which is so odious to the world brought him to prison where they caused him to finish his daies I will then conclude this recitall That if all Christian princes would practise the Magistrall determination of our masters of Sorbonne and of the Vniversitie of Paris the same would fall unto S. Peter which fell unto Frier Iohn his bird Yet is it not onely by the change of lead into gold that his Holinesse dooth Froisart lib. 2. chap. 132 133. 135. 140. much evill to provinces farre from Rome but also by his interdicts and excommunications In the time of the aforesaid schisme of Popes hee of Rome who was called Vrban sent Buls unto king Richard of England who tooke his part and was an Vrbanist by which hee commaunded him to make warre upon the king of France who was a Clementine and gave him power to levie silver upon the Warre for the Pope of Rome English Cleargie Moreover hee gave so great quantitie of pardons to all them which with a good heart did furnish silver for that warre that it seemed hee meant cleane to have emptied both hell and purgatorie of Englishmen for every man or woman might draw out his father grandfather great grandfather uncles aunts children nephewes and others ascendants descendants and collaterals by paying so much for every poll He further promised their soules to be guided right into paradice which died in this warre or which died that yeare after they had paied the money for that said warre nor that there should be any necessitie for the said soules to stray out of their way by purgatorie and the Limbo but to goe right to paradice The said buls being thus preached and published through England there was every where a great prease that yeare to die and to give silver so that in a small time there was heaped up the summe of 2500000 franks One part of this silver was given to the bishop of London who was chosen generall to make warre upon the Clementines in Spaine and the other part was delivered to the bishop of Norwitch who was elected generall of another armie to make warre upon France which also was Clementine And indeed these two armies did much harme as well in Spaine as in France yet the bishop of Norwitch being a young man and inconsiderat entring upon Flaunders an Vrbanist the king of Fraunce meeting him therewith 100000 men constrained him to retire homeward with shame and great losse In the yeare 1513 happened great damage and hurt unto the kings of Fraunce Annales upon the said yeare Du Bellay lib. 1. of his Memories and of Navarre by the meanes of an interdict and excommunication which Pope Iulius the second of that name cast against all the princes which had sent their embassadors to the counsell of Pise whose lands and seignories he exposed and gave as a prey to all men that would take and invade them For under colour of those wicked and detestable buls the emperour Maximilian and the Switzers constrained king Lewis the twelfth to abandon and forsake Millaine and almost all that hee held in Italie And on the other side the king of England fell upon Fraunce which by the Pope was exposed as a prey with an armie of 3000 English assaying to conquer part thereof But God suffered it not for in the meane time this wicked Pope died and the interdict was revoked and peace made with the English On the other side also king Ferdinand of Arragon feigning he would come to prey upon France entred into the kingdome of Navarre and got and usurped it upon king Iohn d' Albert The Pope cause of the losse of the kingdome of Navarre from the right heirs who was disseased thereof without being defied yea before he knew the king of Arragon his purpose whose successours have alwayes since detained and usurped the said kingdome of Navarre upon the said king Iohn d' Albret and upon his lawfull successors as they doe yet by this title onely of usurpation prey and bootie yet notwithstanding the said unjust usurpers call themselves most Catholike I could here accumulate many other examples of many great domages losses committed by Popes in strange countries and even in Almaigne where they have commonly sowen warres betwixt the emperour and the princes of Almaigne but I will content my selfe with the abovesaid examples for I will not at length handle such an ample and almost infinit matter but it sufficeth mee to have shewed That the contrarie of that which Machiavell saith is true and that the Pope and his holy seat doe much good in the place where they are and many evils and mischeefes in farre countries And as for that which Machiavell saith That Italie is the province of Christendome where there is least Religion he saith very true but what would hee now say if he were alive hee should then find that if in his time they had so well profited in his schoole as to be very great Atheists and contemners of God and of all Religion that now his schollers know farre more than his master And there is no doubt but alreadie long agoe all Religion is contemned in Italie yea and even the Romane Catholicke Will you have a better example than that which M. Comines rehearseth He saith That in the time of king Lewis the twelfth there were two houses at Florence which were principall that is to say of Medicis and of Pacis which were in quarell and enmitie together They of the house de Pacis favoured the Pope and the king of Naples and by their counsell and advice did they enterprise to slay Lawrence de Medicis who was cheefe of his house and all his race and to surprise him the better unprovided and without heed taking they resolved to sley and massacre him with all his race and sequele upon a solemne feast day at the houre that the great Masse was sung and that when the priest begun to sing Sanctus Sanctus it should be the watch word to rush upon them And indeed they executed their enterprise except that they slew not Lawrence de Medicis who saved himselfe in the revestrie but Iulian his brother and certaine others of his race were slaine I demand of you if they which enterprised and gave counsell to attempt such an act beleeved in the Masse we need not doubt but they were very Atheists But if in that time some hundred yeares agoe Italie were so furnished with Atheists and contemners of Religion what thinke you it is now In conclusion Italie Rome the Pope and his seat are truly the spring and fountaine of all despight of Religion and the schoole of all impietie and as they alreadie were in Machiavels time as he confesseth so are they farre more in this time For although the papall Church of Rome both heretofore made and yet dooth certaine demonstrations to sustaine a Religion yet in effect it maintaineth it no otherwise but by subtilties and words for it commaundeth
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
in hearing interrogating and confronting them with him that is accused Therefore hee sent the cause and the parties to Iunius Rufus Governour of Macedonie commaunding him to examine diligently the witnesses and take good advisement whether they were good men worthy of credit and if Alexander the accuser could not prove well his accusation that he should banish him to some place This commandement of the emperour Adrian hath since been marked by the Lawyers which since made a law thereof Behold how men must proceed when it lies on mens lives and not to beleeve Marmosets and reporters neither beleeve papers without seeing or hearing witnesses and the accused without searching whether the witnesses be good men or no as is done at this day for at this day there is nothing wherof magistrats make a better market than of mens lives But let us passe on Froissart lib. 2. cap. 173. lib. 3. cap. 63 68. and other following and lib. 4. cap. 92. c. I would now rehearse an example truly tragicall of king Richard of England who was sonne of that valiant and victorious prince of Wales This king came to the crowne very yong and had three good uncles about him the duke of Lancaster Yorke and Glocester by whose counsell for a certaine time hee governed well his kingdome But the earle of Suffolke whom the king made duke of Ireland entred so farre into the kings favour that he governed himselfe after his fancie Then took he occasions to talke so of the kings uncles as was very strange for he told him that his uncles desired nothing but to deale in the affaires of the kingdome to obtaine it to themselves a thing which they never thought And did so much by his reports that the king put his uncles from his counsell and from dealing with any of the affaires of the kingdome whereof the people and especially the Londoners were so evill contented that they rose up and made warre against the king or rather against the duke of Ireland and they were at a point to give the battell one against the other But the duke of Ireland who was generall of the kings armie lost his courage with great feare that he had to be slain or taken and therfore fled passed into Flanders where he finished his dayes never after returning into England As soone as he was fled his armie was dissipated the kings uncles seized upon the kings person established a new Counsell by justice executed some of them which were of the duke of Ireland his adherents A longtime after another Marmoset called the earle Marshall gained the duke of Ireland his place and was so farre in the kings good grace that he governed all as he would One day this earle Marshall talking with the earle of Darbie eldest sonne of the duke of Lancaster the earle of Darbie chanced to say Cousin what will the king do will he altogether subject the English nobilitie there will soone be none it is plainely seene that he desireth not the augmentation of his kingdome But he held this talke because the king had put to death chased away a great number of gentlemen and caused the duke of Glocester to die a prince of his blood and yet continued in that rigour to make himselfe be feared and revenging still that which was done in the duke of Irelands time The earle Marshall answered nothing to the speeches of the earle of Darbie but only marked them in his heart Certain daies after he reported them to the king and to make them seeme of more credit he profered and said hee was readie to enter into the campe against the earle of Darbie to averre the said words as outragious injurious against his Majestie The king not measuring the consequence of the deed in place to make no account of these words sent for the earle of Darbie his cousin germane and after hearing before him the earle Marshall speak his wil was they should enter into the camp and fight it to utterance But the kings Counsell conceiving it might come to be anevill example such great lords to slay one another and that the earle Marshall was not of equall qualitie unto the earle of Darbie they counselled the king to take another course namely to banish from England for ever the earle Marshall because he had rashly appealed and challenged unto single combat a Prince of the bloud to banish also the Earle of Darbie for ten years only for speaking the aforesaid words of the king his lord The king following the advice of his Counsel by sentence given by himself banished the earle Marshall out of England forever the earle of Darbie for six years only moderating his Counsels advice foure years When the earle of Darbie came to depart there assembled in the streets before his gates at London more than fortie thousand which wept cried lamented his departure extreamly blamed the king and his Counsell insomuch that going away he left in the peoples hearts an extreame anguish and greefe for his absence and a very great amitie towards him yet notwithstanding he left England and came into France Whilest he was in France the duke of Lancaster his father died The king to heape up his evill lucks caused to be taken seized into his hands all his lands goods because they fell to the earle of Darbie Hereby hee got great hatred and evill will of the Nobilitie and of all the people Finally the Londoners which are a people easie to arise made a complot and part against the king and secretly sent word to the earle of Darbie that hee should come and they would make him king The earle arriving in England found an armie of the Londoners ready So went he to besiege the king Richard in his castle unprovided whom he tooke and imprisoned and caused him to resigne unto him the Realme and Crowne of England King Richard was put to death in prison after hee had raigned two and twentie yeares a thing very strange rigorous and unheard of in England or in any kingdomes nigh unto it And so the earle of Darbie who had beene banished from England remained a peaceable king and was called Harry the fourth of that name This earle Marshall who kept at Venise knowing these newes died ragingly This was the end of this Marmoset and the tragicall evill hap whereunto he brought his master and that upon words reported which were never spoken as any evill speech of the king but onely for the greefe hee had that they of his Counsell governed so evill the kingdomes affaires Which words should nor ought not to have been taken up nor reported to the king and being reported unto him he should have made no account of them to have alwaies presumed rather well than evill of his cousin Germane Herodes borne of a lowe and base race was created king of Iudea Galalie Samaria Joseph Antiq â—ib 14. cap 23.
