and Sir Christopher Blunt diswaded him yet within a moneth over he went and came with speed to the Court at None-such where falling upon his knees before the Queen after a little talk she bid him retire to his Chamber and soon after committed him to custody in the Lord Privy Seals house where having remained the space of six moneths he began to repent him of his former courses and shewed so great patience and so much submission that the Queen gave him leave to return to his own House again Neverthelesse the popular voice the croud of common people so extolled his innocency that she could not for the removal of suspicion of Injustice free her self and her Councellours but was forced to bring him to a trial which accordingly she did in the house of the Lord Privy Seal The chief Articles objected against him were That contrary to his Commission he had made the Earl of South-hampton General of the Horse had drawn his Forces into Munster neglecting the Arch Rebel Tir Oen entertained a parly with him against the Dignity of the Queens Majesty and the person of a Vice-Roy which he represented and that the Parley was suspicious in regard it was private The Earl remembring the words of Solomon Proverbs 16.14 The wrath of a Prince is as messengers of death but a wise man will pacifie it fell down upon his knees at the end of the board professing he would not contest with the Queen nor excuse the faults of his yong years either in whole or in part protesting that he alwayes meant well howsoever it fell out otherwise and that now he would bid his rash enterprizes adieu with many other words to the like purpose which made the Assembly there present to weep For indeed he was a man dearly beloved both of the Queen Peers and People nor do we read of any English Subject whose fall was more lamented then his At length this sentence was pronounced against him That he should be deposed from the office of a Privy Councellour suspended from the functions of Earl Marshall and Master of the Ordnance and be imprisoned during the Queens pleasure And indeed her pleasure was he should not endure Imprisonment long for upon his shew of humiliation and mortification she removed Berkley his Keeper and gave him leave to go at large onely admonishing him to make his own discretion his Keeper and not to come at the Court or in her presence Now the Earl thinking all danger was past and that a serene sky would succeed this storm in a presumptuous confidence of the Queens wonted favour he became an earnest suiter to her for the Farm of sweet Wines she to try the truth of his temper made him this answer That she must first know what it was worth and not give away things hand over head His high spirit not brooking a deniall falls into discontented expressions which came to the Queens ear That it was now plain the Queen intended to make him as poor as Job that he should live of the basket and gather crums under the table that the Queen was now old and decreped and withered as well in minde as in body And now again he runneth upon desperate counsels for the removeal of his Adversaries from the Court The Earl of Southampton is sent for out of the Low-Countreys his doors set open for all Commers decayed Souldiers and discontented persons admitted by Merrick his Steward to his own table Citizens flock thither each day in great numbers and all signs popularity appeared The chief of his Councel were the Earl of Southampton Sir Charles Danvers Sir Ferdinando Gorge Captain of the Garrison of Plimouth Sir Christopher Blunt his two servants Merrick and Cuffe with some others These meeting in consultation at Drury House resolve the Queens Palace shall be seized upon and his Adversaries secured who were nominated to be Raleigh Cobham Carew Cecill And the Admiral But before they could effect their designs the Queen by severall circumstances having suspicion of their actions sent Secretary Herbert to call him before the Councel the Earl doubting the matter excuseth himself that he was not very well But this slight excuse encreasing the suspicion four of the Lords were by the Queen sent unto him namely the Lord Keeper the Earl of Worcester Sir William Knolles and the Lord Chief Justice of England these comming to Essex House found there a confused number of people and the Earls of Essex Rutland and Southampton in the middest of them after some little talk the four Lords were secured Essex with a Troop of two hundred men at his heels making haste into City being falsely informed that the Citizens would take his part The Earl of Bedford the Lord Cromwell and other Lords meeting him by the way joyn themselves Essex crying out as he went For the Queen for the Queen they lay wait for my life Whilest thus he seeketh in vain for help of the Citizens certain of the Nobility entred the City with a Herald declaring him and all his adherents Traytours this so abated the edge of their courages that some of his followers began to shift for themselves amongst which was Sir Ferdinando Gorge who the better to obtain the Queens mercy freeth the four Lords that were kept prisoners in Essex House going along with them to the Court by water The Earl himself thinking to return was opposed by men in Arms at the West end of Pauls where after a short bickering he retired to Queen-hive and went to Essex-House by water By and by the Admiral besiegeth the House commanding them to yield which at first they refuse but afterwards finding their cause to be desperate they fall upon their knees and deliver up their weapons to the Admiral The chief of them as Essex Southampton Rutland Sands Cromwell Mounteagle Danvers and Bromley were committed to the Tower the rest were put in common Prisons The Earl being thus immured sent this Letter to Sir Thomas Egerton Lord Chancellour The Copy hereof the better to express the temper of his spirit I have word for word inserted The Earl of Essex Letter to the Sir Thomas Egerton Lord Chancellour My very good Lord though there is not a man this day living that I should sooner make judge of any question that might concern me then your self yet you must give me leave to tell you that in some cases I must appeal from all earthly Judges and if in any then surely in this when the highest Judge on earth hath interposed upon me the heaviest punishment without tryal or hearing since then I must either answer your Lordships arguments or else forsake mine own just defence I will force mine aking head to do me service for an hour I must first deny my discontentment which was forced to be an humerous discontent and so that it was unseasonable or is so long continuing your Lordship should rather condole with me then expostulate natural seasons are expected here below but violent
Sleidan Speed Stow Sozomenus Sabellicus Stapleton Suetonius Spenser Sir Philip Sidney Serres Selden T Theodoritus Tibullus Tacitus Trussel Nicholas Trivet Tertullian V Victor Verstigan Virgil W Will. of Newberry Will. of Malmsbury Walsingham Weever Waller X Xenophon Z Zosimus The Reader is desired to correct these Errata's with his Pen the most material being in Sir Walter Raleigh's Life his Letter to the Duke of Buckingham should have been placed after his Voyage to Guyana PAge 17. line 30. read falne p. 24. l. 25. for Danes read English l. 32. r. depart p. 44 l. 17. r. Denmark p. 80. l. 1. r. his l. 11. r. sky p. 92. l. 6. for himself r. him p. 101. l 6. r. progress p. 129. l. 18. after enterprize r. which they refused p. 186. l. 8. r. the. p. 207. l. 12. r. they p. 228. l 27. r. bait p. 251. in the title r. Sir Walter Raleigh p. 253. l. 17. r. Rams l. 29. r. unfortunately p. 255. l. 16. r. intercessor p. 279. l. 18. r. Pallas p. 329. l. 2. r. Strafford p. 333. l. 19. r. Strafford p. 405. l. 3. r. Louden p. 477. l. 29. r. fit p. 520. l. last r. Ship p. 562. l. 33. r. tail The Names of those whose Lives are written in this Book 1 COnstantine the Great Folio 1 2 King Arthur Folio 8 3 Dunstan Folio 16 4 Edmond Ironside Folio 22 5 Edward the Confessor Folio 29 6 William the Conqueror Folio 38 7 Thomas Becket Folio 49 8 Richard the First Folio 55 9 Edward the Third Folio 66 10 Edw. the Black Prince Folio 79 11 Sir John Hawkwood Folio 88 12 Geoffery Chaucer Folio 91 13 Henry the Fifth Folio 98 14 John D. of Bedford Folio 115 15 Richard Nevil Earl of Warwick Folio 125 16 Richard the Third Folio 140 17 Thomas Howard Earl of Surrey Folio 145 18 Cardinal Wolsey Folio 151 19 Sir Thomas Moor Folio 155 20 Thomas Cromwel Earl of Essex Folio 170 21 Sir Philip Sidney Folio 179 22 Robert E. of Leicester Folio 186 23 The Lord Burleigh Folio 195 24 Sir Francis Drake Folio 205 25 Sir Francis Walsingham Folio 215 26 Sir Nicholas Bacon Folio 219 27 Robert Devereux Earl of Essex Folio 221 28 Sir Robert Cecil Folio 238 29 Sir Tho. Overbury Folio 241 30 Sir Walter Rawleigh Folio 250 31 Mr. Wil. Cambden Folio 261 32 Mr. Tho. Sutton Folio 268 33 Sir Francis Bacon Folio 273 34 Lancelot Andrews Bishop of Winchester Folio 289 35 Doctor Donne Folio 298 36 George Villiers Duke of Buckingham Folio 308 37 Sir Henry Wotton Folio 319 38 Tho. Wentworth Earle of Strafford Folio 329 39 William Laud Archbishop of Canterbury Folio 343 40 Robert Devereux Earl of Essex General of the Parliaments Forces Folio 350 41 Sir Charles Lucas Folio 356 42 King Charles Folio 363 43 The Lord Capel Folio 433 44 James Marquesse of Montross Folio 446 45 Bishop Usher Folio 469 46 John Lilburne Folio 479 47 Oliver Cromwel Folio 525 Englands Worthies Select Lives of the most Eminent PERSONS of the Three Nations from Constantine the Great to the Death of the late Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell COnstantine for his many Victories sirnamed the Great was Son to Constantius Emperour of Rome his Mother was named Hellena being Daughter unto Caelus a Brittish Prince though some Jews and Gentiles out of hatred to her Religion have reported her to be an Inholder or Hoastess he was born in England as all Writers affirm two petty Greek Authors only dissenting who deserve to be arraigned of felony for robbing our Country of its honor Colchester was the place where he first beheld the light as the Ancient Poet Necham sung From Colchester there rose a Star The Rayes whereof gave glorious light Throughout the world in Climates far Great Constantine Romes Emperour bright At such time as he was Caesar under Constantius his Father he was left at Rome as Hostage with Galerius the Emperour but perceiving his death to be by him attempted he posted to Brittain in all haste to his father who was newly returned to the City of York from an expedition he had made against the Picts and Caledonians Constantius at the time of his sons arrival was sick of the Plague whereof he died immediately afterwards the sight of his son at the present so revived his spirits that raising himself upon his bed he set the Crown Imperial upon his head and in the presence of his Privy Councellours spake to this effect Now is my death to me more welcome and my departure hence more pleasant seeing I shall leave my unaccomplished actions to be performed by thee my Son in whose person I question not but that my memorial shall be retained as in a monument of eternal fame What I had intended but by death prevented see thou accomplish let thine Empire be governed uprightly by Justice protecting the innocents from the tyranny of oppressours wiping away all tears from the eyes of Christians for therein above all things have I esteemed my self happy to thee therefore I commend my Diadem and their defence taking my Faults along with me to my grave but leaving my Vertues to revive and live in thee With the conclusion of which words he concluded his life leaving his Subjects sorrowful for his departure but the grief they received by the death of the Father was mittigated in the hopes they conceived of his Son who so resembled his Father in all vertuous conditions that though the Emperour was changed yet his good government remained For as one writes Sol occubuit nox nulla secuta est The sun was gone but night was none Another writes thus of him Great Constantine preserv'd by Heavens decree Of mighty Rome the Emperour to be Constantine thus chosen Emperour in Brittain was confirmed Emperour by the Senate of Rome who like the Persians adored the rising Sun giving approbation to what they could not remedy his first expedition was against the Picts and Caledonians which War his Father had begun but death prevented him to finish it leaving the prosecution thereof to his son Constantine that the Fabrick of so many victories by him atchieved might have the foundation thereof laid in Brittain nor was his success contrary to his expectation subduing the inhabitants that were most remote witnesses saith one of the suns set or going down Whilest Constantine was thus busied in Brittain Maxentius by the tumultuous souldiers was proclaimed Emperour at Rome whose sister Fausta Constantine had married but his tyrannical usurpation grew so odious to the Senate that they sent to Constantine for his aid who willingly hearkening to what they so earnestly desired prepared his forces against the new elected Emperour Maximianus the Father of the Tyrant faining to abhor the outragiousness of his son but seeking indeed to uphold him in his tyranny repaired to his Son in law Constantine with an intent to murther him but revealing his intentions to his Daughter Fausta was by her detected and being taken was
intended to adjudge him a perjured person and also a traytor for not yielding temporal Allegiance to his temporal Sovereign as himself had sworn to do and accordingly the Prelates themselves by joynt consent adjudged him of perjury and by the mouth of the Bishop of Chichester disclaimed thence forward all obedience unto him as their Archbishop But Becket herewith nothing daunted caused to be sung before him the next day at the Altar that Psalm Principes fedent The Princes sit and speak against me and the ungodly persecute me c. and forthwith taking his Silver Crosier in his own hands enters armed therewith into the Kings Prefence who more and more enraged at Beckets insolency commandeth his Peers to sit in judgement on him as on a traytor and the Courtiers like Ecchoes answering the King the whole Court sounded nothing but Treason so that Becket afraid of being slain hasteth home and changing his costly Robes into course Rags passeth over into Flanders calling himself by the name of Dereman The Archbishop gone the King banishes all his Kindred out of his Dominions and he on the other side excommunicates all such as had to do against him at length the King of France with intreaty and the Pope with the terrour of the Churches censures made a full atonement and reconciliation between them the Archbishop in great triumph returned to England having been absent from his native Countrey for the space of seven years All controversies seemed now fully to be ended though the sequel thereof proved far otherwise for some excommunicated Bishops and other men of great account desiring to be absolved he refused to do it unless with this caution that they should stand to the judgement of the Church in those things for which they were excommunicated but they disdaining the pride of the Archbishop poste over into Normandy where the King was then informing him that Thomas was now grown more haughty then before that he went up and down with great Troops of men both Horse and Foot that attended on him as upon the Kings own Royal Person that to be a King indeed he wanted but the name and setting the Crown upon his head The King herewith highly incensed in a great rage said And is it possible that I cannot peaceably enjoy neither Kingdom Dignity nor Life and all this for one onely priest Cursed be all such as eat my bread since none will revenge me of this fellow These words being over-heard by four Knights Sir Morvil Sir William Tracy Sir Hugh Brito Sir Richard Fitz-urse they thinking to do the King a pleasure though as the sequel of his reign proved they could not have done him a greater injury hasted into England and in his own Church of Canterbury most barbarously murthered him being then about 48. years of age not long after he was Canonized by Pope Alexander and the day of his death being the 29. of December kept annually holy Many miracles are reported to have been done by him and his Shrine so inriched by Pilgrims which from all places came thither in devotion that at the defacing thereof in the time of King Henry the Eighth the spoil thereof in Gold and Precious Stones filled two great Chests such as six or eight strong men could do no more then convey one of them at once out of the Church Thus the Images of many men were richly clothed when many poor Christians Gods Image went almost naked so full of charity were those empty times of knowledge a shame to us who know more but practice less Draiton in his Polyolbion hath these verses on him Concerning whom the world since then hath spent much breath And many questions made both of his life and death If he were truly just he hath his right if no Those times were much to blame that have him reckoned so Stapleton a Jesuite put forth a book entituled Tres Thomas Saint Thomas the Apostle Thomas of Becket and of Sir Thomas Moor he Canonizes the two last of either of which he writes six times as much as of St. Thomas the Apostle The Life of RICHARD the First THis reign as it in part epitomizes the History of the holy War without being guilty of an omission of the most admired part of Chronical History I could not but insert Richard the first who for his inexpugnable and Lion-like heart obtained the sirname of Coeur de Lion he was a most valiant and magnanimous Prince accustomed to Wars he died in the fields of Mars of whom as a Prince we shall say nothing having so much to relate of him after he came to be King This martial Prince born in a martial age was third son to King Henry the Second and succeeded him in the Crown after his Decease his elder Brothers dying before their Father At his Coronation he commanded no Jews should be present but they desirous to see the solemnities hasted thither in great numbers but the price of their lives paid for the pleasure of their eyes the common people falling upon them and slaying a great number so ominous to the enemies of Christ was the first day of this Kings reign presaging saith one his following successes in the Jewish Countreys For intending a journey to Jerusalem not as a Pilgrim to see the City but as a Souldier to conquer the Countrey he raises an Army of thirty thousand Foot and five thousand Horse his next care was for money the sinews of War and notwithstanding his Father had left him eleven hundred thousand pound a vast sum for that age yet was it no thought sufficient for so great a journey Therefore to the end he might be able to go thorow with his work he sells the Castles of Berwick and Roxborough to the Scottish King for ten thousand pounds the Priory of Coventry to Hugh Bishop of Chester for 300. marks and the County of Northumberland to Hugh Bishop of Duresme for his Life jeasting he had made a new Earl of an old Bishop then feigning he had lost his old Seal he made a new one proclaiming that whosoever would safely enjoy those things which before time they had enrolled should come to the new Seal by which princely skill not to say cheat he squeezed much money out of his Subjects purses Having proceeded thus far towards his journey his next care was for securing the Kingdom of England in his absence On his Brother John whom he knew to be of an ambitious spirit and apt to take fire on the least occasion on him he heaped both riches and honour that by his liberality he might win him to loyalty but the chief Government of the Land he committed to William Longchamp Bishop of Ely Lord Chancellour of England chusing him for his Viceroy rather then any lay-lay-Earl because a Coronet perchance may swell into a Crown but never a Mitre with him was joyned in Commission Hugh Bishop of Durham for the parts of England beyond Humber Yet as Suetonius reports of the
Brother Earl of Longuevile Charles Earl of Vendosme the Earls of Tankervile Salbruch Nassaw Dampmarlin La Roch with many other Lords besides two thousand Knights and Gentlemen nor did the slain come far short of the prisoners the Chiefest whereof were Peter of Burbon Duke of Athens high Constable of France John Clermont Marshall George of Charney Lord great Chamberlain the Bishop of Chalons the Lords of Landas Pons and Chambly with others to the number of 1700. Knights and Gentlemen The Prince having commended his Souldiers needed not at that time reward them giving them the rich plunder of the Field which did sufficiently recompence them for their victory This indeed whetteth a Souldiers valour when desert is recompensed with reward The English whose valour was most conspicious were the Earls of Warwick Suffolk Salisbury Oxford and Stafford the Lords Cobham Spenser Berkley Basset and Audley which last named Lord for his valour was rewarded by the Prince with the gift of five hundred marks Fee simple in England which he presently gave to four of his Esquires whereupon the Prince demanding whether he accepted not his gift he answered that these men had deserved the same as well as himself and had more need of it with which reply the Prince was so well pleased that he gave him five hundred marks more in the same kinde an example worthy of immortal memory where desert in the Subject and reward in the Prince strive which should be greatest Nor did the Prince use less humanity towards his prisoners whom he entertained in most honourable manner so that King Johns Captivity was onely restraint of his liberty being attended on like a King in the hands of his enemy for noble spirits scorn to insult over misery 't is Plebean rage that is merciless Having refreshed his Army he marcheth with his prisoners to Burdeaux where he tarried a while longer to rest his Souldiers from thence he sets sail for England ariving at Plymouth King Edward as soon as he had knowledge of the Victory caused a general Thanksgiving all over England eight dayes together giving God the thanks and glory knowing him the Author and his Son but the instrument of this unparallel'd victory By reason of these his wonderful Atchievements his name grew famous all the Christian world over to whom for succour comes Peter King of Castile driven out of his kingdom by the French with the assistance of the King of Arragon and his Bastard Brother Henry placed in his room Prince Edward considering what a dangerous president this might be against all lawful Kings that any one should be thus dis-throned having obtained leave of his Father resolveth to aid him and taking along with him an Army of thirty thousand men makes his way through the streights of Rouncevallux in Navarr accompanied with the Kings of Castile and Majorca John Duke of Lancaster his Brother with many other Knights and Gentlemen On the other side King Henry for defence of his Diadem had assembled an Army of an hundred thousand consisting of French under Glequin their famous Captain as also of Castilians both Christians and Saracens On the borders of Castile at a place called Nazers it came to a Battel where the Prince obtained a glorious Victory slew many thousands of his enemies and took above two thousand prisoners nor left he off here but proceeded so far untill he had set him in Burgus upon his Throne again The greater the benefit is of him that receives it the more monstruous is his ingratitude that doth not acknowledge it this ungrateful King notwithstanding the benefits he had received of the Prince dismissed his without money to pay his Army which constrained him in his return to Burdeaux to coin his Plate but that not supplying his present necessities he layes upon his Dominions in Gascoigne a new taxation which was the cause of a most dangerous revolt But this was not all the mischief that he accrewed by this journey for the Prince brought back with him such an indisposition of body that he was never throughly well after Some report him to have been poysoned by King Peter and probable enough he might be guilty of such wickedness whose whole course of life was so full of vice Duke John of Lancester was not freed from the suspition of hastening his death though the heat of the Countrey and the unfitness of the Season might be the principal cause How ever it was certain it is he survived not long after dying at Canterbury upon Trinity Sunday Anno 1376. aged about six and forty years a Prince excelling all the princes which went before him and surpassing in Martial deeds all the Heroes that have lived after him His body was buried at Christ-Church in Canterbury where his monument standeth leaving behinde him onely one Son who was afterwards King of England by the name of Richard the Second unless we should reckon his natural issue Sir John Sounder and Sir Roger Clarendon Knights which latter is thought to be Ancestour to the house of the Smiths in Essex The Life of Sir JOHN HAWKWOOD AMongst those many Worthies which this Martial age produced that valiant Knight Sir John Hawkwood deserveth remembrance who though of low birth by his Martial prowess purchased his own renown over the Christian world He was born at Sible Heningham in the County of Essex and was in his youth bound apprentice at London with a Taylor from whence he was prest in the musters for service of King Edward the Third and sent into France as a common Souldier where contrary to the Proverb which saith Taylors are no men he behaved himself so valiantly that he was made a Captain over a Company of Foot Souldiers and not long after upon some further good service by him performed advanced unto the order of Knighthood but a peace being concluded between the French and English and his estate not able to maintain his Title he was loath to return home again to follow his old occupation it being something preposterous from a Knight to turn Taylor again wherefore he joyned himself with the Companies called the Late-comers who being about five or six thousand made great spoil upon the East parts of France passing through Champain Burgondy and Damphin even to the very Gates of Avignion in Province From thence he departed into Lumbardy having the leading of that part of the Companies which was called the White Band with whom he served valiantly in the Wars of John Marquess of Montferrat but Lionel Duke of Clarence Son to Edward the Third King of England coming over into Italy to marry with the Lady Violanta Daughter of Galeacio Duke of Millain he forsook that service and attended the Duke to the marriage To omit their sumptuous entertainment which by Paulus Jovius upon the life of Galeacio is written at large Barnaby the Brother of Galeacio having at that time great Wars with the State of Mantua obtained of the Duke of Clarence that Sir John Hawkwood
