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
the third estate to the contentment of every one and that magistrates being so temperated they so might be suspected neither to great nor little This is it which was said of Marcus Valerius that Dionis Halic lib. 7. valiant and wise Senatour and great captaine of warre persuading the Senate to receive the people to Offices and into the administration of the commonweale Masters said he all they which will well establish a publicke estate ought to consider not only that which is present but also that which may come But certainly if the whole administration of the commonweale remained alwaies in the hands of such as are rich and puissant it might so come to passe in succession of time that some small number of them would usurpe a tyrannous domination over the people But when some of the people shall be mixed amongst such as are rich and puissant they dare enterprise no tyrannie fearing to be punished by the lawes whereof the magistrats of the people may pursue against them the observation Finally so much the greater terror and feare we propose before the eyes of transgressors of lawes and corrupters of manners by putting against proud and covetous men many observers and watchers in their heads so much the better shall the estate of our commonwealth bee established and assured A Prince having by good election well ordained the magistrates of his Iustice A Prince ought to punish evill Iudges and to reward good men hee ought after to consider how hee may maintaine them in their dutie to walke upright and to keepe themselves from corruption To doe this hee must observe two things To cassier them which deale evill in their charge yea that hee punish them according to the greatnes of their faults and that he recompence remunerat them which deale well in their charges Wee have above set downe some examples of certaine emperours which chastised their vicious magistrates which examples doe merit well to be drawne into a consequence at the least for great faults of magistrats But above all a prince ought alwayes to have before his eyes the example of the king S. Lewis who of his kingdome sent often Commissaries throgh his provinces to get information of the abuses of magistrates that he might doe justice thereof For this example meriteth well to be practised in the time wherein we are Moreover the emperour Alexander Severus practised very well these two points wherof now I speake Lamprid. in Alex. touching the punishing of evill magistrates and remunerating the good For on the one side he so hated wicked magistrats which abused their Offices that one day there comming to his Court one Arabinus who was reported to have committed thefts in the administration of his Office he begun in a great choller O gods immortall Arabinus not onely liveth but dare appeare in the Senate and before mee On the other side Alexander would remunerate and bountifully reward such magistrates as were good and well acquited themselves in their charges For said hee good magistrates which are good men must be bought and enriched but wicked men of no value must be impoverished and driven away Wee may also alledge the example of the most part of our ancient kings of France which stipended well their Officers of Iustice For although it seeme that the wages which they take at this present is little yet at the time when their wages were first constiuted and set downe unto them they were great and sufficient ynough to maintaine them unto whome they were given And there is no doubt but a man might as well and honourably maintaine himselfe some 60 years agoe with 300 pound a year as now for 1000 for truly since that time all things have proved foure times dearer Whereupon it followeth since expences are quadruple and that the wages of magistrates are not raised that it were requisite they were augmented the rather to encourage them to doe their duties and to take from them all occasion and excuse of abuses Hereupon some have thought that to shun abuses corruptions of magistrats it were good and expedient to make them temporall as for two or three yeares or els Magistrates in Fraunce ought neither to bee temporall nor ambulatorie to make them ambulatorie by remooving of them from time to time from one province to another This opinion hath been held by a great person of our time which seemeth to be founded upon many good reasons For if magistrates were temporall by consequent they should be subject to the Syndiks and to give account of their administration and if they were ambulatorie they should not know the persons submitted to their jurisdictions neither could they contract with them any inward familiaritie and love which often doe cause Iudges to stray out of the right way do draw the curtaine from the eies of Iustice And both by the laws of the Romans and the ordinances of king Lewis and many other kings his successors the magistrates of Provinces could neither be perpetuall nor might they be magistrates in the provinces where they were borne Yet if we consider that France is composed of divers provinces which have every one their courses of law different wee shall find that it were impossible to find magistrates fit to administer justice in every severall province for want of knowledge of the different stiles customes and manners of every severall countrey which are not well learned but by use and practise And also old men and many persons very capable to exercise offices of magistracie neither can nor wil subject themselves to an uncertaine removing from one province to another for the affaires of their familie could not well beare it yet every man must have care of his familie We see also that men advanced to Offices although men learned capable yet at the first have not had the dexteritie well to applie their knowledge to use for it is obtained by the handling of matters experience Wherupon it followeth that if magistrats were temporall they should be at the end of their time even then when they begun to understand how they ought to handle their Offices by appointing deputies in their places the like would come to them and so would it come to passe that in Offices there would be placed more often new men than well experienced a thing neither good nor profitable to the commonweale And for this cause we read that the emperour Antonius Pius continued alwaies in his time his magistrats which Capit. in Pio. in their Offices acquited themselves well And in the time of Severus and other emperors after him it was practised that to the Office of the Praetorian praefecture they should alwayes provide some one of them which before had served as an Assessor and knew therefore how he should handle that Office And certainly in the Romans time there was this incommoditie in the matter of magistrates that often they were at the end of their time before
wee come to alledge For they said That men must not stay upon fishing for froggs but men must catch in their nets the great Salmons that one Salmons head was more worth than tenne thousand froggs and that when they had slaine the cheefetaines of pretended rebels that they should easily overthrow the rude and rascally multitude which without heads could enterprise nothing These venerable enterprisers should have considered that which here their Doctor Machiavell saith which also since they have seen by experience That a people cannot want heads which will alwayes rise up yea even those heads which bee slaine If they had so well noted practised this place of Machiavell as they do others so much blood would never have ben shed their tyrannie it may be had longer endured than it hath done For the great effusion of blood which they have made hath incontinent cried for vengeance to God who according to his accustomed justice hath heard the voice of that blood and for the crie of the orphant and widdow hath laid the axe to the root of all tyrannie and alreadie hath cut away many braunches thereof and if it please him will not tarry long to lay all on the ground and so establish Fraunce in his auncient government As for Fortresses in frontiers of countries they have been long time practised and are profitable to guard from incursions and invasions of enemies and to the end such as dwell upon the borders may the more peaceably enjoy their goods Wee reade That the emperour Alexander Severus gave his Fortresses upon frontiers to Lamprid. in Alex. Pomp. Laetus in Constant Magno good and approoved captaines with all the lands and revenewes belonging unto them to enjoy during their lives to the end saith Lampridius that they might be more vigilant and carefull to defend their owne And afterward the emperour Constantine the Great ordained That the said Fortresses with their grounds and revenewes should passe to the heires of the said captaines which held them as other manner of goods and heritages And hereupon some say have come such as the civile law call Feudi 34. Maxime A Prince ought to commit to another those affaires which are subiect to hatred and envie and reserve to himselfe such as depend upon his grace and favour A Prince vvhich vvill exercise some cruell and rigorous act saith cap. 7. 14. of a prince M. Nicholas he ought to give the commission thereof unto some other to the end he may not acquire evill vvill and enmitie by it And yet if he feare that such a delegation cannot bee vvholly exempted from blame to have consented to the execution which was made by his Commissarie he may cause the Commissarie to be slaine to shew that he consented not to his crueltie as did Caesar Borgia and Messire Remiro Dorco THis Maxime is a dependancie of that goodly doctrine which Machiavell learned of Caesar Borgia which although it was very cruell yet meaning to appeare soft and gentle following therein the Maxime which enjoyneth dissimulation committeth the execution of his crueltie to Messire Remiro Dorco as at large before wee have discoursed that hystorie And because we have fully shewed that all dissimulation and feignednesse is unworthie of a prince we will stay no longer upon this Maxime Well will I confesse that many things there be which seeme to be rigorous in execution although they be most equall and just which it is good a prince doe commit to others to give judgement and execution by justice as the case meriteth For as the emperour Marcus Antonine said It seemeth to the world that that which the prince doth hee doth it by his absolute authoritie and power rather than of his civile and reasonable power Therefore to shun that blame and suspition it is good that the prince delegate and set over such matters to Iudges which are good men not suspected nor passionate not doing as the emperour Valentinian did who would never heare nor receive accusations against Iudges and Magistrates which hee had established but constrained the recusators or refusers to end their cause before those Iudges only Whereby he was much blamed and his honor impeached and disgraced For truly the cheefe point which is required to cause good Passionate Iudges cannot judge well justice to be administred is That Iudges be not suspected nor passionat because the passions of the soule and heart doe obfuscate and trouble the judgement of the understanding and cause them to step aside and stray out of the way It is also a thing of very evill example when a prince with an appetite of revenge or to please the passions of revengefull great men dooth elect Iudges and Commissaries that bee passionate and which have their consciences at the command of such as employ them As was done in the time of king Lewis Hutin in the judgement of Messire Enguerrant de Marigni great master of Fraunce and in the time of king Charles the sixt in the judgement of the criminall processe of Messire Iean de Marests the kings Advocate in the parliament of Paris And a man may put to them the judgements given in our time against Amie du Bourg the kings Counsellor in the said parliament and against captaine Briquemand and M. Arnand de Cavagnes master of the Requests of the kings houshold and against the countie de Montgomerie and many others For the executions to death which followed manifested well That the Iudges were passionate men their consciences being at the command of strangers which governed them 35. Maxime To administer good Iustice a Prince ought to establish a great number of Judges TO have prompt and quicke expedition of good Iustice saith Machiavell many Iudges must be established for few can dispatch Discourse lib. 1. cap. 7. few causes and a small number is more easie to gaine and be corrupted than a great number And vvithall a great number is strong and firme in Iustice against all men EXperience hath made us wise in France that this Maxime of Machiavell is not true For since they multiplied the Officers of Iustice Multiplicitie of Officers cause of the corruption of â—ustice in Fraunce in the kingdome by the encrease of Counsellours in parliaments by erection of Presidents seats by creation of new or alternative Officers we have processes and law causes more multiplied longer and worse dispatched than before insomuch as by good right and by good reason the last Estates generall held at Orleance complained to king Charles the ninth of that multiplication and multitude of Officers which served not as it doth not yet but to multiplie law causes to ruinate and eat up the people and yet no better expedition of Iustice than before but rather worse and notoriously more long and of greater charges to the parties Vpon which complaint it was holily ordained That offices of Iustice which became vacant by death should bee suppressed and that none should come in their
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