king of France is our sovereign lord and the dutchie of Bretaigne holdeth also of the crowne of Fraunce Wee pray you to despoile and rid your selfe of that affection which you have to the Englishmen and shew your selfe a good Frenchman such as you ought to be for we come to declare unto you that if you doe it not wee will abandon and leave you to serve the king of Fraunce who is our sovereigne lord The duke hereat was much troubled and could not so much cover his courage but he sayd That the king of Fraunce did wrong the king of England to despoile him of Aquitaine Certaine time after distrusting his subjects he sent into England to have Englishmen for his service and to give them captainships and governments of towns and castles of Bretaigne The king of England sent him people but the gentlemen of Bretaigne thinking much that their duke distrusted them and would prefer Englishmen before them themselves seazed the fortresses and towns of the countrie before the arivall of the Englishmen Insomuch that the duke seeing himselfe brought into a great extremitie abandoned his countrey and saved himselfe in England This came unto him for loving strangers more than his owne subjects and for that he desired to give them the charges and estates of the countrey The king Charles the eight in the voyage of Naples which he made in his owne Comines lib. 1. cap. 20. person conquered the realme of Naples almost without stroke striking and was received of all the people and of the most part of the Nobilitie of that countrey as a Messias sent of God to deliver them from the cruell and barbarous tyrannie wherein they were before and had now long time beene under their kings Alphonsus and Ferrand of Arragon usurpers of that kingdome upon the house of Anjou whereunto Charles succeeded Every one may judge if it had not beene easie for the king if he had enjoyed a good Counsell to have kept that goodly kingdome in his perpetuall obedience For when a people hath been tyrannized by an usurper and that he comes to recover his naturall prince which deales with them like a good prince there is nothing to induce the people to denie him obeisance or to revolt Because on the one side they acknowledge that after God and reason they ought to obey him which is the true and lawfull prince unto whom alwayes there is more amitie borne than unto another and on the other side they see themselves discharged and unburdened of that heavie waight of tyrannie and of an usurper But what came there unto king Charles Thus having conquered that kingdome hee gave all the estates and offices of the country unto Frenchmen which he had with him in that voyage whereof the gentlemen of the countrey and especially such as had alwaies either secretly or openly held to the part of the house of Anjou were so discontented and spighted that they straight cast off all amitie good affection to the king and incontinent entred into practises and complots to make all the countrey to revolt which they straight did and so made void that voyage and for nothing the king lost both his people and his money who assuredly might have well kept the kingdome of Naples if he had given the offices thereof to them of the countrey and sought meanes to have maintained them in voluntarie obedience By the aforesaid example it appeares That the Frenchmen gained nothing by getting into their hands all the offices and estates of the kingdome of Naples yet gained they much lesse in the fact I come now to speake of seeking to take away the honour of the warre from the Spaniards in Spaine at the battaile of Iuberoth You Froiss lib. 3. cap. 12 31 14 15 16. must then understand that the king Iohn of Castile being an allie with the king of Fraunce demaunded succours of him and aid to make warre against king Denis of Portingale The king of Fraunce sent him gallant succours as well of footmen as horsemen Our Frenchmen arriving there were very well entertained of king Iohn of Castile our French desired the point of the battaile to shew both what they could doe in warre as also their good affection to doe him service The Castilians contradicted this beeing greeved and envious against the French that so vaunted preferred themselves before them Notwithstanding all that the Spaniards could doe the king graunted them their request where of they were very glad and the Castilians as sad What did the Castilians Vpon despight and envie they complotted together to suffer the French to pursue the enemie without following or seconding them but onely to make a shew that they would follow them to the end that all the glorie might remaine to the French if they vanquished or all to them if after the overthrowing of the French they were victors Vpon which resolution it is well to note how envie and hatred blindeth judgement For if they had not been very passionate they might well judge That forces devided might easily be vanquished one after another as it happened to their ruine and dishonour and to the ruine of the French but being joyned together they might much sooner have beene victorious Finally the battaile was given against the Portugals which were valiantly encountred by the French but beeing unseconded by the Castilians which held the arreregard they were found the more feeble insomuch that they were all slaine or taken And which was a thing very lamentable Of those there were a thousand gentlemen taken prisoners amongst which there were nineteene great lords all which also were thus slaine For as the Portugals a while after the defeating of the avantgard of the French perceived to arrive the arreregard of the Castilians they resolved to slay their prisoners and did so lest they either should make warre upon them behind or els escape So having slaine all their said prisoners they marched valiantly against the Castilians whom they likewise discomfited If we Frenchmen had not been so ambitious and covetous of glorie as to seeke glorie in a strangers countrey above them of that countrey they had not falne into this mischeefe Ochozias king of Iuda was son of Athalia a woman stranger daughter of a king 2. Kings cap. 10. 2. Chron. cap. 22. of Samaria This king governed himselfe by Samaritans which were much hated of the people of Iuda unto whom he gave the principall charges and offices of his kingdome at the persuasion of his mother a Samaritane also despising and casting behind the wisest and most vertuous of his kingdom by which he should haue beene governed after the example of his predecessors This was the cause of that kings destruction for as Iehu was in destroying the house of Achab brother of Athalia he slue also Ochozias and extermined almost all his race as a partner and friend which maintained Achab. If Ochozias had governed himselfe rather by people of his owne kingdome than
must have a wise quicke and sharpe wit and iudgement rightly and discreetly to ponder and weigh the circumstances and accidents of every affaire prudently to apply them to the rules and Maximes yea sometimes to force and bend them to serve to the present affaire But this science and habit of knowing well to weigh and examine the accidents and circumstances of affaires and then to be able handsomely to apply unto them their rules and principles is a science singular and excellent but rare and not given to many persons For of necessâ—â—â— he that will come to this science at the least in any perfection to be able to mannage and handle weightie affaires had need first to bee endowed with a good and perfect naturall iudgement and secondly he must be wise temperate and quiet without any passion or affection but all to publicke good and utilitie and thirdly hee must bee conversed and experimented in many and sundry affaires These he cannot have and obtaine unlesse hee himselfe have handled or seene them handled or els by great and attentive reading of choise hystories he have brought his iudgement to bee very stayed and well exeecised in such affaires We must not then thinke that all sorts of people are fit to deale with affaires of publicke The scope of the Author estate nor that every one which speaketh and writeth thereof can say that which belongeth thereunto But it may be some will enquâ—re if I dare presume so much of my selfe as to take upon me effectually to handle this matter Hereunto I answer that nothing lesse and that it is not properly my purpose wherunto I tend or for which cause I enterprise this Worke But my intent and purpose is onely to shew That Nicholas Machiavell not long agoe a Secretarie of the Florentine commonweale which is now a Dutchie understood nothing or little in this Politicke science whereof we speake and that he hath taken Maximes and rules altogether wicked and hath builded upon them not a Politicke but a Tyrannicall science Behold here then the end and scope which I have proposed unto my self that is to confute the doctrine of Machiavell not exactly to handle the Politick science although I hope to touch some good points thereof in some places when occasion shall offer it selfe Vnto my aforesaid purpose I hope to come by the helpe of God with so prosperous a good wind and full sailes as all they which reade my writings shall give their iudgement and acknowledge that Machiavell was altogether ignorant in that science that his scope and intent in his writings is nothing els but to frame a very true and perfect tyrannie Machiavell also never had parts requisit to know that science For as for expertence in managing of affaires he could have none since during his time hee saw nothing but the brabblings and contentions of certaine Potentates of Italie and certaine practises and policies of some cittizens of Florence Neither had hee any or very little knowledge in hystories as shal be more particularly shewed in many places of our discourse where God ayding we will marke the plaine and as it were palpable faults ignorances which he hath committed in those few hystories which it pleaseth him sometimes by the way to touch which also most commonly he alledgeth to evill purpose and many times falsely As for a firme and sound iudgement Machiavell also wanted as is plainely seene by his absurd and foolish reasons wherewith for the most part he confirmes his propositions and Maximes which he sets downe only he hath a certaine subtiltie such as it is to give colour unto his moct wicked and damnable doctrines But when a man comes something nigh to examine his subtilties then it truth it is discovered to be but a beastly vanitie and madnesse yea full of extreame wickednesse I doubt not but many Courtiers which deale in matters of Estate others of their humor will find it very strange that I should speake in this sort of their great Doctor Machiavell whose bookes rightly may bee called The French Courtiers Alcoran they have them in so great estimation imitating and observing his principles and Maximes no more nor lesse than the Turkes doe the Alcoran of their great Prophet Mahomet But yet I beseech them not to be offended that I speake in this manner of a man whom I will plainely shew to be full of all wickednesse impietie and ignorance and to suspend their iudgement whether I say true or no untill they have wholly read these my discourses For as soone as they have read thâ—â— I doe assure my selfe that every man of perfect iudgement will say and determine thâ—t I speake but too modestly of the vices and brutishnesse found in this their great Doctor But to open and make easie the intelligence of that should here be handled wee must Of Machiavell and his writings first search out what that Machiavell was and his writings Machiavell then was in his time the Secretarie or common Notarie of the Common-weale of Florence during the kingdome of Charles the eight and Lewis the twelfth kings of France Alexander the sixt and Iulius the eleventh Popes of Rome and of Henry the seventh and Henry the eight kings of England in which time hee writ his bookes in the Italian language and published them about the first beginning of Francis the first king of Fraunce as may be gathered by his owne writings Of his life and death I can say nothing neither did I or vouchsafed I once to enquire thereof because his memorie deserved better to be buried in perpetuall oblivion than to be renewed amongst men Yet I may well say that if his life were like his doctrine as is to be presumed there was never man in the world more contaminated and defiled with vices and wickednesse than hee was By the Praefaci he made unto his booke entituled De Principe Of the Prince it seemeth he was banished and chased from Florence For he there complaineth unto his Magnificall Lawrence de Medicis unto whom he dedicated his Worke of that hee endured iniuriously and uniustly as he said And in certaine other places he reciteth That one while he remained in France another time at Rome and another while not sent embassadour for he would never have forgotten to have said that but as it is to be presumed as a fugitive and banished man But howsoever it be he dedicates the said booke unto the said Lawrence de Medicis to teach him the reasons and meanes to invade and obtaine a principalitie which booke for the most part containeth nothing but tyrannicall precepts as shall appeare in the prosecution and progresse of this Worke. But I know not if they de Medicis have made their profit and taken use of Machiavels precepts contained in his said booke yet this appeares plainely that they since that time occupied the principalitie of Florence and changed that Aristocraticall free estate of that cittie into a Dutchie
Knights and thirtie thousand other people of warre the other victorie was at the journey of Poitiers which also the said K. Edward gained by the conduction of the Prince of Wales his sonne and lieutenant Generall against Iohn King of Fraunce who was there taken prisoner with a son of his called Philip after Duke of Bourgogne and many other Princes and great Lords all which were conducted into England there was made there a great discomfiture of people By these two battailes lost in Fraunce the one after the other in a small time the kingdome was so debilitated of his forces and goods as it could not stand yet for a further heape of mischeefes at Paris and in many other places of the realme at the same time arose there many broiles and civile dissentions But that good King Charles le Sage was so wise and prudent in the conduction and government of the affaires of the realme as well in the time that he was Dolphin and Regent of France his Father being prisoner as after when he was king that by little and little hee laid to sleepe all civile stirres and discords after hee did so much that he recovered upon the Englishmen almost all which they occupied and although he was not so brave a warriour as his father king Iohn nor as his grandfather King Philip yet was he wiser and better advised in his deliberations not hazarding his affaires as they did fearing to be reputed cowards nor did any thing rashly without due consideration Hee tooke not arms in hand but he knew well how and when to employ them to his good Insomuch that K. Edward of England seeing the wisdome of that king made his Armes rebound and become dull and his victories and conquests to be lost and annihilated Truly said he I neuer knew king that lesse useth Armes yet troubleth me so much he is all the day enditing letters and hurteth me more with his missives than ever did his Father or Grandfather with their great forces and Armes Behold the witnesse which king Edward gave of the wisdome of his enemie king Charles which was yet of so great efficacie that he brought his kingdome into a good peace by the meanes wherof his people became rich and wealthie where before they were as poore and miserable And not only the people became rich but the king also himselfe heaped up great treasures which hee left to his sonne after him insomuch that he was not onely surnamed the Wife but the Rich also I could to this purpose adde here many other examples but in a thing so cleare the example of these two kings Salomon and Charles shall suffice which two for their great wisdome have acquired the name of Wife they both were rich in great treasures both of them maintained their subjects in peace both left their kingdomes opulent and abundant and placed the estates of their Commonwealths in great felicitie It is a thing then plaine confessed That it is an exceeding great good to a people Prudence is more requisit in a Princes Counsell than in himselfe when they have a Prince that is wise of himselfe but thereupon to inferre and say as Machiavell doth That the government of Prince ought to depend vpon his owne proper wisdome and that he cannot be well counselled but by himselfe is evill concluded and such a conclusion is false and of pernitious consequence For a Prince how prudent soever he be ought not so much to esteeme of his owne wisedome as to despise the counsell of other wise men Salomon despised them not and Charles the wise alwaies conferred of his affaires with the wise men of his Counsell And so farre is it off that the Prince ought to despise anothers Counsell that even he ought to conform his opinion to that of the men of his Counsell which are wise and ought not stubbornely to resist their advise but to follow it and hold his owne for suspected And therefore