Burgundy who doth homage to the Emperour and taketh a truce with King Henry for his Counties of Flanders and Arthois These business ended Burgundy returneth to Graveling Henry into England and the Emperour to Germany But long did not Henry remain in England for having raised a puissant Army he makes his second expedition into France accompanied with many Earls and Lords and an Army of 25527. Souldiers constituting his Brother John Duke of Bedford Protector of England in his absence and on the first of August arives in Normandy near to the Castle of Tonque which he presently besieged and after eight dayes had it yielded unto him at which time the Earl of Salisbury took the Castle of Albervilliers which the King gave to him and his Heirs being the first Land given by the King in France He afterwards marcht with his Army to Caen who trusting unto the strength of the place refuse to render upon the Kings summons whereupon having taken it by assault he adjudgeth some of the most stubborn refusers to death and distributeth the spoil of the Town amongst his Souâ—diers according to the old Law Those who when that they may refuse to have it Shall afterwards have nay although they crave it He next takes in the Castle of Corfye the Town and Castle of Argenton Allenson Fallais with many other Towns and places of importance his uncle the Duke of Exeter bringing him a supply of fifteen thousand men out England he takes the City of Eureux and then encampeth with his Army before the great City of Roan Within the City were a thousand selected Souldiers sent by the Duke of Burgogne besides fifteen thousand Citizens well trained and furnished and stored with provision for a ten moneths siege the City of Lovies being an impediment to his passage he assaults and takes as also a stone bridge strongly guarded the City is summoned by Windsor the Herald who scorning to yield make a sally forth but are beaten in with loss The King the Dukes of Clarence and Exeter with many other Lords encompass it on the East West and North on the South were encamped the Earls of Warren and Huntington the River of Seine running betwixt them over which was built a bridge for enter course the one unto the other The Kings Cousin-Germane the King of Portingale sent likewise a Navy of Ships to the mouth of the River Seine which stopped all passage of succour up the River The siege thus continuing from June unto December the Citizens were brought unto that extremity that they eat Cats and Dogs Rats and Mice and had nothing to drink but Vinegar and Water so that fifty thousand being miserably famished they desired a parley yet notwithstanding their wants stand upon such high terms that nothing was concluded but a truce for eight dayes which being ended and nothing agreed upon they crave one day longer and that being ended four dayes more at the end of which time by the importunity of the common people the City was surrendred upon these Articles following 1. That the Burgesses should give unto Henry towards his expence in the siege three hundred fifty six thousand Crowns of Gold 2. That Robert Liner Vicar-General to the Archbishop of Roan Jehan Jourdan who commanded the Canoniers and Alen Blanchart Captain of the common people should be left to his mercy without condition 3. That all the people should swear faith and loyalty to Henry and his successours 4. That Henry should protect and defend them against all men and confirme unto them their priviledges franchises and liberties which they had enjoyed ever since the time of St. Lewis King of France 5. That all such as had desire to leave the Town might freely depart with his garments onely upon his back and his goods to be confiscated unto King Henry 6. That the Souldiers should bring all their Arms to a place assigned and should depart out of the Town unarmed with a Cudgel in their hands first taking their Oath not to bear Arms against Henry for a twelve moneth next ensuing Roan the chief City of Normandy thus rendred sundry other places of note yielded themselves as Caudebec Monstraillier Diepe Fesohamp Arques Neufchastel Deincourt Moncheaux Eu Vernon Mante Gorney Harflewr Ponteur-de-mer Mollineaux le Treict Tancarvile Abrechier Mauleurier Valemont Neufuille Bellaucombre Fontaines Le boure Logempree Preaux Nougonder-ville Saint German Sur Cuylly Baudemont Bray Villiterre Charles Maisniel Les boules Guillon-court Fanifontaines Le Becy Crepin Backeville and divers other places wherein King Henry placed Garrisons Those great successes of King Henry caused the Duke of Burgundy who bare all the sway with the French King to mediate a peace for which end he sent his Ambassadours to Henry desiring a personall conference to which he assented and assigned the place which was at Melun whither at the time appointed he goes accompanied with the Dukes of Clarence Glocester and Exeter his uncle Beaufort the Bishop of Winchester with the Earls of March and Salisbury and a thousand men at Arms where he found the French King Queen Isabel the Lady Katherine their Daughter the Duke of Burgundy the Count St. Paul with a great train attending his coming many things were propounded but nothing concluded whereupon King Henry not well pleased said to Burgogne Cousin I cannot well digest this refusal but be you assured that either I will have your Kings daughter and all my demands or I will banish both you and them out of France You speak your pleasure said the Duke but before you shall thrust the King them and me out of the Kingdom you will be weary of the enterprise The treaty thus broken up in discontent King Charles repaired unto Paris whilest King Henry quickneth his thoughts for revenge his first enterprise was on the Town of Ponthois a place of great riches which was surprised by the Earl of Longuevyle and the Duke of Clarence and from thence marching on took in the Castles of Vangon Villeirs Gysors Galyard and Dumal so that now all Normandy except Mount St. Michael was reduced to the possession of the King of England Charles the Dolphin in the mean time being bare of money and by that means having no great store of Souldiers seizeth upon his Mothers money Plate and Jewels she in a womanish spleen studies revenge but he to make good what he had done inveagles the Kings head that her designs were dangerous and bent altogether for the alienation of the Crown Whereupon she is sent prisoner to Eours but soliciting Burgogne for her deliverance she is by an ambush taken from her keepers and by his means made regent of France and her Picture stamped upon the Seal of that State These doings of Burgogne displeased the Daulphin yet still he carried fair weather in his countenance notwithstanding he had stormes of revenge in his heart so warily not to say wickedly could he cover his passions untill he had performed what he did intend The Duke doubting no
practices With many other words to the like effect which wrought so in the auditors that Henry is proclaimed King of England and France such French Lords as were present taking their oaths to be true unto him And great need had the Regent to bestir himself for Charles the French King surviving King Henry but 53. dayes died at St. Denis whose imbecillities were a great help to the English as the Infancy of King Henry was now an advantage to the Dolphin who upon his Fathers Death proclaims himself King by the name of Charles the Seventh and making all the force he could marcheth to relieve Crepan besieged by the English but his enterprise proved very unfortunate being routed with the loss of two thousand men yet nothing daunted at this disaster he resolveth to encounter adverse fortune with encrease of courage and hearing that many of the English had pillaged the Countries of Nugion and Main upon their return into Normandy he sets upon them recovers their booty and slayes fifteen hundred of them then speedily takes he Meulan upon the River of Sein putting all the English therein to the Sword but the possession was short and the revenge speedy being recovered by Thomas Montacute Earl of Salisbury who to quit scores with the Dolphin killed all the French were found there About this time the three great pillars of the English Monarchy in France the Dukes of Bedford Burgundy and Brittain met at the City of Amiens in Picardy to consult of the whole course and sum of Affairs adding to the old league this addition that it should be offensive and defensive respectively and to make the friendship the more firme the Duke of Bedford married Anne Sister to Philip Duke of Burgundy a Lady whose beauty surpassed the blush that glorified Luna when she kissed the Shepherd on the Hills of Latmos But whilst the Regent was thus busied in promoting the English cause the Parisians had a design to destroy it which was by delivering their City up to the French King but treason being seldome true to its self it came to the Regents ear which cost the chief conspirators their lives and now fresh forces coming out of England his Army augmented be takes from Charles the Towns and Fortresses of Crotoy Baside Riol Rula Gyrond Basile Mermound Milbam Femil Seintace and many other The French finding themselves too weak to deal with the English by force work by policy and allure from their sides the Duke of Richmond and his Brother Arthur who deliver up to the Dolphin the Castles of Crotoye and Yerney the Duke of Bedford hating their perfidiousness assaults and takes Crotoye and besieges Yerney who agree to surrender if not relieved by a certain time the Duke of Allanson with sixteen thousand French undertakes the rescue but finding the English numbers to surmount his Arithmetick he wheeleth about to Vernoyle in Perch whom the Regent overtaking a cruel Battel ensued which for two hours together was maintained with equall courage on both sides the Regent himself with a Battel-ax fought most fiercely winning immortal honour in that bloody journey At length the Victory fell to the English though with the loss of above two thousand of their men on the French side were slain 5. Earls 2. Viscounts 20. Barrons and above 7000. common Souldiers besides 2700. Scots lately arrived there were taken prisoners the Duke of Allanson himself the Lord of Herneys Sir John Towrnebull 200. Gentlemen and many common Souldiers This Battel was fought the 7. of August 1425. That which followeth till the siege of Orleance I have set down out of Paulus Aemytius as Speed hath done before me The fierce Conquerour besiegeth Mantz in Main and with Ordnance beats down part of the Walls it yields an English Garrison is left there after the taking which not being sufficient to keep the Town in due subjection is compelled to fly to a Tower for their safety the enemies which were admitted into it by the Burgers enjoying the rest The Lord Talbot that most noble Captain of the English with whose name Talbot is coming the French used to fright their children presently arrives to the rescue and puts the Malefactors to death The English Empire then extented it self at which time as bath been observed to the River of Loire Charles was called King of Berry Hitherto the English fortunes in France received no check their serene Sky was without Clouds so long as a good correspondence was held betwixt the Burgundian and the English but this knot of friendship was like to have been broken by occasion of the Duke of Glocester who married Jaqueline Countess of Haynoult Holland and Zealand notwithstanding John Duke of Brabant her husband were yet living The Duke of Burgundy his Cousin was greatly offended hereat insomuch that the controversie grew to be so great that the Duke of Glocester sent him a challenge but the Regent well knowing that the discord of the English might prove the union of the French so wrought betwixt them that the sore seemed indifferently well healed Much about that time likewise be compounded a difference between the Protector and Cardinal Beaufort Bishop of Winchester though to effect the same he was fain to come over into England substituting the Earl of Warwick Lieutenant General in his absence But France wanting his company he quickly returned carrying a great number of fresh men over with him During his abode in England Arthur Earl of Richmond made Constable of France by King Charles raiseth an Army of twenty thousand men and with them suddainly besiegeth St. Jean a Town in Normandy the Garrison were at first dismayed with their sudden arrivall but upon better advice they valliantly sallied out crying aloud a Salisbury a Suffolk whose names struck such a terrour into the besiegers that with loss of their Artillery and 800. of their Company they betook themselves to flight To rehearse each particular would make our discourse prove too prolix to come to the siege of Orleance Undertaken by these matchless Worthies the Earl of Salisbury and the Lord Talbot with a puissant Army the Citizens hearing of their intentions prepared to withstand them their Suburbs equall in bigness to a good City they level with the ground chusing rather to destroy a part then hazard the whole the English encompass it on every side and the Citizens begin to feel the misery of want God when mans help fails interposeth his hand the Earl of Salisbury looking out at a Window to take a view for a general assault is unfortunately slain a sad loss for the English for upon the death of this man saith Polydor Virgil the fortune of the War changed The Regent to repair this loss sendeth Sir John Falstaff with fresh supplies who arrived there safe in despite of the Lord De la Brets who with nine thousand men endeavoured to intercept him hereupon the City would yield but to the Burgundian not to the English a cunning plot to divide
sollicitations he had from Henry Earl of Richmond and the Lords of his faction who to draw them off from Richards side that morning in which Bosworth Field was fought was found a world of papers strowed before Norfolks door Yet notwithstanding all this he regarding more his oath his honour and promise made to King Richard like a faithful Subject absented not himself from his Master but as he faithfully lived under him so he manfully died with him But to return to his Son the Earl of Surrey in this Battle he had the leading of the Archers which King Richard had placed in the fore-front as a Bulwark to defend the rest the undaunted courage of this Earl and his resolute brave carriage being taken prisoner are delineated to the life by the renowned Sir John Beaumont in his ever-living Poem of Bosworth Field which if to some it may seem a long Quotation the goodness of the lines will recompense the tediousness of reading them Courageous Talbot had with Surrey met And after many blows begins to fret That one so young in Arms should thus unmov'd Resist his strength so oft in war approv'd And now the Earl beholds his Fathers fall VVhose death like horrid darkness frighted all Some give themselves as Captives others fly But this young Lion casts his generous eye On Mowbray's Lion painted in his shield And with that King of Beasts repines to yield The Field saith he in which the Lion stands Is blood and blood I offer to the hands Of daring foes but never shall my flight Die black my Lion which as yet is white His Enemies like cunning Huntsmen strive In binding snares to take their prey alive While he desires t' expose his naked breast And thinks the sword that deepest strikes is best Young Howard single with an Army fights When mov'd with pitty two renowned Knights Strong Clarindon and valiant Coniers try To rescue him in which attempt they die Now Surrey fainting scarce his Sword can hold Which made a common Souldier grow so bold To lay rude hands upon that noble Flower Which he disdaining anger gives him power Erects his weapon with a nimble round And sends the Peasants Arm to kiss the ground This done to Talbot he presents his Blade And saith It is not hope of life hath made This my submission but my strength is spent And some perhaps of villain blood will vent My weary soul this favour I demand That I may die by your victorious hand Nay God forbid that any of my name Quoth Talbot should put out so bright a flame As burns in thee brave Youth where thou hast err'd It was thy Fathers fault since he prefer'd A Tyrants Crown before the juster side The Earl still mindeful of his birth reply'd I wonder Talbot that thy noble heart Insults on ruines of the vanquisht part We had the right if now to you it flow The fortune of your Swords hath made it so I never will my luckless choice repent Nor can it stain mine honour or descent Set Englands Royal Wreath upon a stake There will I fight and not the place forsake And if the will of God hath so dispos'd That Richmonds Brow be with the Crown inclos'd I shall to him or his give doubtless signs That duty in my thoughts not faction shines Which he proved to be most true in the whole course of his life for having continued prisoner in the Tower three years and a half the Earl of Lincoln confederating with one Lambert Simnel raised an Army against the King the Lieutenant of the Tower favouring their enterprise freely offered the Earl licence to depart out at his pleasure which he refused saying That he that commanded him thither should command him out again The King understanding of his fidelity not onely released him of his imprisonment but took him into a more specal regard and soon had he an occasion to make tryall of him a great insurrection happening in the North wherein the Rebells were grown so potent that they slew the Earl of Northumberland in the field and took the City of York by assault against these King Henry assembles a great power making the Earl of Surrey Chief Captain of his Voward who so behaved himself that the Rebells forces were dissipated their chief Leaders taken and soon after executed The King noting his great prudence and magnanimity made him Lieutenant Generall from Trent Northward had Warden of the East and middle Marches and Justice of the Forrests from Trent Northwards in which offices he continued the space of ten years during which time the Scots having committed some outrages upon the Borders he made a road into Tivydale where he burnt and destroyed all before him returning with great spoils and honour Not long after he made another road into Scotland returning with like success James the fifth then King of Scotland raised a great power to withstand him and sent to the Earl a challenge to fight with him hand to hand which he accepted but the King into his demands would have the Countrey or Lands then in Controversie to be made Brabium Victoris which was without the Earls power to engage being the inheritance of the King his Master but he proffers better Lands of his own upon the Combat which was not accepted and so nothing was concluded A peace being concluded with the Scots he was called home and made Lord Treasurer of England of the Privy Council living in great Honor and reputation all the dayes of King Henry who dying his Son Henry that succeded him added to his other dignities the high Marshallship of England and going in person with an Army into France left him Lieutenant Generall from Trent Northward to defend the Realm against the Scots for James the Fifth King of Scotland notwithstanding he were King Henries Brother-in-law yet did so firmly adhere to the French that to divert King Henries proceedings in his own person with a mighty Army he invades England The Earl of Surrey to oppose him raises what Forces he could and at a place called Flodden it came to a pitcht field which was fought with great courage and valour but God who owned the just cause of the English crowned them with success and set the Palm of Victory on the Earl of Surrey's head The Scottish King being slain and with him two Bishops eleven Earls seventeen Barrons four hundred Knights besides other Gentlemen and seventeen thousand common Souldiers The Earl for these services was by the King at his return home highly rewarded and restored to the Dukedom of Norfolk his Fathers Dignity Soon after was he sent chief Commissioner with the Lady Mary the Kings sister to be married unto Lewis the French King and after his return home the King and Queen going to Guines to visit the French King he was made Protectour of the Realm in his absence Old age seizing on him he obtained leave of the King to spend the remainder of his dayes at Framlingham
Castle an honourable Mansion of his own where he continued and kept a bounteful house to the time of his death which happened in the fourscore and sixth year of his age He was buried at Thetford Abbey in Norfolk dying after a most generous life worth a large estate so clear from debt that at his death he owed not one groat to any person whatsoever an unusual happiness to attend so great a Souldier and Courtier as he was From this famous Duke is descended the Right Honorable James Earl of Suffolk whose great Grandfather Thomas Howard Duke of Norfolk married Margret sole Daughter and Heir to Sir Thomas Audley Lord Chancellour of England by whom he had issue Thomas Lord Howard of Walden and Earl of Suffolk who built that magnificent Structure at Audley-end who left the same to his Son and Heir Theophilus a worthy Gentleman the Father of James Earl of Suffolk now living Anno 1659. To whom with his most vertuous Lady I wish all encrease of true honour and felicity To the greater honour of these Progenies this Heroick Earl died so much a Laureat that his Songs and Sonnets by all those that rightly understand Poetry are looked upon as in those dayes to have been the Muses Parnassus so that for his Epitaph there needed no more to be writ but that here lies interred The greatest Courtier the most valiant Souldier and the most accomplisht Poet of those times The Life of CARDINAL VVOLSEY Fortunae variantis opus Wolsaeus ad alta Scandit iter dubium certa minitante ruina CArdinal VVolsey the Tennis-ball of Fortune was born at Ipswich in Suffolk of so poor and despicable Parents that were his story of an ancient date and not delivered by Authentique Historians it might pass for a fiction his Father being no more but a poor Butcher from so low a beginning did he rise to the highest pitch of honour His Education in youth was at Oxford in Maudlin Colledge from thence he was preferred to be School-master to the Marquess of Dorsets Children where he first learned to be imperious over noble blood the Marquess dying Wolsey went into France to seek his Fortune and coming to Callis became servant to Sir John Naphant then Treasurer of the Town where he behaved himself with so great discretion that his Master shortly preferred him to King Henry the Seventh Having thus cast Anchor at Court the Haven of hope and Port of Promotion he was more then double diligent in the Kings eye and very serviceable to Doctour Fox Bishop of Wincheter Secretary and Lord Privy Seal as also to Sir Thomas Lovel Master of the Wards and Constable of the Tower who perswaded King Henry having urgent business with Maximilian the Emperour to send Wolsey in Embassage unto him being at that present in the Countrey of Flanders who returned again before he was thought to be gone and withal concluded some Points forgot in his directions to the hight contentment of King Henry for the which he bestowed upon him the Deanry of Lincolne and not long after made him his Almoner But King Henries day now drawing towards night he adores the rising Sun Prince Henry and having found the length of his foot fitteth him with an easie shoe well knowing there could be no loss to humour him who was so able to give nor was he deceived in his expectation for Henry afterwards coming to be King and having conquered the City of Tourney in France bestowed the Bishoprick of the same upon VVolsey and not long after made him Bishop of Lincolne and Archbishop of York And now being Primas Anglia carried himself accordingly by erecting his Cross in the Kings Court although within the Jurisdiction of Canterbury which high presumption VVilliam Archbishop of Canterbury greatly checked But VVolsey not abiding any Superious obtained to be made Priest Cardinal and Legatus de Latere unto whom the Pope sent a Cardinals Hat with certain Bulls for his Authority in that behalf And now remembring the taunts he had received from Canterbury found means with the King that he was made Lord Chancellour of England and Canterbury which was Chancellour dismissed who had continued in that place long since before the death of King Henry the Seventh VVolsey now sitting at the Helm of Church and State had two Crosses and two Pillars born ever before him the one of his Archbishoprick the other of his Legacy by two of the tallest Priests that were to be found in the Realm To the better maintenance of which chargeable estate the King bestowed on him the Bishoprick of VVinchester and in Commendam the Abbey of St. Albans and with them he held in Farm the Bishopricks of Bathe VVorcester and Hereford enjoyed by strangers incumbents not residing in the Realm so that now being Bishop of Tourney Lincolne York VVinchester Bathe VVorcester and Hereford he seemed a Monster with seven heads and each of them crowned with the Mitre of a Bishop far different from the state of his Lord and Master Christ who had not a hole wherein to hide his head Yet his ambition resteth not here next he aspires to the Triple Crown he onely wants Holiness and must be Pope to the attaining of which Dignity he makes means to the Romish Cardinals as also to the Emperour Charles the Fifth Gold he gave to the Cardinals and they gave him golden promises although they proved but empty performances nor did the Emperour serve him any better promising much but performing nothing VVolsey hereat enraged studies revenge and by his instruments seeks to make a divorce betwixt Queen Katherine Dowager the Emperours Aunt and King Henry the Eighth his Master thereby to advance a Marriage betwixt him and the King of France's sister But though he effected the one he failed in the other for contrary to his expectation King Henry fell in love with Anna Bullen a Gentlewoman nothing favourable to his Pontificial Pomp nor no great follower of the Rites of those times which moved the Cardinal the Pope having assumed the sentence of Queen Katherines cause unto himself to write unto his Holiness to defer the judgement of Divorce till he had wrought the Kings minde in another mould But though this was done secretly it came to the Kings ear and wrought his minde quite off from the Cardinal which finally was the cause of his confusion for upon the Kings dislike the Counsel articled against him and the Law found him in a Premunire for procuring to be Legatus de latere and advancing the Popes Power against the Laws of the Realm for which resentment the Kings displeasure was so incenst that the Broad Seal was taken from him and most of his other Spiritual Preferments his house and furniture seized on to the Kings use and himself removed to Cawood Castle in Yorkshire Yet was he still left Bishop of Winchester and Archbishop of York to which last providing for his installing state equivalent to a Kings Coronation he was arrested of
