loved horses and the exercise of knighthood yet was he never esteemed to hold any thing of a beast but rather of the divinitie as being endowed with all excellent vertues which bring men nigh God and take them fardest from beasts And therefore the beastly mallice of Machiavell is seene in perverslie abusing the example of that valiant and generous prince Achilles to persuade a prince not to sticke to governe himselfe after the imitation of beasts seeing that Achilles was instructed as is said by Chiron the Centaure a man and a beast which learned him how to live both like a man and a beast for this is false and devised for Chiron rather held of divinitie than of a beast neither was Achilles instructed but in all heroicall vertues And we never read that hee ever used any Foxlike subtiltie or unlawfull policie or any other thing unwoorthie of a magnanimous prince well nourished and instructed in all high and royall vertues But since Machiavell travaileth so much to persuade princes to learne how to play the Lion and the Fox wherefore doth he not persuade them also to carry those two beasts in their armes We see many which beare Lyons because it is in some things a generous and a noble beast but there are sildome seene in armes any Foxes pourtraied because every noble and generous man which loveth vertue disdaineth and hateth all deceit falshood and Foxlike dissembling as things very unfit for gentlemen The Machiavelists which esteeme it so fit that a prince should know how to play the Lion and the Fox together the more to authorize this Maxime should carie Foxes in their armes But they would not be knowne to be that they are to the end they might the better deceive the world and lest men crie after them The Fox The Fox 13. Maxime Crueltie which tendeth to a good end is not to be reprehended ROmulus saith Machiavell at the beginning of his kingdome Discourse lâ—b 1. slew Remus his brother and afterward consented to the death of Tatius Sabinus king of the Sabines whom he associated in his roialtie that he might unite together in one same citie the two people the Romanes and Sabines It vvould seeme to many men of grosse conceit that Romulus proceeded evill to begin his kingdome vvith the murder of his owne brother and that it vvas an act of evill example But as for me saith M. Nicholas I am of a far other opinion For it is a generall Maxime That the state of the Commonwealth cannot be vvell laid and compounded of new lawes if the Lavvmakers and Iudges be many but there ought to be no more than one onely person and spirit to doe rule and ordaine all And therefore the prince vvhich desireth to come to that point is not vvorthy of any reprehension if he commit any extraordinarie exploit to come thereunto For that violence vvhich destroyeth all is greatly to be reprehended but so is not that vvhich tendeth to make things in better state Therefore is Romulus vvorthie of praise that he himselfe slevv his brother caused to sley Tatius his coÌ„panion that hee alone might establish a good policie at Rome as after he did erecting there a Senate by vvhich hee vvas counselled in all his affaires both of peace and vvarre and they made also good rules ordinances A like praise is due to Agis king of Sparta vvho sought to conforme the corrupted state of the Lacedaemonians and to establish in use the auncient ordinances of Licurgus but knowing that the Ephori might hinder and contradict him in his deseignes he caused them all to be slaine whereby hee got great renowne yea as much or rather greater than Licurgus himselfe the first author of such lawes True it is that Agis could not make an end of his good entents and purposes because of the unluckie deseignes of the Macedonians vvho making vvarre upon him vanquished him to the hinderance of his gallant enterprises THere was never murder nor crueltie which is not coloured with some pretext or shew of good some cover themselves with justice affirming all that they doe to be founded upon a good reason and equitie and that justice would have done no lesse than that which they have executed and that their execution is the shortest way of justice which would otherwise have beene too long so that in place of murderers cut-throates massacrers they are not ashamed to call themselves abbreviators of justice And why should they bee ashamed seeing that justice at this day is so practised as they make her serve but as a palliation or coverture for all assassiments murders and vengeances Every mans eyeseeth that in many places justice serveth to no other turne but to lend her name to such as will seeme to doe well when they doe evill against their owne consciences therein following the doctrine of Machiavell Murderers therefore massacrers may well from henceforth cover themselves with the name of abreviators of justice without reprehension seeing officers of justice take also that trade upon them and cause as unjust and wicked executions to bee done as they Both of these truely according to this Maxime of Machiavell doe pretend for their mischievous wickednesse a laudable end and doe say it is to minister and exercise justice when they doe the aforesaid executions Others cover their murders with another end namely the publike good saying that their murders and massacres are done to shun a greater evill which would have come by him or them that they have slaine or murdered There are some which make a covering of peace and tranquilitie and so will say That the murders which they did or caused to bee done were executed to establish peace and to make troubles to cease Breefely after Machiavells doctrine there cannot bee found so cruell a tyrant and murderer but hee should be justified praised and remunerated because all murders massacres and assasinates are alwaies found done to a good end and the most cruell hangman and executioners will never want a colour for their most detestable and sanguinarie actions Notwithstanding what pallations shewes so ever that take the worke alwaies shewes who was the workeman and in the end their colours will deceive them like the deceitfull painting of harlots so that their maske or visard taken from them murder will alwayes bee found murder and theft
theft and they wicked men as they are although most subtillie they play the Foxes according to their masters doctrine yet in the end they wil be alwaies known Murder is alwaies murder to whatsoever end it bee done for Foxes And though they sometimes deceive before they bee knowne they are therefore after double punished in regard of the profit they get by deceiving when none will beleeve or trust them in any manner no not even then when they have an intention and will not to deceive at all For alwaies men presume of them as men ought to presume of deceivers and wicked men which are without faith and promise for men hold them for such and they can bee held for no other in regard of their actions and behaviours of their lives past This then is the first evill proceeding from Machiavells doctrine which is that they themselves which practise it bring evill to themselves and are discryed hated and evill beloved of all men The other inconvenience which followeth this Maxime is that if the prince permit Crueltie overthroweth justice men to commit murders under colour of a good intent and end hee shall breake the order of justice which hee ought to observe in the punishment of offenders and so shall turne all upside downe and bring his estate and countrey into confusion and perill for when justice goeth evill all goes evill when well all goes well as in another place shall bee shewed more at full Murders and massacres also never remaine long unpunished for God incontinent sendes them their reward as came to Romulus Machiavells owne example who was an unjust murtherer and in the end was murdered himselfe And in our time wee see examples enough and I beleeve wee shall see more in such as the hand of God hath not yet touched But amongst these evills and inconveniences which ordinarily lay hold of these murderers and follow them even to their graves with furies feares and torments which vexe their consciences I could heere alledge for a confirmation of this Maxime that which S. Paul saith That we must not doe evill that good may come thereof But I have alreadie said in another place thar I will not imploy the sacred armour of the holy scripture to fight against this profane and wicked Atheist but I will still give him this advantage to contend with his owne armes namely with profane authors which were not Christians and which heerein alone resemble him for in other things hee holds nothing of them and especially in the matter whereof wee speake they have beene most farre from his detestable doctrine When Tarquin the proude king of Rome saw that hee had so behaved himselfe Titus Livius lib. 1. 