that wise and cunning Emperour Marcus Antonius the Philosopher being in his privie Counsell house where was that great Lawyer Scaevola Maetianus Volusianus many other great persons excellent in knowledge and honestie after having well debated with them the matters they handled when sometimes he tooke in hand to sustaine opinions contrarie to theirs Well said he masters The thing then must be done according to your advise For it is much more reasonable that I alone follow the opinion of so good a number of my good and faithfull friends as you are than that so many wise men should follow the opinion of me alone Vnto this opinion of the Emperor Antonius agreeth also the common Proverbe That many eyes see clearer than one eye alone Experience also teacheth vs That things determined and resolved by many braines are alwayes wiser safer better ordered than the resolutions of one alone And we see also that the ancient Dionis Halic lib. 2. Romanes and all Commonweales well governed as well in times past as at this day have alwayes followed and observed that which by pluralitie of wise mens voices was concluded determined And truly so much the wiser a Prince is so much the more will he suspect his owne opinion For the same wisedome which is in him wil persuade him not to beleeve himselfe too much and to have his own judgement for suspected in his owne case as all publicke affaires may be said to be proper to the Prince and to permit him to be governed by his Counsell And contrarie because there are no people more presumptuous nor that thinke to know more than they which know little nor that thinkes to be more wise than they that have no wisdome if you learne a Prince that thinketh himselfe wise this principle of Machiavell That he ought to governe himselfe by his owne wisdome and Counsell and that he cannot be better counselled than by himselfe you shall streight find inconveniences For then shal you see that he will beleeve neither counsell nor advise but that comes out of his owne head and he will say to them that will give him any That he vnderstands well his owne matters and that he knoweth what he hath to doe and so will bring his estate and affaires into confusion and overthrow all upside downe And from whence comes this evill government and disorder Even from that goodly doctrine of Machiavell which willeth That a Prince should govern himselfe by his own wisedome and that maintaineth That a prince cannot be well counselled but by his owne wisedome The consequence then of this Maxime is not small seeing the publicke state of a countrey may stagger and be overthrowne thereby Better then it is that contrarie the Prince hold this resolution To govern himselfe by good counsell and beleeve it and have in suspition his owne wisedome For if the Prince bee wise and his opinion found to be founded upon Reason they of his Counsell will easily fall to his advise seeing also that
called with these gracious names Subsidies Subventitions Aydes Grants not with these tearmes Tailles Imposts Tributes Impositions which were tearmes more hard and odious Examples appeare of the first cause when the generall Estates assembled at Paris after the death of king Charles le Sage to provide for the government as well of king Charles the sixt being under Annal. upon An 1380 and Fross li 2. cap. 58. 60. age as of the kingdome which government they gave unto three of the kings uncles namely to the Duke of Berry Languedoc to the Duke of Bourgoigne Picardie and Normandie and to the Duke de Aniou the remainder of all the realme and the rule of the young kings person was committed to the said Dukes of Berry and Bourgoigne So was there ordained during the said kings life another ordinance In like manner the generall Estates were held at Tours after the decease of king Lewis the eleventh to purvey for the government of king Charles the eighth under Annal. upon An. 148. and Coâ—â—n â—ib 1. ca. 109. age and of the kingdome And by the same Estates was established a Counsell of twelve persons good men and of good calling to dispatch the affaires of the kingdome yet in the kings name and under his authoritie And the rule of the young kings person was committed unto Madame de Beavien his sister When king Charles the sixt le bien aime was come to the age of one and twentie yeares his uncles were discharged from the government of the kingdome by the Froiss lib 1. cap. 134. lib. 4. cap. 44. advise and deliberation of the kings great Counsell But this good prince by an accident of sicknesse fell a certaine time after into a frenzie which sometimes bereaved him of his sences insomuch that the Estates assembled at Paris gave the government of the kingdome during the kings indisposition to his two uncles the dukes of Berrie and Burgoigne The yeare 1356. that king Iohn was taken prisoner nie Poictres at the journey of Annal. upon An. 1356 and Fross li. 1. cap. 170. 171. Maupertins with his sonne Philip after Duke of Burgoigne and that they were led into England there remained in France three of the said king Iohns children namely Charles Dauphin and duke of Normandie Lewis duke de Aniou and Iohn duke of Berrie There was a question about the providing for the government of the kingdome because of the kings captiuitie but none of them would enterprise the mannaging thereof of himselfe insomuch that the generall Estates were assembled at Paris whereby were elected thirtie six persons some say fiftie to governe the affaires of the kingdome with Monsieur le Dauphin who at the beginning called himselfe the Lieutenant of the king his father but afterward he named himselfe Regent The yeare 1409. during the raigne of Charles the sixt king of France were held Monstrelet lib. 1. ca. 59. the generall Estates at Paris for the reformation of abuses in the kingdome And there it was ordained that all accountants for the kings revenues and rents should make their accounts By the meanes of which reformation great summes of money were recovered upon the same accountants and there were also made some good lawes and ordinances In other conventions of Estates the money and coine hath been reformed from weake and light unto thicke and of good waight and goodnesse Also of late at the generall Estates held at Orleans were made manie goodly ordinances for the good and comfort of the poore people reformation of justice and for the cutting off of manie abuses which were committed in plaies at Cardes and Dise in superfluitie of apparell and in matter of benefices But commonly commeth such euill hap that all good things which are introducted and ordained vpon good reason and to a good end incontinent vanish away and wicked examples are alwaies drawne into consequence As for the last cause for which we haue said the generall Estates in old time were called namely for the graunt of Helps Subsidies ther are manie examples in our Histories As in the time of king Iohn wherein the Estates accorded great subventions Froiss lib. 1. cap. 155. Annal. upon An 1354 58. 59. or subsidies to make warre against the English men which then held a great part of the kingdome And after he was taken prisoner and led into England the said Estates agreed to give vnto Monsieur le Dauphin his soune great summes of money to pay for the said kings raunsome and for Philip his sonne being also a prisoner And well to be marked it is that our histories doe witnesse that all the people of France generally were meruailously anguished grieved with the prisonment captivitie which they saw their king suffer but especially the people of the countrey of Languedoc For the Estates of the said countrey ordained that if the king were not delivered within a yeare that every one both men and women should lay by all coloured garments such also as were jagged and cut and such as were enriched with gold silver or other strange and costly fashion Likewise to make cease all stage-plaies morrisdauncings piping yea and plaies pastimes and daunces in signe and token of their mourning and lamentation for their princes captivitie A thing whereby appeared the great and cordiall affection of this people towards their king As truely the Frenchmen have alwaies been of great love and affection towards their kings unlesse they were altogither tyrants But to make an end of this point Certaine it is that before king Charles the seventh called le Victorieux no Subsidies were imposed without assembling the generall Estates And that our kings used thus to do was not because they had power by an absolute authoritie to impose tallages and subsidies without calling the Estates but it is to the end they may be better obeyed with a voluntarie and unconstrained obedience and to shunne all uprores and rebellions which often happen upon that occasion And truly the French people have alwaies been so good and obedient unto their kings that they never refused him any thing if there were but any appearance of reason to demand it Yea often the Estates have granted their king more than he would demand or durst looke for as is seene by that which our histories write of the Estates held for Subsidies But because Aydes and Subsidies were customably granted for the making of De Com. lib. 5. cap. 18. warres M. Philip de Comin saith That kings should also communicat and consult with their Estates whether the causes of such warres be just and reasonable and that the Prince cannot nor ought not otherwise to enterprise a warre For it is reason that they which defray the charges and expenses should know something But yet he passeth further and saith There is no Prince in the world which hath power to lay one pennie upon his subjects without their grant and consent unlesse he will use tyrannie and
realm as the princes of the blood and the kings Counsell is to say nothing because it may so come to passe that the princes themselves be under age or prisoners or captives or witlesse or suspected or dead or otherwise uncapable as also it may come to passe that the kings Counsell shall be dead or quashed or suspected or otherwise unable so that the estate of the kingdome and the Roialtie shall be evill founded and assured upon such foundations and leaning stocks But the body of the estates Generall is a body not subject to minoritie captivitie perclusion of understanding suspition nor other incapacitie neither is it mortall therefore is it a more certaine and firme foundation of the kingdomes and Roialties estate than any other For the body of the Ewates which is a body composed of the wisest fittest of the kingdome can never faile because it consisteth not in Individuis and certain perticular persons but it standeth in Specie being a body immortal as al the French nation is immortall The Princes the kings Counsellors are but fraile brittle leaning stocks and means subject to incapacitie so is not the body of the Estates and therefore the Estates being the true and perpetuall foundation to sustaine and conserve the kingdome cannot be abolished but ought to be convocated whensoever there is to be a provision in the cases above mentioned Withall also Reason willeth that the Estates whom the affairs of the realme toucheth most should have a part in the conduction of publike things but most especially in the cases aforesaid where the king cannot order them Therefore is it a strange damnable and pernitious position which our strangers that governe France at this day dare impudently hold That it is treason to speake of holding the Estates But contrary a man may rather say That it is treason to abolish the Estates and that they which wil hinder that they shall not be held in the cases aforesaid but especially for the reformation more than necessarie of so many abuses as these strangers haue brought into Fraunce are themselves culpable of treason being such as doe overthrow and ruinat the Realm the Roialtie and the King in taking away the principall piller which sustained them And truly such people do merit that processes and indictions should be laid upon them as upon the enemies of the Commonwealth which doe subvert overthrow the foundations upon which our Auncestors have with great wisdome founded and established the estate of this goodly and excellent kingdome The like may we say of the Law whereby the lands and provinces united to the Crowne of Fraunce are inalienable For a king of France cannot abolish that Law because it is the third piller upon which the realme and his estate is founded For proofe hereof I will alleage but two examples the one was practised in the time of Charls le sage king of Fraunce and the other in the time of king Francis the first of happie and late memorie By which two examples may appeare not onely that this law of Not alienating the lands of the Crowne is a pillar of the kingdome but also that the Estates are as the very and true basse and foundation thereof King Iohn having been taken prisoner at the battaile of Poiters was conducted Froiss lib. 1. ca. 201 211 212 214 246 247 310. into England where he made treatie of peace with king Edward of England But the estates of the kingdome which were assembled would not agree unto that treatie as too prejudiciall and to the diminution of the Crowne of France King Edward was so angry and despited thereat that he made a great oth that he would end the ruinating of Fraunce And indeed whilest king Iohn was his prisoner he passed over the sea and made great warre in France and much wasted the flat Countrey but he made no great conquest of the Townes In the end the Duke of Lancaster counselled him to make peace with the French shewing him that he did but leese time so to run over the fields and spoile the champion countrey and souldiers only had the profit and he himselfe losse of people and expences These reasons could not much move the king to make peace he was so sore offended and animated But God who had pitie of this poore kingdome which was in extreame desolation and confusion wrought and brought to passe as it were by miracle a peace sending from heaven a tempest accompanied with lightening so great over the campe of the English that they thought that heaven earth would have met and the world have finished for so great stones fell with the tempest that they overthrew men and horses Then the king of England seeing God fight against him being in a great fear and distresse made a vow unto God That if by his grace he escaped from that peril he would hearken unto peace and would cease to saccage and destroy the poor people as indeed he did after the tempest seased Which peace yet was accorded to his so great advantage that thereby besides the ransome of three millions of franks Guienne remained unto him in soveraigntie also the countrey of Armignac de Albret de Comines de la Marche de Santongeois Rochellois and a good part of Languedoc which before never was in the peaceable obedience domination of English Vnto this peace which was concluded in a village called Bretigni nigh to Chartres the French subjects of that countrey would not in any sort agree nor condiscend but refused to obey and yeeld themselves English For their reasons they alleaged That the king had no power to dismember and alienate them from the Crowne of France and that therupon they had priviledges from king Charlemaine whereby they could not nor ought not to be cut off from the truncke and house of France After that they had long debated refused to obey the king Iohn who upon good hostages was returned into Fraunce sent into his countries M. Iames de Bourbon his cousin and a Prince of his bloud to make them obey the English insomuch that whether they would or no those good French subjects should forsake the French obedience and be under the English governement This could not be without great greefe of heart sadnesse and incredible displeasure But above all others most remarkable for great constancie were they of Rochell to remaine French for they many times excused themselves unto the king and stood stiffe more than a Rochellois good Frēchmen yeare before they would let the Englishmen into the towne And thinking that their excuses and remonstrances might stand in some stead they sent to the king their Orators which arriving at Paris and being brought before the king fell at his feet with weepings sobbings and lamentations making this speech Most deare sir your poore and desolate subjects of your towne of Rochell have sent us hither to beseech your Majestie in all humilitie and with joined hands that it