proquaestor primum post Cancellarius Lancastriae tandem Angliae miro principis favore factus est Sed interim in publico regni senatulectus est orator populi praeterea legatus regis nonnunquam fuit alias alibi postremo vero Cameraci Comes collega junctus Principi Legationis Cuthberto Tonstallo tum Londinensi mox Dunelmensi Episcopo quo viro vix habet orbis hodie quicquam eruditius prudentius melius Ibiinter summos Christiani orbis Monarchas rursus refecta faedera redditamque mundo diu desideratam pacem laetisimus videt Legatus interfuit Quam superi pacem firment faxintque perennem In hoc officiorum vel honorum cursu quum ita versaretur ut neque Princeps optimus operam ejus improbaret neque nobilibus esset invisus neque injucundus populo furibus autem homicidis haereticisque molestus Pater ejus tandem Joannes Morus Eques in eum Judicum ordinem à Principe cooptatus qui regius consessus vocatur homo civilis innocens mitis misericors equus integer annis quidem gravis sed corpore plus quam pro aetate vivido postquam eo productam sibi vidit vitam ut filium videret Angliae Cancellarium satis in terra jam se moratum ratus lubens migravit in coelum At filius defancto patre cui quamdiu supererat comparatus juvenis vocari consueverat ipse quoque sibi videbatur amissum jam patrem requirens editos ex se libros IV. at Nepotes XI respiciens caepit apud animum persenescere Auxit hunc affectum animi subsequuta statim velut ad petentis senii signum pectoris valetudo deterior Itaque mortalium harum rerum satur quam rem à puero semper optaverat ut ultimos aliquot vitae suae annos obtineret liberos quibus hujus vitae negotiis paulatim se subducens futuram posset immortalitatem meditari eam rem tandem si coeptis annuat Deus indulgentissimi principis incomparà bili beneficio resignatis honoribus impetravit atque hoc sepulchrum sibi quod mortis eum nunquam cessantis adrepere quotidiè commonefaceret translatis huc prioris uxoris ossibus extruendum curavit Quod ne superstes frustra sibi fecerit neve ingruentem trepidus horreat sed desiderio Christi lubens oppetat mortemque ut sibi non omnino mortem sed januam vitae felicioris inveniat precibus eum Lector optimè spirantem precor defunctumque prosequere Pro Vxoribus suis Chara Thomae jacet c. Sub quo haec quoque subjuncta Carmina occurrunt Chara Thomae jacet hic JoannaVxorcula mori Qui tumulum Aliciae hunc destino quique mihi Vna mihi dedit hoc conjuncta virentibus annis Me vocet ut puer trina puella patrem Altera privignis quae gloria rara novercae est Tam pia quam gnatis vix fuit ulla suis Altera si mecum vixit sic altera vivit Charior incertum est haec sit an haec fuerit O simul ô juncti poteramus vivere nos tres Quam bene si factum religioque sinant Et societ tumulus societ nos obsecro Coelum Sic mors non potuit quod dare vita dabit The Life of THOMAS CROMWELL Earl of Essex Fortunae speculum Cromwellus scandit ad alta Vt casu graviore ruat Regisque favore Tollitur hincque cadit livore oppressus inique THomas Cromwell from so low a beginning as from the Forge attained to so high a pitch of honour as to be raised to a Pillar of State His Father as our Chronicles report was a Blacksmith to whom may be applied what Juvenal said of Demosthenes Whom his poor Father blear-eye'd with the soot Of sparks which from the burning Iron did shoot From Coals Tongs Anvil and such Black-smiths tools And dirty Forge sent to the Rhetrick Schools He was born at Putney in Surrey four miles from London being endued with a singular excellency of Wit His first advancement was under Cardinal Wolsey who made him his Solliciter employing him for the suppression of forty Monasteries to the erection of his Colledges at Oxford and Ipswich At the fall of the Cardinal he got him to Court where he was by King Henry first advanced to be Master of his Jewel-house then Barron of Oakham in Rutlandshire then Knight of the Garter ere long he was created Earl of Essex then made Lord great Chamberlain and lastly ordained the Kings Vicar General over the Spirituality by vertue of which Office he sat in the Convocation-house as Head over the Bishops an Honour so great that never any subject enjoyed the like in England Drayton thus epitomizes his Honours First by my Knighthood rising by degree The Office of a Jewel-house my lot After the Robes he frankly gave to me From whence to Privy Councellour I got Then of the Garter and then Earl to be Of Essex yet sufficient these were not But to the great Vicegerency I drew Being a Title as supream as new And now finding by Wolsey's predicting fall that the foundations of Monasteries were not unmoveable he puts it into the King head to have them all suppressed who being not long before declared supream Head of the Church thought his state in danger so long as the Pope had such Pillars to uphold his Power Another main thing was their excessive Riches which was valued at the yearly sum of 1865 12. pounds 8. shillings 1. d. o. q. besides the two Universities and divers Monasteries which were unvalued And no wonder that Bell sounded so sweetly in the Kings ear when so much profit pull'd the rope what ever was the true cause the pretended cause was the gain that was got by ignorant devotion and gadding on Pilgrimage as likewise that they were the receptacles of all traiterous attempts against the peace of the Land and Supremacy of the Crown Besides the Whoredoms Adulteries Incests and filthy Sodomies of the Monks Friers and Priests which put together weighed so heavy that by Act of Parliament they were granted all to the Kings use and Injunctions sent forth for the Bible in English to be read in all Churches and Register-books of Weddings Christenings and Burials in every of them to be kept These Actions of the King exasperated many especially the Pope who feared his Dagon would down if the King should be acknowledged supream Head of the Church whereupon he pronounceth him an Heretick and seduceth amongst others James the Fifth King of Scotland against him Cromwel that his Master might be able to bandy with the Pope counselleth him to allie himself with some Protestant Princess the King then a widdower entertained the motion and a marriage is concluded betwixt him and the Lady Anne Sister to William Duke of Cleve whose other Sister Fredrick Duke of Saxony had espoused a great favourer of the Gospel and maintainer of Martin Luther the promulgator and professour thereof But the Lady
is reported of him that like certain Vegetables he did bud and open slowly Nature sometime delighting to play an after-game as well as Fortune which had both their tides and turns in his course His first advancement to Court was by means of the Earl of Leicester yet not so much out of love to him as it was thought as out of envy to Sir Walter Raleigh whose splendour at Court he meant to allay with this young Earl His first appearance in the Fields of Mars was at Tilbury Camp Anno 1588. where he was by the Queen made in the Field Commander of the Cavalry as he was before in Court being much graced by her openly in the view of the Souldiery and people even above my Lord of Leicester himself But scarcely was he thus warmed in the Queens favour when without her consent or knowledge he thrust himself into the Portugal Voyage hazarding thereby his future fortunes besides the danger of incurring the Queens displeasure and laying himself open to the practice of the Court notwithstanding a noble report coming home before him as indeed his actions deserved no less at his return all those clouds were dispersed and this his excursion afterwards accounted but a sally of Youth Nay he grew every day taller in her Majesties grace and favour insomuch that the King of France imploring her assistance against the Prince of Parma who in hostile manner had invaded his Dominions the charge of that enterprize was committed unto him who full of valour though young in years being furnished with four thousand Foot and two hundred Horse besides many Pyoners and other Volanteers whose Heroick Aspects determined the courage of their hearts landed in Normandy and laid siege to the strong City of Roan in assaulting whereof his Brother Walter Devereux a Diamond of the time both of an hardy and delicate mixture was slain with a small shot to the excessive grief of the Earl who after a tedious Winters Siege challenged Mounsieur Villerse the Governour to a single combate who not desirous to purchase his honour with the effusion of his blood refufed it with contempt of his refusal the Earl returned into England The Queen having now experience of his valour soon found an occasion for him to show it the King of Spain threatning to invade her borders she thought it the best policy to invade his first to perfect so great a design a mighty Navy is made ready consisting of an hundred and fifty ships wherein were above 14000. souldiers and sailers Our intended brevity will not permit us to recount the several Officers in this expedition The Earl of Essex and Charles Howard Lord Admiral of England were commanders in chief The first of June they set forth from Plimouth and on the 18. of the same moneth came to Cabo St. Vincent where they lighted upon an Irish Bark who certified them that at Cales from whence they came were store of Gallies Ships of War and Merchant Ships laden with Munition Coyn Oyl Wine Wax Silk Cloth of Gold and Quicksilver news most acceeptable unto the Generalls The twentieth of June they cast Anchor on the West side of the Island where a fair Dove a fortunate presager of their success lighted upon the main yard of the Lord Admiralls ship and sat there quietly the space of three hours every man gazing but no man suffered to remove her The next day a Council being called it was determined the fight should be begun with the lesser ships because the road was too shallow for the greater the Lord Thomas Howard Sir Walter Rawleigh Sir Francis Vere Sir George Carew and Sir Robert Southwell with some Londoners and a squadron of Low Countrey ships undertook the same which they valiantly attempted manfully maintained and bravely continued nor were the Spaniards backward in performance of their duties but resolutely fought in defence of their lives each side striving to acquit themselves bravely which made the fight continue fierce and doubtful The valiant Essex though by a Council of War appointed to keep the main Battel upon the sudden from Port Saint Maries side thrust himself foremost in this Sea fight which the other General perceiving desirous to participate of the danger as well as of the honour of victory forsook his great ship too unweldy for those narrow waters took into his Pinnace that he might not be over-acted in point of Honour The scales of War which before were even now turned to the English side the Spanish Admiral a ship of fifteen hundred tun was by their own souldiers set on fire whose ruine was accompanied with two other ships that lay next her the rest of their fleet ran themselves on ground in the Bay of Port Real The Earl of Essex in pursuit of his design landed his men at Puntal a League from Cales to oppose his Forces half a mile from the Town appeared many horse and foot but they finding the English numbers exceed their expectation they presently gave back the English perceiving their stratagem to out-wit them counterfeiting a fear made a retreat by which means having enticed forth their enemies they returned with such violence that they forced them back into the Town but there they having an advantage from the higher ascent played so fore upon the English that their foremost ranks began to give back which valiant Essex perceiving to engage his souldiers resolutions caught his own Colours and cast them over the Wall into the Town the undaunted English ashamed to lose their Ensign forgot all danger ascending the wall with shot and sword make way through the thickest press of the enemy in the interim Sir Francis Vere broak the the Gate and rushed in and the rest with him divers were wounded with stones from the tops of houses and Sir John Wingfield slain in the Market-place with a shot from the Castle The Town thus surprized the Castle was summoned which the next day yielded the Citizens compounding with the Lords Generalls to pay an hundred and twenty thousand Duccats for their ransom were suffered to depart for the assurance of which payment forty of the chiefest Citizens were brought pledges into England Far worse sped the ships that had run themselves on ground who being assaulted by Sir Walter Rawleigh profferred two millions and a half of Duccats for their redemption but he telling them he was sent to destroy ships not to dismiss them upon composition they were by the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonian Admirall of Spain set altogether on fire it was judged by the wiser sort of people that the Spaniard was damnified by this expedition no less then twenty millions of Duccats The fortunacy of this enterprize gave occasion to one of the Wits then living to frame this excellent Annagram on the Earl of Essex name Deureux Vere Dux Which he afterwards englisht in this Distich Vere Dux Deureux verior hercule Gades Nam semel hic vidit vicit at ille simul Alcides yields
to Deureux he did see Thy beauties Cales but Deureux conquer'd thee The whole Navy returning home safe crowned with victory and laden with spoils yet seemed the revenge far less then the injury offered by the Spaniard wherefore the next year a third voyage was undertaken whereof the Earl of Essex was made commander in chief Their design was to intercept the Indian Fleet in their return into Spain many of the Nobility and principal Gentlemen accompanied the Earl in this expedition The ninth of July 1597. they set sail from Plimouth directing their course to Feral and the Groyne but God as a worthy Author interprets was so displeased at these nations enmities that they had not sailed forty leagues but they were encountred with such a terrible tempest that the Marriners themselves were at their wits end and the Fleet had much adoe to recover Plimouth And attempting to set out the second time the winde fell so cross that for a whole moneths time they could not get out of the Haven The 17 of August they again hoise sail but before they came in view of Spain they were disperst by another horrible tempest in which they lost two of their ships The 15 of September they fell into the Isles of Flores Evernes Fyal and Pike all which submitted themselves to the Earls devotion afterwards they sailed to Gratiosa whose inhabitants submit and finde mercy here would the Earl have tarried in expectation of the Indian Fleet had he not been most unluckily disswaded by Graves his Pilot for no sooner was he gone but the American Fleet came by wherein were forty ships and seven of them laden with Treasure these fearful sheep hearing the English wolves were abroad loath to lose their golden fleece sailed with all speed they could to Tezcera where they gained the Haven all but three ships which the English took the rest securing themselves in the Port which being impregnable The English sail from thence to Sain Michaels where they took Villa Franca a fair Town well stored with Merchandize wine wood and corn here they tarried six dayes during which space a Caraque coming out of the East-Indies and perceiving the English were there ran her self ashore unloaded her Merchandize and then fired her self October the ninth they hoist sail for England but in their passage were assailed by such a tempest that quite lost them the sight of the Spanish Fleet who likewise suffered much by the same tempest for one of their ships was cast upon Dartmouth the Souldiers and Marriners half starved in her who upon examination confessed that the Spanish Fleets intention was to seize upon some Haven in Cornwall which being nigh the mouth of the Chancel might be convenient to receive Forces from Spain but man proposeth and God disposeth for the divine providence frustrated the designs both of the Spaniard and the English The Earl of Essex upon his return was created Earl Marshal of England Hitherto have we beheld our Earl ascending the zenith of Honour but favourites of great Princes are seldom without parasites who wanting true worth in themselves make a ladder of mischief to climbe up to promotion these buz into the Earls head strange fancies and chymaera's that his deserts were far greater then his rewards that during his absence Sir Robert Cicill was made Chancellour of the Dutchy of Lancaster and Charles Lord Howard created Earl of Nottingham with relation in his pattent to the Victory in eighty eight and his good service at Cales that he was descended of the blood royal of Scotland and England and had better right to the Crown then any other of the compettitors This puts the Earl upon indirect courses and though he cannot attain to be King of England he seeks to be made a petty King of Ireland the state of which Countrey ordained to be the Sepulchre of his Father and the gulf of his own fortunes was at that present in a dangerous condition by reason Tir Oen a notorious rebell had lately atchieved such a victory with so great loss to the English as they had never felt the like since they first set footing in Ireland Whereupon a serious consultation was held on whom to send to quell the rebels Essex though he seemed not to desire the employment yet still was ready with his exceptions if any other were nominated at length it was concluded that he should be the man and an Army of twenty thousand foot and thirteen hundred horse alotted unto him with these and a great retinue besides of the Nobility he passeth into Ireland His first action after his arrival was against the Petty Rebels in the Province of Mounster contrary to his Commission which was to go immediately against Tir Oen himself but men who prefer their private fancies before publique Instructions seldom attain to their wished desires For notwithstanding he took the Castle of Cahir and drove the Rebels into the Woods and Groves adjoyning his Forces by this means were so impaired that the gain did not countervail the loss wherefore sending for fresh supplies out of England in the mean time he sendeth directions to Sir Coniers Clifford President of Connaught to set upon the Rebels in one place thereby to sever their Forces while he assaulted them in another This counsel though good yet found ill success Clifford with fifteen hundred Souldiers marching towards Belike set upon the Rebels but the Fight continuing long and the English wanting Powder were put to flight Clifford himself and many of the old Soldiers being slain In the mean time Essex receiveth fresh Forces out of England and withall a check for neglecting the Queens Command wherefore at length he setteth forth towards the borders of Vlster with thirteen hundred Foot and five hundred Horse Tir Oen not able to match him in power yet seeketh to over-match him in policy and by his Messenger desireth a parley Essex mistrusting not the poyson in the bate condescended appointing the shallow of Balla Clinch for their meeting place thither came Essex alone with whom Tir Oen had private conference a full hour and not long after by their Delegates concluded a Truce from six weeks to six weeks till May Day This Transaction more incensed the Queen who dispatcheth very sharp Letters unto him blaming his delay and letting slip every fair opportunity with which Letters he likewise receiveth advertisement that Sir Robert Cecil was made Master of the Wards a place which he expected himself This Sir Robert Cecil was a man of lame feet but of a sound head one who bare great sway in the Court and a special stickler against the Earl which exasperated him the more not that he lost the place himself but that his Adversary had attained unto it This State proceeding entred so deep into his thoughts that he studies revenge and held private consultations of returning into England with part of his Forces to surprize his Adversaries But from this dangerous course the Earl of Southamptom