21. Dec. as he had utterly lost the amitie of his subjects then resolved to cause himselfe to be obeyed by feare and to bring it to passe hee tooke to himselfe the knowledge of capitall causes against great men which before appertained to the Senate to make himselfe the better feared and obeyed and so hee put to death such as he thought good under certaine pretextes and colours thinking thereby the better to assure his estate But how did hee assure it Thus hee so practised this doctrine of Machiavell that hee became extreamely hated of all men in such sort as his subjects not being able to beare his tyrannie did drive him out of his kingdome where hee miserably died And so much there wanteth that the ancient Romanes delighted in massacring and slaying that they hated even the too rigorous punishments of offenders as the punishment of Metius Suffetius Albanois who was with foure horses drawne to death for a strange and damnable treason by him entended For although he merited to bee so handled yet the Romanes had the crueltie of the punishment in so great disdaine and detestation that every body turned away their eyes saith Titus Livius seeing so villanous a spectable And it was the first and last time that ever they used that rigorous punishment Likewise it greatly displeased the Romanes that some thinking to doe well caused to bee slaine a Tribune of the people a very seditious man called Genutius who ceased not to trouble the commonwealth by divisions whereby hee stirred the common people to uproares If Genutius had had his lawfull tryall it is likely hee would have beene condemned but therein there was this mischiefe that none durst lay hold upon him for the reverence of his estate during that yeere but hee must needes have beene suffered either to doe what hee would or els to resist his dessignes by other meanes then by accusation and not at all to condemne him before hee were out of his office This seemed a goodly colour to dispatch him to shun seditions and troubles which this Tribune raised yet the execution which was made without course of law was found nought and of an evill example and consequence and was the cause of great mischiefes and broyles which followed after And as for that which Machiavell writeth that Romulus caused to slay Tatius Dioni Halic lib. 2. Titus Livi. lib. 1. Dec. 8. his companion in the kingdome the better to rule and governe the towne of Rome this is false for histories doe witnesse that after hee had caused this execution to be made hee became cruell and proud towards the Senators exercising tyrannie in many things insomuch as the Senators themselves slew him even in the senat house and cut him in little pieces whereof every man tooke one piece in his bosome so that the bodie of Romulus was not found for they hired one to say that hee did see the bodie flie into heaven and the said Senators helping this bruite and report Plutarch in Romulo placed him in the letanie of their Gods and persuaded the people that hee ascended into the heavens both in body and soule But they gave Romulus his reward for the murdering of his brother Remus and his companion Tatius and they murdered him as hee had done them For briefely it is a generall rule that murderers are alwaies murdered which rule hath seldome any exceptions But whereas Machiavell saith That well to rule and governe a common wealth there would bee but one person to medle therein there hath beene alwaies the contrarie Tituâ— Livi. lib. 3. Dec. 8. practised When the Romanes thought it good by good lawes and ordinances to governe the estate of their common weale they considered that the number of two Consuls which were their soveraigne magistrates were too few and therefore they abrogated and tooke them cleane away and elected ren men in their places Dionisius 14 Halic lib. 10 unto which they gave the same authoritie which the Consuls before had and especially gave them power and expresse charge to make lawes and ordinances for the pollicie government and justice of the common weale They made the lawes of the twelve tables which endured long after them yea at this day some of these are
of their naturall effects as the fire cannot bee without his heating nor light without shining so that a man debonaire and gentle I speake of all men in generall but especially of a prince the chiefe meanes to obtaine the favour grace amity and reverence of the people he cannot avoide when he will but feele great utilities agreeable contentments pleasures benefits great assurance farre from all feare and most exceeding great repose and tranquilitie in his soule and conscience But in order to diduce the good effects utilities which proceede from clemencie I doe advertise the reader that I speake of that vertue in his most ample signification according whereunto it comprehendeth not onely mercie and kindnesse towards offenders but also bountie goodnesse of nature mansuetude of manners popularitie and facilitie to accommodate himselfe to the peoples humors and to all such as a man hath to command also humanity and officious affabilitie towards all men For briefely all these aforesaid vertues are like the honnie and sweetnesse of a well complectioned and setled soule which sweetnesse may well bee called in one word Clemencie although according to his divers effects and respects men give it divers names This naturall kindnesse and bounty of the soule then which men call Clemencie being in a prince the first produceth this effect that shee will soften and mitigate the punishments of offendors yea sometimes will forgive and altogether acquit them according as the circumstances of the fact and of the persons doe require For a prince ought well to consider When How To whom Wherefore he pardoneth a fault because it is not clemency but crueltie as the king S. Lewis said when a prince may doe justice and doth it not But forsomuch as equitie is the soule of justice which oftentimes is repugnant and contrarie to the rigour of lawes and ordinances therefore a prince must needes employ his clemencie to bring equitie in use by dispensing with the punishment of offendors which should suffer by the rigor of lawes But if there bee no equitie nor vailable reason to persuade a prince to dispense with the law then is hee bound to doe justice otherwise hee merits to be reputed not clement but cruell and culpable of the crime which he would not vouchsafe to punish And in this point very necessarie it is that a prince bee wise and vigilant to guard himselfe that hee be not surprised nor deceived and that he use not crueltie in steade of clemencie by the ordinarie opportunitie of such as sue for pardons And not to fal into this inconvenience whensoever the fact is of evill example and that the commonwealth hath interest therein the prince ought not to use remission and grace without knowledge of the cause and without good counsell The emperour Marcus Antonine governed himselfe very wisely in his use of clemencie to such as committed crimes for as to them which had not perpetrated Capit. Dio. in Marâ—o Vulc. Gallicanus in Avidio Cassio great and erronious faults and had not taken a custome therein he mitigated and lenified such punishments as were ordained by lawes by some other lighter punishment So in weightie crimes of evill consequence he was inexorable for them had no favour much lesse pardon And in regard of offences committed against himselfe particularly hee was as prompt and voluntarie to pardon as was possible and so it appeared in the case of Avidius Cassius For Cassius being in Esclavonia with a Romane armie hearing a false report that this good emperour was dead and beleeving this fame to be true he enterprised to make himselfe emperour and for such made himselfe to bee knowne and saluted by his armie After having certaine notice that he was in good health hee was much abashed and withall troubled that so rashly he had enterprised upon his masters estate yet notwithstanding hee desisted not from holding carrying himselfe as an emperour