thousand commissaries by their enquiries know how to dispatch in a yeare Therefore the Prince which contemneth words spoken without due deliberation and such other things as are not of importance and which forbiddeth that no man shall report unto him such matters shall in such things doe that which is most covenable and agreeable unto his gravitie and majestie and in so doing he shall shew himselfe more magnanimous and in heart more generous neither fearing distrusting or doubting any thing Such an one was that great Augustus Caesar for one day as one pleaded a criminall cause before him against Aemilius Aelianus the accuser amongst other crimes maintained that Aelianus accustomed to speake Sueton. in Aug. cap. 5. evill of Augustus and to detract and slander his Majestie Augustus then making a countenance to be angry returned towards the accuser saying Is it true that thou saiest that Aelianus hath spoken evill of me I would well thou couldest prove it for I would then cause him to know that I have a tongue as well as hee and would say as much and more evill of him than hee hath done of me This poore accuser seeing Augustus make no more account of it was much ashamed and wished after that he Capitolinus in Marco had never advaunced such an accusation Such was also the Emperour Antonius Pius with whom the murmurations which Marmosets blew in his eares could not take place and he made no account of them As one day Lucilla the mother of Marcus Antonius the Philosopher which Pius had adopted for his sonne being in a chappell upon her knees before the image of Apollo Valerius Omulus who was a Marmoset addressing his speech to the Emperour Pius Behold sayth he Lucilla makes her prayers to Apollo that thou might quickly finish thy dayes that her sonne might raigne But the Emperour Pius reprooved him for such talke and told him that Lucilla and Marcus Antonius his sonne were too good to think such a thought So generally we read That all good emperours such as the abovesaid and Traian Adrian Nerva Alexander Severus and others like have not onely hated and detested but also chased and banished farre from the court reporters and relators of false tales But as I before said It becomes not a Prince to make account but rather to contemne A word spoken in hast ought not to be regarded Froiss lib. 4. cap. 6. words not spoken by good deliberation And to that purpose will I rehearse a Iudgement which was given and recorded in full counsell of king Charles the sixt whereat were his Vncle the Duke of Burgoigne the Conestable the Mareschals of France and many other great Lords of the Kings privie Counsell Master Peter de Courtnay an English Knight being one day at the Court of the King of France offered a chalenge unto a French knight called Guy de la Tremouille by deeds of armes to trie who was the stronger knight and best in armes la Tremouille had no desire to refuse him so that by the consent of the King and of his Vncle the Duke of Burgoigne and in their presence and before many other great Lords they ranne a launce one against the other and no more for the King would not suffer them to go any further the English knight was evill content thereat but yet without making other countenance desired leaue of the King to returne into England which the King graunted and gave him for his conduction and guide for his assurance unto Calais the Lord de Clary a french gentleman one renowmed and of great valour As they went by the way the english gentleman desired to go by Lucen to salute the Countesse of S. Paul the King of Englands sister who dwelt there who gently receiued them and made them good cheere talking and speaking of newes as the custome is This English told the Countesse that hee could not find in France a knight with whom to do deeds of armes and that he would never haue thought but to have found in the Court great store covertly taxing thereby the french Nobilitie Clary his conductor marked well his words but he spake not one word whilest he came to Calais being there Clary angerly said vnto Courtnay Messira de Courtnay I have acquited my selfe of the charge which the King my Lord gave mee for your conduction to this towne now that I haue no more charge of you I thinke good to remember you of certaine words you delivered at Lucen to Madame the Countesse of S. Paul where you said you could not find in France a knight with whom to do deeds of armes thereby taxing the noble knighthood of France therefore to maintaine with you the contrary I offer my selfe to do deeds of armes with you in what maner you will choose prouided that you can obtaine of the governour of this towne for the king your master a permission place to do them The said permission and place was granted and they so fought that Clary wounded M. Courtenay in divers places This came to the King and his Vncles notice Clary was sent for who for his defence said that that which he had done was to maintain the honor of France and alledged many faire reasons whereby it seemed that not onely he ought not to have been blamed for that he did in that case but that rather he merited to bee allowed and praised The matter was handled in the kings Counsell by judgement and decree Clary was condemned to prison for a certaine time and in the meane while his goods were seized into the kings hand and little there wanted he was not banished France but a certaine time after the king pardoned him at the intercession of the Duke of Bourbon and of the said Countesse of S. Paule And at his deliverance was made knowne unto him the morive of the kings Counsell which was this That the kings Counsell thought him worthy that punishment because a light and rash speech delivered in familiar talke he would revenge as a serious and weightie matter If this decree were well observed as it merited to be we should not see so many quarrels murders and suits for our words rashly and undiscreetly spoken And it should be a thing much better becomming Christians not so easily to feele words preferred and spoken upon suddaine motion than in so scrupulously seâ—king points of honour to enter into contentions and quarrels whereby we make demonstration that we are nothing lesse than that we would appeare to be For we would that by our quarrels and going to law upon an overthwart and rash speech men should account us of great heart that we have our honor in singular commendation and estimation and in the meane while we discover our selves in effect to be of a pusillanime base and feeble heart that wee cannot despise and contemne a word of no account pronounced in hast Was that great Emperour Augustus Caesar and many other ignorant what were the points of honour yet
also comes that vertuous people beeing angry and chafed to see themselves despised as also to see strangers preferred before them suffer themselves to be governed and guided by turbulent passions contrarie to their natures Moreover it seemeth well that the Poet Hesiodius and Aristotle shoot not farre from the white of truth when they say That by right of nature he ought to dominier and rule who hath the more able spirit to know how to command well and he that hath the lesseable ought to obey And although sovereign principalities are not ruled by that naturall law because of the difficultie which falleth ordinarily in the execution of their election yet for all that that law alwayes sticketh naturally in the spirits and minds of men insomuch as it seemes to them which feele themselves to have some sufficiencie that there is wrong done them when they are put by to bring into an office one lesse capable By the abovesaid reasons then I hope men may see and usually we reade how great disorders doe often come when princes have preferred strangers unto publicke charges offices and honours before them of that nation and countrey where such charges and honours are distributed and exercised The yeare 1158 William king of Sicilie by his originall was a Frenchman gave Annale 1168. the estate of the Chancellor of his kingdome to a person very capable and fit but he was not that countreyman but a Frenchman The lords of the kingdome greeved to see a stranger constituted in so high an estate within their countrey and that A strange Chancellor cause of a great massacre in Sicilie the greatest magistracie of justice must needs be exercised by strange hands a very cruell conspiration For not onely they conspired the death of that chancellor a Frenchman but also of all them of the French nation which were dispersed in the kingdome of Sicilie Calabria and Apuleia For that purpose sent they secret letters through all the townes and places of the said countries whereby they advertised their friends and adherents which were alreadie prepared all over that they should massacre and slay each one respectively the Frenchmen of their places and towns on the day and hour that they would assigne them Which was executed and there was made in the said countries an horrible butcherie and exceeding great effusion of French blood Behold the mischeefe that came in that kingdome for having a stranger for their chancellor True it is that some may say that this massacre of the Frenchmen in Sicilia and other countries of Italie happened not so much for that reason that there was a strange chancellor as for that the Italian race hath alwayes ben much enclined to shed the blood of our nation For that same race made also another like generall massacre in the year 1282 by a conspiration wherin it was concluded that every one of the country should slay or cause to be slaine his French guest at the first sound of their Evensong bell even upon Easter day Which conspiration was not only executed but also the rage of the massacrers was so great that they ripped the bodies of women of their owne nation alive which were never so little suspected to be gotten with child by Frenchmen to stifle the fruit they caried And this cruell and barbarous massacre was called the Sicilian Evensong By the SiciliaÌ„ EveÌ„song imitation hereof the same race complotted and executed not in Sicilie but in France it selfe and through all the best townes of the kingdome the horrible and generall massacre of the yeare 1572 which will ever bleed and whereof their hands and swords are yet bloodie Of which exploit they have since incessantly vaunted and braved calling it The Parisien Matines M. Martin du Bellay rehearseth also in Paritien Matinâ— his Memories how the same race murdered a great number of poore souldiers after the journey of Pavie comming towards France lame wounded and unarmed slaying them in their high waies But such is this peoples generositie of heart alwayes to be tenne or twentie against one and to brave such as are wounded or unarmed which have no meanes to resist This Messeresque generositie is at this day called in France Coyonnerie and Poltromerie But let us come to our purpose touching the disorders that come by strange magistrates By the peace of Bretaigne made betwixt Iohn king of Fraunce and Edward king Froissart lib. 1. cap. 216. 246 c. Pla. in Martin 4. of England the countrie of Aquitaine was acquited purely and in al soveraigntie by the sayd king Iohn to the said king Edward This king Edward from the first possession of the sayd countrie gave it to the prince of Wales his eldest sonne who came and lay in Bourdeaux and apart kept a court great and magnificall The gentlemen of Gascoigne and of other countries of Acquitaine which by the means of the sayd peace should become vassals to the king of England to the said prince of Wales his sonne came straight to find the prince at Bourdeaux first to sweare their faith and homage secondly to obtaine his favour and good countenance as is the custome of all nobilitie The prince of Wales very gently courteously benignly and familiarly entertained them but in the meane while he gave all the offices estates of the countrie as the captainships and governments of the towns and castles the offices of bayliffs and stewards the estates of his court unto English gentlemen where of he had alwaies great store about him These English gentlemen although they held no other goods but their estates spent prodigally and held as great a traine as the lords of the countrey and to maintaine that they committed great extortions upon the people Hereupon came it that the people feeling themselves oppressed by the English officers the nobilitie and vertuous people seeing themselves recoiled and kept from offices that the prince gave al to strangers which were not of that nation and that herewith he would needs impose a new tribute and impost upon the countrie in a little time all revolted from his obedience and so caused all the towns of Aquitaine to revolt one after another insomuch that the king of England and the sayd prince of Wales his sonne lost straight all the countrey having therewithall procured the evill will of their subjects by giving offices unto strangers Iohn duke of Bretaigne in regard that hee had taken a wife in England was marvellously Froiss lib. 1. cap 311 â—14 affected to the English partie yea against the king of Fraunce his soveraign lord The nobilitie of Bretaigne were much grieved therat insomuch that one day the three greatest lords of the countrie that is to say the lord de Clisson de Laval and de Rohan went to him and after salutations said to him in this manner Sir wee know not upon what thought you shew your selfe so enclinable and favourable unto the English you know that the
also he handleth with his hands the very bodie of our Lord and that he breaketh it and that the faithfull break and bruse it betwixt their teeth Behold the goodly doctrine of this Cannon which the Sophists would make the Catholikes beleeve but of five hundred you shall not find one that will beleeve it And verily this Cannon makes me remember what Achaemenides sayth in Virgil of the great Polyphemus who did eat the companions of Vlysses Poore humane creatures he did eat the bodie blood and all Aeâ—â—i â—i 3. My selfe did see him claspe and gripe in his so deepe a den Two men of ours in his huge hands their heads on dore Lintall He knocked so that blood gusht out and in my sight those men He tore and brused betwixt his teeth yet dead they were not cleane And how should Catholikes beleeve this Canon seeing the priests themselves beleeve it not I prove it For if they beleeved it they would never say masse upon fridaies nor in Lent or other sasting dayes and the Charterhouse Celestines nor Ensumine Friers and Monks would say no masses for feare to eat slesh O but will one say This is a strange reason I confesse it but the aforesaid Cannon is as strange and how strange soever yet can it not be overthrowne without giving some spirituall interpretation unto the manducation of the Sacrament But straight as soone as a man comes there behold we are at an agreement You see then how the Catholikes yea the priests themselves beleeve not in that Canon which notwithstanding is the only foundation of the masse Yea but you will say The Catholikes go to masse and find it good I confesse it but it is upon custome they go thither not because they understand or beleeve any other thing touching the Sacrament than that we have already said And therefore seeing they do agree with us in the principall there shall be no great danger nor losse for them to send away and banish into the Cyclopian Islands or into Poliphaemus den their masse yea though but for a time to see and prove whether they might well and commodiously spare it or no. As wee read Pope Clement the sixt did who excoÌ„municated all the people of the country of Flanders for a certaine rebellion that they had made against the king of France their soveraigne who also interdicted all the priests of the countrey upon paine of eternall damnation to say no masses nor to administer any Sacraments to the Flemmings til they had obtained absolution of his fatherhood The poore Flemmings seeing themselves without masses for in no sort their priests would say any they writ to the king of England making unto him great coÌ„plaints The king of England sent them word not to be dismayed nor troubled for want of masses for he would send them priests out of his country to say them masses ynough But the priests of England went not fearing to be comprehended in that fulmination of the Pope In the meane while the Flemmings attending whilest the king of England sent the priests accustomed so much themselves to be without masses being merry and making good cheare that they were well and no more it troubled them Many other countries also at this day which have no masses passe the time well ynough to their content as England Scotland and Denmarke the most part of Almaign I beleeve also if men did assay it in France to obtaine peace and union they would not find it so evill as they thinke For already we agree upon the Sacrament as is abovesaid we hold also the Epistles Gospels the lessons which are taken out of the Psalmes of David and the Prophets for we shall alwayes find that in our Bible yea farre more faithfully enregistred than in the Missall all the remainder is not worth the holding For as for their massing garments men of good iudgemeÌ„t know wel That apparell addes no holinesse to the masse seeing also that Frenchmen naturally staie not long in one fashion of apparrell but easily chaunge from one to another I confesse in regard of the common people which only stay upoÌ„ that they see that they will take no great lust in a masse without the masse garments as if the Curate said it in his doublet and hose without more or in his ierkin it is certaine that commonly the parishioners would greatly scandilize it and would not find it good And yet a true thing it is that apparell makes not the masse better neither have they any sanctitie in them to deserve to be retained For if it were true that such garments made the masse better and added any holinesse unto it then would it follow that the better the garments and habites are so much the better should the masses be then would there be found great inequalitie in the bountie and goodnesse of masses and so would it follow that the masses of rich men should be better than poore mens a thing very absurd and odious that were also to make village masses of no account because their masse garments are often tattered and rent So that theÌ„ we must come to this resolution to shun these absurdities That garmeÌ„ts bring no holinesse to the masse and that in retaining the holy Sacrament the Gospell the Epistles and the lessons of the Psalmes and Prophets which are in the masse there would be found no danger to let go all the rest Now then if we lay by through all France the superfluous things of the masse are not all the rest of the exercises of religion alike The Catholikes go to the church to pray unto God so doe we also They goe to heare sermons of the word of God so do we also They go thither to praise God in singing of the Psalms of David and we also They go thither to keepe their Easter and we also For it is all one to celebrate the Easter and the Supper Breefly all our exercises of Religion are alike I know well you will say there is a difference because the Catholikes pray and sing psalms in Latin and we in French But I answere you that that is nothing so that men understand what they say For God understandeth well all languages You will say unto me also that the preachers of the one and of the other preach not the same doctrine Yet I answere that though it be so yet do we agree in all the principall points of Religion which are necessary to be knowne for the salvation of our soules If in any other points our preachers cannot agree we must let theÌ„ agree amongst theÌ„selves and content our selves to know the articles which are necessary for our salvation For it cannot be said that if we cannot be as subtil and sharpe as S. Thomas of Aquin Bonaventure Scot Bricot or other like doctors of Theologie that therefore we must needs be damned It were a very straunge thing to beleeve that God would have his holy Religion so obscure that none