happie memorie For during his raigne and before the kingdome was governed after the meere French manner that is to say following the traces and documents of our French auncestors But since it hath governed by the rules of Machiavell the Florentine as shall bee seene heereafter Insomuch that since that time untill this present the name of Machiavell hath beene celebrated and esteemed as of the wisest person of the world and most cunning in the affaires of Estate and his bookes held dearest and most precious by our Italian and Italionized courtiers as if they were the bookes of Sibilla whereunto the Paynims had their recourse when they would deliberate upon any great affaire concerning the common wealth or as the Turkes hould deare and precious their Mahumets Alcaron as wee have said above And wee neede not bee abashed if they of Machiavells nation which hould the principall estates in the government of France have forsaken the ancient manner of our French ancestors government to introduct and bring France in use with a new forme of managing ruling their countrie taught by Machiavell For on the one side every man esteemeth and priseth alwaies the manners fashions customes other things of his owne countrey more than them of an others On the other side Machiavell their great doctor Cap. 3. De Princ. Discourse lib. 2. cap. 30. lib. 3. cap. 43. Machiavells slanders against the kings and the people of France describes so well France and the goverment thereof in his time blaming and reprehending the Frenchmens conduction of affaires of Estate that it might easily persuade his disciples to change the manner of French government into the Italian For Machiavell vaunteth that being once at Nantes and talking with the Cardinall of Amboise which was a very wise man in the time of king Lewis the twelfth of publike State affaires hee plainly tould him that the Frenchmen had no knowledge in affaires of Estate And in many places speaking of French causes hee reprehendeth the government of our abovenamed kings Charles the eight and Lewis the twelfth yea hee hath beene so impudent speaking of that good king Lewis rebuking him for giving succours unto Pope Alexander the sixt that hee gives him the plaine lie saying hee belyes himselfe having passed Italie at the Venetians request yet succoured the Pope against his intention And in other places hee calls our kings Tributaries of the Suisses and of the English men And often when hee speaketh of the Frenchmen hee calleth them Barbarous and saith they are full of covetousnesse and disloyaltie So also hee taxeth the Almaignes of the same vices Now I beseech you is it not good reason to make so great account of Machiavell in France who so doth defame reproove the honour of our good kings of all our whole nation calling them Ignorant of the affaires of Estate Barbarous Covetous Disloyall But all this might bee borne withall and passed away in silence if there were not another evill But when we see that Machiavell by his doctrine and documents hath changed the good and ancient government of France into a kind of Florentine government whereupon we see with our eies the totall ruine of all France It infallibly followeth if God by his grace doe not remedie it soone that now it should be time if ever to lay hand to the work to remit and bring France againe unto the government of our ancestors Hereupon I humbly pray the Princes and great lords of France to consider what is their duties in this case Seemeth it most Ilustrious Lords seeing at this time poore France which is your countrey and mother so desolate and torne in sunder by strangers that you ought to suffer it to be lost and ruinated Ought you to permit them to sowe Atheisme and Impietie in your countrey and to set up schooles thereof Seeing your France hath alwaies been so Zealous in the Christian Religion as our ancient kings by their pietie and iustice have obtained that so honourable a title and name of Most Christian Thinke you that God hath caused you to be borne into this world to help to ruinate your countrie or coldly to stand still and suffer your mother to be contaminated and defiled with the contempt of God with perfidie with sodomie tyrannie crueltie thefts strange usuries and other detestable vices which strangers sowe heere But rather contrarie God hath given you life power and authoritie to take away such infamies and corruptions and if you do it not you must make account for it you can looke for but a greevous iust punishment If it be true as the Civilian lawiers say That he is a murderer and culpable of death which suffereth to die with hunger the person unto whom he oweth nourishment And shall not you be culpable before God of so many massacres murders and desolations of your poore France if you give it not succours seeing you have the meanes and that you are obliged thereunto by right of nature Shall you not be condemned and attainted of impietie Athisme and tyrannie if you drive not out of France Machiavell and his government Heere if any man will inquire how it appeareth that France is at this day governed by the doctrine of Machiavell the resolution heereof is easie and cleere For the effects which France governed by the doctrine of Machiavell we see with our eies and the provisions and executions of the affaires which are put in practise may easily bring us to the causes and Maximes as we have abovesaid which is one way to know things by ascending from effects and consequences to the knowledge of causes Maximes And whosoever also shall reade the Maximes of Machiavell which we shall handle heereafter and discend from thence into the particularities of the French government hee shall see that the precepts and Maximes of Machiavell are for the most part at this day practised and put in effect and execution from point to point Insomuch that by both the two wayes from the Maximes to the effects and from the effects to the Maximes men may clearely know that France is at this day governed by the doctrine of Machiavell For are they not Machiavelists Italians or Italianized which doe handle and deale with the seales of the kindgome of France Is it not they also which draw out and stampe Edicts Which dispatch all things within and without the realme Which hould the goodliest governments and fermes belonging unto the Crowne Tea if a man will at this day obtaine or get any thing in the Court for to have a good and quicke dispatch thereof hee must learne to speake the Messereske language because these Messers will most willingly heare them in their owne tongue and they understand not the French no not the tearmes of iustice and Royall ordinances Whereupon every man may coniecture and imagine how they can well observe or cause to be observed the lawes of France the tearmes whereof they
hardie withall he suffered them to take upon him some small advantages seeking still to draw them unto some place of advantage to fight with them as indeed he did They beeing swelled for that in some light skirmishes they had overthrowne some few of Annibals souldiors and thereby thought it was not honourable to recoile and that men would think their hearts failed them to flie before such as they had alreadie beaten resolved to give battaile and indeed they gave it but they lost it to their great shame and confusion Which the Romane Senate seeing sent against Anniball Fabius Maximus who was not so forward and it may bee not so hardie in enterprizing as Flaminius or Sempronius were but he was more wise and carefull as he shewed himselfe For at the first arrivall as the other did he did not aboord and set upon Anniball who desired no other thing but began to coast him a farre off seeking alwayes advantageous places And when Anniball approched him then would he shew him a countenance fully determined to fight yet alwaies seeking places of advantage But Anniball which was not so rash as to joine with his enemie to his own disadvantage made a shew to recoile and flie to draw him after him Fabius followed him but it was upon coasts and hils seeking alwayes not the shortest way but that way which was most for his advantage insomuch as Anniball saw him alwaies upon some hill or coast nigh him as it were a cloud over his head so that after Anniball had many times assaied to draw Fabius into a place fit for himselfe and where he might give battaile for his owne good and yet could not thereunto draw him said I see well now that the Romanes also have gotten an Anniball and I feare that this cloud which approching vs still hovers upon those hils will some of these mornings poure out some shoure on our heads Breefely the prudencie and wisdome of Fabius brought more feare and gave more adoe unto Anniball than all the Romane forces which yet was not small I have above recited another example witnessed of king Edward of England who said That he feared more the missives and letters of king Charles le Sage than he feared the great and puissant armies of 40 and 100000 men of his Father and Grandfather and that wrought him more trouble and broke more of his purposes and enterprises in enditing of letters than they ever did with their great forces Which is another witnesse made for prudence and good Counsell like unto the example of Anniball which witnesses are so much the more worthie of credite as the one proceeded from a most valiant king and the other from a most noble and hardie Captaine both which well knew by long use and experience how to helpe themselves with force and armes And if we consider the Romane hystories we shall truly find that the ancient Romanes made themselves lords and maisters almost of all the world more by wisdome and good Counsell than by force although they used both Therefore said Varro as by a common proverbe received in his time That the Romans vanquished sitting as if he would say As they sit in their chairs in their Senate they provide so for their affaires by good Counsell and wisedome that they get and obtaine the upper hand in all their enterprises Yea and we see that at this day the Venetians maintain very well their estate yea do augment and make it greater although they understand no thing how to handle armes and indeed when they must needs goe to warre they hire and wage people to doe it but yet notwithstanding are they wise and prudent keeping themselves as much as they can from the warre and when they have warre they do discreetly seeke meanes to quiet and appease it by some other way than by battailes besiegings of Townes or any other exploits of warre And assuredly they know better how to finish and bring a warre to an end by their wisedome and good Counsell without striking any stroke than many puissant princes by their forces and armes Hitherto we have spoken of a princes Counsell which in the time of the Roman A Senat and the Estates are things correspondēt emperours men called The princes Consistorie and our French The kings Priuie Counsell But now we must know that as well the Romane emperours as the kings of France of old have yet had another Counsell whereunto they had recourse in all their waightie affaires which were of great consequence as when they stood in need to make lawes ordinances and rules concerning the universall estate the Romanes called this Counsell the Senat and the French call it the Parlement But this name of Parlement aunciently signifieth an assemblie of the three estates as Philip de Comines saith and as is seene by all our French hystories Our kings also De Comines lib. 1. cap. 64. convocated sometimes with their ordinarie and priuie Counsell some good number of great Prelats and Barons of the realme and that assemblie they called The great Counsell But afterward men attributed the name of Parlement unto the assemblie of Iudges and Senators which judged causes and processes from whome there is no appeale And some thinke that our Parlement is at this day like unto the Senat of Rome but they are greatly deceived for the Romane Senat tooke not any knowledge of the processes and causes of particular persons but only dealt with affairs of the State of the universall government and pollicie and of matters of consequence unto all the Commonwealth and therefore the assemblie of the three estates in France doe much better resemble the Roman Senat than the Parlements doe at this day which might better be compared unto the Romans Centumvirat or to their Praetorian government which dealt in the knowledge of appellations and matters of justice distributive from which judgement ther was no appeale And as the name of Parlement is at this day otherwise applied than it was anciently so is it of the name of Great Counsell But to come to our purpose Wee read that the good Emperours never contemned or thought much in waightie affairs to take the advice of the Romane Senat and to governe themselves thereby for although that by the change of the estate which happened in the time of Iulius Caesar when the commonwealth was changed into a Monarchie the authoritie of the Senate was much abated and weakened yet there was never emperour found that durst enterprise altogether to abolish it but contrarie the good and wise emperors rather helped to establish their authoritie and power And the reason why no emperor good or wicked durst enterprise to abolish the Senate was because by the Law Roiall whereby the estate Monarchicall was established at Rome there was only transferred unto the king the authoritie and power of the people and not that which the Senat had Which people although they had sovereigne power over every particular person of