fearing that some would sley him so soone as hee forsooke his forces having so farre embarked and engaged himselfe therein yet could he not shun that which he so much feared for hee was slaine by certaine of his captaines which thought thereby greatly to please Marcus Antonine and carried to him his head Antonine seeing the head of Cassius was exceeding greeved and sorrowfull thereat and said to them which brought it That they should not have slaine him since hee had not so commaunded for so had they taken from him the use of mercie Hee rather desired they had brought him alive that he might have reproched the benefites received at his hands and with reason have shewed him how little cause he had to conspire against him so also might hee have shewed himselfe a better friend unto Cassius than Cassius had done to him Yea but Sir replied one of the captaines What if by sparing the life of Cassius he had gotten the victorie of you We doe not feare that answered the emperour for wee have not so honoured the gods nor lived in such sort as Cassius could have vanquished us No good princes or very few were at any time vanquished or slaine or despoiled of their estate but only such as well merited it as Nero Caligula Otho Vitellius and other like which were cruell and full of vices and like Galba and Pertinax which were exceedingly given to covetousnesse than which vice nothing becomes a prince worse But Augustus Traian Adrian our father Antonius Pius and such like as they modestly governed so deceased they honourably and without violence Cassius was a good and valiant captaine whose fault wee desired to have pardoned because it rather proceeded of temeritie than of evill will against us beeing persuaded when he made his enterprise that we had ben dead and although he could never have excused himselfe but that he had greatly injured our children which by right and reason ought to succeed us in our estate yet would not wee have had him to die for that for if our children merited to succeed us in the empite Cassius could not have overthrowne their estate but if contrary Cassius had better deserved than they to governe the comomwealth and had been better beloved it had also been reasonable and just hee had been emperour By this answere of that good emperour a man may see how facile and easie he was to pardon offences against him which is a very covenable vertue in a prince for a prince can hardly rigorously punish faults committed against himselfe but he shall be taxed and blamed for rigour and crueltie although the fault merit greevous punishment as the same emperour witnesseth by his missive rescribed unto the Senate which made too rigorous a pursute against the complices of Cassius And because the said letters containe notable sentences worthie of such a prince I will here translate them I pray saith he and require you Masters that in regard of the Cassian conspiration you will depose and lay aside your censure and conserve my pietie and
is much better composed more quiet and better governed For when men are given to that vertue they will withall addict themselves to Iustice Temperance Charitie Pietie and all other vertues which doe ordinarily accompanie Clemencie from whence cannot but arise the estate of a most perfect common-wealth Therefore we reade That in the time of the aforesaid emperour Marcus Antonine the world Capit. in Marcel was commonly well reformed in good manners for every man studied to imitate him in his vertues and especially in his moderation and gentlenes insomuch saith Capitolinus as he made many good men of such as were very bad before and such as were good he made them better This is also the cause why debonaire and gentle princes are alwaies so praised and esteemed not onely by men of their time but also by all Hystoriographers and all posteritie because they are ordinarily cause of many goods to all their subjects as by contrarie cruell princes are alwaies diffamed during their lives and after their deaths because of great mischeefes whereof they are cause authors and executors This is well painted out by Homer when he saith A wicked man full of fierce crueltie Behind his backe of all accurst shall be Odys lib. 19. Both during life and after death also Defame on him in every place shall go But contrarie the good and sincere man Will grave in mind his praise all that hee can How all men in each place set forth his praise To borders even of nations strange alwaies But I doe well know that hereupon the Machiavellists will say and replie That if a A princes Clemencie is not the cause of evill prince will be so facile to pardon and to practise Clemencie he will thereby incite men to take experience of that his vertue and by consequent provoke them to commit evill and excesse under the hope of impunitie hereunto I answere in a tripartite sort First I say That if a prince use Clemencie without derogating from his justice as above we have said he ought to doe there will follow no impunitie of a punishable crime nor by consequent any provocation to commit any excesse punishable for justice shall alwayes have her course although by Clemencie it may bee moderated Secondly suppose that the Clemencie of a prince might bee a meanes or occasion unto men to take more license to doe evill yet could not this take place but in persons of evill nature for men of good natures and disposition will rather be incited by a princes clemencie to be good like him by following his vertues than to bee wicked and ungodly thereby The prince also which shall bee endowed with Clemencie will love and follow other vertues and hate vices and by consequent will honour and advance vertuous people and hate and recoile from him such as are vicious This will cause the wicked which are enclined to vices to guard themselves from committing punishable faults for although they promise to themselves an easinesse to entreat pardon for their faults by the princes Clemencie yet can they not promise to themselves to be beloved and entertained of him but rather evill liked and unadvanced Thirdly although Clemencie cannot but draw with it some iniquitie and injustice as verily a prince cannot so evenly poise and weigh his affaires in the practise of Clemencie but there will be alwaies found within them some injustice yet that evill which followeth Clemencie is not so great that we ought therfore altogether to take away Clemencie from a prince from whence proceeds infinit goods profitable and commodious as well to the prince himselfe and his estate as to his subjects the whole commonwealth as may easily be collected out of that which hath been already said and shall be spoken hereafter The auncient Romanes doe confesse that their facilitie to pardon hath many Titus Livius lib. 1. Dec. 4. times brought warres upon them as also revoltments of their allies and confederats But what then Left they therefore alwayes to shew themselves prompt and voluntarie to use Clemencie towards such as offended them nay rather it was the vertue whereof they made greatest estimation and which they most practised knowing well that Clemencie was the true foundation of the greatnesse and estate of the commonwealth And this is it which the embassadour of the Romanes spake in an assembly of the Aetolians a people of Greece which were sollicited rather to allie themselves with king Philip of Macedonie against the Romanes than with them to renew their alliance Our auncestors saith he have often experimented and we also have seene that because ever wee have beene easie to pardon wee have occasioned many to experiment our Clemencie yet were wee never so discouraged as we would not at all times use equalitie to such as have broken their Faiths unto us and such as holily observed them as also reason wills that such as are loyall and faithfull be better beloved favoured and respected than others Have wee nor warred upon the Samnites by the space of seaventie yeeres and during this time how many times have they broken their Faiths how many times have they risen up against us yet have wee alwaies received them for our allies after by marriages have wee come to an affinitie with them and finally wee have received them for concitizens into the the towne of Rome The Capuans revoulted from us to allie themselves with Anniball but after wee had besieged them there were more in the towne which slew themselves pressed with an evill conscience than