by him for a constant Memorial The Life of GEORGE VILLERS Duke of Buckingham TAll Cedars are shaken with the wind when the humble shrub rests secure Envy strikes not at the lowly person her aim is evermore at the tallest How vain then is that man who enjoying the quiet of a retired life ambitiously hunts after honour How few Favorites go to the grave in peace Histories make mention and this Age can testify this truth will be too sadly instanced in the late Lord Duke of Buckingham who from the mean estate of a private Gentleman being raised to the highest pitch of honour a subject could be capable of came at last to an untimely end His first rise began at the Earl of Somersets fall one upon whom King James had heaped many great favours for from the degree of a Knight he was first made Viscount Rochester next sworn a Privy Councellour then created Earl of Somerset and last of all made Lord Chamberlane But this serene Sky of favour was soon over-shadowed with Clouds by the Earls undeserving for having married the Lady Frances Howard Daughter to Thomas Earl of Suffolk and not long before divorced from the Earl of Essex the unfortunate Knight Sir Thomas Overbury for speaking against the match was by their procurement committed to the Tower and not long after poysoned as I have more at large treated of in his Life for which fact both the Lady and Earl were arraigned and condemned yet through the Kings great clemency had their lives spared but were for ever banisht his presence This great Favorite being thus disgusted King James who would not long be without an alter idem or Bosom-friend took into special regard as I have intimated Master George Villers a Gentleman of a good extraction but a younger Brother and finding him susceptible and of good form moulded him Platonically to his own Idea And that he might be a fit companion for a King raised him in honour next to himself yet not all at once but by degrees making him first a Knight and Gentleman of his Bed-chamber soon after a Viscount and Master of the Horse a while after erected Earl of Buckingham then Marquess of Buckingham and made Lord Admiral King James having thus hardened and pollished him about ten years in the School of observance for so a Court is and in the furnace of tryal about himself for he was a King that could peruse men as well as books he made him the Associate of his Heir Apparent together with the Lord Cottington an adjunct of singular experience and trust in forreign travel and in a business of love and of no equal hazard enough to kindle affection even between the distantest conditions so as by various and inward conversation abroad besides that before and after at home with the most constant and best natured Prince bana si sua nocint that ever any Nation enjoyed this Duke which last title was conferred on him in Spain now becomes seized of reiterated favour as it were by descent though the condition of that state commonly be no more then a tenancy at will or at most for the life of the first Lord and rarely transmitted it being a kinde of wonder to see favour hereditary yet in him it proved far otherwise as one writes The King loves you you him both love the same You love the King he you both Buck-in-game Of sport the King loves game of game the Buck Of all men you why you why see your luck And although it be ever the perpetual lot of those who are of choicest admission into Princes favours to feel as strong stroaks of envy and ill will from beneath as they do beams of grace and favour from above the Princes love procuring the peoples hate this Duke contrarily found their affection so great towards him that in open Parliament the generality honoured him with no lesser acclamation then the preserver of his Countrey But what odde turns are in the passions of men and how little time continue their affections may appear in this those very men in a Parliament holden the first year of King Charles accusing him as the onely cause of all bad events which happened in the Common-Wealth drew up a charge of thirteen Articles against him the Prologue whereof expressing the prodigious greatness of this Duke the influence of whose power this ensuing Letter of Sir Henry Wottons doth sufficiently express My most noble Lord When like that impotent man in the Gospel I had lain long by the Pools side while many were healed and none would throw me in it pleased your Lordship first of all to pitty my infirmities and to put me into some hope of subsisting hereafter therefore I most justly and humbly acknowledge all my ability and reputation from your favour you have given me incouragement you have valued my poor indeavours with the King you have redeemed me from ridiculousness who have served so long without any mark of favour by which arguments being already and ever bound to be yours till either life or honesty shall leave me I am the bolder to beseech your Lordship to perfect your own work and to draw his Majesty to the settling of some things that depend betwixt Sir Julius Caesar and me in that reasonable form which I humbly present to your Lordship by my Nephew likewise your obliged servant being my self by a late indisposition confined to my Chamber but in all estates such as I am Your Lordships Henry Wootton But to return where I left to the preface of his Titles as I finde them copied in the Parliaments Declaration against him For the speedy redress of the great evils and mischiefs and of the chief causes of those great evils and mischiefs which this Kingdom of England now grievously suffereth and of late years hath suffered and to the honour and fafety of our Sovereign Lord the King and of his Crown and Dignities and to the good and welfare of his People the Commons in this present Parliament by the authority of our said Sovereign Lord the King assembled do by this their Bill shew and declare against George Duke Marquess and Earl of Buckingham Earl of Coventry Viscount Villers Barron of Whaddon Great Admiral of the Kingdoms of England and Ireland and of the Principality of Wales and of the Dominions and Islands of the same of the Town of Calais and of the Marches of the same and of Normandy Gascoigne and Guyen General Governour of the Seas and ships of the said Kingdoms Lieutenant General Admiral Captain General and Governour of his Majesties Royal Fleet and Army lately set forth Master of the Horses of our Sovereign Lord the King Lord Warden Chancellour and Admiral of the Cinque-Ports and of the members thereof Constable of Dover Castle Justice in Eyre of all Forrests and Chases on this side Trent Constable of the Castle of Windsor Lieutenant of Middlesex and Buckinghamshire Steward and Bayliff of Westminster Gentleman of his Majesties
provided in kinde where he was freed from corroding cares and seated on such a rock as the waves of want could not probably shake where he might sit in a calm and looking down behold the busie multitude turmoiled and tossed in a tempestuous sea of dangers And as Sir William Davenant has happily exprest the like in another person Laugh at the graver business of the State Which speaks men rather wise then fortunate He died in Decemb. 1639 having compleated seventy three years His will was made by himself above two years before his death wherein he appointed that his Executours should lay over his Grave a plain stone of Marble with this Epitaph enscribed thereon Hic jacet hujus sententiae primus Author Disputandi pruritus Ecclesiarum scabies Nomen alias quaere Which may be englished thus Here 's lies the first Authour of this Sentence The Itch of Disputation will prove the Scab of the Church Enquire his name elsewhere To acquaint the world with two or three other Instances of the readiness of his Wit he having in Rome retained an acquaintance with a pleasant Priest who invited him one evening to hear their Vesper-Musick at Church the Priest seeing Sir Henry stand obscurely in a corner sends to him by a Boy of the Quire this question written in a small piece of paper Where was your Religion to be sound before Luther To which question Sir Henry Wotton presently under-writ My Religion was to be found then where yours is not to be found in the written word of God To another that asked him Whether a Papist may be saved He replyed You may be saved without knowing that Look to your self To another whose earnest zeal exceeded his knowledge and was still railing against the Papists he gave this advice Pray Sir forbear till you have studied the Points better for the wise Italian hath this Proverb He that understands amiss concludes worse And take heed of entertaining this opinion That the further you go from the Church of Rome the nearer you are to God He left behinde him many Monuments of his Learning whose worth are such that they speak themselves more incomparably to posterity then any Eulogies I can bestow upon them Give me leave to conclude with the words of one of the learnedst Modern Criticks That for the generality of the stile throughout his Works 't is most queintly delightful gentle soft and full of all manner of blandishments onely his pen flowed a little too much with the oyly adulation of Court-flattery Questionless if Sir Henry Wotton was reduced to any of these subserviences they were occasioned from his generous expences in the time of his Embassies for his Masters honour who used him as Queen Elizabeth did Sir Francis Walsingham who had but from hand to mouth The Life of THOMAS VVENTWORTH Earl of Stafford and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland TO particularize all the actions of the Earl of Strafford would of its self require an intire Volume it being a Garden of choice Varieties wherein points of Law are interwoven with Acts of State and the Affairs of Ireland as in the same Escutcheon quartered with those of England I shall onely take a superficial view of his life and not strain my self ambitiously to shew forth the utmost reach of his perfections he being a rare conjunction of Courage attended with loyalty to danger Wisdom accompanied with Eloquence to admiration who could both think and speak speak and do whose answers and replyes to the Articles exhibited against him by the House of Commons show his abilities to be such that whatsoever is spoken of him is infinitely below what was spoken by himself He was born in Yorkshire well descended and as well educated which fitted him to sustain the weighty Affairs he afterwards underwent A great stickler at the first against the Prerogative until allured by Court-preferment he turned Royalist for the King finding his worth and ability never left till he had gained him to himself obliging him to his side by many titles of honour and places of trust whose services he found equivalent to his favours continuing to his death a trusty servant a faithful friend a prudent Counsellour and a constant adherer to his side in all his exigencies The greatest services he did to the King were during the time he was Lieutenant of Ireland by his augmenting and advancing the Kings Revenues there restoring the Churches maintenance suppressing the Out-laws establishing obedience to Royal Authority impediting the Tyranny and usurpation of the great ones over the Commons causing the Irish to leave off many of their barbarous customs and conform themselves to the more civil manners of the English which drew much hatred upon himself for changes though for the better are most times ill resented by the vulgar witness those troubles in England in the time of King Edward the Sixth Nor could these innovations have found more dislike in any Nation under the Heavens then Ireland so wedded are those people to their ancient vain ridiculous customs But since I have inserted his most remarkable actions in the Life of King Charles I shall omit those passages and come to his solemn Trial so paramount in the Equipage of all Cirumstances that as former ages have been unable so future are unlikely to produce a parallell of them This great Minister of State was by the Parliament well known for the length of it accused with twenty eight Articles of High Treason February 16. 1640. The particulars are too long for me here to recite the substance of them being that he endeavoured to subvert the Fundamental Laws and Governments of the Realms of England and Ireland and enriching himself by indirect wayes in his office for incensing the King against the Scots for endeavouring to set things amisse betwixt his Majesty and the people and to have given counsel tending to the disquiet of the three Kingdoms The 13. of April following began his Trial in Westminster-Hall where there was a Throne erected for the King on each side whereof a Cabinet inclosed about with boards and before with a Tarras before that were the Seats for the Lords of the upper House and sacks of wool for the Judges before them ten stages of seats extending further then the midst of the Hall for the Gentlemen of the House of Commons at the end of all was a desk closed about and set apart for the Lord Lieutenant and his Councel The Earl of Arundel was Lord High Steward his Accusers were Pym Glin Mainard Whitlock St. Johns Palmers Sir Walter Earls Stroud Selden Hampden and others Many dayes were spent and much Rhetorick used on both sides for the Lieutenant was no childe but as cunning in the art of defence as any man in England equal if not surpassing his Predecessour the Earl of Kildare in the time of King Henry the Eighth But the House of Commons were implacable in their hatred towards him nothing being satisfactory to them but his downfal So
universal grievance of your people 7. The great grief of your Subjects by long intermission of Parliaments and the late and former dissolution of such as have been called without the happy effects which otherwise they might have produced For remedy whereof and prevention of the dangers that may arise to your Royal Person and to the whole State they do in all humility and faithfulness beseech your most excellent Majesty that you would be pleased to summon a Parliament within some convenient time whereby the causes of these and other great Grievances which your people lye under may be taken away and the Authours and Councellors of them may be brought to such legal trial and condign punishment as the nature of their several offences shall require And that the present War may be composed by your Majesties wisdom without blood in such manner as may conduce to the honour and safety of your Majesties person the comfort of your people and the uniting of both your Realms against the common enemy of the reformed Religion And your Majesties Petitioners shall ever pray c. Concluded the 28. of August 1640. Francis Bedford Robert Essex Mulgrave Say Seal Edward Howard William Hartford Warwick Bullingbrooke Mandevile Brooke Pagett This Petition being seconded by another from the Scots to the same effect the King the twenty fourth day of the same moneth assembled the Lords together at York where it was concluded that a Parliament should be summoned to convene November the third next ensuing in the mean time a cessation of Arms was concluded between both Nations whereupon the King and Lords posted to London Tuesday November the third according to pre-appointment the Parliament assembled no sooner were they set but Petitions came thronging in from all Counties of the Kingdom craving redress of the late general exorbitancies both in Church and State many who were in prison were ordered to be set at liberty as Pryn Bastwick and Burton and the Bishop of Lincolne and many who were at liberty were ordered to be sent to prison as Sir William Beecher the Earl of Strafford and the Archbishop of Canterbury Secretary Windebank and the Lord Keeper Finch who was forced to flye the Land Ship-money was voted down the late Cannons damn'd Peace is concluded with Scotland and three hundred thousand pound allowed them for reparations This was summarily the first actings of the Parliament which gave much content to many people especially the Londoners who to the number of 15000. Petition for the abolishing of Episcopacy it self Indeed some few of the Cleargy at this time as at all others were corrupt in their lives many of them being vicious even to scandal yea many of those who pretended much purity in their conversations were most covetous and deceitful in their dealings besides their pride was intollerable insomuch that a great one amongst them was heard to say He hoped to live to see the day when a Minister should be as good a man as any upstart Jack Gentleman in England Well therefore might it it be said of the Priests of our times what Gildas sirnamed the wise wrote of the Priests of his time Sacerdotes habet Britannia sed insipientes quam plurimos Ministros sed impudentes clericos sed raptores subdeles c. Great Brittain hath Priests indeed but silly ones Ministers of Gods word very many but impudent a Cleargy but given up to greedy rapine c. Yet let none mistake me I write not thus to perswade any to an ill opinion of the Ministry for though our Church had cause to grieve for the blemishes of many yet might she glory in the ornaments of more so that Episcopacy received not at this time the fatal blow but was onely mutilated in her former glory the House of Commons voting that no Bishop shall have any vote in Parliament nor any Judicial power in the Star Chamber nor bear any sway in Temporal Affairs and that no Cleargy-man shall be in Commission of the Peace The Parliament having thus set bounds to the exorbitant power of the Cleargy they next fell upon the Tryal of the Deputy of Ireland who as you heard not long before was committed prisoner to the Tower this man at first was a great stickler against the Prerogative until allured by Court preferment he turned Royalist Westminster Hall was the place assigned for his Tryal the Earl of Arundel being Lord High Steward and the Earl of Lindsey Lord High Constable the Articles charged against him being very many are too long to recite I having more at large in their place inserted them in his Life The sum of them were for ruling Ireland and the North of England in an arbitrary way against the Laws for retaining the Kings revenue without account for encreasing and encouraging Popery for maliciously striving to stir up and continue enmity betwixt England and Scotland and for labouring to subvert Parliaments and incense the King against them yet notwithstanding this high charge the Earl by his answers so cleared himself that the King told the Lords he was not satisfied in Conscience to Condemn him of high Treason but acknowledged his misdemeanours to be very great at last wearied with the clamours of the people the Earl also by a letter desiring the same he granted a Commission to four Lords to Sign the Bill for his Execution which Execution was accordingly performed on Tower-hill May 10. 1641. Thus dyed this unhappy Earl a sacrifice to the Scots revenge cut off as it was thought not so much for what he had done as for fear of what he afterwards might do a man of the rarest parts and deepest judgement of any English man of our late times The same day fatal to the King he Signed the Bill for the Deputy of Irelands death he also Signed the Bill for a trienial or perpetual Parliament which should not be dissolved without consent of both Houses some say Duke Hamilton counselled him to it others say it was the Queen whoever it was it was his ruine for the Parliament now fearless of a dissolution began to act in an higher way then before being fortified with a strong guard of Souldiers whereof the Earl of Essex was Captain they without the Kings leave or knowledge appoint an extraordinary Assembly in the City that should mannage all weighty and great occurrences and to weaken his Majesty the more or rather to satisfie the insolence of the people they cast twelve Bishops into Prison because they went about to maintain their priviledge by the publick Charter The King moved with this accused five of the lower House and one of the upper House of high Treason their names were the Lord Viscount Mandevil Mr. Pym Mr. Hampden Sir Arthur Haslerig Mr. Hollis and Mr. Strowd This action of the Kings was by the Parliament adjudged a great breach of their Priviledges certainly it much encreased the differences between them and left scarce any possibility of reconcilement This small river of
of Manchester and the Lord Fairfax and with joynt Forces besieged York to raise the Siege Prince Rupert came with a great Army out of the South the three Generals left their Siege to fight the Prince under him also New Castle having drawn his Forces out of York served who on a great Plain called Marston Moor gave Battle to the three Generals The Victory at first enclined to the Royalists but by the valour of Cromwel who fought under Manchester their whole Army was utterly defeated Prince Rupert his Ordnance his Carriages and Baggage being all taken This was the greatest Battel of the whole Civil War and might have proved a great Remora to the Kings proceedings had he not soon after worsted Essex in Cornwall who having lost all his Artillery returned to London The Parliament soon after new modelled their Army Sir Thom as Fairfax was chosen General in the room of Essex and now the Idol of a Treaty was set up at Vxbridge in which to shew the clearness of his Majesties intentions I have included some of his most material proceedings conducible to an Agreement betwixt him and the Parliament His Majesties particular Prayer for a Blessing on the Treaty O most merciful Father Lord God of Peace and Truth we a people sorely afflicted by the scourge of an unnatural War do earnestly beseech thee to command a Blessing from Heaven on this Treaty brought about by thy Providence the onely visible remedy left for the establishment of a happy Peace soften the most obdurate hearts with a true Christian desire of saving those mens bloud for whom Christ himself hath shed his O Lord let not the guilt of our sins cause this Treaty to break off but let the truth of thy Spirit so clearly shine in our mindes that all private ends laid aside we may every one of us heartily and sincerely pursue the Publick good and that the people may be no longer so blindely miserable as not see at least in this their day the things that belong to their peace Grant this gracious God for his sake who is our peace it self even Jesus our Lord Amen His Majesties Message to the Houses of Parliament which drew on the following Treaty at Uxbridge December 13. 1644. His Majesty hath seriously considered your Propositions and findes it very dffiicult in respect they import so great an alteration in Government both in Church and State to return a particular and positive Answer before a full debate wherein those Propositions and all the necessary explanations and reasons for assenting dissenting or qualifying and all inconveniences and mischiefs which may ensue and cannot otherwise be so well foreseen may be discussed and weighed his Majesty therefore proposeth and desireth as the best expedient for peace that you will appoint such number of persons as you shall think fit to treat with the like number of persons to be appointed by his Majesty upon the said Propositions and such other things as shall be proposed by his Majesty for the preservation and defence of the Protestant Religion with due regard to the ease of tender Consciences as his Majesty hath often offered the Rights of the Crown the Liberty and Propriety of the Subjects and the Priviledges of Parliament And upon the whole matter to conclude a happy and blessed Peace Sent by the Duke of Richmond and the Earl of Southampton December 13. 1644 His Majesties Commission to certain Lords and Gentlemen to treat at Vxbridge with the Commissioners of the Lords and Commons assembled at Westminster c. Charles Rex Whereas after several Messages sent by us to the Lords and Commons of Parliament at Westminster expressing our desires of Peace certain Propositions were sent by them to us at Oxon in November last by the Earl of Denbigh and others and upon our Answers Messages and Propositions to them and their Returns to us it is now agreeed That there shall be a Treaty for a well-grounded Peace to begin at Uxbridge on Thursday the thirtieth day of this instant January as by the said Propositions Answers Messages and Returns in writing may more fully appear We do therefore hereby appoint assign and codnstitute James Duke of Richmond and Lennox William Marquess of Hertford Thomas Earl of Southampton Henry Earl of Kingston Francis Earl of Chichester Francis Lord Seymor Arthur Lord Capel Christopher Lord Hatton John Lord Culpeper Sir Edward Nicholas Knight one of cur principal Secretaries of State Sir Edward Hide Knight Chancellour and Vnder-Treasurer of our Exchequer Sir Richard Lane Chief Baron of our said Exchequer Sir Thomas Gardiner Sir Orlando Bridgeman Master John Asburnham and Master Jeffery Palmer together with Dr. Richard Steward upon the Propositions concerning Religion to be our Commissioners touching the Premises and do hereby give unto them or to any ten or more of them full power and authority to meet and on our part to treat with Algernon Earl of Northumberland Philip Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery William Earl of Salisbury Basil Earl of Denbigh Thomas Lord Viscount Wentworth Denzil Hollis William Pierpoint Esquires Sir Henry Vane the younger Knight Oliver St. John Bulstrade Whitlock John Crew and Edmond Prideaux Esquires for the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England at Westminster and John Earl of London Lord Chancellour of Scotland Archibald Marquess of Arguile John Lord Maytland John Lord Balmerino Sir Archibald Johnson Sir Charles Asking George Douglas Sir John Smith Sir Hough Kennedy and Master Robert Carly for the Estates of the Parliament of Scotland together with Master Alexander Henderson upon the Propositions concerning Religion or with any ten or more of them upon and touching the matters contained in the said Propositions Answers and Messages or any other according to the manner and agreement therein specified or otherwise as they or any ten or more of them shall think fit and to take all the Premises into their serious considerations and to compose conclude and end all Differences arising thereupon or otherwise as they or any ten or more of them in their wisdoms shall think fit and upon the whole matter to conclude a safe and well-grounded Peace if they can and whatsoever they or any then or more of them shall do in the Premises we do by these presents ratifie and confirm the same Given at our Court at Oxon the 28. day of January one thousand six hundred forty and four in the 20. year of our Reign His Majesties Instructions to the Commissioners at Uxbridge Concerning the Militia and Ireland First concerning Religion In this the Government of the Church as is set forth Sect. 3. Numb 14. Next concerning the Militia After Conscience this is certainly the fittest Subject for a Kings quarrel for without it the Kingly Power is but a shadow and therefore upon no means to be quitted but maintained according to the known Laws of the Land yet to attain to this so much wished peace of all good men it is in a manner necessary