death so that by the incestuous mariage wherewith Claudius had contaminated and poysoned his house he and his naturall sonne who by reason should have been his successor were killed with poyson We read likewise that the Emperour Bassianus Carracalla Spartian in Carac beholding one day Iulia his mother in law with an eye of incestuous concupiscence She said unto him Si tu le veux tu le peux If thou wilt thou maiest Knowest thou not that it belongs unto thee to give the law not to receive it which talke so enflamed him yet more with lust that he tooke her to wife in marriage Hereupon Hystoriographers note that if Bassianus had knowne well what it was to give a law he would have detested and prohibited such incestuous and abhominable copulations and not to have authorised them For breefely a Prince may well give lawes unto his subjects but it must not be contrary to nature and naturall reason This was the cause why Papinian the great Lawyer who well understood both naturall and civile law loved better to die than to obey the said Emperor Bassianus who had commanded him to excuse before the Senate his parricide committed in the person of Geta his brother For Papinian knowing that such a crime was against natural right so much there wanted that he would have obeied the Emperor if he had commanded him to have perpetrated and committed it that he would not obey him so far therein as to excuse it Wherein the Paynim Lawyer may serve for a goodly example to condemne many Magistrate Lawyers of our time which not only excuse but also cause to be executed unnaturall murders and massacres against all law divine and humane But now we have spoken of a Princes absolute power let us come to the other The other power which we call Civile is that which is governed and as it were The Civile power temperateth the Absolute limited within the bounds of Reason of right and equitie and which we must presume that the Prince will use and useth ordinarily in all his commaunds unlesse expressely he shew and declare that he willeth and ordaineth this or that of his absolute power and of his certaine knowledge This is that second power which is guided by prudence and good Counsell and which giveth a sweet temperature and counterpoise to that absolute power no more nor no lesse than the second motion of the Sunne tempereth the course of the first as we have abovesaid This is that power which establisheth and conserveth in assurednesse kingdomes and empiers and without which they cannot stand but incontinent shal be ruinated annihilated and laid on the ground This is that power which all good Princes have so practised letting their absolute power cease without using any unlesse in a demonstration of Majestie to make their Estate more venerable and better obeyed that in all their actions and in all their commands they desire to subject and submit themselves to lawes and to reason And in this doing they never thought or esteemed to doe any thing unworthie of their Majestie but contrary have ever accounted that there was no thing more beseeming the majestie of a soveraigne Prince than to live and carrie himselfe in all his actions according to right and equitie And that the domination and power of a Prince that so governeth himselfe is greater more secure and more venerable than his which governeth himselfe after the absolute power And truly all the good Romane Emperours have alwayes held this language and have so practised their power as we read in their hystories Yea the Emperour Theodosius L. digna Vox C. de Lege made an expresse law for it which is so good to be marked that I thought good to translate it word by word It is the majestie of him that governeth to confesse himselfe to be bound unto lawes so much doth our authoritie depend upon law And assuredly it is a farre greater thing than the Empire it selfe to submit his Empire and power unto lawes And that which we will not to be lawfull unto us we shew it unto others by the oracle of this our present Edict Given at Ravenna the eleventh day of Iune the yeare of the Consulship of Florentius and Dionisius To come then to our purpose you must understand that de Comines spoke of this second power in the place above alledged and not of the absolute power of a Prince for by that power it is certain that the Prince hath good authority to enterprise wars to levie imposts upon his subjects without their consent Because that by the roiall law above mentioned the Roman people gave all the like power unto the Prince as Dion de August ◠I. D. de Constit. Princ. they had themselves to use it towards the people against the people gave him absolute power without any astriction or bond to laws to do what he would We see also by the law of God the same absolute power is given unto kings soveraign Princes For it is written that they shall have full power over the goods persons of their subjects And althogh God have given them that absolute power as to his ministers 1. Sam. 8. lieutenants on earth yet wold he not have thē use it but with a temperance moderation of the second power which is ruled by reason equitie which we call Civile For so much there wanteth that God would that Princes shold use the said absolute power upon their subjects as he wold not so far constrain them as to sell their goods as is declared unto us in the example of Naboth For most unlikely is it that God 1. King 22. the great Dominator and Governor of al Princes would have Princes to abuse their powers with cruelties rapines injustices or any other unreasonable way of absolute power But as God by justice punisheth the wicked and by kindnesse and clemencie maintaineth the good and rightly and most holily useth his divine power so would he that Princes which are his lieutenants on earth should do the like not in perfection for that they cannot but in imitation To conclude then now our talke concerning the place of Comines certaine it is that a Prince may well make warre and impose tallies without the consent of his subjects by an absolute power but better it is for him to use his civile power so shuld he be better obeyed And as for Aydes and Subsidies whereof Comines speaketh some say they are not at this day levied by an absolute power but by the peoples consent Because in the time of Charles the seventh who had great and long warres against the English the Estates generall of the kingdome agreed unto him to levie Aydes and Subsidies every yeare without any more calling them together for that the warres endured so long and that their every yeares assembly would have come to great expences so that if the cause had alwaies continued then necessarily
boldnesse have made a mock of God but it was never seene that they felt not the punishment and vengeance of their audaciousnesse and impietie as hereafter we will shew by examples Yet wee have cause greatly to deplore the miserie and calamitie of the time wherein we are which is so infected with Atheists and contemners of God and of all Religion that Atheists esteemed serviceable men even they which have no religion are best esteemed and are called in the court-language people of service because being fraughted with all impietie and Atheisme and having well studied their Machiavell which they know upon their fingers they make no scruple nor conscience at any thing Commaund them to slay and massacre they slay and massacre commaund them to rob and spoile good Catholickes and Cleargie men they rob and spoile all They hold benefices with souldiers garments and short clokes yet exercise no Religion nor cares but for the gaine therof Commaund them to enterprise the betraying or impoysoning of this or that person they make no scruple at it yea they themselves excogitate and devise all wickednesse and impieties as the invention of so many new imposts upon the poore people which they destroy and cause to die with hunger without having any commiseration Atheists inventors of imposts or compassion upon them no more than upon brute beasts Not many yeares agoe did not they invent the impost of processes and contentions of law in Fraunce by the meanes of which impost a poore man cannot seeke by law to recover his owne unlesse before hand he pay the said impost and that he shewed his acquittance But by the meanes of that generous prince of Conde of happie memorie it was taken away by his complaints against these Atheists inventors of such novelties which both by nation and religion are Machiavelistes Have not they also invented new customes tributes and imposts upon paper upon Innes to bee paid by travellers upon the sales of exemptions for lodging souldiers of wardships of marriages of Consulships Syndikes and other such like which cannot bee devised but by impious people which have neither love to their neighbour nor to their countrey the impost of the small seale for sealing of contracts came it not from the same forge If it had not been for the Evangelikes which alone hitherto durst open their mouths to complain of these horse-leeches and blood-suckers had they not lately made lawes and coined edicts to command tributes and summes of mony for each child that should be baptised likewise to levie the twentieth part of every womans dowrie and marriage upon the first conclusion of every mariage yea although after they breake off againe Have they not established the vent and sale of offices of judgement and so brought that now into common use which was utterly abolished by the generall Estates at Orleans have not they devised the offices of Counsellors without wages within Bayliwikes and Stewardships and all for silver Have they not and yet every day doe they not cause the value of money to be augmented for their owne profit for after that by the meanes of their bankes fermes and other their dealings in the realme they have gathered great heapes of money they can at their pleasure enhaunce the value thereof both in their hands and out of their hands Yet none complaines thereof But in the end it will produce and bring forth some great disorder and confusion as hath sometimes been seen for like actions for the reasons well ynough knowne to wise people As for peace these people never like of for they fish alwayes in a troubled water gathering riches and heapes of the treasures of the Realme whilest it is in trouble and confusion They alwayes have in their mouths their goodly Maximes of their Machiavell to empeach and hinder a good peace A prince say they must cause himselfe to bee feared rather than loved this must be held as a resolved point But if a peace be accorded to these rebels such as they desire then would it seeme that the king were afraid of his subjects whereas he should make himselfe to be feared True it is that if such a peace could be made with them as it might againe procure another S. Bartholmewes journey nothing were so good pleasant as that For that is another resolved point and Maxime That a prince ought not to hold any faith or promise but so farre as concernes his profit and that hee ought to know how to counterfeit the foxe to catch and entrap other beasts and as soone as he hath them in his nets to play the lion in slaying devouring them We have set downe unto us that goodly example of Caesar Borgia who in our country could so well counterfeit the said two beasts Behold here the language and dealings of our Machiavelistes which at this day men call people of Service for that there is no wickednesse in the world so strange and detestable but they wil enterprise invent and put it in execution if they can From whence comes it that they be thus enclined to all wickednesse It is because they are Atheists contemners of God neither beleeving there is a God which Atheists encline to all wickednes because they feare not the punishment of God seeth what they doe nor that ought to punish them It is that goodly doctrine of Machiavell which amongst other things complaines so much that men cannot be altogether wicked as we shall touch in his place These good disciples seeing that their master found this imperfection amongst men that they could not shew themselves altogether and in all things wicked doe seeke by all meanes to attaine a degree of perfect wickednesse And indeed they have so well studied and profited in their masters schoole and can so well practise his Maximes that none can deny but they are come unto the highest degree of wickednesse What need men then to be abashed if they see in the world and especially in this poore kingdome of France such famine pestilence civile warres the father to band against his sonne brother against his brother they of the same Religion one against another with all hatred envie disloyaltie treasons perfidies conspirations empoysonments other great sinnes to raigne Is there any marvaile if the people goe to wracke the Cleargie be impoverished the Nobilitie almost extinct For it is the first judgement and vengeance of God which he exerciseth against us because some are filled with all impietie and Atheisme which they have learned of Machiavell and others which should resist such impieties least they should take root doe suffer them to encrease augment So that indeed all men are culpable of Atheisme impietie of the despight of God and Religion which at this day raigneth Therefore most righteously dooth God punish us all For Atheisme and impietie is so detestable and abhominable before Impietie punished of God God that it never remaineth unpunished The Emperour Caius Caligula was a
like would bring all to the treasurers of the common-wealth For every man saith Titus Livius thought he could not better place his silver nor better assure it than under the publicke Faith When Scipio the Affrican entred into Sicilie wiih his armie to passe into Africa because hee entred into it as a friend hee would suffer no man to take any thing from the Sicilians But saith Titus Livius thinking that the first thing hee should doe was to maintaine defend the publike Faith hee by a proclamation commanded every man in his campe to yeeld and to give to the Sicilians all their owne whatsoever Hee also deputed judges to heare and determine all complaints touching such causes This so pleased the Sicilians that from thence forward they shewed themselves very affectionate to aide the Romanes in their Affricke warre Whilst Anniball was in Italie Valerius Levinus being Consull there was a loane of money made of the Romane people Afterward it came to passe that Scipio having passed into Affrica with his armie the Carthaginians sent unto Anniball to come and defend Carthage and the countries of Affrica insomuch as he was constrained against his will to returne As soone as hee was voided Italie although the Romanes had not ended their warre neither were out of great affaires yet Levinus certified the Senate that during the time of his consulship there was a great somme of monie borrowed of the people that it was time to pay it and that hee in particular was bound in this case to acquite the publike Faith therefore hee desired that that borrowed money might bee restored The Senate liked well of his speach and it was decreed that the said monie should bee paied at three payments the first incontinent the other within two yeeres the last within two yeeres after that When it came to the third payment there was no money in the treasury to pay it because of the great affaires that the commonwealth had in their warres Vpon this necessitie the Senate resolved that whatsoever came of it they must acquite their publike Faith and therefore they gave to particular persons the lands possessions belonging to the commonwealth in payment for every mans debs retaining onely upon every acre three halfe pens rent to shew that that land had beene the common-wealthes with this covenant that such detbters should have their payment in money as soone as the common wealth had silver if they had rather have money than land This Romane vertue straightly to observe Faith was not onely resplendishant in the bodie of the commonwealth but also amongst particular persons which never Titus Livius lib. 10. Dec. 3 had regard to any thing in the world so much as in the keeping of their Faith When Scipio was in Affrica warring upon the Carthaginians hee accorded a truce with them if they would for that purpose send ambassadours to Rome which they did Whilst the said embassadors made their