wee caused to dye after we had taken the towne by force and left them their towne whole and their goods Having also vanquished Anniball and the Carthaginians which had done us so many mischiefes and so often broken their Faiths yet left wee them in peace and liberty Briefely ô Aetolians said hee you should know and beleeve that the Romane people will alwaies have Clemencie in most singular recommendation and you shall doe farre more for your selves to replant your selves into our amitie and alliance unles you love better to perish with Phillip than to vanquish and prosper with the Romanes Vnto this remonstrance of the Romane embassadors the Aetolians States would deliver no answere but amongst themselves resolved secretly neither to be on the one side nor the other and that at the end of the warre they would joyne themselves to the strongest which in the end was their bane yet found they refuge in the Romanes Clemencie And verely Clemency is such a vertue as a prince may never dispoyle himselfe of although sometimes it seeme hee get harme thereby For Clemencie is not cause of any evill but onely the malice of men doth abuse it yet it doth not therefore follow that it is to bee rejected because a man may abuse it no more than to cast away all wine as a pernitious thing because therewith many are drunke But let us now come to the other effect of Clemencie Besides the
infected with such a corruption as to approove or follow such abhorrent doctrine from pietie and reason and such monstrous savage opinions For as Thucidides calleth them servants and slaves of absurd opinions such as follow evill counsell sooner than good as the Athenians often did So do I beleeve them to be double yea centuple slaves and miserable which suffer their spirits to bee persuaded and deluded with the doctrine and impietie of Machiavell 24. Maxime A prince desirous to breake a peace promised and sworne with his neighbour ought to moove warre against his friend THe prince saith Machiavell having made certaine capitulations with his neighbour vvhich long time have Discourse lib. 2. cap 9. beene established and well observed so that hee feareth directly to breake them lest he fall to open warre vvith his said neighbour he must stirr him by taking armes against his friend knowing that the other vvill feele himselfe touched vvhen the assault is delivered to his friend and confederate and vvill sustaine and revenge him and so shall it seeme that hee himselfe is the first provoker of warre and breaker of peace MAchiavell because hee hath above taught that a prince may alwaies finde coulours inough to palliate and cover the infraction of faith now hee gives a rule saying That to palliate a rupture of peace or confederation with a prince his neighbour hee must assaile his confederates friend Wee have before amply disputed against these subtill palliations and have shewed by many examples that the issue hath alwaies prooved evill to them that use them And surely such cautells and subtilties are not onely most unworthie of a generous prince but also of all other men and by lawes hee is no lesse punishable that hath done wrong to a man by cautell and subtiltie than if hee had done it by force The ancient Romanes by the forme and course they had to make confederations and peace with the people their neighbours shewed well how far they were from Titus Livius lib. 1. Dec. 2. this doctrine of Machiavell For the Pater Patratus who was the stipulator or master of the ceremonies or arbitrer of peace after all articles accorded of the one part and of the other oathes taken pronounced a great height these words The first of the two people which breaketh the peace bee it by deliberate counsell or by subtill deceit graunt ô Iupiter that the same day hee may bee bruised and beaten as now with this flint stone I bruise this pig and therewithall after this speach hee with a stone beats downe a porke pig Briefely they no lesse detested the rupture of a peace made by a subtiltie than if it had beene made by an open warre They also held it for a thing certaine that alwaies the evill fortunes of a renued warre fell upon them which had broken the peace but because we have above discoursed upon this matter we will passe on to the next Maxime 25. Maxime A prince ought to have his minde disposed to turne after every winde and variation of Fortune that hee may know to make use of a Vice when neede is A Good thing is not alwaies profitable nor in season and oftentimes a prince who would practise it shall thereby draw Cap. 18 25 Of a prince on his owne destruction For sometimes it fals out that necessarily hee must use that which is evill and vice Therefore a wise prince ought to take great heede to the time and to the windlike variation of Fortune and ought to have knowledge to serve himselfe with a vice for his profit and advantage vvhen time requireth it Othervvise if hee alwaies follovv vertue and that vvhich is good there are seasons so contrarie to it by the chance of Fortune that incontinent hee vvill fall into ruine BEcause a Prince that hath beene nourished in vertue as he reades Machiavell might make some difficultie to beleeve him and to esteeme that it should evill become him altogether to despoile himselfe of vertue to put on vice For this cause Machiavell desirous to resolve this doubt sheweth heere that it is not uncomely for a prince to change from vertue into vice And to encourage him to make this change he saith That sometimes such a time and season may happen that it is necessarie for a prince to know how to use a vice to serve fortunes turne which commonly oppugneth vertue Yet there is no man of so small judgement that sees not with his eies that this doctrine containeth two points altogether wicked One to say it is necessarie to a prince for the conservation of his estate to use vice The other to approve and allow lightnesse and inconstancie of manners by changing good into evill As for the first point wee have heeretofore amplie handled it where we have shewed That good princes which were given to vertue have alwaies prospered in their estates but contrary the wicked which exceeded in vices have alwaies had hard fortunes and evill haps in their kingdomes and have come to unluckie ends As for the other point Inconstancie we must heere touch in few words Constancie is a companion of all other vertues I will then presuppose that Constancie is a qualitie which ordinatilie accompanieth all other vertues yea it is as it were of their substance and nature Therefore is Iustice defined A constant will to yeeld to every man that which belongeth unto him And Temperance may bee also defined A constant moderation to use well all things and Prudence A constant provision in all affaires and so of all other vertues Heereupon I make this illation Since constancie is of the nature and substance of all vertues and as it were mixed amongst them that thereof it followeth That hee which is inconstant can have no vertue in him for vertue goes not without Constancie Machiavell also as beastly as hee is so understood this for by degrees going about to leade a prince and all them which follow his doctrine to a soveraigne wickednesse as philosophers leade men to a soveraigne good he hath considered that he must make for his foundation Inconstancie For an inconstant man disposed to turne with all windes can never bee but full of all sorts of vices and voide of all vertue Because in vertue there can fall out no change nor variation since all vertues doe accord and agree amongst themselves But amongst vices there may be changes inconstancies variations because often they are contrary and doe hold the places of extreames As for example Avarice and Prodigalitie are contrary vices as also are Temeritie and Cowardise Ignorance and malitious subtiltie Crueltie Dissolute lenitie Ambition and the Despight of Honour and so of other vices Inconstancie then may well pearch amongst vices flitting and moving from one to another But amongst vertues she can finde no place because as I have said they all naturally so hold on Constancie that without it they cannot bee vertues Machiavell then was not any