not be corrupt and become cowards by too great peace and prosperitie for want upon whom to make warre The resolution of the Senat was in a meane betwixt these two opinions For it was ordained That the Carthaginians should be permitted to remove their towne into any other part tenne mile from the sea But the Carthaginians found so strange the removing of their towne that they had rather suffer all extreame things insomuch as by long warre they were wholly vanquished and their towne altogether rased and made inhabitable Very memorable also to this purpose is the advice of the Chancellor de Rochefort Annales upon the year 1488. who was in the time of king Charles the eight For many counselling this yong king to make war against Francis duke of Bretaigne to lay hold of his dutchie this good Chancellor shewed That the rights the king pretended to that duke were not yet well verified and that it were good to seeke further into them before warre was attempted for it should be the worke of a tyrant to usurpe countries which belong not to him According to this advice embassadors were sent to the duke who then was at Reves to send on his side men of counsell and the king would doe so on his side to resolve upon both their rights This was done and men assembled to that end but in the meane while duke Francis died and the king espoused Madame Anne his daughter and heire and so the controversie ended The same king enterprising his voyage of Naples caused to assemble all his presidents Annal. upon Anno 149â— of his courts of Parliaments with his Chancellor his privie Counsell and the princes of his blood to resolve upon his title and right to Naples and Sicilie These lords being assembled visited the genealogie and discent of the kings of Sicilie and Naples they found that the king was the right heire of these kingdomes so that upon that resolution this voyage was enterprised Hereby is seene the vanitie of Machiavell who presupposeth That king Charles had enterprised that voiage to get all Italie but that Fortune was not favourable unto him for that was never his deseigne nor purpose neither assayed he to seize upon any thing in Italie but of certaine townes necessarie for his passage in determination to yeeld them up again at his departure as he did And if the king would have enterprised upon Italie hee had had a farre more apparent title than the magnificent Lawrence de Medicis seeing all Italie was once by just title possessed by Charlemaine king of France his predecessor But this hath been alwayes a propertie in our kings not to run over others grounds nor to appropriate to themselves any seignorie which appertained not unto them by just title We reade also of Charles the fift called the Sage That being incited by his nobilitie Frois lib. 1. cap. 245. 25. and people of Guienne to seize againe that countrey which was occupied by the English he would not enterprise it without great good deliberation of good Counsell And therefore he caused well to be viewed by wise and experienced people the treatie of peace made at Bretaigne betwixt his dead father and the king of England for that it was told him that the king of England had not accomplished on his side that which he was bound to doe After they had as they thought well resolved him of this point yet he was not content to be satisfied himselfe but would that his subjects should be also well resolved thereof and especially such as were under the English obedience and to that purpose hee sent preachers covertly into such good townes as were occupied by the English insomuch that readily by the preachers inducements there were more than threescore townes and fortresses which revolted from the Englishmen and offered themselves unto the kings obeisance This then is a resolved point That a prince ought not to enterprise to obtaine a If by warre any can be constrained to be of any Religion countrey where hee hath no title under colour to deliver the inhabitants thereof from tyrannie But here may arise a question if it be lawfull for a prince to make war for religion and to constraine men to bee of his religion hereupon to take the thing by reason the resolution is very easie For seeing that all religion consisteth in an approbation of certaine points that concerne the service of God certaine it is that such an approbation dependeth upon the persuasion which is given to men thereof but the meanes to persuade a thing to any man is not to take weapons to bear him nor to menace him but to demonstrate unto him by good reasons and allegations which may induce him to a persuasion But he that will decide this question by examples of our auncestors he shall find divers to be for and against For to reade our French hystories in the lives of Clowis the first Charlemaine and some other kings of Fraunce it seemeth that their studie was altogether bent upon warre Annales upon Anno 718. against Paynims for nothing but to make them become Christians with hand-blowes and force of armes But what Christians That is when the Paynims were vanquished and that they could no more resist they were acquited upon condition to be baptized without other instruction And most commonly as soone as they could againe gather strength they returned to their Paynim religion And this is well shewed us by the hystorie of one Rabbod duke of Fricse who being upon the point to be baptized and his clothes off and having one foot in the font hee demanded of the archbishop of Sens which should have baptized him Whether there were more of his parents in hell or in paradice The archbishop aunswered him that the most must needs be in hell because his predecessors were never baptized Then the duke drawing his foot out of the water Well said he then I will goe to hell with my parents and friends and I will not be baptized to be seperated from them so he withdrew himselfe denying to be baptized Here I leave you to thinke if this man were well instructed in the Christian doctrine It seemeth that at that day to be a Christian it sufficed to be baptized and commonly Paynims were baptized by force of armes We reade also That our auncient kings of Fraunce made many voyages into Turkie and into Affrica for the augmentation of the Christian Religion and to revenge as they said the death of our Lord Iesus Christ upon the Paynims and Infidels But one time the Paynims themselves shewed them well that they enterprised such warres by an inconsiderate zeale For the armie of Fraunce whereof the duke of Bourbon was cheefe being in Affrica making warre against the Infidels in the time of king Charles the sixt the captaine generall of the Turkes and Saracens sent an herauld to the duke of Bourbon to know wherefore he discended into Affrica to
make warre upon them The duke of Bourbon assembled the greatest lords of the armie to resolve what answer to make to the herauld After by the advice of all it was answered That they Christians made warre upon them to revenge the death of Christ the sonne of God and a true Prophet which their generation had put to death and crucified The Turkes understanding this answere sent againe to the duke of Bourbon and the lords of France that they had by some received evill information upon that matter for they were the Iewes which crucified Iesus Christ and not their predecessors and if the children must needs suffer for their auncestors faults they should then take the Iewes which were then amongst them and upon them revenge the death of their Iesus Christ Our Frenchmen knew not what to answere hereunto yet they continued the warre where was done no notable exploit but by contagion of the aire they were constrained to returne after they had lost the most part of their armie Likewise in the yeare 1453 the Pope having proclaimed a Croisado in Christendome to run over Turkie to avenge the death of our Lord Iesus Christ and to constraine the Turkes to be christened the Turke writ letters unto him wherein he signified that they were the Iewes which crucified Christ And as for him hee descended not of the Iewes but of the Trojans blood whereof hee understood the Italians were likewise descended And that their dutie were rather both one of us and the other to restore rather the great Troy and to revenge the death of Hector their auncestor against the Grecians than to make warre one upon another as for his part he was readie to doe having alreadie subjugated the most part of Greece And that he beleeved that Iesus Christ was a great Prophet but that he never commanded as he was given to understand that men should beleeve in his law by force and by armes as also on his part he so constrained no man to beleeve in the law of Mahomet Behold the substance of the Turkes letter to the Pope which seemed to bee as wel yea better founded upon reasons than the Popes buls For verily Iesus Christ would that by preaching his law should be received into the world and not by force of armes In the time when Christendome was devided into Clementines and Vrbanists by reason of a schisme of Popes we may well presuppose that the one thought the Froisar lib. 2 cap. 132. 133 lib. 3. cap 24. other to be altogether out of the way of salvation and our hystorians say That the one part called the other dogs miscreants infidels c. Their reason was because they said that as there was but one God in heaven so there ought to bee but one on earth and the aforesaid Clementines held assuredly That Pope Clement was the true god on earth and Pope Vrbane the false god and that the Vrbanists beleeved in a false god and by consequent that they all strayed from the faith For as no religion can stand without beleeving in God so esteemed they that they which beleeved not in the true earthly god were altogether without all religion as dogs miscreants our hystoriographers which held that opinion as well as the other said That from that time the faith was shaken and readie to fall to the ground The same opinion had the Vrbanists of the Clementines as the Clementines had of the Vrbanists We have before in another place said That under colour of this diversitie in religion the king of England who was an Vrbanist enterprised to make warre upon the kings of France and Castile Clementines Likewise also the Clementines enterprised no lesse against the Vrbanists yea against the Pope Vrbane himselfe whom they besieged in the towne of Peronse where he was in great danger to have been taken yet in the end he saved himselfe at Rome The king of Fraunce determined to have passed into Italie by warre to have destroyed the Vrbanists but in the end he tooke another resolution which was to cause the schisme to cease so he caused to convocate a great and notable assembly in the towne of Rhemes in Campaigne whither in person resorted the emperour Sigismund and there a conclusion was made to exhort the two Popes to submit themselves to the new election of a Pope wherein their right should bee conserved unto them and if they would not submit themselves thereunto that the Christian princes and their subjects should withdraw themselves from the obedience both of the one and the other After this subtraction was made because the said Popes would not obey the exhortation that was made there was a new election of a Pope in a Counsell held at Pise by the emperors and the kings authorities called Pope Alexander the fift a Frier minor and the other two Antipopes were cursed as is said in another place And thus ceased the warres for Religion in all Christendome To this purpose also you must know That during the said schisme of the Clementines Froisar lib. 4 cap. 33. and Vrbanists the duke of Bretaigne had peace with the king of Fraunce and a great assembly was made betwixt them in the towne of Tours The duke appearing there some of the kings Counsell shewed him that hee was disobedient to the king being of another religion than the king was for the king was a Clementine and the duke an Vrbanist and it was not meet that the vassale should be of another religion than his soveraigne lord The abovesaid duke aunswered wisely That it could not bee called a rebellion or disobedience for no man ought to judge of his conscience but only God who is the soveraigne and only judge of such a matter and that he beleeved in Pope Vrban because his election was before Pope Clements Some of the kings Counsell of the meanest sort made a great matter of this diversitie of religion but the dukes of Berry and Bourgoigne the kings uncles were opinioned that it was not a sufficient point to stand upon to put by an accord with the duke of Bretaigne insomuch that following their advice an accord was concluded yea a mariage of one of the kings daughters with the said duke of Bretaigne This example and advice of these two good dukes mee thinkes all Christian princes should follow and not cease to agree together for diversitie of Religion but to remit the judgement thereof unto God who alone can compound and agree the differences of the same And not onely amongst princes the bond of amitie ought not to bee broken for difference of Religion but also princes ought not to use armes against their subjects to force them unto a Religion but they ought to assay all other meanes to demonstrate unto them by lively reasons their errors and so bring them to a good way and if it appeare not that their subjects doe erre and stray they ought to maintaine them and not persecute them at the
