or Love-alien makes his Oration in Answer to Agamus for the Queen's Marriage Then the same Philoxenus enters into another Speech fortified with divers Arguments for the Queen 's Marrying with a Stranger Then spake Axenius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Homefriend for the Queen 's Marrying an English-man In all these Discourses sir Thomas Smith layeth down what Reasons could be made use of in savour of the Argument insisted on adorned also with handsom Eloquence and furnished with proper Examples out of History ancient and modern In the last and chief Discourse of all Smith seems to intend himself the Speaker under the Name of Axenius I shall exemplifie these Orations for the Readers pleasure and satisfaction And the rather because they have many things relating to publick Affairs not long before happening in the Realm under the Reigns of King Henry King Edward and Queen Mary But if I should place them here it would too much interrupt the Course of the History therefore they are reserved for the Appendix where the Reader shall find them CHAP. VIII Sir Thomas's Embassies to France The Principle Queen Elizabeth went by at her first coming to the Crown was to displace as few as she might of the Old Ministers of State Whereby it came to pass that many of those that were her Sisters Servants remained so to her Therefore tho' she parted with Queen Mary's two Secretaries Bourn and Boxal strong Papists who came in the rooms of Cecil and Smith yet she kept Secretary Petre still and replaced Cecil And intending to retain only two Principal Secretaries for the future there was no room for our Smith But he was not to be laid aside His Abilities were too well known And therefore the Queen resolved to make use of him for a time in her Business with foreign Princes till the might prefer him in her own Court. Thus not to mention that he seemeth to be dispatched abroad into France in the Year 1559. together with 〈◊〉 Bishop of Ely the Lord Hâ—â—rard and Dr. Wolten when a Peace was concluded with that Crown and there resided in the Year 1502. he was thought a sâ—t Person to be employed in the Embassy to France Of whom Cambden in his History takes no notice tho' he doth of the Embassage He received his last Instructions in September and a Declaration written in French and Sir Tho. Gresham the Queen's Merchant gave him Credit The Matter of the Embassy was to urge the Restitution of Calais and to keep the Correspondence with the Protestant Prince of Conde that in case of a Breach with France he might be Assistant to the English against that Crown Sir Thomas made some stay at Calais waiting for the coming of Sir Nicolas Throgmortâ—â— the Queen's Ambassador then in France that they might repair to the French Court together But he mâ—de a Delay at Orleans upon some By â—nds to the Prejudice of the Queen's Affairs So â—ir Thomas at last set forward himself towards the Court where more good was to be done with his Presence than otherwise â—ut as for Thrâ—gmorton's Abode at Orleans done perhaps to discredit or impede the success of Smith's Embassy and so he seemed to take it as did others also Secretary Cecil wrote to Smith that he took it to be upon such reasonable Causes as he had alledged tho' other Folks were not so well perswaded And he wished him safe at home to answer his own Doings Where as that good Secretary wrote he should not lack his Friendship for divers Respects But this was the beginning of no good understanding between Thrâ—gmorton and Smith tho' both joint Ambassadors in France for the Queen The Queen's Council wrote their Letters to him in October wherein they shewed him what passed between the French-Ambassador and them and how a matter of Treason of the Poles practiced by the French and Spanish Ambassadors had been of late discovered Which altho' it were a Matter of no great Moment to be feared Yet thereby was made apparent how truly the Queen and her Council judged of the House of Gaise And that so he might as he saw Cause take advantage thereby to maintain the former Reasons published by her Majesty for justification of her Doings in sending Forces into France As the Secretary wrote to this Ambassador But to look a little back Smith's great Profession was when he came into France to be a Peace mover As soon as he had Audience of the King and Queen he wrote the Council a full Account therof to their great satisfaction And the Secretary wrote to him that they all allowed of his Zeal to procure Peace and of his Diligence in so ample a manner as by his Writing had appeared The Cardinal of Fâ—rrâ—â—ra the Pope's Legate being then at Court Smith had much conference with him But for this he had not escaped a Reprimand from the Court had not some of his good Friends interceded Of this Cecil gave him notice in these Words in the Month of November But to write plainly and friendly unto you as I would you should