generallie exhorred them all to concord and union in the name and as Vicker of him who said Pacem meam do vobis Pacem meam relinquo vobis I give you my peace I leave you my peace By which articles of the said arbitriall sentence is seene how these Curates and Mendicants publikelie blamed one another And all this proceeded not but from the ardent zeale they all had not to the edification of the people but to have their offrings and oblations for since that time they could so well manage and deale with the poore ignorant world that they made them give them whatsoever they would especially such as were sick when they were at confession and demanded absolution from purgatorie and hell they would never absolve them unlesse they gave to their Covents and churches whatsoever they desired This conclusion heere is also cleane contrarie to the Maxime of Machiavell That Povertie cannot be a cause to hould a people in peace and obedience seeing it was cause of so many discords and disientions even amongst them which made profession thereof and which constituted their perfection therein By this discourse also wee may note the sanctitie of Mendicants wherewith this poore world hath beene so much ravished which from the beginning of their birth in this world have raised up so many riots and strifes against Curats all for the paunch For they begun and florished in the time of Pope Gregorie the ninth Anno 1230 which Pope was Platina in Gregorie 9. then much troubled with resolving the hard points about their Povertie amongst other points resolved them That it ought to be understood not only in the abdication of all proprietie to particulars but also to the generall as Pope Nicholas reciteth it in his abovesaid Decretall For that of Pope Gregorie is not found printed in the bodie of the Cannon law as the others are whereof before we have made mention But herein is no great losse no not though all the Cannon law were lost with it For although some thing be good in it yet the most of it is good for nothing but to maintaine wickednesse abuses and Romanish superstitions that it were expedient to burie that little good in it so that all the evill might bee choaked with it For from hence there is come into the world infinite both spirituall and corporall calamities 33. Maxime A Prince which feareth his subiects ought to build fortresses in his countrey to hold them in obedience THe Prince saith Machiavell vvho hath more feare of his owne Discourse lib. 2. cap. 24. cap. 20. of the prince people than of strangers must build Fortresses but hee that doubteth strangers more than subiects needeth not For the best Fortresse that is is not to be evill beloved of subiects and if a prince be once evill beloved of his people there is no Fortresse can save him True it is that Fortresses may bee profitable to a prince in time of peace to give more courage to him and to his Governours established in them to hould the people in subiection and to use against them greater audacitie and rigour But yet this shall be but vveake assurance unlesse the prince have meanes to raise up a good and strong armie to tame his subiects if they vvill needs rebell For to thinke to tame them by reducing them to povertie Spoliatis arma supersunt Armes remaine yet to the unarmed Also to unarme them Furor arma ministrat Furie administreth armes inough Likewise to slay the cheefe heads of the people more heads vvould arise as of the Hydra The Sforces builded the castle at Millaine vvhich done they iudged that by the means of that Fortresse they might vvith assurance handle their subiects at their pleasure and therefore spared no kind of violence insomuch as they acquired the hatred and evill vvill of their subiects vvhich vvas the cause that the French their enemies caried away Millaine at the first assault and the Sforces had no good by their fortresse but vvere spoiled of all the dutchie ALthough Machiavell have not dealt with the art of tyrannie Machiavell hath hādled all the parts of the art of tyrannie in his writings by a methode yet hath hee not left behind any part of that art For first he hath handled How a tyrannie ought to be builded that is by crueltie perfidie craft perjurie impietie revenges contempt of counsell and friends entertainement of flatterers tromperie the hatred of vertue covetousnesse inconstancie and other like vices whereby hee hath demonstrated that men must ascend as by degrees to come unto a soveraigne wickednesse Secondly hee hath shewed how one ought to bee maintained and conserved in that high degree of wickednesse and tyrannie namely by maintaining amongst subjects partialitie and seditions and in holding them in povertie and necessitie Now he yet addeth another mean namely to build Fortresses against his subjects as by making in good townes citadels and by building forts upon bridges and common passages and other like castles and fortresses and Machiavell thinkes this meane ought to be practised and that other aforesaid meanes are not so sufficient well to establish a tyrannie For Povertie saith he is no sufficient meane to containe a people in obedience for they are never unfurnished of armes And though they should take them from them and should sley their cheefetaines yet that would not suffice because the anger and furie of the people would furnish them with sufficient armes and that cheefetaines would arise unto them like Hydra her heads But I will not stay long in the confutation of this Maxime but onely I will say this That experience makes us wise and that the invention of Citadels which in our time princes have builded against their subjects hath been cause of infinit evils For all commerce and traffique hath been and is greatly diminished in townes where they have been builded and there have beene and are committed infinit insolencies by souldiors against citizens and there neither hath come nor will come to princes which have builded them other good than great expences and evill will of their subjects For this construction of Citadels is an apparent shew that the prince trusteth not his subjects but especially when they are builded any other where than in the limits and borders of kingdomes and countries against strangers When the subjects know that their prince distrusteth them they also esteeme that hee loveth them not And when the subject is not beloved of his prince he cannot also love him and not loving him hee obeyes him not but as constrained and in the end will get his head out of the yoke as soone as there will fall out a fit occasion Here is the profite of Citadels Yet I will say this by the way That our Machiavelists of Fraunce which were authors and enterprisers of the massacres of S. Bartholmew read not well this place The Machiavelists of France doe not alwayes follow their master of Machiavell which
inferiour Iudges can hardly judge evill unlesse they erre either in Fact or Right from which they shall guard themselves if supreme Iudges performe well their duties by not sparing the personall adjornaments against such as by grosse ignorance doe erre in Right or which by the negligent inspection into their causes do erre in Fact And assuredly if such Iudges have good Censors which will marke their faults and will reproove and correct them Iustice shall bee as well administred by one alone in every inferiour seat as by many But our soveraigne Iudges are glad of the faults of their inferiours For their evill judgements brings the greater practise unto them to fill their purses to pay for their Offices to glut their avarice and to furnish the unmeasurable pompes of themselves and their wives So that to Iustice the same happeneth which dooth to an humane bodie For when the head is whole it will purvey and provide for the necessities and maladies of the members and seeke out all things fit for that purpose but when the head is diseased all the members feele it So the corruption which is in parliaments makes that all Iustice in inferiour courts is depraved and corrupted I resolve then against the saying of Machiavell That it were better that ther were but one person in every estate or degree of inferior justice than a great multiplicitie of Officers but my meaning is not to stretch this unto soveraigne Iustice but contrarie I thinke that it is good and necessarie that judgement bee executed by more than one person namely by a meane number of good and well chosen men For a judgement given by a notable companie hath more waight and gravitie as a soveraigne judgement ought to have than that which comes from one alone Also because a soveraigne judgement may sometimes take his foundation upon the pure and simple equitie which sometimes directly