his sepulcher and another Amphitheater at Rome and many other goodly houses and publike buildings most sumptuous to behold he also caused to bee repaired bridges gates waies to furnish many townes with store of money as well to make new buildings in them as to renew the old heerein imitating the example of the emperour Trajan his predecessor who immortalized his name by his publike works and buildings which hee made even in building new townes and ioyning rivers one to another or to the sea by great and deepe channels to aide and make easie the commerce of all countries also in drying up great fennes and marrishes and in laying plaine rocks and mountaines to make fit waies for travailers and in doing other notable workes Such actions as these are meet workes for peaceable times and are honourable and proper to immortalize the name of a prince as to make warre to have victories and triumphs We see that the restauration of good letters which king Francis the first of that name of happie memorie brought into France in his time did more celebrate and make it immortall in the memorie of all Christian nations than all the great warres and victories which his predecessors had And truly princes which love and advance letters doe well merit that learned people should send their honourable memorie to all posterity and such as dispise them and hold them under feete are not worthie that hystoriographers and men of learning should bring their woords and victories into honour and reputation much lesse to immortalize them in the memorie of men For as lawyers say that they ought not to enjoy the benefite of lawes which offend and despise them so the prince which makes no account of learning ought not to enjoy the benefit thereof which is to make immortall generous and vertuous men But if we make comparison of the magnificence and Estate that a prince should Froisar lib. 7 cap. 353. 4. hold in the time of peace and prosperitie with that he should hold during war and povertie there is such difference as betwixt the day and the night for proofe hereof I will alledge but the time of Philip de Valois For wee reade that in that time which was a time of long peace that king had almost ordinarie in his court foure or five kings wich resided with him in regard of his magnificence as the king of Boheme the king of Scotland the king of Arragon the king of Navarre the king of Maiorque many great dukes counties barons prelates the greatest part of whose charges hee defraied that it might appeare that the king of Fraunce was a king of kings It is certaine to maintaine this magnificall and great Estate there must needs follow exceeding great expences but hee might well doe it for his people being ritch and full of peace they had better meanes to furnish and provide for him a crowne than in the time of warre to give him a three halfe pence At that time a king of England passed into France to doe homage unto king Philip for the dutchie of Guienne which the English had long time held of the crowne of France when the English king saw the traine of the court of France hee was ravished in admiration to see so many kings dukes counties barons princes peeres of France constable admirall chancelor marshall and many other great lords which reputed themselves happie to obtaine the good grace of king Philip. This moved the king of England far more easily and in other meanes to doe his homage than he thought to have done and at his returne into England he said on high That he supposed there was neither king nor emperor in the world that held so magnificent and triumphant an Estate as the king of France did Should not we desire to see such a time againe but we are farre from it and take no course thereunto for civile warres cannot bring us unto it but onely a good and holy peace well and inviolably observed by a good reformation of justice and of all estates which was corrupted in France For without it the people can never prosper but shall alwaies bee gnawne and eaten even to the bones and the people beeing poore the king cannot be ritch no neither his nobilitie nor clergie for all the kings revenewes all tallages all the nobilities and clergies rents proceede from the poore people By this which wee have above handled this Maxime of warre is sufficiently understoode I will add no more therunto but that Machiavell shewes himselfe a man of very good grace when he saith That the Italians are a people of nimble light spirits and bodies for hee cannot more properly note them of inconstancie and infidelitie and when afterward he saith That willingly they never go to battails he can not they any better taxe them of cowardise and pusillanimitie but the reason wherby he would seeme to couer this fault is more to be accounted of than the rest For saith he this proceedeth of the little heart cowardise of the captaines as if he said That all Italian captaines are faint hearted cowards which rather discourage than add heart unto their souldiers to fight And heerein I beleeve he saieth truth for so many Italian captaines as wee have seene in France this fifteene yeeres there hath not been one found that hath done any one memorable exploit they can indeede make many vaine and brave shewes and in many subtile stratagems there are found no better warriors but in battailes and assaultes of townes they never by their wills will come as their owne Machiavell beareth them witnesse 2. Maxime To cause a Prince to withdraw his mind altogether from peace and agreement with his adversarie he must commit and use some notable and outragious iniurie against him BEcause sayth Machiavell men are naturally vindicative and desirous Discourse lib. 3. cap. 32. to take vengeance of such as offend them it consequently fals out that they vvhich have outraged or iniured any but especially if the iniurie be great they can never trust him they have so iniured For every man feares and distrusteth his reconciled enemie And therefore to find meanes that a prince may never set his heart and mind upon peace nor reconcile himselfe to any adversarie hee must be persuaded to practise some outragious act upon his said adversarie So by that meanes he will never trust him nor be reconciled with him BEhold heere the very counsell that Achitophel gave to Absalon to make him irreconcilable with David his father and to place a division Samuel lib. 2. cap. 26. and perdurable confusion in all his kingdome For hee advised Absalon to cohabitate and dwell even with his father Davids wives which was the greatest and most villanous injurie that he could have done unto him and to this end he did it that Absalon and all they which followed him might bee utterlie out of hope to make peace with David and by that meanes
great care to see himselfe in reputation to be cruell so that thereby he maintaine his people in a faithfull union and obedience For the cruell and rigorous executions of a prince doe but privately hurt certaine particulars which ought not to be feared and the two great lenitie of a pitifull prince is the cause of infinit evils which grow up and engender in their kingdomes as murderes thefts and other like Insomuch as a man may well say that a pitifull prince is cause of more evills than a cruell prince The example of the emperour Severus may serve vs for proofe heereof for hee was very cruell and by his crueltie overcame Albinus Niger the most part of their friends so wrought himselfe a peaceable empire which hee long time held beeing well obeyed and reverenced of all the world I Have heeretofore shewed how Caesar Borgia by his crueltie obtained for enemies almost all the potentates of Italie and thereby so well assured his estate that incontinent as his father was dead he was invironed with enemies destitute of friends despoiled of the lands he had usurped and constrained to hide himselfe to save his life This tragicall issue accordeth not very well with that which Machiavell heere maintaineth saying Bâ—rgia was erected by the credit of his father not by his crueltie That the crueltie of Borgia was the cause that hee got the peaceable domination of Romania For to say truth it was not his crueltie which easilie might have beene resisted Borgia of himselfe beeing without power but it was the favour and feare of the pope his father who commanded the French powers and made himselfe feared of all christian princes For at that time men feared more the popes simple buls than at this day they feare either the keies of S. Peter or the sword of S. Paul which hee said hee had or all his fulminations excommunications agravations reagravations interdicts anathematizations or all the forces and meanes hee can make And who would make account of all those at this day seeing even the Romanes themselves make but a mocke of them But in the time of Alexander Borgia yea in the time of Pope Iulius the eleaventh his successor all that the Pope would and ordained was held of christian princes for an ordinance as from the mouth of God yea even when the Pope ordained things manifestly wicked as when Iulius delivered as a prey the whole kingdome of France and the lands of the kings allies For the king of England of Arragon and the emperour Maximilian beleeved all that it was a sufficient cause to set upon the king and his allies and that it was even as an expresse commandement of God The world then and even princes being then overtaken with that beastly superstition and follie wee neede not bee abashed that Caesar Borgia had the meanes to possesse Romania under the shadow and favour of the Pope his father that with the aide of the king of France and it was plainly seene that that good hap to subjugate Romania proceeded from favour and not from crueltie as Machiavell saith because as soone as that favour ceased all his case was overthrowne and it was straight seene that his utter ruine arived as is said I doe then maintaine cleane contrary from the Maxime of Machiavell and say That crueltie is a vice which ordinarily bringeth â—o princes the ruine of them their estates and that clemencie and gentlenes is the true meanes to maintaine and establish a prince firme and assured in his estate For proofe heereof reasons are cleare and manifest for wee call crueltie all executions which are committed upon men their lands and goods without any forme of justice or against all right and equitie heereupon it followeth that as violence is directly contrarie to right and equitie so also is crueltie and that crueltie is no other thing but manifest violence But according to the Maximes even of philosophers No violent thing can endure So it followeth that an estate founded upon cruelty cannot long endure Moreover crueltie is alwaies hated of every one for although it bee not practised upon all particulars but upon some onely yet they upon whom it is not exercised cease not to feare when they see it executed upon their parents friends allies and neighbours But the feare of paine and punishment engendreth hatred for one can never love that whereof hee feares to receive evill especiallie when there is a feare of life losse of goods and honours which are the things wee hold most precious and of that which wee hate wee by the same meanes desire the losse and entier ruine and search out procure and advance it with all our power But it is impossible when all a people shooteth at one same marke that a tyrant or cruell prince for all is one can long endure or that hee can doe so much as there shall not arive unto him some disastre or evill fortune And if sometimes it please God to suffer him to live long it is to cause him to take the higher leap that in the end hee may have the sorer fall As wee see it well painted in poets tragoedies where many tyrants are seene which enduring long time have done no other thing during the space of their life but knit cordes fasten gallowes in some imminent places whet swords and daggers temper poisons for afterward to drinke the poison to stab the dagger in their bosomes or hang themselves on the gibet in the sight of all the world which laughing and mocking them say it is well employed we must not say that such tragoe dies are but poeticall fictions for hystories are full of such tragicall ends of tyrants which have delighted to shed their subjects bloud and to handle them cruellie Cruell people are commonly cowards This vice of crueltie proceeding from the weaknesse of such as can not command their choller and passions of vengeance and suffer themselves to bee governed by them never happened in a generous and valiant heart but rather alwaies in cowardly and fearefull hearts Therfore when one day one advertised the emperour Mauricius that the captaine Phocas entended and wrought evill against him and another maintained that he was but a coward and too fearefull to bring any thing to passe the emperour Mauricius answered So much the more ought I to take heed for those cowardly and fearefull people when they enterprise a crueltie and that they have advantage they can never hold any measure therein And this vice of crueltie saith Marcellinus may be called the ulcer of the soule proceeding of Amian Mar. lib. 27. feeblenesse of the mind and cowardise of the heart And therefore sicke and diseased people are more chollericke than they that are in health and miserable and desperate men more than they which are at their ease and contented And hereupon saith Marcellinus that the cause why Valentinian was a cruell man came because of the choller which
But if any demand how diviners and astrologers could so justly foretell the death of the emperour Domitian I answere that we must beleeve that this said prediction was not by art or science but the evill spirit would give boldnesse of enterprising unto Domitians enemies in making them know by frivolous divinations his fatall houre that they might beleeve the starres and heaven to aid their enterprise And God above who serves himselfe with such meanes as pleaseth him to exercise his justice gives efficacie to the spirit of error The same effect came of the divination of Caracalla for it was the cause that Macrinus enterprised to sley him although he never before thought of it till the astrologers declared their divination nay he would never have done that enterprise if that divination had not constrained and drawne him unto it Master Philip de Comines reciteth to this purpose a very memorable hystorie that happened in his time He saith there was at Naples a king called Alphonsus a bastard of the house of Arragon who was marvellous cruell a traitour and dangerous for none could know when he was angry he could so well manage his countenance yea and often betray men as he made them good cheare and he was a man wherein there was neither grace nor mercie neither had hee any compassion of the poore people This king Alphonsus had a sonne also as wicked as he called Ferrand who had found means to bring before him under his fathers assurance many princes and barons of the countrey to the number of foure and twentie and amongst them the prince de Rosane his brother in law having married his sister all which hee caused to be imprisoned notwithstanding the faith and assurance which he had given them insomuch as some remained foure or five and twentie yeares prisoners As soone as the king Alphonsus was dead and Ferrand his sonne was king the first thing hee did at his comming to the crowne was to massacre all those said great princes and barons which he himselfe had imprisoned during his fathers life by a Moorean slave of Affrica which he rewarded and straight after the execution sent him into his countrey This king Ferrand or Ferdinand having newes of the said murder as the king of Fraunce Charles the eight enterprised the conquest of Naples judging himselfe unworthie to be king because of his great and abhominable cruelties sent embassadors to the king to agree and to be at an accord with him offering to yeeld himselfe tributarie to the crowne of Fraunce to hold the kingdome of Naples of him and to pay him 50000 crownes yearely But the king who knew there was no fidelitie in the Arragonian race of Naples would enter into no treatie with the king Ferdinand who being in dispaire to be ever able to hold that kingdome against the king of Fraunce having his owne subjects his enemies died for sorrow and dispaire and left his sonne Alphonsus his successor This Alphonsus the new king was as wicked as his father and had alwayes shewed himselfe pittilesse and cruell without faith without religion and without all humanitie insomuch as perceiving that king Charles approched Rome his conscience also judging himselfe to be an unworthy king he resolved to flie into Spain and to professe himselfe a monke in some monasterie But before hee fled hee caused to be crowned king at Naples a young sonne of his called Ferdinand who was not yet hated in the countrey his nailes beeing not yet either strong or long ynough to doe evill This done hee fled into Sicilie and from thence to Valence in Spaine where he tooke the habite of a monke and in a little time after died of an excoriation of gravell But it was marvellous that this cruel tyrant should be so seized of feare as he should go in no good order away but left all his moveable goods and almost all his gold and silver in his castle at Naples And this feare proceeded to him from a faintnesse of heart for as Comines saith never cruell man was hardie And when one desired him onely to stay three dayes to packe up his goods No no said he let us quickly depart from hence heare you not all the world crie Fraunce Fraunce Men may see how an evill conscience leaves a man never in quiet This wicked man knowing that by his crueltie hee had procured the hatred of his subjects the wrath of God and the enmitie of all the world was tormented in his conscience as of an infernall furie which ever after fretted his languishing soule in the poore infected and wasted bodie And to end this tragoedie straight after he had saved himselfe the king of Fraunce obtained the kingdome of Naples And a little while after the said young Ferdinand sonne of the said Alphonsus died of a feaver and a flux So that within the space of two yeares God did justice on foure kings of Naples two Alfonses and two Ferdinands because of their strange cruelties which were accompained with disloyall impietie and oppression of subjects for alwaies those keepe company together A like punishment happened by the conduction and judgement of God to that Comines lib. 1 cap. 132. 133. and Bellay lib. 1. of his memories cruell king Richard of England king Edward the fourth his brother This king Edward deceasing left two sonnes and two daughters all yong and in the tutelage and goverment of Richard duke of Glocester his brother This duke desiring for himselfe the crowne of England caused his two nephewes cruelly to be slaine and made a report to goe that by chance they fell of a bridge and so were slaine His two nieces he put into a religion of Nunnes saying they were bastards because saith hee the dead king Edvard their father could not lawfullie espouse their mother for that before hee had promised to espouse a gentlewoman which hee named and the bishop of Bath beeing present protested it was so and the promises of marriage were made betwixt his hands The duke of Glocester having thus dispatched both his nephewes and nieces caused himselfe to be crowned king of England and because many great lords of England murmured at this crueltie this new tyrant king which named himselfe king Richard the third made to die of sundrie deaths all such as hee knew had murmured against him or his tyrannie After all this when hee thought hee had a sure estate in the kingdome it was not long before God raised him up for enemie the earle of Richmond of the house of Lancaster who was but a pettie lord in power without silver and without force who but a little before was detained prisoner in Bretaigne To whom certaine lords of England sent secretly that if he could come into England but with two or three thousand men all the people would come to him make him king of England The earle of Richmond hasted to king Charles the eight then raigning in France by whose permission hee levied people in