if our places were changed the most here have misliked that you have treated with the Legate and seem willing that you should have been reprimanded therefore But therein I and others unto your good meaning have so tempered the Cause as thereof you shall hear no otherwise except it be by me and some others your private good Friends For that as he added there were among them in England divers very scrupulous of dealing with the Popes Ministers And therefore he advised the Ambassador to forbear the Cardinal in these Affairs and to use other Courtesy to him as he should see cause for the State of Ferrara as the Ambassador had well made the Distinction to himself The Secretary also now advised him to beware of one Monsieur de Serre saying that he was very Fine and Nimble in all his Practiques In our Ambassadors last Dispatch he wrote to the Queen and therein took the Liberty to give her certain good Counsel which Letter she took in good part and ordered the Secretary to thank him for it and willed him also to warn the Ambassador of the Cardinal of Ferrara and likewise to let all the Favourers of the Prince of Conde manifestly understand that without his Consent the Ambassador would not enter into any Treaty with France Smith in this Embassy had but ill Entertainment in France for he went over in a Year wherein he met with three Evils Plague intestine War and Famine Whereof the next Year the Plague came over into England The intestine War was pretty well ceased but the Famine that is the Dearth of Provision remained and encreased there more and more February 1. Sir Nicholas Throgmorton JointAmbassador with Smith came over into England to the Queen leaving Smith alone in France and nine days after he sent over his Man to the Court with Letters And so
preserve her long to Reign over her People and that his Grace and Mercy would turn all to the best In the midst of these Cares of our Ambassador the Lord Burghley wrote to him of a Matter that put him and his Collegue into a great Consternation It was concerning the Queen's falling Sick of the Small-Pox and withal of her speedy Recovery again His careful Mind for this Matter he thus exprest in his next Letter to the said Lord That he and his Fellow read the News of the Queen's Illness together in a marvellous Agony but having his Medicine ready which was that her Majesty was within an Hour recovered it did in part heal them again But that as his Lordship wrote of himself that the Care did not cease in him so he might be assured it did as little cease in them Calling to their remembrance and laying before their Eyes the Trouble the Uncertainty the Disorder the Peril and Danger that had been like to follow if at that Time God had taken her from them whom he styled The Stay of the Common-wealth the Hope of their Repose and that Lanthorn of their Light next God Not knowing whom to follow nor certainly where to light another Candle Another great Solicitude of his at this Time was as the Queen's Sickness so her Slowness to resolve and the tedious Irresolutions at Court. Of which he spake in some Passion after this sort That if the Queen did still continue in Extremities to promise in Recoveries to forget what shall we say but as the Italians do Passato il pericolo gabbato il fango He told that Lord moreover That he should perceive by their Proceedings in their Embassy what justly might be required was easie to be done But if her Majesty deceived her self and with Irresolution made all Princes understand that there was no Certainty of her or her Council but dalliance and farding off of Time she should then first Discredit her Ministers which was not much but next and by them discredit her self that is to be counted uncertain irresolute unconstant and for no Prince to trust unto but as to a Courtier who had Words at will and true Deeds none These were Expressions proceeding somewhat as may be perceived from his Spleen and partly from his present Indisposition of Body Which he seemed to be sensible of For he begged his Lordship's Pardon for what he had said rendring his Reason That he had been kept there so long that he was then in an Ague both in Body and in Spirit And that as the Humours in his Body made an Ague there of which he wisht it would make an end so that irresolution at the Court he hoped would help to conclude that he might feel no more Miseries Which he feared those that came after should feel Because we will not see said he The Time of our Visitation Thus did Smith express his Discontents into the Bosom of his trusty Friend for the Mismanagement of publick Affairs as he conceived discovering as his Zeal and Affection to the Queen and the State so the Temper of his Mind somewhat enclined to Heat and Choler This he writ from Blois on Good-Friday While Sir Thomas Smith was here Ambassador the Treaty of Marriage was in effect concluded between the Prince of Navarre and the