repugneth the locall customes ordinances and lawes written it is good and necessarie that equitie bee juged to bee equitie by the braine and judgement of many and it is not meete that one alone should take upon him that great licence to depart from authentike and received lawes to follow his owne opinion which hee will call equitie For that should bee as it were to give power to every particular Iudge to judge after his fantasie against received and approoved right and so to suffer to passe under the name of equitie huge iniquitie Since then none may easily and without great reason depart from received and approoved lawes it followeth that none may easily also induce an equitie against the said lawes unlesse to induce it hee use great and deliberate consideration and examination and doe well ponder the circumstances consequences by a good and experimented judgement which one alone cannot doe except hee bee of some exceeding invention knowledge and experience and of a good and sound judgement such a one as can hardly bee found Therefore it is much better to commit to many not to every one but unto such as are well chosen that power to induce equitie against received lawes than to one alone Besides this it appertaineth unto soveraigne judges to examine the new edicts and lawes of princes to marke and note if there be any thing hard in them which it were good to mitigate and lenifie which they must either themselves doe before they allow or divulge them or else must they signifie to the prince a cause why they approove them not This one alone can never so well doe as many how great and wise so ever hee bee because the spirit of one man alone is not capable to see and comprehend all the particular cases which may bee applied to the matter of an edict neither in memorie or cogitation can hee comprehend whatsoever absurditie incommodity or iniquitie can bee in a law But many casting and discoursing in their mindes every thing one foreseeing one thing and another another by examining and disputing upon the matter may the better perceive and comprehend the law and inconveniences thereof For it is not to bee doubted but that by the dispute of learned and sufficient men which doe examine by a good judgement reasons contrarie likely conjuncts and adjuncts of every thing may farre better comprehend the difficulties and in commodities of a edict than by the reasoning of one alone The manner which the Romanes anciently observed in the making of new lawes shewes this for they which proposed and preferred them were commonly men of good spirit great judgement and experience in the affaires of the common weale but yet every man great and small was heard to contradict that law which was proposed yea sometimes it was found and often that a base person of small estimation which had neither great knowledge nor experience yet hath noted in that law absurdities and inconveniences which were causes of rejection or at the least of moderating and correcting it Againe for that soveraigne judges are as it were censors and correctors of of inferior judges it is very requisit that they bee many in number because it will seeme hard for a magistrate to bee corrected by one alone unto whom it may be hee would not give place in any thing either in good knowledge or experience Finally because corruption is more to be feared in soveraigne judges which have none above them to correct their faults than in subalterne and inferiors who themselves may bee corrected therefore it is requisit that soveraigne judges bee in number for many are more uneasie to bee corrupted than one alone I confesse then in the soveraigne degree of justice of a prince it is good and expedient that hee have a sufficient number of persons to exercise it provided alwaies the number be not too great and unbrideled for the qualitie is therein more requisit than the quantitie The like is to bee of the kings Counsell where it is good and requisit there bee many heads as we have said in another place For confirmation of my saying I will alledge no other thing than the example of our ancestors For in the time and before king Lewis the twelfth inferior Officers were not many in one seate and degree of justice for there was but one in every seate thereof to administer it namely a Provost or ordinarie judge in the first degree a lieutenant generall or bayliffe as they call him or steward in the second degree but in soveraigne courts of Parliaments and the great Counsell they were many yet not in so great number as they bee at this day But seeing wee are in hand with meanes to establish a good justice I will touch therein some small points which I have marked in histories Wee must then presuppose Good Iustice consisteth in good lawes and good Magistrates that to cause good Iustice to bee administred a prince must needes have good lawes and create good Magistrates and Officers As for lawes some concerne the decision of matters and other the
in Italie or that wee had warre heere against a lesser captaine than Anniball so that there were place to amend and correct a fault when it were made wee would not hould him well advised that would hinder your election and as it were withstand your libertie But in this warre against Anniball wee have made no fault but it hath cost us a great and perillous losse therefore am I of advice that you doe elect Consulls which match Anniball For as wee would that our people of warre were stronger than our enemies so ought wee to wish that our heads and cheefetaines of warre were equall to them of our enemies Octacilius is my nephew who espoused my sisters daughter and hath children by her so that I have cause to desire his advancement But the commonwealthes utilitie is more deere unto mee And withall that no other hath greater cause than my nephew not to charge himselfe with a waight under which hee should fall The Romane people found his reasons good therefore revoked their election and by a new suffrage elected Fabius himselfe and gave him for a companion Marcellus which assuredly were two great and sage captaines This rule to elect magistrates equall to every charge above all ought to bee well practised in the election of soveraigne judges for after they have judged if they have committed a fault it cannot but very hardly be repaired so that the reason which Fabius alledged having place in the election of soveraigne judges the provision which followed it meriteth well to bee drawne into an example and consequence for the good and utilitie of the princes subjects The particular qualities required in a Magistrate cannot better nor more briefely Particular qualities required in a Magistrate bee described than by the counsell which Iethro gave to Moses For hee advised him to elect people fearing God true and hating covetousnesse Surely this counsell is very briefe for words but in substance it comprehendeth much For first the Magistrate which shall feare God will advise to exercise his Office in a good conscience Exod. cap. 18. and after the commandements of God and above all things will seeke that God bee honoured and served according to his holy will and will punish â—uch as do the contrary If the Magistrate feare God hee will love his neighbour as himselfe because God so willeth and by consequent he will guard himselfe from doing in the exercise of his estate any thing against his neighbor which he would not should be done against himselfe Briefely hee will in a booke as it were write all his actions to make his account to that great Lord and master whose feare hee hath in him Secondly if the Magistrate bee veritable and a lover of truth it will follow that in the exercise of his Office as well in civile as criminall matters hee will alwaies seeke out the truth and shut his eares to impostures and lies of calumniators and slanderers which is no small vertue wherein Iudges often erre Also a magistrate that loveth truth by consequent shall bee of sufficiencie knowledge and capacitie to exercise his estate for Ignorance and Truth are no companions because Truth is no other thing but light and Ignorance darkenesse And for the last point If the Magistrate hate covetousnesse hee will not onely guard himselfe from practising it but also he will correct it in others and by cutting of this detestable vice the root of all evill he shall keepe downe all other vices which be like rivers proceeding from this cursed and stinking spring And