Normandie to the number of about 3000 men after hee embarked with the troupe and tooke his course to Dover wher king Richard attended him with 4000 men but God conducted that busines sending a contrary wind which landed the said earle in the northern parts of England where without all interruption landing they which sent for him met him by consent marched toward London King Richard met him on the way with 40000 or 50000 as they came nigh one another to give battaile the most part of king Richards people turned to the earle of Richmonds side Yet that king who despaired otherwise to bee maintained in his estate than by a victory upon his enemie gave battaile to the earle and was slaine fighting after hee had raigned about a yeere And the earle of Richmond went right to London with his victory and the slaying of that tirant Then tooke he out of the monastery king Edwards two daughters whereof hee espoused the elder and was straight made king of England called Henry the seaventh grandfather of the most ilustrious Queene Elizabeth at this present raigning Alfonsus king of Castile the 11 of that name who began his raigne Anno 1310 Frâ—isar lib. 1. cap. 230. 231 241. 242 243. raigned 40 yeeres left after him Peter Henry his bastard sons This king Peter was a prince very cruell inhumane amongst other cruelties he committed he caused to die Madame Blanche his wife daughter of duke Peter of Bourbon sister of the queene of France of the dutches of Sauoy He made also to die the mother of the said Henry his bastard brother also banished slew many lords barons of Castile Insomuch as by his crueltie hee acquired the hatred of all his subjects yea of strangers his neighbours so that his bastard brother being legitimated by the Pope at the earnest sute of the nobilitie of Castile and the help of the king of France Charles le Sage who sent him a good armie under the conduction of master Iohn of Bourbon countie of March of Messier Bertrand of Guesclin after constable of France hee enterprised to eject king Peter out of his kingdome of Castile and to make himselfe king and did according to his enterprise For as soone as hee was entred with forces into Castile all the countrie of all sorts abandoned that cruell king Peter who fled and retired to Bourdeaux towards the prince of Wales praying him to give him succours against his bastard brother This prince who was generous and magnanimous graunted his demaund under colour that the said Don Peter was a little of his parentage but in truth moved with desire of glorie and to acquire the reputation to have established a lawfull king in his kingdome against a bastard which the French had set in so did hee enterprise to goe inro Castile with a strong army to establish king Peter in his kingdome All succeeded so well unto him that hee got a battaile at Naverret against king Henry who fled into France and king Peter was established in his kingdome The prince of Wales exhorted him to pardon all such as before had borne armes against him and from thence forward to become gentle and kind towards all his subjects which hee faithfully promised to bee But hee did no such thing but againe exercised his cruelties and vengeances as well upon the one as the other In the meane while Henry the bastard gathered a new army with the help of the king of France which was conducted by the said Messier Bertrand of Guesclin and unlooked for they gave an assault nigh unto Montiell in Castile to king Peter and put him to flight with a great overthrow of his people King Peter saved himselfe in a castle which was incontinent besieged and seeing himselfe evill provided within it hee by stealth sought to save himselfe with a few people but he was encountred by the said Henry his bastard brother who slew him with his owne hand By which meanes the said Henry with his race remained peaceable kings in the kingdome of Castile and king Peter finished his life unhappie by reason of his great cruelty whereof hee could never be chastised By the abovesaid examples it seemes unto mee That a prince may easely judge if hee be of any judgement how pernitious and damnable the doctrine of Machiavell is to enstruct a prince to bee cruell for it is impossible that a cruell prince should long raigne but we ordinarily see that the vengeance of God yea by violent meanes followeth pace by pace crueltie Machiavell for confirmation of his doctrine alledgeth the example of the emperour Severus who indeede was a man very cruell and sanguinarie yet raigned eighteene yeeres or there abouts and dyed in his bed But unto this I answere that the cruelties of Severus seeme to bee something excusable because that he had for competitors in the empire Albinus and Niger two of greater nobilitie than hee and which had more friends Insomuch as it seemed necessarie for him to weaken the two competitors and to withstand their friends from hurting him to use that crueltie to kill them Yet hee pardoned many Albinians and reconciled himselfe unto them moreover hee exercised part of his cruelties in the revenge of the good emperour Pertinax which was a lawfull cause yet withall had he in himselfe many goodly and laudable vertues as wee have in other places rehearsed so that as his crueltie made him much hated his other vertues wrought some mitigation thereof Lastly hee made no other end than other cruell princes for hee dyed with sorrow as saith Herodian who was in his time for that hee saw his children Dion in Seve Herod lib. 3. such mortall enemies one against another and that Bassianus the eldest had enterprised to kill his father who yet did pardon him But Bassianus pardoned not his fathers phisitions which would nor obey him when hee commanded them to poison his sicke father for as soone as his father was dead hee hanged and strangled them all Heerein also God punished the crueltie of Severus that having exercised all these cruelties and slaughters well to establish the empire in his house hee was frustrated of his intention For of those two sonnes Bassianus and Geta one slew the other and Bassianus after he had slaine Geta endured not long but was slaine by Macrinus and left behind him no children Therefore although it seemed that God spared to punish Severus crueltie for his other good vertues yet remained not hee unpunished for seeing his sonne who had learned of him to bee cruell durst enterprise to slay him hee dyed of griefe and sorrow And wee neede not doubt but his conscience assaulted him greatly for he might well thinke that it was a just divine vengeance to see himselfe so cruelly assaulted by his owne blood and to see machinated against himselfe by his owne sonne the like crueltie which hee exercised against others yet he dissembled this pardoned
On the other side Artabanus prepared himselfe and his retinue in as good order as was possible without any armie to goe meet his new sonne in law What did this perfidious Caracalla As soone as the two parties were joyned and that king Artabanus came nigh him to saluâ—e and embrace him he commanded his souldiers earnestly to charge upon the Parthians Then straight the Romanes embraced and entertained the unarmed Parthians with great blowes of swords and other armes as enemies and as if there had been an assigned battaile in so much as there was a great slaughter made of the Parthians but the king Artabanus with the help of a good horse escaped with great difficultie and danger So that this simuled and disguised marriage although pleasant to Caracalla and his friends yet were they sorrowfull to many poore Parthians Artabanus beeing saved determined well to revenge himselfe of that villanie and trecherie but Macrinus releeved him of that paine who within a little time after slew that monster Caracalla who was already descryed through all the world because of his perfidie Besides that perfidie and violation of Faith is the cause that none wil beleeve nor Perfidie is the cause of the ruine of the perfidous trust them which once have used it yet proceeds there another upon it which is That breach of Faith is ordinarily cause of the totall destruction ruine of the perfidious and disloyall person The example above alleadged of Anniball may well serve to prove it for his trecherie was first a cause that none would trust him secondly it was the cause that another perfidious person seeing him without friends or meanes enterprised to play another part of perfidie which forced him to poyson himselfe We have also in another place before recited the example of Virius and other Capuans to the number of seven and twentie which desperately slew themselves because they had broken their Faith with the Romanes But amongst other examples that of king Syphax of Numidia is most illustrious and memorable This king promised Scipio that he would aid and give him succours against the Carthaginians The Carthaginians knowing this found meanes to lay a bait for this king by Titus Livius lib. 9. 10. Dec. 3. a faire Carthaginian damosell called Sophonisba one of a great house who by her enticements so drew him into her nets that she caused him to breake his Faith with Scipio and made an alliance and confederation with the Carthaginians by the marriage of Sophonisba whereby they accorded that they would have alike friends and enemies Scipio beeing hereof advertised was much both astonished and greeved yet hee thought it good resolution not to attend whilest the two powers of king Syphax and of the Carthaginians were joined together Hee then so hasted that hee placed his armie before king Syphax who was going with thirtie thousand for the helpe of the Carthaginians and overcame all those succours insomuch as Syphax himselfe was taken prisoner his horse having been slaine under him was brought alive to Scipio who demaunded of him wherefore he had broken his Faith with the Romancs which he had so solemnely sworne betwixt his hands This poore captive king confessed that an enraged follie had drawne him unto it by the meanes of the Carthaginians which gave him that pestilent furie Sophonisba who by her flatteries and enticements had bereaved him of his understanding After this miserable king was in a triumph by Scipio led to Rome died miserably his kingdome brought under the obedience of the Romanes which gave a good part of it to Massinissa another king of Numidia who had ever been loyall and faithfull unto them in the observation of their Faith So that Syphax lost himself and his kingdome by his perfidie and breach of Faith and Massinissa acquired great reputation and honour and greatly amplified and enlarged his kingdome for rightly observing his Faith and loyaltie Charles the simple king of Fraunce in his time made strong warre upon Robert Annal. upon the year 916. duke of Aquitaine and vanquished him in a battaile nigh Soissons where duke Robert was slaine Heber countie de Vermandois brother in law of that Robert was so greeved and displeased at that overthrow that he enterprised a part of perfidie and villanie to catch the king his soveraigne lord therefore with a countenance of amitie he invited the king to a great feast in the town of Perone whither the king came with many other great princes and lords but the said countie caused them all to be taken prisoners and shut them within the castle of Perone Afterward hee enlarged all the said princes and lords upon condition of their promises never to bear armes against him but still retained the king prisoner in the said castle where he died within two yeares after Lewis the third of that name his sonne succeeded him in the crowne who at his first entry revenged not the death of his father upon countie Heber fearing some insurrection in his kingdome because of his great kindred and friends yet at the last he also made a great and solemne feast unto which he entreated the great lords and barons of his kingdome and even countie Heber and his friends and kinsfolkes As they were all assembled at that feast behold there arrived out of England a currier a thing fained by king Lewis who booted and spurred fell upon his knees before the king and presented letters unto him on the king of Englands part The king tooke those letters and caused them to be read low by his Chancellor the rather to deceive As soone as he had read them the king began to smile and say on high to the companie Truly men say true that the English are not wise My cousin of England sends me word that in his countrey a rusticall clownish man had summoned his lord whose subject hee is to a dinner at his house and as soone as he came there he tooke and detained him prisoner and after strangled him and villanously caused him to die Therfore he sends me word to have the opion of the princes barons and lords of Fraunce to know what justice should bee done upon that subject I must make him an answere and therefore my masters I pray you tell me your advices What thinke you said he to the countie de Blois the most auncient to this matter my good cousin The countie de Blois answered that his opinion was That the said rusticall fellow should die ignominiously and that according to his desert All the other princes and lords were of the same opinion yea even Heber countie de Vermandois Then tooke the king the word and said Countie de Vermandois I judge thee and condemne thee to death by thine owne word for thou knowest that in the shew of friendship and under the shaddow of a feast in thy house thou diddest invite my dead father and being come thou retainedst him and brought him most
villanously to his death therefore by thine owne confession thou doest merit a most ignominious death Straight after the king commaunded that he should be hanged and strangled which was done So this perfidious and disloyall Heber received the reward of his perfidie and breach of Faith as hee himselfe judged to have merited Edward king of England the second of that name was much governed by the Frois lib. 1. cap. 5. 13 14. house of the Spensers which took upon them the handling of all the affaires of the kingdome and despised farre greater lords than themselves The said king having lost a battaile at Esturmelin against the Scots all England imputed the evill lucke of that losse unto the evill government of the Spensers They beleeving that the great lords of England which envied their credit had caused this brute to bee sowne resolved to take vengeance thereof by a most perfidious disloiall meanes For they persuaded the king to convocate a generall assemblie of States to advise and provide as they gave to understand for the affaires of the kingdome The princes and lords of the kingdome not doubting any thing assembled at the kings commaund But incontinent as they were assembled king Edward whome the Spensers had persuaded that his princes and lords meant to get his kingdome from him commanded them to be taken arrested prisoners which was done and without any knowledge of cause he cut off the heads from two and twentie of the greatest lords and princes of the kingdome and amongst them there was beheaded Thomas duke of Lancaster the kings uncle who was a good and a sage prince and who after was cannonized and saincted This perfidie joyned with crueltie for commonly the one goeth with the other was the cause that the said king was deprived by all the States of England of his royaltie as unworthie to carrie the crowne and was confined to prison where he finished his daies And the Spensers authors of such disloialtie were executed and rigorously punished according to their merits For after they had ben drawne on hurdles through the streets all over the citie of Herford their privie parts were first cut away and cast into the fire then were their hearts taken out of their bellies and also cast into the fire after their heads were cut off and carried to London and the bodies of every of them were quartered and every quarter caried into other severall towns to be set on the tops of their great gates in detestation of their great perfidie and disloyaltie which they used towards the said lords It was also a great perfidie in Charles the last duke of Bourgoigne in that hee De Comines lib. 1. cap. 78. and Annal. 