Lady Margaret the present French King's Sister Which lookt then very well toward the Cause of Religion and both that Ambassador and his Collegues Walsingham and Killigrew liked it well One Matter in Debate and the chief was about the manner of Solemnizing the Marriage Whereupon they sent to the Queen of Navarre a true Copy of the Treaty of the Marriage between King Edward the Sixth and the late Queen of Spain the French King's Sister Wherein it was agreed that she should be Married according to the Form of the Church of England Which stood the said Queen of Navarre in such good stead that she produced it to the Queen-Mother of France To which they took Exceptions and said it was no true Copy of the Treaty Whereupon she the Queen of Navarre sent to Sir Tho. Smith who happened to be at that very Treaty By her Messenger she signified that she sent to him to know because he was a Dealer in the same whether he would not justifie it to be a true Copy To whom Sir Thomas answered That knowing the great good Will his Mistress did bear her and how much she desired the good Success of that Marriage as a thing that tended to the Advancement of Religion and Repose of this Realm he could not but in Duty avow the same and be willing to do any good Office that might advance the said Marriage CHAP. XIII Made Chancellor of the Garter Comes home Becomes Secretary of State His Advice for forwarding the Queen's Match His Astonishment upon the Paris Massacre SIR Thomas being still abroad in France the Queen conferred upon him the Chancellorship of the Order of the Garter in the Month of April as some Reward of the League that he had taken so much pains in making For which he thanked her Majesty and said it must needs be to him many times the more welcome because that without his Suit and in his Absence her Highness of her gracious goodness did remember him About Iune 1572. he came home with the Earl of Lincoln Lord Admiral who was sent over to take the Oath of the French King for the Confirmation of the Treaty Which being done by the Queen's Command he was no longer to abide in France but to return at his best Convenience It was not long from this Time that the old Lord Treasurer Marquess of Winchester died and the Lord Burghley Secretary of State succeeded in his Place Then Smith was called to the Office of Secretary viz. Iune 24. having sometime before assisted the Lord Burghley in that Station And surely it was the Opinion of his great Learning as well as his long Experience and other Deserts that preferred him For his Learning had rendred him very famous in the Court A Poet in those Times writing an Heroick Poem to the Queen therein describing all her great Officers one after another thus depainted this her Secretary Inde tibi est altis SMYTHUS à gravibúsque Secretis Doctrinae Titulis Honoris fulgidus ut qui Pierius Vates prompto facundus ore Et cui solliciti exquisita Peritia Iuris Astronomus Physicusque Theologus insuper omni Eximiè multifaria tam structus in Arte Ut fedes in eo Musae fixisse putentur Wherein of all the Queen 's Wise and Noble Counsellors Smith her Secretary is made to be the deeply Learned Man about her as being an ingenious Poet an excellent Speaker of exquisite Skill in the Civil Law in Astronomy in natural Philosophy and Physick in Divinity and in a word so richly furnished in all the Arts and Sciences that the Muses themselves might be supposed to
yet had I rather overburthen my self than leave my Country undefended or to see my Country-men so much disgraced Our Question is Whether if it please the Queens Majesty to Marry it were better that her Majesty took an English man or a Stranger Here you come with your fine and logical Distinction and bring in the Causes Essential and Accidental of Marriage as tho' we were in a School of Dunsery and not in a Discourse of Pleasure where we would seek out the Truth without any Fraud or Circumvention I pray you either mince not the matter so finely or else go not so lightly away with every piece before it be either granted to you or else fully proved And first to the three Essentials which you make I will never grant that the English man and the Stranger be equal For even for the first I mean getting of Children if you ask mine Opinion altho' after Marriage by the Law of God whosoever the Father be the Prince or Child which is gotten shall be most rightful Heir of England and an English man yet it must needs be better an hundredfold that our Prince be a mere English man as well by the Father as by the Queen his Mother than half English which shall have any part of Strangers Bloud in him We laugh at this and you think that I speak now of the Honour and of the Affection which I have to our Country above other No I speak not of Affection but as great Causes move me For I would the Prince of this Realm should be wholly English and that no other Realm had any Duty to claim