voiage to Rome Asdruball a Carthaginian captaine breaking the truce distressed and tooke 230 Romane ships upon the sea Whereof Scipio beeing advertised sent to Carthage embassadors to shew the Senate that breach of the peace so unfit for people that demanded peace But these Romane embassadors were so evill intertained at Carthage that the common people had like to have stoned them so that they were forced to go back againe Not long after the embassadors which the Carthaginians had sent to Rome returned and passed through the campe of Scipio What did Scipio he sent for them and shewed them how their people had violated the publike Faith by breaking the truce and offending the right of nations by the violent repulsing of his embassadors which hee sent Yet said he I will doe nothing against the custome of the Romanes in the holy observation of the publike Faith neither any thing uncomely to my selfe and after this speach hee sent them away not doing to them any harme Heereby men may know that at that time the scoffe and jest so much used of the Canonists was not in use Frangenti fidem fides frangatur eidem Faith must bee broken to him that breaketh Faith Caesar also had this propertie that hee would never imitate the treacherie and disloyaltie of his enemies nor breake his Faith unto them although they broke theirs And indeede as that wise captaine Quintus Cincinnatus said naturall reason sheweth us that wee must not sinne for others example nor breake a law because others have alreadie broken it nor commit that fault which we reprehend and condemne in others These ancient Romanes were so scrupulous and exact observersiof their Faith Titus Livius lib. 8. Dec. 2. that not onely they esteemed that a man did violate it when hee did any thing against it but also whensoever hee suffered any thing to bee done by others which seemed to bee to the detriment of that Faith As when Anniball besieged and ruined the towne of Saguntum in Spaine which was an allie of the Romanes because they could not give succours to the Saguntines before the taking of the towne they thinking that heerein their Faith was something engaged never ceased till they had rebuilded and repeopled it And therefore warred they in Spaine by the space of foureteene yeeres at unspeakeable charge and vanquished the Turditans which brought in Anniball against the Saguntines made them tributaries to the Saguntines drive the Carthaginians wholy out of Spaine and redeemed all the Saguntine slaves which Anniball had sold after the taking of the towne and recalled from all parts such as were escaped to repeople the towne So well affectionated were these old Romanes to leave nothing behinde whereby they might make knowne That a publike Faith was the thing of the world which they had in most singular recommendation Iugurtha king of Numidia in Affrica slew wickedly his two brethren the naturall Salust de bello Iugurth and legitimate children of good king Micipsa who left his kingdome as well to the said children as to the said Iugurtha his adoptive sonne borne of his brother The Romanes which greatlie loved that good king Micipsa were much greeved that this adoptive had dealt so wickedly with them unto whom the kingdome better belonged than to him yet hee had both spoiled and withall bereaved them of their lives Notwithstanding hee desiring to goe to Rome they gave him a safe conduct to goe and returne because hee made the Senate beleeve that hee would justifie himselfe When hee came at Rome hee sought for his justification to obtaine friends by great presents but hee could no way cause his fact to bee approved yet hee returned into his kingdome in all assurance for although hee merited well by reason and justice to have beene staied seeing the execrable act which hee had committed and that it appertained to the Romanes to doe justice thereof because they had the protection of the children of Micipsa yet notwithstanding saith Salust the publike Faith got the victorie
dead man makes no warre But if a man reply upon them that a dead man yet may because of warre although he can make no warre what would they answere Dare they denie so apparent a thing as we see with our eyes and whereof hystories furnish us with infinit examples Lewis duke of Orleance king Charles the sixt his brother after the duke Iohn of Bourgoigne had caused him to be slaine made no warre indeed but yet was the cause of a civile warre in Fraunce which endured more than sixtie yeares Pompeius after he was slaine made no more warre but his death was the cause of a great and long civile warre in the Romane empire The violating and Iudges 19 20. death of a Levites wife was it not the cause of a warre wherein there died more than sixtie thousand men They which were slaine at Vassi Anno 1562 drew not they on a civile warre which endured too long They also which were slaine in Anno 1572 in the moneth of August by the great townes of Fraunce but especially Paris were not they cause of great warres It is therefore a foule and an inconsiderate saying to alledge that a dead man makes no warre thereupon to found their massacres and slaughters without considering the consequences thereof Hereupon is very memorable the speech that Geta the yong prince made to the emperour Severus his Spar. in Geta father Severus having vanquished Albinus and Niger his competitors to the empire begun to make a great slaughter of the greatest lords and gentlemen of Rome which had taken part with Albinus or Niger because they were of a more noble house than Severus As then day by day he was committing his slaughter he one day said unto Bassianus Geta his children as men spoke of that fact I shall by this meanes ease you of all your enemies Hereupon Geta his sonne demanded of him My lord and father them which you meane to put to death are they a great number Yea answered Severus and told him the number All they replied he have they neither parents allies nor friends Yea they have many said Severus You then said Geta will leave us more enemies than you take from us This wise speech of this young prince touched so well the heart of Severus although he was cruell that hee would needs cease from his slaughter but that Plautianus and other courtiers which attended the enriching of themselves by confiscations incited him to continue Let murderers then hold themselves assured that for one they have slaine they stirre up tenne enemies And yet is not this all for all the rest of their life they have soules and consciences tormented with the remembrance of such as they have most wickedly murdered and the shadowes and remembrances of them shall alwayes bee before their eyes as a feare and terror unto them O how the shadow of that great Admirall shall strangely torment these great enterprisers of massacres it will never leave them at rest but shall bee a burning flame which shall agast and fearefully accompanie them even to their sepulchres Let them then hearken unto the menace and threatening he makes in his tombe against them Although the soule from bodie mine cold death hath ravished Virgil Aene. lib. 4. Yet absent I will follow thee yea with a flame full blacke My shaddow alwaies shall appeare about thee as one dead Which shall revenge on thee my blood thou who no ill doest lacke I thought good by the way to touch what warre the dead makes or what cause of war they are to refute that saying of the Machiavellians That a dead man makes no warre Let us now come where we left Of subtilties which wee say ought not to bee practised in the government of the affaires of State and that thereby none may cover any perfidie When Anniball had gotten the battaile of Cannas against the Romanes hee toke a great number of prisoners and because he more loved money for their ransome than to hold them hee sent a certaine number of them to Rome to practise and worke their redemption but hee made them sweare and promise that they would returne to him and so did let them goe upon their Faith But one advised himselfe of a subtile device when hee came at Rome to returne no more yet none should say hee broke his Faith For having passed a good piece of his way towards Rome hee suddenly returned backe againe to Anniball fayning hee had forgotten something after againe followed his companions and so they all came to Rome But their affaires comming to bee debated in the Senate none would yeeld to redeeme the prisoners insomuch as they all which came to Rome for that purpose returned very sad to Anniballs campe except hee which returned by the way who with these came not to the campe but remained in his house thinking hee was well discharged of his Faith and othe But when the Senate heard tell of the fallacious and deceitfull returne of the said souldier so unworthy and unseemely for a Romane they commanded him to bee drawne out of his house and by force to bee led unto Anniball Heereby you may see then that no wise people of good judgement such as were the ancient Romanes can approve such subtile palliations and covertures of an infraction and breach of Faith such as Machiavell persuadeth to a prince A like deceit was in the king of France Phillip the sixt of that name for having Froisart lib. 1. cap. 10. made an oth as almost all his ancestors kings of France had done never to run over or attempt to besiege or take any thing belonging to the empire yet desiring the castle of Tin the Bishops nigh to Cambray which troubled him much caused his sonne the duke of Normandie as the chiefe generall of the armie to besiege it and himselfe went thither also as a simple souldier without any command at all By which subtiltie the king Phillip could not save his oth for hee that doth any thing by a mediator is as much as if hee had done it himselfe neither did the deceit succeede well unto him for both the duke of Normandie was constrained to raise his siege from before the castle and not long after the king lost the battaile at Cressy The emperour Valentinian in his time was cruell in his actions and dealings Amm. Marel lib. 28. and had many officers like himselfe Amongst other such there was a criminall judge called Maximus who as hee examined certaine criminall persons promised them if they would confesse the truth they should suffer no punishment either of sword or fire These poore accused persons as often men doe confessed things they had never perpretated trusting upon his Faith and promise But this wicked judge caused them to bee beaten downe and slaine with leaden hammers thinking by this cavillation to save his oth God would that for a recompence hee should after be hanged and strangled under the emperour Gratianus
as blacke never takes white well his contrarie unlesse first white bee tainted with some other colour as blew or red So the chaunge saith Machiavell from good to wicked is never made unto any good purpose without some pretext and shew which gives to a man an appearance betwixt good and evill Here is a singular precept in the art of wickednesse To become wicked and yet the world shall not perceive it for if the world know it then it is an ignorance of the art which wills a knowledge well to dissemble and that a man should bee apt and fit to know handsomely to faine and deale with his visage and countenance to deceive men By joyning then together these two precepts To be a dissembler and to be wicked to doe evill it will follow that this Maxime is very proper for this art for it teacheth how to doe to become wicked and not discover himselfe to be so but alwayes to observe the pretext of dissimulation You see then and he that sees not is very blind of sence and understanding that this abhominable Florentine persevereth still to teach a prince the art of wickednes But for so much as before we have disputed against all the kinds thereof as likewise against hypocrisie and dissimulation I will speake no more hereof And as for the example of Appius Claudius one of the tenne potentates of Rome which Machiavell alledgeth serves nothing for his purpose For Appius exercising an office which endured but a yeare carried himselfe well for that first yeare which was the cause that he and his companions were continued in their estate another yeare but with great difficultie obtained they that continuation for it was as it were a breach of their law to continue an office to any person more than a yeare Appius seeing that it should be impossible to obtaine of the Romane people a continuation for a third yeare thought it good now to make himselfe feared by seeking to obtaine his estate by force and like ynough he had gotten againe his office had there not happened a warre against the Romanes which came nigh unto them and therefore Appius and his companions could doe no lesse if it were but to defend themselves than levie an armie but none would obey them because the time of their offices was expired and that they acknowledged them no more for lawfull magistrates so that for want of obedience they were constrained to forsake their offices to submit themselves to the peoples mercie who set in prison Appius Claudius and Spurius Oppius where they died and banished the other eight and confiscated their goods The cause then why Appius could not obtaine the tyrannie which hee had enterprised was not for that hee changed too suddainely from good to wicked but because the time of his office being expired he could not be obeyed and herein all the dissimulations and foxlike dealings of Machiavell could have done him no good for as soone as any mans office was expired at Rome hee that held it must come out were he good or wicked because such was the law Moreover this Maxime here is not onely wicked but also hard to practise For very difficult it is that a man should change from a good man to a wicked and not bee perceived though in his actions he use many palliations and dissimulations For amongst people there are alwayes some one which is not a beast but as the proverbe is can know flies in the milke and which straight can discover the dissimulations of those Machiavelizing Foxes and can crie The Fox that men may take heed of him 30. Maxime A Prince in the time of peace maintaining discords and partialities amongst his subiects may the more easily use them at his pleasure OVr auncestors of Florence saith Machiavell especially such Cap. 20. Of a prince as vvere esteemed the vvisest have alwaies held this Maxime That Pistoye must be held in obedience by the means of Partialities And for that cause they nourished in certaine townes belonging unto them discords the more easily to governe