or four pieces of gold when this was done and his arms tied he asked the Officers If they had any more dishonour as they conceived it to put upon him he was ready to accept it Then commanding the Hangman at the uplifting of his hands to tumble him over he was accordingly thrust off by the weeping Executioner who with his more honest tears seemed to revile the cruelty of his Countrey men I shall conclude with the Poet. Nescia mens hominum fati sortisque futurae Et servere modum rebus sublata secundi Some write that though he had not the courteous invention of an Epitaph by any of his Friends to memorize him that he was so zealous of the Fame of his great Master Charles the first the with the point of his Sword he wrote these following Lines Great Good and Just could I but rate My griefs and thy so rigid fate I 'de weep the world to such a strain As it should deluge once again But since thy loud tongu'd Blood demands supplies More from Briareus hands then Argus eyes I le sing thy obsequies with Trumpets sounds And write thy Epitaph with Blood and Wounds Montross One that detested the harsh dealings of the Scots to this Martial Earl writ these two Latine Verses A Dolor Inferni fraudes Capitis que Rotundi Et Judae suavium det Deus ut Caveam The Life of JAMES USHER Archbishop of Armagh The Countrey of Ireland hath from old brought forth so many pious and learned men that several Writers have termed it The Land of Sains Amongst the rest this worthy Prelate is not the least Ornament unto that Nation one who was a person of great Piety of singular Judgement learned to a miracle so excelling in knowledge both Humane and Divine that I cannot write so high of his worth as his merits raised themselves above all expression He was born at Dublyn in the Year of our Redemption 1580. extracted from honest and able Parents his Father was one of the Clerks of the Chancery a man of excellent parts and endowments His Mother of the Family of the Stanihursts sufficiently famous in Richard Stanihurst Irelands Cambden the most eminent Philosopher of his time This his good though seduced Mother through the subtilty of the Popish Priests was drawn into the Romish Perswasion and notwithstanding great means was used for the reclaiming her yet continued she therein to the day of her death His Grandfather by his Mothers side was chosen three times Speaker of the House of Commons in Parliament in Ireland His Uncle by his Fathers side was one of his Predecessors Archbishop of Armagh And as he was thus nobly descended so was he as well educated being at eight years old sent to the Grammar School Sir James Fullerton being his School-master and Sir James Hamilton afterwards Lord Viscount Clandeboise Usher to the School who were by King James sent out of Scotland upon another design but disguized themselves under that employment Under these two he so profited that in four years time he excelled in Grammar Rhetorick and Poesie and was so affected with Chronology and Antiquity that in his early years he drew out an exact Series of Times when each eminent person lived The next year being the thirteenth of his age he was admitted into the Colledge of Dublyn being the first Schollar that was entered into it and truly it is a question whether the Colledge received more Honour thereby in having so learned a man recorded in the Frontispiece of their Admission Book or the from the Colledge in honouring him to be their first Graduate Fellow Procter c. At the same time also Sir James Hamilton hitherto Usher of the School was chosen Fellow of the Colledge and so became his Tutour under whom he attained to a perfection in the Greek and Hebrew Languages which he wanted when he came to the Colledge He thus increasing in knowledge as in years looked still further as he did account all knowledge vain which tended not to the establishment of his minde and to the good of his future estate For the furtherance of this Atchievement he read many Books amongst other that of Stapletons Fortress of the Faith wherein he blotteth our Church with Novelty in dissenting from them who from all Antiquity had maintained the same Faith this plunged our great Schollar into several doubts that the ancientest must needs be the best as the nearer the Fountain the purer the streams and that Errors were received in succeeding Ages according to that known speech of Tertullian Verum quodcunque primum adulterum quodcunque posterius For the rectifying of his judgement herein with indefatigable pains and industry he read over most of the Ancient Fathers and most Authors writing of the Body of Divinity whereby he not onely settled his Opinion but also became able to dispute with the prime of the adverse party Having taken the Formality of Batchelour of Arts Anno 1598. The Earl of Essex being sent over Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and Chancellour of the University of Dublin there was a solemn Act for his entertainment wherein Mr. Vsher answered the Philosophy Act with great applause And now his Father intended to send him over into England to the Inns of Court for the study of the Common Law but God who intended him for a Labourer in his own Vineyard prevented his intentions by death leaving his son a good Estate in Land but he fearing it might be an hinderance to his studies gave a great part of the Estate to his Brothers and Sisters and devoting himself wholly to the study of Divinity was chosen Fellow of the Colledge soon after he commenced Master of Arts about which time he disputed with Henry Fitz-Symonds the Jesuit who gave him great commendations for his abilities and said That of those which were not Catholiques he was one of the most learned Soon after was he chosen Catechist of the Colledge and immediately after notwithstanding he was not-twenty one years of age he was ordained Minister and afterwards proved mighty powerful in his preaching converting many Papists to the Protestant Religion who came so constantly to hear him and so admired his Doctrine that it was well hoped the Nation would be of one heart and one minde but through the connivance of some in Authority the Statutes made against Papists were suspended and they obtained little less then a tolleraton in their Religion which caused many of them to withdraw themselves again This pious Bishop entertaining an holy Indignation thereat preached a Sermon to the State at Christ Church in Dublyn taking for his Text this passage in Ezekiel Chap. 4.6 where the Prophet by lying on his side was to bear the iniquity of Judah forty dayes I have appointed thee day for a year even a day for a year as the Old Translation of that Bible he then used reads it making this application thereof From this year will I reckon the sin of Ireland that those
we have inserted as followeth Emma tantum nomina Regina filiis Edwardo Alfrido materna impertit salutamina c. Emma in name onely Queen to Edward and Alfred her sons sendeth motherly greetings whilst we severally bewail the death of our Soveraign my Lord and your Father and your selves dear sons still more and more dispossessed from the Kingdom your lawful inheritance I greatly marvel what you determine to do sith you know that the delay of attempts gives the Usurper more leasure to lay his foundation and more safety to set thereon his intended buildings never ceasing to post from Town to Town and from City to City to make the Lords and Rulers of them his friends by threats prayers or rewards but notwithstanding his policy they privately signifie that they had rather have one of you their Natives should reign over them then this Danish usurper Wherefore my advice is that either of you with all speed repair unto me that we may advise together what is best to be done in this so great an enterprise fail not therefore but send me word by this messenger what you intend to do herein and so fare ye well Your affectionate Mother Emma The bait thus laid to catch these two Princes was greedily swallowed by Alfred the youngest who though the last born had not the least hopes to wear the English Diadem and making Baldwine Earl of Flanders his and some few Bullogners increasing his Fleet he took the Seas for England where for his welcome he was betrayed by Earl Goodwin under the notion of friendship and by the command of King Harold inhumanely murthered but Edward whether mistrusting the plot or rather liking a private life with safety then a publick with danger tarried behinde and so escaped those miseries that Alfred encountred But as it is commonly seen that a sinful life is rewarded with a sudden death so King Harolds sweet beginning had a sowre end dying miserably after he had raigned four years and some few moneths his speedy death cutting off the infamy of a longer life in whose room succeeded his brother in law Hardi-Canute the son of Queen Emma by Canutus her last husband who though little differing from the other in conditions yet is better reported of by Writers of that age because he lovingly entertained his half brother Edward and made Earl Goodwin purge himself for the death of Prince Alfred so that we may in part wonder at former writers that they should conclude Earl Goodwin to be guilty of that murther and yet report he cleared himself of the same to Hardi-Canute but his oath say some was the lighter urged and the easier believed by reason he had not long before presented to the king most bountiful gifts namely a ship whose sterne was of Gold with fourscore Soldiers therein placed all uniformly and richly suited on each of their arms were two bracelets of Gold with gilt Burgonets on their heads and on their bodies a triple gilt Habergion a Sword with gilt Hilts guirded to their wastes a Battel Ax on their left shoulders a Target with gilt Bosses borne in their left hands and a Dart in the right The King now wholly following his pleasures or rather to say more truly his vices delighting in nothing but swilling and Epicurisme he soon received the reward of his intemperance for being at Lambeth at the celebration of a Marriage revelling and carousing in the midst of his Cups he suddenly fell down dead with the Pot in his hand after he had reigned two years and was buried at Winchester His death was so welcome unto his Subjects that they annually celebrated the day of his death with open pastimes in the streets which custom continued even to these our times being called Hoctide or Huckstide signifying a time of scorning or contempt The Danish Line now clean extinguished for Hardi-Canute left no issue behinde him the glory of the Saxons which had long lay buried in their own ashes began again to revive and flourish for the English Lords weary of the insulting Tyranny of the Danes and willing one of their own Natives should rule with a general consent chose Prince Edward for their King who being at that present with Duke William in Normandy they sent Ambassadors unto him to signifie his Election and that he might be ascertained their intentions were real they delivered him Pledges for his more assurance Edward accepting as indeed who would deny so honourable an offer with some few Normans repaired into Englad where he was entertained of the people with such acclamations of joy as might well gain credence of their hearty affections towards him The first thing he did after his Coronation was his remitting the yearly Tribute of forty thousand pounds gathered by the name of Danegilt imposed by his Father and for forty years together paid out of all mens Lands except onely the Clergies who were exempted from the same Because the Kings reposed more confidence in the Prayers of the Holy Church then in the power of Armies It is reported the Kings clemency was moved to this compassion on this following occasion When the Collectors of this money had gotten a great quantity of the same together they brought it into his chamber and laid it all on one heap the King being called to see this great heap of Treasure was at the first sight thereof much afraid protesting he saw the Devil dancing upon the same with exceeding great joy whereupon he commanded it should be restored again to the former owners and released his Subjects of that Tribute for ever Many such like stories are of this King related and perhaps more then with safety of truth may be either believed or delivered which we shall the rather overpass because that in stories of this nature they are less to be blamed for omitting two verities then relating one falshood Divers Laws being then used in several parts of the Kingdom viz. the Mercians West Saxons Danes and Northumbrians their multiplicity causing much confusion he extracted from them all the chiefest and best and made of them one universal and common Law throughout the Land being in a manner the fountain of those which at this day we tearm the Common Laws though the forms of pleading and process therein were afterwards brought in by King William the Conquerour His Wife was named Editha the vertuous Daughter of an infamous Father Earl Godwin a Lady incomparable for Beauty and Vertue in whose Breast was a School of all Liberal Sciences saith William of Malmesbury Her honourable qualifications might have expiated to her Husband King Edward her Fathers former treachery to his Brother Vnto to this Edward as that ancient Writer hath it in these following words was given to Wife the Daughter of Earl Godwin a most beautiful Damosel named Editha of excellent learning and for behaviour a Virgin most chaste and for humility most holy no way savouring of her Father or Brethrens barbarousness but milde and modest
faithfull and honest enemy or hurtful to none insomuch that this verse was rightly applied unto her Sicut spind Rosam Genuit Godwinus Egitham From prickled stalk as sweetest Rose So Egith fair from Godwin grows This Lady though accomplished with these endowments of minde and body the King notwithstanding refrained her bed committing thereby the offence forbidden by the Apostle 1 Cor. 7.5 Or if at any time he admitted her his bed it was no otherwise then David with Abishag for so much he himself on his death-bed did declare saying That openly she was his Wife but in secret embracings as his own Sister But whether it were for his debellity of body or love to Virginity I determine not certain it is he was content to hear her accused of incontinency whereof if she were guilty he could not be innocent nor can this his chastity though applauded by many be accounted otherwise then an injury and too tyrannical a trial of his Wives Vertues The King having no issue of his own and desirous to establish the Crown in the English blood sent into Hungary for his Nephew Edward the Son of Edmund Ironside who by reason of his long absence out of England was commonly called by the name of the Out-law who coming over brought with him his Wife Agatha and Edgar Margret and Christian his Children in hope of the Kingdom but his hopes with himself soon dissolved into dust for he lived but a while after so that Edward thereby was disappointed of his intentions which was to have made him his Successour in the Crown whereupon without delay he pronounced Edgar the Out-laws Son and his great Nephew Heir to the Crown and gave him to sirname Adeling a name appropriated to Princes of the blood which were born in hope and possibility of the Kingdom Whilest Edward was thus busied about settling a Successour Eustace Earl of Bulloigne who had married his Sister Goda came over into England to visit him and returning homeward at Canterbury his Harbinger dealing roughly with a Burgess for Lodgings caused his own death whereupon he in revenge killed the said Burgess with eighteen other Citizens the Canterburians herewith incensed in a great rage armed themselves killed twenty of his retinue and forc'd the Earl himself to flight who returning back again to the King exhibited grievous complaints against the Townsmen whereupon Earl Godwin was commanded to see execution done upon the offenders but he not greatly affecting the Earl was not overhasty to execute his commission but advised the King to examine the matter further before he proceeded against his true Subjects at the instigation of Strangers this Counsel though it gained him the love of the Commons procured the hatred of most of the Nobility who so incensed the King with his refusal that a day of meeting was appointed at Gloucester wherein Earl Godwin should answer his contempt The day come and the estates assembled Earl Godwin was sent for but refused to appear alledging his present service against the Welsh then ready to enter into Rebellion but they by Ambassadours clearing themselves the suspicions encreased and great preparation for War was made on both sides To the aid of the King came Leofrick Earl of Chester Siward Earl of Northumberland and Rodulf Earl of Hereford with competent forces to Godwin repaired his people of Kent and Surrey his two sons Harold and Swain bringing with them the men of Essex Norfolk Suffolk Cambridge Huntington Somerset Oxford Hereford Gloucester and Barkshires so that his Army exceeding the Kings made him so much exceed in pride as to demand Eustace Earl of Bulloign with all his French and Normans to be delivered unto him which being as good reason was denyed each side prepared themselves to battel but through the advice of some then present the matter was ended without blood-shed and referred to a Parliament to be holden at London so that now both sides seemed to be indifferently well pacified but under these ashes of dissimulation lay hidden burning coals of fire and revenge burst out into a flame for Edward with a strong guard entred London and Earl Goodwin with his sons in warlike manner came into Southwark to his own house where his great army soon dissolyed into nothing his Souldiers for the most part returning home again which when Edward understood he presently pronounced sentence of banishment upon him and his five sons without further proceeding by way of Parliament And that his wife who was daughter to Earl Godwin should have her sad share in the afflictions of her Parents brethren who were banished the realm he committed her Prisoner to the Monastery of Wilton attended onely with one maid an unjust act unbefitting a King to punish the Child for the Fathers offences contrary to the prescript Rule of God Ezek. 18.20 The soul that sinneth it shall dye the Son shall not bear the iniquity of the Father neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son Yea it was the observation of a Heathen man It is meer injustice if the father be a Rebell that the son should therefore be accounted a Traytour Yet as the Poet hath it Yet notwithstanding we see oftentimes Children are punish'd for their fathers crimes But as things violent are not long permanent so this storm of dissention betwixt King Edward and Earl Goodwin was soon blown over for the Nobles interceding for him unto the King a reconciliation was made and Earl Goodwin restored to his former Dignities but though the King forgave him his Treasons the King of kings forgot not his Perjury for he falsely swearing himself to be clear of Prince Alfreds death and wishing if he were guilty he might never swallow down one morsel of bread God himself manifested the truth and according to his wish though not his desire it happened unto him A fearful example to all foresworn wretches of Gods heavy judgements on their perjury Another Act of this Kings was touching his Mother which proclaimed him if not undutiful yet very unnatural he was troubled with an infirmity his ears were alwayes opened to the complaints of strangers and their mouths alwayes full with complaints against the English Robert Archbishop of Canterbury a Norman by birth accused Queen Emma that under colour of private devotions she had over familiarly accompanied with Alwine Bishop of Winchester The King crediting the Archbishops words forced her to wipe off this imputation to pass the triall of fire Ordeal which was by passing bare-footed and blinde-folded over nine Plow-shares glowing red hot and laid at unequal distance which she did without any hurt to the great astonishment of all the beholders in memory whereof she gave nine Mannors to the Minster of Winchester according to the number of the Plow-shares she had passed in her trial And Edward repenting the wrong he had done her bestowed on the same place the Island of Portland in Dorsetshire being about seven miles in compass for so the chance in those
Consulship of Caesar and Bibulus that nothing was reported of Bibulus but all of Caesar so Longchamps Sun ecclipsed Durhams Candle his great Bell making such a sound that the other Tantony could not be heard Having thus settled his affairs in England he crosseth the Sea to Philip King of France who according to appointment was to go along with him in this journey which after some stay occasioned by the death of the French Queen they agreed on these Christian and friendly terms 1. That each of them preserve the others honour and bear faith to him for life and member and earthly dignity 2. That neither of them shall fail the other in their Affairs but that the King of France shall help the King of England to defend his Land even as he would defend the City of Paris if it were besieged and Richard King of England shall help the King of France to defend his Land even as he would defend his City Roan if it were besieged These Articles agreed on and sworn to on both sides these two great Monarchs of the West Richard the first King of England and Philip the second King of France set forwards on their journey in the description of which give me leave to light my Candle at Mr. Fullers fire and to borrow some of his expressions to inrich my stile who in his History of the holy War hath so eloquently described it nor let me be accused for a fellon or a counterfeit in mixing his Gold amongst my Alchymy since it may well pass for pay which is stamped with so currant language There attended King Richard in this journey Baldwine Archbishop of Canterbury Hubert Bishop of Salisbury Robert Earl of Leicester Ralph de Glanvile late Chief Justice of England Richard de Clare Walter de Kime c. At Tours he took his Pilgrims Scrip and Staff from the Archbishop his Staff at the same time casually brake in pieces which some construed a token of ill success Likewise when he and the French King with their trains passed over the Bridge at Lyons which brake by reason of the throng of people on the fall of the Bride this conceit was built that there would be a falling out betwixt these two Kings which accordingly happened their intercourse and familiarity breeding hatred and discontent betwixt them At Lyons these two Kings parted company Philip passing over the Alps in Italy and Richard to the Sea-side to Marseillis to meet with his Navy which being by tempest driven to other parts after six weeks stay he hireth shipping for himself and his company and passing forwards upon occasion anchored in the Mouth of the River Tyber within fifteen miles of the City of Rome yet notwithstanding he was so hot on his journey his devotion was so cold towards his Holiness that he would not vouchsafe to give him a visit but plainly told Octavian Bishop of Ostia the Popes Confessor that having better objects to bestow his eyes upon he would not stir a step to see the Pope laying to his charge many shamefull matters touching the Romish Simony and Covetousness with many other reproaches alledging that they took 700. marks for consecration of the Bishop of Mains 1500. marks for the Legative power of William Bishop of Ely and of the Archbishop of Burdeaux an infinite sum of money whereupon he refused to see Rome Yet notwithstanding this his disobedience to his spiritual Father he arived safe as Messana where he met with the French King his most Christian brother and although he lost the Popes yet found he the Almighties Blessing his Navy within few dayes after ariving safe in Cicily Tankred at this time was King of the Island a Bastard born and no wonder if climing up to the throne the wrong way he shaked when he sat down besides he was a tyrant both detaining the Dowry and imprisoning the Person of Joan Wife to William late King of Cicily and Sister to King Richard And therefore though he shewed him a fair countenance his heart was full of poysonous rancour but King Richard perceived his hypocrisie notwithstanding his vizard as dissembling goeth not long invisible before a judicious eye and being offered some abuses by the Citizens of Messana he assaults and takes the City demanding satisfaction for all wrongs done to him and his Sister Tankred seeing how the case stood thought it his best thrift to be prodigal and bestows on King Richard many thousand ounces of Gold purchasing that with his purse which by using justice he might have had for nothing King Phillip seemed nothing pleased at these dissentions yet wisely covered the fire of his anger with the ashes of discretion till such time he might show it with more advantage and thinking to forestall the market of Honour and take up all for himself he hasted presently to Ptolemais which the Christians had long besieged and with them he joyns while King Richard taking his Sister Joan and Berengaria daughter to Sanctius King of Navarr in 190. Ships and 50. Gallies puts to Sea for the holy Land but is by tempest cast upon the Coast of Cyprus where the Islanders under Cursac or Isakius their King seek to impeach his landing But King Richard speedily over-ran the Island and having taken Cursac honours him with the magnificent Captivity of silver Fetters having given him his word not to put him in bonds of Iron This Island from all antiquity was celebrated for the seat of Venus according to the Poet Venus feasts hallowed thorow all Cyprus came And Venus fair was present at the same And that it so might prove to King Richard in the joyous moneth of May he solemnly takes to Wife his beloved lady Berengaria and pawning the Island to the Templers for ready money he passeth on to Ptolemais Long time had this City been besieged by the Christians and many were the miseries that were underwent by both sides the Famine raging within and the Pestilence reigning without so that now upon King Richard arival the Turks despairing of succour and their victualls wholly spent they yielded up the City on condition to be guarded out of it safely To take possession for the French there was sent in Drogou de Merlou and an 100. men at arms and for the English Hugo de Gurnay with the like number who equally parted the City Goods and People between them Here the English cast down the Ensigns of Leopoldus Duke of Austria which he had advanced in a principal place of the Wall and threw them into the Jakes for which injury King Richard paid dearly afterwards so dangerous it is to exasperate any though far inferiour for as the fable acquaints us the Beetle may anoy the Eagle and the Mouse befriend the Lion Eighteen dayes after the taking of Ptolemais the French King returned home leaving Odo Duke of Burgundy to manage the Army in his absence pretending the air of the Countrey did not agree with his body but more likely that the air