of him but that he should think this his whole and only Country and natural Soil So shall he never set by others Countries but by this So shall he not prefer sickle Strangers to his trusty Subjects So shall he ever covet to adorn magnifie and exalt this Realm and drive away no Part of his Love from it to another Whereas if he should have to his Father a Stranger it cannot be but he must have a natural Mind and Affection to this his Father's Country and his elder Country and either as much or more than to England Of which thing this Realm already hath had Proof enough The Danes enjoyed once this Realm too long Of which altho' some of them were born here yet so long as the Danes Blood was in them they could never but favour the poor and barren Realm of Denmark more than the rich Country of England The Normans after wan and possessed the Realm So long as ever the Memory of their Blood remained the first most and so less and less as by little and little they grew to be English What did they Keep down the English Nation Magnifie the Normans the rich Abbies and Priories they gave to their Normans the Chief Holds the Noble Seignories the best Bishopricks and all Yea they went so low as to the Parsonages and Vicarages if one were better to the Puâ—se than another that a Norman had Poor English men were glad to take their Leavings And so much was our Nation kept under that we were glad to dissemble our Tongue and learn theirs Whereupon came the Proverb Iack would be a Gentleman if he could speak French But as the Norman Bloud and Tongue â—anished away so by little and little Thanks be to God this Mischief began to cease and the Princes by Process of Time made mere English merely favoured this our Nation And is not this a good Cause think you why I should wish the Queens Highness Husband to be of our Country and the Prince her Majesty's Son to be a mere English man For as we have seen by these and other Proofs in Time past if the Prince should be a Frenchman he would favour the French if an Italian the Italians if a Dane or a Swedener he would also favour his Country and Country-men And is not the whole at least the greatest part of the Love which we English men should require of him to be derived thither And you may be assured as the People see the Prince part his Love so will they part theirs Which Love I would have and wish always to be whole intire and perfect in both That there should not arise a Seditious Person to say Non est nobis Pars in David nec Hareditas in filio Jesse Unusquisque ad Tentorium O Israel As for the second which is the Avoiding of Adultery and Fornication it lyeth more in the Gift of God and the Godliness of the Mind of the Married Person than in the Quality of his or her Make. But will not evil Examples think you do much And I pray you what Nation is there where Matrimony is so indifferently of each and so godly of both kept as in England The Italians be so jealous that almost every private man there doth not think himself sure of his Wife except he keep her close in a Mew as here in England men keep their Hawks Again he for his part taketh so much Liberty that to resort to Courtezans to describe his Loves and Pastimes with others besides his Wife so it be in fine Rhythme and wittily contrived Verse he taketh rather an Honour than a Dishonour Do you think her Majesty brought up in English Manner can like this suspicion against the Wife Or this Licentious Liberty of the Husband And yet if her Grace should take an Italian this is the Manner of his Country The French man in jealousie is not so much nor doth so streightly as in prison keep hiâ— Wife as doth the Italian Mary for his own Liberty he will give the Italian no place Their own French Books do shew no lessâ— and whoso is conversant with them 〈◊〉 understand the same And if her Majesty should Marry a French man think you he would not have some great piece of his Country Manners The Scots be in so natural League wiâ—â— France that he is no true Scot unless he speak and do French-like The Spaniard will rule and standeth all up on Honour For other Liberty of such Pastime he will give place to none but go afar as any yet he will do Penance peradventure in Lent or at Easter and whip himsâ—lâ— then in a Visor naked supposing to make God and his Wife amends by it as he thinketh and to salve his fond Conscience But for our English Manners I dare say we esteem iâ— mâ—re honourable and more Godly not with such Untroth to oâ—fend our Wives than first to take Liberty and then to make so mad Amends The Dutch men and the Dane and all such Countries as draw in Language and Conditions towards them with the great Love which they have to Drink do shadow the other Vice and either may so excuse them that they did it overcome with Drink or else indeed for two much pleasure in the one care less for the other But what excuse is that with Vice to elâ—de Vice Or else what