as wee see that the covetousnesse of wicked magistrates is cause of the length of law causes because they have a desire that the parties which plead before them should serve their turnes as they say as a cow for milke whereby it followeth that the poore people are pilled and eaten even to the bones by those horseleaches Also contrarie when the Magistrate hateth covetousnesse hee will dispatch and hasten Iustice to parties and not hould them long in law neither pill and spoile them a thing bringing great comfort and help to the people Briefely then if these three qualities which Iethro requireth in Magistrates and Officers of Iustice were well considered by the prince in such sort as he would receive none into an Office of Iustice who feared not God loved not veritie and hated covetousnesse certainelie Iustice would bee better administred to his great honour and the utilitie of his subjects I will not say that amongst the Paynims there were Magistrates which had the true feare of God for none can have that without knowing him and none can truly know him but by his word whereof the Paynims were ignorant yet were there Paynims which had the other two parts which Iethro required in a Magistrate When Cato the elder was sent governour lieutenant general for the Romanes into the Isle Titus Livius lâ—b 2. Dec. 4. of Sardaigne hee found that the people of the countrey had alreadie a custome for many yeeres before to expend and bestow great charges at the receit and for the honour of all the governours which were sent from Rome hee found also through all that countrey a great companie of bankers and usurers which ruinated and eate out the people by usuries As soone as hee was arived in his goverment he cassed and cut off this and would not suffer them at his arrivall to bee at any charge for his entertainment Hee also drave out of the countrey at once all the said bankers and usurers without any libertie given them to stay upon condition to moderate their usuries which some found hard and evill thinking that it had beene better to have given to these bankers and usurers a meane to their usuries beyond which they might not passe than altogether to take from them the meane to give and take money to profit a thing seeming prejudiciall to commerce and trafficke But so much there wanted that Cato stayed not upon these considerations beleeving that the permission of a certaine might easilie be disguised and perverted and that men which bee subtill in their trade might easily in their contracting and accompting make them lay downe eight for ten or twelve for fifteene Briefely Cato governed himselfe so in his estate and government that the fame of his reputation was of an holy and innocent person Hee was in all matters assuredly a brave man hee was a good souldiour a good lawyer a good orator cunning both in townes and in rurall affaires proper in time Titus Liviuâ— lib. 9. Dec. 4. of peace and as proper in time of warre a man of severe innocencie and who had a tongue that would spare no mans vices even publikely to accuse them as indeed in all his life hee never ceased to accuse vicious and evill living people to make them bee condemned by Iustice and especially in his age of nintie yeeres hee accused one Sergtus Galba This man stepped one day forward to demaund the
they certaine times administred Iustice to every man after these lawes with great uprightnesse and equitie And amongst other Potentates there was Appius Claudius who shewed himselfe very soft and affable to the meanest people and heard them patientlie and did them very good and speedie Iustice so that the people made no account of the Tribunes thinking they needed not to runne unto the Tribunes for help since Appius alone performed not onely the Office of a good Iudge but also of a Tribune to sustaine the good right of the meane people But this good Iustice endured but a yeere for the second yeere the said Potentates being made to continue but for a yeere in their estates resolved altogether so to remaine without ever despoiling themselves of that Office And to gaine people to their faction they beganne to doe Iustice cleane contrarie to that of the first yeere using favour and subornation alwaies giving sentence to the profit of them which were on their side to sustaine their tyrannie By this meanes they drew many persons to bee of their factions and wrought a great partialitie within the towne of Rome some houlding for the ten Potentates others against them But in the end their imperious and tyrannicall arrogancie towards one and others was the cause that the partialized people accorded and great and little set themselves all on one side against them wherupon fell their totall ruine insomuch as the first yeare of their estate by their good Iustice they brought and maintained a good peace in the citie but in the second yeare by their evill and wicked justice they reduced all into troubles and confusions within the citie Vnto this example of the tenne Potentates might we compare the wicked partiall and venale Iustice which hath raigned in France since fifteene yeares which is and hath bene the principall cause and as it were the nurse of all troubles and seditions and that little of good Iustice which wee see to shine as a lightening which soone passeth away after the first troubles in Provence when the President de Morsen and certain Counsellors were sent thither For the little good Iustice which they did in that quarter in so little time as they remained there was the cause that the people of Provence which naturally are very hot and furious carried and guided themselves in the other following troubles more modestly than any other of the French nation We have before said That Quintius patiently heard all them which demaunded justice of him which is a point that all Iustices and Magistrates ought well to observe For according to the right of nations and of naturall equitie none ought to be condemned without being heard In the time that the Tarquins were chased from Rome they underhand practised many citizens by promises and otherwise to commit a treason to the commonwealth and to establish Tarquin the Proud in his estate The corrupted citizens procured to them many slaves of the best sort of citizens by promises of libertie and other good recompences insomuch as all the hired people being in a very great number concluded upon a secret conspiration that the said citizens should one night seize upon the strongest places of the towne and that the said slaves should sley their masters in their beds as soon as they should hear a noice that should be made through the towne for a watchword and this being done some should goe and open the gates to the Tarquins There were two brethren Marcus and Publius Laurentius which were of this conjuration these many times were tormented in their beds in sleepe by hideous and fearefull dreames this made them go to their Divines to know from whence these dreames proceeded The Divines told them they proceeded from some wicked enterprise which they had in their heads which they could not well bring about it were good they left off that they might be no more tormented with such dreames This was the cause that the two brethren discovered all the conspiration to Servius Sulpitius one of the Consuls Sulpitius saw an evident and nigh perill to the commonwealth if suddainly it were not provided for yet did he not thinke it good to deale in the punishment of the culpable before they were well vanquished and plaine matters averred against them as our Machiavelists of this time doe which take law against men after they have slaine them but secretly communicated the fact to the Senat. The Senat referred to him to proceed in that matter as he thought fittest for the utilitie and conservation of the common-weale Sulpitius considering then that amongst the conspirators there were many great persons and well allied and that he might reape great envie and hatred if hee caused any to die without an open conviction of the fact hee resolved to bring the cause to a cleare and evident proofe He then tooke such order as the strong places of the citie were guarded by good men on a certaine night assigned and so sent to Tullius Longus his companion in the Consulship who then besieged the towne of Fidenes that he should come to Rome with a good part of his armie and he dealt so as he arrived nigh the gates at the houre of