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A36945 Arcana aulica, or, Walsingham's manual of prudential maxims for the states-man and the courtier; Traicté de la cour. Part 2. English Refuge, Eustache de, d. 1617.; Walsingham, Francis, Sir, 1530?-1590.; Walsingham, Edward, d. 1663. 1652 (1652) Wing D2683; ESTC R15739 68,004 176

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to it self The author of which the Prince will at last cast away to remove the envy of it from himself Riches are also obnoxious to envy not of the people onely but sometimes of the Prince himself who if he be truly avaricious will hardly be content till he have squeezed the full Sponge as we read that Vespasian was wont to do but will rather imitate the Country Clowns who when they have fatned their Hogs do kill and devour them Truly France hath seen many such who being proud and peevish and who making too much hast to be rich have thereby and by their insolence from a great height of fortune faln to nothing In the time of Philip le Belle Peter Berchius High Chamberlain and Treasurer of France was strangled at Paris Lewis Philips Son afterward coming to the Crown Enguerrandus Marigny met with the same misfortune Under Charls the Seventh Gyacensis in dignity equal to B●rchias was brought to the Bar and afterwards sowed in a Sack and drowned his Successor Camus Beaulieu was killed at Poytiers and the same end had come under Philip the First to Peter Essart if with an Hundred thousand Florens he had not redeemed his life I could recount more neerer us but that I am willing to spare their memory In the mean time these examples are sufficient to instruct That as the too great easiness of these Ministers brings too great a detriment upon the Princes profit so their insolent griping and frowardness draws hate and destruction upon themselves And that as we ought not to refuse a just occasion of inriching our selves so we must not show our selves too greedy after riches nor amass so much together as may expose us to the Publique Envy CHAP. 40. Concluding with many choice and necessary Admonitions THere remains onely now unhandled the last cause why Courtiers are beloved by their Princes to wit An aptness and singular ability to dispatch and manage their Affairs For which reason When we see that we are become acceptable to the Prince we must consider Whether he love this aptness for business because of the usefulness and necessity of it or else because the Prince desires to acquire from us that aptitude to himself If it be grateful because it is necessary his favor to us will endure as long as the necessity remains but his love will rather be a forced then voluntary love If we see the Prince aspire to the glory of this aptitude for business there is no doubt but when he sees that he cannot either equal or excel us we shall become an eye-sore and unacceptable to him for there is in Prince an innate desire as well as in all other men of excelling all persons in those arts they addict themselves unto and therefore no man almost is pleased to be excelled in them by his own servant As●●ius Pollio some exhorting him to make a reply to those Verses Augustus Caesar had made against him answered That he would not by contending to seem the better Scribe draw his envy upon him that had power to proscribe him There arising a dispute once between Favorinus the Philosopher and the Emperor Adrian about some word wherein the Philisopher at last seemed to yeild his Friends wondring at it he said I am not ashamed to be overcome in knowledge by him that commands Thirty Legions To this purpose that saying of Solomon is very notorious Do not seem wise before the King It is necessary therefore That whosoever desires to purchase a Princes favor must se● aside the desire of his own glory and not onely in verbal disputes but in every thing else yeild him the day And to that end it will not be amiss on purpose to commit some errors and over-sights so that they be not too gross nor like to take too much from our repute Out of our discourse hitherto it is evident how little certainty is in all the greatness and favor at Court Wherefore the best counsel that can be given to all Courtiers is To prepare themselves for their fall for although it is thought a more generous thing to fight then to flie when you are once entred these lists yet if you are to do it with greater hazard of danger then hope of success it is not indiscreet to sound a retreat betimes and in imitation of the Parthians to fight flying As it is also a more glorious thing to descend gently by steps and as it were to go out at the door then to be cast headlong out at the Window so it is less shameful under colour of some specious and contrived pretences to bid adieu to your Honors and Offices then to expect to be stript disgracefully of them And hereunto may fitly be applied the saying of an ancient Roman Why dost thou weary tired Fortune so Depart the Court before thou art forc'd to go Seneca says it is happiness to die in the midst of your felicity but I on the other side think That Courtier happy who in the midst