having ascended their full height began to decline for notwithstanding he sent over great forces under the Duke of Lancaster and Earl of Hereford no great matter thereof ensued And now each day brings news of some Towns revolt or Commanders death the Earl of Warwick receives his death by a pestilential Dart Sir John Chandoys an expert Commander is unfortunately slain Sir William Molineux who had long served in the Wars of France deceaseth in England the Earl of Pembroke is taken prisoner by the Spaniards and the Noble Prince Edward dieth at Canterbury with whom saith Walshingham died all the hopes of the English during whose life they feared no invasion of the enemy abroad nor any division at home for he assailed no nation which he overcome not he besieged no City which he took not whose death lay so heavy on his heart that King Edward himself lived not long after A King saith Speed whose name among the surviving splendors of his actions is justly transmitted with honour to all posterity He died at his Mannor of Sheene near Richmond the 21. of July 1377. having lived 65. years and reigned 56. years 4. moneths and odde dayes his body was solemnly interred at Westminster Church where he hath his monument with this Epitaph engraven thereon made by Geffery Chaucer the Poet. Hic decus Anglorum flos regum praeteritorum Forma futurorum Rex clemens pax populorum Tertius Edwardus regni complens Jubilaeum Invictus Pardus pollens bellis Machabaeum Here Englands Grace the flower of Princes past Pattern of future Edward the third is plac't Milde Monarch Subjects peace Wars Machabee Victorious Pard his reign a Jubilee In the eleventh year of this Kings reign my Author writes was so great plenty that a quarter of Wheat was sold at London for two shillings a fat Ox for a noble a fat sheep for six pence and six Pigeons for a penny a fat Goose for two pence and a Pigg for a penny and other things after that the same cheap rate The Life of EDWARD the Black Prince IT may seem superfluous having writ the Reign of the Father in whose time he died to publish the life of this Prince but as an eminent Author writes as heroick persons purchase their own honours so they ought to inherit their own praises to wear their own laurels This may apologize for my enterprize more especially as I have endeavoured to avoid whatsoever hath been already written and to set down onely his more particular Transactions Edward the Black Prince so named of this dreaded acts and not from his complexion was the eldest son of King Edward the Third a Prince of an undaunted spirit so full of vertues that he left no room for any nnworthy vice who had he lived in the heroick times might well have been numbred amongst the nine Worthies At 15. years of age his father takes him over with him into France to initiate him as it were in the School of War as one of our modern Poets hath it In this fair heaven of magnanimity The Prince the star of honour decks the fly Fixt here so soon by 's Fathers band who meant He there should fall or gild that firmament I will for the more brevity treat onely of three special passages in this Princes life his Battel at Crescy his Victory at Poityers and his restoring Don Pedro to his Crown of Castile in the Battel at Crescy the French exceeded the English nigh four for one and by reason of their numbers being confident of Victory would needs hasten the Fates to their own destruciton and enforcd the English to make their passage through as they then determined the red Sea of their own blood nor could the terrible peals of Thunder from heaven nor shoals of Ravens and ravenous birds which came flying over their Hoast foreshewing the harvest of carcasses at hand hinder their proceedings but as if ascertained of victory they did erect their banner called Oliflame as a signe of taking none to mercy no more then fire is extinguisht by Oyl against which the English advance their Banner of the red Dragon to signifie no mercy to them that would shew none Both Armies divided into three Battalions the sign of Battel being given by King Philip the horrour of War began to show its self the grass was soon changed from green to red and their glistering faucheons to a purple colour Drums and Trumpets sounded the knells of death horrour and destruction appeared every where Amongst other Nations that assisted the French in this sad War were twelve thousand Genowayes being all of them Gross-bow men these were to open a way for the French horse with their shot but at the very instant fell such a showr of rain which for the present wet the Archers strings and made them less serviceable The French King hereupon commanded Count Alanson who commanded the Van to beat them from the point and to charge the English this was no sooner commanded then performed and the poor Genowayes trodden down by the horse who now turn their fury against the French seeking to destroy whom they came to help The English enemies unto either having reinforced their Archery liberally bestow their arrows amongst them endeavouring the destruction of them both who ever saw a Matachin dance imitate fighting might here see a fight imitate the Matachin dance The French way thus paved with Genoan bodies half out of breath with headlong haste never stay till they came up to the English Battel with whom encounters the noble Prince of Wales who commanded the English Voward that day the fight grew fierce and cruel each side striving to exceed the other in valour Who had seen the Prince of Wales at that present would have believed Pythagoras doctrine of Transmigration that the soul of great Hector had been infused into him what Poets have feigned of ancient Heroes fell short of the truth of what he performed that day The King of Bohemia whom age might have taught to have expected death in his Chamber and not to have sought him in the Fields of Mars seals his love to the French side with his dearest blood his troop of faithful followers with their slaughtered bodies covering him even in death whose plume of Ostrige feathers won then by valiant Edward hath every since been the Cognisance of the Princes of Wales Another trophey of the English Chevalry was the King of Majorca who in aid of the French was there likewise slain as a renowned Poet in his description of that victory One King 's too much but there two Kings must dye Leave two uncrown'd to Crown one victory It was now high time for King Philip to bring up the main Battel whose numbers threatned the destruction of the English this onset threatning so much danger King Edward is sent for to come up with his power to aid the Prince whose answer was Let them send no more to me for any adventure that may befall whilest my
consisted of an hundred and fifty thousand Horse besides them for carriages which were innumerable the Vantguard was led by the Constable of France the Dukes of Orleance and Bourbon the Earls of Ewe Richmond and Vandosme the Lord Dempier the Lord Admiral of France the Marshal Bouciquale and others The main Battle by the Dukes of Barre and Alanson the Earls of Vawinont Salings Blamont Grantpee and Russy And the Reer-guard by the Earls of Marle Dampmarlin Fauconbridge and Monsieur de Lorney Captain of Ardy King Henry desirous to know the numbers of the French sent forth one Captain Gam for discovery who brought word that there were of them enow to kill and enow to take and enow to runaway The French were so confident of victory that they sent to King Henry to know what Ransome he would give but they who reckon without their Hoast we say must reckon twice they might better have sent to know what Ransome he would rake who as full of courage though not so full of bravery was busied in the mean time about marshalling his Army The Vantguard he committed to the conduct of the Duke of York the main Battle he commanded himself and the Reer-guard was led by the Duke of Exeter Then to prevent the fury of the French Horse he commanded two hundred Bowmen to lodge in a low Meddow being provided with sharp stakes studded with Iron at both ends to guard them from danger and to endamage the French Horse The Battels thus ranged the most valiant King gallantly mounted with a chearful countenance and words full of courage thus animated his followers somewhat as I have it from other Historians to this purpose My most faithful Companions and worthy Souldiers we now are marching into the Field of Honour which your great valours so long have expected and prayed for loe the day is now come your enterprise is the noblest in the world pour now therefore forth your undaunted valours that ages to come may know what the Lance the Axe the Sword and the Bow can do in the hands of Englishmen Whosoever therefore desires riches honour and rewards here he shall finde them Nimirum haec medio posuit Deus omnia campo Having this said his Army fell prostrate on the ground and committing themselves to God their devotions ended the Drums and Trumpets summoned them to action the French Vant-guard being exquisitely appointed intended with their Horse to have burst thorow the Archers with a violent course who counterfeiting flight brought the over-hasty French into the jaws of destruction for having left their sharp pointed stakes sticking in the ground they miserably goared the foremost of their Enemies Horses being pressed on forward by the following Troops and then turning head sent such tempests of Arrows on the French that many thousands their knells were rung out that dreadful day The main Battles joyn together the Dukes of Glocester and Alanzon like enraged Lions encounter each other but Glocester is wounded and overthrown whose body his Brother Henry bestriding delivered from further danger and with redoubled stroaks brought the French Gallant himself to the ground with whose fall fell the courages of the French who for all their former bravadoes they turned their backs shamefully and fled with whom the Reer-guard ran for company not having struck one stroak all this while In all this fight which continued three hours were none taken Prisoners but the Sword now made weary and drunk with blood all danger past and humanity retired Prisoners were taken and lives spared which hitherto was neglected lest mercy to others might have proved destruction to themselves Whilest these things were thus acting certain of the French Troops led on by Robert Bondile and the Captain of Agencourt fell to rifeling the Kings carriages being guarded onely by Lackies and Laundresses whose terrible shreeks made King Henry to think some fresh Forces were come certain Troops also of the King of Sicills appearing in the Field made him give present order that every man should kill his Prisoner certain principal men onely excepted then setting his men in order he sends to the assembled Troops either to come to Battle or depart the Field but they fearing to drink of the same cup their fellows had done with shame and dishonor depart away The field thus cleared and the King by his Scouts satisfied that no more enemy was to be seen be caused the whole Army in their array as they were to give thanks unto God the Clergy then present singing the Psalm of David In exitu Israel de Egypto the Footmen kneeling down and the Horse men bowing their bodies at this verse Non nobis Domine non nobis sed nomini tuo da gloriam Then singing Te Deum with other Hymnes and Anthems he divideth the rich spoil of the enemies Camp among his Souldiers There were slain of the French in this Battel above ten thousand whereof a hundred twenty and six were of the Nobility bearing Banners of Knights and Gentlemen of Coat Armour seven thousand eight hundred and seventy four and of common Souldiers about sixteen hundred On the English side the account falls far short some reckon but sixteen slain in all other six and twenty the most not six hundred whereof the Duke of York and the Earl of Suffolk were chief whose slain bodies King Henry brought over with him into England The Duke was buried at Fodringhey in Northamptonshire and the Earl at New-elme in Oxfordshire Great was the joy of the English for the Kings return the City of London receiving him with Triumph as at a Coronation whilst France lamenteth the loss of her Nobles To unite the differences betwixt these two Kingdoms Sigismond the Emperour having been with the French King cometh over into England and with him the Archbishop of Rheimes as Ambassadour from France to treat of peace Henry willingly hearkeneth unto them and sends the Bishop of Norwich and Sir Thomas Erpingham with Commission to Beauvois to treat further of the matter but hearing the French in the mean time had besieged Harflew he recalleth his Amabssadours and would hear no further of peace but sendeth his Brother the Duke of Bedford with the Earls of March Oxford Warwick Huntington Salisbury Arundel Devonshire and divers others with two hundred sail of Ships to the rescue of Harflew who entring the mouth of the River of Seyne encountred with the French Fleet commanded by Viscount Narbon where after a sharp fight the Victory fell to the English who took and sunk most of their Navy chasing the residue into Brittain and relieved Harflew with men and victuals The Emperour hereupon leaves mediating any further for peace with France and concludeth a League offensive and defensive with King Henry the pope onely excepted who was the master Bee that then lead the swarm His affairs finished he returneth homeward whom King Henry accompanieth as far as Callis whither upon hostages given for his safe return repaireth the Duke of
with Souldiers to the number saith Engnerrant of thirty thousand with whom he returneth again into France No sooner was he arrived but he sends the Earl of Dorset and the Lord Clifford with twelve hundred Horse and Foot unto Paris to relieve the Duke of Excester who was straightned of Victualls by the Dolphinois whilest he with the rest of the Army hasteth to relieve Chartiers besieged by the Dolphin with seven thousand Souldiers but hearing of King Henry's coming he packed up his pipes and retired to Tours though before he had given out that he would meet him in the Field Chartiers relieved Henry marcheth to Dreux which agreed to surrender if not relieved by a certain day the time expir'd and no relief come the Town was delivered the Souldiers permitted to depart upon their Oaths not to bear Arms against Henry for one whole year after then takes he in the Towns of Baugency and Rougemont where all that craved he took to mercy and supplying his Army with fresh Forces he layes siege to the Town of Meanx in Brie During the time of this Siege news was brought him that his Wife Queen Katherine was delivered of a Son named Henry at the Castle of Windsor whereat he rejoyced though he liked nor the place of her delivery having before commanded the contrary prophecying That what Henry of Monmouth should get Henry of Windsor would lose Queen Katherine for her disobedience to her Husband herein commanded at her death that her Coffin should be left open to be seen and handled of any that would Should the Coffins of all the women that have disobeyed their Husbands in our dayes be left open I fear we should have but few closed so much is the Apostle Pauls Precept forgotten Ephes 5.24 The Town of Nans holding out long without relief made their conditions the harder upon the surrender the Captain Vaurus having hanged many English and Burgundians upon a tree which he named Vaurus was now on the same hanged himself and his head fixed upon a pole on the top of the same tree Meaux being taken Crespi the Castle of Pierrepont Offemont Merlau and sundry other places submitted themselves so that now Henry had in possession all the Fortresses in the Isle of France Champagne Piccardy Brie and Normandy Yet though Henries part in France was great all was not reduced unto his obedience many places holding out for the Dolphin who with an Army of twenty thousand besieged Cosney a Town of the Duke of Burgundies upon the River Loir Henry hasting to raise the Siege at Senlis fell sick of a burning Feaver and Flux whereupon the command of the Army was committed to the Duke of Bedford who with Queen Katherine was lately come out of England whereof he was Regent to visit King Henry Upon the Dukes approach the Dolphin retired into Berry whereof in mockage he was after called King of Berry King Henries sickness encreasing more and more he was removed to Boys de Vencennois and finding himself not able long to continue he appointed his Brother John Duke of Bedford Regent of France and his Brother Humprey Duke of Glocester Protectour of England till his son came of age Then exhorting them to unity amongst themselves to be true and faithful to the Duke of Burgoigne loyal to their young Prince and serviceable to his Queen in a right mind hope and found memory he rendted his soul to his Creator after he had reigned nine years five moneths and fourteen dayes His Body with Pomp and Solemnity conveyed into England it was interred in the Abbey of Saint Peter at Westminster upon whose Tomb Queen Katherine caused a royal Picture to be laid covered all over with silver Plate gilt the head thereof altogether of massy silver all which at that Abbeys suppression in the time of King Henry the Eighth were sacrilegiously broken off and by purloyning transferred to far prophaner uses where at this day the headless Monument is to be seen with these Verses inscribed upon his Tomb. Dux Normanorum verus Conquestor eorum Haeres Francorum decessit Hector eorum Here Normans Duke so stil'd by Conquest just True Heir of France great Hector lies in dust We will end our Discourse of this renowned King with the commendations given him by Walsingham a learned Historian He was godly in heart sober in speech sparing of words resolute in deeds provident in counsel prudent in judgement modest in countenance magnanimous in action constant in undertaking a great Alms-giver devout to God-ward a renowned Souldier fortunate in Field from whence he never returned without victory Martin writes of this Prince that his Father King Henry the Fourth being seized on by a deadly Appolexy being near his last end he caused his Crown to be placed by him on his Pillow least peradventure in the extremity of his sickness it might be delivered to some other who had better right to it then he had but when his attendants verily supposed that he was dead this Martial Prince seized on the Crown whereat the King started up raised himself upon his armes and demanded who it was that had taken away his Crown the Prince answered that it was he Henry the Fourth fetching a deep sigh said My Son my Son what right I had unto this Crown and how I have enjoyed it God knows and the World hath seen Comfort your self in God sayes the Prince my good Father the Crown you have and if you dye I will have it and keep it with the Sword as you have done which his successfull Reign and hath been declared to his greatest honours afterwards made good The Life of JOHN Duke of Bedford JOhn Duke of Bedford was third Son to King Henry the Fourth a valiant Captain and a great help to his Son Henry in the Conquest of France I shall not therefore like the idle Levites of our times rehearse any of the former Transactions but begin with the pursuit of his life where we ended having chose the rather to write the History of this honourable person as with the exit of his life our English Affairs ceased to have any further footing in France He being Regent there to proceed his care was to preserve the same for his Nephew and knowing that what was won by the Sword must be kept by the Sword he strengthens the confines of his government with Garrisons assembleth his powers and labours to retain the hearts of his own party his chief assistants were the two French Dukes of Burgoignt and Brittain and those two terrours of France Thomas Montacute Earl of Salisbury and John Lord Talbot to whom after the Death of King Henry the Fifth he being then Regent made averation exhorting them to be true and faithfull to their young King Henry friend to his friends and enemy to his enemies that seeing the hatreds and enmities began now to dye between the French and English names it was too late for the French to be again renowned by their fraudulent
Monster with two heads the misery of which Nation by occasion of these Wars is thus described by Polydor Virgil. While the English and French quoth he contend for Dominion Sovereignty and life if self mens goods in France were violently taken by the Licence of War Churches spoiled men every where murthered put to death or tortured Matrons ravished Maids forcibly drawn from out their Parents arms to be deflowred Towns daily taken defaced spoiled the riches of the Inhabitants carried whither the Conquerours thought good Houses and Villages round about set on fire no kinde of cruelty left unpractised upon the miserable French omitting many other kindes of other calamities which all at once oppressed them I shall onely adde that the Commonwealth being destitute of the help of Laws which for the most part are mute in times of War and Tumults floated up and down without any anchorage of right or justice Neither was England her self void of these mischiefs who by reason of her Civil Wars every day heard the news of her valiant Childrens Funerals slain in perpetual Skirmishes and Bickerings her general wealth continually decreasing so that their evils seemed almost equall and the whole Western World ecchoed the groans and sighs of either Nations quarrels being the common argument of the discourse and compassion of all Christendom The Regent having lately buried his Wife Sister to the Duke of Burgandy did now without his privity marry the Earl of St. Pauls Daughter no friend to the Burgundian which drave him into a discontentent and that discontent did King Charles so work upon that at length he seduced him from the English side though to effect the same he was fain to stoop so low as to send him a blank and bid him set down his own conditions which were both many and unreasonable saith Serres yet worth his cost For as Aemylius saith The end of that War did redeem the French from a Forreign Government as the first assuming thereof had made the English Lords over France The Regent out-lived this revolt not long but died at Paris with whom died all the English mens good fortune in France his body was with all Funeral Solemnities buried in the Cathedral Church of our Lady at Roan on the North side of the high Altar under a sumptuous and costly Monument which Tomb certain Courtiers would have perswaded King Lewis the Eleventh to have demolisht to whom he answered God forbid I should disturb him dead who living would have disturbed us all no let his bones rest in peace well worthy to have a more stately Monument How mighty a Prince he was this his stile sheweth Regent of France Duke of Bedford Alanzon and Anjon Earl of Main Richmond and Kendale and Constable of England But which excelleth his greatness as my Authour writes was that he was one of the best Patriots and Generals that ever blossomed out of the Royal Rosiar of England He died the 14. of September 1435. The Life of RICHARD NEVIL Earl of VVARWICK THis undaunted Heroe whose Life we now relate was he who in those times made and marr'd Kings and handled their Fortunes at his pleasure and was himself a great part of those famous Civil Wars between the Houses of York and Lancaster he was the eldest Son of Richard Nevill Earl of Salisbury and by Marriage with Anne the Sister and Heir of Henry Beauchampe Earl and after Duke of Warwick was in her right created Earl of Warwick His Grandfather was Ralph Nevill Earl of Westmerland whose Daughter the Duke of York had married which might be one cause of his adhering so much to that side and the effusion of so much bloud as ensued thereon For the Wars being now ended in France which we have declared unto you in the Lives of Edward the Third Edward the Black Prince Henry the Fifth and John Duke of Bedford those uncivil Civil Wars soon after brake forth betwixt the two Houses of York and Lancaster For though during our Forreign Wars these dissentions appeared not so much as in the Embrio both sides spending their stock of valour against the common enemy these Wars being ended these Martial mindes difused to peace would still be acting though against themselves The two chief Heads of these Factions was Richard Duke of York and Henry the Sixth King of England if we may call him a head who had so faint an heart and not rather the Queen who acted all though under his name The Duke of York claiming the Crown as Heir to the third Son of Edward the Third the Line of whose eldest Son Edward the Black Prince extinguisht in the deposition and paracide of Richard the second procured by Henry of Bullingbrooke the first King of the house of Lancaster Edward the Thirds second Son dying without issue Henry pleaded the advantage of a long Reign an interrupted descent in Majesty for threescore years a Sovereignty acknowledged abroad by by all Christian Princes and obeyed at home by all Englishmen without dispute a title according to the Law Salique undubitable and which had been confirmed at the first entry of his Grandfather Henry the Fourth into the Kingdom not onely by resignation of Richard the Second but even by approbation nay particular negotiation of Edmond Duke of York Edward Duke of Aumerle and Richard Earl of Cambridge Father Uncle and Grandfather to the said Duke of York This weighty business being not the work of one day the Duke of York draws to his side the Earls of Salisbury and Warwick and the better to prepare his way he practises all means to draw the King into the hatred of the people as one insufficient to supply the room which he held but Henry's piety having placed him so high in the affections of the people he seeks to undermine him in the downfall of his friends pretending not against the King but his evill Counsellours a pretence that hath been made use of in latter times The King at that present lying very sick he neglects no advantage but by the help of his friends wrought so effectually that the Duke of Somerset was sent to the Tower this man was exceedingly hated of the Commons conceiving him the chief cause that all Normandy was surrendered into the hands of the French of which their malice the Duke of York made good use though his intentions for the removing him out of the way was the hinderance he knew he would prove to his after claim of the Crown but when the King had recovered his strength again and resumed to him his Princely Government he caused the Duke of Somerset to be set at liberty and preferred him to be Captain of Calice wherewith not onely the Commons but many of the Nobility which favoured the Duke of York were greatly offended saying that he had lost Normandy already and would also lose Calice Hereupon the Duke of York with his adherents the Earls of Warwick Norfolk and Salisbury the Lords Cobham and Fawconbridge with many