them The Venetians also mooved vvith the like opinion maintained in the townes of their government the factions of the Guelfes and Gibelines that their subiects minds being occupied vvith such studies might have no leisure to thinke upon rebellion yet a prince vvhich as they say hath any blood in his nailes vvill not nourish such Partialities in time of warre For so may they bring him much hurt But in time of peace he may by such meanes handle his subiects much more easily WHensoever the commonwealth is governed by a good prince who useth good counsell in the conduction of his affaires and gets the love of his subjects it is certaine that both in time of peace and warre he shall be obeyed alwayes For the most part of the people will obey him voluntarily and without constraint some for love others for feare of his justice which he shall have well established in his domination And therefore this Maxime cannot be but domageable and pernitious to a good prince which being Partialitie pernitious to a prince practised alienateth him from the love of his subjects for if he nourish Partialities amongst his subjects he cannot possibly carrie himselfe so egally towards both parties but in them both will be jealousie and suspition insomuch as each partie will esteeme the other to be more favoured of the prince than they whereupon hee will hate his prince and by that meanes it may come to passe that the prince shal be hated of both parties and so both the one and the other shall machinate his ruine which he can hardly shun having al their evill wills And suppose he had but the evill will of the one partie yet could he not be assured seeing men are naturally enclined to a desire to ruinate and destroy that which they hate and that not onely many but even one alone particular may well find and encounter meanes to bring to passe his purpose and to execute an enterprise as before we have demonstrated by many examples Therfore this Maxime cannot but be very pernicious and very perillous for a prince who wil use it But it may be a tyrant may make use of it to hinder a concord of the people which may proove ruinous and perillous unto him for when a people accordeth a tyrants nailes have no great power upon them neither can easily introduce or practise tyrannicall actions upon a people which is in good concord because he refuseth the yoke and denieth obedience unto wicked ordinances and new burthens and without obedience nothing by him is brought to effect Therfore Partialitie the foundation of tyrannie they which meane to introduce a tyrannie into a countrey doe first cast this foundation of Partialitie as the certainest meane to establish and build a tyrannie and although no tyrannie be ever firme or assured that we seldome or never see tyrants live long because all tyrannie comprehendeth violence
so doe and behave your selves as this altar may bee more holily and chastly reverenced than this chappell heere Behould heere a contention worthie of vertuous and sage ladies But at this day ladies contend who shall best dance paint and decke themselves and to doe such like thjngs as doe not leade them into the chappell of the Romane Patricians nor to the altar of Verginia her Chastitie but rather doe leade them cleane contrary 31. Maxime Seditions and civile dissentions are profitable and blamelesse I Say against the advice of many saith master Nicholas that dissentions and civile seditions are good and profitable and that they vvere rhe cause that Rome is mounted into the loftie degree of empire vvherein it hath beene I know well that some hold that it vvas rather her valiancie in armes and her good fortune vvhich so high hath lifted her up But they which hold this doe not consider that deedes of armes cannot bee conducted vvithout good order and good policie and that is it policie vvhich commonly leadeth to good fortune But certaine it is that seditions have beene cause of good order and of the good policie vvhich vvas established at Rome And in summe all the goodly acts and examples of the ancient Romanes have proceeded from this fountaine of seditions For good examples proceede from good nurture and education good nurture proceedes from good lawes and policies and the mother of good lawes are seditions and civile dissentions which inconsideratly most men condemne IT were to bee desired that Machiavell and his nation which esteeme Seditions and civile dissentions so profitable had reserved them for themselves with all the utilitie and profit that is in them and not have participated them with their neighbours As for France they might well have spared the Seditions and partialities which the Italian Machiavelists have sowne on this side the mounts which caused so much bloodshed so many houses destroyed and so many miseries and callamities as every man feeles sees and deplores Would to God then all civile dissentions had remained amongst the Florentines and other Italians who doe love finde them good so that the French men had beene without them then would not France bee so rent and torne in pieces as it is and it should not bee enfeeblished more than halfe in his forces the people should not bee so poore as wee see them nor so naked of his substance and all good meanes For civile dissentions have brought to the realme such a ransacke and discomfiture of goods and have so abandoned and overthrowne all free commerce and good husbandry which are the two meanes to store and fill a countrey with abundance of goods that at this day there are seene no good houses but they which were wont to bee are ruinated and altogether impoverished and made barren Seditions cause of ravishments of goods of cessation of commerce and agriculture And truely it is as in a forrest when a man sees all the goodly oakes hewen downe and that there remaineth no more there but thornes shrubs and bushes For even as such a forrest which either hath none or few trees in it meriteth rather the name of a bush than of a forrest so the kingdome or commonweale whose good ancient houses are impoverished deserveth rather to be named by the name of a desart than of a kingdome or commonweale Moreover the reason which Machiavell alledgeth whereby hee would proove Seditions to bee good is very grosse and foolish for follow with this Because Seditions are sometime not the cause but the occasion that there are made some good lawes and rules That they are therefore good This reason is like the argument of a certaine philosopher whom Aulus Gellius mocketh who would maintaine that the fever quartaine is a good thing because it makes men sober and temperate and to guard themselves from eating and drinking too much Such philosophers as delight to broach such absurd opinions deserve to bee left without answere with their Seditions and fever quartaines to draw out such profit from them as they say doe proceede out of them Doth not the common proverbe say That from evill manners doe proceede good lawes and doth it therefore follow that evill manners are goods that is doth it follow that white is blacke or blacke white The grossest headed fellowes know well that law makers never set downe lawes but onely to reforme vices and abuses which are in a people so that indeede no lawes would have beene made if the people walked uprightly and committed no abuses nor had any vices For lawes are not set downe but for transgressors and to hould intemperate persons within limits and bounds Heereof followeth it that abuses vices straying and lusts are occasions of good lawes and prudent princes and law makers are the efficient causes of them but it doth not therefore follow that vices abuses and straying lusts are good things Moreover it is not alwaies true that which Machiavell saith That Seditions are causes or occasions of having good lawes and rules The Seditions which were raised up at Rome by Tiberius Gracchus and Caius his brother Tribunes of the people which were so great and sanguinary were not cause of any good lawes They were the cause that they both were massacred as they merited but they were neither cause nor occasion of any good law or rule and how should they bee cause thereof seeing they tended to authorise and make passe wicked lawes and to despoile true masters and proprietors of their goods For Tiberius Gracchus pursued by his Seditious faction that a law called Agraria might bee received and authorised whereby it was not lawfull for a Romane citizen to possesse above ten acres land which was as much to say as to take away the more from them which had more And because Marcus Octavius his companion in the Tribunate opposed himselfe to hinder the passage of this law as both wicked and unjust Gracchus would needes have had him dispatched of his estate and sought to make a Triumvirate of himselfe of his brother and of his father in law to divide amongst the people rich men goods This was the cause that the great lords of the citie by the advice and counsell of Scipio Nasica who was accounted the best man thereof slew him in the Capitoll and caused his body to bee cast into Tiber His brother Caius Gracchus beeing Tribune of the people a certaine space after sought againe to bring up that law Agraria and would needs devise one out of his owne braine whereby it was ordained that in all judgements and conclusions of affaires there should be 600 knights and 300 Senators all having voices this did he to have the pluralitie of voices at his command knowing that the knights would alwaies easily encline to his pursutes and so could hee not faile to obtaine what hee would if at all deliberations there were twise as many knights as Senators But this was a wicked law tending to
That poverty hath many times been cause of great insurrections and civile warres We reade that at Rome Dion Halic lib. 5. 6. 7. there were many stirrs and seditions against usurers which eate up and impoverished the people and caused great faintnesse The like often happened in France for in the time of king Philip Augustus the conquerour in the time of S. Lewis in the time of king Iohn and many other times the Iewes and Italians which held bankes Annal. 3. and practised usuries in France whereby they ruinated the people were chased and bannished out of the kingdome The factions of Mailotins and of such as carried coules and hoods of divers coulours and other like popular inventions tending to seditions and civile warres were not founded upon any other foundation than that For poore people of base estate are alwaies the authors executioners of such factions and seditions In the time also that France was under the obedience of the Romane empire we reade that the Gaulois rose up often when they sought to impoverish Dion in Aug. them by undue exactions As in the time of Augustus there was in Gaul one Licinius a receiver of imposts who practised great and undue exactions upon the people unknowne to Augustus and because at that time part of Gaulois payed tributes each chiefe of every house a certaine summe by moneth this master deceiver made a weeke but sixe daies and a moneth but of twentie foure daies so that in the yeere were foureteene moneths and so two fell to his profit Augustus being advertised heereof was much grieved yet did no justice thereon Not long after Augustus sent for governour into Gaul Quintilius Varus who was a great lord and before had had the government of Siria where he had filled his hands Ariving in Gaul hee sought to doe there as hee had done in Siria and began to commit great exactions upon the people and to deale with them after the Sirian manner that is like slaves The Gaulois seeing this made a countenance voluntarily to accompanie Varus and his army against the high Almaines upon which hee made warre but after they had conducted him and his army into a straight whence hee could not save himselfe they set upon him defeated cut his army in pieces Varus the other great lords of his company slew themselves in dispaire And heereupon the Gaulois rebelled against the Romane emperours many times as under Nero under Galien under many others and at the last freed and cut off themselves altogether from the obedience of the empire Whereupon I conclude That to goe about to hould the people poore as Machiavell counselleth there can arise nothing but insurrections feditions and confusions in the commonwealth But the meanes that a prince ought to hould to inrich his subjects without weakening his owne power is first to take away all abuses which are committed upon Means how a pâ—ince may enrich his subjects on the people in the collection of ordinarie tributes For a prince most righteously may levie ancient accustomed tributes to sustaine publike charges otherwise his estate would dissolve And he ought not to follow the example of Nero who once would needes abolish all tributes and imposts and because the Senate shewed him that hee ought not to doe it hee imposed other new without number For a good wise prince will doe neither the one nor the other but without inventing any new tributes will maintaine himselfe in the exaction onely of the ancient which hee will cause to bee received the most graciouslie and without stirre of the people that can bee which to doe it seemes to bee requisite that such taxes imposts be duely laid without favour or respect of persons which in times of ould was a reformation that the king Tullius Hostilius made in his time at Rome whereupon hee was much praised and his poore people comforted Men must also imitate the ancient Romanes which excepted no person from patrimoniall tributes which are such reall burdens Titus Livin lib. 6. Dec. 3. lib. 3. Dec. 2 as are payed in regard of grounds whereunto they belong For there was neither Senator nor bishop but hee paied as well as they of the third estate There must also bee a provision made that the receivers and treasurers which are they which doe most hurt to the people may no more pill and spoile the world There must also an hand bee houlden that so excessive usuries be no more practised under the name of pensions and interests and that it bee permitted to deliver silver to a certaine moderate profit which upon great paines it may not bee lawfull to exceede for to forbid at once all profit is to give unto men occasions to seeke out palliations in contracts by sales of pensions by letting to hire fruits by selling to sell againe fained renumerations such like coulours There must be a provision made that strangers banquers nor others may no more make themselves bankrouts And here would bee brought in use a law made in the time of the emperour Tiberius whereby it was ordained that no man might hould a banque upon a great paine which had not two Sueton. in Tib. cap. 48. third parts of his goods in ground of inheritance moreover there must bee expressed the superfluities of apparell of banquets and other like whereby men doe so impoverish themselves this shall bee a cause that povertie or to have little shall bee the more tollerable For as Cato the elder said in an oration for the law Oppia against the great estates and luxuries of women It is a great evill and dangerous shame the shame of povertie parcimonie but when the law forbiddeth superfluities excesses of apparell and other vaine expences it covereth that shame with an honourable mantle of living after lawes seeing that it is a most praiseable thing and the contrary punishable and vituperable And assuredly saith hee it ordinarily commeth to passe that when wee are ashamed of that whereof wee should not wee will not be ashamed of that whereof wee ought to have shame Finally a prince must be a good justicer ever respective that the meaner poorer sort be not oppressed by the greatest neither by such men as are violent or evill livers All those things shall bee no charge to the prince to bring to passe yet by these meanes hee may greatly inrich his subjects which then will never spare any thing they have at their princes demand The people of the earledome of Foix are of their owne natures rude and stubborne enough yet wee reade That in the time of Gaston contie of Foix who was in the time of king Charles the sixt his subjects paied him so great tallies and imposts as hee held a kings estate though hee were but a counte Yea they payed him them very liberally without constraint and bore unto him great amitie and benevolence and whereupon came this but because hee