of his prosperous race makes a retreat Perhaps he that shall do so shall not be applauded by all but by some that look upon the outsides of things be judged unworthy of the Fortune that he hath so abandoned Yet he that is wise not regarding such idle discourses will provide for his own safety and remember that in all games it is better to give over a winner then a looser as also that no prudent man will exchange or adventure certain things for things so very uncertain Though our ascent to these heights of Fortune and Dignities is as it were by steps in order yet our descents if not timely foreseen are for the most part headlong and suddain So that those that are flourishing in Favor and Authority if they chance once to slip or stumble their falls are lightly desperate and fatal Behold here the Compendium of all that I desired to say for our Courtiers instruction Whether these pre●epts be pertinent and select or no I will not determine but leave that to the judgement and experience of my Friends For my own part I confess I have at present no great use of them and am so far from being transported with sadness at my private and retired condition that I do heartily say with Seneca Let him that pleases stand upon The slippery Battlements of Court I am well content to live alone Obscure and free from all resort A sweet reti●ement I desire To all things that are Great unknown Where I to Vertue may aspire Therewith my latter days to Crown That so when Time hath stoln away My health and scarcely left me breath Without disturbance finde I may A quiet and a happy death And that may cheerfully imbrace As being terrible to none But those who known in every place Die onely to themselves unknown FINIS
into a great length to the end That Macro might have time enough to order his business and truly they were interwoven with a wonderful contrivance In the beginning there was no mention of business nor any thing concerning Sejanus a little after he was touched upon as they say with a gentle hand then some other things interlaced there followed a more open but that also a slight accusation against him At last after sundry excursions about the Affairs of the Commonwealth two of Sejanus his favorites were named and the Senate commanded to proceed against them and withal that Sejanus himself should be secured All mention of his death being purposely left out to the end That hope might be left to the accused of clearing himself of those crimes and those but light ones that were there objected against him The Letters being read many that had waited upon him into the Senate seeing things of another nature in hand then making Sejanus Tribune rose up and compassed him in lest he should escape which it is believed that he would at least have attempted to do if in the beginning the Emperors Letters had thundered any thing sharply against him But he then despising those slight touches sate still in his place and being called upon either two or three times by the Consul Memmius to rise up with much ado he obeyed at last as being accustomed to give and not receive commands When he was risen Laco followed him close at the heels and after him came Regulus accompanied with other Senators who led him from the Senate to the prison and thence soon after to execution at the Scalae Gemoniae where he was put to death Behold here the ruine of a great Courtier and a Favorite who for craft and power had scarce ever his equal The contrivance of whose fall though it may seem due to Tiberius his Prudence yet it is rather to be attributed to his own greatness and prosperity which ruined it self with its own weight so evidently That all those sleights and stratagems of Tiberius were not very needful as may be gathered out of the example of Perennius who aspiring to the same height that Sejanus did and by the same arts was subverted by Commodus a Prince of a judgement far inferior to Tiberius It may well be that many will not be moved with these examples because they will seem to be wiser then others and to know something more then these did whose misfortunes are here recounted I will not move them to passion with telling them what I think although truly I will not deny but in those latter ages there have been some whose projects succeeded less unhappily as Boylas whose story we read in the History of Constantinople who being caught in a conspiracy against Constantinus Monomachus then Emperor did not undergo so heavy a punishment as for such crimes are wont to be in●licted the reason being because he had the luck to transgress against a milde and gentle Prince It will not be amiss to recite the story briefly here to the end you may see how the secretest Counsels and undiscoverably by the eyes of man are oftentimes discovered by the divine Providence after an unlookt for maner not being able to escape punishment by whatsoever Caution they are managed No mortal man would have believed that this Boylas should have any inclination to or could have any ground for so great a villany The greatness of the favors which were heaped upon him had possessed the good Prince with a great