midnight at the night assigned and that there he should stay til Sulpitius sent him word This done he gave charge to the two brethren Laurentines which had discovered the enterprise unto him to advertise their complices as from the side of the Tarquins to execute their desseigne that night and that they all should meet in the market place the better to know what every man should doe This was so done insomuch as the conjurators being altogether assembled in the publicke market the Consull Longus was assigned to enter into the towne with all his forces and so in the market place were all the conjurators environned and wrapped in by the good order that Sulpitius had taken so that they were all by this meanes convicted of the fact insomuch as none of their parents or allies could denie the crime This was the cause that every man said after when it came to the punishment of the conspirators that it were a good deed to punish them and that Sulpitius had well performed his dutie Breefely by this cleare evident proofe which Sulpitius drew out of this conspiration he obtained great honour and praise whereas hee should have heaped upon himselfe great envie and evill will of the allies and parents of such as were culpable if he had caused them to be executed without great and evident verification of the crime Helpidius also lieutenant of Iustice at Rome in the time of the emperor Constantius Am. Marcel lib. 21. A Iudge ought to feare to offend his conscience shewed himselfe a good and sincere Iudge For being commaunded by the emperour to racke and torment a poore accused person he would never doe it because he found no matter nor sufficient proofes against him to do it but humbly besought the emperour
rather to discharge him of his Office than constraine him to doe a thing against his conscience The prince then which will make a good election of magistrates ought to take care to chuse persons which like Cato will not winke at vices and which will patiently heare parties and judge equally as did Quintius which will be diligent well to draw out the truth of the fact before he give judgement upon any as did Sulpitius which may be such persons as feare to offend their consciences like Helpidius And briefly that they be fearers of God lovers of truth not covetous according to Iethro his counsell Thus doing hee need not feare to have his justice well ruled and holily administred He must take heed he doe not like the emperour Tiberius who gave his Offices to great drinkers and gourmandizers taking pleasure to see a man tunne up much wine and viands into his bellie Neither ought hee to imitate the example of Suet. in Tib. cap. 42. Aâ— Marcel lib. 23 27. the emperour Iulian the Apostata who for a Iudge one time gave to the towne of Alexandria in Aegypt a most cruell and turbulent man And when it was told him that this Iudge was a man very unwoorthie of such an Office I know nor sayth hee how unworthie he is but because the Alexandrians be turbulent and covetous persons I will give them a like Iudge which may deale with them after their merits This was a very inconsiderate part of this emperour to give a wicked magistrate to a corrupted people for their amendment for that is as if one should give unto a diseased person a wicked physician to heale him There was the like fact committed in our time by the Machiavelists but no marvaile if Atheists follow the traces of an Apostata for the one is as good as the other Neither ought the prince also to doe as the emperor Valentinian who constrained the parties to subject themselves to the judgment of suspected Iudges to bee their enemies For all these said emperours were greatly blamed by authors of their time and are yet by all hystories for their so evill choise of unworthie men in Offices which rather they ought to have recoiled and dejected as many other emperors did which for farre lesse causes have cassierd and dispatched them out of their Offices as some have written That Augustus Caesar cassierd a magistrate as ignorant and incapable because hee writ Ixi in place of Ipsi And Vespasian cassierd another because he perfumed himselfe smelled of muske saying he would have loved him better if he had smelled of Garlicke And Domitian cassierd another because he delighted in dauncing and puppet playes for Domitian although otherwise very wicked had this good in him that he caused wel to be chastised all such as our Machiavelists are at this day Likewise also Fabricius Censor cassierd out of the Senate Cornelius Rufinus Senator because hee had vessels of silver weighing tenne marks which at this time comes to 40 crownes But I leave you to thinke if they would not then have rigorously punished such as doe spoile and eate the people which sell Iustice or which commit like abuses which at this day are manifestly tollerated in France since they cassierd men out of their Offices for farre lighter causes as to faile in the orthographie of a word to smell of a perfume to daunce to have plate of the value of tenne pound for these things seeme not to be great faults but at this time men do rather make vertues of them But it is not ynough that a prince make good election of his Officers and Magistrates by the consideration of each mans particular vertues but also in seats where he must needs establish many Iudges together hee ought to take good advisement well â—o compose the bodie of that assembly by considering the qualities required to give a good harmonie and temperature to all the bodie And for this purpose hee ought to compose and temper it of persons of divers estates and divers countries as for example A parliament and judgement seat which ought to bee composed of many ought not to be made of men all of the Nobilitie or of the Clergie or of the third estate but some of every estate Likewise it ought not to be composed of men all of one towne but they ought to bee taken from divers jurisdictions or diocesses And those two points have aunciently been observed in France according to royall ordinances so enjoyning But in the time wherein we are wee may adde by the like reason That in a parliament or the like seat they ought not all to be Catholike Romanes and none of the Reformed Religion For if the estate of the Clergie for the conservation of her priviledges hath well obtained that in all such places there be magistrates of the Clergie although they bee of the same religion in all points with the Catholike Lay-men why should they denie it to men of the profession of the Gospell To this purpose we reade That at Rome there was a time wherein there was many more knights in the assembly of Iudges soveraigne of causes than of Senators insomuch as by soveraigne judgement Publius Rutilius who was a good and sincere man was condemned to banishment because hee had repressed the excessive and undue exactions of Publicans in Asia being evill beloved of the knights which were the greater number of the assembly The Senatours disdaining and grieving at this wicked judgement stirred up Livius Drusus Tribune of the people at whose pursute there was a law made That from thence forward the Senatours and knights should be of a like number in the judgements of causes Which law was found good and profitable to the commonweale as by the contrary they found not good that law which before Caius Gracchus who also was a Tribune of the people would have caused to passe wherby he sought to these that in the judgement of causes there might be two knights against one Senator For herein there is no equalitie nor equitie and therefore by good reason that law was rejected yea and to the ruine of Gracchus who was slaine in the too earnest pursute of that law Iosaphat also king of Iudea after he had established good magistrates through the townes of his kingdome and expressely enjoyned them to execute good justice Paral. lib. 2. cap. 1410. Antiq. lib. 9. cap. 2. to every man without having any regard but to the feare of God and not to the riches nor the dignitie of persons finally established a seat like a parliament in the towne of Ierusalem composed of persons elected from all the lines and families of his kingdome as Iudges holding the degree of supreame jurisdiction unto which men might only appeale from the sentences of inferior Iudges The same temperature kept also the ancient Romanes in all sorts of their magistrates For they not only had of their nobilitie but also of their knights and of