doing good to their said Covents By this meanes also they drew to them the practise of burials and confessions insomuch as every man and woman went to the Mendicants to be shriven which failed not but alwayes enjoyned them for pennance to give something to their Covents and to cause Masses to be said for them And whensoever it came to the extreame confession in the article of death they exhorted the diseased to elect their sepulture in their Covents and so to give them good legacies and benefites Breefely they wrought so well and diligently by practise upon practise that legacies and benefits even rained on all sides upon them to the great prejudice of Curates which lost almost all their auncient and accustomed oblations and which saw their offertories and suffrages to goe to nothing in their open sights to their great greefe This was the cause that about the yeare 1311 the Curates being countenanced Cap. 1. De Sepult in extravag by bishops complained much to Pope Boniface the eight saying that the Mendicants troubled them in their auncient possessorie of Sermons Confessions and Sepultures and that they thought it was most reasonable that they to whome appertained the charge of soules should also have the bodies of the dead to burie and that they should heare them in confession unto whom they administred the sacraments Moreover they shewed that the Mendicants invented many novelties as to preach within their Covents at the same houre that the Curates said their parochiall masses and that they also preached withour their Covents without either the Bishops license or the Curate of the place And by such practises and novelties the said Mendicants had taken away from the said Curates the most part of their obventions and revenues and so brought their estates almost to nothing therefore most humbly they besought his Paternitie to remedie those abuses and to maintain them in their auncient possessions Pope Boniface upon this complaint of the Curates for which all Bishops and Prelates entreated would give provision and by his ordinance which he made with the advice of his brothers Cardinals he exhorted much the Curates to take patiently that the Mendicants have right authority to preach confesse and burie shewing them that it was free to the people to goe heare a sermon to confesse themselves and to chuse their scpulture where they thought good Moreover to doe them right in this that the Mendicants frustrared the said Curates of their practickes and obventions hee ordained That from thence forward the said Curates least they carried the name of Curate in vaine and without profit constituted by Apostolicall authoritie that they should levie and retract a fourth part from all legacies foundations and other obventions which the said Mendicants could obtaine and might any way fall and come unto them by meanes of the said Sermons Confessions Sepultures or otherwise forbidding the said Mendicants for no cause to preach in their Covents at the houre that parish Masses or at the houre that Bishops or their Vicars doe preach And not to preach out of their Covents without the permission of the Bishop or the Curate of the place Exhorting moreover the said Curates and Mendicants respectively to live and carry themselves together from thence forward in good peace and concord and by no meanes to suffer that the spirit of division the enemie of human nature be so familiarly acquainted with them The Pope Boniface having made this ordinance and rule betwixt the Curates and Mendicants soone after they entred further than ever into contentions and debates For when Curates went into the Mendicants Covents to aske their fourth part of the practickes and obventions of the said Mendicants they would straight joine altogether and make such a shouting braying and hissing at the poore Curat calling him beast ideot asse and saying he could not well reade his Masse nor decline their name And further would aske them certaine pettie questions out of Grammer and bid them turne something into Latine to shame them And thinkest thou beast said they that we have taken paines to prepare meat to put in thy mouth Belongeth it unto the Asse to reape that which wee sowe Goe goe beast to thy Breviarie if thou canst reade it come not into our Covent to beg any thing unlesse thou wilt have our discipline goe and studie thy Dispauterie and Amo Quae Pars and come not hither to trouble and defile the pure fountaine of holy Theologie wherein thou understandest nothing some others cried come come unto our Refectorie and wee Cap. 1. De Privileg in etravag will lay the Trebelliane fourth part on their shoulders These poore Curates then seeing the said Mendicants approch them beating one hand against another letting downe their coules and lifting up their fists in a great feare retired out of their Covents And knowing no way possibly to obtaine their due which had been granted them by Pope Boniface they offered their greefes and sorrowfull complaints to Pope Benedict the eleventh in the yeare 1304 or thereabouts But the Mendicants were not cowards to remonstrate also their good right on their side and amongst other reasons especially shewed that as by good right none wil withdraw a Falcidie or fourth part from devout godly legates so none ought to take a fourth Trebelliane from their practickes and obventions seeing they were bestowed on them for godly causes also Pope Benedict after good deliberation upon this waightie matter with the advice of his Cardinals and of certaine other good old doctors of Law found that the Mendicants their reasons were well founded in right and that there was no apparent reason wherefore they should pay to the said Curates the fourth part of their practickes and obventions For although there was some colour in that that the Curates said That they ought to have the fourth part of obventions and revenues of Mendicants because they had the name and title of Curates even as an heire ought to have the fourth Trebelliane free because he hath the name and title of heire yet in this rule there is a fallacie said these old doctors in regard of Legates for godly and devout causes For Legates are exempt from delivering of fourth parts such like as those which Mendicants take of godly Christians And for confirmation of their opinion they alledged Godfredus in Summa Azo Hugolinus de Fontava Guilliermus de Cuneo Rainerius de Foro Livio Hubertus de Bobio Petrus de bella Pertica Oldradus de Ponte and many other old doctors of Law They alledged also certaine strong pillars out of Bartolus and Baldus upon which they said their opinion was founded And therefore Pope Benedict mooved with their allegations and with equitie rased and made of no validitie the ordinance of Pope Boniface in that case taking away and utterly abolishing the said fourth part yet something to content the Curates he ordained that they should have the halfe of the funerals of such as were buried
place untill these Offices were reduced to their auncient number as it was in the time of king Lewis the twelfth And by the same meanes it was also ordained That the said Offices should be no more sold but conferred and bestowed by the king at the nomination of men notable and of qualitie in every place to persons having good reputation of honestie and whose abilitie in knowledge shall bee examined extemporally at the opening of a booke before their reception But the Machiavelists have rased and quashed these two articles The Machiavelists have made deare Offices in France the last to have silver for the sale of Offices and the first to bring foyson and abundance of marchandize for the greater number there are of Offices so much the better is the trafficke and commerce because there are every day more times of respite whereof to make money And wee must not thinke that the abundance of Offices hath brought a low prise cheapnesse to their marchandize For contrary it hath made them dearer by a third or halfe within this tenne yeares insomuch as an Office of a Counsellor in a parliament which was not wont to cost past three or foure thousand Franks will now cost two or three thousand crownes of the Sunne And the Offices of Presidents and Procurers Generall which were not woont to be sold are within this little time sold as all other Offices at the tax and price of tenne twelve fourteene yea twentie thousand franks according as they are and according to the greatnesse of the parliaments For they are not all at one price But I pray you upon whom do our Machiavelists of France bestow these Offices upon beasts or ambitious men For learned men will not buy them if they be not drawne on by ambition but they had rather be reputed as Cato said being put by the Praetorship which he demanded worthie to be Presidents or Counsellors than to be so in effect by the price of silver As for them which are beasts and ignorant they have some reason to make provision for that marchandize to get whereof to live and pay their debts otherwise should they die for hunger or els bee despised and pointed at with the finger for that by reason of their ignorance they shall be employed in no affairs of Iustice and shall have no practise And truly these be they which within this little time have made this kind of marchandize so deare For because they are in great number thy run thither fast with great desire to have Which is the cause that the Machiavellists seeing so many marchants to arrive so exceeding eager to buy doe hold up without all reason the price of their marchandize and will by no meanes depart with it but to him that offereth most But I will not here stay to dispute against these buyers and sellers For I am of opinion that all their processes shall bee made at the first Estates that are holden By the resolution then of the Estates of Orleance it is seene That this Maxime of Machiavell was reprooved and condemned and that it is neither good nor profitable for the commonwealth that there should bee a great number of Officers of lustice but that it were better there were a meane number of them And this might easily be judged and knowne by naturall reason For the prince which shall establish a great number of Officers to administer Iustice either he must make a multiplicitie of degrees of Officers or he must establish many in one same degree If he make many degrees of Officers then Iustice shall be longer and more prolonged and pernitious because they which plead must passe through the hands of many Officers by many instances from one degree to another And therefore it is evident that the multiplicitie of Officers in degree cannot bee but domageable and pernitious If the prince make a multitude of Officers in one same degree as was done in Fraunce when Presidiall seats were instituted when new Counsellors of parliament were added to the old and when many lieutenants and other Officers were new created the great number will not cause Iustice to bee better nor more promptly ministred but contrarie shall bee the cause of great charge and procrastination For much time goes away whilest many Iudges are gathered together to one place to reason one after another and after as saith the Proverbe Affaires to many committed Are alwayes carelesly regarded Moreover suters alwayes desire with their owne mouthes to informe the Iudge of the principall points of their cause fearing something should bee left out either by negligence or too much hast And withall which is said in a common proverb That the lively voice toucheth better than the writing and better engraveth a thing in the spirits of men This desire of the parties to cause the Iudge well to understand their right is not reprehensible but just and reasonable and which ought not to be denied them yet in the meane time the multiplicitie and great number of Iudges maketh this point very difficult and uneasie For men have not so soone spoken to all and finding one he straight finds not another Moreover if the matter to judge be easie and without difficultie wherefore serves it to assemble a great sort of Iudges to decide the cause since one alone can as well dispatch it as many And withall that one alone can rid more matters in his studie in a day or two than an assembly can doe in a moneth For a man may labour his cause at all houres in the morning all the day at night by candle light on holy dayes and working dayes whereas the bodie of an assemblie will not travailene sit but certaine houres and on certaine daies If the matter to be judged be difficult hard it may seeme at the first that many can better judge of it than one alone because many eyes see clearer than one eye alone and withall there is not so great appearance of corruption in many as in one alone But for these difficulties there are other easier provisions than by multiplication of Officers For there needs but good consideration to establish in every subalterne seat one Officer alone which were a good man of good knowledge and well stipended For being a just man and well stipended he will not be easily corrupted lesse a great deale it may bee than a great number of such as are at this day and beeing learned and of good knowledge hee will easily resolve difficulties withall also in a case of difficultie he may take for an assessor some one of the most sufficient Advocates of his seat privatly heare in his studie the parties and their Counsell upon their hearing to resolve of the difficultie in deed and in right yea he himselfe with wise inspection into all things with the helpe of his bookes may dispatch and rid himselfe out of all difficulties being learned and of good judgement as he had need be Moreover