hope and opinion of his singular fidelity who seemed also by nature unapt for great undertakings He was not onely of very mean birth but also stammered so much as he could hardly be understood which stuttering since he saw it pleasing to the Emperor he did afterwards affect on purpose With this assentation and flattery he so insinuated himself into the Princes familiarity That the Bed-chamber and Cabinet of Constantine were always opened unto him At last being inriched by the Prince he was chosen into the number of the Senators and begins to cast his thoughts higher wherein he went so far that he determined by the murther of the Prince to make his own way to the Scepter This design he first opened to those he knew surely hated the Emperor promising mountains to such as approved it and offered him their assistance and praising greatly those that disliked it and refused it out of their affection and loyalty towards the Prince as whose spie he would seem to propound such things to discover the inclinations of his subjects By which means he was undescryed by all but such whose fellowship in the Treason make him secure of them and had at last effected that abominable act if at the very time when he had the Weapon in his hand which he had prepared for the Emperors Throat one of the Conspirators touched with a sudden remorse of Conscience had not seasonably disclosed and discreetly prevented it The Emperor took the injury so patiently That having condemned some of the Conspirators to die he was satisfied in inflicting banishment onely on the Author of the Treason It were too long to recount all those here who having undertaken such Treasons were caught in them or else though innocent were falsly believed to be guilty of some such design and made shipwrack in Court But contenting our selves with what we have already said this onely is to be added That all Pride whether through Ambition Bragging Reproaches Detraction Ostentation or other pompous maner of living it displease the Prince is the high rode to ruine CHAP. 22. Boasting Presumption Arrogance too much Familiarity Pride and Perf●dy noted with examples THis Boasting and recounting of services past destroyed Philotas and Clytas in the Court of the Great Alexander and Craterus himself had like to have been overborn with those winds Certainly he had been much more acceptable to the Prince if he had contained himself within the bounds of a generous modesty so Cajus Silius with Tiberius Antonius Primus with Vespasian and Sillas with King Agrippa by boasting of their services deprived themselves of all the fruit of them As Tacitus witnesses of the two first Annal. 4. and Hist. 4. And Josephus of the last Princes do believe their Fortunes and Favors lost and cast away upon these Braggadoshaws for they will have their subjects seem to ow all they have to them and their bounty not to their own vertue and merits The liberty of reprehending the actions of Princes or inveighing against others in their presence is to be carefully avoided as bordering upon Arrogance and Presumption Eumenes complaining before Alexander somthing petulantly That Hephaestion should assign the Soldiers Quarters to Musicians Comedians and such kinde of people incurred the displeasure of the King To treat with the Prince over familiarly or to seem to make one self the sole Arbiter of his principal cares savors of Pride although it may proceed onely out of Vanity and
Covetousness as it appeareth in the example of Zotirus once the favorite of Heliogabalus and also of Turinus who scarce worse then Zotirus yet more unhappy was commanded to be stifled to death with smoke by Alexander the son of Mammea the Executioner crying out Let him perish with smoke who sold smoke He was wont to brag That the Prince was governed by his advices and so by intruding upon the Princes retirements and with impertinent senceless whispers in publique pretending to favor was sought unto by very many and gathered together great riches through the bribes and presents of those to whom all his interest in the Prince could not avail a straw The Arrogance of Plancianus is also worthy of memory which being accompanied with great vanity broke out at last into open perfidy His arrogance was such That he did not stick to contend with Bassianus the Emperors Son who was Author both of his Dignity and Fortune and he was withal so vain that as he passed through the City he would not onely interdict all access unto him but also would not suffer them to behold him his Ushers going before still to cleer the streets of all that they could see Becoming a Traytor at last against his Prince and convicted of his Treason he was Beheaded In France during the time of Philip le Bell Enguerrandus Marigny daring to contest personally with Charls de Valoy what misery he did pull upon himself and his friends may be observed in the French Histories Above all things we must take heed That we give not our selves in Court to sowing of strife between Princes and great men for they becoming friends do for the most part sacrifice such unto their friendship of which though the stories of all Nations are full yet the Bavarian History furnishes us with one example very memorable of Otho Crondoferus who flourishing with Rodulphus the Palatine in singular favor was the Author of great emnities between this Prince and his Mother for a time but the Mother afterwards reconciling her self unto her son Crondoferus had his Eyes and Tongue pull'd out CHAP. 23. How we must not onely take care to preserve the Princes Favor but also that of those in Power about him IT is not enough that the Princes themselves be not averse unto us but we must also keep our selves aright with those that are in favor with them Germanicus at his death gave that advice to Agrippina his Wife of which Tacitus Annal. 