1475. gave safe conduct to the contie of S. Pol constable of France to come to him with good assurance and then tooke him prisoner and delivered him to king Lewis the seventh who making his processe at Paris his head was cut off in the place de Greve True it is that the said countie had committed great faults as well against the king as against the duke hee had also alwaies studied to nourish warre betwixt the said two princes yet notwithstanding it was a very dishonorable and infamous thing for the duke to take him prisoner after hee had given him his faith and assurance by the safe conduct which hee graunted him For if hee had not beene hee had according to his determination with his silver fled into Almaigne from thence in time he might have made his peace and againe have come into the kings favour But he was deceived as before and the said perfidie was so much the more infamous and dishonest because it was perpetrated by this duke of Bourgoigne for the covetousnesse to gaine the townes of S. Quinten Han and Bohain which belonged to the said countie which the king gave to the said duke to the end hee would deliver and betray him But behold the just judgement of God who permitted that this duke of Bourgoigne was in the end beaten with the same rods wherewith hee had beaten the countie of S. Pol for being twice overthrowne at Granson and Morat by the Suissers the siege of Nus succeeding evill unto him and also having lost the dutchie of Lorraine which before he had unjustly occupied upon the duke of Lorraine who conquered it all these traverses and troubles engendred such greefe sadnesse and confusion in his spirit and great indisposition in his person that hee was never after whole either in bodie or mind His wits thus comming into decay there came into his braine a distrust of his owne subjects and therefore thought good to serve himselfe with strangers and to chuse a loyall and faithfull nation he addressed himselfe to a countie de Campobache an Italian and gave him charge to bring with him many Italians to his service as hee did This was the last act of the Tragedie of his life For this countie de Campobache ceased not till he had betrayed him unto the duke of Lorraine before Nancy which the said duke of Bourgoigne held besieged and there was slaine in an assault which the duke of Lorraine gave him to constrain him to raise the siege And so in like sort as by perfidie and violating of his faith he had caused the constable of S. Pol to leese both life and goods so by the treason and perfidie of Campobache hee both lost his life and his house was ruinated and â—ent in pieces which was the greatest house in Christendome next unto that of Fraunce He should never have done that would set downe all the calamities mischiefes proceeding of perfidie and breach of publicke Faith It caused the ruine of Carthage the great in Affrica which for a long time was one of the greatest and most flourishing commonweales that ever was in the world It was the onely ruine of Corinth of Thebes of Calchis which were three of the greatest fairest and richest cities of Greece It was the cause of Ierusalems destruction and of all the countrey of Iudea yea breefely there never happened any great subversion and desolation in the world were it of citties commonweales kingdomes empires great captaines great monarchs or of strong and flourishing nations but it came upon perfidie and the breach of Faith True it is that it draweth at the taile with her crueltie avarice and other like companions but yet perfidie is the mistresse and governesse of all She breaketh peace she renueth civile and strange warres she troubleth people nations which are quiet she destroyeth and impoverisheth them she overthroweth right and equitie she prophaneth and defileth holy and sacred things she banisheth and chaseth away all pietie justice and the feare of God she bringeth in Atheisme and contempt of all religion she defaceth all amitie and naturall affection towards parents our countrey and nation she confoundeth all politicke order shee abrogateth good lawes and customes Finally what mischeefes hath there ever beene in the
but warres come too soone and under the pretext of more occasions than we would therefore we need no baits to draw it upon us It is not then best for a prince to bee reputed a man full of treasures and silver as Machiavell thinketh for money of it selfe cannot but serve us for a bait to attract and draw upon us them which are hungry and desirous of it And although commonly money is thought to be the sinewes of war yet are they not so necessarily required that without money warre cannot bee made I will not here alledge the poore Hugonet souldiors which most commonly warred without wages but I will onely alledge the militarie estate which was in the Roman empire in the emperour Valentinians time and since For in that time the militarie art was so policied that every souldior tooke for a moneth so much bread so much wine so much larde and so much of other necessarie things His habites also were new from tearmeto tearme and all other things necessarie so that he touched either none or very little money yet had he all that he wanted And indeede money serves but for commutation for men cannot eat it nor apparrell themselves with it nor if he be sicke can it heale him Wherefore then serves it For a prompt quicke and easie commutation For if you have money you straight have whatsoever you neede If then by other meanes and policie order be taken that a souldior have all he needs as was done in Valentinians time and others it will be found that money makes not a prince puissant Moreover I doe confesse that it is certaine that in the militarie policie which we have at this day which is that a souldior shall receive in money all he needeth that money is very necessarie and that without it a man can doe no great thing and that they are as sinewes or as the maintenance of the sinewes of warre but yet by good husbandrie a prince may have sufficient of it and without Covetousnesse As for that which Machiavell makes no account of that a prince bee reputed to be a Mechanique I leave it to them to thinke which have I will not say the heart of a prince but onely of a simple gentleman that hath honour but in a little recommendation if they would not bee greeved to bee reputed a mechanique person I know well that the nobilitie of Italie which more commonly trade and deale with marchandize than with armes care not for that name of a mechanique so they may get money But the gentlemen of Fraunce of Almaigne of England and of other countries of Christendome are not of the humor of that mechanique nobilitie neither would they for any thing in the world be so reputed as Machiavel would persuade them And as for the examples which Machiavell alledgeth of Pope Iulius and of Ferdinand king of Spaine which he said were covetous yet effected great matters I answere him in one word That it prooveth nothing of that hee saith for Pope Iulius made no great prowesses not conquests as every man knoweth and king Ferdinand in the exploits and enterprises of warres was not covetous for any thing we reade in hystories And if that were true which Machiavell saith of those two I will oppose alwayes against those two obscure examples them above alledged which are farre more illustrious and notable and by the which I have shewed that Covetousnesse hath alwayes been pernicious to princes and Liberalitie without profusion profitable and honourable For a resolution then of this matter I say That the vice of Ingratitude accompanieth ordinarily covetousnesse and that none can bee covetous and illiberall unlesse he will proove ingrate to his friends and good servants which is one of the greatest vices wherewith a prince can bee noted For it is impossible that his affaires can bee well governed without good and loyall ministers and servants such as hee can never have being ingrate Therefore a prince ought well to ingrave perpetually in his memorie the sentence of king Bochus who said It was lesse dishonourable for a prince to bee vanquished by armes than by munificence And therefore that good emperour Salust in bello Iugurth Titus whensoever he passed any day without exercising some liberalitie and beneficence said to his friends O my friends I have lost this day meaning that that was the chiefe marke at which a prince should shoot to wit Beneficence and that otherwise hee emploies his time evill 27. Maxime A prince which will make a straight professiion of a good man cannot long endure in this world in the companie of so many other that are so bad MAny saith Machiavell have vvritten bookes to instruct a prince and to bring him to a perfection in all vertues as Xenophon Cap. 15. Of a prince did in the institution of Cyrus There are also many philosophers and others which by their vvritings have formed Ideaes and figures of monarchies and common vveales whereof there were never seene the like in the world because there is a great difference betwixt the manner that the world liveth in and that it ought to live He then that will amuse and stick upon the formes of philosophers monarchs and common weales by dispising that which is done and praising that vvhich ought to bee done hee shall sooner learne his owne ruine than his conservation Leaving then behinde all that can bee imagined of a princes perfection and staying our selves upon that which is true and subiect to bee practised By experience I say saith Master Nicholas that the prince vvhich vvill maintaine himselfe ought to learne hovv hee may sometimes not bee good and so ought to practise it according to the exigence of his affaires For if alwaies he will hould a straight profession of a good man hee cannot long endure in the companie of so many others which are of no valew THis Maxime meriteth no other confutation than that which resulteth from the points before handled for wee have at large demonstrated that the truth is cleane contrary to that which Machiaveell saith heere and that princes which have beene good men have alwaies raigned long and peceably and have beene firme and assured in their estates and the wicked contrary have not raigned long but have violently beene deposed from their estates And as for ideaes and formes of perfect monarchs and commonweales whereof some philosophers have Patterns to imitate must be perfect written they handled not that subject saying there were any such but to propose a patterne of imitation for monarchs and government of commonweales For when a man will propose a patterne to imitate hee must forme it the most perfect and make it the best hee can and after every man which giveth himselfe to imitate it must come as nigh it as he can some more nigh others lesse But a prince which proposeth to himselfe Machiavells patternes such as Caesar Borgia Oliver de Ferme Agathocles how can hee doe any good thing
came there was much beloved of the souldiors as well because he resembled his father Amilcar as for his militarie vertues Not many yeares after he was chosen captaine generall of the Carthaginian armie But as soone as he was setled in that estate he accomplished the prophesie of Hanno for hee lighted the great fire of the Punicke warres against the Romanes whereby in the end the Carthaginians were utterly ruined All this proceeded but from the Partialitie which was at Carthage for as soone as the Hannonians reasoned one way the Barchinians must needs reason to the contrarie and they studied for nothing but that by the pluralitie of their voices their opinion might obtaine the upper hand without any care or consideration what opinion was the best And thus ordinarily happeneth it where there is any Partialitie For then men give themselves more to contradiction than to judge after an wholesome sentence and without passion of that which is profitable and expedient The Partialities of the houses of Orleance and Burgoigne in our grandfathers memorie were they not cause of infinit miseries and calamities wherewith France was afflicted by the space of more than threescore yeares and of the entier ruine of the Bourgonianne house Lewis duke of Orleance the alone brother of king Charles the sixt tooke for his devise Mitto Duke Iohn de Bourgoigne tooke for his Accipio challenging as it were thereby an egalitie with the only brother of the king under colour that he was richer than hee This commencement of contrarie devices which they caused to paint in their banners of their launces and on their servants liverie coats erected a great Partialitie insomuch as the duke of Bourgoigne enterprised to cause the duke of Orleance to bee slaine as hee did The children of the duke of Orleance because justice was not executed on their fathers massacre levied armes Duke Iohn also by armes resisted them insomuch as all the realme was partialized about the quarrell of these two great houses After duke Iohn was slaine at Monterean-fante-Yonne in a strange manner whereupon his sonne Philip willing to revenge himselfe sent for the Englishmen which he caused to passe through Fraunce and occupied at least the third part of the kingdome of France This duke Philip made peace with the king but he had a son Charles his successour who would never put trust in the king of Fraunce fearing himselfe because of the warres which his father and grandfather had raised in the kingdome but would needs graple with king Lewis the eleventh This king who was too good for him raised him up so many enemies on all sides that the house of that duke came to ruine Behold the fruits of partialities which Machiavell recommendeth so much to a prince And hereupon should well be noted the saying of master Philip de Comines That Divisions and partialities are very easie to sowe and are a sure token of ruine and destruction in a countrey when they take root therein as hath happened to many monarchies and commonweales De Comines to prove his alledged saying setteth down other examples The Partialitie of the houses of Lancaster and Yorke in England whereby the house of Lancaster was altogether ruined and brought downe and the one house delivered to the other seven or eight battailes betwixt three and fourscore princes of the royall blood of England and an infinit number of people This here is no small thing but it is rather an example which should make us abhorre all Partialities Hee further saith That by the meanes of the said Partialitie betwixt these two houses many great princes and lords were banished and chased from England and amongst others that he saw a duke of the house of Lancaster the cheefe of the league of that house and brother in law of king Edward the fourth who saved himselfe in Bourgoigne yet in so poore estate that hee went bare foot and without hose after the traine of duke Charles of Bourgoigne demaunding his almes from house to house Hee after reciteth the tragicall acts of the duke of Warwicke of the kings Edward and Henry of the prince of Wales of the dukes of Glocester and Somerset which are strange hystories that cannot be heard or read without great horror and cannot but make men detest all Partialities and divisions In the time that Anniball made warre upon the Romanes there were created Titus Livius lib. 1. 7. Dec. 3. lib 4. 5. Dec. 1 Consuls together at Rome Marcus Livius and Claudius Nero which bore great enmitie one towards another and of long time The Senate fearing that these enmities betwixt those two Consuls should cause some Partialities in the administration of their estate which might turne to the domage of the publicke good admonished them both to be reconciled together Marcus Livius made answere That it was not needfull and that their enmities and Partialities should cause them with envie to seeke one to doe better than another but the Senate was not of that advice For they remembred that in the time of the Proconsulship of Quintius Paenus Caius Furius Marcus Posthumius and Cornelius Cossus the Romane armie had been vanquished and chased by the Veians because of the Partialities of the cheefetaines which could not accord in their counsels and deseignes but tended alwayes to contrarie ends The like also happened in the Proconsulship of Publius Virginius and Marcus Sergius But the most memorable and latest example which the Senate had before their eyes was the losse of the battaile at Cannes where the Romans lost fiftie thousand men which losse happened by the discord Partialitie of two cheefetaines Paulus Aemylius and Terentius Varro These examples mooved the Senate to exhort these two Consuls Livius and Nero to a reconciliation not beleeving that their Partialitie could serve them for any thing but evill to conduct the affaires of the commonweale insomuch as being constrained by the Senates authoritie they accorded and reconciled themselves together and very well acquited themselves in their charge and overthrew together a succour of fiftie thousand men which Asdruball conducted and brought over into Italie to Anniball his brother In this defeat also Asdruball himselfe was slaine and his head secretly carried and cast into Annibals campe who yet knew no newes of that journey When Anniball saw the head of his brother he then deplored his fortune and despaired of his affaires knowing that the Roman vertue would never bow nor stoope for either misfortune or calamitie The reconciliation then and concord of Marcus Livius and Claudius Nero were the cause of a great good and utilitie to the commonwealth and remounted the affaires Concord very profitable to the common-wealth thereof into a great hope and abated the pride that Anniball had taken of the battaile at Cannes as also by the contrarie the Partialitie of Paulus Aemylius who was a wise captaine and of Terentius Varro who was very rash and headie was the cause that the Romane