gave himself over to all licentiousness whilst Warwick had made his faction not onely mighty but monstrous being compacted of several natures for into conspiracy of this great enterprize he had drawn off the Cleargy and the Laity and most of them of affections most opposite The Archbishop of York was the principal mover because he mov'd upon the soul and made treason an act of Religion the easie multitude who build their faith upon the man not the Doctrine thinking it meritorious to rebell in regard his function seem'd to give authority to the action With him a greed the Marquess Mountague and many eminent persons of King Edwards Court whom either desire of War having never lived but in the troubled Sea of discord or want of expected recompence rendered discontented All the partakers in the calamity of the house of Lancaster most passionately at first overture embraced this motion amongst whom was Henry Holland Duke of Exeter who after his ruine with the fall of Henry the Sixth was reduced to such extremity that ragged and bare-footed he begg'd for his meat in the Low-Countries But the wonder of the world then was at the powerful sorcery of those perswasions which bewitcht the Duke of Clarence the Kings Brother to this conspiracy to whom the Earl of Warwick to tye him the faster to his side gave him in marriage the Lady Isabel his daughter and coheire to the rich Earldom of Warwick for consummation whereof they sailed over to Calice of which Town the Earl of Warwick was Captain and in which the young Lady then remained with her Mother Soon was the Ceremony past and soon did the Earl invite his Son-in-law from the softness of the Nuptial Dalliance as who had contrived this marriage for business not for pleasure and design'd the first issue of their embraces to be a monster and the most unnatural one War between Brothers Warwick having thus politickly order'd things that he left little or nothing to fortune with his Son-in-law returns to England where against his return the Archbishop of York with some other of his friends had raised a potent Army to oppose whom on Edwards side assembles a mighty power under the conduct of the Earls of Pembroke and Devonshire but they falling out at Banbury upon a trivial occasion made way for the enemy to conquer them both This overthrow was seconded with a great loss at Grafton in Northamptonshire wherein the Earl Rivers and the Lord Widdevil Father and Brother to the Queen were taken and barbarously beheaded Edward nettled with these losses raises what power he could and marches against Warwick whose pretence being that of all Rebells The good of the Kingdom yet to avoid effusion of blood seemingly is very desirous of peace but when with several overtures he had lulled the King in security in the dead of the night he sets upon his Army kills the watch and surpriseth his person buried in a careless sleep Warwick having thus gotten the prey into his hand he so long desired sends him prisoner to Middleham Castle in Yorkshire there to be kept by his Brother the Archbishop of that Sea but King Edward being of another temper then his predecessour Henry not enduring Captivity soon found a way for his own liberty for having gotten licence to hunt in the adjoyning Park he so contrived with Sir William Stanley and Sir Thomas Burgh that with a selected number they came to his rescue and took him away from his weak guard the Lord Hastings joyning to them with some forces he had raised about Lancaster they march directly to London where they were entertained with great expressions of joy The Earl of Warwick who upon the taking of the King had disbanded his Army hearing of his escape was almost distracted with a thousand several imaginations but soon by letters to the Lords of his faction he reassembles his forces and marches against the King but thorow the solicitation of some persons inclinable to peace an enterveiw was agreed on in Westminster Hall and oaths for safety being past on both sides accordingly they met but such intemperance of Language past at their meeting as rather aggravated then allayed their anger so that now they resolved the Sword alone should decide the controversie The Earl of Warwick leaving his Army under the command of Sir Robert Wells whilst he himself went to raise more men King Edward neglecting not the opportunity whilest they were thus disjoyned gives them battel and overthrows them with the loss of ten thousand of their men Sir Robert Wells was taken prisoner and soon after beheaded This overthrow struck Warwick to the heart so that having not sufficient force to withstand the King he with the Duke of Clarence sail over into France with which King as also with Queen Margret who then remained in the French Court they entred into a combination for the deposing of King Edward and setting up again King Henry And that there might not be left any tract of former discontent or path to future jealousie a marriage was concluded and celebrated between Prince Edward the Queens Son and the Lady Anne younger daughter to the Earl and for want of issue of these two the Crown to come to Clarence and his posterity Matters thus concluded and the French King supplying them with money they return into England to whom flocked almost all the Lords the Commonalty also desirous of innovation adhered unto them so that King Edward seeing himself in a manner wholly abandoned was forced to quit the Land and sail into Holland And now notwithstanding his former hostility with him Warwick restores King Henry to all his former dignity and honour a Parliament is called wherein nothing is denyed which the prevailing party thought fit to be authorized King Edward condemned for a Tyranous Usurper and all his adherents attainted of high treason the Crown is entailed upon King Henry and his Heires Males for default of which to George Duke of Clarence and his Heires for ever The Earls of Oxford and Pembroke and many others restored to their estates and titles the Duke of Clarence put in possession of the Dutchy of York and lastly the Government of the King and Kingdom committed to the Duke of Clarence and Earl of Warwick so that King Henry possest no more then the name of King and seem'd not to be set at liberty but to have changed his keeper King Edward in the mean time having hired four great Holland Ships and fourteen Easterling men of War transports his Army over into England which consisted of two thousand Dutch men and such English as accompanied him in his flight or had escaped over after him at Ravenspur in Yorkshire he landed from thence he marched to York but finding in every place where he came the people generally devoted to the House of Lancaster he fashioned his behaviour to a new art and solemnly took his oath that his intentions was not for the recovering of the Crown but
hath this worthy Princes fame been blasted by malicious traducers who like Shakespear in his Play of him render him dreadfully black in his actions a monster of nature rather then a man of admirable parts whose slanders having been examined by wise and moderate men they have onely found malice and ignorance to have been his greatest accusers persons who can onely lay suspition to his charge and suspition in Law is no more guilt then imagination as the divine Father Chrysostom faith A good man hardly suspecteth another to be evill but an evill man scarcely supposeth any to be good King Richard had three great Favourites as Princes are seldome without some and those according to the constant custom of the World must be envied Catesby Ratcliffe and Lovel King Richards own Arms being the Bore upon which one Collingborne of the West fancied this Libel which in those times was received for excellent Wit The Cat the Rat and Lovel the Dog Rule all England under a Hog But leaving such trifles to return to King Richard Henry Earl of Richmond ambitious of Sovereignty envying his prosperity practises with forreign Princes and confederates with the English Nobles for Assistance and Forces against King Richard The chief abettor in England he had on his side was the Duke of Buckingham one who had formerly constantly adhered to King Richards side but being by him denyed the Earldome of Hereford and Constableship of England grew discontented took up Arms was defeated and afterwards by Marshall Law put to death Yet did not this break the neck of Henries design but having by his fair deportment gained Force from the Duke of Brittain and some other Princes envious of the prosperity of the House of York Richmond puts forth to Sea and lands at Milford-Haven in Wales after some refreshing he marches to a Town called Haverford-West where the people who flocked to him in great number welcomed him as a Prince descended from their ancient Princes of Wales the people generally being very noble and loving to their Brittish Kindred Hither came to him with great Forces the Earl of Salop Sir Rice ap Thomas Sir Walter Herbert Sir John Savage Sir Gilbert Talbot and many others His Army thus strong and united he passes the Severne and marches to Leichfield King Richard hearing of his arrivall prepareth against him but though he thought the Nobility generally cemented to his side yet found he a general defluxion from them to the other side the Earl of Surrey the Earl of Westmerland Viscount Lovel and John Duke of Norfolk being the principall that stuck to him which last was much importuned to have fallen off from him the night before the Battel one writing this Rime upon his Gate Jack of Norfolk be not too bold For Dicken thy master is bought and sold But he regarding more his fidelity then any danger that could befall him doubles his care and diligence on the behalf of his Sovereign The Earl of Northumberland who had received great favours from the King and who had in his Name raised vaste Forces being sent for by him refused to come pretending for his disobedience certain dreams wherein he was forewarned by his Father for to fight on King Richards side But the greatest defection was in the Lord Stanley who notwithstanding he had left his Sonne George Stanley as a Pledge of his faith with the King yet revolted to the other side King Richard notwithstanding all these disadvantages having encouraged his Army gives Richmond a Battle where valiantly fighting after he had with his own hands slain Sir Charls Brandon the Earls Standard-bearer and unhorsed Sir John Cheny and shewed himself a most Heroick Person being over-powered with multitude he was slain on the place With him died the Duke of Norfolk the Earl of Surrey was taken Prisoner and the whole Army quite defeated This Battle was fought at a Village called Bosworth near to Leicester The Victor was crowned in the Field by Sir VVilliam Stanley with King Richards Crown which he as a valiant and confident Master of his right had worn that day King Richards dead body after it was most barbarously mangled and wounded was thrown behinde one upon a lean Jade and so conveyed to Leicester where at last it obtained a bed of earth honourably appointed by the order of King Henry the Seventh in the chief Church of Leicester called Saint Maries belonging to the Order and Society of Grey Friers the King in short time after causing a fair Tomb of mingled colour'd Marble adorned with his Statue to be erected thereupon And notwithstanding the times were such when this great Prince lived that he had scarcely time to sheath his sword yet left he behinde him many Monuments of his Piety He founded a Collegiate Church of Priests in Middleham in Yorkshire another Colledge of Priests in London in Tower-street near to the Church called our Lady Barking he built a Church or Chappel in Towton in Glocestershire he founded a Colledge in York convenient for the entertainment of an hundred Priests he built the high stone Tower at Westminster and when he had repaired and fortified the Castle of Carlile he founded and built the Castle of Perrith in Cumberland He began many other good Works which his sudden fatt prevented as Polidor Virgil witnesseth which Works and Monuments of Piety shew not the Acts of a Tyrant I shall end all with this Eulogy which a learned Writer gives him King Richard was a stout valiant person ever indulgent to his People careful to have their Laws duly observed his making so many good ones if they signified not some goodness in himself were evident arguments of his more then ordinary love to Law and Justice The Life of THOMAS HOWARD Earl of SURREY THomas Howard Earl of Surrey in his time the Ornament of Mars and the Muses was Son to Sir John Howard Knight first made Barron by King Edward the Fourth and afterwards Duke of Norfolk by King Richard the Third in whose quarrel he was slain This noble Earl his Son having been well educated and afterwards trained up in Court his Martial minde hating those silken pleasures admired of Courtiers he with divers other young Gentlemen went over to Charles Duke of Burgundy who then had Wars with Lewis King of France in whose quarrel he behaved himself so gallantly that he won the honour and reputation of a most expert Commander At his return King Edward for his valour bestowed on him the Order of Knighthood to whose side he constantly adhered in that great difference betwixt him and the House of Lancaster That quarrel being ended by the overthrow of VVarwick he afterwards did excellent service in the Wars betwixt him and Lewis the French King King Edward being dead and the Crown by joynt consent both of Peers and People placed on King Richards head and after confirmed by Act of Parliament he with his Father the Duke of Norfolk held firm to his side notwithstanding the many
and attended his coming at Noon-tide walking in his Court-yard No sooner was the Lord Thomas Cromwell entred the same attended by several persons of Quality and Officers of the Crown but speedily alighting from his Horse he embraced his Friend Frescobald in the same manner he had done in the morning and perceiving that the Lords which accompanied him were amazed at such a disproportioned familiarity he told them that he was more obliged to Frescobald then to all the men in the world owing unto him the making of his Fortune and so proceeded to relate unto them the whole story which had befallen him at Florence So great a delight do generous mindes take to recount their foregoing Misfortunes when their Grandor hath elevated them to such a pitch as that they triumph over shame and are incapable of Ingratitude Frescobald was treated at Dinner with all the tenderness he could expect from so great a Personage and so great a Friend after which being carried up by the Lord Thomas Cromwell into his Closet he was there presented with four Bags of Gold each containing four hundred Duccats in return of his former Civilities which Frescobald being of a gallant spirit at first refused but after severall contestations was constrained to accept as an acknowledgement from the Lord Cromwell who moreover enquiring of him concerning his coming over and Affairs in England and understanding his Losses and that there were Moneys due to him caused him to write down his Debters names and by his Secretary summoned the severall Merchants which were indebted to Frescobald upon pain of his displeasure to clear their Accounts with him and to pay him within the space of fifteen dayes which was accordingly performed onely Frescobald freely forgave them the use Over and above all which the Lord Thomas Cromwell endeavoured to perswade his Friend Frescobald to have remained in England the rest of his dayes proferring to lend him a Stock of 60000. Duccats to trade withall But Frescobald being over-charged with all those grand Obligations which the Lord Cromwell had conferred on him having by his Lordships Generosity acquired enough to keep him from being necessitated all his life time and deeming that the trading in good Works was incomparably more sure and gainful then in the richest Wares and Merchandizes being resolved to quit Trading and to end the rest of his dayes peaceably and quietly he obtained leave of the Lord Thomas Cromwell to depart to his own Countrey freighted with so great obligations as caused in him a generous shame He afterwards arrived safe in his own Country where with great reputation he dyed in a good old age Having done him this honour to eternize the noble deportments of his life I shall now end with a short account of what he said at his death When he came upon the Scaffold on Tower-Hill he delivered his minde to the people I am come hither to die and not to purge my self as some perhaps may expect that I should and will for if I should so do I were a very wretch I am by the Law condemned to die and I thank my Lord God that hath appointed me this death for mine offence for I have alwayes lived a sinner and offended my Lord God for which I ask him hearty forgiveness It s not unknown to many of you that I was a great Traveller and being but of mean Parentage was called to high honours and now I have offended my Prince for which I heartily ask him forgiveness beseeching you to pray with me to almighty God that he will forgive me c. Then kneeling down on his knees he made a long and pithy prayer which being ended after a godly exhortation to those on the Scaffold he commended his Spirit into the hands of his Maker his head being dissevered from his body July 28 1540. The King not long after his death clapping his hands on his breast repented this haste wishing that he had his Cromwell alive again With him was beheaded the Lord Hungerford of Heitesbury who suffered death a just death for buggery Without question Cromwell was a person of singular qualifications unfortunate in nothing more then that he lived in the dayes of Henry the Eighth of whom if it could be possible one writes that for the time he Reigned he was guilty of more Tyranny then any of the Roman Emperours This great Statesman was condemned to death and yet never came to his answer by an act as it is said which he himself caused to be made of which Mr. Michael Drayton thus writes Those Laws I made alone my self to please To give me power more freely to my will Even to my equals hurtfull severall wayes Forced to things that most do essay were ill Vpon me now as violently seize By which I lastly perisht by my skill On mine own neck returning as my due That heavy yoke wherein by me they drew Thus whilest we strive too suddenly to rise By flattering Princes with a servile Tongue And being soothers to their tyrannies Work our much woes by what doth many wrong And unto others tending injuries Vnto our selves producing our own wrong In our own snares unluckily thus caught Whilst our attempts fall instantly to naught Questionless he was a man of an active and forward ripeness of nature ready and pregnant of wit discreet and well advised in judgement eloquent of tongue faithfull and diligent in service of an incomparable memory of a reaching pollitick head and of a most undaunted spirit The Life of the great King Henry the Eighth with the other Reigns of his Posterity I have omitted because they are so excellently penned by several Historians and so Vulgarly known to the people The Life of Sir PHILIP SIDNEY Carmen Apollo dedit belli Mars contulit artes Sed Juveni vitam Mors rapit ante diem AMongst the rest of our Worthies there is none of more precious memory then that famous and Heroick Knight Sir Philip Sidney in whom the Graces and Muses had their domesticall habitations whose Life as it was admirable so his Lines have not been excelled though the French of late in imitation have endeavoured to address them He was born of honourable parentage his Father Sir Henry Sidney was thrice Lord Deputy of Ireland a place of great honour and trust having power of themselves to call Parliaments and enact Laws nor cometh there any Vice-gerent in Europe more near the Majesty and prerogative of a King His Mother was Daughter to Sir John Dudley Duke of Northumberland and Sister to the Earls of Warwick and Leicester so that his descent was apparently noble of both sides Verstigan sayes the Sidney's are of a French extraction that they came over into England in Henry the Thirds dayes In his very childe-hood there appeared in him such excellent parts and endowments of nature as shewed him born for high enterprises having been educated in the principles of learning at home he was sent to the University of Oxford Cambridge