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
formalitie of processe Touching such as concerne the decision of matters it seemeth well that there hath beene sufficiently provided by the locall custome of every countrey and by the right or law written Well might it bee desired that the doctrines of the docters of the civile and cannon law were well chosen and the good set a part and authorised For though in judgements wee can hardlie lacke them yet are they so confused and wrapped with contrarie opinions that they which hope to finde in the doctors gloses and commentaries the solution of some doubtfull question doe often fall into inexplicable laborinthes and for treasure doe finde coales Which would not come to passe if the good doctrines which often come in use and which are founded upon reason and equitie were separated and distinguished from the troupe and mixture of those doctors writings And touching lawes which concerne the formalitie and conduction of processe and litigations it seemes to mee there hath beene sufficient provision in France by Royall ordinances But it seemes not to bee sufficient that a prince make good lawes well and rightly to conduct and leade to the end the processes and contentions of subjects but it wil bee very requisit and necessarie that hee make lawes to prohibit and hinder the birth of these processes and contentions for otherwise good Iustice and readie expedition of causes shall indirectly serve for an occasion to increase and multiplie because men will bee made prompt and voluntarie to move actions when they are assured to have speedie and good Iustice So that to shunne this and to make that the thing which of it selfe is good and holy bee neither cause nor occasion of evill it shall bee as I have said very requisit to have good lawes to hinder the birth and originall of contentions wherein it seemes to mee that the said Royall ordinances are defectuous and maimed So is there great neede of some Licurgus or Solon to make those said laws mens wits are so wilde and their spirits so mervaisously plentifull and fertill to bring forth contentions and differences and so easily to discent one from another yet notwithstanding I thinke not that it is impossible something though not altogether to represse this arising and secunditie of law causes but because it will bee too long now to discourse wee will reserve it for another time But it is nothing to have good lawes if there bee not withall good magistrates for their execution for the magistrate is the soule of the law who gives it force vigour action and motion and without whom the law is but a dead and an unprofitable thing A good magistrate then is a most excellent thing yea the most excellent in the world yea he is a very rare thing at the least in his time yet might there bee sufficient in a mediocritie if they were well chosen and sought for But now the first that payeth most is received without any care to chuse the fittest Dion writeth That the emperor Caius Caligula had an horse called Velocissimus which he so much loved that he made him often to dine and sup at his table and caused him to be served with barley in a great vessell of gold and with wine in great caldrons of gold also Not contented thus to honour his Velocissmus hee determined with himselfe to advance him unto estates and offices and to the goverment of the commonwealth Caligula would make his horse a consul of Rome and so resolved to make him Consull of Rome and had done it saith Dion if hee had not beene prevented by death The Machiavellistes of this time which reade this in Dion can well say that this was an act of a sencelesse and mad man to give such an estate to a beast Yet doe they finde it good at this day to give estates to as sencelesse beasts more dangerous than Velocissimus was for if the worst had falne if Velocissimus had beene created Consull of Rome hee could have done no other harme to the commonwealth nor to particulars unlesse it had beene a blow with his foote to such as had saluted him too nigh but hee would never have made any extortions pillings or other abuses which the beasts of our time commit which are placed in Offices And this is it which Horace saith That wee mocke him which is evill favouredly powled and him that weareth a rent shirt under a silke coate or Epist 1. lib. 1 that hath his gowne on the one side long and on the other short but he is not mocked who wasteth great goods riotouslie who overthroweth right and committeth infinit sinnes and abuses in his charge men will peradventure say hee doth evill but not that hee ought to bee punished How many Offices bee there in France more fit for Velocissimus than for them which hould them And that which is least perilous every man doth laughat but this which is most dangerous to a commonweale no man dare so much as say it ought to bee amended much lesse corrected For there is a simple beastlinesle and ignorance and a malitious beastlinesse and ignorance The simple ignorance is like to that of Velocissimus which can doe neither good nor evill but malitious beastlinesse and ignorance is a beastly ignorance of all good and right things but of a great capacitie to hould all vices and wickednesse such as our Machiavellistes If then a man must needes choose one of the two who sees not that it were more expedient to choose a simple beastlinesse Can any then denie but it were better to have for a magistrate Velocissimus than some of our Machiavellists or our Office-cheators which comes by retaile unto that which they bought in grosse But the prince who resolves with himselfe to establish good Magistrates without which hee can have no good justice though his lawes bee the best in the world he must consider and note many things both in particular persons and in bodies in generall for hee should take notice what an office it is for which hee should provide an officer and accordingly seeke a person whose vertue and sufficiencie may be Proportion geometricall to bee observed in providing of Officers Aristo lib. 1. Ethniks correspondent and equall unto the functions of that estate For a farre greater sufficiencie is required in a President than in a Counsellor and in a Councellor than in an inferiour Iudge and in a Iudge than in a Chatellaine or castle guarder Heere it is where ought to bee observed the Geometricall proportion whereof Aristotle speaketh by giving to the most fittest and sufficientest the greatest estate to them which are meanely fit meane offices and estates and the least to such as are least sufficient This it is which Fabius Maximus shewed to the Romane people when they would needs create Consulls two yong lords that is Titus Octacilius Fabius his nephew Aemilius Regillus when Anniball made warre in Italie Masters said hee if wee had peace
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 understood how they should administer as a captaine Niger lieutenant of the warre for the emperor Marcus Antonine complained to him But that incommoditie was much more supportable in that time than Spart in Nigro at this day it can bee in Fraunce for the Romane magistrates seldome decided private and particular causes but in Fraunce magistrates must deale in all causes After that the prince hath well established his justice as well by publication of A Prince ought himself to minister Iustice good lawes as by institution of good magistrates yet is he not discharged For he ought himselfe also to deale therin And this is another point of the Counsell which Iethro gave to Moses For after he had counselled him what magistrates hee should establish under him he added more That Moses ought to reserve unto himselfe the knowledge and decision of great affaires which are of consequence And assuredly this is a point very necessarie and which a prince ought not to leave behind for hee is debtor of Iustice to his subjects and ought to give them audience in things wherof he is to have necessarie knowledge for all things are not proper to bee handled before magistrates established by the prince but there are many things wherof the knowledge ought to appertaine to the prince alone as when a meane man wil complaine against some great lord or magistrat or against Publicans and exactors of the princes money or when a man labours for a pardon gift recompence and many other like The prince then ought himselfe either alone or in his Counsell to give often audience unto his subjects For we reade that by the primitive creation of kings Dionis Halic â—ib 1. 5. and monarchs the authoritie which was attributed unto them by the people consisted in three very notable points whereof the first was To minister good justice unto their subjects by causing them to observe the lawes and customes of the countrey and to take knowledge themselves of the injuries which are great and of consequence amongst their subjects The second point was To convocat an assembly of a Senat to handle the affaires of the commonwealth And the third To be the cheefetaine and soveraigne of the warre And for as much as the first dutie of kings consisteth to do good justice unto their subjects the auncient Grecians even Homer calleth them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Distributers of justice This is it wherefore almost all good princes have had their ordinary daies of Audience wherin they took knowledge of the complaints and grievances of their subjects and administred right and justice unto them Iulius Caesar tooke great paine and travaile to heare causes and to administer justice and to cause them to observe lawes which concerned Suet. in Caesar cap. 43. in Aug. cap. 3 in Claud. cap. 15. in Galba cap. 7. 8 9. Domitiano cap 8. the commonwealth as especially the law Sumptuariam which would permit no excesse in bankets nor dissolutnesse in apparell Augustus Caesar likewise kept an ordinarie Audience which he continued untill night yea being evill at ease he in a litter would be carried to the pallace or hold Audience in his house The emperour Claudius also although hee were of an heavie and dull spirit yet held hee his Audience and administred right to parties So did Domitian who how wicked soever he was in other deportments with great industrie and diligence administred good justice unto parties and often revoked decrees from the Centumvirat seat which for favor were given and spared not to punish corrupted Iudges The emperour Galba likewise although he was of the age of threescore and twelve yeares when he came to the empire yet dealt with audience of parties and administred justice So did Traian Adrian the Antonines Severus Alexander and many other Romane emperors give Audience to their subjects and administred justice unto them And very memorable is that which is written of the emperor Adrian namely That one day as hee went into the fields he was required by a poore woman who had watched to speake with him to doe her justice upon a certaine complaint she made unto him The emperour very Dion in Adrian kindly said unto her That that was no place where she should require justice and sent her away till another time The woman replied upon him Sir said she if you wil not doe me justice wherefore deale you to be emperour Adrian was never moved hereat but staied still heard her did her justice If we read the hystories of France wee shall find that it hath yet beene more ordinarie and common with our auncient kings to hold Audiences which men called Lict de Iustice The Bed of Iustice than with the Romane emperours Charlemaigne king of Fraunce and emperour besides Annal. upoÌ„ Anno 809 814 1215. that he tooke great care that Stewards Bayliffes and their deputies should walk upright without abusing their Offices would also that they should reserve unto him all great causes or such as were amongst great lords Then caused hee the parties to appeare before him he heard them patiently and agreed them amiably if he could by any means and so he gave his sentence and good and prompt justice King Lewis the first of that name surnamed le Debonaire because of his good and holy conditions following the traces of Charlemaigne his father held a publicke Audience in his pallace three times in the weeke and heard the grievances and complaints of every one executing to all quicke and right justice But what good came there hereof Even this saith the hystorie that the publicke good in this good kings time was so well governed and administred that there was almost no man found amongst his subjects which complained that any man did him wrong or injurie but al men lived in great peace and prosperitie one not daring to offend another for the feare they had of the kings good justice which he would administer himselfe and so cause his ministers to doe after his example So much could that royall vertue of Iustice doe for the maintenance of peace and prosperitie in a kingdome King Philip Augustus surnamed the Conquerour for his great prowesses and conquests was also a good Iusticer and willingly heard the complaints of his subjects insomuch as one day understanding that Guy Counte de Auverne used greatly to pill and violently to spoile his subjects and neighbours exacting upon them great summes of money against their wils and without the kings consent their soveraigne and having found him culpable hereof condemned him by the advice of the barons of the realme to lose his land and seignorie of Auverne which from that time was united to the crown We may also place here the good justice of the kings Charles le Sage Charles the seventh Charles the eight Lewis the twelfth and of many other kings of France Annal. upon Anno 1255 1269 Gaguin in the liâ—e of S.