2. speaks thus Then turning to his Wife he intreated her by his memory and for their Children sake which were common to them both That she would pull down her stomach and submit her great heart to the rage of Fortune lest returning to the City she should with emulation of her greatness stir up against her persons more powerful then her self Agrippina's neglect of this document ruined her and her children I told you before how much Eumenes his favor was diminished with Alexander after that railing against Hephaestion he carried himself irreverently towards the Prince and discovered his spleen and envy to him that he accused Wherefore when we see any one in the Princes favor we must carefully weigh his Authority and compare it as it were in a ballance against our own that we may know certainly which weighs down the other And in the tryal of this we are not so much to observe outward appearances as the circumstances of inward causes Craterus and Hephaestion for a time did flourish both of them in great and equal favor with Alexander until Alexander himself determined the business in calling one of them The Kings friend and the other Alexanders friend Out of which decision Craterus might have made this judgement That since Princes for the most part are more in love with their own wills then their Authority they also are held more dear unto them who rather adore and worship Alexander that is their Person then their Fortune and Kingly Dignity And though that afterward upon a strife that arose between him and Hephaestion when all the Court was divided into factions Alexander seemed to incline to neither side but chiding them both heavily threatned punishment if ever they should harp upon that string again yet his maner of dealing with them shewed rather his singular Prudence to be imitated by all Princes then his equal affection to them both He apprehended that this discord might produce great tumults and mischief For he knew both Craterus his great interest in the Macedonians and how much Hephaestion was envied for his favor to him Therefore to diminish Hephaestions envy he reprehended him publikely and to avoid giving offence to the Macedonians he reproved Craterus in private Amongst those that in this tryal and examen of the Princes favor between themselves and others were out of negligence and discretion most grosly mistaken Antonius Primus ought to have the first place who daring to contend with Mutianus learnt at last That he had better have contested with Vespasian himself And in this maner you will finde it is a thing witnessed by the examples of all Courts To vindicate more sharply an injury against the Favorites then against the Prince himself Dio tells us the reason of it when he had recounted how the same thing happened to Sejanus thus As those whom vertue and consciousness of their own deserts hath lifted up to dignities do not much stick upon the vain Ceremonies and outward Circumstances of Honor So on the contrary side those who seek to ●limb by Ambition Pride and Vice thereby to hide their unworthiness and meanness do presently take ill and understand as a contempt the least neglect of Ceremony and respect towards them Insomuch that it is harder to preserve the friendship of these men then of the Prince himself for he thinks it a glorious and Princely act to forgive injuries When these lest they should seem to remit that which they cannot revenge even to ostentation do use their borrowed power in persecuting those that have offended them CHAP. 24. Pride even in the meanest persons at Court noted with examples as also Treachery in betraying the Princes secrets NEither truly hath it been destruction to great ones onely to have carried themselves insolently and amiss but also to men of the lower stage John King of Arragon loved Alvarez de Luna so much that he trusted him with all his Affairs and even his Kingly power it self notwithstanding the repining of all his Nobles But when he by reason of his prosperous Fortune fell into that pride and presumption That he caused a Nobleman who in the Kings name admonished him of his duty to be precipitated and murthered he was by the Kings command beheaded It is also an ordinary cause of shipwrack in Court when any one hath rendred either himself or the Prince hateful to the Peers or People For either the Prince is fain of his own accord to cast such a one off to rid himself of envy or