and unseasonable storms come from above There is no tempest to the passionate indignation of a Prince nor yet at any time so unseasonable as when it lighteth on those that might expect an harvest of their painful and careful labours He that is once wounded must needs feel smart till his hurt be cured or the part hurt before senseless but cure I expect none her Majesties heart being obdurate and be without sense I cannot being of flesh and blood But you may say I may aim at the end I do more then aim for I see an end of all my fortunes I have set an end to all my desires in this course do I any thing for my enemies when I was present I found them absolute and therefore I had rather they should triumph alone then have me attendant upon their Chariots Or do I leave my friends when I was a Courtier I could tell them no fruit of my love and now that I am a Hermit they shall bear no envy for their love to me or do I forsake my self because I do not enjoy my self or do I overthrow my fortune because I build not a fortune of paper walls or do I ruinate my honour because I leave following the pursuit or wearing the false ones or shadow of honour do I give courage or comfort to the enemies because I neglect my self to encounter them or because I keep my heart from business though I cannot keep my fortune from declining No no I give every one of those considerations his due right and the more I weigh them the more I finde my self justified from offending in any one of them As for the two last objections that I forsook my Country when it hath most need of me fail in that dissolvable duty which I owe my Sovereign I answer that if at this time my Countrey had any need of my publick service her Majesty that governeth it would not have driven me to a private life I am tyed to my Countrey by two Bonds one publick to discharge carefully and industriously that trust which is committed to me the other private to sacrifice for it my life and carkass which hath been nourished in it Of the first I am free being dismissed by her Majesty of the other nothing can free me but death and therefore no occasion of performance shall sooner offer it self but I will meet it half way The indissolvable duty I owe to her Majesty the service of an Earl and of a Marshal of England and I have been content to do her the service of a Clerk but I can never serve her as a villain or a slave But you say I must give way to time so I do for now I have seen the storm come I have put my self into harbour Seneca saith we must give way to Fortune I know that Fortune is both blinde and strong and therefore I go as far as I can out of the way You say the remedy is not to strive I neither strive nor seek for remedy But you say I must yield and submit I can neither yield my self to be guilty nor this my Imprisonment to be just I owe so much to the Authour of Truth as I can never yield truth to be falshood nor falshood to be truth Have I given you cause you ask and yet take a scandal No I gave no cause so much as to take up Fimbria his complaint I did tutum telum corpore accipere I patiently bear and sensibly feel all that I then received when this scandal was given me nay when the vilest of all Indignities are done unto me doth God require it Is it impiety not to do it Why cannot Princes erre cannot Subjects receive wrong Is an earthly power infinite Pardon me pardon me my Lord I can never subscribe to these Principles Let Solomons fool laugh when he is stricken let those that mean to make their profit of Princes shew to have no sense of Princes injuries Let them acknowledge an infinite absolutnesse on earth that do not believe an absolute infinitenesse in heaven As for me I have received wrong I feel it my cause is good I know it and whatsoever comes all the powers on earth can never shew more strength or constancy in oppressing then I can shew in suffering whatsoever can or shall be imposed on me I must crave your Lordships patience to give him that hath a crabbed Fortune leave to use a crooked stile But whatsoever it is there is no heart more sensible or more affected towards your Lordship then that of Your Lordships poor Friend Essex The ninteenth of February following Essex and Southhamdton were arraigned in Westminster-hall their Indictment was for plotting to deprive the Queen of her life and Kingdom to surprize her in her very Palace and that they brake forth into open rebellion by imprisoning the Councellors of the kingdom by exciting the Londoners to rebellion with vain fictions by assaulting the Queens loyal Subjects in the City and by defending Essex-house against the Queens Forces Hereunto they pleaded not guilty but being found guilty by there Peers they had sentence of death pronounced against them by Buckhurst Lord Treasurer high steward of England for that time Six dayes after was the fatal day appointed to put a period to Essex his life the Queen notwithstanding her Motto Semper eadem yet in the case of life and death was oft times wavering willing she was to have remitted what was past if she might have been ascertained of his loyalty for the time to come nevertheless she gave command he should not be executed but being informed he should say He could not live but she must perish she countermanded her former word and gave order he should be executed In pursuance of which order he was brought forth to the place of execution where a Scaffold was erected sundry of the Nobility being present where having craved mercy of God and pardon of the Queen he had his head severed from his body The thirteenth of March following Merrick and Cuffe were drawn to Tyburn and there hanged and two dayes after Sir Charles Danvers and Sir Christopher Blunt were beheaded on Tower-hill for great men seldome fall alone but as the Poet hath it Windes with great fury on tall Cedars blow Whose fall doth ruine them that are below One of our modern writers observes that happened to the Countess of Essex she being fearful in her husbands behalf gave a Letter which she had received from him to the custody of one Rihove a Dutch woman that waited on her this Dutchwomans husband named Daniel lighted by chance upon the Letter and perceiving some passages in it which might bring the Earl of Essex into danger got a cunning fellow to draw a counterfeit coppy of the said letter with this he cometh to the fearful Lady who was newly brought to bed threatning to give the same to her husbands adversaries unless she would presently give him three thousand pounds She to
tuition of his Mother he was sent to Winchester School a place of strict Discipline and Order that so he might in his youth be moulded into a method of living by rule Where having much profited he was removed from thence to New Colledge in Oxford where he remained till about the eighteenth year of his age from thence transplanted into Queens Colledge where to shew the world some part of his abilities he writ a Play of the Tragedy of Tancredo which though some sowre dispositions may condemn yet considering his youth and those weighty sentences contained in the same it may be thought neither uncomely nor unprofitable During Sir Henry's abode at Oxford his Father being then in Kent dreamed that the University Treasury was robbed by five Townsmen and poor Schollars and being that day to write to his son Henry thought it worth so much pains as by a Postscript in his Letter to make a slight enquiry of it which coming to his hands the very morning after the night in which the robbery was committed was by him shown and by means thereof the five guilty persons discovered and apprehended The next year he proceeded Master of Arts at what time he read an Optick Lecture with great applause of the University especially of those two great Wits Albericus Gentilis a Learned Italian and Doctour Donne sometimes Dean of Pauls of whose worth none that but pretends to Learning can be ignorant With these two he entered into a bosome friendship which continued during the term of their lives Attaining now to the age of two and twenty he left Oxford and betook himself to travel to purchase the rich treasure of forreign knowledge Almost nine years was he absent from England the most of which time he remained in Germany and Italy acquainting himself with the most learned of either Nations At his return Robert Earl of Essex then one of the Darlings of Fortune who hearing of his abilities took him to be one of his Secretaries at the fall of the Earl with whom fell Master Cuffe his other Secretary he privately posted out of England and went to Florence in Italy where he met with his old Friend Siegnior Vietta then Secretary to the great Duke of Tuscany having stayed some short time there the Duke intercepted certain Letters that discovered a design to take away the life of the then King of Scots The Duke abhorring the fact and resolving to endeavour a prevention of it advised with his Secretary Vietta by what means a caution might be given to that King and after consideration it was resolved to be done by Sir Henry Wotton who gladly undertaking the same to avoid the light of English Intelligence posted into Scotland by the way of Norway under the name of Octavio Baldi being admitted private audience with the King he was not onely discovered wherefore he came but also who he was and having stayed there three moneths with great contentment he returned to Florence with a fair and grateful account to the Duke of his employment Queen Elizabeth dying no sooner was King James entred upon the English Government but he advances him being returned from Florence to the Order of Knighthood and having had experience of his Abilities sends him Ambassadour to the State of Venice where he remained almost twenty years during which time he studied the dispositions of those Dukes and the Consultors of State well knowing that he who negotiates a continued business and neglects the study of dispositions usually fails in his proposed ends And although through some misunderstanding he fell one time into King Jame's displeasure yet did he by an Apology so clear himself that as broken bones well set become the stronger so Sir Henry Wotton did not onely recover but was much more confirmed in his Majesties estimation and favour then formerly he had been Thrice was he sent Ambassador to the Republick of Venice once to the Emperour Ferdinando the second as also to several German Princes to incline them to equitable conditions for the restauration of the Queen of Bohemia and her descendents to there patrimonial inheritance of the Palatinate And although success had made the Emperour inexorable that his Embassage obtained not the wished effect yet so nobly deported he himself in that journey that the Emperour adjudged him a person of much honour and merit and at his departure presented him with a Jewel of Diamonds of more value then a thousand pounds which Sir Henry acepted but the next morning at his departing from Vienna at his taking leave of the Countess of Sabrina where he lodged thanking her for her honourable entertainment he prevailed with her to accept of that Jewel as a testimony of his gratitude with which action the Emperour being displeased Sir Henry Wotton was heard to say That though he received it with thankfulness yet he found in himself an indisposition to retain it it being a gift that came from an enemy to his Royal Mistress he so usually called the Queen of Bohemia Here it would not be amiss for the Readers diversion to discourse touching the Affairs of the Embassy of an Ambassador to give some short hints as to their Original Priviledges Wisdom Valour quick Wits and Behaviours they are the Legates Deputies Messengers of Princes and Orators of Kings for all these terms do include one function exercised in different manners And because there are sundry sorts of them somewhat different from the custom of our age I will not onely treat of them as they were in times past amongst the Romans as they were in the times of their most magnificent glories but as near as I can briefly digest the usage and duty of them as they are now put in office by Emperours Kings and Princes The Jews were a people most ancient from whom all Government Learning Morality Philosophy and other notable things have been derived Amongst them in honour to the antiquity of Religion Phineas the Priest the Son of Eleazer with ten Princes of the Tribes was sent Ambassador to the Israelites beyond Jordon The Greeks sent Vlysses that Eloquent Orator and with him Menelaus to reconcile the differences betwixt them and the Trojans There might be infinite instances of other Nations The person that should be thus employed ought to be nobly born free of good credit honest loyal valiant circumspect learned eloquent adorned with the languages liberal with other necessary vertues and qualifications For the order how Ambassadors have been received and used by Princes Alexander ab Alexandro thus expresses Alex ab Alex. Lib. 5. Cap. 3. Apud Graecos nisi praeconibus adhibitis Legatos minime hostium fines ingredi docebat neque Legationis munere fungi quenquam nisi prius infusae aqua ab eisdem manus abluissent Jovique coronatis poculis propinassent hi tamen Legati qui cum patriis sacris Olympiam aut Pytheam missi erant sacris qui vero foedera percutiebant quasi pacis arbitri interpretis dicti sunt
curious Map to build upon whose foundations he held it too injurious so I must with all submission acknowledge that a Gentleman of most accomplisht parts hath made a progress at large in this reverend Prelates History for me to have went about to build when he alone had laid such a firme foundation as shall out-live all other Historians I could not but count it too ambitious and am so far from thinking my self worthy to attend his noble purposes that if I had not thought it a crime of necessity though in the Epitome to place him amongst these eternized Heroes with Mr. Speed I should rather have left out a whole Countrey then in these few pages have committed the sin of presumption against his admirable endeavours The Life of ROBERT DEVEREUX Earl of Essex General of the Parliaments Forces THis Earl was borne in London Anno Dom. 1592. beginning his morning in the evening of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth His Father was that Robert Devereux Earl of Essex whose unfortunate life we have already discoursed of his Mother was the widdow of Sir Philip Sidney one whose Pen and Sword have rendered him famous to all posterity His education in his youth was at the University of Cambridge afterwards committed to the tuition of Bishop Whitgift a reverend Divine King James restoring him to his Fathers Titles and Estate forfeited by his fathers treasons to Queen Elizabeth That a perfect reconcilement might be made in all things a Marriage was contracted betwixt him and the Lady Frances Howard Daughter to the Earl of Suffolk a Lady of a transcendent beauty but she full of fire and the Earl of ice upon complaint made they were separated by a most just sentence of nullity executed by Commission under the great Seal of England after they had enjoyed the Society of one bed for three years together Some report that indirect and unjustifiable practices were used in the scrutiny of her Virginity but I averre according to the truth of allegations and proofs as the Jury of Midwives declared she was an untouched Virgin so did the Earl himself confess that though he had often attempted it he never could and believed never should unty her Virgin zone whereupon the Commissioners pronounced a divorce betwixt them Some Authors write that she did not much affect the Earl being of a lustful appetite Some on the other side imputed it to his travels others to her looseness in the time of his absence suffering her body to be abused Others bring Viscount Car on the stage that she placed her affections on him Others write that Mrs. Turner and Doctor Forman were employed to bewitch the Earl and to procure frigidity quo ad hanc so much do our Historians differ in their relations of this unfortunate marriage The Earl perceiving how little he was beholding to Venus is now resolved to address himself to the Court of Mars and to this purpose he bestows himself in the Netherlands which at that time was the School of Honour for the Nobility of England in their exercise of Arms where having continued for certain years and gained renown by his experience and perfection in the feates of Arms he advanced from thence into the Palatinate to which place went also the Earl of Southampton the Lord Willoughby the Earl of Oxford and Sir John Borlans with their Regiments but these not seconded as they expected and being invaded by so potent an Enemy as was then the Emperour and seconded by so puissant a Potentate as the King of Spain having in vain endeavoured with such weak forces to resist so great power they returned into England King James dying in the beginning of his Sons Reign a design went on for a sudden expedition into Cadiz in Spain which was committed to the mangement of Viscount Wimbleton and the Earl of Essex who putting forth to Sea were much dammaged with a furious storm but meeting together in the height of the Southern Cape they sailed to Cadiz where having taken Puntal Castle and in likelihood to fire the Ships in the Harbour the field men in the interim being directed to Land for their recreation and to take in fresh water having discovered the Cellers plentifully stockt with wine they carrowsed thereof so liberally in despite of more sober commands to the contrary as put them to the hazard of a dismal reckoning Whereupon the Admiral finding the Souldiers thus insufferably disordered fearing the Spaniard upon this advantage might make a lamentable butchery amongst them was forced to put to Sea again and having staid some time in expectation of setting upon the Plate Fleet in their returning home the Pestilence so reigned in their Navy that they had scarce men enow to handle their Sails which enforced them to ply home with all the speed they could The Earl of Essex soon after his return made a voyage into Holland not loving to lie idle when any action of Honour was on foot where he behaved himself with such gallant resolution as got him high repute in the mouthes of all men Having given these undeniable testimonies of his valour he was ambitious to give some further proofs of his virility and having been a while in England he solicites the affection of Mrs. Elizabeth Paulet daughter of Sir William Paulet of Wiltshire extracted from the noble line of the Marquess of Winchester with whom he consumated his Nuptials at Netley the Earl of Hartfords house by her he had a Son who was Christned Robert after his Fathers name he dyed in the year 1636. and lies buried at Drayton in the County of Warwick With this Lady he did agree and cohabit but it was but a short time becoming soon unhappy in his second as he was in his first choice for he could as little digest her overmuch familiarity with Mr. Vdal as his former Ladies with the Earl of Somerset upon which distaste this Earl did ever after abandon all uxorious thoughts and for a while lived a retired life Soon after began the long Parliament in which such Differences arose betwixt them and the King that for the deciding thereof each part had their recourse to Arms. The Parliament very wisely chose Essex for their General there being no person in the Kingdom so fit to take the people and credit their designs who having an Army raised marches with them against the King The King on the other side proclaims Essex and his adherents Traytors and confident in the justness of his cause gives him Battel on a place called Edge-hill which was fought with much eagerness and in a manner with equality for though the King kept the field and therein had the honour of the day yet lost he many brave Commanders who there dyed in the bed of Honour Amongst others the Lord Aubigney Sir Edward Vaerney who carried the Kings Standard Collonel Monroe and others Soon after was an overture for Peace but whilest it was in agitation a second Battel was fought at Brainford Essex
Princes This most holy Religion with the Hierarchy and Liturgy thereof we solemnly protest that by the help of Almighty God we will endeavour to our utmost power and last period of our life to keep entire and inviolable and will be careful according to our duty to Heaven and the tenour of the aforesaid most Sacred Oath at our Coronation that all our Ecclesiasticks in their several degrees and incumbencies shall preach and practise the same Wherefore we enjoyn and command all our Ministers of State beyond the Seas as well Ambassadours as Residents Agents and Messengers and we desire all the rest of our loving Subjects that sojourn either for curiosity or commerce in any Forreign parts to communicate uphold and assert this our solemn and sincere Protestation when opportunity of time and place shall be offered For the for ever silencing of such black-mouthed people I have here set down his Majesties Speech and Protestation before his receiving the Holy Eucharist at Christ Church in Oxon 1643. His Majesty being to receive the Sacrament from the hands of the Lord Archbishop of Armagh used these publique expressions immediately before his receiving the blessed Elements he rose up from his knees and beckning to the Archbishop for a short forbearance made this Protestation My Lord I espy here are many resolved Protestants who may declare to the world the Resolution I now do make I have to the utmost of my power prepared my soul to become a worthy receiver and may I so receive comfort by the Blessed Sacrament as I do intend the establishment of the true Reformed Protestant Religion as it stood in its beauty in the happy dayes of Queen Elizabeth without any connivance at Popery I bless God that in the midst of these publick distractions I have still liberty to communicate and may this Sacrament be my damnation if my Heart do not joyn with my Lips in this Protestation But to proceed in our History the King was not so busie in preparing against the Scots but they were as forward in providing for his resistance those of the Nobility and Gentry who stood firm for the King they imprisoned they invited and procured to their service many Commanders from Holland and reared works of Fortification in all places agreeable to their designs In this state stood the Affairs of both Kingdoms when April 13. according to pre-appointment the Parliament assembled the Earl of Strafford being led into the upper House by two Noble men to give them account of his proceedings in Ireland having there obtained the grant of four Subsidies for the maintenance of ten thousand Foot and fifteen hundred Horse implicitely hinting agreeable to what Scheme England should proportion their supplies The King also to forward the business sent a message to the Lower House representing to them the intollerable Indignities and Injuries wherewith the Scots had treated him and withal declared to them that if they would assist him with supplies suitable to the exigency of his sad occasion he would for ever quit his claim of Ship-money and into the bargain give them full content in all their just demands This Message delivered by Secretary Vane he whether wilfully or casually mistaking I leave undetermined required twelve Subsidies whereas it was said his express order was onely for six This Proposition raised the House of Commons to such animosity as the King advising with his Juncto their Compliance was represented to him so desperate as May the fifth he ordered the Dissolution of the Parliament But though the Parliament were sullen and would not give down their milk the Gentry and others contributed largely especially the Cleargy who in their Convocation granted a Benevolence of four shillings in the pound to be assest upon all the Cleargy for six years together towards this Expedition With these and other forementioned aids a Royal Army was raised whereof the Earl of Northumberland was appointed Generalissimo and the Earl of Strafford Lieutenant General but both Generalls falling sick the charge of the Army was committed to the Lord Conway who marching with the Army as far as Newburn upon Tine was encountred by the Scots and worsted three hundred of the English being slain and taken Sir Jacob Astley then Governour of New Castle hearing of this Defeat deserted the same as not tenable against so potent an Army which Town was taken into the Scots possession The King who had stayed behinde during the time the Queen was brought to bed of her third Son Henry advances after his Army when at Northalerton he was certified of the Lord Conway's discomfiture and Sir Jacob Astley quitting New Castle this being accounted an unlucky omen some of the Lords desirous of Peace working upon the occasion presented to the King at York this following Petition To the Kings most excellent Majesty The humble Petition of your Majesties most loyal and most obedient Subjects whose Names are under-written in behalf of themselves and divers others Most Gracious Sovereign The zeal of that duty and service which we owe to your Sacred Majesty and our earnest affection to the good and welfare of this your Realm of England have moved us in all humility to beseech your Royal Majesty to give us leave to offer to your Princely Wisdom the apprehension which we and others your faithful Subjects have conceived of the great distempers and dangers now threatning the Church and State and your Royal Person and of the fittest means by which they may be removed and prevented The evils and dangers whereof your Majesty may be pleased to take notice are these 1. That your Majesties sacred Person is exposed to hazard and danger in the present Expedition against the Scottish Army and by occasion of this War your Majesties Revenue is much wasted your Subjects burthened with coat and conduct of money billiting of Souldiers and other Military Charges and divers Rapines and Disorders committed in several parts of this your Realm by the Souldiers raised for that service and your whole Kingdom become full of fears and discontents 2. The sundry Innovations in matters of Religion the Oath and Cannons lately imposed upon the Cleargy and other your Majesties Subjects 3. The great encrease of Popery and the employing of Popish Recusants and others ill-affected to the Religion by Laws established in places of power and trust especially in commanding of Men and Arms both in the Field and sundry Counties of this your Realm whereas by Law they are not permitted to have any Arms in their own houses 4. The great mischiefs which may fall upon this Kingdom if the intentions which have been credibly reported of bringing in Irish and Forreign Forces should take effect 5. The urging of Ship-money and prosecution of some Sheriffs in the Star-Chamber for not levying it 6. The heavy charge upon Merchandize to the discouragement of Trade the multitude of Monopolies and other Patents whereby the Commodities and Manifactures of the Kingdom are much burthened to the great and