Lewis The good justice of Lewis which gave oedinarie audience to the complaints of their subjects and to doe them justice But it shall suffice to close up all this matter with the example of that good king S. Lewis who amongst other vertues wherewith he was endowed he was a very good and upright administer of justice This good king having a great zeale to establish a good Iustice in his kingdome first hee would and ordained That the good and auncient lawes and customes of the kingdome should be well and straitly observed upon the paine he would take of his Bayliffes Seneshals and other magistrates if they caused them not to bee well observed And to the end the said magistrates might carry themselves well in their offices he chose other officers the best that hee could find of which he secretly enquired of their vertues and vices And to the end they might administer good and breefe justice to the poore as to the rich without exception of persons he forbad them to take presents unlesse some present of victuall which may not exceed tenne shillings by the weeke nor any other benefites for them or their children neither of them which were in contention nor of any other person of their bailiwike and territorie and commaunded they should take nothing within their perfecture or jurisdiction For this good king considered that presents benefits and desire to gain are the means wherby magistrates may be corrupted and therfore to shun all corruption he must cut off the meanes therunto Moreover he very rigorously punished such officers of Iustice as abused their estates spared not even great lords themselves but punished them after their merits as happened to the lord de Coucy who caused to strangle two yong Flamins when he found them hunting in his woods For the king caused to be called before him the said lord who fearing to be handled as he had delt with the Flamins wold have taken the hearing of the cause from the king saying he was to be sent for before the peeres of France But the king forced him to abide his judgments indeed had made him die if great lords parents friends of the said lord de Coucy had not importuned so much the king for his pardon unto which the king accorded that he shold have his life but yet he condemned him to the warre against the Turks and Infidels in the holy land by the space of three yeares which was a kind of banishment and besides condemned him in a fine paiment of 10000 Paris pounds which were bestowed on the building of an Hostle Dieu at Ponthoise This king gave not easily any pardon nor without great deliberation And for a devise he had often in his mouth that verse of the Psalme of David Happie are they which doe iudgement and Iustice at all times He said also That this was no mercie but crueltie not to punish malefactors Moreover he was a king full of truth chast charitable and fearing God which are vertues exceeding woorthy for a good prince and which commonly accompanie good justice But the godly precepts hee The tenne commandemēts which the king S. Lewis at his disease gave to his eldest sonne gave being in extremitie of his life to king Philip the Hardie his sonne and successor doe well merit to be written in letters of gold upon the lintels of doores and the houses of all kings and Christian princes to have them alwaies before their eies My deare sonne saith he since it pleaseth God our Father and Creator to withdraw me now from this miserable world to carrie mee to a better life than this I would not depart from thee my sonne without giving you for my last blessing the doctrines and precepts which a good father ought to give to his sonne hoping you wil engrave in your heart these your fathers last words I command you then my deare sonne That above all things you have alwaies before your eies the feare of God our good Father for the feare of God is the beginning yea the accomplishment of all true wisedome if you feare him he will blesse you Secondly I exhort you to take all adversities patiently acknowledging that it is God which visiteth you for your sins not to wax proud in prosperitie accounting that it comes to you by Gods grace not by your merits Thirdly I recommend unto you charitie towards the poor for the good you doe unto them shall be yeelded unto you an hundred fold and Iesus Christ our Saviour shall account it done unto him After I recommend to you very straitly my deare sonne that you cause to keep well the good laws customes of the kingdome and to administer good justice to your subjects for happy are they which administer good justice at all times and to doe this I enjoine you that you be carefull to have good magistrates and command you them that they favor not your Procurators against equitie and that you rigorously punish such as abuse their Offices for when they make faults they are more punishable than others because they ought to govern other subjects and to serve them for an example Suffer not that in judgement there be acception of persons and so favour the poore onely as the truth of his fact doth appeare without favoring him as to the judgement of his cause Moreover I command you that you bee carefull to have a good Counsell about you of persons which be of staied good age which be secret peaceable not covetous for if you doe this you shall bee loved and honoured because the light of the servants makes their masters shine Also more I forbid you to take tallages or tributes upon your subjects but for urgent necessitie evident utilitie and just cause for otherwise you shall not bee held for a king but for a tyrant Further I command you that you be carefull to maintaine your subjects in good peace and tranquilitie and observe their franchises and priveledges which before they have enjoyed and take heede you moove no warre against any Christian without exceeding great occasion and reason Item I exhort you to give the benefices of your kingdome to men of good life and good conscience not to luxurious and covetous wretches My deere sonne if you observe these my commands you shall bee a good example to your subjects and you shall bee the cause that they will adict themselves to doe well because the people will alwaies give themselves to the imitation of their prince and God by his bountie maintaine you firme and assured in your estate and kingdome Thus finished this good king his last words full of holy zeale and correspondent to his life passed and yeelded his soule to his creator which had given it him His sonne king Philip third of that name called the Hardie because of his valiancie which he shewed against the infidels and against other enemies as well during the life as after the death of
respected and doubt honoured for as the Poet Euripides saith At the good accounted â—â— of Noble blood to bee Euri. in Hecu. But double is his honour whom wee vertuous doe see Heere will I ende these present discourses exhorting and praying the French Nobilitie and all other persons which love the publike good of France to marke and earnestly consider the points which above wee have handled against Machiavell For so may they know how wicked impious and detestable the doctrine of that most filthie Atheist is who hath left out no kind of wickednesse to build a tyrannie accomplished of all abhominable vices They which know this I beleeve will couragiouslâ—e employ themselves to drive away and banish from France Machiavell and all his writings and all such as maintaine and follow his doctrine and practise it in France to the ruine and desolation of the kingdome and of the poore people I could much more have amplified this discourse if I would have examined all the doctrine of Machiavell For hee handleth many other very detestable and strange things as the meanes to make conspirations and how they must bee executed as well with sword as with poyson and many other like matters But I abhorre to speake of so villanous and wicked things which are but too much knowne amongst men and have contented my selfe to handle the principall points of his doctrine which merit to bee discovered and brought to light I pray God our Father and Creator in the name of our Lord Iesus Christ our onely Saviour and Mediator that he will preserve his Church and his elected from the contagious and wicked doctrine of such godlesse and prophane men as are too common in the world and that he will not suffer them which are of his flock to bee tossed and troubled by a sort of turbulent and ignorant spirits But that he will grant us grace alwaies to persevere in his holy doctrine in the right way which he hath shewed us by his word and well to discerne and know abusive lying and malitious spirits to detest and flie them and continually to follow his truth which will teach us his feare and his commandements and by his grace will bring us unto eternall life So bee it FINIS THE INDEX OR TABLE OF Machiavels Maximes confuted in those discourses divided into three parts The Maximes of the first part doe handle such Counsell as a Prince should take A Princes good Counsell ought to proceed from his owne wisedome otherwise he cannot be well counselled Max. 1. The Prince to shun and not to bee circumvented of Flatterers ought to forbid his friends and Counsellors that they speake not to him nor counsell him any thing but only in those things whereof hee freely begins to speake or asketh their advice Max. 2. A Prince ought not to trust in Strangers Max. 3. The Maximes of the second part handling the Religion which a Prince ought to observe and be of A Prince above all things ought to wish and desire to bee esteemed Devout although he be not so indeed Max. 1. A Prince ought to sustaine and confirme that which is false in Religion if so be it turne to the favour thereof 2. The Paynims Religion holds and lifts up their hearts and makes them hardie to enterprise great things but the Christian Religion persuading to Humilitie humbleth and too much weakeneth their minds and so makes them more readie to be injured and preyed upon 3. 4. The great Doctors of the Christian Religion by a great ostentation and stiffenesse have sought to abolish the remembrance of all good letters and antiquitie 4. When men left the Paynim Religion they became altogether corrupted so that they neither beleeved in God nor the Divell Max. 5. The Romane Church is cause of all the calamities of Italie Max. 6. Moses could never have caused his lawes and ordinances to bee observed if force and armes had wanted 7. Moses usurped Iudea as the Gothes usurped a part of the empire 8. The Religion of Numa was the cheefe cause of Romes felicitie 9. A man is happy so long as Fortune agreeth to his nature humor 10. The Maximes of the third Part entreating of such Policie as a Prince ought to have That Warre is just which is necessary and those Armes reasonable when men can have no hope by any other way but by Armes Max. 1. To cause a Prince to withdraw his mind altogether from peace agreement with his adversarie he must commit and use some notable and outragious injurie against him Max. 2. A Prince in a conquered countrey must establish and place Colonies or Garrisons but most especially in the strongest places and to chase away the naturall and old inhabitants thereof Max. 3. A Prince in a countrey newly conquered must subvert and destroy all such as suffer great losse in that conquest and altogether root out the blood and race of such as before governed there 4. To be revenged of a citie or countrey without striking any blow they must be filled with wicked manners 5. It is follie to thinke with Princes and great Lords that new pleasures will cause them to forget old offences 6. A Prince ought to propound unto himselfe to imitate Caesar Borgia the sonne of Pope Alexander the sixt 7. A Prince need not care to be accounted Cruell if so be that hee can make himselfe to be obeyed thereby 8. It is better for a Prince to be feared than loved 9. A prince ought not to trust in the amitie of men 10. A prince which would have any man to die must seeke out some apparent colour thereof and then hee shall not bee blamed if so be that he leave his inheritance and goods unto his children 11. A prince ought to follow the nature of the Lyon and of the Fox yet not of the one without the other 12. Cruelty which tendeth and is done to a good end is not to be reprehended Max. 13. A Prince ought to exercise Crueltie all at once and to doe pleasures by little and little Max. 14. A vertuous Tyrant to maintaine his tyrannie ought to maintain partialities and factions amongst his subjects and to slay and take away such as love the Commonweale Max. 15. A Prince may as well be hated for his vertue as for his vices 16. A prince ought alwaies to nourish some enemie against himself to this end that when he hath oppressed him he may be accounted the more mightie and terrible 17. A prince ought not to feare to be perjured to deceive and dissemble for the deceiver alwayes finds some that are fit to be deceived 18. A Prince ought to know how to wind and turne mens minds that he may deceive and circumvent them 19. A Prince which as it were constrained useth Clemencie and Lenitie advaunceth his owne destruction 20. A wise prince ought not to keepe his Faith when the observation therof is hurtful unto him that the occasions for which he gave it be takeÌ„ away 21. Faith Clemencie and Liberalitie are vertues very domageable to a prince but it is good that of them he only have some similitude likenes 22. A Prince ought to have a turning and winding wit with art and practise made fit to be cruell and unfaithfull that he may shew himselfe such an one when there is need 23. A prince desirous to breake a peace promised sworn with his neighbor ought to move warre against his friend with whom he hath peace 24. A prince ought to have his mind disposed to turne after every wind and variation of Fortune that he may know to make use of a vice when need is 25. Illiberalitie is commendable in a prince and the reputation of an handicrafts man is a dishonour without evill will 26. A prince which will make a strait profession of a good man cannot long continue in the world amongst such an heap of naughty wicked people 27. Men cannot be altogether good nor altogether wicked neither can they perfectly use crueltie and violence 28. He that hath alwayes caried the countenance of a good man and would become wicked to obtain his desire ought to colour his change with some apparent reason 29. A prince in the time of peace maintaining discords and partialities amongst his subjects may the more easily use them at his pleasure 30. Civile seditions and dissentions are profitable and not to be blamed 31. The meanes to keepe subjects in peace and union and to hould them from rebellion is to keepe them alwayes poore 32. A Prince which feareth his subjects ought to build fortresses in his countrey to hold them in obedience 33. A Prince ought to commit to another those affaires which are subject to hatred and envie and reserve to himselfe such as depend upon his grace and favour 34. To administer good Iustice a Prince ought to establish a great number of Judges 35. Gentlemen which hold Castles and Jurisdictions are very great enemies of commonweales 36. The Nobility of France would overthrow the Estates of that kingdome if their Parliaments did not punish them and hould them in feare 37. FINIS